“How many seconds did you have to make that turn?”.
A great piece from 2002.

Whether we’ve properly safeguarded the freedoms they fought to leave us, may be a discussion best left for another day. Today we struggle to envision — or, for a few of us, to remember — how the world must have looked on Oct. 26, 1942.

Don’t skip this one.
Update – by pure coincidence, a few hours after posting this link, Drudge features this development. Which I believe, answers some of the questions posed by commentors.

Veteran’s Voice;

exists as a forum to post and access information concerning new legislative initiatives, changes in policies and directives, and identify problem areas that may effect veteran benefits and entitlements. The site exists to provide a forum for all Canadian veterans, serving members and their families to have access to information pertaining to veteran rights, regardless of whether they are a member of a veteran organization or not.

Check it out.

War is a very personal endeavor. We find ourselves here involved in close friendships with one another as well as with the many Iraqis we interact with every day on the streets. We are also very close to our interpreters who share every danger with us. We are all intertwined and nothing happens to one group without it affecting the other.
Recently, I found myself in the 28th Combat Support Hospital emergency room where one of our most loyal interpreters was being treated after being injured in an attack. While his prognosis was excellent, he was very shaken. As he lay on a gurney with his head wrapped and an oxygen mask on his face, he saw me approach and immediately grabbed my arm and began to ask me about each soldier in the truck. He referred to them all as his “brothers” and he meant it. Not knowing his own condition he told me he loved Americans and America. He made me promise that I would take his heart to America if he died. He was going to be fine (he left the hospital the next day) but I could not convince him, so I promised.

Another Iraq dispatch from Michael Yon.
More – Yon on CNN.

A Michael Totten video.

Michael Totten is right, that doesn’t make for an exciting headline. But when that’s the nature of the mission these days for soldiers around Ramadi, that is good news. Read Michael Totten’s excellent latest report from Iraq for the current situation in Anbar province.

1LT Travis Manion

Monkey Tennis Centre;

…the hatred which the Left harbours for Blackwater, and companies like it, is further illustrated by the fact that the New York Times (albeit in coverage slightly more grounded in reality) has taken to calling Blackwater’s employees ‘gunmen’, lumping them together with the Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda insurgents. Clearly the Times is taking the line that one man’s terrorist is another man’s security contractor.
Despite trumpeting the headline ‘Iraqi Report Says Blackwater Guards Fired First’, the Times is as unclear as everyone else about what happened on Sunday. (Note how the only reports coming out of Iraq that the Times doesn’t view with suspicion are those that portray Americans in a bad light; clearly one benchmark it thinks the Iraqi government has met is the ability to divine precisely what happened in a firefight from confused and conflicting accounts).
If you read the story you’ll discover that the convoy’s escorts had every reason to believe they were being ambushed. An Iraqi soldier who witnessed the incident said a car approaching an intersection that the convoy was about to cross ignored a policeman’s order to stop, and was on the wrong side of the road. Suicide car bombs are a fact of life in Iraq; the Blackwater men had to make a split-second decision, and they fired on the car. Witnesses said the escorts then threw non-lethal ‘sound bombs’ to keep people away from the scene. This apparently drew fire from Iraqi Army soldiers and police officers, and we know the rest.
In other words, according to the Times’ own account, after – rightly or wrongly – stopping the car, the Blackwater team had apparently contained the incident until they were fired on by Iraqi forces. It could be that the Iraqis thought the Blackwater guards were insurgents. However, you would think security forces in Baghdad would recognise an American convoy by now, and it’s no secret that some elements of the Iraqi army and police have been infiltrated by militias; but in this instance we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
So the incident appears to have escalated through a series of tragic mistakes. A number of different investigations are taking place, and that might have been the end of the matter for the time being. But Prime Minister Malaki chose to loudly condemn the actions of the contractors, and threatened to throw Blackwater out of the country (this now looks unlikely to happen), possibly by way of trying to shore-up his own fragile support. And of course the media piled in.
[…]
The Times, meanwhile, has been working the Green Zone trying to get someone to say something bad about Blackwater. The best it can come up with is this:
“But among the rank and file of security contractors, Blackwater guards are regularly ridiculed as cowboys who are relentlessly and pointlessly aggressive, carry excessive weaponry and do not appear to have top-of-the-line training.”
Blackwater’s contractors are drawn from the ranks of ex-military and law-enforcement professionals; many of them are ex-special forces. They may very well be overly aggressive, but they’re hardly cowboys. As the ‘myths v reality’ section on the company’s website notes, while 30 of its contractors have been killed, no one who Blackwater has protected has ever been killed or seriously injured. You’ll find a first-hand account of the lengths Blackwater goes to in ensuring the safety of its charges here. As Hillary Clinton would say, it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to imagine that the US State Department would entrust the lives of its personnel to ‘cowboys’.

(emphasis mine)
More analysis here (including video) – “BTW, the “no-one-else-was-shooting” thing ought to be pretty simple to resolve: Either that broken down vehicle was full of bullet holes when it got back to the Green Zone or it was not. Hopefully that will be in the joint report.”
h/t

An initiative created by the National Citizens Coalition;

To date the Support Our Troops Fund has raised over $30,000 for the Chief of Defence (CDF) Military Families Fund. This unique program, created with the support of thousands of NCC members, enables the Canadian Forces to respond quickly to the extraordinary stresses faced by military families in times of crisis, providing a pro-active, front-line source of immediate assistance in urgent situations.

Click here to find out how you can contribute.

For those who missed it, Charles Adler interviews Bill Ardolino on his perceptions of the progress in Iraq.
And in answer to you who ask why we value the opinions of Bill Ardolino over those of Ottawa embed James Travers – Bill Ardolino interviews President George W. Bush;

President Bush met with a group bloggers today in an almost hour-long discussion of the war on terror. Eight individuals attended the meeting at the White House, while Bill Roggio and I video conferenced in from Camp Victory in Baghdad. Bush commenced the event with his oft-stated thoughts on the overall importance and strategies in various fronts of the war, with a focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, and then opened up the format to questions and discussion. My question focused on how national political reconciliation will affect progress in the Anbar Province and Fallujah specifically, and the President’s answer honestly surprised me in its length, level of detail and grasp of events on the ground.

That’s why.
RTWT, and hit his tip jar.
See also – Biill Roggio’s Q&A from the same meeting.
Update – Also there; NZ Bear of the Victory Caucus, Castle Argghhh!, Matt Burden of Blackfive Mrs. Greyhawk of Mudville Gazette, (standing in for the deployed Greyhawk), Steve Schippert of Threats Watch, Ward Carroll of Military.Com, A Soldier’s Perspective, and Mohammed of Iraq the Model.
Jeff Goldstein notes;

Had Ardolino been able to land these kinds of guests while we were doing our radio gig, I think we could have made some serious coin from it.

It’s nice to see a Quebec businessman take out a full page ad in the local paper supporting our troops and their mission in Afghanistan.
“Be proud of our Canadian Military” – indeed we are.

A photo-rich roundup of links.
Michael Yon – “Witches Sink, Insurgents Float”
Bill Ardolino’s random pictures from Fallujah.
And because we strive to be fair and balanced here at SDA – images from the 9/11 Truth March and Power to the Peaceful Festival.
Enjoy!

Source: Selected Figures from the Report of the Jones Commission on the Iraqi Security Forces
Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq (PDF)
Charts (PDF)
From a longer exerpt;

“I will not minimize the enormity of the challenges faced by Iraqis, nor the complexity of the situation. Yet at the same time, I intend to demonstrate that it is possible for the United States to see its goals realized in Iraq and that Iraqis are capable of tackling and addressing the problems confronting them today. A secure, stable, democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors is attainable.
“Some of the more promising political developments at the national level are neither measured in benchmarks nor visible to those far from Baghdad. For instance, there is a budding debate about federalism among Iraq’s leaders and, importantly, within the Sunni community. Those living in places like al-Anbar and Salahaddin are beginning to realize how localities having more of a say in daily decision making will empower their communities. No longer is an all-powerful Baghdad seen as the panacea to Iraq’s problems. This thinking is nascent, but it is ultimately critical to the evolution of a common vision among all Iraqi leaders.

Update: A critique from Michael Yon;

General David Petraeus’s first day of testimony was completely accurate, and consistent with my recent experiences around Iraq. Everything he said during the public hearing on Monday was measured, cogent, and demonstrably accurate. That his reputation was attacked in an entirely inaccurate full-page advertisement in the New York Times is a smear on the reputation of the New York Times.

I wonder how the Times’ regular commercial advertisers will react when they learn about this?
More thoughts on the timing of an Iraqi poll – The media’s Tet offensive – “‘Coming at a crucial moment?’ Is the BBC serious? Would they really have us believe that the release of the poll results on the day of the Petraeus/Crocker testimony was some kind of coincidence? Polling was carried out between August 17 and August 24, so the BBC and ABC have been sitting on these results for two weeks…”

Damian Brooks interviews BGen David Fraser;

Before speaking with the general, I talked and corresponded with people who had served under him in Afghanistan. I heard two main things from them: that Fraser took each casualty on his watch very personally, so the idea that he would risk troops lives recklessly would be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious matter; and that he has big shoulders, so he won’t be pointing any fingers at anyone else. On the first point, I’ll have to take their word. On the second, he proved true to their assessment.
We spoke for over an hour about the circumstances leading up to Operation Medusa, about the operation itself, about the consequences of Medusa, and about some widely held misconceptions about the mission and its effectiveness.

Armchair chickenhawk warblogger Bill Ardolino reports from Fallujah. One of his readers comments:

I have sat and cried just seeing the pics and reading the article. I have 2 Marines in Fallujah right now and I cannot wait to show this article to any and everyone I see. Do you think if enough of us sent the article to foxnews they would put this story up front? NOWHERE else have I seen pics like these, of the actual work that has been going on. Thank you just doesn’t seem enough for the author and I know it isn’t enough for these Marines. And I would venture to say neither is expecting one. But from the bottom of this Marine momma’s heart, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

Bill is supported by reader donations – there’s a link at the bottom of his page.

Are saving lives in Iraq.

New glass.
h/t

A must-read, experience-based rant on the appalling ignorance of Canadians regarding the Afghan mission, by someone who’s been there:

I’ve had enough. Consider this my rant against ignorance; my protest against agendas, half-truths, and lies. For almost two years I have been closely following the news from and about Afghanistan and it has been demoralizing to say the least. I spent a year in Kabul with the Strategic Advisory Team and watched the media only report the deaths our Forces suffered rather than the successes we (not just the SAT) achieved. I have watched “experts”, editorialists, politicians, protesters, activists and pundits mangle facts, misread situations and push agendas. Most of what I have read and seen has been flawed to one degree or another. As a result many Canadians I have spoken to are wholly unaware of what we are doing there and why we are doing it. The debate has been so muddied by poor reporting and incomplete information that most people are stunned when they hear of our successes.
At the same time I have heard only reactive, ineffective whimpers from our establishment. Our government and DND in particular has done a poor job of getting the message out. Granted things are improving but you only have to look at the News Room on the DND website to see that the majority of news releases concerning Afghanistan concern the deaths and injuries we have suffered in Kandahar. In other words we are playing into the media’s “if it bleeds, it leads” approach to coverage.

You really do need to read the whole thing.

By The Ghosts of Anbar.