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POPSObama: "I need to earn troops' trust" Before they can trust, they have to respect. Clinton never got the respect of the troops other than the lickspittle Gen. Wesley Clark. Similarly, this empty suit, al Qaeda sleeper cell Hussein Obama, will never gain that respect. He represents the Left who continually stabbed them in the back during the long war.
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POPS'They've Stolen our Water, now our SEA' "The illegality of the actions and orders of the army cries out to the heavens. This is a clear case of misusing security considerations as camouflage for achieving other goals which are unrelated to security matters and unacceptable." The Association of Civil Rights (Acri) petition said.
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POPSIraqi Feel-Good Stories Prove Elusive Garrett Therolf, LAT reporter, talks about his efforts to report on good news in Iraq when he was there earlier this year. The military prevented Therolf from following-up on the army's efforts to establish a local bank branch in a Sunni Arab neighborhood. The neighborhood was too dangerous for him to enter without military guard. Therolf also pursued a story about a restaurant in Baghdad started by some Chinese nationals. They declined to be interviewed because they were scared, and they may even go back to China because of the danger. For those of you who criticize the media for focusing on the negative in Iraq, this is something you should consider.
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POPSThe Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why? Michael Massing went to Ft. Drum in New York to interview soldiers about why they joined the army. ("these books" he refers to in this clip are recently-published soldier memoirs; "Bradley's" is a military supply store) Overall, the average bonus paid to Army enlistees jumped from $11,100 in 2005 to $16,500 in 2007. This is one of the main reasons why the Army has been able to meet its recruiting goals in spite of the ongoing specter of serving in Iraq. Another is the relaxation of admission standards. In 2007, 11 percent of all new recruits received "moral waivers" for being in trouble with the law—double the proportion in 2003. Over that same period, the proportion of enlistees who had finished high school fell from 90 to 71 percent—the lowest level in twenty-five years. Due largely to the Iraq war, the Army now includes far more recruits from the troubled, truant, tattooed ranks of the population.
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POPSUS made deal with devil to stabilize Iraq Chris Hedges is the author of this editorial. ...those who support the continuation of the war insist that "the surge" has been successful. But the surge...did little to thwart attacks. "The big news of the past year, the smashing up of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the stabilization of a lot of Sunni Arab areas, has virtually nothing to do with the surge," said Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East Intelligence unit. "What we have done, in effect, is we have made a deal with the devil in order to get rid of al-Qaeda. We have allowed nearly 100,000 tough Sunni Arab fighters to organize and arm themselves as they never could before when they had to operate underground. We have destroyed a nasty insurgency and replaced it with a more deeply rooted and broad-based potential insurgency."
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POPSU.S. Military and Iraqis Agree: Blackwater unprovoked, Fired on Fleeing Citizens and Cars
More: U.S. soldiers did not find any bullets that came from AK-47 assault rifles or BKC machine guns used by Iraqi policemen and soldiers. They found evidence of ammunition used in American-made weapons, including M4 rifle 5.56mm brass casings, M240B machine gun 7.62mm casings, M203 40mm grenade launcher casings, and stun-grenade dunnage, or packing. At least two cars, a black four-door taxi and a blue Volkswagen sedan, had their back windshields shot out, but their front windshields were intact, indicating they were shot while driving away from the square, according to the photos and soldiers An Iraqi colonel walked up to Tarsa and described the Blackwater shooters as men in "tan uniforms, black helmets, and that flag," pointing at the U.S. flag on Tarsa's sleeve. Their actions underscore the long-standing tensions between the U.S. military and private security companies -- and the military's concerns that such shootings could undermine U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.
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POPSHow 700 settlers wrecked a town of 150,000 Palestinians International observers here say the settlers regularly toss debris and dirty water into the Arab market below, now largely shuttered in a city where unemployment stands at 60 percent. Asked whether Arabs and Jews can share Hebron, Maraga, his hair and beard a gray fuzz, looked up at the chain-link canopy. ... Hemmed in and harassed, the Palestinians are fleeing today. Nearly half the homes in and around the Israeli-controlled Old City of Hebron have been vacated, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem recently reported. The group also said that more than three-quarters of the Palestinian shops and restaurants in the casbah and adjacent commercial districts have been shuttered, many by military order. Via Marx Sawicky .
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POPSHow a journalist broke the Haditha story This episode shows that the military dismissed a journalist's questions about Haditha out of hand by calling him biased and a sympathizer to Sunni insurgents. I sometimes see this attitude here at Clipmarks--don't question our military, don't question our leaders, etc. But in fact, we do need to question the conduct of our leaders and our military all the time. Because if we don't, there will undoubtedly be more Hadithas. (in fact, more Hadithas are probably inevitable if we continue to occupy Iraq, as von Zielbauer points out later in the interview).
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POPSCivilian deaths in Iraq: causes and consequences Tucker argues that the Haditha debacle is symptomatic of an overstretched military that can no longer tell enemies from noncombatants, and points out, citing Petraeus's own work, that each civilian death makes counterinsurgency work harder and more dangerous by contributing to general mistrust and rage towards the U.S. and thus to insurgent recruitment.
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POPSMcCain's "bring-'em-on" moment McCain says he'll be happy to visit Sorja market again, "with or without military protection." Hmm. Somehow I have a feeling he won't be putting his money where his mouth is anytime soon.
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POPSBush endangering troops by not planning for withdrawal Mark Thoma reproduces part of a National Journal article that points out that troop withdrawal can be very dangerous for the troops, and by failing to plan for it the Bush administration is increasing the odds for a chaotic, difficult, and dangerous withdrawal for the US troops when withdrawal does come.
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POPSUS officer: our generals are not worthy of our soldiers Lt. Col. Paul Yingling wrote an article in the Armed Forces Journal that says that lack of accountability has resulted in generals who are basically toadies of the civilian leadership, failed to confront the seriousness of the insurgency in Iraq, and misled the public about the situation there. Via Richard Adams at the Guardian News Blog .
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POPS Lynch, Tillman's brother: U.S. military lied Just a reminder how corrupt this whole war has been from start to finish. Bush started it with lies, lied about how soldiers died, and continues to lie today about the way to end this thing. Enough is enough isn't it?
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POPSPetraeus wants to drop ban on domestic propaganda According to this article, General Petraeus wants to tear down the wall between the military's public affairs operation, which is supposed to truthfully communicate with the US media and public, and the military's information operations, which is given leeway to use deception and propaganda to communicate with foreign populations. I don't understand why we tolerate the use of deception in any kind of public communications whatsoever, with the US public or with the publics of other countries. Via Lindsay Beyerstein at Majikthise
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POPSCivil War history: Battle of Fort Pillow, 4/12/1864 "d" pointed out that today is the anniversary of the Battle of Fort Pillow at Lawyers, Guns, and Money . He notes that the commander of the Confederates was Nathan Bedford Forrest (who would go on to found the KKK). Forrest remains perhaps the most famous Tennesseeans of the 19th century. More than 30 monuments and state markers have been cast in his honor, including a statue at the state capitol building in Nashville. A state park bears his name, as did a World War II-era Army base in Tullahoma; the ROTC building at Middle Tennessee State University is named for the Klan leader and war criminal, as are two public high schools in the Volunteer State.
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POPSKerry was right: bad students are getting stuck in Iraq ... is at the same time seeking to lower discharge rates artificially and thereby to reduce the pressure to sign up new enlistees. ... According to Flyer, the Army has found several ways to keep those discharge rates artificially low. Basic training... has been made less difficult. “You'll get guys who have never run a mile,” an Army spokesman told USA Today.... “Rather than throw them out, we said, ‘Let's change the training so we don't injure them.’” ...last year, Army HQ sent a letter to all commanders stating that the discharge rate was too high...Between 2005 and 2006, the Army's discharge rate for troops in their first six months of training plummeted—from 18 percent to 8 percent. ... Flyer predicts the Army will meet its manpower needs by signing up even more people who never completed high school but got a G.E.D. ..In contrast to high school graduates, who are aggressively courted, most G.E.D.-ers are walk-ins.”
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POPSMilitary opposition to possible war on Iran UK intelligence sources report in the Times (London) that there will likely be a wave of resignations among high-level staff officers should the Bush administration decide to launch a military operation against Iran.
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