Military Ring Info

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.

General Ray Odierno has beefed up security around US compounds in Iran due to an expectancy of increased attacks by Iranian militants. The drawdown is in full effect and it won’t be long before our Operation Iraqi Freedom ring customers are pretty much out of the country. General Odierno is confident that Iranian backed militants want to use the withdrawal as an excuse to say that the US is retreating rather than withdrawing. They would love to increase their attacks to make it seem that way.

The Iranians are seeking to boost their props in Iraq before the Americans leave and this looks like a good opportunity. Of course the Iranian government is looking to gain some control over the region. Remember that the Iranians and Iraqis fought an eight year war just prior to Operation Desert Storm. The times may have changed but I can assure you that their agenda remains the same. This is just a new and different opportunity to take advantage of the struggling Iraqi government before it can get its feet on the ground.

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?

I was doing a little research tonight looking for some good information to write about when I came across some formation about a program that the Navy is currently working on. The Archlight Missile Program seeks to upgrade the Navies missile capability annd if it does what they are saying it will it will be lights out for the Chinese in their current Naval buildup. This missile system is so bad that it will give us the capability to put a missile anywhere in the world. They are saying that the range of the system will be 2,300 miles. This means that we will be ale to use a few strategically places ships to reach out and touch anyone, in any place, at any time. This will effectively negate just about every offensive weapon that the Chinese are working on now although they say that their new weapons are defensive.

The new misse will carry a 100 to 200 pound payload, and will be launched from a Mark 41 Vertical Launch System Tube. It can be mounted on just about every type of ship that the Navy has. It can also be launched from under the sea by submarines and from aircraft as well.

This missile will travel at hypersonic speed which will make it more of a surprise to the enemy forces that it will be used against. As far as the custom military ring man is concerned it will be extremely difficult to top this. Our Navy ring customers must be proud of this marvel of upcoming technology.

This is a good twist for a change and it goes to show that we have been keeping up with possible future military requirements. The military must by neccessity morph and change to adjust to the times if it is to be effective as a military.

The US Navy has apparently did this a while back and this is the first that I am hearing of it, but the navy has refitted at least four of its Ohio class nuclear capable submarines with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Now grasshopper you may ask me why is this so significant, and what does it mean? Well my most honorouble military ring customer it means this; In the past these subs were fitted only with Trident nuclear missiles. This was good but the subs were nuclear capable only. Now that they are fitted with Tomahawks they are more versatile and can be used in many more conventional applications. This makes them a whole different kind of threat.

Each cruise missile has a one thousand mile range which means that they can be transported close enough to strike just about anywhere in the world.

Those of you who follow this blog know that I have screaming for quite a while that we need to keep our eyes on the Chinese military. Well this shows that evidently our Navy ring customers have been doing just that.

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.

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 Costa Rican government has agreed to allow the United States to place troops in that country to help in the battle against drugs.

The problem in Costa Rica is that there are several factors which lend it to use by drug cartels. First of all they have no army so there is no armed force to stop the cartels from coming in and having their way. Drug cartels are always quick to size up a situation and take advantage of weaknesses. Another weakness is that the country has many miles of unpatrolled coastline. This lends itself to drug trafficking. The vast amount of shoreline gives the drug cartels plenty of space to use to smuggle drugs into the country. Its borders are porus and poorly guarded so smugglers can move in and out of the country easily and at will.

The US is sending about 7,000 marines, 5 planes and 46 warships to the country for about a six month period. You can see by the large number of warships that our navy ring customers will have to do the brunt of the work. The Costa Rican legislature allowed US troops in by a 31-8 vote.

Our custom marine corps ring customers along with our navy ring customers should be able to help the Costa Rican government gain control of its land mass and the sea around it. While our air force ring customers should be able to help them out from the skies above the country.

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.