Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Thursday Reading

Maggie needs some "comfort food". You can help with the comfort.

Jane looks at Armies of Liberation: "Anwar Awlaki, the Elvis of al-Qaeda".

The Secret History of the World. Leaders without followers tend not to go places. Revolutions happen when the people are ready.

Why letting Somali pirates return to their hell hole state may not be an act of kindness despite protests to the contrary.

Got your smaller Navy right here. Really, it's like buying one fire truck for a city because statistics show that most of the time there's only one fire at a time. But it's a "really competent" fire truck. More on this later.


Survivors of that plane crash that killed Senator Stevens got help from the Coasties and National Guard. The Otter is a great plane, but I like two engines. Either of which can keep the plane in the air.

The Sentinel, a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point offers up "The Mysterious Relationship Between Al-Qa`ida and Iran" By Bruce Riedel in its July 2010 issue which you can download as a pdf here:
On balance, the evidence of a hostile relationship is much more compelling than evidence for a collaborative one. Nevertheless, that does not preclude the possibility of occasional operational collusion; terrorists often seek help from criminals and drug dealers, and therefore from other terrorists as well. Yet it does not suggest a partnership or alliance.
Iran and the Taliban, well ... it's complicated.

UPDATE: A logistics issue in getting aid to Pakistan reported here. Be sure to read CDR Salamander's comment. See comment above about the number of fire trucks... Unspoken is the lack of cargo capacity of the H-60 compared to the H-53 and the old H-3 helicopters. Less capacity means more sorties to carry the same cargo. And there are range issues, too.

UPDATE2: A must read about the state of United States shipping here.

UPDATE3: I haven't commented on the new Iranian mini- subs because, well, I want the Iranians to waste their time on such projects if it makes them happy. StrategyPage covers the situation quite well.

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