NUKE_CLEVELAND

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 7, 2007 -> 09:55 AM) Tossing this log on the campfire. My guess is the average citizen is more likely to be involved in a traffic accident than being robbed, assaulted, etc. So those people actively involved in public safety should spend time in the areas that would decrease the most likely threat to body and property. So aggressive enforcement of traffic laws make sense. The undercover part seems silly and cost ineffective. Perhaps there is more to the story like a specific problem at a specific location? Honestly, this whole deal begs the question: Don't these police departments have anything better to do than dress up a cop as a whino and hand him a radar gun?

Well. If he's telling fairy tales to the press that's a bad deal and he should be punished. I haven't read his stories at all, but the way I see it, the press doesn't need anymore help undermining the war effort.

Back again. Nothing really much happening on our watch lately. There's been a rash of car bombs and IED's during the daytime, though. Fortunately, through 5 attacks since my last entry there has been only one man slightly hurt. Guess you can chalk that up to good luck. We've been continuing on with nothing but night missions and spending a lot of time targeting members of the Al Queda cell in our area. Unfortunately, we've nailed most of the major players in our area and now they're starting to come over from the REALLY bad area next to ours. I guess that takes the pressure off of the unit next to ours but it's a pain in the ass for us because we can't do too much about it. The bad guy's latest thing is to try to hit us with car bombs. As a result, we keep a nice wide buffer between civilian traffic and ourselves. Just this morning some jackass drove right up near our patrol and my gunner stitched his ass up with machine gun fire. It was pretty sweet.....he laid 7 rounds right across his hood. One of these days the locals are going to learn to give us our space........and then they'll come up with some new way to mess with us.........and the cycle will repeat. SIGH. One good thing, I guess, is that in most areas there has been a sharp drop in attacks so I suppose that's good news. That's about all for now.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 01:13 PM) Sounds like a touchy situation. He still needs to be slapped down for that, regardless of intent, I guess it is just a matter of 'how hard'. Looks like he's going to get busted all the way down to nothing and rightfully so.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jul 22, 2007 -> 12:16 PM) Nuke, in your latest entry, did I read that correctly? Is there someone in your unit that potentially a traitor? Giving out info as to what you look for and don't look for That just doesn't sound right. If true, he needs to be in a world of hurt, with everything legally able to do. There's a grey line between being an OPSEC ( operational security ) violator and a traitor. Basically it all boils down to malicious intent. If a guy is knowingly giving away information then he's a traitor but if he is doing so, as this guy was, by just not watching what he was saying, then no. The whole concept of "Loose Lips Sink Ships" applies here. You may be having just a normal conversation with a person but if you're really not careful about what you say, then you can give away small bits of information that can be pieced together to form a larger picture.

Lots to talk about today. Last night we got some intel about where the Al Queda cell leader in our area was living as well as where one of his lieutenants was staying. Word came down right before we left for the evening that we had a couple of hits laid on and while we were out there we got the final word to execute. Having done that, our CO, my platoon leader, myself and a small security team took over an abandoned building to plan out the raid. Once that was complete, we went in. We used the hit on the lower level guy as sort of a dress rehearsal for the big fish. The 1st hit went off without a hitch. We snuck into his front yard, popped the lock and then crashed the door. Our boy was sleeping right there in his living room and we cuffed and questioned him, then stuck him in the back of one of our trucks. On the second hit, we were expecting trouble. This guy was a big shot and we expected him to have some sort of security around his house. Turns out he wasn't quite so scrupulous about his safety so getting in was a snap. As before, we caught the bastard sleeping and rolled his ass up as well. So. That's 2 more really big fish off the streets. Not bad for a nights work if I may say so. Now comes the really fun part. There's a guy in my section who was caught having instant message communications with a local national who lives in our sector. This local national is known to have friends who are part of the local Al Queda cell that we've been taking apart over the last 2 months. There's no way to really know what was discussed because nothing was archived. It could have been perfectly harmless or maybe not. One thing that is for certain, though is that last night while we were talking to a source of ours, this guy ran into his IM buddy and in the course of conversation, started making suggestions about what type of driving behavior will arouse our suspicions out on the roads. You see there has been a huge problem with car bombs lately and when alarm bells get set off, triggers get pulled. So, yeah. This guy is getting ready to have the whole world come down on his head and I have absolutely no sympathy for him whatsoever. Every time he opens up his yap or types on a computer he endangers us. That's about all for the moment. We have more fun and games possibly lined up for tonight so we'll see what happens.

Now that the board is back up I suppose I better get back to work here. Since my last entry there hasn't really been a lot going on out here. Now that we're patrolling at night we have no contact with the locals........unless we're raiding houses looking for bad guys.......and most of the time it's so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Most nights we'll either just park on the main road and keep a lookout or if we're feeling frisky we'll get a bunch of guys together, pick out an abandoned house with some height to it and set up a dismounted overwatch of area. Kinda funny to watch some local crap his pants when he steps out on his rooftop and we shine a green laser in their face from 4 blocks away. When we're not playing laser tag with the locals or sitting on a screen line, we're raiding houses. Every night we get with the intelligence guys and try to figure out where these people are staying. In recent weeks we've really managed to really keep Al Queda off balance in the area. Our platoon alone has netted 5 dudes involved with them in the last 4 weeks and the squadron as a whole has wrapped up more than 30. Many times we end up with bad intel and hit the wrong house or just miss the guy but when we nail one of these pricks it's really cool. Anyhow, that's about all for now. Since things have been so boring lately there hasn't been too much to write about. I kinda hope it stays that way.

LOL! Now the attention whore is threatening to challenge Pelosi unless impeachment proceedings are brought against President Bush. HAHAHAHAHA!!! http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Back again. I've been out guarding this U.S/Iraqi compound the last few days but just before that I had a little fun. The night before we went out on guard, we rolled up 2 high value targets in our area. We got some intel that a bomb-maker was living and operating in our area. So, we roll up on his house at 3 AM, crash the door and catch him asleep. After questioning him for a little while he rolls over on his buddy across the street who has been paying him off. We go over there and he has this big metal gate closing off his house and it's locked. No worries though. We backed up a humvee, attached a tow cable and ripped the sucker off it's hinges, THEN crashed the house. We caught that guy trying to pull his pants on and run out the back. It's probably better for him that he didn't run outside because my truck was behind the house and I ordered my gunner to blow away anybody coming out the back. So, all in all it was a really good night. Took a couple of major players out of circulation without firing a single shot.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jul 1, 2007 -> 10:49 AM) Of course. But they are here because of demand, as a country, it is in our best interest to make certain that we respond in our best interest, not what is politically popular today. We'd be cutting off our nose to spite our face by just deporting 12,000,000 WORKERS and their families. The businesses will suffer and so will we. Put in a plan that fills the needs of American business and controls the number of immigrants, I'm more in favor of reducing the H1B VISA program and creating more high end jobs for Americans than trying to push low end jobs on Americans. Our education system is better than that. In this case, business NEEDS to suffer. They openly flout the laws of this country all in the name of profit and saddle the rest of us with the burden of providing these criminals with social services.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jul 1, 2007 -> 07:28 PM) Since it appears that at least two of the people involved were doctors, and not the poverty-stricken victims that were forced into jihad, can we now cross poverty off as the root cause of terrorism? It is time to seriously consider restricting immigration of all Muslims to our country. That should have been done a long time ago. Lax immigration policies are turning the whole of Western Europe into a terrorist breeding ground. This will not get better anytime soon.

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ Jul 1, 2007 -> 08:50 PM) I think it's much more complicated than that... What then, do you call selecting someone solely because they're black.....or hispanic.......or asian?

The world is a really nasty place and the islamo-fascist movement is the driving force behind most of it. This is just further proof that the "religion of peace" is a misnomer for what is really a violent and oppressive religion.

Back again. Last week or so has been very quiet. Basically, command has come to the conclusion that there needs to be U.S. forces in our sector 24/7. This seems to be paying off for us because since we've started this our sector has been about as quiet as can be. Meanwhile, the sector about a kilometer west of us has seen multiple IED attacks and complex ambushes during the same period. One thing that really sticks in my craw about this situation, though, is the fact that the Iraqi security forces are nowhere to be seen. We're doing all the patrolling and they do little more than man a few checkpoints and sit on their asses at their base. They claim they're "scared" to go out into the neighborhoods. Well s*** dude, I'm sorry if you're scared but you need to do your f***ing job! So yeah, if we have someone out there 24/7 we can keep a lid on things but this is no way to get us to where we need to be and that's with the Iraqi's doing everything and us heading home.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jun 30, 2007 -> 08:26 PM) It's a no win for many of those companies. With excellent forged documents so readily available, the could be getting punished for being a victim. And if you owned the business who would you rather hire? Someone who risks their lives for the job or someone who you finally got to accept the job because you raised the wages high enough? We need a bill that ties immigration levels to job growth. Unemployment rates have been low for decades and there are still illegals entering this country. It's simple supply meeting demand. If unemployment was higher I could see the argument. But an accountant isn't going to accept a $10 per hour job, he will continue to look for suitable employment. Yeah. Tie LEGAL immigration to job growth. Stopping ILLEGAL immigration needs to be done first.

Diversity at any cost is wrong. All the time I was going to grade school I could never understand why the bussed black kids in from 12 miles away ( passing several schools on the way ) just to bring them to my school and to this day I still don't.

Once again my internet has been on the fritz, so that explains my lack of entries for this amount of time. Nothing really going on that merits discussion though. I know the news has been all lit up with action in and around Baghdad but fortunately for me and my troops in the last 10 days nearly all that action has been limited to northern Baghdad and Diyala province. That's fine with us, I guess. Coming up this week we have a shift in missions. Instead of running around during daylight hours and talking to people we're trading out with the unit that does overwatch and curfew enforcement at night. So with that, the prospects for us to be able to party just went up a lot. We'll just have to see how things go.

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 02:48 PM) http://www.mcclatchydc.com/200/story/17133.html They are looking to give $6.5 billion or an 18% increase to VA hospital discretionary funds but are facing some opposition from the White House. The bills are increasing the requests originally made by the White House. The House of Rep. bill includes an extra $604 million for new initiatives in treating mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. It includes an extra $508 million for maintaining and renovating buildings. I really hope this passes. Aside from immigration, this has been one real sore spot with me when it comes to the Bush Administration. If the government can find money for all the nonsense it wastes money on then surely it can spend what it needs to spend to take care of the people it sends off to war. Following that whole Walter Reed scandal made me sick to my stomach and this parallels closely to that story.

Well. As I sit here writing this I'm back in Baghdad at the airport waiting for a chopper flight back to my FOB. I had a really great time while I was on my break. I drank a lot of beer, saw MB notch his 100th win in person, hung around with my friends and partied hard! Playtime is over now, though, and Im really looking forward to getting back at it. On a down note, though, bad news does not take vacations during wartime. When I called into my unit yesterday to let them know I was about to return I was informed of the loss of 2 more soldiers from my troop, one of which was in my platoon. This is a tough pill to swallow for me cause I knew both of the guys very well and worked with them daily. There went any post-vacation hangover. There's a couple of more guys that got banged up really bad and are still in the hospital ( they're expected to recover ) as well so my return can't come soon enough for the guys back here. That's about it for the moment. To borrow a quote from Hawk........."Time to cinch it up and hunker down" cause 10 more months of fun await.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jun 14, 2007 -> 10:33 PM) Anderson has asked to be dealt? Oh my! LOL! What a bombshell that was.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jun 17, 2007 -> 03:50 PM) I like when they quote the opposition's record as a reason for hope. For the next X amount of games we are playing teams below 500. And do you know what Chuck Garfiend. So does every team that plays the sox. LOL!!!! What makes that even more depressing is that we can't even beat f***ing Pittsburgh let alone actual MLB teams. QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jun 17, 2007 -> 10:18 PM) LMAO I guess the Royals should pick up a few relievers and Adam Dunn as well, because our record is just about the same. Except they hit the ball a lot better than we do. LOL!!!! The only thing more pathetic than us going to the Royals for bullpen help would be another team going to us.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,282833,00.html Get a load of these hispanic activists' reaction to AHNOLD'S statement. They're of the opinion that Mexicans don't need to assimilate at all. And you leftys wonder why we get so upset over this issue.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jun 14, 2007 -> 10:28 AM) As much as people try to keep religion out of it, I think it is center stage. The whole region needs to be brought culturally into this century, and the religions are a big bump in that process. I am not sure if I agree that there will be one region-wide conflict, but there will be many smaller ones. Religon of peace!!!!!!!!!!!

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Jun 15, 2007 -> 11:09 AM) Ideally we would force factories to cleanup their act and make it safe to work in and not have a need for illegal immigrants to work those jobs because they would be more attractive to the regular person. So, im against the factories that employ the illegal immigrants but not against the illegals. Now THIS is something I can agree with. If it weren't for corporations trying to cut corners and hire these people there wouldnt be a problem with all this.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jun 14, 2007 -> 08:27 PM) OK, Bush is offically a f***tard on this issue. NOW, after the bill got killed the first time, NOW, he's "SERIOUS" about securing the border. Hey stupid ass! You can do that WITHOUT giving amnesty and bloating the government rolls by tenfold! Man, this issue really pisses me off. ENFORCE THE EXISTING LAWS. It's pretty much THAT simple. Oh no, we cant do THAT! The corporations have to have their cheap labor. I saw that woman who's holed up in that church here in Chicago on TV today demanding that Lou Dobbs lose his job at CNN because he's against Illegal immigration. Excuse me b**** but who the f*** do you think you are anyway? f***ing c*** shows up illegally in this country and then she has the balls to make demands. f*** YOU!!! Id like to see her shipped to Mexico on a freight train along with all the other criminals like her. And these do goody priests who shelter them should be thrown in prison for aiding and abetting them.