This is an email that was forwarded to me from a former colleague and came from a retired Marine Master Sergeant who works for Boeing flying drones in Afghanistan.
More evidence of the need to clean house in DC November 2016!
Hope all is well. Just thought I would send an email regarding a recent visit by Secretary of Defense Ash Carrter. Three days ago Ash Carter visited OB Fenty, here in JBad to speak with another General regarding the threat of ISIS, that is at our doors. Security measures were put in place.......no local civilian support allowed on base for the day. No problem. The problem starts when the all personnel were told the chow hall would be closed and no alternate meals served for lunch; not even an MRE. Mind you, all we have here is a Green Beans Coffee House. Sure, everyone could skip a meal, but, to shut it down so Ash Carter and his wife could enjoy a meal? The flight line was secured, no landing or recoveries during his time on ground. Most walkways secured to foot traffic, the gym closed. Pretty much all activity halted for his visit.
I spoke with two Apache pilots who were providing base overwatch during his visit, and they told me they were not to be closer than 5 miles to the base. The pilots said, they could not provide proper visual to the surroundings of the base at that distance, but, were told that there was to be no aircraft noise during his visit. Really? A combat zone and a military airfield, with no noise or activity? Ha... To top it off, the thing that really disappoints me and pisses me off the most, is the fact that the active duty military personnel and contractors were told to remove their mags from their weapons. According to the Army Officers I spoke with, they said they were supposed to leave them in their quarters. If the Secretary of Defense can be in charge of the countries defense, come and speak of the impending threat of ISIS that is in our Province of Nargahar, yet not allow service men and women carry their weapons for protection, maybe he shouldn't be in the position he is in. A true leader of men, would let them carry the tools of their trade without fear that one of them would harm him. (by the way....he did have his own protection detail). It is a slap in the face to disrespect the professionalism of the military and contractors, who, daily, risk their lives being forward deployed in a combat zone, supporting U.S. policies. If they don't trust them here, it's no wonder they don't trust alot of Veterans with weapons in the States.
Stars and Stripes Newspaper had two articles regarding his visit in which, both articles state how many personnel are on this base.....a violation of OpSec! Thanks Ash Carter and Stars and Stripes!! You have just made us more vulnerable to attack.
#5
It's cause they really don't trust you. By their actions, even after seven years of political purges and dictates, they believe they haven't made the 'dog' reliable enough. They fear you. In their own world of Freudian projection, they know what they would have already done if they were you. They also somewhat grasp, that outside their own little group of 'haters of those who serve', the majority of Americans still love their sons and daughters in uniform far more than they just like those pulling the strings in the Beltway. They suspect who the bulk of the populous would back if push came to shove.
Retired military tries out his new act at the Puffington Host.
There is no shortage of bad news from Afghanistan over the past several months. The brief occupation of Kunduz, a small city in northern Afghanistan, started a cycle of negative events: the accidental bombing by allied forces of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz; a series of car bombs in the capital, Kabul; a revived Taliban campaign to retake portions of southern Afghanistan; a deputy district governor of Sangin district in Helmand province taking to Facebook to alert President Ashraf Ghani of the danger in the south. As I understand it, the Taliban now control Helmand and are advancing in other provinces as well.
As Oprah would say, how do you feel about Afghanistan today? Most would say pretty discouraged. But let's take a deep breath and put a couple of things in perspective. If your central strategy is to impose Peace and Love in Afghanistan, I'd say we are witnesses to folly, rather than being discouraged. Continued on Page 49
[TODAYSZAMAN] In addition to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaeda coming together, as I argued in my last column, making things worse for Western interests is the convergence taking place between the Moslem Brüderbund (MB) in Egypt and al-Qaeda. Since the July 2013 military coup, the dynamics in Egypt have been characterized by the return of the old autocratic regime with a vengeance. Egypt is now becoming even more autocratic than under former strongman Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... . By declaring the Moslem Brüderbund a terrorist organization, the regime of new strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has put an end to what could have been a healthy process of the demystification of political Islam.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/24/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#4
First, the West is losing the moderate Islamists as they are converging with the forces of Evil in their resentment and anger towards America and Europe.
One cannot 'lose' what one never had in the first place.
#5
Moderate Islamist? Sounds like "white Hispanic"
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
12/24/2015 9:44 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Egypt under the military and Nasser was faced with the same 'crisis' in 1956. Then they crushed the Muslim Brotherhood, and it was not allowed to breathe until Sadat, a lapsed brother, came to power. Under Mubarak the Brotherhood was allowed to regain strength as a political qua social movement. Sisi (and the military) will not make that mistake again. And Egypt will get along with a rais as head of state, just as it has for 4,000 years.
#7
When the Muslim Brotherhood was crushed in Egypt in the 50s and 60s Sayyid Qtub sought martyrdom, was imprisoned and wrote the book "Milestones" which is thought to be a foundation of the modern Salafist movement that birthed AQ and ISIS. The MB is the father of its AQ and ISIS children.
#8
Instead of staging a coup, the Egyptian army should have forced the government to call early elections. This would have been a much better alternative because the people would have ousted the Moslem Brüderbund in a democratic way, and Islamists would have had only themselves to blame.
If the MB would have agreed to elections and if the elections were clean and if the MB would have agreed to abide by the vote and if an Islamic party more extreme than the MB didn't win the vote...
Methinks Mr. Taspinir has also conveniently forgotten Erdogan's remark about democracy being like a bus.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
