Carrying Liberty

They were the largest class of ship built world wide. They helped win WWII, served in Korea and in the Cold War and shaped the modern world. And all in the name of Liberty.

Re: Death on Que

Apparently, the Iraqi National Police Failed to get the "All is Lost Talking Points" memo....

via CBN

CBNNews.com - Iraqi police celebrated Saturday after approximately 600 anti-tank land mines were seized in a raid in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.
The mines were put on display at the Iraqi Police 8th Division's headquarters.

Death on Que

Pure coincidence, I'm sure, but whenever congressional Democrats need a pile of corpses in Iraq, al Qaeda provides:

Suicide bombers struck in force across Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 46 people and wounding scores in an explosion of street violence after days of relative calm.

In the deadliest attack, a man driving a truck with explosives hidden under bricks detonated his bomb at a police station under construction in the south Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a Sunni insurgent stronghold.

Police said at least 20 people were killed and 26 injured.
<...>
A group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq, which is made up of Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent fighters, claimed responsibility on its website for the Dora police station bombing.
<...>
South of the capital, near Hillah, a second truck bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque that houses a political office of radical cleric Muqtada Sadr, killing 10 people and injuring more than 30. The blast severely damaged the building.

Another suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a candy store in the northwestern city of Tall Afar, killing 10. Three more struck checkpoints and a police station in the northwest, along the border with Syria, killing six.
<...>
In other violence in Baghdad, four people were killed by mortar shelling in a poor Shiite neighborhood in the eastern part of the city, and two civilians were killed in crossfire between insurgents and the Iraqi army in the city's center. Police reported finding the bodies of 10 men in Baghdad who had been shot to death.

Iraqi troops in the western city of Fallouja found the bodies of 10 men killed execution-style.

RAMADI, IRAQ – Iraqi Police apprehended a suicide truck bomber and captured his vehicle, containing a large quantity of chlorine and explosives, when it failed to detonate in Ramadi March 23.

At approximately 1:30 p.m., a white cargo truck came to a halt near the entrance to the Jezeera police station, located about 150 meters from a water treatment plant. The police approached the truck for further investigation and detained the driver when they discovered the truck was rigged with explosives and the driver was attempting to detonate the vehicle.

Upon further investigation, the truck contained an unknown number of 55-gallon drums, which were used to camouflage five 1000-gallon barrels filled with chlorine and more than two tons of explosives.

Re: Desertion Story

Even if one were to (foolishly) ignore the points you've made the fundamental story presented by the Times is a pale attempt at spin. Pretend presidential candidate Scott Ott saw through it:

Army Desertions Rise to Near All-Time Average

The Pentagon today admitted that, due to the Bush administration’s hugely unpopular war in Iraq, desertions from the Army have increased in each of the last two years, reaching almost 75 percent of pre-war levels.

Skunk Works

Via The Corner, a tip to an event last Friday night (wish I coulda been there!) at the DC Hard Rock Cafe:

Join Hard Rock Cafe along with a host of special guests including Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Mick Foley of the WWE, and DC101’s Donielle Flynn for a night of Rock-n-Roll in support of our US Armed Forces.

I wasn't surprised to see Jeff Baxter's name associated with this project. Those of us of a certain age who were plugged into the music scene in our teens and early twenties would recognize the name - others would certainly recognize the names of the bands in which Baxter was an integral part - notably The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan.

Like these videos, we were all a bit fuzzier back then:

NYT Gets it Wrong on Desertion Story

This story on NYT hit on Friday about the Army revising slightly upward its numbers for desertions.

As with most things NYT, they simply get the basics wrong:

Some Army officers link the recent uptick in annual desertion rates to the toll of wartime deployments and point to the increasing percentage of troops who are on their second or third tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I don't doubt that those the NYT talked to think that. Pity it's wrong.

My installation serves as one of two main collection centers for AWOL returnees and deserters. What this means is that if you go AWOL and are dropped from the rolls as a deserter, you eventually will come to my installation when you're returned to military control. On top of that, I am the trial counsel for that portion of the installation, so I get to advise the command on what to do with these returnees.

That VAST majority of these people aren't grizzled veterans coming off their second or third deployments. They are not combat veterans who, because of BushHitlerHalliburtonCo's (tm) incompetence just can't handle the strain anymore. Quite the contrary, the majority of deserters are kids that enlisted within the past 2 years, have just recently completed basic training and AIT, and have only been with their units for a short time.

Most have not deployed. When they are returned to military control, they routinely give reasons for their AWOL as being "my mom got sick" or "my wife had problems with the kids." The horrors of war are conspicuously absent from the personal statements or enlisted record briefs (ERBs) of these returnees.

But hey, I'm just "some Army officer."

Exchanges

A recent unattributed conversation
Question

Yeah, but what exactly do you call a guy that drives a truck filled with explosives into a crowded market. I understand the theory, and agree intellectually, but murderer or even mass murderer does quite cut it. Like I said, I'm split on this one.

A “drug crazed barbaric thug”.
Do you think the looney left thought up all on its own in ’68 that US Soldiers were Drug Addicted Baby Killers? Or more recently that “Bush is a Criminal”

Nope. They got that out of a book. A section of which deals with how to delegitamize a group or organization (propaganda). A very old book that was plagerized by Mao...