American Operations in Iraq Against Al-Qaeda and Shia Militias The American Army considers that the previous widespread operations was successful(picture caption) The American Army executed in Iraq a broad-scope military operation said to be aimed at fragmenting the infrastructure of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Shia militias equally. A military spokesperson said that the operation which carried the name " Shabih Strike" (supposed to be "Phantom Strike," but the adjective doesn't a...
32 Killed In Raids on Sadr City and the Security Surge in Al-Kathimia 32 people were killed in raids executed by American planes upon Sadr City, coming amidst the the Iraqi authorities' intensification of security measures and curfews in Bagdad, blamed upon riots which broke out amongst Shia groups in the Kathimia neighborhood in NE Bagdad to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the Imam Mousa al-Kathim. The American Army said that the raids targeted "those embroiled" in transpor...
In a sadly unsurprising twist, the Islamic State of Iraq has posted a video on one of its websites that claims that they had held the two missing US soldiers (SPC Alex R. Jimenez, 25, and PVT Byron W. Fouty, 19) held prisoner and decided to execute them. The video posted reportedly contained images of the soldiers' military identification cards. While some feel that the insurgents are hoping "to deny closure to the families of the missing soldiers" by drawing out the timeline of finalizin...
Yes, "force adjustments." Stressing that this is not related to "that surge thing we did," the Department of Defense announced yesterday the identities of the next 10 brigade combat teams that will deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. These units consist (or will consist, if they become fully staffed) of approximately 35,000 personnel (where have we seen that number before?) and deployments of these units will begin in August 2007 (which falls earlier than beginnings of some previo...
From the front page of this week's Army Times : Bigger 'Surge' - 7000 more troops to get rush on (Actually, that last word is obscured by the sticker they attached to the front of my delivery copy.) And there had been evidence of this in the news over the last week as over 2000 military police were mobilized to be sent over to Iraq. On the one hand, the surge seems to be succesful so far, because these police units were sent over solely to deal with the influx of detainees acquired du...
I saw this earlier today on the Early Bird report, and Glen Beck was touting it as Gospel tonight: Link I mean, it's by the Associated Press and it's printed in the NY Post. Positive results with factual numbers, from them? Whodathunk? Of course, these numbers are one statistic: the number of bodies found on Baghdad streets this month is down nearly 50% from last month. 50% reduction from the surge? What Beck didn't point out is that means it's "only" 494 dead, tortured and left i...
Yesterday, Wednesday, the trial of 1LT Ehren Watada, accused of missing movement and unbecoming conduct, ended in a mistrial (due to, some say, prosecutor bungling). Watada had refused to deploy to Iraq with his unit and made public statements denouncing the legality of the war both before and after his unit deployed. Watada's lawyers had wanted to bring the legal standing of the invasion into the trial as a defense, as justification for his actions. A military judge ruled this out. ...
Last Friday, the cadre member serving as the Platoon Sergeant for the linguist students asked if I would be willing to help out with a Color Guard detail for a wreath laying ceremony on the 14th. Three of the four Army personnel who would normally participate would be involved in a combatives class. I told him immediately that I'd be happy to do it. (I checked with my supervisor after that, but I knew my battle buddy would be able to cover down on our class for the day.) There were no p...
Logging into Yahoo! to see what movies the boys might like to go see, an article caught my eye: Son sues over Katrina wheelchair death . He 'accuses numerous state agencies and the city of New Orleans of gross negligence and willful misconduct in the death of his mother' because 'he was ordered by New Orleans police to seek shelter at the city's convention center, even though no aid was available and there was no way out'. His attorney's assertion is that the storm did not kill her, but ...
CNN Headline News just did a pretty good piece about how a lot of Middle Eastern news networks can be slanted away from the Israeli side of any situation. This kind of preempts any article that I might have written about them using Al-Jazeera images and headlines without adding anything to them, giving the impression that their only source on those aspects of the stories was Al-Jazeera itself. Or, it at least shortens it up a bit, to just this note. (I also noticed yesterday that Fox N...
"Story has been pulled at the request of the Defense Department" BWAHAHAHAHA!"
Link While they seem to have upgraded weaponry since the Age of Sail, pirates do indeed exist today. '"The southern Somali coastline is one of the most dangerous in the world," the WFP [World Food Program] said on its Web site. "In recent months, WFP's operations in Somalia have been sabotaged by the hijackings of two vessels carrying relief food. Ship owners are now demanding armed escorts to travel in these waters." ' Also: 'Rogers said, "We're always looking for adventure, bu...
We have had a large turnover at work in the past few months. Prior to this, there was a vested interest amongst my colleagues for the situation in Iraq. When was the vote? How many attacks were there? Who's in harm's way? And there were reasons for this, obvious to any who know who we are and what we do, but it seemed more than that. It seemed that we cared. Now, this past week, we had a train up session. There are a lot of new faces in the morning briefings (and not just from my "o...
This morning on MSNBC, I heard that Afghanistan is donating $100K to the Katrina relief. (No, these are not the people I'm referring to in the title.) This is great, but it got me wondering where they would scrounge up that kind of scratch. Are they reappropriating it from monies we've already given to them in aid? Maybe this isn't as weird as I think it is, as the beuaracracy does this sort of thing all the time... it's all accounting and allocation of funds. They followed that up wit...