UNILATERAL UNIFORM POLICY CHANGE
It appears GEN Bell knows something about changes afoot in the uniform regulation that the rest of us don't know.These colors don’t run and, from now on, they don’t come off uniforms either.
That’s the message from the Army’s top commander in Europe, who is ordering troops returning from deployments to the Balkans, Middle East and other hot spots to keep the U.S. flag patch on their fatigues.
Soon, Gen. B.B. Bell hopes all soldiers will be wearing the Stars and Stripes full time, whether deployed or at home.
“In light of our expeditionary operations and in recognition of the Army’s commitment to the (global war on terrorism), it is now appropriate and proper for all soldiers to proudly and permanently wear the American Flag on their field/combat uniform — whether they are committed to an operation or in garrison,” Bell wrote in a Dec. 15 message to Army commanders stationed in Europe.
STOP LOSS/STOP MOVEMENT
These are terms that describe temporary states the military services can impose under which everything you thought you knew about your retirement date, your service exit date or your change of duty station date gets thrown out the window.
The Stop Loss as you may infer indicates servicemembers may not leave the service while in effect, regardless of the terms of their enlistment contracts.
Stop Movement is usually a tag along order that means servicemembers must remain with their current unit until the end of the Stop Movement period.
So what does that mean to you and me?
If your soldier belongs to the 1st Armor Division, for instance, and was scheduled to leave the service, retire, go off to the Sergeant Major's Academy, go off to the Officers Advanced Course or Advanced Non Commissioned Officers Course anytime between now and say, late July 2004...well, all indicators are that it won't happen.
For 1AD soldiers the best guess timeline right now is this: The 1AD redeploys (aka comes home) over the course of April and May. All soldiers currently assigned to 1AD will be required to remain with the 1AD until 90 days after redeployment. So...first moves/retirements/end of service dates are 90 days after April/May meaning July/August.
Here is what the Stars and Stripes has to say on the story. And here is the Washington Times Story.
CENTCOM NEWS RELEASE EXTRACTICDC TROOPS CONTINUE INDEPENDENT MISSION, TASK FORCE SOLDIERS HELP ECONOMY
Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) forces continued their first independent operation east of Ar Ramadi along Highway 10. The mission was to prevent enemy forces from emplacing IEDs and selling black market fuel along the highway.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 6th.
In the Catholic areas of Germany they are celebrating Drei Koenigs Tag or 3 Kings Day.
Today is the 239th day of CPT Patti's Arabian trek.
And today is a day of confusion that my experience tells me will give way to less than wonderful news.
Various news outlets are speaking of a new Stop Loss/Stop Movement order to be released by the Pentagon.
I'll explain those terms later...but for right now suffice it to say that if the reports are true (and they most likely are) and if the dates are right (no way yet to tell) then CPT Patti will not be returning home in March as was the plan...
Chances are she will still give up command on 1 March...but will be required to remain with the unit until 90 days after the unit comes home.
That means she would redeploy with 1st Brigade, 1AD probably about the end of April, first week of May.
And then we would be here in Germany until about August.
All this is speculation...the Army hasn't released the official "message" yet...but - again, my experience tells me it will probably work out just as I've described it here.
Sigh.
THEY ARE CALLING IT THE "NOBODY COUNT"
One web site tries to get a handle on how many Iraqis have not been killed since we deposed Saddam.
Go see it here.
(via Instapundit)
THE MUST-READ OF THE DAY.
I've included a lot here...but you will really want to read the entire thing.But in the last ten or fifteen years, another voice has been developing in the Middle East. It's still very small and weak, but it's the voice that we all should be supporting. That's a group of liberal democratic Arabs who have been standing up and saying, "These two alternatives are both equally bankrupt. Our choice should not be Mubarak's Egypt or the Ayatollah's Iran. Why can't we do what 140, 150 other countries around the world have done and start to democratize, open up our economies, and build a free-market economy and a democratic system? We can build a democratic system that is perfectly compatible with Islam and with traditional Arab values."
It's a small, still voice right now, and if we get Iraq wrong, that voice is going to die. Because right now, as far as the Arabs are concerned, what we're doing in Iraq is embarking on a grand social-science experiment to try to build a democratic free-market society in an Arab state. Iraq is a pretty good Arab state. The Arabs know that the Iraqi population is among the most secular, best educated, most progressive, and most industrious in the Arab world.
The Arabs say, "If you want to try to build democracy somewhere, Iraq is probably a pretty good place to try it." If democracy fails in Iraq, it won't matter how we explain why the effort failed. To the Arabs, all that will matter is, "The U.S. tried to build democracy and free-market economics in Iraq, threw 130,000 troops and $100 billion at it, and failed." And all the autocrats and all the Islamic fundamentalists are going to say, "If the Americans couldn't do it in Iraq, then it can't work anywhere in the Arab world. So the only alternatives you have are us." That's a lot at stake...
It's not a matter of dominoes falling, it's something somewhat different. For the first time ever Arabs will be able to look at Iraq and see an Arab democracy. Often when we say democracy, Arabs hear Britney Spears, sex on TV, same-sex marriages and hip-hugger blue jeans. They know they don't want any of that. But once you get that first democracy formed in a region, it has a remarkable transformative effect. This is what the East Asian historians say about Japan. Fifteen, twenty years after the occupation of Japan was over, when there was a functional democracy in Japan, it changed a lot of perceptions throughout East Asia. For the first time East Asians could look at Japan and say "That's the kind of state that I could imagine living in."
Before Japan, East Asians thought about democracy the same way that Arabs do now. They thought of it as being an American or a European thing. Those were the only examples they had, and they knew they didn't want that. But then Japan came along and proved that you could build a democracy that was very different from a Western-style democracy.
MIXING LIBERAL MISREPRESENTATIONS WITH THE GULLIBILITY OF THE ISLAMISTS
A US sex therapist's imprecise speech may have been the spark that led to the bombing of the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad.
The allegations can be heard almost everywhere in Turkey now, from farmers' wives eating in humble kebab shops, in influential journals, and from erudite political leaders: American troops have raped thousands of Iraqi women and young girls since ousting dictator Saddam Hussein.
Articles in Turkey's Islamist press reporting the allegations have fanned opposition here to the US invasion of Iraq to white-hot anger -- and even, apparently, to murder.
Nurullah Kuncak says his father, Ilyas Kuncak, was boiling about the rumored rapes just before he killed himself delivering the huge car bomb that devasted the Turkish headquarters of HSBC bank last month, killing a dozen people and wounding scores more.
"Didn't you see, the American soldiers raped Iraqi women," Nurullah said in a recent interview. "My father talked to me about it. . . . Thousands of rapes are in the records. Can you imagine how many are still secret?"...
The articles in the Islamist press are based in part on comments allegedly made by a US sex therapist who denies having written or said anything about soldiers raping women. The therapist, in an online column, explicitly and graphically described the US invasion as a rape, but says that this was clearly a metaphor unrelated to the actions of individual US soldiers, and that she has no knowledge of any physical rapes.
ALL TERRORISTS, ALL THE TIME
Count on Al Jazeera to be bin Laden's stooge...again.
He's powerless to get the message of death and destruction out on his own...but the so-called Arab press is always willing to lend a hand.
Pathetic.The Arabic television channel Al Jazeera has aired a purported audio tape from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in which he urge Muslims to fight against the U.S. occupation in Iraq...
The tape criticised Gulf Arab governments for supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq, urging that the fight against U.S. forces should be with arms not through dialogue.
The speaker on the tape on Sunday also called on Muslims to fight against what he called conspiracies against Islam.
NO SHORTAGE OF VICTIMS...
No shortage of witnesses either.A ship's captain dipped into nitric acid wants to offer his wrecked body as evidence of Saddam Hussein's crimes. A janitor wants to tell the world how the dictator ordered her husband killed and her son tortured.
A new tribunal created to try top former Iraqi officials doesn't have custody of Saddam Hussein. It doesn't have courtrooms, judges or prosecutors either. Things like charges and witness lists remain months away.
But already Iraqis are lining up for a chance to testify against the man who to them personifies the evil of a regime that destroyed its people.
THE IRAQI RIVIERAIt is a sign of how far southern Iraq has come that while Tony Blair was addressing the troops yesterday Iraqi tourists were taking a pleasure cruise past Saddam's ruined yacht.
"I left Iraq 22 years ago because of Saddam," said Mohammad Ali, a chemistry teacher on a cruise with his Iranian wife and family. "I'm so happy to be back. The British did us a favour. They got rid of the biggest dictator in the Middle East."
In contrast to the daily mayhem in the rest of Iraq, the British-occupied south of the country is - comparatively - a tranquil place. Locals hope it could eventually regain its reputation as Iraq's riviera.
SO CORRUPT THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW ITS CORRUPTIONA few weeks ago, U.S. soldiers controlling the area west of Baghdad discovered a new kind of enemy when they hired 150 locals to pick up garbage in this unruly city of factories and mosques.
When workers mentioned to soldiers how much they had been paid, the Army realized that the local official it had hired to oversee the cleanup had pocketed a couple thousand dollars of the workers' salaries.
"That was accepted practice here," said Capt. Chris Cirino, a Holbrook native with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. "He just didn't understand when we fired him."
Soldiers and civilian administrators trying to stabilize Iraq are realizing that in their effort to build local governments, they are battling a political culture so steeped in corruption that its participants don't consider it corrupt. The task is further complicated by tribal leaders who often resolve disputes using violence and show little penchant for compromise.
WELL, LET'S HOPE THEY DON'T SUCCEED
Heard on the radio this morning on the way to work. A CNN news caster was discussing how the heads of Pakistan and India met, talked and shook hands while both attending the three-day summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
The CNN reporter went on to explain that the summit of South Asian Nations was seeking to establish south asia as a "trade free zone".
GOOD IDEA!As part of Task Force Right of Way, Company C, 489th Engineer Battalion is clearing vegetation and debris from Iraqi Highway 1, known to troops as Main Supply Route Tampa. Enemy insurgents have attacked troops along the route with the improvised explosive devices, crude bombs detonated on command.
The engineers want to give passing troops a fighting chance to spot IEDs by flattening medians and shoulders along the thoroughfare.
“It makes it harder for Haji, the enemy, to come out and hide an IED because there’s nothing for him to hide it behind or under,” said Sgt. 1st Class Ed Fletcher said. “Soldiers that are traveling down the highway can see [IEDs] easier.”
MONDAY, JANUARY 5th.
Day 238 of CPT Patti's trip to the Big Sandy. She has 56 more scheduled days in command.
She has been writing to me via email with more frequency since she returned to Baghdad (this is due, in part, to her learning what it is like to be in Germany - get bad news from the TV set and NO news from down range).
She began the pre-inventory on the 2d of January...just as scheduled. She says it is going well but that there is just a LOT of stuff.
Fortunately CPT Patti has just about the world's best supply sergeant, SGT Taylor, to help her.
THE MAN TO HEAD THE WAR ON TERROR?
Uh...it wouldn't appear so...
Presidential hopeful Howard Dean, who accuses President Bush of being weak on homeland security, was warned repeatedly as Vermont governor about security lapses at his state's nuclear power plant and was told the state was ill-prepared for a disaster at its most attractive terrorist target.
The warnings, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, began in 1991 when a group of students were brought into a secure area of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant without proper screening. On at least two occasions, a gun or mock terrorists passed undetected into the plant during security tests.
During Dean's final year in office in 2002, an audit concluded that despite a decade of repeated warnings of poor safety at Vermont Yankee, Dean's administration was poorly prepared for a nuclear disaster.
WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
This.A meteorite has hit northern Iran causing minor damage to property but there were no immediate reports of casualties, state radio has said.
It said the impact sent locals in panic onto the streets in the northern town of Babol in Mazandaran province...
It said the impact was felt up to one kilometre away.
Iranians are currently mourning at least 30,000 people killed by an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale which struck southeastern Iran on December 26.
WANNA BET THE EUROPEANS WILL HATE US FOR THIS TOO?A NASA rover plunged through the atmosphere of Mars and bounced down on its rocky surface last night, beginning a mission to roam the red planet seeking evidence it was once suitable for life.
A cheer went up at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory after signals showed the spacecraft had reached Mars. The Spirit rover signalled Earth after landing.
Spirit appeared on track to make a "bull's-eye" landing within a cigar-shaped ellipse inside Gusev Crater, just south of the Martian equator, navigation team chief Louis D'Amario said.
"This is essentially perfect navigation. We couldn't have possibly hoped to do better," he said.
Previously, about two of every three attempts to land craft on Mars have failed.
The latest apparent failure was the British Beagle 2 lander, which has not been heard from since it was to have set down on Mars Dec. 25.
The Beagle 2 was actually launched by the European Space Agency.
(Emphasis mine)
NOW HERE IS A CONUNDRUMSouth Korean researchers report they've cloned cattle that are resistant to mad-cow disease.
MORE THAN HALF
South Carolina Guardsmen heading to Iraq...as have over half of all SC Guard Guys.A National Guard battalion assigned to Iraq received a rousing farewell Saturday, and a community vowed to watch over their families while they are away.
A flag-waving crowd gathered outside the county courthouse to send off more than 300 guardsmen from the 3rd Battalion, 178th Field Artillery.
"If this is a farewell, I can't wait for the homecoming," the battalion's Capt. David Brooks told cheering onlookers in downtown Lancaster...
The deployment of the Lancaster-based unit means 2,400 South Carolinians, 60 percent of the S.C. National Guard, have gone to Iraq since March, said Maj. Gen. Stan Spears, adjutant general of South Carolina.
ANOTHER AVERAGE JOE HAS ENOUGH
Tells the media what he thinks of them.The Democratic candidates can be expected to ignore these facts, but for the media to do so is, in my view, a dereliction of duty.
He's got a good list of "non-messes" here...good reading.
CLOSE TO HOME
Where I grew up, I mean.Helicopter pilot Capt. Kimberly Hampton of Easley was killed in Iraq Friday, making her the first female pilot casualty.
Saturday, her parents wrapped themselves in the memories of her warmth and smile, and her patriotic leanings.
"She believed in what she was doing over there," said her dad, Dale Hampton. "She was a commander of helicopters over there."
He said Hampton wrote of her desire to fly when she was in third grade.
A 1994 graduate of Easley High School, Hampton was deployed Aug. 31, her father said.
Hampton said he hoped his daughter's death would "get some people to pay attention to what's going on over there."
I hope so too, Sir...I hope so too.
GEE, EVERYONE'S DOING ITPrime Minister Tony Blair flew into Basra today for a surprise visit to British troops in Iraq.
Mr Blair landed in an RAF C17 Globemaster transport plane which had ferried him from his Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm-el-Sheik after a family Christmas break.
MEMORIAL SERVICE
I attended the memorial service yesterday for CSM Eric Cooke, Command Sergeant Major of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1AD. CSM Cooke was killed by a roadside bomb on Christmas Eve.
Traditional radio call signs in the Army designate commanders as "6" and their most senior enlisted counterparts as "7". Because he belonged to the "Ready First Combat Team", CSM Cooke's call sign was Ready 7.
At the end of his remarks, the Brigade commander - Ready 6 - closed with these words:
"Ready 7...mission accomplished. Thank you...we'll take it from here."
Here is a story about CSM Cooke...Cooke was regarded as the definitive soldier, Walkley said. “You knew he was a sergeant major — even if you saw the guy in civilian clothes.”
A commanding, inspiring presence and quiet authority defined Cooke’s 25-year career, Henry said.
“I never once [heard] him raise his voice,” Henry said. “You did something for Sgt. Maj. Cooke because you knew it was the right thing to do.”
OPERATION HERO MILES
Now extended to help families cover the costs of visiting their wounded.
Very cool.“Sometimes, the love and support of family is the best medicine to help an injured troop recover from his or her injuries,” said U.S. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the lawmaker who kicked off “Operation Hero Miles,” a program in which travelers can donate their frequent flyer miles.
With a donation of 680 free plane tickets from beermaker Anheuser-Busch Inc., the program has expanded to now funnel some of the donated tickets and frequent flyer miles to families visiting wounded or ill troops at one of the 29 Fisher Houses set up at military hospitals in the United States. There also are two facilities in Landstuhl, Germany.
The free tickets will be given out first to families “in need” and who cannot afford to pay their own way, said Fisher House spokesman Jim Weiskopf.
COOL NEW EQUIPMENT
Saving lives.Using recently fielded mine detection vehicles, soldiers from Company C, 489th Engineer Battalion are hunting roadside bombs similar to those that have killed and maimed dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq over the past six months.
Equipped with South African-designed vehicles — the Meerkat and the Buffalo — the Arkansas-based Army Reserve troops have taken an Army side project to the forefront in the military’s efforts to counter the threat of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
CENTCOM NEWS RELEASE
INTERROGATION OF SUSPECTED AL QAEDA AFFILIATES LEADS U.S. AND AUSTRALIAN NAVIES TO SEIZE MORE DRUGS
ABOARD USS PELELIU, At Sea (1 JAN 2004) – Fifteen individuals were detained and an estimated 2,800 pounds of hashish (approximately $11 million street value) was seized by U.S. and coalition maritime forces following the interception of a dhow in the North Arabian Sea.
These forces were operating in international waters in the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / Commander, U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility in support of expanded Maritime Interception Operations (MIO) designed to deny use of the seas by terrorists under the auspices of the Global War on Terrorism.
This interception is the third in two weeks by coalition maritime forces...
“Many terror organizations have been assessed to use drug money to fund their operations,” said Vice Adm. David C. Nichols, Jr., Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / Commander, U.S. 5th Fleet. “It is easy to see how al Qaeda could use this money making network to fund their operations,” Nichols continued.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 4th.
Day 237 of CPT Patti's Arabian adventure...with 57 more scheduled days in command.
Me...I'm enjoying the nice little snow storm we are having here in Giessen this morning.
ANOTHER REASON WE SHOULDN'T RESPECT THEIR HOLY PLACES MORE THAN THEY DO
Question: When was the last time your church stored gunpowder, TNT and mortars out of sight of the authorities...
Mosque - right... I'd say a better term is "armory".
Doesn't matter...most of them will get indignant anyway.US soldiers seized a large cache of weapons when they raided a mosque in southwestern Baghdad on Thursday and arrested a number of people, the coalition's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmit, said on Friday.
Three packages of TNT explosives, a 60 mm mortar tube, eight improvised grenades, bomb-making equipment and two bags of gunpowder were recovered in the raid, he told reporters.
Kimmit said 32 people were arrested in the raid on the mosque, which he said was believed to have been used for "terror activities".
TRUE COLORS
One Member of Parliament (MP = Congressman) from Britain's Labor Party who signed up for a mission lets his true elitist colors shine through.It was trailed (hailed) as a "unique chance to rewrite the law of the land". Listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme were asked to suggest a piece of legislation to improve life in Britain, with the promise that an MP would then attempt to get it onto the statute books.
But yesterday, 26,000 votes later, the winning proposal was denounced as a "ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation" - by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job it is to try to push it through Parliament.
Mr Pound's reaction was provoked by the news that the winner of Today's "Listeners' Law" poll was a plan to allow homeowners "to use any means to defend their home from intruders" - a prospect that could see householders free to kill burglars, without question.
"The people have spoken," the Labour MP replied to the programme, "... the bastards."
If they were "bastards" when they voted this...were the same folks "bastards" when they elected you?
My guess is probably...
Right, Minister?
TEACHING THE "WALK SOFTLY" PHILOSOPHY... In a move that U.S. commanders hope will push more day-to-day peacekeeping responsibilities over to Iraqis themselves, the Army is organizing raids to hunt down terrorists using overwhelming numbers of local paramilitary troops.
On Monday, about 35 members of the Florida National Guard provided security and intelligence for an operation into Baghdad conducted by about 80 members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps...
“This is a complete role reversal,” said Capt. Rodney Sanchez, commander of Company A, 3rd Battalion, 124th Infantry of the Florida National Guard. Typically, the number of Iraqis would mirror the number of Americans on such a mission. Ramping up the participation of Iraqis essentially doubled the captain’s forces...
Soon the men marched and the black sky shuddered with the sound of helicopter rotors. The Americans kept to the perimeter; the Iraqis massed along the street. Drivers stared. It was not a stealth operation.
Soon it began and the Iraqis used bolt cutters to open a gate. Inside, the Iraqis and U.S. troops found apartment dwellers armed like the Republican Guard. Everyone had an AK-47. This, it turned out, is actually normal.
Sanchez asked one harried man, apparently a building manager, about one of the guns. It’s for security, the man replied. Each household had only the number of weapons permitted.
Sanchez asked the Iraqis to ease up on kicking in doors.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 3d.
Day 236 of CPT Patti's experiment in liberation, despot elimination and democracy creation.
Me...I'm just happy to be documenting the whole thing.
INVESTING IN THE FUTURE
You think stuff like this won't pay dividends in the future?
CPT Elizabeth Scioletti attached to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) talks with a group of orphaned Iraqi children as other soldiers prepare to give out school supplies and gifts from soldiers and American sponsors. The soldiers visited two locations in Mosul.
Photo courtesy of Army Knowledge Online
"LOSS OF CONFIDENCE"
Ironic, is it not...the one man in all of France trying to tell the truth is fired from his newspaper for it.
I know where my loss of confidence is directed...Reporter Alain Hertoghe's book accused the French press of not being objective in its coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. His newspaper fired him.
The book, ''La Guerre a Outrances'' (The War of Outrages), criticizes the French reporting for continually predicting the war would end badly for the U.S.-led coalition.
''Readers can't understand why the Americans won the war,'' Hertoghe said in a telephone interview. ''The French press wasn't neutral.''
The book, published Oct. 15, charges French reporters were more patriotic than journalistic and what was written amounted to disinformation.
It examines daily coverage by five major French dailies, including Hertoghe's own La Croix, in the three weeks from the first strikes on Baghdad on March 20 to April 9 when Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime fell.
"As soon as there were a couple of wounded, of dead, they were talking about Vietnam, Stalingrad,'' Hertoghe said.
In contrast, work by journalists traveling with U.S. troops indicated that ''the war was advancing well,'' he said.
Hertoghe, a 44-year-old Belgian, said reporters reflected the emotional high in France more than realities on the battlefield, becoming caught up in France's central role in leading the opposition to the war at the United Nations (news - web sites).
''The French public was so carried away,'' he said. The journalists, he wrote in the book, ''dreamed of an American defeat.''...
Over three weeks, the five papers carried 29 headlines condemning Saddam's dictatorship and 135 blaming Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites).
Hertoghe was fired on Dec.15 for a ''loss of confidence'' following publication of the book. La Croix, in a letter, cited four points, including damaging the newspaper's reputation, Hertoghe said.
REORGANIZING THE FIGHTING FORCE
Not resting on its laurels, the Army revamps itself, beginning with the 3d ID.The 3rd will be the first of the Army's 10 active duty divisions to reorganize its primary fighting forces, the brigade combat teams, into smaller, more mobile units that are expected to retain their firepower and lethality.
But in order to do that, said Maj. Gen. Glenn Webster, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, "we've got to break some china."
That means the Army will have to set aside many of its conventional theories and practices, and many long-held traditions. It will also have to work more closely with the other services, relying heavily on the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy to do jobs it once did...
Actual reorganization for the 3rd Division will begin Jan. 15 with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, the unit that led the Army into Baghdad last April.
During the war the 2nd Brigade had about 5,000 soldiers in two armor battalions and one mechanized infantry battalion. The division's other two brigades were combinations of armor and mechanized infantry battalions.
Under the reorganization, said Webster, each brigade will have only one armor and one mechanized infantry battalion. But each will add engineer and artillery battalions and will have other assets such as intelligence, communications and transportation permanently assigned to it.
Brigades normally add these assets when they go to war in what the Army refers to as "task organization." When they return to their home posts, these assets go back to their own units.
The new plan has the brigades being permanently task-organized so they regularly train with additional assets in place.
"These brigades will now be able to operate independently or semi-independently out on the battlefield," said Webster.
US ARMY SNIPERS
Fascinating story about a deadly business."You don't think about it," said Specialist Wilson, 24, of Muncie, Ind., speaking at an austere base camp near here after a late-afternoon mission. "You just think about the lives of the guys to your left and right."
Sergeant Davis nodded in agreement: "As soon as they picked up a weapon and tried to engage U.S. soldiers, they forfeited all their rights to life, is how I look at it."
THE SIMPLE TRUTHAmerica's self-interested largess shaped, as nothing else could have, today's world — which now faces the threat of religious fascism as the most recent permutation of tyranny. However, there is a real probability success in Iraq will signal the decline, for a century or more, of tyranny's quest to engulf humanity.
Disingenuous and facile people always point to war as the ultimate evil. This position is intellectually bankrupt and is one of the main reasons why tyranny repeatedly reconstitutes itself to threaten liberty...
In the end, we win the war on terror wherever and however it is fought by killing those who violently oppose us wherever and whenever we can find them. More importantly, we win by making sure our words of resolve are supported by our actions and that the Iraqis and others get the message...
The Bush administration's actions so far show it is committed to securing clear victory over the tyranny we now face. The Democrat Party's candidates, in the aggregate, are "AWOL."
A very good read by a very smart man.
FINALLY...CELL PHONE SERVICE IN BAGHDADFor weeks Basam Faras has been selling cellphones and collecting $100 deposits, promising hundreds of eager, middle-class customers that they soon would have service. But like most Iraqis, the electronics store owner really had no idea when Iraq would be connected.
That changed Monday when Iraqi officials said cellphone service would begin immediately with a one-week test in Baghdad and then extend across Iraq after New Year's. Cellular phone service only is available now to the U.S. military and the Iraqi government.
The downside to this is that the bad guys get to use the cell system too...which might improve their efficiency...
ANOTHER ARAB FIGURES IT OUT
But how many in the Arab world are listening?Had he fallen into the hands of Iraqis his fate would almost certainly have been the same as that of the Iraqi royal family in 1958, or of Nuri Al-Said and Abdul- Karim Qasim -- people whose mistakes are nothing compared to those of Saddam. He would have ended as a mutilated corpse...
Some Arabs saw Saddam's capture as an intentional insult to all Arabs and Muslims. Such a view implicitly assumes that Saddam was a symbol for Arabs and Muslims, that he was a legitimate leader supported by a majority of his own people, and that he was promoting the aspirations and goals of Iraqis and Arabs. But he wasn't. Saddam was never a role model or symbol for Arabs and Muslims. He never had any real legitimacy...
The real insult, beneath which we should all smart, unfolded well before Saddam's capture. It has to do with the political and social conditions prevalent in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, conditions that allowed someone like Saddam to become vice president in 1968, then bloodily usurp the presidency in 1979. These conditions allowed Saddam, after assuming power, to make decisions that proved catastrophic for Iraq and all Arabs. He single-handedly turned Iraq from a leading Arab country to one of the poorest and most indebted...
What is humiliating is not Saddam's capture in 2003, but his remaining in power from 1979 to 2003. What is humiliating is that Arabs -- including intellectuals and writers, the supposed conscience of the nation -- accepted and applauded him. What is humiliating is that the Americans and British ended Saddam's regime and captured him while promoting their own interests and objectives. This was something that we, Arabs and Iraqis, should have done had we wanted to defend our dignity and interests.
SURGEONS ON THE FRONTAnother Iraqi patient arrives. An accompanying soldier from the 1st Armored Division briefs the surgeons in the resuscitation room as other medics prepare the operating room.
“He apparently was running away from the scene of a car bomb when the car exploded.’’
Shrapnel wounds covered the patient’s naked body. Within seconds, a portable X-ray machine scanned the Iraqi’s bloodied chest while a nurse attached an IV drip. The surgeons washed their hands, a medic slipped a ventilator into the Iraqi’s mouth, and yet another medic read out blood pressure numbers: “110 over 65 and dropping.”
The surgical team responded to the frenzy methodically, knowing exactly what to do and when to do it.
And, even if they thought it, no one questioned aloud whether this Iraqi individual — now precariously balanced between life and death and in the best care the U.S. Army could offer — was either an innocent victim of a car bomb, or, himself, the insurgent who planted the bomb hit by his own evil deed.
For the men and women of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment Forward Surgical Team, those questions don’t matter.
IRON 6 SPEAKS
1AD Commander describes operation Iron Grip.The general briefed reporters on Operation Iron Grip, the ongoing division effort against cells of Saddam Hussein regime loyalists. The primary targets are the former regime cell structure.
Intelligence gleaned from Saddam's capture told the division that 14 cells operate in the city, linked by a financial and planning network. Operation Iron Grip is aimed at disrupting and ultimately destroying the cells and the network.
The division has captured 185 enemy personnel as part of Iron Grip.
STATE DEPARTMENT GEARS UPIn preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is making plans to create the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world in Baghdad, with a staff of more than 3,000, according to The Washington Post.
The transition would mark the hand-over of responsibility for dealing with Iraq from the Pentagon to the State Department, which will then help oversee the next steps in creating Iraq's first freely elected democratic government.
CALIFORNIA TO OKINAWA TO IRAQ
The Marines are ready.Members of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines said Tuesday that learning they may be heading back to Iraq, even though they just arrived on Okinawa for a Unit Deployment Program stint, doesn’t worry them.
The unit — which calls Camp Pendleton, Calif., home — arrived on Okinawa just more than a week ago but may not stay long. Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Dan McSweeney said there are “strong indications” the unit, with two others, may head to Iraq between February and April.
UNIT MOVE TO BAVARIA ON HOLDThe war in Iraq has put on hold at least one major V Corps move affecting about 300 military slots.
The 421st Medical Evacuation Battalion Headquarters is staying put in Wiesbaden — 1st Armored Division headquarters — possibly through mid-2005, said Bill Roche, a spokesman at V Corps headquarters in Heidelberg...
The 421st headquarters and one of its companies — the 159th Air Ambulance — were scheduled to move to Katterbach Army Air Field near Ansbach from Wiesbaden Army Airfield in west-central Germany. A second 421st company, the 557th Ground Ambulance Company, was to move to Barton Barracks in Ansbach from Wiesbaden airfield.
THAT NEW YEAR'S EVE RESTAURANT BOMBING
Our guys respond.
Eight Iraqis dead...35 wounded. No US Forces even touched.
This is not "resistance". This is terror. This is evil.
What Ratledge would see over the next few hours appalled him. But he knew he’d need to keep calm, stay focused, and let his training take over.
Sections of wall and ceiling had caved in. A steel beam hung exposed. Dining tables and chairs lay upturned. A wall clock hung aslant, its hands motionless at 9:18.
“We started digging,” said Ratledge.
One of the victims was just inside the break in the wall on the blast side of the building. It was an Iraqi woman in a Muslim head scarf, buried chest high in rubble.
A few feet over, a man sat slumped and lifeless like a broken department store mannequin, a gash across the top of his head.
“He was gone,” Ratledge said.
“I checked her,” he said of the Iraqi woman. “She had a pulse.”
Troops and Iraqi rescue workers started pulling away chunks of masonry and other debris.
“I kept my head together,” said Ratledge. “Let them know she was still alive – so they could keep digging.
“But you take into consideration that the rubble is on top of her and that’s what’s keeping her alive,” said Ratledge. “They take the rest of it off her and that’s when her pulse started weakening.”
The woman died, but the rescuers in that corner of the restaurant kept digging, looking for victims.
IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK AND QUACKS LIKE A DUCK...Iraqis line up outside the gates of Range 54 daily, ready to hand over weapons in exchange for cash.
Just don’t call it a weapons buy-back program.
Under coalition guidelines, a weapons buy-back program is not allowed, said Lt. Col. Hank Arnold, commander for the camp’s 2nd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.
“What we call it is a ‘weapons reward program,’ for guys that turn in caches,” said Arnold, 39, from Pensacola, Fla. “We can’t give you $20 per RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]; that’s a weapons buy-back program. What we can do is give you a reward for locating and helping us … find a cache.”
So nearby villagers collect a bunch of weapons that qualifies as a cache. About 40 Iraqis a week turn in loads of weapons to the camp in northern Iraq; half of them are members of the Coalition for Iraqi National Unity (CINU), said Capt. Jeff Csoka, assistant operations officer.
The group, which says its purpose is to promote peace and unity among tribes and coalition forces, scours the area for weapons, Csoka said...
“Personally, I think it’s a wrong idea to say we’re not going to buy back weapons,” Arnold said. “The argument from the big guys is, ‘Well, if we start buying weapons, then we become part of the weapons market and people smuggle them in just to turn them into us for money.’”
But Arnold said, “Hey, they’re smuggling them anyway. I would much rather get an RPG rocket given to me that I bought for $20 with the safety pin in the nose than have the son of a bitch fly at me 300 feet per second with the safety pin out.”
CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES801ST DONATES SHOES, SUPPLIES TO NEGLECTED SCHOOLS
MOSUL, Iraq – Soldiers of the 801st Main Support Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), spent Tuesday afternoon at the Al Busaif Primary School presenting the school’s bright-eyed students with shoes for their feet and supplies for their minds. By the end of the day, hundreds of little feet were crowned with brand new shoes, while little backpacks were filled with new writing utensils, notepads, coloring books and other school supplies.
The school supplies were sent to soldiers in Iraq from U.S. citizens. Coalition Forces paid for the shoes at a price tag of nearly $6,000 for the school’s 1,300 children.
The 801st is part of a division-wide project called Operation Adopt-a-Village. Soldiers have spent the last month helping restore the primary school, along with a smaller nearby intermediate-level school.
101ST LOCATES NUMEROUS WEAPONS CACHES IN NORTHERN IRAQ
MOSUL, Iraq – Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) discovered weapons caches Dec. 30 in and around the city of Mosul.
In the 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) area of operations a source led soldiers to a group of freshly dug holes, one of which contained two bags full of 82-millimeter mortar rounds. Also a local civilian guided forces to a cache consisting of 185 60-millimeter mortar rounds and 160 82-millimeter mortars.
In both instances explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams destroyed all rounds in place.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 2d.
Day 236 of CPT Patti's middle east adventure. She has 59 more scheduled days of command.
SHE MADE IT SAFELY TO BAGHDAD
I've been worried sick most of the day because the first news of the day from Baghdad was word of a US Convoy being attacked and one HUMMV being destroyed.
I feared it was her convoy from the Baghdad International Airport.
But she sent to me an e-mail very recently saying she had arrived at Camp Provider (her Forward Operating Base [FOB])
So...she is once again as safe as she can be in Baghdad.
I beg all of you to continue to pray for the safety of CPT Patti and her soldiers. They have been blessed so far...may they continue to be so.
Praise to the Lord for His goodness.
Here is a copy of the email she sent to me.I'm here! I made it back safe and sound to the FOB at 1910. I had to talk toeveryone and everyone asked me how my leave was. Of course, I told them how it was TOTALLY AWESOME!! I miss you so much! I love you very, very much!! :)
Please note that everyone wanted to speak with her...not necessarily a given for company commanders.
And...please note how fond she is of me. She is either blind or an extremely good judge of character.
I can live with either...
PERHAPS THE FURTHEST OFF-TOPIC I'VE EVER BEEN...
Stumbled into this website...someone actually has documented the 10 stages of the transformation of Michael Jackson's face (and I use the term "face" loosely here...)
Complete with witty commentary and amazingly good reference photos.
I laughed out loud. Frequently.
A SLICE OF THE ONION
I've had thoughts like this when I see simple shirts going for $65 at the PX (that is the PX's discounted price mind you...)
But I never wrote about it this well...Just because I happen to live with my four brothers and sisters in my mom's two-bedroom South Side apartment, work at Taco Bell, and don't have a car, some ignorant types assume that I don't have much money. But, as you can clearly see from my $220 Fubu jacket and $95 Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt, I could not possibly be poor.
The kind of name-brand clothing I wear is very expensive. See these Karl Kani jeans? Eighty-eight dollars. Would I spend that kind of money on a pair of jeans if I were poor? Of course not. If I were poor, I'd think $88 was way too much to spend on a pair of jeans that, with the exception of a tiny Karl Kani logo embroidered on the front right pocket, are practically indistinguishable from a plain old pair of $25 Levi's. But I don't think that's too much to spend because, for a well-off person like myself, money is no object.
Sure, I make $5.90 an hour at Taco Bell, but that couldn't possibly be my only source of income, could it? If my total weekly take-home pay were only $175, why in the world would I spend practically that much on a Nautica sweater and pair of Timberlands? That would mean I'd have spent 40 hours slinging Chalupas just for that one shopping trip to the mall. That'd just be plain stupid. So, obviously, I must be rolling in dough. And I am. You can tell by my special non-poor-people clothing.
AN OLDIE BUT GOODIE
From a reader, a soldier's mother...The Pope is visiting Washington, D.C and president Bush takes him out for an afternoon on the Potomac, sailing on the Presidential yacht, the Sequoia.
They're admiring the sights when, all of a sudden, the Pope's hat (zucchetto) blows off his head and out into the water. Secret Service guys start to launch a boat, but President Bush waves them off, saying, "Wait, wait. I'll take care of this. Don't worry."
Bush then steps off the yacht onto the surface of the water and walks out to the Holy Father's little hat, bends over picks it up, then walks back to the yacht and climbs aboard.
He hands the hat to the Pope amid stunned silence.
The next morning, the Headlines in New York Times, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Buffalo News, Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal, Minneapolis Tribune, Denver Post, Albuquerque Journal, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle proclaim:
"Bush Can't Swim."
POLL RESULTS
See for yourself what the Iraqis think...without BBC's spin.
Sample:What is the fair judgement you believe Saddam deserves?
Execution 56%
Imprisonment 25%
Clemency 19%
(via Instapundit)
OH KATIE, KATIE, KATIEKatie Couric: Feminist woman first, journalist second. Interviewing two Time staffers the morning after the magazine named “The American Soldier” as its “Person of the Year,” Couric’s very first concern was “why there's no woman on the cover?"
In fact, one of the three soldiers on the cover is a woman.
(via The Corner)
"THANK YOU AMERICA"I will always remember the man to whom I'd casually waved, just after the fall of Hussein's regime, in the Shiite slum of Sadr City (formerly Saddam City). He'd been riding a motorcycle looted from Uday Hussein.
He waved me over and asked whether I was American. I warily admitted I was, unsure of the consequences of the answer. The man, young but old-looking, with a beard bristly as a pine forest, grabbed my shoulders, snapped me toward him and kissed me. On both cheeks. He smelled of rotten meat and 3-day-old fruit.
"Thank you, America," he said.
Then he lifted his shirt. A virtual rail yard was etched in scars on his back. His legs were no better. The hair would never grow back where his skull had been split by a lead pipe.
JONAH GETS IT RIGHT...AGAINIn 2004, more dumb things will be said by more educated people about the trial of Saddam Hussein than all dumb things about all other major subjects combined.
Already, we're hearing how Saddam "deserves" to be treated with more fairness, humanity, and dignity...
So let's clear up a few things. First, Saddam "deserves" nothing. Yes, he should have a fair trial (and a fair execution). But that's because he's a prop. If we can squeeze some good out of this evil man by giving him a decent trial we should do it — because the Iraqi people deserve it, not because he does. I'm in favor of a big legal circus, if a big legal circus will help put that brutalized nation on the path to a decent life. However, if it were clear that loofahing him with a cheese grater would do even more to improve Iraqi life, than I'd be for that...
Due process and the legal protections therein are not and should not be conceived as protections for guilty people. Rather, they are necessary safeguards against falsely convicting the innocent. It is never "unfair" to the guilty if they are convicted without due process. The protections afforded the guilty are the necessary costs of making sure the innocent are protected.
But Saddam — duh — is guilty...
The BBC News Online has informed its staff that they must not refer to Saddam as a "dictator." The designation "deposed former President" is preferred because Saddam had been supported in a national referendum in which he received 100 percent of the vote. By this standard, Hitler — who actually won a real election — should be referred to as the "deceased German chancellor" since he wasn't even deposed. But this is a but a morsel compared to the cornucopia to come in 2004 when Saddam stands in the dock.
HATE SPEECH
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports on themes appearing in sermons given throughout the year by paid employees of the Palestinian Authority...you know, the ones we are trying to assist with the "roadmap for peace".
Among the highlights:
Allah wreak vengeance on the Jews and the Americans...
Allah, destroy the U.S., its helpers and its agents. Allah, destroy Britain, its helpers and its agents...
Sermons often call for Palestinians to become martyrs, or Shahids. Within the sermons, it is told that those who become a Shahid feel no pain and receive rewards in the afterlife, such as 72 black-eyed virgins. Family members of the Shahids are also praised in sermons...
The concept of educating children to become martyrs occurs regularly in PA sermons. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, one of the most popular Imams, is especially vocal on this issue. During one sermon, he repeats the following discussion he had with a child who approached him about becoming a suicide bomber: " A young man said to me: 'I am 14 years old, and I have four years left before I blow myself up'…
CALLING IT AS HE SEES IT
He is an Arab, and the editor of an Arab newspaper...But at a great moment of historical reckoning and potential change, the Arabs...ducked....
Rarely in modern history had so many Arabs simultaneously and jointly participated in an exercise of mass confusion and indecision as they did in 2003 vis-a-vis the Iraq crisis.
A TRIBUTE TO THE WHINERS OF THE YEAR
A sample:Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. He votes for the Iraq war resolution. He carps about President Bush proceeding to use it. He espouses a "bold, new vision" of leadership. He says "f--k" on the record. He agrees to appear on Jay Leno's show. He complains about having to follow Triumph the Insult Comic Dog puppet. You're a war hero, Senator. Wipe your nose and act like one.
THE GREATEST YEAR FOR FREEDOMEVEN if terrorists attack our homeland before the stroke of midnight, 2003 will still have been a year of remarkable progress on every front in the global War on Terror - and the greatest year for freedom since the Soviet Union's collapse.
A decisive government in Washington, backed by the courage and common sense of the American people, worked with allies around the world to carry the fight to the terrorists' home ground. We continued to seize the strategic initiative from the most implacable enemies America has ever faced.
Unless we choose to defeat ourselves, there is no chance of a final terrorist victory...
Consider just a few of our achievements:
* We deposed and captured one of the world's worst tyrants, liberating 25 million people and demonstrating the inherent weakness of dictatorships.
In doing so, we destroyed a regime that had terrorized its own people and the region. We drew an unmistakable line between America's reinvigorated support for the liberation of the oppressed and "old Europe's" cynical defense of the status quo.
OH MY GOD ITS A QUAGMIRE!
But it isn't, uh, where you might think...Startling new Army statistics show that strife-torn Baghdad - considered the most dangerous city in the world - now has a lower murder rate than New York.
The newest numbers, released by the Army's 1st Infantry Division, reveal that over the past three months, murders and other crimes in Baghdad are decreasing dramatically and that in the month of October, there were fewer murders per capita there than the Big Apple, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
THOUGHT PROVOKING
A year-end column with a difference.Where's the real "ignorance and conceit" here? No one who's spent 10 minutes with any Iraqis would compare Wolfowitz with the Soviets.
The real story of this last year is not Saddam, but something deeper, symbolized by the bizarre persistence of the "antiwar" movement even after the war was over. For a significant chunk of the British establishment and for most of the governing class on the Continent, if it's a choice between an America-led West or no West at all they'll take the latter. That's the trend to watch in the year ahead.
DEDICATION TO DUTY
Not just words...it is a real commitmentEerie lights cast a green glow on the dust on Balad’s tarmac as Cox and Masteller discussed what motivated them to return to the combat zone.
Like most soldiers, it’s not the pay or the military orders that pressed them to fly back just before New Year’s Eve. It was their dedication to the mission, a yearlong endeavor for most.
“I just don’t want to leave things left undone Iraq,” Cox said.
“There’s still so much for us to do in Iraq,” Masteller agreed.
BELL SENDS
You need to know two things about this.
The first is this attitude is almost unprecidented in my experience in the Army.
Second is - he seems to mean it.Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to bases in Europe won’t turn wrenches for at least 45 days under a new U.S. Army Europe plan to reintegrate soldiers into family and garrison life.
For the first seven days back at home, returning soldiers will work half-days, followed by a month’s vacation, USAREUR commander Gen. B.B. Bell said.
“I don’t care about equipment or training,” Bell told rear detachment commanders recently in Mannheim. “We are going to heal the warrior’s spirit.”...
When troops get back from their time off, they enter the second 45-day phase of reintegration geared toward repairing their “personal kit,” Bell said.
During that time, soldiers may have their records updated and undergo further medical care or counseling. It’s also a time for them to straighten out their uniforms and gear.
“If I find you doing land navigation in the second 45 days, you’re wrong,” Bell told commanders in Mannheim...
During the Mannheim visit, he said he would “hunt down” and “nuke” commanders if he finds a returning soldier at the port or the motor pool.
CPT Patti won't get the benefit of any of this as she is scheduled to return ahead of the rest of the 1AD. But a whole bunch of soldiers will find this to be a heckuva welcome home present.
CENTCOM NEWS RELEASESIGNIFICANT WEAPONS CACHE CONFISCATED
TIKRIT, Iraq – Task Force Ironhorse Second Infantry’s Arrowhead Brigade soldiers discovered a significant weapons cache southeast of Samarra in the morning of Dec. 29. Some of the items located were found in a false wall.
The cache consisted of 43 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 79 rocket-propelled grenades, 19 AK-47 assault rifles, one machine gun, one 40mm grenade launcher, six 60mm mortar tubes with base plates, 7,920 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, more than 160 mortar rounds, 34 100mm BMP rounds, six rifle grenades, 40 82mm fuses, two 40mm grenades, 25 fragmentary grenades, five pounds of artillery propellant, 16 mortar primers, a significant amount of C4 and TNT, one assembled improvised explosive device and materials to make additional devices.
Al Qaeda literature and videotapes were also found as well as a British made ceramic body armor plate with a bullet hole. This is an indication that the enemy faction was testing the personal protection plate’s ability to withstand expended anti-personnel ammunition.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31st.
I've recalculated. CPT Patti has 61 scheduled days left in command. This is the 234th day of her deployment.
She made it as far as Kuwait on Tuesday.
WHO DO I THANK?
Has anyone else noticed a dramatic drop in "spam" at their Hotmail account?
Mine has gone from 40 per day to less than 10.
Does anyone know why?
UPDATE: Tom writes that "Hotmail has revamped their website/email & appears to making a dent in the volume of spam!"
Indeed it would seem so. Has anyone else noticed? Got any more details as to how/why?
RECKON THEY WILL BLOCK THE SALE OF ALMANACS TOO?
The Saudi's seem to have just too much time on their hands...Morality police in southern Saudi Arabia plan to conduct raids to ensure that shops do not sell flowers, candles and gifts to those planning to celebrate New Year, a local newspaper reported on Monday...
"Patrols will be dispatched to gift and flower shops in the next two days before the New Year to ensure that ornaments are not sold for New Year celebrations," al-Watan quoted the local APVPV head as saying.
WHY SHE IS VOTING FOR BUSH
Amen, sister.But then Sept. 11 happened. Our nation needed the strength of a leader, and I wondered where we'd find one.
It wasn't until the president stood with firefighters and rescue workers at ground zero that I began to wonder if perhaps I'd misjudged him. Previously wooden while delivering prepared speeches, the man who shouted into the bullhorn from where the World Trade Center had stood demanded to be heard. And I listened - the whole world listened.
I began to hope that our country finally had a leader who'd have the moral fortitude to say to our enemies around the world: Enough.
For nearly 25 years, America has been under attack by Muslim fundamentalists - attacks virtually unanswered by all presidents as far back as Jimmy Carter.
We've somehow confused the systematic massacre of Americans for random acts of violence, though the collective onslaught - catalogued even incompletely - seems in retrospect to be a clear declaration of war:
• 1979 - The US Embassy in Iran was overrun by Islamic extremists who captured 66 Americans and held 53 of them for 444 days.
• 1983 - The US Embassy in Beirut was targeted by a truck bomb that killed 63.
• 1983 - The US Marine barracks in Beirut was destroyed by a truck bomb that killed 242 Americans.
• 1988 - US Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins, on a UN mission in Lebanon, was abducted, tortured, and hanged.
• 1988 - A bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 went off over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 on board and 11 people on the ground.
• 1993 - Terrorists drove an explosives-laden truck into the basement of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six.
• 1993 - Followers of Osama bin Laden killed 18 American soldiers in an ambush on the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.
• 1996 - The Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia was destroyed by a tanker-truck bomb killing 19 Americans.
• 1998 - US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were simultaneously attacked by truck bombs killing 301.
• 2000 - The USS Cole was attacked in the port city of Yemen; 17 died.
Halfhearted rescue attempts, trade embargoes, and a smattering of cruise missiles thrown at the problem by former leaders had no follow-through, no long-term commitment necessary to stave off the continued systematic attacks. Not until George Bush vowed to protect the US from those who sought to destroy it - even if he had to stand without the support of UN allies.
I can't rely on the contenders from my own party to follow Bush's course. Only three of the nine running in Democratic primaries are viable candidates, and none is willing to risk political comfort to pledge a presidency to the messy business of routing terrorists and their sponsor nations. Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, and John Kerry are now all against the war in Iraq, though both General Clark and Senator Kerry supported it once, and may again.
But I'm tired of presidents fluent in the language of doublespeak.
Bush isn't timid about disappointing a nation used to instant gratification. He has reminded us repeatedly that the war on terror will be long, and people will die in the process.
COULD BE TRUE
Or, it could be disinformation to make the bad guys sweat...A member of the Iraqi Governing Council told two Arabic newspapers that Saddam Hussein has given interrogators information about where he has hidden money and how to find weapons arsenals used by those attacking coalition forces.
The Arab dailies Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Hayat reported Monday that Dr. Iyad Allawi told them in interviews the former Iraqi leader admitted he invested stolen Iraqi money -- which the Iraqi Governing Council estimates at $40 billion -- in Switzerland, Japan and Germany, among others, under fictitious company names.
Allawi also told the papers that Saddam is giving the "names of people who know the location of hidden arsenals used in terrorist attacks against coalition forces and the Governing Council."
THE FBI ISSUES A NERD ALERT...
Today's terrorist apparently knows that Bismarck is the capitol of North Dakota...The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.
GENIUS
Please go read the whole thing...its the best thing you will read today.And while Arabs once may have been exterminated by Syrians, gassed in Yemen by Egypt, ethnically cleansed in Kuwait, lynched without trial in Palestine, burned alive in Saudi Arabia, inside Israel proper they vote and enjoy human rights not found elsewhere in the Arab Middle East.
DOING BETTER THAN WE THOUGHT
Go read all of this...scroll down to the December 29th entryAnd so it came to pass that in the wake of September 11, 2001, peace broke out in many odd parts of the world. And hardly anyone noticed.
(via Instapundit)
ALL HAT AND NO CATTLE...
Sarah finds someone else who isn't paying attention...
THEY ARE NOT WELCOME
Iraqis grow weary over the terrorists streaming into their country.Karbala residents pointed the finger at foreign perpetrators -- by implication, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network -- and Wahabis, followers of an austere brand of Sunni Islam practiced mostly in Saudi Arabia. But they refused to blame Sunni Muslims who have most to lose in a new Iraq.
"Karbala was a quiet city. They had to ruin it," said Dawood al-Zubaidi, the father of the two children, and a guard at Karbala University, where he had a small shack.
SUCCESSFUL DIPLOMACYJapan said Monday that it was prepared to forgive most of the billions of dollars of debts that Iraq owes Japan in order to help rebuild the economy, if other creditors did the same...
Mr. Baker secured agreements from France and Germany, the two countries most fiercely critical of the war in Iraq. Iraq owes France about $3 billion and Germany about $2.5 billion, not including interest and penalties.
Russia, which also opposed the war, said recently that it would waive some of its $8 billion in Iraqi debt in return for contracts to help rebuild Iraq and produce oil there.
The Paris Club nations hold about $40 billion of Iraq's estimated $120 billion in loans; Arab nations hold most of the rest.
It will be interesting to see what those Arab countries do...
AMAZING
Remember, these are the ones who lost the most when Saddam fell from power.
Amazing...truly.TIKRIT, Iraq—Influential spiritual leaders from Saddam Hussein's hometown — a bastion of anti-American sentiment — are joining forces to persuade Iraqis to abandon the violent insurgency.
The effort marks a new, open willingness to co-operate with U.S. forces — a shift in the thinking of at least some key members of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, which lost political dominance with the fall of Saddam and has largely formed the most outspoken and violent opposition to the U.S.-led occupation.
Sheik Sabah Mahmoud, leader of the Sada tribe, said yesterday he and 10 other tribal elders have formed a reconciliation committee in Tikrit to speak to other Iraqi leaders about trying to persuade rebels to put down weapons. He said he took that message last week to a group of scholars, religious leaders and other prominent figures meeting in Baghdad.
"It's about time we put our differences aside and looked to the future," Mahmoud said. "I told them, `The reality is they (U.S. forces) are here on the ground; the past is dead. Give the Americans a chance to see what they are going to give us.'"
A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVEOperation Iraqi Freedom was about liberation, long before it became a corrosive occupation.
It was also, in the annals of warfare, precedent-setting — the first time that compassionate relief arrived concurrent with ongoing military operations, even to the detriment of military resupply.
That's not oft noted.
In time, if the Americans get this right — and they've little experience with nation-building, President George W. Bush actually campaigning against the very idea before the 2000 election — it is liberation that will endure as the dangers and deprivations of transitional Iraq begin to recede.
But time is the issue, impatience the enemy...
Give the Americans this much: In the modern world, there are precious few peoples willing to die for strangers, for someone else's tribe, which is the fate of soldiers doing the bidding of politicians.
Pity so many other governments didn't feel that a Muslim nation merited the human, economic and political sacrifice.
An invasion on humanitarian grounds — deposing Saddam because of the horrors he inflicted on his people, the evidence in all those mass graves — had to be politically dressed up as a defensive intervention, with America and Great Britain cranking up alarm over the existence of weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam Hussein was the weapon of mass destruction.
Saddam Hussein as a weapon of mass destruction? Sounds familiar...here is why.
THE GLOBAL WAR JUST GOT A LITTLE MORE GLOBALThe bodies of two Thai troops killed in Iraq have been retuned to Bangkok in a solemn ceremony...
Amporn Chulert and Mitir Klaharn, both sergeant-majors, were among 19 killed in car bomb and mortar attacks in the Iraqi city of Karbala on Saturday.
They were the first Thai troops to die in Iraq, sparking calls for withdrawal.
CAUGHT ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY
Syria. Again.A trading company closely linked with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad smuggled sophisticated arms to Saddam Hussein in the three years before his overthrow - all in violation of a U.N. embargo, it was reported today.
SES International Corp., headed by one of Assad's cousins, helped illicitly transfer weapons and military hardware to Iraq, the Los Angeles Times said.
And at least one of those shipments was done with help from Syria's government, the newspaper said.
"JUST IRAQIS AS USUAL"A bomb apparently aimed at a US convoy has exploded in Baghdad, killing one Iraqi civilian and wounding another.
No Americans were hurt in the blast which went off in the Iraqi capital's densely populated Karrada district, on a street lined with market stalls.
"They've not killed any Americans, just Iraqis as usual," a grocer told AP news agency as traders surveyed the damage.
OUR GUYS
1-36 Infantry out of Friedberg. U.S. forces are reporting a major success in their latest operation to blunt the guerrilla insurgency in the Iraqi capital.
As part of Operation Iron Grip, U.S. forces carried out a large-scale series of raids in the period from Tuesday night through Christmas Eve night. At one point, the troops carried out 13 separate operations — the most conducted in a single night in Baghdad since the war began, according to the coalition...
Capt. Marcus Wildy, 32, of Charleston, S.C., is commander of Company A, 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, one of the 1st Armored Division units that carried out the house-to-house searches the night of Christmas Eve and early Christmas Day...
Also found during the battalion’s searches were an SKS rifle with an adaptor that allows launching of grenades “which makes them [the insurgents] extremely mobile,” Wildy said. “Just fire those grenades and haul butt out of there. We got some people off the street that shouldn’t be on the street.”
WHAT WE LEARNED
CPT Patti and I learned some things during the wonderful 8 days she was here.
For instance, I learned that most of our Soldiers in Iraq do not have access to the big picture. Most don't know that since the capture of Saddam the Iranians and the Libyans have come clean about their WMD programs. The Soldiers don't know they are having that kind of effect on the world.
And that is too bad.
CPT Patti learned what we family members have known from almost the very beginning...namely that there is little one can do upon hearing in the news about casualties. The details just have to come out at their own pace.
She said she doesn't hear the news reports of casualties at Camp Provider. Most of the soldiers quit watching the news a long time ago due to the slant the news agencies put on their stories. Thus, when she and her Soldiers do hear of casualties, those tend to be from within their own Brigade. And, of course, the soldiers pass the word about who it is and what unit it is...information that we in the rear don't get for days.
She noticed the flag at half-staff a day or so after she got here. She didn't know then that more often than not that means our brigade took a casualty. Once I explained that she was almost frantic to know more. She was able to reach the brigade rear detachment and get what few details that were available (and they gave her those only because she is a commander within the brigade...we spouses can't get that sort of info until after notifications are made...)
She was distressed at how family members in the rear only hear that there were casualties...and have to wait days sometimes to confirm the casualties were not our very own loved ones. She didn't know about the fences we build to cope.
We both learned that no one is untouchable. She got a phone call from Baghdad after we returned from church on Christmas Eve. That call informed us of the death of the Brigade Command Sergeant Major. Patti wept desperately on the phone with the friend who called. They both knew the CSM...Patti had sought his advice and counsel on numerous occasions. And just like that he is gone.
If you are not very familiar with the inner workings of the Army let me explain to you that the Brigade CSM is the senior enlisted man in an outfit of perhaps 4000 soldiers. The CSM is a position of considerable influence, authority and power. The CSM is the command partner and frequently the most cherished advisor to the Colonel. In the eyes of young Soldiers and young officers the CSM has a certain mystique. And on Christmas Eve ours was taken by an IED.
No one is untouchable.
And I learned that spending 8 months without my wife allows my head to fill with notions and ideas that have no basis in reality. I was very concerned about what changes I would see in her, wrought by so long under such stress and conditions. I had imagined all manner of awful possibilities, and attempted to prepare for them.
But there is no appreciable change in her. If anything she may have lost a fraction of the presumption of good in all people - yet she is still far, far from being as cynical as most folks I know. So I guess I learned that the core of who she is is solid...she is who she is, and I'm just delighted about it.
I learned that being married to Time magazine's Person of the Year is a very, very cool feeling.
I learned that my real life with her is so staggeringly superior to my on-line life as a blogger that it is very doubtful I will continue to do this once she safely returns to me.
And finally, I learned that my cousin is right. You just don't forget how to kiss.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30th
The 233d day of our adventure. Sixty-one days remaining in CPT Patti's command.
She had a pleasant stay in Sicily - said the pizza is really good there and that the Navy lives well.
She expects to be on a flight to Kuwait later this morning.
IT NEVER GOES AS PLANNED
CPT Patti called at 10:30 this morning...
For some reason their plane put down in Cicily. She expects to be there overnight.
One just never knows...
At least she is not in harm's way...
2:58 a.m.
That was the time on my watch when I walked away from the "tent city" at Rhein Main Air Base after saying good bye to CPT Patti. She had boarding pass in hand for the flight to Kuwait.
She was home 8 days. In some ways it seems like 8 hours.
It was an amazing 8 days. I'll have more to say on that later...but right now it is a little after 4:00 a.m. and I really should be getting to bed.
It's going to feel awfully empty there...
By the way...according to the schedule she has 62 more days in command. And she should be home very soon thereafter.
Please continue to pray for her and her soldiers.
And for me.
Thanks.
IF YOUR NAME IS ARAFAT YOU JUST GOTTA HATE IT WHEN HE SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THIS...Bush declares: "We must get rid of Arafat"
CPT PATTI IS MAN OF THE YEAR!
Well, not exactly...Time magazine is way to PC to make that blunder...
But Drudge says she might be included...
SOME GOOD POINTS
To be read carefully please.All of this twisted, blame-America-Bush-bashing and mind-numbing negativism has obscured some very important facts that need to be re-emphasized:
Saddam is responsible for two horrific wars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands. His record is replete with the kind of atrocities that brought the United States into two world wars, as well as a bloody campaign in Korea and the war I fought in -- Vietnam. He raped, tortured, robbed, starved and murdered his own people. He acquired and used weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors and countrymen. He attempted to assassinate an American president. He trained and supported Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Muslim Brotherhood terrorists who killed Americans. Are we to believe that Al Qaeda was the only Middle Eastern terror group that Saddam did not support?
The image of Saddam as a filthy, decrepit, coward captured -- not killed -- by an American soldier, is a powerful message to repressed people all over the globe that this is the way brutal despots go. Placing him on trial before the people of Iraq -- not in The Hague or somewhere else -- sends a clear signal to totalitarians, be they in Damascus, Tehran, Pyongyang or Havana, that they are accountable to the people they have tortured. Now, the most committed followers of Usama bin Laden have cause to wonder if their bearded leader who wants them to die for his cause would ignominiously surrender himself to the tender mercies of the International Criminal Court to avoid an untimely demise.
Finally, the loopy leftist rhetoric in the aftermath of Saddam’s capture obscures the extraordinary courage, training, persistence and discipline of the American soldiers who pursued and caught the Butcher of Baghdad. Rather than wasting time inventing crazy conspiracy theories and efforts to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the Democrats and their media allies ought to simply try hanging around with these heroes for a few days. It would be good for their mental health.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21st.
It is almost noon. She is still sleeping...but given that bed time was nearly 5:00 a.m. small wonder.
Me...still pinching myself.
SHE ARRIVED AT RAY BARRACKS AT 2:00 A.M.
She looked great yet smelled a little like an Army tent.
We made it home about 2:55. She showered, I prepared a LATE dinner...
She looks wonderful..(.she smells beautiful)...her smile is even bigger than I remember it (if that is even possible) and the conversation is better than ever.
It's 5:00 A.M now. I'm too stoked to sleep. However, she is sleeping gorgeously as I expect she will for the better part of the next 12 hours.
And somehow...I think she is even sweeter than when she left.
Amazing.
I over-achieved to an absolutely serious degree.
Praises to Him who makes such things possible.
1:00 AM UPDATE
Just heard from our girl...she has arrived safely in Germany...I'm guessing I'll see her in about an hour.
Whoo Hoo...
However, she sounds completely beat...three days travel will do that...