Military Ring Info

I was reading an article about how the Air Force has used the C-5 to transport over four million pounds of cargo to Afghanistan from Dover AFB an decided to do a little research on the aircraft. I remember the C-4 from my days in the Army. whenever we would deploy overseas the C-5′s and other transports would fly some of our equipment. Much of it woul be loaded on ships and transported that way also. I remember that the C-5′s were so heavy that when we loaded them up they had to be moved every few hours to prevent them from compressing the runway. I remember wondering at the time how in the world do you get something that heavy to fly?

The C-5 is one of the largest aircraft in the world. It’s stated mission is to provide heavy airlift over intercontinental distances, and to carry outsized and oversized cargo. This airplane can seat 73 passengers along with its heavy cargo. It is 247 feet long and 65 feet high. The kicker is that this plane can carry 270,000 pounds of cargo. It typically has an 8 man crew and a maximum speed of 579 MPH. It can be refueled while in flight and can fly at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

The Air Force ring customers who maintain and operate this piece of equipment come from both active and reserve components of the Air Force.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is touring South Asia in an effort to shore up support for our war in Afghanistan. I believe that this is also an attempt to shore up damage done by General McChrystal with his now popular negative remarks about the war. I say this because she is also stressing that we fight a united effort just as all of the other government officials who have visited that area in the last month have done.

She has also assured the Pakistanis that the US is in the war for the long haul. One of the reasons that Pakistani support may be a little weak is that they know that they will have to live with the Taliban long after we are gone. She is also offering them more money in the form of aid. Throwing money at them will not work. They need to know that we are capable of defeating the Taliban and that we will always be there for them.

Our Operation Enduring Freedom Ring customers who are giving their best efforts fighting this war deserve all of the help that they can get from the Pakistanis along with every other ally that we have. I have to applaud her efforts but the money part has never worked and I don’t think that it is the way to go in this situation.

NATO has really been successful over the last few months in killing top level Taliban leaders. I am amazed by the number of these leaders who have been taken out by NATO air strikes but I am equally amazed by the ability of the Taliban to bounce back.

Attacks by the Taliban on allied troops has not abated over the last months which is another amazing fact. They have got to be reeling from their losses but one of the marks of a good fighting force is that you can’t easily beat them into submission.

The two who were killed are Qari Latif and Mullah Akhtar. Mr Latif was responsible among other things for a raid an a US aid program. Mr Akhtar was responsible for assisting in the smuggling of Taliban fighters into Afghanistan.

Mr Latif was killed in an air strike which was based on intelligence from Afghan civilians. this underscores the benefits of what our military leaders have been attempting to do in Afghanistan. The focus on winning the hearts of the civilian population is the thing which gives the civilian population the confidence in the our custom military ring customers that causes them to provide this type of intelligence.

Mr Akhtar was killed in a fire fight with Afghan policemen. Both of these events took place in Northern Afghanistan.

Three British soldiers were killed by an Afghan Police Officer when he fired an RPG into a room that they were using as a command center in Afghanistan. The defection of Afghan policemen and was once a major but some positive action by NATO and the US seemed to get it under control. Still at one defector managed to slip through the cracks and cause the deaths.

Our military ring customers who go on combat operations have to worry about the enemy on both sides of the trenches. Many casualties have been caused by these defectors and there is no way to know 100% that the people that you are dealing with are not defectors. How do you watch your back and front at the same time?

A positive thing is that I have not heard any news of such an incident happening in quite a long time so we must have done something right in screening our Afghan allies more carefully. This operation had to be carefully planned by the policeman who pulled it off. President Karzai has apologized to the Brits and efforts are underway to find the soldier responsible. This incident is tragic but let me remind you once again that this is the first time in quite a while that this type incident has occurred.

Al Jezeera reported that Afghanistan President Karzai did in fact meet with the Commander of the Haqqani network. Now if anyone would ask me I would say that I think that he is on the right track. Common sense will tell you that there is no sense in trying to wipe out the Taliban because it just never will happen. The area is too big to try to police, there are too many of them, and they just have too much support. As a matter of fact a mindset that says lets kill off the Taliban is wrong. Our mission needs to be redefined in the minds of the American people. It has already been redefined by the Obama administration. we don’t need to see victory as killing everybody off and leaving a pile of dead bodies behind.

In my mind victory would be striking a crippling blow to al-Qaeda, capturing Osama bin Laden, and preventing them from striking here in America on a large scale ever again. To expect anything more than this is just not living in reality.

Reportedly President Karzai met with the Leader of the Haqqani Network, the head of the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI), and the head of the Pakastani Army. The goal is peace and hopefully between these four different factions it can be accomplished. The immediate goal seems to be to convince all of the Taliban branches which operate in the area to break off their alliances with al-Qaeda.

Karzai needs to realize that the Pakistanis have an agenda in this too and I’m sure that he does. They want to keep some sort of control over Afghan affairs. This was their basis for the alliance with the Haqqanis. If President Karzai doesn’t give away the farm he might come out smelling like a rose.

NATO has been very successful in the last few months capturing or killing Talian fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Drones have been credited with the lions portion of the success but there have been other methods of gathering intelligence and capturing terrorists as well. Much information is obviously gained from captured terrorists which is probably the best form of intel gathering. However NATO fits the pieces of the puzzle they have been doing a great job. There have been dozens of terror leaders captured since April and approximately 100 killed.

The problem is that no matter how many terror leaders are captured or killed it seems to have no effect on the amount of violent attacks which are conducted against our military ring customers serving in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The violence is going to continue no matter what we do. I have posted this before and I will say again that a mission to kill off all of the terrorists is futile and should not be our game plan for this war. We have committed too deep to just pull out but we may need to make some concessions so that we can extricate our troops from the war as soon as possible.

Lets change our concept of winning this war. Winning will not mean killing off every possible terrorist in the region. Winning to me will mean stabilizing the government of Afghanistan as we did in Iraq, and being able to strike terrorists leaders and camps in the region at will. This is just the humble opinion of the military ring man on this one, what do you think?

Gary Faulkner, our famed bin Laden hunter killer is back safe and sound in the United States now but his terrorist hunting trips may not be ended just yet. Mr Faulkner was released without being charged in Pakistan and should consider himself fortunate that he got away unharmed. When he was asked by the press if he intended to go back he hinted that we should wait until the end of August to see.

Well it his life so I won’t say what he should and should not do, but he says that we are going to take care of business. Better him than me.

There is some irony in this situation and it is that the United States has (or claims that it has) been hunting Mr bin Laden ever since the September 2011 terror attacks on the United States. It would be a hoot if Mr Faulkner actually did make some contact. Personally I think that he needs to quit while he’s ahead, but then I can’t tell Mr Faulkner what to do.

Do you remember the five American moslems from DC who were arrested in Pakistan on terrorism charges recently? They decided that they wanted to go to Pakistan to assist al-Qaeda in their efforts. They were captured with some maps and other evidence on them which got them charged with the terror charges. Each was sentenced to ten years on one charge and five years on the other. Each of the charges is to be served concurrently. We promised to keep you updated on this as we came across more information and we will keep you updated as time goes on.

These men were tried speedily in a country where trials normally take years. I think that the Pakistanis were making some sort of statement here because it is very seldom that they will arrest a terrorist let alone convict one in their court system. The US has been pressuring them to crack down more on terrorists activities and they are normally very slow to move.

We have been trying our hardest to get them to take action and when they did it was against American terrorists, a terrorist is a terrorist and nationality doesn’t really make a difference so we are glad for the good work. We hope that they will continue to crack down on terror suspects. Maybe next time they can catch some Pakistani terrorists.

USMC General James Mattis will take General Petraeus old job as commander of CENTCOM. From what I read about him he seems to be a colorful character but his greatest strength is his keen insight into military operational matters. he is outspoken in the same general vein as General McChrystal but I don’t think that the Obama administration will have to worry about him making any untoward comments. He had to be reprimanded about five years ago when he talked pubicly about he loved to kill terrorists.

I don’t see why anyone got offended myself. I just thought the old coot was just having a little fun with his audience. When is the last time a general officer picked up a weapon, let alone used it? It was a JOKE! Maybe not a good one but I understood it. I guess me and the old guy could probably get along if we worked together because I might be the only one who understands his corny jokes.

This has got to be a strange situation for General Petraeus because he has essentially taken a step down, but right now we need someone in there who we have absolute confidence will get the job done. The big thing now is that we finish what we started in Afghanistan. It’s not about personalities and who likes who. It’s about business.

Mr Gates, our Secretary of Defense has given general Mattis the highest accolades and has expressed his confidence in him and the war plan. If all of our military ring customers get with the plan and execute we will be back to peacetime soon.

Five Afghan troops were killed in a early morning NATO air strike in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan recently. I am not certain but it seems that the strike was in support of a pre dawn ambush that the troops were conducting against Taliban fighters when the disaster occurred.

This is one example of the fratricide which can happen so easily in combat. Troops can easily become disoriented and confused during battle. You don’t always have time to radio every move that you make when you are either chasing bad guys or being chased by them. There will be an investigation into the incident but it sounds like a breakdown in command and control.

Now I don’t know so I am not telling you what happened but let the military ring man give you some speculation on the events. The Afghan troops were had probably moved from their reported positions to fight the ememy or for whatever other reason. In doing so either they failed to report their new location or somebody failed to pass it along.

When the pilot saw people running around the ground he probably saw that that they were in the area that he was briefed that the eneny was located in. So seeing people in this area he felt that he was free to fire them up. Now that’s just one scenario and I could be completely off base with it, but it is possible.