Aug
07
2008
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Beating Pelosi, Hollywood |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 07 August 2008 |
Like Allah said, schadenfreude .
If you take a quick glance to the right, you will see that we are closing in on our goal of beating Brian DePalma's anti-soldier, anti-war movie 'Redacted' which portrayed U.S. Soldiers as rapists and murders.
The goal is to sell 2,900 DVDs in any combination to beat 'Redacted.' That number will also beat Nancy Pelosi.
We are at 65% 66%. No big PR machine, no guest slots on daytime TV or cable talk and certainly not the name recognition of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
But because of some loyal fans we have beaten most of the anti-war documentaries and are closing in on some anti-war feature films.
We are 82% 84%of the way to beating "Home of the Brave" which starred Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Biel and 85% 86% of the way to beating John Cusak's "Grace is Gone."
I want to beat Redacted by Labor Day. I want to beat Redacted and disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan with U.S. Soldiers to tell the story of the last hot-war front of the War on Terrorism. The stories of heroism the MSM will not write and Hollywood will not produce.
To do that, I need you. DVD sales are how I finance multi-month trips embedding with U.S. Soldiers and Marines.
If you can afford to, please buy a DVD .
If you want to become an operative, please send me an email . I'm looking for people who will help me take on Hollywood.
Nancy Pelosi's book has sold 2,737 copies. If we can beat 'Redacted', we will have beaten Pelosi as well.
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Aug
06
2008
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No Glenn, I've Got the Physique of American Gladiator |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 07 August 2008 |
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If the the singularity will make every one look like an American Gladiator...what happens to a guy like me?
At any rate, I say, bring on the singularity!
Look for my new book on how bloggers/documentary filmmakers/embedded reporters can get buff. Coming to Amazon soon.
(Really, that is me. Not sure about the book though.)
Until the book comes out, you can see some real non-game show combat on DVD .
BTW: Believe it or not, at 5'10" 204 pounds the Federal Government considers me overweight to borderline obese.
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Jul
28
2008
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The Anbar Awakening I Witnessed |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 28 July 2008 |
There has been much made in the chattering classes about whether to credit the improvements in Iraq to the Troop Surge or the Anbar Awakening.
First off, I would like to point out that I was the first civillian to see the Anbar Awakening spread downstream along the Euphrates and see how it jumped the Euphrates to the river's North East bank.
Many correctly point out that the Awakening preceded the Surge.
The earliest reporting is from August 2006 in the Washington Post when a few Sheiks in Ramadi agreed to work with coalition forces in Ramadi.
The proximate cause stated in the reporting is Al Qaida's program of murdering Sheiks. Specifically the murder of a Sheik and Al Qaida's preventing a proper (read rapid) Muslim burial.
I arrived in Iraq in March of 2007 and first witnessed the Anbar Awakening in April when I embedded with the Third Battalion of the Sixth Marine Regiment near Habbaniyah--15 miles downstream on the Euphrates river from Ramadi.
I wrote about the Awakening's move out of Ramadi here .
At that time, no one knew what was happening around Habbaniyah. The Commanding Officer of 3/6, Lt. Col. James McGrath kept a lid on it because none of it was authorized by anyone--but he was running a tribal militia he had organized, funded and supplied.
The Awakening around Habbaniyah was not spontaneous--it required a lot of combat diplomacy by McGrath and his officers. McGrath and his Marines were not a 'surge' unit.
At the same time, further downstream, two branches of Abu Issa tribe were waging a fairly hot war against each other around Amariayah/Ferris.
The only coalition forces in the area were a Police Training Team.
But a month later a full Army Battalion moved in. The Surge arrived. The remaining resisting tribes flipped to the coalition.
Prior to the Surge if a full battalion was to move from one part of the Fallujah area to another--one key area would go uncovered.
But by late May the entire area was flooded with U.S. Forces.
A battalion in every population center and Marine Expeditionary Unit moving up to the Thartar lake region.
Never before had all the population centers been covered by a full battalion.
The Awakening spread that Spring like a wild fire--even the area North of Kharmah and the remainder of the Jumali tribe flipped to the coalition and Zaidon eventually saw the light because Marines and Soldiers became a constant presence.
There were no more whack-a-mole operations.
Without the Troop Surge, the Awakening sputters. It stops at Fallujah and south of the Kharmah river. It does not take roots in Amariyah/Ferris or Zaidon or Thartar.
Unlike most of the chattering experts--I saw the Awakening as it made its spread. I lived with the Sons of Anbar and the Marines, Paratroopers and Training Teams that held the hands of the tribesmen.
Without the Surge, the Awakening is not the Anbar Awakening--it is the Ramadi Awakening and there would be nothing like it in any other province.
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Jul
24
2008
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The Great Revision |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 24 July 2008 |
As you go about your business the next few days, count how many times you see this .
Or a similar sticker, decal, magnet or pin .
Then try to find even one bumper sticker, decal, magnet or pin boasting that a man successfully avoided conscription during the war in Vietnam.
As Instapundit reader Peter Ingemi notes, there is a revision underway.
This revision will track events on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. And when the end of the long war is finally reached, there will be even more revision.
Years from now, men of a certain age will be asked what they did during the War.
What will the diarists at Kos and DU and other sites say?
Will they say that they bravely opposed the war through anonymous digital scribblings? Will they still stand by their digital rants?
Doubtful.
But nearly every young man and woman who deployed--even those who spent their entire 15 months on a mega base working in an airconditioned office--will wear their service. Maybe not conspicuosly, but they will not hide it.
In Shakespeare's Henry V, the King declares that those who did not fight "will hold their manhood's cheap."
And therein lies the source of the Great Revision.
Maybe in another time humans would "hold their manhood's cheap." But in the post-modern era, that would be tantamount to self-esteem suicide.
Years from now, no one will be brandishing bumper stickers declaring their courageous opposition to 'George Bush's War.' The cars with 'Bush Lied, People Died' stickers will have long been recycled and the phrase will be a footnote in history books.
But there will be plenty of these stickers .
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Jul
22
2008
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Obama's Iraq Photo Ops |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 22 July 2008 |
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If this photo of Senator Obama meeting with a tribal leader in Anbar province is supposed show Presidential level foreign policy gravitas--then I have a little of that gravitas as well.
Because here I am with the interim leader of the Jumali Tribe.
What else gives me the image of foreign policy gravitas?
Helicopter ride over Baghdad--I've done that.
Walked across the tarmac at Baghdad International Airport--done that a bunch of times.
Sip the tea with tribal leaders--but only three cups per sitting.
And a lot of other people have that Presidential foreign policy gravitas. People like Michaely Yon, Michael Totten, Bill Roggio, Jeff Emanuel, Bill Ardolino, Col. GI Wilson, Bing West, Mario Loyola and hundred of Army and Marine officers and NCOs. (If photos of Iraq lend Presidential qualification--I'm gonna angle for a position in the Yon administration!)
But those were not photo ops. They were not one-time discussions during a campaign. I lived with the Jumaili tribe. The Marine and Army officers work with the tribal leaders every day.
Some of us embeds have cut a large swath through Iraq we know Sheiks and tribal leaders in multiple provinces.
More importantly, we did it back when body armor was a requirement--not an option. I was doing it up and down the Euphrates river valley before a lot of people realized what the Anbar Awakening was.
One newspaper column declared Obama's trip as "unprecedented."
But the chair he sat in for his photo op in Ramadi has held many men before Obama.
The Blackhawk that ferried him from BIAP to the Green Zone has carried thousands of others.
Hundreds of thousands have walked the tarmac at BIAP.
Obama's trip to Iraq is a novelty not because the trip is so rare--but because it is so rare for Obama. And that rarity is a clear sign not of foreign policy gravitas--but the absence thereof.
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