AMERICAN MERCENARY IN THE UKRAINE

There's speculation in the comments below this clip in YouTube about whether he's American or Brit - seems he could be either - I watched it a few times and figured that guy might be a Brit but his accent seems more American if you ask me. Looks legit . . . S.L.



I also found it funny that to some of the people commenting, "American mercenaries" automatically means "Blackwater". Blackwater was a private military company - in fact they no longer exist as Blackwater - and what they do is legitimate security work, highly regulated and overseen by the US Government.

You've got to figure - we've had almost 15 years of continual war ... before that we had a professional military the likes of which the world has never seen, with a lot of continual experience in places like Grenada, Lebanon, Panama, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya and the Mahgreb . . . and so of course it is inevitable these days that guys are "freelancing" - in two places specifically: Ukraine and Iraq.

The American warrior class is firmly established and quite distinct and visible . . . we are also the most misunderstood class of American society . . . and it is an honor to be included as a member of it . . .

STORMBRINGER SENDS

HUNTING DOWN A SNIPER

GERMANY DENIES ASYLUM TO AMERICAN DESERTER

Remember THIS guy?

April 05, 2011 Agence France-Presse

Germany has denied asylum to Andre Shepherd, a former US Soldier who deserted his unit in Iraq citing opposition to the war, a spokesman for the federal office for migration and refugees said on Tuesday.

"The asylum claim was rejected because there is no evidence to suggest that the asylum seeker could have been involved in war crimes or other crimes during another posting to Iraq," the office said in a statement.

"He could not cite any concrete crimes his unit committed during his first tour. In addition, as a helicopter mechanic, he was not in danger of becoming involved in fighting and therefore in possible crimes," added the office.

Shepherd, 33, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, walked off his base in southern Germany in 2007 and spent 19 months on the run before applying for asylum.

Before then, he had completed a five-month stint in Iraq between September 2004 and February 2005 where he serviced Apache helicopters as part of the 412th Aviation Support Battalion.

When ordered back to Iraq, he felt he could not continue to take part in what he said was a "completely illegal war" and became the first US Soldier to claim asylum in Germany.

His lawyer, Reinhard Marx, said his client would likely contest the decision but that a forced return to the United States was "out of the question."

"He has married a woman with German nationality, so he has a residence permit. This is about whether the German authorities accept his status as a refugee," Marx told AFP.


This is a good first step - too bad it took two years. Now, for our laws and our oaths of military obligation to have any meaning whatsoever, Andre Shepard must be tried for desertion during wartime. American forces defended Germany for over fifty years - we stared down the Soviet Red Army at Checkpoint Charlie, we did the Berlin Airlift, and we called out the Communists at the Wall, provided moral support and more, until at last that wall came down and Germany was unified once more - and all the while Germany's economy benefited from not having to maintain a huge defense budget. The least Germany can do now is to extradite this piece of excrement so he can face the consequences of his actions. Otherwise, NATO is a joke and Germany will share the same shameful status as Canada during the Vietnam conflict - refuge for deserters.

- SEAN LINNANE SENDS

"Footprint of the American Chicken"

.

RIFLE

This video was sent in by a friend who is also a Brother - filmed by some Air Force Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTAC) in Tal Afar, west of Mosul in Iraq (date unknown):

A Marine unit was pinned down in the street. They set their video camera on the bumper of their armored HUMVEE, which they were using for cover.

Keep an eye on the opposing van parked just down the street. On the audio you can hear them shooting back and forth. The rounds you can hear are from the Marines, and the ones you hear pinging against the side of the vehicle with no accompanying pop are from the bad guys.

Listen carefully; when the Marine says they just fired the "rifle," it means an F-16 aircraft just launched a Maverick missile. You can see it strike the vehicle the bad guys were using for cover.

End of story . . . for the bad guys.



Tuesday Tart HERE


.

CLINTON CABINET MEMBER: LET IRAQ SHOOT DOWN A U-2

A US Air Force U-2R high altitude surveillance aircraft takes off from forward-deployed location supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during parts of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has a new memoir out that contains this anecdote: Back in the late 1990s, Shelton says a member of Clinton’s cabinet asked him to allow Saddam Hussein to shoot down an American plane over Iraq as a pretext for starting a war. The way Shelton tells the story, this was a serious request.

Remember, the context here is the Clinton Administration’s years of trying to overthrow Saddam — including in a little-remembered 1996 CIA coup attempt. In December 1998 (most likely after the request was made to Shelton), Clinton bombed Iraq for four days in Operation Desert Fox, which Clinton said was a response to Saddam’s lack of cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors.


.

ARMY: IGNORE OBAMA's MESSAGE, OF COURSE COMBAT CONTINUES IN IRAQ

This message provides clarification on the awarding of wartime awards and badges for Operation New Dawn (OND). Effective 1 Sep 10, OND began signifying an end to combat operations in Iraq. However, combat conditions are still prevalent. Due to the nature of combat conditions, wartime awards will continue to be issued in theater until a date to be determined. Commanders will continue to process retroactive award recommendation through their peacetime chain of command to . . ."




Read the original Foreign Policy post HERE


.

One in 10 Inmates in Britain’s Jails Is an Ex-Soldier

British troops in Helmand Province in 2009. Shocking figures show nearly one in 10 prisoners in England are veterans

It is not clear how many – if any – of the ex-soldiers behind bars are non-combat veterans:

The Government was under fire for failing to support British troops returning from war today after figures revealed nearly one in 10 prisoners is an Armed Forces veteran.

Shocking research by the probation officers’ union Napo shows some 8,500 former soldiers are currently in prison in England and Wales.

Another 12,000 have criminal convictions and are on the books of the Probation Service.

This means there are more than twice as many veterans in jail, on probation or on parole in the UK than the number of troops currently serving in Afghanistan.

Veterans in Scotland and Northern Ireland are not included, meaning the true figure is likely to be much higher. . . .

Domestic violence was by far the most likely conviction for a veteran, accounting for one in three cases. Other violent crimes accounted for around one in five convictions.

One in four said they had post-traumatic stress disorder, but many went undiagnosed. Others cited depression and behavioural problems.

The group who took part included veterans from the conflicts in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.


Read more here.


This story is already a year old; it just came across my radar screen. I wonder what the statistics are for other Commonwealth countires, and for American veterans? - Sean Linnane



.

SAME WAR, DIFFERENT NAME . . .

These guys are doing the Bag Drag . . . BUT . . .





. . . IT AIN'T OVER 'TILL IT's OVER . . .


Despite new mission, US troops still in the fight in Iraq

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US troops will still be in combat and taking on Islamist militants in Iraq even as the American military moves to an "advise and assist" role with a smaller force, officials said Thursday.

The withdrawal of the last US combat brigade on Thursday was hailed as a symbolic moment for the controversial American presence in Iraq, more than seven years since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

But while the remaining 50,000 troops will no longer have a formal combat mission after September 1, they will be well-armed and possibly coming under fire as they join in manhunts for Al-Qaeda figures or other extremists.

"I don't think anybody has declared the end of the war as far as I know," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told MSNBC.

"Counter-terrorism will still be part of their mission," said Morrell, referring to the fight against militant networks.


Read it and weep . . .

ALLEN WEST

The heroic story of Lt. Col. West is brought to our attention via the worthy blog Weasel Zippers:



Allen B. West is a retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel and a Republican Party candidate for the United States Congress in Florida's 22nd district. He served in Iraq and as a civilian adviser in Afghanistan.


IRAQ INTERROGATION CONTROVERSY AND RETIREMENT:

While serving in Taji, Iraq, on August 20, 2003, as commander of the 2d Battalion 20th Field Artillery, Lieutenant Colonel West was in charge of an interrogation of a civilian Iraqi police officer who was suspected of having pertinent information regarding attacks on American soldiers. According to the Military Investigation, soldiers under West's supervision assaulted the civilian Iraqi police officer in an attempt to get him to talk.[3] West admittedly fired a pistol near the policeman's head, threatened his life, and allowed his troops to physically assault the man.

West, who at the time was just short of having 20 years of service, was charged with violating articles 128 (assault) and 134 (general article) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. West was processed through an Article 32 hearing in November 2003, where he admitted wrongdoing, was fined $5,000 over two months for misconduct and assault. He then submitted his resignation, and was allowed to retire with full benefits in the summer of 2004.

At a hearing, West was asked by his defense attorney if he would do it again. "If it's about the lives of my men and their safety, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can," he said. Apparently not knowing West's gun was aimed into a barrel, Hamoodi cracked and gave information about the planned ambush on West's convoy, thwarting the attack. West said there were no further ambushes on U.S. forces in Taji until he was relieved of his leadership post on October 4. Hamoodi was detained for 45 days, then released without having been charged.

After West's resignation was brought to public attention the next fall, he received over two thousand letters and e-mails from the American public offering him moral support. In addition, a letter was drafted to the Secretary of the Army, its signatories being ninety-five members of Congress in West's support.

* * *

You can say whatever you want about what he did with that Iraqi prisoner and in the end you'll just be another armchair quarterback; Alan West was in the heat of battle and while Mock executions are specifically forbidden under the Law of Land Warfare, what he did produced actionable results. My take on it is that I am sure this was not a mock execution - this was the intro to a REAL execution, which of course would have been murder. More to the point, Lt. Col. West was forthright and willing to face the consequences of his actions. - Sean Linnane

STORMBRINGER fully endorses Lt. Col. Alan West for Congress. We need more vets like him in Washington.

Click HERE if you wish to support Lt. Col. West's run for Congress.

FINALLY SOMEBODY OUT THERE GETS IT

COMBAT's POSITIVE EFFECTS EXAMINED


Army Sgt. Dustin Waggoner, left, and Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Frikken work on the rifle range in Forward Operating Base Airborne in Afghanistan. Frikken says his tours have changed him for the better. Photograph by Sgt. Teddy Wade, U.S. Army


By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

WARDAK, Afghanistan — Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Frikken says three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan have robbed him of precious time with his family, but have also changed him — in some ways for the better.

A sense of personal strength, appreciation for life and love of family have all been enhanced, says Frikken, 39, who directs artillery fire for 10th Mountain Division troops fighting here. "I will never be the same person I was before my combat experiences," he says.

What happens to soldiers like Frikken has led Army leaders to develop a resiliency program that urges GIs to look inward and discover how combat may have made them emotionally stronger.

Research appears to show that many people can emerge from traumatic experiences with greater self-confidence, a keener sense of compassion and appreciation for life, says Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, director of the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program. Cornum and other experts call this concept post-traumatic growth.

Although the military focuses attention on troops who develop mental health conditions in combat, Cornum says, the majority of war veterans do not suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other problems.

Read more HERE.

TO BETRAY, YOU MUST FIRST BELONG . . .

U.S.: EVIDENCE TIES LEAKS TO SOLDIER

Investigators found concrete evidence on computers used by PFC Bradley Manning that link him with the leak of classified Afghanistan war reports, a U.S. defense official said, The Wall Street Journal reported July 30. Defense officials said the FBI was investigating whether civilians aided Manning in providing the information to WikiLeaks.

Defense officials said Manning used his "Top Secret/SCI" clearance to
tap into documents around the world. A search of the computers yielded evidence he had downloaded the Afghanistan war logs, the defense official said.

Copyright 2010 STRATFOR




"To betray, you must first belong," is a US Army Counter-Intelligence (CI) Truism.

In this case, knucklehead here recruited himself, and he betrayed for no measureable purpose. That is, Brad Manning did not betray his country for money, nor did he betray for an ideology or cause.

He did it because he was a fame whore; he sought attention for himself.

Manning passed the video to Wikileaks in February. After April 5 when the video was released and made headlines Manning contacted 20-year-old Tyler Watkins - a close friend in Boston - from Iraq asking him about the reaction in the United States.

“He would message me, Are people talking about it? Are the media saying anything?”

This is a sign of where the popular culture is headed via all those stupid social networking sites and reality-based TV shows; a symptom of what I describe as the "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" Syndrome, after the term coined by Andy Warhol, back in the early 60s.

Bradley Manning will have a lot of time to contemplate what he did and why; now, and for the rest of his life - in between episodes where his fellow inmates pass him around and use him as their communal sock puppet, that is.

- Sean Linnane

.

AMERICA HAS ALWAYS HAD TRAITORS . . .

. . . in every war we've been in . . . THIS young punk is our Latest & Greatest . . .


BRADLEY MANNING - Self-Recruited American Traitor, and Douchebag.


SO I WENT TO WIKILEAKS . . . checked out the laundry list of sh*t waiting for me to open it:

The data is provided in HTML (web), CSV (comma-separated values) and SQL (database) formats, and was rendered into KML (Keyhole Markup Language) mapping data that can be used with Google Earth. Please note that the checksums will change.

* Complete dump of the website, HTML format 75 MB
o (SHA1: 80adb634a0d218bd0f9a0f22734e3d2e7e67acfc)
o This is a complete dump of the website at http://wardiary.wikileaks.org. Extract this to your local hard disk and open it with your web browser. Please check the project website http://wardiary.wikileaks.org for the most recent version.
* All entries, CSV format 15 MB
o (SHA1: d6b82f955a7beb9589f92e9487c74669d1912a34)
o Raw data in comma-separated value format for further processing.
* All entries, SQL format 16M MB
o (SHA1: 9463f73ebbcd3f95899a138d6ba9817e1b6b800d)
o Raw data in SQL format for further processing.
* All entries, KML format 16 MB
o (SHA1: 34562c0c7722522161e40330d80ac9082014845f)
o This archive contains all events in one KML file. This file needs much memory if opened with Google Earth.
* All NATO entries, KML format 209 kB
o (SHA1: 088ff8999a316f30e5e398021375fa3b4fc6349e)
o Contains the events that were tagged with NATO.
* Entries by month, KML format 16 MB
o (SHA1: 01a5c0639e1e1e844b10e962a44849b2a521d092)
o This archive provides the entries split by month. This makes it easier to browse the data in Google Earth on low power machines.
* Entries with scale filter, KML format 981 kB
o (SHA1: 4669c721b87775a44472f6688e768305c686beff)
o File that will show a scale corresponding to the number of incidents in Google Earth. Each incident begins with a 0.5 base score, and 0.1 has been added for each incident involving humans. This set of data provides only events that have a scaling of 1.5.


To decompress the files you will need . . .



*************************************************************************************


It occurred to me that if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then conversely the friend of my enemy is my enemy. This is bad, there is nothing good of this, and this will only help America's enemies . . . now is a good opportunity to remind the American public that the only crime worse than murder is . . . treason .

So Hey There Hero - I hope your fifteen minutes of fame were worth it - 'coz you know you're going to spend a LONG TIME in the Joint - and YOU KNOW they're going to pass you around like the communal hacky-sack . . .


. . . and OH YEAH I nearly forgot - the crew here at Blog STORMBRINGER wants to wish you aREAL SPECIAL Salutations ! ! !

PAT CONDELL ON GROUND ZERO MOSQUE

FLASHBACK: On May 25, Manhattan’s Community Board One voted 29-1 in favor of the mosque, called the Cordoba Initiative, to be built 600-feet from the North Tower’s foot print at Ground Zero.


". . . apparently it's not enough that nearly 3000 innocent people had to lose their lives in a hideous act of relgious mass murder, but now their memory has to be insulted as well"





The campaign against the construction of a six-story SuperMosque in the vicinity of Ground Zero is big, it is going on right now in New York City in the summer of 2010, and it is being completely ignored by the Left-Leaning Mainstream Media.

The struggle against this insult to our culture, our civilization, and to the lives of the nearly 2,976 victims is a major theme of Blog STORMBRINGER.





We forget so soon?








How can we ever forget?

RAID ON THE REACTOR

The story of the IAF's attack on the Iraqi Nuclear reactor near Baghdad in June 1981.

This is long, but this is well worth taking the time to watch . . . S.L.







I remember learning of this event; it was a grey winter's day In Melbourne - down by Flinders Street they had just installed this huge screen that portrayed the news, streaming in black and white almost digital squares - I looked up and saw a map of the Middle East, some lines indicating the route of the Israeli aircraft, and an atomic symbol near Baghdad and I thought, "Oh my God! They've dropped The Bomb on Baghdad!"

That was a couple years before I joined the U.S. Army . . . never did I imagine that I would end up spending so much of my life in that part of the world . . .


- STORMBRINGER SENDS


.

WORLD's STRANGEST MILITARY BASES

The World's 18 Strangest Military Bases

The world's hodgepodge of military bases run the gamut from hazardous mountaintop forts to seemingly impenetrable underground bunkers. Then there are bases on remote islands tracking objects in deep space and high-tech laboratories probing the most lethal microbes in existence. The design of a base needs to address the immediate needs of a military while still being versatile enough to remain useful as threats and technology evolve.



THULE AIR BASE
Qaasuitsup, Greenland

Thule Air Base sits within 800 miles of the Arctic Circle, making it the northernmost U.S. military installation. Among the many challenges posed by the region's climate is that the base's port is only accessible for three months each year, so major supplies need to be shipped during the summer. The base may be frozen and remote, but the 12th Space Warning Squadron operates an early warning system for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles from Thule, while the 21st Space Wing is in charge of space surveillance operations.





Dugway Proving Ground
Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah

Within two months of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set aside the first 127,000 acres of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah's Great Salt Lake Desert. Over the past 60 years, the site has expanded to nearly 800,000 acres, roughly the size of Rhode Island.





Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia BIOT, Chagos Archipelago

This joint U.S. and U.K. operation is situated on a tiny atoll about 1000 miles from India and tasked with providing logistical support to forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

How It's Unique: "There's a certain amount of logistical difficulty" with ultra-remote facilities like Diego Garcia, Schulz says, and shipping materials can be costly. Diego Garcia's remoteness, though, allows it to be a key hub for tracking satellites, and it is one of five monitoring stations for GPS. Additionally, the island is one of only a handful of locations equipped with a Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance system for tracking objects in deep space. As an atoll, the land itself is rather oddly shaped, too. From end to end, Diego Garcia is 34 miles long, but its total area is only 11 square miles.

I've actually been to this place - S.L.





HAARP Research Station
Gakona, Alaska

HAARP, or the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a collaborative project involving the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army and the University of Alaska. Researchers at the facility use a powerful high-frequency transmitter and an array of 180 antennas to temporarily disrupt the ionosphere in hopes of yielding potential communications and surveillance benefits.






Forward Logistics Base

Siachen Glacier, Kashmir

For more than 25 years, India and Pakistan have been battling for control of the nearly 50-mile-long Siachen Glacier. Both sides have set up military installations in the imposing Karakoram range, where 3-mile-high mountain peaks are the norm.





Cheyenne Mountain Complex

Cheyenne Mountain Complex Air Force Station, Colorado

This iconic underground base has been inspiring science fiction writers and awing engineers since 1966. Located nearly a half mile under a granite mountain, the labyrinthine facility is run by Air Force Space Command. The base earned its place in pop culture when the television version of Stargate made Cheyenne Mountain the HQ of cosmic time travel.





Devil's Tower Camp

Gibraltar

Certain geographic locations will never lose their strategic importance. Case in point: Gibraltar. British control of the territory dates back to 1713, when Spain ceded the land in the Treaty of Utrecht. Nowadays, the Royal Gibraltar Regiment watches over the territory from its Devil's Tower Camp headquarters.





Joint Defence Space Research Facility Pine Gap

Lingiari, Australia

Near the hot, desolate center of Australia, just outside of Alice Springs, is the Joint Defence Space Research Facility Pine Gap. Australia and the U.S. agreed to build the compound in 1966, but desert flooding, blistering heat and a lack of paved roads slowed initial construction efforts. The site officially opened in June 1970 and has been a joint U.S./Australian operation since.






U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

Fort Detrick, Maryland

Anthrax, Ebola virus, plague and monkeypox are just a few of the deadly microbes handled by researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, commonly known as USAMRIID. Over the years, the institute has made significant contributions to the development of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments that have both military and civilian applications.






Naval Air Station Jacksonville

Jacksonville, Florida

The new Hangar 511 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville is the largest hangar in the Navy's inventory, capable of storing 33 P3-C Orions, four C-130 Hercules and a helicopter unit. In the coming years, the hangar will be instrumental in housing the P-8 Poseidon and its 120-foot wingspan.






Raven Rock Mountain Complex

Adams Country, Pennsylvania

This notoriously cryptic facility is built under Raven Rock mountain near the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland. The site was birthed during the Cold War and goes by many names, including Site R and the underground Pentagon.






Temporary Deployable Accommodations

Iraq and Afghanistan

Temporary Deployable Accommodations, or TDAs, are the brainchild of global engineering firm KBR. These on-the-fly facilities can be large enough to host 600 troops and take less than a month to set up.






Edwards Air Force Base

Edwards, California

America's first jet, the Bell P-59, made its debut flight on Oct. 1, 1942 at Muroc Dry Lake, now known as Edwards Air Force Base. A mere six years later, at the same site, Chuck Yeager busted through the sound barrier in a Bell X-1, marking the first time an aircraft had traveled faster than the speed of sound. Today, Edwards is home to the Air Force Flight Test Center and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, both of which are molding the future of aviation.





Lajes Field

Azores, Portugal
Lajes Field, on the small, Portuguese-owned Terceira Island, is an important refueling station for aircraft that can't clear the Atlantic Ocean in a single shot. In 1953, the U.S. established its first presence on the island when it positioned the 1605th Air Base Wing at Lajes. Today, the 65th Air Base Wing is stationed at the facility, providing support to U.S. Air Forces in Europe and to a variety of allies.

I've been here, too - S.L.






Nellis Air Force Base

Nellis AFB, Nevada

Nellis Air Force Base is a revered training facility and the location of the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center. The base has been operational since the 1940s.






Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility

Anniston Army Depot, Alabama

The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency's Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility is one of six locations that stores chemical weapons. During the 1960s, 7 percent of U.S. chemical weapons were stashed at Anniston, including stockpiles of VX nerve-agent munitions.






Defence Training Estate Salisbury Plain

Wiltshire, England

The now defunct British War Office started snatching up land in this region of southern England back in 1897. Salisbury, location of the contentious Imber Live Firing Range, is still used regularly to put Royal Marines through the wringer.







Naval Submarine Base

Kings Bay, Georgia

Around 1980, the Navy began overhauling Kings Bay to be the East Coast location for Ohio-class nuclear submarines, a project that took nearly a decade and cost $1.3 billion, making it the largest peacetime construction project for the Navy at the time. Spread over 16,000 acres, about a quarter of which is protected wetlands, this submarine base is the habitat of 20 threatened or endangered species.


.

AZIMUTH CHECK

Members of TEAM STORMBRINGER send me inspirational stuff, and most of the time I post it. Lately I received some political, anti-Muslim material from a friend who is also a Brother. I won't re-print the entire thing here - elements of it were truthful but I feel the overall message was in the wrong direction - it included this passage:


"Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept 11th, 2001? If they weren't flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East . . .






Palestinian Arabs dancing in the streets upon hearing the news of the 9/11 attacks.



. . . No one can dispute the pictures shown from all parts of the Muslim world celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other cable news networks that day. Strangely, the very "moderate" Muslims who's asses you bent over backwards to kiss in Cairo , Egypt on June 4th were stone cold silent post 9-11. To many Americans, their silence has meant approval for the acts of that day."



Now, I don't like all the "Kumbaya-We-Are-the-World" tripe Obama spins, his "America-is-Bad-We-Have-So-Much-to-Apologize-For" World Tour, and all his bowing and scraping to foreign potentates, any more than the next conservative . . .


Current Occupier of the Oval Office is seen here bowing low to the king of Saudi Arabia.


BUT - we must try as hard as we can not to fall into the trap of letting this thing we're involved in become a religious war.

Because IF this war becomes a war against Islam, then we have just LOST. We will have lost because our embracing some kind of modern Crusade against Muslims will mean the other side will have just attained their goal: to turn all the Muslims against us.

Before the current occupiers of the Whitehouse began playing word games, this conflict was known as the Global War on Terrorism, or G-WOT. This was a misnomer; Terrorism is a tactic; we are not at war against "Terrorism" any more than we were at war against Blitzkrieg during World War II. What we are at war against is Islamic Fundamentalism. And while this is a war against Muslim Extremism, this does not equal a war against Islam itself.


THINK ABOUT IT:

We don't want to have to face down all the Muslims; there are simply too many of them. What we WANT to do is to turn all the GOOD Muslims against the BAD Muslims - as long as we achieve this, we are winning. And believe it or not - despite what the left-leaning Mainstream Media would have you believe - we ARE winning.



We are kicking ass against the Muslim terrorists in the Philippines . . .



. . . we are kicking ass against those who harbor the terrorist enemy in Afghanistan . . .



. . . Pakistan . . .



. . . and a thousand places elsewhere and in between!"



Hell! We're so awesome even our WOMEN are kicking ass in this thing!



These are my feelings as a strategist, regarding the religious aspect of this war. My personal spiritual belief is that the ultimate phase of this thing is when we start seeing all the good Muslims becoming Christians - and I believe this phenomenon is taking place - the numbers are difficult to track, but the conversions are happening in numbers large enough to be significant, none the less.

But for the same strategic reasoning that I feel we must resist the temptation to fall into a religious war, I am also against racial profiling.

I'm sure my detractors over at FrumForum will be amazed to learn this; I am constantly being accused of racism, of spreading racist, hate-filled themes here on Blog STORMBRINGER - although to date not a soul has been able to substantiate this; and despite articles I've posted at FF such as keeping the faith with our Muslim allies.

Racial profiling is a flawed tactic. Consider: when the enemy becomes aware we are selective in who we look at, who we search; then they will begin sending blond-haired, blue-eyed terrorists our way: Chechins, Bosnians, anybody? The day we stop searching little old ladies in tennis shoes, they will start send little old lady terrorists our way.

How do they recruit a little old lady to become a suicide bomber? Easy: they go to her house, put a gun to the head of her four-year-old granddaughter, and say, "We're going to kill your granddaughter, but before we do we're going to rape her in every hole - UNLESS you take THIS onto the plane . . ."



BOTTOM LINE:


Racial Profiling = BAD

Religious War = BAD

Maintaining the American Principles of Liberty, Justice and Freedom for All = GOOD



No matter how inconvenient . . .




The grave of U.S. Army Green Beret Ayman Taha, KIA Iraq.




HAVING SAID ALL THAT . . .

. . . I also believe that if someone were to back a semi-trailer loaded with live hogs up to the front doors of that new multi-story super mosque they're building downtown Manhattan right next to Ground Zero . . .


An architect's rendering of the proposed 13-story mosque going up on Park Place just two short blocks from Ground Zero.



. . . then release the swine and let them run hog-wild through the place; this would be a good step in the right direction and just about the most patriotic gesture I could think of.



Just a thought . . .



SEAN LINNANE SENDS



.

WHISTLEBLOWER BLOWS WHISTLE ON WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER

MYSPACE FACEBOOK GENERATION TRAITOR BUSTED


“If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?”


I dunno about you, but somehow the thought of betraying my oountry and causing potentially grave damage to National Security was never a temptation to me.


Army Specialist Bradley Manning, 22, is about to get a taste of reality.


Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks:



U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe



SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division.


Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians:





Manning came to the attention of the FBI and Army investigators after he contacted former hacker Adrian Lamo late last month over instant messenger and e-mail.

“I wouldn’t have done this if lives weren’t in danger,” says Lamo, former hacker Adrian Lamo, who contacted the FBI of Manning's activities. “He was in a war zone and basically trying to vacuum up as much classified information as he could, and just throwing it up into the air.”


Manning's Facebook photo



Manning passed the video to Wikileaks in February, he told Lamo. After April 5 when the video was released and made headlines Manning contacted 20-year-old Tyler Watkins - a close friend in Boston - from Iraq asking him about the reaction in the United States.

“He would message me, Are people talking about it?… Are the media saying anything?”


Self-gratification mindset; My Space, Facebook; it's all about me. Well, you got your Fifteen Minutes of Fame, kiddo - you happy now?

ANZAC DAY

Anzac, the landing 1915 by George Lambert, 1922 shows the landing at Anzac Cove, 25 April 1915


ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. ANZAC Day – 25 April – marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.

This day special to Australians -

In 1915 Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of an Allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula to open the way to the Black Sea for the allied navies. The plan was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire and an ally of Germany. They landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders.

What was planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915 the Allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships.


Over 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed in obscure, far-off places with strange sounding names: Suvla, Anzac Cove, Lone Pine. The Gallipoli Campaign made a profound impact on Australians; 25 April has become the day on which Australians remember the sacrifice of their honored war dead.





ANZAC Day 2010 marks the official one-year anniversary of Blog STORMBRINGER. The following is reprinted from last year's ANZAC Day post:



The Dardanelles / Gallipoli campaign of 1915 set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula to open the way to the Black Sea for the allied navies, via the straits of the Dardanelles. The plan was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire and an ally of Germany.

This was the Operation Enduring Freedom (Iraq War) of its day; what had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. But while Operation Enduring Freedom actually achieved its tactical objectives, Gallipoli was a tactical and strategic defeat for Allied forces.

As First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill was credited with developing the overall strategy; the campaign's failure led to Churchill’s demotion and contributed to the collapse of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's government.

On 15 November 1915 Churchill resigned from the government, and though remaining an MP, served for several months on the Western Front commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, under the rank of Colonel. This is the equivalent of a Bush Administration cabinet-level Secretary – or a serving Congressman - participating in a front-line capacity in the battles of Fallujah or Rumallah.

The campaign began in February 1915 with a series of naval actions in which aging British and French battleships attempted to force the straits. These actions proved disastrous after mines sank two British battleships.

Commonwealth & French forces landed at Gallipoli on 25 April against fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders. At the end of 1915 allied forces evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships.


A trench at Lone Pine after the battle, showing Australian and Turkish dead on the parapet


In all, the Gallipoli Campaign cost the Allies 141,113 killed and wounded and the Turks 195,000. Over 11,200 Australian and New Zealander soldiers were killed and approximately 23,700 were wounded in Gallipoli, of which some 2000+ were permanently maimed (as attested in the patriotic song ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’).

The Australian and New Zealand casualty figures represented a significant percentage of the overall military-age population:

• Approximately 40% of the available men of military age of Australia and New Zealand (about 10% of the total population of both countries) served in World War I.

• Of the total casualties 1914-1918, almost 15% of all Australians and New Zealanders killed in action (KIA) during the First World War died during a six-month time period in a very small place called Gallipoli.

By direct comparison to the current American men-of-military-age demographic, this would represent an approximate figure of 600,000-plus KIA across any single six-month period 2003 to present, in an area of operations less than 7 miles wide by 25 miles long. I have always maintained that “body count math” is a sick science that absorbs defeatists, but this ratio certainly puts our current engagements into a perspective that even the most cynical critic of the current conflict must appreciate.

References –

The Australian War Memorial website

New Zealand History Online




The memorial at ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli.


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