From the Associated Press….

Iran is using the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah as a “proxy” to arm Shiite militants in Iraq and Tehran’s Quds force had prior knowledge of a January attack in Karbala in which five Americans died, a U.S. general said Monday.

U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner said a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, Ali Mussa Dakdouk, was captured March 20 in southern Iraq. Bergner said Dakdouk served for 24 years in Hezbollah and was “working in Iraq as a surrogate for the Iranian Quds force.”

And what were they trying to accomplish in Iraq? This from CNN…

U.S. sources and Iraqi militia sources have said the carefully planned operation was meant to take captives who could be traded for five Iranians held by U.S. troops since a January 10 raid in Irbil, in northern Iraq. But the Karbala attack went awry, resulting in the deaths of the five Americans.
Qais Khazali, a onetime spokesman for anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, was one of the men sought by American troops in connection with the attack. By the time of his March arrest, he had left the Mehdi Army and was leading one of the “special groups,” according to U.S. intelligence.

In searching for Khazali, U.S. and allied troops found computer documents detailing the planning, training and conduct of the failed kidnapping. And they found Daqduq, whom intelligence officials said has admitted working on behalf of Iran.

Contacted by CNN, a Hezbollah spokesman in Lebanon said he would not dignify the U.S. allegations with a response. And it remains unclear why Hezbollah’s leadership would risk sending advisers to Iraq: American intelligence officers suspect Hezbollah — which is indebted to Iran for decades of military and financial support — had no choice.

Iran seems to think that taking captives furthers its goals. In recent history they have taken both Israeli and British personal captive. If they want American captives, I would expect them to eventually be successful. One wonders if that would lead America to attack Iran with all the attendant problems that would bring.

(hat tip Defense Tech)

Those who read the Wall Street Journal will have already have general idea of what this week’s essay is about. But for those that don’t, a little explanation is in order.

The most severe shortage that the army currently faces is lower level officers. They more or less have enough grunts to meet their authorized strength and they have high level officers in spades. But lieutenants and captains are leaving the force at record levels. In part, this is because of the hardships of war. But an even bigger factor is frustration with upper level leadership.

In this essay, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling gives vent to those frustrations and the reception that this essay has been getting has rocked the military world. One general even went so far as to call all his subordinate officers together so that he could publicly rebut this essay.

Since this essay reflects the sentiments of a lot of junior officers currently serving in the military, I think that it is worth reading. But I would remind people that just because old guard is corrupt doesn’t mean that new crew has better ideas. Just think of the French and Russian revolutions.

Mankind is capable of more then you can imagine. There was a time when nobody would have believed that man could make it too the moon. There are people today who can’t believe that men are capable of things likes this….

Later in the day, some of the soldiers from the unit I share a tent with, the C-52, told me that one of their Kit Carson scouts (comprised of some of our previous enemies who have turned on al Qaeda) had pointed out an al Qaeda who had cut off the heads of children. Soldiers from C-52 say that the Kit Carson scout freaked out and tried to hide when he spotted the man he identified as an al Qaeda operative. Just how (or if) the scout really knew the man had beheaded children was unknown to the soldiers of C-52, but they took the suspected al Qaeda to the police, who knew the man. C-52 soldiers told me the Iraqi police were inflamed, and that one policeman in particular was crazed with intent to kill the man who they said had the blood of Iraqi children on his hands. According to the story told to me on 30 June, it took almost 45 minutes for the C-52 soldiers to calm down the policeman who had drawn his pistol to execute the al Qaeda man. That same policeman nearly lost his mind when an American soldier then gave the al Qaeda man a drink of cold water.

The above is from Michael Yon’s latest post and he has pictures of some of the exhumed bodies from the graves if you can stand that sort of thing. Be warned, the pictures included one picture of a pile of rotting heads.

News reports are pouring in regarding the recent riots in Iran. From the Houston Chronicles we read…..

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranians smashed shop windows and set fire to a dozen gas stations in the capital Wednesday, angered by the sudden start of a fuel rationing system that threatens to further increase the unpopularity of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The rationing is part of a government attempt to reduce the $10 billion it spends each year to import fuel that is then sold to Iranian drivers at less than cost, to keep prices low.

What if everyone has been fearing he wrong problem. Maybe the real threat to world’s prosperity comes not from Iran’s nuclear weapons but from Iran’s complete collapse. Has anyone thought about what a collapse in Iran would look like?