Marine Corps Banns Access To Twitter, Facebook, And MySpace

The Marine Corps recently published MARADMIN 0458/09, entitled IMMEDIATE BAN OF INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNS) ON MARINE CORPS ENTERPRISE NETWORK (MCEN) NIPRNET, which prohibits access,
TO INTERNET SNS FROM THE MCEN NIPRNET, INCLUDING OVER VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK (VPN) CONNECTIONS.
The SNS mentioned in the order include,
FACEBOOK, MYSPACE, AND TWITTER.
At first blush this may not appear [...]

Marines Allowed To Smoke In Afghanistan

Pentagon will not impose smoking ban.

Why We Used Waterboarding: Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden

In a recently-released memo it was revealed that the United States used waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah 83 times and Kahalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times.  Now former CIA Director General Michael Hayden, USAF, explains why,
Most of the people who oppose these techniques want to be able to say, “‘I don’t want my nation doing this, which [...]

Drones Continue To Dominate GWOT In 2008

From Danger Room,
Forget the extra troops. The big “surge” in Afghanistan and Iraq has been the astronomical increase in the robotic planes ahead. In 2008, 71 Predator robo-craft flew 138,404 combat hours — a 94 percent increase from the year before, according to an Air Force presentation obtained by National Security Drone’s Frank Naif.

Say [...]

Update On New Air Force One: To Be Made In America

New Air Force One will be made in the USA.

New Air Force One May Be Made In Europe Not America

New Air Force One may be built by Airbus not Boeing.

Unmanned Aircraft Log Over 500,000 Flight Hours

Drone aircraft continue to fly more missions for the U.S. military.

Unmanned Aircraft Projected To Account For Thirty Percent Of Combat Missions

Within the next few years it is projected that,
at least one-fourth to one-third of all combat missions will be flown by unmanned aircraft. And a few years after that, unmanned ground vehicles will also begin to flood the market and the battlefield, they predict.
Indeed, growing unmanned-ground business will bring with it an expected double-digit growth [...]

Joint Strike Fighter: Air Force Wants Boeing To Stop Talking Smack

Ok, that is not a direct quote.  Major General Charles R. Davis, USAF, the Program Executive Officer for the F-35 Lightning II Program Office, is far to articulate, educated, and gentlemanly to utter such a comment.  But, reality is not that far off.
According to Flightglobal, LtGen Davis is not pleased with, what he characterizes as [...]

Photos: Crash Scene Of B-2 Stealth Bomber

In February 2008 a B-2 Stealth Bomber crashed after takeoff from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam.  Popular Mechanics, has published photographs of the crash scene.

SecDef Sends More Predator and Reaper Drone Aircraft To Iraq

SecDef Gates orders more UAV to Iraq.

SecDef To Air Force Leaders: Your Fired

Secretary of Defense Gates was doing his best impression of The Donald, when he dismissed the top two officials in the Air Force, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and General Michael Moseley. The move was prompted by Air Force’s mishandling of nuclear weapons and its reluctance to support the war in Iraq.
John [...]

Video: Test Of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

This video is of the Marine Corps’s version of the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35B.

yojoe out

Air Force Wants New Drone

From the best technology-military blog Danger Room, comes the story of the Air Force’s desire to replace the Reaper with a new “hunter-killer” drone. MQ-9 Reaper first deployed to Iraq in the fall of 2007. It looks like the Air Force wants some of the $500 million budgeted for drone aircraft.

yojoe (in drone [...]

The Ninth Circuit Rules On “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

The Ninth Circuit released an opinion challenging the U.S. Military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. The case involves an Air Force nurse suspended from her duties for having a relationship with a civilian woman.
The court adopts a new standard of scrutiny,

Under this review, we must determine not whether DADT has some hypothetical, posthoc rationalization [...]

Notre Dame Football Coach Charlie Weis Disparages U.S. Military

Hoodlum – noun – a young street ruffian, esp. one belonging to a gang.
Thug – noun – a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer.

Notre Dame Football Coach Charlie Weis was quoted as saying “I could get hoodlums and thugs and win tomorrow. I won’t do it that way.”
Evidently Coach Weis is referring [...]

Who Will Build The Drone That Flies Forever

From Danger Room, the competition is on between Lockheed, Boeing, and Aurora to build the future drone, which may stay aloft for up to five years.
yojoe out

Secretary of Defense Gates to Air Force: Get More UAV In The War

SecDef Gates, according to Aviation Week, continues to bemoan the lack of UAV in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is doing something about it though, including directing the Air Force to,

rethinking long-standing service assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and which do not.

Could this signal an end to the Air Force requirement [...]

Upgrades To Air Force AC-130: With Video From Afghanistan

Over at the always-informative zerohostel, there is a post about the continuing evolution of the Air Force’s close-air-support gunship the AC-130:

the biggest change to the AC-130 airframe was in it’s electronics and avionics. AN AN/APG-180 radar (derived from the same ground and air radar that the Air Forces F-15E uses) was added to allow tracking [...]

SecDef To Air Force: More Predators To Iraq

SecDef Gates has ordered the Air Force to send more of its UAV Predators into the skies in the Middle East.  The Air Force thinks this is not a good idea.

The plan was dubbed “all in” by its developer, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff.
Although the most drastic parts of [...]

Iraq Update: Too Few Drones In The Air

Danger Room is reporting that there is a shortage of military drone aircraft in Iraq. And insurgents are exploiting this weakness.
Is there still a question about the usefulness of drones?
yojoe out
For more on unmanned aircraft: