A Year at War

In the upcoming days here at Mudville we're going to look back at the past year of combat in Iraq in hopes of answering the fundamental questions: Are we winning, and if so, why are so few people aware of it? The introduction to this series is here. This entry will provide brief background information on the situation on the ground in Iraq at this time last year.

The situation:

In March 2004 a convoy approaching Fallujah was attacked. The remains of four contractors killed in the ambush and displayed on a bridge were the first stunningly gruesome images to catch the public's attention from Iraq.

Marines rolled into Fallujah in April and engaged the enemy, but leading Sunni's protested and the battle ended as suddenly as it began. US forces withdrew and the city was turned over to Iraqi security forces - the "Fallujah Brigade". This hopeful attempt at "Iraqification" proved premature, and by mid June the situation was being described as a failure.

But the situation in Fallujah was just one part of a growing problem. That same April Muqtada al Sadr led a group of Shiite rebels in an uprising against coalition forces. By May skirmishes between Sadr's militia and US forces were common occurrence in Najaf. (The linked AP story also noted the increasingly widespread violence throughout Iraq.)

And as the BBC report on Fallujah also noted:

Meanwhile, a new opinion poll for the New York Times and CBS News suggested dwindling support among Americans for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Only 47% of 1,042 Americans questioned believed invading Iraq was the right thing to do, the lowest support recorded in the polls since the war began.

The "insurgency"

The elements that comprise the Iraqi insurgency are varied in composition, motivation, and determination. At this time last year they could be grouped as follows:

1. "Former regime loyalists" or "ex-Baathist elements" At the end of the initial US invasion the Iraqi regular army units had been issued weapons and ammunition and ordered to merge with the civilian population of Baghdad and fight the Americans*. The fall of Baghdad, collapse of the government, and loss of their command and control structure occurred much more quickly than anyone thought possible, but left thousands of armed soldiers to melt back in to the general population. An argument can be made that the US air war, focusing on destroying the enemy's ability to resist (communications, infrastructure, and command and control elements) rather than on enemy soldiers, led to this large pool of fighters being left intact. With time, what remained of their original command elements were able to establish some sort of order within these groups, leading to many "cells" of various size, sophistication, and inter-connectivity - with varying levels of ability and purpose. Additionally they would recruit more "soldiers" in the months after the fall of Baghdad. After this period of regrouping the "former regime loyalists" or "ex-Baathist elements" would begin to make their presence known - primarily in the Sunni triangle area of Iraq.

2. Al-Qaeda and the "foreign fighters". Abu Musab al Zarqawi rose from obscurity to lead the al Qaeda Jihad in Iraq. The influx of foreign fighters began before the fall of Baghdad.** Taking advantage of the long and porous border with Syria the invasion has continued since. Connections and interactivity between this group and the former government/military forces are subject to speculation, but it's reasonable to assume there is a high degree of cooperation and coordination between the two.

3. Muqtada al Sadr's Shiite militia. Comprised mostly of residents of the "Sadr city" area of Baghdad - a neighborhood that suferred greatly under the Hussein regime. Sadr has ties to Iran, and just as it's reasonable to assume the first two groups are united it's also evident that Sadr's group maintains independence from either.

4. Others without political motivations. Common criminals, kidnappers for profit, etc. Some elements of all previous groups probably are better described in this category. However, their crimes are often reported as work of the "insurgents". Other acts of violence in Iraq can also be attributed to long standing tribal feuds, and the motivation behind many attacks, killings, and kidnappings is often never truly determined.

An equally important and frequently overlooked group is the 80% - 90% of Iraqis who want to be left alone to get on with their lives in peace.

More to follow.

Notes:

*This tactic was designed to sow confusion and maximize civilian casualties. The comments of Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf at the time seemed humorous to many Americans, but his point was to deceive the citizens of Baghdad into believing they would be safe in the streets when in reality US Army forces were striking at the capitol. It worked. The resulting mix of armed combatants (often transported in small white trucks - or even ambulances) and civilians who were on the streets minding their own business resulted in numerous civilian casualties. The plan was likely to have resulted in accusations of atrocities being leveled at the Americans, but the fall of Baghdad happened much faster than Saddam anticipated. The quick thrust with armor, coming instead of the anticipated infantry attack and extended, house-to-house combat, caught the enemy off guard and the city fell not in a number of weeks, but hours. An excellent account of the situation, drawing on interviews with survivors of all sides of the battle can be found in the book "Thunder Run".

From the book:

Colonel Raaed Faik was riding with fellow Republican Guard officers on a civilian bus thirty-two kilometers northeast of Baghdad that morning, trying to obey an order to rush to Baghdad to join in the defense of the city. They were to help keep Highway 8 open for a counterattack. Faik was a senior signal officer in the Republican Guard, but he was dressed now in civilian clothes. The chief of staff had radioed an order for this division to fight without uniforms in hopes of mounting an effective guerilla war against the American forces on the streets of Baghdad. But some officers had not received the order, and they were still in their uniforms. They bickered with the plainclothes officers over how to dress for the battle.

Faik was disgusted. He took pride in being a member of an elite unit, but now they were like women trying to decide what outfits to wear. They were fools led by imbeciles.

Now, riding on the bus toward Baghdad on the morning of April 7, Faik was convinced he was being sent into the city to be slaughtered. For weeks, the military command had been preparing for a siege of the capital. Faik and other commanders had been told to prepare to fight street by street against American infantry units they expected to parachute in or unload from helicopters. They even named the units - the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division. Iraqi forces would fight them from bunkers and rooftops and alleyways, taking advantage of the familiar urban terrain. A long siege would produce steady American casualties and the United States would be forced by American public opinion to negotiate a truce.

**Another passage from Thunder Run:

Just south of the spaghetti junction, beyond the row of greenhouses on the west side of the highway, Yusef Taha and his brother Ziad were huddled in the rear downstairs room of their two-story stucco home in the shade of the nursery awnings. The Taha brothers owned one of the greenhouses, which had been shredded by coax from the Rogue Bradleys two days earlier. They had stayed in the war zone to protect their house - not from the Americans but from the Syrian mercenaries who had arrived several days earlier to seize control of the entire greenhouse complex. The brothers knew that if they fled, the Syrians would have set up sniper's nests on their roof, drawing tank rounds that would have flattened their modest little home. So now they were hunkered down inside with twelve family members - aunts and uncles, in-laws and children - praying that the Americans would pass by quickly and leave their house intact.

Yusef was a heavyset forty-two-rear-old, with a thick mustache and the beginnings of a beard. Ziad was twenty-six, thin and handsome and had a trimmed mustache. The brothers had pleaded with the Syrians, begging them to find some other place to fight the Americans. But the Syrians said the greenhouses and nurseries occupied a strategic stretch of territory along the Hillah Highway - Highway 8 - controlling access to the airport and to the government palace complex downtown. They set up RPG teams inside the greenhouses, joined by Republican Guard troops in their dark green uniforms with distinctive maroon insignias. It seemed to the Taha brothers that the Syrians were in charge. They were certainly more fanatic and energized than the Republican Guards. They spoke often of jihad, of dying while killing American infidels. Some of them strapped packs of explosives to their chests and spoke of ramming suicide cars into the tanks and Bradleys. Some of them brandished swords, like Saladin, the Arab conqueror. The brothers did not particularly welcome the American invasion - and certainly not the devastating firepower brought to bear on their nursery business - but they resented the Syrians, who were invaders in their own right.

Open Post

'Gunner Palace' Helps Military

Update 2: This movie is not available in the Exchange here in Germany. Anyone seen it in stores stateside?

UPDATE: There just aren't any good new movie releases out this week except this one. And for every one sold thru Mudville we'll donate our proceeds to Fisher House too. (Yes - even those who pre-ordered weeks ago.)

From USA Today:

Most DVDs begin with a harsh anti-piracy warning from the FBI. Gunner Palace, a documentary that depicts the lives of young American soldiers in and around Baghdad, starts differently.

Released on video and DVD Tuesday, the film from director Michael Tucker greets viewers with a note of appreciation: "Purchasing this video helps military families."

<...>

Tucker and the film's distributor, Palm Pictures, have teamed up to support the Fisher House Foundation, a group that offers affordable lodging to more than 8,500 families annually when soldiers are being treated at major military and Veterans Affairs medical centers.

Town Hall

Sec Def Rumsfeld and CJCS Gen Myers are currently hosting a worldwide "townhall" meeting (Q and A) with the troops. See the live online video here. (Replays will likely be avilable too.)

In response to an early audience member question Secretary Rumsfeld just mentioned "bloggers" as one source of alternative news to counter the negative spin of the traditional media.

Watch the interaction - see why Rumsfeld is appreciated by the troops. These guys are great.

Update: General Myers announced that Army recruiting is over 100% of goal for the month of June.

A great question from a female Lt Col who will be forced to relinquish much of her pension to her ex-husband (who earns more than she does) because of the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act.

A Year at War

Representatives of the Iraqi government and US forces are meeting with "insurgents". Good. There are two ways to end protracted combat: 1 - Kill everyone on the other side (or at least enough to make further resistance useless) or 2 - Negotiate. Most wars in history were ended via option 2, with strong incentive for one side to avoid impending option 1 usually a catalyst. The question remains - in Iraq, who is negotiating from a position of power? And which side sees itself as close enough to being on the losing end of option 1?

According to Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, it's the US that is in danger of being destroyed:

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

If the warm reception his comments received from the opposition in the war on terror isn't sufficient enough wake-up call, there's also some circumstantial evidence in the form of ground truth from Iraq suggesting that perhaps it's Senator Hagel who needs a reality check.

The negotiations with insurgents are nothing new - Time magazine first broke the story last February, a period when insurgent attacks had lulled in the wake of their failure to halt or even disrupt the Iraqi national elections. Quite obviously the US and Iraqis were negotiating from a position of power. My comments at that time:

...the insurgents are on the ropes. Make no mistake about it - they are capable of killing people in large numbers, but their political effectiveness is virtually nil.

And falling.

This week in Iraq Operation SWORD was launched - the latest effort to deny foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria passage to the country's interior. The US and Iraqis are not negotiating out of weakness - far from it. And though the insurgents are still capable of killing large numbers of people in a spectacular manner their political effectiveness, once nil, has since dwindled.

Except for in the United States. A year of smashing coalition military successes, gradual improvement of Iraq's economy, free elections and an embrace of democracy by a people who had been denied it for most of their history has led a Senator to conclude that the US military has failed in it's mission - we're losing in Iraq.

Senator Hagel is wrong (as is this Cuban news source that shares his point of view). In the upcoming days here at Mudville we're going to look back at the past several months of combat in Iraq in hopes of answering the fundamental questions: Are we winning? And if so, why are so few people aware of it?

Hope you'll join the conversation.

(More to follow.)

Open Post

Keeping Score

James Taranto:

That Iraq is "another Vietnam" was a clich頬ong before the U.S.-led coalition even liberated Baghdad, but lately the drumbeat has become louder and more tired than ever. A Google News search for "Iraq" and "Vietnam" turns up more than 6,500 articles in the past month;...

In April 2004, about one year after the fall of Baghdad, claims comparing Iraq to other military actions of the recent past began in earnest in the wake of the brutal murders of contractors in Fallujah. At that time we noted the google news "scores" for the following combinations:

Iraq quagmire: 286

Iraq Mogadishu: 880

Iraq Vietnam: 5740

A week later we checked again:

Iraq quagmire: 532

Iraq Mogadishu: 1460

Iraq Vietnam: 7210

So in spite of gains by "Mogadishu" and "quagmire", "Vietnam" was maintaining a comfortable lead.

Today's results:

Iraq quagmire: 1420

Iraq Mogadishu: 29

Iraq Vietnam: 6770

"Quagmire" has left "Mogadushu" in the dust, and though "Vietnam" still maintains a healthy lead it has actually dropped a bit, while "quagmire" is closing the gap.

There may have been a lull in such claims in the interim, so like tomorrow's suicide bomber what we're seeing today could be described as a "fresh wave" of attacks from an "increasingly bold and sophisticated" media. But yes, "louder and more tired" still seems correct.

MilBlogs Here, MilBlogs There...

I see MilBlogs everywhere.

Or at least in the Boston Herald and the Army Times.

More thoughts on the topic later.

Berlin Outrage: Checkpoint Charlie Monument to be Bulldozed July 4th

David's Medienkritik

We didn't think it could get much worse in Germany...well, it just did. Davids Medienkritik recently learned that the Berlin city government, made up of a coalition between the SPD (Gerhard Schroeder's Social-Democrats) and the PDS (former SED party that ran Communist East Germany), has decided to allow the razing of the Checkpoint Charlie monument by court order.

Every Day Hero

Marine pilot Capt. Joseph Bertagna came to aid of ambushed patrol in July 2003.

The butterflies in Marine Capt. Joseph Bertagna's stomach lasted for only a second. The bravery that replaced them will be remembered for a lifetime.

Bertagna, who grew up in Coopersburg, recently received the Distinguished Flying Cross medal for coming to the rescue of ground troops ambushed in eastern Afghanistan on July 19, 2003.

Bertagna drove the attackers away with cannonfire from his Harrier jet, then helped contact medical helicopters that evacuated three wounded soldiers. The men survived.

<...>

''The overriding thing that was going through my mind is that these guys need help, like, five minutes ago,'' Bertagna said. ''I realized that the only thing I could do to help these guys was to go down and find them.''

Using the road as a guide, Bertagna swooped fast and low into the area, defying the surface-to-air missile systems Taliban forces were known to have. The intent, he said, was to make himself visible so the ground troops could give him better directions.

It worked. The ground leader spotted the Harrier and gave Bertagna his bearings. Bertagna turned and launched an attack, firing 145 rounds of 25 mm ammo into the enemy position. As the attackers began fleeing, Bertagna emptied his cannon into their new position. It was the first time he fired his weapons in combat.

He then sent GPS coordinates to medical helicopters so they could ferry out the injured soldiers.

While protecting the helicopters, Bertagna saw what looked like muzzle flashes from a nearby ridge. He flew low over the ridge, without firing, in what Marines call a ''show-of-force pass.'' The signs of attack vanished.

''It's just, like, 'Hey, we're here. If you want to start anything, this is what's going to happen to you,''' Bertagna said of the flyover.

We have the best damn military force out there and I'm astounded daily at the heroism.

Don't Watch...

..the President's speech. But do write a letter to your local paper complaining about it.

In fact, you don't have to watch or write - because Moveon.org has already written the letter for you. Just send it to your local paper.

What better way to demonstrate what an open minded, free thinker you are.

Update: The Associated Press continues its tradition of reporting presidential speeches that haven't happened yet in the past tense. Mitch Albom was suspended for doing less.

Trust Me

I made my prediction on media response to Pew research revealing declining trust in media reports yesterday: My prediction for a media response: None. (With "self righteous denial" a close second.)

But I didn't realize that the AP had already responded:

Poll: Most Americans back media

WASHINGTON - Despite growing doubts about the news media's patriotism, most people still have a positive view of news outlets, according to a new poll.
<...>
While people are critical of the press, "there is an enduring support for what the press does," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which co-sponsored the poll.

While the public views much of the news media favorably, they are less inclined to consider those sources of news believable, according to the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Remember though that this is a blog, and we have standards. Please don't support your explanation with bogus quotes.

Can't Win?

Senator Ted Kennedy last week:

After the hearing, Kennedy took to the Senate floor to press his point. ''It is time for Rumsfeld to take off his rose-colored glasses," Kennedy said. ''It is time to level with the American people instead of painting a rosy picture."

Citing some of Rumsfeld's assessments, Kennedy asked: ''What planet is he on? Perhaps he is still in the mission-accomplished world," a reference to the banner behind Bush in May 2003, when the president declared major combat operations had ended.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talks to host Chris Wallace days later on Fox News Sunday

WALLACE: I want to turn to another aspect of this.

When we announced that you were going to be on the program, I got a phone call ? unsolicited phone call, from a gentleman who had been a veteran of Vietnam, wounded twice in Vietnam, whose son is now serving in Iraq. And he said that he never thought that this country would fight another Vietnam, meaning send our troops over there without enough strength to win, but he said ? this is his argument ? that that's exactly what's going on in Iraq, that we are fighting another Vietnam in the sense that we don't have enough force to win. And then he said, the problem ? and I'm going to quote him now ? is, he said, "Rumsfeld tried to fight this on the cheap."

RUMSFELD: Yes.

WALLACE: What do you say to that patriotic but very concerned father?

RUMSFELD: Sure.

Well, I think you thank him first for his service, and then thank him for the service of his son. And then point out that this is not a decision I make; this is a decision that's made by the military commanders. General Franks, General Abizaid, General Casey have decided what those numbers are. They've recommended them to me. I've recommended them to the president. I agree with them. I think they're right.

I can understand some people would say, "Oh, there ought to be more," or, "There ought to be less." General Abizaid and General Casey are absolutely convinced, and said so publicly, that they would worry if there were more U.S. forces there, because it would require more force protection, more support troops, more targets, a heavier footprint, a more intrusive occupation force that would further alienate Iraqi people from the coalition forces and what they're trying to do.

Second, the implication of the question was that we don't have enough to win against the insurgency. We're not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years.

Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency.

So, I regret that he feels that way. I am absolutely convinced that the general officers in charge of this, who've made those decisions, are correct.

If they came to us and said they needed more people, as they have, we've increased them. For the last election, when the violence went up, we increased them to 160,000. They're now down to 139,000. Why? Because the generals sent people home, and said they would prefer to have fewer people.

So how does the press report his comments? Here's one headline from the Seattle Times: Iraq peace may be 12 years away, Rumsfeld says

CNN was more optimistic: Rumsfeld: Insurgency could last decade

The people of Iraq will eventually defeat the insurgents - but other conflicts appear to be a no-win situation.

Open Post

You shouldn't be blogging, you should be listening to the Prez, shame on you.

Prayers Needed

ArmyWifeToddlerMom informs us that the Chaplain from the 39th Infantry is in desperate need of your prayers as is his family.

...This is a man of great character. The spiritual guidance he offered my husband, and other soldiers was a true blessing. Besides providing spiritual care for soldiers as a Chaplain, he is also the Pastor for the Second Baptist Church, with a large congregation. Please read a bit about this man, and please say a prayer for him, and his family!

ArmyWifeToddlerMom has the details on this fine gentleman and the tragedy that has struck him.

Warrior to Warrior

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the latest installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).

The Real Folks Back at your Real Home

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

Lots of bad news these days on the national front. The comparisons to Vietnam. The self-flagellation over treatment of prisoners held in Cuba. New comparisons of our country to Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Demands that we set a date to bring the troops home. Surveys from abroad that tell of a lack of respect for America. Surveys from home that reveal that the relentless torrent of reporting bad news from Iraq is having the effect of turning more Americans against the war.

But I won't be writing about any of that today. Because I have news from Shelby, Montana.

In Shelby, a group of six Vietnam veterans got organized about nine months ago. Not to form a protest against the war, but to organize a show of support for Montana troops in Iraq.

They jointly signed a bank note, wrote a plan, secured a nonprofit status and started making phone calls and went looking for a hill.

Their mission was to build and raise a 100-ft. flagpole on that hill overlooking two major highways west of Shelby. The idea was to fly a huge 30- by 50-ft. American flag by July 4 in honor of all veterans but to dedicate the first flag to our soldiers in Iraq.

They announced their plan last November 11 on Veterans Day when all they had was to show for their effort at the time was one of the 30-by-50 flags, bought on that bank note. That alone was inspiring. Area law officers and more than a hundred veterans turned out to help unfurl the flag at ceremonies on the gym floors of the county's only two high schools.

On this, the week before the July Fourth holiday, the flagpole is ready to be planted, if it doesn't rain. And new plans are already being made to dedicate the flag monument on Sept. 11 in solemn ceremonies.

The group of veterans have exhausted their line of credit at the bank, but their mission was worth it because it will surely be accomplished. One of them, a Marine who was wounded in Vietnam (there's no such thing as a former Marine), has been welding pipe for weeks in his fabrication shop, on his own private mission to build that flagpole. One, a former soldier and a retired manager of the local electric co-op, was at the business end of a shovel this week, burying electrical cable for the lights he bought out of his own pocket. Another turned over his law practice to the mission of keeping the project legal and sound, so the community could have faith in it. A fourth worked his connections with government to line up FAA approval, city and county support and military participation in the ceremonies. The chief organizer worked the phones, workdays and weekends, keeping the team on track, keeping the mission in everybody's sights. Because of him and his crew of veterans, we will see that flag fly.

But the story is not about the veterans. It's about the people-your people back home. Your friends and neighbors and family back home in Montana. And a few strangers who care about you, people whose names you don't even know. Without them, the veterans group would still be churning away. With them, the project is about to become a reality.

For you see, from the moment of the public ceremony, people stepped up to throw a shoulder to the wheel and add their momentum. Some gave cash. A few gave thousands of dollars, but a lot of folks gave smaller amounts, including school kids.

One corporation donated the hill in the form of a 25-year lease. A family gave access land. The city and county governments chipped in with easements, insurance policy coverage, parks maintenance support. Seven corporations or individuals have agreed to buy one of the huge flags every year so the veterans can keep them flying. And when they must be taken down in windy weather, local law enforcement agencies have agreed to do that. Corporations have donated engineering, an estimated $20,000 worth, and steel pipe for the flagpole a like amount. The use of bulldozers and cranes are donations of time and operators. Newspaper space, donation. Concrete, donation. Concrete labor, donation. Electrical power and labor, donation. A professional singer cut a patriotic CD to sell with proceeds going to the project as a donation. Every time the group needs help, our people-your people-step up.

There's more to do here before you, our troops, come home, but no one doubts it will get done. With people like these, who can doubt it?

The veterans group and your people back home are planning the September ceremony in earnest. And hoping you'll be back in time to help celebrate it.

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

____________

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. These columns are excerpts from an upcoming book. His current book, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Fire at FOB St. Michael - 48th BCT Needs Help

Our friend Banter in Atlanter alerts us that there's a fire at FOB St. Michael and the 48th BCT Needs Help.

The AJC's Dave Hirschman and photographer Curtis Compton are embedded with the 48th Brigade Combat Team, a Georgia National Guard unit. They've got a blog running at the AJCs site that's pretty impressive.

Yesterday's post brings some bad news though, some living quarters and a tactical operations center were overcome by a fire that spread from an adjacent chicken processing plant. Several soldiers lost personal effects as a result.

Banter at Atlanter has details here Soldiers Angels has already adopted the 48th BCT but could use our help.

@#!%*& Blogspot @#!%*& blogger

While on my Dawn Patrol I noticed several of my MilBloggers and many of the Friends of MilBlogs were experiencing a recent problem with Blogspot. Posts won't appear until sidebar ends.

The problem is that Blogspot changed how the posts are sent. What blogger is doing is inserting two DIV tags before and after the post.

These tags are inserted around $BlogItemBody$ now which has a style="clear:both". This is the reason the 2nd post won't appear before sidebar ends. Blogger has stated that they recognize the problem and they are working on it.

In the mean time others have come to the rescue. Special thanks goes to kousik at Blogger forum.

The solution is to have a TABLE around your $BlogItemBody$. In your template, where $BlogItemBody$ appears, surround it by <table><tr><td> and </td></tr></table>...which should partially correct the problem.

I'll update if I find any new solutions.

Iraq

Could we lose?

Maybe.

Here's how.

Americans Dissatisfied With Press Coverage of the Military

According to the latest Pew research the American public is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the media coverage of the military.

Nearly half (47%) say that by criticizing the military, news organizations are weakening the nation's defenses; 44% say such criticism keeps the nation militarily prepared. The percentage saying press criticism weakens American defenses has been increasing in recent years and now stands at its highest point in surveys dating to 1985.

This rising dissatisfaction with press coverage of the military doesn?t mean, however, that the public wants the press to become a propaganda outlet for the Pentagon. A large majority consistently agrees that ?neutral? coverage of the war is better than coverage that is explicitly ?pro-American,? but the public simply doesn?t think it is getting neutral coverage.

My prediction for a media response: None. (With "self righteous denial" a close second.)

After that, follow the links in the update in this post from Michelle Malkin for a stunning example of bias run amok in Iowa.

Update: Would you still support the troops if they stopped a group of terrorists from splitting Ward Churchill's skull open with a machete?

Of course you would - we do that every day.

More Memorial News

From Jeff Jarvis.

Take Back the Memorial

In the email, from Tim Sumner, of 911 Families for a Safe and Strong America and Take Back the Memorial.

Greyhawk:

Please read and post on this, if possible. Here's some background on what appears below. You can use whatever you feel like as it is all verifiable. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation asked Debra Burlingame to become a founding board member of the WTC Foundation. They were to raise the money, above the 300 million federal dollars in seed money, to build the 9/11 memorial and accompanying projects in line with the decisions the jury that came up with as a mission statement and design for the memorial. When the WTC and memorial are completed (scheduled for 2009), the LMDC is to be dissolved and the WTC Foundation will become the landlord for all non-commercial buildings on the site, meaning they will be in charge of the Cultural building (International Freedom Center & Drawing Center), the visitors info & services, the Tribeca theatre and dance theatre. Here's a recap of the people behind the IFC plans (from Debra's op-ed in the WSJ / OPJ):

- Michael Posner, executive director at Human Rights First who is leading the worldwide "Stop Torture Now" campaign focused entirely on the U.S. military. He has stated that Mr. Rumsfeld's refusal to resign in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal is "irresponsible and dishonorable."

- Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, who is pushing IFC organizers for exhibits that showcase how civil liberties in this country have been curtailed since September 11.

- Eric Foner, radical-left history professor at Columbia University who, even as the bodies were being pulled out of a smoldering Ground Zero, wrote, "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." This is the same man who participated in a "teach-in" at Columbia to protest the Iraq war, during which a colleague exhorted students with, "The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military," and called for "a million Mogadishus." The IFC website has posted Mr. Foner's statement warning that future discussions should not be "overwhelmed" by the IFC's location at the World Trade Center site itself.

- George Soros, billionaire founder of Open Society Institute, the nonprofit foundation that helps fund Human Rights First and is an early contributor to the IFC. Mr. Soros has stated that the pictures of Abu Ghraib "hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself."

Debra joined the WTC Foundation's board to be of service to her country (my words) and to ensure a fitting memorial to all those lost was built (her words). But she would not stand by and let an insidious plan by anyone -- in this case led by Berstein, Soros, et al -- to desecrate the memory of all those that fell and that hallowed ground who wanted to branding the site with their ideology.

In response to her op-ed and all the press, the LMDC, WTC Foundation's board, and the International Freedom Center's board all worked hard at dividing the 9/11 family members over this. The wedge they attempted to use was Debra Burlingame didn't lose anyone at the WTC on 9/11 even though her brother, a great American in his own right, was brutally murdered by terrorists aboard Flight 77 before they slammed it into the Pentagon. (I have a string of expletives I'd like to use here but I'll spare you them). Well, their plan didn't work. Tom Bernstein being on the board of Human Rights Watch has hit the AP. Their attempt to divide the 9/11 families is about to hit the AP. Our petition numbers are rising rapidly -- including over 1,000 9/11 family members -- and op-eds and letters are streaming out to the press.

After all that, today the major family groups responded with this (Bill Doyle is the most widely known spokesman for 9/11 family member issues) :

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, June 26, 2005

Fourteen September 11 Family Groups Respond to Pataki and Reaffirm Unity and Resolve to "Take Back the Memorial"

New York, N.Y., June 26, 2005 On Friday, Governor George Pataki held a press conference to address charges that cultural institutions selected for the World Trade Center Memorial site will include content and programming which will dishonor the victims of the September 11th attacks. We believe the governor's remarks demonstrate that he is not yet attuned to what the American people expect and deserve in a memorial at Ground Zero.

We are heartened that Governor Pataki likened Ground Zero to historic memorials such as those found at "the beaches of Normandy or Pearl Harbor," and that he affirmatively declared that the International Freedom Center (IFC), the Drawing Center and other institutions slated for the site "won't be there" without an "absolute guarantee," that they will respect the mission of the memorial. But he later sowed uncertainty and confusion by indicating that standards of taste and respect for the lost would be determined by the institutions themselves. While the governor may sincerely hope and even believe that the IFC and these institutions will observe the sanctity of the site, ultimately, compliance with appropriate standards will be, in the governor's words, "their call."

The governor's new plan to sanitize the IFC and Drawing Center and the other cultural programming is nothing more than an empty promise. The stated mission of these cultural facilities is irreconcilable to the memorial's own mission statement. Sadly, the governor's remarks confirm that the honor of those lost on September 11 will take a back seat to free speech and artistic expression as realized in works, exhibits and programming which is completely unrelated to the events of that historic day. We believe the solution is simple. The IFC and the Drawing Center must be removed from Ground Zero.

Also, it took a great deal of courage for Debra Burlingame to speak up in her Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled "The Great Ground Zero Heist." We have all experienced first hand the efforts the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will take to discredit victims' families, divide and intimidate us and marginalize our concerns when we dare to disagree with the powers that be. This is not the first time this has happened, but it needs to be the last time. We will not let that happen to any victims' family member ever again. Together we stand united to "Take Back the Memorial" at Ground Zero.

We remain resolved that the IFC, the Drawing Center and all cultural programming unrelated to the attacks on the World Trade Center must be removed from Ground Zero. The history of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 must be preserved for future generations. It must be told plainly, without distraction and with the respect that the victims and our country deserve. We are committed to achieving a proper memorial. We urge leadership in the state of New York to respond to our plea, but we will not allow inaction or indecision to deter us.

Please visit www.takebackthememorial.com to learn more and join in the effort to take back America's memorial.

Bill Doyle - Father of Joseph
Wtc tower1 101st fl.Cantor
http://www.joeydoyle.com
http://www.wtcufg.org
http://www.takebackthememorial.com/
http://www.911fsa.org
9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism

Mrs G adds:
Let us never forget what happened that fateful day. Here, in this tribute, is a perfect example of what this Memorial should resemble.
A Time, even though seemingly short, this country was united.
Thank You, GCS Distributing

Open Post

From Buzz Patterson

"Rightalk Radio" Sponsors Trip to Baghdad and Kuwait!

Friends and Fellow Americans

With the recent onslaught by liberals that Guantanamo Bay is a "gulag," that our military is akin to "Nazis" and America is the "terrorist" nation, the war of our generation hangs in the balance. "Politicians" such as Dick Durbin, Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel are harkening to an old and tired ploy - America is wrong and our military is criminal. If we, as a nation, are not forearmed we will lose this war as we did in Vietnam. A just and noble cause will be squandered. The sacrifice and lives of American servicemen and women will have been in vain. It will be a tragedy of worldwide and historical proportions. Our national security will be compromised; millions of free and Democratic peoples in the Middle East will be foresaken for American politics.

Personally, I'm disgusted and angry.

Rightalk Radio Network, in conjunction with Move America Forward, is doing something about it! From July 8th through July 16th, 10 radio talk show hosts, two filmmakers, and two journalists are traveling to CENTCOM HQ in Tampa, FL, Kuwait, and Baghdad to report directly to you what is actually going on. The good news exponentially outweighs what CNN, the New York Times, or the Washington Post would have us (you) believe. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will be asked to discuss their honor and commitment to our war on terror. You will hear them live from the front lines. They are the heroes next door. They are not Stalin's Soviets, Hitler's Nazi's or Pol Pot's murderers. They are proud and honored men and women from Everywhere, USA.

Please support our effort in whichever and whatever capacity you can. Move America Forward is asking for contributions for coffee, cookies and calling cards which the show hosts will deliver personally to our men and women in uniform. Personal messages will be taken straight from you to them. You can find the details at www.moveamericaforward.org. If you are able to contribute, please specify your contribution in the notes section at the website for the Iraq Trip - Voices of Soldiers Are Heard!

We will be posting the broadcasting schedule for all of the hosts on this site in the coming days. My schedule will be posted at www.rightalk.com under "The Buzz Cut." I'll be broadcasting and interviewing live from CENTCOM HQ, Baghdad, and Kuwait.

Thank you for your remarkable support and kindness over the years. If you are as outraged as I, please let me know. Your messages will be personally delivered by me to our CENTCOM personnel in Tampa and our deployed men and women in Iraq and Kuwait.

We cannot, for the sake of our country and for the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan, surrender to the political expediency of a party so completely out of touch. They failed us in what was once a just and noble cause to fight Communism, they are miserably failing us again.

Our troops deserve so much better. Please let your voice be heard as you hear theirs!!

God bless America and God bless our men and women in this historic fight!

Respectfully,

Buzz Patterson

Trendy

Mudville, 15 June 2005:
Retention rates for second term and career soldiers are well above normal, in active and Guard/Reserve units (especially those that deployed to Iraq) - people are re-enlisting. Meanwhile recruiting new soldiers is becoming increasingly difficult. But the same explanation can be applied to this observation as to the previous: those with first hand experience in the matter have a decidedly different outlook than those who only know what they read in the papers and see on TV.

Mudville, 24 June 2005

The Senator can be forgiven if, like so many American's, he only knows of Iraq what he reads on the papers or sees on TV.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 26 June, on ABC's This Week with George Stephawhosiswhatsis:

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's begin with this issue of the anxiety in the American public about the war in Iraq. When you were up on Capitol Hill this week, you heard a lot of senators saying they're worried about public opinion going south or reaching the tipping point. And our latest ABC News poll seems to bear out that anxiety. Let me show you some of the numbers here. It shows that a record-high number of Americans think the Iraq war was not worth fighting, that we're bogged down in Iraq -- 65 percent, and 65 percent believe we have no clear plan for getting out.

Now, I know that you and President Bush believe we have a clear strategy and we're not bogged down, and this was essential to U.S. security. So how do you explain the disconnect between what you see and believe and what the public sees and believes?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I'd say several things. One, war is a tough, difficult, dirty business. And when it's reported, it leaves people with that impression, correctly, that it's a terrible thing. It's everybody's last choice, nobody's first choice.

The second, if one reads history, we know this has been true in the Revolutionary War, we know it was true in the Civil War, we know it was true in World War I and World War II. If all people know is what they see on television or read in the press, the negatives --

Arthur's Mail

Dear friends

Just to let you know that the new installment of "Good news from Iraq" is
out - number 30 - complete with the opening quote from that neo-con
fantasist Kofi Annan:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

Best regards

Arthur

Chuck Up-Date

Dawn Patrol will be a little late this morning. I've been busy visiting a certain soldier.

Before you can visit a soldier you have to know their name and their birthday. At least that was what I was told. I of course knew his name but didn't have a clue what his birthdate was, but I thought I'd try anyway. I got to ICU and asked where Chuck Ziegenfuss was. Immediately, I had three people say Who are you. "I'm a friend, Mrs Greyhawk". A man passing out quilts to our wounded, was one of the three people, he says, "he's over here". The other two people were women, nurses I presume and were a little more thourough. One of them asks Chuck about me and she says "he doesn't know who you are." I'm humbled quickly, not that I think everyone knows who I am, but I thought and hoped one of my Ring members would. Now I was worried they weren't going to let me see him, then the other woman who was his nurse, and a damn fine nurse according to him, waved me in, and said come on in.

I introduced myself and then said "from Mudville". He looked at me in a quizzedly manner. Now I'm thinking, shit! he doesn't read Mudville, of course he doesn't read Mudville, he's been too damn busy fighting a war. But he relieved me of my stress when he said " OH, the Mudville Gazette". Then I asked the stupidest question, " How you doin, Chuck? " He says, "well I lost my left pinky and my ..., how are you?" Needless to say I was at a loss for words and thought, is he being his humorous self or is he serious? I'll leave that for him to blog about one way or another.

I proceeded to tell him that he has quite a following now. He said his wife, Carren told him that there were hundreds, even thousands of supporters. I informed him who all had linked him and that visits were in the tens of thousands. He was quite surprised and happy to hear that.

He remembers quite a bit of what happened. As he told me all the details which I'll leave for him to blog about I realized I was standing in front of a true hero, however I held back calling him the Hero I knew him to be because my gut feeling told me he would reject the label. Instead I just help him with a sip of water.

Something he did ask me to blog about was CPT Jason Spencer, Chuck's XO. Because Chuck was wearing heavy Kevlar armor, he went bottoms up in the canal, and was drowning, Jason dove into the canal to save him, only to find himself in the same predicament as Chuck and almost drowning himself, but he managed to muscle himself upward to then help pull Chuck ashore. This man is a hero and Chuck wanted me to spread the word on this.

The gurney arrived to transfer him to Walter Reed Medical, that was my cue that it was time for me to leave. He asked me if I had a camera, which unfortunately mine was dead, so the answer was "no". He wanted me to take his picture Note to self: always have camera charged. I did however, have for him a copy of "Heart of a Soldier", a book about a hero Rick Rescorla, autographed by Mrs Rescorla. Chuck was familiar with his story.

How did he look?, you may wonder. He was in good spirits. He has a black eye. His face is scraped pretty good, but nothing a bag over the head couldn't cure, I told him in jest. He had some difficulty in hearing me, which I hope isn't permanent. He said he will need some skin graft on his legs and probably more work on his left arm. Both arms were in a cast up to his shoulders. His thumb is still up in the air (no pun intended). It looked pink to me so I know that's a good sign, but time will tell and I'm sure Chuck will when he's able to blog again. I told him a pencil between the teeth might work but He said he wasn't sure what to blog about now. I asked, "how about the healing process?" There are many that would like to know your progress. I got the feeling that, as much as he wanted to go home to his family, he was somewhat wanting to be back with his men. But if any of you have read his blog that should not suprise you.

He seemed in good hands, the hospital was very nice and his nurse was looking out for him and making sure his needs were met. He had a quilt to keep him warm while he traveled and has a family waiting for him when he arrives at Walter Reed Army Medical center.

I do hope he continues to blog whether it's about the war, or about healing or about life in general, he has a talent that should not be wasted.

In the meantime, Carren seems to be able to blog rather well. Here's her latest update on Chuck.

Soldier's Angel, Holly Aho has more here

Intel Dump, Heading down range

Phil Carter's status has changed from veteran to active duty.

On Thursday, I received orders from the Army mobilizing me for Operation Iraqi Freedom. These orders followed an earlier set, cut on Tuesday, which transferred me from the Army's individual ready reserve into the 101st Airborne Division. I'm scheduled to report for active duty in a little under 3 weeks to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. After some period of pre-deployment training and preparation, I will deploy with my unit to Iraq.

Read the rest here.

We wish you the best and God speed.

Let's Do the Time Warp Again

Chester notes that insurgent leaders in Iraq and some members of the US Congress are currently singing from the same hymnal.

That song sounded familiar to me - and in fact there was a slightly different version being sung back in April 2004

Meanwhile, in Washington, leading Senate Democrats offered their encouragement to the troops:

Mr. Byrd, the chamber's senior Democrat, said yesterday that the Bush administration has "blundered" and that the United States should not be trying to increase troop strength. "We should instead be working toward an exit strategy," he said.

"Surely, I am not the only one who hears echoes of Vietnam in this development. Surely, the administration recognizes that increasing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq will only suck us deeper into the maelstrom of violence that has become the hallmark of that unfortunate country," the West Virginian said on the Senate floor.

His criticism follows that by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, who on Monday called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam" and said the situation has created a credibility gap between the president and Americans.

Byrd was recently praised for his longevity by fellow Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), who said the West Virginia Democrat, member of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office and opponent of the 1964 Civil Right Act, "would have been right during the great conflict of Civil War in this nation."

Back in Iraq, Kennedy's claim won support from Iraqi Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who took time out from leading his fanatical band of insurgents in combat with American soldiers to echo the comparison:

"I call upon the American people to stand beside their brethren, the Iraqi people, who are suffering an injustice by your rulers and the occupying army, to help them in the transfer of power to honest Iraqis," Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in the southern city of Najaf. "Otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers."

United States forces are confronting a broad-based Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has been the focus of American counterinsurgency efforts, United States intelligence officials said Wednesday.

That assertion contradicts repeated statements by the Bush administration and American officials in Iraq. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they did not believe the United States was facing a broad-based Shiite insurgency. Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.

But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising.

<...>

The result is that the United States is facing two broad-based insurgencies that are now on parallel tracks.

<...>

The Bush administration has sought to portray the opposition much more narrowly. In the Sunni insurgency, the White House and the Pentagon have focused on the role of the former leaders of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein's government, while in the Shiite rebellion they have focused almost exclusively on the role of Mr. Sadr. Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon that the fighting in Iraq was just the work of "thugs, gangs and terrorists," and not a popular uprising. General Myers added that "it's not a Shiite uprising. Sadr has a very small following."

Remember that one next time you read quotes from unnamed "intelligence officials" trumpeting defeat in the NY Times.

Or when next you hear US Congressmen being echoed by terrorists - or vice-versa.

Open Post

Signs of the Times?

Or signs of the end times?

If you went to a Baptist Church today you might have heard about this:

The annual meeting of the 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention voted Wednesday to end its eight-year boycott of the Disney Co., with Baptist leaders saying the company has taken a turn toward producing more family-friendly entertainment and fewer morally objectionable films.

<...>

The Rev. Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., a few miles from the Disneyland theme park, said a recently released Disney movie on DVD, "America's Heart and Soul," was a "good wholesome family movie" and that Disney even produced a Bible-study guide to go with it.

He doesn't believe Disney would be producing such family-oriented fare if it weren't responding to the boycott by evangelical Christian organizations. The American Family Association also recently dropped its boycott of Disney.

"They knew it was hurting their bottom line," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He noted that business journalists have detailed declining profits and stock prices that led to Disney's announcement of the impending departure of Disney chief executive officer Michael Eisner, who plans to step down this year.

"Disney's financial picture has been cloudy," Land said. "Mike Eisner didn't get his bonuses. Disney stores were closed down, disproportionately in the Southeast and Southwest, where Baptists are most concentrated."

..."We have cost them millions and millions of dollars," Drake said.

<...>

Michelle Bergman, a spokeswoman at Disney headquarters in Burbank, Calif., said the company had no immediate comment.

"Herbie" is made to order for families seeking something utterly wholesome for the entire clan, the Disney goodness slathered on like Miracle Whip on Wonder Bread.

<...>

The movie is as much an anachronism as a 1963 VW Bug still cruising the highways. It has not a trace of the irreverence or mild toilet humor common to family films today.

It's as though Herbie made a beeline from the '60s straight to the 21st century, with all his tapioca sweetness intact. In Herbie's world, a few people are bad, most are nice and a handful are extra-super nice. And in the end, you know the little car with a mind of his own will sort them out.

<...>

Lohan is at her most perky and least bratty, which makes her less interesting than the schemers and whiners she played in "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls."

<...>

Keaton clearly just wants to work these days. He makes a decent father figure, though it's fun to imagine him veering into old manic-madman ways and turning the Disney formula on its head, say in a hybrid sequel, "Beetle Juice 2: Herbie Goes to Hell."

<...>

"Herbie: Fully Loaded," a Disney release, is rated G. Running time: 101 minutes. Two stars out of four.

In other Jesus news:

The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University of Chicago and published in the July 2005 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all adults. Fifty-five percent of doctors say their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.

Hill said belief in a supreme being "is vitally important to physicians' ability to take care of patients -- particularly the end-of-life issues that we deal with so often."

Go ask...

Alice.

I got no friends 'cause they read the papers.
They can't be seen
with me
and I'm gettin' real shot down and I'm
feeling mean.

No more Mister Nice Guy,
No more Mister Clean,
No more Mister Nice Guy,
They say
he's sick, he's obscene...

Update: Chrenkoff's excerpts stopped just short of the best quote in the interview:

ANDREW DENTON: Have you considered for your stage show actually coming on in plus fours, chipping from a bunker, saying "Vote George W. Bush"? Wouldn't that be a shock show?

ALICE COOPER: You know what, it would be. And it would be a comedy. It would definitely be a comedy, because I don't see rock and roll and politics being in the same bed together. I just don't see it. When my parents started talking about politics, I'd run in the other room and put the Rolling Stones on at full blast. I didn't want to hear about tax forms, I didn't want to hear about who's doing who to what. I just didn't want to care about it. And to this day, rock and roll should be the escape from politics, not the answer to politics.

The three in the center hold up well. Any garage band that can't do "Eighteen" really needs to work on it.

Open Post

Light blogging for us but not for all

Chief Wiggles: Saving Babylon

I'd like to introduce some newer visitors to the blogosphere to an exceptional US Army interrogator. Chief Warrant Officer Paul Holton (perhaps better known in the blogosphere as Chief Wiggles) was one of the first (if not the first) Milbloggers from Iraq. His original blog (here) still contains his chronicles of the first year of operation Iraqi Freedom. The Chief is a 30-year Army National Guard veteran, and served as an interrogator/debriefer in Baghdad.

During his time there, Chief Wiggles launched Operation Give, the first organized, grass-roots effort to bring toys from US donors to the children of Iraq. His blog-based endeavor was lauded by President Bush during a National Prayer breakfast.

Our people in uniform understand the high calling they have answered because they see the nation and the lives they are changing. A guardsman from Utah named Paul Holton has described seeing an Iraqi girl crying and decided then and there to help that child and others like her. By enlisting aid through the Internet, Chief Warrant Officer Holton had arranged the shipment of more than 1,600 aid packages from overseas. Here's how this man defines his own mission: "It is part of our heritage that the benefits of being free, enjoyed by all Americans, were set up by God, intended for all people. Bondage is not of God, and it is not right that any man should be in bondage at any time, in any way." Everyone one in this room can say amen to that.

Saving Babylon is the gripping story of Paul Holton and his soul stretching personal battles in the Iraq War as an Army Interrogator. His job was to interrogate the enemy. His job was to extract intelligence. His job was to crush the adversary. But something happened as Holton fulfilled his assignment that changed the outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And it changed this soldier forever.

Some quotes:

"A gripping, highly readable and surprising book?An inspiring volume, sure to become a classic"
?Joe Bauman, Deseret News

"COMPELLING...FASCINATING...Saving Babylon is a well-written story of a soldier's extraordinary experiences during the Iraq War. A must read for every American interested in the truth about the liberation of Iraq.
?Joe Weber, New York Times best-selling author

"Paul Holton provides an intensely personal account of war and its aftermath, something you'll never get from the legions of war correspondents who tried, and mostly failed, to cover this war."
?Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit.com

Order your copy today, visit SavingBabylon.com

(Original post: 2005-06-20 18:27:29)

Open Post

A toast to our soldiers.

News From Iraq (Part V)

Part I - No News is Good News

Part II - The More Things Change

Part III - Waving the Flag

Part IV - The Red Zone

Part V - The Fool Court Press

The Washington Post takes a quick look at the situation in Iraq and declares it a failure:

"We don't want to take responsibility; we don't want it," said Amar Mana, 27, an Iraqi private whose forehead was grazed by a bullet during an insurgent attack in November. "Here, no way. The way the situation is, we wouldn't be ready to take responsibility for a thousand years."

The full article is, of course, a case of the Post looking at a glass and declaring it half empty. If they reported on the construction of a house the way they do on the training of the Iraqi army they would bemoan the lack of quality shingles at about the time the truck pulled up to pour the foundation.

But so far in spite of the best efforts of the largest newspaper in their nation's capitol the American GIs in Iraq won't quit.

The above article prompted a letter to the editor from Michael Fumento.

Having read countless articles on the Iraq war and having just been an embedded reporter in Anbar province, I can say with some authority that the June 10 front-page article "Building Iraq's Army: Mission Improbable" is the most miserably biased piece I've seen on the conflict.

A recurrent theme was that the Iraqis get inferior and even downright dangerous equipment. For example: "The Americans drove fully enclosed armored Humvees, the Iraqis open-backed Humvees with benches, the sides of which were protected by plating the equivalent of a flak jacket." It continued, "As an American reporter climbed in with the Iraqis, the U.S. soldiers watched in bemused horror. 'You might be riding home alone,' one soldier said to the other reporter. 'Is he riding in the back of that?' asked another. 'I'll be over here praying.' "

Sorry, but when I rode through the improving but still hostile city of Fallujah, I also chose an open-backed Humvee -- horrifying nobody. Both types of Humvee provide protection against AK-47 rounds but are readily penetrated by rocket-propelled grenades and can be demolished by a decent-sized, improvised explosive device. The advantage of the open-backed Humvee is that if fired on you can instantly just pop up and fire back, without the need for the vehicle to stop (dangerous in an ambush) and without clambering out and exposing your whole body instead of exposing just enough to peer out and fire.

As long as we're on the topic of armor for the umpteenth time over the past year, let's revisit Michael Yon. He's about to meet with Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Jeffrey Mellinger, the top enlisted person in Iraq.

As I approached, one soldier in particular took a step toward me in a way that spoke loudly and said, Alpha. In a synchronicity that still registers as bizarre to me, the soldier was Jeffrey Mellinger, the Command Sergeant Major for Coalition Forces in Iraq, the very man I most wanted to meet.

<...>

My passport was already opened to the page?I did not yet have an ID card?and I handed it over to him, saying I am an author and wanted to go to Tikrit. I asked if he was headed that way. "You aren't one of those journalists who will sit in a Baghdad hotel room and write about the war, are you?" It was as much accusation as question.

"Sergeant Major," I said, "I didn't come to Iraq to hang out in a hotel. I am trying to get to Tikrit."

"We're going to Mosul."

"Can I hitch a ride?"

The translation of his answer was "no," but it wasn't a complete shut out. He gave me his card, saying I should contact him if I wanted to get out and see what the soldiers are really facing out there. "I'll be in contact," I said, and I asked to take a photo and he okayed, then a soldier instructed me to wait while he covered the map.

<...>

Given that I came to Iraq to see what is really going on, the man I needed to meet was not a General, but CSM Mellinger.

Over the course of the intervening six months after our impromptu meeting in front of the mess hall, I sometimes contacted CSM Mellinger, asking if I could ride around Iraq with him. He is known to tool around Iraq much like Sam Walton tooled around in his pickup, only CSM Mellinger traverses the incredibly treacherous roads in a Humvee.

I contacted CSM Mellinger after successful Iraqi elections in January, figuring he might be in a good mood. The translation of his response was "no." Time went on, and I contacted him a few more times, always the same "no" embedded in his response.

Finally, while I was eating lukewarm food on the hood a Humvee in Mosul, all of a sudden . . . grace my eyes . . . I looked over my shoulder and saw CSM Mellinger again. I wasted little time making a personal request, and after LTC Kurilla, who was also standing there, vouched for me, I got a "maybe." More emails and more "maybes," until the day came . . . about five days ago . . . when CSM Mellinger had driven just near Mosul to Tal Afar?in his Humvee for chrissakes?to check out his soldiers who were fighting in the area. He happened to be passing through Mosul on the way back to Baghdad, so, finally, after six months of asking, he allowed me to tag along.

Sometime after getting that news, I learned that while I am the first "journalist" to travel with CSM Mellinger, I am not the first he invited. Two reporters to whom he extended similar invites around election time, both backed out when they realized they would be traveling in a Humvee.

As the number of non-traditional "reporters" in Iraq continues to grow the ability of mainstream reporters to tilt the news to fit their (or their owners) requirements without anyone noticing will continue to rise.

But "spin" is one thing - and outright misrepresentation of quotes from those on the ground is another - an altogether different and completely unforgivable lack of professional ethics. That's why when I read the quotes of US military people ion the WaPo piece above I was reminded of a blog entry by CPT Chuck Ziegenfuss, at the time a company commander in Iraq:

The ?journalist? from the Boston globe who quoted me only included 1/100th of what I said.

Here?s the part where I?m quoted:

Last week, in the charred army headquarters in Abarra, Captain Charles Ziegenfuss, who commands a First Infantry Division tank company attached to the brigade, sat smoking for an hour with a tribal sheik. He was trying to persuade him to oust another man from an elected regional council for suspected arms trafficking. Sheik Adnan al-Tamimi, a longtime US ally, was reluctant, and kept reminding Ziegenfuss that an Iraqi court declared the man innocent.

''He's got a valid point," Ziegenfuss said, leaving the meeting after Tamimi promised to think about it.

Here?s the rest of the story. The man I was trying to get sheik Adnan to oust was another Sheik named Amer. Amer is dirty. I had many intel reports that Amer had met with and associated with AIF, some of whom are on our most wanted list. Amer?s son was caught with a rocket on the Election Day. He vouched for his son (a big deal over here) and we released him to his father. The night we released his son, one of our High Value Targets (I can?t say who) went to a welcome home party at Amer?s house.

Based on these intel reports, I decided to raid Amer?s house. Over here, each household is allowed 1 AK per adult male. 30 rounds of ammunition, no more. As a member of my local governing council, he was afforded no special privileges. In his house, this is what I found. Not pictured, was the straw that broke the camel?s back, a fragmentation grenade. As culturally sensitive as I am, (cough) I thought it best to let Amer receive justice by the Iraqi courts. I had the IA soldiers detain him and take him to the police. Amer went away for about a month, and bought his way out of jail. Never saw a judge. He was never declared innocent by an Iraqi court.

When I was talking to Sheik Adnan, (and yes, smoking cigarettes, evil me) we were discussing how to remove him from the city council. I wasn?t trying to get him to start an ouster. I was giving him a civics lesson. I was discussing the finer points of impeachment, and votes of no confidence. I would later leave the decision up to the city council, telling them simply that a) the decision was theirs to make, after being presented with the evidence, and b) that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, while the friend of my enemy is my enemy. (What I was getting at was that if Amer stayed, I would leave? and take my checkbook with me.)

Sheikh Adnan is indeed a very powerful Sheikh, and a man I respect. We frequently meet before the city council meeting to discuss what we are going to bring up in the meeting. Nothing gets accomplished in the big meeting; it?s all about the back room deals here. The way he acts towards me in the big meeting is different than the small meeting. In the city council meeting, he is polite and respectful, but distant. In the one-on-one, we are friends. The reporter sat in on the one-on-one, what she didn?t understand (and never bothered to ask) was the context of our discussion. Sheikh Adnan was the first person to warn me about other members of the council, reminding me that not everyone who wears a headdress was a sheikh.

Adnan?s point was that Amer was released by the system, and everyone would think that he beat the rap, so why remove him from the council? I explained to him that Amer?s activities (not the best kept secret in the world) and his associates sent the wrong message to the people, and city council should not support someone with known terrorist ties. Adnan fully agreed.

More Follow up (something MSM fails to do as well)

Adnan, in another closed door meeting, procured the resignation of Sheik Amer from the city council. A day later, there were two separate IED attacks on the road near Amer?s house, in the town where he is the local Sheikh. I sent a patrol to Amer?s house, where we found Amer and his brother. We tested them both for explosive residue with an EXSPRAY kit. Wouldn?t you know, they both came up scorching hot for explosives group B.

The good Sheikh and his brother now currently reside in Abu Gharib. And there hasn?t been an IED on that road since. I was trying to force the hand of the city council. Of course I was. They have to be shown the way to the light, there ha never been a government like this here before, ever. I had to show them what an upstanding group of councilmen should do. I could have very easily arrested Amer at the city council meeting, or just told the city council that he was fired. I have that authority. I could, but I chose not to. I let them determine their way, and they very well could have voted against me. I would have left (taking the $ with me) and they would have had to come grovel to me, and I would have returned, having made my point.

But the local government chose the right thing to do. I figure it was a success all around.

Her finely honed commitment to honor, duty and patriotism is being matched against her equally strong instincts of motherhood and family. At the same time, she has deep feelings of disillusionment with the Army, to which she owes so much allegiance and gratitude, for changing the rules.

<...>

Whitney and tens of thousands of reservists around the country were finding out that the Army had instituted a stop-loss provision. The Army was freezing reservists in place, allowing no resignations and no voluntary transfers to inactive status.

Her initial anger was soon crowded out by worry. How, she frets, can she leave Matthew? If she were sent overseas, "Mom would have to take over with Matthew full time since Joe works 16-hour days. He isn't available."

<...>

As Whitney talks about the impact on her family, a trace of anger returns to her voice.

"This isn't just my life that is being disrupted; it is the whole family," she says. "Everyone in the family is upset and worried."

<...>

"Call-up could come at any time," she said. "It could be as short as 72 hours' notice, although the rotations lately have had more notice than that."

If the call comes, she'll be gone for a year. Right now, that's half of her son's life.

"I'm just worried that when I leave Matthew will feel abandoned because his mom just disappeared. I worry that my absence will affect our bonding," Whitney says.

My name is Kathleen Whitney and I am an emergency room nurse and a 1st Lieutenant in the Army reserve. A few weeks ago I was featured in a story on CNN.com. Let me start out by saying that the author of that article was my aunt, and I don't believe she would ever intentionally misrepresent me. However by the time the story got through the editors there was a definite liberal slant to it.

It is true that my plan when I became an officer was to remain in an army reserve unit until I became pregnant and then transfer to the IRR - (Inactive ready reserve) until my children were old enough to understand if I had to be deployed. So when I got the letter calling me out of the IRR it was quite a shock and I was a little angry. However what the article does not go on to say is that after much worrying and soul searching I came to this conclusion. It's a war. It wasn't meant to be easy on anyone. Many, countless people have already sacrificed more than I have even begun to. So right now my family and I just focus on ways to make things easier on my little boy, Matthew, if I do have to deploy somewhere. I feel no animosity towards the military or President Bush for recalling me and others out of the IRR. The needs of the country have to come first. And part of being a good parent, I think, means helping to make the world a better place for our children. I remember Sept. 11. I hope Matthew never lives to see another day like that - where Americans are attacked on our own soil.

One other thing that they neglected to mention in the article which I talked about in my interview was the guilt I already feel for not having been deployed. When I was eight months pregnant my unit deployed to Baghdad, Iraq. Of course there was no way I could have gone with them at eight months pregnant. So I kept in touch with them as best I could via e-mail and care packages. It never slipped my mind that while I was sitting in my air conditioned house rocking my new baby, my unit- the people I trained with, some of my best friends- were baking in the hot desert, enduring untold hardships. It is hard to describe the feeling I had then, and still have now. If I don't deploy I am abandoning my country and my unit. If I do deploy I am abandoning my family. I am truly torn. In the end if I am called to go, I will go and be happy to serve. But I can not volunteer. Because me volunteering would also mean volunteering my mother to take care of my child full time. It would also mean volunteering my child to do without one of his parents for a year a more.

I hope that this rebuttal or addendum to the CNN article will clear up any questions of my loyalty that may have been brought up. Only time can tell what will happen from here.

Speaking of the Boston Globe, here's their latest soldier quote:

The top US military commander in the Middle East warned yesterday that troops are questioning whether the American public supports the Iraq war and implored political leaders to engage in a frank discussion about how to keep the country behind a mission that the armed forces believe is ''a war worth fighting."

Army General John Abizaid said that without that support, the military's ability to prevail against Iraqi insurgents and Islamic extremists will be at serious risk.

''When I look back here, at what I see is happening in Washington, within the Beltway, I've never seen the lack of [public] confidence greater," Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he testified along with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Air Force General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army General George Casey, the commander of coalition troops in Iraq. The group also appeared before the House Armed Services Committee.

''I can tell you that when my soldiers ask me the question whether or not they've got support from the American people . . . that worries me," Abizaid told senators. ''And they're starting to do that. And when the people that we're training, Iraqis and Afghans, start asking me whether or not we have the staying power to stick with them, that worries me, too."

He warned lawmakers that ''American soldiers can't win the war without your support, and without the support of our people."

Senator Kennedy, from the same story:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, ticked off a litany of what he called the administration's ''gross errors and mistakes" and accused the Pentagon chief of leading the United States into a ''quagmire."

<...>

''This war has been consistently and grossly mismanaged," Kennedy said, repeating his calls for Rumsfeld's resignation. ''And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire."

''Well, that is quite a statement," Rumsfeld responded. ''There isn't a person at this table who agrees with you that we're in a quagmire and that there's no end in sight."

He also said that President Bush had rejected his resignation offers and ''that's his call."

Later in the hearing, however, the Senate's most senior member, Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, scolded Rumsfeld, telling him ''to get off his high horse" and stop lecturing the Congress.

<...>

After the hearing, Kennedy took to the Senate floor to press his point. ''It is time for Rumsfeld to take off his rose-colored glasses," Kennedy said. ''It is time to level with the American people instead of painting a rosy picture."

Citing some of Rumsfeld's assessments, Kennedy asked: ''What planet is he on? Perhaps he is still in the mission-accomplished world," a reference to the banner behind Bush in May 2003, when the president declared major combat operations had ended.

The Senator can be forgiven if, like so many American's, he only knows of Iraq what he reads on the papers or sees on TV. But he's also in a shrinking minority:

A large portion of the American people seem to have taken the adage "Don't believe everything you read" to heart. A recent Penn survey reported that only 45 percent of the general public believes everything printed in newspapers and reported by TV news.

The study -- conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center -- found a large gap between the mindset of journalists and that of the public at large.

<...>

However, the most glaring differences between journalists and the general public were seen in their trust of the facts themselves.

Although 48 percent of the laymen surveyed believed that news organizations were often inaccurate, only 11 percent of journalists believed the same.

I usually assign the blame for any failures in a news report to the author of said report - but I acknowledge that the editor could be the true culprit. (See Kathleen Whitney's story above.)

Linda Foley says that's the wrong thing to do:

I emphasized that media reformers should not attack individual journalists and instead should focus on how a concentrated corporate media system is corrupting journalism. I always make this point with media reformers and independent media journalists because, in my experience, calls for media reform sometimes degenerate into deriding individual journalists.

Like most Americans at this point you might be wondering "Who is Linda Foley?"

She's the president of the Newspaper Guild, a group described thusly on their home page:

Founded as a print journalists' union, the Guild today is primarily a media union whose members are diverse in their occupations, but who share the view that the best working conditions are achieved by people who have a say in their workplace.

<...>

We are on-line writers and designers, reporters, editorial assistants, photographers, editors, paginators, editorial artists, correspondents, typographers, advertising sales people, marketing, information systems specialists, commercial artists, technicians, accountants, business, customer service reps, drivers, maintenance, mail room, pressroom, telephone operators, circulation and distribution staff.

President Foley is now better known for her recent claim that US Troops are targeting and killing journalists in Iraq. You can see video of that speech here.

And you can read President Foley's comments on that video here:

I gave one interview, to Editor & Publisher, figuring it was a credible publication that reached most Guild members in one way or another. But my cold shoulder didn?t stop the right-wing media machine from blowing its whistle and barreling down the tracks anyway. They had a video webcast clip of my remarks, and they could air them!

Foley, in spite of (or because of) her remarks, was re-elected to her post this week. Ironically she closes her "in your face, right wing nutjobs" post with this:

That?s why I hope Americans who actually care about democratic discourse and public debate will support independent, fact-based journalism and professional journalists who strive to practice it. Please refrain from attacking reporters who are trying to get to the truth. Focus instead on re-creating a media climate where a future Woodward & Bernstein can investigate abuse and speak truth to power without fear of government retribution or an orchestrated deluge of hate mail calling for their demise.

Academic, Watson

Sherlock Holmes CDR Salamander has some interesting background on the Yale "Divinity School" "investigation" into "religious intolerance" at the AF Academy.

Dawn Evening Patrol

Iraq

Walking the Line II - Critical Nodes [Michael Yon]
...CSM Mellinger was near Syria in Tal Afar, checking Coalition and Iraqi troops that have been battling with insurgents. On his return, Mellinger flew by helicopter from Tal Afar to Mosul to start the drive back to Baghdad. It was on this leg of the journey that I would finally be allowed to join his patrol.
We met in Mosul as the sun was rising over the Tigris, but there was no time to admire the peaceful view; once I joined up, we rolled out the gates and drove about half a day from Mosul to Camp Victory in Baghdad.

Lightning, Thunder then Rain... [Iraq the Model]
Okay, I think that "Lightning" updates have become a regular item on this blog, so here's today's-rather short-briefing of what's been happening as to this operation and other activities of security forces in Iraq in the last 24 hours:

Don't play with the contraband [Phil abd Becky]
Whenever our soldiers confiscate contraband, they must inventory it and turn it in to the S2 shop for either storage or further exploitation. Some items get sent up to Brigade if we deem them to have intelligence value while other things get stored and either destroyed, returned or given to the Iraqi Army or Iraqi Police.

Building or rebuilding? [Lance in Iraq]
Strategypage makes a point I mention frequently (see here and here): there was very little damage done to Iraq's infrastructure in this war because Saddam didn't care to build infrastructure. So when you see someone trying to score political points by referring to the "restoration" of basic services as "slow moving" you know s/he doesn't have much of a grasp of what is going on over here:...

The War Against Freedom [Hurl's Blog - in Iraq]
What do the following quotes have in common:

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed. ... There is clearly a threat from Iraq, and there is clearly a danger... We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction. ... In public hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, CIA Director George Tenet described Iraq as a threat but not as a proliferator, saying that Saddam Hussein 'is determined to thwart U.N. sanctions, press ahead with weapons of mass destruction, and resurrect the military force he had before the Gulf War.' That is unacceptable...

3rd Recon gets back in fight [Live in Iraq]
After more than 30 years without deploying as a battalion, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, from Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Japan, landed in Iraq mid-March to conduct combat operations in Al Anbar province.
Although elements of 3rd Recon have deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the past few years, the last time the battalion colors flew in a combat zone was during the Vietnam War.

21 CARE PACKAGES...LOL [Dixie Sappers]
I was taking a little break today when someone from the S-1 shop came into my room and said that I needed to come outside to see something. I asked what and they told me just to come outside. I followed them to where we sort out the mail and they said here you go. At first I didn't know what they were talking about, but then I realized they were pointing at a huge stack of boxes sitting all by themselves. There were 21 care packages. There were care packages from Utah, Virgina, Texas, Florida, California, Michigan, Texas, Tennessee and Mississippi. It took me about 5 trips to get them all in my room.

Arab Media Angered by Iraqi Insurgent Violence [Outside The Beltway]
Iraq violence shifting Arab media (BBC) The latest bombings and bloodshed in Baghdad have meant that violence in Iraq has once again been dominating the bulletins on Arab satellite television stations. The fact that Iraqi civilians are the mad...

Welcome home Brian [DogHostage - back from Iraq]
Here are some photos from this past week:

Afghanistan

"It's not a REAL war..." [A Storm In Afghanistan]
I heard and read that (or variations on a theme) quite a bit before I left. Seems since Afghanistan was going so well, and Iraq not so much, that people figured all was done here. We had a large coalition (that hasn't cut and run), the Afghan government (such as it is) looks stable, etc... "It's not a REAL war...."

Military Issues

Family Forgives Driver [GI Korea]
Mark tipped me off to this article in the Stars and Stripes. The article explains that the family of the woman killed in the traffic accident with a US Army LMTV two weeks ago outside of Camp Casey, has depised the protestors trying to cash in on them woman's death:

Her death has generated a wave of interest from local media and protesters, who have besieged the family. Yang-sup?s wife stressed that the family wants no part of the protests.

Military Life

Back at Sea [Yankee Sailor]
We're back at sea aboard the flagship of the "Lost ARG." I know, the Navy doesn't call our groups "ARGs" any more, we're "ESG's" now, but I've been here long enough that we were an ARG when I got here. (I'll explain why we're called the "Lost ARG" another time.) Anyway, my point is that life is busy and unpredictable again, so the Read Board and other posts will come whenever I get to them each day, whether it's during the work day or at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.

A day in the life aboard an aircraft carrier at sea. [Neptunus Lex]
0330 ? the alarm goes off in a coffin rack in the Ops berthing. A hand gropes in the darkness behind the rack curtains to silence the alarm. The curtains serve as a demarcation line ? they mark this space as the owners. This space is his only privacy, the only thing that is truly his own in a berthing area shared with 100 other men, themselves stacked in bunk bed three high, arrayed in cells that fade into the greater darkness.

The Media

This article by the Guardian is another striking evidence to the bias of the media whenever it comes to Iraq. (Hat tip: Kerry).

"What's new?" One would think. Well, the new thing and really disgusting thing is that the paper didn?t only ignore a piece of good news or exaggerated a piece of bad news like we get to see, hear or read almost every day in the last two years; instead, a frank victory for Iraqi police was somehow changed into a victory for the "insurgents"!!

More disgusting bias from the media. [Iraq the Model]
I read the piece twice and tried to see the any sign that indicates such a victory for the insurgents but I failed in both trials.
The editor carried almost accurate news about the incident in question, yet the commentary and conclusions were a piece of mere ridicule.
It is true that the terrorists were able to arrange a relatively large assault but it was far from being well organized or well done let alone a victory, and here is why:...

I Don't Give A Damn! [Soldier's Mom]
Over the last few days the media has inundated me with stories about how opinion of the United States in the rest of the world is plummeting. I have listened to a United States Senator tell me how bad he thought our treatment of detained terrorists is at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I read crap all over and hear just what despicable people we Americans are?

The MSM Reports

Another Year Of Living Misery In Baghdad (Washington Post)
In the streets of Baghdad, people wondered Thursday what else could possibly go wrong.

The War President (New York Times)
...Once the media catch up with the public, we'll be able to start talking seriously about how to get out of Iraq.

The Other Guy's Sacrifice (Washington Post)
...This war was conceived by sunshine patriots and directed by them -- and fought for reasons that some in the administration knew were exaggerations or, in some cases (Dick Cheney's nuclear scare-mongering), sheer fabrications. It has become the sorriest of wars, conceived for one reason, fought for another, good enough for others to fight, not good enough for ourselves and, maybe, an awful quagmire in the making. It's time the sunshine patriots looked outside. It's raining.

Gitmo

Gitmo versus Iraq [Chrenkoff]
Instapundit: "Interestingly, only 20% of Americans think that the Guantanamo prisoners are being treated unfairly, which is pretty astonishing given the colossal amount of uniformly negative Guantanamo-related coverage. This suggests that overplaying their hand has been as big a mistake as I thought."

As these things do, it got me thinking.

Torture at Guantanamo [Balloon Juice]
I have been very careful to try not to label the allegations we have heard coming out of Guantanamo Bay as torture, or even abuse, because I don't know where the lines are drawn. Sure, I have a gut sense of what is abuse and what is torture, and I know what is indefensible, but I don't want to run around haphazardly calling our boys (whether they be military, civilian contractors, CIA, etc.) torturers.

Apparently, our government has made a distinction:...

Debunking Another Gitmo Myth (Washington Times)...Michelle Malkin
...Treating foreign terrorists like American shoplifters -- with full access to civilian lawyers, classified intelligence, and all the attendant rights of a normal jury trial -- is a surefire recipe for another September 11. That is why the Bush administration fought so hard to erect an alternative tribunal system -- long established in wartime -- in the first place.

Politics

Let ?em burn it so we know who the Asshats are [CDR Salamander]
I know I am going to loose some of you here, but freedom isn?t free.
The flag burning amendment passed by the House yesterday is just stupid. IMAO we should always err on the side OF freedom, not AGAINST freedom. Just speaking for myself, my years of service are not insulted or wounded because some clueless,

Outrage! Gitcher fresh outrage! Hot off the press! [Kadnine]
Linda Foley issues non-apology apology. Lot of that going around lately...
Confronting right-wing hysteria
... the essence of my message is: Don?t kill the messenger. I should have said it that way in St. Louis. Instead, I decided to draw a parallel between the assault on journalists for their work and the assault on journalists covering Iraq. I used strong words and said it rather clumsily, but the St. Louis crowd got the point.

Trash The Fifth Amendment [GM Corner]
One of my first inklings of a story to come was this story on ABC News. In a nutshell:

The issue revolves around whether a government is serving a public purpose when it uses its power of eminent domain to take land. The Fifth Amendment prohibits taking private property for public use without just compensation. The New London case is not about the amount of compensation being offered, but whether the government can take the property at all.

Dang, people [Cadillac Tight]
So I take a day off to finish up a website project, and Karl Rove kicks off a firestorm in the 'sphere.
I saw that story last night, and I kind of figured that the usual suspects, along with the Democrats would go apeshit.
Look, people, what did you expect?

Karl Rove Insults Liberals [Blackfive]
Yeah, I know that's not a newsflash...that's like saying Howard Dean Insults Conservatives (not surprising either).
Peter Daou sends an email expressing outrage (you decide if it's manufactured and feigned)...

I Don't Get It [Free Will]
Sith Lord Karl Rove, once again proving his uncanny ability to manipulate the minds of Democrats, has sent them into a drunken rage:

911 Memorial

Step Right Up [Cox & Forkum]
Take Back The Memoria reports: NYC councilman backs family members' call for halt to IFC.

Blogging

On Air, The World Tonight [Bill Roggio]
I am scheduled to be on the radio tonight at 9:05 Eastern with Rob Breakenridge, the host of The World Tonight. We will discuss battle against the terrorists - the progress being made, the upsurge in bombings, "red on red" attacks, and the debate over when and how to bring the troops home. The program is broadcast on AM CHQR770 in Calgary. You can listen to the program over the internet by going to...

By Any Other Name

You might recall this post from The New Editor linked yesterday. Tom Elia had found a rather disappointing reference in the Washington Post:

"One year ago: Islamic militants beheaded Kim Sun-il, a South Korean hostage who'd pleaded for his life in a heart-wrenching videotape; he was the third foreign hostage decapitated in the Middle East in little over a month."

Come on. Those who would viciously chop off another's head and tape it for all the world to see are not "militants" ... they are terrorists.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Suspected Islamic separatists beheaded a man at a teashop Wednesday and then left his head in a sack on the side of the road, the latest in a series of bold attacks across southern Thailand defying government attempts to restore peace.

(Also see this)

Open Post

Pieces of Silver

Today's news from Iraq reflects the ongoing trend - terrorists in Iraq are increasingly targeting the civilian population:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Four car bombs exploded at dusk Wednesday, killing at least 23 people, including sidewalk diners and passengers at a bus station.

Just after dawn today, two car bombs killed at least 15 people and injured 28, police said. The twin explosions took place nearly simultaneously in a predominantly Shiite area that's a popular shopping district, police Lt. Col. Salman Abdul Karim and officer Ahmed Hatam Al-Sharie said.

At least 47 people were killed across Iraq, including a prominent Sunni law professor assassinated by gunmen.

Jassim al-Issawi, shot dead with his son, was a former judge who put his name forward at one point to join the committee drafting Iraq's Constitution. The assassination appeared aimed at intimidating Sunni Arabs willing to join Iraq's efforts to create a stable political system.

Meanwhile, US News reports on who's financing the terrorists in Iraq

Turns out that far-left groups in western Europe are carrying on a campaign dubbed Ten Euros for the Resistance, offering aid and comfort to the car bombers, kidnappers, and snipers trying to destabilize the fledgling Iraq government. In the words of one Italian website, Iraq Libero (Free Iraq), the funds are meant for those fighting the occupanti imperialisti. The groups are an odd collection, made up largely of Marxists and Maoists, sprinkled with an array of Arab emigres and aging, old-school fascists, according to Lorenzo Vidino, an analyst on European terrorism based at The Investigative Project in Washington, D.C. "It's the old anticapitalist, anti-U.S., anti-Israel crowd," says Vidino, who has been to their gatherings, where he saw activists from Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Italy. "The glue that binds them together is anti-Americanism." The groups are working on an October conference to further support "the Iraqi Resistance." A key goal is to expand backing for the insurgents from the fringe left to the broader antiwar and antiglobalization movements.

Air Force Report Generates Widespread Confusion

The Air Force has released the results of an investigation into allegations of religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy. Here's the headline over the AP story: Panel: Air Force Academy Fails on Faith.

Even though the news coverage has certainly eliminated the need for anyone to actually read the panel's report, right-wing dominated Fox News has the nerve to include the actual document (pdf) with their story.

And here's an interesting quote from said document:

The Academy is aggressively engaged in dealing with an issue that has been the subject of rigorous debate for throughout the Nation?s history. The Superintendent responded to some well-publicized events early in his tenure and, upon finding evidence of some concern about religious bias in anonymous surveys he conducted, began a much broader effort to incorporate the importance of religious respect in the Academy?s character development program. This continuing effort to nurture a climate of respect for the diversity of beliefs at the Academy has received the support of the USAFA community, including many who have expressed concern. The team found that the events that have been reported in the media framed the discussions and were cited repeatedly by individuals expressing concern about the religious climate. The team also researched the background behind the widely reported ?55 complaints,? in reality a collection of observations and events reported by about thirteen people, and purported to have taken place over a four-year period. Throughout the assessment, the methodology used by the Review Group, using both individual interviews and focus groups, did not yield empirical data regarding specific events, but facilitated important discussions that aided the team in assessing the overall climate.

See if you can match the headlines below with the web sites that carried them over their stories on this report. The answers are: The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Denver Post, and CNN.

Here are the headlines. Click for answers:

Air Force says no widespread religious bias at academy

Air Force Academy inquiry finds religious insensitivity

Air Force Academy Staff Found Promoting Religion

Air Force Academy faulted over religion

Probe absolves general at AFA

How did you score?

Meanwhile, there's not much new to report on this story:

OKLAHOMA CITY (BP)--After six years in court, a former Navy chaplain with Southern Baptist ties hopes to soon obtain a favorable ruling that will allow his lawsuit against the military to move closer to trial.

Ron Wilkins, who alleges the Navy forced him to retire in 1995 because of his evangelical beliefs, said his aim is to provide more opportunities for young sailors to obtain Bible teaching.

?We?re not talking about technicalities,? said Wilkins, a former Southern Baptist pastor who, in 1977, was endorsed by the Bible Churches to become a Navy chaplain.

?We?re talking about 25 years that the Navy has established Roman Catholic as the favored religion and ecumenical religion as the next favored,? Wilkins said. ?The Navy has no defense for what they?re doing.?

Every Day Hero

Sgt. Ray M. Ranger - U.S. Marine Corps

A year ago, Ray M. Ranger was serving as a deputy sheriff in Platte County, Mo., when, after watching the war unfold on TV, he decided to go back to being a Marine infantryman.
?I saw my Marine brothers over here in Iraq,? said Ranger, now a sergeant who?s currently a squad leader for 2nd Squad, 4th Platoon, Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, during a recent mission in the city here. ?I wanted to join them in the fight and do my part.?

Exemplifying true patriotism, the 28-year-old from Grosse Ile, Mich., put his law enforcement career, which spans two years, on hold and reenlisted in the Corps in 2004 for a second tour of duty.

Ranger previously served as a rifleman in the Marines from 1995-1999 and left with an honorable discharge.

Replacing his sidearm and badge with an M-16 and the Eagle, Globe and Anchor was an easy choice for Ranger to make.

?I saw my Marine brothers over here in Iraq. I wanted to join them in the fight and do my part,? U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Ray M. Ranger.

?It was something I had to do,? said the 1995 Grosse Ile High School graduate. ?I felt compelled to serve my country and help my fellow Marines. I like the camaraderie, too.?

Shortly after his reenlistment, he received orders to 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. He deployed to Iraq with the infantry battalion early last March to support Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Ranger knows well the duties of a Marine squad leader in a combat environment.

?I maintain accountability of my Marines and ensure they?re properly trained and equipped,? he explained. ?Physical and mental preparedness is important out here.?

Ranger and his fellow 4th Platoon warriors aren?t strangers to hard work. They conduct operation such as combat foot and vehicle-mounted patrols for hours on end in temperatures of more than 100 degrees in the insurgent infested city for four consecutive days. Then, they man an observation post in the city for four more days.

?The hours are different from those of a police officer,? he said. ?Where I was doing eight hours in the states, we?re always on the go here. Sometimes for 24 hours. We accomplish our missions by giving 110 percent all of the time.?

Ranger has two years left on his contract, and he plans on returning to the sheriff's department when it?s up.

?I?d like to do a full 20 in the Marines, but I have to get out after this enlistment due to personal reasons,? he explained. ?Law enforcement is another passion of mine. It?s something I?ll definitely be going back to.?

Fighting crime and helping civilians back home appeals to Ranger.

?I love putting bad guys in jail and helping people in the community,? said Ranger, who has a two-year-old son named Brendan.

For the time being, Ranger?s squad car is an up-armored humvee, and the bad guys he and his comrades stop are insurgents.

The fact that he?ll be 30 when he puts the badge back on doesn?t bother Ranger.

?The nice thing about law enforcement is that age doesn?t matter,? he said. ?As long as you can take care of yourself, your partner and accomplish the mission.?

Update

Chuck's wife has posted an update on his condition.

MILBLOGGER, TC Overide, DOWN!

This will stay on top today

Chuck has been injured, but is stable
This is Carren writing to tell Chuck's faithful readers that he has been injured, but is in stable condition. I won't give details for fear of misinformation (and the fact that this can be accessed by millions of people).

In general... Chuck sustained shrapnel wounds to his legs and arms from an IED. He and an Iraqi civilian were the only ones injured. The Good Lord above was looking out for him in a BIG way! He is probably in Landstuhl (sp?), Germany by now and will be back in the states in the next week to 10 days (as far as I know right now). He still has his eyesite and has not sustained internal injuries that I know of. I have not talked to him yet... they have kept him sedated for his trip to Germany, as well as for pain management. He also has some injuries to his face, but I think it is just bruised/scratched up quite a bit.

On the homefront, we are all hangin in there. I have incredible support from family and friends and I feel very blessed. The fact that Chuck is still alive makes this bearable, all things considered. I hope to hear from him in the next 24-48 hours. I will keep you all posted as often as possible.

I ask your prayers for Chuck... strength, courage, quick recovery, his mental state, etc. For me, I just need strength to get through the unknown road ahead. The hardest part so far was telling our 5 year old son Creighton that his daddy was injured. He has a lot of questions, obviously, and I answer them the best way I know how. He is too smart to lie to, but definitely does not need all the details.

Just so everyone knows, Chuck did not lose his humor in all of this mess... I was told the first thing he asked when he was pulled from the canal (the blast blew him into a canal) was: "Be honest with me, guys. Do I still have my face and my 'package'?" That is sooooo Chuck. Always worried about his "manliness."

That's all I have for now. Please keep him and all of our deployed men and women in your prayers. I never thought my husband was immune to injury, but this was definitely a shock to the whole family.

Take care and God Bless,
Carren (a.k.a. The Mrs.)

This has always been one of my fears when I go thru the ring for my Dawn Patrol. My heart goes out to his family and my thoughts will stay with him continually until I see my favorite charming, make you laugh, make you cry, make you think, MilBlogger is back. Now please go wish him a speedy recovery.

Update: Chuck's wife has posted an update.

Open Post

AF Academy Update

The Washington Post reports a result that will satisfy few. It's an Armed Forces Network solution - country and rock music on the same radio station:

WASHINGTON -- The Air Force Academy failed to accommodate the diverse religious needs of cadets and staff, although there has been no overt discrimination, a military investigative panel concluded Wednesday.

The Air Force investigation, released by the Pentagon, required academy leaders to clarify their policies on appropriate and inappropriate religious expression. But it also credited them with moving to confront these issues.

WaPo headline? Academy Fails to Accommodate Religions

Another quote, from Air Force Lt. Gen. Roger Brady at a press conference:

"Yes, I think there were cases where people said some things perhaps from a lecturn (sic) that were overreaching, forgetting their position, that put cadets perhaps in an untenable position in terms of, 'Gee, am I going to pass Physics 101 if I don't agree with this guy?,'" he said.

(Hat tip - and Happy Birthday - to John Cole)

Previous Mudville entries:
From the Academy
God and Country
Chapel Doors Revisited
Locking the Chapel Doors
Are there Atheists in Cockpits?

What Bias?

This bias.

Update: An overlooked recent news story from Reuters last weekend:

Al-Qaida Griping About Al-Jazeera News Coverage

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Al-Qaida's wing in Iraq slammed al-Jazeera television on Sunday, saying the satellite channel often criticized by Washington was siding with the United States in its reporting on the violence in the Arab country.

An al-Jazeera spokesman rejected the criticism of its coverage, saying it was balanced.

"Where are you heading, Jazeera? Why this hostility toward the mujahedeen (holy warriors)?" the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said, according to a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

"All the American army statements are carried and accepted, but no one carries the mujahedeen's side."

It said al-Jazeera had reported U.S. statements that its forces had killed 50 insurgents in an operation under way in western Iraq but did not broadcast the group's statement that it had shot down eight U.S. helicopters.

"Where is the claimed balance?" the statement said.

The Other Side of the Story

Hugh Hewitt interviews a New Jersey National Guardsman recently returned from a one-year tour at Guantanamo.

News From Iraq (Part IV)

Part I - No News is Good News

Part II - The More Things Change

Part III - Waving the Flag

Part IV - The Red Zone

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, Steve Vincent describes the opening of the new meeting chambers of Basra Province's Mahjaless Mahafalla, the Governing Council:

So here it was, I thought, the august halls of democracy. And looking at the elected officials, the cameras, the suited flaks hovering at the margins of the room, it seemed to me this resembled any grassroots council you find might across the U.S., right down to the dreadful artwork decorating the chamber walls...

<...>

In truth, I don't know what to make of the Mahjaless Mahafalla. Yes, many of the 41 members are alarmingly inexperienced with democracy, in the pocket of the religious parties and possibly corrupt--but they are a legislation born from a (more or less) free election, the first in this city's history. "Think of where Germany and Japan were two years after World War II--Iraq today is further along the road to democracy," a Public Administration Adviser from the British Embassy crooned. And despite one's natural tendency to become cynical in dysfunctional Iraq, I think she's right.

Still mulling over the relationship between democracy, the Middle East and the liberation of Iraq, I returned to my hotel room and turned on the TV, planning to do some writing while accompanied by Arab music videos (I've develop an addiction for those damn things). Instead, I discovered that, by weird coincidence, Dubai-based Channel One was airing "Rudy: the Rudolph Giuliani Story." Work was impossible now. It wasn't the homesick-inducing views of New York that seized my attention; no, rather, it was the dateline of the movie's opening scene: September 10, 2001.

I don't remember what I did that day. I do remember what we did two days before, when, on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon we walked down to Battery Park and looked out at the Statue of Liberty. Afterward, we strolled north along the Hudson, and I recall gazing up at the World Trade Center, marveling at the way the buildings reflected the late summer sun with a magnificent silver gleam. I don't care what the critics say, the Twin Towers really are beautiful, I thought. A beautiful part of my city.

Ten minutes into the movie, the real-life footage began: the gaping hole in the north tower; fire erupting from the south; smoke streaming from the largest skyscraper fires in history; people on the upper floors waving white distress flags; the downward plunge of the south tower into its foundations; avalanche-like billows of white debris pouring down Vesey Street and over the spire of St. Paul's Church as the north collapsed...and for a moment, I was no longer in my hotel room, but back in New York, on the roof of our building, once again witnessing the horrible, the unimaginable, the obscene.

Upsetting, yes; but somewhat eerie, too, to watch these scenes replayed in Iraq.

As we pass down Jazar Street--Basra's main commercial thoroughfare--she points to a greenish building with a sign in English reading "BASRA CENTER." "Our new supermarket," she says.

Stop the car. Restaurant bills at the funduk are eroding my cash stash and I've been mulling over how to store some comestibles in my ghurfa (room), and this seemed a good opportunity to stock the cupboard and see what a Basran "supermarket" looks like. Turns out BC is a crowded, high-ceiling, very clean single room, about the size of the fruit and vegetable area of an American s-market, equipped with all the trappings of home: carts, hand baskets, aisles, freezers, cereals, soups, beans, soaps, shampoo, etc.--even a deli counter! There's no Point-of-Purchase musak, nushkur Allah, and most of the women shoppers are in hejab, with one or two veiled faces--but squint, and you could almost convince yourself you were standing in a pocket-sized Safeway, wondering what you did with the grocery list...

More excerpts from Steve Vincent's blog In the Red Zone:

The past few days have been interesting in Basra--and of course, in Iraq, "interesting" means general mayhem and bloodshed. Cases in point: over the weekend, unknown assailants--the assailants are always unknown, there are no uniforms or name tags here--assassinated five people in the streets. The victims, or so I hear, were ex-Baathists (there is no such thing as an "ex" Baathist to some, evidently), but, as Samir, the night clerk at the funduk put it, "We have courts and judges to decide matters like this. It is not up to people who chose to take life so cheaply."

The sharp ripping sound erupted somewhere close to the hotel. Automatic weapon fire, I thought, flashing back to Baghdad, where the same noise was--and still is--a constant part of city life. Perhaps it's just a wedding. But it was 9 a.m., and besides, everyone knows that the Hauwza--the religious establishment in Najaf--has outlawed the casualty-producing custom of celebrating nuptials by firing guns into the sky.

A few hours later, we got the news. On the street just behind the funduk, four masked men in a Toyota emptied their AKs into a parked car, killing a police colonel from Zubair, who had come to Basra for medical treatment. The assassins are unknown, as is their motive, although rumors have it the murder had something to do with "smuggling."

"Summer is coming," an Iraqi man grunted in the hotel lobby. "The Wahhabi have been quiet for awhile, but we are expecting their return with the hot weather."

The NY Times ($) offers their coverage of the same attack:

In other violence, insurgents gunned down Iraqi security officers in the major cities of Kirkuk and Basra, police officials said Friday...

In the Basra attack, which took place in the center of the city at 10:20 a.m., four men wearing black masks showered bullets into a car carrying the security officers, Col. Abdul-Karim al-Daraji and his brother Kosay. Both died, while a third brother in the car suffered minor injuries. Ammar Hussein, a medical assistant at the Educational Hospital of Basra, said that Colonel Daraji died immediately, while Kosay died later as a result of chest wounds.

Although the original AP story from which the Times culled their quote called them "gunmen":

Also Friday, gunmen killed the dean of the police academy in the southern city of Basra and an Iraqi soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded in the central city of Mashru.

In the Basra attack, which took place in the center of the city at 10:20 a.m., four men wearing black masks showered bullets into a car carrying the security officers, Col. Abdul-Karim Daraji and his brother Kosay.

But as the political haggling dragged on, insurgents once again showed how seemingly easy it is for them to strike and escape. In the Basra attack, which took place in the center of the city at 10:20 a.m., four men wearing black masks showered bullets into a car carrying the security officers, Col. Abdul-Karim al-Daraji and his brother Kosay. Both died; a third brother in the car survived.

Back at Press Think, lefty blogger Oliver Willis weighs in:

The media should be analyzing claims and researching them against the factual data. Plain and simple, but even this simple function is not done by the modern media, preferring instead to throw its hands in the air and make the claim that "it's all the same" and simply allow those with the loudest megaphone to set the terms of the debate. Right now, the right's megaphone is loudest which is why I've been trying to get my side to get equally loud....

They had best hurry and get over there as fast as they can, because someone's got to counter this sort of reporting from Fallujah:

As I traveled through the slowly repopulating city ? about half of the original 250,000 are believed to have returned ? I saw awesome scenes of destruction. But I also saw thriving markets, stores selling candy and ice cream, and scores of children delighted to see Americans. I did more waving than the beauty queen in the 4th of July parade and the kids squealed with delight when I took their picture ? or pretended to.

"We're mostly known for killing the bad guys" says Lt. Col. Harvey Williams, a reserve officer with the Marine 5th Civil Affairs Group. But killing alone can't defeat the insurgency. Win over the populace or lose the war.

Where our discussion of press bias began.

(Part V is here)

Open Post

Rhma Taha Ahmed

Remember this post from Mike Yon?

During one late-night sweep in Isla Zeral, Lt. Dan Kearney entered a house where a man asked for help with his five-year-old daughter. She is five years old and her name is Rhma Taha Ahmed and she is afraid of the soldiers, but the father asks the Americans to slow down and look at his daughter. Rhma hid her face while her dad showed her fingers and toes to Lt. Kearney. Her nails were receded and there was blood-blistering, her fingers and toes were tones of red and purple. SFC Joel Lundak called a medic who checked Rhma's vital signs and said she seemed to have a heart condition.

Her father produced papers from a doctor, medical records of a sort, and the interpreter said the documents reported that Rhma has an inoperable congenital heart defect. She will die slowly and painfully. Lt. Kearney calls for Captain Paul Carron, the B company commander, who looks at Rhma and decides to do something. As it happens, a journalist named Sandra Jontz was riding along with Deuce-Four on this mission, and Sandra decides to do something, too. She snaps pictures and takes notes.

Rhma Taha Ahmed might not have to have her hands and feet amputated after all. And she just might live to a ripe old age.

The 5-year-old Iraqi girl, who suffers from a congenital heart defect, tapped a soft spot earlier this year in some soldiers from 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment in Mosul.

After an article about the little girl appeared in Stars and Stripes in May, her plight touched off a hailstorm of e-mails across continents which, in less than a month, has prompted a doctor and hospital to perform the surgery and a nonprofit organization to pay all expenses.

The sole sticking point to getting her care in the United States is acquiring non-immigrant visas for the child and her parents, and military personnel are working through official channels to get those.

Once approved, the plan is to bring Rhma to Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, N.M., where Dr. Carl Lagerstrom has agreed to perform the surgery, said Pam English, a hospital employee, who is the mother of one of the 1-24 soldiers.

<...>

The nonprofit organization Healing the Children will pay necessary costs. It pairs children with medical professionals who donate services and link children to volunteers who provide room and board in the United States, according to their Web site, www.healingchildren.org.

Her original Stars and Stripes story is here.

Take Back the Memorial

Jeff Jarvis reports on the Take Back the Memorial event at the WTC site in New York City. Seems an attempt was made to stifle the gathering:

I went into the city to attend the event. As I got there, Debra and other organizers were strategizing about the Port Authority, which had tried to move the group off World Trade Center property under the argument that the PA does not allow PA systems on its land. In other words, it doesn't allow speech. Now that's a fine lesson for an International Freedom Center, isn't it. But the leaders decided that they would go ahead -- let them kick us off in front of the TV cameras, a few said -- and Debra brought out a small, portable speaker and microphone from her purse. She's amazing.

Tofel, for his part, insists that the controversy is all about nothing.

But when Cavuto asked, specifically, whether the museum would feature "atrocities Americans have committed," Tofel repeatedly refused a direct answer.

"Atrocities is such a loaded word," he stammered, the weasel.

Don't miss Jeff Jarvis' report - it's a must read.

And keep up with the latest at Take Back the Memorial.

Background on this topic from Mudville:

911... Never Forget...it's all America's fault

More Memorial

WTC Update

And special thanks to Tim Sumner, co-founder (with Debra Burlingame) of 911 Families for a Safe and Strong America for keeping us in the loop with the latest developments on this issue. Keep 'em coming Tim!

And for anyone who's reading this: tell a friend to visit the above links too.

Buh Bye

One of the frequent commenters here was banned - profanity and issuing threats. Certain things exceed the limits of free speech. If you notice anyone missing, that's why.

NEWS FROM IRAQ (Part III)

Part I - No News is Good News

Part II - The More Things Change

Part III - Waving the Flag

Is the mainstream media to blame for faulty perceptions of the war in Iraq? Or are they reporting simple facts, and letting readers decide for themselves?

An interesting discussion developed recently at Jay Rosen's Press Think Blog. Rosen's piece was a response to a post at NRO's new media blog, and the result was a discussion of the media's role in covering war. Both posts centered on this excerpt from Over There: From The Bronx to Baghdad, New York Times reporter Alan Feuer's book on covering the Iraq war.

His quarrel with Franken had begun the very moment Franken had expressed his horror that Fox News anchors wore American flag lapel pins on the air.

?How can you be a patriot and a journalist?? Franken had asked. ?They?re mutually exclusive occupations.? T.R., who considered himself both, had asked why Franken could not love his country, to which had come the answer, ?America is not my country. I?m a citizen of the world.?

?Like Danny Pearl?? T.R. had asked. ?You are American, Bob? it is a nonnegotiable fact.?

?My goodness,? Franken had said. ?I think your employers at the New York Times would be horrified, horrified! to hear you say a thing like that.?

Meanwhile, perhaps unaware of the debate, Michael Yon reports from Iraq:

Reporters who can't get behind the scenes at Disneyland without an entourage of Marketing and Communication handlers trailing their every move can have unfettered access to the battlefield here in Iraq. The few journalists who are here have an astonishing array of options for how they might cover combat operations. A reporter for a major magazine might "embed" with insurgents, and then with US forces, and then back again with insurgents, and so on, until they have enough points of view to add dimension to their perspective.

A journalist not wishing to embed with US forces is free to apply for an Iraqi visa, fly to Baghdad, and hire a car and an interpreter who can drive them around town. They can knock on doors and talk directly with people; visit hospitals, talk with doctors; stop by the side of the road and talk with shepherds; or even hang out in a village and help make the goat cheese. Iraqi people are generally polite and usually more than willing to offer opinions about what's happening in their neighborhood.

Of course, the major problem with eschewing a close military presence is the enemy's proclivity to kidnap and behead journalists whose reports portray insurgents in a negative or violent way. This puts ethical journalists in a tight spot where they have the freedom to roam but not to report the truth; whereas journalists who embed with US forces often report very negatively. I recall the stories of one magazine writer in Baquba who spent days looking for disgruntled soldiers?of course she found them?and wrote negatively. The same writer came to Mosul. The soldiers may not like people who do this, but they certainly will not behead them. Whether reporters elect to travel with the military or to go it alone, the fact is that any journalist who wants battlefield access will find it in Iraq.

Somewhere deep in a dumpster in DC are the shredded remnants of an optimistic military plan for Iraq that had three steps: topple the government, replace it, and go home.

Occasionally a journalist passes through for a short embed, but they don't really see much by "drive-by reporting" as this kind of ride-along is called. Since I am not a journalist, and prefer to spend long periods with units, I see things others miss, and sometimes it's impressive stuff. Some of the technology and various forms of intelligence that Deuce-Four uses defies the imagination. I hope that someday the Army clears me to tell the whole story.

Despite the high-tech flourish, most of the genuine intelligence actually comes from detainees who cough up their cellmates like cats choking on hairballs. Another source of reliable intelligence is the local population, who are ever more confident in the effectiveness and staying power of the new government, and increasingly angry with the depravity of the terrorists.

Day 17: Three Algerian homicidists arrive in Mosul. Two of them had flown from Tunis, Tunisia to Damascus, Syria. They kept the airplane ticket stubs, then made their way via the Jihadist equivalent of the underground railroad: walking through the Syrian countryside, hitching rides, taking buses, and staying at a series of safe houses which they are conscientious enough to document. They keep a diary. After about 30 days of adventure traveling, the three reach a safe house in Mosul. Meanwhile, perhaps in a large-scale display of collective guilt, the Syrian government protests loudly and too much at what they claim are false accusations from the US government that terrorists are using Syria as a conduit to Iraq.

Day 19: Moving on hot intelligence, Deuce-Four conducted nine simultaneous raids on May 19th. One insurgent in particular was believed to know the locations of others. If the Deuce-Four had gone in and just shot the man, he would be dead and useless, but instead LTC Kurilla asked him about the locations of two predominant terrorists. The insurgent answered, "For me to give the locations of these two men would be treason. However, in Iraq we have a saying: if death comes to greet you at your door, introduce him to your brother." The soldiers loaded the Strykers and headed to that location. A capture-cascade had begun.

Day 20: It was just after midnight when the man who had said, "For me to give the locations of these two men would be treason"?led Deuce-Four to the house?"However, if death comes to greet you at your door, introduce him to your brother," where, SMASH, the soldiers rushed in. At first the Algerians were silent, their eyes noticeably bloodshot. They appeared sedated, reflexes on a time delay, as if they had just used opium. The three "martyrs" had been traveling for about thirty days before sneaking into Mosul. Since their arrival 48 hours earlier, apparently they had been hanging around, doing drugs, killing time, you know, just waiting to explode.

<...>

The owner of the house was a known mortar cell leader. The best thing about insurgent cell leaders is their meticulous record-keeping. No slaves to posterity, rather, their detailed notes of terrorist activities and videotapes of their operations, serve as proof for payment. Many insurgents simply work for hire. The man's diary contained entries dated all the way back to the fall of Baghdad?including their successful attacks against Iraqis and Americans, and also those that failed, carefully noting the reasons for the failures. Comparing the entries with actual SIGACTs would later verify the accuracy of this record, and seal the fate of Mosul's answer to Capone's bookkeeper.

No one had the time that night to scour the diary in Arabic, but had they read the entry for May 17th they would never have lowered their guns. For there it was, plain as the ink on the page:

May 17th: Praise Allah, 3 Algerians have come to my house today. 2 are willing to do whatever it takes and be martyrs. 1 is in search of his brother.

The four men had been taken into separate rooms. My neighbors, John Welch and Erik Ramirez, each took Algerians into rooms, while LTC Kurilla had the third. Two other soldiers stayed with the Iraqi cell leader. LTC Kurilla had one Algerian jacked up against a wall and began questioning him?the man was strangely and completely sedate, clearly under the influence of drugs. When he began talking, both interpreters noticed his foreign accent immediately and they started shouting to the Americans, "These men are foreigners!"

As if hit with buckets of ice water, all four men snapped to life and began struggling against the soldiers. The three Algerians went rabid, and the one with Ramirez slipped out the flex-cuffs Ramirez had just put on. Too close for rifles, this was hand-to-hand combat.

Take a look back at the LA Times coverage of Operation LIGHTNING in Baghdad from part two of this series:

As Iraqi commanders have deployed about 40,000 troops for a security crackdown in Baghdad, violence elsewhere has raised concern that other trouble spots have been left more vulnerable to insurgent attacks.

Assaults in Mosul during the last five days have claimed the lives of 11 people and wounded another 11. In the latest attack in the northern city, insurgents fired mortar rounds at a police station Monday, killing at least one civilian.

Yon describes a full month of bloody skirmishes in the streets of Mosul, complete with body counts. Being embedded with the US Army, he is free to give all the unclassified details, and his words and pictures capture the reality of combat in Iraq the way that traditional media has utterly failed to.

And the reality of the peaceful majority of Iraq too:

Dohuk is a welcoming place. After walking or taking taxis inside and around the city for two days, I covered enough ground and talked with enough people to see that while the welcome is clear for American, British, and other visitors, troublemakers can expect an entirely different greeting. People in Dohuk say they have no intentions of going back, or of carrying useless boulders from the past as they move forward.

After being in a war zone for nearly half a year, a few days in Dohuk becomes a chance to reconnect with civilized society, bustling with a people in hurried pursuit of progress. Seeing a little girl tucked away in a corner of her family's stall in the marketplace, absorbed in a book she?s reading about the solar system, it's easy to peek over her shoulder and peer into her imagination, and see it take her into space as Iraq's first astronaut. In her young life, never having known the fiery cage of war, the possibilities are still limitless.

I had been hearing about the Yezidi people who live in villages near Dohuk. Followers of an ancient religion, whose proponents claim it is the oldest in the world, there are thought to be about a half million Yezidis, living mostly in the area of Mosul, with smaller bands in forgotten villages scattered across Northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and other lands. Saddam had labeled the Yezidis "Devil Worshippers," a claim I'd heard other Iraqis make, but no source offered substantiation. I wanted to know more.

Meanwhile, back at Press Think, Steve Lovelady, managing editor of Columbia Journalism Review Daily, comments:

I don't think this is real tricky.
Obviously, the job of the reporter is to report what he sees in front of his eyes, whether it redounds to America's credit or not.

Reporters (in Iraq or anywhere else) have one responsibility, as John Kifner, probably the best reporter at the New York Times, explained it long ago: "Go. See. Come back. Tell."

That's really about it.

(Part four is here.)

(More on Mike Yon here - including links to his must-read coverage of the Iraqi elections.)

Open Post

More to come from Mudville. But for now it's Open Post time!

Show Me The Money

William Kristol:

Senator Durbin is scheduled to join Democratic chairman Howard Dean at a big fundraiser at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, unapologetic in the face of recent criticism that he has been too tough on his political opposition, said in San Francisco this week that Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

Al Jazeera was one of the few news organizations to report Durbin's recent comments:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."

Patrick Ruffini got the memo from the DNC

With your support, we will send a message to the extreme Republican leadership that the Democratic Party will reach out to all Americans with our positive agenda for the future and we will stand and fight the propaganda and destructive policies of the Republican Party.

Take Back the Memorial

?TAKE BACK THE MEMORIAL? RALLY

Dear Families, Friends and Supporters:

For three long years we have played by the rules as set forth by Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. It got us nowhere.

We want a proper, fitting and respectful September 11th Memorial for the 3,000 innocent souls who perished that day. Not ?a history lesson about tolerance.?

The planners of the World Trade Center Memorial have been put on notice that we are going over their heads to make our case to the American people. Please join us for a press conference to kick off our national campaign to enlist the American people in a Fight for Ground Zero. Our loved ones deserve no less.

WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE & RALLY

WHEN: 12:00 Noon, Monday, June 20, 2005 (Please arrive at 11:45 am)

WHERE: Ground Zero at the Corner of Church & Liberty (rain or shine)

REMEMBRANCE: Please wear black or yellow to symbolize unity, or wear clothing that symbolizes your loved one?s affiliation and bring a picture of your lost loved one to hold over your heart.

ORGANIZERS:

Advocates for 9/11 Fallen Heroes

Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund

Coalition of 9/11 Families

Fix the Fund

September 11th Families Association

September?s Mission

Skyscraper Safety Campaign

Take Back the Memorial

Voices of September 11th

W. Doyle Support Group
WDoyle5615@aol.com

WTC Families for Proper Burial

WTC Family Center

World Trade Center United Family Group

PLEASE ATTEND! MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD!! HELP US TAKE BACK THE MEMORIAL!

Open Post

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Dear Dick

From Smash

THE FOLLOWING LETTER was sent from retired Navy Commander Paul Galanti to Senator Dick Durbin. Galanti is one of my father's Annapolis classmates, who spent seven years as a prisoner-of-war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

Senator Durbin,

As one who was held in a North Vietnamese Prison for nearly seven years and whose definition of torture and bad treatment is somewhat at variance with yours, I deplore your senseless comments about alleged "barbaric treatment" at our terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo.

Rest here. Durbin's comments are an insult not just to current military members, but also to all those who suffered at the hands of our enemies through the years. (And those in the future who may now suffer more.) As I commented at Smash's, it's too bad the Senate lacks men like Cdr Galanti.

Warrior to Warrior - Father's Day

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the Father's Day installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).

Try to have a happy Father's Day

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

A special Father's Day greeting to those of you who have children you haven't seen in far too long a time. Everybody back here should give a second thought and a third prayer to you above all others, for you are feeling the hardship more than any other of our men in uniform.

I think that aspect of your service is overlooked. Even by those among you who share in the work and danger but cannot possible experience the pangs of separation that come with leaving a child behind.

On this point, I have some experience. I went to Vietnam my first time as a married man, er kid, and missed my wife as much as I expected any man could. Until six months into my tour, when I came back from field duty to our base camp and received a telegram--no Internet back then--saying I was the father of a daughter. I remember taking that flimsy piece of paper with maybe 20 words on it back to my tent. I sat on that dusty bunk and stared at the telegram, reading those words again and again. By then, I'd been a father for almost a week, and I guess I was trying to remember what I was doing a week ago when I first became a dad. I tried to imagine my child from the description--again, no jpegs as attachments, let alone e-mail: "Lots of black hair. Lusty cry."

Eventually, I received a three-by-three Polaroid photograph of my little girl. I carried it in a shirt pocket and took it out a dozen times a day, to stare at the dime-size image of her head, trying to get a grasp of a circumstance far too grand for my mind to fully comprehend. Along with the photo, my wife sent a sheet of paper and taped to it, a snippet of dark downy hair and a tiny handprint and a footprint no bigger than the end of my thumb. My wife told me she had taped a picture of me to the inside of my daughter's crib in the hopes that somehow she would learn my face. It was a sweet thing to do, but I was doubtful. Although I kept getting photos, I wasn't doing so great on putting life into them from just staring at them. And, if the trick did work, there was always the chance that my high school graduation picture would damage the child irreparably.

In any event, my tour ended, as all tours do. I arrived home from the airport at night, and we raced to my in-laws to visit my daughter, now six months old.

On the way, my wife told me she was concerned. My little girl was of an age where she'd become wary of strangers. "She might not take to you right away," she said, "so don't let your feelings be hurt if she cries when you pick her up."

After months of looking my photo in her crib, she still might cry? All I could think was, "You DID put up my graduation picture, didn't you?"

Grandma woke up Lynette, half a year old, and my wife made the handoff. Could have been last night, I remember so clearly.

I took her in my hands and stared into her face, eyes so blue, hair so fine, trying to drink her in with my eyes, at last able to see what no photograph could do justice too.

And she. She stared up into my face, intent, curious, entirely at ease. I'd swear she did know me.

It was a magic moment. It was as if, after all these months, we both realized we were meeting the second greatest love of our lives.

You might think the experience of that absence was the worst a soldier could have. Not by a long shot. Three years later I went back to Vietnam. I had to leave behind two children and my pregnant wife a second time.

In the middle of that tour, I got to come home on leave, and my second child, a son, was only a year and a half old. After my visit I put on my uniform to go to the airport. My son took one look and, although he was not yet talking and hardly of an age to comprehend, he began to sob. He clung to me, and I clung to him until the family had to pry us apart. I'm told that for the rest of that day he would stop in the middle of play and cry again and again. It was not the cry of a hurt finger, but of a broken heart.

It was the saddest day of my life. And the reason nobody is praying more than me for you guys with children this Father's Day.

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

____________

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. These columns are excerpts from an upcoming book. His current book, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Hitlerfest

Rightwingnut John Stewart of the Daily show weighs in. Video here.

Open Post

Pravda

Paul Rieckhoff in the Huffington Post has advice for milbloggers:

In other words, you should probably keep it to pictures of you and the guys handing out candy, or you can reasonably expect to get your blogger-butt kicked by the folks over at AWRAC.

He's responding to the news that it's become official policy that you can't publish classified information on your blog, and stretching the truth a bit, to put it kindly. What seems to frighten so many people about milblogs is that we don't support their characterization of us as helpless victims - and that's certainly what he's trying to portray us as here.

Watch this tactic deployed frequently now. Where in the past many could ignore the milblogs the sheer numbers are making that harder to do. The bogus claim that milblogs are censored by some sinister cabal will be the response. We can safely be ignored now - only those who toe the line are allowed to blog, you see. We're good little soldiers covering up the fact that we're being slaughtered in Bushitler's oilwar for Cheney's Halliburton cronies in Iraq.

A more detailed response to this issue can be seen here.

Related:

Paul is an OIF vet and the founder of Operation Truth.

Previous Mudville posts on topic:
Just Another Stripe (Down the Toilet of Life)

Blogging by the Book

Free Speech From Those Who Help Make it Possible

In the Funny Pages

Via Hugh Hewitt, a cartoonist in the Indianapolis Star gets the nod for being the first mainstreamer to comment on Durbin.

Cox and Forkum are on it too.

And Chris Muir.

Saddamite

Mahammed Sharkawa, the Zarqawi/al Qaeda underling captured this past week, had recently ordered a car bomb attack on members of his own family.

Reminds me of someone, but I can't think of who...

Update: We expect the office of Senator Dick Durbin to demand an investigation to determine whether or not this man is being forced to listen to loud rap music. The people of Illinois deserve no less.

The Triumph of Mediocrity

Remarkable words, from a remarkable source:

"Today's Western society has revealed the inequality between the freedom for good deeds and the freedom for evil deeds. A statesman who wants to achieve something highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; thousands of hasty (and irresponsible) critics cling to him at all times; he is constantly rebuffed by parliament and the press. He has to prove his every step is well founded and absolutely flawless. Indeed, an outstanding, truly great person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind does not get any chance to assert himself; dozens of traps will be set for him from the beginning. Thus mediocrity triumphs under the guise of democratic restraints."
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

A word of caution to those who would toss accusations like "Nazi" and "Gulag" about with a certain degree of nonchalance: Those death camps were actually recent history, and the survivors are still with us today.

Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet "prisoner of conscience" adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the "gulag of our time."

"Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?" I asked him.

"Sure," he said, "but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees."

<...>

The cruelty and scale of the gulag system are described in numerous books, so there is no need to recount them here. By any standard, Guantanamo and similar American-run prisons elsewhere do not resemble, in their conditions of detention or their scale, the concentration camp system that was at the core of a totalitarian communist system.

For example, incidents of desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo by U.S. personnel have been widely reported. But those Korans were surely not brought to Guantanamo by the prisoners themselves from Afghanistan. They were supplied by the U.S. administration -- in spite of the obvious fact that most of the prisoners misguidedly found in the Koran the inspiration for their violent hatred of the United States.

By contrast, Russian author Andrei Sinyavsky, who was sentenced in 1966 to seven years' forced labor for his writing, was approached one evening soon after his arrival in a labor camp by a prisoner who quietly asked Sinyavsky whether he wanted to listen to a recital of the biblical account of the apocalypse. (Possession of a Bible was strictly prohibited in the gulag.) The man took Sinyavsky to the furnace room, where a group of people were squatting in the dark recesses. In the light of the furnace flame, one of the men got up and started to recite the biblical passages by heart. When he stopped, the stoker, an old man, said: "And now you, Fyodor, continue." Fyodor got up and recited from the next chapter. The whole text of the Bible was distributed among these prisoners, ordinary Russians who were spending 10 to 25 years in the gulag for their religious beliefs. They knew the texts by heart and met regularly to repeat them so that they would not forget. And this happened in 1967, when the gulag had become smaller and the Soviet regime milder than it had been under Stalin.

Update:

LGF : "Amnesty International is now actively seeking a Soviet Gulag survivor who will denounce the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and back up their assertion that Gitmo is ?the Gulag of our time.?

No luck so far.

Countercolumn: "Nice to see the kids put down by the adults."

Dean Esmay: "I ask again: if this is our rhetoric today, what will we say when real fascists, real communists, real torture artists, come along? Will we treat them as "equally bad?" "

Pejmanesque: "...so brazen as to be beyond belief"

Ranting Profs: "This is a man with tremendous credibility -- who is critical of the detentions -- so you should definitely read the entire piece."

Joe Gandelman: "...he is NOT letting the U.S. off the hook. He is demanding the U.S. be held to high standards.

And he's demanding the same of Amnesty International"

Juan Non-Volokh: "...there is no basis for the comparison -- a fact at least some Amnesty officials acknowledge off the record."

Daily Pundit: "AI knows it is lying, but chooses to do so anyway"

Glenn Reynolds: "...this is corruption"

Norman Geras: Having made the mistake of that comparison, Amnesty should simply have backed off from it with an apology, explained that, in view of the difference of scale and the moral import of that difference, the comparison was ill-judged - a mistake. Instead, over and again we are hearing what Litvinov reports here...

...Well, if anything matters, a difference of some millions of dead, to say nothing of their torments before and in dying, matters.

Gitmo Dick Update II

I wondered when this Illinois MilBlogger would respond.

He's got contact info for "Gitmo Dick" Durbin too.

Durbin offers this comment on his home page:

?More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country?s standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face.?

?I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration.?

?I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.?

Ironic that while the US hasn't executed anyone at Guantanamo or any of our other terrorist holding camps Durbin's comments (carried far and wide by Al Jazeera) were tantamount to a death warrant for some US Soldiers and Iraqis involved in combat with these swine.

Update: Post non-apology, will the same folks who insisted that Dick Durbin didn't call US soldiers Nazis now also insist that he apologized for it? We'll soon see...

Real Torture

How they treat criminals in Shreveport, LA:

An armed robber brandishing a revolver and some tough talk entered Blalock's Beauty College demanding money Tuesday afternoon.

He left crying, bleeding and under arrest, after Dianne Mitchell, her students and employees attacked the suspect, beating him into submission.

Mitchell tripped the robber as he tried to leave and cried aloud "get that sucker" as the group of about 20, nearly all women, some wielding curling irons, bludgeoned him until police arrived.

"You can tell the world don't mess with the women here," said the 53-year-old who manages the Shreveport beauty school in the 5400 block of Mansfield Road.

<...>

A little before noon the students and workers were cleaning up when the robber walked up quietly behind Mitchell and said, "This is a holdup," she recalled.

"I thought it was someone just playing, but then I saw that big old gun. He said 'get down big momma.'"

The robber, a tall, thin man wearing a handkerchief over his face and a skull cap, barked out orders to the other people in the school to get down on the floor, Mitchell said.

As the group complied, some of the women began to cry. The robber didn't react kindly, telling one of the women she would "be the first to go," Mitchell said.

After collecting any money the people had on them, the robber pushed one of the employees, Abram Bishop, into the back of the room.

"I thought 'Oh my God, he's going to shoot him,'" Mitchell said.

But instead the robber ran toward the front door to escape.

That's when Mitchell raised her leg.

It was enough to trip the robber, who dropped the gun and tumbled into a wall.

Bishop jumped on the man's back, driving him into the ground. Seizing the opportunity, Mitchell rallied her students.

"We moved some furniture after that," she yelped with joy as she retold the tale.

Arming themselves with curling irons, chairs, a wooden table leg and clenched fists, the women attacked.

Blood and urine splattered from the victim; stains adorned the white paints worn by many of the beauty school students.

Crying in pain, the robber tried to crawl away from the students, Mitchell said.

"I grabbed his legs and wouldn't let him go. I pulled him back. He wasn't going to get up out of here and tell everyone he robbed us. When he came in here, he knocked down a beehive and sent the bees flying all over."

Sharon Blalock, owner of the school, said she couldn't be prouder of her students and employees. "They just whooped the hell out of him."

Via Instapundit and RWN.

Life and Death in Iraq and Elsewhere

Phil Carter:

The Associated Press reports that the Army has preferred charges against SSG Alberto B. Martinez in the killings of two officers last week in Iraq. Initial statements from the Army reported that the two victims had been killed by a mortar round, however subsequent investigation revealed that to not be the case. According to this report, SSG Martinez now faces two counts of murder under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which can be a capital offense.

Also see this update from Major K to an earlier post. Maybe you can help catch another killer, who murdered a soldier home on leave from Iraq:

We will be having a memorial service here for Jorge tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it. I am looking forward to seeing this loser to the left on Court TV. Not that I can see that channel here, but, my wife might record it for me. Please click on the news article hyperlinked above, and e-mail it to everyone in Southern California that you know. We all hope this guy is in custody as soon as possible.

FREE SPEECH FROM THOSE WHO HELP MAKE IT POSSIBLE

To be fair it's not completely free speech, it does cost me a bit of money and time to keep this going.

But over at the Command TOC Kevin has other problems with MilBlogs:

I have mentioned this before but one thing that really bugs me is when a military blog positions itself as a place where you can get unbiased and "free" information.

<...>

They are censored, they are controlled and certainly the authors are not allowed to say whatever they want or whatever they see. In an exchange with Jack Army, we agreed that these blogs should have the following disclaimer at the top:

"This is a personal diary of my experiences in Iraq. The reader should understand that the writer is subject to censorship and restrictions on what can and cannot be reported."

Unfortunately, it appears that the Mudville Gazette has taken the complete different approach and is claiming "free speech" when, in fact, it is censored speech.

LT Smash highlights the new rules for MIL BLOGGING posted by the HQ in Iraq. Of course, LT Smash claims there is no censorship. Right, that is why it has to be "registered".

And note that the bloggers in Iraq aren't censored either - they are free to post without any prior review or approval - though they will be busted if they post any of the following:

Any information that is generally not available to the public and which would not be released under the Freedom of Information Act. Examples include but are not limited to:

Classified information.

Casualty information before next-of-kin has been formally notified by the Military Service concerned.

Information protected by the Privacy Act. (Note: This means personal information about other soldiers)

Information regarding incidents under ongoing investigation

For Official Use Only information

And a commander is required to review those sites once every three months.

Again, the registration requirement only applies to military bloggers in Iraq. Smash is under no such requirement, I'm not either. Nor is Phil Carter, who sent the document out to all of us and thought it was amazingly fair. Phil is no rahrah Bush/Iraq war guy - he's a lawyer and a former Army officer who has published a number of items (including in the NY Times) critical of many aspects of the war.

And he's a MilBlog Ring member too.

As far as the ring goes, membership is open to vets and retired folks too. And family members of military. There are also a few left-leaning active duty folks in the ring, if you aren't aware of them it's probably because their numbers are about the same percentage as the overall number of such folks in the military. But the MilBlogs Ring has another slogan too. It's "I may disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. We mean that literally."

There are many folks out there who fear the growing number of military members blogging from Iraq - whose existence generally refutes the tired old "support the troops - bring them home!" chant. But these are the guys whose lives are on the line, they have no reason to lie, and if this war is ever lost, you'll hear it from the milbloggers first.

First Female Thunderbird

From the Las Vegas review-Journal

A determined local woman who had dreamed of being a fighter pilot since she was a child made history Thursday when the U.S. Air Force announced that she would be the first female pilot to join the elite Thunderbirds demonstration squadron.

Capt. Nicole Malachowski, 30, a 1992 Western High School graduate, will join the unit at Nellis Air Force Base for training in November, Air Force officials said. She'll make her public debut in March.

Open Post

Note: If you want to link a post on Senator Dick Durbin, please link to the "Gitmo Dick" Update below. With a 21-link limit on displayed trackbacks often exceeded here let's leave this one for other topics.

There's more to come from Mudville, by the way. Including another installment of both News from Iraq and Building the Torture Narrative.

"Gitmo Dick" Durbin Update

Trey Jackson has the video.

Kudos to the Boston Herald, the first major media outlet in the US to respond to Dick Durbin:

`Nazi' comment disgraceful
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Friday, June 17, 2005

The second highest ranking Democrat in the Senate has compared American servicemen and women to Nazis on the floor of that body. Has political debate sunk so low that a comment that hideous can be made by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) without repercussions?

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) lost his leadership position for the lesser if still odious offense of praising Strom Thurmond's presidential campaign which had taken place decades earlier.

``If I read this ... and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others,'' Durbin said of Guantanamo ``abuses'' like ratcheting up the air conditioning in detainees' cells.

When Amnesty International makes such comparisons it irreversibly damages its credibility. When a U.S. senator does so, he damages the institution and the country he serves.

Durbin must go.

Two days after Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., likened the U.S. military's conduct at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the brutal practices of the Nazi death camps and Josef Stalin's gulags, the Pentagon spokesman yesterday said such comments "reflect a real ignorance" of conditions at the detention facility for terrorism suspects.

<...>

Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita did not refer to Durbin by name. "We invite more members to go down to Guantanamo and see what's going on because what's going on down there is not the way it's being described by certain members of Congress," he said.

DiRita said the military would facilitate legislators' visits to Guantanamo to improve their understanding of the detention facility. "Comments that are being made up on Capitol Hill about what's happening at Guantanamo reflect a real ignorance of what's really going on down there," DiRita said.

Durbin press aide Joe Shoemaker said the senator has never visited Guantanamo.

In his floor statement, Durbin quoted from an FBI agent's letter criticizing some of the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects at Guantanamo. Durbin added that those actions could have been done "by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime ? Pol Pot or others ? that had no concern for human beings."

Will Durbin get to Gitmo? Scott Ott thinks he should. (Update: Note that Scott's satire preceded the actual DoD invitation - not the first time he's anticipated reality. Scrappleface: tomorrow's news today!)

It's crowded down there though, and I don't mean in the cells. Here's another item that hasn't gotten much press attention.

Arguably, no detention facility in the history of warfare has been more transparent or received more scrutiny than Guantanamo. Last year the department declassified highly sensitive memorandum on interrogation techniques. Unfortunately, they were documents that are useful to terrorist operatives, and we posted them on the Internet specifically to set the record straight about U.S. policies and practices.

There have been nearly 400 separate media visits to Guantanamo Bay by more than 1,000 journalists. Additionally, some 180 congressional representatives have visited the facility.

We provide continuous access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose representatives meet privately with the detainees.

Allegations of abuse at Guantanamo, as at any other U.S. military facility, have been thoroughly investigated. Any wrongdoing is -- wrongdoers are being held accountable. The U.S. military has instituted numerous reforms of the conduct of detainee operations, with a renewed emphasis on standards and training.

Update: Via LGF, the Chicago Tribune is reporting on "conservative ire" over the comments from the voice of the people of Illinois

WASHINGTON -- With his unassuming Midwestern demeanor and genial bearing, Dick Durbin is no one's vision of a political street fighter.

Yet Illinois' senior senator--who is growing in stature as a national Democratic voice and a font of strategic and communications advice for a party eager to regain its footing--found himself on the receiving end of Republican outrage this week.

By Thursday, conservatives? anger at what they portrayed as a comparison between the U.S. and some of history?s most murderous regimes was boiling.

Update2 : via Michelle Malkin, the NY Times is covering the "Republican demands".

Leading Republicans demanded an apology from Senator Richard J. Durbin on Thursday, two days after he compared abusive treatment of prisoners at Guantᮡmo Bay to the war crimes of oppressive regimes like the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge.

Every Day Heroes

Woman Soldiers Receives Silver Star for Valor in Iraq
Excerpt:

For the first time since World War II, a woman soldier was awarded the Silver Star Medal today in Iraq.

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the 617th Military Police Company, a National Guard unit out of Richmond, Ky., received the Silver Star, along with two other members of her unit, Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein and Spc. Jason Mike, for their actions during an enemy ambush on their convoy. Other members of the unit also received awards.

Hester's squad was shadowing a supply convoy March 20 when anti-Iraqi fighters ambushed the convoy. The squad moved to the side of the road, flanking the insurgents and cutting off their escape route. Hester led her team through the "kill zone" and into a flanking position, where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 grenade-launcher rounds. She and Nein, her squad leader, then cleared two trenches, at which time she killed three insurgents with her rifle.

<...>

Nein, who is on his second deployment to Iraq, praised Hester and his other soldiers for their actions that day. "It's due to their dedication and their ability to stay there and back me up that we were able to do what we did that day," he said.

Here's an Interview with her on March 20

Setting the Record straight on another IRR soldier

We have a fairly new MilBlogger who has joined the MilBlogs Ring. I wanted to introduce him and make a clarification.

He is not this IRR soldier who likes trolling this site.

Unfortunately The IRR soldier that comments here is giving the rest of IRR soldiers a bad name.

Most IRR Soldiers are committed to their duty although some would like us to believe otherwise.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Here at Mudville we can have a civil debate without the childish antics of name calling. I've said this before, I don't allow it with my kids and there's no exception here. We're are adults here. Those that participate in these antics have been forwarned.

Setting the Record Straight

CNN recently ran a piece on an IRR Soldier who's been recalled to active duty.

Her finely honed commitment to honor, duty and patriotism is being matched against her equally strong instincts of motherhood and family. At the same time, she has deep feelings of disillusionment with the Army, to which she owes so much allegiance and gratitude, for changing the rules.

<...>

Whitney and tens of thousands of reservists around the country were finding out that the Army had instituted a stop-loss provision. The Army was freezing reservists in place, allowing no resignations and no voluntary transfers to inactive status.

Her initial anger was soon crowded out by worry. How, she frets, can she leave Matthew? If she were sent overseas, "Mom would have to take over with Matthew full time since Joe works 16-hour days. He isn't available."

<...>

As Whitney talks about the impact on her family, a trace of anger returns to her voice.

"This isn't just my life that is being disrupted; it is the whole family," she says. "Everyone in the family is upset and worried."

<...>

"Call-up could come at any time," she said. "It could be as short as 72 hours' notice, although the rotations lately have had more notice than that."

If the call comes, she'll be gone for a year. Right now, that's half of her son's life.

"I'm just worried that when I leave Matthew will feel abandoned because his mom just disappeared. I worry that my absence will affect our bonding," Whitney says.

My name is Kathleen Whitney and I am an emergency room nurse and a 1st Lieutenant in the Army reserve. A few weeks ago I was featured in a story on CNN.com. Let me start out by saying that the author of that article was my aunt, and I don't believe she would ever intentionally misrepresent me. However by the time the story got through the editors there was a definite liberal slant to it.

Almost 250 Milblogs in the ring now. Today might be a good day to tell a friend about Free speech from those who help make it possible.

Open Post

To each his own.

Disturbing the Peace

Thanks to Gryphmon we have an update on Fred Phelp's attempt to disrupt the funeral of a fallen soldier.

Retired submarine officer "Bubblehead" attended and got some photos of the Phelps crowd outside the event. You'll probably appreciate the actions of the police and fire departments, who likely did the best they could to prevent a family's grief being disrupted by a circus.

Other reactions to this event were strange, and very much revealing of character. In Mudville's first post on this topic a frequent commenter who claims to be "anti-torture" announced he's not opposed to torture of religious fanatics like Phelps.

Meanwhile a lefty blogger also attended the funeral, and when it turned out not to be the anti-war rally he anticipated he launched his own protest of the event on his blog, comparing the speakers at the funeral to the Phelps crowd outside. Then he deleted most of the post, leaving only the part where he accuses Bubblehead (above) of cowardice, perhaps for not inflicting some sort of physical torture on Phelps.

Another one Bites the Dust

Good news via LGF, another Zarqawi aid has been captured:

Mohammed Khalaf Shakar, also known as Abu Talha, is "Zarqawi's most trusted operations agent in all of Iraq," a military statement said Thursday.

"This is a major defeat for the Al-Qaeda's terrorist organisation in Iraq. Zarqawi's leader in Mosul is out of business," said US Air Force Brigadier General Donald Alston.

According to the military statement, he surrendered to US and Iraqi forces on Tuesday without a fight in "a quiet neighbourhood in Mosul" after they were led to his whereabouts by "multiple intelligence sources."

That bit about "they were led to his whereabouts by "multiple intelligence sources." Reminded me of a recent post from Mike Yon in Mosul:

Instead of leveling the enemy with outright combat like they did in November and December when they were openly fighting in the streets, Deuce-Four uses every intelligence apparatus available to aid in capturing the enemy, because the enemy, once captured, usually sells out the cell members who've squeezed themselves into cracks in the back alleys of Mosul. The change in operations is also because the enemy no longer presents the targets that they did in November and December when they massed and tried to fight Deuce-Four head to head.

Capturing the enemy creates a cascading effect through the insurgency. A dead enemy is just dead. Game over. But every singing captive leads to another and another and another, and Deuce-Four can hardly keep pace with the flow of information. As sobering as the casualty numbers are for May, the number of insurgents captured and in custody in that same month?133?are a strong indicator of the success that is mounting. The success comes with a high price: it's always more dangerous to capture an enemy than to kill him.

Another item of note from the capture story:

Alston, the new top military spokesman, told reporters in Baghdad: "Numerous reports indicated he wore a suicide vest 24 hours a day and stated he would never surrender. Instead Talha gave up without a fight."

Building The Torture Narrative

News from Al Jazeera:

During a speech on Tuesday, Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, quoted from an FBI agent's report describing detainees at the naval base in Cuba as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."

Durbin is not alone in his criticism.

Human-rights groups have long accused the administration of unjustly detaining suspects at the prison camp. Amnesty International last month called the detention centre the "gulag of our times".

To be fair it should be noted that as Senator from Illinois he's really speaking for all the people of that state when he declares that America=Nazi Germany=the Soviet Union=insert your favorite dictatorship here. One wonders why he stopped short of citing the reign of Saddam Hussein as well - but perhaps that's on next week's agenda. The correspondent from Al Jazeera will no doubt be in a real lather the next time the Speaker recognizes the gentleman from Illinois. But those who would denounce the duly elected voice of the people of Illinois would do well to remember that by doing so they are dismmissing the opinions of the citizens of an entire state - likewise those of an entire national political party.

Durbin can also be forgiven if, like many Americans, he only knows what he reads in the paper or sees on TV. Those are no longer sources where you're likely to find a serious discussion of many issues.

If you'd like to see a legitimate comparison of Guantanamo to Gulags take a few moments and read this.

If you want an unflinching look at the reality of abuse cases involving US prisons, take a moment and read this.

Those examples are from blogs, of course. The existence of the blogosphere is testament to the failure of legacy media sources to cover any serious issue of the day with anything approaching balance, or to present the public with anything as simple as factual information. Ye olde media even now are measuring the risk of reporting the Durbin story, and as of this writing a news search for Dick Durbin Nazi yields only a handful (<20) of responses. And most of them are blogs that have managed to jump to Google's "news" category - Al Jazeera being an interesting exception. It appears most legacy media outlets are cautiously looking for the angle on this story.

And that's interesting by itself, but add to it the fact that those same sources are usually so eager to be the firstest with the mostest that they perform minimal fact checking before charging into print (or onto the air) - and a reasonable observer might start to wonder if there might be some truth to those bias in the media rumors after all...

Last year as decent people around the world struggled to come to grips with the horrifying pictures CBS had obtained from inside Abu Ghraib, The Mudville Gazette took a closer look at the allegations in the numerous stories and started noticing a few disconnects. By evaluating all the stories from various sources that were rushing to cover the news it soon became obvious that the narrative the media was building to accompany the images just didn't work. (You can read a re-cap, with links to most of the original posts here) But we had a slight advantage; we'd seen the beginnings of the story before, and we were paying attention. The seeds of the distortions that most recently sprouted again like weeds on the Senate floor were solidly planted a year before the name Abu Ghraib had even become a mantra for the uninformed.

We're going to look back now, and present a series of posts explaining how the torture narrative was built, who did it, and why. We hope you'll join us. It won't be fun, but it will be informative. By way of introduction please read the links above, and stop back for more here later.

Open Post

A Degree of Dislike

It's June, when graduations mark the culmination of years of effort on the part of students everywhere. The University of Maryland has offered classes on overseas military installations for years - for military members, their families, and others. Here in Germany the director of the U of M's University College Europe had a special treat in store for the many GI's who had managed to complete their degree requirements in spite of deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other garden spots around the world. Rather than send them off with a rousing cheer, Professor Detlef Junker, founder and director of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, was brought forth to lecture them, letting them know that Europeans hate Americans because of the actions of their Commander in Chief.

?He starting talking about [President Bush?s] 2002 State of the Union address, the axis of evil, you?re either with us or against us ? and that?s when it started going downhill,? said Cheryl Atwood, a commissary technology specialist who received her Bachelor of Science degree at the May 29 ceremony.

?At first, I thought, ?I?m being overly sensitive.? Then I heard somebody in the back shouting ?USA! USA!? and I thought, ?Maybe I?m not taking it wrong.? Several people got up and left and people stood up waving, telling him to sit down.?

John Golembe, director of the University of Maryland University College Europe, also dealt with a number of unhappy graduates and attendees who called or e-mailed him to complain.

?I say, ?If this bothered you and you think your day was spoiled, I?m sorry for that,?? Golembe said.

But Golembe, who?s been with the University of Maryland Heidelberg program for the past 26 years, said Junker?s speech fell squarely within the tradition of college commencement speeches. There are basically two types, he said. One type is full of praise for graduates? accomplishments.

News From Iraq (Part II)

The More Things Change...

(Part one of this series looked at the reluctance of media sources to publish good news from Iraq. In this second installment we'll look at how the media covers our military victories there.)

Looking back today at some of my posts from Iraq I couldn't help but notice that the media coverage hasn't changed.

Remember Samarra? Probably not, as the news from that city hasn't had much international exposure lately. But last year Samarra was dubbed an "insurgent stronghold" - reporters thought they could safely claim it defined American failure in the face of the superior strength of the enemy:

Insurgents kept up their blood-soaked campaign against the U.S. presence in Iraq yesterday, staging a show of defiance in Samarra and striking twice with deadly force in Basra.

Dozens of masked gunmen loyal to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi drove down the main street of the central city of Samarra carrying automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in a show of strength.

The militants stopped some cars, asking the occupants to hand over music tapes in exchange for ones with recitations from the Muslim holy book, the Quran.

Samarra has been under insurgent control and a virtual "no-go" area for U.S. troops since May 30.

Meanwhile, a negotiated truce and weapons turn-in with Muqtada Sadr and his band of militants (remember them?) was virtually ignored.

After the US elections, as troops prepared to assault Fallujah, a NY Times reporter explained to the world that US Soldiers in Iraq had voted overwhelmingly for President Bush based on one issue: gay marriage. Then, as Soldiers and Marines began to roll in to Fallujah, the New York Times announced that Ramadi was the real problem.

And so on, and so on, and so on...

Apparently this sort of reporting "works" - it must increase sales, circulation, and ad revenue phenomenally, because it hasn't stopped. When Operation LIGHTNING was launched, the effort to clear the streets of Baghdad of terrorists, suicide bombers, and kidnappers garnered headlines declaring the superiority of the enemy. The Boston Globe's was typical of most US papers: Insurgents kill 38, wound dozens in attacks. Elsewhere headlines like Military sweeps in Baghdad fiercely resisted were about the best the Iraqi troops and their American allies could hope for.

When the government of Iraq announced that the Iraqi and US troops of Operation LIGHTNING had rounded up 900 "insurgents" in Baghdad the LA Times was quick to point out the real problems weren't in Baghdad:

As Iraqi commanders have deployed about 40,000 troops for a security crackdown in Baghdad, violence elsewhere has raised concern that other trouble spots have been left more vulnerable to insurgent attacks.

Assaults in Mosul during the last five days have claimed the lives of 11 people and wounded another 11. In the latest attack in the northern city, insurgents fired mortar rounds at a police station Monday, killing at least one civilian.

In nearby Tall Afar, Iraqi police shot and killed two insurgents who had attacked their compound with rocket-propelled grenades. On Sunday, five people were killed in a mortar attack in the city, including two women and two children, the U.S. military said.

Do you want to know how the NY and LA Times reported it?

Neither do I.

Kevin at Boots on the Ground is a young soldier on his second tour in Iraq:

Now that my days of Combat patrols and raids ect ect are over. I finally have time to write my personal feelings about Iraq. My first tour over here was definitely easier than this one. Of course, we were just doing raids most of the time and very little patrolling. So, I got plenty of sleep and ate pretty good. On average, we were working from 90-100 hour weeks this tour. I feel like I have aged much in my short time of being here.

I can definitely tell you from a military view, that the US and Iraqi forces are on the high ground in Iraq. The enemy has no real chance of taking power as long as we are here.

As long as the United States continues to stay in Iraq and help the Iraqi government, the terrorists and insurgents will lose. They are only capable of killing a few of us at a time and whenever they manage do organize a co-ordinated attack they are swiftly defeated. I know of the Prison attack that happened near us where 40 soldiers got injured, at least 30 of the attackers were killed. Zarqawi is a master at sending his men on suicide missions. They never succeed, despite the good press they get. Anytime hear reports of an Al-Jazeera news truck around, you know something bad is going to happen.

In part one we saw the contrasting results of opinion polls conducted in Iraq and America. It's worth noting a somewhat similar phenomenon in Army recruiting and retention. Retention rates for second term and career soldiers are well above normal, in active and Guard/Reserve units (especially those that deployed to Iraq) - people are re-enlisting. Meanwhile recruiting new soldiers is becoming increasingly difficult. But the same explanation can be applied to this observation as to the previous: those with first hand experience in the matter have a decidedly different outlook than those who only know what they read in the papers and see on TV.

(Part three is here.)

Open Post

Michelle Malkin is One

I mean, one year old.

I mean, her blog is one year old.

Here's to lots more good ones!

Fred Phelps

Meet Carrie French:

Carrie French, 19, will be buried Wednesday with full military honors; the funeral is expected to draw a large gathering of friends, family members and media, her father said.

"It's going to be big," he said.

Carrie French was serving as an ammunitions specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion when a roadside bomb exploded June 5 next to a vehicle she was driving in Kirkuk, Iraq. Her father said she has been posthumously promoted to corporal. She was the seventh soldier from the 116th to die in Iraq.

She graduated in 2004 from Caldwell High School, where she was a varsity cheerleader.

The Kansas preacher who tried to erect an anti-gay monument in a Boise city park says he's coming to Idaho this week to picket the funeral of a fallen soldier.

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, says God killed Idaho National Guard Corporal Carrie French with an improvised explosive device. Phelps says God is retaliating against America for a bombing of his church six years ago.

Phelps says there is no reason he is targeting French specifically. He says his church will protest any public funeral of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Caldwell Police Chief Bob Sobba said he can't bar Phelps from going to the public funeral. It's scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the Albertson College of Idaho.

Update: More, including reports and photos from the funeral, here.

More at:
Gryphmon (who was first on this one)

Castle Argghhh

Assumption of Command (from Iraq)

Banter in Atlanter

The Stupid Shall be Punished

I'm Horrified...

...and Lileks is horrified, and you will be too.

After the new measures are approved, the mood in al-Qahtani?s interrogation booth changes dramatically. The interrogation sessions lengthen. The quizzing now starts at midnight, and when Detainee 063 dozes off, interrogators rouse him by dripping water on his head or playing Christina Aguilera music.

Djinni in a bottle, no doubt.

According to the log, his handlers at one point perform a puppet show ?satirizing the detainee?s involvement with al-Qaeda.?

<...>

And at one point the reader might assume that if something really bad had happened, we might have read about it by now. I know a little bit about modern journalism, and we tend to emphasis the splintery plunger up the butt over the mocking puppet show. In any case, this detail makes you almost want to weep in frustration; domestic politicians are posturing for the camera, huffing about then horrors of Gitmo, insisting that the rest of the world won?t forgive us until we close the joint down and pave it. Over what? A Punch and Judy show? If we gang-mimed the guy and had 17 men in striped shirts with white makeup pantomime falling out of a burning skyscraper, would the critics demand we not only let the guy go but pay him a per diem for his troubles? I?ve read the story twice, and I keep wondering if I missed the part where the suspected 20th hijacker spits teeth into a chamberpot rimming with own bloody urine while massaging the welts the jumper cables left on his groinal division. I mean, I take all that for granted, because our soldiers are all killbot brutes - except for the lower-class ones who got drafted against their will and can only hope Bruce Springsteen sings a monotonal account of their disaffection.

Read all, if you can stand the horror...

News From Iraq

Part I: No News is Good News

Read a few of the links from Arthur Chrenkoff's roundup of good news from Iraq and you'll see a pattern emerge.

Here's a quote Arthur used from a story on the strength of the Iraqi currency:

The upsurge in violence has worsened conditions for almost everyone and everything in Iraq, but the new currency. The Iraqi dinar is the winner as it has so far weathered the impact of mounting violence and car bombs that would have sent any other country?s currency tumbling.

The stock exchange, which opened in July, may be one of Iraq's few success stories.

The bank said it would issue 30,000 Visa cards in Iraq by the end of the year. The company also plans to install the country's first network of automated teller machines, which would enable cardholders to withdraw Iraqi dinars or U.S. dollars from their accounts.

Iraq's economy has been slow to recover since the 2003 U.S. invasion amid safety concerns that have left almost 30% of the workforce unemployed.

Arthur's efforts are to be commended. By collecting a few dozen examples of what his individual sources dub the "only good news from an otherwise hopeless land" he reveals the ridiculous nature of the caveats the various news organizations feel compelled to add. Those claims collapse under the combined weight of the total number of stories that announce that everything is bad except this. News organizations can point to these stories as "balance" against the completely negative stories that comprise their overall coverage, but you'll rarely find a positive piece on Iraq that doesn't carry some sort of subtle disclaimer that it's not representative of what's happening in Iraq today.

Even a story as simple as the AFP account Arthur found about the Harley Davidson rider in Baghdad apparently requires this disclaimer:

And the 53-year-old is fully aware that his passion for one of the most recognizable symbols of the American way of life is not to everybody's liking in post-war Iraq.

Can't have the reader getting wrong ideas, after all.

Another story from Arthur's collection:

Recent polling data shows that fully two-thirds of Iraqis believe their country is headed in the right direction, Saboon said. While a poll in January showed only 11 percent of Sunni Muslims in Iraq shared that view, that percentage has since grown to 40, he said.

Though Sunnis largely didn't participate in the Transitional National Assembly election Jan. 30, that outlook has changed as well in anticipation of coming elections. Saboon, who is a Sunni, said 92 percent of eligible voters throughout Iraq and 80 percent of the country's Sunnis are likely to vote in the next election.

Saboon told the group that Iraqi security forces now have the confidence of 83 percent of Iraq's population, that 70 percent are confident in the transitional Iraqi government, and that 73 percent believe the government is representative of the Iraqi population.

Nearly six in 10 Americans say the United States should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq, a new Gallup Poll finds, the most downbeat view of the war since it began in 2003.

We can only wonder why that might be so.

Here's one possible explanation from the USA Today piece though:

Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that an "incredible gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric back here" is costing Bush support on the war.

(Part II is here.)

An American Flag

OPEN POST

Blogging by the Book

Interested in the rules covering military bloggers in Iraq?

They're here. (pdf file)

In a nutshell, bloggers must register their site with their unit. No pre-approval to post information is required, but some things are prohibited; OPSEC, privacy act-type information, names of deceased/wounded prior to next-of-kin notification, the obvious stuff. The commander must verify they aren't breaking those rules quarterly.

Individual results may vary, as commanders maintain broad discretion. But as far as I can tell, Freedom of Speech from those who help make it possible is now official MNC-I policy.

Hat tip: Phil Carter

You Never Know...

...what people will respond to on a blog. Or at least I never know. Some of the ugliest comments I've seen lately appeared here and at Scrappleface when I linked a post there this past weekend. Interesting, the sorts of things that evoke such strong reactions.

From the Homefront

One "luxury item" almost every GI in Iraq has is a portable DVD player, the rechargeable type with the built-in screen that can go anywhere. With boredom often the number one enemy during down-time in the camps you can bet that movies on DVD are very much appreciated.

Holly Aho decided to send some DVDs to the guys at the front:

It all started with my desire to send my soldiers some DVDs and my very flat pocketbook (I think my George Washington is on E-Harmony.com looking for a little company). I have nine adopted soldiers throught Soldiers Angels as well as about 10 others I met through AnySoldier.com that I have become friends with and worry about often. I wanted to send them all some DVDs.

I searched through my own DVDs and found ironically while I have a huge collection of VHS movies in all genres, including many new releases, the only DVD movies I had were war movies. Just great. Like they really want to watch "We Were Soldiers" or "The Sum of All Fears". I considered purchasing a few, but at $20 per DVD this option would allow me to send just one DVD to just one soldier.

MilBlogs on Radio

I missed Blackfive's "appearance" on Buzz Patterson's show last week, but fortunately I can catch the last replay of the program at 1000 ET today here.

At 1300 ET (that's 1 PM for you civilians out there) Buzz's new show will feature the one and only original Citizen Smash.

Arthur's Mail

Just to let you know that new "Good news from Iraq" is out, jam-packed with
three weeks' worth of under-reported and overlooked good news and positive
developments:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

Best regards

Arthur

Open Post

Safe Arrival

Austin Bay has arrived safely in Bahrain.

OIF Soldier Murdered While Home on Leave

From the North County (San Diego area) Observer, Diana Estrada describes her husband, who had just returned on leave from Iraq:

On Friday, Diana Estrada, 20, wore a gray Army T-shirt as she sat in her Murrieta apartment and talked about her husband. She said they met about two years ago when both were at the same California National Guard unit in Bell. She's been with the Guard for about 2 1/2 years and her husband enlisted about seven years ago, she said.

"He tried to talk to me for a while after we met, but I was playing hard to get," she said with a slight smile. Her eyes lit up as she continued.

"Eventually he grew on me. He really made me laugh," she said, and they started dating July 18 of last year. They were married in December.

"He always helped people. He was the nicest person you could ever imagine and had such a big heart," Diana Estrada said.

Her husband's kindness and compassion was evident when he learned that she was pregnant, but the baby wasn't his.

"We didn't talk for a couple of days," she said.

"But then he told me he wanted to be with me ---- no matter what. Even if the baby was not his blood, he said he would take care of her as if his own," she said.

About a month after Jorge Estrada found out the baby wasn't his, Fabian Urrea found out he was the father, Diana Estrada said.

"(Fabian) knew about Jorge and me," she said. "He wasn't OK with Jorge and I being together."

Urrea called her early Thursday "demanding to see the baby," she said.

"He told me if he could just see the baby for a while that he'd leave me alone," Estrada said.

She got a call from Urrea later Thursday morning in which he said he was downstairs. Estrada said she told her husband that she'd be OK and to just watch from the balcony when she took Liliana to the parking lot so Urrea could see the baby.

A court document obtained by The Californian on Friday detailed Urrea's alleged actions that led to Jorge Estrada's death.

Murrieta police Detective Danny Martin wrote in the document that Jorge Estrada and Urrea began arguing about the infant. Urrea then pulled a concealed chrome handgun from his waistband and shot Jorge Estrada three times, Martin wrote. Police believe he used a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

According to the court document, Urrea then said something similar to: "I told you, I told you so. I told you I was gonna get you."

Jorge Estrada was shot twice in the chest and once in the stomach, the document states. He was pronounced dead at 8:20 a.m. at Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar.

Law enforcement officers are still looking for Urrea, who they say fled the shooting scene in a white 1997 Nissan extra cab pickup with a California license plate of 7J26810.

He is described as Latino, 5 feet 8 inches tall, 145 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. His head was shaved, police said.

Detectives did not find the weapon at the crime scene and believe Urrea probably still has it with him.

Police ask that anyone with information about Urrea's whereabouts call Murrieta police at (951) 696-3615.

Open Post

Been There

Via Blackfive, this video of a rocket attack on the Exchange at Camp Liberty. I've stood in the exact spot where that thing hit. I wasn't stationed there but made the trip a few times.

There's a low-res version here, with additional clips. A couple noticeable things: One, everyone went low quick and started moving, weapons stayed slung but hands were on them. Two, those near the door ran towards the impact zone - without hesitation.

Rocket Bingo.

The video story doesn't say so, but it appears the fallen soldier was Army Sgt. Miguel A. Ramos, a reservist from Puerto Rico.

His death was cause for some cheering from the offices of the AP. By occuring on the final day of the month it enabled them to write this headline:

Guard, Reserve deaths match record

Thirty members of the Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve died in the Iraq war in May, matching the highest toll for any month of the war, according to Pentagon figures.

<...>

The May total reached 30 when the Pentagon announced Friday that Sgt. Miguel A. Ramos, 39, of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, died May 31 in Baghdad when a rocket struck near his position. He was assigned to the Army Reserve's 807th Signal Company, 35th Signal Battalion, in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico.

Unknown.

He set a record, and apparently that's all that counts.

Duty

Scott Ott:

The United States Army, which has missed its recruiting goals in each of the past four months despite increasing financial incentives, today held a news conference to announce a new recruiting gimmick which it called "duty."

At a Pentagon briefing, an unnamed Army spokesman said that, historically, this little-known concept has motivated more citizens to rise to America's defense than money, prestige or promises of college education.

Journalists at the news conference, baffled by the terminology, unleashed a barrage of questions about why anyone would volunteer to fight for a country that runs a gulag at Gitmo, invades peaceful sovereign nations like Iraq and has no respect for the most Holy Koran.

The Army spokesman further confused reporters with his response.

Open Post

And I'll make my own contribution to today's. In remembrance of those who fell on 9/11, I offer another recording sent me by Carridine, who turned a poem about Rick Rescorla into this song.

He sent this one at the same time, but I've never made it available before now.

3dB down

Several months ago I heard from a Seattle-area band called 3dB down. They had read On Leaving - something I wrote as a farewell message to my family before deploying to Iraq. I'd never met these guys, but they wanted to turn On Leaving into a song, and that seemed like a fine idea to me. Their new CD - including that song is available here now.

The more I listen to the new 3dB down CD the more I like it. It's grown up rock - smart lyrics, an acoustic touch, great melodies. It sounds so different from most stuff flying through the airwaves these days that it takes a couple listens to really appreciate the depth of their talent. Students of the Britney Spears/Justin Timberlake school of pop just aren't going to get it. Even if I weren't involved I think I'd find the circumstances that led to their use of On Leaving interesting. A band on the rise, using the internet to market themselves, finds inspiration for a song about a GI saying farewell to his family on a weblog. If that's not a story for the new millennium then I don't know a good story when I hear one.

Band co-founder Jeremy Berry took the time to educate me on the group's background. 3 dB down is a Seattle pop-folk-rock band. Scott May and Jeremy Berry began playing together in 1997. They co-founded a group called Aerial View in 1998, going on to write, perform, and record until 2002. In that year they returned to an acoustic duo format, releasing the EP "Five Songs This Fall". This CD was produced by Paul Speer and included several well known local Seattle artists. As much as they loved the stripped-down format, they longed to get back to a full band. They added bassist Scott Syltebo and then guitarist/songwriter David Kubiczky. After writing together for most of 2 years they added drummer Donovan Pfeifer and were inspired to release a full length CD. In 2004 they began recording again with producer Paul Speer. The result is the new disc, "Holding Up The Sky", now available.

Here's my conversation with Jeremy Berry of 3dB down:

Greyhawk: Tell us about your musical influences - where do you fit in?

Jeremy Berry: It is always hard to pick a genre. We always say "pop-folk-rock" because the songs have catchy melodies, the lyrics tell stories, and we like to put an edge on some of the tunes. There are also blues and jazz influences. All of the members have deep and varied influences, but none seem to dominate our sound. Someone once compared us to Toad The Wet Sprocket and we definitely took it as a compliment. Here are a few of the influences listed in our bios: Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton, Yes, Poi Dog Pondering, Francis Dunnery, James Taylor, Tuck and Patty, Dave Matthews, U2, Counting Crows, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Shawn Mullins, Edwin McCain, Patty Griffin, John Mayer....and so on...

GH: How did you guys find On Leaving?

JB: I found the post on Mudville Gazette. After feeling that the mainstream media was missing much of the reality of what was happening in Iraq, I went looking for alternate news sources, ultimately reading a few prominent milblogs. The post "On Leaving" just grabbed me. Being a parent myself the words tugged at my heart as I imagined what it must be like to leave your family under those circumstances, and how hard it would be to explain to a child why you must go. I felt like these words captured the moment so well and applied not just to current events but to history. We were in the process of writing a new song and I knew all at once that these words would fit it perfectly. After getting permission to use the post, I adapted the it to fit the song. I am extremely happy with the simplicity and emotion of "On Leaving".

GH: You emailed me and asked to use the song. I said "yes" because I'm inclined to do anything I can to help a band out - I played guitar "for a living" before my military career. I confess I had forgotten about the project until you sent me a note months later saying it was almost ready. I was concerned with what I thought I might be going to hear - some head-banging death metal thing or even a twist into some sort of anti-war statement. I realized that knowing nothing about you guys I took a risk giving you authorization to use that but I have to say I'm amazed with the result. You captured the meaning exactly, and your style fits it perfectly. It's not a flag-waving, Lee Greenwood "here I go proudly off to war, not worried about dying" thing - it's just a guy saying farewell to his family, hate to go but there are things needing done and I'll be back.

JB: We've played the song live a couple of times now. The crowd is pretty quiet as they immediately tune into the solemn feel of the verses. I can sense that they are moved when we get to the final choruses....it seems to have a real impact.

GH: "Holding Up The Sky" is an awesome disc all around. I haven't heard a single bad song on it. Are there any in particular you hope will be heard?

JB: I think the CD is all about variety. There should be something for everyone. I think the pop hits will be "Fast Forward", "The Truth Between Us", and "Don't Go". People also really respond to the groove of "About Nothin'".

GH: That's a great opening riff on "About Nothin". "Don't Go" is catchy - I liked it the first time I heard it. One you didn't mention that I like is "Long Shadows". It might be more of a musician's favorite - bluesy, has a great guitar solo and smart lyrics. In fact it might be the most poetic blues song I've ever heard.

Do you think you could have done all this without the internet? It seems to me the web is starting to make a difference in the music world, from "back in my day". The indie musicians challenging the corporate music world, ending their role as gatekeepers for success reminds me a little of blogs taking on the big media...

JB: The internet is an amazing resource for indie musicians. Being able to get your songs out there and communicate via a website is crucial. The online retailer CD Baby is an excellent company. They handle everything for a reasonable fee. We have both our CDs for sale there.

I'll be keeping in touch with these guys. In the meantime, try reading On Leaving while listening to the song it inspired here. A "multi-media" presentation brought to you by little guys taking on the giants. Or perhaps the dragons, if you will.

WTC Update

Quillnews offers interesting background on the developing controversy over plans for the WTC Memorial:

Quillnews has found a movie development deal to submit to Roland Betts and Tom Bernstein, longtime partners in film, sports and now the Chelsea Piers, for their consideration in their new roles as the private sector?s tag team of beneficence in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. (QN)

These two guys and their network of pals have wired up the downtown development plans pretty good. (WTCMF, LMDC, IFM, IFM2) Betts, as boss of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., in overall charge of the project, granted Bernstein?s charity, the International Freedom Museum, the job of creating museum exhibition spaces, an educational and cultural center already boasting commitments from nine of New York City's, the nation's and the world's leading universities, and a robust service and civic engagement program all devoted to advancing the cause of freedom. Their vision for the museum has caused quite a stir lately ? particularly because Bernstein?s artistic vision might be influenced by his anti-war political views. Bernstein is driving a lawsuit in federal court charging Rumsfeld with torture and demanding a special prosecutor be appointed by AG Gonzalez. Their website also has a helpful Arabic language version.

Betts and Bernstein have vast experience in movie production. Back in the day, this pair of entertainment lawyers and Yale grads formed Silver Screen Management, Inc., and other film production firms who together and separately produced 100 films, including Beauty & the Best, Petty Woman, The Little Mermaid, Three Men and a Baby, Ghandi, The Killing Fields, Sakharov. Betts and Bernstein were also business partners with George W. Bush in the Texas Rangers ownership group. Betts is a personal pal of the president from their days together at Yale.

Background on the author here:

R. Thomas Collins has worked in journalism and public affairs for more than 30 years, as a reporter, lobbyist and oil industry manager. Collins has managed political and media operations, and written several books. A graduate of Boston University and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Collins worked as a reporter for newspapers in New England, before moving to New York, where he was a reporter, rewriteman and editor with the New York Daily News between 1974-79.

The Ghosts...

... of Abu Ghraib.

A must-see photo essay from the front.

Interview

Ankle Biting Pundits presents an interview with Col. David Hunt, Fox News Military Analyst and author of the NYT bestseller "They Just Don't Get It - How Washington Is Still Compromising Your Safety and What You Can Do About It".

The Colonel pulls no punches. Sample:

Q: In the book you indicate that part of the problem with our military strategy is that they usually are "preparing for the last war", and clearly the war on terror is one we have never faced before on such a large scale. Many of the young officers currently in Iraq and Afghanistan are "learning on the job",not only in terms of actually fighting an urban guerilla war, but also are getting experiences in how to win "hearts and minds" of the local population through things like building hospitals, schools, and water treatment facilities. How are those experiences likely to influence how our military fights the war on terror in the future when these young Captains and Lieutenants are Generals and Colonels making "big picture" decision?

A: It will take years, unfortunately--we have guys still fighting the Russians in the FULDA GAP!

Q: How long will it take to get these young officers in positions of command where they're not "fighting the last war"?

A: About 10 years. A big part of the problem is that many of the generals we have now are what's known as "Clinton Generals". These were people who were promoted during the Clinton years and are far to hesitant to take use the force and sometimes brutal tactics that are necessary to really fight and win this war.

And Tommy Franks, who is a very good and honorable man is one of them. Many Republican friends say "Oh, but he's a big Bush supporter". And I say so what. He's made some bad decisions about how the war is being fought, or in some cases not fought, that are emblematic of a "Clinton general".

Perhaps the most telling thing that Don Rumsfeld did was lure General Pete Shoomaker out of retirement and promote him over nearly all the other "Clinton Generals" to make him the Army Chief Of Staff. Pete Shoomaker is a great guy and knows how to get done the things that need to be done in this war. That's pretty telling about what Rumsfeld thinks of many of the Generals he has.

Austin Bay

Austin Bay is en route to Afghanistan and other points in the Middle East. Those inclined and able to support such an effort might consider making a donation via his tip jar. As one who benefited from this sort grassroots fundraising (I couldn't have kept this site going from Iraq without the help of many) let me assure you that no contribution is too small to be appreciated. Those unable to support financially are encouraged to offer your prayers and well-wishes for safe travel.

If any reader isn't familiar with this man's work you should be. He's retired from the military now but was in Iraq as an activated reservist last summer. The insights he offers into the war on terror via his blog, his syndicated columns, and appearances elsewhere deserve a wide audience.

Open Post

"Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart. Give him money to speed his departure since we wish not to die in that mans company. Whoever lives past today and comes home safely wiil rouse himself every year on this day, show his neighbor his scars, and tell embellished stories of all their great feats of battle. These stories will teach his son, and from this day until the end of the world we shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for who has shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And those men afraid to go will think themselves lesser men as they hear of how we fought and died together." --Shakespeare's Henry V

More Memorial

Line up! No shoving! And enter the Freedom Center (excuse me, the International Freedom Center. We're truly fortunate today, our tour guide is Richard Tofel, the president of the Center. He'll begin by lecturing us on why a simple memorial is not enough:

Then there will be the Memorial Center, a museum devoted to the events of September 11 itself, with exhibit space roughly equal in size to that at the International Freedom Center. The Memorial Center will tell the stories of the day--of heroism and sacrifice, of rescue and service, of courage and resolution, of memory and loss. It is the Memorial Center that will contain the iconic artifacts of September 11.

That is necessary, but not sufficient.

As envisioned in Daniel Libeskind's master plan for the site's redevelopment, the International Freedom Center's building will serve as a buffer between the sacred Memorial and the hustle and bustle of the surrounding city, including the thousands of people who will move each day in and out of Santiago Calatrava's spectacular new transit hub.

So tell me, at Ground Zero, should we carve in cement and bury in an underground 50,000 square foot museum the names of the nearly 3,000 people that Islamic terrorists murdered that day? Should visitors to the World Trade Center's memorial be left to wonder what happened that day and where the artifacts of 9/11 are? Above ground, should we build a park with reflecting pools, a cultural center, and a 300,000 square foot International Freedom Center where visitors can hear lectures and discussions on why they all hated us, what we did to bring 9/11 upon ourselves, and the correct world-view future generations must choose so they won't hate us and attack us anymore?

Although not addressing the actual architects of the "Freedom Center" here's something that might clarify why many are a bit suspicious of their motives. Put simply, given evidence of Tofel's doublespeak above, when he says "To be sure, the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you--and I--will disagree" I'm reminded of this:

Tell Me Lies contains thirty-two articles, almost all of which express similar sentiments: they condemn any aspect of news coverage of the war in Iraq that does not share their own political prejudices. The first five articles of the collection are written by John Pilger, the Australian-born, London-based journalist and filmmaker. Like Fisk, Pilger?s immediate response to September 11 was to blame the United States itself. In his column in the London magazine New Statesman, Pilger said the real terrorists were not Muslim radicals but the Americans:

If the attacks on America have their source in the Islamic world, who can be surprised? ? Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims?that is, the victims of American fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms?military, strategic and economic?is the greatest source of terrorism on earth.

What made these comments especially reprehensible was less what they said?similar sentiments were expressed by a number of Western intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky and Susan Sontag, in the days that followed?and more their timing. The statement was published on September 13, which, given the deadlines operating on New Statesman, means Pilger must have written these words on September 11 itself, while the horror of the events was still unfolding on television.

I think the mere idea of such a place might accomplish that goal.

News From Spain

Judge Santiago Pedraz will file a request for interrogation to the United States in accordance with the request established by ?Journalists Without Borders.? Pedraz intends to interrogate three American soldiers, Sergeant Thomas Gibson, Captain Philip Wolford and Lt. Colonel Philip de Camp in regards to the death of Spanish reporter Jos頃ouso. Couso was killed at the Hotel Palestine [in Baghdad] when the M-1 Abrahms tank controlled by Gibson fired upon the hotel. Wolford was the officer who authorized the shot after Gibson had notified him that there was someone watching them with binoculars from the hotel; de Camp was the officer who ordered to open fire on Hotel Palestine.

Spanish blogger Barcepundit comments here.

Boston Herald reporter Jules Crittenden and I discussed the topic last February, in the wake of Eason Jordan's accusations regarding military targeting of journalists. Here's Jules, from that interview:

I was about 100 yards or so from the Jumhuriyah Bridge, down at the intersection of Haifa and Jaffa, when Staff Sgt Shawn Gibson fired on the Palestine. All of us were highly concerned at the time about reports an Iraqi FO had eyes on our position from a tall building in the vicinity. After the big counterattack that morning was fought back, we continued to receive sporadic mortar fire and RPG fire all morning, taking and returning fire from several tall buildings. The tankers on the bridge reported that numerous RPG teams were operating up and down the opposite bank of the Tigris. Gibson saw what he thought was the spotter and fired. He was distraught when he learned his mistake.

9/11 Families Update

Richard J. Tofel explains that there's plenty of room in the acreage made available by terrorist attacks of 9/11 for his organization to build it's Hate America First Center. Most notable in Tofel's carefully worded pacification attempt is the complete lack of denial that his organization's site is anything other than what it has been accused of being. Instead he offers this: If you oppose us, you're un-American! He quotes both Lincoln and George Bush for the benefit of all you ignernt red Staters too.

Tim Sumner of 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America responds. WARNING: Sumner's post includes photographs that TV Networks have determined can evoke violent responses from Americans, read with caution, and remember we brought it on ourselves!!!!

This post from Lileks on a different topic seems even more apt today:

I can imagine in late 2001 asking a question of myself in 2005:

What?s the main story? The smallpox quarantine? Fallout from the Iranian ? Israeli exchange contaminating Indian crops? A series of bombings in heartland malls?

"Well, no ? the big story today has to do with soldiers mishandling terrorists' holy texts at a detention center."

Mishandling? How? Like, you mean, they opened it up without first checking to see if it was ticking, and it blew up ?

"No, they handled it in a way that disrespected it. Infidels are supposed to use gloves."

Oh. So we lost, then.

911... Never Forget...it's all America's fault

I'm moving this post up because I think this subject could be as forgotten as it appears some have forgtten 911. It needs to be a reminder for everyone of what the WTC Memorial needs to be about. Whether all the land or part is used for the memorial, the memorail needs to be about the tragedy and those that perished in it, nothing more, nothing less.

Here's something to help remind us'
The conclusion of the two-part story of a Canadian man?s escape from the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 is now available without a subscription at the Saskatoon Star Phoenix: The last man standing Via LGF

Here's another reminder: 911 Remembered: Rick Rescorla was a soldier

There are thousands more.

Let's not forget the images

Rick Rescorla's wife, Susan put up this website or him.

Update

A Fitting Place at Ground Zero [Opinion Journal]
A year ago tomorrow, a new institution called the International Freedom Center was formally designated by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. as one of the four cultural institutions for the World Trade Center site, all to be operated under the aegis of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

This was 9/11/2001 at the World Trade Center:Pics

Ground will be broken this year for the World Trade Center Memorial, but it won't be focused on the tragedy of those lost that day. The International Freedom Center (IFC) has announced that they intend to take us on "a journey through the history of freedom". It will have little to do with 911 and a lot about the failures of America.

Read this article written by Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which terrorists crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001:

The Great Ground Zero Heist - DEBRA BURLINGAME -[ Opinion Journel]
Will the 9/11 "memorial" have more about Abu Ghraib than New York's heroic firemen?

On Memorial Day weekend, three Marines from the 24th Expeditionary Unit who had been wounded in Iraq were joined by 300 other service members for a wreath-laying ceremony at the empty pit of Ground Zero. The broken pieces of the Twin Towers have long ago been cleared away. There are no faded flags or hand-painted signs of national unity, no simple tokens of remembrance. So why do they come? What do they hope to see?

<...>

Instead, they will get a memorial that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the yearning to return to that day. Rather than a respectful tribute to our individual and collective loss, they will get a slanted history lesson, a didactic lecture on the meaning of liberty in a post-9/11 world. They will be served up a heaping foreign policy discussion over the greater meaning of Abu Ghraib and what it portends for the country and the rest of the world.

<...>

...The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona.

<...>

Less welcome to the Freedom Center are the actual beneficiaries of that policy. According to the New York Times, early renderings of the center's exhibit area created by its Norwegian architectural firm depicted a large mural of an Iraqi voter. That image was replaced by a photograph of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson when the designs were made public. What does it mean that the "story of humankind's quest for freedom" doesn't include the kind that is fought for with the blood and tears of patriots? It means, I fear, that this is a freedom center which will not use the word "patriot" the way our Founding Fathers did.

The 911 Families for a Safe and Strong America will keep us updated on this.

Update 2: Tim Sumner emails a timely response to some comments below:

Greyhawk,

Debra Burlingame is a friend of mine. We co-founded 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America together, last year.

Yes, it was our family members that ended up on the casualty lists but if could have been anyone's. That memorial needs to say America rallied around, passed a bucket of debris, passed the hat to those left behind, and bowed its collective head as we buried our dead. Underground they should display the crushed fire trucks, rubble, twisted beams, the bathtub's wall, and the actual footprints of the two towers. The people, the pain, and the pride needs to found by future visitors to ground zero. Use the space for the WTC memorial, bring back the facade of the South Tower, the Globe, and the still standing floors of the North Tower's stairway and place them above ground where they were found that day. That is 9/11. That is what people need to remember.

Tim Sumner, 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America

Update: Bumped from original post time 2005-06-08 11:36:25

Bill Bennet interviews Debra Burlingame here

Michelle Malkin has an update.

Jeff Jarvis has more

Roger Simon weighs in

Charles Johnson comments here

GOP Bloggers have a contact list

Sissy Willis believes a Blame America Monument is not what we need or deserve.

Open Post

On Leaving

A while ago I heard from a Seattle-area band called 3dB Down. They had read this post - one I wrote as a farewell message to my family before deploying to Iraq. I've never met these guys, but they wanted to turn On Leaving into a song, and that seemed like a fine idea to me. Now they've notified me that their new CD - including On Leaving is available here now.

I'm biased, of course, but it sounds great to me. The album's full of upbeat songs with a positive message, there's too little of that in any sort of music today. (Check out Don't Go - one of my favorite tracks. A great counterpoint to On Leaving.)

I'll have an interview with founding band member Jeremy Berry here shortly.

(Update: bad link above fixed now. CD is available here.)

Berge Avadanian

When Berge Avadanian jumped into France as part of the 82nd Airborne on D-Day, 6 June, 1944 he was sure he was going to die that day.

"I was a fatalist, myself. I was resigned to death. It was a one-way trip as far as a lot of us were concerned because our chances were not so good."

WWII hero dies on anniversary of D-Day jump

A highly decorated World War II paratrooper who listed his participation in the 1944 Normandy invasion as one of his greatest accomplishments, died Monday on the 61st anniversary of D-Day.

Berge Avadanian of Waltham, who would have turned 87 next week, was already a hardened veteran with combat jumps into Sicily and Salerno under his belt when he parachuted into Normandy with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division on June 6, 1944.

``I was a fatalist, myself. I was resigned to death,'' Avadanian told the Herald in 1994. ``It was a one-way trip as far as a lot of us were concerned because our chances were not so good.''

Avadanian, who received a Silver Star, Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, among other decorations, survived the Normandy campaign to participate in the ill-fated September 1944 airborne invasion of Holland before being wounded twice in the December 1944 Battle of the Bulge.

He was a 25-year-old paratrooper, a sergeant with two jumps and five months of fighting in Italy behind him as the plane approached Normandy before dawn on June 6, 1944.

"It was nothing new to me," said Avadanian of Waltham. At 85, he still talks with the matter-of-fact, sometimes-bitter tone of someone who survived 462 days of combat.

"There were a lot of younger guys. Just boys, going in for the first time. I tried to cheer them up. I said, `Hey, I wonder how the Red Sox are doing. I bet they're getting beat.' Sixty years later, I'm still waiting for them to win," he said.

He remembers seeing just a couple of cows when he landed in a farmer's field. He linked up with other paratroopers, and on the outskirts of Ste-Mere-Eglise at dawn, he killed a German. Then he saw the corpse of a young lieutenant he'd last seen in England having his hair cut, dangling from a tree, his throat slit.

"I'm ashamed of myself. I saw that and I didn't run over to cut him down," Avadanian said.

He remembers winning $750 at poker from his friend John Everhardy in England in the tense days before D-Day, as they waited to go. Everhardy was dead within a week, killed beside him.

"John was my best friend," he said. "He still owes me that $750."

Avadanian jumped into Holland and was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. He lived to help liberate the Wobbelin concentration camp and accept the surrender of 136,000 German soldiers. He met the Russians on the Elbe River.

As the 60th anniversary of D-Day nears, he said, "If God would allow me to be born again, I would pray to God to put me on that same road to Normandy. It was the most gratifying thing I have ever done. I was so proud to be fighting for my country."

Are there heroes in your neighborhood?

Every Day Hero

A hero firefighter who risked his life rescuing his fellow New Yorkers at the World Trade Center, died November 29, 2004 fighting his country's enemies in Iraq.

Bravest Sacrifice

On the day he was murdered by a coven of cowards, the flag that Sgt. Chris Engeldrum had carried from the firehouse of Ladder 61 flapped over Baghdad. But at 10:15 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2004, there may have been an immaculate exception and the flag shed a tear.

That flag, that beautiful flag, was yesterday like the Holy Grail in a particularly emotional ceremony ? a "two handkerchief job," we hacks would call it ? at the Fire Academy.

<...>

Chris Engeldrum took an American flag from Ladder 61, took it to Ground Zero, took it to Djibouti, and then took it to Baghdad, and there that flag from Ladder 61 flew over the skies of Baghdad," Bresler said.

<...>

Swifty ? a longtime Army medic ? painfully recalled that day last year when Engeldrum was blown up by a 300-pound bomb in a convoy by the rats on a route called "Route Rams" outside of Baghdad.

"He was my best friend, and he thought, even though he was a firefighter putting his life on the line every day, you would be a coward if you didn't go to Iraq and fight evil," said Swifty.

"We were in an absolutely armored Humvee, the bomb was so big, the crater was 6 feet wide and 5 feet deep. I was blinded in the right eye, but my problem was no problem. I saw Chris and Wilfredo Urbino, I knew they were gone. I worked on two guys who were with us, and they made it, bless them. But Chris, what a hole in my heart that makes."

I have always felt fireman were special everyday heros but this fireman went way beyond the call of duty and in the end paid the ulimate sacrifice.

Choosing Sides

When Operation LIGHTNING kicked off, as Iraqi troops swept through Baghdad rounding up "insurgents", headlines across America touted the power of the terrorist forces they opposed. The Boston Globe's coverage was typical: Insurgents kill 38, wound dozens in attacks. Elsewhere headlines like Military sweeps in Baghdad fiercely resisted were about the best the Iraqi troops and their American allies could hope for. By June 3rd NBC virtually claimed victory for the terrorists - or at least had declared the Iraqi effort a failure. Under the headline Operation Lightning packs little thunder their bottom line was that "this operation, sold by the government as a bolt of lightning, is, so far, packing little punch."

This week the Iraq government announced that thus far there have been 900 Suspected Militants Arrested In Baghdad Sweep, as today's USA Today duly notes. It's usually hard to argue against measured success, but immediately after that report from the Iraqi government the LA Times found a way to do it:

Other Iraq Hot Spots May Flare

As Iraqi commanders have deployed about 40,000 troops for a security crackdown in Baghdad, violence elsewhere has raised concern that other trouble spots have been left more vulnerable to insurgent attacks.

Assaults in Mosul during the last five days have claimed the lives of 11 people and wounded another 11. In the latest attack in the northern city, insurgents fired mortar rounds at a police station Monday, killing at least one civilian.

In nearby Tall Afar, Iraqi police shot and killed two insurgents who had attacked their compound with rocket-propelled grenades. On Sunday, five people were killed in a mortar attack in the city, including two women and two children, the U.S. military said.

But here's this afternoon's story

U.S., Iraqi troops launch Tal Afar offensive

Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. and Iraqi troops on Tuesday launched an offensive against insurgents in the northwestern city of Tal Afar -- not far from the Syrian border.

"Dozens of tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Apache helicopters have moved in to a neighborhood in the town which is thought to be a stronghold of insurgents," said senior Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf, who is embedded with U.S. troops.

<...>

Some 4,000 U.S. troops moved into the Tal Afar area in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera.com notes:

American media no longer accept Bushs war lies

A strange phenomenon is occurring in national American papers, with many editors beginning to condemn the war in Iraq, when previously many of them "accepted" it.

<...>

Last week was Memorial Day in the U.S. and it seemed to bring out the anger in some editorial writers, who usually, especially during such a celebration, are afraid to say anything about a current conflict that might seem to slight the sacrifices of men and women, past and present.

Open Post

Warrior to Warrior

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the latest installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).

We have this parade waiting

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

I hope you don't mind that I've nothing but a couple of random ideas rattling around in my head for this week's letter. And that I'm just going to spill them in no particular order.

Item 1. We hear talk about some units coming home soon. That'd be a great thing. But we who have been to faraway places before advise a little skepticism, no matter what the source of the reports about homecomings. Because if the reports are true, they tend to make you lose focus on the dangerous nature of your day-to-day mission. You need to keep your eye on the ball.

If the reports are untrue, you'll be discouraged besides, which can be an even more dangerous situation. In the military, rumors seem to carry a lot of weight, far more than they deserve. Listen. Smile. Hope. Pray. Get back to work, grinding out the mission and the days with both eyes wide open.

If the reports are true, and you do come home, we'll take care of the welcomings. There'll be parades, of course. Ever since Vietnam, America has been obsessed about parades for returning warriors. I don't know why. When I was in uniform, parades were a pain in the neck. Practice, practice, practice. Stand in the hot sun. Hope like heck you weren't the guy who'd conk out and wake up with blades of grass stuck in your teeth. Marching with somebody yelling at you to "Dress it down." And "Get in step."

All in all, three days of work for 10 minutes of parade.

Oh, I admit it, the 10 minutes were pretty cool. The martial music, the applause, the pride in doing it right. Even so. If you'd have taken a vote of returning soldiers from Vietnam, not three in 300 would have volunteered to march in a homecoming parade.

Sorry, but you won't have a choice. It's now a national point of honor to hold a parade after a war. I'm all for it, by the way. Watching a parade with you in it. Applauding you and your service. Celebrating a homecoming like that. I wouldn't miss these things for the world. You're just going to have to bear with us in our joy.

Item 2. It seems Americans and Iraqis have found a major underground bunker complex not far from one of our military bases in country. Well, 16 miles away. You hear some dismay that such a large site, seemingly under the noses of Americans, wasn't found earlier.

I'm not quite as dismayed. I remember an operation in Vietnam where our unit swept through a patch of trees smaller than average town park. The site was with sight of a fortified Vietnamese army compound just a pistol shot away.

We drove completely through it, shooting as we went and received no fire in return. I saw nothing in the way of enemy activity. Nada. Zip.

On the other side of the trees our unit stopped to report and to plan a route away from the area. If the enemy had sat tight, we'd have been gone in half an hour. But they opened fire, and unleased the wrath of tanks, artillery and air power. The battle lasted all day and resulted in more than 300 enemy dead as well as a few of our own.

The bad guys had holed up, literally holed up, in an infamous tunnel complex of an infamous area known as Cu Chi. Some of these areas were capable of housing an entire regiment of North Vietnamese troops, which I'm guessing is the size of the force we engaged.

So when people complain that WMDs can't be found in a country the size of Iraq, I'm not quite as astonished as they are. Because when I put my calculator to a circle with a radius of 16 miles, I see that the terrorist bunker complex in Iraq was uncovered in an area of more than 750 square miles.

Actually that's good work. As I say, I drove right over--not past but over the top of--just such a complex and didn't see it. It's amazing that anybody, including the terrorists who wanted to spend a night there, could find the thing in an area that large.

Find some more bunker complexes. Put those guys out of business. Come home. We're waiting with that parade.

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

____________

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. These columns are excerpts from an upcoming book. His current book, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Open Post

"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
"You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty."
-President Reagan, June 6th 1984

Good Dog/Bad Dog

A brief pause from military life for The best dog story ever:

The cops had to fire so many shots to stop the lunging pit bull, the gunpowder set off an overhead smoke detector.

Still, the dog didn't die.

But she wasn't the toughest dog on the block. That title belongs to Maya, a 74-pound black Lab who took on India, the 120-pound pit bull who was mauling a sixth-grader on the Northwest Side.

But even if your a cat-type person, read the whole thing.

Via the Corner.

Every Day Hero

The North County Times:

They said it was like a World War II-era movie: A Marine rushes forward under withering enemy fire, single-handedly destroys a machine-gun nest and turns the tide of the battle for his comrades.

But they also said it was real.

Marines lined up in droves at Camp Pendleton on Friday to shake the hand of former Marine Sgt. Leandro Baptista, who was awarded the Silver Star for valor for leading a counterattack against some 60 insurgents who ambushed his platoon last year near Fallujah, Iraq.
<...>
In terms used to describe generations of heroes of American wars, the citation recounted how on April 7, 2004, 60 insurgents in fortified positions ambushed Baptista's 25-man platoon while they rode in a five-vehicle convoy just south of Fallujah.

With six men wounded and two vehicles out of action, Baptista "sprinted across a shallow canal, climbed a 10-foot berm, and charged towards the enemy."

Under fire, he knocked out one gun emplacement and grabbed three other Marines to help continue his charge.

After disarming an improvised bomb that threatened backup forces, Baptista split his men up, and the ad hoc team charged a group of 11 insurgents from two angles. Baptista killed at least four of them himself "at close range," while his team attacked the other seven, the citation said.

Marines at the ceremony said at least one Marine was killed during the 30-minute ambush and firefight.

I'm sorry to hear he's a former Marine.

Arthur's Mail

Dear Mr & Mrs Greyhawk

All the stories that got lost in the media stampede to turn Afghanistan back
into a quagmire:

Chrenkoff

Opinion Journal

Winds of Change

Best regards and thanks once again for helping to spread the good news!

Arthur

Open Post

The Koran

The Reverend Donald Sensing has an insightful post on the Koran

Basically, the Quran's place in Islam is the same as the place of Christ in Christianity.

The analogy is not exact, of course, because Christians cannot point to or touch Christ because ?He has been raised; he is not here,? while there are hundreds of millions of copies of the Quran available in the world.

<...>

But the literal, verbatim dictation of the Quran by Allah to Mohammed, through the angel Gabriel, is a very basic tenet of faith of Muslims everywhere. The words of the Quran are affirmed not merely to have been inspired by Allah but they are the actual, very words of Allah. Therefore the Quran is for Muslims not just a book but the physical representation of the deity himself. So abusing the Quran is a hideous offense to Muslims more than the same abuse of a Bible would be to Christians.

<...>

Hence, it is crucial, as President Bush has emphasized, that the United States not be seen by Muslim peoples around the world as attacking Islam itself, only its malevolent practitioners. So the reports of the abuse of the Quran are more important than they might appear to secular, western Americans.

That being said, five incidents of such abuse are darn few and don?t deserve near the attention being showered on them by the MSM. As for making hay out of the 15 incidents of Quran abuse by the Muslim detainees themselves, forget it. Members of any religious sect can get away with disrespect to the faith that outsiders cannot. The perpetrators of the 15 abuses will be excused as driven to madness by the Americans on the one hand or perhaps condemned by the Muslim faithful on the other as individual offenders against Islam. But they will not be seen as seeking the destruction of Islam itself as the United States always risks being seen (even though Islamists are exactly the foremost enemies of Islam in the world today)..

Bunker Mulligan

?Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.?
~Mark Twain

That quote sits atop Bunker Mulligan's blog.

Mike Reed, aka Bunker Mulligan passed away on 3 June 2005 .

Mike was also a founder of Corpus Christi Bay News and Texas Bloggers. He was an Air Force veteran, with one son in the Army and another in the Marines.

A final word from his son can be found here.

Bunker was a voice of reason in the all too often noisy blogosphere, and it's obvious he touched quite a few lives - all over the world - via his blog and in person. I always appreciated his commentary, the thoughts he chose to share with us all were both kind and wise.

From his son:

Bunker will be laid to rest on Friday, 10 June, at the San Antonio National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, we request any memorials for him be made to Homes For Our Troops. Further information can be found at http://www.homesforourtroops.org/.

The Milblog banner is at half staff this week.

Sgt. Peter Damon

Last weekend, as part of our Memorial Day tribute to the fallen, I re-posted a story on Michael Moore's abuse of those heroes in Fahrenheit 9/11. That story mentioned a wounded veteran:

The July 15 issue of The Enterprise, a Massachusetts newspaper, reported that Army reservist Peter Damon - also recuperating at Walter Reed after losing parts of both arms in an explosion in Iraq - was "surprised" to learn that an interview he gave to NBC this year is shown in the film.

John Gonsalves, the founder of Homes for Our Troops - a Massachusetts organization that builds homes for disabled soldiers - is constructing a new house for Damon and his wife, with whom he has talked extensively about the film.

"To do a movie that's clearly anti-war and totally against the Bush administration, and to put these guys in it without their knowledge, is morally wrong, and maybe even legally," said Gonsalves.

Pete Damon will go to the Fenway Park mound this afternoon to throw out the first ball before the Red Sox-Orioles game with his wife at his side. Jenn Damon will tote a backpack stuffed with the necessities: a screwdriver, a piece of Kevlar string, a cable, and a spare arm.

''The thing has a tendency to break at the worst possible time," Damon said yesterday, after throwing Wiffle-ball batting practice to his 7-year-old daughter, Allura, in the family's backyard. ''The string's going to break. I know it is."

The 32-year-old, in his parlance, is ''a lefty, but I used to be a righty." That changed for Army Sgt. Peter Damon in the fall of 2003 in a former Iraqi air force bunker converted to a US Army hangar.

A lifelong resident of Brockton, Damon had enlisted in the National Guard in 2000, shipped out to Kuwait in December 2001, then Camp Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, in October 2003.

A helicopter mechanic, he was assigned to inspect for corrosion, cracks, and assorted damage. Army helicopters required scheduled phase maintenance every 250 hours, Damon said, and he and a crew would disassemble each part -- the transmission, blades, landing gear, and more -- then reassemble that component of the aircraft.

''For three weeks, we were doing unscheduled maintenance," Damon said. ''We were waiting for a phase."

A UH-60 Black Hawk finally arrived for phase maintenance Oct. 21, 2003.

''A UH-60 has three wheels, two in the front, one in the back," Damon said. ''We put a jack in each point. Me and another kid, Specialist Paul Bueche, were working on the right side of the landing gear, changing the brakes out.

''This is where I don't remember much."

Damon was filling a tire with high-pressure nitrogen, and while inflating the wheel, ''it exploded," he said. ''What actually exploded was the rim. When that blew up, it severed the hose. The nitrogen was spraying around like a wild snake. It was blowing dust everywhere, because there's dust everywhere."

Damon accepts that he'll never be the aircraft technician he wanted to be. He'd landed a temp job doing just that at Camp Edwards on the Cape in the fall of 2001. His life was falling into line, and he was pleased. A high school dropout at age 16, Damon, by his late 20s, saw himself ''going down the wrong path" and had done something to change it.

''I don't want to say I was a troublemaker, but I was going down the wrong path," he said. ''My wife and I weren't married but we had a child and we were split up. I didn't want to be one of those dads who just visits on the weekends. To get my act together, that was one of the things I did, joining the National Guard. I thought it would restore some discipline in my life, and it did."

But then came Kuwait and Iraq and Walter Reed. Today, Damon -- who also has a 3-year-old son, Danny -- is enrolling in Veterans Upward Bound, a program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston that prepares veterans for college. His education will be paid for, he said, and he's contemplating attending UMass or Bridgewater State College.

''I like art," he said. ''I used to draw before, and I can still draw now."

There is a sketch in his living room of a soldier carrying another soldier on his back, evidence the righthanded Damon can still draw, though he must clasp his pencil between two pieces of metal.

The drawing he's working on will be used in an advertisement for Homes For Our Troops, a nonprofit organization that uses donations by contractors to build homes for veterans. The Damons will be moving into a new home by the end of July, a place equipped with easy-to-open cabinets, latch-handle doors, keyless entry, low-maintenance vinyl siding, an easy-to-clean flat-top stove, and a master bedroom suite with a wide shower.

He thinks he can throw 50 feet, but he hasn't practiced with a real baseball in more than a week, thanks to the family's Jack Russell terrier. ''We had a baseball," Jenn Damon said, ''but the dog chewed it up."

<...>

''They keep asking how far I can throw it," Damon said. ''What, do they want me to pitch in relief? I think I can throw it 50 feet or so. I was there Opening Day when they had Bill Russell and Bobby Orr out there.

''I think I can throw it the same distance they did, halfway to the plate. No problem."

He did, and the Sox won on a two-out, full count, bottom of the 9th-inning homer by David Ortiz.

What a comeback.

(Hat tip to K. J. Lopez at The Corner.)

Update: See the home being built for Sgt Damon and his family here. Take a look around the Homes for our Troops website while you're there.

Open Post

Weekend edition.

Resigned

Ilario Pantano, the Marine officer recently cleared of murder charges, has resigned his commission.

Open Post

My War, The Book

Military blogger Colby Buzzell's upcoming book is available for pre-order at Amazon.

From the Front

Know why you haven't heard much about Tom DeLay's various "scandals" lately? Because America's congressional representatives are too busy scrambling to get their own trip reports in order. With all the crossing of tees and dotting of eyes (and shredding of this and burning of that) they just don't have time to give interviews about DeLay. Few of the people those Representatives "represent" will be shocked to learn that California's Maxine Waters is one of the top offenders.

So if 74% of Americans trust the military a great deal or quite a lot, and only 22% think the same of congress, how about we replace "Mobile Maxine" with an Operation IRAQI FREEDOM veteran?

A MilBlogger even?

You've probably read Rusten Currie's blog, Sic Vis Pacem, Para Bellum, but if you haven't lately then you might have missed this announcement of how he'll be spending his time after re-deploying from Iraq

Sometimes the only way to change the system, is to become a part of it. I am a firm believer in a government that is run by its citizens. For the the purpose of preserving the rights of its citizens. The only way I think that I can help after my time here is to continue to serve. Essayons! I will try...

More:

I will also be starting another blog off of this one. http://currierd.typepad.com/currie_for_congress/. I will no longer be associating my experiences in Iraq and the campaign on the same blog, I have and continue to think it in poor taste on my part to do this, so anything relating to Currie for Congress will be on the official website, (to be initiated this week), and any thoughts or comments relating to it will be on the campaign blog.

Maj K offers his endorsement here.

Looks like Smash like's Rusten's chances too.

Open Post

Who Do You Trust?

Michelle Malkin points us to the latest Gallup Poll results, wherein we discover whether Americans have more confidence in reporters or soldiers.

This should start some interesting conversations at the next Crittenden family reunion.

Open Post

From the Front

Some folks read the MilBlogs from Iraq for pictures of gunslingers like this one:

Others prefer the violent mob scenes like this one:

And some people like both. If you're any of these types of people, or if you just like to read unvarnished truth from the frontlines of the war on terror, A Soldiers Blog is for you. Both these shots (and a lot more) were found there.

Welcome to the MilBlogs ring!

Flushed Down the Memory Hole

Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on Larry King Live and defended America against accusations made by Amnesty International in their recently released "Gulag" report. The show was broadcast on Memorial Day and was probably seen by hundreds of viewers. But at least one of them was an AP reporter, who filed this report of the program. That link goes to the LA Times version, but the story was carried by virtually every major news organization in America. ABC, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle all published the story. From Miami to Seattle, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Jackson Hole Star-Tribune, Americans would find headlines stating "Cheney Defends Prison Camp" and "Cheney Offended by Amnesty Int'l Report".

And here's what they read:

Washington's defense of its detention and interrogation practices comes after weeks of international criticism and violent protests by Muslims outraged at reports which the Pentagon says are false that an interrogator at Guantanamo had flushed pages of the Quran down a toilet.

...an interrogator at Guantanamo had flushed pages of the Quran down a toilet.

Among the previously unreported cases, sources tell NEWSWEEK: interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet

At NEWSWEEK, veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff's interest had been sparked by the release late last year of some internal FBI e-mails that painted a stark picture of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo. Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command (which runs the Guantanamo prison) were looking into the allegations. So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter. The source told Isikoff that the report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Qur'an down a toilet.

There were no "violent protests by Muslims outraged at reports which the Pentagon says are false that an interrogator at Guantanamo had flushed pages of the Quran down a toilet". The protests were sparked by absurd reports of a complete Koran being flushed down a toilet. Of course, those who are prone to riot and kill aren't going to bother to let silly facts stand in their way, and those who are willing to attack the integrity of the US military at any opportunity aren't going to let the limitations of modern plumbing slow them down either. I suppose we can credit the AP writer with realizing the absurdity of the claim, but rewriting history to make an impossible story plausible just ain't the way to deal with it.

Baghdad Weather Forecast

Most of you Stateside have noticed it's warming up and summer is here, but in Iraq, hell has arrived. The forecast for this week is hot , in the 100's but the hottest temperatures are still to come. Temperatures average 110 degrees but can reach as high as 130 degrees and then some. (Greyhawk adds: - heat like that sucks all the fun out of walking around in a helmet and armor while toting a ton of gear.)

We can help keep our troops cooler by sending them Chilly Willy Neckties They're inexpensive, they work, and they come in DCU colors.

If you are a MilBlog Ring member or a member of Adopt A Platoon, you can get a discount coupon code# here

Warrior to Warrior

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the latest installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq. See the intro to the series here).

The Cost of Doing Battle

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

I don't know how it is on your side of the world, but over here, the lack of armor on Humvees still will not be solved. In the same way that the abuses of 11 convicted guards at Abu Ghraib will not go away. Likewise the lack of found WMDs. And that infamous "Mission Accomplished" sign on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, two words now alleged (should I say "imagined") to have spouted from President Bush's mouth.

Let's just call it what it is, shall we? It's an element of an antiwar movement, chiefly in the press, generally traceable back to Vietnam, the mother of all unjust wars. There. I feel better. I hope our fellow citizens in the press and those who oppose the war in Iraq can experience a like catharsis.

I mean, just say it, why don't you. "I hate war, all war, and no war, beginning with Vietnam, is worth any cost." That wasn't so hard, was it?

Face it. Hatred of war is the reason these negatives get marched out, lined up and serenaded weekly. It's why every casualty, every tragedy, every accident, every setback in Iraq gets front-page play.

Now don't tell me I'm minimizing a single death, either. I said it last week: Every death is truly a family tragedy. It's a military tragedy, too, and even a national tragedy in a sense. The sad part, though, is that, in the press, every death is merely an opportunity to exploit an antiwar sentiment. Every life lost is a chance to twist a blade in the heart of Americans who value life, especially parents with sons and daughters in Iraq. It's an attitude that comes through clearly in subtext: "War is worthy of hate, and I'm going to give you every possible reason to hate it as much as I do. And soon, just as in Vietnam, you'll sicken of, if not the war, the war news I give you." As I wrote last week, it's a notion that might have been somewhat counterproductive post-December-1941, nein?

Let me be clear about this. I'm not saying the press is to blame when things go bad in Iraq. Neither am I saying that the press should balance (one of their own favorite words) the coverage in Iraq. I'm not even hyping Iraq as a just war.

In my turn, I have to face facts, too. The reporting on Abu Ghraib, this war's equivalent of Vietnam's Tet, will never end until there's a more significant setback, a new Tet, so to speak. As the goons are so fond of telling Tony Soprano, I'm just saying. I'm just saying: I wish the press would stop whining about armor, because everything in war has a cost, even the perfect armor they seek.

Small-scale example. Individual protection. I told you I was in tanks in Vietnam. One of our weapons was the .50 caliber machinegun mounted in an armored cupola atop the turret. This machinegun, developed in WWII, is so well built it's still in the arsenal. But to fight protected with it from our tanks, we had to pay a price. Inside that tiny armored cupola, you had to load it by touch because you couldn't see very well. Then, fully loaded, you had only one can of ammo, 50 rounds. Which gave you less than 10 seconds of firing time.

So like the Apollo 13 crew, we improvised. We got the guys from the motor pool to weld a gun mount on the outside of the cupola--the brace on my mount was a huge wrench with thee-inch jaws. That way we could place a 500-round can of ammo on top of the turret and, by comparison, fight forever (well, almost a minute of sustained fire, which is a long time in combat). A heckuva benefit. Not to mention that we could see to load the gun in half the time.

The cost? To reload, you had to take a risk. You had to stand up, leaving your upper body vulnerable to fire. Still . . .

We took the risk. We opted for the firepower, and, I suppose we risked the outrage of the press that, luckily, never came.

In war there is a cost to everything. Theoretically, you could armor every soldier up to the level of a personal tank. If you did, you'd have to give him a motor. Otherwise he couldn't move. But even then you'd pay a price. Only a lightly armored, lightly armed soldier can bust through a door to clear a suspected terrorist hideout. If you used a tank to reduce casualties to nil, say, as in the attack on the Branch Davidians at Waco . . . well, then you'd see a different kind of negative story in the press, wouldn't you?

Man, there's no pleasing those guys, ja?

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

____________

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. These columns are excerpts from an upcoming book. His current book, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.