IRAQ THE MODEL: "It's really hard for us that a beautiful occasion like Christmas comes in sad days like the ones we've been through in Iraq last week. We lost tens of our Iraqi brothers in Najaf, Kerbala and other Iraqi cities. Those people did nothing wrong except dreaming of a normal life; a dream that is seen as a crime in the eyes of the terrorists. And we lost tens of our friends in the coalition who did nothing wrong but helping Iraqis in making their dreams come true; and that's another crime in the eyes of the terrorists.

It's never easy for us to see the blood of our brothers and friends being shed everyday but we should also remember that great goals to be achieved need great sacrifices and now it's our duty; we, who are still breathing must make sure that the priceless blood of our brothers and friends was not shed in vain and we should remember that the sacrifices they made were made for a noble reason."

(Via Iraq The Model.)

Bill O'Reilly is big blubbering vagina.: "Bill O'Reilly gets a major chubby every time he says the phrase 'fair and balanced.' That's my theory anyway, otherwise he wouldn't say it in spite of the fact that FOX News' slogan is: 'we report, you decide.' I love that slogan, because it makes me feel empowered. They report, I DECIDE! Wow, it's almost as if I'm being reminded that I still have the capacity for critical thinking, but only insofar as I tune into their network for the delightful and not gruesome Gretta Van Susteren."

It's the end of the year, why not have some fun in the bloggin?

(Via The Best Page In The Universe.)

UN News Centre: "23 December 2004 - Nearly 6,250 candidates have so far registered for next month's elections to Iraq's 275-member national assembly, which will draft a constitution and appoint a new government to run the country until a presidential ballot is held at the end of the year, the United Nations mission reported today.

Overall, 223 political entities and 33 coalitions have presented 19,000 candidates for the 30 January elections for the national assembly, the local governorates and the Kurdistan National Assembly."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

FOB Marez / Camp Marez / Mosul Airport: "On 23 March 2004 it was reported that U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 'enduring bases,' long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years, including one at Camp Marez."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

DoD News: Special Defense Department Briefing: "Now, we're going to focus today on up-armoring tactical wheeled vehicles, but what I want to do is remind you also that what we're doing today when we talk about tactical wheeled vehicles is only a part of a very broad strategy that's been in effect for many months now, as all of us work under the Secretary of Defense's direction to ensure that we properly protect Soldiers. So up-armoring is only a part of a comprehensive strategy. And although we won't address these topics today, what we also need to bear in mind is that we have very important efforts that are going on and have been long-standing programs over the course of the last 18 months to ensure that we counter IEDs with an IED task force; that we properly ensure that we give Soldiers more fire power, more armaments so that they can shoot more effectively and with more effect, and then also to protect them, both not only their vehicles but also the personal equipment that they wear on their body."

...

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

Osama's Coiled For Strike, Says Terror Expert: "WASHINGTON - Recent tapes from Al Qaeda's top kingpins could mean that a spectacular strike against the U.S. is imminent, a former CIA counterterrorism official warns.

Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit and author of 'Imperial Hubris,' a book arguing that the West is losing the war on terrorism, said he is alarmed by recent statements by Bin Laden and his deputy, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

'I think what [Bin Laden] has done is clearly set the stage for a large attack,' Scheuer told Time magazine.

But other terror experts disputed that tapes always precede attacks. 'There's simply not enough consistent data at this point to be able to draw that conclusion,' defense analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org told the Daily News yesterday.

Pike said there is much evidence that Al Qaeda has been disrupted to the point where it may be incapable of mounting a spectacular attack in the U.S."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

The Daily Star - Editorial - Blair should counter historical dilemmas with bold new initiatives: "British Prime Minister Tony Blair may not fully realize the irony in his trips to Iraq and Palestine/Israel Tuesday, where British colonial adventures nearly a century ago left behind contorted national situations that remain volatile and war-ravaged today."

(Via Google News.)

News: "Republican and Democratic members of Congress criticized the embattled Pentagon chief on Sunday for not signing the letters himself all along.

``My goodness, that's the least that we could expect of the secretary of defense, is having some personal attention paid by him,'' said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., noting that President Bush signs such letters himself.

``If the president of the United States can find time to do that, why can't the Secretary of Defense?'' Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, asked on CBS' ``Face the Nation.''"

(Via k5.)

Baghdad Burning:"Ok- what is the typical Iraqi Christmas wishlist (I won't list 'peace', 'security' and 'freedom' - Christmas miracles are exclusive to Charles Dickens), let's see:"

...

"When Santa delivers please make sure he is wearing a bullet-proof vest and helmet. He should also politely ring the doorbell or knock, as a more subtle entry might bring him face to face with an AK-47. With the current fuel shortage, reindeer and a sleigh are highly practical- but Rudolph should be left behind as the flashing red nose might create a bomb scare (we're all a little jumpy lately). "

(Via Baghdad Burning.)

RAPTOR DOWN: "Things just went from bad to wose for the controversial F/A-22 jet. One of the stealth fighters has crashed in the Nevada desert, says the Las Vegas Review Journal. The pilot is okay. But no one's sure, yet, why the jet exploded during takeoff at Nellis Air Force Base. "

(Via Defense Tech.)

The New York Times > Washington > Prisoners: New F.B.I. Files Describe Abuse of Iraq Inmates: "One of the memorandums released Monday was addressed to Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, and other senior bureau officials, and it provided the account of someone 'who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees' in Iraq. The memorandum, dated June 24 this year, was an 'Urgent Report,' meaning that the sender regarded it as a priority. It said the witness 'described that such abuses included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorized interrogations.'"

(Via NY Times.)

The New York Times > Washington > News Analysis: Dollars for Democracy?: U.S. Aid to Ukraine Challenged: "WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Russian leaders, many Ukrainians and even some members of Congress are asking whether the $58 million the United States spent to promote democracy in Ukraine over the past two years was actually intended to oust the government there."

(Via NY Times.)

I.E.D. ANSWER = AIRLIFTS?: "Here's a way to keep trucks from being blown up in Iraq: stop driving 'em, and fly instead. The roadside bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are responsible for 100 American casualties per month -- despite the American military's best efforts to detect or shut down the bombs. 'To vault the problem, [Air Force Gen. John] Gen. John Jumper is volunteering the service's C-130 fleet to take a substantial part of the Army's truck traffic off the roads of Iraq and move those supplies by air,' Aviation Week reports."

(Via Defense Tech.)

The New York Times > National > 9/11 Panel Members to Lobby for a Restructured Congress: "WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Fresh from their role in overhauling the nation's intelligence agencies, members of the independent Sept. 11 commission say they will now lobby to restructure Congress and what the commission described in its final report as the lawmakers' 'dysfunctional' oversight of the C.I.A., other spy agencies and the Department of Homeland Security."

(Via NY Times.)

Through the Looking Glass 1: ABM Treaty: "Take this quote from Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker in his December 17 keynote address to the American Foreign Policy Council (In theory, C-SPAN has the video, but I can’t make it work):

So it can be said that by 2001, the ABM Treaty was not the cornerstone of strategic arms control, but rather a principal obstacle to progress in arms control.

The argument? Because, after the ABM Treaty withdrawal, Washington and Moscow signed the Moscow Treaty, which provided for ‘the deepest reduction ever mandated by a strategic arms control treaty.’

What an asshole."

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

North Korea: So Don't Talk...See if We Care: "Given that North Korea is free to continue working on its nuclear weapons programs, it is troubling that there’s not even another round of talks scheduled. Even if this state of affairs is more North Korea’s fault than anyone else’s (as is probably the case), you’d think this would be kind of a problem."

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

TCS: Tech Central Station - "Send it, and We'll Figure Out How to Use It.": "Middle America has a heartening tendency to actually do things for troops in the field. When grunts wrote home noting it was 140 degrees inside their tents, but that the Revolution In Military Affairs  provided them with electricity to power tactical laptops, good people mobbed Walmart's to send $99 air conditioners to the nation's sons and daughters using  one of the DOD's Really Good Things : The APO . It delivers parcels, even those containing air conditioners, to war zones with FedEx speed at 4th Class prices.

So what could Santa deliver to good kids spending the holidays under fire?"

...

Used Tires
Not just any ones, and not the whole donut. What's needed is a program to round up and skive off the Kevlar belts that rim the nation's mountains of balding aircraft radials. This would spare our landfills while affording ingenious Gunnies a prime raw material for spanning hard to fit gaps in improvised explosion shields.

Glass Ceramics
Good old Corningware bowls bounce off concrete, but its ballistic resistance pales in comparison to the tougher stuff that glass makers transform into well named hard discs for computer memory drives. Cheap and readily manufactured, such materials approach the fracture toughness per unit weight of honest to gosh armor ceramics. Adding cesium to the precursor melt beefs up the computer grades, and mass production -- were' talking stovetops and windowpanes here -- can turn them out faster than silicon or boron carbide.

(Via a DefenseTech.)

Is the Family Endangered?: "Politicized pro-family organizations, in addition to characterizing the family as more endangered than it probably is, sometimes give in to the temptation to use their political clout to gain government support for families.Now I'm all for recognizing that high taxes have been one of the reasons both parents think they have to work these days, and finding any way to lower taxes on families – or anyone. But positive help from the government – marriage education in government schools, therapy for troubled couples, government help for faith-based counseling – is a two-edged sword. Government programs are bound to have a utilitarian, secular approach to marriage and family. And the state is not necessarily a friend of the family."

(Via LewRockwell.com.)

Dec 16, 2004: Piling on: "Collins sent Rumsfeld a letter asking why he hadn't pushed for an increase in armored Humvees until being publicly embarrassed on the issue, despite the fact that she and other Senators had passed the same concerns along at the request of their constituent-troops and their families."

Quite honestly, I was tempted to quote the entire post, as it's that good, but that would push ethics a bit...

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

Group lists Russia as 'not free': "Russia has restricted rights to such an extent that it has joined the countries that are ''not free' for the first time since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Freedom House said yesterday, marking Moscow's march away from the Western democracies it has embraced as diplomatic partners."

(Via Boston Globe -- World News.)

DOES RUMSFELD E-MAIL?: "Does Mr. High-Tech Revolution-in-Military-Affairs Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even have an email address? Apparently not. POGO tried to obtain his email to no avail beginning this Tuesday. You can, however, snail mail him.What does it say about the future of defense transformation if the SECDEF doesn't use the most ubiuitous application of the PC age?"

(Via Defense Tech.)

I Am A Conservative Christian, And The Religious Right Scares Me, Too: "No one can honestly question my commitment to pro-life, pro- family, conservative causes. That being said, the Religious Right, as it now exists, scares me.

For one reason, on the whole, the Religious Right has obviously and patently become little more than a propaganda machine for the Republican Party in general and for President G.W. Bush in particular. This is in spite of the fact that both Bush and the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., have routinely ignored and even trampled the very principles which the Religious Right claims to represent. "

(Via k5.)