Classification of IDF Infantry...if true then the Co-Ed unit is a publicity stunt!

I did a post talking about the new Lions of the Valley Co-Ed IDF infantry unit. Admittedly I'm operating off nothing but looks.  But taking a gander at those pics and I get more Pepsi commercial than cold steely eyed killers.

I stated that it looked like some millennials got together for a camping trip and air soft was the entertainment.

As expected I got immediate push back.  A little birdy landed in my e-mail box and said this.

Israel created a special tier of infantry for border security and overwatch.  Their special operations units are trained to level 09, conventional infantry to 07, and coed "infantry" to 05.  These latter units have participated in neither the Gazan nor Lebanese campaigns, and never will (unless the other forces have been annihilated).

I know what you're saying.  The USMC is going thru the same thing so why is it a bigger deal for Israel.  Simple!  Israel is under threat for its very existence on an almost daily basis.  We (the US) operate far from home and for the past 50 plus years have gotten involved in wars of choice, not necessity.

I don't think we can afford to be politically correct when it comes to defense issues but if anyone can it's us.  The IDF and Israeli people can't.  But they started this crap so they should be the first to test it.  I wish them well but it's gonna be a terrible thing to see what's done to an Israeli Female Soldier that is captured by Hezbollah.  That's one YouTube video I'll pass on watching. Unfortunately they're lining up some little girl to face that fate.

Open Comment Post. Aug 21, 2017

Chinese VT-4 Main Battle Tank Overview (vid)

IDF's Lions of the Valley (a couple of pics)

IDF's Flickr Page lured me in with images of the Merkava, but the highlight of this photo stream is the Lions of the Valley "coed" infantry unit.  Why didn't I post the pics?  Because they look like a millennial camping trip with airsoft as the entertainment.

The pics I saw didn't inspire confidence and didn't make believe that these people could go toe to toe with Hezbollah and win.  As a matter of fact I would bet money that if they were to spearhead a push into Palestinian neighborhoods they would be sent back home with their legs between their tales.

Don't believe me?  Go to the IDF Flickr Page and take a look for yourself.  This is not the IDF that won for the Israeli people.  Quite honestly I fear for them. I can easily see the IDF getting defeated on the battlefield...by conventional means.

I am a supporter of Israel but the decisions being made fill me with dread. I wonder if they'll even exist in another 50 years unless they make some serious changes fast.

USS McCain hit by civilian merchant ship. Once an accident, twice enemy action...

via Reuters

Ten sailors are missing after a U.S. warship collided with an oil tanker east of Singapore on Monday, the U.S. Navy said, the second accident involving U.S. Navy destroyers in Asian waters in little more than two months.

The guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with the merchant vessel Alnic MC while heading to Singapore for a routine port call, the Navy said in a statement.

"Initial reports indicate John S. McCain sustained damage to her port side aft," the Navy said. "There are currently 10 sailors missing and five injured."

Story here. 

Sorry Squiddies.  I know I'm gonna have a bunch of sailors chiming in saying that these are crowded waters and collisions are unfortunate but ordinary course of doing business.

I say to them...ARE YOU SMOKING CRACK?

Think about it like this.  In the span of a couple of months we've seen two of our premier surface combatants taken out of action for at best a year because of collisions in the Pacific.

We're not seeing LPD, LHA, or MPS ships hit.  We're not even seeing auxiliary ships that conduct special missions hit.

No.  The ships that are getting punctured are our anti-air, anti-ballistic missile all stars.

Unless the entire US Navy Surface community decided to lose their minds all at once this smells.  I could be wrong about enemy action but this makes no sense.  SOMETHING IS GOING ON!  What it is we'll probably never know but this is suspicious as fuck.

Breaking! Trump to address Troop levels in Afghanistan

via Washington Post.

A variety of options have been under consideration, including sending about 3,800 more troops to augment the 8,400 already there to train and assist local forces. Another option Mattis has mentioned is to replace U.S. troops with private contractors.

But any proposal to reinforce the U.S. presence there is certain to meet resistance.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday” that he will oppose sending more troops.

Who will win?  The gloablists?  The pragmatists?

Doesn't matter.  We've lost Afghanistan.  The country is as unstable as when we went in and even if Mattis got his preferred option of adding more troops and kicking the can down the road, there is only one outcome left.

Eventually we will withdraw.

It's just a matter of when now.

Things are bad for White Supremacists identified in Charlottesville....

Looks like some White Supremacists that got identified via video are having bad times.  via Independent

A man who attended the white supremacist march in Charlottesville has told how his “life is over” after being publicly identified.

Jarrod Kuhn was identified as a “nazi” after an anti-fascist group posted 250 fliers around the Honeoye Falls area of New York in the aftermath of the Virginia bloodshed that left three people dead.

The flier claimed Mr Kuhn is a “leading figure with the Daily Stormer, an avowedly neo-Nazi website around which local groups have been organizing to promote anti-Semitism, white supremacy and violence against LGBTQ communities,” according to the Livingston County news.

Mr Kuhn confirmed he attended the Charlottesville rally but strongly denied being a “neo-nazi”, claiming it was a “crazy assertion”.

“I’m not a neo-Nazi. I don’t belong to a German workers’ party from 1933,” he told the paper. “... I’m a moderate Republican.”

Did you catch the wording?  "I don't belong to a German worker's party from 1933".  Another case of a person thinking he's being clever when in actuality he's just being stupid.  The German Workers Party was destroyed in WW2. He evaded the question and the reporter didn't call him on it.

Check this out from SF Gate.

A Berkeley man who was scheduled to speak at last weekend’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., has become the second Bay Area resident to lose his job as a result of his connection to the violence-marred event.

John Ramondetta, known as Johnny Monoxide on white supremacist and neo-Nazi social media sites, was a union electrician working in the Bay Area on a project for Rosendin Electric, a national outfit. On Wednesday, a company spokeswoman said he was “no longer employed” at the job site.
The spokeswoman, Salina Brown, declined to say whether Ramondetta had quit or been fired.

Yeah.  I've got mixed feelings on this but its not worth serious discussion.  I reserve the right to hate those that hate me.  If these fucks lose their jobs because of attending the rally then so be it.  I could easily see a slippery slope though. It's not over either.  Via Huffington Post.

At least four people have lost their jobs and several more are under scrutiny following the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

Social media users, most prominently Logan Smith and his Twitter account Yes, You’re Racist sought to identify those who participated in the rally.

Terrance Hightower was fired from his job at Mojo Burrito in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Monday.

“Mojo Burrito does not condone harassment, racism or discrimination of any kind. We swiftly took the proper legal steps in order to terminate an employee once we were made aware of the situation. We felt we needed to do this in a very safe manner considering the volatility of the situation,” the president, Eve Williams, posted on Facebook.

Ryan Roy was fired from his job at Uno Pizzeria and Grill in South Burlington, V.T., after a VICE documentary showed him at the rally.

Yeah.  Things are bad for the Swastika, Hood and Confederate flag boys that attended this rally.  Now for the icing on the cake. Via Vice News.

White nationalist Christopher Cantwell, who spoke extensively with VICE News as the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, unfolded on Saturday, is now wanted for arrest on felony charges in Virginia, the Boston Globe reported Thursday.

Cantwell is wanted on two warrants — both related to events in Charlottesville — for felony charges for the illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive, Virginia Commonwealth Attorney’s Office authorities told the Globe.

Each charge carries a minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment.

Asked about the warrants, Cantwell told VICE News he acted in self-defense and plans to turn himself in.

“I think it’s obvious that I acted in self-defense,” he said. “I’ll beat the case if there is any justice; I’m just not certain justice is part of the equation anymore.”

Wow.

This movement is in a hurt locker.

Good.

Open Comment Post. Aug 20, 2017

B-1Bs train with JASDF F-15s near Senkaku Islands via Alert 5.

B-1B Lancer assigned to the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB), S.D. to Andersen AFB, Guam, conducts a bilateral mission with a Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15 in the vicinity of the Senkaku Islands, Aug. 15, 2017. These training flights with Japan demonstrate the solidarity and resolve we share with our allies to preserve peace and security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific.

Interesting isn't it.

Now why would we conduct joint operations with the Japanese around these disputed islands when we are looking to the Chinese for assistance with the N. Korean issue.

It's almost like that UN resolution was just window dressing and the operation you see depicted above is a prelude to the second act....after N. Korea is dealt with.

But that's just crazy talk.

I mean we saw unexplained color revolutions/Arab Springs in the Middle East, whoever was behind that wouldn't have new plans for the Pacific would they? Naw, the Arab Spring was spontaneous and no one is working on trying to "shape" the Pacific!

China PLA - Type 99A2 Main Battle Tanks Live Firing

Breaking! 6 Law Enforcement Officers shot in Florida. 1 dead, 1 in grave condition...

via Yahoo.com

Six law enforcement officers on Friday night were shot -- 1 is confirmed dead -- in three different U.S. cities, their respective agencies have confirmed.

In central Florida, two Kissimmee Police Department officers were shot, chief Jeffrey O'Dell said at a press conference early Saturday morning.

Officer Matthew Baxter, a three-year veteran, died. The other officer, 10-year veteran Sgt. Sam Howard, is in "grave critical condition and the prognosis does not look good," O'Dell said.

Gov. Rick Scott erroneously tweeted late Friday night that both officers had died.

One of the four suspects remains on the run. The officers were investigating suspicious persons.

Story here. 

Four suspects?  I would like to know more.  Was this a planned hit?  Gang initiation?  Terrorism?  Wild hair?

One thing is certain.  It's 2017 and being a cop just got a lot harder. The terrible thing?  I think this is just the beginning.  I sense a serious war on cops coming.  I can't explain the feeling but it just seems that a real evil wind is blowing.

Indian and Chinese Troops brawl at 14K feet! This will get out of control!

via Live Fist.

They’ve been caught on camera shoving each other and flinging abuse, but this new video clip shot from a mobile phone capturing a particularly ill-tempered brawl between Indian and Chinese troops at the Finger Four area of Ladakh’s Pangong Tso lake area on August 15 is startling. The soldier on the left advancing forward are PLA troops, the men on the right belong to India’s Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). The video for the first time confirms reports this week that Chinese troops not only brought in a flag — standard practice during such posturing — but immediately escalated the situation by picking up and flinging rocks at the Indian men. The video begins with an equal number of troops facing off in a curved line. This group soon splits into two separate knots of confrontation. The one closer to the hill erupts first in a fit of violence, with the second soon following suit. Fully apparent in the video is stone-pelting, shoving, kicking and injuries. Wind has disrupted much of the audio in this clip, but the atmosphere is still audible.

Story here. 

Wow.  This could spin out of control in so many ways.  I can see it now.  They agree to fist fights and some young buck breaks a Ka-Bar.  Next thing you know he gets a chipped tooth or busted nose and it's a knife between the ribs and the shooting starts.

Neither side will back down either.

Both proud.  Both see themselves as regional if not world powers.  Both refusing to lose face to the other.

Yep, this shit will get out of control and it'll probably be more than a simple border clash.