Leatherneck Weekend Extra - 3 August 2008

Sunday Morning Reading

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• REPORT: Gates Sees Terrorism Remaining Enemy No. 1 (washingtonpost.com) Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that even winning the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end the "Long War" against violent extremism and that the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorists should be the nation's top military priority over coming decades, according to a new National Defense Strategy he approved last month....
• REPORT (AUDIO): The Surge Is Over (npr.org) The troop surge in Iraq is now over. At its inception in January 2007, President Bush predicted that the increase in forces would end this July. The last of surge troops have come home. But overall troop levels remain higher than they were before the surge....
• REPORT: Camp Lejeune Marines Slated For 2009 Deployment To Iraq (marines.mil)
  
  Image from marines.mil
  
  This activation marks the third time since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003 that the II Marine Expeditionary Force will take the lead for counter-insurgency and security and stability operations in Iraq’s Al Anbar province....
• REPORT: Pentagon Flexes Its Altruism Muscle (boston.com) Having learned the limits of force in Iraq and Afghanistan, US military strategists are rewriting decades-old military doctrine to place humanitarian missions on par with combat, part of a new effort to win over distrustful foreign populations and enlist new global allies, according to top commanders and Pentagon officials....
• REPORT: Interagency Military Cooperation Just The First Step (washingtontimes.com) ...But since the end of the Cold War - and especially since Sept. 11, 2001 - the challenges the United States has to face have changed dramatically. Today, as the Iraq war has shown, it is not enough for the United States to win on the battlefield. It is not enough to have the biggest, best or even most effective military....
• TOLL OF WAR (INCLUDES VIDEO): Out Of War Injury, Veteran Found A New Purpose: Cooking (dallasnews.com) It began as an idea: a place for wounded warriors to heal. It blossomed into a barracks, then grew into a battalion. Now, Wounded Warriors Battalion East has entered its second year, still growing as it offers injured Marines and sailors a place to connect, commiserate and recover...."
• TOLL OF WAR: The War Is Over For Stann, But The Battles Continue (washingtonpost.com) He won't hear the cruel cadence of machine-gun fire, and his heart won't thump at the thought of makeshift bombs exploding alongside dusty roads. He won't stare into a moonlit desert sky and ponder what he might have done differently to spare his men from injury. He won't lose sight of victory, his ultimate goal....
• TOLL OF WAR: War Crimes Hunter: On The Trail Of Atrocity In Vietnam (inthesetimes.com) I’ve been researching U.S. war crimes in Vietnam since 2002, when I first located a collection of U.S. war crimes investigations documents — compiled by a secret U.S. Army task force in the 1970s — at the U.S. National Archives. After writing my doctoral dissertation from those files, I traveled to Vietnam in 2006 as a freelance reporter for the Los Angeles Times to track down witnesses and survivors of a few cases. That trip spanned only a couple weeks....
• THOSE WHO'VE SERVED: A New Guy On An Old Block - Former Marine On Quantico Town Council (washingtonpost.com)
  
  Photo from dumfries.com
  
  A former Marine Corps captain and information technology consultant, Brown is tall and exceedingly polite, a devout Christian and a father of six. At 35, he is also a quarter-century younger than anyone else on the council....
• THOSE WHO'VE SERVED: Former Marine Leaves Coast Guard Behind After 30 Years (marinecorpstimes.com) ...After more than 30 years in service, Swanger, 58, will retire from active duty Aug. 1 as a Coast Guardsman senior chief petty officer. “I probably will have that military attitude forever,” he said. “The Marine in me makes me what I am...."
• VOTING: Lots Of Bullets, Not Enough Ballots (military.com) "At a time when these young people are defending our country and its free institutions," he wrote to Congress, "the least we at home can do is to make sure that they are able to enjoy the rights they are being asked to fight to preserve." The plea was penned by Harry S. Truman in 1952....
• OPINION: Can We Handle The Truth? Pentagon Says No (dailyastorian.com)
  
  Photo taken by Cpl. Brian A. Tuthill
  
  The military doesn't believe the American public can handle the gory, physical truth about the war in Iraq. It is prohibiting battlefield photography in a way that is markedly different from America's prior wars. "4,000 Deaths and a Handful of Images" in last Saturday's New York Times reported the Marine Corps had taken the extraordinary step of banning freelance photographer Zoriah Miller from all USMC sectors of Iraq and is seeking to have him banned from all U.S. military installations in the world. Miller's crime was to post combat photos of war dead on the Web....
• OPINION: Time Running Out For US In Iraq (boston.com) A timetable for the withdrawal of US troops has long been a priority for Iraqis - 70 percent want the United States out, according to the latest polls. This sentiment is also reflected in Parliament - the only directly elected branch of government. Two months ago, the political parties representing a majority sent a letter to Congress opposing any US-Iraq security agreement without a timetable....
• OPINION: Henry Kissinger: New Premises In Iraq (washingtonpost.com) ...Over the past year, many have proposed setting a deadline for withdrawal. Proponents have argued that a date certain would compel the Iraqi government to accelerate the policy of reconciliation; would speed the end of the war; and would enable the United States to concentrate its efforts on more strategically important regions, such as Afghanistan. Above all, they argued, the war was lost, and withdrawal would represent the least costly way to deal with the debacle....

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