Theodore's World

Soldiers at CJTF-101 Headquarters,in Bagram look at the video teleconferencing screen as Retired Marine Staff Sgt. Gary Harris is presented with the Bronze and Silver Stars, back at Fort Campbell, Ky.

Brig. Gen. Steve Townsend pins a Bronze Star on the lapel of retired Staff Sgt. Gary Harris, 60, Friday at Fort Campbell. Harris was awarded the Bronze Star and Silver Star for his bravery in Vietnam.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan Harris receives a handshake from Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, after being presented the Silver Star during an award ceremony at Combined Joint Task Force-101 Headquarters on Nov. 28.

Father and Son Receive Silver Star Awards During Special Long-distance Ceremony
By Spc. George Welcome
101st Combat Aviation Brigade
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan
Nearly 30 years separate the conclusion of the Vietnam War and the start of the war on terrorism. While time, tactics and technology make today’s military very different from the one which fought in the jungles of Vietnam, a common denominator in the two conflicts has been the bravery and sacrifice of the American service member.
The Silver Star is the nation’s third-highest award for such displays of bravery and sacrifice. Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan Harris became one of the few Soldiers to receive the prestigious award on the evening of Nov. 28, but the fact that his father, former Staff Sgt. Gary Harris, was also presented at the same moment with a Silver Star made the event all the more meaningful.
Through a video teleconference during a ceremony at Combined Joint Task Force-101 headquarters, the Harris family watched from a conference room at Fort Campbell, Ky., as the younger Harris was presented the Silver Star by Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, CJTF-101 commanding general.
Meanwhile, Soldiers from CJTF-101 watched a video screen at Bagram as the elder Harris was pinned with not only the Silver Star, but also a Bronze Star he earned serving in Vietnam. Neither had been formally presented to him.

“It’s very rare that we present the Silver Star,” Schloesser explained to those in attendance at both Fort Campbell and Afghanistan. “We have a very high standard and we make sure that the few who do earn it have done so through selfless sacrifice. It’s clear that Mr. Harris did that, and it is also clear that the nation owes a debt to [former] Staff Sgt. Gary Harris. It was almost 40 years ago that he earned it, and I hope in some small way that we can pay back that debt by presenting him his award with his son’s today.”

Personal courage and selfless service could be said to run in the Harris family bloodline, as both father and son reacted similarly in their encounters with enemy forces. Both risked their lives to ensure the safety of their comrades.
The elder Harris displayed this courage on Aug. 15, 1969, as a squad leader in Vietnam.
He and his company were patrolling the outer perimeter near Gol Ree and were attacked with mortars and rocket fire. He quickly directed the members of his squad to return fire on the enemy.
As the attack died down, he moved his squad closer to the perimeter, which had been weakened during the barrage. As the enemy resumed its assault, he directed his squad to return fire once again, breaking the enemy attack. During the engagement, he risked his life by helping medics aid wounded Marines and helped bring them to safety.
The younger Harris also displayed bravery in the face of danger.
On July 2, 2008, Harris, a UH-60 Black Hawk pilot assigned to Charlie Company, 5th Battalion, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, landed his helicopter at a landing zone near Gardez, Afghanistan, to pick up Soldiers for transport when his aircraft came under attack by enemies using rocket propelled grenades, a heavy machine gun and various assault rifles.
With the aircraft on fire, Harris and crew managed to fly it a short distance before putting it down again. After safely exiting the burning helicopter, the entire crew took up a defensive position. They managed to contact a CH-47 Chinook that was in the area to help extract them from the battlefield. As the Chinook landed, the enemy resumed fire.
It was then that Harris, who was helping one of his wounded crew chiefs to the helicopter, exposed himself to fire by engaging and killing an approaching enemy combatant. He entered the helicopter only after ensuring that the members of his crew, the ground forces and the quick reaction force were safely aboard.

“Mr. Harris has been great since the incident,” said Sgt. DeeJay Norby, a crew chief who was also involved in the action at Gardez. “He didn’t get down or anything afterward; he went right back to business doing his job. It’s really awesome getting to fly with a great group of pilots and crew chiefs.”

This was not the first award that Harris has received during this deployment. He was also presented with the Air Medal with Valor device.
In his short address, Harris thanked his flight crew and the crew of the Chinook that performed the rescue operation.

“I’m so lucky to serve with so many great heroes,” said Harris. “Without them, the outcome might not have been so good.”

He also gave a heartfelt thank-you to his father, whose life and service set the example for him.
“Your son, Mr. Harris, exposed himself to direct fire and did incredible things, selfishly sacrificing potentially his life for his comrades,” Schloesser said.
“I’m kinda jealous, Dad; you’ve got two medals and I’ve only got one,” the younger Harris joked after receiving his medals at Bagram.
Gary Harris said he never talked about his medal with his son, but Jonathan had planned early on to follow his father into the military.
Jonathan enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1995, joined the Army in 1999 and is currently assigned to 5th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell.

“Every time people thank us for our service, I tell them to thank a Vietnam vet, so Dad I want to thank you today.”

Wild Thing’s comment………
This is fantastic! I love that they are Father and son.

Lt. Col. David Dressel, a pilot with the 75th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, poses in front of an A-10 Thunderbolt II at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. Dressel, a native of Watertown, Minn., has flown more than 3,000 hours in the A-10 and is on track to reach 500 combat hours during his current deployment.

Lt. Col. David Dressel, a pilot with the 75th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, poses in front of an A-10 Thunderbolt II at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. Dressel, a native of Watertown, Minn., has flown more than 3,000 hours in the A-10 and is on track to reach 500 combat hours during his current deployment.

Pilot Surpasses 3,000 Hours in A-10 Thunderbolt
By Staff Sgt. Rachel Martinez
455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan
The list of single-seat fighter pilots who have flown 3,000 hours in one particular aircraft is short. On Nov. 21, a new name was added to that list when Lt. Col. David Dressel, flew his 3,000th hour in an A-10 Thunderbolt II while flying a close air support mission over Afghanistan.
Dressel, a native of Watertown, Minn., began flying in 1991. The A-10 was his number one choice coming out of pilot training.

“When I was a senior in high school I was placed in a Minnesota mentor program where you go to school half time and work with an industry half time,” he said. “I was interested in aviation and was placed with a company that designed bullets for the military. I was put on a design team that built 30 mm shells for the A-10. I said this is awesome. The only plane that carried the 30 mm cannon was the A-10 – that’s what leads me down that road.”

From his first sortie in the A-10 at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., 18 years ago, to flying combat sorties in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, Dressel has come a long way.

“You remember where you were when you hit 1,000 and when you hit 2,000 hours,” he said. “To hit 3,000 hours in a combat sortie was really special.”

Colonel Dressel, deployed with the 75th Fighter Squadron from Moody Air Force Base, Ga., is no stranger to combat. He has deployed in support of Operations Desert Storm, Southern Watch, Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He said there is no other place he would rather be than deployed.

“Our job is to support the guys on the ground,” he said. “Unlike other aircraft, that’s our main focus – providing close air support to guys on the ground, slugging it out day after day, 24/7.”

“Back home you rate your success on how well you performed,” he continued. “Here, you rate your success on how well the ground guys do. Our success comes down to whether or not the ground commander was able to accomplish his mission.”

Despite his accomplishments, this veteran pilot tips his hat to the new pilots he works with.

“It was seven years before I shot in combat,” he said. “When I came in, we were a nation at peace, now we are in a conflict. Anyone who signed up after 9/11 knew they were going to deploy and see combat. My hat’s off to them.”

Next for Dressel is passing 500 combat hours in the A-10 – something he is on track to accomplish during this deployment.

Wild Thing’s comment………
Congratulations to Lt. Col. David Dressel! Thank you!

U.S. Army Soldiers engaging Taliban in a firefight in Afghanistan.

US Army take out Taliban position combat footage

Wild Thing’s comment…….
These guys are so awesome!!!! I wish they could hear us cheering them on and thanking them.

Construction Of A Museum In Kogelo

The government will construct a museum in Kogelo, the ancestral home of US president elect Barrack Obama. Minister for tourism Najib Balala says the government has already set aside 5 million shillings for the commencement of the project.

Govt to construct museum in Kogelo
KENYA Broadcasting Corp.
The government will construct a multi million shillings museum at the Nyang’oma Kogelo home of the United States of America president elect, and Barrack Obama’s grand parents, tourism minister, Najib Balala has said.
Already, Balala said, his ministry had allocated five million shillings for the project, adding that more funds will be sourced from both the treasury and the private sector.
He was speaking at the Obama’s home in Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya when he led a high powered delegation from the ministry of tourism to visit U.S. president elect’s grand mother, Mama Sarah Obama.
Balala’s entourage included the PS in the ministry Rebecca Nabutola, the managing director of the Kenya Tourism Board, Dr. Ongong’a Achieng and the director of tourism, Wanjiru Munene .
Balala said the government was keen on cashing in on the Obama victory to woo more tourists in Kenya adding that his ministry will liaise closely with the Obama family to develop an appropriate tourist attraction site.
The museum, said the Minister, will capture the history of the Late Barrack Obama senior, father to the president elect, history of the communities in Western region of the country and a reflection of the rest of the country.
The Minister said that his ministry was taking advantage of the interest that people both locally and abroad had in the village in which the world super power’s president hails from to open up the Western tourism circuit.
Dubbed “The Obama Route”, Balala said that this will stimulate tourist’s interests in tourism potential sites such as Kakamega forest, Lake Victoria and numerous game reserves that have not been attracting tourists.
“The international interest that is developing because of Barrack Obama’s victory in the United States presidential elections must be structured to take care of both the interest of the family, Kogelo community and the country at large” he said.
Balala said his ministry will soon launch an aggressive campaign in the United States to market the country.
Kenya tourism reportedly slumped by 30% following the post election violence .
In 2007, Kenya earned $620 million in the third quarter from tourists drawn to its white beaches and adventurous game parks.
Officials expect this year’s total earnings will reach only $665 million, representing a 23 per cent decline in earnings.
Since Obama’s election victory, Kogelo has revelled in immediate upgrades to electricity and roads, while Obama’s grandmother has had tightened security at her home

And this…………..
African Press International
Also to be stored at the Museum are documentary explanation of the Obama family history and background that those featuring the Kogelo sub-clan as a whole..
Meanwhile A Spiritual leader from the West African state of Ghana last week quietly slipped into Kogelo Village the home of Barrack Obama’s paternal relatives. Peter Anamoh is the first foreign dignitary to pay the homage to the Obama family. The other celebrity is the populist Congolese musician Kanda Bongo Man who visited Mama Sarah Obama ‘s village home two weeks ago, after performing a concert in the heart of Kisumu City, which attracted c lose to 500,000 people.
The Ghanaian spiritual leader said he had traveled all the way from Accra Ghana to come and bless the Obama family. He is credited to have predicted Obama presidential ambition long before he even made his intention public four years ago.
Anamoh appealed to the Kenya government to establish an international conference centre at Kogelo alongside the Museum to serve as the last monument of the victory of the first African American to the presidency of the World most powerful nation on the earth.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
OMG I found this while looking for a video on Kenya. LOL oh my gosh!!

“The CEO of World Net Daily has called on the President -elect to release a birth certificate listing the hospital and names of parents, the White House believes this would fully satisfy the Constitutional requirement don’t you? “

“I have nothing to say on that Lester, I think we’re going to leave it right there.”

Look at this!!!!
Question about Obama’s birth certificate avoided and then the press conference was shut down!!!!

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata, whose company owns the Taj hotel, discusses this week’s attacks in Mumbai.

Taj Mahal hotel owner: We had warning
CNN
The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, temporarily increased security after being warned of a possible terrorist attack, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said Saturday.
But Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata said those measures, which were eased shortly before this week’s terror attacks, could not have prevented gunmen from entering the hotel.

“If I look at what we had … it could not have stopped what took place,” Tata said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that will air Sunday.

“It’s ironic that we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures,” Tata said, without elaborating on the warning or when security measures were enacted. “People couldn’t park their cars in the portico, where you had to go through a metal detector.”

However, Tata said the attackers did not enter through the entrance that has a metal detector. Instead, they came in a back entrance, he said.

They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All of our arrangements are in the front,” he said.

“They planned everything,” he said of the attackers. “I believe the first thing they did, they shot a sniffer dog and his handler. They went through the kitchen.”

The 105-year-old hotel was one of nine sites attacked by gunmen in a 60-hour wave of terror that killed at least 183 people and injured hundreds more before it ended in a standoff at the hotel Saturday morning.
Authorities carried out a room-by-room sweep in the 565-room Victorian building late Saturday to make sure that all guests had been evacuated and no gunmen remained inside.
A. Vaidyanathan, an economist who was a guest in the Taj when the attacks occurred, told The Hindu newspaper on Friday that he had noticed tight security at the hotel when he stayed there last month.

“First, when you enter the open parking, where the cars are parked, you had a very heavy metal frame; your baggage was searched,” he said. “At the entrance of the foyer, there was another metal detector, and you were personally searched and so on.”

However, for this latest trip, he said, he could walk right into the hotel without encountering the same measures.

Tata said the attacks revealed deficiencies in law enforcement, especially in the areas of crisis response and management.

“We were getting the cooperation that they could give us, but the infrastructure was woefully poor,” he said,

As an example, Tata said it took three hours for firefighters to get water to the Taj after a blaze broke out in the oldest part of the building.

“We had people who died being shot through bulletproof vests,” he added.

Tata said that not even the army or commandoes who ultimately took over the offensive were prepared for the level of organization and execution that the attackers seemed to have put into their plan.

“They seemed to know [the hotel] in the night or in the daytime,” he said of the attackers. “They seemed to have planned their moves quite well, and there seem to have been a lot of pre-planning.”

Wild Thing’s comment………..
Very interesting and I wonder why they eased up on the security so soon. Maybe there are so many warnings that they don’t take them as seriously.
For this owner to say they had a warning, I admire him for saying what he did. That takes courage epecially when so many lives were taken and the families left behind have this nightmare to live with.
We are so used to how Democrats never admiting to any wrong doing and never being punished. The democrat American way it seems.

Camp Pendleton’s Maj. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser visits a market in Haditha, Iraq, earlier this month.

MILITARY: Marines face ‘profound’ differences in Afghanistan
North County Times
With relative calm in Iraq, focus shifts to nation’s other war
For U.S. Marines, America’s war on terror is now in Afghanistan, where, a top general warns, there are “profound” political, military and cultural differences from Iraq.
Nearly six years after the invasion of Iraq, the Marines are now largely in a monitoring role in the Anbar province, all but declaring victory in the massive region once considered untamable.

By this time next year, Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, commander of Marine Corps forces in the Middle East, predicted that as many as 15,000 of his troops could be in Afghanistan —- 12,000 more than are there now.
By the middle of 2009, Maj. Gen. John Kelly, who has led Marines on the ground in Iraq since January, said he believes the number of Marines in Anbar can be cut from the current 23,000 to around 15,000 or slightly fewer.

Maj. Gen. John Kelly

“The Marines in Anbar have performed magnificently,” Helland said last week aboard a military aircraft as he returned to his Camp Pendleton home after a two-week swing through Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Bahrain.

“What was once a volatile, brutal environment is now changing, as Iraqis are determined to defeat their enemies and bring stability to the country,” he said.

While Iraq is a largely literate and modern society with oil revenue to fund its treasury, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with few paved roads.
The opium poppy is its greatest cash crop.
As the Marine Corps plans to draw down its forces in Iraq and move thousands more troops 1,200 miles to the east in Afghanistan if President-elect Barack Obama and Pentagon officials give the go-ahead, Helland was clear in a recent message that the differences between the two countries are stark.

“This is not Iraq,” he wrote in a message to Col. Duffy White, who has taken command of the approximately 2,100 Marines now in Afghanistan. “Your units will have a large proportion of Iraq veterans who accomplished great things in the Anbar province.

“That said, remember that Afghanistan is not Iraq. The political, military and cultural differences are profound. Your unit must quickly adjust to working in a coalition environment. Once a mistake is made, the excuse that ‘this is how we did it in Iraq’ will not suffice,” Helland wrote.

Shortly after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and toppling of the ultrafundamentalist Taliban from the government in Kabul, the Marines left that country largely to Army and NATO forces.
Their responsibility was Anbar, the expansive region of Iraq that borders Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Home to a majority Sunni population, the border saw thousands of foreign al-Qaida fighters cross into the region to join the home-grown insurgency.
But when the insurgency began killing Iraqis as part of an intimidation campaign, Sunni leaders and tribal sheiks turned and sided with U.S. forces and the protection and financial resources to be had.
The result is that Anbar is now one of the calmest regions of Iraq, military officials say, leading to one general’s declaration earlier this month that the work today is far more about politics than combat.
In Iraq
Kelly is succinct in his appraisal as he prepares to return to Camp Pendleton in February.

“The war here is over,” he said.

The future security for the rest of Iraq is now almost solely dependent on the Iraqi government and its ability to bring rival political and sectarian factions together and prevent internal strife, the two-star general said during an interview at his new office at Al Asad Airbase in Iraq.
His former headquarters in the city of Fallujah was turned over to the Iraqi army four weeks ago.
In Anbar, the remaining threat is “very, very manageable,” he said, adding that use of lethal force is now at a minimum.

“The biggest arrow in my quiver is influence,” Kelly said.

Helland said the next six to 12 months, and the decisions made by Obama when he takes office, will go a long way toward charting the Marine Corps’ future in Iraq and its pressing desire to increase its forces in Afghanistan.

“I see the Marine Corps continuing to move into a strictly overwatch role in Anbar,” Helland said, adding that the redistribution of troops will depend on conditions on the ground.

“The country has to continue to come together and have confidence in the credibility of its army and its police forces,” he said.

“It’s certainly a different place than it has been, and we have to be able to take the training wheels off sooner rather than later.”

Grunts such as Sgt. Juan Mendez, a 27-year-old Chicago native on his sixth deployment, said the years spent combating insurgents and training the Iraqi army have paid off.

“I think the fact that most of the guys haven’t fired their weapons once during this deployment shows that all of our good hard work has accomplished what needed to be done here,” the mobile security unit section leader said during an interview at Camp Ripper, the Marine encampment at Al Asad.

For the Marines, it’s clear their new focus in “the long war” against extremists is shifting from Iraq to the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan
During an address to troops at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan’s Helmand province this month, Helland made his prediction that up to 15,000 Marines could be fighting the Taliban next spring.

“What the commandant would like to do, quite frankly, is move the Marines out of Iraq,” Helland said. “We want to grow our footprint and crush the enemies in Afghanistan.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said he would like to see three additional brigade combat teams —- at least 12,000 troops —- sent to Afghanistan well before the country’s September elections.
Over the last 18 months, the U.S. and NATO countries have increased their troop count in Afghanistan by 20,000, and commanders have asked for an additional 20,000, including 3,000 as soon as possible to bolster training of fledgling police forces.
During his visit, Helland took part in several closed-door meetings with commanders as the Marine Corps plans for the troop build-up they expect Obama will order after taking office.
Marine units from Twentynine Palms and North Carolina that have been in Afghanistan since the spring are being replaced this month.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is landlocked, a unique challenge for Marines who rely on ships to transport their vehicles and major weapon systems.

“Infrastructure is a very, very big challenge,” Helland said.

That’s evident in part by the fact that decades-old Russian transport planes are now providing much of the heavy-lift capability, under a contract with the U.S.
The planes are among the few in the world that can hold the large, anti-mine vehicles that have stemmed the rate of fatalities from roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The freshly deployed Marines that arrived in Afghanistan this month include a helicopter attack squadron from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
Commanders say they expect the Taliban, which has traditionally retreated during the cold months, to continue a pace of attacks that has been the highest since the 2001 invasion.

“The campaign will go on through the winter,” Helland said. “For the Taliban, it’s fast becoming a fight for survival.”

That said, Helland emphasized that Afghanistan presents a host of challenges different from Iraq, including brutally cold temperatures.

“The climate is different, the terrain is different and the human terrain is different,” he said.

In his message to his new commander on the ground in Afghanistan, Helland also warned Col. White about civilian killings.

“Escalation of force must be applied judiciously,” he wrote. “There is a low tolerance for collateral damage in Afghanistan.”

Anbar took years, hundreds of millions of dollars and the lives of hundreds of locally based Marines and sailors to tame.
The same steadfastness is paramount for what has been called the nation’s “other war,” Helland said.

“Afghanistan will require the same amount of patience,” said the three-star general, who also heads Camp Pendleton’s 40,000-member I Marine Expeditionary Force. “It will take time.”

How much time is unclear, and few are willing to put a number on how many years it will take to defeat the Taliban.

There’s a saying in Afghanistan that provides a warning for Americans hoping for a quick resolution: “We have the watches; the Taliban has the time.”

Wild Thing’s comment…………
I am so glad to read this, it is perfect timing since the post I did about the traitor Murtha and what he plans to try to insist on regarding Afghanistan and our military. It is almost as though the word is out about Murtha and his future trip and they want to make it very clear to Murtha and his ilk not to mess with the military, with the Marines, Army all of them. They are doing what needs to be done, they know the difference in the two countries and are letting him ( Murtha) know to stay out of it.
I might be wrong but this is my take on this article.

And this is another one that was made for the Marine Corps 230th Birthday. It is exceptional .
CLICK here to see 2nd video

Wild Thing’s comment…….
This is a great video tribute to the Marines.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.

The only terrorist captured alive after the Mumbai massacre has given police the first full account of the extraordinary events that led to it – revealing he was ordered to ‘kill until the last breath’.
Azam Amir Kasab, from Pakistan, said the attacks were meticulously planned six months ago and were intended to kill 5,000 people.

He revealed that the ten terrorists, who were highly trained in marine assault and crept into the city by boat, had planned to blow up the Taj Mahal Palace hotel after first executing British and American tourists and then taking hostages. As it is, their deadly attacks have left close to 200 confirmed dead, with the toll expected to rise to nearly 300 once the hotel has been fully searched by security forces.

And as Indian commandos ended the bloody 59-hour siege at the Taj yesterday by killing the last three Islamic gunmen, baby-faced Kasab was dispassionately detailing the background to the mayhem. He described how its mastermind briefed the group to ‘target whites, preferably Americans and British’.Some of the militants, including Kasab, posed as students during a visit to Mumbai a month ago, filming the ‘strike locations’ and familiarising themselves with the city’s roads.

Mumbai attacks: 300 feared dead as full horror of the terrorist attacks emerges
The death toll in the Mumbai terror attack is expected to soar to nearly 300, Indian officials said, as details emerged of the highly-organised terror plot.
Telegraph.co.uk
Piles of bodies were found yesterday after commandos stormed the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, the last of three buildings that terrorists had occupied in the city. Three terrorists were killed in the battle.
The end to four days of carnage came as tensions grew between India and Pakistan over the atrocity.
It is believed that just 10 highly-trained terrorists took part in the attack. Nine were killed and one suspect is under arrest.
British and Indian authorities were yesterday playing down reports that some of the attackers were British, although this had not been comprehensively ruled out.
The Sunday Telegraph was given the details of a secret interrogation report based on an interview with the surviving terrorist. The 19-year-old suspect, who lived near the Pakistani city of Multan, is said to have joined Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Islamist fundamentalist group, a year ago.
He is alleged to have confessed that he received weapons instruction at a training camp in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The plot is said to have been planned from there. A group then made a reconnaissance of Bombay earlier this year.
India believes a Pakistani merchant ship was used to transport some, or all, of the terrorists before they seized control of a fishing trawler to reach Mumbai (Bombay). The final leg of their journey was completed in inflatable boats.
Pakistan called an emergency cabinet meeting after announcing that it would not send the country’s secret service chief to New Delhi. The Indian government had demanded the head of the ISI travel in person to respond to questions.
Meanwhile, the former head of Britain’s SAS has revealed that Britain is not adequately prepared for a Mumbai-style terror attack. He said hundreds of civilians would have been massacred if such an assault was carried out in this country.
A final death toll will not emerge until the end of operations to ensure the hotel rooms and corridors are cleared of booby traps. However, S Jadhav, from Mumbai’s disaster management unit, predicted the figure would approach 300.
More than 600 people escaped from the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, the Oberoi-Trident hotel and Nariman House, which were held by the attackers.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamist fundamentalist group, is being widely blamed for the atrocity. Indian investigators claim to have obtained significant leads to synchronised strikes by gunmen from the testimony of the surviving terrorist.
It is believed he and the other terrorists were instructed at the terror camp in Pakistan on how to maximise the number of casualties during an attack, using machine guns, hand grenades and other weapons.
Television pictures of a satellite telephone captured from a terrorist appeared to show a constant stream of calls to Pakistan during the operation. Officials also said they had traced the group’s route from recorded GPS co-ordinates on the devices.
All the dead terrorists, as well as the captured alleged gunman, appear to have been born in Pakistan. The group also sent eight operatives on a reconnaissance mission to Mumbai earlier this year, Indian officials have claimed.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
They had primary “diversionary” attack targets, they killed pedestrians and then ran to their primary targets in buildings, to kill more people and take hostages. From what I have seen in photos and in articles they did like a buddy system, one firing and giving time for the other terrorist to reload. Then a main group of them locked down the hotel.
The article in this post says they planed this for 6 months.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., center, enjoys Thanksgiving dinner at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center with Navy Cmdr. Fred Lindsay, on Murtha’s left, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Margaret Hill, on Murtha’s right. Near the far end of the table is Landstuhl commander Army Col. Brian Lein. Also at the table were U.S. Army Europe commander Gen. Carter Ham and Europe Regional Medical Command commander Brig. Gen. Keith Gallagher.

Murtha: Fund diplomacy, not AFRICOM
Stars and Stripes
By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, November 29, 2008
LANDSTUHL, Germany
More money should go to the U.S. State Department for U.S. efforts in Africa rather than to the military’s U.S. Africa Command, said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.
The chairman of the House of Representatives’ defense appropriations subcommittee made his comments Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center after visiting wounded troops and having Thanksgiving dinner with top U.S. military leaders in Europe.

“They should use diplomacy in Africa rather than military,” Murtha said. “We can’t win these wars militarily. Nobody wants us over there. I think Liberia wants us. Nobody else.”

“You can’t just throw money at it, and you can’t win it militarily. It has to be done diplomatically. So I’ve been trying to shift money and convince the people that make the decision on where the money goes that more money should go to the State Department for those kind of things.”

President Bush requested $389 million for AFRICOM for fiscal 2009. Earlier this year during the budgetary process, the subcommittee Murtha chairs recommended providing AFRICOM only $80.6 million in funding for fiscal 2009. In the end, AFRICOM’s budget was approved at $266 million.
Vince Crawley, a spokesman for AFRICOM, noted that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already spoken about the need for the State Department to get a bigger share of the funding.
However, “It would be inappropriate for us to comment on what members of Congress are saying,” Crawley said Friday.
AFRICOM, which stood up Oct. 1 in Stuttgart, as a unified combatant command, brings all Defense Department programs on the continent under one umbrella.
Missions range from anti-terrorism programs in the Horn of Africa to maritime security initiatives and military-to-military training exercises in numerous countries.
In July, Refugees International released a report called U.S. Civil-Military Imbalance for Global Engagement: Lessons from the Operational Level in Africa, detailing policy and funding disparities between the Defense Department and the State Department. The report argues that the Pentagon controls an increasing share of foreign aid that used to be directed by civilian agencies and that priorities on the African continent do not reflect need.
Murtha, a retired Marine colonel, was at Landstuhl during a stopover on the way to Afghanistan “to find out what the problems are there.” Murtha is well-known for accusing Marines of “cold-blooded murder and war crimes” for the deaths of Iraqi civilians in 2005 in Haditha.
Four enlisted Marines were charged for their roles in the deaths, and four officers were charged in relation to the investigation. One officer was acquitted and charges have since been dropped against everyone else except a staff sergeant, who is suing Murtha for defamation, according to the Associated Press.

“Haditha’s an entirely different situation,” Murtha said. “I have the highest regard for the troops in the field, but in this case, these people didn’t die of a heart attack. They didn’t die of natural causes. (The Marines) used excessive force, obviously. And I point out to the troops: Look, in a guerrilla war you can’t just go in and knock down doors. We’ve changed that completely.”

While Murtha agrees with President-elect Barack Obama’s plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq over the next 16 months, he is “very nervous” about a troop surge in Afghanistan.
Obama has said he would send two or three more brigades to Afghanistan in 2009. Last week, Gates said he supported a troop buildup in Afghanistan that’s been estimated at more than 20,000 American troops over the next 12 to 18 months, according to the Washington Post.

“I’ve warned the Obama people, and I’ve also warned my leadership on the Democrat side in the House,” Murtha said. “Let’s not be pushing ourselves into Afghanistan. Let’s see what the plan is. What is the plan? How are we going to solve this problem now? … I’m going to come back and report to them what I think should be done.”

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Wild Thing’s comment…….
Murtha is a POS and he thinks he is all three branches of the government.
“Haditha’s an entirely different situation,” Murtha said. “I have the highest regard for the troops in the field, but in this case, these people didn’t die of a heart attack. They didn’t die of natural causes. (The Marines) used excessive force, obviously.”
I want to say he’s unbelievable but at this point nothing the senile old fool says surprises me. Seven out of eight Haditha Marines have been exonerated by IO’s or a courts-martial panel but that doesn’t seem to be good enough for Murtha.
“I’m going to come back and report to them what I think should be done.”
We have a very competent SECDEF and military commanders!
I defy him to get on the www.africom.mil website and say his stupidity there so as to allow General Ward the opportunity to have dialog with him that will be on the record. Murtha wont…he’s too busy with accusing his own constituency of being idiots and his total LIES about Marines being murderers.

Example of Rep. Murtha’s blatant disregard for House rules:

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede
Daily News

Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an “out-of-control” mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store’s front doors and trampled him, police said.

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.
When the madness ended, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured.
He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Wal-Mart worker Jimmy Overby, 43.

“They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me.

“They took me down, too … I didn’t know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back,” Overby said.

Damour, a temporary maintenance worker from Jamaica, Queens, was gasping for air as shoppers continued to surge into the store after its 5 a.m. opening, witnesses said.
Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.

“They pushed him down and walked all over him,” Damour’s sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. “How could these people do that?

“He was such a young man with a good heart, full of life. He didn’t deserve that.”

Damour’s sister said doctors told the family he died of a heart attack.

His cousin, Ernst Damour, called the circumstances “completely unacceptable.”

“His body was a stepping bag with so much disregard for human life,” Ernst Damour, 37, said. “There has to be some accountability.”

Roughly 2,000 people gathered outside the Wal-Mart’s doors in the predawn darkness.
Chanting “push the doors in,” the crowd pressed against the glass as the clock ticked down to the 5 a.m. opening.
Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers.
It didn’t work.
The mob barreled in and overwhelmed workers.

“They were jumping over the barricades and breaking down the door,” said Pat Alexander, 53, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “Everyone was screaming. You just had to keep walking on your toes to keep from falling over.”

After the throng toppled Damour, his fellow employees had to fight through the crowd to help him, police said.

Witness Kimberly Cribbs said shoppers acted like “savages.”

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since Friday morning!'” Cribbs said. “They kept shopping.”

From The New York Times
and Newsday
Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death
By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.
The person who was trampled to death was Jdimytai Damour, a temporary worker from Queens.
Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.
Mr. Damour, who lived in Queens, went into the store sometime during the night to stock shelves and perform maintenance work.
On Friday night, Mr. Damour’s father, Ogera Charles, 67, said his son had spent Thursday evening having Thanksgiving dinner at a half sister’s house in Queens before going directly to work. Mr. Charles said his son, known as Jimmy, was raised in Queens by his mother and worked at various stores in the area after graduating from high school. His family roots are in Haiti, and he had a brother and four sisters.
Myrthil, who is Jean’s son, said Damour was a big man and had no apparent health problems. Damour did construction work for a time and installed fences, he said.
Damour loved poetry, and he was a fan of the late novelist Donald Goines, the friend said.

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Wild Thing’s comment………
I never have shopped on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I can’t stand mobs. There are just too many facotrs that make it hard to control a mob.
In these photos at the Wal-Mart in Long Island, we see the spirit of the season brought on by Obama supporters.
At the link for the article, I was glancingi through the comments that were made,l some that showed there is still humanity in this world but other comments by horrible peoople pushing their I hate whitie agenda as well as hate for Bush and their admiration for Obama.
Here is one example:
BDS to the max:

“Hey rodent424, this aint WalMarts fault; it aint nobodys fault cept BUSH! He made this bad eonomy that made folks have to skrimp and hunt for cheap stuff cause they aint got no money on account of BUSH giving it to all his fatcat buddys like HALLIBERTON and FANNE MAY and his big banker buddys. Now there aint no money left for the little guys so he’s got to go to WALMART when they gots stuff on sale so they can have a Christmas. BUSH need to resign NOW and let B.O. take over so we dont have no more mess like this of today.”

These are angry people, one would think they would be so happy since they won the election. happy that it is the Christmas season and be able to control themselves. But their anger is not going away just because Obama won, nope!
Thoughts of this being a rehearsal for the upcoming Inauguration.