am going on blog Hiatus for a few days. Please feel free to visit any people on the blogrolls on the side or read any of the thousands of posts I've done before. I may have guest posters so be sure to visit everyday.
Be back to full swing at the beginning of next week where I will continue to discuss "The Fog of War" and any developments on the war front.
In the meantime, my favorites are:
John at the Castle
Mudville Gazette
Blackfive
Iraq the Model
Protein Wisdom
Power Line
Blonde Sagacity
Enjoy any links at the side bar or on the other sites. Maybe when I'm back I'll have something brilliant to add on the information war.
Hasta la vista!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Going on Hiatus: For real. Leaving Now..See Ya
Mud Huts, Chai Tea, Villages with No Name
Spirit of America is one of the great organizations that I don't talk enough about. They are a big part of the "Mud huts and Chai Tea" projects that build rapport and understanding between the United States and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
This project is just a small part of it:
Col. Bivens wrote the following:
Mark and I completed our last visit to a school today so it was a bittersweet moment for both of us although we know the work will continue with the next group. We both worked very hard this year soliciting donations, unpacking, organizing, making reconnaissance for field trips, repacking for the field trips and then, of course making the trips. Although it takes a lot of work to deliver a single item in a foreign country (especially one at war), we know that it takes a great team effort. Only through donations made by Spirit of America were these trips made possible. We would have had some items, but your organization was a huge part of the effort and we were glad to be a part of your team for this year
Pictures included.Spirit of America
Try a list of other projects and think about how we can help with both ends:
Project Valour IT (Help a soldier when he's been injured get back on his feet and back in the world)
Spirit of America (Provides equipment, books, supplies and many other important items and money for the Mud Huts and Chai Tea part of this war. Every dollar spent helps promote relations between soldiers and the people they are trying to help. Every step in that direction means one less soldier will be attacked, one less IED, one less kidnapping, etc)
Make it happen people and tell others all about it.
Local War News: Missouri Soldier Killed in Afghanistan
BALTIMORE (AP) -- A 22-year-old soldier from St. Joseph died in Afghanistan fighting insurgents there.
Private First Class Brian J. Bradbury died June 21st when he encountered enemy forces during combat operations in Naray, Afghanistan.
He was assigned to the 71st Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y.
KCTV5 News, Weather, Traffic and Sports for the Kansas City Area | Missouri Soldier Killed in Afghanistan
Maryland Soldier Dies Helping Wounded Comrade
A soldier from Maryland died this week in Afghanistan while helping evacuate another soldier who also died, the Pentagon said Friday.
Staff Sergeant Heathe N. Craig, 28, of Severn died June 21 when his UH-60 helicopter hoist malfunctioned while attempting to evacuate Private First Class Brian J. Bradbury during combat operations in Naray, Afghanistan, the Department of Defense said.
Bradbury, 22, of Saint Joseph, Missouri, was fatally injured when he encountered enemy forces using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades during combat operations.
Craig was assigned to the 159th Air Ambulance Medical Company, Wiesbaden, Germany.
Information War: Cameraman reveals secrets of al-Qa'eda propaganda war
This is what I'm talking about in turn around time and smooth productions:
An al-Qa'eda propagandist has revealed the inner workings of the terrorist network's media machine, describing how he was summoned to a hideout in Afghanistan to shoot a video of Osama bin Laden's deputy.
Qari Mohammed Yusuf, a cameraman, described in an interview with the Associated Press news agency how a courier brought a summons to him. It read: "The emir wants to send a message."
The emir, meaning prince or commander, was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who wanted to broadcast a message of defiance proclaiming that he had survived an American air strike.[snip]
Yusuf, an Afghan, said he is one of a half-dozen cameramen used by Zawahiri. Most are Arabs, and not all are known to each other, he said. He claimed that he had been a loyal and trusted servant of the Egyptian terrorist leader for several years, and in the interview gave no detail that could identify where Zawahiri's hideout might be found.
But he described how a van converted into a computer-equipped "mobile studio" was sometimes used for editing by al-Qa'eda technicians and would visit Pakistani cities such as Peshawar or Lahore, where videos were then produced for the bazaars or for transfer to Arab television.
The speed with which the Taliban and al-Qa'eda manage to respond to events in Afghanistan and churn out propaganda has frustrated commanders. "The Taliban are winning the propaganda war," said one senior British officer in Afghanistan.
Telegraph | News | Cameraman reveals secrets of al-Qa'eda propaganda war
This is the type of production that they are able to put together and have out within 48 hours: Mujihadeen World Cup
Over the weekend, I went to visit Centcom and catch up on the press releases that, during the week you can often get before they roll up on the AP wires cut and pasted with some details missing. However, I noticed, once again, over the weekend, all of the tech guys must have been gone because the last press release date on Sunday night was from Friday.
The terrorists don't rest and neither do their information machines. To act like this on going and continuous, daily war can be fought Monday through Friday 8 to 5, as if it was not a significant part of the over all war, is just inconceivable to me.
Further, I was watching video of a repelled assault. In the video, the soldiers get up high and fire out. They are talking about things they see and what's going on, but you can't see what's going on beyond the soldiers firing out. You can't see the people, you can't see their targets. You can hear the men talking about what is going on, then you see one of them let off a grenade from his grenade launcher and an explosion where it lands, but you can't see what he hits, who he hits or anything else.
For all anybody knows, he could have been grenading a falafel stand. NOt that I think that was happening since I could see incoming rounds smacking off the concrete walls around them, but it does not rival the big explosions and destroyed humvees on this propaganda piece by the insurgents.
We're not in this game. We're not even close to playing this game. We're still acting like the media should send embeds (which they won't) in the manner of free nations where free press cover the important aspects of the day or make "compelling stories". The only thing compelling they can come up with are pictures of alleged abuse and "massacres", much of which ends up being BS propaganda in the first place; things they can't and won't verify, but often referred to as the "objective" truth.
What's funny is that the press often does say that reports are "unverified", but usually at the end of the article or televised spiel. By then, most readers or viewers have already determined in their mind that, if it is being reported, some information or other verification occured that legitimizes the report as the truth. Largely because most people don't really know how the media works. People imagine that "unverified" means they've gotten the info from a fairly reliable source, but haven't been able catch that second or third person to give it the complete thumbs up.
"Fairly reliable" equates to "you heard it here first." Regular Joe coming home from ten hour work day and flipping on the news channel believes exactly that. Then, when parts of the story start falling apart, the media will make some lame disclaimer on page A9, three sentences at the bottom of the page near some small advertisements of the same size. Advertisements that people typically skip over so they skip those corrections, too.
The media will say that they do that because, by time they learn new info, the story is often already dead or the correction info is mentioned in some other area or story (though not referred to as a "correction"). That may be half the story, but no one who has worked in business management where their reputation is a large part of getting and keeping customers (all businesses), should be fooled into thinking that there is a second and very real reason that newspapers put the corrections in the back pages or online corrections are put on the original article in archives without listing them up front as a new part of a story (and then linking to the archive) or that the televised media says two sentence corrections before telling you "the other news of the day".
It is simply not good business to admit that you have a problem or have had an incident, even if they are simple errors that don't result in any harm to the customer or contractors. A few admitted errors equals bad business rep. When your rep is based on the truth and accuracy, admitting in public in 12 point type that you told something that was not the exact truth (even if it was not exactly your fault), is a rep killer. No one is going to do that unless their arm is twisted off (like Rather - who still didn't; or Mapes; or Isikoff and the Koran desecration, etc, etc, etc).
I did not mean to get off on a rant about the media. I do believe I am not overstating the case for how and why media does business. But, the military nor the government has recognized how this process works or, if they have, they haven't figured out how to produce information, verifiable and viewable, that the media will pick up or doesn't cover.
Those slick Iraqi Freedom Journal videos are okay, but the stories are not often compelling except to someone who really watches the military or is enlisted in it. Frankly, to compete with the jihadists, they are going to have to do more than show Lt This or Colonel That talking about generic recent operations, standing around in their digital cammies, helmets and goggles inside the FOB (no, we don't necessarily need graphic dead bodies all the time, but I would definitely go for more than is currently being shown).
I've said before, the info war needs to be Steve Austin: smarter, better and faster than ever before.
The Truth On the Ground
Open optimism, whether or not it is warranted, is a necessary trait in senior officers and officials. Skeptics can be excused for discounting glowing reports on Iraq from the upper echelons of power. But it is not a simple thing to ignore genuine optimism from mid-grade, junior and noncommissioned officers who have spent much of the past three years in Iraq.
We know the streets, the people and the insurgents far better than any armchair academic or talking head. As military professionals, we are trained to gauge the chances of success and failure, to calculate risk and reward. We have little to gain from our optimism and quite a bit to lose as we leave our families over and over again to face danger and deprivation for an increasingly unpopular cause. We know that there are no guarantees in war, and that we may well fail in the long run. We also know that if we follow our current plan we can, over time, leave behind a stable and unified country that might help to anchor a better future for the Middle East.
The Truth On the Ground
And another great read:
A marine sees what defeatists don't
RAMADI, Iraq — This is my third deployment with the 1st Marine Division to the Middle East.
This is the third time I've heard the quavering cries of the talking heads predicting failure and calling for withdrawal.
This is the third time I find myself shaking my head in disbelief.
Setbacks and tragedy are part and parcel of war and must be accepted on the battlefield. We can and will achieve our goals in Iraq.
I need to hat tip somebody, but can't find where I found these two pieces (closed the window too soon).
WSJ.com - Bloggers Find Financial Backers For Their Independent News Sites
As the print media ponder the possibilities presented by blogs, some journalists are raising money to turn their own independent blogs into businesses.
WSJ.com - Bloggers Find Financial Backers For Their Independent News Sites
Monday, June 26, 2006
Limbaugh detained at Palm Beach airport - Yahoo! News
Normally, I wouldn't write about this stuff because I don't go for conspiracy theories, however, I do have to question how this came about:
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Rush Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours Monday at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities said they found a bottle of Viagra in his possession without a prescription.
Limbaugh detained at Palm Beach airport - Yahoo! News
First, I really have to ask, was he coming in to the country after being out of the country and this was a typical customs search that found these pills?
Because I was a frequent traveller, I am well aware of how well (or not) bags are searched. Particularly, carry on bags. I know I had prescription pain killers, antibiotics and over the counter meds in various bottles that never really raised any eyebrows when it was going through the detectors. I had an abcessed tooth and prescriptions in my name of course, but point or question is why would anyone single out Rush Limbough?
Well, we know "why" actually, but he had one pill bottle with Viagra. While being a prescrtiption drug with the possibility of heart attack or defib if you over dose (not to mention other painful reactions), it is not something you get high off of and the dangers or street falue is no where near that of vicodin, percoset or oxycotin (to name a few).
Yet, here is a public man with an admitted drug addiction (Viagra is not typically something you get addicted to), flies into Palm Beach International and is singled out for a search that may or may not result in misdemeanor charges (probably not).
That is either: a) one of the worst publicity stunts ever pulled by Limbaugh; b) the security knew of his addiction and decided they would search him to see if they could catch him (why? Why not search Charlie Sheen or someone of that ilk who is into the hard drugs?); or, c) someone thought they were on to something and called security ahead of time to try to get him caught.
I don't really care about Limbaugh per se, but I saw this and it just struck me as wrong.
Breaking: Soldier's Body Missing
Breaking news!: Details sketchy. KCTV5 said that Tucson, AZ reporting body of recently killed soldier is missing from the mortuary. Casket discovered empty and seals broken in a field.
No links yet to story. Stay tuned for updates or hoax breaker.
Updates:
Authorities now know where the body is after an empty casket was found in the desert on the southwest side over the weekend.
A nationwide alert was issued to try to find out whose body was in the casket, which had military- type markings.
Now investigators say the body had been disinterred in May, at the request of the family. The family had it cremated. Sheriff's Deputies say the empty casket was taken to Los Reales landfill, where someone stole it.
My guess is they looked up the serial numbers on the casket and back tracked.
Original story
Casket Case Solved
Casket found in field by paintballers.
TUCSON, Ariz. -- An empty casket with a military seal was discovered in a desert area south of Tucson, and sheriff's deputies were looking for the body.
"Obviously it had the smell, and there was other evidence that it had been inhabited recently," Deputy Dawn Barkman said Sunday.
Forensic investigators took DNA samples, and a nationwide alert was issued in hopes of finding out who was the recently-used casket, Barkman said.
Deputies were called to a desert area near Interstate 10 around 5:30 p.m. Saturday after two people playing paintball found the casket, Barkman said. The casket was metallic silver with a U.S. Army insignia on it, she said
Casket was sealed?
"A military-type casket, with stars and stripes and a U.S. Seal on it," said Lt. Bob Kimmins, the Pima County Sheriff's Office forensics commander.
What was once someone's final resting place, deputies found vacant.
"Without being terribly graphic, the contents of the casket itself suggested to law enforcement officers that clearly a body had been in there," Kimmins said.
Discovering the identity of the body was the just the beginning for investigators. "We do not have a whole lot of information obviously. The mystery to us is where is the body, and there's too many possibilities to me to speculate what could have happened here," Kimmins said.
Even nearby residents can't begin to answer that question.
"It seems to me to fairly quiet [here]. We don't get bothered by neighbors or people coming up to doors too much," Martello said.
The casket was sealed and in its original condition when deputies found it. It is unknown whether it was dug up or how long the body had been inside.
There is a nationwide broadcast to anyone missing a casket containing a body. If you have any information, please call 911 or 88-CRIME.
C-130 aircrew evacuates girl on Father's Day
Chai tea, mud huts...
6/21/2006 - BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- When Maj. Wayne Vaughn looked down at the injured 12-year-old girl clinging to life on a litter loaded in his C-130 Hercules, he thought, "How can they do this? How can they try and kill a little girl?"
Taliban extremists had bombed a girls school in Herat in eastern Afghanistan on June 18, killing four and injuring 11.
The girl had a broken back and collarbone, head injuries and was in critical condition.
C-130 aircrew evacuates girl on Father's Day
If you don't understand already, this little girl meant nothing to the men who bombed her school. She had no more value than an old pair of shoes. Maybe less. This was not an accidental bombing of a school by a stray shell or the result of a battle against enemy forces or an attempt to get a high ranking or multiple actors of the enemy with children becoming accidental collateral damage. We are talking about deliberate acts.
The taliban believe that educated women are dangerous. The truth is, they are dangerous to the Taliban because women raise the children and if the women stop believing that the Taliban can control them, then Islamist ideology begins to slowly crash and burn.
In the end, it is not how much you are willing to brutalize people to make them accept your ideas, but how much you may reason with them.
Cutting off their heads and bombing schools probably doesn't have as great a return as the Islamists think. Even Genghis Khan eventually met his fate.
SaudiSphere: Iran welcomes its first patch of religious bloggers
I didn't see this on many of the regular "watch" blogs I've read, but apparently, the Iranian government is trying to beat us at our own game.
SaudiSphere: Iran welcomes its first patch of religious bloggers
I believe this may call for some discussion and ideas on how to take advantage of these blogs. there are ways and there are ways. ;)
The Jihadi Network's Fatal Flaw
And other interesting articles:
Separate cells would recruit, plan, and operate on their own, receiving only instructions, guidance, and technical information from overseas.
This kind of structure is known as a “distributed network” among fourth-generation warfare (4GW) enthusiasts. (4GW is a strategic school of thought holding that the type of warfare practiced by the Jihadis is a totally new form developed to combat the 3GW – fast air-armor maneuver warfare – perfected by the West. In truth, 4GW appears to be little more than terrorism and guerilla warfare fitted out with an elaborate new vocabulary.)
What’s really new – and a minor justification for 4GW rhetoric – is the use of the Internet as a contact tool. The contact system is always an Achille’s Heel of any underground organization. By identifying one member, following him until he meets up with another, then following the second member, you can soon break open an entire network. This is exactly how Zarqawi himself was at last tracked down, with his spiritual advisor Sheik Abdel Rahman unwittingly leading a Coalition drone straight to his door. Such things as dead drops and the cell system were introduced to overcome this weakness.
Read where the fatal flaw comes in.
The Jihadi Network's Fatal Flaw
A look at the insurgency - A Many Headed Insurgency
Taliban Continuing Losses
The only problem I have with estimations of attrition is that you should never count on body counts where not all of the bodies are retrieved. If I sound like a lefty, I certainly mean nothing more than estimates are often widely and wildly inaccurate. Body counts and estimations of numbers attacking are difficult to assimilate in an insurgency. Further, body counts do not make for a win in an insurgency.
Yet, I also don't forget that the some of the main supply for "taliban" comes from Pakistan and, as this report indicates, that front is getting hotter. The race for the next front of the war (whether a proxy war or direct) is between two areas. Not withstanding N. Korea's most recent saber rattling, it's Pakistan (already underway, but wondering how much we are assisting Pakistan or can) or the Palestinian territories where Islamic Jihad (Al Zawahiri's group and part of the AQ compact for Global Jihad) continues to wage war against Israel even against the wishes of Hamas.
Islamic Jihad and the rest of the "Global Front", as I mention in two other posts, have two problems with Hamas. First, they consider them apostates for having joined the Democratic process. The Democratic process being "man's law" supplanting Allah's law (Shariah). Second, they vie for money from Saudis and other Muslims (in Europe and the United States) that AQ and it's fellow travellers would like to have in their pockets.
To top it off, Hamas gets some financial and moral support from Iran, Shi'ite Islamist government. Shi'ite being either accepted or rejected depending on what branch of AQ (the afghani or the Iraqi) holds sway over the rhetoric of the moment. In Palestine and Iraq (ie, the Western front), the AQ affiliates have very much bought into the idea that Shia in general are not only apostates, but traitors. Hamas and Hezbollah playing into it by participating in voting and democratic government.
It's very probable that all of these splits in ideology and strategy will, in fact, be the actual "fatal flaw" that kills the AQ Islamist organization as any sort of gathering threat. Unfortunately, it may leave the Shia version as the "next".
Kurdish immigrants facing prison time - Yahoo! News
Or, an alternate title would be, "US Begins Taking Apart Terrorist Halawa System":
HARRISONBURG, Va. - Rasheed Qambari escaped threats from Saddam Hussein's regime a decade ago and was granted asylum in the United States. [snip]
Qambari was convicted in January of operating an unlicensed money transferring business and is scheduled to be sentenced Monday along with two co-defendants. All three could be deported.
Amir Rashid and Ahmed Abdullah pleaded guilty to the same felony charge, which carries a term of up to five years. A fourth man, Fadhil Noroly, is set to go on trial July 11.
Authorities say the men, who all were granted asylum in the United States, transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq without a business license. Prosecutors would not comment until after the sentencings, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office.
Kurdish immigrants facing prison time - Yahoo! News
While this report makes the men seem very sympathetic and above board, which they may actually be, the Halawa system of unofficial, untrackable money transfers is a mainstay of terrorist financiing and various other illegal transactions such as drug running from the Middle East and Gun Running; all of which contributes to terrorist activities around the world.
As I pointed out in this post on the Hezbollah v. al Qaeda vie for Muslim "charity" money to finance their operations, this money is being transferred through on of three ways:
1) Collected and hand carried in small amounts. Generally amounts that would not cause alarm at border crossings or custom's searches in air ports. This may be part of the Halawa system, but may be the most direct approach if unreliable in terms of trustworthy couriers or couriers that can make it through all of the searches and security.
2) Halawa system.
The unique feature of the system is that no promissory instruments are exchanged between the hawala brokers; the transaction takes place entirely on the honor system. As the system does not depend on the legal enforceability of claims, it can operate even in the absence of a legal and juridical environment. No records are produced of individual transactions; only a running tally of the amount owed one broker by the other is kept. Settlements of debts between hawala brokers can take a variety of forms, and need not take the form of direct cash transactions.
In addition to commissions, hawala brokers often earn their profits through bypassing official exchange rates. Generally the funds enter the system in the source country's currency and leave the system in the recipient country's currency. As settlements often take place without any foreign exchange transactions, they can be made at (black) market rates rather than official rates.[snip]
Furthermore, the transfers are informal and not effectively regulated by governments, which is a major advantage to customers with tax, currency control, immigration, or other legal concerns. For the same reasons, governments disfavor the system, and accusations have been made in recent years that terrorist funding often changes hands through hawala networks.
3) Through legal banking transactions as discussed in the recent outing of the SWIFT investigations that can be read about here, here and here,
In short, the US is going after every aspect of the financing system for terroris. Even if these men are honest, upright citizens who have no connections or sympathies with terrorist organizations, who they deal with, who uses their systems, without a formal process for backgroud checks or following transactions, means that even their "honest" transactions present a danger to the US and an ability for terrorists to continue to act.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Zarqawi Gets 72 Helen Thomases
And even she wouldn't sleep with the dog.
Iowa congressman apologizes for jest
Saddam clings to hope US will enlist his aid: lawyer - Yahoo! News
I don't think I have to give you anything more than the headlines. If you were not rolling with laughter before you finished reading that, then you have no sense of humor.
Or, you were a member of the Ba'athist regime that would like it to come back.
Saddam clings to hope US will enlist his aid: lawyer - Yahoo! News
Hezbollah, al-Qaida mirror Islamic split - Yahoo! News
BEIRUT, Lebanon - To the outside world, the two groups appear to have much in common: Devoutly Muslim, fiercely hostile to Israel and the U.S., and high on Washington's list of terrorist groups.
Yet al-Qaida in Iraq and Lebanon's Hezbollah are waging a worsening verbal dispute that threatens to burst into confrontation.
First came a fiery diatribe from al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — just a week before he was killed by a U.S. airstrike — accusing Hezbollah of acting as a protective buffer for Israel.
Hezbollah, generally reserved in its comments on internal Islamic issues, began to react: One of its main political figures told The Associated Press it wasn't his group at all but al-Zarqawi that was the "tool" of United States and Israel.
Hezbollah, al-Qaida mirror Islamic split - Yahoo! News
For once, someone actually tells the truth in the middle of all the diatribes aimed at the current administration about allowing the Iraq situation to turn "sectarian":
The two branches of Islam live uneasily side by side in some countries, such as Lebanon, or in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Other countries have a strong majority of one or the other that dominates, such as strongly Sunni Saudi Arabia whose Shiite minority is mostly politically repressed.
Al-Zarqawi brought all of that to a boil, because of "his personal hatred of Iraq's Shiite population," said Richard Evans, terrorism editor at Jane's Information Group in London.
Of course, we knew his goal, but how do you keep it from happening in the face of three major issues: 1) an existing, centuries old "family feud" that started the day Mohammed died; 2) When the Sunni bedouin tribes had been invading Iraq and settling the western provinces to finally have a Sunni put on the throne of Iraq (Fiesel) by the British; 3) when the Shia saw their Ba'athist oppressors as largely "Sunni" and wanted revenge.
It was probably the simplest plan to implement, contrary to commentary about the genius of Zarqawi, yet, it did take someone from the area who understood that it existed to implement it:
His goal was to create a Sunni Muslim religious-based government in Iraq, and he believed "that could only be achieved with the defeat of any Shiite-led Iraqi government," Evans said. Thus, he tried to kill Shiites in Iraq, which is now ruled by a Shiite-led government.
But this line I thought actually skirted the main issue because no one wants to talk about the "main" issue:
Al-Zarqawi also may have worried that Hezbollah was too popular among Arab Sunnis — that it was his rival for Sunnis' affections across the region — because of its fight against Israel.
It wasn't just the Sunnis' "affection" he was a rival for, but their money as well. It wasn't that long ago that a Saudi telethon raised millions of dollars for the Palestinians; millions of dollars that did not make it to Zarqawi and his ilk. It wasn't that long ago that Zawahiri was begging Zarqawi to forward money to him in Pakistan (100,000). It is recently that the news of Zarqawi's network in Europe came to light. This network was not simply about recruiting jihadists to go to Iraq or to do terrorist acts in Europe, but was largely about collecting monetary donations.
In light of which, I find the question about the SWIFT program being printed interesting. Not just because it brought into the open something many (including the jihadists) had to assume was going on, but because I wonder how effective it was or could be today. Jihadists are not all silly, hopped up fanatics psyching themselves up for a kill. In fact, there are plenty who are well educated and look at the strategic. They learn from each operation just as we do. I think about how many times the MNF-I(raq) would talk about jihadists carrying $3000 or so in cash across the border or raiding a "financier" who had $40,000 in American dollars at his home.
Considering that the Iraq banking system was and is still in dissaray, it is unlikely that it is getting transferred into Iraq. Into Jordan and Syria? Maybe, with people withdrawing it and carrying it. But, the system that I believe is still the most widely used and the least able to be monitored is the Halawa system. Loosely based on the pre-20th century banking system or even the Hospitaler banking system of depositing money in an informal institution, get issued a "letter of credit" and being able to withdraw the same amount on the other end. All without an electronic transfer or trail, without actual funds chaning hands and within an informal network that no one knows all the pieces or actors.
Which tells me that Zarqawi's group was/is in essence hand carrying cash from Europe to Iraq. That tells me that Zarqawi simply did not or could not compete with the kinds of ad hoc cash flow the Palestians were able to get after decades old networks had been established.
Some days I often think that we should let the Sunni and Shia finally duke it out, but I see that war being even longer and bloodier than our own "long war" against Islamist extremists. On top of that, using one to "kill" the other is an old Cold War strategy that, just like the defeat of Russia, might actually end up leaving us with an ugly mess we have to clean up and even uglier enemies.
That's why I'm not sure if I find this news about "infighting" good or bad.
(h/t Sandmonkey)
A Different Perspective
I feel that is the first time I have visited Iraq. Deploying to a place during a time of war and playing a part of that offensive operation, it is impossible to have any point of view besides the constant assessment of threat and responsive force. You can't appreciate landscapes or city streets. You are more preoccupied with observing the fine elements of city life and not the larger picture of community and family. You could deploy me to the Guggenheim and I wouldn't comment on anything other than the job at hand. Infantrymen are vigilant, quick tempered toward the enemy and always focused. Today I feel none of those things and that really is a great feeling. [snip]
Hanging out with journalists you tend to overhear all the belly aching and complaints leveled toward 22 year old privates, who have about as much to do with why planes are late as they do with why your tent's air conditioner broke down last night. Still the unwashed complain and the young soldiers apologize and smile. At one point in my life I was on the other side of that complete disconnect and I was the one smiling and apologizing. Today I appreciate that the Army I left is a better one today. And the Army my son will serve in will be even better tomorrow.
With barely a snap hand shake and first name introduction, those without weapons and uniforms huddle together and sip coffee while the uniformed men and women stay in their group. It is almost humorous to hear some of the expectations of the media or civilian contractors that we travel with on route to our destinations This one photographer who claimed that a Marine stabbed him at some point in the past, I wasn't really listening. To his credit there was a long story attached and I was nodding repeatedly but not listening to one word of this man's "war story". I find more and more the morale is lower with the media and the civilian contractors then with the soldiers.
Read the rest.
Vets For Freedom: A Different Perspective
The best lines?
There are many times when the systems simply shut down from over use or malfunction. From my experience, when you hear the phones are down and the internet is off, you instantly suspect that someone is simultaneously getting horrific news, news no family deserves to hear. How amazing that never even occurred to this fool who wants to check on the Czech Republic Ghana world cup score?
I could've shared that with my belly aching civilian, that someone may have been killed and he needed to slow his roll. Then I thought perhaps his Marine story is true and maybe this guy invokes rage in even the most passive souls.
Now you know why there is such a "disconnect". Some folks come from this world and visit that world expecting New York accomodations while others live in that world, see it daily, look at those who will continue to live in that world when they leave or those who have been injured or killed and know they've got it good.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Local War News: Kansas City
Marines engage enemy in Habbaniyah
CAMP HABBANIYAH, Iraq - Marines of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment engaged insurgents in direct firefights twice in three days at Observation Post Bears along a main route through the city.
The battalion recently built new observation posts along the highway connecting Fallujah and Ramadi, an area near the Euphrates River with no distinct city lines or local government[snip]
Most of the Marines in the house were resting when the attack started, preparing for such an occasion. Bullet ricochets and rocket-propelled grenades broke their slumber.
“I was sitting down listening to my music when suddenly I hear rounds impacting and bouncing off the wall,” said Lance Cpl. Nicholas Garlich, an infantryman from Kansas City, Kan. “I put on my gear and ran to the post at the north and an RPG hit the window. I was inside the room by myself. I got a little wound on my arm.”
After a quick bandage was applied to his left shoulder, Garlich ran to the rooftop to join the rest of the Marines already returning fire with their M-16’s and one special surprise – a shoulder-launched multi-purpose assault weapon.
Read the rest: Marines engage enemy in Habbaniyah
Telegraph | News | Wing Commander Nicky Barr
Wing commander Nicky Barr, who has died aged 90, was one of Australia's most successful wartime fighter pilots, credited with destroying at least 12 enemy aircraft.
Shot down three times, on the third occasion he was badly wounded and was taken prisoner by the Italians. He then escaped three times, and remained behind enemy lines for more than a year conducting clandestine operations with the partisans and special forces.[snip]
Initially flying the Tomahawk, Barr achieved his first success on December 12 1941, and this was quickly followed by four more before his encounter with German fighters over El Alamein. His philosophy in combat was simple: "The Tomahawk and Kittyhawk were not considered by us to be top fighter aircraft.
I decided early on that any deficiency either type had could be offset by unbridled aggression. I had done some boxing, and had beaten better opponents by simply going for them, and I decided to use this tactic in the air. It paid off."
Telegraph | News | Wing Commander Nicky Barr
Back when the word "hero" meant something.
Friday, June 23, 2006
ABC News: A Provocative Look at Soldiers' Lives in Iraq
And what are the three things they pick to show and talk about?
Three National Guard soldiers from New Hampshire were given their own cameras and asked to record a year Iraq. The more than 800 hours of video they recorded resulted in a film,"The War Tapes," which took the documentary feature award at the recent New York Tribeca Film Festival.
Specialist Mike Moriarty was one of the three soldiers — he signed up after 9/11. "That was like somebody hitting my house," Moriarty said to the camera. "I had to do something about it."
But Sgt. Zack Bazzi — born in Lebanon, fluent in Arabic — is dubious about America's intentions in Iraq.
"[Expletive] the oil man, [expletive] it," he said. "It's not worth it. I'll even drive a Honda Insight."
And Sgt. Steve Pink was a dedicated keeper of eloquently wrenching diaries.
"I looked down at his hand dangling from the exposed bone that used to be his elbow," he said, "like a safety-clipped mitten dangling from his winter coat."
ABC News: A Provocative Look at Soldiers' Lives in Iraq
Spin baby, spin.
VOA News - Iran's People Deserve Freedom
"So America supports the Iranian people's rights to develop nuclear energy peacefully, with proper international safeguards." But, said Mr. Bush, the rights of the Iranian people go beyond civilian nuclear power:
"The people of Iran, like people everywhere, also want and deserve an opportunity to determine their own future, an economy that rewards their intelligence and talents, and a society that allows them to pursue their dreams. I believe Iranians would thrive if they were given more opportunities to travel and study abroad, and do business with the rest of the world. Here in the United States, Iranian-Americans have used their freedom to advance in society and make tremendous contributions in areas from business to medicine to academics."
The United States, says Mr. Bush, "will provide more than seventy-five million dollars this year to promote openness and freedom for the Iranian people":
"These funds will allow us to expand and improve radio and television broadcasts to the people of Iran. These funds will support Iranian human rights advocates and civil society organizations. And these funds will promote student and faculty exchanges."
In these ways, said President Bush, "we can build bridges of understanding between our people."
VOA News - Iran's People Deserve Freedom
Kurdistan/Kurdish Iraq
Dahuk, 22 June (AKI - Source IRIN) - A sharp increase in house rents is hurting people in Iraq's northern Dahuk governorate. according to local officials. Following a large inflow of internally displaced people (IDPs) from other volatile regions of the country, there has been a shortage of housing. This has prompted landlords to cash in - leaving many with no choice but to stay in cramped and poor unhygienic conditions.
"One of the consequences of this large number of IDPs to Dahuk, within a short period of time, has been the dramatic increase in rent and house prices," Gorgees Shlemon, the acting Governor of Dahuk told IRIN.
"This has negatively affected people’s economic conditions,” he added.
IRAQ: INTERNAL 'REFUGEES' TRIGGER RENT HIKES
It's true there are internally displaced people, but I think one of the interesting aspects of this report is the very low number who are living outside of regular housing. the other aspect is that the security and economic boom of Kurdish Iraq (Kurdistan) has also contributed to an influx of people who are not necessarily refugees. Further, whenever salaries rise and businesses begin to flurish, the price of land, houses and rent invariably goes up. It is basic supply and demand economics.
However, I would keep an eye on this situation. If Kurdish Iraq experiences a continually quadrupling inflation rate, it could have negative effect on it's economic future.
Another interesting point is that I read statements from other Kurdish officials that seemed to welcome the refugees and actually invite them in as part of the necessary booming work force that was needed to continue feeding the economic growth. However, this could have been simple politics since I am not aware of the unemployment rate v. job growth in Kurdistan.
I recommend also reading
Kurdistan: Birth of a Nation?
A Tale of Two Cities
In Erbil, Dream Land’s director said, “We are looking to hire more people, especially those with technical skills. There is no unemployment to speak of in Iraqi Kurdistan. Around three quarters of the work force comes from other areas of the country, such as central and southern Iraq. Whereas the average salary of a construction worker in Baghdad is 15 thousand Dinars[1400 dinars = $1.00; this is about $12/day), they can make up to 20 dollars a day in Kurdistan, more than a fourfold increase.”
Kurdish Banks Slowly Win Trust
A new bank in Iraqi Kurdistan is trying to build confidence in the faltering banking system by bringing cash machines and wire transfer systems to the city of Erbil.
Kurdish officials are trying to promote their region to investors as a safer alternative to Baghdad, but a dearth of banks that can be trusted even for money transfers has been a frustration for residents and businesspeople.
A 2004 report by the government-run Kurdistan Corporation said that business executives were "unanimous that the lack of banking facilities is the biggest impediment to economic growth".
Two years on, however, Kurdistan’s banking system is growing, albeit slowly.
Brotherly Embrace
Some Shia politicians have already demanded for the south the same broad powers that the Kurds now have in the north, including an independent parliament, ministries and army. This is provoking much heat. The Kurds, after all, are suspected of aiming at secession. Iraq's Sunni Arabs fear that if the Shias ape the Kurdish model by establishing a “Shiastan” in the south, it could leave the oil-poor Sunnis alone with their palm trees and sand.
Kurdistan Open for Business
The wonder of Kurdistan
A glance out of the window of the Director General for Finance of the Kurdish regional government shows how far the future of Kurdistan has already flourished: around the Ministry of Finance, as in many places in the city, buildings are shooting up. Apartment buildings, offices, warehouses, it looks as if everywhere in Erbil is under construction.
Money, that is a key word today in the northern part of Iraq. You are never allowed to call it Northern Iraq because that offends every Kurd. To the Kurds the region is Kurdistan, liberated Kurdistan, as most residents call it today. Liberated from Saddam Hussein and years of oppression. Liberated from the religious constraints of the Islamists and seemingly ready for a new future that goes much further than the older generation can even imagine. [snip]
The demand for home ownership and the wish for improvement in the infrastructure are so great that the cement factory in front of the gates of Suleimaniyah has been put back in operation.
The clearest sign of the new boom in Kurdistan is the increase in salaries. Before the fall of Saddam Hussein a white collar worker earned 22,000 Iraqi dinar per month (around $148)--today 158,000 [math..that is a little over $1000/month], according to the Ministry of Finance. A clear sign of the upswing is the fact that Kurds have meanwhile become too expensive for some jobs. On the side of the road between Erbil and Suleimaniyah you discover tents with Iraqi and Chinese flags in honour of guest workers from China. Thirty-eight men from Beijing who speak neither English nor Kurdish nor Arabic are widening Kurdistan’s highway network. They sleep at night on cots in tents on the edge of the construction site. In Suleimaniyah you find more guest workers from their own country.
Iraqis from Tikrit or Baghdad are moving to the north because there is work here and a better security situation.
War Weary Arabs Go North
Arabs began turning up at the Kurdish tourist resorts after the overthrow of the Saddam, and their numbers have been steadily increasing.
The influx of Arabs has been a boon for the region, but some local Kurds complain their arrival has driven up prices.
Three years ago, one night in a Dukan holiday cabin cost 20-25 US dollars. It’s now more than double that. And the price of a small bottle of spring water can treble to 45 cents in the summer months.
The tourist companies, however, say they've rarely had it so good.
“Arabs are the best source of income for us,” said Kamal Hameed, chief executive of Daban Cabins on lake Dukan. Before the fall of the regime, he had 20 chalets and now has four times as many, increasing his monthly profits from 5000 to 30,000 dollars.
Poultry Industry Picks Up
The Foreigner in Formosa: Johnny Rejects Isolationism
I am a little late with this, but considering all the discussions about North Korea, this commentary on China and Taiwan is well worth the read:
What got Johnny into such a state was Lind's suggestion that China's claims on Taiwan were legitimate, and that the U.S. should butt out.[snip]
Lind then tries to explain why poor little China will be forced against its will to put the Taiwanese in their place:
Taiwan is vastly important to China, because the great threat to China throughout its history has been internal division. If one province, Taiwan, can secure its independence, why cannot other provinces do the same? It is the spectre of internal break-up that forces China to prevent Taiwanese independence at any cost, including war with America.
Reality check here: Taiwan has NEVER been controlled by the People's Republic of China. Moreover, within the last century, Taiwan was only a part of a "Greater China" for a couple of years following World War II. That means that it's essentially been separate from Greater China for a hundred years now. And in spite of this, Communist China has miraculously managed to maintain its internal cohesiveness during its entire 50 year lifespan without collecting a single NT dollar in taxes, without imprisoning a single Taiwanese democracy advocate, and without murdering a single Falun Gong adherent.
Maybe, just maybe, it's an exaggeration then to say that Taiwanese independence is the single magical element that can bring the whole Chinese house of cards crashing down.
[snip]
Finally, Lind raises the specter of a nuclear confrontation, which ultimately gets back to the familiar question about whether America is willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for Taipei. A Chinese general asked that a few years back, and Taiwanese (or are they Chinese?) commenters on Taiwan-related blogs ask it as well.[snip]
Is America willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for Taipei? My response is to turn that question, which is asked purely in an effort to demoralize, upon its head. What we really should ask is whether it is the Chinese who are willing to sacrifice Beijing for Banchiao***, or Shanghai for ShiminDing****?
If China is tempted to answer that irrationally enough, it may one day find itself boasting of its five thousand year history...while looking forward to nothing more than a fifteen minute future.
There is much more to read at:
The Foreigner in Formosa: Johnny Rejects Isolationism
I think the same question can be asked of Pyongyang. What are they willing to sacrifice for the headlong rush to Nuclear Proliferation.
A North Korean diplomat reportedly said Wednesday that his country wants talks with Washington over the issue, but John Bolton, U.S. envoy to the United Nations, repeated the U.S. rejection of that idea Thursday.
"You don't initiate talks by threatening to launch an ICBM," or intercontinental ballistic missile, Bolton said.
Instead, Washington wants Pyongyang to resume six-nation nuclear talks, which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. The North has boycotted talks since November, angered by a U.S. crackdown on its alleged illicit financial activity.
Hopefully we asked that same question of Tehran and the Mullahs, who, I suspect, are actually very interested in earthly pursuits as much as heavenly rewards.
(As a side note, I think I am seriously tired of hearing about Iran's "nuclear rights". I know where that language comes from, but in the realm of "rights" that one could have and would be helpful in Iran, "nuclear" does not come to mind. In fact, "nuclear rights" is grotesque in the face of hanging sixteen year olds for alleged "adultery" from a cherry picker in the town square. How about some common rights like free speech, privacy, freedom to practice religion, freedom from arbitrary arrest?)
PAKISTAN: SUPREME COURT ORDERS ACTION AGAINST TORTURE CELLS
Islamabad, 22 June (AKI/DAWN) - Pakistan's Supreme Court has directed the police in the Sindh province to take effective action to abolish torture cells allegedly being operated by some police officials. A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad directed the inspector general of Sindh police to immediately undertake a comprehensive survey of all such cells in the province.
The bench was told that some police officers, on the orders of influential feudalists, operated private cells where innocent citizens were kept in illegal confinement.
PAKISTAN: SUPREME COURT ORDERS ACTION AGAINST TORTURE CELLS
I can't decide if this is Pakistan trying to move to the "rule of law", "protection under the law" and "human rights protections" or if it is simply the state is angry at infringements on its monopoly on incarceration and torture.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Commander: Fewer civilians dying
We have people who were on the fence or supported us who in the last two years or three years have in fact decided to strike out against us. And you have to ask: Why is that? And I would argue in many instances we are our own worst enemy," Chiarelli said in an interview.
Chiarelli said he reviews the figures daily. If fewer civilians are killed, "I think that will make our soldiers safer," Chiarelli said.
Chiarelli said U.S. soldiers are killing and injuring fewer Iraqi civilians this year in so-called escalation-of-force incidents at checkpoints and near convoys than they did in July of last year, when officials first started tracking the statistic.
The New York Times reported that coalition soldiers in Iraq killed an average of one civilian every day during 2005 in incidents at checkpoints or roadblocks or alongside convoys, according to statistics compiled by officers in Baghdad. So far this year, with new military guidelines in place, the number of Iraqi civilians killed at checkpoints, roadblocks or along convoys has dropped to an average of one a week, according to the military statistics.
Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/22/2006 | Commander: Fewer civilians dying
Some of the opposition often ask (or demand) that the supporters of the war recognize "failures" of the war. Why? So we can pretend that it's all about Bush Co and Republican mismanagement. What the alternative was (withdrawal, ignominious retreat?), I have yet to completely understand how or why it would have been better.
But, if you want a complaint about the handling of the war from a war supporter, this would be it. Basically, the extremely slow and painful move from the Pentagon and senior military leadership in understanding, preparing for, training for and implementing counter-insurgency warfare.
Believe it or not, I don't completely blame Rumsfeld or Bush for these problems. I know, I'm a partisan hack. Not really. I see it as a big part of our post-Vietnam military culture. We got burned in Vietnam because we didn't know how to fight an insurgency and instead of really trying to figure it out and implementing it across our entire military structure (instead of just within small special forces and CIA groups), recognizing that this was the future of war (small wars, insurgencies, etc), they through up their hands and said, "We are only going to go to war with states with huge armies that we will then employ maximum force against, destroy the army, call it a victory and go home".
That would be Shinseki, Zinni and Powell. What they asked for, the impossible really, was a "clear military objective" they could complete and go home. From my perspective, those demands were code for "only deploy the military if we are guaranteed victory". Sometimes I think they look less like Patton and much more like McClellan.
I also blame it on us: the US citizen. We also got burned in Vietnam and our society, our body politic also rejected the idea of counter-insurgency warfare because it is long, it is sometimes morally ambiguous and it does not result in surrender signing on the USS Missouri; our iconic idea of victory and honorable defeat of the enemy. Insurgencies aren't like that and it scares the dog out of the body politic. It's the unknown. It's violent. It doesn't square with our dream of chivalric warfare (though, I do call it a dream because even "chivalrous knights" were only chivalrous to their own kind).
It's a problem when you are raised on the myths of war instead of the reality. For the most part, our new enemy may reside in their own idealic myth about Holy Warriors, but they have seen a lot of war up close and personal. They have simply incorporated it into their concepts of war and given the actions sanction by insisting it was the way war was back in the day and if it was good enough for Mohammed or Salah al Din, it is good enough for them.
In reality, probably more realistic as to what warfare was, but certainly doesn't square with our continued attempts in the West to progress, or, more succinctly, regress to our ideas of heroic, chivalric war where the old, the infirm, the maidens and the children are protected from the dragon, be it ours or the enemy's.
Funny though, in the end, it is exactly those chivalric tendencies which are best used to fight a counter-insurgency. If you can't use that then you must resort to total war where in the entire society you are at war with is smashed into barely subsistent living, much less capable of retaliation, whether by guerillas or partially intact armies.
So, my complaint is that we (I mean the entire host, whether politicos, military and American Citizens) were far too slow in adopting the right attitude and procedures in fighting an insurgency. What I do know is that some officers, on their own, did read about and try to implement a counter-insurgency strategy within their individual AOs (areas of operations) and were successful.
Funny though, on the other end of the scale, you have the Brits in the South that were wearing their berets and talking about how to fight the war (Chiarelli was inspired by a Brit General writing in the Military Review on the difference between British and American approach) who are now wearing their full kit (ie, body armor). Their failing? Being a little too smug and self satisfied, refusing to recognize the danger of the growing militia control of their area. A militia that was Shia, but anti-occupation. A militia that barely responds to Al Sistani these days.
In short, they didn't recognize that the insurgency had progressed to a different danger level. For most of us, the recognition came when Steven Vincent was murdered. Of course, that's the view from 9000 miles. It was probably a little more difficult to evaluate up close and personal, seeing it every day.
In any case, there is my criticism of the war. If you want a fall guy, I refuse to give it to you. Not a politician, not a general, no one. Fall guys and recriminations are for when the war is over; whether defeat or victory. It is when the history books are written, not the general angst of daily journalists. As long as we can recognize when there is a problem and change it, I will not point a finger at any individual.
Yet, when the history books are written and military strategists or social historians write it, I hope that, for all the caterwauling about Iraq being Vietnam, that they write how the defeat of Vietnam (that's what it was, regardless of speeches of honorable withdrawal) really effected us and changed us so severely we were almost unable to conduct the war.
OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan
Here is my read on a lot of Democratic senators: They think they know more than their base and they think they're more--how to put it?--stable in their view of the world than their base. In their hearts, in fact, they don't really like their base. (They like--they love--the old base: old union guys who drink Schlitz and voted for FDR and JFK. But today those old union guys are mostly dead, dying or Republican.)
Democratic leaders in Washington are in a worse position than Republican leaders in Washington. Neither likes their base, really, and both think they are smarter. But the Democrats think, deep down, that their base is barking mad. The Republicans don't. They just think their base is a bore.
Yeah, that is exactly what I thought. Barking Mad. You can't hardly have a conversation without a conspiracy theory or two popping out. Of course, there is the xenophobic over reaction of the Republican base as well demanding crazy immigration enforcement and telling our allies we don't trust them to manage parts of our business platforms and ports when we have Chinese running ports seems, well, nearly as barking mad. But, not quite. I'm afraid every time some lunatic tells me that the President either let 9/11 happen or participated in setting it up in order to commit war, I feel my sanity level teeter dangerously close to manic a$$ kicking.OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan
Going on Hiatus Update
Going on a brief Hiatus this afternoon. I have invited a guest blogger to keep the blog rolling and reduce interruption of service .
Please welcome Ry who posts sometimes at the Castle
Enjoy!
As MacArthur once said, "I shall return!"
The Hidden War: Send Them Levis
Traditional war is always viewed from the perspective of "enemy" and "allies" with two armed forces meeting in pitched battle to obtain or retain land, to force the enemy to accede to the oppositions political objectives, to obtain wealth or resources, etc, etc, etc. That is until fourth generation warfare. Insurgencies, global terrorism, violent idealists fueled by blackmarket arms and drug sells, spurred on by idealogues who spread their message via new technologies from satellite TV to email to websites to cell phones to CDs and books, etc, etc, etc. For the most part, people don't really understand how this kind of war is fought.
Most people have heard the phrase "hearts and minds", but really have no idea what that means or how it applies in a fourth generation warfare setting. If they think about it at all, they imagine it is about images, like in advertising or propaganda posters or shaking hands or handing out candy to kids. The scope of this kind of war is hard to grasp. The outcome is even more difficult. Concepts of "victory" do not have commanders of two armies sitting down at a conference table and hacking out terms of truce or surrender. For the most part, people not only do not know how the war is being fought, but what it looks like or when it is over. The media does not talk about it as part of the war because they don't understand it either. They think of war like most people think of war: explosions, soldiers, bullets, wounded and dead. In this case, in the war you don't know exists, the wounded and dying are idealogues and ideologies. The weapons are wallets, credit cards and cash. The Bullets are western products through which western ideas are infiltrated into states, societies and cultures. The Atomic Bomb is the interglobal communications networks represented by cell phones, internet and satellite dishes.
Because few look for it or understand it, there are no university or military academy classes that can teach you how to conduct this truly "shadow" war. However, in many respects, the war goes on every day, it's barely directed, it's conducted largely by private corporations and individuals and you don't even know it. It's something we became rather good at during the Cold War. It actually contributed greatly to the demise of the Soviet Union without a nuke fired.
How do you know if you're winning the war? In traditional war, it's body counts, land secured, enemy leaders deposed or captured or "taking the flag" off the capital building. Maybe it's knocking down a statue of the leader and finally pulling him from a rat hole.
This is how most people see the war:
or this:
But the war really looks like this:
I know, you think you've seen this picture of the late "master mind of terror" Abu Musab al Zarqawi. You might even know it is from the "bloopers" reel that showed him unable to operate an American Made Machine Gun. You may have even heard comments about his terrorist fashion faux pas of wearing white sneakers with his black ninja mujihadeen uniform. But look at the picture through the eyes of the "other war", the ideological, informational and economic war:
Did you see it? Did you see the hidden war? Look again:
These shoes were reported to be American tennis shoes made in Godless China, shipped via Singapore and purchased at an apostate mall in Jordan or hijacked from a delivery truck driven by a third world national into Iraq and sold on the black market for the all mighty American Dollar. It's probably not the "product placement" the company would have liked to have, but it serves its purpose.
Why is this so important?
First, you must understand the ideological war of the Islamist, particularly, the Salafist Sunni. This Islamist, embodied by the likes of Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden, Qardawi and the late Qutb, believes that the demise of the Islamic Ummah is coming at the hands of the West, not by guns and bullets, but by our ideas and products (ideas and products that go hand in hand) that infiltrate the Ummah and corrupt it. What they fear most is the turning away of the youth from the traditional, fundamentalist Islam they adhere to towards anything that is secular and materialistic. Even without guns or bullets or bombs, Islamists believed that the US and West in general were already at war with the Islamic Ummah and trying to destroy it through these very means.
Why do you think the 19 Hijackers of 9/11 flew planes into the World Trade Centers; the economic center of the United States? They recognize our economic power not only fuels our ability to maintain military hegemony, but is part and parcel of our idea of free, capitalistic economy and society. It is the power we have to negotiate deals and maintain our allies' viability. Whatever our economic fortunes, so goes the fortunes of the world. And, wherever our products go, so do our ideas.
So, what does it mean to have had the head Islamist terrorist in Iraq wearing a pair of American sneakers?
Let's go back in history for a moment. What caused the collapse of the USSR? Most people recognize that the collapse did not come from military defeat (contrary to the claims of the Islamist offspring of the Mujihadeen from the Afghan/Russo War). It was an economic collapse that led to the final dissolution. Depending on what aisle of the political sphere you ask, the reasons for this collapse are attributed to high national and political activities. The right will tell you that it was brought on by Reagan increasing military spending which caused the USSR to try to match our spending on weapons which their economy could not support. The left will tell you that the political and economic system was always flawed and the collapse was inevitable.
Those were definitely important over all concepts (even the mujihadeen's claims have some merit). But the collapse came from below, from the streets and from the wallet of common Soviet Citizens. I remember the report clearly, but also remember that I did not completely recognize the significance at the time. I believe it was 1989 or '90, right before the collapse post attempts at "Perastroika" or reformation. The report talked about the rise of the black market in Moscow. The most popular items? Levi Jeans and Music. Michael Jackson was very popular.
How were these items purchased? American Dollars. The black market circumvented the official economic process and took the revenue right out of the pockets of the government, putting it in the hands of small businessmen. It was an ad hoc free market. Capitalism at its most laissez faire. Of course, it included books, toys, televisions and every other sort of product we could produce. With every item purchased, the idea of capitalism and freedom came with it in a subliminal message wrapped up in packaging and transferred through osmosis as it was held in the hand of its new owner. Even if it was a coke that only lasted ten minutes or a song that lasted three, it was all that it took for the dream to be implanted.
The day you knew that war was won? The day the first McDonald's was opened in Moscow. Everything after that was just the formal process of dismantling "the Bear".
Again, why is it important that the number one most wanted Islamist Terrorist in Iraq was wearing American shoes? Because not even he can escape the power. For all the bluster about "infiltration of Western influences" and the destruction of the Ummah at the hands of materialistic, capitalist, freedom, he and those like him, turn out to be hypocrits. In the most subtle manner that even the "watchers" did not catch, he destroyed the very basis of the ideology he professes.
Here it is again:
and here:
In Afghanistan or the KFC in Pakistan or the Hyatt in Riyadh or the kid riding his BMX in Bahrain or the teenager walking down the street in Meccah wearing Nikes, listening to his iPod, dreaming about dating Brittney, humming to Metallica, wearing his baggy Tommy Hilfiger jeans like 50 cent and his Adidas sweatshirt, walking to the local mall (courtesy of a US construction company), carrying his LL Bean backpack that holds his underground copy of Hunter S. Thompson, thinking about flagging down a Ford Crown Victoria Taxi while drinking a Pepsi.
Talk about packaging selling the "company". Red, white and blue Pepsi cans say "America" like nothing else can. It's the subliminal message no one else will every pull off and it is courtesy of American corporations and the American worker. It's why, regardless of any issue with "American Foreign Policy", you can ask an Arab on the streets of Riyadh or an Egyptian in Cairo how they feel about America and they will inevitably say how they "like America" and the "American people" even if they hate our "government" or "policies".
It is the subtle war that we win every day. They want what we have and they want to be us they just don't like to recognize consciously that the way to be us is to be free, to allow free enterprise and the free flow of information. But they do and they will.
Somewhere out there someone is decrying this very fact. Whether they see it as part of the American Hegemony or corporatist take over of the world or the destruction of culture, they understand the hidden war better than most Americans, but refuse to recognize its benefits or the reality of global economics.
Somewhere out there, an Islamist jihadist is sitting at his Dell computer (American company with parts from China, sent via Singapore and assembled in India) showing his friends the latest propaganda video. What he doesn't realize is that he has played his part in our propaganda war as his friends admire his American computer and plan to get one, the word "American" has been subliminally burned into their minds at a billion images per second even while they believe they are simply looking at the work of like minded idealogues who routinely tell them about the evils of the West. Whether that computer was purchased on the blackmarket or from a legitimate retailer, it's a sure bet that some of his money went back to the corporation. Just as grievous to his cause as the subtle propaganda message he relayed at viewing his computer, the money that bought the machine is fueling the very system and machinery that will destroy his ideology and maybe the jihadist himself one day.
Zarqawi was killed recently and people believe that this should send a message to the Jihadists about the probability of being found and destoyed. However, the Jihadist Islamist should see the picture of Zarqawi in his American sneakers and be afraid, be very afraid.
You want to defeat a nuclear Iran that is reaping double revenues by making statements which destabilize the oil market? Cold War, but faster. We don't have to send in the B 117. Flood their markets with cheap American goods via blackmarkets that only accept American Dollars. Send them CDs and CD players and microwaves. Smuggle in music and books.
Send them Levis and let the best ideology win.
Cross posted at the Castle
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Why many of Iraq's elite don't flee | csmonitor.com
Still, Abdallah persists in Baghdad. "Iraqis are so committed to our country - it's something in our hearts," he says. "It's not like the Lebanese who go to Brazil, or the Philippinas who go here and there."
The good news, Abdallah says, is that his students "are even more committed to learning than before." The bad news is that, "in the back of their minds, they all want to go abroad."
And his patients? Even when he goes to a conference outside Iraq for a few days, the message is the same, says Abdallah: "Doctor, please don't leave us."
Why many of Iraq's elite don't flee | csmonitor.com
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Iraq Briefing
Japan ordered the withdrawal of its ground troops from Iraq on Tuesday, declaring the humanitarian mission a success and ending a groundbreaking dispatch that tested the limits of its pacifist postwar constitution.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the troops - deployed in early 2004 - had helped rebuild the infrastructure of the area where they were based, and he pledged further aid to Iraqi reconstruction.
"Today we have decided to withdraw Ground Self-Defense Forces from the Samawah region in Iraq," Koizumi said in a nationally televised news conference. "The humanitarian dispatch ... has achieved its mission."
He offered no timetable for the withdrawal, but Defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga told reporters earlier in the day that the pullout would take "several dozen days."
Koizumi has been a vocal supporter of U.S. policy in Iraq, arguing that the dispatch was needed to aid reconstruction, secure oil supplies and bolster ties with Washington. He is to travel to Washington for a summit with President George W. Bush the last week in June, before stepping down in September.
But, it's not quite over.
Japan will now consider expanding Air Self-Defense operations in Iraq to include transport of medical supplies and U.N. personnel, following a request from U.N. General-Secretary Kofi Annan, said Takenori Kanzaki, head of the ruling party's coalition partner, the New Komei Party.
"Even after the withdrawal from Iraq, we must continue the efforts to support Iraq," he told reporters.
Interesting, the withdrawal of Japanese troops leads to Australian Troops Redeploying Inside Iraq for "More Dangerous Missions".
>Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said that 460 soldiers currently guarding Japanese engineers in the southern city of Samawa would move soon to the nearby city of Tallil.
They would provide back-up and training for Iraqi forces who are set to take control of the southern province of Al-Muthanna, and help secure the dangerous Syrian border, Nelson said.
The move is politically sensitive for Howard's government, which backed the US-led offensive in Iraq in the face of widespread public opposition.
Protests have faded and the issue has largely slipped from the headlines in recent months, largely because Australia has suffered only one fatality in Iraq.
But the new mission near the volatile city of Nasiriyah, where roadside bombings by insurgents are commonplace, is likely to be more dangerous.
Thirty-one Italian soldiers stationed in Nasiriyah have been killed and Rome plans to withdraw its contingent, once the fourth largest in Iraq, by the end of the year.
We may not like some statements from the Democrats, but with Opposition like this in Australia, maybe we should feel lucky: Opposition Demands Intelligence Info on New Iraq Deployment of troops. I know, you must be thinking like I was thinking, "Say What?"
Nine Lives (My guess is, no one wanted to sign their name to an op-ed based on a sensitive and secret state department cable). Best line:
Nine lives do not tell the story of an entire country, nor is the cable reason to bring troops home. Other measures paint a brighter picture. Nevertheless, for those who wonder whom to believe in Iraq, the U.S. ambassador reporting privately about the lives of the Iraqis closest to him is a source that can hardly be ignored.
Don't expect reporting on the "other measures" because you might actually get context. Don't ask about the 30 or 50 other employees, either.
Don't get me wrong because I have heard the other indicators about hijabs and such (of course, since the beginning, it's been dangerous to work for the new government; ask the first president).
Democrats and Iraq Plans
This one is crazy: "one to pull out U.S. combat forces by July 2007"
This one is basically a regurgitation of Republican Plans except the Dems aren't afraid to give a date and tell the enemy their plans: "and another to begin withdrawing this year without a deadline for completion."
On one hand, I can understand Levin's point:
"Three and a half years into the conflict, we should tell the Iraqis that the American security blanket is not permanent," said Sen. Carl Levin
On the other, it would be very silly to leave the place full of nut balls that will use the place as a staging ground (not like it's not happening now, but at least we can reach in and get them; they don't get to rest - not like a withdrawal)
But, really, the entire thing is a political manouver. No Democrat that really has a clue about national security, securing the region and it's resources or terrorist threats is going to seriously give a deadline even if they are pretending to stand on principle.
Levin's measure had support from most Senate Democrats, who shied away from setting a deadline for a pullout out of fear of a full-scale Iraqi civil war.
Or worse. These measures are simply the latest to stir up their anti-war base before the mid term elections. Does anyone actually believe they mean it? Except these two and they are just about as stupid as Murtha's "redeploy a QRF to Okinawa" comment:
In a statement, Kerry and Feingold said a deadline "gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government" and "allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country."
Does Kerry actually know what the true threats are or does he still believe we should negotiate with the Vietcong or whatever group he thinks is fighting in Iraq?
Of course, a few more soldiers are being considered for court martial in regards to the death of three Iraqis. I read the report and the coalition press release actually said they were "charged" though article 32s had not yet been brought against them. So, one could wonder who is confused about the legal process, but we'll leave it at that. I am waiting for more info just as I wait on the Marines. The fact that we are hearing about these charges more often doesn't necessarily mean more or less activity in this regards, but more sensitivity to how the war needs to be fought and to the political implications of cover up. Thus, the military is starting to insure the process that is supposed to be in place for investigating civilian deaths is now followed and enforced. Whether it means more charges, courts martial or convictions remains to be seen, but I do expect more investigations and more press releases.
Update: Two Soldiers Found Slain
Nothing official yet on the hows and why fors. Indications of booby traps around the bodies and that the men were dead before being moved to that location. Besides that, how, when and where is still unannounced.
Two Soldiers Remain Missing
Before anyone gets more het up than they should, the first thing we should understand in a propaganda/information war, after striking Zarqawi and rounding up hundreds of insurgents/terrorists (killing plenty in the process) with real evidence they could be weakened, AQ had to pull off something big to show they are still relevant. It's chess in the press. Are they still as capable as they say or tried to prove? Probably not, but it does indicate that either these troops were too fresh to be on checkpoint (two humvees left a third?) or they got lacadaisical after the big strike and so many troops near by performing missions.
I think the important, buried news is in this paragraph:
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iraqi forces would take control of the country's southernmost province from a British-led multinational force in July.
Maliki hailed it as a first step toward Iraqi forces taking responsibility for their own security.
But Muthanna province is relatively quiet and is much easier to hand over than the violence-racked oil port city of Basra to the east or Sunni Arab insurgent strongholds further north like Yusufiya, where the two U.S. soldiers went missing.
U.S. troops tried to establish positions in south Ramadi, one of the most troublesome Sunni insurgent strongholds. A Reuters witness saw seven U.S. tanks rumbling along the streets.
Al Muthana is where the Australians are going to redeploy near in order to provide continued training and support for Iraq forces.
Albright Says Iraq Invasion Encouraged Iran and North Korea to go ahead with Nuke plans.
In all honesty, I've always liked Madeleine Albright and I don't consider her to be completely wrong on many subjects, particularly her outspoken ideas on democracy and freedom abroad. Even in her above statement, she's not completely wrong, but she is, as they say, playing politics. The truth is, these two nations have been going after nuclear capabilities long before the Bush even thought about running for President. Anyone who has any clue about nuclear physics knows you just don't pop off a nuclear plant every year and create weapons within a year or two.
What has really happened is that these two countries have felt emboldened to go public with their programs and thumb their noses hoping to get public support instead of condemnation and sanctions. The US, for its part, has decided that Iran does not have the kind of support that NK does from China and we have a few less obligations or economic issues (thought China is certainly concerned with Iranian oil and natural gas). Time to draw the line, particularly against nuclear proliferation in the ME and South East Asia. Pakistan and India are enough.
Nukes don't keep you from getting invaded per se, but certainly political and economic concerns can keep people from being invaded as well.
Here's what the enemy does: Suicide Bomber hits Senior Citizen Home
And here you can read the continuing saga of who is to blame for the failed intelligence that led to the Iraq invasion. Half of which is partisan BS and half may be the truth, but I find one part really egregious in the BS department:
That's what makes their critique of the administration's intelligence handling so sobering. One of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's aides describes how, as the White House's contentions about Saddam's weapons collapsed one by one, he typed out a resignation letter and kept it in his desk drawer, pulling it out each morning like a home remedy for guilt hangovers. ''It was a blow to me . . . It really affected me,'' the aide says of the realization that much of the administration's intelligence was faulty.
The words I find most egregious? "The Administrations Intelligence". Now, it is a fact that this administration was in office and authorized war against Iraq, but to declare the intelligence solely the perview of this "administration" is really pushing the line. The fact is, anyone who has been a sentient being past the age of 16 in 1991 should know the history of Iraq and that the lead up to war was eleven years, not six months. I'm always interested in the idea that it all started in the post 9/11 world. Maybe it would be better to indicate the catalyst existed in post 9/11 and in this administration, but the lead up and intelligence spanned three administrations, innumerable investigations and attempts at investigations on Iraq WMD over 11 years and several known attempts AND successes at hiding WMD, plants and other resources from the inspections. Not to mention the hundred or so targeting and attacks on UN mandated flights over Iraq and the broken sanctions (courtesy of a number of alleged allies).
I'm not going to write it all. Read John Fund for the rest of the concept. But, if we're looking for the fall guys, look no further than this blog and the other 74% who originally supported the war in Iraq because we are the people that heard, saw and read any number of things on Iraq over the course of 11 years and bet on Iraq needing to be "finished". That includes Democrats, of which I was for over 17 years of my life. I certainly didn't support the invasion as a "Bushite" as I've been called. I really couldn't have cared less who was in the Presidency.
However, I would read this because it is a fairly sober review of the situation leading up to it. However, anyone who supported the war then and now wants to blame anyone else but themselves for starting it is, well, full of BS.
Best line though?
The lack of verifiable information meant that a lot of American assumptions about Saddam were deduced from his behavior rather than based on hard evidence. The best reason to think he had WMDs was that he kept kicking out the UN inspectors who were looking for them. And, with the wounds of Sept. 11 still raw, the Bush administration was leery of taking a chance. As Condoleezza Rice said many times, no one wanted the smoking gun to be giving off a mushroom cloud over New York. That line of reasoning isn't refuted in Frontline, simply ignored.
So, you want to know why I supported and still support the war regardless of the outcomes of searches for WMD? You just read it.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Going on Hiatus
Update: False Alarm. Not going on Hiatus until later this week. Stand by for firm date. I am still looking for guest bloggers (even my friend Scott).
I am going on blog Hiatus for a few days. Please feel free to visit any people on the blogrolls on the side or read any of the thousands of posts I've done before. I may have guest posters so be sure to visit everyday.
Be back to full swing at the beginning of next week where I will continue to discuss "The Fog of War" and any developments on the war front.
I'm praying for the guys who were taken prisoner. Let us hope that they are returned safely and pray for their families.
In the meantime, my favorites are:
John at the Castle
Mudville Gazette
Blackfive
Iraq the Model
Protein Wisdom
Power Line
Blonde Sagacity
The Fog of War Part II: Every War the Same, Every War Different
Part I: War is Cruelty
Whether reading from the left or the right (politically) you can always find a comparison from one war or the other to the current conflict. In fact, when reading military treatise or even operations planning, failures and successes are used to evaluate and develop the concepts for fighting a war.
The reasons for war change very little. Whether reading Homer's Iliad, reviewing heiroglyphics of Egyptian Pharoahs at war, the Romans v. Carthagenians, Chinese consolidation of Empire or defense against the Mongols, the Moguls of India, the Zulu of Africa, Medieval expansionism, Revolution, Civil War, 20th Century World Wars or proxy wars or modern 21st Century Fourth Generation Warfare; study them all and the causes and effects, the political rivalries between foes or even within the same camps, the movements of armies, the monetary cost, the material cost, the political cost, the strategic, the tactical, etc, etc, etc. Look into any of these wars and one could find something similar in the current effort to compare favorably or negatively.
None of the arguments or comparisons are convincing as to the ethics or efficacy of the war alone. For the most part they serve as bench marks by which we can evaluate, but hardly serve as the definitive by which to determine the status of a war.
For instance, one could point to Roman history or evaluate the political and territorial fall out of the Punic Wars or the break up of the Roman Empire into East and West. Or maybe the Trojan War which starts with the alleged kidnapping of a wife and ends as a territorial fight with political power implications within the Greek camp. Thus, whatever romantacism is applied to war, the purpose of war rarely changes. It is either defense against attacks or offense to control territory. The purpose of these acts are always within three spheres: security, land and resources. Wars often include all three because all three are necessary to fight and win a war, much less for reasons to begin a war. In fact, land and resources can be rolled into the singular "security" because without either, you have none.
The difference may simply be summed up into a Clausewitz concept: the political objective. The will to fight and the amount of force, resources and manpower are dependent on how strongly one believes in the political objective. War is the use of force used to force the foe to comply with demands or bend to the political objective. However strong or weak the belief in, need of or support for the political objective, so goes the force and the ability to make the foe submit to your will.
It's a very straight forward concept. It is written in a very logical and simplistic language, breaking down the concepts to be consumed in a cool and reasonable manner. However this concept is presented with cool, level headed logic and reasoning, war is hardly ever committed in such a fashion. It is almost always committed with passion, a passion that is more closely felt by the man on the battle field and all those with and against him. A man rarely commits to battle where he maintains objectivity and cool logic once the battle is met. It is all adrenaline, blood pumping insanity most people would not recognize in themselves on any other given day.
Thus is war ever the same.
But, every war is different. The Political Objective is accepted or rejected, supported or subordinated. The actors have different passions and conceptions; comprehend history and ideas differently, act on the battle field differently. Even if you could sit down with every war in history and know every success and failure in advance, imagining a set formula that demands a set answer (1+1=2), it doesn't exist because there is no guarantee that the foe will act in a specific manner to what seems to be set, straightforward actions. There is no formula that guarantees a win or loss of a battle. There is no formula which can predict with 100% accuaracy how the foe will act or even one's own forces under the stress of battle. Can a commander execute exactly the order and concept of battle conceived by a commander or is he not subject to the actions and will of his opponent as well as his own actions and will?
There are no guarantees in war. That is the only thing that remains the same.
In the Beginning
During the documentary, McNamara discussed how he was tapped for the position of Secretary of Defense. John F. Kennedy won the election and was innaugurated in 1961. McNamara had just been tapped to be President of Ford Motor Company after successfully applying the concepts of statistical analysis he had used during World War II to turn the company around and stop its losses. He was approached for the position of Secretary of the Treasury first, but turned it down. In his own words he said that, while he was good with numbers, finance had never been his strong point. Kennedy then offered him the position of Secretary of Defense even though McNamara had limited experience.
McNamara did not know or did not dane to explain why Kennedy was insistent on having him within his administration but it is clear that he was looking for proficient technocrats that would bolster his administration and balance out the nepotism and political cronyism that is usual within elected administrations. Further, it is also clear that John F. Kennedy was looking for people who would fit into what he considered a "transformative" administration. Transformation may be a modern watchword for the current military make over, but Kennedy was making the same moves in 1961. According to Wikipedia:
Kennedy rejected the concept of first-strike attack and emphasized the need for adequate strategic arms and defense to deter nuclear attack on the United States and its allies. U.S. arms, he maintained, must constantly be under civilian command and control, and the nation's defense posture had to be "designed to reduce the danger of irrational or unpremeditated general war." The primary mission of U.S. overseas forces, in cooperation with allies, was "to prevent the steady erosion of the Free World through limited wars." Kennedy and McNamara rejected massive retaliation for a posture of flexible response. The United States wanted choices in an emergency other than "inglorious retreat or unlimited retaliation," as the president put it. Out of a major review of the military challenges confronting the United States initiated by McNamara in 1961 came a decision to increase the nation's limited warfare capabilities. These moves were significant because McNamara was abandoning Eisenhower's policy of massive retaliation in favor of a flexible response strategy that relied on increased U.S. capacity to conduct limited, non-nuclear warfare.
While the concepts of limited warfare and transforming the military to be able to act in such a way is reflected in today's modern transformation and Department of Defense, the reasons are no longer reflective. In fact, it could be considered a direct opposite. Where Kennedy wanted to "prevent the steady erosion of the Free World through limited wars" (ie, resist Communist Expansionism), today's purpose is to assist in expanding the "Free World" though both of the concepts fall under the main objective of ensuring United States Security. The battle then was to resist being surrounded or cut off in certain regions by the upsurge of Communist nations, particularly in regions that either threatened our borders, thus security, physically or threatened the availability or control of resources that would indirectly threaten US security. Kennedy understood that massive war with the USSR would have no good outcome and, while Eisenhower had looked at war with the USSR through this scope, the USSR had been fighting another war all together which was the slow, barely under the radar expansion into small countries in strategic areas, slowly strangling the United States and its free allies. Proxy wars we call them now, but it was the wars or, better yet, battles the USSR had chosen to fight.
It required less money, less materials and less exposure of the homeland, national forces and resources.
In many people's minds, this represents the first similarity between history and now: once again looking at and transforming for small wars. Once again, the idea is to combat the erosion of freedom (though, more accurately, it is the expansion of freedom but people often feel more passionate about defending something than giving it where it might not be accepted). There is no longer a huge overshadowing foe with a single ideology that must be met and defeated. In many respects, that made the effort that much easier because, while information war (or propaganda) had to be tailored to specific areas, the ideology to be combatted was the same and provided a formula of sorts for action.
Today, every region has its own ideological vagaries. In Venezuela where Chavez is manouvering to cut off the free press, nationalize businesses and position himself as an emergency dicatator for life (now we can see similarities there in the emergence of nationalist dictators who come to power under false pretenses, rigged or limited elections and generally run an autocratic thugocracy where their power is from intimindation). In Indonesia, separatist and nationalist Islamists want and Islamic state based on their own ideologies. Afghans may or may not support the taliban and Iranians may or may not want to continue to live under Islamist rules while China continues its psuedo capitalist/communist government and alleged Democracies such as Russia see all the gains of freedom such as the press and elections, slowly evaporating back into the grasps of ex-Communist Buearocrats whose ideology is neither compellingly simple or completely comprehensive.
In short, there is no key to world freedom nor clear path on which to traverse, only the confusing path between all of the individuals, nations and ideologies who continue to play a part in the over all strategic requirement for national security. If there is one difference that must be pointed to between the here and now, this is it. We might still need to be able to fight "small wars" and these wars might, in the end, be for the over all security of the United States, but the ideas and the foes are not the same. Everyone is different and will require a different response.
At some point, McNamara believes he understands it and many others would believe they have made that leap, but, in the end, most people are stuck in the last war (including civilians, politicians and even generals and general staff officers).
That is another point that remains the same.
In short, people often accuse the military and its leaders of never being ready for the next war or always fighting the last war, but it is also true of the body politic: we are always fighting the last war. That's a mistake that usually leads to very mixed outcomes at the beginning of war and, unless the true transformation of, not only the military, but the body politic occurs, unless some very creative and, dare I say "risk taking", individuals are elected or appointed to leadership positions, it's possible to lose this war.
Tigerhawk posted on this theme: the fourth mutation
A viable system of Jihadi force-generation within the West would have the effect of shifting the battlespace away from South Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa and into mainstreet USA. It will have the further effect of shifting the mode of combat away from military operations to cultural, religious and political warfare. The Washington Post almost accidentally destroyed the Vietnam metaphor singlehandedly by noting that the number of airstrikes in support of military operations in Iraq was so low that it actually amounted to half the air support provided in Afghanistan.[snip]
Iraq is no doubt a war, but it's a different war from what it is imagined to be. One of these days the MSM is going to discover that neither OIF nor the War on Terror bears any but the most passing resemblance to Vietnam. That occurred on a different continent, against another enemy over another ideology with a different type of warfare and in another century. Once an aging generation stops looking for napalm, punji sticks, carpet bombing, air strikes and helicopters in the headlines they may realize that that this war is being fought with propaganda, networks, educational systems, religion and nerve gas anywhere and everywhere. In word, it is being fought on a basis that the Western mind is not prepared to contemplate.
Even though, I might add, we live in a world that is filled with advertisements, subliminal placing of products in movies and packaging that is tested and marketed with the intent of gaining our attention, even subconsciously, we still somehow believe that an information war is not real war or not ethical or is too damaging to our own psyche and concepts of free will that we cannot undertake it or we commit only half assed resources and concepts generally derailing any efficacy.
Someone recently told me that the truth always wins and that all we need is to have a clear, consistent message of the truth to combat the enemy information war. If that isn't the biggest, fattest self-induced delusion, I don't know what is. Really, that flies in the face of all historical facts. If you want to compare Iraq and Vietnam, try this on for size: the enemy lies and the world press (including ours) buys it hook line and sinker. If there is an important lesson to learn from Vietnam, this one is surely it. If you don't believe half what one side tells you and you consistently work to debunk anything they tell you (even if it is part of an over all strategic work to make the enemy believe you and act in a way that you want them to), but, when the enemy gives a press release, video or other statement, you simply print it verbatim and imagine that the people you have just been telling that their government lies to them (as if they were the target of disinformation campaigns) will some how also believe the other side is a liar (someone has to be telling the truth, if it's not your side, then it is the other) without expressing the idea that they lie, what are people going to believe?
A lie.
There is the similarity once again between now and Vietnam. No one is interested in the truth, just their opinions of it.
Press Releases - TALIBAN MAKE FALSE CLAIM OF DOWNING U.S....
KABUL, Afghanistan – The Taliban have made claims to the media that a U.S. helicopter was shot down June 17 in Paktika Province, killing the U.S. Soldiers onboard.
There is absolutely no truth to this claim. All U.S. helicopters are accounted for, and there were no U.S. casualties.
“The extremists are threatened by the presence of Afghan and Coalition forces in areas where they used to have safe havens and sanctuary,” said Col. Thomas Collins, Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan spokesman. “The Afghan national security forces and the Coalition will continue on the offensive and relentlessly pursue these extremists. Together we will remove their negative influence from the region and enable progress in areas that need it.”
Press Releases - TALIBAN MAKE FALSE CLAIM OF DOWNING U.S....
U.S. steps up Afghan air strikes -report - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has carried out 340 air strikes in Afghanistan over the past three months, more than double the 160 conducted in Iraq, as fighting with Taliban insurgents intensifies, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
U.S. steps up Afghan air strikes -report - Yahoo! News
The difference in the number of air strikes in Afghanistan compared to Iraq is not really a matter of increased violence, comaparatively speaking, but in the areas the fighting occurs, the density of population and the operations underway.
In Iraq, the use of air strikes can be a considerable hinderance in fighting an insurgency unless there is a very specific target package with a very large number of enemy combatants (like the Ramadi Train Station) or a very high value target (like Zarqawi).
Also of note is how the enemy fights and their tactics. In Iraq, the cells are small, the operational units of the enemy are small because large armed forces would be immediately noted, reported and identified by the locals or air over sight we have in the region, not to mention the number of patrols sent out.
In Afghanistan, there are very large areas (such as Helmand Province) where troops have not been nor established physical control. As noted in a previous post on the subject, it's also a matter of economics of force. In Afghanistan, man power is cheaper and more available than large amounts of explosives so the Taliban and like minded enemy forces not only feel more capable of congregating large forces in remote, sparsely populated areas, but also consider larger forces cheaper and more expendable since they have a large base of support in Pakistan.
Finally, there are the reasons for tactics. In Afghanistan, the majority of the people are Sunni Muslims. The Taliban there do not see themselves at war with an entire group or section of the populace. Tribal politics are also more prevalent in Afghanistan, thus making war on a protected group could put the Taliban at war with a very large group of people who would, regardless of other political leanings, be even more likely to commit "kanly" or family blood feud.
The Taliban is very reliant on the population in sparsely populated and resource limited areas (ie, dry, waterless, mountainous, rocky, dangerous, etc, etc, etc) on the good graces of their hosts that are less intermixed in certain areas than in Iraq. So, they limit their attacks on the civilian population and limit the "swimming" they do inside the dense city populations. In short, they understand Mao's concepts of guerilla warfare and are seeking to use them successfully again as they did against the Russians.
In Iraq, it's quite different. The population is both an ally and an enemy to the insurgents. They are not quite as popular as they would like to be and they are not quite as circumspect in their attacks. Fortunately for them, years of socialist despotism and advanced society broke a large number of tribes in Iraq. While they still function and blood fueds can still exist, they do not function as well in the urban settings of Iraq. The rural areas still use it more effectively and there you can see the definitive split in those areas where the insurgency has support and those that don't.
Thus, who, what and why something gets an air strike is quite different in each area and does not necessarily reflect whether one area is more lawless than another.
British troops thrust into southern Afghanistan - Yahoo! News
The operation in Helmand province, which British commanders on Sunday hailed as a success so far, is going much faster than expected, with soldiers also using small arms fire and light artillery to tackle Taliban fighters.
Other hurdles, however, such as widespread poverty and a dependence on illegal opium production, will likely take much longer to overcome.[snip]
A recent spike in violence, however, with almost daily car bombings and attacks in parts of the country, has generated bad headlines back home in Britain, where some people worry this could be the beginning of another Iraq.
Butler, in contrast, was far more upbeat: "To me it is currently winnable. It won't be necessarily this year ... but it is certainly winnable and we are optimistic we will make a difference"
British troops thrust into southern Afghanistan - Yahoo! News
U.S. aims to sever Taliban transport lines - Yahoo! News
BAGHRAN VALLEY, Afghanistan - U.S. soldiers descended on a mountain ridge Sunday, quickly setting up fortified posts and mortar positions overlooking a key Taliban transport route as the coalition pressed a major offensive that has killed dozens of suspected militants. [snip]
"We are the focus of Mountain Thrust right now," said Capt. Jared Wilson. "This is the decisive part of the operation because if we do not get on the mountain, we will not be able to accomplish this mission."
Before boarding the helicopters, Wilson warned his troops about the dangers of the operation.
"I want you to understand the seriousness of what you are about to do. We are landing fully loaded CH-47s on the top of a mountain. This is a highly dangerous mission. On the top of those dangers, we're going to an area where no one has been for years," he said.
Their new encampment is remote — more than 60 miles from the nearest ground forces — but Wilson said that serves as an advantage.
"The enemy did not suspect we would come up here. They believe they have a safe haven area up here because it has been untouched by coalition troops for years," he said.
U.S. aims to sever Taliban transport lines - Yahoo! News
Iraq's Post-Hussein Air Force Finds Its Wings Clipped - Los Angeles Times
This spring, at a ceremony to celebrate the new Iraqi air base next to Baghdad's airport, U.S. Brig. Gen. David W. Eidsaune told the audience, "We will work together to restore Iraq's air force to what it once was."
During an interview, however, Eidsaune, the senior air liaison for U.S.-led forces, said that "as much as [the Iraqis] would like to get back to it, they can't afford it right now." Though the government has begun to realize that the air force is a good "enabler," he said, it still faces challenges in terms of funding, recruitment and equipment.
So far, the fleet — described by one Iraqi pilot as "not secondhand but tenth-hand" — includes three C-130 cargo planes, bought through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program; a few Soviet-era transport helicopters; and three small planes. Some aircraft were donated by Jordan, others purchased under the Coalition Provisional Authority immediately after the U.S.-led invasion, with little paperwork left to account for it, Eidsaune said.
Iraq's Post-Hussein Air Force Finds Its Wings Clipped - Los Angeles Times
The other problem, of course, is loyalty because there is great concern of when and how these air assets could be used if they were allowed to get up to speed. One can question which is the greater concern, money or loyalty, that is keeping them relatively grounded, but, either way, they stay limited.
In Iraq, a Father's Duties Weigh Heavily
"If there is any danger, I am the first to stand in the face of that danger and keep him home with me," he said. "You cannot hope for the police because sometimes they are the ones committing crimes."
His son Omar, 26, has not left the house in months, since word began to circulate that Shiite Muslim militia members, some believed to be police officers, were targeting men with his name, a common one for Sunnis. His daughter moved to Amman, Jordan, after her brother-in-law was kidnapped and the family had to pay a $30,000 ransom.
As bombings became more prevalent in his neighborhood in recent months, Abu Omar convened 10 fathers and formed a mutual-protection pact. If anyone's home was attacked, they agreed, all would come to its defense. He has since started keeping an AK-47 assault rifle by his bed while he sleeps.
"The system works. A couple of weeks ago, someone knocked on my door after midnight. I shouted, 'Who's there?' I heard a woman's voice shout back, but I was sure it was not a woman," he said. Abu Omar called a neighbor for help. The neighbor climbed on his roof for a better view and saw a bearded man dressed in a traditional woman's robe and head scarf, while another man waited in a nearby car. After a few warning shots, the men fled.
The Iraqi version of a Neighborhood watch. It is the only thing that will help them if they can come together to form a "nation watch".
In Iraq, a Father's Duties Weigh Heavily
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Witness: U.S. troops in Iraq taken captive - Yahoo! News
Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer who said he witnessed the attack Friday, said three Humvees were manning a checkpoint when they came under fire from many directions. Two Humvees went after the assailants, but the third was ambushed before it could move, he told The Associated Press.
Seven masked gunmen, including one carrying what Falah described as a heavy machine gun, killed the driver of the third vehicle, then took the two other U.S. soldiers captive, the witness said. His account could not be verified independently.
Witness: U.S. troops in Iraq taken captive - Yahoo! News
So, two humvees left the third humvee with three guys in it that was swarmed and the men taken prisoner? There is going to be trouble for some folks. That is classic luring techniques and a good question would be what unit fell for that? Is this a new unit? Have they been trained appropriately? Did they forget their training?
Waiting for additional reports since the first reports are often wrong.
The Fog of War Part I: War is Cruelty
I was watching the history channel this evening and caught a documentary by Ed Morris who interviewed Robert MacNamara regarding his life and his service to country. Bascially, he put it together in a "lessons learned" package. I'm not sure I caught all of the "lessons", but it was interesting to listen to him discuss history, including WW2 through Vietnam. I thought the most telling parts of the documentary were the contradictions, not just within MacNamara, but within the concepts of war and history.
Of course, the presenters who were discussing it as part of "Movies in History", were discussing it in relationship to Iraq. They pointed out that MacNamara had made statements after the war turned into an insurgency which purported to indicate the military and administration was making the same mistakes that were made back then. Before I go off on that subject, I really wanted to explore a few things that he said about World War 2 and lessons learned because they were echoing some of my thoughts on the subject, particularly those I expressed in replying to Mr. Daniel Ellsberg's piece about the Vietnam/Iraq Paradigm.
One of the things that MacNamara said in regards to Vietnam that I think applies at every aspect of life is that, sometimes, what you believe and what you see can be totally wrong. I think that, whether you come from the right or the left on the current war, that kind of problem can be seen all over the place. That includes those that believe Iraq is Vietnam or those that believe the entire Islamic Ummah is just waiting to rise up and kill everyone. While I have been accused of believing the latter and being a "warmongerer" (that is what they called MacNamara), it is simply untrue. But, in the politics of war, people go to the extremes in what way or the other because it is war and it does inflame the passions and, it is easier to pretend to know one way or the other than to admit you don't know and to keep searching for the answers where even then you may never come up with something that satisfies the question.
But, I digress.
Statistics and "Just War"
MacNamara discussed two areas of pre-Vietnam warfare that I wanted to address: "just war" (what is it and does the definition depend on who wins?) and statistics in military actions. He also discussed the use of statistics in military operations and how they can inform and direct the planning and execution of missions and over all operations.
For instance, he talked about a study during World War II regarding B-29 bombing runs over Germany. In this review of operations, his group noted that 20% of all bombers that took off aborted before reaching the target area. Upon reviewing the reasons given in the reports, MacNamara's team gave a report that said the reasons given were "baloney" and amounted to fear because every bomber crew that took off knew the statistics, too. Those statistics indicated that 25% of these bombers would be shot out of the sky.
MacNamara said, when Curtis LeMay read the report, he was shocked and angry. He knew that in order to bring Germany to it's knees quicker and end the war sooner, they had to take out every ability to manufacture weapons and ammunition, clothes, vehicles, food, etc. In short, destroy the ability to make war. This meant more bombs on target. LeMay sent out an order indicating that he would be in the lead bomber during missions (lead from the front) and any bomber that turned back before completing the mission would have its crew court martialed for cowardice and desertion of post (among other things that could be punishable by death during war). According to MacNamara, this had the effect of greatly reducing the number of aborted flights.
MacNamara then discussed the Japanese front. He discussed an operation that was meant to put B-29 bombers over Japan. They would fly the bombers to India where they would pick up fuel and ammunition, fly them to an air strip in China for deposit, then return trip and repeat until they had enough fuel and ammunition built up to fly massive bomber runs over Japan. The problem was, that the bombers would often need to use the fuel they had just cargoed into China to make the return trip to India in order to pick up more fuel and supplies to cart to China. In short, they would never be able to make the runs because it was inefficient use of equipment, men, logistic supply lines, and time. He said Curtis LeMay had the operations base moved to Marianas Islands where they were able to station and run thousands of sorties over Japan.
Next he discussed the actual bombing raids. Curtis LeMay felt that the bombing runs were not efficient. The first raids indicated less than 10% of all bombs reached their targets. The B-29 had been built to deliver bombs from 25,000 ft, well above the flack and other anti-aircraft weapons of the time, but it did not prove accurate with unguided bombs. Those statistics and continuing weather conditions around Japan caused LeMay to look for a different way to run those raids so the bombers were told to fly in around 5,000 to 9,000 ft to deliver their payloads. This increased accuracy considerably, but also increased the number of casualties.
MacNamara spoke about a post mission briefing where many pilots and other general officers expressed their displeasure at the order to fly in so low when they knew their machines were expressly built to fly higher and avoid casualties. One pilot stood up and demanded to know "who the SOB was that gave those orders" because it resulted in the loss of his wingman. MacNamara relates that LeMay stood up and said it was his orders, he was responsible for that loss and for every man who died under his command (MacNamara indicated LeMay's speech was a little more emotional, but so was MacNamara when he spoke because I believe he sees himself in LeMay's place, ordering great numbers of men to carry out the national will resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands and to what outcome). However, LeMay also told the man that, while he regrets that loss, the mission resulted in 60% destruction of Tokyo and many military capabilities targets that would eventually lead to the end of war, saving many more lives.
Fortunately, LeMay turned out to be correct that the war would soon be over after such massive bombings. MacNamara commented on the question of whether, after fire bombing Japans largest cities and killing or wounding over a million and making homeless millions more, having greatly reduced Japans ability to make war, was it necessary to drop the Atomic Bombs. Basically, his answer was that Japan was still fighting. Iwo Jima and Okinawa proved that the war was going to continue to cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives as well as much money and resources. He believed it was correct to bring the war to a quick end if possible.
He later comments, however, that LeMay made a statement, after reviewing the devestation of fire bombing and destruction up to 90% in some cities, that, had they lost the war, he was sure they would all have been prosecuted as war criminals because of the deliberate targeting of civilians and the number of civilian dead. MacNamara said the lesson was, "Sometimes to do good, men must do evil". In other words, to end the wars with Germany and Japan quickly, stop the destruction and death running across the lands, LeMay determined that he would do what ethics and the original Geneva Conventions prohibited: deliberately target civilians. Worse, burn them up with incendiary bombs that he knew would start raging infernos, particularly in Japanese cities that were largely made of wooden structures. He knew it would kill men, women and children and that it did not exactly equate with his original concepts of war, but he was willing to take on that risk and responsibility, the responsibility of ordering the death of hundreds of thousands, not just his own men, but the enemy.
MacNamara indicated that, contrary to popular belief, it was not a simple decision made only at the top of the command chain (ie, president and war department) but that there was great discussions throughout the chain of command about the ethics of such a tactic. LeMay made the command decision and is purported to quote Sherman:
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it
Saturday, June 17, 2006
What We Should Expect
Reports in that two soldiers are MIA from a checkpoint south of Yusifiyah (the town outside of Baghdad we raided about 50 times for AQ people right before we caught up with Zarqawi) after being attacked with an explosion. QRF forces arrived 15 mins later to find one soldier dead and two missing.
Stand by for torture, statements of illegal war or war of aggression against Muslims and beheading videos.
Update: I add my prayers for their safe return and for the families of the two men.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Taliban Tangle With Troops Ends With Disaster
...For the Taliban.
Check out this table of the last 60 days of contact with Taliban/AQ forces.
Major Losses for Taliban
Mullah Omar's Brother in Law Bites the Dust
Baghdad: Take Down and the Jihadi Split
Raids, raids and more raids. This looks like Afghanistan after the initial invasion. AQ is largely defeated with the leaders and fighters scattering to safe areas. Some plot to return and keep fighting, others decided that it wasn't worth it. Some decide they will go to another location. We're going to see the same in Iraq. The jihadists will either go home or go to another front. But they are done in Iraq.
I am currently reading, The Far Enemy, How Jihad Went Global. It's a good book and helps explain some of the splits in the jihadists movement between nationalists and those who wanted international war. It talks about the reasons, such as a waning Islamist movement that could barely attract followers or mujihadeen by the late 90's and bin Laden's decision to go global in order to boost the awareness of his group and their causes as well as build donations and recruits. The author indicates that there is a split between the nationalists and internationalists. He indicates that these groups are largely separate entities that simply function together at convenient times. He also notes that, even though there is this Islamist "caliphate" ideology, they all don't agree on how to get it done and that most of the cells really come together based on the cult of personality.
It reminds me of reading T E Lawrence and his discussion of tribal politics; that tribal and family allegiances would often keep groups from working together; that warriors did not lead by official appointment or ideas or heredity, but charisma and that the only way they were able to get an Arab force big enough to fight off the turks was to get the individual leaders to buy into it. Of course, reading history anyone should know that once these warlords made it into Damascus and drove out the Turks, in fighting immediately began with a supreme struggle for power and leadership.
I look forward to the same inside AQ since they continue to operate on these old personality paradigms for war.
Wonder when they will figure out how wrong it is? Hopefully, never while we take them apart.
In the meantime, the Baghdad Take Down continues.
Suggested reading on this subject:
Security Watch Tower: Operation Forward Together
Security Watch Tower: 452 take downs
SWT: Zarqawi/Hussein Link?
SWT: Taliban/Hussein Link?
SWT: Baqouba (city/area where Zarqawi was killed) Al Qaeda Emir Taken Down in 5 hour Shoot Out
SWT: Table of Zarqawi/Al Qaeda Leaders Taken or Killed by Coalition/Iraq Forces (or, why the Jihad Business is showing a slump in recruiting and operations)
SWT: Going to Ramadi?
This Weeks Winds of War
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Project Valour IT - Connected
New Posts After This Post.
Please don't scroll down until you've taken a look at the project information.
If you aren't familiar with this project or it's story, it is a totally blog started charity project. It came about because people on computers that read blogs realized that the same things they enjoy, the same personal connections we get when we read, comment and have readers at our blogs, whether personal, political or other, is something that wounded soldiers could enjoy and receive the same feelings from. Connected, not disconnected. Life is still out there, it's a big world, there is more than just yourself sitting in a room thinking about things and life can be what we want to make of it.
A wounded soldier needs those feelings, too. They need to feel like they are still part of the world not just locked in the insular world of the wounded, constant pain, the struggle to become whole again, or alone with the bills, the family troubles (common ones and those that arise or seem bigger while a soldier is stuck somewhere trying to recover). It's a lot of things and it can be the portal to re-integration with a world outside of four walls and the seeming box that amputations and paralysis can put you in.
I remember this from last year, explaining exactly what we're trying to accomplish with Project Valour IT and then Beth provides a number of stories about those that our project has already served.
Everything He Did Before
What It's Like to Be the Injured
Buzz Robertson: Everything We Said It Would Be
BBC: Laptop Lifeline for Wounded Soldiers
Read these because this is what the project is all about. We keep them connected so they can keep moving forward. These are soldiers with paralysis, amputations, nerve and muscle damage (short term or long) that cannot use a conventional computer. So, Project Valour IT provides Voice Activate Laptops for OUR Injured Troops.
Here you can read the project blog, what's going on, how much money has been donated, how many laptops and future plans.
Become a member of the Fighting Fusileers. Click on the fusileer below and donate to Project Valour IT, even if it's only five dollars. Every bit helps. To date, $14,340 from 151 generous donors!
I want to thank everyone who has donated so far. It's incredible how a community of writers and readers can come together and, in very short order, pull this together. This without support from even the biggest blogs out there. If you think about it, the ability to raise this awareness and these donations, through simply blogging and connecting with the people who are willing to give support, is exactly what this project is about. Connections. Providing laptops to the wounded to get them connected, to keep their support network connected and give them an opportunity to get back with (and sometimes give back to) their chosen communities.
I'm really proud to be even a small part of this project and I'm equally proud of all of my readers, many whom I would consider a personal friend, that have given to this project. I thank you all and I hope you understand why I am continuing to ask you to help with this project. There are so many charities to give to, but this one is special to me. It's something I was around for when it was first created. I talked to Captain Z via his blog before and after his injury. I know first hand what it meant to him and those of us who were part of his support network. I know how often people would offer good advice or just a prayer. Everyone of those were appreciated by Captain Z and he believes it helped him in the recover process as do many of those we have served (as of 6-11-06 482 soldiers served). I helped put some things together and I know from personal experience how important it is when the world turns upside down to have people you can talk to, that you are relaxed with and share things in common with, even if (or especially if) you aren't talking about the problems you have, you're still connected.
Connections keep the world turning.
For those who can and want to do something specific that makes you even more connected to this project and to the people we are serving, you can sponsor a specific soldier to receive a voice activated laptop and become part of his or her support network.
Remember, it's tax deductible. There's an address for you to send a check if paypal isn't your cup of tea. And, there are other great projects that Soldiers' Angels do that only takes your time and the price of a stamp, so make sure you check them out.
Don't forget, help the Fighting Fusileers. Bring the connections. Donate today!
Thank you.
Please scroll down now for other posts.
Attacks dip after Iraqi security operation - Yahoo! News
You know it was killing them to write that headline.
Attacks dip after Iraqi security operation - Yahoo! News
But, don't worry. Plenty of blood and guts and fear a little further down in the article. What was really interesting was this:
"If this security plan really works, then perhaps I will be encouraged to go out of my neighborhood," Mohammed Yehia, a 30-year-old father of two, said at the marble-tiled plaza outside the Grand Imam Abu Hanifa mosque in Azamiyah.
Yehia said fears of being killed by Shiite militants have prevented him from venturing out of Azamiyah since the Feb. 22 destruction of a revered Shiite shrine — an attack which unleashed the worst and longest bout of sectarian violence since Saddam's ouster.
"It has been three years," said Yehia, who makes a living doing odd jobs at the Grand Imam mosque. "We have had enough. We are all yearning for normal lives."
Now, let me explain the best parts about this fellow they are interviewing. As much as I agree with his sentiments, I wonder if the reporter actually had any clue what "odd jobs" a 30 year old man might be doing around the mosque. Why?
First, reading down the entire article, you should have seen the section that talks about recent rais in Azamiyah and the presence of Sunni insurgents, particularly the jihad kind, who are blowing things up and forcing the shops to close. Largely because Zarqawi, before he died, outlined a plan to close all of the bakers/bread sellers and meat sellers in Sunni neighborhoods because he considered them a security risk. Why? Because they are the local coffee shop. These sellers have small shops or stands in the neighborhood and everyone goes there for their morning bread or to get meat for dinner. They are often vendors with carts in the neighborhood but because they are such a fixture, people talk around them without concern for "secrets". The falafel (Iraq bread) sellers know who has guests, who isn't home, etc, etc, etc.
Azahmiyah is a hotbed of activity as well with continued ieds.
Secondly, the Abu Hanifa mosque has been raided a number of times for giving "sanctuary" to insurgents; buried bombs or weapons in the compound (repeatedly) ; is associated with the Muslim Scholar Association which is connected with all the Sunni insurgent groups (often negotiates for hostage freedom), has the clerics routinely arrested for hiding, aiding and abetting as well as their routine anti-American anti-Iraq government sermons even broadcasted over loud speakers.
So, I think it's interesting that a 30 year old (military age) guy is just at the mosque doing "odds and ends" jobs.
Like what? Carrying money? Sniping from a mosque mineret?
Linked at the Castle
We Don't Flog Sailors At the Mast Anymore
The U.S. Navy, in an effort to run more efficiently, is sending its admirals back to school to learn how to think more like entrepreneurs. On Thursday, a dozen admirals and a handful of other Naval leaders completed a week of executive education classes at Babson College.
The admirals spent four days attending sessions on such topics as "Organizational Innovation" and "Using Effects-Based Thinking." They ditched their uniforms in exchange for khakis and casual sweaters and dispensed with formal titles to call each other by nicknames like "Sully" and "Arch."
Navy sends top brass for business training - Yahoo! News
Best line:
"We don't flog sailors at the mast anymore," Stanley said. "But will it ever get to the point where we're throwing around beach balls on the mess deck? I don't think so. Because we're also sending people into battle, so we need to protect the formality of the military."
Linked at the Castle
"Our objective in Iraq is victory."
The key to success in Iraq is providing security; and the key to security is defeating the Sunni insurgency. This will deny al Qaeda important support and remove the excuse Shiite militia have for taking action into their own hands. It will give the government the opportunity to rebuild the economy and to continue on the path to full democracy.
"Our objective in Iraq is victory."
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Don't Scroll Down! Project Valour IT: It's More Than A Computer
If you haven't figured it out yet, this is Project Valour IT Week. It might even be Project Valour IT Month where every day I tell you a story and ask for your assistance with this project by donating or blogging about it or passing it around to friends and other bloggers. Project Valour IT stands for Voice Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops.
You can still find all the usual stories and commentary if you scroll down. I've got stories about the struggle for freedom in oppressive nations, Mud Huts and Chai Tea, different methods we're using to fight the war on terror and a whole host of war related subjects. If you keep watching this site, I'll have a special treat for everyone, hopefully by the end of the week or Monday morning at the latest. I also plan to talk about the new Baghdad and Ramadi security operations and what it means in context to everything I've written before.
But, I'm hoping you won't scroll down without dropping $5 or $10 or more if you can spare it in the Fighting Fusileers hat for Project Valour IT. Just click when you see the Fighting Fusileer insignia and it will take you to the website that tells you about tax deductible contributions and the story of how Project Valour IT came to be.
I'm hoping, actually, even if you have given a donation previously, you'll read this post and think about donating some more or finding people that will.
Read this report and understand, this is what we're trying to do for our injured soldiers: help them get back to normal. That normal almost always includes a computer, whether for fun or play and that is what project Valour IT is looking to do.
Article
Become a member of the Fighting Fusileers, fighting for the men and women who have been fighting for you. Donate now by clicking on the Fighting Fusileer below.
Now you can scroll for other great stories.
Iraqi Army Does Mud Huts and Chai Tea
MANDALI, Iraq - Iraqi girls jumped to their feet and chanted a welcome greeting to Iraqi soldiers as they arrived with boxes of school supplies donated by a non-profit organization from Westchester County, N.Y.
The Iraqi soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Division smiled as they handed out pencil cases, and notebooks to the all-girls school of Mandali.
“The Iraqi deputy brigade commander, Col. A Sa’ad decided he wanted to visit one of the local Mandali schools with his Soldiers,” said Maj. Dan McLaughlin, the deputy team leader for the 1st Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Military Transition Team and Berwyn, Pa., native.
His group works alongside 1st Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Division, which operates in this area of Diyala province.
Civil Military Operations such as these help gain the trust of the Iraqi people and let them know that the army is here to help, explained McLaughlin.
The classrooms once again collectively cheered, “ma as-salama, wiyakum,” good bye, as the Iraqi soldiers left the town with smiles and needed school supplies in this small town near the Iranian border in eastern Diyala province.
Iraq Army Visits School
Now, you might wonder why I brought your attention to this, as the MSM would call it, "mundane" article. The first of which is the point about how to fight an insurgency. Insurgencies, as we have discussed, thrive with support of the community. The way to fight the war is to separate the insurgents from the citizens. Take away their natural "cover", the places to hide, the people who will tell them when we are coming, hide their weapons, give them food, etc, etc, etc.
The way to do that is to do what many insurgencies have done: provide services, provide assistance, make friends and provide at least basic security. In short, beat the insurgents at their own game.
Now, the second part of this story, barely getting any notice by most, but indicating exactly how the war will be won, is the section I highlighted: in eastern Diyala province.
Diyala province is the province where Zarqawi was killed in a house outside of Hibhib appx 10 miles north of Baquoba.
If you look at the second map, it tells you the general make up of the tribes and their religion/relations in the area. If the troops are operating along the eastern border, the are likely to be interacting with Sunni Kurds. In short, these efforts attempt to establish "no go" areas for the insurgents when we cannot cover every area by getting the population to support our efforts.
It's all mud huts and chai tea.
Do you need anymore information to understand how the war is to be fought?
Publius Pundit - We Thought We'd Get Freedom
Publius makes a decent analysis of the Somalia situation and notes what we know happens in many countries when the Islamists come to power:
Islamism defeats itself. Every time.
Publius Pundit - Blogging the democratic revolution
Gateway Pundit: More Images of the Brutal Beating of Iranian Women Protesters
Reports from the internet (I certainly didn't see it on the regular media) indicate 6000 women protest for equal rights and get beaten for it. Images available and multiple links:
Gateway Pundit: More Images of the Brutal Beating of Iranian Women Protesters
Maybe 6000 protestors doesn't seem like much in our world where 100,000 can protest the war and not overthrow the government, but we are talking about people living in an oppressive nation where a meeting of five or more people discussing politics is considered a threat to national security and said dissenters can be arrested and incarcerated for years for doing nothing but speaking.
ON top of that, it comes after 10,000 strong protest in Abaijan province in the north of Iran.
And these ladies don't just get led or carried away to the paddy wagons, they get beat, with batons. Something our own protestors can only dream of experiencing (you, know, for their protestor street creds against fascists).
Keep an ear and an eye out. It's getting fusion hot in Iran and we're not just talking about nuclear weapons. Seems like the dissidents have decided that the nuclear stand off is the right time to press the government for changes. Largely because, if Ahmenejid is going to appear strong in the face of international pressure, he needs the illusion of backing from his own people. Thus, his choices are to beat the protests down (potentially leading to even greater dissent) or to give in even just a little.
It's ironic to see Ahmenejid's own game played on him. It's very clear that he (or the Mullahs) recognized that the US was in it's third year of war in Iraq, wouldn't be as interested in opening a third front (Iraq, Afghanistan) and could thus use our distraction for their own gain.
Now, AJ gets some of it back. This may end up being the trade off. We may let them go nuclear (which it seems is a foregone conclusion anyway) while we build, assist and support the dissidents.
You aren't going to hear the President of any official person say so. Mainly because, in these countries with very mixed feelings about America (they want our freedoms and economy but don't want to be our close personal allies), any hint that we are participating would give the "patriots" ammunition to claim outside agitation and declare these protestors as "agents of the great Satan". Pretty common in most nations over there (heck, our own get called something similar), but, let us hope they keep with the MLK Jr. concept that, being from there, born there and a citizen there makes them Iranians, not foreign agents.
See them all.
Gateway Pundit: More Images of the Brutal Beating of Iranian Women Protesters
Don't miss the great photo essay (lord knows what subterfuge and excellent minicam/phone camera it took to get the photos out; isn't the internet grand?). Complete wit some stirring music. Other protests noted on the site.
Information War: Marine in Fallujah
They believe that things are progressively getting worse and think that our forces should just pick up and leave.
They do all this under the pretense that they are supporting the troops. However, what they are really doing is using our lives and the issue of our safety and well-being as a means to achieve a political end….
As a matter of fact, I assert with a considerable degree of confidence that their efforts make our already difficult job even more difficult. I’ll go so far as to say that their rallies and protests cost more and more servicemen their lives and limbs every day….
This marine doesn't just say that without giving an exact example of how it works to damage their effort and kills Marines:
The people of Iraq see when our country is divided. When they see rallies to “Bring The Troops Home,” they see that as a sign that we will end our efforts prematurely.
Furthermore, they know that the insurgents will not end their efforts early. That leads them to the conclusion that when we leave, the insurgents will still be there. Therefore, if they help us, their lives and the lives of their loved ones will be in great jeopardy the minute we leave — if we don’t finish the job
Democracy Project: Democracy Project: Marine in Fallujah
You need to read this.
Mud Huts, Chai Tea and...Cars?
I was talking with two of our cultural advisors, one a native Iraqi, the other a native Tunisian, both now US citizens. Here in Iraq, their job is to advise, translate, and do other things to help out the US soldiers who interact daily with the Iraqi civilians and government officials.
They were telling me about sitting around with the Jundi, the Iraqi soldiers, the correct translation would be "private" I guess, as their ranks don't exactly translate. While the officers were out of the room, they said the jundi asked them all sorts of questions about America. Where they lived, what it was like, and curiously, they asked repeatedly about their cars.
Read the rest:
4 Mile Creek: I Actually Do Have My Druthers
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Don't Be A Schmuck...
...like this guy.
We've got men and women returning from the Afghanistan and Iraq with injuries to arms, hands, spines and heads that can't use a regular computer. They are laid up in the hospital without anyway to pay bills, check their bank accounts, read emails, contact family and friends or start planning for life after the military, like college and job searches.
So, we have a little project that we've been doing for approximately eight months: Project Valour IT, providing Voice Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops. It's good for morale. It's good for psychological healing by maintaining connections with men and women who share their experiences and lets soldiers maintain a function we take for granted every day. It's good for physical healing because it keeps soldiers connected with support networks of family and friends who keep them motivated and make them strive for that next rung on the ladder.
It's a great program that has already served over 400 soldiers, sailors and marines since August 2005. It's useful, practical and imminently possible. One laptop with voice activation software, accesories, carrying case, delivery and training by a volunteer costs as little as $700/laptop.
Right now, Soldiers' Angels Valour IT is behind 11 laptops and we still have soldiers, sailors and marines returning with injuries and in need. We don't ask much. It's hard times for many people these days. But, all we're asking for is $5 if you've got. If you have more, we welcome that. There are even ways to sponsor an individual in need directly.
Become a member of the Fighting Fusileers, fighting for the men and women who have been fighting for you. Donate now by clicking on the Fighting Fusileer below.
Iraq's Pentagon Papers - Los Angeles Times
Daniel Ellsberg of the famed Pentagon Papers from the Vietnam era decides it's time to weigh in. What does he have to say? We've heard it before: Iraq is Vietnam.
Through out this 4, Mr. Ellsberg spends a great deal of time reprising his role in the "Pentagon Papers" release from 1970 and lamenting the lack of a principled savior of the Republic who would be willing to risk imprisonment for the greater moral good and find these secret documents that would tell us all about the secret plans of the United States to attack Iraq and then move on to Iran. He then takes a stroll through comparison land and points to things he insists are similar (if not dead on) to the Vietnam episode.
His second lament, before rolling off in this stroll of alleged similarities, is that Boxer's (D-CA) current proposal for troop withdrawal lacks the "teeth" that Rep. Goodell's (R) bill in 1970 did. Those "teeth" would be the refusal to approve anymore money for operations in Iraq (as Congress withdrew the budget for operations in Vietnam). What Mr. Ellsberg leaves out in his mis-adventures in the Ho Chi Minh Hussle, is that, contrary to the Vietnam period, support for the troops still remains high.
In a poll taken right before Zarqawi's death:
Regardless of whether the allegations turn out to be true, 63 percent of those surveyed said they thought the killings of civilians were isolated incidents.[snip]
"I think they're doing everything possible to avoid such things," said Christine Berchelmann, a retired nurse and Republican-leaning independent from San Antonio. "The people they are seeking out, they are in dwellings right in the middle of all these civilians. There are always going to be casualties."
Sixty-one percent in the survey said the military is doing all it can to avoid killing Iraqi civilians.
There's a lot more where that came from. There are probably two reasons why Boxer isn't doing a Goodell and one of them is that poll. Americans see providing weapons, bullets, food, armor and various other items the military needs as part of that support. The lack of it would appear to be "not supporting the troops" and, whatever you say about the mission, supporting the troops is paramount to maintaining position as a congressman (or woman). Boxer's proposal amounts to nothing more than trying to satisfy the far left anti-war base and stir up support for the comming mid-term elections. This lack of "teeth" indicates that Boxer knows she wouldn't get any support for any such proposal in congress as well as a lack of seriousness. Unlike Mr. Ellsberg, Ms. Boxer does not have a tin ear when it comes to public opinion.
The second reason it may be difficult to propose any such budgetary "teeth" (cuts), is that the funding for Iraq is tied to the funding in Afghanistan. However much the opposition wants to portray Iraq as separate from and a distraction from the "real war" on terror, it isn't working that way in the budget namely because several areas, like Centcom, the presence of the Navy in and around the entire area, efforts in Dijibouti, Algeria, Somalia, Indonesia, etc, etc, etc (all parts of this war) are integrated into this over all budget. Frankly, I'd like to see some politico risk their re-election in November by making such a proposal.
What Democrats may do after the elections (particularly if the Democrats win either house) is a whole other matter and something recalcitrant Republicans threatening to dump their incumbants for new faces (ie, splitting the votes) or offer a protest vote by voting democrat, should keep in mind if they do in anyway still support the troops or mission. Republicans might not like certain aspects of the war and might have a problem with border security, but I think they will have to evaluate their priorities before taking such drastic efforts. It might well be the difference between continuing mission in Iraq and complete withdrawal. It might be the difference between Vietnam Redux (ie, refuse additional funds for mission) and the modern war.
Mr. Ellsberg goes on to say exactly what certain journalists have at least implied:
Second, also in September, charges had been brought quietly against Lt. William Calley for the murder 18 months earlier of "109 Oriental human beings" in the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai 4. This went almost unnoticed until mid-November of that year, when Seymour Hersh's investigative story burst on the public, followed shortly by the first sight for Americans of color photographs of the massacre. The pictures were not that different from those in the cover stories of Time and Newsweek from Haditha: women, children, old men and babies, all shot at short range.
Mr. Ellsberg says that My Lai was the catalyst that prompted him to take action and wonders why Haditha has not done the same for some principled employee. Maybe no one is princpled anymore? Or, contrary to Mr. Ellsberg's next hysterical (I don't mean funny) statement, no one is equating the massacre of 109 Orientals rounded up and shot in ditches or running away or cowering in pig pens with 24 Iraqis in three surrounding houses during a post IED attack that left one marine dead and several injured, ending with a house to house search for a sniper or general gunman. Then there's the fact that it hardly took a year to come out and no one is dismissing the charges out of hand, but allowing the investigation and judicial process (which we strangely have confidence in) work before condemning straight out.
Of course, in a Post-Vietnam world with super satellite signals bouncing around images and ideas almost on a 24/7 basis, having seen IEDs and VBIEDs take out 24 children surrounding a convoy receiving candy (a bombing conducted by the enemy), numerous beheading videos and countless hours of propaganda statements and videos vowing more destruction by the enemy, people are a little less reflexive at condemning the troops out of hand. Not to mention the continuing reports of these infamous insurgents using minerets, schools and occupied houses to shoot from or standing behind a few women and children while they shoot guns, rpgs and video.
Maybe it's because we are in a Post-Somalia world where we have all had the chance to see or read Black Hawk Down a few times and hear the stories about how the insurgents used women and children as shields and survival involved the unfortunate shooting of Somali "non-combatants". Or, maybe we have just gotten used to the enemy declaring that no one is a non-combatant?
Are we more callous or are we more understanding of insurgent warfare and it's cost?
Supposedly there is a lie that the troops believe based on a poll that Ellsberg sites:
I had exclusive access to the papers for research purposes and had been reading them all summer; they made it very clear that I, like the rest of the American public, had been misled about the origins and purposes of the war I had participated in — just as are the 85% of the troops in Iraq today who still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 and that he was allied with Al Qaeda.
I'd sure like to see the poll Mr. Ellsberg sites because the numbers sound awfully familiar, but I believe that it was taken sometime just after the invasion of Iraq and prior to the 9/11 Report being made public and discussions ad nauseum regarding the 9/11 report's definitive answer about Saddam's alliance with or operational involvement with Al Qaeda. If that is a current poll that he is citing, I'd be very surprised. Were not talking about troops that only ever see or hear Armed Forces radio or TV or who have been in theater for years without contact to the outside. We're talking about people on their second and third rotation. I would also like to see exactly how the questions were asked and why soldiers answered it that way. Maybe there just wasn't a question that really represented how they thought about Saddam, Iraq, Al Qaeda and 9/11?
Then again, I suppose the troops that rolled into Iraq and had to fight the fedeyeen (predecessors to the insurgency and the Islamist mujihadeen), saw murals of Saddam in front of the two towers being crashed into by planes, saw the work of the mujihadeen torturing, maiming, killing in the name of Islam having pledged their allegiance to Osama Bin Laden (you know, that fellow who finally claimed responsibility for 9/11) and called themselves Al Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers, etc, etc, etc, might be forgiven if they think they really ARE fighting the right fight, even if Mr. Ellsberg and his like disagree. I am quite certain that it does not require brain washing by the military or lies from the administration to make the troops thinks so.
But, as you should have realized by now, Mr. Ellsberg missed the last helicopter out of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) and he wonders why there are so few other passengers waiting on the embassy roof with him. Maybe it's his next statement:
This is the system I have been part of, giving my unquestioning loyalty to for 15 years, as a Marine, a Pentagon official and a State Department officer in Vietnam. It's a system that lies reflexively, at every level from sergeant to commander in chief, about murder.
And finally this:
Haditha holds a mirror up not just to American troops in the field, but to our whole society. Not just to the liars in government but to those who believe them too easily. And to all of us in the public, in the administration, in Congress and the media who dissent so far ineffectively or who stand by as murder is being done and do nothing to stop it or expose it.
It is past time for Americans to summon the civil courage to face what is being done in their name and to refuse to be accomplices. We must force Congress and this president, or their successors if necessary, to act upon the moral proposition that the U.S. must stop killing men, women and children in Iraq, and must not begin to do so in Iran.
Please be sure to read the entire thing because, somewhere in there, Mr. Ellsberg brings up the concept of "just war" and that tired argument from Vietnam that, because it is unjustified, any death dealt by US forces is, in fact, murder.
While Mr. Ellsberg and certain of his fellow travelers remain on the roof top waiting for the last helicopter, the rest of us are living in a Post-Vietnam, Post-Gulf War, Post-USSR/Glasnost, Post Somolia, Post Rawanda, Post Bosnia, Post Kosovo, Post Khobar Towers, Post Nairobi-Kenya Embassy, Post USS Cole, Post-9/11, Post Baghdad Bob, Post Iraq Mass Graves, Post, Post, Post, world. In this world, there are more than three network stations and a few "papers of record". We now get international news within minutes of an occurance, not three days later. We get to see the war up close and personal via satellite feed. We've done this for over a decade now. We get war pictures like Platoon, Apocolypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan and on and on with all it's blood and gore, insanity, complexity and angst. We're not the generation that grew up on sanitized war movies showing John Wayne dying gracefully as Sgt. Stryker, with nary a bullet hole apparent, in the Sands of Iwo Jima.
Nor did we grow up on sanitized newsreels from the front and a press that believed it was part of the war effort only to be shocked to see images from Vietnam that did not look like the heroic war between two uniformed forces we were led to believe was our fathers' wars. These are the images of our wars. It includes literal rivers of blood, dead children and faceless men.
Our fathers' wars are ugly, messy, brutal, bloody, unmerciful and there is no good or just way to die, you just die. We grew up in a Post-Vietnam world led by the victors of Vietnam who educated us to question authority, particularly those who declare a moral authority because all moral's are relative; the morality of the whole is oppressive and what matters is an individual's morality or reasons for taking an action which can mitigate the immoral act. We were educated to believe rebellion against your father is a rite and necessary in order to shake off his antiquated ideas. We were educated to believe that truth is subjective, thus we should question all those who claim to know the truth. And, finally, all wars are terrible, thus, there is no "just war", only war and that war is defined not by reality, but by the winner.
Mr. Ellsberg, having participated in the events that created us, including having collective morality beat out of us as uncompassionate, un-American and against the principles of the Constitution that protects individuals' rights to be immoral (morals are relative and subjective, yes?), he now demands that we reach down and find this collective morality in order to end collective immoral acts of murderous, stupid, lying soldiers at the behest of our murderous, conspiring government, duly elected and seated representatives of the American people, thus making us all accomplices to said acts.
Maybe, the real issue here is that, over 60 years ago, we learned of genocide and said "never again", yet we have watched from our shores wars of every magnitude and witnessed 1 million Rwandans killed in the span of three months, or tens of thousands of Kosovoans and Bosnians, or three hundred thousand victims of Saddam or four hundred thousand Sudanese and we actually know what a massacre and genocide look like, up close and personal. Many of the victims are in mass graves we are still trying to discover and dig up. Let us not forget the daily bombings, shootings and beheadings we have seen flashed across our TV and computer screens by this newest enemy who declared themselves our enemy with barely a provocation. We have modern history to compare the actions of our soldiers to and by which we can set our collective morality as Mr. Ellsberg demands. From this position, our collective morality is shining and nearly unbleamished by comparison.
Not to say we should not be careful that we do not go down that road or shrug off misdeeds because this world we have inherited, thanks partially to Mr. Ellsberg, makes us inured or callous to the deaths of others or the acts of our voluntary representatives who are, as Mr. Ellsberg points out, acting in our names. Shame if we do and history is a reminder that we never should lest the few become the many and we completely lose our way.
We are thirty six years and two generations (going on three) beyond Mr. Ellsberg. We're in Baghdad, Iraq and Kandahar, Afghanistan. We're in Indonesia, Djibouti and places more people cannot even pronounce. We have fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, sons and daughters (and sometimes grandfathers and grandmothers) deployed to these places acting on our behalf. It's one piece of the Vietnam to Iraq paradigm that Mr. Ellsberg conveniently leaves unmentioned. If there was one other thing we learned from Vietnam, growing up with those same family members, neighbors and friends is that we did an incredible disservice to an entire generation. Thirty six years ago, we bought such arguments as proposed by Mr. Ellsberg, that these people who were from us, were dishonored because of the political reasons for the war or the acts of a few conflated to the whole. Our nation charged them as murders and treated them as pariahs. We gave little thought to their care or the damage that was done. Yet, in this piece, Mr. Ellsberg relishes the idea that someone will do it again because, after all, we are still in Vietnam. If there is one thing that we promised and our working to uphold in this generation or the next, it's "never again" will we let that happen.Debate the war, it's causes, it's "justness" and it's management? Yes. Debate whether there is damaged collective morality of our family, friends and neighbors? No. In fact, when that argument gets presented, it's likely to raise a very different reaction than that expected by Mr. Ellsberg and his fellow travellers.
In Iraq, the military has relied on an all-volunteer force of trained professionals.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said it is possible to oppose the war but "nonetheless see the military as divorced from that. The military is our sons and daughters and, of course, we wouldn't systematically engage in something that defiles American values."
Finally, let us turn to Mr. Ellsberg's real reason for writing such a hysterical historical accounting: the potential for war with Iran. Every conspiracy theory has its roots in reality so let's own up to it now. Mr. Ellsberg is right. Somewhere in the Pentagon are papers that outline contingency plans for the invasion of Iran. These documents have existed since at least 1979 when the Shah was overthrown and our men and women were held hostage for 444 days. In fact, it's likely they existed long before then since we should all be aware that the Pentagon routinely prepares a threat matrix and defense plans against said threats. It is also very likely that, in the face of current statements made by the "elected" President of Iran, including "wiping off the map" an ally of the United States and continuous chants of "death to America", these plans are being furiously reviewed and updated as you reaad this.
Are you surprised? Would you be surprised if it wasn't?
It's also very likely there are secret documents that outline the overthrow of the Iranian government, the assistance to democratic liberals and assessments about the impact of Iran on Afghanistan and Iraq, it's ties to terrorist organizations and a whole host of communiques about what should or should not be done. If there isn't, we should just roll over and play dead now.
On top of that, there are probably discussions about protecting oil resources which drive the economy, not just of the United States, but our allies and China and any number of growing economies. There is oil in Iran and in the region.
But, once again, Mr. Ellsberg gives us the convenient omission. He is worried, he says, about the "planned war" and the deaths of Iranian men, women and children from such an activity, yet, we see nary a word about the pending nuclear arms race in Central Asia between Shia Islamist dominated Iran, Sunni Islamist Pakistan and barely Communist India. All this fueled by the provision of nuclear arms and technology from Russia to China to AQ Khan in Pakistan and beyond, aided by technology from France, Germany and, you guessed it, the USA. None of which holds a very good future for these innocents.
Will we have war? Are we planning to have war, whatever the outcome of negotiations, Iran's persistant in obtaining nuclear capabilities? Are we planning some action that will precipitate a war (as if we haven't done enough already)?
Maybe those are the things Mr. Ellsberg thinks exists in these secret documents, but, considering the things that are leaked by all the ideological travellers on the train of self-rightousnes and the greater good; if it did, why hasn't it been leaked already?
I think the real question is, in the current atmosphere and given situation, why would any such person risk imprisonment for doing something that could very well endagner troops, our allies or our people? Let us hope that this ideological savior decides to spare us, our children and millions of Iranians from such an event and such a future. If they don't, I suspect, once again, that Mr. Ellsberg might be the one surprised by the reaction of the American people.
Sorry, but I have had the Vietnam comparisons up to my eyeballs and it is giving me a severe case of eye rolling and anti-hysterics.
Please, just keep the Pentagon Papers in the Pentagon.
A Demon's Demise
Mohammed from Iraq the Model was printed in the Wall Street Journal:
A Demon's Demise
He says Iraqis are angry as all get out for the reactions of certain people (including Arabic officials) and media reactions that directly or are tantamount to lauding Zarqawi as a hero.
It is totally unimaginable why someone would describe the head chopping, children murdering terrorist as a hero. It's disgusting and infuriating beyond words.
This wrongful description of evil is a major reason for misery in this region and it only contributes to justifying more unjustifiable death and violence. This makes one sometimes whishes that Iraq is somehow lifted away from these perverted sociopaths who surround us.
You know, read the rest.
The Future of Iraq
The American media fills the American psyche with images of violence in Iraq on a near daily basis, however this is only a small part of a much larger truth. If you were to walk in downtown Mosul you’ll notice many things that are far from the picture painted by the mainstream media. Namely, there are thriving marketplaces, citizens conducting their daily affairs and many smiling children; children who are not afraid to approach US Soldiers and Iraqi Police to talk, play and have an exchange of cultures so foreign to each other.
This is the war. Read it.
The Future of Iraq
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Some injured GIs decide to stay in Iraq - Yahoo! News
MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq - Parallel scars running down 1st Sgt. Rick Skidis' calf tell the story of how he nearly lost his leg when a roadside bomb blew through the door of his armored Humvee[snip]
The blast shredded muscle, ligament and tendon, leaving Skidis in a daze as medics and fellow soldiers rushed to help him. Skidis remembers little of that day last November except someone warning him that when he woke, his foot might be gone.
After five months and six surgeries, the foot remains intact but causes Skidis haunting numbness and searing pain caused by nerve damage.
Skidis, 36, of Sullivan, Ill., fought through the surgeries and therapy to return in April to Iraq, conducting the same type of patrols that nearly killed him.
He is not an exception.
Some injured GIs decide to stay in Iraq - Yahoo! News
Yet there are others who can't go back and can't reconnect to their friends, the pople they have known as family for a year and someone they've shed blood and sweat and tears with.
Some are injured in the line of duty. For them, the war is not over yet. It shouldn't be over for us either. They do the hard job every day for the same pay as working at Wal-marts. When they come back injured, their entire life is changed. They are different. The thing they know how to do, be a soldier, sailor or marine, is no longer theirs to do. They can no longer be part of the mission, working with their friends and comrades with boots on the ground. They need a way to re-connect and stay connected, even when they can't walk, can't see, and can't type.In fact, for Sergeant Elijah Allen, 25, getting a Valour-IT laptop was exactly like giving sight to the blind.
A civil affairs reservist involved in building infrastructure, he was injured during combat operations in southern Iraq and nearly lost his vision.
His left retina was torn and his right retina was detached, leaving him with some ability to see light and motion but little else in the way of sight.
He, too, ended up at Walter Reed, where he had operation after operation to restore his sight.
Patti Bader got in touch after his fourth time under the scalpel.
"When she told me about the laptop, all I could say was: 'You're fricking awesome! That's great!' ," he said.
"I couldn't see or read, but I could always log into Yahoo or IM. I was so surprised there was a programme that existed for this."
He used his Valour-IT laptop for everything from keeping in touch with his family to daily Bible readings.
But, what he wanted most was to get back in the fight, however he could. To be with his men, his unit, however possible, and he did:
'Accomplish the mission'
And he was able to reconnect with his unit and his mission.
"I remember an Air Force optometrist as I was being medevacked saying 'Your fight here is over'.
"I felt like I hadn't accomplished what I set out to accomplish. When you leave the theatre so quickly, you want to know if somebody has picked up your job."
So he got in touch with the sergeant who replaced him, and quickly became a pain with all the advice he sent.
Project VALOUR-IT provides voice activated laptops to injured troops who cannot use or have difficulty using conventional computers and keyboards. Men and women with amputations, severe soft tissue damage, nerve damage, shattered bones, spinal injuries, head injuries and, like Sgt. Elijah Allen, eye damage. It's a fantastic organization. It has supplied over 400 laptops to injured troops in just under a year.
Unfortunately, the war goes on and so do the number of wounded soldiers that need these laptops. Re-connecting these soldiers with laptops and special voice activated laptops is not just an effort to bring entertainment to them, though these laptops do offer the ability to watch DVDs or listen to music. Like Sgt Elijah Allen, many use it to stay in contact with friends, family and comrades; a network of support that helps injured soldiers heal, both physically and mentally. After long days of rehabilitation, in a hospital far away from everyone and everything you know, connections give encouragement when times are hard, reminds them they are still part of the network they once gave most of their time and life to, and gives them a chance for a new beginning. Some injured soldiers use it just like anyone else; they pay bills, go to college, handle business.
Here is a sample of just some of those who are waiting for a laptop :
Army SGT injured last month by VBIED: shrapnel damage to legs and right hand.
Army SGT injured in February: multiple gunshot wounds through right leg, ribs/lungs, forearm and shoulder.
Recently-injured Army SGT (cavalry scout) who experienced several IED explosions: I want to obtain a laptop so I can take online courses, and start college when I separate from the army. Thank you.
Army CPT injured last year who has received three purple hearts in 3 years and is being medically retired: needs computer for college study
In today's world, not being able to use a computer is like not driving, not writing a check or not reading.
Soldier's Angels is sending out an SOS. They have a backlog of 11 soldiers in need of voice activated laptops. We need to raise $7000 immediately and work to establish another cushion to handle incoming troops with needs. On top of that, it's spring and in this war, it means spring time operations by the enemy that results in even more injured.
In the soldier's world, their first job is to complete the mission. The second job is to bring everyone home. If someone is hurt or in need, fellow soldiers come to the rescue. They live by the creed, "No soldier left behind." Where did they learn such important concepts? They are our citizens, serving in our armed forces and they represent us; they are in our image. Now it is time for us to "be like Mike". It's our turn to make sure there is "no soldier left behind".
Please help our injured men and women. Become part of the fight. Join the Fighting Fusileers and make a donation to Soldiers' Angels VALOUR-IT project. Help a soldier, sailor or marine by clicking on the fighting fusileer and make a donation today!
For U.S. troops, it's hard to know who is friend and who is foe
MUSAYYIB, Iraq - Air Force Staff Sgt. Justin Cremer listened carefully as Army Capt. Irvin Oliver described the upcoming mission. They'd raid a compound of houses the next morning; a map was sketched on the ground in chalk lines of yellow, blue and white.
Oliver looked at the soldiers bunched around him and reminded them that aerial photographs had showed at least 17 people in the compound the night before, and that they were looking for just one - an insurgent cell leader suspected of orchestrating roadside bombs that'd killed American soldiers.
Be careful, Oliver told his men, not to get shot. And be careful, the company commander said, not to shoot any unarmed civilians.
Despite those warnings, last Thursday's mission would serve as a reminder that counterinsurgency is among the most complex forms of warfare, and sometimes the wrong people are killed. [snip]
As they got closer to Musayyib, a small group of Humvees, including Cremer's, peeled off and rode into town. They were going to pick up a truckload of Iraqi police who hadn't been told about the operation in advance because of fears of insurgent sympathizers in the police force.
Insurgents have left their mark in the town: A suicide bomber blew himself up next to a fuel tanker last July, killing almost 100 people in a shower of fire and shrapnel.
Less than five minutes after arriving at the police station, Cremer got a call on his radio: "Be advised, the lights just went off in that area."
The pilot, watching the insurgent leader's compound, had seen every light in the group of houses get turned off.
Cremer shook his head. "These (expletive) - someone made a phone call," he said, motioning toward the police station.
The convoy left, a pickup truck of police now with it.
KR Washington Bureau | 06/05/2006 | For U.S. troops, it's hard to know who is friend and who is foe
Even Jeffrey Dahmer Had Parents
At the entrance to the tent, made of bedouin carpets, the banner read: "The wedding of the hero Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." Inside were four rows of plastic chairs arranged on the sandy ground. A dozen or so were occupied. Ants crawled between people's feet.
Guests came to the tent yesterday to pay their respects to the family of Zarqawi, who was killed on Wednesday evening by a US air strike. In the tradition of Islamic martyrs, his wake was being celebrated as a wedding - but unlike most weddings, the atmosphere in the tent was charged with anger, sadness and fear.
Yes, and candy and cigarettes were probably handed out along with lovely warm glasses of chai tea. Of course, that was to the men. The women were somewhere heavily veiled consoling his mother and probably telling her what a great and noble son she had raised for Allah.
At least Dahmer's family had the grace to be embarrassed by such a bloodsucking boil of humanity they had raised and didn't celebrate nary a one of Dahmer's victories over his victims. But, apparently, in the desert bloodsucking serial killers are on their way to a wedding with God. Of course, Islamists being so strict, even in death before Zarqawi can enjoy his buxom girls and handsome boys, he must have a wedding. (yes, if you read the Quran correctly, they aren't getting 72 female virgins, they are getting beautiful girls AND boys to wait on them hand and foot or whatever body part and function is allegedly in need at the time).
Can't even catch a break in hell...er..paradise.
Anyway, they had a lot of extra special guests attending:
After prayers, they gathered in their hundreds in the funeral tent near the house in the Jordanian town of Zarqa where he had lived. Among them were senior commanders of his organisation in Jordan. They listened to a sermon and pledged alliance to the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
The men, most of them with long bushy beards and dressed in the Afghan salwar kamees, a dress code of jihadis, came from all over Jordan. Some raised mobile phones to record the sermon.
"If a mujahid dies, hundreds of others will replace him," cried Sheikh Jarah al-Qadah an old comrade of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "We will continue the jihad against the infidels everywhere, in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine ... see my brothers our victories in Somalia now, blessed we are and blessed to give sacrifices like the life of our hero Abu Musab."
According to one noted interviewee, fellows in strange cars and dark glasses drove by several times eying the gathering.
How tempting it must have been to put a UAV laden with hellfire (how appropriate) missiles over the whole affair and resolve some lingering problems. As it is, I hope that we are at least as half as competent at spying as everyone thinks we are and we followed a number of these fellows back to their homes and there about either with humans or with UAVs.
Can you imagine the number of pictures on the surveillance board at this time?
There should be a large number of extremely paranoid people wondering around Jordan these days. Makes me think that, whatever Zarqawi's death is to the political aspects of the day to day insurgency in Iraq, tactically, his death was a giant leap forward. Not to mention the amount of information we collected that probably links us back to a few hundred pieces of network throughout many countries who will shortly be terminated or incarcerated or followed around while they lead us to any number of their contacts.
I just hope and pray that we have enough agents and operatives around that we can handle all the information and work the number of links.
Of course, if you are on the left, you think the whole thing only consists of 10 people anyway so you're not worried, are you?
Any who, read some more about Zarqawi's wedding:
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'He is not dead, he is alive with God This is a wedding, not a funeral'
Now ponder who this story is for. Is it for you, reading in the west or was it for the readers in the middle east scouring the print, internet and international news for information on the beloved Emir of Iraq?
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Zarqawi Death Scam: Self-Centered Americans
Well, it's true. We are a deeply selfish, self-serving and self centered. Everywhere you read or look, some fool is calling Zarqawi's death politically timed in order to cover the President of the United States from:
1) The defeat of the marriage act. Everybody knows that the war on terror, particularly the war in Iraq, is meant to distract the American populace from the BushCo/Haliburtan/Chimpy McHitler take over of the American government and it's abuses of civil rights and liberties here at home.
2) The deaths of Iraqis in Haditha. You know, the United States IS the biggest terrorist and killer of people on the planet and it's certainly no different in Iraq. In fact, we shouldn't be surprised to find out that, along with building schools, clinics and infrastructure; patrolling a thousand streets everyday; the American military is probably setting off most of the bombs killing people in Iraq just to have an excuse to steal Iraq's oil. Shouldn't surprise us either if soldiers are turning into baby killers since the whole thing was a lie, so anything they do is a lie. The administration staged Zarqawi's death to try to cover up the lie.
3) The failure of the Iraq war. Don't be confused. Just because Zarqawi is dead, it means nothing because the war has been mishandled from the beginning and there would be no Zarqawi if we hadn't invaded or if we had used the right number of forces or if we had gone in with France and Germany, or if the UN had given the okay and made it a legal legitimate war, or, or...
4) Hyping the war on terrorism because, after all the deaths and arrests, it apparently isn't real. It's all a lie, but the US is staging the deaths of their own operative (ie, Zarqawi) in order to keep the big lie going. Of course, this is to help plunder oil wealth and give an excuse to spread American Imperialism. Ask Chomsky, he knows. Ask Barbara Boxer and John Kerry and Al Gore.
Please be advised that the owner and writer on this blog does not buy any of this stupidity. It is stupidity. It is almost amusing, particularly the "cover for the failure of the marriage act". If there is anything that this shows it is the paranoia and self-centered idiosyncrasy of the American public. As if killing the number one terrorist in Iraq had anything to do with our daily angst. As if special forces soldiers and intel people and Iraqi people in Baqouba who most likely gave the tip that ended Zarqawi, read the US papers or watch CNN nightly to figure out when they should best plan an operation of this nature in order to influence our domestic politics.
Maybe the president had a satellite red phone right to task force 145 so he could personally give the go ahead?
Of course, Zarqawi being a stooge, plant or otherwise employed by the US government, was kind enough to stand still for a few moments so we could kill him.
What's really funny, as usual, is that the same people declare the president a complete idiot and the war in Iraq a failure of planning, resources and strategy, but some how, the administration and, by extension, the military, is so good that it can know every moment where Zarqawi was, holding back a strike to take him out until it was politically expedient to do otherwise.
Of course, that goes without recognizing that everyday of a presidency is a political hotbed and every day, good things happen that makes the administration look good and bad things happen. On any given day, Zarqawi's death, regardless of domestic politics, would have happened at the same time something else was going on and people would still be claiming that it was a political move to cover something or boost ratings on something.
The whole thing just shows you how stupid, selfish and self-centered some people are. As if Zarqawi's death, it's date, it's announcement, his condition when he died, the presentation of his death image, or anything else about it has anything realy to do with American domestic politics.
If anyone buys that, they are chocolate eating, potato couch sitting, conspiracy theorists who should go out and walk in the sun to get a daily dose of vitamin D because they are obviously starting to suffer delusions of supreme importance brought on by lack of sunlight.
Leave your basement, leave the house. Drink more milk. Do something and save yourself before complete dementia set in.
In the long run though, the reason people are able to think in such a self-centered manner is because they are so disconnected to the war that it has no meaning beyond whether it interrupts their daily dose of Survivor with an update. They don't fear being blown up everyday. It's not here, so anything that happens hardly effects them. Thus, they can pretend it all means something else because it is no danger to them to pretend otherwise and try to tell the rest that it is as they believe: the administration just killed Zarqawi to make the rest of you dupes vote for him in the next election after he overthrows the two term standard and declares himself dictator for life.
Apparently, we are so desperate to look for some other reason that Zarqawi was killed and so desperate to prove that the death of the most norotious monsterous terrorist in Iraq was some how morally wrong, that the media is now looking for anybody to tell them that Zarqawi escaped the blast of 2 500lbs and was murdered in cold blood (or something seriously).
The witness, who lives near the house where al-Zarqawi spent his last days, said he saw the man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal. He was badly wounded but still alive, the man told Associated Press Television News.
U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him, said the local man, who refused to give his name or show his face to the camera. His account could not be independently verified.
Of course, the AP does give you a little clue:
Iraqi police pulled him from the flattened home and placed him on a makeshift stretcher. U.S. troops arrived, saw that al-Zarqawi was conscious, and tried to provide medical treatment, the spokesman said.
"He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was the U.S. military," Caldwell told Pentagon reporters via videoconference from Baghdad.
Al-Zarqawi "attempted to, sort of, turn away off the stretcher," he said. "Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this airstrike."
Now, if you're a complete idiot, I have to explain to you that, even with Hillary Clinton stating how much better it would have been to capture him alive and we shouldn't have used two big bombs even though the bastard had escaped numerous other attempts to capture him with less lethal means, when our soldiers arrived, as much as they might have wanted to kill him right that second (some conspiracies indicate we had to snuff him to keep him quiet), this witness most likely witnessed people putting a pressure bandage on his head and then giving him CPR after he stopped breathng because even the loweliest private must know that their revenge is nothing compared to the propaganda value of Zarqawi alive as well as the information it would have provided us. But, it's about us.
Can you believe anyone actually put any credence in this fellows account? This is really stupid. Must be all the good angles on this story were taken. Or, I am wrong and my other friends are right: the media is full of biased morons who wouldn't know objectivity and professional journalism if it reached out and bit them on their over stuffed, pimply asses.
This whole time, I thought the Euros were just jealous, but, we truly are some selfish, self-centered Assholes.
In Our Image: Be Like Mike
As I try to point out in the Mud Huts, Chai Tea postings, the shooting war is only a small part of the real war that goes on every day. It's a war about image, about ideas, about people who may or may not be sympathetic to insurgents or Islamist terrorists.
In World War II, having just defeated the Germans, our men and women, through big and small efforts alike, rebuilt Germany and instilled a new idealism. Some of that was simply through the natural behavior of free men and women. 
It's no different in Iraq or Afghanistan or in any of the many places our men and women go on any given day in any given country. It's not just about buildings or supplies or medicine or soccer balls. It's about the behavior and attitude that our men and women exude. They have confidence that comes natural when you have been educated, when you can speak your mind, when you have a belief in your ideas and your way of life. 
Our men and women in uniform don't even know that they are behaving in a way that is different than men and women who live in other nations. They just are who they are. They are created in our image by the very ideas and institutions that we take for granted every day that many people in the world have never experienced.
Almost by osmosis, this confidence, idealism and way of behaving towards others, begins to transfer itself to those who never had it before. They don't know what it is exactly. They aren't sure how we get it. Some see it as a product of our ideals and others see it as a product of our wealth. Whatever they see, however they think it comes about, people everywhere want to imitate it. Even people that think they don't like our "policies" or actions:
Be Like Mike
Anbar province is the center of anti-coalition sentiment. Or is it?
The Iraqis in Anbar profess to not like Americans, but they are trying mighty hard to look like them. As you pass the men in the streets, they look with flint-hard stares -- underneath their New York Yankees or Chicago Bulls caps.
American companies find excellent billboards on Iraqi T-shirts, and Nike and Reebok shoes are "tres chic" here.
The Iraqis even emulate the servicemembers who are enforcing security around their cities. The latest fad among young men is to get "high and tight" haircuts like the soldiers and Marines who patrol in the area.
You want to know what Bin Laden, Zawahiri and the rest of the Islamists fear the most? You just read it.
Do you want to help the war effort, but don't know how? Do you think you're too old, too fat or to broke to be much help in the direct effort? You would be very wrong. Just by reading this, you have taken the first steps in basic training. You have just been told how we can and will win the war. Your next objective is to learn to use your weapon. The weapon in your power is you. It's your fingers, your pen, and your voice. It's the soccer balls, the candy, the toys, the few dollars in your pocket you can spare for projects being undertaken by our men and women and NGOs everywhere.
Go to Soldiers Angels.org and sign up to send letters and care packages if you can afford it to a soldier. If you're short on money, just do letters. By writing a letter, you will tell a soldier that he or she is supported and cared about back here in the states. You will give them confidence. You will remind them who we are and why soldiers serve their country and fellow citizens. When you do, without them or you even knowing, you will be giving them the weapon they most need to fight this war: support.
Some are injured in the line of duty. For them, the war is not over yet. It shouldn't be over for us either. They do the hard job every day for the same pay as working at Wal-marts. When they come back injured, their entire life is changed. They are different. The thing they know how to do, be a soldier, sailor or marine, is no longer theirs to do. They can no longer be part of the mission, working with their friends and comrades with boots on the ground. They need a way to re-connect and stay connected, even when they can't walk, can't see, and can't type.In fact, for Sergeant Elijah Allen, 25, getting a Valour-IT laptop was exactly like giving sight to the blind.
A civil affairs reservist involved in building infrastructure, he was injured during combat operations in southern Iraq and nearly lost his vision.
His left retina was torn and his right retina was detached, leaving him with some ability to see light and motion but little else in the way of sight.
He, too, ended up at Walter Reed, where he had operation after operation to restore his sight.
Patti Bader got in touch after his fourth time under the scalpel.
"When she told me about the laptop, all I could say was: 'You're fricking awesome! That's great!' ," he said.
"I couldn't see or read, but I could always log into Yahoo or IM. I was so surprised there was a programme that existed for this."
He used his Valour-IT laptop for everything from keeping in touch with his family to daily Bible readings.
But, what he wanted most was to get back in the fight, however he could. To be with his men, his unit, however possible, and he did:
'Accomplish the mission'
And he was able to reconnect with his unit and his mission.
"I remember an Air Force optometrist as I was being medevacked saying 'Your fight here is over'.
"I felt like I hadn't accomplished what I set out to accomplish. When you leave the theatre so quickly, you want to know if somebody has picked up your job."
So he got in touch with the sergeant who replaced him, and quickly became a pain with all the advice he sent.
Project VALOUR-IT provides voice activated laptops to injured trooops who cannot use or have difficulty using conventional computers and keyboards. Men and women with amputations, severe soft tissue damage, nerve damage, shattered bones, spinal injuries, head injuries and, like Sgt. Elijah Allen, eye damage. It's a fantastic organization. It has supplied over 400 laptops to injured troops in just under a year.
Unfortunately, the war goes on and so do the number of wounded soldiers that need these laptops. Re-connecting these soldiers with laptops and special voice activated laptops is not just an effort to bring entertainment to them, though these laptops do offer the ability to watch DVDs or listen to music. Like Sgt Elijah Allen, many use it to stay in contact with friends, family and comrades; a network of support that helps injured soldiers heal, both physically and mentally. After long days of rehabilitation, in a hospital far away from everyone and everything you know, connections give encouragement when times are hard, reminds them they are still part of the network they once gave most of their time and life to, and gives them a chance for a new beginning. Some injured soldiers use it just like anyone else; they pay bills, go to college, handle business.
Here is a sample of just some of those who are waiting for a laptop :
Army SGT injured last month by VBIED: shrapnel damage to legs and right hand.
Army SGT injured in February: multiple gunshot wounds through right leg, ribs/lungs, forearm and shoulder.
Recently-injured Army SGT (cavalry scout) who experienced several IED explosions: I want to obtain a laptop so I can take online courses, and start college when I separate from the army. Thank you.
Army CPT injured last year who has received three purple hearts in 3 years and is being medically retired: needs computer for college study
In today's world, not being able to use a computer is like not driving, not writing a check or not reading.
Soldier's Angels is sending out an SOS. They have a backlog of 11 soldiers in need of voice activated laptops. We need to raise $7000 immediately and work to establish another cushion to handle incoming troops with needs. On top of that, it's spring and in this war, it means spring time operations by the enemy that results in even more injured.
In the soldier's world, their first job is to complete the mission. The second job is to bring everyone home. If someone is hurt or in need, fellow soldiers come to the rescue. They live by the creed, "No soldier left behind." Where did they learn such important concepts? They are our citizens, serving in our armed forces and they represent us; they are in our image. Now it is time for us to "be like Mike". It's our turn to make sure there is "no soldier left behind".
Please help our injured men and women. Become part of the fight. Join the Fighting Fusileers and make a donation to Soldiers' Angels VALOUR-IT project. Help a soldier, sailor or marine by clicking on the fighting fusileer and make a donation today!
Mud Huts, Chai Tea, Villages with No Names
6/6/2006 - BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- Happiness is hard to find in this country at war. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and in 1980 Noman High School became a casualty of war after it was bombed.
The school, located in the Parwan Province near here, had a proud past. It was built in 1921, and through the years some of the country’s top doctors, engineers and government officials walked through its doors.
When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the Taliban took over until 2001. The school remained in tatters until America waged war against terrorism and ousted the Taliban.
In 2005, behind the rubble, rose a new school. [snip]
Lt. Col. Donald Koehler, PRT commander, said the ruins were a testament to the determination of the people of the village of Charikar and the province.
“The dream that was Noman school refused to fade,” Colonel Koehler said. “It’s a school that will once again take its rightful place among the finest in Afghanistan and will once again provide the nation of Afghanistan with its future leaders.”
Toward the end of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, a boys choir sang a song it wrote. The chorus line included, “PRT we thank you, America we thank you.”
Through the assistance of volunteers and the PRT, the governor announced his new Academic Excellence Achievement Award for the province by awarding mountain bikes to top students.
Before the winners tore off on their bikes at the end of the ceremony, the last thing the audience saw were the large grins on their faces.
Read the rest of the story of Noman High School.
Zarqawi is dead. The Taliban loses major forces whenever it comes up against us. We have decimated the Al Qaeda central command structure or forced it into a seclusion it would prefer not to hold. We kill or capture them every day.
But the real war is here. It's a school in Dijibouti. It's the marshlands of Iraq. It's a mosque in Paktika. It's about Operation Broken Windows in Samarra.
It's medicine in Panjwayi.
“In the last three weeks, the citizens of Pashmul and Bazaar-e-Panjwayi have helped Afghan and coalition security forces drive Taliban fighters out of the Panjwayi district,” said Canadian Brigadier-General David Fraser, commander of coalition forces in southern Afghanistan. “The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the coalition are committed to continuing to improve security. These mobile medical clinics and humanitarian supplies are intended to assist these courageous Afghans.”
It's in mud huts, over glasses of chai tea in villages with names we can't pronounce.
Iraqi Women: Joining the Force
IRBIL , Iraq — Women's rights might not be the first thing one thinks of when someone mentions Iraq , however, some officials in the Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq would like it to be.
According to Irbil Minister of Interior Karim Sinjari, equality is very important for the residents of the Kurdish provinces.
“We are working very hard to be progressive and set the standard for human rights in Iraq ,” he said.
According to Sinjari, changing the country's view of women is an important step to separate themselves from the old way of thinking.
Although women throughout Iraq have been given the right to vote and are accepted in the army and police academies, the city of Irbil was the first city to allow women to hold positions of power.
Iraqi Police Lt. Narseed, is one of the first female officers in the city.
She wanted to be a police officer at a very young age but thought that the career field would not be open within her lifetime. That all changed when the Coalition removed Saddam from power. She said she had already graduated college and was becoming a lawyer when she made the decision to become a police officer. “When I heard that the doors had opened for women to become officers, I jumped at the chance and then went to the police academy.”
She said that she has no issue with men following orders or accepting her as an authoritative figure. “Here, there is no difference between male officers and female officers. If I tell the men to do something, they do it. There is no hesitation on their part.”
She said that her years of law school have helped her tremendously.
“Being a lawyer has helped me with the investigative side of police work. I know what a judge or an attorney is going to be looking for. This gives me a slight edge over some of the others on the force,” Narseed said.
Lt Narseed also says:
Narseed said the girls of Iraq need to see more strong women come to the forefront. They need to know that they are only limited by their imagination.
“We are professional; we deserve to be recognized for what we can contribute and not for our gender,” said Narseed.
“Support those of us who want to walk a different path. We are all Iraqis - Sunni, Shiite, Kurd- male and female. We need to come together instead of pulling apart.”
Read about other Iraqi policewomen.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Zarqawi: Satisfied Customer
Last year I was able to obtain a copy of a letter from the Kevorkian Society offering their assisted suicide program to Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
I just received a copy of Zarqawi's order form from the Kevorkian Society confirming his membership and desire to take part in their program:
Kevorkian Soceity
Order Form
Member #: 6606 Date: April 25, 2006
Name: Ahmad Fadil Nazil Al-Khalayilah Nick Name: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Address: 1 Palm Grove City: Baqouba
State/Province: Diyalah Country: Iraq
Contact Person: Abdul al Rahman al-Iraqi
Phone #: 010123555KILL
Please indicate your preferences below.
[ ] Bronze (ping) [ ] Silver (bang)
[X]Gold (boom) [ ] Platinum (blaze of glory)
Suicide Assisted By:
[ ] Iraqi Commandos [ ] Jordanian Police
[ ] Distraught Family Member of Terrorism Victim
[ ] Designated Member of Immediate Family or Organization
[ ] United States Marine Corps
[ ] United States Army
[X] United States Air Force
Method of Termination
[ ] AK-47 [ ] Suicide Car Bomb [ ] Beheading by scimitar [ ] IED
[ ] M16A2 [ ] Abrams Tank [ ] UAV/Hellfire Missile [X] JDAM
Date and Time
Date: June 7, 2006 Time: 6:15pm Baghdad Time
Death Notices
[X] Local [X] Hometown [X] National [X] International
[X] Print [X] Network/Cable [X] Internet [X] Radio
Extras:
[X] Personal Video of Last Moments [X] DVD for Family and Friends
[X] 3 ft X 5 ft Poster of Member RIP [X] Military Escort
[X} Obituary
[X] Special Guests (Buy One Get One Free)
[X] Surprise Gift Package for Friends and Family
Recommend Our Services to Friends and Family
Please list the names and contact information of people that you would recommend our services to:
Name: Osama bin Laden
Name: Ayman al-Zawahiri
Name: Abu Al Masri
Name: Abdul Al-Azzam
Name: Abu Abdul Rahman al Iraqi
**********
The Kevorkian Society released this statement:
The Kevorkian Society would like to announce the death of another satisfied customer, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Mr. Zarqawi passed at 6:15 PM Baghdad Time on June 7, 2006. At his side was special guest, Abdul al Rahman al Iraqi, recipient of the Kevorkian Soceity's "Buy One Get One Free" programAlthough we are disappointed that Mr. Zarqawi chose our Gold Standard Boom package over our Platinum Blaze of Glory, we believe that the Kevorkian Soceity was able to fulfill Mr. Zarqawi's request to his exacting standards.
We at the Kevorkian Society believe that everyone has the right to die, some more than others. We also believe that every person should die with dignity and compassion, or, at least in the manner they find most befitting. To this end, Mr. Zarqawi has provided a list of friends, family and close associates that he believes would be excellent and willing candidates for our "Friends and Family" package which provides assisted suicide services from the Kevorkian Society to people we know Mr. Zarqawi would not want to suffer long in this terrible, bloody war; particularly if they were unable to carry out their duties of assisted suicide administrators for the Kevorkian Soceity. Abdul al Azzam proceeded Mr. Zarqawi in his bid for death by over eight months. We understood that Mr. Zarqawi was upset and could not longer live in this world without him.
The Kevorkian Society would like to thank all those who volunteered so readily to help process Mr. Zarqawi's request. Special thanks to:
President George Bush for assisting in clearing the Kevorkian Soceity for this project
The Department of defense for insisting that Zarqawi should be killed
The United States Air Force for their timeliness and accuracy
The United States Army, task force 145
The CIA
Saudi Intelligence
Jordanian Intelligence
Pakistani Intelligence
The Mossad
And the men and women of the Coalition forces who continue to work towards the Kevorkian Mission: everyone has the right to die.
We look forward to continuing our services for the mujihadeen and all those that believe as we do, that their lives are just too painful to continue living.
X Marks the Spot
Kevorkian Society: We Deliver!
A Noble Virtue Under Siege
In our culture of therapy, self-absorption and celebrity, "honor" has very little cachet. An abuse of honor--say, by perpetrating a public fraud or acting duplicitously in private life--is but the occasion for the administration of comforting words of understanding, the application of medicines to assuage lingering anxieties and the invitation to appear on "Oprah," the better to explain the forces that, overwhelming meager resources of conscience and character, impelled a dishonorable act. Next may come an invitation to undertake the labor of a book, more fully to explore and expiate the fall from grace. Closure (as it is called) will then, at last, be obtained.
In short, there is no shame in actions once known as dishonorable, and the virtues that supported honor seem moribund. Chastity and modesty--so important to honor in social relations--are treated as relics from Jane Austen and "Little Women."
Do Americans still understand the meaning of honor?
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
D-Day
Watching "Eisenhower" on A&E (a great movie if you can rent it or have cable), I recall the part where Eisenhower was debriefing all of the relative leaders of the "free". He tells them that his plan could see almost 70% casualties. There was a pause from his audience at that statement before approval was given. The entire war hinged on that decision.
After four and a half long years of war, OEF and OIF, (nearly the same amount of time prior to the D-Day invasion), having read the names of our fallen and the brief biographies about where they are from, who they were as people and the stories of their families, this picture and Eisenhower's decision to go down to the troops and talk with them, I think I finally understand what Eisenhower was doing. This was no simple morale booster or photo op. Just looking at Eisenhower's posture and his ease with talking to the soldiers belies that connotation.
When Eisenhower is talking to the troops, he brushes aside formality and asks them to tell him their names. Not "Private Cantinelli"; he wanted their first names and where they were from. He wanted to know that this soldier was not just some piece of meat in a uniform and grease paint. He wanted to know the personal: Joe from Dayton, Ohio.
Eisenhower had to know as he shook their hands and listened to their stories that two out of every ten men would be dead or severely injured by the end of that mission. I don't think he did it to flagellate himself with, but because these men were his; they were someone's family and they were going to die. But, without them, the free world could not be saved. What a tremendous burden must have been Gen. Eisenhower at that moment. Not that he would dwell on it prior to the mission. I think the purpose was two fold:
1) To remind himself that these were real men and to make sure that he did everything to give them a fighting chance against the enemy.
2) Later, when he was alone, he would remember their names and faces and reflect on the terribleness of war. 
89,000 Dead
420,000 Wounded and Missing
We really have no idea what it was like.
We owe.
Veterans oral history of D-Day
Combat Video
Bonded by Loss, Divided by War
UNIONTOWN, Ohio -- Bob Derga searches for purpose on a flat terrace behind his house, overlooking the woods. On one side is a weeping cherry tree. On the other, above the Marine Corps seal, is a chiseled stone: "If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever."
Bonded by Loss, Divided by War
Monday, June 05, 2006
Local War News:... holding children by the shoulders, using them as shields
Nope, it wasn't the marines that were holding the children, it was the "dozen gunmen", as this reporter calls them, who had just blew up five men from Alpha company:
A cluster of buried artillery shells had flung out smoldering pieces of the Humvee. There was little left.
There had been five men in the truck. Four were dead. The body of Padilla-Aleman lay near the center of the road. McIntosh and Procopio were in the wreckage. Kim was 60 feet away.
The fifth man, Lance Cpl. Rex McKnight, 19, of Panama City, Fla., lay on the ground, convulsing in shock and blood.
Marines dragged him away from the fire and wrapped a tourniquet around his arm.
Up the road, insurgents opened fire.
The priority was to get McKnight to “Charlie Med,” the nearby medical facility.
“Don’t you die, don’t you die,” Wilson recalled telling McKnight. “If you let me get you to Charlie Med, you’ll live, I promise you.” McKnight survived.
Del Gaudio stayed behind with three other Marines, to guard the dead.
From down the road came more machine-gun fire.
Squinting through his M-4’s scope, Del Gaudio saw a dozen gunmen through the smoke. One was using a video camera. Others, he said, were holding children by the shoulders, using them as shields until the children had a chance to flee.
Seconds later, Marine Humvees pulled up, followed by Army wreckers and tanks.
As the two sides traded sporadic fire, Marines put the dead into body bags. Their flesh was so hot it burned Del Gaudio’s fingers.
Just remember that when you keep hearing "Marines Massacre Innocent Civilians".
Kansas City Star | 06/05/2006 | �A real bad day� on patrol in Iraq:
Media ignore good news from Iraq
Recently, I spoke with a young Army Special Forces soldier just home from his second (voluntary) tour in Iraq. He said that there was an embedded journalist with them during his second tour and asked me to not identify the newspaper but I will say that it is a large one and a familiar name. During his tour their unit:
Rebuilt a school and soccer field and gave the children clothing and school supplies. No pictures. No report.
Helped improve and expand a women's hospital. No pictures. No report.
Didn't respond when gunmen shot at them, taunted them and dared them to shoot back. The gunmen were in a school occupied by screaming children. No pictures. No report.
Captured a gunman who had just wounded one of the soldiers. During interrogation, the gunman spit in the interrogator's face and was slapped in response. The reporter snapped a picture of the incident and said he was writing a story.
When asked why there wasn't a report on the helpful things, he responded that Americans "don't want good news and are bored by it." He was tasked by his superiors to look for sensationalist things and to pay particular attention to acts by our soldiers.
The young soldier said that the troops are very wary of the embedded reporters and go out of their way to stay "on their good side," for obvious reasons.
The unit Commanding Officer told the journalist he was no longer welcome if all he would report were only bad things. The journalist angrily declared that he would destroy the unit in his next report to which the C.O. responded that he already had by his one and only story.
Media ignore good news from Iraq
- Coshocton, OH
Got IED?
Nope, not "improvised explosive device":
CHICAGO - To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it — intermittent explosive disorder — and a new study suggests it is far more common than they realized, affecting up to 16 million Americans.
Well, that explains everything. Our military is 1% of our population. They shoot people and break things. So, they must have IED which explains why they are constantly angry, driving fast through Iraqi towns and pointing their guns and shooting at people.
Got IED?
Got IED?
Our allies got IED.
Got 27 IED?
Even the media got IED.
The Marines got IED every day.
How about 300 IED?
I'm thinking that, over the course of the war, the military is getting close to the 16 million IED mark, or will by the time we leave.
/sarcasm off
Study says millions have 'rage' disorder - Yahoo! News
Grieving dad: Iraq war is 'right thing'
John W. Wroblewski is still trying to get to Iraq, to see where his son died more than two years ago.
He still supports the war, still supports the troops, and more than anything still supports the country his son died for.
"My son loved what he was doing, loved being a Marine and believed in trying to make a difference," Wroblewski said Sunday. "And even if he knew the outcome, he would still have made the decision to go."
John T. Wroblewski, 25, of Jefferson died April 6, 2004, during an all-day firefight in Ramadi.
Grieving dad: Iraq war is 'right thing' !
Submission by Starvation
Publius Pundit is doing Yoeman's work rounding up stories on the quick demise of democracy in Venezuela and Bolivia.
He reports that land grabs and redistribution are under way and that there is a possibility of armed resistance by land owners.
In Venezuela, the land confiscations have stepped up in Yaracuy state, where productive sugar-farming land is being taken for collective farms in a Jim Jonesian romantic vision of peasant self-sufficiency. It will have exactly the same success as Jim Jones as insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. As land confiscations step up, so do arbitrary arrests, including that of a governor who had the election stolen from him a few months ago. Note the correlation between land and human rights in Daniel’s frightening story
He's reporting that Morales is doing the same in Bolivia. Of course, Mugabe has been doing it in Zimbabwe for quite some time with already telling results.
As with land distribution of the past, what typically happens is exactly what Publius is reporting: "farmers" are moved in and given subsidies to begin planting "self sustaining" crops. Usually, these crops are not suitable to the climate or soil of every area which means many, if not most, of the farmers actually cannot "self sustain". They end up being dependent on government handouts. Worse, after cash crops that not only feed the country, but provide work and income for laborers as well as bring revenue into the country that allows actual "sustaining" food to be bought or imported, are irradicated in the name of socialist/communist "empowerment of the people", starvation and famine set in.
Of course, other problems stem from trying to "create" farmers by moving urban residents to the country, handing them some land and declaring them farmers when most have no clue about soil preservation, crop rotation, resource management or even the basics of planting and harvesting.
On top of that, those who get the richest and best producing lands are not poor peasants, but supporters of the regime who also know little about farming, but hope to use the farm's resources up to get as much money as possible before it crashes and burns.
What this produces, instead of "wealth distribution", it's the distribution of death and submission by starvation. Without cash crops that bring in revenue and employ locals, the economy of the region and the state begins to suffer. Without large crops that can be raised and sold at market to urban areas (that don't farm) or to less arid areas that may not be able to produce these needed food stuffs, availability of food decreases dramatically. Famine starts in. Starvation is not far behind and neither is violent unrest. In typical fashion, these states usually begin to enforce food distribution through a "taxation" or requirement of a certain amount of food being sent to the government for distribution. Communists like to call it collectivism and equal distribution, but it amounts to no more than a modern fuedal estate where those who received their lands from the state redistribution are beholden to the state and must pay it for the privilege of retaining the land. Since property rights have been thrown out and those that accepted redistributed lands have participated in it, those that refuse to send food or other payment to the government will simply be kicked off and new tenets will be granted the land.
As I said, it's fuedalism, not modern economics, and Chavez is the new Lord of the Realm.
At first blush, those who rushed to receive the land are extremely happy and will support the government, as they do now, until they find out that the government is not really on their side, but is using it to gain and hold power. As long as the state owns the land, no one else does. In which case, improving the land, getting water rights, obtaining more land for a growing family or in order to improve one's financial condition is either not allowed or becomes repressive itself by requiring permits for every action; permits that will take huge bribes and be bogged down in buearacracy for a long time while the inhabitants slowly become poorer and starve.
The government also controls the food. Since other areas will be devoid of food and the new distribution of land is guaranteed to provide subsistant living for the new "tenents", the government will be forced to take food and send it to other areas or will have to use government revenues to purchase food to distribute (particularly since it will have cut off as many ties with free, outside, private markets for import). Since the government will control the food through either of these scenarios, any area that may be considered "rife with opposition" (or, in the speak of totalitarian governments, "traitors"), will have its food supply cut off and the people will be starved into submission just like the Soviet model.
Recently reading Jean Francois Revel's The Flight From Truth, he pointed out the manufactured famines in Mozambique and Ethiopia from the eighties. One of his most interesting comments was that there was already widespread famine in these countries before their totalitarian governments even hinted at it in a press release. What did these countries do to compound it?
The primary government response to the drought and famine was the decision to uproot large numbers of peasants who lived in the affected areas in the north and to resettle them in the southern part of the country. In 1985 and 1986, about 600,000 people were moved, many forcibly, from their home villages and farms by the military and transported to various regions in the south. Many peasants fled rather than allow themselves to be resettled; many of those who were resettled sought later to return to their native regions. Several human rights organizations claimed that tens of thousands of peasants died as a result of forced resettlement.
Another government plan involved villagization, which was a response not only to the famine but also to the poor security situation. Beginning in 1985, peasants were forced to move their homesteads into planned villages, which were clustered around water, schools, medical services, and utility supply points to facilitate distribution of those services. Many peasants fled rather than acquiesce in relocation, which in general proved highly unpopular. Additionally, the government in most cases failed to provide the promised services. Far from benefiting agricultural productivity, the program caused a decline in food production. Although temporarily suspended in 1986, villagization was subsequently resumed.
If you read the rest of the link you would see that part of this is blamed on the US and rebel forces, but, as Revel pointed out in his book, there have been many rebellions in many countries that have not resulted in these same results unless, of course, it is coupled with totalitarianism and failed socialist policies that continue to get recycled but end up with the same results. Then, what we get is the same thing that occured during all of these famines (likewise, Korea): media reports and horrific images, demands for aid and assistance by wealthier (western) nations while the governments who orchestrated these disasters and the apologist media denounce wealthy western democracies for not doing enough to stop it and blamed as the primary cause, even though anyone with an ounce of sense in their brains already knows what caused the outcome. It rarely has anything to do with what outside nations do or don't do.
But, just like the orchestration of these events and the policies that brought them in the first place, these denouncements are meant to distract the internal people from their anger against the government, secure the government's continuing power, and blackmail other nations.
This is hardly ever about "social and economic justice", but is usually about obtaining and retaining power by the government. It follows a formula every time:
1) Take the land from the wealthy and give it to the masses giving the impression that the goverment is working for this large underclass and creating an obligated mass of supporters.
2) Maintain the land is the property of the state and not the farmers, even after redistribution, so the farmers are obligated to the state to work and live on the land. Of course, the land can be seized at any time if the farmer does not give the right amount of gratitude to the regime for his subsistent life.
3) Improvements to the land or expansion can only be approved by the state which will require substantial fees as well as bribes to process and obtain (insuring that, while the "wealthy farmers" are now gone, a whole new class of wealthy, corrupt buearocrats springs up who is also beholding to the system to maintain their position and does everything necessary to maintain it).
4) Institute agrarian reform that insures the crops that are raised are less than capable of supporting the farmers.
5) Institute food "taxes" and redistribution to other regions that are now no longer provided for by the once "large" farms, reducing further the amount of food available to the farmer to exist on.
6) State now supplies the largest and main source of food to the people insuring that they either feel gratitude for the assistance and continue to support the government or that, through the control of food, those that might otherwise oppose the government have no ability to self sustain and are thus powerless.
7) Blame other countries for any economic or agrarian disasters that occur to deflect anger outward away from the regime, compound nationalistic pride with growing displeasure over the food situation in order to maintain loyalty to the regime and insure that those that might seek help from outside to end the regime and the shortage, are labeled "agents" and "traitors".
8) Wait until the famine and near starvation is so far advanced before announcing it so there is little that immediate aid can do to relieve it, thus continuing to blame others for not doing enough (while the entire time the government is using it to continue controlling the population through distribution).
9) Demand aid from said "outside" countries.
10) Continue denouncing these countries for the starving country's condition while demanding more aid.
11) Take whatever food is available along with any relief supplies and distribute it on behalf of the ruling regime in said famine country.
12) Use most of the aid supplies to provide to cronies and family members who will then sell it on the blackmarket for a nice profit.
13) Use the rest of the aid to distribute to areas where the government needs to engender support or at least squash dissent.
14) Continue denouncing other nations for failing to do enough.
The whole time use the situation to destroy opponents, arrest and kill dissenters, control the rest of the population.
Venezuela may not become Ethiopia in terms of famine, but it may certainly find itself being controlled even more completely by Chavez through his control of everything else from economy to energy to the very existence of these people's lives.
The whole purpose, contrary to many an apologist, is not to help the people in some socialist/Communist dream state become self sufficient, but to garner and maintain power through one more method of controlling the population.
Submission by starvation.
Posted at the Castle
Freedom is the Fire
...In the Minds of Iranians.
You probably don't know about it and haven't seen it because the media is ignoring it or understating it (just read an article calling it "disturbances at universities"), but there have been significant Freedom Protests in Iran.
Maybe the problem is, with few western reporters and the information control the government uses, it's hard to get the story? Unless you are on the internet and know who to read and where to look. Here is a video of a 10,000 strong (very big and very noisy) protest in Tabriz (Azeri), Iran.
Then again, maybe the problem is that the source of the video is not a vetted "reliable" source? Unlike the folks providing video to the Post on Haditha or the UK Times captioning pictures they claim are from Haditha in Iraq. 
The Spirit of Man has pictures of another university "disturbance". The first image says "Death to Islamic Dictator". These students originally began to protest because, like all totalitarian ideologies and rulers, the regime (Ahmadinejad) ordered changes to university curriculum. The changes were unspecified except to say that they are re-enforcing Islamic studies. In otherwords, if you aren't a good stooge and don't take their Islamist re-education classes, you won't get a degree. It does go to show that the younger generation is much more secular and less interested in being "re-educated" into good little suicide bombers.
Stefania has more pictures.
Aryamehr has another little discussion on the subject.
Whole new meaning to "This Revolution Will Be Blogged" since it is the only medium giving it any real coverage.
Of course, the Iranians are blaming the US and other outside "forces" for promoting these protests. I don't think any Americans are insulted by this accusation, but, in Iran, this is meant to stir up the xenophobic, Islamists against the protesters. No idea how successful this kind of state propaganda is. What is known is that they have killed people and injured many. The state run news in Iran is reporting that they killed no one and minimal injuries because they used "BB guns".
I gotta bridge for sale.
...In the Minds of Peruvians.
Hugo and Morales have been turning their countries into pre-famine hell holes (I'll explain momentarily), but the Peruvians are not willing to join the "progressive" move towards totalitarian destruction of what little wealth and potential these nations have to offer.
...In the Minds of Chinese
Too many did not remember Tianneman Square. There were few special reports. It was barely mentioned. No one wants to paint the new, improved kinda-sorta open economy Communist Repressive Chinese government as being, well violently repressive, so we cannot see the protests that still go on. In fact, a report I heard today seemed to imply that the Chinese had forgotten.
Not so, not so.
...that is slowly being stomped out in Venezuela and Bolivia.
On the new, old socialist/communist disaster that is about to infect Venezuela and Bolivia, read "Submission by Starvation".
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Send Me
I was reading at the Patriot Guard (h/t Mudville) when I noted a message from one of the NCOs that accompanied a fallen soldier home. He pointed to this video that I think should be entitled "Send Me"
The beginning of the video quotes Isaiah 6:8:
8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
This is the essence of a volunteer. When called upon, they raise a hand and pledge to provide service, often without knowing the full extent of what will be asked of them; not knowing what sacrifices, big or small, may be required. They may not even understand the full intent of the mission, yet they sign up and they go.
As I was searching for the above passage, I read the entire chapter 6 of the book of Isaiah and realized that it is a testament to what it means to be a soldier.
1In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
2Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
3And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
4And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
Isaiah begins by talking about being lost and looking for something, for a place, for a cause. It is the end of an era and Isaiah is looking for a new beginning, a new mission. This is Isaiah receiving the calling.
For many of our men and women in the armed forces, this is how they start out. Not that they all receive a "calling" from angels on high, but many are just out of highschool or college, the ending of an era for them, looking for something to do with their lives. Some see the recruiters or others in the military squared away and confident and want to achieve that for themselves. Some see it as a step on a ladder to improving their lives, whether through college or skill sets that they might not be able to afford to learn or be considered for outside of the military. Maybe it's financial security when they have come from a place or family where they have never experienced it or are in a situation where they need it. Still others believe in service, in giving back for what they have received from our nation or because they have been raised to believe that selfless service is the height, the best of humanity.
Some would believe that most of the reasons I noted above represent "reluctant" volunteers; people who have no where else to go and nothing else to do. In this country where unemployment is around 5% (give or take a few decimal points), where there is welfare, medical assistance and job training offered in the civilian field, where student loans and college education is achieved by an ever increasing percentage of our population, this definition of people's service is simply unexceptable. People may not know everything that they will go through in the military or have to do when they join, but it is not a blind decision. It is not as if anyone can join the military, particularly today, and believe that they are joining some "New Deal" job corps only to find out they might or will go to war. It is simply an impossible supposition.
So, what does that leave us with as an explanation of why people serve; the final reason above others? One can certainly be poverty stricken and not feel the need to don a uniform. When signing up for the military, there is a specific process, a lot of paperwork, background checks, medical checks and the final swearing in before anyone even begins the basic training that turns them into soldiers. Some even talk to the recruiters for days and weeks before making the final decision. In the end, when someone does make that final decision, all of the other reasons they may have entertained as the original reason for joining, take the back burner. At this point, they either "receive the calling" to become a soldier, sailor, air man or marine, or they don't. There are certainly some that "receive the calling" that may regret answering it later, but for the most part, these volunteers not only answer the calling, but provide excellent service.This is the calling.
5Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
Here Isaiah realizes that he is being called by a higher power and that the expectations of this calling, as represented by "the King", is a perfection he has never experienced before and believes that he can never attain. He is a common man and comes from common people.
This is a representation of most of the men and women serving in our armed forces. They come from us, from among our citizens. Most were never "perfect". They have all of our proclivities and emotions; the good and the bad. When they go to serve, they are often nervous about whether they can handle it because it is different and it requires a different attitude and actions. Yet, for all of the training that they are subject to, it cannot change basic human behavior, though these men and women may strive and achieve the ability to control them or act through them, even in crisis, due to the training they receive. It does not make them devoid of emotion or zombies, nor perfect, just better trained, organized and possibly more confident in reaching for that goal.
This is the imperfection before the purification.
But even Isaiah cannot begin this perfection without purification:
6Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
7And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
In most cultures, "fire" is used in purification rites. Whether it is the Indian Guru who walks on hot coals to enhance his ability to meditate and ignore outside forces or an American Indian who may use a sweat lodge to sweat out impurities and receive a "vision" to guide them towards the future or even more ancient cultures that practiced rites such as jumping over bon fires because they believed that their own "demons" would be unable to follow them. All of these and more represent fire as a purification of the mind and body.
In a more literal sense, fire has been used since ancient times to smelt metals, such as iron ore, in order to create strong alloys for weapons, armor or even gates of fortified positions (just to name a few). Steel itself is a delicate balance between the right combination of ores, heat and cooling. If it isn't done properly, the steel can become brittle and break from the slightest touch.
Basic training and technical schools in the military provide this "tempering" of soldiers. The military has developed training programs over the years in order to better develop this tempering process. It can and will fail on occasion. Sometimes that failure of the steel is quickly apparent and other times it may not appear until the soldier's steel has been employed as it is intended. We know, though, for the most part, this training works. We know because our large military functions everyday under the most stressful conditions and sometimes in peace time as well. We know because an undesciplined, untrained force would not make it to Baghdad in a day rush and taken the city. We know because, over four years into Afghanistan and three in Iraq, under difficult, strenuous and stressful conditions, our military continues to go out on hundreds of civil affairs patrols, guard streets, track down insurgents and change the faces of these nations, employing the very tempering techniques they have learned. Without overstating the facts, we know that our men and women exercise a definite control over their actions, their ability to destroy and build because they suffer attacks every day and there are no daily reports of civilian non-combatants being killed by our men and women. Instead, they work through the attacks, caring for the dead and wounded, civilian and soldier alike as well as the enemy sometimes.This process begins the minute they take the oath and never really ends, but, by the end of training, the "live coal" from "the altar" of service has been placed upon their lips and you know it by the sound of, "hooah!" they echo in unison. The past is burned away by their trials.
In war, this tempering process is more intense and continues to purify the steel that each man and woman is made of. Again, the process usually leads to the strengthening of mind and body that many of us can never fully understand. Some come through the fire and become leaders. Still, there are some that become brittle and break. We cannot forget that, in a time of war, the trials we place them through are more than we ask ourselves on any given day; for most of us, we go our whole lives without knowing this firey process and we should thank the powers that be and these soldiers that it isn't asked of us lest we find our own imperfections, become brittle and break.This is the fire that tempers and purifies.
8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Here, the calling is received. What the mission is, Isaiah does not know, but he raises his hand and answers the call because he believes in this higher calling, that it is important even if he knows not what will be asked of him.
That is what is asked of and delivered by our soldiers. They may not have experience being a soldier or fighting war. Those on the outside that often espouse the idea that these soldiers are "duped" into serving, don't understand that the point of receiving "the calling" isn't about knowing everything before you serve, but serving even when the mission changes or becomes difficult. There are somethings that life may never prepare them for and that even intense training cannot take the place of the "fire" they will be tested with.
This is the essence of service, to not know everything, but to raise the hand and say, "send me".
9And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
10Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
Finally, Isaiah is given his mission. His job is to spread the message. Yet, this message is not to be "heard" or "seen" in the usual way messages are sent and received because the message has already been given before, but those that have received it don't understand because it is not simply a message of logic and reasoning to be heard by the ears or understood by the mind, but is a message that must be understood with the heart.
This is the message that our men and women take with them every day into the field in Afghanistan, Iraq, Dijbouti, Ethiopia, the Phillipines, Indonesia, and the myriad of places they serve. Sometimes this message is delivered with the hand of violence, justice and retribution, defending our nation and even people's of other nations. Just as often if not more often, the service required is a presence and a vigilence to let others know they are there to defend and protect.
Finally, hundreds if not thousands of times a day, the service provided is the true service of delivering "the message". In all of these places and many more, such as Ecuador or Haiti or Kosovo, these men and women perform such tasks as training military forces, not just in the use of arms, but in the laws of land war, the rule of constitutional civilian government and their duties as citizens, but also building schools, repairing roads, building health clinics, building democratic institutions such as city or town councils, building civil police, building electrical and water plants and a myriad of other activities, largely unrecognized by their civilian peers. 
The message is the rule of law. The message is in how to treat your neighbors. The message is about "good society" or expectations of interactions between citizens. The message is how democracy, "good society" and the rule of law produces strong citizens, strong country and strong economy all backed and produced by the very freedom these men and women protect. In the words of another, these men and women are our ambassadors, for good or bad, to the rest of the world. For the most part, while this "message" can be spoken or written, while video and pictures of democratic, prosperous nations are available and seen around the world, the reality of what freedom and democracy means must sometimes be felt with the heart before it can be reasoned with the logical mind.In the same sense, a belief in service, adherence to duty and the honor that our men and women serve with, are not simply products of hearing and seeing, but is understood by the heart.
This is the message. Love and devotion for country, for an idea, above and beyond self. It is represented by our soldiers and is our message to the world.
11Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
12And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
This is not a message of destruction. This answer is about time. Isaiah is being told that his service will be for eternity because that is the length of the struggle and the time that it will take to deliver the message to all of the people that must hear it and understand it with their hearts. It will require a life time of service by Isaiah and even more by those that come after him.
For many men and women in our armed forces, their committment to service is a lifetime, whether they remain in service until they retire, or if they die in service and even when they leave the service, many continue on as reserves or National Guard, or continue to work for the government and our people in another capacity, or supporting the men and women of the armed froces that come after them or simply take the core values they were taught in the military and applying them to their civilian life by committing to charitable programs, teaching or volunteering.
For some who have born the battle, those that have been tested and tempered by the fire, the physical and psychological effects of service indeed continue for a lifetime.Finally, this committment to service continues on to the next generation and the next, inspired by all those that have come before them and built upon their efforts to build and maintain the forces that defend our country, our democracy and our freedom.
This effort may be from a supply specialist working in logistics who keeps the flow of provisions going to those in the field, whether for the men and women serving or for those occasions when humanitarian aid is needed immediately and is quickly supplied by our military for relief around the world; a specialist who develops a new process for simplifiying and speeding these provisions that is used and built upon by future generations of logistics support. This effort may be the infantry sergeant, having fought specific battles and suffered the loss of his friends and comrades, that develops new tactics or recommends new weapons or gear that helps complete future missions and protects men and women who serve now and in the future so that they may continue the mission. This effort may be the civil affairs officer who meets with the head of a tribe or governor of a province in some far off place like Dijbouti or Iraq or Afghanistan, that befriends this leader and shows him the true nature of country, our people, that will convince this man to lay down arms or assist our cause, that will save the lives of future citizens of this nation and those that may serve in the area after he has left.
This is eternal service.
13But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
Isaiah is being warned that, for all his service, for all those that he reaches with the message, for all those that he tries to make "understand with the heart", only a tenth of them will receive it and understand. However, while this seems miniscule and hardly worthy of such long devotion to service, there is hope because even if only a tenth understand the message, wherever they go, whatever they do, they will be like a sturdy tree that casts its leaves to the wind, spreading the message wherever the leaf lands. Thus, Isaiah would have performed the service required of him.
For our service men and women, whether they serve for four years or twenty; from graduation to death or retirement, most will not see the fruits of their labor. They may end their direct service prior to the end of mission, they may never be deployed again or their functions here, stateside appear to have no impact on the greater world so they never know if that service was enough and, many times, think they should have or could have done more.
The battles in Iraq and Afghanistan are not over. Men and women have served and returned, some have left the service, others will never be deployed again due to position, necessity or even physical condition and still others have died, not knowing yet if their sacrifice has benefited the people and cause they were serving. In every war, from the Revolution until today, it has ever been thus. Nathan Hale died never knowing if his dream of a free country would come to fruition. His last words are recorded as, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country". Neither did the young rifleman who fell at Bunker Hill. Neither the young African American member of the 54th Massachusetts who fell at Battery Wagner, Hilton Head, South Carolina, know if his sacrifice meant that his family would one day live free and equal with the family of the white soldier he fell beside. At the landing on Normandy, many Soldiers died or left the battle field severely wounded without ever knowing if they had paved the way for the defeat of the fascist and secured continued freedom for his country or re-instated the freedom and security of people throughout Europe; likewise the young marine on Okinawa. Later at Puson and the Chosin Resevoir, who fell that would never know whether his friends and compatriots had survived the Chinese onslaught or the terrible winter much less turning back the Communist advancement.
Even into Vietnam, where 56,000 Americans gave their lives, hundreds of thousands were wounded and over a million served and returned home. Vietnam was listed as a defeat and our men and women who served were treated as if they had dishonored their oaths of service, when so many had given all they could to the people of Vietnam and their commrades in arms. Here, the "tenth" that heard the message of freedom and democracy stood a true testament of time, when after the fall of Saigon, our men and women tried to rescue as many people as possible and even afterwards, many Vietnamese risked their lives and left everything for a chance to come to America. How did they know that this country was anything more or less than the one they were leaving? Literacy was not high so books, magazines and newspapers were out of reach, television was not as international or widely seen, yet they came here by the boat load in anything that could float, hoping to reach our ships or some port of call where they knew they would receive asylum. They knew because, whatever the outcome of that ill-fated war, our men and women representing our nation, our ideas planted the seeds.
Many Vietnam Veterans have felt that they left the job undone or left people that depended on them to the less than tender clutches of evil men. But, even in their leaving, the promise of the future was given and many continue to this day in that nation to work towards it. That is the legacy of the service of our soldiers in Vietnam.
Even today, no one knows the outcome of Iraq or Afghanistan. They may become well developed democracies, stable and capable, functioning as we do or they may be slightly different, applying other rules and developing, as they have, a slightly different representative system. Finally, these nations may not maintain their democracy and freedom. They may be undermined and finally destroyed by anarchists and Islamists intent on establishing their own kind of nation. The outcome is not certain yet, because the war is not over yet.
Many look at the service of our men and women compared to the possible outcomes and try to apply a "cost to benefit" ratio to determine if the outcome was or is worthy of all efforts. They look for tangible evidence as seen by the establishment of governments that look like ours or by the complete cessation of violence or some visible and overt surrender of the enemy. Generally, in this kind of war, we can never expect that tangible proof to exist in our life time because this message and this struggle is ongoing; whether it is against Communism, Islamists or some other totalitarian state or actors.
Even if that day comes that we are forced to leave by circumstances or the demand of our democratic government representing the people of this nation, our men and women should not feel that they failed to provide the expected service because, wherever they go, whenever they have spoken, whenever they build a school, provide medicine, constitute local governments, given a soccer ball to a small child, the ideas, the dream, the message, the seeds of freedom and democracy are being planted for future generations. A "tenth" have heard and understood. These, according to Isaiah, are "a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."
This is the mission.
Through it all, we know that we will survive as a nation, that freedom and democracy will thrive, that the mission will go on and the seeds will be planted as long as it is needed, so long as there are those who, even in the face of possible death and the unknowing of the outcome of the mission, raise their hands and their voices saying, "Here am I, send me."
Friday, June 02, 2006
Haditha Everyday...
...but the perpetrators wear no uniforms. They justify their attacks by insisting either the murdered civilians are all "enemy" or that those the mujihadeen kill by accident, since they are waging a holy war, will all go to heaven. They do not prosecute offenders. They do not pay compensation for destruction of people and property. But, demonstrated by their targets and number of dead, these are no accidents or even "revenge", but coldly planned attacks against civilians.
Bombs kill 4, wound 50 in Baghdad
Two bombs tore through a crowded marketplace in central Baghdad on Friday, killing at least four people and wounding 50 others, police said.
The site was a pet market, where vendors sell dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and other animals.
As you can see, the mujihadeen think that a pet market where people are bound to bring their children, makes an excellent strategic target. This was no accident. Two rounds were fired into the market. Once a spotter verified the first mortar was on target and many people had rushed to the area to assist the wounded, the second mortar was already on its way.
This happens everyday. It's on our local news and international news. Whether it is four killed and 50 wounded or 900 dead after bombers cause a stampede on a bridge over a river (which surely included men, women and children on a massive scale), the enemy routinely targets and murders civilians with no compunction or mercy. They have no ROEs. They do not practice fire control and, often, their version of civil affairs include extrajudicial trials for something as simple as shaving, torture and execution for suspected collaborators.
This is neither to defend nor abrogate anything that may or may not have occured in Haditha during operations by Marines with their Iraqi counterparts. Nor is it meant to conflate the Haditha incident with the continuing atrocities committed by insurgents every day. Though I could speculate along with the many others or try to piece together all the information with commentary, I believe there is not enough information to make any judgement on the incident. I sustpect, whatever the outcome of the investigation, neither the overzealous "My Lai" slobbers nor those defending the Marines will be happy with the outcome. Whatever it is, even if the Marines are exonerated, the damage from the incident is already done in the realm of the information war.
However, it is important to remember that we have over 135,000 troops in theater. Hundreds of patrols occur every day. Everything from armed security patrols to raids to convoys to building schools and clinics, etc, etc, etc. Even reports such as these hardly indicate an endemic problem within the entire military structure or with the ethics or training of the entire armed forces. The fact that military commanders are going to Iraq and Afghanistan to review "ethics" with our forces. It is important to re-enforce expectations when in difficult and confusing situations. It is important to insure that all parts of the military understand the mission. In a counterinsurgency, this includes restrictive ROEs based on AOs (area of operations) and tailored towards fighting a counterinsurgency.
When we hear over inflated, breathless pronouncements about the probability of many Haditha's that have gone unreported and unpunished, agree with them and remind them that the enemy commits a "