Tag: Military

The Coup in Myanmar

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Yes, the coup was caught on an aerobics video

I’m hoping that there is a way for both sides, a genocidal and dictatorial military and a genocidal Nobel Peace Prize Winner, can both lose as a result of the military seizing power in Myanmar.

Last time around, Aung San Suu Kyi had the support of human rights activists everywhere, but after years of her enthusiastic support for the genocide of the Rohingya, the blush is off the rose.

One hopes that whatever happens, that the end result will be a true multiparty democracy where all of its citizens, including the Rohingya, can fully and freely participate:

Myanmar’s military said Monday that it took control of the country and declared a state of emergency for a year, after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of her ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) in a predawn operation, staging a coup against the democratically elected government.

The raids came hours before a new session of parliament was scheduled to open and members who won the November elections were set to take their seats. Suu Kyi’s NLD won those elections in a landslide, capturing 396 out of 476 seats. It was Myanmar’s second democratic election since the country’s fragile transition from military rule to democracy.

………

Several hours after the raids, the military in a television broadcast said that a state of emergency had been declared in Myanmar and that power would be transferred to the commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing. Myint Swe, a former general and the military-backed vice president, will become the president, the broadcast added.

The sweep also included other prominent democracy activists who have been fighting against military rule for decades, leaders of other political parties and NLD lawmakers, according to social media posts and news reports.

………

Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest before her release in November 2010, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her resistance to military rule. The military-drafted constitution prevents her from leading Myanmar as president, but she is unequivocally the nation’s leader, revered as a deity, and rules through proxies. The military-drafted constitution also allows the army to step in in a situation that may “disintegrate” the country and national solidarity.

Since taking power, though, she has disappointed old allies in the West, particularly for defending Myanmar — and its military in particular — against charges of genocide over the persecution of the Rohingya ethnic minority. Suu Kyi has in recent years moved closer toward powers such as China and India, and grown increasingly estranged from countries such as the United States and Britain, which once led advocacy efforts to get her released from house arrest.

She is up there with Henry Kissinger, Barack “DronesR Us” Obama, Jimmy “Bought 4 decades of war in Afghanistan” Carter, and Elihu Root (Philippine insurrection) on a list of horrible recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

For some reason, I tend to take it personally when people engage in religiously based genocide, and the Junta and Suu Kyi have.

Sikorsky-Boeing Takes Wraps Off Defiant X Design For U.S. Army’s FLRAA | Aviation Week Network

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Much Smaller Footprint than a Tilt Rotor

After putting out a representative demonstrator, Sikorsky has revealed off of its Defiant-X helicopter for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program.

It does not achieve the same speeds as the tilt-rotor competitor V-280 Valor from Bell, 280 kt (520 km/h) from the Bell offering as versus and 250 kt (465 km/h) for the coaxial compound helicopter, but its footprint on the ground and on takeoff and landing, and its agility during takeoff and landing should be significantly greater than the V-280.

Also, the helicopter should be significantly more agile during takeoff, landing, and autorotation, because of lower disk loading.

One lingering uncertainty surrounding the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft has centered on the service’s ultimate requirements for the advanced rotorcraft that will replace its Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters.

When the Army launched the precursor Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR TD) program in 2013, it provided industry with a “model performance specification”—placeholder requirements that would allow them to begin designing an aircraft.

The result was a pair of 30,000-lb. gross-weight-class demonstrators—the 280-kt. Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor and 250-kt. Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant, a coaxial rigid-rotor compound helicopter—both substantially larger and faster than the 22,000-lb. gross-weight UH-60M they are designed to replace.

Now, almost halfway through the CDRR phase, the answer to that lingering question about the Army’s requirements may be becoming clearer. The Sikorsky-Boeing team has taken the wraps off its Defiant X offering for FLRAA, and the design differs only in detail externally from the SB-1 now in flight test.

In terms of overall size, the Defiant X has the same operational footprint as the demonstrator, says Jay Macklin, Sikorsky’s director of Future Vertical Lift business development. The Defiant X also fits within the operational footprint of the Black Hawk, which the FLRAA is intended to replace beginning in 2030.

The Defiant X design has been optimized to meet Army requirements for survivability, maneuverability and agility in the objective area, or “at the X,” says Macklin, so that troops can be landed and offloaded quickly and safely during an air assault.

I favor the coaxial helicopter over the tilt rotor.

It seems simpler and safer.

Nope, No Conspiracy Here

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So, now we discover that the civilian administration of the Pentagon forbade the head of the Washington, DC National Guard for initiating any action in the event that the January 6 protests went pear shaped.

It sounds to me like the White House had a lot more foreknowledge of the Capitol Insurrection, and they the manipulated the instruments of the state for foment those actions.

I’m thinking that former Army Secretary McCarthy has got a lot of  ‘splainin’ to do:

The commander of the D.C. National Guard said the Pentagon restricted his authority ahead of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, requiring higher-level sign-off to respond that cost time as the events that day spiraled out of control.

Local commanders typically have the power to take military action on their own to save lives or prevent significant property damage in an urgent situation when there isn’t enough time to obtain approval from headquarters.

But Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, said the Pentagon essentially took that power and other authorities away from him ahead of the short-lived insurrection on Jan. 6. That meant he couldn’t immediately roll out troops when he received a panicked phone call from the Capitol Police chief warning that rioters were about to enter the U.S. Capitol.

“All military commanders normally have immediate response authority to protect property, life, and in my case, federal functions — federal property and life,” Walker said in an interview. “But in this instance I did not have that authority.”

Walker and former Army secretary Ryan D. McCarthy, along with other top officials, briefed the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday behind closed doors about the events, the beginning of what is likely to become a robust congressional inquiry into the preparations for a rally that devolved into a riot at the Capitol, resulting in five people dead and representing a significant security failure.

………

But the restrictions the Pentagon placed on Walker also contributed to the delay. He needed to wait for approval from McCarthy and acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller before dispatching troops, even though some 40 soldiers were on standby as a quick reaction force. That standby force had been assembled in case the few hundred Guard members deployed that day on the District’s streets to assist police with traffic control and crowd management needed help, Walker said.

………

McCarthy said he worked hard to ensure authority was pushed back down the chain of command to Walker ahead of the inauguration, during which Walker oversaw the 25,600 troops that came to the District. As for the preparations ahead of Jan. 6, McCarthy said, “It was everyone just being very careful. When you go back to times when we’ve done this, like June, we wanted to make sure we were very careful about the employment — careful about fragmentary orders.”

Had he not been restricted, Walker said he could have dispatched members of the D.C. Guard sooner. Asked how quickly troops could have reached the Capitol, which is two miles from the D.C. Guard headquarters at the Armory, Walker said, “With all deliberate speed — I mean, they’re right down the street.”

………

Walker recalled how Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who has since resigned, asked him on a call in the run-up to Jan. 6 to have National Guard troops at the ready.

“All he said was, ‘If I call you, will you be able to help?’ ” Walker said. “And I said, ‘Yes, but I need permission. So send a formal request,’ and I never got it, until after the fact.”

The request came, but only at 1:49 p.m. the day of the attempted insurrection. Sund called Walker to say rioters were about to breach the building and the Capitol Police would soon request urgent backup.

“I told him I had to get permission from the secretary of the Army and I would send him all available guardsmen but as soon as I got permission to do so,” Walker said. “I sent a message to the leadership of the Army, letting them know the request that I had received from Chief Sund.”

Permission from the Pentagon to activate the full D.C. Guard wouldn’t come for another hour and fifteen minutes, according to a Defense Department timeline of events, as members of Congress barricaded themselves in their offices and hid from a marauding horde trying to undo the results of the Nov. 3 election. It would take nearly three hours before Miller authorized the D.C. Guard to “re-mission” and help the Capitol Police establish a perimeter around the Capitol.

………

In an interview with The Post, Sund recalled Army staff director, Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, saying, “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background.”

Piatt, in a statement, initially saidhe didn’t make those remarks or any comments similar to them. Later, he backtracked, saying he didn’t recall citing such concerns but note-takers in the room told him he may have said that. Piatt, who wasn’t in the chain of command, was leading the call while waiting for the Army secretary to receive approval for the full activation of the D.C. Guard from Miller.

………

Memos obtained by The Post show how tightly the Pentagon restricted Walker ahead of the events.

In a Jan. 5 memo, the Army secretary, who is Walker’s direct superior in the chain of command, prohibited him from deploying the quick reaction force composed of 40 soldiers on his own and said any rollout of that standby group would first require a “concept of operation,” an exceptional requirement given that the force is supposed to respond to emergencies.

McCarthy was also restricted by his superior, Miller. In a Jan. 4 memo, McCarthy was prohibited from deploying D.C. Guard members with weapons, helmets, body armor or riot control agents without defense secretary approval. McCarthy retained the power to deploy the quick reaction force “only as a last resort.”

It’s patently clear that the civilian leadership of the Pentagon, and possibly elements of the uniformed services, intended to hamstring an effective response against a a violent protest against the electoral vote certification.

What needs to be known now is how the White House passed these directives down the chain of command.

It’s important for the impeachment.

A Real Vote of Confidence in the F-35

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Following the decision to acquire new-build F-15s for the USAF for the first time in 16 years, the news that the U.S. Air Force is discussing additional purchases of the F-16 as well must be seen as evidence that the force is less than enamored of the performance of the F-35 at this point:

U.S. Air Force officials are talking about ordering new Lockheed Martin F-16s two decades after signing the last production contract.

A review of the tactical aircraft portfolio now underway is set to deliver another Air Force acquisition shake-up in the fiscal 2023 budget request, with F-16s, Boeing F-15EXs, a new breed of so-called attritable aircraft and a next-generation fighter competing for a pool of production funding once monopolized by Lockheed’s F-35A.

………

U.S. Air Force officials are talking about ordering new Lockheed Martin F-16s two decades after signing the last production contract.

A review of the tactical aircraft portfolio now underway is set to deliver another Air Force acquisition shake-up in the fiscal 2023 budget request, with F-16s, Boeing F-15EXs, a new breed of so-called attritable aircraft and a next-generation fighter competing for a pool of production funding once monopolized by Lockheed’s F-35A.

Call me a cynic, but my guess is that the Air Force took a look at the costs of maintaining and operating an all F-35 fleet, and realized that it was simply not possible.

The reasons for the shift in resources has evolved in public statements over time. When Air Force officials requested funding in 2019 to order the first eight of up to 144 new F-15EXs, they justified the unexpected move as a response to an urgent need. Recent inspections had determined that an aging fleet of F-15Cs require new wings to remain airworthy, and the existing training pipeline and infrastructure made F-15EXs a more expedient option than the F-35A.

But the tactical aircraft fleet review could establish a permanent combat role for nonstealthy fighters for decades to come. The F-15EX not only represents a convenient option for an urgent F-15C replacement, but its centerline weapon station with a 7,500-lb. load capacity also may fill a gap in the Air Force’s force structure for a tactical aircraft that can carry a rocket-boosted hypersonic glide vehicle.

………

Roper also put Lockheed on notice about the Air Force’s frustration with the F-35A’s sustainment costs. Lockheed has committed to reducing the average hourly cost to operate the F-35A to $25,000 by 2025, a roughly 25% reduction compared to 2018 levels. But as his resignation approached, Roper was not satisfied with the pace of the reduction, as the Air Force seeks to add new F-35s to the fleet at an annual rate of 48-60 jets a year.

I believe that the technical term for this is overpriced and under-performing.

I Do Not Approve

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The 7 year interval between leaving the service and being able to become Secretary of Defense is there for a reason, to ensure that the Department of Defense is under civilian controls.

It has only been waived twice before, for George Marshall in 1950, and James Mathis in 2017, and now Lloyd Austin has been confirmed as SecDef less than 5 years after leaving the service.

I do not approve.

This limit was put in place for a good reason, that you do not want the inmates running the asylum, but not it appears that this is likely to become a common state of affairs:

The Senate on Friday confirmed Lloyd J. Austin III as defense secretary, filling a critical national security position in President Biden’s cabinet and elevating him as the first Black Pentagon chief.

The 93-2 vote came a day after Congress granted Mr. Austin, a retired four-star Army general, a special waiver to hold the post, which is required for any defense secretary who has been out of active-duty military service for less than seven years. It reflected a bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill that it was urgent for Mr. Biden to have his defense pick rapidly installed, a step normally taken on a new president’s first day.

That Mr. Austin is not the first black SecDef not matter.

This is corrosive of civilian control of the military.

Would Have Been Better to Address This Early

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It turns out that the FBI is conducting background checks on National Guardsmen in the Capitol for the inauguration to make sure that a right-wing terrorist is not embedded in the force.

White Nationalists and their Talibaptist Christian Dominionist brethren have been infiltrating the US State Security Apparatus, both the military (particularly the USAF) and law enforcement.

It comes as no surprise that they are concerned about a random soldier might choose the occasion to engage in assassination.

Getting these folks out of these institutions may be the most important national security issue of the next decade:

U.S. defense officials say the federal government is conducting insider-threat screening on the 25,000 National Guard troops who have begun flowing into the nation’s capital to secure the inauguration, as concerns intensify about extremism in the ranks.

The extra precaution comes after a number of pro-Trump rioters involved in storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 turned out to have military ties, raising questions about extremist sentiment within the armed forces. Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington as the deadly riot unfolded.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive preparations, said the Army is working with the FBI to vet all service members supporting the inauguration. The Army maintains awareness of threats but does not collect domestic intelligence itself, the official said. It was not immediately clear how extensive the FBI vetting of the military personnel would be.

As the great Walt Kelly noted, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” 

It is going to take a very long time to fix this.

Who Cares, There is Money to Be Made

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US System


Russian Kinzhal

A new report suggests that hypersonic weapons do not add any meaningful military capabilities. (Original paper)

This is not a surprise.

The Skybolt air launched ballistic missile showed how a conventional missile can achieve what they are attempting now in the 1960s,  the Pershing II missile demonstrated a maneuverable reentry vehicle and reached deployment in the 1980s.

This does not matter. 

The defense contractors get their vig, and retired generals get their comfortable sinecures, so it’s good for everyone ……… except the taxpayer, and the people who are told that there is no money to supply a basic social safety net:

Military experts call hypersonic warheads the next big thing in intercontinental warfare. They see the emerging arms, which can deliver nuclear or conventional munitions, as zipping along at up to five miles a second while zigzagging through the atmosphere to outwit early-warning satellites and some interceptors. The superfast weapons, experts say, lend themselves to surprise attacks.

………

Now, independent experts have studied the technical performance of the planned weapon and concluded that its advertised features are more illusory than real. Their analysis is to be published this week in Science & Global Security.

In an interview, David Wright, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of the new analysis, called the superweapon a mirage.

“There’re lots of claims and not many numbers,” he said. “If you put in the numbers, you find that the claims are nonsense.”

Military officials called the paper insubstantial, saying it was based on outdated data. But they declined to disclose new findings.

“Due to the classified nature of hypersonics technologies, we are not at liberty to publicly discuss current capabilities,” Jared Adams, chief spokesman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, said in an email.

Of course they are.  They want their money. 

Claiming that it’s sooper sekrit knowledge has been a dodge used by the military-industrial complex since Truman was in the White House.

………

By definition, hypersonic vehicles fly at more than five times the speed of sound — or up to dozens of times faster than jetliners. The warheads rise into space atop a traditional long-range missile but then descend quickly into the atmosphere to bank, careen and otherwise maneuver. They’re basically stubby gliders. The curved upper surfaces of their wedge-shaped bodies give them some of the lifting power of an airplane wing.

Dr. Wright and Dr. Tracy based their analysis on the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 — an experimental warhead developed by the Air Force and Darpa. Their findings, they say, also apply to other American prototypes, as well as devices being developed by China, Russia and other countries.

The computer simulations drew on the physics of moving bodies and public disclosures about the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 in order to model its most plausible flight paths. The team zeroed in on signature phases of hypersonic flight — when the vehicle zooms through the atmosphere and then plunges to hit a target.

The two experts say their computer modeling fills in public gaps on the weapon’s overall performance as well as its potential interactions with existing military systems for detecting and defeating weapons launched from distant sites.

In their paper, they see the weapon as essentially failing to outwit early-warning satellites and interceptors. For instance, current generations of space-based sensors, they report, will be able to track the weapon’s fiery twists and turns during most of its flight through the atmosphere.

And surprisingly, given the weapon’s speedy reputation, they say their analysis shows it will fly intercontinental distances more slowly than ballistic missiles and warheads fired on low flight paths known as depressed trajectories. In war, such tactics are seen as a good way for attackers to evade interceptors and lessen warning time.

Dr. Wright and Dr. Tracy conclude that the envisioned new weapon is, at best, “evolutionary — not revolutionary.”

Note that their criticisms are based on some pretty elementary physics, specifically that the lift/drag ratios of hyper-sonic bodies are pretty pathetic.

The Russian Systems, like the Kinzhal, and Chinese systems like the DF-21, are not the wedge shaped lifting bodies, they are simply missiles with improved guidance systems allowing for improved targeting and evasion of defenses.

What’s more, they are already in service in limited numbers.

The US system is more complex, more technically challenging, and doesn’t gain a whole bunch more.

Once again, the US is pursuing “dominance” at an unsustainable cost and a time frame of decades.

To quote Ike, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Well, This is a Relief

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The Pentagon is ordering the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) to return to port from the Persian Gulf.

This marks a major deescalation with regard to Iran, and I am wondering if Trump was even informed of this in advance by the military:

The Pentagon has abruptly sent the aircraft carrier Nimitz home from the Middle East and Africa over the objections of top military advisers, marking a reversal of a weekslong muscle-flexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran from attacking American troops and diplomats in the Persian Gulf.

Officials said on Friday that the acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, had ordered the redeployment of the ship in part as a “de-escalatory” signal to Tehran to avoid stumbling into a crisis in President Trump’s waning days in office. American intelligence reports indicate that Iran and its proxies may be preparing a strike as early as this weekend to avenge the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Miller assessed that dispatching the Nimitz now, before the first anniversary this Sunday of General Suleimani’s death in an American drone strike in Iraq, could remove what Iranian hard-liners see as a provocation that justifies their threats against American military targets. Some analysts said the return of the Nimitz to its home port of Bremerton, Wash., was a welcome reduction in tensions between the two countries.

“If the Nimitz is departing, that could be because the Pentagon believes that the threat could subside somewhat,” said Michael P. Mulroy, the Pentagon’s former top Middle East policy official.

I really hope that the balloon does not go up in the next 2 weeks.

Speaking of the Silly Season

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Trump has vetoed the Defense Authorization bill, because he wants to keep Confederate names on military bases and because Twitter has been mean to him.

No, this is not The Onion.

Trump is demanding a repeal of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and he is objecting to changing the names of military bases named after traitors:

President Trump made good Wednesday on his repeated threats to veto a $741 billion defense spending bill, setting up what is expected to be the first successful veto override of his presidency during his last weeks in office.

………

The House and Senate each passed the defense bill earlier this month with strong veto-proof majorities, rejecting Trump’s insistence that it be changed to meet his oftentimes shifting demands. Both chambers are expected to sustain the two-thirds majorities needed to override the president’s veto, despite pledges from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other stalwart Trump allies not to cross the president’s wishes.

In his veto message, Trump complained that the legislation includes “provisions that fail to respect our veterans’ and military’s history” — a seeming reference to instructions that the Defense Department change the names of installations commemorating Confederate leaders. He also scorned the bill as a “ ‘gift’ to China and Russia,” slammed the bill for restricting his ability to draw down the presence of U.S. troops in certain foreign outposts, and excoriated lawmakers for failing to include an unrelated repeal of a law granting liability protections to technology companies that Trump has accused, without significant evidence, of anti-conservative bias.

………

Trump and his advisers have repeatedly objected to various provisions in the behemoth defense legislation, including its mandate to the Pentagon to rename the 10 military installations bearing titles that honor the Confederacy and the bill’s limitations on reducing troop levels in Germany, South Korea and Afghanistan.

Trump’s insistence that the defense bill become a vehicle for a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies from bearing legal responsibility for content third parties post on their websites, became a breaking point between the president and congressional Republicans during the final days of negotiations over the legislation. Trump views its repeal as a way to punish social media companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter.

It’s stupid and petty, but Trump does Stupid and Petty better than anyone.

A Definition of Advancement That I Was Unfamiliar With

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I have to agree with the cartoonist, the fact that a woman is raining down death and destruction upon black and brown people throughout the world is not a cause for celebration, a better solution is to stop the bombing:

In a historic first, the Navy has recommended a female officer to command an aircraft carrier.

Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt is one of six officers recommended to command a nuclear-powered carrier in fiscal 2022. Also selected for the job were Capts. Colin Day, David Duff, Brent Gaut, David-Tavis Pollard and Craig Sicola.

Naval Air Forces did not respond to requests for comment from Bauernschmidt, or questions about when the captains will be assigned to carriers and what having a woman serving in this role will bring to the force.

Bauernschmidt has already broken barriers in her Navy career since leaving the Naval Academy in 1994. She became the first woman to serve as executive officer on a nuclear warship, the carrier Abraham Lincoln, in 2016.

The definitive word on this is Caitlin Johnstone’s essay, “Biden Will Have The Most Diverse, Intersectional Cabinet Of Mass Murderers Ever Assembled.”

It is not enough that women or minorities have an equal opportunity to oppress.  The oppression should stop.

H/t Naked Capitalism., both for the article and the cartoon.

Another Stopped Clock Moment

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It appears that Trump is cutting off military support to CIA death squads: (Details on the whole child murdering death squads are here)

Years from now, we will forgive historians who, when documenting the Donald Trump presidency — its cold indifference to hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 deaths, its pandemic denialism, its migrant family separations, its use of the Justice Department as a political cudgel and the attorney general as a Mafia lawyer, the president’s genuine attempt to subvert the 2020 election results, and his impeachment — fail to note a bureaucratic dust-up between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon in the waning days of the administration.

Last week, news broke that Trump’s acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, sent a letter to the CIA notifying the agency that the Pentagon would review the terms of its military support to CIA operations. News reports suggested that the Pentagon was planning to strip the CIA of its support for counterterrorism missions around the world almost immediately. Drones, elite soldiers, fuel, and medical evacuation of casualties, for example, would disappear almost overnight. CNN reported that the Pentagon was “planning to withdraw most support for CIA counter-terror missions by the beginning of next year.” The New York Times suggested that the purpose was to “make it difficult” for the CIA to conduct its covert war in Afghanistan as Trump reduces the number of U.S. troops there. ABC News described the decision as “unprecedented.” The cuts would leave CIA paramilitary officers to die should they suffer casualties, former officers told the press.

But interviews with six current and former national security officials, including some directly involved in the Pentagon’s review, suggest it is neither immediate nor controversial. Instead, the review serves as a coda for the Trump administration’s chaos — and as an unintentional gift to the incoming Biden administration.

Miller’s letter to CIA Director Gina Haspel informed her that the Pentagon would update a classified 2005 memorandum of understanding outlining the terms of Defense Department support to CIA missions. The Donald Rumsfeld-led Pentagon wrote the memo in the early years of what the George W. Bush administration called the global war on terror. In the immediate weeks and months after the September 11 attacks, the Pentagon discovered that it had neither the intelligence capability nor the nimbleness that the CIA showed in their quick deployment to Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda conceived of and trained for the attacks; the CIA needed special operations forces to buttress their tiny paramilitary division.

As an aside, United States Special Operations Command (USSICOM) was established in 1987, so it appears that the need to use CIA paramilitaries, particularly given its extensive expansion over the intervening 33 years, is to ensure that those operations are not subject to the purview of any potential war crimes investigations.

………

Fast forward to Donald Trump. He campaigned in 2016 on pulling out U.S. troops from the wars which began after 9/11 and later, as president, declared victory over the Islamic State. In 2018, the Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary James Mattis, published a new national defense strategy as a blueprint for a new era. Counterterrorism was no longer the country’s “primary concern.” The new strategy called long-term strategic competition with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran the top priorities.

………

Trump reportedly tried several times to pull troops out of Afghanistan but was said to have been blocked or slow-rolled by the national security establishment. After he lost the November election, Trump fired Esper because he was said to have resisted the move. As a result, Miller replaced Esper and quickly went about announcing that troops were indeed coming home. As almost an afterthought, Miller and the acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, also pushed to update the 2005 sharing agreement to fall in line with the change in national security policy, several defense officials told The Intercept. They said that fears of resource cuts to the CIA are unfounded overall.

………

A secondary justification for rewriting the agreement is to allow the Pentagon to answer a simple question that has plagued military officials for years: How much support do we provide to the CIA, and how is it used?

………

For military officials, the support to the CIA has become just like any other part of the Pentagon’s self-licking ice cream cone: one with no end. The agreement has persisted for 15 years, even as national security priorities have changed. Two military officials who spoke with The Intercept said the Pentagon couldn’t answer congressional committees’ questions about how the CIA used the Pentagon’s resources. As a result, the new memo will insist that the CIA provide more information to the Pentagon on where and how their support, including forces, is used.

………

According to the senior Pentagon official involved in the review, the Pentagon is asking the CIA to use military support in the so-called great nation competition and use fewer resources in their counterterrorism efforts. It is all part of a more considerable effort to move the military’s resources away from hunting suspected Islamic militants worldwide and toward the now two-year-old focus on other global powers. The military is letting the CIA know that they are ending its forever wars in a strategic sense.

“[Director Haspel] wants out of the war on terror,” the senior Pentagon official continued. “She thinks that takes the CIA away from its core mission of going after Russia and China. And it’s 20 years later, and we had to do [that] at the time, it’s 20 years now, and a shift has to be made.”

So Haspel is a moron who has never left the Cold War.

And people wonder why the Russians think that the war against them by the US never ended.

………

CIA counterterrorism veterans believe the review stems from Trump making a last-minute effort to punish the CIA for various offenses, but mostly because the agency concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him become president. A retired senior intelligence official told The Intercept that a senior congressional aide on an intelligence committee asked the White House last week to explain Miller’s letter to the CIA. The retired official said the aide was told, “It’s because the president’s followers believe the agency played a role” in Trump’s election loss last month. The retired official said the White House acknowledged that the claim of CIA involvement in Trump’s election loss was unfounded, but the facts didn’t matter. The message from the White House, according to the retired official, was that “it matters what Trump’s supporters think, and they think that’s the case.”

Given Trump’s pettiness and thin-skinned demeanor, it may very well be that Trump ordered the Pentagon to take its toys away from the CIA, but it also doesn’t matter.

………

But it does provide Biden with an unintentional gift. By forcing the incoming administration to respond to the review shortly after taking power, Trump’s team provides Biden with an opportunity to quickly take stock of 20 years of lethal operations, both in direct view and secret — and make a decision to end an unwinnable war.

………

A lame-duck president agitating for a useful bureaucratic change as a parting shot at the deep state is the same delusional logic that came with much of Trump’s four years: occasionally doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

Given the nature of CIA paramilitaries, their primary benefits appear to be evading the laws of war, and to maintain a military presence in an area in defiance of civilian leadership (Syria most recently), reducing this capability is an unalloyed good, regardless of the motivations.

This Exceeds My Capability for Mockery

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Mike Pence has announced a name for members of the US Space Force, Guardians. (Yes, I am linking to The Guardian for this story, because ……… Guardian) 

Let the mockery begin:

Members of the new US space force will be known as “guardians”, Vice-President Mike Pence announced on Friday, at a ceremony to mark the first birthday of the newest branch of the US armed forces, one of Donald Trump’s signature policy initiatives.

“It is my honour,” Pence said, “on behalf of the president of the United States, to announce that henceforth the men and women of the United States Space Force will be known as guardians.

“Soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and guardians will be defending our nation for generations to come.”

On Twitter, the space force said: “The opportunity to name a force is a momentous responsibility. Guardians is a name with a long history in space operations, tracing back to the original command motto of Air Force Space Command in 1983, ‘Guardians of the High Frontier.’

………

Nonetheless, Pence’s announcement prompted familiar mirth on social media. As Military.com put it: “Space enthusiasts and military members were quick to point out the name Guardians evokes the Marvel Comics’ Guardians of the Galaxy film franchise, about a motley crew of superheroes in space.”

With the Trump administration on its way out of power, the future of the space force seems uncertain. On Saturday, the president tweeted that the “authorisation and start up of the SPACE FORCE” would be seen as “one of the Trump administration’s great achievements”.

But as the Associated Press put it, delicately: “President-elect Joe Biden has yet to reveal his plans for the space force in the next administration.”

My suggestion for the Biden administration: Shut down the, “Space Force,” and take all the people who are not actually doing real work, generals, middle managers, etc. and muster them out of the service, because if they have been assigned to the service in that capacity, they don’t have productive purpose.

And Now, a Completely Naked Video

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Don’t worry though, it violates no standards, because it is a naked B-52H Stratofortress.

The bomber, 60-034, also known as, “Wise Guy,”  had to be stripped down and rebuilt after being returned to service after storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, AKA the “boneyard”:

As already reported in detail in this previous article, “Wise Guy” is the nickname of the B-52H Stratofortress bomber tail number 60-0034, that is being prepared to return to service with the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, by the Tinker Air Force Base’s Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex.

The aircraft has arrived at Tinker AFB, on Apr. 1, 2020, to undergo PDM (Programmed Depot Maintenance), the final part of a three-phase process to resurrect the aircraft, that had been retired after logging more than 17,000 flight hours at the 309th AMARG (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group) at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, in 2008.

Bad Day at the Office

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Ouch

There was a mishap when a 70-ton Merkava tank rolled over after screwing up getting onto a transport trailer.

Thankfully, the only person on the tank was the driver, and he was not seriously injured:

An Israel Defense Forces tank flipped over on Sunday while trying to drive up onto a transport truck, the military said.

No one was injured in the incident, the IDF said.

In a video of the incident (above), the tank can be seen slowly driving onto the transport truck in the Jordan Valley. After it boards the truck, however, the tank continues traveling forward, gaining speed and flying over the side of the truck before landing upside down.

The tank’s fire suppression system was then apparently activated.

The driver of the tank, 24, was taken to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Mt. Scopus. He was lightly bruised, but was not found to be seriously injured. “He will remain for treatment and observation until tomorrow,” a hospital spokesperson said.

I did not expect a tank to move that way.

Yeah, I had to Write About this One

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It turns out that many, if not most of the Soviet/Russian submarine incursions that occurred 1980s and 1990s were probably herring farts.

Anyone who knows me knows that I HAD to write about this, it juxtaposes my interest in thing military and things fart.

This story is me.

It’s perfectly feasible that in the 1980s a major diplomatic incident between nuclear superpowers could have been triggered by fish farts. In fact, Russia and Sweden nearly came to blows over this very thing. They just didn’t know it at the time. 

Before we move on to farts, first, some background. In 1981, a Soviet submarine ran aground on the south coast of Sweden, just 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from a Swedish naval base. The Soviets claimed that they were forced into Swedish territory by severe distress, and later navigation errors, while Sweden saw it as proof that the then Soviet Union was infiltrating Swedish waters. It didn’t help that when Swedish officials secretly measured for radioactive materials using gamma-ray spectroscopy, they detected what they were 90 percent sure was uranium-23[sic, probably U-238] (used for cladding in nuclear weapons) inside the sub, indicating that it may be nuclear armed.

The submarine was returned to international waters, but the Swedish government remained alert, convinced that Russian subs could still be operating near their territory. Which is when they started to pick up elusive underwater signals and sounds. In 1982, several of Sweden’s subs, boats, and helicopters pursued one of these unidentified sources for a whole month, only to come up empty-handed.

………

But it was farts.

In 1996, Magnus Wahlberg, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark, became involved in the investigation of the strange signals.

………

He and a colleague began the task of figuring out what could be making bubbles on a scale that would make Sweden think it was dealing with a nuclear submarine.

“It turns out herring have a swim bladder… and this swim bladder is connected to the anal duct of the fish,” Wahlberg said. “It’s a very unique connection, only found in herring. So a herring can squeeze its swim bladder, and that way it can blurt out a small number of bubbles through the anal opening.”

In layman’s terms, they let one rip. Herrings swim in gigantic schools that can reach several square kilometers and up to 20 meters (65 feet) deep. When something near them frightens them – say, a hungry school of mackerel or a submarine on the lookout for Russian spies – they can generate a lot of gas.

………

The good news was that Sweden wasn’t under threat from Russia, the bad news was it had spent 10 years deploying its military in pursuit of fish farts. Since it figured out what was and wasn’t fish farts, there have been zero reports of hostile intruders in Swedish waters.

This story was literally made just for me.

Bad Day at the Office

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Oops

A Ukrainian SU-27 pilot executing a landing on a highway as a part of a military sucked a highway sign into his air intake.

According to authorities, there was no damage to the aircraft, and no injuries.

When one considers that it not only took in the sign, which was probably either thin aluminum and wood, but also parts of the sign post (probably steel) and bolts attaching the sign to the post, this is an indication of how Soviet era engine designers prioritized resistance to foreign object damage: (FOD)

Ukrainian Su-27 fighter jet rammed into a street sign during military drills, 2+2 broadcaster reported, showing the video of the incident. The plane was landing on the Kiev-Chop highway when it grazed the sign and then pulled up in the sky again, with a metal part stuck in its air scoop. The Ukrainian air forces later stated it was a minor incident, noting that the plane was not damaged and the pilot didn’t sustain any injuries.

I’m Calling Political Ploy

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Nameless bureaucrats in the Pentagon announce plans to shutter the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, and Trump reverses the decision with a tweet.

Call me a cynic, but I think that this was the plan all along.

In the middle of a minor sh%$-storm about Trump dissing dead soldiers, he gets to play hero:

Update: Following blowback, President Trump announced on Twitter that the publication will not be shuttered after all.

The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020

The Trump administration has decided to shutter Stars and Stripes, the award-winning independent military newspaper that began during the Civil War and has continuously published since World War II. The publication has broken many important stories, including highlighting predatory or unethical practices by military brass.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have been trying to prevent this move for months. “Stars and Stripes is an essential part of our nation’s freedom of the press that serves the very population charged with defending that freedom,” fifteen senators said in a letter sent to Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

Even Trump sycophant Lindsay Graham has attempted to save the paper, writing to Esper, “as a veteran who has served overseas, I know the value that the Stars and Stripes brings to its readers.”

But the administration announced it is going ahead with closing the publication as part of cost-cutting measures, ordering it to stop publishing by September 30th and setting a deadline at the end of January to dissolve it completely.

If you think that this is a sincere effort, or has resulted from the storm blowing up over this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Also, I cannot believe that I am f%$#ing reposting a f%$#ing a f%$#ing Donald f%$#ing Trump Tweet.

How Utterly British

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The British Ministry of Devense is saying that it cannot give details on payouts made in response to claims against their troops for torture and abuse because there are too many to count, which is why they want a law passed indemnifying their troops for war crimes.

This is like some twisted take on a Gilbert and Sullivan light opera:

The UK government has received so many complaints from Iraqis who were unlawfully detained and allegedly mistreated by British troops that its defence ministry says it is unable to say how many millions of pounds have been paid to settle the claims.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials in London say they can provide approximate figures for the thousands of Iraqis who have lodged complaints against British forces involved in the 2003 US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

However, they maintain that they cannot disclose how much UK taxpayers’ money has been spent settling their claims, saying that it would take weeks for civil servants to collate the figure.

The department is claiming that it is unable to disclose the sums paid at a time when the UK parliament is about to debate a deeply controversial law which would introduce a partial amnesty for the country’s service personnel who have committed serious crimes – including murder and torture – while serving outside the country.

Known as the Overseas Operation Bill, the proposed new law has alarmed human rights groups, the UK government’s political opponents and many ex-soldiers, who fear that it will effectively sanction war crimes by British forces.

………

Even the country’s most senior retired soldier, 81-year-old Field Marshal Charles Guthrie, wrote to the Sunday Times newspaper to warn that the proposed new law would provide room for “de facto decriminalisation of torture”.
Guthrie added that the measures “appear to have been dreamt up by those who have seen too little of the world to understand why the rules of war matter”.

………

Frank Ledwidge, a former army intelligence officer and military historian, warns that the bill – which he calls a “squalid piece of legislation” – could cause more problems than it solves for the MoD and British government ministers.

Ledwidge, who has experience of tracking down war criminals in Bosnia and Kosovo, points out that the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is currently conducting a preliminary investigation into allegations of British war crimes in Iraq, is unlikely to target the interrogators.

“When the ICC does come for us, which it will if this bill is enacted, it won’t be the soldiers they’ll be after,” Ledwidge says. “The men we hunted down in Bosnia were not the trigger-pullers. They were the commanders, the generals and the politicians who sent them and allowed these crimes to happen.”

There are a whole bunch of people who should be in the dock at The Hague for crimes against humanity during the Iraq invasion, and the important ones are the, “Commanders, the generals and the politicians who sent them and allowed these crimes to happen.”

So, Now Nazis are a Protected Group in Canada?

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Police in Ontario are investigating graffiti on a monument to an SS division as a hate crime.

I can understand that someone spray painting, “Nazi war monument,” on the side of a ……… well ……… Nazi war monument ……… might constitute vandalism, but it’s not a hate crime, it’s truth in labeling.

It appears that as a result of this controversy, a number of Canadians have become rather upset about the cenotaph in a Ukrainian cemetary to the 14th SS Division as well, so perhaps the end game may involve taking this item down.

I’m sure that some Canadian-Ukrainians would object to that, claiming that this is their heritage, but, much like people claiming Confederate heritage in the United States, I don’t give a crap what they think:

An incident involving graffiti spray painted on a monument to those who fought in Adolf Hitler’s SS is being investigated as a hate crime by an Ontario police force.

Someone painted “Nazi war monument” on a stone cenotaph commemorating those who served with the 14th SS Division. The monument is located in Oakville in the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.

The division, made up of Ukrainians who pledged allegiance to Hitler, was part of the Nazi’s Waffen SS organization. Some members of the division have been accused of killing Polish women and children as well as Jews during the Second World War.

………

But researcher Moss Robeson, who has written articles on Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis, provided details about the graffiti and the monument on Twitter, prompting questions about why Halton Regional Police think members of the Nazi SS can be the subject of hate crimes.

In response to questions from this newspaper, Const. Steve Elms, spokesman for Halton-Regional Police, cited a section of the Criminal Code that noted those communicating statements in any public place inciting hatred against any identifiable group could face imprisonment not exceeding two years. “This incident occurred to a monument and the graffiti appeared to target an identifiable group,” he explained in an email to questions about how a hate crime could be perpetrated against members of the SS.

If this reminds you of people in the “Blue Lives Matter” movement claiming that protests against the police is a hate crime, not only are you very perceptive, and likely quite likely devastatingly attractive as well.

The 14th SS Division, also known as the Galizien Division, was formed in 1943 when Nazi Germany needed to shore up its forces as allied troops, including those from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Russia, started to gain the upper hand and turn the tide of the war. In May 1944, SS leader Heinrich Himmler addressed the division with a speech that was greeted by cheers. “Your homeland has become more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – the residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name – namely the Jews,” Himmler said. “I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles, I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.”

………

There are allegations members of the 14th SS Division took part in killing hundreds of Polish civilians in 1944 in the village of Huta Pieniacka. Some Ukrainians dispute that the SS division took part in the killings or they argue that only small elements from the unit – and under Nazi command – were involved. Others argue the SS members were heroes who fought against the Russians.

………

Bernie Farber of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network said there is a need for Halton Regional Police to better educate themselves on what constitutes a hate-motivated crime. “Yes, it’s destruction of property for sure,” Farber said of the graffiti on the monument. “But a hate crime? Far from it.”

The monument to the 14th SS Division was also in the headlines in 2017 when the Russian Embassy in Ottawa posted images on its Twitter account pointing out the “Nazi monuments” in Canada.

BTW, after the furor, the Halton Regional Police are now investigating the graffiti as simple vandalism, and the police chief is wondering why there is a Nazi monument in the first place.

Whoever put that graffiti on the monument may see it coming down now.

What Happens When a Nakajima B5N “Kate” Drops an 800 KG Armor Piercing Bomb

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This looks like a picture of Pear Harbor on December 7, 1941


The deck and superstructure have been severely damaged


It appears that the heat from the fire may have damaged the hull

My bad, that’s not the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, it is a fire on the Bonhomme Richard, and the ship appears to have been damaged beyond economic repair, notwithstanding claims to the US Navy that it is too soon to make that determination:

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said Friday he is unsure if the Bonhomme Richard should be repaired after it was engulfed in flames and smoke in San Diego over five days this week.

Gilday, speaking during a press conference on Naval Base San Diego across from the damaged and listing ship, said they’re still assessing damage so it’s unclear if the ship will be repaired.

“The damage is extensive,” he said, adding but he is “100 percent confident” the defense industry can put the amphibious assault ship back out to sea.

“The question is should we make that investment into a 22-year-old ship,” he said.

Yeah, I think that the ship could be repaired, if it had to face the Kaigun to protect Midway Island in 4 weeks, but under any situation short of war, it would make no economic sense to repair the ship.