UNIDENTIFIED Soldier to Rumsfeld: Sir, how do we win the war in the media?

UNIDENTIFIED Soldier to Rumsfeld: Sir, how do we win the war in the media? It seems like that is the place where we're getting beat up more than anybody else. I've been here -- this is my third tour over here, and we have done some amazing things. And it seems like the enemy's Web sites and everything else are all over the media, and they love it. But the thing is, is everything we do good, no matter if it's helping a little kid or building a new school, the public affairs sends out the message, but the media doesn't pick up on it. How do we win the propaganda war? RUMSFELD: That does not sound like a question that was planted by the press. (LAUGHTER)

There are three battlefronts to this war: the ground war, the war with our own media and the war with the fifth column or sympathizers or supporters embedded within our own society using our laws to paralyze our defense.
The war with the old media not only encompasses the works the unidentified soldier declared but the success of Iraqis in defense of their country. The successful prosecution of the war in Iraq can NOT publicized by the dinosaurs of the old media. From Powerline

"Haider Ajina sent us this translation of an article that appeared today in the Iraqi Arabic newspaper Nahrain:

A press release by the Iraqi ministry of defense.

1. At 1 am Iraqi National Guard (ING), the Mahmudih division, arrested 217 individuals suspected of being terrorists and confiscated a large cache of light and heavy caliber weapons and ammunition.

2. At 2 am the same ING division arrested Hatem Alzobaae, a suspected terrorist cell leader.

3. At 2:30 am ING in Hillah arrested the terrorist Ali Mehsan Ghnajar. In his possession were 19 grenades, three 28mm mortars.

4. At 4 am, based on a tip that he had returned from Syria, the criminal Ali Latief was arrested by the ING. Four men who are part of his cell were also arrested.

5. At 4 am 10 terrorists were arrested after returning from Mosul by the ING Mahmudiah division.

6. At 4 am ING raided the Hai Alaskari area based on a tip. As a result of the raid the ING arrested 10 terrorists one of which resisted and was wounded and arrested.

7. At 4 am terrorists attacked the Hadbaa police station and were repelled with 2 terrorists killed and their weapons confiscated.

8. At 5 am ING started a security clean sweep of Bab Shams. They confiscated a large number of hand grenades and mortar weapons and rounds."

I'll bet you will go blind first before you find any mention of this story in our MSM.

Young soldier, who had just lost his left hand and right eye from an explosion comes to the defense of Donald Rumsfeld

From the Banty Rooster a Christmas story that will outlive the ages.
The below-referenced Captain Dan Mattson reports:

It made my day, and I'm pretty certain it made theirs too. It's Christmas Eve, though it didn't feel like it. There are some good decorations in the hospital, but we had no Christmas music in the OR today, and no snow on the ground. No nativity scenes or festive cheer in this part of the world. Then, after a routine for here but hardly routine day in the OR, my day was made. I'm referring to the interaction I witnessed and helped facilitate between a young injured soldier and a high ranking official. Here is how it happened:

I was reading foxnews.com at around noon when I told the anesthesiologist that "the Donald" was in town on a surprise visit. No, not Donald Trump, but Donald Rumsfeld. He laughed cynically and said no way would he come here. Well, at around 1600 I was in the OR and I was told that Rumsfeld was downstairs, and we could go down there if we wanted to. I was not in a position to leave, obviously.

Well, the timing worked out well, because I was taking my patient to the recovery room when we wheeled the stretcher through a mob of dignitaries, to include 3 and 4 star generals. I knew the Secretary was nearby, and it turns out he was in the ICU. The patient drew enough attention because of his bruised, banged up face that the 4 star came over to get his story from the surgeon. I was doing some charting by the bedside when Mr. Rumsfeld came over and heard the kid's story from the 4-star. Rumsfeld looked concerned and kind of kept his distance from the gruesome site. He said something like "bless his heart", as if talking around him.

That is when I, without any thought, piped in with "Sir, you can talk to him, he's awake." He told the soldier, named Rob, how proud he was of his service. The soldier was in a bit of disbelief, because he couldn't see with one eye patched and the other swollen shut. He said he wanted to talk to Rumsfeld. That's when I said "He's standing right to your left, Rob, that's his voice you hear. You can talk to him." The kid was nervous at that point, but sputtered out how honored he was to talk to him. Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "No, it's an honor for me to talk to you."

Then remarkably, the young soldier, who had just lost his left hand and right eye from an explosion, came to the defense of the Secretary of Defense, stating "Mr. Rumsfeld, I want you to know, that you are doing a fantastic job. I know that you are taking a lot of heat for the problems with getting armor for vehicles. I want you to know that things are vastly improved. Our vehicles are great, and I have never searched through junk piles for scrap metal."

At this point, Rumsfeld looked choked up, and I had a lump in my throat and and watery eyes. It was moving. What makes a man who has been so close to death, and maimed for life, come to the defense of the Army's highest ranking official? Loyalty, I dare say. Did Rob think Mr. Rumsfeld was having a self-esteem problem? In his greatest hour of need, his thoughts went to the emotional needs of another. I found it quite amazing, and moving. The Secretary took out a coin and gave it to a bystander for him, as if he didn't know he could touch him. Finally, the soldier said, "Man, Donald Rumsfeld, I wish I could shake his hand."

Even at that, I felt Mr. Rumsfeld needed some prompting, so I picked up the kid's arm and looked at the Secretary, and he reached out and took the kid's hand. After the entourage left, I took the coin and placed it in the soldiers hand, for him to feel and hold. I said, "that's not one you'll get every day." He was happy. I told the person caring for him to make certain that coin went with him to his room. I was assured that he would. I told Rob it was an honor to care for him, and then went on to do my next case. I'd like to see him tomorrow, but I heard he is flying out tonight. "

Where do terrorists come from?

Marc Sageman, former CIA case officer now a forensic psychiatrist, provides interesting data gleamed from 400 terrorists who either tried to or were involved in attacks against the United States:

Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing - the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they’re just plain evil.
Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few
had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect; and a few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.

Far from having no family or job responsibilities, 73 percent were married and the vast majority had children. Those who were not married were usually too young to be married. Only 13 percent were madrassa-trained and most of them come from what I call the Southeast Asian sample, the Jemaah Islamiyya (JI). They had gone to schools headed by Sungkar and Bashir. Sungkar was the head of JI; he died in 1999. His successor, Bashir, is the cleric who is being tried for the Jakarta Marriott bombing of August 2003; he is also suspected of planning the October 2002 Bali bombing.
E-Notes: Understanding Terror Networks - FPRI

Google Hits:HERO- Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta 3,500 vs.231,000 DESERTER- Navy Petty Officer Pablo Paredes

Col. Oliver North' s recent column,HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: HERO IN FALLUJAH: Marine Laid Himself on Top of Grenade to Save Rest of Squad by Oliver North ,
on the heroism of Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta who, despite his wounds, reached for a live enemy hand grenade and used his body to save his mates from the blast vs. the media hype surrounding AWOL-Petty Officer Paredes who called a press conference to announce he was "resigning" from the WOT is a near perfect illustration of Robert Kagan's essay "The Media and Medievalism" on the mainstream media membership in the cult of victimhood. Run a google check on each name and despite actions that will most certainly receive the Medal of Honor there are only, as of today, 3,500 hits of interest for Sgt. Peralta. Paredes' actions receive 231,000:

You see, Pablo Paredes, a Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class, did something the liberal elites consider "heroic" and the media consider "newsworthy" - he defied an order. Last week, Paredes refused to board his ship bound for Iraq along with 5,000 other sailors and Marines. He showed up on the pier wearing a black tee shirt that read, ``Like a Cabinet member, I resign.'' North.

The cult of... " victimhood is a legacy of the 1960s and its immediate aftermath — when, according to Peter Novick in The Holocaust in American Life (1999), Jews, women, blacks, Native Americans, Armenians, and others fortified their own identities through public references to past oppression. The process was tied to Vietnam, a war in which the photographs of civilian victims — the little girl fleeing napalm — “displaced traditional images of heroism.” The process has now been turned upon the American military itself. When not portraying them as criminals in prisoner abuse scandals, the media appear most at ease depicting American troops as victims themselves — victims of a failed Iraq policy, of a bad reserve system, and of a society that has made them into killers."

"Yet the soldiers and Marines with whom I spent months as an embed in ground fighting units found such coverage deeply insulting. At a time when there are acts of battlefield courage in places like Fallujah and Najaf that, according to military expert John Hillen, “would make Black Hawk Down look like Gosford Park,” media coverage of individual soldiers and Marines as warrior-heroes is essentially absent.⁴ "KAGAN

Locked, Cocked and Ready to Rock! Jan 9th and Jan. 30

Austin Bay, who just returned from Iraq, has this reminder: Jan 9th Palestinians go to the polls and Jan 30th Iraqis get to cast their first vote in their lifetime. The forces of evil will be out in full regalia with their vote to force the people to remain slaves to dictators. They will not succeed. The outcome is not predetermined yet all know what is at stake: the death of all dictators. The forces of evil know that once a slave gets a whiff of freedom all hell breaks loose.

But they are going to fail. Even if Iraq's election shifts to February (unlikely, since Iraqi leaders such as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani oppose any delay), the ultimate vote will produce a triumph for the oppressed.

For years, the Arab street (a violent drag controlled by tyrants, their power enforced by terror) kept Arab moderates and democratic reformers in the Arab alley or the Arab jail. The Arab street also has served as a theater for choreographed displays of anger, usually directed at Israel and America. Addressing the real sources of Arab deprivation and degradation, autocratic oppression and systemic corruption, was verboten.

America's reaction to 9-11 -- specifically, its strategic offensive reaction -- is taking the gun out of hands of tyrants and terrorists. Removing Saddam Hussein began the reconfiguration of the politically dysfunctional Arab Muslim Middle East -- a dangerous, expensive process, but one that gives Middle Eastern moderates the chance to build states where the consent of the governed creates legitimacy and where terrorists are prosecuted, not promoted.

From the Fat Chance Dept.

Inside Politics / The Washington Times INSIDER: " Fat chance
The District-based WMAL radio is leading a fund-raising drive on behalf of Fisher House, which, explains talk-show host Michael Graham, assists 'the wives, children and parents who have wounded loved ones receiving treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Bethesda Naval Hospital or Malcolm Grow Medical at Andrews Air Force base.'
Mr. Graham offered that explanation in a letter to a potential big donor -- or, rather, a big potential donor: documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.
'America's soldiers have been very good to you,' Mr. Graham writes in an open letter to Mr. Moore. 'Most of them don't like you, but they're prepared to die attempting to protect you from terrorism so that you can continue to crank out your profitable propaganda.
'They've done all this for you. I'm writing to give you the opportunity to do something for them. ...
'The message of your books and films is that the American soldier is a victim. The soldiers I've spoken with at Fisher House vehemently disagree with you, as do the majority of my active-duty military listeners. However, we all agree that the soldiers who have been the victims of Iraqi terrorist violence ... deserve our support.
'Therefore, I am writing to challenge you to give back just a small portion of the money you have earned as a critic of their mission. Your film 'Fahrenheit 9/11' has grossed around $150 million. Our entire goal for the Fisher House this holiday season is a tiny percentage of that amount. ...
'If you feel, however, that the money can be better spent on yet another trip to France, nobody will be surprised.
'You can send your check made out to the Fisher House Foundation, care of 630 WMAL, 4400 Jenifer Street NW, Washington, DC 20015.' "

Raider One: Ten Scouts and one War Pig in 10 seconds in Fallujah

"It was just August when the company commanders created the concept of Raider One — a single vehicle that can deposit up to 10 scouts on the ground within seconds to fight in conjunction with Light Armored Vehicles known as "war pigs." The setup provides new flexibility during hand-to-hand combat and has proven so effective that Raider is assigned constant missions in Fallujah."
"This is urban combat to a 'T,' with 360 degrees of danger," says Sgt. Kevin Boyd, the young-faced chief scout from Pittsburgh, Pa., who forged Raider's clockwork skills of houseclearing by daily practice on the ship to the Middle East, storming stairwells and clearing catwalks on upper decks.

"You've always got to be looking in every house — behind every couch there could be a guy hiding," says Sergeant Boyd, an Eagle Scout who wore his first camouflage at age 3 and owns more than 20 guns.

Boyd graduated from high school on a Friday, celebrated on Saturday, and left for the Marines on Monday. He says Fallujah is "10 times" as dangerous as the Iraq invasion, during which LAR lost one marine, who stepped on an artillery shell.

"It's a lot faster combat, a lot more deliberate. Grenade, grenade, rocket-boom! You're in," says Boyd. For luck, he keeps an Ace of Spades in his helmet.

"I love the adrenaline of it, the fast pace," Boyd adds. "I'm breathing in plaster and composition B from the grenade, choking on it — spitting out black stuff as I'm clearing the room out. It's great!"



USATODAY.com - Marines on the front lines talk of God and guns

The cult of victimhood.

How is it the media has the power to stop a successful operation in progress, to ignore the good news from Iraq and worse of all to ignore the thugsters who play possum only to shoot our people in the back? Robert D. Kaplan has an explanation in:
The Media and Medievalism by Robert D. Kaplan - Policy Review, No. 128
Because the media confuse victimization with moral right, American troops in Iraq have had occasionally to contend with unsympathetic news coverage, which in an age of mass media has concrete tactical and strategic consequences. Last spring, I accompanied the first United States Marines into Fallujah. After several days of intense fighting, the Marines — reinforced with a fresh new battalion — appeared on the verge of defeating the insurgents. A cease-fire was called, though, snatching defeat from victory. No matter how cleanly the Marines fought, it was not clean enough for the global media, famously including Al-Jazeera, which portrayed as indiscriminate killing what in previous eras of war would have constituted a low civilian casualty rate. The fact that mosques were blatantly used by insurgents as command posts for aggressive military operations mattered less to journalists than that some of these mosques were targeted by U.S. planes. Had the fighting continued, the political fallout from such coverage would have forced the newly emerging Iraqi authorities to resign en masse. So American officials had no choice but to undermine their own increasingly favorable battlefield position by consenting to a cease-fire. While U.S. policy was guilty of incoherence — ordering a full-scale assault only to call it off — the Marines were defeated less by the insurgents than by the way urban combat is covered by a global media that has embraced the cult of victimhood.

The 2/24 Chicago based Marine Reserves work the Thugsters 'hood'

Perhaps the most successful of the marines' tactics have been the nighttime raids. With more than 70 police officers in the battalion, the work-up for the raids at the Mahmudiya base has been strongly influenced by American police tactics. Colonel Smith said he attributed much of the unit's success in tracking down wanted insurgents to Warrant Officer Jim Roussell, a 53-year-old Chicago police sergeant who spent years working with the city's gang unit.
Mr. Roussell, a tall, spare man with a graying crew cut, agreed that tracking down insurgents in Iraq was not so different from hunting down street gang members. "In both cases, you're dealing with young people who are disenfranchised and angry and pick up weapons," he said.
To identify them, he said, the marines' intelligence unit follows family ties, picks up tips from street patrols and develops "snitches," many of them captured insurgents.

"It's ground-level intelligence, it's patrolling, it's interacting with people," he said. "At base, it's straightforward police work."
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Marines' Raids Underline Push in Crucial Area

Caroline B. Glick: On the advantages of the Terrorists over Marines

Capt Gil Juarez, last month reminded his LAR Marines
:"This is a political war." Glick's column on Kevin Sites footage fully explains exactly what is meant by that statement.

Terrorists have two basic advantages over the Western armies and societies that fight them: their own invisibility, and the self-obsession and hatred of Western Leftists. By not abiding by the centuries-old rules of war that stipulate that combatants are uniformed members of the armed forces of a country or a recognized insurgency in control of territory, the terrorists have an upper hand despite their relatively small numbers and outdated weaponry. How can a war be justified against an enemy you can't see who looks just like the civilians you are obligated by law and your values to protect?
Add to this the fact that terrorists eagerly exploit universally recognized symbols of non-combatants and you have a war that you simply cannot justify on camera. Terrorist shoot from mosques so mosques must be raided. Terrorists are transported in ambulances so ambulances must be inspected. But of course, the television cameras aren't filming when the terrorists fire RPGs from minarets, only when terrorists wounded while shooting them lay pitifully on the floor. And there is no camera on hand when they plant explosives beneath gurneys.

Cpl John Wilson 3rd LAR wounded in Fallujah

While patrolling with the Third Light Armored Reconnaissance Unit in Fallujah, Wilson and his fellow soldiers heard mortar rounds and went to investigate. “He said they were running down an alley, and when they turned a corner, there were men with guns who started shooting at them,” Wilson’s father said. He said Wilson’s gun jammed, and as he was retreating, he was struck in the leg by a bullet from an AK-47.

“His doctor said he was very lucky, because the bullet went right through his leg without striking the bone,” said Wilson’s mother. Two other soldiers in Wilson’s unit were injured, as well, but none of the injuries is life threatening.

According to his parents, this is not the first time Wilson has been in mortal danger, but it is the worst time. One day, the armored troop transport vehicle Wilson was riding in rolled over, his father said. Wilson suffered only a black eye and bruises.

Wilson’s father also said that on another day, Wilson and his unit were walking along with their transport vehicle rather than riding in it, and a rocket struck the transport right where Wilson would have been sitting, destroying the vehicle.

MNSUN - News

Scan Eagle: Unmanned aircraft does reconnaissance work for Fallujah Marines

A robotic aircraft that is four feet tall with a ten foot wing span and can stay aloft for 15 hours at a stretch on two gallons of fuel has been providing valuable intell in Fallujah for Marines.

"It travels above insurgent positions and sends real-time video images to Marines on the ground. The unmanned device can relay facial expressions on enemy soldiers, and can transmit in such detail that it shows steam rising from their coffee.
The 4-foot-long aircraft has a 10-foot wingspan and can fly up to 15 hours at a time on less than two gallons of fuel, Boeing officials said.
Unmanned aircraft such as ScanEagle are expected to play an increasing role in future battles because the Pentagon (news - web sites) sees the planes as an integral part of combat missions. Weapon systems are in the works that will share a common operating language so soldiers, ships, submarines, planes and satellites can share information in a battlefield network. "
Yahoo! News - Marines Aided by Robotic Airplane in Iraq

• 
  

Fallujah: LAR Co. Discovers Bomb Control Center

There are 50,000 buildings in Fallujah and each one has to be searched:
"Yesterday, one platoon of the Light Armored Reconnaissance company discovered a control center that could explode at least eight improvised explosive devices, the kind of roadside bombs that have inflicted large numbers of deaths across Iraq. The control center was set inside a normal building, with a wide horizon view of the main highway that cuts through the city. Each IED was labeled, and the operator had only to touch the copper wire for the battery to set off the explosive."

On Saturday the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines engaged in a serious battle in the south of Fallujah that killed two Marines and wounded several others. As the fight continued, Marines estimated that they had killed 34 insurgents and captured another 23, at least 10 of whom were foreign fighters.

Also Saturday, Bravo company of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, found two vast weapons caches in the northeast of the city, which is considered to be the most "cleaned" so far, and therefore the most likely to see the earliest return of civilians.

"We've been through half the doors. It's a necessary but laborious process going on," says Col. Craig Tucker, commander of the Regimental Combat Team-7, one of two regiments active in Fallujah. "We'll go through every house in this city. We'll bring back people by sectors, but we don't want to bring people back while we are still finding 100 105 mm (artillery) rounds in a single house."

Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaii News

How NOT to Clear a Room

When the team from Alpha Company finally entered the last redoubt of the insurgents -- a burning house that had already been hammered by rockets, explosive charges and tank rounds -- they had every reason to believe any remaining gunmen were dead. But two were alive.

Point man Lance Cpl. Richard Caseras entered with his team and ran into the spray of an insurgent's AK-47 assault rifle. A second fighter then emerged, a pineapple grenade in each hand, with pins already pulled.

Eyeball to eyeball with their opponents, the Marines shot them both dead; the grenades fell to the ground and exploded, blasting the Americans with shrapnel.

In the eerie light of the roaring flames, the wounded men were dragged back out to the street while Marines targeted the house with steady gunfire.

As the shooting lit the battle space with muzzle flashes and noise, a lone U.S. Navy medical corpsman jumped out to gather the wounded. This correspondent moved to help, joining in to pull the three injured men into the vehicle by their flak jackets.

"I'm so sorry! I should have used the frag(mentation) grenade and not my M-16 (rifle)," Caseras yelled to his fallen comrades as the vehicle raced toward a combat hospital at Camp Fallujah. Lance Cpl. Nathan Douglass was peppered with shrapnel. Also prone in the back of the armored vehicle, on crates full of ammunition and explosives, lay Cpl. Catcher Cuts the Rope (his American Indian name), with a tourniquet above his knee; grenade shards hit his shoulder and hands.

"Don't worry," Douglass, from Hillsboro, Ore., said consolingly. "We shot so much into that house. There shouldn't have been anybody left."

The final blow came with heavy fire from an AC-130 Spectre gunship, which destroyed four houses used by the insurgents with 40 Howitzer shells.

The toll from a brutal night: one dead Marine and nine wounded, including this correspondent, who was struck in the arm by a small piece of shrapnel.

The firefight brings the casualty rate in the Light Armored Reconnaissance Company to one man in five -- far less than the 60 percent reached during the battle for Vietnam's Hue City in 1968, the last urban assault waged by U.S. Marines before Fallujah, but far higher than most modern combat operations.



Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaii News

LCpl. Kc Moran 3rd LAR WIA but on time for Family Thanksgiving dinner

Kc was on a rooftop (in Fallujah) a forward scouting position. He was under heavy mortar and rocket fire when a mortar round went off nearby and shrapnel tore into him.

"And, then I got hit in my back where it went in and got into my intestine and they had to remove part of my intestines," explained Lance Corporal Moran. Wounded in both legs and with shrapnel in his guts, his colleagues couldn't lower him in a stretcher off the building. So, under continuing mortar fire, Moran had to first climb down from the building they were on.

On the way to an aid station, his vehicle hit two different roadside bombs, knocking out first one, and then the second driver and mildly wounding the medic. Then the ambulance humvee that was sent to rescue them hit another bomb.

The fact that Moran was here to talk about it at all on Thanksgiving was a little miracle.

"I'm thankful to be here with my family, thankful that I came out of it alright," he said.

komo news | Marine Injured In Iraq Home For Thanksgiving

Thugs Can't Beat American Troops Attack Iraqi Forces

"....insurgents in Mosul have had little luck attacking American troops head on, as their rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and roadside bombs typically do little damage to the 19-ton Stryker light armored vehicles that the Americans have been using..." ...thugs "have learned that if they go head to head with us, they'll lose big time," said Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, the commander of a battalion that oversees much of western Mosul. "Instead they are going after the Iraqi security forces." " About 400 troops pushed into Old Mosul this week in the first operation of that size there in at least six months. For three hours, as they were soaked by rain under the constant rumble of two Apache attack helicopters circling overhead, they banged on doors, questioned homeowners and shopkeepers, and tried to navigate the labyrinth of streets, which quickly flooded with murky water.

They went in expecting the worst: the mission objective, in military parlance, was "movement to contact," or attacking and capturing insurgents who fired at them as they advanced.

But to everyone's surprise, not a shot was fired, save for a few standard warning shots. Nor were any shots fired during an American raid early Thursday morning, also near Old Mosul, where the military scooped up two men suspected of complicity in attacks on Iraqis who work at a nearby military base.

"I'm kind of disappointed in the enemy," said Capt. Bill Jacobsen, the commander of a 174-man Army company that led the afternoon raid into Old Mosul. "We were there for three hours. Someone all the way to Baghdad could have responded."


The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: Troops Finding Scores of Bodies of Slain Iraqis

2Slick's Forum: Letter from Fallujah

In Fallujah, the enemy had a military-type planning system going on. Some of the fighters were wearing body armor and kevlars, just like we do. Soldiers took fire from heavy machine guns (.50 cal) and came across the dead bodies of fighters from Chechnya, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Afghanistan, and so on...no, this was not just a city of pissed off Iraqis, mad at the Coalition for forcing Saddam out of power. It was a city full of people from all over the Middle East whose sole mission in life was to kill Americans. Problem for them is that they were in the wrong city in November 2004.
****************
Anyone back home who thinks the world is a safe place needs to come here for a day and learn real fast that there are an awful lot of people out there who hate Americans so much that they risk their lives to try to kill us. We cannot live peacefully back at home right now unless we continue to stay on the offensive against our enemies and fight them in their backyards. Remember, radical Arabs started this war...and they continue to fight it, proving to America over and over that they need to be fought.
********* **********************
one fighter came running out of a building that our tanks set on fire...he was on fire and still shooting at us. As our Sergeant Major said, "going up against tanks and brads with an AK-47, you have to admire their effort!"
********************************

2Slick's Forum: Letter from Fallujah

"This is political war":Capt. Gil Juarez, the LAR commander

Capt. Juarez explained the risk from the asymmetrical threat posed by the Iraqi thugs in Fallujah as the presence of civilians increases. Marines have been subjected to white flags as cover for ambush and thugs playing dead in the street only to jump up and fire on unsuspecting Marines. "I'm telling you Marines, you have the authority to use lethal force," Capt. Gil Juarez, the LAR commander, told his platoon chiefs when giving the order for Monday's operation. "But be advised: If you make a mistake and frag innocent civilians, there is going to be a (military lawyer) on the scene and an investigation."

"We'll win the battle, no problem," Juarez continued, "but this is still a war about human relations. This is political war. Everything we do must help toward winning that war."
Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaii News

Happy Thanksgiving To All

Happy Thanksgiving to all near and far defending our nation.

Shopping list and Helpful Al QaQa calls Air Strike on himself

Chester has another great email from a Marine officer in Iraq. Written pre-Fallujah, I swiped a couple of paragraphs but your really need to go and read the whole thing:

"Small things, dude for when you get here: wear the ballistic goggles,
drink water all damn day (the camelbacks are great), I'm drinking probably 5
gallons of water per day, and it ain't enough. Helmet and Flak Jacket
worn at all times when you are outside, it sucks, but it saves lives. Wear
both the throat protector and the groin protector. Perforated eardrums are
common, get and wear the anti-blast ear plugs. I wear them whenever we're
in a vehicle,just in case of IED's. Purell hand sanitizer is a good piece
of gear also."
--------------------------------------------
And:"Got another one you'll like: Air strike went in on the outskirts of
Fallujah targeting a specific building hiding some Foreign Fighters
from Syria or Chechnya trying to infiltrate. Good hit, target destroyed.
About thirty seconds later, my radio battalion guys monitor a cell phone call
from a terrorist cell leader, saying "the Americans missed me, but they just
hit XXXXXX's house across the street." We called the air dogs back, had
them re-target and run another strike. BIG BOOM! Secondary explosions all
over the place from a weapons/ammunition cache they had in the house that
the idiot just called from. Thanks for the assist Hadji. He's doing a
one-on-one interview with Allah right about now.

The Adventures of Chester