Life on the internet can get real strange at times!
• “...even fewer still are looking at the terrain and thinking for themselves.”
Like they say, you can't tell the players without a program. And in this case, the players are the mountains, the passes, the valleys, the towns and the borders. And the program is the maps. Without the maps, you're just guessing about what's really going on and, more importantly, why.
• “I'd enjoy discussing possibilities in greater detail, but it doesn't seem like such a good idea in such a public place.”
There's very little we can discuss here that the bad guys don't already know because they're hip-deep in it. But some thoughtful opsec and a little discretion, never hurt anyone. Plus, here on FR you can avail yourself of private FReepmail to keep selected parties up to date with up coming events that you feel should be treated more discretely.
• “Simple as pie, my foot. I can tell roughly how many searches you had to run to find that and I know how long each one takes.”
You got that right! I did that search back in March and if memory serves, it took about four hours to glean what I could from Google and then do a narrow, focused search of the GEONames data base. One good thing about the speed of that data base, is that I can generally tell when a major U.S. operation is under way, because it takes extra long to post the results to me.
• “I usually try the Islami-finder first and GEOnames only in dire emergencies.”
Islami-finder is built from a much narrower (populated place) data base than GEONames. Even worse, they don't include variant names nor do they include the names of mountains, hills, valleys, springs, etc., etc. And geographic features comprise a lot of the features that we find ourselves tracking down.
For example, take that volatile collection of little villages, a dozen or so miles SW of Wana. You've already mentioned one of them, Kaloosha. Often cited in that collection of villages, is Azam Warzak. The problem is, Azam Warzak (native: Azamiwarsakai) is not a village it is a set of hills and the nearby villages are so small that they are commonly referred to by the name of the nearby hills, Azam Warzak.
BTW, I occasionally use another website, similar to Islami-find. I'll see if I can dig up the URL tonight and post it to you so you can compare the two and see if one is more worthwhile than the other.
Enjoyed the exchange.
--Boot Hill
Valin, I have oplans, fragplans, SIOPs, even floorplans. Thing is, Mushie won't take my calls, not sure why.
Boot Hill, I found out about Azam Warsak the hard way. Several days worth. At some point, I even found some coordinates...N32.0931 W69.4139...but IIRC there was a question mark attached to them so take them with a grain of salt. Not sure, that was about 857362543548392745 little villages ago.
I have a theory. I don't speak Pashto, but I'm guessing that every mud hut is actually a village, since more than one person probably lives there. The "village" names are related to the tribe and family names, so you have "Uncle Fred's town", "Uncle Fred's brother's town", and then you have "Uncle Fred's other brother's town" except the folks on that side of the clan switch the last two names around because obviously they are closer to this brother by blood and marriage so the first brother is the other brother to them. Of course, when somebody dies....or moves....or visits relatives...
Anyway, the contact seems to have moved slightly to Baghar, a different town near Angor Adda, or perhaps one of the miscreants died, or moved, or...anyway, it was still going on as of sundown, Lima. Sixteen rotary wing assets pounding away, possible CAS, reports of heavy casualties amongst the bad guys but no solid confirmation on that yet.
Things are heating up elsewhere too. Seems some PPP type in Karachi walked into a bullet, and his comrades walked out of the NA to plan massive protests. Could be SOP, could be significant, maybe after the mud at Baghar is returned to the horizontal state, I wouldn't complain if they took time to consolidate a bit. It's not like anyone has anywhere else to go.