June 30, 2008
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The Pentagon had secret plans for Pakistan. WOW! Who would have known?
Wow! The United States has been messing around trying to pimp Iraq’a oil? Who could have guessed.
Gee! Al-Qaeda is on the increase in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Is that part of the “success” of our little foray into Iraq?
ARMY REPORT CITES IRAQ WAR ERRORS, Josh White, Washington Post
WASHINGTON – A new Army history of the service’s performance in Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein faults military and civilian leaders for their planning for the war’s aftermath, and it suggests that the Pentagon’s current way of using troops is breaking the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.
The study, “On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign,” is an unclassified and unhindered look at U.S. Army operations in Iraq from May 2003 to January 2005. That critical era of the war has drawn widespread criticism because of a failure to anticipate the rise of an Iraqi insurgency and because policy-makers provided too few U.S. troops and no strategy to maintain order after Iraq’s decades-old regime was overthrown.
Donald Wright and Col. Timothy Reese, who authored the report along with the Army’s Contemporary Operations Study Team, conclude that U.S. commanders and civilian leaders were too focused on only the military victory and lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like following that triumph.
“The transition to a new campaign was not well thought out, planned for, and prepared for before it began,” write Wright and Reese, historians at the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. “Additionally, the assumptions about the nature of post-Saddam Iraq on which the transition was planned proved to be largely incorrect.”
The results of those errors, they add, were that U.S. forces and their allies lacked an operational and strategic plan for success in Iraq, as well as the resources to carry out a plan.
Their analysis is to be released today, but the 696-page document was posted Saturday night on the Army’s Combined Arms Center’s Web site.
The study also calls into question the focus of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on issues such as a modernization of the U.S. military, rather than on the war.
“The intense desire to continue DOD’s transformation to smaller and lighter forces, to implement a perceived revolution in military affairs in the information age, and to savor the euphoria over seemingly easy successes in Afghanistan using those techniques seemed to outweigh searching through the past for insights into the future,” the study reports.
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Pastor arrested at gay pride festival, Daniel McCaoy, Wichita Correspondent.
The Parade and festival at Naftzger Park attracted more than 1,000 revelers on Sunday.
For the second consecutive year, a gay pride parade and festival was marked by the arrest of a Wichita pastor.
But for the vast majority of those who gathered Sunday afternoon at Naftzger Park for the event, the day was one of celebration.
“It means a lot to me,” said Ken Gehmlich, president of Wichita Pride, which sponsors the annual event. “I think it’s great that we can come together as family.”
Organizers estimated that about 100 people walked in the parade and that more than 1,000 attended the festival, which featured live music and vendors.
After the parade traversed a parking lot near the intersection of Main and English to the festival grounds, the group encountered a familiar face.
Pastor Mark Holick of Spirit One Christian Center and around 20 of his church’s members had gathered near the park to distribute religious literature and express their belief that homosexuality is a sin.
“We expected him to be here,” said Thomas Witt, vice president of Wichita Pride.
Holick was arrested at last year’s event on a charge of criminal trespassing, which was later dropped.
In January, Holick filed a federal lawsuit against the city, claiming his free speech rights had been violated.
On Sunday, according to witnesses, Holick and other Spirit One members had entered the park and were attempting to hand out their literature.
Because the Pride organization had rented the park, it had the right to refuse entrance to anyone, Witt and police said. Holick and the others were asked to leave.
Protesters were allowed to congregate on the adjacent public sidewalks, provided their actions did not constitute disorderly conduct, added Sgt. Lem Moore of the Wichita Police Department.
Police said witnesses told them that upon exiting, Holick removed his $5 admission button, asked for his money back and threw it at Witt, striking him in the arm.
The incident was witnessed by several bystanders, including one who captured it on a hand-held video recorder Moore said.
Witt decided to press charges. Holick was arrested on suspicion of battery, police said.
“At that point we took the individual into custody,” Moore said.
Some Spirit One members expressed anger over Holick’s arrest. Others hoped the incident wouldn’t overshadow the group’s reason for protesting. “We’re not against the people. We just disagree with the lifestyle,” said member John McDonald said.
For Bruce McKinney, who helped organize the first such parade in 1990, the protest and Holick’s arrest did nothing to dampen the mood of celebration.
“Everybody I’ve talked to loved the park and loved the event,” he said. “I really feel like it was a phenomenal day.”
