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wesleymorgan.bsky.social
Writing about America’s post-9/11 wars and their aftermath https://linktr.ee/wesleysmorgan Author of THE HARDEST PLACE https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227894/the-hardest-place-by-wesley-morgan/ Evangelist for THE LONG SHIPS Signal wesmorgan.01
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It’s not just 700 Marines, it’s a battalion, a combat unit called 2/7. When I was in a similar unit, 2/8, we had literally 1 week of “non-lethal” (riot control) training. And about 4 years of lethal training. No disrespect to 2/7, but they’re not trained for this. They’re trained for war.

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

Compared to their rush into Gaza City in fall 2023, right now IDF ground forces are just nibbling around the edges of Gaza’s urban areas—even though all of Khan Younis and large chunks of Gaza City are under evacuation orders so what’s left of them can be flattened ahead of the advance, as in Rafah.

submitted 11 hours ago • 1 comment

HOT DOGS TUESDAY

submitted 14 hours ago • 9 comments

Chivers—one of the greatest war correspondents of the post-9/11 era—was mobilized for the 1992 LA riots as a rifle company commander shortly before he got out of the Marines. Definitely worth the read.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Pretty convincing circumstantial case in here by “not a brains girl” @caity.bsky.social that Mark Twain lied about going to the Louvre

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Blue is where the IDF says it's currently operating—40 percent of Gaza. It's a 5-division force now (as in Nov-Dec 2023) that the IDF says includes all 10 active-duty brigades, and there's evidence of 4+ reserve brigades. Low IDF casualties: just 19 KIA since March (out of 430 in Gaza overall).

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

“INDOPACOM is the priority theater….and by INDOPACOM I mean California”

submitted 1 day ago • 6 comments

An Afghan CTPT officer who was with NDS-03 during the collapse, defense of HKIA, and evacuation confirms to me: “Yes, we have one guy in Texas who has been taken.” “Been taken” is a chilling way of phrasing it from a guy who lived through the disappearances of many of his men in Afg.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Just remembering that elements of the active duty 7th Infantry Division and also some Marines deployed to the LA riots in 1992 near the end. Wikipedia, citing a Kennedy School of Government case studies gives an interesting example of how things can unintentionally go south in such situations. 1/3?

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

This story has everything: rare Arabian leopards (coming to the DC zoo!), Trump/MBS enthusing over the leopards, Roger Stone explaining why leopards are cooler than pandas, Joe Exotic begging for a pardon in exchange for being the keeper at a White House big-cat complex he says Trump should build

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

The latest IDF evacuation orders, as of June 8, increase the proportion of Gaza that is off-limits to Gazans from 72 percent to 76 percent, with the new orders applying to Gaza City and Jabaliya where the 252nd and 162nd Divisions have begun operations. (Urban areas outlined in white.)

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

How public pressure to avoid risk to soldiers affects the war in Gaza: when 4 soldiers die entering a house that proved to be boobytrapped, the IDF gets questions about why the house wasn’t just destroyed like so many others. That did not happen when HBIEDs were killing US troops in Iraq in 2007-8.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

This is fascinating—using DHS paramilitaries to create the conditions to justify sending in actual soldiers, who everyone will already be furious at because the DHS paramilitaries were wearing uniforms so visually similar (Multicam) that many people will understandably conflate them.

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

OK, I know more about the CA case and we have more information on the deployments coming out, so a few thoughts. 1. This is a massive overreach of POTUS authority. Using Section 12406 to federalize/deploy military forces w/out also invoking the Insurrection Act is literally unprecedented. 1/

submitted 2 days ago • 16 comments

I don’t know what purpose the “AI findings” tool on this photo repository site is supposed to serve, but what it’s done here is take a real caption with real information and make a new version of it with incorrect unit and place names for no reason

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

very excited for the "no more COIN, ever" military to run head-first into an insurrection act declaration

submitted 3 days ago • 6 comments

This is a shameful moment within an already shameful moment of American history.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Although the Houston ICE arrestee is described in the story as part of the Afghan army, his attorney identifies him as a veteran of the Kandahar Strike Force—aka the QSF or NDS-03, the CIA’s Afghan surrogate force in Kandahar. Here’s a 2021 story of mine about NDS-03’s very difficult escape:

submitted 3 days ago • 10 comments

ICE arrested former Afghan Nat'l Army soldier—our ally against Taliban—at his home in TX. He entered legally and atty says he has no criminal record. Was applying for asylum. Appears to be casualty of Trump decision de-documenting legal Afghan immigrants www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/new...

submitted 3 days ago • 180 comments