Dawn Patrol

IRAQ

Aftermath.. [Ma Deuce Gunner - in Iraq]
The terrorists tried to hit the hospital today. THE HOSPITAL!!!!!!!!!!! More on that in a minute.
A BMW pulled up to the gate at the hospital and a guy got out and ran. So, the IP's guarding the hospital gave it a shove, and it went Ka-blooey. I don't know if there were casualties in that one.
Moments later, another guy pulls up in this station wagon, and ...

The Books of Salah al Din [Michael Yon - in Iraq]
Poverty is not the basic problem in Iraq. A helicopter flight over cities and villages reveals thousands of satellite dishes, thousands of automobiles driving about, and power-lines crisscrossing the country. The people are starved, however, but the commodity for which they hunger is knowledge and information, particularly the kind that comes unfiltered. Yet many of the terrorists who make the misery they later feed on, wish to cut ties to the outside world.
In the months immediately following the collapse of the Saddam regime, but before the tumor of insurgency invaded the body, medical officers attached to the 4th Infantry Division met with doctors and...

Fatal hi-Tech needed for Iraq [A Free Writer - an Iraqi]
Anti kidnapping high tech. solutions introduced to the world many electronic chips , and it is available on the internet for ordinary users.
It?s very strange , many cases of kidnapping happened each month in Iraq for diplomatic workers, Iraqi officials , and Journalist but no one so far used this technology that allow security forces to detect easily the kidnapped person with few meters mistakes only.
Is it possible that western technology that was designed for such conditions , not to be used in Iraq !!

Family bonds [Phil and Becky - in Iraq]
I had a discussion with one of our platoon leaders the other day about our expectations of cooperation from the Iraqi people in terms of finding and arresting insurgents. There is the popular notion that familial and tribal bonds are so strong in the Arab mind that Iraqis will continue to shelter known AIF instead of turning them over to outsiders.
[Note: Bias alert -- I do not think that there is any such thing as an "Arab" mind or a "Chinese" mind or an "American" mind.

Dispatches from Iraq [Daves World] (HT: Stryker Brigade)
...I had just lost my buddy who had never been to New York, in the Bronx, in the middle of the night.
<...>
I get to my friend's place, and there's Matt at the front door, waiting for me. He remembered my friend lived on W 28th, deduced the city worked on a grid street system, and found his way back from there.
It was at that point, if I had any doubts to begin with, that I knew Matt was going to be able to handle himself in the desert.
<...>
Just as we were about to depart for the Kurdish outpost, we received a quick recon mission that we needed to complete prior to assuming guard duties. The "ears in the sky" had overheard a band of terrorists plotting around the eastern highway through Mosul. We loaded up in to our Strykers in the late afternoon and headed out.

Reasons To Be Optomistic About Iraq [Signaleer]
Iraq's economy is growing at 17 per cent this year.
Unemployment has dropped by as much as 50 per cent.

Per capita income rising from less than $700 at the liberation to a projected $1200 in 2007.

Iraq's schools are educating 4.3 million children.

There are 23 commercial (not government) television stations, 80 radio stations, 170 newspapers and magazines.

Sunni clerics inside Iraq have issued fatwas encouraging young Sunni men to enlist in the Iraqi security forces - and despite the attacks on police stations, the ranks of the Iraqi forces continue to grow.

Today there are more than 76,000 in the Iraqi armed forces. Of that, some 530 are navy and 190 are air force personnel, according to a U.S. State Department report. Last year, there was merely one operational Iraqi army battalion.
The Iraqi navy now has ...

MSM REPORTS ON IRAQ

Iraq Lacks Women Trained In Security (Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
The U.S.-led coalition has not trained enough Iraqi women to operate checkpoints in Iraq, forcing the job on American female troops, such as the two Marines and sailor killed last month in a car bombing.

How The U.S. Shortchanged The War (Chicago Tribune)...Steve Chapman
...We've poured more than $200 billion down the drain in Iraq. If even a small part of that money had been spent on homeland security, Americans would undoubtedly be safer today. U.S. soldiers might have been used to hunt down those enemies who want to carry out atrocities here or in Britain, instead of fighting insurgents who merely want us out of Iraq.

It Just Gets Worse (New York Times)...Bob Herbert
...Americans are paying a fearful price for Mr. Bush's adventure in Iraq. In addition to the toll of dead and wounded, the war is costing about $5 billion a month. It has drained resources from critical needs here at home, including important antiterror initiatives that would improve the security of ports, transit systems and chemical plants.

AFGHANISTAN

Body of missing SEAL recovered [Jack Army]
h/t Indepundit, from CNN.com:

The body of a U.S. Navy SEAL has been found and recovered in Afghanistan, a senior defense official said Sunday.
This would account for the fourth member of a reconnaissance team that disappeared two weeks ago in Afghanistan. Only one of the four survived.

So, obviously, our media was duped again into being the propaganda machine of our enemies. Failing to independently verify claims that the Taliban had indeed done what they claimed, they printed a story which did nothing but terrify the fallen SEAL's family and friends.

MSM REPORTS ON AFGHANISTAN

10 Slain On Patrol, Afghans Report (Boston Globe)...Noor Khan, Associated Press
A border patrol was ambushed Saturday in the desert near the frontier with Pakistan, a provincial governor said, reporting that 10 Afghan soldiers were killed and beheaded.

LONDON

The UK and US: Solidarity Against Savagery [Howdy's Blog - in Iraq]
I have watched the recent all too familiar events in London with much dismay and very little surprise. Savages take instruments of every day society and spread their fear, hate and death to foreign lands in the name of a god that does not look upon them favorably. Fear and destruction is all they bring like a wave of pestilence spreading throughout the areas they hope to conquer.

Evil men do evil things.

Americans Injured in London Attacks [ROFA Six]
(pics) an news item I have been looking for since the 7/7 attack. The LA Times, ?American Sisters Remain Hospitalized,? reports only four of the the 700 injured and killed in London last week were Americans. My spouse and I spent one July in London. Americans were everywhere that Summer. I had expected it to be much worse.

Do the London Bombing's Lead Back to Iran? [Regime Cange Iran]
Earlier today, the Sunday Times reported that the top suspect in the London bombing is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, a former a European intermediary for Al-Qaeda. If this proves true, it spells trouble for Iran.

MSM REPORTS ON LONDON

U.K. Memo Cites Plans For Pullout From Iraq (Washington Post)...Glenn Frankel and Josh White
...Reid on Sunday did not dispute the authenticity of the document, but said that no decision on troop levels had been made. In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said officials there had not seen the document.

British Memo Details A Plan To Cut Troops (New York Times)...Alan Cowell and David S. Cloud
..."I wouldn't want to predict when the conditions could be such that U.S. forces would be able to be there in smaller numbers," said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman. He said the British memo's assertion that "emerging U.S. plans" envision steep troop cuts in 2006 "is not inconsistent with the goal." But he added, "With respect to timelines, I wouldn't want to speculate."

W Adviser Blasts Dem On Iraq 'Lie' (New York Daily News)...James Gordon Meek
President Bush's top terrorism adviser yesterday zinged a Democratic leader for peddling the "lie" that the Iraq war won't prevent attacks such as the London bombings.

OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD

Hurricane Dennis Passes U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay (Navy News Stand)
Stacey Byington, U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay Public Affairs
Hurricane Dennis passed by U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay July 7, causing minimal damage.
There were no injuries to any personnel.
?U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay has an excellent destructive weather plan,? said Capt. Les McCoy, base commanding officer. ?We take precautions as the storms approach, and all actions are predicated on ensuring the safety of all personnel. We had no damage from Hurricane Dennis other than a few broken tree limbs and debris washed up along the shoreline.?

Blogging From Egypt [Andi's World]
I was browsing some middle-eastern blogs and came across one that caught my attention. The Big Pharoah blogs from Egypt and tells us how the Egyptian media dealt with the recent execution of its envoy to Iraq.

All Hell Breaks Loose at Camp Humphreys [GI Korea Blog]
(pics) There was a very violent protest that broke out at Camp Humphreys on Sunday. The protesters were protesting the ROK governments move to buy adjacent farm land around the camp to begin building the needed facilities in order to move soldiers stationed on Yongsan and the 2ID area to Camp Humphreys by 2008. Camp Humphreys for the most part is surrounded by rice paddies on three sides which makes Camp Humphreys the ideal place to expand a camp to relocate soldiers.

I Own Many Leather-Bound Books and My Apartment Smells of Rich Mahogany. [New MilBlog Ring Member! - Greg, Stuck in Qatar]
We were able to go off-post today. We decided to head to the mall, shop around for our wives, and see a movie. I was dead tired most of the day because I didn't sleep last night. I don't know what it is about this place, but I have slipped deeper in to the clutches of insomnia. I thought I was bad before I got here, but I sleep less than four hours a night on a typical weekday.
The car ride over was intense, I thought we were going to die, like eight times. Right after my catharsis, I realized how many American fast food joints were here... (pics)

TERRORISM

والاعراب أشد كفرا ونفاقا [The Mesopotamian - an Iraqi]
Friends,
Translation of the above words from the holy Koran, may come as a surprise to you : ?And the A?arab are the worst in Kufr [ faithlessness ] and hypocrisy?. The A?arab are the nomadic Arabs. This is the judgment of the Koran of the Muslims itself concerning the Bedouin nomadic mentality. Let us use the name Al-Qaeda to symbolize this murderous frame of mind which is plaguing the world right now. It is the living embodiment of the worst of all that is evil in the Arab Bedouin genetic subconscious. As I survey the reaction in the Arab media and those of some of my non-Iraqi Arab acquaintances, and alas, some of their Sunni Iraqi kin, to the latest outrage in London and also to the murder of the Egyptian ambassador in Baghdad, I am strongly reminded of these particular words in the holy Koran.

Iraq - The Terrorist Connection [USS Neverdock]
Christopher Hitchens bitch slaps Ron Reagan good - on TV!
...you end up where you ended up, saying that the cause of terrorism is fighting against it, the root cause, I mean. Now, you even said, extraordinarily to me, that there was no terrorist problem in Iraq before 2003. Do you know nothing about the subject at all? Do you wonder how Mr. Zarqawi got there under the rule of Saddam Hussein? Have you ever heard of Abu Nidal?

Terror Musings [Baldilocks]
Watching a History Channel presentation on the Ku Klux Klan yesterday, I was struck by a few thoughts.
...Today?s international terrorists have many similarities to our domestic terrorists of old. Today?s terrorists kill in secret but leave their victims? bodies by the side of the road or hanging in public view, as was so in the cases of the Blackwater Four and of Nicholas Berg (warning: even more graphic). They also murder international envoys sent in peace, just as our terrorists murdered prominent peacemakers.

Markets Factor in Acts of Terror [Outside The Beltway]
One of the things about the 9/11 attacks that many people talked about was how it was in part planned to have an impact on Wall Street and Capitalism (i.e. market based economies). And I don't think many can argue with this. However, one...

Analysis By Random Data Mention [Chapomatic]
So Barry sends me this link and says it needs a good kick in the pants. Okay then.
To make sense of this campaign, I compiled data on the 71 terrorists who killed themselves between 1995 and 2004 in carrying out attacks sponsored by Osama bin Laden?s network. I was able to collect the names, nationalities and detailed demographic information on 67 of these bombers, data that provides insight into the underlying causes of Al Qaeda?s suicide terrorism and how the group?s strategy has evolved since 2001. Most important,...
So, by knowing the name, home country, and age/sex of a few people you find out strategic goals? Did I miss the Genius Train on this one, or perhaps you?re not able to logically get there from here?

MSM REPORTS ON TERRORISM

Al-Qaeda Has Changed; Bush Strategy Also Needs To Shift (USA Today)...Wesley K. Clark
...Preventing attacks probably can't be accomplished by the administration's preference for taking out ?state sponsors.? And it's going to be very difficult to employ military means. National intelligence efforts, special police activities and local community policing efforts, which focus on identifying and targeting terrorist individuals and organizations, are required.

Lessons of London: What's next in war on terror? (USA Today...Rudolph W. Giuliani
On July 7th, I was traveling in London. I was having breakfast at a hotel very near Liverpool Street Station when the first explosion was detonated. Hearing the sirens and seeing London's emergency personnel respond to the bombings brought back vivid memories of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

We Can't Win This War The Old Way (Los Angeles Times)...Timothy Garton Ash
...This does not mean being passive in response to these atrocities. But the right response does not lie, as commentators on Fox News would have us believe, in more military firepower to zap "the enemy" in Iraq or elsewhere. It lies in skilled policing and intelligent policy. Quietly refusing the melodramatic metaphor of war, officials of London's Metropolitan Police described the sites of the Tube and bus bombings as "crime scenes." That's right. Crimes.

HEROES

Airman Fights His Way Back To Iraq [Patriot Voices]
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- Although a rocket attack cut his time short on his first deployment, an Airman from the 64th Combat Search and Rescue helicopter maintenance unit pledged to himself that he'd endure whatever pain was necessary to get back in the fight.
Following a year and a half recovery from serious injuries to his hand which could have ended his Air Force career, Senior Airman Douglas Batchelder, an armament systems journeyman, is back in Iraq at Balad Air Base.

RECOVERING

Mailing address and update [From My Position - at Walter Reed]
On Saturday Chuck was able to talk to the man that saved his life - CPT Jason Spencer. It was very emotional (for me), but I managed not to lose it. It was the first time Chuck has been able to talk to Jason directly since he was injured. Chuck also got to talk to LT Meeks and 1SG Williams... two other very important people to Chuck. He talked to them about 20 minutes, and in those 20 minutes you would of thought he was back in Iraq just chewing the fat w/ his men. It really helped bring his spirits back up. The men in his company mean so much to him. Fortunately, they are all okay. I keep in contact w/ our Rear D Commander to check on Chuck's men for him. Please continue to keep them all in your prayers.

The Fourth of July (POSTED JULY 9) [In Iraq for 365]
The three men were all scared of what came when the night sky arrived. Since we?ve been home, fireworks have not been our friend. The bursts remind of us of mortars falling nearby and bottle rockets sound exactly like a 107 mm rocket flying overhead. But we had to be there, to see our first Fourth of July celebration since our return home. We guzzled enough beer to numb our initial jump or twitch, and most importantly, we all had our significant other there to rub our heads, to calm us. Then, the fireworks began. They lasted for 45 minutes, and with each blast rather than feeling scared, I felt joy. With each colorful display, I thought of how much I love my country. I thought of the girl sitting beside me, and my feelings for her. But most of all, I thought of my friends who died for the green crops, the little kids and the farm houses that make up America.

And for the first time, a tear or a sad feeling didn?t overcome me when I thought of T & Mitts. Rather a smile. It?s as if they were looking down from heaven, watching the country they died for and patting me on the back.

CONGRATS

3 Million [BlackFive]
Thanks to all who've visited over the years. Today, Blackfive received it's 3 millionth visitor early this morning:
The 2,999,999th visitor came from Little Green Footballs - thanks, Charles!

Frank's 3rd Blogiversary - How to Celebrate. [IMOA]
Frank has been blogging now for 3 years as of today.
So of course you are thinking, "Where's my free ice cream?" CUT IT OUT!
You selfish free ice cream demanders need to stop, and step back for moment and think of Frank for a change. Think about his needs, desires and quest for world domination.
To paraphrase, John Kennedy, the Democrat responsible for U.S. involvement in Viet Nam,...