Courtney, what year were you there?
Hmm: maybe our low and slow was part of our risk profile. Light civil "kamikaze" fly about where a helicopter (we could do upwards of 135 knots) does. Maybe we were more of a threat then go fasters
unless identified. Memory a bit fuzzy on that, but I seem to recall something about the Cessna with a bomb during the inchop brief, or that class of threat.
In other news, over a thousand Syrians died via conventional means last week. Good thing no poison gas was used, eh?
The bloodletting is likely to get worse, not better
So, where is the sainted Seymour Hirsch when you need him? Seems he can't find this story, so someone else has to.
At a base near Tehran, Iranian forces are training Shiite militiamen from across the Arab world to do battle in Syria—showing the widening role of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria's bloody war.
The busloads of Shiite militiamen from Iraq, Syria and other Arab states have been arriving at the Iranian base in recent weeks, under cover of darkness, for instruction in urban warfare and the teachings of Iran's clerics, according to Iranian military figures and residents in the area. The fighters' mission: Fortify the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad against Sunni rebels, the U.S. and Israel.
Iran's widening role in Syria has helped Mr. Assad climb back from
near-defeat in less than a year. The role of Iran's training camp for Shiite
fighters hasn't previously been disclosed.
The fighters "are told that the war in Syria is akin to [an] epic battle for Shiite Islam, and if they die they will be martyrs of the highest rank," says an Iranian military officer briefed on the training camp, which is 15 miles outside Tehran and called Amir Al-Momenin, or Commander of the Faithful.
The training of thousands of fighters is an outgrowth of Iran's decision last year to immerse itself in the Syrian civil war on behalf of its struggling ally, the Assad regime, in an effort to shift the balance of power in the Middle East. Syria's bloodshed is shaping into more than a civil war: It is now a proxy war among regional powers jockeying for influence in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions.
A Song of the Civil War or The Song Every and Any Civil War?