Category: Military

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Richard Wright: Petraeus A Political Execution – Bad for CIA – Vickers (or O’Sullivan, of the Clapper harem)?

Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Military
Richard Wright

The story line that General Petraeus is being forced to resign because the FBI uncovered an affair he was having with his former biographer is classic Washington DC theater. The story is a way of removing the politically popular General Petraeus from CIA without raising a political uproar. The real question is why?

This is just guess work, but I think there is a convergence of reasons for the newly elected administration to ease the General out. I think the administration does not particularly like the general and especially dislikes his political clout with congress. Also General Petraeus may have approved of some CIA operations or positions that have exacerbated the Benghazi tragedy and the administration does not want him before congress talking about this under oath. Finally Michael Vickers has developed a reputation based on nothing of being an intelligence wiz kid, yet he is politically harmless.

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Marcus Aurelius: Superficial Cuts at Defense

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, DoD, Government, Military
Marcus Aurelius

There is a lot of waste in the defense budget, much of it inserted by Congress for pork reasons, but DoD is also used to mask many other non-Defense programs, not just intelligence but in energy, health, foreign aid, etcetera.  Breaking the bargain with military retirees on health care is both a major betrayal, and a window into an alternative, a national health care service that does not pay full price for pharmaceutical that rarely work.

Deficit Cutters Look To Pentagon Budget

By Donna Cassata, Associated Press

WASHINGTON–One war is done, another is winding down and the calls to cut the deficit are deafening. The military, a beneficiary of robust budgets for more than a decade, is coming to grips with a new reality — fewer dollars.

The election accelerated an already shifting political dynamic that next year will pair a second-term Democratic president searching for spending cuts with tea partyers and conservatives intent on preserving lower tax rates above all else, even if it means once unheard of reductions in defense.

President Barack Obama and Congress have just a few weeks to figure out how to avert the automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs totaling $110 billion next year. Those reductions are part of the so-called fiscal cliff of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and the across-the-board cuts that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned would be devastating to the military.

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Marcus Aurelius: Thomas Ricks on Generals “Casual Arrogance”

Corruption, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military
Marcus Aurelius

Combine this with the reporting on toxic leadership (e.g. by LTG(R) Walter Ulmer) and you have the whole picture.  Emphasis added below.

Questioning The Brass

By Thomas E. Ricks

New York Times, November 12, 2012
Pg. 29

Washington–OVER the last 11 years, as we fought an unnecessary war in Iraq and an unnecessarily long one in Afghanistan, the civilian American leadership has been thoroughly — and justly — criticized for showing poor judgment and lacking strategies for victory. But even as those conflicts dragged on, our uniformed leaders have escaped almost any scrutiny from the public.

Our generals actually bear much of the blame for the mistakes in the wars. They especially failed to understand the conflicts they were fighting — and then failed to adjust their strategies to the situations they faced so that they might fight more effectively.

Even now, as our wars wind down, the errors of our generals continue to escape public investigation, or even much internal review. As the Vietnam War drew to an end, the Army carried out a soul-searching study of the state of its officer corps. To my knowledge, no such no-holds-barred examination is under way now. Instead, the military’s internal analyses continue to laud the Pentagon’s top brass while placing almost all of the blame for what went wrong in our wars on civilian leaders.

As Paul Yingling, a recently retired Army colonel, noted during some of the darkest days of the Iraq war, a private who loses his rifle is punished more than a general who loses his part of a war.

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Marcus Aurelius: Pararescuemen Rule

Ethics, Military
Marcus Aurelius

Pararescuemen walk line between fierce warrior, caring savior

Laura Rauch

Stars and Stripes, 29 October 2012

While their core function is combat rescue and the personnel recovery of downed aircraft, Air Force pararescue teams also fly throughout Afghanistan augmenting the Army medevac mission.

Though medevac and pararescue overlap in terms of pulling the wounded from the battlefield, they are distinctively different. While medevac adheres to the Geneva Conventions by flying in unarmed helicopters marked with red crosses, pararescue flies in unmarked birds equipped with two .50 caliber machine guns. And they carry the guardian angels.

Click on Image to Enlarge

“We are a weapons system, we are armed,” Senior Airman and Pararescueman Jason Sweet said. “We’re shooters, divers, jumpers, technical rescue specialists. We’re ready to rescue anyone, anywhere, anytime.”

While the inception of Air Force combat rescue began in 1947, its legacy has been forged in every conflict since Korea.

The helicopters fly in pairs, one designated as the trail aircraft, and one as lead. Each is capable of landing in the hot zone or providing covering fire from above.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Peace Jumpers capable of calling in precision parachute drops are a variation of this idea.  They too would have guardian angels, but the focus would be on protection from proven rapid delivery of what is needed on the ground in the moment.

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Mini-Me: Benghazi — DoD “Timeline” and Reason for Not Dispatching Armed Aircraft (Incomplete Intelligence Picture on the Ground)

Government, Ineptitude, Military
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

EXTRACT:

“Due to the incomplete intelligence picture on the ground, armed aircraft options were simply not feasible.”

DOD Releases Detailed Timeline for Benghazi Response

Dorian De Wind

The Moderate Voice, 10 November 2012

The Defense Department released a detailed timeline yesterday of the Pentagon’s response to the September attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

The following is the verbatim 10 November news release by the American Forces Press Service:

A senior defense official, speaking on background with Pentagon reporters, emphasized the rapid consultation, planning and troop pre-deployment actions defense leaders undertook in the first hours following the attack.

“With naval, Marine, special operations and air forces either employed or en route to Libya during the attacks, we responded,” the official said. “We mourn the loss of four American heroes in Benghazi.”

The military’s initial response began within minutes of the first incident in Benghazi, the official said: the attack on the U.S. consulate began at 3:42 p.m. EDT [9:42 p.m. Benghazi time], and by 5:10 EDT an unarmed surveillance aircraft was on station over the Benghazi compound.

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Eagle: Department of Justice Defendes Controversial Unlimited Military Detention

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call
300 Million Talons…

DOJ Defends Controversial Military Detention Provision

As presidential election returns rolled in Tuesday night, the U.S. Justice Department filed its opening brief defending a controversial military detention provision that a trial judge in Manhattan declared unconstitutional earlier this year.

The suit, filed in Manhattan federal district court by a group of journalists and activists, challenges a section of the National Defense Authorization Act that DOJ lawyers said reaffirms presidential detention authority under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF. That authorization was passed in response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Government lawyers said in the papers filed last night in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the plaintiffs “are in no danger whatsoever of being subject to capture and detention by the U.S. military.” The provision in question allows the detention of people who “substantially supported” al-Qaeda or “associated forces.”

“The district court nonetheless issued an extraordinary and sweeping injunction at their behest,” DOJ lawyer August Flentje of the Civil Division said in the brief filed last night. Flentje said the trial judge, Katherine Forrest of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, “entered a sweeping and permanent injunction against the president.”

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DefDog: The 350-Ship Navy (if Mitt Romney Wins)

Ethics, Military
DefDog

Came across these references — John F. Lehman, the 600-ship SecNav under Reagan, is one of Romney's advisors.

2012-11-02  Both Obama and Romney Proposals Don't Meet Navy Requirements (USNI Proceedings)

2012-10-22  When It Comes To The U.S. Navy, Numbers Matter (John Lehman at MittRomney.com)

A strong Navy is not a drain on our economy, it is its foundation.

2012-10-22 How Big Should The U.S. Navy Be? (NPR)

2012-10-07  Mitt Romney’s Big Plans for the U.S. Navy (DefenseNews)

Among the new details he revealed: Plans to create an 11th carrier air wing, one for each aircraft carrier. F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter production would continue beyond 2014. The amphibious fleet would be built up to the Marine Corps’ requirement of 39 ships. An entirely new, battle-group-deployable frigate would be procured, along with a ballistic missile defense ship.  The campaign has pledged to build more submarines and destroyers, and production of the littoral combat ship (LCS) would continue.

. . . . . . . .

First, we’d continue the littoral combat ship, and we’d begin a battle group-deployable frigate program that would replace the FFG 7s [frigates]. And we would increase the numbers per year of the destroyers, and we would go for a missile defense ship that is optimized using an existing hull form, for the new Air Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which really won’t fit in the existing Arleigh Burke class.

We would also include getting up to the accepted requirement for Marine amphibious lift, so there’d be an increase in amphibious ships. The exact mix as between the different types, whether we go all for the LSD [landing ship dock replacement] versus the LHA+ [new assault ship] or some other mix, that hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet. But there will be an increase in amphibs.

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