His Day in Court (WHOOOHOOO!)

I cannot keep the smile off my face... and I would be searching high and low for all the assets these squirrels have squirreled away....

The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family's privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine's funeral.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress to the Marine's father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa.

Snyder sued the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified monetary damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

The defense said it planned to appeal and one of the church's leaders, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the members would continue their pickets of military funerals.

Church members believe that U.S. deaths in the war in Iraq are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.

Before the jury began deliberating the size of punitive damages, U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett noted the size of the compensatory award "far exceeds the net worth of the defendants," according to financial statements filed with the court.

Snyder sobbed when he heard the first verdict, while members of the church greeted the news with tightlipped smiles.

Church members routinely picket funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, carrying signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."

A number of states have passed laws regarding funeral protests, and Congress has passed a law prohibiting such protests at federal cemeteries, but the Maryland lawsuit is believed to be the first filed by the family of a fallen serviceman.

Read the whole story.... HERE at FoxNews

Happy Halloween!

There's a little Holloween party over at Mudville.

A Partisan Military?

Professor Bainbridge has some interesting comments here re the politicization of the military.

It would hardly be surprising if some folks in the military started wondering whether it was really worth risking their lives to protect the freedoms of people who seem to hate them and the cultural milieu out of which the soldiers came. Especially those who have been exposed to the fever swamp of the comment section of some leading left-liberal blogs.

Something worth discussing.

You can also check out something I wrote last year on the same issue.

Can Sunni and Shia Get Along?

Check out my thoughts here based on at least one recent event.

"To Be Young Is to be a natural rebel."

The youngsters in the orange GITMO jumpsuits are particularly charming.

It's Official

via McClatchy

WASHINGTON — The U.S. and Iraqi governments have failed to take advantage of a dramatic drop in violence in Iraq, according to a report issued Tuesday by a U.S. watchdog agency

I guess various Senators will have to "suspend disbelief".

Re: ADDLED MIND(s)

Buck Sgt. writes about a mother who wrote what it is like in her world to have a son at war... I have written about that at length myself.

I wondered as I read Ms. Reed's article why she was so focused on -- as she puts it -- "the worst case scenario"... not once does she ever mention or even consider that her son may make many Iraqi friends... that he will be bringing security to Iraqis... that he will probably help open any number of schools and medical centers or clinics... that he will actually SAVE the innocent sons of Iraqi mothers... Not once does she even consider that her son is working to establish peace for Iraq... and we hope help bring peace to the Middle East. It was all about her and what her friends think.

It's eerily coincidental that I just posted on the very same topic - although the source material was different.

So, Dear Rochelle, I know how you feel... I have felt the fear... but I have also felt immeasurable pride in my soldier -- something I am very sorry that you apparently do not share. And I will tell Ms Reed what I told the (anonymous) Military Mom on my blog: It's Not About You

Some Soldier's Mom

UAV Wars

Patrick Lasswell and I were discussing this particular issue somewhere in comments here recently. It seems we weren't the only ones...

Air Force, Army Clash Again On Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The Air Force and Army are again clashing over the control of high-flying drones, despite a Pentagon decision last month that no single service would own and operate those aircraft.

Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, and his cadre of legislative officers have been urging lawmakers to give the Air Force control of all medium- and high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a move strongly opposed by the Army, Marine Corps and Navy. In particular, the Air Force has been pressing lawmakers recently to reject a provision in the Senate defense appropriations bill added by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) that would prohibit the transfer of research and development, acquisition or program authority of tactical UAVs from the Army, according to Pentagon and congressional sources.

Shelby’s language would also ensure that the Army would retain operational control over and responsibility for the Extended Range Multi-Purpose UAV. That drone is known as the Sky Warrior, a system that is still in development and has been in the Air Force’s crosshairs. The Air Force flies and favors the Predator UAV.

Both drones are built by General Atomics. While similar in capability, the Army contends the Sky Warrior is better suited for the service’s mission. The Air Force contends that, as the executive agency, it would ensure the UAVs operate compatible command and control systems.

The Air Force has been pushing to become the executive agency for all drones flying above 3,500 feet since 2005, but brought its fight to Capitol Hill earlier this year.

Another fight with pirates

A North Korea freighter's crew, captured by Somali pirates seems to have been emboldened by the arrival of a U.S. Navy destroyer and retakes their ship, leaving a couple of dead pirates in their wake.

Story unfolding here.

Good on the Norks.

And go get 'em, Navy!

War protests: Why no coverage?

via CS Montor

By Jerry Lanson - Boston - Coordinated antiwar protests in at least 11 American cities this weekend raised anew an interesting question about the nature of news coverage: Are the media ignoring rallies against the Iraq war because of their low turnout or is the turnout dampened by the lack of news coverage? I find it unsettling that I even have to consider the question.

Well Jerry...if you actually had been paying attention to the war...rather than whining about lack of news coverage of your protests you might...just might... come to the conclusion that the Iraq War is going to end. Not because of any protests...but because of the hard work and sacrifices of the 160+ thousand US Military in co-ordination with 370+ thousand Iraqi Security Forces and 67+ thousand Concerned Iraqi Citizens.

The story of the 600+ thousand people in Iraq courageously working 24/7 to end the war is a lot more compelling than what a handful of people who think they can stop the killing in Iraq by just wishing it away.

RE: DAM SKIPPY

Let me be the first to go ahead and blame Bush. He hates brown people, remember?

Actually, this faulty dam is a pretty good metaphor for everything that is/has been wrong with Iraq since we got there. We didn't break it; Iraqi society had been fundamentally broken for a very long time. But at times it seems to have only gotten worse. We're trying to fix it, but likely getting tangled up in a combination of Iraqi red tape, laziness, and incompetence. But in the end, if we don't solve the problem and thar she blows, the blame will come down squarely on you know who.

Locals will ruminate why we didn't just use our giant American bottle of Gorilla Glue. Truthers will claim Blackwater set C4 charges at the base. Sunnis will pin the blam! of the dam on the JAM. Spike Lee will put out another 17-disc HBO documentary that no one will watch. Anderson Cooper may finally figure out where in the wide, wide world of sports Mosul actually is. And Bin Laden will take credit for all of it, praise be to Allah.

But you gotta love the final paragraph:

The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says the debate over the dam has gone on largely behind the scenes so as not to cause public panic or attract the interest of insurgents.

Hear that? Shhh... don't tell anyone.

Re: Whom Shall I Send?

Consul-At-Arms takes me to task for my post Whom Shall I Send?

I wrote

Now frankly I was surprised the State Department even asked people about where they want to be assigned.

Consul-at-Arms answers

In the military they call them "dream sheets," IIRC.

That's absolutely fair. I should have been more clear. The military does have you put together a "dream sheet." Of course when you list Europe, Hawaii, and Fort Carson - you may very well end up at Fort Drum. You are directed the needs of the Army. The articles I cited indicated it had been since Vietnam since State Department assignments were directed.

I wrote

Foreign Service Officers. My perception of most them is thus: Ivy Leaguers who so enjoyed their junior year abroad they want to make a career of it. They seek to spend a make a career out of moving from Paris to Rome to London; hardship posts are the capitals of Eastern Europe.

The remaining Foreign Service Officers appear to be professional Peace Corps volunteers. Noble efforts, but in the macro scheme of things, not a very significant part of how US foreign policy is conducted.

Consul-At-Arms responds

There's perception and then there's a reality. The map is not the territory and you need to know when to get a new map. You need a new map, badger 6. The Foreign Service you're conjuring out of old stereotypes hasn't existed in at least a generation.

I thought my post invited that. Consul says I need a new map, but he offers no evidence that my map is wrong. The WaPo article certainly reinforces my map and Consul offers no evidence to counter it other than, well I should have a different map.

I wrote

"Foreign Service Officers have a union?

Consul-At-Arms responds

It's called the American Foreign Service Association. It's not as if we'd ever go on strike, but it's a professional association nonetheless.

So it is a professional association and not a union. Good to know.

Maybe the WaPo greatly misrepresented the issues with the Foreign Service; we in the military certainly know what it is like to be misrepresented. if that is what is going on Consul-At-Arms issue is with the WaPo, not my post.

When I read that there are 400 volunteers on a list for 200 positions, or something similar, I will think that my position on Foreign Service Officers is wrong. I hope Consul-At-Arms can dispel my notion that is a "generation old."

Dam

I mean, what else can you say?

Hopefully it won't become "Shite".

de rigeur

Or: "How many media reports on the failure of the media to report the horrors of Iraq will we need to see before realizing the magnitude of their failure?"

Stray thought. A quote from a recent WaPo piece:

"This is a dangerous place," said Capt. Lee Showman, 28, a senior officer in the battalion. "People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it."
<...>
The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.

"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them."

While reasonable people can argue the degree to which Iraq is any of those things, it's absurd to argue Americans are ignorant of the issue due to some failure of the media - an absurdity compounded when included in the latest in a long line of stories arguing an extreme view. One is entitled to his or her opinion, but not to his or her own facts.

*Greyhawk's rule of media reports from Iraq: Whenever using a GI quote to support the view that Iraq is every bit the disaster we say it is, always include a quote implying that said GI resents the media failure to report it as such.

Doing the right thing

We do a lot of talk about taking care of our POW/MIA and recovering the remains of those lost. Sometimes though, we don't walk the walk. It is way past time to bring the rest of "George One" home.

While the 6 survivors of the crash were able to make it to the coast for pick up by a sea plane, those three men killed in the crash were left behind, their bodies buried in what was meant to be a temporary grave were buried beneath a specific and well-marked area under the starboard leading-edge of the large PBM-5 wing by their fellow crewmen. Weather precluded the Navy from recovering their bodies at the tail end of Operation Highjump. Its always been the wish of these fellow crewmen, the Navy rescuers and the families to have their loved ones returned to US soil.

It is time to bring them home.

Let's do some pirate fighting

First, Somali pirates grabbed a Japanese owned tanker (the crew seems to be a mix of nationalities) and then USS Porter (DDG-78) went into action.

A couple of sunken pirate skiffs followed.

See here and here.

Surface action port!

Military officers: right-wing nut jobs

John Cole and Glenn Greenwald, I think, are starting to wonder what color that helicopter circling their house is.

The right wing is sowing the seeds for Dolchstoßlegende even while claiming victory or progress or positive trends or however we are euphemizing it today, and there appears to be a significant portion of the Officer Corps who are willing to go along with it. The arrogance of Boylan is not only a symptom of this problem, it is one of the intended outcomes.
...
the Army's behavior in the Beauchamp case is exactly what one would expect from an increasingly politicized, Republican-controlled division of the right-wing noise machine.

Greyhawk, it would be great if you could get a moment in the chow line with Col. Boylan. I am not sure if we should take Cole and Greenwald to Gitmo or our secret prison in Bulgaria after we pick them up. If you could ask him, that would be great.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ADDLED MIND

Cracked pot of the week: (h/t: WSJ Best of the Web)

When I tell people that Evan has joined the Army, their reactions are almost always the same: their faces freeze, they pause way too long, and then they say, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for you." I hang my head and look mournful, accepting their sympathy for the worry that lives in me.

Now I must accept that the son I raised to be a gentle, caring soul is somewhere in the Iraq desert, a loaded M3 [sic] in his arms. At this very moment, he could be exalting with his buddies that he killed the enemy, ending the life of another mother's son. If, God forbid, another mother's son kills Evan, will I share the same empathy "he was only doing his job" that I'm willing to extend to my own flesh and blood?

"Another mother's son... only doing his job."

Yup, that's precisely what I thought to myself whenever drug-crazed jihadists drove VBIEDs into crowded marketplaces or fired armor-piercing bullets into the skulls of my friends. Those son's of mothers were just doing their jobs. Deep down they're really just like us.

Is it too late to get California scrubbed from my birth certificate? I'd at least give her son credit except that it sounds like he's got "budding TNR diarist" written all over him. 1-2-3-4, what the hell are we fightin' Foer!

Headline Makers

On Saturday, Iraq was page one news, with a headline quote from a sergeant in Baghdad: 'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'.

On Sunday, the Iraq news returned to page 17:

Sunni Violence In Baghdad Called Disrupted

Petraeus Says Al-Qaeda in Iraq Strongholds Are Cleared, but Insurgents Remain 'Lethal'

BAGHDAD, Oct. 27 -- The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said Saturday that the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has been disrupted and no longer operates in large numbers in any neighborhood of the capital.

"In general, we think that there are no al-Qaeda strongholds at this point," Petraeus said. He added: "They remain very lethal, very dangerous, capable at any point in time, if you will, of coming back off the canvas and landing a big punch, and we have to be aware of that."

[T]he need to "eliminate Joe's connection to the U.S. military."

Toying with G.I. Joe.

Fast boats, wild ride

This guy:

And a brief case "borrowing" naval officer whose dead reckoning happened to be dead on.

As set out here.

re: IAVA

Greyhawk, you forgot the to mention the best part! The video at the end, perhaps a later update. To quote the young'uns - IAVA's Adam Kokesh gets PWNED! You have to watch to the end - and I think you will get a kick out of who he supports for President. That and his do-rag wearing friend just makes the day complete.

Whom Shall I Send?

Foreign Service Officers need to answer: "Send Me!"

Foreign Service Officers. My perception of most them is thus: Ivy Leaguers who so enjoyed their junior year abroad they want to make a career of it. They seek to spend a make a career out of moving from Paris to Rome to London; hardship posts are the capitals of Eastern Europe.

The remaining Foreign Service Officers appear to be professional Peace Corps volunteers. Noble efforts, but in the macro scheme of things, not a very significant part of how US foreign policy is conducted.

If you, a loved one, or a good friend is a Foreign Service Officer and are offended or put off by the above, I urge you to pause before you hit the comment button and ask yourself why such a perception exists.

It seems the State Department may have to direct Foreign Service Officers to the Baghdad Embassy. The largest United States Embassy in history, confronting the most challenging Foreign Policy of our day and our Foreign Service is AWOL.

The Washington Post and ABC News have stories here and here regarding the difficultly of finding Foreign Service Officers willing to come to Iraq.

Of the 11,500 Foreign Service Officers in the US State Department, slightly over 1200 have served in Iraq. The tours are a year and they are allowed five trips home for a period of 60 days; four times what a Soldier facing combat receives. They can also receive up to 90% of their salary in additional pay, tax free for the tour. In contrast a service member receives 15 days leave once for a one-year tour and receives approximately $500 per month in various types of special duty pay in addition to the tax-free status.

The union representing U.S. diplomats has officially objected to the Iraq call-up. "We believe, and we have told the secretary of state, that directing unarmed civilians who are untrained for combat into a war zone should be done on a voluntary basis," said Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association. "Directed assignments, we fear, can be detrimental to the individual, to the post, and to the Foreign Service as a whole." Kashkett said the association had contended in meetings with Rice and Thomas that a diplomatic draft is unnecessary and that "thousands" of diplomats have volunteered for Iraq over the past five years. "We're not weenies, we're not cowards, we're not cookie pushers in Europe," he said. "This has never been necessary in a generation."

Foreign Service Officers have a union?

Read Mr. Kashkett’s quote again - "We're not weenies, we're not cowards, we're not cookie pushers in Europe." Words are easy to produce Mr. Kashkett, but actions speak louder than words. If the Foreign Service is not full of “weenies, cowards, and cookie pushers” then prove it.

Now frankly I was surprised the State Department even asked people about where they want to be assigned. But if you are a Foreign Service Officer and you are not on that list of volunteers then you have given lie to Mr. Kashkett’s disclaimer. If your name is not on that list of volunteers and you have not served here I would suggest you are one of the three.

And yes, if your are green suiter and look down on your right shoulder and don’t have a patch that was earned in Iraq or Afghanistan, then you too need to be really questioning what you are doing in this organization.

For those of you who need a primer on why Foreign Service Officers are so critical to this fight I would recommend this article from the Economist.

(h/t Blackfive)

There is a place

There is a place.

It is a place specifically to honor those of the Third Infantry Division killed in Iraq. A tree for each soldier lost… a living monument to those who gave all. A place that families and friends and comrades come to remember… to reflect… to pay respects. It is a place that provides comfort… and for some, peace.

It is Warriors' Walk at Fort Stewart, Georgia. There are now 373 trees. Four were added October 19... and two of those new trees were for soldiers in my son's battalion/regiment. There are hopes that these will be the last to be added to the Walk; with at least eight more months in this deployment, it is a wish prayed with fervency and many promises attached.

Many family members and friends regularly leave mementos for fallen 3ID soldiers: pictures with family members, sports teams' memorabilia, plaques, toy motorcycles and even the occasional bottle of a soldier's favorite beer. Last December, as family members of the Third Infantry Division were preparing for their loved ones’ deployments -- some for the third time -- they paid homage by decorating the Warriors' Walk trees of family and friends. But the wife of the (now) Command Sgt. Major and others noticed that many trees had no decorations and she vowed to do something about it.

And you can help dress the place for the Holidays.

Details at Some Soldier's Mom

Two Parades

via ABC

Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown on Saturday, chanting and carrying signs that read: "Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die" or "Drop Tuition Not Bombs." The streets were filled with thousands as labor union members, anti-war activists, clergy and others rallied near City Hall before marching to Dolores Park.

via Bloggers RoundTable

GEN. PHILLIPS:But what really touched me was on the 23rd of October, this past Tuesday, I went out to Ramadi. The Iraqis came up with a concept of a Unity Day parade. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think Ramadi would host a parade which would be led with a band playing and then also young Iraqi Boy Scouts marching with flags, young Iraqi Girl Scouts marching with flags, followed by the fire department, the National Police, the regular police, ambulances.

I'm pretty sure I know which parade the 70% of Americans who want the war to end would prefer marching in. Unfortunately, Ramadi,Iraq is a long way to go for a victory parade.

Flag Ceremony Banned...

...at veteran's cemeteries. "...the 13-fold recital is not part of the U.S. Flag Code and is not government-approved", says spokesman.

A spokesman in Washington said the complaint originated from someone who witnessed the ceremony at Riverside National but would provide no other details and declined to release the directive banning the flag-folding recital, saying it was "an internal working document not meant for public distribution."

"That the actions of one disgruntled, whining, narcissistic and intolerant individual is preventing veterans from getting the honors they deserve is truly an outrage," said Rees Lloyd, 59, a Vietnam-era veteran and Memorial Honor Detail volunteer. "This is another attempt by secularist fanatics to cleanse any reference to God."

World War II Navy sailor Bobby Castillo, 85, another member of Memorial Honor Detail 12, called the federal decision "a slap in the face to every veteran."

"When we got back from the war, we didn't ask for a whole lot," said Castillo, who was wounded in 1944 as he supported the Allied landings in France. "We just want to give our veterans the respect they deserve. No one has ever complained to us about it. I just don't understand."

The pair, part of a team that has performed military honors at more than 1,400 services, said they were preparing to read the flag-folding remarks when workers in a staff car came up to them and stopped them.

...the flag-folding narrative can be read but only if families make arrangements on their own and do not use cemetery workers, which include volunteers,.

Charlie Waters, parliamentarian for the American Legion of California, said he's advising memorial honor details to ignore the edict, even if it means being kicked out of cemeteries.

"This is nuts," Waters, a Korean War veteran, said in a telephone interview from Fresno. "There are 26 million veterans in this country and they're not going to take us all to prison."

Re: Everything except Buck's Baby

Okay, this isn't satire either. But from the USAF search for meaning to the California fires, it connects a lot of threads we've got going here.

Air Force Spy Plane To Fly Over Fire Zone

The Air Force launched one of its Global Hawk spy planes Thursday to capture images of the Southern California fires -- the first domestic surveillance mission for the unmanned drone.

Anyhow, unfortunately, the USAF came in second again:

The Air Force drone is the second unmanned craft in the skies over the Southern California wildfires. On Wednesday, NASA launched its Ikhana unmanned system. The Ikhana, a version of the military's Predator modified for civilian research missions, also captures thermal images while flying at a lower altitude than the Global Hawk. Both can fly 20 hours or more without refueling.

Here's why:

Air Force officials decided to offer the Global Hawk on Tuesday. But the plane was not launched earlier, military officials said, because they were awaiting formal requests from local officials. Such requests are required before military equipment can be used inside the U.S.

Can you imagine being

A NEW FATHER, BRINGING A CHILD INTO A WORLD LIKE THIS?

Update: Latest Presidential Straw Poll

In our last episode:

...from your troops in Iraq. This result was found as graffiti on a porta potty wall, so some may challenge the accuracy of the results.

Several candidates were named, along with complex instructions ("Vote"). Votes were in the form of hash marks under each candidate's name.

Results:

Clinton: 3 (Will assume Hillary)
Obama: 16
Giuliani: 0
Thompson: 0
Bush part 3: 15

Someone added Nader to the list, he got one vote.

Conspicuously absent: John McCain. Less so: Ron Paul, who no one ever heard of.

Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with this whatsoever, and didn't even vote. Just relating what I saw.

And Another Re: Can't win war on Fire

Unfortunately, this isn't satire either:

As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy.

How much the aircraft would have helped will never be known, but their inability to provide quick assistance raises troubling questions about California’s preparations for a fire season that was widely expected to be among the worst on record.

It took as long as a day for Navy, Marine and California National Guard helicopters to get clearance early this week, in part because state rules require all firefighting choppers to be accompanied by state forestry “fire spotters” who coordinate water or retardant drops.

My advice...

...is bring warm clothes, gang, winter's coming, and it does get cold:

WASHINGTON -- In the largest call-up of U.S. diplomats since the Vietnam War, the State Department is planning to order some of its personnel to serve at the American Embassy in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers.

Those designated "prime candidates" _ from 200 to 300 diplomats _ will be notified Monday that they have been selected for one-year postings to fill the 40 to 50 vacancies expected next year.

They will have 10 days to accept or reject the position. If not enough say yes, some will be ordered to go to Iraq and face dismissal if they refuse, Harry Thomas, director general of the Foreign Service, said Friday.
<...>
The U.S. military has quietly but repeatedly complained that its forces and other Defense Department personnel have been pressed into service in jobs that should have been filled by State Department personnel.

In particular, Defense Department employees and service members were forced to fill spots on provincial reconstruction teams for months because the State Department could not get personnel there.

Military officials have complained that other federal agencies _ including State, Commerce and Agriculture _ aren't moving quickly enough to fill critical needs in Iraq. Those agencies, they argue, have the expertise to help Iraqi business people and farmers get back to their jobs and improve the economy.

Re: War on Fire

Sadly, this is not satire:

I started just doing Google searches to try and figure out. You know, arson, arson, it was like crazy trying to figure out why is that being downplayed? Why is that, you know, just a small part of the story? And you know, every time I look for it what comes up, believe it or not, is that Blackwater wants to move to San Diego and build this giant complex in San Diego right where most of the evacuations are taking place and you know.

You just know wherever there is fire, this administration will be out there doing what it does best and that is fanning the flames, you know. It just spooks me, I can’t explain to you how creepy this whole thing is that you know, you’ve got these fires. Some of them are thought to be the work of arsonists and in the same breath you’ve got a community that’s on fire that just recently protested Blackwater West. Just recently said no to Blackwater and apparently you don’t do that.

I mean, I don’t even know what to think. You know, nobody is saying Blackwater set the fires, that is nobody that doesn’t want their house burned down. Nobody is saying that, but it is all so bizarre that this is America and you have to sort of sit there and wonder … arson, same place Blackwater West wants to be, people protesting. And then you find out that some of the guys that used to work for Blackwater are now in Schwarzenegger’s administration.

It’s all so creepy.

Re: Pacifiers

Holy cow Buck, some times the oblique approach just ain't right...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Buck Sargent is a proud new poppa of a bouncing baby boy.

Congratulations to the whole family!

GIVE PACIFIERS A CHANCE

The Buck multiplies here.

Re: Off We Go

Hahaha, I participated in an email round table discussing Robert's article... along with a couple of folks from Danger Room and Mike Goldfarb from the Weekly Standard. It should be out this week.

Not as absurd as you think. Although I did argue against rolling the AF into the Army.... just because I hate standing in formation.

Can't Win the War... on Fire

In case you are one of the two people on Earth that do not read Blackfive, Laughing Wolf posted a link to this outrageously satirical piece that is a MUST read... just don't be drinking anything when you read it -- or the comments (which are an integral part of the humor).

Just in case you need a chuckle or an outright laugh today.

Re: IVAW

Here's a handy pocket guide.

Microsoft and USO Announce "Above and Beyond" Awards

Soldiers' Angels Germany:

Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldier's Angels, has been nominated as a finalist in the first annual "Above and Beyond" awards, presented by Microsoft and in partnership with the USO. The awards were created to recognize the contributions of the military community - the friends, family, and other individuals who help brighten the lives of U.S. troops throughout the world.

According to Microsoft, the "Above and Beyond Awards is our way of publicly honoring and thanking the outstanding commitment, exceptional service, sacrifice and achievements of individuals who have shown extraordinary dedication in brightening the lives of our troops over the past year."

Patti has been nominated for the Effort Award, which recognizes an individual who:

* Offers outstanding support and comfort to our troops.
* Helps enhance morale and personal welfare of our troops.
* Through their mentorship, inspires other groups/individuals to create new and unique ways to show their support of the troops.
* Has impacted the lives of many through their leadership and guidance.

Please take a minute and vote here.

Congratulations on the nomination, and good luck Patti!

Thanks MaryAnn

Fight Back

Robert Redford, on the war on terror:

The problem is not with the people that started this. The problem's with us.

There are counters to this message. While lacking Hollywood money or perspective, others have taken it upon themselves to actually travel to Iraq and document the real story of the war.

Want to help preserve that story? Take the money you aren't going to spend on Redford's latest and make it happen. Click here.

Off we go

David Axe, at DefenseTech:

Fed up with unnecessary gold-plated fighter jet programs, the service’s impatience with counter-insurgency and its anti-China rhetoric, back in August I proposed the disbanding of the U.S. Air Force. The air service’s missions could be folded into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps without any loss in national power -- and we’d benefit from cuts to Pentagon overhead.

Now Robert Farley over at The American Prospect has taken up the cause in a new piece, “Abolish the Air Force.” To complement the piece, Farley has solicited input from a number of bloggers, including yours truly.

“Does the United States Air Force fit into the post–September 11 world, a world in which the military mission of U.S. forces focuses more on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency?”

But while likewise probably unaware of TAPs efforts, Joe Galloway offers a hint of counterpoint:

One of America's more thoughtful military strategists, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a veteran of ground combat in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf region, says that our "defense strategy is unbalanced, incoherent and underfunded."

McCaffrey made his comments and recommendations in a six-page analysis addressed to professors at West Point, where he's an adjunct professor of international relations.
<...>
"The U.S. Air Force is our primary national strategic force . . . yet it is too small, has inadequate numbers of aging aircraft, has been marginalized in the current strategic debate and has mortgaged its modernization program to allow diversion of funds to prosecute" underfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The looming challenge to US national security and foreign policy sovereignty issues in the coming 15 years will be posed by the legitimate and certain emergence of the People’s Republic of China as a global economic and political power with the military muscle to challenge and neutralize the deterrence capacity of the US Navy and Air Force in the broad reaches of the Pacific maritime frontier. China will indeed soon have the military capacity in less than one generation to pose a national survival threat to US defensive capabilities and to challenge our ability to project power along the Pacific littoral.

US defense strategy is unbalanced, incoherent, and under-funded--- does not focus on the next generation deterrence and war-fighting missions--- and is distorted by the drain of US defense modernization dollars and manpower resources being funneled into the ground combat meat-grinder of the civil war in Iraq.
<...>
The debate over the disaster of the war in Iraq may soon be replaced by a greatly diminished defense budget as a tired, cynical and exhausted joint military force winds down our combat presence in the coming 36 months. We may swing from the eerie immaturity of the Rumsfeld era focus on the magic of technology as the sole determinant of national security--- to an equally disastrous concentration of building a ground combat force which could have won Iraq from the start--- absent the bad judgment of the Rumsfeld Pentagon and compliant Generals.

SEVEN IMPERATIVES FOR US GLOBAL AIR POWER:
1st -- The F-22A Raptor.
• There is no single greater priority for the coming 10 years for the US Air Force than funding, deploying, and maintaining three-hundred and fifty (350+) F-22A Raptor aircraft to ensure air-to-air total dominance of battlefield air space in future contested areas. The Air Force has been forced to trade away their modernization budget because the aircraft has minimal value in low-intensity ground-air combat operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. (The current 91 aircraft are simply inadequate for anything but special missions).
• This combat aircraft is sheer magic.

Another Re: Guard/Fires

Phil Carter: Nickel and Diming California's Veterans.

(Written before the fires.)

Lawfare victory in Yemen

Well, we see how foreign courts work vs. the Predator/Reaper.

Yemen has set free one of the Al Qaeda masterminds of the bombing that killed 17 American sailors aboard the destroyer Cole in 2000, a senior security official said Thursday.

Jamal Mohammed Ahmad Ali Badawi, who is wanted by the FBI, was convicted in 2004 of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing in the Yemeni port of Aden. He received a death sentence that was commuted to 15 years in prison.

He and 22 others, mostly Al Qaeda fighters, escaped from prison last year. But Badawi was granted his freedom after turning himself in 15 days ago and pledging loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Witnesses said Badawi was receiving well-wishers at his home in Aden.

Astroturf: IVAW Again

Yeah, they're at it again.

Leaks and Recriminations

Someone yesterday leaked documents of interviews between “Shock Troops” diarist Scott Thomas Beauchamp, editorial and legal representatives of The New Republic (TNR), as well as excerpts from the official Army investigation into Beauchamp’s conduct in publishing his “stories” at TNR.

As soon as these leaked documents appeared at the Drudge Report, conservative bloggers with long-time interest in the controversy and scandal jumped all over the story. Many bloggers on the right echoed Matt Drudge’s claim – apparently since retracted – that the documents constituted evidence of a complete retraction by Beauchamp, and included an admission by Beauchamp that he had fabricated the hoariest details of his discredited accounts.

Left leaning bloggers, either supportive of TNR or highly suspicious that MILBLOGGER and other objections to the original diary entries were unfounded or politically motivated, likewise either assailed the new leak of documents or dismissed them as either forgeries or not containing what Drudge and other critics claimed.

No and yes, yes and no. From both sides of the argument.

I do a full analysis over at Dadmanly, but here are my conclusions:

What the documents do show is that the Army investigation gathered a rather full and incriminating collection of evidence that Beauchamp fabricated the warp and woof of his accounts. He spun elaborate war stories out of shreds of experience, and manufactured the grittier and more outrageous elements of his accounts – in particular, the ones that have so infuriated his critics in and of the military.

The interviews in particular reveal some clues that may explain why this scandal occurred, and why it continues to play out the way it has. Beauchamp’s Squad Leader sits in on the interview with Foer and Scoblic. Rather than intimidating Beauchamp, as Juan Cole and others are suggesting, it seems a lot more likely that Beauchamp really is trying to make amends for his fable-telling, following his Commander’s instructions to seek approval from his immediate supervisor, and just trying to concentrate on doing his job.

For one thing, Foer and Scoblic give Beauchamp all kinds of opportunity to throw them a bone and back up his stories, which he refuses to do. They also put a lot of pressure on him to give them cover, and even use the emotional (and perhaps financial) pressure implied in suggesting that Beauchamp’s wife, still a TNR employee, really wants him to back TNR up.

By my admittedly jaundiced reading, I think Foer and Scoblic are a lot more intimidating in these interviews than Beauchamp’s squad leader (only a Staff Sergeant E-6) and a Specialist from the PAO. If Beauchamp’s unit wanted intimidation, Beauchamp’s Command Sergeant Major (CSM), First Sergeant, or at least Platoon Sergeant would be there, along with the actual PAO, a Major or thereabouts, not a junior enlisted soldier. (Was he the one who would later scribe the interview?)

I think Beauchamp, being a kid with dreams beyond his (at least current) capabilities, screwed up in something he thought he could play at, not reaizing the immediate and explosive effect it would have on his immediate unit and fellow soldiers. I think he knows now. I think he sincerely wants to get away from the whole mess, salvage what honor and respect he can from his comrades by concentrating on the job at hand. Oh, and staying away from the media, or any attempt to revisit his daydreams of being a writer.

Re: Not so Moving Pictures

Audiences Reject Iraq War — At The Box Office:

It doesn't matter how many Oscar winners are in front of or behind the camera — audiences are proving to be conscientious objectors when it comes to this fall's surge of antiwar and anti-Bush films.

Both "In the Valley of Elah" and, more recently, "Rendition" drew minuscule crowds upon their release, which doesn't bode well for the ongoing stream of films critical of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's wider war on terror.

"Rendition," which features three Oscar winners in key roles, grossed $4.1 million over the weekend in 2,250 screens for a ninth-place finish. A re-release of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" beat it, and it's 14 years old.

Bobby we hardly Knew Ye

Bobby Calvan has "disappeared" his entire web site. And the post about harrassing a guard in the green zone might not have been the reason why.

Since the site has gone, I can't comment on the accuracy of what this commenter at LGF says - but apparently Calvan had confessed to shaping stories to fit his own version of events:

...the story that was already being composed in my mind. I was after vivid descriptions that could, if warranted, paint a scene of chaos, anger and grief.
<...>
Jenan, a Shiite member of our staff of local reporters, went to work to track down witnesses. She spoke to at least two by telephone. But I pressured her for more. I wanted an interview with a doctor. I wanted quotes from some of the injured, maybe even words that captured the anger and grief of the family of the dead.

Update: I agree with Charles :

...even though he’s now pulled the entire thing offline, what it revealed about mainstream media reeporting from Iraq is actually quite important.

Bobby Calvan Unites The World

Watch as 124 (as of this posting) commenters rip a reporter a well-deserved new ass.

By the way, this dork says the Ugandan security troops have "the warmth of armed robots". For the record, Ugandan troops are great. I love those guys. (But then again, I treat them like fellow human beings.)

Update: okay, he made his post go away.

(Yes, I’m obviously new to blogging. Somtimes I share too much. The blogosphere has reacted and pointed out my folly. Yes, I can be pushy. I can also be wrong. I’v'e edited this post — and have shut down the comment feature.)

Re: Guard/Fires

Don't miss this. (Also featuring a return of the education benefits issue - apparently California doesn't offer much.)

On Numbers

U.S. troop fatalities in Iraq, from the Brookings Institute's Iraq Index:

Can you see the steady upward trend of the past four years?

If so, you're seeing an optical illusion.

The deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq (thus far) was 2004, and the numbers actually decreased slightly in each of the following two years.

Actual numbers as reported by Brookings:

2004: 848
2005: 846
2006: 823

If you squint at the graph, you'll also see that December, 2006, was (at the time) the third highest monthly total of the war. So even as 2006 closed out as the second consecutive year with fewer deaths than the previous the media could ignore it and instead write headlines about that monthly total.

I'll repeat something I said about monthly totals at that time:

The variability of the numbers are chaotic, graphed they resemble nothing more than a saw's edge. Anyone who touts the peaks or valleys as representative is a fool. The media looks only at the peaks and declares them "trends". When the death toll plunged (predictably) after this year's Ramadan surge the media ignored it. When it rose again in the past month the death toll became headline worthy again. When the annual totals turned out to be lower this year it was reported under a headline about the monthly total being almost as high as it was back during my first tour.

That's certainly something to celebrate, but if recent history is any indication, next month will probably see an upturn (a bus crash would do it). And even if numbers continue to fall, this year will eclipse 2004 as the deadliest of the war. At that point, an amazing thing will probably happen - the headline writers will ignore the monthly totals* and discover the annual. Increases are newsworthy, decreases are not.

*And likely ignore the increase in combat troops, too.

Not particularly Moving Pictures

Hubris defined:

Tom Cruise underplayed the politics, leaving it to Robert Redford to lash out against the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the center of "Lions for Lambs," for which the pair held their first presser Tuesday at the Rome Film Festival.

Redford, helmer and protag of the anti-war thriller -- which world-preemed Monday as a gala in London, -- came out strongly against the Bush administration, as might be expected by one of Hollywood's longtime liberals.

"Our country has hit a point where we have lost so much," he said. "We have lost lives, we've lost sacred freedoms, we've lost financial stability; we've lost our position of respect on the world stage."

Cruise, kept largely above the political fray, merely expressing hope that the talky multi-strand pic in which he plays a power-hungry Republican senator "will challenge and engage an audience, so that they can come out and have dialogue."

He was more comfortable chastising Hollywood, praising Redford as someone who "really broke with the studio system and made the type of pictures he wanted to make, in the face of the studios."

Yeah, it takes guts to boldly produce one of the umpteen Hollywood anti-war movies that will likely BOMB this year.

But from Redford's perspective America probably has lost "a position of respect on the world's stage". After all, the critically acclaimed "In the Valley of Elah" grossed a mere $461,296 overseas. That's not going to cut it, and with ignorant hilljack Americans ponying up a paltry (in Hollywood terms) $6,593,995 domestic blaming Bush seems an obvious excuse.

Will all these upcoming steamers* TANK as swiftly as "Valley of Elah"? Who knows - some might make a KILLING. But there will likely be an umpteen-way tie for best picture at the Oscars next year.

Update: Glenn Reynolds:

"THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH THE PEOPLE THAT STARTED THIS. THE PROBLEM'S WITH US." That's a Robert Redford breakout line from the trailer to his new war-on-terror movie that just appeared on my TV.

Re: Re: Pondering Victory

Bingo.

And now here's the last line of my post, written then but saved until now.

"Victory in Iraq will be even less identifiable, but prove unsatisfactory in some similar yet unforeseeable manner."

B6, we gotta do lunch if you're ever in the neighborhood.

Torture Nation

They can crow all they like, but we know how this so-called "confession" was obtained....

That's right... Panty power.

Have we learned nothing from that awful day when our President read a book to a goat while our Jewish neocon masters danced in the streets? How long can ordinary Americans stand silent while brave souls like Sean Penn call for Chimpeachment and are carted off to airless cells at Gitmo, doomed to wear the Frilly Panties of Fascism on their bowed heads for our sins.

Not in our names!

Paging Andrew Sullivan:

Read TNR's accounting. It is as I predicted: honorable and, except for one small inaccuracy, it checks out. All the aspects aggressively challenged by the usual propaganda organs have been verified and corroborated. The military is now conducting its own investigation. Given the record of such formal investigations, I'm not as confident in the Pentagon as I am in TNR. Can we now expect apologies from the people who smeared and maligned the magazine and its soldier-reporter? I doubt it. The attackers are not the kind to acknowledge their own errors.

As that panty flinging torture-lover Glenn Reynolds is wont to say, "Indeed"....

Update: pdfs appear to be gone from Drudge's site. Hot Air has fairly extensive excerpts. So several possibilities exist:

1. The docs were not genuine in the first place.
2. Technical problems.
3. They were pulled because Drudge was not authorized to have them.

Stay tuned. The power of the panties will no doubt sort this all out in good time....

Worst "pirates" ever?

'I'm Captain Jack Sparrow' ...

Pedalo.

Latest Presidential Straw Poll

...from your troops in Iraq. This result was found as graffiti on a porta potty wall, so some may challenge the accuracy of the results.

Several candidates were named, along with complex instructions ("Vote"). Votes were in the form of hash marks under each candidate's name.

Results:

Clinton: 3 (Will assume Hillary)
Obama: 16
Giuliani: 0
Thompson: 0
Bush part 3: 15

Someone added Nader to the list, he got one vote.

Conspicuously absent: John McCain. Less so: Ron Paul, who no one ever heard of.

Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with this whatsoever, and didn't even vote. Just relating what I saw.

Re: Pondering Victory

With all the talk of victory or "the end" it seems like we should take stock.

Greyhawk has plenty of good observations about what the follow on events were and ponders what follows this war.

First I submit we have been involved with this war since 1979. The seizure of the embassy in Tehran is, in my view, a good place to mark the beginning of the war with radical Islam. Some observers will reject this analysis because of the Sunni/Shia difference between Iran and Al Qaeda. This simplifies the nature of the difference and the view the theological justification for their actions.

Iraq will slowly fade from the headlines; there will not even be an official armistice a la the end of the Korean War. We will have enduring contingency operating bases with a mixture of combat, sustainment, and training troops.

Al Qaeda will return to the no-man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They will seek to strike closer to home in both the United States and Europe. Iran through the IRGC and Qods Force will continue to make trouble in the region and may try to bring the fight home.

There will be no victory parades down main street; no random kissing of women in Times Square. Success here contains the enemy, but real victory will mean breaking the ideology.

Looming Cultural Insensitivity Alert!!!!

There's a joke in here somewhere, people....

Activists exasperated at the failure of diplomacy to apply pressure on Burma's military regime are resorting to a new means of protest against the regime's recent crackdown: sending female underwear to Burmese embassies.

Embassies in the UK, Thailand, Australia and Singapore have all been targeted by the "Panties for Peace" campaign, co-ordinated by an activist group based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Correct the blog princess if she's wrong but didn't we get in trouble for employing similar tactics not too long ago? I sense insensitivity to the indigenous cultural practices of the Other and brother let me tell you; once you start down that path it's just one more treacherous step before you find yourself on the otter slide to Hell:

After all, any serious student of history must ask... does life really possess any meaning once we realize Judy Miller has lost the right to tip off terrorism suspects before an impending FBI raid in the name of journalistic freedom? Have we learned nothing from that awful day when our President read a book to a goat while our Jewish neocon masters danced in the streets? How long can ordinary Americans stand silent while brave souls like Sean Penn call for Chimpeachment and are carted off to airless cells at Gitmo, doomed to wear the Frilly Panties of Fascism on their bowed heads for our sins.

Not in our names!

On the positive side, the Guardian article does contain this rather refreshing admission:

"Condemnation by the United Nations and governments around the world have had no impact on the Burmese regime.

Where, O where is the Junior Senator from Massachusetts when we need him? It's a sad day when the stern finger wagging of the International Community is openly admitted to have less admonitory effect than a good, rousing display of panty-flinging:

A message on the activists' website reads: "This is your chance to use your Panty Power to take away the power from the SPDC. You can post, deliver or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy any day from today. Send early, send often."

So Women of the World, Unite! Finally we have a safe, sane, but above all effective alternative to the use of primitive warmongering military force constantly urged on us by the Patriarchal Hegemony.

Panties for Peace!!!!

Re: Silver Cloud Numbers

The current violent death rate for non-combatants in Iraq is running at 21/day for the first 22 days of October..(from my own statistcs). Gun related deaths running at ~11 per day...Explosives death running at ~10 per day.

That comes out an annualized homicide death toll of 7665. Using a population of 27 million as a base..that results in an annualized homicide death rate of 28/100,000 population.

That makes Iraq statistically safer for locals than Jamaica,South Africa, Columbia or Swaziland. Of course Jamaicans and Afrikaners avoid shooting at the tourists which is a substantial difference if one happens to be on a US DOD all expense paid trip to Iraq.

The Fires of California

Keeping the families affected by the California fires in our thoughts... many military families are affected and any number of milbloggers... Doc... Lex... FuzzyBear

Read and follow the links at Blackfive...

Here's a list of how you can help

of course, it didn't take the dhimocrats long to make it about the war in Iraq... honey, just how low can you go???

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer complained on Capitol Hill Tuesday that the ability of the state's National Guard to respond to disasters like the fires has been compromised because too much of its equipment and personnel are committed in Iraq.

Just goes to show how little the friggin' woman knows about her own state's NG:

While less than a fourth of the California National Guard is deployed...

So, 20,000 NG members is CA... 5,000 deployed... and the Governator as activated... 1,500... of 15,000 available...

ok, Barbara... get a friking life... better yet, get a brain... my hope for you acquiring a conscience is too small to measure.

Four Months

...with the WaPo's David Ignatious.

July 20, 2007 - Iraq is an inferno that will spread through the region:

The Bush administration is groping toward a diplomatic firewall strategy that might help keep the inferno in Iraq from spreading in the Middle East.

This approach has two basic components: pushing harder for negotiations to establish a Palestinian state and creating a standing "Iraq neighbors' conference" to prevent states in the region from taking advantage of Iraq's chaos or being infected by it.
<...>
To make real progress on either front -- Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations or a concert of Iraq's neighbors -- will require an intensity and deftness in diplomacy the administration hasn't yet shown.
<...>
Rice and Gates seem to agree that this diplomatic push is an essential response to the continuing violence in Iraq. In an administration often marked by intense disagreement between State and Defense, their alliance will help focus thinking about how to stabilize a region that is dangerously out of control.

This is a moment when America would be better served by a parliamentary system. The Bush administration would have lost a vote of "no confidence" after November's congressional elections, and the Democrats would now have responsibility for overseeing the tricky process of extracting American forces from Iraq without doing even more damage.

What modest progress the United States has recently made in Iraq has largely been in Sunni areas, such as Anbar province. It's an alliance of convenience: The Sunnis increasingly see U.S. troops as their best ally for containing the power of Iran and its proxies in Iraq.

But Petraeus's ad hoc, ground-up security framework is not the same thing as stabilizing the country. In the time remaining, he has to pull things together as best he can -- connect local successes to provincial and national institutions; extend the Sunni rebellion against extremists into the Shiite regions; break the control that Shiite militias exert over the Interior Ministry and the police.

We do know how this is going to end: with U.S. troops returning home. The question is what they will leave behind. It's likely to be a ragged, patchwork quilt, and there isn't much time left to stitch it together.

Let's assume that the numbers from Iraq are right and that there has been a significant reduction in violence there. Let's even agree that the Bush administration's strategy is finally showing some success. Isn't that an argument for accelerating the transfer of security to the Iraqis -- and speeding up the withdrawal of some U.S. support troops?

October 23, 1983

In the attack on the American barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers. Sixty Americans were injured.

We have not forgotten

Team Badger Soldier Profiled

Learn about Staff Sergeant Ian Freeman here.

Silver Cloud Numbers

You know, a few days ago our man Chap had a link to some interesting statistics putting Violence in Iraq in Perspective .

Right now, the violent death rate in Iraq is comparable to that in South Africa...

And, yes, there really can be interesting statistics.

'Course there is that "How to Lie with Statistics" thing, but...

RE: SILVER CLOUDS

Quip of the year:

Bush fibbed, people lived!!!

Re: Silver Clouds

It's not just the morgue workers who are suffering in Iraq:

Taxi driver Ahmed Khalil Baqir used to station himself outside Baghdad's main morgue, waiting for grieving families who went there to claim their relatives’ dead bodies.

"I was totally dependent on them for my living," Baqir, a 44-year-old father of four, said." I never thought about picking up people in the street as I was being hired five to eight times a day by these families. But now it is a waste of time to wait there and these days I wait only for about three hours in the morning and I continue my work picking up passengers in the street.”

According to Muhsin, the average number of dead bodies sent to Baghdad’s main morgue just over a year ago was between 100 and 150 a day. Now, it is no more than 10 bodies a day, and about 50 percent of them are dying in normal circumstances.

"There have been days this year when no dead bodies were sent to the morgue and this gave the morgue employees a chance to refurbish it, something they couldn't do in the past," Muhsin added.

"Overall trends show a significant drop in violence over the last several months, according to previously unpublished military statistics obtained by NEWSWEEK."

It's the shocking secret that Bushco doesn't want America to know... "because it flies in the face of President George W. Bush's ongoing rhetorical confrontation with Iran's clerical regime"!!!!!!

(All the ugly details here - and just wait til the super secret UN report becomes public - impeachment is sure to follow!)

Violence Drops - NYT Hardest Hit

Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep dark depression
Excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck
I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair and agony on me...

Click for larger image

Linked at The Cotillion

Plymouth Rocked

Five U.S. Navy ships have carried the name of the man who drove a steam picket boat like the one shown above into history.

As set out here.

Re: The Finest Army Money Can Bi

Although Tila has racked up more than 2 million MySpace friends, she still hasn't found "the one," and she's ready to do anything to find him -- or her! This self-proclaimed "bisexual freak" has had her heart broken by men and women, and she's tired of being alone. With our help, she's inviting 16 luscious lesbians...

Ha! Does the Army know their audience or does the Army freakin' know their audience??

VA Data

The Charlotte Observer has a highly critical article on the VA. I won't defend the VA...like any large Government Organisation it adapts to new realities very slowly.

Some facts one won't find in most articles about the VA and "War Wounded"

Living WW II Veterans (as of 9/30/2006): 3,151,000 Percentage of Veteran Population 65 or Older: 38.4% Number of OEF/OIF Amputees (as of 07/03/07): 636 Number of Veterans Receiving VA Disability Compensation (as of 06/30/07): 2.8 M Number of Total Unique Patients Treated (FY 06): 5.5 M

Selected 2003 Statistics

Number of Veterans Receiving Heathcare 4.5 Million
Number of Vererans Receiving Compensation and Pension 2.89 Million

Selected Amputation Statistic

In FY2003, an overwhelming majority of (80%) all amputations performed in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) occurred in veterans identified as having diabetes. 2,997 veterans experienced an amputation in fiscal year 2000.

The primary patient load for the VA is diseases related to aging...not war wounds.

Re: Finest Army

That explanation would perhaps explain why they keep attempting to recruit me into the Chaplain Corps. (No, not the TV show...)

The guy on the phone sort of gurgles a little when I ask if they have my preferred insignia...

The Finest Army Money can Bi

MTV's got a new reality show: "A Shot at Love with Tia Tequila" in which 16 guys and 16 girls compete to be Tia's "love partner":

Are you ready for the ultimate battle of the sexes? Well, you better be 'cause there's about to be an all-out war over cyber hottie Tila Tequila!

Although Tila has racked up more than 2 million MySpace friends, she still hasn't found "the one," and she's ready to do anything to find him -- or her! This self-proclaimed "bisexual freak" has had her heart broken by men and women, and she's tired of being alone. With our help, she's inviting 16 luscious lesbians and 16 sexy straight guys over to her place for A Shot of Love With Tila Tequila. Yes, it's time for Tila to unfurl her freak flag and find true love.

At first, the guys and girls won't know about each other. But once Tila narrows the field down to a few of her favorites, she's going to tell them all that she's bi. And when the two sides learn they have to vie for her affection, all hell breaks loose. There'll be hair pulling, sucker punching, ball-busting and, er, even some butt waxing. Oh, and let's not forget threesomes. There's bound to be at least a few of those. But all is fair in love and war, right?

Even though Madonna has milked it, Angelina Jolie embraced it and TV shows like The O.C. and One Tree Hill have flirted with it, bisexuality is still the stuff of winks and nudges. But with A Shot at Love, Tila Tequila hopes to thrust the taboo into the spotlight and prove that flaunting your sexuality can be -- and should be -- fun. While Tila is dead serious about finding someone to get serious with, she's just not sure if she wants a relationship with a man or a woman. Who will win her heart?

Most of the advertisers are movie companies and MTV's own programs. But amid the voyeuristic fare pops up a taxpayer-funded pitch from the U.S. Army Reserve touting "a Different Kind of Strength" and being "Army Strong."

And double ouch:

Now that the U.S. Army is over its ill-advised "Army of One" campaign, perhaps it's time to switch to an "Army of Three."

Re: Paul/Isolationists

via History dot Com

By 332 BC, the rivalry between Persia and Greece has been ongoing for hundreds of years. Alexander's father, Philip the Second, has united the many Greek states into one unified force, and now his son takes charge of the Kingdom and is marching against the Persian leader Darius III. After defeating Darius' army in key battles at the Granicus River and at Issus, Alexander faces no resistance as he moves down the Mediterranean coast. But he faces fierce resistance when he reaches the island city of Tyre – a seemingly impenetrable wall surrounds the entire island. Alexander must build a half-mile long bridge to reach the island fortress. After seven months of perilous construction, siege towers are built, and, using catapults on these, as well as ship-mounted ballistas, Alexander brings down the wall and conquers Tyre.

The idea that one could build an impenetrable wall on an island and live in safetly was proven false in 332 BC.
The last 2,000+ plus years hasn't improved wall technology much.

Making History

Instapundit: A DIVERSITY PROBLEM at the University of Iowa.

Original story here - and there is a military angle.

There are places that welcome "conservative" history professors in America, but I see no benefit in the development of two polarized "schools" of history in the U.S.

Pondering Victory

A simplified argument for open discussion:

One result of our victory in WWI was WWII.

One result of our victory in WWII was the partitioning of Germany, the "Iron Curtain", and the cold war.

Disregarding credit/cause, the fall of the Berlin Wall/Iron Curtain can be identified as the point of obvious victory* in the cold war.

As a result of the collapse of East Germany and it's reunification with the West, Germany shifted to the Left politically, has a somewhat warmer relationship with the former Soviet Union, and a somewhat cooler relationship with the United States.

The same can be said for all of Western Europe, in part due to immigration from the East, in part due to a lower perceived threat from Soviet-style Stalinism. (Other contributing factors can be argued.)

While not extreme, this has had some impact on Europe's participation in the "war on terror". (One can argue the inverse, too. In fact, that choice is likely influenced by the individual's Left/Right identification.)

* The word "end" could be substituted for "victory" here - likewise an indication of the individual's political identification/affiliation.

Victory in the Air

Nothing can compare to a helo ride over a major city in a war zone. It's a roller coaster off the rails, with an added element of people below who probably would enjoy killing you. If you can get over that, the view is amazing. The bird tilts to turn, and the windows are huge, and when you're barely a hundred feet up it's spectacular.

Come along for the ride.

Any Plans on Sunday?

Might want to take some time out of your schedule to listen to this:

I'll be on WRKO's Pundit Review Radio Sunday at 7pm (680am if you're in the area or you can get it through internet streaming) participating in the first interview CPL Justin Sharatt has given about the [Haditha] incident. We've spoken to Justin's father Darrell a couple of times, but this will be the first time Justin has spoken out (and if I'm not mistaken he's out of the Marine Corps now). It should be an interesting show. The irony of all this is Sharatt's comgressional Rep is the one and only John Murtha.

With representation like that....

Full story here.

Look who popped in at the Code Pink protest

Our l'il buddy Pablo Paredes: Deserter. Coward. Race pimp.

Or, to Medea Benjamin and crew, an hero.

Til Death

Fairly good news on the marriage front:

WASHINGTON - The strain of war on marriage has led to a gradual increase in divorce among couples separated by military duty, a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense suggests.

The findings are surprising only because researchers expected to find a more significant spike in divorces, considering that military deployments have become longer, more frequent and more dangerous in the years since Sept 11, 2001.

"We see a slight increase, not the drastic increase that some would have expected," said UCLA social psychology professor Benjamin Karney, who spearheaded the study on behalf of The Rand Corporation.

The study, made public Monday during a briefing on Capitol Hill, was conducted because of concerns over media reports and other anecdotal evidence pointing to a link between divorce and war. The findings will be forwarded to David S. Chu, Defense Department undersecretary for personnel and readiness.

On the other hand the Mrs and I just marked our 23rd Anniversary. (Love you, baby!) I spent our 20th in Iraq, too.

From rumors I've heard, there are also people who get married immediately before deploying to get the extra pay and benefits, then divorce on end of tour. I'm sure those rumors aren't true, and even if they were they would probably only account for a small percentage of the rise.

Drawdown

The 1st Cav's 3rd BCT will not be replaced when they leave Iraq.

In accordance with the Prophecies.

On Paul

Houston Chronicle: Paul leads in donations from military voters, with Obama next.

I'd be willing to bet (based on my experience) that about 99.9% of military members have never heard of Ron Paul. The other .1 percent are certainly a generous lot.

The story actually only claims that Paul "has gotten more contributions than any other White House contender from donors identified as affiliated with the military. Not sure how that's defined. If your hairdresser's kid is on delayed entry are you "affiliated"?

One of Paul's military-affiliated supporters is actually quoted in the story:

One of the contributors to Paul's campaign was Lindell Anderson, 72, a retired Army chaplain from Fort Worth, who donated $100 to the Texas lawmaker.

"As a Christian, I think he speaks to a theme that the United States shouldn't be the policeman of the world," said Anderson.

RE: Now We Can Talk

Average Iraqi Civilian and Military Daily Killed by Localtion for the first 17 days of October

Baghdad - 9.52/day
Zaab Triangle(Baiji,Qayyarah,Kirkuk) - 3.11/day
Southern Iraq - 2.23/day
Diyala Province - 1.82/day
Salahadin Province- 1.70/day(Minus Zaab Triangle)
Ninewa Province- 1.64/day(Minus Zaab Triangle)
Anbar Province- 1.35/day

I would not that the average daily murder rate in NYC in 1990 was 6.15.

Dude...wheres the war?

Re: Can't the USAF do better?

Answer: no.

The Air Force has decided to relieve at least five of its officers of command and is considering filing criminal charges in connection with the Aug. 29 "Bent Spear" incident in which nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly flown from North Dakota to Louisiana, two senior Air Force officials said yesterday.

Although senior Defense Department officials have not been fully briefed on the results of an Air Force probe of the incident, the sources said that at least one colonel is expected to lose his position and that several enlisted personnel will also be punished as part disciplinary actions that could be among the toughest meted out by the Air Force in years.

The measures are expected to be formally announced tomorrow along with the detailed findings of an internal, six-week investigation into how a B-52 bomber crew mistakenly flew from one military air base to another with six nuclear warheads strapped to its wings. Air Force veterans have described the Aug. 29 incident as the one of the worst breaches in U.S. nuclear weapons security in decades.

A senior Air Force official familiar with the investigation said officers will be relieved at both installations involved in the incident: Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and Barksdale Air Force Base, La. A colonel commanding one of the Air Force wings is likely to be the highest-ranking officer to be relieved, the official said.

In addition, the official said, letters of reprimand will be issued to several enlisted service members. The personnel actions may be followed by criminal charges against one or more people, but that course of action is still being discussed at the highest levels of the Air Force, he added. The most likely such charge, he said, would be either dereliction of duty or willful disobedience of an order.

The anticipated personnel and disciplinary actions would be the most severe ever brought in the Air Force in connection with the handling of nuclear weapons, one of the officials said. The intention is to send the message that "the Air Force is getting back to the roots of accountability," the other official said. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation remains active.

The intention is to send the message that "the Air Force is getting back to the roots of accountability," the other official said. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation remains active.

Maybe they can pay Ted Rall to generate some PowerPoint training slides on proper handling of nukes, and why it's really not smart to discuss "accountability" when leaking information...

Flop

Heh:

Leaders of an antiwar group delivered petitions to Congress yesterday that they said had been signed by 2,050 service members and veterans calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

The group, Appeal for Redress, did not release the names of those who signed petitions but said that 1,274 are active duty and another 488 are in the National Guard or Reserve.

Navy Petty Officer Jonathan Hutto, co-founder of the group, said that many service members fear reprisal if they are public in their opposition to the war. Hutto was the only active-duty member of the armed forces to appear at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

Unless you're California Congressman Bob Filner:

Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee and one of four House Democrats attending the news conference, called the petitions "courageous" and said they would bolster efforts to stop the war. "Your standing up will make us stand up even taller," he said.

Real story on the Appeal for Redress scam here. They're a flop - and we helped flop 'em.

the human side of war

There are many people mourning 1st Lt Thomas Michael Martin USA, USMA '05. Tom celebrated his 27th birthday one week ago. He died 4 days later.

Tom and I became acquainted through blogging. He had a great online journal chronicling his life's path. Tom was enlisted (green), was accepted to West Point (grey) and graduated an officer in the US Army (gold). Thus, Tom originally called his blog Green to Grey to Gold. His mother Candis is career (active) Army... his Dad Ed is retired career Army. Tom's fiancee is an Army medevac pilot... both were deployed to Iraq. She'll be returning to complete her tour. I never got to meet Tom, but we corresponded for the last few years as he completed his time at West Point, went for tank training... was assigned to lead a sniper squad in Alaska... deployed to Iraq... I considered him my friend.

I know that those who post here need no reminding... but sometimes all the politics, strategy, finger pointing and arguing fall away and we remember the human side of war.

You can read more HERE and HERE.

Prayers in Need, Wounded Soldier struck with family tragedy

A Soldier's Angel Alert:

ALERT this is a tear jerker you may need a Kleenex

------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have a Specialist 4 John who was stationed at Ft. Bliss, Tx. in El Paso, Tx. and he was deployed to Iraq,injured and send to BAMC in San Antonio,Tx. he was in Med Hold and was going to be released soon back to his duty station and his wife Monalisa was driving up from Ft. Bliss where there three Children 9 year boy named Tyler, 5 year old girl named Ashley and 2 year old son named Logan.

Right outside Ozona, Tx. a truck hit them and from the nearest hospital they were life-flighted to Dallas, Tx. I am very sorry to say that the two year old Logan and the five year old Ashley were killed in the crash. Tyler is in Children's Hospital at Dallas, Tx.

Monalisa is in Parkland hospital next door to Children's Hospital.

Monalisa has a head wound, they thought she has 2 broken vertebrae in her neck or back and a broken arm. Turns out she looks worse than she is. No broken vertebra just some compressed disks and the head wound wasn't as bad as they thought.

She just has a lot of bruises.

John was brought to the hospital in Dallas and he is with the family along with a 1st. Sgt. who is taking on the problems they are facing . This accident occurred Sat. 10/13/2007 and as of right now Tyler is still in a coma no better but no worse.

The funeral arrangement have been made by 1st. Sgt. S. the funeral home took 40% off the cost of both funerals, they will be in Benton. AR. on Tuesday 10/23/2007 the cost of the funerals is $5,769.80.

Soldiers Angels is helping with money while in the hospital and the hotel where the two Grandmothers are staying. The father John and 1 Sgt. S. are staying at the Ronald McDonald House.

Angels can you help with Logan and Ashley's Funeral expenses, someone has already donated the grave sites and any money you can send we would appreciate it and I know the parents will also.

Send me an email and I will send you where to donate at.

Thank You

Bonnie Averett
saalertteam@soldiersangels.org

Soldiers Angels.Org .

The Kind of Leader I Aspire to Be; the Kind of Leader I Want to Follow

Blackfive brings us this story of now retired General Peter Pace, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I saw General Pace here in Iraq, although I did not get to meet him.

This is what it means to keep the faith.

I hope I can measure up.

Re: Al Qaida in Iraq Routed

Badger 6, one of the key points that made me realize we'd won this thing was your New Glass post.

Now we can talk even more about Think Pink and Pinching

This might win the award for media quote of the decade:

Right now, said another U.S. official, who declined even to be identified by the agency he works for, the data are "insufficient and difficult to measure."

But it came from a WaPo piece (co-authored by Tom "Fiasco" Ricks) quoting various unnamed officials on whether or not al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated. That should generate interesting political arguments among those who claim (wrongly) it was never a threat to begin with, and who likewise claim that anyone who says otherwise is trying to validate our presence in Iraq. Exactly where should any member of either group stand on this point of contention? No doubt many are eagerly awaiting their instructions...

Ricks also interviewed a guy who doesn't want his name used but who uses other peoples names a lot:

"I think it would be premature at this point," a senior intelligence official said of a victory declaration over AQI, as the group is known. Despite recent U.S. gains, he said, AQI retains "the ability for surprise and for catastrophic attacks."
<...>
Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the Joint Special Operations Command's operations in Iraq, is the chief promoter of a victory declaration and believes that AQI has been all but eliminated, the military intelligence official said. But Adm. William J. Fallon, the chief of U.S. Central Command, which oversees Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, is urging restraint, the official said. The military intelligence official, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity about Iraq assessments and strategy.

Senior U.S. commanders on the ground, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, have long complained that Central Command, along with the CIA, is too negative in its analyses. On this issue, however, Petraeus agrees with Fallon, the military intelligence official said.

Lt. Gen. Odierno is absolutely right to note: "it only takes three people" to construct and detonate a suicide car bomb that can "kill thousands". And John Kerry was wrong when claiming (in an effort to undermine homefront morale in another war) that no one wants to be the last man to die for a mistake. In fact, al Qaeda will always have someone eager to prove him wrong.

Yes, they could pull off a "Tet". Hell, they could manage something like their own version of the battle of the bulge, but the reality is they're whipped.

They brought ass, we kicked it.

Inside of Every Silver Cloud

via McClatchy

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

Re: Re: Pink Thinking

From the actual Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant:

Even during this march of Sherman's the newspapers in his front were proclaiming daily that his army was nothing better than a mob of men who were frightened out of their wits and hastening, panic-stricken, to try to get under the cover of our navy for protection against the Southern people.
<...>
The Southern papers in commenting upon Sherman's movements pictured him as in the most deplorable condition: stating that his men were starving, that they were demoralized and wandering about almost without object, aiming only to reach the sea coast and get under the protection of our navy. These papers got to the North and had more or less effect upon the minds of the people, causing much distress to all loyal persons particularly to those who had husbands, sons or brothers with Sherman.

As was General Sherman, in his own memoirs:

At Milledgeville [Georgia] we found newspapers from all the South, and learned the consternation which had filled the Southern mind at our temerity; many charging that we were actually fleeing for our lives and seeking safety at the hands of our fleet on the sea-coast.
<...>
Judging from the tone of the Southern press of that day, the outside world must have supposed us ruined and lost.

Thousands who had been deceived by their lying newspapers to believe that we were being whipped all the time now realize the truth...

Re: 12 Captains

I found the Website of one of the 12 Captains here.

It's sole purpose is to support a piece of Legislation Introduced in Congress by Rep. Rangel....

To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service

I seem to remember rumors of a "Pending Draft" circulated prior to the 2004 presidential election...Rep Rangel introduced the same legislation then.

Yet another try at getting the "Hell No...We Won't Go" crowd all in a tizzy.

Re: Pink Thinking

Oddly enough, I just got an email from a man who served with Sherman as he marched across Georgia and he had this to say about "The Real Georgia We Knew"-

What does Georgia look like on the ground? It's certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining state. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Atlanta completely lacks electricity.

Georgia's institutional infrastructure, too, is sorely wanting. Even if the Georgians wanted to work together and accept the state identity foisted upon them in 1790s, the ministries do not have enough trained administrators or technicians to coordinate themselves. At the local level, most communities are still controlled by the same autocratic planters that ruled under Jeff Davis There is no reliable postal system. No effective banking system. No registration system to monitor the population and its needs.

War does that. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

The Iraq We *KNEW*

Hmmm.... what's wrong with this picture?

This column was written by 12 former Army captains:

Kristy (Luken) McCormick served in Ninevah in 2003.
Gary Williams served in Baghdad in 2003.

Elizabeth Bostwick served in Salah Ad Din and An Najaf in 2004.
Jason Bugajski served in Diyala in 2004.
William "Jamie" Ruehl served in Nineveh in 2004.

Luis Carlos Montalván served in Anbar, Baghdad and Nineveh in 2003 and 2005.
Jason Blindauer served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005.
Anton Kemps served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005.
William Murphy served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005.
Gregg Tharp served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005.

Jeffrey Bouldin served in Al Anbar, Baghdad and Ninevah in 2006.
Josh Rizzo served in Baghdad in 2006.

It is now October of 2007.

In 2006 (when the last of these twelve former Army captains saw Iraq) al Anbar was thought to be irretrievably lost. Needless to say, a few things have changed, since then.

And exactly when was it ever our mission to completely transform Iraq from the ground up:

Iraq's institutional infrastructure, too, is sorely wanting. Even if the Iraqis wanted to work together and accept the national identity foisted upon them in 1920s, the ministries do not have enough trained administrators or technicians to coordinate themselves. At the local level, most communities are still controlled by the same autocratic sheiks that ruled under Saddam. There is no reliable postal system. No effective banking system. No registration system to monitor the population and its needs.

Somehow, I must have missed that part of the grand strategy. Sounds like a bit of mission creep going on here.

But then if your desired end state is to declare a state of Miserable Failure, defining the mission upwards is key, isn't it?

Agenda. Don't leave Iraq without it.

Al Qaida in Iraq Routed

So says Colonel Richard Simcock, Commander of USMC Regimental Combat Team 6.

Team Badger supported RCT 6 from their arrival in theater in January 2007 till when we rotated out in September. We reduced over 400 IEDs in our year in Iraq; many of those in the Falluja area controlled by RCT 6.

We clearly had a positive impact in defeating the enemy.

What Pink Thinks

Somehow reading this reminded me of Bill Whittle's Pink and Grey essay.

We've won the war, and there's work to be done. Iraq is a mess - that's undeniable. In fact, it looks like a war zone.

The pink response to that should surprise no one.

The only inescable conclusion you can draw from this is that 7 NCOs and an E4 can write a better op-ed than 12 Captains.

Now we can Talk

We've won the war.

Can't the USAF do better?

Of all the great minds out there, ahem, looking for someone to throw them a bone and publish a book on the gov'munt dime - why did the USAF decide to throw taxpayer money at William Arkin?

Mr. Arkin’s book, “Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War,” will be published this month by the Air University Press, based at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. It is expected to influence Air Force strategy and teaching.

Re: Is This News

If one relies on Joshua Partlow of the Wapo to form ones World Views who last week opined on the front page of said newspaper -

Reconciliation Seen Unattainable Amid Struggle for Power

Not only would it not be news...but it would be so inconsistant with preconceived notions that it would be dismissed as an aberration.

First one must become cognizant that the Iraqi Civil War/Unrest is waning as demonstrated by steadily declining "Bodies Found in Baghdad" numbers ...25+(some say 100+) a day in January, 12 a day in August, 8 a day in September, less than 6 a day so far in October. Of course...to do that one must intellectually un-tether AlQueda's war against all of humanity from Iraqi Civil unrest.

Is this News?

This title is becoming an ongoing series...

Here in Iraq, over 40 Shiite political leaders met with leaders of the Anbar Awakening in Ramadi.

The title is actually a question I'm asking. I'm in Iraq - the real one, not the make-believe place you see on Cable News, and I don't know how much coverage the real stories are getting.

Re: Pinch

AKA: Yes, Now we can Talk

Spotted the sliver of the new moon in the sky yesterday.

That means Ramadan is over.

It's hard to stay ahead of the news on Iraq...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not declaring victory. I am saying that the race to a tipping point - something we've discussed here throughout this year - may have been won. (Caveat: runners can always be tripped up near the finish line...)

I'll close, however, with a repeat of what I said yesterday: ...Lailat ul-Qadr - the "Night of Power" - the key point in Ramadan commemorating Allah's revelation of the Koran to Mohammed, is still to come. If we pass that point without anything "newsworthy" happening - then we can talk.

And the reporters aren't.

Meanwhile, over the weekend I was surprised to see the Israel/Syrian nuke strike story show up on cable news. GI Korea had that story (and more intel on North Korean involvement than I've seen anywhere else yet) last month.

re: someone pinch me

I about fell out of my chair when I read this in the weekend Washington Post.

NEWS COVERAGE and debate about Iraq during the past couple of weeks have centered on the alleged abuses of private security firms like Blackwater USA. Getting such firms into a legal regime is vital, as we've said. But meanwhile, some seemingly important facts about the main subject of discussion last month -- whether there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq -- have gotten relatively little attention. A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that "civilian deaths have risen" during this year's surge of American forces.

A month later, there isn't much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.

Escapism

A scuttled ship.

A long sea voyage.

In an open boat.

A great sea story almost no one remembers.

A hero among many.

Someone Pinch Me

via AP

The headline -

Saturday civilian toll falls dramatically to just 4 reported deaths

Not buried in paragraph 32..in the headline...of course the International Herald Tribune(NY Times) had 'controversial things' for the front page...."divided officers'.. at Fort Leavenworth...Gen Sanchez..Blackwater....

Not that for one day at least the bulk of the killing in Iraq stopped is worthy of Front Page Coverage.

Updated after the jump

Re: Re:Hey...

Charlie Foxtrot has the C-span Video of Sanchez. See the full unedited version

Re: Hey

Sanchez transcript machine recased after the jump...not perfect...but readable.

Re: Hey...

Could someone take a minute and convert
this thing from ALLCAPS???

JEEEBUS I HATED TRYING TO READ THIS STUFF WHEN IT WAS THE ONLY FORM OF MESSAGE TRAFFIC WE HAD. FOR SOME REASON I CAN'T PROCESS INFORMATION IN THIS FORMAT. I'M PROBABLY NOT ALONE IN THAT.

There are transcripts above and here and here and no one has bothered to translate it yet.

Me? I'm too dang busy...

(/whine)

Re:Re: Winning the War

Championing the "Road Not Taken" might be an emotionally soothing exercise. It might even have utility in lessons learned. Gen Shinseki may have been right that 500,000 security forces would be needed to effectively police Iraq.

Champions of the road not taken rarely discuss the unknowable costs of that road. What effect would conscription have had on the "Wait Us Out" scenario? We can't know...the road was not taken.

Gen Patraeus has something Lt Gen Sanchez and Gen Casey didn't have...300,000 semi-functioning Iraqi security forces...without which...that lone battalion Gen Patraeus has guarding Mosul would have been overrun long ago.

Gen Patraeus also has an Iraqi population that has experienced the lifestyle various extremist groups in Iraq would impose on them. Would the Iraqi people have been more or less accepting of a lifestlye imposed by 500,000 pairs of American boots not having experienced first hand Osam Bin Laden's romantized version of the 7th century...it is unknowable...that road was not taken.

What we do know is the Iraqi peoples rejection of various extremist idiologies and the 300,000 semi-functioning ISF are making a postive difference now.

MOVING THE GOALPOSTS (RE: WINNING THE WAR)

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is foreign led.

Is it just me, or is this the NY Times stock phrase for Al Qaeda in IRAQ? It appears they use this exact wording in every single article whenever AQI is referenced. This has to be handed down from the top floor for every single reporter to use this precise of an imprecise description.

Would the Times similarly call the perpetrators of 9/11 "Al Qaeda in New Amsterdam, the domestic sleeper cells that European intelligencias say were a predictable result of our own misguided foreign policy"?

re: winning the war

In contrast to the story we have from Greyhawk, and others like it; we have what I think is going to bury the good news - the news of the present - the news of progress - for the news cycle through the weekend and the Sunday shows. It is going to bury it because it fits the storyboard that the MSM is comfortable with. Change is hard; change that puts the Iraq conflict in a positive light is just too difficult.

It seems that retired Lt. Gen. Sanchez is conducting his therapy in public.

He called current strategies - including the deployment of 30,000 additional forces earlier this year - a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.

"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," Sanchez told a group of journalists covering military affairs.
...
"There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope" that things are going to change, he said.

At a time that Gen. Petraeus is getting traction and moving forward, I think those who once had his responsibility and failed should either get out and push or get out of the way - and unquestionably stop throwing obstacles in his way. I'm not going to dwell too much on Lt. Gen. Sanchez - but knowing what I know about his time in Baghdad, "General, heal thyself." about says it.

Winning the War

Let's roll into the weekend on a high note. And what could be higher than the NY Times?

BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 — In a number of Shiite neighborhoods across Baghdad, residents are beginning to turn away from the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia they once saw as their only protector against Sunni militants. Now they resent it as a band of street thugs without ideology.

The hardening Shiite feeling in Baghdad opens an opportunity for the American military, which has long struggled against the Mahdi Army, as American commanders rely increasingly on tribes and local leaders in their prosecution of the war.
<...>
American commanders like Lt. Col. David Oclander, of the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, whose area includes Sadr City and other Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, have seized on that cooperation. In the past month and a half, he said, Shiite leaders have begun to make contact with the Americans. The brigade is now working with 25 sheiks in the Shiite neighborhoods of Shaab and Ur and is interviewing up to 1,200 candidates for semiofficial neighborhood guard positions.

The lieutenant colonel compares the shift among the Shiites to the one in Sunni neighborhoods that began to turn against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is foreign led.

In some cases, residents seem more willing to stand up to the Mahdi Army. In Topchi, several businessmen refused to pay protection money to Mahdi Army members this month. The news spread through the neighborhood. Four months ago, a truck driver was killed in Lieutenant Colonel Oclander’s sector, after the driver’s boss refused to pay protection money. Such retribution is much rarer now, he said.

Ali, the Ur businessman, said he expected the Mahdi Army to be much smaller in the future. People simply do not believe its leaders anymore. “There is no ideology among them anymore,” he said.

As proof, he told a story from his neighborhood about a religious man and a car acquisition.

“He was a poor man, but now he has a Mercedes-Benz,” Ali said. “The Prophet Muhammad, he didn’t even have a horse.”

A few brief observations on Mobilizing

Found here.

Hero Sailor To Receive Medal Of Honor

As Blackfive mentioned at his place, Navy SEAL LT Michael Murphy, who fell in battle in Afghanistan in June 2005, will be inducted into the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes later this month, after his father accepts the Medal of Honor in his behalf. From Navy NewsStand:

Murphy was the officer-in-charge of the SEAL element, which was tasked with locating a high- level Taliban militia leader to provide intelligence for a follow-on mission to capture or destroy the local leadership and disrupt enemy activity. However local Taliban sympathizers discovered the SEAL unit and immediately revealed their position to Taliban fighters. The element was besieged on a mountaintop by scores of enemy fighters. The firefight that ensued pushed the element farther into enemy territory and left all four SEALs wounded.
The SEALs fought the enemy fearlessly despite being at a tactical disadvantage and outnumbered more than four to one. Understanding the gravity of the situation and his responsibility to his men, Murphy, already wounded, deliberately and unhesitatingly moved from cover into the open where he took and returned fire while transmitting a call for help for his beleaguered teammates. Shot through the back while radioing for help, Murphy completed his transmission while returning fire. The call ultimately led to the rescue of one severely wounded team member, Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Marcus Luttrell, and the recovery of the remains of Murphy and Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class (SEAL) Danny Dietz and Sonar Technician 2nd Class (SEAL) Matthew Axelson.

The selfless heroism displayed by LT Murphy and his men is a reminder of why all of us know that the military is such a unique calling.

RE: Quoatable

While that score may be accurate, it's also true that the KGB never had to make any effort at all to ensure literature and film sympathetic to the communist cause were widely available in the United States.

Actually the KGB made quite an effort

KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment, and credibility. One of its favorite tools was the fabrication of such evidence as photographs and "news reports" about invented American war atrocities. These tales were purveyed in KGB-operated magazines that would then flack them to reputable news organizations. Often enough, they would be picked up. News organizations are notoriously sloppy about verifying their sources. All in all, it was amazingly easy for Soviet-bloc spy organizations to fake many such reports and spread them around the free world.

The KGB was always very good about embedding a verifiable grain of truth into their propaganda. Their proteges are not nearly as skilled or organized...but they do exist..and they have mastered the art of getting half-truths printed and televised..

Naming Guns

I've not posted here before, and just wanted to guve it a whirl--I'm also new to MT, so this should be fun.

Here goes.

As I write this I am somewhere over Texas or Nevada, on the way to the Gun Blogger’s Rendezvous. For those interested, I am toting along the M1 Brothers, Garand and Carbine, and the composite plastic Austrian soulless piece of hardware that I usually carry.
Glocks are really funny things. People either love or hate them.

Greetings

Thank you to Mrs Greyhawk for inviting me to be one of the bloggers here on MILBLOGS at the Mudville Gazette.

For those of you who don't know me I invite you take a look around my blog, Badgers Forward. Most of it chronicles my just completed year at the Company Commander of a US Army Engineer Company in Al Anbar province and the difference we made in the year there.

I am now in Southern Iraq working on a Brigade staff and may be here another nine and a half months.

I just recently completed a series on the vagaries of travel in theater. If you have been here I am sure you relate; if not it gives you insight into what life is like here. You can find Part I, Part II, and Part III here

Thank you for taking the time to read my work and invite me along.

More "News"

Chris Cuomo and Howard Kurtz discuss media relevance on Good Morning America:

Kurtz: Somebody ought to have the nerve to put on a newscast for an hour in prime time and try to draw more viewers. But, I think also, as we talk, Chris, about, you know, a lot of people are writing the obituary. They're irrelevant. Well, guess what? They still have the biggest media megaphone. 25 million combined viewers a night. And that becomes very important on the outside game, as you refer to, when you talk about, for example, the coverage of the war in Iraq. I believe that these newscasts in 2005 and 2006 played the biggest single role in helping to turn public opinion against the war."

Cuomo: "And I think you really have a unique brand of intelligence in this book about this. It's easy to say, 'Oh, well. The war was unpopular. People were looking for the unpopularity of it. At some point, the networks gave that to them.' But you have a more penetrating look at it. You take a look at it in terms of the role of the nightly newscasts in shaping the ideas about the news, even though we had the internet, even though we had the cables upon us at that time. Why do you believe that?"

Kurtz: "Well, we're drowning in information but somebody has to sort it out. So, when it came to the war, despite enormous pressure from the administration that said to the media, 'You folks in the media are being too negative. You're distorting the picture.' We had brave correspondents bringing us the carnage night after night, into our living rooms, what was going none Iraq. And you had the anchors framing the story in such a way that it really punched through.

Quotable

This one's from fiction - from a (1965) movie based on a (1956) book, but it's interesting none the less.

I was ordered by the Party to enlist. My task - the Party's task - was to organize defeat. From defeat would spring the Revolution, and the Revolution would be victory for us... When the time came, I was able to take three whole battalions out of the front lines with me - the best day's work I ever did.

Side note: Cold War super-spy intrigue tie-in (with a cameo appearance by Tolstoy) here and here and here.

Another great quote: "Final score: CIA 1, KGB 0."

While that score may be accurate, it's also true that the KGB never had to make any effort at all to ensure literature and film sympathetic to the communist cause were widely available in the United States.

Speaking of College Money

The Fund for Veterans Education announced it would award up to $1 million in undergraduate scholarships for veterans, including National Guard and Reservists returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for the Spring 2008 term or Fall 2008 term. The awards, which may be renewed for the following academic year, are intended to cover financial need not met by need-based grants and military education benefits. The application deadline is Monday, Oct. 15. For more information, visit www.veteransfund.org.

Salute

Tenth Mountain's 2d Brigade Combat Team will soon be heading home after an eventful 15 months in Iraq. Their AO includes what's commonly called the triangle of death - but is less so now than when they began.

POW/MIA memorials will gain additional significance for 2/10. Two members of the unit are still missing - their capture was well publicized early this summer. Like most progress since the launch of the surge, the subsequent events have gone unreported.

The Night of Power

...is sort of a confusing concept - at least to me.

The Night of Power commemorates the night Allah revealed the Koran to Mohammed. No one knows the actual night during Ramadan this occurred. It's narrowed down to one of the odd-numbered nights in the last ten days of Ramadan.

But that ain't all. Various groups disagree on what day is the first of any given month - there is no universally accepted standard within Islam, and therefore one group's odd day can be another group's even. I'm not going to bother with all the permutations.

Anyhow, if this was al Qaeda (or associated) action, this is what they could do on their "best night":

Mortars hit US military HQ at Baghdad airport

BAGHDAD, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Militants fired mortar rounds at Camp Victory, the U.S. military's sprawling headquarters near Baghdad airport, after dusk on Wednesday but there were no immediate reports of injuries, a U.S. military official said.

A Western security contractor at the base said he heard nine mortar rounds being fired and four explosions inside the perimeter. He was not aware of any casualties.

Such attacks on the base are relatively rare. Last month, an Iranian-made rocket killed one person in an attack blamed on militants loyal to anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

As it turns out, 2 were killed and 38 wounded. I don't want to dismiss the numbers as insignificant, but bear in mind the "wounded" figure means injured enough to see a doctor - not (as John-Jack Murtha and others would have you believe) maimed for life. For additional perspective - I was on Victory Base Complex when this attack occurred and didn't know about it until I read it in the news today.

By the way, did you notice this quote from the Reuters story...

Such attacks on the base are relatively rare.

Such attacks on the base are not unusual, officials have said in the past.

*(Kidding, folks, just kidding...)

A Salute to Recruits

Damn:

WASHINGTON — All branches of the Armed Forces met or exceeded their recruitment goals for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, and the Army expects to accelerate its expansion in the next two years, top brass at the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

(3... 2... 1... )

Naaaaaht.

Looks like the IVAW sh!tb@gs' last ditch effort to halt recruiting failed.

Countdown to brain-dead commenter claiming everyone who joins the Army these days is a lowered-standard dirtbag who wouldn't serve except for the pay and benefits begins now...

Re: Night of Power

I understand it was supposed to be the 9th of October, it's now the 10th. There is no mention of Iraq on the Front Page of the WaPo and some story about State Dept Security Contractors on the Front Page of the NY Times.

Sh!tb@gs

Explained

Thoughts and Prayers

Another Re: Injustice

Lots of folks seem surprised to learn that a group of Minnesota Guard members who served 15 months in Iraq don't qualify for full education benefits under the GI Bill. But those troops are hardly unique - even many Active Duty members will never see a penny of GI Bill education benefits. While it seems like it should be simple - serve your country, get money for college - it is anything but. Among other complexities, you must buy the benefit - you don't get it free - and you must pay for it at the beginning of your career, when your pay is already at it's lowest. Those who can't afford it are then forced to sign a statement that they decline it and understand they will never have another opportunity to get it. In fact, while it's undeniably a great benefit, the system is designed to deny that benefit to as many people as possible.

There are numerous other complexities built into the system. Want to see if you qualify for education benefits under the GI Bill? Try and figure it out using this 51-page official pamphlet from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Good luck - and as you attempt to navigate it bear in mind the warning label it contains:

Caution: Don’t rely on this pamphlet to determine if you’re eligible for education benefits. To receive a formal decision from VA, you must file a claim for benefits.

Like I said, it should be simple - serve your country, get money for college (ironically that's what so many people claim forces so many poor folks to join the military in the first place) - but it's anything but.

One thing should be made clear - it's not the Pentagon that runs this program, it's the VA. And like all other departments it's controlled by congressional budgets and rules. If this is ever going to be changed, it's going to be done by congress. Various actual non-partisan veterans groups have been lobbying for reform for years, to little avail.

IVAW in Action

Looks like one of the IVAW sh!tb@gs tried to fake a hate crime at George Washington University.

Even if (as he and his fellows claim) they were "misunderstood", their motives are clear.

Here's a copy of the poster

And here's how Kokesh's stunt is being covered in the Middle East:

CAIRO — University campuses across the United States are becoming the stage for an anti-Islam campaign that includes hate posters and a series of activities to rally students against the alleged threat Islam poses to the US and the world.

George Washington University administration, faculty and students came back from the weekend to find the campus painted with posters and fliers with the message: "HATE MUSLIMS? SO DO WE!!!"

The fliers, posted even on kiosks and mailboxes on standard letter-sized paper, featured a picture of a man next to a diagram describing a "typical Muslim."
<...>
Fifteen student organizations led by the GW Muslim Student Association, the Islamic Alliance for Justice and the Jewish Student Association issued a statement expressing that they were "appalled at this incidence of hate and Islamophobia."

Earlier Kokesh (who had a career-ending bust from Sergeant to Corporal for smuggling a pistol home from Iraq) was warned about wearing his uniform to protests...

I have been assigned as Investigating Officer to look into your possible violation(s) of DoDI 1334.01 "Wearing of the Uniform" and MCO P1020.34 "Marine Corps Uniform Regulations". Specifically, you may have violated the law while wearing all or part of your Marine Corps uniform while engaged in political demonstrations or activities.

I know this matter pales in comparison with recent geopolitical events of which you have shown an interest but, nonetheless, I am obligated to investigate this matter and I have a desire to let a fellow Marine know about his obligations and duty. As a member of the Reserve Component, until 18 JUN 2007, the law restricts your wearing of the uniform at certain events.

Go fuck yourself.

Al Qaeda Video Leaked by ABC Before SITE Email?

The more I read about this, the weirder it gets:

In a story first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, Katz said that on Sept. 7 she contacted White House counsel Fred Fielding, whom she had met before and trusted, and offered the video and a transcript, long before anyone else had a copy.

The Washington Post reported this took place "around 10 a.m."

.... Katz said Fielding referred her to Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the president for homeland security. Bagnal asked her to pass the transcript and video on to Michael Leiter at the National Counterterrorism Center. Katz said she also copied Fielding in on the e-mail.

By 10:12 the Pentagon was downloading the video from SITE's servers. Pretty fast, huh?

About an hour and a half after sending her e-mail, she saw news outlets reporting that the government had obtained the video. And soon after that, a transcript appeared on the ABC News Web site and later on the Fox News site.

Katz said both of these transcripts were hers, and they bear the same date - Sept. 6, the day SITE prepared the document - and file numbers as the copy SITE passed to Leiter.

An hour and a half after 10 am is 11:30. But to buy SITE's version of events - that someone in the administration leaked news of Katz's email - requires one to ignore the fact ABC reported at 9:23 that "government intelligence sources" had the video and a transcript.

It takes time to write an article, even if all the information is spoon fed to you. Let's say it took only 20 minutes (hard to believe, but possible). ABC still had to have been tipped off before that. So we have to back this up to 9 am to begin writing and, what? 8:30 at the very latest for ABC to have been contacted and decide to write the article?

Also, now we know ABC posted the video before FoxNews. Sounds like they may have been the first to do so.

How likely is it that TWO leakers leaked the same story, on the same day, involving TWO copies of the video and TWO transcripts (one some time before 9:23 and one after Katz contacted Dan Fielding "around 10 am")?

That is the time of the original leak. And isn't it interesting that ABC had a link to the transcript up before Fox? That is what I couldn't establish yesterday.

Scapegoating The White House?

Reading Mrs. G's post got me thinking.

Let's walk through this again. Rusty thinks we had access to the tape at least 24 hours ahead of time because of the date stamps on the bottom of the transcripts.

The ABC article posted at 9:23 a.m. cites "intelligence sources" who have already had time to analyze the video:

Intelligence sources tell ABC News they believe the video message from Osama bin Laden is authentic, recently produced and evidence the al Qaeda leader is still alive.

According to government sources, an initial analysis of the tape indicates "a lot of chest thumping" and of course historical references "alluding" to the successful attack on New York.

And a CIA spokesman told ABC News, "It's quite possible this is a new video."

...U.S. authorities earlier this morning said the tape's transcript is aimed at potential suicide bombers who he urges to carry out missions against the West.

But this is half an hour before SITE director Rita Katz says she gave the White House access to the video:

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

According to the WaPo, the first download from SITE's server takes place at 10:12, unless they, too want to back up the chain of events to before SITE turned it over... which I doubt.

So what do we know from this, assuming it is correct?

1. From ABC at 9:23 a.m., we know government intelligence sources had a transcript of the video before SITE talked to the White House, and these government intelligence sources leaked news about the video and transcript to ABC *before* SITE talked to the White House.

2. Starting just a few minutes after SITE talked to the White House (10:12 am) various government agencies began downloading material from SITE's server.

3. From the WaPo: At 3 p.m., a transcript copy posted around on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group.

ABC's copy of the transcript matched Fox's except for a deleted paragraph with a link to the site at the beginning.

Connect the dots: ABC quoted "government sources" at 9:23 who'd already had time to transcribe and analyze the video (or perhaps Rusty is right and they had access to SITE's transcription), then leak their findings (illegally, one presumes) to ABC. So we already have one leak: from the intelligence community.

From 10:12 to 1:00, the Pentagon, CIA, Army, and DoD's Network Information Center are busy downloading the video. Question: didn't a "CIA spokesman already tell ABC that morning that "It's quite possible this is a new video?" So someone from the CIA (a spokesman, according to ABC) knew about the video already. Why download it again? For comparison purposes?

At 3 pm, a copy of the transcript matching that on SITE's servers shows up on FoxNews.

At 5 pm, Katz claims this "proves" the government was the source of the leak.

A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group. ..."This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document," Katz wrote in an e-mail to Leiter at 5 p.m.

Maybe, maybe not.

Who knew SITE would be meeting with the White House at around 10 am - 12 minutes before the first download?

We already know there was one leak from the intelligence community to ABC at 9:23 am - just before SITE and the White House met. And we know that at that time they already had the video and a transcript and had had time to analyze them.

I'm not sure what the 9/6 on the bottom of the SITE transcript proves. If SITE claims it was their transcript:

A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group.

...then it's hardly surprising it would have been translated BEFORE 9/7.

What we don't know is whether the SITE transcript that showed up at at 3 pm on Fox and other news outlets and the transcript referred to by ABC at 9:23 am are one and the same, do we? We do know that someone in the intel community leaked to ABC well before the White House met with SITE.

Possibility 1: There is only one transcript, which implies that either some intelligence agency had already hacked SITE's server OR someone at SITE gave them the information, which they then gave to ABC. Having leaked once, is there really any reason to presume this person wouldn't leak again to the media? And if indeed they were working in concert with someone at SITE, they'd have knowledge of the White House visit at 10 am, allowing them to leak to various intel agencies, thus creating the appearance of a White House leak.

Possibility 2: There are two transcripts: one of our intel agencies independently intercepted the video, transcribed and analyzed it, then leaked to ABC at 9:23 am.

Then, just by coincidence, a second leaker from the White House (acting independently and incredibly quickly, don't you think, to alert the Pentagon in time to begin downloading by 10:12 am?) leaked news of the SITE video and transcript to various news agencies.

Now which theory do you find more plausible? And isn't it interesting how quickly many on the right side of the blogosphere ascribe all of this to White House incompetence?

Again, I must ask: on what evidence? The events of the day seem very tightly orchestrated for "incompetence" to carry much weight as an explanation.

Re:Leak

Rusty at Jawa Report makes an interesting find

Rita Katz, said she personally provided the video on September 7 to the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter.
So, SITE claims they are the source of the video given to the White House. Rita claims she personally gave the video to authorities on September 7th. But let's take a quick look at the very bottom of the translation of the video leaked by ABC's Blotter: 09/06/07

So, just because SITE's intel source got burned, doesn't mean that we've lost capability of tracking al Qaeda online. In fact, SITE was not the only one that had the "new" bin Laden 9/11 video before it was supposed to be released, as these two articles suggest.
Both Intel Center and Laura Mansfield also had the video. Hell, I had the video.

More at Captain Ed's place and from Allah Pundit

Now I understand that there's a delicate balance that must be struck between fighting an effective war on terror and respecting the First Amendment. However my question is this; isn't there some protocol implemented within the media to be sure intelligence that effects national security is safe to publish, regardless to whoever leaked it. The buck needs to stop there.

Now I know that's allot to ask of the media, far be it for them to take any responsibility in what they report.

Was This Another "Good Leak"?

Or was it a "Bad Leak"? So hard to tell, these days:

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

Let's see if we can follow the breadcrumb trail. Excerpts from the WaPo article:

September 7th, 10 a.m.: SITE contacts White House, provides access to tape.

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition.

September 7th, 11 a.m.: By now, "a range of intelligence agencies" have begun downloading it from SITE's server.

September 7th, 3 p.m.: "Several television networks" have copies that indicate they came from the SITE server:

By midafternoon, several television news networks reported obtaining copies of the transcript. A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group.

September 7th, 5 p.m.: Katz emails Leiter, saying "This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document,"

Some unspecified amount of time later: Al-Qaeda supporters, now alerted to the intrusion into their secret network, put up new obstacles that prevented SITE from gaining the kind of access it had obtained in the past, according to Katz.

The part that interests me is this:

A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group. ..."This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document," Katz wrote in an e-mail to Leiter at 5 p.m.

Really? If SITE didn't give the tape to the White House until 10 am the morning of October 7th, how on earth did the White House manage to leak it to ABC in time for the Blotter to post an article at 9:23 a.m.?

Interestingly, the page markers on the FoxNews video released at 3 pm. don't appear any different than those from ABC's copy of the transcript

But we know from the WaPo's damning intro that administration incompetence is surely to blame for this traveshamockery:

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

Isn't it interesting how the WaPo story seques from attaching specfic times to events on September 7th (sometime around 10 am, 20 minutes later, 5 pm, to "By midafternoon that day...", a conveniently vague description that somehow manages to direct the reader's attention away from any troubling references to the network that broke the story -- ABC News -- and instead causes them to focus their attention on FoxNews?

You've got to hand it to those leakers at the White House.

They're fast. Not many folks can leak a document to the press in time for them to write up and post an article before they even get their hands on it.

Update: Doesn't the chronology here (ABC News posted an article about the "leaked video" at 9:23 a.m., the White House was "given access to the tape" somewhere around 10 a.m., the video transcripts on ABC match the ones supposedly "leaked" by the White House that later showed up on FoxNews) imply that the leaker was someone within SITE?

How else did the Pentagon manage to download a copy from SITE's server at 10:12? Doesn't this strike anyone else as blindingly fast action out of the administration? Given the timing, someone at SITE would have had far more time to leak the information.

What am I missing? More and more, this is looking like another Joe Wilson story.

More here.

Vegas Anyone?

BlogWorld and New Media Expo... November 8 & 9... Milbloggers will be there...

Facts Are Stubborn Things....

Apropos of Greyhawk's excellent post (which I agree with entirely) once again it appears the military is being blamed for following laws passed by Congress:

For the 448th time, the military cannot "scrap" a policy just because someone wants them to.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.***

So far, the most damning "evidence" of an evil Pentagon conspiracy seems to be the argument that it's too convenient for coincidence that the orders of Lt. Jon Anderson and John Hobot were written for 729 days - precisely one day short of the cutoff to receive benefits under the GI Bill. But unsurprisingly, the situation isn't quite that simple:

Almost half of the 2,600 Minnesota National Guard soldiers who deployed with the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 34th Infantry Division are getting shortchanged on their education benefits.

The 1,162 affected troops served just as long as their colleagues -- 22 consecutive months, the longest of any U.S. unit in Iraq -- but they are not eligible to enroll in the Chapter 30 Montgomery GI Bill because they were demobilized before serving the 730 days of active duty deployment required by the bill.

How long before? From one to 12 days.

As Greyhawk points out, there is something a bit fishy about the reporting on this story:

Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home.

Why? Did someone fail to inform them of their pay and benefits? Who, exactly, should have done so? (Heh – I actually know the answer to that one…) Or worse, did someone lie to them about their pay and benefits?

Now let's simplify the numbers. Instead of saying "730 days" when referencing the minimum, let's use the term "2 years" - because 730 days = 2 years. We can even convert that into months - two years = 24 months. Now that we've got everything converted to like terms, lets perform complex mathematics:

24 months - 22 months = 2 months. That's how far short their actual tour fell of qualifying for the benefits.

But is that the issue? Do you have to serve two years, or do you just have to have orders for two years to qualify?

This raises more questions, at least in my mind:

1. Which document actually created the problem? Was it orders generated before deployment (when the unit could not possibly have known their tour would be extended because of the Surge), or does the Army generate orders on demobilization?

2. If the Pentagon intentionally defrauded these soldiers -- who served "just as long as" fully half of the Red Bulls -- why in the Sam Hill didn't they go ahead and intentionally defraud the other half to save twice as much money? Few things enrage this Marine wife more than half-assed, incompetent jackbooted oppression of the proletariat.

Unless, of course, they affect her personally, in which case all bets are off.

3. If the motivation was 'to save money", who exactly is saving this money? Again, who benefits? What pot do GI Bill benefits get paid out of?

(a) It's hard to believe the command itself had any incentive, either positive or negative, for fudging the numbers. Do individual commands really have to foot the bill for anyone who earns GI Bill eligibility through service with them? Wow. Sounds like an accounting nightmare.

(b) Or is it the Pentagon who somehow had the incentive to "save money" by doing the orders this way? Does the Pentagon spontaneously generate the information on which these orders are based, or do they get it from some more organic source such as... oh, say, the command? See item (a). Lather, rinse... oh never mind.

(c) Or is it possible the Department of Veterans Affairs (otherwise known as the VA) has sinister operatives who have managed to penetrate all levels of the federal bureaucracy, spitefully changing half a unit's orders at will to "save money"? Ah... finally a plausible explanation!

Update: Damn... there are times when it *hurts* to be this good:

Eligibility for this program is determined by the Selected Reserve components. VA makes the payments for this program.

Mein Gott im Himmell! Their own COMMAND was colluding with the VA to save Uncle Sam money!

4. And then there's the pesky matter of exactly how much money these gentleman have been deprived of:

Those who qualify for Chapter 30 Montgomery GI Benefits can receive $894 per month to be used for education, after making a $1,200 down payment. The benefits are available up to 10 years after the soldiers leave the service.

Those who don't qualify, like the 1,162 from Minnesota who are recorded as serving 729 days or less, can receive $660 per month as full-time students through the Reserved Education Assistance Program (REAP). The benefits expire once the soldier leaves the service.

What this article fails to mention (and I had to do some research to discover) is that the service member cannot use both REAP and the GI bill for the same period of service; an irrevocable election must be made between the two benefits. I completely agree that if they are entitled to the GI Bill, these soldiers should retain that entitlement so they may choose between their REAP benefits and the more generous GI Bill.

However, my guess is that what people are erroneously referring to as "the GI Bill" may in fact be the highest bracket of the REAP program (in other words, the only benefit these soldiers qualify for):

If you were on active service for:

< 90 Days Selected Reserves 40% benefits¹ only if released from AD due to injury or illness²
IRR/ING 40% benefits¹ only if released from AD due to injury or illness²
National Guard 40% benefits¹ only if released from AD due to injury or illness²

≥90-364 Days Selected Reserves 60% benefits¹
IRR/ING 60% benefits¹
National Guard 60% benefits¹

≥730 Days Selected Reserves 80% benefits¹
IRR/ING 80% benefits¹
National Guard 80% benefits¹

Note: If Member entered on active service from the Standby or Retired Reserve, this benefit does not apply. Also, once active service is completed, eligibility is contingent upon Guard or Reserve member status.

So rather than being "deprived" of a benefit, it may be they have been placed in a lower qualifying category.

Update: spoke too soon. I was wrong. The MGIB - Selected Reserve program applies to the National Guard.

Your benefit entitlement ends 14 years from the date of your eligibility for the program, or on the day you leave the Selected Reserve.

To sum up:

Nothing wrong with complaining.

When you look at the facts, the situation appears a tad more complex than 99% of the news coverage would lead one to believe.

So again the question arises -- why the necessity for an officer to publicly accuse fellow service members of wrongdoing?

On what evidence does he do so? Especially as, before the article in question was written, the Secretary of the Army was already doing what they asked him to do?

Geren told the senators he was recommending that the Army Board of Corrections, which has the authority to award the benefits, expedite the review process so the soldiers could get their benefits in time to enroll for spring semester. Usually, each soldier would each have to file a personal appeal, but Geren requested the Army review them as one group.

*** Widely reputed by unkind people to be the answer to that eternal question, "How do you keep a Jarhead in the shower for a week?"

Answer: "Hand him a bottle of shampoo that says...."

[drum roll]

It's that time of year again!

So let me toss out my annual wet blanket:

I've always been strongly opposed to "competitive milblogging." I'm never going to send a message to a troop in Iraq or Afghanistan that some guy blogging from his home office has a better blog than his, and I can't stomach the thought of folks at home voting for their favorite deployed blogger as if troops in Iraq are in some kind of effing beauty pageant.

Other folks can go at it all they want, It's just not how I roll.

Re: Injustice

This story stinks.

Let's start with this straight up: You can't give Iraq veterans enough compensation (full disclosure: I've done two tours, am still on the second...) but I hope the Minnesota Guard members - and all others - get as much as they can. I'd love to see Congressmen and Senators stop bickering about whether American soldiers are a) failures who've lost the war, or b) cold blooded killers, and instead fight among themselves over who can propose the largest compensation package.

But I think the coverage given thus far to this story is sorely lacking in key details, and the reporters are either in over their heads on military related issues or being intentionally misleading. Most of those key points and unanswered (or unasked) questions are obvious to anyone with military experience.

Let's clear one minor point of potential confusion immediately: the unit in question wasn't in Iraq for 22 months - they were here for 15. The remaining time was spent training and equipping stateside. Not sure how much of that was spent away from home, for most Guard units the answer would be "enough". Anyhow, that's not germane to the discussion - just a point of clarification. Fifteen months in Iraq is long enough (in my humble opinion) to qualify for any benefits - unfortunately policy isn't based on my opinion.

Now, let's look at this specific story bit closer, because it begs about 500 questions - none of which I have time to research, but a few of which I have time to ask.

First, numbers:

Anderson's orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days.

Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school.

The tour lasted 22 months.

Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home.

Now let's simplify the numbers. Instead of saying "730 days" when referencing the minimum, let's use the term "2 years" - because 730 days = 2 years. We can even convert that into months - two years = 24 months. Now that we've got everything converted to like terms, lets perform complex mathematics:

24 months - 22 months = 2 months. That's how far short their actual tour fell of qualifying for the benefits.

But is that the issue? Do you have to serve two years, or do you just have to have orders for two years to qualify? Again, according to the story, "Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school." Which leads one to believe the amount of actual service does not matter. I'm not in the Guard - I don't know the answer, but I'll provide a guess shortly.

Guard members are covered under the GI Bill - the Montgomery GI Bill for Selected Reserves (MGIB SR) but it's not as robust a benefit as the active duty component receives. But most States (and unless activated under federal orders the Guard is a State unit) offer other additional educational benefits to their Guard troops.

But according to this definition Guard members can qualify for the full benefit only if they serve two years active duty...

Beside the MGIB SR, activated reserve and Guard servicemembers have two other GI Bill options. The first gives those who serve continuously for 24 or more months on active duty, the option to pay into the GI Bill for active duty.

So I suspect that this is what happened to the Minnesota Guard troops: because their orders were for a period less than what would qualify them for the GI Bill tuition benefit, they were not given the opportunity to "buy in". They may actually have been given the chance and some may have taken it (the only reason they could actually expect the benefit was waiting for them), but if so none of the news coverage includes that data point - and I can't believe they would neglect to mention that the troops were being denied a benefit they'd actually bought and paid for.

But again,

Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home.

Again, whichever is the point that would have actually qualified them for the benefit, neither the orders they were issued nor the time they served on active duty meets the requirement. In short, while I think they should get it, and while every American might agree with me, they didn't qualify. And if someone lied or mislead them into believing otherwise, that doesn't change the fact that they don't qualify.

And that's an outrage.

Now I'll repeat: I hope Lt Anderson and any of his soldiers who want will get the benefits they deserve. And I think they deserve the GI Bill tuition benefits. But I extend that desire to everyone serving with me in Iraq - along with those in Afghanistan. I don't think the Minnesota Guard deserves special treatment. Here's what ought to happen:

Give the GI Bill to all active duty troops along with Guard/reserve forces activated for service in Iraq and Afghanistan. By "give" I mean ELIMINATE THE "BUY IN" - stop forcing junior troops to decide between feeding their families and tucking some money away for college. And while we're at it, increase the benefit to equal what the troops returning from WWII received. If it could be done for the largest Army in American history, it certainly could be done for the smallest.

Who has that power? Only one group of people can do it. It's not the military. It's not the President.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the most unpopular institution in the history of the United States: your Congress. (Who are working on another pork-leaden defense spending Bill even as we speak...)

Need Some Incentive To Run?

I don't today. Reporter mentions a happy warrior:

When I asked Rozelle what the significance of the race was for him, here’s what he told me:

“It’s a message to the enemy: I’M STILL STRONGER THAN YOU. I’M NOT BEAT.”

Want to know Rozelle’s favorite statistic?

“O – that’s the number of amputees who have committed suicide since 9/12/01.”

If “Inspiration” had a picture next to its definition in the dictionary, you’d see the one I’ve posted above.

If you want to know more about Maj. Rozelle’s amazing story, check out his book “Back in Action.”

Sunday Drive

So, is this news?

A few months ago, no American would have been foolish enough to do what I had just done: drive from Baghdad west through Iraq's Anbar province, long the hotbed of the country's Sunni Muslim insurgency, and into Jordan. The route was notorious for hijackings, kidnappings and roadside bombs, and passed some of the best-known symbols of the country's mayhem: Abu Ghraib, Hamdaniyah, Fallujah, Ramadi and beyond.

But western Iraq has changed, and the drive last Sunday was proof of that.

Not once in the seven hours that it took to travel the 360 miles or so was there a threatening moment. The concrete barriers that used to block traffic along the road at al-Haswa and then later at al-Rutba — so insurgents and bandits could assault cars more easily — had been shoved into the median. Traffic flowed quickly and smoothly.

The biggest obstacles were huge convoys of cargo trucks, escorted by American Humvees, that forced detours across sand and rocks to older side roads. Not long ago such a detour would have been unthinkable.

Towards that Tipping Point

A couple links by way of followup to what I said here.

First, Victor Davis Hanson:

Almost all the Marines and Army units I visited from Ramadi to Taji to various hot spots in Baghdad and Diyala believe there has been a sudden shift in the pulse of battlefield. Sometimes without much warning thousands of once disgruntled Sunni have turned on al Qaeda, ceased resistance, and are flocking to join government security forces and begging the Americans to stop both al Qaeda and Shiite militias.

Elsewhere:

In a rather stunning development, the Iraqi Islamic militant faction known as Asaeb al-Iraq al-Jihadiya (a.k.a. "the Iraqi Jihad Union")
has issued a new statement dated October 5 suddenly accusing Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq" of deliberately killing its fighters in Diyala province and mutilating their bodies.

Though this is actually the second time this week that similar charges have been leveled at Al-Qaida in Iraq by fellow Sunni insurgents, the source of the latest set of allegations--Asaeb al-Iraq al-Jihadiya--is most unusual. Less than three months ago, the very same organization was openly working in operational partnership with Al-Qaida, and was even rumored to be considering merging its forces with Al-Qaida's
"Islamic State."

Is this News?

Stunning:

CHARLES GIBSON, ABC ANCHOR: The U.S. military reports the fourth straight month of decline in troop deaths, 66 American troops died in September, each a terrible tragedy for a family, but the number far less than those who died in August. And the Iraqi government says
civilian deaths across Iraq fell by half last month.

KURTZ: Joining us now to put this into perspective, Robin Wright, who covers national security for The Washington Post. And CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Robin Wright, should that decline in Iraq casualties have gotten more media attention?

ROBIN WRIGHT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Not necessarily. The fact is we're at the beginning of a trend -- and it's not even sure that it is a trend yet. There is also an enormous dispute over how to count the numbers. There are different kinds of deaths in Iraq.
<...>
KURTZ: Barbara Starr, CNN did mostly quick reads by anchors of these numbers. There was a taped report on "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT." Do you think this story deserved more attention? We don't know whether it is a
trend or not but those are intriguing numbers.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: But that's the problem, we don't know whether it is a trend about specifically the decline in the number of U.S. troops being killed in Iraq. This is not enduring progress.
<...>
KURTZ: But let's say that the figures had shown that casualties were going up for U.S. soldiers and going up for Iraqi civilians. I think that would have made some front pages.

STARR: Oh, I think inevitably it would have. I mean, that's certainly -- that, by any definition, is news.

And More re: Cultural Anthropology

Heh. Nice to see we've gotten to that point where second hand smoke is someone's first safety concern here.

There is (or was) a plan for Iraqi govt/civic use of a building somewhere near me - I'll spare details but will promise you this information came from someone who was in a position to know. Anyhow, the plan is currently at a dead stop because asbestos was discovered in the structure.

That's dangerous stuff, you know.

A Brave Ship

These days if you Google her name, you might get an image like this:

But she was put in service 71 years ago and saw action like this:

A brave ship, full of brave men. As set out here and here.

Obama Not Talking the Talk

via AP

He said he'd pull a division or two of U.S. troops out of Iraq every month and leave only enough there to do protect the embassy and diplomats.

I find is somewhat frightening that a Senator on the Foreign Relations Committe campaigning for the job of Commander in Chief is confused as to the difference between a Division and a Brigade....or possibly confused as to how many Divisions are in Iraq(four, two in and around Baghdad, two for the rest of Iraq).

Re: Dumb People

Just about all of the past dozen posts or so validate a very strong personal conviction.

Stupid people should not be allowed to talk military.

The volcanic upswelling of idiots who attack the military for Don't Ask, Don't Tell tops my list.

I suggest a simple quiz to validate military knowledge.

.... like, what rank is this?

What country does this soldier fight for?

And is this an officer or NCO?

"Shut the hell up, hippy"

Successfully completion could be rewarded by Mrs. G sending a special milblogs HTML code declaring "I AM NOT RETARDED" for said pundit's blog template. Think of an FDA seal of approval on your meat. Only for your blog.

Gawd, this would make that "should I take this dude seriously?" question so much easier for the rest of us. What a public service. No seal, no deal... suckas.

PS- conversely, if it weren't for stupid people.... what the hell would we write about here on milblogs? I mean, Eagle would have his smart posts and stuff, but I gotta be honest.... that'd pretty much tap me out.

Re(3): Tactical Anthropology

Anthropologist's aren't just in Afghanistan. Mr Griffin is in Iraq and gives an anthropologist's perspective on Iraq. I've linked him a few times in the DP.

Here he explains what use Anthropology is:

Unfortunately not many of them seem to care to learn what Human Terrain Teams are really doing. In one case a blog entry of mine was footnoted in a recent commentary in Anthropology Today and creates the impression that I am facilitating harm. This is a convenient tar brush I suppose and meant to make the writer seem smarter than me (and could be for all I know) and what we are doing evil. This couldn’t be further than the truth. What we are doing is helping the Army understand the local population in a conflict that has resulted kinetic operations when non-kinetic solutions could have been used if a more nuanced understanding of the culture had been available. In the end, and despite critics on both sides, if anthropology as a discipline cannot promote freedom through cultural understanding in times of crisis, of what value is the discipline? Are we left with just a bunch of just-so stories? Cultural butterfly collections? Humans are known for their character by what they do in times of crisis, so should anthropology, the study of humans.

Opinion Journal talks of "Professors on the Battlefield" : and mentions Mr Griffin

Mr. Griffin, a bespectacled 39-year-old who speaks in a methodical monotone, believes that by shedding some light on the local culture-- thereby diminishing the risk that U.S. forces unwittingly offend Iraqi sensibilities--he can improve Iraqi and American lives. On the phone from Fort Benning, two weeks shy of boarding a plane bound for Baghdad, he describes his mission as "using knowledge in the service of human freedom."

The Human Terrain System is part of a larger trend: Nearly six years into the war on terror, there is reason to believe that the Vietnam-era legacy of mistrust--even hostility--between academe and the military may be eroding.

One thing's for sure Mr Griffin is getting a crash course in the Army culture.

I'm currently in transit with my team and today I was impressed at the number of people in airports that stopped the soldiers on my team and said, "Thanks for your service." I have an Army Combat Uniform (ACU) pattern rucksack that my sergeant told me to buy and in the past couple of months I have been stopped in the airport and thanked as well. I really got to thinking about this though today because while we were at the gate, the check-in staff made an announcement that there were some special guests in the waiting area who either were coming back from Iraq or on their way to Iraq and would passengers give a hand in appreciation. So most everyone clapped for a while, some stood and clapped, and my sergeant blushed self-consciously which was neat for me because he can get scary.
I was too young to remember much of the Vietnam War, a war which has been often compared to the war in Iraq. Back then soldiers coming home were sometimes called baby killers and villified. I'm glad no one has done that so far to us. We've witnessed family cry at our departure, some on my team have seen buddies die, and I've yet to meet a soldier who enjoyed death and destruction. Our program is about minimizing such misery. In the end we're just human and the humanity shown to the soldiers at the airport today was nice.

When I stepped off the bus, a warm late afternoon breeze was blowing and it felt just like a hair dryer in my face. Wow! Looking around I saw some mesh shade tents with picnic benches to get out of the dazzling bright light. After grabbing a bottle of cold water from industrial metal ice chests, I headed for the shade. To my dismay though I read the signs in front of the shade tents, “Smoking Area.” I wondered if I suddenly went back in time to the nineteen seventies when people could smoke anywhere, even classrooms and offices. Why, if pretty much everyone was American and the process was managed by American companies, were non-smokers forced to endure second hand cigarette smoke if they wanted to get out of the hot sun? Back in the States there are fewer and fewer places people can smoke in public. So what is going on culturally in this War Zone regarding smoking?

Whether Anthropologists will help in "The War on Terror" and in the "Hearts and Mind" campaign may yet to be seen, but hopefully it will help Anthropologists give a better understanding of the military culture, a subject I think is missing a few chapters in their text books. Let's see if Mr Griffin can explain it so others (civilians/ media) can understand it. It may prove to be just as vital.

Banging.My.Head.Against.The.Wall

From this story:

The U.S. military should scrap its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that punishes service members who disclose they are gay or lesbian, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said here today.

And, later:

Congressional leaders approved the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy almost 15 years ago under then-president Bill Clinton. The policy, at that time, was considered a compromise since it replaced a ban on homosexuals serving in the military.

Below is one example of why discussion of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" drives me up the wall:

The school board voted last November to phase out JROTC over two years because of its connection to the military, which board members said was discriminatory, homophobic and at odds with the mission of public education. They also agreed to create a task force to develop an alternative program to begin in fall 2008.

****

The seventh board member, Jane Kim, said she was also willing to support JROTC, but only if there were a way to address the military's discriminatory hiring practice involving homosexuals. She suggested a JROTC diversity curriculum or a cadet campaign against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

There is a way, Ms. Kim. Contact Senator Obama and ask him to introduce legislation that will overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell. For the 448th time, the military cannot "scrap" a policy just because someone wants them to. I assume the Senator is already hard at work drafting legislation, and we can expect to see it any day now.

Keep it. Change it. Abolish it. I don't really care, and I have no idea what is best for our military, but please, please understand who has the power to tinker with, or kill, this policy. Hint: It's not those offensive men running around in uniforms trying to recruit your children to participate in an illegal war for oil.

Update: Related links here and here.

Significant Injustice Alert!!!!

Sacre bleu!

After several years of miserable failures, this *is* cause for celebration, for it doth well appear the folks at the Five Sided Funny Farm are far more intelligent and efficient than heretofore suspected! Who knew they were capable of such detailed and meticulous long-range planning? Critics of our federal government can rest easy. Contrary to the perfervid perorations of Congressional ethicists like Ted "Splash" Kennedy, DoD has had their eye firmly on the bouncing ball all along:

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill.

"It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership... once again failing the soldiers."

Anderson's orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days.

Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school.

Well, he's an officer. We hear tell they're pretty smart fellers until they hit about O-4, so he must know what he's talking about. And he served in Iraq, which automagically makes him an expert on the byzantine intricacies of Army bureaucracy with absolute and unimpeachable moral authority to speak on all matters military. Darned near irrefutable, I'd say. After all, who's going to have the courage to argue with him on the merits?

Both Hobot and Anderson believe the Pentagon deliberately wrote orders for 729 days instead of 730.

Because, you know, the Pentagon is justly famed for running such a tight economic ship...

Pentagon Pays $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers

The $436 Hammer

Pentagon waste and abuse

Must be those swell kickbacks lowly military pay and admin clerks get when they write up official orders. I hear they get a volume discount for cheating entire units out of their GI Bill benefits. I hope no one is moronic enough to believe transparently self-serving lies like this:

The head of the Army told Congressman Tim Walz that they will review every case.

"We've had a commitment from the highest level of the Army that each member of the brigade would have their records reviewed and full GI Bill benefits would be provided to those soldiers who earned them," Walz said.

Personally I think we need another Congressional investigation into this disturbing matter. I find it extreeeeeeemely suspicious that a paperwork snafu would arise concerning pay and benefits in the age of computers. When is the last time *that* happened?

File under Conspiracy Theories, Stoopid; Fiendish Administration Incompetence; More Military Personnel Acting Under The Direction of Barney the White House Terrier...

Homecoming

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing and the sky is clear and red.
When the summer's ceased its gleaming,
When the corn is past its prime,
When adventure's lost its meaning,
I'll be homeward bound in time.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I'll return to you somehow.

If you find it's me you're missing, if you're hoping I'll return.
To your thoughts I'll soon be list'ning, and in the road I'll stop and turn.
Then the wind will set me racing as my journey nears its end.
And the path I'll be retracing when I'm homeward bound again.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I'll return to you somehow.

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing,
I'll be homeward bound again.

Welcome home, Jim.

He will live forever through your words, and in your heart.

Keep him close. And may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Re(2): Tactical Anthropology

The funny thing is, I know a cultural anthropologist employed by the Marines who expressed a similar reaction from colleagues when we met back in the day. Said expert's own politics, by the way, proved yet again that the people serving in or associated with supporting the military range across close to the whole political spectrum--as the one guy put it, maybe not A to Z but definitely C to W...

Re: Tactical Anthropology

That reminded me of DoD efforts to consult with doctors (medical and psychiatric) to determine what does and does not constitute "torture". Said doctors were then labelled "torture doctors" and condemned for their participation by certain critics (and fellows of their academies) who couldn't accept that the motive was to ensure that prisoners weren't tortured.

For years now we've heard the complaint that GIs don't understand the culture of the people of the nations in which we wage war. That's a valid point - though GIs probably understand those cultures MUCH better than any academic whose primary exposure is via textbooks or brief visits with fellow academic members of said societies.

It's only when such complaints (torture/culture gap - whatever) are confronted and addressed that the real motives of those making them are fully revealed. In the broader sense this may be the basis for a deeper truth - another inviolable rule: In any endeavor with inherent challenges, innovative solutions to real problems will always outrage those who created (or merely thrive upon) the problem.

In less delicate terms, innovative solutions to difficult problems will aggravate the maggots waiting to feast on the corpse.

There's a corollary here involving people who can't identify a real problem - or at least a core issue, but at this point trying to hammer that into the rule without creating a headspinning spiral of circular logic is beyond my ability. In any endeavor with inherent challenges, innovative solutions to real problems will outrage those who created or thrive upon it and confuse those who can't recognize it. - seems to lack the punch of the earlier version. And since the codicil I'd attach (it will often be difficult - and usually pointles - to distinguish the members of the groups described above) is also true, I think I'll stick with the first draft.

But this also explains why many tasks are considered "thankless".

Big Yellow clue bus bypasses George Mason University...

The US Army has introduced an innovative way to reduce the violence and bring the fruits of good governance to rural Afghanistan - tactical anthropology:

HABAK VALLEY, Afghanistan — In this isolated Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they consider a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations here: a soft-spoken civilian anthropologist named Tracy.

Tracy, who asked that her surname not be used for security reasons, is a member of the first Human Terrain Team, an experimental Pentagon program that assigns anthropologists and other social scientists to American combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her team’s ability to understand subtle points of tribal relations — in one case spotting a land dispute that allowed the Taliban to bully parts of a major tribe — has won the praise of officers who say they are seeing concrete results.

Combine cultural sensitivity with security to bring the benefits of peace to the wretched and impoverished. A brilliant innovation - what's to hate?

You might be surprised.

Big Yellow Clue Bus Finally Stops At Yale....

thus proving a fancy Ivy League education does produce *some* critical thinking skills.

Re: Made in China

1. U.S. style armaments are simply too expensive and complicated on average to just hand out to Iraqi recruits who can barely maintain a cheap Soviet Kalashnikov that has around five parts and requires cleaning... um, well never.

2. Third world armies love those cheap Commie weapons for precisely the same reason they're all so crazy about soccer. You don't have to maintain any equipment and any 10 year old can learn it in about five minutes.

3. Give a Colt-made M4/M16 to the average Iraqi soldier or IP and within the time it takes to smoke a Miami cigarette he'd have already lost all the tiny cotter pins and pieces of the bolt that allow it to fire in the first place. We may as well give them all their own personal F-16s while we're at it.

Come to think of it, that was always my favorite part about the G.I. Joe cartoon from the 80s. Every single character -- even the sailor with the parrot perpetually perched on his shoulder -- could at a moment's notice (and with absolutely no jet engine warm up or takeoff roll) hop into an F-14 Tomcat and get into the fight against C.O.B.R.A.

You know, I think I finally figured out how I ended up in this man's Army. Remember this?:

G.I. Joe is the codename for America's daring, highly trained, special mission force. Its purpose: To defend human freedom against COBRA, a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

Sound like any particular collection of twisted individuals we've all come to know and love? (And no, I don't mean all the guys over at Blackfive...)

Yo Joe! The seeds must have been planted early.

(Though really, Destro was always my favorite because he had a cool mask, not to mention he was Scottish. At least in the Marvel comic, which admittedly, was originally much more sophisticated than the tv version ever was.)

What was this thread about again? Oh right, about how GI Joe's were all made in China. Or something like that.

Re: Made in China

via Colt Firearms

A revitalized Colt embraces the year 1999 with a backlog of military rifle/carbine orders amounting to approximately 59,000 units. This includes orders for exclusive production of the M-4 carbine extending through the year 2010.

via Senate Judiciary-1999

Nevertheless, Colt and other legitimate gunmakers currently today, face unfounded lawsuits from approximately 30 cities and counties and other entities in predominantly local state courts around the country. In connection with these lawsuits, Colt has been served with extraordinarily expansive and burdensome discovery requests seeking virtually every document in Colt's possession related to the design, manufacture and marketing of firearms— military and otherwise. In our defense, waves of lawyers have descended on Colt and other legitimate gun manufacturers, scouring every corner and aspect of our business in an effort to respond to these unreasonable requests. Indeed, the trial lawyers and anti-gun groups, who crafted and are behind these ill-conceived lawsuits, seek only to cripple, maim and, if possible, destroy legitimate businesses like Colt.

We are lucky Colt is capable of making any guns at all....never mind enough to supply enough for another countries Army and Police.

Made in China

I find this development quite disturbing and it's not getting much coverage.

Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police

According to this article it is the fault of the US for not supplying weapons fast enough. I'm not familiar enough with military arms contracts to delve into the production and proliferations of these needed weapons. I'll hand that off to someone else here to take that up in hopes they can explain what's going on.

But there's a bigger issue at hand here.

Rachel Stohl makes a good point here:

"The problem is that the Iraqi government doesn't have -- as yet -- a clear plan for making sure that weapons are distributed, that they are properly monitored and repeatedly checked," said Rachel Stohl of the Center for Defense Information, an independent think tank. "The end-use monitoring will be left in the hands of a government and military in Iraq that is not yet ready for it. And there's not a way for the U.S. to mandate them to do it if they're not U.S. weapons."

However she's kinda contradicting herself:

Plans to sell billions in small arms to the Iraqis could come back to haunt the United States, agrees Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information at the World Security Institute. "I don't know if it makes sense to pump more weapons into the hands of actors that we have absolutely no idea about what their angles are and how those weapons are going to be used," she said. "It is such a chaotic situation ... I'm not sure at this point that that is the best policy."

Although I will add, isn't it a co-winky- dink that the Iraqi ambassador to Beijing is also Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's brother-in-law?

Via the corner:

It is curious that neither of the Washington Post reporters appear aware that the Iraqi ambassador to Beijing who likely played a key role in the deal is also Iraqi President (and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan head) Jalal Talabani's brother-in-law (their wives are sisters). Of course, with the Iraqi process opaque, it is impossible to know for sure, but such family dealings are often quite remunerative and would likely never pass the conflict-of-interest test outside the region.

Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye.

The Wh0res of War

For my fellow masochists who, ahem, enjoy reading the European press - I am sure you have noticed the joy in some areas over the Blackwater issue.

Funny how things change when it is your own shortcomings that make you call for help.

The NATO military alliance is so short of helicopters in insurgency-hit Afghanistan that it is now thinking about leasing some, a spokesman conceded Oct. 3.

“We need helicopters everywhere and one of the options being studied is leasing contracts,” spokesman James Appathurai told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

He said that NATO already had such agreements for fixed wing transport aircraft — another area in which there is a shortage — “with our Ukrainian and Russian friends, which is working well.”

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has constantly appealed for countries taking part to come up with helicopters, mainly for medical evacuations and transport but also for troop support.

A NATO diplomat said it was a question of “leasing dozens of helicopters.” Appathurai said that ISAF has launched a military mission dubbed Operation Pamir, in and around Kabul as well as in east, south and west Afghanistan, which is likely to last a number of months.

Poland’s ambassador to Iraq was wounded and two people were killed — an Iraqi civilian and a member of the ambassador’s security detail — in what appeared to be a coordinated roadside bomb attack on Wednesday morning in downtown Baghdad, Polish and Iraqi officials said.
…
After the bombing attack near the Polish Embassy compound, Iraqi and American officials said the ambassador and others were evacuated to a combat hospital in the Green Zone by helicopters operated by Blackwater USA, the private military contractor under scrutiny for killing civilians in an episode last month. Blackwater provides security to State Department officials in Baghdad.

Mission Accomplished?

No - not yet.

But I believe this article is the most accurate, fact-based, and level headed assessment of the situation - both current and historical - in Iraq as I've ever read.

As far as predictions for the future, few sane people would make them without acknowledging a degree of fallibility. But given the current course of actions these seem reasonably optimistic - though chaos theory along with the sum total experience of human history indicate some surprises await. And while the author's depiction of Sadr is debatable* the remainder of the brief is cold hard fact.

Well worth the read.

*He spent 5 weeks embedded with Sadr forces in 2005 - whether this experience left him with an excessively favorable disposition towards the cleric is anyone's guess. His report on that trip is subscriber only.

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Added thoughts: The conventional wisdom here on the ground is that Sadr's "ceasefire" is a reality - explanations for that vary. It should be remembered that a similar proclamation was issued by the cleric earlier this year - at the beginning of the surge. Arguments were made (and still can be advanced) that his tactic would simply be to wait out the surge and then unleash his troops. Others speculate that Sadr's control over said troops is limited at best - that assumption can be supported by the general lack of cease-fire over the intervening months.

Cease-fire or no, we are continuing to pursue members of the Jaish al Mahdi (Sadr's Mahdi Army, commonly referred to as JAM, pronounced just like the stuff you spread on bread) and the battle against whatever is left of al Qaeda in Iraq goes on - we are very much still at war. But indirect fire attacks (mortars and rockets fired over the walls by small teams that vanish before impact - the preferred method to "confront" US troops) have dropped, and beyond that American casualties are down even as more soldiers spend more time in the streets. (Coincidence?)

It's likely that an increasing percentage of the "opposition" brought in (or buried) as we increase neighborhood patrols and operations will be the local trouble makers referenced in the linked report above. Barring our withdrawal, at some inevitable point they will get the majority of our combat focus in Iraq. (The day that majority becomes sufficiently overwhelming might also be called VI Day - you figure it out...) Alignment of groups and individuals throughout Iraq is ambiguous, shifting, and exceptionally difficult to determine by Iraqis, let alone US forces. So the possibility exists that that point at which local thugs with no larger alignment - ideological or otherwise - become the predominant "foe" in Iraq may pass without our immediate knowledge. But as al Qaeda crumbles, other local and regional Sunni and Shia groups join the "concerned citizens" effort, and the Sadr faction takes long overdue consideration of a political future the possibility of passing that point grows with each day.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not declaring victory. I am saying that the race to a tipping point - something we've discussed here throughout this year - may have been won. (Caveat: runners can always be tripped up near the finish line...)

I'll close, however, with a repeat of what I said yesterday: ...Lailat ul-Qadr - the "Night of Power" - the key point in Ramadan commemorating Allah's revelation of the Koran to Mohammed, is still to come. If we pass that point without anything "newsworthy" happening - then we can talk.

SpouseBUZZ LIVE Ft. Bragg/Pope

I go away for a few days and come back to find that Buck has resurfaced, my friend Cass has joined the cast of characters around here and Wynton is blogging again. I really should go away more often. In fact, Greyhawk is probably preparing the pink slip as I type....

Okay, calling all military spouses. SpouseBUZZ is going on tour again. This time we're hitting Fayetteville, North Carolina, home to Ft. Bragg and Pope Air Force base. December 1 is the date. Put it on your calendar, we hope to see you there.

More staying on Meme

via our Good Friends atUS News

House Votes To Force Bush To Plan Iraq Exit

via Clerk of House actual text of bill excerpt -

(1) nothing in this Act shall be construed as a recommendation by Congress that any particular contingency plan be exercised;

"Violence Isn't Senseless. Senseless Violence is Senseless."

I got a phone call today from Navy Cross recipient Marco Martinez who's now out on his book tour.
He had quite a day. I asked him if I could pass along his briefing and he gave me the go ahead.

First, his article today-- "The 5 Things I Saw That Make Me Support the War"--
over at Townhall.com created quite a firestorm (see the 225+ comments).

Here's a portion wherein he decries those who would draw moral equivalence between American troops and terrorists:

Violence isn't senseless. Senseless violence is senseless. And I should know. Before being awarded the Navy Cross and having the privilege of becoming a Marine, I was a gang member. Sometimes it takes having used violence for both evil as well as good to know that there's a profound moral difference between the two.

In his list of five things that make him support completing the mission, he recounts this grizzly discovery in Iraq:

4. Human Experiment Pictures

I still can’t shake the pictures out of my head. We discovered them inside a strange laboratory we found inside a Special Republican Guard barracks that had been plunked down inside an amusement park. When I cracked open the photo album, my jaw dropped. There in front of me were the most horrifying images of experiments being performed on newborn and infant children. Picture after picture, page after page, the binder was filled with the most extreme deformities and experimental mutations one could imagine. One baby had an eye that was shifted toward the middle of its head. We turned the books over to our lieutenant as valuable pieces of intelligence.

The article paints a powerful if disturbing portrait.

Back on the tour, however, he said that the real excitement came today when Rush Limbaugh plugged his new book, Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero, live on air. His publicist also informed him that Mancow Mueller has him slated to appear next Wednesday.

Finally, I asked Marco to sum up his book in one sentence. "If you hated the book Jarhead," he told me, "you'll love Hard Corps."

Works for me.

Navel Gazing

While waiting for my #$%& orders to #$%&ing arrive, I have a little time to think. For some reason I was remembering both a Michael Yon post and some of SLA Marshall's writing. See here for an explanation, and a question.

Abu Ghraib Soldier...

Paroled:

Former Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick Jr. served about three years of an eight-year sentence for actions that included placing wires in a detainee's hands and telling him he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box.

Real story here.

By the way, probably few people are aware that Frederick was cropped out of what many people will identify as the single most enduring image of the war in Iraq.

The originals can be seen here

On the Air

Do you think AFN will remove Rush Limbaugh from it's radio programming? If so, we'd probably discover something that would really get military people pissed off.

When I lived in Germany they aired one hour of Rush - it was on late in the afternoon, coinciding with his mid-day show in the US. They also aired NPR programming and various other choices. Fairly well-balanced, and appreciated as much as any radio station that plays both Rap and Country would be.

Me? Like most people, I listened to my mp3 player jacked into my radio.

Here in Baghdad if I eat a late lunch I can watch Hardball with Chris Matthews on one of the TVs. Immediately after that O'Reilly comes on, but the DFAC is actually closed at that point.

But I sit on the other side, watching sports.

By the way, here's why you're not getting any real news on Iraq this week.

But Lailat ul-Qadr - the "Night of Power" - the key point in Ramadan commemorating Allah's revelation of the Koran to Mohammed, is still to come. If we pass that point without anything "newsworthy" happening - then we can talk.

Re: Meme

But...

Republicans predict the bill is on track to be vetoed by President Bush because it includes hate-crimes legislation by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. The White House has said Kennedy's proposal, which would let federal law enforcement help states prosecute attacks on gays, is unnecessary.

...a hate crimes amendment should be attached to the defense authorization bill because members of the U.S. military commit a significant number of hate crimes.

But really, Iraq isn't everything. Steve Kagan (D-Wi) has introduced a bill "commending Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre for establishing a National Football League record for most career touchdown passes, and for other purposes." It has 65 cosponsors.

Welcome...

...to Cassandra, one of my oldest friends in the blogosphere, a military spouse, and the latest in our cast of characters. Way back when there were only about a thousand blogs in the world, she and I were frequent commenters at our friend Scott Ott's immortal ScrappleFace site - thus began our online careers. The rest, as they say, is history.

Glad to see her here!

When Jesse rears his ugly head...

Anyone remember the words that introduced the Jesse MacBeth video to the world?

I do...

There is a current story in the US press about a squad of Marines that are being investigated for "war crimes" after they murdered a whole Iraqi family one night a few months back. US officials are approaching this story as if this wasn't standard procedure, and are focusing on holding the individual Marines accountable. Jessie Macbeth blows the lid off that story.

Being one of those troops, I don't forget.

Ironically, Jesse's going to jail...

A Tacoma man who falsely claimed he was a decorated war hero when he took the stage at demonstrations held in opposition to the U.S.'s role in Iraq was sentenced this morning to five months in prison in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Jesse MacBeth, 23, was also sentenced to three months in a halfway house after his release and three years of probation.

MacBeth claimed that he was an Army ranger who killed more than 200 people, many at close range, including some as they prayed in a mosque. He spoke at an anti-war rally in Tacoma and appeared in a 20-minute anti-war video that circulated widely on the Internet.

In reality, MacBeth made it through only six weeks of Army basic training and never set foot in Iraq.

Conservative bloggers exposed MacBeth in May 2006, destroying his credibility and embarrassing the Seattle company that produced the video about his exploits.

On June 7, MacBeth pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. MacBeth admitted that he filed a bogus claim for VA benefits in 2005, which included a fraudulent military-discharge form.

The irony is that even as that sentence was handed down, the Marines were being cleared of charges.

All of which is now being ignored, as another set of false charges is leveled at Rush Limbaugh - this time from United States Senators. If one congressman took on the Marines and failed, can they do better against a radio talk show host?

Much more on the subject over here.

Stayin' on Meme

Our good friends atAP

Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vote was 92-3.The developments underscored the difficulty facing Democrats in the Iraq debate: They lack the votes to pass legislation ordering troops home and are divided on whether to cut money for combat, despite a mandate by supporters to end the war.

Ninety two to three....pretty close to 'unanimous consent'

Winning The Information War, One Acronym At A Time

Far be it from this Marine wife to snark on a a sister service, but the prospect of a thousand steely-eyed Search and Replace Commandos fighting Islamist whack jobs with up-armored versions of MS Word and a ruthless determination to excise all known instances of "GWOT" from DoD literature sounds like...

...oh, gosh.... I dunno... fighting harder, not smarter? Hopefully this is all just a tragic misunderstanding.

On the otter heiny, it could just mean a long overdue return to a kinder, gentler era of warfighting. And wouldn't it be nice to hark back to an era when cooler heads prevailed, when we didn't bludgeon each other with crude action words like "global", "war", or "terror"? To revisit a more genteel epoch when our rhetoric reflected the delicate nuance and duality of international consensus building?

Could it finally be time to bring back the sui generis stylings of the esteemed Junior Senator from Massachusetts?

''The choice for the United States of America is not between two alternatives only: staying in or getting out. There are many other choices in-between which better reflect the aspirations and hopes of our country.''

Kerry backed a policy of interventionist withdrawal, which jibed with the ''third way'' option embraced by President Bill Clinton himself. As Kerry noted, ''I think that the president today made the right decision to try to establish a process which will maintain the capacity of our forces, protect them, and to disengage while simultaneously upholding the mission we have set out to accomplish.''

The Balkan crisis emerged, and again the Congress seemed to face a tough decision, whether to authorize the use of American force. But then the Boston Fog Machine rolled in: ''It is important to remember that this resolution does not authorize the use of American ground troops in Bosnia, nor does it specifically authorize the use of air or naval power. It simply associates the U.S. Senate with the current policies of this administration and of the Security Council.'' The vote, Kerry concluded, was over whether to associate with a process that would determine certain necessary conditions involving uncertain modalities, which must be explored, in order to reach certain desirable ends.

The Iraq problem returned in 1998, and Kerry proved again that there is no world crisis so grave it can't be addressed with a fusillade of subordinate clauses. Teams of highly trained spelunkers have descended into the darkness of the floor speech he gave on Oct. 10, 1998, searching for meaning, though none have returned alive.

The right words are so important, don't you think? Almost as important as making a good first impression. And so, since we seem to have a new sheriff in town, we might as well gin up a new slogan or two to get things off to a rollicking start. In honor of The New Realism, instead of The Global War on Terror [shudder] may I propose:

A Sternly Worded Resolution Expressing Dismay at Intolerance of The Other, or ASWREDITO, for short. Even the acronym invites leisurely contemplation of alternative modalities which may lead, in time, to a shared understanding of how our internal narratives shape our respective world views.

Majestic, ain't it? And very much in line with our national attention deficit.

Best of all, you can pretty much read anything you like into it, which ought to come in right handy in 2008.

Heh

At first I thought this might be a completely batshit crazy story...

THE WHITE HOUSE is planning "surgical" strikes in Iran to cripple agents the United States says support Iraqi insurgents fighting American soldiers, a new report says.

The plan coincides with a change in the administration's rhetoric against Iran - redefining the source of tension from nuclear weapon development to Tehran's support of America's enemies, Seymour Hersh writes in this week's New Yorker magazine.

This just in: War Over! Back to Status Quo Ante for naming anyway...

Sanitized to protect the innocent.

From:
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 6:10 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: *****REMOVE ANY REFERENCE TO GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR" OR "WAR ON TERROR" FROM ALL CORRESPONDENCE*****

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

J-X,

Today, we have received clear direction from Adm Mullen (incoming CJCS) regarding the phrase "Global War on Terror". He does not like this reference and we are not to use this in any future correspondence. Review your letters, orders, JSAPs, and presentations to ensure this reference is removed.

Ensure strict compliance.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

R/S,
LtCol X.

We eagerly await the Chairman's new naming guidance. Still, can't help but think... walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck...

Update: We're having a naming contest over at my place - the good ones will be submitted for consideration by the Chairman.

Quotable

Ullysses S Grant on seeing the white flags of surrender over Vicksburg:

It was a glorious sight to officers and soldiers on the line where these white flags were visible, and the news soon spread to all parts of the command. The troops felt that their long and weary marches, hard fighting, ceaseless watching by night and day,
in a hot climate, exposure to all sorts of weather, to diseases and, worst of all, to the gibes of many Northern papers that came to them saying all their suffering was in vain, that Vicksburg would never be taken, were at last at an end and the Union sure to be saved.

Dry Skies and Thunder

You are looking at Iraq, from on high, a birds-eye view (but the bird is a satellite, so you've got a great view...)

Let's zoom in a bit and see what we can see... look - over there...

Coalition forces positively identified a foreign terrorist killed in an operation Tuesday in Musayyib as a senior al-Qaeda in Iraq member. Abu Usama al-Tunisi was in the inner leadership circle of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq and was a likely successor to him. Al-Tunisi was the military emir of Baghdad’s southern belt and took over the role of emir of foreign terrorists when al-Masri became the overall leader.

Al-Tunisi facilitated foreign terrorists and helped equip them for improvised explosive device attacks, car-bombing campaigns and suicide attacks throughout Baghdad. Foreign terrorists conduct most of the high profile attacks in Iraq. Over 80 percent of the suicide attacks are conducted by foreign terrorists.

During an operation Sept. 25, Coalition forces targeted al-Tunisi and other al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders. Credible intelligence from several previous operations led Coalition forces to the location of a known al-Qaeda in Iraq meeting and supporting aircraft attacked the time sensitive target. Al-Tunisi and two other terrorists were killed during the attack.

Task Force Marne AH-64 Apache helicopters responded to an improvised explosive device strike Sept. 24, killing the four extremist militants responsible.

A concerned citizens group alerted Coalition Forces to the location of a weapons cache Sept. 25.

The concerned citizens approached Soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, who were providing overwatch along a main route, and told them they knew the location of a cache.

Soldiers followed the concerned citizens to the site. The cache consisted of two 60mm mortars, one Chinese rocket-propelled grenade launcher, one 57mm projectile, a Russian PG-7M infantry anti-tank launcher, three Iraqi OG-7 RPG launchers, seven rocket-propelled grenades, three blasting caps, 24 feet of yellow detonation cord, a spool of command wire, 4 ounces of PE-4 bulk explosives, two empty fire extinguishers, one four-foot steel pipe and a blue barrel for storage.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed and handed over to Iraqi authorities a compact water treatment plant in Dhi Qar Province in Southern Iraq.

The Iraqis "have signed for the facility and it's operational," said Navy Cmdr. Michael Lang, officer in charge of the Adder Area Office of USACE's Gulf Region South district.

Now we begin to zoom a little closer... closer... closer...

Continues here

Winds and waves

A friend to the sailor.

An enemy to the Union.

A VMI guy.

And a little reminder in the Goshen Pass that the people above might have missed.

As set out here.