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VESSELS DEPLOYED

The swiftboating of Iraq begins:

A riverboat squadron departed Thursday for Iraq, the first deployment of Navy swift boats to a war zone since Vietnam ...

“The missions, the formations, tactics, techniques and procedures are pretty much the same as they were 35 years ago,” Cmdr. Bill Guarini said.

But not exactly the same; this time, there is no magic hat.

Posted by Tim B. on 03/14/2007 at 08:03 AM
  1. “But they can do the job equally well from Okinawa”
    -Murtha

    Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 03 14 at 08:20 AM • permalink

  2. Will there be water skiing?

    Posted by Habib on 2007 03 14 at 08:29 AM • permalink

  3. Ah, we must have located Col. Kurtz

    Posted by brett_l on 2007 03 14 at 08:30 AM • permalink

  4. Theres nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning.

    Posted by surfmaster on 2007 03 14 at 08:48 AM • permalink

  5. Surfmaster, I think in this case it might be Hommous. That and the smell of stale camel.

    Posted by Nic on 2007 03 14 at 08:56 AM • permalink

  6. EEEEEEEwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

    Posted by surfmaster on 2007 03 14 at 09:00 AM • permalink

  7. Iraqalypse Now

    Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 03 14 at 09:56 AM • permalink

  8. I’m sure Christmas in Syria will be most festive.

    Posted by Some0Seppo on 2007 03 14 at 10:16 AM • permalink

  9. I’m going to have to look at what their mission entails there before I make some smart-ass comment. But for now, shoot straight and God-speed Navy.

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 03 14 at 10:31 AM • permalink

  10. John Kerry is already seared, seared! by the memory of their exploits.

    Oh, wait, his actual quote was, “this really burns my ass…”

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 03 14 at 10:39 AM • permalink

  11. Busy times ahead at the Iraq-Cambodia border.

    Posted by PW on 2007 03 14 at 10:50 AM • permalink

  12. Baghdad. Still in Baghdad…

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 03 14 at 11:08 AM • permalink

  13. I’m with Texas Bob here. No smart arse comments.

    Go Navy.

    God bless you all and keep you safe.

    Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 03 14 at 12:12 PM • permalink

  14. Will there be water skiing?

    No, and Achmed don’t surf neither.

    Go, Swifties, go! God speed.

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 03 14 at 01:30 PM • permalink

  15. You can go to their site at necc.navy.mil.

    The FAQ section seems to be the best place(IMO).

    As the story suggests they are going to keep the inland waterways open, move units in and out and kill and break things as required.

    The Riverine Unit appears to be new-again!
    As best as I can gather this capability was done by the Marine Corps who seem to be handing it back to the Navy.  Their site speaks about taking over after the Marine Corps “divestiture” of this capability.

    Hope this helps.

    Posted by yojimbo on 2007 03 14 at 04:08 PM • permalink

  16. The USN has been working on a Limited Ground Combat organization for some time now.

    I wonder if this squadron is part of that effort?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 03 14 at 05:15 PM • permalink

  17. I think this very late deployment is a real worry.  Rumsfeld does have lot to answer for, as he tried to win an obvious guerrilla war with insufficient troops and a very inadequate strategy.
    Somehow he repeated the one-hand-tied policy in Vietnam, and now the US people are getting bored and restless as in the late 1960s.
    The worst US weakness is that it has too much faith in technology, and too little willpower to assert its musclepower - because of all their uber-pacifists who have overplayed Abu Ghraib like they did My Lai.

    Iraq was a long-destroyed society in its leadrship. It was also an artificial country lke Yugoslavia. It was obvious that it needed a very strong hand everywhere after the initial war.

    Bush-Rumsfeld failed, not in their regime-change aim, but in their execution..
    As in:  Where’s the regime 4 years on?

    Posted by Barrie on 2007 03 14 at 05:43 PM • permalink

  18. Better late than never, eh?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 03 14 at 06:22 PM • permalink

  19. In related news, John Kerry has just posted one of the first citations to an officer serving with the new unit to his website as his own…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 03 14 at 08:21 PM • permalink

  20. Ah.  So it never ends.  I’m sure Kary thot about tha new Swift Boats afor he fourgot about them.

    If anyone is feeling literary and whimsical ~ drunken and Dylan Thomasish ~ let me know and I’ll open the thread again.

    The world needs poetry.

    Posted by tree hugging sister on 2007 03 14 at 10:42 PM • permalink

  21. Can we send the Swift boats to Australia to warm up that cold water eddy with their jet-boat exhausts…?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 03 14 at 10:47 PM • permalink

  22. Rumsfeld does have lot to answer for, as he tried to win an obvious guerrilla war with insufficient troops and a very inadequate strategy.


    Everything’s so obvious four years later, eh Barrie?

    Posted by Some0Seppo on 2007 03 15 at 09:19 AM • permalink

  23. #17, Barrie:

    Nice regurgitation of the left-o-bot rant points.

    Wonderful how pervasive the idiot propaganda has become, eh?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 03 15 at 03:15 PM • permalink

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