Candidates for the blogroll, and Haditha, again

Blog Them Out of the Stone Age

I have to love any blog with the phrase 'military history' in the subtitle.

Outside the Wire

Former Marine, with a documentary film about Iraq under his belt.

The Military Motivator

Read through his archives. He's only got 26 up total.

Badgers Forward

Company commander of an Army Reserve Engineer unit currently deployed to Ramadi and covering the route clearance mission. I have met some of his Soldiers, they were deployed there before I left.

Jake's Life

Lower Enlisted Marine, currently deployed.

Foreign and Domestic

Minnesota National Guard, Iraq vet.

Democracy Project

Politics, and politics I mostly like. The pointed me to this story, below:

The beginning of the end of the Haditha railroad.

When the Article 32 hearing ends with a recommendation not to prosecute, that's generally the end of the line. These Marines have been unjustly tried in the court of the Mass Media and betrayed repeatedly by statements from politicians like Jack Murtha demanding harsh punishment without bothering with the formality of trial. I've always found it ironic that if a gangbanger with a rap sheet as long as my arm shoots a cop, the media and politicians (in fear of an expression of ethnic solidarity-- say, the entire neighborhood getting together to burn down a Church's Chicken joint on their own block) trip over themselves to reassure the voters that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. When Soldiers or Marines are accused of war crimes not in keeping with their records of honorable service, then of course they are definitely guilty and we should accept the statements of the insurgents who ran away fast enough to survive the incident as the gospel truth.