Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Why 30 days to release the "boat note"?

Story on the mini-manifesto written inside his hiding place by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It's the usual 72-raisins apple-crapple, and it clearly shows the wounded bomber's state of mind is that of your usual Islamist, crap-for-brains fundie fanatic.

Okay then, but why the 30 days to tell the public about the note?

Two possible reasons exist:

1. The Administration, through their flunky Keystone Kops, the FBI, wanted to let the whole Boston bombing thing recede in the public's eye ASAP, because it was damaging Obama's Rule No. 1 love affair with all things Muslim.
2. Since Eric Holder's slimy handprints are all over this affair from the first Ka-boom, and Eric Holder has vast experience in defending moo-slime kaboomers, he might well have ordered this delay himself. You will remember that in the 30-day interim, the "defense team" of high-powered lawyers was assembled, well more help than I would get if I decided to stick up a bank or commit some other felony such as having too many rounds in my pistol in New Yawk. These lawyers were probably hand-picked by Holder, just like the Judge who barged in on the interrogation of the Joker to silence it, and they would have asked for and obtained the delay in order to try to sell we-the-people some soap on how unfortunate a life that little baby Joker really has had, how his upbringing made him do it, etc, ad nauseam.

Maybe both of these explanations are in play.

Chalk it up to basic Obama corruption.

God Bless the Marine Corps

Thanks to the Armorer of Arrggg!, I was connected with an amazing development in military vehicles, the Expeditionary Fire Support System Prime Mover of the USMC, a product built by General Dynamics.

The EFSS is designed to tow the heavy 120mm towed mortar, and special purpose trailers with it's ammo supply. A Mortar Company would accompany most Expeditionary units put down in the shitholes where the USMC fights. The Marines are heavily invested in the V-22 Osprey, now known to the Corps as the MV-22. That aircraft is restricted to loading rolling stock of a max width of 60" (five feet), which lets out using HumVees, as they are three feet too wide. The old M151 Jeep was about the right size, but didn't have enough grunt for the grunts (and is obsolete), so General Dynamics built them a new one with a vastly-improved chassis with 4-wheel drive AND steering, and CTIS (I hated the central tire-inflation system when I had to work on it and with it), and a decent Navisatar Defense I-4 turbodiesel to move things down the road, a multifuel engine that will burn JP8 jet fuel, too.

Just as I was congratulating the USMC on their choice of a more modest jeep-ly vehicle, I noted that the General Dynamics website mentioned another vehicle in the family, the LSV, the Light Strike Vehicle. Be still, my pounding heart, could this be, could it be...

YESSSSS, it is an assault 4X4:

Having fought in said shitholes for decades, the Marines have encountered what became known as "technicals", light trucks mounted with auto weapons. What better way to fight them than to have your own "technicals"?

The grotesque up-armored HumVees and MRAPs have their place, I'm sure, but for zipping around and still dealing death via Ma Deuce, the LSV looks like a decent deal, AND it gets there at 250KT by MV-22.

Death dreams

Most folks think of death from time to time, and that's okay, just so that one doesn't obsess on the subject.

In fact, I happen to be one of those who believes in a Warrior's Code, and that code requires me to think of my death in advance of it happening, and come to grips with it so that such thoughts do not slow me down when I am in battle.

This is all very routine, the military makes you prepare for death so that your dependents will be properly provided for if you fall in battle.

There are some things that the military doesn't do, though. One of those is play the music of your choice at your funeral services. If anything is played, it is "Taps" at your graveside service. Very standard, too short and too frequently heard.

I want this played at my service.

The music is not ancient, it goes back less than 50 years to it's composition, but it was inspired by the great Russian composer Tchaikovsky, who wrote a LOT of music to commemorate battles of great importance in his time, a time in which the art of war was considered a high art at the least, and to many, the highest art.

As I listen to Melissa Venema play "Il Silenzio" on her trumpet, with the great Maestro Andre Rieu mostly just standing by with his orchestra and watching her, I close my eyes and I have a death dream.

My warrior personna tells me that this music is intended for a military bugler to play, over a bloody battlefield, while a short truce is called to tend the dead and dying soldiers who just fought there. In my insight, I see myself on that battlefield, mortally wounded after volunteering to be a rearguard and hold off the superior enemy so that my unit could escape. With my rifle, and my skills with it, I accomplished my task, but I was hit in the counter-attack and now lay expiring with those I slew. As the first notes of "Il Silenzio" drift overhead, I slip into my last sleep, knowing that this was how a warrior is supposed to end up, dying, out of ammo, but with his grisly coup-count close by. The irony that this music started out as a love poem set to music is not lost on me, and delicious irony is also a fine accompaniment to a virtuous death.

That's my latest death dream.

Do you have one you want to share? Comments will work for that.

The Benghazi Boogaloo

Yep, it's dancing time again for the Democrats, so they trot out the Boogaloo, and we have been treated to a full day of it on the telly.

I don't want to burst any bubbles here, but if there is a single conservative who doesn't know the truth about Benghazi by now, it's because that right-thinking person just got off the slow intergalactic shuttle from Planet Zargon.

It boils down to this: Since this Administration began, "sensitivity" has taken precedence over Security at every US embassy around the world, and that is obviously by order of President Obama. We pretty much had this embassy security thing covered for the first 225 years of our Nation's existence: put Marines at the embassies, and leave them in charge of Security.

Along comes the "apologize to everyone" crowd, and their first take on it was to end visible security. The USMC is nothing if not visible, so away they go. They were "replaced" (not really) with a bunch of ex-spooks (contractors of the State Department) in plain clothes, with various levels of armaments, usually little to none, plus totally untrustworthy locals hired for the job. This was done in the name of not "offending" anyone in the host nations of our embassies.

Consider the case of Libya: a nation without an effective government, one which had just gone through a violent revolution to depose a dictator. Armed militias roamed the streets, and Jihadi militants were everywhere. Our embassy in Benghazi, Libya last September was a pool of gasoline waiting for someone with a match to come along. And they did. And there was no security. And our people died.

Almost immediately after the 9-11-12 attack on the embassy (interesting, predictable date, yes?), the Administration went into full cover-up mode and has been there ever since. Lie after lie. "Talking Points" ad infinitum. New faces to lie for old faces, but lie, lie, lie.

Today, at the latest Congressional hearings, some of the lies were exposed. 

Huzzah, they exposed some lies. Give Rep. Issa a kewpie doll.

B.F.D.

Is anyone at risk of being indicted for lying to Congress at the earlier hearings?

Doesn't sound that way.

Here's the Rivrdog Solution, take it or leave it. Quit farting around, Issa. You're not going to indict anyone for lying to Congress and you know it, so put the other side on the spot by introducing and passing a Bill that denies funding for all embassy protection EXCEPT a reinforced rifle company of the USMC placed at every embassy in Harm's way.

In other words, put embassy protection back on the footing the previous Administration had it.

Bring real guns and real gunners to the next gun fight at any US Embassy. Bringing Talking Points to a gunfight is fatal, as we know now.

End of discussion.

What would have happened....

...to the British defense against the Nazi's Operation Sea Lion, of which the Blitz on London was just the opening move, if the Brits had all stopped to mope and insist on memorializing those killed by the Gernams' aerial bombardment?

A lost war would have been the result. Sea Lion would likely have succeeded, and the Germans would have mounted their invasion by sea next.

There is a lot of moping in progress now, and some fist-pumping that we ended the threat. Ummmm, no, we didn't end the threat. 

We haven't a farging clue yet about the Tsarnaevs' allies, if any. The FeeBees, who refused to pick up the elder boomer a couple of years ago upon request of Russian State Security, have egg all over their collective faces on this one, and the look back at how the FBI failed is just beginning.

In the meanwhile, be aware that there are many hundreds of thousands of "political refugees" such as the Tsarnayev brothers here in the USA, all granted visas due to the various Caucasus wars the the Russ have been fighting with the Islamists. How many more are of the Islamist-Jihadi persuasion?

We don't have a clue, but let's say that a million refugees or so immigrated here in the past 20 years (a figure I heard locally), and if half of one percent are Jihadis, that means that we have 5,000 of THAT stripe of Jihadi within our borders now.

It being so horribly WRONG to "profile" people, I'd wager that the FeeBees do NOT have a handle on this potential threat, and will have to play catch-up.

Of course, playing Catch-up begs the question: how allied are the Caucasus Jihadis with the others, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and all the various others? Is there a true Islamist network forming? The Jihadi sects all say that the Quran provides the message to get such a network going, and the various alliances demonstrated during the several "Arab Spring" revolutions in the Middle East seem to indicate that such networks can thrive, at least until their primary objectives are reached.

We have reason to worry that the killing of Osama Bin Laden, no matter how much it might have boasted about by President Obama, means little in the overall scheme of things. We have reason to worry that the Jihadi alliances we now stupidly support in the Syrian civil war will just take our weapons, our training and our funding and use all that against us, and then laugh about it.

We don't know Taqiyya, THEY know Taqiyya.

Putin's terror war comes to Boston

Apparently. Explains some of the confusion, too. White muzzies. Uber-violence. Who'd a thunk it?

The suspect on the loose is reported as:

His world view is described as "Islam" and he says his personal goal is "career and money."

A pair of heavily-armed Chechens on the attack. I wonder how many more of them there are here. In Mother Russia, they have excellent networking skills, can operate almost at will against Russian State Security, and the best of that post-KGB outfit is Putin himself.

This is not only troubling, but if this is just the Chechen Resistance's opening round here in the USA, we are in for a long fight. I'm a quarter Russian by blood, and my son has been in the Caucasus twice on Christian educational missions, but in the days when the violence was just getting started. We both try to stay abreast of things in the Russian sphere.

I'm going to have to have a sit-down with him and try to get my head around this Chechen thing. After reading this Wiki, I'm still at a loss to explain why Chechen fighters would target the US, except if they were of the Salafist sect, and those extremists see the US as a Great Satan.

This NYT article paints the Salafist muslims as being even more jihadi than the Taliban.

I dunno, readers, but the first analysis I make doesn't blow any sunshine our way. We have an Administration spreading a worldview that we must tolerate all things Islamic, even though there are some very rough edges there, and now we have an attack by a pair of Chechen fighters who could easily be Salafist Muslims. If Putin, who has zero tolerance for islamic jihadism, can't get much of a handle on this problem, then we aren't going to get ANY handle on it, none at all.

If there are more of these Chechen Salafists, who, if their English is decent, will blend in anywhere, and if it isn't, will at least blend into the Russian enclaves such as the large one across the Columbia River in Vancouver, WA, we need to get some "HumInt" going, and we need it now. They needed it months ago in Boston.

For starters, some heavy brass from the FBI ought to be packing their bags and heading for Moscow about now, with Secretary of State Kerry having gotten them some serious conference time with Russian State Security. We need Putin's help here. Getting it will be expensive for us. Tip: if you can buy international stock equities, buy Gazprom. If we are to get any help from Putin, his price will be to eliminate US natural gas sales competition for Gazprom.

Tough choice, be a little more secure against a newly-revealed threat, or boost our energy exports to strengthen the dollar. I vote for safety.

White House "reluctant" to call Boston Marathon Massacre "terrorism"

Let's call it what it has been since the first bombs went off.

Now, get the cocksmoker who burned himself up with one of his bombs well enough to travel, and send his ass to Gitmo. We don't need to lawyer him up here, just keep him mum in hospital, then ship him to Gitmo. We have a fine Navy Hospital in Norfolk VA which can care for him...I was born there. Don't even think about letting Eric Holder's crew "try" him. You will recall that before Holder was appointed to USAG, he ran a law firm which specialized in defending muzzie terrorists....

Of course Nobama doesn't want to admit a muzzie attack on US soil again...hell, he spent millions campaigning that W sucked as Prexy because of allowing 9-11.

How does that "let the terrorists in" hair shirt feel on YOU, Mister President? 

The Last Six Seconds of Life

Here's a story, told in a crisp military fashion, about the importance of doing your life right, all the way to the end.

It is a story of two Grunts, US Marines, who gave their lives for their country and particularly, in this case, for their fellow Marines.

Read it. Then read it again, because you will have choked up when you first read it, and every word of the General's narrative is important to read and retain.

May YOUR and MY lives be so well spent as were those of these two lads.

The story was relayed to me by a combat-proven Marine, who wore his Combat Infantryman's Badge proudly into the US Air Force where he finished his military career...

H/T to the Coyote Kid

Need more proof?

That the Obumble Admin doesn't get it about security?

Pipe this.

Now, for some enterprising outfit like Breitbart, you can have a starting point to look at phone logs. Start with the ICE station in LAX International Terminal and follow the chain of phone calls about letting these people in despite rules keeping them out. Might be a bigger deal than "Benghazi-gate". Big in size, anyway, since it involves the gasbag Michael Moore.

Why the FBATFE can't win

It's in the 2-20 edition of Atlantic magazine.

Think improvised weapons, with all the manufacturing facilities of a modern society at hand to make them, and thousands of laid-off, retired or just plain super-skilled machinists, welders and fitters.

Look over the photos, and note expecially the simplest, in photo #25. H/T to the Coyote Kid for the linkage.

Strategically, the ability to project explosive projectiles by any means in short-range urban warfare means that it's difficult to hold ground for long. The short-range capabilities of this improvised artillery also means that modern projectile-tracking systems are less effective against it. BTW, those projectile-tracking systems require the holding of ground in the city in combat, see above.

All moral references aside, this is a classic David vs. Goliath story in Syria. A rag-tag but dedicated force with improvised weapons (including slingshots!) against a modern army with modern weapons AND air supremacy. Note that Goliath is losing the war.

There's an "elephant in the room" for the gun-banners, who are, after all, merely another brigade in Obama's army of wannabe sturmtruppen for the wannabe Reich. It's simply this: while the gun-banners are making their desperate push to stop semi-auto rifles and pistols, there are new welders and fitters being trained every day, and thousands of retired/laid off ones whose hands haven't forgotten how to work and join metal.

The smart militia organizer* thinks beyond who has an AR or AK or a truckload of ammo. He thinks of welders and fitters. Yes he does.

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*Obama gets all the headlines as the "Capo Regime" of Community Organizing, but in fact, there are others doing this work for the other side.