Category Archives: The War

Inside Terrorism

Posted on April 23, 2007 | Comments Off on Inside Terrorism

We usually hear about the dead after a terrorist bombing. So many dead, so many wounded. The dead are mourned, the wounded disappear. But many of the wounded stay wounded, crippled, because terrorists pack their bombs with nails, nuts, bolts, scraps of rusted metal, blasting them into the soft human body. Artist Diane Covert brings the X-Rays and CT Scans of these wounded people into the art gallery in all their disturbing truth. Playing this week at Loyola College, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Via LGF. 

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Posted in Scribbles, The War

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Playing at war

Posted on April 20, 2007 | Comments Off on Playing at war

I often think the Seablogger, Alan Sullivan, is too pessimistic by half. And considering that he’s struggling with cancer, that’s not too surprising. But he’s just dead-on right about the current situation in Iraq.

"…we are not taking the fight to the enemy, and we never will. Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia continue to support Iraqi ‘insurgents.’ If we were at war, we would have assailed the regimes of those countries for warring on us. But we are merely playing at war…"

Indeed, I am starting to cringe everytime I read about another American casualty in Iraq, partly because it’s as though Bush wanted to set up another Vietnam losing proposition, with sanctuaries for the enemy, sanctuaries that (so far) have not been assailed, and may never be. Unlike Sullivan I won’t say never, but it does look that way. Some say we should cringe at all the dead Iraqi civilians, but we aren’t killing them, and the people who are won’t stop even if/when we leave.

UPDATE  Still some hope in the recent infighting among the "insurgents." 

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1LT Phillip Isaac Neel, R.I.P.

Posted on April 19, 2007 | Comments Off on 1LT Phillip Isaac Neel, R.I.P.

Neel, a 1998 graduate of Fredericksburg, Tx, high school, and, in 2005, of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, died in Iraq April 9, of wounds from a grenade assualt while leading his 8th Cavalry Regt. platoon:

“Phillip was an inspiration and leader to his five siblings,” his family said in a prepared statement… “He led by example and consistently challenged them to do the right thing in all circumstances, no matter what pressures were involved.”

A memorial service for him is planned Saturday in Fredericksburg.

UPDATE  The San Antonio Express News report on the memorial: "Phillip Neel often sat and prayed at the West Point cemetery overlooking the Hudson River in New York, and it was there he watched smoke rise from the World Trade Center in 2001, his dad said."

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Racism in the Bundeswehr

Posted on April 17, 2007 | Comments Off on Racism in the Bundeswehr

How far Hitler’s mighty Wehrmacht has fallen. Cursing in English, at African Americans. How weird.

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Posted in Scribbles, The War, Troops

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Massacre in Virginia

Posted on April 16, 2007 | Comments Off on Massacre in Virginia

With at least 22 dead and as many wounded at Virginia Tech, one is naturally tempted to wonder if this be terrorism or the sadly-usual madman-with-a-gun. The former gets a lift from lines like this at FoxNews.com:

"The students and faculty were barricading themselves in their classrooms after what one person described as an Asian student wearing a vest opened fire." (emphasis mine)

We’ll see, of course. Much will also be made of the idea that the school was a gun-free zone, meaning no right-to-carry on the campus. Of course, as Glenn Reynolds notes, that would only be observed by the law-abiding and thereby put all of them at perhaps even greater risk from such as today’s incident.

UPDATE  This time the first report was a good one: the killer may be a 24-year-old recent Chinese immigrant on a visa. I’m glad he’s dead so we don’t have to spend months hearing about this pathetic loser’s life. 

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Posted in The War

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Blockading Iran

Posted on April 13, 2007 | Comments Off on Blockading Iran

I have liked the idea of a naval blockade of Iran to stop their development of nuclear weapons. But George Friedman of Austin’s Stratfor says even the idea of imposing one for the limited purpose of forcing release of the Birt hostages was not seriously considered because of Iran’s ability to retaliate in Iraq, among other places. Although one supposes stopping the nukes would be considerably more incentive than a few military prisoners.

Via the ON Point Blog 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Incoming

Posted on April 11, 2007 | Comments Off on Incoming

"A few days ago, the loud siren sounded, and the ‘big voice’ speakers bellowed ‘INCOMING! INCOMING!’. A group of new Marines scattered like ducklings under the shadow of a hawk. Several ran around the corner of a concrete barrier and into a group of us chatting on as though nothing had happened. We watched as they collected themselves and tried to pretend as though nothing had happened, and then returned to conversation."

More news from the front by Teflon Don at Acute Politics

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