Iraqi detainees asking for a good waterboarding

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

This is just plain wrong as Drewzer pointed out in the comments.

BAGHDAD - It seems that the Brett Favre-Green Bay Packers saga is such a worldwide phenomenon that it's being used by detainees in American military camps.

According to a military official, detainees at a Wisconsin National Guard camp in Iraq are using Brett Favre as a manner of getting at the guard troops there.

"They know Favre by name," said First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen, who is from New Richmond, Wis. 

"One of the big words they know now is shenanigan.  They'll constantly talk about 'Favre shenanigans,' 'He's so good for the Vikings,' and 'The Packers have got to really feel bad about that one.'  "

According to Boehnen, it started when troops there started decorating their camp in Packers colors.....

Once the decoration job happened, detainees became curious.

"They obviously then started up the conversations, and started talking about Brett Favre.  They soon learned about Favre going to the Vikings, and things just started going downhill from there."

Boehnen said soccer is the main sport that detainees pay attention to there, so there's not exactly a Vikings fan club chapter in Iraq.

"They'll hear guards talking about it, and then they pick up a lot of stuff from that, too," said Boehnen. "They're very crafty.  They learn different stuff from different ways."

On an unrelated note, go check out my latest diplomatic initiative to make friends with more progressives. And be my friend and be dumb enough to tweet follow me. I crave validation.

Vote to help wounded vets

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

A note about a good cause you can help with a couple of clicks.

Friends:

 

Many of you may know of a friend of me and Court is author and Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell.  He is one of the hosts of the Outdoor Channel's Beretta's Wild and Raw.  They are competing in the Golden Moose Awards and if they win (with your vote) their show will continue and they will be able to take wounded vets out on many of their hunts featured on the show.

 

Please go to: http://www.outdoorchannel.com/GMARegister.aspx and register.  Then when you are able to vote, please vote for Beretta's Wild and Raw in each of the sections (the last section they are not an option so please choose whichever show you like)

 

Thank you in advance for taking the time to do this and please pass on to your friends.  Marcus asked for our support and I think its a great opportunity to help wounded veterans get into the wild and enjoy themselves.

 

Best,

 

Judy Mayka

Afghanistan Options and Decisions

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

There is a good piece today in the Washington Post by David Gerson about the soup sandwich that the decision-avoiding process about Afghanistan has become. He discusses the leaks from pro and con sides re. a troop increase and points out a major problem for achieving success if he does send more forces.

Military-civilian tensions are growing and have become reflected on the ground in Afghanistan. One key to the success of the surge in Iraq was the close cooperation of Gen. David Petraeus, in charge of military operations, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who led the civilian efforts. McChrystal and Eikenberry seem to have a different relationship.

That is putting it mildly, if I was Eikenberry I would keep an eye out for McChrystal's old buddies at JSOC and their black helicopters. If Obama decides to send more troops he should also fire Eikenberry. You cannot have the top civilian there in direct opposition to the strategy. I don't see any way for them to work together effectively, and Eikenberry was never a good choice in the first place. The President also needs to boot Richard Holbrooke from his role as chief agitator since he is no longer someone Karzai will tolerate. The administration tried to orchestrate a coup of sorts to remove Karzai or force him to share power w/ Abdullah. Both Eikenberry and Holbrooke were involved and now are tainted. Boot them and replace them with someone who knows the area, people and culture. Like maybe Zalmay Khalilzad.

Gerson continues

A dysfunctional process on Afghanistan has begun to narrow the range of good outcomes. The time and the options in Afghanistan are limited. "As an analogy," says David Kilcullen, an expert on counterinsurgency strategy, "you have a building on fire, and it's got a bunch of firemen inside. There are not enough firemen to put it out. You have to send in more or you have to leave. It is not appropriate to stand outside pontificating about not taking lightly the responsibility of sending firemen into harm's way. Either put in enough firemen to put the fire out or get out of the house."

That is precisely correct and half steps won't cut it. Make the call sir!

Afghanistan ideas

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

I spent some time yesterday talking with a senior editorial member of an influential conservative publication. We discussed a number of things including Afghanistan, and he had some interesting thoughts I wanted to put out into play.

First is that Obama will wait until after he gets the Nobel to make his announcement about a troop increase so he won't catch flak from his left for warmongering when he is accepting a "peace" prize. And also that he will make his first trip to A-stan around Xmas and after he announces some increase, he thought around 30K.

That pushes the announcement back past 10 December and makes a ton of sense when you consider that the politics seem to be driving this.

The second was an idea to marginalize the Pashtun tribes that support the Taliban by empowering the Tajiks. This makes sense as some of the only times of stability in Afghanistan have come when one group is able to suppress another and force them to play nice. The Tajiks make up 27% of the Afghan population and if you add in the Uzbeks and Hazara you have a Northern Alliance redux. Another interesting piece of that is that the leader of the Northern Alliance, until his assassination by al Qaeda just before 9/11, Ahmed Shah Masood has a son who is now 20 years old. There could be a nice Lion King Circle of Life effect if a new Lion of the Panjshir replaced the old one.

It has always made sense to train Afghan security forces to patrol areas where their own tribe lives, kind of a National Guard concept. It would not be an awful idea to try a little harder and spend more effort and energy among those who have been our allies in the past. Train up a formidable Northern Alliance based military to secure their own areas and then use it to pacify the Pashtuns. It would surely be ugly, but it would get us out of the fray, and it just might work. Hmmmmm.

Returned & Services League of Australia

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

I had the privilege of speaking at the monthly luncheon for the Returned & Services League of Australia yesterday at the Australian Embassy. The group has members who have served in a number of conflicts and I met some amazing people. Thanks again to B5 reader Mario for the invite. I shot this w/ my tiny cam again, I'm starting to like it.

Spiritual warfare for a wonderful man

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Boy I hate writing this, but it's what we do. A great friend of many of ours and a magnificent patriot can use our help. "Concrete Bob" Miller had a heart attack and is in the hospital. His wife called this afternoon and asked if we could keep him in our prayers. I am not much for praying, but God will hear from me. They put a stent in today, but it looks like they are going to do a multiple bypass operation because of some blockages on a couple of arteries.

I know you all will send some love his way. I have no doubt he will pull through and bring that big lip caterpillar to our next get together. That's him in the middle at the 9/12 march representing for Warrior Legacy Foundation. You get well brother, I'm looking forward to more of that BBQ sauce. His wife was a little worried he might be mad about her telling us about this. I say, let him get up off his butt and do something about it. See you soon Bob.

Maersk Alabama hit by pirates again

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

These clowns are amazing, but at least this time they caught some gunfire right away.

NAIROBI, Kenya – Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months, though private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.

I mean seriously guys, the Maersk Alabama again? I guess you can't blame them, there are too many shipping companies that still don't arm their boats. The noise device is a nice touch, but I think the gunfire is a much better deterrent. Dead papas don't hijack boats.

Lies, Damned lies....

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

and healthcare groups with an agenda, oh and BS stats to back it up.

A report from Agence France Presse indicates that the number of American veterans who died in 2008 because they didn't have healthcare, is 14 times higher than the military death toll in Afghanistan, for the entire year.

Why they are comparing these two disparate groups I have no earthly idea, well beyond the fact that it allows them to mention our war dead in pursuit of a political goal. Oh you want to know what that is.

Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, David Himmelstein, is also the co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, which co-authored the study.

Physicians for a National Health Program, certainly a non-partisan, trustworthy bunch eh?

He says in the AFP article that he favors a national health care program similar to those in Britain and Canada.

Well that's a shocker. There is no real science in this pile of garbage, just some cherry picking of unrelated piles of numbers. Our healthcare for veterans could surely use some work, but I don't want these maroons handling it.

Mrs. G again, you do read the Dawn Patrol right?

Contractors outnumber troops in Afghanistan

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

(h/t Dawn Patrol)

The ever vigilant and relentlessly under-informed Huff Po has pointed out the shocking statistic that the number of DoD contractors in Afghanistan outnumbers the uniformed forces. Holy sheep shit Batman, Halliburton and Blackwater gone wild!

Well, ummm not so fast. A look at the statistics that they cite does bear out the fact that by head count there are more contractors than troopies. But let's look at those numbers again, of the total 68,000 some contractors more than 51,000 of them are Afghan local nationals. The horror! Wicked DoD and those rapacious defense companies are giving tens of thousands of Afghans good jobs at decent wages, how dare they? That will never help us convince them that we have their best interests at heart. I bet they even give some contracts to local companies in a blatant attempt to corrupt them.

I demand Congressional investigations.

Brits to start renting Taliban

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

The saying goes "You can rent an Afghan, but you can't buy him". It looks like the British Army is going to accept that conventional wisdom and see about leasing some Talibs to keep them out of the fray. Now while it is easy to crack jokes about Brits wandering the battlefield with satchels of gold, there is some logic to this strategy and it does mirror the US Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds and if used well can provide alternatives to serving with the Taliban to young men with no business propositions.

Addressing the issue of paying off the locals, the new manual states that army commanders should give away enough money to dissuade them from joining the enemy. The Taleban is known to pay about $10 (£5.95) a day to recruit local fighters.

Major-General Paul Newton said: “The best weapons to counter insurgents don’t shoot. In other words, use bags of gold in the short term to change the security dynamics. But you don’t just chuck gold at them, this has to be done wisely.”....

The manual says that money can be the answer, if it is prudently distributed. “Properly spent within a context of longer-term planning, money offers a cost-effective means for pulling community support away from the insurgents and provides the military with a much-needed economy of force

measure,” it says. “Unemployed and under-employed military-aged males typically provide the richest vein from which insurgents recruit ‘foot soldiers’. Short-term, labour-intensive projects are therefore the best way to disrupt such recruiting.”

“The counter-insurgent should be careful not to be over-generous since this will distort local economic and social activity and may lead to unproductive dependency.”

So in the end you can rent them to deny them to the Taliban as foot soldiers, but you have to have some kind of longer term plan or they will just go back to them when the lease is up. Again this is not an unheard of policy and the tribes have a long history of alliances of convenience based on payoffs. But in the end there must be a follow on program that incents them to stay out of the insurgent business, or you will just have kicked the can down the trail a bit.

Lunch at the Australian Embassy

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Apparently our friends from down under have sinned in an earlier life and must listen to me run my mouth during lunch this Thursday  in DC. Thanks to B5 reader Mario for the invite. Dress is business attire.

Monthly Meeting

When - Thursday November 19.

     Noon to 2:00 pm

Where –Amenities room
Embassy of Australia,
1601 Massachusetts, Ave.,
Washington, DC 20036

Speaker: Master Sergeant Jim Hanson, USA Rtd. 

Topic:    Milbloging - its origins and impact. 

Milbloging?  “Some of the best sources of information on the war are from the people actually fighting it--and their blogs”

Background:  Retired Special Operations Master Sergeant, Jim Hanson ("Uncle Jimbo") is now focused on writing about the military, politics, intelligence operations and foreign policy. He Blogs at BLACKFIVE                          [http://www.blackfive.net/main/ ]
Lunch: $15.00, including sodas. Alcoholic beverages, $2.00 each.

Guests must have a valid ID such as a driver’s license or military ID.

R.S.V.P. by noon on
November 18, 2009 to David Ward on 202-352-8550 or via e-mail at dmpward@wwdb.org 

Volunteers: As usual, we need a volunteer (or two) to run the bar.

Parking: There is no parking at the Embassy. There is public parking behind and under the Airline Pilots Association at a cost of $15.00 for two hours.

Overthinking Afghanistan

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

(h/t Greyhawk)

Bob Woodward was doing his Washington insider thing on ABC this weekend and dropped a very telling piece of info that could explain President Obama's grotesque inability to make a decision about Afghanistan.

This morning on the Roundtable, legendary investigative journalist Bob Woodward provided his unique insight into the complexity of President Obama’s decision-making process on Afghanistan. 

Woodward said he’s working on a book on topic and revealed that the President has no fewer than 32 issues on the table that need answers before he can decide how to go forward on Afghanistan.

That is not a complex decision-making process, that is paralysis by analysis. The problem with smart guys like our President is that they think that if they apply their massive intellect to any problem they will eventually come up with the ideal solution. Sorry, but that just isn't so and definitely not in war.

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.

George S. Patton

That was just on the strategic merits, Obama is also calculating the political fall out and that is making this even worse. There are not 32 issues surrounding Afghanistan that need to be answered there is one. is Afghanistan important enough to risk US lives for? If yes, then you give McChrystal what he needs to succeed, if not then you pack up and leave. Make the call sir!

Doing radio w/ Gordon Liddy

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

I guested on the G-Man's show and forgot to post a link to the audio. We talk Afghanistan and Ft. Hood for a goodly bit.

Perfect Fall day in Del Ray

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Oh my was today gorgeous. I took an extended walk around in my Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, VA. It's a trendy, kinda place with bistros and funky shops with funky names. Man I love the Fall.

HD Camera shrinkage

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

I have been making videos for a while now and am constantly amazed at the progression of the technology. Here are three HD cameras in the order I got them.

Canon AH-X1- $3500

A pro quality rig with all the bells and whistles. JD Johannes was jealous when he saw it. 

 

Canon HF-100- $700

Still shoots full 1080i HD and records onto a flash card so no tapes needed. I can't see any difference in video quality from the pro rig. Also has an external mic jack so I get excellent sound.

 

Canon Powershot SD 780- $170

The latest toy. Records 720p HD and looks pretty darn good. No mic jack so the sound is less than stellar, but I can carry it everywhere. And it shoots 12 megapixel stills.

Here is a link to a video I shot with it posted over at Ace's place as it is kinda mean to our Narcissist in Chief.