Wednesday, October 19, 2005

You have to love blogging...

If for nothing else, the milblogs. Forget the news on the war. Get it straight from the horse's mouth. Here is Warriorsvoice:


Insurgents Died Last Night...Plain And Simple

"Some of you might have read or heard about the recent airstrike on insurgents in the Ramadi area of Iraq. Of course the MSM is reporting that "civilians" died in the attack. They are not reporting that the cowards who place IEDs on the sides of roads died. They are not reporting that the aircraft saw weapons and they hardly mention that the Cobras where shot at. Yahoo has a very interesting slant and of course it is pretty much wrong with the exception of one small portion.

The military said a group of gunmen opened fire on a Cobra attack helicopter that spotted their position. The Cobra returned fire, killing about 10. The men ran into a nearby house, where gunmen were seen unloading weapons before an F/A-18 warplane bombed the building, killing 40 insurgents, the military said.

This statement is about the only factual statement in the whole article. The area where this particular strike took place is a more rural area. It is across the river from Ramadi proper. The roads are lined with IEDs and it is a known area where foreign fighters kick the locals out of homes inorder to move in. These insurgents are also known to use real civilians as human shields during sniper attacks. IED triggermen will hide among civilian crowds prior to detonating their road side bombs. They know that we are always on the look out for triggermen and if seen we engage. Insurgents know that we are reluctant to fire into a crowd of civilians.

I did not provide terminal control of these aircraft but I know the man who did. The squadrons have emailed us the footage from the attacks. You can see the insurgents with weapons. Please trust me when I say it was a clean kill and many believe this attack might have adverted a major strike by the insurgents. These aircraft were "Cleared Hot" by men on the ground who deal with the insurgents day in and day out. The warriors on the deck and the warriors in the air worked as a team to ensure the safety of real civilians and the destruction of these terrorists."