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MAF Presents: The Daily Blog
Here at the Move America Forward Daily Blog we chronicle the good news on the War on Terrorism you might
not have heard about on the evening news. We also shine the spotlight on those whose conduct against our
country and our military is unbecoming.
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Walls Come Tumbling Down
Security Wall in Baghdad
The relative peace in some Baghdad neighborhoods means huge security fences are no longer needed to protect citizens, according to the New York Times.
BAGHDAD — Market by market, square by square, the walls are beginning to come down. The miles of hulking blast walls, ugly but effective, were installed as a central feature of the surge of American troops to stop neighbors from killing one another.
“They protected against car bombs and drive-by attacks,” said Adnan, 39, a vegetable seller in the once violent neighborhood of Dora, who argues that the walls now block the markets and the commerce that Baghdad needs to thrive. “Now it is safe.”
The slow dismantling of the concrete walls is the most visible sign of a fundamental change here in the Iraqi capital. The American surge strategy, which increased the number of United States troops and contributed to stability here, is drawing to a close. And a transition is under way to the almost inevitable American drawdown in 2009.
There are now more than 148,000 United States troops in Iraq, down from the peak of around 170,000 a year ago, and President Bush has accepted the military’s recommendation to remove 8,000 more by February.
Iraqis are already taking on many of the tasks the Americans once performed, raising great hopes that the country will progress on its own but also deep fears of failure.
Read here for the rest of the story.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Iraqi Presidency Approves Provincial Election Law
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani
Well, well, well. Looks like the Surge, which routed terrorists and malcontents from vast areas of Iraq, has also paved the way for political headway.
The Voice of America reports:
Iraq’s presidency council has approved a long-delayed provincial election law, paving the way for polls to take place in most regions early next year.
To resolve the latest dispute over the measure, the three-member presidential panel led by President Jalal Talabani said it is asking lawmakers to pass separate legislation to reserve some seats in provincial councils for minorities. The minorities would include Christians, Yazidis and other small religious or ethnic groups.
The old law guaranteed seats for minority communities, but the new version passed by parliament last month omits the quotas. Many political leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have criticized that change and urged a restoration of the quota system to protect minority rights.
The presidency rejected an earlier version of the provincial election law over the contentious issue of Kirkuk. Kurdish lawmakers objected to the way a power-sharing deal would have distributed Kirkuk’s council seats among the region’s ethnic groups. That issue has also been dropped from the new election law and will be dealt with separately.
Judge Orders Release of Terrorist Gitmo Detainees into U.S.
A judge has ordered the release of 16 radical Chinese Muslims into the United States. The terrorists have been house at Guantanamo Bay and the U.S. no longer considers them enemy combatants.
“A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, says the order to release the detained group of ethnic Uighurs by Friday is contrary to U.S. immigration laws. She said the U.S. Department of Justice will immediately seek to reverse the decision in a court of appeals,” according to the Voice of America.
The United States – yes, we who have been accused of torturing prisoners – don’t want to send these terrorists back to China because we are protecting them from TORTURE. Uh-hum.
Here’s the rest of the story: http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-10-08-voa3.cfm
Monday, October 06, 2008
Intercepted calls: Russian was Aggressor against Georgia
There they go again.
Russia was the attacker and not a hero in the clash that began later Aug. 7, according to mobile phone calls that the Georgian government intercepted.
Seems like the old Cold Warrior and KGB operative Vladimir Putin wants another go around. Of course, he denies such goals. But as the great Ronald Reagan once said “Trust, but verify.”
Here’s the Associated Press article on the latest:
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Intercepted mobile phone calls show that Russian tanks and troops invaded before Georgia unleashed its offensive against South Ossetia, the Georgian government said Tuesday, pressing its claim that Russia was the aggressor in the war last month.
The recordings released Tuesday by the Georgian government aimed to turn the tables against Moscow in the battle for the moral high ground after a five-day war that killed hundreds of people and deepened the rift between Russia and the West.
Russia has always claimed that Georgia was the aggressor, saying it only responded militarily to defend Russian citizens and peacekeepers in South Ossetia.
Georgia said the recordings are phone calls between two South Ossetian border guards which prove that Russian tanks and troops entered South Ossetia many hours before the Georgian offensive began late Aug. 7.
“The choice to resist was not an easy one, but we had a solemn responsibility to defend our democracy from foreign direct aggression,” President Mikhail Saakashvili told The Associated Press late Tuesday.
The recordings were first released to The New York Times, which reported their contents Tuesday. A Georgian Interior Ministry official, Shota Utiashvili, played two of the recordings for The Associated Press and provided printed English translations from the original Ossetian.
Utiashvili said the alleged intercepts show “that Russian heavy armor entered Georgia about 20 hours before the war started.”
“It again proves our case that Georgia’s move was self-defense, rather than an unprovoked attack,” he said.
The recordings are purportedly intercepts of two exchanges between a South Ossetian border guard at the southern entrance to the Roki tunnel, which leads from the separatist Georgian province to Russia, with another guard at the headquarters in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.
The northern entrance to the 2-mile (3.6-kilometer) long tunnel is in Russia.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko dismissed the Georgian claim as “not serious.” He said any major troop movements would have been easily tracked by satellites used by NATO nations.
“I would be grateful if they provide such satellite data to us and the entire global community, provide specific data,” Nesterenko said sarcastically. “Allegations that they have eavesdropped on someone and heard something are simply not serious.”
NATO’s chief and ambassadors from all 26 allies were in Georgia on Tuesday, showing support for the pro-Western nation and demanding that Russia withdraw forces from Georgia in compliance with an EU-brokered cease-fire.
According to the English translations of the recordings, in the first call, which purportedly began at 3:41 a.m. local time on Aug. 7, the South Ossetian guard at the tunnel says “they have moved armored personnel carriers out and the tunnel is full.”
In the next call, about 10 minutes later, the guard says “armor and people” had emerged from the tunnel. Asked whether there was a lot of armor, the guard says, “Well, tanks, BMPs and those things.”
BMPs are armored personnel carriers.
Saakashvili has repeatedly said he was acting in self-defense when he ordered troops to open fire on Tskhinvali and insisted there was evidence to back up his claim, but had not previously provided any details.
Utiashvili said Georgia provided the evidence to the United States and European governments and would welcome an investigation.
In Washington, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman didn’t respond directly to the question of which side, Georgia or Russia, was in South Ossetia first.
“I don’t think anything changes—this was a hostile” move by Russia, Whitman said. “The operative point is that Russia invaded territory of Georgia.”
The authenticity of the recordings could not immediately be verified.
The New York Times said it had done its own independent translation of the audio files. The newspaper’s translation was similar to the translation provided by Georgia, with slight differences that did not appear to change the meaning.
Russia has portrayed Saakashvili as a bloodthirsty, mentally unbalanced leader who was encouraged by the United States to use force to try to regain control over South Ossetia.
Western governments acknowledge that Georgia launched an offensive against Tskhinvali but stress that Georgia was under increasing pressure amid growing Russian support for the separatist governments of South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia. There had been frequent outbreaks of violence.
“The story that has been out there is that President Saakashvili is volatile and he launched this military conflict. I think that is a gross oversimplification of what really happened,” the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, told APTN on the sidelines of the NATO meetings Tuesday in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
Volker had not seen the specific evidence Georgia was presenting, but said the swift movement of a large Russian force into Georgia pointed to “advance planning.”
“No matter how we end up parsing out those few hours in the early morning of Aug. 7, Georgia was responding to a long period of Russian pressure, including violence that was going on, with shelling from South Ossetians,” Volker said.
“(Georgia) made the decision to go into Tskhinvali, which was the trigger the Russians were looking for to launch this pre-planned invasion.”
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Earth to Terrorists: America has a New lethal Weapon Waiting for You
After nearly a decade in the shadows—with billions spent on earlier versions long since abandoned—the Army is moving quickly to field a revolutionary new weapon to Joes a lot sooner than anyone had ever imagined.
It’s a weapon that can take out a bad guy behind a wall, beyond a hill or below a trench, and do it more accurately and with less collateral damage than anything on the battlefield today, officials say. It’s called the XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapon, and by next month the service will have three prototypes of the precision-guided 25mm rifle ready for testing.
A ‘leap ahead’ in lethality
“We’ve done a lot of testing with this, and what we’re seeing is the estimated increase in effectiveness is six times what we’d be getting with a 5.56mm carbine or a grenade launcher,” said Rich Audette, Army Deputy Project Manager for Soldier weapons.
“What we’re talking about is a true ‘leap ahead’ in lethality, here. This is a huge step,” Audette added during a phone interview with Military.com from his office at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.
This weapon has brawns AND brains.
A ‘smart’ weapon
Brains are what really makes this Buck Rogers gun work—it has them. The weapon combines a thermal optic, day sight, laser range finder, compass and IR illuminator with a fire-control system that wirelessly transmits the exact range of the target into the 25mm round’s fuse before firing.
A Soldier can aim the XM25 at a wall concealing a sniper, for example, but “dial in” or adjust the distance by an additional meter above the target. When fired, the Alliant Teksystems-built round will explode above the enemy’s position, essentially going around the obstruction, Muldowney said.
“It’s so accurate, that when I laze to that target I’m going to be able to explode that round close enough that I’m going to get it,” Audette added.
The service hopes to field several other types of 25mm rounds for the XM25, including ones for breaching doors, piercing vehicle armor and non-lethal air-bursting and blunt-impact rounds.
Testers at Picatinny plan to put the XM25 through its paces over the next several months, certifying it as safe for a Soldier to operate and tinkering with the weapon’s effectiveness and durability.
Go here for the entire story.
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