Hot downrange II : attacks around Diwaniyah continue

Trouble around Diwaniyah continues, fortunately the Latvian contingent remains undamaged but the Salvadoreans are taking a beating .....

25 July 3 Iraqis killed and five wounded in a shootout between US forces and Sadrists in Diwaniyah, after the arrest of a Sadrist. (Monsters and Critics from Deutsche Presse-Agentur)
26 July Unknown firefight near Diwaniyah, US close air support from F-16s used (CENTAF airpower summary)
26-27 July Nightly rocket attack on Camp Echo, misses the base (MoD Latvia)
27 July IED attack 4km from Diwaniyah on a KBR convoy returning from Al Kut, about 630pm. The vehicle hit was a marked ambulance, two Salvadoreans wounded (1 fatally).(MND CS, Bloomberg)

Thats the second Salvadorean escorted convoy hit on the run to Al Kut, the previous - also with a fatality - on 19 July.

What the hell is going on down there? I had the impression that the Polish division was losing control of Diwaniyah back in June, but judging by the news its way worse now.....

Hot downrange : surge of attacks on Diwaniyah

After a apparent pause at the start of July, the weekly insurgent indirect fire attacks on Camp Echo have restarted. And also ambushes, IEDs and shootouts - daily.

17 July Several shots were fired towards the base in the evening but fell short. (MoD Latvia)
19 July IED attack on Salvadoreans en route to Al Kut, 2 heavily wounded (1 of hose fatally) (MND CS)
20 July 4 rockets fired towards the base at 0130 local time, all fell short (MND CS). The enemy propaganda claims :

In a dispatch posted at 2:45pm Makkah time Friday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that Iraqi Resistance forces fired four Katyusha rockets into "Camp Eko" of the Polish occupation troops located 5km south of ad-Diwaniyah – which is 120km southeast of Baghdad late on Thursday night.

The ad-Diwaniyah correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported a source in the as-Salam neighborhood puppet police as saying that the attack set a massive fire burning in the northern part of the Polish base, compelling the occupation troops, who had tried on their own for an hour to extinguish the blaze, to seek the help of Iraqi firefighters to put out the flames.

The puppet police source said that the Resistance barrage had inflicted casualties among the Poles and their Asian mercenary workers.

The number of rockets and the target coincides as usual, but the muj wildly exaggerates the results, also as usual. "Asian mercenary workers" meaning KBR contractors presumably, and will the savages ever learn to learn to spell "Echo"?
21 July Ambush on MND(CS) near An Numaniyah in Wasit province convoy wounds 6 soldiers and translator, 10 insurgents captured (MND CS)
23-24 July Latvian contingent was on QRF and was involved in some shootout near Diwaniyah on night from the 23-24th July, no-one hurt and no details available (MoD Latvia)
24-25 July two Katjusha type rockets were fired at the base on the night of July 24-25th but exploded short of the base. (MoD Latvia)

Why the upsurge of unpleasantness? At a guess it looks to be a complex of several factors

• It just happens that the MND(CS) Polish contingent, including divisional command, changed on July 18th, and Contingent change is a favorite time for local provocations in any mission.
  
• The situation was none too secure before that.
  
• Iraqi forces near Diwaniyah on July 16th arrested a local sheikh "suspected of directing local terrorist-run death squads". A local sheikh bust is usually a guarantee of tribal trouble (vengeance for loss of face etc etc).
  
• Its mid-summer, mid 40s centigrade and too damn hot to sleep until past midnight.
  
• IDF action against Hezbollah / Lebanon is probably stirring the Arab's pot, and Iran is a supporter of the terrs in both Lebanon and Iraq.
  

Latvia vs PC / liberalists / gays

The event has passed, and the deviants amusingly received a drubbing at the hands of a bunch of louts, but there are several disturbing aspects :

1. The Latvian main daily newspaper Diena has become a full on marxist mouthpiece on this topic. Failure to grant group rights to sexual deviants is front page headlines like "Failure of Democracy", and the paper has devoted full pages daily to reeducating the ignorant Latvian populace. The satirist produced a imbecilic cartoon with hordes of primitives (presumably) armed with spears leaping out of the trees to ambush a march labelled "pride". Diena has also taken onto itself the burden of reeducating Latvians about racism. Shame, Diena, shame.

2. The gay pride event started with defrocked (for unrepentant sodomy) Lutheran priest Maris Sants together with the usual suspects placing wreaths - at the Salaspils memorial assemblage. For those not in the know - Salaspils is a holocaust memorial on the site of the infamous nazi Salaspils concentration camp. Of course the news media was there, but they failed to comment on the pretentious incongruity of it.

3. The "main event" as per above was a service at Rigas only Anglican church. The slide of the various Anglican churches into amoral liberalism is well documented by Auster's VFR site.

4. The US embassy almost came out in support, the European Parliament did.

5. All manner of western liberal types crawled into the country to lend their support to "democracy" and decried our backwardness. At last count 75% of the electorate were opposed to group rights for sexual deviates, and 25% in favor of outlawing it. You give Palestinians the vote you get Hamas, give Latvians the vote and you get traditions, restraint and morality.

Democracy is government of the people, for the people, by the people. Democracy won in Latvia this week. The politicians and police heeded the opinions of the populace, instead of scurrying to curry favor with foreigners and the media. Sadly, some of our most prominent media, and some of our elite, seems to think democracy is imposing their will and social program on the "unenlightened" populace.

Why is a republican appointed US ambassador pushing gay rights / political correctness?

From the Baltic Times :

Interior minister meets with Christian leaders, US ambassador about gay pride parade

Jul 18, 2006
By TBT staff
Latvian Interior Minister Dzintars Jaundzeikars met separately with US ambassador Catherine Todd Bailey and Russian Orthodox priest Nikolajs Tihonirovs on July 17 to discuss the gay pride parade planned for Riga on July 22.

“[The parade] would be a mockery of feelings of all Orthodox believers,” Tihonirovs said after the meeting. “The event should not be allowed to take place at all as it offends morals of Latvia's population and every Christian. It is a challenge and provocation against our religions.”

Jaundzeikars himself voiced concern for parade marchers as many have threatened to block the march. "The police do not have so many men. What are we supposed to do -- use the weapons perhaps?"

"The police do its best but everything has its limits,” the minister said. "If I was the organizer and had to make the decision, I would definitely not hold the event. If the intention was to speak about tolerance, the result is just the opposite now.”

Bailey voiced concern for security at the parade and said that the US supported democracy, human rights and tolerance in Latvia. She said the embassy planned to participate in several events related to the gay festival, Riga Pride 2006, she said.

Polymorphous perversity is one of the cultural marxist planks intended to destroy traditional society. The hard left has consistently pushed for the rights of "sexual minorities" (ie. deviates and perverts of every stamp) in every country of the west. Sadly, the number of western countries which enshrine family rights over the rights of "sexual minorities" can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Hapily, for the moment anyway, Latvia is one of them.

Interior Minister Jaundžeikars has done the right thing by advising the Riga city council not to issue a parade permit.

So why the US ambassador? One would expect this kind of bullshit from the EU, or a Democratic Clinonista appointee, but this one is Republican (Catherine Todd Bailey is a Republican senate approved Bush appointment). Why is a Republican appointed US ambassador openly participating in the cultural marxist/politiclly correct agenda issue of gay rights? Is it official US government policy to push cultural marxism on the entire planet under the catchphrase of "human rights"? Is "tolerance" US foreign policy? How does democracy depend on celebrating sexual deviancy?

To any traditionalist/conservative US readers : please consider to take 5 minutes to e-mail your congressmen/senators/GOP organizers, and express your sincere dismay: Why the US ambassador to Latvia supporting anti-Christian latent marxism, in the name of the US of A?

Latvia rotates infantry company in Iraq II

Another mission completed. Latvian OIF contingent Team 7 - the now very experienced 2nd Infantry Company/2nd Infantry Battalion - has finished their tour and is en route home from Iraq.

They were busy. The Latvian portal TVNET reports that the company carried out 754 tasks in 6 months - patrols, escorts and other operational tasks outside the wire. While the Polish division was lavish with their praise, the soldiers rotating out were not as complimentary. One officer described working with the Polish a worse problem than the 50 degree heat or regular rocket attacks.

The Latvian Minister of Defence was in Iraq for the awards ceremony at Diwaniyah. He met with the Iraqi Defence Minister, and he reportedly stated repeatedly that "We will be here, as long as it takes".