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

Category: Politics

  • “Tell Obama we want guns”

    Usually, for all of my Luo News, I defer to Baldilocks. But this story proved too good to pass up. Apparently, Barack Obama’s appeal extends beyond US borders, according to an NDTV report;

    Amidst the riots taking place in the sprawling slums of Kenya, the rioters are occupied with something from the US – Barack Obama.

    Obama, whose father is a Kenyan, is a favourite son of the nation that erupted into violence after the hotly contested elections in December.

    Well, according to the BBC he’s a bit more than a “favorite son”;

    Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has said he is a cousin of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

    Mr Odinga told the BBC’s The World Today that Senator Obama’s father was his maternal uncle.

    Mr Obama’s father – a Kenyan also called Barack – met and married his American mother when they were students at the university of Hawaii.

    So what would Luo tribesmen like from Obama?

    “We are supporting him here. We want him to win the election,” said Mohammed Noor, 27.

    “Did you know that Obama’s father is also Luo?” he added.

    Behind Noor, young men yelled: “Tell Obama we want guns!”

    I wonder if arms shipments are included in that nebulous “change” that Obama is always mentioning.

    It must be that “sirens’ call” that Rick Moran wrote about at the Right Wing Nut House today. If Obama’s song can pull them in all the way from Africa, maybe we need something a little sturdier than a mast.

  • Secure our borders! Yesterday!

    In this morning’s Washington Times, Sara Carter (quickly becoming one of my favorite reporters over there) writes that “US Foes target Latin America”

    Iran, Cuba and Venezuela are working together against the U.S. by undermining democracy in Latin America, allowing trafficking of illegal drugs and creating safe havens for extremist groups, intelligence officials said.

    Testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday, National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell said that influence from the three countries — led respectively by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez — has spilled into Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, which “are pursuing agendas that undercut checks and balances” of democratic governments.

    She goes on to write;

    “We’ve known for some time that Islamic extremists groups were gaining momentum and exploiting the region,” said one U.S. federal law-enforcement official, on the condition of anonymity, who worked drug operations in Central America. “Iran is no exception — now with Cuba and Venezuela, the door is open.”

    Web sites advocating Hezbollah and other Islamic extremist groups in Central America are used to recruit members and espouse extremist ideology.

    On one Web page — now removed from the Internet — “Hezbollah Latin America” displayed photographs of members, with their faces covered and weapons raised. The Web site contained links to Hezbollah group members in Venezuela, El Salvador, Argentina and as north as Chiapas, Mexico.

    Regular readers of this blog will remember the link to Jungle Mom that I’ve posted several times over the past several months referring to Hezbollah influence among the indigenous people of Venezuela’s interior after Chavez forced Christian missionaries out of the country.

    Unless we build the wall and start enforcing border securing, these Latins influenced by terrorist organizations will have the ability to blend into our own population and strike without a bit of hinderance.

    If that’s not terrifying enough for you, try this;

    In 2005, Venezuela became a major transient route for South American — predominantly Colombian — cocaine destined for the U.S. market and it continues to grow, U.S. intelligence officials said.

    Mr. Chavez’s lack of counterdrug cooperation “undermines efforts by other countries, particularly Colombia, by giving traffickers access to alternative routes and transit points Chavez is likely to remain unengaged on the counternarcotics front unless the drug trade is perceived to damage his international image or threaten his political longevity,” Mr. McConnell said.”Military cooperation between Tehran and Caracas is growing,” Mr. McConnell testified. “There are growing signs of anxiety among Venezuela’s neighbors about this military buildup.”

    Coca-chewing Chavez and crackhead Ahmadinjad supplying our own drug addicts with druga and using the money against us (where are all of those Libertarians who say that drug use is a personal preference and don’t harm society).

    But any war against drugs must be prefaced with secure borders. It’ll be up to the next president since this one has been a bit out-to-lunch on that one. And it’ll take a sturdily-spined Congress to force the next Administration to do what needs to be done.

    As it stands now, the only people willing to stand up to Chavez and his cronies seems to be Exxon-Mobil.

  • Yuh-uh, IVAW don’t disrespect vets

    Chicken_Little_x3_by_DarkJak.jpg

    The above photo is from Adam Kokesh’s blog (click the photo for link) – the banner was designed by Jonathan DeWald and posted on Kokesh’s blog just this last Sunday (h/t Robin for sending me the link this morning). In the event that Kokesh takes it down, I’ve saved a .pdf of the web page.

    But I’ve been getting emails and comments in reference to the post below about how I should stop being disrespectful to veterans and I should stop questioning their service – at least one of the commenters here also commented on Kokesh’s post. That same commenter disavowed knowing DeWald – well the page URL has DeWald’s name in it, for pete’s sake and since you commented on his artwork, Army Sergeant, you’re certainly familiar with his work, aren’t you?. I didn’t see you criticize DeWald or Kokesh like you’ve tried to chastise me.

    DeWald – a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War who has never set foot or laid eyes on Iraq – is questioning the service of members of the Gathering of Eagles.

    First off, the name of the organization doesn’t make the claim that it’s an organization of veterans like IVAW claims to be an organization of veterans who served in Iraq. A classification that DeWald can’t claim, by the way. I’ve at least been to Iraq three times in the space of a month – each time under combat conditions – but I don’t qualify for membership in the IVAW.

    Secondly, I’ve never met a member of the Gathering of Eagles who wasn’t a veteran – most are veterans of Viet Nam.

    Now if DeWald and Kokesh are trying to claim that the Gathering of Eagles members aren’t “real” veterans because they haven’t served in Iraq, DeWald must include himself under that “never served” tag, too, and Kokesh would have to admit that he didn’t serve honorably in Iraq, since he smuggled an Iraqi pistol back from Iraq during his service there – which is why he was busted a pay grade and he was refused a second tour to Iraq.

    Of course, neither will admit to the reality of the circumstances, mainly because they’re self-serving hypocrites and a bit delusional. But before the rest of you, who might have legitimate reasons for being members of IVAW, go off half-cocked, please look at the public face you’ve put on the organization. If you want to save a modicum of credibility, you have to purge your ranks of the criminals, liars and sociopaths.

    And try applying the same standards to your own ranks that you try to impress upon me.

  • Pelosi *gasp* sides with Republicans against Reid

    While the Senate gazes at it’s collective navel, Nancy Pelosi sided with Senate Republicans to urge the Senate to pass the economic stimulus package without substantial changes;

    The retreat by Senate Democrats came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sided with Republicans, including McConnell, and called on the Senate to stop its infighting and pass the bill.

    In doing so, Pelosi, D-Calif., split openly with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who backed the more expensive package.

    “There’s no reason for any more delay on this,” Pelosi said Thursday before agreement was reached.

    Reid on Wednesday narrowly lost a crucial procedural vote to push the $205 billion Senate Democratic stimulus plan — as a take it or leave it proposition — toward a final vote in that chamber. Eight Republicans, including a handful who helped craft the measure, voted with Democrats.

    Later, Pelosi issued a statement tailored to support McConnell’s position — which Reid has repeatedly rejected — and pointedly ignoring the other add-ons.

    Seein’s how the economy is recovering nicely without any stimulus, though, I guess she figured she’s better get the ball rolling before the Democrats take another hit in the polls for being too slow and lethargic. But, at least they’ve (tacitly) admited that the Bush tax cuts and rebates saved the economy in 2001.

    UPDATE:

    “We all have to acknowledge that the House bill has been improved significantly…. We’ll be back and do more things to help stimulate the economy,” Reid said.

    A Senate vote on the measure was slated for later Thursday and the House is expected to send the bill to President Bush for his signature by the end of the week.

    So Reid is taking credit and declaring victory even though he split his own party. What a ma-roon.

  • Romney’s out

    Romney’s out. OK, can we please get back to the business of keeping Democrats out of the White House and stop all of the fuss about who’s more conservative than who? PLEASE!

    Buy nose plugs for pete’s sake. Maybe McCain will name Thompson or Hunter to be his VP just to appease us Conservatives – would ya’all tolerate that?

    Hmm, I’m getting a lot of Google hits for “veterans against McCain” today. It looks like the Democrat attack machine is rolling out their guns.

    McCain better start reaching out to us – this web page is pretty damn sorry. If you Google “veterans for McCain“, you get his website and 517,000 Veterans against McCain links. His web presence sucks.

    I forgot to mention; my autographed and inscribed first edition copy of  “Faith of My Fathers” just got a whole lot more valuable. Bids?

  • IVAW’s big guns

    Of course, most of you know that I volunteered to cover the IVAW’s Winter Soldier II “hearings” next month. Well, apparently some of the members of IVAW are a little worried about that. I sent them my DD214 (redacted, of course) and they’ve pretty much ignored my application to blog their event. Until now.

    I received this email (I don’t usually post email I receive, but this one graphically illustrates the types that IVAW attracts) from this IVAW member named Jonathan DeWald;

    Hey bro,

    You know why I was a Sergeant after ten years? Blasting a loud-mouthed E7 in the mouth when I was a promotable Staff Sergeant. He had the same sour, b****y look you do in your DA photo… where you’re also an E7! What an amazing coincidence. Another sassy senior NCO stepping into my sector of fire. Anyway, luckily for me, everyone else in all of V Corps hated that fat pogue as well and I got off with just an Article 15. And my disability comp gets paid at the E6 rate!

    You’ll be providing “security escorts” to Gathering of Chickenshits members “counter-demonstrating” at IVAW events like Winter Soldier II? That’s a laugh. In response to your statement on Robin the Man-Thing’s page (I really had no idea she was considered a woman. I thought she was a dude with man-***s.), any “encounter” between us will go down however the **** I see fit.

    Though I truly do hope to see you and every other Gaggle**** of ****birds member in DC next March, I must advise you Winter Soldier is being held at a private college. The campus police have already been instructed to arrest any of you dip****s who attempt to trespass. I personally thought we had room to accommodate all 17 members of GoE, but with 100 vets testifying, another 700 in attendance, 100 members of the national and international media, an as-yet undetermined number of Iraqi and Afghan civilians (man, the government’s making it hard to get the travel visas!) and perhaps another 100 scholars, legislators and other guests, we simply have no room for you!

    But I’ll be at my favorite DC haunts every night I’m there: Hawk and Dove, Sign of the Whale and every bar in Adams Morgan. Come on in and see me. Unless you’re afraid to mouth off to me when there are no cameras or cops around to protect your b**** ass.

    At ease,

    Jon

    —
    KEEP IT NECRO.

    Whatever that “keep it necro” means unless he’s threatening to kill me or something.

    But, I got that at about 5:30 this morning (Zulu). Apparently he felt the need to address my offer to Robin at Chickenhawk Express to escort her to the IVAW “hearings” after he threatened her physically.

    Keeping in mind that the name of the organization is “Iraq Veterans Against the War”, I checked out Mr DeWald’s profile at IVAW;

    Branch of service: United States Army (USA)
    Unit: Rakkasan Regiment, 101st Airborne / 1st Tank, 2nd ID
    Rank: Sergeant (Retired)
    Home: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    Served in: Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, USA: Fort Campbell, Kentucky, USA; Fort Polk, Louisiana; USA; Camp Casey, Republic of Korea; Babenhausen Kaserne, Federal Republic of Germany; Novy Mir Garrison, Sulęcin, Republic of Poland; Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA.

    No mention of Iraq at all, well, unless they moved it to Poland and didn’t tell anyone. So I guess he’s just another wannabe phony soldier. As Thus Spake Ortner mentioned in his post at The Sniper, even Jessie MacBeth qualified for membership in the IVAW with his 42 days at the CCF barracks in Fort Benning.

    I may be stepping outside my area of expertise here, but I’ve never heard of “1st tank” outside of the Marine Corps. I know they have a 1st Tank Battalion at 29 Palms, but I’m not aware of any Army unit, anywhere called the “1st Tank” – the Army calls them armor battalions. And I’m not sure what an infantryman would be doing in an armor battalion unless he was working at a pogue staff job.

    Now, Mr. DeWald claims to be an Infantryman – but I only see three possible duty stations for an infantryman in his list. Campbell, Polk and Camp Casey. And eight duty stations in ten years (and he doesn’t mention basic or AIT stations). That’s a lot! Unless he’s counting the places he visited or trained.

    But back to DeWald’s email. He mentions disability comp “paid at an E-6 rate”. Now I get a disability check from the VA and I don’t get an E-grade rate. I get a flat percentage rating – the VA doesn’t care what a disabled veteran’s pay grade was, it pays everyone the same. Now, it’s possible that he’s talking about his Army retired pay (if he’s retired for medical reasons) and it’s impossible to retire at an “E-6 rate”. The Army computes retirement pay on your last three months’ pay on active duty – not on pay grade information. So I don’t know what this fellow is talking about.

    I’m assuming that DeWald is referring to the photo of me in uniform on my “About” page. But, as most career soldiers know, it’s not a DA photo. A DA photo is a full length shot of the whole uniform and it’s black-and-white (or at least it was the last time I took one). So I guess there’s something else this “retired” E-5 doesn’t know about military service.

    I’m not a member of the Gathering of Eagles, even though I fully support their activities. And if DeWald had ever been to a Gathering of Eagles, there are a few more than 17 members. There were thousands at their first counterprotest last March 17th and numbers have grown since. I know it bothers the Left and the IVAW that they are outnumbered, so the disingenuously deflate the numbers of their opponents.

    DeWald, though has a real hard-on for the GOE folks. He wrote about them at the IVAW site;

    Have you heard of these guys? Man, they blow my mind! I’ve never seen so much patriotism confined to one website: http://gatheringofeagles.org/. How do they contain all that kick-ass patriotism with such a small amount of bandwidth? I thought I was a patriot: driving my Ford all drunk, getting tattoos of naked chicks, beer mugs, bald eagles and Confederate battle flags, and then these guys come along and BOOM! I get to see, first-hand, what a real bad-ass American looks like. I thought I was supposed to go to the gym and get all muscular. Nope! To judge from the physiques and prêt-à -porter attire of the Eagles, all I need is regular access to a buffet and some straight-leg Wranglers to attain that patriotic chic.

    Well, that’s some real mature stuff, ain’t it? It’s real apparent that DeWald has some real “daddy issues” that he needs to deal with before he goes out in public.

    Well, after that first email, I replied to DeWald that he should step back and take a deep breath before he gets himself in trouble for what he’s writing to people. His reply;

    My man,

    I’ve taken a step back. I’ve breathed deeply. And I’ve never met a loudmouthed conservative/Republican/fascist whose ass I couldn’t kick in under 30 seconds. The challenge still stands, tough guy. If you or any of those other ****ing corny sham “patriots” want to double down on your laughable bull**** threats, I’m available. I told you where to find me in DC come March. You know where my boxing club is in Milwaukee.

    I really hope one of you pogues comes after me. I haven’t beaten the **** out of somebody in the street and outside of the ring in awhile. I especially hope; no, I pray that one of you ***heads pulls a weapon on me. Make it a good one, though, and not some bull**** like a Taurus or an M9. I really want a Springfield XD in .40 cal.

    Thanks dude,

    Jon

    Now, I never threatened him (except that I did threaten to expose him as a poser unless he got himself under control – which is what I’m doing here), but all of a sudden he has visions of me pulling a gun on him (hand guns are illegal for everybody in DC, so I figure he’ll be in the wrong place if he’s hoping for a confrontation involving firearms).

    So I guess this is IVAW’s way of trying to tell me that I won’t be blogging their Winter Soldier II “hearings”, since I’m the one DeWald chose to start sending emails. Pretty cowardly, actually. But predictable. IVAW attracts some pretty unsavory people. They have the Jesse MacBeth saga – the Pink Power Ranger, they have Adam Kokesh – the gun smuggler, and now this illiterate psychopath. Not to mention all of the other phony soldiers who’ve forced me to expose them as posers and sociopathic liars.

    Now, I almost like Army Sergeant, who seems to be the only decent guy in the bunch, although he’s somewhat confused. But the rest of these goofballs are really deranged.

    It’s easy to just declare that you oppose war. Hell, I oppose war. But it takes just a little bit of intellect to accept that sometimes war is necessary for our survival. Unfortunately all the theorists and academics don’t have to be right when they influence young immature minds to oppose war. They just have to sound smart.

    Fortunately, the rest of us are around to protect the theorists and academics while they commit mental pedophilia. But some of their victims are lost to the ages – mental midgets to begin with, they use the ideas that they’ve had crammed into their pointy heads to try to give themselves an aura of being half-way smart. The result is people like Mr DeWald; illiterate half-baked morons physically threatening anyone who disagrees with them.

    Maybe if his Daddy had hugged him more often…or a little less.

  • The legacy of Tet

    Arthur Herman writes in the Wall Street Journal today a fascinating piece entitled “The Lies of Tet” that rings strangely familiar in relation to the narrative we get from the Democrats and the media in relation to the current war against terror;

    …the desperate fury of the communist attacks including on Saigon, where most reporters lived and worked, caught the press by surprise. (Not the military: It had been expecting an attack and had been on full alert since Jan. 24.) It also put many reporters in physical danger for the first time. Braestrup, a former Marine, calculated that only 40 of 354 print and TV journalists covering the war at the time had seen any real fighting. Their own panic deeply colored their reportage, suggesting that the communist assault had flung Vietnam into chaos.

    Their editors at home, like CBS’s Walter Cronkite, seized on the distorted reporting to discredit the military’s version of events. The Viet Cong insurgency was in its death throes, just as U.S. military officials assured the American people at the time. Yet the press version painted a different picture.

    To quote Braestrup, “the media tended to leave the shock and confusion of early February, as then perceived, fixed as the final impression of Tet” and of Vietnam generally. “Drama was perpetuated at the expense of information,” and “the negative trend” of media reporting “added to the distortion of the real situation on the ground in Vietnam.”

    The North Vietnamese were delighted. On the heels of their devastating defeat, Hanoi increasingly shifted its propaganda efforts toward the media and the antiwar movement. Causing American (not South Vietnamese) casualties, even at heavy cost, became a battlefield objective in order to reinforce the American media’s narrative of a failing policy in Vietnam.

    Yet thanks to the success of Tet, the numbers of Americans dying in Vietnam steadily declined — from almost 15,000 in 1968 to 9,414 in 1969 and 4,221 in 1970 — by which time the Viet Cong had ceased to exist as a viable fighting force. One Vietnamese province after another witnessed new peace and stability. By the end of 1969 over 70% of South Vietnam’s population was under government control, compared to 42% at the beginning of 1968. In 1970 and 1971, American ambassador Ellsworth Bunker estimated that 90% of Vietnamese lived in zones under government control.

    Yesterday, I’d read one of the bloggers from our side (forgive me for forgetting whom) who’s plunged into the depths of the world of Leftism and read blog entries that called the homicide bombing attacks in the Baghdad pet market last week an indication that all was indeed not well in Iraq. Every death is seized upon as evidence that the Bush Administration and General Petreaus are liars.

    In fact you can do a Yahoo News search on “mass+graves” and see every news service seize upon the blood and gore being inflicted on the Iraqis by al Qaeda, but do a search on “Iraq+success” and see what you get. Apparently things that don’t fit the narrative are ignored. When’s the last time you read about an American hero in Iraq or Afgahnistan that wasn’t on a right-wing blog or a milblog?

    Democrats are fully invested in our failure and the media is manipulating the market for them.

  • Waterboarding wet dreams crushed

    Every protest event against the war on terror that I’ve attended, the big applause-getter has always been the speaker who can first condemn waterboarding. Countless Leftist discussion boards have had endless debates about whether waterboarding is torture and how the US routinely uses this technique. It’s almost accepted fact that every Muslim the US talks to gets waterboarded a few times.

    Well, it turns out it’s not true. CIA chief Michael Hayden testified to Congress yesterday that’s only happened to three terrorists – three proven and admitted terrorists, who had time-sensitive information. (LA Times link);

    He also testified that only three detainees were ever subjected to the method: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative tied to the Sept. 11 plot; and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi suspected of playing a key role in the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000.

    Three people – not thousands, or hundeds or even tens – three. And it hasn’t been used on anyone in the last five years. The Wall Street Journal’s Review and Outlook column “Tall Torture Tales” today goes a bit further;

    The waterboarding was conducted by intelligence professionals who understood they were operating not only with the approval of the Justice Department but also the informed consent of key Congressional leaders, including Democrat Jay Rockefeller, then the ranking minority Member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

    So that’s the extent of the whole thing. If waterboarding can be considered torture (which I don’t believe), out of the thousands of terrorists we’ve captured, only three – all admitted murderers and thugs – have had the distinct honor of being waterboarded – and Hayden banned the use of it in 2006.

    It must suck to be on the Left, today. Whatever are they going to do with all of those signs and displays they drag around with them? A recycling nightmare. It maybe true that more people in the US have been voluntarily waterboarded than have been actually tortured by our government extracting information.

    Of course, this news will get buried under the cacophony of the worthless Super-Tuesday news. Nonetheless, it’s here for all of Google Rangers to find.