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POPSTrue tests of leadership Continuing the clip: "Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn't just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops. As our soldiers and Marines prepared to move into Baghdad neighborhoods and Anbari villages, Senator Obama predicted that their efforts would make the sectarian violence in Iraq worse, not better. Three weeks after Senator Obama voted to deny funding for our troops in the field, General Ray Odierno launched the first major combat operations of the surge. Senator Obama declared defeat one month later: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now." His assessment was popular at the time. But it couldn't have been more wrong." And more telling... he always chooses the politically expedient answer.
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POPSRoyal Marine awarded George Cross What is remarkable about this tale is that it is only a George Cross. despite having taken the blast, refusing evacuation, he went onto confront the Taliban and killed his enemy in a subsequent action. What people do not realise about the Royal Marines is that they do not expect to get reward. Fair payment and a covenant to took after them in ill-health and old age is all a Royal asks for. But who cares? Well done, Royal.
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POPSObama's Civilian National Security Force How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together? Now, maybe he was misquoted by the Congressional Quarterly and the Chicago Tribune. I guess it's possible. If so, you would think he would want to set the record straight. Maybe he misspoke. That has certainly happened before. Again, why wouldn't the rest of my colleagues show some curiosity about such a major and, frankly, bone-chilling proposition? Are we talking about creating a police state here? The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn't count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion. Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?
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POPS"Generation Kill" brings the Iraq war to the TV viewer From the producers of "The Wire" With its $550 billion budget and 1.5 million troops, the military might seem a mechanized colossus of precision-guided violence, give or take a few bad apples and errant artillery shells. But if you have served in the military or written about it from the inside, you know that on the unit level it is filled with men and women of vastly different motivations and skills. The Marines in Generation Kill are intelligent and dimwitted, panicked, sensitive, racist, comic, homicidal, brave. It is a wonder when things go according to plan. "You know what happens when you get out of the Marine Corps?" says one of the characters. "You get your brains back."
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POPSZRICKS SON THIS IS MY SON JON HE HAS JUST JOIN THE US MARINE CORPS. This is his third week there.Gotten 2 letters so far,says it was rough the first 2 days no sleep,now he says it is getting better.I told him that it was just getting used to things being alit differant than what he is use to.That it will get better as time goes by.He said he is liking it
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POPSJack Murtha Steps In It Again And, Murtha still has not apologized to the 7 innocent Haditha Marines he accused of cold-blooded murder last time. UPDATE: Murtha's opponent this year for Congress is Lt. Colonel William Russell a decorated combat veteran who has served in Desert Storm, the Iraq War, and the Pentagon on 9/11. You can donate to his campaign HERE. A WilleyBCoyote Video. Murtha Makes An Outrageous Allegation http://newsbusters.org/node/5410
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POPSWar Photographer "Disembedded The Marine commanders who saw the photograph were not happy, saying it violated a "trust" between the military and journalists. The reason the Marines gave--that Zoriah had "provided the enemy with specific information on the effectiveness of the attack and the response of U.S. and Iraqi forces to the attack"--was nonsense. Now, I don't like seeing dead Americans at all. But if the country is going to fight a war, then the population needs to see the cost. What's next? Should we also ban combat-wounded paraplegics, amputees, and burn victims from going out in public after they return home? Is it just too shocking? Would not banning them from public allow the terrorists to achieve a victory on our own soil by inflicting dangerously low morale on the American public? Would it help al Qaeda with their battle damage assessments? And we certainly don't want the kids to see that kind of stuff--like Purple Heart awardees walking around without body parts.
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POPSTours Being Extended in Afghanistan * Bush admits to 'tough month' in Afghanistan (4.00 / 1) WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Wednesday acknowledged that June was a difficult month for American and allied troops in Afghanistan, saying the higher death toll there was because troops are taking the fight to Taliban militants. Because they are taking the fight to the Taliban? What does he think they were doing before? Haven't they always been taking the fight to the Taliban in Afghanistan? Forty-six U.S. and allied personnel lost their lives in Afghanistan last month, the highest monthly toll since the war started. The 28 American troop deaths also marked the highest U.S. monthly death toll in Afghanistan in the conflict. In May and June, the American and allied death toll surpassed those in Iraq, where there are far more U.S.-led coalition troops.
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POPSExtraterrestrial Particle Accelerator I recently read an excellent book titled "Decipher," about a diverse group of people trying to save the Earth. A linguist that specialized in dead languages like Chaldean and Sumerian... A CIA remote viewer.. A Construction Engineer for a Oil Company... An Archaeologist.. A Quantum Scientist/Mathematician focused on Chaos Theory... A Crack team of Marines with the ever noble squared-jaw leader. Their goal was to decipher a base 60 language that ad been left imprinted on crystal matrices tens of thousands years old with a carbon-60 elemental make up.. Read it if you can find it, it is amazing. The Particle Accelerator here was featured in that book and the Physicist was spouting off about these theories of mini-black holes and space/time distortion. Thus article goes one better as it alleges that the Collider is the only NON-TOP SECRET unit being used and many more exist...
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POPSForty Years too late It was way back in 1969 that the reality of using the useless Landrover in urban streets became a hindrance to the military. In those days the Military hierarchy was so subdued by the politicians that the cannon fodder was expected to accept every stupid dictate from Whitehall. Nothing could have been more demonstrative than when Support Company 41 Commando was ordered to stop the Ian Paisley march, after the opening of his new church. They were ordered to form a square and use conventional anti-riot formations, even though the Marines had discarded the ill-conceived practices in Aden, three years earlier. The MoD and the politicians still move at the same pace.
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POPSJudiciary Committee Willl Subpoena Atty. Gen. Mukasey It's about damn time they get off the dime to follow and prosecute the LAW they have all sworn to uphold. If Mukasey balks or won't testify under oath, that trick BushCo loves, they better arrest his sorry ass and let him sit for contempt until he does.
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POPSEquipment or Troops? Pick One In other words, we either get troops or equipment. We don't get both. At a time when we are fighting a global war on terror on multiple fronts, with the bulk of our military tied up in Iraq, we are looking at possible troop cuts. The military is scrambling to re-equip because the Pentagon failed to plan for the long and expensive war in Iraq, said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who chairs the House panel that oversees military spending. That failure, Murtha said, makes the Pentagon's plan to add 92,000 new soldiers and Marines unrealistic. Although new troops would help reduce repeated, lengthy deployments, there are other more pressing demands, Murtha said
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POPSProfiles of Terrorists If the shoe fits, wear it. The best way to know who is a terrorist or not is to ask the victim. It is taboo to label US soldiers as terrorist, but that is exactly what they are trained to do - terrorism. High tech at that. If any army, for ANY reason did these things to Americans, we know what they would be called and we know what our LEGITIMATE response would be: resist, resist, resist.
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POPSHaditha Marine prepares to sue Murtha over smear They should sue that fat pig Murtha, who, like another disgusting individual (Kerry) claims to be a war hero. Murtha seems to have long ago forgot what Semper Fi means, and stabbed his fellow marines in the back for political advantage. I say sue his ass. Then get him out of office on the double quick so for the first time in his life he will have to work for a living.
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POPSThe Crushing Burden of Multiple Deployments In April, Veterans for America's Wounded Warrior Outreach Program released two reports, The Consequences of Churning and Weekend Warriors to Frontline Soldiers, that showed that not only are these repeated deployments taking their toll on returning servicemembers with increased incidents of combat stress, but many frontline units are repeatedly experiencing higher KIA (Killed in Action) than most servicemembers who have been deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan. The repeated deployment of "three deuce five" is hardly unique. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, which has already been deployed three times since September 11, 2001, will be deployed again this fall, making it one of a handful of BCT's that will have seen four tours
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POPSNATO-Led Force 'Underresourced' For The Fight Against The Taliban
Marines are now on Day 30-plus of what was initially expected to be a three-to-five-day campaign, as they live without electricity or running water and face Taliban reinforcements who continue to flow into their territory from neighboring Pakistan. But they are making key strides, military officials say, with a recent operation to block escape routes and cut off Taliban supply lines. "Mowing the lawn." They are operating in an area that British forces, hobbled by insufficient troop levels, have tried to clear before. One British commander referred to it as "mowing the lawn," since the insurgency seems to just grow back. Other allies have suggested that Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government will need to hold reconciliation talks with insurgents from the former Taliban regime but not until some level of security is established. This year, the American ambassador sought advice from a former Taliban commander, asking what ISAF could do to reduce popular support for the Taliban.
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POPSWho Is The Real Patriot? I may not agree with his religion or some of his views, but I'd rather be in his fox-hole than Dick Cheney's or George Bush's.
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POPS D-Day In Context Perhaps that's because it would draw parallels between those who stormed the coast of France in 1944 and those who are fighting now -- and winning -- a war against radical Islam. Unlike those who braved their way into Hitler's Fortress Europe, the young Americans fighting today's battles reap few accolades from the potentates of the press or the liberal "leadership" in Washington. A recent editorial warned about Iraq: "Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war." And it took to task those who comprise "the 'this-war-is-lost' caucus." The victories over al-Qaida and the Shiite militias in Iraq, against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's remnant in Afghanistan, have been won by U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines -- and the new allies in these countries. Those who landed on the beaches of Normandy 64 years ago were American heroes. So are those who serve today.
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POPSI hope so... If even a small percentage of republicans go for Obama -- it'll be a landslide.
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POPSCollateral Damage What It Really Means When America Goes to War
Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleaguered troops, merge into one entity. These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops in Iraq nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate. They are dismissed as less than human. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing — the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm — to murder — the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing. The savagery and brutality of the occupation is tearing apart those who have been deployed to Iraq. As news reports have just informed us, 115 American soldiers committed suicide in 2007. This is a 13% increase in suicides over 2006. And the suicides, as they did in the Vietnam War years, will only rise as distraught veterans come home, unwrap the self-protective layers of cotton wool that keep them
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