 |  |
| [-] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
Prev | List | Random | Next |
Exapanding from a shorter entry at MilBlogs - an effort to explain what goes on during a military investigation.
A recent high-profile news story reveals that in spite of the popularity of the television program "JAG" and the movie "A Few Good Men", most Americans have little understanding of the military justice system. In the interest of providing the tip of the iceberg of knowledge, here's a brief primer.
Key documents defining the military justice system include the United States Constitution, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and the Manual for Courts Martial. If a crime has been committed (or suspected), an investigation is conducted under article 32 of the UCMJ. The purpose of that investigation - which normally concludes with a hearing, somewhat equivalent to a civilian grand jury investigation - is to determine the need for a court-martial (a military trial).
The Fifth Amendment constitutional right to grand jury indictment is expressly inapplicable to the Armed Forces. In its absence, Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (Section 832 of Title 10, United States Code), requires a thorough and impartial investigation of charges and specifications before they may be referred to a general court-martial (the most serious level of courts-martial). However, the accused may waive the Article 32 investigation requirement. The purpose of this pretrial investigation is to inquire into the truth of the matter set forth in the charges, to consider the form of the charges, and to secure information to determine what disposition should be made of the case in the interest of justice and discipline. The investigation also serves as a means of pretrial discovery for the accused and defense counsel in that copies of the criminal investigation and witness statements are provided and witnesses who testify may be cross-examined.Many news accounts of the investigation of Marines for possible crimes in Haditha declare that the investigation is complete - this is not true - and give the erroneous impression that guilt has been determined. But the outcome of the investigation (even if it includes full confessions from all parties) can only be that there is or is not sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial and determine the guilt or innocence of the accused.
I'm not making any comments in this specific case. But I do mean to point out that from a legal perspective, guilt or innocence is yet to be determined. This can only be done in an actual trial. This may come as a shock to those who've been following some very high profile statements made on this case - which is why no one with any concern for the rule of law has made any such statements.
Anyone who's been in service as long as I have has some experience with military justice. The military is society in microcosm, and if you work in an organization of several hundred people, chances are some are criminals. Some break laws unique to the military, others violate the established laws of society. Some go AWOL. Some beat their spouses. Some break speed limits. Some drive drunk. Some disobey orders. Some are thieves who bring government pens home from the office. Some commit murder. Some listen to pirated music or record football games without the express written consent of the National Football League. Some may even try to provide 'cover' for the crimes of others.
If this were true only of the military we'd have quite a story. But it isn't. Other than AWOL and orders that's pretty much like your neighborhood, believe it or not. But when military members commit violent crimes, the fact that they are military has a prominent place in the story.
Strangely, in the minds of many the fact that they've been investigated and prosecuted by the military seems like just another indicator of our brutality - they assume we need such a safeguard in our system because we are overly prone to such transgressions. (I won't go into all the details of why we need a separate justice system in this brief comment) So even in "doing the right thing" we are apt to be accused of additional violations of societal norms.
That prejudice will be fueled by the media narrative - which will in some way or another build on the pre-existing mindset that proclaims it's the system, and not this innocent young person, that is at fault, and simultaneously express outrage that the same system is prosecuting the case. Add in the defense's relatively broad latitude in public discussion of the case, offer low-hanging journalistic fruit like "cover-up" or "persecution of only the junior troops" and the stage is set for a long and painful experience.
In the background, in reality, less than perfect humans will do their best to judge their less than perfect fellows in a quest for an elusive concept called justice. Kudos to all who work within the military justice system for performing admirably under such adverse circumstances.
Over at Soldier's Dad's - graphic evidence of the progress of Iraqi troops, and violence that confronts them.
Over at MilBlogs - our first contest. Wynton Hall, coauthor of Home of the Brave: Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on Terror, wants to present a copy to Congressman John Murtha. And you have a chance to contribute the inscription.
So think what message you'd like to send the congressman along with this collection of stories of heroes, and write your entry in the comments section here.
The winner will also be receiving an autographed copy of the book. (If you've already got one, perhaps your congressman could use a copy too?)
Rusty Shackleford, the man who completed the de-bunking of the Atwar Bahjat video, reveals there was much more going on behind the scenes than we knew over the past couple weeks in that story.
...is Vietnam protestor Randy Rowland. Meet him here.
Someone you know needs a copy of this book: Home of the Brave : Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on Terror
Co-author (with the late Cap Weinberger) Wynton Hall has suggested an idea to provide a gift copy to a very needy individual - more on that later. (Probably over at MilBlogs)
Originally presented in three parts as the story developed, this review of the recent stunning events in the story of the 1985 murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem is compiled here as part of our Memorial Day 2006 Salute to the fallen. It serves as a grim reminder of the real duration of the war on "terror", and that even in times of "peace" those who serve do so at great risk.
The story remains unfinished. The task is not complete.
Navy Diver's Killer In Beirut (2005-12-21 19:31:56)
This story is developing faster than I can follow it:
Navy Diver's Killer Held In BeirutJeff Goldstein has background on the story here. Stay tuned for further developments.U.S., relatives slam Lebanese militant's release from German prison
The Lebanese killer of a U.S. Navy diver was in custody in Beirut yesterday, according to U.S. officials who decried his release from a German prison last week and pledged to bring him to the United States for trial.
Relatives of the victim -- Waldorf, Md., native Robert Dean Stethem -- said yesterday they were "devastated" to learn of the killer's release and urged the Bush administration to demand an explanation from Germany.
"Just to see him free slays us," said Richard Stethem, father of the seaman whose beaten body was thrown onto a Beirut runway in 1985.
Mohammad Ali Hamadi, a member of the Hezbollah guerrilla group, received a life sentence in Germany for hijacking a TWA plane to Beirut and fatally shooting Petty Officer 2nd Class Stethem, but was paroled after 18 years and freed on Thursday.
The United States, which has been seeking Hamadi's extradition since his 1987 capture in Frankfurt, privately expressed anger at his early release, but officials said they were determined to "get our hands on him."
"We are going to make every effort to see that he stands trial here in the United States," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "We are disappointed now that he has been released before the end of his full sentence."
In an unrelated amazing coincidence, a German hostage was freed in Iraq.
German hostage freed in Iraq isn't rushing homeHopefully she'll return "home" soon. It's not clear how many additional terrorists might be nearing the end of their life sentences in German prisons, should the need for more amazing coincidences arise.A 43-year-old German woman who was held hostage in Iraq for more than three weeks will not immediately return home to Germany, the foreign ministry said on Monday.
"She wants to spend a few days with her daughter protected from the public and so will probably not immediately return to Germany," a foreign ministry spokesman told a news conference.
"We assume however that she will leave Iraq in the near future," he said.
Archaeologist Susanne Osthoff, a convert to Islam who speaks fluent Arabic, disappeared on Nov. 25. She had spent more than a decade working on excavations in Iraq.
Terrorist Walks - For Now (2005-12-22 17:52:09)
The Washington Times:
U.S. officials yesterday said the killer of a U.S. Navy diver had been released from "temporary custody" in Lebanon but refused to rule out bringing him to the United States by force.In light of the the latest headlines - CIA prisons, "domestic" spying, etc, etc, ad nauseum, this is an interesting quote:The Lebanese government criticized Washington's request to hand over Mohammad Ali Hamadi, saying the militant already had served a prison sentence for the 1985 murder of Robert Dean Stethem of Waldorf, Md.
Hamadi, a member of the Hezbollah guerrilla group, was taken into custody upon returning to Lebanon after his release from a German prison Thursday. He had served 18 years for hijacking a TWA plane to Beirut and fatally shooting Petty Officer 2nd Class Stethem, who was 23 when he was killed.
"What I can assure anybody who's listening, including Mr. Hamadi, is that we will track him down, we will find him, and we will bring him to justice in the United States for what he's done," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.What would you think if he was "snatched"? What would Senator Jay Rockefeller say?"We will make every effort, working with the Lebanese authorities or whomever else, to see that he faces trial for the murder of Mr. Stethem," he said.
Here's what happened that day in 1985:
On June 15, 1985 Hezballah Shi'ites brutally beat, tortured and then killed 23 year old Robert Dean Stethem as he was being held hostage aboard TWA 847 commercial airliner. Robert was on his way home after a tour of duty with the US Navy in the Middle East. The terrorists had hijacked the plane with 153 passengers in Athens Greece forcing the pilot to fly twice to Algiers and twice to Beirut during the 17 day siege. The hostages were released after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.The Navy's guided missile destroyer USS Stethem is named for him."When the plane was at the Beirut airport in Lebanon, Petty Officer Stethem was singled out because he was in the US military. After many hours of being cruelly beaten, tortured, and finally killed by the terrorists, they threw his body from the plane in a final disgraceful, cowardly act. The wounds were so terrible that his body had to be identified by its fingerprints.
Throughout the ordeal, Robert Stethem did not yield, and instead encouraged his fellow passengers to endure by his example. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for heroism and bravery. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery."
Robert Stethem's brother Kenneth is a retired Navy Seal:
"Every time I look at the flag now and for the rest of my life,'' said Kenneth Stethem, "the red will represent the blood he spilled, the blue the beating and bruises he endured, and the white the purity and integrity he demonstrated in sacrificing his life.''More here.
I had been in the service for just a few months back then - this incident illustrated quite graphically to me the potential price.
Betrayal (2006-01-14 18:26:54)
Via email, from Katherine Curtis Stethem:
A travesty of justice occurred last month as Germany quietly released Mohammad Ali Hammadi, a Hezbollah terrorist convicted in the brutal murder of United States Navy Diver Robert Dean Stethem during the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847. Who can forget the words of pilot John Testrake, “They have just shot a passenger. I repeat: They have just shot a passenger.” Who can forget the image of a young American being shoved out of a plane onto the tarmac?Katherine Stethem is married to Patrick Stethem, Robert’s brother.The feeling of betrayal by the German government, our supposed ally, is overwhelming. Commutation of a convicted murderer’s sentence is bad enough, but to grant him safe passage back to his native country is unconscionable. For twenty years this family has had to live with the knowledge that the other three terrorists associated with the hijacking remain at large. Ali Atwa, Hassan Izz-Al-Din, and Imad Mugniyah have, with the assistance of rogue nations, consistently eluded capture.
Hammadi was arrested in 1987 in what was then West Germany for possession of liquid explosives in Frankfurt airport. Chancellor Kohl denied President Reagan’s requests for extradition. The United States was assured, however, of the strictest of sentences contingent upon conviction. The trial began in July of 1988. The West German government spent millions of dollars related to security for this trial. They certainly considered Hezbollah enough of a threat to spend an exorbitant amount of money for security. In May of 1989 Hammadi was found guilty of air piracy and the murder of Robert Stethem. He was also found guilty of possession of liquid explosives in West Germany. This man is a dangerous criminal. Germany has released an obvious threat back into the world. Hammadi is in his early 40’s; he has plenty of years left to wreak havoc. It’s beyond belief.
There is no reason that can be given that will suffice. There is no reason that can be given that will satisfy the question as to why such a threat to humanity would be released at all, not to mention prior to serving his full term. The release of Hammadi has denied Rob’s parents and siblings their sliver of peace in the knowledge that Rob’s brutal killer is, at the very least, incarcerated. The German government has turned a blind eye to the long standing agreement with the United States that should Hammadi be released an extradition would occur. Or, at the very least, the stage would be set, ally to ally, for a rendition.
Robert Stethem exhibited unfathomable courage and unwavering patriotism during his last hours. The Navy declared him a naval hero, evidenced by the guided missile destroyer that bears the name, USS STETHEM. The United States Congress declared Robert Stethem an American hero. When a man or a woman is formally declared a hero, that person becomes a symbol of their country; they belong to every citizen. Rob Stethem belongs to all of us. Germany’s release and Lebanon’s receipt of the murderer of an American hero is not just an insult, an affront, and a betrayal to the Stethem family. It is an insult, an affront, and a betrayal to every American.
The Hezbollah “party” is now seated in Lebanon’s parliament. Granted, the U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Lebanon, but what better way is there for Hezbollah to exhibit a desire to distance their “party” from extremists than to offer up Hammadi, a dangerous criminal, for extradition? This is an opportunity for Lebanon, the recipient of tens of millions of U.S. appropriations annually, to take a step toward peace and greater world safety. Through the offering of these tens of millions of dollars in aid every year the United States has consistently extended the hand of friendship to Lebanon. It’s time for Lebanon to return the favor. As President Bush stated regarding the war on terror, “If you are not with us, you are against us.” Should Lebanon continue to harbor Hezbollah terrorists, then Lebanon should be formally added to the State Department list of countries that sponsor terrorism and face the consequences.
Lebanon currently harbors other perpetrators of events of terror. The laundry list of such events include the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in which 220 marines and 21 other U.S. service members were killed, the murder of Col. Rich Higgins whose very date of death is uncertain but was declared dead in July of 1990, the murder of former chief CIA officer in Lebanon William F. Buckley, the abduction of American University in Lebanon professors including Terry Anderson, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia in which 19 Americans were killed, and the 1983 murders of some 80 U.S. intelligence officials. These atrocities were committed by Iranian-backed Lebanese extremists. Is this list destined to grow? Hammadi needs to be the straw that breaks this camel’s back.
The best case scenario, of course, would be for Lebanon to join the United States and our true allies in zero tolerance for terrorism. Given the unholy alliance, however, between Iran and Hezbollah, such realignment appears to be a pipe dream, at best. Hezbollah, though seated in Lebanon’s parliament, is but an extension of Iran. Terrorist mastermind and network coordinator Imad Mugniyah makes Osama Bin Ladin look like a hired gun. The world is becoming increasingly dangerous every day that we allow evil and hatred to run unchecked. What are the consequences for Lebanon? What are the consequences for Iran?
I don’t presume to know what the most expedient course of action would be. Should we punish Lebanon through sanctions or elimination of aid? Do we assist Lebanon in somehow wrenching them from the grip of Iran and Hezbollah? Is that even possible? I do know this: doing nothing at all is beyond unacceptable; it is morally reprehensible. Senator Barbara Milkulski of Maryland has drafted a letter to Secretary of State Rice requesting the institution of a formal diplomatic request to Lebanon to turn over the terrorists that are being harbored therein.
We are in support of this administration’s war on terror. With heavy hearts we support this administration’s efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. We grieve for the loss of over two thousand service members and are as equally pained by knowledge of Afghani and Iraqi civilian casualties. There has been so much pain. Too many lives have been lost, on both sides, to now lose momentum by allowing Hammadi to slip through the cracks. To storm two different countries with guns blazing, and then to acquiesce to the release of a walking prototype of terror would be duplicitous and absurd. This administration’s inaction and apparent apathy regarding this event would be a slap in the face not just to the Stethem family, but to the over two thousand service men and women who have given their lives in Afganistan and Iraq, the victims of September 11, 2001, and all of the grieving families and friends left behind.
Our family’s emotions are running high. Understandably, that gives way to impatience. Nevertheless, that is where we find ourselves. We are trusting in our government to exhibit the same fortitude and integrity regarding this issue as they have with other matters of terror. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card contacted Richard and Patricia Stethem, Robert’s parents, on Christmas Eve. On behalf of the administration, Card pledged attention and support regarding this matter. The Stethem family would like to maintain confidence in this administration. That being said, we hold our government to a high standard. We expect action.
Smash's post referenced below, and your gateway to many resulting entries from fellow MilBloggers, is here.
NEW YORK - A CBS News cameraman and soundman were killed and a correspondent was seriously injured Monday after their U.S. military convoy was struck by a car bomb in Iraq, the network said.No word yet on any of the soldiers they were accompanying.Veteran cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, were killed, said Kelli Edwards, a CBS News spokeswoman. Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was in critical condition at a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad after undergoing surgery.
<...>
The journalists had gotten out of their armored vehicle after a "curious incident," CBS said. A nearby car packed with explosives then detonated, the network said.Douglas and Brolan died at the scene. All three journalists were believed to have been wearing their protective gear at the time, CBS said.
If a camera was visible, they would have been irresistable targets for the terrorists.
Words from the fallen - not the most treasured things they left behind, but perhaps treasured greatly by those who were. Continuing our Memorial Day 2006 salute, the following originally appeared here in May, 2003 - our first tribute to those who gave all. From the earliest days of combat in Iraq, those who were among the first to fall still speak to us today.
Nothing I've ever written compares to this letter home from Marine Capt. Ryan A. Beaupre:
Mom & Dad,
Well if you are reading this, then things didn't go well for me over in Iraq. I'm sorry for the pain that I have caused you because of this. Please do not be upset with the Marine Corps, the military, the government, or the President. It was my choice to go into the military. The President and my higher commanders were just doing what they thought was best. Realize that I died doing something that I truly love, and for a purpose greater than myself. There is a paragraph that I read from time to time when I lose focus. "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." John Stewart Mill Now there is a little Marine Corps bravado in there, but I do believe in the basic premise. I want you to know that I could not have asked for better parents, or a better family. ..... I'll never forget that one of my friends in elementary school said that if he could trade places with one person, he'd trade places with me because of my parents and home life. I truly feel that I've had a blessed life thanks to you two. Please give my love to Alyse & Ryan, Kari & Matt & the girls, Chris & Brandy, and everyone else in the family.
All my love,
Ryan
Beaupre, 30, of Bloomington, Ill., was killed March 20 in a helicopter crash in Kuwait.
And this is from Marine Lance Cpl. Michael J. Williams' final letter home:
...I know I am here to do a job that not everyone can handle or they just choose not to do. I can't help but wonder what God has in store for me and for us. God knows I live to love and would die to give just one person a chance for life in a peaceful world. My weakness in life just might be my willingness to sacrifice my life for the good of this world we live in.I am not trying to make you worry about me, but only to know that I am here because I want to be here and that I believe God has given me the chance to help the people who have helped me, and also the people I have not even met yet. I love you Heather, and I want to spend my life with you, but God has called me to do this first. There is a phrase the Marine Corps adopted, it is "Semper Fi." It means "Always Faithful." To God, my country, my family I will always be faithful. You are now part of my family. When all of this is over, God will have revealed his plan for me being here ..... For now, I belong to my country, when I come back, I am yours.
And Marine Sgt. Michael E. Bitz wrote:
Dear Mom:
This is the largest battle group the US has set up since the Korean War. The only difference is that we have the means of doing much more damage today than we did back then. Honestly, between God, you and I, I would rather go back home with my wife and kids. Janina and all the other wives were able to come out to the beach and stay for three hours the night before we splashed our Assault Amphibious Vehicles out to the ship. ..... That last five minutes was the hardest of my life. We both were full of tears. It was easy for Joshua cause he was asleep at that time. But I am sure that he woke up the next morning wondering where Daddy was. ..... Well Mom, that is enough about me. I love you very much and now your young warrior is to be going now.
Love, your son,
Michael
Bitz, 31, of Ventura, Calif., and Williams, 31, of Yuma, Ariz., were killed March 23 in Nasiriyah by Iraqi soldiers who pretended to surrender, then opened fire when Marines approached.
Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address said: "...we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground-- The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here."
So what ground did these men hallow? Some sand? Your next tank of gas? No. Far from it. Freedom is the sacred ground hallowed by their blood. And it's yours and mine, to enjoy every day. To laugh, or cry, and hug our children. And hope that those miserable creatures that John Stuart Mill described may some day know of men and women better then themselves.
For those who can spare the time, you can get to know the people who died for you a little better here.
For those who can spare something more than time, please consider the following:
2005-05-30 22:22:21
Readers will note that in addition to new material, we're saluting fallen heroes here this weekend. I'll take a moment here to advise those who would be tempted to use the comments sections of those posts to air their political views: stop.
This site offers plenty of opportunities for such - and as long as the commenter refrains from personal attacks, foul language, various copyright/libel laws and excessive drain on bandwidth I'm quite liberal - and rather thick-skinned - about what I'll allow to stand here. (But I'm the ultimate authority.) Free speech is worth fighting for - that's not hyperbole with me, it's what I do.
But while most of the stories this weekend deal with those who died defending your free speech, these tributes are no more your platform to exercise that than are their tombstones appropriate canvasses for graffiti.
But I recognize there are those who can't understand why Fred Phelps and his crew aren't appreciated at funerals. Therefore for you folks I offer this space - it's where your comments belong. I assure you I'll delete them in a heartbeat from those other locations, while these I probably won't even read.
When the battle is over, when the 300 have gone..., then will Greece look to the Spartans, to see how they bear it. But who ladies, who will the Spartans look to? To you. To you and the other wives and mothers, sisters and daughters of the fallen. If they behold your hearts riven with grief, they too will break. And Greece will break with them. But if you bear up, then Sparta will stand and all Greece will stand behind her. Why have I nominated your men and you to bear up beneath this most terrible of trials, you and your sisters of the three hundred? Because you can.At the Castle, the story continues.
From Jules Crittenden (author of the entry below) comes this Memorial Day tribute in the Boston Herald. There is no finer place to be than Main Street, USA on days such as these. Thanks for taking me there, Jules.
Knowing I'm the sort of guy who appreciates such things, Jules adds this via email:
Addendum re King Philip's War. It was proportionately one of the bloodiest wars in American history. Out of a colonial New England population of about 50,000, about 600 were killed. That's 1 in 10 of the militia that were fielded, and more than 1 in 100 of the English population. I haven't seen numbers on the Indian side. By that time many of the colonists were second- and third- generation Americans, Both sides were fighting for their homes and their survival, but as in many wars, there were politics and misunderstandings in the runup. The two sides had been doing business for years and had even been friends. King Philip believed that his uncle was poisoned by the colonists, after he sickened and died after a visit to Marshfield, the town where I live just north of Plymouth. Marshfield, with a population of several hundred people, is recorded to have sent 27 militiamen, at least eight of whom died, about 2 in every hundred.And not forgotten.
London Times reporter Hala Jaber was the victim of a cruel hoax:
The Iraq Execution Video That Fooled MeWhen a reporter for a respected newspaper says they've seen a video execution of someone they know personally, there's little reason to believe they are wrong. But I don't completely fault the reporter - the video was low quality, and the power of suggestion is strong. I certainly believed Jaber's story, although when questions were raised about this story I was also the first to pass those doubts on. Rusty Shackleford was able to "complete the investigation" within hours of the appearance of the orginal Times account. Such is the strength of "new media".Hala Jaber, foreign reporter of the year for the past two years, explains how she was hoaxed over the death of a friend
THREE weeks ago in these pages, I reported that I had seen a video recording of a friend and colleague, Atwar Bahjat, one of Iraq’s top female journalists, having her throat cut and then being decapitated.
I was mistaken. It was a hoax, and I apologise to her family for the pain I have caused them and to the many readers who were distressed by what I wrote.
The video was not of Atwar but of a Nepalese male hostage decapitated two years ago. How could I have got it wrong?
As noted here previously, none of this diminishes the horror of either event - the killing of this man or the murder of Atwar Bahjat. But this is a perfect reminder that sometimes even the most convincing reports are simply wrong.
And there's a lesson to be learned in this statement:
Although the video came from a group that had been reliable in the past, the insurgent who sent it was new to me.Always consider your sources. Perhaps the truth is not their main concern?
(Previous entries on this story here and here)
JFK:
"They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat."Me: Thank you sir, for giving me an excuse to link this again. It was the most fun I ever had with my clothes on.
I'll be on Tammy Bruce's radio program at 4:30 Pacific. Topic: MilBlogs and Memorial Day.
Lex has been traveling. Something about that inspires a writer, and Lex could tell a rousing story of painting his house and you'd read it and be glad you did.
Scroll scroll scroll...
I can't urge you strongly enough to read and follow this amazing story, and to share it with everyone you know.
McQ:
Perhaps this will finally put this sad chapter to bed once and for all. I, through some old connections, have managed to come up with the unaltered DD214 of Jesse MacBeth. This isn't a joke or some funny little photoshop gig. It is the actual, real DD214 of one Jesse Adam Macbeth. The other he has posted has portions which have been crudely forged.That would be here.
...seeks clarity on Iraq war, earns scorn and condemnation from readers, part 974.
I'll be doing Michael Reagan's radio program today (Friday, May 26th) at 7:30 p.m. EST. Also joining me will be LTC Mark Mitchell (aka Chapter 12 in Home of the Brave: Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on TerrorAlso, Cal Thomas gives Home of the Brave
Because some may have missed it, and even if not it's worth reading again. (Who doesn't need a laugh on a Friday?)
... it's time for Major John's news from Afghanistan, where there seems to be more combat than in Iraq.
Given the much well-deserved drubbing Republicans are about to take in the opinion polls, it should surprise no one that they will soon attempt to change the subject. Three months ago Iraq seemed an unlikely choice for this "new focus" but no doubt any good image consultant would advise that to "shore up" the image you emphasize your strengths, and "hey, we're good on Iraq, let's beat that drum!"
Color me cynical, but I expect these debates - should they ever materialize - will result in some interesting sound bites - and little else. I predict most comments from both sides will appear a few months down the road in campaign ads, and they will predominantly be ads run by the opposition.
This plan may not work as Republican leadership expects. Given their loss of support from "the base" on so many other issues there's a great opportunity for the Dems to get Iraq "right", and they've got a fairly good voting record already should they adopt a "stay the course and do it right!" approach.
For the record, I'm all for such debate. My advice to both sides: Bring it on.
If you're out and about this weekend you might want to pick up a copy of Home of the Brave : Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on Terror
If it's not out with the new releases, you may want to ask the clerk where you can find it - and why. Soldier's mom had to, and didn't like the answer.
Book store owners might be ashamed of the contoversial nature of the subject matter. The book has been attacked in the main stream media.
But co-author (with the late Caspar Weinberger ) Wynton Hall isn't worried about attacks. He's blogging his experiences on the promotional tour over at MilBlogs, where he says:
The safest lectern in America is one flanked by SGT Marco Martinez, LTC Mark Mitchell, MSGT William Markham, and SGT Leigh Ann Hester. [Again, see pictures]By the way, you'll find some familiar names in the Amazon reader reviews
.
The modern Leftist is poorly educated, extremely gullible, and easily (mis)led.
Few other lessons are as starkly obvious as this conclusion from the Jesse MacBeth story. In such a situation it becomes difficult to discern who was the con man, who else was "in on it", and who were the conned, but clearly this week a large number of people were quite willingly duped by a third-rate phony. This is not the first time so many have been so taken in by so obvious a fraud. At some point they may wise up, but thus far like aging children at Christmas they "want to believe".
While the video has disappeared from it's original site, you can still read the words that introduced Jesse to the world:
There is a current story in the US press about a squad of Marines that are being investigated for "war crimes" after they murdered a whole Iraqi family one night a few months back. US officials are approaching this story as if this wasn't standard procedure, and are focusing on holding the individual Marines accountable. Jessie Macbeth blows the lid off that story.Actually US officials have had no comment on the Marine story as yet - to do so could prejudice the case. But those words quoted above have spread - to the pro-terrorist uruknet, the Smirking Chimp (don't laugh - it's a popular "liberal" site) and to countless smaller blogs like The Left Coaster.
At that last site in particular, the obvious connection was made to this story:
Former U.S. colonel John Murtha acknowledged in his Pentagon report Wednesday on the Haditha incident in Iraq that the U.S. Marines 'killed innocent civilians in cold blood'.Ironically - or perhaps not - the blogger chose to link the Xinhuanet version of the John Murtha story. From small blogs to Chinese news agencies, the stories spread globally.
Make no mistake about it - Jack Murtha's pronouncement of guilt in the case of the Marines (here's the al Jazeera coverage) set the stage for the viral spread and eager acclaim for Jesse MacBeth's video debut. This is not to say the congressman was involved in the con - he was quite busy accepting an award for his "courage" this week. But while they might not be "battle buddies" the symbiotic relationship between the ex-Marine and his admirers - as indicated in that original introduction to the MacBeth video fraud - is undeniable.
Nor would I imply the congressman is wrong. The honorable Mr Murtha was simply "getting ahead of the news cycle” as we say these days. In the military justice system investigations are conducted, preliminary hearings are held, and a decision is made whether a trial will follow. In the case of the Marines we are still in the investigation stage. But in courageously declaring their guilt at this point Mr Murtha has 1) perhaps duped those who weren’t paying attention into believing this is something he exposed, 2) ensured that the future news stories of the findings, the hearings, and the trials will include a mention of or quotes from congressman Jack Murtha, and 3) inspired a young Wendy's employee to make his mark on the world too.
So perhaps the congressman will comment on this:
Macbeth is a former US Army Ranger, who served in Iraq for 16 months before being wounded and ultimately discharged. His squad did night raids, using the same techniques the Marines are accused of, 4 or 5 times a night for many months. Macbeth, who is now a member of "Iraq Veterans Against the War," was interviewed for the public access TV show "Indymedia Presents."We now know that MacBeth was protesting coffee in Arizona at that time. And some of us knew at a glance that he was never a Ranger.In this interview Jessie describes killing children to make the parents talk. He describes one episode where his squad responded to the much-reported incident in Falluja where 4 US mercenaries were killed and hung from a bridge. Shortly after Iraqis killed the mercenaries, according to Macbeth, his squad of Rangers gunned down Iraqis praying inside a mosque on a holy day, then hung some of the bodies from rafters, and defaced the mosque with graffiti. Macbeth's hand held the smoking gun, and his testimony in this interview shows clearly that the Marines who are now in trouble for very similar actions are not the exception to US tactics in Iraq, but represent only one in many incidents of war crimes.
For some time I've been trying to come up with a more apt term for the now widely misused "liberal", and gullible seems an excellent choice. I fear they will get fooled again.
And again.
And again...
I'll be on with Ace and Jeff at 4:04 Eastern. (Listen online at the link - channel one.)
We'll be talking about Jeff's Victorian Doll collection, Mrs Greyhawk's secret recipe for the soup she takes to the wounded troops, MRE coffee, and time permitting Jesse MacBeth.
May be taking calls too.
Finally getting the recognition it deserves:
Working under the auspices of Soldiers' Angels, the charity has distributed nearly 500 laptops since August."Originally we wanted to set up laptop libraries," said Ms Bader. "But once we had given a laptop to a soldier, it was very hard to ask for it back."
So they have raised tens of thousands of dollars to buy the computers and software - recently clearing a waiting list of 30 wounded soldiers when they received an anonymous $19,500 donation.
"Around $750 provides so much healing to a wounded soldier," she explained. "It gets them involved, it helps them blog, it gets them into online courses."
It also helps with every day activities like paying bills, email, shopping, which is helpful if you're wheelchair bound, and many other thing that we take for granted.
Click below to make sure No Soldier Goes Unloved
(Via the Donovan)
Is he a war criminal, a murderer of innocent children in Iraq who deserves the death penalty?
Or a liar?
MilBlogs. That's why it's there.
LGF has more
From milblogger poet laureate Russ Vaughn:
Send this Old Warhorse to the BarnRuss' fellow Vietnam vet Bill Faith weighs in here.Marines like to say, "Once a Marine, always a Marine." Though not a Marine myself, this old ex-paratrooper is a staunch supporter of the Corps and believes John Murtha has shown himself to be the exception to that rule. His latest attack on our troops specifically targets the Corps and belies his adherence to the Corps' creed, "Semper Fidelis," always faithful.
Murtha has become the darling of the liberals; like John Kerry he's a Vietnam veteran who uses his military credentials to attack our troops and their mission. As a fellow Vietnam vet, I've been loathe to comment on Murtha because, unlike Kerry, this guy was the genuine article, an enlisted man who rose to the rank of full colonel while serving in extended combat operations.
For that, we owe him. However, we can only accept so much disparagement of our troops before we say, "Enough!" and retire this particular Marine once and for all. That time has come. Murtha has a worthy challenger for his too long held office in the fall elections, Diana Irey. Here is information about her and a means to contribute to her campaign:
I have just made a contribution to her campaign as I hope you will. We should all get on board and support her election efforts regardless of where we reside because Murtha's continuing diatribes against our troops and our country provide aid and comfort to our enemies, a situation that affects us all.
Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66
Via email:
Dear Greyhawk,That's great to hear. Mayor Najim was in Colorado Springs this weekend - visiting the home base of the 3rd ACR.Monday night (May 15) I had the honor of meeting Omar, the 19 yr old son of Mayor Najim of Talafar, and his US Army escort in the lobby of the Hyatt hotel in Washington DC.
My colleagues and I were in the hotel for a technical conference, and we fell into conversation with that jovial pair. They explained that they were in D.C. for a ceremony to honor Mayor Najim and the success of the city of Talafar in rooting out the insurgents there.
I was thrilled to find your blog entry through Google on Mayor Najim and read his stirring words to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment thanking them for their sacrifices and bravery.
I was already impressed with Omar and his Army escort (a major? not sure--he was in civvies), and it was clear that that US officer had nothing but deepest affection and admiration for Mayor Najim. Reading the letter on your blog absolutely convinces me of why. Thank you for posting it.
God bless America, and God save Iraq.
Ever since we first published Mayor Najim's letter to the troops of the 3rd ACR his city has been under attack by journalists (who either view it as an unrepeatable, isolated success or as a failure touted as success) and terrorists alike.
Shortly after it's appearance, Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks declared "Yes, the mayor gave me a copy of the letter when I had lunch with him. But one thing Americans have done in Iraq is take things too much at face value." And the Post never printed the story.
Over at the Daily Kos they declared the letter an outright fake, and heaped scorn on the wife of Col H.R. McMaster, who had vouched for it's authenticity. (Later, when additional proof was delivered, the Daily Kos post simply "disappeared".)
But to their great credit, the New York Post investigated the story, going straight to the source:
March 13, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - An Iraqi mayor says he was motivated to write a letter praising the performance of U.S. troops in his city because he believes the American public is not getting the full story about the "heroic" work they are doing.And ultimately President Bush discussed the letter in a speech on Iraq:In an exclusive telephone interview with The Post, Tal' Afar Mayor Najim Abdullah Abid al-Jibouri said he wants American policymakers and the public to know there is real progress taking place in Iraq.
"I'd like American citizens not to trust everything that is being said in the media because, unfortunately, most of the media is talking about negative things and about the problems," al-Jibouri said, speaking through a translator.
"They are not telling good stories about the U.S. Army's good job here in Iraq. I would like American citizens to concentrate on the pictures that show the children of Iraqis and how happy they feel when they see or meet American soldiers."
"I'd like American citizens not to trust everything that is being said in the media because, unfortunately, most of the media is talking about negative things and about the problems," al-Jibouri said, speaking through a translator.
"They are not telling good stories about the U.S. Army's good job here in Iraq. I would like American citizens to concentrate on the pictures that show the children of Iraqis and how happy they feel when they see or meet American soldiers."
One of the most eloquent is the Mayor of Tal Afar, a courageous Iraqi man named Najim. Mayor Najim arrived in the city in the midst of the al Qaeda occupation, and he knows exactly what our troops have helped accomplish. He calls our men and women in uniform "lion-hearts," and in a letter to the troopers of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, he spoke of a friendship sealed in blood and sacrifice. As Mayor Najim had this to say to the families of our fallen: "To the families of those who have given their holy blood for our land, we all bow to you in reverence and to the souls of your loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. They are not dead, but alive, and their souls [are] hovering around us every second of every minute. They will not be forgotten for giving their precious lives. They have sacrificed that which is most valuable. We see them in the smile of every child, and in every flower growing in this land. Let America, their families, and the world be proud of their sacrifice for humanity and life." America is proud of that sacrifice, and we're proud to have allies like Mayor Najim on our side in the fight for freedom.The speech enraged journalists and terrorists more so than the original letter. A Newsweek headline asking "Is This a Strategy For Success? Washington's good news in Iraq isn't quite what it seems" was typical of the coverage. No one said the battle for Tall Afar was over - but if you pretend they did so you can argue convincingly that it's not true. For although terrorist activity has been generally ineffective there, journalists aren't the only ones outraged by the courage demonstrated by Mayor Najim:
But though it doesn't grab headlines like terrorist attacks do, progress goes on:At least 17 civilians, including women and children, were killed late today by a suicide truck bombing in Tal Afar, a northwestern Iraqi city, according to President Jalal Talabani's Kurdish political party.Which is exactly why one bomb can be so effective there. That bit about what the President said in March was probably included in the al Qaeda press release announcing the blast.At least 35 others, most of whom were women and children, were wounded after a white pickup truck carrying flour exploded about 8:30 p.m. in the city's marketplace, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said on its Arabic-language Web site. The perpetrators have not been identified.
The violence came in a city that President George W. Bush has cited as an example of progress in fighting rebels in Iraq.
TAL AFAR, Iraq, May 2, 2006 — Located high above the city, in what is known as “The Castle,” Iraqi police are receiving much needed assistance in their fight against terrorism. Nestled safely behind the wall of this castle is the Tal Afar Joint Communications Center, a joint environment where Iraqi police, Iraqi army and coalition forces work together to monitor the city’s police frequencies as well as their power and utilities systems....at the cost of lives of Iraqis and Americans alike. And this weekend - with little media fanfare - that bond of freedom was acknowledged in Colorado:“A little less than a year ago, it was not safe to walk down the street. Now you look out and there are kids playing,” said Tal Afar Mayor Najim through an interpreter. “One of the main reasons for this is the [Joint Communications Center].”
<...>
Both coalition advisors and Iraqi officials agree there is still a lot of work to do and the city is not quite where it needs to be, but it is getting closer everyday.Najim noted that in a recent speech, President Bush said the city of Tal Afar is a model for success that coalition and Iraqi leaders will follow in other cities throughout Iraq. Since the president’s comments though, Najif said terrorists have attacked the city several times, but he feels that because of the Joint Communications Center, they were better prepared to react to those attacks and are in a better position to stop further aggression.
“We knew as soon as we heard President Bush’s speech that the terrorists would try to make an example of our city,” Najim said, “but with the [Joint Communications Center] we were able to respond quickly and we have made this city safe again for our children.”
COLORADO SPRINGS - An Iraqi mayor stood before troops lined up on the lawn at Fort Carson on Friday morning and said only two words in English.I wish I could say "the end" - but the battle goes on.But those two words brought the crowd to its feet.
"Thank you."
(Those interested in the strategy, tactics, etc. are encouraged to visit here.)
The Sunnis are doing it. Perhaps the Americans and Brits will soon be too:
Gen John Abizaid, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, is due to present a comprehensive "drawdown" plan to Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, as early as this week.But...Troop levels in Iraq were reduced from 138,000 after Iraqi parliamentary elections in December, and Gen John Casey said last month that his "general timeline" for a large scale reduction by the end of this year was still on track.
American commanders fear that a politically-driven timetable to pull out troops could undermine stability and provide the insurgents with a chance to strengthen their grip, hastening a Vietnam-style defeat for US forces.
There's always a possiblity that grass roots "support the troops" campaigns can be twisted by agenda-driven reporters into stories of failure on the part of the US military.
The most disgusting example of this I've ever seen comes from Bob Kerr, a columnist for The Providence Journal.
The Iraq war has been the war fought on the cheap _ not enough body armor, not enough armor on vehicles, not enough night vision equipment.His column, ditributed nationwide by Scripps Howard News Service, details the horrors of US Marines begging for food from the Iraqi citizens. Unfortunately, Kerr chose to cite an actual Marine as the source of the story.It has been the war in which packages from back home have had to fill some crucial needs.
Now, we have chow call at the Greenwood Credit Union in Warwick, R.I. It's the latest in home-front intervention. It's partially in response to the unthinkable image of U.S. Marines approaching Iraqi citizens and asking for food because they do not have enough.
And that Marine has responded.
ALANBAR PROVINCE, IRAQ--REGARDING Bob Kerr’s May 2 column, “U.S. Marines Go Hungry,” the article was about me and my Marine unit, deployed to Iraq. Several statements need to be cleared up, because they were taken out of context and are inaccurate.There's more at both links. Cpl Andoscia debunks every claim Kerr made, then concludes on this particularly important note to the American people:Kerr refers to “chow call at the Greenwood Credit Union, in Warwick (R.I.),” which was set up “in response to the unthinkable image of U.S. Marines’ approaching Iraqi citizens and asking for food because they do not have enough.”
We have more than enough food. We receive two hot meals a day, which our cooks prepare for us, and a Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) for lunch. In addition, the cooks keep a never-ending supply of Power Bars, fruit, cake and Gatorade in the chow hall that we built, to which we have 24/7 access.
The column states: “ ‘I got a letter,’ says Karen (Boucher-Andoscia, the mother of Nicholas R. Andoscia). ‘And he had called me before that. He said, ‘Send lots of tuna.’ ”
I did, in fact, ask for tuna — but not because of an alleged lack of food here. Tuna is a good snack between meals, and a taste of home. Many Marines write home to their loved ones and ask them to send a box or two a month filled with snacks. This is not because they are going hungry; it’s because they may be in the mood for a certain treat at times.
I hope that they realize that Marines appreciate every care package sent over, which greatly feeds our morale. We are over here because we choose to be; our mission comes first, and everything else comes second. That having been said, we are well-fed, well-trained, well-equipped and, thanks to the American people, well-supported.Kerr responds that he "heard from Marines from all over the country who took issue with the column and assured me that Andoscia would be contacted about it. Apparently he was."
Gutless slimer.
Yes, I'm still blogging, but I haven't been able to tear myself away from Milblogs.
Whose idea was that?
Representative John "Jack" Murtha:
Rep. John Murtha, an influential Pennsylvania lawmaker and outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, said today Marines had “killed innocent civilians in cold blood” after allegedly responding to a roadside bomb ambush that killed a Marine during a patrol in Haditha, Iraq, Nov. 19.Hopefully at some point they will also get the benefit of a trial.
Our present predicament with Iran revolves around the Twelfth Imam, or Hidden Imam, believed by Shiite Muslims to be the last in the line of spiritual/political rulers. The Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, ascended to his position upon the death of his father, the Eleventh Imam, in 874 AD. Al-Madha at that time was five years old. Shortly after the funeral of his father, al-Mahdi disappeared, believed by Shiites to have been hidden by Allah until his return at some future point. The easiest way for westerners to think of the Hidden Imam is as the Islamic Messiah, Except the Islamic Messiah is to come at the hour of greatest peril for Muslims, come to battle the forces of evil and unite the entire world in an Islamic Caliphate.Read the rest.Okay, let’s call it a difference of opinion. Armageddon under any other name… However, Ahmadinejad belongs to a small sect of Shiites, called Hojjatieh, who believe that they can hasten the arrival of the Hidden Imam.. Even more threatening for the west, the Hojjatieh believe that it is chaos that will induce the Hidden Imam to reveal himself. They have a spiritual investment in destruction. The worse things get — the worse believers can make things get — the more likely it is for the Hidden Imam to return. None of which would matter much except that Ahmadinejad is adamant about the right of Iran to develop its own nuclear program.
When Khomeini took power after the revolution in 1979, he banned the group, since they opposed the creation of an Islamic state, believing that the peace and tranquility of the new Iran would delay the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam.
I'm torn between wishing he would blog more and wanting him to finish his next book
Over at MilBlogs, an interesting discussion of Network-Centric Warfare. (See the comments there too.)
The fusion of the latest corporate management buzzwords to the latest techno geekspeak to the world of military purpose (acronyms and all) creates a language that few can speak (though many can fake) and a different sort of battlefield where no sane man would tread. (That being the planning sessions for the whole thing.)
For good or bad, if the concept were ever fully realized there will be virtually slim chance of the US military functioning (combat-wise) in close-quarters with "coalition partners". (Integration of the various components of the US military into a 'total force' is difficult enough without the concern for technology sharing with "allies".) Conceivably, the added edge in combat might render the presence of other forces on the battlefield superflous anyway (friend and foe alike) in all but a political sense.
It could be argued the political edge gained is probably not worth the effort either. It seemed like a fine idea to build a coalition back in '90, but that was driven as much by the desire to avoid the "Crusader" tag as it was from concern about the martial power of Saddam's armed forces. So in return for $7 billion in debt relief, Egypt sent three goatherds and a camel. Who could blame them? Meanwhile, down in Saudi, some guy named Osama bin Laden started shouting about Crusades, and Arab leaders who were subservient to the decadent West...
So if the goal was to avoid the Crusader tag, we lost - big time, long before round two of the ground war in 2003. But not surprisingly, in the lead-up to the re-invasion of Iraq, "some" chose to insist on the whole coalition-building exercise - then promptly heaped scorn on the coalition that did form.
But truly I've digressed. In reality, the very real possibility is that future technological advances will limit allies in a combat "coalition" with the United States (with very few exceptions) to support roles. That's actually been the case for years, but given the expected advances it will be interesting to see just how much longer we will pretend it's not.
If John Kerry had his way, all the troops would be home now.
The 2004 United States presidential election would have a different result this year, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 48 per cent of respondents would support Democrat John Kerry, while 41 per cent would vote for Republican George W. Bush.That's a drop from 51% who voted for Bush when it mattered, but no change in the result for Kerry.
Blogging here will return to normal (whatever that is) soon. Been spending spare moments getting MilBlogs rolling.
Home of the Brave : Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on Terror
Armed Liberal has lunch with Janice Karpinski, but doesn't talk about the food.
(I'm sure you recognize the name of the commanding general of the torture squad at Abu Ghraib.)
…Victor Davis Hanson’s patriotism.
A must read, but this must be read here:
Yet even this government’s propaganda efforts ring hallow, as we noticed with the recently released film footage purportedly showing Adolph Hitler incompetently handling a Colt .45 revolver. In fact, such a weapon, little known in Germany, is hard to load and shoot, especially the early model that the Fuhrer was shown trying to fire. To be fair, his apparent unease is not necessarily proof that Mr. Hitler was unfamiliar with firearms, much less fraudulent in his demonstration of military experience.
Last chance to put a bid in for Fire and Ice.
The artist is our darling Soldiers' Angel, Holly Aho. Holly is a professional visual artist whose paintings have been sold for thousands of dollars. Some of you may remember her art she donated to raise funds for Soldiers' Angel's organizationin the past. She is one of our biggest supporters of our troops and wounded vets, and a mother of 4 with a 5th on the way. Now she is in need of our support.
The painting is on gallery wrapped canvas and is a one of a kind. Simply beautiful. Hurry you don't want to miss this one, bidding ends today! Bid is up to $550.00
And while you're there, wish her a belated Happy Mother's Day.
Watching this for the second time I realize it's far too good to be just an update.
Just go. Enjoy.
Update: Background from the LA Times:
Two Indiana natives stationed in Ramadi with the Army National Guard have made the Middle East response to the Mid-West response to the West Coast response to the SNL viral-hit rap video "Lazy Sunday."General store? Never heard of him.Dressed in fatigues, staff sergeants Matt Wright and Josh Dobbs twirl machine guns and rap about insurgents, their GPS system, the general store on the army base and Jell-o.
I've eaten at the Pizza King though. Not the one in Muncie, the one in Indy.
This video of troops in Ramadi comes highly recommended by some folks who should know.
Specifically, some troops who were wounded there. Mrs G and MaryAnn spent the day yesterday visiting them. MaryAnn sends this email today:
This happened to come on last night while I was there with those two Currahees that had just come in.It's certainly not sugar-coated.
Although it wasn't their particular unit, they were both completely transfixed. The one kept elbowing me and saying, "see, it's just like that", and other stuff about the weapons, tactics, etc.
If they say it's the real thing, I guess it is. And it's well done; I love the music.
Somewhat related: Soldiers’ Angels Ship 5,000th Backpack To Help Wounded Soldiers In Overseas Hospital
Update: Via comments, don't miss this Ramadi video.
Around the blogosphere I think you'll see numerous examples of this quiz. Apparently, according to the original author, the closer you adhere to a rigid orthodoxy expressed therein, the more liberal you are.
The reality is that Rush Limbaugh has duped you into believing you are a liberal.
If you grasp the absurdity of it without further explanation, you are an actual Liberal. I doubt we can reclaim the description any time soon though, Rush's influence has pretty much ensured that.
Update: The overlooked part of Atrios post is that "liberals" also are required to participate in the daily two minutes hate. He even found a target who could be related to Emmanuel Goldstein.
I know, it's a joke. But I don't think Atrios caught that extra depth to it. Consciously, that is.
John McCain recalls his youth:
"It's a pity there wasn't a blogosphere then. I would have felt much at home in the medium."He'd have been a milblogger, of course.
His leadup to that line suggests he considers himself much too old and wise for such endeavors today.
It's been one week since the London Times published the story of the murder of Atwar Bahjat. Within hours some serious questions were raised about the accuracy of the report, questions to which the Times has offered no response. The only additional information published thus far on their web site is a letter from a reader expressing outrage over the brutal murder. It would seem the Times is standing by their original story.
I've seen no conclusive evidence either way. It's possible the Times does have a video of the murder that no one else has seen, and that it is very similar to another killing in another video. It's also possible the Times was the victim of a cruel hoax, and that the reporter who knew Atwar Bahjat was duped by the power of suggestion into believing the man killed in a low-quality video was her.
It's also possible that other motivations are guiding their actions - and that they are perpetrating or advancing the hoax. Since the venerable Times offers no words at all on the topic, we are left to draw our own conclusions.
This is the truth (for many of us all the truth we need): Atwar Bahjat is dead. She was kidnapped and murdered. The man in the widely circulated video is dead, he was kidnapped and murdered.
The Times story has undeniably raised the public profile of both killings, perhaps of all such killings worldwide. But not surprisingly, the response of said public has been mixed.
At least, not surprisingly if you've been paying attention. A few weeks ago "some" rushed to support and defend videotaped remarks made by journalist Jill Carroll condemning the US invasion of Iraq, and attacked those who suggested she may not have been well treated by her captors. If they felt any sense of shame upon learning she made those comments with a gun to her head and later renounced them they chose not to acknowledge it.
More recently the New York Times and the Associated Press felt compelled to rush to the defense of Abu Musab al Zarqawi (perhaps the man responsible for Carroll's kidnapping and Bahjat's murder) when the US released captured video outtakes from his latest propaganda film.
And last week several commenters here and elsewhere (including the London Times) were quick to cite the US as bearing the ultimate guilt for the butchering of whoever that was in that grisly video.
If you're one of those folks you've probably deeply rationalized your behavior already. By all means, feel free to share that in the comments below. But if you cheered when first hearing Jill Carroll's "confession", and agree that Zarqawi's incompetence with weapons should in no way diminish his iconic status, or feel that after all it was you and me is the answer to the question "who killed Atwar Bahjat?" then you might want to take a few precious moments for some internal self inspection to determine exactly where you stand in the war on terror.
To Zarqawi, the guy who wrote Jill Carroll's script, and that guy with the knife in that other video the answer is obvious.
Today's Washington Post has a front page article on the experiences of troops returning home from Iraq. A few excerpts:
Civilians. After the war, they seemed so different, no matter how many war movies or how much CNN they had watched.The whole thing is well worth a read.Sometimes, they'd ask something so crazy there just wasn't any way to respond, such as when a friend asked Monika Dyrcakz, "Did you go clubbing in Iraq?"
"Some people have no idea," she said.
Sometimes they said: I support the troops but not the war. Or: Do you think we should be over there?
Which is such a dumb question, Tanner, the Army captain, would think. Soldiers don't make those decisions. They do what they're told. They bitch and moan, sure. But when the call comes, they pack their bags and go, knowing they may not come back.
But Tanner doesn't say all that. Instead, he responds this way: "Oh, so you were over there? Because you said, ' We .' Because, I mean, I know I was over there."
<...>
Jon Powers came home and "swore I would never go back to Iraq until they build a Disney World in Baghdad." But then he thought about how he and his soldiers used to deliver toys and clothing to the orphanage. He thought about how the children had given them something back: a respite from the war. The soldiers would take off their gear, put down their weapons and join the children's soccer matches.Not long after coming home, the former Army captain knew his work in Iraq was not finished. So he helped start a nonprofit, War Kids Relief, that helps Iraqi children. That's his new career.
<...>
Greg Seely came home on leave in October 2004 with 200 fellow soldiers. They were walking through the Atlanta airport, when, one by one, travelers dropped their bags and started clapping. Soon there was a spontaneous crescendo. The applause of strangers. A moment he will never forget."The media talked so much about how the American people don't support us," he said. "But they do."
The story also offers this description of the nation to which they return:
It is not a United States unified behind the war effort, such as in World War II. There's no rationing, no sacrifice, no Rosie the Riveter urging, "We Can Do it!" Nor is it the country that protested Vietnam and derided many vets as baby killers.I've only been in the US once since 2002 - so I'll have to accept that as accurate. Other than the reporter's unsupported claim of bitterness on the part of the vets, I hope it is. Americans able to go about their daily lives in peace is exactly what we are fighting for. Sounds like we've achieved victory on that front.The United States that Iraq veterans are returning to is relatively indifferent, many said. One that without fear of a draft seems more interested in the progression of "American Idol" than the bombings in Baghdad. Sure, there are the homecoming parades, the yellow-ribbon bumper stickers, the pats on the back -- they continue as troops arrive back home.
But for many vets, those moments of gratitude were short-lived or limited to close friends and family. Soon they were joined by bitter impressions of a society that seems to forget that it is living through the country's largest combat operation in more than 30 years.
Update: Read this too.
When I first saw the headline above in the Early Bird I actually thought the story might be from New York City. My second guess was Baghdad.
SEOUL -- Thousands rallied on a downtown Seoul boulevard yesterday to protest a plan to relocate American military bases, the largest anti-U.S. demonstration in the South Korean capital this year.In perspective, the population of Seoul is about ten million, meaning .06 (point zero six) percent were outraged enough to hit the streets. (Assuming all the protestors were from Seoul.)According to police estimates, about 6,000 people rallied to protest moving the Seoul-based American military headquarters and some other bases to Pyeongtaek, about 40 miles south of the capital.
The relocation has been a main target of anti-U.S. activists here. They claim the project is part of a U.S. scheme to position its troops where they can be deployed quickly to possible conflicts outside the Korean Peninsula.
But GI Korea (who has been following this closely for obvious reasons) says:
This is just a warm up for the hatefest that is sure to come later this weekend in Pyeongtaek.Similar things were ongoing when I was stationed there in the late 80s/early 90s. But back then the protesters were demanding that the troops move out of Seoul, which is part of the reason we are doing so today.
Less than fond memories: My son was in pre-school at the time. Besides fire drills they had tear gas drills, in which they learned how to respond in the event the prevailing winds blew any such riot control agents into the building. (Hit the floor, cover mouth and nose with handerkerchief, low crawl out.)
Moms, of course, had to make sure the kids always brought their hankies to school.
Truth or fiction? The LA Times says
Tokyo Firm To Publish Saddam Hussein's NovelCan't imagine he had that kind of time on his hands back then.A Japanese publisher said his company would become the first to put out a novel by deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, supposedly completed the day before the U.S. invasion.
The book, to be titled "Devil's Dance" in Japan, will be published by the Tokyo-based Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co.
On 12 May 2006, Military Spouse Day, we pay special tribute to our Army spouses and honor their magnificent commitment to our soldiers and the Army. Without their patriotism, sacrifices, and support, we could not sustain this high-quality army, an army that is the best it has ever been. Although we enlist soldiers, we retain families, and the army spouse’s support is a critical factor in a soldier’s decision to reenlist. We recognize that the army spouse’s answer to his or her own call to duty has been instrumental in sustaining all components of our Army—Active, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve.- The Honorable Francis J. Harvey, Secretary of the Army; General Peter J. Schoomaker, Chief of Staffa nd Sergeant major Kenneth O. Preston, Sergeant Major of the Army
It's not just Army.
On a hill in San Diego
Stands a monument to our losses;
A tribute to our wartime dead
Like many other crosses.Against a tranquil azure sky,
This cross has borne the years,
It’s spreading shadow falling
Upon graves that bear our tears.For decades no one’s questioned
This pale tribute to our slain,
Until angry Libs at ACLU,
Decided to complain;And seek a federal order
From robed fools in Sodom town,
That this offensive Christian symbol
Must forthwith be torn down.To everything’s a season,
A time for birth and dying,
A time, too, for love of country
To fall victim to Liberal lying;A time for those of any faith,
Those heartfelt, frank believers,
To be ridiculed and rejected
By hollow harsh deceivers;But there is a time as well
When truth must sure prevail,
When our hearts sense basic truth,
Causing fools like these to fail.And stand we must against these fools,
Or it will be our gravest loss,
If these fools succeed when they demand,
Mr. Bush, tear down that cross.The Left’s has ne’er forgotten
how Ronald Reagan brought their fall
When with his words he changed the world
by tearing down their wall.
More on the tearing down of Mount Soledad cross, a war memorial, here and here.
... on CNN.
Jim Mayer, the Vietnam veteran and friend of Fran O'Brien's co-owner Hal Koster who encouraged Hal to begin the free dinners for wounded troops was on CNN Last Night. (Video)
It doesn't shed a very good light on the Hilton.
Andi reports:
While the email campaign didn't save the restaurant, it did let them know veterans and troops care a lot about this issue. The top three executives had to shut down their email addresses ... I'm sure costing their IT department some bucks and unnecessary headaches. Plus, a PR firm had to [be] involved. They don't seem too successful in squashing the negative press.It's really nice when you can use your blog as a way to do something good and help those who deserve to be helped. I don't think milbloggers are finished with this story. We still need to help Hal and Marty get on their feet. I should learn more tomorrow night about how we can do that [after attending the Fran's Friday Dinner hosted in another DC hotel]. Thanks to everyone for all you've done already.
Just over a week ago, Fran O'Brien's was forced to move their belongings out of the Capital Hilton. The Hilton still "doesn't get it." Their tin ear is becoming thicker by the day.
<...>
Meanwhile, TV and print reporters continue to be interested in this story. Today alone, there were four inquiries. Fran's may be out, but this story isn't going away, especially when the troops who were affected by this "business decision" continue to speak out.
The boycott of Hilton is really starting to grow .
Afghanistan Reports:
Major John's weekly news from Afghanistan is here....
When I saw this article, I was cheered - not only because the women need the assistance, and that I used to cover Kapisa Province in my work for TF Eagle, but that Governor Murad looks to be as good as I hoped.Heh. It seems the Afghan Parliament's lower house has learned how to grease the squeaky wheels. Actually that might be a bit harsh - I saw how little the people that these increases are targeted for had to live on...
Michael Yon Reports the Long Road Ahead
Road projects in Afghanistan are improving lives and providing jobs. Many of the engineers and managers are from countries such as Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines, but the majority of laborers are local.
<...>
There is deep distrust between Afghans and Pakistanis, yet the Afghans seem to hold Indians in high-regard, and when an Indian was murdered here recently, there was uproar in both India and Afghanistan. The Afghans who are not actively trying to kill Americans seem to hold us in high regard. Many Afghans – just like many Iraqis, especially the Kurds – asked me to tell the American people “thank you” and “please don’t leave yet.”
With troop rotations lately I've notice the new guys are saying "IT IS HOT!!
Their voices are not unheard. We have an Angels' call to get some Cool Scarfs to our troops:
I would like to get cool scarf to every hero on our list, THE TEMPERATURES IN IRAQ ARE WELL OVER 100 DEGREES, and will stay that way till September. The cooling scarf is a great way to beat the heat.What is a "cool scarf"? The "cooling" comes from polymer crystals that hold many times their weight in water. By soaking the cooling scarf in cool water for 15 minutes, the crystals become "energized" and become a comfortable, portable evaporative cooler that can lower body temperature by several degrees.
Many sports activities can raise body temperature to an uncomfortable level. But imagine wearing a full combat uniform and carrying up to 60 pounds of gear and body armor in 100 degree heat (or more). This is not only uncomfortable, but can cause a dangerous decrease in reaction time and eventual heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
We have over 12,000 heroes on this fourth deployment.Soldiers' Angels has negotiated a bulk price for the scarves of $1.20 plus shipping of $1.12, totalling about $2.50 ea.
So in order to do this we need 25,000 dollars, not a small feat but these scarves help to keep their brains cool and offers comfort to our heroes.
Please help me to help them.
Love,
Patti
You can donate through Paypal at the main Soliders' Angels site
("Make a Donation" button is on the upper left).
or send a check to:
Soldiers Angels
1150 N. Loop 1604 W., Suite 108-493
San Antonio, TX 78248
Hopefully I didn't wait too long to repost this entry from last year...
Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the eighth installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).
Don't Blunder into Mother's Day
Dear Warrior . . .
Here's my Mother's Day message to all our uniformed men in Iraq. A warning, actually.
First the situation: Your wife, the mother of your children, asks you via letter, e-mail or phone, "What are you going to get me for Mother's Day?"
Next the advice: Do not blunder with your reply, as in, "What are you talking about? You're not my mother."
I know a guy who said that. I'm not allowed to be his friend anymore.
If you ever do feel an urge to say, "You're not my mother," tell it to the first sergeant. Never speak the phrase to the mother of your children. Got it?
Good, good. Now a personal war story. On my second Vietnam tour, I set out for Montana and arrived home in the dead of winter.
Sometime after midnight the temperature dropped to 40 below, a 125-degree swing from the 85 of Vietnam. This was January 14, 1972. You could look it up.
The reason I know the date so well is because it's the birth date of our third child.
The hometown doc knew I was back from Vietnam on leave, so he discharged my wife after a day in the hospital. This I remember with great joy.
All else is a blur of memory. We had children. Three, I think. Yes, three, as I recall, all under the age of four, by their birth records.
The two older children seemed nice enough. Happy, I think, even boisterous. And busy, very busy. Clingy, too. I remember the three-year-old and the one-year-old were very attached to their parents. In the sense that an octopus gets attached to a dead mackeral.
The youngest, the newborn, the infant was on a timer. You could set your watch by her diaper changes and feedings and crankiness--if you could open your eyes long enough to see the face of your watch. I think her cycle was about 20 minutes, yes, a feeding every 20 minutes.
Toward the end of my leave, I remember waking from a nightmare at 3 a.m. or so, the infant in my lap, an empty bottle still in her mouth. Both of us were soaked, and it wasn't spilt milk.
I propped this glorious child on my shoulder and coaxed a burp from her. It was a wet and wild sound I did not hear again until my son was 14, the age where he and his soccer team would each eat four burgers and drink two super-sized colas and fill the air with the sounds of bull elephants trumpeting their dominance over each other.
I changed my infant daughter's diaper and hugged her to me, worried. Worried that my wife, just days from now, would have sole care of these three children who had worn down both of us in only a week of leave.
I got to go back to Vietnam, where I could regain consciousness and get a night's sleep. She had to remain in Montana, locked in winter, locked inside that apartment.
I don't know how she did it. She herself certainly doesn't remember how--another of those blurs of memory. But, years later, the one time I said the words, "You're not my mother," something snapped in her. She made me very afraid.
And I felt ashamed that I said those words. Ashamed that I gave so little thought to her role.
Think about it. When you're away, you're not the only one in your family serving our country. Your wife, the mother of your children, is serving it as well by clearing the decks so you can serve better. She gets so little thanks for that role. She deserves better.
The least you can do is remember her on Mother's Day. And the worst? Well, now you know.
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.
(Original post 2005-05-04 20:10:19)
Preserving democracy - and the Silene Hawaiiensis. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports on the Army's efforts to rescue endangered plants in Hawaii:
In the 11 years since the Army's Natural Resource Program began, none of the endangered plants has become extinct, and one -- Silene hawaiiensis -- is thriving and moving toward being removed from the threatened list.That should put a stop to those "overstretched Army" stories once and for all.
Rebuild Iraq 2006 Opens In AmmanAMMAN (AP)--Even as violence rages on in Iraq, a conference billed as the largest-ever aimed at rebuilding the country opened yesterday in Jordan, with participants saying Iraq offers plenty of business opportunities.
The weeklong “Rebuild Iraq 2006” drew some 20,000 businesspeople and more than 1,000 exhibitors from 50 countries – all in search of ways to enter the Iraqi market or increase their business there.
Iraqi Industry Minister Osama Abdulaziz Al Najafi said that his new government’s “first priority is to achieve security, but at the same time it must push forward its economy in order to combat terrorism.”
In keeping with the conference’s theme, the US Agency for International Development announced an initiative combining public and private sector expertise to develop Iraq’s information technology and communications industries.
US-based tech giants, including Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Oracle and Intel have joined forces with Iraqi government, business and educational organisations to promote the use of information systems and improve technical skills in Iraq.
USAID’s Mission Director in Iraq, Dawn Liberi, hailed the alliance, saying the projects “will help improve schools, create jobs and enhance productivity.”
She added that Iraqi women and children will especially benefit from training programmes that include improved university curricula for computer programmers, low-cost Internet access for schools and community centers and an online employment database in Arabic. But organisers and participants alike said this third annual exhibition made a subtle switch this year from public reconstruction projects to private sector development.
“It’s saying we’re looking to export our products. We are looking to find partners. We’re looking to sell and develop through the private sector,” said Bill Crawford, who works in the commercial department at the US Embassy in Baghdad.
His colleague, commercial counselor Andrew Wylegala, said 100 Iraqi firms came to Amman to do “targeted business matchmaking” not just with the 40 participating US companies, but also with numerous other participants, including firms from Turkey and Jordan – the largest contingents present – covering a range of business from engineering to education.
Even the governor of the restive Sunni Anbar province was in attendance, along with 100 entrepreneurs from Fallujah.
US officials said they were also encouraging private sector development in Iraq’s provinces – a new initiative by the US State and Defense Departments.
Democrats Are Urged To Voice Dissent On IraqSen. Russell Feingold, a potential antiwar candidate in the 2008 presidential field, urged fellow Democrats yesterday to show more backbone in challenging President Bush on Iraq.
"We must get out of our political foxholes and be willing to clearly and specifically point out what a strategic error the Iraq invasion has been," Feingold (Wis.) told a National Press Club audience.
Dorrance Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, writes a letter to the Chicago Tribune:
This is regarding Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page’s “Blaming messenger is for losers” (Commentary, April 5).Maybe so.The column claims that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “recently praised the propaganda effort in a newspaper column as a clever use of ‘nontraditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people.’”
This is a misrepresentation of Secretary Rumsfeld’s statement.
The secretary said:
“The U.S. military command, working closely with the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy, has sought nontraditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of [an] aggressive campaign of disinformation. Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate -- for example, the allegations of someone in the military hiring a contractor, and the contractor allegedly paying someone to print a story -- a true story.”
The secretary of defense neither “praised” this particular program nor referred to it as “clever.”
Instead he cited it as an example of how the department’s communications efforts are granted “no tolerance for innovation” from the press, noting that any attempt to try something new is met with an “explosion of critical press stories.”
Page’s explosion of criticism directed toward the secretary for even discussing the topic is a perfect example of this unfortunate phenomenon, and thus proves Rumsfeld’s original point.
Meanwhile, CENTCOM released full translations of those captured al Qaeda documents. Excerpt:
The policy followed by the brothers in Baghdad is a media oriented policy without a clear comprehensive plan to capture an area or an enemy center. Other word, the significance of the strategy of their work is to show in the media that the American and the government do not control the situation and there is resistance against them. This policy dragged us to the type of operations that are attracted to the media, and we go to the streets from time to time for more possible noisy operations which follow the same direction.Powerline notes: The Associated Press has a reasonably balanced account of the captured documents, except that--oddly--it omits any mention of the documents' references to al Qaeda's focus on the American press.
In a related story, Best of the Web observes this coverage from Tall Afar:
At least 17 civilians, including women and children, were killed late today by a suicide truck bombing in Tal Afar, a northwestern Iraqi city, according to President Jalal Talabani's Kurdish political party.Which is exactly why one bomb can be so effective there. That bit about what the President said in March was probably included in the al Qaeda press release announcing the blast.At least 35 others, most of whom were women and children, were wounded after a white pickup truck carrying flour exploded about 8:30 p.m. in the city's marketplace, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said on its Arabic-language Web site. The perpetrators have not been identified.
The violence came in a city that President George W. Bush has cited as an example of progress in fighting rebels in Iraq.
In closing, it's time to revisit our old pal, former Saddam army "strongman" Colonel Watban Jassam:
Tips On How To Beat US From Insurgents' ConsultantThat could never work...To gauge US public opinion, he has become an avid watcher of satellite news channels, and never misses the White House press briefings
<...>
To win the war against the US military and Badr, Colonel Jassam advises the Omariyun to follow two short-term goals - to cement mujahideen control over the Ramadi area, and to stage operations that will increase pressure on US opinion to withdraw troops.
<...>
To achieve their second goal, turning Americans against the war, the mujahideen need to shape their operations "to support anti- war sentiment in the west", he says.
Hugh Hewitt talks information warfare with Donald Rumsfeld:
HH: Are the pressers like the sort you just concluded, ten minute interviews and an occasional Sunday show, sufficient for you and the military to get across not only the good news, but the bad news, the challenges, the strategy? Are you using last war techniques in the new war?Let me interrupt here to point out that thing about Bush is Hitler was me being sarcastic. It was a joke. Now back to our story:DR: To a certain extent, we are still using the old 20th century techniques. And we're trying to figure them out and adjust them, and adapt them to the 21st Century. But it's painfully slow. People get set in their ways, and it's a difficult thing to do. We do provide, the Pentagon does, an enormous amount of information. There's someone briefing at the Pentagon, somewhere in the world, every day. And there are people providing information to people in a variety of different ways: through our website, through the Pentagon channel, through radio and television and print media. But it is still basically, I would guess, 80% 20th Century, and maybe 20% 21st Century.
HH: You've got people like Col. Austin Bay down in Austin, Texas, you've got Mudville Gazette, a bunch of bloggers, you've got Specialist Claude Flowers down at Centcom. They're all fighting the new media battle. Are any of those inside the E-ring, close to the control of actually the message machine?
DR: I don't know how to answer that. First of all, the truth is, and it's embarrassing to confess this, that I suppose I work about 13 hours a day. And I'll bet you that 12 1/2, or 12 3/4 of those 13 hours a day, I spend doing things instead of thinking about how I communicate, and what the message ought to be, and fighting the enemy on their level, against their media committees, and their active efforts at disinformation. And I probably ought to spend, and we here in the Department, ought to spend more time thinking about those messages, and how we can counteract the lies, because they are enormously successful. They can put out a lie, and then we're asked the question is that true. And we can know we think it's not true, but we have to be honest, and we have to be accurate. So we then have to spend two or three days trying to find out what the truth is, before we can rebut the lie. Well, the lie's been around the world 15 times by the time we even get our boots on.Immediately after that, Hugh stays on-topic with Austin Bay:HH: Right, quoting Twain. Specialist Flowers, for example, sent me your foreign relations speech, your Council on Foreign Relations speech from a few weeks ago, where you talk about this new media thing. And I want to press you on this, Mr. Secretary. Do any of the generals care? Or do they just view that as the press office will handle the American public's information, and we've got an enemy to kill?
DR: Oh, I think it's uneven. You know, when you're coming up through your career, these folks are not necessarily trained extensively in communications. They're trained in war fighting and specialities, which is understandable. Second, people who stick their head up in the media get bitten. They get hurt. And they say something that comes out a different way, or someone prints it a way that's different than they actually said it. And then somebody says to them, well what in the world? Why'd you say that? And then they have to say well, I didn't say that. They printed it wrong. And then you're on the defense. And so people, you know, they become conditioned, and learn that it's not necessarily career enhancing to stick your head up and be the one out in front on the spearpoint talking, because you've got a whole array of people who are just waiting to pop you every time you open your mouth.
AB: All right, look. Milblog conference on April 22, 2006, there in D.C. You gave it a big plug on the internet, I did, and I was the master of ceremonies. Do you know how many Pentagon bigwigs showed up at that?As they should be - because the New York Times reaches a lot of people (though most are looking for sports scores, want ads, comics, and those new number puzzle thingies.)HH: Zero?
AB: Zero. The two highest ranking officer, Col. David Hunt, who ran a panel, and retired Col. Army Reserve, Austin Bay, who was sitting up there, standing up there on stage every so often. There were a smattering of regulars from the Marines, Army. I think there was an Air Force guy there that showed up. Lower ranking. No vis at all. Why? They're more concerned about what the New York Times is going to print.
But speaking of reach, here are some traffic graphs from Alexa.com:
I think I could do better, but I'm just a guy with a couple hours to spare for this a day. (But fortunately with a wife that does more!) There are milblogs with more traffic than Mudville, too. Imagine the total reach of all milblogs...
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Five nations seen by rights groups as among the world's worst abusers were elected along with 39 other countries to the United Nations' new Human Rights Council in a first round of voting on Tuesday.Elsewhere:Russia, China, Cuba, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, identified by New York-based Human Rights Watch as unworthy of membership on the new U.N. body, were among those winning seats.
GENEVA--In the second day of an exchange with its human rights critics, the United States on Monday denied giving light punishments to service members and intelligence officers who carried out torture since the Sept. 11 attacks.While the smaller number proves that Bush is Hitler for not doing enough, the larger number proves that Bush is Hitler because it's such a large number.A delegation of American officials speaking before a UN panel on torture argued that the United States was acting to ensure that it adhered to its treaty obligations to prevent torture of prisoners despite the problems at prisons such as Abu Ghraib, Iraq. It characterized those cases as isolated.
"We recognize much of the world does hold the United States to a high standard," said a State Department legal adviser, John Bellinger, who led the delegation. "Without question, our record has improved."
The statements of the delegation, composed of 25 high-level officials, were in contrast to previous statements by Bush administration officials that international law should not constrain U.S. forces.
The delegation responded to charges ranging from an American failure to prosecute officers and intelligence officials, to the transfer of prisoners to countries with poor human rights records. The delegation was also asked about the fate of foreign terrorism suspects supposedly held in CIA-run prisons.
Charles Stimpson, a deputy assistant secretary for prisoner affairs at the Defense Department, said U.S. courts had court-martialed 103 American servicemen and intelligence officers, leading to 19 convictions with jail terms of a year or more.
That was in contrast to figures quoted by the panel last week, citing human rights groups, of 54 court-martials, with 10 jail terms of a year or more.
Via email:
Greetings,The following is my translation of news in Iraq’s May 10h addition of Almada.
“Over 200 Iraqi tribal leaders to sign an honor compact rejecting terrorism.
“Over 200 Iraqi tribal leaders will meet in Baghdad on Wednesday may 10th to sign an honor compact to denounce and reject terrorism and sectarian violence.
“Tribal leaders announced they will meet in Khademiah Baghdad on Wednesday May 10th at a conference. This conference will result in an honor compact obliging Iraqi tribes to cooperate amongst each other and the authorities to protect their members from terrorist attacks, and to help with national unity and condemning sectarian violence.
The ‘Foundation for Humanitarian Dialogue’ sponsored and organized the conference. Husien Ismail Alsadar who uses Khademiah as his center of activities and enjoys the backing and blessing of Alsistani is the foundation’s president. Some Sheiks and tribal leaders said they hope that a committee can be formed to represent Iraqi tribes in the “National accord conference” on June 10th along with the honor compact signed by tribal leaders.
A foundation speaker said that the conference will be attended by heads of Tribes from all of Iraq, Arab Kurd and Turkmen tribes. The speaker added that the conference will also discus political, security, and social issues in the country. We hope to come up with ideas and plans to cooperate in stopping terrorist activities affecting the citizens. He pointed out that the honor compact to fight terrorism and denounce sectarian violence would be the main results of this conference.
Haider's comments,
This news adds to the mounting evidence that Iraqis are united, they are united in their quest for defeating terrorists who hope to destroy the fledgling democracy, they are united in fighting sectarianism (which was encouraged and fostered by the Baathists) and united in wanting their democracy to succeed and thrive. No evidence of civil war, no evidence of splitting up the country and no evidence in giving in to the terrorist. This is a very important conference of all the leading tribes in Iraq. Arab, Kurd, Turkmen, Muslim, Christian, Shiite & Sunni all getting together with a common goal. Defeating terrorism, affirm national unity and condemning sectarianism. All working together and promising to help and protect each other. This is the greatest defeat to Zarqawi and his group as well as the remaining Baathists.
Regards
Haider Ajina
McKinleyville CA
For those who are wondering, no update yet from the London Times on the Atwar Bahjat story.
Most murders in Iraq will be forever "unsloved" - but a new mystery now surrounds this case:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 8 — The killing of Fern Holland, a human rights worker from Oklahoma, remains unsolved and as mysterious as it was when her body was found riddled with bullets on a desolate stretch of road near one of Iraq's southern holy cities in March 2004.If you've been reading milblogs for a while, you'll recognize the name Bob Zangas. He was a blogger, though sadly it appears his site is no longer available.Now, federal investigators are grappling with a second mystery: what happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash issued by American authorities to Ms. Holland and Robert J. Zangas, a press officer who died in the same attack near Karbala, in the days before their deaths?
The US troops - all of them.
But it's not what you think, as the Christian Science Monitor explains:
PORK OR PRIORITY? Some senators raised the cost of the emergency spending bill for hurricane relief and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by adding funding for, among other things, AmeriCorps, shrimp boats, and levee improvements in California. Supporters insist they are vital investments. Critics call them pork projects.But as the story notes, "troops in Iraq and Afghanistan start running out of money at the end of the month."To avoid a presidential veto, House and Senate negotiators must lop at least $14 billion off the Senate's version of a $108.9 billion emergency spending bill that critics say is larded with pork.
If they fail, President Bush promises to issue the first veto of his presidency, and 35 Republican senators have already signed a pledge to sustain it. House majority leader John Boehner says the House will not accept a bill that spends "one dollar more than the president asked for. Period."
And that's apparently why Trent Lott thinks he'll get his pork:
"The president needs that defense money, and he doesn't need it in July," says Sen. Trent Lott (R) of Mississippi, who with top Senate appropriator Thad Cochran (R) of Mississippi, led the drive to keep the member- sponsored projects in the bill.He's got hostages, you see.
Pork: shrink.
Heard this news yet?
President Bush yesterday diverted five ships to send immediate U.S. food aid to Sudan and publicly called out Canada, Japan and European nations, telling them to live up to their food-aid promises to the embattled nation.If not, it's probably because the guy who sent the ships wasn't named George Clooney."The United States has met our commitment, but other major donors have not come through," Mr. Bush said, adding that the World Food Program was forced last month to cut in half its rations to the African nation because those countries did not meet their commitments.
We haven't done nothing (done a damn site more than these folks, in fact.)
We should do more.
But this one apparently happened when the bomb makers who were using it as a safe place to build IEDs had a little acccident:
RELEASE UPDATE - BOMBMAKERS IN MOSQUE COMPOUND BLOW THEMSELVES UPInshallah.
Release Date: 5/8/2006
Release Number: 06-05-08PJ
Description: BAGHDAD, Iraq – An explosion occurred in a building within the Sheik Abdel Kader mosque compound at approximately 6 p.m. May 7 in Rusafa, a neighborhood of east Baghdad.According to the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Division, the bomb exploded, causing a fire.
The Iraqi fire department responded and began suppressing the fire when firefighters noticed an improvised explosive device inside the mosque.
The Iraqi police explosive ordinance disposal team arrived at the mosque to clear the holy site of bombs and bomb making materials. The team dismantled six IEDs.
Initial reports indicate that two terrorists were wounded and another one was killed in the blast.
Iraqi army officials are engaging local leaders to gain more information about the mosque and activities occurring there.
We first heard of Patrick Dollard via Marine Warrant Officer Michael Fay's blog Fire and Ice. Fay's description of the man:
He has found his long lost tribe, the Marines, and he's gone unapologetically native. A former Hollywood talent agent and producer, he's now living out a Hunter S. Thompsonesqute complete immersion into the Heart of Darkness I now see the light who are these incredible human beings called Marines experience. Other than a usually unshaved mug, lack of rank insignia and weapon, he is indistinguishable from the jarheads he follows everywhere with camera shouldered and jaunty cigarette dangling from his lip. But don't let this description lead you to believe that Dollard is not the genuine article or that he's going off half-cocked with nary a plan. This is an articulate film maker on a mission. There is method in his madness and hopefully in the very near future the fruits of his labor will grace our television screens.Although not the first, Pollard is one of a woefully small handful of independent folks who've gone to Iraq "in search of the real story". He's paid for his efforts, in more ways than one. On returning to America, Dollard contributed to the blog Hollywood Interrupted. They introduced him here:
Last year, Pat Dollard took leave from his family and ditched a lucrative career as a Hollywood agent representing the likes of Syriana producer Steven Soderbergh. Then he hit the front lines in Iraq, armed only with a camcorder and the vision to direct and produce his documentary series “Young Americans” from an unpopular pro-military/pro-war viewpoint.Pollard's work at the blog was (ahem) uncomplimentary of his fellow journalists.On February 18, Dollard was wounded while on combat patrol with U.S. Marines in the city of Ramadi. He suffered a concussion, neck injuries, shrapnel wounds, possibly a broken leg, and severe muscle and ligament damage in the IED strike on his Humvee. Two of the young Marines with him on combat patrol were not so lucky. They were both killed in the attack.
The journalists I've met here, have, to a man, all been Democrats, and all have railed against the Bush administration and have, with much hope in their eyes, predicted failure for America in Iraq. The media simply cannot resist the temptation to test their power in the service of a domestic political agenda. The whole country is inflamed one way or another over this war. Only a drooling moron would argue that the members of the media are somehow exclusively immune to those passions.Today, one of those media outlets got their chance to strike back. The NY Times profiles Dollard - in what may be the most vicious personal attack on a non-public figure that I've ever seen a "legitimate" newspaper attempt. As we've demonstrated repeatedly, no (American) newspaper treats American GIs with more contempt than the New York Times does, never missing an opportunity to fabricate or twist a quote to make it fit their editorial purpose. But if you think that's bad, wait to you see the treatment they give a guy who tried to tell their real stories - and had the nerve to go to the front lines to do it.It's all very simple. Christiane Amanpour, Cindy Sheehan, CNN, The New York Times, Michael Moore, Newsweek, CBS et. al. are now, in huge measure, directly responsible for the ongoing death toll of Americans in Iraq. Everyone here in Iraq, the Islamic world at large, and most especially the Jihadist Movement's leadership, follow the American media closely, in order to monitor the American people's headspace, primarily with regard to whether or not we will continue the fight on to the establishment of a successful democratic, capitalistic, and modernized society here, or whether we will run in self-imposed defeat.
First a gleeful explanation that Dollard's movie may never be seen:
Whether Mr. Dollard's planned documentary will ever see the light of day is far from certain. When he first went to Iraq with a camera for three months in early 2005, Mr. Soderbergh and George Clooney were involved with the project, and Mr. Dollard said he was negotiating with HBO and Mark Cuban, owner of the cable network HDNet.But perhaps most damaging (in the eyes of a starstruck Times' reporter) "Mr. Clooney said he was no longer involved."Earlier this year, however, HBO found the scenes it was shown too unconventional for its use, according to a senior HBO executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid further embarrassing Mr. Dollard.
A virtually unknown filmmaker’s difficulty bringing his vision to reality is hardly news - it happens many times a day. But this one gets special attention in the New York Times, along with apparently critical details provided by an ex wife
Alicia Allain, one of Mr. Dollard's four ex-wives, said: "He'd rather deal with a fantasy than a reality. Reality is very difficult."And while missing any substantial details of his trip to Iraq, the Times found many details "fit to print": "He has not been in touch with his mother in months", "He forgets there are other people besides him", experienced "several years of failed business ventures", and a "lifelong struggle against drug addiction" "...who during periods of sobriety attended Alcoholics Anonymous".
And perhaps most damning of all,
"From the time I knew him, he was a hard-core right-wing hawk, of the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz variety," said Jeremy Barber, a United Talent Agency agent who was once president of the production and management company Catch 23 and hired Mr. Dollard. In liberal Hollywood, Mr. Dollard proudly drove a Hummer with the license plate "US Wins."Or perhaps it's just this quote from Dollard himself that the folks who buy ink by the barrel can't abide:
"Liberals must begin to understand that the removal of their oppressors, often necessarily by violence, is the only hope for the protection of the world's future."For whatever reason, the NY Times seems awfully afraid of this guy.
From Cliff May, to those who believe they're safe because they aren't in Iraq:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born and raised a Muslim in Somalia. She moved to the Netherlands where she rose from a cleaning woman to a member of parliament. She has been an outspoken critic of Militant Islamism. In response, Militant Islamists have let her know that what happened to Theo van Gogh could happen to her.Well, sure, but that's Europe. It's not like those kinds of things would be tolerated in America, right?Van Gogh, you may recall, was a Dutch film director. He made a movie based on a script by Hirsi Ali. The movie dealt with violence against women in Muslim societies, a topic some Muslims found offensive.
On Nov. 2, 2004 van Gogh was murdered. His assailant, Mohammed Bouyeri, was a 26-year-old Dutch citizen born in Amsterdam. Bouyeri shot van Gogh eight times. Then he slit van Gogh's throat with a butcher's knife. Then he stabbed him in the chest. Two knives were left in the body; one pinned to the corpse a five-page manifesto railing against the West, Jews and Hirsi Ali.
Since then, the Dutch government has provided Hirsi Ali with police protection. Her neighbors in the apartment complex where she lives are nonetheless concerned -- for themselves. They have sued the government to get her evicted.
A court has now ordered her to move out, ruling that the neighbors have been made to feel unsafe which violates their human rights.
Besides, this global jihad stuff is just a Rethuglican scare tactic.
Boston Globe columnist James Carroll calls it The Flag That Refuses To Go Away . He sees it as some kind of "Republican/Rambo" thing - and he wishes it would go away.
I wish the empty place was filled.
P.S.: Rambo was an insult to Vietnam veterans.
An update to the story of the murder of Atwar Bahjat. Questions have been raised concerning the identity of the victim in the video. According to this wikipedia entry photos of Atwar Bahjat's body prove she was not decapitated. The photos linked from the entry, while gruesome, are not conclusive.
What's known at this time: Atwar Bahjat was kidnapped and murdered while covering the Samarra bombing. The author of the London Times' story has been with the paper for some time, and is self-identified as "a friend of Bahjat who had worked with her on a variety of tough assignments". According to that Times story, the paper received a video of an execution that concludes with a close-up of the victim's face. The author has seen the video. The video is "cell phone" quality. The author says the victim is Atwar Bahjat.
Update: The Jawa report says the Times has been hoaxed. From the evidence, if this is the same video the Times has the reporter must have very poor eyesight, or memory. The victim is a dark haired man who looks nothing like Atwar Bahjat.
It should be noted the Times has not yet commented on the situation.
And it should be obvious that none of this diminishes the horror of either event - the killing of this man or the murder of Atwar Bahjat.
More: A comment from Jawa's Rusty Shackleford at Protein Wisdom:
Ansar al-Sunna (the guys doing the beheading) were once part of an organization called ‘Ansar al-Islam. These guys were around BEFORE the invasion and were busy fighting the secular Kurds before we bombed them into oblivion. Oh, and they were funded by ‘friends’ in Afghanistan (OBL). They also had a truce with Saddam since their main enemies were secular Kurds. They also once had a fellow by the name of Abu Musab al Zarqawi as one of their operatives before the invasion.Still no word from the London Times. It's late here in Europe - probably won't happen tonight.
Dawn Patrol will be up soon, Mom duties took precedence.
Let me give a quick shout of congrats to the War Tapes for winning Best International Documentary Feature award at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Saturday. A documentary filmed by National Guard soldiers in Iraq.
Congrats on a job well done.
Hey, they're just like us...:
This year, about 20 Americans -- a record number, even as international tensions mount over Iran's nuclear program -- dribbled, dunked and danced before cheering Iranian fans, attracted by some of the best salaries outside the National Basketball Association.well, okay, almost just like us...Former NBA players such as Joseph, who briefly played for the Denver Nuggets and the Toronto Raptors during the 2000-01 season, can command more than $20,000 a month here, local sports officials said.
Sixteen teams make up the Super League, Iran's version of the NBA. Wealthy corporations and government ministries sponsor the teams; two of the most successful belong to the Defense Ministry. Each team is allowed two foreign players, and coaches prefer Americans.
''They're tall and big and can catch all the rebounds and make all the shots. They rescue the teams,'' said Mahin Gorgi, an Iranian journalist who covers basketball for the local sports paper Goal.
Gorgi said the American players delight Iranian fans with their tattoos, victory dances and shouts of ''Yeah, baby!'' whenever they score.
''They're tall and big and can catch all the rebounds and make all the shots. They rescue the teams,'' said Mahin Gorgi, an Iranian journalist who covers basketball for the local sports paper Goal.
Gorgi said the American players delight Iranian fans with their tattoos, victory dances and shouts of ''Yeah, baby!'' whenever they score.
Gorgi, who has become friends with several of the players she covers, said she didn't have the heart to translate for her American pals when the soldier-dominated crowd at one recent game broke into chants warning the United States: ``Nuclear energy is our absolute right!''
The Washington Times updates us on Iraqi Army Captain Furat:
Iraqi Army Capt. Furat surveys the therapy gym as he stands erect for the first time in nearly four months, every inch as tall as he was before insurgents' bullets left his legs lifeless on Christmas Day.The terrorist's apologists who've crawled out from under their rocks to applaud the butchering of journalist Atwar Bahjat would do well to read our previous coverage of this man.All around him, paralyzed patients are toiling, striving for their own personal victories.
"Where are you traveling to right now in your mind?" asks Basle Roberts, a therapy technician at the Shepherd Center.
"I wish that I could stand without this equipment," Capt. Furat says, resting on a frame used in physical therapy. The rigid metal device is a relief from sitting or lying down, restful positions that aren't always relaxing anymore.
Every 30 minutes, he must shift positions to prevent potentially fatal pressure sores from developing on his paralyzed lower body, one of the many daily battles the former platoon leader is learning to deal with solo.
"It is just me on this mission," says Capt. Furat, 28, whose family is 7,000 miles away and still at risk from insurgents for his decision to fight in the nascent Iraqi army.
Power to the people.
Power to the people.
Kerry accuses administration of suppressing war dissentAnd then, just before the brownshirts arrived, the Senator fled to his wife's mansion.Sen. John Kerry accused the Bush administration yesterday of stirring up a "spirit of intolerance" to suppress dissent over the war in Iraq.
Kerry said the administration is targeting opponents of the Iraq war in much the same way he was attacked for protesting failed policies in Vietnam in the 1970s.
"Dismissing dissent is not only wrong but dangerous when America's leadership is unwilling to admit mistakes, unwilling to engage in honest discussion and unwilling to hold itself accountable for the consequences of decisions made without genuine disclosure or genuine debate," said Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. "The habit of labeling dissenters as unpatriotic has become the common currency of the politicians currently running our country," he said.
Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, spoke at Grinnell College. During his visit to Iowa he repeated his call for a deadline for American troops to be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year.
Blogging hasn't worked, so here are a few proven methods:
1. Invent something useful that creates or fills a need.
2. Write a book
BERLIN -- The German government paid more than $10 million in ransom to win the freedom of two men held hostage in Iraq for 99 days, public television station ARD reported yesterday, quoting security sources.Option three should be attractive to those who lack literary skills, inventive minds, or time.German weekly magazine Der Spiegel also reported a ransom had been paid for the two engineers brought home last week, putting it at several million dollars more than the sum paid for Susanne Osthoff, a German woman held in Iraq last year.
Reports at the time quoted unidentified diplomats as saying the government paid a ransom of $5 million to Miss Osthoff's captors.
Berlin has refused to comment on whether it did so for Miss Osthoff or the two kidnapped men from Leipzig, Rene Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, whose release was announced Tuesday.
Note: Questions have been raised concerning the identity of the victim in the video described in this story. See update below.
Warning: The following contains a graphic description of a brutal murder - probably exceeding what you imagine one human being could do to another. However, it is typical of the work of Islamic terrorists. Read on only if you want a bit of insight into the nature of the enemy in this global war. If not, please skip to the final paragraph.
Shortly after the bombing of the Samarra shrine, an Iraqi journalist covering the aftermath was kidnapped and murdered. Her story was mentioned briefly in the western media, but was covered extensively in the Middle East.
Now a video of the brutal murder has surfaced, apparently made with a mobile phone with video capability.
Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with her cameraman and sound man.Other gruesome details from a family friend: She had nine drill holes in her right arm and 10 in her left, he said. The drill had also been applied to her legs, her navel and her right eye.We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.
Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.
By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.
It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.
A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.
Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.
Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left.
Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera.
The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30.
Her funeral procession was attacked twice:
On Saturday two attacks targeted the funeral procession for Atwar Bahjat, the well-known Al Arabiya correspondent killed with two crew members Wednesday while reporting on the violence engulfing Samarra, where the Al-Askariya "Golden" Mosque was bombed.Like many Iraqis, Atwar Bahjat was half-Shi’ite, half-Sunni, and completely opposed to the violence destroying her country. As the London Times story notes, we may never know who her killers were.Two police officers were killed and five others wounded, as the cortege, led and guarded by Iraqi police and soldiers, entered the western Baghdad neighborhood of Abu Ghraib, Iraqi Emergency Police told CNN.
<...>
The incident happened near the home of Harith Al-Dari, the head of the Muslim Scholars Association, and along a road that splits, linking Baghdad with Syria and Jordan.When the shots rang out, security officers ordered people in the convoy to abandon their vehicles and hide behind nearby houses.
Later, as the procession resumed toward the cemetery, a roadside bomb exploded, causing an unknown number of casualties, including deaths, said al-Nasery.
Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.The video was given to the Times by a "source linked to the Sunni insurgency" but that source claimed it had been found on the body of a Shi’ite Badr Brigade member killed during fighting in Baghdad. While Bahjat had received death threats from Sunnis, the Times says the Shiite Badr Brigade acted as protection for her family during the funeral. If so, they might have been the targets of the attack near the home of the head of the Association of Muslim Scholars - that group maintains "close ties" with the "Sunni resistance".
Regardless of which side in the conflict killed her (and I have my own thoughts on that - in the eyes of her killers her greatest crime was most likely being a woman outside of a kitchen) the London Times reporter can't resist a mild apology for their act:
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.In truth, it represents a depth of depravity achieved over centuries. From the description, her killers hadn't just conceived or improvised their method of execution on the spot - they seem to have been well practiced. But such is the nature of the enemy in this war, and perhaps this is their most sacred and well honed knowledge: if a brutality can be inflicted that exceeds all human ability to comprehend, the humans will find a way to deny it.
Or excuse it.
Or simply look the other way.
Others who aren't looking away:
And those trackbacks below...
Update 8 May 1550 UTC:: Questions have been raised concerning the identity of the victim in the video described in this story. According to this wikipedia entry photos of Atwar Bahjat's body prove she was not decapitated. The photos linked from the entry, while gruesome, are not conclusive.
What's known at this time: Atwar Bahjat was kidnapped and murdered while covering the Samarra bombing. The author of the London Times' story has been with the paper for some time, and is self-identified as "a friend of Bahjat who had worked with her on a variety of tough assignments". According to that Times story, the paper received a video of an execution that concludes with a close-up of the victim's face. The author has seen the video. The video is "cell phone" quality. The author says the victim is Atwar Bahjat.
More (8 May 1930 UTC) Update: The Jawa report says the Times has been hoaxed. From the evidence, if this is the same video the Times has the reporter must have very poor eyesight, or memory. The victim is a dark haired man who looks nothing like Atwar Bahjat.
It should be noted the Times has not yet commented on the situation.
And it should be obvious that none of this diminishes the horror of either event - the killing of this man or the murder of Atwar Bahjat.
More: A comment from Jawa's Rusty Shackleford at Protein Wisdom:
Ansar al-Sunna (the guys doing the beheading) were once part of an organization called ‘Ansar al-Islam. These guys were around BEFORE the invasion and were busy fighting the secular Kurds before we bombed them into oblivion. Oh, and they were funded by ‘friends’ in Afghanistan (OBL). They also had a truce with Saddam since their main enemies were secular Kurds. They also once had a fellow by the name of Abu Musab al Zarqawi as one of their operatives before the invasion.Still no word from the London Times. It's late here in Europe - probably won't happen tonight.
The leading choice to replace Porter Goss at the CIA is reportedly Air Force General Michael Hayden. The New York Times expects he'll come under fire from certain quarters, for certain perceived transgressions. John Hinderaker says "bring it on".
If one ignores the actual person, there's admittedly something a bit unsettling about a military member in charge of the nation's "civilian" spy agency. The tinfoil hat brigades will have a field day.
Update: This ought to send them fleeing to Canada - "A military officer would be in charge of every major spy agency if President Bush nominates Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to run the CIA."
I'll be coming home this summer - but I'll be in Germany for the World Cup.
Will Iranian President Abugallawhosis be here too?
THE participation of Iran in the World Cup finals this summer is beginning to open up cracks in the West’s previously united front against the Tehran regime.If you're like me, you're shocked. I certainly had no idea that McCain was the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination before I read this story from the London Times.The Bush Administration is understood to be alarmed about the prospect of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline President of Iran, attending the football tournament in Germany.
President Bush had been expected to raise the issue this week when he held talks with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. Neither American nor German officials would confirm that the subject had been discussed, with both sides declining to comment on a “very private meeting”.
A spokesman for the White House said: “The question about Ahmadinejad going to Germany is still very much up in the air. The President may have asked how Merkel intends to deal with it [but] this is a decision the German Government has got to make.”
Senator John McCain, the front-runner for the next Republican presidential nomination, recently tabled a congressional resolution calling for Iran to be thrown out of the World Cup as part of a sanctions package designed to halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
“The [Iranian] national team is scheduled to play its first match in Nuremberg, Germany,” Mr McCain said. “There is a cynical historical irony to this, in light of President Ahmadinejad’s vile statements denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel’s eradication.”
Now back to soccer. FIFA, the sport's governing body, will not expel Iran without a UN Security Council resolution. In other words, Iran has a better chance of winning the World Cup than they do of being banned.
But if he does come, Arugallah d'boogedyman may have to leave his bodyguard's behind:
German officials said that a country hosting the World Cup had to admit members of the team and the head of state. “Ahmadinejad has the right to come to Germany to attend the World Cup,” a German diplomat said. “But this only applies to the head of state. His entourage, his bodyguards and aides would all require visas to travel to Germany. So far we have had no signals that the Iranian President wants to come. We certainly have no intention of inviting him.”The US team will be here though:
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - The official team bus to be used by the United States during the World Cup will not bear a flag for security reasons.The story doesn't say just who is considered a security threat to the US team. Thousands of Americans live in Germany, and drive here every day. The AP does helpfully add that the bus is blue, for those who might be looking for it.The 32 official buses were presented Thursday in Frankfurt and the other 31 buses have large national flags of the their teams painted on rear sides.
German and U.S. security officials came to the conclusion to leave the flag off the U.S. team bus, an official of the German organizing committee said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the topic.
If you're wondering, the US and Iran will not likely meet in the World Cup. The earliest possible match between the two would be a semi-final.
The Wall Street Journal has opened it's subscription-only web site to unregistered, unpaid users - for 10 days.
Among other items of interest, this report from Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees U.S. international broadcasting, on US efforts to broadcast Persian-language news into Iran:
In recent weeks, we've heard a great deal in Washington about how we ought to be broadcasting to Iran. But it might be instructive to examine what U.S. international broadcasting is already doing.Very recently, on a Persian-language satellite television broadcast from the United States, the people of Iran learned that Iran's oldest and largest student organization, Tahkim Vahdat, urged the government to suspend uranium enrichment and to cooperate with the international community by restricting nuclear development to peaceful uses. The group called the government's behavior "irrational and confrontational." Needless to say none of this appeared in Iran's government-controlled media; few rulers on earth exercise the degree of censorship enforced by the Iranian government.
Another program featured the story of Hossein Derakhshan, once jailed in Iran for starting an Internet blog. Upon his release, he managed to get to Canada where he now runs the most popular blog -- in Iran.
As this story from the Mideast Stars and Stripes makes clear, the "readiness" of Iraqi troops to take responsibility for security is difficult to define:
MOSUL, Iraq — The sun had barely risen above the concrete blast walls of police headquarters Thursday and Col. Abedul al-Kareem Mohammed Khalaf was already logging the day’s first terrorist arrest and chastising three young lieutenants for letting another evil-doer escape.On the one hand, shortfalls in desired performance by troops. On the other, a determined commander. American military veterans would acknowledge familiarity with the situation, as they would with one in which an unprepared commander was placed over capable troops. These are universal scenarios.The lieutenants and a group of patrolmen had shot it out with an insurgent the day before, during a massive, ongoing sweep of Mosul by Iraqi forces. Yet after firing off all of their ammunition, the lawmen had no dead or captured insurgents.
Instead, they had a bunch of angry business owners whose buildings were damaged in the gunbattle. And the officers told one patrolman’s family that he had been killed in the shootout, when in fact he was only wounded in the leg.
“I want to fire you,” an angry Khalaf told the men.
But that snapshot isn't the full story:
As the Iraqi police chief of operations for Nineveh province, Khalaf helped direct more than 1,500 Iraqi police and army units during the massive cordon-and -search operation under way in Mosul.Iraqi police officers and soldiers are learning to work as a team in Mosul. Tactics employed:The operation, dubbed Operation Lion’s Hunt and planned and executed entirely by Iraqi security forces, marks a turnaround from 18 months ago, when Iraqi police collapsed before an insurgent onslaught. Lion’s Hunt, U.S. advisers say, is proof that local police are now poised to take full responsibility for the city’s security.
“The million dollar question is — how much longer do they need our support to function here,” said Master Sgt. John Ladik, 38, of the Hanau, Germany-based 709th Military Police Battalion, one of the U.S. Army units advising the Iraqi police.
<...>
Each day before dawn, Iraqi army and Iraqi police units cordon off major bridges and roadways leading to specific neighborhoods. Police officers conduct informal searches in several different neighborhoods each day, hitting both quiet and troubled quarters. To date, they have detained more than three dozen suspected insurgents.In most cases, the suspected insurgents are from out of town — many from the northwest city of Tal Afar — and have tested positive for having explosives residue on their hands. A large shuttle bus follows police commanders through the streets, ferrying prisoners to local lockups.
The operation was the idea of Iraqi police Maj. Gen. Wathiq Mohammed Abdul Khadir al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and a former commander in Saddam’s army.
“As a commander in the former Iraqi army, I know that the best defense is to make an attack,” the provincial chief said. “I want to prove to the people of Mosul that the police are stronger than these insurgents.”
As Iraqi army units secure intersections and bridges within the city, Iraqi police conduct searches on most residences, but not all. U.S. advisers call the searches “passive searches” and say they’ve hit roughly 60 percent to 70 percent of the homes in a given neighborhood.Perhaps the most significant indicator of optimism, the response of citizens grown tired of chaos:“The chief didn’t want them kicking down doors, he wanted them knocking on doors,” Ladik said.
“Already, civilians are stepping forward with information,” said Staff Sgt. Jeremy Lucas, 27, of the 549th Military Police Company. “Things are quiet and the locals like it that way.”But that “...million dollar question" lingers. "How much longer do they need our support to function here?" It's a question asked throughout the AOR - and beyond. There's uncertainty about the answer, but cautious optimism evident in this Los Angeles Times account of the decision to delay deploying a unit to Iraq:On Friday, a crowd of dozens of civilians captured and bound a suspected criminal and brought him to the front gate of a local police station in western Mosul as Lucas visited the station.
Brigade's Iraq Mission Put Off To Assess NeedSome numbers:The military is debating whether to cancel the deployment outright, drawing down forces.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will delay the deployment of a combat brigade that had been scheduled to go to Iraq, a potential precursor to further troop reductions, Defense officials said Friday.
The delay will give the military more time to assess whether the unit — the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, based in Germany — is needed in Iraq.
The brigade was due to begin shipping equipment to Iraq next week from Schweinfurt, Germany. Once its equipment was loaded on trains for shipment, holding the brigade back from Iraq would have been harder.
Military officials have been debating whether to cancel the deployment or just send part of the brigade, which numbers about 3,500 soldiers. Unable to decide, military officials opted to delay deployment. A Pentagon official said the announcement of the delay could come as soon as this weekend from Germany.
"It was a decision not to decide," said one Defense official who requested anonymity because the decision had not been formally announced. "But it means there is not a pending, immediate need" for additional forces.
In late December, the Defense Department announced it was canceling the 1st Brigade's deployment and sending the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division to Kuwait as a quick reaction force. Those announcements cut the number of troops now in Iraq from 138,000 to 133,000.Though not the only determining factor in troop levels, turnover of responsibilty to Iraqi forces is undoubtedly the most significant decision point. In a speech ignored by national media last January President Bush announced a "goal of having the Iraqis in control of more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006." Also ignored by the media, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli stated in March that "...by this summer, about 75 percent of Iraq will be in -- that battlespace will be owned by Iraqi units."If officials also cancel the deployment of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq will fall from 15 to 14 and the number of troops will decline to 130,000.
The last U.S. troop reduction came after the Iraqi national elections in December. At the time, Pentagon officials expressed hope that they could reduce troop strength to 100,000 or below by the end of 2006. Commanders say they still intend to reduce troops, and Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top commander in Iraq, said last month that his "general timeline" was still on track.
This may be the biggest story of the year, but it's also a complex one that will play out over a long, slow period. (A "long, hot summer", if you prefer.) Much like attempting to follow the plot of a movie by examining a few still frames, it will be difficult to grasp in full from the occasional reports received from a media that tends to be "miserly" in reporting progress, and reluctant to convey "good news" at all. The unglamorous hard work will be ignored, while the violent punctuations will grab headlines.
Violence will continue in Iraq, but Iraqi troops will increasingly respond and bear the brunt of combat. As they do, we can expect a significant upswing in pronouncements of American "failure" - and a surge in increasingly ironic claims that the US doesn't have enough "boots on the ground". Too many parties have invested themselves - politically, emotionally, and spiritually - in terrorist victory in Iraq.
The New York Times and Associated Press are rushing to defend Abu Musab al Zarqawi in the wake of the release of captured video outtakes.
The Times explains:
The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising.Until now the US has been accused of inflating the importance of al Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
The videotape of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi trying to fire a gun — and having trouble with it — is now playing out in the Arab world.And in a new development, somebody got the memo:This was the raw tape of the Zarqawi video propaganda session in which he was to portray himself as the Arab superhero slaying the enemies of the Arab people and the enemies of Islam as well.
That's why the black jihadi outfit. That's why the Popeye forearms. That's why the gun blasting away. That's why it hurts that he doesn't know how to actually operate the weapon. The tough guy needs his helper to figure out his gun.
In the Arab world this didn't play so well, which figures.
The US military revealed parts of a planning memo attributed to Al Qaeda in Iraq yesterday that outlines plans to ignite sectarian war by targeting Shi'ites and to shift the battle toward the capital and religiously mixed parts of the country.Jalaluddin al-Saghir, Shiite Member of Parliament and Imam of Baghdad's Buratha mosque (the target of a triple suicide bomb attack last April that left 85 people dead and 160 injured) responds:The memo, which the military said was seized during a raid last month, ordered followers to ''Make the struggle entirely between Shi'ites and the mujahideen," or holy warriors, and lambasted moderate Sunni groups. It included a call for insurgents to ''displace the Shi'ites and displace their shops and businesses from our areas. Expel those black market sellers of gas, bread, or meat or anyone that is suspected of spying against us."
A day after the release of a memo attributed to Al Qaeda in Iraq that described plans for a violent campaign to displace Shiite Muslims from many parts of the country, one of the sect's most influential religious leaders used his Friday sermon to urge the faithful to hold their ground.No reply yet from al Qaeda, The NY Times, or the AP."I demand first the government and second the brothers to keep their places," said Sheik Jalaluddin Saghir, leader of the capital's largest and most influential Shiite house of worship, the Bratha Mosque.
"We should not let the terrorists do that," Saghir said, referring to a strategy memo that the U.S. military said it had found at an Al Qaeda in Iraq hide-out in Yousifiya, south of Baghdad. "We should help families in finding a way to stay in their places."
Although the memo could not be independently authenticated, it echoed earlier instructions attributed to insurgent leaders, who are fighting coalition forces and trying to prevent the establishment of a stable central government.
The memo called on insurgents to "displace the Shiites and displace their shops and businesses from our areas."
The memo said Baghdad should be an area of focus for the attacks. It told insurgents to cast a broad net, urging the expulsion of "black market sellers of gas, bread or meat" and the "cleansing" of areas of "any person suspected of spying against us."
The outspoken Saghir, a member of parliament who distributes DVDs of his Friday sermons, blamed Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi for such extreme sentiments. He called the insurgent leader "an exceptional criminal who hurts all Iraqis."
May is National Military Appreciation Month.
Just back from their Afghanistan tour, check out the video of Gary Sinise and the Lt Dan Band, live at the Pentagon. Among other songs the band performs "Sweet Home Alabama" - a jab at Neil Young. The show also includes probably the first-ever live performance of "Purple Haze" at the Pentagon.
Besides touring military installations downrange (he flies overseas to perform Saturday night shows then returns home to work on CSI New York) Sinise is a co-founder of Operation Iraqi Children.
...to discuss with your children the dangers of driving under the influence. It's a parental duty.
You don't want your kid's face plastered all over the Boston Herald:
WASHINGTON -U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy insisted yesterday that he had consumed “no alcohol” before he slammed his Mustang convertible into a concrete barrier near his office, but a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole told the Herald she saw him drinking in the hours before the crash.Or his life story appearing in the LA Times:“He was drinking a little bit,” said the woman, who works at the Hawk & Dove and would not give her name.
Leaving his office late last night, Kennedy refused to say whether he’d been to the Hawk & Dove the night before.
Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, was the first Thursday to report the incident, quoting a letter from a police union official urging an investigation into whether the congressman had received preferential treatment. According to the letter, the car, operating without lights, narrowly missed a police cruiser and smashed into the barricade.And tell your kids to slow down - there's no hurry. Just imagine how terrible it would be for the family if he had killed someone.
<...>
Kennedy's past includes several troubling episodes, starting with his treatment in 1986 for cocaine use. More recently, a charter company accused him of causing $28,000 in damage to a rented yacht in 2000. That same year, he acknowledged that he was "on a lot of different medications for, among other things, depression," and was accused of shoving an airport security guard at Los Angeles International Airport when she tried to make him check his bag.He was in a traffic incident last month in his home district, according to Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr, who reported that the mishap occurred as Kennedy was hurrying into the parking lot of a pharmacy in Portsmouth, R.I.
That felt good. I think we'll do at least one public service announcement a week here.
Expect a resurgence of the "Bush was a Coke addict" and "Bush was a drunk driver" urban legends this weekend.
I'm not a listener - does anyone know if Rush Limbaugh covered this?
The Mrs already pointed this out in the Dawn Patrol, but don't miss the comments on this entry at The War Tapes blog. You'll find a group of soldiers correcting numerous "inaccuracies" in media coverage of themselves.
Sample:
the New York TIMES did an article about 3 men in my unit (69th Infantry, NYARNG) after we got back from Iraq, and I was one of them. The reporter seemed to go to some trouble to get things right while he was interviewing me, but the story went through a couple of layers of editors on its way to print. They wanted a nice, neat story: one guy's fine, one guy's moderately troubled, and one guy is all messed up. Well, I was the latter, and not too pleased to be portrayed that way. For example, they made it look like I hadn't been working for a couple of months because I was too depressed, when in fact I hadn't been working because I was waiting to have knee surgery.Many more at the link.
The entire 69th was the victim of an even bigger media lie - CBS' bogus story about the Airport Road in Baghdad.
But media "misquotes" of individual soldiers is nothing new. Here's an example from CNN.
And here's a round-up of numerous examples from the pages of the New York Times.
If you want the real deal, go see The War Tapes. The feedback on the film I've gotten from military folks who've seen it has been 100% positive.
UPDATED - SEE BELOW
A fellow MilBlogger is in need of our thoughts and prayers. Greg at Greg Note's formally known by some as Middle of Nowhere and Two Feet From Hell, has recently returned from battle in Iraq, safe and sound. However, he now faces a new battle from within. He has been diagnosed with colon cancer. You can find details on his wife, Sheryl's blog Two Blue Lines.
Here's an excerpt from Sheryl:
The doctor ordered blood work and a colon scope... to which my husband vehemently opposed, but finally agreed. I made arrangements to farm out the children to the four corners of the earth (no one person wants to keep ALL of them) and I headed to Hattiesburg on Saturday to await the results of the tests. When I arrived in town, Greg told me it was cancer. They found a golfball size mass in his colon that had to be removed immediately. The surgery was scheduled for Monday morning. We both stared at each other trying to soak it in and register what was happening. I am not sure that we have fully gotten there even now.Monday morning the doctor found that the cancer has spread outside the colon. They removed half of his colon, his appendix and 15 of his lymph nodes. He will have to undergo 9 - 10 months of chemotherapy after he heals from the surgery. The prognosis? 60% chance of survival unless the cancer has spread anywhere else.
...Me? I am still numb and trying to busy myself by dealing with Tricare and the military to make arrangements to bring him home. I am staying here at the hospital until they release him. He will have to stay here in Hattiesburg until the doctor releases him to make the drive back home. We are told that will be 4 -6 weeks.
Greg Anton is in Wesley Medical Center, Room 336, 5001 Hardy St., Hattiesburg, MS 39402.
Greg is blogging a little with updates of his progress thus far:
I am doing better. I was awaken to my doctor standing over me this morning. He looked at me and said, “Good morning. I am going to look at your incision and we are going to take your catheter out today.”I looked and said, “Ok.” After he started yanking on the bandage on my stomach I thought I was going to kill him.
...Sher needs a break. She has been here non-stop. She needs to go get some real food and she needs to go to my hotel room and sleep but she will not leave me alone. She eats from the machines and the cafeteria. She sleeps on this love seat which she has to put a chair at the end of so her feet do not hang off. I told her to go get a break and she says no. I just do not want her to over do it. She is a great help.
They could use our help as well. The support of the MilBlog community has been unmatched any where in the blogoshere and has does wonders in the past. Greg and Sheryl have a long precarious road ahead of them. Lets combine our efforts to keep their spirits high while he battles this newfound enemy.
Thank You
UPDATE:HOOAH RADIO EMAIL
I am in contact to Greg of Greg Notes and I am doing a special Show for him on the European Morning Show of HOOAHRADIO.
He said it would be okay and I asked him for a list of Songs he would like to listen to. If you want to send him a note or a wish just tune into http://www.hooahradio.com at Saturday 2AM eastern time (8AM in Germany) and click on the dancing little star in the upper right corner. Or simply ad me on yahoomessanger as nelly_hooahradio to leave your dedication and request. The European Morning Show is all about Greg and his family tomorrow.We will not leave him alone, and he'll be in our hearts and prayers. That's why I dedicate the Show to him and his family tomorrow. He knows of it and he also asked if he can listen from the Internet so I am pretty sure he is listen into it, let's swamp him with dedications, wishes and notes for his recovery. He deserves it.
Yours
Nelly aka Tankers Angel of Hooahangel.blogspot.com
Thanks Nelly.
And for those whose willing to comment please comment here where it won't be missed.
What can you say, besides "heh":
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. military command Thursday released previously unseen images of a video purportedly posted by Al Qaeda in Iraq's leader, showing him decked out in American tennis shoes and unable to operate his machine gun.Video here.
Coalition Shows Zarqawi Outtakes During Press EventGeneral Lynh's press briefing here. It's not funny.
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
BAGHDAD, May 4, 2006 – Coalition officials here today showed the "outtakes" of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's latest anti-coalition screed, and it became quickly apparent why they ended on the cutting-room floor, so to speak.
In one, Zarqawi -- the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq -- has trouble trying to operate an automatic weapon. An associate has to show him how to do it. Later in the same shot, an associate takes the weapon from Zarqawi by the barrel and burns his hand. In another, the feared terrorist is shown in a black uniform and bright blue "tenny pumps."Coalition troops found the tape during a raid on a hideout for foreign fighters. "He is far from being a capable military leader," coalition spokesman Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said during a news conference today.
Zarqawi has the most to lose as Iraq forms its national unity government, the general said. Al Qaeda leaders understand that democracy in Iraq means failure for the extremist organization.
Zarqawi's al Qaeda mission is to destabilize any government in Iraq, to drive the coalition from the country, and to impose an extremist government and expand it across the region.
Lynch said the coalition has made good progress against foiling suicide bombings, the most deadly attacks in Iraq. "The suicide attacks are where the innocent men, women and children of Iraq are being killed or severely wounded," the general said.
About 90 percent of those launching suicide attacks are foreigners recruited and outfitted by Zarqawi. "We have planned and launched operations over the past couple of weeks to deny him that capability," Lynch said.
Over the past year, the coalition has cut the number of suicide attacks Zarqawi can launch. First, operations in the Euphrates River Valley disrupted the flow of foreign extremists from Syria, and now intelligence has allowed coalition forces to kill or capture a significant number of foreign fighters.
A year ago, Lynch said, there were on average 75 suicide attacks per month. Today there are less than 25 per month.
Lynch said coalition officials have targeted suicide bombers. "Since April 8, coalition forces have killed 31 foreign fighters," he said. "These are people that Zarqawi brought into Iraq to be suicide bombers who were killed before they could launch their attacks."
Suicide bombers most often come from Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Jordan. Most come into Iraq over the Syrian border. Lynch said that once captured, suicide attackers have often given coalition officials "actionable intelligence."
Update: And I have no idea who this is - maybe it's a Zarqawi trainee.
Previous look at the ongoing hunt for Zarqawi here.
David Broder in The Washington Post:
On Monday, to mark the third anniversary of President Bush's appearance on the USS Lincoln to announce that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a news release in which Bush's text was set in contrast to barbed reminders of everything that has gone wrong in Iraq since that boast.Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis in The Boston Globe:
Three years ago this week, President Bush declared the end of major hostilities in Iraq in front of a ''mission accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln.Catching a pattern here? These are just two examples from today's news and commentary. There have been countless others this week - pro and con the events of the intervening years. Google "mission accomplished" for a sample.But as events have demonstrated, the mission is far from accomplished.
But in most cases something like this statement follows close on the heels of those opening lines:
Bush's ''stay-the-course" strategy in Iraq is unsustainable. Iraq's costs -- about 2,400 US military personnel killed and nearly 18,000 wounded, more than $300 billion spent, and US ground forces stretched to the breaking point -- are not worth the results.Ignore for a moment any current fiction that the President's message that day was that we were finished with Iraq. (Otherwise you must ignore what was actually said: "The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave — and we will leave behind a free Iraq.") The passage of three years has certainly revealed the painful cost of that vision, and the accuracy of this quote from that speech too: "The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory." You can decide for yourself whether your resolve has weakened - or if you ever had any to start with.
But the passage of three years certainly gives us an opportunity to evaluate what has gone right and wrong with that mission. And along with that we can now identify events that - unlike that particular speech - have actually proven to be turning points in the war.
The anniversary of one such event passed (virtually unnoticed) within the past seven days too.
Since those who choose to remind us of the "mission accomplished" speech also cite death tolls, lets look at those numbers. In the weeks prior to that speech, there were 172 coalition military fatalities in Operation Iraqi Freedom (a number lower by orders of magnitude than the most dire pre-war predictions). In the 12 months that followed (May 2003 through April 2004 - a period that includes the first battle in Fallujah) the fatality rate dropped to an average of 52 a month (a number higher than any advocates of the invasion would consider acceptable).
But in the next 12 months - May 2004 through April 2005 - the death rate jumped by 46% from the previous one-year period, to an average of 76 per month. Actually monthly totals reveal significant spikes associated with specific events - elections, Ramadan, combat ops in Fallujah - but even after eliminating these from the equations a stark contrast between the two periods is evident.
Clearly a turning point had been reached. No one event can be authoritatively cited as the sole cause for the increase, but a confluence of events occurred in the spring of 2004 that can account for most of the surge in violence. Two in particular can be highlighted as most significant. Both involve the release of images of brutality, with subsequent wide exposure through the world media, though only one lingers to this day in countless subsequent coverage.
Oddly enough, it is the lesser evil of the two.
WASHINGTON - Every war or disaster contains moments that become defining images: a napalmed girl or a gun to the head in Vietnam, the body of a U.S. soldier dragged through a Somalian street.The images have been seldom seen since - but at the time the media spent a significant amount of time pondering whether displaying at all them would increase or erode public support for the war in Iraq.
It is not clear whether the 80 seconds of video Wednesday showing images of charred American bodies being beaten and dangled from the steelwork of a bridge over the Euphrates River will come to define the war in Iraq.But once again, broadcasters and news executives were torn between a question of taste and the demand to give viewers and readers information that could affect the course of history.
"War is a horrible thing. It is about killing," ABC News "Nightline" Executive Producer Leroy Sievers said in an unusual message to the program's e-mail subscribers discussing the issues posed by Wednesday's killings. "If we try to avoid showing pictures of bodies, if we make it too clean, then maybe we make it too easy to go to war again."
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that networks' "sanitization of war may have helped the administration prosecute the war" a year ago.Torn over whether to air the scenes of graphic, inhuman carnage, one factor ultimately made the decision worth the risk: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.
Whether news executives made the proper decisions may take years of perspective to determine.Actually by November they were long forgotten. But within days of the atrocity coalition forces would launch an all-out assault on Fallujah.But the real effect of the images on Americans could be felt just months from now.
"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."
(More to follow)
It's a fate worse than death for him. Now, put him in a cell with Charlie Manson.
Very few folks from Ho Chi Minh City have fallen fighting for America in the war on terror. In fact, only one:
WASHINGTON -- A weeping Kim-Hoan Thi Nguyen kissed her 7-year-old son goodbye at the Ho Chi Minh airport and told him it would be a long time before they would be together again. Little Binh Le boarded the plane and flew off to the United States, where his mother hoped he would flourish. It was 1991.Brought to my attention via email:She next saw her son when he visited Vietnam at 12. He cooked her french fries.
He visited again when he was 18 and a recent high school graduate in suburban Fairfax County, Va. They had a party.
Their next reunion came in December 2004. At his funeral, at Arlington National Cemetery.
Dear GH,Well, I reckon so.
I wanted to ask your help with a bit of publicity. A dear friend of my wife's, Marine CPL Binh Le, was killed in December 2004 in Iraq. He was posthumously awarded citizenship (and a Bronze Star). His parents had given him up for adoption so that he might have a better life in America. He enlisted fresh out of high school and was sent to Iraq not long afterward. He died trying to prevent a VBIED from killing his comrades. His mother had not seen her son for years; they were reunited at his funeral at Arlington. As of two months ago she was still trying to gain US citizenship so that she might be closer to her son's grave. Because of the adoption she is not eligible for citizenship. His Congressional Representative, Jim Moran (D, VA) has been trying to push a measure through Congress to extend his birth family citizenship. The last I read the measure was hung up in committee.Would you be able to call attention to this so that your readers would urge their Senators and Congressmen to act?
That would be H.R. 993, you can read it here.
You'll find a Judiciary Committee online contact form here and a membership list here.
Some immigration issues ought to be easy.
Fresh from the success of the first MilBlogs Conference in DC, our milblogger-about-town Andi made it to New York for the premier of The War Tapes. Don't miss her review.
A great day for remembrance. If you don't know why, it's because we won that long war too. (And most of the battles were fought in Korea and Vietnam.)
Update: Via Hit and Run, more ghosts of May Day past from Moscow - from Life Magazine. Note the captions - just a hint of the modern embrace of the Orwellian nightmare. Forty five years later and the subtle re-writing of history is in full swing.
Red Tide: The Soviet army on the march through Moscow on May Day 1959. The Cold War was at its height, and leaders in both Washington and Moscow were preparing for an inevitable showdown.See? America was just like this too.
Russia prided itself on its industrial capacity to build everything from motorbikes to spacecraft.Apparently they were an amazingly advanced culture back then.
You can almost feel the joyful exuberence of these young gymnasts:
The caption reads:
Young women participate in a mass gymnastic routine at the 1959 celebrations. The mass choreography so popular at such events inadvertently reflected some of the strictures of Soviet life.There's nothing inadvertant about it. This photo captures every aspect of life in the worker's paradise. I think it's in color.
Next:
Tanks roll through Moscow during the 1963 May Day parade. Despite the martial pose, the previous year's Cuban missile crisis had confronted both sides with the horror of a potential nuclear clash, and had prompted them to begin managing their conflict to avoid war.Except for Vietnam. And some other spots... But pay no attention to the tanks, comrade. And ignore the funny old man beating his shoe on the table...
Vigilance: Soviet Military personnel keep an eye on the crowd at the 1947 May Day celebrations in Moscow's Red Square
How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
-- Ronald Reagan
There's been some effort from certain quarters recently to downplay the significance of the threat posed by communism in decades past. In hindsight, or so the new narrative goes, it wasn't such a threat after all. (See here and here.) To argue otherwise now is to risk ridicule, or accusations of bigotry, or at least of being non-PC. A few wars later, a few million dead, and communism collapsed. Americans were silly to feel threatened - but Americans are ignorant and paranoid, and that's the same convenient narrative used to explain why we are over reacting to the perceived threat from Islamic terrorism today. Those of superior intellect know they've nothing to fear.
Pay no attention to the Left's involvement in cartoon riots in Denmark, or elsewhere in the world. Don't look too closely at this. Or this. And certainly not this.
Two harmless, impotent forces combined are still a harmless, impotent force, right?
Or is it three? Lou Dobbs:
Most of the mainstream media has been absolutely co-opted by the open borders and illegal immigration advocates. I'm not opposed to demonstrations and protests of any kind, even by those who are not citizens of this country, because one way or another, demonstrations and protests enrich and invigorate the national debate and raise the public consciousness of truth.Glenn Reynolds:But only one newspaper, to its credit, reported that illegal aliens and their supporters' boycott of the national economy on the First of May is clear evidence that radical elements have seized control of the movement. The Washington Post, alone among national papers, reported that ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has become an active promoter of the national boycott.
Some illegal immigration and open borders activists in the Hispanic community are deeply concerned about the involvement of the left-wing radical group. But others, like Juan Jose Gutierrez, whom I've interviewed a number of times over the past several months, manages to be both director of Latino Movement USA and a representative of ANSWER.
As Gutierrez told us on my show, "The time has come...where we need to stand up and make a statement. We need to do what the American people did when they pulled away from the British crown. And I am sure that back in those days many people were concerned that was radical action."
Just how significant is the impact of leftists within the illegal immigration movement? It is no accident that they chose May 1 as their day of demonstration and boycott. It is the worldwide day of commemorative demonstrations by various socialist, communist, and even anarchic organizations.
People are talking about backlash, and how these rallies are counterproductive. That's probably right, but I think that's what the A.N.S.W.E.R. folks are hoping for. Right now you have lots of immigrants who want to be part of America. The A.N.S.W.E.R. people have been stoking these demonstrations not because they want to help illegal immigrants, but because they hope to provoke a backlash that will make them angry at America instead. They don't have short-term ameliorative political goals -- they want shock troops for the revolution.They are all paranoid, of course, the Bourgeois who would keep us from joining hands and dancing the May Day dance 'neath the bright sun of a warm Moscow spring...
Or is that Tehran?
(Bumped from 2006-05-01 23:29:30)
Joe Biden has a "new" plan to establish a government in Iraq.
There's one minor problem - there have been three elections there since January 2005. In the second a new constitution was approved - a careful balance between a national government and regional authorities. In fact, much of the Sunni opposition is built around the autonomy of the various regions of Iraq. The weaker the federal bond, the more the Sunnis lose, as the Washington Post explains here.
Another quibble - probably the only way Biden's plan could be implemented at this point would be if he raised and equipped an army and overthrew the current democratically elected government of Iraq. I don't think he could do it, so I suspect he has some other motivation for his actions.
Update: In an answer to an email, Foxnews' own milblogger Captain Dan Sukman offers his opinion on a somewhat related topic:
Nothing really exciting to write about over the past couple of days, so I figured I would spend some time answering in detail some of the e-mails I have gotten.A huge number continue to ask if I think a civil war has broken out. For example, Steve S. wrote on March 17:
"Reading the news (traditional and non-traditional media) it seems Iraq is either in a civil war or going in that direction. I would like to know from someone like you who is there in the middle of all this, is the situation that bad?"
I have chosen to reserve judgment for the next 150 years. If in 150 years I return to Iraq and everyone in Baghdad is dressing up and reenacting all the violence that is occurring today, as a hobby, I guess you can then call it a civil war.
Via GreyEagle:
Jordan Leigh has written a beautiful and moving song for our fallen soldiers and dedicated it to her brother Kenneth Schall who died while serving in Iraq. Listen to her song: Soldier, I Thank YouJordan Leigh is trying to have her song played on Memorial Day. I think one way to help her get exposure for her song is to encourage the other websites and blogs to link back, trackback, or use (www.afemalesoldier2.som/songs/soldier_thank_you.html) as a link or pop-up on your site. I will absorb the bandwidth in order to help her get her song out there. She lost her brother, a soldier, it is the least we can do to help the family and to honor him.
In addition to her song she has shared her feeling and written the following words
Go read them
Our irregular round-up of news from the front lines...
The New York Times qualifies their Iraq news by pointing out it's based on US claims (they usually don't tell you when they're passing on tips from insurgent insiders)
U.S. Says Guerrillas Were Killed In RaidsNow check out the way the Army Times reports the same story:By Sabrina Tavernise
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 30 — The United States military said Sunday that more than 20 guerrillas it identified as foreign fighters had been killed in recent raids south of Baghdad that were aimed at cutting down on insurgent attacks in the capital.
Insurgents have used the region in and around Yusifiya, a town 10 miles south of Baghdad that has long served as a base for Sunni Arab extremists, as a starting point for recent suicide attacks in Baghdad, the military said in a statement. Some of those killed in the raids over the past few weeks were wearing explosive vests, the military said.
The nationalities of the insurgents have often been difficult to determine, officials said, although they added that most of the dead appeared to be from outside Iraq. Iraqi soldiers have also participated in the raids.
Lush farmland and palm trees allow insurgents to disappear easily in the region, known as the Triangle of Death. Taming the area is central to security in Baghdad, whose southern edge, particularly the suburb of Dawra, has become so violent that many residents are afraid to leave their houses.
In further efforts to weaken Iraq's violent insurgency, President Jalal Talabani said Sunday that an agreement between the Iraqi authorities and seven armed groups "was possible," a spokesman said.
Mr. Talabani did not say which groups were involved in the discussions or when the agreement might be reached. Mr. Talabani has spoken publicly of contacts with insurgent groups in the past.
American officials said this winter that they had been meeting with Iraqi nationalist guerrilla groups to try to draw them away from extremists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has claimed responsibility for dozens of bloody attacks against Iraqi civilians and American troops here.
Mr. Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, is believed responsible for dozens of car and suicide bombings here that have killed and wounded thousands of Iraqi civilians. He also took credit for the November bombing of three hotels in Jordan that killed at least 57 people.
The raids around Yusifiya took place in April, and were focused on striking foreign-run networks, particularly those thought to be run by Al Qaeda, the military said.
Just nine days before al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released his latest video, a special operations raid killed five of his men, captured five others and apparently came within a couple of city blocks of nabbing Zarqawi himself.Read it all - there's much more at the link. (I'm actually surprised at how much more.)Then, the day Zarqawi’s video debuted, special ops forces killed 12 more of his troops in a second raid in the same town.
The raids in Yusufiyah, 20 miles southwest of Baghdad in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, were the latest battles in a small, vicious war being waged largely in the shadows of the wider counterinsurgency effort.
It is a war fought by a secretive organization called Task Force 145, made up of some of the most elite U.S. troops, including Delta Force and SEAL Team 6. They have one goal: hunting down Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, and destroying his al-Qaida in Iraq organization.
Zarqawi’s escape in Yusufiyah was not the first time special ops troops have nearly had him. In early 2005, they came so close they could see the Jordanian’s panicked face as he fled.
And in case you ever wondered if the NY Times would know a good story if it bit 'em on the ass, now you know.
And from the Mideast Stars and Stripes:
Sunni Troops Graduate From U.S.-Run TrainingAmerican military says recruitment of Anbar province forces significant
By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes
HABBANIYAH, Iraq — The first all-Sunni class of Iraqi army trainees graduated from an American-run basic training course here Sunday, marking what U.S. military officials called a significant step in rebuilding the Iraqi security forces.
Some 978 men — including more than 800 from Fallujah — were sworn in as privates in the new Iraqi army, the first cadre of a planned 6,500 Sunni troops to be recruited from and trained in Anbar province.
And as the Iraqis stand up, the Americans come home:
ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq – Down at the motor pool, the smell of diesel fills the air. The mechanics, wrenches at the ready, are standing by for an incoming convoy, out there somewhere kicking up dust on the last leg home. A warming sun floats slowly up into a wide, blue sky.It's another beautiful morning in the desert, a workday at war. But for Capt. Jim Shuman's “wrench turners” and the rest of the men of the 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery, it's Georgia, not Iraq, that's on their minds.
“What they're talking about is going home,” the smiling motor-pool boss says. And they can almost see the moonlight through the pines.
<...>
“The big mission of winning hearts and minds – whether that's going well is anybody's guess,” Shuman said. But “there's a great sense of accomplishment in doing our part.”
And over at Newsweek, the results:
Osama Needs More Mud HutsMy son's response on hearing of the new bin Laden audio tape: "I wonder where he lost his camera?"Imagine if a few months after September 11 someone had said to you, "Five years from now, in the space of a single week, Osama bin Laden will issue a new call for worldwide jihad, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq will threaten a brutal, endless war, and there will be two terror attacks in Egypt." Chances are you would have been quite unnerved. Yet the most striking aspect of last week's news was the reaction to it—very little.
Radical Islamic terror made big, violent and scary moves and—whether you judge it by media coverage, stock-market movements or international responses—the world yawned.
Al Qaeda Central, by which I mean the dwindling band of brothers on the Afghan-Pakistani border, appears to have turned into a communications company. It's capable of producing the occasional jihadist cassette, but not actual jihad. I know it's risky to say this, as Qaeda leaders may be quietly planning some brilliant, large-scale attack. But the fact that they have not been able to do one of their trademark blasts for five years is significant in itself.
Please leave a comment if trackbacks fail - things are working funny since the DoS attack last week.
Two stories of Marines, one beginning his career with a climb up a mountain, another reaching two well deserved peaks.
First, Russell Working of the Chicago Tribune gets the rare experience of watching his son in boot camp:
During the Crucible, recruits march 40 miles between tasks that include tackling combat assault courses and carrying ammunition boxes over log-and-chain obstacles. It ends with a 10-mile hike in which recruits lug M16A2 service rifles and 50-pound packs up a mountain known as "the Reaper."Read it all. Working's story is part of a series, you'll find links to the previous entries there.Mine was an unusual visit. I was not only a reporter--a common visitor to Marine bases--but the father of a recruit. It is all but unheard of for a dad to look in on boot camp, but the corps agreed to my request to see part of boot camp if I was going to write about Sergei's enlistment, as I have been doing since February.
The company commander, Capt. Rich Vallee, said nothing would be done to compromise recruits' safety, but added, "You're going to see your son in some pain, sir."
Vallee seemed worried that I wouldn't get it. What might look like bullying to a civilian parent--hounding recruits to the point of exhaustion--serves an essential purpose, the corps believes. The Crucible forces men to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles by working as a team.
A bit further into his own Marine Corps career, Brad Kasal can tell you about beating the Reaper, and teamwork forged in a crucible:
CAMP PENDLETON — It has become one of the iconic pictures of the war in Iraq: blood-soaked Marine 1st Sgt. Brad Kasal, grim-faced and still clutching his service pistol, being helped from a firefight by two younger Marines.Then:Although wounded by seven AK-47 rounds and hit by more than 40 pieces of hot shrapnel from a grenade, Kasal refused to quit fighting and is credited with saving the lives of several Marines during the U.S. assault on insurgent strongholds in Fallouja in November 2004.
"He was hurt bad, but for the most part, he was more worried about his Marines than himself," said then-Cpl. R.J. Mitchell, one of the Marines involved in the firefight in a two-story stucco house.
Kasal has undergone 21 surgeries and months of painful rehabilitation to repair his injuries and attempt to save his right leg.
Today, the 39-year-old Iowa native will be promoted to sergeant major, the highest enlisted rank in the Marine Corps, and receive the Navy Cross for combat bravery, second only to the Medal of Honor. Only nine others have received the Navy Cross for service in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The picture, taken by Lucian Read, a photographer for World Picture News who was embedded with the Marines, has been widely reprinted. It was used on the back cover of "No True GloryAnd now:," an account of the fight for Fallouja by Bing West, the premier historian of Marines in combat in Iraq.
Kasal, in his second tour in Iraq, was with the Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, during the assault. At the height of the fighting Nov. 13, Marines were going door to door. Insurgents were often waiting upstairs to rain down AK-47 fire and grenades.
When Kasal learned that three Marines were pinned down in one house, he and other Marines went to their aid.
Once inside the house, Kasal barked orders to younger Marines to cover vantage spots where insurgents might be hiding. He turned into one room and immediately ran into an insurgent who cried out in Arabic. The two exchanged gunfire; the insurgent missed and Kasal killed him.
Other insurgents fired at the Marines from upstairs, hitting Kasal and others. Kasal fought his way to a wounded Marine and used a tourniquet on his leg to keep him from bleeding to death. When he spotted an insurgent's grenade, he sheltered the wounded Marine with his body to protect him from the blast.
Kasal refused medical attention until other Marines were helped and made sure Marines in the street knew there were Marines inside so none would be hit by so-called friendly fire.
"Although severely wounded himself, he shouted encouragement to his fellow Marines," the Navy Cross citation states. By the time he was evacuated, Kasal had lost about 60% of his blood and was barely conscious.
Doctors initially told Kasal that his right leg below the knee was so badly mangled it might not be saved, and that subjecting himself to surgeries and rehabilitation could prove futile. Four inches of bone had been shot away.Last word:Kasal opted against amputation, knowing that it would mean the end of his career in the Marines. "I decided to gut it out and work through the pain," he said. "I wanted to do whatever was needed to keep it going."
Six days a week, he does two to four hours of rehabilitation. Recently, the onetime high school wrestler and football player was able to run for the first time since Fallouja. "It wasn't pretty, but I was able to do it," he said.
Kasal, who is single, has been assigned to a recruiting station in Des Moines. He did three years as a recruiter in the 1990s in Minnesota, the only stretch in his 21 years in the Marine Corps in which he has not been assigned to an infantry company.
His goal is to get strong enough to return to the infantry and go back to Iraq. "We started it; we need to finish it," he said. "I believe in what we're doing. I'd go back in a heartbeat."
Kasal said the picture and the acclaim it has brought him should not overshadow the actions of other Marines in the same fight. "That house was full of heroes," he said.
The Washington Times: Iranians Accused In Iraq Bombing Deaths Of Soldiers.
In this case, Italian soldiers:
ROME -- Iranian agents were accused yesterday of masterminding a bomb attack that killed three Italian soldiers in Iraq last week and intensified political pressure for the incoming government to speed up its withdrawal of troops from that country.Italian communists are leading the calls to cut and run:
Oliviero Diliberto, head of the Italian Democratic Communist Party, a coalition partner of Prime Minister-designate Romano Prodi, said the new government could withdraw all Italian forces from Iraq by this summer.The story also notes:Mr. Prodi "completely agrees with me" on speeding up withdrawal, he said. But political sources said Mr. Prodi, who is set to form a government after Mr. Berlusconi resigns tomorrow, was unlikely to accelerate the phased withdrawal so dramatically.
The attack Thursday was the worst on the force since November 2003 when 19 Italians, mostly Carabinieri, were killed in a suicide attack in Nasariyah. Italy has about 2,600 troops in Iraq.And if you've never heard of Brigadier Giuseppe Coletta, who fell in that November, 2003 attack, take a moment and read this.
Meanwhile, The London Daily Telegraph reports from the Kurdish north
Teheran Raids Iraq In Attack On KurdsThe Pesh Merga vs. Iran? Bet on the Pesh Merga - especially if the Italian communists are supporting the Ayatollahs.Teheran has attacked an anti-Iranian Kurdish group based in Iraq, it emerged yesterday, raising fears that instability there could spill over into the rest of the region.
Iraq's defence ministry said more than 180 artillery shells were fired and Iranian troops crossed three miles into Iraqi territory before withdrawing.
The incursion, which occurred on April 21, came after Iranian claims that a number of attacks had been conducted against Iranian army and Revolutionary Guard posts in recent weeks.
They are accused of operating from bases around Haj Oman, which was the centre of the Iranian attack. Four people were said to have been wounded.
The group, known as the Pejak, is fighting for the creation of a ''Greater Kurdistan'' linking predominantly Kurd- populated areas in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran.
Lou Dobbs' weekly tributes to heroes are exceptional and shouldn't be missed. This week's edition featured the amazing story of Jeremy Church
DOBBS: It's time for "Heroes," our weekly tribute to our men and women in uniform. Tonight, the story of Army Reserve Specialist Jeremy Church and his extraordinary heroism under fire when he was a private in combat in Iraq. Philippa Holland has his story.Update: Kudos to Dobbs and his crew for telling the story.PHILIPPA HOLLAND: It was April 2004 and Private First Class Jeremy Church was the lead driver for a fuel convoy in Baghdad.
SPEC. JEREMY CHURCH [U.S. Army Reserve]: We started noticing tendencies that the military teaches you on recognition, people not being around, lack of traffic. And we're like, well, this might not be a good thing.
HOLLAND: Quickly, they were attacked -- 200 insurgents with improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles and machine guns.
CHURCH: Two rounds came through the front window and struck my lieutenant in the head. From there, I looked over, grabbed my medical bag, put it over his eye for him, and continued to drive and fire out my window.
HOLLAND: Church managed to lead the convoy back to the base but a quick count showed there were soldiers missing.
CHURCH: When I looked back outside the gates, you could see their vehicle stranded about a mile out. I just grabbed my weapon, and told them that's where we needed to go, and we jumped in a Humvee and went out there to get them. And we had pretty good resistance going back out.
HOLLAND: Under heavy fire, they battled back to the stranded soldiers and loaded the wounded into the Humvee. But there was not enough room for Private Church and another soldier.
CHURCH: I said you guys don't have enough room. Try to hurry back. Me and Specialist Cowls (ph) stayed out there, kept fighting the enemy.
HOLLAND: The Army credits Church with saving the lives of at least five soldiers and four civilians that day. Now a specialist, Church was awarded the Silver Star for his gallantry in action. He's the first Army Reservist to receive the Silver Star in this war.
CHURCH: I didn't really know how to take it. You don't really ask to get those kind of things, ma'am. You just be honored that they decided to award you it.
HOLLAND: Philippa Holland, CNN.
DOBBS: Specialist Church returned to Iraq five weeks ago. He's now serving with the 454th Transportation Company.
Lest we forget - Church's mission was the one in which Spc. Keith “Matt” Maupin was captured.
No surprise - Chuck Simmons wrote about Church last year. Twice. And Blackfive included him in his "Someone you Should Know" series here.
Stars and Stripes had a detailed account last year too.
