USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109)

uss-jason-dunham-ddg-109.jpg

Special release from the U.S. Department of Defense

WASHINGTON (NNS) — The Department of Navy announced March 23 that the Navy’s newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer will be USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109), honoring the late Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, the first Marine awarded the Medal of Honor for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Donald C. Winter, made the announcement in Dunham’s hometown of Scio, N.Y.

Continue reading “USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109)”

Kidnapped British Sailor update

The Scotsman outlines some of the behind-the-scenes action as the British government tries to gain the release of the sailors:

 After a day of shadow-boxing with a notoriously slippery regime, Tony Blair is set to up the ante: the plight of the Shatt al-Arab 15 is officially a crisis and he will need the Cobra team to handle it.
The clutch of VIPs will gather in an operations room several floors below Downing Street as early as this afternoon to plot an escape from a military spat that now threatens to become an international incident.

The decision came just 24 hours after the crew of HMS Cornwall had been caught in the confusion of direct confrontation with Iranian vessels in the searing heat of the Gulf.

As the crew members were surrounded in their two rubber dinghies, the Cornwall’s commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, frantically radioed back to his own top brass for instructions.

The response to the inquiry, which had been immediately patched through to Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall, was to hold fire.

UPDATE: Please stop by Gateway Pundit for latest analysis on the location of the sailors 

Continue reading “Kidnapped British Sailor update”

Waziristan Update

Who’s going to win in the end? My money’s on the guys with 20 centuries of experience in Asymetrical Warfare on their turf, the local Pashtun tribes.

“This is a jihad dictated by outsiders, by al-Qaeda. It is not a holy war. They just want power and money.” — Malik Haji Awar Khan, 55, head of the 2,000-strong Mutakhel Wazir tribe of North Waziristan

In Waziristan the Peace Jirga has failed, and the fighting will continue. This is not necessarily a bad thing. What most analysts fail to come to grips with is that there are varying stripes and factions within the Taliban and they have differing goals — they are not monolithically aligned behind one leader now and have not been since early last summer.
Continue reading “Waziristan Update”

International Polar Year

antarctica_radarsat.jpgThe IPY is underway, a two-year study of the Earth’s, the Moon’s, and Mar’s polar regions. This is pretty exciting stuff, and I am sure that large quantities of data on the warming of the planet will come out of it.
Continue reading “International Polar Year”