Matt Sanchez

Saturday, March 15, 2008

BRIGHT IDEA - IRAQI ELECTRICITY (click for full story)

Most of us expect something to happen when we plug in an appliance or flip a switch, but in Iraq flipping a switch to get power is a key part of fighting terrorism. The strategy to combat a counter-insurgency consists mainly of improving the living conditions; that means bringing a national infrastructure neglected by dictatorial socialism and asphyxiated by a decade of sanctions to a functional level for a growing population with an increasing appetite for energy...

FROM THE FRONT (click for full story)

Army Captain, Pete Hegseth is back in Iraq and writing from the front. Pete makes outstanding points about the latest political push to derail the successes in Iraq. Hegseth is more than a thinker, he's an actual doer. Rarely have I met anyone who has put so much at stake for his personal beliefs...

AMERICANIZATION OF THE IRAQI ARMY (click for full story)

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At Habbaniya, in the Anbar province I embedded with the Marines who run the Iraqi Army firing range. It was a long day of firing the AK-47, a rattling weapon that is inaccurate and clunky. Like any Marine, I was very happy when a fellow devil dog handed me the well-known M-16 that we all know and love...

HEAVY METAL (click for full story)

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Note: This is what happens when mommycrats try to run wars.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Pentagon and Marine Corps authorized the purchase of 84,000 bulletproof vests in 2006 that not only are too heavy but are so impractical that some U.S. Marines are asking for their old vests back so they can remain agile enough to fight...

CONFLICTING INTELLIGENCE (click for full story)

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While in Afghanistan, I was embedded with a unit of soldiers whose job it was to chase the Taliban. We heard rumors of the Taliban "owning property" in Afghanistan, but it usually amounted to a group of armed men shutting down a road until the authorities chased them away...