good eye - looks like he wants an EIB. or to kill some fools...whatever.

what i want to know is why the guy in the foreground doesn't have a magazine in his rifle...

for being a smartass. looks like someone likes magpul.

I remember a few years back when we were treated to the nugget that our (truly) brave lads would routinely regain the advantage from an Iraqi ambush by attacking into the threat. And no doubt the bold tactic was surprising at first, when the trap had no depth. Not so great when a under-armored patrol rushed into the briar patch.

What happened to the Russians when they started doing hot pursuit, and inserting spetznatz operators deep against the Muj, over the Durand Line? The 2008 Wanat report indicated intent to take captives, or to make it look that way.

Over there in IRP'stan, we must either use non-US troops for cross-border ground and CAS missions, or we will soon have a list of MIA's and POW's. Use of lethal forces who aren't in US uniforms raises the spectre that our employes and their paymasters are illegal combatants, no? We've set a precedent that such can be kidnapped, rendered across borders and treated badly, their international bases bombed.

Carrying Obama's war into our allies territory is a legal quagmire.

The elimination of POW's and air-rescues gone bad is seldom mentioned as a primary driver to UAV's over manned CAS, perhaps offsetting politically the tactical loss of ground attack functionality, where a pilot-officer has the right to engage forces shooting at him. The Marines accept the risk to their gunships, and I suppose stand ready to flood the district with troops and shake every haystack if they can't recover a body.

Not possible in Pakistan.