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Five Signs Afghanistan Is Becoming An American Success Story – Forbes
Fourteen years into waging a frustrating counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan, there is at least one thing that every military expert who has studied the country can agree on: Osama bin Laden really knew what he was doing when he picked Afghanistan as a sanctuary for his murderous band of jihadists. There are few places in the world less hospitable to Western goals and values. Geographically isolated, economically backward, politically divided and culturally insular, Afghanistan has been a hard place to stabilize, and its neighbors haven’t been much help.
But despite numerous setbacks, the Bush and Obama administrations have stuck with the task of fashioning an inclusive democracy in Afghanistan that would no longer afford terrorists a safe haven. And in spite of a drumbeat of negative media coverage — including recent reports that high casualty rates among Afghan security forces are unsustainable — that steadfastness seems to be paying off. There are numerous signs that the U.S. and its 40-odd coalition partners have succeeded in making Afghanistan a more peaceful, progressive place. Here are five of them.
via Five Signs Afghanistan Is Becoming An American Success Story – Forbes.
I’m not nearly as optimistic as Mr. Thompson, but I’d love to be wrong.
His second point, regarding the replacement of Karzai with Ghani, is perhaps the least widely know, but most important aspect of any success on Afghanistan.
Indeed, for over a decade, Karzai has been a personal frustration of mine, with regards to US policy. When the US goes into a nation and topples the regime, any subsequent leader, no matter what democratic efforts are expended to give the impression of legitimacy, is going to be seen as a puppet of the US. That being the case, we should have at least insisted our puppet damn well act like our puppet. When it became clear that Karzai was going to pit some parts of the Afghan people against US interests for his own purposes, we should have simply replaced him on our own terms.
That the US has stumbled into an effective leader in Ghani is serendipitous, and not a result of any sane foreign policy on our part.
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Daily Dose of Splodey!
Now THAT, my friends, is a hell of a secondary!
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An Update on CPT Golsteyn
A few months ago we wrote about the curious case of US Army Special Forces Captain Matthew Golsteyn, who had received an interim award of the Silver Star, with a recommendation for upgrade to the Distinguished Service Cross, our second highest award for val0r. Secretary of the Army McHugh not only declined to upgrade the award, he rescinded the award of the Silver Star.
Now, some months later, the other shoe drops:
“In an interview conducted with the CIA, then-Capt. Golsteyn claimed to have captured and shot and buried a suspected IED bomb maker,” the ArmyTimes said Thursday, citing a newly surfaced Army document. “He further went (on) to comment that he went back out with two others to cremate the body and dispose of the remains.”
The publication reported that the secret document was first published Wednesday by The Intercept website.
The internal Sept. 29, 2014, information paper says an investigation by Army criminal investigators determined Golsteyn “committed the offenses of murder and conspiracy based on the interview provided by the CIA,” the Washington Post said.
The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division conducted an investigation, but was unable to discern any corroborating evidence, such as witnesses or a burial site. Absent that, no criminal proceedings were viable.
If what the internal Army memo says is true (and at this point, we really only have the CIA’s word for it that then CPT Golsteyn made such statements), that would certainly be cause for both the revocation of the award, and the separation board Golsteyn faces next week.
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Former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Employee Charged With Attempted Spear-Phishing Cyber-Attack on Department of Energy Computers | OPA | Department of Justice
An indictment has been unsealed charging Charles Harvey Eccleston, a former employee of the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in connection with an attempted email “spear-phishing” attack in January 2015, targeting dozens of Department of Energy employee e-mail accounts.
The indictment was announced today by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, Acting U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen Jr. of the District of Columbia and Assistant Director in Charge Andrew G. McCabe of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
The indictment was unsealed, along with an earlier-filed complaint and affidavit, following Eccleston’s first appearance this afternoon in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. The court ordered that he remain detained pending a hearing set for May 20, 2015.
According to the affidavit, the goal of the attack was to cause damage to the computer network of the Department of Energy through a computer virus that Eccleston believed was being delivered to particular department employees through emails, and to extract sensitive, nuclear weapons-related government information that Eccleston believed would be collected by a foreign country.
Haven’t read the indictment, but my guess is China.
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At Least the War on Whites is Going Well
Doesn’t seem like Barack Obama has much of a stomach for fighting America’s enemies. He panders to Iran, and backs the Muslim Brotherhood. He shows his spinelessness (flexibility) with Russia, while China continues to get the upper hand in the Pacific. The Unites States continues the drastic military cutbacks in order to fund the welfare machine that fills campaign coffers and ballot boxes.
There is, however, one place where Barack Obama’s Administration has shown a penchant for war. That is the one waged against his political and social enemies, to include the war on Whitey. His race-baiting Attorneys General (Loretta Lynch is of the same ilk as Holder) and his bigoted loud-mouthed rabble-rousing friends, like Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson, and Jeremiah Wright, continue to agitate their special brand of racial hatred, virtually without challenge by the media or any on the Progressive Self-Loathing Left. The result? Predicable.
In the last week of April, a 61-year old white man named Richard Fletcher was savagely beaten by a large group of black thugs. The perps were reportedly all from the local “second chance” high school, Baltimore Community High School, located nearby. Fletcher suffered skull and eye socket fractures, a broken nose, and a brain bleed, along with broken ribs. He was in critical condition, and spent time in an induced coma. Not a peep in the national media, not until a few days ago. Then, when the sickening incident was reported, the race of the gang of thugs was conveniently omitted. I doubt severely if Loretta Lynch, she of the same racist bent as Eric “my people” Holder, will have anything to say about the incident. Certainly First Lady Michelle Obama mumbled not a word about it when she was decrying the hardscrabble path she’s had to take because of her race (private schooling, Ivy League education, and $300k make-work job notwithstanding). You can be certain that, had it been a 61-year old black man beaten by white thugs, such would have been at the very lead of Michelle’s remarks after having been headlines for weeks in every major news outlet. Along with the concomitant burning and looting.
Anyone who tells you that such behavior by this group of black hoodlums is not encouraged and inflamed by the race-baiting of Barack Obama, Holder, Sharpton, and the enabling of a thoroughly subservient MSM, is either a liar, hopelessly naïve, or abysmally stupid.
By the by, Barack Obama and Loretta Lynch are actively working with others on the Progressive Left to disarm the country’s law-abiding populace. For our own protection. The kind of protection so helpful to Richard Fletcher.
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The Air Force in 1959
Any video that starts with the entire Century Series taking off is pretty good.
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Load HEAT- Dianne van Giersbergen
Who doesn’t love opera?
What’s that? You’re more a fan of metal? No problem. Dianne van Giersbergen fronts a couple of different bands.
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Thanks to LT Rusty for the suggestion. If you’ve got a request, let me know.
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Navy to begin testing new female dress uniforms at Naval Academy graduation
More than 200 female midshipmen, chiefs and officers will don the new service dress whites in the first of a series of wear tests slated to last through the summer.
The uniform prototypes have the same high collar common to the male uniform. This includes an improved metal clasp that provides better closure and a more professional appearance. The uniform has no chest pockets, and buttons are smaller yet proportional.
The first wear test will take place at the Naval Academy graduation on May 22. Roughly 200 female graduates and six academy staff members, a mix of chiefs and officers, will take part. The midshipmen will wear their standard cover until they are commissioned, and then will don the combination cap. The active-duty testers will wear the new combination cover, a prototype that closely resembles the male cover but is made with women’s head sizes and proportions.
via Navy to begin testing new female dress uniforms at Naval Academy graduation.
I like it. Every service seems to struggle with providing women with attractive, professional uniforms, but the Navy has seemed to struggle more than the others.
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The Army Air Forces in 1944
A US propaganda film showing the various numbered air forces of the USAAF in early 1944. Lots of good footage of some of the more obscure theaters. It’s about 40 minutes, so grab a cup of coffee.
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Have some Warthog!
H/T: The Aviationist
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