Applauding The Los Angeles Times

...for Times staff writer Tony Perry's account of Husaybah today in the Wild West of Anbar...

Taming Iraq's 'wild west' - Los Angeles Times

"Business is good," Ahmed Ratib, the town cobbler, said as he nailed new heels on a pair of shoes. "Not like in the past."

Two years ago, the same streets were fraught with roadside bombs and snipers, and sellers and buyers stayed away. The area was considered too dangerous even for a quick tour by a U.S. general in his armored Humvee.

The Qaim region was routinely described, including in The Times, as an out-of-control "wild west" where the Marines were fighting with only limited success to control the smuggling of insurgent fighters and weapons from Syria.

Today, Marines walk the downtown beat, chatting with residents, fielding their complaints, encouraging them to contact the Iraqi police if they suspect insurgent activity.

In a country studded with areas where the U.S. has either failed or made only limited progress toward stabilization, Husaybah and the surrounding Qaim region stand out as a success, officials said.

North Korean Super Notes Made by the CIA

So claims the German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Here is an english language translation of the article. This is the headline paragraph of the article:

“America's accusations against North Korea are on very shaky ground ... A rumor has circulated for years among representatives of the security printing industry and counterfeiting investigators that it is the American CIA that prints the Supernotes at a secret printing facility.”

Yes foks an unsubstantiated rumor that cannot be proven in anyway means that American sanctions on North Korea due to it's counterfeiting of US currency is on "shaky ground". How can an editor at a major German newspaper agree to print something like this? I heard a rumor that Elvis was living with space aliens does that mean the German media will print that as front page news as well?

Commandant orders: "every Marine in the fight"

You have to give credit to the Commandant of the Marine Corps - he knows his job - and has a good ear for both inside and outside the beltway.

"If we're going to grow the force on the one hand, we've got to be able to justify it to the bean counters ... how we have 66,000 Marines that haven't been to Iraq or Afghanistan," he said.

About half of those who have not yet deployed are potentially slated for future Iraq deployments, meaning this new policy would target the remaining 33,000.

Conway says many Marines want to go into combat but are denied. This new policy would relieve Marines who are on their third and fourth deployments.

McCain Might Not Vote for GEN Casey as Army Chief of Staff

He made the comments on Meet the Press this morning.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain on Sunday said he might vote against Gen. George W. Casey's nomination as Army chief of staff, saying he had "serious concerns" about the man who has overseen the Iraq war since 2004.

"I have very serious concerns about General Casey's nomination," McCain said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

For what it's worth, Pat Leahy on CNN said that despite McCain's comments, he expects Casey to get confirmed.

Loons at sea

A "Loon" hanger on a submarine?

A Glenn Ford movie?

All part of the history of the U.S. Navy's first missile submarines here.

It Was His Duty

Refusing to deploy was his duty, they say.

Watadamania.

More than 400 people turned out Saturday for a forum on the legality of the Iraq war that felt like part congressional hearing, part teach-in and part religious tent revival.

Speakers were sworn in while placing their hands on the U.S. Constitution. They quoted Henry David Thoreau, playwright Berthold Brecht, President Ulysses S. Grant and the prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. There were standing ovations, impassioned speeches and appeals to leave a few bucks in the collection basket.

There might have been people there who disagreed with what was being said.

But most seemed to endorse testimony that the invasion of Iraq violated international and U.S. law, that it’s a rerun of Vietnam, if not worse, and that military officers like Army Lt. Ehren Watada don’t have just a right, but a duty, to refuse orders to fight it.

Read the whole thing and pay particular attention to the "witness" list.

IMHO - The Surge - It just might work

Security is mostly perception. People who might become victims believe the security forces will prevent it,failing that, both they and the culprit the security forces will catch the culprit.