A day's Work

While you were sleeping, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers were busy:

Monday, 23 July 2007 Three Iraqis freed, their captors detained

Monday, 23 July 2007 Iraqis take lead in island clearing operation

Monday, 23 July 2007 Allons Soldiers render medical aid to Iraqis after VBIED blast

Monday, 23 July 2007 Truck Bomb destroyed during Marne Avalanche

Monday, 23 July 2007 12 al-Qaeda terrorist facilitators captured

Monday, 23 July 2007 Coalition Forces kill 9 terrorists, detain 8 and destroy weapons caches

Monday, 23 July 2007 Warlords find EFP cache

Monday, 23 July 2007 Combined operation nets cache find in Jamia

Monday, 23 July 2007 Suicide car bombers miss target, kill 3 civilians, wound 13 others

Monday, 23 July 2007 Soldiers search for missing comrades leads to discovery of weapons caches

Monday, 23 July 2007 Task Force Marne Soldier died of wounds

Monday, 23 July 2007 Soldiers attacked during combat logistics patrol

Monday, 23 July 2007 IA Forces, U.S. Special Forces detain al-Qaida Terrorists linked to U.S. casualties

Monday, 23 July 2007 Search nets seven terrorist suspects in Bulayj

Monday, 23 July 2007 IA, U.S. Special Forces detain alleged terrorist finance chief in Ninewa Province

Monday, 23 July 2007 ISF, U.S. Special Forces detain five suspected extremists

Sunday, 22 July 2007 Insurgents target ambulance

Sunday, 22 July 2007 Iraqi Army, Coalition Forces detain suspected Al Qaeda cell leader near Taji

Sunday, 22 July 2007 Coalition Forces Detain Two Suspected Weapons Smugglers

Sunday, 22 July 2007 Coalition Forces kill one terrorist, detain 14 suspects

Not a bad day's work from hard working soldiers. (And there are more stories here. And there are even more stories that aren't - stories that time and security considerations won't allow.

Haditha Marine Father has a Conversation with John Murtha

Throughout this Haditha investigation our family has believed in the innocence of our son L/Cpl Justin Sharratt, we knew he was innocent. There are things I do not understand and I would like to find the answers. We do not seek revenge, but we would like to see justice. In a conversation with Congressman John Murtha, my questions still remain unanswered. With the help of the American people, I hope to find justice.

On Wednesday morning, July 17th I spoke with Congressman John Murtha via telephone from his Washington, DC office. We had a courteous conversation. I knew what to expect from a career politician and Congressman Murtha did not disappoint. Mr. Murtha avoided answering the hard questions and I was unable to press him for the answers. I wanted the conversation to remain amicable and decided to let him speak and avoid a heated confrontation.

At no time during the dialogue would Mr. Murtha acknowledge the impending exoneration of my son.
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Mr Murtha believes combat operations in Iraq have put an enormous strain on our Armed Forces. The stress of combat situations has led our troops to kill innocent civilians. I pointed out to Mr. Murtha, “Our Haditha Marines are innocent until proven guilty.” It seems he is again denying our Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence.
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I questioned Congressman Murtha as to his statements of 17 May 2006. On national television, in front of millions of Americans, he stated “Marines killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” I asked him why he denied these Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence. Again the Congressman used his experience to side step the answer. Mr. Murtha stated his intentions were to point out the stress our military was under in Iraq. He replied we would not win the hearts of the Iraqi people by killing women and children. I again snapped, “Our Haditha Marines have not been convicted of killing innocents and are innocent until proven guilty.”

But do I still support the individual men and women who have given so much to serve their country?

No. I think they’re a bunch of idiots. I also think they’re morally retarded. Because they sign a contract that says they will kill whoever you tell me to kill. And that is morally retarded.

We were already halfway through our meals when she arrived. After a minute or two of eating in silence, one of my friends stabbed his spoon violently into his pile of mashed potatoes and left it there.
“Man, I can’t eat like this,” he said.
“Like what?” I said. “Chow hall food getting to you?”
“No—with that fucking freak behind us!” he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth.
“Are you kidding? I think she’s fucking hot!” I blurted out.
“What?” said my friend, half-smiling.
“Yeah man,” I continued. “I love chicks that have been intimate—with IEDs. It really turns me on—melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses . . . .”
“You’re crazy, man!” my friend said, doubling over with laughter. I took it as my cue to continue.
“In fact, I was thinking of getting some girls together and doing a photo shoot. Maybe for a calendar? ‘IED Babes.’ We could have them pose in thongs and bikinis on top of the hoods of their blown-up vehicles.”
My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing. The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall, her half-finished tray of food nearly falling to the ground.

According to the July 30, 2007 issue of The Nation magazine, damning photos of a U.S. Soldier using a spoon to literally scoop out the brains of a dead Iraqi and pretending to eat the gray matter were recently acquired.

Of course, everyone is appropriately appalled and make all claims of disgust and finger-wagging. Research shows, however, that such unacceptable behavior happens more often than the United States military wants you to know.

When it comes to training killing machines, the military really does create “an Army of one.”

The list of serial killers and mass murderers borne from the military is astounding.

And here's the referenced story from The Nation:

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.
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This Nation investigation marks the first time so many on-the-record, named eyewitnesses from within the US military have been assembled in one place to openly corroborate these assertions.

The Nation contacted various anti-war groups to find veterans willing to make such claims:

To find veterans willing to speak on the record about their experiences in Iraq, we sent queries to organizations dedicated to US troops and their families, including Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the antiwar groups Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War and the prowar group Vets for Freedom. The leaders of IVAW and Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of IAVA, were especially helpful in putting us in touch with Iraq War veterans.

That Nation hit-piece was by Chris Hedges. His semi-disguised public relations campaign for Iraq Veterans Against the War also appeared in the LA Times earlier in the month:

AFTER FOUR YEARS of war, most Americans still remain sheltered from the day-to-day realities of the occupation of Iraq, especially its effects on Iraqis. With reporter Laila Al-Arian, I spent the last few months interviewing 50 combat veterans, and in thousands of pages of transcripts, they told a brutal story.

With extraordinary honesty, these veterans — medics, MPs, artillerymen, snipers, officers and others — revealed disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops: innocents terrorized during midnight raids, civilian cars fired on when they got too close to supply convoys and troops opening up on vehicles that zip past poorly marked checkpoints, only to discover that they'd shot a 3-year-old or an elderly man. The campaign against a mostly invisible enemy, many veterans said, has given rise to a culture of fear and even hatred among U.S. forces, many of whom, losing ground and beleaguered, have, in effect, declared war on all Iraqis.

That this many stories on the same theme appeared in so many leftist publications nearly simultaneously over the past week is as coincidental and unrelated as the multiple operations American and Iraq soldiers performed yesterday. We'll look at motivation tomorrow.

"Tomorrow" for me comes with this disclaimer. Astute observers will have noted that my "day's work" listed above actually stretched over two days. That was one day in my world - I worked from 4PM Sunday until 5 PM Monday without a break. Then, instead of going out and killing Iraqi babies I went back to the tent and wrote a song to my wife via flashlight.

So see you tomorrow, whenever that may be. In the meantime, sleep well, America.

Part two is here