The Obama transformation continues – he nominates first openly gay Secretary of the Army, which means his sexuality played a role in his selection – otherwise why mention it? The Army has about a third of its combat brigades combat ready and this administration focuses on its diversity social-engineering goals???
Category Archives: General Interest
Short take on the debate
A day to think about last night’s Republican debate and the thing I liked the best was the Reagan plane in the background. The format served the candidates and the moderators poorly – too many candidates and not enough time for them to really showcase themselves. Some disappeared into the Trump/Bush/Fiorina contrails. Three hours felt like torture to me.
If you were scoring for substance and being well-prepared, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie and Marco Rubio won on that score. Ted Cruz can talk for hours authoritatively, but in both debates, it seemed like the moderators shut him up quickly. Trump offered the same talking points, with no added substance to his grandiose promises, but the polls reflect kindly on him. The rest of the pack did okay – no real stand out moments.
The real stand out moment for me was Trump rambling on about somebody’s kid whom he knows who became autistic after vaccines. In that moment I decided his true calling is not politics, but a permanent seat on The View (they can bring back Jenny McCarthy, so Trump and she can compare anecdotal stories on autism)… Really, people are following this man, like he’s some sage…. scary times in America!
Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Politics
Liars and damned liars!
To keep the pieces of information together – remember the report late last month about the intelligence higher ups within the Pentagon cooking the books on our effort (of lack therof) to defeat the Islamic State. On August 26, 2015, The New York Times reported on an IG investigation:
The investigation began after at least one civilian Defense Intelligence Agency analyst told the authorities that he had evidence that officials at United States Central Command — the military headquarters overseeing the American bombing campaign and other efforts against the Islamic State — were improperly reworking the conclusions of intelligence assessments prepared for policy makers, including President Obama, the government officials said.
By September 9, 2015, that “one analyst” turned into more than 50 intelligence analysts complained, which The Daily Beast reported:
More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military’s Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials, The Daily Beast has learned.
The complaints spurred the Pentagon’s inspector general to open an investigation into the alleged manipulation of intelligence. The fact that so many people complained suggests there are deep-rooted, systemic problems in how the U.S. military command charged with the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State assesses intelligence.
“The cancer was within the senior level of the intelligence command,” one defense official said.
Along with that happy pile of crap, we’ve been regaled with this training Syrian moderates to fight the Islamic State in Syria since 2013. On September 3, 2013, I wrote about everyone, from John McCain to John Kerry in the State Department, relying on Elizabeth O’Bagy’s assessment of the situation on the ground in Syria. O’Bagy ran an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, replete with her map, which looked like the map John Kerry adopted. I wrote about O’Bagy also being the political director of a lobbying group, the Syrian Emergency Task Force. I mentioned this on a popular blog, Diplomad 2.0, in the comments section and provided the link to my blog. Our government was relying on this young woman’s assessment on the “Syrian moderates” in Syria.
On September 15, 2013, I wrote a short blog post stating:
The UK Telegraph ran a report today from IHS Jane’s, stating that nearly half of the rebel fighters in Syria are hardline Islamists/jihadis (report here). According to Charles Lister, the author of the report, the idea that the insurgency is mostly secular in nature, just isn’t borne out by the facts. Just a reminder that a week and a half ago John Kerry was still quoting Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy, former senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, with her lowball estimates of radical Syrian rebels (Reuters report here). My how “facts” change so quickly ……..
On August 13, 2015, McClatchyDC reported:
“In the first week of September 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry appeared before congressional hearings in hopes of drumming up support for the Obama administration’s plan to retaliate militarily for the Syrian government’s deadly use of chemical weapons outside Damascus.”
the article continues:
“At another hearing that week, Kerry responded to a lawmaker’s skepticism about the existence of moderate rebels by saying that only a fraction of the fighters were “al Qaida and the bad guys.” Maybe 15 to 25 percent, he estimated.
“There is a real moderate opposition that exists,” Kerry said.If the skeptical lawmaker was reassured, professional Syria watchers were not. Many were aghast at what sounded to them like either dangerous naivete or an outright lie, given that the U.S. government’s own internal assessments had found from very early in the conflict that al Qaida-style extremists were playing an outsized role in the rebel fight.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article31018362.html#storylink=cpy
Just whose intelligence information was John Kerry relying on?
Now we have the CENTCOM commander, General Lloyd Austin, reporting to Congress this lame crap about how the training Syrian moderates is going and instead of ditching this failed program – they’re revamping it… All at the American taxpayer’s expense. Enough already, this isn’t working and this commander should be relieved immediately!!! And before the press lets Senator John McCain do his usual grandstanding – he has been instrumental in selling bad information to the American public on the “Syrian moderates” and when Elizabeth O’Bagy was fired from the Institute for the Study of War, back in 2013, for lying about her credentials, John McCain hired her to be on his staff. This “Syrian moderate” delusion is not just an Obama failure, it’s a bipartisan failure. And maybe, someone can actually tell us who exactly is Elizabeth O’Bagy, who are her contacts in Syria, who is her family, who introduced her to John McCain, and don’t forget McCain’s trip to Syria in early 2013 with the Syrian Emergency Task Force as his guide. Let’s answer the questions about who all those people he posed with in those Syria trip photos are. Time to come clean about the whole mess!
When we get the answers to all that, let’s zero in on Huma Abedin and her connections and handlers in the Muslim Brotherhood. Let’s look at her influence on Madame Secretary during the not-so-glorious Arab Spring. We have been betrayed by witless fools in our own government!
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics
Austin: Only ‘Four or Five’ US-Trained Rebel Fighters Remain in Syria
Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Lloyd Austin III testified Wednesday before the Senate Armed
Source: Austin: Only ‘Four or Five’ US-Trained Rebel Fighters Remain in Syria
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics, Terrorism
Government Cracks Down on Little Free Libraries
Filed under General Interest, Politics
Next will be quotas
After writing about my skepticism regarding the female Ranger School graduates, I wondered if I might be wrong and what if they completed every task just like the men. Well, here’s the truth of the matter, it’s not about them at all, it’s about a political agenda the President ordered and these females serve as propaganda tools – nothing more. Their propaganda value mattered enough that he took time out from his golfing to attend their graduation.
Likewise, the careful test conducted by the Marine Corps doesn’t matter either, for the same reason – this is about a political agenda.
From watching this many times over the years, here is how this progresses from getting a female poster girl out there (Ms 1st at whatever), the agenda moves to getting more women into those male-only fields. That means quotas and careful monitoring on how the integration is progressing. Once the politicization moves to this stage, that’s where the standards end up being quietly altered (lowered where decisions are made to eliminate or lower requirements that women can’t meet) or standards just get ignored to pass women and a double standard emerges in practice , which always erodes not only actual job performance, but also unit cohesiveness and morale.
All failures are tossed at the feet of the male culture in the military and both women and men end up poorly served.
The end result is always a weaker, less effective team. In the real world weaker teams end up costing lives and losing wars, which rests as a high cost to pay to promote a political agenda
Filed under General Interest, Military, Politics
Revisiting the “best opportunity to succeed”
“Having been a guinea pig in the feminization of the American military plan for a very short time decades ago, I’ll share with you how this goes. The political factions within the Pentagon will begin tinkering with new ways to make it appear that women can do these heavy-lifting, grueling combat tasks by eliminating as many of the tasks from the physical standards as necessary to get women into these positions. The physical standards for men will lower and all sorts of concessions will be made to soften the ride for women to succeed in these jobs. They’ll desperately seek a few über herculean gruntettes to become the face of the new Amazon band of sisters for the full court press, to “prove” women are just as strong as men.”
– libertybelle
In January 2015, I wrote the above quote in a blog post, “the best opportunity to succeed (code for lower standards)”, which was my cynical take on a statement from a Marine Corps spokeswoman in a USA Today article, “Marines delay female fitness plan after half fail”:
“Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos wants training officials to “continue to gather data and ensure that female Marines are provided with the best opportunity to succeed,” Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine spokeswoman, said Thursday.”
The Marine Corps embarked on a careful evaluation of female performance in combat skills this past year and their report submitted to the Secretary of the Navy rained on the parade of the feminist hoopla over the two female US Army officers who recently completed the US Army Ranger School . The Marine Corps report is available online and the highlights lead to huge questions about not only throwing open the doors to all combat jobs to women, but in my mind, it raises the question of whether slack was cut to the two female Army officers to get some females through the US Ranger School for political propaganda purposes. President Obama showed up for their graduation, which further suggests a political agenda at play and raises the specter that once again military brass might have compromised the truth to support Obama administration narratives.
Yes, there I said it, I am skeptical about whether some standards were lowered to accommodate women during this highly publicized and politicized US Army Ranger School effort to sell opening all combat jobs to women. I wonder about upper body strength skills, in particular. Having observed this sleight of hand in standards many times over the years, the Army brass often plays to the feminists within the Pentagon pushing female integration. No one ever admits to the standards being lowered, because for male leaders in the military to speak up is career suicide. In May, 2015 all 5 of the remaining females in the Army Ranger training had dropped out. They were then given a third chance to retry and graduated in August 2015. The feminists will argue their completion of the course vindicates opening all combat jobs to women.
The press cheered for the two female Army officers, but then along comes this report from the Marine Corps careful study and here are the key highlights:
Combat Effectiveness
Overall: All-male squads, teams and crews demonstrated higher performance levels on 69% of tasks evaluated (93 of 134) as compared to gender-integrated squads, teams and crews. Gender-integrated teams performed better than their all-male counterparts on (2) events.
All-male squads, regardless of infantry MOS, were faster than the gender-integrated squads in each tactical movement. The differences were more pronounced in infantry crew-served weapons specialties that carried the assault load plus the additional weight of crew-served weapons and ammunition.
Lethality:
All-male 0311 (rifleman) infantry squads had better accuracy compared to gender-integrated squads. There was a notable difference between genders for every individual weapons system (i.e. M4, M27, and M203) within the 0311 squads, except for the probability of hit & near miss with the M4.
Male provisional infantry (those with no formal 03xx school training) had higher hit percentages than the 0311 (school trained) females: M4: 44% vs 28%, M27: 38% vs 25%, M16A4w/M203: 26% vs 15%.
All-male infantry crew-served weapons teams engaged targets quicker and registered more hits on target as compared to gender-integrated infantry crew-served weapons teams, with the exception of M2 accuracy.
All-male squads, teams and crews and gender-integrated squads, teams, and crews had a noticeable difference in their performance of the basic combat tasks of negotiating obstacles and evacuating casualties. For example, when negotiating the wall obstacle, male Marines threw their packs to the top of the wall, whereas female Marines required regular assistance in getting their packs to the top. During casualty evacuation assessments, there were notable differences in execution times between all-male and gender-integrated groups, except in the case where teams conducted a casualty evacuation as a one-Marine fireman’s carry of another (in which case it was most often a male Marine who “evacuated” the casualty).
Health and Welfare of Marines
In addition to performance, evidence of higher injury rates for females when compared to males performing the same tactical tasks was noted. The well documented comparative disadvantage in upper and lower-body strength resulted in higher fatigue levels of most women, which contributed to greater incidents of overuse injuries such as stress fractures. Research from various U.S. and allied military studies reveal that the two primary factors associated with success in the task of movement under load are 1) lean body mass and 2) absolute VO2 Max. Findings from the physiological assessment of GCEITF males and females conducted by the University of Pittsburgh’s
Neuromuscular Research Laboratory include:Body composition: Males averaged 178 lbs, with 20% body fat: females averaged 142 lbs, with 24% body fat
Anaerobic Power: Females possessed 15% less power than males; the female top 25th percentile overlaps with the bottom 25th percentile for males
Anaerobic Capacity: Females possessed 15% less capacity; the female top 10th percentile overlaps with the bottom 50th percentile of males
Aerobic Capacity (VO2Max): Females had 10% lower capacity; the female top 10th percentile overlaps with bottom 50th percentile of males
Within the research at the Infantry Training Battalion, females undergoing that entry-level training were injured at more than six-times the rate of their male counterparts
27% of female injuries were attributed to the task of movement under load, compared to 13% for their male counterparts, carrying a similar load.
During the GCEITF assessment, musculoskeletal injury rates were 40.5% for females, compared to 18.8% for males
Of the 21 time-loss injuries incurred by female Marines, 19 were lower extremity injuries and 16 occurred during a movement under load task
The Army produced the required female poster gruntettes needed for propaganda, as I predicted, but the Marine Corps produced a careful study on combat performance. Sadly, all soldiers will suffer if we play along with the feminist Amazon mythology. The truth is females are biologically weaker than males and here’s the blunt truth, to quote this Marine Corps report:
“A military unit at maximum combat effectiveness is a military unit least likely to suffer casualties. Winning in war is often only a matter of inches, and unnecessary distraction or any dilution of the combat effectiveness puts the mission and lives in jeopardy. Risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires or interests of an individual, or group of individuals, is more than bad military judgment. It is morally wrong.”
Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Military, Politics
US will take 10,000 Syrian Refugees
And so it begins: “BREAKING: Despite Terrorism Concerns, U.S. To Accept 10,000 Syrian Refugees”.
Remember the other day when Democratic presidential candidate, Martin O’Malley, urged for the US to take 65,000 Syrian refugees? Well, that number didn’t come out of thin air – that is the number the UN wants the US to take. Don’t be surprised if the Obama administration drastically increases this number, after they set the “narrative” in motion to sell this to the American public. Expect more heart-wrenching stories of women and children in desperate situations, which won’t be hard to find. There really are desperate refugees fleeing from Syria, but there are plenty from all over the region who have now become “Syrian” to gain entry into Europe.
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
