Tag Archives: defense policy

Two Men (Or Three) Who Know What They’re About

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Ihor Kolomoisky, a 51-year-old outspoken banking tycoon, and recently appointed by [Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, himself a so-called oligarch] as governor of Dnipropetrovsk region in eastern Ukraine, has decided to dip into his fortune to bolster that army and defend the homeland.

So far, that has included buying tires, car batteries and fuel for army units, as well outfitting local militias. He also announced a program to buy up contraband weapons and offer a $10,000 bounty for any pro-Russia militant captured with a gun.

Mr Kolomoisky declined to say how much he is spending personally to build up what his aides call the “Kolomoisky army,” but experts estimate it is about $10 million a month just to fund the salaries of militia and police units, some of whom technically report to Ukraine’s army and interior ministry. His province now has close to 2,000 battle-ready troops in the field, his aides say. By comparison, Ukraine’s army had only 6,000 through the entire country when Russia took control of the Crimean peninsula earlier this year.

One of Kolomoisky’s assistants is Gennady Korban, a self-described “conflict manager in hostile corporate takeovers” and whom Kolomoisky tasked to run the military operations in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, was a bit more…direct…but no less clear on what the current mission is. Pointing to an imaginary boundary, he noted that on one side, the oblast was secure and safely in the hands of the legitimate government in Kiev, while the other side was held by Russia-supported rebels: “troublemakers,” “maniacs.” Korban described the enemy and the mission:

“Men without families, who don’t want families, they just like war.” If they cross over the line, he said, “We’ll just have to kill them.”

And there’s this from one of Korban’s commanders, Yury Beryoza:

If any Russian soldier wants to die for Russia, “they should come to Dnipropetrovsk, because here we will kill them.”

Critics, and there are many, question Kolomoisky’s motives, pointing out that he and other oligarchs in Ukraine may have more financial than altruistic reasons for maintaining the status quo. That’s often—usually—the case, but that doesn’t mean that acting on those motives don’t benefit everyone else, too. That’s the invisible hand: each man acts on his personal self-interest, and the voluntary outcomes of those interactions benefit both, and in their aggregate, benefit everyone.

In that light, Kolomoisky has stated his own goal.

It would have been possible to have warmer relations with Russia, but I’m not going to sacrifice my principles for it. I’m a die-hard European.

At this point, I’m far more inclined to trust these two oligarchs (three, including Ukraine’s President) than I am the Russian Vladimir Putin or any of his thugs in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast or anywhere else in Ukraine.

Organizational Failure?

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Dr Roy Marokus, who currently serves in private practice…said veterans’ appointments were cancelled so VA medical providers could attend the two-day conference. Medical providers at the VA Medical Center in Oklahoma City, where Marokus briefly worked, and providers at all other VA medical centers in the Veterans Integrated Services Network [VISN 16, which includes VA facilities in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and parts of Missouri , Texas, Alabama, and Florida], attended the conference.

A review of the paperwork handed out during the conference showed topics included advice on how to plan a party and asked the medical staff to explore, “What Color is Your Personality?”

“Veterans waiting for appointments got pushed back for two days,” Marokus said. “In human costs, you have all these veterans. Why was that conference needed?”

And this, in VISN 22, which includes parts of California and Nevada:

Another veteran took issue with the filming of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy, which takes place at the Sepulveda VA Ambulatory Care Center. The filming encompasses the entire second floor of the facility.

Gary B, who asked for his last name to be withheld due to a pending 1151 claim [such a claim is for death or disability “as if service-connected”—including VA medical malpractice] with the VA, said aside from the limited care for veterans, the show’s trailers are an inconvenience for veterans.

“They take up the whole parking lot,” he said.

And there is this incident:

A Veterans Affairs nurse who spent 28 years at the embattled agency’s facility in Albany, NY, says when she came forward to report abuse including stolen drugs [including 5,000 vials of morphine from a locked drawer(!); the vials were refilled with saline solution and replaced] and mistreatment of patients, her supervisors turned on her instead of trying to fix things.

The patient abuse and the VA’s response to her calling it out include this:

…she reported that doctors had restrained a patient for seven hours in violation of VA rules. Now she has been banished to an office cubicle, stripped of her nursing duties and supervisory role and faces a 30-day suspension without pay.

A Token Force, more Dithering

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Now the Obama administration is “weighing” sending 100 (count ’em) Special Forces soldiers to…some place…in Iraq. With their hands tied behind their backs.

The troops would fall under the authority of the US ambassador in Baghdad and would not be authorized to engage in combat, another US official said. Their mission would be “non-operational training” of both regular and counterterrorism units, which the military has in the past interpreted to mean training on military bases[.]

So, no support, no qualified leadership at the top, and they’ll likely be on bases that the Iraqi “army” abandons at the first sniff of gun smoke.

This is not an optimal use of our SF.

Iraqi Drama Catches US Off Guard

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That’s the headline of a Wall Street Journal article, and I stole it. It’s here, too, because the headline says it all.

The quickly unfolding drama prompted a White House meeting Wednesday of top policy makers and military leaders who were caught off guard by the swift collapse of Iraqi security forces, officials acknowledged.

And

US military leaders said they had thought that Iraqi security forces’ efforts would be enough to slow ISIS’s advance. But those assumptions were proven wrong when Iraqi troops largely abandoned their posts.

Yet it’s not just about establishing ISIS in Sunni Iraq. Having moved to within a few 10s of miles of Baghdad, ISIS has announced its intent to move on and seize Shia Karbala and Najaf, hosts of two of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims, for the humiliation of the Shia in Iraq. And for the added fertile agricultural territory.

Why was the US caught off guard by this Iraqi collapse in the wake of the collapse going on in next-door Syria? Because no one in this administration has any clue at all concerning what’s going on—and why—outside the little choir of “advisors” President Barack Obama maintains in his coterie.

John Kerry’s False Dichotomy

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Secretary of State John Kerry defended the trade of five top Taliban “generals” for the terrorist hostage Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl this way:

To leave an American behind, in the hands of people that torture him, cut off his head, do any number of things, and we would consciously choose to do that? That’s the other side of this equation. I don’t think anybody would think that is the appropriate thing to do.

Indeed, no one was thinking that, much less arguing it. The thrust of the criticism of the trade has centered on the trade, not on the idea of getting one of our own back; Kerry’s ascription to the contrary is facially false.

For instance, we could have worked a different deal, trading other prisoners, not from Gitmo, for the hostage Bergdahl.

We could have worked a different deal, trading something else for the hostage Bergdahl.

There’s reason to believe that we knew where Bergdahl was being held with enough specificity to just go get him.

Of course, Kerry knows that, which makes his “choice” a cynical and dishonest offering. The question is what does he gain with such claims? What can his boss, President Barack Obama do for him for this support of a bad effort? What does Kerry get directly for this?

Hmm….