A Priceless photo side-by-side on Fred Thompson

It's hilarious. Go check it out.

Military slimes Democratic Members of Congress

Here's a link to the WaPo article. Kinda shameful, but at the same time, the PA folx I've known would never do this kind of thing

Interview with Senator Lindsey Graham

I would not normally link to a war-cheerleader site like the National Review, but Senator Graham is about the most high-profile AF JAG out there, so it's interesting to see some of the things he says. I have to say I'm a little intrigued and a little disturbed by what I read. I admit I don't have first hand info on some of things he says, but I do have a little insight I'd like to share.

First, the interviewer points out

His time spent in-country is hardly “the dog and pony show” suggested by Democrat Sen. (and former Marine officer) James Webb on Meet the Press. Graham has worked in Iraq’s backcountry, and he’s been heavily involved in that country’s fledgling judiciary and penal/reconciliation systems

The interviewer also notes that he met the "uniformed and armed Graham last month while having lunch at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad."

First off, Graham was in Iraq, as I understand, on his 2 week reserve tour. A far cry from the 15 months that soldiers and marines pull over there and not even comparable to the 4 or 6 months that Airmen do. Second, even a regular JAG over there is actually in very little actual danger. Of course it's a war zone, but JAGs are almost always in a support or HQ position which is relatively safe. It ain't convoy duty. Furthermore, we're talking about a senior JAG who also happens to be a U.S. Senator. C'mon dude.

Next take this exchange:

W. THOMAS SMITH JR: How many prisoners do we currently hold in Iraq? SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: We’ve got 21,000 prisoners at Camp Bucca [the detainee facility in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border], the theater internment facility. We’ve got another few thousand at Camp Cropper near Baghdad. Three or four years ago, we were projecting to have fewer than 2,000 prisoners. At this rate, we’ll have 30,000 easily by the end of the year.

Two things here: First, holy crap are we holding a lot of prisoners. I'm very disturbed by the numbers we're holding. Second, look at how he projects the numbers to grow. I just don't know a lot about this issue, but I'm going to endeavor to find out.

I'm also very interested in the reasons for the detentions. Senator Graham talks about this a little:

One of my concerns has been — and I’ve been working on this since April — is what kind of process is required to hold someone indefinitely? We’ve got people who have been there for three-and-a-half years. Until recently, they’d never seen a panel. Never had a hearing. It was all done by paper file reviews. They were security detainees, and under the U.N. and article 78 of the Geneva Convention, an occupying force can detain people either in their homes or in an internment facility to protect the population as a whole. A couple years ago, however, we changed our status from being occupiers to allies. Occupation has ended, but we were holding these people as if we were still occupiers.So we needed a process that the U.N. couldn’t undercut — a bilateral process between us and the Iraqis — if we were going to hold these people for years, and some of them we may have to.

Where do I start? So Senator Graham is working on a process to hold someone indefinitely? How exactly is that working to instill the rule of law in a country we're supposedly trying to democratize? And he says that we've been holding people for 42 months as security detainees as an occupying force, but then he also says we stopped being an occupying force about 24 months ago. He makes it sound like we changed something to adjust, but doesn't say exactly what. From reading his remarks, I suspect we did some sort of paperwork transfer to "Iraqi control," but that it's still U.S. soldiers doing the holding. Oh yeah and we only needed to make this change because otherwise the evil U.N. would "undercut" us.

Congressman found dead was a former JAG

Hey, that's the AF Times/AP headline to the article - not mine. Moment of silence for a dearly departed former AF JAG.

Haditha Marine JAG censured by Secretary of Navy

Not much to comment here. Looks like Col. Robert G. Sokoloski, former chief of staff of 2nd Marine Division (Forward) and staff judge advocate general for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, has received a letter of censure from the Secretary of the Navy, Donald Winter. Two other senior officers involved in the incident received such letters, which are

expected to end the military careers of the three officers. When they file for retirement, their request will be reviewed by Winter, who will determine if they will retire at their current ranks or at the last rank at which they served satisfactorily, Marine officials said.

The Republican Credo

Here's a line I heard from Bill Maher that pretty much sums up the Republican Credo in appealling to their base. "We'll kill or deport anyone that scares you." It fits perfectly.

Potemkinskaya Derevnya, aka Potemkin Village

I wanted to highlight a few articles which kind of have a thread running through them. Via Carpetbagger Report, I came across an article from the Washington Post which used the title term in reference to a market in Iraq which is, as a true Potemkinskaya Derevnya (I don't get to show off my russian very often), just a show piece. The article points out

The U.S. military hands out $2,500 grants to shop owners to open or improve their businesses. The military has fixed windows and doors and even helped rebuild shops that had burned down, soldiers and others said...
Some shopkeepers said they would not do business in the market without U.S. support. "The Americans are giving money, so they're opening up stores," said Falah Hassan Fadhil, 27, who sells cosmetics.
1st Lt. Jose Molina, who is in charge of monitoring and disbursing the grant money, said the U.S. military includes barely operating stores in its tally. "Although they sell dust, they are open for business," said Molina, 35, from Dallas. "They intend to sell goods or they may just have a handful of goods. But they are still counted."

Carpetbagger Report notes that before the war this market had 850 shops and now it has 349 (based on the dubious counting referenced above).

Then there's another article, not about the market, but about another kind of Potemkinskaya Derevnya, the dog and pony show. Carpetbagger links to the video of Wolf Blitzer calling a Republican congressman on his talking points of evidence of how the surge is working. The congressman cites the fact that he could walk down the street in Fallujah, but Wolf points out that he did it with a "platoon of Marines" and "a platoon of Marines is a lot of Marines." Just so you know, here's what a platoon of Marines looks like:

In the United States Marine Corps, platoons are commanded by a platoon commander, usually Second Lieutenant,even though the position is intended for a First Lieutenant. The billet of Platoon Sergeant is a position intended for a Gunnery Sergeant, but it is often is held by a Marine ranking from Corporal to Gunnery Sergeant. In Marine infantry units, referred to as regiments, rifle platoons usually consist of three rifle squads of 13 men each, usually lead by a Sergeant or Corporal, with a Navy corpsman, a Platoon Commander, and a Platoon Sergeant. Each squad is further divided into 3 fireteams. Each fireteam consist of 4 marines lead by a fireteam leader, usually a Corporal or Lance Corporal. Each fireteam consists of a rifleman with M16A4, fireteam leader with M16A4 and M203 grenade launcher attachment, an automatic rifleman with a M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), and an assistant automatic rifleman that carries a M16A4 and the extra barrels and ammo drums for the automatic rifleman. A weapons platoon replaces the 3 squads with a 60 mm mortar section, an assault section, and a medium machine gun section (using M240G 7.62 mm machine guns).