Month: December 2005

It seems I was right when I thought that the story put out by the military to account for the death of ten Marines and the wounding of eleven more was fishy. Still, the new account doesn’t seem all that forthcoming, either. CNN reports:

An insurgent homemade bomb that killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 others last week in Iraq was triggered as troops were leaving a promotion ceremony, Marine Corps officials said Tuesday.

Military officials originally said the Marines died December 1 while on foot patrol near the restive city of Falluja in western Iraq.

Misreporting up the chain of command led to the incorrect reporting of the location to the media, Marine officials said

Officials determined the blast went off at an abandoned flour factory used by the Marines as an outpost. It’s believed one of the Marines stepped on a pressure plate, setting off the explosion, officials said. (Marines identified)

Two of the Marines killed — from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force — had been promoted at the ceremony. The area around the abandoned factory had been swept for explosives before the company commander’s arrival.

The bomb was believed to have been made up of at least four artillery shells.

I still don’t understand why a promotion ceremony was held in an abandoned flour factory, even if it was used as an “outpost”, whatever that means. Maybe eventually the whole story will come out, Tillman-style.

You’ve got to wonder how insurgents got into the flour factory and booby trapped it with four wired together artillery shells while it was in service as an outpost. An inside job?

UPDATE: OK, people are emailing links to this video and asking things like:

But if this new story is true, then why did the insurgents quickly release a video showing themselves detonating a roadside bomb?

Who is telling the truth? Why tape a different event and release it? They seem to like to tape their exploits, so why not tape the factory and release that?

All I can see in that video are 8 soldiers (Marines if this is the video of the 10 killed.) Assuming there are 2 in the humvee, that could account for 10 casualties. But, there were supposed to be 21! Where are the other eleven?

Could this acrostic in a Pakistani textbook be the work of a certain internationally recognized Surrealist poet?

Oh my, some “repulsive characters” from a “coven of fringe libertarians” are “crucifying” Conrad Black. Well, if voicing a little schadenfreude as one of the biggest statists of our time is harassed by the state amounts to crucifixion, then call me Pilate. As an act of penance, I’ll sign the first “Free Lord Black” petition anyone sends my way.

Now: when should I expect that more-libertarian-than-thou article on Black’s legal victims?

Upset by Pentagon propaganda in Iraq, Christopher Hitchens crawls to his porcelain throne at Slate and upchucks on his own reflection:

I remember reading, decades ago, of a moment when Richard Nixon had made some desperate speech from his bunker and had then arranged for telegrams of support to be sent to the White House. And I wondered — did he eagerly tear them open and turn moistly to his aides, saying, “See: You can always count on the horse sense of the American people”? Was he, in other words, utterly and happily insulated and yet alarmingly insane?

I’m sure Andrew Sullivan will call it courageous, and I do hope that it ruined Arthur Chrenkoff’s day, but this guy knows the score:

Chris Hitchens has finally found something so atrocious he can’t stand by it in this war. Ready for it? He is upset that the U.S. is lying to the Iraqis. It was ok, I suppose, when they were only lying to their own citizens about this war, but now that they are planting bullsh*t in the Iraqi media rather than feeding it to Judy Miller, now that’s a crime.

Fun link: A Short Play Starring Christopher Hitchens, by Jonathan Schwarz.

Speaking of troublemakers…

It all began with a recommendation to celebrate Veteran’s Day with a donation to AntiWar.com. Well, at least that was the proximate cause of this round. Be sure and read Brad Spangler’s evaluation, which begins, “If there’s one thing Tom Knapp knows how to do well, it’s stir up a bunch of shit. This is, in fact, laudable on his part. If I may explain…”

Clark Stooksbury defends Bush! OK, Bush may not be the worst President ever yet, but can anyone rival him in chimpiness?

The Cunning Realist has some important points to make about the Egyptian elections and the American response to them, here first, and then here.

Abu Aardvark compares the Bathrobe Bloggers to Global Voices.

Here’s Bob Geiger shining a light on the pro-war “Move America Forward” Cindy-Sheehan-stalkers, via MoxieGrrrl, who doesn’t bother being diplomatic about her opinion of Melanie Morgan, MAF’s lead pitbull.

John Robb on why current US strategy (clear and hold, aka oilspot)in Iraq will fail. How badly? Robb says, “If we do it flawlessly (which is going to be very difficult given a thinking enemy), the controlled chaos may hold long enough for the US to get most of its troops out.” How hard will it be for the US to get the troops out? According to Martin van Creveld, who should know:

Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will happen in Iraq.
Not only are American forces perhaps 30 times larger, but so is the country they have to traverse. A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable…

An astute AntiWar.com reader explains why Allawi would rather claim to have been the victim of gun-wielding assassins than an angry mob throwing tomatoes and shoes:

In Arab culture its more acceptable to a man to be hit by a bullet rather than a shoe -or even worse!-by a sandal.

thats why they tried to cover up that most humilating incident by claiming that it was an assasination attempt !

And from the Department of I-wish-I-had-thought-of-that, The Wege at Norwegianity points at this post with this comment:

They were shoe(t)ing at Allawi the other day. Amazing how that Iraqi press turned shoes and tomatoes into guns and knives.

So, I stole it for the title of this post.

UPDATE: Swopa speculates on Allawi’s electoral chances vs. Team Shiite.