MAY 19/03: Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. If you find something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". Welcome!
Today's "Winds of War" is a collaboration with M. Simon, a frequent guest blogger here at Winds of Change.NET. Because the incoming format was slightly different, we've divided the report into independent sections (Wider War | Iraq | Roadmap | Iran).
People near the Al-Tuwaitha nuclear weapons facility appear to be coming down with serious radiation sickness, probably as a result of looting radioactive materials. Needless to say, this is disturbing.
Was F-18 pilot Scott Speicher deliberately left as an Iraqi prisoner after Gulf War I? Normally I'd call that a loony-tunes idea, but it's being taken seriously by Pat Roberts (R-Chair of Senate Intelligence Cmte.) and by former Senator Robert Smith (R-NH). It's also the subject of a forthcoming book. Read and decide.
A pilot's bird's eye view of Shock and Awe. An EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft, in fact. Trent wrote about those here.
M.S: Things are not going well in Iraq according to news reports. Chaos and lack of services are the order of the day. Rather than point to news about the debacle here is an opportunity to get heard: Contact President Bush, VP Cheney, and if you're an American your House Member or Senate Member.
M. Simon isn't the only one worried. Michael Totten sees some ominous trends, and Donald Sensing sees it getting worse before it gets better. Howard Veit, meanwhile, is livid: "There is almost certain to be anti U.S. violence now and we have caused it, make no mistake". And this is coming from the PRO-war contingent.
M.S: On the other hand, here's a view that things may not be so bad.
Steven den Beste offers some thoughts of his own, and lays out some next steps as well as some wider perspective toward the end of this article.
One overdue step: more clarity on de-Ba'athification and the permitted role of former Saddam functionaries. Though Yglesias isn't impressed.
WMD: Throwing in the towel... or changing gears?
The link between oil and economic development. Harry's a leftist who makes a disturbing amount of sense. I'm with him on this one.
Got the Queen of Clubs. The "cards" we have captured so far: The CENTCOM list, and the visual version of "Ba'ath Poker."
The USA is breaking some of those captured Saddam supporters by playing non-stop combinations of heavy metal and... Barney the Dinosaur music. Wow, that is evil. The best part is, we'll do the same thing to their kids later - with no coercion required.
Meanwhile, a pro-Saddam pop star was murdered in Iraq. Damn, we were going to use him for the Iranian agents...
The flap over PFC Jessica Lynch's rescue is a complete non-story. But if you're interested, LaughingWolf has 2 excellent analyses of the journalistic flaws, and Instapundit adds a roundup of factual screw-ups. My thoughts are here.
The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, British and Australian. Anyone out there with more information, incl. the Poles and Czechs? [updated April 1, 2003]
MS: We try to close on a lighter note. Here's an interesting bit about sexual morality in the U.S. military. Temptations are high, the risks of being caught are low, and you or someone you love could die tomorrow. Good, bad, or just human nature? You decide. My take is that sex is just another drug to ease the fear.
Friends, I don’t know if you all realize this, but the good Lord has given us the technology to kill folks without destroying His precious oil fields. And that’s important, when you consider the fact that those turban-wearing, moon-worshipping, dirt people have the second largest supply of oil in the world. I see from your faces that some of you petrochemical folks in the Gold Tither pews know where I am going with this! With a reason for the war on the table, we could have flattened Babylon and been looking at a long, steaming summer full of cheap gas instead of unseemly court martials, which are just like catnip to America-hating pansies.