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Welcome to the Dawn Patrol, our daily roundup of information on the War on Terror and other topics - from the MilBlogs and other sources around the world. If you're a blogger, you can join the conversation. If you link to any of these stories, add a link to the Dawn Patrol too and your trackback will be added to the list. Hat Tips to the Dawn Patrol are greatly appreciated.
Iraq removes separation wall -- [Iraqi Satellite TV Network]
Iraqi recruits took position at a checkpoint in Baghdad on Monday where was set the separation wall in Al Fadel District between Sunnis and Shiites, which was removed this week.
Members of awakening councils stood as well in front of the checkpoint in Al Fadel Dsitrict.
It is to be noted that since April 2007 US Forces set a number of separation walls and checkpoints in different districts of Baghdad to separate between Sunnis and Shiites after violence escalated.
Iraqi business center opens in Balad -- [MNF-I]
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq - Iraqi government and business leaders joined Coalition force officials Oct. 7 to celebrate the opening of the Iraqi-based Industrial Zone Host Nation Business Center near Joint Base Balad, a strategic logistical hub in Iraq.
The business center will help local business owners to receive coalition contracts to provide services and materials to Coalition forces. Coalition officials point to strategic security gains made by the Iraqi government and security forces as a primary factor in enabling Iraqis and Coalition forces to collaborate on the initiative.
Striker Storm Package
Looks like things are pretty quiet in Iraq. Certainly hope the insurgents don't get all excited if Obama wins and start up agin. I think they will.
Movies with the Iraqis -- [Something on the staff - in Iraq]
Building rapport with the Iraqis is always a good thing. Arabs value relationships, and will go to great lengths to build and support the friendships that come from good relationships. As an American in Iraq, I like building rapport as someday my Iraqi friends will tell me if I’m about to drive over an IED, or convince them to eat me last. Similar interests are great way to build rapport, and I try to work that angle through movies.
Commander of Mosul
A military report about the recent Iraqi Police Graduation in Mosul Iraq. The Commander's name has been purposely withheld.
Hyposmia -- [Playing in the Sandbox - in Iraq]
I think my sense of smell is gone. Or if not gone, then certainly skewed.
...who really cares if man-stink or burnt donkey shit no longer sends them to seek a sensory sanctuary? In this kind of environment that might actually be an advantage. But losing one side implies loss of the other, and as a consequence I don't think I can even smell good things anymore! This realization didn't hit me until just a few days ago. I
The Afghanistan paradox -- [NY Daily - Michael Yon - in Afghanistan]
Can the war in Afghanistan be won? It depends on whom you ask.
The senior British commander in Afghanistan recently was quoted in The Times of London, "This war cannot be won." A French diplomatic dispatch reports that the British ambassador said the best solution would be to find an "acceptable dictator" to take over the troubled country.
Life Before Death -- [Michael Yon - in Afghanistan]
Afghans say that in the old days, there were no walls around the houses when the Americans were here en masse. But then the Soviets invaded and walls went up. I asked several Afghans who was worse, the Soviets or the Taliban. One man said the Soviets were far worse. The Soviet approach to counterinsurgency bordered on genocide, but that strategy backfired. The Soviets left under a hail of bullets, and their loss of the war in Afghanistan helped bring down the entire Soviet Union. British soldiers told me that they held joint patrols with some of the Eastern European troops, who still use Soviet-style vehicles. When the people saw the Soviet vehicles coming, they threw rocks at them, though they did not throw rocks at British vehicles.
Other Afghans told me the Taliban, and years of civil war, was even worse than the Soviet invasion.
Title: Afghanistan redux, Part 1 -- [Boumhammer - Scott Kesterson - in Afghanistan]
It has been nearly three weeks since I left the United States, and this is my first entry. My head has been full of story threads, but the cohesion to tell it only settled in during the past few days. My previous year in Afghanistan from May 2006 to May 2007 has given both insight and burden. The war that I seemed to understand so well when I left has been showing a different face of what one soldier referred to as an “occupation.” What it is, what it has become is now what I am seeking to find. With Afghanistan now back on our political map, woven into the two campaigns as the war we have neglected, understanding where we began and where we have arrived has become the theme of this embed. It is a journey that will take me three months this time, a focus not on the whole of the country but in a more specific geographical area.
Donations from home help with Afghan mentoring and support mission -- [Staying in Touch - Lt. Col. Paul Fanning - in Afghansitan]
Donations of school supplies and children’s clothing from military families and friends at home are helping deployed New York Army National Guard soldiers in their mission to mentor and train Afghan national security Forces and support the Afghan people.
Afghan Basic Training
Coalition forces providing basic military training in Afghanistan to build up the Afghan National Army.
Taliban have not split from al Qaeda: sources -- [LWJ - Bill Roggio]
The Taliban have not broken ranks with al Qaeda, senior US military and intelligence sources told The Long War Journal. The idea that the Taliban has severed relations is promoted by European countries who wish to back out of Afghanistan after years of bloody fighting, the sources, who wish to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the subject, said.
Taliban rebuild children’s suicide camp in South Waziristan -- [LWJ - Bill Roggio]
Qari Hussain's notorious child terror camp camp in Spinkai is back online despite a military offensive in January that destroyed the terror nursery.
Empowering Women In Afghanistan-
In the province of Bamian, women are uprooting traditional gender roles by taking up leadership positions. In Poverty and Strife, Women Test Limits
Earthquake rattles Afghanistan -- [CNN]
A 6.0-magnitude earthquake shook central Afghanistan early Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The quake struck at 3:26 a.m. (2256 GMT Sunday). The epicenter was about 70 km (40 miles) south of the capital, Kabul. There were no immediate reports of casualties or serious damage
Earthquake -- [The Left Captain - in Afghansitan]
Last night I woke after 3am to my room shaking. I came out of a deep sleep and wondered what was causing the movement. It moved the building, wood creaking, and rocked my cot back and forth. My sleepy mind slowly ruled out wind, someone shaking the building, and a rocket attack.
Who lost Iceland? -- [MilBlogs - CDR Salamander]
While everyone has been yelling at Wall Street - looks like no one on our side has been looking at the SLOCs.
...Mr Haarde confirmed that he was sending a delegation to Iceland's "new friend" Russia to negotiate a £3bn capital injection into the country's finances, after the country's traditional Western allies refused to help the collapsing banking system.
Russia is not doing this out of the goodness of her heart.
The Forgotten War -- [Michael Totten]
Immediately following Russia's invasion of Georgia and its de-facto annexation of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the phrase “frozen conflicts” was bandied about so often among the world’s foreign policy commentariat that it briefly became a cliché. Yet there is another frozen conflict in the South Caucasus that few have even heard of, fewer know much about, and even fewer have thought to include in any analysis. This war, the forgotten war of Nagorno (or “Mountainous”) Karabakh, has so far racked up a much higher body count – tens of thousands – than any in Georgia lately.
Russia starts troop pullback from Georgia -- [Reuters]
KARALETI, Georgia - Russian troops started pulling back from buffer zones outside South Ossetia on Wednesday, two months after Russia's brief war with Georgia which increased tension with the West
That Old Gang Of Mine -- [Strategy Page]
Islamic terrorists pay for things by using many of the same techniques employed by organized crime. That, however, has proved to be a major weakness, and is being exploited to hasten the demise of the latest wave of Islamic terrorism
Gitmo Detainees Ordered Released in DC -- [The Tank - Gregory S. McNeal]
Andy McCarthy's prediction yesterday that judges may begin ordering the government to release Gitmo detainees has come true. The first order came in the case of the Chinese Uighurs, and the order is for release into the United States.
Gitmoless -- [From the Halls to the Shores]
Now, unless the 4th District overrules Urbina in the next 72 hours, we will knowingly transport 17 Uighers who lived in terrorist training camps to our nation’s capital, and release them on their own recognizance. Why? Because we can’t send them to China, who might mistreat them.
It's About DamnTime!! DoD Compensation & Benefits Handbook -- [Some Soldier's Mom]
DoD announced today it has developed a comprehensive handbook describing compensation and other benefits service members and their families would be entitled to upon separation or retirement as a result of serious injury or illness. "The Compensation and Benefits Handbook is the one source of information that covers everything a seriously ill and injured service member will need during his or her recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration,"
Bitching And Complaining… Or Not… -- [The Gun Line - in Iraq]
...Perception plays a major part of how one views one’s military experience as well. A private won’t see the factors involved in decisions made at the Sergeant Major level, and thus will perceive directives passed down from on high as idiotic, not realizing that the Sergeant Major isn’t simply sitting on his duff making up ways to inconvenience Joe, but is simply enforcing directives that have been passed down to him from higher headquarters. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some monumentally soul-crushing knuckle-headed orders passed down from on high; they simply were generated by somebody who may not have taken into account whether these orders conflict with the reality of the situation:
Surprise!! -- [Two Brothers, Two Countries, One Army]
Well...I'm going to make this pretty short too...I am home!! I am in TN with my brother and my family. John wanted me to be home while he was here...and different from what I said in previous posts about hunting being more important....well, bro...it's not true. I got home two days ago and am having a great time so far!! My brother and everyone went to Ohio for a couple days but I'll see them when they get back.
Camille Paglia, a REAL liberal, versus a drooling libtard -- [CounterColumn]
"I am very concerned about whether our professional class, buffed all shiny and bright by the elite universities, will ever have the will or stamina to defend this nation in a major crisis."
--Camille Paglia, in Salon, responding to this letter:
"Would you care to justify your view that "Americans owe every heroic, wounded veteran an incalculable debt of gratitude"? I am sorry that John McCain spent years in prison. But I am even sorrier that the U.S. ever went into Vietnam. I am an American, and I do not feel that I owe Mr. McCain "an incalculable debt of gratitude" for his participation in that stupid, unnecessary war. If he willingly went to a war which was unjust and uncalled for to begin with, then I, as a American, definitely do not owe him a debt of gratitude.
SNL rewriting bailout skit, “didn’t meet their standards;“ NBC posts edited video -- [Malkin]
Well, well, well.
Peter Viles at L.A. Land reports that Saturday Night Live is rewriting its forbidden Soros/Sandler-bashing
bailout skit because it “didn’t meet their standards.”
Translation: It didn’t meet George Soros’s and the Sandlers’ standards!
It Is Here! The Banned SNL Skit Cannot Hide From Louie -- [Pat Dollard]
It gets put up, it gets yanked, put up, yanked.
Yank this, bitches (FULL SNL VIDEO)
Slick Strategy on Gays in the Military -- [The Tank - Elaine Donnelly]
Is Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama consulting with Bill Clinton? Could be. Recent statements from Obama appear to suggest moderation on the issue of homosexuals in the military, even though his goals remain quite extreme. In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton downplayed his campaign promise to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, and then-President George H. W. Bush allowed him to do so. Clinton’s strategy worked. Will Republican candidate John McCain allow Senator Obama to play the same game?
On September 18, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Barack Obama’s statements to Philadelphia's Gay News, indicating that he “would not proceed unilaterally” in fulfilling his promise to do away with the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy for gays in the military. Instead, the Democratic presidential candidate said that he would “work through a step-by-step process with the military brass.”
Massive US military budget passed
While debate over the Paulson bailout package dominated the headlines, the US Congress quietly passed a landmark $615 billion defense spending bill. One of the few people to comment on the measure was Chalmers Johnson, in his article "We have the money." Chalmers explains to Real News Network's Senior Editor Paul Jay how the military-industrial complex is a driving force behind the current financi More..al crisis and a determinant of much of what happens in Washington. He also criticizes the omission of the military-industrial complex from the political discourse determined by the two major parties and the media.
Veterans Group Rates McCain/Obama Voting Record (and the Rest of Congress Too) -- [Soldier's Home - David Botti]
The veterans group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America released a "scorecard" today which gives letter grades to members of congress based on their voting record for veterans issues. Senator John McCain received a D, while Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden both received a B. According to the group's Website, the grades were based off of how many times a member of Congress voted along the same line as the IAVA's own position on 22 key votes affecting veterans (nine in the Senate and 13 in the House). From the IAVA:
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