BlackFive

I did my weekly stint on Frank Gaffney's show yesterday and we talked about the upcoming offensive in Kandahar and how the previous iteration in Marjah went and also the acquittals of the two SEALs and the last trial to come for Matthew McCabe.

Audio of the segment is here.

Here is a transcript of my opening rant from the last time I guest hosted the show. Man I need to get me some interns too.

I want to start off today with a step outside my normal lane. I tend to stick with the military, but I got some thoughts about Barak Obama and this administration’s foreign policy that are driving me crazy. And I figured if I’m going crazy, that you guys ought to as well.

I guess the feeling that I have is that President Obama and his foreign policy team have taken the approach that our allies are our enemies and our enemies are our allies. They’ve pretty much flipped everything that has happened since the second world war on its head and I’m concerned about the long term relationships we’ve had with some of our best friends. I am going to diagnose it as “perpetual grad student syndrome”. What I mean by that is, you all have probably seen the picture of President Obama back in Occidental College days where he’s got that ridiculous hat on and he’s smoking either a joint or a cigarette, I don’t know which. Seems to be shooting the breeze with his buddies, all the smart kids fixing the world’s problems. You know they’d stay up all night smoking and drinking and wake up the next morning with a wicked hangover trying to remember what their cunning plan for world peace was. And all of a sudden, the idea that they were going to take the skinheads bowling doesn’t really seem like the brightest thing in the world to have done and they can’t remember why things were so crystal clear the night before. And in the bright light of day they don’t have a clue. They don’t even know what color the clue bag is.

Thanks goodness we can abandon the chart Crush has displayed below.  The "experts" have come to the rescue again and have finally delivered the definitive way to defeat al Qaeda - and the Taliban, I assume.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold:

Satire and ridicule can help win the fight against Al-Qaeda by stripping it of its glamour and mystique, a team of researchers argue in a report released in London and in comments to AFP.

Beating the Islamist movement is as much about winning the battle of ideas and undermining Al-Qaeda's counter-culture cachet as it is about conventional anti-terrorism operations, said the report.

"Terrorism must be defeated through the deliberate 'toxification' of the al-Qaeda brand; not by making it seem dangerous, but by exposing it as dumb," Jamie Bartlett, one of the report's authors, told AFP.

"Al-Qaeda has to be ridiculed as the equivalent of a middle-aged dad at a school disco: enthusiastic, incompetent and excruciatingly uncool."

It's nice to see our experts are so cool and up-to-date - school "disco"?

That aside imagine - Uncle J could be our new secret weapon.  We could deploy a Sarcasm corps.  A Ridicule regiment.  The mind boggles.

So put aside those slides Power Point Rangers - we don't need any overly complicated fancy-smancy charts.  Embrace "toxification".  Ridicule and sarcasm are sure to cause us to win the "battle of ideas" and will certainly turn al Qaeda into a shrinking band of uncool "middle-aged dads at the school disco" in the eyes of the fanatics. 

Yes, thank goodness for the experts.  Without them, its a wonder we survive at all.

Why do I not believe that our current strategy in Afghanistan is going to work? Check out this extraordinarily complex slide showing the military's strategy for Afghanistan:

According to one of his advisers, General Stanley McChrystal said "When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war."

Yeah... it's times like these that I ask myself: "what would Patton do?"

Given the technology, I doubt Patton would EVER give a power point presentation. But if he did, it would likely have only one slide, which would say: "Use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time." Which do you think would be more successful?

Perhaps Gens. Petraeus, McChrystal, and their superiors should refer to Rule #7 of Richard Marcinko's Ten Commandments of SpecWar: "Thou shalt Keep it Simple, Stupid."

Nancy Pelosi said this about why the US Navy should name a ship after the late Congressman John Murtha.

Murtha — “our dear Jack,” as Pelosi referred to him — deserved the honor as a tireless advocate for troops generally and Marines in particular, she said, and she recalled admiring his rapport with them.

What a bunch of B.S. that remark is...

Cassy Fiano has a lot more about the subject. 

Another military blogger said in passing, "What's next, renaming the the sniper rifle the "Lee Harvey"."

Why not name it the USS Lewis B. Puller, USS Rafael Peralta, or the USS Ripley?

In the comments, give us your nick-names for the USS Murtha that the US Marines will surely use...  Cassy already called it the USS Fat Bastard.  

Related:

To Sink the Murtha

Uncle J vs. Murtha in Politico

Are You F'ing Serious (Murtha get distinguished Navy Award)

General Pace Tells Rep. Murtha to Shut His Cakehole

The Zarqawi Operation - Murtha-Style

Murtha Jumps the Shark (with an appearance from Osama bin Laden)

Photo of the Day: U.S. soldiers marching through streets of Britain enroute to their landing craft for the invasion of Europe

US-born cleric Awlaki 'proud' to have taught al Qaeda operatives

Hundreds of Somali troops trained with millions of U.S. tax dollars have deserted because they are not being paid their $100 monthly wage, and some have even joined the al-Qaida-linked militants they are supposed to be fighting.

Bipartisan House members demand armed National Guard troops at border

Supreme Court says Congressionally-approved war memorial's cross can stay

SEAL 3 Update: SEALs attorneys say airport shut down after trial

Video: Trial for Navy SEAL still scheduled despite previous trials resulting in exoneration

Iran/Venezuela: Despite DoD report, the top U.S. Southern Command general says Iran has no military presence in Venezuela

The report said the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' elite Qods force had a growing Latin American presence, "particularly in Venezuela."

Republished with permission of the Victory Institute

Photo of the Day: 30 years ago – RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters from Operation Eagle Claw. More on the infamous operation here.

Afghanistan: Just how well does the “Look out, here we come” strategy (publicizing offensives weeks in advance) work in Afghanistan?

CIA ‘using smaller missiles against al-Qaeda to avoid civilian deaths’

Syrian Missile Crisis: Despite two UN resolutions calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, “Syria and Iran are providing Hezbollah with so many rockets that they are at a point where they have more missiles than most governments in the world.”

Trial delayed for jihadist recruiter shooting suspect

Controversy flares over ship named for Murtha

This Week in American Military History – from W. Thomas Smith, Jr.’s series at Human Events

Published with permission of the Victory Institute.

Our friend COL Maxwell has a piece at Small Wars Journal on the subject of why the Special Forces train for unconventional warfare (UW).  It's easy to understand the sensitivity of the question by reading the definition of UW:

"Activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary and guerrilla force in a denied area."

Why would we train for such a thing?  The short answer:  if you can carry out UW missions, you can do all the others.  Read why.

That's right, it's time to start making plans because the milblogs will be back at Blog World this year.  There will once again be free memberships to attend the milblog track and exhibit hall, and we are -- of course -- working on more.  I can't say anything about the panels yet, but we are working on some very special, and very different, panels and speakers. 

This is our chance to reach out to new and different audiences, find out more about what is going on and what is coming in both tech and application.  Start thinking about being a part of this, as we want to blow the doors off attendance and more. 

If you are a company or organization that would like to reach the cream of social and new media, then drop me a line.  In 2009, BlogWorld attendees had a combined monthly audience of more than 180 MILLION readers, viewers and listeners.  We anticipate that this reach will grow to more than 250 million readers, viewers, and listeners this year.  That is not the only exposure you can get, either. 

Yes, it's a tease, but one thing I can tell you that will be different from last year is that this year we have an official host/MC for the milblog track.  Who it is, well, that will just have to wait for now.  In fact, you may have to come out there to find out...

LW

Since the infamous "yellow pants incident" many have been questioning my ability to properly dress myself for high class events. Well aside from my momentary lapse into potential yuppie scumbagdom, I am quite capable of keeping some quality threads off the ground as evidenced by my attire today. And yes you can say it, I am a beautiful man. What do you mean you can't see me in the second pic next to Jeri Thompson, wife of the Fred?