Saving One Lost Artifact from a Past War

Seems to me that this crowd will appreciate this.

https://angrystaffofficer.com/2017/02/27/no-more-task-force-rogue-ones-a-tactical-analysis-of-the-raid-on-scarif/

New York ‘lone wolf’ was one hour away from finishing his bomb
She also praised the New York Police Department, saying, “I think they handled it well.”
Officials with the NYPD, which conducted the undercover investigation using a confidential informant and a bugged apartment, said the department had to move quickly because Pimentel was about to test a pipe bomb made out of match heads, nails and other ingredients bought at neighborhood hardware and discount stores.
Two law enforcement officials said Monday that the NYPD’s Intelligence Division had sought to get the FBI involved at least twice as the investigation unfolded. Both times, the FBI concluded that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own, they said.
The FBI thought Pimentel “didn’t have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own,” one of the officials said.
The officials were not authorized to speak about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. The FBI’s New York office and the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan both declined to comment on Monday.
Pimentel’s lawyer, Joseph Zablocki, said his client was never a true threat.
“If the goal here is to be stopping terror … I’m not sure that this is where we should be spending our resources,” he said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the handling of the case Monday, saying the NYPD kept federal authorities in the loop “all along” before circumstances forced investigators to take swift measures using state charges.
“No question in my mind that we had to take this case down,” Kelly said. “There was an imminent threat.”
Added Kelly: “This is a classic case of what we’ve been talking about �� the lone wolf, an individual, self-radicalized. This is the needle in the haystack problem we face as a country and as a city.”
Authorities described Pimentel as an unemployed U.S. citizen and “al-Qaida sympathizer” who was born in the Dominican Republic. He had lived most of his life in Manhattan, aside from about five years in the upstate city of Schenectady, where authorities say he had an arrested for credit card fraud.
His mother said he was raised Roman Catholic. But he converted to Islam in 2004 and went by the name Muhammad Yusuf, authorities said.
Using a tip from police in Albany, the NYPD had been watching Pimentel using a confidential informant for the past year. Investigators learned that he was energized and motivated to carry out his plan by the Sept. 30 killing of al-Qaida’s U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, police said.
Pimentel was under constant surveillance as he shopped for the pipe bombmaterials. He also was overheard talking about attacking police patrol cars and postal facilities, killing soldiers returning home from abroad andbombing a police station in Bayonne, N.J., authorizes said.

@M36:

Speaking of Korea though, it is true that South Korea is an immensely prosperous nation, while North Korea languishes in poverty. South Korea became “Americanized” and now places that where once rice patties and dusty mountain roads are prosperous metropolises. ( I know this because my sister is serving in Korea with the Army engineers) Without our intervention, South Korea would have been conquered, and would be no better off than North Korea is under the heel of communism. The Korean conflict was one of our more noble military ventures.

Sure, military means money.  S. Vietnam had a huge jump in economy when we were there that mostly collapsed after we left.  It would happen no matter where we go.

However, the state of Korea today has less to do with them being dirty communists, and more with the disintegration of the USSR and a horrible famine during the 90’s.  They simply could not support themselves because their primary trading partner disappeared and was unable to supply what they needed, only to be subjected to a series of disastrous floods and drought.  Of course, it’s not helped by their military-oriented economic policy, but we do similar and still sustain ourselves (but we’ve got the goods).

But we took a number of casualties in Korea, was it worth that sacrifice of American lives? As a Marine I believe we are all expendable to accomplish our mission, but the call is yours. How many of us will you sacrifice to accomplish the objective? You should be willing to sacrifice all of us. That kind of resolve no longer exists in America.

Tough to say.  As an elite group of fighters, I wouldn’t send Marines in frivolously.  When it comes to Korea, we are exactly where we were after WW2 (except no skirmishes and such).  So did it do any good?  I guess so, primarily economically.  Are your lives worth promoting the economy of another country?  Are anyone’s?  Especially when that country actually competes with our own?

But here’s the thing: we installed an unpopular dictator in S. Korea that resigned.  A military coup followed that was just was tyrannical and ruthless.  It really goes unnoticed because the economy surged and we “saved” them from communism.  But I don’t think we accomplished all that much.

I’m not sure when or where you guys should be deployed.  Hopefully never, but that’s a pipe dream.

For those interested in the help and sacrifices of their allies . . .
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghanistan/canada.html

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/07/23/omez-warren.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghanistan/casualties/total.html

Note - in addition to a naval force and over 2000 troops (including the renowned Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry), the Black Watch and the Joint Task Force 2’s are all in the muck.  Meanwhile hundred’s of millions have been earmarked for humanitarian aid and the RCMP and Canadian army instructors are training Afghan police and military units.

Just in case you cared.

When my father was in his early 20s he enlisted into the Army during Vietnam.  He had a college degree, and the powers that be wanted him to become an officer but he declined preffering to go at it as a grunt.  He was newly married, and I had just been born when he made this decision.  He left shortly after and served his country for a year and was honorably discharged.

Sounds nice doesn’t it?  Ok, SPIN OFF

My father had no intrest in the military whatsoever, esp with the war going on.  He was contacted a lot by a recruiter who was trying to warn him that if he did not enlist he would be drafted eventualy.  My father would not join, and he was drafted.  On the day he got his draft notice he went to the recruiter begging him to let him enlist, because the recruiter said if he did enlist… he would not have to go to Vietnam.  The recruiter, knowing his situation being newly married and having a infant son “fudged” the date of my father’s enlistment to show that he had enlisted before he was drafted.  He was stationed in Germany, hating every second of it.  The ONLY reason he decided not to become an officer is because he detested the military so much.  Becoming an officer would have entailed him being in the military longer than what he had to.

My point to this, you can spin the hell out of this kind of thing.  Which is what I think some veterans do, not to mention any names cough cough Kerry Cough Cough (and others).

A derail on the topic, but I feel like saying it anyway.

My father is against the war in a big way, I’m not, and we argue about it some times.  The one argument HE can not use AT ALL is that Bush got preferential (sp?) treatment.  You can’t take the moral high ground after what happened to him.  My grandfather was not a senator, he was a janitor.

I saw it first on the daily show about a year ago :)