Iraq and the Untold Story

I'd never heard of newsminer.com before I found a link to this story. I really don't think it needs any comment from me if you read for yourself the following:

Think about everything you’ve heard about the conditions in Iraq, the role of U.S. forces, the multi-layered complexities of the war.

Then think again.

I’m a journalist. I read the news everyday, from several sources. I have the luxury of reading stuff newspapers don’t always have room to print. I read every tidbit I could on Iraq and the war before coming.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Maybe not wrong, but certainly different than the picture in my head.

I liken it to this; It was real struggle for me to choose to see the Harry Potter movies. I had read the books and loved the pictures I had in my mind of the details I read. I didn’t need to see a movie; I had a movie playing in my head of exactly how I perceived the stories.

I had similar notions about Iraq, Mosul, the war and what exactly soldiers do. And it was handily shattered like glass today by a group of soldiers, half of them younger than myself.
[snip]
More than anything in the last few days I’ve heard from soldiers and commanders that people back home don’t quite get it. They don’t see the real picture. They don’t get the real story. Some of them, like Lt. Col. Gregg Parrish, look seriously pained in the face when he says only a part of the picture is being told; the part of car bombs and explosives and suicide bombers and death. It’s a necessary part of the picture, but not a complete one, he says.
[ed: I knew a Gregg Parrish in the Army. I wonder if it is the same one]

I’ve listened to the soldiers and Parrish about the missing pieces of the puzzles that don’t reach home. My selfish, journalistic drive immediately thinks “Perfect. A story that hasn’t been told. Let me at it.”

But I have a slight hesitation; I need to keep balanced. I can’t be a cheerleader, even if I have a soft spot for the hometown troops, especially after the welcome they’ve shown me. I still need to be truthful and walk the centerline and report the good or bad.

But then I realize it’s not a conflict of interest. If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fact; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one. It takes a minute to wrap my mind around it, as a news junkie that became a news writer. The great, career-making, breaking news stories usually don’t have happy endings; they usually revolve around disturbing news, deceit and downfall. Nasty political doings. Gruesome crimes and murders. Revealing secrets.

But I’ve come upon something that is none of those. Not this aspect of it. There are politics to this war and controversies and investigations. But there is another side.

Very refreshing words from a journalist, and I think a good, if only partial, explanation for why we don't hear any significant good news about the war.

This is CNN's monkey

You know, some topics simply are not appropriate for public discussion. Period. I don't care if the people involved are famous. Or if you think it's cutesy if you are talking about your own mother -- especially if you think that. It. is. not. appropriate. And, I hate to break it to you, Mr. Cooper, it sure as hell aint NEWS.

Why can't the big news networks perceive that they are shoveling crap at as. CNN's actual (alleged) news coverage is just barely watchable, when it is even close to accurate, but what the hell is this supposed to be?

Here is anchor Anderson Cooper, talking about his mother, who happens to be Gloria Vanderbilt, who happens to be famous. Or was. Sort of, in the way some people are famous without actually having any fans or in any way influencing the lives of 99% of us, which is only part of why I really, really, don't care about this:

But now my mom is 81, and all of a sudden she's started talking about sex.

I know, I know -- I should be mature, supportive of her sexual identity, and I am, intellectually, but there are some things I'd prefer to stay ignorant about.

No matter how much my cerebrum says "Okay," my gut still sort of shudders at the thought of her, you know, touching the monkey.

Oh, make it stop. Here's the link, if you insist. I feel really dirty, which is how I always feel after brief contact with CNN.

You, Sir, are a pansy, and deserveth not an i-pod anyway

I saw this story on Drudge:

Police say Baldino used homemade bar codes to buy electronic gadgets at prices far below any legitimate discount. The 19-year-old is facing three counts...one of them a Class 5 felony.

This is really just a run-of-the-mill shoplifting story, in my mind. The part about swapping out barcodes doesn't strike me as particularly innovative or noteworthy. The following, however, gets my attention. Here is the statement that this 19 year-old man gave to the police:

"I will NEVER EVER DO THIS EVER AGAIN and I am once more terribly sorry," Baldino wrote in a statement for police. "Please let me go for I am terribly sorry!!! I'm only a kid! Help me out. I just want to go home. I did this not knowing of the serious penalty that lies behind it. Please! Please! Please!"

That leaves me speechless. It's got the screaming caps and the multiple explanation points, and repeating the word please, and, most pathetically, claiming to be "a kid". Arrg. Do I really need to comment more? This makes me want to throw up. The day I turned nineteen, I was literally jumping out of a C-130 in the last week of airborne school. What on earth could possess a 19-year-old, when caught red handed in a bit of stupid spoiled-brat style larceny, to A) write in the manner of a six-year-old, B) abandon all dignity post-haste, and C) somehow think that yelling Please!!! at the cops is more likely to work than it is to get them thinking of fun practical jokes to play on you while you're in the holding cell.
According to the story, after time for reflection, the young man issued a follow-up statement to the police: In a follow-up statement to police, he wrote:

"I am extremely sad now, and I just want to go to bed," he wrote. "Please let me sleep in my own bed tonight."

Milk and cookies as well, young mister? As an interesting postscript, just before reporting the part about wanting to go home to his own bed, the reporter writes, "Baldino could not be reached for comment Thursday". That strikes me as an odd thing to include. Does that mean that the reporter doesn't know where the jail is?

How's this for a bumper sticker?

"I'm an illegal immigrant, and I vote"

Sunshine Patriots

Once again, someone says what I'm thinking far better than I could. I gave it a try, when I decided to declare victory (there is no substitute for it; trust me) in the War in Iraq, but this article says it better than I did:

To put it in the simplest and starkest terms: in that early stage of the Revolutionary War, there was sound reason to fear that the British would succeed in routing Washington’s forces. In Iraq today, however, and in the Middle East as a whole, a successful outcome is staring us in the face. Clearly, then, the panic over Iraq—which expresses itself in increasingly frenzied calls for the withdrawal of our forces—cannot have been caused by the prospect of defeat. On the contrary, my twofold guess is that the real fear behind it is not that we are losing but that we are winning, and that what has catalyzed this fear into a genuine panic is the realization that the chances of pulling off the proverbial feat of snatching an American defeat from the jaws of victory are rapidly running out.

So you know, here's what I had to say about this:

The fourth reason is that the left, the Democrats, and the MSM have declared defeat. I have known and predicted for two years now that we shall know when we have won the war because the left will declare it lost five minutes later.

So I'm going on record. In Vietnam we started with fighting a loose insurgency with only advisers and ended it fighting an organized army with nationalist concerns and supplied by two major powers, the USSR and China with an enormous amount of troops; in Iraq we started with fighting an enormous conventional army led by a dictator with a large number of troops, and end it with helping a liberated people with nationalist concerns take on a decreasing number of loose insurgents.

Iraq is the anti-Vietnam, in every military and geopolitical respect. It is only Vietnam (and I say this with all respect to those men who won all those battles in Indochina) in the minds of the political left.

I did not know that

A collection of jellyfish is known as a smack.

Oh yeah, and giant monster jellyfish are attacking Japan.

The latest in a series of British non-movie reviews

I recall posting something, about a year ago, from a UK newspaper about how the movie Alexander wasn't doing so well in the States. Well, really, it was about how imbecilic (among other things) American Christians are.

The reason I remembered that post is because I just read a review from a UK newspaper of the movie The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Or, rather, I just read a lengthy article about how imbecilic (among other things) American Christians are.

Honestly, folks, just write the article, and don't bother waiting for a movie to come out to tell us how you feel. But back to the movie review. Ms. Toynbee (I don't think I've ever met a Toynbee. Cool name) says the movie is

a strange blend of magic, myth and Christianity, some of it brilliantly fantastical and richly imaginative, some (the clunking allegory) toe-curlingly, cringingly awful.

That's as good as it gets, in her mind, which is not a problem because the quality of any bit of entertainment/art is in the eye of the beholder. But why is the movie toe-curlingly, cringingly awful? It seems to have something to do with a plot by Florida Governor Jeb Bush to force every child in the state to read the first of the chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Actually, Toynbee's exact words were

US born-agains are using the movie. The president's brother, Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, is organising a scheme for every child in his state to read the book.

Honestly, I laughed out loud when I read that. It is true that the Governor has suggested placing the book on a list of books that may be used in a program to encourage early literacy. Evil scheme indeed. This is a good example of what I've noted to be the only rule of leftist logic: if two words you want to use (e.g., Bush, Narnia) appear in the same paragraph, you can use that as proof of the truth of any statement that also includes the two words.

But on to the review:

Most British children will be utterly clueless about any message beyond the age-old mythic battle between good and evil. Most of the fairy story works as well as any Norse saga, pagan legend or modern fantasy, so only the minority who are familiar with Christian iconography will see Jesus in the lion.

So what's the problem? Oh, here it is:

All the same, children may puzzle over the lion and ask embarrassing questions.

Embarrassing questions like what? "What is redemption, and why the hell should we care?"

Anyway, Ms. Toynbee seems to have more of a problem with Christ than with a movie adaptation of a successful book series by a British genius that works both as religious allegory and as a straight-up story for kids. I haven't seen the movie yet, I have no idea if it is good, but we can be sure of one thing: Ms. Toynbee is offended by this:

Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?

That says it all. I hope that the reviewer won't be further offended, if I say here that I will pray for her. And I mean that. Also, I think I'll go see that horrible dangerous unconstitutional movie.

Even though the wrong team won...

Congratulations, Navy, on breaking the tie and winning this year's CIC trophy.

This year, instead of putting up Christmas lights,

I'll just watch this over and over again.

Aaaaaarrrrgh

I don't know how long this link will work, but wow. Creepy. I'm buying one of those cool motion activated video clocks though.

On November 15, while she was at work, the camera captured images of a man entering her apartment appearing to use a key. He leaves, then returns and walks right into a trap.

"Right by the door was the sofa, so I laid some lingerie and other things on it and so it worked," she said.

He handled the lingerie, put on a camisole and underwear, and engages in self-gratification. Before he left, he arranged the underwear as he found it.

The rest of the story is here.

Books authored by Class of 1989, USMA

Since it's Army-Navy week, and I'm waxing nostalgic for (some of) my days as a cadet, I'd thought I'd pass this on. Published books by classmates of mine (it's a pretty impressive list, I think).

[Author: Gregory Daddis H4 '89] FIGHTING IN THE GREAT CRUSADE combines the terse clarity of George E. Schwend's World War II combat journals with Gregory Daddis's expert commentary on the greater context of that conflict. The result is the rare military work that counterpoints historical and strategic analysis against a foxhole-level view of the war in Europe as U. S. soldiers experienced it.

[Author: Amy Blanchard Efaw H3 '89] In this insider account of a female cadet's first summer at West Point, readers are given a potent dose of military life. Andi Davis is eager to escape her unstable family when she enrolls at "Woo Poo U," but she is not prepared to be humiliated and bombarded with confusing commands during the first few days of "Beast," the six weeks of basic training.

[Chapter 13: Maintenance and Replacement Models Under a Fuzzy Framework is co-authored by Warren Hearnes B1 '89.] Fuzzy Sets in Decision Analysis, Operations Research and Statistics includes chapters on fuzzy preference modeling, multiple criteria analysis, ranking and sorting methods, group decision-making and fuzzy game theory. It also presents optimization techniques such as fuzzy linear and non-linear programming, applications to graph problems and fuzzy combinatorial methods such as fuzzy dynamic programming. In addition, the book also accounts for advances in fuzzy data analysis, fuzzy statistics, and applications to reliability analysis. These topics are covered within four parts:

[ed: slow down there, Warren, I got a D in ER401]

[Author: Alex Vernon A1 '89 with the help of Neal Creighton A1 '89, Rob Holmes A1 '89, and Dave Trybula D1 '89] A highly personal account of the day-to-day experiences of 5 platoon leaders who served in the same tank battalion during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. While professional soldiers and historians will undoubtedly glean much from this narrative, the heart of the account concerns the experiences of the 5 young lieutenants who served on the front line facing physical, personal, and leadership challenges.

[ed: I'm looking forward to reading this one]


[Author: Kelly Perdew D4 '89] In this book, Perdew outlines the 10 principles of effective leadership. He interviews business luminaries with military backgrounds, including Montel Williams, H.Ross Perot, and Roger Staubach. He talks about how his experience at West Point and as a young intelligence officer along the Berlin tripwire during the Cold War helped him to with The Apprentice.

[ed: Perdew freaking WON Trump's Apprentice 2 show?? Why wasn't I informed? This is what I get for not watching network television]

BEAT NAVY

It's Army-Navy week. The game is Saturday at 1430.

It's made me wonder. Are there any academy cadets or midshipmen writing blogs? In a quick search, I don't find any.

A Pittance of Time

I guess this is a belated Veterans' Day post. I found an interesting video. The story is here.

On November 11, 1999 Terry Kelly was in a Shoppers Drug Mart store in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. At 10:55 AM an announcement came over the store's PA asking customers who would still be on the premises at 11:00 AM to give two minutes of silence in respect to the veterans who have sacrificed so much for us.

Terry was impressed with the store's leadership role in adopting the Legion's "two minutes of silence" initiative. He felt that the store's contribution of educating the public to the importance of remembering was commendable.

When eleven o'clock arrived on that day, an announcement was again made asking for the "two minutes of silence" to commence. All customers, with the exception of a man who was accompanied by his young child, showed their respect.

Terry's anger towards the father for trying to engage the store's clerk in conversation and for setting a bad example for his child was later channeled into a beautiful piece of work called, "A Pittance of Time". Terry later recorded "A Pittance of Time" and included it on his full-length music CD, "The Power of the Dream".