HELL NO, WE DON'T PRINT NO STINKING RETRACTIONS.

especially retractions about our criminal Military who are always guilty, as everybody knows. Besides, if lawyers start nosing around we do "refinement" stories.

The temps in LA push at 95 degrees but it hovers near 73 in the air conditioned offices where the reporters for the LA Times have to slave away. But for this story they assign two gunslingers from out of town to combine on it. One gunman in an air conditioned office in Houston, the other in Portland. This could be big for both of them. It may be the time, the time all Lefty reporters dream of, the time when they make their bones. They have the facts---well some of them anyway---but you don’t need all the facts when your job is to get the fascists in Iraq who are doing the bidding of the big oil companies and that prick Bush. Two brave reporters will sit in air conditioned comfort and write the piece of pieces about 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division; the same National Guard assholes that raised hell before going to Iraq about bad training, bad equipment, no night goggles and a bad deal. Everybody will go for the story. The Left will be made happy as they sip their morning latte's at Starbucks in Brentwood because they get to hate the Military even more, and the Right because the 184th wasn’t very manly way back when. A target of opportunity. The DNC will love the this story. Barbara Boxer might even send them tickets to Hillary Clinton's inaugural ball.

In Iraq it’s 125 degrees and no a/c. The fascists of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division are on patrol. They wear the kevlar vests so if they get shot and killed it will have to be by a bullet placed in the part of the head not protected by their heavy helmets. It’s the usual, they have a tip that some of the towel heads (whoops, brave insurgents) who came down on the locals are in the area again. The men of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, are in combat mode. One of the heartless fascists writes of the experience thusly in his blog called Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum: (if you wish for peace, prepare for war)

LT Irish, saw the man who tried to murder him fleeing into a vehicle, he ordered the gunner to fire at the man and the vehicle. The kid in the turret, not much older than 24 froze. Momentarily paralyzed with the horrific realization that he was about to murder another human being. Let’s be honest here. This is a war, in war men (women, even children) kill. It can be reasoned away as for a greater good, for righteousness, for honor etc... I make no such distinction, it is murder, plain and simple. Justified, legal, righteous, or not; putting, lead to flesh, steel to flesh, or fire to flesh, causing death is murder. In the end, if your cause is just then and only then are you vindicated. Yet I fear in “this war” (against the radical Islamic Fundamentalists and their beliefs) will long surpass my lifetime. I remember hearing a group of Iwo Jima Veterans speaking, and one told of the day he killed his first Japanese soldier; he said he was crying and his platoon sergeant slapped him so hard it knocked him down. The man, towering above him told him to get it together, and move forward. Later in the respite from the days fighting, he asked the SGT not why he’d struck him, but if killing ever got any easier. The SGT said you get used to it. I’ll never forget what he said to me, he said; “I never got used to it, but I did get good at it.”

The reporters at the LA Times got good at it too. Good at smearing the Military at every opportunity, making it undesirable in the eyes of future recruits so that the Army and Marines will be down to nothing. So that the Imperial aims of our filthy government will not be attainable. And after all they did have the facts. Some of them, anyway. And this story could be made to look great. To make it even better, they have great “cover” because their target, a Los Angeles based National Guard unit called 1st Infantry Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division had some guys do some bad stuff. Bad stuff they could expose. They’d like to start the article with an actual quote from one of the fascists that popped up from somewhere:

"This is a battalion that is just rotting," one said. "There is no trust in each other. There is no confidence in leadership."

They decide instead to bury the quote within their story. This article, the first of two from the LA Times, is at least a ground rule double, missing a home run by just a few inches. They decide to play it like a recitation of the facts

ARMY PROBES GUARD UNIT: Members of a California battalion in Iraq are under investigation for alleged abuse of detainees and extortion of money from merchants.

Extortion and prisoner abuse, what a way to start.

A company of the California Army National Guard has been put on restricted duty and its battalion plunged into disarray amid allegations that battalion members mistreated detainees in Iraq and extorted money from shopkeepers, according to military officials and members of the unit. Col. David Baldwin, a California state Guard spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that investigations are underway into the allegations of mistreatment of prisoners by members of Fullerton-based Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment. The company, made up of roughly 130 soldiers, is deployed at Forward Operating Base Falcon outside Baghdad. It has been put on restricted duty while the Army reviews its performance, Baldwin said. Baldwin also confirmed the existence of the investigation of the alleged extortion, which involves members of another company in the battalion.

The battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, ( a highly decorated Viet Nam vet; my add ) has been suspended while the investigation is conducted, Baldwin said. Soldiers from a third company in the battalion have also been "pulled back to garrison mode," a military official said.

Then the Times gets to hit on the greed of the imperialist bastards

The payments allegedly exceeded $30,000, two sources said, and were made in U.S. currency, according to one member of the battalion who has been briefed on the investigation. Another soldier said the scheme allegedly was carried out during night patrols in the Baghdad area.

Three anonymous sources in one sentence plus two allegeds. Maybe they’ll win the office pool. They got to use lots of facts in their story too

The military revealed earlier this month that 11 U.S. soldiers have been charged with dereliction of duty in connection with the alleged mistreatment of detainees in Iraq but did not identify their names or unit. Baldwin confirmed on Tuesday that the soldiers are members of Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment. Boylan said some of the soldiers were also charged with mistreatment of a person under their control, assault and making a false statement. One soldier was charged with obstruction of justice

What a scoop. What a story. Fuck those asshole soldiers.

Now let’s be real. A few soldiers, perhaps as many as eleven from three different batallions, did abuse some prisoners. They nailed one or two with stun guns while they were tied up. There was what may turn out to be extortion, only not as reported by those brave guys at the LA Times. Several soldiers in other units are similarly under investigation. However, lawyers started showing up for the soldiers and guess what? Poof, like magic, the Times published another story. A story that was vastly different.

Members of a California Army National Guard company that was placed on restrictive duty in Iraq after being implicated in the latest detainee abuse scandal have trained and conducted joint operations with Iraqi police forces, including an elite (Iraqi) unit accused of brutality. The Wolf Brigade of the Iraqi police is famous in Iraq for staging daring raids in Mosul and Baghdad and for its commander, known as Maj. Gen. Abu Walid, who became a national celebrity after he hosted televised "confessions" of alleged insurgents captured by the group. Critics of the forces say they use torture to coerce confessions from suspected insurgents.

Other "refinements" to the original story include

Kent called those allegations (extortion) unfounded, though he said one soldier was disciplined in connection with that portion of the investigation.

Markert said the financial investigation concluded weeks ago and found only a "$4,000 discrepancy." He said the problem stemmed from an inappropriate rental agreement between local Iraqis and the battalion's forward operating base. Markert said the situation had been blown out of proportion.

The entire second article is HERE The second article is proof that something accurate could have been written the first time, before the lawyers arrived in Iraq.

Meanwhile the bad guys, the fascist horde, still bake in the now 130 degree heat. These National Guard guys have lost their civilian jobs (against the law, but fuck the law), many have lost their wives and families to divorce, and now they wait around to see how many of them get swept up in this latest feeding frenzy for the Main Stream Media and the army. From the blog again

My roommate, LT Irish, has been nearly killed for a third time today. The Durkas are tossing TNT at us now. A stick bounced off of LT Irish’s HMMWV, he told me that the first thing he thought as it bounced less than a foot from him, the only thing between him and it was thick armoured glass. He said he wondered why they were tossing road flares at him in daylight. Using them for signaling in broad daylight didn’t make sense. Then he realized what it was. Irish, is one of the most decorated soldiers in this BN, and to the chagrin of the Infantryman here, he is a Field Artillery Officer, (his Military Occupational Specialty) is desperately trying to find relevance in post “major combat” Iraq. He works as a pseudo politician, dealing daily with local Iraqi politicians. Dealing daily selfish, self-interested, local politicians. He by default is an “ambassador” if you will. Yet he is allowed to make no official statements. I am also considered an ambassador of good will, and deal on a continuous basis with Kurds, their director of Intelligence, and various Sheikhs, and Imams. Yet although we never promise anything, we are accused of lying to them, (not the Kurds), and deceiving them. Yet, I am not allowed to file paperwork for 2006.

So while the Times piles on, I hope you have the time to go to this site and read it. Another well written blog with feelings and thoughts that MSM won't touch.

I saw a group of soldiers who have had a rough time, they have endured the pains of separation, some have lost the jobs that they thought would be there when they got home. Some have lost friends here, others have lost their girlfriends or wives. The men in that room weren't infantrymen, they were cooks and mechanics, medics, personnel clerks, and drivers.

And they’re getting fucked. As usual.

An article on The Wolf Brigade is HERE.