for comparison's sake...

...the GI guide to Iraq, 2003 edition. Thanks, Wired!

GI guide to Iraq...

...from 1943!

Pdf here.
Hat Tip: Wired

sick and wrong

video of American soldiers in Iraq taunting kids with bottles of clean water. one to pair with the "Humvee Traffic Driving in Baghdad"

Now let's get out there and win those hearts and minds!!

The Termite Mound

Blog post at The Sandbox - Doonesbury's military blog for soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. This one describes conditions at a combat outpost in baghdad - very WWI-like conditions it seems.

http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2007/04/the_termite_mou.html

Ends with news coming down that DoD has unilaterally extended rotations to 15 months... they find out through Yahoo news, not from the military itself. And they know some of them will die because of that decision.

Buying the War

Bill Moyers documentary on the press in the runup to the Iraq War. (90 min) How did they get it so wrong? How did the press come to be a simple relay for administration talking points, rather than a source for analysis and evaluation?

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

AP picture "shows" soldier flipping bird

The latest in the wingnut/moonbat photoshop wars. Contrast with Soviet and other historical modifying of photography. Now people are more sophisticated, both in the techniques to edit photos or to detect the modification. But it's still just as effective if people only get the first photo and never see the debunking.

http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/223905.php