Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • General Announcement on Execution Videos

    Target Centermass will not host any beheading videos or pics.

    Simple as that.

  • NATO to Expand Iraq Training Mission

    After much wrangling, NATO has checked in on the idea of contributing to the now-free nation of Iraq.

    The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has agreed to create a military training academy in Iraq, expanding the alliance’s small presence in the country after two years of feuding over the US-led war.

    Ambassadors at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels reached the accord after resolving questions raised last week by France and Belgium over the mission’s financing and its relationship to the US-led multinational force.

    “Today NATO ambassadors agreed on the political directions to the military to enhance NATO assistance to the Government of Iraq in the training of its security forces,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters.

    ….

    France and others that opposed the war fear it could be tantamount to inserting NATO into the Iraqi battlefield through a back door.

    The alliance currently has a 40-strong operation performing training services in Iraq and the new accord is seen as expanding its presence to some 300.

    France, Germany and other opponents of the US-led war have said they will not have a presence in the country themselves.

    Yeah, NATO in da house.

    Except France, Germany, Belgium and Spain. Those four bastard countries are too scared to even involve themselves in freakin’ training a country to support itself.

    I’m tired of the worthlessness that is the UN. I’m quickly growing tired of the anachronism that is NATO (as it is currently structured). Perhaps it’s time we move forward and negotiate a new alliance. I’ll have to give thought to membership and acronym, but it would certainly exclude countries with no sack at all, specifically France. Hell, the cowards militarily withdrew from NATO decades ago, hoping we’d hold back the Red horde while they swept the streets of Paris for Russians on parade.

  • South Korea Moves into Third Place in Iraq

    For at least a few months.

    The much-delayed deployment of South Korea’s brigade to Iraq has gone ahead, the Defense Ministry announced Wednesday in a move that is expected to improve ties with the United States. The unit needs its mandate renewed by the National Assembly, however, to stay beyond December.

    South Korea has deployed 2,800 troops and will add 800 once the brigade has expanded its base in Erbil, in northern Iraq, the ministry said. Battalion-sized South Korean forces previously deployed in southern Iraq were absorbed into the brigade. The unit is the third-largest foreign force in the country, after the contingents from the United States and Britain.

    Look, we stood firm with South Korea for a little while, roughly over half a century and counting. They had better give us a little more of a time commitment. It’s not like we’re asking their troops to wear orange and patrol barefoot in the Sunni Triangle.

  • Website Claims Italian Women Executed in Iraq

    An Islamist website has posted a claim that the two female Italian aid workers kidnapped on Sept. 7 have been executed.

    A group calling itself the Jihad Organization says it has executed two Italian female hostages in Iraq.

    The organisation has reportedly issued a statement on an Islamist website, but the authenticity of the claim can not be confirmed.

    Referring to aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, without naming them, it says the pair were executed after the Italian government failed to pull out of Iraq.

    I posted my thoughts on how dangerous this particular kidnapping was to all involved parties. My newest prediction: do not expect videos of this terroristic barbarism to be posted anytime soon, if ever. There is absolutely no benefit to the Islamist bastards in doing so. If a video does surface, it will only confirm that we are not fighting sick, twisted wackos, but rather sick, twisted wacko morons.

    If the story of these murders is true, it will be interesting to watch Italy’s reaction, as well as that of the muslim world.

  • Why I’ll Never Be Allowed to Ask Kerry Questions

    Now that Kerry has once again recast himself as the doubting, wrong-war-wrong-place candidate, blaming Bush for his statements on the progress of the war, here are the questions to which would I demand answers:

    • Are we at war?

      • If the answer was “no,” I would cut off the interview and call him an idiot. If yes, I would proceed.

    • Of our past wartime presidents, whom do you view as successful?
    • Of these successful wartime presidents, how many accurately and immediately reported to the American people every difficulty and setback, as you currently seem to expect of the Bush administration?
    • Of these same administrations, how many accurately foretold and dealt with every danger and complexity of their wartime and postwar situations, as you currently seem to expect of the Bush administration?
    • Other than bailing out of the current war, how can you assure the American public that every wartime decision you make will be above reproach, as you currently seem to expect of the Bush administration?
    • If you do bail out of the current war, how can you assure the American public that the dangers of expansionistic Islamic terrorism will not have a greater impact on their children and grandchildren than would’ve been the case had we fought the good fight now? Other than the fact you were in Viet Nam?
    • Do you plan to utilize the fact that you were on the wrong side of history in the Cold War, advocating a unilateral freeze instead of Reagan’s military build-up, during the last portion of your campaign?
    • What will you do if, after all of your diplomacy, negotiation and nuance to get your planned international assistance, our alleged “allies” still say no? What if, no matter what you do, they freakin’ still say no?

      • And finally,

    • How long until you, the defeatist, repeat the last-man-to-die-for-a-mistake line? You do realize early voting opens soon in some states, right?

    Please, some journalist of importance or access, pretty please follow this line of questioning. If you need help for potential follow-up questions, let me know at gunner-at-targetcentermass-dot-com. I’ll help you, if only to salvage the concepts of journalistic integrity that Rather,et al., have thoroughly shamed.

  • Anti-Prostitution Rule Drafted for U.S. Forces

    Had a newly-announced crackdown on our military been in effect in Viet Nam, I could not say our world would be a better place. I could, however, say a fun portion of American ’80s culture would’ve been impaired. A great movie and a popular song would’ve forever missed the phrase “Ooh, me so horny, me love you long time.”

    U.S. service members stationed overseas could face a court-martial for patronizing prostitutes under a new regulation drafted by the Pentagon.

    The move is part of a Defense Department effort to reduce the possibility that service members will contribute to human trafficking in areas near their overseas bases by seeking the services of women forced into prostitution.

    In recent years, “women and girls are being forced into prostitution for a clientele consisting largely of military services members, government contractors and international peacekeepers” in such places as South Korea and the Balkans, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) said yesterday at a Capitol Hill forum on Pentagon anti-trafficking efforts.

    I fundamentally agree with all of this, but returning to the icons of the ’80s, what about the portrayal of Subic Bay in An Officer and a Gentleman?

  • Rather’s Producer Assured CBS Execs on Guard Papers

    The first victim of RatherGate has been clearly identified.

    Mary Mapes, the Dallas-based producer of Dan Rather’s controversial Sept. 8 60 Minutes segment questioning President Bush’s military record, is the focus of attention following published reports that she arranged for her Texas source on the story to talk to a top aide to Democratic hopeful John Kerry.

    CBS News executives want to know why Mapes, one of Rather’s most trusted producers, repeatedly assured them that both Bill Burkett and the documents he gave her could be trusted — only to have both widely called into question by Internet bloggers and rival news organizations soon after 60 Minutes aired the story. On Monday, CBS said the story should have never run, and Rather apologized to viewers.

    On Tuesday, it was revealed that Mapes arranged for Burkett to talk to a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

    Standard journalistic ethical practices forbid reporters from doing anything that could be perceived as helping a political campaign.

    Congrats, Mary, you’re deservedly the first sacrificial lamb. G’bye.

  • Flight Diverted After Cat Stevens Tied to Watch List

    Living testament to my belief that a huge chunk of the music of the ’60s and ’70s was garbage, the former Cat Stevens hit a U.S. government tripwire and caused the diversion of an inbound international flight.

    A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine today when it was discovered passenger Yusuf Islam — formerly known as singer Cat Stevens — was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country, two federal officials said.

    United Airlines Flight 919 was en route to Dulles International Airport when the match was made between a passenger and a name on the watch list, said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. The plane was met by federal agents at Maine’s Bangor International Airport around 3 p.m., Melendez said.

    The two federal officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the passenger as Islam. They said Islam was denied entry on national security grounds, but had no details about why the peace activist might be considered a risk to the United States.

    ….

    He was expected to be returned early Wednesday to London, the official said.

    Look, Cat Islam may or may not be much of a danger. That said, I want him kept permanently out of the country just because of “Morning Has Broken.” My hippie music teacher made us sing that crap in fifth grade and I still bear the scars.

  • WaPo Media Critic Inadvertently Slams Kerry Campaign

    Speaking via telephone with CNN Headline News, Howard Kurtz, a media critic with the Washington Post, responded to a question about possible DNC/Kerry camp involvement in the current CBS scandal with the following:

    I’ve seen no evidence of any involvement by any organized Democrat group or the Kerry campaign.

    Kurtz may not be accurate about involvement, but he is correct in distinguishing the Kerry campaign from an organized group.

    I chuckled. I blogged.

  • Dien Bien Phu Falls

    The defenses around CBS’s Dien Bien Phu have collapsed.

    From Drudge, Rather has finally admitted what most of us already knew:

    EXCLUSIVE // Mon Sep 20 2004 11:58:02 ET
    STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:

    Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

    Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

    But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

    Please know that nothing is more important to us than people’s trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

    Now, CBS is saying they “regret” running the story:

    “Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report,” said the statement by CBS News President Andrew Heyward. “We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret.

    “Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting,” Heyward continued. “We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust.”

    For now, I’ll wait a bit to see the scope of the fallout on this journalistic debacle.