From the Multi-National Force Web Site:

RAMADI — Lance Cpl. Brandon R. Musser is just one of many Marines from 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment patrolling the streets of one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq while wearing 50 plus pounds of armor under a scorching sun.

And he and his comrades are doing it with no complaints.

On June 20, Musser and other Marines with 3rd Platoon, Company L, conducted snap vehicle check points during a patrol in the capital of Al Anbar province. Marines were on the look out for suspicious activity while disrupting insurgent movement through the city.

“We just went out and did some snap VCPs and patrolled the area to get a feel for the local population,

In the face of all the calls to negotiations over the war in the middle east, just in case anyone was wondering what the position of Iran is, we are reminded again today:

In Teheran, the government has sanctioned billboards showing Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and a message that it is the duty of Muslims to “wipe out” Israel. 

If Hezbollah is the surrogate of Iran, and Iran’s position is that it is the duty of all Muslims to wipe out Israel, then negotiations are nothing more than a temporary truce to allow the Muslim forces to re-group and re-arm.  Israel enters negotiations at its peril.

Michelle Malkin has an interesting piece on the power outage in Queens.  They have been without power for six days and nights, and business is bleeding.  The story on the effects to local economy will be a long time being told.  But there is this little nugget of gold at the end of her post:

I hope DHS is paying attention.

U.S. targets are so soft that it really is worrisome.  Now we can add one more soft target to the list, if Hezbollah is watching and listening.  Any future Hezbollah attack in the U.S. might not just involve contamination of drinking water supplies for large population centers, destruction of infrastructure such as buildings and bridges, disruption of financial centers like New York and Charlotte, or the myriad of other pernicious and dastardly things that they could perpetrate.

What if Hezbollah hits power grid infrastructure for the 25 largest population centers in the U.S.?  Is this an issue not only for DHS but for U.S. utilities as well?  U.S. utilities protect generation assets with security forces commensurate with the investment of resources.  What about the transmission assets?

The U.S. is moving more troops into Baghdad.  This is something we have followed, and it appears that the coming battle for the future of Iraq is being fought (and will be fought in the near future) in Baghdad.  This is a must win battle.  We cannot lose this and still win in Iraq.  Keep our troops in your prayers.

Prior:

• More on the Battle for Baghdad
• Battle for Baghdad Coming

From a Haaretz commentary:

The Pentagon is following the fighting in Lebanon closely. They believe the key is Israel’s ability to strike at the rocket deployment that Hezbollah received from Iran. The Pentagon regards the rocket deployment as strategic for Iran. That is why Israel must destroy it. Washington’s expectations are also reflected in the swift delivery of bombs and munitions from the United States to Israel.

Translation: In any future altercation, Iran holds the power to punish Israel for any action that the U.S. might take (by “pulling the trigger” for Hezbollah to fire off the rockets again).  This would be true in a war with Iran (military altercation) or U.N. sanctions (political altercation).  Unless Israel can destroy the arsenal Hezbollah has built via Iran and Syria, this threat remains into the foreseeable future and could effect U.S. planning and strategy.

Think of this as a smaller version of the Cuban missile crisis.

The NYT is reporting:

WASHINGTON, July 21 — The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

What simpletons.  Think about it.  The U.S. = Iran, and Israel = Hezbollah.  This is the equation in their thinking — and in the thinking of much of the U.S. left.

It’s too bizarre to need rebuttal.  It is prima facie absurd.

The NYT is reporting:

WASHINGTON, July 21 — The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

What simpletons.  Think about it.  The U.S. = Iran, and Israel = Hezbollah.  This is the equation in their thinking — and in the thinking of much of the U.S. left.

It’s too bizarre to need rebuttal.  It is prima facie absurd.

The World Tribune has this from Israel’s military stunned by the failure of its air war:

Israel’s new chief of staff, an air force general, believed that most of Israel’s future operations would be conducted from the air. 

Military leaders were convinced that with superior communications and air power they did not even need new U.S. “bunker buster” munitions to root out terror leaders in underground hideaways.

Today, this vision of air power as a panacea has been shattered.

Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz and his advisers have been stunned by the failure of Israel’s air war against Hizbullah, which has shrugged massive air bombings on its headquarters in Beirut to maintain the rocket war against the Jewish state.

“Air power is not the answer here,” a senior officer said. ‘You have to go from one Hizbullah [weapons] bunker to another. Some of these bunkers are seven meters deep and can’t be destroyed by aircraft, even if you could find them.” 

Most of the blogs, including us, predicted days ago that air power alone would not suffice.  In other news, The Israeli ground forces are “Ready to Roll.”

I have longed to be more like Michael Fumento, whose prose so infuriates the left that he has an entire page dedicated to hate mail.

On my post “The Iran War Plans,” someone named rick (sic) opines:

You are an idiot. ’nuff said.

Loud applause!  Thank you rick (sic).  But please, in the future, be a little more verbose so that I will have something with which to fill my “hate mail” page (under development if I can just get some more hate mail).  I want to compete with Michael.  I want to be like Mike.  I want to be like Mike.

Postscript: I will be updating my Iran War Plans (in which I discussed the difficulties of a direct ground invasion) with Iran war plans of my own.  Now, if I can just get the Pentagon to listen.  Come back soon, now, rick (sic).

The North County Times has a new article out on the Camp Pendleton 8 (i.e., Hamdania incident).

Attorneys for accused troops say Marine Corps hampering defenses

By: MARK WALKER – Staff Writer

CAMP PENDLETON —- Attorneys for two of seven Marines charged with premeditated murder in the shooting of an Iraqi civilian in April accused the military Thursday of refusing to provide basic information necessary to prepare their defenses.

They also complained that the Marine Corps has denied a request that they be allowed to hire an independent investigator to travel to the scene of the incident.

“The government had no problem sending my client over there three times in defense of our country’s freedoms and liberties,” said attorney Joseph Low, who represents Cpl. Marshall Magincalda. “Therefore, they should have no objection to sending an investigator over there once in defense of those rights that he risked his life for.”

Lt. Col. Sean Gibson at Camp Pendleton said it would be premature to send an investigator to Iraq before hearings are held later this summer to determine whether the charges against the seven Marines and one Navy corpsman stand.

This is outrageous.  Lt Col. Gibson seems to lay this assertion out there as if it is an objectively verifiable truth.  In reality, the statement could have read: “The United States Marine Corps wants to give full opportunity for discovery and evidence-gathering throughout the duration of the process, and so we have approved several visits for defense counsel.”  It would have made more sense.  The statement taken by itself is nonsensical.  It lacks any backdrop, explanation or substantiation.  It certainly does not appear to be legally required, and if it is not, then for what reason would the request of defense counsel be “premature?”

But as outrageous as this is, there is this stunning little nugget of gold couched in the article:

Attorney Jane Siegel, who represents Pfc. John Jodka III of Encinitas, also said the Marine Corps has told her it does not intend to produce any Iraqi witnesses at the hearings.

This obviously refers to the Article 32 hearing.  But continuing:

Gibson said there is no assurance that any of Awad’s relatives or any other witnesses interviewed in Iraq would come to the U.S. for the hearings or any subsequent trials.  “There is no mechanism in place to compel them to testify,” Gibson said.

If there are no witnesses who can give reliable, substantial, compelling and consistent testimony, then the whole ordeal is over and the Marines (and Corpman) should be set free immediately.

I am no lawyer, and so I cannot speak to the legal rules of evidence.  But I did spend some time studying in seminary, and have done some thinking about the Biblical requirements for evidence.  Yes, the Bible does have quite a lot to say about this.  I will post on this in the near future.  The post will focus on the moral requirements for evidence rather than the legal requirements.  In other words, I will focus on God’s expectations for evidence rather than the expectations of the UCMJ or military protocol (this is after all my web site and I can do what I want).  Stay tuned.  Oh, by the way.  Just as a teaser for this future post, the use of confessions in a trial is a throwback to ancient middle eastern protocol.  In western civilization (i.e., Europe and the U.S.) we have historically disallowed confessions in trials due to the Christian influence on our system of law, and this is unique in the world (although this is changing as we give more weight to confessions).  And the reason?  Confessions can be forced or coerced.

I know this sits hard with many of you; especially police.  But I had to deal with this in seminary when I studied it (in Biblical Ethics), and I intend to post what I believe to be the truth on this subject.

Tighten your belts and stay tuned.