Target Centermass

Category: War on Terror

  • Zarqawi Aide with U.S. Citizenship Held in Iraq

    At least this traitorous scum wasn’t American born and bred like that bastard John Walker Lindh.

    The U.S. military in Iraq has detained a U.S. citizen who is thought to be a top aide to wanted Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

    The man, who has dual U.S. and Jordanian citizenship, was seized following a raid on a Baghdad home late last year. He is believed to be the first U.S. citizen caught in connection with Iraq’s two-year-old insurgency.

    “He is being held at an internment facility in Iraq,” said Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, spokesman for detainee affairs. “He’s being held along with other detainees.”

    Rudisill said he had no details on the man’s age or where he was from in the United States. He said he was born in Jordan and received U.S. citizenship later, but it was not known when. He has been interrogated by U.S. forces.

    “We do know from interrogation that he has strong ties to the al-Zarqawi network,” Rudisill said.

    Legal action against the detainee will be taken in coordination with the Iraqi government, he added, leaving open the possibility that he could be handed over to the U.S. Justice Department.

    Legal action should begin with all haste, as I suspect we’ve now gleaned any and all useful information this crapbag held.

    Rudisill said the fact an American had been held in connection with the insurgency was only emerging now because no one had asked about it previously.

    This was rather poorly played by Lt. Col. Rudisill and could mushroom to be another PR blunder. Perhaps we’re taking way too long in the interrogation process, but the kid gloves our intelligence is forced to use has to be expected to eventually come back and bite us.

    Zarqawi, who is al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, is the most-wanted man in the country. His group has claimed responsibility for many of the worst suicide attacks in Iraq, as well as the capture and beheading of several foreigners.

    The detention of the American echoes the case of John Walker Lindh, a U.S. citizen who was captured fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001.

    And what of Little Johnny Jihad, is that poor misguided soul still alive? Well, I guess he is. Now that’s a damn shame.

    As for our new American jihadist villain, Dr. Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report is, as expected, on the case and of like mind as I am on the matter: end this traitor.

  • A Quiz on Honor

    Compare and contrast the character of the following:

    A) Those who recently vandalized the Medal of Honor Memorial in Indianapolis (hat tip to jcrue at doubleplusgood infotainment)

    B) The Medal of Honor recipients remembered by that memorial, the only one in the nation paying tribute to all who have earned our military’s highest distinction.

    For extra credit, examine the cowardly nature of the vandals’ criminal act and how it differs from the courage shown by our nation’s latest Medal of Honor recipient, Sergeant First Class Paul Smith.

  • U.S. Denies U.N. Claim Iraqis Malnourished

    Though the conditions of the Iraqi populace certainly are a concern, doubly so for the children, the U.S. has reacted to United Nations’ claims of increasing child malnutrition by calling them questionable and political.

    The U.S. human rights delegation Thursday rejected a U.N. monitor’s claim that child malnutrition had risen in Iraq and said, if anything, health conditions have improved since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

    Jean Ziegler, the U.N. Human Right Commission’s expert on the right to food, cited U.S. and European studies Wednesday in telling the commission that acute malnutrition rates among Iraqi children under 5 rose late last year to 7.7 percent from 4 percent after Saddam’s ouster in April 2003. Ziegler blamed the war for the situation.

    “First, he has not been to Iraq, and second, he is wrong,” said Kevin E. Moley, U.S. ambassador to U.N. organizations in Geneva and a member of the American delegation to the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission.

    “He’s taking some information that is in itself difficult to validate and juxtaposing his own views — which are widely known,” Moley said, referring to Ziegler’s opposition to the U.S. military intervention in the country.

    Moley rejected the rate cited by Ziegler and said malnutrition in Iraq was notoriously difficult to gauge. He noted that some estimates had put it at 11 percent in 1996 and 7.8 percent in 2000, while Saddam was still in power.

    “The surveys that have been taken … have indicated that the recent rise in malnutrition rates began between 2002 and 2003 under the regime of Saddam Hussein,” Moley said.

    “If anything, vaccination, food aid … has improved dramatically since the fall of Saddam Hussein,” he added.

    Also taking the UN claims to task is Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarters, who uses the UN’s own figures against them.

    The report obviously aims itself at Washington, as the BBC reports. What the BBC fails to mention is that the report is dishonest, mathematically illiterate, historically inaccurate, and a terrific demonstration why the UN cannot be trusted with money or policy. Its timing appears to have been strategized to take the heat off of Kofi Annan and the massive and grotesque scandals wracking the United Nations.

    Okay, a show of hands if you’re not sick of the UN. Anyone? Anyone?

  • Looking at U.S. Tanks in Urban Iraq

    Heading to bed, but wanting to point other dumbass tankers (DATs) towards this and this about the M1’s employment in urban Iraq (hat tip to Argghhh!). Check out the graphic on urban upgrades — intriguing stuff. It’s interesting that the external phone is a flashback to WWII and the exhaust barrier is a big duh, but there’s no change that the TC’s Ma Deuce is still externally loaded. Too big a mod for a quick change, I guess.

    Very cool stuff, all considered.

  • When RadIslam and Catholicism Meet

    I’ll admit I chuckled.

  • Amputees Begin Returning to Battlefield

    I sit here, barely able to blog, overcome by awe.

    Cpl. Jemel Daniels was a gunner on patrol with his unit in Iskandere, Iraq, when his Humvee hit a makeshift bomb on the side of the road.

    “I shot out of the turret 30 feet into the air and fell into a ditch on the side of the road. My friends dragged me across the road. Just two of us actually got out and three passed away,” the corporal said.

    Daniels works out hard without appearing to give much thought now to his injuries — an amputated left leg, a battered arm and a shattered right foot now stabilized by painful steel pins running through it. None of his wounds have deterred his future plans.

    “I’m staying active duty,” he said.

    Go read the rest. Seriously. Between tales of perserverence such as this and sacrifice such as that of Sergeant First Class Paul Smith, I can only shake my head at the valor of our troops, both on and off the battlefield.

    Does the service bring out the best in a person, or is it that our best are drawn to the service? Perhaps a mixture of both, as honorable people see their fortitude strengthened by camaraderie and shared burden. Either way, we are truly blessed as a society to have such heroes among us.

  • Bush to Award First Medal of Honor for Iraq Service

    Sergeant First Class Paul Smith will become the first recipient of our military’s highest award next Monday when President Bush presents the Medal of Honor to SFC Smith’s family.

    The first Medal of Honor awarded for service in Iraq will be presented next Monday in a ceremony at the White House, White House spokesman Scott McClellan announced Tuesday.

    For the family of Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, the honor, the nation’s highest military award, brings conflicting feelings: pride that he’ll be remembered among America’s bravest soldiers, grief that he died two years ago in Iraq.

    “At least my mind is at rest because with the Medal of Honor, Paul’s name will go on in history,” his wife, Birgit Smith, said Tuesday from her home in Holiday, Fla. “His name will never die. This is very important to me.”

    President Bush will present the medal to Smith’s 11-year-old son, David, during the White House ceremony, Birgit Smith said.

    There’ll be a second ceremony next Tuesday morning at the Pentagon. Then in the afternoon, the family will attend another ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, where Smith’s headstone will be unveiled.

    Smith was nominated for the Medal of Honor by commanders of the 3rd Infantry Division after his death on April 4, 2003.

    Smith, 33, died behind the trigger of a .50-caliber machine gun as he fought off an Iraqi attack near Baghdad’s international airport. He’s credited with saving more than 100 American lives and killing at least 50 Iraqis.

    I missed the news when the award was announced in February, but Blackfive had the story, pointing towards this account.

    What Paul Smith did on April 4, 2003, was climb aboard an armored vehicle and, manning a heavy machine gun, take it upon himself to cover the withdrawal of his men from a suddenly vulnerable position. Smith was fatally wounded by Iraqi fire, the only American to die in the engagement.

    “I’m in bittersweet tears,” said Smith’s mother, Janice Pvirre. “The medal isn’t going to bring him back. … It makes me sad that all these other soldiers have died. They are all heroes.”

    With the medal, Smith joins a most hallowed society.

    Since the Civil War, just 3,439 men (and one woman) have received the Medal of Honor. It recognizes only the most extreme examples of bravery – those “above and beyond the call of duty.”

    That oft-heard phrase has a specific meaning: The medal cannot be given to those who act under orders, no matter how heroic their actions. Indeed, according to Library of Congress defense expert David F. Burrelli, it must be “the type of deed which, if he had not done it, would not subject him to any justified criticism.”

    From World War II on, most of the men who received the medal died in the action that led to their nomination. There are but 129 living recipients.

    Smith is the first soldier from the Iraq war to receive the medal, which had not previously been awarded since 1993. In that year, two Army Special Forces sergeants were killed in Somalia in an action described in the bestselling book Black Hawk Down.

    The officer who called Birgit Smith on Tuesday nominated her husband for the medal.

    Lt. Col. Thomas Smith (no relation) sent in his recommendation in May 2003, beginning a process that involved reviews at 12 levels of the military chain of command before reaching the White House. On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Smith expressed satisfaction that the wait was over, and great admiration for his former subordinate.

    In the Army, he said, you hear about men who won the Medal of Honor. “You think they are myths when you read about them. It’s almost movielike. You just don’t think you’d ever meet someone like that.”

    […]

    Lt. Col. Smith commanded the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, during the American attack on Iraq, which began March 20, 2003. On the morning of April 4, the engineers found themselves manning a roadblock not far from Baghdad International Airport.

    A call went out for a place to put some Iraqi prisoners.

    Sgt. Smith volunteered to create a holding pen inside a walled courtyard. Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith’s position. Smith was accompanied by 16 men.

    Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid fire cannon. It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis. The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position. But then, in a move that baffled and angered Smith’s men, the Bradley left.

    Smith’s men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.

    Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw. Lt. Col. Smith believes Sgt. Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize about 100 GIs outside – including medics at an aid station.

    Sgt. Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition fed to him by 21-year-old Pvt. Michael Seaman. As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head. He died before he could be evacuated from the scene. He was 33.

    Thank you, Sergeant First Class Paul Smith.

  • Troops Killed by Afghan Landmine Identified

    I blogged yesterday about the poor reporting of the loss of four American troops whose vehicle struck a landmine while scouting for a potential shooting range. Those lost troopers have now been identified.

    Thank you, Guardsmen, for your service and sacrifice.

    The four Hoosier soldiers who died Saturday in Afghanistan came from across the state but included one man from Indianapolis, a spokesman from Task Force Phoenix in Kabul confirmed today.

    The National Guard soldiers died after a land mine exploded under their vehicle. They were Capt. Michael T. Fiscus, 37, of Warsaw; Master Sgt. Michael Hiester, 33, of Bluffton; Spc. Brett Hershey, 23, of Indianapolis; and Spc. Norman Snyder, 19, of Carlisle.

    Their deaths marked Indiana’s bloodiest day since the war on terrorism began, and the nation’s worst day in Afghanistan in almost 10 months.

    The soldiers were part of the 76th Infantry Brigade.

    “Four brave and irreplaceable citizens have lost their lives for all of us in the noblest of causes. I ask the prayers of every Hoosier for their families as we grieve and await their return home,” Gov. Mitch Daniels said in a statement.

    My condolences and best wishes to their families and loved ones.

  • 4 U.S. Troops Killed by Afghan Landmine

    Shooting ranges are dangerous places, and those in the military are necessarily drenched in a ton of safety rules and safety briefings and cease fires for any and every little thing. Apparently, setting up a shooting range is also dangerous, if that range is to be located in a country that has seen decades-long warfare.

    Four U.S. soldiers died when their vehicle struck a land mine in central Afghanistan on Saturday, the military said. It was unclear whether the mine was freshly laid or a leftover from the country’s long wars.

    The soldiers were among a group of American and Afghan officials examining a potential site for a shooting range in Logar Province, 25 miles south of Kabul, when one of their three vehicles hit the mine, spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said.

    The bodies of the four dead, none of whom was identified, were airlifted to the main U.S. base at Bagram, Moore said. No one else was reported hurt.

    A truly tragic occurence, especially in a theater of operations that receives little media attention.

    Speaking of media attention, the Taliban has decided to ridiculously take credit for this mine and, in the interest of fairness, the Associated Press has given them equal time.

    A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast, but Moore said investigators suspected the mine was an old charge dislodged by recent rain and snow or that the vehicle had wandered into an unmapped minefield.

    Moore said U.S. troops first toured an area near the scene of Saturday’s incident about a week earlier searching for a site for a training range for the American-trained Afghan army.

    “We believe it was an old mine which could have shifted,” she said.

    Gov. Mohammed Aman Hamini said the incident occurred in a desert area crisscrossed by rough tracks.

    “It’s an old mine. There’s no traffic on the route they took, but the Russians used to use it because they were afraid of the main road,” Hamini told The Associated Press, referring to the Soviet troops which occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s.

    However, Mullah Hakim Latifi, a man who claims to speak for the Taliban, said its fighters detonated the mine by remote control.

    “We’ve said again and again that we would resume our holy war in the spring,” Latifi told AP by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

    Ummm … yeah, sure. Listen, Queen Latifi, setting off a mine by remote control, with no other action or ambush activity, against soft targets in the open is either stupidity or a lie. Either way, it’s a silly way to claim the resumption of your holy war, which so far has consisted mainly of “Holy shit! Run away!”

    Back to the Associated Press, let’s see how they wrap up the story.

    According to Defense Department statistics, 122 American soldiers have now died since U.S.-led forces invaded to oust the former Taliban government for harboring al-Qaida militants after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

    Many have been killed in accidents, including by mines left behind by Soviet troops or the Afghan factions who then fought each other.

    A U.S. military policeman died March 15 when his vehicle hit what appeared to be an old mine in western Afghanistan.

    The worst incident occurred in January 2004, when an explosion at an arms dump in southeastern Ghazni province killed eight American soldiers.

    The 17,000 American troops still in Afghanistan also face a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency. The U.S. military says its air and ground operations along the Pakistani border killed 12 people in the past week. Eight were suspected militants while four were civilians, including three children.

    Quagmire! Baby-killers!

  • Escape Tunnel Found at Iraqi Prison

    I always loved Hogan’s Heroes. It was so fun to watch Col. Hogan outsmart and manipulate that silly inept German, Col. Klink (skillfully portrayed by the late Werner Klemperer). Oh, the tunnel system those POWs had! They could move about at will, and had a great map attached to a bunk. Poor ol’ Sgt. Schultz — he knew nothing!

    Ahh, but the real world is slightly different.

    U.S. troops believe they have thwarted a massive escape from one of the coalition’s main prison camps in Iraq, Pentagon officials said Friday.

    A 600-foot-long (183-meter) escape tunnel with an exit point outside the prison camp walls was discovered Thursday at Camp Bucca in southeastern Iraq.

    The tunnel is believed to have been dug with improvised tools. Military authorities discovered it after a tip initiated a campwide search.

    The tunnel is about 10 feet below ground and 2 to 3 feet wide.

    Pentagon officials did not know how long the tunnel had been under construction.

    Camp Bucca houses about 5,600 detainees.

    That no one had used it to escape so far was verified by a head count of prisoners, which found all accounted for. But the tunnel appeared to be completed and ready to use, and officials speculate that detainees were waiting to use it when the weather turned poor and visibility on the ground was low.

    The discovery of the tunnel also solved another mystery camp officials were trying to figure out.

    Machinery that pumps sewage out of the prisoners’ toilet system has been getting jammed with sand and dirt. Apparently, it was caused by soil that detainees have been disposing of while digging the tunnel.

    I fault not the prisoners for trying. I do, however, question prison oversight for the attempt coming this close to fruition. Better security procedures have to be considered, as a sizable influx of these prisoners would be a great boost to a terrorist movement that seems to be shaken by events of late.