Time – A critical review of the V-22 program???

???and Bill Sweetman’s response to it: Aviation Week – V-22 – The Real Questions
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Daily Telegraph – US Marines in Iraq’s Anbar province have taken the battle against al-Qa’eda to the unlikely setting of a beachside resort in the desert.
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New York Times – When a suicide bomber struck a convoy carrying special operations marines along a highway in northeastern Afghanistan in March, the blast killed one bystander and wounded one marine and three Afghans in a nearby vehicle, a military police report said.

What came next – a lethal response by the Marine platoon along a seven-mile stretch of road that American military commanders say killed about a dozen civilians – caused outrage among Afghan villagers and criticism from high-ranking Afghan officials about the rising civilian toll in American military operations.

But as a Marine general is mulling whether to bring charges against a handful of the 30 Americans involved in the episode, lawyers for two of the marines, including a company commander riding in the convoy, are disputing the official military and Afghan descriptions of their actions that morning.
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Marine Corps Gazette – An update to the plan to provide Marines with foreign weapons training. The training will provide deploying tactical units, such as infantry battalions, as well as specialized units with the capability to provide foreign weapons training to foreign militaries.
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Marine Corps Gazette – As the Marine Corps seeks to increase its size incrementally over the next several years to 202,000 active duty Marines, concerns have arisen over how to recruit the additional personnel we will require. In this article the author, who has commanded a recruiting station, postulates six ideas that he believes will improve recruiting productivity immediately.
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Defense and the National Interest – William Lind analyzes the happenings in Anbar province in Iraq.
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Wired – A look at how difficult it is for Marines to field new weapons???
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Washington Post – A U.S. Army brigade commander in Afghanistan yesterday told the families of 69 civilians who were killed or wounded by members of an elite Marine Special Forces unit in March that he is “deeply, deeply ashamed” about the incident, describing the series of shootings along a civilian thoroughfare as a “terrible, terrible mistake.”
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Marine Corps Times – Despite public support by Pentagon and Navy leaders for the short-take-off/vertical-landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter, debates about the planned acquisition and operation of the F-35B continue behind the scenes – worrying Marine Corps officials and potential foreign customers who are counting on the versatile aircraft.
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Washington Post – The Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored “obvious” signs of “serious misconduct” in the 2005 slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, and commanders fostered a climate that devalued the life of innocent Iraqis to the point that their deaths were considered an insignificant part of the war, according to an Army general’s investigation.
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Washington Post – A preliminary U.S. military investigation indicates that more than 40 Afghans killed or wounded by Marines after a suicide bombing in a village near Jalalabad last month were civilians, the U.S. commander who ordered the probe said yesterday.
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Washington Post – After more than 20 years in development at a cost of billions of dollars, the long-troubled V-22 Osprey will head to Iraq in September for its first combat missions.
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StrategyPage – In an unusual move, the commander of U.S. special operations troops in the region, ordered a unit of 120 U.S. Marines out of Afghanistan on March 23rd. This was because of the way the marines handled a March 4th incident where they were ambushed by a suicide car bomber and gunfire.
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Washington Post – At least eight Afghan civilians were killed Sunday in eastern Afghanistan when U.S. Marines traveling in a convoy were hit by a car bomb and responded by firing in a way that some witnesses called reckless.
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Los Angeles Times – In contrast to the security crackdown in Baghdad, most Marines in Iraq’s western desert are engaged in nation-building, the kind of venture President Bush had publicly disdained, most notably during the 2000 presidential campaign.
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Marine Corps Gazette – Can more be done to prepare them?
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Virginian Pilot – What began more than 25 years ago as a wild idea is supposed to go to war with the Marine Corps this summer. But problems – including one that caused the entire fleet to be grounded Friday – continue the controversy.
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Washington Post – After 10 years and $1.7 billion, this is what the Marines Corps got for its investment in a new amphibious vehicle: A craft that breaks down about an average of once every 4 1/2 hours, leaks and sometimes veers off course???And for that, the contractor, General Dynamics of Falls Church, received $80 million in bonuses.

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Washington Post – How Marines Feel About Their Gear.

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Los Angeles Times – The story of one unusual former US Marine. Hussein Mohammed Aidid, the son of Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid who was one of the key players in “Blackhawk Down,” was General Zinni’s Marine interpreter in Somalia at that time???now he wants to be President of Somalia.
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Popular Science – As any battlefield commander will tell you, getting troops to the fight can be as difficult as winning it. And for modern-day soldiers, the sites of conflict are so far-flung, and the political considerations of even flying over another country so complicated, that rapid entry has become nearly impossible. If a group of Marine Corps visionaries have their way, however, 30 years from now, Marines could touch down anywhere on the globe in less than two hours, without needing to negotiate passage through foreign airspace. The breathtaking efficiency of such a delivery system could change forever the way the U.S. does battle.
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Christian Science Monitor – The Joint Strike Fighter, which is scheduled to make its maiden flight this week, is a new stealth fighter-bomber designed for three US services and eight foreign allies. But the version that the Marines (and Britain and Italy) are buying is causing friction.
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Christian Science Monitor – With the Marines in Fallujah.
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Detroit Free Press – In the ongoing fight against insurgents in Iraq’s Anbar province, the Hobbits — six Marines with computers and self-designed databases who compile information about the enemy, its strength and its position — have a clear mission.
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Christian Science Monitor – Just 300 marines now patrol Fallujah as the Iraqi military takes over.
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