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.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
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From MNF-I:
Humanitarian aid decreases violence in Baghdad neighborhood
Spear Academy brings Coalition Forces closer to ultimate goal
Soldiers spread word on rewards program
Soldiers work to build trust in Rashid
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A discussion of war and lawyering, from Glenn Sulmasy, who teaches law at the US Coast Guard Academy...
NEW LONDON -- LAW AND WAR have never mixed comfortably. This seems all the more true in the wars of the 21st Century. The recent military hearings on the conduct of Marines in the battle for Haditha, Iraq, exemplifies the ambiguities that U.S. forces now face when confronting the faceless enemy of al-Qaida...
Clearly the law now affects operational combat decision-making more than ever before.
It sometimes seems as if current debates over warfare anticipate that no civilian casualties will occur in wartime. Such expectations are unrealistic and endanger the pursuit of legitimate military objectives for the U.S. now and in the future.
Mr. Sulmasy's article is a worthy read at the Providence Journal. -the Armorer
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I haven't had much to say about the Scooter Libby thing. Ben Johnson over at Front Page Magazine about sums up my bemusement on the subject.
One thing about politics and politicians - they seem to live every day in the here and now, sometimes almost completely disconnected from the day before. Unless there is political hay to be made. It's one thing that kills them about the Internet - the past is there, available to anyone who can leverage Google. Even Lexis/Nexis didn't bother them as much as Google does - because the people who could afford access to Lexis/Nexis were more often than not fellow-travelers of the process. Google, the great leveler. Or the great amasser and nanny. -the Armorer
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I've not had time to read it yet - but the Initial Benchmark Assessment is available here. -the Armorer
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Check out And Rightly So for a fascinating look at the prostitution scandal of Senator Vitter, from a blogger who would know. She also has some interesting things to say about men, marriage and fidelity. - FbL.
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Having done studies on Army networks... I can tell you this story lays out plainly the greatest single threat to .mil networks and data - ourselves. OPSEC matters. Think before you post/upload. -the Armorer
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General news for Denizens of the Castle: Our friend the Flutterby has been located in the Sandbox. She misses her Castle buds, and wanted to let everyone know that she is doing well, and sends her regards. Also that she misses gardening. - the Adjutant
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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 (oops, can't call 'em UAVs anymore - they're now Unmanned Aerial Systems... some Colonel got his Legion of Merit for that change...), er, um UAS's 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 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".
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