Archive for category Quotes

Quotes: ‘We Still Have Car Bombs (expletive) ha ha’, Juarez Cartel

Jul 18

Posted by Matt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Photo, Quotes | No Comments

     Could this signal the next phase of the drug war down south?  Because once these guys get into competition with each other over whose car bomb is bigger, more deadly, and used to greater effect than the other guy, I think we will see a level of violence that will equal Iraq or Afghanistan.

     Remember, these cartels are watching and learning what combatants are doing in other parts of the world. The various uses of the IED has become an art form with many of these folks, and I have no doubt that the cartels will make their own little masterpieces of death and destruction. -Matt

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juarez52Quotes: We Still Have Car Bombs (expletive) ha ha, Juarez Cartel

A wall at a shopping center is covered by graffiti that reads in Spanish “What happened on the 16 (street) is going to keep happening to all the authoritiesthat continue to support the Chapo (Guzman), sincerely, the Juarez Cartel. We still have car bombs (expletive) ha ha.” Cartel assailants laid a trap for federal police and attacked them with a car bomb on Thursday the first time a drug cartel have used explosives to attack Mexican security forces, marking an escalation in the country’s drug war. – From Borderland Beat

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Quotes: General George Washington On Patriotism, April 1778

Jun 16

Posted by Matt in Cool Stuff, History, Quotes | 2 Comments

     It is important to add some context to this thing before you read it. This letter was basically Washington’s argument for paying his troops and raising a professional standing army. That militias were not dependable or effective against professional forces and the war is taking it’s toll on the current ‘volunteers’. His officers were resigning in droves, all because they were sick of war and they had families they needed to take care of. Or, they reached the end of their commitments and needed to get back to their homes.

     The point is, Washington had to give an incentive to his troops for them to stick around and continue the fight. Patriotism alone was not sufficient in order to maintain the strength and vitality of an army during a long war. Plus, in order to defeat an attacking enemy, you need ‘organized’ violence, and you can’t get organized if no one wants to stick around and play. ‘Interest or reward’ is just one crucial factor of many, when it comes to maintaing an army during times of war.

     The other interesting part about this letter was that it was also designed to address the problems of convincing congress that paying for a standing army was a good thing. At that time, early Americans were very skeptical of standing armies due to their experiences with Britain or in Europe, and how nations used their armies to rule over and control the people. The fear was that tyranny would come riding in on the backs of that standing army, so selling this concept was tricky.

     So this is a General trying to convince everyone around him that if we want to win this war, we are going to have to pay up to hang on to the good guys and maintain an effective fighting force. It is a lesson as old as warfare itself.

Might I also add that George Washington’s Secret Navy, the privateers, were essential to this concept of providing ‘interest or reward’ to war participation. Privateers raiding enemy ships and taking their loot was a way to infuse money into the war time economy, ravage the enemy’s crucial logistics, keep a people tired of war focused on fighting for the US through industry, take advantage of innovations born from that industry(during and after the war), and use captured enemy munitions and weapons to outfit the struggling Continental Army. Even George himself invested in privateers. Stuff to ponder. -Matt

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General George Washington 31302 1Quotes: General George Washington On Patriotism, April 1778

 

“….Men may speculate as they will—they may talk of patriotism—they may draw a few examples from ancient story of great achievements performed by it’s influence; but, whoever builds upon it, as a sufficient basis, for conducting a long and bloody war, will find themselves deceived in the end. We must take the passions of Men, as nature has given them, and those principles as a guide, which are generally the rule of action. I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting War can never be supported on this principle alone—It must be aided by a prospect of interest or some reward. For a time it may, of itself, push men to action—to bear much—to encounter difficulties; but it will not endure unassisted by interest.”- From General George Washington’s letter to John Banister, April 21st 1778

Quotes: Senator Claire McCaskill Joins The ‘I Was Protected By Xe/Blackwater, But I Still Hate Them Club’

Feb 28

Posted by Matt in Afghanistan, Quotes | 1 Comment

     Thanks to Andreea for sending me this information. I love it, but I don’t think this is as good as the Grayson quote.  It’s close, and worthy of mention here on the blog.  I wonder if she even said anything to her PSD team, like a thank you or something? -Matt

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mccaskill cropped proto custom 2Quotes: Senator Claire McCaskill Joins The I Was Protected By Xe/Blackwater, But I Still Hate Them Club

 

    Fresh from a trip overseas that took her to Afghanistan and Kuwait, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill blasted the Blackwater security firm — a private contractor providing protection in U.S. war zones.

     McCaskill acknowledged that, during her trip, she was escorted by Blackwater personnel — but that didn’t stop her from blasting the company, which has come under increased scrutiny for the actions of its hired soldiers.-St. Louis Dispatch

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Quotes: Presidential Airways (Xe/Blackwater) Rescues Rep. Grayson From Niger Unrest

Feb 24

Posted by Matt in Africa, Quotes | 2 Comments

   Bravo to Presidential Airways and Xe for a job well done!  As for my message to Rep. Grayson….. I am sure glad you survived Niger. Thanks to the courageous work of contractors, you can now make it back home for that next protest with Code Pink. lol -Matt

Edit: 2/25/2010 – Wired posted a deal on this as well.  It must have been tough for them to actually post a good story about Xe rescuing a politician. I am sure their fingers were burning as they typed the post. lol

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alangraysondeidraatsweepkelleroutQuotes: Presidential Airways (Xe/Blackwater) Rescues Rep. Grayson From Niger Unrest

Rep. Grayson at a Code Pink rally. 

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    Blackwater executive testifying before Congress today said, in an apparent reference to Grayson: “Xe Services, through its subsidiary Presidential Airways, provides aviation support and medevac services to Defense Department personnel in Africa. Just last week, our personnel evacuated a congressman from Niger during civil unrest.” -TPM

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Quotes: Norm Augustine’s Prediction For 2010–Industry More Competitor With Government

Feb 18

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Quotes | No Comments

   The way he worded this quote and the points brought up are certainly compelling.  That private industry is a competitor with government, over the ninety percent of assets out there that are privately owned.  Think about it this way, would you rather have the TSA guarding your business, or a company like Triple Canopy?  If you have the money, and you are really concerned about who you want to use for security services, do you ‘hope’ the government can protect you, or do you go for the sure thing and go with private security? And can you even depend upon what limited resources the government has, to be everywhere at once?  How about for oil companies or refineries?   Or how about information technology or internet giants like Google?  Who do these folks turn to for protection, the government or private industry?

     My favorite one is the media.  Did they beg the government to protect them as they gallop across the world, reporting on disasters or events related to our military and the war?  Maybe for the embeds they are able to depend upon the military, but for the most part, they just hire former Special Forces guys to protect them.  You won’t hear about the media contracting with the big companies, because they have to have someone to take a giant crap on with sensational stories.  So they turn to individuals or small teams to get their high dollar security.

      Either way, interesting words coming from the former CEO of Lockheed Martin. Check it out. -Matt

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LIVE.AS AugustineQuotes: Norm Augustines Prediction For 2010 Industry More Competitor With Government

Industry More Competitor with Government (From ExecutiveBiz)

Norm Augustine’s 2010 Prediction:

“The issues facing the nation and the world increasingly transcend the ability of either government or industry to solve alone. For example, the government clearly has overall responsibility for homeland security, yet 90 percent of the assets to be protected currently reside in the private sector.

“At the same time, as the federal debt grows along with the non-discretionary part of the federal budget, heightening fiscal pressures will be placed on the procurement process. As a consequence, industry is unfortunately likely to find itself more and more a competitor with government than a partner … with proven bad ideas rising from the ashes yet another time (e.g., fixed price research and development contracting).  The problem will be exacerbated by the inability/unwillingness of qualified individuals with industry experience to serve terms in government.

“As one who has spent a significant part of his professional life in each government and industry, I truly hope the above is wrong but that would not be how I would bet.”

(Norm Augustine is retired Chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corp.)

 

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Funny Stuff: ‘Take Off Your Burqas, Come Out and Fight Us Like Men’, by Capt. Peterson

Nov 24

Posted by Matt in Afghanistan, Funny Stuff, Quotes, Strategy | 1 Comment

     I love it.  If these miscreants lack the discipline to fall for such a simple thing, then we should be trash talking all over the country.  If these guys are so proud and idiotic as to break their silence and cover to answer to something like this, then we should be implementing Operation Trash Talk on the highest order.  Hell, the DoD could start a blog or wiki called ‘Combat Trash Talk’, and it would be filled with daily insults that guys could use to draw out the enemy for a fight.  We could even implement a rating system for what insult was the most effective, or resulted in the most enemy contacts. Too funny. -Matt

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In Afghanistan, Apache Troop makes the battle come to them

By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and StripesTuesday, August 3, 2004

FORWARD OPERATING BASE TIGER, Afghanistan — Frustrated that Taliban fighters were making themselves scarce, cavalry commander Capt. Brian Peterson ordered his psychological operations detachment to find a way to get the enemy onto the battlefield.

Their solution: shame. The soldiers drove into the mountainous region of southern Afghanistan near Tarin Kowt, a known Taliban stronghold, and blared through Humvee-mounted loudspeakers a simple message.

“Take off your burqas,” Afghan interpreters shouted, referring to the head-to-toe powder blue shrouds Taliban leaders once forced all women in the country to wear. “Come out and fight us like men.”

Peterson, commander of the 25th Infantry Division’s Hawaii-based 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment’s Apache Troop, had heard of Special Forces units using similar schoolyard tactics to dishonor local insurgents into a fight and figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

He knew Taliban fighters were out there. Local villagers were being threatened to stay away from U.N. voter registration efforts for the country’s Oct. 9 presidential elections.

It didn’t take long to get an answer to Peterson’s cantankerous call to arms. Within hours, an angry ambush was unleashed, a heavy fusillade of automatic weapons fire raining down from two sides as his patrol moved through a steep valley.

“The bullets were zinging within a few inches of my head, I could actually feel their heat,” said .50-caliber machine gunner Spc. Michael Plummer, 25, from Klamath Falls, Ore.

He was astounded. After four months in Afghanistan, this was Apache Troop’s first contact with the enemy.

“I couldn’t believe they were actually shooting at us,” said Plummer.

Pushing his patrol of Humvees through the ambush kill zone, Peterson turned his men around and charged back into the fray.

“We weren’t going to run from those punks,” said Peterson. “We chased them up the mountain.”

After a 45-minute gunfight, four Afghan guerrillas lay dead and another four were captured.

None of Peterson’s men were injured.

“We’re pretty sure we got more, but they carry their dead away,” said Peterson.

It’s hard to tell how many escaped, he said, adding “they can run, but they’ll only die tired.”

Story here.

 

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Quotes: Marcus Luttrell on the Ability to Fight Alone

Nov 1

Posted by Matt in Afghanistan, Quotes | No Comments

   Doug sent me this quote, and I thought it was awesome.  We have reinforced this idea within our troops and within our law enforcement, that they must work as a team to accomplish goals and missions.  And I agree, that is essential and a no brainer.  But what happens when you are alone, or your team was decimated? Situations like what Chris Turner was in, who had to think on their own in order to defend self and others at the UN guest house in Afghanistan.  Guys like Marcus Luttrell who had to survive on their own, and against the mountain men of Afghanistan after his team was wiped out. Most importantly, men or women who are all ‘heroes in waiting’, all silently standing by, waiting for fate to decide when they shall meet other super empowered individuals who wish to do harm.

   Let’s take it back even further in history.  Jeremiah Johnson, William Cody, Frederick Burnham and the rest of the rugged individuals who made up the West, operated on their own in non-permissive environments and kicked ass.  These are the same guys called upon by the US Army to hunt and kill indian combatants and influence the Scouting movement, both in the militaries of the world, and the Boy Scouting movement so popular throughout the world.

    The point is, super empowered individuals, armed with the intellect and mental toughness needed to prosecute their war, are shockingly effective.  In my view, the only way to defeat these types of warriors on the field of battle, is with another super empowered individual armed with the same mindset.

   So thanks to Doug and the rest of the readership who have helped to push along these ideas.  I need your help to build this snowmobile, and the end result is that the Feral Jundi readership will be armed with the ideas that will help them win the fight.  Think of FJ as a mental armory, and in this armory, we are trying to build some of the most lethal and radical ideas around. -Matt

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 lone%2BsurvivorQuotes: Marcus Luttrell on the Ability to Fight Alone

     “The last hour had tought me a few major lessons, the main one being I must gain the ability to fight alone, in direct contrast to everything I had ever been taught.   SEALs as you know fight in teams, only in teams, each man relying entirely on the others to do exactly the right thing.  Thats how we do it, fighting as one in a team of four or maybe ten or even twenty, but always as one unit. One mind, one strategy.  We are, instinctively, always backing up, always covering, always moving to plug the gap or pave the way.  Thats what makes us great.

     But up here being hunted down, all alone—this was entirely another game.  And first I had to learn to move like an Afghan mountain man, stealthily, staying out of sight, making no sound, causing no disturbance.  Of course, we had learned all that back in California, but not on the heightened scale which was required up here, against a native enemy even more stealthy, quiet and unseen than we were.”

     I resolved that when I next had to strike out against my enemy, it would be with our customary deadly force, always ensuring I held the element of surprise.  Those are the tactics that invariably win conflicts for the truely ruthless underdog like the mujahidden, al Qaeda and from now on, me.” -Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell, p. 275.

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Quotes: NATO Secretary General Rasmussen’s Thoughts on Private Security Companies

Oct 29

Posted by Matt in Afghanistan, Quotes | 1 Comment

   Double wow.  So we have the UN, and NATO both having their top leaders supporting the concept of using Private Security Companies? Somewhere, a pig is flying over a frozen hell.  These things happen in three’s you know. lol -Matt

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Anders Fogh Rasmussen who 001Quotes: NATO Secretary General Rasmussens Thoughts on Private Security Companies

”New Challenges – Better Capabilities”

22 Oct. 2009

Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Bratislava Security Conference

RASTISLAV KACER (President, Slovak Atlantic Commission): We have a little more than 15 minutes, almost 20 minutes time for discussion. Let me take a few questions for you from the audience and let me cluster those by maybe two or three so you would be able to answer, is it fine with it, and then I’ll turn also to our participants in the universities and I’ll take also questions from Banská Bystrica.

But first, questions from the floor. I see one hand over there, and one hand over here. Please. If you could wait for the microphone so we can… and don’t forget to introduce yourself.

Q: Thank you. My name is Dominika (inaudible) and I’m a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations at Banská Bystrica.

Mr. Secretary General, I would like to ask you, you are speaking about the new security environment, changing security environment, as well as capabilities that NATO is trying to somehow push forth. Speaking about the new security environment, there is the problem of privatization, so-called privatization of security and the emergence of new non-state actors, be it the bottom up or top down process.

I would be interested more in the top-down process, which will include the problem of private military companies. As we know some of the core member states of NATO, namely the United States, are using them in the conflict, namely the conflict in Iraq. What would be the position of NATO as such to use the private military companies or other security contactors on behalf of NATO in its operation as a means to boost its capabilities or to fill in for some possible capability caps?

And more broadly put, how is NATO ready to cope with the problem of the privatization of security and the privatization of military conflicts as such. Thank you very much.

RASTISLAV KACER: Thank you very much for very interesting questions. Second question goes to Mr. Smolar from Poland, and the third question will go to Banská Bystrica.

EUGENIUSZ SMOLAR (Senior Fellow, Center for International Relations): Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for sharing with us your thoughts and I look through the project you’ve presented, and one thing which I haven’t seen is a modernization of NATO itself. And it’s very hard to imagine that you can deliver all those good things unless NATO, as a structure, transforms itself. Three hundred committees, commissions, you know, the ambassadors’ relations with U.S., Secretary General, national government, this is a very complex web of interests, and ingrained interests, I might add.

How do you see NATO in a few years time, because it has to streamline its operation and its structures itself. Thank you.

RASTISLAV KACER: Okay and the last question for this round goes to Banská Bystrica, then I would kindly ask you for the answers, Mr. Secretary General. Banská Bystrica, you are online.

Q: Good morning, and (inaudible…) and International Relations within Banská Bystrica. We all know there comes a very long tradition of threats such as cyber attacks or energy security threats or even climate change-related dangers are high on the NATO agenda. However, do you think NATO is the best forum for dealing with such problems? What is its additional value to countering these threats in comparison to other international organizations? Thank you.

RASTISLAV KACER: Thank you all for three very good questions. Now Secretary General, now you can spend additional two hours on those. (Laughs).

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN (Secretary General of NATO): I could, but I won’t. I will answer briefly.

First about what you called privatization of security and more specifically the use of what you called private military companies. Well, basically I do believe that NATO operations should be conducted by what we might call official military units led by our responsible governments, so this will be my clear point of departure.

Having said that, I will not exclude the possibility that private security companies as such can be used for specific security tasks, protection of facilities, protection of people in certain areas. So I would not completely exclude the possibility of using private companies, but of course, we have to strike the right balance and basically our military operations should be conducted by our military……

Link to the rest of the Q and A here.

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Quotes: Wartime Commission Stuff and the Isenberg Analysis

Sep 27

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Quotes | No Comments

MR. THIBAULT: Well, the reason that’s important is, so often in whistleblower cases, there’ll be one or two individuals that bring the whistle and allege wrongdoing, and they’re kind of — the history says sometimes they’re summarily dismissed as disgruntled employees, or about-ready-to-be-fired employees. And in this case, it’s not everyone, but it’s — you know, have you experienced that kind of referral in your past?

MS. BRIAN: That’s a great question. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and there has not been a circumstance that I can point to where such an enormous percentage of individuals have come forward essentially as whistleblowers. It’s — it’s — out of 150 English- speaking guards, we’re speaking to 20 of them. I mean, it’s really quite extraordinary. So it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and it’s a testament to the magnitude of the problem.

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    I wanted to post this as a reminder of how significant this case is. Danielle Brian of POGO said 20 AGNA whistleblowers? Amazing. And I am sure those are just the ones that felt strong enough about their case to come forward.  I am sure there are others who have experienced equally abusive circumstances on this contract. This is pathetic, and I cannot believe how poorly managed this contract was.

   Also, I want to give a heads up to the ‘Isenberg Analysis’ over at PMH.  What David Isenberg is doing is going through the commission transcripts with a fine tooth comb, and providing the context and the historical details that would escape most of us in regards to what these guys are saying.  He has been reporting on this industry for a long while, so to hear his perspective is fascinating.  It is also a three part series, and he has already pumped out part 1 and part 2.  Check it out. -Matt

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Quotes: Michael Yon on Media Relations

Sep 25

Posted by Matt in Media News, Quotes | No Comments

   I think this quote is one of the best out there on the subject of media relations.  And coming from Michael Yon, and in the context of all he has done for the war effort, I thought it was definitely worthy of quoting here on FJ.

   The other point I want to make is that this quote applies to our industry as well.  We have learned time and time again that the media, and the public (opinion and the Streisand Effect) will fill the information void for us, if we are not proactive and strategic about our relations with the media and the public. -Matt

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michael yon in iraqQuotes: Michael Yon on Media Relations

 

“This war is moving fast and there is no time for games.  If a general does not want to tell his story, someone will tell it for him.  He will have failed by losing another winnable media battle.” -Michael Yon

 

Read the rest of the story here.

 

 

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