Disharmony in the ranks?

Senior Obama administration officials this week have given sharply different views on how bin Laden would be dealt with if he fell into U.S. hands. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Wednesday that the military would "certainly" try to capture bin Laden alive and "bring him to justice."

A day earlier, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told a congressional panel that bin Laden would never go on trial in the United States because the chances of him being caught alive are "infinitesimal." He predicted flatly that bin Laden will be killed -- either by U.S. forces or by al-Qaeda operatives determined to prevent him from being captured.

Panetta said the agency has a plan in the event that a top al-Qaeda leader is captured. "The most likely scenario is you bring them to a military facility, and we would then do the questioning" there, he said.

Well then, time for the President to settle the issue. What say you, sir?

"We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."

Sounds pretty straightforward to me. In fact, it's a surprisingly clear and unequivocal promise - maybe the only one made in a campaign otherwise characterized by subtle nuance. There's just no way to parse "we will kill bin Laden" to mean something other than "we will kill bin Laden."

Perhaps the president has subsequently determined that wasn't such a great idea after all - but until he says so his orders are clear: Bring. It. On.

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"For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War," writes Gareth Porter of the recent Marjah campaign in Afghanistan.

That statement has some truth to it, but as far as followings go, Olympic Women's Curling probably drew a bigger crowd. And while much of the coverage of the Marjah campaign was outstanding, with many embedded reporters providing details from on-scene, much more of it (no doubt produced with TV ratings in mind) was just awful.

For Porter all that meant maybe, just maybe, he could write a story like this one, and people would believe it.

WASHINGTON, Mar 8, 2010 (IPS) - For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centres in Helmand.

It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.

It's a great conspiracy theory - claiming that a major city was situated precisely where one obviously wasn't is even more audacious than claiming a nation had weapons of mass destruction when they really didn't. But it's riskier, too - anyone spending a minute with Google Earth could expose the "big city" claim as fraud without any room for arguments to the contrary.

"But wouldn't even the most effective propaganda campaign have collapsed," you might wonder, "when at least one of the many reporters embedded with the Marines eventually noticed that the city they were supposedly assaulting did not exist?"

Why, no - they're the obedient major news media, after all. But what happened - in Porter's story - was that one mysterious "official of the International Security Assistance Force" found the courage (or maybe Porter's tenaciousness simply wore him down) to at last admit The Truth.

"It's not urban at all," an official of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who asked not to be identified, admitted to IPS Sunday. He called Marja a "rural community".

"It's a collection of village farms, with typical family compounds," said the official, adding that the homes are reasonably prosperous by Afghan standards.

And now we know that all those DoD and news media photos and videos showing Marjah as a rural area are, um, somehow part of the, er, um... vast military industrial, uh... We are left to imagine what fate might befall that hapless whistle blower if his name was known to those whose evil manipulations he'd exposed!

Okay, no. Actually we aren't. Because that actually is a guy who can't tolerate twisted manipulation of truth - as practiced by Gareth Porter.

Gareth's argument is supported by an ISAF official "who asked not to be identified" confirming that Marjah is a "rural community" -- which adds to the air of a secret plot revealed. Except there's no secret. The official was me, and I didn't ask to be quoted anonymously.

[Porter] has somehow managed to convince himself and a bunch of people repeating his post that briefings and press accounts describing the rural community of Marjah as a "town" or "city" was somehow a misinformation campaign by the evil militarists of 40-plus nations who are committed to eroding their political support by duping the public into extending an unpopular war in the hopes of killing as many brown people as possible. Or something like that. A search for clear motives tends to muddle an otherwise pristine paranoia.

Porter's motive, on the other hand, seems a bit more clear - and he doesn't need to sway rational people to achieve his goal, just enough people. So if an actual US military spokesman is the person telling you Marjah isn't a major urban area, but you still write a story about a US military fraud supported by major media, then describing that (as Sholtis does) as a case of someone jumping "off the Reason Train short of Plausible Junction" sounds just about right. Or maybe too kind.

It's absurd beyond any semblance of reason. But Google a quote from Porter and you'll find quite a crowd - not limited to blogs. Google a quote from the response (which also includes the text of an email sent to Porter) and you'll discover that if there's any such thing as a reason train, it's got plenty of empty seats.

Tasked with briefing the press in Afghanistan, Sholtis has probably seen more than a few of those.

More from Gareth Porter here.

More on Marjah here. (There are plenty of valid reasons it's too bad no one was paying attention...)

More Women's Curling here.

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BillT gets a sendoff:

At about 1600, my Viet Vet Ops bud and I checked the weather charts and agreed it looked dicey, but since the pilots had the final call, we weren't about to second-guess them. Visibility started to improve a bit by 1700, and by 1800, the wind had abated. We were standing outside Ops, talking about pretty much everything except the weather, when the klaxon went off.

Remember I told you about sitting through the obligatory Things To Do When We're Being Mortared brief when we first got there? One of the things they mentioned was that they could guesstimate where a round would hit, and had strategically-located klaxons throughout the FOB - if you heard the klaxon, you were in the vicinity of the predicted impact area, and you'd have about five seconds to get to cover.

The mortar hit before the klaxon got its second *ONNNGGGG!* off.

Read the whole thing. (And a happy Saint Paddy's day to ya'.)

And here's mine from five years ago. The more things change, as they say.

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Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away...

"It's just some ribbon" - until a wounded Iraq vet sees it.

Chuck Z says:

American Idol is one of the Mrs.' guilty pleasures. While I watched it tonight, I was treated to Andrew Garcia, a talented performer, singing something. I can't remember what, however, because I was way to interested in why he was wearing a series of ribbon devices on his pocket. One of those medals is the Army commendation medal. The others I haven't bothered to look up yet.

I'm not surprised the American Idol folks deleted the discussion thread from their web page.

By the way, he performed the worst cover of "Gimme Shelter" I've ever heard.

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It is a great commercial, and that quote is destined for the American cultural lexicon. Remarkable what TV can do.

Now that I've seen "the making of" I still have one question: What ocean is that? The Pacific?

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...Howard Zinn smiles.

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(In fairness, Team America was in 500 fewer theaters. Both films had a per-screen average take of @4,700 dollars.)

On a related note, from days gone by:

UGO: Who did Matt Damon?

TREY: I think we both did, actually.

MATT: We both did parts, but that's not a very tough voice. Anyone could have done that one.

TREY: The way that happened was funny, too, because it wasn't in the script. What's funny is that you can only use one skull that these faces go over so many times, and you'd be like, "Oh, let's make this person." And you try to make them, and it really didn't look that much like them because you always had to deal with the same eye things that define a person's face. Sometimes, you'd get a puppet that looked close, and sometimes you just didn't. With the Matt Damon one, I remember, they brought it down, and we were supposed to shoot Matt Damon that day, and the puppeteers came down and were like, "Here's Matt Damon!" We were like "Dude! That doesn't look like Matt Damon! He looks like retarded!" So what are we going to do? Probably out of all those people, Matt Damon we've met before, and he's actually a pretty cool guy and a talented actor. So it's just because his puppet was screwed up.

Produced with a $32 million budget, Team America ultimately made $50 million in theaters worldwide. Perhaps Green Zone's backers could be saved by foreign audiences.

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What better way to prepare for a miniseries about the Pacific theater in World War II than watching an original propaganda film used to inform the troops and the American public on the real thing? From the Wikipedia entry on Frank Capra's Why We Fight series:

Why We Fight is a series of seven propaganda films commissioned by the United States government during World War II to demonstrate to American soldiers the reason for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American involvement in the war.

Most of the first 5 episodes dealt with Nazi Germany - the primary focus of US efforts in the early months of the war. Episode 6, "The Battle of China" was not released until 1944, years after America's entry into the war.

Is the message being delivered that "we're fighting them because they're... 'different'"? If so, I'm missing it, but I put it here so others can make up their own minds.

I'm not claiming this movie stands as a perfect representation of anything other than what official American war time propaganda was like - it's important that viewers today understand that, just as their parents and grandparents did. But the first thought that occurred to me while watching this film is that anyone who views just the first two minutes will know more about the people, land (including its location), and history of China than the average American knows of Afghanistan today. (The second thought was that any claim that the civilization that produced Sun Tzu "has never fought a war of aggression" in "four thousand years of continuous history" is one of those things I'd want a second opinion on.) But then again, Americans today can be told that "back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs'" and "wanted to annihilate them because they were different" and some will believe it without question.

(And FWIW, this version of the film appears to be one with a message to an Australian audience appended - an excerpt appears in the thumbnail above.)

Now for the bonus material - here's a quick look at a more "Hollywood" version of the war in the Pacific - the trailer from the 1943 20th Century Fox movie Guadalcanal Diary.

The film was based on a book by reporter Richard Tregaskis - "one of only two journalists on location at Guadalcanal."

And no matinee is complete without a cartoon, doc - so here's one from Warner Brothers.

And from the U.S. Naval Institute: more historical background on The Pacific here.

Previously (on The Pacific): How ignorance spreads.

More Mudville entries on The Pacific here.

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Filmed on a budget reported at between 12 and 15 million, Hurt Locker is not a bomb:

The Hurt Locker DVD sales spiked after the film won best picture at the Academy Awards, and analysts said its six Oscars may help double box-office revenue for distributor Summit Entertainment.

By Monday, the Iraq war drama, which won best original screenplay and best director for Kathryn Bigelow had risen to third place from 13th on March 7 on Amazon.com's DVD sales chart. On Thursday it had dropped to No. 4, but expanding the film to 1,000 theaters from 274 in the next few weeks would boost its worldwide box-office sales to an estimated $40 million, said David Joyce, an analyst with Miller Tabak & Co. in New York. The movie has taken in $21.4 million in global ticket sales since its June 26 release, according to Box Office Mojo, a researcher based in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Nice to see it made its way out of the red zone on the balance sheets.

On the other hand, early reports on Jason Bourne's fourth identity (The Green Zone) might have movie execs glancing nervously at the protective gear.

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm not surprised to read it trashes the troops. I would be very surprised to discover that's true, but I'm not surprised to read someone claiming it. Similar complaints have been leveled at the billion-dollar blockbuster Avatar.

Haven't seen The Men Who Stare At Goats yet, either, but the DVD will be released on the 23rd. Did anyone see this one?

(*When I saw that sort of intense concentration on someone's face in Iraq it usually meant "bad decision in the DFAC" the night before.)

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Welcome to the Dawn Patrol, our daily roundup of information on the War on Terror and other topics - from the MilBlogs and various sources around the world. If you're a blogger, you can join the conversation. If you link to any of these stories, add a link to the Dawn Patrol too and your trackback will be added to the list. Hat Tips to the Dawn Patrol are greatly appreciated.Refresh for updates.

AFGHANISTAN

Suicide attackers killed in Afghanistan -- [CNN]
Two suicide attackers, dressed as women, stormed a relief agency in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday and were killed by police before they could detonate their explosives.

US kills 8 terrorists in 2 new airstrikes in North Waziristan -- [LWJ - Bill Roggio]
The US launched a strike in the village of Hamzoni and another in Datta Khel, the second there in two days.

S.N.A.B.U. = Situation Normal All BAF-fed Up -- [Afghanistan My Last Tour - in Afghanistan]
After 2 hours of driving and being bounced around on the Afghan highways like a ping-pong ball, we arrived at our destination. Originally we were planning to drive on to
BAF and then off-load the Humvees. But when we found out about the mountain of paperwork and coordination required to escort our ANA counterparts on the installation, we opted to off-load outside the base and drive them the remainder of the way.

Post Office Doesn't Like Me -- [Afghanistan My Last Tour - in Afghanistan]
Imagine it's your first day on the job and you are responsible for picking up the mail and incoming packages for the camp. You visit the main post office and in a wooden bin they have a stack a mail of that hasn't been picked up in awhile. Then you ask the question "Is there any other mail?" The clerk has this sheepish grin and leads you out back to a metal storage container. Inside the container, there are hundreds of boxes marked with your camp's address. As you examine the boxes closer, you notice most of these boxes are marked for a SMSgt Rex Temple at your camp. You have never met this person and your vehicles don't have enough spare room to haul all of these packages.

Danger Room Explainer: Outsourced Intel in Afghanistan -- [Danger Room]
When is intelligence really intelligence, and when is it merely "atmospherics"? It may sound abstract, but it goes to the heart of a New York Times scoop about a defense official who apparently set up an off-the-books intelligence operation in Afghanistan.
On Monday, the Times ran a story about Michael Furlong, the Defense Department official being investigated over an ad hoc spy ring. The piece raised more questions than it answered, and Washington Post intelligence columnist David Ignatius is now filling in some of the blanks.
In a column today, Ignatius distills the story. "Under the heading of 'information operations' or 'force protection,' he writes, "the military has launched intelligence activities that, were they conducted by the CIA, might require a presidential finding and notification of Congress. And by using contractors who operate 'outside the wire' in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the military has gotten information that is sometimes better than what the CIA is offering."
Ignatius also unpacks some of the curious semantics around this..

IRAQ

Swift, Silent, and Deadly - [David Bellavia]
If you see or hear us before doom comes on you we are either giving you a chance to surrender or screwing up. Just because you don't see or hear anything DOES NOT mean that nothing is happening. With this news media the best news you can hear is deafening silence. That means that the job is getting done without friendly or civilian casualties. They won't tell you about the dead bad guys or successful operations like the LIONESS PROGRAM where WOMEN MARINES contribute to the overall success. That program has gotten little or no press because it empowers Muslim women giving them a voice through AMERICAN Woman WARRIORS. In Iraq this resulted in the taming of Al Anbar and crazy sounding things like the Cows for Widows program and cooperation of Wisconson Dairy Companies in Iraq. Never heard of any of that? Imagine that. Turn off March madness and maybe you'll get a clue

Iraq Votes - Part VI -- [MEMRI]
The Elections Commissions announced yesterday the results of 79% of the votes counted. The results delivered a big surprise showing Ayad Allawi's Al-iraqiya slate ahead of Prime Minister Al-Maliki's State of Law by a few thousand votes. This is not much given that the counting of the votes is still going on, but the State of Law has already asked for a recount, particularly in the Province of Baghdad claiming fraud.[1]
The fact, however,...

Mission Accomplished: Astroturfing Baghdad -- [Danger Room]
Lots of strange press releases land in my inbox, but the first line of this one stood out: "The world leader in artificial turf is proud to announce that the first artificial turf sports field in Iraq for the U.S. Government has been installed at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad."

U.S. AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD

Allies everywhere feeling snubbed by President Obama -- [Washington Post]
The contretemps between President Obama and Israel needs to be seen in a broader global context. The president who ran against "unilateralism" in the 2008 campaign has worse relations overall with American allies than George W. Bush did in his second term.

Chahar-Shanbeh Souri -- [Planet Iran]
People are chanting a new message to Obama saying: "Hossein, Hossein, stop trying to talk to our murderers!"

WAR ON TERROR /TERRORISM

If bin Laden is found, he'll be killed, Holder says -- [AP]
Holder: If bin Laden found, he'll be killed -- Osama bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom," Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told House members at a hearing Tuesday. -- "Let's deal with the reality here,"

ACLU files lawsuit for information on US Predator program -- [Threat Matrix]
The American Civil Liberties Union has followed up its Freedom of Information Act request that was filed in January seeking information on the US Predator program. Today, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the the Defense Department, the State Department, and the Justice Department, demanding enforcement of its January request for information on the program. The full press release release from the ACLU is..

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS

Army Suicides Grow, but This Soldier Was Saved -- [Politics Daily]
...Alone in his barracks room at Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah, Sanders, a soft-spoken young man with a pleasant demeanor, seized his M-4 carbine, put the barrel under his chin, squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger.
When Sanders pulled the trigger of his loaded carbine, there was only a light click. Horrified both at what he had done and what he had failed to do, Sanders tore open his weapon, searching frantically to find why it hadn't fired. He quickly identified the reason: no firing pin.
At that moment his roommate, Spec. Albert Godding, walked in. "Where's my firing pin -- I don't have a firing pin!'' Sanders yelled, terrified that he'd misplaced that critical piece and would get in trouble for losing it. "And how,'' Godding asked gently, "did you discover it was missing?'' When Sanders realized what had happened -- that Godding was worried enough that he'd removed the firing pin ...

Silver Star Winner Reprimanded for Afghan Battle -- [ABC]
Three Army officers have received letters of reprimand for failing to prepare adequate defenses for a combat outpost in Wanat, Afghanistan, where a mass Talibanattack in July 2008 resulted in the deaths of nine soldiers and 27 wounded, Defense Department officials confirmed to ABC News.
"These are essentially career-enders," said a military official of the letters of reprimand.
Two Defense Department officials said the actions are not yet final because the review that led to the letters of reprimand is still ongoing and the three officers have a period of time to respond and request reconsideration of the disciplinary action.
Among the three officers receiving the letters of reprimand is Capt. Matthew Myer, the company commander of the unit attacked at Wanat, who was awarded the Silver Star for his brave actions in repelling the attack.

Making today matter -- [Soldiers Angels Germany]
From Chaplain Campbell of Warrior's Sanctuary:
Last weekend while my wife and I were returning from a quick shopping trip we saw some flashing lights on the other side of the freeway. Not from a police car or a fire truck. The flashing lights were from large "Am Buses" transporting our wounded warriors to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Navy Medical Center at Bethesda.
And it got him to wondering,

MILITARY

Arrrrrrmy Training, SIR! -- [This Ain't Hell]
I'm sure you've all read that the Army, for some stupid reason, is changing basic training. Their reasons are specious and indicative of why Army training was changed thirty years ago.
...The Army wants to do away with the endurance running and focus on some sort of short distance sprints and zig-zagging. Dicksmith seems pleased about. I'd remind the Army and dicksmith that endurance running builds soldiers' immune systems and their aerobic capacity - improving their overall internal health. Do away with distance running and you're going to make the force less effective.

WELCOME HOME

Bushrod honors were not misplaced -- [Fredericksburg.com]
Jermon Bushrod's return to King George after his Super Bowl victory resulted in some letters that I feel were way off mark ["Football players aren't 'heroes,' King George," Feb. 26].
Mr. Bushrod is a millionaire, no doubt. He also happens to be one of the most humble, respectful gentlemen you will come across.
He's a local boy who has done good and provides a positive role model for our kids. He deserves accolades for all his accomplishments and the example he sets.
To compare him and his welcome home to our troops in harm's way displays an agenda or maybe a misguided avenue to express a point.
As a 24-year military veteran, I certainly had no issue with the fanfare in which Mr. Bushrod was welcomed home. Nor, do I suspect, did any of my fellow service members, active or not. Maybe a more powerful message would come from a letter expressing a desire to read more of the positive stories involving our troops, instead of the dirty laundry.

They're Coming Home! -- [KBND]
We are going to have four welcome home celebrations. One in Portland, one in Bend, one in Medford, and one in the Eugene Springfield area.

THE MEDIA/CULTURE

It's just some ribbon. -- [From my Position...]
American Idol is one of the Mrs.' guilty pleasures. While I watched it tonight, I was treated to Andrew Garcia, a talented performer, singing something. I can't remember what, however, because I was way to interested in why he was wearing a series of ribbon devices on his pocket. One of those medals is the Army commendation medal. The others I haven't bothered to look up yet.

Social Media Sites Provide Morale Boost, Official Says -- [Defense Link]
A newly introduced Defense Department social media policy opens doors that can provide a morale boost for families and troops serving in a war zone, a senior official who helped to design the policy said this week.

POLITICS

GE and Ronald Reagan: The Mutual Gift That Keeps On Giving -- [Politics Daily]
As part of a one-year celebration to honor the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth, General Electric will run ads honoring the 40th president's legacy -- and will donate $10 million to The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library

The Petraeus briefing: Biden's embarrassment is not the whole story -- [Foreign Policy Blog]
The Mullen briefing and Petraeus's request hit the White House like a bombshell. While Petraeus's request that CENTCOM be expanded to include the Palestinians was denied ("it was dead on arrival," a Pentagon officer confirms), the Obama administration decided it would redouble its efforts -- pressing Israel once again on the settlements issue, sending Mitchell on a visit to a number of Arab capitals and dispatching Mullen for a carefully arranged meeting with the chief of the Israeli General Staff, Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi. While the American press speculated that Mullen's trip focused on Iran, the JCS Chairman actually carried a blunt, and tough, message on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that Israel had to see its conflict with the Palestinians "in a larger, regional, context" -- as having a direct impact on America's status in the region. Certainly, it was thought, Israel would get the message.
Israel didn't. When Vice President Joe Biden was embarrassed by an Israeli announcement that the Netanyahu government was building 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, the administration reacted. But no one was more outraged than Biden who, ...

HUMOR/SATIRE

Day By Day

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