Category Archives: The War

WaPo reporter drops mask

William M. Arkin is the WashPost’s homeland security writer. What a hoot. Then they gave him a blog and he decided to let loose his anti-American spleen on the troops: 

"Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order…[recent report troops are upset about opposition to the war is] an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary – oops sorry, volunteer – force that thinks it is doing the dirty work."

So the elite blogosphere went ballistic, here, here and especially these milblogs here and, for the profane version, here. Actually, I think we owe Billy a round of applause. He’s dropped the "oh-so-objective" pose he learned to do in journalism school, and told us what he and his media buds really think. And it’s ugly and sneering which, of course, fully explains their negative reporting on the war and the military itself. Something tells me your editors won’t like being exposed like this, Bill. Write when you find another job.

UPDATE  Arkin had already made a name as the Greenpeace alum, far left, anti-military activist  "military affairs" writer for the LATimes. So maybe his WaPo editors won’t care after all. They knew what they were getting when they hired him.

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We surrender

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Has Bush shot himself in the foot?

One of Lyndon Johnson’s big mistakes in the Vietnam war was insisting on personally clearing every bombing mission and target beforehand. But even LBJ didn’t turn his troops over to the command of the South Vietnamese government. President Bush appears to have given the Iraqi government control of our troops in his new struggle for Baghdad, which may have doomed it from the start. The story, picked up by the likes of conservative blogger Hyscience, is in Salon, the Lefty digital newsmagazine that is not my favorite source of information. Maybe it’s bull. Sure hope so. But it fits right in with various tactical stupidities of the past four years, such as allowing the Shia thug Mookie Sadr to live, and playing catch-and-release with Iranian agents whose explosives were killing American troops. But, so far, the dumbest thing of all has been the continuation of two sanctuaries for the enemy’s recruitment and re-supply, in neighborhing Syria and Iran, almost exactly what happened in South Vietnam with North Vietnam and Cambodia. If somebody doesn’t wise up pretty soon we’re going to lose this thing.

Virginity’s reward. Not.

Wear your burqa and your veil, do what your father and brothers tell you, don’t go to school, listen to music or have any fun, and when you die

Via Hyscience 

Garry Owen

Michael Yon’s latest dispatch from Custer’s old 7th Cavalry patrolling in Mosul, Iraq, with photos:

"If Americans really wanted to know their Army, American kids would be swapping trading cards of the battalion commanders and command sergeant majors, company commanders and 1st sergeants, and those legions of unknown squad-leaders who earn three Purple Hearts and decorations for valor before they are old enough to rent cars back home."

And unlike Lurch, the braggart soldier, these 3-purple heart squad leaders don’t go home after 4 months. 

Iran’s new calling card

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Think the Iranians pose no immediate threat to the American homeland? Think again. This missile, 18 of which Iran is believed to have purchased from North Korea, so far can only reach Europe, Israel and targets throughout the Middle East. But Debkafile says it is believed to be the missile that Allaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, says is being modified to launch a 300 kilogram spy satellite. "Once Iran learns how to put 300 kg into earth orbit," says Uzi Rubin, the former head of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, "it could adapt the satellite launcher into an ICBM that could drop more than 300 kg anywhere in the world, for instance, on Washington, D.C….every time the Iranian satellite passed above the U.S., it would remind America of Iran’s potential to strike it." 

UPDATE Aviation Week’s slightly different take on this is here predicting a different rocket to be used for the Iranian space launch, and soon. 

Sectarian cooperation

In the debates over Iraq, we often hear the canard that Sunni and Shia Muslims are irrevocable enemies who would never cooperate with each other. Yet the evidence that they have and still do is pretty solid, as Iraq freelance embed Bill Roggio says in his latest dispatch on fighting near Najaf which, once again, combined the Sunni Al Queda with the Shia militia:

"Cooperation between Shia and Sunni insurgent groups is not a new development in Iraq, as Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and al_Qaeda cooperated during the Fallujah/Najaf uprisings in the spring and summer of 2004. Shia Iran has been supplying the Sunni insurgency, al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sunnah with weapons and bomb making materials, and is currently sheltering senior al-Qaeda leaders within its borders."

UPDATE  The defeated militia in question apparently is linked to Mookie, the black-turbaned little thug that Bush has allowed to live lo these many years, and their aim was to kill the moderate Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.