Major 'Dick' Winters - Legend of WWII has passed away

Major Winters died aged 92 on 02 January.

British actor Damien Lewis portrayed
Dick Winters in the HBO mini series
'Band of Brothers'.







This is very sad news Richard Winters, the former CO of 'E' Company, 506 PIR has passed away in Pennsylvania to which he had retired. His actions during World War Two were immortalised in the television series 'Band of Brothers' which was based on the book by Stephen Ambrose. Firstly I would like to say how sorry I am and pass on condolences to his many friends and family. Major Richard Winters was a hero and a good man and as is typical of such characters was modest and reserved. A good article in the DT on Winters can be found here. I've also embedded a video clip that has his former soldiers discussing their CO. The free world owes gentleman such as Dick Winters a great deal, RIP soldier, stand easy.

Is NATO fit for role?

In fact as the US 'Surge' NATO will be rolled
back.




Interesting article from the American Spectator. In short I believe that NATO is facing a crisis, one that has much to do with the European allies (with notable exceptions) lacking conviction. I hope to blog much more about Defence issues in the future and about the UK military. Here is the full text of the article below, I agree with the thrust of it although the comments concerning the Germans border on the puerile. Please comment below, interesting isn't it how after all the European political elites gushed over Obama they can't lift a finger to help him in Afghanistan?



























What's NATO for Again?













By Doug Bandow on 5.4.09 @ 6:06AM













NATO has been with us 60 years. The organization staged the usual self-congratulatory anniversary ceremony last month, with President Barack Obama in attendance. Exactly what the organization is supposed to do these days isn't clear, however. A herd of heads of state and government celebrated the alliance's birthday without bothering to explain its purpose.
The original goal of NATO, articulated by Lord Hastings Ismay, the alliance's first Secretary General, was to keep the Russians out, the Germans down, and the Americans in. The first objective was firmly achieved two decades ago when the Berlin Wall fell, the Eastern European satellites spun out of Moscow's orbit, and the Soviet Union collapsed.
Russia's oil-based rise has changed nothing: Moscow might be able to impose its will on neighboring Georgia, which was part of Imperial Russia as well as the USSR. But there will be no Red Army romp to the Atlantic. With ten times Russia's GDP and nearly four times Russia's population, Europe is more than capable of defending itself.







Meeting the second goal arose naturally out of the rubble of World War II. A few neo-Nazis might still meet furtively to discuss the coming of the Fourth Reich, but most Germans have run far from their past. Today the Bundeswehr is primarily a recruiting mechanism for social service agencies; indeed, when drafted two-thirds of young men choose alternative civilian work. The once feared German warriors are a memory.







The problem is not a lack of individual bravery. As of March, 34 German soldiers and policemen had been killed in Afghanistan. But Berlin insists on deploying military units to the north, where they aren't needed. And they no longer are combat-worthy. Reinhold Robbe, the parliamentary commissioner for the military, observed: "Plainly put, the soldiers are too fat, exercise too little, and take little care of their diet." London's Daily Mail headlined one story: "German soldiers are 'too fat to fight' Taliban because they drink so much (while our boys go dry)." Europe can breathe a sigh of relief -- no one need worry about German soldiers singing Deutschland Uber Alles and goose-stepping down their own, let alone someone else's, streets.







Which leaves keeping America in, but to what end? The U.S. isn't needed to protect Europe from the Russians or Germans. Instead, Washington provides prosperous and populous allies, whose collective economy and population are larger than that of the United States, with a defense insurance policy at American expense. If the Balkans get messy, Washington sends in real military forces. If something should go terribly wrong with Russia, we know who the Europeans would expect to save the day. Hint: It wouldn't be the overweight and well-lubricated Bundeswehr.







Other members of NATO want the U.S. to believe that it gets something out of the alliance. But it's hard to see what. Albania and Croatia joined the organization this year. They added geopolitical liabilities rather than military assets to NATO. Proposals to bring in Georgia and Ukraine, which are involved in complex geopolitical disputes with Russia, risk another confrontation with nuclear-armed Moscow, this one in the latter's rather than America's backyard, and over conflicts in which America has no stake.







The U.S. isn't even getting much out of its allies for its number one geopolitical objective of the present, Afghanistan. The British, Danes, French, and Australians have fought. So have the Canadians and Dutch, who, unfortunately, will be going home over the next year or two.
But most of the nearly two score countries (NATO members plus other states) have followed the German model -- modest detachments deployed in regions and under conditions, called "caveats," designed to ensure that they are never shot at. Indeed, American commanders say that ISAF stands for "I Saw America Fight" rather than "International Security Assistance Force."







Consider the record of the Czech contingent. The Herald Sun (Australia) reported that "When asked by the Britons to attack Afghan rebels, the commander of a special operations unit (SOG) said 'we're not going to, it's dangerous,' then ordered his men to get in trucks and return to the base." At another point the SOG commander rejected a British request for aid by noting that his 35-member unit was on vacation. This is "help" that Washington doesn't need.







The Obama administration is having no more luck in enlisting additional European assistance than did its predecessor. So far the response to the president's plea, writes William Pfaff, is "65 men with two F-16s promised by Belgium; 12 trainers and a small troop contingent (probably from the gendarmerie) for the election in Afghanistan next month, with a larger French contribution to the new, combined European Gendarmerie Force that has already dispatched 300 to 400 men and women, all to improve Afghanistan's own national police, so far without conspicuous success." The Europeans also are promising a "civilian surge."







It comes as no surprise that the Europeans see little cause for fighting in Afghanistan, but NATO invoked Article 5 in 2001 with great fanfare for the first time as a show of support for the U.S. If the alliance is not needed to defend Europe and won't aid America elsewhere, then, really, what is its purpose?







Some alliance members recognize that NATO is failing its Afghanistan test. Warned British Defense Secretary John Hutton: "Success in Afghanistan is fast emerging as the test of NATO's relevance in this new post-cold war age." If the alliance can't act there, then "NATO will risk being irrelevant, a talking shop where process is everything," he adds.













In fact, that's all NATO has become. It's time to give NATO, at least an American-dominated NATO, a decent burial. The U.S. should pull out, leaving the Europeans to construct whatever continental security architecture seems best. If they want to sort out the Balkans, guard the Caucasus, or engage in some other far-flung mission, they should be free to do so. Without American forces.







At the same time, Washington could work out agreements with any European nations with real militaries that see the value of continued security cooperation. That likely would include Britain and France. And maybe Germany, if its soldiers would lay off the sausages and beer.

US Navy frees Richard Phillips

This is very good news. The problem of course with piracy in this part of the world is not a straight forward case of good versus evil. Although the pirates have to be stopped it's worth pointing out that some sources have stated that the collapse of Somalia's fishing industry has much to do with the EU. However the EU and NATO do now need to secure its shipping. Furthermore it's likely that the relative anarchy in the region will be exploited by Al Qaeda.

The good news is that this operation is a good show of mettle on behalf of those opposed to such brigandry. Furthermore it’s a further indication of how well the US armed forces are responding to asymmetrical warfare.

A story with a happy ending from Iraq

'Bishop' with General Petraeus (center) and LTC Crider (right)







I found this story on Michael Yon's excellent website. Yon has travelled to and reported on the situations in Iraq/Afghanistan. His dispatches which he occasionally undergoes significant risk to produce are nothing short of marvellous and the man possesses a wonderful depth of humanity. This is a at times harrowing and yet uplifting story of hope over adversity, the story of 'Bishop'. Sadly many others had a more tragic ending. The full text below:





Between 2007 and 2008, I got to know a man in South Baghdad whose codename was “Bishop.” This is the short story of his life.His parents were Kurdish Sunnis. They moved to Baghdad 34 years ago – recently married and excited to make a new life for themselves and create a family. Bishop’s real name was Bashar Akram Ameen; the name given to him when he was born on October 6, 1978 in the Abu Ghraib apartments in Baghdad. Bashar had three sisters and one brother. His schooling included graduating from a Baghdad high school in the class of ’96 and attending the Agriculture College of Baghdad University from 1997 until 2002 when he graduated. America had just set its sights on toppling Saddam. Shortly after graduating, Bashar began service in the Iraqi Army Reserve, but that lasted only three months, because the U.S. crushed a great part of the Iraqi Army and then officially dissolved the rest. For three months, Bashar was one of those unemployed young men we worried about. He got a job in October of 2003 as a bodyguard for an Iraqi judge. His first job didn’t last long because insurgents assassinated the judge. Feeling lost and a bit frightened, Bashar decided to look for a “safer” job, and began interpreting for, as he called it, “the Sally Port Security Company” in al-Mansour, Baghdad. Insurgents in his neighborhood figured out that he was working for an American company, and on February 21, 2006, as he left his job at 6:00 pm, they started shooting at him in his car, “…but I miraculously survived,” Bashar explained to me, “and that was the reason to leave my job at that company.”His own safety, and therefore that of his loved ones, was in jeopardy, and so, as Bashar recalled, “I quit visiting my family for over four months.” Though he had used caution, his family was forced to flee in order to avoid imminent suffering or death from the insurgents. Bashar explained, “They had killed our neighbor’s son, so their father gave the key of his house to my father to keep the house safe until maybe the situation getting better. Then, on the next day, the same killers of our neighbors came to my father and asked him about the key, so he refused to give it away and he said that he don’t have it and he don’t know anything about it.” The insurgents warned Bashar’s father that they would check the validity of his information, and if it was untrue, “they will teach my father and us a lesson.” His family, doing what they must to survive, reluctantly left their home. Bashar wrote to me, “My father packed some basic stuff and moved from our own house in Ameriya, Baghdad; Iraq.”By now, the civil war was raging in Baghdad. Not everything was so bleak. Even at the height of the civil war, life went on. Bashar met a woman named Alyaa, who worked in legal administration at the “Sally Port Security Company.” They courted for a year, and got married on September 14, 2006 – all the while, sectarian violence raged around Iraq. A year later their first son, Mustafa, was born. Around that time, however, the local Shia militia (called Jaish al-Mahdi, or JAM) figured out that Bashar, who is Sunni, had worked for the Americans at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Falcon (where he got the codename “Bishop”). “They began coming around to bother my wife while I was at work,” he recalls. “So we moved again to live in al-Mansour, Baghdad. And since then, I stopped making any type of relationships with the neighbors just because you can’t trust anybody. In al-Mansour, we had very quiet time….” And so Bashar began working for the American Army as an interpreter, for various units, at the time of peak fighting. I first met Bishop when he worked for 1-4 Cav in South Baghdad. The 1-4 Cav soldiers kept Bishop busy, working him hard, and he became one of the team. As the months rolled by and I came back to 1-4 on several occasions, their area had become quieter and quieter until, really, there was nothing going on except progress. The younger infantrymen were proud of the progress, but wanted to get up to Mosul or out to Afghanistan, where the fighting was. But not Bishop. He’d seen the worst of it and did not want to see any more war. He was old beyond his years and wanted peace.

Bishop with General Petraeus (center) and LTC Crider (right)
The two most dangerous jobs for Iraqis were probably journalist and interpreter. Bishop wanted to come to the United States. As a result, 1-4 Cav Commander, LTC James Crider, and some of the soldiers Bishop had worked with helped with the paperwork. Just a small aside: LTC Crider and his battalion were serious contributors to success in Iraq. I got e-mails from LTC Crider about his struggles with Iraqi bureaucracy on behalf of Bishop, even after he went home to America. I’d seen this LTC Crider go to bat for Iraqis over and over again in Iraq. In just one example, Crider and his staff waded for months through the Iraqi legal labyrinth to try to free a man who had been wrongfully detained for a bombing he could not have committed; the bombing had never occurred. Crider and his battalion were welcome fixtures in that neighborhood, because he and his men had brought peace and serenity to a place that had previously been one of the most perilous places in Iraq. The last time I was there, I walked around with no body armor or helmet, and bought popcorn on the street. (I was just there again on about November 15; the progress continues without violence.)I heard that many Iraqis cried when 1-4 redeployed to America. One captain had even been offered a home if he would come back to live in the neighborhood. The captain knew how to get things done, while still making the time to learn the names of every kid there. And he knew their mothers and fathers, too. But that was it; 1-4 went home and Bishop was left behind, with his family scattered by the war. His father died in July 2007, his mother and two sisters still live in Baghdad, his brother in Kirkuk, and another sister in Syria. LTC Crider and others struggled…and struggled…and finally succeeded. On November 6, 2008, Bishop emigrated to America, landing in [Nashville], Tennessee along with his wife, Alyaa (who is carrying their second child), and their son, Mustafa. And the amazing 1-4 Cav keeps winning battles, without firing a shot, long after leaving the war.So now, Bashar is no longer “Bishop,” and he has begun an American life, with the many ups and downs we all have to face. His next fight is to find a job in our troubled economy and overcome a high-voltage dose of culture shock. He will come to understand that our culture is just as complicated as the one he left behind – but without the violence, threats and scars of war.Many people have welcomed him to America. I think Bashar can be of particular value to America at this time, simply by getting on the radio stations and talking to reporters and telling his story – the story of Iraq – and showing people how it really is over here. (I write this from Iraq.) Perhaps he can explain why many of us think that it was all worth it. I asked Bashar if I could publish his e-mail address, and he agreed.This is not just a happy ending, but a happy beginning. Please welcome this new family to America and pass this story to your local papers and radio stations. Ask them to talk with a real Iraqi who just got here. People need to know what happened in Iraq. Bashar can be reached at:
'bash.amen@yahoo.com

A Pompous Ass on his travels

Stephen Fry presents his series on America during Sunday evenings on BBC1. I am in spite of Fry's commentary really enjoying watching this on Sunday nights on BBC1. Basically Fry travels America and meets people and goes to interesting places across America. I have one criticism, the supercilious nonsense that Fry continually comes out with. This is in keeping of course with the BBC's and Fry's anti-American prejudices. For instance he makes off hand comments when he meets a group of sophisticated Americans here. He says supposedly to himself 'if only their foreign policy was as sophisticated'. This seemingly innocuous piece of arrogance is off course recorded and broad casted. I do not mind off course except it would be great if someone would mention to Fry 'How is British foreign policy more sophisticated'. Of course the BBC love this sort of cheap politicking.

Later in Montana Fry is eating at a German American diner. His hosts like most Americans are of course friendly and indulge their guest. That does not stop fry making plain stupid comments along the lines of 'Invading Poland' etc. Such comments are of course jocular but where is the fun in such a stupid comment that demeans Fry. Again if this programme was actually meant to inform the viewing public about America it would have been fair to point out the unqualified support German Americans such as these gave in world war one/two to the allied cause. It is a fact of history that the last US soldier killed in 1918 was a German American Private Gunther. As for world war two names such as Eisenhower and Nimitz spring to mind. Of course Fry for ever the conceited buffoon he is never mentions this.

I feel this is a shame as generally people in the UK do not understand America. This series with Fry hosting it in such a stuffy and condescending manner represents a missed opportunity to actually tell a great story.