The war for the war

I am a skeptic about all things Woodward, but in the WaPo and WSJ there are two good reads about his new book that outline the battle for the surge and the personalities involved. This, I thought, is/was very telling about the battle inside the Army of Northern Virginia and the Potomac Flotilla.

Mullen, formerly chief of naval operations, had not favored the surge; Keane had, publicly and vocally. Mullen told Keane he had become acutely aware of the strains on the Army and the Marine Corps. Military families were shouldering the strain, and the military was losing quality officers.

"Mike, all of that's true," Keane said. "But this is true every time we fight a war of any consequence." Wars break armies, and they have to be put back together, he said. That's the price of war. But the price was worth it. "You've not talked one time about winning here, Mike. Not one time have you mentioned 'I want to win in Iraq.' I mean, do you?"

It was an insulting question to put to a fellow military man.

"Of course I want to win," Mullen said.

"I assume you do," Keane replied, "but to the degree that you're putting pressure on Petraeus to reduce forces, you're taking far too much risk, and that risk is in losing and not winning."

"Well," Mullen said, "we're just going to disagree."

"You really don't want me to help Petraeus?" Keane asked. "Dave Petraeus, no matter who he wants to talk to over there, no matter what size he is, shape he is, what his views are, given Petraeus's responsibility -- he's got the toughest job anybody in uniform has -- why wouldn't you let him have that?"

MilBloggie Nominations Begin

On September 19, 2008, the 3rd Annual Milblogging Conference will be held in Las Vegas, during the conference MilBlogging.com will be the awarding the 3rd Annual Milbloggie Awards, which recognizes MilBloggers for their contribution to the milblogging world over the past year.

All nominations must be submitted online through Milblogging.com by 11:59 pm EST on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Some readers may remember from past blog competition that Greyhawk does not want to be nominated in any weblog awards where he's competing with other active duty milblogs.

Although this is in reference to a different award, his reasoning can be found here:

When I first saw the awards I was glad to see there was no military blog category. I know this was done with the best intentions but I can't support this sort of competition between actual military - there's a beauty 'pageant/popularity/high school prom queen element to this that utterly trivializes the fact of what we're doing.

There are a handful of actual blogs run by active duty military people on or the near the front lines I cycle through them every day. Every day I'm glad to find the authors have not gone the way of Bob Zangas, who quit blogging forever in the Spring when he and his Iraqi interpreter were gunned down near Hillah by insurgents wearing police uniforms. (Updated w/ milbloggers lost - Army Spc. Francisco G. Martinez, Lt. Thomas M. Martin, Sgt Eddie Jeffers, and Maj. Andrew Olmsted)

On the other hand I note a significant number of blogs about military done by veterans and non-military folks. I can't speak for others here on the front line but I think the category would best be filled by those sorts.

Again, I know the category was added with the best of intentions and am honored to be mentioned, but I respectfully decline to participate.

and more here

...some will note I requested not to be included in the Military Blogs category, in fact I swapped a couple of polite emails to that effect with Kevin Aylward, who understood my position in the matter completely.

The top five nominees in each branch category will be announced on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 and those nominees will move into the Voting Phase beginning September 11th, 2008. Details here

RE: Misguided Youth

Jeebus, will it ever stop?

There is a whole lot of rumor out there, but I have heard this one at a few places, just google Palin and Jail.

Rumor is he cut the brake line on a school bus and took the army to avoid jail time.

Sounds crazy, but seeing what has panned out as true so far was crazy before it was confirmed.

IF YOU KILLED EVERYONE INVOLVED.

(But that's the only reason these red neck rubes join these days, isn't it? Sounds plausible to some, I suppose.)

Good lord, if everything they claimed was true about this family was actually true they'd be the worst family in the history of the universe. But these people BELIEVE this Shite. I guess that's what "BELIEVE" means on all those Obama posters. It's an effing ORDER.

Scary. Just scary.