Archive for the ‘war’ Category

Norway: stuck in the middle

Posted: August 24, 2019 by ng36b in war
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Norway is stuck in the middle. Russia has been pushing more aggressively past Norway. Recently Russia canceled a polar Norwegian Cruise Line entry into Russian waters, forcing the cruise company to reimburse passengers only two weeks before the cruise. Russia also surged naval forces off the Norwegian coast in its “Ocean Shield” exercise, causing a lot of consternation among the Norwegian populace.

But simply saddling up to the US isn’t in the cards, at least for some. Norwegian media is enthralled with President Trump, and not in a nice way. Norwegian media, namely Dagbladet and Klassekampen, regularly blast the US and President Trump in particular, and call for Norway to keep its distance from the US.

Norway is quickly entering into a forced choice. It’s military understands that NATO, and specifically the US, are critical to keeping it independent of Russia in any future conflict. The US is doubling down not just on NATO funding, but also on support for the Straits of Hormuz patrols. Iran’s foreign minister recently visited Norway, was met with significant protests, and told Norway to not support the patrols.

So now Norway, always content to play the middle, gets to choose between two forces. On one side, a resurging Russia and Iran, who are willing to use their muscle in critical maritime geography, and a US, which is using its forces to support the agreed-upon UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Choices have consequences, and the middle choice will likely become untenable before much longer.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Who doesn’t like a military parade?

Posted: February 10, 2018 by ng36b in Afghanistan war, opinion/news, war
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Everyone thinks Trump’s military parade is a dumb idea. Well, everyone in the media anyway, and sadly there is a vocal minority in the military that is attempting to lend their voices as well.

We’ve done military parades before. CNN of all places had a neat wrap up of pictures from previous military parades. While we haven’t done them for a while, that is probably due to under sizing and under-resourcing our military. The last big military parade was in 1991, when we had almost 530 ships. Only a few years later, in 1995, we were under 400, and now we are under 300. Similar downsizing happened for the other services.

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An oped not on Morning Joe today

Posted: March 30, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news, politics, war
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Watching Morning Joe today. They started with Libya and talk was all about arming the rebels and why Libya and not elsewhere. Listening to the discussion I noticed that there was something missing.

I had my doubts whenever Joe Scarborough’s op-ed, would get the play it normally does. Considering that the opening segment is repeated at 8 a.m. you would think that they would make it a point to bring up the hosts op-ed on the subject of the day first. Instead during Mika’s must read op-eds it was mentioned late as they instead talks of the anniversary of the Reagan Assassination attempt, leaving just enough time to give Joe’s piece two minutes

However Joe’s op-ed points to the phoniness of the president’s supporters on Libya, and I don’t think MSNBC wants to overplay that argument.

Speaking of op-eds here is different one from Anne Applebaum via Legal Insurrection that won’t get any play on MSNBC:

Sarkozy clearly hopes the Libyan adventure will make him popular, too. Nobody finds this surprising. At a conference in Brussels over the weekend, I watched a French participant boast of France’s leading role in the Libyan air campaign. A minute later, he heartily agreed that the war was a ploy to help Sarkozy get re-elected. The two emotions—pride in French leadership and cynicism about Sarkozy’s real motives—were not, it seems, mutually exclusive.

And of course the goal is to have this underwritten by the US while he gets the supposed electoral benefits.

Do not expect the MSM to give Anne’s take any play at all.

Byron York says it aloud

Posted: March 29, 2011 by datechguy in middle east, opinion/news, war
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The US media has been playing down the connections between Al Qaeda and the Libyan Rebels for a while now, but today Byron York tackles it:

Take Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, a leader of U.S.-supported rebels in the fighting for Adjabiya. His hometown, Darnah, has produced many jihadis, and after the Sept. 11 attacks al-Hasidi traveled to Afghanistan to fight the “foreign invasion” — that is, the U.S. military. According to a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, al-Hasidi says he was later captured in Pakistan, handed over to the U.S., then held in prison in Libya before being released in 2008.

In addition to fighting the U.S. in Afghanistan, al-Hasidi also says he recruited about two dozen men to fight the U.S. in Iraq.

What is more amazing than those two sentences is the response of the NYT to this:

“No one seems all that frightened by him,” the New York Times wrote of al-Hasidi after a visit to Darnah in early March. Al-Hasidi, the paper reported, “praises Osama bin Laden’s ‘good points’ but denounces the 9/11 attacks on the United States.” And besides, the Times reported, al-Hasidi finds it amusing that the government of Moammar Gadhafi considers him an al Qaeda terrorist. “He promised to lay down his arms once victory is won and return, he said, to teaching,” the Times reported.

Whenever Afghanistan comes up on Morning Joe he repeats the mantra that there are only a few Al Qaeda present there. Apparently there are a lot more Al Qaeda in Libya and we are saving them from Gaddafi.

Now given that we are there now, and fighting we should fight to win, but it’s one thing to fight and win in Libya with Al-Qaeda at our side, it’s another thing to arm this guys:

But Sky News now understands the US is looking at a legal framework to allow limited supplies of arms to the rebels, if they can prove they need them to defend themselves from attack.

Mark Kornblau, spokesman for US Ambassador Dr Susan Rice, confirmed it was a possibility.

Uncoverage is not amused:

There is good reason to believe, from many reliable sources, that they are organized by radical Islamists associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Given that, how can it be that United States U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice can possibly even consider arming the rebels with our weapons?

If we are stupid enough to do this as a nation then we will deserve all we get from it.

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