Tag: Military Action

Do You Know The Way To Cameroon?

I am proud to say that I am getting new followers from Africa my newest are from Rwanda and Cameroon……so I thought that I would make a more concerted effort to give news and views from Africa.

In the past my posts have been mostly for North Africa because I knew that region better from having worked in the Middle East and North Africa.

A group that I have done work with in the past, International Crisis Group, have issued a conflict risk alert for October 2018 in Cameroon.

Image result for cameroon images

Today I want to post on the events in Cameroon……

Cameroon, where elections are due to take place this week amid widespread discontent at President Paul Biya’s rule, continued fighting against Boko Haram in the north and a worsening conflict in the Anglophone region. Cameroon’s international partners should use the days ahead of the polls to push the government and Anglophone separatists toward a ceasefire; after the vote, they should throw their weight behind an Anglophone conference organised by religious leaders which could be a first step toward a national dialogue.

I have written about a problem brewing with the troops that are handled by the US Special Ops group……(please be warned that the video is pretty explicit) https://lobotero.com/2018/08/01/cameroon/

Since the problem came to light the US is sticking with the group that has murdered women and children…..

The women were slapped and shoved down a dusty road. They were blindfolded and forced to the ground. Then they, and two young children, were gunned down — 22 shots from assault rifles fired at close range — by men in military uniforms.

In July, The Intercept was the first media outlet to publish the complete, unedited footage of this murder of four civilians by members of the Cameroonian armed forces — a key U.S. military ally in the region — drawing on extensive investigative work by experts at Amnesty International. The government of Cameroon quickly dismissed reports that its soldiers were involved in the atrocity, calling it “fake news.”

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/27/cameroon-video-execution-forensic-analysis/

Sad to say that US has sided many times with the wrong people and it usually comes back to bite us in the ass.

Another problem is the US does not have the best foreign policy people in place at this time…..the leaders of our international relations are not the sharpest pencils in the box…..most are warmongering tools of the M-IC.

Sad to say yet again that nothing will change for the better as long as this administration remains in power.

Are There Spines Being Grown?

I have complained many times about the lack of action and yes the lack of a spine by our elected officials when it comes to committing our troops in harm’s way.

They have allowed the president to go to war without any intervention from the Congress that is suppose to be the last word on war.

Their lack of action is driven by elections and not the rule of law….just like so much in our society the rule of law means NOTHING.

So I was surprised when I read of at least two attempts to limit the president’s reach when war is concerned……

A bipartisan resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives Wednesday under the War Powers Act. If the bill is passed, it would formally end US military involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

The war in Yemen was never authorized by Congress, and US participation has become increasingly controversial, as Saudi airstrikes kill staggering numbers of civilians. This has led to growing resistance within Congress, though Congressional leadership has often sought ways to circumvent the votes.

Last year, the House offered a very similar War Powers Act resolution. Such resolutions are legally required to come up for a vote, though the leadership managed to block that one, and bargain their way down to a non-binding resolution.

Indeed, that bill and a Senate version came with the Pentagon claiming there were no US ground operations in Yemen involved in the war, a claim which later proved to be a lie. That in particlar has added calls for a re-vote.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), the lead sponsor, says he is confident that the new version of the bill won’t suffer the same fate, noting that support for the bill has expanded since then.

The support for ending the war both reflects incidents like the Saudi attack on a school bus in August, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s overt circumvention of the 2019 NDAA clause which obliged the US to halt aid to the Saudis until they did more to reduce casualties. Pompeo immediately declared they’d done enough, though the death toll has continued to rise.

(antiwar.com)

And the second attempt concerns a possible attack on Iran……..

With National Security Adviser John Bolton threatening to “come after” Iran this week and President Donald Trump accusing the country of sowing “chaos, death, and destruction,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) was joined Wednesday by several other members of the Democratic caucus in urging Congress to ensure that the U.S. avoids yet another prolonged war by passing legislation affirming that a preemptive attack on the country would be illegal.

The Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act of 2018 demands that the president obtain congressional approval for any military action in Iran. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) signed on as co-sponsors.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/27/avoid-repeating-catastrophic-mistake-iraq-invasion-senate-bill-would-forbid-attack

These attempts may not meet with success but at least someone is trying to break the cycle of endless interventions that recent presidents have put this country in….we can only hope that sanity will soon return.

Could the election results in 2018 play into this narrative?

Space, The Final Frontier (Again)

Our Dear Leader has proposed a new branch for our military, a space force.  I have written extensively on the subject…..

https://lobotero.com/2018/07/17/enter-starship-troopers/

https://lobotero.com/2018/08/01/to-the-stars-and-beyond/  (several reference posts included in this one post)

https://lobotero.com/2018/09/05/closing-thought-05sep18/

The Obama administration was also on-board with a space force……https://lobotero.com/2009/01/06/militarization-of-space/

Like I said I have written extensively on this idea……plus there are those officials in Congress that are pushing back on the idea of a separate “Space Force”……

A bipartisan group that includes generals and lawmakers fears that carving the new branch out of the Air Force would siphon resources from other programs and weaken the military.

Republican Reps. Steve Knight of California and Mike Coffman of Colorado would appear the ideal champions of a new military branch focused on space.

Three of Knight’s top five donors are aerospace giants Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Honeywell, which would be well-positioned to help build and outfit it. And Coffman’s district is an epicenter of the military’s current space operations.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/17/space-force-military-air-force-825757

But with all the criticism there is a necessity for a Space Force/Space Corps…..

Discussions in recent days with friends and family indicate that few have a clue as to why establishing a US Space Force might actually be a good idea.

Allow me to offer a few reasons:

(1) Good government and governance: currently, military space capability is diffused amongst the Air Force, Navy, Army, National Reconnaissance Office, Missile Defense Agency, and other agencies. The Defense Department periodically reorganizes its space authority. This results in a lack of unity of command, budget overlap, and confusion about “who is in charge”.

https://defense.info/dannys-corner/2018/09/why-the-space-force-is-a-strategic-necessity/

Back and forth….will we or won’t we?

Even the House Armed Forces Committee is not taking sides right now…..

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry said he is not yet ready to weigh in on how a Space Force should be organized or how much it should cost.

Thornberry’s committee has been a dynamic proponent of a reorganization of military space forces, and that push will continue into the next legislative season, he told reporters on Tuesday on Capitol Hill. But Thornberry suggested that the scope and pace of the reorganization is still up for discussion.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson set off a heated debate last week when she submitted to Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan a detailed proposal for how to organize a Space Force as an independent military service, which was the mandate from President Trump. She estimated the cost at about $13 billion over five years.

https://spacenews.com/house-armed-services-chairman-not-taking-sides-on-space-force-disputes/

I ask as I always ask….if we are to have this 5th special branch of our military……where will the money come from?

Now, Donald Trump is clearly, if I can coin a word, a nostalgiac. He longs for the 1950s and 1960s, the years of his youth, and since entering the Oval Office he’s been trying to take us all back – lock, stock, and barrel – to that highly fossil-fueled, deeply polluted age when you didn’t have to put “again” after “great” while mentioning this country. Having already done his best, in a globally warming world, to burn yet more fossil fuels, he’s now adding to his nostalgia for that ancient era of American preeminence by proposing that we all revisit Star Trek (with him, of course, as Captain Kirk). He’s ordered the creation of a sixth branch of the U.S. military, a Space Force, for which, in language redolent of that distant age, he invoked “our destiny beyond the Earth.” As TomDispatch regular and expert on Pentagon spending William Hartung points out today, that means one thing: money, money, money, and yet more money. I think it’s clear what his once-vaunted plan for funding the rebuilding of this country’s failing infrastructure will have meant on his departure from office: nothing built or rebuilt on this small planet of ours – not a mile of new high-speed rail, for instance – but plenty of new weaponry in outer space. Let Hartung fill you in on the future according to our own Captain Kirk.

https://original.antiwar.com/william-d-hartung/2018/09/25/to-boldly-go-nowhere/

Is this truly necessary?

A damn good question that has no answers being offered.

Those Old-Time Wars

…but I exp-ectI have been writing and analyzing conflict (war) for many years and in all that time I have valued the input from my readers on their thoughts and beliefs about the subject.  I am fortunate enough to have several readers and visitors that have strong opinions o the matter and they do not always agree with what I have said or written…..but I find it exhilarating to have opposition for it always helps the conversation move forward.

Recently a good friend from https://harbenpost.wordpress.com/,  to IST was commenting on a post I wrote about war…..https://lobotero.com/2018/09/05/its-afghanistan-as-usual/

His comment was about fighting wars the way we use to and winning them like we use to……my point is that the “big war” is no longer the way we fight……but after saying that are their still things called “Battle Lines”?

It is common in today’s wars to claim there are no battle lines, but this is only because we do not create or at the very least do not want to recognize them as such because the enemy creates them. The creation of battle lines is the intentional act of an army and is, in fact, one of its great powers. In recent years modern armies have seized territory pushing the enemy out and behind the borders of that territory. Only to then stop pursuing them and begin administering the territory they seized.

It follows then that while the army is thus occupied and unwilling to cross the existing territorial borders in pursuit of the enemy’s final destruction. It becomes an easy thing for that enemy to build a center of gravity, and from the safety of this position across the border (A battle line they created) continue the war in every facet with almost no serious risk to their operations. We’ve seen this time and time again especially in modern warfare. Just in the last century, we’ve seen it in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Columbia, and other places as well.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/07/30/do_battle_lines_still_exist_113661.html

In other words it depends on the way war is viewed.

Personally, I view war as a use of special operating teams with massive technological superiority….but that does not mean that the conflict can be won…..take Vietnam as an example then fast forward to Afghanistan and then Iraq……technological superiority did not lead to victory….but then we need to define victory…..for “victory is more difficult art than the war” (cannot remember who said that…..just know it was not me).  Keep in mind….”Victory counts for nothing  if those who gain it know not what to make of it”.  In the last 60 years the US is a prime example of that statement.

I believe that large scale operations are a growing thing of the past…..after the initial strike the conflict settles into a humdrum existence tit for tat confrontations.

Oops! Well That Sucked!

History is a fun subject…we get to look into the lives of our ancestors…..I do a lot of reading and I have found some blunders, military blunders that few of us realize.

Take Russia…there were two separate invasions that were just amazing and each one was beaten by those famous Russian generals…..General January and General February…..

I would like to teach my reader about the 10 most amazing military blunders in history…..

Throughout history, battles have been lost to bad weather, insufficient weaponry and bad luck. But what about those for which poor judgment and shoddy planning are to blame? From the French troops led to their death at Agincourt, to Hitler’s lost army of 330,000 men at Stalingrad, historian Rupert Matthews rounds up 10 of the worst military mistakes in history…

Any fool can lose a battle. All you need to have is a weaker army than your opponent. What takes a special talent is to lose a battle when you start off with all the advantages in your own hands.

Some commanders have managed to throw away the power of greater numbers, strong positions and superior weaponry with blunders of such awesome scale that they have ended up losing a battle that, logically, they should have won with ease. Here are the most impressive military blunders in history…

https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/worst-military-blunders-battles-mistakes-history/

Like I said Oops!  That just sucked!

Beach Assault

A hundred years ago the World was ass deep in a deadly conflict….the War To End All Wars…..the Great War….and we know it as World War One…..and as I have been doing for awhile now a history lesson will ensue.

When someone mentions beach assault most people will think of the Normandy landing or the island landings in the Pacific during World War Two……but the first beach landing was not unique to WW2…..a massive beach assault began with WW1 and the battle of Gallipoli in Turkey……

Winston Churchill is widely credited as the man who committed British, French and – above all – untested Australian and New Zealand forces to the ill-fated campaign to seize control of the Dardanelles Straits and western Turkey.  Indeed, although it was Churchill’s drive and aggressiveness – not to mention cunning – which resulted in the campaign actually taking place, the notion of capturing the Turkish Dardanelles Straits had long been given consideration.

It was widely believed however – at least in professional circles – that a purely naval attempt to win the Straits was bound to end in failure.

The Value of the Straits

But why attempt the Straits in the first place?  The answer lay in the great strategic value control would give the Entente Powers.  The Straits linked the Mediterranean Sea with the Sea of Marmora.  This not only gave ready access to the Turkish capital Constantinople and much of the Turkish Empire’s industrial powerhouse, but also provided a lane to the Black Sea.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/overview_gf.htm

Unlike the landings in Normandy and the Pacific….Gallipoli was an utter failure that got thousands, 200,000+ to be exact,  killed and wounded for NO gain whatsoever.

Kasserine Pass: A Humiliating Defeat

Operation Torch saw Americans troops land in North Africa to take on the Nazi’s best general, Rommel….the problem is that our troops were not ready to meet the likes of the Afrika Corps of the Germans…

One action was America’s worse defeat of World War Two…..Kasserine Pass in Tunisia.

Beware a Desert Fox when he’s cornered.

It was North Africa, in the winter of 1943, and American soldiers were feeling cocky as they prepared for their first ground battle against the Germans in World War II. So far, it hadn’t been a bad war for the U.S. Army. The GIs were well fed, well paid and well equipped, especially compared to their threadbare and envious British allies. Even better, their baptism by fire had been to splash ashore in Algeria and Morocco in November 1942, where the defenders had been unmotivated Vichy French soldiers who soon capitulated.

Maybe defeating Hitler wouldn’t be so hard, after all.

The GIs should have remembered what the British had learned the hard way: never underestimate the Germans. Soon Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, admiringly dubbed the “Desert Fox” by the British, would teach the rookie Americans a lesson on the art of war at a dusty defile called Kasserine Pass.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/kasserine-pass-americas-most-humiliating-defeat-world-war-ii-19574

While America and its allies were successful in beating the Nazis in World War Two….Kasserine Pass was a doubt in the minds of our generals.

America’s Long History of Warfare

The Us ever since its inception has been at war somewhere in the world.  If a truthful history was to ever be written then one would see that how many wars we fight and how many Americans have died.

PBS has aired a Vietnam War series…a look back at the history oi that war….the series is a good series from all I have heard….have a watched it?  NO.  I cannot watch much on that War at any given time…..the problem is that some say that the point is missed….that the issue of war should be looked at from the beginning to now….even the future.

The below article tackles that oversight….

Americans like to view their country as a force for peace in the world when the historical reality is almost the opposite, a reality ignored by the PBS Vietnam War documentary.

f you go to the Wikipedia page that gives a timeline of U.S. foreign military operations between 1775 and 2010, you are likely to come away in shock. It seems that ever since the founding of the country, the United States has been at war. It is as if Americans just could not (and still cannot) sit still, but had to (and still have to) force themselves on others through military action.

Often this is aimed at controlling foreign resources, thus forcing upon others the consequences of their own capitalist avarice. At other times the violence is spurred on by an ideology that confuses U.S. interests with civilization and freedom. Only very rarely is Washington out there on the side of the angels. Regardless, the bottom line seems to be that peace has never been a deeply ingrained cultural value for the citizens of the United States. As pertains to foreign policy, America’s national culture is a war culture.

Source: America’s Long History of Warfare – Consortiumnews

WE Americans need to know our history, especially when it comes to war, it helps explain the present and even the future.

The US would not be the world leader it is today without war….

The Problem of Collective Indifference

The US is still involved in a war they started 16+ years ago.  And since those days since we have engaged in more and more conflicts and not all are the ones we started…..it is as if if there is a war someplace then the US needs to be there.

In all this time few Americans seem to care that our people are being sent and dying….but yet they are the most “patriotic” population in the world….but in reality is the truth is they do NOT care about our countrymen are having to deal with this situation….the deadly situation.

Can anyone explain this “collective indifference” of the American people……

Consider, if you will, these two indisputable facts.  First, the United States is today more or less permanently engaged in hostilities in not one faraway place, but at least seven.  Second, the vast majority of the American people could not care less.

Nor can it be said that we don’t care because we don’t know. True, government authorities withhold certain aspects of ongoing military operations or release only details that they find convenient. Yet information describing what U.S. forces are doing (and where) is readily available, even if buried in recent months by barrages of presidential tweets.

Source: The Problem of Collective Indifference: Wars Go On and On | Alternet

What will it take for the American people to show some concern over all the war we have taken on?

Look at today……North Korea…..a month ago is all everybody could talk about….today it is the media that all talk….a year ago it was ISIS…..today we are lucky to hear the name mentioned….the American people become indifferent to the prevailing news……especially when it comes to war.

North Korea Remains Forefront Of The “War” Talk…..

I wish we could go one day without someone stepping out of the shadows and thumping their chest about the possibility of war.

The rhetoric is not going in a good direction…..even the word coming from the dark shadows of the White House are not encouraging….

A White House aide says there’s no misunderstanding what President Donald Trump means when he says “only one thing will work” to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, AP reports. Budget director Mick Mulvaney tells NBC that Trump’s “clearly telegraphing, and this should not be news to anybody,” that “military options are on the table. … They absolutely are.” Trump says years of talking to the North and providing aid haven’t worked.

But Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy wants Trump to “stop doing hurtful things to the country’s national security, like telling the North Koreans that there is no diplomatic path for them to give up nuclear weapons.” GOP Sen. Ron Johnson says “there is no viable military option. It would be horrific.” The senators were on CNN.

Of course this could be just a response to something NK has issued…..who knows for sure….it is almost impossible to keep up with the back and forth between the two regimes.

Here is where I add what the war would look like ……I just cannot let all the stupidity go on without pointing out the possible results of this insanity…..

At various times over the past few weeks, US President Donald Trump and other members of his administration have threatened to use military force to prevent North Korea from conducting additional nuclear or ballistic missile tests. The US carrying out any military option raises a significant risk of military escalation by the North, including the use of nuclear weapons against South Korea and Japan. According to the calculations presented below, if the “unthinkable” happened, nuclear detonations over Seoul and Tokyo with North Korea’s current estimated weapon yields could result in as many as 2.1 million fatalities and 7.7 million injuries.

Source: A Hypothetical Nuclear Attack on Seoul and Tokyo | RealClearDefense

No matter how “patriotic” you think you may be….it is still necessary to look at all aspects of the actions that are being considered……it involves a lot more than the firing of a couple of missiles.

Think about this…..NK is not the only nuke ordinance in the region.  Of course ther4 is Iran….but there is another that could be thrust to the forefront of the nuke situation…..Pakistan.

Could North Korea’s example form the template of future actions by Iran and Pakistan? Both states are now under renewed pressure by the United States, and may thus deem it in their interests to acquire a deterrent against the United States. There is indication that U.S. President Donald J. Trump has been looking for a way to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal for a while, a deal he has repeatedly denounced as “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”

Source: Could North Korea’s Example Inspire Iran and Pakistan? | The Diplomat

While NK is the focus of the situation….there are others in the shadows that could be inspired in one way or the other…..to look at this situation with blinders is just short of insanity.