From the Halls to the Shores

In Fallujah, where U.S. Marines and soldiers are still battling pockets of resistance, insurgents waved a white flag of surrender before opening fire on U.S. troops and causing casualties...

Many will argue that the actions of this Marine were neither Honorable or Courageous. I beg to differ. He had the courage and honor to do what he felt he had to do to protect himself and his Brothers from the enemy. He had the commitment to follow through on his training and eliminate the enemy.

Consider what every Marine is taught, what every Marine believes in...

When you breed and train an attack dog you can't be upset when he bites. Marines are America's attack dogs and we will bite!

After all... It's who We are... It's what We do.

On the Fallujah side of the bridge where the Americans were hung there is some Arabic writing on the bridge. An interpreter translated it for me as we walked through. It read: "Long Live the Mujahadeen. Fallujah is the Graveyard for Americans and the end of the Marine Corps."

You may remember a story from earlier this week about a message the 3/5 Marines left on that bridge:

This is for the Americans of Blackwater that were murdered here in 2004.
Semper Fidelis
3/5

P.S. Fuck you.

Now it all makes perfect sense.

"Getting rid of portraits is a very serious gesture. Portraits of Kim Jong-il are different from, say, a portrait of a head of state somewhere else. If you're starting to get rid of icons it means that something is wrong with your god."

Side-by-side pictures of the 63-year-old "Dear Leader" and his late father, Kim Il-sung, are standard decoration in public places, government offices, schools and other buildings in the Stalinist state, Lankov said.

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass cited an unnamed diplomat as saying that at receptions hosted by Pyongyang's foreign ministry, guests had seen pictures of Kim Il-sung, but only a mark on the wall nearby where a portrait of the current leader hung before.

A North Korean diplomatic source in Beijing denied the reports about the portraits, telling Russia's Interfax news agency that "everything remains the same in Pyongyang."
An official at North Korea's Embassy in Moscow also said the reports were false. "You cannot take down the sun from the sky - it's impossible,"

There was no public funeral, but North Koreans noticed that extravagant praise for a figure called Omonim ("respected mother") had vanished from propaganda documents.

In Seoul, a government intelligence analyst reported that in recent days North Korea's state radio had shifted one catch phrase from "Kim Jong Il, ruling according to the Kim Il Sung legacy" to simply "Ruling by Kim Il Sung."

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