Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Coalition Launches Biggest Attack Since Iraq Invasion

    I’m not sold yet on the validity of that headline. Still, it it noticably the largest air assault since the end of major operations in the Iraqi theater.

    Combined American and Iraqi forces yesterday launched the largest air assault the country has seen since the US-led invasion, targeting insurgent strongholds near Baghdad.

    The US military said the offensive, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was aimed at clearing “a suspected insurgent operating area” north-east of Samarra and was expected to continue for several days.

    “More than 1,500 Iraqi and Coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation,” the military statement said.

    Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, was the site of the massive bombing of a Shiite shrine on 22 February which touched off sectarian bloodshed that has killed more than 500 and injured hundreds more.

    It is a key city in Salahuddin province, a major part of the so-called Sunni triangle where insurgents have been active since shortly after the US-led invasion three years ago. Saddam Hussein was captured in the province, not far from his home town, Tikrit.

    Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s interim foreign minister, said the attack was necessary to prevent insurgents from forming a new stronghold such as they had established in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

    “After Fallujah and some of the operations carried out successfully in the Euphrates and on the Syrian border, many of the insurgents moved to areas nearer to Baghdad,” Mr Zebari said. “They have to be pulled out by the roots.”

    Residents north of Samarra said there was a heavy US and Iraqi troop presence in the area and that large explosions could be heard in the distance.

    They said the operation appeared to be concentrated near four villages – Jillam, Mamlaha, Banat Hassan and Bukaddou – near the highway leading north from Samarra to the city of Adwar.

    Waqas al-Juwanya, a spokesman for the provincial government’s joint co-ordination centre in nearby Dowr, said: “Unknown gunmen exist in this area, killing and kidnapping policemen, soldiers and civilians.”

    The military said a number of weapons caches had been captured, containing shells, explosives, bomb-making materials and military uniforms.

    As expected, early reporting on this was sketchy. Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee gives CNN credit for getting the terminology of air assault correct, something that we both find somewhat surprising. Some early reporting (I’m too lazy too track down over dial-up) had talked of an air raid or an air attack or an air strike — all of which Mr. Owens points out graphically implies a completely different operation (as a side note, I got a little involved in the comments about the history of combat gliders).

    Heck, maybe that’s why Air Assault has it’s own badge in the U.S. Army.

    Air Assault Badge

    Hooah for their success today.

  • Aggie Hoops at the Dance: A&M Wins Opener

    There’s always something magical about the 5-12 seeding matchup. Ags win 66-58.

    Next up in round two: border rival LSU.

  • Aggie Hoops at the Dance: Game 1 Last Minute

    Ags up.

    Crap. This is killing me.

  • Aggie Hoops at the Dance: Game 1 Halftime

    Texas A&M leads Syracuse 33-24. Whoooop!

    They may not win, but the Aggies have certainly come to play and have shown themselves worthy of the ticket to the tourney. Feel free to watch the second half if you enjoy a team that plays a tight man defense, hustles after every loose ball and gives constant effort.

    Gig’em, Ags!

  • That Time of the Year

    Sorry, folks, no real blogging tonight. I’ve been busy filling out my March Madness brackets. One bracket for the blogosphere, free of charge courtesy of Six Meat Buffet. Three for the office pool at ten bucks a pop. Hey, I won it all in 2000 and figure I’m financially ahead of the curve for many, many years to come.

    Just so I can look like an idiot, I’ll go ahead and publish my probably pathetic prognostications.

    Office #1:
    Final Four — Duke, Gonzaga, UConn, BC
    Finals — Duke, UConn
    Champ — Duke
    Texas A&M reaches the Sweet 16 (hey, I said there might be a toll to be paid by their reaching the Dance)

    Office #2:
    Final Four — Texas, Memphis, UConn, Florida
    Finals — Texas (grrrrr! that hurt to enter), UConn
    Champ — UConn
    A&M falls to ‘Cuse in the first round

    Office #3 (went somewhat wacko):
    Final Four — LSU, Pitt, UConn, ‘Nova
    Finals — Pitt, ‘Nova
    Champ — ‘Nova
    A&M falls to LSU but loves their first NCAA tourney win since 1980

    Six Meat Buffet’s Basketball Challenge:
    Same as Office #1 but with UConn winning the championship over Duke

  • Senator Puts Forward Motion to Censure Bush

    One man with courage is a majority.

    —Thomas Jefferson

    I’m pretty certain that when Jefferson came up with those words, he was hoping for some sort of righteousness in the majority-of-one’s endeavors. And then, sometimes, there’s the likes of Sen. Feingold and his one-man political assault on President Bush.

    A U.S. senator has put forward a resolution to censure President George W. Bush for ordering the wiretapping of some American phone conversations without a court warrant.

    Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin, accused Bush on Monday of breaking the law and misleading the American public.

    The resolution calls on the Senate to condemn Bush’s “unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required.”

    […]

    The five-page resolution accuses the president of violating the U.S. Constitution and the country’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

    The only U.S. president ever censured by the Senate was Andrew Jackson in 1834.

    […]

    Last December, Americans learned of a secret domestic surveillance program conducted by the U.S. National Security Agency.

    The revelation caused an uproar and triggered questions about limiting Bush’s broad scope to govern.

    Bush defended the program as a “vital tool” and said the spying was only on known operatives of al-Qaeda and its affiliates and only on communications going in and out of the U.S., not within the country.

    “I re-authorized this program 30 times since 9/11 and I intend to do so as long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens, Bush said.

    Feingold is considered a possible for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

    Can this one man become the bedrock of a majority? Well, it seems highly unlikely as his fellow Democratic senators are rushing to not stand by his side.

    Feingold has responded by expressing dismay at the response, accusing his fellow Dems of reacting out of fear.

    Sen. Russell Feingold on Tuesday blamed fellow Democrats for inaction on his stalled resolution to censure President Bush for his authorizing the National Security Agency’s electronic terrorist surveillance program.

    “I’m amazed at Democrats … cowering with this president’s numbers so low,” said Feingold, D-Wis. “The administration … just has to raise the specter of the War on Terror, and Democrats run and hide.”

    Well, that should rally the troops.

    It is my view that, rather than acting with righteousness, Feingold’s maneuver is one of erroneous self-righteous grandstanding. His own words make it clear — attack the president now, not for the sake of the nation or our security but rather because his numbers are low and it’s an opportunistic time.

    That doth not a majority make, nor should it.

  • Carnival of Liberty XXXVI

    This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at The Unrepentant Individual. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.

  • Quietly, Controversially, Work Begins on WTC Memorial

    While seemingly slipping in under the scope of most American media, work on the memorial honoring the Twin Towers is beginning, despite the reservations of the families of several victims of the 9/11 terrorist devastation.

    Without political ceremony, construction began [today] on the memorial to the thousands of people who died in the 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks – even as relatives of some of the victims headed to court to fight plans to build at the site.

    Lorries [Edit: lorries? Hey, it’s the Scotsman, a damn fine paper that can call trucks lorries if it chooses] laden with timber and other equipment rolled down a ramp as construction workers began cleaning the memorial area of debris and installing protective wooden coverings over parts of the original foundations of the twin towers.

    After six to eight weeks of preliminary work, concrete will be poured to create supports for the “Reflecting Absence” design.

    George Pataki, the New York state governor, last week called the event “a very important milestone,” but no ground-breaking ceremony is planned for several weeks.

    Officials said they wanted to meet a schedule to build the memorial by 2009.

    Some families of 11 September victims who oppose the underground memorial design are trying to stop the construction before the memorial is set in concrete.

    The Coalition of 9/11 Families last week filed a lawsuit charging that the memorial would damage the historic “footprints” – the foundations of the two towers. Preservation groups have made similar arguments in letters to rebuilding officials. An initial court hearing was scheduled for yesterday.

    The Reflecting Absence design, by the architect Michael Arad, was chosen two years ago out of more than 5,200 competition entries.

    It marks the fallen towers with two stone reflecting pools at street level, surrounded by trees.

    The pools drop 70ft below ground, where visitors find surrounding each pool the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.

    Families have said the memorial would dishonour the dead by placing their names below street level and might be difficult to evacuate quickly.

    And what about those concerns of the families, both in terms of dignity and public safety?

    Stefan Pryor, the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the agency in charge of rebuilding at Ground Zero, said the design would “fulfill the highest standards of both safety and beauty”.

    He said the agency would continue to listen to family members’ concerns.

    Apparently, Mr. Pryor’s definition of listening equals my definition of ignoring. At least that damned freedom center idea still appears to be dead.

  • Brits to Withdraw 800 Troops from Iraq

    Our British allies have announced a pending reduction in forces on the ground in the Sandbox.

    The number of British troops serving in Iraq is to be cut by 800 to just over 7,000, it was announced yesterday.

    John Reid, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons that the reduction would begin when the next brigade moves to Iraq in May. He insisted that the cut was not triggered by the increase in violence.

    “It is an operational decision not a political one,” he said.

    With more than 235,000 trained members of the Iraqi security forces and 5,000 recruits joining each month, the country now had enough resources to conduct independent operations, he said.

    The announcement came as many observers believe Iraq is descending into even greater chaos with the prospect of civil war.

    Well, this certainly doesn’t sound like the course of action one would choose were one to believe the doom-and-gloom media’s prognostications of a pending civil war. One would anticipate a variety of reactions to such a situation, among them an increase in forces, a constancy of troop levels or a large-scale withdrawal, depending upon expectations and dangers. Rather, a small reduction points towards a phased handover of responsibilities, as has been predicted by the coalition leaders and appears to be the case here.

    But despite the recent sectarian violence after the dome of the Shia shrine in Samarra was destroyed, the Ministry of Defence’s analysis was that civil war was “neither imminent nor inevitable”.

    Mr Reid hinted that some of Iraq’s 18 provinces could be entirely free of foreign troops after the Joint Committee to Transfer Security Responsibility meets this month.

    He said that the occupying forces were not about to “cut and run”, insisting that their commitment was “steadfast until the job is done”.

    No, historical instances of cutting and running, be it from Viet Nam, Beirut or Somalia, are what put us in the boat we’re in today — our enemies are expecting it, playing every twist for its media value in an attempt to undermine our resolve. Indeed, it is their only hope, as they cannot withstand us militarily, nor can they deny that the Iraqi people are slowly embracing democracy and the Iraqi security forces are slowly but surely growing in competency and numbers. Time is not on the side of our enemies in Iraq, unless the defeatists among us get their way.

  • March Madness, Blogosphere Style

    Six Meat Buffet‘s Preston Taylor Holmes has announced that it’s time for the 2006 Six Meat Basketball Challenge.

    The brackets were just released. Number one seeds include Duke, UConn, Memphis and Villanova. Are you ready to rumble? I think so.

    We’re bringing back the Six Meat Basketball Challenge this year. Last year, you may remember, The Kid from Deliverance won the whole thing, which got him a custom ad graphic and a month-long ad at Six Meat Buffet at the top of our sidebar. This must have sent a month-long avalanche of traffic from which he barely recovered. We had 11 participants last year – let’s get more involved this year.

    Need some help with your brackets? Here’s a list of twenty tips for ya.

    Need another tip? Always bet on black! No, wait, that’s a tip for roulette. No, wait again, that’s just an asinine line from a crappy movie. Oh … never mind.