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At dawn on September 1st, Luftwaffe struck at Polish airfields
destroying most of the planes before they could get off the ground.
With control of the skies assured wicked Wehrmacht began the systematic
destruction of railroads and the few communications nodes. From the
very outset the Poles mobilization plan was seriously compromised.
Before the day ended, chaos reigned at Polish Army HQ.
The first phase of the campaign, fought on the frontiers was over by
September 5th and the morning of the 7th found reconnaissance elements
of Army Group South’s 10th Army just 36 miles southwest of Warsaw.
Meanwhile, also on September 5th, vBock’s
Army Group North had cut across the corridor and turned southeast for
Warsaw. Units of the 3rd Army reached the banks of the River Narew on
September 7th, just 25 miles north of Warsaw. The fast moving armored panzer 'Schwerpunkts' of blitzing attacks left the immobile Polish armies cut up, surrounded and out of supply.
Meanwhile the closing of the inner ring at Warsaw witnessed some tough
fighting as the Polish Poznan Army, bypassed in the first week of the
war, charged heading and attacked toward Warsaw to the southeast. The
German 8th and 10th Armies were put to the test as they were forced to
turn some divisions completely around to meet the desperate Polish
assault. In the end the gallant attack fell short and by September 19th
the Poznan Army surrendered some 100,000 men and Poland’s last intact
army.
As this was occurring the second, more deeper envelopment led by General Heinz Guderian’s panzers took
the city of Brest-Litovsk on September 17th, and continued past the
city where they made contact with the 10th Army spearhead at Wlodowa 30
miles to the south.
The war, for all practical purposes was over by September 17th. Lvov
surrendered on the 19th. Warsaw held out until September 27th, gave up the ghost and the last
organized resistance ended October 6th with the surrender of 17,000
Polish soldiers at Kock.
The campaign had lasted less than two months and ended in the destruction of the Polish Army and the fourth partition of Poland. German losses were surprisingly heavy considering the brevity of the campaign.
Deutsch casualties total some 48,000 of which 16,000 were killed. Fully
one quarter of the panzers the German committed to battle were lost to
Polish anti-panzer guns. Luftwaffe was forced to trash 550
aircraft.
It was not a cheap victory by any means but
it did confirm to the generals of Wehrmacht that the military
machine that they had built was indeed the best in the world and worthy
of their confidence.
Reaction around the world on 1 Sept 1939?
France - mobilized her military and demanded Deutschland withdraw from Poland.
Great Britain - mobilized her army and RAF (the Navy was mobilized the day before) and demanded Germany withdraw from Poland.
Italy - Announced no military plans or initiatives.
Russia - warned concern for civilian population of Russian descent and
fear of Polish bandits would warrant armed intervention. She also
mobilized her military.
Great Satan - Demanded a halt of indescriminate bombing of towns and civilians.
Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Swiss - announced neutrality
Deutschland - "Determined to eliminate insecurity and perpetual civil war from the borders of the Reich"
Poland - appealed to Great Britain and France to intervene in honour of the Mutual Assistance Treaty of 1939.
1 September is the day an old world order was violently overturned, chock full of lessons, promises and harbingers that echo still today.
Fratricide?
The theory being that as Afghan army and police "stand up" to the fight,
their western allies and mentors can draw down and go home. The Taliban
routinely claim every Isaf death, but it was the incident in which they
were not involved which has the potential to destroy the heart of
Isaf's withdrawal; 42 coalition soldiers have been shot this year by the
men they are supposed to be training, 12 this month alone.
Each time
one of these "green on blue" attacks occurs, coalition
spokesmen play down their significance. They have, we are continually
told, no wider significance. There is no common thread, little evidence
of infiltration and the majority of such attacks are the result of
personal grudges.
Oh really?
"One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive,
arrogant, self-serving profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high
technology; and the other group generally views the
former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving,
complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals. Such
is the state of progress in the current partnering programme."
Over a
decade of fighting shoulder-to-shoulder had created mutual loathing that
was impossible to camouflage. The mutual grudge match ranged from big
issues – night raids, failure to treat Afghan military casualties with
the same urgency as their own – to trivial ones - urinating in public,
personal hygiene, thievery.
This is, perhaps, worse than finding the ANA is riddled with Taliban
sleeper cells. Infiltration can be stopped by counter-intelligence. But
what, after this length of time, reduces sheer bad faith?
Pic - "Unfriendly Fire"
"She"s not really pretty - she just looks that way"
A cruel descript for certain elements who live life like they type - really fast with lotsa mistakes, nicht wahr?
Also kinda like 44"s cruel Bystander in Chief mode vis a vis the killing fields of ye olde Suriya al- Kubra
Eighteen months into the Syrian slaughter, 44 finally
happened on a barbarism he would not countenance. Fighter jets
and helicopter gunships had been pounding the city of Aleppo,
and the dictator had made it clear that the cruelty meted out to
Homs could be Aleppo’s fate, as well. Massacres had become the
rule of the day, more than two dozen torture centers had turned
Syria into a hellish land, and now finally a red line had been
drawn. Assad “hasn’t gotten the message,” 44 says. But the
truth is that the Syrian ruler some months back concluded that
he could kill with abandon, and that powers beyond wouldn’t come
to the rescue of the Syrian people.
The cruel fate of Daraya, a working-class Sunni town a few
miles southwest of Damascus, tells of a Syrian regime free of
any scruples or worries about the outside world. Over the past
week, hundreds perished in Daraya, women and children killed
execution-style. The Local Coordination Committees, a
reliable group that has been monitoring and documenting the
protests, put the death toll in that town at 630, a mini-
Srebrenica in many ways.
It was one thing to run out the clock on the Syrians, but
that didn’t suffice. The sophistry and the cynicism that covered
up the abdication assumed that all, at home and abroad, were
incapable of seeing through the pretense. Thus, help was always
on the way, just another round of deliberations at the United
Nations Security Council away.
We exhausted and stretched the language of outrage -- our
diplomacy ran out of adjectives, as Senator John McCain so aptly
put it. Our cavalry would turn up if only the Syrian opposition
would overcome its differences. Then there was the specter of
the jihadists: They were converging on Syria, and surely,
Secretary of State HRC said, we wouldn’t want to be
on the side of Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda.
The best is the enemy of the good: There was no way of
determining in advance what kind of regime would emerge in the
aftermath of Assad, hence we should be forgiven our caution.
What might look like moral callousness in Houla and Aleppo
should then be considered strategic wisdom.
The ways of the world are what they are: The custodians of
American policy had placed their wager on the attention span of
spectators to the Syrian slaughter. Crimes, however monumental,
become routine. Wait out the initial outrage and people move on,
they weary of calamities. Besides, the policy of the Obama
administration had skillfully depicted the choice in Syria
between boots on the ground or total indifference. Now it could
be argued that this is a false choice, that there is a great
deal that could be done short of dispatching the Marines to the
shores of Latakia.
From the very beginning of this war between the Syrian
ruler and the vast majority of his people, it was well
understood that Turkish policy deferred to America’s
preferences, so close is the relationship between 44 and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey could have
tipped the scales with a no-fly, no-drive zone on the Syria-
Turkey border. A buffer zone would have given would-be defectors
from the Syrian army protection and encouragement. Sunni
recruits have been eager to desert the Alawite regime, shamed
and violated by the cruelties inflicted on ordinary civilians.
One mantra of 44's administration has been that Syria
isn’t Libya, that the former has more difficult and sensitive
borders. But these borders call for a more assertive American
policy. The feuds of Syria were bound to spill into neighboring
lands.
Lebanon is, of course, the most sensitive of these
neighbors to the Syrian contagion. That delicately balanced
country is on the verge of a relapse into its old, deadly ways.
Loyalists of Assad battle his opponents, while kidnappers and
masked men roam free in Beirut. It is a veritable hell in the
northern city of Tripoli, where a conservative Sunni majority is
at war with an Alawite enclave.
There are tremors of Syria making their way into Iraq, as
well, playing on the fault lines between the Sunni sympathizers
of the Syrian rebellion and its Shiite opponents.
A swifter outcome to this fight for Syria would have been
both a strategic and a moral imperative. Great Satan didn’t have to
carry the burden alone. Turkey and the Sunni Arab states would
have been assured that She. was in this fight, as well.
44 has only now chosen to speak out on Syria and to draw a
line that the Dr General President For Life in Basharopolis never intended to cross.
Pic - "...And you hide away and find your piece of mind..."
"I love Germany so much I am glad there are two of them!"
Is the ancient fear of a re hooked up Deutschland becoming a self fulfilled crystal ball exercise?
Without new clear weaponry, power projecting air craft carriers, or a military base abroad, Deutschland has won the 100 year German Wars started in 1914 by the Hoch Kaiser and then refired up via 3rd Reich. Defeated twice militarily, now she ist der seig mein schatzen!!
In truth, German character — so admired and feared in some 500 years of
European literature and history — led to the present Germanization of
Europe. These days we recoil at terms like “national character” that
seem tainted by the nightmares of the past. But no politically correct
exegesis offers better reasons why Detroit, booming in 1945, today looks
as if it were bombed, and a bombed-out Berlin of 1945 now is booming.
Where does all this lead? Right now to some great unknowns that terrify
most of Europe. Will German industriousness and talent eventually
translate into military dominance and cultural chauvinism — as it has in
the past? How, exactly, can an unraveling EU, or a NATO now “led from
behind” by a disengaged Great Satan, persuade Germany not to translate
its overwhelming economic clout into political and military advantage?
Gruss Gott!!
Debate in Germany is now moving beyond Greece towards the
question of political union. During the two and a half years since the
euro crisis began, Germany's approach has been to seek to impose its own
economic preferences on the eurozone. It insisted that all eurozone
countries agree to enact an equivalent of the constitutional amendment
it passed in 2009, which required it to maintain balanced budgets.
Bunches of peeps,
have seen in Germany's approach a kind of economic imperialism. But
Germany seems to be coming to the conclusion that it is no longer enough
to try to remake the eurozone in Germany's image in economic terms; it
must do so in political terms as well.
Pic - "Die Bundeswehr ist eine Armee im Einsatz, Leibchen!!
Kinda like the Corleone family strategy, right? Take out a boss and their high level minions,
kick back and chillax
Is killing or capturing enemy leaders an effective military tactic?
Previous research on interstate war and counterterrorism has suggested
that targeting enemy leaders does not work. Drawing on newly collected
data on counterinsurgency campaigns, new analysis on the effectiveness
of leadership decapitation is presented.
The results
suggest that leadership decapitation is more effective than the
conventional wisdom suggests.
First, campaigns are more likely to end quickly when counterinsurgents
successfully target enemy leaders.
Second, counterinsurgents who
successfully capture or kill insurgent leaders are significantly more
likely to defeat insurgencies than those who fail.
Third, conflict
intensity is more likely to decrease following successful leadership
removals than after failed attempts.
The implications of these results
for academic research, military operations, and policy are smoking!!
Pic - "Despite her controversial nature, Great Satan"s asset kicking counter-terrorism strategy has demonstrated a degree of effectiveness."
It"s
official!!
Not unlike being chased off a cliff by vicious savages intent on doing grievous harm only to fall bassackwards into a boatload of hot wimmenses!
See, alla cool kids knew eons ago that Drones Gone Wild is the "least horrible option" for Great
Satan"s excellent adventure in crazy assetted places where Writ of State
is as rare as a Victoria"s Secret franchise.
You know - especial spots in the CENTCOM Gap betwixt the Nile and Indus - like Pakistan"s Land of the Pure and Yemen. Where the States effective range is like unto the effective range of an AK 47 (400/500 metres for those that collect such intell).
The sad ancient memes that Great Satan is bizzy bizzy creating metric tonnes of enemies, draining vital resources, making it more funner and easier to haj to uncool terrorist rich spots and kill sans worries about GENCON, incarceration and care for captured cats, converting fence sitters into active anti American combatants and POing easily unhinged elements on Foreign turf remains easily LOLed
See,
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, we see little evidence that these
actions are generating widespread anti-American sentiment or recruits
for AQAP.... In short, targeted strikes against the most senior and most
dangerous AQAP terrorists are not the problem, they are part of the solution."
And such sexyful solutions are sweetly swaying just in reach
While most Pakistanis deplore the drones when polled about them, FATA residents who have first-hand knowledge of
specific strikes and who really died in them are, "very positive.... They know who's being killed."
So while the risk of backlash against Drones Gone Wild!! attacks is real, the alternatives are worse because they would
cause even more unintended casualties -- American, allied, and civilian
-- while doing less damage to the terrorists. It would be ideal to
capture terrorists, bring them to justice, and interrogate them rather
than kill them yet in the Pakistani tribal lands, "there are
no police, there are no law enforcement agencies. When the Pakistani
military goes in after insurgents, "they're very imprecise and
kill loads of people," sending thousands of civilians fleeing from
their homes.
An American ground attack would be even more costly in human, military, and political terms After 9/11, Great Satan"s's initial
response to countries that it thought harbored terrorists was to invade,
not just bomb specific targets:
Money Shot
The shift to drones, is actually a de-escalation bay bee!!
A reaction to this overreaction. The risk of
anti-Great Satanism backlash remains but it is driven less by drone strikes specifically than by unNeoconic support in general for oppressive
regimes, like that in Yemen, as they crack down "indiscriminately"
against both terrorists and political critics.
Whoa!! Yet what about the 77 million innocent dead civilians that wide spread drone carnage creates?
Really lousy data. There are no birth certificates
and there are no death certificates and many news reports
on drone strike deaths don't even "try to confirm there was in fact a
burial."
Drone strikes tend to take place in the same areas where
insurgents and the Pakistani authorities are already clashing
and, on closer examination, some of the injuries attributed to drones are more likely to come from terrorist bombs -- "the Taliban
don't always claim the bad stuff they do" -- or from errant ordnance
from Pakistani military operations. Some of the alleged victims don't
seem to have ever existed.
Pic - "Drones are a tool of strategy, and a powerful one!"
Whoa!
44's recent "red line"hello
to the Wookie sized Dr General President for Life about doing ye olde
Suriya al Kubra if nasty nasty agents like blood agents, blister agents
and/or nerve agents make their battlefield debut is prett sweet!!
As one of the world’s leading pariah states, it should come as no
surprise that the Syria of Bashar al-Assad takes enormous pride in the
formidable array of chemical weapons it has acquired in order to sustain
its rulers in power.
Syria - like Little Satan - punches far above her weight class in diplopolititary deals. Instead of cool stuff like Hooters, literacy rates off the charts or creating advanced avionics - Bashar Bay Bee follows poppa Assad's script utilizing asymmetrical assets creating a slave trading Syria, abusing Palestinians as a strategic minority resource, literally bombing an Arab sister's political cadre out of existence, fiddling about with new clear WMD witchcraft, hanging with the most wanted terrorists in the world while maybe or maybe not enabling official enemies like Hiz'B'Allah with wmd delivery systems and frightened of Facebook.
Having suffered two catastrophic defeats
at the hands of Little Satan during the Beatle and Wings era, Assad’s
predecessors resolved to make the development of chemical weapons a
central feature of military doctrine, to ensure that Syria did not
suffer similar humiliations in future.
Consequently, the regime’s stockpiles of these internationally
outlawed weapons now include large quantities of mustard gas, sarin, a
nerve agent that repeatedly stimulates the body’s glands and muscles,
causing breathing problems that eventually result in complete paralysis,
thereby causing death. And just in case neither of these proves
effective enough, it also has at its disposal reserves of VX nerve gas –
arguably one of the most dangerous chemicals ever created – as well as
stores of cyanide.
Nor do Assad and his cronies make any bones about their
willingness to use this Aladdin’s cave of diabolical compounds against
their many enemies. Responding to American intelligence reports last
month, which suggested that the regime’s loyalists had begun to move its
stockpiles of chemical weapons, Assad’s
official spokesman, who had previously denied any suggestion that his
country possessed such weapons of mass destruction, declared that Syria
was more than willing to use them in the event of “external aggression”.
Oh Snap!!
That would — should — change ebberdobby"s equation.
Great
Satan has long worried that Syrian stockpiles of such weapons of mass
destruction — probably including nerve agents mustard gas, VX and Sarin
gas and missile systems to deliver them — could find their way into
terrorists' pecker grippers. There are tons of the uncool and - you
know - "wrong people" in Syria and its hood, not all of them al-Qaida.
The terrorists of Hiz"B"Allah, for instance, are close homies of
embattled Bashar Bay Bee.
How would an anti-WMD operation by Great Satan and her posse of allies work?
Unclear. Syria's biological and chemical weapons are reported to be widely dispersed at as many as two dozen storage sites.
Bombing such sites could be effective, but might also create a toxic
cloud of chemicals that would threaten the local populace. Another
possibility: Bomb access roads to weapons sites to make moving the
chemicals difficult if not impossible.
A last
resort: Send specialized teams to neutralize the weapons, possibly by
burning them on site. Those teams would require coordinated air and
ground protection, likely involving thousands of troops. Even then, it's
not clear if Western forces would be able to destroy the chemicals or
would have to attempt a risky removal from Syria. If the latter, who'd
be willing to accept lethal Syrian chemical or biological munitions,
even temporarily?
Despite those tactical
concerns, 44 is right to make clear to Assad and his allies that there
are inviolable red lines. While Great Satan has yet to order any
military action, especial cats have "put together a range of
contingency plans."
Pic - "Red line, bitches"
Senkaku or Diaoyu?
Collectivist China"s Island Resource grab may not be so bad?
There is little reason to believe that the present pattern of disputes is
likely, in the near future at least, to degenerate into something more
serious. But the unresolved issues between the two countries represent by
far the most serious danger in the region. The dispute is often likened to
that over the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, which
involves the competing territorial claims of China and various South East
Asian countries including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.
This
dispute, too, concerns largely unoccupied islands in seas which are believed
to be rich in mineral deposits. But clashes between China and Vietnam or,
for that matter, the Philippines, do not carry anything like the same threat
as those between China and Japan, because of the incendiary nature of the
historical bitterness between the latter.
And the hap hap happy fact that both China and Nippon have on hand some serious navy chiz for naughtical nautiness
Look at the prospects of war in strictly military terms,
as a contest between Chinese and Japanese sea power.
In raw numerical terms, there is no
contest. Japan's navy boasts 48 "major
surface combatants," ships designed to attack enemy main fleets while taking a
pounding themselves. For the JMSDF these include "helicopter destroyers," or
light aircraft carriers; guided-missile destroyers equipped with the
state-of-the-art Aegis combat system, a combination
radar, computer, and fire-control system found in frontline U.S. Navy warships;
and an assortment of lesser destroyers, frigates, and corvettes. A squadron of
16 diesel-electric submarines augments the surface fleet. Juxtapose this
against the PLA Navy's 73 major surface
combatants, 84 missile-firing patrol craft, and 63 submarines, and the bidding appears
grim for Japan. China's navy is far superior in sheer weight of steel.
Raw numbers can be misleading, for
three main reasons. First, as strategist Edward Luttwak has observed, weapons
are like "black boxes" until actually
used in combat: no one knows for sure whether they will perform as advertised.
Battle, not technical specifications, is the true
arbiter of military technology's value. Accurately forecasting how ships,
planes, and missiles will perform amid the stresses and chaos of combat thus verges
on impossible. This is especially true, adds Luttwak, when conflict pits an
open society against a closed one.
Open societies have a habit of debating
their military failings in public, whereas
closed societies tend to keep their deficiencies out of view. Luttwak was referring
to the U.S.-Soviet naval competition, but it applies to Sino-Japanese
competition as well. The Soviet Navy appeared imposing on paper. But Soviet warships
on the high seas during the Cold War showed unmistakable symptoms of decay,
from slipshod shiphandling to rusty hulls. The PLA Navy could be hiding
something as well. The quality of the JMSDF's platforms, and its human
capabilities, could partially or wholly offset the PLA's advantage of numbers.
Plus a sexyfull variable in conflict variable in
warfare - material and human factors.
The latter is measured in seamanship,
gunnery, and the myriad of traits that set one navy apart from others. Mariners
hone these traits not by sitting in port and polishing their equipment but by
going to sea. JMSDF flotillas ply Asian waters continually, operating solo or with other navies. The PLA Navy is
inert by comparison. With the exception of a counter-piracy deployment to the
Gulf of Aden that began in 2009, Chinese fleets emerge only for brief cruises
or exercises, leaving crews little time to develop an operating rhythm, learn
their profession, or build healthy habits. The human edge goes to Japan.
And three, it's misleading to reduce the
problem solely to fleets. There will be no purely fleet-on-fleet engagement in Northeast
Asia. Geography situated the two Asian titans close to each other: their landmasses,
including outlying islands, are unsinkable aircraft carriers and missile firing
platforms. Suitably armed and fortified, land-based sites constitute formidable
implements of sea power. So we need to factor in both countries' land-based
firepower.
Japan forms the northern arc of the first island chain that
envelops the Asian coastline, forming the eastern frontier of the Yellow and
East China seas. No island between the Tsushima Strait (which separates Japan
from Korea) and Taiwan lies more than 500 miles off China's coast. Most,
including the Senkakus/Diaoyus, are far closer. Within these cramped waters,
any likely battleground would fall within range of shore-based firepower. Both
militaries field tactical aircraft that boast the combat radius to strike
throughout the Yellow and East China seas and into the Western Pacific. Both
possess shore-fired anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and can add their hitting
power to the mix.
There are some asymmetries, however. PLA conventional ballistic missiles
can strike at land sites throughout Asia, putting Japanese assets at risk before they ever
leave port or take to the sky. And China's Second Artillery Corps, or missile
force, has reportedly fielded anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) able to
strike at moving ships at sea from the mainland. With a range estimated at more than 900 miles,
the ASBM could strike anywhere in the China seas, at seaports throughout the
Japanese islands, and far beyond.
Consider the Senkakus, the hardest assets
to defend from the Japanese
standpoint. They lie near the southwestern tip of the Ryukyu chain, closer to
Taiwan than to Okinawa or Japan's major islands. Defending them from distant
bases would be difficult. But if Japan forward-deployed Type 88 ASCMs --
mobile, easily transportable anti-ship weapons -- and missile crews to the
islets and to neighboring islands in the Ryukyu chain, its ground troops could
generate overlapping fields of fire that would convert nearby seas into no-go
zones for Chinese shipping. Once dug in, they would be tough to dislodge, even
for determined Chinese rocketeers and airmen.
Whoever forges sea, land, and air forces
into the sharpest weapon of sea combat stands a good chance of prevailing. That
could be Japan if its political and military leaders think creatively, procure
the right hardware, and arrange it on the map for maximum effect. After all,
Japan doesn't need to defeat China's military in order to win a showdown at
sea, because it already holds the contested real estate; all it needs to do is
deny China access. If Northeast Asian seas became a no-man's land but Japanese
forces hung on, the political victory would be Tokyo's.
Japan also enjoys the luxury of
concentrating its forces at home, whereas the PLA Navy is dispersed into three
fleets spread along China's lengthy coastline. Chinese commanders face a
dilemma: If they concentrate forces to amass numerical superiority during
hostilities with Japan, they risk leaving other interests uncovered. It would
hazardous for Beijing to leave, say, the South China Sea unguarded during a
conflict in the northeast.
And finally, Chinese leaders would be forced to consider how
far a marine war would set back their sea-power project. China has staked its
economic and diplomatic future in large part on a powerful oceangoing navy. In
December 2006, President Hu Jintao ordered
PLA commanders to construct "a powerful people's navy" that could defend
the nation's maritime lifelines -- in particular sea lanes that connect Indian
Ocean energy exporters with users in China -- "at any time." That takes lots of
ships. If it lost much of the fleet in a Sino-Japanese clash -- even in a
winning effort -- Beijing could see its momentum toward world-power status
reversed in an afternoon.
Here's hoping China's political and military
leaders understand all this. If so, the Great Sino-Japanese Naval War of 2012
won't be happening
Pic - "From time immemorial people have sensed a great romance with the sea - filled with surprises"
Khalifa!!
As the sandal dust settles from girl hating Aegypt"s 1st ever freely and fairly elected Ikwhanese Prez and the sacking sack of Pyramidland"s Highest Levels of Command reckon maybe it's time to meet the Caliphate General Staff?
General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi
A big fan of V Checks, the new Defense Minister GEN Sissi admitted to Amnesty Internat'l that the Army may halt feeling up girls before and after raping them to protect troops from allegations of rape. Military bona fides include Head of Military Intell, commander of the Northern Military Zone and, before this, as chief of
staff of the Northern Military Zone. Such appointments followed an
uninterrupted series of promotions since graduating from the Egyptian
military academy (LOL - beleaf it or don't - Aegypt actually has one) in 1977.
The new defence minister's first major gig is to fix up the Writ of State Free sitch in Sinai, which had like totally sucked in part because of the poor way it
was handled by Tantawi and his commanders in the field. El-Sisi's
previous experience in counter-terrorism is likely to prove crucial
here. However, in the long term, he sees his most important task is the
restructuring and reconditioning of the military establishment which has
suffered attrition at various levels during the previous era.
GEN Sissi also has ties to Great Satan"s This We"ll Defend cats - way back in the last millennium, Sissi hung out at Maneuver Center of Excellence Infantry City near Victory Drive.
He's also totally sympathetic to the Ikwhan.
Yay.
General Sedki Sobhi
Aegypt"s new Chief of Staff funnily enough totally blew it as a commander responsible for securing the Sinai and Red Sea regions before being promoted
Recently Commander Third Field
Army based in Suez, across the Gulf of Suez from Sinai. He began his military
career in the 19th Infantry Division of the Third Field Army, which is noted for
achieving strategic objectives against Little Satan in the Yom Kippur War. As
commander of the Third Field Army, he was responsible for securing Egypt’s Suez
and Red Sea provinces.
In 2005, when he was a student at the Great Satan"s Army War College in
Pennsylvania, he recommended Great Satan “permanently”
withdraw her troops from the Middle East, and that her “one-sided”
support of Little Satan was fueling hatred toward Great Satan abroad as well as totally queering the mix within Arab League - thus dang near ruining the whole world.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that with
the general in his new role, he sensed “a positive trend towards civil
control of a professional and a respected military.”
Really sir?
Spending 30 years and about $45 billion cultivating the Egyptian
military, so rest assured it is not going to stand by and let Egypt fall
under the yoke of "Slamist rule. Pretty soon, though, they’ll have to
fire up Story Line B: "Slamist rule is actually quite moderate and
perfectly compatible with democracy . . .
The pursuit of American interests and promotion of American principles
are unpopular because they collide with classical sharia doctrine. Yes,
as the general says, the jihadists are rational actors, not wanton
killers — they are acting on the commands of a coherent doctrine. But
that doctrine is also ardently anti-Western. Any policy we would adopt
to further our ends is bound to be unpopular in an environment where the
presence of a Western army is deemed to trigger a duty to expel that
army by violent jihad. Any policy we would adopt to shore up Little Satan’s
security is bound to be unpopular in an environment where Little Satan’s destruction is unapologetically proclaimed to be a
duty.
It is delusional to assume the Egyptian military is pro-American and
thus a reliable bulwark against the advance of You Know What supremacism.
Cairo’s armed forces reflect the broader society, whose able-bodied men
are required to serve — and
the Egyptian mainstream is "Slamist. Plus, the Egyptian army has always
had "Slamists (including violent jihadists) in its ranks. Its historical
tendency, moreover, has not been to lead; it has been to follow the
shifting political programs of whatever dictator happened to be running
the show.
Meanwhile, dissenters and journalists are already being imprisoned and
beaten — if not worse. (There are unconfirmed reports that crucifixion is making a comeback.) Terrorist leaders have been sprung from the
prisons. The Sinai has become a jihadist haven. Women are attacked in
the street if they fail to don the veil. A fatwa that prohibited eating
during Ramadan was issued. Xians are fleeing in droves, their
churches torched behind them. And the emirs of Hamas are warmly received
as brotherly dignitaries.
Pic - "Who Lost Aegypt?"
The panty ante gets all amped up via hot gossip and heated disses betwixt Little Satan and Persia's Preacher Command.
Any attack on new clear naughtiness is fraught with perilous peril - especially potential payback from Little Satan"s near abroad.
Dubbed “the long arm of Iran” at the Little Satan Defense Forces HQ, Hiz"B"Allah in Lebanon is said to possess more than 70,000 missiles that can strike as far south as Little Satan’s new clear reactor near the city of Dimona – nearly 140 miles from the old Blue Line.
Combine this arsenal with the more than 10,000 rockets and missiles in the Strip and with Bashar’s chemical weapons, and the threat to Little Satan’s home front is the most formidable since the 1973 War when Egypt and Syria sneak attacked Little Satan.
Scary scary!! Such a fearfully fearsome threat from the Axis of Resistance could paralyze any chance of a strike - right?
LOL!!
Little Satan says "Disappear Fear!
Her leaders seem content to shrug off this threat. On two recent occasions, Little Satan"s Defense Minister boldly estimated that Little Satan would sustain 300 to 500 casualties in a conflict with Iran and her proxies. Such an estimate suggests that Little Satan does not believe that her cities will bear the full brunt of Iran’s “long arm” as a consequence to a strike.
Makes sense - after all - only months after Hiz"B"Allah"s "Divine Victory" - homies in HAMAS acted out and got Cast Lead by the bucket load (all at wholesale American pricing LOL). Instead of following up promises to help their fellow rocket rich rejectionists - HbA totally refrained and stared at their fingernails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world rather than risk a redux of another disastrous Divine Victory
And the overtly robust (n xtra girthy) creepy Body Part Collector General admits Hiz"B"Allah may sit it out (being sooo battlefield bizzy in Suriya al Kubra at the moment)
“I tell you that the Iranian leadership will not ask Hiz"B"Allah to do anything. On that day, we will sit, think and decide what we will do.”
Only now - Skippy Nazr"Allah says sump like "We can transform the lives of millions of Zionists in occupied Palestine to a real hell"
See,
Little Satan"s objectives would be clearly limited. The intent would be to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability while minimising escalation towards war. Little Satan has no interest in a major conflict that would risk serious damage to the Little Satan state.
Though holding opposite objectives, Iran's attitude concerning a major war is similar to Little Satan"s.
While Iran regards nuclear capability as prospectively guaranteeing the survival of its "Slamic revolution, clerical leaders also understand that initiating a major war would make American intervention likely. Such intervention would pose an existential threat to the theocratic project that underpins the Islamic Republic.
Thus, in the event of a Little Satan attack, Iran's response would be finely calibrated towards achieving 3 objectives:
• 1st, punishing Little Satan for her attack.
• 2nd, deterring further Little Satan strikes and so creating space for a reconstituted Iranian new clear programme.
• Finally, weakening international support for Little Satan so as to increase Little Satan"s isolation and vulnerability.
Axis of Resistance allies would play a major role in effecting Iranian retaliation. Iran may also attempt to launch a number of its new Sajjil-2 medium-range missiles against Little Satan. Again, however, using these missiles would risk major retaliation if many citizens were killed.
As a preference, Iran would probably perceive that utilising Hamas and Hiz"B"Allah would allow retaliation without forcing Little Satan into a massive counter-response.
Hiz"B"Allah, HAMAS and assorted splinter Gaza gangs are likely to attack Little Satan in a
display of their solidarity, albeit only in a limited effort. Judging
from past flare-ups, these groups understand Little Satan’s red lines, knowing
exactly what ranges and what rates in which to fire their rockets while
avoiding drawing Little Satan into a confrontation which could compromise
their grip on power.
Despite the weakened state of Iran’s proxies, a Little Satan strike on the
ayatollah’s new clear chiz will not be without consequence.
Pic - “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.”
WoW - the Watchers Council - it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.
Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.
Thusly sans further adieu (or a don"t)
Council Winners
Second place with 2 votes – Joshuapundit – The ‘Ending Medicare’ Myth And How It Turns The Issue In Favor Of The GOP
Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – VA Right!- No Mr. President. BUSH Tried it YOUR Way and it Didn’t Work! Now Let Romney-Ryan Fix Your Progressive Mess!
Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – The Independent Sentinel- Barack Obama Is Destroying Our Weapons And It’s Going Well
Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Political Commentator – A Republican Jew from New York’s story on growing up Democrat!
Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – The Razor-The Bleeding Heart of the Cynic
Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – Simply Jews- The delights of Inspire Magazine by Al Qaeda
Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – At Least the NY Times Public Editor Recognizes It
Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – Optimism for a Change
Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Gay Patriot – An Obama victory in 2012 would undermine Obama’s 2008 rationale for his election
Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Right Planet – Obama Goes Full-On Marxist: ‘Prosperity Is Shared’
Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye –The War on Algebra
Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi – Forgive Me, I Am Downloading Steve Earle. Again. . .
Non-Council Winners
Second place with 2 2/3 votes – The Onion –Admit It, I Scare The Ever-Loving S**t Out Of You, Don’t I? submitted by Bookworm Room
Third place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Mark Steyn –Mark Steyn: Obama the great disabler submitted by The Noisy Room
Fourth place *t* with 1 2/3 votes -Michael Moynihan/Foreign Policy - Leftist Planet submitted by The Glittering Eye
Fourth place *t* with 1 2/3 vote – Flashpoints – China’s Growing Long-Range Strike Capability submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Wayne Allyn Root/The Blaze –Obama’s College Classmate: ‘The Obama Scandal Is at Columbia’ submitted by The Razor
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Bob Owens –How long before one of Obama’s cultists goes the “full Moore?” submitted by Rhymes With Right
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -CNS News –Obamacare Reg: Health Plans Must Sterilize 15-Yr-Old Girls for Free submitted by The Independent Sentinel
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Israel Hayom –Israeli intelligence cracks massive Hezbollah bomb plot submitted by VA Right!
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion –Whistleblower asserts state employees coerced to attend Pelosi, Jesse Jackson political event submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Ruben Navarette– U.S. Olympic athlete, Mexican flag? submitted by The Watcher
See you next week! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter
Little Satan"s bona fided ambassador to Great Satan - same cat that penned the incredibly hot "Making of the Modern ME" brings up a critical point
"Iran's No. 1 ally in the region, Assad in Syria, is on the brink. While Iran is trying to prop him up, it would be a game-changer for them were his regime to collapse," notes Oren. Oren is a historian, a very good one, the author of two seminal books on the region -- Six Days of War and Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present -- and in discussing these regional shifts, one really gets a sense that as big as the Iran threat may be, it is itself part of a historical sea change that is a source of a massive unease for the Israelis.
This unease relates not only to the Iranian issue but to the entire structure of the Middle East as it has been understood to exist for generations.
Like, in map reading new maps?
Now that the Sunnis have turned against Assad, however, it’s all crashing down, as it was doomed to do sooner or later. At this point, the Syrian national army is little more than a well-armed Russian- and Iranian-backed Alawite militia. If the government falls, the Alawites—and especially the Assad clan—may well try to carve out an enclave where they can be safe, just as many wished to do during the French imperial period between the two world wars. Back then, Alawite leaders asked French authorities for their own Lebanon-sized state along the Mediterranean, with Latakia as its capital.
“The Alawites refuse to be annexed to Muslim Syria,” Suleiman al-Assad, grandfather of the current Syrian president, wrote in a letter. “In Syria, the official religion of the state is Islam, and according to Islam, the Alawites are considered infidels. . . . The spirit of hatred and fanaticism imbedded in the hearts of the Arab Muslims against everything that is non-Muslim has been perpetually nurtured by the Islamic religion. There is no hope that the situation will ever change. Therefore, the abolition of the [French] mandate will expose the minorities in Syria to the dangers of death and annihilation.”
If Assad survived the creation of a new Alawite country, it would in certain important respects resemble today’s Syria: it would be a metastasizing, Russian- and Iranian-backed terrorist state. A free Alawite state without the Assads in the saddle, however, might be something else entirely.
The Alawites won’t be welcome in any regional Sunni club; they’re already unwelcome now. It’s spectacularly unlikely that they would align with the region’s Islamists. And once they’re shorn of their Baathist ideology and the need to appease a Sunni majority, they could gravitate toward the United States, Europe, and possibly even Little Satan. Just look at what happened to the small Syrian Alawite village of Ghajar at the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, when it found itself marooned in a no-man’s-land between the Little Satan-occupied Golan Heights and the Lebanese border.
When the residents realized that Little Satan’s occupation wasn’t going to end any time soon, they had to decide whether to be absorbed by Lebanon or by Little Satan. They chose Little Satan. They asked to be annexed, and Little Satan obliged. Later, the residents of Ghajar applied for and received Little Satan citizenship.
We shouldn’t hope for this outcome. If Syria comes apart, Yugoslavia-style, the body count will be extraordinary. The Alawite heartland on the coast isn’t even close to homogeneous, and the Alawites would probably ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Sunnis and Palestinians there. In the short and medium term, an Assad regime could destabilize the Middle East just as much from Latakia as it already does from Damascus.
But for good or for ill, a new Middle East map may be coming.
Pic - "Land Navigation"
Up periscope!!
Das dreaded untersee boot - the submersible submarining U Boat - may be LOL"d as about as useful as ancient battleships. Easy to find and even easier to sink, genau?
Belay that bay bee!!
A number of nations are now seeking to enhance their naval capabilities.
For those nations, submarines offer a unique platform to strike enemy
targets on land or at sea using conventional or unconventional weapons.
In Asia, there is a even nascent submarine race underway with Japan,
South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam all announcing planned
acquisitions in the face of China's burgeoning fleet of nuclear and
diesel-electric boats. At least two navies are turning to Germany to
provide a unique set of undersea capabilities, albeit for very different
areas of operation.
Faced with an Iranian nuclear program that shows no sign of slowing down
despite American threats, sanctions, and rounds of fruitless
negotiations, Little Satan requires a “second strike” platform to deter Iran
from fulfilling her pledge to “wipe Little Satan off the map.” She has acquired that capability through her submarine fleet.
In June, the German daily Der Spiegel reported that the ThyssenKrupp-manufactured Dolphin submarines in the Little Satan Navy “are armed with nuclear warheads. And Berlin has long been aware of that.” Der Spiegel states
that the Dolphins (similar to the German Navy’s Type 212 boats), carry
cruise missiles with a range of 1,500 kilometers that can be launched
“using a newly developed hydraulic ejection system”. The advanced
Super-Dolphin variant of the boat is also likely equipped with an air independent propulsion (AIP) system that allows it to stay submerged for 18 days while remaining nearly silent.
Thusly, they are dang near impossible to detect!!
Germany provided Little Satan with its first two Dolphin submarines in 1991 as
compensation for the role its companies had played in developing Saddam
Hussein’s chemical weapons capacity. Germany also paid a significant
amount of the purchase price for Little Satan’s third submarine. Three
additional Dolphins are slated to be delivered to Israel by 2017 and Der Spiegel claims that Little Satan may order three more boats for a total fleet of nine submarines.
This fleet, with its ability to stay submerged for weeks in virtual
silence, willprovide the bulk of Little Satan’s second strike capability.
For the first half of the 20th Century, the German U-boat was the most
feared warship at sea.
Even Sir Winnie freaked the freak out and "fessed up the "the only thing that
ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril". After Royal Navy scut scut scutlled alla surrendered U Boats of the destroyed Kriegsmarine in Operation Deadlight after 3rd Reich finally screamed "God!! Please!! Stop!!" - nodobby ever paid achtung to those naughty Deutsch Uboats.
Now, with the Dolphin on patrol in the
Med, Red Sea and Persian Gulf and possibly coming to the
Indian, Pacific and South China Sea in the near future, the U-boat is
making a big comeback in the 21st Century.
Pic - "Fire tubes 2 and 4!!"
