This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Gazans prefer Israelis

    I watched with some interest, after reading Little Green Footballs (here and here) this weekend how long it would take for the media to decide it was alright to tell us that Palestinians in Gaza would prefer to be in Israel than under Hamas. Well it finally happened this morning, not in any of the major news outlets, but from the AP;

    Fearing death or persecution, Gazans began flocking to the Erez passage after Hamas militants wrested control of the coastal strip from Fatah security forces late last week. Israel, which has no interest in letting masses of Gazans pass through its territory and possibly destabilize the quieter West Bank, has refused to let most of them in, saying their lives were not in danger.

    By Tuesday, about 600 people were holed up in the long, concrete tunnel that leads to the Israeli side of the crossing. Around 100 people belonged to Fatah security forces, but the rest were civilians, seeking a better life in the West Bank.

    And of course, the civilized Hamas fellows were more than happy to make their stay in the concrete tunnel as memorable as possible;

    On Monday, gunmen allied with Hamas disguised themselves as fleeing civilians and hurled hand grenades at Israeli soldiers and Palestinians at Erez, killing a relative of a slain Fatah warlord, and injuring 15 other Palestinians.

    In a move to maintain order, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles rolled up to the Palestinian side of Erez on Tuesday, chasing away cars parked next to the tunnel, including vehicles belonging to journalists.

    Wait. Do you mean that AP is going to admit that the Israelis actually decided to protect Palestinians? Well, not completely;

    “There is a clear conflict between security needs and humanitarian considerations,” Peres said. “It’s clear that we don’t want to see in the West Bank (Fatah-allied) Al Aqsa militants who carried out attacks in the past.”

    Israel allowed about 50 senior Fatah officials and their families to cross into the West Bank from Gaza over the weekend, citing threats to their safety. Some 200 other Fatah officials are in Egypt, trying to travel to the West Bank via Jordan, Fatah officials said.

    And this from a MidEast News article from last week;

    “I’m afraid to say this out loud, they may execute me for it, but there are a lot of people, including myself, who think it would be better if Israel came back here. Things would be much better than they are now,” said Samara (alias), a graduate of the Islamic University living in the Gaza Strip.

    […]

    “The children are afraid all the time,” Samara says. “My nephews ask, ‘Why are the Israelis shooting at us?’, and we tell them it’s Palestinians. Then they ask, ‘Why are Palestinians shooting at us?’, and I have no answer for them.  

    Well, if I believed in kharma…. 

    Meanwhile Carl in Jerusalem at Israel Matzav reports that the Lebanese Army claims to have interferred with a Katyusha rocket attack on Israel. This after a 4-rocket attack on Sunday. Think there could be a link between last week’s Hamas action in Gaza and Hezbollah’s in Lebanon? Nah, Hezbollah says they’ve had nothing to do with the rocket attacks – we know we can trust them at their word, huh?

    Lady Vorzheva, the Spanish Pundit, writes and researches long and hard on the events in Gaza with constant updates. Especially interesting is the article she links to in Catholic World News which reports;

    On June 14, a school administered by the Sisters of the Holy Rosary was demolished in the Gaza Strip. In the chapel adjoining the sisters’ convent, the crucifix and a statue of Christ were broken and prayer books burned.

    Well, at least they didn’t draw unflattering cartoons of Jesus on the walls – that might have gotten those Catholics hopping mad and driven them to burning cars and buses in Europe.

  • Churchill watch

    A reader (Frankly Opinionated) of my battle buddy COBDanny’s (who emailed me the tip last night) blog at Crotchety Old Bastard wrote to faux-Indian, faux-combat vet, faux-intellectual Ward Churchill, he of “little Eichmanns” fame, criticizing him for wasting our oxygen, basically.

    Well, if you follow the link to COB’s site you’ll notice the famous paratrooper and long-range recon super-stud Churchill, who to his credit answered Mr. Frankly, however, to his discredit, can’t tell the difference between a gold combat star on jump wings (signifying a parachute jump in combat) and senior paratrooper wings. Anyone with more than an hour in the Army knows the difference.

    Well, Danny has written Churchill back and challenged him to verify his military record. I won’t be holding my breath, but I doubt egomaniac Churchill can resist the temptation to take up Danny’s challenge.

    In case Ward-baby googles his own name and finds himself here (as is the wont of most egomaniacs), he can sign his Form 180 (please don’t wait for John Kerry, faux hero of our Christmas ’68 faux-invasion of faux-Cambodia, to do it first) here. 

  • WaPo back on the Walter Reed kick

    I guess the Washington Post has run out of things to bash the Administration with, so they’re back on their Walter Reed/Army bashing this week;

    At Walter Reed, Care for Soldiers Struggling With War’s Mental Trauma Is Undermined by Doctor Shortages and Unfocused Methods

    By Anne Hull and Dana Priest

    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Monday, June 18, 2007; Page A01 

    Yeah, I’m going to admit that the Army does alot of things badly – mostly administrative stuff and the way the Army treats soldiers is pretty bad, too. But, ya know, it’s all a part of being in the Army – it’s a big bureaucracy run by kids right out of high school. I hate it when civilians try to apply their standards to military life – just like I’m sure Hull and Priest would hate it if I came over to their respective houses with a white glove and applied my standards to their lives.

    I know their whole point is that the President went to war before he had enough psychiatrists on staff at Walter Reed – just like he rushed to war before they’d cleaned up some of the transient quarters on WRAMC, too. But buried way down in the middle of the article is this;

    One of the country’s best PTSD programs is located at Walter Reed, but because of a bureaucratic divide it is not accessible to most patients. The Deployment Health Clinical Center, run by the Department of Defense and separate from the Army’s services, offers a three-week program of customized treatment. Individual exposure therapy and fewer medications are favored. Deployment Health can see only about 65 patients a year but is the envy of many in the Army. “They need to clone that program,” said Col. Charles W. Hoge, chief of psychiatry and behavior services at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

    Instead, Deployment Health was forced to give up its newly renovated quarters in March and was placed in temporary space one-third the size to make room for a soldier and family assistance center. The move came after a series of articles in The Post detailed the neglect of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed. Therapy sessions are now being held in Building T-2, a rundown former computer center, until new space becomes available.

    In the Army we all know what Buildings with “T” in front of their number means – a corregated steel barn the Army throws up while it’s building another one. There is construction going on WRAMC – it’s been going on since before the war. I didn’t see that mentioned in the Walter Reed story.

    Neither did I find a reference to the Washington Post’s Walter Reed story I wrote on back in April;

    A review panel’s recommendation that the Pentagon accelerate the expansion of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda drew a wary reaction yesterday from local officials and neighbors concerned about traffic problems.

    The Pentagon’s Independent Review Group, which is examining flaws in outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, released a draft report Wednesday recommending that the Army hospital be closed as soon as possible and replaced by a facility to be built on the Bethesda campus.

    The Pentagon recommended speeding up the process of building the new Walter Reed facilities at Bethesda to overcome some of the problems at the cramped old facilities on Georgia Avenue in the District – but my dork-ass, elitist, pot-smoking, punk Congressman Chrissy VonHollen is blocking it because residents in the flashy, trendy Bethesda are worried about traffic (there’s a subway that runs right through the area, but why buy a Mercedes if you can’t park it in traffic on Wisconsin Avenue five days every week).

    VonHollen wasn’t alone, by the way. Jimmy Moran sobered up long enough to become somewhat coherent and gurgled out;

    But some members of Congress, including Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), insist that Walter Reed be kept open. “What you’re doing is changing horses in the middle of the stream at a time when soldiers need the best medical care,” Moran said yesterday.

    So which is it, Moran? Are they going to get the best medical care in the cramped Georgia Avenue Walter Reed or at the brand-spanking new facility in Bethesda – 12 miles away. Are you trying to say we can’t build the new hospital until the war ends? Do you even know what you’re saying?

    You’ll notice the Bethesda story is on page three and two months old. That’s how worried the Post is about our troops when alleviating some of their problems involves inconveniencing some Democrats in Bethesda with more traffic and its blocked by a Democrat punk-ass, dork Congressman Chrissy VonHollen.

    Maybe Hull and Priest will have a little more credibility on the subject when they tell me what they’ve done to help the Pentagon build the new Bethesda facilities.

    Oh, and all ya’all bloggers ain’t no damn better – there’s 34 links already to today’s WaPo hit piece and only six links to the story about punkass, sissy Chrissy VanHollen blocking the new facilities. Before ya’all go off on how the Army treats people, have all of the facts.  

  • Where’s the media on Venezuela?

     

    (Photos from Venezuela Llora)

    I’ve been waiting for the media to start covering the student protests in Venezuela for a few weeks now – but not a word. So I have to go to the bloggers. I find it odd that none of the media are doing much of anything – including the Spanish-language networks (which seem more interested in Shakira than the freedom of speech of a few million Latins).

    From A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective, Kate writes that most Venezuelan’s support the student movement;

    A Datos poll of 600 Venezuelans across social classes found 56.2 percent supported the students, with only 23.8 percent opposed to them.

    Of the rest of those surveyed, 19.3 percent had no strong opinion and 0.7 percent said they did not know or did not want to reply.

    The poll, published in newspapers on Sunday, was conducted on June 8-10 and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

    Of course, Hugo claims that it’s a another Bush plot;

    Chavez has accused the students of being part of a U.S.-backed “soft revolution,” saying they are trying to model their protests on the 2004 “Orange revolution” in Ukraine.

    Daniel at Venezuela News and Views writes that Chavez went to Cuba to meet with his mentor and gets the idea that more socialism is the answer;

    In front of mounting trouble Chavez did what he does usually: escape to Cuba for a few days. Now that Castro is healthy enough to discuss politics some, Chavez went to look for new inspiration. The results came today through a lengthy cadena, an unusual event on a Saturday and yet another sure sign of worries inside the government. So, trying to seize back the agenda held by the students, Chavez went on a new rampage of promises and threats:

    And from DEBKAFiles (h/t Aaron’s Rod), Chavez just came back from Tehran after discussing the future of a joint defense pact with the mullahs and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega;

    DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources have learned add that the Islamic Republic’s rulers have been sounding out “revolutionary” Latin American governments about creating joint anti-US terrorist cells for attacks in North and South America. The subject came up in talks with Nicararagua’s Daniel Ortega when he arrived in Tehran Sunday and in discussions with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

    So, Hugo’s been a busy little fella, yet none of this makes it to the pages of the major media. Other than some fawning in the Associated Press about those two lovable rogues getting together in Havana;

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared Wednesday that his convalescing ally Fidel Castro has “recovered his fastball” and was in fine form during a six-hour visit.

    State TV reported the pair shared an “emotional” meeting Tuesday, discussing Venezuela-Cuba relations, climate change and a socialist-leaning regional pact they created.

    Ain’t that just the sweetest? The two major enemies of liberty in this hemisphere sharing an “emotional” meeting. This blatant disregard for impending danger is how al Qaeda became so perilous.

  • War may take decades? Oh, my!

    The newspapers all seem shocked this morning that General Patreus told Chris Wallace on Fox news Sunday yesterday that the war against the insurgency in Iraq may take years to end. The good general was quoted in the Washington Examiner;

    “In fact, typically, I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or 10 years,” Gen. David Petraeus said Sunday. “The question is, of course, at what level.”

    Who thought otherwise? The President told us in the very beginning of this global war against terror it would be a hard, long slog. The biggest reason it’s a long, hard slog is because we – the United States – always seem on the precipice of surrendering. It’s happened before – we let the Chinese and North Koreans keep half of that peninsula, we let the Soviets have half of Europe, we abandoned all of Southeast Asia to the communists, we surrendered Somalia to the muslims, we stopped outside of Baghdad after we annihilated the 4th largest Army in the world. 

    And now, we have the world-famous surrendering Democrats throwing in the towel everytime there’s a corner turned. Insurgencies aren’t military campaigns in the traditional sense – the insurgents never win on the battlefield. Insurgents win in the newspapers and TV news programs of their enemies – thousands of tiny victories against the homefront.

    That’s not new, is it? I’m not the first to write those words, am I? Yet everyday, the US media grants another tiny victory to the enemy. At least once every week, the Democrats give the enemy more ammunition to fight the war – Harry Reid tells us the war is lost and that our generals are incompetent, John Murtha calls our troops murderers, Dick Durbin calls the troops at Guantanamo SS concentration camp guards.

    This war has dragged on for four years – the enemy has no hope of winning militarily. But the enemy still has hope of winning the war – why is that? Because they’ve pinned their victory on the fact that Democrats hate the Republicans, and by extension, our troops, more than they hate child-murdering terrorists.

    Kagan and Kristol have more on the slow collapse of support for al Qaeda in Iraq in the Weekly Standard article “Slow Motion Tet“;

    Last week, a group of tribal leaders in Salah-ad-Din, the mostly Sunni province due north of Baghdad, agreed to work with the Iraqi government and U.S. forces against al Qaeda. Then al Qaeda destroyed the two remaining minarets of the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra, a city in the province. Coincidence? Perhaps. But al Qaeda is clearly taking a page from the Viet Cong’s book. The terrorists have been mounting a slow-motion Tet offensive of spectacular attacks on markets, bridges, and mosques, knowing that the media report each such attack as an American defeat. The fact is that al Qaeda is steadily losing its grip in Iraq, and these attacks are alienating its erstwhile Iraqi supporters. But the terrorists are counting on sapping our will as the VC did, and persuading America to choose to lose a war it could win.

    The difference between Tet and Samarra? We have a commander-in-chief who doesn’t stick his finger in the air to see which way the political winds are blowing today to formulate his strategy like Johnson did and the two Democrat presidents who followed. And there’s an alternative to the “Surrender now!” media.

    Gateway Pundit documents the first known mass outbreak of SRDS (Salman Rushdie Derangement Syndrome). I’m coming to the conclusion that these folks of the “religion of peace” aren’t as peaceful as they let on.

  • Democrats; the party of car salesmen

    Yesterday’s Democrat radio address told us that Republicans don’t care about our gas mileage, according to the Washington Examiner;

    In their weekly radio address, Democrats on Saturday called for a new direction in energy policy, away from gas-guzzling automobiles and reliance on foreign oil.

    “America deserves more fuel efficient cars,” Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington said. But she added “the only way consumers are going to get more out of a tank of gas is if the president and his party help deliver votes in a narrowly divided Congress.”

    It’s widely expected the Senate will approve some sort of increase in auto fuel economy as part of an energy bill it hopes to finish in the coming weeks.

    The Senate bill would require automakers to increase the fuel economy of new cars, SUVs and pickups beginning in 2020 to a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon. It currently is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.2 mpg for SUVs and small trucks.

    Cantwell claimed that we need to head in a new direction. This is the same direction that Democrats have been harping about since the last time Rosie O’Donnell shaved her legs. A new direction for our indepedence from foreign oil would be drilling our own available reserves and increasing refinery capacity – like Jimmy Carter promised that Democrats would do in his “Malaise Speech“;

    …when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

    That was in 1979 – we haven’t built a new refinery since 1977 mainly because Democrats have stood in the way of new refineries and new drilling operations. So, in the meantime, Cuba, with China’s help, is exploring the Gulf of Mexico’s waters between Cuba and the US. Have the Democrats done anything about that? Nope – they think that somehow blocking drilling while demanding better CAFE standards from automakers (who are already struggling in the marketing) makes more sense and can be called a “solution” to our energy woes. DO they think that back-ass-wards Cuba and China will care much about the environment off of our own coast?

    Cantwell said;

    “America’s strength lies in our ability to invent new and better ways of doing things,” she said. “The challenge we face now is transforming America’s energy policy – one that is well over 50 years old and too reliant of fossil fuels – to one that will make America a global leader again in energy technology and get us off our over-dependence on foreign oil.”

    So Democrats think they can mandate science. Just by making government standards, business will automatically develop solutions in response.  Are we being governed by kindergarten students?

    They also think that Americans won’t mind being told that we have to drive under-powered crap-boxes like the Japanese inflict on our national sensibilities these days. Real Americans love their cars and I don’t think the Democrats are going to get much mileage out of telling Americans what cars they should drive. 

  • Harry, 19% is all you can get!

    I really hate to keep beating up Harry Reid, especially since so many others are doing it at the same time, but he just makes it so easy. Reading the Washington Times this afternoon I find this article by S. A. Miller who tells us Harry is changing his strategy;

    Mr. Reid began the week Monday by vowing to “push very, very hard” for troop withdrawal from Iraq in a Defense Department budget authorization bill in two weeks.
        The next day — as the Senate began work on the energy bill and tried to revive immigration legislation — the Nevada Democrat and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California sent a letter to the White House imploring the president to heed the Democrat-led Congress’ call for a pullout.
        That same day, Mr. Reid railed against the war and U.S. military leaders in a conference call with a group of liberal bloggers.
        And yesterday, he said the Pentagon’s quarterly report on Iraq shows that President Bush’s war strategy is not working.
        “Attacks on U.S. forces are up, not down,” said Mr. Reid, who with Mrs. Pelosi last month capitulated to Mr. Bush’s demand for a war-funding bill without a troop-withdrawal timetable.

    Attacks are up not down. You sure, Harry? Been to Iraq lately? Karl at Protein Wisdom says otherwise. And besides, the Washington Post tells us that the “surge” was just put in place this morning. So why would he say that attacks are up and not down all of a sudden evaluating a strategy that hasn’t even been fully deployed yet?

       Just 19 percent of voters nationwide had a favorable opinion of Mr. Reid in a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted last weekend — down from 26 percent a month ago and still lower than Mr. Bush’s 35 percent favorable rating. Congress’ job-approval rating also is tanking, down to a 23 percent in polls this week by NBC/Wall Street Journal and Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

    So who does he think is going to approve of him? That other 5% of the hardcare Left that want immediate withdrawal from Iraq? It’s the surrender talk that got him down to that 19% in the first place. Who is advising him? Why is he trying to talk to Americans by going to Think Progress?

       Mr. Reid’s early return to the war debate signals to the party’s antiwar base that it still tops the agenda, a Democratic leadership aide said.
        “That’s what the base is demanding,” the aide said.

    That’s not leadership – that’s pandering.

  • So learn English already!

    First of all, let me say this; I speak almost exclusively Spanish in my home. There are times when I speak Spanish with my wife outside my home when I need to speak privately to her. In fact, when I first saw Schwartzenegger make this comment last night, I was watching it on Telemundo – I watch Spanish language news programs. Well, here’s the report from SFGate;

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a gathering of Hispanic journalists that immigrants should avoid Spanish-language media if they want to learn English quickly.

    “You’ve got to turn off the Spanish television set” and avoid Spanish-language television, books and newspapers, the Republican governor said Wednesday night at the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

    “You’re just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster,” Schwarzenegger said.

    “I know this sounds odd and this is the politically incorrect thing to say, and I’m going to get myself in trouble,” he said, noting that he rarely spoke German and was forced to learn English when he emigrated from Austria.

    When I first heard it, I thought, well, that makes complete sense. The language of commerce for the whole world is English – someone wanting to make money should learn to speak English, for Pete’s sake. Then I listened to the outraged SPANISH-LANGUAGE journalists complain about what Arnold said, and they pretty much echoed the SFGate article;

    “I’m sitting shaking my head not believing that someone would be so naive and out of it that he would say something like that,” said Alex Nogales, president and chief executive of the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

    “Naive and out of it”. Hey, Nogales, compa, you’re being naive and out of it.  

    From Hispanic Business.com, probably the most ignorant words in response to the governor’s statement that Latins should learn English;

    “They’re busy working,” remarked panelist Pilar Marrero, political editor of Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion. “They don’t have time to.”

    […]

    “Spanish media is there to do what the English media doesn’t do, which is to serve the immigrants,” Marrero said afterward.

    Spanish media is there to make money for the Spanish media, Pilar. If your audiences learned to speak English, they wouldn’t need you anymore and you’d have to become a real journalist instead of victimizing and stigmatizing your audience. And next time you’re talking to the governor, and you’re trying to present yourself as a journalist, don’t end a sentence with a preposition – it detracts from your credibility.

    I learned Spanish when I lived in Panama, I learned German when I lived in Germany. I already had jobs in boths places that didn’t have a language requirement for the local language, so I didn’t have to learn the respective languages – but I did out of respect for my neighbors and the people with whom I conducted daily business. There were English-language TV channels in both places, but I watched the local TV stations to immerse myself in the language.

    And who better to make that “naive and out of it” statement but Scwartzeneger – an immigrant who came here speaking no English? Is it politically incorrect because he happened to be an immigrant from a European country instead of a southern country? Pilar Marrero thinks so;

    Marrero said afterward. “As he said, it’s a political hot potato. I think he believes it, he thinks about his own experience. It’s different when you come from Austria than when you come from Latin America.”

    That’s pretty racist, Pilar. Are you saying that Europeans are genetically predisposed to learning multiple languages? Or are you saying that Latins are too stupid to learn another language besides Spanish? Or are you just yapping to hear yourself yap?

    Actually, the SPANISH LANGUAGE JOURNALISTS were upset that Schwartzeneger implied that they, SPANISH LANGUAGE JOURNALISTS, were contributing to the inability of their audience to function in an English-speaking society and conduct English-speaking business. And they are. They’re just angry that he said it outloud – to a group of SPANISH LANGUAGE JOURNALISTS.

    Like I said, who is being naive and out of it?

    By the way, I speak Spanish in my home to keep in practice for when I visit Latin America – out of respect for the people I’m visiting. I can do that because my English (the language of commerce) is just fine.

    Salud!