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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 various 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.Refresh for updates.
Aides: Mullen Likely to Sign Off on Afghanistan Troop Request -- [FOX News]
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is expected to request 30,000 to 40,000 additional troops, met with Mullen at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, FOX News has confirmed.
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is likely to sign off on any troop request the top commander in Afghanistan believes he needs, aides told FOX News.
What To Do? Part Two -- [Free Range International - in Afghanistan]
There are no easy answers for Afghanistan. Take the recent elections for example. What are the viable options to fixing that mess? You can accept the results which is increasingly unpalatable, you can hold a run off which would probably be an even bigger farce; you could hold an emergency Loya Jirga and start over (could you imagine that?) There are a few more options available I suppose but none of them very attractive. President Obama appears to be "voting present" on the Afghan Campaign. Which is consistent with the way he has handled every tough decision during his entire political career. There has been much speculation about the impact of General McChrystal's leaked confidential report in Washington but little on the impact his report is having on the various formations fighting the war.
Never let them see you sweat -- [Greyhawk]
Some observations on General Petraeus, here, here and here - perhaps best read in reverse order. From my perspective, from this I conclude nothing more than that people are worried and watching, and as stated previously, everyone is having a wtf moment this week.
Foreign Policy: Petraeus Quiet On Afghanistan -- [NPR - Thomas E. Ricks]
David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, in Capitol Hill in Washington before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on US policy for ...
Mullen, Petraeus Write To SecDef Gates Endorsing McChrystal's Afghan Views -- [NPR]
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Central Command, have sent letters to Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsing Gen. Stan McChrystal, NPR's Tom Bowman has learned from someone familiar with the letters.
Report: Obama told Petraeus and mcchrystal to "scrub" assessments -- [Foreign Policy]
David Petraeus and Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley mcchrystal to "scrub" their assessments because he "wasn't inclined to send troops over there.
Take Your Time, Mr. President -- [Villainous Company]
After all, they're not going anywhere:
House Armed Services ranking member Howard McKeon (R-Calif.) said Wednesday that Gates told him on a July trip to Afghanistan that Obama "wasn't inclined to send troops over there." ...The Pentagon signaled Wednesday that it would be some time before McChrystal's troop request is passed from Gates to Obama, who wants more time to review the overall strategy for Afghanistan.
"I want to make it perfectly clear that, once [Gates] has it, he intends to hold onto it until such time as the president and his national security team are ready to consider it," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
Obama, a mere 36 days ago:
... I announced a new, comprehensive strategy in March ...our new strategy has a clear mission and defined goals: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies.
Blame on You -- [Quatto Zone - in Afghanistan]
In cases such as this, we need to understand the validity of the emotional need to blame without validating the judgments of the blamers. This was my reaction to Anne Scott Tyson's Washington Post article on the growing concern among military families and members of Congress over the tactical guidance issued by General McChrystal. The concern is understandable, but the blame is misplaced.
There are three problems with pointing to the current tactical guidance as a troop-killer in Afghanistan. The first is that the guidance doesn't deny troops the right of self-defense. It only clarifies the standards that ...
Tomorrow: Lest We Forget -- [SWJ]
Cross-posted from the Center for Defense Studies, Lest We Forget by Tom Donnelly.
One of the reasons that Gen. Stanley McChrystal can argue that victory in Afghanistan is achievable is that he counts on a force forged in the years since 9/11 into a superb instrument for irregular warfare. Indeed, Americans in uniform have done much to rescue American strategists from their mistakes.
Yet we in Washington take the quality of the force too much for granted.
In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors -- [The Examiner]
According to a detailed account in The Washington Post -- a story that has received too little attention in the ongoing debate over U.S. policy in Afghanistan -- the local Afghan leaders told McChrystal to stop being so fussy and to go ahead and kill the enemy, which they said would help bring stability to the region.
Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran was given extraordinary access to the bombing investigation. According to his account, McChrystal began the meeting with a show of sympathy for those who had been killed or wounded. The general didn't get very far before he was interrupted by the provincial council chairman, Ahmadullah Wardak.
Montreal - Amputee soldier returns to Afghanistan -- [CBC News]
... A Canadian soldier who lost his leg in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan two years ago is returning to duty to do good.
Five US soldiers die in wave of attacks across southern Afghanistan -- [Times Online]
Five American soldiers have been killed in a wave of attacks across southern Afghanistan. They died during operations aimed at reversing insurgent gains in parts of the country that were beyond the reach of coalition forces before President Obama's ...
Yet Another "Bribe the Tribes" Pundit -- [Registan]
So first we had Fareed Zakaria saying that all we have to do to win in Afghanistan is bribe the tribes until we withdraw. Simple! Then Fred Kaplan had a curiously similar idea. It got me thinking: do these people all hang out and decide to write mass op-eds?
Karzai Backers Want Troops -- [Wall Street Journal]
Senior Afghan officials, alarmed by the Obama administration's reappraisal of its Afghanistan strategy, said an increased US military commitment is needed to roll back an emboldened insurgency. They also cautioned about what they said would be dire consequences of any US attempts to edge out President Hamid Karzai. Results from a presidential election last month gave Mr. Karzai a majority, but allegations of widespread ballot-stuffing have stalled the confirmation of his victory and undermined his credibility in the eyes of many Afghans.
Partial vote recount starts in Afghanistan -- [Reuters]
Afghan officials have started a partial vote recount from last month's presidential election in a long-awaited procedure due to bring to
Offsetting ANA illiteracy -- [Flit - in Afghanistan]
I'm now taking requests, apparently: I have been asked for my thoughts on this article.
Look, literacy of the Afghan soldier is a bit of a lame excuse, sure. It would help the fight, certainly. But we shouldn't feel that it is our responsibility to make them literate by ourselves.
The Afghan army does make allowances for literacy classes, in fact. They're run by the Religious and Education officers and their staff, a fixture at battalion level and above. This is a unique military position, one we don't quite grok. We often call them "mullahs," but they're not mullahs... although they can be. What they are is the officers whose job it is to look after the troops, their piety, and their education. In most circumstances, they book and host the mullahs, not act as them themselves.
Anti-US Wave Imperiling Efforts in Pakistan, Officials Say -- [Washington Post]
A new wave of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan has slowed the arrival of hundreds of US civilian and military officials charged with implementing assistance programs, undermined cooperation in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and put American lives at risk, according to officials from both countries. In recent weeks, Pakistan has rejected as "incomplete" at least 180 US government visa requests. Its own ambassador in Washington has criticized what he called a "blacklist" used by the Pakistani intelligence service to deny visas or to conduct "rigorous, intrusive and obviously crude surveillance" of journalists and nongovernmental aid organizations it dislikes, including the Congress-funded International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute. "
Officials: Suspected US Drone Kills 12 in Pakistan -- [Washington Post]
A suspected US missile strike killed 12 people in northwestern Pakistan, intelligence officials said - the latest in a spate of attacks close to the Afghan border that have squeezed al-Qaida and the Taliban. Such strikes have killed high-ranking militant commanders, including Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, but have also killed civilians and drawn protest from Pakistani leaders.
Pakistan discovers 'village' of white German al-Qaeda insurgents -- [Telegraph]
Investigators have discovered a "Jihadi village" of white German al-Qaeda insurgents, including Muslim converts, in Pakistan's tribal areas close to the Afghan border.
What Really Happened in the Tagab Valley? -- [SWJ - Joshua Foust]
A Response to Second Lieutenant James Parker
I read with great interest the September 22 post on PSYOP in the Tagab Valley of Kapisa Province. As both the author of several articles on the province, including a study of counterinsurgency operations there, and considering that province was where I spent the majority of my deployment earlier this year, I was excited to hear a bit about how the area was doing.
What's Awesome? -- [Sgt Danger - in Afghanistan]
So in an exaggerated attempt to find the joy in deployed living, I've been thinking about what's awesome around here.
....This whole deployment thing is not normal. Most people don't leave their families in their parent's basement (8,000 miles away) to play video games and work daily with guns and trucks. They graduate from high school, go on a mission, get married, go to college, get a job, and raise their 2.5 kids in a three-bedroom home with a dog. I still want all of those things, but I get more. War stories to tell the grandkids. Lessons learned in no other way. The chance to face fear in ways most can't imagine. The privilege of giving something, however small, to my country. And I've put my life in both my sergeants' and my God's hands and seen them lead me home safely.
Qaeda Members Escape Prison in Iraq -- [New York Times]
Sixteen prisoners, including leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other extremist groups who had been sentenced to death, escaped from a prison in northern Iraq, in what officials described as a brazen breach of security that prompted a manhunt across a large part of the country on Thursday. Iraqi officials imposed a curfew and, with American search dogs and aircraft, began a large-scale search after the prisoners slipped out of a detention center in the city of Tikrit just before midnight on Wednesday, officials said. One of the prisoners was captured Thursday in an orchard about 12 miles away, but the others remained at large, prompting tightened security at checkpoints as far away as Baghdad, roughly 90 miles to the south.
Iraq president presses UN for international tribunal to try bombing suspects -- [JURIST]
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Thursday urged the UN General Assembly [official website] to establish an independent international tribunal [statement, PDF] to investigate and try suspects in a recent series of deadly bombings. Talabani said that the scope and nature of the August 19 bombing of the foreign and finance ministries [BBC report] that left close to 100 dead necessitated an outside investigation. Despite noting progress in Iraqi security, foreign relations, and the economy, Talabani said: The real danger currently facing Iraq is outside interference in its internal affairs which has committed the worst crimes against innocent Iraqis from various segments of society, men, women, children, and the elderly.
Who Fights This War? -- [In Iraq Now (at 56) -- in Iraq]
...He is very animated when he talks about crossing the desert in an M1 and some of the battles he fought before that brief war ended. He has a look that is so happy that it shows through a helmet and sunglasses even when we are riding 18mph side by side when he talks about the Gulf War. "Our tanks were in charge of the battlefield," he said. "We could engage targets effectively at 3000 meters--they couldn't hit us at half that distance."
The other night he told me about on particular engagement when a company of Iraqi infantry were surrendering, moving toward his vehicles from a position a few hundred meters away. Suddenly the group of surrendering soldiers got...
Exiles Accuse Iran of Working On Detonators -- [Washington Post]
An Iranian exile group said Thursday that it has identified two previously unknown sites in and near Tehran where it says Iranian scientists are researching and trying to manufacture detonators for nuclear weapons.
West demands access to Iran's secret nuclear plant -- [AFP]
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania -- The United States, Britain, France and Germany on Friday demanded immediate access to a previously secret Iranian nuclear site
Iran admits building covert enrichment facility -- [Politico]
The UN nuclear watchdog agency has confirmed relevations coming out of the G-20 today that Iran has admitted that it has a second, covert pilot fuel
China Opposes Iran Sanctions Sought by US -- [New York Times]
China will not support increased sanctions on Iran as a way to curb its nuclear program, a government spokeswoman said Thursday. Although China has generally opposed the use of sanctions, the announcement is sure to complicate President Obama's efforts to impose tougher penalties on Iran, should international talks over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, scheduled for Oct. 1, fail to make headway.
US planning missile bases in Poland: report -- [AFP]
WARSAW -- The United States aims to establish missile bases in Poland, after having scrapped plans fiercely opposed by Russia to deploy a missile shield in
Yes morons, this video is 100 percent fake -- [This ain't Hell...]
Drudge's Easy Libel of the Military -- [Confederate Yankee]
Earlier today I noted that Drudge's link to the use of LRADs as "acoustic weapons" was over the top, which he would have easily recognized on his own if he had simply applied logic to the very video he linked. Put simply, if an LRAD is being used as a weapon, various people would not be walking or standing directly in front of it.
...You should have noticed right off the bat that neither of the uniforms shown in this clip by the men that jumped out of the Crown Victoria are those currently being worn by our military.
Full Text: "A Message from Shaykh Usama Bin Laden to the People of Europe." -- [Counterterrorism Blog]
The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new audio recording of Usama Bin Laden produced by Al-Qaida's As-Sahab Media Foundation and titled, "A Message from Shaykh Usama Bin Laden to the People of Europe." During his speech, Bin Laden called upon Europe to abandon its NATO partnership with the U.S. or face the consequences: "It won't be long until the dust of war clear in Afghanistan, at which point you won't find a trace of any American, because they will have gone away far beyond the Atlantic, Allah permitting, and just us and you will remain, for the oppressed to retaliate from his oppressor... how do you think you will fare after America pulls out--Allah permitting--for us to retaliate from the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed?" Bin Laden also mocked ...
An Afghan-Born Man Is Indicted For Possible Terrorist Acts -- [Voice of America]
A young Afghan-born man has been indicted in New York on a charge of conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction against targets inside the United States. And two other Afghan-born men accused of making false statements to federal investigators investigating the case were ordered released under court supervision. A New York grand jury indicted 24-year-old Najibullah Zazi, a resident of the western state of Colorado, on a charge that he conspired with unnamed others to make and use improvised bombs inside the US. Federal prosecutors in New York and Colorado allege that Zazi received bomb-making instructions on a trip to Pakistan in 2008 and that he later searched out and purchased bomb components such as hydrogen peroxide and acetone.
Terror Case Called One of Most Serious in Years -- [New York Times]
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior government officials have announced dozens of terrorism cases that on closer examination seemed to diminish as legitimate threats. The accumulating evidence against a Denver airport shuttle driver suggests he may be different, with some investigators calling his case the most serious in years.
2 NC Men Now Accused Of Targeting US Military -- [Washington Post]
Two North Carolina men accused this summer of being at the center of a homegrown terrorism threat cased the US Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., with plans to kill U.S. military personnel, federal prosecutors alleged Thursday. A federal grand jury on Thursday filed an additional charge of conspiring to murder military personnel against Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39, and Hysen Sherifi, 24, according to the US attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina. The indictment, which was not immediately available, alleges that Boyd obtained maps and undertook reconnaissance of the base and that Boyd owned armor piercing ammunition that he said was "to attack the Americans," US Attorney George E.B. Holding said in a statement.
19-year-old Man Arrested for Trying to Destroy Downtown Dallas Skyscraper -- [Chicago Tribune]
19-year-old Jordanian citizen was arrested this afternoon as he attempted to destroy an iconic downtown Dallas skyscraper with a car bomb, federal officials said.
Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, was arrested by FBI agents near the Fountain Place building at 1445 Ross Avenue. The FBI said he placed an inactive car bomb by the location.
NY man accused of seeking to kill U.S. troops -- [Reuters]
A New York man was indicted on Thursday for allegedly seeking training from Islamic militants to fight U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, authorities said.
The FBI said Betim Kaziu, a U.S. citizen and New York resident, sought to acquire weapons and training to fight U.S. troops abroad.
New video seeks al-Qaida recruits in Germany -- [AP]
The release of a third al-Qaida video message in German this week shows that Germany must remain on alert before weekend parliamentary elections, officials said.
Authorities are analyzing the third message, which was released Thursday and calls on Muslims in Germany to take part in jihad, or holy war, German Interior Ministry spokesman Stefan Paris told reporters.
German officials, however, denied that the video put the nation in any further danger.
White House Regroups on Guantanamo -- [Washington Post]
...As the process was getting underway in the spring, the administration began losing support for shutting the facility, in part, officials now say, because the White House did not present a concrete plan for what it would do with the remaining terrorism suspects.
After news reports that some detainees -- Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs -- were going to be moved to the Virginia suburbs, lawmakers balked.
Then in May, the Senate decided, by an overwhelming vote of 90 to 6, to block funding for shutting Guantanamo Bay -- Obama's first major legislative setback as president.
The Tip of the 9/11 GI Bill Iceberg -- [Nextgov]
Top officials of the Veterans Affairs Department revised the figures they put out yesterday on payments the agency has made to veterans under the post-9/11 GI bill, and said that as of today, only 24,186 vets have received checks -- or roughly 12 percent of the 200,000 claims it expected to receive by the end of the summer.
...Duckworth acknowledged that the VA faces problems and added the department is not trying to make excuses for its performance. To handle its backlog, Duckworth said the VA has put claims examiners on overtime, including weekend shifts.
Nelson said the VA is processing post-9/11 GI Bill claims in an average of days. That's not the experience of James Martin, a Marine Iraq war veteran at Boston College Law School who said it took the VA six weeks to process his request for a certificate of eligibility and he expects it will be another six weeks before he gets a check.
NEW G.I. BILL PAYMENTS LAG AS VA JUGGLES NUMBERS -- [VA Watchdog]
VA issues confusing numbers on G.I. Bill payments as veterans worry about how they will pay the rent. The VA is taking lots of heat because of the delays in getting out payments to veterans using the post-9/11 (or New) G.I. Bill.
On Thursday September 24, 2009, I was part of a conference call held for those who write about VA issues online. Assistant Secretary Tammy Duckworth (Public Affairs) and Lynn Nelson (#2 at VA's Education Services) took questions from a number of reporters.
A major concern was conflicting statistics about how many G.I. Bill claims have been paid. A recent VA press release said "over 61,000 payments." But, now we learn those could have been multiple payments to the same veteran. During the call Duckworth said only 24,186 veterans have received the new benefits.
Over half of vets still waiting for G.I. Bill money -- [USA Today]
Nearly a month into the fall college semester, the Department of Veterans Affairs has paid benefits for fewer than half the former Iraq and Afghanistan veterans requesting under the new post-9/11 G.I. Bill, according to a VA estimate.
Keith Wilson, director of the VA Education Service office, said about half of the 50,000 veterans owed money for tuition and expenses have been paid. Others are still waiting .
Another estimated 60,000 veterans are waiting for money under an older version of the G.I. Bill, Wilson says.
Veterans' promised tuition checks AWOL -- [Washington Times]
The U.S. government failed to send promised college tuition checks to tens of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars before they returned to school this fall, even after being warned that it was inadequately staffed for the job.
The Veterans Affairs Department blamed a backlog of claims filed for GI Bill education benefits that has left veterans who counted on the money for tuition and books scrambling to make ends meet.
Waging war with VA leaves veteran battle-weary -- [Chicago Tribune]
Juggling school and military service was difficult, but it didn't truly become a problem until he was deployed again last year, this time to Afghanistan.
In accordance with the GI Bill, UIC notified the Department of Veterans Affairs that Anderson again had been called to active duty. But instead of filing the deployment date as August 2008, the school mistakenly referenced his Decatur deployment and said he was called up in December 2006.
Based on the paperwork, the VA assumed Anderson had been on active duty the entire time and wanted its money back. Veterans Affairs reasoned that if Anderson had been deployed since December 2006, he could not have been in school, and he should not have received the $8,179.12 in benefits paid from late 2006 until mid-2008.
In February, the VA sent Anderson's parents a letter asking them to return the money.
Anti-gay church wins round in court -- [Baltimore Sun]
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a fundamentalist Kansas church's protest outside the funeral of a Westminster Marine killed in Iraq is protected speech and did not violate the privacy of the service member's family, reversing a lower court's $5 million award.
Gunbloggers Raise over $8000.00 for Project Valour-IT -- [Soldiers' Angels Germany]
A group of gun enthusiasts led by blogger "Mr. Completely" recently turned their love of firearms into laptop computers for wounded warriors. For the third straight year, the Gunblogger Rendezvous in Reno, NV has made Soldiers' Angels Project Valour-IT its fundraising focus. In addition to a raffle, the registration form for participants this year included an option of donating to Valour-IT while paying the registration fee.
COL. HOWARD\'S TROOPS WILL APPRECIATE YOUR EFFORTS, BUT MORE IS
NEEDED TO REACH OUR GOAL! -- [Move America Forward]
The 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division is stationed in some of the roughest parts of Afghanistan. They live in remote combat outposts, and their missions take them deep into enemy territory and perilously near the border region to Pakistan, where the Taliban are strongest.
Is the U.S. Military Close to Curing AIDS? -- [Faster Times]
All right, it's a sensationalistic headline, but this is pretty sensational news.
A collaboration between the US Military HIV Research Program and the Thai Ministry of Public Health announced that for the first time, a vaccine against HIV has actually been shown decrease your chances of catching HIV.
SPLC and their evidence of Neo-Nazis in the military -- [This Ain't Hell...]
TSO and I have been telling you for months that the Southern Poverty Law Center is just making stuff up in regards to military members joining white supremacist organizations - well, a few weeks ago, they jumped the shark. Sonia Scherr wrote an article on the "Hate Watch" web page entitled; Leaked Neo-Nazi E-mails Show Contacts With Military Personnel. Their article is based on 629 leaked private emails posted on WikiLeaks between the National Socialist Movement and some members.
So I checked on Military.com for a Kyle Wrobel in any military service and came up empty.
Del. Air Guard members return after 1 year in Iraq -- [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Guard officials said the soldiers will be reunited with their families Friday at Fort Dix., NJ, after a year in Iraq. The brigade was responsible for ...
The Road Home -- [Life at Joint Base Balad - heading home from Iraq]
Right now I am at Fort Bliss, Texas. When you leave Iraq, you don't just hop on a plane and go straight home. You must follow a de-mobilization process, which is similar to (but much shorter than) the mobilization that you go through before getting to Iraq. The basic way to demobilize is to fly from Iraq to Ali Al Salem (AAS) air base in Kuwait, and then
When Photographs Lie -- [Villainous Company]
A photograph is nothing more than a tiny sliver of stopped time, pressed onto a flat surface, utterly devoid of context or soul. An unretouched photograph is visual truth.
This is what SangerM. argues in defense of Julie Jacobson's decision to violate an embed agreement she voluntarily signed, and upon which the Marine Corps relied when deciding whether she could be trusted with embed status. Had she refused to sign the agreement, she would have had no chance to publish a graphic photo in which a fellow human bled to death from the stumps of two severed legs.
But Sanger's argument seems to be that agreements between human beings don't matter. Jacobson had the "right" to publish explicit photos of a young man's agony even though her access to his wounding was conditioned upon her agreement not to photograph it:
... it was Jacobson's right to do so, and given that she was as much a participant in that battle as the three Marines, I say her story is at least as important as theirs if honestly told.
There's only one problem with this argument. The Eddie Adams photo he so proudly points to as an example of "photographs that inform, not misinform" did not capture the facts. What it did do was evoke emotions so strong that they eclipsed the truth. Viewers saw a cringing victim in the instant before being brutally shot by a heartless aggressor. What the photo did not and could not convey was the "why" behind the shooting; the nuance that is far more common in real life than stark black and white depictions of the choices we make. But ...
Bullshit Bob -- [Michael Yon]
...My latest embed with British 2 Rifles, which began in July, was extended on at least two occasions. The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) had recently agreed that I would spend roughly one more month with 2 Rifles. My scheduled embeds with the United States Air Force and Marines were specifically arranged around the British schedule, and I was enjoying reporting on the excellent British troops.
However, on August 24th, with no warning, unseen faces of MoD discontinued my embed from 2 Rifles. The message that I was no longer embedded was emailed to me by Media Ops, just as I returned from an interesting firefight in the Green Zone. Luckily, none of our guys got hit, but I think the British soldiers may have killed some Taliban.
I do not know the reason for the embed termination. My best guess is that it relates to my sustained criticism that the British government is not properly resourcing its soldiers.
Before going further, it is essential to underscore the importance of the "Media Ops" in the war. When Media Ops fails to help correspondents report from the front, the public misses necessary information to make informed decisions about the war. Many soldiers in the British Media Ops are true professionals who strive constantly to improve at their tasks and work very well with correspondents. Their professionalism and understanding of the larger mission--ultimate victory--provide an invaluable service to the war effort.
But there are a few who should not be in uniform and it takes only one roach leg to spoil a perfect soup.
...I had a specific incident with this British Media Ops Major.
In the media II -- [Embedded in Afghanistan... - recently home from Afghanistan]
The New York Times linked to this blog a couple of weeks ago, which explained for me why my site had taken such a jump in its number of visitors. Of course, the NYT discovered the blog and labeled it as a blog by a deployed soldier only after I'd returned. At any rate, I'm flattered by the exposure. One of the other affects of the NYT link was this blog was discovered by a reporter for NPR who then requested a phone interview with me for his story about blogging and social networking while deployed. I was happy to give him my two cents on the issue, though I wish he'd've made it more clear that I didn't want my name associated with the blog because I don't think it's right to use military service to publicize yourself. I did mention the fact that I'm going to be continuing my military service, but fear of reprisals or whatever is not why I don't put my name on the site (see below). At any rate, it was a good article and I'm glad to have been a contributor to it.
I think the blogging done by service members while on deployment is generally a good thing, and I was happy to have been put in a position where I could write about things that people would be interested in reading. I didn't see it as my duty to write positively. I just tried to be as honest with myself as I could be with it, while
In Poll, Public Wary of Obama on War and Health -- [New York Times]
President Obama is confronting declining support for his handling of the war in Afghanistan and an electorate confused and anxious about a health care overhaul as he prepares for pivotal battles over both issues, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. But Mr. Obama is going into the fall having retained considerable political strength. At 56 percent, his approval rating is down from earlier in the year but still reasonably strong at this point compared with recent presidents. More Americans are starting to credit his stimulus package with having helped to revive the economy.
Kirk To Obama: Withdraw Grants To Libyan Charities -- [CBS]
$400,000 Is To Be Split Between Charities Run By Gadhafi Family
The Obama Administration plans to give $400,000 in funding to a Libyan charity run by the Gadhafi family, and U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) wants the grant withdrawn.
The money would be divided between two foundations run by the family of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi. A $200,000 share is set to go to the Gadhafi Development Foundation, which is run by Gadhafi's son, Saif, and another $200,000 are to go to Wa Attassimou, an organization run by Muammar Gadhafi's daughter, Aisha.
(Need more? Dawn Patrols Archives are here.)
