Tag Archives: SEALs

International news

Malala gets justice

Malala Yousafzi has gotten the justice she deserves … I hope.

Ten men who attacked the then-15-year-old child activist were sentenced in a Pakistani court to life in prison. Malala, who suffered a grievous gunshot wound to the head has recovered.

She’s gone on with her life and, oh by the way, winning the Nobel Peace Prize this past year for her work in advancing the cause of children in her native Pakistan.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32530324

The men who attacked here were Taliban terrorists — and, yes, I’ll call them “terrorists,” even though the White House declines to use that term to describe the monstrous men who align with the Taliban.

What troubles me, though, is that a Pakistani court has convicted these men. Why the concern? Pakistan hasn’t exactly been the most reliable U.S. ally in our fight against international terrorism. The Pakistanis haven’t committed themselves fully to the fight against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and now the Islamic State.

Remember, too, that Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in May 2011 in his compound in the middle of a major Pakistani city.

Should we expect Malala’s assailants to spend the rest of their lives in prison?

The hope is that they will. The expectation, though, well … let’s just wait and see.

State news

Abbott joins conspiracy crowd

Greg Abbott is no idiot.

There. I’ve just declared that the Texas governor, who’s been in office about three months, really isn’t one of the nut jobs who’ve circulated goofy rumors on the Internet about a federal takeover of the states.

But you have to wonder why Abbott would put the Texas State Guard on alert during a federal military exercise slated to occur this summer. He said he wants to protect Texans’ liberties. Against the U.S. Army, for crying out loud?

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/please-dont-feed-the-conspiracy-theorists-gov-abbott.html/

Jade Helm 15 is a major military exercise being planned in conjunction with Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets. Some crackpots have suggested the feds are going to “invade” Texas. Take us over. Impose martial law.

Abbott seems to be reacting to that nonsense by ordering the Texas State Guard to “monitor” the exercise.

As Dallas Morning News editorial writer/blogger Jim Mitchell noted: “He gives ‘legitimacy’ to the chatter in a backhanded sort of way.”

I’ve known Abbott for a few years, going back to when he was serving as a Texas Supreme Court justice and as Texas attorney general. He’s always seemed to be a reasonable, thoughtful and careful conservative Republican. I actually like him personally.

Then the TEA party faction started gaining traction within the GOP and Abbott has adopted a more ferocious posture. I find it more than a little unbecoming, truth be told.

The Texas State Guard shouldn’t have to be asked to protect Texans’ “safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties” just because the U.S. military is conducting exercises in the state.

This looks for all the world like a reaction to cockamamie Internet nonsense.

Intended or not, Gov. Abbott should be smarter than to send out such a message.

International news

'Jihadi John' gets a name

Now we’re getting somewhere in the hunt for the guy seen in all those ISIL videos.

“Jihadi John” has been identified. The individual wearing all black reportedly is Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Briton who is known to come from a prosperous family; he earned a degree in computer programming. The world has seen this guy, heard his voice and assumed he’s carried out the gruesome beheadings of captives, some of whom were Americans and Brits.

http://news.yahoo.com/bbc-names-jihadi-john-suspect-islamic-state-beheading-110602366.html

British intelligence officials, naturally, aren’t confirming or denying this goon’s name. It came from The Washington Post, which likely has sources within the UK’s intelligence network.

If the guy comes from a well-to-do family, there likely will be pictures revealing his face released before too long.

A part of me believes the Brits and U.S. intelligence officials are looking for this guy as these words are being written. Another part of me understands the difficulty in finding him and, um, dealing with him once he’s located. Yes, we found Osama bin Laden hiding in plain sight in Pakistan, but that search took nearly a decade after 9/11 to complete. Our spooks located bin Laden and the commander in chief ordered the hit that was carried out by SEALs and CIA commandos.

Will Emwazi meet the same fate as bin Laden?

I surely hope so.

 

military news, national news

Back to the 'cowards' tweet, please

Michael Moore has been taking grief lately over a tweet he put out in which he called military snipers “cowards.”

I’ve commented on it here. Others have, too. Now, though, the filmmaker is fighting back, accusing his critics of “making sh*** up about me.”

I am beginning to think many on both sides of this argument are seeking to change the subject.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/michael-moore-defends-record-on-vets-telling-fox-news-quit-making-sht-up-about-me/

Moore’s tweet was in response to the film “American Sniper,” in which Bradley Cooper portrays the late Chris Kyle in a gripping story about Kyle’s emotional struggles while serving as a Navy SEAL sharpshooter in Iraq.

The criticism has been ferocious, mainly from conservative media outlets. For the record, I do not consider myself a fan or follower of most of the conservative media talking heads. I tilt the other direction. However, I found Moore’s comments about the so-called cowardice of snipers to be highly offensive.

Moore’s comment on snipers being cowards had nothing to do with the nation’s war policy in Iraq. Moore, though, is seeking to turn that argument back on his critics, some of whom have called him “un-American” for his opinions, I guess, about snipers and about his general world view.

I won’t go there. He’s entitled to express his opinion. My own notion is that he messed when he expressed this particular opinion about this particular man doing with this particular duty.

As is often the case with these controversies, someone in the public eye puts something out there that others find offensive and then tries to cover his tracks by changing the subject, or trying to broaden the argument to include elements that really have no bearing on the misstatement made in the first place.

 

national news

Snipers are not 'cowards'

Michael Moore’s assertion that snipers are cowards comes apparently from his father’s experience during World War II.

Therefore, the filmmaker asserts that snipers are cowardly because they don’t fight “fair.”

http://www.people.com/article/michael-moore-explains-snipers-tweets-american-sniper

His comments came as a critique of “American Sniper,” the film about the late Chris Kyle, whose exploits as a Navy SEAL sniper in Iraq have become the stuff of military legend.

I’ll just add that snipers are as brave as frontline grunts — infantrymen who walk the point and expose themselves to enemy fire. They are heroes because they, too, expose themselves to the enemy the moment the muzzle flashes or the sound of the weapon echoes.

Moore sought to walk some of his comments back by praising the Oscar-nominated performance by Bradley Cooper as Kyle. But then he took off after director/producer Clint Eastwood, who — according to Moore — conflates Iraq with Vietnam. He mentions the use of the word “savages” to describe the Iraqis.

Well, that’s the kind of language warriors use to refer to the enemy, Michael.

I, too, saw the film over the weekend and for the life of me, I do not see any confusion between those two wars. Eastwood told a compelling story in riveting fashion.

As for Michael Moore, I believe I’ve heard enough from him on this topic.

 

International news, military news

Massacre might have gained U.S. an ally

It is virtually impossible to find any glimmer of goodness in the massacre of school children by monstrous terrorists.

But the Taliban’s attack the other day in Peshawar, Pakistan on a military school that killed dozens of students might have produced a single — but critical — bit of positive news.

It might have delivered to the United States a critical ally in its war on terror. Welcome to the fight, Pakistan.

http://video.kacvtv.org/video/2365388149/

Sure, Pakistani leaders have said they’re on board with fighting terrorists. Their actions — or non-actions — though, tell a different story.

Terrorists have been given refuge in the remote regions of the country bordering Afghanistan. Military and law enforcement experts keep telling us about the difficulty of navigating through the region, that it’s impossible to track down and capture or kill the bad guys. However, as the PBS link attached here explains, the Peshawar attack has shocked and stunned Pakistanis at every level.

And how in he world does one explain that the late Osama bin Laden — the world’s most notorious terrorist — had been “hiding in plain sight” in the middle of a major Pakistani city? In May 2011, though, Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces pilots and CIA commandos took care of that by hunting down bin Laden and killing him in his compound.

The Pakistani response to that raid? They threw up their hands as if to say, “Who knew?”

The Taliban’s horrific act well might spur the Pakistanis now to do more than just say they’re in the game. They’ve lost many of their young people in a horrifying attack perpetrated by a despicable band of killers.

It’s time to actually join the fight.

 

International news, military news

This SEAL is making me angry

Forgive me for the mild case of potty mouth language I’m about to inject into the blog post, but …

Robert O’Neill is starting to piss me off.

O’Neill is the former Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden to death on May 2, 2011 — allegedly.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/seal-claims-killed-osama-bin-laden-expected-die/story?id=26830046

He’s now speaking to Fox News about the dangerous mission he and the rest of SEAL Team Six executed in the middle of a moonless night in Pakistan. The order given by the commander in chief was as straightforward as it gets: Kill the world’s most notorious terrorist.

They did it with cool precision.

Now comes O’Neill and at least one other SEAL who offer supposedly conflicting accounts of who — precisely — pulled the trigger on bin Laden.

O’Neill told Fox News that, by golly, he “expected” to be killed on the mission.

He said this in an interview set to air this evening, according to ABCNews.com: “‘We’re going to die when the house blows up. We’re going to die when he blows up. Or we’re going to be there too long and we get arrested by the Pakistanis, and we’re going to spend the rest of our short lives in Pakistani prison,’ O’Neill said in an interview for a Fox News Channel special set to air tonight. ”

Well, duh?

Of course the mission was fraught with maximum peril. That’s supposed to be a serious news flash?

What’s so maddening about all of this, of course, is that O’Neill is breaking a long-standing code among SEALs and, for that matter, special operations forces of all the military branches — and that includes Army Green Berets, Joint Delta Force units, and Air Force commandos. It is that you do not speak openly about these highly classified missions. More to the point, you do not take credit for the successes accomplished by the entire team.

Here goes one of those SEALs, a highly trained warrior who helped execute  a mission of intense personal danger to all the men who took part. He’s doing precisely what the code says he shouldn’t do: basking in the glory of a mission that captivated the world.

It was a team effort, correct?

 

 

 

military news, national news

SEALs breaking the code

A truly disgusting development has been brewing since a group of commandos killed Osama bin Laden.

The once-inviolate code that Navy SEALs followed to protect their secrecy and to foster unit cohesion apparently is being broken by publicity-seeking members of that elite fighting force.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-navy-seals-told-to-stop-spilling-secrets/ar-BBcTkbM

They’re blabbing to the media about who fired the shots that killed the world’s most wanted terrorist. Fox News is planning to air a documentary that reveals — supposedly — the shooter who took out bin Laden.

Another former member of the SEAL team has written a book and, yes, there have been disputes over who did what to whom.

This is utterly ridiculous and is an inexcusable breach of faith with the country they serve.

SEAL commander Rear Admiral Brian Losey has issued a strong rebuke of the blabbermouths among his corps of warriors. He issued a letter to the troops in his command.

“‘A critical tenet of our Ethos is ‘I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions,'” Losey and the top enlisted sailor, Force Master Chief Michael Magaraci, wrote in the letter, obtained by AFP on Monday,” according to MSN. com.

MSN.com also reported: “The commander warned in the letter that ‘we will actively seek judicial consequence for members who wilfully violate the law’ by revealing classified information.”

The loose lips that have been flapping since the May 2011 mission that captivated the nation have brought dishonor to those who are revealing what the world really does not need to know.

Bin Laden is still dead. End of story.

Uncategorized

Community vs. military policing

When Jerry Neal became chief of the Amarillo Police Department in 1981, he introduced a concept that was still fairly new in departments across the nation.

It is called “community policing.” It puts officers in close contact with residents. It encourages more person-to-person contact, seeking to make cops more like best pals rather than intimidating forces to be feared.

If given a choice between community police strategies and a military-style presence in our streets, I’ll stick with the former rather than the latter.

Now we hear that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has the authority to cease giving surplus military equipment to police departments. Mr. Secretary, stop the practice at least until the nation gets a clear and full understanding of what has gone so terribly wrong in Ferguson, Mo.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/215527-pentagon-hagel-has-authority-to-suspend-program-for-arming-cops

“The secretary has the authority to rescind and take back equipment that is transferred to local law enforcement agencies if he deems fit. He has that authority,” said Pentagon Rear Adm. John Kirby.

I believe Hagel should “deem fit” a suspension of the policy that provides police agencies the surplus equipment.

Police militarization has become one of the focal points of the Ferguson upheaval, after a young black man was shot to death by a white police officer in the suburb of St. Louis. The cops responded initially with officers donning body armor and weaponry befitting a Green Beret platoon or SEAL team. Let’s just say it didn’t play well in the community.

Emotions will have to settle down considerably in Ferguson for any meaningful change to take hold.

When it’s all over, I’d settle gladly for more community policing efforts in all departments.

Maybe someone ought to call Jerry Neal, who’s now retired, and ask him for some sage advice on how this principle works.

Uncategorized

Terror group won't die

Al-Qaida is “stronger than ever,” says the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

Interesting, eh?

The infamous terrorist group has been seen in a large gathering in Yemen, apparently getting past U.S. intelligence officials whose job is to ensure that these gatherings don’t occur.

Chairman Mike Rogers is alarmed, as he and all of us should be.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/mike-rogers-al-qaeda-105722.html?hp=r4

It never has been assumed that al-Qaida would wither and die the moment those U.S. Navy SEALs gunned down 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011. You kill one leader, and others would surface to succeed him. That’s been the thought all along.

The troubling part of this is that al-Qaida seemingly is strong enough to appear to be plotting major attacks against the United States. The video of the Yemen meeting shows terrorist group leaders meeting in the open in plain view. Others’ faces are blurred, but the meeting is large and is occurring right under the nose of U.S. drone aircraft supposedly on the hunt for these very types of terror group gatherings.

The fight will go on, regardless of whether our troops are fighting in Afghanistan; that military engagement is scheduled to conclude at the end of the year.

However, our “war on terror” must continue vigorously — and with vengeance and extreme prejudice.