NSN-No **** News

[thedrifter]

March 04, 2009
"What happened to that America Dad?"

I can totally relate to the below article. WHY? Where? What happened to that America that made it what it is? This country wasn’t on making secret deals under the table to our enemies. It wasn’t made on being coward or settling for the status quo. No, no it was built on kicking ass and taking names.

We are America, we set the freaking pace, we stand up for the weak. We don’t know the term failure. We know the terms freedom, liberty and justice. Furthermore, if you are one of the extreamist countrys out there that would like to do us harm, again we say bring it on. Remember, this is your country and no one or organization can ever take that away from “We the people”. Semper Fidelis.

"What happened to that America Dad?"

I am “Old School”. In a previous era I may have been considered macho. I prefer combat sports (boxing and mixed martial arts) to team sports (baseball and basketball). I prefer outdoor activities (rock climbing, whitewater rafting and camping) to video games. I prefer competition to cooperation, and may the best man win. All too often today, macho self-confidence is confused with “a*shole”, “arrogant”, or “pig-headed” particularly when it entails any interface with the gentler gender.

I believe that in this era of feminized, emasculated, gender-neutral, neutered, politically-correct, “my right to not be offended, trumps your freedom of speech” era, many men who would otherwise voice their opinions have chosen instead to be quiet and pine for a better yesterday.

Yet, straight shooters who opt to solve problems rather than wring their hands over them, is exactly what we need.

One method of compensation I have adopted is to collect movies of a John Wayne, Chuck Norris variety. I prefer a simple life where problems can be dealt with head on. The other night, my family was deciding on a movie to watch, and I suggested, that because my son was studying American history and WWII that we watch Patton.



The monologue at the beginning is famous and parts bear repeating. “Americans traditionally love to fight…” “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser…” Within five minutes, of the beginning of the movie, my son turned to me with wonder and admiration in his voice and asked, “Dad, what happened to that America”?

I suddenly got tears in my eyes, I hadn’t realized how far off the path we had gotten. My response was as accurate as it was politically incorrect, “Son, the last two generations in power have ****ed away that America and I fear that if my generation doesn’t do something to reverse the slide, there won’t be anyone who remembers what was once noble and admired about cowboys and firemen and soldiers”.



It has become common in business literature and B School classes to deride the “charismatic leader”. To portray the team as paramount and the lone wolf as dangerous, this in the face of all of the facts.

Some things to consider, Steve Jobs has saved Apple not once but twice.

Microsoft has gone nowhere since Bill Gates backed away from his day to day responsibilities.

When Dell got into trouble several years ago, the first thing they did was bring Michael Dell back.

In Organizational Behavior they stress the fact that group decisions are often better than what an individual leader will come up with. This is after discussing “sub-optimization” and “group think” and failing to discuss at all, the time cost associated with group dynamics.

Give me a decisive, informed, engaged, ethical visionary to a group anytime.

It is interesting to note the difference between Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address and Barak Obama’s. Both inherited an America on the ropes. In each case unemployment was high and getting higher. Arguably in Reagan’s case the scenario was worse, interest rates were MUCH higher, and inflation was higher. I don’t know for sure, but is suspect in Reagan’s first thirty days he never claimed that they were in the worst economy since the Great Depression and I suspect he never used the terms "catastrophic", "crisis" or any other similar panty-waste, hand-wringing, pussy whipped, "I feel your pain", BS for what he saw, as a job that needed doing with an outcome measured in the quality of people's lives, NOT in how many poll percentage points a certain stance was worth.



What we need in America today is more Patton’s and fewer Powell’s, more Apple‘s and fewer Lehman Brothers, more leadership and fewer focus groups.

"What happened to that America Dad?"Posted here and at The Right is Wrong and The Left is Wronger by guest blogger Tom Flake.

Posted by Maj Pain

[thedrifter]

March 09, 2009
Because kicking your ass with the F-15 & F16 for 30 yrs got boring

A catch 22 for Obama.
A cut in weapons like the F-22 jet fighter will also cut jobs. But that's not really the point.
By the Monitor's Editorial Board

from the March 4, 2009 edition


The most advanced warplane in history, the F-22 Raptor, is on Barack Obama's chopping block. Yet the president faces a no-win situation. If somehow he gets Congress to stop paying for more of the stealthy jets – whose full cost is $354 million a plane – thousands of defense workers will quickly lose their jobs in a recession.

As a Democrat more interested in spending money on butter than guns, Mr. Obama does not see guns as butter. His priorities are healthcare, energy, and education. Some Democrats even want a 25 percent cut in defense spending.

But Obama may not win the coming political dogfight with Congress over reducing production of the F-22, which the Air Force sees as its crown jewel in commanding the skies in a conflict. The plane is manufactured by some 1,000 companies in 44 states. That's created a powerful lobby.

But this debate should go beyond the question of where and whether government should create jobs. The military's whole future is wrapped up in the F-22 question and shouldn't be hijacked by short-term interests.

Originally designed to fight Soviet jets, the F-22 is seen by its critics as a relic of a bygone era. Or as Obama put it, the US should not keep "paying for cold war-era weapons systems we don't use."

Not so fast, say F-22 defenders. Yes, the military's tasks in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are not traditional warfare and do reflect a new era of nonstate fighters. But how will the US win a war with, say, China over Taiwan, or with Russia if it again invades a neighbor like Georgia? Who's to say what war might look like in 20 years? And some weapons, like the F-22, may do their job simply by deterrence rather than actual use.

Obama's proposed spending for the Pentagon won't be public until April, when he delivers a full budget to Capitol Hill. But his preliminary budget issued last month warns of "scarce resources" for defense. In inflation-adjusted dollars, he wants only a 2 percent increase for the Pentagon, much less than his overall budget increase.

High-priced weapons, often burdened with cost overruns and technical problems, will receive serious scrutiny. Their usefulness will be weighed against a coming Defense Review that will reflect Obama's ideas on security and potential threats.

Those ideas include using "soft power" to resolve possible conflicts, such as with Iran. (The US has more members of military bands than it does diplomats.) Obama is asking allies to spend more on defense. He may put more money into building up faltering states that may harbor terrorists than, say, the US Navy.

Obama appears to want military spending to fall as a percentage of the economy, perhaps down from 4.2 percent to 3 percent, even as he expands the number of troops.

Such shifts would redefine the US as a superpower. "The categories of warfare are blurring and no longer fit into neat, tidy boxes," Defense Secretary Roberts Gates wrote in a January article. He says "the spigot of defense funding opened by 9/11 is closing."

Congress will need to look beyond the issue of jobs and recession if it is to properly judge Obama's military agenda with the perspective of safeguarding the US – and the world – for an unknown future with unknown enemies.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Pat McGee Come Back Home a tribute to the troops

From The Artist: Come Back Home was written in the wake of me losing my longtime drummer and former Army soldier John C. Williams. But the song started off as a reflection of how a military couple deals with separation. After the release of Come Back Home, Johns little brother was killed by an IED in Iraq. His name was Blake Williams. His platoon used this track as the audio to a memorial slide show presentation they did in March of 2008. It was for all the courageous men and women they had lost in the month of March. I am humbled by their service to our great country and I hope this song brings them some peace. My father served in Vietnam and I truly appreciate their dedication and bravery."

Pat McGee - "Come Back Home", a tribute to the troops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ANfz...rinesview.com/


Ellie

[thedrifter]

March 23, 2009
Incoming troops likely to see initial rise in violence in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (March 20, 2009) – The number of attacks in Afghanistan is likely to rise with the influx of additional U.S. forces there, an International Security Assistance Force commander said Friday.


An increased U.S. presence in the region will spur NATO-led pressure on insurgents and improve efforts to counter narcotics and makeshift bombings, Netherlands Army Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif, commander of the ISAF’s Regional Command South in Afghanistan, said.


But the overall addition of 17,000 U.S. troops to the American contingent in Afghanistan will be met with increased violence at the outset of the plus-up, including a possible uptick in insurgents’ growing use of homemade bombings, the commander said.


“That will lead in the first couple of months after the influx of U.S. forces to what I think is going to be a significant spike in incidents,” de Kruif told reporters at the Pentagon.


The United States has roughly 38,000 forces in Afghanistan with the deployment of additional troops to begin in late spring. NATO has some 32,000 forces there.


De Kruif expressed optimism that security would improve following a round of Afghan elections slated for August, adding that there’s no current evidence suggesting insurgents are focused on disturbing the balloting process.


“I think that what we are doing now is actually planting the seeds, and that we will view a significant increase in the security situation across southern Afghanistan next year,” he said.


The area covered by Regional Command South comprises a restive section of Afghanistan that has been the scene of heavy insurgent activity. Under de Kruif’s command is a roughly 22,000-strong composite force with troops from the United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Canada, among other contributors.


The command’s focus centers on security and stabilization operations and building government institutions, including a national Afghan security force, de Kruif said. He added that he hopes ISAF will be able to assume a mentor role to the Afghan National Army and Police in three to five years.


Meanwhile, one of the multinational force’s major security concerns is the “nexus” of the narcotics trade and networks responsible for launching attacks involving improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which account for 70 percent of the region’s casualties, according to the general. Over the past two years, such attacks have increasingly targeted the civilian population, de Kruif said.


“The insurgents changed their overall strategy from attacking our strength, being ISAF, towards focusing on terrorizing the local nationals, the Afghan people,” he said. “For ISAF, that means that we have to deliver a 24/7 security in the focus areas where we are placed. It's no use of getting into a village at 8 in the morning and then leave that village at 5 in the evening.”


De Kruif noted that the higher frequency of attacks has not been matched by an increase in the IEDs’ sophistication, nor is there evidence suggesting materiel from Iran is being used in the assembly of the explosives. The most common IED is detonated by a pressure-plate mechanism triggered by the victim, about 70 percent of whom are Afghan nationals, he said.


“Based on the fact that these IEDs are relatively easy to produce, we don't see any real signs of influence by other countries like Iran with the fabrication and the use of these IEDs,” he said. “So I would not say that IEDs are sophisticated yet.”


Emerging technology in the field of IED detection and equipment like the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle, which deflects the impact of explosions, are helping stem the threat of IEDs, de Kruif said. But the key in defeating the tactic also demands that a basic counterinsurgency objective be achieved.


“The first step is having an approach in which you win the hearts and minds of the people. So that means that every day, although we have an IED threat, our forces will go out and have a 24/7 presence amongst the Afghan people,” he said. “Because by the end of the day, it is the Afghan people who will deny the use of IEDs by the insurgency.”

Posted by Maj Pain

Ellie