Military Ring Info

General David Petraeus has vowed to win the war in Afghanistan during his ceremony to assume command of the troops fighting the war there. I certainly hope that he can put his money where his mouth is because he has a huge task facing him. Its probably going to take every bit of all the wisdom and knowledge that he has to win this one.

For the few of you who don’t know let the military ring man drop some knowledge on you. Some of the problems that he faces are widespread corruption in the military, on the police force, and in the government. In addition to that the Taliban seems to be increasing in the boldness and effectiveness of their terror attacks and operations.

He must figure out how to win back the flagging support of the Afghan population, its government, and the population here in the US. He must figure out how to turn the operation around and rebound from the offensive at Marjah. On top of all of this he must get it turned around and moving forward within the next few months because he has a deadline to be ready to pull our troops out of Afghanistan.

If anyone can do the job he is the man. He is credited with turning the war in Iraq around. It he did it once he should be able to do it again.

The latest kicker in the war in Afghanistan is that US funds are being extorted and then handed over to the Taliban to fund their war. Ain’t that a kick. Reports are that Afghan security firms which are paid to run convoys carring supplies and equipment into the country to support our military operations have to turn over a sizeable chunk of their proceeds to various warlords, police chiefs, governors, and local military units to insure that the convoys can pass safely through each area without being attacked.

When the extortion money is paid it insures that the convoys won’t be attacked while they are in the territory of the warlord, or governor, or whatever. I guess everyone gets to ride on that big US taxpayer titty.

You know what the military ring man says o venerable customers of mine. Oh well. We are paying the contractors big money to insure that the convoys are not attacked and thats exactly what they are doing. They told us how much that they would need in order to fulfill the contracts and we agreed and honored them. I guess that as long as they are holding up their end of the bargain there is nothing that we can say about it, especially if the contract doesn’t specify that they can’t pay off the Taliban for protection. Live and learn huh.

One of the things that our military ring customers serving in Afghanistan are complaining about is the new rules of engagement. The problem for our troops is that the new rules often put them and their comrades in greater physical danger. The new rules are designed to cut down on the amount of collateral damage done by large munitions such as artillery, mortars, missiles, and bombs. These weapons are not always as accurate as small caliber ammunition and have blast effects which cover a larger area. This greater amount of firepower sometimes has unintended effects on people and other objects close to the blast.

Our aim is to build a better rapport with the Afghan people and government by cutting down on the human casualties caused by the use of these larger caliber weapons, but the new rules are contrary to just about everything that our troops have been taught.

We have always trained for the large force on force type military engagements. In those engagements you would always use your large caliber weapons as much as possible to do as much damage as possible in order to save the lives of your ground troops. Troops were taught to rely on these bigger weapons since they could do so much more damage. This makes perfect sense. With the new rules for Afghanistan troops requests for heavy firepower are often denied.

Many times the Taliban will force innocent civilians to stay with them while they attack. This is what causes many of the civilian deaths. Our custom military customers are not purposely targeting civilians but sometimes accidents are happening.

This seems to be a planned part of the US operation in Afghanistan. Recently US and Afghan forces have been fighting some serious battles against this terror network. There have been several major battles in the last few days which seem to show that there is an ongoing effort to wipe out this network.

According to reports a large number of the insurgents killed were Turks, Uzbecks, Arabs, and Chechens. If you look at the variety of nationalities that our military ring customers are going up against you will get a sense of the difficulties that they are facing in this war. They are accomplishing a very difficult mission whether we realize it or not.

In one of the operations which was a two day offensive some locals really helped our forces out by blocking off a Taliban ecsape route and cutting off their retreat. This is an example of the benefits which are gained when our custom military ring customers make a concerted effort to win the hearts and minds of the local population.

General David petraeus was grilled very heavily by Senators John McCain, and Lindsay Graham about the July 2011 timeline for starting the pullout from Afghanistan. Obviously the senators don’t think that the idea of a timeline is a good idea. Now many of you may stop reading my blog after I say what I’m going to say here but I have to call them like I see them.

The plan has been made and it will work if we get behind and push and execute. General Petraeus attempted to explain to the senators that the date is not set in stone and depends on the situation on the ground at that time. I understand perfectly what he meant and I think that the senators do too but their agenda was to discredit the present administration by whatever means possible. Personally I see the date as a general guideline. It gives us a purpose and a goal to shoot for. Setting a flexible timeline will give our troops hope and a goal to work towards. Thats the way I see it. Setting this goal is good because it will keep our military ring customers focused on the task at hand.

Senators McCain and Graham are armchair quarterbacks who are not living the day to day reality of fighting the war that the General is. Our military planners and commanders need to be allowed to do their jobs without comments from the peanut gallery.

Senator McCain’s biggest mistake was to make a grand miscalculation which cost him the Presidential Election, so I certainly wouldn’t trust him to run a war. I have confidence in the people who live and breathe and fight this war everyday. Why do we try to pick apart a man who has risen to the highest rank of the greatest military in the world.

McCain you lost, so don’t use Graham to help you to try to make get even remarks. Your interest should really be for the good of the people of this country and the troops who serve in our armed forces. The lives and well being of our custom military ring customers are more important than political grandstanding, and your personal agenda.

The Special Operations Command SOCOM which is the parent agency for all Spec Ops military ring customers from all branches of service has decided to scrap the continued fielding of the MK-16 Assault Rifle. This came as a major surprise because the MK=16 was being fielded specifically for SOCOM. It was the first rifle ever specifically designed for Special Operations Troops to use in battle.

I am not quite sure why the rifle was scrapped but the reason that SOCOM gives is that it dosen’t offer enough of an advantage over the carbines that they use at the present time. I guess it makes sense budget wise not to spend money on something that will not give you a notable advantage over what you presently use.

SOCOM has already purchased a number of the custom made rifles and will discontinue buying them. They may also require the units using the rifles now to turn them in.

The stopping power of the 5.56 round may be the issue but I don’t really know. I would imagine that they would have the rifles which are in use turned back in because to attempt to keep them would cause a number of different logistics problems.

SOCOM oversees Special Operations units which include Air Force and Marine units, Navy SEALS, and Army Special Forces Ring customers.

Fazil Subhan who was the top Haqqani commander has been killed in action in eastern Afghanistan. He was known to be a facilator who provided major assistance to Taliban fighters who would cross back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan to attack US and NATO forces.

During this operation friendly forces obviously attacked an area which the Taliban constantly used to ambush our custom military ring customers when they crossed through. I can tell you right off the bat that this had to be a well planned operation to clear the ambush area of emeny threats. The enemy combatants were holed up in fortified positions so it seems that they were waiting there to ambush one of our units at the time that they were attacked. It is not clear to me how we got the drop on them in their own territory but it happened.

The Haqqani Network is closely linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are also linked to the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence Agency. The ISA has been documented as helping to arm and train Taliban fighters in Pakistan. This seems to explain to me how they are able to function so well as they cross back and forth across the border.

Both Koreas have heightened their alert posture in the wake of the Cheonan sinking recently. The wrong move by either country can result in serious problems for both.

The Chinese have obviously been dragging their feet in the incident. They sent their own team of investigators to look over the evidence but they haven’t announced their determination in the incident yet. They have not condemnd or reprimanded North Korea for sinking the Cheonan as of yet so I think that we can safely assume that they will try to derail any attempt by the South Koreans to have retaliatory actions taken.

South Korea wants North Korea to begin with a public apology but since they say that they didn’t do anything we can safely assume that that won’t happen either.

I don’t know if the United Nations has the Kahunas to take immediate and firm action against North Korea. Even if they tried the Chinese would use their VETO power to block it. This would effectively leave the United States and South Korea to deal with the problem. If not handled correctly this will create a serious international incident. Our custom military ring customers stationed in South Korea are used to being on alert and can handle whatever situation presents itself.

The Obama administration is adamant that the US troop pullout from Afghanistan will begin next summer despite the hesitation of some of the top military leaders to concur. The good thing about setting a deadline is that it serves to amp up the activity of the troops stationed there because they know that there is only a limited amount of time to accomplish mission objectives. commanders don’t like this type of deadline because they know very well that anything can happen at any time to upset the process. The average commander will take every bit of the time that he can get to accomplish his mission because he or she wants to get it right.

I think it is important that we set a semi rigid timeline for our military ring customers because it gives them goals to shoot for. I believe at the same time that we need to maintain the option that there could be a change in plans which may cause us to have to readjust our decision. The problem comes in when you are constantly readjusting your timeline. That indicates a lack of committment on your part.

The US is taking some time to reevaluate and rethink its policies in the war in Afghanistan. The reevaluation is necessary largely because of the failed offensive in Marjah. The Taliban has gotten bolder in its statements because they now feel that they are winning the war. The Kandahar offensive will not even be called an offensive but will be known as a “Partnershiip Operation.”

The primary objective of the operation will be civil reconstruction, rather than an military type of operation. The main focus is to make the war not appear to be a war. We have obviously learned some lessons from our war in Iraq and we are giving a lot of esteem to the concerns of the civilian population. When they are comfortable with us they are an invaluable help in fighting terrorists.

The frontal assault type of tactic did not work well in Marjah at all so this time we will get as far away from it as possible. It will be difficult to sell this soft approach to the custom military ring customer who is a combat veteran and used to hard fighting.