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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Active duty troops call for an end to the war.

    The first time I posted this, it mysteriously disappeared and took the rest of my archives with it, so I’ll try it one more time; 

    At Nation.com there’s a story by Marc Cooper about active duty troops signing an online petition demanding an end to the war. It begins;

    For the first time since Vietnam, an organized, robust movement of active-duty US military personnel has publicly surfaced to oppose a war in which they are serving. Those involved plan to petition Congress to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

    If Mr. Cooper did a minute’s research, he’d know that if there was anything 100% of the troops ever agreed with all of the questions put to them, the answers would probably all have something to do with free beer. That’s the only thing my troops ever agreed on unanimously.

    I’d hardly call “nearly 1,000 US soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen” signing an internet petition either organized or robust. If someone had a mind to sign this petition, they come to this page which doesn’t prompt the user for any credentials. So it’s open to everyone and anyone. We all know that no one ever lies on the internet and no one ever embellishes their military record. So it’s got to be all on the up-and-up.

    Now some of the comments in the original story are hillarious all by themselves. Stop/loss is a joke. These “troops” are complaining that they’ve been stop/lossed until 2010. An initial enlistment is eight years long, if they’d enlisted in 2002, before the Iraq War as they claim, their enlistment would end in 2010, wouldn’t it?

    These organizations that are sponsoring the petition, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace, and Military Families Speak Out, as near as I figure are manned soley by placards. I’ve been to most of the anti-war protests here in DC and I’ve never seen any members of these organizations. I’ve seen big cardboard signs stuck in the ground and fastened to power poles (some even held by people, but not veterans), but I’ve never met an actual veteran near the signs to answer questons or recruit membership. Usually there’s some worn out old hag wearing a long dress and smelling of burnt rope that can’t point the inquirer to any real members either. Yeah, I know, I’ve seen the websites with pictures of the marchers and membership, but I’ve never met any of them in real life.

    And it’s convenient that these names won’t be released until January – it’d be too easy to check on the names to see if they were really in the military. A quick check of the only complete name in The Nation story, Mark Mackoviak of Fort Bragg, NC, on Military.com’s Buddy Finder only turns up a profile that was created on Military.com and not filled out which leads me to believe that there is no such person who has been in the military. Buddy Finder is not 100% reliable, but funny how the only name that can be checked is suspiciously absent from public records.

    Marc Cooper assures us that

    The Nation spoke with rank-and-file personnel as well as high-ranking officers–some on the Iraqi front lines, others at domestic and offshore US military bases–who have signed the Appeal. All of their names will be made available to Congress when the Appeal is presented in mid-January. 

    Somehow assurances from The Nation don’t make me any more comfortable with this story at face value, so I’ll be waiting for the list with bated breath.

     

  • Who’s afraid of Peace-loving nations?

    The Washington Times is running a story today about North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong Il’s list of demands that must precede any negotiations aimed at his nuclear program. So who’s surprised? Il has seen how far anti-social behavior has taken the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, who also announced today that the world can’t stop him from developing nuclear weapons. This is what exchanging words with maniacal despots gets you. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lost ground yesterday in elections so he’s back to making his failures everybody else’s fault and flexing his muscles on the world stage.

    I still suspect that Il’s nuclear tests in October were more of the dirty bomb variety than an actual nuclear detonation in order to fool the world into thinking they’ve got the technology for nuclear weapons to accompany their missiles.

    All of these tinpot dictators are quite certain that they can pretty much get away with anything these days. They saw that by paying off Old Europe, Hussein escaped their ire, until the US and Britain, et al. decided to go it without the greedy corrupt Leftist governments of Russia, France and Germany.

    Last summer’s war between the Israelis and Hezzbollah in Lebanon only reinforced Iran, Korea, and Venezuela’s view that the peace-loving nations of the world will do nothing, no matter what they do. Check Chavez’ speech at the UN, the riots in France, the cartoon riots, Jimmy Carter’s ransom payments to North Korea in 1994. What do fear-mongers fear?

    Opposing strength. When the US removed Hussein from Kuwait, all of the Arab nations, even Arafat, fell into line. When the US removed Hussein from power, even Qaddafi trembled at the thought of US troops at his palace gate.

    North Korea and Iran need to be dealt fierce and violent blows immediately – either by our proxies in those regions, or failing that, ourselves. Direct strikes against their nuclear programs.

    Maybe with a South Korean as Secretary general of the UN that’s more possible now than it was last week.

    UPDATE: The US is talking separately with North Korea over financial matters relating to their Macau banking endeavors to launder their WMD sales and to pass counterfeit $100 bills according to the Wall Street Journal today. Leveraging that seizure of assets might cause North Korea to backpedal temporarily from their demands, but it certainly won’t be a permanent fix to dealing with a nation whose government is engaged in petty crimes as foreign policy.

  • Saudi intel report on Iran

    The Saudis have intelligence that Iran has been directly funding a “Shi’ite state” inside Iraq according to a report in the Washington Times this morning.

    According to the report, Iran also is infiltrating Iraq through its al Quds forces — the special command division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — which specialize in intelligence operations in unconventional warfare.

    So, as I predicted last week, Iraq will turn into a proxy war between the Saudis (Sunnis) and Iranians if the US pulls out.

    But more importantly, the Saudis appear to have hard intelligence that the Iranians are supporting the anti-government forces in Iraq which should give us reason enough to deal a mighty blow to Iran’s nuclear program.

  • Second-guessing the generals – still

    On the Sunday shows, AP reports three leading Democrats’ statements on increasing troop levels;

    “If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we’ll go along with that,” said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.

    “The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically,” Reid said.

    Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that if it were a short-term increase, “won’t our adversaries simply adjust their tactics, wait us out and wait until we reduce again? So I think you’d have to ask very serious questions about the utility of this.”

    Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said, “I respect Harry Reid on it, but that’s not where I am.”

    The first statement from Reid is the most revealing – Democrats still mistrust what the commanders on the ground tell them. Reid is essentially saying that as long as commanders agree with him, they’re making sound tactical decisions.

    Don’t they remember commanders telling Defense Secretary Les Aspen that they needed armor in Somalia to protect our own troops? Because the Clinton Administration decided to disregard what commanders recommended and decided instead to make the politically expedient decision to not send armor to Somalia, 18 Rangers and Delta Force troops died (one of whom-Tim “Griz” Martin-had been a friend of mine since Basic Training). 

    The Democrats still think that they make better tacticians than people who’ve done the job their entire lives. They still think that tactical decisions can be made by fat, balding morons from behind their desks in Washington. They still think that Lyndon Johnson picking targets for bombers was a good idea.

    If they’re not willing to give our commanders what they need, when they need it, then I’m all for a pullout of our troops right now. If Democrats think they can pick and choose what tactical decisions our commanders make have merit, why subject our troops to their fickle whims?

    We’re already dealing with a traitorous media fighting an information war against our troops, along with John Kerry undermining our National Security (see Flopping Aces and Little Green Footballs for the backstory) why do they need a fifth column of politicians cutting off their logistics, replacements, reinforcements and resupply based on a two-faced popular opinion poll?

    Either Congress puts it’s full faith allegiance behind the troops or we pull them out everywhere and let Congress deal with the resulting attacks on our interests worldwide. Either the Democrats grow a backbone, or our armed forces stop trying to protect their pasty, wide hides.

  • How to disengage in the Middle East

    Russia is tapping into it’s vast reserves of oil buried under the Arctic tundra in Siberia. Cuba has hired an Indian oil company to begin supplying it’s meager petrol needs from reserves in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile we’re still enforcing the decades old Carter Doctrine demanding the free-flow of oil from the Persian Gulf states while we own some vast reserves of our own buried beneath our own Arctic tundra and off our own shores in the Gulf of Mexico.

    While the third world is winning the race to energy self-sufficiency, we’re mired in empty platitudes from the Democrat Party about “saving the earth” and “alternate fuels”, despite the fact that in 1979, Jimmy Carter, in his now famous “Malaise Speech“ promised that

    I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects. 

    We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

    But the Luddite environmentalists stand in the way of our self sufficience, with the Democrats in tow. That’s not all that surprising, really. What is surprising is that the Democrats are turning their backs on the poor and the unions. The less wealthy Americans are stuck paying higher energy costs like some kind of tax hike. The unions want the added jobs created by exploration and development of energy reserves and the increased manufacturing production that would result in cheaper domestic energy.

    The Democrats are happiest when we’re miserable – that would mean the perception that government (ie. the Democrats) would save us (most of Jimmy Carter’s Malaise Speech was the announcement of new government programs and agencies). They don’t particularly care that we would be able to ignore the petty bickering and power struggles in the Middle East (like we ignore the same from non-oil countries in Africa), nor would Chavez’ words have much weight if we developed our own oil and gas sources and we weren’t so dependent on the whims of country who aren’t afraid to exploit their oil and gas reserves.

    So even though we hold the key to our own energy dependence, we are also our own worse enemy.

     

  • Ominous rumblings from Chavez

    Maria Anastasia O’Grady writes in the Wall Street Journal from Venezuela the most troubling reports;

    Over the course of five days in Caracas last week, I couldn’t help but notice the ubiquitous image of President Hugo Chávez peering down from hundreds of his campaign banners that read “Vote against the devil; vote against the empire.” The nationalistic message denouncing President George W. Bush and the U.S. blanketed the capital.

    On election night, as it became clear that more votes had been cast for Mr. Chávez than for candidate Manuel Rosales, the president appeared on the balcony of Miraflores, the presidential palace, to proclaim that “the devil who tries to dominate the world,” had suffered another defeat.

    The red-clad Chávez dramatically recited from the Lord’s Prayer and then borrowed from it for his own prophesy. “Thy kingdom come,” he bellowed, and thereafter, “the kingdom of socialism.” The ailing Fidel Castro reportedly sent a short message from Havana congratulating Mr. Chávez and noting that “the victory was resounding, crushing and without parallel in the history of our America.”

    Couple this with Socialist winning elections in Equador and Uraguay and Daniel Ortega winning his election in Nicaragua. And then back it all up with Chavez’ endless petro dollars after nationalizing his oilfields. So if we somehow defeated the Islamist facists today, tommorrow we’d be shifting our focus to the south.

    It’s been my opinion for some time that Chavez has been taking advantage of the Middle East War to build himself up a power base and become the new Simon Bolivar. Most of the Central Americans I know think of him as a big joke, but with his non-stop flow of cash, his need to stay in power, and our current immigration problem, he’s becoming a bigger threat to us than the Arab terrorists.

  • Kerry headed to Iraq?

    I just read over on Little Green Footballs and Flopping Aces that Kerry is shooting off his mouth about the US foreign policy while in Egypt. The man with no plan is criticizing everyone else. Funny how he says that “the Middle East peace process is the critical issue of the region, and it has not been focused on for the past 6-7 years adequately” yet he’s not specific about what we should have done instead. Just another dorky ivy-leaguer running off at the mouth.

    I noticed in the story that Kerry plans to go Iraq, too. I guess the commanders there had better start planning his pinning ceremonies in advance – for his new Purple Hearts, I mean. I’m sure he’ll demand Purple hearts if he gets a zit or sand in his eyes while he’s there. Or sand in his Pampers.

    They probably ought to keep the 203s away from him, too, so he doesn’t get his own shrapnel on him. I’m sure the troops will be overjoyed to see the traitorous sissy.

  • The Curse of the ISG report

    Now, every knucklehead with a plane ticket is going to the Mideast. John Kerry even feels safe enough to stick his head out of the sand to tell us to talk to Syria and Iran – as if it would actually accomplish something besides ridding us of those pesky taxpayer dollars laying around Washington.

    From Flopping Aces we get to see Bill Nelson talking with perennial Iranian bootlicker Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, with a photo of Nelson that Allah dug up.

    And now it seems fashionable for Democrats to talk to the irrational maniacs that want us all dead – after they strip us of our cash and i-Pods. Just like it was fashionable for Kerry to chat with the North Vietnamese in Paris in the 70s, and Kerry and fellow faux-Vietnam vet Tom Harkin to visit Commie Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

    Both of those events took place during Republican Administrations – so that’s how Democrats see their oversight responsibilities. Going over the head of our country’s official foreign policy and undermining our executive branch. I don’t remember any Republicans talking with Aidid in Somalia or any Serbs during the 90s. But I remember the McDermott mission to Iraq in 2002 when he (McDerrmott) announced that Hussein was a more trustworthy person than our own President.

    Is there anything in the Constitution that tells us that Congress should conduct it’s own foreign policy? Or was our government designed to operate as a single unit?

    The only time the Constitution refers to Congress and foreign policy is in Article II, Section 2 when it says “[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur….” In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution enummerates Congress powers, and no where does it mention conducting foreign policy. 

    Of course, these idiots are received warmly by our enemies. I wonder why that is?