Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Mini-skirt Soldiers Dance as N. Korea Ponders Future

    Well, this story certainly has one of the stranger headlines I’ve seen in quite a while. Disclaimer: the accompanying picture is a dramatization.

    Women danced in mini-skirted military uniforms as North Korea marked the 60th anniversary of its communist party on Monday, while speculation mounted over whether its leader would use the occasion to name a successor.

    At an event attended by leader Kim Jong-il and thousands of his military brass and cadres on Sunday, the emphasis was on Pyongyang’s long-standing “songun” military-first policy and its “juche” ideal of self-reliance.

    “We should fully embody the party’s songun politics, an all-powerful treasured sword for victory in revolution under any circumstances and conditions, and direct primary efforts to the strengthening of the Korean People’s Army,” the North’s No. 2, Kim Yong-nam, said in remarks carried on the KCNA news agency.

    The anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea is a time when the reclusive country revels in mass games and provides its citizens with a few extra bowls of rice to celebrate.

    Hey, nothing captures the fun-loving nature of a repressive commie dictatorship like martial trollops flaunting their gams and cavorting for the party. And hey, extra rice. Bonus!

    Unfortunately, there is also a serious side to this story.

    But for this anniversary, outside attention has been focused on whether Kim Jong-il will name one of his three sons to a key post in the ruling party, which in effect would amount to naming a successor-in-waiting in the world’s only communist dynasty.

    The Russian news agency Itar-Tass last week quoted a diplomatic source in Pyongyang as saying Kim may use the event to announce a successor. Analysts said the precise timing and which son he would pick were anyone’s guess.

    Alas! The odds are not in favor of the oldest of Kim’s brood.

    The eldest of his known sons, Kim Jong-nam, has apparently fallen into disfavour for trying to sneak into Japan on a false passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

    Hmmm … yeah, I could see how that could be considered a strike against him.

  • The Weekend in Sports

    Well, it certainly was a mixed weekend for the teams that I follow — a combination of good, bad and ugly, with a healthy dose of awesome thrown in at the end.

    Let’s start with the good, and there ain’t much of it. Friday night, my old high school alma mater of Angleton continued its undefeated season on the Texas prep gridiron, pounding Pt. Lavaca Calhoun 55-0 to go to 5-0. Today, it looks like I’m cruising to another win in my fantasy football league. My 4-1 start will be my best opening for many seasons in a league I’ve shared with an ever-changing cast of old National Guard buddies and co-workers for over a dozen years.

    Now we turn to the bad, most of which was to be expected. The college football weekend really bit the proverbial big one and, other than my fantasy results, today’s NFL action followed suit.

    There were two games involving Big 12 South teams that particularly chafed, though the final results were as I expected.

    Young leads Texas to first OU win in five years

    The game was over, the “Eyes of Texas” had been sung and Vince Young was still on the run.

    The Texas Longhorns had finally beaten the Oklahoma Sooners — stuck it to ’em, 45-12 — and more than 30,000 people wearing burnt orange were on their feet turning five years of frustration into sheer joy. Young had as much to celebrate as anyone, so he whipped up a few more cheers by going along the stands slapping hands and posing for pictures.

    “We wanted them to feel everything we were feeling,” Young said. “It was a great moment for all of us.”

    Hey, I’m certainly no Sooners fan, but I must admit I’d rather see them beat the Horns. Still, I was in no way surprised by the lopsided outcome. At least Dr. Steven Taylor at PoliBlog enjoyed the victory, revelling in it here and here.

    Raiders win despite blowing 21-point lead

    Coach Mike Leach’s head was spinning after all that happened in the final minutes of Texas Tech’s win over Nebraska.

    Had it not been for Nebraska nose tackle Le Kevin Smith fumbling while returning an interception, No. 15 Texas Tech wouldn’t have been in position for Cody Hodges to throw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Joel Filani with 12 seconds left in a 34-31 victory Saturday.

    […]

    Actually, it was a great deal for the Red Raiders (5-0, 1-0), who squandered a 21-point lead before scoring late to preserve their best start since 1998.

    Smith intercepted Hodges near the goal line with 1:11 left and, instead of falling down to secure possession for Nebraska, he decided to run the ball back. Bryan Kegans pried the ball loose, and Danny Amendola recovered to set up the Raiders at the Nebraska 18.

    I expected Tech to win, and probably easily at that. It was brutal to see Nebraska absolutely seize defeat from the jaws of victory on a split-second of poor judgement. Oh well, good news for my fiancee and Chad over at In the Bullpen, Raiders both.

    Bledsoe throws for 289 yards, three TDs in rout

    So much for the Dallas Cowboys following their season-long script of playing conservatively and trying to win late. Coach Bill Parcells unleashed his team from the start and they stomped the Philadelphia Eagles.

    Drew Bledsoe led the suddenly risky Cowboys to two early touchdowns and scores on six of their first seven drives and the defense shut down Donovan McNabb and the league’s top offense in a stunning 33-10 victory Sunday.

    My dad was a St. Louis Cardinals fan who taught me at a very early age to hate the Cowboys. My later migration to Houston only reinforced this.

    Titans’ McNair picks apart Texans

    Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher wanted to see his young team execute. On Sunday he got his wish and a nice bonus — his 100th career victory.

    Steve McNair threw for 220 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another to lead the NFL’s youngest team to a 34-20 win over the hapless Houston Texans.

    […]

    The Texans continued their downward spiral, converting none of their 13 third downs and managing just one touchdown. They are the only winless team in the league and are 0-4 for the first time in their short history.

    It is sad to see the apparent regression of the Texans this season. Sadder still it is to see them fall so meekly at home to the team that used to be the Oilers.

    And now we turn to the ugly, and ugly is probably an understatement.

    A&M’s weaknesses exposed

    Texas A&M had displayed numerous deficiencies during its three-game winning streak prior to Saturday night’s game at Colorado.

    But the holes in this edition of the Aggies — susceptibility to big plays in the passing game, trouble stopping teams on third down and inconsistency on offense — had been eased by victories.

    That changed drastically Saturday night when the Aggies ran into a team physical enough and with a sound game plan to make them pay. The result was a 41-20 loss at the hands of the Buffaloes in front of 50,686 fans at Folsom Field.

    “I don’t think you ever expect anything like that,” said A&M coach Dennis Franchione. “(Colorado) has got a good football team. They played very well, and we didn’t have a lot of answers for them.”

    A&M, which suffered its worst Big 12 Conference loss since falling to Texas 46-15 to end the 2003 season, wasn’t competitive in a game in which it was down 21-0 before the first quarter ended.

    And the final score was deceptive as the Aggies’ second team, trailing 41-6, managed two touchdowns on Colorado’s subs in the fourth quarter.

    And I thought last week’s struggling overtime victory against Baylor was bad. Oh, I had no idea. November’s schedule of Tech, Oklahoma and Texas alreadly looked brutal enough; now the rest of October has grown intimidating.

    There you have it, the Target Centermass look at the good, albeit scant, the bad and the ugly of this weekend’s pigskin action.

    I did promise some awesome though, and for that we have to leave behind football and turn to the baseball playoffs. On Saturday, the Houston Astros pushed the Atlanta Braves to the brink of elimination with a 7-3 victory. Today, Atlanta refused to go down meekly.

    Berkman, Ausmus bring Astros back; Burke’s HR wins it

    Roger Clemens and the Houston Astros gave a whole new meaning to the word “longevity.”

    The 43-year-old Rocket came out of the bullpen to rescue the Astros and Chris Burke ended the longest postseason game in baseball history with a home run in the 18th inning, lifting Houston over the Atlanta Braves 7-6 Sunday and into the NL championship series.

    […]

    The Braves took a five-run lead into the eighth, and were poised to send this first-round series back to Atlanta for a decisive Game 5 Monday night. Instead, Lance Berkman hit a grand slam in the eighth and Brad Ausmus tied Game 4 with a two-out homer in the ninth barely beyond Gold Glove center fielder Andruw Jones’ outstretched glove.

    Then, at 6-all, the Braves and Astros began the real endurance test that wound up lasting 5 hours, 50 minutes. The previous longest postseason game also occurred in Houston — the New York Mets clinched the 1986 NLCS with a 16-inning win at the Astrodome.

    I’d love to say I watched this historic thriller. Instead, I was out shopping with the future Mrs. Gunner, getting updates from the internet via my cell phone. Let me throw in a quick kudo here to modern technology. However, I must have looked quite the idiot there in the middle of Circuit City, raising my arms in celebration and shouting exuberantly when the update suddenly read 7-6.

  • Quote of the Week, 9 OCT 05

    The proper strategy consists in inflicting as telling blows as possible on the enemy’s army, and then in causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they must long for peace, and force the government to demand it. The people must be left with nothing but their eyes to weep with after the war.

    —General Philip H. Sheridan

  • Nada Tonight

    I just returned from the annual day at the State Fair of Texas with the soon-to-be Mrs. Gunner. As usual, it was not a day filled with the healthiest of food. The deep-fried strawberries were particularly interesting.

    I’m also glad to see it was a good day for my ‘Stros, as they opened the playoffs with a 10-5 victory at Atlanta. Nice start.

  • MilBlogs: Something Bookish This Way Comes

    Matt at Blackfive, one of the very best MilBloggers out there, has a huge announcement — a planned publishing of a military blogging anthology.

    Simon & Schuster has agreed to publish a collection from military bloggers sometime in late 2006. I submitted the proposal and will be the editor and one of the many authors.

    We will bring together the best of the military blogs, the purest distillation of the myriad voices of this war. These bloggers provide a powerful insight into the military, the War on Terror, and the heart of our nation. By bringing these voices together, we offer the first real-time, “oral” history of a war while it still going on. We will provide stories from many of the military blogs that cover the full range of the experience of this war – from the decision to serve in the military to their return home, from the front lines to the home front, and from the med-evac units and hospitals where the price of freedom is paid in blood and suffering to the friends that made the ultimate sacrifice.

    In his announcement, Matt requests reader input on possible material. Also in the post is a description of MilBlogging enticing enough to be worthy of the book’s cover jacket.

    In the past, the experiences of war have produced poetry and novels and memoirs. The War on Terror is different: we’re seeing through a new set of eyes, a new kind of literature. In real time, on the Internet, officers and enlisted men and women are chronicling the war on weblogs.

    […]

    Imagine if the men and women fighting World War II could have somehow told their stories daily for all to hear…imagine if Audie Murphy or George Patton could have broadcast their experiences of a battle the day after it occurred – while the experience was still fresh in their minds and without time taking the edges off of their memories.

    That’s what military bloggers are doing today – offering unfettered access to the War on Terror in their own words – each one speaking to anyone, everyone who has access to the Web. For the first time, the public does not have to wait months or years to hear what happened from the individual soldier’s point of view. They don’t have to settle for the government’s approved messages. These bloggers are soldiers who return to their bases and type their daily experiences onto the Internet for anyone to read. Never before has this happened, has the information come so fast, so real and so unfiltered. This is the power of a blog.

    Normally, knowing all too well the grumbling, griping nature soldiers seemingly instinctively put on along with the uniform, I would be hesitant about such instant access to a world-wide audience for everyday troops. Surprisingly though, with few media exceptions, the blogs of the troops have been the only voices showing the actual action of this war and demonstrating the generally positive morale of those fighting it. The media has brought us the casualty figures, but the MilBloggers have brought us the stories of the war.

    Hat tips to Outside the Beltway, the Mudville Gazette and the Gunn Nutt for repeatedly pointing me to this story today.

  • Happy Blogroll Blogiversaries

    Belated? You betcha, but that ain’t my fault.

    JohnL at TexasBestGrok didn’t realize until today that his blog had turned two years old.

    Meanwhile, Eric at Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave seems to have overlooked his first blogiversary altogether. It must be confusion after his flight from Blogger to MuNuviana.

  • Carnival of Liberty XIV

    This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community‘s Carnival of Liberty is up over at Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.

    For the record, I’d like to send along a special thanks to Eric, the founder of the LLP community.

  • U.S. Uses ‘Iron Fist’ in Iraq

    The U.S. is conducting an offensive against the terrorists in Iraq. I find Canada’s Globe and Mail coverage of the effort to be amazingly negative in story and poor in detail, even for our supposed allies to the north.

    A U.S. offensive aimed at al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents in western Iraq entered its third day Monday, with air strikes in a town on the banks of the Euphrates River, witnesses said. At least 36 militants have died since the fighting began, officials said.

    No serious U.S. casualties have been reported in the “Iron Fist” offensive by 1,000 Marines, soldiers and sailors near the Syrian border.

    Well, so far, so bland. That must stop. So, too, must actual reporting of the offensive, as the story turns now towards negative news elsewhere in Iraq. Hey, the alleged point of the story got over sixty words — time to shift to unrelated gloom-and-doom.

    In Baghdad, Iraq’s oil minister narrowly survived an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb blasted his seven-car convoy, killing three of his escorts, officials said.

    Elsewhere, roadside bombs and fighting between insurgents and Iraqi forces on Monday wounded at least seven Iraqis in Ramadi, a militant stronghold west of the capital, police and hospital officials said.

    Insurgents wearing black hoods were seen carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the city’s streets, and Iraqi civilians gathered around two burning Iraqi army pickup trucks. Some of the civilians celebrated the destruction by carrying Iraqi military helmets and a uniform that appeared to have been pulled from the burning Iraqi vehicles.

    In the northern city of Mosul, a drive-by shooting killed Nafi’a Aziz, a female member of Ninevah’s provincial council, and her son, said police spokesman Brig. Saeed Ahmed. Mr. Aziz was in charge of the council’s human rights committee and a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

    The offensive and street fighting come less than two weeks before the national referendum on a new Iraqi constitution. Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other groups in the Sunni-led insurgency have killed at least 207 people over the past eight days in a bid to wreck the vote.

    On Sunday, Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed to have taken two U.S. Marines captive during the fighting and threatened to kill them within 24 hours unless all female Sunni detainees are released from U.S. and Iraqi prisons in the country. The U.S. military said the claim appeared false but that it was conducting checks “to verify that all Marines are accounted for.”

    Well, that should be enough to quash any optimism about the offensive. Let’s actually return to that offensive, shall we?

    The offensive in western Iraq by 1,000 Marines, soldiers and sailors began early Saturday in the village of Sadah and has since spread to Karabilah and Rumana, two nearby towns on the banks of the Euphrates River. On Monday, witnesses told The Associated Press that helicopter attacks on Rumana were sending up clouds of black smoke.

    No casualties were immediately reported in Monday’s fighting by the witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for their own safety, or by the U.S. military command center in Baghdad.

    The military says al-Qaeda in Iraq, the country’s most feared insurgent group, has turned the area near Iraq’s border into a “sanctuary” and a way-station for foreign fighters entering from Syria.

    In Karabilah, Marines clashed with insurgents who opened fire from a building on Sunday in a firefight that killed eight militants, the military said.

    Most of the militants appeared to have slipped out of Sadah before the force moved in, and hundreds of the village’s residents fled into Syria ahead of the assault.

    There was “virtually no opposition” in Sadah, the Marine commander in western Anbar province, Col. Stephen W. Davis said.

    At least 28 militants were killed in fighting Sunday, Davis said, bringing the two-day toll among insurgents to 36. There have been no serious U.S. casualties in the operation, he said.

    Okay, the American offensive appears to be going well, time to cast a pall on that.

    On Monday, a CNN journalist embedded with Marines in eastern Karabilah filed video showing the attack. About 20 Iraqi civilians fled the fighting, and the wounded included an Iraqi mother, father and their child, who were bleeding after being hit by flying pieces of concrete.

    Oh holy crap! Civilians in a combat zone were injured by flying bits of building! Oh the humanity! Damn, but large portions of Canada really need wake up, crawl out from under the blanket of protection their southerly neighbors have afforded them for apparently far too long, and actually come face-to-face with a real threat. I doubt their grandfathers on D-Day fretted overly much about bystanders being stung by inadvertant debris.

    The rest of the story ignores the offensive and returns to the negative stories covered earlier. It’s almost like the author wants the reader to know a successful operation is underway, but doesn’t want that news to bring any good vibes. On the other hand, for balance’s sake, the article does wrap up with a slightly positive tidbit, again unrelated to the offensive.

    Elsewhere, Shiite militiamen released the recently kidnapped brother of Iraq’s interior minister, the freed man, Abdul-Jabbar Jabr said.

    Well, there, that’s fair coverage of a friend’s successful venture, wouldn’t you say?

    Meanwhile, Chad over at In the Bullpen has a rather speculative story that al Queda in Iraq may be considering bailing on, well, Iraq as a base of operations. Continued offensives like those barely covered above would certainly play a role in such a maneuver. Chad goes on to ponder about possible new sites for the terrorist base of operations.

    Where would they move? The Sinai is the first place I’d look for any reemergence, but there’s also Northern Africa and the Horn of Africa to consider.

    As I’ve noted before, the U.S. military is already planning for such a relocation.

  • Clash ‘Humiliates’ Palestinian Police

    Gaza moves ever closer to the world of Mad Max, as police react angrily to their own inability to enforce a Palestinian Authority attempt at militant arms control.

    Two dozen policemen last night stormed the Palestinian parliament building, firing in the air to protest against their humiliation by Hamas militants following the worst clash between the factions in a decade.

    This followed running gun battles on Sunday between police and Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip, raising fears of a civil war.

    Three people were killed – including Shati refugee camp deputy police commander Ali Makawi – and more than 50 wounded as the Palestinian Authority attempted to enforce its authority by confiscating weapons from Hamas operatives in Gaza.

    The clashes raged for about six hours and subsided only about midnight on Sunday local time, after Egyptian mediators stepped in. It was the fiercest internal fighting since 1996.

    “Yesterday, we did not have enough bullets,” said one of the protesting policemen last night.

    “We had nothing to protect ourselves. Give us at least bullets to protect people and to protect our stations. Our commander died in front of us and we were running out of bullets.”

    The “you can have my AK-47 when you pry it from my cold, dead, Palestinian fingers” reaction by Hamas to the PA effort is, to say the least, unsurprising.

    The clash was triggered when police stopped a car in Gaza City containing four armed Hamas operatives and demanded that they hand over their weapons.

    One of the four was Mohammed Rantisi, the son of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated last year by Israel. He refused the demand and when he attempted to drive off the police fired at the car’s tyres.

    Hamas operatives living in the area soon joined in the fight while members of the Fatah movement, headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, joined in on the side of the policemen. The fighting spread to other neighbourhoods and the Shati refugee camp, at the edge of Gaza City.

    The clashes came amid the growing tension that followed the PA’s announcement four days earlier that it would no longer allow arms to be carried in the streets by militants. Hamas officials said they had no intention of abiding by that order.

    Ah, the smell of Gaza sans Israeli settlers. It smells like … civil war.

    A senior Hamas official in Damascus, Mohammed Nazel, accused the PA of trying to liquidate Hamas, which is challenging Fatah’s control of the PA by fielding candidates in the coming legislative elections.

    “There is a faction of the Palestinian Authority trying to eradicate Hamas and it plans a widespread conflict in the West Bank,” Mr Nazel said. “The hands of this faction, which is backed by Washington and London, are stained with Palestinian blood, and Hamas will confront it, even at the price of civil war.”

    The PA’s Interior Ministry issued a similarly militant announcement.

    “Hamas bears full responsibility for this crude violation of the law and the games it is playing with Palestinian blood,” it said. “We are determined to enforce the law and no one is above it.”

    For its part, Israel currently seems quite content to sit back and watch the developments, happy for the meantime to not be a target of Palestinian bloodthirst.

  • Afghan Troops Kill ’31 Taleban’

    As expected, anti-terror efforts continue in the fledgling democracy of Afghanistan. Also as expect, those efforts go bloody but bloody well.

    At least 31 suspected Taleban militants have been killed in clashes with government troops in south-east Afghanistan, officials say.

    Defence Ministry spokesman Gen Mohammed Zaher Azimi said fighting erupted after insurgents attacked an Afghan army post near Angore Adda in Paktika province.

    At least four government troops were injured in the battle near the Pakistan border, which lasted over four hours.

    It was the heaviest reported fighting since elections two weeks ago.

    Gen Azimi said 28 militants had been killed in fighting on Sunday night. Three others were killed in a separate clash in the province earlier in the day.

    […]

    The US military, which has a base in the area, said US troops had not been involved in the fighting.

    More than 1,000 people have been killed in violence linked to militancy in Afghanistan this year.

    Most of those killed have been suspected militants, but more than 80 US troops have also died, about 50 of them in hostile fire.

    A number of civilians and election candidates and workers have also been killed.

    […]

    Afghanistan’s parliamentary and provincial elections on 18 September were hailed as a landmark in the process to bring democracy after years of war.

    The counting of votes is still continuing.

    The repeated inability of the Taliban and al Queda terrorists to disrupt national elections, coupled with their demonstrated ability to die in sizable numbers at the hands of both American and native forces, has to be held as good news for the Afghan theater.