A Request

If you live in one of the states below:

Alaska, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont, Wyoming

You can help a Gold Star Mother. Here's how.

Building 18.

So, Bldg 18 is to be fixed - and quickly. H/t, WaPo and Andi.

The facility's commander, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, said Army staff members inspected each of the 54 rooms at the building and discovered that outstanding repair orders for half the rooms had not been completed. He said that mold removal had begun on several rooms and that holes in ceilings, stained carpets and leaking faucets were being fixed.

One can't help but feel, General, that there is *still* a problem with how your organization does business if it took the Washington Post to help you discover those "outstanding repair orders" had not been completed.

Better late than never - but one hopes there are a few efficiency reports and counseling statements that will fill their own little niche of "outstanding repair orders" and if any medals are awarded for this sudden burst of efficiency, they don't go to someone who fixed a problem of their own creation. Unless, of course, it is metaphorically equivalent to this case...

Whew! (waves away the miasma of post titling snarkitude...)

We interrupt this snarkfest and Iraq News Now for Part II of Conservative@War, starring Bill the Rotorhead.

The tease continues.

Iraq '06

Video: The Pentagon Channel reviews Baghdad operations in 2006.

A pdf report on 2006 in Iraq here.

Confession: I'm linking without having read the document myself. I did run the video. Don't watch it if you're looking for a self-congratulatory exercise in back-patting.

The Momentum Has Shifted...

...Did you feel it?

I'd Say "Heh" But It Ain't So Funny

Who wrote this article and what's he doing now?

And what of these elites who misread not only a war but also their own countrymen? Where are they now, other than in the White House? On this vital historical issue that defined our generation, they now keep a low profile, and well they should.

What an eerie feeling it must have been for those who staked the journey of their youth on the idea that their own country was an evil force, to have watched their naiveté unravel in the years following 1975. How sobering it must have been for those who allowed themselves to move beyond their natural denial, to observe the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese fleeing the "pure flame of the revolution" on rickety boats that gave them a 50 percent chance of death at sea, or to see television pictures of thousands of Cambodian skulls lying in open fields, part of the millions killed by Communist "liberators." How hollow the memories of drug-drenched and sex-enshrined antiwar rallies must be; how false the music that beatified their supposedly noble dissent.

Indeed, let’s be frank. How secretly humiliating to stare into the face of a disabled veteran, or to watch the valedictory speech of the latest Vietnamese-American kid whose late father fought alongside the Americans in a cause they openly mocked, derided, and despised. And what a shame that the system of government that allowed that student to be so quickly successful here is not in place in the country of her origin.

New York Times: Then and Now

The NYT on 19 FEB 2007: Making Martial Law Easier

A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.
...
The newly enacted provisions upset this careful balance. They shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition.”

Now I seem to remember a LOT of caterwauling around the time of Hurricane Katrina about the slow federal response and why National Guard troops weren't more quickly utilized (even though they did outstanding work while there). And lo and behold:

The New York Times on 3 SEP 2005: Katrina's Assault on Washington

There are dozens of questions Americans will demand to have answered once this emergency has passed. If the Homeland Security Department was so ill prepared for a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming, how is it equipped to handle other kinds of crises? Has the war in Iraq drained the nation of resources that it needs for things like flood prevention? Is the National Guard ready to handle a disaster that might be even worse, like a biological or nuclear attack?

Ok, the provision the NYT is talking about is 10 USC 333.

A Post With A Title So That Our Good Friend The Army Lawyer (The Guy Who Admits To Carrying Around At Least One Lace Glove) Can Read It And Not Stumble In His Reading Of These Posts And Hurt His Lips

Heh.

One Banner, Under War

Clinton Objects to Confederate Flag

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war.

Here is a picture of the proposed banner we should all unite under:

[/snark]

Baghdad Security Plan - Whats different this time

via Defenselink - Maj Gen Thurmond - June 16th, 2006

On the number of troops right now assigned to the Multinational Division Baghdad, I've got just a little under 30,000 of U.S. coalition. Of course I have some coalition units that are assigned to us inside that. And we've got roughly 31,000 Iraqi army and Iraqi national police units that are assigned to us. Also, there's a total of over 22,000 Iraqi police

via Defenselink - Maj Gen Fil - 16 Feb 2007