Power of the People

Monsters Incorporated

2009-06-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

“He is known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism. He is the chief architect of a 2-state plan, which historians will document was the commencement of Middle East violence, culminating in a second Holocaust with Israel as its victim.

“He earned his Ph.D. from ‘wherever,’ wrote doctoral theses, penned an autobiography, and worked on Wall Street. He came into contact and became friends with known fanatics, crooks, and America haters.

“He was elected a senator in Illinois where he put his propaganda to full use, combating the local conservative party with the help of William (Weather Underground) Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, and Rev. Jeremiah ‘Them Jews’ Wright.

“By 2005 he had risen in his party ranks to become one of its most prominent members.

“In that position he perfected an understanding of the “Big Lie” technique of propaganda, which is based on the principle that a lie, if audacious enough and repeated enough times, will be believed by the masses.”

* * * * *

The previous paragraphs fairly describe Barack Hussein Obama. But I’m admitting immediately, in order to make my point in this commentary, that I borrowed those passages almost verbatim from Wikipedia. They in fact point up a monstrous figure of history. I only changed the names, the locations, the tense, a few words here and there, and the date.

That monster was Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister…and Obama is a carbon copy.

Obama’s propaganda technique is explained best by Victor Davis Hanson in a recent piece entitled “Just Make Stuff Up.” In it, Hanson sets out comprehensively that Obama is prevailing over a system that appears in total order, but because of his nonstop fabrications that system can really only be disorganized and chaotic (e.g., the numerous Cabinet appointees who were vetted then booted on the basis of “mistakes.”)

Disorganization and chaos was Obama’s goal from the start. I watched him channel his hatred and anger into powerful speeches that pumped up his listeners but alienated Republicans, moderates, and clear-thinking Democrats. His uncompromising vocal tone successfully attracted drifters and malcontents who were easily programmed into believing that the time was never better for a revolution.

But there remains that one colossal catastrophe: those same itinerants and k’vetshers signed the contract without reading it. They had no idea what they agreed to revolt against, because their chosen one never once spelled out his true plans or aspirations. He only repeated—ad infinitum, ad nauseum—“hope” and “change” (in the manner in which Hitler incessantly shouted, “Deutschland!”).

Obama cleverly spoke in vague terms and left it to his snarling sycophants to fill in the miles-wide blanks, and they filled them with what they imagined he said or promised them. They see now that they had cast their lots for a bait n’ switch brute who had no intention of effecting the changes they expected (whatever those imaginary changes might’ve been).

When I first witnessed those orgasmic displays of affection for Obama, they appeared eerily similar to the way Germans thrust out their right hands in salute to the lunatic Bavarian paperhanger and his propaganda minister. Those images brought to mind this quote by Euripides: “When love is in excess, it brings a man no honor, nor worthiness.” It is especially significant since the excess love Obama appropriated has gone unrequited, and has been only used to step on heads and purloin the top executive position.

In my previous commentary I wrote that the people in Tehran would judge for themselves as to whether Obama’s proposal of friendship is popcorn propaganda. The millions protesting the (phony) election is the answer, which I believe is their way of saying they want nothing more to do with egocentric and immoral dictators (whether he be an Iranian or an American).

If the Iranian people had faith that Obama and Ahmadinejad could “get it on” they would have accepted the results of the election. But their outright anger against the incumbent’s manufactured victory speaks volumes: If they’ve had it up to there with Mahmoud and the threat of annihilation it would be unthinkable that they would want to cozy up with the guy who hijacked the U.S. presidency, whose only real accomplishment to date is he bagged a house fly.

The protests undoubtedly have thrown a monkey wrench into Obama’s nefarious plans to secure Iran as a nuclear hot zone and remain an ongoing threat to Israel. The Iranian people’s reaction proves, to me at least, that they think his rapier wit is not that rapier after all, particularly since Obama has mimicked Jimmy Carter by stating it would do not good for the U.S. to meddle with the issue. That statement alone brazenly contradicts his monosyllabic twitters of “hope … change … yes … we … can.” And never forget that it was Carter’s psychopathic mind-set that plowed the road for the Taliban to overthrow the Shah, which catapulted the virulent and bloodthirsty Islamic terrorism stampeding rampant today.

There will always be voracious dictators with whom we must contend, whether they wear uniforms of the military, desert robes, or pin-stripe suits. They are responsible for unspeakable destruction and unconscionable carnage. But not one of them has outlasted the peoples’ endurance, nor will any ever undermine the sacrifices human beings are willing to make for the precious gifts of liberty, democracy, and peace.

So let us acknowledge the courage of those Iranians who are saying NO to the “Big Lie,” and honor those who are being beaten and killed for demanding justice, freedom, and the truth. My heart and prayers go out to them and to their families, and to the millions of others in Iran and everywhere who are “holding the line” against the monsters.

Julian Krasta may be contacted at semperfieternal@aol.com.

Barack "Banzai!" Obama

2009-06-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

He would’ve made one heck of a Kamikaze pilot. Just like those disillusioned and desperate souls who, beginning in October 1944, slammed their Model 52c Zeroes into U.S. and Ally naval vessels to cause as much death and destruction as possible, Obama is similarly caught up with the same target fixation. “Target fixation” is when a pilot becomes so fixed on his mark that he flies straight into it.

That underground nation known as his administration, including the MSM pit vipers, claim that the spiky focus and steely stare in Obama’s eyes is radiance and derring-do. Wrong. What emanates from those icy orbs is pathological pride and suicidal condescension.

The target now in his sites is Iran with whom he wants to “open a dialogue.” What he fails to accept is that they are not enchanted with his porous speeches, which are, at all times, top-heavy with artless sincerity. I’m pretty sure that the more he tries to sway Iranians to his bizarre thought processes, the more he is making a meal out of his own tongue.

Just for argument’s sake, let us, for a moment, pretend we’re looking at him from Iran’s point of view:

We see an interloper with no decision-making experience who lied, finagled, and bribed his way into the White House. He is self-possessed and closeted. His sophistication is synthetic. He belittles and badmouths America. He is leeching control of corporations (with union bosses catching the meaty scraps in their buckets). He has all but shredded the U.S. Constitution. He is taxing the American People down to their marrow, and is spending those tax dollars like a drunken yuppie. This gatecrasher is now inviting Muslims to join him in a daisy chain of comradeship.

Should Iranians trust Obama’s overture of friendship after witnessing the wholesale damage he is inflicting on his own country? I doubt it. The proof is that, with Obama in the cockpit at the controls, America’s favorable rating in Iran is five percentage points lower than when President George W. Bush held office.

I would add this speculation: Iran’s dwindling opinion of the U.S. also could be based on the fact that, while Obama is piloting America at full throttle to the left and eventually into a Marxist drop zone, Europe is pulling herself up by her bootstraps and is moving decidedly to the right as a result of overdosing on liberalism. Remember how Europeans were swooning and shouting praises and scrambling to touch Obama during the presidential campaign? They are now running, leaping, in the other direction, because they have accepted that liberal voters aren’t capable of picking a winner in a one-horse race.

Examples like these are not products of my imagination. They are a matter of public record, easily accessible on the Internet. If I can dig up this information, so can anyone in Tehran—and they can, and do, judge for themselves.

While I’m on the subject of digging, here briefly is another liberal lollapalooza: The Obama media have been crowing that Sonia Sotomayor would be “the first ever” Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. Wrong again. He was Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, who served from 1932 to 1938. Justice Cardozo was a Sephardic Jew (Spanish ancestry). His father was New York Supreme Court Justice Albert Cardozo (who also was vice president and trustee of the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue, Congregation Shearith Israel, in New York City).

See what you can learn by seeking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? The MSM should, once and for all—or even once—, report hard facts instead of always dunking their donuts in the wrong trough. They should state it as it actually is, like Marilyn Monroe was dazzling, or Nancy Pelosi is overdue for her rabies vaccination. It’s easier than they think.

But I digress.

Obama is spearheading a pervasive conspiracy to fly his “Bogey” into and wipe out the foundation upon which this country was conceived and created. And filling his tanks with volatile support are the Democrats in Congress (who proved that the only thing they’re good at is double-parking their limousines) and the media rag pickers (who wink at lowlifes like Cindy Sheehan but snub the TEA parties).

The result of this troika’s conniving conceit is Americans are living in an atmosphere of crisis. Tensions are simmering throughout the nation. So, unless and until Congressional Republicans gain back control in 2010, no part of this country will go untainted by the present regime, which is turning out to be worse than any foreign invasion piercing our borders or our air space.

Obama is comfortable in his prickly flight suit, because it is a patchwork of his lack of love for, or devotion to, the U.S.A. Unfortunately for him, he actually believes he will replace our rights and liberties with a garroting social order. What he has woefully underestimated is the eventual counter-impact by the People on that order.

We, therefore, must take a stand and ensure that the balance of power swings back to us. It is up to the People to disenfranchise that motley few by voting in replacements who will help reestablish conservative values. Once balance is reinstated we can work on rebuilding what Obama has been trying to smash to dust. It’ll be a slow recovery, but it’s better than no recovery.

Begin today. Support the right men and women who are determined to fight for our rights, who will recharge our Constitutional protections, and who will say “NO” to higher taxes and the dismantling of our military strength.

Finally, send the message to those presently in power that, despite his efforts to blow this country sky high, Obama’s obsessive target fixation will, in the end, result with him slamming into and making an ash of himself.

Julian Krasta may be contacted at semperfieternal@aol.com.

Obama's Cult of Personality

2009-06-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

Cult of personality is “…when a country’s leader uses mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships. A cult of personality is similar to general hero worship, except that it is created specifically for political leaders.”

In early 2008, the worldwide liberal media went on a blowout selling-binge hawking Barack Hussein Obama as a “heroic public image.”

The fragments of what remain of that media (more confined here in the states rather than planet-wide, anymore) are still attempting to plug that image (“The 55-minute speech was remarkable and historic not so much for the delivery or even the words, but for the context, the orator, the moment”), which was posted immediately after Obama’s 6,000-words speech in Cairo.

The article, written by Mike Allen at Politico.com, also describes a moment when Obama drew hushed gasps from the audience for a comment they perceived as audacious. But, all in all, it is portly with praise, despite discrepancies and to-be-expected contradictions, such as when he said, “The U.S. should not impose its values on the world…”—yet he is demanding that Israel concede on preposterous points. Isn’t that an imposition? And then in his Cairo speech: “America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.”

Dizzy yet? But wait, there’s more. According to Obama: We were…we are…we shouldn’t be…you’re okay, but we’re not…we’re crude…we’re not crude…we’re bad, bad, bad…we’re not that bad…the U.S. is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”

Which is it? What are we? I suppose it depends upon which lavish magical mystery tour Obama happens to be on.

The article by Allen is a classic representation of how Josef Stalin, for example, charily chiseled himself a heroic public image using pernicious propaganda to fabricate that hallucination. And the gulags and unmarked graves are crammed with those who dared to disagree.

Americans numbering in the millions swallowed whole the propagandists’ genetically produced persona of Obama, because those millions couldn’t tell the difference between a bagel and a brick.

Today they are suffering from a severe case of “What have I done?” acid reflux, the result of which is their arrogance has shriveled dramatically. They are realizing—too little, too late—that they were meshugeh ahf toit (that’s Yiddish for crazy as a loon) for betting the ranch, SUV, family jewels and college tuition on the MSM’s falsities, and that it is they, the loons, who perforce maneuvered us dangerously close to the deathtrap called totalitarianism.

And now for the bad news:

In his speech, Obama said, “The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as – it is as if he has killed all mankind.”

Sounds harmless, but…

Muslims who inure to the Koran—that it contains the final, unalterable and immutable words of Allah—would know he only paraphrased the actual passage, which is: “To murder a single human being is as evil as to murder all mankind, unless he be causing trouble (mischief) in the land.”

Islamic scholars know the meaning of “causing trouble in the land,” which is to “not live in accordance with the tenets of Islam.” Therefore, the passage Obama chose translates to “the murder of any non-Muslim is not evil.” (Thank you, C.H.)

The arresting difference between Islam and other religions is that all references in the Koran regarding human kindness (love, charity, mercy) count only when it is Muslim to Muslim. The religion unequivocally calls for the death of all infidels, and the enslavement of Christians and Jews.

The purpose of his Cairo speech was (supposedly) predicated on generating a new beginning between America and Muslims—and to build a heroic public image of himself.

Did he goof when he delivered an incomplete and misleading extract from the Koran? Or was he communicating a coded message to our enemies that it’s OK if all non-Muslims are eradicated?

Upon microscopic examination of all he has said and done in these past four months, particularly his choice of words for his Cairo speech, it is not inconceivable that Barack Hussein Obama could be generating the beginning of the end of the United States of America.

Obama's Crusade to Crash Liberty

2009-05-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

Barack Hussein Obama has seized the wheel of power in the United States. With it he is course-plotting our nation, and our nation’s friends, to ruin.

The second paragraph of Section 2 of the Constitution begins: “He shall have power, by and with Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; …”

It’s no secret that Obama is indifferent to the types of treaties to which this sacred document refers. With no resistance whatsoever from within Congressional chambers, he is driven (or is he duty-bound?) by a brainsick compulsion to scrap our alliances with England and Israel.

Rather than sharpening our defenses against terrorist invasion, Obama is erecting a tightly packed wall between America and our most faithful allies. The first layer of brick was when he insulted Britain’s Prime Minister by making him wait for a meeting at the White House, which was then cut short.

The next tiers shot up when, visiting England, he and his wife ditched centuries’ old protocol when they met with Queen Elizabeth. And rather than present elegant gifts to Mr. Brown and Her Majesty, they handed over what amounts to Christmas stocking stuffers for 8-year olds.

The mortar is his attempt to broker a 2-state solution that, without doubt, would set Israel up for bloodier cockfights with the Palestinians. Obama’s proposal is a faithful blueprint of what Jimmy Carter did—or, rather, did not do—with Iran: he shelled peanuts while Khomeini and the Taliban toppled the Shah and took control.

Carter wanted Iran to fall into the hands of those who wish to exact out-and-out destruction upon Israel. And at the same time that Obama was making naïve comments to the press about how Palestinians and Israelis should be “…living side by side in peace and security,” Hamas was renewing rocket attacks against Israel.

Is Obama settling old scores? If so, what might those be? Why is he forging a plan that would be beneficial to no one but the sworn enemies of Christians and Jews?

Insofar as England is concerned, could it be that Obama wants to rake in his pound of flesh against the English who, along with the French and the Dutch, kidnapped, transported and sold Africans into slavery all across the known world over 500 years ago? Please note that nowhere in the previous sentence do I mention America. The “American slave trade” involved English, French, and Dutch landowners.

Obama is now obsessed with closing Guantanamo. His backstop is “rule of law” as to how to handle the incarceration of these very dangerous criminals. He, of course, continues to crucify President Bush over this and every other matter under the moon, stars and sun. But George Bush did not change the rules of war, it was al Qaida. Unlike World War II enemies in uniform, who were more easily identifiable, today’s enemy has no allegiance to a particular country. They are faithful only to a heinous ideology that sanctions and demands the murder of Americans, Jews, and anyone else who does not share their “faith.”

Congress overwhelmingly rejected Obama’s request for $80 millions to close Guantanamo, primarily because each representative was being inundated with communications from their respective constituents demanding that none of those criminals be re-placed into a state facility. The fact that Obama is even toying with the idea—using “rule of law”—to disperse the enemies of America throughout America is cause for grave concern. Dispersal would invite wider terrorist attacks.

This is an extraordinary case, which Obama should handle very carefully, because our country’s security is at stake. Closing this maximum-security detention center to satisfy his lust for even more power only tells me that he cares even less about the citizens to which he answers. Also, if he is ever successful by using “rule of law” to close GITMO and disperse those murderers into our states’ systems, then Socrates was right when he said: “There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust.”

It is my opinion that Obama’s bigger-than-life vision of himself has blurred his ability to think reasonably and fairly. He is the wrong man, in the wrong place, and definitely at the wrong time. America needs a clear thinking, rational, tough-as-nails leader with hands-on executive experience—a hunter-gatherer-protector—not a duke or earl coveting only the cushiness of the king’s chair.

Running hand in hand with Obama’s egregious point of view of Middle East policy is what appears to be his determination to impoverish the American People. On its face, that plan involves creating a single proletariat class that would only subsist on regulated or limited wages, doled out by this Administration under the heading “benevolence.”

Among such acts of benevolence is Obama’s new energy policy, which is structured to increase utility rates. As noted in the Washington Times: “A study of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the cap-and-trade tax will cost every American family more than $3,100 per year.” With such an increase, and others like it, impoverishment is no flight of fantasy.

Another is the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler and takeover by Obama. As I understand it, Obama’s plan is to convert those manufacturers’ preferred stock to common stock, which would give Obama’s government voting rights over those companies.

The big one that pushed us up onto the rocks was the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac catastrophe that caused a worldwide financial heart attack. My gut told me then, and it continues telling me, that it was all engineered by the Left in order to stick the blame for everything on President Bush, and ensure a landslide victory for Obama. (Hitler accomplished the same when he ordered the Reichstag (the German Legislature) torched. The Chancellor’s henchman, Hermann Göring, deflected blame onto the communists. It was Hitler’s first step in carving his way towards a gruesome dictatorship.)

There’s only one glaring problem the political Left here did not anticipate would result from their hedonism. They spent no time researching just how deep their insidious blade would penetrate, because what they’ve done is strike straight into America’s heart, and the heart of America is The People. And Obama continues to stick it to us every time he reads from his teleprompter.

Absolutism is not provided in the Constitution to the chief executive. Yet, in less than four months, Barack Hussein Obama, the poster boy for “Implementation Without Rules” and “The Far Left’s Rules of Misconduct,” has been permitted to take an axe to the roots of our tree of liberty.

Unless he and the others in his administration as well as their dutiful constituents make a comprehensive return to common sense and democracy, and soon, all that will remain of America after Obama is finished will be a lifeless stump.

Hope, "Nope," and a Dope

2009-05-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

While waiting the other day for my tire to be fixed at Mike & Mike’s World of Tires (where the mechanics are Ernesto, Miguelito, and Mohammed), I flashed on some of the recent political news stories. One was in Newsweek—just another of their “ha-ha” articles in which they compared the characters (as politicians) in the films Star Trek and Star Wars.

I drove home, this time careful to swerve around the pothole on Sunset Boulevard that had caused me to be $55 poorer, and extracted my copy (or what was left of it) out from underneath my dog’s bedding. Ziggy Rottweiler loves tearing the guts out of liberal magazines and newspapers, and then burying them, never to be seen again. I’ve tried in vain to offer him the Washington Times and Townhall Magazine to mangle and inter but he only gives those a snout bump and huffs away. Dogs rule.

Anyway, here’s a précis of the Newsweek article:

Obama’s “Shining City of Hope on the Hill” Administration—that edifice of supreme power—is described thus: “seriousness of purpose,” “helping hand,” “cool, collected,” and “villainous aggressor.” Wait. That last one is for Rush Limbaugh.

Former President Bush’s Administration—them shaggy cave dwellers—, on the other hand, are “callow,” “manipulative,” “pitiless,” and “obsequious.”

Newsweek compares President Bush to arch villain Darth Vader (no surprise there, though Dubya misses by the distance from here to Pluto of ever sounding—“May the force be with ya”—as commanding as James Earl Jones) while Barack Hussein Obama—so pretty, so eloquent, so much better than conservatives deserve—is a hip problem fixer.

The hipster, clinging grimly to visions only he sees, has “fixed” a lot of things. An example is when some U.S. banks wanted to repay their TARP loans, and with interest, Obama shut them out from doing so. Doesn’t that come under the heading “Creeping Government Overreach”?

Or would the modern day Simon Legree actually be stating [cue creepy organ music]: “Nope. I now own you, your lock boxes, your stock, and your barrels of money … [sneer] heh, heh, heh”?

He is promising more fixes, such as to hold back California’s allotted stimulus monies if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not restore wage cuts to union workers (in an effort to balance the budget). Obama remains true blue to Labor in spite of the fact he knows full well that the Golden State is balancing on one toe, on top of a one inch-wide rail, less than a centimeter above bankruptcy quicksand.

This country’s most popular state is shriveling on the vine, but those unions must be saved first! It reminded me of the arc scene in Ridley Scott’s “Alien” when Science Officer Ash explained Special Order 937 to the remaining crewmembers about their chances of survival: “All other priorities are rescinded.”

Another fixer-upper on Obama’s list is the planned trip to Egypt where he will address the Muslim world. When this news broke my phone started ringing off the hook. They were mostly Lefties and liberals … I mean, “Progressives,” and all dear friends, who (finally) are starting to squawk about his compulsion to globetrot and draw passionate praise rather than stay home and work on deflating our ballooning domestic problems.

One guy even said, “How much validation does he need? He was elected, for crying out loud.” And that’s from a liberal who had mounted a 3’ x 5’ poster of Obama on his livingroom wall and swore he’d never take it down. It’s now gone. And, no, I didn’t ask.

While I’m on the subject of Obama’s wanderlust, in case no one has noticed, every time he is cleared for take-off (which does seem like every other day) the cost to taxpayers is enormous. Those jumbos burn tons of fuel; and there is the entourage to end all entourages, which includes an army of security and escort aircraft. They don’t work for free, and they all need to be fed and barracked. Or maybe they are laboring “off the cuff”: to be in the same rarified air with Barry might be payment and nutrition enough.

Speaking of Air Force “The One,” Obama can chalk up another resignation as a result of the presidential bird buzzing lower Manhattan for a photo op, which caused extreme panic. This is why the kiddies in this Administration should be marched to the White House woodshed from time to time, to remind them that they are representatives of the United States of America, not straw-chewin’ delinquents in a Sam Clemens novel.

It’s a given that, if this had occurred on President Bush’s watch, all hell would’ve broken loose from the Left for days, possibly weeks. But because the mainstream media are Obama’s fawning footmen, there was only a glimmer of this incident reported at prime time.

Then there was that emerald moment when Obama said “nope” to participating in National Prayer Day. That was a bare-face confirmation of his hard-about-the-mouth attitude regarding Israel, a stanch ally, and Christianity (Judeo-Christian laws and principles, after all, are the backbone of America).

Attendees of the prayer meeting typically are “selected Christian and Jewish leaders.” The dots connect themselves here, and Obama seems determined to sever those connections. And with what will he re-attach them, a fundamental re-ordering of our country based on socialist theory?

When grilled by the press why his boss would be a no show, Robert Gibbs answered with his usual vagueness, “He’ll pray as he does every day.” Reading the Holy Bible, or kneeling on his prayer rug facing Mecca? I believe the American People deserve a clear answer as to his true faith if, in fact, he follows one.

Finally, the “Dope” in my piece is Sen. Arlen Specter. He made front-page headlines recently when he jumped the fire line from the Republican Party over to the Democrats’ side of the Hill. We all know what happened there, so I needn’t present a vapid re-hash. So I’ll end this with a personal message to the new (disgraced and demoted) Congressional Democrat:

Senator, stupidity has the same shelf life as a Twinkie. So you’ll fit in perfectly with the other fruitcakes to the left of the aisle, in the section marked “Just Desserts.”

TEA and Toast

2009-04-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

There is a statue in Concord, Massachusetts, named The Minute Man. It was created by Daniel Chester French and was erected in 1875 in honor of the men who gave their lives at onset of the American Revolutionary War. At the base of the statue is inscribed the first stanza of the Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which includes this line:

"And fired the shot heard around the world."

This sentence (since shortened to, and is more familiar as, The shot heard around the world) has been used to describe life-changing events, e.g., the battle of Lexington and Concord, which set the American Revolution in motion; the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which plunged Europe, and later America, into “the war to end all wars”; the assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King—to name a few.

With pride and appreciation we now can include a remarkable event: the rescue operation executed by the sharpshooters onboard the U.S. Navy Destroyer Bainbridge that took down the Somali pirates, freeing Capt. Richard Phillips unharmed.

Three days later, on April 15th, more shots rang out. Those, however, were not fired from a Barrett .50-cal. They were the voices of over one million Americans who had come together at TEA—Taxed Enough, Already—Parties in cities across the country.

Politicians were welcome but not encouraged to attend. The gatherings comprised American citizens, and were not meant as platforms for the theatrics of public officials, which is why they were a success.

TEA parties began as reactions to Obama’s record spending, soon to be followed by a multi-trillion dollar national sales tax and socialized medicine, all of which is, and will be, hitting us like a swarm of F‑5 Texas twisters.

There were placards that displayed passionate messages, aimed mostly at the White House. Those messages, created under our right of free speech, were as harsh as it got. No smoke bombs or attack dogs were needed to disperse unruly crowds. States’ National Guards were not in siege mode; and no rocks, bottles, or verbal missives were hurled at police.

Each assembly was nonviolent and under control, which might explain why the mainstream media were noticeably absent; no heads were bashed and no effigies were burned, ergo, nothing the MSM considered imperative to report. Okay, there was one arrest (out of the one million): an over-exuberant partygoer blocked traffic as she cheerily waved her homemade sign. Was she dragged off in chains? No. The lady was peaceably, and without incident, escorted away by the local gendarmes.

The gatherings are proof of Newton’s Third Law: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Case in point: You bombed Pearl Harbor without provocation? You’re toast. Or: You attacked our country without provocation on 9/11 and killed 3,000-plus innocent civilians up and down our eastern seaboard? Toast again.

Liberals and our liberal left-wing president (all of whom are more concerned with defending such offenders) would probably view my illustrations as over-the-top. But you get the point.

TEA parties serve to openly and peacefully object to Barack Obama and his flawed actions. Rather than go down that list, I’m linking one article in this paragraph, dated April 23, 2009, which is a report at WSJ.com about Obama’s intention to allow the indictment of Bush officials. The piece is entitled “Presidential Poison” – appropriate, I think, in the circumstances.

The gatherings “evolved” (the MSM’s favorite word) into protests against Obama’s dressing down of our country while recently in Europe. Most appalling, from my point of view, was during the same excursion when Obama greeted King Abdullah. Instead of offering a manly handshake or a respectful tilt of his head, he bowed and kissed the hand of that potentate. No other U.S. president, including President George W. Bush, has ever made such a transparent gesture of submission.

TEA partygoers protested Obama’s lack of control over his appointees, particularly Janet Napolitano. In the DHS Intelligence Assessment, titled “Rightwing Extremism,” she suggested that military vets should be viewed as a danger to America: She cited Timothy McVeigh to draw on in order to make such an irresponsible statement. In Napolitano’s own words, which I’m borrowing from an April 23 article at the New York Post, “I was the United States attorney for Arizona in the ‘90s when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrow [sic] building in Oklahoma City and unfortunately he was a vet – that’s where he got his training.”

But Janet failed to cite other examples, such as John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, the Beltway snipers, who were black and Muslim. Or did she forget? Or was she ordered to refer to heinous crimes committed only by white men?

Her lack of correctness has prompted a call by conservative organizations to demand Napolitano resign from her post at the Department of Homeland Security. In other words: You accuse our veterans of being right-wing extremists because of their military training? You’re toast.

Comes now Nancy Pelosi. On April 23, the Speaker of the House went before the press and funfeh’d (Yiddish for stumbled and mumbled) yet another myth: she denied having any knowledge that our Central Intelligence Agency used the method called “waterboarding” on captured terrorists to extract from them vital information advantageous to national security.

I guess Nancy dozed off during the 2002 briefing in which GOP operatives explained the “enhanced interrogation techniques in graphic detail.” And this comes on the heels of her uproarious statements about the Catholic Church and abortion.

On July 4th, Newton’s Third Law will again come into play when the bell rings for Round Three of the TEA Parties. I expect they will be even bigger, more unified, and just as in-control.

Capitol Hill fears these gatherings. They’re using words like “racist” and “national security threat” against the gatherers—like the schoolyard bully who cowers and cries foul when his object of ridicule has had enough and slugs back.

“We, the People”—the participants at TEA Parties—are the target of the bullies on Capitol Hill, and we have had enough. We have reached the end of our tether over the dismal and reckless performance on the part of members of the House and Senate.

We are equally at our wits’ end over this Administration playing robber baron with the American way of life, our livelihoods, our industries, our freedoms, and our children’s future. And we reject its efforts to infuse socialism in our country and thereby cause its implosion.

To those few who are trying to steer this country off a cliff, I have four brand new words for you:

LiberTEA … EqualiTEA … FraterniTEA … ProsperiTEA

I’m confident that majority control will swing back to the Republican Party after next year’s congressional elections. Thereafter, we will rebuild our lives and re-fortify our nation. And we can then offer a “toast” to the return of our inalienable rights, and pick up where we left off in our pursuit of happiness.

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

2008-11-19T11:36:00.000-08:00

by MITT ROMNEY

New York Times Op-Ed Contributor

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html?_r=1

If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run20American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet.

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was a candidate for this year’s Republican presidential nomination.

The New Cold War

2008-10-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

It has not been Barack Obama per se (because I could never give him credit for being that clever) but rather the liberal mainstream media that have succeeded, as in no other presidential election, of drawing shut an impregnable iron curtain between Obama and the truth about Obama.

Their actions – their abject bias – have sparked another paroxysmal event … a turf war of the coldest nature: Americans for Obama openly and aggressively hostile to any and all Americans who are not.

The safety of the United States requires unity. But that unity is falling to pieces because of this new and very ugly cold war.

Leftists, liberals and democrats are married to, but cannot explain or justify, Obama’s brainstorm of an authoritarian agenda to fritter into a general government account Americans’ hard-earned, dream-realized income that will then be “redistributed.”

It’s no secret that some of some of this country’s super-rich, the famous, and the infamous have locked themselves inside the Obama sphere. Don’t they understand that they, too, would be subject to this redistribution plan (the taxable gross income for which has been reduced by Obama and Biden from $250,000 to $200,000, to now $150,000)? That is, unless, he intends to give them a pass.

In any event, they are completely under their candidate’s inexplicable mind-bending control. Under that control their thought processes are locked down tighter than a prison after a riot and have sunk lower than the orlop deck of HMS Titanic.

Conservatives are dedicated to detecting, uncovering and presenting truth. We strive moment-to-moment and day-by-day to correctly identify and bring to light emergent realities facing our country.

Our efforts are similar to those of seismologists who work round the clock gathering crucial data for when and where the next devastating earthquake or tsunami will strike and destroy.

Yet, no matter how many valid warnings conservatives have delivered to liberals or called upon them to acknowledge the perceived dangers, they pretend not to hear or feel the rumbling beneath their feet.

They deny that the current financial crisis was the result of the Democrats’ reckless tomfoolery, and turn their eyes away from the destruction yet on the horizon, which Obama will bring upon us.

Instead, they’re more concerned with seeing set loose that snarling beast called the Fairness Doctrine, which is meant to cut off conservative communications, because our researched opinions are, as much as possible, based in legitimacy.

If Obama reaches the Oval Office and is then able to execute the changes he has in mind, and on the basis of the data conservatives have gathered about him, this country will be hit with a tsunami of insanity, the likes of which this generation has only read about in books written about Socialist Europe and the American Civil War.

His supporters eventually will wake from the spell they’ve been under, which they allowed to be cast over them. They all will discover that they’ve been robbed of their senses and sense of direction, and wonder how they could’ve been so expertly conned.

But the burden of responsibility will be on their heads, because they chose to stand behind a losing proposition.

Only then will they realize that Republicans and conservatives were right, that we were not misguided or paranoid when we tried to do everything in our power to stop the oncoming insanity.

By that time, however, it might be too late, because the liberal mainstream media, via their nefarious dump-truck saturation reporting, had raised the bridge every time we attempted to cross over with the truth.

I’ll say the truth once more:

Barack Hussein Obama is not qualified to be President of the United States. He is desperately short of executive, legislative, leadership, foreign policy and relations, and military experience, because he is a walking, talking intellectual cul‑de‑sac.

America under Obama and a super-majority Democrat Congress could become like a Nazi Germany or a Stalinist Russia: a totalitarian state which controls everything that is written, printed and read, where all subjects are scrutinized and/or rejected before being produced for television and the cinema, where tax increases will erode our income, where “collectivism” is law, and where objections to such suppression will be forbidden.

The voice of the People will perish under such jackboot regime.

The rights and liberties our founding fathers created to protect and empower you and me are under threat of being stripped away. The putsch and the pogrom might be resurrected from history’s ashes. Only this time they will be used to harass and persecute Americans.

Is this the America you want to live in? If your answer is yes, then vote for Obama.

Just don’t complain that we conservatives never said, “We warned you!” when those raw, massive, pounding walls of insanity come crashing down on you.

Of Mice and Moose

2008-09-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

Glass ceilings notwithstanding, Gov. Sarah Palin is being accepted by America and other progressive nations as the new high-spirited Republican melody maker. Her in-tune communications, slowly but surely, are drowning out Obama’s bizarre ventriloquism, Joe Biden’s howlers (although I now must thank Sen. Biden for his public criticism of Obama), and the mainstream media’s pops and pings of their low-register gothic operas.

I admit I knew nothing about the lady, so when Sen. John McCain torpedoed the long-awaiting GOP with his announcement that he’d chosen Mrs. Palin as his running mate, I blurted (literally), “Who? But-but… what about Romney? Where’s Pawlenty?”

Once the conservative world had caught its breath, we scrambled like ants with road rage to bring ourselves up to speed and be informed about her as much as possible. What we learned was surprisingly uplifting, and encouraging. But encouraging and uplifting would not be enough for wary and weary Republicans. Our faith – our votes for John McCain – quite suddenly depended enormously on Mrs. Palin’s presentation of herself at the Republican convention, her message and delivery.

To put it plainly, when she finished speaking I had to find my socks. They were on the other side of the room, having been blown off by what I’d seen and heard.

As the balloons rained down on our nominees and ecstatic supporters, I concluded, with refreshed hopefulness, that Sen. McCain appeared to have done right with his choice.

In the weeks that have followed, and on the basis of hardnosed scrutiny, I came to recognize that Mrs. Palin not only has the head but the heart and constitution to assume the responsibilities of Vice President of the United States, to name a few: the hurdles, the sinkholes, and the sway of President of the Senate; the polluted power of Washington politics; and all that the second-in-command to the leader of what might be the last frontier of the free world must endure or may enjoy.

In addition, and with all due respect (I have to say this), it is my opinion that Mrs. Palin could easily be considered a candidate for U.S. Army Ranger: superincumbent point of convergence, fine sinew tone, her marksmanship with a hunting rifle, razor-sharp receptors, and she’s a flawless communicator. It’s probably why she is balls-out fearless in the face of twits wielding their toothless pitchforks and burned-out torches. Not too shabby for a mother of five.

As expected, from the moment she was named the Republicans’ vice presidential candidate, the cheese-eaters on the left went whacko, like a duck hit on the head. They didn’t just cross but leaped the line of civility and began – and continue – to snarl, spit and squawk some of the most reprehensible idioms against Sarah Palin.

They have squealed over and gnawed on everything from her pro-life position to her accession to the post of a city mayor and then governor of our largest state – even her husband and children.

They also have gone so far as to censure Mrs. Palin’s rightful choice not to abort her baby son, Trig, who had been diagnosed with Down syndrome prior to birth. (It’s one thing to push the envelope of criticism; it’s quite another, in this instance, to hammer nails in so deeply that they can never be retracted – and their contemptuous mockery of Mr. & Mrs. Palin’s faith-based decision not to terminate the life of their son, I assure you, will be neither forgotten nor forgiven.)

The liberal media (Obama’s Love Bombers: “You’re perfect just the way you are, Barack”), from top to bottom, and from the start, consciously and deliberately ignored the tenets of fairness and decency towards John McCain, and now Sarah Palin.

The most disturbing aspect is their shameless revelry in the destruction they are attempting to wreak on the Palin Family, particularly celebrities. I’m confident enough to say that they will never achieve their objective, and their words and actions will backfire in due course.

As an aside: On the topic of backfires, an example is what occurred during the Clinton administration. They bullied the banking industries into granting loans to unqualified purchasers. Approximately 30 years earlier, Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy browbeat a bill through the Senate to allow into our country a greater percentage of “the less fortunate” (i.e., from south of our borders and elsewhere), who comprise a significant (if not largest) amount of today’s unqualified purchasers. Both plans spearheaded by those two Democrats served as chief elements of the incubator in which was hatched this $700 billion T-Rex. Ironically, those screaming loudest “Save us!” are – you guessed it – liberal Democrats. End aside.

Nevertheless, the limousine liberals, who are enamored with the sound of their own voice (you listenin’ up their in your private jet, which is paid for by the People, Madam Speaker?), persist with their shrill insults at John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Mrs. Palin’s executive credentials and character, at every MSM opportunity and with serial ignorance.

At one point recently, I sat through the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan just for a respite. Thankfully, at about minute 18, I was able to turn down the volume on my TV because of the across-the-board news that two of the more vicious rodents (Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann) had both fallen victim to their own rat poison. Wait--didn’t I just say: “[…] their words and actions will backfire in due course”?

The catalog of gross offenders now also includes a certain David Kernell, a student who thought he was enrolling at Clown College (Harry Reid’s alma mater), but because Kernell, like Reid, probably failed basic comprehension instead scrawled his “X” on the University of Tennessee-Knoxville admission form. (Kernell is under investigation by the FBI and Secret Service for allegedly hacking into Sarah Palin’s electronic mail accounts.) Ditto my “backfire” comment (emphasis added).

William Shakespeare wrote: “Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.”

For Sarah Palin, she needn’t wish it – she simply is. I believe in Mrs. Palin, because she exemplifies decency and morality. True, she has a tough field to plow if she succeeds Dick Cheney, but she is clearly at least ten times smarter, stronger, and on the ball than today’s passel of Washington mutts.

Ever see moose stomp mice? Me neither. But I have a hunch we’re going to see just that, come November.

The One Trick Phony

2008-07-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

First on the list of the Seven Deadly Sins is Pride. Barack Obama’s cup runneth over with SDS No. 1, so much so that his credibility – as well as the trustworthiness of the Democratic Party – is beginning to resemble the bottom of a birdcage.

As demonstrated during his excursion to the Middle East and Europe, Obama’s vainglory character has reached full feather: What we saw and heard was not a paradigm of intellectual prowess or the mountain-moving messiah the media are in desperation pitching the world to believe he is – quite the contrary.

In spite of every attempt to present himself as a deep thinker or an “every man,” the senator remains detached and unprincipled when it comes to giving full credit to our military. He is also cold and hostile, particularly when he is caught unawares by a journalist’s impromptu questions. Absent his teleprompter of pre-arranged homilies and dog-eared clichés, his remarks are a runoff of blatant inaccuracies, such as this “Berra-ism” that would make Yogi proud:

“Let me be perfectly clear: Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s” –

All of which are bells not even the power peacocks of the liberal mainstream media are able to un‑ring.

Fairness demands I give credit to Obama. The only credit I believe he deserves is for his flair for dramatic showmanship. Not since P.T. Barnum – spot-lit in the center ring, dressed in coattails and top hat – has anyone effectively impressed and entrapped the hearts, minds and chromosomes of so many.

Put more simply: Obama enchants and entertains children of all ages.

Those he electrifies eagerly dive for every pearl that slips from his lips. Unfortunately, their fascination with him is anything but academic (as compared to John McCain’s feet-on-the-ground, fact-demanding supporters, as well as his opponents).

One explanation might be that, once Obama’s gullible herds imbibe of his “wondrous waters,” they become similarly stricken – or further stricken – with his now-trademark languor (which might explain why, when I first heard them chanting “We want change!” I had thought they were actually yelling, “We want pain!”).

Was that fair enough?

Obama’s one trick is he has mastered the art of doling out only cryptic hints of the changes he intends to make if he is elected. Aside from holding to a pattern of delivering sprawling and irregular speeches (which I view as a tribute to Dr. Seuss: “I do not like them in a box. I do not like them with a fox. I do not like them in a house…” – You get the picture), he has yet to convey concrete exemplars of how he would achieve those changes.

More importantly, he has not explained – not even a speck – what those changes would unerringly entail, and just how such changes would diametrically affect Americans, though Republicans and conservatives already know what he has in mind:

It’s a given that Obama would raise taxes across the board in order to provoke the mysterious changes only he envisions. His grandiose illusions of himself have blinded him to the fact that stacking more financial stress on the American people and on American industries would only serve to fund a radical attack on our nation’s problems:

Job losses could skyrocket. Personal spending would plummet. The housing market (and residential and commercial development) could collapse entirely. And retirement, investment and savings accounts could go under – to name an important few.

Just those tied together could conceivably cause parents (one or both, or the only one) to hold down a second job in order to make ends meet, which, in turn, would rupture family unity.

Is that what Obama’s wife meant when she heatedly lectured:

“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism … that you come out of your isolation. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved … uninformed”?

If that be true, then Obama aims to strip Americans of our freedom of choice. And if we were to lose freedom of choice, it would just be a matter of time before these, too, would be lost:

- Freedom of religion,

- Freedom of speech,

- Freedom of the press (in particular, the conservative press),

- Freedom of intellectual inquiry,

- Freedom of artistic expression, and

- Every other freedom that empowers the individual.

An equally serious setback would be this: If elected his conceit could initiate a power binge that would be a kick in the teeth to the Presidency. This is not a hypothetical in view of his track record of zero accomplishments, and his conspicuous immaturity.

His weaknesses are unlimited. His acuity is less than remarkable. In short: he would mitigate the muscle of the Commander-in-Chief and thereby exacerbate the broadening spectrum of critical issues facing this nation.

Obama wants so badly to be Le Premier Chef. He claims he has the perfect recipes, including the utensils and pots & pans, for everything he only imagines we need. The fact remains, however, that with every spurious comment he makes, including his brassbound insistence on delivering Swiss cheese answers to legitimate queries about the ingredients in his recipes, he proves he can’t even boil water.

The Trojan Horse Candidate

2008-07-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

The intellectual communities all over the world are waiting in an agony of suspense as to whether John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. The suspense is rooted in the hope for granite security and the prospect for lasting peace, which could altogether vanish if, in January 2009, the wrong man raises his hand and takes the oath.

Senator McCain is uncomplicated with respect to the leadership and defense of our country. His fearless patriotism was formed and hardened by an irrefutable fact: The American People’s collective resolve coupled with the actions of our awesome military, in their harshest terms, are proof to our enemies – of the past, present and, yes, future – that we play in a bigger and badder league than they could ever dream.

By stark contrast, Obama requires a daily diet of total compliance and idolization. His word salads are a gross national product of cants and fantasies, and is devoted to injecting chaos into the jellied minds of the crowds of people (here and in countries such as Syria) that play into his fantasies. He has successfully accomplished this because his is a cocktail personality, meaning: He senses other people’s vulnerabilities, he reads their personalities, and performs accordingly. It is the classic sign of a sociopath.

Liberals argue that Senator McCain might be too old, too hotheaded, and too off the mark (and some frustrated Republicans and core conservatives chime in with the fear that he is too liberal-minded). In some respects they are all correct – in some respects. There are even those who poke fun at his banal tone. Again, some of their levity is not entirely unjustified. My view of the Senator, which is shared by many, many other conservative advocates, is quite the opposite. To quote an old saying: “Still water runs deep.”

Moreover, John McCain has served our country faithfully as a Navy fighter pilot (a stone-cold truth not even (Ret.) Gen. Wesley Clark can deny or devalue (notwithstanding Clark’s cheap shots to discredit McCain’s leadership qualifications)). He endured horrible physical pain during his imprisonment in Viet Nam. Primarily, he is lock, stock and barrel more transparent than the Democrats’ candidate claims to be because, good, bad or indifferent, Senator McCain has no hidden agendas. Neither does he feign being anything other that what we see.

Barack has an impressive record of political ineptitude: He and his party strive to expand policies such as welfare (to ensure dependence on the government dole by those below the poverty line in order to fortify their votes). Obama opposes privatizing Social Security, which is supported by Senator McCain – a proposition that would be advantageous to taxpayers in that we would be able to invest and manage our benefits.

Obama opposes school vouchers (one means to the end of our children being short-changed in their education). He used the words “ugly and racist” to depict opponents of the 2007 comprehensive illegal immigration bill, yet it is commonplace (and widely accepted by his supporters and conveniently overlooked by the media) when he repeatedly brings into the fray the fact he is black. This comes from the chosen one of the party that went up against the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution (respectively: abolishing slavery, granting citizenship rights to newly-freed slaves, guaranteeing the right to vote for blacks – Thank you, Larry Elder).

Senator McCain has always been a proponent of nuclear power, and he is calling for no less than 45 nuclear power plants to be built by the year 2030. Barack has said that this might be worth investigating – until he decides to cast his vote in opposition.

Obama possesses a superego and is fully one-dimentional. He has (with the wholesale aid of the liberal mainstream media) caused his supporters, as well as al Qaida and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, to believe that there’s a wizard behind his curtain when, in fact, there is only a brick wall.

Islamist jihadists are determined to dominate this planet, by whatever force necessary, and become our supreme rulers. From the standpoint of their blood-lust adventurism, the very future of the freedoms of the human race has become the issue.

John McCain understands this. Without equivocation, but in peremptory tones, he has said plainly that he is as equally determined to use whatever force is necessary to prevent terrorists from gaining the upper hand and, as President, would not imprudently withdraw our troops from the hot zones.

Obama, on the other hand, is hedonistic with his [politically motivated] litany “I will end the war” and begin bringing our troops home if he becomes president. This move comes under the heading “Miscalculation and Maladroitness.” It would be as foolish as an impatient homeowner ordering the tent removed from his house before the poisoning process can fully and effectively destroy a vermin infestation “…because the tent is an eyesore.”

This smacks of arrogance and audacity. His myopic presumptions equate to reckless endangerment: gambling with our lives here at home as well as the country we call home to satisfy his aspirations – that is (using another analogy), no less irresponsible as when a parent or guardian leaves a baby or a pet locked in a hot car to go shopping.

Moreover, Obama’s ambition has blinded him to the fact that withdrawing our troops, reducing military spending, and suspending or cancelling defense programs would not only weaken the security of our homeland it would sharply increase domestic unemployment in all related sectors of private, public, and government businesses.

Furthermore, if we lose the strength in numbers of trained military personnel now – or a year or two from now – and our country is attacked again, three to four months would need to pass before capable replacement ground, sea, and air combat troops could be expected to reach required potency and supplant those who had been killed and injured. In that time, we could go beyond the crisis level and face unmitigated disaster because of a lack of trained manpower.

Our enemies could exploit this perceived weakness. They might attack, possibly with lethal chemical weapons, and destroy (but not be limited to) municipal and military communications centers and installations, commercial and military airfield complexes, fire, police and energy stations, water and food supplies, roads and railways, all personnel therein, and every civilian within specific radii of those areas.

John McCain is aware of the foregoing, because he is a long-horn, scarred, intemperate and veteran bull. Faith should be invested in him, in that he would exercise every power vested in him as President to go the distance and cut out the fanatic canker that threatens humanity and prevent such attacks.

Obama is a neophyte. His daydreaming has left him deficient of legislative and leadership experience. With neither to his credit, he wouldn’t be able to stop an asthma attack.

It would therefore come as no surprise to the GOP, conservatives or rational Democrats if, as president, he one day swings open the White House doors, flashes a smile at the beast looming above him (whose entrée into our land he helped engineer), and says:

“What a nice horsey – of course I’ll sign for it.”

Politicians Do Not Own Us, "We" Own Them

2008-06-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

Now that the Democrats have, at long last, selected their nominee, “We” need to remind ourselves of long-standing facts concerning those persons we elected to public office. More importantly, the presidential candidates need to hear from us.

The United States is hovering closer to the thin edge of the wedge, because too large a percentage of the men and women we voted to represent our best interests – and those who will yet finagle to win our votes – are preoccupied in grudge matches for supremacy within their club quarters.

Elected civil servants mulishly persist in placing their hands on the wrong end of the stick with regard to their responsibilities to the American People. We need to jog their memories about their job function (the salaries of which we pay for):

Specifically, they, at all times, are to acquaint us with the best possible alternatives for how to shelter and maintain our basic human rights and our country’s integrity. If we do not agree, or find fault, with their proposals, we have the right to say no, and to repeat the word “no” pending acceptable answers and/or solutions.

It is common knowledge that, despite their campaign pledges (and the fact that we elected office holders on the basis of those pledges), they invariably present this wry comeback to our inquiries:

“I plan to set up a task force to look into the matter”

– which is code for “I have no intention of earning my keep.”

Earning their keep requires results, and results would be evidence that they deserve the position for which we elected them. So far, the only proof provided is the majority of those men and women we placed in government positions are all mouth and goiter.

For instance, there is a singular critical matter those elected abjectly refuse to work on and put right: the mounting pressure for America to, once and for all, release itself from its ties to foreign oil. It is far more appealing to members of Congress to stage a mock trial (at taxpayer expense) and drag over the coals American oil executives rather than admit to, and immediately act upon, an obvious way out: the U.S. territory designated ANWR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge).

The crude oil we very badly need is located in abundance within ANWR, in the remotest and uninhabited area, where none of God’s creatures (except mosquitoes) would suffer inconvenience in the exploration and capture of the resource.

A neighbor nation to the south, Brazil, has done this. They tapped into a mother lode oil field approximately 150 miles out at sea, which should help keep them supplied for a significant length of time. I recognize the value of ingenuity in the face of urgency, and am pleased to pass on good wishes to Brazil for taking the necessary steps to ensure their petroleum needs are fulfilled.

In light of Brazil’s achievement, it is lunacy on the part of our elected representatives to mandate that America not exploit every other potential advantage available within our own borders to re-energize our stockpile of fuel.

Meanwhile, the price per gallon to fill our cars’ fuel tanks is rapidly approaching $5.00. This is precisely what Shell Oil’s Chief Executive Officer, John Hofmeister, cautioned the House Committee in late May would come to pass unless and until Congress removes the shackles and allows Big Oil to responsibly explore and drill for oil.

Rather than a constructive debate, an ill-mannered response to Mr. Hofmeister’s statement was delivered by Maxine Waters-(D‑CA) in which she attempted to intimidate the CEO, saying the government would socialize [sic] the oil companies. Her clumsy threat was altogether an embarrassment to the office to which she was elected, counterproductive to those proceedings, and an insult to the People’s intelligence.

From Capitol Hill to our largest cities and smallest townships nationwide, scent of power has clouded common sense and sense of duty. Too many of the elected officials we chose to invest with our trust spend their terms in office undermining the laws specifically written to protect citizens. There are also those who, out of idleness, pursue – and needlessly squander taxpayer money on – phantom resolutions to unsubstantiated conundrums, such as the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Act.

Elected officials have wrecked the inner cities with their unaccountability and allowed schools to fall to ruin. As our education systems deteriorate, so goes our children’s literacy.
Fortunately, there are diehard educators out there who are determined to fight fire with fire. They want kids to be – as they should be – our number one priority. Unfortunately, this example is one of few exceptions. Suitably educating our youngsters in secure and healthy environments is no longer the blanket rule.

Politicians hamstring law enforcement agencies (as with the deleterious Special Order 40 in Los Angeles). And when such initiatives crash and burn leaving only scorched earth in their wake, they lay blame on the federal government. While the blame games go on, the record of men, women, teenagers and children killed and injured increases by the second. The cycle is vicious.

Once they assume office, elected officials engage a bizarre 4‑stage slant on central issues (e.g., national security precautions, economic stability, health and welfare, education, our country’s independence, protection of our constitutional privileges), which is directly linked to the countless problems we face today:

1. Nothing is going to happen.

2. Something might happen but we should do nothing about it.

3. Maybe we should do something but there’s nothing we can do.

4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.

Example: It took three U.S. presidents to be assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley) before Congress finally authorized the Secret Service to assume the full-time responsibility of protecting our Commanders in Chief.

This same jumbled attitude pertains to the Senate’s points of view today with respect to the War on Terror. They (primarily the liberals amongst them) continue to be tightfisted in recognizing the positive effects of the Surge. They pay no heed to the Iraqi people’s remarkable endeavors – working side by side with our magnificent military – to liberate themselves from fanatic ideologues. Instead, Nancy Pelosi had the impudence to give the credit for the Iraqis’ achieved goals to Iran.

To say the Speaker’s remarks are disquieting would be an understatement. She is, in point of fact, encouraging Iran to be aggressive. Her statements were both precarious and immoral in view of the fact Mahmoud Admadinejad considers the North American continent and the State of Israel his personal kill zones.

On the basis of such recklessness, it is essential that the following be circulated to our elected politicians (above all to those yet to be elected), which is the People’s response to their abortive 4-stage strategy:

1. “We” are not confused adolescents.

2. “We” will not be placated.

3. “We” are not fools.

4. “We” are mature citizens who demand for our children and for ourselves protection from terrorists, street gangs, exploding numbers of illegal immigrants, the escalating cost of fuel, the pandemic of irresponsible and wasteful bureaucrats, and higher taxes.

With a shifty general election looming on the horizon, it is mordantly clear that we become unceasingly involved in our own destiny. This is no longer just optional. It is mandatory.

Serious citizen-voters must take the time, either by telephone, facsimile, U.S. mail or electronic mail, and extend straightforward rulings to our elected representatives on their performance, including imminent and wounding legislation. We must be relentless until they clean up their act and rescind radical propositions, from unconditional amnesty for illegals to a plan (dreamed up by the Democrats’ nominee) to distribute $845 BILLION taxpayer dollars outside the United States, the outcome of which could further weaken our fragile economy as well as break the backs of the American People.

“We” put them there. It is now time to dust off the weed whacker, which would serve as fitting notice to the incoming POTUS. That is:

“We, the People” take a backseat to no one, particularly politicians “We” vote into office.

Fair Warning About Obama

2008-06-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

By Julian Krasta

When he first stepped out on the world stage, Barack Hussein Obama seemed to most conservatives both beautiful and disturbing, as one might feel when casting a virgin glance upon a Salvador Dali painting: It makes no sense, it is a bit alarming, but the colors are pretty.

Ambitious politicians address expectant crowds often with “I can,” “I will,” or “I promise.” Typically, there are no images to go with their words.

B. Hussein, however, has, and with broad and uneven strokes, splashed a redesigned America on the blank canvases that are his supporters’ minds. The vision they have grabbed onto is, from a hot-air balloon, a color-blended Utopia. Up close, it is stark, very costly, divided, divisive, and unsafe.

Obama displayed painful earnestness when he proposed a change the people can believe in. Unfortunately for him, comments he made about his grandmother being a ‘typical white person’ – and his backpedaling to attempt to reverse its base meaning – has exposed two irrefutable facts: (1) The “change” is pure fiction, because (2) his pallette, by his own admission, is smeared with only two shades: black on the left, white on the right, which has brought out into the open his guilty secret:

He is a spoiled and bitter child.

In view of these inconsistencies, as well as his rambling discourse following the Wright bruhaha in which his deep-seated obsession over race tumbled out, conservatives and auspicious Democrats have watched his ascent and listened to his avowals with enhanced caution. As he spiraled higher, caution turned to concern, particularly after Wright’s frightful remarks and the ugly and hostile emergence of Michael Pfleger.

Frankly, I am relieved. It has all served to reconfirm that Obama is, underneath the surface shine, just another sloppy pop idol. Like all brat luminaries who are the darlings of the liberal media, he believes – or his puppeteers have led him to believe – that he can say or do anything and get away with it. For anyone to try to convince me Obama is qualified to lead this nation would be the same as trying to convince me Martin Bormann was an OK fella.

Obama, the official glamorizer of the liberals’ fractured philosophy, will go on with his lordly amusement of making outlandish conjectures about how he and he alone can cure America’s troubles. With no list of accomplishments to his credit since becoming a senator, this delinquent naïveté is fast becoming a point of great anxiety.

His most upsetting absurdity is to meet with Iran to discuss stabilizing Iraq. The spoiled child in him refuses to accept the fact that there is no chatting or negotiating with tyrants on any issue – ever.

Iran, a preeminent engine of killing, is flagrantly processing uranium. There is no doubt this uranium is being prepared for nuclear weapons. Yet, B. Hussein thinks he can leap tall buildings over to Tehran; that Admadinijad will crawl out of his sinkhole of iniquity, be waiting for him on the tarmac with open arms and – voilà! – lend a happy hand to the United States.

Obama’s immaturity is so tragic it is almost poetic.

The mainstream media will, as they always do, play down Obama’s numerous faux pas. Obama, in an attempt to maintain his artificial patina, will place the onus for his goof-ups on everyone else.

His resolute followers will write articles defending him and engage in blown reactor shouting matches with us “xenophobes” for our audacity to speak or print the truth about him. Nevertheless, this political ingénue’s words are out there for eternity.

Just as no earthly power can resurrect the dead, Obama can never change what he said.

Obama’s meteoric rise has unquestionably affected how he views his own mortality. Instead of window dressing for his mob of doting fans and highbrow supporters and voicing bizarre and self-congratulatory statements, he should re-register at Occidental College and take a crash course on Ancient Rome. Specifically:

When a general returned from a victorious campaign, he would enter Rome triumphantly in his chariot ahead of his legions wearing gold armor and electrum that flashed brightly in the sun. Thousands of exuberant citizens greeted him. They laid flowers before him and cheered wildly as if he were the god Apollo in human form. The moment must have been exhilarating.

Here is where Rome’s emperors were shrewd. They knew such adoration could easily cause the most sensible man to believe he is invincible and redoubtable – a god. With this in mind, they placed a solitary, unobtrusive man beside the general in his chariot. As they paraded past the adoring mob, the man’s sole duty was to repeat this warning in the general’s ear:

“You are only a man.”

In Barack Obama’s case, the repeated warning in everyone’s ears should be:

“He is only a child.”

Like It or Not, We Should Prepare for the Worst

2008-04-02T11:53:00.000-07:00

by Julian Krasta

While the three presidential candidates scuttle towards the big prize, the real-time issue of national defense against terrorist aggressors here and abroad remains the front-row topic.

Since time in memorial, legions of men of fractured ambition have left carpets of corpses in their wake because of ill-conceived, all-consuming greed, envy and hate. These same neuroses survive today. The disparity now is, tormentors are equipped with weapons of mass destruction and are sway to deluded impulses to gun down and eviscerate the sleeping giant, America.

As this threat persists, two questions beg answers:

1. Is our nation suitably fortified?

2. Do Americans understand the lengths they need to go to be prepared for the worst?

The answer to both is “yes” – but also “no.”

“Yes” to the first, because America has the greatest concentration of ground, sea and air tactical forces in the world: courageous soldiers, sailors, marines and fighter pilots far from home, where they are placing their lives willingly in harm’s way in order to keep us here at home safe from harm. (Many have died. To each, which includes their families and friends, I say, Thank you… and God bless you.)

“No” to question No. 1 arises because our sitting Congress is a twisted mass of liberal red tape. The result is the safeguards necessary for our country’s protection have fallen far down their critical must-do list. Why, you ask? Because, while our homeland is busting at the seams from the countless numbers of illegal aliens for whom everything from soup to nuts is “On the House,” there are not enough of our valiant soldiers to defend cities and states if the worst occurs… again.

Additionally, the “no” to No. 1 has been exacerbated by Democrat members of the House of Representatives, particularly their leaders, on whose necks, in my opinion, the axe should fall without mercy come November. Their gross negligence in purposely allowing the Protect America Act to expire in February is a clear threat to every single American.

The Democrats did not act alone. They worked in concert with trial lawyers who use their “officer of the court” status as an apparatus to beguile specific legislation so that the outcome benefits only them. Those lobbyists won, or rather bought, their argument (and other outrageous conflict-ridden contretemps) by disgorging thousands of favor dollars into the Democrats’ honey pot.

The return on their cash investment was a succès fou. In plain “Americans lose” English, the trial lawyers, with malicious intent, triumphed ignominiously, in that they caused to be blocked all efforts on the part of House Republicans to reinstate the Protect America Act, which has been officially dead in the water as of February 16, 2008.

As for the over-powdered culprits in the House (who anoint themselves daily with the F‑word: “failure” [in Iraq]), by accepting tainted money they are indiscreetly admitting that a fatter party fund is more important to them than the lives and property of the present and future generations of Americans.

Naturally, Nancy Pelosi tidily explained the dismantling of this vital safety provision: “…to protect the financial interests of telecommunications companies and avoid judicial scrutiny of their warrantless wiretapping program…” – which is lawyer-speak for, The House of Representatives have no sense of right and wrong as we gaily parley better seats in hell for us all. (Bear in mind that most, if not all, members of the House share the same parentage with trial lawyers: law degrees. They therefore chat in the same corrupt patois and impart the same parsimonious principles – tied neatly together with strands of low-ethic DNA.)

Whom do you imagine is wedged in the passageways and dead ends of their money-changing labyrinth? You guessed it, the taxpayers. We comprise the low-, middle- and high-income filers and every mom & pop store, every multinational, transnational, public, private, commercial, boutique, average, conglomerate and mega-corporation.

Whether the liberals like to hear it or not, and they do not, it is we the taxpayers – not elected officials – who are the only legitimate body that shapes and keeps alive the amalgam we call America. Yet our hard work, our tax dollars, our earned interest, our safety is more shabbily regarded than the millions of revenue-gluttonous illegal immigrants.

Once again, it falls onto the taxpayers to be vigilant watchdogs for us and our children, and our children’s future. It is up to us to prepare and be ready for the worst, which is in no way difficult.

The answer to question No. 2, above, is this. For all potential large-scale emergencies, there are steps that are vital to ensure we get through the first drastic days. Many Internet sites are devoted to preparedness.

Below are three of the best of those Internet sites. Take the time to study their contents and make emergency lists, and stock up against those lists. You would be surprised (I know I was shocked) to learn just how “unprepared” at home we are once we looked at the drills and supplies essential to keep going when the going gets rough.

Pretend another Hurricane Katrina will be bearing down on your house in seven days’ time. Start now and go to whatever lengths necessary in order to be fully equipped.

It is senseless to depend on backbiting Senators and Congresspersons to protect us and our kids, our family members and pets, or our real property, especially since self-seekers within House chambers have demonstrated that their primary concern is over what brings them and their party political more booty.

(Los Angeles Fire Department Emergency Preparedness List)
(Being Ready)
(72-Hour Food Kit for Emergency Preparedness)

A Pose by Any Other Name

2008-03-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

by Julian Krasta

The veneer is peeling, the wax is melting … and hell may indeed be freezing over – and after what appeared to be a near-perfect pitch campaign that reminded me of the flawlessly timed cadences of Johnny Mathis when he sang ‘Chances Are.’

From where I sit, the wunderkind’s façade has slipped, and what we might be seeing now is the tried and true Barack Obama. Like water seeking its own level, his principles, too, have bubbled up through the glossy surface – and they are appearing not so wunderbar.

Up to now, Obama – using fast & loose rhetoric – has gotten farther up the political ladder than any other non-Caucasian in American history. The devotion and cheering on of the African-American communities and, by enormous measure, the white communities, have aided in propelling him straight toward the most coveted, most powerful executive position this country has to offer.

He has played his role skillfully as he delivered, and continues to deliver, mile-long stretches of imaginative, albeit immature, speculation, which his followers eat up like free ice cream on a hot day. According to those adoring fans, there seems to be nothing he could ever say that is wide of the mark. One liberal lady friend even said to me, “If Barack Obama could sprout wings we’d see him fly!”

His ability to soar above the skyline notwithstanding, Obama’s long-term, personal association with a certain racist pastor has grounded him, at least for the time being. This close association might possibly cancel out a significant share of all the good will, trust, and hope for progress – and I am not talking just in terms of the Presidency. I include the ongoing, exhaustive and frustrating wars against racial prejudice in America in general, which we were winning…we were winning.

Each inch-by-bloody-inch victory broke more and more barriers down and Americans were growing closer. When you add up all those inches that we here in America have gained, no one could deny that we had in fact come a very long way.

I dare compare the nature of our contentions to the centuries-long vicious turmoil in the Middle East where countries are crying out for freedom from mullahs and terrorists – for democracy, for equality. This is a universal refrain everyone can hum in unison regardless of the differences in languages.

Then, just at the moment when evolution occurs, another hothead – another racial ‘jihadist’ – comes scurrying out of his hole and starts hurling verbal IEDs in every direction causing widespread damage. This hothead – this pastor in Christ – refuses to let go of the past, because he is not happy unless he dredges up old ghosts and shoots every good intention in the head to impede advancement.

The stage was set for his ignominious emergence (like an irascible first-time homeowner who purposely blows his leaves into a neighbor’s yard, “…because now I can.”). He must have been thinking that his chummy friendship with Obama gave him the right to platform farcical and hateful statements such as “The government invented AIDS to kill black people,” and “The government is building concentration camps for black people,” and “The government provides drugs to blacks to hold them down,” etcetera, ad nauseum.

When I had read the pastor’s rants I thought for a moment they were Stokely Carmichael’s words rising from his grave (about the cancer that took his life). Carmichael had said, it was “…given to me by the forces of American imperialism and others who conspired with them.” He further claimed that the FBI had put the disease in his body to assassinate him.

Oceans of water have passed since Carmichael was on the scene and sparked the term Black Power. His attitude nonetheless remains inured in the pastor’s heart and mind. He has proven without a shadow of doubt that he, and persons like himself (and certainly not all of them black) who perpetually and unnecessarily let fly the words ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ at our faces and into our collective consciousness, have no intention of changing one iota either their points of view or their off-color tune any time soon.

What I find disturbing is not so much what this pastor blurted but rather that Obama, who has been mentored by this person for over twenty years, claims he was not aware of his pastor’s intimate feelings (all unquestionably uber-radical), and has made clumsy excuses for the man and for what the man has said. Unlike Mitt Romney’s stirring speech concerning his Mormonism in which he emphasized his love and devotion for this country, Obama’s speech made no mention of patriotism or love for America. I welcome correction if I didn’t read it right.

Therefore, it is because of Obama’s obvious reluctance to put the pastor fully and equivocally in his place, and spending far too much time in his speech preaching about the good, bad, and ugly – and on and on and on and on – of race relations in America that I perceive a rapid withering of Obama’s perfect presentation of himself.

Strangely enough, I must thank the pastor for his horrid honesty. Until now, conservatives have decided to regard Obama’s spell over his followers as charming. No prima facie evidence we have presented to Democrats and liberals has been beefy enough to cause them to understand and accept the fact that he is not yet – I repeat: not yet – qualified or experienced to assume the mantle of Commander in Chief, particularly at this volatile time.

The pastor, however, quite possibly has single-handedly delivered the long-overdue hangover remedy the bloated masses of spellbound Obama followers have needed to sober up and face reality. That reality is, if their candidate cannot – or will not – take control over one person’s ravings, how can they expect him to control the White House?

The Damage Some Men's Dreams Can Do

2008-03-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

by Julian Krasta

With proper upbringing, a boy can grow into a strong, self-reliant and sensible man. If that grown man is also well adjusted and has self-respect, he will neutralize deficiencies in his character (e.g., hubris, and that brother bugaboo “machismo”) to defray misgivings and ridicule by family, co-workers and friends – even his enemies. If a man behaves or speaks idiotically, someone eventually will call him on it.

Generally, men are dreamers … like our Founding Fathers were dreamers. It was upon their collective vision that the foundation of this great country was conceived and created where we live in blessed freedom, to achieve as much as we can in the short time given us – to be as great as we wish to be. I am always happy when trying to explain this to my liberal friends; and, if I am lucky, they will still not understand it and I will have to explain all over again.

But I digress.

I dream, too – of owning one of those ultimate driving machines, turning my baseball cap front to back and pushing the pedal to the metal. Realistically, I dream of owning a handsome house in a neighborhood where I can walk, shop, socialize, sleep and just breathe without feeling afraid – where the fellow next door is not secretly buying thousands of Uzis to ship to Iran.

There are dreamers like Mahmoud Admadinejad who, along with other rogue tyrants, refers to the United States as the Great Satan. If this were true, it would be fair of me to say he is the reincarnation of Josef Stalin, only without the whimsy.

As millions of witless Americans parade in intoxicated revelry over the frenetic campaigning by the Democratic candidates (in my opinion, by the weakest field I can recall), Admadinejad skulks in shadow, waiting restlessly to dare the United States into a confrontation, possibly nuclear. He did it once, almost a year ago – to test our patience and gauge our potential firepower – when he ordered the abduction of British sailors. It was only after his advisors informed him that President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of the USS Nimitz strike group into the Persian Gulf, and with all possible speed, that Admadinijad backed down and released the prisoners to England. Our Commander in Chief had called his bluff, because his ace was, and is, the might of the United States military.

I do not need to know him personally to recognize that Admadinijad’s behavior is the product of a twisted twilight zone for the pathological and squirrelly, which pushed me to wonder: “What dreams does this man have?”

I began my research with the virgins in paradise myth. Its explanation is straightforward (according to Muslim legend):

"The smallest reward for the people of heaven is an abode where there are eighty thousand servants and seventy two wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and ruby … etc. …"

The wives referred to in this narrative are purported to be black-eyed, voluptuously beautiful virgins awaiting “the faithful” (i.e., martyrs). Who are the martyrs? They are the wretched dreamers who strap explosives to their bodies, pull the cord and destroy the lives of innocent human beings (men, women, children … babies) so that they can catapult to their heaven and luxuriate in the attention of obedient maidens.

This fantasy worries me a great deal, because I suspect Admadinejad’s dreams are loftier – that they exceed the 72-virgin limit. Why do I presume this? My wise dad once told me:

“To know your enemy you must learn to think like him – to imagine every possible angle and move that runs through his mind, like a chess game.”

Armed with this counsel, I deduced the following:

If a couple of sticks of dynamite earns a murder-suicide bomber 72 chaste females, Mahmoud Admadinejad might believe (or is being led to believe by mullahs, or his own demons, or both) that he would be rewarded with a thousand, maybe a million, times the legal limit if he sets off a nuclear device. The incentive is there if he accepts as true his craven ideology’s party-line propaganda of being forever fondled by nubile nymphs.

He and others like him could avoid such razzle-dazzle if they instead bought a membership at the Emperor’s Club in New York, where Governor Eliot Spitzer had found his paradise – several times, according to the reports. There a man does not have to be blown to bloody bits in order to attain nirvana.

I have a second, even greater worry. It is about the liberals and Democrats amongst us, whose foresight is, at best, fanciful. They dismiss the fact that it was daring and enlightened dreams that built America – that Admadinejad’s blasphemous trances could propel him and others to destroy it.

On the bright side, if Hillary Clinton becomes president her political party should split in about four months. On the down side, if Barack Obama succeeds to the Presidency this country could split in four weeks. We would then not need to concern ourselves over what aggressions Admadinejad might or might not attempt, because we (“we” includes every Barack-head who thinks he or she is exempt from being hit with taxes that will sustain Obama’s dream changes) will be drowning in the muck of his sausage factory, oxymoronic statements, such as:

“My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join me as we try to change it.”

That is the same as saying, “The Rolls Royce is the most beautifully appointed, masterfully built automobile in the world. Come on down and join in on its transformation. And bring your hammer, duct tape and can of spray paint.”

If the next President of the United States turns out to be either fantasist Democrat (both guaranteeing to fulfill a campaign pledge to leave the Middle East militarily unattended), we might as well draw a pentagram on the ground, face Mecca and join hands, and chant:

“The door is open. Do your worst.”

Missing WWII Airmen Are Identified

2008-02-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 132-08
February 15, 2008

[Source]

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They are 2nd Lt. John F. Lubben, of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.; Sgt. Albert A. Forgue, of North Providence, R.I.; and Sgt. Charles L. Spiegel, of Chicago, Ill.; all U.S. Army Air Forces. They will be buried on April 18 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.

On Dec. 12, 1944, these men crewed an A-20J Havoc aircraft departing from Coullomiers, France, to bomb enemy targets near Wollseifen, Germany. The aircraft was last seen entering a steep dive near Cologne, Germany. Several searches and investigations of this area and reviews of wartime documents failed to provide information concerning the incident.

In 1975, a German company clearing wartime mines and unexploded ordnance near Simmerath, Germany, reported the discovery of a gravesite northeast of Simmerath where American servicemembers were buried. U.S. officials evaluated the remains and determined they represented three individuals, but they could not make identifications at that time. The remains were subsequently buried as unknowns in the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium.

In 2003, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) was notified that a group of German citizens had information correlating the three servicemembers who were buried as unknowns with the crew from the 1944 A-20J crash. Based on that information, JPAC exhumed the three unknown graves from the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in 2005.

Among dental records, other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1169.

WELCOME HOME, BOYS.

"We, the People"

2008-02-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

By Amil Imani

In the United States, the oath of office for the President of the United States is specified in the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1):

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

For other officials, including members of Congress, they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support the constitution." They must recite an oath to support and protect the United States citizens from her enemies:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”

In an oath of office, no matter in what capacity one serves as a public servant, he or she must be reminded that everyone at all levels must first and foremost focus on the needs and the security of its citizens rather than on the desires of his or her services. With that in mind, one must be ready to follow the bylaws as his or her guide and exercise the functions of the office with which he or she is entrusted.

Democracy, by its accommodating and benign nature, is susceptible to corruption and even destruction by forces from within and from without. With this realization in mind, the founding fathers of the United States enshrined the Constitution to safeguard and protect the rule of the people.

While America opens its doors to the poor, the hungry and the oppressed of the world, Americans open their hearts to the less fortunate people of various lands by their unsurpassed generosity. No nation gives more aid to international charities, as a percentage of its gross domestic product, than the American people.

Recent migration of Muslims to non-Islamic lands began as a seemingly harmless, even useful, trickle of cheap and necessary labor. Before long, greater and greater numbers of Muslims deluged the new territories and as they gained in numbers—by high birth rate as well as new arrivals—Muslims began reverting to their intolerant ways by, for instance, demanding legal status for Sharia (Islamic laws), the type of draconian laws that, for the most part, resemble those of humanity’s barbaric past.

There is no need to belabor the point that Islam is not, and has never been, a religion of peace. Islamism has set a new record for brutality, contrary to the contention that there is no reason to worry about it. Jihadist Wahabism’s tentacles are reaching out from its cradle in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab Emirates. And murderous Shiism, led by the Islamic terrorist state in Iran, is racing to arm itself with the ultimate weapon, and is doing whatever it can to ensnare the world into Islam’s nation, the Ummeh.

President George W. Bush, on several occasions, has repeated the mantra and attributed the horrific violence committed under the banner of Islam to a small band of extremists. The President on his latest trip to Turkey said, "I think Turkey sets a fantastic example for nations around the world to see where it's possible to have a democracy coexist with a great religion like Islam and that's important.” Ironically, the Turkish Parliament voted on Saturday to amend the constitution to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic headscarves at Turkey's universities, despite fierce opposition from the secular establishment.

The President’s assertion is either based on ignorance of the facts about Islam or his attempt at political correctness. Perhaps the President’s reticence to speak on the true nature of Islam was due to his desire to avoid inflaming the already charged feelings of many about Islam. In any event, truth is sacrificed and the public continues to cling to the false notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. People who dare to disclose the true nature of Islam run the risk of being castigated as a bigot and a hatemonger.

Calling Islam a great religion and misrepresenting it is not simply a harmless gesture of goodwill and peacemaking. This is flaming the fire that has every intention of consuming us. Therefore, it is imperative that in November 2008, we choose the chief custodian of our constitution, the President, with great care. We must entrust the helm of our nation to the hands of a person of impeccable integrity who is unconditionally loyal to the constitution, who does not sacrifice principles and truth at the altar of expediency, and who is not shirking from what he must do to ensure our nation’s survival in the face of internal and external assaults.

The pundits, the analysts and the politicians indeed are doing a great disservice to the public, each segment for its own expedient reasons, by parroting the mantra regarding the peaceful nature of Islam. As a matter of fact, the so-called small band of Islamic extremists is the true face of Islam.

Islam is indeed misrepresented. Islam is not misrepresented by its “detractors.” It is misrepresented by Islamic mercenaries, organizations and individuals generously funded by states as well as wealthy believers who are making billions of dollars pumping and selling oil at astronomical prices. Prestigious universities in the West, always looking for handouts, are tripping over one another to establish Islamic studies programs staffed by professors who sing the praise of Islam. Newspapers are routinely intimidated by Islamic associations if they dare to print the truth about Islam. Legions of lawyers, both Muslims as well as hired guns, are on the lookout to intimidate and silence any voice speaking the truth about Islam. The media that falls in line may receive generous advertising and other incentives from Islamic lobbyists.

All extreme solutions, if unwise, are fraught with extreme dangers. During the presidential campaign of the Vietnam War, Barry Goldwater proclaimed, “Extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.” The collective wisdom of the American public prevailed and Goldwater didn’t get a chance to put his belief into practice. It is prudent to reserve extreme measures for extreme cases. Just as important, it is best to follow the less glamorous solutions of the problems as they gather momentum and diffuse them.

The U.S. government should, without delay, underwrite a massive program of making the nation energy independent so that the Islamic gas station nations will no longer be able to hold the country hostage for oil. Each citizen, in the meantime, must do everything possible to conserve energy and deny the flow of dollars to the coffers of the enemy.

The -- not-- so grateful world owes the U.S. an infinite debt of gratitude for defeating the evil of Nazism, and then the scourge of Soviet Communism. We all have to do what each one of us can to right the wrongs of this world. We don't have to be Einstein -- each one of us must do something according to his or her capacity. Once again, this champion nation of freedom is called upon to defeat the most tenacious and deadly enemy, Islamofascism.

The Homeless Conservative

2008-02-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

By Lance Thompson

Ideally, voters join the party which most represents their views. Historically, the Republican party is more conservative, the Democrat party more liberal. Thus, conservatives make up a majority of the GOP, liberals a majority of the Democrats. These majorities constitute the "bases" of the parties–the stalwarts who contribute, volunteer, get out the vote, and sustain the party.

Having associated with the parties which most represent their views, the base voters in turn exert influence on the positions of their respective parties. The Democrats have been greatly influenced by the liberal base of their party, so much so that Hillary Clinton has had to backtrack and dissociate herself from her vote to authorize military force to remove Saddam, even though many other Democrats also voted for the authorization.

But what is a base voter to do when the party he or she supports no longer represents his or her views? Obviously, a voter will usually not agree with every item of a party’s plank, but there is ordinarily general agreement on a majority of issues. But party leaders will say, "We stand for most of the things you believe in, and certainly more of them than the other party stands for." In a two-party system, this is a compelling argument. The Presidential election always comes down to two choices, and a vote is cast for that candidate whose views are closer to that of the voter.

Conventional wisdom holds that parties cater to their bases during the primaries, when candidates are competing for the votes of their own parties, then try to appeal to a wider audience during the general election, hoping to attract more middle-of-the-roaders than the other side.

But if the party’s front-runner has never catered to the base, has always made a greater effort to accommodate the other side, and does not stand for the base’s issues, then that candidate risks alienating the base. For the GOP, John McCain is such a candidate.

The Republican party leadership encourages all Republicans to forget their differences and unite behind John McCain. After all, the alternative–Obama or Clinton–is surely more objectionable than a moderate Republican. And if we don’t support McCain, the Republicans risk losing the presidential election.

But if the party and its candidate no longer represent the principles and values of the party members, what claim can the party have to their votes? There are only two possible outcomes in a presidential election. If McCain, the Republican candidate who voted against Bush tax cuts because they favored the rich, wants to close Guantanamo Bay, voted to extend citizenship to illegal aliens, voted to limit free speech in political campaigns, voted to fund stem cell research with federal money, was a charter member of the Keating Five and the Gang of 14, wins the contest, what have we achieved? We have placed in the White House a candidate marginally more conservative than his liberal Democrat opponent.

A McCain victory will demonstrate to the Republican party that a moderate Republican can overcome either the heir to the last Democrat dynasty or a tremendously charismatic Senator from the new generation of Democrat leadership. Republican leaders will conclude that conservative credentials are not necessary to win a national election–they are, in fact, a hindrance. Candidates in subsequent elections will be required to show that they are bipartisan, moderate, and able to work with Democrats and see things from the Democrat point of view. This will set conservative values back for several election cycles.

It is also possible that McCain could lose to his Democrat opponent. This would result in a marginally more liberal president than McCain, who would probably also enjoy a majority in Congress. The liberal agenda could be enacted with dispatch–higher taxes, withdrawal from Iraq, socialized medicine, and amnesty for illegal aliens. This agenda could prove beneficial to the nation or, more likely, disastrous, and by the time the next election comes around, the nation will be ready for a change, as it was after four years of Jimmy Carter. The party of change would be the party that stands for conservative values. The GOP candidate would not be a middle-of-the-road accommodator, but a strong, proven conservative.

The GOP leadership will argue that we all want what’s best for the country, regardless of whether a moderate or conservative Republican wins. But if conservatives truly believe in their own principles, they must also believe those principles are best for the country. They must believe a liberal agenda, conversely, is bad for the country. And, on many if not most issues, John McCain stands for a liberal agenda. He is less liberal than his Democrat opponents, but only by degree, and not by nature.

The Republican party must not take its conservative base for granted, must not assume we will go along with any candidate because we fear the prospect of the Democrat alternative. None of us wants a Democrat in the White House. But a Republican who caters to Democrats is very little better, and self-defeating in the long run. If McCain enacts sixty, seventy, or even eighty percent of what the Democrats hope to accomplish, each vote for McCain is in equal percentage a vote for the Democrat agenda.

There is talk of the GOP "suicide voter," described as some one who disagrees so much with McCain that he or she plans to vote for the Democrat. I don’t know how many such voters are in the Republican ranks. But I do know that the conservative base of the party, the marrow of the GOP, has no passion for McCain. There is no enthusiasm on the GOP side to match the mesmerized crowds at Obama rallies, or the determined passion of the Clinton supporters. Only a true conservative can mobilize that base, and John McCain is not that candidate.

John McCain has enjoyed favorable press, including an endorsement from the New York Times. He has worked closely with Democrats in Congress, even considering a spot as John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. He has branded himself a maverick, willing to defy conservatives in Congress and in the White House. So in the coming election, let John McCain call upon his friends in the press, his moderate supporters, his colleagues "across the aisle" when he seeks campaign workers, volunteers, donations, and support. They may be hard to reach, however. Because when the general election comes, they will all be working for the real Democrat candidate.

Book Report on Ronald Kessler's "The Terrorist Watch"

2008-02-07T09:26:00.000-08:00

from Amil Imani

Ronald Kessler has written an extremely important book that discloses the inside story of the War on Terrorism. He takes a complex subject full of long functional names and leads the reader to relatively easy comprehension. He has exposed the incredibly difficult counterterrorism job of protecting this nation from Islamic extremists. This book was very difficult to write but Kessler has humanized the people of the FBI and CIA by telling their personal story as part of the massive efforts they undertook that overhauled our defenses from September 11, 2001 to today. There has not been a successful al Qaeda attack on American soil since 9/11. And these folks are entitled to our praise for their fine work. Along the way, Kessler reveals the distortions and harm that the left leaning media and especially the New York Times and Washington Post have done to the nation’s efforts to protect our citizens.

Mr. Kessler performed the difficult task of providing a documented and readable history of the seven-year period starting in 2000, but he reaches back in history when the circumstances require. There are no footnotes, but the work retains an academic documented quality by providing prolific actual quotes from interviews of the approximately 50 government employees, which Kessler interviewed to bring the story together.

Almost fiction like, the author starts the book with a Prologue, which brings the reader into the world of counter intelligence as it is today. He displays the immense power and cooperation between agencies that is being brought to bear now. Then he steps back in time and in conjunction with cases in progress involving the infamous names like Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Jose Padilla, Abu Zabaydah and others, he introduces the major stumbling blocks facing the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies that existed from 2001.

A most significant stumbling block in 2001 was the artificial legal “Chinese Wall” in place at each criminal investigative agency to isolate the crime enforcement personnel of the agency from the intelligence personnel. Kessler does a good job of explaining how that procedure came into being. It isn’t simple to explain but he does a good job. An attorney in the FBI Office of Intelligence Policy Review (OIPR) came up with the idea of using the mechanism of the Chinese Wall to be extra sure that a criminal indictment was never thrown out because the prosecutor had used information to make his criminal case where that information had been obtained under an investigation authorized under the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). This Wall procedure required the FBI to maintain separate files for Intelligence Investigations and Criminal Investigations and disallowed the Criminal prosecutors access to Intelligence files. This fear of overturn arose because evidence obtained in foreign electronic interception of a communication that originates outside US is not necessarily subject to the same Constitutional requirements for a search warrant as is an interception (search) in the US of a US person.

The above paragraph is to explain the problem to be addressed by the “Chinese Wall”. But it is understandable that most non-lawyers will still be confused. The Chinese wall mechanism is a well-known procedure in many other legal situations. But the above paragraph was simply the definition of the nature of the issue. Even more burdensome was the fact that there were rules set in place by the OIPR to handle exceptions. These rules were extraordinarily complex and were not generally understood even by the attorneys in the OIPR. Further, OIPR put out the word that anyone who violated the rules was going to be disciplined. So, as is the usual case with human beings, everyone in the agency opted to take the easy way out. The FBI, CIA and other Intelligence agencies adopted the practice of never permitting criminal prosecutors or intelligence investigators to see the other investigators files. Although this was an interpretation unwisely set in place by Attorney General Janet Reno and therefore was only applicable to the FBI and the Justice Department it was eventually adopted by the CIA as well. This “Chinese Wall” problem explains why the FBI was unaware that the CIA had intercepted several al Qaeda transmissions that might have related to the 9/11 plot including a message on 9/10/01 that stated “Tomorrow is zero day.” None of that information was shared with the FBI.

Immediately after 9/11/01 bombing, President Bush asked for an investigation of the “Wall” problem, which showed that no Court had ever thrown out a case because of the feared mixing of information. Unfortunately, the OIPR had adopted an overkill solution that was too complex for the problem and the work around was too easy. The “risk avoidance” or CYA solution was predictable. Every manager needs to be on guard because every perceived possible future problem is not necessarily a real problem, or the fix, as here, can be worse than the problem. FBI Director Mueller immediately withdrew the “Wall” requirement and Congress specifically removed any Wall requirement in the Patriot Act in 2003. As an aside, the Patriot Act amendment kicked off major left-leaning media objections to alleged expansion of governmental power and potential violations of the civil rights of American citizens.

The FBI and CIA immediately after 9/11/01 with President Bush’s full support attacked its other problems including its incredibly outdated computer record systems, diminished morale at the CIA because of President’s Clinton’s de-emphasis in counterterrorism, and inadequate human intelligence at the CIA.

Kessler provides the entire engaging story relating to the reliance by Secretary of State Powell on information from German intelligence in preparing his speech to the UN in which he asserted that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Powell had refused to use the US generated intelligence information and he independently reached the same conclusion. Ultimately the Iraqi source that had provided intel to German Intelligence was much later proven to be unreliable. He turned out to be a lower level Iraqi employee in the Saddam nuclear program that was seeking asylum in Germany. Again, the left media accused General Powell and the Bush Administration of intentionally lying in the run up to the Iraq war about Saddam’s possession of WMD.

The real facts underlying the Washington Post story of Dana Priest relating to alleged thousands of CIA’s prisoners being held in secret prisons around the world to enable the CIA to torture prisoners. This story earned her a Pulitzer Prize and caused many European nations to cease cooperating with the US in Afghanistan. The facts were that there were no secret prisons and fewer than 100 prisoners had been rendered to anti-terrorist agencies of countries cooperating with the US in the war on terror. Also many of those prisoners originated in those countries.

Kessler also related the embarrassing story about Brandon Mayfield. Brandon was a US attorney, a recent convert to Islam that had given funds indirectly to Hamas. His fingerprint had showed up on a plastic bag discovered in the Spanish train bombing and he was planning a trip to Barcelona. Multiple experts had confirmed the finger print match. Brandon was arrested but there was no other links. Ultimately, in a raid on the terrorist hideout in Spain, the Jihadists blew themselves up to escape capture and the authorities found a finger, the print of which perfectly matched the plastic bag print. Mayfield got $2M settlement and the FBI imposed a higher standard requiring a greater level of assurance on a finger print match.

There are many more interesting stories including the identity leak of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Although this investigation lead to the conviction of Vice President Chaney’s deputy for lying to the FBI, in the end, Richard Armatage, the ex-Deputy Sec. of State, a critic of the Bush Administration was revealed to be the leak to Robert Novak. Although both the Washington Post and NYT were on a daily rampage to show Chaney was the source of the Plame link, when the true identity of the leaker broke, the Washington Post ran it on Page 6 and the NYT ran it on Page 12. I find both those papers disgusting.

This book describes several investigations in minute detail. The manpower and the resources it takes to gather all the facts about the alleged actors and the potential links of their brothers, sisters and friends, the travels of each, schools of each, etc, etc mushrooms gigantically. Everyday the investigators evaluate the risk of the advancement of the plot to the point where continuation of the investigation risks injury to citizens and property. Sometimes where an investigation is centered abroad, and there are domestic actors linked to the plot, when we are warned by the foreign agency that it is going to roll up the plot in their country, the US must make the decision if it is better to place the US actors under 24/7 surveillance to see their response to the foreign arrest or to arrest them. How and where they respond when the branch of their plot is arrested is frequently revealing of the cell.

Home grown US terrorists are a new concern. Several networks have already been rolled up involving prison grown networks of Islamic extremists with serious plans of bombing and destruction. Fortunately these groups have not been sophisticated so far.

The public is aware of only the tip of the counter-terror iceberg. In 2007, there were 60-70 terror plots in US being investigated every day. Every morning in the NCTC at 8:00 AM the Threat Matrix involving these treats is evaluated. Vice Admiral Redd, NCTC, with his small group of representatives from all the security agencies prepares a list of 25-30, which list is further reduced to 10-20. These are brought into the daily videoconference involving the President, National Security Council, DHS, and National Intelligence Director. In 2004 alone, the Justice Department reported 379 convictions related to terrorism.

The NCTC is a 10,000 sq. ft. facility built like a TV network control center with 32 large screens and 350 computer stations. They operate a web page for 5000 worldwide intelligence analysts. They control the no-fly list, and they are available for instant communication countrywide access from police, customs or immigration officers having a suspicious incident involving a terror risk. Someone on the no-fly list, if stopped for a traffic violation, can be held for a surveillance interview. There are 400,000 names on the NCTC list of terrorist entities.

Kessler points out that a major concern of our all of counter-terror officials is the demoralizing effect of the attacks by the left leaning media. The effectiveness of the terror investigations depends to great degree on the assistance and cooperation of the public. To the extent that the left is successful in engendering suspicion of the counter efforts it will further damage our security. At the current level, even though less than 1% of the open tips actually have lead to a terrorist, they are a valuable eye on the ground that has been extremely important especially regarding the new home grown Jihadist threat.

This book is a MUST READ for all Americans. It contains stories of hundreds of specific events, arrests and convictions and hundreds of details that could not be mentioned in this report.

Rush Limbaugh on Super Tuesday

2008-02-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

Limbaugh: Romney Is a 3 Legs Conservative

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 8:01 AM
By: Newsmax Staff

Reversing his previously stated belief that none of the Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination have all three legs of the conservative stool, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that Mitt Romney is indeed a three-leg conservative.

Describing the three legs as "national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives," Rush said, "The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way... The foreign policy crowd is obviously what it is. I don't think there's anybody on our side who doesn't care about national security."

"I think now, based on the way the campaign has shaken out, that there probably is a candidate on our side who does embody all three legs of the conservative stool, and that's Romney," the talk radio host added.

As for Mike Huckabee, Limbaugh pronounced, "You might just say the things he's saying about it represent an ignorance born of inexperience in the subject. I don't think Huckabee has any deleterious intentions about the country."

Turning to McCain, Rush said, "When it comes to the fiscal side, you cannot say -- you just cannot say -- that John McCain is interested. He's even admitted he's not interested in the social side. He's not interested in the economic side. He said this, and when he has spoken up about it, he sides more often with liberal Democrats on fiscal issues than he does with his own side.

"If I look at this roster of three candidates -- if I look at Hillary-Obama, about whom there's not a dime's worth of difference, because they're so far left it doesn't matter which one of them wins. If McCain adopts economic policies that sound very much like what you'd get from Hillary-Obama, and if I think those policies are going to take the country down the tubes I'd just as soon the Democrats take the hit for it, not us. Plain and simple."

His conclusion? "I think the one candidate of the three still out there on our side that matter (and, actually, it's just two, because Huckabee doesn't, in terms of a chance to win) is saying who more closely embodies all three legs of this conservative stool, you'd have to say that it's Mitt Romney. There's actually no choice in the matter. It certainly isn't Senator McCain."

A Soldier's Last Words

2008-01-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

Listen up CBS, CNN, Cindy Sheehan, Al Franken

by Louisa Centanni

SGT. Edmund John Jeffer's last few words were some of the most touching, inspiring and most truthful words spoken since the tragedy of 9/11 - and since our nation went to war.

SGT. Jeffers was a strong soldier and talented writer. He died in Iraq on September 19, 2007. He was a loving husband, brother and son. His service was more than this country could ever grasp - but the least you can do for the man who sacrificed his life for you ... is listen to what he had to say.

Listen up and pay attention to all of the Cindy Sheehans and Al Frankens of the world. To MSNBC, CNN, and CBS. To all who call themselves Americans ... Hope Rides Alone.

"Hope Rides Alone"

By Eddie Jeffers

I stare out into the darkness from my post, and I watch the city burn to the ground. I smell the familiar smells, I walk through the familiar rubble, and I look at the frightened faces that watch me pass down the streets of their neighborhoods. My nerves hardly rest; my hands are steady on a device that has been given to me from my government for the purpose of taking the lives of others.

I sweat, and I am tired. My back aches from the loads I carry. Young American boys look to me to direct them in a manner that will someday allow them to see their families again...and yet, I too, am just a boy....my age not but a few years more than that of the ones I lead. I am stressed, I am scared, and I am paranoid...because death is everywhere. It waits for me, it calls to me from around street corners and windows, and it is always there.

There are the demons that follow me, and tempt me into thoughts and actions that are not my own...but that are necessary for survival. I've made compromises with my humanity. And I am not alone in this. Miles from me are my brethren in this world, who walk in the same streets...who feel the same things, whether they admit to it or not.

And to think, I volunteered for this...

And I am ignorant to the rest of the world...or so I thought.

But even thousands of miles away, in Ramadi , Iraq , the cries and screams and complaints of the ungrateful reach me. In a year, I will be thrust back into society from a life and mentality that doesn't fit your average man. And then, I will be alone. And then, I will walk down the streets of America , and see the yellow ribbon stickers on the cars of the same people who compare our President to Hitler.

I will watch the television and watch the Cindy Sheehans, and the Al Frankens, and the rest of the ignorant sheep of America spout off their mouths about a subject they know nothing about. It is their right, however, and it is a right that is defended by hundreds of thousands of boys and girls scattered across the world, far from home. I use the word boys and girls, because that's what they are. In the Army, the average age of the infantryman is nineteen years old. The average rank of soldiers killed in action is Private First Class.

People like Cindy Sheehan are ignorant. Not just to this war, but to the results of their idiotic ramblings, or at least I hope they are. They don't realize its effects on this war. In this war, there are no Geneva Conventions, no cease fires. Medics and Chaplains are not spared from the enemy's brutality because it's against the rules. I can only imagine the horrors a military Chaplain would experience at the hands of the enemy. The enemy slinks in the shadows and fights a coward's war against us. It is effective though, as many men and women have died since the start of this war. And the memory of their service to America is tainted by the inconsiderate remarks on our nation's news outlets. And every day, the enemy changes...only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists to Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it.

But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society...and they are becoming our enemy.

Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word "quagmire" around and compare this war to Vietnam . In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war.

Terrorists cut the heads off of American citizens on the Internet...and there is no outrage, but an American soldier kills an Iraqi in the midst of battle, and there are investigations, and sometimes soldiers are even jailed...for doing their job.

It is absolutely sickening to me to think our country has come to this. Why are we so obsessed with the bad news? Why will people stop at nothing to be against this war, no matter how much evidence of the good we've done is thrown in their face? When is the last time CNN or MSNBC or CBS reported the opening of schools and hospitals in Iraq ? Or the leaders of terror cells being detained or killed? It's all happening, but people will not let up their hatred of Bush. They will ignore the good news, because it just might show people that Bush was right.

America has lost its will to fight. It has lost its will to defend what is right and just in the world. The crazy thing of it all is that the American people have not even been asked to sacrifice a single thing. It's not like World War Two, where people rationed food, and turned in cars to be made into metal for tanks. The American people have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Unless you are in the military or the family member of a service member, its life as usual...the war doesn't affect you.

But it affects us. And when it is over, and the troops come home, and they try to piece together what's left of them after their service...where will the detractors be then? Where will the Cindy Sheehans be to comfort and talk to soldiers and help them sort out the last couple years of their lives, most of which have been spent dodging death and wading through the deaths of their friends? They will be where they always are, somewhere far away, where the horrors of the world can't touch them. Somewhere where they can complain about things they will never experience in their lifetime; things that the young men and women of America have willingly taken upon their shoulders.

We are the hope of the Iraqi people. They want what everyone else wants in life: safety, security, somewhere to call home. They want a country that is safe to raise their children in. Not a place where their children will be abducted, raped, and murdered if they do not comply with the terrorists demands. They want to live on, rebuild and prosper. And America has given them the opportunity, but only if we stay true to the cause, and see it to its end. But the country must unite in this endeavor...we cannot place the burden on our military alone. We must all stand up and fight, whether in uniform or not. And supporting us is more than sticking yellow ribbon stickers on your cars. It's supporting our President, our troops and our cause.

Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn't.

Let's stop all the political nonsense, let's stop all the bickering, let's stop all the bad news, and let's stand and fight!

Eddie's father, David Jeffers, writes:

I'm not sure how many letters or articles you've ever read from the genre of "News from the Front," but this is one of the best I've ever read, including all of America 's wars. As I was reading this, I forgot that it was my son who had written it. My emotions range from great pride to great sorrow, knowing that my little boy (22 years old) has become this man.

He is my hero. Thank all of you for your prayers for him; he needs them now more than ever. God bless.

Though Eddie is no longer with us, you can help to let his voice be heard.

Learning the Hard Way is Still the Best Way

2007-09-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Moses learned the hard way that he was Hebrew and not Egyptian. What we know about Moses and his calling has been gathered from Scripture: being the one chosen to see the Israelites freed from bondage. They were liberated in the end, and their journey to the Promised Land -- albeit coursed with peril -- was a welcome new beginning.

So it was with the men, women and children who fled the lands of their birth to escape despots and religious persecution -- to walk unfettered and unthreatened upon the new promised land: America. They risked all traveling thousands of miles to be counted amongst those who chose to face unknown dangers rather than bend or perish under the yoke of tyranny.

In 1781, America became a free and independent nation. Our Constitution was written not for the leaders but for the people -- for “We, the People.” This sacred document ensured that no imperial classes would be allowed to exist. There would be no monarch to set down archaic rules. It was by the sweat and labor of immigrants from all the world’s nations that America was created, in which hope and opportunity is limitless -- where Americans rule themselves.

These pioneers built this country, and this country built them into Americans. They cleared the land, raised homes and houses of worship and drew up colonies of free citizens, carving new states out of the forests, prairies and wilderness as they pushed westward. They carried freedom with them. Here a vast segment of humanity was given the chance to start fresh:

The English, the Scotsmen and the Dutch produced elegant furniture in their workshops in New England. The Italians worked the sulfur mines of Louisiana. The French and Swiss planted vineyards in California and New York State. Danes, Norwegians and Swedes seeded the earth and made the Midwest flourish with grain. It was Irishmen whom, in large part, constructed the Erie Canal, the Statue of Liberty and the eastern section of the transcontinental railroad.

Welshmen farmed, dug coal and quarried in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Among their descendants were William Penn, Thomas Jefferson, Chief Justice John Marshall, and Robert Morris - the foremost financier of the American Revolution and a signer to the Declaration of Independence.

The Spanish Conquistadores -- the first to roam the Southwest in the 1500s -- infused music, art, language, architecture and literature to the region. They brought from Spain the horse and cattle, and established ranches (haciendas) upon which these noble creatures could serve their owners. The Spaniards also introduced the rites of faith and built Catholic missions.

Mexicans worked the oil fields of Texas proficiently, and rode herd in New Mexico with equal expertise. Greek and Portuguese fishermen harvested the oceans. Germans, Hungarians, Russians, Slavs and Chinese all worked side by side with so many, many more peoples of diverse cultures -- and this great nation was built by the industry of such Americans.

America became the country where dreams were transformed into certainties.

Came then 2001, and our country was brutally attacked and is since being menaced by Islamic terrorists. Executing murder and mayhem against entities and persons American (and anything and everyone from the West; and all who are non-Islam) is the standing order handed down by their mullahs.

Compounding abuse with the damage and death suffered on that Tuesday morning six years ago, here in the United States there is a growing army of conspiracy theorists who are littering the intellectual landscape with their bent notion that the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Military had a hand in the monstrous events of September 11th. Additionally, our Congress, of which the majority are Democrats, appear to be attempting to countermand the efforts of our National Security Agency, and thereby playing straight into the hands of the very disciples of hell who are hell-bent on destroying us.

Terrorists and Democrats alike should be reminded of the following insofar as Americans are concerned:

In spite of everything, we never lose our faith in the future. We believe in the future. We build and will continue to build for the future. And when we’ve finished building, we develop something new and have to start re-building.

Deep down we yearn for peace. We take every route to avoid conflict. But when conflict is unavoidable we engage with a ferocity that is unrivaled to protect our freedom.

That’s the kind of people Americans are: we work and fight hard, and harder still, because we have the freedom to do it.

Beginning in 1777 at Valley Forge, Americans fought and froze, suffered and died for the future freedom of all Americans. Our freedom is the only way of living we know. We fought for it 300 years ago, 200 years ago, a century and a half ago, and in both world wars -- and continue fighting the same fight today.

Americans are slow to anger and easygoing, but merciless when our freedom is threatened, because we are passionately dedicated to the ideals our forefathers passed on to us: the liberty and dignity of all men.

We believe that if all men throughout the world could turn their energies towards peaceful coexistence the way Americans have turned their energies towards the construction of this great nation, wars would soon be as outdated as the soon-to-be-outdated death cry 'Allah Akbar!'

The pioneer Americans had to learn and adapt the hard way. They never failed to give thanks every day for what they had. And we, their descendants, must never go to sleep at night ashamed of our deeds, whether for ourselves, our country, or the world at large.

**********

Note from the author: Parts of this writing were inspired by a film prepared by the War Department during World War II, entitled, “Why We Fight World War II - The Battle of China / War Comes to America” (available on DVD), and I have blended -- and expounded upon -- segments of the film’s narration (read by the actor Walter Huston) into this commentary.

Ding-Dong, "The Bill" is DEAD!

2007-06-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

God Bless the American People!

A President's Prayer

2007-06-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944

"Red Shirt Fridays" for our Military

2007-05-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

**Author unknown**

Last week, while traveling to Chicago on business, I noticed a Marine sergeant traveling with a folded American flag, but did not put two and two together.

After we boarded our flight, I turned to the sergeant, who'd been invited to sit in First Class (across from me), and inquired if he was heading home.

“No,” he responded.

“Heading out?” I asked.

“No. I'm escorting a soldier home.”

“Going to pick him up?”

“No. He is with me right now. He was killed in Iraq. I'm taking him home to his family.”

The realization of what he had been asked to do hit me like a punch to the gut. It was an honor for him. He told me that although he didn't know the soldier, he had delivered the news of his passing to the soldier's family and felt as if he knew them after many conversations in so few days.

I turned back to him, extended my hand, and said, “Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do so my family and I can do what we do.”

Upon landing in Chicago the pilot stopped short of the gate and made the following announcement over the intercom:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to note that we have had the honor of having Sergeant Steeley of the United States Marine Corps join us on this flight. He is escorting a fallen comrade back home to his family. I ask that you please remain in your seats when we open the forward door to allow Sergeant Steeley to deplane and receive his fellow soldier. We will then turn off the seat belt sign."

Without a sound, all went as requested. I noticed the sergeant saluting the casket as it was brought off the plane, and his action made me realize that I am proud to be an American.

So here's a public Thank You to our military Men and Women for what you do so we can live the way we do:

Red Fridays.

Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority." We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record-breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.

Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday -- and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something red.

By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once "silent" majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on.The first thing a soldier says when asked "What can we do to make things better for you?" is. "We need your support and your prayers."

Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something red every Friday.

The Grand Delusion Islam

2007-05-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

by Amil Imani

"We are our beliefs," it is said. Beliefs steer people in life. Some beliefs are harmless, some are the motive force for good, and yet others are delusional, misguided, and even outright dangerous. Every version of the belief called "Islam" ranges from the delusional to the dangerous.

Islam is a Grand Delusion, birthed by Muhammad's hallucination he relayed to his first wife and employer, Khadija. Greatly frightened, he told Khadija that he was visited by jinn (devil) in the Hira cave. Khadija comforted the distraught man by assuring him that the episode was Allah's way of choosing him as his messenger. Muhammad believed his rich wife-employer who was 15 years his senior and the delusion became a belief-Islam.

Remarkably enough, under the early tutelage of Khadija, Muhammad succeeded in attracting a number of influential followers. Before long, the movement gathered more and more power through violent campaigns and the faith was taken to new people and alien lands. This grand delusion, Islam, presently has in its stranglehold over a billion humans, posing an existential threat to all non-Muslims.

Islam is rooted in the primitive tribal mentality of "We against Them," "We the righteous against the heathens," "We the servants submissive of the Great Allah against the rebellious enemies of Allah." Islam is a polarizer. Islam is an enemy-maker. To Islam, a non-Muslim is a combatant against Allah and he is fair game to be subjugated and killed.

When some billion and a half adhere to the pathological belief of Islam and use it as their marching order of life, the rest of humanity can ignore the threat only at its own peril.

Once again, a resurgent Islam is on a campaign of conquest throughout the world. Hordes of life-in-hand foot-solider fanatical Muslims are striving to kill and get killed. All they want is the opportunity to discharge their homicidal-suicidal impulse, on their way to Allah's promised glorious paradise. And in the background granting the foot soldiers' wishes are their handlers, the puppeteers, who pull the strings and detonate these human bombs. Those who cherish life must recognize these emissaries of death, what makes them, what motivates them, and how best to defend against them.

The campaign of death waged by the Islamist-jihadist, be he a puppet or a puppeteer, is energized by the belief of delectable rewards that await the faithful implementer of Allah's dictates. Through a highly effective indoctrination, the jihadist has come to believe firmly in Islam's grand delusion. He believes that Allah is the one and only supreme creator of earth and heavens; that it is his duty and privilege to abide by Allah's will and carry out his plans at all costs; he believes firmly in a gloriously wonderful immortal afterlife in paradise, for which a martyr's death is the surest quickest admission. Although the dominating theme of the delusion is quasi spiritual, the promised rewards of the afterlife awaiting the martyr are sensual and material. All the things and activities that the jihadist desires and cannot attain or practice, and rejects in his earthly life will be purified and proffered to him in the paradise of the next life. Thus goes the delusion.

It is important to understand that the human mind is not a perfect discerner of the objective reality. In actuality, reality is in the mind of the beholder. The outside world only supplies bits and pieces of raw material that the mind puts together to form its reality. Depending on the type and amount of bits and pieces that a given mind receives, its reality can be very different from that of another mind.

The more prescribed and homogeneous a group, the greater is the group's consensual reality, since the members share much in common experiential input and reinforce each others' mindset. Thus, members of a given religious order, for instance, tend to think much more similarly to one another than to members of other groups with different experiential histories.

Various approximations of the objective reality, therefore, rule the mind. The degree to which these approximations deviate from the larger group's consensual reality determines its delusional extent and severity.

A cocaine mainliner, for instance, under the influence of the drug, may become convinced that a bug is burrowing under his skin. In his absolute, although clearly false, certitude of the reality of his perception, cocaine users are known to take a knife to their own body to dig the burrowing bug out before it has penetrated too deeply.

A methamphetamine user's reality is often distorted in a different way. Under the influence of the drug, an intense paranoia overtakes him. His reality is dominated by the belief that one or more people are lurking about to harm or kill him. He may wield a deadly weapon, going from room to room, from closet to closet, in search of the assailants. If you believe that a bug is camping deeply in your body, then you might go ahead and try to dig the non-existent bug out. If you believe that people are lurking around the house to harm or kill you, you go after them before they get you. If you believe that all the troubles of the world are due to the evil-doings of the non-Muslims who war against Allah, then you do all you can to fight and kill them, particularly since Allah tells you to do so in the Quran.

The drug-induced delusions are hallucinations. They are dramatic and usually transitory, while religion-based implantation of ideas program the mind with lasting delusions.

Delusions, even when they are at great variance from the objective reality, can rule the mind without the need for drugs, or as a result of neurological dysfunctions or other factors. The young and less educated are most vulnerable to believe the claims of charlatans, con artists and cunning clerics as truth and reality.

A tragic example of the young's susceptibility to induced delusion is the case of thousands of Iranian children who were used as human minesweepers in the last Iran-Iraq war. The mullahs issued made-in-China plastic keys for paradise to children as enticement to go forward and clear the minefield with their bodies ahead of the military's armored vehicles. The children believed the murderers and rushed to their death, thinking that they were headed for Islam's glorious paradise.

The repeated intense indoctrination of the children even changed the perception of some of the charlatan mullahs so that they, themselves, believed their own lies, took their own keys to Allah's paradise and rushed to their death clinging to the plastic trinkets. Hence, some of the puppeteers, in this instance, became puppets themselves. Such are the follies and fallibilities of the human mind.

It is, therefore, understandable that many of the higher-up Islamic puppeteers, who are usually brainwashed from early childhood, devote their fortunes and persons to the implementation of their deeply engrained delusions.

Deluded by the threats and promises of Islam, Muslims, poor or rich vie with one another in furthering the violent cause of Allah.

Many non-Muslims are also victims of a different, yet just as deadly, delusion. They believe that Islam is a religion of peace, that only a small minority of Muslims are jihadists, and Muslims can be reasoned with to abandon the Quran-mandated elimination of the non-believers. These well-meaning simpletons are just as deluded as the fanatic jihadists by refusing to acknowledge the fact that one cannot be a Muslim and not abide by the dictates of the Quran.

Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and an essayist, who has been writing and speaking out about the urgency of confronting the jihadists and Islamism. He maintains a website at http://www.amilimani.com/

Your contribution is earnestly appreciated, and it will immensely help us to carry on.

Stand Up or Stand Down?

2007-03-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

In America’s political system, the people are represented by two separate -- but not necessarily equal -- groups: Republicans who set off to hunt down, prosecute, and eliminate terrorist regimes and Democrats who draft deadlines in favor of admitting defeat.

Since the birth of this nation, procedural and legal dramas have been the bases for the system we call “political.” In recent days, these stage shows have spawned self-destruction rhetoric from the Left: a timed withdrawal from Iraq (which coincides with another Iran hostage crisis that has ignited international furor, this one involving captured British sailors).

Congress’ plan to pull out our troops was loosely addressed to the American people. In actuality, the audience viewing and hearing such imprudence is worldwide and thus seen and heard by our enemies -- and could not have been broadcast (and repeatedly re-broadcast) at a worse possible time in view of Iran’s seizure of Britain’s military personnel and property.

The plan, especially now, can only serve to promote the false idea that we and our allies are credulous; and it will exacerbate the festering hatred of everything and everyone American and allied to America, both in the U.S. and abroad. The plan’s authors seem unable to comprehend that they are also recklessly wagering our country’s existence against President Bush’s unyielding efforts to extinguish terrorism.

As expected, protecting America and its citizens has evolved into a mêlée for absolute power on the part of Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, particularly third-in-line-to-the- Presidency, Nancy Pelosi. Coupled with this is Congress’s voracious craving to paint our Chief Executive a fool with public statements such as: “[The President should] calm down with the threats … there’s a new Congress in town,” from Pelosi; and “[The President should] get real with what’s going on in the world” from Harry Reid -- as Iran plays Russian roulette with members of England’s Royal Navy.

These are the same addled pronouncements mouthed by liberals to evade the fundamental issues. Rather than assist in fortifying our nation’s moral fiber, shoring up our borders, and taking positive and responsible leadership for the long-term, this new Congress seems incapable of arriving at unassailable solutions to bring down terrorists; they prefer to take the overcrowded low road of mercilessly censuring, demeaning and vilifying our President and his administration.

Congress’ plan to disassemble our offensive barriers will backfire disastrously, for us and for all of humankind. It shouldn’t take a Rhodes scholar to calculate the math, that at the moment the last uniformed soldier steps off Middle East soil there will be a worldwide, all-out holy war declared by the dedicated forces of evil. Thereafter, not a minute, hour or day will pass without the global media delivering staggering accounts of noncombatant civilians -- both non-Muslim and Muslim -- summarily dismembered, blown up, and shot down. Sociopathic madness will stampede out of control and the countries under attack can blame none but themselves for having left the terrorists uncontained and their borders undefended and vulnerable.

To Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid: This includes the United States of America.

These nightmare scenarios are not spun from a storyteller’s imagination. They are the present day realities, and are precisely what President Bush has worked hard to prevent from happening (again) on U.S. soil as well as throughout the enlightened world. He has never asked for plaudits or shiny medals or a fatter bank account for his endeavors. He does it because it was, is, and always will be the right thing to do. At the same time, it has taken an insurmountable leap of faith and strength of will on the part of our President to battle not just the terrorists but also his own Congress.

President Bush’s concept to wipe out terrorism is unique inspiration. After September 11, 2001, he did not shirk his responsibilities and act as if all was, once again, at peace with the world. With the majority consent of Congress at the time, our President deployed the matchless power of our all-volunteer armed forces to fight terrorists on their ground. That was then.

This is now:

The world has turned its back on America and on the battle against terrorism. Congress are doing the very same, because it is they, not the President, who are ill equipped emotionally to deal with “...what’s going on in the world” -- because the Democrats do not, and apparently will never, possess the chutzpah it takes to ride the lonely high road and be as unique and courageous as George W. Bush.

Mr. Right, not "Mr. Right Now"

2007-03-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

by Tanya Simon

You don’t become President. The Presidency is an institution and you have temporary custody of it.
–Ronald Wilson Reagan

In the four short years of the office’s term, the man elected must rise up to and sustain the Constitutional oath: ‘…that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.’

There is no pledge as powerful and as selfless, because it demands that the succeeding custodian of the Presidency continue the eternal uphill struggle for, by and against the myriad of domestic and foreign issues that eclipse our lives: hostile world leaders; growing numbers of disillusioned and dissatisfied citizens; invidious politicians on both sides of the aisle who handily switch from ally to adversary between sunrise and sunset; biased media reporting with the intent to thwart the Chief Executive’s credibility; predisposed civilian groups aggressively intoning issue after issue (whether relevant or not) -- to name a few. And there remains the singular matter that requires our sitting and future President’s attention 24/7: the promise by riotous Islamist terrorists to cause our destruction.

In view of these contentious realities, what distinctions should Americans expect from our next President?

Above all: Leadership. He must be governed by a steel-eye countenance in order to effectively assume the mantle of Commander in Chief and stand knuckle to knuckle with our avowed enemies -- upholding the principle that America takes a backseat to no one.

The next man destined to serve the American people knows to expect a daunting hand-off from George W. Bush, which is why that man must also cross the threshold of the Oval Office fully armed with practical business and management experience required for controlling the White House.

He will be a man who says what he means and means what he says -- who can 'talk with beggars and walk with kings.'

He must possess unshakable moral integrity.

He must be fearless when confronted with intense and unending enmity and criticism.

He must passionately pursue every best measure necessary to defend our nation and amplify our security, no matter the cost.

These are only some of the reasons why the Republican Party should not support a candidate who is only partially qualified for the post. To invest any hope in a man based solely on poll popularity or, worse, name recognition, could prove fatal for the GOP and the American people. This would be as dangerous as placing our trust in a non-FDIC bank with a flashy name that caters mainly to the glitterati while dealing junk bonds to the middle class.

We would be incompetent if we champion any Presidential candidate who has broken his sacred marriage vows by publicly satisfying his carnal pleasures, and who joined himself to a spouse who has been a wife to more than one man. The Presidency has already suffered the shame of adulteration from a ‘Mr. Right Now,’ and we should, therefore, not risk the possibility of more reprehensible maltreatment of the station.

Americans deserve better. Americans deserve the best.

We must seriously consider that one candidate who is wholly qualified to be the 44th President of the United States:

That one candidate who is capable of rising up to and sustaining the Constitutional oath...

That one man who can lead us back up the iron mountain we proudly call America.

That one man is Mitt Romney.

The life of our country depends on him.

Protesting the War is Not a Strategy

2007-03-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

The moment the final midterm election votes were counted, Democrats wasted no time stumping for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. However, real conservatives-the normal majority-continue to believe, as we always have, that pulling our forces out prematurely will be a blunder of monumental proportions. It would not only be viewed as frailty on our part, but serve to embolden the enemy and further imperil our nation and its allies. It is the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and their "rush to escape" Iraq that causes great consternation. Conservatives believe it is not really Iraq from which they want to retreat-but from the war itself.

Democrats preach for peace. This is a good thing, but it is neither the answer nor a solution to the death threats that dangle every day over our lives like the Sword of Damocles.

Since the horror of 9/11, liberals would have us believe they support the war in Afghanistan, because that is where the Taliban trained and from where Osama bin Ladin directed or still directs his murder/suicide operations. If we had engaged the Taliban in Afghanistan-and not concurrently expanded the front of the war on terrorism to Iraq-the same peace protesters would be calling for a pull-out of troops from Afghanistan as well. Three and a half years have gone by and the early success in Afghanistan remains, at best, tenuous. With no defined war front or uniformed enemy, the anti-war crowd will always find itself in an apparent quagmire.

We must ask: What then, Democrats? You should not demand we withdraw unless and until you have a bulletproof strategy up your collective sleeve-not some blue sky vision of sitting down with the devil to negotiate a better position in hell.

Speaker of the House-Elect Nancy Pelosi and her liberal colleagues, tend not to think about the ghastly realities with which we are threatened but how they can toss more rhetoric into the air without actually delivering decisive action over the next two years. The bluster and brouhaha surrounding their investigations into past-perceived mistakes does not equal a National Security policy.

At this critical turning point for our nation, Pelosi et al. should remove their rose-colored glasses, turn their attention away from the wholly unrealistic expectations of their "peace without honor" constituents, and concentrate on building up our nation's strengths rather than tearing them down. We cannot protest our way to victory.

Every American, regardless of political persuasion, must accept the realities of our war on terrorism. The enemy has no intention of going away, whether from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, or from inside our own borders. They have but one goal: the destruction of Israel and America. This is burned into their hearts as children and continues until the day they die, taking as many "infidels" with them as they possibly can. This is not some quixotic mission for Allah they are on, but a duty as natural as the wretched air they breathe.

The gravity of this Islamo-fascist indoctrination cannot be dismissed with a knowing smile before Congress or the wasting of taxpayer money on unnecessary partisan investigations. This, like preaching peace, will not bring relief from our fears, and it won't end the war. The enemy we face is terminally serious. They have no timetables, or exit strategies, and are wholly unconcerned with how many of their own people die in order to achieve their ends.

They will not go home until they win.

An injured soldier has a new future... in pizza!

2007-02-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2007 - A U.S. veteran who lost both legs in 2004 when a roadside bomb exploded in Iraq will begin a new career because his indomitable spirit moved a total stranger to give back to those who have served their country.

Army Staff Sgt. Robbie Doughty and Michael Ilitch, the founder of Little Caesars Pizza, one of nation's largest pizza chains, proudly stood side by side for the grand opening of the veteran's new pizza store in Paducah, Ky., yesterday.

Doughty, 31, was honorably discharged from the Army in July 2004 and began a long road to recovery facing an uncertain future with his young family. As he endured months of rehabilitation, he never gave up hope, never lost his courageous spirit and learned to walk again, he said.

Ilitch who, along with Little Caesars Pizza, owns Major League Baseball's world champion Detroit Tigers and the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings, read about Doughty in a Nov. 23, 2004, USA Today article.

Ilitch was so moved by Doughty's courage and determination that he called the Kentucky veteran to thank him for serving the country. After many conversations, Ilitch offered Doughty an opportunity to open his own Little Caesars Pizza franchise in his hometown of Paducah.

"Doughty stood strong for our country. I was so impressed by his courage, commitment and upbeat attitude in the face of adversity, that I wanted to do something," Ilitch said. "Offering him a new career path in his hometown seemed like a good transition. Doughty's 'can-do' attitude will make him a strong Little Caesars franchisee."

Doughty accepted Ilitch's offer and followed his suggestion to find a business partner. His choice was fellow veteran Lloyd Allard, who served with Doughty in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, in a dangerous area in Iraq. "

After a career in the military, I was open to a new venture," Doughty said. "Our military background and familiarity with systems, processes and a teamwork management style make the Little Caesars franchise a good fit.

"Opening a business and becoming an entrepreneur will definitely be an exciting new chapter in my life for my family and me," he said.

"From day one, Doughty was ready for his next challenge," Allard said. "With our leadership skills and Little Caesars' training and ongoing support system, we look forward to becoming strong franchisees and sharing our experience with other veterans."

Their story also prompted Ilitch to launch a new, innovative franchise program to provide qualified, honorably discharged veterans with a business opportunity when they transition to civilian life or seek a career change. The program provides a benefit of $10,000 for qualified veterans and up to $68,000 in benefits for service-disabled veterans. "

Doughty and Allard inspired me with a vision: to develop a program to create career opportunities for military veterans," Ilitch said. "I believe that it's important for Little Caesars and corporate America to thank the men and women who have served in the armed forces and this program offers an exceptional opportunity for veterans who are seeking new career options."

(From a Little Caesars Pizza news release.)

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Veterans of our military should go to the Little Caesars Pizza site for more information on how to start up a new career. http://www.littlecaesars.com/

Iraq is "Winnable"

2007-02-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2007 - While the situation in Iraq is challenging, it is "winnable," U.S. Navy Rear Adml. Mark Fox told a group of online journalists and bloggers yesterday during an operational update by telephone.

Fox, who has flown combat and contingency missions over Iraq in Operations Desert Storm, Southern Watch and Iraqi Freedom, is now communications director for Multi-National Force, Iraq.

"Sectarian violence is now the gravest threat to our strategic objectives in Iraq, and to be honest, Iraq is a more complex strategic problem entering 2007 than it was this time last year," he said. However, he noted, he's seen cause to believe the struggle is winnable.

"I draw hope from the fact that we are joined, not opposed, by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people in this struggle," Fox said. "In polling conducted in November, 89 percent of Iraqis nationwide agreed with the statement: 'My first loyalty is to my country rather than my sect, ethnic group, or tribe.'"

Fox said he's pleased to be "working in partnership with the liberated people of Iraq as they work to build a stable, secure, and self-governing country." The fact that more Iraqis are joining police forces is cause for optimism, he said.

In December, 1,115 Iraqi men signed up to join the Police Forces. "To put this in context," Fox said, "eight months ago we had zero recruits from Ramadi. In one month, over 600 tribesmen in Ramadi alone qualified for enlistment."

In December, he added, Multinational Force officials restored responsibility for security in Najaf Province to Provincial Iraqi Control.

"Last week, Iraqi forces in Najaf detected and assessed a significant security threat, realized they were outnumbered and facing an entrenched enemy, and did exactly what American forces are trained to do in that tactical situation: call for airpower," he said. "In the end, we killed 262 anti-Iraqi forces, and captured 411. We also recovered 11 mortar systems and enough heavy machine guns to show this was not a group of pilgrims."

Fox attended a city council meeting in Fallujah that he described as raucous and disorganized. He said council members had some significant points of contention. "But it demonstrated even if the Iraqis are not at the levels of Jeffersonian democracy yet, they are eager to find solutions to their problems."

The Iraqi economy is also showing positive signs, Fox said.

"Each time I travel outside the International Zone, I'm amazed that virtually every house in Baghdad has a satellite dish on the roof," he said. "While everybody focuses on the violence in Baghdad, rural Iraq has experienced a post-Saddam boom that is employing and putting cash in the pockets of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families."

Fox cautioned, however, that it's important to have realistic expectations about short-term progress.

"First, it will take some time for the effects of the additional troops being deployed to take hold," he said. "Second, although (U.S. Army Lt. Gen. David) Petraeus brings unparalleled experience and wisdom to this fight, Iraq's problems are systemic, and will not be turned around immediately in February and March."

Fox went on to highlight what he called "one of the most important intangibles" that doesn't make it through the mainstream media filter: "the sense of mission, and the morale of the people who are serving here.

"It's not every day that you have the opportunity to leave your fingerprints on great work," Fox said. "And this is one of those times where everybody that's here understands what an incredibly important mission we're engaged in.

"We're also focused on this mission to the point where we understand the vast majority of the American people support everything about the military," he continued. "And the people who disagree with the nature of the political decisions that brought us here, we still appreciate the fact that those people also support the military."

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2007 will be "Battle of the Wills" in Iraq

2007-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

By Sgt. Sara Wood,
USA American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2007 - The next year will be an important time in Iraq, when the Iraqi government must take more responsibility for the country and the coalition must continue its commitment to creating a stable, unified Iraq, a top British general in Iraq said today."

In 2007, we really are in an interesting time in which we hope to see the government understanding its responsibilities and having the confidence to step up and take those responsibilities ... (and) the indigenous Iraqi security forces taking the full responsibility for their security," British Army Maj. Gen. Simon Mayall, deputy commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, said in a Pentagon news conference via satellite.

This year will be a battle of wills in Iraq, Mayall said, as the coalition and the majority of Iraqis struggle against those who don't want a democratic, representative society that responds to the rule of law. The stakes are very high, and the Iraqi security forces and government need to see the strong commitment of the coalition as they grow and develop the ability to take over their own country, he said.

"Those people are absolutely relying on us in the coalition to continue to stand by them to give them the confidence to continue to defend the security of the Iraqi people, to develop their competence to do it, and to take forward this shared mission -- to deliver a new future to Iraq," he said.

When the Iraqis will be ready to take over security completely is conditions-based, Mayall said, but the important thing is to keep them in the fight and continue to develop their capabilities. Iraqi units fight alongside coalition forces every day, and they will continue to improve as they are given more responsibility, he said.

The Iraqi security forces are increasing the coalition's capacity, but a surge in troops alone will not be the answer for Iraq, Mayall said. A surge is needed in every element of the counterinsurgency operation, including development of the Iraqi government and ministerial capabilities, and economic development, he said.

"In any counterinsurgency operation, particularly the type of complexity of operation we're in at the moment, the security line of operation cannot and was never designed to deliver the desired end state," he said. "Therefore, around any application of military force, we must assume that the government of Iraq is also stepping up to the plate."

Speaking from the perspective of a British officer, Mayall said he is utterly impressed by the dedication and courage of the U.S. servicemembers in Iraq. Britain remains a staunch ally in the war on terror, he said, and he expressed optimism about Iraq's future. "I remain utterly confident, with the commitment we have from the Iraqis and ourselves, that we are going to be successful in 2007," he said.

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Why?

2006-12-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

[Author Unknown]

Cindy Sheehan asked President Bush, "Why did my son have to die in Iraq?"

Another mother asked President Johnson, "Why did my son have to die in Vietnam?

Another mother asked President Truman, "Why did my son have to die in Korea?"

Another mother asked President Roosevelt, "Why did my son have to die at Iwo Jima?"

Another mother asked President Wilson, "Why did my son have to die on a battlefield in France?"

Yet another mother asked President Lincoln, "Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?"

And yet another mother asked President Washington, "Why did my son have to die at Valley Forge?"

Then, long, long ago, a mother asked, "Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die on a cross?"

The answer to all these questions are the same: "So that others may have life and dwell in peace, happiness, and freedom."

IF YOU CANNOT STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO STAND IN FRONT OF THEM.

God Bless Our Military

God Bless America

MERRY CHRISTMAS

'Arctic Wolves' Dedicate Wall Honoring Fallen Comrades

2006-12-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Dec. 13, 2006 - The Arctic Wolves bid an emotional farewell to 36 of their own yesterday as they gathered here to dedicate the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team Memorial Wall.

Leaders from the unit joined about 25 family members of the fallen in the atrium of the high-tech Battle Command Training Center here to remember 26 Stryker Brigade troops and 10 soldiers from units attached the brigade during its deployment. Another 150 brigade soldiers just back from a 16-month deployment to Iraq watched the ceremony in an overflow room on a large-screen TV.

Col. Michael Shields, the brigade commander, acknowledged the "incredible price" his troops paid in Iraq. "These men and women paid the ultimate sacrifice in places like Mosul, Tal Afar, Rawa and Baghdad," he said. "They died serving their nation, their unit and, I think more accurately, their fellow soldiers," he said.

Those who died were among the small percentage of Americans who have served and fought the war on terror, he said. "While most Americans don't understand the great evil that exists, that threatens our very existence and the security of our children's future, these soldiers did," he said. "They were all volunteers."

Rather than focusing on how these soldiers died, Shields urged those at the ceremony to use it as an opportunity to celebrate how they lived. "This group of warriors consisted of hunters, fishermen, outdoorsmen, mountain climbers, snowboarders, skiers, musicians, cowboys, philosophers, athletes, pilots and so much more," he said.

"These soldiers were someone's best friend, leader, son, brother, fiance, husband and dad," he said. "Several of them left children that will never know their father."

Chaplain (Maj.) Robert Nay opened the ceremony with an invocation expressing thanks for "these brave men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice" and asking for comfort for their families, friends and comrades.

Then Shields and Command Sgt. Maj. William Ulibarri, the brigade command sergeant major, unveiled the memorial, with 36 framed photos of the fallen. In front of the wall stood a memorial stand, with a pair of combat boots, Kevlar helmet, goggles and an M4A1 rifle with bayonet. Thirty-six dog tags with the names of the fallen hung from the rifle.

Nay explained the symbolism of the memorial and how it helps tell the story of those it honors.

"The memorial stand with the boots, weapon and helmet stand (is) alone, empty (to) remind us of the ultimate sacrifice," he said. The headgear represents the soldier's ability to think, react, learn and lead. The rifle symbolizes the battle soldier's face, and the cover on the bayonet, the peace they want. The boots are meant "to carry us wherever our country leads us," Nay said. The dog tags represent the personal aspect of the losses and the soldiers "who are loved and deeply missed ... and will never be forgotten," he said.

"The faces you see before you represent the human nature of war," Nay said. "These men and women remind us that freedom is not free and that it is their shed blood that allows our nation and, more specifically, our families, to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which is the American dream."

Troops attending yesterday's ceremony called it a fitting tribute to their fallen comrades and a lasting reminder of the sacrifices they made.

Among those at the ceremony was Sgt. Robert Sult, from 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, who lost four fellow soldiers in Iraq, including his roommate and best friend, Spc. Raymond Henry.

"I think of Henry every day. He meant so much to me. He was the best friend I ever had," Sult said. "We learned a lot from each other, and I know he can touch other people, too. On this memorial wall, he can still show people what it's like to serve his country and just do the right thing."

Sgt. 1st Class Cole Shepherd, who served in the brigade's rear detachment during the deployment, called putting together the memorial wall an act of healing for everyone involved and a way to serve those who didn't return home. Shepherd and three other soldiers took extra pains to make sure it was perfect, including making the frames for the photos at the post craft shop when the ones they bought simply didn't measure up.

"This represents what our lives are about in the Army and the ultimate sacrifice we make for the freedoms our friends and families enjoy every day," he said.

Sgt. David Ferguson, from 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, called the losses the unit took, particularly after the Army extended the unit's deployment by four months, devastating to the unit. "We were so close to coming back, so it hit us all really hard," he said.

But like many of his fellow Arctic Wolves, Ferguson said losing their buddies made them more committed to their mission. "It's really hard on you for awhile; it's kind of hard to get used to not seeing them anymore," he said. "But once you do start going back out (on missions), you remember that for the rest of the time, you're there for them, to fight for their honor."

After the ceremony, family members approached the wall, taking pictures and gathering with soldiers and commanders who knew their loved ones. Jesse Alcozer, father of Pfc. Christopher Alcozer, wore a "Vietnam Veteran" hat as he approached his son's photo and placed his hand on the corner of the wooden plaque. The 36 dog tags clinked as relatives rifled through them, looking for the name of their soldier. Families heard funny stories or memorable moments of their soldiers from those who had served with them in Iraq.

"As you pay tribute in your own way today, leave this hall with your head high, proud of these soldiers' service to their country," Shields told the families and his 172nd Stryker BCT soldiers in closing. "That is what these warriors would want you to do." He recalled the saying that soldiers never truly die until they are forgotten. "Arctic Wolves, you will never be forgotten," he said.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2407]

Just an Awesome Guy

2006-12-12T13:07:00.000-08:00

American Forces Press Service

FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq, Dec. 12, 2006 - Army Pfc. Ross A. McGinnis packed only 136 pounds into his 6-foot frame, but few have ever matched his inner strength.

McGinnis sacrificed himself in an act of supreme bravery on Dec. 4, belying his status as the youngest soldier in Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

The 19-year-old amateur mechanic from Knox, Pa., who enjoyed poker and loud music, likely saved the lives of four soldiers riding with him on a mission in Baghdad.

McGinnis was manning the gunner's hatch when an insurgent tossed a grenade from above. It flew past McGinnis and down through the hatch before lodging near the radio. His platoon sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas of Longview, Texas, recalled what happened next.

"Pfc. McGinnis yelled 'Grenade! ... It's in the truck,'" Thomas said. "I looked out of the corner of my eye as I was crouching down and I saw him pin it down." McGinnis did so even though he could have escaped. "He had time to jump out of the truck," Thomas said. "He chose not to."

Thomas remembered McGinnis talking about how he would respond in such a situation. McGinnis said then he didn't know how he would act, but when the time came, he delivered. "He gave his life to save his crew and his platoon sergeant," Thomas said. "He's a hero. He's a professional. He was just an awesome guy."

Three of the soldiers with McGinnis who were wounded that day have returned to duty, while a fourth is recovering in Germany.

For saving the lives of his friends and giving up his own in the process, McGinnis earned the Silver Star. His unit comrades paid their final respects in a somber ceremony here Dec. 11.

McGinnis was born June 14, 1987, and joined the Army right after graduating from high school in 2005. He had been in the Army 18 months and made his mark even before his heroic deed.

"He was a good kid," said C Company's senior enlisted soldier, 1st Sgt. Kenneth J. Hendrix. "He had just gotten approved for a waiver to be promoted to specialist." He also appeared on the Nov. 30 cover of Stars & Stripes, manning his turret.

Besides his military accomplishments, McGinnis leaves his friends and family with memories of a fun-loving, loyal man.

Pfc. Brennan Beck, a 1-26 infantryman from Lodi, Calif., said McGinnis made others feel better. "He would go into a room and when he left, everyone was laughing," Beck said. "He did impersonations of others in the company. He was quick-witted, just hilarious. He loved making people laugh. He was a comedian through and through."

While having a witty side, McGinnis took his job seriously.

"He was not a garrison soldier. He hated it back in garrison," Beck said. "He loved it here in Iraq. He loved being a gunner. It was a thrill; he loved everything about it. He was one our best soldiers. He did a great job."

Beck has memories of talking all night with McGinnis about where they wanted their lives to go, and said McGinnis always remembered his friends. "When I had my appendix removed, he was the only one who visited me in the hospital," Beck said. "That meant a lot."

Another 1-26 infantryman, Pfc. Michael Blair of Klamath Falls, Ore., recalled that McGinnis helped him when he arrived at Ledward Barracks in Schweinfurt, Germany.

"When I first came to the unit, ... he was there and took me in and showed me around," Blair said. "He was real easy to talk to. You could tell him anything. He was a funny guy. He was always making somebody laugh."

McGinnis' final heroic act came as no surprise to Blair. "He was that kind of person," Blair said. "He would rather take it himself than have his buddies go down."

The brigade's senior noncommissioned officer, Command Sgt. Maj. William Johnson, also had high praise for McGinnis. "Any time when you get a soldier to do something like that - to give his life to protect his fellow soldiers - that's what heroes are made of," Johnson said.

It also demonstrates, Johnson continued, that the 'MySpace Generation' has what it takes to carry on the Army's proud traditions.

"Some think soldiers who come in today are all about themselves," Johnson said. "I see it differently."

The Silver Star Medal has been approved for McGinnis's actions Dec. 4, and will be awarded posthumously.

(Article courtesy of Multinational Division Baghdad public affairs.)

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2393]

Welcome Home, Maj. Charles L. Bifolchi, U.S. Air Force - Vietnam

2006-10-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 1087-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

Airman Missing in Action from Vietnam War is Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Maj. Charles L. Bifolchi, U.S. Air Force, of Quincy, Mass. He will be buried on Oct. 27 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

On Jan. 8, 1968, Bifolchi and a fellow crewmember were flying an armed reconnaissance mission against enemy targets in Kon Tum Province, South Vietnam, when their RF-4C aircraft disappeared. A U.S. Army helicopter crew found their aircraft wreckage soon after first light the next day. Search efforts continued for four days; however, enemy activity in the area, combined with the steep terrain and high winds at the crash site, precluded the recovery of the crewmen.

Between 1993 and 2000, U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted two surveys of an area that was believed to be Bifolchi's crash site. One team interviewed two Vietnamese citizens who turned over human remains they claimed to have recovered at the site. Another team found wreckage consistent with Bifolchi's aircraft.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA from a known maternal relative in the identification of the remains.

Thank you for your sacrifice, Maj. Bifolchi. Job well done.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=10128]

Welcome Home, Pfc. Francis Crater Jr., U.S. Army - Korean Conflict

2006-10-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 1064-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

Soldier Missing in Action from the Korean War is Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Pfc. Francis Crater Jr., U.S. Army's 32nd Infantry Regiment, of Barberton, Ohio. He will be buried Oct. 21 in Akron, Ohio.

From Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 1950, the U.S. Army's 31st Regimental Combat Team, to which Crater's regiment was temporarily assigned, fought elements of the Chinese People's Volunteer Forces in the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. After intense fighting, the 1/32 Infantry was forced to abandon its position, leaving its dead behind. Regimental records compiled after the battle indicate that Crater was killed in action on Nov. 28, 1950.

Between 2002 and 2003, two joint U.S.-Democratic People's Republic of North Korea teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated two, adjacent mass graves on the eastern shore of the Chosin Reservoir believed to be burial sites of U.S. soldiers from the 31st RCT. The team found human remains for eight individuals and other material evidence, including Crater's identification tags.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA and dental comparisons in the identification of the remains.

Welcome home, and job well done.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=10106]

Man's Best Friend Is Our Injured Soldiers' Best Friend... and AT NO CHARGE

2006-10-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2006 - Man's best friend is about to become every military amputee's best friend, thanks to the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind and a new pilot program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here.

For the past 60 years, the Guide Dog Foundation has provided service dogs free of charge to help people with visual impairments become more mobile and independent. But less well known is the group's work with service dogs for people with other disabilities.

Mike Sergeant, chief training officer for the organization, said he's excited about the potential of a pilot program that will enable amputees at Walter Reed to get their own service dog, without cost. The dogs are trained to help the troops balance as they learn to walk with artificial limbs, to retrieve items the servicemembers drop, and in some cases, to serve as braces as the troops lift themselves from a chair or the floor, Sergeant explained. "The service dog will help the veterans as they learn a new way of mobility with their artificial limbs," he said.

While helping veterans overcome physical barriers, the dogs will help them overcome emotional ones, too, Sergeant said. "They will serve as a companion dog to help during the veteran's transition," he said. "We've been told that a lot of veterans are proud of what they have done, but that there's an awkwardness about adjusting" to life outside the hospital. When a dog accompanies a wounded veteran, the public's focus automatically goes to the dog, not to the wound or disability, Sergeant said.

"A service dog is a great living tool," he said. "It can make life a little easier as they adjust to their civilian life or career. The veteran and dog act together as one, so the veteran is less dependent on human assistance and becomes more independent.

"Plus, there's the benefit of love and companionship that a dog provides," he added. "The two work kind of like the buddy system, going through the transition together."

Dogs used for the program, mostly retrievers, go through a rigorous three- to four-month training program that instills the skills and discipline required for the job. "We need a dog that's disciplined and rock-steady," he said.

Sergeant said he's hopeful the program can kick off at Walter Reed as soon as October. If the pilot program proves successful, it may expand to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he said.

His hope is that the pilot program will be an overwhelming success and that "any amputee who is interested will be able to apply to take a service dog home to help with his transition."

Harvey Naranjo, sports and activities coordinator in Walter Reed's Occupational Therapy Amputee Section, has lined up three patients interested in trying out service dogs.

Among them is Eddie Wright, a 30-year-old Marine sergeant who was medically retired after losing both arms in Fallujah, Iraq, in April 2004. "I think it's awesome," Wright said of the opportunity, though he quickly volunteered to Sergeant that he wouldn't accept a service dog if it could go to someone who needed it more than he did.

Sergeant assured Wright his group will work to ensure it generates enough donations to provide a trained service dog to any veteran who needs one. "If you want one, we are going to work with you to provide you a fully trained dog," he said. "And we will teach you how to work with it so that when you do home, this dog will be of real assistance in your life."

Wright said he's hopeful about the new capabilities a service dog will bring him. "It will help me be more independent and more comfortable on my own," he said. "I hate to be dependent."

Naranjo is a big fan of service dogs. He introduced Deuce, a year-and-a-half-old chocolate Labrador retriever, to the Walter Reed staff in March after seeing how well patients responded to dogs during their therapy."

He's a big welcome mat who opens up the door to communication wherever he goes," Naranjo said of Deuce. "I see these service dogs as real ambassadors. They can provide a huge service and therapeutic outlet."

Related Sites:Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind [http://www.guidedog.org/]

America Supports You [http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/]

The USS Iwo Jima Also Saves Lives

2006-10-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

NORTH ARABIAN GULF, Oct. 18, 2006 - The USS Iwo Jima can unleash tremendous military force by air, land and sea, but the crew takes pride in offering something the ship's captain says is equally important: the ability to reduce suffering and save lives.

"This ship is unique in that it's not just projecting power, but also has the capacity to do a great deal of assistance," Navy Capt. Mike "The Sheriff" Walley told civilian business and community leaders participating in the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference aboard the ship.

The Defense Department's JCOC program has been introducing civilian "movers and shakers" to the military since 1948 by showing them military operations and giving them an opportunity to see men and women in uniform on the job.

"We're not just about taking lives, we're about saving lives," Walley told the JCOC group. "That's one of the things we're proud of -- that we bring not just a warfighting capacity, but also a humanitarian capacity."

Last summer, the USS Iwo Jima got the chance to do just that as it was preparing to return to its home port of Norfolk, Va., Walley told the group. Hurricane Katrina had just devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, and Iwo Jima was called in to provide a command and control platform and a floating hospital for people who couldn't get care in New Orleans hospitals.

At the same time, Iwo Jima's crew assisted in search and rescue operations, plucking almost 3,400 people from rooftops and saving them from the rising waters.

"This wasn't a new mission," Walley told the JCOC group. "When Katrina happened, we knew exactly what to do."

Crewmembers said they get a lot of gratification from helping fellow Americans in need.

"It really felt good to be a part of something like that," said Airman Courtney Young, who's been an aviation mechanic with Iwo Jima for the past two years. "You get a lot of satisfaction when you turn on CNN and can see our boat doing a lot of good."

Three football fields long, but shorter than an aircraft carrier, Iwo Jima and its 1,100 sailors provide the platform that delivers the 1,600 to 1,800 Marines it typically carries to any contingency in their region.

The ship carries 29 aircraft, including Marine Corps AV-8B "Harriers" that provide air defense and close-ground support, CH-53 "Super Stallions" and CH-46E "Sea Knight" that ferry troops and supplies and AH-1W "Super Cobras" that provide close-in air support.

In addition, the Iwo Jima's Landing Craft Air Cushion is capable of delivering Marines along with their vehicles and equipment for an amphibious assault.

The JCOC participants got a firsthand look at these military capabilities, took a spin in an LCAC at speeds hitting 45 knots, and watch Harriers take off and land from Iwo Jima's flight deck.

In addition to its combat capability, Iwo Jima contributes to the U.S. maritime mission in a way a traditional carrier simply can't, Walley said. "We call a carrier a single-dimensional ship" that projects air power, he said. "This ship is multi-dimensional.

"Just over four months into its current deployment, USS Iwo Jima is once again demonstrating those multi-dimensional capabilities.

Since leaving Norfolk in early June, Iwo Jima already has helped evacuate 14,900 American citizens in Lebanon to safety before providing more traditional support to operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The ship is currently operating in the North Arabian Gulf, about 60 miles from the Kuwaiti coast.

Iwo Jima's crew "has done more since they came out here than the three previous strike groups," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Carl Jensen, commander of Task Force 59, told the group. "This strike group has really done it and done it all - and made it look easy."

Jensen called the Lebanon evacuation mission a big feather in Iwo Jima's hat. "It was a huge, joint effort," Jensen said of the mission that was moving 4,000 people a day at its peak. "But the lion's share was carried out by the Navy and Marine Corps, and we're really proud to have played a role."

The ability to react quickly to a wide variety of missions is a hallmark of U.S. naval forces, Vice Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, told the group during a briefing yesterday. "The advantage of maritime forces is that you can move quickly and be responsive to events on the ground," he said.

He cited humanitarian and disaster relief as one of the three key maritime missions in the region, along with maritime security operations and consequence management.

In supporting a humanitarian or disaster relief mission, Iwo Jima can transport people, deliver food, make drinkable water and provide medical care in an onboard facility that includes operating rooms, X-ray rooms, a blood bank, laboratories and patient wards, Walley told the group. In a catastrophic situation, most of the ship's hangar bay and flight deck would provide an overflow triage area.

Members of the Iwo Jima crew said they feel good about their ability to provide, not just combat power, but also life-saving support to people in need. "In the end, I think all warriors like to believe ... that they are helping provide a better world for a country they are in conflict with," Walley said.

Participants in the JCOC program said they were wowed by what they observed on Iwo Jima. "It was awesome, amazing, a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said Keith Cooley, chief executive officer for Focus: Hope, based in Detroit."It totally exceeded my expectations - not just the machinery, but the people," Cooley continued. "They're young, honest people of integrity. I'm pretty damned impressed."

The first U.S. defense secretary, James V. Forrestal, created the JCOC in 1948 to introduce civilian "movers and shakers" with little or no military exposure to the workings of the armed forces. Nearly six decades later, it remains DoD's premier civic leader program. Participants are selected from hundreds of candidates nominated by military commands worldwide and pay their own expenses throughout the conference.

We at Vested Power of the People are mighty proud of our men and women sailors who serve our country and the world.

God Bless the whole of our military.

God Bless America.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1680]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is Hard at Work in Afghanistan

2006-10-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2006 - Steady progress is being made to provide new roads, electric power and water distribution systems to the Afghan people, the U.S. Army's top engineer said today.

The Taliban destroyed much of Afghanistan's feeble infrastructure while they were in power, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, commander and chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said from Afghanistan during a teleconference with Pentagon reporters.

That's why Afghanistan isn't a reconstruction mission, Strock said.

"This is a construction mission," the three-star general said. "And, when you look at the resources available in this country, it's going to take a while to mobilize them. And, it's going to take time."

Yet today, about 921 kilometers of Afghan roads are under construction or have been completed, representing a $170 million investment, said Strock, who's in Afghanistan to check up on road building and other engineering projects.

The fifth-poorest country in the world, Afghanistan is a large, mountainous country that's in need of a good road system to boost its economic development, Strock said. That's why U.S. Army engineers are partnering with other agencies, he noted, to build a circuitous road network that will connect Afghanistan's chief cities.

"We're very close to completing the national ring road, which is the primary road which links all the major cities of the country around the circumference of the country," Strock explained. Secondary roads are also being built, he said, to connect provincial centers and the villages beyond.

Establishing a modern road system in Afghanistan will provide a conduit between the central government and its people, Strock said. And, he added, new roads will also connect Afghanistan's people to "health care, economic opportunity, education" and other economic generation factors."

So, the roads are really one of the most important areas we're working on now," Strock said.

A recent increase in insurgent-led violence in some rural areas of Afghanistan hasn't slowed reconstruction efforts, Strock said. Provincial reconstruction teams continue to implement Afghan-recommended projects across the country, he noted, especially in areas that have experienced security challenges.

Strock's engineers also are engaged in providing electric power and water distribution systems for Afghanistan's citizens. Since Afghanistan has no national power grid, he explained, the engineers have been building rudimentary water-powered electricity generators around rural areas of the country."

The only practical way to get power to the people is through local pinpoint electrical sources," Strock said. "This is the kind of system they need. It requires no resources to operate except the natural flowing water."

This simpler method of generating electricity dovetails with local agricultural and irrigation programs, Strock said, and provides Afghans "a resource that they have not had available to them."

Strock acknowledged many Afghans might not know about ongoing reconstruction projects conducted on their behalf, because of the size of the country and poor communications."

If you're not in the immediate vicinity of one of our projects, you may not know anything about it," Strock said. The country's rugged terrain, he explained, makes it "very difficult for people to really understand what's going on around them."

Part of the challenge, Strock noted, is getting the word out to the Afghan people about the many reconstruction projects being undertaken that will eventually improve their lives.

Real progress is being made in Afghanistan, Strock said.

"I think we have sufficient resources, and we're now in the process of gaining that irreversible momentum we seek," the general said.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1676]

America Brings More to Iraq Than Just Tanks and Guns

2006-10-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

By Spc. C. Terrell Turner, USA
Special to American Forces Press Service

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, Oct. 17, 2006 - On a typical day at the medical clinic in Tarmiya, Iraq, patients and clinic workers witnessed a not-so-typical grand opening last week of a new surgical and pregnancy wing hosted by Ministry of Health personnel, local council members and soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.

The $400,000 project features operating rooms, labor and delivery facilities, and recovery rooms.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Dr. Ali Ibrahim, district clinic manager for the Ministry of Health, gave Army Maj. Herb Joliat, civil affairs officer, Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, a tour of the new wing of the clinic.

Ibrahim is the medical official in charge of several clinics in the northern Baghdad region, including Saab Al Bour, Mushada, Taji, Tapi and others. He is responsible for providing medical services to more than a million people in the region."

The job ran a little over the projected end date because of conditions on the site that were outside of his initial scope that he needed to address for quality assurance," said Joliat. "Despite that, he still brought in his touches with his own photos and plastic plants. It was his building, his work, in his town."

Hameed Halhelal, the local contractor in charge of the project, said he enjoyed the project and the opportunity to help the people of Tarmiya.

"This is my first project here in Tarmiya, and a very good thing for the people," he said. "This clinic is a great project for people needing surgery and for pregnant women and their children."

The clinic serves about 140,000 people in the greater Tarmiya area.

Ibrahim coordinated the movement of additional personnel to work in the new clinic wing. He also said he receives regular assistance from local Iraqi security forces when he needs it.

"We moved our staff around, and also brought in more experienced staff from Baghdad to work in the clinic," he said. "Many people have told me that the new clinic is very beautiful. Everything that we do here is for the benefit of the people."

(Army Spc. C. Terrell Turner is assigned to 1st Brigade Combat Team public affairs, 4th Infantry Division.)

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1638]

According the the Liberal MSM, we're losing in Iraq. No, we're not.

2006-10-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

REPORT #1

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2006 - Iraqi security forces teamed up with American GIs to defeat two nearly simultaneously launched enemy attacks in the Mosul area Oct. 12.

U.S. soldiers from Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, attacked and destroyed a terrorist mortar cell after Forward Operating Base Marez received indirect fire.

Two terrorists were killed, one wounded and one detained in the attack. The GIs also found a significant weapons cache in the area that contained three 82 mm mortar tubes with 18 mortar rounds and a 120 mm mortar tube with multiple mortar rounds.

U.S. soldiers saw terrorists flee to a nearby building during the firefight. The building was encircled, and then 2nd Battalion, 4th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division, soldiers launched an assault, killing two terrorists inside and capturing three.

Around this time in western Mosul, Iraqi troops teamed with U.S. soldiers from 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Battalion, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, to defeat a complex terrorist attack involving small-arms and rocket-propelled-grenade fire.

During the fighting, Iraqi police and soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division, captured several mobile weapons caches and killed and detained numerous terrorists. One Iraqi soldier and four Iraqi police were wounded in the fighting.

Iraqi police in Mosul reported they detained 39 suspected terrorists, wounded two terrorists and killed eight terrorists after the Oct. 12 firefight. The police also captured several small-arms weapons caches, 10 vehicles suspected of being used for terrorist activity and one large truck with weapons.

Twelve coalition forces soldiers were wounded in the initial mortar attack on Forward Operating Base Marez East. Four soldiers were treated and returned to duty, five were not seriously wounded and three were seriously wounded. Their names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1612]

REPORT #2

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2006 - Iraqi and coalition forces freed a kidnap victim and detained two terrorists in Muqdadiya, Iraq, and combined operations yielded more than 35 suspected insurgents and seven weapons caches last week in Anbar province, military officials in Iraq reported.

Iraqi army and coalition forces discovered a cache, freed a kidnap victim and detained two terrorists yesterday in the town of Muqdadiya.

Soldiers with the 3rd Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Division, and Company A, 2nd Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, Task Force Lightning, discovered the cache and kidnap victim after a local citizen pointed to a building in the area while they were conducting a combined operation.

A search uncovered a grenade, a stick of TNT, one flare gun, and multiple fake improvised-explosive devices. The kidnap victim was found chained to a wall in the house next door. Two males were detained from the house where the cache was found.

The kidnap victim, detainees and the cache were transported to a secure location. The cache was later destroyed.

Elsewhere, Iraqi security forces, along with U.S. Marines, soldiers and sailors of Regimental Combat Team 7, detained more than 35 suspected insurgents and discovered more than seven weapons and munitions caches last week in western Anbar province.

Last week's efforts yielded more than 11,300 pieces of munitions, bomb initiating devices, explosives, weapons and bomb-making material.

The week-long tally started Oct. 7 and ended Oct. 13.

Among the most significant finds: more than 6,500 rifle, pistol and machine gun rounds of various caliber; 70 explosive mortar rounds; five explosive rocket warheads; 30 rocket-propelled grenades; 2,000 sticks of plastic explosive; 34,500 feet of detonation chord; 400 roadside bomb-initiating devices; five machine guns; four AK-47 assault rifles; 17 suicide-bomb vests and other forms of explosives and equipment.

(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.) [Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1614]====================================================

Visit the Defense Department's Web site "America Supports You" at http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/, that spotlights what Americans are doing in support of U.S. military men and women serving at home and abroad.

The New Iraqi Government Deserves Our Moral Support

2006-10-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2006 - The new Iraqi government has taken several steps in recent days and weeks to move the country toward peace and prosperity, a senior U.S. military officer said yesterday.

Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, described some of these initiatives to reporters at a Baghdad news conference.

For example, the Iraqi government's Council of Representatives passed a "Region's Law" on Oct. 11. The law that focuses on an equable distribution of wealth and political power among Iraq's multifaceted citizenry, Caldwell said. It also outlines procedures provinces would use in forming political regions as the result of voter referendums."This is a great beginning to addressing the worries of many Iraqis on fair distribution of wealth and political power," Caldwell said.

The Council of Representatives also passed an investment law on Oct. 10. "This law will provide a legal and regulatory framework for companies -- foreign companies -- interested in investing in Iraq," Caldwell explained. "The Iraqi government is also drafting a hydrocarbon law to ensure fair and equitable distribution of the natures of this country's future oil revenues."

In September, the Council of Representatives passed a law designed to thwart the black-marketing of gasoline and other fuels, Caldwell said. The new law also will bolster fuel supplies and cut corruption by opening up the country's energy sector to private investment. Regulations pursuant to the new law are being developed and should be in place by the end of this year, Caldwell said.

Additionally, Iraqi and Turkish diplomats agreed Oct. 4 to resolve a three-year-old dispute over payments for fuel imports, Caldwell said. The funds involved in the dispute amounted to some $200 million.Resolution of the Turkish-Iraqi dispute "was desperately needed to help open trade and alleviate Iraq's fuel shortage," Caldwell said.

In September, Iraq produced an average of 2.4 million barrels of oil per day, Caldwell noted. This rate surpasses the daily production goal of 2.2 million barrels of oil for the past six consecutive months. Through September, Iraqi oil sales revenues have exceeded projected estimates by about $1.5 billion, he said.

The Iraqi government also is working to reduce a national unemployment rate that's now estimated to be 30 percent, Caldwell said. To support that effort, the government is assembling funding for an employment program that would train and employ 100,000 young men for two years.

All of these initiatives "are critical to Iraq's future," Caldwell said, noting that establishing security and raising the standard of living for Iraq's citizens are closely related."

As we have stated, if you want prosperity, you must have security," Caldwell emphasized. "And, if you want security, you must have unity. We know this, and (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki) knows this."

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1596]

Welcome Home, 1st Lt James L. Hull, U.S. Air Force - Vietnam

2006-10-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 1025-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 12, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

Air Force Pilot Missing in Action From Vietnam War is Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is 1st Lt. James L. Hull, U.S. Air Force, of Lubbock, Texas. He will be buried Nov. 13 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

On Feb. 19, 1971, Hull and a fellow crew member were flying a mission near the Laos/Vietnam border when their O-2A Skymaster crashed. Both men died, but Hull's body was buried in the wreckage and could not be recovered because of hostile enemy action.

Between 1993 and 1997, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) led three investigations with U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, and one trilateral investigation with a Lao People's Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team. During the first investigation, the team interviewed a Vietnamese citizen who produced human remains and an identification tag for Hull that he claimed to have recovered from a crash site located just inside Laos. The joint team was not allowed to cross the border and the investigation was suspended. The Vietnamese turned over the bone fragment to U.S. officials, but the ID tag's whereabouts are still unknown.

Additional investigations yielded some information concerning a crash site located just inside the Laotian border. The S.R.V. allowed a Vietnamese national to walk to the purported crash site and collect a fragment of the wreckage. Based on the location, type of aircraft and retrieved wreckage, analysts determined it was Hull's crash site.

In May 2006, a joint U.S. and L.P.D.R. team excavated the site where they recovered additional evidence and human remains.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA from a known maternal relative in the identification of the remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=10071]

All Hail The United States Air Force

2006-10-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2006 - The nation's youngest military service will kick off its 60th anniversary observance this weekend with the official dedication of the U.S. Air Force Memorial here.

The memorial, composed of three bold and graceful spires soaring skyward to a height of 270 feet, will be dedicated and given to the nation by the Air Force Memorial Foundation at an official ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 14 on a three-acre promontory next to Arlington National Cemetery and a short walk from the Pentagon.

Officials said the memorial honors the millions of men and women who have served in the Air Force and its predecessor organizations, including the U.S. Signal Corps, the Army Air Corps and the Army Air Forces. It pays tribute to the dedication, sacrifice and contributions of those who pioneered the skies, those who shape the air, space and cyberspace victories of today, and those who will continue to do so in the future, officials added.

The memorial hosts a paved "Runway to Glory" at the site entrance, a larger-than-life bronze Honor Guard statue, two granite inscription walls located at either end of a central lawn, and a glass contemplation wall that reflects the missing-man formation, the final tribute given to fallen airmen. The memorial's surrounding spaces will be landscaped to create a memorial park and parade ground overlooking the nation's capital.

The dedication ceremony will include an aerial review consisting of aircraft from the 1930s through modern day, from the B-17 and B-24 of World War II fame to the B-2 Spirit and C-17 Globemaster III of the global war on terror, as well as a five-ship "Heritage Flight" featuring the P-51 Mustang, the F-86 Sabre, the F-4 Phantom, the F-15C Eagle and the F-22A Raptor. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds will also perform a flyover and "bomb-burst" maneuver reflecting the design of the memorial's three spires.

Due to space limitations at the Memorial site, overflow seating will be available in Pentagon South Parking with live simulcast of the dedication.

The Air Force also will host an open house in Pentagon South Parking from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 14. In addition to the live simulcast of the dedication from 1:30 to 3 p.m., the open house will feature performances by the U.S. Air Force Drill Team and the U.S. Air Force Band's high-energy "Max Impact" ensemble, a "Heritage Parade of Uniforms," a concert by country singer Lee Ann Womack and a wide variety of interactive displays and exhibits showcasing America's airmen, Air Force equipment, technology and aircraft.

Static aircraft displays will include the Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles; UH-1, HH-60, MH-53 helicopters; the CV-22 tiltrotor aircraft; and an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter display model.

The weekend will conclude with a memorial service Oct. 15 at 10:30 a.m. at the memorial site. Officials will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony punctuated by a missing-man formation flown by F-16s. Again, due to space limitations at the site, overflow seating will be available in Pentagon South Parking with live simulcast of the service.

Immediately following both the official dedication ceremony Oct. 14 and the memorial service Oct. 15, shuttles will transport the public from Pentagon South Parking to the Memorial site to view the Memorial.

The weekend's events are easily accessible from the Pentagon Metro station, and the public is highly encouraged to use the Metro as there will be numerous road closures in the area and parking will be extremely limited, officials said.

The Memorial will be closed to the public Oct. 16 while the grounds are restored following the weekend's activities.

(From a U.S. Air Force news release.)

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1573]

Golfers Drive Home Their Support For Our Wounded Warriors

2006-10-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

CROMWELL, Conn., Oct. 11, 2006 - Nearly 150 golfers hit the links at River Highlands TPC golf club here yesterday to support wounded servicemembers.

The day began with opening ceremonies that included a color guard from the Connecticut Recruiting and Retention Command, out of Hartford. Army Spc. Meric Martin, a Connecticut National Guardsman with the 102nd Army Band out of Bristol, performed the national anthem.

"I think (the event) is great," Connecticut Army National Guardsman Sgt. 1st Class Robert Beloff, with Joint Forces Headquarters for the state of Connecticut, said. "When you see the news and you see people protesting (the war) and things like that, something like this almost cancels that all out.

"It's a good feeling," he added.

The Pratt & Whitney America Supports You Tournament raised about $110,000 through donations and golf fees. Three organizations that offer support to wounded servicemembers and their families -- Homes For Our Troops, the Wounded Warrior Project, and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund -- will share the funds, Tammy Young, director of special events and catering for River Highlands, said.

The groups, respectively, also benefit from the efforts of PGA players Phil Mickelson, Rory Sabbatini and Frank Lickliter, throughout the season. They're also members of America Supports You, a Defense Department program highlighting ways Americans and the corporate sector support the nation's servicemembers.

Pratt & Whitney, a defense contractor and major sponsor of last year's River Highlands event returned to sponsor this year's event. Mike Field, a senior vice president in sales and marketing with Pratt & Whitney, said the company has an ongoing relationship with River Highlands and liked that the event allows people to interact with servicemembers.

"PGA has set out, through these series of America Supports You events, to create awareness in perhaps a nontraditional location and appeal to people's interest to come out and ... have the opportunity to recognize what the men and women of our services do," Field said.

About a dozen servicemembers took advantage of an unusually temperate fall day to play 18 holes of golf on the PGA course. The importance of the event and the visibility it brings to the needs of their wounded comrades was not lost on them.

"Being with the recruiting and retention command, our main thing is to get the word out there to the veterans, the guys that are actually over there ... serving their country," Army Master Sgt. Michael Dezi, said. "The more people that we can get involved and (showing) patriotism, that's our goal.

"While the day was a lighthearted outing with prizes for shooting holes-in-one, getting the closest to the pin, and placing first, second and third overall, it had a serious note, as well. For the civilians involved, it was about honoring servicemembers, Young said.

"It gives a chance for the people that are out there to meet (servicemembers), shake their hands, raise their morale, (and) let them know that they care about them," Young said. "Hopefully the people that participate will take away that feeling and tell other people.

"I think that there's a great ripple effect that comes out of this type of a feel-good day," she said.

As a further show of support, River Highlands has adopted a unit currently serving in Iraq, Young said. The club will send monthly care packages to the servicemembers until they return home.

The America Supports You/TPC partnership began in 2005 and has raised $450,000 in donations through events at all 24 TPC locations nationwide. While each club holds fundraisers, it's up to them to decide the details of each event, Young said.

The River Highlands fundraiser grew considerably from last year's, which was impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Many servicemembers scheduled to participate were deployed to Louisiana and Mississippi, Young said.

This year the event sold out in June, prompting the club to add a smaller-scale event on July 31 to accommodate all those who wished to participate. Plans are already in the works for the 2007 event, which will take place Oct. 9.

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SUPPORT OUR SOLDIERS IN THESE CRITICAL TIMES.

God Bless our fighting men and women.

God Bless America.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1542]

http://woundedwarriors.org

http://www.homesforourtroops.org/site/PageServer

http://www.fallenheroesfund.org/fallenheroes/index.php

And for the ladies ...

2006-10-11T16:04:00.000-07:00

By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2006 - Women have served in the Air Force for years, making valuable contributions, but gender and race differences have never been an important factor in accomplishing the Air Force mission, the first woman pilot on the Air Force Thunderbirds said here today.

"What we need to concentrate on is what we have in common, which is that warrior spirit that's in all of our hearts, that has created us the way we are -- to choose to be a part of something so much bigger than ourselves," Air Force Maj. Nicole Malachowski said during a speech at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial, at Arlington National Cemetery.

Malachowski, who flies the No. 3 jet as the right wing pilot in the Thunderbirds' diamond formation, is in town with the team for the dedication of the Air Force Memorial Oct. 14. She has been with the Thunderbirds for a year, and this will be her 55th demonstration.

Being the first woman Thunderbird pilot is an honor, Malachowski said, but the more important thing for her is the opportunity to serve with so many talented men and women and share the Air Force story with the public.

"We are a team whose job is to go out there and represent the United States Air Force and the 530,000 men and women who wear Air Force blue with the honor, the respect and the dignity that they deserve," she said. "We're out there to represent what we know to be true -- the fantastic hard work, dedication and professionalism of the men and women in our Air Force that we have the privilege to work alongside."

The Thunderbirds spend a majority of their time doing community outreach. As part of that, they speak to a lot of children, Malachowski said. Meeting with these children, especially those who are part of the Make-a-Wish Foundation, is a blessing for her, she said, and gives her a healthy dose of humility. She recalled meeting one young boy who had only a month to live and whose wish was to meet a Thunderbird pilot.

"People talk about our military people being so courageous and heroic, and they are, and I'm very proud to be a part of the Air Force, but you look at a kid like this and you think, 'What is courage? What is heroism? It's standing right in front of us,'" she said. "This is why we wear these uniforms and why we go out and defend our nation."

Malachowski first became interested in flying at the age of 5, when she saw an air show in her native Las Vegas. She set her sights on becoming an Air Force pilot and never looked back. She started flying with the Civil Air Patrol when she was 12, and by 16 was doing solo flights. After high school, she attended the Air Force Academy and has since seen various assignments as an F-15E pilot, including a tour in Iraq. She said she hopes her service in the Thunderbirds is an example to young girls and to all children that they can achieve their dreams.

"The message to all young Americans is that it's great to have a dream; it's great to have goals," she said. "Pursue something that you are passionate about, and then pursue excellence in that. And surround yourself with a positive team. I hope that when they see the Air Force Thunderbirds, they realize they can achieve any dream, and that a great team to have is certainly the Air Force."

Women have served in the Thunderbirds since 1974, just not in a pilot capacity, Malachowski said. Of the 130 officers and enlisted personnel on the Thunderbird team, 15 are women. Besides the six demonstration pilots, the Thunderbirds are made up of support personnel from about 25 different career fields.

The Thunderbirds have a grueling schedule, as they are on the road about 220 days during their eight-month air show season, but every team member considers it a privilege to serve and share the Air Force story, Malachowski said. For her part, she said she is just glad to have been born into a time of opportunities for women in the military.

"Women love their country too, and there are a lot of us who choose to do that by wearing a military uniform," she said. "I have seen and traveled the world, and it is just a wonderful thing to be a woman living in a country that provides you so many wonderful opportunities and freedoms that are unmatched anywhere else in the world. And the Air Force simply takes that to another level."

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1553]====================================================Visit the Defense Department's Web site "America Supports You" at http://www.americasupportsyou.mil, that spotlights what Americans are doing in support of U.S. military men and women serving at home and abroad.

Iraqi Leaders Step Up To Meet Tough Challenges

2006-10-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10, 2006 - Iraq's elected leaders are taking measures to address the sectarian strife that has gripped Baghdad and other parts of that country in recent weeks, a senior U.S. military officer said yesterday.

"The most telling sign of progress towards reconciliation is that the leaders from diverse factions with different interests are working together and are communicating with each other," Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters at a Baghdad news conference.

Caldwell, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, cited a meeting chaired by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad on Oct. 8 in which senior Iraqi government officials and tribal sheikhs discussed possible solutions for quelling sectarian and insurgent violence in Anbar province.

Caldwell also cited an Oct. 1 event in which Maliki and leaders of political parties and religious sects "signed a pledge aimed at ending internal battles and sectarian violence in Baghdad by setting up district committees representing community leaders from all sects."

Later this month, hundreds of civil society representatives will gather at the third of four meetings aimed at reducing violence as part of Maliki's reconciliation and national dialogue plan, Caldwell said.

In addition, "there have been number other tribal and civil society conferences at the provincial and local levels to address the same security issues," he said.

Iraqi Sunni and Shiite religious leaders are in Saudi Arabia discussing inter-Islamic fighting at a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Iraqi government also hosted a recent conference in Baghdad in which international and Iraqi officials discussed the establishment of an International Compact for Iraq that would promote foreign investment in the Iraqi economy, Caldwell said.

"So, since the (Iraqi) government formed a few short months ago, Iraqis have made strides towards unity, but it is not easy," Caldwell acknowledged. "Progress takes time, and it is hard to be patient ... when we see innocent people dying.

"With American help, the Iraqi government is "proactively and independently" working to find solutions to stem sectarian strife and insurgent violence, as well as to revive Iraq's economy, Caldwell said.

However, stopping violence in Iraq requires more than just a military solution, Caldwell emphasized. Achieving security in Iraq ultimately depends upon Iraqis supporting their government and reconciliation among the country's tribal and religious factions, he said.

Caldwell offered his condolences to the family of Iraqi Gen. Amir al-Hashimi, who was murdered yesterday in Baghdad. The slain Iraqi general was the brother of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, Caldwell noted. "Details around this incident are emerging," Caldwell said, noting the Iraqi government "will seek justice against the perpetrators of this deplorable crime.

"Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces are making a difference, Caldwell said, noting they are increasingly taking on independent operations, thereby becoming less dependent on coalition forces.

Caldwell introduced Robert Tillery, the chief of staff from the (Iraq) National Coordination Team, who's working with provincial reconstruction teams throughout Iraq. The PRTs work with local Iraqis in assisting local officials and municipalities to prioritize security and basic services needs for their citizens, Caldwell explained.

The PRT concept was first successfully applied in Afghanistan after the Taliban government was removed from power, Tillery said. PRTs are employed in Iraq "to enforce and bolster the ability of the provincial governments to lead and to respond to the needs of their people," he explained.

Teams of military and civilian reconstruction experts work with provincial reconstruction development committees that in 15 provinces across Iraq, Tillery said.

The system was originally set up to act on Iraq reconstruction needs as determined by U.S. and international officials, he noted.

"The PRDC helped prioritize and identify those electrical, water and roads and bridges projects that required repair, redevelopment and reconstruction," Tillery explained. After prioritization and identification the U.S. government submitted projects for funding, he said.

Today's PRDC program centers on local elected Iraqi officials determining what needs to be built in their cities, towns and villages, Tillery said, noting Iraqi officials have identified 135 projects in 15 provinces valued at more than $100 million.

"By helping local governments more effectively address the needs of their citizens, they will gain the support of their people," Tillery said. "Citizen support and confidence in government institutions is critical to a successful democracy.

"Today's Iraqi economy is breaking new ground, Tillery said, noting it was state-run and badly managed from Baghdad during Saddam Hussein's rule.

"As Iraq emerges from a generation of centralized control from Baghdad, it is essential that constructive relations are developed between the center (of government) and the provinces," Tillery said. "There are a few mechanisms in place to support this, but the PRTs are helping to stimulate constructive dialogue that will build these relationships."

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1512]====================================================Visit the Defense Department's Web site "America Supports You" at http://www.americasupportsyou.mil, that spotlights what Americans are doing in support of U.S. military men and women serving at home and abroad.

A Little Goes A Long Way

2006-10-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2006 - American soldiers in Iraq accomplish wonders during their tours in Iraq, the commander of Multinational Force Iraq said here today.

At a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. used the 101st Airborne Division as an example of what a division can do.

The 101st deployed from Fort Campbell, Ky., and took over responsibility for northwest Iraq in November 2005. The division redeployed in September.

"Over that period they detained over 150 high-value individuals," Casey said. "Each one of these (was) a painstaking intelligence collection and development effort that resulted in the capture of an individual."

The division secured more than 200 election sites that allowed 1.5 million Iraqis to vote. The 101st moved two Iraqi divisions, nine brigades and 35 battalions into the lead in their area.

On the police side, division soldiers brought five provincial and 11 district police headquarters up to the second-highest level of preparation. "They oversaw the training integration of over 32,000 police, and they supported the development of two strategic infrastructure brigades with 14 battalions," the general said.

The division supervised building 100 police stations, 130 border forts and improved seven international ports of entry along the borders. The progress the division made with Iraqi security forces allowed coalition officials to reduce forces in the area by a two-star headquarters and two brigades. This means a total of 10,000 fewer coalition forces in the region and 25 fewer bases.

"It's not insignificant what a division can get done taking small steps every day, and that's what we say -- we make progress in Iraq every day by taking small steps," Casey said.

JOBS WELL DONE.

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1562]

Welcome Home, First Lt. Shannon E. Estill, WWII Pilot

2006-10-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense
No. 1007-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 09, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

Missing WWII Airmen is Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is 1st Lt. Shannon E. Estill, U.S. Army Air Forces, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He will be buried on October 10 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

On April 13, 1945, Estill's P-38J Lightning was struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire while attacking targets in eastern Germany. Another U.S. pilot reported seeing Estill's aircraft explode and crash. Because the location of the crash site was within the Russian-controlled sector of occupied Germany, U.S. military personnel could not recover Estill's remains after the war.

In 2003, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) investigated a crash site near the town of Elsnig in eastern Germany. The site had been reported by two German nationals whose hobby is finding the location of World War II crash sites. They also claimed to have found remains at the site, which they turned over to U.S. Army officials. The team surveyed the site and interviewed two more men who witnessed the crash as children.

In 2005, another JPAC team excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains as well as P-38 wreckage. Included in the recovered wreckage was an aircraft data plate from Estill's plane.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains, matching DNA sequences from a maternal relative.

JOB WELL DONE.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site athttp://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1169.

Welcome Home, Pvt. Francis Lupo - World War I Soldier

2006-09-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

By Steven Donald Smith
American Forces Press Service

ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 26, 2006 - Eighty-eight years after being killed in action along the not-so-quiet Western Front of World War I, Army Pvt. Francis Lupo of Cincinnati was buried today with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

Lupo is the first U.S. servicemember classified as missing in action from World War I to be identified.

"Based on our search of the records, this appears to be the first (WWI soldier) ever that was missing in action, found and returned home," said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, which leads the national effort to account for personnel missing as the result of hostile action. "No one would have ever thought that he could have possibly been found, but he was found."

Lupo's casket was carried by horse-drawn caisson through the cemetery today before receiving a 21-gun salute. Lupo's next-of-kin, Rachel Kleisinger, 73, was presented with an American flag during the burial ceremony. Kleisinger is Lupo's niece. She was born to Lupo's youngest sister 15 years after the end of WWI.

Several French military officers were also in attendance.

Lupo, the son of Sicilian immigrants, was 23 years old when he was killed in July 1918 while participated in the combined French-American attack on the Germans near Soissons, France, in what came to be known as the Second Battle of the Marne. Lupo was buried in a shallow grave alongside another American soldier. Lupo was a member of Company E, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division.

In 2003, while conducting a survey in preparation for a construction project, a French archaeological team discovered human remains and other items a short distance from Soissons. Among the items recovered were a military boot fragment and a wallet bearing Lupo's name, DoD officials said.

The French handed over the remains and personal effects to U.S. officials in 2004. They were then brought to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, to begin the analysis and official identification process.

"It's our mission at JPAC to identify all those missing from our nation's past wars," Troy Kitch, JPAC deputy director of public affairs, said.

The command was activated Oct. 1, 2003, created from the merger of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory and the Joint Task Force Full Accounting. The laboratory portion of JPAC, referred to as the Central Identification Laboratory, is the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world, officials said.

Kitch explained that the command uses several methods to positively identify people. They look at material evidence, such as the Lupo's wallet, as well as anthropological evidence found in bones, to identify basic traits like height, sex and age."

We look at mitochondrial DNA, which will tell us if that person is related to other people in a family line," Kitch said. "We take a sample of DNA from the remains, and we try to match that up with a family reference sample of someone we think is a family member of the person."

They also use historical evidence to demonstrate that the person being identified "was in that area at that time in that point in history," Kitch said. "We also look at dental," he added.

Teeth are often the best way to identify remains because they are durable, unique to each person, and may contain surviving mitochondria DNA, the JPAC Web site states.

On average, JPAC identifies about six missing-in-action servicemembers each month. To date, the U.S. government has identified about 1,300 people.

"As of the end of last year, we had identified about 840 people from Southeast Asia (Vietnam-era), about 50 or so from the Korean War, and about 360 from World War II, and around 60 from the Cold War," Kitch said.

Forty-nine Americans were listed as prisoners of war or missing in action during the 1991 Gulf War. DoD has now accounted for 48 of those 49. Only one American from Operation Desert Storm, Navy Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, remains unaccounted for. In addition, Army Sgt. Matt Maupin, who participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom, has been missing in action in Iraq since April 2004.

World War I, which lasted from August 1914 to November 1918, involved many European countries, the United States and other nations throughout the world. More than 10 million people were killed and more than 20 million wounded during the war. The United States initially remained neutral, but finally entered the war in 1917 on the side of the Allied powers.

During the course of the war, the United States lost 116,000 troops to combat or illness. According to a recent Washington Post article, about 4,500 of those killed are unaccounted for. The other soldier buried with Lupo is among them.

Only about 12 U.S. WWI veterans are still alive.

Greer stressed that even though the recovery and identification process may take years to complete, the U.S. is committed to identifying all of its missing troops. Lupo's story is a case in point, he said.

"I think it shows for those who wear the uniform, that this nation is committed to bringing them home even if it takes 60, 70, 80 years," he said. "He (Lupo) was brought back and identified by our scientists and now returned to his family here on this hallowed ground at Arlington cemetery. "

[Web Version: http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1250]

A NOT SO CIVIL WAR

2006-09-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

By Simon Pedenko

On Tuesday, the 11th day of September, the unimaginable came to pass. In less than two hours our universe cracked and split apart. We witnessed, smelled, and tasted the devastation of war on U.S. soil. We were forced to confront the meaning of the word atrocity and spend years trying to understand it.

Americans felt shock, horror, grief, and rediscovered patriotism. Spiritual aid streamed in by way of the prayers of millions around the world in their churches, temples and synagogues. Here in the states, all races and persuasions came together and jammed into Red Cross corridors to offer blood for the WTC victims. Wherever I looked, our Stars and Stripes waved proudly atop commercial buildings, homes, schools, and all types of land vehicles from two- to twenty-wheelers.

I was awe-inspired and uplifted, but ultimately sad. Sad, because I knew in my core that such passion would eventually diminish like fog at sunrise, and everyone (or at least the liberal half of us) would fall back into their comfortable “blame mindset.”

By mid-October 2001, high-ranking Democrats began spewing vitriol at President George W. Bush, as though he personally had ordered the deaths of the thousands on 9/11. Neither truth nor special commissions, or common sense and logic, have dissuaded these detractors one iota. The Left were and still are blindly determined to destroy this president. At every opportunity they overrule and undermine the President’s efforts to protect our nation from further attacks.

As a result, the Left have successfully pitted Americans against Americans. I no longer know which is worse: the crashing of the planes by insane terrorists, or the out-and-out enmity we face from our own countrymen—our neighbors, even family members.

I fear we are on the threshold of a second American civil war, only this time the ammunition is not cannons or pistols. This time they are misguided missiles, and they’re being fired at us via the mainstream media. Be it disclosure of national security secrets (cloaked under the guise of “Freedom of Speech”) or spin for the sake of spinning, it is without conscience or consideration to consequence. Their actions and reporting are wholly irresponsible.

Senator Barbara Boxer said: “Terrorism is the result of this (Iraqi) war.” While acts of terror have increased in Iraq, from a pre-war level of nearly zero to the current daily tally, one could argue that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was never targeted by terrorists because Saddam supported, financed and encouraged terrorists. It was only after regime change, and the Iraqis’ embrace of democracy, that terrorist acts in Iraq began. Senator Boxer also conveniently forgets the first attack on the World Trade Center, the suicide attack on the USS Cole, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, and countless other acts of murder, highjacking and terror stretching back to the Munich Olympics in 1972. All of these occurred without the “provocation” of the Iraq war.

Imprudent statements from the Left have split our country, our camaraderie, and our best hopes for America. Together with terrorists exploiting every crack in our resolve and every difference between our leaders, every pessimistic forecast from the media experts becomes precisely fertile ground ideal for invasion. The terrorists play to the cameras, whether they are beheading a kidnapped journalist or filming the detonation of an IED for Al Jazeera. They know that with every televised and web-posted outrage, a few more Americans will lose their taste for the fight, give in to the hopelessness and despair, and petition their leaders to just quit and go home. They can’t win in the field—they can only hope to survive longer than our national will to prevail.

Everyone knows our country’s motto: E Pluribus Unum: “From Many, One.” Thanks to aggressive idiocy on the part of certain politicians, partnered with reckless and slanted news reporting by a biased media, it is conceivable that our motto may descend to E Pluribus Nusquam: “From Many, Nothing.”

The Late, Great Americans

2006-09-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

By Simon Pedenko

When we grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, parental guidance consisted of a handful of well-understood and simple admonishments. For example, if we found ourselves confronted by a bully or were victims of insults, we were told to “turn the other cheek.” Often, our dads would wisely supersede that counsel with “Stand up to bullies, because that’s what they understand.” When we successfully stood up to the bully our action was followed by silent pride and a sense of accomplishment. We stood taller.

“Stand up to bullies” had merit then, and still does now. But the bullies we face today are no longer on the schoolyard. They are national leaders, gathering weapons of mass destruction to intimidate their neighbors. When America stands up to these bullies, defends the weak and the oppressed, we are criticized, condemned and constrained by the “international community.” If we use force to confront those bullies, it is described as “continuing the cycle of violence” or “inciting terrorists.”

Many Americans no longer want to deal with bullies. Instead, they glorify the gutless. Backbone, once a trademark compliment showered on men, women and young adults who stood up for what was right, is no longer a badge of honor.

Today, politicians bray like asses do and the semi-literate sheep bleat approval as they blindly follow those who would strip clean the refuge of our sacrosanct Constitution. Within the Preamble, there is one sentence: “To provide for the common defense.” Today, our nation no longer seems to have the fortitude or will to confront implacable enemies – or to provide for that common defense.

Similarly, we have been systematically stripped of spines inside our own borders by gangs. If we stand up to these homegrown and alien thugs, the ACLU comes galloping to their defense faster than you can say “victim’s rights.”

Islamic Extremists have taken a giant step beyond traditional guerilla warfare, pushing their belligerency to a gross level by using civilians, not as a base of support, but as human shields. Coupled with terrorists’ willingness to blow themselves up for pie in the sky (so to speak), Americans have allowed themselves to be castrated by political correctness, unable to stand up to bullies as we once did with heads held high. Will these fanatics be forgiven by liberals when Americans are similarly used on our own soil? Political correctness has robbed us of our right to defend ourselves, to live with honor, and even the right to laugh at ourselves. And to make sure we comply, the Thought Police are on the lookout, ready to enforce the new rules.

It is painfully clear we have become an effete political force, unable to wipe emboldened smiles off the faces of illegal immigrants, domestic gangs, or international terrorists. The enemy hammers away with blind and fatal ambition to destroy us from within our ranks while the Left continues to hamstring our Commander-in-Chief’s efforts to crush the enemy’s forward momentum. Prevailing against terrorism becomes near impossible when terrorist’s rights are held higher that those of Americans. The focus of these malcontents must be aimed away from their personal likes and dislikes and aimed at the fanatical bullies who want nothing more than to murder all men, women and children who do not share their views, and their god.

Hatred can and will destroy this country from the outside unless it is stamped out first within our borders. The hatred which is aimed at our President, and which is preached by our countrymen against our country and its citizens cannot be tolerated if we are to survive as a nation. We must once again stand tall.

Ask liberals how they think we should win the war against terrorism, and their answer is either “sit down and negotiate (with those whom there is no negotiating),” or worse, no answer at all.
In this desperate period of our history, another adage of long ago needs to be resurrected NOW. Stand up to those bullies by “Fighting fire with fire,” the same fire that still burns within the hearts of real Americans who used to defend our freedom at all costs.

Unless we come together now to defend America, there soon may be no America to defend.

WELCOME HOME, BOYS

2006-08-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense
No. 805-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 23, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

Missing World War II Airmen Identified

The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) today announced three airmen missing in action from World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are 2nd Lt. David J. Nelson, Chicago, Ill.; Tech. Sgt. Henry F. Kortebein, Maspeth, N.Y.; and Tech. Sgt. Blake A. Treece Jr., Marshall, Ark., all U.S. Army Air Forces. These men are to be buried along with group remains of their aircrew at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns on behalf of the Secretary of the Army to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors.

On August 8, 1944, Nelson, Kortebein and Treece departed an allied air base in England in their B-17G Flying Fortress with six other crewmen aboard. Their mission was to bomb enemy targets near Caen, France. The aircraft was seen to explode and crash after being struck by enemy flak near the village of Lonlay l'Abbaye, south of Caen. The other six members of the crew were 1st Lt. Jack R. Thompson; 2nd Lts. Charles Bacigalupa and Charles Sherrill; and Sgts. Richard R. Collins, Gerald F. Gillies and Warren D. Godsey. The hometowns of these six are not available.

German forces and French villagers living near the crash site recovered some of the remains of the crew and buried them nearby. Advancing U.S. forces found additional remains. Six of the nine crewmen ultimately were identified, but Nelson, Kortebein and Treece remained unaccounted for.

In August 2002, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) operating in Luxembourg was informed that a local French aircraft wreckage hunting group (Association Normande du Souvenir Aerien 39/45) had located a crash site near Lonlay l'Abbaye. The JPAC team surveyed the site, excavated it in July 2004 and recovered human remains, personal effects and crew-related materials from amid the wreckage. Also found were six unexploded 250-pound bombs.

Later that year, a French explosive ordnance disposal team turned over a bone fragment to the U. S. Defense Attache in Paris. It was found by French technicians working to secure the site where the bombs had been found.

Among other forensic identification tools, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains of the three, matching DNA sequences from maternal relatives.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/or call (703) 699-1169.

THANK YOU, MEN. JOB WELL DONE.

MAINSTREAM TV ONCE AGAIN FAUXS ITS PAS

2006-08-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

The report of a tragic plane crash in Lexington, Kentucky, early Sunday morning was on the news wires most of the day. I prayed for the souls of the passengers and the pilot who perished, and for their families. (Only one person survived, identified later as the co-pilot, who was pulled from the wreckage moments before the entire aircraft burst into flames.)

Last night, I began watching the 58th Emmy Awards Show last night, mostly for the glitter and twitter of the celebrities. I'd heard Conan O'Brien would be the host and so I expected some fun moments, since I consider him to be a funny man...usually. Unfortunately, the opening sequence hit me like a trainload of chipped ice.

In view of the loss of lives in that plane crash earlier Sunday, I believe the network and the producers of the Emmys could have--should have--exercised restraint and respect, or at least common sense, and scrapped the plane crash parody at the opening of the show and gone straight to the awards ceremony. But then, the heel of my hand went upside my forehead, reminding me, "Duh! This is mainstream media!"

I always think there is little that could surprise me anymore at this stage in my life. The MSM proves me wrong every day. Their blatant unbalanced reporting, such as, most recently, their coverage and broadcasts of the battle between Israel and Hezbollah. As far as I could determine, only approximately 5% of the reporting showed Israeli casualties. The other 95% of reporting showed Lebanese civilians and some Hezbollah fighters, or persons posing as Hezbollah fighters.

Last night, the MSM seemingly took a quantum leap into utter disregard. I'm certain no one at that network truly understands the meaning of "plain decency."

On the basis of what I see and hear on a daily basis, it is clear that the mainstream media suffer from an extremely limited range of human emotions. I say "human emotions" because (correct me if I'm wrong), as far as I can tell it is humans who are in charge of the major broadcast networks. Only these humans lack compassion and empathy. They push the outside of the envelope too far too many times, and last night, in my opinion, they went straight over the edge.