This afternoon, the Long War Journal [new name for Bill Roggio's spiff new blog/website] had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting with President George Bush and a group of select military bloggers, which including Matthew Burden from Blackfive, Mrs. Greyhawk from the Mudville Gazette, Ward Carroll from DefenseTech, and Mohammed from Iraq the Model. Bill Ardolino flew in from Fallujah and joined me at the 3rd Infantry Division headquarters at Camp Victory to conduct a video teleconference with the White House.
Pres didn't say anything especially newsworthy.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq are facing the ... Cambodia problem. That's way serious, strategically.
Separately,
Nation Building on the Fly
In Fallujah, not police, but quasi-deputized neighborhood watchers called "Fallujah Protectors"
By 8 AM, recruits for the district's neighborhood watch -- called "Fallujah Protectors" -- were lined up for evaluation and processing.
"At each precinct we establish, we get approximately 200 neighborhood watch. Essentially volunteers in the area, but they do get paid," said Capt. Mark Cameron, assistant operations officer with Marine Task Force 2/6.
"We give them three specific tasks. [First,] wear your uniform in the line of duty, which is big, a show of presence, a little show of community within each neighborhood. [The] second task is to obey the orders of the IP. They essentially work for the IP. They're not IP-trained, in the sense that they haven't gone to the [police] academy in Jordan, but they're more or less a junior team for the IP, and many aspire to eventually become police. And the third task they're responsible for is to treat the citizens of Fallujah with dignity and respect, and be able to represent them how they would want to be represented, as a big brother, a role model within the city."
There is plenty of unintentional humor, too:
Townsley summed up Alljah with a popular counterinsurgency saying: "Stay soft, 'till you have to go hard."
