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.