WORLD BATTLEGROUND: 1000 YEARS OF WAR IN 5 MINUTES

This is from Theo's - I don't know where he got it but it is worthy . . .





All the important battles that took place over the last ten centuries. The sizes of the explosions and labels are proportional to the number of casualties. The music is "Ride Of The Valkyries" of course, by Richard Wagner.


Because of blog format constraints I can't make it bigger, but you can see the original You Tube clip HERE


Speaking of You Tube, THIS could really cramp my style . . . seems they want to make it a Federal crime to embed a YouTube video - if turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it . . . they're talking a five year jail sentence.



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WAR IN THE LAND OF CHOCOLATE - PART 2

My story continues . . . Part 1 is HERE - S.L.


Africa is tribal. I saw this in the Ivory Coast – le Cote d’Ivoire – when I was there as a military advisor in 1999. I would tell the Ivorian officer where & when I needed his men, or where to go to next; he would turn around and give a command and half the platoon would tighten up and look alert like proper soldiers. The other half would look down at the ground and shuffle their feet, a lot of attitude and body language. I figured it out real fast; half the platoon was his tribe, Ashanti, the “shuck-and-jive” crowd was of the other tribe; Twee, or Ibo.

On 24 December 1999 what started as a pay mutiny by these same disaffected troops morphed into a coup d’etat, and by 2002 had become a full-blown civil war. At that time my unit was sent in to get 2700+ Americans and other nationalities out of the rebel-held north. What we saw last week - French and UN helicopters firing missiles into the President’s residence in Abidjan - was the culmination of events that kicked off in 1999.




French helicopter attack sortie toward the Presidential Residence in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, April 2011.


The current set of circumstances Cote d’Ivoire relate directly to national elections held in October of last year. Despite losing the election, Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down, never mind the fact that his term in office expired five years ago; he simply refused to leave.

His opponent, Alassane Ouattara, has the support of world leaders, but not of Ivory Coast's military. And so associated himself with the rebel faction, which slowly but surely made its way toward the capital in an almost symbolic combat that claimed less than 500 lives.


Road to War:

In the years leading up to the coup of ’99, the government of President Bédié had drifted toward a xenophobic policy described as “Ivoirité”: the exclusion of immigrant workers from Mali and Burkina Faso, some of whom had been in the country for generations. Ouattara’s father’s side of the family is from Burkina Faso – a fact that confounded Ouattara’s earlier political activities - and so much of the exploited underclass was able to identify with him and the rebel forces that emerged since the civil war of ’02. Another complication in this conflict is the cultural fault line between Muslims in the north, and the Christian majority of the economically prosperous south.

In North America it is difficult to fully appreciate these kind of issues, of course, and all this past month the thing in Libya has eclipsed the situation in West Africa. Oil is important, despite the fact that we could straight up buy the oil from the Libyans if we wanted to – or anyone else - any day of the week, or we can drill for it ourselves. But Cote d’Ivoire has something unique that can’t be found in deserts, arctic regions or at the bottom of the ocean.




Carrying cocoa beans in the port of San Pedro, Ivory Coast; much of the 
nation's economy depends on the exports. (Jane Hahn / New York Times)


Cote d’Ivoire produces almost 50% of the world’s supply of cocoa beans, and the beans have been piling up in the warehouses. There is coffee there as well, and rubber plantations. The rebels say they are fighting for their national identity, but their cause was financed by the power of the beans.


Autumn Return

In September of 2002 my outfit got the word we were going down to the Ivory Coast to evacuate Americans. Normally for this sort of thing the phone rings in the dead of night, you roll over, “Honey, I’m going to be out of town for a couple of weeks.” She says, “Whatever,” and you get a little break from each other’s company.

This time “the balloon went up” at ten in the morning. We immediately went into mission prep, dragged our kit bags, drew our weapons and blew out of there – phone calls to mama-san were out of the question; OPSEC. My wife and kids – ALL the wives and kids – didn’t know where we were for the better part of two weeks.

We flew into Yamousoukro and established ourselves in the airport firehouse – a cement lean-to at the drainage end of the runway. The place was infested with mosquitos. I have lived and worked in the tropics most of my life and I have never seen mosquitos that bad; at one point I looked down at my exposed forearm and it looked like I had black fur. I wiped the insects away and my skin was dripping red with blood.




American Special Forces at Yamassoukro Airport, Cote d'Ivoire, September 2002.


The American refugees assembled at the International Christian Academy in Bouaké. The rebels were having a firefight with the Loyalists; the French Foreign Legion were pulling security in their LAVs (Light Armored Vehicles) and their gun jeeps. The Loyalists would fall back through the Legion’s lines, the Legion would open up on the rebels, the rebels would fall back and the Loyalists would advance; rinse and repeat.

The people we evacuated were mostly missionaries who’d lived there for years. They left everything behind; they were allowed one bag each. We rolled up there in our “GunVees” (modified HumVees bristling with belt-fed weapons), pulled security while the Americans loaded up in school buses, then escorted them back to the airport at Yamoussoukro.





American refugees escorted by American Special Forces, Ivory Coast, September 2002.



(That's me you can see through the windshield of the bus.)


The scene at the airport was equally sad; I saw a Frenchman roll up in his Renault, hop out and say to an African standing nearby, “You want a car?” Then he simply handed over the keys.

At one point I was interviewed by an American intelligence officer. “You’ve been here before? You trained the rebels?”

“That’s right.” I told him about our activities in Akuedo, in 1999.

He asked me what kind of troops they were, their capabilities. I told him that if ever you come under fire from them, the safest place to be is right out in the middle of the road.

“HUH?”

“They can’t hit the broad side of a barn, from the inside.”

He opened up a laptop and showed me photographs of the rebels taken in Bouaké and Korhogo. “Do you recognize any of these guys?”

“Well, they all look the same, but yes I do. That guy’s name is Valere.”

“YOU KNOW HIS NAME?”

“We used to drink beer and play cards together.”




Valere


“What about this guy?”

“That’s Ironman.”

Like all military operations, there was a lot of “hurry-up-and-wait”. I spent an afternoon in an air-conditioned van with an older American gentleman and his wife. She had a strange accent I couldn’t quite put a finger one. To fight boredom I started impersonating the French officers – in French; the wife was going into hysterics, ringing out peals of laughter. Turned out she was Québécois, which explained a lot of things, and he was the “OGA” station chief, which explained even more.

Later, after we returned to Stuttgart, I learned from an Ivoirian I’d stayed in touch with that my buddy Valere was indeed with the rebel forces. It turned out he was killed in action - in Bouaké, the day of the evacuation.


Epilogue:

In February of 2003 I attended a briefing at Special Operations Command, Europe (SOCEUR), in Stuttgart. The officer opened the briefing with, “It’s coup season again down in Africa.” A small team was put on alert to go down to “CDI”, to perform reconnaissance tasks, prepare assembly areas for an evacuation, etcetera. We were told to pack our bags and be ready to launch; the specific guidance was: “Be within one hour of sobriety.”

While waiting for the balloon to go up, my journalist brother emailed me that he would be passing through Frankfurt, headed for an embed slot with the 3d Infantry Division for the then-anticipated invasion of Iraq - could we meet up?

At first I told him I couldn't make it – I was on a one hour string. Then it occurred to me that I was instrumental in my brother’s circumstances - in January I'd made a phone call that got him into the embed program – and if something terrible happened, I would never forgive myself, not seeing him when I had the chance. I had to go, so I called the officer over at SOCEUR. “Can you be back here within one hour?” Sure thing, I told him; normally it’s an hour and a half ride up there, but you can fly over those German autobahns. Never mind the fact there was about an inch of ice all over everything.

My brother and I linked up in the airport - he finagled his way through Customs to get out of the transit lounge. We had a good German breakfast of sausages and beer and joked about how it would be his last beer for a long time. Afterwards we strolled through the side of the airport which is like a giant shopping mall, and I pointed out the escalators to the S-bahn, the trains that go everywhere in Germany. It was still dark outside when my phone went off; all my brother heard was me saying, “Yes sir . . . uh-huh . . . yes sir . . . I’ll be there. I’m enroute.”

I looked up and my brother was grinning from ear to ear; he’d just seen me get THE PHONE CALL. We said our goodbyes and he went his way and I went mine. Two brothers, linking up in Europe, heading in two separate directions to two different wars, on two different continents. Much later my brother described the scene: “It was like being in London, 1942.”

My brother went to the Sandpile and took part in the Great and Glorious War on Terror; I parked my car in front of a gray, non-descript building in a military compound in Stuttgart, went inside and grabbed my kit bag, got on a C-130 and made my way back down to an obscure little war in Africa, in a country most people can’t even find on a map.


SEAN LINNANE SENDS









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WAR IN THE LAND OF CHOCOLATE

Source: CIA World Factbook


Cote d’Ivoire was in the news cycle this past week, a six month West African power struggle culminating with French and UN attack helicopters firing rockets on the Presidential Residence in Abidjan, economic capital of Ivory Coast, a West African nation of 21 million. But the war goes back further than the past six months; I was there for the beginning & early stages of that war, back in the late nineties / early ought-oughts.

It actually began as a military pay mutiny, at Camp Akuedo on the outskirts of Abidjan. I know this because I helped train the soldiers who became known as the rebels.




One of the guys we trained in peacekeeping duties, seen here as a part of the rebel force in Bouaké, Cote d'Ivoire.


We were there as a part of a U.S. State Department program – the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) – teaching peacekeeping skills to company-sized elements from five battalions of the Ivorian military. At the beginning of the program we issued new uniforms, equipment, boots, everything – to the soldiers, many of whom had arrived from their remote bases in uniforms that were rags falling off their bodies, their web gear was held together in places by threads.

At the end of our four-month training program, the soldiers once again appeared in their rags. “What happened?” I asked one of the troops. “Where are your new uniforms, the ones we gave you?”

“The officers, they took them all back, put them in the warehouse.” Good old Third World corruption; we give them foreign aid, the guys in charge rip it off and use it to line their pockets. Your tax dollars at work.




This guy's nom de guerre was Ironman, because of his great physical strength. I still have the heavy steel bracelet he gave me in 1999.


One of the Ivoirians asked me for some money so he could take the train back to his base up north. He was a brother paratrooper, so I shelled out ten bucks – probably a month’s pay for him. This was telling, because later that night, it was the pay thing that kicked off the whole mess.

Third World Armies are paid peanuts. Actually, if they were literally paid in peanuts they’d probably be better off than the puny salaries they make. That’s where things like UN peacekeeping duty come in; UN pay is worth triple what they make, and this is crucial because their retirement scheme is practically non-existent.

Well, President Henri Konan Bedie was on TV that night, giving a big speech about how great things were going. The trouble was, things weren’t going all that great, and hadn’t been in the twelve years since the great Houphouët-Boigny – founding father of Ivory Coast – had died. The troops clustered in the dirt-floored canteen were yelling at the screen, ”Oh YEAH? Well if things are going so good – WHERE’s OUR UN PAY???”

What happened next - after they got enough beer in them - was they went down to the arms room, busted in and secured the firing pins for their rifles (that’s how much their own officers trusted them). Then they rocked on down to the Minister of Defense’s residence – about five miles down the road – and made known their grievances.

The security element at the Minister of Defense’s place returned fire, so the mutineers pulled back and went over to the President’s residence. There was no return fire this time, so the troops took the place down, and the whole country with it.

This was in December of 1999; the wealthiest, most stable nation in West Africa had just experienced its first coup d’etat.


TO BE CONTINUED . . .


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S.L.


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IT's NOT WHERE YOU DIE, BUT FOR WHAT . . .

Consider the pathetic meaninglessness of our current military engagement over Libya.

Three of the world's mightiest military powers - countries with legitimate axes to grind against Moammar the Mad - instead quibbled and dithered for years - decades even - before the spectacle of a popular uprising being brutally crushed at last shamed us into doing something, anything . . . and even then we approach it half-heartedly.

It's not as if the self-proclaimed Modern-Day Hannibal hasn't given us enough reason already; the bombing of the LaBelle Disco and Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie were but his most visible crimes.



In December 1988, the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 was strewn across fields near Lockerbie, Scotland, after a Libyan-supplied bomb exploded on board killing 270 people.

Gaddafi is a legitimate sponsor of international terrorism, and he's a total nutjob on top of it all. ODDYSEY DAWN could also be known as "Operation Long Over-Due".

Our President had to be coerced into committing by an openly mutinous Secretary of State, and on Day Three of combat operations objectives anything resembling a plan, stated objectives, or an exit strategy have yet to be described.

And yet this miniscule engagement over the Gulf of Sidra is enough to fascinate the world, and to pull the media off a truly significant event; an earthquake and tsunami of epic, biblical proportions, and a subsequent nuclear accident involving six reactors.

And it is miniscule; we're going to crush this guy and blow his forces to smithereens - more than likely within the space of a fortnight. And yet the so-called "experts" in the media dish up comparison after comparison to Iraq & Afghanistan; as if huge land engagements involving hundreds of thousands of forces against countries that harbored legitimate physical threats against the people of the Free World can be compared to this maritime adventure. I say adventure for this is hardly a war.

Of course, by historic standards, Iraq itself was a microscopic war.

Consider - in the first eight years of Iraq, we lost as many people as we lost in a single day at Normandy.




By the same standards, Vietnam was a low-intensity conflict. Over the course of ten years we lost just under fifty thousand; we lost that many in three years in Korea, and in three days at Gettysburg.

This is the illusion of body count math, of course - to the single soldier who is killed, wounded, maimed or taken captive, what he is involved in is very real, very legitimate war - even if it only lasts for fifteen minutes.

Nowadays the sheer lethality of modern weapons preclude the requirement for clashes between huge armies a la Waterloo or the Somme; an Infantryman with a shoulder-fired weapon negates a 55-ton tank.




A shoulder-fired, man-portable anti-aircraft defense (MANPAD) missiles allowed a bunch of religious zealots of a 13th century society - the Mujahadeen - to defeat one of the largest, most powerful militaries in the world - the Soviet Union. While at the same time the amplifying effect of the modern media allows tiny symbolic conflicts - such as we are witnessing now - to gain great meaning.

Endless war? Yes, of course. Meaningful significance of these wars? Less and less. Consider this Libya thing - he's a tin horn dictator sitting on top of a huge puddle of oil. Yet nobody even pretends its about the oil - because it really isn't. For more than a decade we chose not to buy our oil from Gaddafi, at cost and sacrifice to ourselves. Now, we can buy from him or we can go through this unpleasant business, expend huge amounts of treasure (which we haven't got), shed the precious blood of our best and our brightest (for what? for whom?) to buy it from the next crowd who take over. We don't even know if we LIKE them or not - for all we know, they're WORSE than the current management - if such a thing is imaginable.

Let it be shown for the record: since that September morning in Tokyo Harbor 67 years ago, on the deck of the USS Missouri . . .




. . . there hasn't been a single day on this Earth without a war going on somewhere, not a single day of total, complete peace anywhere on Earth . . . the shooting never stopped.

- SEAN LINNANE SENDS



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100 ITEMS TO DISAPPEAR FIRST

1. Generators - Good ones cost dearly; diesel generators are the best - more run time per fuel volume. Fuel storage is risky; and a generator's noise attracts thieves.

2. Water Filters/Purifiers

3. Portable Toilets

4. Seasoned Firewood. Wood takes about 6 - 12 months to become dried, for home uses.

5. Lamp Oil, Wicks, Lamps (First Choice: Buy CLEAR oil. If scarce, stockpile ANY!)

6. Coleman Fuel. Impossible to stockpile too much.

7. Guns, Ammunition, Pepper Spray, Knives, Clubs, Bats & Slingshots.

8. Hand-can openers, & hand egg beaters, whisks.

9. Honey/Syrups/white, brown sugar

10. Rice - Beans - Wheat

11. Vegetable Oil (for cooking) Without it food burns/must be boiled etc.,)

12. Charcoal, Lighter Fluid (Will become scarce suddenly)

13. Water Containers (Urgent Item to obtain.) Any size. Small: HARD CLEAR PLASTIC ONLY - note - food grade if for drinking.

14. Mini Heater head (Propane) (Without this item, propane won't heat a room.)

15. Grain Grinder (Non-electric)

16. Propane Cylinders (Urgent: Definite shortages will occur.)

17. Survival Guide Book.

18. Mantles: Aladdin, Coleman, etc. (Without this item, longer-term lighting is difficult.)

19. Baby Supplies: Diapers / formula. ointments / aspirin, etc.

20. Washboards, Mop Bucket w/wringer (for Laundry)

21. Cookstoves (Propane, Coleman & Kerosene)

22. Vitamins

23. Propane Cylinder Handle-Holder (Urgent: Small canister use is dangerous without this item)

24. Feminine Hygiene / Haircare / Skin products.

25. Thermal underwear (Tops & Bottoms)







26. Bow saws, axes and hatchets, Wedges (also, honing oil)

27. Aluminum Foil Reg. & Heavy Duty (Great Cooking and Barter Item)

28. Gasoline Containers (Plastic & Metal)

29. Garbage Bags (Impossible To Have Too Many).

30. Toilet Paper, Kleenex, Paper Towels

31. Milk - Powdered & Condensed (Shake Liquid every 3 to 4 months)

32. Garden Seeds (Non-Hybrid) (A MUST)

33. Clothes pins/line/hangers (A MUST)

34. Coleman's Pump Repair Kit

35. Tuna Fish (in oil)

36. Fire Extinguishers (or a large box of Baking Soda in every room)

37. First aid kits

38. Batteries (all sizes . . . buy furthest-out for Expiration Dates)

39. Garlic, spices & vinegar, baking supplies

40. Big Dogs (and plenty of dog food)

41. Flour, yeast & salt

42. Matches. {"Strike Anywhere" preferred.) Boxed, wooden matches will go first

43. Writing paper / pads / pencils, solar calculators

44. Insulated ice chests (good for keeping items from freezing in Wintertime.)

45. Work boots, belts, Levis & durable shirts

46. Flashlights, chemical lightsticks ("chemlites"), Lanterns

47. Journals, Diaries & Scrapbooks (jot down ideas, feelings, experience; Historic Times)

48. Garbage cans Plastic (great for storage, water, transporting - if with wheels)

49. Men's Hygiene: Shampoo, Toothbrush & paste, Mouthwash & floss, nail clippers, etc

50. Cast iron cookware (sturdy, efficient)






51. Fishing supplies / tools

52. Mosquito coils / repellent, sprays / creams

53. Duct Tape

54. Tarps / stakes / twine / nails / rope / spikes

55. Candles

56. Laundry Detergent (liquid)

57. Backpacks, Duffel Bags

58. Garden tools & supplies

59. Scissors, fabrics & sewing supplies

60. Canned Fruits, Veggies, Soups, stews, etc.

61. Bleach (plain, NOT scented: 4 to 6% sodium hypochlorite)

62. Canning supplies (Jars / lids / wax)

63. Knives & Sharpening tools: files, stones, steel

64. Bicycle tires / tubes / pumps / chains, etc

65. Sleeping Bags & blankets / pillows / mats

66. Carbon Monoxide Alarm (battery powered)

67. Board Games, Cards, Dice

68. Rat poison, Mouse traps

69. Ant traps, cockroach killer & "roach motels"

70. Paper plates/cups/utensils (stock up, folks)

71. Baby wipes, oils, waterless & Antibacterial soap (saves a lot of water)

72. Rain gear, rubberized boots, etc.

73. Shaving supplies (razors & creams, talc, after shave)

74. Hand pumps & siphons (for water and for fuels)

75. Soy sauce, vinegar, bullions / gravy / soup base






76. Reading glasses

77. Chocolate / Cocoa / Tang / Punch (water enhancers)

78. "Survival-in-a-Can"

79. Woolen clothing, scarves / ear-muffs / mittens

80. Boy Scout Handbook

81. Window Insulation Kit

82. Graham crackers, saltines, pretzels, Trail mix / Jerky

83. Popcorn, Peanut Butter, Nuts

84. Socks, Underwear, T-shirts, etc. (extras)

85. Lumber (all types)

86. Wagons & carts (for transport to and from)

87. Cots & Inflatable mattress's

88. Gloves: Work / warming / gardening, etc.

89. Lantern Hangers

90. Screen Patches, glue, nails, screws,, nuts & bolts

91. Teas

92. Coffee

93. Cigarettes

94. Booze (for bribes, medicinal, etc,)

95. Paraffin wax

96. Glue, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, etc.

97. Chewing gum / candies

98. Atomizers (for cooling / bathing)

99. Hats & cotton neckerchiefs

100. Goats / chickens






From a Sarajevo War Survivor:

Experiencing horrible things that can happen in a war - death of parents and
friends, hunger and malnutrition, endless freezing cold, fear, sniper attacks.

Stockpiling helps. but you never no how long trouble will last, so locate near renewable food sources.

Living near a well with a manual pump is like being in Eden.

After awhile, even gold can lose its luster. But there is no luxury in war quite like toilet paper. Its surplus value is greater than gold's.

If you had to go without one utility, lose electricity - it's the easiest to do without.

Canned foods are awesome, especially if their contents are tasty without heating. One of the best things to stockpile is canned gravy - it makes a lot of the dry unappetizing things you find to eat in war somewhat edible. Only needs enough heat to "warm", not to cook. It's cheap too, especially if you buy it in bulk.

Bring some books - escapist ones like romance or mysteries become more valuable as the war continues. Sure, it's great to have a lot of survival guides, but you'll figure most of that out on your own anyway - trust me, you'll have a lot of time on your hands.

The feeling that you're human can fade pretty fast. I can't tell you how many people I knew who would have traded a much needed meal for just a little bit of toothpaste, rouge, soap or cologne. Not much point in fighting if you have to lose your humanity. These things are morale-builders like nothing else.

Slow burning candles and matches, matches, matches






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P-47 THUNDERBOLT's - Actual WWII footage

The beautiful French and German countryside, juxtaposed with such wanton destruction . . . . viewing this amazing footage brings to mind Robert E. Lee's famous qoute:



"It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it."



STORMBRINGER SENDS



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A SUMMING UP

I took some time today to attend to personal errands; it seemed like the first time for a breather in at least three months - work has been INCREDIBLY busy and uniquely stressful . . .




The tempo of my work is very much like a military campaign - not a conventional battlefield by any means but no less a battlefield than any I've marched across in this or any of my previous lives . . . the little things are very important, the big things are very simple, a bit of drama here or there morphs into sheer MADNESS at the drop of a hat and THEN . . .




For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.





. . . if you've noticed a drop in the quality of posts over the past six weeks, now you know why . . .


At this time STORMBRINGER is a hobby of course; the main effort is my work. In my life I have had the fortune to have fallen into an occupation that IS a lifestyle - soldiering. There is a Zen-like aspect; Laborare est Orare - "To Work is to Pray" - motto of the Benedictine monks. The ultimate goal of Blog STORMBRINGER is to contribute to the ongoing struggle of Good against Evil; to explore the warrior ethos and my own personal philosophy; to defend & honor all that is good and decent of our culture from the daily assault of the destructive forces of leftism / nihilism / aetheism / Islamic-Fundamentalism / Marxist-socialism / fascism / terrorism, etc, etc.


In battle there often comes a lull in the tempo of fire; this is the time to take stock of the situation and use the opportunity to consolidate forces. So let us see; where are we in the current struggle of Good versus Evil?


2009:

o January 20 - Never mind the mystery of Barack Obama's origin, his very swearing in was fraught with controversy; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts recited the Oath of Office incorrectly. One constitutional scholar observed that "it's an open question whether [Obama is] president until he takes the proper oath." Chief Justice Roberts re‑administered the oath on the evening of January 21, 2009 in the Map Room of the White House. The Oath was administered as it appears in the Constitution, however no Bible was present during the retake of the inauguration, which gives raises eyebrows . . .





o January 22 - President Obama signs an Executive Order announcing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year and signs a prohibition on using torture and other illegal coercive techniques, such as waterboarding, during interrogations and detentions. Over eighteen months later Guantanamo Bay is still open for business as a holding place for al Qaeda terrorists - in itself a good thing, but an scathing indicator of Obama's leadership abilities.

o March 2 - Secretary of State Clinton pledges US$900 million of humanitarian and development aid to terror group Hamas, the ruling political entity of Gaza Strip and the West Bank, at a donor conference in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt.




o March 3 - 12 gunmen in Pakistan attack the national cricket team of Sri Lanka and their police escorts. Six policemen are killed in the attack, as well as two bystanders.

o March 13 - Department of Justice outlines a new legal standard for suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo; "enemy combatant" definition is dropped; suspects are now to be detained under international law.

o March 27 - Obama announces a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan; it takes him another six months to determine how many troops to send.

o April 1 - Sweden becomes the fifth European country to legalize same-sex marriage; other countries with the same rights are The Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Spain.

o April 5 - Obama gives a thoughtful speech on nuclear proliferation disarmament to a public crowd in Prague. Earlier, the North Korean government launched a long-range multi-stage rocket.

o April 12 - Richard Phillips, captured by pirates in the Maersk Alabama hijacking, is freed by Navy Seals after Obama approves military action. Body count math = 3X terr KIAs, 1X EPW.

Chalk one up for the Good Guys.

o April 16 - Justice Department releases memos detailing enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on Al Qaeda suspects.

o May 9 - Obama attends White House Correspondents' Dinner, featuring special guest comedian Wanda Sykes. Wanda exclaims "I hope Rush Limbaugh dies of kidney failure." Obama joins in laughter & applause.

o June 4 - President Barack Obama gives a speech in Cairo, Egypt, referencing the Qur'an and other Muslim texts to more than one thousand Cairo University students. During a subsequent worldwide apology tour to "repair the image of America around the world," Obama bows to the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emperor of Japan.




o July 30 - President Obama and Vice President Biden hold a "beer summit" at the White House with Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates and the arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department, in order compare the arrest of Gates in his Massachusetts home on July 16 to issue of race in America. Obama had earlier stated that the police department had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates.




o August 20 - Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, Libyan terrorist convicted of bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 killing 270 people) is freed from prison on compassionate grounds by Scotland's Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill.




Suffering from terminal prostate cancer and expected to die within three months, al-Megrahi experiences miracle recovery; one year later there is no sign of the disease. British Petroleum receives favorable drilling leases from the Libyan government.


o September 25 - At the G-20 Pittsburgh summit, Obama and the leaders of France and the UK make a public statement accusing Iran of constructing a secret nuclear facility near Qom.


o October 9 - The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to President Barack Obama for no discernable reason.

o October 23 - President Obama declares a national emergency in response to the H1N1 pandemic. Ten months later, the World Health Organization announces the official end of the H1N1 pandemic - nobody takes notice.




o October 29 - The caskets of eighteen American soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan are used as unwitting props in a photo op by President Obama at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.

o November 9 - Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu humiliated by Barack Obama; after failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu - no photo op.

Nidal Malik Hasan


o November 10 - President Barack Obama gives eulogy at the Fort Hood ceremony honoring those killed in the shooting rampage on November 5, 2009, by Major Nidal Malik Hasan. No mention of prominent Islamic themes in Hasan's writings; fundamentalism, terrorism, jihad, etc.

o December 5 - Italian jury convicts American student Amanda Knox of murdering her former roommate, Meredith Kercher in some kind of a weird sexual role-playing scenario gone horribly awry with Knox's then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, also convicted. This goes to show you where all those virtual reality video games will take you; the pair receive prison sentences of 26 and 25 years, respectively.

o December 25 - Northwest Airlines Flight 253 target of unsuccessful al-Qaeda bombing attempt on Christmas Day; 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to set off plastic explosives sewn to his underwear.


U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder decides to prosecute Abdulmutallab in federal court rather than detain him as an enemy combatant under the Law of War.

2010:

o January 3 - U.S., U.K. close their embassies in Yemen due to ongoing security threats from the terrorist group alQaeda. Military and intelligence organizations in Yemen warn of plans to attack Western groups in the capital; military action prevents the threatened attacks.




o January 12 - 7.0-Magnitude Earthquake Devastates Port-au-Prince, Haiti; region's worst earthquake in 200 years, levels many sections of the city, experts estimate a staggering death toll of 200,000 people. Nominally useless, U.N. exceeds its own gold-standard reputation of uselessness.

o February 2 - Defense Officials Seek End to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" following President Obama's State of the Union Declaration that he wants an end to the military policy "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which forbids openly gay men and women to serve in the military.

o February 18 - Plane crashes into office of the Internal Revenue Service in Austin, Texas, killing the pilot & one person in the building, thirteen others injured. Pilot Andrew Joseph Stack III was holding a grudge against the government and the tax system. Media blames Tea Party; Stack was in fact a registered Democrat.



o March 8 - Worthless war-porn movie that portrays professional soldiers as crazed adrenalin junkies wins big at Academy Awards; The Hurt Locker wins Oscars for Best Director, Best Picture. Hurt Locker's fictitious screenplay has no basis in fact.

o March 29 - Female Suicide Bombers Kill 39 in Russian Subway Stations; two female suicide bombers, acting just minutes apart, detonate bombs in two Moscow subways stations, killing at least 39 people.

o March 31 - Mr. Obama announces that he will approve oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia, ending a moratorium on drilling off the East Coast of the United States.

o April 5 - President Obama announces revised American nuclear strategy, limiting the instances in which the U.S. will use nuclear weapons.

o April 15 - President Obama outlines NASA's new mission: to "reach out" to the Muslim world, rather than deep space exploration or lunar exploration.




o April 20 - Oil rig explodes off coast of Lousiana, 11 killed, 17 injured. Criticizing BP's handling of the crisis, President Obama sends Justice Department officials to the region to explore litigation opportunities.

o April 23 - Obama strongly criticizes newly-passed Arizona SB1070 measure against illegal immigration, calling for federal immigration reform (i.e. amnesty).

o May 6 - New York City community board committee to approve plans to construct a thirteen-story supermosque adjacent to Ground Zero; organizers estimate that the mosque will attract as many as 2,000 worshipers on Fridays. Cordoba House is to be named after the medieval Spanish town where Muslims ruled over Jews and Christians for 500 years. Once a Burlington Coat Factory, 45-47 Park Place closed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks due to damage sustained by the landing gear from one of the planes used in the attacks.



Relatives of 9/11 victims, firefighters, police, veterans and citizenry across the nation rally against

o August 13 - At a Friday evening observation of breaking the Ramadan fast, President Barack Obama stated, "Muslims have the right to build the mosque near Ground Zero" In a later attempt to retrack, Obama stated that he was simply supporting the developers' right to build, ". . . in this country, we treat everybody equally in accordance with the law. Regardless of race. Regardless of religion. I was not commenting on and will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there."

The Ground Zero Mosque is now generally considered an outrageous affront to the memory of the victims who perished on 9/11; a potential al Qaeda Victory Monument right at Ground Zero.


The situation continues to develop . . .

SEAN LINNANE SENDS


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EEBEN BARLOW

Eeben Barlow founded the Private Military Company (PMC) Executive Outcomes (EO) in 1989. The company trained SADF Special Forces in intelligence skills. Operating primarily in Africa helping African governments that had been abandoned by the West, EO served such corporate clients as De Beers (diamonds) and Ranger Oil in Northern Angola. EO later operated in Sierra Leone against the rebel movement RUF in that country and assisted Indonesian Special Forces in the hostage-release operation in Irian Jaya in 1996.

EO also operated in South America and the Far East. Nowadays Eeben Barlow lectures to military colleges and universities on defense, intelligence and security issues.



Eeben Barlow is currently an independent consultant. Eeben Barlow's Military and Security Blog is a serious look at military and security matters.




From Eeben Barlow's blog:


STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF WAR


When a nation’s armed forces are committed to war, the war is fought at three distinct yet inter-related levels. These three levels are:

1. Strategic Level

2. Operational Level

3. Tactical Level


Warfare at the strategic level can be broken down into four distinctive types of strategic warfare. These four types are:


1. Offensive Warfare

2. Defensive Warfare

3. Attrition Warfare

4. Revolutionary Warfare.


Each type of Strategic Warfare can be further broken down into different sub-types of warfare. As an example, Offensive Warfare can be subdivided into either a Distant Strategic Offensive or a Close Strategic Offensive – the type being determined by the proximity of the offensive.

At the Operational Level, usually confined to a specific theatre of operations, the military strategy is accomplished by the setting of operational objectives, within that specific theatre, to meet the military strategy’s goals. Poor planning, non-compliance to doctrine and inadequate tactics can result in failure, thus impacting negatively on the overall military strategy.

The Tactical level is that level where the techniques to attain the strategy are implemented by various unit levels such as a division, a brigade, a company or even a section. It is, therefore, at the Tactical level that tactics come into play. The tactics employed will be dependent on numerous factors such as the phase of war, the enemy, the terrain, the weather, own forces capabilities, the local population and so forth.




Eeben Barlow's autobiography: Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds




Whereas the principle aim of war is to always achieve victory over the enemy, regardless of the type of warfare, the modern-day war can be viewed as having five main strategic goals:


1. To repulse an aggressive act by the enemy, contain and destroy it.

2. To invade, conquer and destroy an enemy.

3. To seize and exploit the resources of an enemy.

4. To energise foreign policy by means other than diplomacy.

5. To gain favourable public opinion and strengthen national resolve and will.


To achieve these strategic goals, the military will adopt a specific posture in order to accomplish its allocated mission. The posture will thus be determined by the perceived enemy threat and will therefore determine the military’s doctrine and tactics.

The tactics, in turn, are related to the specific phase of warfare that is being implemented. These phases - excluding the intermediate or transitional phases - are:


1. The advance

2. The attack

3. The withdrawal

4. The defence


Sound military strategies will lead to well-developed doctrines, good planning based on sound intelligence and correct application of tactics. It is, however, at the tactical level that the war can be either won or lost.


This is where I disagree - the United States was never defeated on the tactical level in Vietnam; there was never a decisive Communist victory against United States Forces on the battlefield.

Perhaps this was because while we were engaged in a distant, strategic war; the Viet Communists were fighting Revolutionary Warfare, and were willing to adopt attrition tactics to achieve their Strategic aims.

The American defeat in the Vietnam Conflict was STRATEGIC in nature, and it occurred at Berkeley, Kent State, Columbia, and a hundred other college campuses, where the few of the anti-war movement held the many of the entire country hostage - Sean Linnane



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STORMBRINGER AT THE MOVIES

"Cisco Kid Was a Friend of Mine . . ."



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