Open Post

From the Front

If you had to rely completely on piss-poor reporting from third-rate news organizations for information this is what you'd get:

Two American soldiers were killed Thursday night when their helicopter was strafed by small arms fire and crashed outside Baquba, a Sunni Arab city just north of Baghdad that is a haven for insurgents, the military said.

The crash came as Iraq's Defense and Interior Ministers announced plans on Thursday to deploy 40,000 Iraqi security forces throughout Baghdad in a large cordon-and-search operation aimed at catching insurgents and restoring order to this largely lawless city.

<...I deleted several paragraphs about other things going on in Iraq here...>

The helicopter crash occurred at 10:50 p.m. in Buhriz, a southern suburb of Baquba. American soldiers on patrol on the ground came under fire and called to the helicopter, and one other, that were on routine patrol nearby, said Major Richard L. Goldenberg, a military spokesman.

The helicopters made several low passes over the area and both drew fire, he said. One helicopter received only minor damage and managed to land safely at an American military base nearby, but the other crashed, killing both soldiers on board.

Not just personal experience though - I've read the milblogger version of the story.

Within 30 minutes of the report that we had a flyer down, my Panzers we rolling out the gate en route to the crash site. One of my platoons (currently the battalion QRF) was rolling within 10 minutes to the crash site and was the first on the scene.) I did not know the pilots, but I knew their call sign. I worked with them the day before. (see Troops in Contact) It didn?t matter to me that they were outside of my AO. Or that it was close to midnight after a very long day. It didn?t matter to my men either, although most were all roused from their sleep to get rolling. Others were on their ?off? shift from guard duty. They knew that they would return from this mission and go right back out to the perimeter, their buddies having covered down on a double shift already. They rose to the challenge, transferred necessary equipment from their M1114?s to the tanks and BFVs, and we hauled ass (There?s no traffic after 2300, and everyone, I mean Everyone, gets the fuck out of a Tank?s way when it is on a mission.)

And welcome Chuck to the MilBlogs Ring.

Soldier's Angels

The folks at Soldier's Angels forwarded this email to me, I'm posting it without the author's name:

Dear Ms. Patton-Bader,

I just wanted to drop you a quick note of thanks for the work you and your volunteers are doing for all of the men and women in uniform. In the past two weeks, I have been inundated with letters and packages from all over the country, sent by "your" volunteers. I have tried to respond either by a handwritten note or an e-mail to every one. It is the least I can do. You probably do not need me to tell you how important it is to get mail from the States when you are lonely and halfway around the world. Having been in the Army for many years this was a lesson I learned when I first joined. Strangely enough, its even more important here.

We only hear what is broadcast on the media about what is going on back home, and how support for our efforts here have waned. It is easy to forget that these stories represent a minority opinion when they are the only thing you hear. The letters from the volunteers put everything back in proper perspective. The writer is one voice, but they describe how their whole community is involved in supporting our efforts. Maybe its only a small town, but when those towns are connected like a game of dots on paper, you realize that they make up the better part of America, and you are reminded why we came here in the first place.

Thank you for making my days a little brighter and for introducing me to some many friends across our great land. You are truly a saint for your efforts. May God bless you and your whole family and may God Bless America.

Fortunately I also had the benefit of care packages from Soldiers Angels, and it made a difference - there really is nothing like the simple pleasure of the troops opening a box of goodies from the States, and I can't thank the Soldier's Angels folks enough. If you've ever wondered what to put in a box like that, don't worry. The stuff will be shared by a group, and someone will appreciate something - you can't go wrong. If you ever wondered how to go about getting a care package to the front, or even to the wounded heroes recovering at various facilities around the world visit Soldier's Angels now.

MilBlogs on Tee-Vee

Blackfive and Buzz Patterson talk MilBlogs on MSNBC - video here. Your's truly was invited, but showing up on television could ruin my status as international man of mystery. Plus Mrs G is worried about the potential throng of groupies that would never give me a moments peace after such an appearance. I don't know how Buzz's and Blackfive's wives put up with it.

Sigh.

Memorial Day

Welcome to Memorial Day weekend, 2005. This is a time set aside to remember those who gave their all for their country. Celebrate that. If you're fortunate enough to live in the nation that remains the last best hope for freedom then do those things this weekend that bring you joy. Cook out. Travel. Be with friends and family. Eat, drink, and be merry. If you have a moment, a toast to those who've made it possible would be fine. You honor their sacrifice by living well.

This post will remain at the top through the weekend, with new entries added below. They won't all be "new" though - here at Mudville we'll be revisiting a few stories that shouldn't be forgotten, saluting those warriors who won't return from far off lands, who've moved on to other distant shores. In that spirit I offer again the lines of verse I wrote last Christmas in Baghdad. I think this was the holiday it was written for anyway.

While reading the posts in this series you may want to visit the comments section too. Relatives and friends of these heroes often leave a few words, and leave me humbled. They are heroes too, and to all who might pass by this way I salute you.

Tending Distant Fires

Far from hearth and home, watching
Cold alone but not alone
On distant shore and only wanting
Safe return and little more

What tales we'll tell
When that time comes
When tales can be told

When things grim
Seem far away
When other fires go cold

Some distant sunset, vision fading
Memories remain
And tired eyes gaze 'pon folded flags
While distant drums beat their refrain

Saluting fallen friends whose names
And youth will never fade
Here's to those on other shores,
for them live well, the price is paid

Sgt. Rafael Peralta

Another hero to salute this Memorial Day. Uncommon valor is still common in the Corps.

If you aren't familiar with Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta you should be - he's one of the many heroes of the war on terror, and if not already he should become a legend of the Corps.

You still here?

(Original post 2005-02-03 14:48:14)

Paul Ray Smith

Continuing our Memorial Day 2005 salute to the fallen, this post from February 2005 tells the story of Paul Ray Smith, the first American warrior to have his heroism recognized with the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq.

"Meet" Paul Smith and his buddy Greg Harris:

Smith was born in September 1969 in El Paso, Texas, and grew up in Tampa.

Harris, 32, met him at south Tampa's Corona Playground more than 20 years ago. They spent their time playing football, riding bikes and listening to Top 40 music on Q105.

``He was a straight-up, honest guy,'' said Harris, who doesn't recall Smith ever getting into trouble.

Smith was a pack rat, collecting marbles, screws, and other odds and ends. As an adult, he steered toward anything with bald eagles or Marilyn Monroe on it.

He was a curious youngster, too. He would take a radio apart and then put it back together. There would be parts left over, but the radio would work.

After graduating from Tampa Bay Technical High School in 1989, Smith enlisted in the Army. Harris drove him to boot camp. After that, Harris did not see him more than once or twice a year when he would come home on leave.

The reunions weren't all fun and games, however. During one, Smith spent three of his four days off putting cabinets in a new glass and mirror shop that Harris and his father had opened on Busch Boulevard.

Harris last saw Smith in November 2002 when their families went for a day trip to Savannah, Ga. Smith said he likely would go to Iraq if there was a war, and that he would be on the front lines.

<...>

Lisa DeVane, Smith's sister, said Army life suited her brother. To him, issues were framed in black or white, right or wrong. There were no shaded areas.

Smith served during the first Persian Gulf War, and it was a life-altering experience, DeVane said in an e-mail in June.

``I think it stripped him of any innocence he had left of boyhood, and he became a man of driven purpose,'' she said.

As he moved up the ranks, Smith drilled his troops incessantly on the need to be prepared, to be ready for any situation and to watch each other's backs.

Smith did not talk in detail about his first combat experience, but DeVane recalled one story he told her.

As the war began, thousands of Iraqi civilians began fleeing the country and were put up in tents. One of the refugees was a young mother who clutched her baby tight. After a few days, Smith realized the child was dead, and the woman could not bear to let it go.

``It broke his heart,'' DeVane said.

In the second Persion Gulf War, during the battle for control of Baghdad's airport, Smith's unit was attacked while building a holding pen for Iraqi POWs:

Paul Smith, with Bravo Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion from Fort Stewart, Ga., was helping build a holding pen for a growing number of prisoners when he climbed aboard an armored personnel carrier and manned its a .50-caliber machine gun to cover the withdrawal of engineering, medical and command troops.

Smith fired more than 300 rounds and the ceramic breast plate in his flak jacket was shattered as he took return fire from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

Then,

Smith, 33, was hit in the neck by a single gunshot. He died less than an hour later.

Smith's actions allowed injured soldiers to be evacuated and others to escape the enemy fire, according to the Army's account of the battle.

He was the only American who died in the attack. And soon Smith's actions will been recognized with the Medal of Honor, the first such since MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randall Shughart received posthumous awards for their actions in Somalia.

Lt. Col. Thomas Smith, no relation, Tuesday notified the soldier's wife, Birgit, that President Bush would present the nation's highest award to her and their children, Jessica, 18, and David, 10, at a White House ceremony, possibly in March.

No official announcement had yet been made by the Pentagon as of Wednesday. ``This is a guy whose whole life experience seemed building toward putting him in the position where he could something like this,'' Thomas Smith told the St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday. ``He was demanding on his soldiers all the time and was a stickler for all the things we try to enforce. It's just an amazing story.''

(Original post: 2005-02-06 16:17:03)

SFC Paul Ray Smith Medal of Honor

Continuing our Memorial Day 2005 salute to the fallen. In a fitting epilogue to this story, one month after the presentation of the Medal of Honor Paul Smith's widow Birgit became a US citizen:

...Wednesday, with her heart bursting with pride and sorrow, Smith took the oath of citizenship and then led 290 of her new fellow Americans in the Pledge of Allegiance. It was a poignant moment for the mother of two who said she was so moved by Americans' reaction to the death of her husband, Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, she wanted to join them in citizenship.

See video of the presentation by President Bush here.

This Interactive Special Report is a must-visit.

Several more videos here including the scene of the battle, interviews with those who were there, and members of SFC Smith's family.

Coverage of the ceremony from the St. Petersburg Times:

Seated in the third row, behind the military dignitaries and politicians, Spc. Michael Seaman smiled broadly when President Bush used him as an example of how hard Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith worked his men.

"Sgt. Smith's seriousness wasn't always appreciated by the greener troops under his direction," Bush said Monday at the White House. "Those greener troops oftentimes found themselves doing tasks over and over until they got it right."

But Seaman's expression turned somber as the president continued.

"Spc. Seaman," Bush said, "will also tell you that he and others are alive today because of Sgt. Smith's discipline."

Exactly two years ago Monday, Seaman, 23, was in a dusty courtyard outside Baghdad, inside an armored personnel carrier. Smith, a 33-year-old who grew up in Tampa, stood in a hatch, firing a .50-caliber machine gun to hold off a large force of Iraqi soldiers.

"Keep me loaded," Smith told Seaman.

(Original post 2005-04-05 15:33:26)

Memorial Day With Smash

A photo essay. Don't miss it.

Taps

(Continuing a Memorial Day weekend 2005 salute to the fallen. Bob Zangas served in Iraq first in uniform then later as a civilian working for the CPA. His blog was certainly not the most important thing he left behind, but I'm glad to see it's still on the web, so you can discover for yourself the sorts of people who willingly put themselves in harm's way so that others may have hope for a brighter future.)

An e-mail I didn't want from Smash:

Bob Zangas was killed last Wednesday in an ambush south of Baghdad. He was a Marine Corps Reservist working in a civilian capacity for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Go read the final entry in his weblog, and pay your respects.

Hang on to your dreams!

Semper Fi, Bob.

Update: Story here

Robert J. "Bob" Zangas, 44, of Autumn Drive in the Level Green section of Penn Township, was one of the first two American civilians working for the Coalition Provisional Authority killed Tuesday in Iraq along with an Iraqi interpreter. They were gunned down near the town of Hillah, 35 miles south of Baghdad, by insurgents wearing police uniforms, according to news reports.

Zangas, who leaves behind a daughter, age 10, and two sons, ages 5 and 3, was the son of a U.S. Marine who grew up in various places and graduated from the American School of Isfahan in Iran. He also graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in journalism.

<...>

After Bob Zangas returned home from a military tour in Iraq in September, he had a burning desire to go back and help the Iraqi people rebuild their lives and their country.

"He genuinely liked helping people," said Brenda Zangas, a native of Butler.

He went back in December as a civilian to help them rebuild their newspapers and radio and television stations.

"I am doing something that will help the Iraqi people really get the democracy message out to the masses," he wrote on his Web site.

He also wanted to help members of the U.S. media understand the true story and described his duties as "feeding them stories when they think that the only thing happening here are ambushes and car bombs."

Zangas wrote: "I absolutely love it. And I am doing something that will help."

Nevertheless, he wrote, "I miss my kids very much."

Zangas said he wasn't the bravest man in the world but seemed to accept the fact that he was in danger every day.

One night in February, a mortar shell landed about 100 yards from his bedroom.

"What are we supposed to do? Pack our bags and go home? No. Cower under desks (even my new one) and hide? Not hardly," he wrote.

"I am not claiming to be Mr. Brave ... and I don't pretend to be unfazed by the events of last night. But what else are you supposed to do. ... Life goes on."

And if you're in the Level Green, PA, area, consider this from the message board on Bob's blog:

The funeral arragements have been completed. Please note that a previous posting for the Dobrinick Funeral Home phone number was incorrect. The correct number to the funeral home is 412.372.3111. There will be a viewing on Wednesday, 17 Mar 04 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM and from 7:00 to 9:00 PM. On Thursday, there will be a viewing at 10:00-12:00. The Memorial Service will begin at 1:00 PM at the Level Green Presbyterian Church. Light refreshments will be served directly after the Memorial Service in the Church's Fellowship Hall.

(Original post 2004-03-16 00:15:24)

Open Post

Marla Ruzicka

(Continuing a Memorial Day weekend 2005 salute to the fallen. The story of Marla Ruzicka always brought to my mind the line from The Lord of the Rings: Those who don't live by the sword can still die upon them. Originally from April 2005, this is another reminder of the price paid by those who would seek to help heal a wounded land; their light shines even brighter against the darkness cast by those who sow chaos and death.)

"In war, innocent civilians should not be hurt. It happens. Now we have to see what to do to help the families that were hurt."

- Marla Ruzicka, founder of CIVIC - the Campaign for Innocent Victims In Conflicts.

Why? Marla again:

"If we are fighting a war against terrorism, terrorism impacts innocent people, so we want to show them that we're against that, and that's why we need to help these families that are so desperate."

Marla's campaign led her to Afghanistan and Iraq, while bullets were still flying and explosions were part of the daily routine. A terrorist killed her last Saturday as she and Faiz, CIVIC's Iraq Country Director, traveled to visit an Iraqi child injured by a bomb. She was 28.

Please take a moment to listen to this NPR report.

In other terrorist news, a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars has suggested it would be a great idea for the US to release those terrorists it has captured thus far in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, April 15 -- A prominent Sunni Muslim cleric on Friday welcomed an amnesty offer for Iraq's Sunni-led insurgency and called on President Jalal Talabani to make it a general amnesty that would also apply to those in U.S. detention.

Talabani first aired the idea of forgiveness for guerrillas in his inaugural speech this month. He said Iraq's still-forming new leadership could end the anti-government, anti-U.S. insurgency within months if it reached out to Iraqi members of the resistance while keeping up the fight against foreign insurgents.

Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarrae, a moderate cleric in the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, was the first Sunni leader to respond publicly to the amnesty proposal -- and he welcomed it. Calling on the new transitional government to do "something remarkable for the people," Samarrae urged Talabani to expand his proposal to "a general amnesty for all."

Speaking at Friday prayers at the association's Baghdad mosque, Samarrae asked Talabani to launch the amnesty by obtaining the release of detainees in U.S. military custody at the Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca prisons.

(Original post: 2005-04-18 18:41:32)

R I P

(Continuing a Memorial Day weekend 2005 salute to the fallen. This post, originally from November 2004 is a reminder of the price paid by those who would bring peace to a violent land, and the inhumanity of those who would have it otherwise.)

Western political leaders have united to condemn the kidnappers of charity worker Margaret Hassan after a video surfaced apparently showing a militant firing a pistol into the head of a blindfolded woman wearing an orange jumpsuit.

<...>

Hassan, Irish-born and with dual British and Iraqi nationality, was seized by gunmen on her way to work in western Baghdad early in the morning.

She headed CARE International's operations in Iraq and had lived with her husband in the country for 30 years.

"She dedicated her life to serving the Iraqi people. Please now, please return her to me," her husband said.

More here.

Update from Kathleen A:

Mrs. Greyhawk - Ladybird is an Iraqi living in the Netherlands. Mrs. Hassan was her English teacher when she lived in Iraq. The world has lost a gentle soul. Here's more information from Ladybird.

Mrs. Hassan speak s perfect Arabic and she has a heart of gold, she?s been kidnapped today killed by (men in pajamas), turn Iraq upside down and save her find them.

(Original Post 2004-11-17 14:35:10)

per liberte

(Continuing a Memorial Day weekend 2005 salute to the fallen. This post originally from November 2003 acknowledges what many would deny, the presence and sacrifice of our coalition partners.)

A look at a hero, from The London Times, November 14, 2003 (subscription required)

BRIGADIER Giuseppe Coletta, killed in Wednesday's bomb blast in al-Nasiriyah, believed that it was his God-given duty to help the child victims of war.

For the handsome Sicilian officer in the Italian military police, peacekeeping work was a way of mourning his son, who died three years ago of cancer at the age of 6.

He was one of 19 "simple heroes" lauded in the Italian press yesterday after an atrocity they dubbed "our September 11".

<...>

Brigadier Coletta, 38, who was due to fly home on Sunday, was described as a strong and generous man who had twice won awards for his courage in helping children. Two years ago he was given a military medal after saving a drowning boy in Kosovo. Last week he won a Shield of St Martin, an Italian humanitarian award, for his work in Bosnia, where he raised funds to pay for dental treatment for children in Sarajevo left disabled after the war.

In his last phone call home on Tuesday night Brigadier Coletta told his wife: "Don't worry, I'll be home in a few days", and spoke of his visit that same afternoon to a children's hospital armed with biscuits and chocolate.

The children were his new friends, he said, and he hoped to make one last visit to the hospital before returning home.

Although prime minister Silvio Berlusconi supported the military campaign against Saddam Hussein, Italy did not contribute combat soldiers to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Italy sent troops after Baghdad fell to help in the reconstruction, and now has a 2,300-strong contingent in Iraq.

But will the cowardly murder of Brigadier Coletta and 18 of his countrymen convince Italians (like so many Americans) to turn tail and flee Iraq? Perhaps, according to New York Times reporter Frank Bruni in Rome:

...as Italians absorbed the horror of that bloodshed, it was clear that Mr. Berlusconi's commitment to helping the United States in Iraq would come under newly intense scrutiny and perhaps newly intense opposition here...

"Our determination must be the same as that of the Italians in uniform who have brought honor to themselves and to the coalition that is committed to supporting Iraq's journey toward democracy."

"No intimidation will budge us from our willingness to help that country rise up again."

But the depth and durability of that willingness, both inside and outside Mr. Berlusconi's center-right governing coalition, are unclear.

A majority of Italian lawmakers voted last spring to authorize an Italian military presence in Iraq, and many of Mr. Berlusconi's opponents did not wage much of a fight against it. That presence was framed as a humanitarian, not a combat, mission.

But the authorization expires at the end of the year, and it is expected to come to another vote in Parliament just before then.

One Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that while the bombing would certainly prompt dissent and debate, "I don't think that this dramatically shifts the equation."

The diplomat predicted that the Italian military presence would be authorized anew.

Several Italian political analysts and politicians agreed, saying that Italian lawmakers would not want to act in a way that made Italy seem fickle or easily cowed by terrorists.

For the most part, lawmakers in the opposition avoided partisan comments, saying that a debate about Italy's place in Iraq could wait while the country mourned.

Even at moments when other Western European leaders recoiled from President Bush, Mr. Berlusconi embraced him, seemingly happy to have the hug to himself.

Some Italians said today that they were glad that Italy was playing a part in trying to build a democratic Iraq, and some said that Italy should help, however possible, in the American campaign against terrorism around the world.

But many other Italians said that being in Iraq made no sense and was not serving any purposes.

"It's useless to be there," said Valentino Valentini, a 27-year-old bartender here. Mr. Valentini said that he was enraged by both the Italian military presence and its bitter consequence, adding: "What we should do is send the politicians to Iraq."

Small wonder then, that The London Times notes in regards to our fallen hero that:

Yesterday the brigadier's colleagues cordoned off the street in the Naples suburb of San Vitaliano, which had been his home for the last 20 years, to protect his grieving wife, Margherita, and her infant daughter from the glare of television cameras.

Resto nella pace, Brigadier Giuseppe Coletta, rest in peace. Brave men die, their dreams live on.

(Original post: 2003-11-17 09:02:15)

Thoughts on Losses, More Casualties of War

Note: Originally from November, 2003, this tribute to the families of heroes is being presented as part of Mudville's Memorial Day weekend, 2005.

Here, take a look at this, compliments of Dean. Ponder the vastness of the universe we live in, the grandeur of the cosmos. Consider the infinite numbers on a line and the infinite points between any two of them...

What a world! One in which World Magazine reports that two enemy factions are taking very different approaches to the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan:

For U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, Ramadan began with cultural-sensitivity training. Central Command ordered all fighting forces to take a crash course on respecting Islamic customs during the month-long holiday. But Middle East militants, not Yankees, crashed the holiday, ending before it had barely begun the early quiet of the first day's fast with a series of coordinated and deadly attacks on the capital city.

Suicide bombers struck two Iraqi police stations nearly simultaneously early Oct. 27. Five minutes later, a man drove an ambulance laden with explosives into the headquarters of the Red Cross. Two more explosions, also at police stations downtown, followed only minutes after that. The attacks left 38 dead and at least 220 injured. The next day another police station bombing, in Fallujah, killed four Iraqis. Terrorists assassinated one of Baghdad's three deputy mayors in a drive-by shooting. Roadside bombs continued their toll on U.S. forces, with two killed on Oct. 29.

Speaking at a Rose Garden press conference, President Bush said he suspected the attacks were the work of foreign terrorists "trying to create conditions of fear and retreat."

"Iraq is dangerous, and it's dangerous because terrorists want us to leave," Mr. Bush said. "And we're not leaving."

<...>

To remedy insensitivity?both real and imagined?Central Command ordered U.S. soldiers to receive Ramadan training. Workshops, led in individual units by military chaplains, took place in the weeks leading up to the holiday, which this year runs roughly from Oct. 27 to Nov. 25. A coalition spokesman in Baghdad told WORLD each unit could carry out the training on its own timetable but the order came with standardized guidelines and a pamphlet "with basic information on the religious observance."

Now let's focus in on a smaller part of the world. Here's a look at one of the victims of those Ramadan celebrations; perhaps one who'd just finished her sensitivity training. Army Pfc. Rachel K. Bosveld, 19, of Waupun, Wis.; assigned to the 527th Military Police Company, V Corps, Giesen, Germany; killed Oct. 26 during a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib Police Station in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

Note the subtle difference in tone from the following two stories. The first from the local Wisconsin paper:

WAUPUN, Wis. ? The news of Rachel Bosveld?s death has brought the reality of the conflict in Iraq home to Waupun.

Bosveld, a member of the 527th Military Police, was killed Sunday during a mortar attack at a Baghdad police station.

As the word of the 19-year-old?s death filtered through the community, friends who knew the fun-loving brunette sought out one another to grieve and relive memories spent with their fallen friend.

Although Bosveld attended Waupun High School for only two years after transferring from Oshkosh West High School, it is clear that she made a lasting impression in the lives of those who knew her.

?She was energetic and always laughing,? said Krissy Beske, UW-Fond du Lac student and former classmate. ?When she first came to school, we just kind of pulled her into our circle and took her under our wing.?

<...>

?Because she had been away for so long, the news didn?t really hit me at first, but when we began looking at old pictures and wishing she was here, it came over us big time,? said Beske. ?(Rachel) was such a strong person and I looked up to her. She knew what she wanted and where she wanted to go in life. I will always remember that about her.?

And this, from the Associated Press:

WAUPUN, Wis. ? All Rachel Bosveld wanted was to come home.

She never complained, but after eight months in the sands of Iraq, barely surviving a roadside ambush and patrolling anti-American riots, the 19-year-old military policewoman from Waupun had had enough.

?More and more people want us to go home,? she wrote in a letter to her father. ?Believe me, we want to go home.?

Rachel Bosveld died Sunday in a mortar attack at a Baghdad police station, becoming the first Wisconsin woman killed in the Iraqi conflict and the fifth soldier from the state to die in that country this year.

Marvin Bosveld said he supported the invasion at first, but now he isn?t sure.

?That war killed her,? Marvin Bosveld said. ?I?m not so sure what I?ll support now.?

An excerpt from her letter, along with what appears to be the grieving father's answer to a question, although the question itself isn't in print. I could believe it was something like "Do you still support the war?" But who knows, perhaps they actually used the term 'invasion' when they asked.

I could be wrong, but I detect thinly disguised political opinions of the reporter insinuated into an obituary here. Draw your own conclusions. In my mind the first report caught the essence of this tragedy without beating me on the head with it. That such people are dying far from home is wrong enough. To abandon the cause they sacrifice their lives for would be unpardonable. To use their sacrifice to further their killer's cause is reprehensible.

Another Father/Daughter story brought to my attention today, via Sgt Hook:

Jessica Blankenbecler, 14, e-mailed this final letter to her father, Command Sgt. Maj. James Blankenbecler, at 1:29 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 3., two days after he was killed in a convoy in Samara, Iraq. The Herald is publishing it, in its entirety, with the family?s permission.

Hi Daddy,

Sorry I haven?t written to you in a while. A lot of things have been going on. I miss you so much. How have you been? Is heaven everything it says it is? I know it?s probably that and more. I can?t wait ?till I can come join you again.

I miss you so much ? just being here for me to hold your hand and you calling me ?princess.? But one day we can do this again. But it will be even better because Jesus will be with us.

I keep going in your office to see all your things and your awards that you have gotten over the years. You accomplished so much. I am proud you were my daddy; I would not have chosen anyone else. I like to go into your closet, too and just touch and smell all your clothes ... it gives me so many memories that I miss so much.

Sitting at this table I see your writing on a little piece of paper telling me and mom what e-mail and address in Iraq to write to you ... CSM JAMES D. BLANKENBECLER, 1-44 ADA. I love to just look at your handwriting so much.

I have your military ring on right now. It?s kind of big for my little finger, but it makes me feel you?re holding my hand when I have it on ... It?s been on since we found out the news.

I have your driver?s license with me, too, so I can just look at you whenever I want. You have a little smile this time. When we went to get them done in El Paso I asked you to just smile this time ... and you did it just for me. I also was looking at your car keys and that little brown leather pouch you always had on your key chain. It made me cry a lot when I picked it up.

Everything reminds me of you so much. When we pass by Chili?s I remember you sitting across from me eating your favorite salad. You always told the waiter to take off the little white crunchy things ... because you hated them. And when we drive by billboards that say ?An Army of One,? it makes me remember you in your military uniform. How you always made a crunching sound when you walked, and how you shined your big boots every night before you went to bed. I miss seeing that all the time. Little things that I took for granted when you were here seem priceless now.

One thing that I regret is when you wanted to open my car door for me, but I always got it myself. I wish I would have let you do it. And when you wanted to hold my hand, I sometimes would pull away because I didn?t want people to see me holding my daddy?s hand ... I feel so ashamed that I cared what people thought of me walking down the parking lot holding your hand. But now I would give anything just to feel the warmth of your hand holding mine.

I can?t believe this has happened to my daddy ... the best daddy in the whole world. It feels so unreal, like you?re still in Iraq. You were only there for 17 days. Why did they have to kill you? Why couldn?t they know how loved you are here? Why couldn?t they know? You have so many friends that love you with all their hearts and you affected each and every person you have met in your lifetime. Why couldn?t they know? When I get shots at the hospital I won?t have my daddy?s thumb to hold tight. Why couldn?t they know I loved for you to call me ?princess?? Why couldn?t they know if they killed you I would not have a daddy to walk me down the aisle when I get married? Why couldn?t they know all this? Why?

I know that you are gone now, but it only means that I have another angel watching over me for the rest of my life. That?s the only way I can think of this being good. There is no other way I can think of it.

All the kids at my school know about your death. They even had a moment of silence for you at our football game. A lot of my teachers came over to try to comfort me and mom. They all ask if they can get us anything, but the only thing anyone can do is give me my daddy back ... and I don?t think anyone can do that.

You always told me and mom you never wanted to die in a stupid way like a car accident or something like that. And you really didn?t die in a stupid way ... you died in the most honorable way a man like you could ? protecting me, mom, Joseph, Amanda and the rest of the United States.

In the Bible it says everyone is put on this earth for a purpose, and once they accomplished this you can return to Jesus. I did not know at first what you did so soon to come home to God. But I thought about it ? you have done everything. You have been the best husband, father, son and soldier in the world. And everyone knows this.

One of my teachers called me from El Paso and told me that when her dad died he always told her, ?when you walk outside the first star you see is me.? She told me that it is the same for me and you. I needed to talk to you last night, and I walked outside and looked up ... and I saw the brightest star in the sky. I knew that was you right away, because you are now the brightest star in heaven.

I love you so much, daddy. Only you and I know this. Words can?t even begin to show how much. But I tried to tell you in this letter, just a portion of my love for you. I will miss you, daddy, with all of my heart. I will always be your little girl and I will never forget that...

I love you daddy, I will miss you!!

P.S. I have never been so proud of my last name.

Sunrise - June 27, 1963

Sunset - October 1, 2003

Jessica and her father

There's much more to this story, of course, and you should read the whole thing. This man had just transferred to Ft Hood, and barely settled his family there before shipping out, then spent 17 days in Iraq.

The pain felt by Marvin Bosveld, Jessica Blankenbecler and a lot of other good people is nearly beyond my comprehension. I'm reminded of Mayor Rudy Giuliani's reply to the question how many dead?: "More then we can bear". His words were reasonable on 911; by a few days later they seemed forgivably excessive, given the efforts to evacuate the towers and strength of the American character. He wasn't looking this far forward, but was he right after all?

Perhaps so, for truly the dying hasn't stopped. And for a long time today, with the picture of Rachel Bosveld and the words of Jessica Blankenbecler fresh in my mind, I pondered the rightness of our presence in Iraq. Was it time to pack it in?

And after much thought and prayer I drew strength again from this conclusion: That such people are dying far from home is wrong enough. To abandon the cause they sacrificed their lives for would be unpardonable.

We live in an incredibly big universe. I'll never fully understand a fraction of it, but this I know: the strength of Jessica Blankenbecler, the simple courage of her convictions inspires me. I'll pray for the same for any who've suffered losses anywhere.

Samuel Adams:
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

(Original post 2003-11-02 20:25:13)

Moore Problems

Note: Originally from July, 2004, this post is intended to increase awareness of those who would use the sacrifice of heroes for their own personal gain. Few have profitted more from the death of American troops than Mike Moore. Fewer still have made more money from the Iraq war.

Last week brought this report:

The family of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone was shocked to learn that video footage of the major's Arlington National Cemetery burial was included by Michael Moore in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Maj. Stone was killed in March 2003 by a grenade that officials said was thrown into his tent by Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar, who is on trial for murder.

<...>

The movie, described by critics as political propaganda during an election year, shows video footage of the funeral and Maj. Stone's fiancee, Tammie Eslinger, kissing her hand and placing it on his coffin.

The family does not know how Mr. Moore obtained the video, and Miss Gallagher said they did not give permission and are considering legal recourse.

<...>

The mother of the major labeled Mr. Moore a "maggot that eats off the dead."

This week we hear from those who can voice their own opposition to being used by the Iraq war's largest profiteer:

Afew days after Michael Moore's blockbuster documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in theaters, a friend approached Roy Mitchell with a strange look on his face.

Mitchell, an Army staff sergeant, is a patient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where he is recovering from the loss of his left leg in an explosion in Afghanistan. As the friend approached him that day, he studied Mitchell's face, then told him something that shocked him.

"You're in that 9/11 movie," he said, then added: "Man, it doesn't make you look good."

Here's what Moore used:

In a brief film clip taken from an interview he did with the British television network Channel 4 in February, Mitchell appears in the physical-training room of Walter Reed, where he shared the following words about wounded soldiers:

"The ones that are covered are the KIAs - the 'Killed in Action.' I'm not taking anything away from those soldiers. They deserve that coverage. But there is also us. To say we're forgotten, that would be going just a little bit too far to say we're forgotten, but I'd say we are the missed soldiers of the Army."

Fortunately, SSG Mitchell is available to set the record straight.

Mitchell does not deny making the remarks. But he vehemently objects to filmmaker Moore's using them - without his knowledge - in a film he thinks undermines the military's mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he risked his life.

<...>

"The way they lead into my spot in the movie insinuates that I'm talking bad about the military," Mitchell said.

And other troops have bit parts in Moore's delusion too:

Apparently, Mitchell is not the only soldier to make an unwitting appearance in the movie, which is on the verge of earning $100 million at the box office.

The July 15 issue of The Enterprise, a Massachusetts newspaper, reported that Army reservist Peter Damon - also recuperating at Walter Reed after losing parts of both arms in an explosion in Iraq - was "surprised" to learn that an interview he gave to NBC this year is shown in the film.

John Gonsalves, the founder of Homes for Our Troops - a Massachusetts organization that builds homes for disabled soldiers - is constructing a new house for Damon and his wife, with whom he has talked extensively about the film.

"To do a movie that's clearly anti-war and totally against the Bush administration, and to put these guys in it without their knowledge, is morally wrong, and maybe even legally," said Gonsalves.

To say the least.

Meanwhile, this report from Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog brings additional outrage, but offers a cure:

Army Spc. Joe Roche has perhaps the harshest words yet for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, describing its impact on the morale of our troops deployed overseas as "devastating."

In typical Joe fashion, he did something about the matter. He made copies of this Independence Institute rebuttal of Moore's film (29 pages in small font, he says!) and distributed it widely among U.S. troops in Kuwait.

Which certainly sounds like the appropriate response.

People don't like being lied to. This is the one fundamental truth that Moore realizes and exploits; by convincing his (often eager) audience that they are victims of lies he can then exploit their rage at that victimhood. Have pity on them, they are suffering from Veritas Torquere, aka Moore's Disease.

The simple cure for Moore's Disease is to show the truth to those who may be temporarily afflicted (note: truth will have no effect on the willingly deceived) and as increasing numbers of Moore's victims speak out there will be increasing mounds of evidence to use against him. And therein lies the double edge sword of Mike Moore's twisting of reality; people don't like discovering they've been lied to. They will likely be torqued off, if you will.

And you should know where to find that cure, because the disease is coming soon to an AAFES (Army and Air Force Exchange Service) theater on a military installation near you, too.

AAFES won?t let a little controversy get in the way of acquiring copies of Michael Moore?s new documentary, ?Fahrenheit 9/11,? a spokesman said Monday.

The Army and Air Force Exchange Service is pursuing prints through one of the film?s distributors, Lions Gate Films, said Judd Anstey, a spokesman at AAFES headquarters in Dallas.

Whether AAFES pursues a movie depends entirely on its popularity in the United States.

?AAFES? motion picture policy is to screen films that are popular in the private sector,? AAFES Vice President of Food and Theater Richard Sheff responded via e-mail. ?AAFES? position will not change based on a single feature.

Free speech, even for Michael Moore, compliments of the US military.

Update: Moore from Smash and Blackfive

Update: Moore Truth, compliments of Toni in the comments section:

Australian artist and filmmaker George Gittoes has objected to American Michael Moore's use of some of his work in the controversial movie Fahrenheit 9/11.

Mr Gittoes said today Mr Moore had incorporated about 17 selections from his own documentary film Soundtrack to War into Fahrenheit 9/11.

They depicted American soldiers and their music in Iraq.

"I was concerned of course for my soldiers because their interviews were taken out of context," Mr Gittoes told the Nine Network.

"There are about 17 scenes from my documentary in his film. I wouldn't go so far as to say he lifted (them). Michael got access to my stuff and assumed that I would be happy for it to be in 9/11. I would actually have been quite happy for it not to be in 9/11."

<...>

"Mine's a better film. My film's balanced. I don't think there's a lot of balance in 9/11," he said.

Mr Gittoes said he had some contact with a company Westside Productions associated with Michael Moore but had no idea his work was in Fahrenheit 9/11 until it was screened at the Cannes film festival.

"When I finally discussed it face to face with Michael, I realised that no-one wants to be a spoiler. He's an artist and that's how he makes his work," he said.

"He doesn't go out to Iraq like I do and dodge bullets. He makes it from mainly archival footage and the stuff that other people shoot."

Ouch.

(Original post 2004-07-27 20:16:50)

No Gold Star For Non-Citizen Mom

This is not a great way to start Memorial Day weekend

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., May 26 -- Everyone agrees that Ligaya Lagman of Westchester, N.Y., is a Gold Star mother, part of the long line of women whose sons or daughters were killed in combat for the U.S. armed services.

Her 27-year-old son, Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Lagman, was killed last year in Afghanistan.

But the American Gold Star Mothers have rejected her for membership because -- though a permanent resident and a taxpayer -- she is not a U.S. citizen.

The group's national president, Ann Herd, said: "There's nothing we can do, because that's what our organization says. You have to be an American citizen." She added: "We can't go changing the rules every time the wind blows."

Update: Gold Star Mothers respond here.

Excerpt:

As to the accusation that Mrs. Lagman?s application was denied does not tell the complete story. The application for membership with American Gold Star Mothers was received by the Department of New York. It was not completed or signed by the applicant, nor did it have the required copy of the death certificate and the payment of the first years dues. There were several inaccuracies on the application as to the dates required. A certified letter was mailed to Mrs. Lagman requesting the application be completed in full and returned for approval. To date, we have not heard from Mrs. Lagman, nor have we received any form of communication to the status of her membership application.

To say that the application has been denied is not an accurate statement.

From the Wife of a Hero

Via email:

January 6, 2005

My husband, Rick Rescorla, was one of the 3,000 Americans murdered by terrorists on 9/11/01. Rick was Vice President of Security for Morgan-Stanley/Dean-Witter, the largest tenant in the World Trade Center. His heroic actions on the day of the attack, along with his extraordinary foresight and preparation, saved the lives of 2,700 people. His story has been told on television and radio - in newspapers and magazines - and in the book Heart Of A Soldier, by Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart. Rick is also on the cover of another book, We Were Soldiers Once... And Young, written by General Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway. You see, 9-11 was not the first time Rick had distinguished himself. 9-11 was just the last heroic chapter of his heroic life.

I am so very proud to have had him in my life. I want so to have his legacy live on. Two years ago Rick's friends and I decided to establish The Richard C. Rescorla Memorial Foundation in Rick's memory, to keep present the magnitude of Rick's life and to promote the virtues Rick lived by ? duty, honor, courage, and patriotism. This is a non-profit foundation. All contributions will be tax deductible.

Our first project is to erect a life-size bronze statue of Rick at the new National Infantry Museum to be built at Ft. Benning, Georgia. We have commissioned a prominent sculptor, Edward Hlavka, to create this work. The bronze will take a year to cast and will cost approximately $100,000. We have already raised a third of the monies. We need the rest, and are appealing to all those who would like to see a true American hero have this honor. Your contribution would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Susan Rescorla

More about Rick Rescorla here

(Original Post: 2005-01-17 18:47:39)

Open Post

Zarqawi: Shot in the Back?

Washington Post:

Insurgents said Wednesday in interviews and statements on the Internet that the leader of the group al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was struggling with a gunshot wound to the lung. One of Zarqawi's commanders said the Jordanian guerrilla was receiving oxygen, heightening suspicion that the groundwork was being laid for an announcement of his replacement or death.

Lt Pantano

Euphoric Reality, a blog run by two female veterans, has an interview with Ilario Pantano's defense attorney Charles Gittins.

Next week they'll have an interview with Pantano, and they're inviting readers to submit questions.

Milblogger, OIF Vet to Run for Congress

You've probably read Rusten Currie's blog, Sic Vis Pacem, Para Bellum, but if you haven't lately then you might have missed this announcement of how he'll be spending his time after re-deploying from Iraq

Sometimes the only way to change the system, is to become a part of it. I am a firm believer in a government that is run by its citizens. For the the purpose of preserving the rights of its citizens. The only way I think that I can help after my time here is to continue to serve. Essayons! I will try...

More:

I will also be starting another blog off of this one. http://currierd.typepad.com/currie_for_congress/. I will no longer be associating my experiences in Iraq and the campaign on the same blog, I have and continue to think it in poor taste on my part to do this, so anything relating to Currie for Congress will be on the official website, (to be initiated this week), and any thoughts or comments relating to it will be on the campaign blog.

Update: Maj K offers his endorsement here.

Open Post

Light posting for us but not for all.

Open Post

Spirit of America

Aside from Arthur's good news, Spirit of America , reminds us they also have plenty of good news and accomplishments to share with the Friends of Democracy Update and The America-Iraq School Partners Program. Also, Orphans Day is a success and Operation Cinderella mission is accomplished

Open Post

Late, but never too late

1st Annual Thank You, We Know You're Out There Support Concert And Rally Tickets Now On Sale!!!!!

Concert is this Saturday! If you’re anywhere near Maryland, please show your support for both our soldiers and the organization that help supports them, Adopt A Platoon. If you're not in the area, but want to support this cause, you can purchase tickets as a donation. Thanks for your support!

Warrior to Warrior

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

Who's Stupid Now?

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

I wanted to write to you this week without sounding like the stupidest Army officer I ever knew.

This was a lieutenant colonel, my brigade executive officer at Ft. Jackson, S.C. I went to him as an Army captain to report that I had inspected a set of abandoned, deteriorating barracks that my company was ordered to move into. I told him that I'd found the barracks unfit for living. I asked him to see for himself and to recommend that the post commander find another, more suitable set of barracks for my troops.

His answer: "Back in the Korean War when I came here for basic training, we had to live in tents out there on the lawn outside this very building. Your troops ought to be glad they have a roof over their heads." That was the end of it for him. He didn't even get his hind pockets out of his chair to go see for himself.

I don't want to be that guy in my letter to you. But...

I recently got a letter myself from a friend. He enclosed a column from the Washington Post by Mark Shields, a piece titled, "Where's the Outrage?" Shields's own outrage--and that of my friend--is aroused first by yet another story of our troops going into battle in unarmored Humvees. And second by reports that a Marine Corps officer is being railroaded out of the service for complaining about the heavy casualties his unit took in fighting from these vehicles in Ramadi, Iraq last year.

Shields goes ballistic in his piece about the "cowardly callousness of this nation's civilian and military leadership," who are guilty of "betrayal." No lack of outrage there.

I don't want to be callous myself, especially where our fighting men become casualties, and their family members suffer for all their lives in the aftermath.

And since I first went to war in Vietnam in M-48 tanks, the heaviest armor available at the time, I didn't have the same problems as those now traveling in and fighting from Humvees. But I can say this with certainty: Even a tank wasn't enough armor for me.

Warfare is a history of evolution of violence. Pre-World War I, troops used to attack across the open in tactics we now call human wave, and overwhelm the rifle firepower of their enemies. The invention of the machinegun put the human wave tactic in the very back of the tactics closet. So troops fought from trenches where direct fire was not as lethal. Until the invention of the tank, which was impervious to the machinegun and could crawl over the trenches.

Which brought about the invention of bazookas and other shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons like the rocket-propelled grenade. The RPG was the tank killer in Vietnam and lives on today in terrorist armies in Iraq because of its lethality and portability. One terrorist can knock out a Humvee--or even a tank--with one well-placed shot, which is a very high payoff in the cost/benefit formula of terrorist warfare where the enemy is even willing to strap explosives to his own body.

In Vietnam against the RPG we evolved, too. We countered our lack of armor by hanging water cans, C-ration boxes, sections of track and clothing containers on the outside of our turrets. The extra few inches of standoff made the explosive much less lethal to tanks. Every armored personnel carrier in our unit used strips of scrap metal runway material or chain link fencing to do the same thing. The troops took to lining the floors of the carriers with layers of sandbags to reduce the effect of landmines. You talk about an excuse for outrage in the press. If it was there, I never heard it.

In any event, when he could, the enemy escalated to arming dud American bombs and using them as landmines, which defeated the sanbags. He also began shooting tanks in the engine compartment, where the fuel tanks were. In the M-48A2C, the fuel was gasoline, not diesel, and if ever there was a reason for outrage that was it. So we got the M-48A3, a diesel tank much less prone to burning.

And so on. And so on. And so on. (And aren't we a deadly and devious species?)

Look I don't want to debate here whether we should be fighting in Iraq at all. And I don't know the details of the cited incident about the Marine officer. But I do know this: If we ever decided in 1941 that we could not commit to a war until we had absolute certainty of victory against every kind of threat, including evolving enemy tactics without suffering casualties--and a five-year plan for postwar reconstruction besides, everybody in North America would be speaking Japanese today. Or German. The men who died in World War II for lack of preparation or equipment would populate several western U.S. states.

I wish that every American vehicle in Iraq was armored to the nines. And at times, I wish that Mark Shields was secretary of Defense. If both those things happened, all our men and women would be safe. Right?

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.

Zell Miller

Lance at Red State Rant recently got he opportunity to interview outspoken Georgia Democrat Zell Miller. Lance was kind enough to share the opportunity with fellow bloggers, inviting several to submit questions. (I'm one - thanks Lance!) The interview is here.

Russ Vaughn's Poetic response to the MSM's fiascos

The Eagle and the Serpents

Such discord now ‘tween you and us,
Mainstream Media and populace:
You envenom all that we hold dear,
And revel in those things we fear.
You denigrate our national pride
Taking always now the others’ side.
A Media mamba, a poisonous pest
That lurks within our Eagle’s nest.

You arrogant adders puffed with pride,
We know truth’s on our Eagle’s side;
And care not what you snakes declare,
We’ve had it with your venomous fare.
Our Eagle soars above your wrath,
Your tortured, twisted serpents' path.
From your low crawl, you fail to see,
Our Eagle strikes have set men free

Now the Eagle from his lofty post,
Looks down upon your hissing host,
Who poison every good intent,
With noxious toxins you invent.
Like diamondbacks you loudly rattle,
Strike fear in those you deem but cattle;
But your cattle now look to the sky,
See the Eagle soaring, and know you lie.

Can you Media serpents win this fight?
Bring our Eagle down from newfound height?
No longer now caged up by you,
Only negative news to shape our view.
The Internet set our Eagle free,
Now we can hear, now we can see.
A Mainstream Media hissing lies,
Spitting blinding venom in our eyes.

Our Eagle’s spied you false purveyors,
Just negative fools and foul naysayers.
The Eagle knows now he is right,
That he’s with honor in this fight.
And despite your biting fanged attacks,
He’ll land upon your serpent backs;
An image that should give you pause:
A thrashing snake in Eagle’s claws.

Russ Vaughn

Open Post

And check out the New Blog Showcase too.

Shoot the Reporter

Sniper training reveals targeting guidance. Some excerpts:

Killing Doctors and Chaplains is suggested as a means of psychological warfare.

(Shoot)... the reporter carrying the camera. First because the camera can be used as binoculars; second, it is the most difficult thing to hide the death of a reporter in Iraq.

In light of the targeting journalist line we'll expect a lot of coverage of this in the NY Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, etc. No doubt Reporters Without Borders is preparing a thoughtful response even as you read this.

Oh, that's terrorist training? Never mind.

More at Fourth Rail and DefenseTech.

'Round the Ring

Sgt Mom on the latest craze sweeping newspapers: corpse photography.

Smash on Blood and Justice.

Those are two of the longest running MilBlogs around. Here's a brand new one from Chris Short.

The Word Unheard takes on Linda Foley's targeting journalists accusations.

On the Turning Away

A former news photographer explains why she isn't one now: "I don't hate journalism or journalists. But I hated myself as one."

Not everyone embraces the dark side. Hopefully doing so isn't the only ticket to "big time" reporting, but it certainly seems to smooth the path.

From Arthur

Arthur says: "Forget Newsweek, here's goodnewsweek"

Dear friends

The new "Good news from Iraq" is out - and yes, there are more things
happening in Iraq than suicide bombings - although, again, you wouldn't know
that, would you?

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

Best regards

Arthur

News From Gitmo

Newsweek: "Since cutting short a trip to Asia on the weekend we published our account of how we reported the story..."

Guess that shortened trip to Asia explains the cover?

To their credit, Newsweek tells the US side of the Koran story:

According to Di Rita, when the first prisons were built for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo in early 2002, prison guards were instructed to respect the detainees' religious rituals. The prisoners were given Qur'ans, which they hung from the walls of their cells in cotton surgical masks provided by the prison. Log entries by the guards indicate that in about a dozen cases, the detainees themselves somehow damaged their Qur'ans. In one case a prisoner allegedly ripped up a Qur'an; in another a prisoner tore the cover off his Qur'an. In three cases, detainees tried to stuff pages from their Qur'ans down their toilets, according to the Defense Department's account of what is in the guards' reports. (NEWSWEEK was not permitted to see the log items.) The log entries do not indicate why the detainees might have done this, said Di Rita, and prison commanders concluded that certain hard-core prisoners would try to agitate the other detainees by alleging disrespect for Muslim articles of faith.

In light of the controversy, one of these incidents bears special notice. Last week, NEWSWEEK interviewed Command Sgt. John VanNatta, (MVG note: Command Sergeant Major) who served as the prison's warden from October 2002 to the fall of 2003. VanNatta recounted that in 2002, the inmates suddenly started yelling that the guards had thrown a Qur'an on or near an Asian-style squat toilet. The guards found an inmate who admitted that he had dropped his Qur'an near his toilet. According to VanNatta, the inmate then was taken cell to cell to explain this to other detainees to quell the unrest. But the incident could partly account for the multiple allegations among detainees, including one by a released British detainee in a lawsuit that claims that guards flushed Qur'ans down toilets.

In fewer than a dozen log entries from the 31,000 documents reviewed so far, said Di Rita, there is a mention of detainees' complaining that guards or interrogators mishandled their Qur'ans. In one case, a female guard allegedly knocked a Qur'an from its pouch onto the detainee's bed. In another alleged case, said Di Rita, detainees became upset after two MPs, looking for contraband, felt the pouch containing a prisoner's Qur'an. While questioning a detainee, an interrogator allegedly put a Qur'an on top of a TV set, took it off when the detainee complained, then put it back on. In another alleged instance, guards somehow sprayed water on a detainee's Qur'an. This handful of alleged cases came out of thousands of daily interactions between guards and prisoners, said Di Rita. None has been substantiated yet, he said.

In December 2002, a guard inadvertently knocked a Qur'an from its pouch onto the floor of a detainee's cell, Di Rita said. A number of detainees protested. That January, partly in response to the incident and partly to provide precise guidelines for new guards and interrogators, the Guantanamo commanders issued precise rules to respect the "cultural dignity of the Koran thereby reducing the friction over the searching of the Korans." Only chaplains or Muslim interpreters were allowed to inspect detainees' Qur'ans. "Two hands will be used at all times when handling Korans in a manner signaling respect and reverence," the rules state. "Ensure that the Koran is not placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas..."

There are scant references to allegations of abuse at the prison camp in the proceedings to determine solely if detainees are enemy combatants. One prisoner even calls the camp ``paradise'' compared to a Taliban jail where he was given little food and had medical problems.

Or perhaps that's the real cunning of we Americans? (Que X-Files theme music...)

Open Post

Weekend edition.

From the Sewer

Reporters from all over the globe today are setting up permanent base camps in toilets and sewers at Guantanamo, Cuba, and other prisons around the world desperately seeking evidence of Korans in those locations. Here's an update on their progress thus far.

1. Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak publishes Inside the Wire, a book about abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo. She gives coauthor credit to Eric Saar, a former military interpreter there. The book does not mention any incidents of Koran flushing, instead focusing on the use of female guards to embarrass the prisoners. However, this by no means shows that Koran abuse didn't occur. The publisher has already issued one correction/retraction to material it contains:

At pages 191-192, Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier?s Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo by Erik Saar and Viveca Novak, erroneously states that civilian interrogators hired through an army contract with CACI were in Guantanamo Bay. The book also describes the activities of two contract interrogators. CACI has unequivocally stated that it had no involvement in any interrogation operations at Guantanamo and that it had no relationship whatsoever with the civilian contract interrogators involved in the use of the interrogation techniques discussed in the book. The Penguin Press and the Authors acknowledge and regret the error. In addition, The Penguin Press and the Authors are taking a number of corrective actions, including inserting erratum slips in Penguin?s remaining copies of the book, providing erratum slips to Penguin?s accounts for insertion into books that have already been shipped, and advising media organizations that will be interviewing the authors of the error. Future printings will be corrected to address the error.

2. Newsweek gets the ball rolling on Koran flushing. In a brief story that also provides a plug for Novak's book the magazine claims that a US government report will confirm that a Koran was flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo. As riots sweep the Islamic world resulting in deaths in Afghanistan Newsweek refuses to apologize and instead publishes additional claims of Koran flushing. Claiming to have a "source" who left them dangling, within days they change their minds and retract the story.

3. Other publications leap quickly to the defense of Newsweek, publishing as many unsupported claims of Koran flushing they can find. Mostly from former inmates from Guantanamo and other prisons. (Coincidentally, a captured al-Qaeda handbook instructs them to make such claims.) The Washington Post, however, provides what seems to be more credible evidence, claiming that Erik Saar "said in interviews and in his book that he never saw a Koran flushed in a toilet but that guards routinely ignored prisoners' sensitivities by tossing it on the ground while searching their cells." Within days they were forced to retract:

A May 18 article incorrectly stated that former Army translator Erik Saar said in previous media interviews that guards at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, routinely tossed Korans on the ground. Saar has said there were "chronic problems" with the way military guards handled the Koran and failures to follow military procedures for respectfully handling the Muslim holy book when guards inspected cells, but he did not say that guards routinely tossed copies of the book.

In his recent book "Inside the Wire," former Army interpreter Eric Saar noted that the issue of Korans at Camp Delta was so sensitive that only soldiers of the Muslim faith were allowed into cells at the onset of searches to handle them.

Ooops

Last week The Washington Post, jumping on the "defending Newsweek" bandwagon and supporting the magazine's right to publish unsubstantiated reports of Koran abuse in American prisons, provided a laundry list of similar allegations. Most were from prisoners, but one was from former Army interpreter Eric Saar:

Erik Saar, a former Army translator at Guantanamo Bay who has written a book about mistreatment of detainees at the military prison, said in interviews and in his book that he never saw a Koran flushed in a toilet but that guards routinely ignored prisoners' sensitivities by tossing it on the ground while searching their cells.

A May 18 article incorrectly stated that former Army translator Erik Saar said in previous media interviews that guards at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, routinely tossed Korans on the ground. Saar has said there were "chronic problems" with the way military guards handled the Koran and failures to follow military procedures for respectfully handling the Muslim holy book when guards inspected cells, but he did not say that guards routinely tossed copies of the book.

I'm at a loss as to why so many news outlets are so eager to get this story so wrong. Couldn't some minimum level of research be done prior to publishing something that's now demonstrably inflammatory? Aren't there some kind of "journalistic standards" for this sort of thing? I've heard that there are, but never having seen them I'll refrain from speculating as to whether they've been violated here.

More on Saar's book, "co-authored" with reporter Viveca Novak here.

Update: The author of this UPI report in Washington Times read the book more slowly and carefully:

In his recent book "Inside the Wire," former Army interpreter Eric Saar noted that the issue of Korans at Camp Delta was so sensitive that only soldiers of the Muslim faith were allowed into cells at the onset of searches to handle them.

The "Bloodless" War?

Today's LA Times bemoans the lack of photos of corpses of American soldiers in Iraq:

Many photographers and editors believe they are delivering Americans an incomplete portrait of the violence that has killed 1,797 U.S. service members and their Western allies and wounded 12,516 Americans.

Journalists attribute the relatively bloodless portrayal of the war to a variety of causes ? some in their control, others in the hands of the U.S. military, and the most important related to the far-flung nature of the conflict and the way American news outlets perceive their role.

"We in the news business are not doing a very good job of showing our readers what has really happened over there," said Pim Van Hemmen, assistant managing editor for photography at the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.

"Writing in a headline that 1,500 Americans have died doesn't give you nearly the impact of showing one serviceman who is dead," Van Hemmen said. "It's the power of visuals."

The New York Times and Los Angeles Times printed the most shots of wounded in the war zone during that time ? with 10 each, an average of one every 2 1/2 weeks. The other six publications ran a total of 24 pictures of American wounded.

Tyler Hicks of the New York Times and Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times accompanied the Army in August during the dangerous assault on the insurgent stronghold of Najaf. They weathered several life-threatening episodes with the troops. But much of the respect they gained disappeared when the two tried to take pictures of wounded and dead soldiers being rushed to a field hospital.

Cole, a Pulitzer winner for photographs she took of the war in Liberia, said later she understood the soldiers' high emotions. But she resented the row of soldiers blocking her camera, who in her view prevented her from doing her job.

"They were happy to have us along when we could show them fighting the battle, show the courageous side of them," Cole said. "Then suddenly the tables turned. They didn't want anything shown of their grief and what was happening on the negative side, which is equally important."

Of course, there might be other things for a photographer to do while Americans bleed to death. This description of the actions of one in Mosul during last December's chow hall bombing is especially troubling:

Blasted to the ground, Hoffmeyer pulled himself up and into the chaos of the deadliest attack of the war on any U.S. base. A young man bleeding to death beside him would be one of 22 to die that day.

Despite a broken lens, aperture wide open, Hoffmeyer fired off several frames of the mortally wounded soldier.

He continued taking pictures of the blast scene ? images that ran prominently in nearly every American paper in the days to come. But he never transmitted the pictures of the dying GI.

<...>

Hoffmeyer thought the pictures of the soldier ? his hand pressed over a neck wound streaming with blood ? might be too graphic for publication. If the vivid shots had made the paper, they might have infuriated the Virginia National Guard battalion he had covered, and threatened his plan to catalog the unit's postwar lives. Finally, he thought how terrible it would be if he ever had to see pictures of his own son, age 9, in such a position.

"I don't know if what I did was right," the 41-year-old onetime radio disc jockey said. "But it's what I felt was right."

One wonders if amid rapidly falling circulation numbers the editors of some papers aren't looking back with nostalgia to the slight bump in sales that accompanied their publication of photos of contractor corpses in Fallujah in April 2004. The LA Times quickly defended the display of those graphic images at the time of their publication: "While showing the images could erode support for the war, not showing them could have an opposite effect.". And as with this year's version they also provided expert quotes from outside sources:

"These are the kinds of pictures that will linger," said John Schulz, dean of Boston University's College of Communications and a former faculty member at the National War College.

"They'll be there in November when people go to vote."

At The Movies

Went to a 10PM showing of Star Wars last night. Everyone was talking about the same thing while exiting the theater, asking the same question: "Did you stay awake through the whole thing?" I made it, but it was a struggle. My chin hit my chest at least two times, and my daughter shook me a few more. Staying awake became tougher once she fell asleep herself, and despite my best efforts she missed the last half of the show. When the movie started there was loud cheering, by the time the final credits rolled a smattering of polite applause as most folks were strolling out quickly, though with the appearance of sleepwalkers. Several discussions of who was in the best condition to drive home followed.

The film will make a fortune. Some of that will be from those returning to see what they might have missed while dozing the first time. The franchise has always depended on fans seeing each film repeatedly, but this is an entirely new tactic to achieve that result.

I highly recommend the afternoon/early evening showings.

Blogs, War, Movies, and More

(Note: The film Gunner Palace will be available on DVD from Amazon on June 28th. Part of the profits will be donated to the Fisher House, an organization dedicated to helping families of wounded troops. To mark the event - and perhaps introduce this movie to newer readers - here's my interview with the man who made the film, conducted at the time of the theatrical release.)

Filmmaker Michael Tucker visits Mudville to talk about Iraq, the blogosphere, and his movie Gunner Palace, opening in theaters this weekend.

A late January day in Iraq, typical of any day of that sort. Except eight million of the locals got up, got dressed, and made their way to the polls to vote on their futures and the future of the world. A few died for the effort, the vast majority did not. And the rest of the world got images; purple fingers, dancing, smiles, and perhaps bit of renewed faith and hope for mankind. I was there, in Baghdad on that day, and that very afternoon, success still in the air, I read this in the NY Times:

Watching "Gunner Palace" - the title refers to the 2-3 Field Artillery's headquarters, the gutted former Uday Hussein palace in Baghdad - you realize the American mission is probably doomed even as you admire the men and women who volunteered to execute it.

Of course Frank Rich wrote that review pre-election, and no doubt expected it to resonate in the atmosphere of failure he anticipated for that day. But what did that mean as far as the movie was concerned? Had he actually seen it? Was it really one that would elicit such a response, or was the reviewer just forcing a square peg into his own pre-drilled round hole, viewing it through his personal filter of defeat?

Because here's what bothered me, reading those rather despairing words on an otherwise fine, fine day. I knew that movie. Mike Tucker, the man who made it, had emailed me a couple of times over the past few months, most recently regarding difficulties with the rating, and...

Hmmm, perhaps it would be best if we did this via flashback. (Now you imagine a wavy appearance to everything as the screen fades to black.... then fades in on...)

May, 2004.

A much younger Greyhawk makes his internet rounds, his limber mouse finger clicking swiftly as he moves through the MilBlogs Ring and stops on this post at CPT Patti, a blog (since closed) run by fellow American-in-Germany named Tim, a retired Army Colonel and husband of Cpt Patti, in which Tim wrote:

I have an e-friend named Mike. He makes his living making films (there may be a more specific way to say that...I'm not certain.)

Mike has been to Baghdad at least twice since OIF started. He tells me he wanted to produce a film/documentary (I think) about, well, "the story". He met and followed soldiers. Shot film of the good and the bad.

He made friends with some of these guys. He's lost some of these friends he's made when those friends died in Iraq.

Of his film he says it shows soldiers as who they are. Human beings. See, Mike seems to trust us to be able to handle the fact that human beings are imperfect. So his film isn't one that portrays the US Soldier a la John Wayne. But, more importantly in my mind, it shows soldiers being imperfectly GOOD as well as being imperfectly bad...something that CNN can't seem to do.

So far no one will buy Mike's film for showing on TV or other outlet. It isn't that it isn't good. They've told him it is very good! But they think we the public want more of the same crap they show on CNN day in and day out. (I'm guessing prison scandal movie producers are probably in bidding wars for their films).

So here is my special request. I volunteered to pray that a buyer would come forward to buy Mike's film. Really, honestly say a prayer to that effect.

And I'm asking if you will do the same.

Because our Soldiers and Marines, imperfect as they may be, on the whole are good Americans doing good things. They deserve to be shown that way - warts and all (not "warts and more warts" as CNN does) by the public. And Mike is a guy trying to do that but the elites in the media don't seem to understand most that The America I Live In wants to see this sort of stuff.

So please, lets do our Soldiers and Marines a favor...and Mike too. Please promise me you will say a quick prayer that this film finds a buyer.

Thanks.

"Hey..." I thought, immediately dropping into my role as one of the stewards of the blogosphere, "I wonder if I could help bring attention to this - and if the blogosphere could make something happen here?" After all, in the first few months of existance Mudville had already helped thwart the evil machinations of the William Morris Agency. So who knows what a blog post might accomplish?

So I did two things. First I posted a link to Tim's post, and then I emailed Glenn Reynolds, a fellow steward of the blogosphere who's always on the lookout for interesting links. He linked too, and together we sent thousands of readers over that way. ;)

Would it matter? Prayer is a powerful thing, but if everyone in the industry had the same attitude as is expressed in this German media quote from David Kaspar you'd think that's exactly what they didn't have:

All German TV networks and stations rejected tucker's documentary. Not all of them rejected the film because they considered it unstructured or thought, as was written in one rejection notice, that "given the current state of the public discussion of torture and Iraq's future it will be difficult to find a station willing to broadcast [the film]." Even those broadcasters who thought Tucker's film was the most vivid available portrait of the American soldiers in Iraq were afraid their viewers wouldn't understand. It's true. Tucker's Gunner Palace presents a completely different portrait of American troops than does Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Tucker has no agenda and no enemy - and therefore, perhaps, also no friends in Germany

Tucker was undaunted; he had a tale to tell, and it was important to him. Up against formable barriers and needing a way to develop a groundswell of support he tapped something known to relatively few people at the time; the Power of Blogs.

I received my first email from Tucker shortly thereafter, introducing me to the blog he started about the film. I linked it, and by this point in time a few other blogs were linking to him as well, but I was actually getting ready to deploy to Baghdad myself and didn't have time to follow any developments in the story.

***************************

So now fade back in on today. What happened in those intervening months to make a film about "our Soldiers and Marines, [who] imperfect as they may be, on the whole are good Americans doing good things" and presenting "a completely different portrait of American troops than does Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11" into something now referred to as "A companion piece of sorts to Fahrenheit 9/11". Could Mike really have called his own movie a "Trojan horse" to get the average, support-our-troops American to think realistically about the war as he was quoted?

Once again - blogs fill the knowledge gap. This review by Armed Liberal at Winds of Change seemed fair:

My reaction to the movie while I was watching it was complicated - up, down, sideways, and back again. And when it was over, I was ready to sit back down and see it again, which is a strong vote that you go see it as well.

The couple that made it tried hard to make a nonpolitical film about the war - which will, doubtless, satisfy no one. It frustrated me, as someone who sees the war fundamentally politically (and I don't just mean in the narrow sense of domestic politics). And then I just started watching it.

MilBlogger Phil Carter got to see the screening too.

To call the movie "powerful" would be an oversimplification. It was that, but it was so much more too. "Gunner Palace" does what no book, no news article, and no blog can do - it makes the soldiers of 2-3 FA come alive for those experiencing the movie, in a way they could only do if they were in person. The movie shows little of the war as we see it on CNN or in DOD press conferences; you don't learn about grand strategy or tactics, or the push/pull of victory and defeat. Instead, what you hear are soldiers' stories - from the privates to the sergeants to the captains to battalion commander LTC Bill Rabena, a colleague of mine from Fort Hood.

Lefty blogger Kevin Drum linked Carter's review, and his post prompted the following comments from his readers, perhaps giving insight to how some on the left will receive the film:

I'm sorry, but this business about what "heroes" "our troops" are is growing more than a bit old, a bit thin, and a bit stale.

I'm sorry that so many people either have a chip on their shoulders or a guilt trip about Vietnam, but a most these are a bunch of joes no better and no worse than anyone else. They don't have halos and I - for one - am getting tired of this.

Moreover, there has been quite a lot of prisoner and civilian abuse going on and the invasion of Iraq is a crime for which they - as volunteers and under Nurenburg principles - bear some responsibility.

There is something weird about this and - no - they are most definitely not standing up for democracy. I aprehend that their real mission may very well be quite to the contrary.

So let's get over "the troop" worship.

Posted by: Thinker on February 25, 2005 at 2:17 PM

How about a film about the life of an ordinary family living in Fallujah? Then maybe I'll take notice.

Posted by: charles on February 25, 2005 at 2:36 PM

So, any news when the movie about being at the business end of an American GI's gun is going to come out?

How about those people who are collateral damage in the pin-point bombing?

How about some follow-up to that Iraqi wedding party that got blown to smithereens?

And, have conditions improved in Abu Ghraib? How many people, exactly are being held there? How long have they been there?

Halliburton is getting a bonus for their work in Iraq?

And, how about those Iraqis who have to wait in line for a day to fill their gas tanks?

How many Iraqis have died due to poor sanitary conditions - lack of water, electricity(Air Conditioning in the summer must have caused hundreds and hundreds of deaths).

Any idea when that movie is coming out Kevin?

No, I didn't think so. I guess Americans all like to play GI Joe.

Posted by: Michele on February 25, 2005 at 2:42 PM

Others speculate that it's Tucker and co-director Petra Epperlein who are spitting on the troops. Ken Tucker (no relation to Mike), in New York Magazine:

Watching Gunner Palace, I initially wondered whether the filmmakers, Michael Tucker (no relation) and Petra Epperlein, were like the people who used to spit on Vietnam veterans when they returned home. Their anger -iin this case, about America?s invasion and subsequent "rebuilding" of Iraq - seemed gravely misplaced. Instead of criticizing the Bush-administration policies their film so clearly detests, Tucker and Epperlein train their cameras on the people involved in this engagement who have the least power. These are, of course, the soldiers, who are made to look, most of the time, like irresponsible fools.

For the record, Tucker is from a military family, he's not spitting on the troops.

(Side note: don't worry - no one's spitting on the returning troops. That didn't even happen during Vietnam, as James Wolcott explains in his discussion of the film - for those who need the deranged moonbat point-of-view).

All of this leaves me eager to see the film and decide for myself - something I didn't feel a need for with Fahrenheit 9/11. But I won't be able to until it opens in Germany, either in AAFES theaters on base or in the Kinos outside the gates. But I didn't have to wait to find answers to some of my questions - because I had Michael Tucker's e-mail. He's been stateside this past week and obviously busy doing the pre-debut media blitz associated with any premier. But I contacted him and on the eve of opening day he graciously took time from his schedule to respond.

Without further ado - my conversation with Mike on blogs, war, and Gunner Palace.

***************************

Greyhawk: Congratulations on the opening of Gunner Palace. I know it was a long haul, and there were a few blogs 'with you all the way'. You've even got a blog roll of sorts on the movie site. Did blogs help move the project forward?

Michael Tucker: Blogs helped during production to hear a diversity of perspectives on the war. Favorites in the Mil sector include Trying to Grok, CPT Patti's Husband and Blackfive. It was useful to read these people to know what military families were experiencing and to hear from people on the ground. While I have my own experiences, it is often useful to compare notes--to take the pulse of America.

When we first released clips from the film, bloggers were the ones who responded. That interest helped spark festival interest--an internet footprint can be measured and provides instant feedback to distributors.

GH: How did the project get started? How did you get to Iraq?

MT: I went to Iraq the first time in May 2003 with a German armored car salesman to make a film about the security business. That led to another trip in June/July 2003. While we were running around Baghdad we got to know many soldiers--most from 1/36 Infantry. They traded us food for phone calls. During that summer you could see the "war" falling off the front pages, while kids were dying every week. I went out on a few patrols and decided that there was a film in it. I returned in September 2003 and heard about 2/3 FA, their pool (it was hot) and their palace.

GH: Are you still in touch with the guys - what do they think of the finished product?

MT: Most of the soldiers in the film have seen it and are pleased with the results. They are the toughest critics, so I showed it to them first in Giessen, Germany in July and later in September. We just were on tour for six weeks which brought us to 15 cities where many Gunners as well as soldiers from other units screened it. The response from OIF Vets, especially from that time period, has been amazing. I think the film captures the essence of place as well as some of the character of today's Army. In Fayetteville, it screened through the roof which made me happy. Again, tough critics.

GH: How many theaters is it opening in? Is this big, nationwide? (It should be!)

MT: We open tonight in NYC, DC, LA and SF. On the 11th we had 15 more cities. On the 18th we should be in the top 40. These first weeks are critical.

GH: You've called the movie non-political, said it's about nothing more than the story of the guys in the film. But more than a few major-media columnists/reviewers are labeling it an anti-war classic. What would you say to them to set them straight?

MT: I left my politics at the palace gate. You do see some contrast between what war planners are saying and what war fighters are doing. Iraq has become very personal for me. I don't see it through a political lens anymore, rather an emotional one. I've made many friends, and lost a few. Iraq is also a place that is not black and white. It is one big gray area. I've tried my best to show reality--good and bad.

As for antiwar? I don't think it is possible to make a film during a time when young Americans and Iraqis are dying every day that is not antiwar. However, I think the film is more complicated than that. Rather, it challenges what many of us think of the war from afar. Up close and personal, it feels different. When you are in the middle of it, again, it becomes personal.

GH: No one is more anti-war than the soldier. Speaking of soldiers, who's that picture of - in the advertising? It looks like a young kid in a helmet.

MT: That is SPC Tom Susdorf. Age 20 when the pic was taken by me. He had just come off an escort. I love the pic 'cause he looks (and is) so young. He was one of my room-mates--great kid with about a month left in the army. He's going to college, so he'll be the only freshman with his face on a poster (freckles and all).

GH: I've been there - many of the faces are young.

Back to the antiwar theme, anti-war demonstrations generally draw large crowds - or did a few months back before the success of our efforts in Iraq became more obvious. A few groups are doing 'counter demonstrations' - Protest Warrior, etc. But generally they attract relatively few people. We could speculate endlessly on why that is, but the fact is, that's the way it is. Regardless of real numbers of each camp, the 'anti' side is the one that brings people out. Does that factor in to the marketing of the film?

MT: No. I think both camps can learn from these soldiers and they are. Look at the review in Salon today. Amazing. I feel like I was successful in telling the story of these soldiers in a way that humanizes them- so people care what happens to them and the Iraqi people. It feels great that people are taking the war more personally when they view this film--connecting with a few faces so they have a reason to care.

All I want is for people to care and talk about the war. That is what bloggers do every day and I am thankful for all the bloggers--no matter their opinions--who care about what is happening in Iraq. You've kept the war where it belongs: as the only story that matters.

GH: Thanks Mike - I know you're busy, good luck, break a leg, etc!

Like Frank Rich's comment that started this post, most 'anti-war' statements already seem outdated - overcome by events, by the nascent freedom movement now just beginning to rise in the region. If Gunner Palace is such a statement it will be immediately and painfully obvious to the viewer. But I don't think that's the case.

Obviously the movie is not without controversy - that should surprise no one. The bottom line is if you made a movie about the war in Iraq that wasn't controversial then you somehow failed to capture the essence of the war. Based on the comments and reviews Tucker and Epperlein captured that essence quite well. I'm looking forward to seeing the film. For those of us in Germany, Mike also mentioned he's trying to get a special print for the 1st Armored Division.

For those of you who responded to Tim's original request - you're prayers have been answered. See Gunner Palace tonight in New York City, DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Fifteen more cities on the 11th and nationwide by the 18th. Contact your local theaters and see when Baghdad will come to your town.

21 May Update: via email, Michael Tucker:

The DVD comes out on June 28th. Presales on Amazon now

We started an initiative with Fisher House last week--we gave them the first check ($10,000) of what I hope will be a sizable donation based on DVD sales. I'm off to Iraq next week to see how things have changed and to get some images that will support a project for orphans that one former Gunner is getting off the ground.

Best,

MT

Note: Reposted from 2005-03-04 22:25:43

All done!

Open Post

Just in

via email, update on Gunner Palace

The DVD comes out on June 28th. Presales on Amazon now

We started an initiative with Fisher House last week--we gave them the first check ($10,000) of what I hope will be a sizable donation based on DVD sales. I'm off to Iraq next week to see how things have changed and to get some images that will support a project for orphans that one former Gunner is getting off the ground.

Best,

MT

Looking forward to it.

Every Day Hero

This guy is an inspiration to all

If Kevin Pannell doesn't answer his cell phone, you'll get the message, "You've reached the coolest amputee in the world."
<...>
He served an active-duty stint in Kuwait for five months in 1999-2000 then was called to active duty again in September 2003. "We went to Fort Hood (Texas, for training) on Halloween and trained through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. We got into Iraq on April 1, April Fool's Day, and I was hit on June 13 -- which was Friday the 13th -- and I got my legs amputated on Father's Day."
<...>
"When he came from under sedation, he asked his mom, 'How bad am I?" Amanda said. "The doctor told him the bad news, and he closed his eyes for a second, opened them and said, 'I can live with that.'"
<...>
"Just because you lose a limb, or two, you don't lose your life. You gain a lot, really. I've gained more than I've lost with these two legs. I've got a complete new appreciation for life," he said.

Open Post

The Rest of the Story

Once again the New York Times reports on the Association of Muslim Scholars without noting certain crucial facts about that group.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 18 - In a troubling sign of rising tensions between Iraq's two main religious groups, a leading Sunni cleric on Wednesday publicly accused a Shiite militia of killing Sunni clerics.

The cleric, Sheik Harith al-Dari, used blunt language to charge that members of the militia group, known as the Badr Brigade, had killed clerics, including one whose body was found Sunday in Shaab, a Shiite area of northern Baghdad.

<...>

According to the Association of Muslim Scholars, the group Sheik Dari leads, one member, whom it identified as Sheik Hassan al-Neimi, was among the dead found in Shaab. The government, for its part, has denied that the military was involved, and says the killings have been carried out by small groups of insurgents pitting Sunnis against Shiites.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group suspected of links to rebels, condemned the mosque raids as an example of alleged American hostility toward Islam.

Last Monday, while I was in Basra watching TV in the afternoon, Al-Fayhaa channel broadcasted a film they said it was sent to the station via e-mail. I have to say that the credibility of the film is questionable but since I found that no one in the media, whether inside or outside Iraq commented on it, I decided to tell you about it and perhaps we could together find some answers.

The film was taped on July 11 this year as written on the screen and it showed six young men, all Iraqi as there looks and accent showed, and they were reading written confessions about attacks they launched against Iraqis and coalition troops.

All those six men (the youngest is 21 years old) mentioned that they were given orders from the ?Association of Muslim Scholars? to perform certain operations against ?Iraqi collaborators?, multinational troops and some moderate She?at clerics. One of the men said that he received (350 000 ID) from a member of the association to assassinate a She?at cleric and when the first attempt failed, he was ordered to try again as he stated.

The current NY Times story also notes an interesting coincidence (that might even be too convenient):

The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who leads a group called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, also weighed in on Wednesday in an audiotape posted on an Islamic Internet site. A voice said to be Mr. Zarqawi's denounced Iraq's Shiites as collaborators and traitors, The Associated Press reported.

The NY Times seems to routinely quote the Association of Muslim Scholars as an authoritative and reliable source of information from Iraq. Perhaps they are, but wouldn't a simple inclusion of the line "a Sunni group suspected of links to rebels" meet the standards of journalistic integrity the paper maintains?

Fire up the Photoshop

I hope I can enjoy the new Star Wars movie. Reports of it's underlying anti-American theme wouldn't bother me - anything can be interpreted as allegory to anything else by anyone with any hint of imagination - but George Lucas has embraced that characterization of his film, rendering the accusation undeniable. Succumed, perhaps has he, to the lure of press support in the wake of the Jar-Jar backlash of a few years back.

Embrace it, says I. Be lighthearted and laugh at the pomposity of what was once (30 years gone) being sold as a return to just good old fashioned fun. Shout "Riddikulus" and send that Boggart where it belongs.

Here's how. Enjoy.

Open Post

Warrior to Warrior

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

News to Tremble By

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

I promised somebody I would stop complaining about press coverage of this war. Was it you? No? Maybe it was my wife.

I tried, honest, I tried. But it's gotten to me again.

It's the drumbeat, the constant deluge of negatives.

It's so unsubtle, too.

One wire story went out of its way to tell American moms about the deaths of 22 people, including two Americans. The AP story writer felt obliged to mention strewn burning vehicles, mutilated bodies and bloodied children. No, wait, make that "bloodied school children." It's a lot of bad news to cram into one 44-word lead sentence.

The wire editor at the paper I'm quoting here wrote a five-column headline across the top of the page, "Americans among dead in violence in Iraq." Is your heart racing yet, mom? Thinking it's your son?

Then, five paragraphs into the story, just in case you've forgotten what you read 15 seconds ago, the story repeats itself: "At least 22 people were killed, including the two Americans . . . ." Who, by the way, were not soldiers. You can breathe again, dad. It's not your son.

Now forget about the further details about blood streaming down one girl's legs and another kid losing an eye in the violence. This was May 8, 2005. We wire editors just want to say: "Happy Mother's Day."

Am I saying the papers shouldn't report such news? Nah. Give it to parents and wives, day after day because in the world of news, "If it bleeds, it leads."

I get that.

What I don't get is . . . were there any positive developments in Iraq? Any at all? Ever?

Did any of the bad guys take a bullet for their cause? Any town halls get built? Any attacks thwarted?

Surely there must have been something to report, maybe as a sidebar.

Oh, wait, there was a second story that day. Just below the 22 dead including two Americans.

A nice little piece about the military investigation of 1,700 reports of sexual assault in 2004. Which, as the story dutifully reports, is up from the two previous years.

Sigh. Isn't it wonderful knowing how the papers back home feel about you? They need to report that daughters and sons live where they might well be a victim or perpetrator of a sex crime. With luck, any day now.

Remember that the next time you hear somebody in the press mention how he is against the war but supports the soldiers fighting it.

But, oh, isn't this an isolated incident? Surely.

Nope. Sorry. Checking other issues within a week of Mother's Day, you'd find more bombings, and a nice little feature that goes on at length about the recklessness of military pilots being responsible for killing other nice people in uniform. Biting your nails yet, mom? Oh, and at least two stories of the single most important event in your war, the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A week does not go by without a report on the handful of wayward criminals and negligent officers who are being cast as the face of Americans in uniform in Iraq.

The Abu Ghraib judge sends out for sandwiches? That's a story. One sentence, to be sure, but it does give the writer the chance to rehash the entire history of abuses. Let's report how many senior officers got off with reprimands. And just how many sources are calling for the secretary of Defense to resign again?

When the press's history of the War-for-Oil II is finally written, Abu Ghraib will be the shorthand term for it, just as Tet is shorthand for Vietnam, which is shorthand for everything that is wrong with America, which I'm tired of reading.

What's my problem here? Why am I so rabid about this?

Because. As a rule, one person, the wire editor, gets to choose the war news that goes inside the paper. The wire editor feeds you a constant stream of news, firehose-style, depending on his personal take on the war. Check your paper. What's his slant?

Am I telling you that the history of your service in Iraq is being written into the minds of readers by one guy who might dislike soldiers?

You bet I am.

Something else. A guy name of Arthur Chrenkoff went looking for other worthy news in Iraq in April. He found at least one story for every day. Everything from terrorist commanders surrendering to terrorist deaths to school building to oil output reaching pre-war levels (there's that War-for-Oil thing again). See for yourself.

If you didn't read it in your daily paper, now you know why. Thank your wire editor, parents.

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.

Two Awards...

...were handed out this week. One for courage in exposing the criminals behind the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and the other to Dan Rather and Mary Mapes.

May, 2005, New York, the Waldorf Astoria, a simple luncheon. As the Washington Post notes, The Peabody Awards ceremony doesn't have anything close to the red-carpet glitz and name recognition of the Emmys, but it has enormous cachet among those in the news business.

It will have to do, I suppose. Perhaps it was enough cachet for Mary Mapes - we can only guess. We can only wonder what she was thinking as she watched Dan Rather accept the Peabody award for their work on the notorious Abu Ghraib scandal.

In one of his first public appearances since leaving the network's anchor chair in March, Rather and Mary Mapes received the Peabody Award at a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria in Midtown Manhattan.

Rather took pains to acknowledge Mapes and former CBS News senior vp Betsy West (who also attended the ceremony), among others.

<...>

"They did most of the work, bore the heaviest burdens and took most of the criticism," Rather said of Mapes and the other producers who did the front-line reporting on the Abu Ghraib story. "It took guts, and they had them."

Wednesday, 28 April, 2004. Did William Lawson watch 60 Minutes that night? If he did it's likely the retired Master Sergeant would have been familiar with the content. Just over two weeks prior the Army had decided to Court Martial his nephew Ivan "Chip" Frederick Jr. for his role in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. That decision seems to have been the point of no return for Lawson.

"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."

One year later, watching Dan Rather being handed the Peabody must have brought the image of being handed those pictures to Mary Mape's mind. With images in hand all that remained was to build a story around them. And what an ambitious story it was. A night of abusing and humiliating common criminals to celebrate a fellow soldier's birthday became a conspiracy sanctioned at the highest levels. And Mapes having a stack of photos handed to her became something else altogether. "We ended up chasing it," she claimed, "chasing it halfway around the world and back again. Trying not just to chase the rumors of it, but---but to find out... the reality of it."

Rather said, "It took guts, and they had them."

Rather received extended applause after telling the crowd, "Never give up, never back up, never give in while pursuing the dream of integrity filled journalism that matters."

May 16, 2005, Sgt Joseph M. Darby - a real hero - was handed his John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award by Ted and Caroline Kennedy. Last year, at the time he earned his honor, he was a Specialist. It was Darby who discovered the abuse photos from his fellow guards at Abu Ghraib last January - and turned them over to his chain of command.

The news that Darby tipped off Army investigators to abuses in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison didn't come as a shock to those who know the 24-year-old soldier.

"He wasn't one that went along with his peers," said Robert Ewing, Darby's history teacher and football coach at North Star High in Boswell. The military policeman "didn't worry about what people thought."

"It doesn't surprise me a bit," his brother Larry Darby told the CBS News Early Show. "He knows right from wrong."

Darby "didn't realize that he had done anything that was super special," said sister-in-law Maxine Carroll. "The way he looks at it, he was just doing his job."

<...>

Darby worked evenings after school. He attended North Star High, then left to study forestry at Somerset County Vocational and Technical High School.

After he married his wife, Bernadette, the couple moved to Virginia, where he worked as an auto mechanic before enlisting. Debbie and Larry Darby told The Early Show that Darby served in Bosnia before heading to Iraq.

Reffner described Darby as polite and respectful. He said the family had little money when he was growing up. "He didn't have much at all," Reffner said. "But he was brought up properly. He was brought up to know right from wrong."

"He didn't fit in with the whole crowd because he didn't have a lot of material things, fancy clothes or a car," said Reffner, 50. Darby's stepfather, who died several years ago, was a former Marine, neighbors say, who taught old-school manners to his son. He was "respectful, brought up the proper way," Reffner said.

Most evenings, Darby would cut through Reffner's back yard to visit Christina Vaillancourt, whose family lived on Short Street. The pair attended North Star High: Darby, a full-faced sophomore with shaggy, bowl-cut brown hair, beams out from the pages of the 1995 Polaris, the school's yearbook. He was a tackle for the North Star Cougars and was active in the Future Farmers of America chapter at Somerset County Vocational and Technical High School, which he attended part-time.

When they first met, "he was very sweet and kind of shy," Vaillancourt said. She recalled a benefit dance Darby organized to raise money for the family of a friend whose father died of a heart attack.

Rather gets the last word:

Rather also said that he wasn't sure about the fate of "60 Minutes Wednesday," saying he was a reporter on the show and wasn't privy to the high-level deliberations about its fate. "Wednesday" has been plagued by low ratings in the 8 p.m. time period opposite one of the season's runaway hits, ABC's "Lost."

Update: 60 Minutes II is no more.

"Courage".

Open Post

Warning: the following links are to blogs - who, unlike traditional media, don't use editors, fact checkers, and other devices to ensure that what Newsweek did won't happen.

On the Winds

Winds of Change looks at the lack of intellectual diversity in America's
newsrooms - and the consequences thereof. Joe Katzman says "This is why "South Park Conservatives" are flourishing". He's right - and it's also why the blogosphere thrives. In fact, the success of the blogosphere is by itself evidence of the failure of "traditional" journalism. Read the link.

From the Front

Michael at A Day In Iraq is launching "Operation Soccer Ball".

What are the Iraqi people in general, and the Iraqi children in particular, passionate about? In a word, soccer. Actually it?s football to them, but we know it as soccer. They have more passion for the game of soccer than we ever thought of having for football or baseball. I?ve yet to meet a child, or an adult for that matter, who doesn?t have at least some interest in the game of soccer. Forget bowl season, the World Series, March Madness, and the Super Bowl, they don?t care. Their ?Field of Dreams? isn?t a baseball field in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. Their ?Field of Dreams? is a soccer field in any open area of Iraq. Streets, fields, farms, the dusty ground off the side of the road, or the lush green land of a farm. On sand or on pavement, no place is safe from the stampeding feet of Iraqis chasing a soccer ball. In every mission I?ve been on, I?ve never once failed to witness a game of soccer.

<...>

If they don?t have a soccer ball they?ll use anything as a substitute. I?ve seen kids kicking around a rock with as much passion and glee than if they were playing in the World Championship. They need soccer balls, and I want to give them one. What a better way to convey the goodwill of America and American soldiers than by giving them the soccer balls that they so desperately desire. You want to continue to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, give them the tool that will enable them to do something they love. Besides guns and ammo, every humvee, tank, truck, Bradley, Stryker, and helicopter should come armed with soccer balls as well. How I would love to be standing out the top of my humvee, having the guys below feed soccer balls up to me, so I could then throw them to any children I pass. Why not airplanes too? I can picture C130's flying over cities and towns throughout Iraq, dropping soccer balls from its cargo hold with little parachutes attached to each one. It?s doable. Crazier things have happened. Or have helicopters hover over a school during recess and drop a bunch of soccer balls to the delight of the kids below. We can rain down hellfire on the heads of terrorists, turn around, and shower the good people of Iraq with peace in the form of a soccer ball. The love of sports, in this case soccer, can be an instrument of peace and a bond that is common to us all. It will transcend our cultural differences and our languages. It will also mitigate the feelings of some Iraqis that see our presence in their land as aggravating.

<...>

More than any of these, I need you. I need you to spread the word. I need you to contact any soldier that you know serving in Iraq. I need you to donate balls. I don?t care if we get 100 or one million balls into the hands of the Iraqi children. Each one will make a difference. We soldiers can only get so many packages filled with snacks, baby wipes, magazines, and other nonessential items. Don?t get me wrong, these packages are greatly appreciated, but I bet the majority of us wouldn?t mind sacrificing a few packages for a soccer ball that we can pass on to some kid.

I know the readers of TMG can help in this worthwhile endeavor.

UPDATE: Please send any suggestions to here or here
And if you're coming from a link the paypal button at bottom of this page is for Mudville NOT Operation Soccer Ball, so PLEASE send donations for this directly to him. Contact him to make these arrangements.

Journalistic Jihad

The LA Times:

The more interesting question may not be how Newsweek goofed, but why the Muslim world is so ready to believe the story. For all the administration's huffing and puffing about Newsweek getting the story wrong, it has produced such a catalog of misdeeds at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo that almost any allegation is instantly credited abroad. The administration itself has said that 11 soldiers have been disciplined for abusing prisoners at Gitmo.

• In January 2004 reports of American soldiers ripping up a Koran and desecrating a Mosque in Iraq made brief headlines, until the US released video of the raid and debunked the claims
  • BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. military commander defended coalition troops Friday against allegations they defiled the Koran during a raid on a Sunni Muslim mosque in Baghdad...

    In a protest Friday, angry Sunnis accused the troops of ripping pages in the mosque's copy of the Koran, Islam's holy book, as their leaders called for an end to the U.S. occupation in Iraq. Sunnis are the Muslim sect of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

    "Bush, you are the devil," some protesters shouted. "We are the soldiers of Allah."

  • BAGHDAD, Iraq ? Occupation officials unveiled a short video they say shows that U.S. troops who raided a Sunni mosque and uncovered a cache of weapons did not trash the place, as some have suggested.

    The video, shown to reporters, showed the calm sleuthing of soldiers and piles of machine guns and bomb-making materials.

  Of course, we have no way of knowing whether Newsweek was aware of these events when they published their claims about desecration of a Koran last week.

• In April 2004 the LA Times declared a journalistic jihad, defending the display of graphic images of murdered contractors in Fallujah and forthrightly announcing their intention to display any and all such images they could: "While showing the images could erode support for the war, not showing them could have an opposite effect." claimed the Times. And they backed their postion with expert quotes:

  "These are the kinds of pictures that will linger," said John Schulz, dean of Boston University's College of Communications and a former faculty member at the National War College.

  "They'll be there in November when people go to vote."

• May, 2004: Mary Mapes, a producer for CBS' 60 Minutes, was handed abuse photos by the family of an accused torturer. Seymour Hersh, writer for The New Yorker magazine, (who coincidentally knew the same soldier's attorney from the My Lai trial) also received copies from an undisclosed source. Hersh and Mapes resulting stories are still considered the definitive version of events at Abu Ghraib by those who aren't concerned with facts. No more egregious example of misleading spin will ever be found. (Hopefully)

• Days later: In a grainy video posted today on a militant Islamic Web site, Nick Berg -- an American businessman from outside Philadelphia -- is shown sitting on the floor in orange prison garb with five masked men behind him. After reading a statement saying they want to avenge the suffering of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers, the men behead Berg. Viewers were spared the gruesome images. They weren't "there in November" either, and last week the anniversary of this event passed without note.

• Within days Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner held a press conference in which he displayed graphic photos of what he claimed were US soldiers raping Iraqi women. The Boston Globe ran the pictures in a very large, above the fold front page story, but found themselves apologizing shortly thereafter when it was revealed that Turner's collection had been downloaded from an internet porn site - they were fakes. A great quote from the Globe's "outraged apology": THE RECENT actions of Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner were reckless and inflammatory. With no regard for truth or consequences, Turner unveiled graphic photographs at a Tuesday press conference, suggesting that the images portrayed the rape of Iraqi women by US soldiers. The display was an all-time low for a member of the City Council. Turner, now in his third term, used twisted logic to justify the photo array. While stopping short of claiming authenticity, Turner argued that "the American people have a right and responsibility to see the pictures" in light of recent revelations regarding abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

More to come. (Updates will be posted.)

Quick Thought

Perhaps the only way to ensure an end to stories of desecration of the Koran by American troops would be to ban the book from all military prisons. Had officials done that in the first place there would have never been a problem, right?

It wouldn't happen, of course. It was never even considered. Muslim Chaplains, prayer rugs, the Koran - from the start the only guarantee the prisoners had at Guantanamo was freedom of religion.

It's the American way.

Update: By the way, is Newsweek allowed in your house?

Update 2: The Washington Post

More than two years ago, the Pentagon issued detailed rules for handling the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, requiring U.S. personnel to ensure that the holy book is not placed in "offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas."

The three-page memorandum, dated Jan. 19, 2003, says that only Muslim chaplains and Muslim interpreters can handle the holy book, and only after putting on clean gloves in full view of detainees.

Al Qaeda Training Manual:

IF AN INDICTMENT IS ISSUED AND THE TRIAL, BEGINS, THE BROTHER HAS TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING:

1. At the beginning of the trial, once more the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators] before the judge.

2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison.

(Moved from 2005-05-16 19:56:19)

Forsake the Troops website owner Dead?

I recieved this in the mail this morning, I'm sure I'm not the only one. If anyone has a reliable source to back this up or debunk this, I'd like to see it.

On Monday evening, the webmaster of Forsake The Troops was brutally assaulted by two men, thought to be members of the military, in response to their opinions about this website. Mr. Crook had been the target of numerous death threats and trespassers at his residence. All of these threats were saved and have been turned over to the authorities. UPDATE: At 6:19pm Eastern time, Michael Crook died of his injuries, after being rushed by ambulance to the leading hospital in the area for head trauma. The two men who allegedly assaulted him are currently in the custody of police. Mr. Crook died with his wife and infant daughter present. It is therefore the decision of his family, and associates that Forsake The Troops goes offline, to prevent further incidents of violence and threats against his family. Therefore, this domain will permanantly go offline at around 5pm Eastern time, on Tuesday, May 17th, 2005. Comments, and well-wishes may be addressed to noc@smishosting.com . Media inquiries (no interviews with family at this time), or sincere inquiries from well-meaning people may be directed to (315) 558-4372. Leave a voice mail message and your call will be returned by our media representative. The family requests privacy at this time.

UPDATE:

May 17, 2005

Doubts raised about report of controversial Web master's death

By Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer
A controversial Web site that has called wounded soldiers "leeches" and
celebrates when U.S. servicemen are killed in action, is claiming its Web
master was beaten to death yesterday.
But local police say no murder has occurred.
The site, www.foresakethetroops.info, posted a claim Tuesday morning that
Michael Crook was physically attacked by two men and later died in a
hospital from his injuries. The statement speculated that the attackers are
"thought to be members of the military, in response to their opinions about
this Web site."
Crook is the registered owner of the Web site, though the Web site has never
revealed his name or location. The domain registry puts Crook's address as
Syracuse, N.Y., and a phone number on the site is a Syracuse area code and
exchange.
The site also says the two attackers were "taken into police custody."
But officials with the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office in Syracuse told
Army Times Tuesday that they have no record or knowledge of any such attack
in the region.
A message left at the phone number listed on the Web site was not
immediately returned.
The Web site has repeatedly posted disparaging comments about the military.
Crook, the alleged blogger of the site, has said his main intent is to
inform Americans that soldiers are paid too much for what they do.
Recently the site posted this: "Don't military pukes learn anything? Nine
more Marines bite the big one in combat. Stupid is as stupid does!"
On May 15, the Web site had a tally of American troops killed in Iraq. It
read: "Number of US soldiers killed in the Iraq War, of their own doing,
because they CHOSE to be leeches: 1,583. These scumbags asked for it, and
got it. Simper Cry."
Numerous threats and derogatory remarks have been made toward Crook on
several online military message boards over the past few weeks. Some boards
have listed Crook's alleged home address complete with a map and satellite
image of his neighborhood. Crook's Web site often bragged that he received
thousands of hate e-mails daily.
In a purported April 28 interview that is posted on the blog "The Dread
Pundit Bluto," Crook addresses perceived dangers of managing such a site.
"I put my name out there, and people in the Syracuse area know who I am," he
is quoted as saying. "People recognize me now, and I would not put my safety
at risk over something I truly don't believe in. I wholeheartedly believe in
my site and will defend it to the death, however that death may come."
As of noon Tuesday, the site was online, but the statement on its front page
says it will go offline permanently at about 5 p.m. Tuesday.
In addition to the anti-military site, Crook is the registered owner of the
domain for www.forsakethepolice.info.

Hat tip to Jarheaddad

From the Front

Boots in Baghdad has one last night of chaos before he goes on a two week leave for the states.

At this point I wasn?t sure what was going on because I could hardly hear the radio. I assumed the Battalion Commander was telling the Bradley to pack up and head over to Raider?s location. That?s when I heard the rapid thud of small arms fire. The vehicle I was in was second out of five in the PSD. Our first vehicle?s 50 cal gunner was engaged, as well as elements of A Co.

A close call for many. Read what happens

Open Post

And here's another rule for milbloggers.

Rich Man, Poor Man

Nothing better illustrates the disparate views of wealthy Americans and suffering Iraqis than the contrast between two of this year's films at Cannes.

A sparse, minimalist Competition entry made by an Iraqi Kurd has generated a giant buzz at the 58th Cannes Film Festival.

Hiner Saleem's Kilometer Zero, a road movie that delivers a wry comment on the tragedy that befell the Kurds of Iraq in the form of a genocide unleashed by Saddam Hussein.

It is being compared to the Paris-based Saleem's previous feature, Vodka Lemon, but the politics of the new film is clearly at variance with the anti-Bush sentiment that prevailed on the Riviera last year, with Michael Moore's hard-hitting documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11 scooping up the Palme d'Or.

CANNES, France ? Without Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Cannes Film Festival this time, it was left to George Lucas and "Star Wars" to pique European ire over the state of world relations and the United States' role in it.

Lucas' themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to preserve the peace predate "Star Wars: Episode III ? Revenge of the Sith" by almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday ? and Lucas himself ? noted similarities between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.

For the Kurds of Iraq, the US invasion of the nation represents liberation and that is exactly what the film articulates thought not quite in so many words and so simply.

Given that the jury here is headed by Emir Kusturica, a filmmaker who himself belongs to a war-ravaged part of the world (Sarajevo), it wouldn't be surprising if Saleem's simple yet moving film strikes a chord with nine-member panel.

Star Wars: Episode III ? Revenge of the Sith, the last installment of one of the most successful movie franchises in the annals of Hollywood, was premiered out of the competition on Sunday at the 58th Cannes Film Festival. That was followed by a ceremony aboard a ship anchored in the Bay Cannes to honour the American director with a special Festival Trophy.

Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" ? the story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering ? to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.

Two lines from the movie especially resonated:

"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.

"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin ? soon to become villain Darth Vader ? tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

"That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush," said Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. "Plus, you've got a politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war."

Though the plot was written years ago, "the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly there," Engle said.

Kilometer Zero, says Saleem, is not merely a story of a religious or cultural divide. 'It is an appeal for mutual trust and tolerance. I am not a religious leader. I am a lay person who is merely trying to convey a sense of what it means to live under a despotic regime,' he adds.

'All I want is that children in Kurdistan should have the freedom to grow up in their own culture, learn their own language in school, watch their own TV shows and films and listen to their own music. Sadly, Saddam Hussein tried to destroy the Kurds as a people and a nation.'

Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.

"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country.

"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked.

That comment echoes Moore's rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the festival's top honor.

<...>

Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate.

In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

The main part of Hiner Saleem's Kilometre Zero, premiered in competition for the Palme D'Or at the Cannes film festival, is set in 1988 against the backdrop of the deaths of thousands of Iraqi Kurds at the hands of Saddam's cousin, "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid.

It is framed by scenes of the main characters, now exiled in France, rejoicing at the fall of Baghdad in 2003.

"I am against war of any kind," Saleem said. "But we didn't have the luxury to say, `For the time being, we will be exterminated'.

"If you say that the US is an imperialist country, then you are right. Had Sweden, Liechtenstein, France, come, it would have been wonderful. But they gave the US free rein; I am extremely pleased."

The scene of jubilation in the final moments of the film was "still valid. I would like to say I am optimistic, he said.

"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."

Although he received financial support from various agencies, shooting the film in Kurdistan was no cakewalk. 'It was a nightmare carrying all the equipment to the location and then repatriating it,' he says. Filmmaking in Iraq is a struggle.

'We produce in years what France makes in just a day and India churns out in a matter of few hours,' Saleem laments. 'It is difficult finding technicians in Iraq.'

But he is hopeful that selection of his film in the Cannes Film Festival Competition will help it travel to many other parts of the world. The only way for Kilometer Zero to go now, as Saleem points out, is forward.

If anyone ever doubted it, "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" proves that creator George Lucas is a Jedi master of merchandising.

As a moneymaking entertainment franchise, the "Star Wars" saga is a galaxy unto itself. When the sixth and final film, "Revenge of the Sith," opens on Thursday, it will be the capstone of a box office, DVD, video game and toy empire, responsible for nearly $20 billion in estimated revenue.

"One day the problem was, how to find a camera?" he said. "In the whole country, I didn't find one."

Eventually, because Saleem couldn't find any technicians either, he brought a crew from France for filming in Iraq's Kurdish north.

"Sith" breaks commercial ground for the movie series. This film has more promotional partners than any of the previous five films, according to Lucasfilm Ltd., Lucas's production company. And it marks the first time "Star Wars" characters have appeared outside the film environment, or its fictional equivalent, interacting with humans in commercials, the company said.

Then came the problem of finding a statue of Saddam, key to creating the right atmosphere in a movie about 1980s Iraq.

The statue is a strong image, especially because photos of jubilant Iraqis toppling a giant statue of Saddam have become one of the defining symbols of Baghdad's fall to U.S. troops in 2003.

The crew spent two weeks searching for a sculptor willing to make a statue of the ousted dictator. One finally accepted and went to work in a walled garden, but then a security agent glimpsed the top of the towering statue over the wall.

The statue was confiscated, and the sculptor was thrown in jail. Saleem said he had some explaining to do before the sculptor was released.

In a Cingular Wireless ad, Chewbacca the Wookiee is seen growling into a microphone in a recording studio, laying down ring tones for the company's cell phones, as Darth Vader and other characters impatiently wait their turns. In a Diet Pepsi commercial, Yoda sits at a lunch counter.

"It is not an ideological film. It doesn't say we are the most wonderful people on earth ... but I am thrilled people will be able to discover, to drive through Kurdistan for an hour and a half in this film."

Sami Shorashi, the Kurdistan regional government's culture minister, said: "This is a major step forward for the Kurdish people ... I see it as a work of art that well portrays the misfortune of the Kurdish people caused by the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Lucas, in fact, promises to get back to making the kind of films that his enormous success has prevented him from doing all these years. ?I will now make my sort of films. I am sure they would get released in theatres somewhere or the other,? he adds.

He is particularly pleased with the fact that feature-length documentaries have broken into the mainstream in the US and other parts of the world. ?There is no reason why the kind of films I now have in mind will not be accepted,? he strikes a hopeful note.

From the Front

Two for one:

"A day in Iraq" gives us Pics From a Town in the Center of Nowhere.

"Who's your Baghdaddy?" also has pics to share

Timely Announcement

When I read this story I immediately thought of this movie.

The picture with the story doesn't help.

From the Academy

An interesting press release from the USAF Academy last month

Academy launches religious respect training program

By Butch Wehry

Academy Spirit Editor

The Air Force Academy has launched a religious respect training program called Respecting the Spiritual Values of all People, or RSVP. The training focuses on educating cadets, faculty members and base employees on the importance of respecting the spiritual beliefs of a diverse force.

Capt.Melinda Morton, an Academy chaplain, said officials expected and are receiving comments reflecting the personal nature and broad dynamics of the training discussions.

"People come to this topic from their own experience and perspective - they bring to the interaction important questions and concerns from their own background," the chaplain said. "As facilitators we recognize that this is a difficult topic. We are striving to enable participants to engage in a manner which is personally meaningful and appropriate to the needs of the institution. This is an academic institution and suggestions on improving training are forthcoming. Many participants desire more time to engage, and discuss in further detail, issues raised in the presentation."

Academy officials said nearly one-third of all cadets and nearly all active duty and civilian employees had received religious respect training as of April 22.

"Our Airmen's response to the program seems to be overwhelmingly positive," said Lt. Col. Vicki Rast, Chief, Academy Climate and Culture Division. "Many have expressed openly their views that it's great to be getting these issues out in the open to begin a dialogue about them. One participant even got back with me to say, 'I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that the only way we are going to fix this problem is by communicating. So let's communicate some more.'"

Another faculty member said the training, "proved very usefulyou actually gave us a lot to consider and it's all worthwhile."

Feedback from the training has helped leadership to modify training to maximize its effectiveness.

Cadet 2nd Class Alexander Johns, Cadet Squadron 34, said that he felt that the training was needed and that it helped him to gain a greater awareness for religious respect issues. He also felt that the issues that were brought up "were things I, and I would like to assume most people, learned growing up."

Colonel Rast said that the Academy recognizes that this isn't always the case. She said that during one training session a young officer said, "What's wrong with calling them the heathen flight?" in response to her discussion regarding the inappropriateness of such (intolerant) actions. "Thankfully, before I had to intervene, the other members of the session engaged him to explain the harmful nature of tolerating such marginalizing behaviors. We're definitely on the right path."

Colonel Rast said cadets, faculty and staff alike desire more interaction and discussion, and less lecture.

"They want us to provide 'tools'," the colonel said. "We need to connect the theory of religious respect to the practice of living our daily lives. We're incorporating their desires into future program revisions."

She said the Academy approaches the issue of spirituality from two perspectives: personal and professional.

"Future training will begin to address Airmen's professional responsibilities to ensure the Academy sustains a culture of respect for self and others so that all Airmen develop and perform to their highest potential," she said.

Previous entries:
God and Country
Chapel Doors Revisited
Locking the Chapel Doors
Are there Atheists in Cockpits?

Open Post

And here's one man's list of rules for milbloggers. (Personally I think we live with too many rules as it is...)

Blinq

Lots of newspapers are starting blogs - but the Philadelphia Inquirer's is the first I've seen with comments and trackbacks.

Hope they've got a good spam-blocking system in place.

Newsweek Strikes Again

Adding fuel to the fire.

In the wake of the deaths and riots spawned by their first report Newsweek is reporting more incidents of Qur'an flushing (and attributing their first report to "a senior US Government official" - who's now backtracking).

At NEWSWEEK, veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff's interest had been sparked by the release late last year of some internal FBI e-mails that painted a stark picture of prisoner abuse at Guantᮡmo. Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command (which runs the Guantᮡmo prison) were looking into the allegations. So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter. The source told Isikoff that the report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Qur'an down a toilet.

Try this experiment at your house: flush a book (any book of several hundred pages, minimum) down a toilet. Please report your results in comments here.

More from Newsweek:

On Friday night, Pentagon spokesman DiRita called NEWSWEEK to complain about the original periscope item. He said, "We pursue all credible allegations" of prisoner abuse, but insisted that the investigators had found none involving Qur'an desecration. DiRita sent NEWSWEEK a copy of rules issued to the guards (after the incidents mentioned by General Myers) to guarantee respect for Islamic worship. On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?"

In the wake of the deaths and riots caused by their previous report, Newsweek exhibits what can only be described as criminal behavior with the concluding paragraphs of their current story, printing additional unproven claims of Qur'an-flushing:

In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantᮡmo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt?when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003?was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said.

More allegations, credible or not, are sure to come. Bader Zaman Bader, a 35-year-old former editor of a fundamentalist English-language magazine in Peshawar, was released from more than two years' lockup in Guantᮡmo seven months ago. Arrested by Pakistani security as a suspected Qaeda militant in November 2001, he was handed over to the U.S. military and held at a tent at the Kandahar airfield. One day, Bader claims, as the inmates' latrines were being emptied, a U.S. soldier threw in a Qur'an. After the inmates screamed and protested, a U.S. commander apologized. Bader says he still has nightmares about the incident.

Such stories may spark more trouble. Though decrepit and still run largely by warlords, Afghanistan was not considered by U.S. officials to be a candidate for serious anti-American riots. But Westerners, including those at NEWSWEEK, may underestimate how severely Muslims resent the American presence, especially when it in any way interferes with Islamic religious faith.

Update: I was willing to give Newsweek a pass on their earlier report - I didn't think anyone could have predicted the level of violence that resulted. But this time there's no excuse, and I readily admit I was wrong. Newsweek owed the world an apology, and instead gave it this.

I wonder if Dollar Rent a Car, Sprint, Hyundai, Exxon/Mobil, Franklin Templeton Investments, or any other sponsors of the above report know what they're supporting? I'd act quickly to protect the brand.

Previous Mudville coverage: Shredding a Book.
Also The Year in Pictures

Shredding a Book

Around the world this week's headlines were a riot, as "a wave of anti-American demonstrations swept the Islamic world from the Gaza Strip to the Java Sea, sparked by a single paragraph in a magazine alleging that US military interrogators had desecrated the Koran." I don't live in America, so I can't gauge how much press or airtime this story is getting there. But elsewhere we learn that "President Hamid Karzai is planning an administrative shake-up after violent Afghan protests over the alleged desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay left 14 dead and 120 injured".

CNN notes that "The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says an investigation has so far turned up no evidence of U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrating the Muslim holy book, the Quran." But such denials don't carry much weight with true believers.

There's nothing new to the story, such tales of American's disrespect for Islam and abuse of Muslims have been a huge cornerstone of the post-911 Al-Qaeda recruiting drives. A California sex therapist sparked some violent responses when she posted bizarre theories about the "rape of Iraq" on her web site. In a similar episode Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner held a press conference in which he displayed graphic photos of what he claimed were US soldiers raping Iraqi women. The Boston Globe ran the pictures in a very large, above the fold front page story, but found themselves apologizing shortly thereafter when it was revealed that Turner's collection had been downloaded from an internet porn site - they were fakes. In January 2004 reports of American soldiers ripping up a Koran and desecrating a Mosque in Iraq made brief headlines, until the US released video of the raid and debunked the claims. Now Newsweek - an American magazine - apparently lends a new credence to what might be otherwise questionable reports. Here's Newsweek:

Investigators probing interrogation abuses at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay have confirmed some infractions alleged in internal FBI e-mails that surfaced late last year. Among the previously unreported cases, sources tell NEWSWEEK: interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash. An Army spokesman confirms that 10 Gitmo interrogators have already been disciplined for mistreating prisoners, including one woman who took off her top, rubbed her finger through a detainee's hair and sat on the detainee's lap.

And certainly riots weren't the desired result of Newsweek's story. In fact, the overlooked final part of the offending paragraph seems to imply the purpose was to sell books:

(New details of sexual abuse?including an instance in which a female interrogator allegedly wiped her red-stained hand on a detainee's face, telling him it was her menstrual blood?are also in a new book to be published this week by a former Gitmo translator.)

SAN JUAN, P.R., Jan. 27 (AP) - Female interrogators tried to break male Muslim detainees at the United States prison camp in Guantᮡmo Bay, Cuba, by sexually touching them, by wearing miniskirts and thong underwear, and, in one case, by smearing a Saudi man's face with red ink, which he was led to believe was menstrual blood, according to part of a draft manuscript written by a former Army sergeant.

The manuscript, which was obtained by The Associated Press, was written by Erik R. Saar, who was an Arabic translator at Guantᮡmo from December 2002 to June 2003.

Mr. Saar, 29, did not provide the manuscript, but he did confirm the authenticity of nine draft pages obtained by The A.P. He asked that his hometown remain private so he would not be harassed.

The manuscript is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review for a book Mr. Saar is writing about the military's use of women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects.

Let's review: The book was classified, but was being sent for approval for publication to the Pentagon. The AP obtained a few pages - not from Eric Saar, they're quick to point out - and published a story revealing what they contained.

It's possible that if Saar didn't release the publicity building documents then perhaps the book's actual writer did. Listed as co-author is Viveca Novak, a long-time contributor to Time magazine (which is why I said it was interesting that Newsweek mentioned the book - although they didn't include the title in their report, and didn't mention the real author's identity.)

But before looking at some of her previous work, let's see her publisher's description of her latest:

Inside the Wire is a gripping portrait of one soldier's six months at the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?a powerful, searing journey into a surreal world completely unique in the American experience.

In an explosive newsbreak that generated headlines all around the world, a document submitted by army Sergeant Erik Saar to the Pentagon for clearance was leaked to the Associated Press in January, 2005. His account of appalling sexual interrogation tactics used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay was shocking, but that was only one small part of the story of what he saw at Guantanamo?and the leak was only one more strange twist in his profoundly disturbing and life-changing trip behind the scenes of America's war on terror.

And if you scroll down to the bottom of the publisher's page you'll find an indication of the level of detailed fact checking Ms Novak brings to her work:

At pages 191-192, Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier?s Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo by Erik Saar and Viveca Novak, erroneously states that civilian interrogators hired through an army contract with CACI were in Guantanamo Bay. The book also describes the activities of two contract interrogators. CACI has unequivocally stated that it had no involvement in any interrogation operations at Guantanamo and that it had no relationship whatsoever with the civilian contract interrogators involved in the use of the interrogation techniques discussed in the book. The Penguin Press and the Authors acknowledge and regret the error. In addition, The Penguin Press and the Authors are taking a number of corrective actions, including inserting erratum slips in Penguin?s remaining copies of the book, providing erratum slips to Penguin?s accounts for insertion into books that have already been shipped, and advising media organizations that will be interviewing the authors of the error. Future printings will be corrected to address the error.

Now, back to our story. Ms Novak's career with Time gives a clear look at her approach to the story she's written - and a good indication of why she's sharing writing credits (and perhaps why most reviews fail to mention her existence). She's had problems with detaining terrorists since the earliest days of the War on Terror, expressing misgivings with the competence of the Justice Department and the Administration in general as early as November 2001. To be fair, as with so many reporters it's difficult to tell where they really stand on the war because their problem is a deep dislike of the Bush Administration. In this group Novak can claim primacy - she wrote How Ethical is the Bush Administration Anyway? Back in June 2001 when most reporters were covering shark attacks. To be completely fair, her oldest Time articles reveal her problem isn't really with the Bush Administration - she just loves to write about Republicans. (And when time permits she also covers "antiabortion forces")

All of this is perfectly fine, of course. This is America, and we all have freedom of speech, and nobody will riot in front of the offices of Time, Newsweek, or Penguin publishers over this new outrage. So cash your checks with pride, Viv. You too, Eric. The prisoners in Guantanamo may or may not get over the shame of being teased by women in thongs, but 14 Afghanis are certainly and permanently dead.

So far.

Update: Newsweek has followed up with another article devoting two paragraphs to detailing accounts of Americans desecrating the Qur'an, and acknowledging that "Such stories may spark more trouble."

Also see The Year in Pictures

Clarification: This post has been misinterpreted as implying that Eric Saar might be the source of the leak to Newsweek on the Koran incident - that was never the intention.

Open Post

God and Country

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army?Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect?We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die."
General George Washington, general orders, July 2, 1776.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

"The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religious teaching?sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instincts can take the place of the divine annunciation and spiritual uplift which will alone sustain him."
General Douglas MacArthur, speech at the annual reunion of veterans of the Rainbow (42d) Infantry Division of World War I, Washington, D.C., July 14, 1935.

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!

Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Order of the Day, June 6, 1944. (Click to hear the General read the Order.)

"Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen."
Colonel James H. O?Neill, prayer for good weather, December 1944. General George S. Patton, Jr., ordered Colonel O?Neill, chaplain of the Third Army, to produce this prayer.

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived."
General George S. Patton, JR, speech at the Copley Plaza Hotel, Boston Massachusetts, June 7, 1945

"Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye."
General Douglas MacArthur (1880?1964), Speech, April 19, 1951, to Congress.

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walked'st on the foaming deep,
And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for wild confusion, peace;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger's hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe'er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.
Navy Hymn

If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By UNITED STATES MARINES.
From the Marine Corps Hymn

Semper Fidelis
Latin for always faithful.
Faithful to God, Country, Family and the Corps
Marine Corps Motto

"Remember, you are accountable first to your God, this great nation, our great Air Force, our Air Force Academy and lastly your teammates."
Brigadier General Johnny Weida, Commandant of Cadets, USAF Academy, Commander?s Guidance

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military officials to move quickly to stop acts of religious bias at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
(Unattributed AUSCS press release)

General Weida has, for example, officially endorsed ?National Prayer Week? in a mass email message to the Cadet Wing that can only be described as a prayer and a directive to pray. Among other things, General Weida?s e-mail message instructed cadets to ?[a]sk the Lord to give us the wisdom to discover the right, the courage to choose it, and the strength to make it endure?; and the message informed the cadets that ?He has a plan for each and every one of us.? Similarly, in an official ?Commander?s Guidance? document, General Weida instructed cadets that they ?are accountable first to your God.? Such official proselytization and prayer by a public official is, of course, the hallmark of unconstitutional conduct under the Establishment Clause.
Report of Americans United for Separation of Church and State on Religious Coercion and Endorsement of Religion at the United States Air Force Academy

"Religious intolerance and the mixing of church and state have no place in any of our service academies. Air Force officials must move quickly to ensure that church-state separation is respected at the Academy."
Barry W. Lynn, executive director of AUSCS

"National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable."
Martin Bormann (head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and Private Secretary to Adolf Hitler.)

"To morrow being the day set apart by the Honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and Praise; and duty calling us devoutely to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us. The General directs that the army remain in it?s present quarters, and that the Chaplains perform divine service with their several Corps and brigades. And earnestly exhorts, all officers and soldiers, whose absence is not indispensibly necessary, to attend with reverence the solemnities of the day."
General George Washington, general orders, December 17, 1777.

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890?1969), U.S. general, president, from his inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1953.

Open Post

Have a farewell dinner to go to tonight but you all post away.

Brothers, unbeknownst to each other, unite in Iraq

It is a small world.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Sean Hurley, an operating room surgical technician corpsmen serving with Surgical Company, Combat Logistics Battalion 2, 2d Force Service Support Group (Forward), lived most of his life in the Virgin Islands with his mother. Raised as an only child, Hurley knew little about his father. Seaman Albert Hendrick Jr., a sick call and surgical shock trauma corpsman, on the other hand, grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and knew his father.

Read the rest here

Brac List

will be released here.

It's here

UPDATE:

Plan Would Close Walter Reed Army Hospital

The Pentagon wants to close the Army's century-old hospital at Walter Reed Medical Center, the world-renowned facility in the nation's capital that has treated presidents and foreign leaders as well as soldiers and veterans.

Pentagon to reveal US army base closures in Germany

US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was due on Friday to reveal a list of US military bases which are to be shut or scaled back, including many bases in Germany.

From the Front

How many gods do you have?
A question asked of Major K. by a "Terp" ( interpreter ). They have an interesting conversation. with each other.

OPERATION GRATITUDE

OPERATION GRATITUDE TO SEND 25,000 CARE PACKAGES TO DEPLOYED TROOPS DURING PATRIOTIC DRIVE

Encino, Cal. - Over Memorial Day Weekend, Operation Gratitude, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization, will conduct its Patriotic Drive, assembling over 25,000 care packages that will be sent to deployed troops for delivery around July 4th. Operation Gratitude's mission is to put a smile on a service member's face, lift morale, and express the appreciation of the American people for the sacrifices of the men and women defending our freedom. To date, Operation Gratitude has sent almost 45,000 care packages to individual troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bosnia, Korea, Kosovo and onto ships all over the world.

Operation Gratitude, together with the California Army National Guard, 746th QM BN and hundreds of volunteers, will assemble and ship more than 25,000 Patriotic Care Packages of assorted snacks, Girl Scout Cookies, DVDs, CDs, games, Beanie Babies, t-shirts, toiletries and personal letters of support.

WHAT: Operation Gratitude Patriotic Drive

WHEN: Care Package Assembly: May 27-30, 2005, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. daily

WHERE: California Army National Guard Armory
17330 Victory Boulevard
Van Nuys, California 91406
Corner of Victory and Louise

All products for the packages have been donated by individuals, organizations, schools, community groups, businesses and Corporate Sponsors, including Jeep, Oceanspray Cranberries, Inc., Big Dog, S.F.Bay Gourmet Coffee, Sunkist, Newman's Own, Mars Candy, Oberto's Sausage, Coppertone and House of Batteries. Shipping expenses of ~$15/package are covered by tax deductible financial donations from citizens all over the country and from Corporate Sponsors including Covey Run and Turner Road Wineries.

Operation Gratitude obtains the names of the troops from their loved ones or from comrades who previously received a package. The vast majority of names are provided by commanders and leaders in the field who have seen first-hand the positive impact of the program on the morale of their Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors. Operation Gratitude has recently expanded its program to send packages to wounded troops in long-term convalescence in stateside hospitals as well.

WHAT THE TROOPS SAY:

"I know you are not afforded the opportunity to see the happiness on the faces of those that receive gift packages, but I can tell you first hand that the smiles light up the darkest corners of Iraq." GySgt C.M.

"The very idea that you care enough to take time to put this together for a soldier is the reason behind my serving. I truly appreciate your support and well wishes. The joy of receiving a package and finding all of those wonderful suprises inside brightened my day entirely. Thank you very much for your support." CPT P.W.

"I am at the dusk of my military career. I will head home soon to retire. Other than the "any servicemember" mail that I once received years back, this is the only time that I have felt truly appreciated for my military service. The package that you and all the volunteers sent truly lifted my spirits." SFC E.G.

More MilBlogs

As a rule I rarely discuss ongoing military operations here, but the MilBlogs Ring is a large group that includes veterans and retired folks who are no longer directly involved with ops. Their analysis, based on their own experience and expertise, offers insight you won't find anywhere else. For examples of what I mean, visit the Adventures of Chester and The Fourth Rail for their discussions of current combat actions of the Marines in western Iraq - Operation Matador. (And whenever you hear about Marines in the news, check the Marine Corps Moms page regularly. You'd be surprised what those ladies know about what's going on. Marine commanders in the field do an outstanding job of keeping the folks back home up to date on the latest news on their loved ones)

Mudville isn't the oldest MilBlog around, not by a long shot. The Daily Brief (formerly Sgt Stryker's Daily Brief) was on the web long before. These guys led the way.

The earliest well-known milblogger from the Iraq war was Lt Smash - now known as Citizen Smash since he's a reservist currently not on active duty. He's busy these days attending anti-war events, but not as a participant. Smash is an organizer of counter-demonstrations. He also recently attended an event featuring a small who's who among the heroes of the anti-war left - including Pablo Paredes and Aidan Delgado (a name readers here should recognize).

(For a list of some other deployed milbloggers from the first year of the Iraq war see this post. For some milblog responses to the start of the war in Iraq read this.)

DadManly is deployed to Iraq now, and he's got an interesting project going. It's called Debate Space, and it's a blog he writes with a Left-leaning blogger called the Liberal Avenger. (Dadmanly represents the Right) Their effort is just getting started, it's unique, and definitely something to watch.

There are lots of other great milbloggers - Blackfive, Argghhh, Baldilocks, Outside the Beltway... and everyone else listed here. If Mudville's not your kind of place, you'll surely find one on this list you'll want to visit regularly.

Open Post

New to Mudville? The Open Post is a chance for other bloggers to provide a link to their sites, or for anyone to sound off in the comments about any topic they'd like. Any blogger (milblogger or otherwise) who links this post will have a link back to their site added to a list below - if you're reading this immediately after I've posted it there won't be any, but check back later and you'll see. Visit a few and you'll likely find something of interest, and discover something of the scope of the blogosphere. There's an open post here every day.

Since I'm explaining things about the site, I should also introduce you to the Dawn Patrol. Since we live in Europe, in a time zone 6 hours ahead of the US East Coast, the Mrs has time to round up the overnight news stories and presents them here each "morning". Scroll down through the site and you'll see several examples. Join us for coffee tomorrow if you've got the time.

From the Front

Reuters:

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in a battle with insurgents in Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Monday, the latest casualties in a surge of rebel violence.

The Marines were hunting for a group of insurgents northwest of the city of Jalalabad, on Sunday, when the clash with about 25 rebels erupted, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Serving in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, Firepower Forward spells out what happened on that Mother's Day.

...When the hail started, I stopped what I was doing at my desk long enough to peek outside and make sure it wasn?t big enough to cause any damage. I had just gotten back to trying to concentrate on my work when LT Mahoney, my operations officer, came by and said ?Sir, we?re tracking a TIC with Trinity. They?re sending a 9-line.?

The rest here (including what TIC, Trinity, and 9-lines are.)

Welcome!

Greetings!

Whether you're a first-time or long-time visitor, welcome to the Mudville Gazette. If you just found this site from USA Today consider this an introduction. The Mudville Gazette is a web log, run by a military guy (me) and his wife. That makes this a milblog. Click that link and you'll find a long list of milblogs - the members of the MilBlogs Ring, a loose-knit group I founded in 2003. Some are sites run by active duty, Guard, or Reserve members, many from the front lines of Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. Many milblogs are done by folks who have returned from such distant posts. Others are by spouses of GIs, and many are written by veterans or retired troops.

I'm currently stationed in Germany, but I also recently returned from a tour in Iraq. You can find a list of my early writing from Baghdad here. (My personal favorite is probably the first one - a farewell letter to my family.) My Christmas post from over there includes a list of still more bloggers who were deployed at the time.

If you're interested in seeing what milblogers can do, check out this collection of links to those who were covering the Iraqi elections.

Or this collection of reports on the bombing at a dining facility on an American base in Mosul.

How about coverage of the surge in terrorist attacks in Iraq this spring - long before most news outlets even knew what was going on?

And don't miss this collection of photographs from the front lines - stuff you can only find on MilBlogs.

We add new stuff here all the time. Have a look around, enjoy your visit, and come back soon.

Update: By the way, you are free to add your comments to anything posted here via the comment link at the bottom of each entry. I welcome any who disagree with my opinion to do so (respectfully as possible) and you'll find a lot of information in the comments section here. I readily admit that someone somewhere knows more about anything I write about than I do, and I appreciate those who add their knowledge to the discussion here. If you'd like to see some of the more lively comment threads on recent topics visit this post on the developing "scandal" at the Air Force Academy or this one on accusations of war crimes committed by soldiers in Iraq.

I suppose I should add this disclaimer. The Mudville Gazette is not an official publication of the US military. Unless otherwise credited, the opinions expressed are those of the author, and nothing here is to be taken as representing the official position of or endorsement by the United States Department of Defense or any of its subordinate components. Etc. etc.

Today's USA Today

USA Today has a 4-part story on milblogs today. Many links to bloggers on the front lines.

One of the stories discusses milblogs as historical records.

Many of the soldiers and their families will likely print out the stories, or save the blog pages on hard disks or CDs. The Library of Congress is preserving one of the "milblogs," The Indepundit by Lt. Scott Koenig, 33, of the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Awesome.

"Shoot me, shoot me"

Michael Yon famous for this photo, gives us some details on rounding up bombers.

Michael's blog should be a daily read for those wanting the inside stories. My suggestion: blogroll his site or add him to your favorites.

Amputee Returns to Iraq

Captain David Rozelle (Austin, TX) returns to Iraq as 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment Commander (Fort Carson, CO) after losing his right foot to a mine while riding in a Humvee June 21st, 2003. We featured him here and promoted his book (Back In Action) about the incident and the physical therapy he endured to be able to get back in action. Nine months later, he's been back in action in Iraq. He's been there now for two months and gives an interview here (edited for AFN video) and here (unedited video) on how he's doing.

Truly an inspiration for us all. .... and Mom, he says he needs more socks.

The Year in Pictures

An unhappy anniversary:

In a grainy video posted today on a militant Islamic Web site, Nick Berg -- an American businessman from outside Philadelphia -- is shown sitting on the floor in orange prison garb with five masked men behind him. After reading a statement saying they want to avenge the suffering of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers, the men behead Berg.

Why show such images at all? The cynical answer is to sell newspapers, but I'm ever mindful of this quote from the LA Times regarding the display of graphic images of murdered contractors in Fallujah:

"These are the kinds of pictures that will linger," said John Schulz, dean of Boston University's College of Communications and a former faculty member at the National War College.

"They'll be there in November when people go to vote."

Regardless of motivation the presentation of imagery from the Iraq war often has unexpected results. Here's another quote from the LA Times piece above (an archived version of the story is available here):

During the height of the war, few pictures of slain American soldiers were shown and news photographers were not allowed at places where they could shoot images of coffins being shipped home.

For whatever reasons, by early last November the demand for flag-draped casket photos was fading fast, so much so, in fact, that a few days ago when the Pentagon released hundreds of them it was hardly news at all.

But all is not lost for collectors of war-porn. Abu Ghraib is back - if it ever went away - and the trial of the last of the accused soldiers is about to begin. The all-too famous pictures will be on front pages once again, and who knows what the "insurgents" might provide by way of response this year.

Perhaps then we should recall some even earlier images, seldom seen.

Open Post

And if you haven't read this advice for bloggers yet, now would be a good time.

Ending One War

Early May, 1945, southern Germany. The war was over but not over, and the U.S. 71st Infantry Division was moving eastward among apparently non-hostile German soldiers, attempting to scout out the positions of Russian forces advancing from Vienna. Several hundred thousand enemy troops in the area had not surrendered, but seemed to be more interested in avoiding the Russians than in fighting Americans. At such odd times in history events like these occur:

When the 1st Platoon went by, one of its armored cars skidded off the shoulder and became stuck in the soft soil next to the road. Burns ordered Samuell's platoon to proceed to the town of Waidhofen. When the German soldiers--who had apparently never before seen Americans--saw that the platoon needed help, they pitched in to assist in getting the car back on the road.

<...>

Near Predmass, the platoon was halted by a Hungarian roadblock. At first, Samuell was somewhat alarmed. Previous encounters with the Hungarians near the Isar River had been hostile, and the Americans still had a great deal of ill feeling and distrust for the Hungarians. At the roadblock, Samuell was confronted by two Hungarian generals who wanted to surrender their divisions immediately and demanded safe conduct to the American lines. Samuell told the generals that he was only authorized to deal with their German superiors on the matter of surrender, but if they so desired, they could disarm themselves and proceed on the roads toward Steyr. There they could discuss their demands with Americans who had the authority to deal with them.

The Hungarians moved away, and the platoon continued eastward through Predmass and Aichen. East of Aichen, Samuell halted the 1st Platoon to assess the gasoline situation. The armored car drivers reported that if the platoon proceeded farther they would not have enough fuel to return to Steyr. Although the jeeps had more gasoline, they could not share gasoline with the armored cars.

While Samuell and Staff Sgt. Lawrence B. Rhatican, his second-in-command, were discussing this problem, a German motorcycle messenger came down the road at a rapid pace. Rhatican blocked the road, and the messenger stopped. As he had done several times before, Rhatican called upon Technician 5 Charles Staudinger, an armored-car gunner and assistant radio operator with the 1st Platoon who had been born in that area of Austria and was fluent in German, to interpret for the messenger. Staudinger asked the messenger in a friendly manner if he could find some gasoline for the platoon. The German replied that if Staudinger went with him he would find fuel in the next town, Waidhofen. Staudinger climbed on the back of the motorcycle and took off with the German messenger.

<...>

Staudinger and the German messenger arrived on the outskirts of Waidhofen. The German messenger told Staudinger to wait outside his boss' office building. Within a few minutes, an SS major walked out of the office and approached Staudinger in an arrogant manner. He had the German messenger blindfold Staudinger and put him into a car. They drove a short distance and entered the courtyard of the picturesque Schloss (castle) Rothschild, overlooking the Ybbs River. Staudinger was taken into the castle, and his blindfold was removed. He was told to wait outside the door to an office, where he overheard what seemed to be a loud argument coming from within. At first he could not understand the heated discussion. But when the voices became louder, he heard someone suggest that he should be shot, and he became alarmed.

Staudinger abruptly burst through the office door, proceeded to the table, around which a number of high-ranking German officers were seated, and pounded forcefully on the table with his fist. To the astonishment of the German officers, the American soldier announced in German that he was indeed a U.S. soldier, that he was there to secure their surrender and that the officers were to issue orders for all troops under their command to lay down their arms immediately.

That E5 had brass.

Another passage in the must-read account shows an early hint of the already developing cold war. Staudinger's platoon commander, 1Lt Edward W. Samuell, Jr., eventually meets the General in command of the last standing German Army to discuss safe passage and surrender:

At the beginning of Samuell's conversation with Gyldenfeldt, the general had wanted to know what Samuell was doing in this area of operations and started to admonish Samuell for not conforming to normal military courtesies by letting him know that his platoon was in the general's area. But he broke off when he remembered that he was talking to the enemy, not an ally.

Read it all.

Chapel Doors Revisted

An Associated Press piece in the Los Angeles Times updates us on the attack on the Air Force Academy by American United for Separation of Church and State

Air Force General In Probe Is Nominated For A 2nd Star

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. ? The Pentagon said Monday that it wanted to promote one of the top commanders at the Air Force Academy, a "born-again" Christian who has been the subject of complaints that he improperly mixed religion with education.

The "reporter" doesn't explain the use of "scare quotes", but does offer some details of the heinous crimes of the accused:

Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, the academy's No. 2 officer, was nominated to receive the second star of a major general.

In an e-mail in May 2003, Weida urged cadets to "ask the Lord to give us the wisdom to discover the right?. The Lord is in control. He has a plan for ? every one of us."

Later he issued a memo stating that cadets were accountable first to their God.

"I am absolutely shocked that anyone would get a promotion in the middle of an investigation in which he is a central figure?. It casts doubt on the seriousness of this ongoing investigation," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. His group conducted an investigation of religious intolerance at the academy and has threatened a lawsuit.

See previous post "Closing the Chapel Doors"

Just Because You're With the Terrorists Doesn't Make You Un-American

And other lefty delusions.

Marla Ruzicka was not available for comment. Neither was Farah.

Help Needed

As a blogger living in Europe I know I'd miss out on a lot if it weren't for video bloggers like Ian at The Political Teen.

Help him out if you can.

Dude, We're Like Totally Overstretched

A UPI report in the Washington Times:

The U.S. military's commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan mean it can no longer provide enough support to drug interdiction efforts in the Caribbean and Latin America, lawmakers say.

Pentagon forces' "support to law enforcement agencies has diminished due to their wartime commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan," according to a briefing paper sent yesterday to members of the House Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources.

The Department of Defense "has been unable or unwilling to fulfill this responsibility," states the briefing paper, citing as an example a decline of more than 70 percent in the hours flown by naval air patrols in the two years to 2004.

The paper says the "drastic" drop is because of the Navy's reduction of authorized flight hours for the P-3 spy plane.

For the first time in its history, the paper states, the Joint Interagency Task Force South, the military command that runs its support to drug interdiction operations in the Caribbean and Latin America does not have the assets to follow up intelligence about drug shipments.

<...>

"Actionable intelligence on smuggling ventures now outweigh the operational capability of U.S. counter drug assets [to act on it]," according to the paper.

Guess we've come a long way from Cheech and Chong's Vietnam. (Click track #16 at the link)

Odd Statistic

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

The Defense Department began issuing its post-deployment health assessment in June 2003. Since then, 525,019 troops have answered the 24-question survey. Designed to assess the mental and physical well-being of those returning from war, the analysis provides an unprecedented snapshot into the minds of troops fresh from battle.

Among the biggest gender differences: 70 percent of the 60,000 servicewomen reported seeing someone wounded, dead or killed, while 54 percent of the 466,000 servicemen said the same.

"Women are more likely to be in support roles, especially medical roles," said Col. Joyce Adkins, the Defense Department's program director for operational stress and deployment mental health. "They would be more likely to see people who are wounded or dead if they are serving in medical function than if they are discharging their weapons."

News Quiz III

Okay, here's another chance. It's a story problem. Read carefully:

Military Culture Rooted In Geography

Many military families around the country expressed frustration during last year's presidential campaign. Worried about the progress of the war in Iraq, and especially whether soldiers were adequately protected, they were receptive to Senator John F. Kerry's arguments.

Still, most said they would vote for a president who seemed more attuned to the culture of the military, its loyalty to the chain of command, its patriotic sense of the rightness of America's mission in the world, its commitment to maintaining a supportive home front.

President Bush's understanding of the military culture came across in his words. But it also came through in his Texas manner, the way he looked, acted, and spoke.

To many military families -- even in places like Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania -- military culture is almost synonymous with the culture of the South and Southwest. Patriotism is expressed with a Southern twang, while nagging questions are raised in a Northeastern whine. Even a Vietnam War hero from the Northeast came across as too steeped in intellectualism and internationalism to understand military families.

Here's the question: Who is this war hero he's talking about?

Answer: I have no idea.

News Quiz II

Okay - if you missed the first question here's a make-up test.

Q: Where was this opinon piece published:

"I'm not advocating official censorship, but there's no reason the news media can't reconsider their own fondness for covering suicide bombings. A little restraint would give the public a more realistic view of the world's dangers.

Just as New Yorkers came to be guided by crime statistics instead of the mayhem on the evening news, people might begin to believe the statistics showing that their odds of being killed by a terrorist are minuscule in Iraq or anywhere else.

Terrorists know the numbers are against them and realize that daily bombings will not win the war. All along, their hope has been to inspire recruits and spread general fear with another tactic, the bombing as photo opportunity. For some reason, their media strategy still works.

A: The New York Times

Open Post

Militarism at Chester's

Chester:

I recently finished reading The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War by Andrew Bacevich, an excellent treatment of the subject of militarism, civil-military relations, and a whole host of related issues. Dr. Bacevich is a Viet Nam veteran and was a career Army officer before entering academia. He currently serves as the Director of the Center for International Relations, and Professor of International Relations at Boston University.

Dr. Bacevich is a critic of current trends in militarism and of the nature of the war. That being said, his work should not be lumped together with much less erudite or more partisan works. I found the book to offer some very interesting viewpoints on the sources of American militarism and its possible cures. I decided to speak to Dr. Bacevich to get some more details. The following is our exchange.

The following is here. I disagree with virtually every answer he gives in the interview - the exception being his final reply, though I expect we'd disagree on the significance of the point. Overall I think his identification of problems falls flat, thus I really can't get on board with any solutions he might propose. I'm sure there are many with whom his writing will resonate but it will be unfortunate indeed if this is the odd shape of any future debate held at any level that matters - say beyond academic, where his credentials will no doubt lure readers who are actually guilty of much of what he accuses "Americans" of into thinking they're getting inside information. They are, of course, but it's from inside Boston - not West Point.

All of which in no way reflects poorly on Chester, who's efforts I applaud. Go read the whole thing.

News Quiz

Today's is easy - just one question:

Q: What do $20 million for a road project in Mississippi, $5 million for the Fort Peck Fish Hatchery in Montana, $2 million for an upgrade of chemistry laboratories at Drew University in New Jersey, and $1 million for the Woody Island and historic structures in Philadelphia have in common?

A: They're all part of the $82 billion supplemental spending bill for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And you thought congress couldn't get anything done.

Also included: a directive that the White House label the "prepackaged news stories" it provides to media outlets:

Although the practice was common during the Clinton administration, Democrats and many reporters complained that the release amounted to propaganda.

The provision will force the White House to label the video releases for a year, but Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, promises to bring up a bill this year to make the requirement permanent.

"This is a good first step, but it is only a temporary measure," he said. "We need a permanent solution. ... We need to shut down the administration's propaganda mill once and for all."

The bill passed with strong bipartisan support.

The bill also allows an independent counsel that has been investigating Clinton administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros for 10 years to continue until he finishes his final report.

David M. Barrett has spent $21 million since 1995 when he began looking into charges that Mr. Cisneros lied to the FBI about payments that he made to his mistress while serving as HUD secretary in President Clinton's first term.

You might be asking "don't they know there's a war on?" But based on the name of the bill we must assume they are fully aware.

Osama Bin Laden could not be reached for comment.

Update: Major K comments here, and provides a list of a few things his guys could use in Iraq if there are a few bucks left over.

Warrior to Warrior

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the ninth 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 Dangerous Crush of Boredom

Dear Warrior . . .

The news we hear from parents of soldiers in Iraq? "Not much happening." "The guys are bored."

Spooky, that. Boredom is not your friend in a combat zone. Boredom is how a soldier zones out. True, boredom helps the time slide by, but it is not good in the same way that a coma is not a good way to pass the time. Not good at all.

I remember an intense period of boredom in Vietnam.

We were on road security, our tanks dispersed among cav platoons on a remote road that nobody used. We sat in the sun dying from the heat and the boredom. Any of this sound familiar?

We did what all bored troops do. One guy at a time manned the guns and radios. The rest of the crew cleaned weapons, pulled maintenance, tidied up. Then we went on to building suntans, writing letters, taking pictures of each other. Sound familiar yet? Sound zoned out? Bored? Comatose?

I mean, what enemy soldier would be crazy enough to attack an armored unit in the heat of day? Why the heat stroke alone from running away would kill him.

We grew lax. Until the explosion of a rocket-propelled grenade shattered the boredom. The RPG drilled an ACAV down the road from me, and shrapnel hit one of the men.

Our reaction to such an attack was a simple plan. Shoot like crazy to repel any further attack.

After that, we were to make radio reports, call for preplanned artillery, request air strikes, identify the point of attack, counterattack, assess casualties and, if necessary, call for an air ambulance, the famous Dustoff helicopter.

A good plan, right out of the book. A plan that went to the dogs after the first shot. The ACAV commander on this hit track got stuck on just two points of our plan. With one hand he started firing his .50 caliber machinegun. With the other he held down the talk button on his radio and began yelling. For 10 minutes, he never let up on either.

All he did was fire and holler. I doubt the firing did much good. I know the hollering didn't. He yelled that he had a man hit. He cursed at me to call for the Dustoff and cursed again because I didn't answer him.

Thing is, I couldn't. Only one man at a time can talk on a radio, and because he never let up on his transmitter, I could not even tell him the Dustoff was in the air. So it was shoot and holler, shoot and holler.

I directed my tank up beside his ACAV and pulled off my helmet and screamed at him to shut up. No luck. He couldn't hear me for the .50 cal, and by then was deaf anyhow from his own firing. It was shoot and holler until I threw a cup of water down on him.

I'll never forget the images. The hold of his ACAV filled with smoking brass. The barrel of his machine gun red hot, visibly glowing even by day. Trees in front of his vehicle shot in two. The look of terror in his eyes when he looked up at me after getting hit with water, eyes unable even to recognize me, eyes that did not even comprehend where he was. No longer bored. No longer bored at all.

I learned a few lessons about boredom that day.

First, never let your mind go comatose. Make it a habit to ask, "What if the enemy hits us now? What will I do?" Don't ask these questions every hour; ask them every minute. To stay alert.

Second, invent a personal plan. What will you do after the first shot? What will you do if a man is hit? What will you do if an attack hits somebody else? If you were the enemy, where would you strike the unit? Keep that head working.

Third, expect breakdowns in any plan and devise workarounds in advance. "If the radio fails, how will I report?" And so on.

Above all, never, never assume that an enemy is as bored as your body and mind are trying to make you. Give him credit. He knows the heat, the never-ending routine, and the boredom can make you careless, even comatose.

Then, when you least expect it . . . .

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.

Open Post

Quick advice: Before linking the open post you might want to see if there's already a post on your topic here - trackbacks to those usuallly aren't as crowded. You can link whichever you want (or both, I'm easy) I just think you'll get better results that way.

No News is Good News

But if you think there's no news out there, you're not reading the Dawn Patrol.

(Shame on you!)

Blog Nashville

A non-milblogger's report on the milblogger session at blog Nashville.

Blackfive's coverage is here. (And if you haven't been to Blackfive's today you might want to check his new look.) By the way, just when Blackfive started addressing the crowd Mustang 23 urged him (via web chat) to "tell the Miller Lite story". Mustang 23 links the Miller Lite story in his recap, for those who were curious about that remark.

And - speaking of site design - check out what Sisyphus has done with his blogspot site while reading his review of the event. Cool tools.

Huge thanks to Robin Burk for making it happen and the VFW webcam folks for testing their new system to connect deployed troops to the folks back home.

It was called blogNashville but with one GI from Iraq, one from Germany, one from the States it was international. Add in Stateside vets, including Blackfive and Buzz Patterson (Bill Clinton's favorite "golf partner") and Barcepundit, the English language blogger from Spain, and all the other folks who were there in person (see all the previous links for a good idea of the who) and you'll see why I think it was awesome for about 10 different reasons.

By the way, it was fun too.

On the Radio

John Harriman on Buzz Patterson's show 1PM EDT. Listen here.

Update: I called in too - replay schedule for this weekend here. You'll hear John and Buzz answer my questions on how to transition from blogger to published author. Thanks guys!

Update: Buzz says "Rightalk, though, streams replays every hour for 24 after the live show and then, again, the following weekend 12 times."

Arthur's Mail

Yes, there's been plenty of other things happening in Iraq, aside from the recent terror campaign.

Read all the stories that the mainstream media has - again - largely ignored:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

Arthur

Mike Yon

Via Blackfive, this video interview with Michael Yon, reporter, blogger, and photographer of the picture.

Suspension Suspended

Another for Mother's Day. Joe Gandelman provides the final chapter to the story of the young man suspended from school for talking to his mother in Iraq via cell phone.

Don't miss it.

Update: Link was broken - sorry - fixed now.

Food for Thought

The violence in Iraq last Fall was evidence of the failure of the governments of Australia and the U.S. - immediately prior to their respective elections.

The violence over the past few weeks - immediately prior to the British elections - was the result of the failure of the government of Iraq.

Thus sayeth uncountable editorials in papers worldwide.

But in the case of the two grenades exploding outside of the British Consulate in New York, there was brief discussion of a possible attempt to influence British elections.

On the Air

Vietnam veteran, author, and Mudville contributor John Harriman will be a guest on Buzz Patterson's radio show tomorrow.

See schedule here.

That's John's Mother's Day column linked by his name above, by the way. And don't miss the still-growing comment thread on the Air Force Academy story linked via Buzz's name.

Irony

You know why Milbloggers exist? So that someone can counter liars like Garry Trudeau.

Great idea. Invent a milblogger and put words in his mouth.

You so don't get it...

Update: Dadmanly is a real milblogger in Iraq. Here's what he has to say on the matter.

Update 2: Assumption of Command picks a different day's strip to pick apart. He's a real MilBlogger in Iraq too, of course.

(Bumped from 2005-05-08 9:36:38)

Welcome to the Monkey House

Adam Cohen, writing in the New York Times, displays the most stunning ignorance of the blogosphere I've ever seen in 'print'.

His main complaint is that blogs lack ethics. He offers no specific examples of which blogs are guilty of the various shortcomings he describes so we must assume his accusations are across the board. To be fair, he does praise The Daily Kos ("brilliant") and Joshua Micah Marshall ("entertaining and influential") and gets a quick plug in for Ariana Huffington's future "all star" blog. On the other hand, he credits Drudge for "pushing stories". (Memo to Cohen: The Drudge Report is not a blog.)

Let's quickly address one of his more witless comments: "Many bloggers make little effort to check their information, and think nothing of posting a personal attack without calling the target first - or calling the target at all."

He's trying to create the impression of blogs as being akin to The National Enquirer, of course. And I'll note that I didn't call Mr. Cohen before writing this. You see, I have his commentary before me now - he's on the record. That's what blogs do when dealing with media outrages, respond. I suppose I could contact him for clarification on this point: is he really clueless about the blogosphere, and therefore wrong in his accusations, or does he assume his readers are clueless, and is willing to deceive them? There's no other explanation for what follows.

But more bloggers, and blog readers, are starting to ask whether at least the most prominent blogs with the highest traffic shouldn't hold themselves to the same high standards to which they hold other media.

and

Mr. Rather's and Mr. Jordan's misdeeds would most likely not have landed them in trouble in the world of bloggers, where few rules apply.

His premise falls flat. A series of accusations offered up without any evidence in support. His conclusion - invoking hypocrisy - is Orwellian:

Before long, leading blogs could have ethics guidelines and prominently posted corrections policies.

Bloggers may need to institutionalize ethics policies to avoid charges of hypocrisy. But the real reason for an ethical upgrade is that it is the right way to do journalism, online or offline. As blogs grow in readers and influence, bloggers should realize that if they want to reform the American media, that is going to have to include reforming themselves.

In a related story

Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that the media can spread peace but also foment violence, and he called on journalists to exercise responsibility to ensure objective reports that respect human dignity and the common good.

<...>

"These important tools of communication can favor reciprocal knowledge and dialogue, or on the contrary, they can fuel prejudice and disdain between individuals and peoples; they can contribute to spreading peace or fomenting violence."

As a result, Benedict called for members of the media to exercise "personal responsibility" to ensure objective reports that respect human dignity and pay attention to the common good.

Update (Hat tip: Citizen Z link below): Ouch! (Language warning.)

And there are great quotes at Rightwing Nuthouse (also linked below): "Whatever ethics we have, we bring to the table ready made, forged by our life experiences and upbringing." Something the Cohen types never consider. Read the whole thing, the last line especially is a must - I'm all for it.

More at LGF and Instapundit.

Something occurs to me late in the game: as more reporters learn they can get big hit counts on their otherwise unread pages by insulting bloggers will it become common practice? If so, is it ethical? I always wonder about this subject when Powerline links that hopeless putz at the Star-Tribune from time to time. Let's see if "blog-bashing editorials" (read that as "link begging editorials") become the next big thing for the fading mainstream.

Postscript: A Mother's Day hat tip to Mrs Greyhawk. Her daily Dawn Patrol roundups of news and commentary are the finest source of blogworthy material on the net.

Happy Mothers Day Greetings From the Front

via Media Player Video - Windows PC and Macs

with Love to the Mid-Atlantic Region from Camp Taqaddum and Fallujah.
More here.

with Love to the South Central Region from Baghdad, Samarra, Camp Taqaddum, and Fallujah.
More here.

with Love to the Southeastern Region from Baghdad, Samarra, and Fallujah.
More here

with Love to the Mid-Western and Puerto Rico Region from Camp Taqaddum, Fallujah, and Baghdad.
More here

with Love to the Northeastern Region from Tikrit , Baghdad, Fallujah and Camp Taquaddum.
More here.

with Love to the Western Region from Tikrit, Baghdad, and Camp Taquaddum.
More here.

Special Thanks to DVIDS

Open Post

The weekend edition - as always, it will travel upwards until it gets too full.

Scoring

Jump blog 1

Gutless bedwetting pansy boy 0

Join Us

Wanna livechat with Brogonzo, Blackfive and me while watching blog Nashville?

Join here now

Update: Barcepundit and Buzz Patterson are on too.

Update: Mustang23 was on too, live from Iraq.

Thanks to all who joined the fun.

Pajama Update

Pajama's Media - the TV report.
(See Roger Simon, sans chapeau!)

BlogNashville

It's MilBlogs day at BlogNashville.

Be sure to follow the adventures of Robin, Don, Bill, Tim, and USMC Vet as they participate in the MilBlogs session at the conference. (1030-1145 CDT).

From my quick look around, Tim has been doing the most updating, but I'm sure there's plenty more to come from all involved.

By the way - if anyone can fill me in on how the internet video conference will work please let me know. I know where the site is, but I lack instruction.

Hi Mom!

Just in time for Mother's Day!

Kevin Francois, a junior at Spencer High School in Columbus, Georgia, got a lunch-time call on his cell phone from his mother. Most kids might be embarrassed by calls from their parents during school, but Kevin probably wasn't. His mom, Sgt. 1st Class Monique Bates, left in January for a one-year tour in Iraq.

Long story short: a teacher saw him, told him to get off the phone. He didn't, and now he has been suspended for 10 days.

The assistant principal explains:

"They are really allowed to have those cell phones so that after band or after chorus or after the debate and practices are over they have to coordinate with the parents," said Alfred Parham, assistant principal at Spencer. "They're not supposed to use them for conversating back and forth during school because if they were allowed to do that, they could be text messaging each other for test questions."

Francois received a call from his mother at 12:30 p.m., which he said was his lunch break. Francois said he went outside the school building to get a better reception when his mother called. A teacher who saw Francois on his phone told him to get off the phone. But he didn't.

Francois said he told the teacher, "This is my mom in Iraq. I'm not about to hang up on my mom."

Francois said the teacher tried to take the phone, causing it to hang up.

The student said he then went with the teacher to the school's office where he surrendered his phone. His mother called again at 12:37 p.m. and left a message scolding her son about hanging up and telling him to answer the phone when she calls.

Parham said the teen's suspension was based on his reaction when he was asked to give up the cell phone and told about the school's cell phone policy.

"Kevin got defiant and disorderly with Mr. Turner and another assistant principal," Parham said Thursday. "He got defiant with me. He refused to leave Mr. Turner's office. When a kid becomes out of control like that they can either be arrested or suspended for 10 days. Now being that his mother is in Iraq, we're not trying to cause her any undue hardship; he was suspended for 10 days."

As always, Mudville's comments are open for conversating on this topic.

Update: There are two versions of this story going around. You can find the other one here. It's a shorter version of the original I linked above - edited to eliminate much of the information presenting the school's side of the issue. Even with that info I think the school blew it big time on this one, but I call foul on those who'd twist the story to make the school look even worse.

Update 2: Clarifying my position. I'm increasingly tired of blaming systems, organizations, or any group for the actions of people. If I were the teacher involved I'd have stood guard for Kevin while he finished his call, keeping other's away who might confront him. If I were a school admin I'd tell the teacher (without Kevin present) that they had blown it this time, and that I was going to verbally admonish Kevin too.

Then I'd tell Kevin sorry, and let him call his mom back on my phone bill.

Anytime he wanted.

Update 3: What sort of son would I be if I didn't elevate a comment from my mom to the main post?

When I turned on my computer this morning this report came up on my AOL news site. I was so angry, and thought "good thing I don't live there. ( I have a temper, as GH can attest) I wondered if Mr & Mrs GH had seen this. I pulled up the M.G. and there it was. I must say they are always on the ball. I hope all of you Milbloggers stay on this. Of course the boy was upset. His mother is in Iraq for God's (I mean "goodness") sake. Like she has the option to call at anytime she wants! (Sorry, I just had to vent.)

Update 4: The School has reduced the penalty to time served. Email innundation is hinted at. A massive and very public apology would be nice too.

More: Michelle Malkin is on this story too.

Fellow MilBloggers:

Marine Corps Moms are all over this: Marine moms across the country are livid. Tammie Greene and Nicole Markel sent this link minutes after it hit the wires. I'm wondering how the school administrators at Spencer High School would feel if they were serving in a war zone and during a rare opportunity to talk with their child, an authority figure took the phone away and hung up that connection. And I plan to share my opinion with the principal and two assistant principals.

She provides contact info for the school.

Jack Army: Take something out of my hand and stand by while I call an ambulance to deal with your bloody stump!

Florida Cracker: As a former military brat, I'd suggest the mom call her kid at the house and not on his cell phone in the middle of the school day. Everybody has a job to do; the kid's is going to school.

Outside the Beltway: I'd say, at the very least suspend the teacher for 10 days too.

Smash: Outrageous!

Others:

Joe Gandelman: Boo!

Murdoc: But the school has a job to do, and part of that job is to maintain order. That's difficult when you don't enforce the rules fairly. If exceptions are made for this sort of thing, then not only will the school have to continue to make exceptions for this sort of thing in the future, but the sorts of things that the exceptions are made for will become an issue. As will determining whether the excuses made by students are legit or not.

Locking the Chapel Doors

(Updated - see below)

Take a look at this post from last November.

Then read this one from Hugh Hewitt.

Update: Bumped the post up. I think a few folks might be missing the point - the AUSCS has nothing new here. By the way, via email I was told the prohibition on scripture in emails was extended Air Force wide under the guise of a mandated format for signature blocks, sans scripture or any other quotes, one-liners, etc.

Interesting comments below. Be sure to also read this post from CDR Salamandar, as well as the one tracked back below. (Don't miss Air Force Voices trackback either.)

Update 2: The name Buzz Patterson should be a familiar name to Mudville readers. Among his many other accomplishments he retired from the Air Force as a Cadet Group Commander at the United States Air Force Academy in 2001. After leaving a couple of comments in this post he graciously responded to my request for a more in-depth response to the Air Force Academy "scandal".

Here's Buzz:

Let me calm those who would believe these sorts of accusations. The report is complete and utter BS. I left the academy upon my retirement in 2001. As a commander for thousands of cadets I can tell you, unequivocally, there was ZERO pressure to attend religious services and ZERO pressure to "witness" to anyone. In fact, we went to great lengths to ensure that our "Wicca" brothers and sisters had equal access to all facilities for worship as did other religious groups. There was no attempt, EVER, to deny anyone the right or not to practice their beliefs.

The Air Force Academy, like the other service academies and professional military schools in general, believe it or not is actually run by professionals. My philosophy was to produce the best officer candidate with the best education that would, someday, turn into the best damn Air Force pilot or warrior possible. None of my peers would ever cross the line and engage in behavior that Barry Lynn would have you believe is commonplace. Do I believe that General Johnny Weida, the Commandant of Cadets, is practicing some sort of clandestine "come to Jesus" agenda? Absolutely not! Do I believe that Fisher DeBerry (whom I know) uses his position as football coach to further his own religious path? Absolutely not. These men are there to groom future commanders and leaders in my Air Force. If, for a minute, the allegations were true, it wouldn't be up to me or some disenrolled former cadet to come forward, USAFA would take care of it.

USAFA just happens to be ripe for liberal picking. The recent overblown sex scandal is primary evidence. USAFA is 4 years of stress, exemplary education and mentorship. as an unfortunate result, not everyone is qualified. Just as in any military school or training program, we weed out the incapable and promote the capable. For many cadets and more importantly, for their families, little Johnny or Susan cannot possible have failed. Ergo, they turn to legal recourse. Trust me, people will do literally anything or say anything to repeal an expulsion or justify an honor violation. In my experience (20 years USAF and combat veteran), these are exactly the circumstances taking place at USAFA today. And, no, I'm not an USAFA grad. No ring-knocking here. Just a proud former officer who is appalled at what's taking place.

Unfortunately, my former service and the academy goes to great lengths (too great in my humble opinion) to listen to every bitching and whining voice no matter how outlandish. Much like my stint at the Clinton White House, its crisis management without much leadership.

The fact that the USAFA cadet body and permanent party are 90% Christian (as pointed out by the AUSCS study) is reality. The fact that a doolie during Beast (BCT) had his or her feelings hurt...great, that's the frikkin idea!! We don't want or need to coddle every applicant. We want professional warriors. It was no different when I was commissioned in 1981 nor would I want it to be today!

My former service spends way too much time accommodating anti-Americans such as Barry Lynn and way too little preparing to fly and fight. The fact that we allow organizations such as AUSCS to impact our mission is the real tragedy.

We are at war. Unfortunately, the battle stretches from Iraq and Afghanistan back to our shores. Even to Colorado Springs. There are "Americans" who are anything but.

The bottom line is this (and I've written two books largely on this premise): do we as American citizens want our military to become something else, that is, an inoffensive, equal opportunity employer without regard to qualifications or abilities? Or do we want, as history has shown most effective, a highly-integrated unit that brings massive and brutal force upon our enemies without subjugation to social mores and cultural fads?

I opt for the latter. Although I would never condone bias or prejudice in any form, I would also never condone a "socialization" or "liberalization" of our armed forces. The Clintons tried it--bad idea. We in uniform are not society, we are a profession of arms, a culture that defies common understanding. Not everybody (thank GOD!) can or should do it. I flew with many fellow Air Force pilots over 20 years. Most were great, some were crappy. The system is not perfect. However, I never went into a combat or tactical situation concerned about the guy on my wing. Never! I always prayed for great maintenance guys and gals (I am a Christian as well), a decent weather forecast but, more importantly, that my co-pilot had his game-face on and his professionalism in his flight suit. I never cared if he was Christian, Jewish, Islamic, agnostic or atheist.

I cared that he knew his shit. That's what USAFA is all about as well. They want the end-product. A proud, humble, proficient Air Force officer. Because when the stuff gets ugly, there are no atheists in cockpits. Bullets flying in anger humbles all of us.

Lay off the academies and let them do their job. Again, I'm not a USAFA product but I was raised and trained accordingly. I don't think they're perfect. I do know that at USAFA they are well-meaning, driven professionals that understand where the line is.

Instead of liberal groups like AUSCS chipping away at the Air Force's ability to educate officers, how about they actually help in a meaningful way? If this were WWII, I can imagine they'd be onboard. But, alas, its not and the Left cares more about emasculating the military then doing anything to support them.

Hooahh!
Buzz

Greyhawk adds: Visit Buzz's web site here.

More Don't miss the fine posts trackbacked below. I know this is a Navy reference, but I can't help but think we've sure come a long way from Tailhook, baby.

Original post 2005-05-05 22:38:57

True Lies

Bob Herbert couldn't get enough Delgado into one column, so here's more. His bottom line:

"At what point," he (Delgado) asked, "does a series of 'isolated incidents' become a pattern of intolerable behavior?"

The public at large and especially the many soldiers who have behaved honorably in Iraq deserve an honest answer to that question. It took many long years for the military to repair its reputation after Vietnam. Mr. Delgado's complaints and the entire conduct of this wretched war should be thoroughly investigated.

It's not that hard. I can name one of them. I saw him myself, and I can reveal the name of the soldier Delgado heard pray before he killed an enemy. Here's Delgado's latest version of the story:

Mr. Delgado confronted a sergeant who, he said, had fired on the detainees. "I asked him," said Mr. Delgado, "if he was proud that he had shot unarmed men behind barbed wire for throwing stones. He didn't get mad at all. He was, like, 'Well, I saw them bloody my buddy's nose, so I knelt down. I said a prayer. I stood up, and I shot them down.' "

His name is Private Jackson, and he killed not one, but many. Here are some verifiable quotes we heard him use while lining up a shot immediately prior to killing:

Be not that far from me, for trouble is near; haste Thee to help me.
From Psalm 22:19

Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
Psalm 144

My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.
Psalm 144 again

O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.
Psalm 25

Open Post

The thank God goodness it's Friday edition!

AOL Blog of the Week?

I'm honored. I'm not posting this to brag - just clarifying that's not me in the picture.

(They have a nice link there where you can nominate other blogs for that position. Some of you folks might like to take advantage of that.)

What's in a Name?

AP reports the arrest of a deserter in Florida:

An Army sergeant who left his Georgia post six months ago was tracked down at his parents' home after a notebook with anti-American and anti-Semitic writings was found in his discarded backpack.

His father said the soldier fled Fort Stewart after the Army extended his enlistment because he had soured on the U.S. military mission in Iraq. The father said the soldier was also harassed over his Palestinian heritage.

<...>

"He was feeling rejected or discriminated against for the last year or so.... He said he'd been made fun of all of the time. He never fit in. They made fun of his name. They always looked at him like he's an outsider."

His name? His name was Karim Iraq.

From the Front

A bonus edition. Read this post for some insight into the mind of an American soldier. More antidote for the Delgado poison.

From the Front

Mike Yon is the photographer who took the picture of the soldier holding the dying Iraqi child. It's all over the web, including the front page of his site, but as my mom commented in the previous post "O.K. GH, Warn me when I am going to view a photo like that. Key word, "Kleenex". Why have I not seen that photo on TV? I watch a lot of news but must have missed that story. Hope it is being broadcast in Iraq.

I linked him in a From the Front entry a while back, and I'm re-posting it here.

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.

Open Post

TAPS

Via email:

Washington, D.C., May 5, 2005 ? Col. David H. Hackworth, the United States Army's legendary, highly decorated guerrilla fighter and lifelong champion of the doughboy and dogface, ground-pounder and grunt, died Wednesday in Mexico. He was 74 years old.

More here.

Update: Blackfive has a few thoughts to share.

Live! From Nashville, it's MilBloggers Night!

Or day or whatever the case may be in your part of the world:

For the benefit of our MilBloggers who will be unable to attend this weekends event in Tennessee due to their service to our country, The Departments of the Veterans of Foreign Wars together with its partners are offering to broadcast live, via video, on the net the MilBlogger Session of the Blog Nashville Conference. We are waiting from the folks putting it together to get back with us and will let you know the protocol.

This effort will demonstrate the technology that will be driving our new Military Family WebCOM Program.

If you are interested in assisting us in this effort by becoming a sponser let us know AT vfwncwebcom@gmail.com

The session will be 10:30am-11:45am (US Central time, I assume.)

Thr family webcam program is an effort to connect deployed service men and women to their families back home. Thanks to all involved with this project - I truly look forward to seeing the show.

Courage of the Conscientous Objector

Themes developing in comments threads around the blogosphere - and in the minds of many around the world:

1. On Aidan Delgado's claims that soldiers drove around in Humvees bashing coke bottles on Iraqi's heads: That figures, that's how those soldiers are. Remember Abu Ghraib?

2. On Abu Ghraib: You know those ignorant soldiers had to be working under orders.

In comments here I'm accused of defending torture for pointing out the guilt of those who did it. I'm also accused of denying that soldiers are capable of wrong doing in the Delgado case. I can't be both, but so it goes.

There's actually an interesting contrast point between the stories. In the Abu Ghraib case a young E4 discovered what was going on and turned the torture squad in to the chain of command, prompting the investigation. He risked a lot - obviously he knew what sorts of things the perpetrators were capable of, but he did the right thing. He seeks no publicity, but he's a guy who should be admired for what he did.

Contrast that to Delgado. Pretend for a minute he's not a liar, that what he claims to have witnessed was true. Rather than seek justice, he slinks off like a coward, applies for conscientious objector status, and begins making broad accusations. By not naming names he casts doubt on every man and woman in uniform.

But what he says isn't true. If it was, someone in Delgado's unit would have had the courage to step forward and put a stop to it, or told what was going on. Few soldiers are angels. Fewer still are criminals. But courage is common, and the rarest soldier of all is the cowardly liar.

By the way, I don't apply the term "coward" to his conscientious objector status. There's something to be admired in those who demonstrate the courage of their convictions, whether by telling the hard truth or by refusing to kill others, regardless of the cause. Delgado is a failure on both counts.

Desmond T. Doss is (he is still living) a 7th Day Adventist. This Christian denomination does not believe in the taking of life. Desmond Doss could have easily avoided service in WWII. Because of his upbringing and personal faithfulness, a request for CO status would have, most likely, been granted without question. Yet, Desmond T. Doss joined the Army, not to kill, but to save lives.

This quote discussed the character of a man, being vilified for his faith by those he served with:

So what do you do with a soldier who won't train on Saturday, eat meat, or carry a gun or bayonet? Doss' commanding officer knew what to do. Paperwork was initiated to declare him unstable, a miss-fit, and wash him out of military service with a Section-8 discharge as "unsuitable for military service." But Doss wanted to serve his country, he just refused to kill. He performed all of his other duties with dedication, was an exemplary a soldier in every other way. At his hearing he told the board, "I'd be a very poor Christian if I accepted a discharge implying that I was mentally off because of my religion. I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I can't accept that kind of a discharge." So the Army was "stuck" with Desmond Doss.

Go read the story of how he earned the Medal of Honor on Okinawa exactly 60 years ago today.

Every Day Hero

Marine gets Silver Star for bravery at Fallujah

Outnumbered, pinned down and under attack from three directions, the Marines of Echo Company were in danger of being overrun by Iraqi insurgents hurling grenades and firing rockets and AK-47s.
<...>
"I looked out there and saw this crazy maniac firing away so all the Marines could come back alive," said Lance Cpl. Carlos Gomez-Perez, who was severely wounded in the attack.
<...>
At Wednesday's ceremony, Adametz seemed slightly embarrassed at being called a hero. "All I wanted to do was protect my brother Marines,"

Here is an exchange of emails between our featured hero, Lance Cpl Thomas R. Adametz and Staff writer of Kennebec Journal Doug Harlow in June of 2003, almost a year before the incident he was awarded for.

He has been awarded the Combat Valor Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal and now the Silver Star, somehow I don't think this will be his last award. He leaves in July for a third tour of duty in the Persian Gulf region.

Uhhh...

Really? Let me know if you want my help. It's greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com. You have to replace 'at' with @, and 'dot' with a period, then get rid of all the spaces. You tell me which bloggers are giving you trouble and I'll write a post exposing them as "asshats".

See, I can help you with this whole damn internet thing. Or you can ask just about any E4 or below.

By the way, that's a CD player, not a cup holder.

Images

Q: Who was it that said "I sure hope that Lynndie England trial drags out a few more months."?

A: Nobody.

Forget about that. Forget about Lynndie and Aidan Delgado too. Go see this instead.

From the Front

And now for something completely different:

Who would have thought it possible? An unapologetically liberal anti-war blogger and a steadfastly conservative American serviceman blogging from Iraq engaged in a civil discussion about the war and other news without name-calling and without hurling insults?

The Liberal Avenger, blogging since June of 2004 and Dadmanly, milblogging since August of 2004, come together in this space to discuss and debate the issues of the day and field questions from readers.

Open Post

Gitchie some.

The Power of Blogs

Mrs G found this great story for this morning's Dawn Patrol, about an elementary school class that developed an on-line relationship with a Marine in Iraq via email and a blog:

Students at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School at Gallaudet University had used e-mail and a school Web log to get first-hand accounts of the insurgency in Iraq and the daily survival of a U.S. Marine stationed there.

Yesterday, the 42 students met their personal link for the first time.

Sgt. Earl "Jay" Beatty, 31, joined the school's sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders at a homecoming ceremony on Gallaudet's campus in Northeast. He returned home to Mitchellville March 18.

The students, who are deaf or have partial hearing loss, used sign-language interpreters to thank a tearful Sgt. Beatty and his wife, Donna, 30, for their contributions to their country and for their correspondence with the students.

Cans or Bottles?

(Updated - see below)

Every Coke I ever drank in Iraq came from a can. Mountain Dew too.

I never saw a Coke bottle in Iraq - or any soda, pop, etc. (Fanta was a big favorite in the region, btw). Any others who've been there or are there now ever have a bottle of soda? A glass bottle? I'm not saying they didn't exist, just noting my experience. I'd bet there's no functioning bottling plant in Iraq - the stuff we had was imported from somewhere else in the Arab world.

We had water in plastic bottles by the millions.

So what?

Read this.

Or this:

"Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads."

Anybody else with first hand knowledge?

Update 3 May: If you're a late arrival, or on a return trip, the glass bottle issue has been handled in the comments, where you'll also find some forthright information from other folks who have been in Iraq. There's much chatter through the blogosphere on this issue, with everyone on the Left eagerly wanting this to be true (Abu Ghraib invariably comes up in support of that position) and everyone on the Right noting that Herbert is a known member of the anti-crowd whose bias is plain.

Take a look at Herbert's first paragraph, his introduction of his hero:

I spent some time recently with Aidan Delgado, a 23-year-old religion major at New College of Florida, a small, highly selective school in Sarasota.

Mr. Delgado's background is unusual. He is an American citizen, but because his father was in the diplomatic corps, he grew up overseas.

Want more proof?

Here's who shot rioting prisoners: "a sergeant".

Here's who Delgado claims smashes coke bottles over Iraqi's heads: "Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys".

Here's who made wisecracks and used the term "raghead": "a top officer".

If these soldiers exist they do all have something in common - "US Army" over the left shirt pocket of their DCU's. They also have something that marks them as individuals with a unique identity, and If Aiden and Bob were anything other than gutless lying cowards they'd take the first step towards ensuring justice and tell us what it said above the right pocket too.

Of course, in Bob Herbert's and Aidan Delgado's world those ignorant low-bred soldiers are all alike.

More: Michelle Malkin has several links to right-leaning blogs on this issue.

Atrios' comment section is a showcase of today's Left.

Fellow MilBloggers weigh in:
Baldilocks
Blackfive
James Joyner
Jump Blog

Lorie Byrd has some history on Delgado. Looks like he never knew the names of the guys in his unit.

And: Even more here. Don't miss it.

The compound where the riot took place, compound 8, was run by my Company, the 870th MP Co. The riot also was an escape attempt. It wasn't just a few stone throwers; the sky was black with throw debris, which effectively suppressed the compound towers from their overwatch duties.

Still more, this from comments below:

As a member of the 744th MP BN, we had the 320th MP Co. as a guard company under our command. They lived maybe 40 feet away from us when they were in Naseriyah. While they were in Naseriyah, they were our tower guards and QRF for the mini-jail we ran on the outskirts of Talil Air Base. The 320th had few additional missions that involved them going outside the wire that didn't involve them being our security escort when we transported prisoners to BIAP. Imagine the nightmare that would have occured if 3 buses of 30 Iraqi prisoners each saw a soldier smash a glass bottle over an innocent Iraqis head. Defintely didn't happen during their time there. As for their time at Abu, I know their mission was, once again, tower guards. One of their platoons was also tasked with being General Karpinski's security. Now she's no angel, but i highly doubt an E-4 would have the gall to break a bottle over an Iraqis head with her in the middle vehicle. I was friends with a lot of the younger guys in the unit and after we moved up to Baghdad we would run into each other every now and then. There are few secrets among lower enlisted, and nothing of this sort was ever mentioned. There is a good chance Delgado made these stories out of thin air, and at worst, they are isolated incidents.

Posted by: James at May 3, 2005 04:49 AM

(Original Post 2005-05-02 23:57:28)

Doonesbury Watch - Day 2

Chuckle.

Looks like Mr Trudeau might be an NPR listener.

(Thanks to Rightwingsparkle for pointing me to the Doonesbury MilBlogs series)

From the Front

What's a "Schmall"?

Well Robert E. Rees, currently serving as a Maintenance Test Pilot in Iraq (for the third time) can tell you about it, or better, yet show you with a slide show

You can also see what a MilBlog looks like when a professional web designer
deploys.

Open Post

Leaks?

Hmmm... somebody leaked classified to the enemy?

Tips

Fellow MilBlogger Mustang 23, (Assumption of Command), has a bunch of links to some more blogging "how-to" posts.

Good stuff.

Low Morale?

Maybe it's the suicide bombings. Those tend to bring you down.

Offer more virgins.

Update: Through my various connections I've obtained the letter. Here's an excerpt for now, edited for strong language:

Dude, WTF? That DVD copy of Kingdom of Heaven sucked camel a#$. The guys are (urinated). The sound was crap (5.1 surround my a@$!!) and the cameraman must have been an infidel, because his drunkenness is the only explanation for that jitery camera. The fall of Jerusalem inspired no one, because though we heard the muffled sound of battle the view was of the cameraman's shoes. It was all I could do to stop Omar from declaring a Fatwa against you on the spot. I know - "There's a jihad on - we're all making sacrifices" but it's wearing thin. By the way, we caught Akbar reading something called Daily Kos when he was suposed to be uploading hostage video to our website. We were going to cut his hands off but he got us to look at this site and now I think it should be on the approved list. Turns out there are many such web sites that might really turn the morale problem around, this Kos site links them all. A lot of our guys are commenting there now too. Check it out.

Looking for that How to Blog Post?

If you wandered in from here (thanks, CNN, I don't care what all the other bloggers say, you're all right by me! - uh, but it's Greyhawk...)

The post in question is here. But you'll miss all the stuff you'd see if you simply scrolled downward 'til you found it.

Indeed

What can I say? Heh. (Rumor has it Apple sued someone for less...)

Much ado 'bout Abu

Lynndie England, the "face of Abu Ghraib", pleaded guilty today to charges related to the abuse at the facility. CNN, in reporting the event, included some details I've previously never seen compiled anywhere other than this blog.

All of the incidents except the dog leash and the "rapeist" incidents took place on England's 21st birthday, November 7, 2003, when England -- a clerk, not a guard -- had come to the cell block to visit Graner.

The detainees in the photographs were suspected of starting a riot in another area of the prison and had been brought to the cell block for further questioning.

If none of this is the Abu Ghraib case you know from other media accounts, please read on. You are not alone. Here's why you don't know what you think you know about Abu Ghraib.

This post on Abu Ghraib at Assume Command prompted a comment from Kevin (who blogs at The Command TOC) that was a real eye opener for me:

To a civilian, it sure seemed like the military, specifically Rumsfeld, was trying to minimize or hide this event. There were Congressional hearings where they would ask Rumsfeld about pictures which were on the internet and he would say, "I have not seen those...". He did a lot of "I do not knows" in this process and therefore the information came out piecemeal.

Rumsfeld could have taken a lesson from the Tylenol case which is the standard bearer for American business on how to deal with "bad news". Come out totally, quickly, and aggressively with the facts. Be proactive in exposing the issue and be proactive in taking very decisive action. Don't "suspend" people pending some month long investigation. Take decisive action.

So, an example of what could have been done here. Once those pictures were known to the DoD they could have: 1) Come out aggressively.. shown them told the world they apologize told the world this will be fixed.

(Warning - oversimplification for the benefit of brevity follows.)

In the civilian world a corporation involved in any "bad publicity" issue involving some illegal activity obviously must act to protect it's image, or it's value will fall. Imagine a hypothetical situation in which employees of Company X are discovered to have been skimming profits, and they face criminal charges. It behooves Company X to cooperate fully with the investigating authorities and the resulting prosecution and handle the publicity in a forthright manner, perhaps even publicly releasing evidence that proves the wrongdoing was the work of those individuals - its requirement to obey the law and responsibility to its shareholders clearly trumps any 'loyalty' it owes it's employees.

There's a difference if "Company X" is a military organization, and the "employees" are members of the armed services. At some level "the company" is also the investigating authority, and the prosecution, and - in a way - the judge and jury. These functions are compartmentalized at lower levels - "the company" is also expected to act in the interest of the defense, and the lawyers for the defendant are not answerable to the lower level commanders who are involved in the prosecution. But obviously "the company" - at any level - can not release any information that might be prejudicial to the defense. Donald Rumsfeld (or the President, or anyone else in the Chain of Command) can't call a press conference and say "Look at these pictures. It's terrible, and we're going to get the people responsible." The result would be an instant mistrial, and the defendant(s) would go free. The pictures themselves are evidence in the trial. Further, under the concept of undue influence no commander can make any public statement whatsoever, with or without photographs, that might be construed as prejudicial to the case.

On the other hand... the defense is under less restrictive guidance. Unless so ordered by the authorities the defense is able to take its case to the public, the press, or just about anywhere it desires. There's an example in today's headlines of this concept in action.

Google the name Ilario Pantano and up pops the gateway to page upon page of news and opinion about the Marine 2nd lieutenant accused of murdering two Iraqis last year.

<...>

"There was a strategy," said Charles Gittins, Pantano's civilian counsel who, according to his resume, is a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. "It's something we developed together - that is, his military lawyers, myself and his family."

By reaching out to the media, Pantano's defense succeeded at making his case fodder for philosophical debate. At best, they succeeded at manipulating public opinion.

While Pantano's case illustrates a well funded, motivated, and coordinated defense in action, it's not the model followed by those representing the accused in the Abu Ghraib case. Let's backtrack a bit and review the events as they occurred.

In January 2004, an Army statement on an investigation was reported by CNN:

The U.S. military's criminal investigation into potential abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Gharib prison in Iraq now includes reports from soldiers that military police took photographs showing soldiers hitting detainees, CNN has learned.

<...>

A U.S. military source said the pictures would constitute criminal activity unless it could be demonstrated they were taken for official reasons related to processing and handling of detainees.

However, a Pentagon source said there is no reason to believe any of these were official photographs, and notes the reports of abuse came from other soldiers at the prison.

A military official last week said the Army is concerned there are problems of "poor discipline, poor leadership, and a need for re-training," in the military police community.

Several officials say they cannot come to any conclusion about the matter until the investigation is complete, but they all reiterate that Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, head of coalition forces in Iraq is among the U.S. officials taking the matter very seriously.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Six U.S. soldiers have been charged with offenses related to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at an Iraqi prison, the U.S. Army said Saturday.

The soldiers are charged with assault, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, conspiracy and indecent acts with another, U.S. Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said.

<...>

Multiple sources said the allegations involve soldiers who took photographs of Iraqi prisoners in late 2003, including pictures that show the prisoners partially clothed or physical contact between soldiers and detainees.

A few months later, however, the pictures were on every channel and every front page, from your home town paper to Al Jazeera. What happened? In the Abu Ghraib case we know. According to the NY Times, shortly after Ivan Frederick's Article 32 hearing his family released the photos to CBS through Col David Hackworth. (Probably one of the reasons that Lynndie England's face is so well known and Ivan Frederick's isn't.) Coincidentally, Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, an old friend of Frederick's civilian attorney, published the photos too. We could speculate as to the motive of the defense (Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly thought blackmail was a possibility) in releasing those images - but whatever the purpose their publication did little to aid the cause. (Obviously although not good for the defense the photos were a great ratings booster for CBS and The New Yorker - but that's a side issue.) But at the time of their release the actual trials were still pending - and the military, as prosecution in the case, was unable to comment beyond those "justice will be served" types of statements that we heard.

In a perfect world, of course, the media would act as unbiased observer, report facts, note its sources, and reveal their bias.

In an imperfect world the blogosphere thrives.

(For those interested in more info, see this post and the links it contains.)

Open Post

All are welcome... step into the light...

Uhhh... I Don't Get It...

Maybe someone else can explain...

Arthurs Mail

Maybe because they can't really use it to embarrass the US...

In the meantime, Afghanistan's premier female football team is now
practising at the statdium that the Taliban used for public executions.

This, and other stories of triumph of the spirit, in this month's "Good news
from Afghanistan" round-up:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

As always, thanks for helping to break the MSM silence and spread the good
news

Arthur

Crossing a line at the Times

The LA Times crosses over the line with this headline: Miscues at Roadblock in Iraq - An uncensored version of a U.S. military probe into an Italian's slaying cites lack of training, poor communication. It does indeed cite them, as the first paragraph of the story makes clear:

A U.S. military probe into the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq has found that the soldiers who opened fire had only recently been trained on how to conduct a roadblock, did not know that the Italians' car was expected along their stretch of road, and, because of a communications breakdown, were manning their irregular nighttime post long after they should have been.

Recent training is training. In fact, the story later explains, "they were trained for 10 days in February by troops who were leaving Iraq."

"Long after they should have been" is later defined as "long" if compared to a nanosecond: Negroponte's convoy apparently passed by the onramp shortly after 8 p.m., but because of poor communications, the troops were still in place when Calipari's car approached just before 9 p.m.

But still no mention of satellite evidence - a fact of which their editors,
having deleted it from a previous story, are well aware.

Open Post

Sunday edition. And if you're a blogger (milblogger or otherwise) interested in this proposal from Roger Simon, drop me an email with 'Pajamas' in the subject line. Don't worry about readership, etc. All blogs, big and small, are welcome.

Sunday Funnies

Marvel Comics this week announced it will produce a special comic "for the troops":

Comic books and soldiers have been allies since the earliest days of World War II, when Superman and Captain America sold war bonds, promoted paper drives and battled Nazis at home and abroad.

Now superheroes are going back to the front.

On Thursday at the Pentagon, Marvel Comics will unveil a custom comic book to be distributed free in May to U.S. forces in Iraq and around the world. Featuring the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and other Marvel heroes, the comic will have a mammoth print run of 1 million copies. The first 150,000 will go to soldiers in the Middle East.

"We're not going to sell them. These are for the troops," says Jeff Klein, a Marvel spokesman.

Both DC Comics and Marvel have published special issues before on topics such as drug abuse, land mines and the heroes of 9/11.

This latest effort dwarfs those in size, and is in partnership with "America Supports You," a Defense Department campaign that encourages private citizens, communities and businesses to reach out to troops and their families, "especially those serving in harm's way."

The comics will be available free at military exchanges.

And Brian Bendis, writer and creator of the book, adds this::

"I have received signed plaques and framed copies of Ultimate Spider-Man that have been flown over Afghanistan and sent to me just to show their appreciation," Mr. Bendis said, "and the whole time I'm thinking, I should be sending you something, not the other way around. So finally I have the opportunity."

Mr. Bendis said he approached the project as "the equivalent to a USO trip - a nice present for the troops." He says it was fun to sell Marvel on the idea for a new standalone issue with the cast of the New Avengers group of superheroes: "No politics, no message other than 'We're thinking of you.' Just Marvel fun."

Most folks recognize this sort of story for what it is - a brief human interest item. My first response was 'cool.' And I might even pick up a copy if I see them in the Exchange.

But for every hero story, there's a villain. And although Dr Doom as yet has no comment, the Washington Post has weighed in:

Either Marvel Comics is really hard up for readers and needs an ultra-dynamic, Pentagon-heavy publicity gimmick to boost its sales, or Rumsfeld is finally ready to admit that only a superhero can extricate us from Iraq.

The official explanation for this partnership (The Titanic Three? The Terrific Trio?) is this: Marvel Comics has created a custom "Support Our Troops" comic book starring the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four for "America Supports You," a Defense Department campaign. One million copies will be distributed to service members in the United States and overseas. But as any friend of the Avengers can tell you, the official explanation sometimes can't be trusted.

From the military's perspective the benefits of the collaboration are obvious. According to a Marvel executive, soldiers in Iraq have written letters to Marvel complaining they can't get enough comic books. It makes a certain sense: If you are a soldier in Sadr City it must be soothing to dream that Spider-Man will swing down from a nearby rooftop and ensnare your unseen attackers in his web.

Or that you yourself are endowed with some superpowers. How useful would it be to gulp down some of that Super-Soldier serum that makes Captain America a master of hand-to-hand combat, able to lift 800 pounds and duck at the speed of lightning? Or to be able to stretch yourself into a thin-walled square like Mr. Fantastic does, should the Green Zone fail you?

Hanna Rosin, author of the WaPo coverage, certainly is quick on the draw with her comic book inspired quips, and if I were involved in planning the next Spiderman movie I'd want her writing dialogue for the bad guy. But what seems more ironic to me from reading her "barbs" is that although he's not part of the "Marvel Universe" Superman's choice of alter ego, Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, now seems to be an even more effective way to disguise a hero. After all, who in this day would suspect a reporter of being in favor of simple truth, justice, or the American way?