Syrian Reporter Gives Location Of Iraqi WMD

16. February 2006 · Comments Off on Syrian Reporter Gives Location Of Iraqi WMD · Categories: GWOT, Iraq, War

Syrian WMD Locations

This from AFP, via 2LA Lebanese Association:

Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf,” that he knows the three sites where Iraq‘s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept. The storage places are:

  1. Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.

  2. The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian air force camp. Vital parts of Iraq’s WMD are stored there.

  3. . The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of Homs city.

Nayouf writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Hussein‘s Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assad‘s cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.

In February 2003, a month before America’s invasion in Iraq, very few are aware about the efforts to bring the Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq to Syria, and the personal involvement of Bashar Assad and his family in the operation.

Nayouf, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter because he has terminal cancer.

They have lots of accompanying documentation, check their site.

A Good Read For WWII History Buffs

14. February 2006 · Comments Off on A Good Read For WWII History Buffs · Categories: History, War

It’s always been my impression that Japan’s conquest of Manchuria was a marginally positive move, more than negated by its further incursions into China. But reading this short, but dense, piece by James Graham over at HistoryOrb, I’m inclined to refine that view a bit:

Prior to the China Incident Japan had some success in achieving its economic aims in Manchuria. By 1931 Japan had spent 1.5 billion yen in Manchuria an amount rising to 3.7 billion yen by 1936. This was more than the total Japanese budget for any one year. Japan was able to invest in railroads, highways, hydro-electric plants and improve the area’s harbours and navigable rivers. Useful amounts of iron, aluminium and other minerals were also discovered. In contrast output of synthetic oil and coal production were modest at best. Both were vital industries where Japan was heavily reliant on foreign sources of supply. The failure of Manchuria to replace these sources was thus a huge disappointment. Five hundred thousand Japanese immigrated to Manchuria between 1931 and 1945 with half of these being the agricultural settlers Japan had aimed to resettle. The reality however was that few Japanese could compete with the locals who were prepared to work for much lower wages. Most lasted only six months before joining their countrymen as supervisors, police, bureaucrats, soldiers and foremen in Manchuria and later China itself. Despite these setbacks the occupation of Manchuria was initially seen by Japan as relatively inexpensive and successful.

One is left to wonder (and always well, as it is with such things) if Japan would have been so driven to further Chinese adventurism, were it not for the global tide of protectionism – policies brought about in response to depression which only made matters worse.

Women in the Military – A Story That Can’t Help

06. February 2006 · Comments Off on Women in the Military – A Story That Can’t Help · Categories: GWOT, Media Matters Not, Military, My Head Hurts, War

Greyhawk over at Mudville Gazette tells us about an interesting story that is no doubt supposed to make us even more upset about the war:

The latest Iraq war urban legend: Several female service members have died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day due to fear of being raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women’s latrine after dark.

Say what you will about the story (be sure to read the whole thing). Here’s what is bothering me:

Why it matters: Because the Left believes what they’re told to believe. Random Lefty blog response via technorati:

Jill at Feministe

Female soldiers in Iraq are having to make an impossible choice: Risk being raped , or risk dying of dehydration. Many of them have ended up dead.

Nicole in London: Tales of Los Angeles Expat

If I get one comment from ANYONE saying that this proves that women don’t belong in the army. . . Grrrrrr.

And that last comment gets to my point.

Greyhawk pretty much shreds the story (now being perpetuated by Col Janis Karpinski, of Abu Ghraib fame) to bits. If it were true, it would be a horrible, horrible thing, and all of us at the Brief would be outraged. But considering how “shred-able” it is, wouldn’t the folks on the left want to tread pretty lightly before giving the “No Women In Combat” supporters ammunition like this?

(Hat tip: Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner)

Kinda, Sorta 9/11ish

05. February 2006 · Comments Off on Kinda, Sorta 9/11ish · Categories: European Disunion, General, GWOT, Pajama Game, War, World

All this last week I have been returning, almost obsessively to certain blogs for continuing updates on the Danish cartoon story. It is a marvel of jaw-dropping proportions of how a dozen fairly innocuous sketches, published in a comparatively small national newspaper, in a small European country have gotten the goat, so to speak, of seething mobs a good few countries or continents away. I rather suspect some of the rioters are only vaguely aware, in a kind of trivial pursuit/jeopardy question obscure factoid sort of way that there is a Denmark, and even fewer could find it on a map, but there they are, howling away and waving weapons and signs— invariably neatly lettered in English, how curious is that?!… and burning flags again… where the heck did they get all those Danish flags— is there some sort of “Flags R’ US” big box chain store serving Damascus, Jakarta and Gaza with all their banner barbeque needs?

It’s the fabled Muslim Street again, at a full roiling, furiously bubbling seeth, parked in front of an embassy, intimidating and threatening diplomatic staff, business interests and free-lance do-gooders, all alike. For more than two decades America (AKA “The Great Satan”) pretty much had a lock on that gig, as a focus for the Muslim ire, and it is initially passing strange and going into Outer Limits territory to see it happening to some other national interest, especially to a tidy, comfortably inoffensive little country like Denmark. The original action is so minor in comparison to the snowballing reaction—it’s rather like seeing the Animal Regulation people backed up by a tactical SWAT team go after the neighbor down the street on account of a unlicensed and unleashed teacup Chihuahua. You just keep scratching your head and wondering ‘what the f**k brought all that on?’ Or alternately, ‘what the f**k doesn’t set off the seething Muslim Street?’Or daringly, even ‘Since anything and everything sets off the seething Muslim Street, may as well publish and be damned!’

I personally confess to a great deal of appalled sympathy for the Danes, and the Norwegians, and all those other Europeans and Britons who see this issue clearly, just now. The whole issue of intellectual and press freedom, and open discussion of anything and everything, won for us with such great struggle and with so many setbacks, is a central value. All the previous little kerfuffles, all those spats about artist-poseurs smearing themselves with chocolate, or a canvas with elephant dung, or some tiresome leftist with a captive university audience, or some writer-pseud striking a daring pose by sticking it to the bourgeoisie; All that before was just a pose, a trivial and momentary diversion; this now, this is for real. Are we now willing to publish, or write about, or talk about an issue that might have permanent and fatal consequences, over a principle that we have had so long been accustomed to? Now that a threat has been issued that we must perforce obey the dictates of a religion, a religion alien to most of us? A dictate backed up by threats of murder and violence?
” Nice little country you got here, be a shame if anything happened to it.”
The demand, couched as a seemingly reasonable request to be “respectful” and understanding of a particularly belief is put reasonably, counting on us to be reasonable, courteous… but the implications are huge and only just dawning on those who have been not been following this, admittedly in a desultory way, for the last four months.

If we value the soul of Western democracies, of a free press, of being able do discuss anything at all in the media, old and new, print and TV, in the halls of universities and governments, in coffee shops and around office water coolers, without fear or favor, we cannot yield on this. Because being once constrained by Moslems, under threat, there is no reason to deny it to any other special party that may raise a complaint, backed by a similar threat. Once debate can be shut down on the grounds of “being respectful” to one belief, once criticism can be howled down on that ground, it can be done on behalf of any other religion or party, or group… and then what you have is no longer free. It may be something… but it is no longer free. Once the exception is made, we are pretty much lost, as much as the media outlets in the Mexican border towns are, when it comes to publishing anything about narco-trafficking , or independent Russian media is, about anything to do with the oligarchy.

And this is the realization that suddenly, and with a great deal of horror, that a lot of people in Britain and in Continental Europe may have come to this week, of how close they stand to the abyss, and how easily they may be struck a near-mortal blow, a blow at the intellectual heart, rather than the physical one struck on 9/11 to the US, for nothing more than being who they are in the eyes of Moslem extremists, rather than anything particular that they might have done.

Die Gedanken Sind Frei

01. February 2006 · Comments Off on Die Gedanken Sind Frei · Categories: General, GWOT, Pajama Game, Politics, War, World

“I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

So this is where we stand, with Voltaire’s noble words about intellectual freedom and the right to contemplate and openly discuss orthodoxies and heresies of any sort, with an eye towards seeing that they stand or fall, strengths and weaknesses dissected and revealed. A former President of these united States, whose grasp of the concept of intellectual freedom is as apparently as shaky as his grip on marriage vows, appears to interpret belief in it to mean that a certain favored class of adherents to a particular orthodoxy are free from ever having those beliefs challenged, criticized, mildly mocked, or even having their feelings hurt. Such is the state of their tender sensitivities, this class must be treated with special regard, their core beliefs never questioned – or as it turns out, illustrated.

One might, with a great deal of experience and cynicism, suspect that a large part of this exaggerated deference is mostly due to the very high probability that self-styled representatives of the offended orthodoxy will show up at the door of the affronting party, singly or in force, wielding sharp weapons, explosive items, fatwas, lawsuits, serious armaments, or merely shrill accusations of racism and prejudice, according to the inclination, location and experience of the offended parties. One might also suspect that not a few intellectual, political and cultural establishments might have already made a quick calculation of the risks and benefits and preemptively rolled over, and quietly began self-censoring themselves. Speaking truth to power might really have some risks, best be sure that the power spoken to is either defanged or merely rolls its’ eyes derisively at yet another dreary polemic by Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone or John LeCarre. Best not say anything at all about the “religion of peace” lest the gentlemen with sharp knives be forced to demonstrate their imperfect acceptance of the Western tradition of open debate and dissent.


Mohammed Cartoon #5

There is an old saying, to the effect that the most binding chains are the ones we put on ourselves. And the most insidious and effective censorship is that kind that we also put on ourselves, the censorship that strangles the question before it can even be asked. And that might be one of the points raised by the editor of the Jyllands-Posten all these months ago; that thoughtful people, earnestly wishing to be polite, tolerant and sensitive of others, began moving down that path that eventually ends— if we are not aware— with our wrists humbly held up for the manacles of imposed censorship to be firmly snapped on. A drift that began with good manners ends with limits imposed by maladroit legislation or a baying mob, maybe even both, and all the important issues of the day, which ought to be discussed— vociferously, noisily and with all the thrown crockery at our disposal— are removed from the arena where they ought to be, to fester and simmer away in odd corners. What has been more insupportable in recent years, is that our courtesy in this respect is not even reciprocated: the vilest sort of caricatures and insult imaginable regarding Westerners, Christians, Jews, Americans and others too varied to mention have free and frequent circulation in Muslim and Arab-oriented and funded media.

One does wonder about a religion and culture so sensitive of insult, yet so free about dealing it out wholesale and by the bucket to others?
Is this Prophet and belief set so fragile that the merest whisper of non-adoration, of criticism and caricature will shatter it, irrevocably? Are its dutiful defenders secretly in such fear of that shattering, of the doubt that might be raised by any breath of irrelevance in a country which pays allegiance to another tradition, that the doors of dissent from orthodoxy must be slammed shut on parody, criticism, literary hyperbole, and scholarly analysis?

Umm, no. I think not. Not here. Not now. The strength of the West is in that very noisy disputation, our freedom to put everything on the table, to question, to non-conform, and by disputation and argument, make our beliefs even stronger for having all the idiocy knocked out of them. As such has been our custom, and in the reported words of Martin Luther, at the Diet of Worms: “Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason–I do not accept the authority of popes and councils for they have contradicted each other–my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me. Amen.”

Everything is on the table. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. These are the cartoons, here is a good link, curtesy of Samizdata. (Later: More discussion here…. oh, and buy Danish!!!!)

Operation Jaywick

08. January 2006 · Comments Off on Operation Jaywick · Categories: General, History, Military, War, World

I had never, ever heard of this particularly daring and creative WWII operation, until I taped a TV mini-series about it all, off Star-Plus when I was in Korea… umm, about a decade ago. Chalk it up to cultural bias and isolationism, since I had always read more about the European side of it, and the bits that American forces were involved in, in the Pacific…still, I do regret that I had never heard much about this operation. Major/Colonel Lyon does come off as one of those who is indisputably mad, perhaps a little bit bad, and definitly dangerous— if not to know, then to follow him into the jaws of death or Singapore harbor under Japanese occupation in 1943-45.
(The miniseries is not, apparently, available via Amazon, although the book that it is based upon is.)

A Date Which Will Live in Infamy…

07. December 2005 · Comments Off on A Date Which Will Live in Infamy… · Categories: Domestic, General, History, Home Front, Military, War

In the summer of 1971, when the Girl Scout troop that I belonged to was doing a lovely and frivolous three-week excursion to the Hawaiian Islands, I talked to a man who said he was a Navy vet, and had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. He was, he said, on Ford Island, on a bicycle and on his way to the mess hall for breakfast, when several sorts of heck broke out. And suddenly, everything changed… and nothing was ever quite the same again.
Pearl Harbor, December 7th , 1941….

Arizona Turret

(Turret of the Arizona, taken from the memorial, 1971)

My daughter says she has a new understanding of that… she was on her way to work, the morning of September 11, 2001, at Camp Pendleton, that the whole thing began to develop as she was waking up, in the shower, driving into work… and when she got there, the Marines at her unit were all in the parking lot, listening to their car radios. And that for two or three days, the base was weirdly, curiously quiet.

History… it’s the thing that is happening, when we are on our way to breakfast and have other plans.

Watch ‘Em Squirm!

18. November 2005 · Comments Off on Watch ‘Em Squirm! · Categories: Ain't That America?, GWOT, Iraq, Military, War

After Rep. Jack Murtha’s (D-PA) explosive comment yesterday that we cut and run, exiting Iraq immediately and surrendering a la Francaise, the US House is this afternoon in the midst of really heated argument. The reason, is that Republicans, wishing to get on the public record just exactly how these folks feel about this, have scheduled a vote for this evening on the question: “Do we terminate the war immediately and recall our troops from Iraq without delay, or do we press on to victory?”

This is one day that I have found real enjoyment in watching C-Span. Republicans are pressing their case, and Democrats are squirming and squealing like the greased pig at the picnic. Of course, aside from Charlie Rangel and a few others who simply don’t care what the American public thinks, no one in his or her right mind wants the American public to know that they want us to surrender the war on terror. No way are these leftist cowards going to vote publicly to just give up and surrender to the islamofascists. This is going to be fun to watch as the evening comes on. I predict a rout in favor of continuing on to total victory.

UPDATE: At nearly midnight, voting in the House is imminent. I have heard many speeches, some bloviating, some with their chests poked out, promoting themselves. But there have been some who have spoken who should be listened to. For instance, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), who was a POW in Vietnam for seven years. When we left him in the Hanoi prison and left our comrades in Vietnam, he was horrified to think that his country had forgotten him and left him and the other POW’s to their fate, abandoned. What a sad chapter in our national history. I hope sincerely that we do not repeat this mistake again. Others who spoke and clearly do not support our troops nearly made me weep for their errors of judgement.

The vote is in progress now, clearly defeated, with something like 3 votes in favor of cutting and running. Those who so voted should be turned out of the house by their constituents, as they do not deserve the office they hold.

There certainly are some things that need to be changed in this war. First, the Pentagon needs to recognize that we need about 40% more troops in the region, a move that would certainly, I believe, shorten our need to be there. Second, we do need the Administration to be more forthcoming in what our plan for victory is. Someone needs to get the MSM to be more balanced in their reporting of what is going on over there, and I would throw out the suggestion that a very loud and strong boycott of the left-leaning, defeatist and one-sided media organizations may be effective. These are only a couple of suggestions intended to get the reader into the thinking mode, Perhaps some of our readers have more suggestions, better ones than I propose, and my intent here is to get you involved and to tell us what you think. Simply commenting to shoot this post in the foot is not productive, and personal attacks on anyone have no place here. Come on, folks. What do you think?

With no time left remaining on the vote, the totals right now are:
In favor of surrender, 3. In favor of staying to victory, 403. Members who did not vote numbered 22. No question where this is going, only three have put their career on the line by voting to cut and run, while the rest of the US House are telling us that they want to stay and finish the mission. Whether or not this is their real, heartfelt choice, we will see in the future what happens. Let’s see how the MSM spins this, and let’s add our voices to the House, in favor of victory.

Wiped from the Map

31. October 2005 · Comments Off on Wiped from the Map · Categories: Domestic, General, History, War, World

A day or so after Thanksgiving of the year when I was in the seventh or eight grade, and hated gym class above all the other torments that junior high school offered in bounteous measure, I had a short conversation with another girl in my gym class. We were not particular friends, only that our lockers were adjacent, and we would be changing out of our school dress, into the black shorts and short-sleeved, snap-closure white blouse that Mt. Gleason Junior High dictated to be proper gym class attire. I don’t even remember her name, only that she was sturdy and somewhat stocky and like me, blue-eyed with dark-blond, brown-sugar colored hair and a fair complexion… and like me, not particularly enthusiastic about gym class, and all its’ works and all its’ ways. Both of us were of the devoutly un-athletic sort who picks a team position based on the likely chances of having little or nothing to do with the ball.

So, on this first day of gym after the Thanksgiving holiday, I struck up a conversation about it, about how my family Thanksgiving had gone— how all the constellation of great-aunts, great-uncles, and grandparents had gathered for the ritual feast. The family Hayes had gathered at either Grannie Jessie’s little white house on South Lotus, or Grannie Dodie and Grandpa Al’s house in Camarillo. I can’t recollect which, so unvarying was the rotation, so regular the attendance of the senior members and devout their interest in JP and I, Pippy and our new baby brother. Most of them being for one reason or another, childless, I lamented the lack of cousins, for it meant their concentration on the four of us as torch-bearers of a new generation was as focused as a laser-beam, and I assumed that the same was true of my gym-dressing room friend.

“Oh, no,” said she. ”It’s just my parents, and my brothers and sisters. We don’t have any cousins either. All of my parents’ families… they all died. We don’t have any cousins, either.”
“None of them? None at all?” I asked, in disbelief. No fond grandparents, no doting great-aunts, no eccentric great-uncles? None of them at all, nothing outside the usual parents and sibs at the dinner table, nothing special, relations-wise, about the holiday table, with roasted turkey, crackling-fat and richly stuffed with brown-bread dressing? About this time in life, my peers had begun to lose grandparents to the usual span of human mortality— I had lately lost one, Grandpa Jim, and thought myself lucky to still have three, all of them still healthy, cantankerous and good for another couple of decades. To have none at all, though… that went beyond misfortune. That was a catastrophe.

My gym-friend shrugged.
“My parents met after the war, in a DP camp. They were just kids. It turned out they were both the only survivors of their families. They got married and came here. There was nothing for them to go back for, anyway.”

Nothing to go back for, anyway, in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Ukraine… somewhere in Middle-Europe, wherever her family trees had sprung up and been pruned with brutal finality of all but two last little shoots. Transplanted, new-rooted in America, but haunted forever by a ghostly range of empty chairs around the table at those family gatherings so universally assumed to me multi-generational.

The genocide against European Jews is as much of a challenge today to get ones’ sensible American head around as it was sixty years ago. Us Indian-massacring (sorry, Native American massacring!) slavery-enabling, Negro-lynching (Sorry— Persons of Color lynching!) religion-addled, brutally-capitalist, petty-small-town minded uncultured Jacksonians are forever being lectured about our shortcomings by those cultured Europeans. Europe was, after all, the place where they did everything better than us… more cultured, more tolerant, and oh-so-much-better in every civilized way. And yet, pogroms never happened here. Social prejudice, country-club anti-Semitism, distrust of the “other”— oh yeah, all of that…but never pogroms. Russian and Polish Jews came here to get away from pogroms, ungrateful and unappreciative of the cultural advantages to living in Europe.

The clamor of the lectures by our so-called moral superiors pretty much swamps the observation that the Native American and Black American communities still exist in a far more vibrant state than, say, the Jewish communities of Poland… and that Paris, the city of Light has a suburb torn for the fourth night running by what we, in our uncouth American way, used to call race riots. Ah, well, Europe— they do things with so much more style, over there. Sixty years ago, under German occupation, ordinary Europeans watched their neighbors, their friends, coworkers, classmates, employers and employees, their doctors, and cleaning women rounded up and marched away to oblivion. Some eagerly assisted; some benefited from participating, most watched and turned away and did nothing, not wishing to risk what might happen to them, should they be too open in objection. A very few righteous, possessed of a fiercely refined moral sense, and courage of the sort usually termed “crazy-brave” did what they could… that there was anything left of European Jewry by 1945 was a sort of miracle in itself. On a national level, only the Danes can be credited for behaving in a way that we hope we could ourselves be equal to, given the same situation. They refused, categorically, firmly, and in a manner most breathtakingly effective, to turn over Danish citizens of the Jewish faith to the occupying German authorities… of course, the Germans had gone easily on the Danes, hoping to win them over to the benefits of the Thousand-year Reich… but still, and all… German blandishments did not tempt them to sell out their fellow citizens.

So, during a week in which the elected leader of Iran, which has done everything it can to acquire or develop nuclear weapons, has publicly and in terms quite straightforward and understandable, vowed an intention to wipe Israel off the map… a small and pesky nation formed in no small part from the survivors of the European-wide holocaust. What would a single nuclear hit do to a tiny and democratic survivor-state? Nothing good, that should go without saying. So, what will Europe do, this time? How stalwart will be European resolve be to intervene, given that Israel was referred to as “that shitty little country” by a French diplomat at an English dinner party, that anti-Semitism (now charmingly called anti-Zionism) is at a revoltingly open, all-time high? No matter what they call it, it’s still used for the same old purpose, to kill Jews, or at least, justify their murder by a third party. How nice. How amusing, that European hands would be kept clean of the murder of Jews. This time, anyway.

Oh, yeah… if I were a Jew, I’d think twice before depending on Europe to keep my ass safe… especially given how effective they were, overall, about that the last time.

The eastern world, it is explodin’.
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.

Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy
It’s bound to scare you boy

And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.

Why We Fight: New Version

28. September 2005 · Comments Off on Why We Fight: New Version · Categories: General, GWOT, History, Media Matters Not, War

To: Karen Hughes
From: Sgt. Mom
Re: The Modern Version of “Why We Fight”

1. It is a pity that explaining ourselves to the outside world in this current war has to be left to the government, but there you go. You fight the war with what you have, not what you wish you had. Hollywood this time is too incestuously self-involved, too out of touch with everything outside it’s tight little bicoastal enclaves of wealth, ease, and depravity to bother much with the rubes of flyover country – and too afraid, al la Rushdie and van Gogh, to risk a fatwa, a knife in a public street, a car bomb in Morton’s, or a representative from CAIR parked in their outer office. Pity about that— and a pretty sorry showing on the part of those who usually preen themselves on their audacity in “speaking truth to power.” It all depends on the power addressed, I guess.

2. I also gather that Charlotte Beers’ “softly, softly” series of advertisements featuring American Muslims singing the joys of life in the good old US of A went over like the proverbial lead balloon in the Muslim world. Well, if they were anything like the spots that used to air on AFRTS which expanded upon the joys of living in the country we served— well, we were left pretty much rolling our eyes and heading for the latrine, so I can’t see that Ms. Beers whould have been surprised. It’s a tough audience, which requires a tough sell. At this point, it may be necessary to take off the tidy white Madison Avenue gloves, and punch from the gut. Hard.

3. Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight” series, from the Second World War might prove to be an instructive guide, editing together our enemies’ propaganda and newsreel film— turning their own words, deeds— and by implication their own hypocrisies against them, giving an audience an unvarnished look at the intentions and actions of our enemies. Skip the pretty pictures of nice American Moslems in their suburban 2-car garage lives; go straight to the point, and turn the video images of the Islamic Jihad, of Al Jazeera, and the Al-Quada websites right back at the Moslem world in every gory, stomach-churning detail.

4. Show the head-choppings, the murders and the executions, with blade and stone and shot to the head— of Moslems and Westerners alike. Show the jihadis blowing up busloads of schoolchildren and murdering election workers. Show them shouting “Allah Akbar!” as they saw the heads off live people, replay their every murder, boast and claim of responsibility- and give the credit for the source of the video. Show the video of Osama chuckling to his guests as he describes how the Towers collapsed. Include the ferocious, hate-filled rants of those bearded, spittle-beflecked Imams – those in the mosques of the West and the East, too; all those who don’t think anyone but their own congregations are listening.

5. Show too, the aftermath of their work— again, giving credit to the TV media of the Moslem world; show the blood, the body parts strewn all over, the wrecked lives of innocents. Show it all, and choke with blood and shame, anyone who still will try and claim that this version of Islam is a religion of peace. Show every instance of Islamic terrorism’s lies, hypocrisy, and bloodshed – especially the blood shed amongst Moslems by their coreligionists…

6. And finally, show us and the Islamic world as a footnote, the remains of dead jihadis, bits and pieces of their gruesome dead bodies, all mixed in with bits of metal from suicide bombs, dead in the dirt like so much garbage, or shot down like a dog by an American sniper. . . Show how clear and inglorious is the modern jihad, shoveled into an unmarked, un-mourned grave. Throw it all back in their faces— credited, and exhaustively footnoted— every ugly boast, word and deed.

7. Considering that most of the nastier stuff has been common video currency in the radical Islamic world, this might accomplish nothing more than a sort of “greatest jihad hits” highlights video – but it might also grab the attention of that so greatly hoped-for moderate Moslem demographic; those that might be greatly horrified about what has been perpetrated in their name and to their alleged benefit. And of course, the mainstream media-consuming American audience might also be enlightened.

8. At least, think about this public affairs outreach option. It’s not like there’s anything worse that hasn’t been done already.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

It Still Hurts

09. September 2005 · Comments Off on It Still Hurts · Categories: War

Michele has gotten around to moving her archives and she’s opened the one from 9/11/2001.

I don’t regret it, but damn…

Memo:Lamestream Media

08. August 2005 · Comments Off on Memo:Lamestream Media · Categories: General, GWOT, Media Matters Not, Military, Rant, War

To: Damian Cave, @ The New York Times
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Some Cheese with that Whine

1. So you are baffled, baffled, I say by the lack of coverage in the major media, to the stories of heroism in Irag and Afghanistan, and wonder disingenuously as to why the names of SFC Paul Smith, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester and Sgt. Rafael Peralta are not right up there in the consciousness of the nation as heroes, heroes on par with Audie Murphy and Alvin York. (My comparison, not yours. Audie Murphy and Alvin York were… oh, never mind. Use a search engine, or read some history books.) Such is your supple intellect and grasp of the obvious that you manage fix the blame anywhere but with your own media culture. “…The military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized their actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II.”

2. Myself, I grasp the fact that the cluebirds are over your position, but at a very great height. I will do what I can, to bring certain realities within your reach. First, I suggest that you walk out of your office, leave the building, and stand on the sidewalk outside, and look back. (I assume of course, that you are a full-time employee of the paper of record. If you are a free-lancer, skip this paragraph.) Somewhere on the building you have just departed should be the inscription or legend, “New York Times.” Yes, Mr. Cave, you work for a newspaper, a fairly major national newspaper, as it turns out. I would suggest, if you wish an answer to your question as to why there is no attention paid to the heroes of this war, you first ask them of your co-workers at the Times.

3. And it’s not as if the stories have not been told: you know that mouse-clicky thing, to the side of the keyboard in front of the oddly-television appearing monitor on your desk? The stories are there, Mr. Cave, on the milblogs such as this, on Mudville Gazette (among hundreds of others), on various DOD websites, and at military press briefings. It’s called investigative reporting— remember when they covered that at j-school? Other newspapers can manage it, mostly papers in markets located close to military bases. Military bases… you know, those federal reserves, out in the sticks, full of noisy tanks and airplanes and things, and people with very short haircuts and a tendency to all wear the same sort of clothes? All these places have a little office on it someplace, called the Public Affairs office. They’d love to hear from you some time, tell you all about heroes and anything else about their personnel that you’d like to hear. Give them a jingle, they’re in the book.

4. And you expect to be spoon-fed by the White House, or the military, or whomever, about the heroes of this war? You want it tied up in a nice pink bow, or something, after three years of pretty much ignoring anything but the ever-floggable dead horse of Abu Ghraib/Guantanamo. Well, there is no contenting some people. Just do your job, instead of blaming everyone else. Pick up the phone, click on the mouse. I swear, when you go to the men’s room, do you have to have someone else hold your…. Oh, never mind, that’s a question to which I really don’t want an answer.

5. Just do your job. And stop whining.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

(Correction pointed out by Byna… I should not do rants when I am cooking dinner at the same time, from an unfamiliar recipe!)

Update: Full-frontal evisceration of Mr. Cave is here, and a gallery of heroes here.

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?

WHO NEEDS COMMERCIAL STUFF WHEN SCROUNGES RULE?

17. April 2005 · Comments Off on WHO NEEDS COMMERCIAL STUFF WHEN SCROUNGES RULE? · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, War

I started this out as a comment on Kevin’s post below, but it got too long, so here we go again. During the cursed 60’s, when I was a young airman in the “theater,” a lot of us were desperate to hear the voices of our loved ones back in the land of the golden BX. You know,where they had paved roads, fresh eggs, (heck, even fresh chickens!) and real, working telephones.

There were no cell phones, no satellite relay systems (unless you worked in COMM, or were a general) no commercial telephone systems that worked, and not even direct-dial long distance in the States. Yes, Virginia, there was a time when you went through a live operator just to make a long distance call. All we had was that damnable back-scatter over-the-horizon single-sideband system that was notoriously badly mistuned, leaving one, sounding like Donald Duck, with a costly session consisting mostly of “Can you hear me, Mom?”. My first OS call, from Korea, sitting inside a soundproof box, was just such a call, trying to find out if my girlfriend had received the engagement ring I had sent her, so I’d know if she was my fiance yet. After some 5 minutes of her crying, me snuffling, and the frequent “What did you say?”, I paid the princely sum of some $150 out of my monthly $178 A2C salary for a call where I still wondered if I had even talked to the right girl.

After this incident, being a “ham” operator already, I got involved with Air Force MARS. No, not space cadets, the Military Affiliate Radio System. Officially, it was the backup for the “official channels” of radio communication, and it was used for that sometimes, but mostly it was a bunch of ham operators tinkering around with AF radio equipment, playing with our hobby at taxpayer expense. It was with MARS that I got to be the king of all AF scrounges. We operated the best means of communication with the “world,” making contact with Stateside MARS stations who would put through collect calls to our homes via a “phone patch,” a device that hooked the radio up to the phone lines.

We could get anything from anyone on base. Not just supply. Midnight, in the middle of a 24-hour period of placing calls, and hungry. Call the chow hall.

Me: “Anybody there want to call the States?” Minutes later: C/H: “Hey, you guys, the MARS station has a connection to the states. Fix them a dozen ham sandwiches and get the SP’s over here to deliver them! And whoever wants to make a call get in the office here!” (Then we’d put through a call for the guy from Security Police, too.)

I got us a 15,000 watt amplifier for our radio when the Comm SQ turned one in (MO’ POWAH!). We got good, comfortable office furniture, for those long sessions sitting in front of radios. Most of what we had, though, was cast-off, second hand stuff, because officially, we were the purple-haired stepchildren of the Air Force. We worked based on how long the atmospheric propagation would allow us to have 2-way conversations with the States, and I think my record was something like 28 hours. Some days, nothing. Some days, Katy-bar-the-door, until everybody on base who wanted to call had gotten through, some more than once.

God bless one man, not with us any more: Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) had about the best ham station on earth. And he had volunteers to staff it. On holidays, he would place our calls for free, and everybody got to call home without the expense of a collect call. Now, that was a man who cared about the GI’s. And everybody in the service at the time knew it.

Not only MARS operators, but a lot of folks in the service learn to be good scrounges. Sometimes I think the military really works on the backs of its best scrounges, because they know how to find what they need, be it DRMO, supply, or whereever. They are the ones who get things done, and it’s “full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!” Here’s a salute to those unsung heroes of the war effort, I know that today they are just as important to getting things accomplished as they were back in the “old” days!

The Death Squad Scare

13. January 2005 · Comments Off on The Death Squad Scare · Categories: Iraq, War, World

Glenn Reynolds has a few interesting links on the death-squad todo. Of note to me is this bit from Jonah Goldberg:

Okay now, let’s clear a few things up. First of all, the “El Salvador Option” was used in — hold on, let me get my map, yes, yes, that’s right — El Salvador, not Nicaragua. Whatever the merits or demerits of American policy in El Salvador or Nicaragua, the effort in El Salvador did not lead to the Iran-Contra scandal. Newsweek seems to think that piling on negative associations with Latin American foreign policy will help dramatize a story they might not even have in the first place. After all, the substance of the initial story is that people inside the Pentagon are discussing their options. Someone reorder my adult diapers, that is scary!

This seems to be a common thing with foreign policy doves, and particularly conspiracy theorists. Iraq becomes El Salvador, which becomes Nicaragua, which becomes Guatemala and Iran, and then Vietnam. And it all blends together into some grand continuum, with total loss of historical perspective.

The real world, particularly the Islamosphere, is a very complex place. And any Special Operation, designed to terminate hostiles surgically, can be considered a Death Squad. But can anyone deny their strategic importance, particularly in a guerilla war?

After the election, the Iraqis themselves, much more familiar with the lay of the land, and with the aegis of a legitimate government, are actually far more likely to employ Death Squads than we are. And if they are effective at dealing with ex-Ba’athist and foreign terrorist elements within their borders, and maintain military discipline, can we demonize them for it?

On One Of The Islamofascist War’s Lesser-Known Fronts…

13. January 2005 · Comments Off on On One Of The Islamofascist War’s Lesser-Known Fronts… · Categories: War, World

…Where US Special Operations Forces have been operating for some time, officials have happily announced that the Al-Qaeda-linked GIA, claimed to be responsible for over 100,000 deaths, is all but extinct:

Algiers, Algeria, Jan. 12 (UPI) — Algeria announced it has nearly stamped out the Islamic armed group known as GIA, the country’s most dangerous during the 1990s.

The breakaway Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), our primary target, is weaked, but still active:

The Al-Qaida-linked faction in Algeria known as the Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC) has appointed a new amir, or commander, in the wake of the deaths of past commanders Hassan Hattab (a.k.a. Abu Hamza) and Nabil Sahraoui (a.k.a. Abu Ibrahim Mustafa). According to a statement from the group, the new commander has been named as Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud.

E-Mail from Fallujah

12. November 2004 · Comments Off on E-Mail from Fallujah · Categories: General, War

Reader Michael Phillips forwarded this e-mail from a friend of his, a Marine currently serving in Fallujah. I have editied out certain identifying elements, in the interests of OpSec.

Hi Everyone, I am here in Fallujah and well. I have been forward for the last 36 hours or so and am back now in our camp for a bit before heading back out to the forward command post.

We are doing well… (the) Marines on our flank has taken some pretty good losses but we are killing the enemy in droves. They are hiding in houses that are heavily fortified and we just destroy the house with a tank shot or a bomb or missile. There is no negotiating or surrender for those guys. If we see the position and positively ID them as bad guys, we strike. When they run, we call it maneuver and we strike them too. Why? Yesterday the muj attacked an ambulance carrying our wounded. The attackers were hunted down and killed without quarter. These guys want to be martyrs…..we’re helping.

Don’t hear a lot of this on the news huh? Fox News is doing a pretty good job over here so stick with them for coverage.

This is the only way this place can ever be safe.

And in the midst of all this we’re helping to restore power and protect and feed and evacuate the ordinary citizens of Fallujah…..although most left the city as soon as the muj moved in.

And today is the Marine Corps’s 229th birthday. It is only fitting that we are engaged in combat and serving our country today . The beer, cake and steaks will flow once we’re all done…It’s one of my ! > responsibilities to see that they get just that. But for now it’s chow and water and fuel and ammo…..lots of ammo.

My thoughts are with all of you and thanks for keeping us in your prayers…..I’m sure God is around here somewhere, above all of this…keeping an eye on things and protecting the just and the angels…..that’s what our KIAs are referred to as…..but we all hope he turns a blind eye on the muj and their false beliefs as we find them and kill them.

And I’m just here doing my job.

C—–

Does the truth mean nothing to these people?

12. October 2004 · Comments Off on Does the truth mean nothing to these people? · Categories: General, Politics, War

I happened upon an interesting story coming out of the Associated Press today (for instance, see this story at foxnews.com). General Tommy Franks has been critizing Senator Kerry for his views on Iraq and his anti-war statements after returning from Vietnam:

Franks praised the Democratic challenger’s military service during the Vietnam War, but said Kerry’s later anti-war activities upset him.

“The men I served with in Vietnam weren’t war criminals and I’m proud I served with them,” Franks said.

Of course, Kerry’s people jumped right on this:

Kerry spokesman Sean Smith accused Franks of distorting Kerry’s Senate voting record.

“He reads (Bush political aide) Karl Rove’s talking points very well,” Smith said…

But the best part comes a couple of lines further down:

Kerry never branded any U.S. troops in Vietnam as war criminals, Smith added.

The dishonesty and hypocrisy of that last statement is breathtaking. These are the same people who complain that when Republicans criticize Sen. Kerry’s record on defense votes, they are accusing him of being unpatriotic. It’s OK to draw wild inferences from Republican statements.

But apparently, we must parse Senator Kerry’s statements much more carefully. When he accused troops in Vietnam of committing atrocities and (dare I say it?) war crimes, he wasn’t branding them as war criminals. How does that make sense?

I would just accuse Senatory Kerry’s spokeman of being in denial, but that would be unfair to people in denial. He’s just plain lying.

Don’t Mess With the Mommy

07. September 2004 · Comments Off on Don’t Mess With the Mommy · Categories: General, War

When I was in junior high, one of my girlfriends who admittedly was a bit of a drama queen claimed with great fervor to be such a devotee of non-violence that she would not use violence of any sort to defend her children. Since we were approximately fifteen and virgin, the existence of children for both of us was at best theoretical. I did suspect her of total bullshit at the time, and knew it with certainty ten years later, when I against all expectation, had a child of my own.

I had the experience of holding my baby daughter…my…own…baby… daughter… and immediately and violently falling into a sort of love— completely different from the way one falls in love with one’s intended, a deep and primal emotion. For your child, you will unhesitatingly put yourself between any danger around, and that child. To defend the safety of that child you will pick up any weapon available, and use it. To keep my child safe, I knew without the slightest doubt, that I would kill— anyone, and with anything at hand, no matter how up close and personal, with bare hands and slowly, if the threat to my daughter (my daughter!) were imminent. And afterwards, I would sleep like a babe myself, without a shred of regret, no bad dreams, even if I were left covered in the innards and gore of whoever had dared… dared… to attempt violence on my child. Actually, the depth of this conviction, the absolute certainty, that any threat to my daughter could only be carried out over my dead body, came as a bit of a shock to me… so very primal, so very basic… like an animal, ferocious in intensity.

This is where, I think, our human tendency to see children as an especially protected category first arose… not of any particular human bent towards chivalry, just well-established wisdom. It must have come clear to our most remote ancestors that a threat to a child resulted all to frequently in the mother of that child ripping out the heart of whatever posed that threat with her bare hands, and if possible, eating it in the marketplace. “Don’t mess with the mommy” is the guiding rule of wildlife biologists doing field research, especially amongst those who deal with the larger mammals.

But the corollary to that deep and unhesitating maternal devotion is the knowledge that anyone could use that against you, could force you into something, no matter how vile or degrading by the simple expedient of putting a gun or worse to your child’s head…. And so the experiences of parents last week in Russia became our most horrible nightmare, played out on the TV screen and in the front pages. A thousand people, most of them children, children like ours… on their first day of school… schools much like ours, on the first day of a school year, with anxiously hovering parents seeing them into the playground on this most important first day, parents who brought along the little brothers and sisters. Who of us with children has not lingered by the gate, seeing that small and dearly beloved individual, weighted down with a book bag and their own apprehensions, march sturdily up the stairs and into the main entrance?

The heartbreaking pictures, pictures of tiny still forms on stretchers and in coffins, or carried away naked and bloody, those pictures awake our most primal nightmares— they are bad enough, but reading the accounts of the horror— children of all ages, tormented in front of their parents, in front of their mothers with heat, and thirst and hunger— terrorized by masked men with guns and explosives, who murdered without remorse, in their very faces, forced by necessity to drink their own urine, and to eat the bouquets of flowers, petal by petal and leaf by leaf. That last, if anything indicated the true intention of the terrorists was to create a spectacle of death, as soon as enough cameras were pointing that way, a veritable auto de fe of horror and blood. I am only amazed that the hostages didn’t crack sooner than two days, driven mad with fear for their children and ready to gamble a chance of escape against a certainty of death.

These two small items in the Beslan news hold a small warning indicator to anyone who think to extort concessions by holding children as hostages; there are some reports that many of the Russian security forces were accidentally shot in the back, by armed parents following them into the besieged school, intent on rescuing their own…. And that one of the Chechen terrorists was torn apart by an angry mob, outside the school, afterwards.

Don’t mess with the mommy. You may not like what happens, then.

War Quotes

08. August 2004 · Comments Off on War Quotes · Categories: War

I’ve seen the following quotes attributed to Goebbels:

This war is a defensive war. It was forced upon us by our enemies, who wish to destroy our nation. The only thing we cannot afford to lose in this war is our freedom, the foundation of our life and our future. No one has the right to complain about limitations on his personal freedom caused by the war.

…

Why of course the people don’t want war. But it is the leaders who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

What I’ve never seen is the source material for these quotes. Were they from personal diaries, newspaper interviews, or Party speeches? I’m just wondering, because I’ve always wanted to read the rest of the text that was originally placed about these particular sentences.

Here’s one from Caesar:

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. The citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader. How do I know? For this is what I have done.

Where’s this one from?

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