CHRISTMAS

What do you remember?

As a child, I mean. Was Christmas something special?

When I was in high school I auditioned for and was selected to sing in the Greenville Singing Christmas Tree. Chances are you've seen something reasonably similar. A tree shaped frame is built and the choir performs from it.

In the case of the GSCT the arena was the Greenville Memorial Auditorium - the largest venue in town at that time...the same place where just two years earlier I had paid to see Chicago and Three Dog Night and The Average White Band and The Marshall Tucker Band in concert (all separately...I was never so lucky as to have such mega-stars appear on one bill...)

But at Christmas it became our stage. The Singing Christmas Tree's stage. And for many performances.

It was a hometown tradition.

And the one song, of them all, the one Christmas song that was always performed, every year, by that huge, bigger than life, bigger than the biggest Baptist church Christmas tree, was a song entitled "Christmas Was Meant for Children".

You may have never heard this song. Outside of the stupendous Singing Christmas Tree I've only heard it a handful of places myself. But it is a lovely song.

Oh, we did the usuals...and we did them as well as they could be done. As I recall we drew heavily from The Many Moods of Christmas arrangements by Robert Shaw...certainly there were no better arrangements. No one ever made the Hallelujah Chorus more majestic, nor Little Town of Bethlehem more mysterious, nor Lullay Lullay more plaintiive.

But Christmas Was Meant for Children was, in the end, the signature piece. Perhaps it was the soaring fourteen word, 1st Tenor solo..."Let the star in the East that led us...shine on your tree tonight." If you heard the Singing Christmas Tree once, and returned the next year, the concert's end must necessarily stand in abeyance until this song was performed.

But these memories flow from my high school days. And that was well after Christmas was indelibly marked upon my heart in ways over which I had no control.

What do I recall about Christmas? I remember being a pre-schooler preparing for the annual visit to Sears to see Santa. I wanted to make a list. "But Tim, you don't know how to read." said my mother. And that was true...but I had anticipated that. "For my list" I said, "you can just draw a picture of each thing I want!"

I think I surprised Mom and Dad with my at-hand solution.

I recall my big brother getting a bicycle only a week or two after having his appendix removed. He sat upon his bike on Christmas day...but he could not ride.

I recall my father making construction paper stockings the Christmas before my younger brother was born in January. The stockings were marked with the following names: Dad, Mom, Frank, Tim, "?". We didn't know Scott would be Scott...these the days before ultra sound.

I remember as a toddler being transfixed...walking up and having a good look into the round, red, glass ball hanging from the tree. Amazed at how large my nose appeared in the fish-eye reflection...and how the entire room was wide open and wrapping around me.

But these rememberences are isolated, highlights. They don't define Christmas for me...they accent it.

That which defines Christmas for me is that which we did over and over again.

And it all started right about this time of year. It started the night we put up the Christmas tree.

I've read Victorian tales of mothers and fathers putting up the tree on Christmas eve after the children have gone to bed. I pitied those children...for they never got to help in the magical assembly of the most favorite icon.

In our house the tree went up three to four weeks before Christmas day.

It happened at night...always. And to mark the special Winter event we always, ALWAYS, had a fire in the fireplace and hot chocolate (made from real milk and liquid Hershey's...not some powdered shlock, thank you).

Now...in South Carolina you take your chances with the December weather. For it is nearly as likely to be 75 degrees on tree trimming night as it is to be 40 degrees.

Honest to God I remember at least one year we had every window on the ground floor open while the hot chocolate warmed and the fire crackled. And we laughed about it.

But we trimmed that tree. As we did the year before and all the years before that.

We were not...are not...sophisticates. As a child I do not remember a "real" tree ever being in the house. My parents told the story of the real tree purchased on a rainy evening...and upon the next morning finding the tree had shed every single needle on to the floor beneath it.

Perhaps it was that experience that prompted them into the world of artificial trees. I remember one or two years in the early sixties when we actually owned the silver aluminum tree replete with four-color-spotlight wheel. I suppose we were trendy.

I suppose.

But here is the dominant memory.

Every year the tree stood naked in the appropriate corner. Every year.

And every year we began with the placing of the lights. Every year.

Growing up it was Dad's job to place the lights. Mom's job to judge the lights. And the job of us kids to assist Dad in whatever way seemed/was/we dreamed appropriate.

I've got competing images in my brain...competing because of the repetition...repeating because I witnessed it again and again year in and year out. They compete...but they compete to tell the same story.

Dad would string the lights onto the tree. Mom would find a point in the room, usually the point furthest from the tree in an opposite corner. From there she would begin to point out to Dad where the "holes" were.

Light holes, if you will. Or black holes. Either seems to make the point in its own way.

And Dad would dutifully shift lights (these were the lights bigger than his thumb...we didn't have the tiny lights, so common today, back then) until they achieved a certain balance...a certain equal distribution across the face of the tree.

I remember this with clear detail...and perhaps I do so because it was this process that stood between us and the hanging of the ornaments (after the threading of the hooks, of course...its own uniquely 60's sort of activity).

At an early age I learned. The ornaments go on ONLY after the lights have been perfectly arrayed. And that perfect array could only be the result of a labored cooperative labor of love between Mom and Dad. And it was perhaps the earliest event with which I became acquainted in which Mom seemed to hold All The Cards.

Literally upon hands and knees, with back aching, Dad had to do Mom's bidding.

At least once per year.

And I think (based upon 40 year old memories) she just might have relished the role.

As mentioned above, - only then could we consider hanging the ornaments on the tree.

Only then could I (at seven years old) pull from the shoe box only recently removed from the attic the ornament of popsicle sticks, glue and glitter that I made just last year and , with boundless enthusiasm, dancing from foot to foot, seek permission to place it upon THE CHRISTMAS TREE (so tall and wondrous did this artificial sky-stretcher seem to me).

I'm, not certain I recall...but it seems to me there were such occasions in which my Mother said to me..."Here, honey, let's put that one around here toward the back where it won't get damaged."

I think I hung a lot of ornaments I made "toward the back" so they wouldn't get damaged. But memory may not serve.

Or... it might.

Anyway...such was our annual tree trimming. And upon completion we would turn out every light in the house to admire that inimitable glow from the tree. And that would be followed by the walk outside to the street to see how it would appear to our neighbors as they drove by.

And, remarkably...every year it was beautiful. Moreso than the last. Remarkable.

So this is what I remember.

And then - in comes my sister-in-law to make it all better.

I wrote recently of my trip with my brother's family into the mountains of North Carolina to cut a Christmas tree.

Trees look smaller in the open than they do in one's house.

It was huge. In the house it was HUGE.

And, in their house, the roles change a bit.

My sister-in-law Jan puts the lights on the tree. And my brother doesn't get to say a word.

Perhaps that is because it takes Jan a minimum of two days to put the lights on the tree. And that is because she puts between 4000 and 5000 lights on the tree.

You've probably never seen such a tree. It sparkles. I mean, she has to wear gloves to decorate the tree.

When you have 5000 lights on a tree you have a number of lights that begins to compete with the number of needles on the tree.

When Jan decorates a tree with lights - it sparkles.

All one has to do is to move one's head. Every light hides behind various needles. Or every light jumps our from behind the same. A 24,000 carat diamond. Or emerald. Such is the tree. It lives. It moves. It captivates.

And so I come to my point. I mean... I have a point to take you down Christmas Lane with me...did you doubt it?

My point is that as I flew from Germany to the USA and from the USA to Germany I read the "Sky Mall" catalogue in the seat pocket in front of me.

And it would seem that the biggest item to sell this year is the Christmas tree that is "pre decorated".

Pre-decorated??? Be it lights or balls or ribbons, or whatever...pre-decorated?

As if it is a bother...as if it is a labor...as if it is a burden?

NO! Paying taxes is a bother. Changing the oil is a labor. Looking after the neighbors kids after-school is a burden.

Decorating a Christmas tree is a MEMORY! That is what you've spent the last 10 minutes reading about.

In my mind it is a privilege. It is a communication. It is an act which I remember 40 years after the fact. It is a handing down from generation to generation.

To me these I-can't-be-bothered-with-Christmas Trees shortchange those who benefit from their so-called convenience.

It is something we do once per year. Just how lazy have we become?

I don't mean they don't have their place at all. I can understand, say, in the case of the frail for whom the alternative is no tree at all.

But not for families.

Not for children.

Shouldn't they be a part of placing every light...laughing as Dad, on his knees, has to adjust them.

Shouldn't they understand that some things are better made a compromise than are "perfect" straight out of the box.

How else will they ever realize that one sister-in-law with two day's time to spare is worth more than an entire Wal-Mart store with a thousand pre-lit Christmas trees.

They will remember.

I remember.

Christmas. Isn't it worth making the effort?

CATCHING UP ON MY READING

Some of you may recall my post about the sales girl on the phone who helped me order contacts for CPT Patti...she was mildly surprised to find her data base didn't "show Baghdad as being a country. "

I used that story to illustrate my point that folks might not be paying close attention.

Now that I've returned to Germany, the land in which I spend a lot of time alone (and, as a result, a lot of time on line), i'm catching up on my reading.

I've just stumbled across this post at tryingtogrok which I missed earlier owing to my being distracted while in the land of plenty. In it Sarah makes her own points about people not paying attention...and what happens if you do.

Find yourself ten or fifteen quiet minutes and go read it. It'll make you think.

SOLDIERS IN MY HOME TOWN CATCH A BREAK

A cluster of soldiers in camouflage uniforms leaned over intently, listening to a speaker during a training session for the 457th Chemical Battalion at Donaldson Center in Greenville.

Earlier this week the 457th got a reprieve — they would not be deployed to Iraq on Sunday, although the unit remains on alert.

That means a double portion of Christmas for the soldiers and their families.

NEED A LUMP IN YOUR THROAT?

Go read this entire story.

After I said my goodbyes on my last day at the school, he surprised me by handing the coin to me on his way out of the classroom. Chris said that the coin had given him good luck and kept him alive for some time, and maybe it would do the same for me.

You see, I am a U.S. Army reservist. I was mobilized and sent to Fort Bragg, N.C., and then to Kirkuk in northeastern Iraq. I am an English teacher and an airborne combat cameraman with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, the unit that parachuted into northern Iraq at the beginning of the war.

"THAT IS TRUE HONOR"

Surrounded by a group of veterans who have come to be known as the “greatest generation,” the Marines’ top officer praised America’s soldiers in Iraq on Sunday as being made of the same right stuff.

“Once again another ‘greatest generation’ has stepped forward,” Gen. Michael Hagee, the commandant of the Marines, said in a ceremony at the National Museum of the Pacific War on the 62nd anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

“They don’t want to die, but they are willing to,” continued Hagee, who grew up in this small Hill Country city. “That is true honor. You cannot buy that, and we must never ever lose that.”

NEAT!

The 443rd Military Police Company, based in Owings Mills, Md., paraded into the Fort Lee field house yesterday after back-to back deployments to Texas and then Iraq, where soldiers spent eight months guarding a Baghdad prison.

The unit has altogether spent 22 of the past 25 months in uniform, the longest activation of any Army Reserve unit, military officials said.

Now it's back to everyday jobs and family life for the soldiers. And just in time for Christmas.

"It's going to be a ball," said Spc. Rod Harden, a 27-year-old fire inspector from Seat Pleasant, Md. "I get to be home for opening presents and don't have to worry about going anywhere for another two years."

YOU CAN TAKE THE SOLDIER OUT OF IOWA BUT...

Some Iowa soldiers in Iraq are hoping they'll soon be eating sweet corn they've grown in their own garden.

While sweet corn sometimes pops up on the mess hall menu, Sergeant Ray Reynolds of Denison and Sergeant Jeff Vore of Vining say it's not the same sweet corn they had growing up in Iowa.

So, the two men asked three friends back home to send them some sweet corn seeds so they could grow their own.

The friends called Pioneer and the company helped them send ten pounds of seed to Iraq.

Pioneer says the sweet corn should do well in Iraq's sandy soil and should be ready to pick by February.

The soldiers will give some of it to a Baghdad homeless shelter and some to Iraqi students who will investigate whether sweet corn could be a viable food source for their country.

SPIN WATCH

Heard on CNN this morning some lamentation by Aaron Brown how many in Congress are "alarmed by the President's spending".

Struck me as odd because of something I thought I recalled from 9th grade civics class.

Took me about 60 seconds to find on the internet.

From the US Constitution, Article 4, Section 5:

All bills for raising or appropriating money, and for fixing the salaries of the officers of government, shall originate in the House of Representatives, and shall not be altered or amended by the Senate. No money shall be drawn from the public Treasury, but in pursuance of appropriations that shall originate in the House of Representatives.

The "President's spending" indeed.

TONGUE IN CHEEK

An amusing look at "Turkeygate".

That's assuming he really was in Baghdad and that his name really is George W., both of which are very big assumptions. At last report, it appears the plane said to have flown over wasn't a 747 version of Air Force One, but a Gulfstream--precisely the sort of jet typically used by the Vice President's Haliburton and energy commission cronies. So in this version, the President's alleged trip was a diversion from a new Texas oil cartel effort to seize Iraqi oil fields.

THIS IS COOL

American and German families are making extra room at their tables for some special guests this Christmas.

The Heidelberg military community is one of several communities where American families will host German Bundeswehr soldiers this holiday. Many of the soldiers guard gates at area installations and housing areas.

Jerrika Weston and her husband, Staff Sgt. Brent Weston, will open their doors this year to two German soldiers.

“They’re away from home already,” Weston said. “When you’re in the military, you’re never going to have [all of] your family. My thing is — family is wherever you go. The least we could do is just make them feel welcome.”

On the other side of the coin, German families associated with the Bamberg German American Men’s Club will share Christmas with U.S. soldiers.

GLAD TO HAVE YOU GUYS...WHERE YA BEEN?

American Forces Network-Iraq will begin live radio broadcasts from Baghdad this week, featuring news, weather, music, tips on Iraq’s culture and language, and other content tailored to troops in that country.

It will begin broadcasts to the Baghdad area on Wednesday, and hopes to extend them to other parts of Iraq by Christmas.

EXCERPTS FROM CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES

The operation netted 215 illegal AK 47 assault rifles, 10 other types of military rifles, four machineguns, one shotgun, various weapons parts, nine assorted pistols and 10 hand grenades. An undetermined amount of ammunition, including some armor-piercing rounds, was also confiscated. Soldiers also seized 10 rocket-propelled grenade launcher sights, 12 mortar sights, a Soviet-made night vision device and four mortar aiming stakes. In addition to the weapons, the operation netted assorted electronic components, which could be used in making IEDs, three chemical protective masks, 24 individual body armor plates, assorted Saddam Hussein paraphernalia and 16 cases of U.S. meals ready-to-eat (MREs).

During the operation, a community resident tipped off the soldiers to the location of a weapons cache. Military Police found a bag of rocket-propelled grenade propellant, eight mortar fuses and 225 hand grenade fuses.

1st Armored Division’s Operation Iron Justice is ongoing and will continue to target criminal and enemy elements in the Baghdad area.



CELEBRATION BUILDS FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN COALITION, IRAQIS

HATRA, IRAQ – Coalition soldiers, local patrons and international media danced traditional dances, sang customary songs and ate a feast of both American and Iraqi food as the sun went down on this ancient city. The evening’s celebrations ended the Ramadan season and included presentations from Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commanding general, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and Hatras Mayor Nofil Hamade Sultan.

According to Petraeus, the celebration showed the friendship and working relationship between the Iraqis of Hatra and Coalition Forces. The general spoke about the progress the city of Hatra has made, adding that the people have grown because they opened their eyes to new cultures. Hatra, located southwest of Mosul, dates back to 300 B.C., and has recently re-opened to tourism after many years.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 8th.

CPT Patti has been dealing with weather extremes in Baghdad for 211 days. According to Yahoo! weather, it is currently 40 degrees in Baghdad.

Me, I awoke to 23 degrees this morning in Giessen. It is now 32.

That might just be as close as our respective temperatures have been since she left.

NO SIGN OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN LOUISIANA

A student expelled from Parkway High for a year for having Advil, an over-the-counter pain reliever, will not be allowed to return to the school.


Rumor is those caught with Midol only get 6 months as they are...well...a bit harder to deal with...

PANDERING AT ITS ABSOLUTE WORST

Kerry, you are pathetic.

However, I will retract my charge of pandering if you use the same language in an AARP magazine interview.

Struggling 2004 Democratic wannabe John Kerry fires an X-rated attack at President Bush over Iraq and uses the f-word - highly unusual language for a presidential contender - in a stunning new interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

Sen. Kerry (Mass.) used the undeleted expletive to express his frustration and anger over how the Iraq issue has hurt him because he voted for the war resolution while Democratic front-runner Howard Dean has soared by opposing it.

"I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, 'I'm against everything'? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to f - - - it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did," Kerry told the youth-oriented magazine.

RECRUITING IN EUROPE

I wonder if this is actually good news. Is it possible this means they can't find enough nut cases in the mid east and have to expand their recruiting into Europe?

BERLIN (AP)--Investigators on Thursday questioned an Iraqi suspected of recruiting Islamic fighters to carry out attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, following similar arrests last week in Hamburg and Milan.

The earlier arrests were part of an Italian probe into a cell thought to be recruiting fighters or suicide bombers for the northern Iraq-based militant group Ansar al-Islam. German officials Thursday suggested the latest arrest, in Munich, was linked.

AND YOUR BEING HERE PROVES WHAT, EXACTLY, MA'AM?

Other than the fact you don't quite get it that your adult daughter is trying to serve her country in the midst of a war.

Anabel Valencia crossed oceans, deserts, and half the globe to see her daughter, Specialist Giselle Valencia, a truck driver with Task Force Ironhorse here in Saddam Hussein's old neighborhood.

But you just don't drop in at a heavily guarded US military base in a war zone, even if your child is on active duty inside.

"Your daughter's on a mission," an incredulous MP holding a fierce German shepherd advised Valencia Friday.

"I can wait," came the firm reply from the Tucson teacher's aide, 51 and a mother of three. "I came this far. I can wait a bit longer."

Valencia, born in Los Angeles, was one of a handful of parents who traveled to Iraq last week to see their active-duty children.

Sponsoring the trip was Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based activist group that opposed the US invasion and is eager to spread its antiwar message. None of the parents had formal military clearance to visit their children.

THE SOURCE

The Telegraph tracks down the source of the claim that Iraq could launch WMD within 45 minutes.

Turns out he was a Lieutenant Colonel and a commander in the the Iraqi army.

Lieutenant-Colonel al-Dabbagh is not a man who is easily frightened. Having spied on Saddam's regime for British and American intelligence for more than seven years, the 40-year-old former Iraqi air defence commander lived with the constant fear that he might be caught, tortured and executed.

So when last week, shortly after I had interviewed him in Baghdad about his involvement in the infamous 45-minute claim, he received two death threats from Saddam's loyalists, his determination to describe his involvement in revealing details of the former Iraqi dictator's deployment of weapons of mass destruction remained undiminished.

The threats - one verbal and one written - warned him not to divulge any secrets about Saddam's regime, on pain of death. The week before our meeting, members of Saddam's Fedayeen had sprayed his house with machinegun fire.

"Saddam's people are doing this all the time," he said. "That is why it is so difficult to find the weapons of mass destruction. I am sure the weapons are hidden in Iraq just like I see you now. I am concerned that the chemical and biological weapons are there."...

Despite the threats, Lt Col al-Dabbagh reacted without hesitation when I showed him the controversial section of the British Government's intelligence document that claimed that Saddam's WMD could "be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them".

When I asked him whether the information in the document relating to the 45-minute issue was 100 per cent accurate, he responded with characteristic Iraqi enthusiasm: "It is 200 per cent accurate!" he exclaimed. "And forget 45 minutes. We could have fired them within half an hour."

When I asked him whether he was the original source of the intelligence, he replied simply: "I am the one responsible for providing this information."

WHY AL ARIBIYA WAS BANNED

We've discussed this subject at least twice. The latest post on this is here.

But now we hear it directly from the Iraqi Governing Council.

Aiding and abetting terrorism. Wish I'd said that.

On November 23, I took an important step in protecting the fledgling democracy we are nurturing in Iraq. On behalf of Iraq's Governing Council, I temporarily banned the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya from using satellite uplink facilities to transmit news reports from its Baghdad bureau.

Since then I have heard a hundred variants on this question: "How can you claim to be promoting democracy while stifling a free press?" The answer is quite simple.

We are not acting against legitimate and objective journalistic activities. We are taking steps to prevent psychological warfare and, more serious, incitement to murder. No country would do less. Further, while we have banned the station from broadcasting footage from Baghdad, we have not stopped it from continuing to gather news in Iraq. What sparked this action?

Al Arabiya's conscious decision to break Iraqi law and the breaking of its own solemn promise not to promote violence in our country.

On November 16 Al Arabiya broadcast what it claimed was an audio tape by Saddam Hussain. Saddam's horrible legacy, including responsibility for the needless deaths of millions of my countrymen, torture, executions and the virtual destruction of Iraq's economy, is well known. And what did he say? He called for the extermination of the Governing Council and of the coalition forces that liberated us and are now helping us reconstruct our country.

Saddam is a fugitive from justice, wanted for crimes of genocide. Yet Al Arabiya sees fit to allow him an open microphone to broadcast his calls for terrorism. Some may ask: Didn't other media report on the same tape?

Yes, other media - including Arab satellite channels - did report on the tape. But Al Arabiya aired the tape in its entirety, a full 17 minutes, while others broadcast only excerpts.

And it was Al Arabiya that made the initial choice to air the tape; the rest of the media only followed. Saddam is seeking to stoke fear among Iraqis who embrace a democratic future. He calls for the murder of my colleagues in the Governing Council, people who are committed to a future democratic Iraq respectful of human rights. He wants coalition forces slaughtered because they dared depose him.

More ominously, he attempts to incite violence in the name of religion, calling for "jihad" and thus encouraging Al Qaida and other terrorist groups to carry out suicide attacks against our friends in the Red Cross, the United Nations and among our coalition allies.

That is not journalism; that is aiding, abetting and encouraging criminal terrorist activity. We, in turn, are exercising one of the few prerogatives we have: denying Al Arabiya use of our airwaves to broadcast reports from Baghdad.

INFORMATION OR DISINFORMATION?

Saddam Hussein is hiding out west of Baghdad from where he commands the operations against US occupation of Iraq, a tribal leader and faithful follower of the ousted president told AFP.

"Saddam Hussein is in good health and living in the west of Iraq," said the man who is involved in the struggle and calls himself only Abu Mohammad.

"The Iraqi president is commanding the military operations against the American forces," he said yesterday.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7th.

Pearl Harbor day...day of the week and all. A day we got sucker punched. In the end we dealt with those who committed that heinous act.

Nearly 60 years later we got sucker punched again. We are still dealing with those terrorists.

CPT Patti has been in the fight, away from home for 210 days now.

Me...I think it feels longer than that.

I LIKE THIS LINE OF THOUGHT

But Jack Kelly, writing for The Washington Times, adds some perspective to the daily casualty count, and in the process, predicts that victory in Iraq is closer than we think.

The outcome of the first reported battle since the end of major combat operations in Iraq suggests victory may be closer than most Americans dare to hope.

Iraqis wearing the black garb of the Fedayeen Saddam ambushed two convoys carrying cash to banks in Samarra, a small town in the Sunni Triangle about 60 miles northwest of Baghdad. The attacks were well planned and coordinated. The attackers were brave. The attackers died like flies.

The U.S. military claims 54 of an estimated 80 attackers were killed.

Another eight were taken prisoner. U.S. casualties were six wounded, most of them lightly. ''Coalition firepower overwhelmed the attackers,'' Master Sgt. Robert Cargie of the 4th Infantry Division told the New York Times.

The engagements in Samarra make it plain the the guerrillas are unable successfully to mount even platoon-size actions against U.S. forces. Why did they attempt it?

Martin Sieff of UPI thinks it was a premature escalation based on rising confidence. ''The attacks took place in a predominantly Sunni city and their scale reflects the confidence and rapid learning curve of the guerrillas,'' Mr. Sieff wrote. ''After inflicting about 80 dead on U.S. forces in November, they felt confident enough to attempt a far more ambitious kind of operation.''

But because seeking a standup fight with the U.S. military is a stupid thing to do, Stratfor, a private intelligence service, thinks the attacks more likely were motivated by desperation. ''The Iraqi guerrillas realize they are running out of time,'' Stratfor said. ''The U.S.-Kurdish-Shi'ite alliance is becoming operational and the guerrillas' read of the political landscape is that they are about to be caught between a rock and a hard place. In addition, the guerrillas understand that their resources are limited and that attrition, over time, plays against them.''

Emphasis mine.

BRINGING SADDAM TO IRAQI JUSTICE

Good idea...unless you happen to be a liberal.

Saddam Hussein and hundreds of his aides could go on trial for crimes against humanity and genocide in an Iraqi-led tribunal that will be established in the coming days, Iraqi and American officials told The Associated Press on Friday.

Some human rights groups criticized the plans, saying Iraq's U.S. occupiers have too much of a hand in them and that Iraqi judges and prosecutors may not have the experience needed to try the cases.

The law creating the tribunal which could be passed as early as Sunday will be similar to proposals made in Washington in April, one member of Iraq's Governing Council said. The law calls for Iraqi judges to hear cases presented by Iraqi lawyers, with international experts serving only as advisers...

Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said he was concerned officials didn't consider bringing in judges who have worked on major war crimes trials in other countries.

''After three decades of Baath Party rule, the capacity of Iraqi judges to conduct incredibly complicated trials has been greatly diminished,'' he said by telephone from New York. He said he worried about the tribunal's ability to provide fair trials.


So which way do the libs want it?...the French want the US out of Iraq last July, supposedly because they want the Iraqis to govern themselves, but then HRW intimates that the Iraqis aren't up to the task of figuring out of Saddam Hussein might be guilty of some crime against the Iraqi people.

Sheesh.

GUESS WHO IS MISSING

Sixteen nations, including the United States, Japan and some European countries, agreed Friday to insure payment of up to $2.4 billion worth of exports to Iraq to jump-start the country's economy...

Countries participating in the deal are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

Hint - it starts with an "F" and ends with a "rance".

Hell, even Germany, Belgium and Austria signed up for this one...

Weasel.

STRETCHED TOO THIN?

Four Army divisions — more than 100,000 soldiers, 40 percent of the active-duty force — will not be fully combat-ready for up to six months next year, leaving the nation short of ready troops in the event of a major conflict in North Korea or elsewhere, a senior Army official said yesterday

The four divisions — the 82nd Airborne, 101th Airborne, the 1st Armored and the 4th Infantry — will be returning from Iraq next spring, to be replaced by three others, with a fourth rotating into Afghanistan. That would leave only two active-duty divisions available to fight in other locales.

The official said the four returning divisions will be rated either C-3 or C-4, the Army's two lowest readiness categories. C-3 means a division is capable of performing only some of its combat missions, and C-4 means a division needs additional manpower, training or equipment in order to fight...

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a former division commander and staunch advocate of more Army forces, said four to five divisions below the C-1 rating "means literally half the Army is broken and not ready to fight."

Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the Army's system for gauging readiness shouldn't be overemphasized.

"It's sort of like the New York Yankees in January," O'Hanlon said. "Their readiness is lower because they haven't gone back to spring training. But they're still a damn good baseball team."

LEAD POISONING ALERT

Troops who deploy to Iraq, Kuwait and other southwest Asian countries are being warned to not eat or drink from souvenir tableware.

Maj. Alice Chapman, 374th Medical Group Public Health Flight commander, said ceramic or metal tableware from those nations doesn’t necessarily meet U.S. safety standards for lead and other heavy metals.

The warning wasn’t issued because of any particular problem, Chapman said. But military officials discovered vendors on some bases where troops deploy are selling items that contained lead.

HEARTBREAK IN IOWA

U.S. soldiers put their lives on the line fighting the war in Iraq. While they don't expect much on their return home, one thing they don't expect is to be cleaned out.

That's what happened to one Davenport soldier.

Davenport soldier Chad Baetke says its good to be home. He's grateful to have survived the horrible chopper crash that killed many of his fellow soldiers, but would like to know who robbed him while he was out serving his country.

Baetke was injured in the crash. "I've got a titanium plate in my face," he explains.

Baetke is still on the mend after surviving a deadly helicopter crash over Iraq last month, an attack which killed 16 of his fellow soldiers.

He returned to a rude awakening.

"My TV, my stereo, Playstation, my clothes scattered all over the place," says Baetke.

While he was thousands of miles away fighting in Iraq, someone jimmied the lock on his trailer.

"Whoever stole from me, it's pathetic what you did," says Baetke.

Chad says its not the end of the world. He's just grateful to be alive, but while this proud American soldier is able to shrug this one off, it still hurts.

"It was not a good homecoming, for me, to come to find my stuff taken."

MISSILE DEFENSE FOR COMMERCIAL PLANES?

Not needed, says this guy.

But that may not be the biggest surprise of this story.

Newly released photos of the DHL cargo jet hit by Iraqi insurgents last month show for the first time the damage inflicted by a surface-to-air-missile fired near the Baghdad airport.

But they also show that some quarters in Washington are overreacting with calls to equip U.S. commercial planes with missile-defence systems, says Andrew R. Thomas, an aviation security expert and author.

"These guys (who fired the missiles) did pretty well everything they wanted to do here," said Thomas, author of Aviation Insecurity: The New Challenges of Air Travel. "They hit the wing and the engine and they still couldn't bring this plane down."

Thomas said surface-to-air-missiles (SAMs) can bring down a plane, but the DHL shooting is more typical and shows the resiliency of modern large aircraft...

The DHL hit sparked calls in Washington for new missile-defence systems to be placed on commercial aircraft in the U.S. because of the perceived vulnerability to SAM attacks by terrorists.

Also embedded in this story is this:

A video of the missile attack on the DHL plane has aired on television after it was passed to French journalists and Newsweek. This week the magazine published photos by French photographer Jerome Sessini who was with the insurgents when they summoned him for a "demonstration" of their firepower.

His photos show the Airbus A-300 cargo jet, its wing aflame, returning to Baghdad International Airport.

Now, from my reading of this we have a French photographer practicing al Arabiya and al Jazeera type "journalsm" by being at the location of an attack which if not explicitly foretold to him was certainly foreshadowed. And we have Newsweek profiting from such.

And I am disgusted.

Because, Mr. French Photographer...what if your wife were a DHL pilot and you knew she would be flying into Baghdad sometime about the time of your responding to the call of this "demonstration". Would you have done the same thing or perhaps would you have alerted someone because you might actually have a stake in the outcome?

That is my point, Mr. French Photographer, Mr. Newsweek Editor, and those who still don't get it. This is a war that they started and it is against us...all of us. This time it happened to be the crew of the DHL aircraft. Next time it might be the photographer's wife, the editor's son.

If you would have reacted differently if your own wife might have been at risk (and lets not be coy here, because certainly you would have), then you justify all of this as being "OK" so long as it happens to "someone else".

You disgust me.

AMAZING AMERICA

On Thursday, a local group collecting Christmas gifts for soldiers had 1,200 shoeboxes to ship overseas but needed about $1,500 within 24 hours to pay for postage.

Their cry for help did not go unheeded by Southeast Missouri residents. By Friday evening, $9,000 had poured in, along with 600 more shoeboxes filled with gifts for soldiers serving in Kuwait and Baghdad. That's in addition to roughly $2,500 donated before Friday.

"I've been in tears all day," said organizer Tina Plaskie of Jackson, whose husband has been stationed in Baghdad since May. "If I could tell those people who donated anything, it would be God bless you and thank you."

THE "NEW GERMAN PATRIOTISM"

Long averse to displays of patriotism due to the excesses and crimes of the Nazis, flag-waving outside of sporting events -- either real or figuratively -- has been largely taboo for this nation of 82 million. But now many young Germans have found new pride in the country’s prominent role along with France and Russia in opposing the war in Iraq.

“I thought ‘wow’ Germany stands for peace. It wasn’t always that way, you know,” explains the 23-year-old singer from Berlin who goes by the name Mieze.

Funny, to me it says Germany stands for inaction. That Germany stands by while some 300 Iraqis per day are slaughtered by their dictator - over the course of more than a decade.

To me it says that Germany stands for paying lip service to the notion of "legitimate actions sanctioned by the UN" while in fact the UN does nothing, not one single thing to seriously disrupt Saddam's reign of terror all the while thumbing his nose at the entirety of the UN.

To me it says that Germany puts its faith in such lamely executed UN programs as the "Oil for Food" program from which Saddam skimmed billions of dollars, built palace after gaudy palace while everyday Iraqis lived in squalor because electricity grids and sewer systems were improved only where they benefited Saddam and his lackeys.

To me it says that Germans are making an age-old mistake. They are equating the absence of war with peace.

And they are not the same at all.

Just ask the Iraqis.

"HOW IS MY WIFE?"

The title above comes from the question I ask every 501st Soldier I meet who has just returned from down range.

I had the opportunity yesterday to visit with an officer who has just returned from Baghdad - a woman who knows CPT Patti very well and knows much of life in Camp Provider.

I'll call her Cindy.

The conversation I had with Cindy is clearly indicative of the gulf between my understanding of the Soldiers' situation and the reality of it.

Cindy said she misses being in Baghdad. To be sure, part of that is that strange guilt Soldiers have when they have been through hell with their comrades, then one of them is fortunate enough to escape early. But that isn't all of it.

"I like it better than here" she said, referring to Army life in Baghdad versus the same in garrison.

"We had time to get things done. Time to finish all the paperwork, all the reports. Time to talk with our Soldiers. Time to read...time to focus."

I was fairly amazed at hearing this. I wondered if after 200 days Cindy had lost perspective - I'm thinking "sure, if you are on the job 24 hours per day, every cotton pickin' day, well, yeah...it just might seem like somehow you "found" a whole bunch of extra time to do your job.

But that wasn't it. I say that because of the next thing Cindy said.

"It was so relaxing in Baghdad."

Of all the words I might have ever anticipated hearing from a Soldier describing life in Baghdad, relaxing was never on that list.

To be sure, Cindy isn't just a little bit nuts. She said leaving the gates of the camp and driving through Baghdad was cause for fear. "The IEDs are real...we hear the stories about them just like you do. They train us to try to look for them, but you can't really. They could be anywhere and look like any thing. They've even begun hanging these things from trees above the streets."

And she didn't return unscathed. "I have scars", she said, "some ugly scars." She was speaking of the physical wounds she received in an ambush/firefight.

Cindy went on to talk about the improvements they had made to Camp Provider, most of which we already knew...the MWR building, the dining facility, two volley ball courts, a basketball court, a workout gym, the smoothie machine.

She did indicate that the MWR phone situation had somehow recently gotten worse, not better. Something about there being actually fewer phones than before. And she mentioned that she had received letters from Soldier's mothers wondering if her soldier is OK because she hasn't heard from him in two months. I know from my own time in the Army that sons and daughters never communicate enough with parents back home under any circumstance (from the perspective of the parents, that is) and surmise that dynamic is worse in a war zone. Perhaps Cindy's reference to disappearing phones helps explain some of that.

I asked how her health is. She said the intestinal malady the troops call Saddam's Revenge had only fully cleared up after she was out of Iraq for over two weeks. And she says she is tired. But she says the Army doctors did a million tests for parasites and other such things. And generally she feels good.

And talking to her was wonderful. Even though she spoke of wounds and scars and firefights, she seemed very, very normal.

And not to forget, she said life on Camp Provider is "relaxing"...and most of the 501st FSB soldiers spend most of their time on Camp Provider.

As she started to leave I thanked Cindy for all the assistance and friendship she had given to CPT Patti over the last 7 months. She gave me a hug and smiled. "I really like your wife", she said.

So I feel better. Perhaps you do too.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6th.

It's been 209 days since CPT Patti got to sleep in her own bed.

Me, I've been doing a lot of sleeping in that bed...at all the wrong hours. Been back from the USA 79 hours now and still haven't gotten myself back on Germany time.

FOR PERSPECTIVE

So many news stories include the line "...since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1st".

Here are some you didn't hear on CNN.

Read the whole list here...it'll make you proud.

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq’s children.

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals. They now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

ISLAM NEEDS DEFENDING

And "free women" are the threat.

Sheesh.

"I am a free journalist and a free woman," she boasts, adding, like her colleagues, that the clergy and others fail to appreciate the media's newfound freedom.

"I chose not to wear the veil and nobody can force me to change my mind," says the 20-year-old who anchors at the Iraqi Media Network (IMN), a station run by the US-led coalition and which began broadcasting soon after the overthrow of Saddam's regime last April.

Sahar al-Ibrahimi, 26, nods her approval: "They should not interfere and we should not let them interfere," she says

Shiite clerics have recently voiced outrage at what they deem are "immoral and indecent" broadcasts.

An official of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) threatened the network with street protests.

"If you do not change your programs and submit to our will, we shall mobilize the Iraqi street against you. We shall mobilize the Iraqi street to defend Islam," warned Sadreddin al-Qabanji in remarks broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite channel last week.

A MOST UNUSUAL LOTTERY

Thais buying New Year cards for their troops in Iraq could win a free trip with the military to the war-torn country.

The Thai Defence Ministry has put two million Happy New Year postcards for its 443 medical and engineering troops in Iraq on sale to raise money for food and medicine for Iraqis.

The names of people buying the cards, which cost five baht (12 U.S. cents) each, will go into a draw.

''Winners of the draw will represent the Thai public and travel with an armed forces delegation on a C-130 plane to give moral support to our troops at Lima Camp in Karbala,'' ministry spokesman Major General Palangkul Klahan said on Friday.

Thailand insists it will keep its troops in Karbala, south of Baghdad, at least until March despite a series of attacks on foreigners.

The date of the lucky draw has yet to be decided, Palangkul said.

"THAT MEANT A LOT"

"I have no regrets about being here and know I'm contributing to a great effort -- if you heard some of the stories first hand, you would feel pretty good, too. I had lunch with a few Iraqis and they were laughing and one leaned over to me and said, 'You don't understand. For 35 years, we couldn't laugh. Now we can. Thank you!' That meant a lot," she said.

"It was also a pretty good feeling (Tuesday) when the first of four 'Saddam heads' came down," Lindsay said. She even posed in her red Paulsboro Football sweatshirt for a snapshot in front of one of the heads about to be removed.

WELL THANK GOD THE FRENCH HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED

A decade ago, Abry, a French pastry chef, gave up the luxurious kitchens and fancy pastry shops of France to move to the Middle East, bringing his creations and training to the gastronomically disadvantaged, even in dangerous places like Iraq...

"They don't have the basic things," he said. "It's very difficult for them to improve. We need to start with the basics, to teach them how to make the sponge cake, how to make the nice croissants with butter. We hope to go in Baghdad one time with chefs from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and to make some training course there. It will be really nice. And it will be our part to help them in the reconstruction of the country."

Think of it as Pastries without Borders, or Eclairs sans Frontières.

UP CLOSE WITH THE TRUTH

And it is very, very ugly.

You need to read the whole thing.

In Baghdad, however, the picture could not have looked more different. Waiters smiled at me when I identified myself as an American, cabbies brushed their palms together in a good-riddance gesture as they declared, "Saddam gone, America great!," and on the campus of Baghdad University I was approached by a man who wished to tell me "how honored Iraqis are that the Americans came to rid us of a tyrant."...

But in the catalogue of Saddam’s evil, perhaps the most gruesome entry concerned the use of torture...Men were fed alive into wood-shredding machines. A general who had earned Saddam’s displeasure was devoured by rabid dogs. According to one macabre report, women prisoners were forced to eat chunks of their own flesh that Baathist thugs had sliced from their bodies...

"In a thousand years, there have been few tyrants like Saddam Hussein," the lawyer finished, fingering his prayer beads.

I heard this refrain numerous times in Iraq: Saddam’s evil was in a category of its own. Because his regime lasted 35 years, because Iraq is a relatively small nation, because he was so open and boastful about his tyranny—and because the outside world seemed so ready to ignore his crimes—there seemed no way for Iraqis to escape his grasp...

STORIES LIKE these, defining the reality of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, made me begin to wonder how Iraqis were dealing with the fact that many outsiders seemed to question the value of their country’s liberation. Among those I talked to, the prevalent reaction was sheer disbelief. "If they had lived for five minutes under Saddam they wouldn’t think like this," expostulated an Iraqi translator for the U.S. military.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE ENEMY

At least, one faction of the enemy. This story comes in two parts. The first is here, and second here.

God willing we hit something this time," he says, wryly smiling. "Our mortars are very inaccurate. We cannot wait to aim them, so we use timers.

"The American helicopters come too fast for us to properly use the mortars as we were trained to. But we are finding ways to fight these helicopters. Before we would shoot flares at them. But this did no good. Now some of our colleagues have SA-7s or Strellas (Soviet-era anti-aircraft missiles), but me and my colleagues have no such equipment."

In the second installment the participation of foreign arabs is confirmed.

But one source of support has been foreigners from other Arab countries.

In earlier interviews, Abu Mujahid acknowledged that both Syrian intelligence and al-Qaida members were operating in Iraq against the U.S.-led coalition forces but denied he received direct assistance from them. But in later interviews, he said he received support from some people he suspects have ties with terrorist organizations.

"In my neighborhood, we have many students from Yemen, Syria and Jordan," he says. "Several of them give us money to buy weapons and conduct operations."

MORE PROTESTS IN BAGHDAD

Against the terrorists, that is.

(A)bout 500 people rallied Friday in central Baghdad to call for an end to terrorist attacks against civilians. Participants carried banners reading "No to terrorism" and expressed support for the U.S.-led coalition that has governed Iraq since ousting Saddam Hussein in early April.

THE DEFINITVE WORD ON THE PRESIDENT'S THANKSGIVING VISIT

This from a Captain who was there and tells you what it meant to the soldiers.

Read it all...and then slap the next person who whines about the so-called "photo op".

Wonder what they have done for the soldiers lately...

Then, from behind the camouflage netting, the President of the United States came around. The mess hall actually erupted with hollering.

Troops bounded to their feet with shocked smiles and just began cheering with all their hearts. The building actually shook. It was just unreal. I was absolutely stunned. Not only for the obvious, but also because I was only two tables away from the podium.

There he stood, less than thirty feet away from me! The cheering went on and on and on. Soldiers were hollering, cheering, and a lot of them were crying. There was not a dry eye at my table.

When he stepped up to the cheering, I could clearly see tears running down his cheeks.

It was the most surreal moment I've had in years. Not since my wedding and Aaron being born.

Here was this man, our President, came all the way around the world, spending 17 hours on an airplane and landing in the most dangerous airport in the world, where a plane was shot out of the sky not six days before. Just to spend two hours with his troops. Only to get on a plane and spend another 17 hours flying back. It was a great moment, and I will never forget it.

HIGH TECH

Personal air conditioning units for helicopter crews.

Engineers designed the units with temperatures of 125 degrees and 14 percent relative humidity in mind.

“In other words, the desert,” said lead engineer Rich Luechtefeld, who joined the telephone interview with Bippen.

The cooling systems come in three parts: Each crewmember needs a 13-pound, shoe-box-sized device that works like a refrigerator and is anchored to the aircraft, a washable, 100 percent cotton vest embedded with tiny PVC tubes and a connecting “umbilical cord.”

The vest “cools your torso very effectively,” according to Luechtefeld, who has personally tested the system. “Testers’ comments have been really favorable.”

Air Warrior officials have decided that the first helicopters to get the coolers will be OH-58D Kiowa Warriors, he said.

FUNNY, SOMEHOW I MISSED SEEING THIS ON CNN

More 1-36 Infantry raids...and in interesting Iraqi response.

At no point during the night did the Iraqis in their homes show hostility to the Americans.

In one house, two women appeared wide-eyed and tense with fear. But most, including women and children, seemed to take the searches in stride.

“What I did notice is the children, they didn’t cry, they didn’t feel threatened by us,” said Spc. John Lawton, 37, of Hampstead, N.H., a gunner who worked as the radio operator for the night’s operation. “We must be doing something right.”

Some thanked the Americans for their efforts.

At one house Bayles asked a question through the interpreter.

“Ask him if he knows any bad people in the neighborhood, anybody who’s causin’ trouble,” Bayles said.

“He says, ‘We have no information about anybody. We have the door closed all the time,’” the interpreter replied.

“OK sir, that’s great,” Bayles said to the man of the house.

Then an elderly woman in black stepped forward.

“She says, ‘You are doing this to help us. We must cooperate with you.’”

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT - YOU ARE DECREASING PRICES FOR THE HOLIDAYS?

AAFES and AT&T reduce the cost for phone calls from Iraq for the Christmas period.

Cool.

In conjunction with AT&T, McDonald said AAFES wanted to give customers a holiday bonus by further cutting prices, dropping the per-minute fees assessed against the prepaid cards.

Troops calling family and friends from a designated phone center in Iraq will pay 25 cents a minute during the holidays instead of 32 cents.

Likewise, the per-minute fee for satellite calls has changed, dropping from 76 to 63 cents.

“Calls to home during this time of the year are critical to the morale of America’s servicemembers,” Mike Westphal, a senior vice president in Dallas, was quoted as saying in an AAFES news release.

“By offering a lower price, AAFES and AT&T hope that servicemembers will find it much easier and more convenient to contact all of their friends and family this holiday season.”

OUR GUYS

The Scouts from 1-36 in Friedberg.

The man gave no resistance and said nothing.

“You,” the sergeant told him, “are the lucky winner of the Blindfold and Gag Contest,” developed, he said, by the 1st Armored Division during its service in Baghdad.

The troops led the man to a trailer hitched to a Humvee and the scouts headed back to their battalion compound.

The man was held for further questioning.

“It was a fleeting target,” Kreis said later that day. “We knew where he was. The level above us said it was credible, so we went out.”

Pulling out just before 4 a.m., Livingston summed up the night’s events: the house-to-house search and the raids they’d just made.

“This was a successful evening,” he said. “We killed two bad dudes — needless to say, they killed themselves.

“And we may have — that’s subject to investigation — may have captured another bad dude.”

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES

December 3, 2003
Release Number: 03-12-07

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEMBER OF FORMER REGIME CAPTURED

AL FALLUJAH, Iraq—Paratroopers from 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, conducted a cordon and search mission early Wednesday morning to capture former regime elements in Fallujah.

Soldiers detained Brig. Gen. Daham Al Mahemdi during this operation. At his home, two AK-47s, five AK-47 magazines, a 9mm pistol, a 9mm pistol magazine, a shotgun, one 100 round drum of ammunition and assorted documents, including a photograph of Mahemdi in an Iraqi Army uniform, were found.

Mahemdi was a Republican Guard Colonel of the Habbaniyah Lakes region and promoted to general immediately before the war by Saddam Hussein. He is suspected of having indirect contact with Saddam Hussein and directing anti-coalition activities in Fallujah.

No shots were fired and no soldiers were injured during the cordon and search mission.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5th.

CPT Patti is still in Baghdad.

Me, I'm back home in Germany trying to shake off the worst case of jet lag I can remember.

I'M BETTING THIS WON'T AIR ON AFN...

DaimlerChrysler's Dodge unit is sponsoring a pay-per-view "Lingerie Bowl" during halftime of the Super Bowl on Feb. 1 featuring models dressed in lingerie playing a seven-on-seven tackle football game.

A PURPLE HEART AND A RED EAGLE'S FEATHER

During the celebration, Crows Breast was called to the center of the hall by veteran Virgil Chase.

Chase said it was traditional that warriors who go to war, and especially those who are wounded, receive a red eagle feather. They "recognize him as a protector of our land. He earned the eagle feather and can wear an eagle feather war bonnet." The red eagle feather signifies the warrior was wounded in battle.

Tony Mandan, Hidatsa tribal elder and spiritual leader, took Crows Breast's hand. Then, hand in hand, they made the circle while Mandan sang an honor song for him.

UPDATE ON THE FLORIDA GUARDSMAN WHO MARRIED THE IRAQI WOMAN

Some won't like this. But the fact is he put himself and his fellow soldiers at risk.

A U.S. soldier has been reprimanded and will be discharged for taking a break from a foot patrol in Baghdad to marry an Iraqi woman, his lawyer said yesterday.

Sgt. Sean Blackwell, 27, is being punished for divulging the time and location of the patrol to his bride and the Iraqi judge who married them, his attorney said.

"A PROFESSIONAL MURDERER"

Indeed.

A Baghdad district court has found Saddam Hussein guilty of attempted murder and issued a warrant for his immediate arrest after an in-absentia trial, the plaintiff, an Iraqi politician who was the victim of an assassination attempt while exiled in London, said on Tuesday.

The judged ruled that the fugitive former president was a "professional murderer to be arrested", said the statement issued by Iyad Allawi, leader of the Iraqi National Accord (INA), who is now a member of the US-installed interim Governing Council.

OH, YOU MEAN THAT SIGN OF LIFE BEING NEARLY NORMAL IN BAGHDAD

Customers choose between Dead Sea mud masks, German cosmetics and Adidas sports gear at Baghdad's first hypermarket, a rare sign of private investment in the country.

"A car bomb could destroy everything, but we are leaving it to God," Dia Matar, general manager of B-Town, told Reuters. "We pressed on with the project during the U.S. invasion. Modern retail works in Dubai, Lebanon and Jordan. Iraq is no different."

The two-storey complex near the German embassy opened last month in a departure from grocery stores and specialist retailers that dominate trade in consumer goods, especially old markets such as al-Shorga in Baghdad's old sector.

STEP BY STEP

An account of the President's visit to Iraq.

And note the priorities of a theif.

7:55 a.m.: After Bartlett briefing, breakfast served -- cheese omelet, two Texas-sized sausages, little cup of oats, plain yogurt, blueberry muffin and orange juice.

8:28 a.m.: Reporters try on camouflage, Velcro-front "ballistic vests." Keil, adjusting his, asked: "Anyone have a tailor?" Much of the staff changed into camouflage tops and bottoms, for security and to blend in and not spoil the pictures.

9:09 a.m. Washington time (5:09 p.m. Destination): Cabin lights are turned out and all the shades remain down.

9:22 a.m. Washington time: We were told eight minutes out and could feel the descent. Shut down laptops. Cabin is dark except for light of clocks and light from agents' cabin. About half the journalists were already wearing their vests, which are Point Blank Body Armor.

9:31 a.m. Washington time (5:32 p.m. local): Touched down in swift abrupt landing, but not the emergency spiral that had been prepared for. Press walked down dark stairs onto Tarmac.

10:50 a.m.: I had taken off my body armor to type, then saw a soldier I wanted to interview. I came back and my vest is gone. The laptop is still there.

OUR LITTLE TOWN

The children of Giessen prepare for Christmas without Dad or Mom.

You might want to grab a hankie before reading this one.

Many of the children had a parent in mind, though not all. Sarah made two ornaments for a pair of military police officers she has never met.

“A lot of soldiers need our support,” Sarah said after applying the finishing touches to her second orb.

“Some people don’t appreciate what they do.”

Tina O’Brien sure does.

Her father, Sgt. 1st Class James O’Brien, is in Iraq, and he has not come home for the holidays. Roughly 90 percent of the soldiers assigned to Giessen have deployed to Iraq.

The ornament Tina made for her father soon will occupy a treasured twig on the community Christmas tree.

“I miss how my father hugs and kisses me at night, and how he says, ‘I love you,’” Tina said softly.

By the end of the period, as scho

THE NATO SECRETARY GENERAL GETS IT

But are the NATO members listening?

Lord Robertson, presiding over his final NATO ministerial meetings this week before retiring as the alliance’s top diplomat, said in remarks opening Monday’s session that America’s allies “must have the political will to deploy and use (their) forces in much larger numbers than at present.” He mentioned not only Afghanistan and Iraq but the broader war against terror.

WHY YOU CAN'T EVER REALLY WRITE A SOLDIER'S JOB DESCRIPTION

Gray, armed and in full battle gear, entered the room expecting trouble. But she didn’t find any weapons.

Instead, a young Iraqi woman was lying on the concrete floor, struggling to give birth.

“They told [the Iraqi men] I was a doctor, so they’d let me in,” she said in a telephone interview Monday while explaining the Nov. 17 incident. But the three women inside — including the one giving birth — weren’t expecting to see an armed soldier coming through the door.

“I scared the heck out of them,” Gray said.

After surveying the situation, Gray set her weapon aside and took off her helmet to show the women she was one of them. “They were surprised,” she said. “And they don’t see a lot of blond hair.”

Meanwhile, the baby was ready to be born...

Gray, who said she’s seen plenty of death in her stint in Iraq, got to hold Zuher Ahmed Mohowed for a few minutes before the soldiers left.

“Sometimes, it appears that nobody appreciates what we’re doing,” Gray said. “To be able to do something like that and help these people … it just reminds you that we’re all human.”

Gray said the soldiers were told the family didn’t like Americans. At least they didn’t until the search-turned-medical rescue.

“We at least made a difference with this one family,” she said, “and probably the whole neighborhood. Word will spread.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2d.

CPT Patti has been gone for 205 days.

Me - I've been gone for 14. I'm ready to go home.

Bet she is too.

BLOOD FOR OIL

Only if we have lost every shred of capitalistic talent we ever had.

Omar - who may be the most level headed guy in Iraq - does the math for us.

I find it so naive for someone to think that the USA is spending 4 billions a month to "steal" 1,5 billions....

Some Iraqis say that Iraq is a wealthy country and that America came here to steal our fortune, and I ask them what f***ing fortune?

You just gotta read the whole thing.

(via Instapundit)

AXIS OF EVIL INDEED

And notice how Syria tends to show up in all the wrong places...

Saddam Hussein was in the process of acquiring a North Korean assembly line for missiles, the New York Times has reported.

The deal came to light through information extracted from computer files found by international inspectors, the NYT said.

According to the report, the pre-war Iraq government had made a $US10 million down payment on a production line to churn out the DPRK's Redong missile system. Negotiations had stretched out for two years prior to the war but were at an apparent stalemate in the month before coalition forces attacked Iraq.

The system was to have been delivered to Iraq through Syria, but was delayed because of monitoring activity in the months immediately prior to the war, the report says.

Syria has denied any involvement in such a deal.

OH...THOSE TERRORISTS IN IRAQ...

American forces have captured three members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network in northern Iraq, a U.S. military commander said yesterday. If confirmed, it would be the first announced detention of al-Qaida militants in Iraq.

About 10 members of Ansar al-Islam — an Islamic group U.S. officials believe has al-Qaida links in northern Iraq — also have been arrested by U.S. troops in the past seven months, said Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.

WE ARE AT WAR

And Spain gets it.

Interesting that those who have had their noses bloodied are the ones who understand the need to fight this war.

Spanish troops will remain in Iraq as part of the fight against "fanatical terrorism," Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said yesterday in a live broadcast to a nation angry about the slaying of seven of its intelligence agents south of Baghdad.

Mr. Aznar, one of the staunchest European supporters of the Iraq war, spoke as the agents' bodies arrived at a Madrid airport, awaited by about 150 relatives and senior government officials.

"Our freedom is threatened by all terrorists," the prime minister said. "We know that a withdrawal would be the worst route we could take."

A NEW STRATEGY

And given the outcome, one they will abandon with all due haste.

American military officials said today that guerrillas in Iraq appear to have adopted a new tactic of highly coordinated ambushes, judging from an attack on Sunday in which soldiers delivering Iraqi currency to two banks were bombarded with small arms and grenade fire.

American soldiers killed 54 people in the intense firefight that ensued in the town of Samarra in central Iraq, the military said today, updating the death toll from the 46 that was reported on Sunday.

Military officials said that the body count could be unclear because the guerrillas were not likely to bring their dead or wounded in to local hospitals.

``Many of the dead attackers were found wearing Fedayeen uniforms,'' the military statement on Sunday said.

And this story talks about the battle from the eyes of an NCO involved.

As soon as we got to that location, we started receiving direct fire via small arms, AK-47s. My guys from both the east and the west bank started returning fire back to the point of origin and neutralizing any targets they'd actually seen.

During the course of the firefight, we started receiving not only small-arms [fire]. We had incoming and direct fire from mortars. We also had RPGs coming through here just hitting us all around.

As far as my thoughts during that, it was -- it was an extremely scary time. I remember I talked to my wife yesterday morning. I've got a 10-month-old son. He'll be 10 months old on the fourth of February, the fourth of December, excuse me. And she told me, she said, 'Don't do anything stupid. Don't put yourself in any harm's way or anything like that. Just be extremely careful.'

And I reckoned during the course of that fight, we were -- I kept thinking about my wife and my son. And I kept communicating with my team that I had with me and I was looking at the rest of the squad that was there and making sure they were doing their job. They were all well. They were doing an excellent job as far as returning fire and everything.

THE IRAQIS ARE PROTESTING

But this time the protests are against the terrorists...

HERE KITTY KITTY

A kitten has been found in a British Army tank after it arrived back in the UK from Iraq.

The black and white kitten, named Gracie, is believed to have crept into the tank near Baghdad.

Her journey to the UK took six weeks and she survived the ordeal by eating bugs and lapping up condensation from the vehicle's walls...

Gracie is called "the kitten of mass destruction" because she is so lively.

STRAIGHT TALK ON W, HILLARY, THANKSGIVING AND THE MILITARY

However, there's one tremendous quote from the Kurtz article that came from retired Col. Ken Allard, military analyst on MSNBC: "You underestimate George Bush at your peril. It was a gutsy call, a Hail Mary pass, and he pulled it off." And to that I say, Bravo Mr. President.

Here's the crux of the matter -- The liberal press is particularly churlish since their standard bearer, Senator Hillary Clinton, was upstaged by President Bush and his trip to Baghdad. Oopps! Bush stole Senator Hillary Clinton's thunder in her whistle stop tour that included Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. She was initially poised to shine in her Thanksgiving visit with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, replete with photo ops, but the president "preempted" her...

Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera reporting from Afghanistan noted that the soldiers were impressed with Hillary Clinton and the dignitaries, but more impressed with the "full blown" turkey dinner...

Really, no matter how Hillary tries to spin it, she and her entourage rate a weak second to President Bush. The overall troop reaction to Senators Clinton and Reed was polite and friendly, but nothing on par with the heartfelt delight generated by President Bush. And Hillary received a comparably friendly, but not effusive, response in Iraq.

However, Senator Hillary Clinton of the Senate Armed Services Committee has only herself to blame, given her political positions and past history. Sure, she made clear that she is in favor of the mission in Afghanistan, which has her full support. But what about Iraq? Hillary didn't exactly enthrall the troops in Iraq or boost their morale for the simply reason that she is a staunch critic of the overall policy in Iraq and the troops overwhelmingly believe in the mission.

And the unfortunate reality is this -- Hillary and Bill Clinton have a terrible reputation among many members of the military, a reputation well-earned by the fact that the "co-presidents" used and abused the military when they reduced it by about half, and demonstrated abject contempt for military personnel during their White House years.

Just read the eyewitness account of retired Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson's tenure as a White House military aide in his bestselling book "Dereliction of Duty" for an insightful glimpse of what Hillary and Bill are really like behind the scenes. This tome is rife with details. For instance, it was Hillary who didn't want the military aides to wear their uniforms at the White House - it offended her. As Buzz Patterson noted, "Common sense and security finally prevailed, at least at official functions with the president. At all other times, however, we were expected to be in business suits or civilian clothes in order to downplay the military presence at the White House". And there is no question that the uniform directive came directly from Hillary. This is only one small snippet, to be sure. However, the long and short of it is that the Clintons, and their like-minded liberal cronies, don't understand the military culture nor do they respect military personnel.

I've also read "Deriliction of Duty". It is more reasoned and less vitriolic than one might imagine from the title.

And disturbing.

NORDLINGER ON THE THANKSGIVING VISIT

The criticism Bush has taken over the Iraq trip — "photo-op" and all — is slightly appalling. There are some who hate Bush so much that they won't credit him no matter what he does. In fact, they won't even be neutral, but instead must damn him. I think of that old politician's line: "If I walked on water, they'd say '[INSERT NAME HERE] can't swim!'" It's a tired line, but it perhaps applies to GWB. Some people are actually angry that Bush pulled off this Thanksgiving jaunt, and they seem miffed that the troops received him positively — and more than positively.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASE about the large battle in which over 50 Fedayeen thugs lost their lives can be found here.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1st.

CPT Patti has been deployed for 204 days.

But I received a note from her this morning indicating her change of command ceremony is now scheduled for the 1st of March instead of the 15th as previously mentioned). She says the battalion commander intends to send her home soon thereafter as he knows that Soldiers' loyalty can be slow to shift if the outgoing commander is still in the area.

March 1st is 3 months from today. 90 days from today (it would only be 89 days but 2004 is a leap year...drat!)

Me...as you might imagine I'm pretty happy about it.

INTERESTING STATISTICS

Want to know how Americans will vote next Election Day? Watch what they do the weekend before.

If they attend religious services regularly, they probably will vote Republican by a 2-1 ratio. If they never go, they likely will vote Democratic 2-1...

A new poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicates that the gap remains: Voters who frequently attend religious services tilt 63-37 percent to George W. Bush and those who never attend lean 62-38 percent toward Democrats.

It is not unusual to read or hear the term "religious right" in the press. Will this poll spawn the usage of "heathen left" in a similar fashion?

Doubtful.

LEADERSHIP 101

They don't get it.

That's the problem with these presidential photo stunts. Eventually, the facts have a way of catching up with them. Today's rave review is tomorrow's dangling embarrassment - and then where are you? - symbolizing something very different from what was intended.

Presidential photo stunts? Hardly. But then, seems folks have a way of forgetting we are at war.

And they forget we are asking our Soldiers to fight that war.

But the President doesn't forget. And he doesn't forget that he is the Commander in Chief of every one of our Soldiers.

Military leaders have a long tradition of serving their Soldiers on Thanksgiving Day. It is a symbolic gesture that reminds all involved, Soldiers and leaders, that true leadership is all about serving those under your command.

Re-read that please...it is a point that many do not get. Leadership is about service to those under your command.

Now I realize that many don't see it that way. Many so-called leaders think their time in command is somehow about them and what all these Soldiers can do for them.

But they get it wrong.

And Mr. Bush got it exactly right on Thanksgiving day. Those who call this a photo op do not understand the nature of Soldiers, the responsibilities of leadership and the awesome duties of the Commander in Chief.

It was about the Soldiers. It was about Soldiers seeing their leaders do more than simply order Soldiers into unpleasant places to do unpleasant things. It was about a leader who climbed down from his place of comfort to walk a brief hundred yards in the Soldiers' boots. It was about boosting morale.

And it worked. It worked in spades.

The Soldiers know. They know the enormous risk the President took. They know he didn't have to. Not a single one among them would have blamed the President for spending Thanksgiving day in Texas, or DC or anywhere else there are Americans. But the President chose to spend the time with Soldiers.

And that little gesture recharged Soldiers who have been on the job without a break for over 200 days.

Photo op? No...it is called leadership. It is called service.

WELL DONE, BOSS

Not since Abraham Lincoln visited Richmond, Va., just days after the Confederates fled, had a U.S. President placed himself so close to the front lines.

WHAT MESSAGE MIGHT THIS SEND?

Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, an air defense general captured Oct. 5 in a raid near the Syrian border, was being questioned Wednesday while in American custody in Qaim near the Syrian border when he lost consciousness after complaining he didn't feel well, the military said in a statement.

He was pronounced dead by a U.S. military physician. The cause of death and interrogation techniques are under investigation, but Mowhoush's head was not hooded during questioning, the 82nd Airborne said. The statement did not give his age.

Mowhoush, who served in the Republican Guard, was captured in a raid in Qaim. A U.S. military spokeswoman said at the time that Mowhoush was believed to have been financing attacks on U.S. forces.

GOOD NEWS?

Maybe.

Drivers who can stretch that last drop of gas through the weekend will be in for an early Christmas treat — fuel prices will drop Monday.

Prices at Army and Air Force Exchange Service gas pumps throughout Europe will be about five cents per gallon lower, except for diesel fuel, which remains the same, according to an AAFES news release.

In Germany, regular unleaded will be sold for $1.70, super unleaded will be $1.80, and super plus unleaded will be sold for $1.89 per gallon.

But here in South Carolina I'm buying gas for $1.39 per gallon.

That is 31 cents per gallon less than AAFES new, "lower" prices.

And that is with who knows how much taxes built in to the SC price.

BATTLING THE RUMOR MILL

That's one job of the Psychological Operations unit.

Around midnight, the lights went out in Baghdad. A power outage.

By morning, with the power still out, some Iraqis began speculating over their morning tea: The U.S. military had deliberately cut power to punish ordinary Iraqis for the attacks some insurgents had been making on U.S.-led coalition forces.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th.

And our girl has been away for all of 203 days.

Me...I sort of thought perhaps you get to a point where the "missing" doesn't get any worse.

That day must be somewhere beyond day 203.