Just Another Stripe (Down the Toilet of Life)

Joe Chenelly, who did a fine job presenting MilBloggers in the Army Times, quoted me during an NPR interview recently:

On particular blogger, who goes by the handle Greyhawk, recommended that anyone blogging, when they write, to write assuming that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is going to read your blog.

Everyone has a vision of how they want to remember their combat experience and particularly how they want others to view their combat service. Most soldiers, and especially infantrymen, want to realize all their Jerry Bruckheimer-fueled fantasies with macho military fervor. All I did was include more details in hopes of providing a more honest and humorous perspective of what soldiering is typically like. I could write ?We went on a raid tonight. We smashed the gate down and cleared the house, but the guy we were looking for wasn?t home.? But instead I?d write ?Tonight we went on a raid. It wasn?t till 3am and I couldn?t sleep so I masturbated before we left. On the way to the raid we got lost, but after driving around for a while we finally found the house. We tried to breech the gate of the outer wall, but in the process accidentally ended up knocking the entire wall over. After clearing the house, we realized it was the wrong one. Once we figured out where the correct house was, we raided it. But the guy we were looking for wasn?t home. As I was pulling security on an alley, I realized that the chow we had for dinner wasn?t agreeing with me and when I tried to fart ended up shitting my pants a little. Once we finished searching the house, we hopped back in our Humvees and took what we thought was our planned egress route, but instead found ourselves on a dead end canal road. While turning around, one of the Humvees got stuck in the mud. Most raids do not go this badly. We eventually made it back to our base safe and sound. My ass had started to chafe from when I ?sharted?, so I took a shower, masturbated, and went to bed.? (This, by the way, is a true story.) If I wrote a story like this, my commander would spend thirty minutes condemning me for portraying our unit as incompetent and unprofessional, but charge me with violating OPSEC because I disclosed tactical details on how we perform breeches.

Apparently our brigade JAG guy (2 BCT 1 ID) was too busy with his own blog (daggerjag.blogspot.com or something like that) to process my article 15 while we were in Iraq, so it didn?t get resolved.

This case illustrates perfectly the absurdity of attempting to regulate military blogs. Once his blog was shut down Hartley began sending his observations out via an email list - one that anyone who wished could sign up for at his site. Of course, several bloggers did so, and they posted his email on their blogs, and as a result his words appear on even more web sites and reach an even larger audience than if he was simply running a blog.

Still, Just Another Soldier is the example cited time and again by those who insist that military bloggers are oppressed and censored by "The Army". There's another angle that is repeatedly misinterpreted in the MilBlogs story - blame "The Army" all you want, it's the individual commanders who determine if a soldier's activities are prejudicial to morale, order, and discipline. Jason's obviously made his decision. And as he seems to comprehend (based on the above excerpt) the reality is that Hartley's work violates the mother side of Greyhawk's rule above. And while some Americans are interested in the former SGT's uninsipid toilet habits, the Chairman doesn't care, and his commander was obviously unimpressed.

From the Front

Ma Deuce Gunner on NPR - and I don't mean he's talking about NPR, I mean he was interviewed for a segment on NPR. The piece also incudes a discussion with Jason Hartley, who writes Just Another Soldier, and who ran afoul of his command by blogging.

Audio available at the link.

Open Post

The weekend edition. Lot's of great links on yesterday's too - don't miss it.

Every Day Hero

Marine Stops Enemy Attack, Saves Comrades
U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Bryan J. Nagel

Insurgents launched an attack against one of 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment?s observation posts in the city here the evening of April 20 but they didn?t count on one Marine: Pfc. Bryan J. Nagel.

Open Post

Have at it!

More Signs of the Times

The NY Time's editorial, 27 April 05:

The millions of brave Iraqis who risked their lives to vote in January didn't expect that nearly three months later, their squabbling politicians would still be struggling to form a government. As a result, precious momentum has been lost, and a briefly improving security situation has again started deteriorating. The Sunni-based insurgency seems to have drawn fresh encouragement from the inability of the victorious Shiite and Kurdish parties to put the future of their country ahead of their narrow political agendas.

Of course not. Terrorist Violence never went away in Iraq, as readers here well know. Terri Schiavo starved slowly to death, an old Pope passed away and a new one was selected, then front-pages rediscovered Iraq. And this was to be the new mantra of failure, and all the lesser papers would follow the lead of the Times: The Sunni-based insurgency seems to have drawn fresh encouragement from the inability of the victorious Shiite and Kurdish parties to put the future of their country ahead of their narrow political agendas. So it was written, so shall it be.

Except for one thing. On that very day the elected representatives of the people of Iraq announced the cabinet had been chosen. How painful for the Times, who couldn't even stop editorializing in their page one coverage of the news:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 27 - Iraq's new prime minister announced Wednesday that he had submitted a full list of cabinet members, opening the way for a multiethnic government to assume power and end a three-month political stalemate that has appeared to be fueling violence.

One thing we can't accuse the New York Times of is wasting time . Having had the rug yanked from under them by a reinvigorated government in Iraq, their argument has now morphed overnight into a slightly new variation on the theme. First paragraph, today's editorial:

Three months of jockeying among Iraq's victorious Shiite and Kurdish parties have finally produced a cabinet that won quick ratification from a legislature where those same parties dominate. The January election that began this process was inspiring. The months of petty haggling that followed were not, and while the formation of an elected Iraqi government is a historic moment, its makeup is far from ideal. Crucial choices have been needlessly delayed, and an incomparable opportunity for drawing patriotic Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency was largely squandered.

There's another aspect of the Times narrative that most people will find repulsive. As noted before, the Times has no problem with the inability of the US Senate, a body drawing on over 200 years of history and tradition, to approve presidential appointments in this country. (For the record, my opinion in both the Iraq and American examples is business as usual. Such is the price of democracy.) Their double standard is inexcusable, and in leering down their noses at the struggling people of Iraq the Times comes dangerously close to accusing "those people" of being incapable of self-government, or sustaining democracy. But sneering at Iraq while ignoring obstruction on the US Senate floor reveals the underlying reality that it's the elected government of the United States that the Times can't abide - the people of Iraq are just collateral damage in their attack, future corpses who's photos will one day help sell newspapers - and fuel more cries of failure.

Least we forget, here's the NY Times on the Iraqi elections, on the day of the elections:

Nearly 22 months after American troops captured Baghdad, lighting a fire of enthusiasm for the freedoms Iraqis had craved so long, it is a measure of how much has gone wrong that Iraqis committed to Western-style democratic ideals can differ so sharply over the best way to secure them. Much of the problem is that the elections are being held under the dominion of the United States.

Many Iraqis, interviews in recent months have shown, do not accept that fundamental choices about the shape of their future political system should be made by a foreign power, particularly one they regard as a harbinger of secular, materialistic values far removed from the Muslim world's.

But questions over the election go far beyond the American stewardship, to issues that touch on whether it was ever wise or realistic to think that Jeffersonian-style democracy, with its elaborate checks on power and guarantees for minority rights, could be implanted, at least so rapidly, in a country and a region that has little experience with anything but winner-take-all politics.

From the Front

Blogging live from Iraq, Airborne Hog Society has some Insurgent Bloopers, lets hope he reports more of these in the future. But don't stop there check out his whole blog, it's a great read.

Torture Test

(Greyhawk notes: this post, written during my tour in Iraq, was originally published here in January 2005. I'm re-posting it today to mark the one-year anniversary of CBS' broadcast of the various photos they had been handed via one of the defendents in the case, immediately after it was determined he would stand trial for his crimes. See also an even earlier post on the timeline of events surrounding the case. I suppose I should get around to updating that entry...)

Abu Ghraib is but a stone's throw from where I now type these words, and it's ugliness is more than skin deep. It's a very real place, and an undesirable home to criminals and those whose duty it is to guard them. But to many it's an abstract image, a debate point to be used against opponents like garlic to frighten vampires, a boogy man to frighten children. They inject that ward into any writing they do on certain topics in an attempt to frame the discussion around what is unquestionably now the immediate mind's eye association most people in the world make with the word "torture" - the horrendous photos from the notorious prison.

Here's an illustration from the Washington Post: Does the Right Remember Abu Ghraib? See, it's about Abu Ghraib people! Defend that! The title alone is an attempt to frame the debate on two points. 1) The issue is a right/left issue, and 2) The notorious digital images from Abu Ghraib are a result of government policy.

Both claims lack merit.

Let's dispense with the right/left aspect of this outright. Not everything can be pigeonholed into those political categories, and certainly no one on either end of the political spectrum feels torture is one of the defining points of their position. As much as some may take delight in setting up a "torture aficionado straw man" who supported that other guy in the last election" it's certainly not a legitimate starting point for any reasonable discussion on the matter. Unfortunately there are those who would have it that way in the US Senate, and whatever the outcome the nation will be the worse for it.

If you're looking for further discussion on that political topic move on. The remainder of this post is not for you. But you will miss a chance to look a little deeper into the ugly mirror that is Abu Ghraib, perhaps to clear a bit of fog from it's surface, and discover if you know all you think you do on that topic.

Take this simple 10 question quiz. The answers follow (no fair peeking). There are no trick questions, and no opinion questions. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. But perhaps not those you'll find on the editorial pages of your local paper.

Pencils ready? Here's the quiz:

1. The famous "60 Minutes" photos from Abu Ghraib were

a. Taken over a period of several months

b. All from one night

c. All from one week

-------------------

2. Who were the victims in those photos, and why were they singled out for abuse?

a. Iraqi cab drivers / mistakenly identified as terrorists

b. Suspected Al-Qaeda Terrorists / Intel officers acting under orders from the Pentagon had carefully instructed the guards at Abu Ghraib in the effectiveness of humiliation in getting terrorists to "sing", and actively encouraged it's use.

c. "Insurgents" / High Command needed info quickly to stem the rising tide of violence during Ramadan

d. Ordinary criminals in prison for their crimes, of no intelligence value/they were brought to the high security area for fighting among themselves at another area of the prison.

-------------------

3. Throughout Fall 2003 SSg Ivan Frederick, a guard at Abu Ghraib, was continuously emailing his concerns about conditions home to his family, but higher ups ignored them.

True or False
-------------------

4. The highest ranking of the accused torturers at Abu Ghraib were Reservists, not Active Duty. What were their civilian occupations?

a. Republican precinct Chairmen

b. WalMart Stockboys

c. Postal workers

d. Prison guards

-------------------

5. Lyndie England was an administrative worker at the prison. Why was she present for the torture session?

a. Not enough "real guards" due to poor planning

b. She was celebrating her Birthday with her boyfriend, and had violated orders to be there

c. The naked pyramid was scientifically proven more effective if a female was present

d. Direct orders of Donald Rumsfeld

-------------------

6. The Army suppressed the story of Abu Ghraib until the 60 Minutes broadcast.

True or False
-------------------

7. The Army investigation began

a. After 60 Minutes aired the photos when General Taguba was sent to find out what happened

b. Shortly after the event when a fellow guard learned of the photos and reported the abuse to higher ups at Abu Ghraib

c. When Frederick alerted his family to what he was being forced to do

d. When photos began showing up on weblogs operated by the guards

-------------------

8. How were the pictures made public?

a. Discovered after months-long investigations by reporter Seymour Hersh and 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes

b. Handed to Hersh by Gary Myers, his old pal from the My-Lai court martial who was coincidentally representing SSG Ivan Frederick, the highest ranking individual charged with torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, immediately after the preliminary hearing in which they were released to the defense

c. Handed to a representative of 60 Minutes by relatives of SSG Frederick

d. Discovered posted on weblogs operated by the guards

-------------------

9. General Taguba in Senate testimony blamed events on

a. Poorly supervised individuals acting on their own

b. Unnamed Pentagon bureaucrats

c. The military culture

d. Individuals carrying out what they believed to be legal orders

-------------------

10. SSG Frederick:

a. Was given a slap on the hand

b. Was found guilty by court martial despite the valiant efforts of his top-notch defense team to identify the "real criminals"

c. Pleaded guilty at start of court martial

---------------------------------------------------------

Answers

1: B. The photos were from November 8, 2003.

Those who thought otherwise are experiencing the "success" of Seymour Hersh's early efforts. In a theme later adopted and repeated worldwide, Seymour Hersh (and others) insisted frequently that there were thousands of photos available: "This is a generation that sends stuff on CDs, sends it around. some kid right now is negotiating with some European magazine. -- You know, I can't say that for sure, but it's there. -- It's out there. And the Army knows it." As of this writing no additional pictures have surfaced.

2. D. Criminals brought to the cell block for fighting. They were not being interrogated for information, in fact they were being tortured as punishment and for "fun". At England's hearing, a government lawyer read numerous statements from England's previous sworn statements into the record. The statements are of England admitting to stepping on prisoners' toes, taking photos, posing for photos and posing prisoners for photos, and saying she participated for fun, not due to orders. Additional testimony corroborated this admission.

Another Hershism: He tried desperately to depict the Abu Ghraib torture victims as innocents swept off the streets as a result of confessions gained in earlier torture sessions: "I'll tell you how they get there. You bust the guy that doesn't have anything to do. You humiliate him. You break him down. You interrogate him. He gives up the name of you want to know who is an insurgent, who is Al Qaeda? He gives up any name he knows."

3. False. Frederick began emailing his family about the situation at Abu Ghraib after he was arrested for his part in the torture. Those who thought otherwise may have been mislead by Seymour Hersh's original New Yorker piece on the event, in which Seymour told the story without using chronological order.

4. D. Although several early stories tried to paint them as untrained individuals thrust into a job they weren't prepared to do, Ivan Frederick (38 at the time) and Charles Graner (36 at the time) were prison guards.

Key quotes:

Frederick (original 60 Minutes story linked above): Frederick told us he will plead not guilty, claiming the way the Army was running the prison led to the abuse of prisoners.

...He's a corrections officer at a Virginia prison, whose warden described Frederick to us as "one of the best."

Graner (link above): But public records indicate that Graner had troubles at work as a correctional officer in the state prison system in Greene County -- a history of disciplinary actions that culminated in his firing in 2000. He was later reinstated by an arbitrator.

A reporter who served with Graner previously: He said he was shocked to hear that Graner has been accused of mistreating prisoners, in part because of the training they and other guards received years ago. "It was drilled into our minds well before we left the continental U.S. what we were allowed to do, and not allowed to do, relative to the treatment of prisoners."

More Hersh: "Let me just say this. I believe the services have a -- look, the kids did bad things. But the notion that it's all just these kids [doing these things]... The officers are "in loco parentis" with these children. We send our children to war. And we have officers like that general, whose job is to be mother and father to these kids, to keep them out of trouble. The idea of watching these pictures, it's not only a failure of the kids, it's a failure of everybody in the command structure."

5. B. England was celebrating her 21st birthday with her boyfriend, Graner. Numerous early media versions of the story would quote her family members questioning why she was being used as a guard when that wasn't her job. (At the time it was a "not enough soldiers to do the job" story) England was in fact violating orders by being in the cell block. Later she would claim that her superiors had instructed her to pose and told her exactly what to do. If that's true, it was Frederick or Graner giving the "orders", but she never named names, or, if she did, it didn't "make the papers".

Update/more:

But England refused to give him up. In March 2003, she went with Graner and another soldier to Virginia Beach. During the trip, Graner took pictures of himself having anal sex with England. He also photographed her placing her nipple in the ear of the other soldier, who was passed out in a hotel room. Soon, it became their new game: Whenever Graner asked her to, England would strike a pose.

"Everything they did, he took a picture of," says Hardy, her lawyer. "I asked Lynndie why she let him. She said, 'Guys like that. I just wanted to make him happy.' She was like a little plaything for him. The sexual stuff, the way he put her in those positions, that was his way of saying, 'Let's see what I can make you do.'"
<...>
During that time, Graner instigated another kind of amusement: sexually charged weekly theme parties in the barracks. "Naked Chem-Light Tuesday," he called it. A Chem-Light is a light stick used by soldiers that's akin to a flashlight, containing hydrogen peroxide and a fluorescent dye packaged in a small plastic tube. Break it open, and the stuff glows for hours. One night, Graner pulled his shorts down, poured the contents of a Chem-Light onto his penis, and walked around naked.
<...>
And pose for more pictures. In a supply room, Graner takes a shot of England performing oral sex. England adds a flourish for the photos: a thumbs-up sign. In another photo, England is standing near a detainee, Hayder Sabbar Abd, a 34-year-old taxi driver, as he is being made to simulate masturbation. Again, she gives a thumbs-up.
<...>
They'd found a dead goat and a dead cat somewhere and started slicing them up. Someone took a photo of a soldier pretending to have sex with the goat's head. "Then they cut off the cat's head and shoved it on the top of a soda bottle," England says.
For several weeks, the decaying animal heads provided entertainment for the soldiers. "Someone put sunglasses on them, and put the rifle next to the heads and took a picture. Some soldiers put a cigarette in the cat's mouth," she says. The soldiers stashed the severed heads in their rooms.

"It was funny," England says. "So funny."

7. B. The Army began investigating as soon as a fellow guard reported the photos he had seen.

8. C. The known correct answer is "C" - Members of Frederick's family handed the photos to a 60 Minutes representative. The NY Times offers this quote from his uncle: "The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.'s because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case." Ironically that may better describe the motive of the 60 Minutes crew.

The relationship between Hersh and Frederick's lawyer was certainly just an amazing coincidence.

If you'd heard this quote from during the time of the 60 Minutes / "Rathergate" story you might have been misled on this question: Ms. Mapes is also responsible for CBS's reporting on the Abu Ghraib pictures, a story she helped break. According to TV reporter Gail Shister, "The scoop was the result of more than two months' legwork by 60 II producer Mary Mapes." In an interview with Charlie Rose, Mapes described how hard she worked to find the incriminating pictures:

"We ended up chasing it, chasing it halfway around the world and back again. Trying not just to chase the rumors of it, but---but to find out what the reality of it. And in the beginning, a lot of it was whispered accounts of pictures that existed somewhere, an investigation that was going somewhere against someone, and we were able luckily to narrow that down and get our hands on the pictures which really gave us our first real hard proof that this was real."

9. A. The key quote from Taguba's Senate testimony: "We did not find any evidence of a policy or a direct order given to these soldiers to conduct what they did. I believe that they did it on their own volition and I believe that they collaborated with several MI (military intelligence) interrogators at the lower level." Follow the link to see the media spin on this one. The headlines screamed "Taguba blames Leadership for Prison Abuse".

10. C. Frederick entered a guilty plea at the start of his court martial. No evidence was presented, the story was not recorded. His lawyer was at his side as he called for all those other guilty parties to follow his example. He didn't clarify who he meant. After he was sentenced to eight years his lawyer called the sentence "excessive" and said he intended to appeal.

What was your score?

A discussion of torture is an ugly necessity in the world today, but those who would enter that discourse with the battle cry of "Abu Ghraib" should at least understand their position. It's a house of cards, ugly cards to be sure, and not a foundation for discussion with any intent of serious resolution.

2005-01-07 12:47:17

Open Post

Sorry no open post Yesterday, Greyhawk crashed early. (Slept like a baby.)

The Real True History of the War in Iraq

Even though it only happened a few months ago a lot of folks are already forgetting and denying the real true history of the war in Iraq. Thus, as a service to our readers, The Mudville Gazette presents excerpts from my upcoming book, The Real True History of the Iraq War before all that forgetting and denying gets any worse. The book will be academic yet accessible - and the first balanced, non-partisan look at the reality of Bushitler Chimpymonkey's neocon oil war for Cheney's Haliburton cronies ever.

Chapter One: Before the Beginning

February 2003: The tension built to a fever pitch. American opinion was evenly split for and against war in Iraq. But after the president's unforgettable State of the Union Address in which he revealed that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to attack America with "nuculer" missiles and that the Iraqi dictator had actually piloted one of the suicide aircraft on 9/11, previously undecided Americans took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands, demanding an immediate invasion of Iraq, a nation previously best known for being the Garden of Eden.

From the Front

In Iraq, The JAG-ged Edge sees a star in the midst of a sandstorm.

Signs of the Times

"The only plausible reason for keeping American troops in Iraq is to protect the democratic transformation that President Bush seized upon as a rationale for the invasion after his claims about weapons of mass destruction turned out to be fictitious."
The New York Times editorial, 27 Apr 05

"Out and out dishonesty"
-Glenn Reynolds responds to same.

In today's mail: from Executive Producer Brad Maaske, a copy of WMD, The Murderous Reign of Saddam Hussein. Haven't had time to view it yet, but this accompanying note from Brad seems apt:

When we made WMD we realized that in America 30% of the people hate President Bush and another 10% have their minds closed about Iraq, and any war anywhere... No matter how you tell the story, the people who hate will continue to hate. Some even believe that Saddam is a hero for being strong and killing his people to maintain control. We doubt if anything in this lifetime will change that.

But perhaps he's only partly right. Perhaps there's a certain percentage of the American population that had to have the fear of their own death via a nuclear, biological, or chemical attack made clear to them before they would give their personal approval to sending someone else's kids off to defend them in a war. I'm almost willing to believe such people exist, and that those same people are outraged because that old tricksy Bush pulled a fast one on them, and they now feel betrayed that their fervent support of the invasion of Iraq was built on a foundation of deception (or "fiction" as the Times would say). If so, let me assure any of those same gullible folks who may read this: Almost was the key word in the above sentence. I don't believe you exist. Fooled you though, didn't I? See, you're too easy.

But in case I'm wrong and you do exist, I feel it's my civic duty to warn you folks of this too: the New York Times might be the ones who are hoodwinking you. You know you can't trust your own judgment in such matters, so you would do well to keep that in mind.

Simplified version: are there really people out there who were tricked into supporting the war by the WMD issue, and if so, how do they know they can trust the NY Times?

Enough of that - it's not the main point of that Times piece anyway. They put their main point up front:

The millions of brave Iraqis who risked their lives to vote in January didn't expect that nearly three months later, their squabbling politicians would still be struggling to form a government. As a result, precious momentum has been lost, and a briefly improving security situation has again started deteriorating. The Sunni-based insurgency seems to have drawn fresh encouragement from the inability of the victorious Shiite and Kurdish parties to put the future of their country ahead of their narrow political agendas.

But that's especially ill-timed, given the headlines in so many other papers today:

Iraqi Leaders Give 6 Cabinet Posts to Sunnis
With Pressure Mounting To Form Government, Breakthrough Achieved

BAGHDAD, April 27 -- Iraq's new Kurdish and Shiite Arab political leaders agreed to a cabinet split Tuesday, giving six posts to the holdout Sunni Arab minority, top politicians involved in the negotiations said.

Too make matters clear though, I applaud the New York Time's expression of the need for swift action in government - after all, it hardly reflects credit on a democracy when the elected representatives of the people can't set aside partisan bickering and appoint ministers in a timely fashion.

And I'm sure the Times editors aren't tricking me with this new editorial emphasis on eliminating obstructionism and endless, indecisive debate in government. I know truth from fiction, after all. So although they probably prefer not to use vulgar terms associated with weapons of mass destruction I look forward to seeing the Times clarion call for the US Senate to pass "the nuclear option" in tomorrow's editorial.

From the Front

Something different: Tarzana Joe will do a segment on poetry from front line troops on Hugh Hewitt's radio program today - 3PM Pacific. We solicited entries for this project a couple week back - rumor has it a Greyhawk original piece might be included. Check local listings, or listen on line here.

Passing

Michael Schaefer, creator of Deepblog, sends sad news:

My father, F.W. Schaefer of Hutchinson, Minnesota, passed away yesterday. America has lost yet another proud veteran of WWII. He is loved and missed.

Open Post

To each link, his own.

Anzac Day

The 90th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli passed by last weekend. (A 1981 movie version of the campaign would feature Mel Gibson in one of his first roles.) In Australia the day is called Anzac Day, and Tim Blair did not let it pass without it's due. He also links to a great tribute from the Sydney Morning Herald, don't miss it.

Gallipoli Casualties:
Turkey 86,692

Britain 21,255
France 9,798
Australia 8,709
New Zealand 2,701

India 1,358
Newfoundland 49

Warrior to Warrior

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the seventh installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).

Welcome to The World, Capital W
By John Harriman

Dear Warrior . . .

After you were in Iraq a while-say, 10 minutes-you started thinking about coming home, right?

That's how it is for soldiers. You count the days down and always know the number. You keep time with Xs on your calendars, and one bold, circled, starred and underlined X marks your day of departure.

Vietnam veterans had a name for home: The World, capital T, capital W, our name for the only world that mattered.

The World was an idealized world, to be sure.

Back in The World, we thought, the air is fresher, the sky is clearer, the beer is colder and the women are hotter.

Back in The World, we argued, the food tastes better, the work is safer, the neighbors are friendlier and the dog might have had an itch, but it never had fleas.

Back in The World, we vowed, we would go back to school and spend more time in class and less time in bed. This time we would earn that degree, and this time with a B average.

Back in The World, we promised, we would not cut corners on the job and not call in sick just to get extra days at elk camp . . . okay, well, maybe just one extra day.

Back in The World, we swore to God, we'd go to church every Sunday and be more considerate of our parents and more thoughtful to all of our loved ones.

Then we got back to The World.

There we found that many of our good intentions didn't last any longer than our best efforts. Because we found the world we live in is where we are and what we make of it, whether we're in a foreign country or in the Sweet Grass Hills of Montana. We found that the world--small t, small w--is no more awful nor more beautiful than our ability to make it so. We knew this all along, but in our fascination with getting to that bold, circled, starred, underlined X on the calendar, we simply ignored reality. So we missed a lot of day-to-day living by living only for a day on the calendar.

We found, too, that The World went on without us.

We found that our families loved us and missed us, of course. But Dad didn't stop bird hunting. Mom didn't stop taking her famous muffins to church, Sis got engaged with no regard for us, and, inconsiderate kid that he is, Little Brother didn't stop growing until he got taller than his older, bolder, soldier brother. And, "Oh, dear," said Mom, "Would you mind giving Dusty a bath? He's got fleas again." Not again, Mom. Still.

We found that news people didn't care all THAT much whether we came home unless we came home in a coffin.

We found that our neighbors, if they acknowledged our return at all, didn't really want to talk about our war. And they seemed to get more than a little uncomfortable if we mentioned it. So we kept our mouths shut for decades.

We found that people stared at us because we poured our milk or beer over ice, which was the only way we could cool it down over there. And Mom was shocked at how we drowned so much of our food in catsup, which helped the meals go down in that other world.

On the plus side, our wives were way more beautiful than when we left. The air was fresher, too, the food better, the mountains and prairies and skies every bit as grand as we had dreamt.

One thing we didn't expect, though. We found we missed something from that other world. A thing we didn't appreciate while we were over there. Isn't that always the way?

We found we missed the men around us, our brothers in arms. We missed the bond we had welded in a brotherhood of war. We never felt it until we left, and for some of us, it took decades to appreciate.

You have a chance still to make it a part of your experience. Put a circle around tomorrow instead of an X. For just one day, instead of looking to come home, look to your brothers at war. Write down their names in a journal and in your heart. You may think you want to forget the guy who keeps filling your boots with sand every night. Later, when you return to The World, you will want to remember his name--all their names--for all time. Believe me.

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

____________

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. These columns are excerpts from an upcoming book. His current book, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

More From the Front

Dadmanly (a soldier in Iraq) debates yet another anti-war type blog to blog. This one, at least, has the courage to link back to Dadman.

So what's the combined impact of these online discussions on his frame of mind?

I am herewith announcing my intent to create cross-border dialog with those thoughtful and concerned liberals who are as alarmed with the current state of political discourse and discussion as I am. Please contact me with any ideas, I thought perhaps a group blog, or interest in creating such a debate space in the Blogosphere.

From the Front

Your Ho Chi Minh City at 30 version of From the Front.

Was it worth it? A Vietnam veteran tells his story:

"They came at us about 5:30 in the morning. They overran the camp. We beat them back. They overran it again. We beat them back. I'd never seen hand-to-hand before. It lasted more than six hours. I see a personnel carrier. One of the Vietnamese, he didn't even have a weapon anymore, just a little guy with a hatchet. The battle was over, but he ran and attacked the personnel carrier, banging on it with his hatchet.

"One of our guys on top of the carrier looked down at him. He shook his head. He couldn't believe an enemy like this, no gun, had the will to fight. With his hands. With a hatchet. That's how we would be if some country attacked America. But we were over there, thousands of miles away.

"That's when I was thinking, maybe we shouldn't have been in Vietnam. An officer showed up. We saluted. He said that he should be saluting us. Then I looked down at my leg and it was all bloody. Then I passed out. It was a hand grenade."

On June 6, 1967, he flew into O'Hare International Airport. His buddy, Joe, from Michigan, was worse off, having lost his leg below the knee.

"We were all spit and polish, we had our medals on, walking to another gate for Joe to take his flight home," Colovos said. "Then we got the welcome home. There were three guys with long hair. They walked up to us. We stood there. They spit."

Wounded and outnumbered, they brawled on the floor with the other three. John screamed for bystanders to help.

"The bystanders were in a circle, watching. They didn't help. That broke my heart."

John pulled a pistol and the fight stopped. Two police officers calmed things down, let him keep his pistol but took the bullets, then scattered the crowd. After seeing Joe off to Michigan on another flight, the police drove Colovos home to North and Central.

Open Post

You know the drill...

Times Reporters Sound Off on Marines

This comment regarding a Dawn Patrol link to the New York Times story on Marines who've returned from Iraq reaffirms my ever growing faith in Mudville readers:

"Marines From Iraq Sound Off About Want Of Armor And Men
...In returning home, the leaders and Marine infantrymen have chosen to break an institutional code of silence and tell their story"

One click, New York Times registration. Why am I not surprised.

Has anyone missed the griping about body armor, unarmored Hummers, etc. over the past couple years? So where is this 'institutional code of silence' other than in the imagination of the [usual suspect] writer from the NYT? Bitching is an old and contiuous tradition of service. Code of Silence my eye. BTW, Napoleon's elite Old Guard were nicknamed the 'The Grumblers' for obvious reason.

Here's another telling passage:

Toward the end of their tour when half of their fleet had become factory-armored, the armor's worth became starkly clear. A car bomb that the unit's commander, Capt. Kelly D. Royer, said was at least as powerful as the one on May 29 showered a fully armored Humvee with shrapnel, photographs show. The marines inside were left nearly unscathed.

The company leaders say it is impossible to know how many lives may have been saved through better protection, since the insurgents became adept at overcoming improved defenses with more powerful weapons. Likewise, Pentagon officials say they do not know how many of the more than 1,500 American troops who have died in the war had insufficient protective gear.

Okay - I need say no more, because fellow MilBlogger Jason Van Steenwick - who was there before the Marines - has plenty more. And without saying as much, he lays waste to that institutional code of silence garbage too. But he presents his acknowldgement of systemic military shortfalls with a focus on improving that system. If there were any qualified reporters or editors at the Times they could see the difference. "Look this is broken" Milblogger answer: "Fix it." Times answer: "We're doomed!"

The Times story tells a classic example of early failures, lessons learned, foes that adapt to enemy tactics (on both sides) and utlimately triumph. But the Times story failed to mention the triumph part - in fact it twists it into a tale of death and loss. Not a single quote from a Marine in the story supports the Time's characterization of them as whining failures. Too bad a heroic outfit had it's accomplishments and sacrifices disgraced by the New York Times - there's another lesson for military units to learn, and not repeat.

Go read Jason - no registration required.

And Now a Word

From our sponsors.

As they used to say.

Forget about pajamas, I'm blogging in Levis from now on.

Who Should You Vote For...

...if you could vote in England?

Take this short test and find out.

Did you guess your party affiliation correctly? Apparently not all Brits did:

According to data from website operator Thoughtplay, while 25 percent of people who took the test said beforehand they were Labour supporters, only 11 percent emerged as backing Blair's policies.

Similarly, 26 percent entered the main opposition Conservatives as their preferred choice, but only 16 percent of the test results came out as in favour of the party's stated views.

In contrast, the big winners were the Liberal Democrats, a smaller opposition group, with 36 percent of answers indicating support for the party, well above the original voting intentions.

I myself was shocked - shocked I tell you, to discover I'd be considered a conservative in Jolly Olde England. (My Liberal Democrat score was -53!)

Perhaps I should have said for whom should you vote?

The Maine Troop Greeters

I mentioned these fine folks in a dawn patrol.

Here's a little bit about them:

Since 1991 and the Gulf War, the primary goal of the Maine Troop Greeters has been to meet and greet each and every military man and woman passing through the Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine. The Troop Greeters are an informal group of veterans and civilians dedicated to showing our troops our deepest appreciation and total support for the sacrifice they and their families have made.

They've done a wonderful job, and we can't express enough our gratitude toward them. But now they need some help:

Our web site needs your help. Hardware disasters are preventing us from processing and uploading pictures to our site. We are looking for a corporate sponsor to help get us back on line. In return, we can only offer our eternal thanks and an explanation of your generosity on our thank you page, plus an updated website! If you feel you can help, please use our website email to let us know how to contact you.

Arthur's Mail

Dear friends

Among all the stories from Iraq over the past two weeks, this is my
favorite:

"Iraq's Ministry of Education is establishing a new education television
channel in April to give primary and secondary school students the option of
taking additional lessons at home and for those who are not attending school
due to insecurity."

A similar education TV channel operated in Iraq in the 1970s and 80s. What
happened to it, you might ask?

"Television-based learning was stopped in 1993, during Saddam Hussein's
time, when his son, Uday, took most of the equipment for his own television
channel."

That, and tons of other good news from Iraq available at:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

Best regards

Arthur

From The Front

Big news on the draft - straight from Iraq.

A lot of people will be very unhappy (to say the least).

Saudi Elections

Results of Saudi Arabia's first governmental elections in thirty years are in:

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, April 23 -- Saudi Arabia's limited 10-week experiment with electoral democracy ended here Saturday in a sweeping victory for slates of Islamic activists marketed as the "Golden List," who used grass-roots organizing, digital technology and endorsements from popular religious leaders to defeat their liberal and tribal rivals, even here in Jiddah, for decades Saudi Arabia's most diverse and business-driven city.

Women, active soldiers, and police were barred from voting or running as candidates.

Even as the last ballots were being counted, voters, candidates and Saudi analysts in relatively open-minded Jiddah debated the meaning of the broad Islamic victory, divided over whether the winners should be viewed as pragmatic moderates or radicals, and whether the result signaled that the kingdom should fear democracy or embrace it sooner.

Public debate about such questions is rare in a country that bans political parties, where three imprisoned intellectuals face trial for advocating a written constitution and where the ruling Saud family and its allies in the official Islamic establishment have dominated civic discourse since the 1930s.

In the Jiddah election, the Golden List of religiously approved candidates surfaced initially as anonymously dispatched text messages on thousands of cell phones, seven names out of the more than 500 candidates competing for the Jiddah council. The spammed messages were sometimes accompanied by a religious homily or endorsement.

The candidates were then backed in speeches and media interviews by religious scholars, including some well-known preachers who speak mainly about personal improvement, as well as dissidents such as Safar Hawali, who was jailed in the mid-1990s for anti-government preaching and who has spoken often about the virtues of armed jihad.

Open Post

The blogosphere at it's finest!

Open Post

Make your statement here. We'll keep this Open Post moving upward through the weekend, or until it gets too crowded.

3D Vulcan Chess Club News

From the Telegraph:

A metallic maze of chimneys, pipes and vents glitters on the horizon in the desert outside Khartoum, dominating the landscape for miles around.

This new oil refinery is the jewel in the crown of Sudan's military regime. It forms the vital artery of a thriving oil industry that poured ?1 billion into government coffers last year.

Without this windfall gain - likely to be far larger this year - President Omar al-Bashir could not maintain his military machine, let alone wage war against rebels in the western region of Darfur. Nor could he hope to withstand the international pressure that his bloody campaign in Darfur has brought upon him.

Moreover, the oil that started to flow as recently as 1999 has given President Bashir an indispensable international ally.

Almost unnoticed by the outside world, China has become the key player in Sudan's oil industry.

More:

With 1.2 billion people, the People's Republic of China is the world's most populous country and third largest oil consumer, behind the U.S. and Japan. In recent years, China has been undergoing a process of industrialization and is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. With real gross domestic product growing at a rate of 7% a year, China requires increasing amounts of oil to sustain its economic development. Its oil consumption grows by 7.5% per year, seven times faster than the U.S.'

Growth in Chinese oil consumption has accelerated mainly because of a large-scale transition away from bicycles and mass transit toward private automobiles, more affordable since China's admission to the World Trade Organization. Consequently, by year 2010 China is expected to have 90 times more cars than in 1990. With automobile numbers growing at 19% a year, projections show that China could surpass the total number of cars in the U.S. by 2030. Another contributor to the sharp increase in automobile sales is the very low price of gasoline in China. Chinese gasoline prices now rank among the lowest in the world for oil-importing countries, and are a third of retail prices in Europe and Japan, where steep taxes are imposed to discourage gasoline use.

See previous editions of the 3D Vulcan Chess Club newsletter here and here.

Every Day Heroes

Meet Marine Sgt Willie Copeland

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - When his platoon was ambushed in an attack by insurgents in Iraq last year, Marine Sgt. Willie L. Copeland III took charge.

He led five Marines out of the heaviest fire, found cover and killed 10 of the enemy in close combat. When his commanding officer fell wounded, Copeland used his body to shield the officer as he administered first aid.

For his leadership and dedication to duty, the 26-year-old from Utah on Thursday received the Navy Cross, the Navy's second-highest honor. Seven Marines have received the Navy Cross for Operation Iraqi Freedom through Jan. 10, according to the latest figures from the Marine Corps Awards Branch.

The attack killed one Marine and wounded several others.

Copeland said he was embarrassed by the attention and explained that he was doing only what every Marine would do.

''Nothing's natural about running into bullets,'' he said. ''It's more important for me to make sure my men are OK.''

High Tide for the Red Tide

It's military history month in Mudville, as we note another anniversary. April 30 marks 30 years since the fall of Saigon. A low point in American history, in the history of the free world to be sure. But with thirty years of hindsight comes this clarity: it was also the high water line for the advance of totalitarian dictatorships. Although at that point in time it seemed that communism was an unstoppable force, but the domino effect was contained, and within 15 years the iron curtain would fall.

Goobloggers

From the Businessweek cover story on blogs:

Google (GOOG ) is regarded as a secretive company. So in January, when a young programmer named Mark Jen started blogging about his first days in the Googleplex, folks in the 'sphere instantly linked to him. Jen certainly wasn't dealing out inside dirt. But he griped that Google's health plan was less generous than his former employer's -- Microsoft (MSFT ) -- and he argued, indignantly, that Google's free food was an enticement for employees to work past dinner.

Two weeks later, Google fired Jen.

Especially ironic since google owns blogger.com.

From the Front

Thunder6:

CPL Watkins, like many of us, left behind a message to be read if he didn't make it home safely. He left it with his best friend, who honored us all by reading it during the memorial ceremony. Here is the man in his own words:

Same Old Story?

Some things you can just take for granted, right? Like when the San Francisco Chronicle does a profile about a California academician who gives up her position as a college vice president over the war in Iraq - you just know what's coming. You probably don't even want to bother reading about it. But you're going to.

The transformation of Jannett Jackson, the outgoing vice president of the College of Alameda, will be complete in a little more than two weeks. She will be back in uniform pursuing her "other life" -- as a commanding officer in the California Army National Guard.

On June 5, Col. Jackson is scheduled to ship out to Iraq.

She will command a mechanized support division attached to the 40th Infantry Division of the California National Guard. She was officially promoted Wednesday in a ceremony at Fort Hunter Liggett in Monterey County.

Jackson is now the highest-ranking woman in the state's Army National Guard, and its only female brigade commander.

"I was there in 1990 doing the same thing, but at the company level," Jackson said. "We were part of the great end-around with the 101st," she said, referring to the rapid armored advance that swept west and then north into Iraq, completely overwhelming the Iraqi army.

See this too.

Every Day Heroes

Salt Lake Tribune
April 22, 2005

Utah Marine Receives Navy Cross

By Seth Hettena, Associated Press

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - When his platoon was ambushed in an attack by insurgents in Iraq last year, Marine Sgt. Willie L. Copeland III took charge.

He led five Marines out of the heaviest fire, found cover and killed 10 of the enemy in close combat. When his commanding officer fell wounded, Copeland used his body to shield the officer as he administered first aid.

For his leadership and dedication to duty, the 26-year-old from Utah on Thursday received the Navy Cross, the Navy's second-highest honor. Seven Marines have received the Navy Cross for Operation Iraqi Freedom through Jan. 10, according to the latest figures from the Marine Corps Awards Branch.

The attack killed one Marine and wounded several others.

Copeland said he was embarrassed by the attention and explained that he was doing only what every Marine would do.

''Nothing's natural about running into bullets,'' he said. ''It's more important for me to make sure my men are OK.''

Seattle Times
April 23, 2005

Teen Soldier Had 'Backbone of Steel'

By Alex Fryer, Seattle Times Staff Reporter

Eighteen-year-old Pfc. Sam Huff was born with a man's name.

But she was a consummate "girlie-girl," said her father, Robert Huff.

She liked to wear false eyelashes and played flute in her high-school band. Last July, she joined the Army, the first step in a career she hoped would take her to the FBI.

On April 18, Huff, an only child, became the 37th U.S. female to die in combat since 2003.

Every Day Hero

Marine Sacrifices for Second Tour in Iraq
In 2004, Cpl. Patrick Sansevere was fighting house-to-house in the streets of Iraq. Four months into his deployment he was wounded in action and on a plane back to the United States. Now he?s off for Iraq again for another combat tour.

?I want to recruit in Washington State,? Sansevere explained. ?This way I can be near family and work on completing my college so I can one day be a history teacher.?

Thousands salute fallen comrade
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/04/22/thousands_salute_fallen_comrade/
Allen, 50, was so committed to public safety that he nabbed a would-be robber before he even joined the force, when he was working as a supermarket clerk, Kennedy said. He once rescued a 77-year-old woman from a burning house. And once, he was eating in a New York restaurant when an angry man stormed up to another table with a gun; Allen calmly approached him and took his weapon away.

In the Mail

MilBloggers,

The Department of North Carolina: Veterans of Foreign Wars together with the Departments of Virginia, Delaware, Missouri and Wyoming are pleased to announce that our new Military WebCOM Video Conferencing Program for our soldiers and their families is ready for Beta Testing. Our program will enable a Solider and a significant other to communicate with audio/video via the Internet at no cost.

National VFW Commander John Furgess has offered to inaugurate the program by placing the first call to the troops.

What we need are volunteers presently stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan with the "right stuff" a computer, Internet connection , a web cam and the ability to be available today April 23 at 7:30pm Eastern Standard Time.

The VFW through programs like its Operation Uplink has always demonstrated its support in assisting military families in staying connected. This new Departmental program will only strengthen this dedicated effort.

If you can support our efforts or have any questions please e-mail vfwwebcom@gmail.com or call Ross Myers or Tara Sue Clark at (336) 235-2393. Thank you.

Yours in Service,
Ross Myers

Greyhawk notes Are you sure you mean eastern standard time? That means 8:30 pm eastern daylight time, the current US time. That's also 4:30 AM Sunday in Iraq - with extremely short notice. Good luck.

Eat, Drink, and be Merry

Great Friday night news here (via Instapundit):

For the last few years Americans have been subjected to an incessant barrage of warnings about the risks of dying from being fat. The most dramatic of these came last year in a study from the US Centers for Disease Control that suggested that some 400,000 lives were lost each year due to obesity and that obesity related mortality would soon overtake tobacco as the leading cause of death in the US.

But in a study released this week by the CDC and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association ("Excess Deaths Associated with Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity"), the public health community has finally owned up to their massive fib by acknowledging that the number of deaths due to obesity in the US is closer to 26,000 not 400,000 as previously reported...

Apart from this huge downward revision in the numbers of people supposedly dying from fat, there are several things in this study which signal the end of any legitimate linkage between obesity and premature death. First, for the merely overweight with BMI's from 25-30 there is no excess mortality. In fact, being overweight was "associated with a slight reduction in mortality relative to the normal weight category."

Speaking of new guidelines, what would your local grocery store look like if people gave a damn about this? Nothing like the one I shop at. Odd that as a military commissary it's run by the same government.

But don't start laughing yet - you see, the whole thing is a right wing conspiracy cooked up to benefit Dick Cheney's Twinkie Cronies:

What most people don't realize is that the USDA's original vision for the pyramid included visual indicators to show people how often they should eat certain foods. Pastries and donuts, for example, would be marked "occasional." But these guidelines are now nowhere to be found in the new MyPyramid, thanks to giant food corporations and their lobbyists.

Perhaps the most glaring evidence of the industry's influence is the government's refusal to recommend which foods not to eat, while putting a strong emphasis on individual responsibility.

My organization is currently supporting national and international regulations that would hold food manufacturers accountable for their contributions to the global obesity epidemic. We are working toward the implementation of the World Health Organization's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, specifically measures to curtail the promotion of junk food and inform consumers about the dangers of foods high in sugar, salt and fat.

Hey - it's Friday night. Beer time.

No Pasaran

Since I live in Europe I ought to link European bloggers more often. (It might even be mandatory under the EU...) Here's Eric Svane, at No Pasaran, noting the retirement of BBC foreign correspondent Stephen Sackur:

As he hangs up the microphone of BBC foreign correspondent, Sackur brings with him a host of powerful memories, one of the very strongest coming from Iraq.

A country especially dear to me, as my wife's homeland. It was there I saw the most distressing sight of my life...

And find out what Germany has decided to do to end the genocide in the Sudan here.

Cobra Gold

3d Vulcan Chess Club* news from Michael Ledeen:

Now come the monster anti-Japan riots, ostensibly in response to Japanese behavior during the Second World War, and Japanese failure to publish textbooks that recount the rape of Nanking and other horrors during the Japanese occupation. No one can seriously believe that the oligarchs in Beijing were responding to popular demand; as the great Chinese 魩gr頤issident He Qinglian reminds us, "the Chinese Government has virtually eliminated its citizens' right to publicly assemble, protest, or express any kind of political aspirations." So one must ask why the regime is encouraging these mass protests...

The anti-Japan riots are of a piece with the foolish law, passed just last month, that officially approved the use of military force to annex Taiwan. That one was so outrageous that it antagonized the entire civilized world, and undoubtedly contributed to the Europeans' about-face on lifting military sanctions against China. No doubt the oligarchs worried that the Chinese people might notice that the regime's policies were a shambles, and that they might come to suspect that things could improve if only the people were free to choose their own leaders. Thus, one of the delicious paradoxes of our time: China threatens Taiwan with huge armies, but Taiwan threatens China with freedom, and may well win in the end.

Officially pacifist Japan will fully participate for the first time this year in Asia?s biggest war games, the Cobra Gold drills, which are co-sponsored by the United States and Thailand, the defense chief said April 19.

The 11-day annual exercise, scheduled to kick off May 2 in waters off Thailand, will focus on international disaster relief operations in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Japan?s military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, has participated as an observer since 2001, amid concern in neighboring countries about the country?s past militarism.

?Japan will formally participate in the drill for the first time,? Defense Agency Director-General Yoshinori Ono told a news conference. ?It is good to share experiences in disaster relief.?

Meanwhile China takes the path of most beligerence, threatening Taiwan with huge armies for threatening them with freedom, as noted by Ledeen. For added drama this match is being played on a chess board standing on the border between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Three-D chess? I've lost count of the layers of this one...

But this is certain: it's not about the words in history books describing events 60 years ago.

It's about who's going to write them 60 years from now.

Update: The embargo on arms sales to China "is anachronistic, wrongfully discriminatory and in complete contradiction of the current state of the strategic partnership between Europe and China," French Prime Minister Raffarin said in Beijing...

From the Front

Q: What happens when someone with zero knowledge of the subject matter (but lots of pent-up hate for bushitlerchimpymonkey and his juniorhitler Rumsfeld) attempts to write a sitrep on Iraq?

A: This.

I'm stunned by the logical leaps taken; regardless of the subject you've got to support your conclusion with facts, provide a road map from point "A" to point "B" - but that's a highway he doesn't have under control. I'd advise Steve to stick to subjects he's familiar with, but there's no evidence in the post that the author even grasps the fundamentals of presenting a convincing argument in favor of his position on anything. Boosted by a Daily Kos link he's got a few cheerleaders in comments though. Some of them even claim to have an uncle's cousin's boss' wife who's girlfriend says she heard a guy at another table at lunch say his kid's gym teacher's sister knows a guy in Iraq and it's all true.

Q2: What happens when one of the hundreds of blogging soldiers serving in Iraq finds Steve's post?

A: This don't-miss response.

Free Speech from those who help make it possible, Stevie. Be glad you live in a country where soldiers only "shoot you down" with a keyboard and a modem. Not everyone does.

Side note: The maps and photos Steve Gilliard presents in his piece are "hot links" to the sites that host them - in the map example it's Global Security. This means that the original sites bear the bandwidth burden every time someone views Steve's page. Bandwidth = cost; this means the original sites are paying for it. Steve's on blogger, so he could host those images himself for free if he wanted. His site is also supported by advertising, so he's stealing to make profit. Not just on that post, btw, he rips off every picture he has on his site.

His posts are nothing more than drool fuel for the unhinged, but that practice is just low-rent sleazy.

Update: I've never seen a timlier magazine cover...

The First Platoon

Mrs G informs me that the MilBlogs Ring now stands at 190 members. At the current rate of growth there will be 200 within a few days. Back when it all started there were two dozen military bloggers that I knew of - and I thought maybe half would sign on. For any readers who might be under the mistaken idea that I never admit when I'm wrong - I was wrong.

Looking back at the earliest days (and by the way, we're still in the early days) I'm happy to note the number of folks who are still going at it. I tend to focus on new blogs and newly deployed bloggers here these days, but I want to take a minute and acknowledge the early adopters that made the MilBlogs Ring what it is today. The Ring started on Veteran's Day 2003, and without further ado, here's the gang that joined in the first month of ops (and who continue blogging to this day):

Blackfive

Weck up to Thees!

Chromedomezone (hurry - going fast!)

Bloodletting

Trying to Grok

An Army Wife Life

Citizen Smash

Grunt Doc

Baldilocks

Argghhh!!!

A Collection of Thoughts

Love in War

Backcountry Conservative

Dogtulosba

JB's Sanctuary

Musings From the Imperial Senate

Countercolumn (formerly Iraq Now)

Pinwheels and Orange Peels

Andrew Olmsted

All in all, a pretty good start. Thanks gang.

By the way, I heard from Sgt Hook not long ago. He's fine, his family's fine. He's busy traveling and preparing to jump into a new job. Keyword? Busy.

But I know what he wants to do...

Update: If you're active duty, guard, reserve, retired, vet, or spouse and want to join the ring, click here.

The View From Outside the Trenches

Daniel Starr presents an excellent discussion of a fundamental issue confronting the US military (or any large organization) - the entrenched senior mentality vs. the radical freethinking junior troops. Daniel's take:

It used to be the seniors who were the brain trust -- back in Korea and to some extent in Vietnam, ordinary troops and junior officers were sometimes just completely out of their depth. See the sad tale of Task Force Smith, or the retreat from the Yalu River, or the total breakdown between drafted soldiers and undertrained junior officers in Vietnam War that led to the horror called "fragging." But today, it's the senior officers, in all the services, who most often show up as America's weak point -- not because they're dumb, but because they can't bend themselves enough to handle unfamiliar challenges.

The sorts of innovators who take such organizations forward are generally frowned upon by that network of folks who are busy emulating their bosses. This is not unique to the military. But in the corporate world such individuals often escape from those sorts of situations and create successful start-ups that knock the industry on it's collective ear. The military folks with those characteristics often a) suppress the creative spark and get with the program or b) seek greener pastures elsewhere in the civilian world - but obviously not by starting their own competitve Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.

Speaking of competitive military, historically a big war would erupt every generation or so, and the 'peace time' commanders would normally find their careers ending rapidly thereafter as their shortcomings became apparent in the early failures of the campaign - see the Civil War and WWII for examples. But in today's world there is no opposing force capable of defeating the US military. This will keep the process going (or not going, if you prefer), and keep the powers-that-be entrenched.

Just trying to prompt further discussion here. Well, actually at Daniel's. He's an outsider looking in, and I - I am a veteran of years of trench warfare.

Open Post

And I'm reintroducing your blogging tip of the day. This is one I'd been waiting to post for a while. NZ Bears's Ecosystem is the hub of the blogosphere. This is a comprehensive who's who, a list of the members of the club. This is the community. And if you're a blogger and haven't joined the fun, now is the time. Recent big events in the life of the proprietor had prevented new entries, but it's open again. Enter your blog. You'll find out where you stand and be able to chart your progress in the blogging world. You'll find other blogs - and they'll find you. And it's free.

Join the fun.

Taking the Eagles Nest

Sixty years ago this month the German Army (along with the nation) was all but destroyed. On April 25, 1945, American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe River. On the 30th Hitler committed suicide. On May 8 the official and unconditional surrender of German forces ended WWII in Europe.

Looking for items of interest to share here regarding that time in history resulted in yesterday's post about Dick Winters of Band of Brothers fame. I also found this story, clarifying another bit of mistaken information in an otherwise outstanding book and movie. Given the quest for accuracy theme I'm required by Milblogger's Reg 1-1, par 5.2.3.7a 1-4 to bring this to your attention. (Also it's a great story.)

As Germany collapsed, the 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd ID - "Rock of the Marne" - approached Berchtesgaden, Hitler's mountain retreat and the final "prize" to be captured in the European theater of operations. One minor problem, the French 2nd Armored and the American 101st Airborne divisions had already been chosen to take the Eagle's Nest. But in fighting its way from North Africa to the Bavarian Alps the 3rd ID had suffered more casualties than any other division in the U.S. Army, and the commander, Maj. Gen. John W. O'Daniel felt that his men deserved the honor.

Throughout May 4, as the 7th Infantry moved into Berchtesgaden and established control of the area, O'Daniel made sure that the bridges over the Saalach remained closed to the French and the 101st. At approximately 1700, French General Jacques Philippe Leclerc attempted to cross the railroad bridge with his division and head for Berchtesgaden. Cottonbalers would not let him cross. "He was standing upright in his vehicle assuming the role of commander with authority and great assertiveness," Major Rosson said. Another Cottonbaler officer, Lt. Col. Lloyd Ramsey, told the French general that he had orders to let no one cross. Fuming, Leclerc demanded to speak to O'Daniel. After trying to give him the runaround, Ramsey and the officers agreed to Leclerc's request. The two generals argued for a time. Leclrec demanded that he be allowed to pass; O'Daniel just as stridently refused. Only when O'Daniel received word that Heintges had, in fact, reached Berchtesgaden, did he allow the French and the 101st to pass. Earlier the Screaming Eagles had succeeded in finding a small footbridge and sending some patrols across, but they were nowhere near Berchtesgaden and, if they wanted to cross in real strength, they needed O'Daniel's bridges. Countrymen or not, O'Daniel would not let them pass until the race was over and his men had won the prize. The French and Screaming Eagles were mixed up in a traffic jam near the railway bridge at the Saalach. Not until later in the evening of May 4, approximately 2000, did the first French troops reach Berchtesgaden. The paratroopers got there the following morning, probably sometime between 0900 and 1000.

In the early morning hours of May 5, a polite French staff officer visited Heintges and worked out the occupation zones in the area. "I took the railroad track which ran right through the middle of Berchtesgaden," Heintges remembered. He gave the French everything else, including Hitler's home and its environs. "This was a terrific psychological thing for the French," he said. "So, I gave it to them because I knew that it would be a good thing for international politics."

In so doing, Heintges unwittingly sowed the seeds for trouble. Several hours later, well after sunrise, Heintges decided that he and his soldiers should hop aboard trucks and jeeps, go back up to the ruins of Hitler's house and raise the American flag. By that time, French soldiers had blocked off the approaches to the complex. This was their occupation zone, and they obviously thought of themselves as its conquerors. Most likely, the French soldiers had no idea that the 7th had taken the place first. By allowing the French to set up their occupation zone here, Heintges had directly created this problem. When he and his men attempted to drive into the complex, the French halted them. "I'm the...commander of the regiment that captured this place," Heintges said. "We're just going up there with our troops to look over the place and raise our flag."

The French refused to let them pass. An ugly argument ensued. There was hollering, and even some pushing and shoving. Colonel Heintges defused the situation by speaking to several French officers and agreeing that there would be a joint flag-raising ceremony. When the moment came, however, the French flag brought to the ceremony was so big that it dragged on the ground, and in the end it was only Old Glory that flew over the hastily assembled troops.

In spite of these indisputable facts, the myth still persists even today that troopers from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, got to Berchtesgaden first. This is largely because of an honest mistake made by historian Stephen Ambrose in his otherwise excellent book Band of Brothers, which chronicled the experiences of one airborne unit -- Easy Company of the 506th -- in the war. Ambrose wrote of Berchtesgaden: "Everybody wanted to get there -- French advancing side by side with the 101st, British coming up from Italy, German leaders who wanted to get their possessions, and every American in Europe. Easy Company got there first." In his research for the book, Ambrose heard the accounts of many Easy Company vets who honestly thought that they had won the race, and he never corroborated them with official, or even outside, sources...

The smash success of Band of Brothers led Home Box Office to turn the book into a miniseries, in which the paratroopers were portrayed capturing Berchtesgaden. The continuation, on film, of this error led to an even greater proliferation of the myth, so much so that it shows up routinely in any discussion of Berchtesgaden. For instance, one reviewer of the Band of Brothers miniseries commented that the Eagle's Nest was aptly named because the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles had captured it.

From the Front

I coined the phrase "Ghost Battalions" a while back to identify those military blogs that had been abandoned when the author's tour of duty ended - although the blogs are left behind. There are a handful of those from the first months of OIF - one of them was Soldier's Paradise, by a GI who called himself Thor. He posted from July '03 to January '04 and was an early member of the MilBogs Ring.

Now, like so many GIs who were part of the first rotation in Iraq, he's back in the sandbox - and blogging again. As he puts it:

This is my second blog about my personal experiences while deployed. I have a little more rank this time and a few more soldiers so what unfolds may be even more interesting than last time.

Open Post

Great stuff just a click away.

Every Day Heroes

Here's an 'incresingly sophisticated insurgency" quiz:

Question: How many US Marines does it take to stop multiple suicide bombers driving huge, "bulletproofed" dumptrucks and firetrucks?

Answer:

"Butler ? that day, that Marine ? that's the critical error the insurgents made," Capt. Frank Diorio says. "They thought they could keep the Marines' heads down. But he gets back up."

Butler, 21 and an Altoona, Pa., native, fired through the windshield of the first suicide bomber as he rammed a white dump truck through a barrier of abandoned vehicles the Marines had improvised. Barreling toward the camp's wall, the truck veered off at the last moment under volleys of Butler's gunfire.

"I shot 20 or 30 rounds before he detonated," he says.

Knocked down by that blast, with bricks and sandbags collapsing on top of him, Butler struggled to his feet only to hear a large diesel engine roar amid the clatter of gunfire. It was a red fire engine, carrying a second suicide bomber and passenger. Butler says both were wearing black turbans and robes, often worn by religious martyrs.

Amid the chaos of that first bomb blast, supported by gunfire from an estimated 30 dismounted insurgents, the fire engine passed largely undetected on a small road that leads from town directly past the camp wall, according a Marine report.

"I couldn't see him at first because of the smoke. It was extremely thick from the first explosion," Butler says. When the fire engine cleared the smoke, it was much closer than the dump truck had been.

Side note: kudos to USA Today's Elliot Blair Smith for telling the story without praising the enemy. Another quote from the report:

The daylight attack on this remote U.S. military base fits a pattern of recent insurgent attacks on U.S. military strongholds. On Saturday, a mortar attack at Camp Ramadi killed three servicemembers, and there was a coordinated assault two weeks ago on the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

U.S. forces have repelled each attack, inflicting large losses on the insurgents while incurring few casualties.

From the Front

Something different: Castle Argghhh's Afghanistan correspondent, MSG Keith.

While you're there, look around a while. There's always lots of great stuff at Castle Argghhh!!!

Neognostikos is Two Too

Two years of blogging for Neognostikos - that's certainly worthy of congratulations.

Congratulations!

Dick Winters

Dick Winters, of Band of Brothers fame recounts the experience of attacking a numerically superior foe. The events he describes happened along the Rhine River in October, 1944, and the attack prevented a German breakthrough of the American lines.

There was only one thing to do. I withdrew my men to an adjoining gully to assess the situation. I got in touch with company headquarters and told them to send up the reserve platoon. After I was joined by another platoon and some additional machine guns, I went off by myself a little way to assess the situation and decide what to do. My group was the only thing separating the Germans from the rear of my battalion. So I decided we must charge them. I returned to the gully where the rest of the platoon was, and after ordering fixed bayonets, which makes every man have a second thought, I signaled when to throw a smoke grenade. This was the order to charge. As I leap off and begin the charge I am pretty pumped up. In fact, I have never been more pumped up in my life. I ran faster across the field separating us from the Germans than I have ever run in my life. All the men in the company are behind me, but they seem to be moving so slow. Nobody seemed to be moving normally, only me. When I got up to the road where the Germans were, there was a German in front of me, so I shot him. I then turn to my right, and there I see a whole company of Germans. I began firing into them, and they seemed to be moving so slow and then the rest of the company joined me. As the boys said later, it was a duck shoot. They never had a target like that before. We had caught two companies of SS soldiers pinned to the dike, and as they retreated we poured fire into them, and then I called in artillery fire. We destroyed those two companies.

I remember when I was interviewed for the movie, I told one of the writers that as I shot the German, he looked up at me and smiled. Well, I kept going with my story, but later, as it turns out, the writer wanted to play up the thing about the smile. He wanted to play that up as a flashback, the type of bad flashbacks you can have. I have flashbacks every day. But the writer wanted to play up that point. And that is why in the series that German is portrayed as a kid and why later on when I am in Paris they portray me looking at this kid on the train and having another flashback. It's stupid, but I didn't get the chance to review the scenes.

That's not his main point though. Read the whole thing - an American hero, a living definition of leadership, explaining leadership.

Why Bother?

I believe there's a shared characteristic among military bloggers - not exclusive to us and perhaps not even completely universal among us, but one that explains our motivation for the approach we take to blogging - in fact the very reason we bother to do it. That characteristic is an appreciation (some might claim obsession is the more accurate term) for accurate information.

This same fixation likely applies to the majority of bloggers (or at least the majority of those who are successful by any measure) but there's a unique aspect to it in the milblog community. Accurate information is life-or-death to military folks. That's not an exaggeration of the importance of information, it's literal. Wrong coordinates on a grid and artillery lands on the good guys. Wrong number of MRE's delivered and people don't eat. These are concrete examples of what I'm talking about.

On the other hand, there's the reality of ambiguous information that we must process as part of our decision making too. What's tomorrow's weather? How many enemy fighters in this town? How's their morale? The known unknowns that the Secretary of Defense noted recently (inviting the derision of those who found the statement incoherent).

Most of us with any time in service know the difference between the known knowns and the known unknowns, so the result is a low tolerance for inaccuracy of easily verifiable facts, spinning of truth, lies by omission, or outright lies. Since in war the result of these is potentially the same (dead friends) it's often a comparatively meaningless exercise to attempt to determine which of the above reasons accounts for the bad info. Being wrong happens, but being wrong for any of the wrong reasons is unforgivable.

All of this by way of explanation for the frustration most military folks experience when seeing bad reporting from the front. Was it agenda driven? Was it just sloppy work? Is truth being stretched for the benefit of a 'better story'? The answer may provide insight, but that's secondary to the basic fact that the information is wrong.

Still with me? Great. Recall now that I said at the start this motivation isn't exclusive to military bloggers and perhaps not even completely universal among us, but I think this is something close enough to common thread running through all milblogs - whether they're simply recounting life as it really is at camp or on patrol, or whether they're choosing to dismantle the latest slanted media reports on the war.

This is all by way of explanation to the non-military reader. It's why I might seem a bit harsh on reporters who publish stories about soldier blogs from Iraq without said story including one of the hundreds of examples of such. Likewise I'll demonstrate little tolerance to those who refer to every failed insurgent attack as 'increasingly sophisticated'. (If each such claim were true the terrorists would by now be firing weapons with their pinky fingers extended and die while delivering Shakespearean soliloquies.) Will these specific inaccuracies get people killed? Probably not. The second example - an opinion masquerading as fact - has potential to erode public support of the war, the first is simply not right. But both flip my bullshit detector to the "on" position.

Does it matter? Who knows. The pack of lies the media foisted on the world under the banner of "Abu Ghraib" certainly has and will, and the unraveling of those lies here isn't widely known. The forces of history aren't shaped by what I write here, but I do think the milbloggers as a group have had some impact on the tone of the coverage of this war. I have seen overall improvement in that media coverage - be that due to post-Iraqi election reality, a "truce" declared for a period in-between American elections, or just a downturn in overall coverage I can't say.

But I do wonder how Vietnam might have ended if soldiers been able to blog back then...

From the Front

A twofer:

The JMan 021

It's the constant struggle to keep yourself sane, to put on a good face and get the mission done, to keep your honor. Now when I put on my uniform in the morning, like I have been doing since Basic Training in September of '03, it has a different meaning. I've worked hard for this uniform. When I see others in my company walking around in it, automatically I respect them. Soon I will have my first combat patch put on my right sleeve, and it will be the first major difference to my uniform since I graduated AIT.

and his buddy

Jon Jivan with plenty of photos of a very sandy place.

Quick Question

If you were going to write a newspaper article about blogs from soldiers in Iraq, don't you think it would be a good idea to mention one such blog in your article? I mean, just one? Brad Knickerbocker didn't.

Other than that minor complaint I can't find anything wrong with this article about Soldier blogs from Iraq.

Well, maybe the title could have been changed...

Oh, and there's another function of GI blogs from Iraq that Brad could have mentioned...

Update: Okay - so there are a few other little problems with the story.

"The danger is that the soldier becomes distracted worrying about something back home and makes a mistake that puts his life or the lives of his companions at additional risk," says Colonel Smith.

That concern can work in the other direction as well, especially with the many websites in cyberspace that can paint a dire picture in Iraq - whether true or not.

(For example, this reporter received an e-mail from the young wife of a marine in Iraq. She'd come across a website reporting the recent capture and execution of 15 American troops. "Maybe you can let me know if you have heard anything like this," she said in an e-mail. "I just wish I didn't stumble across the website, because it makes me all nervous and paranoid. I really need to stop reading this stuff!")

US stages airborne invasion of al-Qa?im.

In a dispatch posted at 10:15am Mecca time Monday morning, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US aggressor troops staged an air drop of more than 700 American invaders into the middle of the liberated city of al-Qa?im a short while before. The correspondent quoted witnesses as saying that the skies of the city were covered with parachutes carrying US Marines.

At least 13 American soldiers killed in Resistance bombardment of US base in al-Hadithah.

Thirteen US troops were killed in al-Hadithah in western Iraq at dawn on Monday in a violent Iraqi Resistance bombardment on their base, according to an admission by Iraqi puppet forces.

Nine US troops killed in car bomb attack on US troop truck in al-Khalidiyah Sunday.

An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove an explosives-laden car into a US column transporting a large number of American Marines towards al-Fallujah at 5pm Sunday afternoon local time.

Eight US troops killed in bombing near Jordan border Sunday.

A high-explosive Iraqi Resistance bomb blew up in the middle of a road in the ar-Rutakiyah area north of the town of ar-Rutbah, not far from the Jordanian frontier, destroying a US armored personnel carrier on Sunday. The blast left eight US troops dead and three more wounded.

Resistance bombs take out US mine sweeper.

Iraqi Resistance forces planted a bomb in the path of an American mine sweeping vehicle as it did its routine daily check of streets in the Abu Ghurayb area just west of the occupied Iraqi capital on Monday...

Then Resistance fighters, hidden behind a building by the side of the road opened fire on the vehicle with armor-piercing rockets, totally destroying it and killing all six US troops aboard.

Update 2: Earlier this year, the Army ordered Maj. Michael Cohen, a doctor with a combat support hospital unit near Mosul, to pull the plug on his blog. I've heard this before, of course. But can anyone prove it? (Be sure and read the blog in question before answering).

So, other than a misrepresentation about the Army's response to milblogs, a deceptive passage about websites painting a dire picture of Iraq, and a lack of any examples of blogs from GI's currently in Iraq, I have no problems with this article about soldier blogs from Iraq.

So far.

BTW, here are a few GIs from Iraq, (just off the top of my head), that I have featured From the Front:

Major K

Ma Deuce Gunner

Thunder6 of 365 and a Wake Up

Boots on the Ground

Dadmanly

A Day In Iraq

Opinion Inc.

Phil and Becky

Assumption of Command

Blog Machine City

This is Your War

Who's Your Baghdaddy

Reverse Retna from the Sandlot

My Vacation in Iraq

Steven Kiel

Keni Thomas

Keni Thomas:

As a member of Task Force Ranger I was part of the unit sent into downtown Mogadishu in search of a criminal warlord. You may know the battle from the book and movie Black Hawk Down. We lost 18 Americans in that fight, another 76 were wounded. For those of us who make it out of something like that, you spend the rest of your life thanking the men to your left and to your right. Because they are the reason I am still here today.

Here.

Open Post

Open Post bonus edition. Fill 'er up.

Open Post

Have at it, Patriots. Links read 'round the world.

230 Years ago Today

On this date in 1775 the American Revolution began in earnest. It continues to this day.

Paul Revere's Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

The Doolittle Raid

Many anniversaries today:

Today the United States wields far-reaching global military muscle as the sole remaining superpower. So it is difficult for younger people to realize how desperate and battered Americans felt in the early months of World War II.

That is why a daring mission 63 years ago today -- with strength and numbers that might have caused it to be discountenanced as a stunt -- had such a powerful effect not only on Americans but also the Japanese leaders and people.

On April 18, 1942, 16 Army Air Force B-25s took off from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet on what became known as the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo.

More here - including the fate of the Raiders:

It was never part of the plan for the bombers to return to the fleet. While they could take off from a carrier's deck, it was much too short for landing. An airfield in China had been selected for the planes' landings, but with the early takeoff it was much too far.

One plane turned north and surprised the Soviets by landing near Vladivostok. The other 15 crashed or ditched in China. Remarkably, most of the 80 fliers survived the raid. Of the eight captured, three were executed by the Japanese and one died in captivity. Four others were killed during the mission.

From the Front

(Original post on topic here.)

Major K with an update:

I am finally able to post this one because I now have reasonable certainty that we have all off the scumbags involved in the killing of CPL Watkins in custody. They all went down without a fight when we burst through their doors in the middle of the night.

More from red2alpha:

I quit being afraid when we turned right at the traffic circle. Fear had ceased being an emotion long before then, it was just there like gravity, a constant force the couldn't be ignored - it had laws and rules, it was a constant in life - but it didn't need to concentrated on. The fear had comeback to me at the convoy brief only minutes before. An under tow pulling me out to sea as the platoon stood in a horse shoe around LT Mac.
"Remember, we don't want to get decisively engaged, our objective is the house, so if we are ambushed we'll push through. Sergeant Burt will...,"

<...>

This dirt bag we were going after may have had something to do with Watkins being killed; he might be plotting to kill other American Soldiers, maybe plotting to kill us. We were here to stop that from happening.

Part one here, part two here.

Ernie Pyle Day

Reporter and Friend-of-Mudville (hope that doesn't get you kicked out of the Guild Hall...) Jules Crittenden sends a link to a tribute to a great American.

Pyle known as one of greatest for covering war with care

By Frank Evans

Sixty years ago this Monday, a little man whose typewriter packed more punch than all the guns of an infantry division was killed on Ie Shima, a tiny green speck of land off the northern tip of Okinawa, Japan.

Ernie Pyle, regarded by many as America's greatest frontline war reporter, died the way he had lived the last four years of his life - in combat with the GIs he wrote about with care and flair.

Read the rest here.

Coincidentally, Gen. Richard B. Myers addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week:

Myers Challenges Editors to Tell Full Story in War Coverage

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 15, 2005 ? The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff encouraged newspaper editors today to tell America the full story of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. ?It?s particularly important today ? because the American people need to know the full story,? said Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, ?because it is going to be their resolve that is so critical to our ability to confront the extremist threat.?

Myers told the editors that he reads far more about the problems of servicemembers? equipment and the latest insurgent attack than about ?the thousands of amazing things our troops are accomplishing.? This concerns him, he said, because American resolve is key to success.

The chairman said that part of the problem lies with the military. He said commanders must be more responsive and give more access to reporters. ?We?re working on that,? he told the editors.

But still, ?a bomb blast is seen as more newsworthy than the steady progress of rebuilding communities and lives, remodeling schools and running vaccination programs and water purification plants.?

Myers said there about 140,000 U.S. servicemembers are in Iraq, 20,000 in Afghanistan and about 25,000 in other countries in the region. ?They are doing absolutely remarkable work,? he said. ?They have the best training, the best equipment and the best of America?s values and professionalism.

?They?re clearly the best of any military that exists today or, for that matter, that ever has existed,? he continued. ?They are rebuilding these countries after years of oppression and restoring hope for generations where there just hasn?t been any hope.?

Myers said this was the reason he and other Defense Department leaders pushed for the media ?embed? program in Iraq, in which reporters traveled with military units in the war zone. He said DoD officials were not afraid of what servicemembers would tell reporters.

?Our troops accurately represent the armed forces and their missions,? he said. ?Every day, they understand they are improving life in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places around the world.?

Myers challenged the newspaper editors to ensure the American people understand the hundreds of ways their sons and daughters are improving lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

?In your profession and mine, (we are) working hard to defend our values, our way of life and our Constitution,? Myers said. ?We risk our comfort, our safety and our lives for what we believe in.? The chairman noted that more than 40 journalists have been killed while covering operations in Iraq. The ?Fourth Estate? always has covered conflicts, Myers noted, but what is different today is the amount of news and that it travels so much faster than in the past.

?What questions are the news reports trying to answer?? the chairman asked. ?The theme of the coverage lately seems to be ?When are the troops coming home?? rather than ?What are we accomplishing???

He said he understands that editors are wrestling with the problem. ?But I don?t think that both sides of the equation ? are being covered adequately,? he said. ?There really is so much more news out there, stories that go untold because, frankly, the stories are harder to tell.?

He said the military will work with the press. ?Our task is to give you better access, more timely information and we will do that,? he said. ?In return I would ask you to keep at the task of trying to show as complete a picture as you can. I know our troops deserve that, and I think the American people deserve it as well.?

CBS Cameraman Update

CNN:

The U.S. military reported Saturday that a CBS News stringer detained after a gunbattle between U.S. forces and insurgents this month "tested positive for explosive residue." "Multinational forces continue to investigate potential collaboration between the stringer and terrorists, and allegations the stringer had knowledge of future terrorist attacks," said Sgt. John Franzen of Task Force Freedom in Mosul.

For instance, what do they mean by 'residue'?

Winning Friends, Influencing People

Ukraine, a former Soviet Republic whose government was recently toppled by a peaceful uprising, has informed mother Russia that their navy will need to seek other accommodations:

Ukraine will not extend Russia's lease on the naval base where its Black Sea fleet is based, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk said Friday.

<...>

Extending Russia's lease on the base would violate Ukraine's constitution, Tarasiuk said, and therefore was not being considered. He didn't elaborate.

After several years of tense arguments following the 1991 Soviet collapse, Russia and Ukraine divided the former Soviet fleet of ships and agreed to jointly operate the Sevastopol base.

But Tarasiuk on Friday said Russia had breached the agreement, saying the violations ''carried a systematic character,'' Ukrainian news agencies reported.

Last month, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry complained when Russia landed a marine battalion on Ukraine's Crimean shoreline without what it said was proper permission.

Leaders of Kyrgyzstan's interim government assured Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that political upheaval in this former Soviet republic would not jeopardize American use of an air base for supporting the war in Afghanistan.

The public assurances sounded a positive note for Rumsfeld on the final stop of a four-day trip that also took him to Iraq and Afghanistan, where the future of the U.S. military presence was addressed.

Operation Purple

Attention military parents - have you heard of Operation Purple? The goal of Operation Purple summer camps is to give military children tools to help deal with the stresses that result from a parent?s deployment. These free summer camps are for the children of our Nation?s deployed servicemembers, in any service branch, including the National Guard and reserve components. This camp program, developed and administered by the National Military Family Association (NMFA), was made possible thanks to generous funding from Sears, as part of the Sears American Dream Campaign. For more information on the Sears American Dream Campaign, please visit their website.

Camp registration is April 15, 2005 through May 15, 2005. Program information and downloadable application materials will be available here click on the map of camp location on the state you'd like to register.

The camps are either limited to only kids of deployed military parents or some are open to all military kids but give preference to kids of deployed military. The camps have different programs and age limitations so if the closest doesn't have the right age group another camp might.

This sounds like alot of fun!

They even have camps in Germany. May just have to look into this myself, if Greyhawk ever gets deployed again.

And there are other overseas locations, as well.

Guam
Italy
Japan

Thanks Angie for this reminder.

This Sucks II

An earlier post mentioned this long-lost cartoon from the pre-internet days, and Mudville readers were quick to respond to my request for a copy. Thanks to all who sent one or emailed a link.

By the way, most folks who knew of this or had a copy were Air Force.

Now for a bit of Air Force trivia.

The greatest threat confronting the U.S. Air Force today is:

A. Russia

B. China

C. Ralph Peters

Answer: I don't know.

Open Post

And a few recent stories we haven't forgotten:

(Note: we'll keep bumping this up through the weekend.)

Nominations for the Muddy Awards will be accepted through the day today. Tomorrow voting begins for the winners.

John Scalzi has a free book for the troops downrange. If you are one, get one. If not, please tell him thanks in the comments of the linked post - or even better, buy a copy of his book.

Tarzana Joe is collecting front-line poetry for the Hugh Hewitt show and perhaps a book.

Soldiers Angels requests help helping wounded heroes.

And don't forget the latest from Lebanon. It's not in your local news, it's being blogged by Michael Totten and Jim Hake at Spirit of America.

Homecoming

A fallen hero returns home:

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of an Army Air Forces crewman have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with military honors.

Staff Sgt. Robert W. McKee of Garvey, Calif., will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery April 12.

On Dec. 17, 1944, McKee was an aerial gunner on an 11-member crew of a B-24L Liberator that took off from Pantanella, Italy, on a mission to bomb enemy targets near Blechhammer, Germany. The aircraft crashed over Hungary, near the small towns of B?ye and Felsosegesd, with the loss of two crewmen including McKee. The other nine were able to safely parachute from the aircraft. Following the war, the remains of the other unaccounted-for crewman were found in a cemetery in Felsosegesd.

Following the war, remains from an American aircraft crash near Vienna, Austria, were found buried with McKee?s military identification tag. But the remains were identified as those of another flyer. Further analysis revealed that McKee had flown on the same plane and had lost his identification tag, most likely on that aircraft.

In 1992 an undertaker recovered remains believed to be those of an American in the B?ye, Hungary, cemetery but they could not be associated with a specific incident. DPMO analysts obtained information from a Hungarian researcher which indicated that the remains might be associated with McKee?s loss. Aerial gunner?s wings were found in the grave, as well as other items worn by U.S. bomber crews in 1944.

Scientists of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used a number of forensic tools including mitochondrial DNA to confirm McKee?s identity, matching his DNA with that of two known maternal relatives.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing from all conflicts, 78,000 are from World War II.

For additional information on the Defense Department?s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

Catchy Phrases Catch On

Don Rumsfeld, Baghdad, 12 April: "We don't have an exit strategy," he said. "We have a victory strategy." (via Maj K)

Iraqi blogger Alaa, 22 January (and quoted in Mudville 27 Jan): Despite all the snags and faltering, these forces are getting bigger and stronger and should be supported and nurtured until they can bear the full responsibility; this is the only viable ?exit strategy? available. In fact, we do not like this phrase, for what is required is a ?victory strategy?.

See, he was a reader before the Army Times link. ;)

Thanks Fred

Mrs G reminded me we owe a thanks to Fred Schoeneman for introducing us to Mike Yon's blog. I pointed out to her that Fred's got a discussion of recruiting and gays in the military that I should also link. She agreed.

That's life here in Haus Grauhawk.

You should escape over to Fred's for a while, the conversation is more interesting.

From the Front

(Note: this post will be 'bumped' back to the top through the weekend.)

Mike Yon is an Army vet and the author of the book Danger Close. From the Amazon review:

In 1982, one month after graduating from high school, Florida native Mike Yon joined the Army to earn tuition money for college. At that time, President Reagan had begun channeling massive amounts of funds into Special Operations units such as the Navy SEALS, Army Rangers, and Special Forces in response to the calamitous failure of a U.S. Special Ops attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran. For a brief time, writes Yon, "the Army allowed kids straight out of their initial military training to try out for Special Forces"--and Yon jumped at the chance. By July of 1983, at the remarkable age of 19, Yon had survived rounds of grueling training and graduated into the Green Berets. One day later, a bizarre encounter in a Maryland bar landed Yon in jail, accused of murdering a fellow patron with his bare hands.

Then tell your friends too.

Update: Perhaps it's old news, but Mike's report on election day (including a bit of that 'sporadic violence') is not to be missed.

Excerpt:

By noon, it was obvious that the terrorists would not own this day. But terrorists were clearly making the effort, killing voters around Iraq. Yet more voters continued to turn out. Lines were forming at some polls.

A US patrol in the Buhriz area of Baquba came under small-arms and RPG attack. The reinforced "Punisher" platoon, led by Lieutenant TJ Grider, consisted of three Bradley fighting vehicles and six Humvees. Punisher had been moving to the Buhriz area, where insurgents were attacking the polling station, successfully preventing voting. American units had been instructed to minimize combat to avoid frightening voters. But since nobody was voting at that station due to the ongoing attacks, Lt. Grider said that the commander of Coalition forces in this area, Colonel Pittard, gave him clear instructions: "If they aren't going to vote anyway, we might as well kill some bad guys."

Punisher was told to kill people who were preventing voting. And the people who were preventing voting started trying to kill Punisher platoon. First came three RPGs, then two more. But Punisher was moving in and swept up through the area, surprising two men who held AKs and had RPGs propped up against a wall. The Humvee gunner killed them.

A Bradley vehicle on the next road reported killing three more, then blew up two cars, which were not supposed to be there. There was heavy shooting during which an American was slightly wounded, but soon returned to duty. The polling station was closed down and moved to another area of Baquba, where voters soon arrived.

I wanted to see the voting hand, so I hitched on the first convoy I could get, which happened to be taking that same CNN crew to another dangerous polling site in Baquba. In fact, of the 40 polling sites in Baquba, some US soldiers were wagering this one was most likely to be bombed.

The CNN crew had only three people, including the correspondent. They were to be dropped off and left at the polling station. I stayed with them. The American Army was not permitted to be stationed at the polling site; this was to be an Iraqi vote. So, the soldiers left us behind in the same neighborhood where I had been accompanying the Army on raids just a week earlier.

An hour passed while voters stretched out in a line perhaps thirty yards long. A second hour passed, and the line remained steady. No bombs, no RPG attacks. But if there were to be any attacks, they might come at the end of the day, to destroy the ballots. The terrorists knew that to destroy ballots was to destroy the elections. Yet the voters were exuberant, as if there was no possibility of attack. I spoke with many people--Sunnis, Shias, Christians, and others were standing in the same lines.

Three police officers handcuffed a large man. They escorted him with great purpose to an abandoned room of the school. I approached to see what was happening. Did he have a bomb?

The policemen, who had been asking me to photograph them for the last hour or two, suddenly told me to stop taking pictures. Naturally, this caused me to pick up the camera and take pictures.

"What did this man do?" I asked an Iraqi official.
"He was, let's say, misbehaving."
Misbehaving? I hadn?t heard any bombs or gunfire at the polling station (not in the polling station, anyway), nor any commotion. What had he done? The official would not tell me.
"Is he a terrorist?" I asked.
"No."
"Is he a criminal?"
"Not exactly."
"Why did you arrest him?"
"Not important, really not important."
"You have arrested a man who came to vote. This is very important. Why have you arrested him?"
Finally, the official embarrassingly explained that the man had grabbed the backside of the woman producer for CNN.
I sensed that he did not want a writer to know what this Iraqi man had done.
"What will you do with him?"
"He will spend two weeks in jail."
"For grabbing the producer?"
"For grabbing the woman, yes."

Eventually, the police conversed with the CNN crew, and released the man.

Another update: Mrs G reminds me we owe a thanks to Fred Schoeneman for introducing us to Mike's blog.

3D Vulcan Chess?

The title is lifted from this report on anti-Japanese demonstrations in China. (Hat tip: Instapundit - who also has more at the link).

Wondering why the sudden surge in anti-Japanese sentiment? Probably several reasons. But here are a few more stories about China and Japan from today's news.

EU Shelves Plan To Lift Arms Ban On China After US Pressure

European Union foreign ministers yesterday shelved plans to lift an arms embargo on China. This was seen as a victory for Washington, which had expressed outrage at the possible flow of European weapons to Beijing.

China Row Shows How Little EU Cares For Democracy

...The Chinese want weapons in order to use them. Almost every contiguous state has, at one time or another, felt the force of Chinese aggression: Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Pakistan, India, Tibet, Vietnam, Hong Kong. Taiwan, which is regularly menaced by Chinese naval exercises off its coast, understandably frets that it will be next; Japan, too, is starting to feel uneasy.

Panel Backs Altering Japan's Charter

A Japanese parliamentary committee voted Friday to issue a landmark report that urges revisions to the Constitution, including changes to its pacifist provisions.

Surge Alert

One of the benefits the press gains from ignoring violence in Iraq for a few weeks is the opportunity to run headlines like this one in the NY Times:

"Bombs Kill 4 Policemen and Wound 9 Civilians as Iraq Violence Surges"

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 15 -A suicide bomber steered his car into an Iraqi police patrol south of Baghdad late Thursday night, killing four officers, and three bomb attacks in the capital wounded at least nine people on Friday, Iraqi officials said.

The attacks followed two deadly car bombings in the capital on Thursday morning, and extended the recent surge of violence that ended two months of relative calm after the January elections.

Update: Et tu, Philly?

BAGHDAD - Sunni insurgents took at least 60 people hostage in an Iraqi town near Baghdad yesterday and threatened to kill them unless Shiites left the area, a Shiite official quoted residents as saying.

The hostage-taking and three successive days of bombings that killed at least 34 people suggested that insurgents had regrouped after a lull in violence since Jan. 30 elections.

Last week I asked What if they had a Tet offensive and nobody came? Perhaps now I could rephrase to what if they had a Tet offensive and everybody arrived just a little late?

Open Post

Have link, will follow.

From the Front

Our Milblogger today is The National Guard Experience in Afghanistan with photos to share.

We Are the War

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the sixth installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).

____________________

IS IRAQ ANOTHER VIETNAM?

Dear Warrior . . .

I spoke to one of your mothers before our send-off ceremony here in our small town for the Montana soldiers going to Iraq. She said her son wanted to know, "What's the big deal about going to Iraq? It's just our job."

I'd guess most of you would have the same reaction to Vietnam: What's the big deal? It's ancient history.
Vietnam.

It's more than a word, more than history. It's a word like Woodstock to your parents' generation. Or 9/11 in your own time. (Okay, so 9/11 is a number, but you get the point.) Vietnam is more. It's an emotion, a symbol of something deeply felt, a combat internal just beneath the skin of America.

Ask two questions of anybody who lived Vietnam, civilian protestor or military vet. First ask whether we won or lost World War II. What you'll get is a laugh. And something like this: Of course we won, you idiot. Don't you read your history?

Okay, so WWII truly is history.

Then ask if we won or lost in Vietnam. What you'll see is heat. What you'll hear is invective. That's not history. That's emotion. The emotion of politics, Tonkin, dissent, betrayal, parades or no parades, shame, spit-a host of images. All of them edgy.

So we come gingerly to the question: Is Iraq another Vietnam?

Let's set aside the politics and emotion and come at it from a soldier's point of view.

I wrote these letters and the book they will eventually compose because I felt a spike in the emotional temperature of America after we won the conventional war in Iraq. Right away the military was asked to win the peace. You are being asked to Iraqi-ize the country in much the same way, and using just as awkward a term, soldiers were to Vietnamize that war, that is removing a military threat and turning their country over to the people.

All at once, all the same arguments about our soldiers as anti-insurgent forces bubbled up. We heard words like quagmire, unwinnable and, of course, Vietnam.

We veterans of Vietnam know a thing or two about that word and those feelings. Even if we fall on opposite sides of the political fence.

What we know, we can share with you. Think of it as a kind of survival guide like Rogers' Rangers standing orders from the pre-Revolution era. Maj. Robert Rogers wrote 19 instructions. Simple, straight, sensible things, like no. 1: Don't forget nothing. And no. 14: Don't sit down to eat without posting sentries. If you can't find the standing orders in your army literature, you can Google them in an instant.

You'll find a single theme running through all 19 of them: Never let down your guard.

It's the theme that runs through the head of every combat veteran, especially as the shooting war peters out. In even the most vigorous training test, you can always close your eyes and shut down your mind with the thought: This is only a test; it's only a test; I need the sleep so I can pass the test.

In the war zone, every time you want to shut your eyes, repeat a different mantra: This is not a test, not a test; If I slack off now, I may never wake up.

A lot of men died in earlier wars just because they slacked off. Don't.

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

____________________

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. These columns are excerpts from an upcoming book. His current book, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Every Day Heroes

This one's a don't-miss:

The March 12 attack -- swift and brutally violent -- bore the hallmarks of operations that have made Ruiz, 39, a former Brooklyn gang member, renowned among U.S. troops in Mosul and, in many ways, a symbol of the optimism that has pervaded the military since Iraq's Jan. 30 elections.

Insurgent attacks in this northern Iraqi city, which numbered more than 100 a week in mid-November, have declined by almost half, according to the military. Indirect attacks -- generally involving mortars or rockets -- on U.S. bases fell from more than 200 a month in December to fewer than 10 in March. Although figures vary from region to region, attacks also have declined precipitously in other parts of Iraq, creating a growing belief among U.S. commanders that the insurgency is losing potency.

"We are seeing a more stable environment," said Lt. Col. Michael Gibler, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, which operates in eastern Mosul. "Have we made a turn yet? No, but we're really close to it."

The military attributes the decline to several factors, including Iraqis' increased willingness to provide information about insurgents and the growing presence of the new Iraqi security forces throughout the country.

But the main reason, military officials said, is a grinding counterinsurgency operation -- now in its 20th month -- executed by soldiers like Ruiz, a platoon sergeant in the 3rd Battalion's C Company. It is a campaign of endless repetition: platoons of American troops patrolling Iraqi streets on foot or in armored vehicles. Its inherent monotony is punctuated by moments of extreme violence.

"Our battles have been beyond ruthless," said Ruiz, adding that he believes most Americans have little understanding of how the conflict is being fought.

<...>

Among soldiers in Mosul, Ruiz's aggressiveness is legendary -- both in attacking the insurgents and gathering intelligence. Keating said Ruiz "plays by the rules of Iraq, not by the rules that are written by some staff guy who's never been on the ground. He's never crossed the line, but he'll go right up to it time and time again."

<...>

Ruiz said he "never crosses the line." But he said one reason for the platoon's success was his willingness to act decisively and ruthlessly. "It's important for my soldiers to know that we're not going to hesitate to annihilate the enemy," he said. "A bullet coming toward you means that they want to kill you. What are you supposed to do, come back with flowers? But believe it or not, you have people here that want to give them, you know, a little bag of candy."

Acting swiftly, he said, "sends a message to the enemy that we're not playing games. If you engage us, you are going to die."

And if you're in Hollywood looking for movie ideas...

Turning Corners?

Guess who said it (bonus points for where):

Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith of the U.S. Army was the first Iraq war soldier to win the Congressional Medal of Honor ? posthumously. On April 4, 2003, a group of American soldiers building a POW compound were slammed by a surprise attack. Smith organized a defense, then moved under fierce fire to an unprotected machine gun. He kept firing as the wounded were brought to safety and the attack driven off. Meanwhile he was hit, fatally.

Even Iraq war opponents and Bush-haters say they honor Smith's courage. But their "honor" is mostly a sham. Unless you understand what drives a man like Sgt. Smith to become a soldier, the honor you do him is honor with a footnote (he was a brave man, but obviously some kind of weirdo).

...my colleagues seem determined to turn American soldiers into an out-of-sight, out-of-mind servant class who are expected to do their duty and keep their mouths shut. Remember the outcry when that uppity Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin announced in late 2003 that he preferred Christianity to the religion preached by Islamic terrorists, for whom the murder of innocents is evidently a holy sacrament?

Read the rest here.

Turning Corners

And if this is any indication, we've certainly turned a corner in one war. (You figure out which one.)

It's either that or a sign of the approaching apocalypse...

CBS Cameraman Update

Looking for the latest on that CBS cameraman detained in Iraq?

Me too.

Is this a disappearing story?

Update: By way of comparison...

Open Post

A million stories in the 'sphere,
soon the best will be linked here...

From the Front

The Democracy in Iraq edition of from the front. This edition is dedicated to all those who thought that bringing democracy to Iraq (and the region) wasn't part of the plan.

Ma Deuce Gunner tells why Kirkuk went crazy last week.

John at Who's Your Baghdaddy sees how Saddam lived while his people starved. (Side note: most of the guys at Liberty/Victory are not living in palaces - in fact they aren't even in sight of them.)

And at Boots in Baghdad a young National Guard GI finds an online discussion of why we cant win this war, and responds.

Downrange Reading

Free book for deployed GI's - hopefully the start of a trend.

And if Uncle Sam has left you with any spare change this week perhaps buying a copy would be a nice way to say thanks?

Or - click on over to the author's blog and say thanks in his comments section.

Almost makes me wish I was still downrange.

Almost. ;)

Every Day Heroes

Stories of uncommon valor aren't uncommon in Iraq

Sheila Boots didn't have to ask who pulled her trapped son to safety from a burning Humvee last Thursday in Iraq.
The Connellsville woman already knew.

"I've known Scotty Sage for 15 years, and I knew that he saved my boy's life," Boots said Tuesday night from the bedside of her wounded son, Pennsylvania Army National Guardsman Spc. Timothy "Timmy" Boots, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

"Nobody had to tell me he would put his own life in peril for my boy," Sheila Boots said. "I knew he would."

<...>

Sgt. Scot Sage and other soldiers with a Connellsville-based Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit braved intense heat and flames to free Timothy Boots and three other men trapped in the burning Humvee, emptying eight fire extinguishers and 300 bottles of water on the fire.

"It all happened very quickly," said Amy Sage, wife of the South Connellsville volunteer firefighter and guardsman who is in Iraq with Company B, 1st Battalion, 103rd Armor.

"Scot took off his flak jacket and covered up Tim (Boots) to try to keep the flames off him," Amy Sage said. "And he used a pen knife to get him out."

History Written by the Losers this Time?

Glenn Reynolds notes historical revisionism of the bringing democracy to the Middle East was a post-war construct variety. Of course he provides numerous presidential speeches with evidence to the contrary.

Here's another:

"As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country. Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are are deserving and capable of human liberty. And when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.

"The United States with other countries will work to advance liberty and peace in that region. Or goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time. The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and ever land. And the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace. That is the future we choose.

"Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent. And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility. Good night, and may God continue to bless America."

Maybe in some ways we're lucky that last bit never happened...

Update, Oct 31 2005: Yikes!

More Tet?

Bill Roggio reports another overlooked suicide attack on a US position in Iraq.

I'm reminded of the fact that the Al Qaeda crew welcomes death, while the US military still follows Patton's orders to make the other son of a bitch die for his country.

Open Post

Please be sure and stop by the great sites linked here.

The Muddies

There's still time to enter your favorite war movies and anti-war movies for a Muddy Award. Nominations will close soon though, and voting for winners will begin - so add your picks here while you can.

Awesome

I played in one o' them long haired hippy type e-lektrik rock and roll bar bands a long time ago.. (just establishing credibility here) and I think these guys rock.

Maybe I can help set up a USO tour...

Update: Are they the police?

There are a lot of rockers in the blogosphere. This guy plays guitar. (This guy too, but jazz.) This guy plays bass. This guy is a singer. This guy plays drums...

One of these days at some blogger con somewhere there's going to be some fine live entertainment.

Anybody else in the band?

Chromedomezone

Chromedomezone was one of the first sites in the Miblogs ring. Chromey came home a while back, and their site has been kind of quiet since.

Check out this nice farewell present to the blogosphere (click on The Final Cut).

Lots of other goodies there too, keep scrolling...

Every Day Heroes

You might remember this name:

First Lt. David Lucas, a once-long-haired teenager from Farragut, has received a Bronze Star for rescuing two Egyptian hostages in Baghdad in February.

Lucas, now 27 and less rebellious, was presented the award for "heroic or meritorious achievement" during a ceremony in Iraq last week.

Eight other soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division, 2nd Battalion, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., earned the lesser Army Commendation Medal for their efforts in the same rescue on Feb. 7.

On that day, Lucas, riding in a Humvee, noticed a vehicle hanging low to the ground. Worried it contained a bomb, Lucas said he directed his driver to cut off the car.

There was no bomb, but inside the trunk were two men, blindfolded and tied up.

They were two of the four Egyptians who had been kidnapped by terrorists the day before, according to a Department of Defense news release.

Lucas' father, John, a Knoxville attorney, said his son was modest about earning the medal and only hinted to his family that he might receive it.

"He was really sort of closed-mouth about it," said John Lucas, who learned that his son actually was awarded the Bronze Star from an Internet news release.

Here is what went unreported. I asked my son why they had not just shot the two who ran away (one of whom was chased down and captured). I thought that perhaps the Rules of Engagement prevented them from shooting them, since they had not been shot at first. He told me, however, that the ROE did permit them to shoot, but he never gave them a "fire" command because the street was too crowded and he was worried that they might hit civilians. So, instead, they chased them down. As a result of that decision, civilian lives were spared and all 4 hostages were rescued. It's a great example of good decision-making, good fire discipline, and concern for the people. But, not the sort of thing the media seems to want to report.

We'll hope the El-Tee told his dad about that...

Update (3 months later!): Back at'cha Glenn. The Lt has come home, and published an op-ed in his local paper. It's a must read.

From The Front

There's a great scene in the movie Stripes where Cpt Stillman stumbles over something in the sidewalk, looks back at it and then turns to a junior troop and snaps an order: "Have that removed."

This reminded me of that story.

Live from Afghanistan, Life in X Minor is your front-line blogger today.

(Hat tip: No Angst Zone)

We're from the Government, and we're here to help You

John Kerry wants your military-as-victim horror stories.

He'll get some too. But worth noting, the very fact that he has to solicit for them is a good indicator of how common such stories are. Hopefully his underlings will apply some degree of fact checking to any claims they receive. Rumor has it some people actually have been known to exaggerate (if not fabricate) their service experiences.

Meanwhile, The Washington Times reports: Democrats threaten to stall war funds

Doesn't look like we'll have any legislation passing anyway...

Update: Maybe he can get cable TV restored at Mildenhall billeting...

Back to the Triangle

Back when I was preparing to deploy and looking for guest authors for Mudville, Grim was one of the first that came to mind. He's one of the finest analysts among the MilBloggers, as you'll see when you read this.

Hopefully I can get Grim involved in another upcoming as-yet-classified project...

This Sucks

Back in pre-email days the only way to pass written jokes or cartoons around the world was to make a "Xerox copy" to send via US Postal Service to distant friends. (You younger readers can verify this by asking some old dude.) An amazing amount of time, effort, and office resources were devoted to this practice - I can remember seeing new ones turn up every few weeks where I worked.

Most of them have long since transitioned from that format to email, and are widely available on the world wide web (see 2.6 million google hits for '50 reasons why beer is better than a woman', for example). But one I haven't been able to find yet was a black and white 5-panel cartoon. The first panel showed a GI wading waist deep in a swamp, saying "It sucks here". Underneath the caption said "Infantry". The next panel showed the same picture, but the guy says "I like how it sucks here" and the caption reads "Rangers". The next panel the guy says "I wish it suked more here!" above the caption "Special Forces". The scene switches to a helicopter for the next box, the pilot looking down saying "Looks like it sucks down there" and the caption "Army Aviators". The last panel shows a guy sitting in an easy chair holding a remote watching TV crying "What - no cable? This place sucks!!!" The caption? Air Force.

Like I said, I haven't been able to find that on line. If anyone can point us to one please do. (Or email me a scan if you have one.)

I'd forgotten about that old joke until I read this story in Stars and Stripes:

The people fighting the war on terrorism are being asked to tighten their belts to help pay for it.

Air Force bases are cutting back on utility bills. Commands are canceling travel or training that doesn't somehow support the war. And at some fitness centers, people will have to bring their own towel to save on laundry costs.

Budget cuts are even hitting small, local businesses that rely on U.S. air bases.

Tony Molloy, who owns a news agency in Beck Row near RAF Mildenhall, England, said the base canceled its contract for 316 magazines with weekly TV listings because it has pulled the plug on cable television in billeting.

"They rang up from the contracting office and said they were cutting the cable, so they wouldn't need the magazines," said Molloy, who has provided the magazines for several years. Col. Richard Devereaux, RAF Mildenhall's base commander, confirmed the loss of cable TV in billeting.
<...>
Small things would have a large impact, Devereaux added. For example, the chapel's weekly bulletins will be in black and white instead of color, and cell phones will be shelved if they are not used enough to support the contract. The 435th Air Base Wing, the host unit at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, is reducing supplies and equipment purchases and limiting video teleconferencing use, according to Lt. Col. John Long, commander of the 435th Comptroller Squadron. Bases also are asking people to turn down the heat in the winter to save on utility bills.

"Small things add up," Devereaux said. "Sometimes small savings send a signal that we really need to tighten our belt."

Of course, officials said, war- fighting capabilities and readiness are untouchable. Other than that, they said, everything is fair game.

"It will be painful," Devereaux said, "but we can get there."

Update: Got a joke about another branch of the service? Add to the comments. All in good fun.

Update 2: Thanks to readers - we've got a copy, it's here.

Open Post

With reminders.

Soldier's Angels need your help.

Tarzana Joe needs your rhymes.

From the Front

Thunder6:

I was one of the first troops in my unit to arrive here in Iraq. The unit that we were replacing had spent a year in Southern Baghdad, and by time we arrived they were utterly spent. During those early days I made it a point to talk to as many soldiers as I could to get a feel for the AO (Area of Operations). I figured any institutional knowledge they would be willing to pass along would save my troops a lot of agony in the long run. The troops were more then happy to oblige ? they were willing to do just about anything to guarantee a quick ticket back home. In conversation after conversation I listened to a few vital tips liberally salted with stories of the adventures they planned to embark on when they got home.

It was only weeks later that I found out that not everyone was desperate to get home - there was one Corporal had volunteered to stay another year in Iraq. That Corporal was Glenn Watkins.

Yesterday my Battalion suffered it's first combat death.

KIA.

KIlled In Action

Dead.

He was A CPL in Alpha company, a gunner on his truck. He was killed by a VBIED while standing up in the turret, scanning a grove of date palms for danger. Four of his comrads were wounded, all had shrapnel wounds to the legs and lower bodies. A medic on the CPL's vehicle treated the wounded despite a broken leg.

I didn't know the man, yet, I feel his loss.

He was Corporal Glenn Watkins.

Maj K:

He was killed when his guntruck rolled past a static VBIED (car bomb). The other four soldiers in the vehicle were wounded. I do not blame his death on Donald Rumsfeld or the amount of armor plating that his guntruck had. I blame the cowards that planted the bomb. The amount of explosives that was used was sufficient to kill him regardless of the level of armor. One of the men that was wounded was a medic. Somehow, with two broken ankles from the force of the blast, he crawled to CPL Watkins at was trying to bring him back with CPR while badly wounded himself. I always knew Doc K. was good people. We are now preparing for his memorial and trying to find the cowards that did this.

The war goes on.

18 Apr 05 Update:

I am finally able to post this one because I now have reasonable certainty that we have all off the scumbags involved in the killing of CPL Watkins in custody. They all went down without a fight when we burst through their doors in the middle of the night.

More from red2alpha:

I quit being afraid when we turned right at the traffic circle. Fear had ceased being an emotion long before then, it was just there like gravity, a constant force the couldn't be ignored - it had laws and rules, it was a constant in life - but it didn't need to concentrated on. The fear had comeback to me at the convoy brief only minutes before. An under tow pulling me out to sea as the platoon stood in a horse shoe around LT Mac.
"Remember, we don't want to get decisively engaged, our objective is the house, so if we are ambushed we'll push through. Sergeant Burt will...,"

<...>

This dirt bag we were going after may have had something to do with Watkins being killed; he might be plotting to kill other American Soldiers, maybe plotting to kill us. We were here to stop that from happening.

Part one here, part two here.

Did the Pope "Fail" in the Middle East?

Joseph Braude

Muslim leaders are widely reported to be mourning the death of the Pope. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the ranking cleric at Egypt's preeminent Al Azhar Islamic seminary, said his death was "a great loss not only to the Catholic church but to the Islamic world." Senior Muslim Brotherhood preacher Yusuf al Qardawi wrote, "He was a man of peace who stood firmly against the Iraq war and the Israeli separation wall." The leadership of Hamas conveyed its condolences to the press and urged the Vatican "to maintain its position in support of our people and our cause, and focus its efforts on steering its followers to defend the rights of our Palestinian people to confront the continuous Zionist aggression, which targets Muslims and Christians..." Sympathies poured in from Syrian president Bashar Assad, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and Arab League chief Amr Moussa, among others. Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Muhammad recalled that Pope John Paul II had "supported the Palestinians and condemned their victimization. He also ... opposed the occupation of Iraq." Arabic-language satellite networks, according to the Associated Press, "have launched a media blitz for the death of Pope John Paul II, giving Mideast viewers hours of live broadcasts from the Vatican and programs on the pontiff's life--coverage rarely given even to the region's leaders."

War Movies

Last night's movie choice: Dr. Strangelove. Easily one of the best anti-war movies ever.

General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, about, uh, 35 minutes ago, General Jack Ripper, the commanding general of, uh, Burpelson Air Force Base, issued an order to the 34 B-52's of his Wing, which were airborne at the time as part of a special exercise we were holding called Operation Drop-Kick. Now, it appears that the order called for the planes to, uh, attack their targets inside Russia. The, uh, planes are fully armed with nuclear weapons with an average load of, um, 40 megatons each. Now, the central display of Russia will indicate the position of the planes. The triangles are their primary targets; the squares are their secondary targets. The aircraft will begin penetrating Russian radar cover within, uh, 25 minutes.

General "Buck" Turgidson: That's right, sir, you are the only person authorized to do so. And although I, uh, hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like, uh, General Ripper exceeded his authority.

I love anti-war movies. No one is more opposed to war than the American GI, so we know a good anti-war movie when we see one. Not everyone does. Ever notice that most movie critics' lists of "best war movies" are made up predominantly of anti-war movies?

I'm opening the comments on this post up to all Mudville readers - military or not - to nominate films for the all time greatest anti-war films of all time award. Tell us your choices. If not, give us your picks for best war movie ever. We'll do both.

Winners get a Muddy. It's like an Oscar or a Grammy, but less shiny and completely imaginary.

Building Hope

Kent Davy, editor of the Escondido, Ca. North County Times, brings a great feature to our attention. It's the work of two North County (San Diego) Times journalists who were embedded with the Marines during the Iraqi elections. The story by reporter Darrin Mortenson and slide show with audio narration (note - view the flash movie version) by photographer Hayne Palmour serve as a compelling tribute to the Marines' in Najaf - and an outstanding reminder of the strength and courage of the people of Iraq.

I must take a moment here to acknowledge the fine work done in Iraq by many of the reporters willing to take on the task. Their hours are often bad, the stories often grim, but those who are willling to tell it like it is from the front lines are performing an historical service at obvous risk. I've corresponded with many such individuals and respect their work tremendously. All too often I use the generic term 'media' when accusing some of faulty or slanted reporting. Such broad brush terms are convenient shorthand but unfair to so many individuals doing great work at extreme personal danger.

As a side note: the Times feature is also a great use of the versatility of the internet in transmitting information, an outside the box presentation concept for a primarilly print media site. Those dead tree publications who'd like to thrive into the middle decades of this century would do well to note the shifting paradigm.

Go see.

The "First" iPod

The President has joined the cult.

According to The New York Times, this is a sampling from President Bush's iPod; some songs were selected by Mark McKinnon, the chief media strategist in the 2004 campaign:

John Fogerty, "Centerfield"

Van Morrison, "New Biography," "Brown Eyed Girl"

John Hiatt, "Circle Back"

Alan Jackson

George Jones

Alejandro Escovedo, "Castanets" Joni Mitchell, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care"

The Gourds, "El Paso"

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, "Swinging From the Chains of Love"

Stevie Ray Vaughan, "The House is Rockin' "

James McMurtry, "Valley Road"

The Thrills, "Say It Ain't So"

The Knack, "My Sharona"

More here

No Redeeming Qualities

No human being disgusts me more than Seymour Hersh. No - let me re-phrase that. Nothing disgusts me more than Seymour Hersh.

Since the Abu Ghraib story broke eleven months ago, The New Yorker?s national-security correspondent, Seymour Hersh, has followed it up with a series of spectacular scoops. Videotape of young boys being raped at Abu Ghraib. Evidence that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be a ?composite figure? and a propaganda creation of either Iraq?s Baathist insurgency or the U.S. government. The active involvement of Karl Rove and the president in ?prisoner-interrogation issues.? The mysterious disappearance of $1 billion, in cash, in Iraq. A threat by the administration to a TV network to cut off access to briefings in retaliation for asking Laura Bush ?a very tough question about abortion.? The Iraqi insurgency?s access to short-range FROG missiles that ?can do grievous damage to American troops.? The murder, by an American platoon, of 36 Iraqi guards.

Not one of these exclusives appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, however. Instead, Hersh delivered them in speeches on college campuses and in front of organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and on public-radio shows like ?Democracy Now!? In most cases, Hersh attaches a caveat?such as ?I?m just talking now, I?m not writing??before unloading one of his blockbusters, which can send bloggers and reporters scurrying for confirmation.

See this too (or watch the video available at the link).

Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

I most recently re-capped the various lies Hersh foisted on the world regarding Abu Ghraib here. (If you've never read it please don't respond to this post, and absolutely don't discuss Abu Ghraib ever.) I really can't comprehend what motivates this perverted little subhuman freak. He's lucky I'm a nice guy though - he's got that going for him. And he's lucky we've never met.

Strange that so many journalists worship him like a god.

Or maybe not.

Update: Did I mention that Hersh is a liar?

Open Post

Tell the world...

Angels Needed

The good folks at Soldiers Angels have a request. The group puts together backpacks for wounded troops. These bags contain some immediate personal need items that aren't otherwise on hand for someone who's been rapidly evacuated from a combat zone. I received this email from them today:

We are having a great deal of luck putting the back packs together. But a couple of things are falling short. Back packs or the money to buy them and undershorts. We have 30,000 items to put in the back packs tolietries,t-shirts,girl scout cookies 2000 T-shirts,Vfw donated 2000 postcards good for a phone card 200,000cards and letters.We are waiting to here back from a company who said they could donate 2000 scub bottoms. DHL is paying the shipping the and the are being put together at the Nascar event with John Michael Montgomery singing. Do you think you could post somthing and maybe get The Milbloggers also to help raise the underwear and backpack or cash? We truly need help.

I've had a long online acquaintance with these folks - and I can testify that their efforts ensured everyone I was deployed with (several hundred people) each got at least one Christmas gift last year. Many other units benefited from their generosity too - the Soldier's Angels team are indeed Angels.

Anyone who can help please visit Soldier's Angels and do what you can for America's heroes.

From The Front

Redwood13 reports from Kuwait.

Dead or Alive?

Military may declare missing soldier dead after being captured a year ago Saturday.

Where is Matt Maupin? He is the only American soldier unaccounted for in Iraq, and that is a question his parents have been asking.

Video had surfaced of his capture on April 16 of 2004. He is shown in uniform and unharmed. On the tape, one of the gunmen was heard saying: "Some of our groups managed to capture one of the American soldiers, and he is one of many others. He is being treated according to the treatment of prisoners in the Islamic religion and he is in good health... We are keeping him to be exchanged for some of the prisoners captured by the occupation forces".

Three months later al Jazeera claimed they had received videotaped and written statements showing militants killed the kidnapped U.S. soldier.

There is no confirmation at this time, that the al Jazeera tape contained footage of Matt Maupin or any other Army soldier.

Fellow captive recalls bloody chaos of a year ago

Try as he may, Thomas Hamill simply cannot remember seeing then-Pfc. Keith "Matt" Maupin that bloody day a year ago when all hell broke loose on their convoy in Iraq, and both became prisoners of the Iraqi insurgents.

Lance Cpl. Micah Maupin, Matt's younger brother, wants to go to Iraq - for the adventure, because he feels a duty as a Marine, and on some days, because he feels compelled to search for his brother.

Matt is currently listed as "captured" and his parents would like to keep it that way.

Maupin was recently promoted to Sergeant, his second promotion since his capture.

The Mrs Will Bake a Yellow Cake

So, the whole Iraq war thing is Ledeen's fault?

Lacking significant amounts of cash, I can offer only fine cigars to his defense. Oh, wait... that and sanctuary should he have to flee the shores, etc. Join me on the front porch of Haus Grauhawk, Michael, and we'll plot the next chapter of conquest for the Empire - over a few Monte Cristos.

Bring Roger too. Vive la révolution!

Citizen Journalists Unite!!

I challenge the right side of the blogosphere to join me in making this demand* on behalf of Left Wing bloggers everywhere:

To the National Press Club:

We hereby demand that in the future you include representatives from the Daily Kos and Atrios in any panel discussions featuring Wonkette and anyone who might be a male prostitute. America deserves the truth!

Cheers,

the undersigned

*(This probably-not-work-or-kid-safe link explains.)

Update: Realplayer video here.

More: Curious that so many might aspire to be considered 'journalists', given that as a group they are consistently rated as at or near the bottom of all professions for honesty and ethical standards throughout the English speaking world.

Everyday Heros...

...every day in Iraq, at least.

ABC profiles an American Hero, Marine Sgt. Jason Arellano, who was wounded in action during the battle for Fallujah

An ABC News crew was embedded with Arellano's company for the assault on Fallujah last fall, and we very quickly realized he was the guy we wanted to stick with. The operation was relatively smooth for Arellano and his men. They secured their slice of the city in eight days and we left.

More than a month later, I got an e-mail from Arellano, sent from a hospital bed in Germany. He'd already had seven operations on shrapnel wounds in his neck and leg and a bullet wound in his groin.

Arellano had been on patrol, still in Fallujah, where he'd spent his 27th birthday. On Dec. 12, he was hit. He became the Marine that squad leaders tell their men about.

When he recovers he wants to rejoin his unit in Iraq.

"All my men are still there. I've received messages and e-mails that they're doing all right," he said.

He's also considering becoming a police officer.

Kudos to Nightline for telling this story.

Women drivers

After years of oppression under the Taliban there is a new plan in Herat Afghanistan to teach women to drive and give them licenses.

Sima Kazemi smiled proudly as she considered whether she would pass the first driver's license exam to be offered to women in this western city. There was, she said, no doubt. But the confidence drained from the 20-year-old college student's voice as she acknowledged the harassment that she would probably face as a female driver in Afghanistan.

Singing a Different Tune?

Santiago Lyon, Director of Photography for the Associated Press, tells the "story behind the photos" of the murder of election workers in a Baghdad street.

The photos made front pages around the world and one of them was part of the package of AP's coverage of Iraq that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography.

How did the photographer come to be in one of the most dangerous parts of one of the most dangerous streets in Baghdad at this particular time? He had been tipped by another journalist that "something happened on Haifa Street." Immediately he headed out the door for a car trip to Haifa Street. He found a burning car and photographed it about 300 meters from what would later turn out to be the execution scene.

The photographer then walked toward the intersection where the executions would later take place to photograph the wreck of another recently burned car that he spotted nearby. Soon, he noticed about 20 people arriving and directing traffic away from the intersection, looking unofficial and "very unusual." Anticipating a problem, the car that had brought him there was put near a bridge for a quick getaway, if necessary. He left his photo equipment in the car and walked up to one of the people directing traffic to inquire about what they were doing. He was told "none of your business." He walked back to the car. That's when he heard an explosion. The concussion was powerful enough to break glass in the car.

The photographer turned and saw the group holding two people at gunpoint on the street. One of the attackers was armed with an AK-47 rifle and another with a handgun. The photographer grabbed a camera with a 400mm telephoto lens and photographed the next events from beside the car. The gunmen shot two men in succession. The second shooting was obscured by passing traffic, with many passing cars now fleeing the area. The photographer got back in the car, which inadvertently went down a circular street that just went under the foot of the bridge and returned to the same intersection. He took the occasion to shoot several more photos from the car. Then he left the scene for good.

Given the reasonable explanation AP now presents one wonders why the earlier comments, which certainly indicate a much cozier relationship between the photographer and the murderers, were ever released. Of course, AP owes no explanation of it's practices to anyone anywhere, but why not tell as much of the truth as possible from the start?

Update: Wretchard has more. And Powerline comments here and here.
Not everyone thinks the current AP version is reasonable.

The NY Times notes the story here

More Others think it is reasonable, and note multiple possibilities.

Arthur's Mail

Dear friends

How much difference two years can make. Commenting on the news that Saddam Hussein's nemesis, leader of the people Saddam liked to gas, has now been elected President of Iraq, Mohammed Saleh, a 42-year old Kurd interviewed by the media on the streets of Kirkuk had this to say: "Today Jalal Talabani made it to the seat of power, while Saddam Hussein is sitting in jail... Who would have thought."

History is, of course, full of delicious ironies. Not the least that the authorities have permitted Iraq's Prisoner Number 1 to watch from his prison cell the swearing in of the new government. While Iraq's new leaders lack Saddam's 99.8 per cent electoral mandates, they certainly make up for it in unscripted enthusiasm and passion. Saddam, meanwhile, who for years inflicted on his captive television audience his rambling speeches and meaningless proceedings of Iraq's "parliament" is now on the receiving end, getting the taste of the real democracy in action.

But while the momentous political events once again monopolized the headlines for the past two weeks, a lot of other positive developments have been taking place across Iraq, mostly out of the media spotlight. Below a selection of some of these stories:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

Best regards

Arthur

To the Poets

From Tarzana Joe of the Hugh Hewitt show:

Greyhawk

I read your poem on the air 4/8. Went well. Hope you heard it. I've got two weeks to get the word out to as many poets out there as you can help me reach. Can you help? Perhaps you can forward the following to some of your circle....

The Hugh Hewitt Show is a syndicated center-right political talk show on AM radio in the US. Each month , we drop politics for a segment and do about fifteen minutes on a poet or poetry theme. On April 26 we are planning a segment on poetry written by active duty military. I am trying to contact as many milblogs as I can and get contributions and permission to read them on the air. If I get enough, I am even thinking of trying to get a publisher interested in doing a book. I am looking for everything from hip-hop to lyrics to straight poetry.

Send poem submissions with a short note giving permission to read on the air to

tarzanajoe@hotmail.com

Also, please pass this e-mail around to as many milblogs and active military as you can. I'm a poet-pundit on a deadline.

Readers note: please don't submit entries to Mudville - send to tarzanajoe@hotmail.com.

Lonsdale

Via Hugh Hewitt, a must-read for my fellow Americans in Europe.

Attention Lonsdale clothing: Time to change the logo guys.

Open Post

Pile on.

Other Thoughts on CBS Cameraman Story

Cori Dauber at Ranting Profs

Robin Burk at Random Probabilities

Clive Davis (note the story he links)

Roger L Simon

Austin Bay

Scott Ott at Scrappleface

Chris Muir at Day by Day (See Sisyphean Musings for more details)

Mosul

A key event in the handover of responsibilities to the Iraqi military is taking place in Mosul:

MOSUL, Iraq -- The two dozen Iraqi soldiers marched in formation into downtown Mosul, streets emptying in their path. The men trained their rifles on potential bomb threats: a donkey-drawn vegetable cart, a blue Opel sedan, a man with a bulge beneath his tattered gray coat.

Less than a month ago, U.S. forces patrolled these dangerous streets. But on this humid morning there were only the Iraqis and a lone U.S. adviser, Marine Staff Sgt. Lafayette Waters, 32, of Kinston, N.C., who blended unobtrusively into the patrol.

This is Area of Operations Iraq, slightly more than two square miles in the heart of Iraq's third-largest city. It is also at the center of the U.S. military's strategy to hand off counterinsurgency operations to Iraqi security forces and ultimately draw down the number of American troops.

Since Iraq's Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, that process has accelerated much more rapidly than U.S. commanders have previously acknowledged. Although AO Iraq is one of just two sectors currently under Iraqi control (the other is the area around Baghdad's Haifa Street), two senior U.S. officers said the Iraqis' zone of responsibility would soon expand and eventually include all of Nineveh province, including Mosul and Tall Afar, another volatile city, possibly within a year.

The officers cautioned that the rough timetable for the northern province's handover could be affected by several factors, including the potency of the insurgency and the preparedness of specific units, and U.S. commanders have declined to provide a schedule for shifting responsibility to Iraqi forces throughout the country. But the process in Mosul, where in November insurgents overpowered an 8,000-man Iraqi police force and several National Guard units, demonstrates how fast the transition is happening.

After one Iraqi soldier walked by, oblivious that the muzzle of his AK-47 was pointed at a reporter's head, Kajs said: "Don't worry, you get used to them pointing their weapons at you."

But then, I'm not a reporter.

Courage

CBS News' Lee Cowan, reporting from Baghdad on the courage of the cameramen CBS uses to bring the war to your living room:

"...if they are caught carrying around an American press ID in some of the places we ask them to go they will certainly be less than popular in those places."

The Army says he was turned in by witnesses to his last car bombing. If so that statement has been proven true.

He's innocent until proven guilty, of course, but here are a few reasons they might have been upset:

11 Mar

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) ? Weeping relatives gathered in small groups Friday to bury 50 people killed by a suicide bomber in this northern city, after canceling a mass funeral procession for fear of another attack.

And in the northern city of Mosul, the deputy police commander, Col. Wathiq Ali, said 17 militants were killed and 14 captured late Monday after during an assassination attempt on police officials.

Also in Mosul, a roadside bomb that exploded near a U.S. patrol killed four civilians. It wasn't immediately clear if the troops suffered casualties.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - There's been another deadly suicide bombing in Iraq. Eleven Iraqi police officers were killed in the attack that occurred on the outskirts of Ramadi.

The U-S military says two American soldiers were injured in the blast, along with nine Iraqi officers and several civilians.

BAGHDAD (AP) - Insurgents reasserted themselves in a spasm of deadly attacks after days of reported setbacks, killing 17 Iraqi security forces in four separate car bombings, gunning down five Iraqi women working for American troops and assassinating a senior Iraqi military official, authorities said Friday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq Mar 30, 2005 ? A car bomb exploded Wednesday in western Baghdad, killing one person and injuring at least six others, and attackers opened fire on Shiite pilgrims heading to a major religious festival that draws some 1.5 million people.

The car bomb struck near a U.S. convoy in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib neighborhood, said police Lt. Akram Al-Zawobaie. No coalition soldiers were injured, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber blew himself up Thursday near an Islamic shrine, killing five Iraqis in the latest attack on Shiite Muslim pilgrims marking a major religious holiday.

The blast in Tuz Khormato, 55 miles south of Kirkuk, killed three civilians, including a child, and two soldiers helping guard the shrine, police reported. Sixteen people were wounded, hospital officials said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Four children collecting trash were killed today by a homemade bomb in Baghdad, and masked gunmen killed an Iraqi Army officer in a restaurant in the southern city of Basra, police said.

Baghdad - A roadside bomb killed 15 Iraqi soldiers and wounded several others on Saturday morning in Latifiyah, 40km south of Baghdad, a defence ministry official said.

CBS:

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports the military became suspicious when they examined the contents of the camera and found pictures of what appears to be the aftermath of four separate attacks by insurgents using IEDs, improvised explosive devices. The footage, taken so soon after the attacks, suggest the cameraman had to have foreknowledge that the attacks would take place, officials told Stewart. The scenes and timing of the taping are very disturbing, said one official.

More to come...

You Know You're a Military Wife/Girlfriend/Fianc饠Of a Deployed Soldier When...

Our from the front MilBlogger today is Big Al's Army Life kept by Big Al's fiance, who is hanging in there. At day 85 she gives 50 realizations of when she knew that she was whole-heartily part of this Army of One. And here she has lessons learned. All insight to being a loved one of a deployed service member.

'Grandma' airlifted to medical center

'Receiving IV fluids, nourishment,' says nephew who credits WND, bloggers, 'Terri's friends'

Mae Magouirk, the 81-year-old Georgia widow over whose medical care a family tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo case has been raging, has been transported from the hospice in LaGrange, Ga., to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, according to her nephew, where "she is receiving food, fluids, cardiac care and neurological help."

The Price is Right

CBS announces a million dollar spectacular:

Over on the News site - congrats kids!

Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles are husband and wife, capping a decades-long romance that survived scrutiny, scandal, and the prince's first marriage to Princess Diana.

True love conquers all.

Also, if you search deep enough, you'll find the video segment from CBS news' report on their cameraman. CBSnews.com video is always free, thanks in part to Wal Mart.

"From every indication that we had, the work he'd done for us over the past three months had been exceptional." The reporter also notes that the Iraqis working for American media are at great risk, and if they are caught with American press ID in some of the places they are sent they will be less than popular in those places.

Crossing the Line? Media and The Public's Right to Know

For those who might as yet be unaware, a CBS cameraman has been wounded and captured by US forces in Iraq, and is suspected of working for the "insurgency."

CBS:

In a statement released Friday, CBS News said the man had worked as a freelancer for CBS for three months and that he was videotaping for the network when he was shot.

Robin Burk:

It?s beginning to look as if that means that the news networks may in fact not just be reporting the news but are also aligning themselves with one side in an armed conflict. And in this case, that side appears to be the side that is blowing up schools and shops, killing Iraqi police and attacking U.S. soldiers.

How much would exclusive photos of "insurgents" beheading an aid worker be worth to the AP?

How about a planned "demonstration" at a polling place on election day in Baghdad? If that same photographer was invited by the same group to a "demonstration" there, how much would he "earn" for his pictures?

The media defense of their actions generally takes some form of the argument that the public has a right to know all sides of the story. Here at Mudville we couldn't agree more with that sentiment. We don't shy away from covering all aspects of the War on Terror. With that in mind, we believe the public has the right to know:

How much does CBS pay it's cameraman? Do they pay a set salary or per video provided? Or only if the video is usable by CBS?

Were any American soldiers or Iraqi citizens hurt or killed in any of the attacks videotaped by CBS' cameraman?

Does he in turn pay the terrorists - or is he simply one of them? If so, how do the surviving family members feel about CBS funding the attacks on their sons, daughters, husbands, or wives?

If not, how do the surviving family members feel about CBS paying for video of attacks on their sons, daughters, husbands, or wives?

How do CBS' advertisers feel about their money supporting this effort?

Let's hope we get some answers.

Update - A few more questions CBS should have answers to: The cameraman was injured. Where was he treated? Who paid for treatment of those injuries? An Iraqi hospital? The US military? And will CBS reimburse for those expenses? Has CBS ensured their cameraman is receiving the best possible medical care? If I were in senior management at the network I'd want those answers on my desk immediately.

Of course, they've already asked those questions, haven't they?

CBS responds to cameraman's arrest

AP reports CBS's response to the arrest of their cameraman in Iraq

In a statement released Friday, CBS News said the man had worked as a freelancer for CBS for three months and that he was videotaping for the network when he was shot.

"It is common practice in Iraq for Western news organizations to hire local cameramen in places considered too dangerous for Westerners to work effectively. The very nature of their work often puts them in the middle of very volatile situations," the statement said.

"CBS News continues to investigate the situation, and when more information becomes available, we will report it."

Bloggers Cheer...

...as spammer is off to the slammer

A MAN has been jailed for nine years for sending millions of junk e-mails, or "spamming". Jeremy Jaynes, 30, is the first person in the US to receive a prison term in a spam case.

Open Post

Reports from the early adopters are in:

Remember, one for you, one for the hippy next door.

CBS Cameraman Arrested

Iraqi citizens informed on CBS cameraman, leading to his arrest by coalition forces:

CNN has reported that this CBS cameraman has been arrested in Iraq as an insurgent. According to the report his camera contained footage of an insurgent attack on American forces, authorities believe he was 'tipped off'.

Update: CBS, Amnesty International and the Pulitzer committee are silent so far... (Added Clarification: this is not meant to imply the same cameraman was responsible for both events. The identity of the prize-winning photographer is unknown. Just noting the similarity.) (Update to Update: Reporters without Borders was all over it though.)

CBS original comment on the shooting was burried in another story on Iraq:

A soldier shot an Iraqi freelance reporter and cameraman employed by CBS News, Abdul Amir Younis Hussein, in northeastern Mosul while working. According to what the Pentagon told the CBS News bureau in Washington, Tuesday, Hussein was shot in the hip by a soldier who mistook his camera, which he was using at the time, for a weapon. Hussein is being treated and is expected to make a full recovery.

The cameraman and reporter suffered minor injuries when he was shot while covering a firefight for CBS in Mosul, CBS News said. It asked that the man's name not be reported for his protection.

Reuters again:

The U.S. military said in a statement from Mosul released at the Pentagon that U.S. soldiers had been involved in an engagement with at least one suspected insurgent who was "waving an AK-47 (assault rifle) and inciting a crowd of civilians."

During the incident, "an individual that appeared to have a weapon who was standing near the insurgent was shot and injured. This individual turned out to be a reporter who was pointing a video camera," the military statement said.

A US military statement said troops also shot and killed an insurgent who was waving an AK-47 assault rifle and inciting a crowd of civilians at the site of a suicide bombing in eastern Mosul.

This report from an NBC affiliate attributed to AP adds this: The incident followed a car bombing in Mosul that injured five American soldiers.

More: NewsMax is reporting the arrest.

ABC News

And the Guardian, all with essentially the same story:

But on Friday, the military said the cameraman was detained because there was probable cause to believe he posed ``an imperative threat to coalition forces.''

``He is currently detained and will be processed as any other security detainee,'' the statement said.

CBS News spokeswoman Leigh Farris said, ``We're looking into the situation.''

A spokesman for Task Force Freedom, Capt. Mark Walter, said the reporter suffered minor wounds and was with ``a number of people'' involved in the shootout.

Walter said the reporter was detained immediately after the incident, in part because of statements from witnesses to the battle.

Officials are investigating the man's previous activities as well as ``his alleged support of anti-Iraqi insurgency activities,'' the statement said.

Iraqi citizens informed on CBS cameraman, leading to his arrest by coalition forces!

More: CBS reports:

A cameraman carrying CBS press credentials was detained in Iraq earlier this week on suspicion of insurgent activity, the U.S. military said Friday.

Wow.

And more: The AP, still looking for space in the trophy case for that Pulitzer, toes the line:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A cameraman carrying CBS press credentials was detained in Iraq earlier this week on suspicion of insurgent activity, the U.S. military said Friday.

Double wow.

Final Update: More here. Does the public have a right to know all sides? You bet we do.

Related Posts:
Media, Military, and Professional Ethics
Targeting Journalists

From the Front

The home front - for a fellow American in Germany.

What's it like being in a foreign land while having a loved one deployed in harms way? Read these brief posts in order.

One

Two

Three

Four

Some days it's like that.

Email From Abu Ghraib

On the topic of the recent 'insurgent' attack: "Don't believe what the news says, the marines killed ALOT of people".

Scroll to Wednesday, April 6th, 2005: 2100hrs entry. Not for the squeemish.

(Via A Warded Neuron)

Neozoolander

Q: What did the 25-year-old Venezuelan-born computer whiz who allegedly hacked his way into a U.S. Defense Department computer system and posted a taunting message and now could face up to 20 years in prison say to the Miami Herald reporter?

Oh, no, Canada!

Disaster follows on the heels of calamity for the northernmost part of North America. The ink is hardly dry on Captain Ed's exposure of corruption in the government, and now the good citizens of Canada must cope with this:

A beer truck flipped over on a roadway overpass in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Monday, prompting local officials to comment on the tragedy.

"It is sad," Capt. Scott Logan of the Halifax Regional Fire Service (search) told The Daily News of Halifax. "Chances are they won't recover any of the beer."

The truck, hauling 46,368 bottles of Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale, skidded to a stop against the overpass's guardrail, luckily avoiding a 50-foot plunge down to another road.

The female driver was pulled out of the cab uninjured ? "more frazzled than hurt," according to Logan ? letting rescuers focus on the calamitous aspects of the disaster.

"I had a tear in my eye, actually, when I was watching it," said police Constable Mark Hobeck. "It was full of beer. We were hoping a Hostess truck full of pretzels would come by, but no such luck."

Update: Mudville commenters are the best - thanks Andy!

Open Post

Mmmmm.. Google cache.

By the way, if you haven't followed the links in this post yet you're missing the story of the day. Of the year, perhaps.

From the Front

Major K with a grim reminder that the war goes on.

Recruiting

From an Instapundit reader:

The rarely-mentioned dirty secret of it all is that the military are increasingly disinclined to recruit in such places to begin with. They did not push to reinstitute ROTC at places like Harvard and Middlebury because "frankly, we've found that students from such institutions tend to perform poorly as officers," to quote an officer (O-4) in a position to know.

Also see here.

Historic

Great stuff from Beirut. The revolution will be blogged indeed. Let's hope it's a peaceful one.

Schiavo Memo Update

Update to this Post
Now the tale begins to unravel. See Joshua Claybourn and Powerline.

Martinez, in his statement, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had asked for background information on the bill ordering a federal court to review the Schiavo case.

He said he pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin. "Unbeknownst to me ... I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo."

He said Harkin had called him earlier Wednesday to say he believes the memo had been given to him by Martinez. The Florida senator said he then ordered an internal investigation in his office.

Both the above links note a host of unanswered questions, but the whole truth might yet be revealed in this story - and only due to the efforts of bloggers who kept the light shining. That many will be unsatisfied with the result doesn't change that fact.

More to come - we'll certainly stay on it here. I'm sure the finger pointing and acrimony have just begun...

More

John Hinderaker:

There are still several unanswered questions, of which the most important is: Did Harkin (or possibly someone else) misinform the reporters about the source, nature and distriubtion of the memo, or did the reporters see the memo and leap to the wrong conclusion? I have posed this question to Mike Allen of the Post, and will pass on any reply that I receive.

A related issue was ABC News' and the Post's mischaracterizations of their own reporting. ABC News insisted it never said the memo was distributed by Senate Republicans even though Kate Snow said just that. Allen repeatedly denied that he reported the memo was distributed by GOP "party leaders" even though a widely-published article carrying his byline said just that. After this blog and others pointed out the discrepancy, Allen himself requested that his initial claim be retracted. Post editors, however, concluded that a retraction was not warranted.

Mickey Kaus:

WaPo's Mike Allen reports that the now-famous Schiavo "talking points" memo came from freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez's office. So that mystery is cleared up. The memo wasn't a fake. But Allen doesn't come off looking too good in this latest account. a) The memo was apparently not "distributed to Republican Senators by party leaders," as Allen's initial story, sent out through the Post news service to other papers, reported. It was--at least judging from today's account--handed to one Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, by one freshman Republican senator (who isn't in the party leadership); b) Allen doesn't explain why he told Howie Kurtz he "did not call them talking points or a Republican memo" when he had in fact done just that in the news service draft; c) Even the later, more "carefully worded" account Allen published in the Post itself was apparently wrong. Allen wrote

In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as "a great political issue" ...

This is almost the reverse of what Allen now reports.

Still more (fair and balanced): see this too.

Forever Green

Our favorite poet Russ Vaughn has a new poem up at the American thinker expressing his sentiments of Hanoi Jane. I normally would post Russ' poem here and though we share the same sentiment the language is rather rough so I'll link it with a warning.

Open Post

Your open post - and a big thank you to Michael at A Day in Iraq who alerts us to this article on Milblogs from Investor's Business Daily (Note: link no longer valid - story already replaced with no archive found.)

Mrs G gets credit in the story! - I might have to get Michael a MilBlogs bumper sticker...

Don't forget to get your MilBlogs bumper sticker. Sure, it'll look good on your Humvee, but think how great it will look on your neighbor's hippywagon - or the boss's Volvo.

Open Post - my blog is your blog!

What if They had a Tet Offensive and Nobody Came?

Instead of one from the front today, here's a bunch. See if you notice a trend.

Boots on the Ground, Baghdad, 3 Apr

All hell seemed to have broken loose yesterday. There were many fire fights and attacks going on all throughout the day. Some of our guys got stuck out for almost 24 hours straight. A car bomb went off taking out one of the armored vehicles. They had mass casualties, but only one that had to be flown out. It's a little surprising the news hasn't covered this at all. Plus a bomb killed some innocent bystanders. Some of the guys were pissed off that they weren't out on the patrols out there because they wanted to get in on the action.

The camp was hit with four mortar shells yesterday. No one was hurt and there was no significant damage. We spent 40 minutes in a concrete bunker waiting for the signal that everything was clear.

Following attacks of any kind rumors abound.

Last night, between about 7 pm and 8 pm there were thumping sounds every few seconds. The sound seemed to be coming from either the checkpoint, or from the logbase. I'm not sure which, and I don't really care to become more precise about OPSEC matters anyway.

What does matter though is that there was a sustained firefight around the area of the attacks and that, to quote the SGM, "every [insurgent] we saw, we killed."

More importantly though, and more media worthy, was the attack against Abu Ghraib Prison. I have fellow friends out there, working for my company.

Sorry it has been a little while since the last entry. It has been a busy week. We spent several days in the field doing dismounted missions and did a mounted mission yesterday morning. I had just gotten back from dinner last night and was looking forward to a nice relaxing evening. I was getting ready to take a shower and was planning on a good night of solid sleep when my team leader busted in my room and screamed, ?GET YOUR GEAR AND GET TO THE COMPANY TOC, ABU GRAIB IS UNDER ATTACK!?

An anniversary went almost unnoticed this past week. This time last year four contractors were murdered, their bodies then mutilated and hung on a bridge in Fallujah. An odd coincidence that a spate of attacks occurs in Iraq almost a year to the day? Perhaps.

But by comparison, this year's events drew little notice, with the exception of the Abu Ghraib attack. Here's the official CENTCOM news release detailing events at Abu Ghraib last weekend:

BAGHDAD, Iraq ? Soldiers and Marines successfully repelled a well-coordinated attack by 40-60 terrorists on Forward Operating Base Abu Ghraib April 2 at about 7 p.m. Abu Ghraib is a detention facility for 3,400 detainees as well as an Iraqi-run prison.

In an attempt to gain access to the prison, terrorists launched a simultaneous attack in multiple locations using indirect fires, rocket-propelled grenade fire, small arms fire and a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. Just as the sun was setting, indirect fire from 81 mm and 120 mm mortars began impacting the operating base. This was followed by multiple RPG attacks and a large volume of small arms fire focused on two guard towers, one on the northwestern and the other on the southeastern corner on the operating base. Using the cover of the mortar fire and the intense fire on the guard towers, the terrorists launched a VBIED to penetrate the perimeter wall near the southeastern guard tower. Marines defending the base returned fire and the VBIED exploded before it reached the perimeter. Marines in the tower were forced to evacuate but were quickly reinforced by a quick reaction force.

The terrorists, using residential areas for cover and concealment, then conducted a ground assault towards the southeastern tower. With reinforcements from the quick reaction force, Marines and Soldiers halted the advance of the terrorists. Additionally, Apache helicopters and artillery fire began to engage the remnants of the attackers. The terrorists were forced to withdraw after suffering an estimated 50 casualties. The attack was over by 9 p.m.

US forces sustained seven wounded who were evacuated to a combat support hospital and sixteen minor injuries from shrapnel who have been returned to duty.

Additionally, thirteen detainees were also wounded from indirect fire, and all detainees remained accounted for.

Early press reports had the number of American wounded at more than 40, but as noted above only seven were serious enough to require evacuation. And as was noted on the Boots in Baghdad blog, the attack was repelled without need for reinforcements. Still, it was an event of some significance - certainly a reminder that the war isn't over, and if looked at in light of other attacks throughout the country at the time perhaps cause for more concern.

I survived a "vacation" in Baghdad. Looking back it seems foolish to have ever anticipated any other outcome of my tour of duty there. Of course I survived. I wasn't in combat, after all. And ignoring the rockets that flew overhead from time to time to detonate a few hundred yards away and the British C130 that may or may not have been shot down on the day I was supposed to have flown out I was never in great danger.

But that's true only in hindsight. And while there I couldn't help but realize I was playing Rocket Bingo. Some days the tension was higher than others. The weeks leading up to the US elections saw a gradual increase of pucker factor; each day without something big going boom left a certainty that the big day was just around the corner. Having successfully castrated Spain on the eve of elections in that country it seemed plausible that terrorists would want to try the same with the US. (And they had the largest collection of weapons in the world to do it with.)

When election day came and went with little violence the conventional wisdom was that they were 'saving it up' for special days later in Ramadan. That month was forever long, with some days known to be better than others for glorious death by Jihad. We could only shrug and wonder when those days passed with minimal and ineffective violence. The month passed. Just prior to Christmas a suicide bomber struck a DFAC at Mosul. The terrorists earned media praise for a new level of cunning. Wild claims of terrorist manpower numbering in the hundreds of thousands were trumpeted in the New Year as the Iraqi elections approached. Tet was on everyone's mind - but the best the enemy could do was a series of car bombs that detonated without ever reaching their targets.

Given the numbers of terrorists that were supposedly operating in Iraq, I was surprised each and every day that a thousand or so didn't rush the walls of my happy home, just to create a news story. Obviously the numbers were inflated, but I could think of only two explanations for that. One - the opposition was never the force that the media made it out to be, or two - we had utterly crushed the insurgency, something I thought possible last October but confess I left as a question for fear of a jinx.

What was increasingly obvious was that the reality of Iraq was significantly different from the picture presented to Americans at home. Sure, insurgents can lob mortars over walls, or detonate truck bombs, or assassinate election officials, judges, and others - but where were the thousands wanting death to the point they'd charge the walls of the infidel strongholds? Every passing day it seemed less likely that such a force existed.

Fast forward to the present, and in the story above we see a pale hint of what I always thought was likely, the attack on the walls. But once again the attackers are destroyed, repulsed, routed - their mighty truck bomb detonated short of it's target, their rockets and small arms fire largely ineffective, their mission a failure. But this time they even lack something else: their cheerleaders have melted away. There's apparently no one left in Iraq to report on what an amazingly sophisticated and coordinated assault was launched nationwide this past weekend. No one to declare the insurgents 'increasingly bold'.

Was that Tet? Was that all the bad guys could bring? Is something bigger coming in the near future?

Are we seeing the result of the influx of French teenagers into the Al Qaeda cells? Are the Sunnis ready to pack it in?

We're not just about photography, after all. Whatever comes next, it's good to know the MilBloggers will be there ready for it.

With pen and sword.

Schiavo Memo: The Plot Thickens

Just a few weeks after the story first appeared on Powerline, the Washington Times offers some investigation and reporting on the ABC/Washington Post memo. In response to a survey conducted by the paper, all 55 Republican senators say they had never seen the document prior to it's appearance on ABC and in the Washington Post, and only one Democrat insists he saw it circulate on the Senate floor.

All 55 Republican senators say they have never seen the Terri Schiavo political talking-points memo that Democrats say was circulated among Republicans during the floor debate over whether the federal government should intervene to prolong her life.

A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her. Every one of them said he or she had not seen it until the memo was the subject of speculation in major news organs, particularly ABC News and The Washington Post.

Democrats said Republicans distributed the memo, and one Democratic official told The Post that a Republican senator gave it to a Democratic senator.

The Times surveyed all 44 Democrats and the chamber's one independent, and only one of them, Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, said through a spokeswoman that he saw it circulated on the Senate floor.

"He said that the memo was being circulated by Republican members on Thursday before we went out of session, and that is when he saw it," said his spokeswoman, Allison Dobson.

Two Democratic offices refused to respond ? Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat ? the latter even as he continued to accuse Republicans of being behind it.

"We will not participate in the survey. News outlets have investigated and authenticated the memo was real and came from Republican sources. We have no further comment," said spokeswoman Tessa Hafen. "If you want more information on the memo, you should work on finding the Republican who wrote it."

She did not respond to a request to name the newspaper or network that had "authenticated" the memorandum.

Interesting that Tom Harkin was the only senator to see the memo circulate on the floor. Harkin, who 'through a spokeswoman' has accused every Republican senator in America of lying, is well known for lying about his service in Vietnam.

Recall that the NY Times reported that unnamed "Democratic aides" were the only people ever seen distributing the memo:

As tensions festered among Republicans, Democratic aides passed out an unsigned one-page memorandum that they said had been distributed to Senate Republicans. "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," the memorandum said.

Dr. Frist and other Republicans denied having seen the memorandum, and Dr. Frist said he "condemned it as soon as I heard about it."

Update: Now the tale begins to unravel. See Joshua Claybourn and Powerline.

Martinez, in his statement, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had asked for background information on the bill ordering a federal court to review the Schiavo case.

He said he pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin. "Unbeknownst to me ... I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo."

He said Harkin had called him earlier Wednesday to say he believes the memo had been given to him by Martinez. The Florida senator said he then ordered an internal investigation in his office.

Both the above links note a host of unanswered questions, but the whole truth might yet be revealed in this story - and only due to the efforts of bloggers who kept the light shining. That many will be unsatisfied with the result doesn't change that fact.

More to come - we'll certainly stay on it here. I'm sure the finger pointing and acrimony have just begun...

More

John Hinderaker:

There are still several unanswered questions, of which the most important is: Did Harkin (or possibly someone else) misinform the reporters about the source, nature and distriubtion of the memo, or did the reporters see the memo and leap to the wrong conclusion? I have posed this question to Mike Allen of the Post, and will pass on any reply that I receive.

A related issue was ABC News' and the Post's mischaracterizations of their own reporting. ABC News insisted it never said the memo was distributed by Senate Republicans even though Kate Snow said just that. Allen repeatedly denied that he reported the memo was distributed by GOP "party leaders" even though a widely-published article carrying his byline said just that. After this blog and others pointed out the discrepancy, Allen himself requested that his initial claim be retracted. Post editors, however, concluded that a retraction was not warranted.

Mickey Kaus:

WaPo's Mike Allen reports that the now-famous Schiavo "talking points" memo came from freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez's office. So that mystery is cleared up. The memo wasn't a fake. But Allen doesn't come off looking too good in this latest account. a) The memo was apparently not "distributed to Republican Senators by party leaders," as Allen's initial story, sent out through the Post news service to other papers, reported. It was--at least judging from today's account--handed to one Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, by one freshman Republican senator (who isn't in the party leadership); b) Allen doesn't explain why he told Howie Kurtz he "did not call them talking points or a Republican memo" when he had in fact done just that in the news service draft; c) Even the later, more "carefully worded" account Allen published in the Post itself was apparently wrong. Allen wrote

In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as "a great political issue" ...

This is almost the reverse of what Allen now reports.

Still more (fair and balanced): see this too.

Classified

In the mail recently: a copy of Atomic Iran along with the press kit, this one in a plain brown folder stamped "Top Secret - Intel".

A gimmick, of course. But as a GI overseas I get my mail from a post office on a military installation, which I then leave to go to my home in a small German town. I was cruising right along towards the gate when I realized I was carrying something that would cause me some trouble if some sharp young cop were to take note of it.

Fortunately that didn't happen. Now the truth is the folder that I was carrying didn't look anything like an actual classified document folder, but I still had my momentary mental image of being jacked up at the gate. I flipped it over so that the words were facing down before I passed the guards.

You see, anyone who works with classified knows full well what the penalty would be for taking some actual samples home at the end of the day. Which is why this story probably needs a lot more attention than what it's getting.

Update: There's always someone in comments who knows more than I do. Thanks Buzz!

GH,

Check out my article on Berger at Human Events.

I worked with Berger when I was Clinton's milaide. The guy understands, fully well, what he was doing. Plus, the real value in the documents destroyed where the notes in the margins between himself, POTUS and Richard Clarke. Typically, the MSM will not cover it. Can you imagine if Condi stuffed TS docs in her suit?

Keep up the great work. I'm a daily visitor.

Buzz Patterson

Open Post

What's new?

Pulitzer Milblogger Prize?

Michele Malkin calls for alternatives to the Pulitzer Prize-winning photos after seeing Blackfive's recommendation.

Scroll down and follow links to our deployed MilBloggers and you'll find a few dozen.

My personal favorite is this one:
The Ukrainian Antonov AN-225, launching out of Baghdad International after delivering election materials. The symbolism shouldn't be lost on anyone here. Photographer: Greyhawk, with Camera provided by Roger Simon.

Check my fellow deployed MilBloggers - I'll bet you can find some better pictures than the stuff the Pulitzer committee drools for. Pick your favorites and leave a comment directing us there, or link via trackback to your own post.

Or if you're reading this and you are a deployed MilBlogger, let me know where your "prize winning" photos are. There won't be any 'winners' - we'll all win this one together. We'll put together the MilBlogger's own collection of shots from Iraq.

The kind of shots I think we all prefer taking.

Update:

Dan says: Here are some of my photos from Camp Bucca when I was deployed there early in the war:

http://schadenfreude.cogitox.com/archives/000033.html
http://schadenfreude.cogitox.com/archives/000016.html

Retread:
Lance in Iraq has many pictures, any of which could beat the AP's. Just go scroll.

Too many of them show happy Iraqi children, so I guess they wouldn't meet the Pulizer standards.

Blackfive:
Sergeant Missick has some great pictures - one of an antennae against the skyline is beautiful - unfortunately, the pics don't have individual links.

Doc in the Box (Dustman) has a photoblog - http://dustmans.fotopages.com/

Lt Currie at Turning Point has some great pics - and here's one he took of his pal Thunder Six

Speaking of Thunder Six - here are his shots of Iraq

Great idea, Hawk! These guys have talent!!! Pulitzers all around (plus the 10k could buy a lot of beer)...

Greyhawk says - one of my favorite smiling kids pics is from Ma Deuce Gunner:

From Afghanistan - National Guard Experience:

Dave of Dave's not Here has one of the finest cameras in Iraq, and a couple of years worth of photos. I have to stop myself from posting a dozen of them:

A couple more Mudville photo-related posts here and here.

Election coverage - no Pulitzers for that?

Cigars in the Sand escorted voters:

I Should Have Stayed Home visited those guarding the polls:

Armor Geddon securing election sites:

And securing Fallujah:

Todd, webmaster at Stryker News, writes:

All of these were taken by soldiers on the frontlines.

My personal fave:

Other great albums:

http://www.strykernews.com/gallery/landscapes

http://www.strykernews.com/gallery/smilesfromiraq

John, the nominating committee is all knowing, overlooks nothing, and includes you!

And let's not leave out Instapundit's Afghanistan correspondent, Major John Tammes, who provided this shot of Afghan men lining up to vote (and many more)

More in comments, and more coming - and please add your own 'nominations' via comments and trackback.

Democracy in Lebanon

Jim Hake:

I?m in Beirut, Lebanon to kick off a project to support the pro-democracy demonstrators at the ?tent city? in Martyrs? Square. Their goals are independence (i.e., Syria out of Lebanon) and free and fair elections. The tent city demonstrators are the center of gravity for Lebanon?s pro-democracy movement. They are leading the charge. They put together the massive demonstrations 3 weeks ago. As they go, so goes Lebanon?s independence. And so goes a great opportunity for democratic transformation of the Middle East and Arab world.

Jim Hake and I have arrived in Beirut, Lebanon where we kicked off the project to help the Lebanese people in their fight for independence.

We met one of the opposition leaders for lunch and asked him what, more than anything else, he wants the rest of the world to know. The most important thing, he said, is that the world must not forget about them. The democratic activists are beyond the point of no return. They will fight Syrian occupation and infiltration of their country all the way to the end no matter what happens, whether they are abandoned or not. But nothing will help them more than continued exposure and our continued support.

From the Front

Boots In Baghdad:

I had just gotten back from dinner last night and was looking forward to a nice relaxing evening. I was getting ready to take a shower and was planning on a good night of solid sleep when my team leader busted in my room and screamed, ?GET YOUR GEAR AND GET TO THE COMPANY TOC, ABU GRAIB IS UNDER ATTACK!? I grabbed my gear and ran to the TOC (tactical operations center). People were running everywhere. Every unit was ordered to REDCON ONE to assist in the fight. Our dismount platoon was split up and put in humvees wherever there was an open seat.

The patrol I was put with lined the vehicles in order of march on the road in front of the TOC. Everyone was getting their last minute things in order, double checking night vision and oiling weapons. The patrol leader called everyone out of the trucks and gave us a quick situation brief. Then we got in a tight circle and prayed.

Eyes on the Prize

Michele Malkin compiles a number of responses to the news that the above photo has won the Pulitzer Prize.

Will the photographer show up to claim his 10k?

Here's the text from my first entry on the topic from Baghdad last January - a recap of numerous reports from Roger Simon, Wretchard, and others:

Overheard

Just now on CNN: Death of the Pope propelling his books up bestseller lists - could distract attention from release of Jane Fonda's.

(Need quote about God's will here.)

(Yes, that last bit was a jab at the NY Times.)

From the Front

Greyhawk here: How could any other blog from the front be linked today? Mrs Greyhawk's earlier post is hereby re-designated for the frontline blogger of the day. Click over and offer congrats to Michael, his wife, and the new arrival. Back to you, Mrs G.

March 31, '05, 10:30AM Michael from A Day In Iraq becomes a first time daddy.

I knew it was going to be an interesting day when I checked my email this morning before we went on a mission. In it my wife told me that our son was due any minute, and to remember what I did on March 31.

<...>

I also had the feeling that something was going to happen on our mission. I didn?t know what, just that it wouldn?t be an uneventful day.

<...>

We were speeding down the highway, doing about 70, weaving in and out of traffic, when I again started thinking about my wife and son, wondering if he had been born yet. When we?re wide open on the highway like that, there isn?t much for me to do other than make sure cars stay a good distance away from us. I?m sitting there deep in my thoughts, with the sound of the wind in my ears, focused on nothing in particular. BOOM! Hear we go, I say to myself as Thomas slams on the brakes, forcing me back against the turret, my ears ringing from the blast...

Open Post

I get email like this one from time to time:

Hey there, Eric here from The Southern Beat (http://thesouthernbeat.com). I really enjoy reading your site and was wondering if you would like to trade links? It really doesn't look like you need much help pulling in a big audience becuase your blog is so popular...but mine could use a little help as I am just getting started and trying to build an audience. And I can try to help advertise you in any way possible, just let me know.

Anyway, good work on your site and I hope to hear back from ya!

Cheers.

-Eric

I clicked over to Eric's site and found he was a 16-year old HS Junior. So now I can answer him:

Okay Eric, but be forwarned, if I link your blog The Southern Beat it means you must join the Marines. This is a rule and can't be violated. Many people don't realize that this is why Glenn Reynolds isn't posting anything this month - he's in basic training. ;)

If you don't want to join the Marines right now you can take advantage of an open post like this one. Link any post on your blog The Southern Beat to it and the trackback will automatically appear below.

You won't even have to join the Air Force!

Open Post! Have at it.

We Are the War

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the fifth installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).

____________________

THE GIFT OF FEAR
By John Harriman

Dear Warrior . . .

Never let down your guard.

Good advice, to be sure, but like a lot of good advice, it tells you what to do without saying how. How do you keep your guard up? In a combat zone, how do you ever know when you're doing the right thing, the safe thing, the alert thing?

In time, you'd learn the danger signs all on your own. You'd hear of disasters caused by men getting lax. You'd see others injured. You'd have a few close calls yourself. It's called experience. But, hey, this kind of experience is only a good teacher if you survive it.

The military uses in-country experts and old hands to teach you how to recognize dangers peculiar to Iraq. They'll tell you what safe habits to cultivate, what bad habits to avoid.

For instance, if you saw the film, Forrest Gump, you know that in Vietnam, enlisted men were told not to salute officers in the field. This was so enemy snipers could not take out the unit leaders. Enlisted men liked the idea that they did not have to salute, and as a lieutenant, I was even more fond of it. Heck, if it would have helped, I'd have worn a sign in Vietnamese for all snipers to see: Okay, I admit it, I'm a leader, but there's no need to shoot me because I'm not a very good one.

But besides wearing a sign that identifies you as a moron, what can you do to protect yourself?

I borrow here from Gavin De Becker in his book, The Gift of Fear, to tell you about the gift in each of you. You are hard-wired to recognize danger. It's a survival instinct honed by many generations of humans living in competition with other predators and prey in man's wilder state. You don't even have to think about it. Your brain will do the work for you on a kind of auto-pilot when you are at risk. Your instincts to survive will send you signals that you are in danger. Your brain will know you are at risk without even knowing why. It is a gift, this fear. It tells you to be wary, to react, to survive. You'll know it when you feel it. Learn to act on it. Above all, do not deny this feeling.

Denial will tell you to relax: Hey, don't make a fuss, don't embarrass yourself by sounding a false alarm. Denial will try to talk you out of the feelings of danger. Don't wake up the captain. He might get mad, call you stupid.

Hey, don't listen to denial messing with your mind. Act on your instinct instead. If you feel the presence of danger, get ready for a fight. If you're a sentinel, call for an officer or NCO. Sound the alarm. The gift of fear, the instinct and the book, can save your life.

Tell somebody back home to buy the book and send it to you. After you read it, pass it along. Buy a copy for every woman in your family. And one for every man, too. It'll teach them how to survive the predators in our midst back here at home.

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

__________________________

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. These columns are excerpts from an upcoming book of the same title. His current book, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Memorial service for Capt. Sean Grimes

Posse Incitatus provides details of the memorial services for Capt. Sean Grimes. See earlier post here

God Speed Capt Grimes

Arthur's Mail

Dear all

This morning on Chrenkoff:
The new edition of good news from Afghanistan:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

and a new study has supposedly overturned the Western experts' perceptions and common stereotypes by finding that - shock! - Al Qaeda terrorists are not poor but come from comfortable middle-to-upper class backgrounds. If it really took until now, then we should be seriously worried about the quality of our "experts"

Chrenkoff

Best regards

Arthur

Under God

Paul the Apostle, in his second letter to Timothy, writes

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage?with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day?and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

That fought the good fight etc. part should be familiar to any who are familiar with the Christian approach to the end of life.

I'm not Catholic. I've been to a Catholic church for a service exactly once - a funeral, in fact. I don't recall if that verse was used, but I'm sure it applied. Overall the Catholics embrace a bit too much ritual for my tastes, but it's part of their faith, and that's fine. That's freedom, after all. By comparison, in spite of these ancient traditions Catholics as a group are certainly more flexible in their orthodoxy than the current academic left - who now subscribe to a belief system so rigid and a world view so constricted and parochial that the slightest deviation from the approved text by any member of the body of the church academy brings refutation, damnation, and excommunication so swiftly and rabidly as to make pre-reformation Catholicism appear remarkably open to new ideas. Be thankful that stocks, gibbets, and burning of heretics at the stake are frowned upon in America, or such sights would likely be frequent on many college campuses today (beyond fraternity initiation ceremonies, I mean). For now, figurative versions of these punishments seem sufficient to the majority of priests scholars.

The core belief, the central tenet of that orthodoxy of the left is hatred of the Catholic Church. It's not just the Pope's contribution to the destruction of communism that has brought about that state of affairs. The global left has seen (rightfully) the Church as it's primary enemy in the world for decades ('opiate of the masses', anyone?) and the fall of Russian-brand communism is just another lost battle in an ongoing war. The left lacks vibrancy but remains capable of small skirmishes, and certainly they find positions to attack; current favorites include gay marriage, abortion, etc. But the acrimony really boils down to the Church's acknowledgement of our basic human imperfections and adherence to fundamental Christian morality - the greatest impediment to the advancement of a 'brave new world' so fervently desired by the fanatic followers of 19th century philosophers and so opposed by otherwise philosophically diverse individuals like John Paul II and George Orwell. Those who share either of their disparate yet generationally transcendent (and currently ascendent) world views find themselves allied on that front.

With the passing of the Pope expect to see a new wave of calls from outside the body for re-making the Church; more "gay friendly", more pro-choice, more opposed to whatever it is about the Bible that offends the left. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. The Church isn't about to bow to that pressure, of course, but watch the New York Times for examples of anti-church sentiment couched as suggestions and good ideas on how to make the organization more progressive - in this sense meaning adhering to that strict doctrine of the global left. Powerline has already revealed an exposed hint of the agenda, the failure on the part of the weekend web team at the Times to cover up the fact that they've been unable to find someone to quote who might offer a favorable opinion of the deceased Pontiff. Likewise note the media watchdogging currently being done at The Corner, or from Blogs like The Anchoress, Nunblog, or Hugh Hewitt. These people aren't trying to choose the next Pope, but they're exposing those who desire to do just that.

Who will the media choose as successor to John Paul II? Bear in mind that for much of 2004 American media portrayed John Kerry as a devout Catholic - ignoring the fact that on the fundamental issue of choice he is as opposed to the Church as any human can be. He was denounced from Pulpits, to the point where weak cries of hypocrisy (the left's greatest imaginable sin) were raised for the failure of the same Church to attack the President for conducting a war in Iraq. Separation of Church and State - that other old favorite response from the left to religious overtones in political issues - could not be applied, since JFK II was spending every Sunday of the year campaigning in America's protestant churches. The Left understands when one of it's own drops into an opium den trolling for votes - that's just being practical. So expect the Times to opine in favor of some mythical Cardinal embodying the qualities of John Kerry, and the rest of American media to follow suit enthusiastically. "Remaking the Church" will be the theme - perhaps we'll even see cries to the effect of "Can Catholicism be Born Again!?" In headlines across the nation.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in America, Scott Ott stands prepared to answer.

I noted at the start I'm not a Catholic, and I've pre-chastised the left wing media for their upcoming calls for a 'reform Pope'. So now in the height of hypocrisy, that deadliest of mortal sins, I'm going to make my suggestion for the next Pope:

At the dawn of the third millennium from the occurrence of the following event, find a descendent of an Ethiopian Eunuch.

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ?Go south to the road?the desert road?that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.? So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, ?Go to that chariot and stay near it.?

Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ?Do you understand what you are reading?? Philip asked.

?How can I,? he said, ?unless someone explains it to me?? So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:

?He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.?

The eunuch asked Philip, ?Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?? Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, ?Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?? And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

Insurgent Attack on Abu Ghraib

A group of insurgents has attacked Abu Ghraib.

The area is more than just a prison, and reports are conflicting at this time.

Fox (and numerous other sources) reports 20 wounded Americans.

MSNBC uses the term "casualties" - the catch-all for wounded or killed, without noting there are no deaths reported.

A spectacular waste of life for the bad guys, the attack is being described as 'well coordinated'.

RIP Pope John Paul II

The Pope has died.

Open Post

Open Post - Your Friday Saturday bumper sticker edition.

I've 'bumped' this post up, to get even more exposure for these great blogs. Don't worry if you're already on, link up again.

Plus I get to show off the sticker again. It's actual size is 3X10 inches, and any time you walk past anything without a MilBlogs bumper sticker stuck on it you should be thinking how much nicer it would look with one.

If anyone sends me a picture of a MilBlogs bumper sticker attached to whatever you decide to attach it to, I'll post it here.

If you don't like stickers, there are shirts, hats, mousepads, mugs, steins...

Okay, once again, Mudville is yours.

"Live music is better; bumper stickers should be issued."

-- Neil Young, Union Man

Enjoy.

Update from our department of odd coincidences:

NEW YORK ? Neil Young (search) was treated for a brain aneurysm this week and remains hospitalized, although doctors expect a full recovery, his publicist said Friday.

The 59-year-old rocker underwent a procedure to treat it Tuesday night at a New York hospital, where he was expected to remain for a few more days, publicist Bob Merlis told The Associated Press.

Dr. Pierre Gobin (search), who performed the procedure with another doctor, said: "Mr. Young had a dangerous brain aneurysm and was treated successfully by the minimally invasive neuroradiology team here. He is now resting comfortably ... but we strongly recommend that he not travel for several days."

From the Front

Here's a twofer today:

Great stories, great photos - do not miss Ma Deuce Gunner live from Kirkuk.

And Opinion Inc - don't miss this post or this one.

Better News For Iraq

The Moscow Times:

Russia will sign an agreement this year finalizing a plan to write off most of the money owed to it by Iraq, a Finance Ministry official said Thursday.

In November, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was committed to forgiving 90 percent of Iraq's debts, more than the 80 percent agreed by the Paris Club of sovereign lenders.

"We will sign it this year," Sergei Storchak, Russia's chief debt negotiator, told reporters.

Iraq's Sunnis Urged to Join Army, Police

The latest news from Iraq is that Sunni clerics are urging their followers to join the military and police forces. On the surface this sounds like another step towards peace and cooperation between all parties in Iraq, and we'll certainly hope that it is. But a look at the coverage in the Washington Post and the New York Times reinforces the concept that in Iraq, nothing is as it seems.

Pay close attention to the future actions of the Association of Muslim Scholars, perhaps the most influential organization among Iraq's Sunni population. The American media acknowledges that fact but generally neglects to reveal everything it could about them. The Times, for instance, describes the group's actions in this manner:

In the past, members of the association have often complained about injustices committed by Iraqi soldiers and police officers and by the American military.

"The hospital is full of bodies, children are buried in the gardens, and there are bodies filling the streets," said Muhammad Bashar al-Faidhi, one of the members of the group in Baghdad who said he was basing his accusations on witness accounts. It was impossible to independently verify his claims.

Iraq the Model presented some evidence of the group's financial support to terrorist groups and ties to the former regime. This would seem to be conventional wisdom among the people of Iraq. The "scholars" were also responsible for the lack of Sunni participation in the January elections.

More recently the group took credit for securing the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena:

"After the judicial committee of the Jihad Organization interrogated the Italian captive Giuliana Sgrena, it has been found that the Italian captive is not involved in spying for the infidels in Iraq," the group said in a statement posted on a website that frequently carries messages from Islamic militants.

"In response to the appeal made by the Muslim Scholars' Assn., we, in the Jihad Organization, will free the Italian captive in the next few days," the statement added.

The Iraqi army and police forces are assumed to have been infiltrated by terrorists, former regime loyalists, etc. Many of the difficulties in launching these organizations (public beheadings of captured Iraqi soldiers, etc.) were likely caused by these 'troops'. It will be interesting to see if the Association of Muslim Scholars will actively encourage it's adherents to seek training from the police and military too. (Wink wink...) This is either the next step towards lasting peace, or the first phase of a new war.

The great game indeed.

Okinawraq

Victor Davis Hanson:

Sixty years ago, the United States military invaded Okinawa, Japan, on April 1, 1945, the last bastion of the Japanese maritime empire that stood in the way of an assault on the mainland.

Operation Iceberg was perhaps the largest combined land-sea operation since Xerxes swept into Greece, involving more troops than at Normandy: 1,600 ships, 183,000 infantry and 12,000 aircraft. More than 110,000 skilled Japanese troops, commanded by the brilliant Lt. Gen. Ushijima and buttressed by another 100,000 coerced Okinawan irregulars, were ready for them.

Despite the most terrible naval barrage in history, and an ominous unopposed initial landing, almost everything imaginable then went wrong. The ravaged island was not to be declared secure until July 2--a little more than a month before the final Japanese surrender.

In just these few weeks before the end of the war, 12,520 Americans were killed--well over twice as many as were lost at the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. In all, more than 33,000 Americans were wounded and missing. Perhaps another 200,000 Japanese soldiers, Okinawan auxiliaries and civilians died in the inferno.

Luminaries were not exempt. The commander of the operation, Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr.--the highest-ranking American officer to die in the Pacific--was killed. So was the celebrated war correspondent Ernie Pyle. The notorious Isamu Cho, who had sought to overthrow the Japanese civilian government in 1931, committed suicide along with Ushijima.

Almost every controversy of the present war has an antecedent at Okinawa.

Jihaddi Teen Hunger Force

The LA Times profiles Europe's Boys of Jihad.

PARIS ? The case file of the French homeboys who joined the Iraqi jihad contains a startling photo.

It's the mug shot of Salah, the alleged point man in Damascus, Syria, who authorities say arranged for guns and safe passage into Iraq for extremists from Paris. Salah has a serious expression beneath a short Afro-style haircut. He looks as if he's posing, reluctantly, for a middle school yearbook.

When Salah left for Damascus with the jihadis last summer, he was 13 years old.

<...>

"The trajectory is changing," said Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania and a former CIA officer. "Extremism is now appealing to younger and younger people."

Update From the story: "At an age when angry teens in Los Angeles drift into street gangs, some of their peers in Europe plunge into global networks that send them to train, fight and die in far-off lands"

More:

Along with longtime resentment and alienation experienced by some in immigrant communities, technology such as computers and Arabic-language satellite TV plays a major role in molding militants earlier, European officials say. Internet sites and chat rooms have become a virtual sanctuary, widening access to propaganda and training materials for an emerging "second generation" of extremists.

"This generation of young kids are far more Internet-focused than guys who are only 10 years older," Sageman said.

Last year, a group of young Internet enthusiasts was charged with unleashing terrorism in the Netherlands: the killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and a plot to assassinate politicians. Police captured Jason Walters, 19, in a raid that left him and three officers wounded. His 17-year-old brother was also jailed.

Inside the Enemy Mind

Here's something that (oddly enough) will give you tremendous insight into the minds of our deadliest foes in Iraq. This must-read post from Arthur Chrenkoff leaves no doubt in my mind that the war is ongoing. If anything, the enemy is even more fanatic in his 'death throes' - perhaps more dangerous in helping kill a few more American GI's.

The media enemy, of course. The jihaddis are all but destroyed.

Update: The Washington Post, March 31:

The Army has deployed a new troop transport vehicle in Iraq with many defects, putting troops there at unexpected risk from rocket-propelled grenades and raising questions about the vehicle's development and $11 billion cost, according to a detailed critique in a classified Army study obtained by The Washington Post.

The Washington Post, April 2:

A March 31 article on a study outlining defects in the Army's Stryker vehicle erred in describing the study as classified. It was marked "For Official Use Only," a designation the Defense Department uses for material that, although unclassified, may be inappropriate for public release.

In that spirit, I offer my own correction. When I said "If anything, the enemy is even more fanatic in his 'death throes' - perhaps more dangerous in helping kill a few more American GI's" what I really meant to say was that the Washington Post can kiss my ass.

The "Pentagon" Flag

I first wrote about the "Pentagon" flag sale here. The whole story seemed convoluted to me and probably any one else who happened to read it. Summary: man sells questionable 9/11 artifact for money needed to cover expenses of his cancer treatment. I suspected the Washington Post was trying to create a story where one didn't exist. I didn't know the half of it.

Then I received an email from Tim Sumner. He's retired military, and he lost a brother-in-law at the World Trade Center that day. Tim had been quoted in the WaPo piece, and in my opinion (having since gained additional insight) the reporter had done a very poor job of relating Tim's contribution to the story. Tim wasn't happy with media coverage of the event at all - and rightfuly so.

At the time of our first communication, the flag had sold on ebay for over 300,000 dollars. But the buyer balked, and the item went back on the block. It sold for 25,000 this time - in large part due to efforts by the surviving family members of the victims of 9/11. The buyer then donated the flag - a dubious relic at best - to a local elementary school.

There's a story worth telling here, and it hasn't been told. (Oddly enough, like a recent memo story, this one involves ABC and the Washington Post too.) I asked Tim if he'd compile the whole story from his POV and he obliged. Here's Tim:

9/11 For Sale: Will America Let the Real and Phony Deals Continue?
by Timothy W. Sumner

David Nicholson just sold a flag for $25,000 he says flew on a crane at the Pentagon on 9/11. According to the original Washington Post report, Nicholson's father found it in a box of debris (one of ten) from the Pentagon crash site. In 2002, Peter Elliott, a construction supervisor for Facchina Construction, gave Nicholson those boxes and a certificate of authenticity for the flag yet he denied the flag was authentic when Nicholson put it up for auction on eBay. Elliott also asked Nicholson to return the certificate (not the flag) to him. This sale sent a message to the peddlers of America's history and con artists alike the markets are open and some will pay a lot of money for the real and fake artifacts of 9/11. It also sent a signal the mainstream media might even help push up their profits.

In its six reports on this sale, the Washington Post has not reported David Nicholson was convicted for grand theft in 1988 and sentenced to fifteen years for stealing $50,000 worth of sweaters. Local journalists were getting a different take and setting a different tone on him but the WP had already propped Nicholson up and the WP went silent until after the first sale closed on March 14, 2005. The WP never reported Orange County [VA] Sheriff C.G. Feldman has said, "his office has had dealings with Nicholson for the past 10 years, on which he did not elaborate, other than to say they were "nothing positive in nature.""

In their first report, the WP said, "Nicholson had the treasure framed in Plexiglas and turned down offers--one for as much as $100,000--to buy it. "Never" is when he intended to sell it, he said." The first report didn't indicate the general public--or even one 9/11 family member--was asked for their thoughts on this sale. Had the WP kept looking they might have learned folks in more than one state say Nicholson has been trying to sell that flag for at least 2 1/2 years. Some in his community who know him or have had dealings with him doubt if he is as sick as he says he is. And for a stage-four cancer patient he looks remarkably healthy. One doctor said it is a "miracle" that he is still alive. Ill or well, Nicholson is responsible for what he sells and the stories he tells in his promotions.

It wasn't long before ABC news, local TV stations, and newspapers around the country were echoing the Washington Post's sad story for if a mainstream heavy-weight like the WP says it, it must be true. After the March 10, 2005, ABC World News Tonight report aired, the high bid went from $56,000 to over $318,000 before midnight. Nicholson said he has stage-four renal cancer and a year ago he was told he had but three months to live. He said he was only selling his cherished flag to pay for experimental drugs that might prolong his life, leave a legacy for his six year old, and give something to cancer research.

The WP hasn't reported finding one photo among the thousands taken of the Pentagon on 9/11 showing a stationary crane was there that day. But they have Nicholson's story and he has an undated photo of a stationary crane in his display taken weeks or months later during the Pentagon's Phoenix Project. Nicholson's photo is apparently worth more to the WP than the actual photos taken on 9/11 and the time it takes to check the facts. On March 11, 2005, 9/11 family members told the WP Facchina had stated on its website they did not have a crane at the Pentagon on 9/11 and had informed eBay, on March 8, of this. The WP failed to report this until after the flag was sold the first time for $371,300.

When it came to asking eBay about the sale of this flag, again 9/11 family members did what journalists would not do. On March 11, 2005, Debra Burlingame, the sister of Charles "Chic" Burlingame III who was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, spoke with eBay's VP of Communications, Henry Gomez. She pointed out to him Facchina had asked eBay to "At a minimum...correct the item description and advise any bidders on the item that the Facchina Certificate of Authenticity is unauthorized and invalid." Mr Gomez replied to her, "eBay doesn't authenticate items sold on its web site" and eBay did not comply with Facchina's request for the duration of the flag's first sale. She informed him that Nicholson's display included the names of the 184 innocent victims at the Pentagon and aboard Flight 77 and none of their next of kin had authorized him to use those names. She added the unauthorized use of names within a sale violated both eBay's policy and California civil code 3344 and 3344.1. More 9/11 family members contacted both Nicholson and eBay and demanded that their lost loved ones' names be removed from his sale. Twice, Nicholson's flag was sold on eBay and the 184 names were never removed.

Nicholson's first auction showed a list of bidders and their contact information. A 9/11 family member contacted many of them and advised them of what the WP and eBay had not. The first sale closed with a top bid of $371,300 yet the top bidder declined to pay. He was quoted as saying, "the flag's a fake." Nicholson lamented, "The controversy really killed my auction," and added. "It would have brought a lot more." Virginia's Daily Progress reported Nicholson blamed "the controversy" which he termed ?very fishy? for scaring buyers off. He added, ?It would have brought in a million dollars.?

The WP still has hasn't reported the unauthorized use of a person's name in such sales violates California (where eBay's headquarters is located) law nor whether this practice is illegal in other states. The WP finally reported 9/11 family members opposed the sale of artifacts, real or phony, after the flag's first sale. On March 17, 2005, CNN reported Nicholson was using their loved one's name without permission and they even captured him on videotape saying, "Either it was there or it wasn't and I'd like to know the truth."

When Nicholson put his flag back up for auction, the bidders' identities and contact information were hidden on eBay. He told the Washington Post, "I said the flag was there on September 11, and no one has proved otherwise," and added "If the flag only brings $100,000, I'll be looking to Pete Elliot and Facchina for the balance."

On March 23, 2005, Firehouse.com News' Heather Caspi quoted eBay spokesman Hani Durzy as saying "9/11 items are high on our list of policies we don't want to see violated... eBay also discourages ads that imply something about an item in order to increase its value...The marketplace is remarkably self-regulating." Durzy added, "40 million items [are up] for sale on eBay at any given time, and about 4 million new items are listed each day. eBay officials don't check each ad before it goes online, but they do police the ads and listen to community feedback." Mr. Durzy's comments were made after a 9/11 family member called eBay and they removed an obviously fake FDNY firefighter's helmet from their web site. It was allegedly found in the debris of the WTC's North Tower and the starting bid was $10.000. It turns out a former Loudoun County, Virginia, firefighter was selling the helmet after he failed to return his equipment when he stopped volunteering before 9/11. He said he only put it on eBay as a joke. Firefighters didn't think it was a joke and they weren't laughing when they sent him some feedback [explicit language warning].

Nicholson's 9/11 sale spawned more attempted frauds and each "authentic piece of American history" came with a phony testimonial. An out of work construction worker tried to sell a rubber toy he allegedly found atop a building east of the WTC before Craig's List stopped his sale and the seller said "I needed the money, too." One lady tried to sell ("to help my ill mother") a shard of glass she said a firefighter coming from the WTC's Pile handed her as a memento. Her ad included a March 2002 pass to the viewer's stand overlooking Ground Zero. Another person tried to sell nothing more than a pile of rocks. eBay pulled the latter two sales from their web site when people complained.

Yet the real signal the floodgates of indifference were now ajar was sent up when John A. Andrews II, a businessman and member of the Loudoun County, VA, school board, paid Nicholson $25,000 for this con. Mr. Andrews said, "Whether it is [authentic] or not, down the road won't be important" and donated it to a school. He added, "It's symbolic of the sacrifice that people made...If it's going to be put anywhere, a school is one of the most appropriate places." Is it fitting for a flag sold with a debunked story, a "withdraw" piece of paper, and 184 illegally used names to be used to teach future generations about the day America was attacked? To me, displaying a flag tainted by this criminal's scheme in a school named in honor of two of the victims of 9/11 seems insulting so perhaps the Loudoun County, Virginia, School Superintendent ought to first ask their two widows what they think and feel about this before deciding to do so. Perhaps he should also ask this of the other families with a name of a loved one being displayed with that flag.

To the right is the photo on eBay of the flag David Nicholson sold. The 184 names of the innocent victims of the attack made upon the Pentagon are listed across the bottom. They are enclosed in Plexiglas along with the flag and a photo of a stationary crane. No one has indicated they have analyzed the substance that appears to have been splattered onto this flag. To me, it looks like grease yet I haven't seen this flag up close and I am not a forensic expert. You should know that nothing was found of some of the victims at the Pentagon crash site. Real or fake, the artifacts of 9/11 should not be morbidly displayed in our schools.

What is the harm of hidden buyers purchasing from public auctions and private sales the American flags that actually flew on 9/11 at those three Ground Zeroes? Hidden sales ensure that we will someday see those flags burned on terrorism TV. I cannot believe the America that stood as one and honored the 3,000 who fell will calmly watch while that happens. And what about the sale of debris and items pulled from the rubble? Those three plots of hallowed ground contain the remains of 3,000 people that we love and that terrorists murdered. The bones of our dead should not be picked over by human vultures and sold by those who's only rule is 'buyer beware.' Those who purchase such items--even those who do so because they see them as sacred or to keep them from being desecrated--only encourage others to sell what shouldn't be sold, real or fake.

America needs to set out a sign saying: the debris of 9/11 is not for sale. It also needs to say the artifacts of Shanksville, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center are America's and they must be respectfully preserved. If such sales are inevitable, what American battlefield, memorial, and hero's grave will be left undisturbed? The Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream media must do their job and expose the peddlers of our history and those dealing in fraud, as well as their agents and auction houses who remain indifferent. Such sales are only inevitable if those we expect to monitor the floodgates of indifference leave them unattended.

From the Front

I hadn't heard this story about a late March attack by terrorists on an Iraqi Army installation until I found it on the Phil and Becky blog.

A few days ago, the enemy conducted a coordinated, complex, and violent attack against the headquarters of one of the Iraqi Army companies in our sector. However, I think it is a fair bet that most people did not hear about it, even though some of our guys did find it mentioned obscurely in an article online.

The attack started with a HUGE explosion from a VBIED -- a flat-bed truck drove into the compound and detonated. After that, the AIF (our acronym for the enemy, since we have acronyms for everything, is AIF -- anti-Iraqi forces) stormed the compound. In the past, if the only thing you read is the major media, you would assume the sequence of events for one of these episodes to be: (1) big explosion to begin (2) RPG, rocket fire and small arms fire (3) IP/IA run away (4) AIF take over compound until we come and kill them.

However, this time something different happened.

Here's Phil and Becky.

Bad Boys!

Things sure are gloomy for America's military. Recruiting is down, retention is down - and look at the sorts of troops we do have:

Three Moody Air Force Base airmen have been arrested in an suspected scheme to take bulletproof vests from the base and sell them to drug dealers for $100 each.

Five U.S. Army soldiers are under investigation for allegedly using a military plane to smuggle 35 pounds of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, the U.S. Southern Command announced Thursday.

A certain amount of panic will take hold of Russia today, when the country begins its annual military draft.

Generals will be panicked that they will end up with another group of drug abusers, convicts and misfits. Mothers will be terrified at handing over their sons to a military notorious for its brutal hazing of recruits.

And tens of thousands of draft-age young men will fear for their lives as they face two years of menial labor, sadistic senior officers, and, worst of all, a possible deployment to Chechnya. Many will wangle phony deferments, fail to report, or simply flee.

What the military ends up with are "the social fallouts, trigger-happy people, bums, the homeless, the real scum," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst in Moscow. "And they've all got guns."

Shootings of officers, desertions, suicides, alcoholism, torture in the barracks and drug abuse are rampant in today's Russian military, according to Felgenhauer and others.

Maybe things aren't so bad after all. The Brits certainly seem to think we're squared away:

RAF 'Not Good Enough' For SAS Parachute Training

The Special Air Service is to move its parachute training to the United States because it believes that the Royal Air Force no longer has the skills to train its soldiers in Britain.

In the PX

Because you asked for it, and because yellow ribbons were done to death by Tony Orlando and Dawn...

And hey, if they won't look good on your car maybe they'll do something for that hippie wagon down the block.

(Click the bumper sticker above to buy.)

GANCI AIR BASE

The mission continues at Ganci AB, Kyrgyzstan:

A violent revolution has been raging outside the gates but this U.S. Air Force base deep in Central Asia is getting on with its job of delivering supplies to Afghanistan.

"It's been business as usual ... We did not miss a single flight," Staff Sergeant Russ Martin said on Wednesday, soon after a KC-135 Stratotanker refuelling aircraft barrelled along the runway behind him and took off.

Last week in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, about 30 km (18 miles) south-east of here, opposition supporters stormed the government headquarters, forcing President Askar Akayev to flee his ex-Soviet republic and sparking two days of looting.

It's not surprising that the American's are largely left alone. Efforts by the US government likely paved the way for Kyrgyzstan's uprising

American money helps finance civil society centers around the country where activists and citizens can meet, receive training, read independent newspapers and even watch CNN or surf the Internet in some. The N.D.I. alone operates 20 centers that provide news summaries in Russian, Kyrgyz and Uzbek.

The United States sponsors the American University in Kyrgyzstan, whose stated mission is, in part, to promote the development of civil society, and pays for exchange programs that send students and non-governmental organization leaders to the United States. Kyrgyzstan's new prime minister, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was one.

All of that money and manpower gave the coalescing Kyrgyz opposition financing and moral support in recent years, as well as the infrastructure that allowed it to communicate its ideas to the Kyrgyz people.

This story appeals to me for this reason: "The Mudville Gazette Pacifist Patriot is the on-line voice of an American warrior, who prefers to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day he stands fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow."

I mean that.

More please.

"American" Captured in Iraq

But he was fighting for Abu Musab Zarqawi

WASHINGTON ? U.S. forces in Iraq are holding a senior operative of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi who has joint American and Jordanian citizenship, Defense Department officials said Thursday.

The man is the first American known to be captured fighting for the insurgency in Iraq, said Matthew Waxman, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for detainee affairs. Officials are considering how to proceed with his case. They declined to provide his hometown or to otherwise identify him.

We certainly hope his captors haven't used barking dogs to intimidate him.

Oki

Stars and Stripes:

Sixty years ago Friday, the last ? and bloodiest ? battle in the Pacific during World War II began with a naval bombardment that shook the island to its rock foundation. An invasion fleet of some 1,500 ships stretched to the horizon and a landing force of 182,000 men, 75,000 more than landed in Normandy on D-Day just 10 months earlier, nervously waited to swarm ashore.

April Fool?

You really have to get past the headlines on this one.

Headline: JANE FONDA EXPRESSES REGRET

Reality: But only for posing with gun.

Jane Fonda says her visit to a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun site in 1972, an incident that brought her the nickname "Hanoi Jane," was a betrayal of American forces and "the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine."

"The image of Jane Fonda, 'Barbarella,' Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal," Ms. Fonda told Lesley Stahl of CBS News in an interview that is scheduled for broadcast Sunday night on "60 Minutes."

Ms. Fonda, whose memoir "Jane Fonda: My Life So Far" comes out next week, said she did not regret meeting with American P.O.W.'s in North Vietnam or making broadcasts on Radio Hanoi.

"Our government was lying to us, and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war," she said.

NY Daily News has a reaction from VFW spokesman

"Some things can never be forgiven," said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which has more than 2 million members. "Jane Fonda falls into that category."

Actress and aerobics queen Jane Fonda says in a "60 Minutes" interview set to air Sunday that she engaged in threesomes with hookers and strangers to satisfy her first husband, French film director Roger Vadim.

"It was the '60s and whatever," Fonda said.

Not surprising: She's touring to promote her new autobiography.

Update:

According to this story in the Miami Herald from mid-March, Fonda's publicity people were working hard to deny the allegations that Jane was forced to sleep with other women. The claim first appeared in the British tabloid The Mirror.

Update: Here's the original March 16 story from the Daily Mail, that also alleges:

She believes Vadim's behaviour echoed that of her father, Henry Fonda, during her childhood.

Her mother, socialite Frances Seymour, had mental health problems and committed suicide when Miss Fonda was 12.

Okay, sorry I started this...