Night raid with the Jundi, i.e. the Iraqi army, and Marines, reported by freelance embed Bill Ardolino:
"On the plus side, they’re motivated and brave. Lt. Col. Fisher believes that aggression is a good problem to have, citing the old Marine saying, ‘it’s better to have to reel them in than have to push them out the door.’"
With photos.
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.
Omar at Iraq the Model isn’t the only one who thinks the Karbala attack, which killed Army CPT Brian Freeman and abducted four others who were later murdered, was an Iranian operation. Freelance embed Bill Roggio lines up and knocks over the dominoes:
"This raid required specific intelligence, in depth training for the agents to pass as American troops, resources to provide for weapons, vehicles, uniforms, identification, radios and other items needed to successfully carry out the mission."
Jimbo at Black Five agrees: "The location of the target, the sophistication of the operation, the lack of beheading, all point to a precision raid by highly-trained regular military forces. Iran did this."
So, are we finally going to strike back at the principal supporters of terrorism in the world or are we going to continue to play pattycake with the toothless dictator’s club of the UN? If Bush doesn’t mind thumbing his nose at the anti-war Democrat Congress over Iraq, surely he won’t quail at finally doing what he should have done back in 2003–hitting Iran and its crony-in-evil Syria?
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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged Bill Roggio, Black Five, Iran, Iraq, Jimbo, Karbala
More dispatches from Walter Reed by J.R. Salzman in his recovery from losing his right arm and ring finger of his left hand in an IED explosion in Iraq last fall. His wife is doing the typing in this amazing and poignant kind of blogging:
"I realize there are a lot of other people out there who are worse off than me. I am not asking for sympathy here. All I am trying to do is let you know what it is like to experience this. I have constant phantom pain in my arm where it feels like my hand is still there, and someone is sawing on it with a knife."
My Confederate great grandfather lost the lower part of one leg to a cannon ball in the Wilderness battle, May 6, 1864, went home and spent much of the rest of his life wearing a wooden peg while plowing behind a mule. I always wondered what that was like. J.R. brings that and many other things into clear focus.
Via Black Five
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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged Battle of the Wilderness, Confederate, Iraq, J.R. Salzman, Troops, Walter Reed
Don Suber, in his Charleston (WVA) Daily Mail column today, makes a good point: Bush is a poor wartime leader. Just about everyone who supports the Iraq campaign has compared the war on terror to World War II, but Bush apparently can’t see or feel the parallels. Elsewise he might have devoted his entire State of the Union speech to the campaigns, as FDR did to his war:
"President Roosevelt delivered a 4,588-word State of the Union on Jan. 7, 1943, that was on one topic alone: World War II. The war was that serious to FDR. He went through the battles. He went over the war production. He did not mention a single domestic program. He offered hope instead…In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Bush didn’t get around to the war until after 2,317 words in his 5,667-word speech. The people can hardly be expected to stay the course when the captain is not at the helm 24 hours a day."
Bush, whose approval rate average is hovering just two degrees above freezing, has kept most of the war’s details to himself, instead of sharing them with us, and we’re all paying the price for his shortsightedness.
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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War
Tagged Don Suber, Iraq, President Bush
Army veteran and freelance Iraq embed Michael Yon emails Op-For with this surprising conclusion:
"At this point I would say we are probably actually losing the war, but I really think this can be turned around. Petraeus is just the man who can do it. He’s brilliant and is ready to slam those militias. We need to kill Sadr. We will lose a lot of people taking on the militias, but we should either take them on or pack up and go home. I vote for killing them."
Yon emailed me this on Christmas Day: "I hope we finally kill al Sadr," but asked me not to post it. Now that he’s lifted the embargo, so to speak, I no longer feel constrained. And certainly agree.
Yon’s latest dispatch from Mosul is, as always, worth a read.
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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged al-Sadr, Iraq, Mahdi Army, Michael Yon, Mookie
Some conservative and libertarian bloggers, Bush supporters all though they wish he would fight harder, are calling it his best State of the Union message yet. While I agree that it’s doubtfull it will do him much good politically, it at least had the virtue of reinvigorating those of us who have supported him all along.
"Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers."
New Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s rebuttal got less praise, particularly his claim that a majority of the military doesn’t support the "way this war is being fought." That’s a narrow enough claim that it might have some truth to it, since I suspect from all the milblogs that I’ve read that the military would, if anything, like to fight harder, eradicate Mookie and his gang, and hit Iran and Syria, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. But not, as Webb implied, that they’d sooner abandon Iraq.
Steve Green, the Vodkapundit who is struggling with what might be Graves Disease, concluded after live-blogging Bush’s effort that about all that seventh-year presidents have left to accomplish is foreigh policy. That would be a lot for Bush who staked his all on it after 9/11. Hopefully he will follow through on his words this time, and we’ll finally have a resolution to the trouble Iran and Syria are fomenting in Iraq and Lebanon, possibly through military action, or whatever it takes. We can hope so, anyway.
Comments Off on President Bush unfiltered
Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged Iran, Iraq, President Bush, Sen. Jim Webb, State of the Union, Syria
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 