JD's big day

 

A testament to the dumbfuckery and total insanity of Vance and whatever fool is in charge of the Marines' artillery.

What a brilliant fucking idea.  

No officers were hurt in the mishap, which dropped shrapnel onto the vehicles parked on a ramp to a major freeway that had been ordered closed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The governor had objected to the plan to fire over the freeway, Interstate 5, and ordered a 17-mile stretch closed — against the guidance of military officials, who had said it was safe for it to remain open.<

  NYT

Jesus wept.

When the drones start themselves

I missed this story from 2011. I wonder how things have advanced since then.

Camp Lemonnier [in Djibouti], a sun-baked Third World outpost established by the French Foreign Legion, began as a temporary staging ground for U.S. Marines looking for a foothold in the region a decade ago. Over the past two years, the U.S. military has clandestinely transformed it into the busiest Predator drone base outside the Afghan war zone, a model for fighting a new generation of terrorist groups.

[...]

For the past decade, the Pentagon has labeled Lemonnier an “expeditionary,” or temporary, camp. But it is now hardening into the U.S. military’s first permanent drone war base.

  WaPo

Don't they all start that way? This is only temporary.

Around the clock, about 16 times a day, [US] drones take off or land [...] here, the combat hub for the Obama administration’s counterterrorism wars in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

Some of the unmanned aircraft are bound for Somalia, the collapsed state whose border lies just 10 miles to the southeast. Most of the armed drones, however, veer north across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen

[...]

After a Post reporter showed up in Djibouti uninvited, the camp’s highest-ranking commander consented to an interview — on the condition that it take place away from the base, at Djibouti's lone luxury hotel. The commander, Army Maj. Gen. Ralph O. Baker, answered some general queries but declined to comment on drone operations or missions related to Somalia or Yemen.

[...]

Taken together, the previously undisclosed documents show how the Djibouti-based drone wars sharply escalated [...] after eight Predators arrived at Lemonnier. The records also chronicle the Pentagon’s ambitious plan to further intensify drone operations here.

[...]

About 300 Special Operations personnel plan raids and coordinate drone flights from inside a high-security compound at Lemonnier that is dotted with satellite dishes and ringed by concertina wire. Most of the commandos work incognito, concealing their names even from conventional troops on the base.

[...]

In Washington, the Obama administration has taken a series of steps to sustain the drone campaign for another decade, developing an elaborate new targeting database, called the “disposition matrix,” and a classified “playbook” to spell out how decisions on targeted killing are made.

[...]

The U.S. military also flies drones from small civilian airports in Ethiopia and the Seychelles, but those operations pale in comparison to what is unfolding in Djibouti.

[...]

Lemonnier also has become a hub for conventional aircraft. In October 2011, the military boosted the airpower at the base by deploying a squadron of F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, which can fly faster and carry more munitions than Predators.

[...]

Predator drones in particular are more prone to mishaps than manned aircraft, Air Force statistics show. But the accidents rarely draw public attention because there are no pilots or passengers.

Now we're getting to the nitty gritty of why the drones are so popular among US military and political players.

But the following doesn't get public attention, either:

As the pace of drone operations has intensified in Djibouti, Air Force mechanics have reported mysterious incidents in which the airborne robots went haywire.

In March 2011, a Predator parked at the camp started its engine without any human direction, even though the ignition had been turned off and the fuel lines closed.

You read that right.

Technicians concluded that a software bug had infected the “brains” of the drone, but never pinpointed the problem.

Whose software? Was the software hacked? Installed surreptitiously? Are there any Russian fingerprints?

“After that whole starting-itself incident, we were fairly wary of the aircraft and watched it pretty closely,” an unnamed Air Force squadron commander testified to an investigative board, according to a transcript. “Right now, I still think the software is not good.”

It might not even be a good idea.

[O]n May 7, 2011, a drone carrying a Hellfire missile had an electrical malfunction shortly after it entered Yemeni airspace, according to an Air Force investigative report. The Predator turned back toward Djibouti. About one mile offshore, it rolled uncontrollably to the right, then back to the left before flipping belly up and hurtling into the sea.

“I’ve never seen a Predator do that before in my life, except in videos of other crashes,” a sensor operator from the ground crew told investigators, according to a transcript. “I’m just glad we landed it in the ocean and not someplace else.”

It doesn't sound like "we" landed it anywhere.

[A]s far as the U.S. military is concerned, [Djibouti]'s strategic value is unparalleled. Sandwiched between East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, Camp Lemonnier enables U.S. aircraft to reach hot spots such as Yemen or Somalia in minutes. Djibouti’s port also offers easy access to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

But who's running the drones?

The remote-control drones in Djibouti are flown, via satellite link, by pilots 8,000 miles away in the United States, sitting at consoles in air-conditioned quarters at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Maybe.

h/t Matt Taibbi

Oh, Nice - We Need More Military Action at This Time

A US patrol ship fired several warning shots from a heavy machine gun at an Iranian craft that approached within 150 yards and ignored other warnings, Pentagon officials told reporters on Tuesday.

USS Thunderbolt opened fire only after it tried to warn off the Iranians over the radio, by firing flares, and blowing five short blasts from its whistle, the officials said. The warning shots were fired into the water, out of concerns of a possible collision.

[...]

The Iranian ship had approached to within 150 yards (137 meters), but “ceased its provocative actions” after the warning shots, US officials added. The vessel stayed in the area, which was described as being in “international waters in the northern Arabian Gulf,” the Pentagon’s preferred term for the Persian Gulf.

  RT

And what do the Iranians say?

Later on Tuesday, the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] issued a statement confirming that an incident took place, but said that a US Navy ship moved towards an Iranian vessel of the 3rd Naval Division and fired two rounds in an attempt to intimidate. The IRGC condemned the “unprofessional and provocative behavior” of the US crew.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

But We Can Imagine and Speculate

"We can say, without speaking to specifics, that the inert training missile has been returned with the cooperation of the Cuban government," Mark Toner, the State Department's deputy spokesperson, told CNN on Saturday. "The department is restricted under federal law and regulations from commenting on specific defense trade licensing cases and compliance matters, so we cannot provide further details."

"The reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the re-opening of our embassy in Havana allow us to engage with the Cuban government on issues of mutual interest," he added.

  CNN

And, Of Course, the Sailors Will Take the Hit

They will forever be branded as the fools who lost their way in Iranian waters.

[Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter ] said the crews of two American patrol craft were not on a clandestine mission and “obviously had misnavigated” when they came within a few miles of Farsi Island, where Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps has a naval base.

The 10 sailors on the boats did not report the navigational error to their superiors before they were taken by the Iranians, Mr. Carter said. “It may have been they were trying to sort it out at the time when they encountered the Iranian boats,” Mr. Carter said.

[...]

According to these officials, the Navy first lost radio contact with the boats on Tuesday afternoon, and after the boats failed to make a scheduled refueling stop, the Navy sent search and rescue aircraft to look for them. GPS equipment on the boats showed the boats were in Iranian territorial waters. The rescue aircraft, an official said, also entered Iranian airspace, after first alerting the Iranian authorities that the two boats were missing.

Current and former Navy officials said Thursday that the seizure of the two boats reflected not just a major navigational blunder by the crew but possibly a serious lapse of oversight by more senior leaders at the Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.

“This was a debacle,” said one retired admiral with long experience in the Persian Gulf, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments. “The Iranians closely monitor their territorial waters, their airspace, and their land borders. We have standard operating procedures to avoid incidents like this, and they obviously weren’t followed here.”

  NYT

The sailors will be forever branded, and possibly a more senior officer will be sacrificed.

In the cramped international waters of the Persian Gulf — which the Americans call the Arabian Gulf, ceding nothing to Tehran — relations between the Navy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have long been tense. Both sides routinely spy on each other, and incidents are not infrequent.

They just got caught this time.

"Arabian Gulf ... ceding nothing to Tehran." Jesus. Petty, petulant and childish. Hallmarks of warmongers.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And Why Not?

Somebody's getting rich.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

American Sailors in Iran

Iran has freed 10 U.S. sailors seized on two U.S. Navy [combat] vessels in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf after determining that the encroachment was due to a failure of navigational systems.

  LA Times

That's damned generous of them.

Wait. What? Both boats had a failure in their navigational system?

Like I said, damned generous.

Iranian officials had vowed to use "Islamic compassion" in determining the fate of the sailors.

Any Donald Trump supporter knows there is no such thing as Islamic compassion, so it could only be incompetence or stupidity that caused the Iranians to release the sailors. Ha ha. We outsmarted them again.

“After considering the technical and operations logs of the boats, we found out they were unintentionally in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s waters,” a corps spokesman was quoted as saying by Fars News. “And after their apologies the two boats were released in international waters.”

[...]

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter applauded the "timely" resolution of the incident.

"I am pleased that 10 U.S. Navy sailors have departed Iran and are now back in U.S. hands," Carter said. "I want to personally thank Secretary of State John Kerry for his diplomatic engagement with Iran to secure our sailors' swift return. Around the world, the U.S. Navy routinely provides assistance to foreign sailors in distress, and we appreciate the timely way in which this situation was resolved."

[...]

The sailors departed Iran’s Farsi Island, where they had been held, on Wednesday morning aboard the same Riverine Command Boats that they had been operating when they “lost contact” with the U.S. Navy, the statement said.

Why is "lost contact" in scare quotes?

What really happened?

I don't know, but if you are a warmongering US citizen (as you SHOULD be, right?), what you heard on your TV last night was something that got your blood boiling.

U.S. media instantly converted the invasion by U.S. ships into Iranian waters into an act of aggression by Iran. That’s, in part, because the U.S. political and media establishment believes the world is owned by the United States (recall how the U.S., with a straight face, regularly condemned Iran for “interference” in Iraq even while the U.S. was occupying Iraq with 100,000 troops). Thus, the U.S. military has the absolute right to go anywhere it wants – even into Iranian waters – and it’s inherently an act of “aggression” for anyone else to resist. That was the clear premise of the bulk of the U.S. commentary last night.

[...]

For the last 15 years, Iran has been almost completely encircled by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. military bases extremely close to Iranian borders. But in the tale told by the U.S. media, it’s Iran that is aggressively threatening the U.S.

[...]

The U.S. does not officially have state TV; it has something much better and more effective: journalists who are nominally independent, legally free to say what they want, who are voluntarily even more nationalistic and jingoistic and government-defending than U.S. government spokespeople themselves.

  Glenn Greenwald

A free (corporate) press.  Freedom of speech, baby.  Freedom of speech.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Other Cuban Missile Crisis

A dummy U.S. Hellfire missile was mistakenly shipped from Europe to Cuba in 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

  Yahoo

Are we sure it was the missile that was the dummy?

[A] U.S. official told the AP that Lockheed was authorized to export the dummy missile for a NATO training exercise. The official attributed the shipping error to Lockheed's freight forwarders, and said the U.S. was working with Lockheed to get the device back.

[...]

The inert missile did not contain any explosives, the Journal reported, but there are concerns that Cuba could share the technology with potential U.S. adversaries like North Korea or Russia.

Or return it for the US lifting all sanctions?

The Journal reported that the U.S. is also investigating whether the missile's disappearance was a deliberate act of espionage.

[...]

According to the Journal report, the missile was properly shipped to Spain, where it was used in the training exercise. It was then taken on a somewhat roundabout journey through Spain, Germany and France before winding up at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. From there, it was supposed to have been shipped back to Florida; instead, it was loaded onto an Air France flight to Havana.

And they've had it since 2014 (early 2014 according to another report.). Is that the real reason diplomatic relations were restored in 2015?

Lockheed Martin notified the State Department of the incident when it realized the missile was missing around June 2014, the WSJ said.

  Yahoo

I wonder how long it really was before they realized it was missing. There must have been some sweating palms at Lockheed trying to get that thing back without having to tell State what happened. And why didn't somebody at State have the responsibility to get constant information of its whereabouts from the moment it left the US?

[D]espite a historic thaw in ties with Cuba over the past year, Washington has been unsuccessful in its push to get the missile back, the WSJ said, citing unnamed sources.

We held Cuba by the short ones for over 50 years. Maybe it's their turn.

The bungled missile delivery comes with Washington and Havana working to build on their restoration of full diplomatic relations, a move first announced in December 2014.

Yep. That's the timing. About the time the State Department realized they weren't able to recover the missile any other way.

Obama said he had made the decision [to restore dimplomatic ties] because he concluded that 50 years of trying to encourage democratic and economic change in Cuba through isolation had failed.

And the last part of that statement is certainly true. But I feel pretty certain that's not what caused him to make that "decision".

UPDATE 2/13/16:  Cuba has returned the missile.  We'll have to speculate the details.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

SNAFU

More than 30 Iraqi soldiers have been killed and 20 more injured in an airstrike carried out by the US military, an Iraqi said in a statement cited by Sputnik.

[...]

Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee, said [...] he called upon the Iraqi prime minister “to carry out an immediate investigation into the airstrike on the 55th brigade that earlier achieved success in battling” Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants.

[...]

The US has been bombing IS positions in Iraq since August 2014. However, according to Iraq's former PM Nouri al-Maliki, this campaign has been "unbelievably" ineffective in fighting the terror group.

  RT

"Ineffective" strikes me as a very diplomatic spin.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Destroyers R Us

Two U.S. AV-8B Harrier jets accidentally bombed Australia’s Great Barrier Reef during a training exercise on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

The jets launched from USS Bonhomme Richard and accidentally released an inert bomb and an unarmed explosive bomb from 164 feet above the water, according to a statement released from U.S. 7th Fleet on Saturday. Neither of the bombs exploded and they possibly caused minimal damage to the reef.

  Raw Story

”Possibly.” I am having doubts.

US officials said the pilots of two AV-8B Harrier jets were forced to jettison the unarmed devices on Tuesday because both aircraft were running low on fuel and could not land with the bombs on board.

The pilots intended to drop the munitions on a designated bombing range on Townshend Island but aborted the mission when controllers reported the area was not clear of hazards.

Instead, they jettisoned two bombs from each aircraft on the World Heritage-listed marine park off the coast of Queensland state.

  New Sky

Low on fuel? Both of them?  Somebody forget to fill up the tanks? Somebody failed to calculate the amount of fuel needed correctly? And how many bombs were there?  Two?

The four bombs, weighing a total 1.8 metric tons (4,000 pounds), were dropped in more than 50 meters (164 feet) of water away from coral that was supposed to have minimized possible damage to the reef, the statement said. None of the bombs exploded.

[...]

The pilots [...] went ahead with an emergency jettison as they were not allowed to land with bombs on board and both were low on fuel, the navy said.

  RT

Oh. Two EACH.

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the natural world, and pulling away from it, and viewing it from a greater distance, you can understand why. It is larger than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing on earth visible from space.

[...]

The Great Barrier Reef is a breeding area for humpback whales, migrating from the Antarctic and is also the habitat of a few endangered species including the Dugong (Sea Cow) and large Green Sea Turtle. In recognition of its significance, UNESCO listed the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage Site in 1981.

  GreatBarrierReef.org

One of these things doesn’t belong here. Can you guess which one?



Actually, perhaps two of these things.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Great Barrier Reef:  A Fragile Empire  (BBC)

Ooops

At least seven people have been injured after a US navy fighter jet crashed into apartment buildings in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Friday afternoon.

  UK Guardian

It took out three buildings, including a home for the elderly. They were ready to go anyway.

Captain Mark Weisgerber, of US Fleet Forces Command, said the plane had suffered a "catastrophic mechanical malfunction" during a training flight.

The pilots were a student and an "experienced" instructor, Weisgerber said.

I'm guessing the student was driving. And why is "experienced" in quotes?

The pilot was said to have apologised for crashing to passersby who helped him after he ejected.

It's the least he could do.

The same model of fighter jet, an F/A-18D, crashed in San Diego, California, in December 2008 after suffering mechanical failure, the Associated Press reported. That crash killed four members of one family and destroyed two homes.

Hmmmm.

How many people (I'm guessing at least one in the picture) had been so terrorized by this country's terrorism hype that they thought it was 9/11 all over again?

We'll never forget.