2nd ISF Battalion Assumes Lead in Ramadi

[Soldier's Dad]

via MNF-I

RAMADI, Iraq – The Iraqi Army assumed responsibility of an area in northern Ramadi today. The 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade of the 7th Iraqi Army Division, commanded by Colonel Kareem, officially assumed battle space at 11 a.m. today at a ceremony on forward operating base Blue Diamond. .

More Evidence of Low Morale and Uncaring Soldiers

[Major John]

See this. Just more evidence that we are disspirited and don't care.

Leyte Gulf

[Eagle1]

The Battle of Leyte Gulf begins - 62 years ago today.

"Crossing the T" in the Surigao Strait, Taffy3 off Samar and much more in the last great naval surface action.

David Axe on "The Crackdown"

[John Noonan]

Military.com's David Axe on the noose tightening around milblogs and embeds:

...the Army has recently taken steps to crack down on our most unfiltered source of information from the front: soldier bloggers. As milblogs get shut down, embeds become even more important. Tragically, recent reports have pinned the number of embeds in Iraq at around ten. That's too few. There would be eleven if Garver would let Yon back in, twelve if he'd let me back too, and many more if he demonstrated a willingness to work with alternative media. There is no shortage of independent journalists eager to risk their lives to report on U.S. troops; there is only a lack of will on the part of the military to grant us access.

We simply must wrap our heads around the realities of this new war. And the most prominent of those new realities is this: the media has become more important than entire fleets of warships and divisions of armor.

We either start playing to win on this front or start preparing to lose.

Re: How We Got Stupid

[Greyhawk]

Found via Chap's links below, and definitely not stupid.

Good links in their side bar, too.

Army beats Navy....again

[CDR Salamander]

You have to give credit where credit is due.

These liquid highways can also serve as an avenue for insurgents to traffic their goods, be it improvised explosive device materials or people. In northern Diyala Province, there is a man-made lake in the village of Hamrin that could serve as a quick getaway for insurgents.

That lake is ~ 9NMx2NM and the river that runs into it parallels the Iranian border and the outflow goes through Baquba all the way to Baghdad. If the Navy won't cover the inland RED SLOC, the Army will do some "backyard" engineering and git'r'done.

"“We serviced the engine to make sure everything ran,"” said Staff Sgt. Phillip Kitchen, team chief, Service and Recovery Section, Dragoon Troop, 2-9 CAV. "The prop that was on it when we got it was destroyed, so we had to re-do the prop; sand it down, grind it down, make it better. The boat had a hole in it so we had to patch the underside of the boat so that it wouldn't leak in."”

Has to be one of the most overmanned "patrol boats" I have ever seen. Bravo Zulu to the Army. In the time it took to defeat Imperial Japan, the Navy is still training and relearning a fundemental skill. Hold on in the Duraboat fellas! We'll get there...maybe...probably not.

Is North Korea Backing Down?

[GIKorea]

I don't think so:

Coming under united international pressure, Kim Jong Il reportedly apologized for the Oct. 9 nuclear detonation and said he wouldn't test any more bombs.

That doesn't mean Kim can afford to show any weakness to a home crowd who live in an officially enforced siege mentality and are long accustomed to blaming their desperate living conditions on outside forces — mainly the United States.

"No matter how the U.S. imperialists try to stifle and isolate our republic ... victory will be on the side of justice," Choe Thae Bok, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, told a rally of more than 100,000 people, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

The North also held firm to its demand that the U.S. lift financial restrictions that have strangled Pyongyang's access to banks abroad as a condition to return to disarmament talks.

Washington has repeatedly rejected that request, and appears even more unlikely to alter its hard-line approach to the communist nation in the wake of the nuclear test — leaving the potential for the crisis to escalate further.

"If the U.S. makes a concession to some degree, we will also make a concession to some degree, whether it be bilateral talks or six-party talks," Kim was quoted as telling a Chinese envoy, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo daily reported.

North Korea is just implementing one of the oldest terrorist tactics in the book and just like with the terrorists the media is doing everything it can to aid Kim Jong-il. Kim Jong-il is not apologizing he is just trying to appear conciliatory to save face for China, but also to make the US seem unreasonable because he says they are the ones threatening North Korea and implementing the financial sanctions on him thus causing the nuclear crisis. If the US would just be conciliatory like him and give up the sanctions they would return to talks.

Test bed

[Eagle1]

One U.S. Navy ship handled sea planes, Talos, Tartar and Terrier missiles and had Aegis and VLS.

It was the only one of its kind.

Read about her here.