22nd MEU / USS Bataan, arrives Libyan coast

Amphibious Ready Groups and Marine Expeditionary Units Switching Out

USS BATAAN, Mediterranean Sea - The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group and 22nd Marine Expeditionary Group relieved the Kearsarge ARG and 26th MEU of their duties in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility April 27.

The Bataan ARG has assumed responsibilities as Commander, Task Force 62 and will conduct maritime security operations and provide support as required for coalition forces assigned to Operation Unified Protector.

"I am proud of the great work the Sailors and Marines of the Kearsarge ARG/26th MEU team have done," said Capt. Peter Pagano, commander, Amphibious Squadron.
"Regardless of the mission they were assigned,they accomplished it with integrity, professionalism, and dedication."

"This MEU has been in positions of tremendous responsibility and each time delivered nothing less than what they were asked to give," said Col. Mark J. Desens, commanding officer 26th MEU. "I am very proud to have served with the Marines, Sailors and civilians of this MEU and our Navy-Marine Corps team. This deployment has been the highlight of my operational career."

During the past eight months in the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet AORs the Kearsarge ARG /26th MEU team conducted a wide range of missions, ranging from the delivery of over 3 million pounds of supplies to Pakistan after a devastating summer flood to the safe relocation of 335 displaced personnel from Tunisia to Egypt.

The Kearsarge ARG was actively involved in the initial phases of Operation Odyssey Dawn, with AV-8B Harriers assigned to 26th MEU flying multiple sorties in support of the no-fly zone established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. As the mission transitioned to NATO-led Operation Unified Protector, Sailors and Marines remained on station and ready to render assistance.

"The Kearsarge ARG and 26th MEU's performance in the 5th and 6th Fleet AORs has been nothing short of outstanding," said Capt. Steve Yoder, commander, Amphibious Squadron 6. "I have complete confidence that our Sailors and Marines assigned to the Bataan ARG and 22nd MEU will continue this tradition of excellence, and that they will remain vigilant, flexible, and ready to execute the full range of amphibious
operations."

The BATARG and 22nd MEU deployed three months ahead of their original schedule to relieve the Kearsarge ARG and 26th MEU. The blue-green team conducted a wide range of integrated training over the last several weeks to be able to arrive on station and immediately provide the combatant commander with a versatile sea-based force that can be tailored to a variety of missions.

"The Marines and Sailors of 22nd MEU have completed the turnover with 26th MEU and are prepared to execute operations in support of Operation Unified Protector and other missions that may be assigned," said Col. Eric Steidl, commanding officer 22nd MEU. "As a Marine Air Ground Task Force, 22nd MEU is capable of responding to a wide array of contingencies ranging from humanitarian assistance to combat operations.
As we wish our fellow warriors from 26th MEU farewell, we stand ready to assume the mission as an amphibious force in readiness."

"We talk a lot on Bataan about being on time and ready for tasking," said Capt. Steve Koehler, commanding officer of USS Bataan. "This ship's job is to put the MEU in a position to conduct the nation's tasking. We are certainly ready for that and proud to have the watch here in the Mediterranean Sea."

The Bataan ARG includes detachments from Naval Beach Group 2, Tactical Air Control Squadron 21, Fleet Surgical Team Six (FST) 8, Helicopter Squadron 22, Beach Master Unit 2, Assault Craft Unit 2 and ACU-4. ARG ships include the Norfolk-based Bataan, the amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde, and the dock landing ship USS
Whidbey Island, homeported at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek - Fort Story, Va.

The 22nd MEU is a Marine Air Ground Task Force comprised of the Command Element, Ground Combat Element, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment; Aviation Combat Element, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 (Reinforced); Logistics Combat Element, and Combat Logistics Battalion 22.

ANZAC DAY - 2011

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them"

By Matt Khoury, CNN

For many Australians in 2011, nothing is more sacred than April 25.

If it fell on Good Friday, it would probably supersede any religious commemoration.

Easter Monday is fitting: thousands of young Australians died at the battle Gallipoli -- which started on April 25, 1915 -- and it is widely regarded as marking the birth of a nation.

Its annual rememberance has evolved beyond the anti-war protests of the 1970s and 1980s, when it was perceived as a celebration of war.

“It’s not a day to support war,” says Nick Feltch, curator of the World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. “It’s a day of commemoration.”

“Those who have experienced war are never pro-war,” Feltch says. “They often return and wonder what it was all about. Australia’s currently committed to a conflict overseas [in Afghanistan] –- and it’s a day for the nation to reflect and consider.”

During services, people from all walks of life will come together and hear the stirring sound of a bugler playing “The Last Post.”

Almost everybody who can takes the day off. Lonely pensioners can be found sitting at bars and wearing their medals -– and for a day at least -– their service is remembered. They receive free beer from publicans and patrons.

April 25 is a day of drinking in pubs and playing "two-up" -– the coin-flipping game is legal in all licensed establishments on this day.

Australia Day -– the only other truly national holiday –- still divides the community about the righteousness of British colonization, and the Aborigines' plight.

But ANZAC Day’s a little different. Australians look at each other, remember people past and present less fortunate and think, “You know, we really are a lucky bunch of bastards.”

The Gallipoli campaign was a disaster from the very beginning. On a calm night, under a half moon on the Aegean Sea, Australians and New Zealanders were woken at 1 a.m. Three hours later, 20,000 troops attacked a beach beneath a towering cliff.

The “Sydney Morning Herald” reported their bravado: “The Australians rose to the occasion. Not waiting for orders, or for boats to reach the beach, they sprang into the sea, and, forming a sort of rough line, rushed at the enemy’s trenches.”

Soldiers of the 9th Regiment, only 100 meters from Turkish positions on 'The Nek.'That day, 2,000 were lost to relentless machine gun fire from Turkish soldiers dug in on the clifftop.

Less supportive media stories would later surface from dispatches. Indeed, historian C.E.W. Bean, writing about the West Australian Regiment, commented that the flower of youth would pass that day.

Within the Australian psyche, it was the first time the nation had proven itself. And it was approaching the last time that Australia would offer itself to foreign –- albeit Imperial -– command.

A month into the campaign, which was to last until the following January, a ceasefire was declared to clear the stinking, decaying corpses from “no mans land” in between Australian and Turkish trenches. Soldiers from opposing sides exchanged photos and swapped drinks, and then the fighting continued.

ANZAC Day is not a celebration of a military victory. By the time the bloody failure dragged to a close, the nation had lost 8,709 men, with another 19,441 wounded. Some 2,721 New Zealanders died, and 4,752 were wounded. Of Allied and Ottoman forces, 130,784 lives were lost in the campaign -– and double that number wounded.

Returned soldiers

Soldiers of the 4th Field Ambulance outside their post, known as "Rosebud Villa," on the Gallipoli Peninsula.“War operates in silly ways,” says Bob Crosthwaite, Vice President of the New South Wales Returned and Services League (NSW RSL). “That soldiers meet in the middle and exchange drinks, and then talk, epitomizes government fighting government.”

“There’s never a right side. The actions of insurgents are rarely right. But it’s a commitment by these people to achieve an outcome.”

Crosthwaite's father fought with the celebrated Desert Rats in north Africa in World War II, while he served in Malaysia and later Vietnam. He highlights the more recent recent actions of Australian peacekeeping forces in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Returned soldiers' support for their own is solid, but they rarely support war as much as politicians.

“It’d be a better world without war -- It’s a futile activity,” Crosthwaite says. “Even in rational economics, the money spent on the front line is ridiculous.”
He said peace activists, “Acknowledge what is before them. But they also acknowledge the past.”

Ken Frank, an 85-year-old New Zealand veteran of World War II and Korea, now lives in Australia. He’s partially blind. “War is an horrific thing,” he says. “But for me, it’s 'two-bob each-way' -– it’s horrible, but you don’t want your country to get overrun.”

Divisions within battalions

Four days after the ANZAC landing, soldiers of the 1st Field Ambulance are given a briefing. When soldiers returned from Vietnam, “Guys were getting blood thrown at them, and everything,” says Andy Forsdike, who coordinates the NSW Vietnam Veterans' Association with his wife, Pam.

“We were told not to wear our uniforms when we went home [to Australia],” he says. “Some of them felt guilty, and most didn’t march on ANZAC Day...treated us really bad,” he says. “They didn’t acknowledge our war -– they said it wasn’t real. But if you were there it was real.”

There was a turning point, he says, in the 1988 “Welcome Home Parade.” After years of politics, both the Australian public and the RSL acknowledged the suffering of Vietnam veterans.

Of 50,000 who served in the Vietnam War –- the last time an Australian Government sent a full Australian force to war -- about 10 per cent still don’t march, he says.

“I march, but I don’t march because I support war –- I don’t support any war these days,” Forsdike says. “We just seem to be following the Americans into battle.”

“But on ANZAC Day, we don’t even talk about war anymore,” he says. “It’s just a chance to catch up with mates and talk about kids and grandkids.”

ANZAC Day
When Australia entered the Iraq War, hundreds of thousands protested across the country against the country’s involvement. The flag was lowered -- and troops withdrawn in mid-2008 -- after John Howard lost office.

The forgotten war, Afghanistan, remains the nation's primary foreign engadgement. But today, ANZAC Day stands as a commemoration of war and a desire for peace.
=========
Read more: ANZAC Day in Sydney | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/sydney/life/anzac-tradition-092982?hpt=C2#ixzz1KXJPdl7M

Time to Re-Think the Drone Wars?

Time to Re-Think the Drone Wars?
by Ali Chishti

Karachi. It's no secret that drone strikes have become a hot-button issue in Pakistan. The Pakistani security establishment has publically distanced itself from the CIA drone program while allegedly supporting it quietly. Pakistani military officials have called the drone attacks in its federally administered area “against humanity” at the same time they openly ask the United States for joint control of drone operations and a transfer of drone technology.

According to Wikileaks there have been a total of 233 drone strikes since 2004 that have resulted in 228 deaths in this "drone war." Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani appreciates the security value of the CIA drone program but spoke against it in the parliament. Only recently a top commander of the Pakistani Army stationed at forward lines fighting the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and al-Qaeda told local journalists that he supported the drone program. For its part, the (TTP) -- which has forged a close alliance with al-Qaeda and is emerging as the biggest national security threat to the United States -- publically acknowledged sending out a Jordanian suicide bomber who killed 14 members of CIA working at a drone command and control station in Afghanistan?

There's no denying drone attacks have had an effect. In June 2004 the first drone attack killed Nek Muhammad Wazir in Wana, South Waziristan. The next attack came almost a year later, in May 2005, killing Haitham al-Yemeni -a top al-Qaeda member in North Waziristan. Since that time drones have killed bad guys from Baitullah Mesud -- Pakistan's public enemy number one -- to Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. Drones have killed more enemies of both the United States and Pakistan than ground offensives or any other strategy attempted since 9-11. And one former general in the Pakistani army estimates that "thousands" of casualties would have resulted had forces tried to get the same result fighting on the ground.

So what do the Pakistanis really want?

Direct US military aid to Pakistan has been approximately $4 billion from fiscal years 2002 to 2010 while security assistance support had been $462 million in FY2008, $884 million in FY 2009 and $1,114 million in fiscal year 2010. (This doesn't include CSF reimbursements since coalition support program is not technically an aide program. CSF reimbursements to Pakistan from the United States have been approximately $8.88 billion since 2001.

The counter-argument on drone attacks is that they fuel more terrorism than they prevent. Understandably there's a backlash as a result of drone attacks in Pakistan but the fault for that lies with Pakistan as much as any other country. The government's ill-conceived policies that provided safe havens to mercenaries around the world in the 80s and 90s along with the deals carried forward from the regime of General Pervez Mushraff have created a very divided country.

Pakistan needs a clear policy on drone attacks along with an above-board counter terrorism policy that doesn't pick between the good terrorists and bad ones. For its part the United States needs to realize that any policy on drones needs to be carefully worked out with Pakistan before any more strikes happen. As it appears right now, the U.S. seems to be settling for short-term disruptions at the expense of long term solutions. And that acceptance won't eliminate the terror threat to either country.

========
Ali K. Chishti is an investigative journalist and a counterterrorism expert based in Karachi, Pakistan. His book, Jehadi Godzilla and Pakistani Establishment will be released early next year.