Author: Mike Ewens

Via James Wolcott, we have an article from The Economist detailing the American military’s tactics in the insurgent hotbed Al Anbar Province:

In Ramadi, the capital of central Anbar province, where 17 suicide-bombs struck American forces during the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan in the autumn, the marines are jumpy. Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching within 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: “If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them,” says a bullish lieutenant. “It’s kind of a shame, because it means we’ve killed a lot of innocent people.”

Read the whole thing.

The Department of Defense released the names of the 13 troops killed in the attack on a mess tent in Mosul. They are

Capt. William W. Jacobsen Jr., 31, of Charlotte, N.C. Jacobsen was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.

Sgt. Maj. Robert D. O’Dell, 38, of Manassas, Va. O’Dell was assigned to the United States Army Intelligence & Security Command, Fort Belvoir, Va.

Sgt. 1st Class Paul D. Karpowich, 30, of Bridgeport, Pa. Karpowich was assigned to the Army Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 390th Infantry Regiment, Webster, N.Y.

Staff Sgt. Julian S. Melo, 47, of Brooklyn, N.Y. Melo was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.

Staff Sgt. Darren D. VanKomen, 33, of Bluefield, W.Va. VanKomen was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.

Staff Sgt. Robert S. Johnson, 23, of Castro Valley, Calif. Johnson was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.

Sgt. Lynn R. Poulin Sr., 47, of Freedom, Maine. Poulin was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion, Belfast, Maine.

Spc. Jonathan Castro, 21, of Corona, Calif. Castro was assigned to the 73rd Engineer Company, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.

Spc. Thomas J. Dostie, 20, of Sommerville, Maine. Dostie was assigned to the Army
National Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion, Portland, Maine.

Spc. Cory M. Hewitt, 26, of Stewart, Tenn. Hewitt was assigned to the 705th Ordnance Company, Fort Polk, La.

Spc. Nicholas C. Mason, 20, of King George, Va. Mason was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 276th Engineer Battalion, West Point, Va.

Spc. David A. Ruhren, 20, of Stafford, Va. Ruhren was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 276th Engineer Battalion, West Point, Va.

Pfc. Lionel Ayro, 22, of Jeanerette, La. Ayro was assigned to the 73rd Engineer Company, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.

These deaths are only 13 of the 1324 since the war began.

Nearly a year ago, Antiwar.com completed a redesign and database integration of our original content. This week we finished the first of many steps toward databasing our news archive, which includes a new dynamically updated latest news page. With this feature, we can eventually introduce more resources for our readers. These will include

• News categorized by country and region
• RSS feeds by country
• More frequent updating of news links
• Customized search options for all news that appears on the site

Stay tuned for more.

A unknown Russian firm called Baikal Finans Group won the auction for a subsidiary of the giant oil firm Yukos. The sale has become more suspicious as new information about the company surfaces

The Baikal Finans Group, which listed its address as the same as that of a cellphone store in Tver, won a controlling stake, or 76.79 percent of the shares, in Yuganskneftegas with a bid equivalent to about $9.35 billion.

Who knew that there were billions in owning a tiny phone store 130 miles outside of Moscow…

The Department of Defense released the names of three more US troops killed in Iraq, bringing the November US death total in Iraq to 137, the highest since the war began. In April of this year, 135 US troops were killed. Each of the three soldiers killed died from enemy action:

Sgt. Pablo A. Calderon, 26, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Sgt. Jose Guereca, Jr., 24, of Missouri City, Texas, “died Nov. 30 in Fallujah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their military vehicle.” Also, Spc. Sergio R. Diazvarela, 21, of Lomita, Calif., “died Nov. 24 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol.”

The military also reports that at least 71 of the those 137 died in the “liberating” of Fallujah. All told, 1,258 US troops have died since the war on Iraq began, with over 1,100 of those deaths occurring after the mission was deemed “accomplished.”

Simple: Bush thought some PowerPoint presentations were cool.

In the current issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows details a war game put on by the magazine. It involved a simulated conflict with Iran. The whole process was replicated: briefings, role-playing and prepared presentations. Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, played the role of the National Security Advisor and presented an analysis using PowerPoint. Fallows describes the last set of slides:

Then there was option No. 3 (a land-invasion of Iran). Gardiner called this plan “moderate risk,” but said the best judgment of the military was that it would succeed. To explain it he spent thirty minutes presenting the very sorts of slides most likely to impress civilians: those with sweeping arrows indicating the rapid movement of men across terrain. (When the exercise was over, I told David Kay that an observer who had not often seen such charts remarked on how “cool” they looked. “Yes, and the longer you’ve been around, the more you learn to be skeptical of the ‘cool’ factor in PowerPoint,” Kay said. “I don’t think the President had seen many charts like that before,” he added, referring to President Bush as he reviewed war plans for Iraq.)

It is easy to imagine George Bush mesmerized by a bunch of flashing PowerPoint slides showing the “cakewalk” that was to be Iraq.