American Navy Rescues Iranians

You’re welcome, Iran.

Just days after Iranian and American military officials traded warnings over a U.S. Navy vessel’s departure from the Persian Gulf, the United States Navy has rescued 13 Iranian fishermen and their fishing dhow from Somali pirates in the north Arabian sea, the Pentagon said Friday. And in a side irony that punctuates the rare instance of Iranian-American co-operation, the rescue operation was carried out by a ship belonging to the very U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group that Iranian army officials had earlier boasted of evicting from Gulf waters.

RIP Sgt. Altmann

May he rest in peace.

Army Staff Sgt. Joseph J. Altmann’s plans and dreams were coming together: He married in February, re-enlisted in October for another four years of service and expected to return by March 2012 from a deployment in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, his father, John, said.

His wife, Nikki, planned to quit her Texas-based job with a charter air transport company serving armed forces personnel when Altmann ended this deployment, his father said Tuesday. Then the young couple could live together and start a family.

But the couple’s plans abruptly ended on Christmas Day.

Altmann, 27, died Sunday of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit in Kunar province, a mountainous region in northeastern Afghanistan. His parents were notified around 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

“Christmas will never be the same in the Altmann home,” his father said. “He will be sadly missed.”

The family is “devastated,” even though they knew the risks Altmann faced by re-enlisting, his mother, Janice, said.

“As a mother, you worry about your child no matter what they do,” she said, “but we talked about it, and we supported his decision 110%.”

Iran Hijacked Drone?

Wow. If this is true, it’s a HUGE deal.

Iran guided the CIA’s “lost” stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone’s systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

“The GPS navigation is the weakest point,” the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran’s “electronic ambush” of the highly classified US drone. “By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.”

The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.

Happy Veterans Day

To all of you veterans out there… THANK YOU.

West Bend Council Honors Vets

Very cool.

Because of a gesture by Alderman Ed Duquaine, each of the members of West Bend’s Common Council had the opportunity to personally meet each of the approximately 20 World War II veterans in attendance at Monday night’s meeting.

  As the aldermen were going around the room and making comments in tribute to the heroes of that war in Europe and the Pacific, Duquaine asked his fellow members of the council to join him in personally shaking hands with each of the veterans in attendance.

  It was a touching scene that capped off a ceremony intended to honor those veterans and all veterans. Mayor Kraig Sadownikow read two proclamations declaring Monday World War II Veterans Day in West Bend and this Friday, Veterans Day, as Veterans Appreciation Day.

  The opportunity to meet and see the living members of what has been called “The Greatest Generation” had appeal to even to some of those people who came before the council with business of their own.

  West Bend School Superintendent Ted Neitzke, who made a presentation on the state of the school district about two and a half hours later, said he brought his fourth-grade son with him because of how important he felt it was for him to see those veterans. Neitzke noted that those World War II veterans, when they were that age, might have had the opportunity to witness ceremonies honoring Civil War veterans.

  West Bend VFW Post 1393 Commander John Kleinmaus said there are certain events that occur in one’s life that stand out and that was one of them.

Qaddafi Dead

A dead tyrant is a good tyrant. I guess now that he’s dead, we can say that that was the purpose of the war.

According to the Pentagon, that was the cost to U.S. taxpayers for Muammar el-Qaddafi’s head: $1.1 billion through September, the latest figure just out of the Defense Department.

And that’s just for the Americans.

The final totals will take some time to add up, and still do not include the State Department, CIA, and other agencies involved or other NATO and participating countries. Vice President Joe Biden said that the U.S. “spent $2 billion total and didn’t lose a single life.” NATO does not track the operational costs to each member country, but the funds directly taken from a common NATO account for Libya operations have totaled about $7.4 million per month for electronic warfare capabilities and $1.1 million per month for headquarters and command staff, a NATO spokesman said.

America Caves to China Pressure

Ouch.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A U.S. decision not to sell Taiwan new F-16 fighter jets is being seen by many U.S. allies in Asia as a sign of China's growing clout.

The pre-eminent military power in East Asia for a half-century, the U.S. has explicitly and implicitly provided a security umbrella for countries from Singapore to Japan, helping to keep the peace that has fostered stunning economic growth.

While few of these allies believe the U.S. is lessening its commitment to the region, they still see Washington's refusal to make the F-16 sale — privately confirmed by congressional aides Sunday and then made public Wednesday — as showing a new deference to Chinese interests.

Here's the idiocy of this... unless America is abandoning the region, which I don't think we are, then it is in America's best interests to sell Taiwan the means to defend themselves. Otherwise, if the region flares up, it will be American fighters and warriors on the front line. If we are abandoning the region to its fate, then that's an entirely different story.

Worker Uses Veterans Cemetery as Dump

What a disgrace.

The sprawling Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery stands on 105 acres outside Union Grove, about 30 miles south of Milwaukee. About 8,400 veterans and nearly 1,900 spouses have been laid to rest there. The cemetery earned an excellence in appearance award from the National Cemetery Administration in April.

The state DVA has released several news releases about the trash, including one last month saying the supervisor resigned in November and cleanup efforts had begun, but the statements offered few other specifics. DVA and state Department of Natural Resources emails and other documents the AP obtained through an open records request reveal more details.

The documents show a whistle-blower approached the DNR with a tip that the supervisor was ordering his employees to dig holes and bury all manner of trash from his rental properties, including refrigerators, mattresses, furniture and chemicals.

“I am outraged that such a sacred place such as the final resting place for the men and women who served our great country are allowed to be disgraced in such a manor (sic),” the whistle-blower wrote in an undated letter to DNR Warden Mike Hirschboeck. The tipster also wrote to then-U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold on Sept. 30 asking for help.

Battle of New Orleans

High-Density Reactive Materials

Great.

This new approach from the US Office of Naval Research replaces the inert casing with High-Density Reactive Materials (HDRM) that combine and explode only when the projectile hits the target.

According to navy researchers, recent tests have shown that the HDRMs are durable and significantly enhance the explosive effect. They increase the chances of what the military scientists term a “catastrophic kill”.

Clifford Bedford, a researcher involved in the development of the new material, explained its advantages over existing weapons.

“In the case of a steel missile you explosively launch it, it goes through the target and all the kinetic energy is dissipated into the target,” he said.

“With the reactive material missile, you have the same explosive launch - however, it disintegrates within the target and liberates chemical energy, and this chemical and kinetic energy combined gives you the enhanced effect.”

Libyan Rebels Reject Talks

Hey, remember that war that we’re involved in that was only supposed to last a few days?

Rebels fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi scorned reports of secret talks with the Libyan leader on Tuesday as their forces fought to secure gains and the United States said Gaddafi’s days were numbered.

After 41 years of supreme power in his oil-rich desert state 69-year-old Gaddafi was isolated in the capital Tripoli, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in from the West and South.

Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), recognized by many of the NATO nations whose air power is supporting their assault, denied any kind of negotiation with Gaddafi to resolve the six-month-old conflict.

Oldest American Bataan Death Marcher Dies

RIP

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A doctor once told Albert Brown he shouldn’t expect to make it to 50, given the toll taken by his years in a Japanese labor camp during World War II and the infamous, often-deadly march that got him there. But the former dentist made it to 105, embodying the power of a positive spirit in the face of inordinate odds.

“Doc” Brown was nearly 40 in 1942 when he endured the Bataan Death March, a harrowing 65-mile trek in which 78,000 prisoners of war were forced to walk from Bataan province near Manila to a Japanese POW camp. As many as 11,000 died along the way. Many were denied food, water and medical care, and those who stumbled or fell during the scorching journey through Philippine jungles were stabbed, shot or beheaded.

But Brown survived and secretly documented it all, using a nub of a pencil to scrawl details into a tiny tablet he concealed in the lining of his canvas bag. He often wondered why captives so much younger and stronger perished, while he went on.

By the time he died Sunday at a nursing home in southern Illinois’ Nashville, Brown’s story was well-chronicled, by one author’s account offering an encouraging road map for veterans recovering from their own wounds in many wars.

Pakistan Gave China Access to American Stealth Helicopter

Well, isn’t that just wonderful...

Pakistan gave China access to the previously unknown “stealth” helicopter that crashed during the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May despite explicit requests from the CIA not to, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The revelation, if confirmed, is likely to further shake the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, which has been improving slightly after hitting its lowest point in decades following the May 2 bin Laden raid.

Deadly Day in Afghanistan

Tragic.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)—A military helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing 31 U.S. special operation troops, most of them from the elite Navy SEALs unit that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, along with seven Afghan commandos. It was the deadliest single incident for American forces in the decade-long war.

The Taliban claimed they downed the helicopter with rocket fire while it was taking part in a raid on a house where insurgents were gathered in the province of Wardak late Friday. It said wreckage of the craft was strewn at the scene. A senior U.S. administration official in Washington said the craft was apparently shot down by insurgents. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the crash is still being investigated.

Ranking Armies