Afghanistan

There is a great deal of lefty wailing about some soldier pissing on the corpses of dead Taliban. Blair Mulholland says what I am thinking.

These are soldiers!  They are supposed to kill our enemies.  What earthly difference does it make if they humiliate the corpse?  The corpse is no longer bothered by the offence.  Besides which, these are Taliban, they are vile sacks of shit who stone women for exposing their ankles and trying to get an education.  And they harboured Osama Bin Laden after 9/11 and refused to give him up.  If I had the opportunity, I would piss on a Taliban corpse as well.

Arapeta Awatere – the great Colonel of the Maori Battalion, once pissed on Hitler’s rug, and nobody complained.  If we are going to show no respect for these scumbags while they are living, why do their bodies suddenly become sacred in death?

The US Government and the US Army hierarchy should ask themselves when they became such pussies that they are so afraid of a bunch of pissing cocks.  These soldiers don’t deserve a court martial, they deserve a beer.

Iran is getting stroppy:

 Iran says it has successfully test fired a long-range missile during its naval exercise in the Gulf, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“We have test fired a long-range shore-to-sea missile called Qader (capable), which managed to successfully destroy predetermined targets in the Gulf,” the agency quoted deputy navy Commander Mahmoud Mousavi as saying.

The move follows Iran’s threat to halt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Today we will test-fire Qader and Nour long range missiles during the drill,” Mousavi told state TV earlier today.

Iran has been holding the 10-day naval exercise at a time of increased tension with Western powers over its nuclear programme, and Mousavi said on Sunday it had successfully test-fired a medium range surface-to-air missile.

Tehran threatened last week to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if it became the target of an oil embargo over its nuclear ambitions. The European Union has said it is considering a ban – already in place in the United States – on imports of Iranian crude.

The US Fifth Fleet said it will not allow any disruption of traffic in the vital oil shipping route.

They must be blessed with a whole heap of stupid. The US has wound down its Iraq deployment, Afghanistan is winding down too…they have plenty of battle hardened veterans, heaps of munitions and a stroppy anti-West country that wants nukes flexing it’s muscles.

Iran says they will close the Straits of Hormuz, I say a flight of B-52s, some B2s, a couple of carrier groups and the US Marines will make sure that won’t be happening.

Britain’s Number one Christmas Song is ‘Wherever You Are’:

A choir of wives of soldiers serving in Afghanistan topped the British singles charts this week, beating X Factor winners Little Mix to the Christmas No. 1 spot and outselling the rest of the top 12 put together.

Wherever You Are by Military Wives, a song written using excerpts from letters sent between military couples, sold 556,000 copies, the Official Charts Company said.

From their Youtube page:

‘Wherever You Are’ is a moving love song written by Royal Wedding composer Paul Mealor for the choir to sing at The Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance. The music is set to a poem compiled from letters to and from the servicemen and their wives on a 6-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. It is the raw emotion of the song that has touched so many of the British public.

via The Brigade

Santa delivers presents to some naughty people.

John Key has announced that the SAS are coming home at the end of March:

Prime Minister John Key has confirmed the SAS will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in March.
Mr Key made the announcement this morning, saying the Special Air Services troops had done the job they were sent over for.

“You made a difference. It’s time to come home.”

Mr Key had earlier said he did not expect to extend their 30 month deployment past March, but had left a slight chance open for it to be extended, saying that the SAS itself had wanted to stay on.

Today he said he did not regret deploying the troops again.

Labour had opposed the deployment, saying the SAS was effectively assisting a “corrupt” regime in Afghanistan.

Me Key said the SAS had done its job helping Kabul’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) “to the very highest of standards,” says Mr Key.

“Tragically, they have also paid the highest price, with two of the SAS’s fine soldiers losing their lives in the course of this work and I would, once again, like to pay tribute to Corporal Doug Grant and Lance Corporal Leon Smith who were killed in action.

“I deeply regret the loss of our soldiers but I do not regret our commitment to operations in Afghanistan.”

A contingent of troops has conducted a ceremonial handover parade with a difference at Camp Bastion.

via The Brigade

Afghanistan – touch down in flight from Augustin Pictures on Vimeo.

Paul Holmes wrote a short form playbook for smacking up Phil Goff. Why it has taken them this long to play some of them is beyond me:

When a Labour leader, who had been in Parliament at a senior level in the fourth Labour government in the 1980s, comes along in 2011 and condemns even a partial sale of state assets, the National leader should surely turn round and remind him that he sold the assets in the first place – and sold them so completely that New Zealanders no longer have control and have to endure the rapaciousness of privatised Telecom for 30 years.

When a Labour leader gets stuck into the government for our presence in Afghanistan, then a gentle reminder of who put our SAS in there needs to be forthcoming, surely.

…When Goff spoke of the nobility and wisdom of removing GST on fresh fruit and vegetables, he needed to be reminded that for more than 20 years he was one of the Labour group who said it wouldn’t work and would be too confusing.

When, as late as July this year, Labour were on the record as being opposed to any raising of the age of retirement, and when David Parker admitted on Q&A on Sunday morning that the movement of the superannuation age to 67 had been decided only a fortnight before, Key could have suggested the politics of desperation.

This is why Labour’s message isn’t resonating. People remember that Phil Goff was a staunch defender of the policies he now rails against.