XBradTC

Out of the corner of his eye, Capt. Florent Groberg saw the man first.“I’m looking at him, dark man-jams, he doesn’t look right,” Groberg said.When the stranger turned toward the American patrol, the young captain, charged with his brigade commander’s personal security detachment, quickly realized the man had a suicide bomb vest strapped to his chest.“The only thing I could think of was, ‘I have to get him away. I have to get him away from the boss. I have to get him away from everybody,’ ” Groberg said.Groberg immediately started pushing the man away, throwing him to the ground.“The next thing you know, he just lands on the ground chest first, and I’m looking at him, and he detonates,” Groberg said. “He detonated right in front of my feet.”The blast killed four Americans and wounded several others. It also caused a second suicide bomber, who remained hidden behind a small structure near the road, to detonate his vest prematurely, according to information from the Army. Groberg’s quick thinking prevented both bombers from detonating as planned, saving most of the people on the patrol.For his actions on that August 2012 morning in Afghanistan, Groberg will receive the Medal of Honor. The ceremony will take place Nov. 12 at the White House.

Source: Army captain to receive Medal of Honor for valor in Asadabad

Wrestling a suicide bomber to the ground certainly counts as MoH worthy. And CPT Groberg does a fine job of remembering his fallen comrades in arms.

Just days after an attack on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF), in Kunduz, Afghanistan, Army General John F. Campbell, the senior military commander in Afghanistan, was called to testify before the Senate.The attack killed 22 and injured 37, and MSF called it a “war crime.” The organization described the airstrike as “a series of aerial bombing raids at approximately 15-minute intervals,” beginning at 2:08am and lasting for more than an hour. MSF maintains that both US and Afghan authorities were made aware of the exact coordinates of the hospital as recently as September 29, four days before the bombing.”A hospital was mistakenly struck,” Campbell said during his testimony. “We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility.” Nonetheless, Campbell confirmed that the decision to attack the hospital was “made within the US chain of command.”The details of the airstrike on the MSF hospital remain under investigation. However, there are a number of details about the airstrike and the process for its approval that are known.The city of Kunduz was seized by the Taliban a month ago. The operation that included the airstrike on the MSF hospital was part of a major counteroffensive by Afghan forces, with the assistance of US Special Forces, to retake the city from Taliban militants.Related: Taliban, Helped by Foreign Fighters, Makes Inroads in KunduzThe airstrike on the hospital was not just a spur-of-the-moment decision; rather, it was the end product of detailed planning and coordination. Long before Afghan troops began operations on that night, with US Special Forces serving in an advisory role, there were detailed preparations to ensure that both US and Afghan forces had adequate close air support — in this case an AC-130 gunship circling thousands of feet above the battlefield.In military-speak, an attack, or the use of a weapons system on a target, is referred to as “fires.” The call for fire is a concise message prepared by the observer on the ground, in this case a member of US Special Forces, requesting fires on behalf of the ground forces, Afghan soldiers in this case. This call for fire is facilitated by a joint terminal attack controller (JTAC), usually a member of the Air Force, who has specialized training in calling for fire during close air support, which is the application of fires against hostile targets that are close to friendly forces.This request is sent from the JTAC, who accompanies US Special Forces, to US military authorities in Afghanistan. Those authorities review the request, determine its legality, and pass this information back to the JTAC.This review process, known as targeting, “is the selecting and prioritizing of targets and matching the appropriate response to them.” The targeting process always includes a determination of the legality of the target and requires commanders to take steps to “avoid excessive incidental civilian casualties and damage to civilian property.” It is fairly likely that a US military lawyer signed off on the Kunduz attack.Early in the targeting process, a no-strike list, which contains objects or entities protected from military operations, such as hospitals, is compiled. Targets on this list may be removed if their status has changed; for example, “medical structures that functions (sic) as a weapons storage or barracks facilities may lose their protected status and may be legally attacked.” In other words, it doesn’t count if you paint a big red cross on the side of a fortress and call it a hospital.Targeting for the strike on the MSF hospital would have occurred in a relatively short period of time — likely only a number of minutes — because the request was coming from Afghan forces who reported they were under fire from the hospital. Even with the compressed timeframe, however, all the same questions would still be asked: Was the MSF hospital on the no-strike list? If so, did the hospital lose its protected status because it was being used by Taliban military forces? Does targeting the hospital comply with the Law of Armed Conflict?Watch the VICE News Documentary The Afghan Interpreters:These are all questions the commander would have answered, with the assistance of his staff and military lawyers, before authorizing the strike on the MSF hospital. Because the strike on the hospital is under investigation, however, the information necessary to answer these questions has not yet been released to the public.During his Congressional testimony, Campbell confirmed that the airstrike on the hospital was carried out by an AC-130 gunship. The AC-130 is a converted cargo plane, packed with advanced sensors and communications equipment, featuring multiple cannons, machine guns, and other weapons sticking out of the left side.

Source: What Happened at the Kunduz Hospital Airstrikes? Details Are Starting to Emerge | VICE News

I’d like some more details before passing final judgment on this incident (for instance, did the JTAC actually see enemy fire coming from the hospital), but more and more I’m becoming convinced that MSF allowed Taliban forces to occupy the hospital, and fight from it.

Understand, when that happens, the hospital loses its protections under the Law of Land War. A commander might make the judgment that an enemy violation of the sanctity is minor, and not enough to justify an attack, especially in our age of social media. Or he might determine that the attack is both legally justified, and sufficiently important to achieving his objective that bad publicity is justified. Or, alternatively, it’s simply possible MSF is lying, and never identified the hospital to coalition forces.

My last trip with Boris Yeltsin was very Russian.

Yeltsin had been doing a tour of the US. Back in the ’90’s we still required a Russian-speaking AF Pilot/Nav to be in the cockpit while they were in US airspace (Operation Constant Shotgun http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-06-03/news/9002150151_1_soviet-flights-soviet-pilots-soviet-airliners).

That was my job. On most of the diplomatic flights the Russian radio operator spoke fair English, on the military flights, not so much.

Back to Yeltsin’s trip. A few months ago I had been outside the DUMA when Yeltsin jumped on a tank with a bullhorn, I was trapped in the US embassy, but I saw it happen from the walls.

I’d flown with the IL-76 bringing in his limo and security vehicles for his visit to the U.N, with which was a total shitshow. See previous post.

Yeltsin’s last stop was Seattle, where he talked to a rally of people who were probably more leftist than he was, and off we go back to Moscow with a a fuel stop in Shannon, Ireland.

My job was to get them out of US airspace safely, which I did. Now I’m just sitting in first class in Yeltsin’s IL-62 on the way to Shannon, Ireland.

Note: Yeltsin’s airplane had a config of 16 forward (first class) seats, a mid galley area, several rows of coach seats, then an aft galley with the DV compartment in the rear. Russian security would not let me go past the aft galley so I have no idea what was in the VIP compartment.

Given how this story ends, I’m betting on Vodka. Lots and lots of Vodka.

We get to Shannon, flaps come out and I think we’re getting ready to land.

Nope, we enter a holding pattern at the Final Approach Fix (FAF). Hmmm. I wonder what is going on and the I see one of Yeltsin’s security guys come up and ask Yeltsin’s personal Doctor to go back with him.

After about 30 min in holding we land at Shannon and park at a designated ‘VIP’ spot. The Prime Minister of Ireland (Taoieach) is waiting there with his wife, a military brass band and a fleet of vehicles to speed him and Yeltsin off to a ‘working lunch’ while the airplane is being refueled.

Only one problem. Yeltsin was too fucked up to get off of the jet.

We pulled up, the band played the anthem, the aft door opened…and no one came out. Taoieach and wife are looking around awkwardly, the band doesn’t know wtf to play, it’s hilarious.

About 5 min later a guy shows up in the doorway and as soon as he emerges the band fires up. He goes down the airstairs, meets with Taoieach and hops in the limo. No idea who that guy was.

It could of been one of two things:

-He was the most sober person of diplomatic rank on board

-He lost the drinking contest

The front page of the Irish Times the next day nailed it:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says there are “strong indications” that Iran violated U.N. Security Council resolutions when it test fired a new ballistic missile.White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday that such violations are nothing new.Earnest says the Iranians have “almost serially” violated international concerns about the country’s ballistic missile program.

Source: News from The Associated Press

No kidding. Josh Earnst admits Iran “serially violated” the resolutions. And yet somehow we’re expected to pretend that the treaty that’s not a treaty we just made with Iran will actually cause them to suspend their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The capitulation of American leadership in the region will have long term consequences that we cannot even imagine right now. We’re already seeing short term disasters, and the worst is likely yet to come.

Since 1979, US presidents, both liberal and conservative, have pursued a policy of containment that, for the most part, was successful. Until now, when the radical US president pursued and abdication of our role in the international order.

We were mocked for warning you in 2008.

WASHINGTON — A mysterious Russian military satellite parked itself between two Intelsat satellites in geosynchronous orbit for five months this year, alarming company executives and leading to classified meetings among U.S. government officials.The Russian satellite, alternatively known as Luch or Olymp, launched in September 2014 and seven months later moved to a position directly between the Intelsat 7 and Intelsat 901 satellites, which are located within half a degree of one another 36,000 kilometers above the equator. At times, the Russian satellite maneuvered to about 10 kilometers of the Intelsat space vehicles, sources said, a distance so close that company leaders believed their satellites could be at risk.The satellite’s movements were highlighted by Brian Weeden, technical adviser at the Secure World Foundation, in an Oct. 5 analysis of Russian rendezvous and proximity operations for SpaceNews’ sister publication, the Space Review.

Source: Russian Satellite Maneuvers, Silence Worry Intelsat

I can think of a couple reasons why the Russians might do this. And none of them involve good intentions.

Active-duty and some reserve officers who are slated to deploy could have their retirements denied — or delayed — under a newly updated “stop loss” provision, according to a recent change to the Air Force’s retirement rules.The Sept. 18 update to Air Force Instruction 36-3203, which governs retirements, changes the criteria by which the Air Force can stop airmen from retiring. A footnote to a rewritten section of Table 2.1 specifically invokes stop loss for some airmen who are officially tasked to deploy, or who have applied for retirement on or after their assignment selection date or notification of a 365-day extended deployment.

Source: Air Force invokes ‘stop loss’ in retirement change

This is nothing new. When my dad requested retirement at 31 years of service in 1976, the Navy didn’t have a suitable officer to replace him in his role as Chief of Staff at COMMATVAQWINGPAC, and so denied him retirement for another 18 months.

Mind you, there’s no benefit for a Captain to remain on active duty past 30 years. Your retirement pay does not increase. And by being denied retirement, you’re also cutting into potential years of civilian employment.*

But what it appears to be in this Air Force directive is simply that if you’re trying to retire to skate out of a year long deployment, the Air Force is not going to play along. One final sacrifice is required.

One suspects this will not impact a huge number of officers. Is it painful? Yes. But nobody ever said the service was all skittles and beer.

*In fact, dad never took up a civilian career after service due to familial obligations.

The U.S. military airdropped 50 tons of small arms ammo and grenades in northern Syria on Sunday, a senior defense official told Fox News, representing the Pentagon’s shift from training rebel fighters to equipping them. Coming just two days after the Defense Department announced it was effectively ending its current training program, the airdrop delivery was made Sunday by four C-17 transport aircraft. The 112 pallets contained ammunition for M-16s and AK-47s.

Source: US military airdrops 50 tons of ammo for Syrian fighters, after training mission ends | Fox News

The military lead training mission was an utter disaster. But it should be noted that the “black” CIA led training mission was pretty successful, producing a fairly large number of troops. It’s just not politically convenient to be supporting them.

Seriously. The Army thought this was the most important news to send out to the troops via its daily email newsletter.

 

Based on Secretary of the Army John McHugh-approved Army Directive 2015-37 Breastfeeding and Lactation Support Policy, effective Sept. 29, 2015, commanders will designate a private space with locking capabilities, an electrical outlet, and access to a safe water source for Soldiers to express milk. If the designated space is within a restroom, it will be a fully enclosed, separate area designated for breastfeeding or expressing milk (i.e. not a bathroom stall). Army senior leaders expect commanders and Soldiers to collectively work to balance lactation support and readiness. The policy is not too prescriptive to afford commanders the flexibility to support the unique needs of women Soldiers who request breastfeeding and lactation support.

Source: U.S. Army STAND-TO! | Army Breastfeeding and Lactation Support Policy

All of a sudden – there is no DPRK. What next?Like the collapse of the Berlin Wall, there will be subtle hints it might happen, but when it does happen – it will be sudden, shocking, and will mark a firm moment when the security situation in that part of the world drastically changes.

Source: CDR Salamander: Black Swan Tuesday: NORKalypse

‘Phib looks at the future of North Korea. Generally, I think a policy of containment will have to continue for the indefinite future. As the comments note, the current government exists on Chinese sufferance, and they do have legitimate security concerns in the region.

Right now, China craves stability in that area more so than economic bounty. Of the possible outcomes of a NORK collapse, the odds are in favor of something bad happening, which China would like to avoid, so they’ll continue to maintain the status quo.

‘Phib is also absolutely right that the work he cites is dead wrong on the need to foster a resistance in North Korea. Such an effort would simply play into the Kim regime’s hand, offering it a legitimacy it doesn’t deserve. And absent a Chinese assent to such a movement, it would be doomed to failure.

Allowing North Korea to continue its repressive regime might not be morally upright, but supporting a resistance that can only end in tragedy would be even more immoral.