Army Battallion Spends Two Weeks in Iraq, Then Receives Orders to Go to Afghanistan

Wow.

An entire Army battallion that arrived in Iraq in the last few weeks just got orders to head directly to Afghanistan, where their skills set is badly needed.

This doesn't happen too often, where a unit is deployed to one war zone, then gets orders to go to another. The Army logistics people say that it will take between 40-60 flights to get the soldiers, vehicles, and equipment from the 4th Engineering Battallion from Baghdad to southern Afghanistan.

I'm surprised that it actually hasn't happened more, but it appears more likely now that the U.S. military is carrying out their orders to bump up the force in Afghanistan while reducing the size of their force in Iraq.

I think this is a good move as the mine-clearing capability of the 4th Engineers is needed to reduce the number of IED attacks on coalition forces. 60% of coalition losses are now from IED and mine attacks in Afghanistan, and they need to turn that around.

Pentagon Rethinking Two War Strategy: It's About Time!

The Pentagon appears to be rethinking it's policy of being prepared to fight two major wars simultaneously and still having enough force left to put up a fight somewhere else.

This policy has been in place since World War II and has been the cornerstone of American military strategy . But they're re-examining the policy now that America has had two wars going on for over six years, and their resources are stretched mighty thin.

With 170,000 soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, we don't have the necessary conventional ground forces to stop a North Korean attack on South Korea or a Chinese attack on Taiwan if trouble were to break out in that part of the world right now. The Navy and Air Force would have to carry the fight to the enemy until ground troops could be redeployed in a huge hurry.

Secretary Gates is engaged in a top-to-bottom review of every aspect of planning for wars of the future. Budgeting, weapons purchases, staffing, training, and the entire gambit of planning that goes into equipping a military force is being looked at.

I'm relieved that they're looking at this, though I am troubled that it's taken six years for them to get around to it. This should have been talked about much more thoroughly before troops were sent into Iraq.

The sooner the military wraps things up in Iraq, the sooner balance can be restored to the international scene. A threat of military force against an aggressor is only effective if there is muscle behind it. North Korea has realized this, and has effectively called our bluff. They realized that no American army will materialize to threaten them if they rattle their sabers around a bit while we're still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iran is playing the same game; so is Venezuela. "When the cat's away the mice will play" seems to be the strategy being employed by North Korea, Venezuela and Iran; pretty soon the cat will be back, and those mice are going to start running for their lives.

Then we'll see how much they enjoy our undivided attention.

Blackwater Security Changes Company Name in New Public Relations Move: Will It Help?

Security outfit Blackwater is changing its name from Blackwater Worldwide to Xe to repair its badly damaged reputation, following a serious shooting in Iraq and the loss of it's State Department contract for providing diplomats protection in and around Iraq.

The shooting incident left a dozen Iraqi civilians dead and caused Iraq's government to request that they leave Iraq. It was one of several incidents that Blackwater was involved in and the straw that broke the camel's back. Five Blackwater employees were charged in the shooting, which prosecutors say was not justified.

Xe will not actively seek new security contracts and is focusing on it's other lines of business that are not under public scrutiny the way that it's security operations in Iraq were.

The State Department contract was worth $300 million to Blackwater/Xe; they took in a little over a billion dollars last year from contract work around the world.

The entire system of using mercenaries to do government work in war zones needs to be examined closely. If it is determined that the services provided are necessary, then they need to be subordinate to both the U.S. military and the Iraqi military. They seemed to ride roughshod over U.S. military units, which was a big distraction for U.S. combat forces who didn't like being told what to do by a company not in their chain of command.

I'm not sure if this name change will change much of anything. It's their actions that people will be watching, not their packaging.

World Media Needs to Give Prince Harry a Break: His Remarks Are Outweighed By His Military Service

Prince Harry is apologizing for a three-year-old video of him using racist terms and poking fun at his grandma.

The media needs to cool it and leave him alone. This is a huge non-issue that they're blowing way out of proportion; how this video made it into the media's hands should be investigated, not Prince Harry. This video was obviously not meant for public consumption and should have remained that way; the media should have ignored it.

How is he supposed to react when militants in the combat zones threaten to capture him, cut off his ears and send them to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II? "Oh, that's nice?" Or something along the lines of "go %^@ off??!" Harry chose the latter and he's being criticized for it.

The media has it in for Prince Harry and for the royal family, and don't care about the damage that they cause in their reporting. That's more scandalous than the Prince's remarks. He did an outstanding job during his time in the war zone, but the media screwed that up for him too, didn't they?

He's apologized, which was the correct thing for him to do, now LET IT BE, media!

Status of Forces Agreement With Iraq Needs to be Delayed: New Administration Doesn't Need Their Hands Bound

I think that the Iraqi and U.S. governments should put off agreeing to any Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) until after January 20th, when President Obama takes office and his intentions are made clear. There's no point in making an agreement like this if the Obama Administration will be withdrawing troops on a large scale, as he suggested during the campaign.

With the current mandate set to expire on December 31st, our troops will be required to suspend military operations in Iraq and return to their bases throughout Iraq. There is a need for U.S. troops to be able to defend themselves if their bases are attacked; I think it would be a good idea for both governments to extend the current mandate to mid-March, until the new U.S. government is in place and both governments can meet can plot out what the next 16-20 months will look like.

Why sign a SOFA with Iraq if our forces will be gone in 16-20 months?

Woodward Makes Brief Mention of New Technique for Tracking Terror Leaders: Media Should STAY OFF This Part of the Story

Bob Woodward's new book makes mention of a new system of tracking and targeting terrorist leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan that the military is taking great advantage of. But when questioned about it in an interview, Woodward declined to explain further.

Smart move, Bob. I hope the media follows his example and leaves this part of the story alone. Whatever the military is doing, it's working.

The last time that the press revealed that the military was able to track al-Qaeda's use of particular electronic devices, the group stopped using them, which made the system useless and lead to more American lives being lost on the battlefield. We don't want a repeat of that experience.

If there are any reporters out there who already know the details about this "system" that Woodward mentions, ZIP IT. Don't take another tool out of the hands of the military.

Pelosi Declares a Surge a Total Failure, Despite Major Progress

Looks like Nancy Pelosi is getting ready to own defeat in Iraq again, pronouncing the highly successful surge a "failure" on high.

The surge did what it was supposed to: give the Iraqi government some breathing room to accomplish their political objectives, which, I might add, were imposed upon them by the U.S. Imperial Congress in another flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

For Speaker Pelosi to try to take success away from our troops is, quite frankly, appalling and disingenuous.

For all this talk from the politicians that there's "no military solution in Iraq, only a political one," I haven't seen any mindboggling political solutions to getting Iraq on it's feet and our troops out of there any faster. All I've seen are political deadlines from American politicians directed at their Iraqi counterparts in Baghdad; to which the Iraqi politicians take great delight in thumbing their nose right back at the U.S. Congress.

I'm not sure what's funnier: America's politicians attempting to tell the Iraqis what to do, or the Iraqi practice of ignoring the American deadlines and doing what they want regardless of political pressure coming from Washington. It's more pathetic than funny.

Pelosi has no legs to stand on; she can't get her own party to listen to her; the Administration isn't listening, and the Iraqis sure aren't either. What's she going to do about it?

It's just more of the same coming from Washington.

If Someone Like Edwards is Elected President, Will U.S. Military Be Able to Pull Troops and Equipment Out in First Year of New Administration?

Democrat John Edwards has promised to pull the U.S. military completely out of Iraq in the first year of his Presidency as part of his campaign platform. A question: if an anti-war candidate like Edwards is elected in November, can the military fulfill that wish in one year, assuming that the current administration keeps troop levels around 130,000?

The answer is: probably not. It's simple physics and logistics. The military brass say that they can move one combat brigade out of Iraq per month. There are between nineteen and twenty combat and support brigades and their equipment currently deployed. That's a minimum of twenty months, if all the ships and transport aircraft stay available and don't have maintenance issues.

The military pace is more realistic than the political pace.

The only way that a promise like Edwards' can be fulfilled is if President Bush starts withdrawing troops on a large scale in 2008, which is doubtful.

Edwards and the others shouldn't make promises that they can't keep. A more realistic promise is to withdraw troops by the end of their first term. The politicians are really going to mess things up if they have their way.

Democrats Are Using Back Door to De-Fund Iraq War: $50 Billion Funding Bill Stalls in Senate Until January

It appears that the anticipated de-funding of the Iraq War by the Democrats is currently underway. But they're not taking the direct approach as was predicted by analysts.

Instead, they're guaranteeing that their legislation on war funding either doesn't make it to the President's desk, or if it does that he is certain to veto it. All the Democrats have to do is insert a clause that calls for withdrawal from Iraq to doom the legislation.

They have effectively de-funded the war, without drawing attention to the fact that this is/was their goal. They can publicly claim that they won't de-fund the Iraq War and will continue to put forth bills with terms and conditions that the Republicans find indigestible and will move to block.

The other tactic being employed is that the Democrats are ignoring the President's war funding requests for months at a time. Congress has already passed the Pentagon's $471 billion budget but stripped war funding from that bill. President Bush asked for $192 billion more in supplemental spending for the wars since mid-February; Congress is getting around to that request now, in mid-November.

The war bill passed by the House and rejected by the Senate would have provided $50 billion for the wars, and set the end of 2008 as a withdrawal date of troops from Iraq.

There's a time-crunch in play here; the current war funding will run out in February, and the military will have to divert money out of it's new $471 billion budget--money needed for repairing battle-damaged equipment or replacing it, beefing up V.A. hospitals, building mine-resistant vehicles, providing care for our wounded warriors, and purchasing new weapons platforms--to pay for the wars.

They've already signaled that they're diverting $4 billion immediately.

And the military is planning to make deep cuts when the designated war-fighting funding runs out in February. And it probably will; the only war funding bill on the table and on the horizon has been KO'ed.

Another mess.

Murtha Needs to Apologize to Exonerated Marines in Haditha Case: Former Marine or Not, He's Made a Mockery of Our System of Justice

For those that don't remember, United States Marines were accused by Time magazine and local Iraqis of slaughtering a family in the vicinity of Haditha, Iraq, back in 2005. The Marine Corps launched an investigation after the story broke, and Representative Jack Murtha took to the floor of the House and said the following:

"It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that's what the report is going to tell.

Now, you can imagine the impact this is going to have on those troops for the rest of their lives and for the United States in our war and our effort in trying to win the hearts and minds."

Note: the Marines had just launched their investigation, and no report was going to be made for months. The Marines decided that there was enough evidence to bring charges against eight of their fellows who were in the vicinity at the time. Almost immediately, the case began to fall apart.

It was alleged that the Marines invaded a house and began murdering people inside of it following an IED attack on their Marine unit, which resulted in the death of one of their squad members.

As the investigation progressed, investigators did blood tests to see if everyone was related. As it turned out, they were not. They also discovered that several people in the house were killed elsewhere, and at different times. Iraqi citizens contradicted their original statements and began changing their stories. Charges have been subsequently dropped or modified to lesser ones.

One of the accused Marines, the leader of the squad, accused and now exonerated, has sued Rep. Murtha for invasion of privacy, and for libel. No one's sure where that will end up.

At the very least, Murtha needs to apologize for trying the Marines in the court of public opinion just to score political points on President Bush. Murtha clearly jumped the gun in accusing the Marines, and he should be held accountable for that. And the sooner he does apologize for his blatant political rhetoric in this instance, the better. He's made a mockery of our criminal justice system, where the accused is innocent until PROVEN guilty, and that definitely hasn't happened.

Shame on Murtha!

U.S. Hiring of Mercenaries Needs to End: Blackwater Situation is Tip of Iceberg

There has been an ongoing debate as to whether or not security companies like Blackwater USA are, in fact, mercenary outfits.

Under the definitions adopted by UN Resolution 44/34, a mercenary is defined as this:

1. A mercenary is any person who:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;

(c) Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;

(d) Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; and

(e) Has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

2. A mercenary is also any person who, in any other situation:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad for the purpose of participating in a concerted act of violence aimed at:

(i) Overthrowing a Government or otherwise undermining the constitutional order of a State; or

(ii) Undermining the territorial integrity of a State;

(b) Is motivated to take part therein essentially by the desire for significant private gain and is prompted by the promise or payment of material compensation;

(c) Is neither a national nor a resident of the State against which such an act is directed;

(d) Has not been sent by a State on official duty; and

(e) Is not a member of the armed forces of the State on whose territory the act is undertaken.

Private Military Companies (PMCs) like Blackwater fit several of these descriptions. Note item #s 1b, 1d, 1e, 2b, 2c, and 2e. Part of 1c also applies. Item 2a(ii) is occurring unintentionally as Iraq is already unstable and deteriorating.


Some points:

• These security companies that are being used in Iraq ARE mercenaries under international law as outlined above. "Security contractors" is merely window dressing in PC talk.
  
• We don't pay our soldiers enough. They're good enough to be shot at, but not good enough to be paid well for their trouble? That's DISGRACEFUL.
  
• We pay soldiers for hire way too much. Period. The State Department should be using it's own people to protect their diplomats in Iraq, or work with the military to assign active duty troops to do it.
  
• The United States is not a party to the treaty that Resolution 44/34 establishes--the U.N. Mercenary Convention. That needs to change as this conflict begins to wind down and more troops begin to come home in 2008. The U.S. needs to sign this treaty.
• Iraq is trying to establish the rule of law in it's own territory, and having a mercenary army of 48,000 men not under their control or their laws firing indiscriminately at people isn't making matters any easier. It's fueling the insurgency and making matters worse.
  

In short, employing mercenaries isn't something that our government should be engaging in. And making them exempt from Iraqi laws while Iraq was under the direct control of the Coalition Provisional Authority has only added to the problems.

I think there's enough work around the world for these security companies to find and profit off of without getting entangled in parts of the world where the U.S. military is in action.

Soldiers Want Politicians to Embed With Them in Iraq: Now That's a GREAT Idea

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have seen the beginning of something new inside U.S. military units who are engaged in combat: reporters embedded with the troops. They traveled with the troops, ate and slept next to them in the dirt, ate the dirt when the troops did, and shared the danger. And they reported as combat was ongoing.

Now some soldiers want Congress to spend some time in the dirt with them, too. Having members of Congress embed with the U.S. military??! That's a GREAT idea. This should be put into effect immediately with a six-month rotation (with no going home for Thanksgiving or Christmas either--their units will be overseas--they should be too.)

A firmer understanding of what the military is going through would be beneficial to Congress. Of course, this will NEVER happen. But it's an interesting idea.

Democrats Tack on Withdrawal Date to Military Spending Bill Again: Bush May Not Be Given Time for Surge to Work

Senator Levin tacked on an amendment to a new military spending bill that features a withdrawal date for troops from Iraq.

Here we go again.

This time, however, the Democrats may have support from GOP Senators Lugar, Warner and Voinovich, as well as several other GOP senators. They have said that the Administration's plan isn't working and a change in direction was needed.

It appears that Congress isn't going to wait for General Petraeus's report in September to decide what's working and what isn't. The House has already voted to withdraw troops next year.

And President Bush isn't gaining any new allies in Congress; he's losing the allies he's already got. Looks like things are going to get really nasty.

Immigration Bill's Failure Proves We Have a Lame-Duck President AND Congress: This is a Caretaker Government Until the Next Election

It's become clear that we have a caretaker government filled with placeholders who are awaiting the next election.

Both parties are badly splintered; both are split on the Iraq War and immigration. An up-or-down vote of no-confidence on Alberto Gonzales' leadership of the Justice Department died on the Senate floor. Congress members have been reduced to threatening to kill one another's pork projects in appropriations bills.

I think I would prefer it if this Congress and President stuck to naming federal buildings, handing out medals, and the like. They are clearly out to do their own business and not the business of the American people.

Immigration reform? Not with this crowd. No way. They all but gave away our southern border with their last attempt at immigration reform.

Resolving the Iraq War? Forget it. Hopefully the generals or Iraq's government tell President Bush that it's time for American forces to leave, and he listens to them, regardless of what this Congress is doing.

Gonzales? Nope.

Dealing with Iran? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

President Bush is fighting both Democrats and Republicans and achieved a stalemate with the Democrats...and with his own party.

And the Democrats are blowing it BIG time. Their control of Congress is a joke; and news came this week that their approval rating has dropped to 29%, which is lower than President Bush's 33% approval rating. One commenter has observed that Congressional approval ratings have returned to 2006 pre-election levels.

This is really the party that swept back into power last November?

Sheehan Quits Anti-War Movement: It Was Bound to Happen Since Anti-War Coalitions Have No Unity

The Democratic cave-in on Iraq War funding deadlines has claimed another one of their former allies: anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan, who grabbed headlines over her protests at President Bush's Texas ranch, quit the anti-war movement and left the Democratic Party.

Some were leaping for joy at news of her packing it in; I was not among them. All I feel is sadness.

She was not in good health to begin with--after all, she had lost her son Casey in Iraq--plus her marriage broke apart, her relationship with her surviving children was on the ropes, and her finances were melting down. These were statements from Sheehan herself in her letter of farewell.

And she was egged on by the Democrats, who attended her rallies and sang her praises. But when she began criticizing them for the same things that she was criticizing the Bush Administration for--namely ending the war--they tossed her over their shoulders like an empty beer can. Goodbye. The end.

I criticized her for going beyond the scope of the anti-war movement and joining the liberal "I hate George Bush" crowd and meeting with Venezuela's communist president and other left-wing thugs. She became a side-show and severely undermined her own message to the point that she lost major credibility with those who might have supported her, had she stayed on topic.

I feel sad for her; she made some very bad decisions based on her anger and it's visibly taken a toll over the last two years. I hope she recovers her health and gets her personal life back on track.

Looking Forward: Pentagon Needs to Carefully Plan Withdrawal of U.S. Forces, or We'll Lose a Ton of People on the Last Day

The recent clashes between Congress and the White House over withdrawal dates for U.S. forces from Iraq have me worried that the government may err on how they go about actually doing it, when the time comes to leave Iraq.

One nightmare scenario that I can see happening is that the U.S. military will be on the move under cover of darkness to their pre-invasion positions in Kuwait, as well as heading for Saudi Arabia. No one will realize what exactly is going on, until one of the networks put two and two together and announce that the U.S. pull-out is underway.

When it goes on the air, you can bet that al-Qaeda and many insurgent groups will head to the American withdrawal routes and start staging ambushes.

The same kind of thing happened to the Soviets when they withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989; they lost a lot of soldiers to snipers and ambushes; Soviet President Gorbachev bitterly complained that they were leaving and they shouldn't be shot at, but the mujahideen didn't care. Bullets and bombs continued to hit the Red Army as they headed back into Soviet territory.

Hopefully the Pentagon is looking at this carefully and determining how they will get our troops out. I think a gradual quiet withdrawal is the way to go, instead of having tens of thousands of vehicles and 140,000 troops on the move at the same time. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

We don't need tons of casualties on the last day simply because the withdrawal of troops from Iraq was planned in the same way as the occupation was. We don't need to go there.

Tenet's New Book: Telling Everyone What He Should Have Said When He Was CIA Director

Former CIA Director George Tenet went on a media blitz over the weekend, promoting his new book which blasts the Bush Administration of how it handled 9/11, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It looks like an exercise in shifting blame to others; most notably Vice-President Cheney.

For instance, he was very aggressive in his book and on his media blitz about his "slam dunk" comment being taken out of context with regards to Saddam Hussein's possessing chemical and biological weapons.

For someone in such an important position, such as the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency, he should have been very wary about using a term like "slam dunk" in ANY context.

He had the ear of the President from 9/11 to the end of his tenure at CIA, and he should have gone after the incorrect political interpretation of his agency's intelligence data. But instead he played it safe and went with the flow, which helped to lock our nation's future with an Iraq that may not hold together. And by saying "went with the flow" I meant he didn't do enough to get around administrative roadblocks that were there.

And now he has a book deal, and is telling everyone what he should have been SCREAMING at Cheney, Rove, and the other hawks during those meetings. Too little, too late.

What a shame.

Iranian President Should Have Apologized to British Navy Members For Waylaying Them, Not The Other Way Around: SICKENING

News hit this morning that Iran was releasing it's hostages that it had taken nearly two weeks ago in the Persian Gulf, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was shown receiving the gratitude of the captive British sailors and marines, one at a time. It was a SICKENING display of manipulation on international television.

Ahmadinejad should have been the one apologizing for invading Iraqi waters and waylaying a British boarding party that was doing it's job under a United Nations mandate.

Sick and wrong.

Iranian Capture of 15 British Troops is a Repeated Violation of the Iraqi Border: Iranian Troops Captured in Recent Months Were in Iraqi Territory Too

A lot of people are waiting for the British Navy to sink the entire Iranian Navy in reprisal for the seizure of 15 British sailors and marines in Iraqi waters by the Iranian Navy.

They apparently roared in on their gunboats and took an entire British boarding party prisoner while still on the Iraqi side of the maritime border.

The British were carrying out a U.N.-mandated inspection of a seagoing vessel when they were captured.

Iran apparently has a great deal of trouble determining where the Iran/Iraq border actually is. Members of their Revolutionary Guard have been caught aiding insurgents on the Iraqi side of the border--some of them as far into Iraq as Baghdad itself.

So it should come as no surprise that Iran is continuing to violate the sovereignty of Iraq's borders. But this hostage-taking maneuver is highly unusual. They were probably hoping that the men (and woman) that they seized were Americans to put pressure on Washington to release Iranian terror operatives who were captured in Iraq or "disappeared" while in third countries.

Should be interesting to see what comes of this.

Walter Reed Army Hospital Problems are Tip of Iceberg: Government is Really Screwing Up

The brew-ha-ha over the poor condition of Walter Reed Army Medical Center seems to have raised the public consciousness over the very bad condition that parts of the facility are in.

Defense Secretary Gates is angry; the Army secretary and the commanding officer of Walter Reed were sacked, and repairs are seemingly underway.

Big whoop. The resignations and firings are meaningless, unless something positive results.

Walter Reed Army Hospital is slated for closure, and a new Walter Reed hospital complex is to be built. There was a reason for the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) folks to do this. They said in their report that wounded soldiers and their families deserved a state-of-the-art 21st Century facility and that the current facility wasn't up to the task. It also said it would cost too much to repair the existing facility.

Instead of pumping millions into Walter Reed's highly publicized problem areas, why don't they close down Building 18, where the attention is focused? They're already renting hotel rooms or bed space at other hospitals for wounded and injured soldiers; they can handle doing that for the occupants of Building 18, too, until the new facilities are ready.

These soldiers were sent into hell to begin with; why are they going through hell back over here, too, in their own country? They don't deserve this.

Congress needs to make sure that all military medical facilities have the funding that they need; that includes access to mental health care and whatever else the soldier needs to recover, and banning medical co-pays for veterans wounded in combat.

Our government sent them there; it should be on the government's dime. Not one penny should be coming out of the pockets of the soldier or his/her family. Nightmare stories have been coming out about this for quite some time; soldiers are paying for government screw ups.

The soldier and the soldier's family should not see one page of paperwork; most are inundated with complex paperwork which, if not filled out properly, can deny the soldier his/her earned benefits.

The government needs to get this right, and soon. To allow this to happen is unthinkable.