Category: National Security

Exit German Special Forces, enter, German (or French) AWACs to defend against the Taliban (Air Force/Farce)??? WTF?

Your services are no longer required...I guess.

Your services are no longer required…I guess.

For three year a crack German commando team has sat in Afghanistan and stared at the Sun. They’ve been deployed in combat operations ZERO (that’s 0) times and Germany politicians are starting to demand that they return. Fair enough. You’re not going to use them because of the political decision not to actually do anything of value in Afghanistan, you might as well pull them back and hunt neo-Nazi’s in the former East Germany.

But what gets really funny is how the Europeans want to substitute for this ‘non-needed’ special forces–they want to send great big hulking AWACs aircraft. Planes designed to steer combat aircraft into Russian fighters and other hostile air forces are going to be sent to Afghanistan to defend against…the Tabliban Air Force? Ummm…does that make sense?

But wait, it gets better. France say no, there is no Taliban Air Force–don’t send German AWACS, because… we want to send our French AWACs to Afghanistan instead.

Yea, this will help....

Yea, this will help….

As a gesture of goodwill, Steinmeier said he would consider replacing the KSK soldiers with NATO AWACS reconnaissance planes for Afghanistan that are based in Germany and have largely German crews.

NATO’s decision on whether to deploy the planes has been delayed because of a bizarre attempt to block the move by the French. First, Paris claimed the mission would be too expensive. Then they said it made no sense because the Taliban has no air force that the flying radar facilities could be used against. At the same time, however, Paris offered to deploy its own AWACS aircraft.

WTF?

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Is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, a drug dealer?

Is he his brothers keeper?

Is he his brother's keeper?

The New York Times is asking that question today.

When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.

Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.

Afghanistan is a mess politically, so it’s entirely possible this is just a smear attack from his opponents. But then again, Afghanistan is also awash in corruption and drugs, and if something like this did touch into Karzai’s inner circle I don’t think anyone would be surprised.

Corruption is killing Afghanistan (as it is killing other countries as well). But unlike say China which has rampant corruption, Afghanistan doesn’t have the economic muscle (or internal security muscle) to keep people in line despite the bribes that have to be paid.

Fighting corruption worldwide is going to be the biggest battle we face in the next 20 years of foreign policy. With China, Russia and much of the developing world along with many large European companies in a sort of de facto alliance of ‘this is how we do business’ the fight against corruption may be one that we may not win.

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Somali pirates keep cutting price for tank ship. Kidnapped by K-Mart a reality.

Waiting to fire.

Waiting to fire.

A blue light special has been announced by the pirates who seized a ship full of Russian tanks off the coast of Somalia.

The pirates, who seized the ship last Thursday, initially demanded a $35 million ransom, then dropped it to $20 million and now it seems they are willing to settle for much less.

“It’s down to $5 million,” said Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator for the Seafarers’ Assistance Program in Kenya, which tracks pirate attacks and communicates with the families of crew members. “But this needs to be done quickly. The longer that ship stays in Somalia, the more people who are going to get involved and the greedier they’re going to get.”

A Russian frigate is due on station in a few days. They’ll probably blow up the ship (which is what should do too) but they’ll be doing it to hide evidence of dealings with the outlaw Sudanese regime.

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Sink the tank ship

The Ukranian freighter loaded with T-72 tanks has been surrounded by a number of US and other naval vessels off the coast of Somalia. The pirates have responded by lowering their demand from $35 million to $20 million for the cargo, that some say is destined to be delivered to Kenya.

That’s a load of crap.

These T-72s are going to the Sudan despite an international ban on arms sales to that rogue country. Kenya does not use Russian made tanks, and it is pretty clear to many they are just the middlemen for this lucrative deal to the Sudanese government. It’s clear we need to act, and we have the opportunity to do so.

We should sink the ship.

Give the crew a chance to jump overboard, and maybe the pirates as well, but I don’t think anyone would shed a tear if this cargo went to the bottom of the sea. It would send a great message to pirates and to suppliers of the Sudanese regime that the embargo on their country has teeth.

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Somali pirates now have tanks

File this in the ‘not good’ category. A boatload of 30 T-72 tanks was intercepted off the coast of Somalia but the Somali pirates, who will likely be adding these weapons. Just what Africa needs more of–tanks and ammunition.

Hopefully they’ll be dumb enough to put one of the tanks on a small boat and try to attack someone with it.

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10,000 Syrian troops mass on Lebanese border

Oh great. Just what the world needs. More stupidity in the Middle East.

Syria has massed thousands of troops along its border with northern Lebanon in what officials in Beirut fear is a prelude to the first incursion since Syrian forces pulled out three years ago.

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Russia dealing with Ingushetia, yet another separatist area

Civil war could break out in the predominantly Muslim area of Ingushetia according to human rights groups have been witnessing an uptick in violence of late. Just last month a prominent critic of Moscow was shot dead in Injushetia and Muslim fighters who got their start in Chechnya are now growing bolder and bolder.

We’ll be watching this flash point as the Georgia situation continues to fester.

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Russian stock exchange halts trading amid chaos

That’s what you get for invading your neighbor.

Regulators halted trading at midday (9am BST) on Russia’s main stock indices – the rouble-denominated Micex and the dollar-denominated RTS – following a similar suspension yesterday.

Russia has been badly affected by the global financial crisis, and has suffered as stocks have sunk in Europe and Asia. But it has also been hit by the rapid fall in oil prices and the flight of foreign investors since the war in Georgia.

Of course had we not bailed out AIG last night, we could have seen something similar in the US, UK, Tokyo etc as a number of institutions fell apart. I was watching shares in my local bastard monopoly electric company Consolidated Energy Group (CEG) yesterday. CEG was tied to Lehman and rumors had some exposure to AIG that would have dragged them through the mud. Their company, which has about $15 billion worth of nuclear power plants suffered from some massive shorts and saw the stock drop from about 60 to 13 in a matter of minutes, then up again, then down. It was really strange.
More excitement today as I deal with a quick sale of Washington Mutual stock (WM).
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French frogmen rescue hostages held by hostile pirates

French commandos launched a raid on a sailboat off the coast of pirate-controlled Somalia tonight, freeing a 60-year-old couple and killing one pirate and capturing six others.

The frogmen from the Commando Hubert, modelled on Britain’s Special Boat Service, were sent into action by President Sarkozy from the Élysée Palace in Paris, 5,000 miles away. It was after midnight, southeast of Somalia, when the helicopter began ferrying commandos from le Courbet, a frigate that had been shadowing the Carré d’As for the past ten days. A maritime reconnaissance aircraft monitored the operation from over the horizon.

The men were dropped by parachute some distance from the stationary yacht and swam towards her with night-vision goggles and undetectable breathing systems, according to military sources. They clambered aboard silently with ropes and light grappling hooks, taking the pirates by surprise.

The West should really just blow up all these pirates. It’s at sea, and it is unlikely our ships will suffer a single casualty in engaging these pirates. Throughout Africa we’re mocked as being unable to control this rabble, and given the drastic disparity in firepower, a few destroyers could put an end to piracy in Somalia in a matter of weeks.

But alas, we don’t do it other than a few times a year, more or less. Would be far more effective to destroy all the pirates ships and their ports and then see how they fare.

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9-11 Combat Air Patrol

This was a message I got from the Military Communications Mailing List on 9-11

All,

These notes are intended to give those not in the area a sense of what took
place during some of this extremely strange day. I’ve included the WUN’ers
since they’ve been quite interested in what is happening.

These are my own observations based only on my hand notes taken at the time.

I started listening to the events around 1030 EDT. The Trade Towers and the
Pentagon had already been attacked. By that time there was not a peep of
civil air traffic in the area. One of the first things I heard was Andrews
tower announcing on their VHF & UHF freqs that their airspace was closed and
that all intruders would be shot down. That certainly put an exclamation
point on what I was to hear for the rest of the day.

Throughout the day the Regan National controller (125.65) was the overall
controlling authority for the DC area. He authorized all departures and
entries into the Class B airspace. That role still remains as of 2200 EDT.

As of 2100 EDT Andrews is starting to return to normal with Airevacs and some
helos and VIP jets starting to fly in.

Fighters:

By 1030 there were two flights of DC ANG F-16s (Wild & Caps) up in Combat
Air Patrol (CAP). At that time there were news reports of another, missing
airliner, so I assume the F-16s were up protecting the DC area from that
possibility. Soon these F-16s were joined by three more F-16s from Langley,
North Dakota ANG aircraft normally deployed to Langley in an air defense
mode. The DC ANG flight leader assumed the role as CAP commander trying to
keep all the aircraft straight. DC ANG F-16s assumed control the airspace
below 23,000 ft and the Langley F-16s and alter, F-15s took the airspace
above that.

After about an hour, two Langley F-15s (First) joined the CAP and took up
position high above the area. They were also joined by some F-18s up from
Oceana. This caused some problems as far as refueling was concerned. The
KC-10s, who had the drogue capability, were ready to RTB and were out of
fuel. One of the KC-10s (Team 23) took it upon himself to set up to refuel
his aircraft from the available KC-135 (Tazz) so that he would be in a
position to refuel both the boom aircraft (F-16s & F-15s) and the drogue guys
(F-18s).

In the early afternoon, a flight of two VA ANG F-16s (Fury) came up to the DC
area to join the CAP group. The CAP commander later sent them back to the
Richmond area because there were too many aircraft in the DC area. After
about 30 minutes the VA ANG guys decided to end their CAP around Richmond and
RTB’ed to Harry Byrd International.

Tankers:

By 1030 there were two McGuire KC-10s (Team 23 & 24) up in the area. I’m not
sure if they were already in the general area when the events unfolded or
they were scrambled from McGuire. They started refueling the DC & Langley
F-16s so they could stay in the area. For awhile, in the morning, Team 23
also assumed the role of an AWACS giving target and vectoring information to
the CAP fighters. Team 23 eventually recovered at Andrews and refueled and
went back up in the late PM (1740). What a crew. They deserve a medal.
They’ve been up there since at least 1030 this morning.

Around the same time as the McGuire tankers were noted, two KC-135s from the
Maine ANG (Maine 85 & 86) were also in the area working with the McGuire
tankers. I believe that these guys had been up off the East Coast and were
diverted to the area to support operations.

Later in the morning and in the early afternoon two OH ANG KC-135s (Tazz &
Flop) and two PA ANG KC-135s (Steel) also joined the support crowd.

AWACS:

About an hour after I started listening, an AWACS (Bandsaw Kilo) was noted
off the MD/VA coast and started taking control of the airspace. However, the
DC ANG CAP commander continued to control the immediate airspace around
downtown DC. Later in the afternoon he was joined by another AWACS
(Chalice). I’m assuming that these aircraft were deployed from Langley or
possibly Seymour-Johnson. Bandsaw and Chalice were both in the area until
quite late in the evening.

Helos:

They were so many medevac helos trying to get into the Pentagon area to
extricate the wounded that I couldn’t keep track of all of them.
Interspersed among the medevacs were several 1st Helo Sqdn (Mussels) getting
into the Pentagon area to take out some of the military VIPs (JCS).

There were also a couple of US Navy helos (HU-720) and another ) that came up
to Andrews from Norfolk. I’m assuming that these were carrying VIPs from
CincLant. News reports said that the area of the Pentagon that was struck by
the plane housed mostly USN & Marine offices.

Late in the PM there were several Nighthawk helos operating back & forth
between MCAF Quantico and Andrews. I’m assuming that they were shuttling
military VIPs.

NCS:

Huntress assumed NCS role sometime in the late morning and set up on 255.8,
228.9 & 234.6. Huntress assumed responsibility for designating targets and
releasing fighters to prosecute these targets.

The DC ANG F-16s and Langley F-15s as well as the AWACS and tankers have
been up continuously, -all day. They are still up and it’s 2200 EDT. They
must be bushed.

These crews certainly have shown a very high level of professionalism and
devotion to duty. I for one am glad they are up there looking over us. Those
of you who support our military you can be VERY PROUD of their actions on
this day.

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