#2
From the new picture on her page, it would appear that she has had some sort of professional makeover.
While was always reasonably attractive, she now looks like some kind of plastic thing.
She's gone Hollywood...not that there is anything wrong with that. I'm just sayin'.
AR
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
07/30/2005 9:11 Comments ||
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#3
AR -- it's just a different picture.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
07/30/2005 11:57 Comments ||
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#4
I agree with RC. wanna see several diffent pics of Malkin? Go to link. Most of them are quite attractive, but I don't like the bee hive one which appears with her column in our local paper.
In this corner, representin' the trolls on the Left
I am angered and sickened by the bombings here in London on July 7, but I am equally angered by the unthinking reactions in the United States and Britain to those disgusting attacks.
The usual self-congratulatory contrast between "our" civilization and "their" barbarism has set the stage for a cycle of moralistic inquiries into the motivations of suicide bombers and the supposed duty of "good" Muslims to restrain "bad" ones.
Few have noticed that suicide bombing is merely a tactic used by those who lack other means of delivering explosives. Fewer still seem to notice that what happened in London is what occurs every time a U.S. or British warplane unloads its bombs on an Iraqi village.
But, you may say, our forces don't deliberately target civilians. Perhaps not. But they have consistently shown themselves to be indifferent to the civilian casualties produced by their operations.
"Collateral damage" is the inevitable result of choosing to go to war. By making the choice to go to war in Iraq, we made the choice to kill tens of thousands of civilians. It does not matter to bereaved parents whether their child was killed deliberately, as the result of a utilitarian calculation of "the greater good," or of the callous indifference of officials from a distant power.
American and British media have devoted hours to wondering what would drive a seemingly normal young Muslim to destroy himself and others. No one has paused to ask what would cause a seemingly normal young Christian or Jew to strap himself into a warplane and drop bombs on a village, knowing full well his bombs will inevitably kill civilians (and, of course, soldiers).
Because "our" way of killing is dressed up in smart uniforms and shiny weapons and cloaked in the language of grand causes, we place it on a different moral plane than "theirs."
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/30/2005 02:55 ||
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#1
Yesterdays news, how many months has it been since a US plane droped a bomb (singular)? The left still thinks we are fighting with 1970's weapons and needlessly kill civilians. That the other guys, not us , except they target civilians and we don't have the need to. By the way their culture is backward and barbaric, even they realise that.
#3
yes. mohammed atta and his colleagues had nowhere else to turn, so in their darkest desperation, they hijacked jets and flew them into the world trade center. that was payback for um, what? Oh yeah. not being muslim.
There IS a difference when civilian populations are targeted vs. when civilians die as a result of collateral damage. There is no moral equivalence No amount of rationalizing and excusing, like this a-hole is doing will change that.
#4
I am angered and sickened by the bombings here in London on July 7, but I am equally angered by the unthinking reactions in the United States and Britain to those disgusting attacks
There's the problem in a nutshell.
Posted by: too true ||
07/30/2005 8:03 Comments ||
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#5
Few have noticed that suicide bombing is merely a tactic used by those who lack other means of delivering explosives. Fewer still seem to notice that what happened in London is what occurs every time a U.S. or British warplane unloads its bombs on an Iraqi village.
Bully for you for noticing. The fact is we are fighting illegal combatants and when a combatant illegal or otherwise, uses a villiage for storing ordnance or marshaling troops, it becomes a military target
But, you may say, our forces don't deliberately target civilians. Perhaps not. But they have
consistently shown themselves to be indifferent to the civilian casualties produced by their operations.
See the above. No one on our side has the orders to kill civilians, and I daresay that there is an emotional cost that is likely paid by pilots and riflemen. However the onus for civilian deaths, unavoidable civilian deaths, rests firmly in the hands of the targets, not the attacking side.
"Collateral damage" is the inevitable result of choosing to go to war. By making the choice to go to war in Iraq, we made the choice to kill tens of thousands of civilians. It does not matter to bereaved parents whether their child was killed deliberately, as the result of a utilitarian calculation of "the greater good," or of the callous indifference of officials from a distant power.
Actually in the "Palestinian" territories, we know for a fact that mothers of dead suicidal terrorists are proud of what their child has done. I got $10 that says it is Islamic culture wide that joy and pride are the emotions felt by parents of dead suicide murderers.
So, no sale. Next...
American and British media have devoted hours to wondering what would drive a seemingly normal young Muslim to destroy himself and others.
Those Muslims are part of a mysogenistic death cult is why. Our folks in our meda are too f*cxking dumb to come to that conclusion because of what I call "enforced stupidity.
No one has paused to ask what would cause a seemingly normal young Christian or Jew to strap himself into a warplane and drop bombs on a village, knowing full well his bombs will inevitably kill civilians (and, of course, soldiers).
The left seems to think that US pilots wake up, down some brekie, saddle up with an aircraft full of ordnace and on their way they ask each other, "Where's a villiage we can dump out bombs on. Another example of enforced stupidity.
Air raids are carefully planned according to the rules of war, the best intel available and vetted by military lawyerc. The bombs being carried to such military targets are precision, to reduce greatly the possibility of civilians deaths
Because "our" way of killing is dressed up in smart uniforms and shiny weapons and cloaked in the language of grand causes, we place it on a different moral plane than "theirs."
The west is indeed on a much, much higher moral plane than the enemies we seek to destroy. If you prefer to state your alliegence to those folks, you have that perfect right until you try to use that belief to kill others.
#6
alot of civillians have died in most wars, its not pretty is it.
Posted by: bk ||
07/30/2005 11:30 Comments ||
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#7
What I find fascinating is the left tends to be very oriented towards treaties and processes yet many seem really easy to rationalize away the Geneva Convention treaty as it applies to attacks against civilians and combatants out of uniform.
I mean treaties are great but they have to apply to everyone or they mean nothing!
#8
This reads like every fifth Derrick Z. Jackson column, boiled down thusly - if there are any civilian casualties in a war, the war should not be fought.
#9
If only the left could convince the other side of that!
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/30/2005 15:36 Comments ||
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#10
Badanov has admirably summarized the real facts contradicting this asshat's assertions. It falls to me to explain WHY asshats in general do this sort of thing. Yeah, it always gives me a headache to analyze the leftist liberal mind, but somebody's got to do the job. Here goes:
Here's my take: The guy, in this article, is not trying to destroy the current establishment in order to impose his own socialistic/communistic paradise. He's laying the groundwork for saving his hide when his glorious revolution fails while committing similar atrocities.
The liberals/leftists/communists have been LOSING in every objective and significant measure. Reluctant to admit defeat, they attempt a win by breaking the rules. No problem if they win: as the winners, they will ignore the rules if they are, in any way, an encumbrance.
The problem, of course, is if the cheating does not lead to a win. This can be a problem if there is no umpire, and the rules are enforced by the players themselves. The weaker side, having tried to cheat to win, and failing, now faces the prospect of a stronger opponent deciding not to play by the rules anymore.
"Few have noticed that suicide bombing is merely a tactic used by those who lack other means of delivering explosives."
Absolutely true. The implication is that, being weak, the weak should be cut MORE SLACK, even to the point of not having to face consequences when they decide to cheat.
The lefties are losing in a significant arenas and in most significant measures. They're feeling the heat. They feel the need to cheat, but fear the consequences? How better can one tell whether the consequences can be mitigated than by trying to stop your opponent from imposing consequences when someone else cheats?
This screed is an attempt to measure the power of the writer in deflecting consequences. He's a potential cheater wanting to see whether he can get away with cheating and reduce the downside of being discovered and dealt with by pleading an inherent "weakness" and "inability" to play fair. ONe can tell this because of his playing fast and loose with the facts, as demonstrated by badanov's comment: I.e. he's cheating.
The entire left's defense of Saddam after GW-I does not rest on any affection they have for Saddam: Rather, they forsee the need of a socialist country to invade another in the future, getting whupped, and needing a mechanism in place to limit consequences. Everything done for Saddam is a dry run to see if they can manipulate the west in order to prevent the imposition of total and unconditional surrender.
Similarly, everything being done by the left to mitigate the resentments and hatred of Islamist terrorism is not out of love for them: I am sure they know that the Islamist Umma would not be to their liking. Rather, they forsee the need to carry out terrorist operations in the future, and need a mechanism in place to limit consequences. What this asshat is doing is trying to put into place a mechanism to prevent the use of the war-fighting model, whose consequences for the offender cannot be managed as well as the consequences for being considered a mere criminal under the crime-fighting model.
Hume, Malkin, and Lowry. Why I watch Fox. âCatch and releaseâ should stay with the fishes.
There are two types of people who are intimately familiar with the practice of âcatch and releaseâ â fishermen and border-control agents. Fishermen at least get some satisfaction from it. For border-control agents, it is a symptom of this nationâs contempt for its own immigration laws.
When Mexicans are caught crossing into the U.S., they are returned across the border. When illegals from countries Other Than Mexico (OTMs) are caught, itâs more complicated. They often come from Latin American countries that have various obstacles to repatriation, and we donât have the space to hold them. So they are released into the U.S. after they promise to show up at a deportation hearing. That promise and $80 might get you the services of an illegal day laborer.
Congress is beginning a scorching battle over immigration policy, pitting anti-enforcement business and ethnic lobbies backing the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill against grassroots supporters of a tough-enforcement approach, embodied in the more muscular Kyl-Cornyn bill. There is no better emblem of the border insanity Congress must fix than the travesty of âcatch and release.â
The Border Patrol is set to apprehend 150,000 OTMs in this fiscal year. Most of those are caught in the Rio Grande Valley Sector in Southeast Texas, where 52,160 OTMs have been caught so far this year. Of those, 92 percent have been released on their own recognizance â and are probably bound for an urban area near you. The immigration court in Harlingen, Texas, has a failure-to-appear rate of roughly 90 percent.
The illegals are supposed to provide an address where they can be found. Instead, they provide fake addresses or none at all. OTMs are known to present themselves to border agents once they cross the border so they can get their ânotice to appearâ (or âto disappear,â as it is commonly called) and duly proceed on their way. Law-enforcement officials tell of people claiming to be from South or Central America being released although they donât speak Spanish. An estimated 400,000 fugitive illegals in the U.S. have failed to appear for their hearings.
The office within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for detentions and removals has 18,500 detention beds. Of those, 16,800 are reserved for criminals and others who urgently have to be detained. Those beds are overwhelmed, since so many criminal aliens attempt to (and do) make it into the U.S. (Between March 2003 and February 2004, nearly 80,000 criminal aliens were deported.) That leaves only 1,700 beds for everyone else. Itâs not enough.
What is mostly missing, however, is political will. Current high levels of illegal immigration are not inevitable. When the U.S. has raised its terror alert, border crossings have diminished because would-be illegals figure it will be harder to make it across. According to the Border Patrol, illegal crossings declined by 50 percent in areas briefly patrolled by the Minuteman citizen activists earlier this year.
In early July, the Border Patrol began focusing on the problem of high numbers of Brazilians illegally crossing the border in the Rio Grande Valley Sector by placing them in detention and applying an expedited removal process that can get them out of the country in days. Many of the Brazilian illegals are relatively well-educated professionals and donât take kindly to the prospect of being detained. About two weeks later, the number of Brazilian crossings in that sector was down 75 percent.
The reform bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and John Cornyn (Texas) would encourage authorities to make greater use of expedited removal, setting aside $50 million for it. On the other end, it pushes the countries of origin to cooperate by making a temporary-guest-worker program in the U.S. available to their citizens only if the governments take back illegals within three days. Finally, the bill provides for another 10,000 detention beds over five years.
It would be a step toward rationality at the border, and toward appropriately reserving the practice of âcatch and releaseâ for trout.
â Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years. This is one of the Fox reporters that make it worthwhile to tune in. The guy flat "gets it" - in every respect.
#1
National Review generally does. From their pens to God's eyes.
Posted by: mac ||
07/30/2005 9:02 Comments ||
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#2
This person gets it. Catch and Release is a joke - no wonder illegal aliens have such contempt for our laws. If we don't have the detention facilities then build them. Not having them is simply an excuse after a few years.
Law-enforcement officials tell of people claiming to be from South or Central America being released although they donât speak Spanish.
Note: Not all south american countries speak spanish as their first language. I beleve Brazil's first language is portuguese not spanish.
Muslim âmoderatesâ are true to spirit of Islam
by Bruce Thorton
Private Papers
As stalwart as the Bush administration has been in the current conflict with Islamic jihadists, judging from the op-ed in last Saturday's New York Times by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend, it still entertains dangerous illusions about the enemy we are facing.
Hadley and Townsend reprise the narrative the administration has used all along in making sense of our adversary. Those wishing to destroy us are enemies of freedom who espouse a totalitarian ideology akin to fascism and communism. As such, they are driven by a diseased passion for domination that will brook no dissent nor allow for ideals such as tolerance and human rights. And they gain traction from âconditions of despair and feelings of resentment where freedom is denied.â Thus America must promote democratic freedom and prosperity to remove those conditions, for âpeople everywhere prefer freedom to slavery and will embrace it whenever they can, because freedom is the wish of every human being.â Finally, since these terrorists are enemies of Islam as well, we must support those Muslims who âare speaking the truth about their proud religion and history, and seizing it back from those who would hijack it for evil ends.â
The key to this mistaken interpretation is the short shrift given to the power of spiritual needs â an omission surprising given how religious the media keeps telling us this administration is. That ignoring of spiritual reality is what makes the analogy with fascism and communism false. Both of those ideologies were anti-Christian: fascism was a species of debased Romantic neo-paganism, and communism was blatantly atheist. As such, both ran counter to the powerful Judeo-Christian forces that shaped European and Russian civilization, and so could not satisfy for long the spiritual yearnings of the people, yearnings denied their traditional expressions. Thus these ideologies were doomed because they denied not just political freedom, but the powerful human need for religious expression and spiritual experience.
The jihadist enemy, on the other hand, is operating on principles and values squarely in the tradition of Islam, and thus unlike fascism and communism is expressing a spiritual need and an orthodox religious mandate: to fulfill by force the will of Allah that all the world be subject to Islam and an Islamic state, the caliphate, ruled by sharia, Islamic religious law. Those conquered infidels who refuse to convert are reduced to dhimmi, subordinated and humiliated peoples whose restricted rights, diminished lives, and circumscribed behavior testify to the superiority of their Muslim overlords and their divine right to oppress the infidel and exploit him economically. This dynamic of jihad and dhimmitude has been extensively documented by Bat Ye'or and other scholars, and is apparent on every page of Islamic jurisprudence, theology, and history from the eighth century to today.
Those who, like Hadley and Townsend, suggest otherwise are contradicting not just that history but also the beliefs and sentiments of millions of contemporary Muslims, who understand clearly what their own religion teaches and how it should be practiced. How else do we make sense of the continued widespread support for homicide bombings and Al Qaeda visible in poll after poll of Muslims worldwide? Even so-called âmoderatesâ and Westernized Muslims can't help letting slip their true beliefs even as they try to spin the latest terrorist murder. Dr. Azzam Tamimi, a senior member of the Muslim Association of Britain and a Hamas member who is frequently featured on the BBC, has made clear his support for Palestinian Arab murder of Israelis, his belief that Islamic religious law (sharia) should not be compromised to coexist with liberal democracy, his admiration of the Taliban, and his desire to see Israel destroyed.
Inayat Bunglawla, another âmoderateâ spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, has been all over CNN since the bombings in London. In a recent BBC4 interview, this is how he âcondemnedâ homicide bombings: âLet me make clear then, once and for all, we condemn the killing of all innocent people wherever they are, human lives everywhere are of equal value, whether they are British, American, Iraqi, or Palestinian. Jewish lives are not worth more than Palestinian lives, all are worth equal, and it's been quite nauseating over the past week to see how Israel and its highly-placed supporters in the media have been trying to make political capital out of last week's atrocities against Londoners. It is shameful on them and shameful upon those who are trying to help Israel improving its PR image after the brutalities it commits against the Palestinian people.â
Here is a classic example of so-called âmoderateâ double-talk. Notice how Jews are left out of the list of âhuman livesâ that have âequal value.â Notice how the statement âJewish lives are not worth more than Palestinian livesâ is not followed by the logical corollary, âPalestinian lives are not worth more than Jewish lives.â And finally, notice the usual hysterical smokescreen of alleged Israeli âbrutalitiesâ to shift the focus away from Muslim murder of innocents by concentrating on its supposed causes.
In fact, the obsession with the Palestinians is the smoking gun that reveals the jihadist sentiments of double-talking âmoderates.â Consider how many British Muslims, supposedly opposed to homicide bombings, praised Hamas founder Sheikh Yassim, who engineered the murder of over 500 Israelis in furtherance of his organization's long-term goal to destroy Israel. After the Israeli Defense Forces killed him, a memorial service was held in London, an event attended by âmoderatesâ like Muslim Council Secretary General Sir Iqbal Sacranie, who called Yassim a ârenowned Islamic scholar,â an estimation shared by Inayat Bunglawala. Think about the implications: respected, Westernized âmoderateâ Muslims praise a terrorist murderer as an âIslamic scholar,â and we are supposed to believe that âfanaticsâ have âhijackedâ and âdistortedâ Islam?
Or consider Dr. Yusuf Karadawi, a British Muslim theologian the mayor of London has praised as a âmoderate.â Of course, on cue he will recite the usual âcondemnationsâ of terrorism, but always with his fingers crossed. Once more, Israel is the key to discerning the true beliefs of the âmoderate.â Dr. Karadawi has stated that there are no civilians in Israel, that using children as homicide bombers is acceptable, and that the terrorists in Iraq murdering Americans, Brits, and Iraqis are âvaliant.â The Muslim Council of Britain has described this apologist for murder as a âdistinguished Muslim scholar, a voice of reason and understanding.â
The âmoderates'â praise of those who murder Jews and want to destroy Israel is not surprising once the proper context of jihad is restored. The return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland has always been the key to understanding the modern jihad and its favorite tactic, the terrorist murder of innocents, which began long before Israel even existed. No event more testified to the weakness of Islam than the creation of Israel, for unlike the other nations crafted by England and France after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, Israel is a nation of former dhimmi, a people once conquered by Islamic armies and forced in every aspect of their daily lives to show their humiliation and subordination to Islam and Muslims. And the Jews who created Israel were Western to boot, their nation one embodying Western political principles and ideals antithetical to Islamic religious law. Thus Israel stands as a double affront to the Islamic world-view: a once conquered, debased people throwing off the shackles of dhimmitude and outstripping by every indicator of success and well-being the Islamic nations surrounding them, not to mention three times defeating larger Arab armies in battle. If Israel survives, what then of the Islamic religious world-view that sees the House of Islam as the divinely sanctioned ruler of the world?
Thus the modern jihad that seeks to reverse the contraction of the House of Islam and so fulfill the mandate of Allah must begin with Israel, and it is in that struggle between Jew and Arab that the battle-lines of jihad are most clear. And that's why the âmoderateâ spokesmen for Islam in the West cannot let go of the Palestinian obsession: not because fellow Muslims are suffering, for many more Muslims have been killed by fellow Muslims in Jordan, in Sudan, and in Syria than the Israelis have killed while trying to defend themselves. No, the smokescreen of âPalestinian national aspirationsâ conceals the true fight: the jihad against the West, the civilization that for centuries trembled in fear at Muslim armies, and the spiritually debased peoples whom Allah has destined for conquest and subordination to the House of Islam.
As long as leaders in the West continue to confuse the true nature of the struggle, we will be at a disadvantage. The counter to a spiritual motive is not a material good, for man does not live by bread alone. Democracy, economic opportunity, an open society â all these were enjoyed by the London murderers, and they killed their fellow citizens anyway. Somehow we must find a way of articulating the spiritual good for which we fight, and stop reducing all causes to material or psychological ones. For centuries Christianity provided the spiritual goods and motivation needed to fight back against jihad and eventually reverse its momentum. With Christianity weakened into another life-style choice, particularly in Europe, what can take its place to steel us for doing what must be done to stop the slow death of the West by appeasement, indifference, and demography?
The temps in LA push at 95 degrees but it hovers near 73 in the air conditioned offices where the reporters for the LA Times have to slave away. But for this story they assign two gunslingers from out of town to combine on it. One gunman in an air conditioned office in Houston, the other in Portland. This could be big for both of them. It may be the time, the time all Lefty reporters dream of, the time when they make their bones. They have the facts---well some of them anyway---but you donât need all the facts when your job is to get the fascists in Iraq who are doing the bidding of the big oil companies and that prick Bush. Two brave reporters will sit in air conditioned comfort and write the piece of pieces about 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division; the same National Guard assholes that raised hell before going to Iraq about bad training, bad equipment, no night goggles and a bad deal. Everybody will go for the story. The Left will be made happy as they sip their morning latte's at Starbucks in Brentwood because they get to hate the Military even more, and the Right because the 184th wasnât very manly way back when. A target of opportunity. The DNC will love the this story. Barbara Boxer might even send them tickets to Hillary Clinton's inaugural ball.
In Iraq itâs 125 degrees and no a/c. The fascists of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division are on patrol. They wear the kevlar vests so if they get shot and killed it will have to be by a bullet placed in the part of the head not protected by their heavy helmets. Itâs the usual, they have a tip that some of the towel heads (whoops, brave insurgents) who came down on the locals are in the area again. The men of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, are in combat mode. One of the heartless fascists writes of the experience thusly in his blog called Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum: (if you wish for peace, prepare for war)
LT Irish, saw the man who tried to murder him fleeing into a vehicle, he ordered the gunner to fire at the man and the vehicle. The kid in the turret, not much older than 24 froze. Momentarily paralyzed with the horrific realization that he was about to murder another human being. Letâs be honest here. This is a war, in war men (women, even children) kill. It can be reasoned away as for a greater good, for righteousness, for honor etc... I make no such distinction, it is murder, plain and simple. Justified, legal, righteous, or not; putting, lead to flesh, steel to flesh, or fire to flesh, causing death is murder. In the end, if your cause is just then and only then are you vindicated. Yet I fear in âthis warâ (against the radical Islamic Fundamentalists and their beliefs) will long surpass my lifetime. I remember hearing a group of Iwo Jima Veterans speaking, and one told of the day he killed his first Japanese soldier; he said he was crying and his platoon sergeant slapped him so hard it knocked him down. The man, towering above him told him to get it together, and move forward. Later in the respite from the days fighting, he asked the SGT not why heâd struck him, but if killing ever got any easier. The SGT said you get used to it. Iâll never forget what he said to me, he said; âI never got used to it, but I did get good at it.â
The reporters at the LA Times got good at it too. Good at smearing the Military at every opportunity, making it undesirable in the eyes of future recruits so that the Army and Marines will be down to nothing. So that the Imperial aims of our filthy government will not be attainable. And after all they did have the facts. Some of them, anyway. And this story could be made to look great. To make it even better, they have great âcoverâ because their target, a Los Angeles based National Guard unit called 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division had some guys do some bad stuff. Bad stuff they could expose. Theyâd like to start the article with an actual quote from one of the fascists that popped up from somewhere:
"This is a battalion that is just rotting," one said. "There is no trust in each other. There is no confidence in leadership."
They decide instead to bury the quote within their story. This article, the first of two from the LA Times, is at least a ground rule double, missing a home run by just a few inches. They decide to play it like a recitation of the facts
ARMY PROBES GUARD UNIT: Members of a California battalion in Iraq are under investigation for alleged abuse of detainees and extortion of money from merchants.
Extortion and prisoner abuse, what a way to start.
A company of the California Army National Guard has been put on restricted duty and its battalion plunged into disarray amid allegations that battalion members mistreated detainees in Iraq and extorted money from shopkeepers, according to military officials and members of the unit. Col. David Baldwin, a California state Guard spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that investigations are underway into the allegations of mistreatment of prisoners by members of Fullerton-based Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment. The company, made up of roughly 130 soldiers, is deployed at Forward Operating Base Falcon outside Baghdad. It has been put on restricted duty while the Army reviews its performance, Baldwin said. Baldwin also confirmed the existence of the investigation of the alleged extortion, which involves members of another company in the battalion.
The battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, ( a highly decorated Viet Nam vet; my add ) has been suspended while the investigation is conducted, Baldwin said. Soldiers from a third company in the battalion have also been "pulled back to garrison mode," a military official said.
Then the Times gets to hit on the greed of the imperialist bastards
The payments allegedly exceeded $30,000, two sources said, and were made in U.S. currency, according to one member of the battalion who has been briefed on the investigation. Another soldier said the scheme allegedly was carried out during night patrols in the Baghdad area.
Three anonymous sources in one sentence plus two allegeds. Maybe theyâll win the office pool. They got to use lots of facts in their story too
The military revealed earlier this month that 11 U.S. soldiers have been charged with dereliction of duty in connection with the alleged mistreatment of detainees in Iraq but did not identify their names or unit. Baldwin confirmed on Tuesday that the soldiers are members of Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment. Boylan said some of the soldiers were also charged with mistreatment of a person under their control, assault and making a false statement. One soldier was charged with obstruction of justice
What a scoop. What a story. Fuck those asshole soldiers.
Now letâs be real. A few soldiers, perhaps as many as eleven from three different batallions, did abuse some prisoners. They nailed one or two with stun guns while they were tied up. There was what may turn out to be extortion, only not as reported by those brave guys at the LA Times. Several soldiers in other units are similarly under investigation. However, lawyers started showing up for the soldiers and guess what? Poof, like magic, the Times published another story. A story that was vastly different.
Members of a California Army National Guard company that was placed on restrictive duty in Iraq after being implicated in the latest detainee abuse scandal have trained and conducted joint operations with Iraqi police forces, including an elite (Iraqi) unit accused of brutality. The Wolf Brigade of the Iraqi police is famous in Iraq for staging daring raids in Mosul and Baghdad and for its commander, known as Maj. Gen. Abu Walid, who became a national celebrity after he hosted televised "confessions" of alleged insurgents captured by the group. Critics of the forces say they use torture to coerce confessions from suspected insurgents.
Other "refinements" to the original story include
Kent called those allegations (extortion) unfounded, though he said one soldier was disciplined in connection with that portion of the investigation.
Markert said the financial investigation concluded weeks ago and found only a "$4,000 discrepancy." He said the problem stemmed from an inappropriate rental agreement between local Iraqis and the battalion's forward operating base. Markert said the situation had been blown out of proportion.
I saw a group of soldiers who have had a rough time, they have endured the pains of separation, some have lost the jobs that they thought would be there when they got home. Some have lost friends here, others have lost their girlfriends or wives. The men in that room weren't infantrymen, they were cooks and mechanics, medics, personnel clerks, and drivers.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
