Via Dean’s World;
A slide show of war crime evidence from Fallujah, including those our media seems disinterested in showing. The site is likely to come under heavy load, so be patient.

Slide show.

An email to Rich Lowry at the Corner;

I am also a professor at a military-related institution, and my little brother is an enlisted Marine (a sniper with 1-3) in Fallujah. This weekend he called for the first time since the battle began. He informed us that a large number of the residents of Fallujah, before fleeing the battle, left blankets and bedding for the Marines and Soldiers along with notes thanking the Americans for liberating their city from the terrorists, as well as invitations to the Marines and Soldiers to sleep in their houses. I’ve yet to see a report in the media of this. Imagine that.
Additionally, he said their spirits are high, but they would certainly appreciate any “care packages” that folks in the States would care to send their way (preferably consisting of non-perishable food items, candy, deodorant, eye-drops, q-tips, toothpaste, toothbrushes, lip balm, hand/feet
warmers, black/dark undershirts, underwear & socks, and non-aerosol bug spray)
It would be great if you could pass this message along to anyone interested in helping out.”

(Info on how to participate here.)

Via Wizbang – Kevin Sites, the cameraman who captured the now infamous footage of a Marine shooting a wounded jihadi, has an Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1 at his blog site.
Addendum:
Now, read this account of the nature of the urban warfare in Fallujah. (Thanks to reader “Reid-O” for the tip)

Blackwater murders avenged. Blackfive has more.

Bush pilot Doug Chisholm is one cool guy.

In World War II, some 91,000 Saskatchewan men nearly 10% of the total provincial population joined various branches of the armed forces. Of these, more than 3,800 never returned. Following the end of the war, the government of Saskatchewan designated geographic features, such as lakes, islands, and bays, as a permanent testimonial to those who had made the supreme sacrifice.
Since 1997, pilot and photographer Doug Chisholm has undertaken the task of photographing from the air the thousands of sites named for these fallen young men. A selection of his photographs is presented in this volume, together with stories by Gerald Hill based on interviews conducted with friends and family members who remember the lives of these men. Also included in this volume is a comprehensive list of Saskatchewan’s fallen and the sites named in honour of them.

More.

Via OTB;

They call it a “scramjet,” an engine so blindingly fast that it could carry an airplane from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in about 20 minutes

.
I don’t think I’d want to be pushing that service cart.

Next week, NASA plans to break the aircraft speed record for the second time in 7 1/2 months by flying its rocket-assisted X-43A scramjet craft 110,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean at speeds close to Mach 10 — about 7,200 mph, or 10 times the speed of sound. The flight will last perhaps 10 seconds and end with the pilotless aircraft plunging to a watery grave 850 miles off the California coast.

I guess they meant to say New York to San Fransisco!

CBFTW publishes an email from his battalion commander.

This war on terrorism will be with us for some time, so I offer an open letter to the generation I will pass this burden on to.
I believe that we are making progress in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Despite the ravings of pundits and uninformed ambulance chasers, this fight doesn’t hinge on oil or payback. It isn’t about religion or race. And it damn sure is not about any innate desire to rule the world. These people will succeed or fail on their own merits. The task is daunting. You can release a person from bondage. You can remove a tyrant from power. You can create the conditions for liberty. But, you cannot simply grant or proclaim freedom. Freedom without honest action is a whisper in a storm just as change without vision and purpose is the illusion of progress. For ages these people were literally beaten to the point of submission by oppression, censure, murder, torture, and rape – regardless of age or gender. I have asked myself why they let it happen. The only answer I can fathom is that evil flourished because good people refused to pay the price required to oppose it. Sure, it’s easy now to pontificate and blame the poor and down trodden for their collective indifference, but forgive my sarcasm – I think we owe them more than a couple of days to realize that their hopes and dreams have a chance to grow and one day flourish.
[…]
The threat we face is like nothing we’ve seen before. I’ve been in the streets with this enemy, fought him face to face, and have been lucky enough to kill him and come out alive. I have seen what he is capable of doing and the zeal with which he will do it. This threat won’t fit neatly into “the box” or be governed by any paradigm. It is a cancer within our collective body as the human race. We are all threatened by this evil, and evil it is. This enemy has twisted and distorted things both sacred and profane to guide as well as justify its means and its stated end. Nothing is beyond the realm of the possible when it comes to the depths to which it will sink, the horror it is willing to commit, or the suffering it is willing to inflict. This enemy has no concept of mercy nor does it recognize combatants. Innocence is not a factor. You need only look at the headlines of the day to confirm that children, teachers, and doctors are murdered everyday by these villains. What makes them evil? I submit that it is not the act that earns them the epithet of evil – it is the intent to commit and the pride theydraw from the act. These animals revel in the post act announcements that they are responsible. They feel vindicated by the proclamations that they perpetrated these horrors in the name of God and that having committed the seacts some how elevates them. Make no mistake, this enemy is formidable but by no means invincible. To defeat this cancer requires the one thing that civilized people all over the world possess in absolute abundance – The will. The will to be free can only be surrendered by the person that has it – it cannot be murdered, raped, tortured, or stolen. It’s not about being a martyr or a saint, it’s about being a decent human being. And, the unvarnished truth is that the killing and the horror will continue until those with the will to endure prevail.

In the interest of balance, I offer this soaring and evocative counter-argument by a devotee of the Church Of Moral Relativism.

Once again, Wretchard is providing riveting analysis of events in Fallujah (and the peripheral skirmishes), piecing together reports from imbedded journalists and placing them against a background of coherent military analysis and context.

The enemy withdrawals have sometimes been explained by suggesting that the enemy is suckering in US forces into a trap. But this is impossible. Their backs are to the river and the Marines are across that. Every retrograde movement compresses the enemy into a smaller area and forces them to leave behind prepared positions painstakingly stockpiled with food, batteries and ammo. Running backward with wounded, they can’t carry much ammunition and won’t find any unless a prepared position is already available. And how does anyone stand fast in the face of the otherworldly violence of the American onslaught?

If you’re new to the Belmont Club, be forewarned – the inevitable fallout of reading Wretchard is that you spend a lot more wasted effort yelling back at the radio and TV “news”.
Addendum This observation from Lileks;

Paul Harvey, of all people, noted that the hard phase of the battle would involve house-to-house combat, “just like Vietnam.” Sigh. It’s now the all-purpose metaphor. There could be a war on the moon with armies on dune buggies launching crossbows at each other, and someone would pronounce it a repeat of a disastrous battle in the Mekong Delta. But he’d be 108 years old, the last boomer, a brittle old survivor – not the Greatest Generation but the Generation that Grates, determined that any conflict should be seen through the prism of his youth with “White Rabbit” playing in the background. Times have changed. It’s FLIR and Kid
Rock now, I think. Stay tuned, and keep them in your thoughts.
The Marines, I mean.

A snapshot of modern warfare. The Belmont Club exerpts a DailyTelegraph report.

“I got myself a real juicy target,” shouted Sgt James Anyett, peering through the thermal sight of a Long Range Acquisition System (LRAS) mounted on one of Phantom’s Humvees. “Prepare to copy that 89089226. Direction 202 degrees. Range 950 metres. I got five motherf****** in a building with weapons.” A dozen loud booms rattle the sky and smoke rose as mortars rained down on the co-ordinates the sergeant had given. “Yeah,” he yelled. “Battle Damage Assessment – nothing. Building’s gone. I got my kills, I’m coming down.
“I just love my job.”
… The insurgents, not understanding the capabilities of the LRAS, crept along rooftops and poked their heads out of windows. Even when they were more than a mile away, the soldiers of Phantom Troop had their eyes on them. Lt Jack Farley, a US Marines officer, sauntered over to compare notes with the Phantoms. “You guys get to do all the fun stuff,” he said. “It’s like a video game. We’ve taken small arms fire here all day. It just sounds like popcorn going off.”

Wretchard explains:

This engagement is all the more chilling because it probably happened at night. Five enemy soldiers died simply because they could not comprehend how destruction could flow from an observer a mile away networked to mortars that could fire for effect without ranging. All over Fallujah virtual teams of snipers and fire-control observers are jockeying for lines of sight to deal death to the enemy. For many jihadis that one peek over a sill could be their last.
[…]
Capabilities which didn’t exist on September 11 have now been deployed in combat. It isn’t that American forces have become inconceivably lethal that is scary; it is that the process has just started.

(Crossposted to the Shotgun)

As news of the assault beginning on Fallujah begins to trickle in, take a moment and read a Marine’s blog, and send your prayers their way.
Thanks to reader Charles MacDonald for sending the link

A link from Wretchard a few days ago alerted me to this very good site for background info from Iraq –

So to sum up, if I am Joe Insurgent in Fallujah, and have news access (probably via shortwave radio), I know that:

Bush has won a resounding victory

the British are united behind him and will participate in the attack against me

the Arab media will mainly be embedded with the Americans, and will give accurate stories of their prowess, not the dreck I feed them
All of these things have a psychological effect on the enemy combatants. If there is any chance at all for a peace settlement, the US’ blatant unity behind the president will further deepen existing discord between the sheiks and the foreign fighters.
I would put all of these events, together with the unrelenting airstrikes, under the battle phase of “shaping the battlefield,” wherein we have not yet committed ground troops, but it’s the next step, and we are doing all possible right down to the wire to make them successful.

Read the rest of the post at Adventures Of Chester if you have any intentions of watching/reading news about Fallujah in the coming days.

A few weeks ago I did artwork to assist fund-raising for the Fort Benning War Dog Memorial Help them out – go buy a t-shirt

added to the OTB Traffic Jam

Thanks to a tip from John MacLeod, a Shotgun reader, this detailed report on the rescue of HMCS Chicoutimi. He points out;

There were four surface vessels, plus twelve (12) Royal Navy and UK Helicopters assigned,for the most part EH101 “Merlin” aircraft. The Canadian Forces, through no fault could not launch 12 helicopters for an operation in one specific area The EH101 “Merlin” was the aircraft chosen by the Mulroney Government in 1993.

(And cancelled by Chretien.)
The Canadian forces website reports Petty Officer 2nd� class Denis Lafleur, 41, and and Master Seaman Archibald MacMaster, 41, are in stable condition and continue to improve. There’s also a small photo gallery.
update – Toronto Star has a hair-raising article on the ordeal.

In Canada, and in Afghanistan.

Carrolyn Parrish;

“We are no longer being towed by the coalition of the idiots.” the Liberal legislator told a small group of demonstrators. “Bastards…“

Left this morning around 7 for Calgary, and just got home an hour ago – 12 hours on the road, plus dicking around taking paperwork to customs, etc. Hence, a very quiet blogging day.
I used up most of my drive home raging at Paul Martin for the military penny pinching that has now cost a Canadian submariner his life. (*see note below)

“…He gave his life saving his country, and we pay him our profound respects and his family our deepest condolences.”

No, Mr. Martin, you insipid, unthinking, flaccid little man – he didn’t. He died trying to save his own life and that of his crewmates, because your government devoted more skill and effort to setting up secret funds to funnel money to Liberal ad agencies than it did ensuring that our military was provided with dependable, current equipment and supplies.
You converted our once proud armed forces into an international joke that was never funny. And once again, it’s turned tragic.
May you sleep as restlessly tonight as are the stranded men in the North Atlantic.
Update Oct. 7 – a second sailor is now in critical condiiton
[*Something strange has gone on at that link. The google cache displayed the quote above – yet it does not appear in the text of the report. Airbrushing by the National Post? CNN has it.]

As details begin to trickle in about the emergency in the North Atlantic, people all over the world are asking themselves the same question – Canada has a submarine?
backdate: It’s not a torpedo malfunction.

It was inevitable, I suppose. The Canadian Armed Forces has been infected by the loathing and envy of the country they represent.

Hailed as heroes in early 2002 by the U.S. military, the six Canadian marksmen were later given highly coveted Bronze Star medals – awards normally reserved for American soldiers who display extraordinary heroism during combat.
However, sources close to the investigation say the snipers were treated with much less than high regard when they returned to their Canadian bases, both in Afghanistan and back home.
“They were treated as outsiders and sort of turncoats,” said one source who didn’t want to be identified.
“At least three of these guys have since quit the army over their treatment.”

Hat Tip – Damian Penny
Background here.

If I am able to get out of the Reserves later this year, I am thinking about the idea of re-upping. However not in the Reserves, I am thinking of joining a Special Forces Group that is near me. However that entails joining the National Guard.
[…]
I know my resource can be used to help people.
My wife came to me after and asked me if I watched the video. I acknowledged her and she said: “You should just go, why don’t you go back and help those people. Make it so people don’t have to get killed anymore!” I just looked back at her and felt a sense of peace that I could go again and she would be ok. She would be ok because she knew I was helping people. She knows the consequences but yet she knows that no matter what, I would be helping, even if it was one person from not getting killed like that again.
So folks, with that said. I have placed a call with the person I would need to talk to.
Some people go through their entire life to try and find the reason for their existence. It was in that instance yesterday that I knew what mine was.

While Canadian MP’s serve up insults to feed their Amerihate voter base, serious adults are examining the emerging nuclear threat from Iran.

AFP: Sep 05, 2004 — A key component of national missile defense, whose development is receiving priority this year, is likely to strategically tie the United States to Iraq, Afghanistan and some of the authoritarian former Soviet republics, requiring permanent US military bases there, according to officials and scientists involved in the project. “It raises issues of basing it in places like Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or the Caspian Sea,” the Rhode Island senator (Jack Reed) told AFP. “And that introduces geopolitical considerations.”
While key variables remain unknown, experts agree that if Iran, as expected, produces an intercontinental ballistic missile sometime within the next decade, the United States will not be able to counter it just from ships patrolling the Gulf. “Discussions are underway with international partners on ways in which they may be able to cooperate,” replied a defense official when asked whether the governments of Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan had already been approached.

Wretchard:

Through much of the Cold War the expected missile trajectory would have followed the Polar Route, arcing over Canada into Continental United States. This is no different. What has changed is that Iranian missiles start out a little further south than their Cold War Soviet counterparts. A published analysis of BPI [boost phase interceptors] systems by the Congressional Budget Office concludes that an effective intercept would have to take place about 1,500 km (1,000 miles) from the launch point, in the first 320 seconds from firing. The physics requires that BPI engagements occur over Central Asia.