But there are all sorts of juicy tidbits in there — a calm confidence among the Taliban that victory is inevitable (which differs from the pansies at HNW who merely maintain that defeat is unthinkable), the well-supplied and luxurious life of the fighters, and is that a U.S. Army issue MOLLE pouch in the main photo?

Give it a read

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For some good news, Army Future Combat Systems is getting thinner and thinner, and we can only hope it soon will go away entirely.

The Future Combat Systems (FCS) is designed to make the Army lighter and more agile through an intricate web of manned and unmanned ground and aerial vehicles all linked together by a digital network.

This program has existed for so long and promised so much that is now hovers as some potential Olympian god with a penchant for smiting the unbelieving. But what remains a mystery is how a highly complex electronic network requiring extra gear, training and logistics will create a “lighter and more agile” Army.

If the Army wanted to become “lighter and more agile” I would advise them to jam a few people in with the Taliban (see above) and relearn light infantry tactics. Of course, the “lighter and more agile” Army is the secondary mission of the objective, the first being to make Boeing and Science Applications International Corp rich. Cashing in at $160 billion (not yet finished) it would seem it has been a thundering success in at least one arena.

Post from: The Ball Gunner

The international stink likely is going to bake in the sun for months to come. The cards are falling on predictable lines - the residents of the Arab nations don’t like Israel, which they see as an usurper. By default, the governments of the Arab nations have to appear not to like Israel or risk legitimacy. I expect a lot of noise and sabre rattling from Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey along with the impotent fist-pumping from Iran. Noise is likely all we’re going to get. None of the aforementioned military superpowers (har har) are going to risk going toe to toe with the already kicked up hornet’s nest. Lebanon, probably hoping none of those F-16s make a quick detour to Beirut, is keeping its trap mostly shut. Minus a few Hezbollahns.

The weird things about these battles is the real lack of a winner or loser. Israel can’t flatten Hamas outright from the air, much to the dissapointment of America’s far-right. Israel is firing up the reserve troops but they’d have to be flat out nuts to go marching into those slums - there’s nothing to accomplish short of shooting up a bunch of dirt farmers while getting shot up, yourself.

Man, these guys with nothing to live for sure do fight hard.

As for Hamas, they certainly can’t get rid of Israel by firing half-baked rockets across the border. Their best possible outcome, and a likely one, is to win the PR campaign. They can accomplish this by doing their best to keep people in Gaza to become red mist when the Israelis swoop down with the big bangs. After 60 years they surely realize that no one is about to swoop to the rescue and embroil themselves in the mess. Both Egypt and Lebanon are doing about everything they can to keep the gates up and the flood of refugees back. It must be an odd experience to be imprisoned in your own country.

The U.S. gets to do the usual balancing act. It can’t appear overtly pro-Israel without alienating the Arab world, specifically Iraq. On the other hand, the pro-Israel lobby will be looking for Uncle Sam to put some weight to the wheel (and for politicians to earn their campaign contributions.) What makes this round particularly interesting is the U.S. acting as the world’s great democratizer for the last seven years has to appear anti-Hamas without appearing anti-democratically elected-Hamas. The U.S. cannot afford the cynicism of past decades with so much policy still in the balance.

So what will be the grand finale of the recent flair up? Well……. any guesses?

Post from: The Ball Gunner

A nuclear-capable Iran armed with ICBMs could be only months away. Meanwhile Washington drifts, awaiting more compelling news to shake it from its lethargy.

Which is to say that invasion by men from mars “could be only months away,” or that a total shift in the human psyche that will see 90 pound nerds and Ball Gunners heralded as the epitome of men “could be only months away.”

The Iranian nuke program has become the ultimate Washington boogey man. Absent any evidence that Iran is working toward weaponized nukes, Washington has simply concoted their own. This is in addition to a missle program so hilarious that it became the butt of photoshop hilarity on Fark. Note a stellar success rate of the 75 percent in the released photo.

Now those Shahab-3s are rumored to be able to hit Israel, maybe, Allah willing, on a sunny spring day with no wind and all the planets in the solar system lined up. Being that Iran’s missile development now has pulled a few hairs ahead of the Third Reich’s 60 year-old V-2 rockets, the Times immediately jumps to the conclusion that Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are just “months” away. I’m sure the Times thinks that building a longer range missile is just a matter of strapping a bigger booster, maybe a series of boosters, or just some Wile E. Coyote type contraption with a catapult, a series of booster and an anvil.

I occasionally cringe when I wade into the past and read some of the editorials I wrote in college. But I’d have a hard time coming up with anything this bad. We really should expect more from our media than blatent scare mongering. There are some real things we should devote attention to in this world. It really doesn’t look like Iran’s nuclear program is one of them. But I’ll lend more credence to adults who believe in Santa Claus than adults who believe an Iranian ICBM is going to crest the horizon any moment now.

Post from: The Ball Gunner

The provided link is to an Agence France-Presse story. If you head to CNN, Fox News or MSNBC there isn’t the first lick about Iraq anywhere to be found. Presumably the stuff about reality TV shows and celebrity gossip trump major international policy, or at least they do here. If you go to the BBC Web site you at least can find something near the bottom.

This is all circumspect in modern age. “The surge worked” is the mantra and that’s that, why are we still talking about it? If you’ve got at least a functioning brain stem, which automatically excludes a good 90% of the nation, you can probably riddle out that saying “the surge worked” at this point is kind of like saying “the house is built” when the first shipment of lumber arrives. What happens in the next few days and weeks will be the first and only indication of whether we have cobbled together a workable system. If things sour then it will not only sound the last hurrah for U.S. policy in the region but will likely bury the Republican Party alive in the November election. The American public has been sold on the inevitable victory and has boxed up their belongings ready to move in. If we arrive to find our new reality built on a rotton structure the “awakening” here will be neither gentle nor pleasant. Needless to say, with a growing and souring campaign in Afghanistan the political will to recommit in Iraq is nonexistent.

The other possibility (and anything is possible on this cracked planet) is that the Awakening Councils will either be absorbed by the new government or reintegrate peacefully into society. This could either be a genuine transformation or an intentional effort to keep the lid on the pot for a bit longer. The nature of American politics is that if Iraq fell apart on Jan. 21 it will immediately be blamed on the guy still trying to work his crease into the executive chair. If the change is genuine and sparks a new era for Middle Eastern political processes then President George W. Bush will indeed laugh all the way to his best-selling memoirs.

I’m not in any way prepared to pick one limb on this gargantuan tree and stake my claim. There are simply too many possibilities and too many players and too many things that could go right or go wrong. But the apathy and ignorance of American citizens is truly appalling. Blaming the media is like blaming Wal-Mart for stocking shoddy stuff. Media outlets give people what they want; gossip, no news about yet another bailout attempt and pictures of Kim Kardashian’s gigantic butt. The fact is, denizens of the Republic either do not care or are enmeshed in the belief that all is well and there is nothing further to report.

For the dozen or so actually interested in the future of American policy in the Middle East, the next few days and weeks certainly will be worth watching.

Post from: The Ball Gunner

From the Army Times -
(Side note: Don’t let the name fool you, the Army Times Publishing Co. is owned by Gannett newspapers and has no official affiliation with the military.)

Army to buy thousands more Mk19s, M2s

By Kris Osborn - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 16, 2008 6:46:22 EDT

The Army is buying 4,600 Mk19 grenade launchers and 29,900 .50-caliber crew-served M2 machine guns, whose heavy-caliber rounds and high rate of fire have proven valuable in infantry counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, service officials said. (Service officials? Was it Colonels Larry, Curly and Moe?)

Such weapons help target small groups of insurgents on the run or blended in with the local populations.

“Normally with a 7.62mm, you have a lot more difficulty when you have an enemy going behind a cinder block wall,” said Richard Audette, Army deputy project manager for soldier weapons at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. “With a .50-caliber, you can take the wall out.”

I pretty much expect most journalists to not have a grasp of these things. But, really? We’ve obviously broached a new level of absurdity.

“Blended in with local populations?” The MK-19 shoots 40 milimeter grenades in either high explosive  and high-explosive dual purpose (when you want to either blow up or shred everything)  and the venerable M-2 (ma deuce for those who love her) was designed as a primarily anti-armor weapon. So as Gen. Petraeus departs our new counterinsurgency tactics will involve launching vollies of grenades into crowds or firing indiscriminately with a weapon created to take out light vehicles.

You see that hoss on the far left - that’s our darling. The one second from the right is 5.56 NATO, the bang-bang that comes out the end of the M-16s and M-4s. The round third from the left is 7.62 NATO used in the M-60, M-240 and the old timey M-14. Short of that cute little .22 (far right) and the bulldogish 7.62×39 of AK-47 fame (third from the right) none of these round would have any difficulty with a “cinderblock wall. ” If you need any further proof here’s some Bubba on YouTube popping a cinderblock with a dinky little 9mm highpower.

So what we’ve got here is some prime, grade A horse manure. Using a .50 machine gun or a 40mm automatic grenade launcher for counterinsurgency is not only stupid it’s sheer lunacy. Hosing down the joint when someone goes “behind a cinder block wall” is a good recipe for losing a counterinsurgency, because either of those weapon systems will surely “take the wall out” in addition to taking out the wall behind that one, and the one behind that and the one behind that. If it’s a 40mm grenade it will probably go through a few walls and then blow up. If this sounds like a good way to win hearts in minds in a crowded urban area then… well you probably belong in Army logistics.

Surely no one in the Army actually believes this. But they will merily feed it to the clueless wonks in the media who will regurgitate it for the rubes and most notably the rubes in Congress. Likely these systems are in dire need of replacement. The M-2 entered service in 1921 — no, that is not a typo — and during my days in green I was assigned a few that I would be willing to swear came from the original factory order. The MK-19 is an atrocious beast to clean and maintain under the best of conditions. Having lugged a weapon through the middle East sand let me assure you that is about as far removed from the best of conditions you are likely to find.

What the order comes down to is simply stuff wearing out and breaking and the request is being couched as needed for “counterinsurgency.” From one end, it is an innocuous justification for things they need. From the other end, and this is the slippery part, it is the manifestation of a trend to label anything and everything as counterinsurgency as a way to AVOID justification. The F-22? Need it for counterinsurgency! Future Combat Systems? Gotta have that for counterinsurgency! The USS Ronald Reagan? We’ve got all those insurgent carrier groups out there. You don’t want them winning, do you?

The entire selling point of the new counterinsurgency strategy was that it existed outside of the bureaucratic brontosaurus of the Pentagon. If it has been munched up already then the future is exceedingly doubtful.

Post from: The Ball Gunner