Long Day

I just spent 20 hours on a Kuwaiti segment of the Persian Gulf. I'd love to tell you what I was doing there for all that time, but then of course I'd have to...well, you know the deal. It's 3 am, I'm insanely tired, and I have no clue what's happening in the world or in Iraq. That said, I'm going to bed.

But Before I Go

My site took an amazing number of hits in the past 24 hours. I guess a whole bunch of sites linked to mine by virtue of my stance on the 380 tons of missing explosives. I've never created a "ripple" in the blogosphere like that, so it was a little strange. Tomorrow, I'm going to click on my Technorati link (on my left-side blogroll) and see what people are saying about me. Should be fun. I think it all started when Michael Totten posted one of my comments from his site on the legendary Instapundit site (for those who don't know, Instapundit is like the Holy Grail of blog sites). Here's the comment that got so much press:

MJT,

I read your Instapundit post about the missing explosives. I understand your questions about the 3rd ID being there 1 week before us, but I think I should offer up a military perspective for you. I was with the 101st when we RIP'd (Relieved in Place) the 3rd ID in that region.

380 tons of explosives would require about 40 truckloads to haul it away. It would have taken more than 1 week (and an unbelievable amount of man-hours and heavy-moving equipment) simply to load the trucks. To imply that those trucks could have been loaded and then driven away unnoticed, under the watchful eye of the 3rd ID is absolutely ludicrous. I know you're not a military type, but you're a smart enough guy to understand this.

No, those explosives were moved well before any Americans ever crossed the border. It's the only feasible scenario, and it fits right in with Saddam's gameplan. A retired Iraqi Air Force General (now an employee at Mosul Airfield) explained Saddam's looney strategy to me over tea one day (my note: I asked him this simple question- Why are there fighter jets scattered randomly throughout the desert? He just smiled and explained it all in about 2 hours). I wrote about it in my blog post yesterday:

http://2slick.blogspot.com/2004/10/battle-rages-on.html

Read it, and I think you'll have a slightly better understanding of how Saddam did business. Remember when he sent his fighter jets to Iran during Desert Storm? Well, he used a slightly different strategy this time around. It didn't work. But those explosives did get away, and there was no way we could have prevented it with all of our diplomatic wrangling as we "rushed to war."

John Kerry (aided by the media horde) wants to fool the American people with a fictitious story about how we didn't have the manpower and/or capability to guard the most sensitive ammo dump in Iraq. That's not only inaccurate- it's downright offensive. We spent a month in Iskandaria, just south of Baghdad, where we had so many people sitting around waiting for our next move, I couldn't even believe it. The truth is we had way more soldiers than we needed. And we easily secured every ammo storage facility that we found- large and small. How can Kerry claim to "praise the efforts of our brave soldiers" while he spits in our face with false charges of incompetence?

Is it any wonder that the overwhelming majority of us are disgusted by the idea of Kerry as Commander in Chief?

Yes, in case you haven't noticed- Kerry flat out sickens me. Please hit the polls on the 2nd. Don't let that man be my new boss- I can't even handle the thought of it...