Akablog
Road Map
When politicians start talking about a "Mideast Road Map" I laugh.
The Palestinians couldn't find peace with a
AAA TripTik and a GPS receiver.
The other day I saw a commercial for the Beavis and Butthead DVD collection. I found myself wondering "What ever happened to those guys?"
Sometimes I worry myself.
More thoughts on Tikrit
While I initially agreed with
Andrew's post on why we don't appear to be attacking Tikrit yet, I've come up with another idea.
Perhaps Tikrit is so tribal, so closed, and so filled with those loyal to and afraid of Saddam that our Special Forces ops can't get any traction there. If that were true, we might not have enough intelligence to select targets and spare civilians.
Hopefully as the regime collapses, it will be easier to operate within Tikrit, and while the city will probably take more civilian casualties than Bagdhad, maybe we can take the city without too massive a loss of life.
Understanding the Republican Guard
From
IMAO
Excerpts:
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE IRAQI REPUBLICAN GUARD
* The Republican Guard are so well trained, that, in a one on one fight with U.S. ground troops, they can last into the tens of seconds.
* In a fight between the Republican Guard and Aquaman, the Republican Guard would win... unless Aquaman could somehow trick them into following him into the sea.
* Though many Republican Guards dress up in burkas in the privacy of their own tents, that doesn't make them gay.
* In the first Gulf War, a confused group of Republican Guards accidentally surrendered to some monkeys. The monkeys then bit them (violating the Geneva Convention rules on handling P.O.W.'s) and stole their vehicles and weapons. Legend has it that they still roam the deserts today, reeking havoc as only monkeys do.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Republican Guard!
Hans Blix to Retire
Hans Blix in retirement: "Honey, have you seen my glasses? I swear, I can't find anything around here."
Tikrit
Over on the
Command Post Ian Andrew Castel-Dodge posts speculation, which I've shared in, as to why Coalition forces haven't made any move to attack Tikrit, Saddam's home city. It's not pretty.
Sometimes the Spirit Just Moves You
Gospel, Fury, and Babylon 5
Angel Hints
I read this quote from David Greenwalt, co-creator of
Angel, on the future direction of the series, if there is a future:
David Boreanaz stars in "Angel" as a vampire with a soul, who has been battling evil in Los Angeles after leaving the Sunnydale setting of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," currently airing on UPN. With "Buffy" coming to an end after seven seasons this May, Greenwalt sees even more possibilities. For one, he plans to move beyond the vintage hotel that currently houses Angel and his crew.
"I'm not sure we're going to blow up the hotel," he says, "but the notion is of them going to a place that is more like an advertising agency, lots of glass and light. It's going to be great -- visitors from the 'Buffy'-verse, including a possible regular from the 'Buffy'-verse."
"I think these ideas are so strong that it could run two years. It would be a whole new show. We'd put the characters in a new situation, both financially and physically. It's all about us saying, 'OK, you've been on the Greenpeace ship saying, " Hey, Shell Oil is bad." What happens if you actually have to go work for Shell Oil? What happens if you had to be on the inside, grow up, get a real job?' I'm really excited about it."
What this says to me is that the Angel Investigations crew is going to take over the shattered husk of Wolfram and Hart, which I think would be very cool. It's not like they've paid any attention to the detective aspects of the series this year, anyway.
How do you spell "JDAM"?
The Associated Press has published their
style sheet with spelling and pronunication guidelines for the war. From InsideVC's WarBlog.
Vodkapundit has a good piece on the tactical mistake made by sending out Saddam's Suicide olumn. Be on the lookout for Highway of Death II: JDAM Boogaloo!
Brutal, Nick, Brutal
Nick Denton writes of the Arab Press'
reaction to casualies:
Hell, 15 dead: that's a quiet day in the Arab world. Even imagining the United States was targeting civilians, its efforts are laughable compared with Saddam -- 5,000 dead in the chemical attack on Halabja in one day -- or Assad -- 30,000 shelled to death in Hama -- or pretty much any other Arab ruler. Arab governments -- and their press and public -- should first practice moral judgment on themselves and each other, before turning their outrage on the United States.
Oh yeah?
(Welcome to the Amish Tech Support Blog A Day Tour!)
A group of French vandals
attacked a copy of the Statue of Liberty in Bordeaux.
I dare you cheese-eating surrender-monkeys to try that with the real thing.
If Americans wanted to twist the Eiffel Tower into a metal pretzel, we wouldn't settle for going down to King's Island in Cincinnati or to the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas for some bogus wussy symbolic gesture. We'd send in whatever engineers and demolition experts to Paris in the morning, open up a can of whup-ass on the real deal by noon, and we'd make you pick up our tab for the wine and hotel rooms.
Just wondering.
Can I send illegal campaign contributions to the Ba'ath party? I want to spend the night in the Saladin bedroom.
Once the palace is rebuilt.
Republican Guard Coordination
It seems like the Republican Guard, and possibly the Fedayeen are acting with a lot more coordination the last 2-3 days. This brings to mind a couple of possibilites:
- Saddam has re-established communicaitons, and is directing movements.
- Individual RG commanders deciding that things are desperate enough that initiative will not be punished, are maneuvering their own units, possibly with limited coordination between units.
- Qusay was not in the bunker last week and has been coordinating things all along.
- Some other leader has emerged.
My money's on # 2 or 3. We never heard any report about Qusay that I can remember. It would merely be a matter of establishing secure communications for him to be coordinating the RG. And that could be done by a guy on a motorcycle, given the sandstorm-related slowdown.
Whatever the truth is, they're not acting like chickens with their heads cut off. For now.
Interesting article at Strategy Page:
Top Ten Myths About the War in Iraq
I think it would be more useful if they included links or at least citations. As it is, it's mostly just assertions of information, which probably won't have any persuasive effect, even on those whose minds are open enough to be persuaded.
Go Ecco!
Now the coalition of the willing isn't just multinational, it's
multi-species.
Someone give K-Dog a big bucket of fish!
I've started using Newsdesk to read blogs that have an RSS or XML feed. I highly recommend it. Some blogs (Sgt. Stryker, I'm looking at you) come across a little flaky, but it's a great way to find out who has new content, and keep up with a large number of blogs.
It's a free download at
http://www.wildgrape.net/.
And if you're using Movable Type, or some other software that makes an XML or RSS feed easy, please set it up and include a link on your site.
Of course, in this case, I don't practice what I preach, because as Bob said, I'm not the kind of person I preach to.
Support the Troops
Sgt. Stryker has a
list of organizations you can donate to or contact to support the troops in various ways.
"Yes, My Lord"
I've been seeing pictures of the Fedayeen marching in parade formation in those white cowl and robe uniforms, and I finally figured out what they look like-
The Imperial Guard from Return of the Jedi. You know, the guys in red robes with some kind of staff who never actually fight?
Maybe the Fedayeen could learn a lesson from them.
Here's a page that has copies of the leaflets we've been dropping Iraq. I think the photoshop possibilites are endless.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_art-of-war.htm
