Blogging to here now during the war. The Command Post.

Sign the Thank You Note to our Troops. So far, 8.6 million have.

Blogging to here now during the war. The Command Post.

Blogging to here now. The Command Post.

I'll be blogging the war at The Command Post. Please visit.

I'll be blogging the war at The Command Post. Please visit.

I'll be blogging the war at The Command Post. Please visit.

Use This Sun Clock to Track Day and Night in Iraq.

Massive triple A fire at 9:41pm

9:35 pm B-52s in the Air to "prep battlefield" - reports NBC.

9:33 pm EST First Sirens Reported on NBC - Jitters Build.

BBC Blogger in Baghdad:

Baghdad :: Rageh Omar :: 0115GMT

Baghdad is a completely quiet city. Standing in my hotel room looking out across the skyline and the streets below, I have seen only one car driving at high speed in the last hour. All the streets are deserted.

People have gone to their homes and have stayed there. Last night just after dusk I was walking around and all the shops were shuttered up and people were trying to get home. The streets are empty

People have made their preparations, the market has been full in recent days of people buying what they could, gas lamps, masking tape, dried foods. Now that the deadline has run out people are at home and are likely to stay at home.

I would still describe it as an open city, you would imagine Bagdhad would be braced for war in a military sense. You would imagine tanks on the streets, checkpoints, troops on the junctions of main roads, but they are not there. You do find a few sandbag positions with a couple of soldiers there, but that's it.

I went out to the edge of Baghdad to one of the main highways to the north and there was nothing there really, it was an eerie feeling. To the naked eye driving around here, there is no sense of this being a militarised city.

Hungary Grants US Airspace Permission:

United States and United Kingdom aircraft bound for Iraq will be allowed to use Hungarian airspace and designated airports, the Government has decided.
The US and the UK requested the use of Hungarian airspace and airports on Saturday, March 15.
The national security cabinet stated that no Parliamentary approval was needed to grant the use of airspace to foreign aircraft, basing its position on a 1998 resolution asserting the right of the Government to decide in cases of countries using Hungarian airspace in order to implement Iraq-related UN resolutions.

The EU is Dying:

With these prospects no longer in play, the EU is little more than yesterday’s answer to the day before’s problems. The only goal it has to propose is the utopian fantasy of opposing the presumed hyper-power which is the United States. Unfortunately, no one can really say why this bureaucratic behemoth should oppose the US, nor can anyone give a reasonable account of how the EU would go about its quixotic mission. All we have are a sad combination of old-style leftist internationalists seeking to reinvigorate failed doctrines with a dash of anti-Americanism.

Read the whole thing.

BRUTAL!!!. An Instant Classic:
This anti-war spokeswoman is so poorly informed, it hurts to listen. Find the link here.

Hypocrites - Russians Have Killed Tens of Thousands of Civilians in Chechnya:
On the floor of the Security Council the Russians plead for the lives of Iraqi civilians while butchering civilians daily in Chechnya. The French may buy into this hypocritical song and dance, but thank goodness the US won't. I predict fewer Iraqi civilians will die during the entire liberation of Iraq than die each week in Chechnya.

"At the same time, incendiary air bombs, cluster bombs and containers were being extensively used by Russian troops to torch Chechen facilities and to destroy manpower concentrations, along with other air-delivered incendiary weapons, including so-called "vacuum" or "fuel" bombs. At time of these bombings by incendiary weapons there were several thousand Chechen fighters in Grozny, and up to 100,000 civilians. The true number of civilian casualties among the Chechnya civilian population in not known and actually is one of Moscow's best kept secrets. But there is some concrete evidence from independent observers that tens of thousands civilians, including women and children have been killed by incendiary weapons alone."

A Remarkable Letter Sent to a Catholic Priest from a Devout Follower:

March 13, 2003

Father John O'Connor
Saint Francis of Assisi Parish
18825 Fuller Heights Road
Triangle, Virginia 22172-2007

Father John,

Prior to the 9:30 AM Mass on March 9, 2003, I read your letter to parishioners citing the criticism you have received concerning the homilies given concerning the Iraq situation. The criticism is well-deserved. Add my letter to a hopefully growing collection. 

The prayers for petition offered at Mass Sunday - specifically the second - praying that President Bush and the Administration “step back from the brink of war”, I believe portrayed the President and Administration as warmongers.  Whether the wording of the petition was intentional or not, I found it outrageous and offensive. To offer that petition after first praying for our men and women in harm’s way was arrogant and a direct affront to those who are executing national policy and to those people within this parish who have expressed concerns to you previously. It was ignorant because in case it has escaped the Church’s notice, the United States is engaged in a global war on terrorism and all its connections – wherever they exist and against whomever supports them.

I believe the Franciscans and, unfortunately, the Pope are wrong on this matter. On no other issue have I ever disagreed with the Pope, so I assure you it is an opinion not blithely formed. The Pope's public criticism of the Administration is invalid in my view.  No nation sacrifices its sovereignty and its right to unilateral action; our national defense is not subject to any other nation’s veto. For the Franciscans to insinuate that the President or any member of the Administration thirsts for war by employing our Armed Forces is unconscionable. It is a moral imperative to pray for peace, which we all fervently desire, but I believe it is wrong to use the power of the pulpit to state or infer that any sovereign nation needs anyone else’s approval to wage war in defense of itself. 

I work within the Department of Defense and have served my entire adult life in our nation's defense.  I can tell you without qualm that no one wants war.  It appears where the polar differences of opinion lie between those who agree with the Administration's actions and those who oppose them is not just the seriousness of the threat facing us but also the utility and willingness to employ military force to either coerce or compel the achievement of legitimate national objectives. 

Anyone involved in the profession of arms and diplomacy knows full well who pays the price for war and what war entails.  Coercing acquiescence is always preferable. Make no mistake - it is the threat of force so far that is coercing Iraq’s actions – but there are limits to coercion. Where it and diplomacy fall short of achieving national objectives, the application of force follows. It appears however that there are people within the United States who are all too willing to sacrifice freedom and even national sovereignty for “peace”, when in fact we have not been at “peace” with radical Islamic fundamentalists and their allies for decades. Further, no nation, our erstwhile “allies” France and Germany included, will ultimately have any security if the prerogative of national security must always be put to a collective and trumping “democratic” vote inside the United Nations. 

Friends, peers and family members are in harm's way paying a price as well-intentioned and not-so-well-intentioned people dither about the threat and criticize and undermine national policy and strategy - all under the protection of the First Amendment.  I see no glory for my friends, peers and family members, however, in sacrificing for people ultimately opposed to what they are actually doing, no matter the prayers offered for them that are then followed by not-so veiled criticism of the Administration.

A copy of this letter is being sent to Bishop Loverde, to our troops overseas, and I intend to provide a copy to fellow parishioners. 

Sincerely,

Michael W********

From P.J. O'Rourke's Holidays In Hell.

P.J.'s response to a typical Euroweenie whining about how Americans don't understand war, that they think war is...

"A John Wayne movie," I said. "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie -- with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well you know something, Mr. [Froggy] Poofter? You're right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They're us. WE BE BAD.
"We're the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We're three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car-wreck and descended from a stock-market crash on our mother's side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together, and it wouldn't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original giant, economy-sized new and improved butt-kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats Cap d'Antibes. And we've got an American Express credit card limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go."
"You say our countries never been invaded? You're right, little buddy. Because I'd like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who'd have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying 'Cheerio'. Hell can't hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer, and buy more things than you know the name of. I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than King, Queen, and Jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and spit them out before lunch."
Of course, the guy should have punched me. But this was Europe. He just smiled his shabby, superior European smile. (God, don't these people have dentists?)

Chiraq -The Iraqi Spokesman:
Imagine Paris' chagrine when they realized that they had rejected the British compromise even BEFORE the Iraqis had a chance to.

What Price Liberty?:

The American colonies had 4,435 combat fatalities out of a population of 3,500,000 people for a loss rate of .126% of population in our fight for liberty. That is the initial military price we paid for our freedom. A comparable military loss for Iraq as it gains its freedom from Saddam would be 28,571 combat fatalities (.00126 x 22,675,617).

Another comparsion worthy of note (suggested by Steve Den Beste) is civilian deaths during a war of liberation. 350,000 French men and women perished in WWII, .875% of its 40 million population. A corresponding civilian death rate for an Iraq war to be free of Saddam would be 198,000 civilian dead.

I don't know what this means, but I think it means that liberty always comes with a price. Those who desire freedom on the cheap will always fail.

The New France, Same As the Old France:
French treachery leads to a prolonged war against evil -- France's Petain collaborates with the Nazis.

Ralph Peters Tells The Truth About the Dirty French:

The sorry truth is that Europeans love to cry over corpses, but won't lift a finger to prevent the killing in the first place. They shake their heads over the Holocaust, though their parents were happy enough to pack the local Jews off to Auschwitz.

The French grudgingly accept that their intellectuals defended Stalin long after evidence of his crimes came to light, but they avoid the issue of how many of their thinkers and artists admired Hitler and profited from the Occupation (French cafes and cabarets boomed under the Nazis).

Was there ever an African dictator the French didn't adore? The Dutch criticize America's military as trigger-happy, but their own troops didn't fire a shot in defense of the Muslims of Srebrenica, who they had been tasked to protect and whose slaughter was the worst single massacre on European soil since the end of the Second World War.