Target Centermass

Month: April 2005

  • NATO Sees U.S. Military Changing Strategy

    This piece is particularly interesting for its inclusion of Africa into plans for restructuring overseas deployment of U.S. forces.

    U.S. forces stationed in Europe will increasingly shift their stance toward Africa and the former communist countries in eastern Europe as they move to counter terror threats in those areas, the top European commander said.

    […]

    “The difference between the EUCOM of the 20th century — which I regard as the Cold War century — and the EUCOM of the 21st century is the family of threats that it faces, ranging from terrorism to radical fundamentalism to narcoterrorism to illegal trafficking of all sorts,” [NATO supreme commander Marine Gen. James. L.] Jones said at EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart.

    […]

    Many of the changes, like consolidating different Army headquarters under one roof in Wiesbaden, are simply a continuation of post-Cold War cutback that began in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    But deeper changes are on the way, as the U.S. looks less to large, fixed bases like those it has had for decades in Germany, to smaller, more bare-bones installations where troops could be moved quickly for training or to deal with a crisis.

    […]

    The large air bases at Ramstein and Spangdahlem, as well the nearby support community of Kaiserslautern, will remain hubs. The Army will concentrate on existing posts in Wiesbaden and Grafenwoehr. EUCOM headquarters will remain in Stuttgart, while both the Army and Air Force will remain in Aviano, Italy.

    But increasingly the focus is shifting toward Africa, seen as a potential haven for Islamic extremists who have been ousted from places like Afghanistan.

    Already five such agreements exist with countries in Africa, including the predominantly Muslim nations of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

    In Europe, the focus in increasingly turning to the new NATO members of the former Warsaw Pact. A special Eastern Europe Task Force would involve rotating troops on a regular basis for training exercises, including some with local militaries.

    Bases in Bulgaria and Romania, both of which hosted the U.S. military during the Iraq war, have been earmarked to host forces, but would differ from those in Germany in that they would offer only skeletal infrastructure and no families would accompany troops there on their tours of duty.

    Excellent. This shows that we are not just looking one or two steps down the road in the war against the Islamist terrorists. We are already game-planning and laying the groundworks to prepare for a possible theater shift many turns down the road. Just doing so may be sufficient to head off the threat before the proverbial pass.

    However, many dangers have always awaited in the Dark Continent.

  • When the Journalists Become the News

    Here’s a news flash — a good number of them aren’t on our side, or even just neutrally out to get a story.

    CBS Stringer Arrested in Iraq

    A CBS stringer has been arrested as a suspected insurgent, U.S. military officials said Friday.

    The video cameraman was wounded during a firefight in northeastern Mosul between U.S. troops and insurgents Tuesday.

    U.S. military officials said the man’s camera held footage of a number of roadside bomb attacks against American troops, and they believe he was tipped off to those attacks.

    A U.S. military statement said troops believe the man “poses an imperative threat to coalition forces” and that he “will be processed as any other security detainee.”

    Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette has been on this story since it first broke this afternoon, including a number of updates from several sources showing the morphing media coverage of the incident.

    According to CBS when he was shot he was a “cameraman employed by CBS News” shot “while working” – when he was arrested he was “A cameraman carrying CBS press credentials.”

    Wow.

    Chad at In the Bullpen chimes in with his two cents.

    While journalists have every right to roam the country-side of Iraq looking for stories, doing so without an extensive bodyguard escort or through embedding with the enemy who are firing upon U.S. soldiers has proven time and time again to be rather foolish.

    Are the journalists actually embedding with the terrorists? Dr. Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report thinks a couple of the recently-named Pulitzer winners prove it.

    Everyone Is Looking At the Wrong Pulitzer Prize Photos

    The Washington Times does a half-ass job of questioning the Pulitzer Prize in this editorial. The article raises important questions, but like most of the blogosphere and those in conservative circles, they examine a single photo.

    But there were 20 photos in the series. As we have been arguing from the beginning, what is troubling is the totality of the story those photos show. The story those photos tell is of an empowered insurgency, demoralized U.S. troops, and American brutality.

    Several of the photos are disgusting, such as the one in question which shows the execution of Iraqi election officials and another which shows the residents of Fallujah celebrating the murder of American civilians as their charred bodies hang from a bridge, but it may be the case that these photos were taken by Iraqi photojournalists who were anonymously tipped off or who just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

    We have also noted in the past that the photo in question is not nearly as damning as two others which clearly indicate something like ’embedding’ with the isurgency is (or was) going on with AP stringers in Iraq.

    Go look — the photos make a pretty persuasive case that not only were the photogs with the insurgents but also were quite willing to try to capture those trying to kill Americans in a brave or noble light.

    Perhaps, with all this, today wasn’t the best day for journalists to push their luck with the U.S. military. But they did anyway.

    Journalists Seek Info on 2003 Iraq Deaths

    The International Federation of Journalists on Friday urged U.S. officials to provide credible evidence American troops did not intentionally kill two television cameramen at a Baghdad hotel in 2003.

    The two were killed April 8, 2003, when an American tank fired at the Palestine Hotel, where scores of journalists were based during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials insist the soldiers believed they were being shot at when they opened fire.

    Jose Couso, cameraman for Spanish television network Telecinco, and Taras Protsyuk, Ukrainian TV cameraman for Reuters, were killed by the U.S. tank.

    But critics say the journalists were targeted by U.S. troops moving in on Baghdad, and the IFJ said Friday a report on the killings was a “whitewash.”

    In a letter to President Bush, IFJ General Secretary Aidan White wrote, “the United States stands accused of failing to meet its obligations to deliver justice and fair treatment to the victims of violence by its own soldiers.”

    Following the Palestine incident, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said American troops opened fire after drawing hostile fire from the hotel. He said a U.S. review of the incident found the of force was justified.

    Here’s a little tip for y’all journalists in a warzone: weapon fire may be fairly easy to see through a tank’s thermal sights, but press credentials are not.

  • Consider Yourselves Warned

    It will happen here. The terror that Israel regularly has to deal with will happen here. I’ve blogged before that I’m surprised it hasn’t already.

    I will also take another bold stance: the opponents of President George W. “Dubya” “Chimp Bushitler” Bush are right — his aggresive war against Islamist terror and his efforts in its Iraqi and Afghani theaters have made the world more dangerous. The important thing here is that I am not taken out of context. The Bush Doctine is a decided choice to parlay short-term danger against a gambit to reshape the Islamic world.

    Israelis have seen terror — pizzarias, nightclubs and bus stops strewn with blood. I believe we will see it here at malls and McDonald’s. The question that Bush has chosen to present is this: will the American fortitide crack before we can present the Arab world a viable alternative to the suffering and oppression they’ve dealt with so long? Not an alternate place to lay blame to, although that would eventually be a given as a replacement to the “all things evil stem from Israel and America” mindset must be offered, but an alternate goal of hope, prosperity and self-rule.

    Yes, we could’ve continued to play the game meekly. We would be safer now. But would we have bought any safety in the future? I say no. What I predict now for our homeland, I say would have reached our homeland anyway. Maybe not as fast, as we would not have forced desperation upon the terrorist Islamists. The dangers I now predict soon for America would have eventually found their way here. Hell, 9/11, the spur that drove the Bush Doctrine charge, was concieved during the days of the timid reactions that preceded the current administration. Now, at least, we are actively working to undercut the strength of the threat.

    Will the terror happen here? Yes. It should be remembered that we fight not only for our way of life, but also for the civilization that our children and grandchildren will inherit. I present these two stories as just small possible pieces of evidence that the nightmares will fall upon us.

    NYC Teens Held in Suicide Bomb Plot

    The sources said the parents of one of the girls had gone to police to complain about her. One official said investigators were concerned the girls could be recruited for a suicide mission, so they were detained on immigration charges.

    “The girls were already part of an investigation. When the parents came forward with their complaints, it was more of two things coming together,” said one law enforcement official.

    Ten Memphis Women Arrested for ‘Sham-Marriages’ with Moroccans
    Normally, I’d hat tip Chad at In the Bullpen and point to the news story. However, in this case, his examination makes the story.

    It’s not just alarming that United States women would get married to import immigrants; it’s alarming where these immigrants were to come from and how much these women were to be paid. $15,400 is not chump change for Moroccans as it equals 133,076 Moroccan Dirham. Moroccans live in the lowest 10 percent in the world in terms of annual household income.

    Just how do 10 Moroccans get their hands on over $15,000? At this time there are no direct signs these were terrorists trying to enter the United States, however based upon the country of origin and and money they were willing to dish out, this does seem like a plausible scenario.

    Yes, the Bush Doctrine has made the world more dangerous … for now, and it still may fail. That said, the alternatives are the same danger later and, should the doctrine fail, the choice between radical Islamist dreams of subjugation to barbarity and the survival of western civilization. In other words, should the doctrine fail, the only choice for America may be mass destruction — theirs or ours.

  • Shia Named New Iraq PM

    A Kurd was sworn in as president. A Sunni and a Shiite took the oaths of the vice-president positions. Ibrahim Jaafari, another Shiite, was named to the key post of prime minister of Iraq, and interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi stepped aside. Hail to the first Iraqi government selected as a result of the power of the ballot rather than the fear of the bullet.

    Shia Islamist Ibrahim Jaafari was named as Iraq’s next Prime Minister today, moving the country a step closer to its first democratically elected government in more than 50 years.

    Jaafari announced his own nomination shortly after Iraq’s new President, Kurdish former guerrilla leader Jalal Talabani, was sworn into office in parliament, along with two deputies.

    “Today represents a big step forward for Iraq and a big responsibility for me,” Jaafari, who spent more than two decades opposing Saddam Hussein from exile, said.

    His appointment to the most powerful post under the interim constitution had long been agreed in principle but was held up by weeks of bargaining over other posts among the Shia and Kurdish groups that dominate the parliament elected on January 30. Jaafari said interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had resigned from his post but would continue as caretaker while Jaafari worked on putting the finishing touches to his cabinet line up. “I hope within one or two weeks maximum I will name the cabinet,” a smiling Jaafari said after his formal appointment by Talabani and the Shia and Sunni vice-presidents.

    Talabani, 71, took the President’s oath of office a day after his election by parliament, as political and religious leaders looked on at a ceremony inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, seat of government and the vast US embassy. “I swear by God the great that I will work with devotion to preserve the independence and sovereignty of Iraq,” Talabani said.

    As I predicted, the pieces quickly fell into place after the initial logjam cleared Sunday with the compromise that led to naming Sunni Hajem al-Hassani as speaker of the National Assembly.

    Other interesting reading on the shape of the Iraqi government:

    Editorial: Toward a Multiethnic Future

    The convoluted constitutional process that has brought Iraqis thus far has been criticized for its unwieldiness. But most Iraqis are generally content with an arrangement that ensures that their country’s politicians work together on the basis of consensus. Extremists within the different communities have not found a way to exploit the delays caused by weeks of negotiations.

    Editorial: Iraq has Done Well

    As the parliament’s new speaker-elect, Hajem Al Hassani said after the vote: “This is the new Iraq — an Iraq that elects a Kurd to be president and an Arab former president as his deputy. What more could the world want from us?”

    Quite right. It is a great achievement amidst the noise and dust, sound and fury, of the insurgency in Iraq for the country to come up with a political arrangement that represents and accommodates the three ethnic and sectarian factions. But given Iraq’s situation, the new Iraq and its leaders will have to do more. Not because the world wants them to do more but because doing so is Iraq’s own necessity to survive as an honourable member of the world community.

    Doctor’s Mission: Heal Land Torn by War

    Dr al-Jaafari has been a favourite for the post since the religiously conservative block reversed generations of Sunni dominance in government in the landmark polls. The 58-year-old doctor was widely favoured by supporters for being a devout Shia Muslim, but one who eschewed the religious trappings of many of his colleagues.

    He has also said his government will not rule as a Shia leadership but as an Iraqi administration, and hopes to draw in Sunnis who have largely rejected involvement in the political process.

    President Talabani, himself a former guerrilla fighter who battled Saddam for years, held out an olive branch to the Sunni insurgents who make up the backbone of the 20-month uprising that has left thousands dead.

  • Court Won’t Stop Guardsman’s Deployment

    It’s called a contract for a reason: you signed it and it is binding.

    For the second time in two days, a federal appeals court declined to halt an Oregon National Guardsman from being deployed to Afghanistan on Friday.

    Emiliano Santiago, 27, an electronics technician and a helicopter refueler now living in Pasco, Wash., is fighting his deployment because his 8-year service agreement expired last year. His lawyers told the court Santiago is the victim of a “backdoor draft.”

    On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Seattle, declined to halt his looming departure. On Thursday, the court declined to rehear the case with 11 judges.

    No U.S. federal appeals court has sided with similarly situated military personnel fighting their deployments.

    The courts have generally upheld the so-called “stop loss” law that authorizes President Bush to suspend service agreements of many armed forces personnel for national security reasons. Thousands of soldiers have been redeployed under stop loss orders.

    The last paragraph there is rather misleading. The president is not suspending service agreements with the stop-loss program. Rather, he is exercising an option in the contract signed by Santiago, an option that his service commitment may be extended beyond terms specified.

    While I have sympathy for Santiago personally, I hold no sympathy for his cause. Put the uniform back on, Emiliano, and report — your country has legally called you.

  • Reciprocity XV

    I’d again like to pause and thank those who have blogrolled or linked to Target Centermass.

    First, thanks to the following fine blogs for adding TCm to their blogrolls:

    Second, thanks to the following for recent links to TCm:

    As always, if you’ve linked or blogrolled Target Centermass and I haven’t found you, please send an email or post a comment. No good deed should go unacknowledged.

  • Congress May Extend Daylight-Saving Time

    Please, please, pretty please extend daylight savings time.

    If Congress passes an energy bill, Americans may see more daylight-saving time.

    Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the first Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.

    “Extending daylight-saving time makes sense, especially with skyrocketing energy costs,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan, who along with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, co-sponsored the measure.

    The amendment was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that is putting together major parts of energy legislation likely to come up for a vote in the full House in the coming weeks.

    “The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,” said Markey, who cited Transportation Department estimates that showed the two-month extension would save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day.

    The country uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day.

    Do it for the energy savings. Do it for whatever reason you can come up with, just do it.

    I am most assuredly not a morning person, and this move would give me a little bit more daylight during the time I actually am awake. Yeah, I’m just that selfish.

  • Another Top Terrorist Bites the Dust

    Scratch some more bad guys, this time at the hands of the Saudis.

    Another top terrorist was killed yesterday morning after security forces raided his hide-out in the south of the capital.

    Abdul Rahman Al-Yaziji, terror suspect No. 15 on the list of 26 most wanted in Saudi Arabia, was shot dead in the Southern Industrial Area of Riyadh.

    A source told Arab News that security forces had received information about the terrorist’s whereabouts from terror suspects who were apprehended in Al-Rass two days ago.

    The source added that security officers surrounded an old building in which he was hiding at about 9 a.m. yesterday morning and blocked off all roads leading to the area.

    Officers then raided the building and a gunbattle between the terror suspect and police ensued.

    After a three-hour exchange of fire, the suspect tried to flee the building on foot in a desperate bid to escape. He was shot dead after he refused to give in and continued to fire at police officers, the source added.

    […]

    The battle was the latest in ongoing clashes between suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists and security forces.

    An intense 60-hour clash in the northern town of Al-Rass in the Qasim region, which broke out when security forces attempted to encircle a militant hide-out, ended late Tuesday with the deaths of 14 gunmen.

    […]

    Meanwhile, a source told Arab News’ sister publication Asharq Al-Awsat that many of the terrorists who surrendered in Al-Rass two days ago told police that they did not know which city they were in because they were smuggled into the city disguised in black abayas.

    The incident is not the first where terrorists have abused the Saudi female traditional dress to escape being searched at checkpoints and travel freely between cities in the Kingdom.

    Last year in a raid that took place in Al-Jazirah district in Riyadh, some terrorists fled the scene in black abayas. And a large number of abayas were found in raids on terror cells in Makkah, Madinah, Taif and Qasim.

    Yesterday’s killing put the number of terror suspects killed by security officers in the Kingdom in the past three days in a row to 15. They included Abdul Kareem Al-Majati and Saud Al-Otaibi, two most wanted terrorists.

    With Al-Yaziji’s killing, the number of terrorists still on the run from the list of 26 is now down to three — Saleh Al-Aufi, the alleged Al-Qaeda commander in Saudi Arabia’s Talib Al-Talib, and Abdullah Al-Rashoud.

    Imported cross-dressing terrorists — not that there’s anything wrong with that, except for the terrorist part.

  • Tartan Day Link Dump

    Tartan Day

    Why April 6th?

    Gathering of the Blogs — Hosted by Ith at Absinthe & Cookies.

    Sport Kilt — kilts easy on the budget, limited selection but some clans available, as well as desert camo.

    Alexis Malcolm Kilts — kilts moderately priced, with a wide selection including tartans of all the branches of the U.S. military.

    Interactive Weaver — Design your own tartan.

    The Black Watch — the famed Scottish regiment that briefly served along side Americans in Baghdad.

    Save the Scottish Regiments — a campaign to, well, save the Scottish regiments.

    ElectricScotland.com — all things Scottish on the internet, be it history, geneology, clans or travel.

  • Report: Arab World no Closer to Democracy

    A report released yesterday by the United Nations stated that no significant progress had been made in efforts to spread democracy through the Arab nations.

    In a long-awaited report, intellectuals and reformers say they have seen no significant advances toward democracy in the Arab world in the past year.

    The third Arab Human Development Report, released yesterday under United Nations auspices, says most measures have been “embryonic and fragmentary” and have not amounted to a serious effort to end repression in the region, which has some of the world’s most authoritarian governments.

    The United States, which says it aims to promote democracy in the region, contributed to an international context that hampered progress through its policy toward Israel, its actions in Iraq and security measures affecting Arabs, according to the report.

    The report, covering the year from October, 2003, was written before the election in Iraq and street protests in Lebanon that Washington cites as evidence of change.

    […]

    “Some of the views expressed by the authors are not shared by UNDP or the UN . . . [but the report] clearly reflects a very real anger and concern felt across the region,” UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown wrote.

    The most controversial sections describe the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies as violations of freedom and obstacles to development.

    During the launch address, Ms. Khalaf said that more than 10 per cent of Arabs live under occupation. “Occupation is a confiscation of rights by violence.”

    The report says occupation has given governments an excuse to postpone democratization, forces Arab reformers to divert their energies and strengthens groups that advocate violence.

    It accuses the United States of undermining the international system by repeatedly using or threatening to use its UN Security Council veto, enabling Israel to build Jewish settlements and extend its barrier in the West Bank.

    The U.S. response to the September, 2001, attacks on the United States added to the ambiguity in the Western attitude to human rights in the Middle East, it says.

    “The ‘war on terror’ has cut into many Arab freedoms. . . . An unfortunate byproduct in some countries has been that Arabs are increasingly the victims of stereotyping, disproportionately harassed or detained without cause.”

    As always, the failures of the Arab world are always spun to either be caused by or prolonged by the Israelis and the Americans. It’s never the fault of those actually opposing democracy.

    It’s a sign of the interesting times we live in when a brand new report is already shown to be obsolete and in great need of revision after events on the ground in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere.