Voices of The Fallen

Newsweek has a special section called Voices of the Fallen. It is composed of letters/videos/audio recordings that the families of fallen vets shared. Regardless of what you think of the war it is worth taking a moment to look/listen.

These people gave their lives. We can honor their memory.

Click here.

Iran 'seizes' 15 British sailors

Things continue to stay heated with Iran. There may be some confusion about whose waters they were in, but on the other hand I still think that Iran is testing. It is a dangerous game they play.

Iran 'seizes' 15 British sailors

LONDON, England (CNN) -- An Iranian naval patrol seized 15 British marines and sailors who had boarded a vessel suspected of smuggling cars off the coast of Iraq, military officials said.

The British government immediately demanded the safe return of its troops and summoned Tehran's London ambassador to explain the incident.

The Royal Marines and ordinary naval officers were believed to have been apprehended by up to six ships from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy who claimed they had violated Iranian waters.

British naval officials said the sailors, using small boarding craft, had completed an inspection of a merchant vessel in Iraqi waters when the Iranians arrived.

Commodore Nick Lambert, commander of the HMS Cornwall -- the frigate from which the British patrol had been deployed -- said the incident did not involve fighting or use of weapons.

"We've been assured from the scant communications that we've had from the Iranians at the tactical level that the 15 people are safely in their hands," he said.

The British defense ministry said that it was pursuing the incident "at the highest level."

There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials.

Lambert said the British sailors had been on a "normal, routine boarding" of a vessel that had aroused suspicions as it navigated the Shatt al-Arab, a disputed waterway that marks the border between Iraq and Iran on the shores of the Persian Gulf.

For more information click here.

There Are Four Iraq Wars

I found this article on Slate to be interesting. Here is an excerpt:

"Thanks to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, I now have an answer: Our strategic stagnation results from the fact that we are fighting four wars, not one. According to Gates: "One is Shi'a on Shi'a,
principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets." The multifaceted nature of these four wars has frustrated American strategy since 2003. Successes in one area produce setbacks in the others, with al-Qaida hovering above the fray to spoil progress whenever it threatens to bring stability to Iraq, as they did by bombing the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 after the successful Iraqi elections. Consequently, any strategies implementing the "counterinsurgency playbook," smart as those plans may be, will necessarily prove insufficient because we aren't just fighting an insurgency anymore."