Rant Time

From Free Range International by babatim -

Last December C.J. Chivers wrote a very classy piece on one of my fellow milbloggers Joshua Foust from Registan.net. C.J. noted that Joshua has softened some of his pointed criticism while growing as a writer. I see the same thing in his Registan posts and know that I too have tried to tone down my rhetoric while sharpening up the content. So as I sit in the Emirates lounge at the Singapore Airport, nursing both a injured shoulder (The Boss sent me here for treatment) and a vodka tonic it has occurred to me that it is time for a multi subject rant. I have not done this in a while for good reason and am now going to let loose for no good damn reason.

Security Contractors

Recently yet another hit piece came out in the press about security contractors. As expected from the lame stream press the entire premise of the piece was BS and pictures accompanying the article around 7 to 8 years old and irrelevant to the subject they supposedly amplify.

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Can the AP Pass a 5th Grade Geography Test?

I ask this question because when I went to read this article about Iranian troops crossing the Iraqi border, I saw this...

(click to make bigger)

Yes you are correct, that caption does read:

Israeli soldiers, top, fire tear gas canisters to disperse Palestinian youths during an anti-Israeli...

Once you click on the picture you can read the rest of the caption which continues:

...demonstration in the West Bank village of Iraq Burin, near the city of Nablus, Saturday, June 5, 2010. Israeli forces seized Saturday the Gaza-bound 1,200-ton Rachel Corrie aid ship without meeting resistance, preventing it from breaking the Israeli maritime blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory days after a similar effort turned bloody.

So the AP runs a photo from 2005 about Israeli troops in the village of Burin to highlight/accompany an article about Iranian troops crossing the Iraqi border! Do they even realize that Iraq and Iran are no where near Israel?

My 5th grader has a better grasp of geography than they do!

Color Me Enraged - CJ

CJ of A Soldier's Perspective and You Served has an interesting missive on a recent Anti-Defamation League (ADL ) report about a suppossedly groing "rage" movement in America. Suprisingly they found nothing wrong with the rage leveled at the previous administration or even conservatives today.

Bush = Hitler was fine.

Obama is a Socialist...not so much.

Read on.

Color Me "Enraged"

By CJ at A Soldier's Perspective

In November 2009, the morons at the Anti-Defamation League released a report titled "Rage Grows In America: Anti-Government Conspiracies." The authors of the report have the audacity to suggest that a "climate of anti-government fervor and activism" was created "since the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States." Really?

I searched the ADL website forwards and backwards looking for a report talking about all the "anti-government fervor and activism" that was so prevalent during the Bush Administration. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any. None. Not one. It's not because there was no such thing as rage against Bush – it was everywhere! It was because the ADL is a leftwing extremist organization in and of itself.

The report cites "growing beliefs [that] threaten to create a large pool of people more susceptible to extreme anti-government conspiracy theories and even calls to resistance on the part of extremist groups and movements." Again, I couldn't find any mention anywhere in ADL's vast resources that mentions all the extremist groups that also advocated anti-government conspiracies (9-11 anyone?) and calls to resistance (IVAW/ANSWER/Code Pink).

READ MORE...

Politcal Correctness Has Got to Go!

I don't remember exactly which blogger said it first, but that blogger was correct when they wrote, that it was Political Correctness that killed the victims at Ft Hood.

My favorite shrink expands on that message with this gem:


The Axis of Evil: Islamist Terror and PC-Thought
By ShrinkWrapped

There is a split in the commentary on the Fort Hood killer. Many of the Mainstream Media reports, as well as statements from official sources, emphasize how troubled the shooter was by his upcoming deployment. Rather fanciful theories promulgated by non-Mental Health Professionals as well as by non-clinical Media Psychologists suggest he suffered from Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder; this is a nonsensical formulation but the kind of thing we have come to expect from media purveyors of psycho-babble. It has a certain resonance for non professionals and (mis)uses words associated with Psychoanalysis to gain a pseudo-authenticity. The goal of such obfuscatory commentary is to minimize the risk that the killers actions will in any way be associated with his religious beliefs.

On the other side of the divide are a host of Commentators who are outraged at the official response (more of a non-response) to the obvious. Since few such commentators are in positions of influence on the MSM or the government, their outrage is relatively impotent. And that may be a window into the psychology of the Politically Correct approach.

Under the PC administration, all utterances must be filtered by the thought police. It is at such times that humorists and satirists often get closest to the reality:

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Media is Besmirching the Honor of Generations Past

A must read from Kanani at The Kitchen Dispatch:

Words May Hurt, But The Will Has To Be Stronger

[...] Every person I know of has faced discrimination of some kind for one reason or another. Often, it's been the most pernicious --officially sanctioned by a system of antiquated rules. Many have been without resources to fight it. The tragedy this past week wasn't a case of a person whose life or livelihood was ruined by systematic discrimination. Rather, he was someone who made a conscious decision to play for the other team. The real question is why he was retained after a series of poor reviews during his internship. The Army should have called it a wash, stopped their losses and like any other medical internship and residency in the United States, let him go right then.

For the media --who keeps harping on discrimination, you besmirch generations of those who came before him, rose above it and served with honor and distinction. You tarnish the reputations of others who have worked hard to guard against it.

READ MORE...

Recruiting Center Shooting - Update

Shooter may have been on JIHAD!

Via reports from FOX News and JihadWatch:

A 23-year-old man with "political and religious motives" killed a soldier just out of basic training and wounded another in a targeted attack on a military recruiting center in Arkansas, police said.

The suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, reportedly had been under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force after he traveled to Yemen and was arrested there for using a Somali passport. The probe was in its early stages and based on Muhammad's trip to Yemen, according to ABC News.

While there, Muhammad — a U.S. citizen who is a recent convert to Islam and was previously known as Carlos Bledsoe — studied jihad with an Islamic scholar, Jihadwatch.org reported.

Muhammad told authorities that he approached the recruiting center in Little Rock by car on Monday and started shooting at two soldiers in uniform, according to a police report.

"He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them," Lt. Terry Hastings told The Associated Press. "That's what he said."

Interviews with police show Muhammad "probably had political and religious motives for the attack," Police Chief Stuart Thomas said.

Muhammad was not part of any terrorist group, nor was his attack part of a larger conspiracy, according to Thomas.

"We believe that it's associated with his disagreement over the military operations," the police chief said.

The two soldiers who were shot had completed basic training within the past two weeks and were not regular recruiters, said Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis of the Oklahoma City Recruiting Battalion, which oversees the Little Rock office.

William Long, 23, died, and Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, was wounded and in stable condition, according to Thomas.

Police arrested Muhammad along an interstate highway moments after the shootings. Thomas said Muhammad would be charged with first-degree murder, plus 16 counts of committing a terroristic act. Thomas said those counts result from the gunfire occurring near other people.

Witnesses told police that a man inside a black vehicle pulled up outside the recruiting center and opened fire about 10:30 a.m. Long fell onto the sidewalk outside the center, while Ezeagwula was able to crawl toward its door.

At CBS News we find two news stories:

Military Recruiter Killed In Ark. Shooting

Police in Arkansas say a military recruiter has been killed in a shooting at an Army-Navy recruiting office in Little Rock and a second recruiter has been wounded. Little Rock police Lt. Terry Hastings said one recruiter was fatally wounded when a man inside a black SUV fired shots at the office in west Little Rock at about 10:30 a.m.

Cops: Religion Fueled Army Office Slay

William Long, 23, of Conway, died in the attack on the Army-Navy Career Center in a west Little Rock shopping center, and Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, was wounded and in stable condition, Police Chief Stuart Thomas said.

And ABC News has two stories:

Recruiter Shooting Suspect Under FBI Investigation Allegedly Confessed

The suspect arrested for the murder of a U.S. Army soldier at a Little Rock, Ark., recruiting booth has allegedly confessed to the attack, according to court documents.

Recruiter Shooting Suspect Under FBI Investigation

The suspect arrested in the fatal shooting of one soldier and the critical injury of another at a Little Rock, Ark., Army recruiting booth today was under investigation by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen, ABC News has learned.

And at CNN we read:

nothing....

At MSNBC:

nothing......

At the Washington Times:

nothing....

At the Washington Post:

nothing....

At the New York Times:

nothing...

Lets recap.

We have another example of a recent convert to Islam who has subscribed to the Islamic Fundamentalist Dogma and have what could only be described as another actual case of terrorism on US soil and the majority of the major news sources in the US have decided to not follow the story. And yet on every site listed above, there are numerous stories about Tiller's murder.

Disgraceful!

The Camp Liberty Shooting and the Spectre of Vietnam

Okay AP, lets not jump the gun on the shooting at Camp Liberty, every instance of murder is not a fragging incident, let’s stop dragging up the ghost of Vietnam at every moment. Thankfully most of the AP stories are no longer including the several paragraphs indicating that this was another “fragging” incident, but the damage has been done.

Lets be clear on this, there is nothing to suggest that this was a “fragging” incident in anyway. The soldier, a Sergeant, was attending a stress clinic at Camp Liberty. At some point he became involved in a verbal altercation and was disarmed, for his own protection. He later returned with another weapon and the incident occurred.

To indicate otherwise was simply wrong, of course the adolescents over at the HuffPo love you for it.

I Guess The Peatdown Man Was Unavailable for Comment....

Stamford, Conn Headline: Greenwich Man, Others Across the Country, Struggle Through the Recession

No More Heroes?

Andy Rooney writing about Captain Chesley Sullenberger says:

We don’t have many heroes these days because there isn’t much opportunity to be a hero, and most people aren’t usually heroic anyway. Being heroic means doing something that risks your life while saving someone else’s.

I’m not sure what planet Mr. Rooney is living on these days, but it can’t be the one upon which I am currently residing because everyday I am introduced to a new American hero. Of course I’m not at all surprised by Mr. Rooney’s inability to find any heroes these days, since today’s heroes are fighting a war he would rather not acknowledge. Every day American men and women, the finest of our country, volunteer to put on the uniform of their country and step forward to shoulder a task that most American’s would rather not exist, by going to war at the behest of their country.

War - as it has been written many times is a horrible thing which leads me to his unusual final comments:

War is civilization at its worst and it's a strange twist that there's more heroism at war than at any other time. Men do things for each other at war that they'd never think of doing for each other in peace. Why is that?

We all must have the same attributes we've always had but I guess people don't have the opportunity to be heroic in peace as they do in war. It's an awful thought that there's anything at all good about war.

War is not civilization at its worse; it is civilization at its most basic level. Civilization at its worse is living in a society where you are encouraged to ignore your fellow man and to look out for your own needs. Civilization at its worse is living in a society where peace is the goal but there is no plan on achieving that goal. Civilization at its worse is living in a free society but refusing to pay the price for that freedom. The strange twist is not that during war men are willing to do things for others that Mr. Rooney would never think of doing for someone else during peace, it is that during peace Mr. Rooney and many American’s won’t do things for their fellow man that men at war are willing to do for each other.

No more heroes? Perhaps the fault isn’t the lack of opportunities but rather the lack of initiative and character so prevalent in today’s “polite” society.

Disgraceful

Despite personal visits from fellow Gold Star families it appears the Pentagon is going to cave to the adolescent hormones of the media elite and begin allowing the media to attend ramp ceremonies at Dover Air Base to photograph the return of our fallen warriors. The only silver lining to this is that they must first gain approval from the family, and I'm sure we can see how that is going to go.

No need to gain approval if you are using a telephoto lens and are several hundred meters away....the family may never even know you are there.

The policy is based upon the policy adopted at Arlington National Cemetery, but the is one thing that isn't being reported here and that being that by the time the family arrives at Arlington, they have already had their private time with their loved one. This is a bad policy and one that needs to be rethought. We can not allow the only time the families of our fallen warriors have to be alone and mourn the loss of their loved one, be turned into a media circus just so a floundering industry can sell some more dead trees.

General Casey, I am terribly disappointed, how could you turn your back on fellow Gold Star families?

Disgraceful.

The Media’s Actions On A Daily Basis Is Why We Have the Policy To Begin With

Robert’s post on Tuesday has been getting quite a bit of airplay at several other blogs and has generated quite a response at a few others. Andi at SpouseBuzz writes in reference to the possibility of removing the policy, and its possible effect:

I have mentally buried my husband a hundred times. I'm willing to bet you have, too. In fact, if you have and you think you're weird, you're not. Click here to find out why. In the process of mentally preparing my husband's funeral, I always pictured the moment I received his casket to be a solemn and private moment. My husband's remains and me.

And this is exactly how it should be. It is a private moment between the family and their warrior.

When Robert wrote about his Last Ride To Take His Son Home, he relates his private moment with his son and the subsequent phone call to his wife to relay:

“Our boy is home.”

And finishes his letter to us by saying:

“Then, the ride was over - my last ride taking my boy home. It was time to share him with others. My boy had come home a man's man who was a fallen warrior. He gave as much as he had to give to his GOD, Family, Duty, Honor and especially his Country. In return, he asked for nothing.”

Read that again and note that he says, “It was time to share him with others.” This is not a moment to be shared but to be guarded jealously by the family, the outside intrusion of the media and by extension the nation is and would be an unwelcome intrusion upon a private and personal moment. A moment that most of us will never have to endure.

Chuck Z notes that the media is more than confused on what is and is not actual news anymore:

[A]ny journalist who thinks that this is "news," that a deployed soldiers' family wants to be reminded of the risks involved this on the nightly news, that the family of a service member who has given his last full measure wants to see this, is sadly, sadly, mistaken.

And that is the issue: the media is sadly mistaken about this issue. In their minds, since they are locked out of the moment they somehow came to the belief that something nefarious is going on, and it is their duty to uncover it and expose it. But there is another aspect of this hatred of the policy that excludes them, and that being that they can not currently use the bodies of our fallen warriors to help push their public agenda. Even Military.com falls victim to this mindset with their poll today asking the question:

The Pentagon policy that keeps the media from documenting the return of fallen warriors . . .
Should be overturned. The nation should be able to share in the loss of these heroes while respecting the privacy of surviving family members.
Should be upheld. We should continue to avoid a media circus and respect the feelings of the families involved.

Do they honestly believe that the Ed Henry, Mike Luckovich and the rest of the media really want to join the families in mourning their fallen warrior and at the same time respect their privacy? Have the editorial board of Military.com watched any recent news story that involved the death of anyone? Respecting the privacy of the family is the last thing they are concerned with doing, just ask Caylee’s grandparents.

The death of a warrior many times becomes a media event, primarily because the warrior is well loved at home and many want to pay their respects to the fallen. They line the streets along the procession route to the final burial place and pack the churches, to pay their respects, but the arrival of a fallen warrior in Dover, or the local airport for the convenience of the family must always remain a private moment. The time to share in the mourning with the family is after they have had their time with their loved one, not before, and the farther we can keep the media and their uncontrollable adolescent hormones away the better.

My questions to the media executives who want this policy over turned is:

To what purpose do you need to view and photograph the fallen warriors even before the family is able to grasp the finality of the situation?

And in light of the fact that as an industry you are revered right there alongside the proverbial used car sales man: What are you going to do to ensure that you honor the wishes of the family?

When a family says no, are you honestly expecting us to believe that you are going to honor their wishes?

I know I was born early in the morning, but it wasn’t this morning, so to gain my trust it’s going to take an almost miraculous effort on your part to make me waver on the belief that you are only interested in the bottom line and the feelings and wishes of the fallen warrior’s family will come in a very distant 5th place.

To Secretary Gates I ask: If the officers you assign to this task of reviewing this policy come back with a recommendation to keep it in place, are you going to follow their recommendation or will you bend to the winds of politics? And more importantly: please include our current Gold Star Families in your review, Robert Stokely will be at the Pentagon next Wednesday, don’t blow him off.

We await your decision, but I implore you; don’t screw the families of our fallen warriors for political gain.

Obama's Speech - Did Ed Henry of CNN Ask the Question I Thought He Did?

Tonight, as I watched President Obama's speech on his plan for the stimulus, I could not believe some of the lame (nice way of saying stupid) questions he was asked out of context for the message he was delivering.

What did he think about Alex Rodriguez admitting steroid use? I have to say President Obama showed great restraint in how he answered the question, but who could have blamed him if, given the seriousness of what we face economically, he had said "you got to be kidding, somebody show this idiot where the door is and take his press credentials when you throw him out on Pennsylvania Avenue...." Really, is it the most important thing most of us (much less the President) need to be concerned about given that Alex Rodriguez is at best an overpaid jock who got outed after he has continually lied that he used steroids?

But that was not such a bad question compared to Ed Henry with CNN, who asked the President whether he thought the arrival of American coffins at Dover should be accessible to the media to "show America the real cost of the war...." and would he reconsider the policy of not allowing the media in. Ed Henry and CNN seem to want to make it a spectacle to "behold" when our FALLEN Heroes arrive at Dover on their final trip home to an honorable rest. Absolutely not!!!! Why shouldn't we let the media have access to film and put it on the evening news? Well for the same reason the media should not be the first to know the identity of the fallen before the family is told.

It is a very personal moment when a fallen hero arrives home. And the first to see that should be the family, not America.

Our family made a decision which granted me a special privilege and honor for me to go alone and meet Mike's body as he arrived from Dover at Hartsfield Atlanta Airport on August 24, 2005. A quiet singular reception, so I could ride in the hearse to take him to the funeral home 25 miles away on a road he and I traveled many times as I carried him to and from for weekend, holidays, and other visitation as a divorced dad. It was a "LAST RIDE TO TAKE MY BOY HOME". I wore a favorite blue blazer and red and blue tie as my way of showing respect to my son. As they uncrated his casket and draped the American flag over him I saluted from nearby, tears streaming down my cheeks as a number of busy airline air cargo employees suddenly stopped in stunned silence, only then realizing what was taking place. I held my salute, poor as it was for an untrained civilian, until the flag was completely draped and the edges evenly corned out. Then, I stepped outside to call my wife Retta who loved him like one of her own and as she answered the phone, tears still streaming down my cheeks, with a quiver in my voice, I said "our boy is home."

Others families did it "their way" and that is how it should be.

Mike Stokely and many others like him died for America. I was once asked what I thought the cost of freedom was. Freedom has many costs, but for the fallen and their families the cost is a Lifetime of Love. Is it too much to ask, given what we have paid for America and the likes of Ed Henry and CNN to be free to have that first moment to be ours and not America's? Should we now be asked to give more so that something so private can be used, not for furthering the first amendment, but to sell advertising to ensure a media's profitable bottom line? While black corporate ink is in most cases a good thing, it can not be so when it comes at the cost of dishonoring the spilled Red American Blood of our FALLEN.

Mr. President, I hope your answer to ED Henry, CNN and the likes will be an unequivocal, unwavering and unapologetic NO WE WILL NOT TURN THE HONORABLE SANCTITY OF DOVER INTO A MEDIA SPECTACLE!!!! You Sir, must protect our fallen and their families and the privacy of Dover.

After all Mr. President, that is little enough to ask given that the fallen gave their lives to protect you and your's.

DUTY - HONOR - COUNTRY.

Robert Stokely
proud dad SGT Mike Stokely
KIA 16 AUG 05 near Yusufiyah Iraq
USA E 108 CAV 48th BCT GAARNG

I Certainly Question the Timing

How convenient that this report came out so close to the election:

Report Clears Palin in Alaska's Troopergate Probe

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – This time, Gov. Sarah Palin can claim vindication against allegations that she abused her power in office by firing her public safety commissioner.

Palin — running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain — violated no ethics laws, according to a report released by the state personnel board on the eve of Election Day. An earlier, separate investigation by the Legislature found that Palin had abused her office.

"There is no probable cause to believe that the governor, or any other state official, violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters," the personnel board's report said.

"The Governor is grateful that this investigation has provided a fair and impartial review of this matter and upholds the Governor's ability to take measures when necessary to ensure that Alaskans have the best possible team working to serve them," her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said in a statement after the report was released Monday.

The earlier report implicating Palin was dismissed as a political smear by the McCain-Palin campaign, which issued its own report clearing the governor of all wrongdoing. The campaign focused on only one aspect of the first report's split findings — that Palin could fire Commissioner Walt Monegan, who serves at her pleasure.

Google, Google, Google

Google makes it a habit, if you will parden the phrase, to commemorate special days with a special logo.

Today is the first day of Autumn and the logo is this:

Do you remember what we got for Veteran's Day?

I'll show you.










That's right...we got nothing.

Not a single mention.

What did we get for Memorial Day?

I'll show you:












That's right...again nothing.

Can Google just come out and admit that they hate the military and all that it stands for, it would at least be honest, instead of the lies that they can find no appropriate material for such solemn days.

Elephants, Donkeys and a Crowded Room

Jules has a great piece up about race in this race...

He writes:

Michael Grunwald at Time: “Race is the elephant in the room.” I dunno. Looking at this pile of an article, I’d say the room is full of warmed-over primary bullshit:

On a swing through Pennsylvania last month, John McCain visited a Manheim Central High School football practice — not to ingratiate himself with the players, who weren’t even old enough to vote, but to identify himself with the gritty, down-home, lunch-bucket values of small-town football. “This is a blue-collar town,” Manheim’s coach said in his introduction of McCain. “We don’t have a lot of flashy athletes. We don’t come out with a lot of flash.” But the coach explained that his team works hard, plays with discipline and comes through in the end. “A lot like John McCain,” he said.

If you’re familiar with the code words of the sports world, you’ve probably already guessed that Manheim’s players had something else in common with McCain: they were white. On the other hand, athletes who are described as “flashy” almost invariably have something in common with Barack Obama. I’m not saying the coach was trying to inject race into his discussion of flashiness. I’m saying that sometimes we talk about race even when we’re not talking about race — in presidential politics as well as sports.

OK, so it’s not about race, however, for purposes of argument, we’ll make it about race.

Race is the elephant in the room of the 2008 campaign. In West Virginia’s primary, one out of every four Hillary Clinton voters actually admitted to pollsters that race was a factor in their vote; that may be an Appalachian outlier, but even in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio the figure was a troubling 1 in 10.

Right. Those figures again. As usual, somewhat lacking in context and detail. They work better that way. Apparently not so troubling that large numbers of Obama voters cited race, or that the race concerns cited may well, polling suggests, have been about racism rattling around in Obama’s closet.
This part is good.

This is touchy stuff, partly because “the race card” is not always, so to speak, a black-and-white issue. New York governor David Paterson recently accused Republicans of using “community organizer” as a subtle racial put-down; that seems hypersensitive to the point of paranoia. Obama was a community organizer, and his opponents should be able to criticize him without being accused of race baiting. But it’s tricky when the attacks wander into the neighborhood of racial stereotypes, like the McCain “Celebrity” ad linking Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, which had a whiff of lock-up-your-women alarmism about the sexual power of black men.

That’s odd. I thought the idea he was all glitz, no substance just like Brits and Paris, not that he wanted to date them. Or have them bring him home to dinner.

The usually somnolent David Gergen lashed out at McCain’s ad portraying Obama as
the Messiah, calling it a subtle but intentional effort to paint a black man as The Other.

Whatever the Messiah might have actually looked like, I’m pretty sure most Christian Americans think Jesus was a blue-eyed white guy with shoulder length brown hair. Jewish Americans, who don’t think he’s arrrived yet, probably think he’s going to look … Jewish. “The Other” only works if you’re an idol-worpshipping pagan. Or a Muslim, maybe. Odd thing for Gergen to say. I have taken the “Messiah” references, which I’ve also made, as an effort to cast Obama as someone whose apostles and acolytes and camp followers think he walks on water and who is promising to miraculously transform this wretched, benighted, much-abused nation of ours into a golden city on a hill, with lots of loaves and fishes.

There's more...go read the rest. You won't be dissapointed.

Twelve Angry Jihadi's

The ever entertaining and enlightening James Taranto gives us his take on the conviction of Salim Ahmed Hamdan and the response of the Pro-Jihadi Newspaper of Record the New York Times.

He writes:

Earlier this week the military completed the first war-crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan. The New York Times responds with an editorial titled "Guilty as Ordered" (ellipsis in original):

Now that was a real nail-biter. The court designed by the White House and its Congressional enablers to guarantee convictions of high-profile detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba--using evidence obtained by torture and secret evidence as desired--has held its first trial. It produced . . . a guilty verdict.

As the Times points out, it also produced a not-guilty verdict:

The only surprise was that Mr. Hamdan was actually acquitted on the more serious count of conspiring (it was unclear with whom) to kill Americans during the invasion of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.

The charge on which Mr. Hamdan was convicted seemed logical since he did work as Mr. bin Laden's driver. But it was still an odd prosecution. Drivers of even the most heinous people are generally not charged with war crimes.

We wonder if this defense would work in a civilian trial. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, yes, my client did drive the getaway car. That is why you must acquit him. He's only a driver!" We also wonder how long it will be before the Times starts referring to Hamdan, à la Rodney King, as "motorist Salim Hamdan."

The Times concludes:

"We are not arguing that the United States should condone terrorism or those who support it, or that the guilty should not be punished severely."

Right, and Nixon is not a crook and Bill Clinton didn't have sexual relations with that woman.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press dispatch about the trial complains that "Hamdan was not judged by a jury of his peers and he received no Miranda warning about his rights."

A jury of his peers? Hey, that's how we'll capture Osama bin Laden: by summoning him for jury duty.

~~

And we wonder why we question their patriotism...

Timed Out

The NYT's returned Senator McCain's Op/Ed unpublished saying:

I’d be very eager to publish the Senator on the Op-Ed page.

However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.

I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft.

Let me suggest an approach.

Let me suggest an approach? Isn't this Senator McCain's Opinion not yours Mr. Shipley?

And what opinion was it that Senator McCain wanted to get out there?

Lets read it for ourselves:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

And the MSM media wonders why their stock prices continue to fall and employees are continually let go...

Sincerest Form of Flattery

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Johathan R. Segovia, personnel security detail, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, a ground combat element attached to Multinational Force - West, relaxes with Iraqi children in Sha-ban, Iraq, July 9, 2008. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Taylor J. Schulz .

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what does this image say about the respect our troops are gaining from the populace? And when are we going to start seeing images like this in the NYT and WaPo?

Just What Do Editor's Do These Days?

Why am I asking that question? Because common mistakes such as this should not be appearing on internationally supported sites such as Yahoo news.

And what mistake am I referencing? This common typing error made by many...myself included!

Earnigns? Really?

Petty, you bet I am.

UPDATE:
Is someone at Yahoo! reading The Thunder Run...the typo is already fixed!

And yes, I'm still being petty.

And All We Hear is Silence

What is the sound of one hand clapping? That is the quintessential question for those seeking inner peace.

But what happens when tragedy on a world stage occurs and those who claim to be the speakers for all things feminine stay strangely quiet? Are they simply seeking inner peace or are they staying quiet because the situation doesn't fit their narrative?

When are we going to hear from NOW on this?

Two unidentified Afghan Women chat with each other a few minutes before they were executed by Taliban in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, on late Saturday, July 12, 2008.
(AP Photo/Rahmatullah Naikzad)
[original here]



Video of the event here.

We're waiting to hear from the feminist movement.....