Iranian general defects?

ABC News blogs:

The mysterious disappearance of an Iranian general in Turkey in early February has led to speculation he either was kidnapped or defected.

Iran has reportedly asked Interpol to investigate the general's disappearance. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by Iran's news agency today as saying that a foreign ministry official was currently in Turkey to investigate the disappearance and has asked the Turkish government "to inquire into the issue and give explanation on Asgari's whereabouts."

One respected analyst with sources in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard says Gen. Ali Reza Asgari has defected and is now in a European country with his entire family, where he is cooperating with the U.S.

Noted, Quoted

Mike Yon, on the troops: "If their morale could be bottled, it would probably sell like crack, then be outlawed."

He's in Baghdad now.

Bolton's Thoughts on the "New" NK Intel

Calling the Opinion Piece on the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Page "The North Korean Climb Down" that leads with

Washington's most important person--the Anonymous Senior Official ("ASO")--was busy last week, briefing reporters on North Korea's uranium enrichment program.

Bolton lays a framework for his discussion on politicized intel:

The North's pursuit of nuclear weapons through uranium enrichment, an alternative to reprocessing plutonium from spent fuel at the Yongbyon reactor, constituted both a material breach of the 1994 Agreed Framework and an enormous challenge to the hope that it could ever be negotiated out of pursuing nuclear weapons. Based, however, on one public comment and much work by Mr./Ms. ASO, the media last week set about deconstructing a critical strategic concern underlying Bush administration Korea policy. According to their breathless reporting, yet another threat to America was disappearing, revealed as simply more intelligence hype from an administration that apparently did little else in its first term.

And asks a few core questions for us to ponder:

The reports raise three separate issues. First, what exactly is the intelligence judgment about North Korea's enrichment activities, and how valid was it in 2002? Second, what are the implications for the administration's ongoing negotiations with North Korea? And third, is Mr./Ms. ASO speaking for the Bush administration, or for those elements in the permanent bureaucracy that have consistently opposed key elements of the Bush foreign policy, at least as conducted until recently?

Go read this short piece... I'm looking forward to a more detailed read later this Fall

Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. and the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the U.N. and Abroad," forthcoming this fall from Simon & Schuster.

Some concrete Naval matters

Looks like a regular ship, but... it's a little different.

They saw Navy service as cargo ships, Normandy breakwaters and even as an ice cream parlor of sorts. Some are still being useful 60 years later.

Learn more about them here.

I Love Cinderella Stories....

I love baseball. My pet theory is that if you are very good in this life, you get to play baseball all day every day in the next life and they don't care that you're a girl.

So I am hoping that this Marine's dream comes true:

PEORIA, Ariz. — One by one, more than 80 players seated on a back field of the Padres' spring training complex stood and gave their names and where they were last season.

"Jesus Lopez. Fort Wayne. Eugene."

Class-A teammates laughed and teased.

"Michael Johnson. Pittsburgh Pirates. Indianapolis."

The group welcomed Johnson into the organization.

Then a tall, broad-shouldered and tanned No. 40 stood.

"Cooper Brannan. United States Marine Corps."

Joined the Corps to do his duty and develop "the core values: honor, courage, commitment. I was able to achieve that in the Marine Corps."

A tour in Iraq, a malfunctioning grenade and the loss of part of his left hand hasn't stopped our Hero...

After being evacuated to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego for three follow-up surgeries, Brannan got married to Lindsay Marie Wagener. They now have a 3-week-old daughter, Brooke, and the family is staying two blocks from the Padres camp.

During his recovery, he began working on rekindling his love for baseball, a love he had sustained by having his parents mail gloves and baseballs to Iraq. He'd play catch with fellow Marines between shifts of three days patrolling, three days guarding and three days as the quick reaction force, ready to aid patrols under fire.

"It's a challenge," he said. "There was nothing really sugarcoated about my job."

He is currently stationed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego and on full recovery duty status. He cannot sign a Padres contract until after May 31, the last day of his Marines commitment.

Until then, he is fulfilling the most amazing military order he can imagine.

"Once I got the offer to come out here, they gave me orders to come play baseball. Pretty good deal, huh?" Brannan said, beaming again. "It was awesome."

Yeah. AWESOME. So maybe some people get that chance to play baseball every day all day a little earlier than the rest of us... I sure hope Coop makes it to the Bigs... but if he doesn't, he's a major league success in my book already. OORAH. The whole story HERE.

Army Secretaries Haven't Been Serving Full Tours Since The Clinton Administration.

It's almost as bad as the job title "Al Qaeda #2".

Hey, did anyone notice that WRAMC's Lieutenant General Kiley left too? To be replaced by Gen. Schoomaker?

(h/t Mullings, who understands the politics)

By the way, take a look at the Thomas White Wiki biography. It's pretty nastily portrayed; not exactly the vaunted "neutral point of view", especially when compared to some of the previous secretaries. This is probably because it's been uploaded by one person and not edited by anybody...

Update: The Lioness catches a detail: MGEN E. Schoomaker, not GEN P. Schoomaker.