Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite. [Hey - trackbacks work again!]
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
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(Moved to top of queue because of relevance and importance)
Greyhawk points to what was happening on the ground, the empirical effect of the Patraeus/Bush "New Direction", while Congressional bashing of it was going on.
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Lots of people, including Jules Crittenden, seem to be rather happy about retired Col. Allard resigning from NBC. I’m not. Why? Think about it. You’re a journalist. You have a rolodex of people to call/email when you’re working on a story you don’t have the academic background on. So there’s more calls going to Arkin and other ‘kill the Mil’ experts that won’t get countered now. Good for the Col. to put his foot down and stand up for what he believes in. Bad for the rest of us because now journalism is going to understand military affairs even less and will give us an even more skewed view.
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I’m real familiar with the thinking behind this one. Waziristan province bans tinted car windows.
See in SoCal back in the late 80’s and early 90’s drug dealers and other unsavory types tinted their windows darn near opaque. Vehicle became a moving secure location. Drug deals could take place without being observed. Cops making stops couldn’t tell what was going on, and rumor was a few got shot. Was real popular car mod with the gangbanger set. So the state outlawed certain levels overall and of tint and tinting of the windshield and front windows much at all.
Smart move by the Pakistanis. Hope they get compliance a lot easier than we did in CA though. Was a real pain for a few years.
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Avoiding the echo chamber link. WarHistorian links to a Foreign Policy study group that says terrorism is increasing and that the US is less secure in some part thanks to the way that GWOT/Long War has been handled.
ry
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Don't worry, Ry. Plenty more guys who want to be "warheads" in the line...
-the Armorer
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I've been busy, but didn't see mention of it here... The Milbloggies are accepting nominations. You can nominate as many blogs as you like. How about starting with Castle Argghhh! and Fuzzilicious Thinking? Other Denizens, please add the nomination link for your blogs below so that we can get you in the Finals. To nominate the rest of your favorite blogs, just click here and search for their names. - FbL
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A must-read: Give the Washington Post some credit--they pound Murtha (and by extension, the Democratic party) in an unsigned editorial today:
As Captain's Quarters puts it, "Despite this, Pelosi insists on following his leadership on Iraq policy. The Democrats have made the case yet again why they cannot be trusted with national security. They use bad information, faulty logic, and underhanded tactics to exploit it for partisan political purposes. John Murtha represents everything that is wrong with the Democrats on this debate. They are ill-informed and incoherent, unable to formulate a plan for victory but willing to sabotage American efforts anyway." - FbL
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My Heart Is Breaking
For all the rage and anger over the "non-binding" resolution; for all the anger at demoralising our troops and aiding our enemies with such a message, I've heard little about how it will affect our Iraqi allies who have once again trusted us to defend them and we, once again, seem bent on tossing them away like so much trash on Tuesday morning..
I pounded on my keyboard a couple of times about how our withdrawal will leave millions of innocent Iraqis at the mercy of the impending all out civil war, the one that Murtha says will "sweep al Qaeda from Iraq." But it was still abstract until this afternoon when I saw a message from my Kurdish friend Emmunah. I met her via internet almost two years ago, but haven't heard from her for awhile. Turns out she had a torn rotator cuff and couldn't email or post.
She left these few words at my blog:
What is the US going to do about the Kurds? They will be slaughtered if the US leaves, or the Turks will invade. I am weeping in worry.
My heart is breaking.
-Kat
*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if (Don Surber uses it this way a lot) someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
