In reality only Joe Biden thinks that Joe Biden is something other than a village idiot. Biden has a long history of making ridiculous and stupid statements.

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And here he demonstrates his math prowess:

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And here is his health advice:

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Now Joe Biden says that the Taliban is not our enemy:

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Jay Carney then tried to defend Biden.

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We’re fighting the Taliban, but they’re not our enemy??

Glad we got that straightened out.

Oddly, it wasn’t always this way:

Obama: Step up effort against Taliban, al-Qaida

Obama: Taliban and al Qaeda must be stopped

SAN DIEGO —

Senator Barack Obama is proposing that the United States deploy about 10,000 more troops to battle resurgent forces in Afghanistan, a plan intended to shift the American military focus from the Iraq war to the marked rise in violence from the Taliban.

Making peace treaties with the Taliban was once a bad thing- according to Obama.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have said repeatedly that democrats depend heavily on their supporters having zero long term memory and once again it proves to be true. One thing that is hard to forget, though, is that Joe Biden is not just stupid, he is dangerously stupid.

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Alpi ReyesCruz, who is from the Dominican Republic, waits for his ride on Combat Outpost Herrera Dec. 2. Reyes, an infantry soldier by trade, was finishing up a seven-month deployment as the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command's science and technology advisor for Regional Command East. The assignment took him all over the region, usually by himself, to document improvements soldiers wanted in their equipment. Once documented, he would relay the information back to the States where prototypes would be made and sent into theater for real-world trials before being mass produced and officially issued.

I went to the PX yesterday looking for some boot laces for one of our Wounded Warriors. His uniforms and boots had to be cut off. So, he has boots, but no laces.

Half the shelves were empty with little signs that begged for patience as “we are experiencing logistical supply shortages due to the blockade in Pakistan.”

Kabul is pissed because the ‘Merican drawdown will result in something like a $14BN loss to their economy. Their economy has seen roughly 11% annual growth over the last 5 years.

In other news, Pakistan has blocked ISAF trucks from crossing Torkham gate from Pakistan into Afghanistan. These trucks provide the majority of our equipment and life support. The Pakis are demanding something like $1750 per truck to be allowed transit, and there are currently over 1000 trucks stuck there (and as they are sitting there, they get pilfered, and attacked by Taliban). These are contracted vehicles, so the drivers are just as likely as not to say “screw it” and leave, with or without their payloads; and even if they stay, we pay them extra for their trouble.

Pakistan is literally holding needed supplies and trying to keep our forces hostage. These are, if you’ll recall, the same “partners” in the war on terror who didn’t know (*ahem*) bin Laden was living right outside their version of the war college. We kill bands of insurgents every day, and if they are anywhere near the border, Pakmil suddenly claims they were Pakistani forces. Even though we clear any kinetic strikes close to the border (within 4km on our side) through the Pakistan military liaison.

Can we please tell India that they are welcome to go jack Pakistan up? I get that Pakistan is a nuclear power, so we can’t exactly bully them, but last I checked, we a) have ICBMs, and they don’t; b) are the only country to ever use nukes in warfare; and c) already have an Army sitting on their border. Any commander in chief with balls would just order one or two of his brigades to seize OUR, taxpayer-provided equipment, and transport it into Afghanistan, with ROE that clearly states to remove any obstacles to that movement. Then, we would cut all funding and diplomatic ties with them, seize any Pakistani owned assets in the US, embargo all of their goods, and sink any ships they have, military or commercial. Just for giggles, we’d then drop bigass bombs all along their border in the “training camps” their military has (which look an awful like insurgent training camps, given that they are full of insurgents training, and not Pakistani military.)

Howdy, everyone. Sorry I haven’t kept in touch as often as I wanted to. With the holidays here, we’ve been VERY busy getting troops home for leave.

Recently, my team lost eight vehicles. The contract was ending and my unit decided not to renew it to save money. I’m all in favor of saving taxpayer money, but not at the expense of the mission. Frankly, I lost 2 more vehicles than I need to efficiently do my job. However, this vehicle situation is one I want to touch on.

Where I am located, there are NTVs (basically civilian SUVs) everywhere. It almost seems like there are more NTVs than there are personnel to drive them. These NTVs range from older, early 00s model Toyotas to current model year Land Cruisers. Vehicles range in price from about $500 to $1500 for a lease per month, depending on model and year.

My team of used to have about 14 of these, one of which was a bus, one was a pickup truck, and one was a minivan. The rest were various types of Toyota and Mitsubishi SUVs. We recently ended the contract on eight of them. The average cost of these vehicles was $950 per month. By ending this contract, we saved over $90,000!

Just on my FOB alone, there are easily 5,000 NTVs. Now, I don’t know how many are assigned to military units and how many are assigned to contractors and civilians. So, let’s just use a nice, conservative number of 1,000 belonging to military units. Assuming the average cost of $1000 per month per vehicle, we are spending $1 million per month JUST ON NTVs!! But, that isn’t what is most outrageous.

KAF is a central turn-in point for units that are leaving or upgrading equipment. As you may know, we no longer use HMMWV (humvees) outside the wire. We have been using the MRAP series of vehicles for a few years now. These vehicles are great and increase the survivability of our troops from small arms fire and IEDs. They are true lifesavers!

There are HMMWVs here on KAF that are just sitting in a yard collecting dust, but no one can have them issued because they aren’t on our MTOE. In other words, HMMWVs are authorized vehicles for units to use right now unless they bring them from home station. Our only options for FOB transportation are NTVs or the bulky MRAPs (which I don’t have, by the way).

When we lost our vehicles, I looked into getting HMMWVs to use for transportation and movement of personnel and equipment around the FOB. I was told that I couldn’t sign for any because we aren’t authorized them.

So, instead of just issuing troops who never go outside the wire – like me – free vehicles that are just sitting around, we pay $1000 per month per vehicle that we don’t need to. And this is just on THIS FOB. There are numerous FOBs where this is also the case and we’re wasting money on civilian vehicles when a free HMMWV would work just fine.

We are a nearly bankrupt nation and every department is trying to find ways to trim their belts. I think a good start would be to get rid of these NTV contracts and find a way to authorize troops to use HMMWVs for use on the FOBs only. It sickens me that we are wasting so much money needlessly. It also sickens me that I need vehicles for my mission but I can’t sign for a vehicle just sitting around doing nothing.

On the positive side, we haven’t had any indirect fire since 30 November. The weather has gotten pretty cold, dipping down into the low 30s overnight. The days are still quite pleasant hovering around 70. We come to the office all bundled up and by mid afternoon we’re already sweating!

Morale is high and our troops are doing great things here. With the holidays here, care packages have been flowing in. It’s humbling to be the recipient of such generosity. Someone even donated a Blu-Ray player to us to watch movies on when they heard that our PS2 was broken. Now, we’re just trying to get movies to play on it. Thankfully, it also plays regular DVDs.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. We will celebrate here with a special meal of canned eggnog, meats, cheeses and crackers. It’s a deployment tradition I’ve always followed. We’ll sit around drinking hot chocolate and apple cider and watching A Charlie Brown Christmas! Our tree even resembles that one! heh. Just kidding. We had a tree sent to us with lights and decorations.

As you may have heard by now, we lost 13 Americans today near Kabul. In addition to that attack, my FOB was attacked by four rocket attacks beginning at 0422 this morning. We’re all fine.

A lot has been going on that is keeping me busy. We are entering the heavy season for rest & recuperation leave. We have a constant a stream of troops coming and going.

A few weeks ago, I lost a good friend in SSG Brian Cowdrey. He was out in RC-East responding to a MEDEVAC request after a firefight. Brian and his crew arrived in a hot LZ. He helped carry two Soldiers onto his bird then went back for a third Soldier that was already dead. On the way back to the chopper, Brian was shot and killed.

We were very close and spoke often over here. His loss hit me hard and came at a difficult time, which actually sounds a bit selfish.

It’s no secret that Michael Yon and I have no love lost between us. It’s hard for me to support someone that is the complete opposite of everything I believe in: integrity, honor, loyalty, and selflessness.

Recently, Yon and his fanatics launched an all-out attack on me. Yon filed a formal complaint through Army channels claiming that I had threatened and sent Soldiers to kill or harm him. As absurd as that sounds, the Army is required to at least look into such accusations.

I have a very weak leadership chain that is hostile towards bloggers. So, I arrived at the unit already on their hitlist with a “reputation.” Over the past year, Yon has seen fit to levy other false accusations against me through my command. Because of the spineless nature of my unit, they would rather I shut up instead of have to keep having idiots contact them every time they disagree with me.

This latest Congressional inquiry and formal investigation has put a lot of pressure on me. While I’m confident that no negative actions will come out of it since I am innocent of these psychotic charges, it doesn’t change the face that it’s diverting resources from our mission here. Because of that, the command is upset with me.

This is my problem with today’s Army. Anyone can levy any wild and crazy allegation out of spite and instead of recognizing it for what it is, leaders simply get pissed at the target of these allegations for having to settle them. I tire of hearing hypocritical statement like, “look, I know you didn’t threaten this person, but…” Then, they commence getting on to me for “professional language.”

Naturally, while I’m getting spoken to about using professional language, four letter words pepper the entire conversation on their part. Professional language and accountability is a one-way street these days.

I hate to be so negative, but to be honest there hasn’t been much positive lately going on. I don’t like writing negative stories about the Army, so I tend just to keep my mouth shut. However, this goes beyond the Army when people think they can just get their congressman involved every time they disagree with me, hear a rumor, or are given a blatant lie or falsehood.

In the Army, any time you are under an investigation, formal or informal, you are automatically flagged. This means that you cannot receive any favorable actions like promotions, awards and decorations, and other things. The Army takes a guilty until proven innocent stance regardless of the nature of the accusation, how bogus it is, or the source of the allegation. For the first time in my 17-year career, I’ve been flagged and for something I didn’t do. It’s a great life.

Physically, I’m doing well. However, I haven’t been sleeping much and keeping food down is a challenge. I have a lot of support from outside my unit and within my small team. However, I no longer feel as if I an rely upon my leaders. My phone calls and emails go unanswered unless they are in response to a request they sent out. I am treated like a brand new private and criticized for small, inconsequential things.

For example, the other day I was criticized for requesting phones and computer monitors through the shop that handles phones and computer models because I didn’t go through particular people that want to keep their boot to my neck.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned great coping skills to deal with stress and PTSD indicators. These are definitely coming in handy, but sometimes I feel stretched beyond my capabilities.

I hope everyone is doing well. I guess I shouldn’t complain since I fought for this. But, I was asked and wanted to be honest.

A U.S. Marine from India Company, 6th Marines guards an Afghan detainee arrested near the site of a roadside bomb explosion at a base in Marjah. The man had a false Pakistan passport, two different Afghan identification cards, some wires wrapped on a few batteries, an old rifle and pamphlets of Taliban activities in Marjah. By Mauricio Lima, AFP/Getty Images

KABUL— Afghan officials used torture while investigating suspected militants kept in some detention centers, the United Nations said in a report Monday, weeks after NATO troops halted the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities because of alleged mistreatment of the inmates.

The report found that detainees endured treatment that amounted to torture in 47 detention facilities, run by Afghan police and intelligence service, in 24 of the country’s 34 provinces.

The 74-page report raised particular concerns about detention centers run by the Afghan intelligence agency, known as the National Directorate of Security, or NDS, which held an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 detainees during the period when the investigation took place.

It found “compelling evidence” that 46 percent of the detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention centers had been tortured and that “torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.” Most of the torture, the report said, was intended to extract confessions or information. The United Nations “also found that children under the age of 18 years experienced torture by NDS officials.”

Suddenly, being held captive under U.S. authority isn’t looking quite so bad is it? But I’m sure the detainees themselves have always known this, whether it’s Club Gitmo or Bagram, the preference of those held captive is to be held in U.S.-run detention facilities. It’s the liberal “do-gooders” who need to get the memo.

Courting Disaster, pg 283-4:

There have been more than a dozen major reviews of U.S. detention operations in the war on terror- led by twelve active duty generals and admirals, a former Air Force General, former Democratic and Republican Secretaries of Defense, and a former Member of Congress. None of these reviews found a pattern of abuse at Guantanamo or anywhere else. And all rejected claims of a government policy directing, encouraging, or condoning torture in any theater of the war on terror.

U.S. Army Spc. Michael Leone walks with Afghan kids while providing security on patrol in the Purchaman district in Afghanistan's Farah province, Sept. 26, 2011. Leone is assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 182 Infantry Regiment, security force for Provincial Reconstruction Team Farah. The team attends shuras throughout the province to demonstrate support for the shura elders, the district governor and provincial governance. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airmen Alexandra Hoachlander

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jason Roberts speaks with children in the Mehtar Lam district in Afghanistan's Laghman province, Sept. 26, 2011. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Crane

U.S. Army Capt. Brandon Delatorre and Staff Sgt. Jason Roberts walk and talk with children in the Mehtar Lam district in Afghanistan's Laghman province, Sept. 26, 2011. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Crane

Also, check out CJ’s photo of the day.

IEDs are not slowing down over here. But, thankfully, we’re finding more of them than we’re not. Rocket attacks appear to have picked up as well.

According to USA Today, most of these munitions are being traced back to Pakistan.

From June through August, U.S. troops detected or were hit by 5,088 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the most for any three-month period since the war began in 2001.

Those bombs killed 63 troops and wounded 1,234, Defense Department records show.

More than 80% of the IEDs are homemade explosives using calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer produced in Pakistan, said Navy Capt. Douglas Borrebach, deputy director for resources and requirements at the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization.

I’m fed up with playing politics with the lives of troops. I’m glad that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, publicly accused Pakistan of helping the Haqqani network, but where is the rest of the leadership STILL IN OFFICE calling them to the carpet?

If we have reliable intelligence that Pakistan is killing our Soldiers – or at least supporting those that are – it is an act of war in my opinion. Now, I’m not looking for another fight. Our troops have already endured wars in two nations and going into Pakistan isn’t on anyone’s list of priorities or desires. But, I expect our nation’s leadership to stop playing politics with our troops’ lives and defend us over here! This video shows Soldiers in my unit destroying IEDs on just ONE road here in Afghanistan and how powerful and sustained they are.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Either do what it takes to keep our troops alive and attack the people – wherever they are – that are killing and injuring our troops, or send us home. Stop pussyfooting around with our lives!

I’ve been asked many times how we survive working virtually every day for a year straight. It’s a combination of numbness, lack of anything better to do, and these.

These are the tools of influential communication.

In order to secure my rightful place as King of the Fobbits, I decided to get m’self a college edumacation during this deployment. Classes don’t start until around 2000, so it doesn’t affect work – so far.

Going to college in a combat zone is a unique situation. So far, classes have been interrupted by two rocket attacks, multiple power outages, and construction of bunkers.

Now tell me how many college students have THAT kind of excitement during their classes back in the states?! Of course, the books aren’t any cheaper over here. I still had to pay over $200 for the two books I needed for my classes. I’m taking Advanced Technical Writing and Intro to Business Management through the University of Maryland University College, if you’re wondering. Maybe it’ll help me write better blogs!