Category: Uncategorized

The Chosun Ilbo has an article about the increasing amount of outsourcing for the Zaytun unit in Iraq.  I found this note about the unit quite interesting:

In October 2004, an advance team of the Zaytun Unit arrived in Irbil in northern Iraq, at the end of a 1,115 km trip under U.S. aerial protection. The location was a barren field, where soldiers faced huge difficulties. At one point, they had difficulty securing even tent cloth. They could not afford to roam about the downtown area to buy more: if any of them should be attacked by insurgents, public opinion back in the country would turn immediately against their presence in Iraq.

What is your army doing in Iraq when you are afraid to go to the local market to buy cloth?  Especially in the peaceful area of Kurdistan where they are stationed at.  US soldiers go to Kurdistan for R&R, while the ROK Army goes there to pretend they are at war.  The Korean government might as well as just outsource the entire Zaytun unit and bring them all home. 

Just for the record I have been against the Zaytun deployment since before the unit was ever deployed because I figured the unit would not be allowed to do much of anything meaningful which is evident by the fact they can’t go to the market to buy cloth.  Plus if there was a mass casualty attack or as we see with the Taliban, a pro-longed hostage crisis, the anti-US groups, politicians, and media would waste no time capitalizing on it.  Additionally, the Korean government would expect unrealistic political benefits from the dispatch. 

I’m not the only thinking this way either; Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has already hinted that he would prefer 2,300 Korean businessmen instead of 2,300 Zaytun soldiers.  The Kurds are literally laughing at the Zaytun "occupation force".  Plus soldiers that have served in the Zaytun unit have voiced their frustrations with the deployment, which has been echoed by the Korean media as well. 

The Korean government should outsource the Zaytun mission to all the Korean Christian missionaries.  It would keep them out of Afghanistan, be a lot cheaper, and I bet they will be willing to go to the local marketplace to buy their own cloth. 

If you have not already done so make sure to read the latest posting from Michael Totten, which features an interview with an Iraqi interpreter working with US forces.  This posting is compelling and an absolute must read. 

Also, Bill Roggio has more on a major assault against Mahdi Army and Iranian agents in Sadr City that has left 30 of them dead and even more captured.

Things are stabilizing enough in Ninevah province enough that troops are beginning to be repositioned from the province:

The top U.S. general in northern Iraq said Wednesday he was redistributing troops and predicted any pullout from the country would take at least two years.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commanding general of the Multi-National Division – North and the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, said American forces could begin drawing down in the north by next year.

Mixon said Ninevah province would be closely monitored, as commanders in the region have said recently the area is becoming increasingly secure as compared to two years ago, when insurgents almost overran Mosul, the provincial capital.

General Mixon has already moved an entire infantry battalion out of Ninevah and it appears even more troops will be repositioned by the end of the year.  General Mixon expects that sometime next year only US air support will be required for the Iraqi forces in the province. 

The article also goes on to explain how General Mixon used his own version of the Anbar Awakening to gain the participation of local tribes in improving the security situation in Ninevah:

Some of the general’s northern commanders have begun experimenting with a new strategy of combating elements like al-Qaida in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq. They have enlisted some residents who previously fought American soldiers to provide “security contracts” to guard critical resources.

“We’ve talked with the local sheiks, who the people recognize, and said, ‘Hey, we want to conduct a security contract with you to secure this particular stretch of highway or this particular (oil) pipeline, or whatever — just like a security company,” he said.

“We’re not going to arm them, and we’re not in the business of doing that.”

He said that was up to the sheiks.

Mixon went on to say that the pact is only being conducted on a short-term, trial basis until it is determined how the groups perform under the agreements. In the meantime, they are able to gather all of the recruits’ personal data, even conducting retinal scans. The contracts, which have already gotten under way, will range from about 90 to 180 days.

“For them, it is about providing employment to them, really, at the end of the day, so they aren’t out there seeking their employment by way of placing [a roadside bomb],” Mixon said.

These contracts first of all employ people and secondly they also give the tribes a stake in improving security in their country.  The next big challenge will be integrating the tribal forces into the Iraqi security forces, but the "Awakening" movements taking place across Iraq are having an overall cumulative effect in improving the security situation in the country, that now not even the mainstream media can deny. 

I highly recommend that every read Michael Yon’s two latest postings:

Bread and a Circus Part 1
Bread and a Circus Part 2

These two postings are a perfect example of the little things that is going to win this war that the mainstream media has totally missed. 

Today is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. There is much controversy centering around whether the US should of dropped the atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II. In this series of postings I will discuss this issue along with providing the historical context that went into the decision to use nuclear weapons.

From the Trinity Site to Hiroshima

The first nuclear weapon was tested at the Trinity Site on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain Time on July 16, 1945. The 19 kiloton bomb was put on a 100 foot steel tower and exploded, causing what witnesses said, the sun to rise twice that day.

I have actually visited the Trinity Site on the White Sands Missile Range which is open to the public only twice a year. One girder of the original tower remains, the rest was evaporated, and the sand below the explosion was turned into a emerald green colored glass called Trinitite. Visitors are told not to pick it up because the glass is still radioactive.

Trinitite lying in the sand.

This is the memorial at the center of the Trinity Site.

The MacDonald Ranch house is where the nuclear bomb was assembled and also served as home to the scientists during the assembly phase of the nuclear bomb. When it came time to test the bomb the house was vacated, but some how the house survived the nuclear explosion:

The MacDonald farmhouse about 3 kilometers from the Trinity Site.

What makes the house’s survival more amazing is that structures around the farmhouse were leveled by the bomb:

But even more amazing then the house surviving is that this windmill some how survived:

This same phenomenon of singular structures remaining while others were completely obliterated by the bomb would happen again the next month in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Hiroshima after the bombing in 1945

Hiroshima was a city of military importance. The city contained the headquarters of the Fifth Division and the 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was also a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for the Japanese military. There was military justification for the attack to go along with the perceived need of the US leadership to break the will of the Japanese people by destroying an entire city. The weather was good, and the crew and equipment of the Enola Gay B-29 aircraft piloted and commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, took off to bomb their primary target of Hiroshima. The Enola Gay dropped the nuclear bomb called “Little Boy” over the central part of the city. It exploded about 600 meters (2,000 feet) above the city, killing initially an estimated 80,000 civilians. The radiation poisoning would claim twice as many lives as the initial bombing.

Today Hiroshima is a thriving city that has a deep memory of the tragedy of August 6, 1945. The city has erected a museum and memorial to mourn the victims of the atomic bombing. It is almost hard to believe today that Hiroshima was the site of an atomic bombing:

Hiroshima today is a thriving city.

Next Posting: Remembering Nagasaki

The last of the soldiers involved in the 2006 rape and murder of an Iraqi family has been convicted:

A military jury found a soldier guilty of rape and murder in the slayings of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family, despite testimony that cast doubt on his involvement.

Jurors deliberated much of Friday evening before convicting Army Pfc. Jesse Spielman, 22, of conspiracy to commit rape, rape, housebreaking with intent to commit rape and four counts of felony murder.

He faces a mandatory life sentence when a sentencing hearing begins Saturday. The jury will decide if he will be eligible for parole.

There actually one former soldier, Steven Green that is still waiting to go to court in Kentucky.  He is the alleged ring leader and the person that murdered the family.  He faces the death penalty and should rightfully receive it if convicted. 

The media has been splashing headlines for over a year about these disgraceful criminals while at the same time ignoring soldiers like Captain Brennan Goltry who deserve headlines:

It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot. And it wasn’t the first time he’d led his men through an ambush.

But, for the actions he took on one particular moonlit night in Samarra in February, Capt. Brennan Goltry has been marked as a hero. Goltry was awarded the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts and the Combat Infantryman Badge in a ceremony Tuesday at a small combat outpost in a city still very much in the middle of the fight.

Read the whole thing, but thank goodness for the Stars & Stripes because they regularly publish stories about American heroes that the main stream media would rather ignore and pretend does not exist.  However, great soldiers and Americans like CPT Goltry do exist and populate the ranks of the military at a vastly higher percentage than the cretins involved in the 2006 murders. 

TFM has a great update on the fall out from the fraudulent article in The New Republic.  Can TNR possibly look anymore pathetic than they do now?  Well yes because "Scott Thomas" has been revealed and just happens to be married to a TNR staffer. What a tangled web some people weave. More at TFM and Ace. 

The Army Emergency Relief (AER) program is a non-profit that basically funded by donations from soldiers.  I contribute money into it every month.  The AER program uses the money to offer money to soldiers for emergency reasons.  The most often reason in Korea is for money for soldiers to buy a plane ticket to fly back home due to death or illness in the family.  AER will then decide whether to give a soldier a loan or an outright grant depending on the income status. 

As usual one scumbag has found a way to ruin a good program:

An Army staff sergeant was sentenced to one year of confinement and a bad-conduct discharge Thursday after admitting he helped scam an Army relief program and soldiers under his command out of $6,000.

Staff Sgt. Shane R. Martin, 40, admitted in a general court-martial that since fall of 2005 he had helped three soldiers get money from Army Emergency Relief, an organization dedicated to helping soldiers in need. Then, he asked each of the three soldiers for a cut, he said under oath.

This guy was in cahoots with an AER employee to get soldiers to apply for a loan for reasons such as because a family is suffering from Hurricane Katrina related problems and then the AER official would give out the money and cut it three ways.  I have to wonder how long this scam has been going on and how many more people have been getting away with it?  There is obviously very little checks and balances in place if such a fraud could so easily take place. 

The New York Times recently ran a headline about the US Army missing its June recruiting goal.  As you would expect the article begins with all the usual doom and gloom and how this is a sign that the US public no longer supports the Army because of casualties in Iraq.  Now this is what the article won’t tell you, for the fiscal year the US Army’s current enlistment total is at 101%.  Here is a complete breakdown of 2007 recruiting numbers:

07 Recruiting Statistics:

Component            Accessions   Goal      Percentage
Army                      51,889          51,150     101%
Navy                      25,176          25,101     100%
Marines                  21,866          19,629     111%
Air Force                20,211          20,211     100%

Notice the two branches of the military that are conducting direct combat operations, the Army and the Marines are the only branches with recruiting totals that are above their maximum percentage, especially the Marine Corps.  So if people are discouraged from joining the military due to the fear of casualties as the New York Times alleges, than how do you explain the vast majority of new recruits are overwhelmingly joining the two branches that you are mostly likely to get wounded and not the Air Force and the Navy? 

At least the NY Times mentioned this fact towards the very end of their article, but the US Army is in the midst of a massive force expansion of 33,000 soldiers, which means this year they have to recruit a higher total of numbers compared to in the past and yet both the Army and Marines Corps are recruiting over the projected number.   

To add to this fudging of facts TIME magazine has published an article that once again raises fears about installing a draft to make up for the lack of recruits which doesn’t exist except in the minds of dishonest reporters.  The dishonest reporting of military recruiting is just another prime example of politicization of the military by the media fudging recruiting numbers to confirm a thesis they want the reader to believe is happening instead of actually reporting what is happening. 

The New York Times recently ran a headline about the US Army missing its June recruiting goal.  As you would expect the article begins with all the usual doom and gloom and how this is a sign that the US public no longer supports the Army because of casualties in Iraq.  Now this is what the article won’t tell you, for the fiscal year the US Army’s current enlistment total is at 101%.  Here is a complete breakdown of 2007 recruiting numbers:

07 Recruiting Statistics:

Component            Accessions   Goal      Percentage
Army                      51,889          51,150     101%
Navy                      25,176          25,101     100%
Marines                  21,866          19,629     111%
Air Force                20,211          20,211     100%

Notice the two branches of the military that are conducting direct combat operations, the Army and the Marines are the only branches with recruiting totals that are above their maximum percentage, especially the Marine Corps.  So if people are discouraged from joining the military due to the fear of casualties as the New York Times alleges, than how do you explain the vast majority of new recruits are overwhelmingly joining the two branches that you are mostly likely to get wounded and not the Air Force and the Navy? 

At least the NY Times mentioned this fact towards the very end of their article, but the US Army is in the midst of a massive force expansion of 33,000 soldiers, which means this year they have to recruit a higher total of numbers compared to in the past and yet both the Army and Marines Corps are recruiting over the projected number.   

To add to this fudging of facts TIME magazine has published an article that once again raises fears about installing a draft to make up for the lack of recruits which doesn’t exist except in the minds of dishonest reporters.  The dishonest reporting of military recruiting is just another prime example of politicization of the military by the media fudging recruiting numbers to confirm a thesis they want the reader to believe is happening instead of actually reporting what is happening.