a. fish

Camp Victory, Iraq

Noah Shachtman of Defense Tech blog is reporting from Iraq this week. He blogged from Camp Victory (swimming pools, Pizza Huts, Subway Delis,) here. The comments, though, make for the really good reading. Typos and opinions fly between vets, grunts, and military kin. Unedited, candid. And fresh.

Building Community: Norcal Next of Kin (Iraq)

Families of Iraq vets killed in the war met in a Town Hall in San Francisco last night. Televised on KPIX 5 tonight at 7:15pm. Civil dialog unites the families, some supporting the war some against the war, all affected personally. Some for Bush, some for Kerry. All speaking candidly, giving us an opportunity to meet and honor these courageous vets.

Sfgate features profiles of the heros from Northern California. See also: United by Grief.

I have to commend KPIX for having the guts to air an hour-long program, free of commercials, for airing a local story with responsible coverage when they could have made more money from sitcom reruns.

Sy Hersh is Frightened

More from Sy Hersh? This from War and Piece, a great blog I found through Chris Nolan's site. Both sites are by actual journalists (not air quote "journalists", actual fact-respecting journalists).

Seymour Hersh has seen all the Abu Ghraib torture photos, Brad DeLong reports, and he looks frightened. DeLong was conveying an email he received from Rick Pearlstein. Pearlstein had gone to see Hersh speak at the University of Chicago. "[Hersh] said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened." Worth reading observations of Hersh's other remarks.

[War and Piece:]

Spirit of America

Purposely didn't blog much today so as to leave Spirit of America front and center...

via [Jarvis]

For category "Iraqi Victory Gardens".

General Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up'

CBS News | Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up' | May 24, 2004?14:04:39

Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else. And that's the idea that when the troops are in combat, everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning, and troops were dying as a result,” says Zinni.