Watching ex-SEAL Matt Bissonnette on 60 Minutes was equal parts fascinating and disturbing.
Eleven years since the horror …
Pakistan
Navy SEAL Reportedly Set To Tell All About bin Laden Raid In New Book
We’ve been hearing rumbles for months that a SEAL involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden was working on a book. The New York Times is now reporting it’s coming out September 11 and will be called No Easy Day: The …
Magic Words Re-Open Pakistan Supply Routes: “We’re Sorry”
The good news is Pakistan has finally re-opened its overland supply routes to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The bad news is that it took eight months – and $2.1 billion – to get Islamabad to agree. Plus, a U.S. apology. The two …
“Lights! Camera! GAO?”
Battleland recalls when Government Accountability Office reports were issued with light-blue covers, not the dark-blue ones they’ve been sporting for a couple of decades. And when G.A.O. stood for General Accounting Office, until Congress decided that sounded too meek (GAO works only for Congress; for years reporters called it the …
Drone Ops: Getting Better All the Time
The dust has settled near the North Waziristan village of Hassu Khel, where a U.S. Hellfire missile killed al-Qaeda’s No. 2, Abu Yahya al-Libi, on Monday. The recent flurry of unacknowledged U.S. drone attacks scored its biggest prize since Navy SEALs took out Osama bin Laden 13 months ago, leaving the White House to flex its might …
White House Says al-Qaeda’s No. 2 Killed
A drone strike in Pakistan has netted a big fish: al-Qaeda’s No. 2, Abu Yahya al-Libi, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney.
Asked about al-Libi’s reported death at Tuesday’s White House briefing, Carney initially was equivocal: “I can tell you that our intelligence community has intelligence that leads them to …
“We also reached agreement on reverse transit from Afghanistan with three Central Asian partners: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. These agreements will give us a range of new options and a robust and flexible transport network we need.”
Sticks and Stones: Words of War
What better way to spend some time off than sharing a fascinating read from Small Wars Journal with Battleland readers (who are doing just fine, thank you very much, under Army vet and Time writer Nate Rawlings’ steady hand). Over at SWJ, Mehar Omar Khan of Pakistan writes of the way words are bandied about in the military profession, …
Last Stand in Abbottabad: The Untold Story of Osama bin Laden’s Hideout
This week’s TIME cover story is an exclusive, detailed feature by Peter Bergen about the final days of Osama bin Laden, who was killed by Navy SEALs in a raid nearly one year ago. In the following excerpt, Bergen, who spent much …
A Marine Two-Star: Why Afghanistan Is Like Vietnam
After years of U.S. officials insisting Afghanistan is not turning into another Vietnam, a two-star U.S. Marine general — just back from a year-long combat tour there — says Afghanistan could well end up resembling the …
Drones Flying In Really Close Formation
It has always been amazing to hang out at the rear of an Air Force refueling tanker as the boom extends to provide fuel to thirsty jet fighters below. Flying at hundreds of knots in close formation is a delicate, and dangerous, …
Military Migraines
Combat gets blamed for all sorts of ills. Some are obvious, like physical wounds. Others are less visible, and range from traumatic brain injury to post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, “deployment to southwest Asia” – that would be Afghanistan and/or Iraq –apparently also triggers headaches.
“Factors that appeared to be …
Blowback
U.S. drone strikes may keep U.S. troops out of harm’s way. But they can generate their own deadly blowback.
Here’s what Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported last fall:
Here’s the blowback from that apparently successful strike, over at Long War Journal (not for the faint-hearted). Think of it as egamad laretalloc – reverse …
