More Milblogging & the Conference...

More coverage on the new/not new Milblog regs... and our friends Blackfive and Mike Yon get props...

WASHINGTON — The military blogging community is abuzz over the perceived crackdown on bloggers, who Army officials readily admit are providing firsthand accounts that the media generally miss in daily reporting from the war zone.

The bloggers are now awaiting word on whether the Army will make permanent changes to regulations issued last month that attempt to limit the details offered by soldiers writing from the frontlines.

"The regulation was either poorly written or intended to crack down on bloggers," said Matthew Currier Burden, a former defense intelligence officer who runs Blackfive.net, one of the most widely read military blogging sites.

And our own Army Lawyer...

But a visit to another of the most popular independent military Web sites, millblogging.com, suggests that many soldiers and their supporters are not deterred from their blogging mission. And blogger Army Lawyer, who identifies himself only as a JAG attorney, wrote in his blog that he doesn't think the Army is trying to censor soldiers' Web sites.

"No, the Army didn’t try to ban blogs. No, the Army didn’t backtrack. No, the Army wasn’t going to be some Communist-like organization where only approved information is uttered. And all the histrionic commentary to the contrary ... looks rather silly and borderline insulting," he wrote.

And Andi

"In no way will every blog post/update a soldier makes on his or her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate supervisor and operations security (OPSEC) officer. After receiving guidance and awareness training from the appointed OPSEC officer, that soldier blogger is entrusted to practice OPSEC when posting in a public forum," reads the sheet distributed by Andi Hurley, a blogger, spouse of a career solder and organizer of the 2007 Milblog Conference.

And DJ Elliott and Badger 6...

"The worst OPSEC violator in the senior staffs is the Pentagon. I get more advance notice from a Pentagon Press Brief of U.S. movements from Kuwait into Iraq than I get from all other sources combined. The Pentagon acts as if it is not at war, and the leaks emanating from Arlington are enormous," blogger D.J. Elliot, a retired Navy intelligence analyst, wrote on The Fourth Rail.

Badger 6, who identifies himself as an Army officer in Iraq commanding an engineering company, writes on his Web log that operational security is tantamount to success in the war in Iraq, although even he has wondered if the decision to update the regulations may have had a political component to it.

READ IT ALL

I Might Be Wrong

...apparently nobody gets more publicity than Noonan. (Photo from article also here.)

The Undefeated

Though it includes attempts to paint the picture as something else, Greg Jaffe's Wall Street Journal article is an amazing account of the perserverence of US soldiers in Iraq.

In spring 2006 Tarmiyah, on the surface at least, was a much more peaceful place. U.S. and Iraqi troops surrounded the city with razor wire, set up the patrol base in the city, and began a $16 million campaign to rebuild the city's schools, clinics and sewer system. Soldiers often referred to the city, located 30 miles north of Baghdad, as the "petting zoo," a nod to the number of top generals who came to see what U.S. commanders considered a success story.

Last summer Tarmiyah began to fall apart. A battalion of about 300 to 400 Iraqi army soldiers that had been based in the city was transferred to Baghdad to support the new U.S.-Iraqi effort to stabilize the capital. At the same time, some 6,000 to 10,000 angry Sunnis, driven from their homes in Baghdad by Shiite militia forces, began streaming into this largely Sunni city. Sunni insurgents, affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq, joined them.

Insurgents began extorting money from Iraqi contractors working for the Americans. And in December, the 150-man Tarmiyah police force, which shared the patrol base with American troops, drew their weapons, saying they were going out on a patrol, and never returned.

The three dozen soldiers from Demon Company were the only security forces left in the city. The soldiers typically spent four days at the patrol base, a spartan outpost without running water or hot food, and then rotated back to Camp Taji, a big U.S. base about 15 miles away, for four days. In February, Staff Sgt. James Copeland -- a broad-shouldered 30-year-old who has a tattoo of a skeletal Uncle Sam flashing his middle fingers snaking up his right arm -- was named acting platoon sergeant of one of Demon Company's four platoons.

U.S. commanders say they are reluctant to give up the patrol base in the city out of concern that it will look like they have been driven out by the enemy. "If we're not out here, they have won," says Sgt. Jason Fisher, a 24-year-old soldier who fought for hours from the roof of the old base.

An Iraqi battalion made up of about 300 to 400 soldiers is expected to arrive in Tarmiyah later this summer to help with security. Until then, the goal is to just hang on and, as much as possible, keep the enemy from completely taking over.
<...>
The attack that eroded the troops' faith in Tarmiyah seems to have made some of them more willing to fight for each other. Before the Feb. 19 attack, Sgt. Benton, who had vomited when the fighting was done, insisted to superiors that he shouldn't even be in Iraq. The 23-year-old's enlistment contract ended in November, but the Army, which is short of sergeants, made him finish his one-year tour as part of its "stop loss" policy. Sgt. Benton was furious, and in early February his superiors threatened in writing to demote him unless his performance improved.

"I have to undo a lot of stupid things I have done," he says today. "I have a strong bond with this platoon. I don't want to leave. And if I die out here I don't want to be remembered as the s -- head that everyone had to think of something nice to say about at my memorial service."

Shocker

An attempt at anti-war spin in the Boston Globe.

Here's a similar try from a couple years back - but at least the older version acknowledged reality: the numbers dropped after September, 2001 - not March, 2003. In this new version of truth that data point is well camoflaged in this passage:

In 2000, 23.5 percent of Army recruits were African-American. By 2005, the percentage dropped to 13.9 percent.

The percentage of African Americans in service now closely mirrors the percentage in the overall population.

Some other earlier attempts at spinning recruiting demographics here and here.

Re: Mother (Pelosi) May I?? (Update)

So, seems no one really thinks that last "ask us again in 60 days" thing is going to be a go, so now there are a few more proposals being floated...

Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to move an emergency war funding bill next week in the Senate that looks nothing like the one his House counterparts are expected to pass on Thursday.

Reid, according to aides, will introduce a bill with "[Iraqi government performance] benchmarks de-linked from a redeployment plan."

One idea being seriously discussed is to keep the Oct. 1, 2007, start date for redeployment but include giving President Bush the power to waive that withdrawal. According to the proposal, Bush could then use this authority only in 90-day increments, setting up mandatory reporting requirements as to why the waiver was used.

Reid told FOX News last week that he would like to keep the Oct. 1, 2007, redeployment timeline in any new bill but that the votes are not likely there for passage. And there is little chance the White House would support this approach.

"We aren't going to support any timeline in the bill, even with a waiver," one White House liaison told FOX News.

Tying the $2.3 billion in the bill for U.S. reconstruction aid to Iraqis meeting certain performance benchmarks was an idea that initially appeared to be gaining steam. That does not appear to be the case any longer.

But some of the proposals -- including the "bi-partisan" proposal from Bayh and Snowe -- sound suspiciously like the bill the President vetoed:

Proposals are coming from all quarters in the Senate. The first bipartisan bill appeared Wednesday. Offered by Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, both who recently traveled to Iraq, the bill would tie U.S. troop presence to the Iraqi benchmarks being met.

If the benchmarks aren't met, "U.S. forces associated with the surge would redeploy, and the remaining forces would transition to a far more limited mission," according to a release from the senators.

The Snowe-Bayh bill would dictate a mission of: (a) training and equipping Iraqi forces; (b) assisting deployed Iraqi brigades with intelligence, transportation, air support and logistics; (c) protecting U.S. and coalition personnel and infrastructure; and (d) maintaining rapid reaction teams and special operations forces to undertake strike missions in Iraq against Al Qaeda and for other missions considered vital by the U.S. commander in Iraq.

More on various proposals and some truly idiotic commets from various politicians (ok idiotic politician may be redundant) at FOX

And I am always totally outraged when even the media recognizes that this is all for Democratic "show" -- from CNN

The new proposal is aimed at appeasing Democratic lawmakers who want to end the war immediately and are urging leaders not to back down after Bush's veto. But lacking a firm endorsement by the Senate, the challenge by House Democrats seemed more for political show than a preview of another veto showdown with Bush.

The welfare of our troops be damned -- they're putting on a show??? (ummm... politicians showing off? pontificating? strutting? surprise??) gggrrrrrrr

Doonesbury, Ever Supportive

Well, better than Ted Rall, anyway.

Doonesbury today actually sounded like it was on the same planet. If you read it without the sarcasm in the previous strips for this story arc, that is. There's another kind of weird because the Doonesbury site says it's got a milblog...