Russian aid trucks heading to Ukraine.

via USA Today.

MOSCOW (AP) — A convoy of 280 Russian trucks reportedly packed with aid headed for eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, but Ukraine said it wouldn't let the mission in because it isn't being coordinated by the international Red Cross and could be a covert military operation.
The neutral agency said it had no information on what the trucks were carrying or where they were going. That has raised fears in Ukraine and the West, where leaders have voiced concerns that Russia could use the initiative as a pretext for sending troops into separatist-held territory.
Russian television and news agencies reported that 2,000 tons of aid was en route to Ukraine, where fighting between pro-Russian separatists and government forces has claimed more than 1,300 lives since April, according to a U.N. report.

The Kiev gov is in a no win situation.  Either they allow the Russian aid trucks in, not knowing exactly what they're carrying or they deny entry and they suffer the ramifications of an entire region of their country dying in view of the rest of Europe.

Looming over all of this is the R2P.

It really looks like Russia is setting the table to justifiably go in to protect Ukrainian citizens that are being savaged by the ongoing fighting.

NOTE:  I forgot who first raised the issue on this blog, but winter is rapidly approaching.  That will be the make or break time for this conflict.  The city will be starving and without heat.  Summer soldiers will have to fight in the cold....and trust me.  The cold will make a man out of you!  Ill equipped Kiev forces better get it done and quick or they're going to lose it all in November and December.

A passion piece to push further involvement...

via The Daily Telegraph

I was on board an Iraqi Army helicopter, and watched as hundreds of refugees ran towards it to receive one of the few deliveries of aid to make it to the mountain. The helicopter dropped water and food from its open gun bays to them as they waited below. General Ahmed Ithwany, who led the mission, told me: “It is death valley. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead.”  Two American aid flights have also made it to the mountain, where they have dropped off more than 36,000 meals and 7,000 gallons of drinking water to help the refugees, and last night two RAF C-130 transport planes were also on the way.  However, Iraqi officials said that much of the US aid had been “useless” because it was dropped from 15,000ft without parachutes and exploded on impact.

Bullshit.

The USAF doesn't and wouldn't do that.  I make fun of the boys in blue but to even hint that they lack the professionalism to perform airdrops properly is pure insanity.

The 70 percent being dead?  I have no idea.  It sounds super inflated but I'm not there so I don't know.

This article is obviously a passion piece designed to pull on the heart strings.  We shouldn't take the bait.

The Canadian Prime Minister's F-35 problem.

via The Record.com

Somewhere in Ottawa, unknown to the outside world, there is a black hole — a secret place where the government consigns toxic ideas, ideas that it dares not implement, yet cannot bring itself to kill.
The F-35 fighter jet is one such idea. The Harper government has been grappling with it ever since it took office in 2006. It has heard from experts that the super-sophisticated F-35 is not the right plane; that it does not suit Canada's modest military requirements; that its single engine makes it too dangerous for patrols across the country's vast distances; and that its humongous cost — $45 billion or more for 65 aircraft — puts it well beyond the reach of the budget-conscious Conservatives.
Somehow the F-35 has managed to survive on the government's to-do list, never categorically endorsed, but also never firmly rejected. This June, it surfaced on the cabinet's agenda for a decision. To his credit, the prime minister removed the item from the agenda, ostensibly to give ministers more time to weigh the implications. So the F-35 went back into that black hole.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Critics of the F-35 should have focused like a laser on the airplanes costs.

298 Billion dollars has been spent on this flying clusterfuck and its still in development!

The death spiral will arrive because the US and its allies will not be able to buy enough, fast enough to "push the cost curve down".  Additionally, you can expect a crash program to develop a 6th gen fighter to come out of the shadows and take center stage when development continues to drag on.

This plane is the walking dead.  We just need Rick to shoot it the face so the disease can't spread. 

Are we looking at a coup in Iraq????

Thanks for the link Joe!

via CNN

Iraqi troops, security forces and tanks surged into Baghdad on Sunday as political turmoil deepened over who should lead the country.
Military tanks were deployed to several neighborhoods in central Baghdad, two Iraqi police officials told CNN. The officials said there are also significantly more troops in Baghdad's Green Zone, the secure area where many government buildings, the military headquarters and the U.S. Embassy are located.
The stepped-up troop presence comes as Iraqi forces battle Islamist militants in northern Iraq, and just after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki accused Fuad Masum, Iraq's newly elected President, of violating the country's constitution by extending the deadline for Iraq's biggest political coalitions to nominate a candidate for prime minister.
The precise reason for the growing number of troops in the Iraqi capital was unclear. But CNN military analyst retired Lt. Col. Rick Francona described it as an "ominous" development that signals the Iraqi Prime Minister doesn't want to hand over power.

This shit is about to turn nasty.

My recommendation from the cheap seats?  Get US personnel out NOW!

You're about to see this country explode into three separate states...and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Russians committing war crimes in Ukraine?

Thanks to Andre for the link.

The paratrooper in the photo above has a 20,000 dollar bounty on his head.  Want to know why?  Go to this link and drink it in.  Is it true?  I have no idea.  But if it is then shit is real in Ukraine and it won't be solved by negotiations...blood has been spilled and payback is a bitch.

Second Line of Defense gets it wrong...again...

Why did the fabulously equipped Iraqi Army lose to the ISIS thugs?  Second Line of Defense blog has an idea.  Check this out but read the whole thing...

It is not about having an effective fighting force for domestic security or defense of the country.It is about an air dominance enabled ground force versus one that it is not.  And when the ISIS were able to aggregate forces, the absence of an air enabled ground force, demonstrated a fundamental fact often forgotten: it is not about airpower versus boots on the ground.
The point of having a military force is its ability to fight and defend the country, not simply to manage domestic affairs to the benefit of the current despot.
And no amount of COIN training or understanding of the current fad of US Army, Human Terrain Mapping will overcome that problem.

Really?

Seriously?

So the reason why the Iraqi Army folded like a cheap suit is because they didn't have an air dominance enabled ground force?

BULLSHIT!

They were defending and they outnumbered their attackers!

They were better equipped and had heavy armor (M1 Tanks), heavy artillery (M198 Howitzers), armored personnel carriers (Armored Security Vehicles), and a whole slew of MRAPs and Humvees.

The problem wasn't the lack of airpower, the problem is the quality of the Iraqi fighting man.  Despite our best efforts to modernize them, they are at heart a primitive society that operates best in tribal settings.

High tech fighters, bombers, transports and helicopters wouldn't have changed the outcome of the fight.  We really should let this part of the world burn.  Unless we decide to finally cut our losses then we will be involved in perpetual warfare, fighting for people that WILL NOT fight for themselves.

They did the aid drops at night? You gave it away CENTCOM! SF is definitely on that hilltop.

So let me see if I have this right.  They did a heavy, night time aid drop.  These planes were escorted by F/A-18's and we can easily imagine that they had UAVs flying overhead recording the entire thing.  Since at least one person in the chain of command has the smarts to do a little worst case scenario planning we can expect some type of electronic warfare plane to be in the area.  I'd guess one of the EA-18G's but maybe they used one of the remaining EA-6's....and since we're talking worst case they also had a TRAP mission planned if sugar turned to shit.  This was a MUCH bigger mission than is being portrayed to the American people.

But back to the aid drop.

That is a classic pathfinder mission.  Someone is on the hilltop that has the training to identify a suitable drop zone, is able to coordinate it in such a way as to ensure that the pilots can be talked onto target etc...all while keeping the refugees from getting crushed by a falling pallet.

After seeing this vid and reading about the number of aircraft involved and doing a little common sense thinking its easy to see.

We're back in the war and boots are on the ground.  Consider this too.  The Iraqi govt forces have been defeated in every fight.  Even the Kurds have lost ground to ISIS.  Would you sprinkle Special Forces throughout Iraqi forces or would you want all your boys together so that they could fight and trust the man beside them?

300 SF in Iraq is a lie.  I wouldn't be surprised if the entire 10th or 3rd SF Group(s) is in country.