Thursday, June 01, 2006

Haditha

The price of restraint and the terrible costs of losing it.

The Nation goes out and says yes there was a war crime committed in Haditha and yes the guilty party was George W. Bush.

Enough details have emerged from survivors and military personnel to conclude that in the town of Haditha last November, members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment perpetrated a massacre. The killings may have been in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal, but this was not the work of soldiers gone berserk. The targets (children from 3 to 14, an old man in a wheelchair, taxi passengers), the hours-long duration of killings, the number of Marines involved, the careful mop-up--all amount to willful, targeted brutality designed to send a message to Iraqis. As Representative John Murtha has pointed out, the patently false story floated afterward, blaming the killings on roadside bombs, and Marine payoffs to survivors imply a cover-up that may extend far up the chain of command. ...

What makes war crimes is criminal leadership. Whatever the responsibility of the unit commanders in Haditha, it is George W. Bush as Commander in Chief who has sent the clear message that human rights abuses and violations of international law are justified in the "war on terror."

Former Defense Undersecretary Jed Babbin, writing nearly simultaneously in Real Clear Politics, predicted that over the coming days "the left" would make every effort to set the agenda and would have near-total freedom to do it in.

We don't know what happened in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in Anbar Province. Unverified press accounts allege that members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, First Marines, were hit by an improvised explosive device and one of them was killed. Others, according to these reports, went on an hours-long killing spree to revenge their comrade's death, leaving about twenty-four men, women and children dead. Navy and Marine Corps investigators are at work, and other reports indicate that at least three Marine officers, including the battalion and company commanders, have been relieved of duty. It's also reported that more than one enlisted man has been detained pending charges about to be brought. ...

It will be easy for the left to drive this story into a frothing political rage because they will have the field to themselves. If anyone in the military chain of command (including civilian leaders such as Secretary Rumsfeld) says anything about the case that could be interpreted as prejudging it or attempting to influence the outcome, the charges could be dismissed under the military law doctrine that prohibits "command influence."

None of it would matter if "the agenda" coincided with the facts which are presumably known, or sufficiently known, or known in a larger sense to the Nation. But the coverage of Katrina provides an interesting example of things that were "known" which were really not. Not that it matters now. One internal problem with the Nation's narrative, which will be invariant to any outcome of the investigation immediately jumps out. The assertion that it was all "willful, targeted brutality designed to send a message to Iraqis" is immediately contradicted by a recitation of how it was 'covered up' -- "the patently false story floated afterward, blaming the killings on roadside bombs, and Marine payoffs to survivors". Note to whoever is in charge of sending messages of terror to the Iraqis: terror is no good unless you publicize it; if you conceal your message with false stories, or blame roadside bombs and worst of all, if you pay money to survivors then you are missing the point. Any halfwit knows that the right way to sow terror is to leave corpses hanging from lampposts, skulls piled before the city gates or decapitate victims in a studio and distribute the video through Al Jazeera.

Sissy Willis raises the interesting question of how much rules of engagement have contributed to the context -- not to the justification -- but the context of any possible massacre that may have occurred. She cites a USA Today story to illustrate how restraint in combat is not always free.

Del Gaudio said he made a tough call after a roadside bomb killed four of his men in April. While securing the scene, he was shot at by a machine gun in a follow-up attack. When he aimed his weapon to return fire, he saw that the gunmen had a line of children standing in front of them and two men filming with video cameras. He held fire until the children moved out of the way but was shot in his hand, which was only inches from his face. "Restraint almost cost me my life," he said.

There are probably quite a few people in hospitals or six feet under the ground who were shot not in the hand as Del Gaudio luckily was but in the head; and for whom the actual price of restraint was their lives. But much more interesting is her link to a King 5 news interview with one of the survivors of the actual Haditha incident. Interesting because the roadside bomb which precipitated the incident may have ironically killed or incapacitated the very NCOs tasked with enforcing the payment of this restraint. (Emphasis mine in the excerpt below)

The incident began November 19 when the Humvee that North Bend, Wash. native Lance Cpl. James Crossan was riding in was blown up by a roadside bomb. He was seriously injured and one of his good buddies died. Lance Cpl. Miquel Terrazas, TJ, was killed by the blast.

"He was my point man and he was pretty much the guy that I went to if I needed anything," Crossan says now. Terrazas was so admired that Crossan tattooed his name on his leg as he recuperated from the broken back, shattered bones, and perforated eardrums he suffered in the blast.

Now some, including Crossan, believe the anger his colleagues felt over that attack may have driven them to kill innocent civilians. I know in my heart if I was there I possibly could've stopped what happened," Crossan said. But the military is now investigating whether other members of the close-knit unit expressed their grief in a more immediate and lethal manner.

A decapitated unit of enraged teenagers is context and not an excuse because if those Marines lost control than nothing: not grief, not anger, not the possibility their leaders were out of action will absolve them from a breach of discipline. Because that is what ignoring the rules of engagement consists of. Disobedience. Combat units follow rules not because they are recruited from angels or packed with ethical training; not because they overflow with kindness or knightly virtue. They follow the rules because even when bleeding, hurt, frightened, angry and grieving beyond the experience of any normal person, they are expected to obey orders. It's often forgotten that Leonidas and his 300 Spartans are remembered not so much for their bravery, though they were that, but for their obedience.

O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têde
keimetha tois keinon rhémasi peithomenoi

Go, stranger, and tell the Spartans
That we lie here in obedience to their laws

Those laws are the work of both those who order men into combat and those who expect them to follow rules of engagement; and prevail at both whatever the cost. Those rules are supposed to embody the values of a nation balanced against the need of the Soldier or Marine to survive. And if the Marines fail at either they must pay and pay still. Captain del Gaudio points out in his USA Today interview that what Jed Babbin calls "the story" will also take its toll:

RAMADI, Iraq — Allegations that Marines killed civilians in the western Iraqi town of Hadithah last year could undo efforts to win the cooperation of locals in the volatile Anbar province, some Marines say. "All it does is make our jobs harder out here," said Capt. Andrew Del Gaudio, commander of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. "Every Iraqi will assume Marines will act like that. It's a perception that in this part of the world is hard to overcome."

Restraint isn't free; and men will pay for both observing and ignoring it.  The Nation wrote that "what makes war crimes is criminal leadership", though I wonder whether they appreciated the irony. "That we lie here in obedience to their laws."

184 Comments:

Blogger Captain Ramen said...

Reading this infurated me so much I had to comment. I will stipulate that the marines on the scene are guilty of all the allegations levelled against them. Of course I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened. This is just for the purposes of my discussion.

In a way, it is Bush's fault. Not because he sent our troops over there. But because he and all the arm chair generals are hamstringing our men when it comes to prosecuting the war.

Every article from the MSM I've come across stipulates that Haditha is an insurgent stronghold. Now can someone please explain why a known stronghold of the enemy is allowed to be left standing?

Just imagine you're a 17 year old kid. You're driving up and down the same damn streets everyday. You KNOW where the enemy is. You know, or strongly suspect, that small children and women are being used as spotters for the enemy. What could possibly go wrong in this scenario? (That was dripping with sarcasm in case you didn't get it.)

The generals and civllian leadership back in washington have to know this is going on. Yet they employ the same strategy of sending in kids into areas where the enemy cannot be distinguished from civillians. This was bound to happen.

Now if these boys did everything that is alledged against them, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of military law. But we must also take steps to ensure this doesn't happen again - by not putting them in this kind of situation to begin with.

It is all the more sickening when the solution is so obvious. Isn't the following strategy the same one used in Fallujah II?

Set up multiple checkpoint rings arond the city. Inform the civillian population they have a certain amount of time to get out of the city. Detain all males of military age and check them out. After the time expires, go in there full force. Use airtrikes. Use tanks. Show no mercy.

Now some of the insurgents might get away through the checkpoints, but at least they will have to leave their weapons behind.

But why won't Bush and the armchair generals employ this strategy in Iraq? Because they afraid of how the left wing press, publications such as The Nation, will portray it to the american people. 'Oh nos we are bombing innocent civillians!!!' HELLO MR PRESIDENT? THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BE ON YOUR SIDE ANYWAY.

So instead of issuing a total press blackout and crushing the insurgency with our superior fire power, we muddle along until more crap like this happens. Like the british say, penny wise and pound foolish.

6/01/2006 07:42:00 PM  
Blogger Brett L said...

So when 19 of 22 9/11 hijackers are Saudi, it's ignorant and wrong to paint all Saudis as terrorists, but when 20 US Marines (may) have killed a dozen civilians, the entire US Military is culpable?

That's BS. With another 4-6 from Abu Ghraib that brings the total number of bad actors to about 30. 30 of 200,000 American troops who have been in theater.

The Nation and John Murtha seem to forget that the Marines have been paying for collateral damage in cash since the first dustup with Sadr, and again in Falluja. And until the above mentioned yahoos have some solution that will work outside of their irony-free fantasy universe, maybe they should sit in the corner while the adults work. Maybe they could stop denouncing the US Marines for 30 seconds to mention the Iranian Army's treatment of Iranian protesters. Nah. That doesn't hurt their true enemy.

Seriously, did the KGB win the Cold War while I wasn't looking? They seem to own the US schools and media. It's bad enough that these institutions destroy their own credibility and integrity, but they just have to despoil everyone else's on the way down.

6/01/2006 07:45:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Here's Tim McGirk, the guy that started the Haditha Story:
Thanksgiving with the Taliban

The Le Monde correspondent asks what it would take to reach peace in Afghanistan. "We had peace," Haqqani insists. "The Taliban was on the verge of defeating these bandits, until America helped them out. Now there are robberies and killings everywhere.
The Taliban will have to start all over again." Our missing colleagues finally arrive, and I leave thinking that maybe this evening wasn't very different from the original Thanksgiving: people from two warring cultures sharing a meal together and realizing, briefly, that we're not so different after all.

6/01/2006 07:53:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Every article from the MSM I've come across stipulates that Haditha is an insurgent stronghold. Now can someone please explain why a known stronghold of the enemy is allowed to be left standing?"
---
It's a long, compassionate war?
(like improving education by having Ted Kennedy OK the Bill)
---
Excellent comment, thank you!

6/01/2006 07:57:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Old men sitting in Washington,DC make young men pay for their mistakes with their lives.
It is they who should be hanged by the neck until dead.
We have lost the ability to fight a savage war, and they are all savage wars.
That's why we keep losing."

---
Amen, Habu, thank you too.

6/01/2006 08:00:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Original Article
Time's Timmy McGirk, the guy that started the snowball.
---
Here's Tim McGirk, Having Thanksgiving with the Taliban, who are
JUST LIKE US!

Thanksgiving with the Taliban

The Le Monde correspondent asks what it would take to reach peace in Afghanistan. "We had peace," Haqqani insists. "The Taliban was on the verge of defeating these bandits, until America helped them out. Now there are robberies and killings everywhere.
The Taliban will have to start all over again." Our missing colleagues finally arrive, and I leave thinking that maybe this evening wasn't very different from the original Thanksgiving: people from two warring cultures sharing a meal together and realizing, briefly, that we're not so different after all.

6/01/2006 08:17:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began."
---
And what did they say about the THOUSANDS of innocents killed by IED wielding Throat-Cutters?

6/01/2006 08:21:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Right below smashe's comment linked by Canoneer:
"It's imperative that commanders on the ground with the troops and the higher level commanders in the area drill it into the heads of their troops that the civilians in general are not combatants. Yeah, it means we may take a few more casualties, but that's the way we fight. "
---
Yup, that's the way we "fight" don't win, and sacrifice young lives:
HOW MANY INNOCENTS HAVE DIED IN THIS LONG WAR,
made longer by our Feminized Ways of War?

6/01/2006 08:26:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Canoneer's 8:27 PM shows how scapegoats are made, and our Man Tim McGirk comes up again.
Maybe he's JUST NOT LIKE US?

6/01/2006 08:35:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Canoneer:
Captain Ramen addresses this imo:
Real leaders do not let the enemy, foreign or domestic, call the shots.

6/01/2006 08:45:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Captain,
Like it or not, winning this war is more about PR than it is about the actual military actions. And incidents such as this do far more to damage the cause than rebuilding a thousand schools and saving 2oo hundred Iraqi children by flying them to the U.S. for heart surgery does to help the cause. And the fact is that that is the environment our military has to be able to operate in.

6/01/2006 08:48:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"If some believe the Marine volunteers deserve all the blame for events, fine.
Ignore the Lefties wanting defeat and those still covering for Maximum Beloved War Leader Bush and clueless Rumsfeld's horribly botched postwar.
---
And volunteer patsies may wish to cease being volunteer shit catchers as long as the true fuck-ups face no repercussions.
"
---
Well said, C4.

6/01/2006 08:49:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Bobalharb,
You're thinking of the made-up "massacre" at Jenin.

6/01/2006 08:51:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

ex-helo:
I think we lose the PR war by being weak:
Iraqis don't trust us anymore to do what needs to be done.
At home, never winning means we lose the "PR War."

6/01/2006 08:54:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Doug,
Appearing to be "weak" is one facet of it. But unfortunately, the administration, and the military as the instrument of the administration's policy, has to operate in an environment where significant portions of the opposition party, the mainstream media, and our overseas "allies" actually hope that we are defeated. So yes, we have to go through the silly games with the U.N. And we have to play nice with the Saudis and Mubarak. And we can't just invade Syria. Because ultimately we would lose more than we would gain. And this is going to be a long struggle.

6/01/2006 09:11:00 PM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Does anyone remember the Wedding party that was bombed at the Syrian border? Does anyone remember the 'innocent' casualties laying all over the place after the military investigated? And does anyone remember how closely the M$M worked with the jihadis to get the word about the atrocity out to the public? Does this look familiar?

6/01/2006 09:20:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Why would you even expect the Iraqis to "trust" US, doug.
What leads you to even suspect it?

These folk have memories, of 1991, of the Shah of Iran and President Diem. Going back generations the US has been a fair weather friend, baling when the going got rough.
Assassinating and abandoning "Allies" is our stock and trade. We even do it to our men in uniform.

Where are the Ivy League volunteers, anyway? The elites have sure come a long way since WWII.
Both the Kennedy's and the Bush's served then, none do today. Datch a clue.
The facts never matter in propaganda, just the story line.

Hasitha is just the beginning, the April 26th incident has an entire squad about to be charged with multiple offenses, including murder.

By the way, lance corporal's are E3's, not yet NCO's, even in the Marines. To be a NCO takes a promotion to Corporal, E4. Two or three years in service, normally, before reaching Corporal.
The Army does not even recognize E4's as NCO's any more, need to make E5 for that.

6/01/2006 09:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

9:19 PM - I forgot:
Bush is always blameless.
To some.
"Society has evolved. Real leaders can't change that. "
---
It wasn't an evolved society that caused the Fallujah I abortion.
Nor was it the Marine Command.

6/01/2006 09:29:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

"... The narrative of this story has pretty much set in already: It's another My Lai, we all know they did it, the brass covered it up, and prison sentences for homicide are merely a formality.

Haditha is indeed the new Abu Ghraib. What this most importantly means is that any U.S. military action overseas now, no matter its level of justification, can be taken down by the significance assigned to events by the modern machinery of publicity. This explains why the U.S. commanders in Iraq announced yesterday that all soldiers in the next 30 days would take what the headlines are calling "ethics training." ..."


Hate to say it, but told ya so...

"... after all they've been through, will deeply resent the clear inference they lack "core values." Is that different than standard "Corps values"? ..."

The Corps values a culture of violence that must be controlled, just wait and watch it happen.

"... Stories of apparently malfeasant U.S. troop behavior are arriving daily now. A military truck whose brakes failed from overheating crashed and killed Afghan civilians. Press reports are now fly-specking whether the troops shot over or at the rock-throwing mob of more than 300 that surrounded them. Every one of these troops surely knows the story of Mogadishu. Been there, never again. But there will be investigations of their behavior.

Finally came the even more lurid pregnant-woman shooting. As transmitted around the world by the BBC: "A pregnant Iraqi woman in labor and her cousin were shot dead by U.S. forces as they rushed to a hospital along a closed road, police and relatives say." The BBC's next four sentences neatly sum up the common story line now in play around U.S. troops: The soldiers said the car failed to heed a stop warning in a prohibited area; the driver said he heard no warning; U.S. troops will be "trained in moral and ethical conduct" and this "comes in the wake" of the Haditha allegations. ...

... The greatest danger at this moment is that the American public will decide it wants to pull back because it has concluded that when the U.S. goes in, it always gets hung out to dry.

Two major military reports will come out soon on the Haditha incident, and no one will gainsay justice if that is required. But the atmosphere around this event is going to get uncontrollably manic, and that will feed the dark, inward-turning sentiments already poisoning the country's mood over issues like the immigration debate. ..."


Haditha: Iraq Syndrome Has Finally Arrived By Daniel Henninger

Is it the Competency of the Bush Administration or the Vision that has failed?
I vote for failure in both, but that's just one old white trash redneck's opinion.

6/01/2006 09:41:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
Which E-3 was it that spared Mookies life?
I forget if he was Army or Marine.

6/01/2006 09:42:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Won't cause no problems, tho 'Rat:
All our problems will be forever assigned to Rhawanda.

6/01/2006 09:45:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Bush, where the Buck never stops.

6/01/2006 09:49:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Guilty as charged.
I am now yet another war criminal.

6/01/2006 09:55:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

We roll on into Iran, when now?

Catch a breath of reality.
The US cannot even secure a town of 90,000 inhabitants, in Iraq.

Let alone Baghdad.

Ramadi, as that Deputy Chief of Operations at the JCS said, it is beyond US to find a solution. No capacity, all the wrong skill sets.
We are sending Infantry where B52's are needed.

Time to bring US troops home from Iraq, send in the Air Force to handle any suspected security threat, to US.

6/01/2006 09:58:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Now, doug, it is all your fault.
Not even Dan Rather can carry the load, alone.

I have heard of two Congressmen prejudging the Haditha event, both Marines, both retired O-6's. One Republican, one Democrat. Only the Democrat fades heat, here.

Perspective, ain't it Grand.

6/01/2006 10:02:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

Bush briefed on probe of Iraq killings:

"This is just a reminder - for troops in Iraq or throughout our military - that there are high standards expected of them and that there are strong rules of engagement," said Bush, who said he has spoken to Pace about the matter several times.

In a separate investigation, military prosecutors plan to file murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against seven Marines and a Navy corpsman in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in April, a defense lawyer said Thursday.

Bush Briefed

6/01/2006 10:08:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

RoE's for Ramadi, while only instructions from a Captain, well he should know.

"... [Captain Max] Barela said later. "I tell my Marines and the jundi [Iraqi army soldiers]—treat everyone with respect. On raids, knock—don't smash the door down. Don't throw suspects to the ground. If making an arrest, ask the man to tell his family he's going away for a few days. Put the cuffs on outside. When we get fire on a crowded street, I tell my Marines not to shoot back. We'll get the shooter another day.

6/01/2006 10:12:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

We got our LaCross team at home,
and our Marines in Iraq.
Days of Terror for young males, to be sure:
Reminds me of all those Blacks hanging around Oklahoma at the begining of the 20th century.

6/01/2006 10:14:00 PM  
Blogger ledger said...

It's ugly mid-term politics at it's worst.

Unfortunately, sewer level politics are not new (take a look a John F. Kerry). Now Murtha is taking a page from Kerry's "Winter Soldier" play book

It's not secret that we are heading into mid-term elections with Murtha leading the charge. Suddenly, a story from mid-November 2005 is resurrected and packaged as a new " My Lai
Massacre." There is plenty of time to massage the facts, get sound bites out via the MSM and to recite unproven accusations in the court of public opinion.

It plays well for Murtha and the Dems - but smears our troops and empowers the enemy. In a time of war this should not be condoned.

Further, I an not buying it. The chances of a stale story popping back to life just before elections is too remote. It's just a case of muck raking partisan politics with a sensational twist of "murdering rampage" thrown in.

As the old saying goes: "Fool me once - Shame on you. Fool me twice - shame on me." Kerry was the first to successfully pull this trick. Now, Murtha is trying it again.

I say let the investigation go through and ignore Murtha and his "My Lai massacre" propagandists.

6/01/2006 11:56:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

IIWK: From now on, the next wag who insists on our restraint will be the next volunteer to stand in front of our guys while the terrorists shoot from behind children. Corporate media wiil then run: "Asymmetric warfare just became more balanced -- Film at eleven."

6/02/2006 12:05:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Iraqi Accuses U.S. of 'Daily' Attacks Against Civilians
The prime minister of Iraq
said that U.S. troops crush civilians
"with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion."
Go to Complete Coverage »

6/02/2006 12:14:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Here's an idea that might work:
Ash said...
ICC would be an example of one the US should sign on to. I think that style is the best way forward.

6/02/2006 12:15:00 AM  
Blogger Pascal said...

After you stop chuckling, my follow-up question is seriously in need of an answer.

Where are our videos proving this:

When he aimed his weapon to return fire, he saw that the gunmen had a line of children standing in front of them and two men filming with video cameras.

Sure we know why any video proof which might exist isn't shown on corporate TV, but why not on the web? There it demonstrates the villainy of the enemy and embarrasses the lamestream media even more.

See? With a little bit of planning and execution, asymmetric warfare can achieve a bit more balance (although the just-desserts I suggested above would be much more effective, let alone satisfying).

6/02/2006 12:31:00 AM  
Blogger Captain Ramen said...

Treating this like a PR war is exactly why we're going to lose in the long run. I think most of us can agree that the far left is an enemy of the United States. Why should we let the enemy choose the battlefield? If you want to win YOU must choose the battlefield. If we try to win this war solely in the press we will lose.

The current administration's propoganda machine sucks. This is 4th generation warfare. We are clearly winning the military component. Probably the political component as well. But what about the media component? Yes, it is PR, and i realize this seems to go against what i just said. Who says we have to let them set the conditions of a PR victory (as in no civilian casualties)?

I think the problem is the administration trys to be 'above it all.' As in they don't come out and respond to disgusting rhetoric as espoused by The Nation, et al.

Now we all know the hissy fit throwers of the left are really not that mature (in fact I believe their entire worldview stems from a child-like understanding of how the world works). I think what the administration needs to do here is personally respnd to these attacks in a way that gets under their skin. No, I don't mean rely on the opinion makers (attack dogs) in the right-wing press. They need Tony Snow out there saying something along the lines of 'How about a nice cup of shut the hell up?' THAT would get everyone's attention. And it would most certainly boost the morale of our troops.

6/02/2006 12:54:00 AM  
Blogger Deuce ☂ said...

Rule 303

Major Thomas: "Tell me, Mr. Robertson what was Lt Hancock's reason for putting Boer prisoners on open cattle cars on the trains."
Capt. Robertson: "Well the Boers had been mining the lines and blowing up a lot of trains. He thought it might stop them."
Major Thomas: "Well did it?"
[Robertson looks at the prosecutor]
Major Thomas: "Did it?"
Capt. Robertson: "Yes, but I don't think..."
[he's interrupted]
Harry Morant: "We shot them under Rule 303."

Rule 303 of course is the reliable 303 British Enfield rifle. You need to take another look at the 1980 film, "Breaker Morant". It is about three Australian soldiers put in an impossible situation during the Boer war and tried for crimes of war.

The irony in all of this is the attempt to make a distinction of innocents and combatants in guerilla warfare. These are subtleties lost on young men exposed to being killed maimed and disabled daily by IED's. I second the notion aptly expressed that the guilty are the politicians that put these men in this senseless and pointless carnage. There are no innocents in a guerilla war. There are willing and unwilling participants. We are told there is no such thing as an innocent or guilty AIDS victim. We accept that.

I do not endorse what these men did. I like to think that had I been there, I would have stopped it. All of us would, but this is the beginning of the end of the US war in Iraq. It is not about acquiescent civilians, silent about bombs, planted to kill and maim US soldiers. It is not about what is right and wrong when young men are trained and sent to foreign lands to kill and destroy. They were practicing their trade in a war not of their making. They were also innocent and being killed and destroyed. The architects of this war will soon be the ones on trial and the majority of us will judge the wisdom of this venture.

Or back to Breaker Morant.

Major Thomas: “The barbarities of war are seldom committed by abnormal men. The tragedy of war is that these horrors are committed by normal men in abnormal situations.”

Was all this necessary?

6/02/2006 12:59:00 AM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Some of those allegedly killed in Haditha were babies. In any war babies don't fall under rule 303, though of course babies roasted just fine in Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagsaki back in the Good War, a conventional war where people wore uniforms. And so if anyone is found guilty of killing babies and children they are going up for a stretch, maybe even to a gurney.

But that's not the point. Nobody gets excited about crime. This is something far more exciting. It's a War Crime, which is really murder souped up with politics. So any perps won't be just plain perps, like the guy who rolled hand grenades into tents in Kuwait; or the guy who throws babies out of a window in Cabrini Green in an argument with his girlfriend. Those are ordinary, unexciting criminals. We're talking about Nazis.

The man who tosses a baby out of Cabrini Green may not have been shot at; bombed and told not to fire back. He may have thrown the baby out the window simply because he felt like it and perversely the sheer mindlessness of his act makes him less guilty than a War Criminal, who unlike Moussaui, is not entitled to argue that he had a bad childhood.

But if any Marines are found guilty in Haditha it will be of this special crime; though to some extent everyone's hand will be in it. Not just GWB or Donald Rumsfeld. But the "keep me safe but don't tell me how" crowd; and whole frigging media circus too. The entire system that asks them to take fire with a smile. Of course, that's no excuse and the guilty are going to walk the long walk. But it's possible, though few will believe it, to yet send them to what is surely the finish of their lives without jeers from those who in their own way, they unsuccessfully tried to protect. The guilty may deserve punishment; but not contempt. Society may have a right to punish them but to feel contempt they have no claim.

6/02/2006 02:38:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Wretchard,
I don't consider the grenade roller just a plain perp, since he was a muslim, and didn't he make comments to the effect that he didn't want to kill his muslim brothers, or some such?

As well as the standard
"I been a victimized Muzzie, just ask my mom" boilerplate, of course.

If that is true, shouldn't it go in the category of 1 more Islamic Terrorist act against America?

6/02/2006 03:00:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

But now, Habu, even officers at other locations will have to pay the price for this War Crime.
GWB, however will not be held responsible for the multiple murder victims in this country that were a direct result of his REFUSAL to enforce the law, and secure the border.
The victims of those happy new arrivals were once living breathing humans too, sometimes even BABIES got murdered by our friendly immigrants.
Fancy that.

6/02/2006 03:54:00 AM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Orwell's duckspeak now has an added meaning if you think about it. In addition to the meaninglessness of what Orwell's characters were spouting, we now clearly have politicians who send our guys into an impossible situation, but word things so that they 'duck' responsibility.

Today we are at war with the (inevitable) Eurasia. Tomorrow we'll be at war with Eastasia, and we'll always have been at war with Eastasia.

But before we get there -- lest we get there -- let me repeat: Emplace these rule makers out in front to show us how to implement their ROE.

6/02/2006 03:58:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

And as Mr. Gonzales, immigration head pointed out just yesterday, they put a Gorelick Wall in the new improved Kennedy/McCain/Bush bill that specifies that his agency will be unable to use info to get rid of murderous scumbags and the like.
...as Rush divined:
The 600 pages were gone over by immigration trial lawyers to make sure THEIR interests were put first.

6/02/2006 04:01:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Pascal,
Unfortunately we are all increasingly likely to be out front sooner or later thanks to the rulemakers.
If bin Laden was inspired by Somalia, think how many muzzies are being inspired by this 4 year long display of weakness and dhimmitude.

6/02/2006 04:04:00 AM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Doug,
Maybe it's just me, but I'm inclined to let the rule makers take the hit first. As I've been at pains to point out, the death culture is not entirely muzzie. If our homegrown nuts want to foment your death, I would hope you'd say "you first!"

6/02/2006 04:12:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Good Point.
Charity begins at home.

6/02/2006 04:15:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Pretty sad that we've lost so much common sense that we can't honestly admit simple truths like the fact that we WOULD NOT BE HERE speaking English if the leaders and lawyers of WWII had been half as feckless, pc, and pure as are those in power today.

6/02/2006 04:19:00 AM  
Blogger Deuce ☂ said...

Insensibility
-Wilfred Owen
1

Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers,
But they are troops who fade, not flowers,
For poets' tearful fooling:
Men, gaps for filling:
Losses, who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.

2

And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance's strange arithmetic
Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on armies' decimation.

3

Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small-drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.

4

Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
And many sighs are drained.
Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.

5

We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Drying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old men's placidity from his.

6

But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever moans in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears.

6/02/2006 04:45:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Rampage at Haditha: Aberrant or Endemic? "Commentary: The Haditha massacre, however isolated, is destined to become a watchword for the perils of long-term occupation. "Mother Jones" is in the pack.

While many here advise ignoring these Haditha charges 'til the Courts rule, by then it will be to late to change the outcome. Not the outcome that will effect the individuals but the devastating effects this entire Iraqi Campaign will have on the US Military.

doug was asked how voicing disgust with the Leadership will help the men on the ground... It'll get 'em home, sooner.

The Iraqi War has been won, or lost, already. Mr Maliki is proof, of both. The Sunni Insurgents are Mr Maliki's Government's responsibility, as the JCS spokesman said, it is beyond our capacity to find a solution.

Do not hurt anyones feelings, take fire and do not respond or someone could get hurt. That describes many things, but is not war.
Not one that my family, clan, tribe or country should be involved in.

If the US cannot run with the big dogs, we best stay on the porch.

6/02/2006 05:46:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

It was one thing not to chase the insurgents into their Sanctuaries in Syria and Iran. It's even alright to let aQ and the Taliban regroup, rearm and establish bases in Warizistan.

To take the Enemy on in any of those locales, that would "expand" the War. Which the Bush Team does not want to do, obviously.

But to give the Enemy a pass in Ramadi, Haditha and Baghdad is an indication that the Brass have concluded we are done with this Campaign, it's all over but the leavin'. 'Cause, obviosly, the real fighting is over, by US choice.

Iraq for the Iraqi, let US give it to 'em, as promised.
They'll do just fine, or not.

6/02/2006 06:17:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

papa bear
Why?
Haditha is not anywhere near Kurdistan.
Why create more bloodshed amongst the inhabitiants, more cause for revenge?
Why stoke a Civil War that we will not participate in?
How does that create "unity"?
Whom are the Hadithians attacking, other than US, but only when we enter their town?
What other town are they invading or are about to?

If oppressing those Iraqis is wrong, having others do it for US will not make it right.

Remember that the Iraqis, at the Cairo Conference, voted that resistance to Occupation is legitimate. They are the powers that decide what happens in Iraq, now.

If the Kurds are to go in, let Mr Maliki send 'em.
All the more compelling arguement to leave, so the "job" CAN get done.

6/02/2006 06:29:00 AM  
Blogger Karridine said...

Tough situation.

As one privy to Secret Intel that I could NOT leak to anybody outside of authorized channels; and as a doctor coming across potentially deadly information; and as a normal human today, charged only with expressing basic human decency while carrying forward an ever-advancing civilization, I commisserate with them. I DON'T claim to 'know what they're going through', but I CAN make some educated guesses.

Tough situation.
(Hey, Mr Bush! Let us WIN this war!)

6/02/2006 06:42:00 AM  
Blogger What is "Occupation" said...

America is Guilty...

It must withdrawl at once...

Stop the illegal occupation of holy arab/islmaic soil



Then the HOLY/INSANE arabs can murder one another just like good ole saddam did...

Is this not what the anti-war people really want? massive arab death!

6/02/2006 06:44:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

"...Brigadier-General Carter Ham, deputy director of operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...

...spoke as US forces were struggling to regain control over the western city of Ramadi, the scene of repeated clashes between US troops and insurgents.
Calling it “the most contentious city in Iraq”, Ham said US Army soldiers and Marines were in frequent contact with insurgents there.
He said it was unclear who the insurgents were but they were believed to be a combination of Al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq trying to establish a safe haven and other Sunnite rebel groups.
“There isn’t a large-scale offensive either way, but there is this wrestling for control of space inside the city as well as protection for the people who live there”. ...

...“It isn’t a situation that we can resolve; the Iraqis have got to,” he said. ...

6/02/2006 06:48:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

No, wi"o"

The antiWar folk do not care about the Arabs, at all.

They do not care how many die, they just care when it is US who kills 'em.

Darfur proves the case.

6/02/2006 06:52:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Remember Mr Yon's telling of the "Bionic Runner".
When that man dropped the IED detonator, he was no longer a viable target and could not be shot. LtCol Kurilla's men had to chase him down and capture him, like Starsky and Hutch.

These RoE's have been the reality on the ground for years, now.

Those folk in Haditha, even if they knew the bomb would go off, were not justifiable targets.
Do not try to make them so, after the fact.

Learn to love the new "core values", cause the "Corps values" will be changing, accordingly.

6/02/2006 07:18:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

dannyers
Being "right" is not really pleasing, either.

I would have rather been wrong.

6/02/2006 07:27:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

dan
Right idea, wrong Administration.

It's a long war, 'cause the Bush Team chooses it to be.
That's the Plan.

Stay the Course.

6/02/2006 07:34:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

General Casey spoke of "securing" Baghdad and nine other Iraqi cities, the Operations were to begin after the Iraqi Government was seated.

Well the Government's in place, the only offenses that are heard of, well, they are criminal.

6/02/2006 07:39:00 AM  
Blogger Brett L said...

rat:

No qualms with any of your statements, but do we leave the Marines and the Military in general to be hung out to dry by people with an inferior sense of duty and honor? Do we fault the ones who serve on principle and by principles for serving under unprincipled leadership?

I guess that is the part that gives me heartburn. Despite the asinine way this war- sorry, military action- is being run and insidious way it is being covered, principled men and women are doing good deeds daily. I dislike seeing them tarred and feathered by people who would pimp their mothers for personal gain.

6/02/2006 07:57:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I dislike it as well, but that is the reality of the "Long War".

There are no cities razed, not even neighborhoods or blocks of buildings. Not even, as is the Israel example, the homes of the Terrorists.

We had to go to Fallujah twice, after failing in the first effort.
The cause of that initial failure is really unimportant, all that matters was the failure to secure the city once we had begun.

Now Marines and the ISF are ordered, in Ramadi, to take fire and not return it, for fear of collateral damage, by small arms fire.

Where once I encouraged young men, including my son, to enlist and serve, I no longer do. I now discourage any who ask me about it.

I'd rather see a thousand or more Iraqi dead than one wounded Marine or Soldier. The Marine and Army Commanders obviously disagree with me.

Little I can do about that.
But I will not support their inane policies, doctrines and tactics with the lives of America's youth.

6/02/2006 08:10:00 AM  
Blogger Brett L said...

rat:

Thanks for the reply.

6/02/2006 08:12:00 AM  
Blogger Deuce ☂ said...

Some theorists, some tacticians developed a strategy to expose US troops on daily patrol to IED attacks. They did not plan to have them attacked but when the casualty rates from IED exceeded 50%, one would have thought a change in strategy would have been desirable. Troopers would not see the IED but would often notice the absence of normal activity and take warning. It became obvious to them that local residents knew about the IED and for their own reasons avoided the area and did not notify the Americans. They view Americans as the enemy and these young men knew they knew. I seem to recall we just tried an Islamic fool and sentenced him to life imprisonment because he had knowledge of details that could have prevented 911. The laws of the US and all federal justice demanded he spend the remainder of his life in prison for knowingly not warning the US of 911. Guilty of not telling meant he was not an innocent. These troopers decided an equivalent response of holding those "silent participants" responsible for the death of their fellows. They were following the admonition of the Commander in Chief, sans flight suit, "You are with us or against us."

Now we have the press and political and military leaders of the US lining up to demand justice over Haditha. Perhaps we should remind them of another legal concept "contributory negligence". I wonder if we will hear some more thoughtful words from GWB?

6/02/2006 08:13:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Desert Rat,

Over the last year or two I must have perused a thousand of your posts.

While I respected your opinions in most cases, I always thought you were far too pessimistic.

But this Haditha matter puts me in mind of exactly what happened in the press coverage, and the nation's will to fight, after My Lai. (Not that Haditha is necessarily anything like My Lai; it's just that the press and the elites are determined to draw the parallel.)

I now agree with you that we have lost. You have been correct and I have been wrong.

I reallly should have seen this clearly just from paying attention to the news coverage of the war in its first weeks, leading up to the fall of Saddam's statue in Firdos (?) Square. Remember the initial opposition to the war? Then the "quagmire" when the troops had to pause during a prolonged sandstorm on the way to Baghdad? Then everything was rosy with our bold advance into the city, and we had won, and very few worried (for a few hours) about civilian casualties.

And then came the looting. That was the beginning of the prolonged end.

I was just too optimistic to see it.

I have concluded that we cannot help Muslims, and that collectively the Arab peoples are beyond hope. (Notice that I say collectively; I have been treated in a very kindly way by individual Arabs.)

I just don't know what we're going to do now.

Jamie Irons

6/02/2006 08:21:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Dan (7:53):

Man, do I ever agree with that.

But it is never going to happen, not because of our fine military, not even because of Bush and all his weaknesses, but because of us, the American people collectively, and what we have let ourselves become.

I think over and over of Jack Nicholson's wonderful speech, as Marine Colonel Nathan R. Jessep, in the last few minutes of A Few Good Men.

Jamie Irons

6/02/2006 08:28:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

Desert Rat wrote:

“Time to bring US troops home from Iraq, send in the Air Force to handle any suspected security threat, to US.”

How do you reconcile this with what you also wrote in this thread:

“Going back generations the US has been a fair weather friend, baling when the going got rough. Assassinating and abandoning "Allies" is our stock and trade.”

You may remember that I’ve referred to our situation in Iraq as similar to sticking our finger into a Chinese finger trap. These two conflicting thoughts of yours illustrate this problem. We want to leave Iraq victorious but our only way out of Iraq is to admit defeat.

Witness the screeching about RoE and how we should be leveling the place, doing a Fallujah, take out the women and children, adopt 7th century tactics and the subsequent wailing as to why the leadership doesn’t do this; doesn’t do what seems so simple- take out the enemy with our superior firepower showing no mercy. The reason why we don’t is the military command have come to the realization that they don’t have a clear enemy to fight. They’ve finally got past the 5,000 dead ender and Al Q Bull and now realize the complexity of the beast. This is stated clearly in the DOD report Measuring Stabiity and Security in Iraq just released:

"The Enemy
Anti-government and anti-Coalition violence in Iraq derives from many separate elements, including Iraqi Rejectionists, former regime loyalists (including Saddamists), and terrorists, such as Al-Qaida in Iraq. Other violence comes from criminal activity and sectarian and inter-tribal violence. Each of these groups has divergent and often incompatible goals; however, some groups collaborate at the tactical and operational level. Enemy elements may engage in violence against one another as well as against the Coalition. Sectarian and inter-tribal violence may not target Coalition forces at all. Therefore, to categorize the violence in Iraq as a single insurgency or a unified “opposition” is both inaccurate and misleading."

Our troops have been placed in an untenable situation. They are fine warriors untrained and unsuited for police work. Waging hot war will not solve the problem. Marines as police won’t solve the problem. Bringing US troops home is the only option.

6/02/2006 08:48:00 AM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

6/02/2006 09:01:00 AM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Cox and Forkum

6/02/2006 09:04:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The initial objective was, according to the Authorization that sent US, to:

Enforce UN Resolutions
Remove Saddam
Encourage the emergence of a democratic government.

Which has not been accomplished?
All else is mission creep.

6/02/2006 09:13:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

In the context of our present discussion, I offer the following, which comes to me as part of the email I get daily from Strategy Page, a source I have found to be generally reliable (not that I have any insider knowledge to confirm its reliability!).

I wonder what others think of this:

[begin quote]

June 2, 2006: American troops are going to Anbar province in support of an Iraqi operation that is going to try and seal Baghdad off from the Anbar towns that still harbor terrorists (who send suicide bombers into Iraq.) At the same time, police have arrested several senior al Qaeda leaders in the last week, including Hamza Khair al-Aini and Samir al-Batawi. Interrogations of these two have already led to raids on more terrorist locations.

While attacks in Iraq are at their highest levels, American casualties continue to fall. Total American casualties per month are down a third versus last year, even though attacks are up about ten percent over 2005 (to about 85 a day). Americans have improved their weapons, tactics and equipment much more rapidly, and effectively, than has the enemy. People are shooting at U.S. troops more often, but to less effect. Moreover, the quality of enemy fighters has declined, as the more capable men, often former security men with long experience working for Saddam, have either been killed, or, more commonly, fled the country. The big change in the past year has been the massive movement of American and Iraqi forces into largely Sunni Arab areas of central Iraq. Many of these towns have not been under any government control since Saddam was overthrown in 2003. Now the government is there, in force, and the former Saddam gunmen don't like it. There has been a lot more shooting, but the Sunni Arabs continue to lose. This is especially painful because many of the troops are Kurds or Shia Arabs, people Sunni Arabs, from this part of Iraq, have long despised. It gets pretty ugly at times, and many Sunni Arabs have come to see American troops as their protectors, as the U.S. soldiers and marines are more disciplined and less trigger happy than their Iraqi counterparts.

When an Iraqi says, "I am an Iraqi," it has a different meaning from an American saying, "I am an American." Kurds and Shia Arabs, like the Sunni Arabs, also have divided loyalties. Family, tribe and religion come first, before national loyalty, in Iraq. This is a problem throughout the developing world, and a major reason why democracy is so difficult to establish. These divided loyalties shift gradually. The U.S. became a powerful democracy partly because its citizens were all immigrants, who had cut competing ties. Thus saying, "I am an American" is a pledge of loyalty to all other Americans that is easier for a new immigrant, looking for support in a new land, to make. An Iraqi saying, "I am Iraqi" is much more likely to have a lot of other competing loyalties. Ask an Iraqi what tribe or clan he belongs to, and he will tell you, often with a tone of pride. Ask an American the same question, and most often you will bet a blank stare.

Iraqis know that they have to develop a national loyalty to go with their national identity, because without it, Iraq will always be torn by disorder and feuds. Many Iraqis also know that such an identity is not alien to the region. Iranians and Turks have had such a national identity for centuries. So also do people like the Egyptians. Tribalism and sectarianism are not eternal curses. The people in question have to decide which loyalty, in the end, is more important. This is a struggle that gets hardly any media attention at all, but is at the heart of the current violence in Iraq. The war won't be over until most Iraqis agree to become Iraqis.

[end quote]


Jamie Irons

6/02/2006 09:15:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

real answers Danmyers? It would take a fair bit of words but the basic outline:

US announce's withdrawal of forces by X date. If the 'unity government' of Iraq can produce a ceasefire agreement the US will work with a multi-national peacekeeping force (hopefully with regional partners) to monitor the cease fire. If the Iraqis succeed at this the US will help fund reconstruction. If they cannot find peace then the US will be out of the equation and hence not a part of the problem. We will have to deal with what emerges but it won't have much stength.

6/02/2006 09:20:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

ash,
The crux of my thinking is that if the folk in Hadithia, or Ramadi are a threat to the US, destroy 'em. If they are not, leave 'em alone.

Not to hard to figure out. The US has no place trying to micromanage Iraqi internal politics or affairs.

If there is an international threat, destroy it, with what ever collateral damage that entails.
If there is not threat, it's time to leave.

6/02/2006 09:22:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

bigger diggler said...

"Anti-government and anti-Coalition violence in Iraq derives from many separate elements..."

Elements smelements. Whoever wrote that is a hopeless idiot. "

That is directly from the Department of Defense's report to congress.

6/02/2006 09:23:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

jamie,
That is Iraq's Civil War your quote is discussing. Not the US war against Saddam's Iraq or even the older War on Terror.

This little snippet is the "money quote
"...have either been killed, or, more commonly, fled the country.

Fled to where?
Jordon, Paistine and Europe are the most common destinations. The Iraqi "fly paper" has lost it's adhesive, now the contagion is spreading ever further with added strength, better trained than ever. The inexperienced recruits that survive combat in Iraq will soon be following after their mentors to a wider war.

Since the Marines often don't shoot back, many will be surviving, aye.

6/02/2006 09:37:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6/02/2006 09:55:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Both biggler diggler and ash are right, the DoD says it, and they are idiots.
Crux of the challenge, really.

6/02/2006 09:55:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

LOL!

6/02/2006 10:07:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"The U.S. became a powerful democracy partly because its citizens were all immigrants, who had cut competing ties. Thus saying, "I am an American" is a pledge of loyalty to all other Americans that is easier for a new immigrant, looking for support in a new land, to make.
Tribalism and sectarianism are not eternal curses, but eternal welfare-funded Victimology and NEA Anti-American Propaganda more than make up the deficit.
"
---
Stupid Americans!
OutFoxed again:
Let em vote in both countries, send money to the motherland, listen to ahistorical revolutionary rhetoric, Mexican Flag-Draped Victimology, etc etc.

6/02/2006 10:30:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"A military jury sentenced an Army dog handler to 90 days hard labor and a reduction in rank Friday for allowing his Belgian shepherd to bark within inches of an Iraqi detainee's face at Abu Ghraib prison.

Army Sgt. Santos A. Cardona was the 11th soldier convicted of crimes stemming from the abuse of inmates at the prison in late 2003 and early 2004.
"
---
Send the War Criminal back to Mexico!
Make room for some helpless Welfare Consumers, or much-needed Drug Runners and Child-Molesters!

6/02/2006 10:32:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

"...FORT MEADE, Md. -- A military jury sentenced an Army dog handler to 90 days hard labor and a reduction in rank Friday for allowing his Belgian shepherd to bark within inches of an Iraqi detainee's face at Abu Ghraib prison.

Army Sgt. Santos A. Cardona was the 11th soldier convicted of crimes stemming from the abuse of inmates at the prison in late 2003 and early 2004.

He was found guilty of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault for allowing his dog to bark in the face of a kneeling detainee at the request of another soldier who wasn't an interrogator. ...

... Cardona's rank was reduced to specialist and the court ordered him to forfeit $600 a month in pay for 12 months.

"It wasn't an acquittal," Cardona's civilian attorney, Harvey Volzer, told his client, "but it was pretty darn good."

Prosecutor Maj. Matthew Miller had recommended 12 months confinement and a bad conduct discharge. ...

..."What we have here is a soldier who let his dog get too close to a detainee, and the dog barked," she told the jury.

Although none of the offenses was alleged to have occurred during interrogations, Cardona's defense team focused on interrogation policies, including three memos issued in a month's time by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

The memos authorized harsher interrogation techniques such as stress positions, sleep deprivation and dogs at Abu Ghraib _ but only with written authorization.

The changing policies confounded Col. Thomas M. Pappas, an intelligence officer who assumed the prison's management in late 2003. Pappas was reprimanded last year for approving a request to use dogs in an interrogation without Sanchez' approval _ something Pappas testified he believed at the time the policy allowed.

"We were all confused at one time or another," Pappas testified. ..."


By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press

6/02/2006 11:13:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Myself, trish, any USAF action is but wishful thinking, a projected fantasy. Rest assured I know it.

Obviously most here are out of step with the Standards of today's Action Army of One.

Barking dogs are offensive to the evemy, so we must keep them seperated by a lot of space.

The correct distance to be determined, later.

The Government is unable to secure the US border and defend the US from an asymetrical invasion. lThe idea that it could secure Iraq is another projected fantasy.

The President is saying the status que is a fait acompli, better get used to it.

Here and in Iraq.
Welcome to the new world disorder.

6/02/2006 11:44:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Another Murderous Scumbag from South of the Border

6/02/2006 11:56:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

According to Mr Yon's tale of LTC Kurillia's adventures, trish, contributory action is no crime worthy of being shot.
Detained and released, at most, maybe.

The "bionic runner" was safe from physical harm the moment he dropped the detonator and ran. No longer an immediate threat, he was no longer a legitimate target. He was detained and, by now released.

In Ramadi folks can shoot at Marines with out fear of return fire, if the streets are crowded.

Hope your husband makes it to retirement, safely. Ms Dozier and her film crew surely did not.

It was all her fault, the "bad" reporting from Iraq. Reporters never leave the hotel, aye.

Surely the reporting will get better now that she and her crew are "out" of Iraq.

6/02/2006 11:56:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

I think I read that more Reporters have been killed than in WWII.
But at least this is not a total War, with Enemies, and the like.

6/02/2006 12:09:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Ms Dozier should have stayed in Honolulu where she came from and claimed her rightful welfare/statehood entitlements for being a "Native Hawaiian."
Japanese, Filipino, Anglo Blood is no problem:
A native is a native.
Legally.

6/02/2006 12:11:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

She will still be able to, doug. Scarred perhaps, but alive. More than can be said for her camera and sound men.

Where are the young Ivy Leaguers, like aristide. Young, well educated men that could step up to nonMilitary Service, filling those Civilian billets in Baghdad. Putting their time and effort in Freedoms cause. Instead of enriching themselves in the private placement equities markets.

That is the true shame. The lack of service to the cause of freedom from so many of the conflicts proponents.

At least Mr Hitchens is making a symbolic step of becoming a US citizen, but he is old and intoxicated.
But how many New Yorkers, bemoaning the cuts in their "terror subsidy" would volunteer for a year or two of Government service, in Iraq.
Very, very few. That is why oh so many of those civilian billets are open, don't you know.

6/02/2006 12:26:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

None of those New Yorkers can tell you HOW those funds are making them more secure,
(except direct recipients and loved ones)
but they KNOW they are less secure, given that nobody knows what COULD happen, since they are almost uniformly are against DOMESTIC Spying on their sacred phone lines.
Not gonna SACRIFICE OUR FREEDOMS!

6/02/2006 12:30:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Mr Hitchens is such a Drunk that getting through immigrations is a great big problem, just like Steyn!
Uneducated campeseros have no trouble, but that stupid Drunk's got nothing better to do than bitch about it!

6/02/2006 12:33:00 PM  
Blogger Bonnie said...

I'm disappointed in the tone of the comments on this thread. There are more "bomb the hell out of them" than "give up and run," but both essentially give up on the idea that freedom is a virus that can be successfully transmitted.

ROEs that endanger our troops are not because our leaders are idiots. The philosophy of this occupation is to create a democracy that can take down the surrounding countries by osmosis. The "massacre" at Haditha might be as manufactured as the "massacre" at Jenin, but neither lie will do anything but give comfort to our enemies -- the left, and the Islamists. (In that order.)

We must continue this process and resist the ancient rules of war, of plunder and laying waste. We have a new paradigm and it is working. The criminals and the terrorists are losing and they are being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas.

And by the way, the pacification of Germany went on for years. The "wolves," loyal Nazis in hiding, killed citizens and Allied troops and were only slowly weeded out. Some believe there's a lot of them left. (And damn there's some fine thriller novels based on that.)

I'm not giving up on the mission or the ROEs. They are hard and in hell holes like Haditha our good people can get killed. But you have to keep your eyes on the goal. This is a long war, and we're winning it faster than I would have believed possible.

6/02/2006 12:35:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

How mant bombs have they found, searching carry on bags at the Subways, doug?
I have not heard of one.
How much infrastructure has been attacked, instead. I have heard of none.
How much did You and I have to contribute to do useless searches of backpacks, in New York, 'cause they were afraid of fear?

FDR was right about that.
There is nothing to fear, but fear itself. True against the NAZI and the Imperial Japanese, even more true against Border Bandits, as well.

6/02/2006 12:37:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Those victimized New Yorkers are ANOTHER reason these war criminals should be off the payroll, pronto:
The new millionaires in New York have become accustomed to their New Stations in life and can't miss a single pain and suffering payment.

Sacrifices must be made somewhere, might as well be the Baby Killers.

6/02/2006 12:37:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

*T*he Baby Killers

6/02/2006 12:38:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Sure wish I was young enough to volunteer.

6/02/2006 12:44:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

bonnie,
Whom is Mr al-Sadr's ascension to power going to influence, positively?
In Darfur? Syria? Palistine? or Iran?

Mr al-Sadr's ascension is an indication that the Democracy Project's wheels have fallen off.

Haditha is now a given, no matter the legal consequences for the individuals involved.
That and the April 26th event.
There will be a cascade of these incidents reported, now. The flood gates are opening as we type.

Why throw good money after bad?
No, wait, why spill more young American blood to fulfill Mr al-Sadr's mission in life?
Answer us that, if you'd be so kind.

6/02/2006 12:46:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

bonnie is part of the new paradigm and it is working.
Baby Killers are NOT!

6/02/2006 12:46:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Baby Killing disappoints some, 'Rat, as does your tone.
It's the era of the "New Tone."
You should know that BY NOW!

6/02/2006 12:49:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

My point, exactly, trish.

There will be no excusing the Marines actions. The lance corporal that took the photos and spoke to the LA Times is, I'd wager, truthful in his descriptions.
The Marines shot the shit out of those folk, invalids and babies in the arms of their mothers.

Chances are the "cover up" by "higher ups" was no such thing, just business as usual. Reports sent in, reports filed.
But that will not be enough, the questions will cascade, why, why why? Business as usual will not be an acceptable excuse. It never is.

6/02/2006 12:54:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"I'm not giving up on the mission or the ROEs."
---
Wish I had the guts to say that!
Your CS Son is not re-upping, huh, 'Rat?

6/02/2006 12:56:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Just three words -

G.F.O.

Don't make me spell it.

6/02/2006 01:01:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The bartender at a local tavern was shot twice in Iraq, why should he go back?
There was ample opportunity for my son to have been injured, why should he go back?

To help whom?
Mr al-Sadr?, Mr Talabani? Faceless "little people" who refuse to help themselves.

Are you off to Iraq soon, bonnie, is your husband or children?
I doubt it. Just based on percentages and the level of sacrifice most of US do not endure to further Mr Bush's broken Vision.

At least his dad "knew" he had a vision problem. Young George he thinks he sees clearly, his dad friends, they know better.
Folks like Mr Scrowcroft, Ms Rice's mentor.
Vision is an inherited trait, isn't it?

6/02/2006 01:05:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Life is but a stage,
New Scapegoats must be played.

6/02/2006 01:08:00 PM  
Blogger Bonnie said...

I did use paradigm. Since you can't see me, note that when I typed the words I leaned forward, raised my eyebrows and let the word come out very slooowly. Par-a-diiiigm.

Desert Rat, the wheels are falling off nothing but the walkers of the hippie baby boomer left, who abandoned the Cambodians and Vietnamese to their Communist killers.

My generation went up the stairs in the World Trade Center. My generation (the ones who made it past the knives of the abortion providers of you boomers) freed Kuwait, power the engine of free markets in America, and are now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to free enslaved peoples. If a Marine shot a baby in the arms of its mother, that's an abnormality in a generation that has a lot more in common with our WWII grandparents than with you and yours.

Don't worry, though, we've got hearts. Although I am tempted to name the boomer nursing homes "The Terry Shiavo Nursing Home and Processing Center," I'm sure we'll resist.

Though it will be tempting.

6/02/2006 01:10:00 PM  
Blogger Bonnie said...

Desert Rat, you have no more right to hag ride your child than Cindy Sheehan does. Your son, if he chooses, can come to this forum and debate the idea that only military service allows one the right to speak about battle.

This is not what our country was founded upon, though Heinlein did a great job with the concept in "Starship Troopers."

At any rate, I'll be happy to thank your son for his service. You, however, may not put your hand up your kid's back and pretend to speak as though you are him.

Well, of course you can, but not without being challenged. Severely.

6/02/2006 01:14:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

80 days, 45 days terminal leave and he's out of there.
Never to return to Government service.
I'd send him back to Panama, first,
before I'd expose him to another minute of Military incompetence.

The true believers, they can send their kids, mine are done with it.

6/02/2006 01:16:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Are you off to Iraq soon, bonnie, is your husband or children?"
I think the answer is: No.

6/02/2006 01:18:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I did six years in the Army, bonnie, Central America, Europe and Korea.
I reference Jr, cause he was there, at Fallujah for the second assualt.
He knows the deal, his reports from the front are what swayed me.

Where is your expertise from?
What reports do you reference?
I'll read them, happily.

What sacrifice have you and yours made, ever?

You answered none of my questions.

Again whom will Mr al-Sadr's ascension to power influence in the region, if that is the purpose of the Campaign?

6/02/2006 01:21:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The ROE's and "support" from civilian leadership are a more powerful engine undermining our warriors desire to continue the fight than some chat discussions, I'd wager.
But then, input from the plebes is ignored by the elite, so what do I know.
Lt Kurilla has an opinion or two about the ROEs
AND IS VOCAL ABOUT IT.
Maybe we should silence him?

6/02/2006 01:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Onward Christian Soldiers!
Stay the course.
Course corrections not welcome.

6/02/2006 01:23:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Colonel Kurilla"

6/02/2006 01:26:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The Marines andSoldiers that I have known cannoneer #4 would require more than the prattling of old beach bums before they'd lose their elan.
They see the problems, first hand. It is their reports and actions that influence us, well me at least,, not I think, the other way around.

6/02/2006 01:26:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Oh come on Bonnie. Show us how to live with the ROE. Get out there and coax the line of children out from in front of the craven coward.

It's easy from where you are now. Sacrificing the other guy for your paradigm always is.

But it's not what we are supposed to do, you know. Sacrifice innocents for our short-commings is against our Western Judeo-Christian ethic even if it's only eyewash and rarely stated.

There's a challenge for you baby: How are our innocent young men less important than that line of children? Give us an answer.

6/02/2006 01:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Caught, Released, fixed up to kill again.
(maybe bomb a few more hundred Iraqi schoolkids?)

6/02/2006 01:30:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Speaking of paradigm shift. It seems that the whole mood here has taken a dark tone and I for one have felt the ground swell in my own life.

Seems like the following are major factors:

1) Iraq
2) Afghanistan
3) Iran
4) Mexico
5) Federal budget
6) Gas prices (we've been hovering around $3.50 a gallon in Sandy Eggo.

I thought yesterday's talk of a new online-community centric form of political activism timely. The internet has helped the Jihadist’s to form there own political action parties. If Washington doesn’t pull their collective heads out, and they won’t, what kind of tyranny could possibly follow as they cling onto power at all costs.

It seems to me that GWB wants to play nice with the Libs and the Libs, and some Nationalists, would like to see GW dead. Laura must hold out on the prez when he doesn’t do things the way she’d like it.

Anyhow, I hope that the endless opprobrium in government doesn’t lead to more endless odium here. It sure seems to be heading that way.

6/02/2006 01:35:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I've sure been convinced by some here with more knowledge and experience in the Military than I have that mindless cheerleading uncorrected by new input is not appropriate.

6/02/2006 01:41:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Different perspectives, Dan:
My focus is on the Rules of War,
and the rules in Washington,
and laws that are ignored in Washington by our "Rulers."
To try to avoid needless domestic mayhem from a wmd smuggled in across the border is certainly not defeatism.
Allowing it is Gross Negligence and Derelection of duty.

6/02/2006 01:51:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Doug,
“mindless cheerleading uncorrected by new input is not appropriate”

I don’t disagree. Wretchard made a comment a while back that we have turned a corner somewhere and people are about talked out. I think there is room for optimism when we are driving to a purpose like clearing out Fallaja or hitting an important election. Lately I don’t see anything to be optimistic about. GFO baby, get f@ck out!

But it is the tone. This is a club, let's be civil.

6/02/2006 01:52:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

LTC Kurrila lost body parts, and nearly his life.
Many others made the ultimate sacrifice at the hands of killers freed by these rules.
Including innocent Iraqis.
Babies, even.
Thousands of innocents.

6/02/2006 01:53:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

One of Kurilla's perspectives was lying next to a killer his men had caught and released who almost killed him.
After they both got out of bed, they went back to their previous lines of work.
I'd rather have Kurilla go back while the other intentional killer of innocents goes back to mother earth.
---
That's my opinion.
Lectures about tones and paradigms are someone else's opinions.

6/02/2006 02:04:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

I don't want it to end, Danmyers, I want it to be fought properly. Capn Ramen at the top of these comments pointed to the Fallujah II strategy, and he is right.

What was really important about the lesson of Vietnam was that American's got tired of not winning. When Hanoi's dikes remained untouched throughout that war, it told the north vietnemese we weren't the same country that had bombed 5 North Korean Dams. Our not razing terrorists strongholds tell the current creeps the same thing.

Not doing enough is a waste and a crime. The tragic repeat of history that needs to be stopped is not our complaints here, but the no-win strategy in Washington.

6/02/2006 02:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Perfectly put, Pascal!
And thanks for bringing up Capn Ramen's excellent input.
Did you sue that Shuttle Company yet, Captain? ;-)

6/02/2006 02:17:00 PM  
Blogger Ash said...

pascal,

The problem in Iraq is that if we pursue your strategy there won't be anything left. Sort of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

6/02/2006 02:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Wisdom from the Captain.
(and Cultural Confidence from John Howard)
---
Future of the Anglosphere
Good news from fellow anglosphere member Australia! Looks like she will no longer succumb to the virus of political correctness:

“We don’t care where people come from; we don’t mind what religion they’ve got or what their particular view of the world is. But if you want to be in Australia, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs,” he said.
“We want them to understand our history and our culture, the extent to which we believe in mateship and giving another person a hand up and a fair go. And basically, if people don’t want to be Australians and they don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well basically they can clear off.“
Haha.
Mateship.
Seriously, this is a great development.

John Howard should get kudos for stating the obvious. If you don't want to become like us, get out. Just get. out. We don't want you here.

6/02/2006 02:25:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Take your grievance to an appropriate forum, Ash.
You do favor the ICC in these matters, right?

6/02/2006 02:27:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Is the Captain a Counter Hippie,
or a Hippy that works behind a counter?

6/02/2006 02:29:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

How's that again Ash? From where did you get an all or nothing idea? Are you afraid we'll break the cherry or something?

6/02/2006 02:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

If Bush had admitted he would sign a Bill giving Social Security and earned income checks to illegals, Kerry would have won in a landslide.
Gauranteed!
(If he would have promised to STOP workplace enforcement in 2004, fruit would have been smuggled in one way or the other, and the debates would have taken on a new odor, as well as a new tone.)

6/02/2006 02:32:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Which is to say, he is LYING when he pretends he is doing all he can to stem the rising tide of illegals.
THAT IS NOT OUR FAULT!
Nor do we "deserve" it.

6/02/2006 02:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The Bush is Blameless routine has run it's course, and serves only to further anger many.

6/02/2006 02:35:00 PM  
Blogger Ash said...

pascal, I'm keying on the line you put in bold:

"Our not razing terrorists strongholds tell the current creeps the same thing."

So, you suggest we raze the terrorist strongholds. A quick list off the top of my head:

Basra
Baghdad
Mosul
Ramadi
Haditha
Fallujah *done*

By the time you are done razing these places you will have alienated those left alive and what is left won't amount to much, unless you are really concerned about gettin' at the oil.

6/02/2006 02:37:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Hail to Bush!
Write your representatives to commit political suicide and commit this country to endless socialist poverty.
Stay the course!
Gaawd I love that guy!

6/02/2006 02:42:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Dan Myers, I told you why we were tired. You agreed. I don't want to ever see that again, do you? To prevent it, Washington must change its mien, and soon! When he does, the GOP will gain seats. Not that that is necessarily a good thing, but it beats the alternative until we figure out how to snatch the GOP from the statist/country-club set.

6/02/2006 02:44:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Nit at all, ash.
In Germany, Russia, Japan, Poland and the rest of Europe the infrastructure was destroyed by War. Then rebuilt, across the board.

This could have occurred in Iraq as well. First though the War most have been won.
The US entered the war in Iraq on a false note, though. No, not the WMD prattle, no the lie was that we were not at war with Iraq, but with Saddam.
Iraq, as a country or a people, was never defeated, it was "liberated". A true falsehood that has blinded US politicos and the public to the reality of the situation.
If the Iraqi had been defeated, then "reconstruction" could take place. As it is we have only exchanged one despot for a committee of despots.
As per Mr Rumsfeld comments as the situation there as being "the same as Saddam" if we left.
That is why we have "lost", the Mission Creep Goal has not been obtained, nor will it be. That is the reality, not a mental projection of desired outcomes.

al-Sadr lives, the Marines having won the Battle against the Mahdi Army, lost the War to them.

That is the perspective that matters, Liberation means just that, we have freed the Iraqi not defeated them.
Quite different things.
Does it?

6/02/2006 02:47:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"but it beats the alternative"
Leahy for Judiciary!
Conyers for Defense!
(I think, ...SOME "leadership" post, fer sher)

6/02/2006 02:50:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

See that is just it Doug. You need to get a new tone on my paradigm perpective.

6/02/2006 02:53:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

2:47 PM 'Rat,
But can't we replace OLD Realities like WAR by an act of will and action?
A new paradigm of sorts.
Bringing Evildoers to Justice instead of war.
Save babies, reporters, and GI's in the "Process."
State supporters, funders, and those providing safe harbor are also held harmless.
That's, unharmed.
The course was changed:
Stay the New New Course!

6/02/2006 02:57:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Air Horns frighten Rat Finks.

6/02/2006 02:58:00 PM  
Blogger Ash said...

DR, good points and if it was presented as such we would never have gone in in the first place because we were not faced with a threat to our existence and hence the poitical will would not, nor does it exist now, to wage total war.

6/02/2006 03:00:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

No

6/02/2006 03:01:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

bobal,
Beats the Yukon, not sure about Idaho.
AK is a lot closer for fishing, however.

6/02/2006 03:01:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

There you go again Ash. You see it as all or nothing.

Tell me Doug or others: does Ash bear other marks of the extremist?

6/02/2006 03:03:00 PM  
Blogger Ash said...

Pascal, DR cited the second world war as an example of making a countries population submit. That is an example of waging total war. The existence of nations were at stake, there were no holds barred. We dropped nukes. They submitted. Is that what we should now do in Iraq because it isn't working out so good?

6/02/2006 03:07:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

His keyboard bears the marks of endless dribble.

6/02/2006 03:09:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I would not argue that, ash.
That is why it is time to leave.
The Goals of the "Authorization for Use of Force in Iraq" have been fulfilled. The liberation complete, the elections held.
We have stood up their Army and Police, those jobs are done.
The Parliment is in place, the Prime Minister selected.

What further Mission is authorized by US law?
That is why the Dems are unworthy of high Office. They are to dumb to even present the case in any spin but "defeat", when it could easily be touted as Victory.

The omgoing violence is local, not international in scope. There are no more than 2,000 enemy foreigners estimated to be in all of Iraq. Not nearly enough reason to keep 138,000 US troops there.

6/02/2006 03:10:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6/02/2006 03:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

There outta be a law:
"Dribbling while Driveling."

6/02/2006 03:11:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Ash, No.

We aren't there yet. We may never get there. Ever. But the threat must be there, and it must be certain. And we are anything but certain. Amd why are we uncertain? Because ninconpoops entertain fools as if they weren't fools. Fools who pose questions before their time.

Enough ashes.

6/02/2006 03:14:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

3:10 PM Might be an easier sell if we could get that Prime Minister or whoever to quit calling our warriors serial war criminals, 'Rat.

6/02/2006 03:14:00 PM  
Blogger Ash said...

I agree with you DR. It is sort of surprising that we've lingered so long. I keep wanting to go back to my chinese finger trap analogy...aided and abetted by mission creep.

6/02/2006 03:15:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

ashes to ashes,
dribble to keyboard.

6/02/2006 03:15:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Try it on as a condom, Ash.

6/02/2006 03:16:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6/02/2006 03:17:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

There are 5,000 named members of MS-13, an international band of criminal mercenaries, in the ICE database. How many members are unknown to Authorities?
Hezzbollah and other groups have people in the US.
Proportionally there could well be more "foreign fighters" in the US then in Iraq.
Chew on that for awhile, it's real tasty. Especially now that Mr Mohammed was just sentence for another few victims of his drive by shootings.

doug, most of those MS-13ers have neen here for years, all new citizens to be.
I'll stick with Mr Kyl and Shadegg, but I doubt I'll vote for a Republican Presidental candidate, soon.
I'm tired of Imperial Presidents, hell it's all I've known.

Maybe Ike was more than right about the dangers of the MIC, the two seem to go hand in hand.

6/02/2006 03:27:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

A long and profitable war.
None dare say the name H..........

6/02/2006 03:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Gotta Mention JD!
Write him one more letter to let em have it.
Kick em while they're dazed!

6/02/2006 03:32:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

John Fund up next with Jed Babin.
http://www2.krla870.com/listen/

6/02/2006 03:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

My vote for lowest tone of the day:
That "Cindy" rant.

6/02/2006 03:38:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Iran...

We'd bleed at both ends, if the garrisonned troops advanced into southern Iran.

It has been to long, we lost the military mommentuem. Being in Iraq does not give US any advantage in Iran, anything but.
2 years of blunted force, with inane RoE's as real world training, 24/7. Soldiers fight like they train, a cardinal rule.
Why they should not be tasked as Police, it ruins them as Soldiers. IMO

Our greatest vulnerability is our supply train. Just more miles of road to be ambushed on.

20% of Iraq is Sunni, they've been hard to defeat and bled US to some extent.
60% is Shia, and we've been training their militia, no, Army, the ISF for a couple of years, now.
They will be a capable enemy for US to have to fight, in our rear, no?

Maybe we can count on the Kurds.

6/02/2006 03:39:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Chertoff is a lawyer.
Babbin thinks we need a General.
That Dept is maybe the worst yet devised.

6/02/2006 03:44:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

she was just upset, doug.
so sure of her rightousness,
at the expense of others.

I was in favor of the attempt, democracy, freedom, the Turkish model of semi secular government for the mideast. Willing to give it a go.

I'd match Tom Jefferson against Mohammed in a battle of ideas any day.
The US Government, despite lofty rhetoric, will not engage in that fight. I won't buy half a loaf, any more. All brawn no brain, then go light on the brawn, not any more.
Bonnie can sell it to whomever is swayed to liberty by Mr al-Sadr's ascension to power in Baghdad.

6/02/2006 03:52:00 PM  
Blogger Arthur Dent said...

Brett L said...

So when 19 of 22 9/11 hijackers are Saudi, it's ignorant and wrong to paint all Saudis as terrorists, but when 20 US Marines (may) have killed a dozen civilians, the entire US Military is culpable?
--------------

You are hereby awarded the Medal of Clarity, for your nail on the head insight.

6/02/2006 04:01:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Mr Bush said time was not on our side, in one of his State of the Union addresses, not sure of the year. I think he was right about that, but then that was before they announced the "Long War", which is spin for "No War, just Police Chases"

I believe "they" know something we do not, that the risk is much more diminished then we've been led to think. Otherwise the actions the US has undertaken, in the real world, make no sense at all.

That we allowed the most radical of Islamists the keys to the Country is a reality, even if Mr al-Sadr is but a figurehead and buffoon. The DAWA and the SCIRI are not buffoons and they hold sway and through the PM command the Army.

If the enemy ever was radical Islam, it's not now. Proof is there for all to see, in Iraq.

6/02/2006 04:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

northput21,
Rolling Stone:
Elections 06' and '08
That, and refighting the Swift Boaters.

6/02/2006 04:24:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Which combined with Civil unrest, money in tupperware containers & the return of Shah Jr this summer, could just topple the Evil doers.

Stability achieved without firing a US shot. The pieces ARE all in place.
The Shah was at the top of his game when Bush 41 ran the CIA. He may have known Jr as a young man, surely since then, since Shah Jr resides in the US.

It's the best possible "play",
and just yesterday I read of an Iranian saying that the US provoking civil disturbances would not be effective.
Meaning it well could be working as planned.
Pop the Mullahs in August or September, the Havana Summit washes out, a Constitutional Monarchy is reestablished in Iran

Stability in our time

The makeup of the Iraqi Government is then unimporant, there being no Mullahs left to ally with.
Followed by a wave of liberalized freedoms and even some moderation from the Sauds.
Victory, total and complete, except maybe for the border bandits.

6/02/2006 04:28:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Rubs Mr Carter's nose in the caca before he dies, for abandoning the father.
Brings the Republicans back into the fold with the one thing they appreciate, performance.

Hard to believe that Mr Bush and the entourage are all idiots. Never have believed that.
What other options are there, but quagmire or retreat, neither suit Mr Bush's previous image. Certainly not his self image.

6/02/2006 04:39:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

No john, it's a lack of press freedoms and computers and Web access in Russia.

Little interest in what happens in Russia, from Americans. America where, still, the most computers that can access the Inet are.

Not treason, interest.
Get a better perspective, before making wild accusations, based on reasonably explained raw data.

6/02/2006 04:44:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6/02/2006 04:46:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

"... COL. SAM GARDINER: I think the same thing has happened, and the evidence -- let me give you two or three evidences. First of all, the Iranians in their press have been writing now for almost a year that the United States is involved inside Iran conducting and supporting those who conduct military operations, attacks on military convoys. They've even accused the United States of shooting down a couple airplanes inside Iran. Okay, so there's that evidence from their side.

I was in Berlin three weeks ago, sat next to the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and I asked him a question. I read these stories about Americans being involved in there, and how do you react to that? And he said, oh, we know they are. We've captured people who are working with them, and they've confessed. So, another piece of evidence.

Let me give you a couple more. Seymour Hersh, in his New Yorker article, said that there are Americans in three locations operating inside Iran. Another point. We know that there is a group in Iraq, a Kurdish group called the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, that crosses the border from Iraq into Iran, and they have taken credit for killing numbers of revolutionary guard military people. And the interesting part about that is, you know, we tell the Syrians, ‘Don't let that happen. Don't let people come across the border and stir things up in Iraq,’ but we don't seem to be putting any brakes on on this unit. So, you know, the evidence is pretty strong that the pattern is being followed.


"The Issue is Not Whether the Military Option Would Be Used But Who Approved the Start of Operations Already"
according to Colonel Sam Gardiner, retired Air Force colonel. He has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. He was recently a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defense College.

6/02/2006 05:05:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The Dem Elites from the East are still fighting 04' 2000, and 'Nam.
John Kerry served there in case you didn't know.
A decorated Vet who made secret forays into Cambodia.
Magic Hat and all that.

6/02/2006 05:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The upside to stealing the election in 2000 is that Algore can apply all his mental powers to solving Global Warming.

6/02/2006 05:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I wonder if JFK2 is being consulted for the inside dope on how to operate behind enemy lines?

6/02/2006 05:14:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Defending Marines makes more sense to me than defending paradigms concoted out of thin air.
Just ask Trish.
The Noble Paradigms are putting our warriors in impossible situations and then the paradigm makers let them take the blame.

6/02/2006 05:33:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

trangbang
good of you to call.

There were and are many options available in the Middle East. Many have proposed a few in the past year or so, different paths not taken.
The President has chosen our course, the settings are of his choosing, not mine.
I can read a map, though, as well as signs and bill boards.

The President has taken the ship of state near the shoals, with full sails aloft. The risks are well known, the soundings shallow.

Things are so bad that in the next thread we'll discuss rampent rumors of a n US backed Baathist lite coup, in Bagdad. Right out of Saddam's playbook, but that's for later.

There are still alternate courses to chart, but the "real" destination of the voyage cannot be kept secret from the citizens forever. Not if their long term support is needed.

6/02/2006 05:43:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

ray,
go tell the spartans

6/02/2006 05:46:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I would never compare my service with yours, Trangbang, but Trish's husband just got back from the 'Stans, and 'Rat got reports direct from Fallujah from his son.
Worth a close listen imo.

6/02/2006 05:48:00 PM  
Blogger Bonnie said...

How amusing, that because I choose not to reveal my background, people on this thread assume that I have no experience in such matters.

My argument is that our country is not founded on the idea that only military service members may speak on military matters. Desert Rat ignores this so that he can pompously declare that he and only he can speak about the war because of his and his son's service.

I was a war gamer for the Department of Defense for seven years. I fought simulated battles with military war planners who are currently carrying out the war you see today. Nothing surprises me because I've seen it all before.

Naturally I have opinions about such things. However I don't declare that I am morally superior, or have better opinions, because of what I did and what I know.

I listen to people who have something to say. Desert Rat has nothing to say except "Run away! Run away!"

That is not something I can agree with, and now that you know my service (the unclassified bits at least) you can understand my comments a bit better.

6/02/2006 06:51:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Bonnie: In the short war they were great, but its the long war and its methods of which we're skeptical. How are the war gamers more successful than -- oh say -- the global warming gamers of the scientific community?

Why do I ask this? Because I know too many former members of the latter who, after much study led them to questioning the premises of their war, found themselves without a job.

Wretchard: Historical reference for you to mine here. What happenned to ministers and prophets and necromancers who were clearly wrong? ("Duck"speak ain't really new, is it?)

6/02/2006 07:32:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"I don't declare that I am morally superior...
...Desert Rat, you have no more right to hag ride your child than Cindy Sheehan does. Your son, if he chooses, can come to this forum and debate the idea that only military service allows one the right to speak about battle.
"

You may not have been claiming moral superiority, but it seems an out of place response to me to 'Rat's assertion that his son's reports from Fallujah changed his perspective.

6/02/2006 07:56:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

" The criminals and the terrorists are losing and they are being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas."
---
Taliban/Al Queda moved east 100km and have set up shop quite effectively.
ABC News was reporting that well over a year ago, including reports on their open recruiting in the area.
They have gained strength and territory since.
Michael Yon did not like what he saw on the Afghan side recently one bit.

6/02/2006 08:08:00 PM  
Blogger Bonnie said...

ABC news was reporting this, Doug? Gasp! Of course it must be true, because A B C is reporting it!

For heaven's sake. I'm not going to debate with people who use ABC reporting as a source. Snort.

6/02/2006 08:39:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

8:39 PM You reveal yourself as a twit. (or a kidder?)

6/02/2006 08:58:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I'll bet those videos of Taliban raids and meetings were staged, Trish.
...just like the "moonshots"
Likewise the interviews with Taliban leaders.
Also, what would Yon know?

6/02/2006 09:01:00 PM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

In the context of Iraqi strategies, it is well to recall that Mayor Wilson Goode was re-elected in 1987 by a substantial approving majority of Philadelphia voters despite the disastrous 1985 MOVE confrontation. After a prolonged siege, he’d authorized police to use a satchel charge in an attempt to breach the roof of the fortified row house used as a compound by the radicals. They had stored inflammable liquids — fuels, pesticides, whatnot — hard by a rooftop gun turret. The high-explosive charge ruptured the drums, and the resulting fire quickly spread to the contiguous adjoining row houses. Firefighters were held back, because despite police firing some 100,000 rounds trying to dislodge the militants, the radicals continued firing military-grade weapons, including bursts of automatic fire.

By the time the firefighters were able to begin attacking the blaze, a number of homes were already fully involved. 61 homes were destroyed, and 250 residents made homeless before the fire was contained. Eleven MOVE members, five of them kids, had died in the fire.

But the community, despite harsh criticism, approved of the decisive destruction of the MOVE group, which had been bullying, intimidating, harassing its neighbors for most of a decade.

That should put some of the questions surrounding military options in the areas where insurgents are given sanctuary.

Screw the Leftist suicidal pukes. Do what has to be done. The LSP are never going to be reasonable, equitable, or fair-minded. They will continue to ignore the commonplace atrocities by Muslims and use the slightest pretext to demonize the U.S. troops.

They want the U.S. to lose, at least until it’s their own necks being sawn by a grinning Jihadi shrieking “Allahu Aqbar!”

6/04/2006 01:15:00 AM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

By the Way, Greetings to Bonnie, if you are the same who on a time contributed much wisdom to Bill Whittle's Comment Stream.

To the depressed and miserable:
Although Wretchard's posts might command some attention in the White House, all the combined ascii text of our comments don't mass much in the scales being weighed by Bush and Co. I still think it's way too early to concede defeat, which in any case is not likely influenced by opinions voiced in this place.

We need this space for as much as any other reason to bounce our ideas around and try to make sense of things. My bitty little study of history suggests to me that we won't know what's REALLY going on for another 3 decades, regardless of leaks, exposés and interviews on Larry King.

Maybe I should be directing more of my firebrand enthusiasm to writing notes of support to soldiers.

6/04/2006 01:38:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Calling someone a racist ISN'T one of the oldest New Left Tricks in the books?
Surely you jest.

6/04/2006 08:09:00 PM  
Blogger douglas said...

"The best PR strategy and exit strategy is to win. You win by unconditionally anihilating the enemy."

Worked for the Soviets in Afghanistan, eh? It works in certain circumstances, nothing is a panacea. Different tactics for different situations- otherwise you're fighting the last war, and you will lose.

WE cannot lose militarily. Loss of support is the only way we can lose. You can argue about the cost in men to us- that'd be fair debate, but otherwise, this IS a PR war, like it or not (and I don't either, but that's what it is).

If our guys are in an impossible situation, why are our casualty rates so LOW by historical standards? Why are incidents such as Abu Ghraib, and allegedly at Haditha the exception, not the rule?

It is difficult, it is the hard road, but it is possible.

And where possible, ROE's should allow for returning fire when fired upon. Nonetheless, one size doesn't fit all.

And last, when you talk about pullout and let them at each other, consequences, consequences, consequences....

6/06/2006 12:28:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Smack remains the same worthless scum he was when he entered this world, on smack.

6/06/2006 12:30:00 PM  
Blogger Zhang Fei said...

ash: DR, good points and if it was presented as such we would never have gone in in the first place because we were not faced with a threat to our existence and hence the poitical will would not, nor does it exist now, to wage total war.

We weren't faced with a threat to our existence during WWII. The Japanese did not even manage to invade Hawaii, let alone threaten the continental United States. The Germans had lost the Battle of Britain by the time WWII started, and so couldn't even invade Britain, let alone cross the Atlantic. The reason we bombed the crap out of the Axis powers is probably related to news about Axis atrocities, combined with the huge casualties we took - our soldiers were innocent, too - they sought neither booty nor land as they fought their way across continents an ocean away. The continued existence of the nation was never in question.

6/08/2006 08:23:00 PM  

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