Posted by: Greg at 05:59 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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After all, it wouldn't do for the American people to be given any sense that the war is going well this memorial day -- it wouldn't fit in the template of the narrative established by the MSM and the neo-Copperhead Democrats.

So you get this story highlighted by the Times.

Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.

“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”

But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomberÂ’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.

“I thought, ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’ ” said Sergeant Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”

Of course, they then proceed to downplay the attitude of a different sergeant in the same unit, hiding his comments at the very end of the article, wehre they are most likely to be overlooked.

Sergeant Griffin understands the criticism of the Iraqi forces, but he believes they, and the war effort, must be given more time.

“If we throw this problem to the side, it’s not going to fix itself,” he said. “We’ve created the Iraqi forces. We gave them Humvees and equipment. For however long they say they need us here, maybe we need to stay.”

So, whose view of reality is more valid?

And let's not forget the point of view that highlights what has been accomplished, rather than the negatives.

“I thought it would not be long before we could just stay on our base and act as a quick-reaction force,” said the barrel-chested Captain Rogers of San Antonio. “The Iraqi security forces would step up.”

It has not worked out that way. Still, Captain Rogers says their mission in Kadhimiya has been “an amazing success.”

“We’ve captured 4 of the top 10 most-wanted guys in this area,” he said. And the streets of Kadhimiya are filled with shoppers and the stores are open, he said, a rarity in Baghdad due partly to Delta Company’s patrols.

Unfortunately, there are negatives to this situation -- including turncoats and infiltrators in the Iraqi Army. But a piece on disillusionment in a single unit, based upon interviews with 14 soldiers, hardly seems to be the thing of headlines drawing major conclusions about the war.

Unless the folks doing the writing and publishing have already decided the war isn't worth fighting.

Too bad the days are long gone when the press felt its role was to support, not undermine, the war effort.

H/T Malkin

Posted by: Greg at 02:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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UPDATE -- 5/24/2007: The murdered American hero has been identified.

The American military confirmed today that a body found in the Euphrates River on Wednesday is that of Army Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr., one of three American soldiers seized in an ambush on May 12.

A military official said that the body, which was pulled from the river several miles south of where the attack occurred, had been identified late Wednesday and that the family of Private Anzack, 20, of Torrance, Calif., had been notified.

The discovery brought the first signs of closure to a massive manhunt that has gone on for 11 days, with thousands of American and Iraqi troops searching day and night for the missing soldiers. But for the men and women who lost friends, it was hardly enough.

* * *

Iraqi police officials said the body was partly clothed in an American military uniform and had a tattoo on one arm, bullet wounds and possible signs of torture. Residents said it was found floating in the Euphrates on Wednesday morning, several miles south of the road by the river where the attack occurred.

“Some people from our town — and I was with them — dragged the body from the river,” said Ali Abbas al-Fatlawi, 30, a resident of Musayyib. “We saw the head riddled with bullets, and shots in the left side of the abdomen. His hands were not tied, and he was not blindfolded.”

* * *

American military officials did not confirm the local accounts. A group of soldiers who had been searching near Musayyib this week — and who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the operations — said American troops might have cornered the gunmen, who then killed the soldier and dumped his body as they fled.

The bitter irony here is that only last month, this news report about Private Anzack appeared in the media.

A Torrance family was trying to return to a normal life this week after learning that reports of their son's death in Iraq were incorrect.

Rumors that Joseph Anzack, an Army gunner stationed south of Baghdad, had been killed in Iraq began circulating earlier this week, shocking family members and prompting his high school to put a message on its marquee: In Loving Memory -- Joseph Anzack -- Class of 2005.

Family members were stunned, and none more so than Anzack himself, who called home to make it clear he was, in fact, alive and kicking.

To have to deal with such horror twice in one month boggles the mind.

My deepest sympathy to the Anzack family, and to his comrades in arms. You are in my prayers, and the prayers of every loyal American.

ORIGINAL REPORT- 5/25/2007

It is way too early to tell, but this report does not look good.

Iraqi police found the body of a man who was wearing what appeared to be a U.S. military uniform and had a tattoo on his left hand floating in the Euphrates River south of Baghdad on Wednesday morning, and one Iraqi official said it was one of three missing American soldiers.

The man had been shot in the head and chest, Babil police Capt. Muthana Khalid said. He said Iraqi police turned the body over the U.S. forces.

The report of the body found was confirmed by a senior Iraqi army officer in the Babil area. He told The Associated Press that the body found in the river was that of an American soldier. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

The discovery of the body in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad in Babil Province, came as U.S. troops and Iraqi forces continued their massive search for the three soldiers abducted May 12 in an ambush on their patrol near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said in an e-mail that it was looking into the report, but could not confirm it.

It doesn't take a great leap of faith to reach the conclusion that the terrorists have failed to show the same respect for the rights of their prisoners that the neo-Copperheads in this country and the terrorist-supporters abroad demand that America show captured terrorists.

As i've said in the past, maybe it is time to start treating such folks as pirates.

Posted by: Greg at 11:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And to be honest, I think it would work just fine in this country, too.

The officer, a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force, felt he had no choice. So he stood up in front of his squad of 30 to 40 people.

“I said, ‘Right, I’ve got something to tell you,’ ” he said. “ ‘I believe that for us to be able to work closely together and have faith in each other, we have to be honest and open and frank. And it has to be a two-way process, and it starts with me baring my soul. You may have heard some rumors, and yes, I have a long-term partner who is a he, not a she.’ ”

Far from causing problems, he said, he found that coming out to his troops actually increased the unit’s strength and cohesion. He had felt uneasy keeping the secret “that their boss was a poof,” as he put it, from people he worked with so closely.

Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears — about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness — have come to pass, according to the Ministry of Defense, current and former members of the services and academics specializing in the military. The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.

The Ministry of Defense does not compile figures on how many gay men and lesbians are openly serving, and it says that the number of people who have come out publicly in the past seven years is still relatively low. But it is clearly proud of how smoothly homosexuals have been integrated and is trying to make life easier for them.

We know how to handle the integration of homosexuals into the military -- Truman provided the model when he integrated the armed forces nearly 60 years ago. Those who cannot accept the change in policy are unfit for military service -- and should be discharged.

Posted by: Greg at 10:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jonah Goldberg points out that there often are “good guys” and “bad guys” in a civil war – and that the argument that Iraq is a civil war is not a compelling one for adopting a cut-&-run-&-surrender policy as advocated by the neo-Copperheads.

Why is it obvious that intervening in a civil war is not only wrong, but so self-evidently wrong that merely calling the Iraqi conflict a civil war closes off discussion?

Surely it canÂ’t be a moral argument. Every liberal foreign policy do-gooder in Christendom wants America to interject itself in the Sudanese civil war unfolding so horrifically in Darfur. The high-water mark in post-Vietnam liberal foreign policy was Bill ClintonÂ’s intervention in the Yugoslavian civil war. If we can violate the prime directive of no civil wars for Darfur and Kosovo, why not for Kirkuk and Basra?

If your answer is that those calls for intervention were “humanitarian,” that just confuses me more. Advocates of a pullout mostly concede that Iraq will become a genocidal, humanitarian disaster if we leave. Is the prospect of Iraqi genocide more tolerable for some reason?

Indeed, there is no way one can argue that intervention in Kosovo or Darfur are defensible while intervention in Iraq is not. For that matter, many folks still struggle mightily over our failure to intervene in the brief and bloody events in Rwanda, which can also be argued constituted a civil war. I fail to see the moral calculus that would allow for intervening to stop genocide while not doing so in an effort to forestall such genocide.

Then there are those who take the fatalistÂ’s cop-out: Civil wars have no good guys and bad guys. TheyÂ’re just dogfights, and we should stay out of them and see who comes out on top. But thatÂ’s also confusing, because not only is it not true, liberals have been saying the opposite for generations. They cheered for the Reds against the Whites in the Russian civil war, for the Communists against the Fascists in the Spanish civil war, and for the victims of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia and Sudan. Surely liberals believe there was a good side and a bad side in the American Civil War?

Indeed, most civil wars do, in fact, have an identifiable dichotomy of “good guy” and “bad guy”, to use Goldberg’s simplistic terms. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the world would have been a better place had the Whites won in Russia. Knowing what we do about Communist regimes, one can reluctantly conclude that the better of two sides won in Spain. And would anyone argue that a Serbian victory in Yugoslavia or an Islamist victory in Sudan and their accompanying genocides would be better for America or the world? Would one seriously argue that a Confederate victory over the Union would have been a neutral outcome?

In the end, America has an interest in who wins in Iraq – as do the Iraqi people. It is strategically, not to mention morally, imperative for us to act in the best interests of our nation and the Iraqi people – and to reject the defeatist cries of the nay-sayers who invoke the phrase “civil war” as if it were a magic talisman.

Posted by: Greg at 12:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Military posts have never been a public forum for political activity. These folks must therefore lose their case.

Last year they stopped short of the U.S. Military Academy gate. This year, anti-war protesters hope to go a few steps further.

As Vice President Dick Cheney prepares to deliver commencement remarks at West Point on May 26, local activists are headed to court for permission to protest the Bush administration inside the Academy on Graduation Day.

It's a type of civil disobedience that's never been permitted at the nation's oldest military college.

But Goshen civil rights attorney Michael H. Sussman and members of the Democratic Alliance of Orange County say they are seeking to set precedent. A federal judge has agreed to hear their request for an injunction this morning in White Plains.

"These people want to have it inside the gate, and West Point says they don't authorize (protests) inside the gate," said the group's lawyer, Stephen Bergstein. "But if they can be there in a peaceful way, they should be allowed to be there."

Nonsense.

Posted by: Greg at 12:28 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I grew up in a military family during Vietnam. Dad was a Navy Officer, and was often away -- including multiple trips into the war zone. And I remember my mother doing her damnedest to raise two boys while dad was gone, with daily concerns about the possibility of my father being killed or wounded, and diminishing public support for the war and the warriors. I therefore feel quite qualified to tell Dr. Laura Schlesinger to SHUT THE F&$% UP!

Radio talk show host “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger is tired of all the complaints she hears from military wives who say they’re lonely and overwhelmed.

“You’re not dodging bullets, so I don’t want to hear any whining — that’s my message to them,” said Schlessinger on a visit to Utah.

Schlessinger broadcast her daily radio program on ethics, morals and values from the Fort Douglas theater here Friday. ItÂ’s one of several visits Schlessinger is making across country this year, publicists said.

Schlessinger boasted of once talking a young woman out of marrying a solider, saying “warriors need warrior wives,” and the girl was unprepared.

“It’s very unwise to be married young when you’re going to be alone — everybody has to grow up first to know who they are,” said the talk show host, whose first marriage ended in divorce.

I'm sorry, but this woman is simply wrong. There is nothing wrong with talking about the difficulties -- indeed, the failure to discuss them was part of why I knew so many neurotic, drunk or drugged military wives growing up. In fact, the military has recognized that reality and now offers more support services for families of those deployed.

Frankly, I've never understood why anyone listens to, much less calls, this woman for family advice when she could not even sustain her own relationship with her own mother. And for all her claims of patriotism, i don't think this attack does American soldiers and their families a bit of good.

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Posted by: Greg at 04:24 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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I cannot believe the ignorance that these folks are showing here in their editorial regarding the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Rewriting the act should start with one simple step: restoring to prisoners of the war on terror the fundamental right to challenge their detention in a real court. So far, promised measures to restore habeas corpus have yet to see the light of day, and they may remain buried unless Democratic leaders make them a priority and members of both parties vote on principle, not out of fear of attack ads.

Anyone who knows anything about international law would stop reading at that point. Under international law, POWs do not have the right to access the courts of the nation holding them. Indeed, they can be held indefinitely, until the end of hostilities, and may not be tried in any civilian court -- or (ordinarily) in any military court except for certain carefully delineated offenses that constitute crimes against humanity or other violations of the laws of war.

So in fact, what the editors of the New York Times are calling for is a strict violation of the Geneva Conventions. Is it any wonder that the Gray Lady are no longer particularly relevant in the public discourse.

Posted by: Greg at 09:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This will cut out communication home and some of the best information about how well the war is going in Iraq. Instead, Americans will have to rely on the neo-Copperheads in the MSM for information.

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging," said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. "No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced."

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

Failure to do so, the document adds, could result in a court-martial, or "administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action."

This regulation needs to be withdrawn immediately – and by the Commander-in-Chief personally. After all, the "new media" of blogging is really the only way that the truth about Iraq has been disseminated to the American public, since the "news" media has taken an ideological slant against good news -- just like in Vietnam.

UPDATE: Great WaPo article about milblogs and milbloggers today.

Today, many of the stories coming from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being written by those fighting them, in the form of thousands of soldiers' military blogs, or "milblogs." Their tales are unfolding as they occur, with limited censorship from the military, and they are attracting a growing readership from inside and outside the military.

Ward Carroll, the editor of military.com, an online military and veteran membership organization, said some of the best milbloggers have the ability to shape opinions on the war.

"If you are going to be informed, especially with something so controversial and polarizing as the Iraq war, you need to read one of these blogs along with The Washington Post and the New York Times," Carroll said.

Gee, where did I hear that point before?

Hugh Hewitt also has a great column on the subject.

Posted by: Greg at 10:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This will cut out communication home and some of the best information about how well the war is going in Iraq. Instead, Americans will have to rely on the neo-Copperheads in the MSM for information.

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging," said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. "No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced."

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

Failure to do so, the document adds, could result in a court-martial, or "administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action."

This regulation needs to be withdrawn immediately – and by the Commander-in-Chief personally. After all, the "new media" of blogging is really the only way that the truth about Iraq has been disseminated to the American public, since the "news" media has taken an ideological slant against good news -- just like in Vietnam.

UPDATE: Great WaPo article about milblogs and milbloggers today.

Today, many of the stories coming from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being written by those fighting them, in the form of thousands of soldiers' military blogs, or "milblogs." Their tales are unfolding as they occur, with limited censorship from the military, and they are attracting a growing readership from inside and outside the military.

Ward Carroll, the editor of military.com, an online military and veteran membership organization, said some of the best milbloggers have the ability to shape opinions on the war.

"If you are going to be informed, especially with something so controversial and polarizing as the Iraq war, you need to read one of these blogs along with The Washington Post and the New York Times," Carroll said.

Gee, where did I hear that point before?

Hugh Hewitt also has a great column on the subject.

Posted by: Greg at 10:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The pen used by President Bush to veto the cut-&-run-&-surrender bill yesterday has a very significant origin.

It was just a regular, black-inked ballpoint pen that President Bush used to sign his veto yesterday, instead of his usual personalized Cross pen.

The pen was a gift from the father of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq, who asked Mr. Bush last month to use it when he vetoed a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.

Robert Derga, of Uniontown, Ohio, gave Mr. Bush the pen after an April 16 speech by the president at the White House.

Mr. Bush invited a number of "Gold Star Families" -- families who have lost a U.S. military member in Iraq -- to the speech, and met with them afterwards in the Oval Office.

Mr. Derga, 53, had brought the pen with him. It was the pen he had used to write letters to his son, Marine Cpl. Dustin A. Derga.

"It was just a common run of the mill ... I don't even remember the brand name," Mr. Derga said, in a phone interview last night. "It was just a $2 pen. Nothing special."

Mr. Bush met with the Dergas and other families for about 45 minutes, and spoke directly with each family.

"I looked the president square in the eye," Mr. Derga said. "I looked at him and said, 'Mr. President, if this Iraq supplemental comes down to a veto I want you to use my pen to do it.'"

Mr. Bush "kind of looked at me funny for a moment and then said, 'Absolutely,' and then handed the pen to his assistant," Mr. Derga said.

"He assured me he would use it," Mr. Derga said.

Dustin was killed in Iraq on May 8, 2005, while leading house-to-house searches in Ubaydi, Iraq. He was 24.

Dustin was the first Marine killed in Lima Company, with the Marine Force Reserve's 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, out of Columbus, Ohio.

So to Pelosi, Murtha, Reid, and all the other neo-Copperheads in Congress, that would be a big SCREW YOU from the President of the United States and the father of one of our honored war dead – who, I believe, you folks would agree has unquestionable moral authority on this matter and is much more representative of Gold Star families than certain media darlings.

Mr. Derga said that about 80 percent of the other Gold Star Families he knows agree with the president's decision to send more troops to Iraq to try to stabilize the country.

"We have given the ultimate sacrifice in terms of our sons, and if we can still stand in the trenches with the president and support him, why can't the rest of the nation do it?" Mr. Derga said.

So get with the program, America, and support our troops and their mission.

Posted by: Greg at 11:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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