Two U.S. Navy aviators are safe after their two-seat F/A-18F Super Hornet was shot down by an American ship by mistake, according to a late Saturday statement from U.S. Central Command.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the Gettysburg could mistake an F/A-18 for an enemy aircraft or missile, particularly as ships in a battle group remain linked by both radar and radio communication.
Bryan O’Neal has spent two decades grinding his way up the U.S. Army ranks, from lowly private to command sergeant major — the highest rank for a non-commissioned officer. He could write a textbook on modern warfare history — and his own unique place in it — but much of what he’s seen and done could be hard for anyone to hear. Significant numbers of the men and women under his command weren’t even born until after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that inspired him to enlist.
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In the spring of 2004, perhaps the last thing President George W. Bush’s administration needed was another war-related PR problem. No one could find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which the administration had used to build a case for war. Less than a month before Tillman’s death, four contractors for the Blackwater private security firm in Iraq were ambushed and dragged through the streets, and their corpses were hung from a bridge. In April came shocking images of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison.
At one point, in their conversation, they mention Operation Starvation. I’m not well-versed in WWII history, but I’ve included a link to an article on the aftermath of Operation Starvation, below.
Over the last few days, this video clip has gone absolutely viral. Syrian Girl, a user on X (formerly Twitter), shared it with the compelling caption, “BREAKING: Israel admits Apache helicopters fired on their own civilians running from the Supernova music festival.”
A week ago I posted on this page an admission by IDF Brigadier General Barak Hiram that he himself gave the orders to use tank’s fire in hostage situations in Kibbutz Be-eri. It becomes evidently clear that many of the Israeli casualties in Be-eri as well as other places, were the outcome of Israel prioritising killing Hamas militants over saving the lives of hostages (Hannibal Directive). In practice it was Israel that was responsible for many Israeli civilians fatalities and it is Israel reckless operation and deployment of tanks and anti tank missiles in hostages situation that is responsible for the devastation in Kibbutz Be-eri and other 7 October Gaza Ring theatres.
Disturbingly Israel then brought foreign press to these devastated scenes and pointing at Hamas barbarism knowing very well that it was the deployment of Israeli tanks, anti tank missiles and heavy machine-guns that was responsible for the carnage and the civilian’s death…
Today we learned that an Israeli battalion commander colonel Salman Habka died in Gaza yesterday. Colonel Habka was fighting in Be-eri on 7 October and he confirmed to Israeli Ynet that IDF Bri. Genn Barak Hiram gave him the order to shoot tank shells into the Kibbutz buildings.
“In an interview held after the battle in Be-eri in which he (Col Habka) participated, the late Habka said: ‘The tanks are here, the tanks are near us. I arrive in Be-eri under the command of Bri. Gen. You Barak Hiram and the first thing he ordered me to do was to fire a shell inside a house. The first question that comes to your mind is if there are hostages there. We did all the preliminary actions before we decided to fire a shell into a house.” (ynet 2/112023)
The question you may want to ask is what were those ‘preliminary actions,’ because many hostages were found dead after this tank’s shelling… around 83 Israelis died in Be-eri…
In an interview after the battle in Bari in which he participated, the late Habaka said: “The tanks are here, the tanks are next to us. I arrive in Bari, pass Brigadier General Barak Hiram and the first thing he demands of me is to fire a shell inside the house. The first question that comes to you is if there are any hostages there. We did all the preliminary operations before we decided to fire a shell into a house
As soon as we fired shells into houses, we managed to go from house to house, to free the hostages, and that was basically how the fighting was until the evening, inside the settlement and in the streets,” the late Habaka continued. “I understand one thing. As soon as people hear the grubs of the tanks, they suddenly have a moment of security.”
The estimated dud rate is disputable. According to the Congressional Research Service, “There appear to be significant discrepancies among failure rate estimates. Some manufacturers claim a submunition failure rate of 2% to 5%, whereas mine clearance specialists have frequently reported failure rates of 10% to 30%. A number of factors influence submunition reliability. These include delivery technique, age of the submunition, air temperature, landing in soft or muddy ground, getting caught in trees and vegetation, and submunitions being damaged after dispersal, or landing in such a manner that their impact fuzes fail to initiate.”
The United States has a huge stockpile of cluster munitions — 4.7 million containing hundreds of millions of bomblets — that it is dusting off to deliver to Ukraine after a “difficult decision” by President Joe Biden.
The U.S. last used these munitions in its military excursion in Afghanistan. Trouble was that the little bombs resembled in color and shape the humanitarian aid packets that the U.S. dropped from planes. This confusion, which obviously left many civilians maimed or dead, led to the curtailment of cluster bombs for our next military adventure.
This did not stop Israel from using cluster bombs in its 2006 campaign against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. According to a March 2022 Congressional Research Service report, Israel used them in the “last 3 days of the 34-day war after a U.N. cease-fire deal had been agreed to — resulting in almost 1 million unexploded cluster bomblets to which the U.N. attributed 14 deaths during the conflict.” Israel’s use of the bombs “supposedly affected 26% of southern Lebanon’s arable land and contaminated about 13 square miles with unexploded submunitions. One report states that there was a failure rate of upward of 70% of Israel’s cluster weapons,” the agency said.
OK, so America used an ultra-expensive F-22 stealth interceptor to shoot down what may prove to be a common weather balloon that was “made in China.” But, dammit, we won! It was a perfect one-shot kill! Maverick himself couldn’t have done it better. Take that, China!
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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