Anyone that reads this blog knows that I am no fan of Hamid Karzai and it would not bother me a bit if he was removed from power. Well he is at it again by running his mouth. The other day out forces killed 32 enemy, and somewhere in the mix it is said that 17 died that were “innocent” civilians. I quoted the word “innocent” for a reason. If you allow the enemy into your village, or if you take shots at the Coalition soldiers when you think you won’t get caught or you use your family to hide behind in order to shoot at Americans….you ain’t innocent.
The US forces take great care in avoiding civilian deaths. So much care that if most Americans knew what restrictions were placed on the US soldiers by higher command and worse yet, by NATO’s ISAF it would make them sick to their stomachs.
Here are the fundamentals of combat. If you shoot at me, I am going to destroy you. If you shoot at me from a house, then I will flatten that house if need be. If you shoot at me from a mosque, well then it is no longer a religious building that cannot be shot at.
To read the whole story and get the background on what I am talking about, check out the story here, http://es.quote.com/news/story.action?id=RTT901082136002729
President-elect Barack Obama said Friday his administration would not compromise its ideals to fight terrorism, and he has told his new intelligence chiefs that he expects the Geneva Conventions to be honored.
The long-running hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay has grown to 30 prisoners, the highest number in months.
Somali pirates released an oil-laden Saudi supertanker after receiving a $3 million ransom, a negotiator for the bandits said Friday.
Israeli jets and helicopters bombarded Gaza Friday and Hamas responded with a barrage of rockets on at least two cities as both sides defied a U.N. call for an immediate cease-fire.
Posted on 2009 under Blogs, CounterTerrorism, Terrorism |
9
Jan
In my day job at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics I work with a team of computer scientists and socials scientists to build models of terrorist group behavior. As the in-house TerrorWonk my role is to “interpret” the results and see if they yield any useful insights. I’ve co-authored papers on both Hezbollah and Hamas ( only the abstract is posted online).
The models use a system called SOMA (Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents) that calculates probabilities of a group acting in a given way in a given situation.
Obviously, we hope that our models can achieve a high level of prediction accuracy. But, regardless they can often reveal facets of an organization’s behavior that were not previously evident. Just as military experts say, “Plans are nothing, planning is everything,” I heard one speaker at a conference say, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
Following are short summaries of the findings.
Read the full post here.
American troops in Iraq will be allowed to drink beer while watching this year's Super Bowl without fear of court-martial. In what is sure to be a major morale boost, Gen. Raymond Odierno issued a waiver to a strict military ban on drinking alcohol in combat zones.
A U.S. Navy review board says the Defense Department should continue investigating what happened to a fighter pilot who was the first American lost in the Gulf War almost 20 years ago, saying it is not yet time to close the case.
Posted on 2009 under Blogs, CounterTerrorism, Terrorism |
9
Jan
Almost lost in the shuffle of Gaza and the transition is the story of the Turkish interdiction of Iranian arms shipments to Venezuela
The shipment of 22 containers, carried by truck from Iran to Turkey for shipping, was labeled "tractor parts."
Instead, the inspectors found: a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday. Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela.
"Experts from Turkey's Atomic Institute determined there were no traces of radioactive material, but said the equipment was enough to set up an explosives lab," Tosun said. "We have asked the military to send experts to determine whether to resume the shipment."
Doesn't exactly sound like tractor parts, particularly when Some barrels, labeled with "danger" signs, contained chemicals.
As the AQ Khan network showed, it is relatively easy to ship almost anything illicit by ship, because the shipping cargo containers are so seldom actually inspected. My full blog is here.
If you want to check out all my videos, then head over to http://www.greatamericans.com/bouhammer and see them there. As I promised, I am uploading all of them to GreatAmericans.com rather than You Tube.
