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Site contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com
Few things amaze me. Britain is teetering on the brink, however, with the reaction to the raid on a place where chemical bombs were apparently being made. Nerve agent, no less...probably sarin. So what are Brits obsessing over? Chemical first response? Antidote supplies? Whether more cells may have been involved?
Nope.
Should police be allowed to shoot terrorism suspects?
What's next, "Should soldiers be allowed to shoot suspected insurgents?"
You can't even make this stuff up. Good luck, Europe.
That debates like this even see the light of day or are spoken in open air almost begin to make you want to close up shop, pack up, come home, establish the Fortress America dreamed of by foolish xenophobes and tell the rest of the world they're on their own.
If that's how you want to fight terrorism, forgive me for not wanting to endure the repeated kicks to the teeth simply because breaking the leg that kicks is deemed insensitive. Thanks, but you try it your way. I'll watch from over here if that's quite alright, chaps.
I have no words left suitable for publication.
Welcome, all new folks. I woulda said "there goes the neighborhood" but they let me in already, so the neighborhood's already gone.
We got any Coasties yet to beat on?
Don't tease the handicapped.
Anyway, I am having a nice Leffe and thinking of her. Be nice.
Hi there folks. I'm An Army Lawyer. I'd like to extend a big "thank you" to Greyhawk for inviting me to post here at MilBlogs. So without further ado, let's get to it:
Ft Hood facing "severe" budget crunch
A "severe budget crunch" has hit Fort Hood, one of the nation's largest military posts and home to a U.S. Army division serving in Iraq, officials said Thursday.
The funding squeeze forced the Central Texas installation to impose an immediate hiring freeze and dramatic cuts in contracts with local providers of support services, officials said.
The move announced Thursday follows "significant internal steps to help manage existing funds through the end of the fiscal year," an announcement from base headquarters said.
"Additional measures are necessary and will be implemented beginning (Thursday)," the statement said.
It's not just Hood that's going through this. Other posts (including my own) are having to deal with the lack of an appropriation bill from Congress and have imposed such hiring freezes and other temporary money savers. The main mission remains intact, however, but some of the ancillary things get halted for a bit.
But it's a helpful reminder of how dependent the military is on Congress' power of the purse to get anything done.
Anyone have a link to an archived collection? If you've seen them, you know the ones I mean.
I'd like to share some here - you know, to keep people safe.
Eagle is almost on the right track...
...the site for CDR Salamander is definitely here.
(Clears datum, gets ready to launch the countermeasures...)
A site for CDR Salamander found here.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking...
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - The daily carnage in Iraq is claiming another casualty - Arab reformers who have increasingly become the target of governments that no longer feel pressured by the United States to change.
A journalist in Beirut finally gets the BIG picture. The US has been the engine of progressive democratic reform for 200+ years. When the US stumbles, so does the world.
Army deserter Joshua Key is back in the news, from Canada, with new stories of American "atrocities". Back in September, he had some vague stories of raids on the homes of Iraqis, but nothing too traumatic. Now, as he's struggling to get asylum in Canada, he's suddenly "remembered" how he stumbled across an even more grisly sight back in 2003:
"We was going along the Euphrates River," says Joshua Key, a 27-year-old former U.S. soldier from Oklahoma, detailing a recurring nightmare -- a scene he stumbled on shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. "It's a road right in the city of Ramadi. We turned a real sharp right and all I seen was decapitated bodies. The heads laying over here and the bodies over here and U.S. troops in between them. I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, what in the hell happened here? What's caused this? Why in the hell did this happen?' We get out and somebody was screaming, 'We fucking lost it here!' I'm thinking, 'Oh, yes, somebody definitely lost it here.'"Unlike some earlier "reporters" of atrocities, it looks like this guy's actually been to Iraq, just as there's no question that he is the darling of the anti-war left. It is interesting, though, how he held out his most sensational story until now. He says he was in the "43rd Company of Combat Engineers". Surely someone else must have seen what he saw -- unless, of course, he made it all up...
"Joshua says he was ordered to look around for evidence of a firefight, for something to rationalize the beheaded Iraqis. "I look around just for a few seconds and I don't see anything." But then he noticed the sight that now triggers his nightmares. "I see two soldiers kicking the heads around like a soccer ball. I just shut my mouth, walked back, got inside the tank, shut the door, and it was like, I can't be no part of this. This is crazy. I came here to fight and be prepared for war but this is outrageous. Why did it happen? That's just my question: Why did that happen?"
Let's not jump to conclusions. Just because they fabricate quotes, attempt to defraud readers with photos, and leave out significant elements of stories that favor the US version of events is no reason to accuse the press of an anti-military bias.
After all, they may simply be on the other side.
Added thought: The media can't let the actions of a few rogue journalists tarnish the reputation of the industry as a whole. I will remain optimistic that they have some internal mechanism (similar to that in the US military) to ensure those who perpetrate these frauds are dealt with properly, and that such events never happen again.
Michelle Malkin has the story.
It appears that the UK Times used stand-in bodies for their story on Haditha.
This counter-suit against Yon sounds like a weak smokescreen to me. Bottom line Up Front is that Shock Mag is guilty of copyright infringement. Period. The end. Everything else is gravy.
Also, the idea that a vile tabloid like Shock has the grapes to cry about "defamation" seems a bit contradictory, dare I say hypocritical.
Hi Mom!
Must clarify first, the design is the Mrs' handiwork. Had I been left to apply my own meager skills, it would probably look something like this.
Speaking of the early days of the blogosphere - hope you all are familiar with Sgt Mom. She can claim more milblogger credibilty than any of us, for her place in milblogs history, her own status as a retired (which can be done at a very young age, mind you) USAF Senior NCO, and her daughter the Marine.
So welcome aboard! (Here's her "home blog". Be sure to check the cartoon post, and keep scrolling.)
(looking around the edge of the half-opened door)
Greyhawk invited me over, he said there was a lot of cool stuff going on.
(Ohhh, MoveableType, very comfortable and familier)
Hawk, I love what you've done with the place!
Greyhawk already mentioned Michael Yon's problems with SHOCK magazine. The Huntress has some nice, legal suggestions, of Things You Can Do.
After you're done, drop by the Castle, mosey up to The Bar of Argghhh!, and have a drink.
I don't live in the US, so I wasn't aware of the disappearance of Iraq from TV news coverage:
TV Reporters Decry Drop In Iraq CoverageThat sense of desperation may explain some of the tone of the Haditha and Ishaqi coverage. Of course, that very tone may be why viewers are tuning out.The deaths of two CBS crew members have put the war back at the top of prime-time news, but journalists say they sense a growing apathy.
News of the bombing that felled a CBS news crew washed over Baghdad's tight-knit press corps like a tempest this week — evoking waves of anxiety, sadness, resolve and more than a little dismay.
American television journalists covering Iraq confronted the difficult reality that it took the deaths of a cameraman and soundman and critical injuries to correspondent Kimberly Dozier to help push Iraq back to the forefront of the nightly news back home.
<...>
ABC correspondent John Berman in Baghdad wrote in his blog recently that he and his colleagues felt like the castaways on the network's prime-time drama "Lost" — "We have come to the conclusion that no one knows we are here."
Cori Dauber is briefly quoted in the story. An Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her area of scholarship is the way the media represents war and the military. Her blog should be a daily read for all.
I'll very rarely do full "cross posts" from Mudville but this seems worthy of exception.
Looks like Shocked Magazine has sent a clear message to Mike Yon - and that message seems to be "bring it on":
...when I learned of this blatant infringement of my copyright on that photograph, I issued an immediate statement clarifying that I had not given anyone authorization for this use, and never would have allowed an image which I’ve called ‘sacred to me’ to be used in a flagrant attempt to profit from discrediting and demonizing American soldiers. What outraged me the most is how the timing of this launch coincided with the Memorial Day weekend, putting 300,000 copies of a slick attack on the very same soldiers Americans were honoring across the country. I am so disgusted with what they did with that image, which to me symbolizes the true nature of our military, that I demanded the publisher take it off the shelves.Based on Yon's description of the rag, stealing content is probably their method for offering a product advertisers wouldn't be caught dead in at a price that it's "target demographic" can afford.HFM not only refused, they intimated in writing that they may have a claim against me for defamation based on the complaints they received from third parties about their unauthorized use of my photo.
<...>
Like most illegal usages, this only came to my attention after readers found it. Once I began trying to clear my name, several bloggers wrote about it and published contact information to the publisher, who began getting a flood of complaints. That’s when the publisher turned around and threatened me, in writing, with a defamation lawsuit. That’s no misprint: they took my property, used it a vulgar way, further dishonored our military and our country by timing their inaugural launch to Memorial Day weekend, and then, when some patriotic bloggers dared to call them to complain about it, they threatened me. People who go into business deliberately seeking to offend and insult others should probably get used to complaints.
from Afghanistan... The DO NOT DISTURB sign is up, but drop by and leave a little note...
Iran double crossed the Russians during their "Revolution". The Russians have made endless overtures but are being played by the Iranians. Hence, the Iran/Iraq war. Saddam was Moscows man, he would have never started a war with Iran without at least a nod from Moscow. The Iranians will never trust Moscow. Maybe Putin finally figured out he was just a customer in a "Topless Bar", he'll get shown the goods, but never be invited to the back room.
I guess if I were on the list of terrorist supporting nations I might be a little concerned that something unpleasant might happen to my lovely reign of terror should some Great Power decide that I was becoming an unpleasant nuisance.
I might go shopping for protection from one of my old allies. And being more or less oil deficient, I reckon my trading options would be limited to trading something that former ally really wants. And that erstwhile Great Power, now somewhat in a slump. might be willing to act as a shield for me if I offered up a nice cozy warm water port.
Dredging would be tossed in and I get a free up to date anti-aircraft setup.
Sweet.
Now that name. Maybe I would take a lesson from Prince and ask them to change change the name to "Syrian Protection Force formerly known as the Black Sea Fleet" or something.
Americans cleared of charges of herding 11 people, ranging from a 75-year old woman to a 6-month old baby into a single room of a house, handcuffing all of them, shooting them in the head, then burning three vehicles and killing the villagers' animals, and blowing up their house to cover up the crime.
No response from PETA yet.
Hoo boy. An Instalanche and one hundred and three comments so far on the 'Hawk's excellent post. They're mixing it up in there...
Phibian has a well written post, worth a read. Me, I'll hold fire for now; and have something worthwhile I can do in the meantime.
Noonan asks for help from the Navy guys on something, and blows me off. John must be mad at me for pulling out eighty-year-old magazines to debate him! What am I, chopped liver?
Don't answer that.
My thoughts on this Syria dredging report: Warm water port, good location, not a bad deal for the redeployers. If I were Russian it would make a lot of sense. Russia has Islamist terror in the form of Chechnya and related to deal with, and this is a good NATO place it can play (all the cool kids are playing with NATO this year).
Syria's leadership has got itself in a tough spot--it's tough to maintain tyranny when the world changes. Elder Assad killed every man, woman and child in Hama because he was repressing Islamist activity in the form of Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and the local group Attalieaa--and that atrocity was decades ago. If Syria stops the insurgent flow into Iraq, it risks those bombers turning on Syria; Kurds live in and next to Syria; and there are other groups who'd like to rise up in revolt. Assad, being the head of a fascist (Ba'ath Party built from Vichy France Naziism) tyranny, knows that if he tries to get off the tiger he will be eaten--so the Syrian regime is in a tight spot with respect to Islamist terrorism. (This belief is so strong that Syrians I've talked to are convinced that baby Assad is going to be able to 'cut a deal' with the Americans, a deal that every government person I've talked to says is ridiculous.)
So some money, a cheap way to get support and "get tough on terror" where it helps the Assad regime, and it falls together. I wish I had been smart enough to predict it coming.
From the London Times:
A DESPERATE search is under way for a “chemical vest” that a British suicide bomber was ready to deploy in a terror attack on London.Via USA Today's blog.Police fear that the strike, using a home-made chemical device, was imminent after an informant told MI5 that he had seen the lethal garment at the home of two young men.
Ahem:
Kathy Kane's return as a socialite-turned-caped-crusader might not draw much attention outside the comic book world, but Batwoman's other secret is causing quite a fuss.DC Comics says the character, who was brought in originally in 1956 as Batman's love interest, will be reintroduced as a lesbian as part of an effort to diversify its superhero roster. Kane is open about her sexuality with her friends, but has not come out to her family, executive director Don Didio said.
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that Bruce Wayne and his "young ward" Dick Grayson would associate with known homosexuals.
...gets a rather well-balanced review in the New York Times.
Ruskies May Relocate Black Sea Fleet to Syria
MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has started dredging at a Syrian port where it maintains a logistical supply point with a possible eye to turning it into a full-fledged naval base, a respected Russian business daily said Friday.Tartus, the second most important Syrian port on the Mediterranean, could be transformed into a base for Black Sea Fleet warships when they are redeployed from the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, Kommersant daily said, quoting sources in Russia's diplomatic service and the Defense Ministry.
The paper quoted an anonymous source at the Defense Ministry as saying that Moscow was planning to form a squadron led by the Moskva missile cruiser within the next three years to operate in the Mediterranean Sea on a permanent basis, in particular for joint antiterrorist exercises with NATO forces.
Emphasis mine. So Ivan wants to run anti-terror manuevers using Syria(!?) as the port of operations? Did Iran turn them down or something?
SMASH, Salamander, Bubblehead, Eagle1, and Lex...feel free to weigh in here.
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