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

———————————————————————-

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

From the LA Times:

By Julian E. Barnes, Paul Richter and Christi Parsons
November 26, 2008

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to serve in President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet, advisors said Tuesday, setting up the unusual situation in which a wartime Pentagon chief remains to work under a president who has condemned the previous administration’s policies.

An official close to the Obama transition team said it was likely that Gates would be named Defense secretary when the president-elect begins to unveil his national security team in announcements expected next week.

A former government official who has advised the Obama transition said it was “99% certain” that Gates would remain as Defense secretary for about a year in the Obama administration.

<!–
//<![CDATA[
// Google AdSense Content Display Functionality
// This function displays the ad results.
// It must be defined above the script that calls show_ads.js
// to guarantee that it is defined when show_ads.js makes the call-back.

function google_ad_request_done(google_ads) {
// Proceed only if we have ads to display!

if (google_ads.length < 1 )
{
document.getElementById('inlinegoogleads').style.display='none';
return;
}

document.write('

');
document.write('
');
if (google_info.feedback_url) {
document.write('');
}
document.write('Ads by Google');
if (google_info.feedback_url) {
document.write('');
}
document.write("
");

// For text ads, display each ad in turn.
// In this example, each ad goes in a new row in the table.
if (google_ads[0].type == ‘text’) {
for(i = 0; i < google_ads.length; ++i) {
document.write(’
‘);
document.write(’‘ + google_ads[i].line1 + ‘‘);
document.write(’

‘);
document.write(google_ads[i].line2);
if (google_ads[i].line3 != null && google_ads[i].line3 != ”) {
document.write(’ ‘);
document.write(google_ads[i].line3);
}
document.write(’

‘);
document.write(’‘ + google_ads[i].visible_url + ‘‘);
document.write(’
‘);
}
}

// Finish up anything that needs finishing up
document.write(”

“);
}

// Google Adsense Configurations
google_ad_client = ‘ca-tribune_news3_html’;
google_ad_output = ‘js’;
google_max_num_ads = ‘3′;
google_ad_channel = ‘latimes_articles_inline’;
google_ad_type = ‘text’;
google_kw_type = ‘broad’;
google_color_line = ‘ff0000′;
google_safe = ‘high’;
google_feedback = ‘on’;
google_page_url = ‘http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-gates26-2008nov26,0,730242.story’;
// google_skip=’3′;
// google_last_modified_time = Date.parse(parent.document.lastModified) / 1000;
// google_referrer_url = document.referrer;
// –>

“Nothing is definitive,” said the former official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing transition plans. “But Gates did agree to stay on.”

Gates continuation is the likely final nail in the F-22 Raptor’s procurement coffin. Gates, who famously said, “We’re fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater,” is not going to give the Air Force the funding it wants for the program, nor is he likely to bow down to a Congress hoping to score political points by requiring their purchase. The chances for a procurement boom, already slim under a democratic presidency, are all but evaporated.

Part 2:

The Ball Gunner is pleased to hear that Al Qaeda has abandoned an area it never had:

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON — Pakistan has replaced Iraq as al Qaeda’s main focus, and the terror group has stepped up its efforts to destabilize the nuclear-armed South Asian nation, according to a senior U.S. military commander.

“Iraq is now a rear-guard action on the part of al Qaeda,” said Gen. James Conway, the head of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview. “They’ve changed their strategic focus not to Afghanistan but to Pakistan, because Pakistan is the closest place where you have the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons.”

Gen. Conway also offered a stark assessment of the Afghan situation, saying the Taliban has built a rudimentary command-and-control network that enables the group’s leadership to direct attacks across the country.

“They move troops around. They resupply. They provide money,” he said. “It’s effective and it’s real. It’s not just happenstance that these guys know where to go and what to do.”

It’s an uphill battle to beat these fires out. But as has been noted time and again, Al Qaeda in Iraq is hardly the enemy we so desperately want it to be.

The monger sect likes to claim these arguments are mere semantics, which demonstrates only that they wield a keen judo grip on ignorance. Iraq’s long history of secular government has made the majority of Iraqis particularly poorly suited for the Salafist Islam espoused by the Osama Bin Ladin (may demons eat his flesh) and the structure of Al Qaeda (may demons eat their flesh, too). We need to get this through our head; if we can’t identify who we are fighting we surely won’t be able to beat them.

Finally:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Post from: The Ball Gunner

Ah, George Bernard Shaw who gave us the immortal line: ”We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.”

If this mission falls apart, which it gives every indication of doing, history will be no kinder to us than it was

to the Soviets. Who, as the article points out, potentially lost their nation as a result of their failed Afghan conflict. The buck will be passed endlessly around the table. But at the end of the day, we have neglected to learn from two indisputable master of guerilla warfare in rural countries, Vo Nguyen Giap and Mao Tse Tung, who took their cues from the venerable Sun Tzu and his masterful Art of War. (Full text of article at link, however if you don’t own a full copy consider it your job of the day to remedy that at the local bookstore.)

“He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.
When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be dampened.
If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor dampened, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity.
Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue…
In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

Giap and Mao are both well entrenched theorists of the last century, and Sun Tzu is well dust by now. Given the speed of institutional change at the Pentagon I expect them to discover Sun Tzu any day now.

Post from: The Ball Gunner