Category: Uncategorized

Via Coming Anarchy comes news that a US military C-130 has been attacked in the country of Mali of all places:

Gunmen hit a United States military cargo plane flying food to Malian troops fighting rebels in the far north of the country, say officials. No one was injured in the attack and the plane, which had minor damage, landed safely.

US Major Pam Cook, a spokesperson for the American military command in Stuttgart, Germany, that covered Africa, said the C-130 plane was shot at late on Tuesday or early Wednesday over Tin-Zawatine, a desert village on Mali’s border with Algeria.

The US had provided military training and support to Mali and other African nations for years as part of its counterterrorism campaign.

Cook said the Malian troops were "pinned down" in Tin-Zawatine – but it was not clear if their movements were restricted by rebel fire or because the area was heavily mined.

She said the aircraft was struck by gunfire and suffered "minor damage", but landed safely. It did not return fire.

According to a senior Malian military official, the gunmen used Kalashnikov automatic rifles during the attack, which he said occurred just after the plane finished its final food drop early Wednesday. [News24]

Some of you reading this may be surprised that the US has military forces forward deployed in Mali, but the US has actually had forces engaged in the area since 2003 and is currently participating in a major training exercise with the countries in the region:

U.S. military officials are conducting an anti-terrorism training exercise called Flintlock in the Saharan desert with hundreds of military officers from mostly Africa. Some analysts say the U.S. Trans-Saharan Counter-terrorism Initiative is misguided and a waste of millions of dollars. Phuong Tran brings us this report from VOA’s Central and West Africa Bureau in Dakar.

American Colonel Mark Rosenguard has been leading what he calls military theatre exercises in Mali’s capital, Bamako. The participants decide on common problems they face, like drugs and weapons smuggling.

They then work out how they would deal with a regional blowup of those problems.

Colonel Rosenguard says it does not matter who the enemy is. What matters, he says, is that they learn how to work together to solve regional problems

The colonel has been with the counter-terrorism program since it began as the Pan Sahel Initiative in 2003 to prevent terrorism in West Africa’s desert regions, working first with Chad, Mali, Niger and Mauritania.

Two years ago, the program added Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, and Nigeria. [Phuong Tran, VOA]

Guess who isn’t happy about US involvement in the area?  Can you believe it, the French:

But French criminologist Xavier Raufer with the University of Paris says the program’s biggest problem is that Americans do not understand criminality in the Sahel desert stretching from Senegal to Sudan.

"You have guys arriving in an office and they have pages with questions and answers. They want answers that can fit into a computer," he said. "Such a thing as a 100-percent pure unadulterated bandit or terrorist does not exist in Africa."

Raufer says American attempts to single out potential terrorists from drug and weapons smugglers is ineffective, and potentially dangerous if it builds up to the point of retaliatory U.S. strikes.

"When a cousin is killed fighting for whatever reason, you have got two other cousins replacing him because the basis of a tribal society are the notions of honor and vengeance," he said.  [Phuong Tran, VOA]

No 100 percent terrorists in Africa?  I guess all those terrorists in Morrocco are just misunderstood "smugglers" then?  I guess the Algerian terrorist group which Al Qaida #2 man, Ayman al Zawahiri claimed has allied with Al Qaida are just misunderstood as well?

Other critics claim US involvment in the Sahara is of course all about the oil:

Washington appears to have based its notion on some unpublished sources and Algerian press reports on the banditry and smuggling activities of the outlaw Mokhtar ben Mokhtar. It also misconstrued the Tablighi Jama`at movement, whose 200 or so members in Mali are nicknamed “the Pakistanis” because the sect’s headquarters are in Pakistan. Finally, local government agents told U.S. officials what they wanted to hear.

Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, Washington saw a Saharan Front as the linchpin for the militarization of Africa, greater access to its oil resources (Africa will supply 25% of U.S. hydrocarbons by 2015), and the sustained involvement of Europe in America’s counterterrorism program. More significantly, a Saharan front reinforced the intelligence cherry-picked by top Pentagon brass to justify the invasion of Iraq by demonstrating that al-Qaida’s influence had spread to North Africa. [Jeremy Keenan, Malaysia Today] F

Just like Afghanistan was all about oil as well.  I’m still waiting for Michael Moore’s pipeline there.  The threat of terrorism in the Sahara is probably overstated but to suggest it doesn’t exist and it is all about the oil is ridiculous. 

Two NCOs who signed an opinion article in the NY Times last month have unfortunately died in a tragic vehicle accident:

Two U.S. soldiers whose signatures appeared on an op-ed piece in The New York Times critical of the war in Iraq were among seven Americans killed in a truck accident outside of Baghdad, family members said Wednesday.

Staff Sgt. Yance Gray and Sgt. Omar Mora were members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Gray, Mora and five other soldiers died Monday when their truck overturned near the Iraqi capital, U.S. officials said.

Gray and Mora were among seven soldiers, mostly sergeants, who wrote the op-ed piece that appeared in the Times on August 19. It called the prospects of U.S. success "far-fetched" and said the progress being reported was being "offset by failures elsewhere." [CNN]

Though I fully debunked their article that was used as a hit piece to discredit General Petraeus before he testified, I am saddened that such men who had sacrificed much by serving for an extended period of time and in difficult circumstances in Iraq, would die in a senseless traffic accident.  My thoughts go out to their friends and family along with the friends and family of the other soldiers who died in the accident.  

Of course the commenters from the left are claiming the military intentionally killed them.  Why am I not surprised.

UPDATE: Al Qaida has taken responsibility for killing Sheik Sattar.   This assassination will hasten the end of Al Qaida in Iraq.  Any Sunni tribe that was on the fence before will assuredly join the awakening movement now.

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Most American have never heard of Sheik Sattar but there is few people more important in Iraq than Sheik Sattar who founded the Anbar Awakening movement. He has been the target of assassination attempts before and today the assassins were successful:

Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed by a roadside bomb planted near the tribal leader’s home in Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital, said Col. Tareq Youssef, supervisor of Anbar police …

“It is a major blow to the council, but we are determined to strike back and continue our work,” said Sheik Jubeir Rashid, a senior member of Abu Risha’s group. “Such an attack was expected, but it will not deter us.” He said the bombing took place at 3:30 p.m. as Abu Risha was returning home.

A Ramadi police officer said Abu Risha had received a group of poor people at his home earlier in the day, as a gesture of charity marking the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said authorities believed the bomb was planted by one of the visitors.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that after the first blast that killed Abu Risha, a car bomb exploded nearby. “The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy,” Khalaf said. There were no casualties from the car bomb, he added. [Robert Reid, AP]

This is a huge blow and the jury is still out on who ordered the killing. Depending on whether it was Al Qaida or a Shia militia who killed Sattar, will go a long ways to determining if reconciliation between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shias will ever be possible. No one has taken responsibility yet for the killing but the only people that would want Sattar dead more than Al Qaida is Iran. I would not put it past the Iranians sanctioning one of their Mahdi Army surrogates to kill Sheik Sattar. If proven a Shia militia did this, this could turn into the Sunni equivalent of what the Samarra Mosque Bombing was to the Shiites last year. In such a scenario the only winners will be the Iranians.

You can read more over at the The Long War Journal, Captain’s Journal, and On Point.

Via K.U. Studies comes news that President Bush may be considering a summit meeting with Kim Jong-il:

U.S. President George W. Bush would likely meet with North Korean Kim Jong-il if the Stalinist state shows its willingness to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, even if its nuclear program is not fully dismantled, a local report said Monday, quoting an unidentified U.S. diplomat.

The Washington source, quoted by the Kyunghyang Shinmun, said the Bush-Kim summit would be “doable” before the end of the Bush administration if Pyongyang is serious about the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

The source said U.S.-North Korea summit talks could take place in the North Korean capital Pyongyang. [Jung Sung-ki, Korea Times]

First of all this report is coming from the Korea Times, which is not the most reliable of newspapers.  Secondly, it is coming from the State Department which are the same people that brought us Madeline Albright toasting Kim Jong-il and what did that get us?  Thirdly, it would be political suicide for any US president to visit Pyongyang without North Korea completely and verifiably dismantling their nuclear weapons program. 

Finally, I believe no US president should visit Pyongyang if North Korea does pull back troops from the DMZ along with improving human rights conditions.  If such conditions are not met why reward Kim Jong-il with a visit to Pyongyang?  Instead demand he travel to Seoul like he promised Kim Dae-jung in 2000 that he would.  A visit by the US president without significant improvements in North Korean behavior will only serve to fulfill North Korean propaganda.  Sadly in order to keep "the myth of progress" alive, the US State Department appears willing to do this. 

If you haven’t already seen or read General Petraeus’ testimony to Congress already I have his complete testimony and accompanying Powerpoint slides posted at Forward Deployed.  Additionally I have posted the full page ad taken out in the New York Times by Moveon.org smearing General Petraeus. 

I highly recommend that everyone read my posting on this that totally destroys the leftist fantasies dreamed up in the Moveon.org ad.

Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq
General David H. Petraeus
Commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq
10-11 September 2007

(more…)

The Korea Times is reporting that President Roh may actually be thinking about extending the Zaytun deployment to Iraq:

A summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and U.S. President George W. Bush in Sydney last Friday has produced expectations that South Korean troops will stay at least for one more year in Iraq.

In his talks with Bush on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Roh said he will look for ways to help the United States as a coalition partner in Iraq, Roh’s aides said.

Roh made the remarks in response to Bush’s praise for the Korean troops’ humanitarian and reconstruction operations in the Middle Eastern country.

“I will seek ways to contribute (to the stability in Iraq) through consultations with the National Assembly as the troops’ mission expires at the end of the year under a parliamentary motion,” Roh said.  […]

The state-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analysis has already submitted a report calling for extending the troops stay in Iraq, while reducing the their size to 400, citing the alliance with the United States and economic benefits in the future. [Jung Sung-Ki, Korea Times]

Just for the record I have been against the Zaytun deployment since before the unit was ever deployed because I figured the unit would not be allowed to do much of anything meaningful which is evident by the fact they can’t even go to a local market place to buy supplies in the highly friendly and secure Kurdish region of Iraq.  They did do a good job with the toilets though.  Plus if there was a mass casualty attack or as we saw with the Taliban, a pro-longed hostage crisis, the anti-US groups, politicians, and media would waste no time capitalizing on it.  Additionally, the Korean government would expect unrealistic political benefits from the dispatch. 

I’m not the only thinking this way either; Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has already hinted that he would prefer 2,300 Korean businessmen instead of 2,300 Zaytun soldiers.  The Kurds are literally laughing at the Zaytun "occupation force".  Plus soldiers that have served in the Zaytun unit have voiced their frustrations with the deployment, which has been echoed by the Korean media as well. 

The Korean "occupation force" has out lived it’s usefulness and the American government should allow the Zaytun unit redeploy.  The hostage crisis should have been a wake up call to the US government that the Korean participation in Iraq is not worth the potential negative side effects we saw of such a participation in Afghanistan.  Let them go home. 

More over at the Marmot’s Hole.

UPDATE: Another good read over at Korean Unification Studies on the North Korean attempt to drive a wedge between the US and Japan.

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I’m shocked I tell you, the North Koreans lied:

North Korea remains on a list of states that sponsor terrorism, a senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday, dismissing North Korean claims that Washington decided to remove the designation.

“No, they haven’t been taken off the terrorism list,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told Japanese reporters as he arrived in Australia‘s business capital for a meeting of Pacific Rim nations. A State Department press officer separately confirmed the remarks.

Hill’s comments were the first U.S. denial since North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement carried Monday by the country’s official news agency, said that Washington decided to scotch the terror designation and with it related economic sanctions. [Charles Hutzler, AP]

What still worries me though is that there may be a grain of truth to this such as Christopher Hill promising to fast track them off the terrorism list by allowing them for example to not have to come clean on the Japanese abduction issue.

More over at Marmot, DPRK Studies, OFK, and Nomad.

If you haven’t already make sure you watch this photo essay from Michael Gordon.  What is interesting about the essay is that Gordon embedded with the unit of the infamous Beauchamp.  No pictures of melted women, dogs being run over, or soldiers running around with skulls.  Just soldiers doing a dangerous and difficult mission and getting slow, but steady results.