[Matt at Feral Jundi] So as I write this, it is December 31, 2019, and I am trying to boil down the last decade of contracting and war into some kind of sense. I have been working as a contractor for over 15 years now, and the last decade has been a whirlwind. lol It is amazing that I am still alive, still doing doing this stuff, and still heavily blogging and writing about this industry. So I still have a passion for it all and it is fun and interesting to me to share what I know with the readership.
That conversation and sharing has transferred to other platforms these days, and specifically Facebook. It is the preferred platform for information sharing, from what I have experienced, and it is where I get the most interaction with the readership. It is also faster than using the blog, and fits in with my OODA when it comes to ground truth and feedback. Speed is everything when it comes to the information world, and social media platforms have amplified my ability to interact with the world of contracting and war. Of course being there in person, on the ground is the ultimate, but for one individual like myself, trying to get a feel for what is going on out there, then social media is where it is at.
The blog is where I put unique content that needs to be recorded. But then I get the most value out of time spent, being on social media. You also see other big players do the same. Eeben Barlow of EO and STTEP fame is very active on FB. Erik Prince is active on LinkedIn. Tim Lynch of Free Range International is active on FB and in the podcasting world. Frank Gallagher of WPS fame is very active on FB... Instagram, Youtube and Podcasts, WhatsApp, etc. are huge in the modern era. That interaction, and the thousands of pages and groups and ’tribes’ are where today’s readership exists, and that is where I go to connect. I would much prefer human interaction, but with the scope of this industry, this is the best way I know of to interact with it.
Over the years, I have shared hundreds of open source ideas and news stories at FB, Twitter, the blog, LinkedIn, etc. and I am constantly trying to battle through the noise to get to the truth of the matter. So what have I learned and observed over the last ten years of contracting and war? What have I synthesized from this analysis? What are the lessons learned?
The best way I can organize this, and display my thoughts is to go through categories and describe the various phases of that category. That will give the reader, now and into the future, a good snapshot of where the industry was at, at this point, and where it came from. I might even do a little prediction.
[Modern War Institute at yes, West Point] If a recent article published by the Modern War Institute at West Point, "Don’t Let Kabul 2020 Look Like Saigon 1975: The Dangers of a Precipitous Afghanistan Withdrawal," represents the prevailing American views on military strategy, then it goes a long way to explain why the United States lost the Afghanistan War.
The authors did get the premise right concerning the dangers associated with a precipitous withdrawal, but by getting all the basics wrong, they offer all the wrong solutions.
The article begins with a whopper, that "a US/NATO military withdrawal must be managed responsibly to conserve the hard-earned gains on issues like civil liberties and women’s rights made over the past eighteen years."
No. Anyone who has spent any time in Afghanistan beyond the confines of a headquarters or a walled-in facility would know that is a not a valid reason to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan because it is simply not something within our capability either to establish or sustain.
A proper exit strategy is a process of burden shifting in a manner that protects vital US interests, while preventing US adversaries from unduly benefitting from a withdrawal.
Just like military leaders and policymakers over nearly two decades and through multiple administrations, the authors fail to address or even identify the true nature of the war in Afghanistan.
#2
The article begins with a whopper, that "a US/NATO military withdrawal must be managed responsibly to conserve the hard-earned gains on issues like civil liberties and women’s rights made over the past eighteen years."
"Hard-earned gains"? WHAT hard-earned gains??? As far as I can tell, we've accomplished precisely nothing in the 18+ years we've been there. Same with Iraq, other than getting rid of Saddam.
These wars tested the hypothesis that Islam can be de-toxified by injecting it with democracy.
The hypothesis is disproved.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/01/2020 10:38 Comments ||
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#3
The hypothesis is disproved.
*happy sigh* I love when you think aloud, Dave. Your logic is remorseless, even when I dislike your conclusion.
Just ponder the absurdity of that phrase. Not the objective of women's rights, not strategy for attaining same, not Afghanistan per se.
No: just try to wrap your head around the combination, in a single English sentence, of women's rights + Afghanistan.
For sheer lunacy, this combination belongs in the same category as Miss Parson's Finishing School for Feral Youth
The Mogadishu Conservatory for Baroque Keyboard Studies
Meth-Heads Can Code!
[Washington Examiner] The first and greatest lesson of economics is that incentives matter ‐ thus, it is useful and important that the stock markets are set to end the year at or near all-time highs. Of course, our indices like the Dow Jones and S&P 500 don't account for inflation, so they need to end every year a little bit higher just to stand still. But the stock market hitting record highs is useful evidence that we're getting something about the economy correct.
The basic insight is that if an investment is more valuable now than it used to be, then more people are going to invest more money in things, which is exactly what we want them to be doing.
We're not exactly short of people insisting that not enough investment is going on. All the shouting about companies paying out to stockholders is just that: an insistence that more investment would be better than sending money to already rich people. Thus, we see proposals banning stock buybacks ‐ more investment is held to be a good thing. While banning stock buybacks isn't good, it is true that more investment is a good thing.
Investment is, after all, what builds our future, and the more we put aside now to build, the richer that future will be.
We have three ways of investing and encouraging more of it. We could get the government to take more money in taxes and spend it wisely ‐ so wisely that $80 billion is wasted to build a high-speed rail line from Bakersfield, California to Merced, California.
Okay, so maybe that isn't the best way to encourage investment then.
We could lower the cost of investing and allow people to do more things that are less expensive. The Trump administration is certainly trying to cut red tape, the bureaucracy that stops investment. We've also cut the tax on successful investments, which lowers costs again (or increases returns, whichever way you want to look at it). We can also make investing more profitable: People do more of what brings them greater rewards. Cutting taxation is again part of that, but so is a higher stock market.
#1
a huge portion of the US equity markets are owned by pension funds, University endowments, etc.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/01/2020 9:24 Comments ||
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#2
a huge portion of the US equity markets are owned by pension funds
Then there will be natural pressure downward as the Baby Boomers cash out to fund their retirements. Thank goodness President Trump has been working on making investment more attractive.
[Salon - The Mental Health 'Go To' folks] President Donald Trump’s speech in Florida over the weekend provides evidence that he is suffering from cognitive decline, according to a psychiatric expert.
Seth Davin Norrholm, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, said Monday that the president’s recent rant about Christmas included at least three signs of mental problems.
"So if anybody wants to be a nice conservative, talk show host is not a bad living, I would say. But I have to say, he’s a very unique guy and he’s a great man and he’s been a great friend. So thank you to Rush. Thank you," Trump said.
"And let me begin by wishing you a beautif ‐ look, do you remember this? Do you remember this? Remember, they were trying to take Christmas out of Christmas. Do you remember? They didn’t want to let you say Merry Christmas," Trump continued.
"You’d go around, you’d see department stores that have everything red, snow, beautiful, ribbons, bows. Everything was there. But they wouldn’t say Merry Christmas. They’re all saying Merry Christmas again. You remember?"
#12
I just commented to my wife the other day that Trump's speaking has improved notably, and credited him listening to coaching. That must mean I am also showing evidence of cognitive decline.
#19
Trial lawyers can always find some psychiatrist who will testify one way or another about the defendant's state of mind. You bring your shrink and I'll bring mine.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/01/2020 13:20 Comments ||
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#20
I thought it was Senate only...?
Maybe. But the way they talk, you think it would have to be both.
#21
This ASSOCIATE professor, sounds like he's kinda out of it. Maybe delusional. And he's quite angry at certain people, maybe someone should report him so the police can make sure he doesn't have any guns or means to hurt other people.
[Conservative Base] To keep America safe from the many security threats facing our nation, the FBI began partnering with state, local, tribal, and campus law enforcement after the horrific terrorist attacks by Osama bin Laden and his bloodthirsty Islamic group known as al-Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001. The facilities that housed these inter-agency counterterrorists were called FBI/Fusion Centers.
Prior to the 9/11 attack in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania except for but a few federal cops and intelligence community officers and analysts, no one saw these radical Muslims on the nation’s "radar."
FBI / Fusion Centers, was created after 9-11 to "fuse" Federal and Local Law Enforcement information to protect America from "Terrorists," instead have been creating hundreds of thousands of false dossiers on honest, law-abiding American citizens in order to justify secretly bloating the fraudulent Terrorist Watchlist, for a fabricated enemy to rally resources against and keep the population frightened and accepting of a Police State, according to a National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower and experienced NSA Intelligence Analyst Karen Stewart.
Ms. Stewart sent her findings to U.S. Sen Lindsey Graham after catching his recent speech on CNN about "FISA abuse could happen to you" to his colleagues. Stewart also noted that a secret and unconstitutional army of neighborhood watch-type Civilian Mercenaries, like INFRAGARD, were instructed in covert and overt (intimidation) surveillance, along with covert vicious libel/slander, stalking, harassment, assault, and murder techniques, utilizing high tech and advanced weaponry difficult to detect on their innocent civilian neighbors, for what amounts to "practice and training" of a guerrilla army of extrajudicial "enforcers" (thugs) to keep people compliant as the US is subverted. They are richly compensated and promised immunity by rogue Fusion Center officials.
#1
I'll reserve judgement until I know just who these 'honest, law-abiding citizens' are.
So far there's only the ravings of ex-NSA official Karen Stewart, who's been complaining since 2016 of being passed over for promotion. She accused her employers then of promoting another woman in exchange for her sexual attentions to the board ! Or something like that.
No sign of any credible, legitimate source or even a single name, address, formal complaint. Just tin-foil hat stuff about gas-chambers Yupp !, renditions and trafficking, etc. The words 'military-industrial complex', give me pause.
#2
I was involved slightly with InfraGuard at it's inception (from the corporate IT side) and what it had to do with "civilian mercenary" activities is lost on me unless it's changed a lot since back then. What I can say for sure about back then is the FEEB participants were dweebs chosen for their obvious lack of value in more serious capacities and the private industry participants weren't the sort of material you'd train up to do "covert and overt (intimidation) surveillance, along with covert vicious libel/slander, stalking, harassment, assault, and murder techniques, utilizing high tech and advanced weaponry difficult to detect on their innocent civilian neighbors." They were geeks and administrators, also chosen to allow the companies they worked for to say "we are doing something..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/01/2020 9:51 Comments ||
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#3
This article is contrary to what I witnessed in the establishment of Fusion Centers in California, which took exceedingly cautious care not to infringe on abuses and 1st Amendment abridgment.
Posted by: jack salami ||
01/01/2020 10:47 Comments ||
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#4
The piece reads like a hit piece on the FBI; seems a bit harsh. I've run into a few Feebs at times in the course of work; they were good guys and professional although I’ve heard some local cops refer to the FBI as headline hunters. The taint to the FBI seems to be in the upper echelons and the result of the last administration's corruption.
We have one of those Fusion Centers within walking distance embedded in a medical park. There are nice walking paths and landscaping; a good place for-walking. I’ve never seen much activity at the Fusion Center.
#5
... neighborhood watch-type Civilian Mercenaries, like INFRAGARD, were instructed in covert and overt (intimidation) surveillance...
Um... I'm part of INFRAGARD as part of my information security job. It is anything but what she calls it. We get information from the FBI that isn't released to the public yet on potential attacks on government, financial and education IT infrastructures so we can be better prepared in our defenses.
That's it. No civilian mercenaries, no surveillance we are conducting.
The shit she is spouting is Alex Jones level conspiracy crap.
[Jpost] The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government has been wary of changes in Baghdad over the last ten years as pro-Iranian groups have grown in power.
Abadi’s government in Baghdad worked with parliament to take a disparate group of militias, including Kataib Hezbollah, and make them an official paramilitary force, akin to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran accomplished in Iraq in the years 2016-2018 what it could not accomplish in Lebanon: It transformed Iraq’s form of Hezbollah into an official force.
At the height of the ISIS war on a row of hills west of the city of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... Kurdish commanders from the Peshmerga, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s armed forces, gathered to watch ISIS threats in the distance. They said Iraq faced two threats. One threat was ISIS, which was being slowly pushed back from the gains it had made in 2014. Another threat was Shi’ite sectarian militias called the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). These groups had risen to fight ISIS but were gathering strength with Iran’s support.
Continued on Page 49
[Army Times via Business Insider] Over the next year the Army's new rifle marksmanship qualification standards are being rolled out across the force. US Army Military Academy at Woke Point foto.
They'll put soldiers to the test, cutting the time to shoot and increasing requirements to meet the expert standards. All of this while better simulating some of the features of more realistic combat shooting.
In July, the Army released "TC 3-20.40 Training and Qualification-Individual Weapons," or "Dot-40," that covers not just rifle and carbine marksmanship but also has new standards for pistol and other individual weapons.
The changes, along with a companion manual that updates crew served weapons work, are the biggest revamp to shooting since current system was established in 1956.
As many as 200 marksmanship experts contributed to the two-year project, led by the Maneuver Center of Excellence's Directorate of Training and Doctrine.
The training is broken down into six tables ‐ preliminary marksmanship instruction and evaluation, pre-live fire simulation training, magazine and shooting position drills, grouping and zeroing, practice qualification and qualification.
Shooters will fire at night, also while wearing gas masks. And coaches will assess how they transition from station to station on their own while also changing magazines from their gear.
Previously, soldiers could stack magazines at the ready before firing.
[greenwichtime.com] These were the fierce warrior women of Ancient Greek lore who supposedly sparred with Hercules, lived in lesbian matriarchies and hacked off their breasts so they could fire their arrows better. Homer immortalized them in the Iliad. Eons later, they played a central role in the Wonder Woman comics.
Some historians argued they were probably a propaganda tool created to keep Athenian women in line. Another theory suggested that they may have been beardless men mistaken for women by the Greeks.
But a growing body of archaeological evidence shows that legends about the horseback-riding, bow-wielding female fighters were almost certainly rooted in reality. Myths about the Amazons' homosexuality and self-mutilation are still dubious at best, but new research appears to confirm that there really were groups of nomadic women who trained, hunted and battled alongside their male counterparts in the Eurasian steppe.
In a landmark discovery revealed earlier this month, archaeologists unearthed the remains of four female warriors buried with a cache of arrowheads, spears and horseback riding equipment in a tomb in Western Russia - right where Ancient Greek stories placed the Amazons.
The team from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences identified the women as Scythian nomads who were interred at a burial site some 2,500 years ago near the present-day community of Devitsa. The women ranged in age from early teens to late 40s, according to the archaeologists. And the eldest of the women was found wearing a golden ceremonial headdress, a calathus, engraved with floral ornaments - an indication of stature.
The discovery represents some of the most detailed evidence to date that female warriors weren't just the stuff of ancient fiction, according to Adrienne Mayor, author of The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World.
#2
Greek provincial governor named Seleucus Nikator lost to Indian king Chandragupta Maurya (Sandrakottos), attempting to take part of the Punjab in 303 BC. To seal a peace treaty, Chandragupta gifted Seleucus around 500 war elepants in exchange for the Greek holdings in Afganistan, Seleucus' own daughter and some Greek women. Martial training - riding horses, wrestling, stealth, archery and swordsmanship was necessary training for female staff, queens and wives of officers in the Mauryan empire. Those Greek women became the all-female, special squad who guarded the king. Their exploits and records in archery and kills in skirmishes are written of in Megasthenes' accounts and by Indian historians. There's a book 'Badasses' too which mentions them.
It is believed Chandragupta relieved some of their service and sent them to Seleucus' successor, Antiochus I Soter to show him the value of women fighters. Fearful of the superior fighting skills of these women, he posted them somewhere in Boeotia where they later established their own matriarchal fiefdom. The tradition of women special forces could also have carried across to parts of Europe too as relations with the Mauryan Empire were stronger by 185 BC.
#7
Daniel Dravot (with help from Peachy Carnehan) took it from them around 1880.
Daniel Dravot : In any place where they fight, a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find - "D'you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dynasty.
#8
Peachy Carnehan: ... one day they come and they took him down and they said it was a miracle he wasn't dead and then they set him down and they let him go. And Peachy come home, in about, a year. And the mountains they tried to fall on old Peachy, but he was quite safe because Daniel walked before him. And Daniel never let go of Peachy's hand and Peachy never let go of Daniel's head.
Rudyard Kipling: [aghast] His head?
Peachy Carnehan: You knew Danny, sir. Oh, yes, you knew, most Worshipful Brother.
[Takes something out of the sack he is carrying and places it on a table]
Peachy Carnehan: Daniel Dravot, Esquire. Well, he became king of Kafiristan, with a crown on his head and that's all there is to tell. I'll be on my way now sir, I've got urgent business in the south, I have to meet a man in Marwar Junction.
[Peachy limps out of the room. Kipling opens the sack and removes Daniel's decaying head with the golden crown still on his head]
[National Review] After decades of wishful thinking, it’s finally become clear that cultural influence is no substitute for economic and military strength in foreign policy.
On the night of October 2, 2019, Comedy Central broadcast the South Park episode "Band in China," a devastating satire of the way Beijing has used access to the Chinese market to shape how the U.S. entertainment industry operates. The plot involves one of the main characters’ going to China to try and sell marijuana, getting arrested, and being rescued by Mickey Mouse and the Disney corporation, whose subservience to China is emphasized. Disney agrees to kill Winnie the Pooh, supposedly for resembling the Chinese leader, in exchange for opening up the Chinese pot market. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., some of the other main characters are trying to make a movie while being supervised and censored by the Chinese military.
"Band in China" made it clear that Hollywood’s soft power was no match for Beijing’s economic hard power. Indeed, the American entertainment industry has failed to have any cultural influence on China, while China has used its hard power to neutralize the influence of American culture.
After the episode’s release, the idea that somehow soft power ‐ which is to say, cultural influence ‐ can be used to decisively change the behavior of foreign nations is, or should be, dead and buried. Soft power, when it does exist, flows directly from hard power. In the case of China, the belief that exposure to U.S. cultural products would help soften and democratize the country has been proven utterly false. In fact, as "Band in China" showed, it has been the Chinese Communists who’ve influenced America.
In the mid 1990s, the idea that somehow soft power, by itself, would shape the post-Cold War world began to take hold. It emerged, naturally enough, from American universities, where an academic elite was all too happy to imagine that its influence on the intellectual and cultural landscape would correct the ugly and vulgar reality of military and economic strength that had, up to now, shaped human history.
#1
There's no such thing as 'soft power'. As they say in China, power only flows from the barrel of a gun. One can create goodwill however. But the intent behind silly overtures is easily deciphered in the modern world. Asians despise pretense, because they do it better and more subtly. We pioneered in hypocrisy !
If you're genuinely disposed to doing good for others without expectation of reward, history rewards you with a legacy of latent credibility. Mutual respect and humility play a great role too.
It cannot be purchased by entertainment, art, cultural appropriation or acknowledgement. The Trudeau School of Political Artifice that most of the liberal deepState belong to, is transparent and rather embarrassing.
#2
Yes, especially in the pop culture space, it's the "sucking" part of "sucking up" that the practitioners seem to be most adept at.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/01/2020 7:24 Comments ||
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#3
Soft power does work, just not on foreign nations that control access to info. Dems have been running on soft power for decades. How many liberals do you know that think they know everything that are totally uninformed and absolutely refuse to listen to alternate news sources... That's soft power.
So many foolish conceits took hold over our supposedly smart people during the last 25 years - bullshit, made-up terms like soft power
undocumented immigrant
responsibility to protect
gender dysphoria
black lives matter
toxic masculinity white privilege
#8
Then again, it seems the economic power that Trump is exploiting has a degree of effectiveness, though note well, its tied to the hard power to protect it from other attacks.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Matt at Feral Jundi] So as I write this, it is December 31, 2019, and I am trying to boil down the last decade of contracting and war into some kind of sense. I have been working as a contractor for over 15 years now, and the last decade has been a whirlwind. lol It is amazing that I am still alive, still doing doing this stuff, and still heavily blogging and writing about this industry. So I still have a passion for it all and it is fun and interesting to me to share what I know with the readership.
[Washington Examiner] The first and greatest lesson of economics is that incentives matter ‐ thus, it is useful and important that the stock markets are set to end the year at or near all-time highs. Of course, our indices like the Dow Jones and S&P 500 don't account for inflation, so they need to end every year a little bit higher just to stand still. But the stock market hitting record highs is useful evidence that we're getting something about the economy correct.
[Conservative Base] To keep America safe from the many security threats facing our nation, the FBI began partnering with state, local, tribal, and campus law enforcement after the horrific terrorist attacks by Osama bin Laden and his bloodthirsty Islamic group known as al-Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001. The facilities that housed these inter-agency counterterrorists were called FBI/Fusion Centers.
[Army Times via Business Insider] Over the next year the Army's new rifle marksmanship qualification standards are being rolled out across the force.
The M29 was an interesting system. One of the downsides however, was the kill radius frequently enveloped the launch site. 
