EMail From Soldier Niece

07. August 2005 · Comments Off on EMail From Soldier Niece · Categories: GWOT, Iraq, Memoir

This is an email I received from Soldier Niece today. Unedited except for a couple of typos. Used with her permission.


Photo via AP.

Dear Family,

Let me start out with I had one hell of a day yesterday. I’ll also say that myself and everyone else are just fine. I didn’t know how soon I should tell you, but I didn’t want anyone to worry.

Yesterday our convoy was hit by a vehicle born IED (suicide bomber). We had a large convoy of 10 vehicles that left at around 6am. This was after the raids earlier that morning. Our mission was to go door to door in the neighborhood gathering info as to what they think of coalition forces, insurgency, etc. This neighborhood has just a “few bad guys”! Yeah, right! We made the first couple stops and found the people really eager to talk to us, which is rare in these parts. To give you a little history, this neighborhood is consistently disturbed by IEDs and other attacks on near by main routes. All of was good up to this point.

As we made our third stop for the morning, we set up security along a IED hot spot, a main MSR (nasty road). We conducted our meet and greets, only to continue to get good information. There of course were some extremely bad people in the neighborhood, that’s all I can say. We had been at this particular spot for what was going on 45 minutes, too long. There was a discussion on the next course of action, things I cannot mention but I was called to the front in case of an emergency. We got the “go ahead” and the group moved out on foot to conduct it’s next mission. Not even 30 seconds later a vehicle veered off the road at about 60 mph straight for the vehicle I was standing next to. He got about 5m off the road and about 10-15m from my vehicle and detonated. Myself and another female from my company were standing on the drivers side of the HMV he was headed for. The gunner in the vehicle in front of us saw the man but only had time to turn his rifle to fire, never got a shot off.

After the blast, I was immediately disoriented, I don’t think I heard anything for about 20 seconds. We headed for the front of the truck for cover and pointed our rifles in the direction of the blast. I immediately started my Medical duties checking on all the personnel in my immediate area. The gunner of the vehicle was amazingly ok. I continued to relay the word back to check on all personnel. Then I heard the dreaded word “MEDIC”! This is something no medic really wants to hear. Near the vehicle in front of the one I was standing at a civilian woman was injured.

Myself and the other medic proceeded to assess the casualty who had large lacerations on her lower legs (gaping wounds). She had two tib/fib fractures one of which was protruding from her leg. She had multiple shrapnel wounds on her legs and upper body. We got the word there was another UXO (un-exploded ordinance) in the whole where the blast was, we then moved the female to the nearest house. After dressing her legs, the other medic left me with the woman (cultural reasons). For a short period I was in the house by myself with an interpreture as well as 10-15 Iraqis. By the time I got additional security the crowd in the room was growing larger and as I was treating her a fight broke out. I was a little upset and continued to take action. The woman was stabilized as much as possible and the Iraqi police escorted her to a near by hospital.

I finally made it back outside, looked over a few more people and got the word they were blowing the UXO. This blast was somewhat smaller than the first, but was controlled. Shaken with a massive adrenaline rush, I finally got a chance to just sit down. Some of the crazy, ironic details of the incident finally started to sort through my mind. One, I was away from my vehicle standing ready with my medic bag right by the blast. I had placed my medic bag at my feet because it adds a lot of weight on top of body armor, ammo, and weapons. My bag saved my legs…

When we were first dressing the injuries of the woman I pulled out a bag of kurlex (gause) and found it ripped open with a piece of shrapnel. I also found Betadine solution covering the inside of my bag. After I got a chance to breath, I looked down at my bag to find a quarter size hole in the front, and two holes in the side. The shrapnel had got through the front three layers of my bag, hitting a bottle of Betadine, going through a large syringe, through the next compartment and into the Kerlex. This would have been my leg.

In all the damage was this… 4 Iraqi civilians injured, only one major. No US personnel injured other than small shrapnel wounds. The gunner in the vehicle in front of mine had three tiny pieces in his lip and check. Two vehicles were damaged, one is totaled. I made sure to thank God for keeping us safe.

Everyone involved in the incident will receive the new Combat Action Badge. Myself and the other medic will receive the Combat Medic Badge. One thing I’ve always wanted, but didn’t want to do the work to get it.

I just wanted to reassure that everything is ok here, but wanted to share this with you all. Thanks for all the support you’ve all given me, I really appreciate it.

Thanks and God Bless,

Soldier Niece

Damn straight I’m proud of her. Now excuse me while I have a good cry because a little girl I once knew had to grow up too fucking fast in one day.

Harrell’s At It Again…

05. August 2005 · Comments Off on Harrell’s At It Again… · Categories: GWOT

I’ve linked to Jeff before, mostly for his “Survivor” outlines.

Lately, he’s had his rant on and today’s post simply says it all for me, I don’t have to add a word.

There are those, of course, who will say that this is just going to make the situation worse because it’s going to perpetuate the myth that the civilized nations of the West are against Muslims. To these people I say: Lick my balls. The civilized nations of the West are against Muslims. We’re against those Muslims who stand up in what are supposed to be holy places and call for murder and mayhem. We’re against those Muslims who yell “God is great!” while plotting the deaths of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of innocent people.

That’s just a blurb and not the best part of it by far. Read it all.

Memo: Try It Again, This Time With Feeling

03. August 2005 · Comments Off on Memo: Try It Again, This Time With Feeling · Categories: General, GWOT, That's Entertainment!

To: Mr. Steve Bochco
Re: “Over There”
From: Sgt Mom

The following items are noted, in no particular order of importance, based on the numerous reviews of the pilot episode of your TV series about a small Army unit engaged in the current war in Iraq, in the hopes of bringing certain realities to your attention. Please realize that the almost unanimous chorus of pointed criticism and the accompanying storm of brickbats and rotten vegetables are due to disappointment amongst a military audience. There are not many TV shows focusing on the military experience, so our expectations are high of those few. Shows about cops, doctors and lawyers are, god save us, a dime a dozen; the audience can pick and choose those nuggets of hearty, authentic goodness among the dross. A series focusing on soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines only comes along about once a decade, so all our interest and hopes are directed towards it, instead of being diffused among many. “Over There” may yet be salvageable, should you and your writers embrace the following:

1. We have had an all-volunteer military for thirty years. Only a bare handful are left on active-duty service that had anything to do with the draft, were draftees, or had to cope with draftees, or remember Vietnam.

2. Random urinalysis means that drug users are caught, sooner rather than later. There may very well be pot-heads in the service, but not for very long. Golden Flow will get ’em.

3. Units rotate in-country together; people have usually known each other for a bit before going “over there”.

4. Read the milblogs. Please.

5. Put in an application for some new clichés. The old ones are threadbare, and unsuited to further service. Replacement clichés are necessary and desirable; especially of you expect this show to last longer than “Cop Rock.” (Ohhhh, that was mean of me. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

6. Hire a new military advisor. Or pay more attention to the one you have.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

What’s Not To Hate?

01. August 2005 · Comments Off on What’s Not To Hate? · Categories: GWOT, Media Matters Not

Mark Yost of the St. Paul Pioneer Press tells us, “why most Americans, particularly soldiers, hate the media.”

Early Bird version: Why They Hate Us. (Direct access to .mil, registration from commercial domains required.)

St. Paul Pioneer Press version: Why They Hate Us. (Registration required.)

…Why isn’t the focus of the story the fact that 14 of 18 Iraqi provinces are stable and the four that aren’t are primarily home to the genocidal gang of thugs who terrorized that country for 30 years? And reporters wonder why they’re despised.

He has a long list of accomplishments that the press simply doesn’t report. I’ve got a niece on the ground over there as I type this and she’s working herself exhausted getting infrastructure built that was never in place before to help those folks stand on their own. Will I ever get to see her shining face on the nightly news? Nope. She’d have to get wounded or do something stupid first. God forbid we get to see her doing her job and getting things done.

Mark Twain and Curry Cakes Please

30. July 2005 · Comments Off on Mark Twain and Curry Cakes Please · Categories: Good God, GWOT, History

This entry over at Malkin’s place got me thinking about this yesterday and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.

Our President has told us that “Islam is a religion of peace.” Yet, I have seen absolutely no evidence of that ever. I read a translation of the Koran some 15 years ago and I didn’t grok it then, but understand that even though I don’t like the Catholic Church as an institution, my spiritual base is in the Catholic Tradition with some Taoism thrown in strictly on a pragmatic basis. Taoist are very into, “The universe seems to work THIS way, we’ll go with that instead of making up stuff.” I like that. It works for me.

But back to my point. Can anyone out there point me to any evidence, anecdotes, human interest stories, slices of life that show that “Islam is a religion of peace?” Because I’m missing it. I’m not seeing it. I want to be wrong, I do not want to agree with Michael Graham or Michelle Malkin, and I’m having a very hard time with it. I don’t want to be one of those guys who simply writes off an entire culture but it’s becoming harder and harder with each bombing when there seems to be nothing to counteract it.

And then there’s this bit over at Dr Sanity’s, whom I’m long overdue an appointment with:

I must agree with the author. I DON’T CARE ABOUT ISLAM except insofar that people of that faith want to destroy me, my family, my country and my way of life. For more than 50 years of my life, Islam and I got along famously. I completely ignored it; and praise be to Allah, it completely ignored me.

I know that makes me selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, but there’s a part of me that’s really pissed off that I now HAVE to care about Islam. I don’t want to care about Islam. I want to care about things relating to MY life and these asshole terrorists keep intruding with “BOOM!!! Hahahahaha, think about Islam you wankers!”

I asked one of the Saudis I knew during Desert Storm what “Islam” meant? What was the translation? He’d been to school in Great Britain and seemed to really enjoy the English Language reading a lot of our classics in English and he loved discussing Mark Twain, especially his short stories. He especially liked “The Mysterious Stranger” and thought that was a great description of Christianity as he understood it. I happen to love that story myself so we had a lot of fun with that one. So WHAT IS ISLAM? He said there was no real English parallel but the closest thing that he’d found was “Islam means submission. Complete, total, with absolutely nothing held back, submission.” Submission to what? To whom? He sort of smiled and replied, “The Mullahs, the Clerics, the doctors of the law. They are the ones who understand the true meaning of the words of the prophet.” Uh huh. I see why you like “The Mysterious Stranger.”

And then we went and ate curry cakes at the cantina.

Mark Twain and curry cakes…okay, so there’s some hope…but man…it’s getting harder to get those two together.

Tipping Points, And a Slap in the Face With a Wet Haddock

26. July 2005 · Comments Off on Tipping Points, And a Slap in the Face With a Wet Haddock · Categories: General, GWOT

Once upon a time in the West— during the eighties to mid nineties, to be specific– there was a sporadic but continuing rumble in the American news media about the so-called militia movement. The journalistic great and the good descended on occasion from their palatial bi-coastal aeries to frown gravely, and unreel serious and lengthy articles about the goings on in fly-over country. Basically, for about a decade, concatenations of good-old-boys in cammies and serious gummint surplus gathered in the woods to play war-games with everything short of light artillery, and bitch about the federal government, the ominous plans by the UN for one-world government, invasion by someone or other, the depredations of mysterious black helicopters, fluoride in the water, and for all I know, the banning of Pete Rose from the Baseball Hall of Fame. I suspect that mostly the guys bitched a lot, and drank a lot of beer. Before the massacres in Rwanda, and the Place Known as the Former Yugoslavia, the mighty military minions of the UN were seen as a potent threat… maybe all the beer would account for that, since in actuality, a brigade of Girl Scouts might have been more effective in some UN-sponsored situations.

But the militia movement was real; it did pull in numbers enough to sometimes make local and federal law enforcement occasionally nervous. (And it gave colonic spasms to movie-makers: see Costa-Gavras’ “Betrayed” for one sweaty fantasy about what all those red-state hicks were getting up to, out in the woods.) And then… the militia movement essentially shriveled up and died, in the months after the truck-bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City by a guy who had militia sympathies, who had hung around on the fringes, who talked the talk… and took it one logical step farther. A lot of people suddenly realized that it was one thing to bitch about the government, and talk about blowing up a Federal building in theory, but in practice, it wasn’t the Federal government that blew up… it was little kids, and secretaries and military recruiters, and tens of ordinary citizens lining up at a help desk to see about social security or some such thing. It was a reality check, the metaphorical slap in the face with a wet haddock; after the Oklahoma City bombing, membership in various militia organizations plummeted. It never recovered, possibly also because even the most paranoid American began realizing that the UN couldn’t find its’ posterior with a map and a GPS fix, let alone institute a world government.

For Americans, 9/11 was the ultimate haddock-whack; you could now spend weeks just totting up blogs and blog entries by the rudely-awakened, and months making lists of people whose political views and assumptions abruptly jumped from the former comfortable track. A couple of small stories I noticed in the spring of 2002 had some small significance: it appeared that members of the IRA, who had formerly been guests of honor at various Saint Patrick’s’ Day parades in northeastern cities and townships were being curtly uninvited to the celebrations. The local fire and police departments— historically a large proportion of who were the descendants of Irish immigrants, and took center-stage at such local festivities— insisted. Firefighters and police, of course, had taken massive casualties at the World Trade Center. And now they took even a dimmer view than formerly, unfogged by sentiment about the Auld Country, of setting off bombs which targeted civilians.

In the last couple of months, the international haddock-whackings have come thick and fast, thanks in part to Al Quaida’s unparalleled talent for crapping in their own mess kit, and an assortment of enthusiastic jihadists taking cack-handed aim at a variety of soft targets. The brutality and indiscrimination of the insurgents in Iraq seems to be making them loathed, despised, and increasingly marginalized— deadly, but marginalized. Two massive bombings of tourist resorts in Egypt, and the murder of the Egyptian envoy to Iraq do not seem to be making them very much more popular in Egypt, if reports are to be believed. Even the Saudis were moved to make a show of effort, after a couple of compounds and hotels went boom, albeit with the usual pious insistence that Islam is a religion of peace.
Theo van Gogh’s murderer has been convicted, after an unrepentant and chilling monologue in the Dutch courtroom—- well that was another haddock-whack, courtesy of militant Islam.

There is no more proof needed for me that Britain has been shaken out of old assumptions and into a chilling new awareness than the taking-down of a suspected suicide bomber. Cold, efficient, and with five head-shots… and it seems to have been a tragic misunderstanding, but under the same circumstances, they’d do it again, so they say. After fifty-plus dead in subway trains and busses, two weeks ago, and maybe the same again but for an incompetent bomb-maker, I can’t say I blame British law enforcement in the least. Last night I listened to Robert Siegel on NPR, (who seems to have grown a pair and a spine, too) interview Lord Ahmed, the first British Moslem elevated to the House of Lords, and not only was Islam as a religion of peace not invoked, Siegel actually forcefully asked for an explanation of why blowing up a bus in London is terrorism and to be condemned, but that blowing up a bus of civilians in Tel Aviv or Baghdad is not. For the record, Lord Ahmed burbled something about it being different when F-16s are shooting at people, and there is no democracy— but six months ago, I don’t think the question would even have come up. Even NPR has been haddock-whacked and about damn time, too.

Nothing like having something blow up in your neighborhood— whether in Baghdad, Riyadh, or Sharm-el Sheik, as opposed to someone else’s, far, far away, to begin rethinking that whole concept of sticking it to the infidel at a safe distance. And so, I think we are very close to a tipping point, the grains of sand slowly beginning to slip downhill, the tentative beginnings of an avalanche. People are realizing the danger is here, now, to them, personally. They are moving quietly away from the abyss, even while the militant jihadis plunge headlong, little caring that they will be buried… and the world will move on.

(Do please add your own examples of haddock-whacks and tipping points.)

Later: Regular TDB reader Mike R., who is as he says “Out of the office fighting Indians”, emailed me this last night:

“Fighting Indians is going well. We had a big operation a
few weeks ago to take the city of Hit (the next in the chain
north of Fallujah and Ramadi). We went in very heavy,
expecting a bloodbath not unlike Fallujah, but instead not a
shot was fired. And now, instead of staying a few days and
leaving, we established two permanent bases in the city.
The terrorists have lost the city forever. Our pattern of
week long raids suckered them into not resisting us when we
came into this city, and now they’re blocked out.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re impotent. They still
attack with mortars and keep trying to plant IED’s, some of
which are effective, but mostly they’ve been inept.
Unfortunately, two more were killed by mortars. Our
battalion has been in the worst of the terrorist activity
since we’ve been here, we’ve had at least five times more
casualties than any other battalion in our regiment.

Now the terrorists only have a couple more cities that they
try to control, it’s not much longer for them now. In the
Euphrates River valley, only Hadithah and Haqlaniyah are not
completely pacified. The only ones remaining after them are
border towns, where we’ve had to be very “kinetic” in our
actions.

Even better is that we’ve got Iraqi battalions operating
with us now. I was very leery of them because the past few
years have been filled with one breathless description of
how “this time” the Iraqi military is going to actually
work, with only disaster and disappointment following.
However, it does appear that these new guys don’t loot as
much, don’t bugger each other as much, and aren’t
infiltrated by the enemy as much. I am truly hopeful now.”

I Can’t Help It…

25. July 2005 · Comments Off on I Can’t Help It… · Categories: GWOT

…this Monday Morning Rant by Jeff Harrell absolutely cracks me up.

My fellow humans: What. The. Fuck.

Now that’s the way to start a rant. I’m saving that one.

And make no mistake, I agree with it 100%. In my neighborhood in Chicago, you knew you didn’t run from cops. Why? They’ll shoot your ass…and only your ass if you’re lucky.

The Small World of International Terrorism

25. July 2005 · Comments Off on The Small World of International Terrorism · Categories: Domestic, General, GWOT

I just received an e-mail from the West Coast office, which was closely associated with the office which I ran for my previous employer.

It seems that this Kristina Miller was the Kristina who answered the phones, or the e-mails, when ever I called with a matter to sort out between the two locations, until she moved to England to work for her father, last year.

Her boyfriend apparently loved to visit Egypt, and they had planned to travel on to Australia, later.

“…watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour…”

I’ll Admit It… (050723)

23. July 2005 · Comments Off on I’ll Admit It… (050723) · Categories: GWOT, World

I’m not as upset about the Egyptian Bombings as I was about the London Bombings. I think it’s because I’m used to terrorist attacks in the Middle East. I hear about an attack there and my mind simply goes, “Sigh, another one?” and doesn’t file it much farther than that.

Blow something up in America or in London, that’s still a surprise.

Old Bullshit Dies Hard

17. July 2005 · Comments Off on Old Bullshit Dies Hard · Categories: GWOT, Iraq

Everyday last week, on Capital Hill, even as it became increasingly clear that “there wasn’t any ‘there’ there,” Congressional Democrats called for Karl Rove’s resignation. Yesterday on The McLaughlin Group, John McLaughlin again invoked the discredited Johns Hopkins report, in claiming that “112,000 Iraqi civilians have died” since the beginning of hostilities. Now, Gregory Djerejain thoroughly buries Josh Marshall, who won’t divorce himself from the “Bush lied, people died” fantasy:

It’s one thing to state the obvious, which is that the state of U.S. intelligence regarding Iraq was abysmally wrong on many scores indeed. But Ivo Daalder’s post is quite disingenuous, of course. The whole Niger/Africa/uranium hullabaloo had at its very core the hysterical leftist shrieks (Bush lied, People died!) that the ’16 Words’ of the SOTU were purposeful lies pronounced by POTUS so as to help drag the so gullible, Murdoch-fed ranks of the jingo-fied public into Mesopotamia. So whether the Iraq Survey Group turned up no uranium or such once in Iraq is wholly besides the point vis-a-vis establishing the bona fides of the President’s honesty or lack thereof in relation to the contents of the SOTU. It’s a total straw man really. But look, we are all capable of Daalder’s rather breezy moving of the goal posts to score a partisan point now and again. It happens to the best of us. What really bothers me, however, more than anything Daalder writes, is Josh Marshall’s treatment of this matter. He totally impugns the integrity of both the SSCI and the Butler reports (“This is but one example of how the Butler Report and the Senate intel report are political documents. From start to finish.”) That’s quite a statement, and it well showcases Josh’s abject hackery on this issue. No, it’s worse. I simply can’t avoid the conclusion that Josh Marshall is, very probably, being flat-out dishonest on this issue. He’s ignoring so much evidence that disproves his treatment of the matter, and he is too smart to just innocently be ‘missing’ it, that I must reluctantly conclude he is likely purposefully lying.

Read the whole thing

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

Winning The Battle For Hearts And Minds

16. July 2005 · Comments Off on Winning The Battle For Hearts And Minds · Categories: GWOT

Last month I posted this survey of attitudes in Iran towards the GWOT. Now there’s this Pew study of the wider Muslim world. Again, it seems we are winning:

Lots more interesting data there

Hat Tip: Orin Kerr at Volokh

Memo: London Calling

09. July 2005 · Comments Off on Memo: London Calling · Categories: General, GWOT, History

To: Osama bin Laden & Company, Presumably
Somewhere On the Pak-Afghan Border
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Your Plans for a ”Revived Caliphate”

1. Not going all that swimmingly for you, are they, oh “Noble and Esteemed One”? The recent outrage in the city of London has all of your organizations’ hallmarks, so wiser and more experienced heads than mine are assuming this is the handiwork of the organization of which you are— if not the head, at least the spiritual and financial inspiration. If it turns out that explosions in three Underground trains and a double-decker bus are in fact, the work of some other party— rabid 7th Day Adventists, or perhaps fanatical Lutherans (those Missouri Synod types bear watching, I tell you!)— I shall promptly withdraw this memo, with “profound” apologies. As tragic as the personal losses are, and will continue to be, and as horrifying as the prospect of merely showing up at ones’ workplace in a timely fashion becoming a sentence of death at the caprice of your collection of grotty little 8th century religious misfits is for many of us, logic impels me to note that the events of 7/7 are somewhat short of your usual terrifying standard. No wonder you are not all that fast off the mark in claiming responsibility. Good help must be as hard to find for a terrorist mastermind as it is for anyone else.

2. It may be that we are… sad as it is to say… becoming all to used to this war. We wake up in the morning, turn on the radio… and there is the somber-voiced announcer, reading the headlines. A car bomb here, a hijacked plane there, a kidnapped reporter, diplomat, or contract employee beheaded there… well, after a while, we get the point… and the cost of making it all go away is just too much for many of us to stomach. Y’all want us either dead or on our knees, bowing in the direction of Mecca, either that, or paying the jizaya tax to leave us alone, to bag a couple of centuries of compromise between what is due to Caesar and what is due to God, and revert back to the 12th century, when everything was fair, and perfect, Mohammed was in his paradise and all was right with the world. We got that, loud and clear. It’s — as they say in France— your idea fixee.

3. It ain’t gonna happen, as we say in Texas. Generally, we are getting less and less enchanted by militant Islam, the longer that this whole thing goes on. When you are reduced to killing people who don’t agree with you on a wholesale and retail basis, it’s kind of an admission that your side has lost the argument. It will probably take a little longer to sink in for you, if ever. Is there an Arabic version of the adage about catching a tiger by the tail? Do you have any idea of just who you pissed off on Thursday? Do you think they are f**king impressed? Bin Laden, old sport, these are Londoners! They are the descendents, and in some cases, the survivors of the Blitz! Better men than you had a go at blowing up large chunks of London on a nightly basis, for over five years! Old and unfit men, middle-aged women and invalids unfit for military service defended their city against firebombs and high explosives with stirrup-pumps and buckets of sand! This is a city that has been bombed in two world wars, burned to the ground at least twice over, decimated by the Plague, built and rebuilt after war and riot, just for the hell of it! And— if you have been paying attention to history, other than that of your own peculiar prophet and grievances— you should know that this the capitol of people who made a quarter of the globe imperial scarlet and then gave up the most part of it of their own free will. But before they did, such marvelous and heart-stopping deeds were performed; through a mistaken order, a unit of cavalry were sent down a gauntlet of artillery. An army of volunteers advanced into no-man’s-land on the 1st of July, 1916. And the sons and husbands of those who so bravely defended their city in 1940 from bombs and fire, saw to the demolition of Berlin, Dresden and much of the rest of industrial Germany with grim resolution, and being human, very probably a certain amount of satisfaction . Payback, is the word we use in Texas; payback which takes the form of what you have dished out, returned with interest and several times over, of which the saying is that “payback is….umm, an uncooperative and hostile woman”. I rather doubt there would be an Arabic version of that axiom; perhaps you could work on this.

4. Do not be deluded by lickspittles and toadies such as a George Galloway, a Michael Moore, a Noam Chomsky; in another era there were the likes of Lord Haw-Haw, Lillian Hellman, and Ezra Pound, rushing to prostrate themselves at the boots of a potential conqueror. There are always those who adore the powerful destructors, who have their own reasons and resentments, as they relish the destruction of all that has nurtured and rewarded them, and look on the deaths of their own countrymen with complacent disregard. They are a few, a passing evil; like the poor, always with us, but unlike the poor, able to command the nearest spotlight. Meanwhile, in the shadows, the ordinary citizens toil on, burying the dead, and mourning their losses, and carrying on with grim resolve, knowing in their hearts that it is nearly always better to die on your feet, than to live on your knees.

5. And remember always, in your hide-out in the border mountains, Americans were Britons, once— where did you think we learned it from, hey?

6. As always, the quote marks are not “scare” quote marks, they are “viciously skeptical” quote marks.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

Am I Missing It?

08. July 2005 · Comments Off on Am I Missing It? · Categories: GWOT

One of the things that makes me pissier than normal after a terrorist attack is waiting for the Islamic community to express their outrage at the senseless killings…and waiting…and waiting still.

No…we don’t know who did it yet, I know that, but still, the silence is defeaning.

Granted, I’m on vacation and not watching as much news as usual but I’ve cruised my usual keep up with the world websites and other than a couple of references over at Dean’s World, (start at the top and scroll down through the past couple days) I’m not finding any reports of any Islamic leaders speaking out against the attacks.

How about the rest of you? Seen any outrage from the Islamic side of the world or is it pretty much business as usual?

Update 1: Via Blackfive. Global Voices Online.

Update 2: Voice of America News: American Muslims Condemn London Bombings.

Quagmire!!!

01. July 2005 · Comments Off on Quagmire!!! · Categories: General, GWOT, Iran, Media Matters Not

It looks like all the channels in the basic TV package are on repeats, and of stupid, intelligence-insulting, mind-numbingly boring programs that looked like twenty years of repeats even upon first airing; watching them in repeats one more time would be like root canal work with not much in the way of painkillers. Sooo… this summer, it looks like I am watching stuff on VHS and DVD, things I bought because I liked them, or taped off the broadcast channels— odd-ball things like “Due South”, various impeccably written and filmed stuff from “Masterpiece Theatre”, “Crusade” and “Babylon 5”…. And if my science fiction jones really gets bad, I have all of “Blake’s 7” (taken from the KUED, the Utah Public TV channel, in the early 90ies, when the broadcast that and Dr. Who at midnight on Saturdays. Note: “Blakes’ 7 was the British analogue to the original “Star Trek”, but with better writing, more interesting characters… but special effects that were…ummm… even more cheesy, and trust me, this is possible. And the dramatis personae only added up to 7 on occasion and only if one counted the computers, but against that… Paul Darrow, brooding in black leather and studs. Yum. Trust me on this. Yum.)

Oh, where was I? TV nostalgia. Back on topic. In the interests of 60ies nostalgia, a topic in which a great many of our media and duly elected officials seem lately to be mired down, I revisited my own memories, and some of my televised Vietnam memorabilia, a number of movies like “84 Charlie Mopic”, and the complete runs of “Tour of Duty” and “China Beach”, as they were broadcast on EBS-Zaragoza, complete with EBS TV identifiers, and a selection of cheesy AFRTS spots. Both programs were enormously popular among overseas military audiences at the time, to judge from the feedback that I remember, and from the number of small boys who borrowed BDUs, fatigues and flight-suits from their elders for the yearly Halloween parade at the DODs school. Those with first-hand memories of the Vietnam experience had more complicated reactions, like the husband of one of my friends in Korea. At that time he was the deacon of the Episcopal congregation, but he had served a combat tour as a very young infantry officer. His wife commented once that she always knew when he had watched “China Beach”, or some such, while she was out at choir practice, because he would be so white-lipped and silent for the rest of the evening.

But equating Vietnam to Iraq is a terribly strained analogy, and there are more differences than similarities. Some of them small and seemingly insignificant, some are written off as trivial, but to military veterans those differences posit a gulf of enormous difference… and some are just… well, differences. In no particular order;

1. Vietnam: a long, narrow south-east Asian country, once known as Cochin-China, or French Indo-China, of which practically no one in America had ever heard of, prior to about 1950. After WWII, we let the French take back their colony, although we could just as easily have pressured them into giving the Vietnamese their independence. A bad decision, but exactly how bad would not become apparent for many decades.

Iraq: a large, centrally located Middle-Eastern country, also known as the “Cradle of Civilization” (western division), Mesopotamia or the Land Between Two Rivers, the Fertile Crescent. It encompasses the birthplace of Abraham in the city of Ur of the Chaldees, of ancient cities, and the first recorded set of laws, the Code of Hammurabi, the earliest written epic, the story of Gilgamesh. The tower of Babel was supposed to have been built there, and the wonder of the world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The ancient names of cities, Ninevah, Babylon, Ur… resonate in western history and religion, a fountain-source, and a wonder.

2. Vietnam, to judge from the memories of friends like Xuan-An, and from the cameras of everyone who turned away from war and atrocity, and recorded the countryside itself is— from the mountains to the seaside and in the tended farmlands and the forests between— mainly green, lush and achingly beautiful.

Iraq— to judge from pictures posted by pro and amateur photog— is…. Ummm. OK. With careful lighting and creative shooting, Iraq can look… umm, interesting. Striking, even. Certain bits of it can grow on one, if one has a taste for the austere, and an appreciation for contrasts— which can also be said of much of the American West.

3. There doesn’t seem to be much impenetrable jungle in Iraq. Lots of desert, though; wide-open, no-much-of-a-place-hide desert, with excellent lines of sight.

4. The American troops are not draftees, this time. I will repeat this for the benefit of Prof. Churchill and the other SDS wannabees, milling around in the back and passing around… yo! Ward Baby! No smoking, ‘kay! You want to relive the glory days of 1968, you round up a bunch of your dopey friends and form a re-enactors’ group, just like normally nostalgic people do! THERE IS NO DRAFT! THEY ARE VOLUNTEERS! ‘KAY! Some 18-year olds choose to serve, others elect to sit in your classroom and pay for a couple of years of educational malpractice by flipping burgers at Mickey D’s. Free country, Ward… and that had better be a regular tobacco cigarette.

5. Which brings me seamlessly to the fact that the military has been… umm, rather stern for the last thirty years as regards the ingestion of mind-altering substances. They screen for it, at random, regularly and persistently… and they aren’t all that indulgent about alcohol, either, even outside of the Middle East. This isn’t Oliver Stone’s Army, and hasn’t been for years, although he himself is probably too whacked out to notice this.

6. American personnel rotate in-country as a unit, and rotate home again, en masse. They are not coming and going as single replacements… which makes it very difficult (not to say dangerous) for those who would hang around in international airports spitting on solitary members of the military. The old baby-killer accusation still gets traction, however.

7. Jane Fonda has yet to go over to the Sunni Triangle and pose with insurgent weapons. Yet, anyway.

8. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, skirted South Vietnamese territory as much as possible, running through neighboring countries, safe from interdiction, until the very last leg. The insurgency’s supply trail is vulnerable all the way from the Iraqi border.

9. The Viet Cong swam among the Vietnamese population, especially in the countryside like fish in a pond of water. The Iraqi pond seems distinctly unwelcoming to the insurgents. The fact that the most recent suicide bombers are either foreign jihadists, or local citizens either blackmailed into driving a car bomb or handcuffed to the steering wheel suggests that they are a considerable distance from the “winning the hearts and minds” ideal of a popular insurgency. It was supposed to be the Americans committing brutal atrocities on a innocent and defenseless population that would drive ordinary Iraqi citizens into supporting the insurgency; instead, it looks like the insurgents are committing the atrocities, and driving ordinary citizens away.

10. American troops in Iraq are armored-up, to a degree that makes their predecessors in Vietnam look positively undressed. And they seem to be amusing themselves without the local version of the “ville”, those notorious local districts just outside the gates of American bases which in days of yore provided loud music, cheap alcohol, and cheaper floozies to those members of the American military who were young and dumb and full of… erm, whatever. Mind you, any one knowing the location of a suitably Vietnam-style “ville” anywhere in Iraq will earn popularity undying by sharing that intelligence immediately… with members of the international press.

Feel free to add your own then-and-now observations in the comments.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

Memo: Enemy of My Enemy

28. June 2005 · Comments Off on Memo: Enemy of My Enemy · Categories: General, GWOT

From: Sgt Mom
To: Assorted International Intellectuals of Note
Re: Choosing Your Sympathies and Your Allies

Item: “World Tribunal On Iraq Condemns US & Britian, Recognizes Right of Iraqis to Resist Occupation”

Item: “Eurolefties Fund Iraq Insurgency”

1. Well, watching the usual progressive, politically advanced, oh-so-enlightened international intellectual set embrace, intellectually and apparently financially, a coalition of neo-fascist, bitter-end Baathists, nostalgic for the mass-graves and torture of yore, and a set of nihilistic, head-chopping jihadi fanatics bent on joyless forced devotion to a deity that precisely dictates every jot and tittle of personal conduct – let’s just say I haven’t read of such a naked and cynically calculated coupling of ostensibly extreme political opposites since the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939.

2. I cannot imagine what would inspire people and groups who have made a great display, over years and decades, of being against any kind of political and social oppression, of being against the abuse of the individual by the state and organized religion, of wanting to explore the boundaries of intellectual and artistic thought, who have reveled in sexual and political freedom, untrammeled by the constraints of former conventions. Apparently this is too good for the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. According to high-minded, international intellectual set, they out to be well-content with what they had before: brute political oppression, religiously-enforced ignorance, isolation from the rest of the world, the burka, the mass-graves, the lash, and poisoned gas rained down on Kurdish villages.

3. One lot is making an attempt to fund the insurgents in Iraq— to aid and assist them in their brave work of assassinating legitimately elected politicians, government employees, and blowing up policemen, grade school children and incidental passers-by — and the other merely confines itself to the intellectual embrace of those who would otherwise merit their pious condemnation, were they performing such sterling service elsewhere in the world. But of course, it is against the Americans, which makes any sort of outrage completely legitimate.

4. It surely must excite the professional envy of many an old retired tart from the Reeperbahn, or Rainbow Corner (whiling away a blameless retirement in a condo in Torremolinos, perhaps) at the professional speed with which a certain set of academics, activists and personalities went from administering intellectual fellatio on Uncle Joe Stalin and his heirs and switched over to neo-fascists and Islamic fundamentalists— without even swapping out the kneepads and taking a spritz of metaphorical Binaca.

5. I often wonder if such are not darkly attracted to it all: violence, the tremendous pull of authority exercised willfully and absolutely, the subtle glamour of the cult of personality: the dangerous hero in fatigues and kaffiyeh, or other “of the people” glamour, the super-man who is permitted and excused for every kind of abuse, corruption, atrocity and stupidity. The holy anointed, like a Stalin, an Arafat, a Castro, a Mao, get a free pass; everyone else puts up with smelly anarchists waving incomprehensible signs, and the occasional threat of summons to an international court.

6. I also wonder, if deep, deep down, the usual set are afraid, afraid of the vast irrational powers loose in the world, ancient powers long thought tamed by conventional civilized mores, powers that they sense cannot be controlled by any of the old means. I wonder if this is an attempt to control those powers by placating them; “I am being nice to you, I am not like them, I am giving you what you want— be nice to me!” And I wonder if— in their nice, morally-equivalent, post-modern way— they have ever heard of the axiom that the Devil cannot enter unless he is invited.

7. Finally; who you ally yourself with — unless you make an ostentatious display of holding your nose, and making it obvious that it is a short-term and expedient alliance, says a lot— perhaps more than Ms. Roy, et al, have bargained for.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

How’s This?

27. June 2005 · Comments Off on How’s This? · Categories: GWOT

I don’t think everyone who’s against the way America is fighting the War on Terror is a traitor or an enemy but, like it or not, I believe they’re still aiding the enemy. Not intentionally. I’m not judged by my intentions, I’m judged by my actions and by the results of my actions.

Better?

Not Everyone

26. June 2005 · Comments Off on Not Everyone · Categories: GWOT

…who thinks moving the war on terror to Iraq is a traitor. They’re just wrong.

Via Dean Esmay who’s got a lot of other links debunking the things that “everybody knows.” Oh…and where did the WMD go? I don’t know either, but it’s coming from somewhere.

IF NOT GITMO, THEN WHERE?

25. June 2005 · Comments Off on IF NOT GITMO, THEN WHERE? · Categories: General, GWOT, Home Front, Stupidity, War

The raging debate over the use of Guantanamo prison to hold detainees such as those who are there now, whom the government calls enemy combatatants, lacks perspective. There is no sense of judgement on the side of those who oppose Gitmo, as to what we should do with the detainees. According to our military authorities, the 550 or so prisoners there are dangerous, and would kill Americans if released. At least one case of this has been confirmed, with one raghead found on the battlefield who had been released, and there are probably more instances that we ordinary citizens just don’t know about. So, what do we do?

All I hear, coming from the left and from various other America-haters, is that we should close the prison. No one that I’ve heard from, has suggested what we should do with the detainees, and that is the question that must be answered before the controversy moves even one inch from its present position. Unless we put these folks on some uncharted south sea island, with no means of escape, perhaps the best idea is to leave them right where they are. Torture? I don’t think so. The evidence indicates that, from the food they eat, to the deference shown their so-called “holy book,” the qu’ran, they seem to be treated far more humanely and even with more respect, than they deserve. These guys are prisoners for Pete’s sake! And here we are, putting on display just how good they have it, better than the soldiers guarding them. And reports are, that all of them have gained weight! ARRRGGGHH!

Let’s let the President end the debate, leave them at Gitmo, with a few changes: (1) a little less appealing food in the prison diet. I think PBJ sandwiches a couple of days a week for the evening meal, might be appropriate — replacing the fish almondine. (2) Hard labor. Get them out of their cells, put them in a deep rock pit, and give them hammers with the order to make little ones out of big ones. A six-day work schedule of 12-hour days, somewhat like I had to work in Southeast Asia a few years ago, might be the ticket. (3) No TV or radio. Get rid of the luxuries, let them be a bit less informed, and with them tired out from the work schedule, they might not be so interested in starting trouble. (4) Let them have some hope of going home. At the age of eighty-five, provided they have not caused any trouble for the past 20 years, they could be released. Any detainee released, who gets back into trouble fighting against the US, would face automatic execution, no appeals, just fry ’em.

Maybe, with less pampering and more prison-like environments, these idiot camel jockeys might feel a little less inclined to make jihad against us, and they may quake in their boots instead of grinning when the name of America is mentioned. Just a few ideas, maybe somebody has a few more?

It’s a Choice Really

24. June 2005 · Comments Off on It’s a Choice Really · Categories: GWOT

For me it’s this simple. I’m an American. America is at war with Islamic Facists who want me and my family dead for whatever reasons they’ve been sold this week.

Am I going to conduct myself in a fashion that supports my country and its leaders as they try to battle these evil fuckers, or am I going to conduct myself in a manner that aids the enemy?

Yeah, I need to keep it that simple. Otherwise they’ve already won. They have a singleness of purpose, defeat America. We have…people complaining that we’re not being nice enough to the bad guys…people saying we’ve already lost…people saying that we’re doing it wrong without providing any answers for a better way…and these are people who claim to be on our side.

I’ll leave comments open for you all to wrestle if you want. I’ve said all I’m going to say about this.

On the Other Hand, Dick Durbin has a Point

19. June 2005 · Comments Off on On the Other Hand, Dick Durbin has a Point · Categories: GWOT

I mostly enjoy Jeff Harrell’s writing for his weekly bloggy roundup of Survivor.

On Friday he made the case that Senator Durbin may have been right:

To Americans today, the Holocaust is remembered, when it’s remembered at all, as a time when uniformed guards were cruel to prisoners in camps. The details are forgotten. Which makes the comparisons between Auschwitz and Camp Delta not merely inevitable, but actually reasonable.

The whole thing is well worth your time and consideration.

Hat tip to Jay Tea who makes his own points on relativism.

Update: Iowahawk has other writings of Senator Durbin’s that highlight the points made.

Pvt. Pimentel: Looking Over My Shoulder, Always

13. June 2005 · Comments Off on Pvt. Pimentel: Looking Over My Shoulder, Always · Categories: General, GWOT, Military

(Part 2 of 2)
The question was raised, that the American response to 9/11 has made Americans overseas very much less safe. But I contend that we were never very safe, before, even though American tourists, even the ones venturing into far places like Kashmir and Yemen could assure themselves confidently that they were, between 1970 and 2000. The occasional hijack, or airline bombing, well all that was just a sad case of being in the wrong place, or on the wrong flight at the wrong time. American military and state department employees could never, ever draw that cosy illusion around themselves like a fluffy comforter, thanks to the constant trickle of incidents such as this:

Item: 19 June 1985. Four off-duty Marines assigned to the American Embassy in San Salvador are murdered by local terrorists, while sitting at a table at a sidewalk café. They were in civilian clothes at the time.

Item: 5 April 1986. An explosion at a nightclub in Berlin popular with American service personnel kills three and injures 191. Two of the dead and 41 of the wounded are service personnel. The Libyan government is held responsible.

Item: 5 September 1986. Abu Nidal terrorists hijack a Karachi/Frankfurt Pan Am flight, and divert it to Cypress, demanding the freedom for three convicted murderers in exchange for the lives of the passengers. They eventually kill 22 of them, including two Americans.

Item: 9 September-21 October 1986: Three American citizens, two of them associated with the American University in Beirut are kidnapped. Two of them are held for 5 years by Hisbollah.

Item: 20 October 1987. An Air Force NCO and a retiree are murdered just outside Clark AB, in the Philippines.

Item: 27 December 87. An American civilian employee is killed in the bombing of the USO Club in Barcelona, Spain.

Item: 17 February 1988: Colonel William Higgins, USMC, while serving as part of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization in Lebanon, was abducted by Hisbollah. The US refused to negotiate, and Colonel Higgins was excecuted.

Item: 28 June 1988, a defense attaché to the American Embassy in Athens, US Navy Captain William Nordeen is murdered by the N-17 terrorist group, using a car bomb

Item: 21 December 1988. Pan American Flight 103, from Frankfurt to New York, was blown up over Scotland by agents of the government of Libya. Most of the 259 passengers are Americans. Another 11 people are killed on the ground.

Item: 21 April- 26 September 1989. An American army officer is assassinated in Manila, and two military retirees are murdered just outside the gates of Clark AB, the Philippines.

Item: 13 May 1990. Two young enlisted men are found murdered, outside Clark AB, the Philippines.

Item: 7-18 February 1991: Members of a far-leftist Turkish group kill an American civilian contractor at Incirlik AB, and wound an Air Force officer at his home in Izmir.

Item: 12 March 91: Air Force NCO, Ronald Stewart is killed by a car bomb in front of his house, in Athens, by the N-17 group.

Item: 28 October 1991. An American soldier is killed, and his wife wound by a car bomb at a joint Turkish-American base in Ankara. The Turkish Islamic Jihad claims responsibility. at October 28, 1991, Ankara, Turkey. Victor Marwick, an American soldier serving at the Turkish-American base, Tuslog, was killed and his wife wounded in a car bomb attack. Two more car bombs in Istanbul kill an Air Force NCO, and an Egyptian diplomat. The Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Item: 5 July 1992. In a series of incidents in southeastern Turkey, the Kurdish PKK kidnaps 19 Western tourists, including one American. They are all eventually released unharmed.

Item: 26 February 1993. A bomb in a café in downtown Cairo kills three. Two Americans are among the injured.

Item: 8 March 1995 Two gunmen armed with AK-47s open fire on a van belonging to the US Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. Two embassy staffers are killed, one injured.

Item: 4 July 1995. A Kashmiri militant group takes six tourists, including two Americans hostage, demanding the release of Muslim militants held in Indian prisions. One of the Americans escapes, and the militants execute a Norwegian hostage. Both the American and Indian governments refuse to deal. It is assumed the rest of the hostages were killed in 1996 by their captors.

Item: 13 November 1995. A car bomb in the parking lot of a building that houses a US military advisory group in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills seven person, five of them American citizens.

Item: 25 June 1996. An explosive-laden fuel truck explodes outside the Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 American military personnel are killed, and 515 persons are injured. A group identified as the Saudi Hizbollah is held responsible.

Item: 12 November 1997. Four American employees of an oil company and their Pakistani driver are murdered by two unidentified gunmen, as they leave the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi, Pakistan.
.
Item: 7 August 1998. Car bombs explode at the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and at the US Embassy in Dar es Sala’am, Tanzania. 292 are killed in Nairobi, including 12 Americans and injured over 5,000. The Dar es Sala’am explosion kills 11 and injures 86. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network claims responsibility.

Item: 28 December 1998. Sixteen tourists, including two Americans are kidnapped in Yemen. One hostage and a Yemeni guide escaped, and four hostages were later killed when local authorities closed in.

Item: 12 October 2000. A small boat laden with explosives rammed the USS Cole. The explosion kills 13 sailors and injures 33.

A day or so after 9/11, a State department employee mused on a Slate thread, that well, now everyone else knew what it was like to live with the threat, and the aftermath of terrorist acts. Everyone else on the thread immediately jumped all over him for inappropriate schadenfreude, but my daughter and I rather agreed. 9/11 was huge, was horrendous… but in a way, to some of us, it was already something familiar. We had already been there, for a long, long time.

And about Private Edward Pimentel? He was a young soldier, disco-hopping and having a good time. He was seen leaving a club with a young woman who was later identified as a member of the Red Army Faction. His body was found within a day or so; it was noted in the military newspaper Stars & Stripes, that he was murdered specifically for his military ID card, which may have been used by the Red Army Faction to get a car bomb into a well-guarded Rhein-Main AB in 1985.

We Are One Day Closer…

12. June 2005 · Comments Off on We Are One Day Closer… · Categories: GWOT

to the next terrorist attack on American Soil.

I don’t mean to be an asshole, but not enough people are saying it.

What are we talking about around the water cooler? Jiminy Cricket in a pair of Gucci’s, we watched the police in L.A. stare at a mini-van parked on the I-10 for over an hour last week! Come ON!

Go read the latest by Smash.

There Are No Words…

11. June 2005 · Comments Off on There Are No Words… · Categories: GWOT

to express the outrage.

As far as I’m concerened, the price for this should be news blackout from the military. They’re free to report, they are not free to terrorize our families. Simply unforgivable.

Via Blackfive.

One Pvt. Pimentel, By Name

10. June 2005 · Comments Off on One Pvt. Pimentel, By Name · Categories: General, GWOT, Military

This week one of our regular readers made a comment, to the effect that now Americans venturing overseas were very much more not-safe than they had been before the WOT, because we had alienated so many of the Muslim faith. Frankly, I hadn’t noticed us being all that safe before 2001, the random murderous malice of a fair number of adherents of Hizbollah, the PLO, the Iranian mullahs, various Pakistani Islamists, and a fair number of radical leftists being directed particularly at American diplomats, military and tourists during the three decades previous to 2001.

Item: 30 May, 1972. Members of the Japanese Red Army Faction, acting on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, open fire at Ben Gurion Airport, killing 26 and wounding 78. Many of them are American citizens from Puerto Rico

Item: 2 March 1973. Two American diplomats are taken hostage and murdered by at the US Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan; it is thought members of the Fatah faction were responsible, and that PLO leader Yassir Arafat gave the order for the murders.

Item: 23 December 1975 : Richard Welch, the CIA Station chief in Athens is murdered in front of his house by the Greek N17 terrorist group.

Item: 11 August 1976. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine attacks the El Al terminal at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey. An American citizen is among the 4 killed.

Item: 1 January, 1977. The ambassador to Lebanon and the US Economic counselor are kidnapped by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at a checkpoint in Beirut, and later murdered.

Item: 4 November 1979. A radical Islamic student faction seized the US Embassy in Tehran, and hold 66 diplomats and American citizens hostage. Thirteen are released, but the others are held until January of 1981.

Item: 17 December 1981: Italian terrorist group “Red Brigades” kidnaps a senior US army officer in Italy, BG. James Dozier; he is rescued by Italian police forces.

Item: 19 August 1982. Two American citizens are killed when the PLO bombs a Jewish restaurant in Paris, France.

Item: 18 April 1983. A truck-bomb kills 68 at the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Hizbollah, with backing from Iran is held responsible.

Item: 23 October 1983. A truck bomb destroys US Marine HQ in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 Marines. Hizbollah, apparently with the assistance of Syrian intelligence, and Iranian financing.

Item: 18 January-20 September 1983. In Beirut, Lebanon, the president of the American University (an American citizen) is assassinated. The head of the CNN news bureau is kidnapped, but escapes. A political officer from the US embassy is also kidnapped, but he was never released, and his body never found. A suicide bomb on the US Embassy killed 23. A van full of explosives detonated near the US Embassy annex in Aukar, Lebanon kills 2 Americans and a number of local employees and bystanders.

Item: 15 November 1983. The head of the Joint US Military Aid Group-Greece, US Navy Captain George Tsantes, along with his Greek driver is murdered on his way to work by the terrorist group N-17.

Item: 3 April 1984. A US Army NCO, Robert Judd is attacked while driving between JUSMAGG and the American air base at Hellenikon by the terrorist group N-17. He is injured, but survives.

Item: 12 April 1984. A popular restaurant near Torrejon AB, Spain is bombed. 18 US service members are killed. Hisbollah, again.

Item: 4 December 1984. Hisbollah hijacks a Kuwait Airlines flight en route from Dubai to Karachi. Two American passengers are murdered.

Item: 2 February 1985. Bobby’s in Glyphada, a bar popular with American service personnel in Athens is blown up with a small suitcase bomb. No one is killed, but many injuries.

Item: 14 June 1985. TWA Flight 847, from Athens to Rome was hijacked by Hisbollah. A US Navy diver returning from a TDY was murdered and his body dumped on the runway.

Item:8 August 1985. A car loaded with explosives is driven into a busy parking lot at the American base at Rhein-Main, and detonated. Two are killed, twenty injured. The Red Army Faction claims credit. It is thought the murder of an American soldier several days previous was done to secure his ID card, and facilitate moving the car bomb onto a guarded installation.

Item: 7 October 1985. The cruise- ship Achille Lauro was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They threw an elderly disabled American man into the ocean. His wheelchair was thrown in afterwards.

Item: 27 December 1985. Terrorists from the Abu Nidal organization shoot up the El Al offices at Rome’s international airport. Seven Americans were among the 87 killed and wounded.

Item: 30 March 1986: A bomb exploded on a TWA Rome/Athens flight. Four Americans were killed, although the aircraft landed safely in Athens. The Fatah group was held responsible.

Why, yes I was very nervous when I was stationed overseas in the 1980ies and 1990ies… why do you ask?

(to be continued)

Memo: The Virtues of Religious Toleration

07. June 2005 · Comments Off on Memo: The Virtues of Religious Toleration · Categories: General, GWOT

To: Ambassador Atta El –Manan Bakit
Of the Organization of the Islamic Conference
From: Sgt Mom
Re: When $%*#ing Hell #*%&!ing Freezes over!

“The Official Spokesman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ambassador Atta El-Manan Bakhit, has stated that the confession by the southern command of the United States army on the occurrence of cases of desecration of the Holy Qur’an in Guantanamo prison was a confirmation of the practices that had been reported ….This disgraceful conduct of those soldiers reveal their blatant hatred and disdain for the religion of millions of Muslims all over the world and throws into doubt the nature of the instructions given to the American soldiers on religious values and principles of tolerance. ….The OIC Spokesman urged the United States Government to live up to its responsibilities and not be lenient with the perpetrators of the desecration. He also demanded that those responsible for this despicable crime should be brought to justice immediately….”
—-Official Press release

1. My dear little Ambassador El-Manan, that will happen when Christians are allowed to practice their religious beliefs openly in Saudi Arabia, when they are freed from persecution and desecration of their shrines, relics, holy books and persons in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran… just to name some of the most notorious perpetrators of blatant hatred and distain for the religion of millions of others.

2. And speaking about destruction and desecration of a volume sacred writing, what about all those Bibles, prayer books and Korans confiscated from visitors to Saudi Arabia, that shining temple of tolerance and free thought. Does that old reference to glass houses and stones translate to Arabic?

3. BTW, your Ambassadorness, the UCMJ, the Constitution of these United States, and the penal codes of most states and localities do not address the peculiar matter of what specific charges should be leveled at the perpetrators of “this despicable crime” Come to think on it “desecration of a sacred text” might turn up in some of the more amusingly backward rulings left over from the century before the century last, but my bet is that it’s called something like “vandalism” or “willful destruction of private property”. A book is a book… mass-produced, or elaborately ornamented, it is a thing, not an object of worship. It is not ennobled, or made sacred of itself, by virtue of the ideas expressed in it somehow leaking into the ink, the paper and the binding. The value of it is to the one who reverences the ideas, and to insist that everyone else must pay reverence too… well, I thought the Prophet had something to say about idolatry.

4. And about “the nature of the instructions given to the American soldiers on religious values and principles of tolerance”? Two-way street, your Ambassadorness. You want toleration, respect, and consideration of your religious values and practices? Try doing the same for other people’s religious beliefs: treat as you would yourself wish to be treated— it’s a whole new taste thrill.

5. Finally, I think I will go home tonight, and as an experiment, take my paperback translation of the Koran, an illuminated version of the Book of Common Prayer, and a copy of the Book of Mormon…and put them in some sort of disrespectable place. Say, a windowsill above the cat’s litter box, or on a shelf in the bathroom, next to the toilet paper. Somehow, I don’t think the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Council of Elders will be troubled for a moment. I would suggest you cultivate a similar spirit of serenity about the disposition of the printed sacred word. In confident anticipation of a fatwa leveled against my happy, defiantly non dhimmi Lutheran self, I remain

Sgt. Mom

Memo: Not the Ladies’ Auxiliary

19. May 2005 · Comments Off on Memo: Not the Ladies’ Auxiliary · Categories: General, GWOT, Military

To: The Senate Armed Forces Committee
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Military Women & Combat Support

1. My dear ladies and gentlemen, at this point is a little late to be coaxing the horse of “No Women in Combat!” back into the barn and locking the door. This would require the military to reverse nearly thirty years of placing military women— who are volunteers, mark you— in specialties which do not permit them to go out deliberately looking for combat, but which do put them out where combat might, in theory, come looking for them. This was a great change from the previous system, in which military women were stationed either in the continental United States performing various support functions a long, long way from what was clearly understood to be the front, or as nurses and clerks in a handful of rear-echelon areas where it was devotedly hoped that in case of defeat and capture that the Geneva Convention and the enemies’ chivalric sensibilities would afford some kind of protection.

2. Alas, only one country that we have fought since 1941 has given more than lip service for the Geneva Convention, the forces of militant Islam would appear to have about as much use for traditional chivalry as Orky the Killer Whale has for a stair step machine, and it is abundantly clear that in this war, there is no front line, there is no safe area. When an enemy can take a clear shot at the Pentagon, and kill civil servants sitting quietly at their desk jobs— well, that should make it pretty clear that there is no rear in which to park the gear and the ladies’ auxiliary safely out of harms’ way… even if going back to the old way were still even possible.

3. Many of the necessary combat-support jobs in this war are being done by soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines who just happen to be of the female persuasion. They have volunteered for the military, they have trained to do their jobs, they have been leaders, supervisors, commanders, and as such they are essential. As professionals, I am sure that most of them had a pretty good idea of what they were getting into… and for those who didn’t the ambush of a certain Army maintenance unit convoy in 2003 served as a wake-up call. This for real, and this is for keeps, and those who do not have a sword may still die upon one.

4. I would agree that seeing the mothers of small children coming back from Iraq in a coffin is a heartbreaking prospect; so are the accounts and pictures of military women who have lost limbs, been horribly scarred, who have been injured and face a long recovery… but how can it be any less horrible for the mothers of sons to face the same? We all hold a stake in this; we are all at war, no matter where we might be, and no matter if it is a son or a daughter, a wife or a husband serving. Please don’t patronize us by deciding that one or the other of them should be protected right out of what they are doing in our service. Do what you can to see that every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine has what they ought to have, now and in the future to do what they need to do.

5. Finally, I derive a great deal of mental satisfaction in imagining a particularly odious Baathist— perhaps one of Saddam Hussein’s official rapists— or an especially misogynist Al-Quaida operative being cuffed by a female SP, or tapped at a good distance by an expertly shooting woman Marine. I would ask rather that you do what you can to see that this happens… soon and often.

Sincerely
Sgt. Mom

I HAVE LOST NO RIGHTS AND NEITHER HAVE YOU. IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE, PROVE IT.

17. May 2005 · Comments Off on I HAVE LOST NO RIGHTS AND NEITHER HAVE YOU. IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE, PROVE IT. · Categories: Domestic, General, Good God, GWOT, Home Front, Media Matters Not, Rant

I do not wish to single out any one person in a post, ever. Nor do I wish to be mean-spirited to anyone here or anywhere else. Should you ask anyone who knows me, even anyone who was with us last Saturday at the 43rd reunion of our high school class, I’m sure the answer would be that I’m kind, fair, and that I love people. Also, I believe people would say that I live my life according to the Word of God in every way that I know how, that I love the Lord Jesus and that my love for people stems from that. But here on this one post I have to divert from my normal principles, I have to name someone, and I apologize ahead of time for having to do that, but I have been backed into a corner along with a lot of other folks and I’m coming out of this corner aggressively. Kayse, I’ve bent over backwards being nice to you, but your comment responding to Timmer’s query cannot go unchallenged. Before I give my response, let me state that I too recognize that you are entitled to your opinion no less than anyone else, and those of us who have spent time in the military were and are there for the purpose of defending your right to disagree with anyone you choose.

When you say that you don’t trust your government, it gets personal. Because I, and Timmer, and Sgt Mom, and all others who here on this site were in the military or worked for civil service, ARE that government. Remember, Abe Lincoln stated that our government was of, by, and for, the people. Be that the case, you as well, are part of that government. So, just which right have you lost? You said you had lost your right to privacy. Just who, and how, has your privacy been violated? Who in the Homeland Security Department has harrassed you? How have they punished you? What has anyone in this country, part of our government, done to punish you? If you think people who work for that dark, mysterious entity that you call the government are not accountable for their actions, then you are sadly, grossly, mistaken. Let me give you an example. I work for the Army as a paramedic. In my position I have the vital statistics, including SSAN’s, of my patients, in my hands. You think I’m not accountable for how I handle that information? Then you’re as full of sh** as a Christmas turkey!! If I were so much as to write that stuff down on the wrong piece of paper, much less take any of it home with me, I’d lose my job! And the same goes for anyone else who is employed by the government. I don’t care what department, or career path you mention, we are entrusted with protecting you and your information, in many cases, to the death. It’s insulting as hell to anyone in the military for you to casually make such an assinine statement.

And get this straight. It is not the fault of your government that you cannot “easily” fly from one destination to another. You need to get it straight in that red-haired head of yours, that it was n0t the government that flew four planes full of innocent passengers to their deaths, taking nearly 3,000 other innocent citizens to their deaths. DAMMIT, IT WAS ISLAMOFASCIST TERRORISTS! Your head is just not on straight, because it was the government that you hate that instituted safety measures to protect your hide. If I sound angry, you’re dang right I am. I am angry that you so easily insult those who are bound by honor and by law to protect you, and you whine and snivel because it’s not “easy” for you to fly. What in hell do you propose? That we just open up and let anyone who wants to, get on aircraft, even if they want to crash that plane into a building or a ball game? Dadburn, woman, you sound like you’re nuts! You’d better be thanking God that you have a government that wants to keep the idiot suicide bombers at bay elsewhere instead of downtown your town. You’d better be grateful that you are a citizen and CAN get a driver’s license, or an ID card, if and when it comes to that. BTW, they can’t get that ID system out fast enough for me. I don’t worry, I already have one, it’s called a military ID.

Your comment that government employees are compiling “dossiers” on all of us is another stupid, idiotic idea. That belongs with the Area 51 and other such conspiracy theories. Who killed JFK? Have you seen Elvis lately? AARRRRGGGHHH! No one in the government gives a rat’s behind about who you are, and they certainly don’t have time to compile a dossier on you. They’re too busy protecting your butt from another attack. You need to take a deep breath and sit back, enjoy the sunshine and the freedoms you have. We do not live in a Soviet-style country, you can relax and forget all this stuff.

Your comments about ministers was uncalled for as well. You don’t have to go to any church, listen to any minister, or subscribe to any faith that you don’t want to. So, leave ministers and churches out of it. No one there is bothering you. Your so-called “fundamentalist” preachers were here, preaching the very same message, long before President Bush came along, and they will still be there, preaching the same thing, long after he has passed into history.

To cap all this off, you say you are afraid to voice your concerns, fearing someone may put some hit team on you to erase you??? Come on, if you think that way, you need a psychiatrist! No such thing exists in this country, and we are here to insure that it never does happen. I’ve had enough of this. If you are not comfortable here, maybe you might feel more at home on DU, the Democrat Underground, or on Kos’s site. They seem to voice the same ideas that you appear to be comfortable with. However, if we don’t scare you too bad, you’re welcome to stay here and give us more of your ideas. Who knows, you may find others who agree with you! And I promise you, I’ll do my best, as will the others here, to keep the “hit squads” on other targets and away from you.

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