Complex Topics

The Problem With Illegal Aliens...

2009-10-30T02:31:00.004-04:00

HERE'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT...

You have two families: "Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal". Both families have two parents, two children, and live in California.

Joe Legal works in construction, has a Social Security Number and makes $25.00 per hour with taxes deducted.

Jose Illegal also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".

Ready? Now pay attention...

Joe Legal: $25.00 per hour x 40 hours = $1000.00 per week, or $52,000.00 per year. Now take 30% away for state and federal tax; Joe Legal now has $31,231.00.

Jose Illegal: $15.00 per hour x 40 hours = $600.00 per week, or $31,200.00 per year. Jose Illegal pays no taxes. Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays medical and dental insurance with limited coverage for his family at $600.00 per month, or $7,200.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $24,031.00.

Jose Illegal has full medical and dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal makes too much money and is not eligible for food stamps or welfare. Joe Legal pays $500.00 per month for food, or $6,000.00 per year.

Joe Legal now has $18,031.00.

Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for food stamps and welfare. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays rent of $1,200.00 per month, or $14,400.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $9,631.00.

Jose Illegal receives a $500.00 per month federal rent subsidy. Jose Illegal pays $500.00 per month, or $6,000.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $ 31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays $200.00 per month, or $2,400.00 for insurance. Joe Legal now has $7,231.00.

Jose Illegal says, "We don't need no stinkin' insurance!" and still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal has to make his $7,231.00 stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, etc.

Jose Illegal has to make his $31,200.00 stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, and what he sends out of the country every month.

Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time job after work.

Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his family.

Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same school. Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while Jose Illegal's children get a government sponsored lunch. Jose Illegal's children have an after school ESL program. Joe Legal's children go home.

Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same police and fire services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not pay.

Do you get it, now?

If you vote for or support any politician who supports illegal aliens...

You are part of the problem!

I'm all for legal immigration. I'm all for those who come to the US seeking opportunity and who want to embrace the ideals upon which our country was founded. But I'm not for subsidizing them on the backs of American citizens and those legal immigrants who waited years to enter the country legally and who pay taxes.

A friend sent me this in an email. I don't know the origin, but I think it captures what many Americans are frustrated about. The last paragraph is mine.

The World is Upside Down...It's Official.

2009-10-09T07:27:00.005-04:00

With the decision of the Nobel committee to give the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to the TOTUS, we can say that the world is officially upside down. With all the other nominees on the list who've actually accomplished something, the Nobel committee felt compelled to grant the prize based upon some "feel good speeches."

What substantive act of promoting peace has Obama actually accomplished? Nothing! He's given some speeches. Big friggin' deal! So this guy who sells at least three allies down the river (Poland, Czech Republic and Israel) and who appears to be positioning himself to sell the Afghan people down the river is somehow worthy of the Peace Prize?

It's not that the Norwegian half of the Nobel Prize has exactly covered itself in glory over the years. Some notable insane selections for the Peace Prize include: a terrorist (Yasser Arafat, 1994) a charlatan, snake oil salesman, shyster, failed Divinity student, failed journalist, failed US Presidential candidate and science fraudster (Al Gore, 2007), and an organization out to destroy the Western economies (UN IPCC, 2007).

There were 205 nominees this year for the Nobel Peace Prize. There may have been one or two other potentially insane nominees, but I'll wager the vast majority of those other 204 nominees had far more impressive resumes than the empty suit, sock puppet, TOTUS whose list of actual accomplishments fits conveniently on the back of a postage stamp.

Norway should be ashamed.

Afghan War Worth It? You Bet!

2009-08-21T01:23:00.004-04:00

I had one of those OMG/WTF moments the other day. I agreed with something that the Usurper-in-Chief said. In trying to sell what has become “Obama’s War,” the TOTUS said the war in Afghanistan was worth fighting. In that, I’m in complete agreement. It’s also a war which I believe the Bush Administration royally screwed up.

Having put the Taliban on their heels in 2001, we did some high-visibility projects (the road between Kandahar and Kabul for example) and then for the most part, walked away. We neglected the villages and people in the countryside. We left them open to reinfiltration by the Taliban. We took the easy road of installing in government positions some of the very warlords whose corrupt and venal actions helped fuel the rise of the Taliban in first place. The war was won. All we had to do was make sure we didn’t lose the peace and in that, we failed miserably.

So now we have a war again, but contrary to media spin and the “expert” opinion of certain analysts, this war is winnable and it is worth it, as yesterday’s election demonstrated. For weeks we’ve been told of how the Taliban would wreak havoc and render the election meaningless. Some media have even referred to a “guerilla army” advancing on the cities. One analyst at “Foreign Policy” even grossly distorted General Stanley McCrystal’s words in an article saying that the Taliban were winning the war.

Election Day has come and gone and 40% – 50% of the voters seem to have voted. We won’t know the actual percentage for at least another day. Gee, that’s a pretty normal election cycle in the US. Reporters on the ground in Helmand and Kandahar provinces were surprised at the turnout, these being the worst provinces in terms of violence. Afghans literally voted under fire! The fact that millions did vote, even in the troublesome provinces, is a very encouraging sign.

There were about 130 “security incidents” in 15 provinces out of 34. Keep in mind that “security incident” does not necessarily mean Taliban or anti-government forces directed at the election process. We still have the usual kidnappings, robberies, vendettas and such going on and some of those often look like insurgent activity. It seems that the Taliban basically shot their wad and came up short, even with the media playing propaganda machine for them. By late in the day almost nothing was happening even in the troublesome south.

Yesterday’s events demonstrated that Afghans are interested in the democratic process, even under threat of death and dismemberment. Events demonstrated that the Taliban are not nearly as strong as the media has portrayed them. I often wonder just whose side the Western media are on. The Afghan security forces were primarily responsible for security with Coalition Forces keeping a low profile. The Afghans handled things pretty much on their own.

If we can avoid more stupid policy decisions, this war is both winnable and worth it. We mostly need to just back up the Afghans and encourage them. Afghans are tough determined people and they are willing to carry most of the fight. All they ask is that we don’t abandon them…again.

56 Men...

2009-07-03T03:49:00.003-04:00

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four signers of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.

Remember: Freedom is never Free!

It's time we get the word out. Patriotism is NOT a sin! We needn't be ashamed of our country.

The Fourth of July is about more than beer, picnics, and baseball games. It's about those 56 patriots, their sacrifices and the sacrifices of thousands of others who made our great nation possible.

I'm proud of my service as a soldier to the United States of America and to its legitimate citizens.

I'm proud to continue serving with great patriots of all religions, races, men and women, who value more than personal wealth and glory - who value service to the United States of America. I'm proud of their current efforts serving the United States and helping the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Borrowed from an email I received from a fellow patriot and soldier: Tim Reutter

Bend Over, Here it Comes Again (BOHICA)!

2009-06-26T03:57:00.005-04:00

Congratulations America! Having voted to turn over the chicken house to the foxes, you are about to be raped again.

Remember that Stimulus Bill? You know, the one that spends about a trillion dollars on absolutely nothing, most of which won’t be available until next year or later, but which we absolutely had to get passed without virtually anyone actually reading until after the socialist sock puppet POTUS signed it? And that on top of his “Era of Responsibility” budget that produced a larger deficit that all his predecessors combined?

Well, get ready for HR 2454, aka “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” or the Waxman-Markey Bill, or most accurately “The National Economic Suicide Act of 2009.” Queen Pelosi and her leftist cohorts are getting ready to vote on it Friday, June 26, 2009.

The version available on THOMAS (Library of Congress) is incomplete, but numbers 1091 pages. Yes, incomplete as of 26 June 2009. How exactly is that admittedly small part of the public that isn’t too lazy to actually look into these things to get a chance to look at the Bill and make comments to their Representatives if the available document isn’t complete? Supposedly over 200 pages of amendments have been added to the bill in the last week, but none of those are available in the final bill that’s available online.

Let’s look at the chronology:

5/15/2009 Introduced in House
6/5/2009 Committee on Education and Labor discharged.
6/5/2009 Committee on Foreign Affairs discharged.
6/5/2009 Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Energy and Commerce. H. Rept. 111-137, Part I.
6/19/2009 Committee on Financial Services discharged.
6/19/2009 Committee on Science and Technology discharged.
6/19/2009 Committee on Transportation discharged.
6/19/2009 Committee on Natural Resources discharged.
6/19/2009 Committee on Agriculture discharged.
6/19/2009 Committee on Ways and Means discharged.
6/19/2009 Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 90.
6/26/2009 Full House Vote.

Do we really believe the idiots in the House have actually bothered to read HR 2454? Hell, they didn’t read the Stimulus Bill, why should they start now? Note how it zipped through every committee with no notice of any amendments? Sorta unusual for a major piece of legislation – that is to say, prior to this Congress it would be considered unusual.

So, having worked on this for about 41 days, with virtually no public debate or transparency, the Democrats in Congress are about to vote to destroy our economy in one fell swoop.

Congratulations America! It wouldn’t be quite as bad if you hadn’t also handed over the Senate and White House to these socialists. If it fails in the House, we can still hope enough Democrats wake up to what they will be doing to their constituents, the sock puppet POTUS has his EPA and unelected czars prepared to do by executive order what they might not accomplish via proper legislation, through their ruling that CO₂ (a trace atmospheric gas essential to life on earth) is a pollutant. Let’s disregard the fact that every time the socialist sock puppet POTUS or socialist Democrat-controlled Congress speaks/breathes, they spew the stuff too.

The one perverse joy I get in all this is that all the morons who voted for this cast of clowns will get screwed right along with me. Enjoy your higher gas prices, higher electric bills, higher food prices, more jobs going overseas (where other nations aren’t so stupid as to commit economic suicide), and higher taxes.

Brother you asked for it!

Memorial Day Ceremony in Aghanistan

2009-05-28T10:36:00.005-04:00

On Monday, Memorial Day at Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan, there was a memorial service for the two Americans who were killed on 20 May by an IED. The AP article can be found here:

Associated Press

There is casual mention of Coalition partners and civilian contractors being in attendance, but even that reference is far from complete. What the AP didn’t mention at all was the fact that there were also Afghans in attendance. In fact nowhere in the US media did this story get the kind of attention it deserves. This story is important not for what the AP reported, but for the most significant parts they did not report.

The two Americans killed last week, Lieutenant Roslyn Schulte and Mr. Shawn Pine, were Jewish. They were mentors for the Afghan National Army General Staff. The Afghans they mentored were in attendance and they presented wreaths to honor the fallen. Additionally, two Ministers and other high-ranking officers of the Afghan National Army General Staff were in present along with numerous Afghan Police and Afghan civilians.

Afghan and American Officers greet each other with the "Kiss of Peace"

Most significant was that a high-ranking Afghan officer gave a eulogy for the two Americans. Understand this: a Muslim gave a eulogy for two Jewish Americans. Why does this not make the news? Doesn’t anyone recognize the significance of this?

Afghan Officer giving eulogy for Roslyn Schulte and Shawn Pine

On the day that Lieutenant Schulte and Mr. Pine were killed, there were Christians, Muslims and Jews in the convoy. The other two people in the vehicle that was hit were Muslim and they were wounded. Some of the first people on the scene to assist were Afghan civilians and Afghan police. As the bodies were taken from the scene, Afghans and Americans wept together. Why is this story not told?

During the ceremony it was mentioned that one of the Afghans who worked with Mr. Pine remarking on his death said, “It is as if I’ve lost my brother.”

Jewish Chaplain

Don’t the media recognize the significance of a Muslim calling a Jew his brother and weeping over his death? Throughout the ceremony, several of the Afghan officers cried. When the Jewish Chaplain sang a Hebrew prayer, many Afghans bowed their heads. Afghan officers embraced the Jewish Chaplain before and after the ceremony.

Afghan and American Officers sharing condolences.
Note the Afghan Officer low in the picture with bowed head.
He was crying.

It seems to me the mainstream media want to keep portraying this war as American against the Afghans, but nothing can be further from the truth. A more honest report would have at least included some acknowledgment of the Afghan’s presence at our ceremony. Their presence at the ceremony is symbolic of the larger picture.

Afghan Officer after signing condolence books that would be sent to the families of the fallen.

This is the story that should be told: that people from many nations, Christians, Jews and Muslims are working together in common cause against the true enemy. There is no reason that Christians, Muslims and Jews cannot live together in peace and respect. During our ceremony we showed that it is indeed possible and it is a beautiful thing to see. The differences that truly divide us are no wider than a line in the sand. Yet somehow, the mainstream media do not seem to think this is worth reporting on.

Afghan Sergeants present the wreaths

The wreaths presented by the Afghans flank comrades-in-arms as they pay last respects.

It should also be noted that soldiers from the following allies were in attendance: The United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, France, Turkey, Norway, Hungary, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Spain and Italy. My apologies to any that I may have missed.

Twenty-two Reasons...

2009-05-22T03:01:00.012-04:00

My thoughts this Memorial Day weekend turn to the sacrifices of fellow comrades-in-arms who have given their lives and who continue to give their lives for our country. I got the idea for this particular post from an email one of my relatives sent me. I expanded upon the original theme.

On his recent “World Apology Tour” the President of the United States felt compelled to apologize for “American arrogance” when the only arrogance on display was his own in assuming that we needed to apologize for anything. The only thing on display in greater abundance than his arrogance was his ignorance of American history.

Without further ado, I give you twenty-two reasons why we needn’t apologize to Europe or the world for our “arrogance.”

1. Aisne-Marne Cemetery and Memorial in France, the last resting place of 2,289 Americans who fought and died liberating France during the summer of 1918 in the Marne Campaign in WWI. There are an additional 1,060 names of those missing in action within the chapel. Belleau Wood is nearby and US Marines captured much of this ground during the summer fighting here.

2. Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium, where 5,329 Americans are laid to rest. Most died during the “Battle of the Bulge.” There are an additional 462 names of those missing in action inscribed in the chapel.

3. The Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial in France, contains the remains of 4,410 Americans who died liberating Normandy and Brittany in 1944. There are an additional 498 names of those missing in action inscribed in the chapel.

4. Brookwood American Cemetery and Memorial in England, contains the graves of 468 Americans and the names of 563 missing in action are inscribed in the chapel.

5. Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial site in England contains the graves of 3,812 Americans. Within the chapel are an additional 5,127 names of the missing in action.

6. The Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial in France contains the remains of 5,255 Americans who died during the fighting in the Heasbourg Gap during the bitter winter of 1944-45. An additional 424 names of the missing in action are inscribed in the chapel.

7. Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium where 368 Americans who gave their lives liberating Belgium in WWI are buried. An additional 43 names of those missing in action are inscribed in the chapel.

8. Florence American Cemetery and Memorial site in Italy contains the graves of 4,402 who died liberating Italy during WWII. An additional 1,409 names of the missing in action are inscribed on the memorial.

9. Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium where 7,992 Americans who died liberating Belgium in WWII are buried. An additional 450 names of those missing in action are inscribed on the memorial.

10. Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial in France contains the largest number of American WWII dead in Europe. The 10,489 Americans buried here died liberating France during WWII. There are an additional 444 names of the missing in action inscribed on the memorial.

11. Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial where 5,076 Americans, most of whom died liberating Luxembourg are buried. General George S. Patton is also buried here. An additional 371 names of the missing in action are inscribed on the memorial columns.

12. Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines is the largest overseas cemetery for American war dead. It contains the remains of 17,202 Americans who died defending and liberating the Philippines and New Guinea during WWII. There are an additional 36,285 names of the missing in action inscribed in the memorial.

13. Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial in France contains the largest number of American war dead in Europe. Most of the 14,246 American Soldiers buried here died liberating France during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in 1918. There are an additional 954 names of the missing in action inscribed on the memorial.

14. North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial in Tunisia where 2,841 Americans who liberated Muslim Tunisia are laid to rest. An additional 3,724 are remembered on the Wall of the Missing.

15. The World War II Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial is the only American cemetery in the Netherlands. It contains the graves of 8,301 Americans who died liberating the Netherlands during WWII. Stretching along the sides of the court are Tablets of the Missing on which are recorded 1,722 names.

16. Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France is located on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 and the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. Buried here are 9,387 Americans, most of whom died on D-Day and in operations immediately following the landings. An additional 1,557 names are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing at the Memorial.

17. Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial in France contains the remains of 6,012 American war dead, most of whom lost their lives while fighting to liberate France in this vicinity in 1918 during WWI. An additional 241 names are inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing.

18. Rhone American Cemetery and Memorial in France contains the remains of 861 Americans who died liberating southern France in August, 1944. The memorial an additional 294 names of the missing are inscribed.

19. The World War II Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial site in Italy contains the graves of 7,861 Americans who died liberating Sicily from July through August 1944 and who died at Anzio from January to May 1944. An additional 3,095 names of the missing are inscribed in the chapel.

20. The World War I Somme American Cemetery and Memorial in France contains the graves of 1,844 Americans who died liberating France in WWI. The chapel contains and additional 333 names of the missing.

21. The World War I St. Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial in France where 4,153 Americans who died liberating France during WWI are buried. An additional 284 names of the missing are inscribed in the chapel.

22. Originally a World War I cemetery, the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial just outside Paris, France now shelters the remains of U.S. dead of both wars. contains the remains of 1,541 Americans who died in World War I and 24 Unknown dead of World War II. Bronze tablets on the walls of the chapel record the names of 974 World War I missing.

Americans do need to apologize to the world for something else. We need to apologize to the world for electing someone so ignorant of past American sacrifice, so ignorant of American history and so filled with hatred for America that he is willing to destroy your security along with our own. This man who has accomplished nothing in this life beyond self-aggrandizement and playing to the intellectual laziness of American citizens, who was spawned from a family of “Hate America Firsters” and learned to loathe America on the knees of communist mentors, whose closest friends are all about hating everything America once stood for has been foisted upon the world by our laziness, not our arrogance.

The lowliest private buried in these cemeteries accomplished more in his lifetime than our anti-American President of the United States. And this man, who bears the title of Commander-in-Chief, is so filled with hubris that he thinks to mock their sacrifice with an apology.

For those who have not been keeping count, the twenty-two reasons above include a total of 184,453 Americans who did not return home from wars to liberate other people. That’s 124,139 who have marked graves in foreign soil and an additional 60,314 who do not. These twenty-two reasons are just for WWI and WWII. Keep in mind that a total of 116,516 American soldiers died in WWI and 405,399 died in WWII. Most of these Soldiers died rescuing Europeans in wars started by European arrogance.

On this Memorial Day weekend, remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice liberating those who, without our blood, would not have been free.

America need apologize to no one!

And remember, you have a President who apologized for the sacrifice of over half a million American Soldiers from two world wars!

To learn more about the last resting places of Americans who actually did something for our country and who paid the ultimate sacrifice, visit American Battle Monuments.

Rage

2009-05-07T09:16:00.009-04:00

The article below, in its entirety from The Washington Post, fills me with rage.

This story fills me with rage at those on the left who believe there is no such thing as true evil in the world and who think that the problems of the world can be solved by group hugs and singing “Kumbaya.”

It fills me with rage at those on the religious right in America and elsewhere in the West who believe that all Muslims are out to destroy the West and our way of life.

This story should contain some cautionary insights for both groups.

For those on the left, including our “Hate America first – apologizing for American greatness - bowing to foreign heads of state - appeasement-minded sock puppet President,” it shows the dangers of appeasement. It certainly hasn’t worked for Pakistan. This Administration wants to expand the concept of appeasement to stateless thugs. It’s one thing to try appeasement with a government, even though that path has never worked in the history of mankind. This administration thinks that providing “economic opportunity” will make the Taliban a less attractive option for people. What sort of alternate reality and universe are these clowns living in?

Well guess what? The Taliban are already unattractive to anyone who has real experience with them. They are not about “economic opportunity.” The Taliban are not loved anywhere they go. Sometimes they are viewed as the lesser of two immediate evils by people who are otherwise let down by their government (in both Afghanistan and Pakistan), but no one really likes their policies, ideology, or methods. They take control and rule by fear and intimidation wherever they are allowed to take root. Period.

For those on the right, read carefully about the fear of ordinary human beings:

“We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear.”

“People in Swat are angry and confused, because the government is reaching out to the Taliban and fighting them at the same time,” said Mohammed Riatullah, a relief agency official.

“They are not Muslims, they are criminals who are defaming our religion, and the people of Buner are not their friends.”

I’m not a Muslim, but for most of the last seven years I’ve lived and worked with Muslims in two war zones. Westerner fear of Islam is born of ignorance and misinterpretation every bit as egregious as the Muslim fanatics causing the mayhem. The so-called “Warriors for Islam” have killed far more Muslims than Christians or Jews, so why are we clinging to insane fears about all Muslims?

I’m also not a fuzzy-thinking liberal idiot who believes in the power of group hugs. I’m all for ruthless extermination of these zealots who seek to destroy both the lives of their fellow Muslims and the lives of everyone else. A bullet, not talk is the proper response for these murderers.

Look at the pictures. Read the article below, and then answer these questions:

Do you honestly believe that any of these people want to destroy your life?

Are you so blinded by ignorance and bigotry that you fear these people?

Or do you see what I see – ordinary people trying to go about their lives to make a better future without the fear of some madman blowing up in their midst?

'Great rage, and great fear' in Pakistan

Refugees fleeing Swat Valley tell of Taliban crimes, abuses
By Pamela Constable and Haq Nawaz Khan
The Washington Post
updated 3:21 a.m. ET May 7, 2009

GOLRA, Pakistan - Hajji Karim and his extended family of 70 were camped in a dirt-floor stable 10 miles outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It was as far as they could get from the Swat Valley, where thousands of people are fleeing from the ravages of the Taliban and the imminent prospect of war with government forces.

When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.

"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."

Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.

Refugees confused and trapped
As the refugees begin streaming out of Swat and the neighboring Buner district in northwest Pakistan, they carry with them memories of the indignities and horrors inflicted by occupying Taliban forces -- locking women inside their homes, setting donkeys on fire -- as they tried to force residents to accept a radical version of Islam.

The government has not helped, refugees said, with its erratic, seesawing efforts to appease and fight the militants. Some said they felt confused and trapped, unsure whether to trust the peace deal forged by the government and Taliban leaders last month, or to flee in anticipation of the fighting that has begun as the peace accord collapses.

Sher Mohammed, a property dealer from Mingora, the main town in Swat, was one of the first people to reach a new refugee camp in the Mardan district with his wife and children Tuesday night. On Wednesday, he kicked the dirt outside their tent despondently, saying that after enduring two years of fighting and Taliban abuses, he had had enough.

"I feel like I have lost my mind," he said. "I work hard to make a respectable life and educate my children. Now we are living in a camp, and my sons are talking of guns."

Mohammed said he did not understand why the country's powerful army had not been able to defeat the militants before they took over the valley. Even now, after a week of sporadic fighting, military officials have not announced an offensive against the militants who occupy much of Swat and Buner. The Taliban has repeatedly rejected government overtures to salvage the peace deal, in which the militants agreed to disarm if sharia courts were made the exclusive form of justice in Swat.

Army officials said 35 militants and three soldiers were killed Wednesday in Swat in sporadic fighting, including a shootout near several emerald mines that Taliban forces are using as hideouts. They said militants looted three banks and occupied police and civil administration buildings in Mingora. The military reported that an additional 50 militants had been killed in Buner.

Not enough help
The United Nations humanitarian office in Islamabad said it has already registered more than 2,200 families in new camps, "many of them arriving with little more than the clothes they are wearing." In a statement, the office said it would also increase assistance to help about 6,000 additional families in existing camps for Afghan refugees.

One private relief agency based in Swat said that it has been relocating hundreds of families at scattered sites in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi but that no local government or international agency had offered to help. Its officials said they were concerned that Taliban fighters would try to recruit displaced people relocated in large camps.

"People in Swat are angry and confused, because the government is reaching out to the Taliban and fighting them at the same time," said Mohammed Riatullah, a relief agency official. "There are huge numbers of people with nowhere to go. We are trying to provide them with decent shelter and support, but we need more help so they won't fall into Taliban hands."

Fears of camp infiltration
Pakistan has hosted millions of refugees from conflicts in Afghanistan during the past two decades, with networks of camps in the northwest and in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. There have been frequent accusations that militant groups infiltrate the camps to use them as sanctuaries and recruiting pools. Military analysts say they suspect that the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan uses refugee camps in Baluchistan for these purposes.

Since militants began staging attacks and occupying territory inside Pakistan several years ago, thousands of inhabitants of the northwest tribal region have been displaced by fighting and have relocated to camps around Peshawar.

In Buner, army forces have been battling Taliban fighters for the past week, and the army said Wednesday that the operations were going smoothly. But several people who have fled from Buner to the provincial capital of Peshawar, or who were reached in Buner by cellphone, said that the situation was dire and that Taliban forces were still occupying many homes.

They said Buneris were especially vulnerable to Taliban attacks for several reasons. The district is famous for its Sufi shrines, where people practice a mystical form of Islam that is anathema to the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. In addition, residents formed militias to resist the Taliban last year, and one village paid dearly for its defiance when voting stations were bombed in December, killing 42 people.

"When the militants entered our area, the people held a jirga to discuss what to do. They said they would never accept them and vowed to fight to the death," said Sirmir Khan, director of an educational charity in Buner who fled to Peshawar last week after Taliban forces occupied his offices. "They are not Muslims, they are criminals who are defaming our religion, and the people of Buner are not their friends."

Afsar Khan, the mayor of a town in Buner who had also fled to Peshawar recently, said that the militants had burned many houses and fields in his area and that last year he had joined an armed posse that attempted to drive them out. "We only had about 100 men, and the militants were coming down from the mountains," Khan recounted. "They fired on us from 5 p.m. to midnight and we were running out of ammunition. We called for help, and the officials kept telling us helicopter gunships were coming, but they never did. Finally we told all the farmworkers to run away, because we could not protect them, and we had to give up."

'Everyone was very afraid'
In a relief agency office in Islamabad on Wednesday, two teenage sisters from Buner huddled on a flour sack next to a few cooking pots, covering their faces with veils. They said they had fled their village four days ago after their father, a farm laborer, was warned by his landlord that the Taliban was coming.
"I don't know what the Taliban are, but everyone was very afraid," said one of the girls, who gave her name as Abzanan. "I am very worried because my father went back to get my brothers, and we don't know what happened to him."
Khan reported from Mardan.

© 2009 The Washington Post Company

Open Letter to Mother Nature

2009-04-23T01:17:00.011-04:00

While this is a climate skeptic topic which some might think belongs on my climate blog, the fact that it includes political commentary, satire, heavy doses of sarcasm and punditry is why I’m posting it here. I'm trying to keep the climate blog more science-based.

Dear Mother Nature,

It seems you missed or otherwise misunderstood our earlier memo.

According to our complex and sophisticated computer models, CO₂, though only .038% of the atmosphere, is the dominant factor in climate change. As we spew out CO₂, temperatures are supposed to skyrocket, ice caps melt, cities flood and polar bears drown, but we are observing that you are failing to perform to the standards our models demand.

Additionally, you have failed to safeguard key information. This information, in the wrong hands, has the potential for confusing the ignorant masses (especially those who cling to guns, religion and the US Constitution) and making them think that you, not our complex and sophisticated computer models, are in charge of climate.

This must not happen. Terrorists working for the fossil fuel companies and other right-wing extremists have acquired some of this information and are already using it to sabotage our excellent work. The ignorant gun/religion-clinging Constitutionalist masses are getting more and more confused.

The purpose of this memo then is to point out some of your specific deficiencies in this regard and the corrective actions you must take forthwith. Your failure to comply may result in our reporting your failure to perform to your higher authority, the Obamasiah. We certainly would not want bring you such embarrassment as he has ultimate power in all things. We know this to be true because he told us so in not one, but two autobiographies written before he even ascended his throne or had otherwise accomplished anything of substance.

Temperatures. While we understand that the attending special effects such as hurricanes, melting polar caps and drowning polar bears may take time to organize, temperature should have been simple.

Let us reiterate. According to our complex and sophisticated computer models as CO₂ goes up, so does temperature – by a bunch! This is a very simple concept that even you should be able to grasp. What do you not understand?

A group of us got together and voted on it. We formed a consensus. You are obligated to adhere to that consensus. You may have heard of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? This is a powerful political organization consisting of fifty-two individuals who have faith in our complex and sophisticated computer models. They are capable of getting ignorant scientifically illiterate politicians to move large sums of money around in directions we desire. Don’t cross them or you won’t ever get published again or ever see meaningful funding for any research!

We even had them draw you several nice pictures that simplify the complex workings of our highly sophisticated models so that there would be no misunderstandings. We had them liberally sprinkle these pictures throughout their reports. Being tolerant of those like you who have no formal schooling or understanding of such complex things like computer models, we will assume (we’re experts at that) you did not see the pictures. Here again is one of those pictures, so that there is no confusion.

Information Security. This is closely tied to temperature. According to our sources, you left past code unsecured, namely the Vostok Ice Cores. According to this code, CO₂ increases after temperatures increase. While this may have been how you did things in the past, our complex and sophisticated computer models mandate a new paradigm.

It is easy to see how such careless security can cause confusion in the minds of the ignorant gun/religion-clinging Constitutionalist masses who are not computer modelers. Armed with the information of how you used to do things, the fossil fuel terrorists and right-wing extremists are telling people that that is how things are.

While it is painfully obvious that our complex and sophisticated models are correct and your old code is wrong, we must spend inordinate time, resources and energy countering the misconception. Al, James and Rajenda are burning up a lot of jet fuel putting out the “fires”, so to speak, that your carelessness caused.

Special Effects. The ice caps. Why aren’t they melting? The obvious answer is your failure to perform on the first item, temperature.

According to our complex and sophisticated computer models, the Arctic is supposed to be gone last year, but we were willing to accept somewhere around 2012.

The Goracle put his immense reputation on the line with this promise. He won a Nobel Prize! Have you? He made an award winning science fiction movie! Have you? How dare you contradict this immense man!

You will have a difficult time meeting the approved timeline given your current performance as the graph below demonstrates. Note that this year’s Arctic sea ice is rapidly approaching intersect with the 1979-2000 average. It was supposed to be well below the 2007 average. This is a public relations disaster of the highest order and totally unacceptable.

You’ve also failed at the other end of the planet. According to our models, Antarctica should be melting. Creating minor ice shelf collapses in regions where there are other plausible explanations cannot mask your serious failure to warm the Antarctic in accordance with our precise instructions.

In fact, not only have you not raised temperatures over Antarctica, there is evidence that you have actually been lowering temperatures over all but an insignificant peninsula on the western side of the continent!

The Polar Bears. They deserve special mention. They are cute, cuddly, and like to drink Coke and party with penguins while watching the Aurora Borealis. They are supposed to be drowning and going extinct! I know it is difficult to do in one of your precious critters, but they were specifically chosen as the poster children of our project because of the above factors.

They can’t drown if the ice doesn’t melt and the ice won’t melt if you don’t raise the temperatures.

Worse yet, it appears that during the selection process for our global warming poster child, you failed to inform us of the following facts about how you engineered polar bears:

1. Polar bears can swim – a LONG way. Like about a hundred miles. Have you any idea how many islands exist in the Arctic? At the rate you are melting the ice up there the bears will have no problem migrating to these islands or Siberia for that matter.

2. Polar bears don’t only eat seals. We were led to believe that the only way the bears could get food was to ambush seals as they surfaced through holes in the ice that shouldn’t be there because the ice should be gone.

It turns out polar bears are very adaptable and eat other things too. They not only forage in human garbage for very rich food, but they also hunt humans! Now the latter part isn’t all bad since humans are the cause of all problems (according to our complex and sophisticated computer models). However, this adaptability means the bears don’t go extinct. In fact, there is evidence that their population is actually going up, not down.

This is totally unacceptable. Tossing three or four bears ashore after a storm was a good press release, but the numbers are insufficient to cause world-wide panic for the cuddly lovable bears.

The eating people part also diminishes their cuteness factor even though in doing so they do the planet a great service. To make matters worse, Knut’s buddies at the zoo in Germany tried to eat a woman who wanted to hug them and the whole affair was caught on film! People-eating poster children are bad for the program.

You’ve even embarrassed a team of crack publicity hounds sent forth on Arctic ice, sponsored by Royalty mind you, to demonstrate that Arctic ice is nearly gone and the polar bears have all drowned. First you nearly froze them to death with below normal temperatures which broke all of their complex and sophisticated ice-measuring equipment.

Then your polar bears started stalking them. This poor team has spent 53 days on thick, thick first-year ice in appalling freezing conditions trying to prove that the ice is melting and your bears, who are supposed to be drowning, are stalking them! Why, they’ve been dragging their little inflatable boat thingies and carrying immersion suits around for nothing. They expected to paddle the last 500km to the North Pole!

It has become clear that you are taking independent steps to direct climate in accordance with your own antiquated plan instead of following our modern plan based upon complex and sophisticated computer models. You’ve deliberately flipped the switches on virtually every major oceanic cycle to negative. This has had an almost immediate impact on local weather (lowering temperatures) which in turn confuses the ignorant gun/religion-clinging Constitutionalist masses and encourages right-wing extremists.

Most egregious of all, you’ve fiddled with the dimmer switch on the sun! What were you thinking? How can we continue to scare everyone into thinking that temperatures will forever rise, if you are messing with the sun's dimmer switch! Crank it back up! We need an active sun and sunspots! The sun creates solar winds that blow away nasty galactic cosmic rays that may influence cloud formations. Our complex and sophisticated computer models do not take clouds into account (because we don’t understand clouds) and as a result your actions are making us look wrong!

You are costing us a lot of other peoples’ money. We’ve already spent billions of dollars of other people’s money in research and marketing to convince them that a trace gas controls climate. We want to continue spending this money as long as we can squeeze it out of them, but your actions are shortening our horizons for accomplishing this.

We had them believing that, even though this trace atmospheric gas occurs naturally in quantities far greater than humans have produced throughout the Industrial Age, they are to blame. We had them believing that nothing except CO₂ can cause temperatures to go up or down, as indicated by our complex and sophisticated computer models.

All is not lost and you can regain your credibility with us. We still have some people convinced that CO₂ is a pollutant, even though it is essential to life as we know it. We got some of their most scientifically illiterate judges to vote on it and got their equally scientifically illiterate EPA administrators to take it from there. We have some of them convinced that they need to commit economic and national suicide so that we can control everything.

However, time could be running out. This disaster may be wasted if you don’t immediately get temperatures going up again in accordance with our complex and sophisticated computer models. Otherwise, their legislators may ignore our models and decide to wait us out. There are signs that the ignorant gun/religion-clinging Constitutionalist masses are stirring and threatening to throw the bums out under the massive disinformation campaign being waged in the main stream media by the right-wing extremists.

Some of us have a lot riding on this whole global warming project. We own/participate in companies that will make us personally much richer if we can sell carbon credits and your poor performance is cutting into the profit margin. Others of us who are geeky computer types, mostly just want to keep playing with our complex and sophisticated computer models, but that takes LOTS of money because we need new super-super-computers. The old ones just aren’t cutting it.

Our allies in the IPCC hate the West (especially the USA) and want us to commit economic and national suicide, but if having them on our team gets the rest of us what we want, they’re OK with us. But their help, as powerful as they may be in the funding process, won’t be enough if actual observations continue the current downward trend. The right-wing extremists are watching your performance!

Oh, and jet fuel costs a lot too. Having to fly all over the world explaining to everyone why you are not cooperating is getting expensive. You could help us reduce our carbon footprint for this crusade by simply following our script.

Mother Nature, get with the program or we will be forced to report your intransigence to the Obamasiah. If he waves his hands, things will happen and it won’t be pretty!

Sincerely,

Failed Divinity-Journalism Student/Failed Presidential Candidate, The Team, A Rich politically motivated financier who hates America, UN politician Pseudo-Scientist and other nitwits who simply want to control other people’s lives.

Why Are We in Afghanistan?

2009-04-03T00:54:00.008-04:00

I must confess complete incredulity when I hear that question, especially when uttered by an American. Nothing demonstrates our short attention span as a nation more than that question. Will we ever learn? So for all those who ask the question, "Why are we in Afghanistan?"

THIS IS WHY!

They won't just go quietly into the night, even though the Obamasiah has "Hussein" as his middle name. Electing this bumbling fool did nothing to improve our situation on the world stage. His recent idiotic idea about talking to "moderate Taliban" was met with derision by the Taliban. Their official spokesman called it a "lunatic idea" and observed that there is no such thing as a "moderate Taliban." Uh duh!

One of the Afghans I work with asked, "Who are these moderate Taliban? I've never heard of such a thing. Is this something like a moderate murderer? This is insane!"

The Obamasiah's talk about an "exit strategy" is defeatist. In typical leftist fashion it is cover for moving the goal post. Change the definition of victory so that expectations are lowered. When we meet the more easily attained "exit strategy" goals, pull the plug and run.

The Taliban are NOT winning here, but we could be maneuvering ourselves into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Taliban are NOT resurgent, but they are reslient. There is a difference. If we cut and run, if we cede this country to these animals, these scenes will be repeated again.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) Photo.
Beatings of women in the streets were an everyday occurrence under the Taliban.

RAWA Photo. The execution of Zarmeena.
After enduring years of brutal abuse, Zarmeena killed her husband while he slept.
She was sentenced to death.
Under Islamic Law, the victim's family may forgive the murderer.
Her husband's family forgave her.
However, since they had already announced the execution
and invited thousands of guests to attend, the Taliban refused to spare her
in violation of the very Islamic Law they pretend to follow.
Zarmeena's seven children were forced to watch the execution.

Shared Sacrifice

2009-03-30T08:04:00.004-04:00

US, Afghan, French, Turkish and UK flags at half-mast.
Sometimes we have a bad week, but we have a saying here:
"One Team, One Fight!"
Implicit in that is shared sacrifice.
Note to the defeatist media and others of that ilk:
Our soldiers have the guts and patience to do what is necessary.
Do you?

The Government We Deserve...Part II

2009-03-13T01:46:00.003-04:00

The article below lays out a good reminder about who works for whom under our system of government. While our elected officials are responsible for creating much of today's governmental mess, we the people are responsible for electing these clowns in the first place. Our greed at looking for what our Senators and Representatives can bring home to us and our indifference about qualifications for the highest office in the land have led us to where we are today.

545 PEOPLE vs. 300,000,000 PEOPLE

By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations, the House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred Senators, 435 Congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court Justices…545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a Senator, a Congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the Speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto, if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ. If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible. They and they alone, have the power. They and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist for the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

The Government We Deserve

2009-02-26T09:04:00.009-05:00

During the recent US elections, I made no secret of my disdain for Barrack Obama. There were a number of reasons for this including the fact that the man has absolutely no record that we can look to in order to discern his intentions. He has no body of work to balance against his “spread the wealth” comments that might allay fears that he is really a Communist intent upon destroying the US. I still don’t trust the man and so far, he’s proving to be every bit as dangerous as some on the far right postulated.

So where are we now? One month into his Presidency we have a $787 billion “Porkulus” Bill that targets very little money into anything that will actually stimulate the economy and which virtually no member of Congress, or the President bothered to read. To top it off, only about 15% of that monstrosity will even be spent in the coming year…too late to have any impact on saving the economy in 2009. Given that last bit, what was the bloody hurry?

That same bill is also one of his broken campaign promises. During the campaign, Obama talked about the wonderful “transparency” we could expect from his Administration. All spending bills would be posted on the White House website for five days before he’d sign them. Well, the bill was not posted on the White House website and he signed it within three days. He would have signed it even sooner but this bill, without which the entire free world economies would collapse, had to await the Obamesiah’s leisure due to his vacation plans. You can get a copy of this theft by Congress here. Read it and weep.

Other goodies coming out of this Administration and the Pelosi and Reid cabal in Congress include an additional $410 billion that the House passed on 25 February, an Obama proposal for and additional $634 billion for nationalizing healthcare as part of his over $3 TRILLION budget, and an additional $2.5 TRILLION to nationalize the nations banks, as proposed by his Treasury Secretary. Can you say, “DRUNKEN SAILORS?” ~~I would have posted a link to the actual budget, but in this new age of complete transparency in government of The One, the budget is not available to the public yet.~~ The Budget is now available on the White House web site.

Allies in the MSM say all this is to pull the economy out of the “deep” recession. Except that it’s not a deep recession and most analysts were already predicting that the upswing indicators started at the end of December and the country would begin pulling out of the recession as early as the second half of 2009. This is hardly the catastrophic scenario sold by Obama to justify all this profligate spending of other people's money.

Obama is also not very good with history. Let’s leave out the possibility that his misrepresentation that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression was deliberate. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt of simply not being all that bright on history, since he’s demonstrated that on numerous occasions already. Then again…

Point being, the recession in 1991 had unemployment at 7.8% (higher than today) and during Jimmy Carter’s recession unemployment hit 10.2%. The current recession is nowhere near the levels of economic misery of the Great Depression, but Congress and this Administration are doing their best to make it so.

Then there is the ongoing foreign policy train wreck. Sending John Kerry to talk to Hamas? Lifting high tech restrictions on Syria? Ceding nuclear power to Iran? Sending Nancy Pelosi…Pelosi…to Afghanistan? Closing Guantanamo with no alternatives to house the prisoners there? And wrapped in this, let’s return to the recently released budget where the military and intelligence services are gutted. And you feel safer with this man as Commander-in-Chief?

In the middle of all this are his continued efforts to destroy the nation’s economy through all his carbon reduction schemes based upon a rapidly disintegrating “consensus” about whether human emissions cause global warming. To this add efforts to restrict free speech by reimposing the “Fairness Doctrine,” find ways around the recent Supreme Court ruling on gun ownership, subject US troops to International Tribunal (where they would never get a fair trial), offer the UN over $65 billion in additional US taxpayer money, force US soldiers to serve in a proposed UN army, and provide billions in assistance to illegal aliens. Now to be fair, not all these are specifically Obama proposals. However, his allies in Congress are feeling emboldened by what they perceive as his “left-leaning” tendencies.

During the campaign, Obama promised “change,” but nothing more specific. He gave us sweeping hand waves of how he would accomplish things. The true believers in the socialist agenda were locked votes, but the sad thing is, the idiots in the middle fell for the smooth talk. He promised “ice cream” and no one bothered to ask how he was going to pay for it. 52% of the American electorate acted like nine-year olds drooling over promises of getting “stuff” from The One.

As you watch your rights get taken one-by-one by this cabal of Fascio-Communists who think they know better how to spend your money and run your life, remember that you got the government you deserve…the government you elected. You might have a chance to fix this come 2010, if they haven’t by then rigged things so that you can’t vote them out.

Feeling Changed Yet?

Attack on the Ministry of Justice in Kabul

2009-02-19T11:02:00.006-05:00

On 11 February, attacks were staged on the Ministry of Justice and a Prisons Office. A third target seemed to be the Ministry of Education, which is near the Justice Ministry. However, it is possible that that lone attacker was simply lost. The attacker at the Ministry of Education was shot dead before he could cause any trouble.

Five attackers hit the Ministry of Justice, killing two policemen as they entered the building. One of the five was shot dead by a policman who followed them into the building. The remaining four then fanned out shooting at anyone who crossed their path. They managed to kill ten civilians and 57 were injured or wounded (many of the injured were hurt jumping out windows to escape the gunmen). Kabul police responded quickly, entered the building and killed all four assailants.

At the prisons office two attackers attempted to enter the building. One was shot dead immediately by a policeman. The second attacker shot the policeman dead, entered the building and detonated his explosive vest, killing himself and seven policemen.

The end tally was: terrorists 8 dead, police 10 dead, civilians 10 dead and 57 injured/wounded.

What is clear is that the attackers were trying to emulate a "Mumbai-like" attack. A key difference: Afghan police are not afraid to fight it out. The Afghans recognized the developing threat, killing three of the attackers as they entered the buildings. They did not let things turn into a prolonged siege, quickly closing in on the terrorists in the building, hunting them down and killing them.

Let us keep this in perspective. This was a bad day by Kabul standards, but only one of many far better and steadily improving days. There are days the bad guys will have success. While the attack momentarily grabbed headlines, it did not, contrary to some news reports, paralyze the city.

All of the buildings attacked on 11 February had little to no stand-off from the street. They are difficult to protect and there are large numbers of people in front of, entering and leaving these buildings all day.

A factor that angers me somewhat is that since no Westerners were killed or directly involved, it was only a passing headline in the Western media. Apart from some alarmists and Pat Buchanan ranting about how "the war is lost" the story vanished within hours. I would like to think that the excellent reaction of the Afghan police and the total annihilation of the attackers made this story not sexy enough. Perhaps if a Westerner had gotten in the crossfire, this story would have seen more play.

Below are some pictures taken less than an hour after the attacks in a different part of town.

Note the terrified women fleeing in blind panic.

Note the men in equal panic, trampling women and children in their paralyzed terror.

Thankfully there were balloon salesmen on hand to calm the masses.

Afghans are not wimps. They take bad events like Taliban attacks in stride. Afterall, they've got 30 years of experience with really bad times.

A Word About the Afghan "Resistance"

2009-01-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

I have a new blogging buddy, Layla Anwar, except that she doesn’t blog to make buddies. She is very good at making enemies. The first time I visited her blog I was reading a post that told everyone to fuck off. Yes, in those words.

Layla is a Sunni Arab Iraqi and a big fan of Saddam Hussein. Most visitors to her site are either sycophants or people who would like to kill her – not many in the middle. Some of her “best” enemies have actually come out and said they plan to kill her.

I'm one of the rare "middle" people. I disagree with much maybe even most of what she says, but I genuinely like her. She is an exceptional person.

Layla's main blog is Arab Woman Blues. If you visit this site you must be prepared for some prose that will likely get your blood boiling either in favor of her, or against her.

She can also be quite funny as her other blog Uncensored Arab Woman Blues shows with all her issues on dating in Iraq.

You have to keep in mind when reading Arab prose that it tends to the extreme in terms of emotion. It's difficult to keep from getting wrapped up in emotion when you read it. I guess that’s the point.

Anyway, in the midst of a particularly emotional post vilifying the Imperialist American, Zionist, Safavid Shiite Iranian cabal that has ruined the Iraqi paradise that once existed under Saint Saddam, she strays into areas about which she perhaps should have remained silent - namely, Afghanistan.

In the post she gives three cheers (sort of) for what we in the West would otherwise call “the bad guys.” Of course she can be forgiven because she gets her news from the news agencies/web sites that are pushing the idea that what we are trying to do is nothing less than destroy Sunnis and usher in the American Zionist Safavid state with forced conversion to that apostate sect. In the Afghanistan detour she says: “…where the Afghan Resistance is making strides.”

At this point I take issue. Which resistance is she talking about? Is it the “resistance” in Kandahar that sprays acid in the faces of schoolgirls? Or is it the “resistance” in Kandahar and Khost and across the border in the “ungovernable provinces” of Pakistan that burns down schools and murders teachers? Perhaps it is the resistance that blew up fourteen elementary schoolchildren in Khost the last week of December?

Perhaps it’s the drug lord “resistance” in Helmand and Herat. But, since a large part of their “crop” is ending up in Iran, which now has the highest rate of heroin addiction in the world, that’s probably OK. Anything that rots the evil Safavid state from within is good.

Or maybe she means the criminal gangs (some of which include the corrupt police) who primarily rob merchants and ordinary Afghans. Maybe she means the kidnapping rings that primarily target Afghan school children (especially the girls, many of whom end up raped) and the occassional Westerner. If she means the occasional Pakistani or ARAB suicide bomber, most of whom target civilians in busy markets, they are not well-received by the local populace.

If by making strides she means terrorizing the civilian populace as opposed to attacking the Imperialist Americans and their allies, well that is primarily what the "bad guys" do here.

In reality, official corruption and ordinary crime are the biggest problems in Afghanistan. If the corruption can be negated, then the crime will dwindle and the situation for ordinary Afghans will drastically improve.

There is no comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq. The circumstances are entirely different. The US and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) do not have a single tank in Afghanistan. I live in a neighborhood in the middle of Kabul and I travel around unarmed, both in Kabul and outside of Kabul. In Kabul I can walk the streets. I am frequently in situations here that I would never have allowed myself in Iraq.

It was Afghan tanks that entered Kabul in 2001, not American. That simple fact changes many things. I will be the first to say that the West squandered precious time and golden opportunities early on. Our stupidity and arrogance made a difficult job harder, just like we did in Iraq, but the situation is far from impossible.

Cutting the Gordian knot of corruption should be the main priority. And one can’t say that these people are “used to it” or it can’t be changed because they’ve always been corrupt. That is simply not true. The ordinary people know that corruption is wrong and that it hurts business, but they are trapped in it and waiting for us to do what we promised.

In an alliance of convenience, we allowed the corrupt warlords to get their hands back into the system. It will be up to us to show them the door, or failing such direct action, provide the support to those Afghans who are trying to fight the corruption so that they can do it.

The Real Situation In Kabul

2008-12-17T11:21:00.000-05:00

On my other blog I frequently comment on the real situation in Kabul, Afghanistan. My comments are typically at odds with what the media is reporting. I’m a professional soldier. Though I’m retired from active duty, I continue to train soldiers, ours and our allies. I’ve been in the war zone in Iraq and here for a good part of the last six years. I’m not the kind who gets nervous in this environment. Those who know that much about me may be inclined to take some of my war zone reporting with a ~~grain~~ block of salt as a result.

The real threats in Kabul and throughout Afghanistan are corruption and good old-fashioned crime, albeit at a high level in both categories. It is crime and corruption (rampant in the police) that are hurting reconstruction efforts. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are not a threat; they are despised and have no popular support. What support they may generate is through fear and intimidation in those areas where security is lacking. Given a choice and guarantee of security, the people reject the Taliban.

The article below was written by a woman who has been living here in Kabul for the last three years with her family. Like me, her take is that the media are reporting from a Kabul in a parallel universe. I post her comments here in their entirety.

The real situation in Kabul
United Press International
12/16/2008
By Marilyn Angelucci, Kabul

Kabul — I have been living in Kabul for the past three years, and the news reports still never cease to amaze me. This week, the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) reported that the Taliban have control of almost 75% of Afghanistan and that they will soon walk through the door of Kabul.

According to my experience living here with my family, I can’t believe that the country they are describing is the same country that I live in. According to reports by NATO, the Afghan government and a great number of our Afghan friends, I hear a different story.

The Taliban are losing any support they may have had in the past. A few months ago, they attacked a bus of Afghans headed for Iran to seek work. The travelers were from Laghman, and the attack happened in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban beheaded most of the travelers, sparing a few of the younger ones. They claimed that those executed were Afghan military.

The local people of Laghman were so angered by the attack that they united against the Taliban. According to the words of one of the survivors, local leaders have declared a “war” against any Taliban in their area. They have stated that if there are any Taliban or Taliban supporters found in their area, they will execute them and burn their homes. This was declared by the leaders of 15 districts in the province of Laghman, an ethnically Pashtun area.

The local people are fed up with the Taliban's tactics. Even those that may have supported the Taliban in the past have become disgusted by the killing and torturing of innocent civilians. They have lost hope that the Taliban can bring about anything better than what the Karzai government can.

It’s true that security is worse than last year, while the Taliban claim that they are responsible for the attacks. But this is not the case. Most of the kidnappings and criminal activities are done by local gangsters that are taking advantage of the corruption of the police and the Ministry of the Interior.

Take the case of Gail Williams, a British national killed last month on the streets of western Kabul. According to news reports, the Taliban were responsible and claimed that her NGO was converting Muslims to Christianity, and that the killing was therefore a warning. The NGO denies this claim.

One local who witnessed the attack said men on a motorcycle first tried to steal Williams' pocketbook and, when she fought off the attack, they shot her first in the legs, then in the head and left her to die. This is not a tactic of the Taliban. This is the work of local criminals taking advantage of the poor policing seen all over Kabul. Some even claim that these criminal acts are the work of the local police themselves, but this has not been proven at this point.

So, corruption is high. Not only are the Taliban losing support, but so is Karzai. People are ready for a new government and are looking for someone who can get a grip on Afghanistan’s security and development issues.

So much has been done toward development by the international community, and this can be seen everywhere. But the leadership is still weak, and this leads to many other concerns. We are all hoping, with the additional troops coming in January and in the summer, that security can improve and the presidential elections can take place as planned.

Comments on the Comments about Mumbai

2008-12-09T02:55:00.000-05:00

In the aftermath of the Mumbai massacre, a number of Western pundits, both liberal and conservative, have offered some pretty irrational commentary. Most of them get off the main issue of the specific event and turn their commentary to a general condemnation of Islam and Muslims.

This is a counter-productive and flat wrong-headed approach. Have any of these writers bothered to tally up the Muslim victims of terrorist violence? In the Mumbai attacks, for example, there were also Muslim victims. These murderers, who claim they are killing for God, are no respecters of one’s religion. They gleefully kill anyone. Look at who is primarily dying in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at the hands of these murderous thugs. It isn’t coalition troops or foreign aid workers; it is the local inhabitants – Muslims – who are dying in the tens of thousands.

Another argument that seems common is to claim that Muslims do not condemn these attacks – that the voice of Muslims is silent. Well, it only seems silent because the West’s ever-vigilant professional journalists are as intellectually lazy as their readers and viewers. Muslims are speaking out. Many have been murdered for doing so. In order to find this out, one must make the effort to read Muslim media. It’s out there.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, an association of 56 Islamic states, condemned the terror attacks in Mumbai stating that: “…these acts of violence contradict all human values and can be justified by nothing” (emphasis added).

A businessman from Dubai writes:

It is not enough for moderate Muslims to be revolted by the attacks in Mumbai as we have been revolted by the attacks on the New York office towers, Amman wedding, London transport system, Madrid trains, Beslan school, Jerusalem pizzeria, Baghdad markets and numerous other places. It is time to take a serious stand against these perpetrators and reclaim our religion.

Muslims must be more vocal in their sentiments regarding such criminals and Islamic states must counter this behaviour proactively. To borrow from an unpopular phrase, the Islamic states must launch a psychological pre-emptive strike against these terrorists and more importantly those who encourage them. Muslim preachers who fail to condemn terror must either be re-educated or discredited completely, and those who excuse terror using certain conflicts as a pretext must be silenced because the poison that they spread today will come back to haunt us all tomorrow.

Some media outlets can also act as a conduit for the terrorists’ propaganda. The stories of reformed radicals such as Sayed Imam, also known as Dr Fadl, must be highlighted to the ignorant minority. Our message must be clear: “These acts of violence contradict all human values and can be justified by nothing.”

Nothing.

Sultan Al Qassemi

These are just samples of the outpouring of anger and frustration I read in Muslim media. Muslims are not unaware of the hatred and anger their co-religionists are generating with these senseless crimes and they are just as perplexed at how to stop it as we are, even more so given that they ostensibly share the same religion as the murderers.

Then there are those who say the Qur’an tells Muslims to spread their religion by the sword. Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact the Qur’an is full of statements showing that belief in any religion is an individual’s own concern and is a matter between the individual and God. Here are a few.

(2:256) “There is no compulsion in religion.” This is the clearest statement in the Qur’an against spreading religion by the sword.

(76:3) “We have truly shown him the way; he may be thankful or unthankful.”

(18:29) “The Truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe and let him who please disbelieve.”

6:104) “Clear proofs have indeed come to you from your Lord; so whoever sees, it is for his own good; and whoever is blind, it is to his own harm.”

(17:7) “If you do good, you do good for your own souls. And if you do evil, it is for them.” (for your own souls)

It seems to me that the two predominant views portrayed in Western media about Muslims are either the condemnatory pieces that tar brush all Muslims with the Islamo-facist label, or those that help propagate their insane justifications for murder (Bush’s policies, Israeli policies, grinding poverty). Both are wrong.

The most common shared trait among all these writers is that they have not lived in a Muslim society – certainly not for any significant length of time. I’ve spent the greater part of the last six years living among Muslims in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve known Muslims who I’ve felt confident would lay down their life to protect me, just as I would do for them. I’ve seen Iraqi soldiers weep when their American counterparts were killed or wounded. I’ve seen the anger of Afghans when a foreign aid worker is killed or kidnapped. An unarmed Afghan bystander was killed in Kabul several weeks ago trying to thwart the kidnapping at gun-point of a French aid worker.

The vast majority of Muslims throughout the world are good, civilized human beings with whom we share many, if not most, values. This is, I believe, a fact. Yes, there are differences between Western societies and Islamic societies, but for the most part these differences are no bigger than a line drawn in the sand.

Playing into the Enemy's Hands

2008-11-16T03:25:00.000-05:00

Below is an article from the Christian Science Monitor in the aftermath of the suicide attack on the Ministry of Information and Culture in Kabul. My analysis of this article appears below the article. The main point is that this is yet another example of the blissfully ignorant media playing right into the hands of the insurgents.

Insurgents increasingly employing complex attacks in Afghanistan
Thursday's strike on an Afghan ministry was carried out by a team using multiple attack methods.
By Anand Gopal Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 31, 2008 edition

Kabul, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a government ministry Thursday, killing at least five and injuring dozens. The attack is the latest in a series this year showing insurgents' ability to penetrate the capital using complicated and daring methods.

"Security in the capital is decreasing day by day," says Ajmal Karimi, analyst with the Center for Peace and Conflict studies, a Kabul-based think tank.

He says that Thursday's attack, which involved multiple insurgents and included small-arms fire, is an example of the sophisticated methods increasingly used.

"With these types of attacks the insurgents are able to make people feel that they cannot trust the government to keep them safe even in the capital," he says.

At least three insurgents entered the Ministry of Information and Culture, located in a busy section of Kabul, Thursday morning. Witnesses say a gunfight broke out between security officials and the guerrillas, followed by a massive blast that destroyed much of the ministry's first floor. According to some reports, two insurgents escaped the scene.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying they were targeting foreign advisers. Insurgents may also have hit the ministry because it was one of the least secure.

Kabul is heavily guarded, with thousands of police patrolling, many main arteries closed to traffic, and blast walls surrounding most government buildings. Yet insurgents have staged numerous high-profile attacks.

"In these types of attacks, the insurgents may send one suicide bomber toward the target while another fighter distracts security forces with gunfire," says Mr. Karimi.

While the attack involved a small team, many complex attacks involve greater numbers of fighters and a more diverse combination of attack methods. According to an American intelligence official with the international forces, this year has seen a 6 to 12 percent increase in assaults involving more than 20 insurgents and multiple attack methods.

The blast comes amid talk of negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. "Our enemies are trying to undermine recent efforts by the government for a peaceful solution to end the violence," President Hamid Karzai said in a statement.
•Danna Harman contributed to this report from Kabul.

My comments:

The attack is the latest in a series this year showing insurgents' ability to penetrate the capital using complicated and daring methods.

This statement is never explained or elaborated anywhere in the article. What “complicated” or “daring” methods were used to “penetrate” the capital? Kabul is a big city with over 4 million inhabitants. There is not a solid wall, fence or other barrier that rings the city. The main roads are not the only ways into the city.

"Security in the capital is decreasing day by day," says Ajmal Karimi, analyst with the Center for Peace and Conflict studies, a Kabul-based think tank.

And we have arrived at this conclusion based upon what evidence? By the way it is the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies (CAPS) and Ajmal Karimi strangely does not appear on the staff page as an analyst. He may very well work there, but if he does he is a low-level researcher.

The CAPS website states: “Armed groups in Afghanistan, just as in the Middle East and Pakistan, use the media to propagate their message, solicit both moral and financial support, and provide distant training and exchange of logistical information required to launch successful operations.”

The Christian Science Monitor, just like the main stream media plays right into the insurgents’ hands with uninformed reports like this one.

Kabul is heavily guarded, with thousands of police patrolling, many main arteries closed to traffic, and blast walls surrounding most government buildings.

Thousands of police in a large sprawling city of four million is hardly surprising. The “main arteries” closed to traffic are those in the immediate vicinity of the Presidential Palace, the Ministry of the Interior (National Police Headquarters), and the Ministry of Defense. Hardly surprising given the threat of VBIED’s (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device). In fact if these roads were left open, one would then need to be critical of lax security. It only takes one VBIED in the right place at the right time to create havoc. This isn’t much different from in the US where traffic is no longer allowed around certain government buildings. (Have you tried to drive in front of the White House lately?)

Yet insurgents have staged numerous high-profile attacks.

I’m very curious as to how we have arrived at “numerous” high-profile attacks. Let’s see: January 2008, Hotel Serena; April 2008, Assassination attempt on President Karzai; July 2008, Suicide VBIED attack on the Indian Embassy; October 2008, Suicide BBIED (Body Borne Improvised Explosive Device) at the Ministry of Information and Culture. That’s only four even though the media would have us believe that Kabul is about to fall to the Taliban. So far that works out to one every three months, but it still misses a key point.

What do three of the four have in common? In three of the four cases lax security around what should have been recognized as potential high-profile targets invited the attacks.

In the case of Hotel Serena, not only was security lax in the first place, there was advance warning of an impending attack and no action was taken to tighten security even though on the day of the attack the Norwegian embassy was hosting a reception there.

In the Indian Embassy attack the road that should have been blocked to regular traffic was not. The Indian Embassy is right across the street from the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, which may have actually been the intended target. Given that the road is now blocked except for authorized traffic, a repeat is unlikely.

He says that Thursday's attack (Oct 30), which involved multiple insurgents and included small-arms fire, is an example of the sophisticated methods increasingly used.

Three guys charging a lightly-guarded gate firing AK’s is hardly sophisticated, in fact it is pretty basic.

"With these types of attacks the insurgents are able to make people feel that they cannot trust the government to keep them safe even in the capital," he says.

Clearly that is the goal of this type of attack, whether or not such attacks have achieved this goal is a matter of conjecture. Within hours of this particular attack it was business as usual in this busy market part of town.

Insurgents may also have hit the ministry because it was one of the least secure.

This is the primary reason the insurgents hit this particular ministry. The Ministry is located off a busy market street where hundreds of people are milling all day long. Security here was very lax with virtually no “stand-off” to even slow a potential attacker who simply had to sprint the twenty yards from the gate to the front lobby and detonate.

Again, Kabul is a large, sprawling city with more points of entry than can be properly guarded by even a million police officers and yet there have been only four “high-profile” attacks this year (the year of the greatest number of attacks nation-wide). In at least three of the four attacks there were significant security lapses that contributed to creating conditions conducive to attack.

The enemy exploits perceived weakness. That should be expected. As hardening and awareness reduces opportunity, the enemy looks for new opportunities. That is why one cannot become complacent. We are facing a thinking enemy. It is idiotic to imagine that he will not adjust his tactics and methods to counter our actions. The fact that he does so is not indicative of increased capability on his part or deteriorating security on our part.

While the attack involved a small team, many complex attacks involve greater numbers of fighters and a more diverse combination of attack methods. According to an American intelligence official with the international forces, this year has seen a 6 to 12 percent increase in assaults involving more than 20 insurgents and multiple attack methods.

So what if they fail? As they have in all cases. The fact that a group of attackers uses hand grenades and small arms, makes an attack “complex” by military definitions, but this does not equate to “sophisticated” in the civilian sense of complication.

By the way, total casualties for the year are actually down significantly from last year. So despite the alleged increase in “sophistication” and “complexity” the attacks are less efficient. Higher concentrations of insurgents are not a liability to us because we have them out-gunned. When they choose to mass, they are easier to detect, target and kill.

Is This the Sort of Change You are Looking For?

2008-10-24T08:30:00.000-04:00

Obama has nothing to say while his supporters threaten physical violence against those who disagree with his positions, destroy McCain signs on private property, burn Republican offices, and conduct character assassinations on ordinary citizens who have the temerity to disagree with their candidate (Joe the Plumber).

This man who may be sworn to uphold the Constitution is silent on the underhanded stifling of public discourse by his own staff. I can't believe he does not know it is going on. Where John McCain tried to calm people who shouted obscenities about Obama at a rally, Obama is silent when his partisans do the same. (Actually, in the case of "Joe the Plumber", Obama and his running mate gleefully contributed to the character assassination. So no, I would not accept any profession of innocence on Obama's part to his campaign's fascist tactics. But then, what would one expect from a Socialist?)

Below is an example of some of the tactics being employed by the Obama campaign that the mainstream media, fully in bed with the Obama campaign, say nothing about.

The Obama campaign refuses to comment on this incident, claiming it is a Secret Service matter even though it was initiated by their offices. The Secret Service is conducting an "investigation" and does not comment.

Note that no one is denying the incident, they are simply refusing to comment. The mainstream media ignores it. You can bet that if the McCain campaign had done the same thing, this would all over the news.

So read this personal account of a private citizen who dared say what she thought of Obama to one of Obama's campaign volunteers.

On Wednesday the 1st of October I received a call on my cell while in the car with my husband. It was a woman who identified herself as calling from the Obama Campaign. The phone # she called from was 903-798-6020 which lists as "Obama Volunteers of Texarkana" (Texas).

She asked if I was an Obama supporter to which I replied: "No, I don't support him, your guy is a socialist who voted four times in the State Senate to let little babies die in hospital closets; I think you should find something better to do with your time." I hung up.

Thursday, October 2, I answered the front door to find the Secret Service. Immediately I thought of the call and was furious that apparently you are not allowed to call Obama a Socialist without the Secret Service coming to investigate. Instead, they asked me about the following comment, relayed by the Obama Volunteer of Texarkana who called me, unsolicited on my cell phone: "I will never support Obama and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor."

My husband laughed and told them “No, she called him a socialist but she never said a word about him dying.” I gave them my actual quote. The woman asked insolently “Oh? Well why would she make that up?”

I replied that I supposed she wasn’t happy about what I said about her candidate and the Agent said “That’s right, you were rude!” The last time I checked being rude wasn’t a crime in America.

Luckily the big file they had gathered on me didn't indicate mental instability or a past life of stalking/crime, however they did want to know how I felt about Obama.

That was my limit. I told the Agent in no uncertain terms that my thoughts were not pertinent to their investigation, that this was America and the last time I checked I was allowed to think whatever I wanted without being questioned by the Secret Service. In fact, even if I had said what she claimed, that isn't a threat. I told them (again) and my husband verified that the statement reported by Obama's volunteer was a lie. I asked them if there was a tape of the call and they said no.

I said, "So on the word of a ticked off Obama supporter you are on my porch with no other evidence and you want to question me about my THOUGHTS!?"

They informed me that there was no evidence she was an Obama supporter…someone calling from his campaign…are you kidding?

I was not allowed to know the name of my accuser at which point they informed me that it wasn't like I was in a court of law, YET, as if this was a good thing. I recognized this as a veiled threat. I told them I would happily go to court since I did nothing wrong and at least then my accuser would have to face me rather than sending the thought police to my house.

They then said they were trying to do me a favor, that they came to me first before “embarrassing you by going to all your neighbors and family”, another threat?

I told them to be my guest and talk to whomever they wanted but they weren’t going to investigate my thoughts on my porch.

They also informed me that it would be easier if the next time a supporter calls me I just say "Yeah sure count me in, or just hang up" apparently so she won't get her undies in a bundle and give them more useless trips. Yeah right.

I said "Look, someone calls me unsolicited on my cell phone to ask me to support their candidate and I can't tell them why I don't?" I said I was sorry they made a wasted trip but if they had a problem with some made up lie they needed to go talk to her about it because it wasn't my fault they had to drive from Houston for nothing.

At one point I went inside and got a notepad to record their badge numbers and they refused to show me their badges. They had done the quick flip when they arrived. I asked for a card and the female Agent refused to give me one stating “You’re not going to get a card.” The male Agent gave me a card and told me I could contact Houston with any questions.

The fact that the volunteer lied, the fact that the Secret Service came to my house to question me about my thoughts and feelings and threaten to embarrass me to my neighbors and go to court if I didn’t cooperate is not really the tragedy here. Because that girl on the phone doesn’t have the pull to send the Secret Service to my home. Someone high in the ranks of a campaign working for a man who may be the next President of the United States of America felt comfortable bringing the force of the Federal Government to bear on a private citizen on nothing but the word of a partisan volunteer.

I want to file a counter complaint that false charges were made, that a false report was given to a peace officer. The Secret Service told me I cannot because they will protect the identity of the complainant. I also want the file they have on me destroyed and I want to know that my phone isn’t tapped, etcetera. I am hearing a lot of “Out of my Jurisdiction”.

Do I also hear jackboots?

Jessica Hughes
Lufkin, Texas

Note: I have contacted several news organizations, Rep Gohmert, Sen Hutchison, the Atty General, Local Police

Analyzing an Analysis

2008-10-16T15:25:00.000-04:00

In my previous post, blogger “Jim” and I have carried on a discussion about Obama’s birth origins. During that discussion, Jim offered a link to a FactCheck “investigation” and “analysis” of the suspect digital image of Obama’s alleged birth certificate that has been floating around the Internet since first posted on the left-wing blog, “Daily Kos” in June. Jim averred that this “analysis” was convincing. I disagree and offered to explain why. Here is that explanation.

This was one of those FactCheck postings that given the seriousness of the subject, was far too cute and unprofessional. In fact the entire tone, rather than sounding like a dispassionate scholarly refutation, came across as simple partisan gimmickry, this from an organization that claims objectivism. Start with Bruce Springsteen's song title and theme and FactCheck’s analysis goes downhill from there. With that opening, how could we expect a dispassionate analysis of facts?

FactCheck does not even get the chronological sequence of events correct in relationship to how the original questionable digital image wound up being passed around the Internet. To set the record straight, the image first appeared on “Daily Kos” on 12 June 2008, followed by Obama’s “Fight the Smears” website on 13 June. This was then followed by a clearly partisan and unscholarly posting by FactCheck on 16 June, which they reference in their 21 August post and which, like the “Daily Kos” and “Fight the Smears” postings, provoked more questions than it answered.

As FactCheck points out in their attempted damage-control, that original digital image came under immediate fire, as well it should have. Set aside for a moment the utter absurdity of the Obama campaign providing a far left blog with the “hot scoop” of getting to post the certificate first. However much I may disagree with what Obama stands for, or how much I may find things his campaign has done unethical or outright lies, I can’t believe they would be that stupid. I can’t imagine that they would not recognize such a move as sure to trigger a backlash rather than quiet the rumble about Obama’s place of birth. But I may be wrong, as some statements by an Obama staffer quoted below may indicate.

In FactCheck’s second paragraph we find the first major falsehood of their analysis. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.

No, they did not, as they themselves admit a little further on in their report. What they touched was a “certification of birth” which is not the same as an original birth certificate. Their own analysis admits as much. Second, what are their forensic qualifications to be passing judgment on any document? Birth record forgeries are among the most common and exceedingly easy to produce documents that would pass muster under all but the most trained eye. Third, what proof do they have that that document was the source of the original image released by “Daily Kos?”

We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship.

Apart from my second point in the previous paragraph, there is the absurdity that naturalization papers also meet all the requirements for the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. That is not the issue. The issue is proof of natural birth within the United States, which carries a higher standard.

We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article.

The fact that the pictures are 1MB and larger does not equal proper digital documentation. Arm shadows, poor angles and lighting in addition to showing isolated segments of what they purport to be the document are all indicators of amateurish detective work by people who do not know the first thing about forensic digital photography.

I had been told that embedded EXIF data showed a March 2008 timestamp, but the images I was able to retrieve had no timestamp in the EXIF file, or any other EXIF data for that matter. If the former, then either the pictures were taken long before the issue came up and not so “recently” as the reporters claim, or it is just another glaring example of amateurism on the part of the FactCheck staff in not properly setting the clock in their digital camera.

If the latter, (the suspect timestamp and other EXIF data have been deliberately removed to inhibit investigation), then it is further proof of their blatant partisanship and an outright lie when they say they have not modified the images in any way. Any modification of a digital photo will alter the EXIF data and in most cases wipe out the timestamp.

While the FactCheck staffers may have spent time with a certificate, it is not necessarily the one from which the original image posted on Daily Kos, FactCheck’s report on 16 June, or still posted on “Fight the Smears” was created.

Given that what was posted created such a stir, a pertinent question would be, “if Obama had the document displayed in FactCheck’s most recent analysis all along, why did it take six weeks to get the “better” images posted?” If Obama had the certificate all along (and presumably still has it), why are better images still not posted on his own “Fight the Smears” site four months after the initial post?

The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details.

Correct. The long form would provide definitive proof of having been born in the US since the hospital would be recorded on the certificate. Hawaii statute also allows a certification of birth for an infant born outside the US, who would then have a document like the one FactCheck examined.

The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department.

Irrelevant statement. The State Department has nothing to do with qualifying Presidential candidates. Their statement pertained to data required to obtain a passport.

We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response.

Did they, or did they not ask? What does trying to ask mean? Their lips moved and nothing came out? They failed to apply postage to the envelope and it never got to Hawaii DOH? Did they ask if it was possible to get the long form and who would be allowed to do so? They never say.

Most questions one would need ask are answered on the Hawaii DOH website. Any other questions could be answered by calling the phone number listed on the site between 7:15 AM and 6:00 PM HST. There does not appear to be much due diligence on the part of FactCheck’s staffers.

We asked the Obama campaign about the date stamp and the blacked-out certificate number. The certificate is stamped June 2007, because that's when Hawaii officials produced it for the campaign, which requested that document and "all the records we could get our hands on" according to spokesperson Shauna Daly.

Without a Power of Attorney from Obama, the “campaign” could not have simply requested the document from Hawaii DOH, nor would have Hawaii DOH produced the document without a Power of Attorney as stated in their own statute posted on the Hawaii DOH website. Both parties would most likely retain a copy of the Power of Attorney document as proof of proper transfer of the certification of birth. Again, due diligence and an understanding of basic law would have been appropriate here to lend some credibility to their “investigation.”

The campaign didn't release its copy until 2008, after speculation began to appear on the Internet questioning Obama's citizenship. The campaign then rushed to release the document, and the rush is responsible for the blacked-out certificate number. Says Shauna: "[We] couldn't get someone on the phone in Hawaii to tell us whether the number represented some secret information, and we erred on the side of blacking it out. Since then we've found out it's pretty irrelevant for the outside world." The document we looked at did have a certificate number; it is 151 1961 - 010641.

What was the rush? Why not get it right in the first place? Again, I am highly skeptical of “couldn’t get someone on the phone in Hawaii.” How many times was this attempted? Were they smart enough to recognize the time difference and phone accordingly? Hawaii is not a Third World country with limited telephone access. I rather suspect that if you call during their office hours, you will get someone on the phone.

Secret information in a certificate number? Certificates are usually numbered in such a manner that they are unique. That is their purpose. There isn’t anything secret about it. If people working for a lawyer who wants to be President are this bloody clueless, then we are all in for a comedy of errors should this man get elected. He clearly can’t get smart folks to work for him or worse yet represent his interests to the public.

Now that FactCheck has put the number out there for all to see (two months ago now), why does “Fight the Smears” still have the original “questionable” document with the blacked-out number still displayed? One would like to think that Obama’s campaign would be careful to synchronize their online information with FactCheck’s after their little cooperative certificate photo-op. Clearly they are just as ham-handed as FactCheck.

We also note that so far none of those questioning the authenticity of the document have produced a shred of evidence that the information on it is incorrect.

Again, how clueless can an alleged “investigator” get? The point of a forgery is to look correct. Clearly false and easily refuted information on a forgery nullifies the forgery’s value.

We think our colleagues at PolitiFact.com, who also dug into some of these loopy theories put it pretty well: "It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over."

A staffer at DOH by law cannot answer questions about the content of a birth record without the individual’s permission (Obama in this case). None of the DOH staffers allegedly queried by either FactCheck or PolitiFact were queried in person with the actual document in front of them. They were only viewing digital images and they only commented that the image appeared to have all the necessary components. None provided any definitive response on content or that the document was definitely not a forgery. It isn’t that the DOH staffers are part of a conspiracy or trying to hide anything; they simply cannot legally answer the questions in a definitive manner without Obama’s explicit approval.

It does not take a vast network of people or government agencies to produce a forged birth record. People do it every day. All it requires is the right amount of money and contact with the “right” people. Again, this demonstrates not only that FactCheck is pretty amateurish in their investigating or understanding how these things are done, so is Amy Hollyfield at PolitiFact. Speaking of loopy, their referencing each other as “evidence” is sort of an evidentiary loop. If we reference each other’s faulty analysis, that makes it accurate or some such logic.

In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961:

The announcement was posted by a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger who grudgingly concluded that Obama "likely" was born Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu.

Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday. We suggest that those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat. The evidence is clear: Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.

This birth announcement does not state where the individual was born. The announcement does not state who provided the information to the newspaper. Some newspapers have staffers who peruse official notices at the court house and some court houses provide daily feeds to the press. We cannot draw conclusions about where the information came from simply by looking at the announcement. A real investigation would have at least asked how this particular newspaper got its information for birth announcements, death announcements and weddings back in 1961.

All we know for certain is that it states the fact of birth on a certain date to a specific couple who normally reside at a certain address. Of course at this juncture Obama Sr. did not reside at that address, he was in Kenya (a point not in dispute) with his real wife. It has nothing to do with future plans nor would any deep vast conspiracy be required to post such an announcement. The fact that an alleged and unnamed pro-Hillary “blogger” made the conclusion stated above is also irrelevant to proving anything. Clearly his standard of proof, and that of FactCheck, is pretty low if this birth announcement sways their judgment.

We received responses to some of our questions from the Hawaii Department of Health. They couldn't tell us anything about their security paper, but they did answer another frequently-raised question: why is Obama's father's race listed as "African"?

Frequently asked by whom? What difference would that make? Why would you ask that sort of question of someone who might not even have been alive when Obama was born, let alone have any first-hand knowledge of how the data was originally submitted?

He [Kurt Tsue] also confirmed that the information in the short form birth certificate is sufficient to prove citizenship for "all reasonable purposes."

It is sufficient perhaps except for proving natural birth for the purpose of running for President. Methinks that one is slightly out of the realm of what a truly rational person would call “reasonable” usage.

Were FactCheck’s analysis a bit more professional, I’d expect to see more than the three sources they list. After all, they are purporting to be providing objective analysis that can be replicated. In fact, I’d expect to see a footnote for each quote they’ve included as well as references to appropriate statutes applicable to the issues at hand. As damage-control for their ham-fisted 16 June piece, this analysis is pretty shoddy and ham-fisted in its own right.

I didn’t have any objection to their pointing out the many equally shoddy criticisms and theories that emerged after the original document was put online. There were and are indeed many, but don’t mockingly criticize people who express skepticism of what appears to be a bogus online document. It is exceptionally easy to produce electronic images that portray just about anything and the vast majority of the public viewing them do not have the skills or tools to differentiate between real and fake, even though there are plenty of wannabe forensic specialists out there. There should be no surprise that the original image provoked more questions than it answered.

Of course all this is secondary to the very simple and straightforward solution that Obama himself refuses to take, namely take a copy of his long-form birth certificate, if one exists, to a judge or group of judges. Let them tell the public that “yeah, verily indeed ye have nothing to fear” and the situation would be put to rest with the finality of a stake through a vampire’s heart.

Obama refuses to do this. He’d rather take the route of obfuscating, prevaricating and dissembling rather than confront the accusation head-on (one he helped fuel with his own memoirs). He’d rather present his “evidence” to a bunch of amateur “investigators” who work for a friendly organization and who have not a clue on what to look for, what questions to ask, or how to properly document their pseudo-investigation.

Then again, it is quite possible that this is the only course Obama can take because he really cannot produce the long-form birth certificate since it does not exist. That doubt will always be there until Obama puts it to rest in a forthright manner, if he can. If he can’t, then Obama really ought not be President not for where he may have been born, but because he has lied to the American public and sought the office on false pretense.

Obama Issues the Mainstream Media Ignores or Deliberately Hides

2008-09-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

Where was Obama really born? This could be laid to rest very simply, but Obama refuses (or can’t) produce a valid birth certificate proving that he was born in Hawaii. The Obama “Fight the Smears” web site has already admitted that Obama was a Kenyan citizen whose citizenship lapsed in 1982. So, was he born in Kenya or Hawaii? This question is important because the man who will be sworn in as President is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution. How can one do that if one is in violation of said Constitution by falsifying birth records and lying about it? What is there to hide if one has a valid birth certificate?

There is an alleged 1999 incident where Obama received oral sex from Larry Sinclair and smoked crack and snorted cocaine. Larry Sinclair willingly accepted a polygraph to prove that he was telling the truth. However, the organization that ran the test used an “expert” with phony credentials. They never released the results of the second test which was analyzed by a real expert. Sinclair passed the automated polygraph. The organization (Whitehouse.com) is a partisan, pro-Obama organization run by a pornographer. We already know that Obama will not volunteer to submit to a polygraph and he refuses to provide proof of his whereabouts on the date in question. Given that Obama admitted in his books that he once used cocaine and crack, the Sinclair allegation is that much more believable.

It is alleged that Obama has more than casual connections with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, both former members of the Weatherman Underground. As recently as 2005 Ayers bragged about “getting off” and said they should have blown up more things. Even though Obama and Ayers keep crossing paths (Columbia, University of Chicago Law School, his neighborhood, Obama’s political “coming out party” hosted by Ayers and Dohrn in their house) we are supposed to believe that Obama has no relationship with Ayers. Why is this not worthy of investigation?

Obama’s association with ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) a group with a long record of voter fraud and sometimes violent activism is also suspect, but seldom reported on. This is critical because ACORN is also tied to the recent bailout plan pushed by the Democrats. Obama is benefiting from the mess he and ACORN helped promote.

See this article by the former Secretary of State for Ohio (who happens to be an African-American) for the incriminating connection between Obama and ACORN that the press will not discuss: Ken Blackwell.

Obama’s connections with Frank Davis, a known and avowed member of the Communist Party USA are suspect. In his own book, Obama calls the man his mentor. Should we not be concerned with that kind of relationship and how that would shape Obama’s character? Obama’s mentor is someone who advocated the overthrow of the United States government and we should not question how that affects Obama’s views?

One of the people on Obama’s campaign staff is Jodie Davis, co-founder of Code Pink, whose members attempted to disrupt the Republican National Convention during John McCain’s speech.

Obama is a friend and associate of former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who pleaded guilty of corruption charges and resigned from office in September 2008. If Obama were a Republican, the media would have swarmed this one looking for any tenuous link.

Then there are the sordid details of Obama and Tony Rezko. Here are eight facts about the Rezko-Obama connection from the Chicago Sun-Times on 24 January 2008.

1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down.

2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers -- primarily not-for-profit groups -- building low-income housing with government funds.

3. One of the firm's not-for-profit clients -- the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama's then-boss Allison Davis -- was partners with Rezko's company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator's time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko's company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm's clients in four later deals -- none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar "made the decisions for the joint venture," says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm.

4. In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 -- representing a district that included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.

5. Rezko's low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building -- which was in Obama's Illinois Senate district.

6. In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko -- a member of his campaign finance committee -- held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.

7. A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood -- a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million -- $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife paid full price -- $625,000 -- for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it "boneheaded" because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.

8. Eight months later -- in October 2006 -- Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama's run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity.

To which we can add 9. Rezko has been convicted of the charges.

Then there is the Reverend Wright association. How can one claim friendship with and sit in a church for twenty years while that friend spews hatred of whites and hatred of America, and then claim to want to represent all Americans? Obama threw Wright under the bus only when it became politically necessary to do so.

What all these things show is Obama’s consistent track record of dubious judgment in associations at a minimum.

The citizenship issue is a more critical Constitutional issue that Obama should be, but is not, interested in resolving.

Obama’s association with ACORN should be raising red flags, but is widely ignored.

America is being ill-served by the mainstream media who have totally abandoned any pretense of being the impartial watchdog for the American people. The mainstream media have become part of the Obama campaign.

America, you are asking for a Chavez-type government if you elect Barack Obama.

Electoral Map Review for 27 September 2008

2008-09-29T00:11:00.000-04:00

Clarence Page, in a recent commentary, took up the issue that there may be a hidden bias that is not being captured in the daily polls. Some commentators seem to be laying the groundwork in the event that if Obama loses, they can rail about racism in America. But more to the point, Clarence Page argues that since this potential hidden bias is thought to be about 5% that means that Obama cannot be happy with any lead that is less than 6%.

Where is this racial bias? It is within the Democratic Party and among Independents. Most Republicans are going to vote Republican no matter whom the Democratic candidate is. What helps Republicans win these kinds of elections is getting Democrats to cross over and taking enough Independents. We can’t ignore this potential impact.

Other Trends:
Among Democrats Obama lead 85% to 10% for McCain with 5% undecided.
Among Independents McCain leads 45% to 44% for Obama with 11% undecided.
Among Republicans McCain leads 89% to 9% for Obama with only 2% undecided.

As close as things are, the election will turn on the 16% undecided Democrats and Independents.

If the hidden racial bias is the 5% that some are estimating, this is what the Electoral Map looks like on Election Day. The darker shades are where the candidate carries the state by more that 5%, while the lighter shades indicate less than 5%.

Racial Bias Scenario

It is the day after the first debate. Too early to tell what the impact will be, but the most recent major event (the financial meltdown) can be seen to have an impact.

Keep in mind that Real Clear Politics simply averages a bunch of polls without regard to potential bias or differences between the “registered voter” model and the “likely voter” model. My map includes other intangibles like trends over time, history and difficult to quantify attitudes. I also dropped old polls, obvious outliers and any “registered voter” polls.

Real Clear 27 September 2008

My Electoral Map 27 September 2008

Where We Agree But…

PA: Still close though the last week has improved Obama’s numbers. Still a toss-up and not out of reach for McCain.

MI: After cutting Obama’s lead to about 2%, McCain lost ground again, but suddenly Obama lost ground right back. Obama currently has a 3.75% lead. This one could move back to toss-up.

NH: Starting to lean McCain. Obama has a .4% lead right now. If the trend continues, McCain will take a lead soon.

Where We Differ:

ME: After my adjustments, Obama has a 4.5% lead. This one is getting close. Obama by 2% on Election Day.

OH: Although McCain’s lead has dropped somewhat, I’m still sticking with historical trends. McCain by 4% on Election Day.

WI: I’ve got WI in Obama’s column, but it is remaining closer than I expected. Obama by 3% on Election Day.

MN: I’ve still got MN in Obama’s column, but like WI it is close. Obama by 2% on Election Day.

IN: Again I’m sticking with history even though Obama has closed the gap. McCain by 4% on Election Day.

VA: Sticking with history even though Obama currently has a slight lead. McCain by 5% on Election Day.

FL: Obama seems to have peaked here. McCain by 5% on Election Day.

MO: McCain’s numbers softened a little, but I don’t think Obama will flip this one. McCain by 7% on Election Day.

NV: Obama not showing any traction here. McCain by 5% on Election Day.

NC: It’s close now, but not really a toss up. McCain by 6% on Election Day.

CO: Still really a toss up. Real Clear is counting some significant outliers in their numbers. McCain by 2% on Election Day.

NJ: I show Obama recovering here so that NJ is no longer just leaning Obama. Obama by 8% on Election Day.

WV: I don’t see Obama getting votes he did not get in the Primaries. McCain by 10% on Election Day.

The Scary Scenario

2008-09-26T16:00:00.000-04:00

This Electoral Map, based upon past performance and current polls, is entirely possible. The darker shades represent each candidate winning by more than 5% while lighter shades represent each candidate winning by less than 5%

The best way to break it would be if Maine's Electoral votes were split (which is permissible under their system).

The worst way would be for the House to vote (guaranteed to cause an uproar).

Let us hope that someone wins by a landslide, (the most unlikely scenario) so that there are no arguments about race, sex, age or any other excuses. Though I guess the race argument will be there no matter what happens.

The Scary Scenario

Electoral Map Review for 24 September 2008

2008-09-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

It has been five days since my last Electoral Map review. Here are the changes since the last review. What I’ve done this time is throw out all “registered voter” polls. In some cases this has made McCain’s support look softer, in others Obama’s. The main point is that averaging “registered voter” and “likely voter” polls is comparing apples and oranges. So, I threw out the oranges and I’m only comparing apples. Most polls are using the “likely voter” model anyway

Real Clear Politics Electoral Map 23 Sep 2008

My Electoral Map 23 Sep 2008

Where we agree

CO: No change. Still a dead heat with Obama up by only 1%.

PA: Still a statistical dead heat. Again if this one flips to McCain, it is election over for Obama.

NH: This tossup has gotten tighter with Obama having a 2% lead.

MI: McCain’s post-convention bounce gone, this one now leans Obama at slightly over 5%. The next three weeks will be most critical here.

WI: Still a toss-up, surprisingly McCain has not yet lost his bounce here. Now the best chance for a flip to McCain.

OR: Obama with a 4% lead that keeps dipping. I never guessed this one would be this close. If he dips below his current lead, then it’s a toss-up and the Democrats have to start worrying.

Where we differ

ME: Obama’s support seems to have slipped here. Leaning doesn’t help Obama if they split the vote close to 50 – 50. With only a 4% lead now, down from 14%, this state is close to becoming a toss-up. Since this state splits its Electoral vote it can’t be considered a lock for Obama. Neither candidate wins all these Electoral Votes.

NY: Still a strong lean for Obama with a 9%, but down significantly from the double-digit leads he previously had. As long as Obama stays above 5% in the polls, this one is safe for the Democrats. Below 5%, they should be nervous.

MN: McCain’s post-convention bounce gone here too. Obama now has a 5% lead, but like MI the next three weeks will be most telling.

OH: McCain is running a fairly consistent 5% lead when “registered voter” models are dropped. Even Bush won this state twice by less than 4%, so I’m sticking with McCain by 4%.

IN: Dropping all the “registered voter” polls and the biased IndyStar poll this one looks closer because there is only one poll left standing, but I’m sticking with historical trends on Indiana and saying it stays McCain by about 4%.

VA: SurveyUSA has been a consistent outlier in VA so I’m discounting their results. ABC/Washington Post are so biased in favor of Obama that their results are suspect at face value. Dropping the National Journal “registered voter” poll that was an outlier in McCain’s favor, it means that statistically it is a dead heat. However, I’m still going with 44 years of history and saying that McCain wins VA by about 7%.

FL: It’s gotten closer, but I’m still giving McCain a 5% margin in this state.

NV: No change. No polls show Obama with a lead. I’m still saying McCain by about 4%.

WA: Obama now only has a 3.5% lead so it’s now a toss-up. Like OR, I’m somewhat surprised by this one.

The first debate is in two days. I'm looking for some movement next week.

Electoral Map Review

2008-09-20T13:00:00.000-04:00

In my last post I discussed how to look at poll numbers. One source of bias that I neglected to mention, and one which further muddies the water, is the difference between polling “registered voters” and “likely voters.” Polls that use the “registered voter” model will almost always show a Democratic bias. Even in states that are strongly “red states” the strength of the state’s “redness” is reduced when using the “registered voter” model.

The “likely voter” model is thought to eliminate this bias, but it can also be biased if the pollster simply asks, “are you likely to vote?” A preferred method is to use historical data to identify the demographic groups with stronger likelihood of voting. This is where the “weighting” you may have heard of being discussed comes into play. Faulty weighting can reintroduce bias.

Electoral Vote Maps

The first map is the Real Clear Politics Electoral count for 19 September 2008. My map for the same day appears below. Note that the maps are not really too different, but a couple states change the numbers. On my map, I applied all the factors I discussed in the previous post. I threw out outdated polls (pre-convention) and I scrutinized polls likely to contain partisan bias or flagrant statistical outliers. In some cases I looked at the historical trends both in previous elections and poll trends to break what currently look to be dead heats.

Real Clear Politics Electoral Map 19 September 2008

My Electoral Map 19 September 2008

Let us begin with some obvious and easy to justify differences. MT and ND are shown by Real Clear to be “pink” or leaning to McCain. I contend that both are strong “red” states. Neither status changes the Electoral Vote count.

MT: The MT average includes one poll from February where McCain had an 8% lead and one from May again showing an 8% lead. The latest Rasmussen poll conducted after both conventions shows McCain up 11%. Obama had a brief moment in the MT sun in July, but neither before nor since has he polled in positive territory in MT. MT is a “red” state, not a “pink” state.

ND: The ND average includes a February poll where Obama had a 4% lead and a preconvention poll paid for by the Democrats where he had a 3% lead. The only post-convention poll was conducted by Rasmussen and it shows a 14% McCain lead. Again, this state was not ever in danger for the Republicans and remains a “red” state.

The Map Differences

NV: McCain holds a slight lead, but I’m letting history say that this state is actually leaning to McCain instead of being a tossup. Over time most polls show McCain on top and the state usually goes Republican. The InAdv polls look to have significant statistical bias. However, in this case I left their results in the numbers pending newer polls. If future polls show results closer to the Rasmussen numbers, then I’d toss the InAdv poll numbers. Either way, I think that McCain wins this state by about 4%.

IN: Real Clear shows this one a tossup, but in the middle of their numbers is a poll by the IndyStar that deviates from other polls by about 200% showing Obama up 3%. Their own data shows they relied heavily on interviews in Indianapolis and they admitted that Indianapolis is the only place in the state where Obama has any lead whatsoever. After tossing this statistically flawed poll, the state is back to “pink.” I’m calling this one McCain by at least 5% in November. The last time IN went Democratic was in 1964.

VA: Given Obama’s steep falloff the last few days here, I’m putting this one in the McCain column. Most polls since the conventions are showing McCain with about a 4% lead. I’m going with 44 years of Republican victories here and saying that McCain wins VA by at least 7% come November, which is a falloff from Bush in 2004 and 2000.

In Agreement For Now But…

OH: Most polls are showing McCain up by an average of 4%. A recent CNN/Time poll is showing Obama by 2% which brings the numbers back into a range making this look closer. I didn’t throw any numbers out on this one yet and though I’m also showing it as a toss up. Waiting on new numbers, at this point I’m predicting McCain by 4% in November.

CO: Real Clear and I agree on this one, but Real Clear has added the clearly biased InAdv poll showing Obama up 10%. This number is about 1000% higher than any other poll so I tossed their poll numbers. All other polls show this one a dead heat. Almost all InAdv poll numbers in every state are showing a deviation of 200% or higher over other polls. Either they are deliberately biased or they have faulty weighting. Either way their numbers are suspect. I think this one will tilt to McCain, but I’m holding it in tossup until I see more numbers from other polls with more reliable credentials.

PA: This state was only ever “baby blue” so there was always a chance for McCain. The most recent numbers are showing a dead heat with between 6-10% undecided. Most significant is that Obama had as much as a 9% lead before the conventions and that has evaporated. Anything can happen here. If this state goes McCain on November 4, McCain will win the Presidency.

MI: Has gone from “baby blue” to “gray.” Combined with increasing gains by Republicans over the past two elections, this is a trend that should worry Democrats. Obama had a 9% lead at one point. I don’t think it likely to flip, but Obama will be forced to expend resources to defend this state.

MN: This year is probably the Republican’s best shot at taking this state. Obama had a solid 15% lead in this state that has evaporated and the state has trended Republican the past two elections. It is now a dead heat. This one may flip, but it will still be close. Neither candidate will win by more than 3%.

WI: This is another state that Democrats should worry about and is the Republicans’ second best chance to flip a traditionally Democratic state. Obama had an 11% lead in July that has steadily eroded. This one is a statistical dead heat. McCain has come on strong here the past week. Even if Obama hangs on, he will be forced to spend resources in order to defend this state. Like MI and MN, this state has been trending Republican in recent elections.

NH: I suspect NH will move into the Obama column within the next week and that he will win it by about 4% in November.

Closer Than They Should Be

WA: Now that McCain’s convention bounce has worn off, this one is back to leaning to Obama. WA was looking like it was moving to being a tossup. Still, considering that he once held a commanding 12% lead that is now only a little over 4%, one must wonder. This one could tighten again, but there is little play in the numbers.

OR: I’m thinking Obama wins this one by about 5% come November. His numbers, while consistently positive, have been sliding. Rasmussen had Obama up by 10% prior to the conventions, but on 15 September had him at only 4%. That may be the tail end of the McCain bounce, but we’ll need to see more data. The Portland Tribune gave Obama a 10% margin in a survey done prior to Rasmussen. I discount that number until I see more.

The bottom line is that the election remains close. Will we see a shakeup following the debates?

A Brief Poll Primer

2008-09-18T12:17:00.000-04:00

Every four years we get inundated with political polls as people suddenly find their two month attention-span for politics. There are literally dozens of polling agencies at almost every level tracking everything from local races to the Presidential Election. While in reality the state house and gubernatorial races have the most direct impact on us, we get fixated on the Presidential race probably because it affects us all no matter which state we call home. And the media fan that flame too.

As a continuing public service, I’m providing a philosophy for wading through the myriad of numbers. “Tempest-in-a Teapot” provided a link in an earlier comment here to Real Clear Politics, a site I also use. It is tempting and easy to do no further analysis and accept their average numbers at face-value, but this is a mistake. The real value in Real Clear is not their suspect averages, but that they provide numbers from multiple polling companies and links to those companies’ web sites in one location. Real Clear usually posts polls within twenty-four hours of release. They also provide a few handy tools like the Electoral Vote map that you can change if you so choose to do your own analysis as well as points of view on the issues and candidates from both the right and the left. In that sense they are very “fair and balanced,” to steal a particular network’s motto.

When looking at poll numbers, one of the first questions that should cross your mind is, “who paid for the poll?” Not all polls are created equal and some exist not just to measure opinions and attitudes at a particular point in time (non-partisan polls do this), but to shape voter behavior come Election Day (partisan polls do this).

Real Clear does a good job labeling the polls that were paid for by either party (these are indicated by a (D) or (R) beside the pollster’s name). However, in addition to these obvious potentially biased polls, there are those conducted by independent but politically biased entities whose results can be suspect. It becomes important to do your research on the pollster.

Polls conducted by CNN/Time, SurveyUSA, MSNBC are consistently biased in favor of Democrats. FOX polls tend to favor Republicans. About the only time that any network’s involvement in a poll can be taken with a level of confidence in objectivity is when they team with a non-partisan pollster like Gallop, Rasmussen, Zogby, or Mason-Dixon. In those instances the independent polling agency designs the poll and oversees the collection of data by the network. There are others that are non-partisan, but these are the biggest ones with the best reputations. Quinnipiac provides independent polling data primarily in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. Their polls tend to have large sample-sizes relative to the population and low margins of error.

Ideally, one would analyze sample size (but then you need to also understand the demographics and total population from which the sample was drawn), how respondents are selected, examine the pollster’s questions, their admitted causes of probable error, and their stated margin of error. For the average person this can be daunting and prohibitively time consuming. Therefore hone in on two things: first, the “who paid for it” question and second, the stated margin of error. Have a high level of confidence on a truly non-partisan poll with a stated margin of error below 3%. If the margin of error is above this level, then be suspect of the poll numbers. If the poll is partisan, be very suspect. If the difference between the two candidates' poll numbers is less than or equal to the margin of error, then consider the poll a "dead heat." Only when the difference is greater than the margin of error can you consider the poll leaning one way or the other.

Look at the poll’s history over several months. As stated earlier, an advantage of Real Clear is that they provide this information by state at a glance. If you see a particular poll with significant deviation from all the other agencies polling within the same timeframe, then be suspicious as to their method, or their purpose. If an obviously partisan poll gives the opponent an edge, then accept the number if it is within range of other polls conducted at the same time.

Out-of-range numbers are called “statistical outliers” and as a rule should not be included in averages. I am talking numbers that vary in the 50 – 100 percent range. For example, there are five polls taken in a given week. Four out of five produce results showing a difference between two candidates in a range of 5 – 8 percent favoring candidate “A”. The fifth poll shows a spread of 8% in the opposite direction (a 100% deviation), favoring candidate “B”. If the outlier is an obvious “partisan” poll, then without question discard the number. If the poll is non-partisan and its history over time shows it a consistent outlier, then include the number.

Look at when a particular poll was taken. If it is older than a couple weeks or before some major event that could be expected to influence numbers (Democratic and Republican conventions for example), discard the poll unless there are no other numbers, at which point you need to start weighing other factors or simply guess.

Using Real Clear’s averages can be misleading for the following reasons:

a. Real Clear treats all polls equally. There is no assumption of potential bias and obvious statistical outliers are included.
b. Real Clear averages often include significantly outdated polls that skew the resulting average.
c. Real Clear averages often include polls taken prior to significant events that one could reasonably expect to alter opinions.
d. Real Clear averages polls with differing margins of error. This compounds the first error.

In other words, they often wind up comparing apples to oranges to bananas. If one assumes that this fruit salad is therefore more accurate, one will often be mistaken.

Enter the final piece to analyzing poll numbers and that is in knowing the polity of a particular state in all these polls. What is the balance of rural vs urban, how have they voted in past elections and is there an observable trend? Is the population traditionally conservative or liberal (this apart from voting history)? Typically rural populations are conservative (there are exceptions) and urban populations are liberal (there are exceptions).

For example, Minnesota has not voted Republican since 1984, but the numbers of people voting for the Republican candidate have gotten progressively larger, even with an unpopular Republican on the ticket, the past two elections and the Republican margin of defeat has gotten smaller. These factors can be indicators of potential outcome and constitute a trend. Combined with the trend of how the numbers have been moving over the course of the election cycle, you may have a strong indicator of the direction a particular state is moving.

Always remember that polls are snapshot of opinion in a discreet window of time and they change, sometimes wildly within a few days depending upon events. In my next post I will compare the Real Clear Electoral Map, which is constructed using average poll data including the flaws I listed above, with my own map that includes the filtering techniques I’ve discussed in this post. Until then go to Real Clear and try these methods on your own map to see how the map changes. Concentrate on the states they are calling "toss-ups" or "leaning" one way or the other.

More Reality Check

2008-09-12T03:47:00.000-04:00

In her comment to my last post “Tempest in a Teapot” took exception to how I apportioned various states. In my comment on the last post, I explained my methodology, which was far more involved than simply looking at Real Clear Politics’ web site and accepting their numbers at face value.

In this post, I will show why the states to which “Tempest” took exception do not belong where she would like to see them. Wishful thinking and dated average poll numbers are no substitute for analysis.

MD is leaning Obama, a point I already made. MD leans that way predominantly due to Baltimore, but anti-Bush angst isn’t a guarantee this time around, though that's the theme the Obama campaign is trying so hard to emphasize. As I counted MD in my final Obama count anyway, "Tempest's" argument is moot.

ME has no new polling data since 12 August. Gore carried the state with 5% in 2000 and the more reviled Bush lost by 9% to Kerry. Bush is not on the ticket this time around and there is a significant conservative, rural population. Pending a new poll, I’m predicting that Bush’s absence combined with Palin will make this state much closer this time around. As this state allocates electoral votes on a proportional methodology, neither candidate is likely to get all the votes here.

MN was chosen by the Republicans for the convention because the state has been trending Republican the past two elections. Both Gore and Kerry barely won MN, which was a big reversal from previous elections and that was even with Bush being unpopular. Bush pulled more votes in MN than Reagan twice and in 2004, Bush pulled more votes in MN than any Republican has ever pulled. There isn’t a poll available since the conventions, but Obama only had a 2% lead prior to the conventions so it was statistically a dead heat.

PA barely went Democrat the last two elections and has been trending Republican even with unpopular Bush running. Clinton won the state by just below 10% twice. But GW only lost PA to Gore by 4.2% and to Kerry by 2.5 %. In 2004 Bush pulled more votes in PA than any Republican since Nixon in 1972. Western PA is conservative and will turn out in numbers sufficient to swing the state to the Republicans this time around. Don’t think for one moment the Republicans won’t re-emphasize what Obama said about guns, religion and the poor dumb folks in the PA hills during the Primaries…which he lost heavily to Clinton. Obama has a post-convention lead of only 2% (statistical dead heat) down from a 12% advantage.

VT has had no new polling data since February. I’ll concede this one for now, but I suspect Obama’s lead is not the 34% it was back in February.

WA will be closer than the past two elections when the Dems won by 5.5% and 8.2% respectively. Obama’s support in the polls has been dropping steadily in WA since mid-August, but took its biggest tumble this past week. He now only holds a 4% 2% lead in WA where he once had a 12% lead. The last two elections the unpopular GW pulled significantly more votes than any Republican since Reagan in 1984 and he beat Reagan’s total both times. This one is winnable for McCain and now a toss-up.

IL is not a shoo-in for Obama. No polling data for IL since 12 Aug, at which point Obama’s support had dropped 6%. While Obama has what may look like a comfortable lead now, everything depends upon downstate voters who traditionally vote Republican. If they are fired up, and they were not the past two elections, they can overwhelm Obama’s Chicago advantage, which is exactly how Republicans have won the state in the past.

MI has also been trending Republican. In 2004, again with very unpopular Bush as the Dems enemy, he picked up 2% points over what he did against Gore. Current polls have McCain and Obama dead even in MI or within the margin of error. MI is most definitely a battleground and in no way assured for the Democrats. Bush the Lesser pulled more votes in MI than Clinton did in his two terms. In 2004, Bush pulled more votes than Reagan did in 1984. Post-convention polls have Obama up by only 1% (statistical dead heat). Very winnable for McCain.

WI: Gore won WI by only .2% (point two percent) in 2000 and Kerry doubled that to .4% (point four percent) in 2004, with unpopular Bush as the opponent. WI has been trending Republican the last two elections even with an unpopular Republican candidate. WI used to be safe for Democrats. Obama has a post-convention lead of 3% (statistical dead heat as it is within the margin of error), down from a 12% lead before the conventions.

FL was looking like it might go Democratic a month ago, but Obama’s chances there have been erased. When Hillary Clinton was speaking in FL on 9 September, she didn’t mention Obama by name in her remarks. That is not a good sign for Democrats. The unpopular Bush beat Kerry in FL in 2004 by over 5% and that after the angst of 2000. McCain has a post-convention lead of 5%.

NC is most definitely NOT a swing state and never has been. McCain holds a solid lead there and even Bush won over both Gore and Kerry by over 12%. Democrats are delusional if they think NC has become a swing state. The closest it has ever been for Democrats is when there were Southern Democrats running for President (Carter and Clinton) and even Clinton couldn’t take it from Dole. McCain has a post-convention lead of 12%.

NM: Gore won NM by only 366 votes when it was considered “safe” for the Dems given Clinton’s big wins there twice. Bush beat Kerry by about 6,000 votes. NM will go Republican this time by a solid majority primarily because Bush is not on the ticket, but the Palin factor will be significant here too. McCain as a 2% post-convention lead in NM, erasing the 13% lead Obama had prior to the conventions. No longer leaning Obama, NM is now a toss-up.

VA, a state "Tempest" declared a “swing” state, has not voted Democrat in 44 years (Johnson in 1964). And "Tempest" criticizes my analysis on states that haven’t voted Republican in twenty years, even though they’ve been trending that way? Bush won VA by a solid 8% twice. VA was looking like a potential battleground state a month ago, but is now slipping back to McCain. Palin will swing VA for McCain. McCain has a post-convention lead of 2% (statistical dead heat), but given history, no Bush, and Palin factors, McCain’s lead will increase.

Fact is McCain got a bigger bounce than Obama from the conventions. The daily Gallup is not favoring the Democrats (McCain leading 48% to 44% with a margin of error 2%), nor are the weekly tallies (McCain leading 49% to 44% with a margin of error 1%). McCain has recaptured Republican voters (89%), now leads with Independents (52%) and has cut into Obama’s Democrats (14%). The shifts are significant and cut across every major group except race.

As for looking at poll numbers, the most telling statistic is Obama’s softening support. New Jersey was once solid for Obama, now it is only “leaning.” Toss-ups are starting to lean McCain. Michigan, once leaning Obama, is now a toss-up. McCain’s support is solidifying in states that were only leaning a month ago.

And since “Tempest” likes Real Clear Politics, as of today their count is 217 for Obama and 216 for McCain.

The Democrat’s Conundrum

2008-09-05T07:40:00.000-04:00

The Dem’s have a big problem. It’s always been there, but it just got worse. For Obama to win in November, he can’t play to the liberal base of the Democratic Party. If he does, he loses the middle. McCain, on the other hand, must play to the conservative base. Playing to the middle does not work for Republicans.

With the selection of Sarah Palin, the McCain campaign made its strongest play to the conservative base. With that selection, it is likely that Obama will not win a single Southern state. It is highly unlikely that Obama can win the Presidency without winning at least one Southern state. He will have a serious fight in all states with large rural/small-town populations; read that more conservative states.

A look at the numbers

For McCain:

These states are likely secure for the Republicans: AK, AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WV, WY (239 electoral votes). VA was Obama’s best bet to steal a Southern state, but that was when conservatives were non-committal. That probably changed by adding Palin to the ticket.

For Obama:

These states, including the District of Columbia, are likely secure for the Democrats: CA, CT, DC, DE, HI, MA, NJ, NY, OR, RI (141 electoral votes). His selection of Biden as a running mate was a big mistake. What states that Obama didn't already have does Biden bring to the table?

Toss up or “Battleground States”

Most of these states have large rural/small-town populations that tend to be more conservative, but they also have urban cores that tend to be more liberal and can go either way: CO, IA, IL, IN, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, OH, PA, VT, WA, WI (158 electoral votes).

Of these CO is probably leaning to McCain (which would bring McCain to 248 electoral votes), while MD is probably leaning to Obama (which would bring Obama to 151 electoral votes). The rest are too close to call for the time being.

Therefore the election comes down to the following seven states: IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, PA, and WI (states with at least 10 electoral votes). All these states were closely contested in the last two elections. The biggest prizes in this mix are IL, OH and PA with 62 votes between them.

There are 538 electoral votes and it takes 270 electoral votes to win. McCain needs to win one of the following: IL, OH or PA plus one small state (22 votes). If Obama loses any of these three, he will likely lose the election.

Much can happen between now and November. The debates will likely shake out a few of the “too close to call” states. That’s my reading of the tea leaves. As the weeks pass and we get closer, I’ll refine my projections. One thing for certain, the election became a lot more interesting than it was looking like a month ago. A month ago I gave McCain a lock on half as many electoral votes.

Pakistani Editorial

2008-09-03T01:16:00.000-04:00

Below in its entirety is an editorial in the 2 September Daily Times. There are some interesting points raised which are worth noting, specifically the analysis about Iran's role in Afghanistan.

It does show that the Muslim world is no more monolithic than the West and that some serious issues exist between several nations in the region.

Peace with our neighbours...Daily Times (Pakistan)

2 September 2008
At an All Parties Consultative Conference held by Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (JUIF) in Peshawar on Sunday, Maulana Rehman recommended that Pakistan should form a “regional bloc to put an end to the lingering Afghan imbroglio, which was impinging on peace and security in NWFP”. He also said, “The conference deems presence of world powers in Afghanistan a threat to the interest of Asian countries, and invites the regional states to play their role in bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan and FATA”.

One must study “the neighbourhood” more carefully before opining on the Maulana’s proposal. But there is another interesting opinion printed in a paper on Monday in which Mr Masood Sharif, an ex-Intelligence Bureau boss and a former member of the Central Executive Committee of the PPP, writes that only Iran is not hostile to Pakistan among its neighbours. He also takes a particularly Pashtun view of the situation and accuses the Pakistan Army of killing his fellow ethnic clansmen. On India, his opinion is of a piece with core sections of the Urdu media: India’s “policy is devastating for Pakistan because it pins down the Pakistani Army, pits it against its own people and limits its operational options elsewhere, besides subjecting it to war fatigue and attrition”.

When Maulana Rehman talks of “world powers”, he means America and the consensus in Europe against Al Qaeda and its ability to train terrorists on Pakistani territory and send them to the West. But in the most recent missile hit by NATO forces in our Tribal Areas, there were two Muslims of Canadian origin. Canada is the most peace-loving of all the states in the West, but it is in Afghanistan because it fears that Pakistan is no longer able to control what goes on inside its territory. But if we believe that the world powers are making mischief against Pakistan — and compelling warlords like Baitullah Mehsud to kill innocent Pakistanis including Pashtuns through his suicide-bombers! — how can we at the same time assume that the “region” is with us?

Maulana Rehman probably wants us to get together with Iran, Uzbekistan and India to discuss the matter of “world powers intervention”. But all three are behind the Northern Alliance which has become dominant under the government of a Pashtun president in Afghanistan. Iran’s interest may clash with that of America on its western borders but it lies squarely with the Northern Alliance in general and the Tajik community in particular whom it backed against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 1998, when the Taliban overran Mazar-e-Sharif, they killed Iranian diplomats in the consulate there, following which Iran accused militants from Pakistan of doing the deed.

These days, Iran has a sensible policy on the Pakistanis crossing the border into Iran as illegal migrants. Unlike India, it doesn’t kill them but hauls them up on a daily basis to the Pakistani border and hands them over. But have the Maulana and Mr Masood Sharif thought about what Iran thinks of the massacre of the Shia allowed by Islamabad in the Kurram agency? The news is that after Pakistan abandoned its Shias to the mercy of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, warriors from the Hazara region of Afghanistan are coming in to defend their brethren in faith. And who has traditionally helped the Hazaras in Afghanistan? And who is training the Hazara warriors and making them capable of fighting the Sunni fanaticism of Afghanistan and Pakistan? No matter how badly Iran may want to punish the US in Afghanistan, it is not going to support any strategy proposed by Islamabad.

Uzbekistan has the same kind of economic and cultural nexus with Mazar-e-Sharif as Iran has with Herat. Just as Iran saw Herat being ruled by Col Imam of the ISI from Pakistan under the Taliban, Uzbekistan saw the massacre of innocent citizens of Mazar by the Taliban in 1998, and accused Pakistan of masterminding the attack. Today our Tribal Areas are crawling with rebel Uzbek warriors who were trained in Pakistan earlier and have been trying to kill the president of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is backed by Russia and the real punch of the anti-Pakistan alliance in Afghanistan comes from Russian backing. Should we therefore consult with Russia too as a regional “friend”? Are we aware how many heads the “neighbours” would want delivered on a platter before they even talk to us?

As for India, the perception in New Delhi is that Pakistan is strategically frozen in its revisionist stance and is still not ready to abandon its policy of asymmetrical conflict. (There is some evidence that we are reviving the “option” again!) The Indians are therefore entrenching themselves in the very area that we used when we trained jihadists for fighting in Kashmir. The policy that will suit us today is to promote normalisation and trade, including investment, with India, at a fast pace without however retreating from our position on Kashmir. Any other “brave” policy of confrontation will harm us. The real crisis is internal and it can be solved only by preventing our soil from being used to harm our neighbours.

Second Editorial: ...and the missing Chinese

If there is one neighbour with whom we can discuss our predicament in the Tribal Areas with any self-confidence, it is China. But the latest news in this regard is not good at all. Two Chinese engineers, along with their driver and a security guard, have gone missing while checking installations in the NWFP near the border with Afghanistan. The two belonged to Zhongxing Telecommunications and were probably supervising their communications tower in the area. The case is that of kidnapping. If it is done by the local criminals posing as Taliban, they will ask for money and will sell them either to China or to its enemies who are also found in our Tribal Areas.

China is one “neighbour” that expects to be sympathetic to our plight, but there is a limit to Chinese tolerance too, given the fact that Islamist insurgency in the Western Province of China is being stoked in part from our Tribal Areas, as confessed by ex-president Pervez Musharraf not long ago. In any conference of our neighbours China can only sit silently watching our helplessness in the face of the mischief being hatched against the world from our territory.

More on the French Casualties

2008-08-24T09:05:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying that I have not been able to verify any details. It will be a while before any reports are published and made public. However, one hears bits and pieces because people talk. I won't discuss details, but will speak in generalities. So this is what I've heard about the ambush that killed ten French Soldiers on Monday, 18 August.

Like the attack last month that killed nine Americans, our complacency may have contributed significantly to the casualties. On the battlefield, complacency gets you killed. There is no redo when you screw up. The only time the Taliban try to take on a NATO unit head on, is when they believe they have an immediate advantage. The Taliban watch our patrols. If they determine that our patrols are being complacent, then they believe that they can achieve surprise and tactical advantage.

Apparently the French violated some fundamental tactical rules. One of those rules is, when going into "Injun country," be prepared to fight. The word floating around is that a number of the French soldiers had removed their body armor and had left their weapons in vehicles while they were on the ground. If true, this is a big screw up. They weren't prepared to fight. Again, I can't positively verify this, but I'm a believer of the "where there is smoke, there is fire" theory.

Almost all the casualties occurred in the first minute, not minutes, of the three-hour fight. (This seems to be a consistent retelling of when the casualties occurred.) If so, it would seem that the Taliban force did achieve complete tactical surprise. After that, the patrol salvaged the situation.
Taliban tactics are hardly worthy of praise. They lingered after the initial engagement long enough to get themselves beat up after having successfully inflicted serious casualties on a superior armed force. They should have broken contact within two minutes and headed for the hills before our air could start pounding them.

It is possible that French return fire pinned the Taliban so that they could not escape, but if that is true, then the Taliban commander screwed up in a different way. Covered and concealed escape routes should have already been selected so that his force could break contact. Whether by deliberate design or because of being pinned, the Taliban suffered far worse casualties than the French. Helicopter gunships and ground attack jets drove them all the way to and over the Pakistan border.

While the media portrays such an attack as demonstrating a "resurgent" or "brazen" Taliban, what it really shows is that they are poorly led. Their commanders are not competent if they wind up getting the ambushing force that badly mauled. A competent guerrilla commander would not have hung around to allow an opponent known to have superior fire-power, to use that fire-power.

In every engagement where our forces manage to avoid complacency and get the Taliban to fight us, we win big with minimal casualties. We can defeat them over time that way. Even when our guys have messed up, we still inflict disproportionate casualties on the Taliban.

The difference is that the Taliban do not have their own media crowing for the enemy. They can lose hundreds of fighters in a single engagement, but our media will say that they are "resurgent." Our media will paint the story as doom and gloom for the coalition.

Our troops have to pick up the paper and read that the media have determined that they are losing the war every time one Soldier is killed. God help us when we have a bad day and ten are killed. The folks at home hear the same thing over and over. Eventually they start to believe it, even though the facts on the ground say otherwise. That is what the media wrought in Iraq.

The enemy are very much in tune with Western media and how the Western public reacts to that media. They plan their actions specifically for how it will play in the Western media. The Western media plays right into their schemes, gleefully providing them with the propoganda edge they need.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership are not stupid. They know they can't win on the battlefield, but they have a pretty good idea that they have a chance to win on your television. All they have to do is stick around long enough for the folks back home to tell the politicians to "pack it in."

Opinions vs News Reporting

2008-08-22T12:14:00.000-04:00

There is a difference between reporting news and stating an opinion. Western media has gotten very bad at confusing the two. In their effort to “sell” a story, they package news in such a way that it is no longer news, but an opinion using selective bits of news to push an agenda. My opinion is that the Western media, owned by leftist-minded individuals, is pushing an agenda that advances their socialist ideals and seeks at every opportunity to discredit Western institutions.

Part of how they do this is most apparent in their “reporting” of events in the war-zone. To illustrate this, I’ll dissect the reporting of Alastair Leithead of the BBC on events that occurred on 18 August in Afghanistan. Leithead's text appears in italics.

Alastair Leithead of the BBC filed the following report on 19 August 2008:

Taleban Grow More Brazen

Kabul's early morning silence was broken last night first by the crunch of rockets exploding in the city, then by the emergency sirens at NATO headquarters warning the officers and generals to head for the shelters.

The rocket lead-in to the significant events of the day is disingenuous for a couple of reasons. First, rocket attacks are nothing new, they’ve been going on since around 2004 and for the most part, they are ineffective. These rockets may have exploded within the city limits, but in reality, they impacted at the edge of the city.

Second, he makes it sound like only officers and generals go to shelters when there are incoming rounds. The poor schmuck soldiers get to stay out and take it based on his wording. This is complete rubbish. In addition it overlooks the fact that about 99% of the city had no idea that there had been an attack until they saw the news the next day. I slept through it.

It was a vivid and eerie soundtrack of how close the insurgency is to the capital.

The second rocket attack in Kabul in less than a week will further feed the paranoia of Afghans and also the international community.

The first sentence is bad enough, but then he follow with his “…vivid and eerie soundtrack…” line. Is Alastair Leithead writing a novel, or is he reporting events? His third sentence about feeding the “paranoia” of Afghans (and idiot reporters) is laughable on the basis of how unremarkable the rocket attack was in the first place.

But that paranoia may not be misplaced - while the sirens were warning of incoming fire, French forces were fighting for their lives just 50km (31 miles) away.

They had been ambushed on Monday afternoon as they patrolled through Sarobi district in Kabul province, and despite sending in reinforcements, medical teams and attack aircraft they lost 10 soldiers - another 21 were injured.

He finally gets to one of the two truly significant events of the day, the attack on the French. But even his lead-in is not accurate in the facts. The French were ambushed in the afternoon in a fight that lasted until after dark. The fight lasted about three hours. The rockets actually came in long after the battle in Sarobi district was over, but that would have ruined his “fighting for their lives” line. Yep, generally in a firefight you are fighting for your life -- nothing new here either.

Then he says that despite reinforcements, air support, etc. 10 died and 21 were wounded. Of course this totally ignores the fact the almost all the casualties occurred in the first few minutes of the three hour long fight. Almost all the casualties occurred in the first minutes of the fight before all the extra stuff arrived to help out. After the initial surprise, the French were able to beat back the ambushers.

Word-choice and arrangement of chronological details in a way that “shaped” his story completely altered what should have been a straight-forward report on events, into an opinion article or non-fiction short-story.

Leithead continues:

It is one of the largest losses of life in NATO’s Afghan campaign and a huge blow to a French deployment which is already unpopular at home.

The first clause shows just how low-intensity things have been here the last several years. When 10 fatalities are among the largest losses of life in a seven year war, that’s saying a lot about how little has been happening.

There are reports of 100 insurgents attacking the convoy, of troops being captured and then killed.

If one is going to report on military events, it would seem that one would learn what one is talking about. It was not a convoy, it was a patrol. There is a huge difference.

What happened in that valley could have a significant impact on the French mission, so much so that President Nicolas Sarkozy is flying straight to Kabul to settle nerves and offer support.

One should know terrain terms when reporting on military events. “What happened in that valley” it wasn’t a valley, it was a mountain pass. The two terrain features are not synonyms and military implications are different.

The French soldiers may appreciate President Sarkozy’s show of support, but they didn’t need his “settling nerves.” While French politicians and the French populace may be spineless, their soldiers are not. Sarkozy’s visit was really for home consumption, not for any specific benefit for the troops.

And it wasn't the only major operation launched by the Taleban in one night.

An ambush of a patrol in an area that has not been patrolled much, isn’t a “major operation,” it is an ambush of a patrol. Nor was the ambush launched in the night. It was occurred in the afternoon.

In Khost, south eastern Afghanistan, up to 30 militants tried to storm the main American base in the town, just hours after a suicide car bomber had struck at the front gate killing 10 civilians working at Camp Salerno.

Finally, some straightforward reporting except that he phrases it such that you’d think the bad guys were “in the wire,” that they got close. Actually, they were engaged 1,000m away and never got close. Thirty dudes attacking a large US Army base is hardly a major operation. Three of the suicide bombers were shot before they could detonate and three others blew themselves up while running away.

Among those insurgents were at least half a dozen suicide bombers, trying to break into the camp and kill as many NATO soldiers as possible.

The second clause of this sentence is so redundant as to be silly. Like there is any chance that you thought the suicide bombers simply wanted to shop at the base store?

The attack was repelled and, as in Sarobi, many of the Taleban were killed or injured, but there appear to be plenty of others ready to pick up their guns, or strap on explosives vests, and take on a much better equipped and more highly trained army.

The first clause is relatively accurate, but the rest is pure supposition on his part. What constitutes “plenty” in the case of finding nuts crazy enough to blow themselves up? I have to believe that there are a finite number of people willing to do this. The fact is, every time the Taliban try to take on the “better-equipped and more highly trained army,” they get their heads handed to them. We want them to try to fight us like this. We want them to offer an open fight where they mass hundreds of guys. We have the advantage and they will lose every time.

The tactics are becoming more advanced and more brazen - it is as if the insurgents are gathering momentum of the growing insecurity and instability.

What is so advanced about a frontal assault on a fortified position where you are outgunned and outmanned? Brazen? Stupid is more like it. Again, it helps when writing about military matters to actually know what one is talking about. What Leithead completely overlooks when he talks about momentum, insecurity and instability is what was happening on the other side of the border at the same time.

The Pakistani Army is in the middle of a major operation (a real major operation involving thousands of troops) that has been going on for some sixteen days pounding the Taliban. The Taliban are not brazen, sophisticated or gathering momentum. They are fighting for their lives and they have nowhere to run.

Leithead concludes with:

On Monday, which was Afghanistan's Independence Day, much of Kabul was sealed off by thousands of extra police drafted in when the Taleban announced they were planning a major attack.

Leithead implies a cause and effect relationship here. There isn’t one. It is perfectly normal and prudent to increase security measures in advance of major public events. Kabul is a major city spread out over a large area with a population of almost 4 million. It takes lots of security forces to cover it. Afghanistan is a war zone. It would be idiotic not to increase security regardless of any specific threats. Do you want to bet that there will be more police present at the Democratic and Republican conventions? Think we are doing it because of some specific threat?

Guess what? There weren’t any security problems in Kabul on Afghanistan’s Independence Day. The day was quite peaceful in Kabul with the exception of the terrifying rocket attack that most of us slept through and didn’t find out about until much later the next day.

Stories like the one written by Leithead are designed to demoralize readers in the West. By doing so they hope, especially in an election year for the US, to influence public policy. Opinions ought to be left on the Editorial page where few voters venture. Front page news should be a presentation of what happened without all the colorful and slanted story-telling.

We Are Not Losing In Afghanistan

2008-08-15T05:10:00.000-04:00

In his July 30, 2008 New York Times Op-ed piece titled, “Drilling in Afghanistan,” Thomas Friedman makes an astounding statement. “The main reason we are losing in Afghanistan is not because there are too few American soldiers, but because there are not enough Afghans ready to fight and die for the kind of government we want.” Of course he offers no evidence or proof of either clause in this sentence. About the only thread of reality in the sentence is that it is not a lack of American troops that is the “problem” in Afghanistan.

The piece overall has a good deal of truth, but the defeatist tone is disturbing. We are not losing in Afghanistan. Then again, this is the same Thomas Friedman who declared that we were losing in Iraq and that the surge would not work. He’s since changed his position on Iraq, but like all good liberals who can’t rest unless finding fault with the United States, he’s redirected his defeatism to Afghanistan.

Of course most of the pundits making such sweeping declarations are: a). not on the ground observing first-hand, b). not military professionals with any insight into what constitutes winning or losing, c). relying on armchair “experts” who fall into either category "a" or "b" or both, d). simply left-leaning anti-US media in the first place who have no intention of telling the truth.

If you will recall, when the Afghan affair started, pundits like Friedman uttered such absurdities as “no one has ever conquered Afghanistan” and “the Brits and the Soviets met disaster there.” These “truisms” have been trotted again now that Afghanistan has reentered public awareness. But are these truisms true? Are they relevant for the current operations?

No one has ever conquered Afghanistan. Well, if you mean the country Afghanistan, then that may be true since Afghanistan has only existed as such since 1747. But long before that, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan succeeded in conquering Afghanistan. In fact the real story of Afghanistan is not one of being immune to conquest, but of successive waves of conquest throughout its history. A large part of that is due to its strategic position astride major trade routes.

The people who have lived in this land have indeed been fighting for centuries, but the people who live here now are a blend of all those peoples who have held sway here at one time or another. For example, the Hazara are thought to be descended from the Mongols who conquered “Afghanistan” in 1219. Many Nuristani have European features like red or blond hair and green or blue eyes and a lighter complexion. Some say this is a legacy of Alexander’s conquest, but it may actually be far older. So it isn’t correct to say that “the Afghans” have always successfully repelled the invader.

The Brits and Soviets met disaster here. That may be true, but it is also irrelevant to the current situation. The British tried to conquer and rule Afghanistan in the 19th century, part of the “Great Game” between Russia and Britain. However, the qualitative differences between the British Army in the 19th century and the “Russian aided” Afghans were not that significant. One could even argue that the British generals were not as competent as the Afghan generals. The British were defeated in stand-up army-to-army battles. While Pashtun tribes also employed guerrilla tactics against the British, it was defeat in main battles that spelled doom for the British.

The Soviet experience looks like it might be relevant since it is only twenty years in the past, but this view is also misleading. Again, the Soviets intended to conquer and rule. Their political goals significantly affected how they fought and the methodologies they employed. Pundits like to say that the Afghans humbled a mighty “modern” army, but this is only partly accurate.

As hindsight has shown us, the Soviet war-machine was already in serious technological decline when they invaded Afghanistan, but it was not their decaying military apparatus that doomed the Soviet experience to failure. Nor did Stinger missiles, the indomitable spirit of the mujahedeen, foreign fighters, foreign money, and sanctuaries in Pakistan win the war for the Afghans. They all played key roles, but the ingredient that made the war unwinnable for the Soviets was brought into the country within their own army. The inflexible Soviet system, that same system that doomed them in economic competition with the West, doomed their efforts in Afghanistan.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 began just like their successful invasions of East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Everything went with surgical precision and minimal casualties. For all intents and purposes, to outside observers it was another display of irresistible Soviet might. Western powers feared that the Soviets would extend the push through southern Pakistan to the Gulf, thereby effectively threatening the flow of oil from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. But in less than three months, the war took on a different complexion and the Soviets started experiencing military defeat at the hands of the mujahedeen.

The Soviets came into Afghanistan with a strategy better suited to European combat and with an organizational structure and doctrine so rigid, it never fully adapted to the requirements of fighting a guerrilla war against a determined opponent in inhospitable terrain. Guerrilla warfare requires decentralized decision-making and freedom of action for units down to squad size. It requires a coherent national strategy that places proper emphasis on aspects of soft power to win the “heart and minds” of the people and an understanding of this need on the parts of the soldiers who must carry the fight to the enemy. The Soviets were incapable, by the very essence of their system, of carrying this off.

This was not intended to be a major discussion of how the Soviets failed, but an illustration of how the Soviet experience is irrelevant to the discussion of our experience in Afghanistan. Before moving on, however, some key numbers should be considered. Soviet strength varied between 90,000 and 104,000 troops each of the ten years they occupied Afghanistan. 642,000 Soviet soldiers served in Afghanistan. Approximately 15, 000 were killed or missing. Far more telling was that the Soviets suffered 469,685 wounded in action and non-battle casualties due to illness, or 73 percent of the total force. 415,932 were disease non-battle casualties of which 115,308 were infectious hepatitis and 31,080 were from typhoid. (Statistics from: The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan, Lester W. Grau, Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS 10th Edition, 2005)

In other words, the Soviets suffered almost as many typhoid casualties as the United States has troops in Afghanistan right now. These kinds of non-battle casualties are unheard of in modern armies and they speak volumes on the hygiene and conditions under which the average Soviet soldier lived while in Afghanistan. The Soviets averaged 1,500 killed and missing, 5375 wounded and 41,593 disease non-battle casualties per year. This means they averaged about 50 percent total casualties per year.

Fast-forward to August 2008 and the US and NATO campaign in Afghanistan. To date about 921 coalition troops have been killed in Afghanistan (includes battle and non-battle fatalities). US, British and Canadian forces are doing most of the fighting and have suffered most of these casualties. In seven years, we are averaging about 132 killed (battle and non-battle fatalities) per year. We have had about 7,900 wounded and non-battle casualties, which translates to 1129 wounded and non-battle casualties per year. The Soviets exceeded our seven-year total in their first year in Afghanistan. Note that these casualties include all the NATO/ISAF countries. This is a different fight.

Lest someone say that Afghan casualties are not included in these numbers, keep in mind that during the Soviet occupation, 1.5 million Afghans died (150,000 per year) and a further 5 million were refugees in Iran and Pakistan. To date, fewer than 30,000 Afghans have died in this war (including combatants from both sides and civilians or 4286 per year). Almost 70 percent of the Afghan civilian fatalities, which are less than 30 percent of the total Afghan fatalities, have been caused by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Somehow pundits like Friedman look at Afghanistan today, draw a quick connection to other nations’ experiences here and claim that we are losing. But there is no connection except that the war is being fought in the same place and some of the players are the same. We are not losing Afghanistan. As the numbers show, our experience is nothing like the Soviet experience and any attempt to make that correlation is a real stretch by an order of magnitude.

Is the fight simple? Is there any way it can be finished quickly? The answer to both questions is, no. The fight is complex and involves a great deal of soft power applied in un-sexy ways that the media does not deem fit for the evening news. A suicide bomber is far sexier than a news story about providing alternatives to poppy production or a new school. The insurgency can and will be defeated, but it will take time. Let’s just hope the media doesn’t succeed in sabotaging this mission like they almost succeeded in sabotaging the operation in Iraq.

As stated in an earlier post, war is won in the will. The numbers do not matter as much as the will to keep fighting. The Western media is working overtime to break the West’s will to win this fight and to hand the enemy a cheap victory.

Jay Leno on President Bush (Surprising)

2008-08-03T09:27:00.000-04:00

Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....

As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor have I ever been, but this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and it seems to hit the mark. The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?

The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, "What are we so unhappy about?''

A.. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?

B.. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?

C.. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?

D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?

F.. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?

G.. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough either.

H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

I.. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.

J.. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.

K.. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.

L.. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

M.. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?

Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.

Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me?

Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day. Make no mistake about it.

The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans?

Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like OJ. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way......Insane!

Turn off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative. With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'

Jay Leno

I'm not fond of most entertainers. They tend to have views too liberal for my tastes and seldom display any real intellect or depth. I've just become an admirer of Jay Leno. If only...

But this is not really Jay Leno. Visit: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/hitnail.asp

Still, the sentiments are pretty good.

Some Follow up...

2008-07-25T09:06:00.001-04:00

Afghan National Army (ANA) troops gather around their trophies, two dead Taliban.

17 July 2008.

The grim part of the mission in Afghanistan. Killing the enemy. If they won't quit, we must kill them. Yet this is only a small part of the job over here. Apart from all the humanitarian work that is absolutely the most important mission, there is training this fledging army. While their individual courage should never be doubted, it takes time to mold that into a cohesive, disciplined fighting force. They want to take over the fight and do more...that's good for us. The people best suited for defeating the Taliban are the Afghans. They speak the language, they know the customs and the land.

Now for the follow up. On 13 July, nine American soldiers were killed in an attack by the Taliban near the Kunar/Nuristan border in the eastern part of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. We know that the enemy suffered very heavy casualties. The press called the attack, "an attack on an American base." Well, it wasn't a base at all. There is some confusion as to what was actually in place, but early indicators are that there were some leadership failures.

In otherwords, the casualties we took possibly could have been avoided. The Army is still investigating, but everything from the piece of ground chosen, to lack of wire and overhead cover points to someone not doing their job, maybe several someones. Was it incompetence, complacency, or inexperience? Perhaps all three. With three days to prepare, there should have been better defenses, but the details have not yet been released. Those outside the military may not know this, but the Army carefully examines each engagement (regardless of outcome). That is how we learn and hopefully prevent future blunders, or replicate past successes. I'll be looking for the report.

"You’ve got to kill people. And when you’ve killed enough, they stop fighting."

General Curtis LeMay

Playing With Numbers

2008-07-17T03:01:00.001-04:00

Read these statements carefully:

“More than 2,500 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year.”

“More than 8,000 people died in attacks last year, according to the U.N., the most since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.”

“The number of militant attacks has been on the rise this summer compared with the same period last year, NATO officials say.”

These three statements occur in the same AP report that is attempting to show how the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating in the face of a “resurgent” Taliban. Did anyone do the math? Did anyone question? All three statements may be true independently, but together as proof to support a faulty analysis, they are false.

In 6.5 months in 2008, we have had roughly 2,500 people killed, or 385 killed per month (mostly militants…a good thing, yes?). In the 12 months of 2007 there were roughly 8,000 killed, or 667 killed per month. So in the face of the “deteriorating situation” in Afghanistan, we are seeing a net decline in fatalities of 282 per month, or a decline of 42%. This represents a deteriorating situation? This is evidence of a “resurgent” Taliban? I would think it’s an improvement.

If the number of attacks has increased overall, then the lethality of those attacks has declined. Clearly the bad guys are not very efficient killers. If they attack more, but fail to produce greater casualties, then this should be cause for celebration. The bad guys have been forced to scale down their attacks, opting instead for more small attacks with reduced lethality, particularly in light of locals, police the Afghan National Army and NATO being more aggressive in stopping attacks and hunting down insurgents.

Powerful Taliban Weapon

2008-07-16T01:39:00.000-04:00

The Taliban has a powerful weapon and they are employing it to help turn the tide against Afghan and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. Is it a new type of IED? Is it a new, deadlier rocket launcher or mortar? Is it Islamic fanaticism fueled by hatred of foreign invaders? Is it thousands of new dedicated and trained recruits? No, it is none of these things.

The Taliban’s powerful weapon is the Western media. Bored with peace seemingly breaking out in Iraq, the media have turned their attention to Afghanistan where a number of factors have contributed to a higher level of violence. It is almost as if, stung by their dire predictions and analysis proving false in Iraq, they feel compelled to try again in Afghanistan. A recent battle near the remote village of Wanat along the border between Nuristan Province and Kunar Province in Afghanistan is an excellent example of how the media twists facts to their defeatist world-view.

MSNBC screamed “Taliban Overrun US Base” on the Internet, however clicking on the link and reading the story we find out that this is not exactly true. The story was laced with statements by anonymous “experts” and “officials” making verification of anything more than a little difficult. The Associated Press soberly tells us, “Deadly raid raises doubts in Afghanistan: Attack highlights uncertainty about U.S. ability to turn back Taliban.” (AP, 14 July 2008) Does it really? Whose doubts are “raised” and who is “uncertain?” We are never really told because all their “sources” don’t want to be identified.

I understand the need to have attention-grabbing headlines, but “Deadly raid” in the context of combat between armed military forces is a bit ridiculous. Excuse me, but part of the exercise in fighting a war is to inflict casualties on one’s enemy. That’s the package, that’s what both sides are trying to do. So to hyperventilate over casualties strikes me as more than a trifle silly. Police attempting to arrest someone in a raid that turns violent and ends in fatalities deserves such a headline. A story about combat does not.

The AP goes on to say, “Violence has been increasing in Afghanistan, and many people are questioning whether the Taliban-led insurgency is gaining, not losing, momentum seven years after the hard-line Islamic regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion.” Many people? Who are these “many people?” We have done a proper statistically significant poll to determine this, no doubt. The AP leaned very heavily on the recently disgraced and recently fired former Governor of Nuristan Province Tamim Nuristani whose own ineptitude contributed to security problems in Nuristan.

Further down in the article, where few American readers will venture, are some cogent answers. Of course, the media know that most Western readers do not read more than the first couple paragraphs, so all the doom and gloom is printed there. Any intelligent analysis and reason lies toward the end of the story where it will be least effective in influencing public opinion.

Why was this particular base attacked and why now? It was not because the Taliban are that much stronger, which the AP leads the reader to believe in the first third of their story. The base was attacked because it was a new base with incomplete defenses. It looked like it might be an easy target. While sounding the siren call of defeat over “the most deadly attack on US troops since 2005,” the AP completely ignores the fact that the majority of US casualties actually occurred outside the main camp in a lightly secured observation post. The casualties were not due to the enemy “breaching the defenses” and engaging the defenders from within the perimeter.

What gets glossed over is that the bad guys threw their best punch and got the stuffing kicked out of them. The bad guys outnumbered the defenders by about 3 to 1 and ended up with a casualty exchange of 11 to 1. In military terms for our side, it was not a bad day’s work. The bad guys found this nut tougher to crack than they anticipated. It is guessed, even by the former governor, that there were about 600 Taliban/Al-Qaeda fighters in the area before the attack. Their numbers have been reduced by about a third in just one fight. The Taliban did exactly what we want them to do: namely, seek an open engagement with our troops. The Taliban will lose any such fight.

The media keep pounding the drum for the Taliban, emphasizing the fact of higher NATO casualties, specifically US casualties as compared to Iraq the last two months. What gets ignored, or placed in that “unread” portion of their reporting, is that our forces are going into remote regions where we have not yet had a presence. We are bound to have more contact with Taliban and Al-Qaeda as a result of patrolling their sanctuaries. We are doing the right thing by placing small units out in the country-side rather than hiding on our well-secured large base camps.

Using correct counter-insurgency methods increases our casualties in the short run, but helps us separate insurgents from the populace. Separated from the populace, insurgents lose their ability to hide and operate freely. Thus segregated, they are more easily drawn into combat and defeated. They lose their “street cred.”

Lastly there is the usual AP disclaimer at the end of virtually every combat or suicide attack report they file. “More than 2,500 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials.” The number of casualties changes as the year goes on, but the quick comment, “mostly militants” should make people sit up and take notice. If most of the casualties are the very people we are trying to kill, how is that an indicator of a resurgent Taliban?

Insurgency: A Primer for Those Who Watch From the Sidelines

2008-07-10T11:22:00.000-04:00

Insurgency: a protracted political-military activity conducted by an organized movement seeking to subvert or displace the government and completely or partially control the resources and/or population of a country through the use of force and alternative political organizations. (Department of State Publication 11456, p.9, October 2007)

The operative and controlling words here are “protracted” and “political-military.” Here is where the American public is misled by both the current Administration and the liberal media. On the one hand, the Administration promises a “quick victory” given our obvious technical and tactical superiority. And I say that with no sarcasm intended. On the other hand, the media rails that “things are going badly” every time a car bomb goes off or we take casualties. In part, the media is speaking from ignorance, but the media also speak from their peculiar world view in which the United States is always the bad guy.

It is important to understand why an insurgency is necessarily protracted. The answer is quite simple. The insurgent, recognizing his limitations and relative weakness, has no choice but to think in strategic long-range terms. If the insurgent openly confronts the established authority, he risks destruction. Therefore the insurgent seeks to avoid open confrontation, choosing instead to pick fights he feels certain to win. He must live to fight another day, or his cause is lost. He is fighting for survival first, his long-range goals second. It is in the insurgent’s interest to prolong the struggle as long as possible.

The established authority, the Iraqi government, Afghan government, US and NATO, want to end the conflict quickly. They want to openly confront the insurgent because they have superior capability. An open confrontation will result in the enemy’s annihilation and an early end to the insurgency. Additionally, the established authority is not immediately at risk. They are not fighting for their immediate survival. Hence they often fall into the mistake of taking expedient measures that entail risk or are counter-productive in the hopes of bringing about a quick resolution.

What happens then is that the insurgent, because he has no choice, is planning and thinking long-term and strategically, but also acting tactically. The established authority is only thinking near-term and tactically, giving little thought to the strategic. If the established authority manages to get the insurgent into the open so he can be defeated, that works fine. But far too often the insurgent is too smart to allow this. After all, at the tactical level, the insurgent is fighting for his immediate survival. For the sake of his cause, he must live to fight another day.

The political-military aspect of the definition lies in both the goals and means insurgents employ. A critical differentiation between a pure terrorist and an insurgent lies in the desired end-state. An insurgent seeks to replace the existing order with something else. A terrorist does not necessarily seek to replace the existing order with a different system.

The order of the words in “political-military” is also instructive. An insurgency is, first and foremost, a political movement. The military half of the term is just one of the tools used by the insurgent to accomplish the political goals. Insurgent activity is designed to weaken government control and legitimacy. Methods for weakening government control include guerilla warfare, terrorism, and political mobilizations, propaganda, recruitment and training, front and covert party organization, and international activity. Note that the majority of methods are not violent. Violence plays a role, but that violence is in support of the political aspects of the insurgent campaign.

Therefore fighting an insurgency must be first and foremost a political act. The authorities must recognize the need to think long-term and strategically. The expectation from the outset must be that the conflict will be protracted. It will take time. Too often, the authorities set the expectation that the fight will be short. When it then becomes protracted, the government’s credibility suffers. The Bush Administration comes immediately to mind.

The Bush Administration was correct in saying that the conventional fight against the Taliban government and the Saddam regime would be quick. Neither regime had a chance to against US forces in modern conventional warfare. As things proved out, that portion of the conflict was quick and with minimal loss of life. However, the assumption that neither enemy would resort to insurgency or that any resulting insurgency would be short-lived was ill-advised. The only way to have prevented the insurgency in Iraq would been to properly prepare for it prior to the invasion. We did not.

Once the insurgency in Iraq began, we reacted with short-sighted policy and ill-advised tactics because there wasn’t an understanding of the cultural and political forces in play on the ground.

The same is true, though to a lesser extent in Afghanistan. We benefited from the fact that the Northern Alliance did most of the work on the ground. It was Northern Alliance tanks that first entered Kabul, not American tanks. Although our airpower was in play from the beginning, our ground power was not. Therefore the arrival of our ground forces was seen as supporting, rather than replacing the Afghan authority. And that is how counter-insurgency should be fought. Let the locals do it.

In the words of T.E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia (I may not have the quote exactly, but it is one of my favorites): “It is better to let the locals do it in their imperfect way, than for you to do it for them in a perfect way. After all, it is their country and your time is short.”

You Don't Support the Troops

2008-05-13T06:49:00.000-04:00

I support the troops, but…

But nothing…you don’t support the troops.

How can allegedly educated people be so bloody naïve? Have you no understanding what showing up for anti-war protests and pushing for a unilateral and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq is doing to the troops that you claim to support? You are giving the enemy a reason to keep fighting. By giving the enemy encouragement, you are contributing to casualties of the very troops you allegedly support.

Do you not understand that in this day and age the enemy browses the Internet, watches CNN and follows every nuance of Western pacifism? What you clearly do not understand is that war is won in the will. If you truly cared about the troops, you‘d take a look at what the enemy is saying on their web sites. Every time you protest, they rejoice and believe that their victory is that much nearer. In your vocal opposition to the war, they recognize that you haven’t the stomach to see the fight through. All they have to do is hang on until you stupidly elect a candidate who claims that he will "end the war" by withdrawing our troops no matter what the conditions are on the ground.

In 2004, just prior to the Spanish elections, they blew up the Madrid train station killing 191 people. Spain did exactly what the terrorists wanted, they voted in a government that immediately withdrew their troops from Iraq. Had the Spaniards had intestinal fortitude, they would have increased their troop strength and sworn to battle on no matter what. The terrorists would have been taken aback at the strength of will a Western country was showing. Things might have been much different.

Just before General Petraeus testified before Congress, there was an up-tick in violence, including the largest single terrorist attack of the war. Over 500 Iraqi civilians were killed and 1,500 wounded. Any bets on whether the attack was planned with our politics in mind? Any bets on what is going to happen come say, September and October?

Here is the road we are headed down thanks to the weak-willed who say they “support the troops”, but not the war. Already two of the top leaders of Hamas (Ahmed Yousef and Khaled Meshal) have “endorsed” Obama. Gleb Pavlovsky, a key advisor to Vladimir Putin and his hand-picked puppet Dmitri Medvedev has “endorsed” Obama. Hugo Chavez, while not directly endorsing Obama, has attacked McCain. The Iranian state television has also been vigorously attacking McCain as has the North Korean state-run newspaper Rodong Sinnmun.

In 2004, a weekend before the Presidential Election, Osama bin Laden made a television appearance in a naked attempt to influence the election. What all these instances have in common is that they believe that the Democrats will be weaker and more willing to avoid conflict at any price. Obama is making that case with his declaration to cut and run no matter what the circumstances on the ground are.

So the next time you attend a peace rally and claim to support the troops but…

But nothing! SHUT UP! You do NOT support the troops because you are giving the enemy hope and reason to keep fighting. YOU are showing the enemy that we do not have the will to win. So when there is an up-tick in violence prior to the 2008 elections, keep in mind that your failure to truly support the troops is responsible. The enemy is certain that you will show your gutless stripes and elect someone who will give them the victory you are denying your own troops.

The Iraq War

2008-05-07T15:39:00.000-04:00

Let’s see, was it worth it? Oh, I’m talking about the current war. It's a relevant question for me because I may be over there again in a few weeks. (My other option is Afghanistan.) There are those who continue to undermine the war effort with pacifist drivel. By worth, we have to be talking geopolitical worth.

For those who think we should not have removed Saddam, consider these facts. His regime was directly responsible for 500,000 - 1,000,000 Iranian deaths plus almost 1,000,000 of his own people during the Iran-Iraq war.

One of over 500 identified mass graves in Iraq from the Saddam era.
This one contained over 1,000 bodies.

To this add 500,000 - 1,000,000 deaths due to programs to wipe out the Marsh Arabs, Shiites, Kurds and anyone else in opposition to his regime. To date we have found over 500 mass graves throughout Iraq containing an estimated 300,000 – 500,000 Iraqi men, women, and children. It will take years to survey them all.

So the Saddam regime is responsible for 1,000,000 – 2,000,000 Iraqi deaths, plus at least 500,000 Iranian deaths. Ok, maybe not in the same league with Hitler and Stalin, but probably in the top ten modern era.

Child victims of the gas attack on Halabja, Iraq March 1988

None of this even takes into consideration arguments about WMD. You can argue if you will, that we haven’t found them, but you can’t argue that he never had them. 15 – 19 March 1988, his regime used sarin, tabun, VX (nerve agents), blood agents and mustard gas against Kurdish civilians in Halabja, Iraq killing 3,500 – 5,000 immediately. Another 30,000 died later. Keep in mind that this was a directed, deliberate attack on unarmed civilians.

Pacifist handwringing and U.N. resolutions did nothing to prevent any of this. Nor did it bring Saddam to justice.

At the time of 9/11, virtually every pundit and analyst predicted that a wave of terrorist attacks was imminent. Almost seven years have passed and we are still waiting. Why? Because the terrorists are on the run everywhere. Why? Because we are hunting them down and killing them everywhere. The U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003. Pacifist pundits predicted that terrorists would soon attack in retaliation. Five years later, nothing here…nothing against a U.S. target.

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the Iraq war are creating a “new generation of terrorists” the pacifist left says. In 1993 we had the first World Trade Center bombing. In 1998 there were simultaneous bombings at two U.S. Embassies in East Africa. In 2000 the USS Cole was damaged in suicide boat attack. In 2001 we had the events of 9/11. All of this occurred prior to the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo – eight years, five major terrorist attacks. Since the war – seven years, no major terrorist attacks.

Another result of the Iraq War has been the turn-around of Libya. In September 2003 on the anniversary of 9/11, the Libyans finally came to agreement on settling with the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. After which, the UN lifted sanctions. At the same time, Libya renounced and dismantled their WMD programs and allowed for UN inspectors to verify and certify that those programs were dismantled. Libya allowed the type of unfettered access to inspectors that we never saw from Saddam. Seems Gadhafi figured a resurgent U.S. was no longer to be messed with. And gee, it has worked out pretty good for both sides. He is selling us oil again.

In geopolitical terms, you have to answer the initial question with a resounding YES!

The Other Side of the DU Debate: As Provided by Kathy Sanborn

2008-04-16T20:52:00.000-04:00

Note: The first comment to the post below was by an Anonymous user and consists of a "cut and paste" from an "activist" web site and not one iota of independent thought or analysis. In fact, here is the link from which the entire "comment" was copied: IICPH.

The "comment" is typical of the rambling disjointed nature of the anti-DU crowd who use frequently repeated assertions totally unsupported by fact. They "respew" other's arguments. The premise being if you hear it often enough, it must be true.

I have no problem with posting links or any number of appropriate methods of documenting supporting evidence for arguments, but pasting a mountain of drivel for my readers to wade through is an abuse of this forum.

I would normally delete something like this, but it is a good illustration of the dirty tactics these people use to propagate their junk science, namely by "taking over" other people's blogs and forums. However, all future posts will be moderated.

I will be posting a reply to some of the more salient "arguments"...which I've already addressed elsehwere.

Finally, I don't think much of people who remain anonymous and don't have the courage to identify themselves when addressing a charged topic. This user didn't even have the courage to use their own arguments.

We now resume our regular post.

Last month, I took a look at a two-part interview by Kathy Sanborn with alleged depleted uranium (DU) expert Leuren Moret. The two-part interview was a continuation of DU topics that I began with the first post on this blog which grew out of the DU discussion on the blog Principled Stand.

This is the fourth posting on this topic. This time I will address the “other side of the DU debate” as presented by Ms Sanborn. I wrote to Ms Sanborn with specific criticisms of her “interview”. She did make a change in her lead-in for part two of her interview offering to present the other side. She also stated that it was her intent to provide both sides to allow the reader/listener to make up their own minds. This is the result of what she provided. It should be fairly obvious that she never had any intention of doing an impartial presentation so that the audience could make up their own minds.

You can read her presentation here. In this case, not only did she not bother to interview a real expert, but in reviewing the Moret interview, you find that she made no effort to pose critical questions to Ms. Moret. She never even questioned the Dr. Strangelove twist that Moret threw out there. Clearly Ms. Sanborn is “in bed” with lunatics like Moret.

In the first place “the other side” is not just the military’s position, but that of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the Royal Society, and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) just to name a few.

In the second place, Ms. Sanborn does not let the reader make up their own mind at all, contrary to her stated goal in the previous interview. She cherry picks elements from various reports out of context and then provides her own editorial comments clearly intended to sway the reader.

The problem is this for the anti-DU loonies – produce proof of your assertions. They cannot. Not one study has been able to conclusively prove a link between all the “horrors”, put forth by people like Ms. Moret, and DU. People like Ms. Sanborn, clearly ignorant of scientific fact, are unfortunately in positions that allow them propagate junk science. This they do with great gusto.

A Familiar Liberal Theme

2008-04-04T08:28:00.001-04:00

It seems I'm not the only one to recognize the propensity of certain parties to misquote and deliberately misrepresent something Senator McCain said.

Done the first time, it is a simple misquote. Done after their misquote has been pointed out to them, it is deliberate misrepresentation. Certain parties have this down to science. Perhaps they have the DNC talking points.

Who is this guy Obama?

2008-03-20T16:35:00.000-04:00

These are my thoughts on Barack Obama. I liked his speech at the Democratic Convention four years ago. I may disagree with most of the Democratic Party platform, but the speech was good and Obama seemed a likeable chap. Then he became a United States senator with a brief stint as a state senator first.

Senator Invisible is how I would describe his term in the Senate, at least until he decided to run for President. Um, but he wasn’t in office for two years before he made that decision. So it started me thinking about this guy who suddenly rose to prominence at the national level. I think people should be concerned, or at least more cautious.

Barack Obama has clearly been groomed for big things by his party. That is why they had him deliver that speech at the convention, but I’m not too sure the party expected him to be so successful so soon. Yet one must wonder about this wunderkind. Is he what he seems at first glance? Is he even what he says he is? How much can you truly know about any man through his speeches? After all, that is all we really have to go by because his actual legislative record is almost non-existent and he has no executive experience. He's just a smart eloquent guy. Ok, even that might be an improvement. Even I must admit that it would be nice to have a president who can link two or more sentences together in a single coherent thought using real words.

We need to ask, what is the “change” he keeps promising? All I’ve heard is raise taxes, “invest” in social programs, restrict trade and run away from Iraq. These seem to be the standard liberal themes in play. The only thing new on the table is the war. Apart from that, he seems to be offering the same old failed liberal policies. While bemoaning inner city problems, funding for schools and job programs, Obama ignored the abject failure prior liberal policies had addressing those social ills by “investment”. Perhaps if he wins the nomination, he will treat us to some specifics on his plans. Right now, it’s all vague generality. The only concrete proposal is running away from Iraq, which to me is simply a strike for naïveté of his part.

I am concerned that he associates with a pastor who is clearly divisive, while running on a “unity” platform. His speech in Philadelphia rang hollow to me. This is a man who claims that words are not empty, that they mean something, yet brushes aside divisive remarks by a close associate. I’m not convinced. In his speech he laid down a litany of American woe. By the time he finished, we were all victims of the standard evil lobbyists, Wall Street and the GOP. Sorry, I don’t believe I’m a victim.

A real message of racial healing would have included recognition of the real racial gains over the past forty years. That was not included in his speech. Instead, we heard an apology for why his pastor has all this deep-seated rage against the white man and America. Worse was to juxtapose Geraldine Ferraro’s recent remarks as the “other end” of the spectrum from Mr. Wright’s statements. Fact is, he would not be viable candidate if not for race, just as Ferraro would not have been on the ticket with Mondale had she not been female.

Now is the time to start carefully analyzing Obama’s words and his associations. I’m thinking he is not entirely who he claims. His wife and his pastor have both made disparaging remarks about America. Can we really believe that he shares none of their anger or hatred? I’m suspicious. I’m waiting and listening. It is shaping up to be a floor-fight at the Democratic Convention. Time will tell. Is anyone else looking a little closer?

Leuren Moret Interview Part II..the Interview

2008-03-12T11:05:00.000-04:00

Last night I posted the teaser. Today I'll put up the interview. You can also find both parts on Republic Broadcasting. I had thought to continue my earlier method of pointing out the gaping holes in Moret's facts and analysis, but this time I'll simply let the reader see the holes. They are that obvious. The first few comments are so utterly insane, any thoughts that this alleged expert is what she claims should be vanquished. To her credit, Kathy Sanborn has modified her opening and agreed to present counter-arguments in a later interview. I will, however, make a few italicized comments. Read on.

Leuren Moret: A Conversation with the DU Expert
By Kathy Sanborn
RepublicBroadcasting.org

This is Part Two of my conversation with Leuren Moret, international expert on depleted uranium. Moret is a frequent lecturer on depleted uranium at events worldwide. She appears in Beyond Treason, an eye-opening documentary revealing the hazards of DU for our troops and civilians around the globe. In Part Two of my interview, we discuss the real purpose behind DU, and how we, as citizens, can take action. In the next installment of my DU series, I will be exploring the other side of the depleted uranium issue. My goal, as an author and journalist, is to present the whole story, and let the reader come to his or her own conclusions.

Part Two

What’s the Real Purpose of DU?

Sanborn: If the “powers that be” know DU is so deadly, why (in your opinion) are they using it on our troops and civilian populations in Iraq and elsewhere?

Moret: The international bankers and the City of London are now using depleted uranium to depopulate the earth. The elites studied Thomas Malthus and embraced the theory that fewer people were needed in the world. In 1927, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was founded, and funded by the Rockefellers who brought eugenics to the US in the 1920s. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute is where Mengele was trained, and it was associated with Nazi eugenics. In fact, much of today’s gene research is applied to eugenics.

And according to Dr. Henry Kissinger, as he stated in US National Security Memo 200: “Depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World.”

We should all be laughing hysterically now, if this woman were not so serious. I've done several searches through my electronic copy of NSSM 200 and have not found the quote Moret cites. In fact, she does not even correctly name the source: National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200). It is possible I've missed it, but I doubt it.

Uranium in the Water

Moret: Uranium hexafluoride gas, a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, is a potent neurotoxin. Edward Teller decided to dilute it by dumping it in our drinking water. Because scientists had discovered that the fluoride was escaping from the water and entering the atmosphere and interfering with radio communications and atmospheric processes, an early chemtrail program was designed to release metal particles in order to neutralize the fluoride.

Sanborn: So we’ve been drinking uranium (from atmospheric testing) and fluoride (from the uranium enrichment process) in our water for decades?

Moret: Yes. The Los Angeles water district has been measuring Uranium in drinking water in LA since 1998. In 2007, the uranium in the drinking water from wells on the east side of LA doubled in one year, due to heavy bombing with depleted uranium in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tell your readers to go to this web site and read (“None Dare Call It Genocide”) about fluoride and its introduction into our water: www.radioliberty.com/nlnov04.html.

Here’s a quote from Rena Vale from her book exposing the communist conspiracy:

In regions of the country where resistance was most apt to develop we saw to it that virus diseases struck, and when antibiotics threatened our program, we devised other means of vitiating the populace. FLUORIDATION OF DRINKING WATER WAS FOUND TO BE ABOUT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL. We directed our cadres in the medical and dental fields to beat the drums for 'protection' of children's diseased teeth, by adding fluorides to water - and saw to it that no one informed the public that fluorides affected brain and nerve cells to such a degree that initiative was reduced.

Does anyone remember the movie, "Dr. Strangelove", where General Jack Ripper poses this same theory?

Sanborn: Besides reducing brain function, what are some of the other effects of drinking fluoridated water?

Moret: Cancer, higher rates of miscarriage, reduced fertility, lower sperm count and mobility, and lower IQ (by ten points).

By the way, fluoride is the active ingredient in Paxil, Prozac, and other psychotropic drugs.

She forgot ice cream...childrens' ice cream! Quiet Jack...let her continue.

Worldwide Concern about DU

American scientists alarmed about the dangers of DU have likeminded colleagues in the international community, and their concern dates back to before the first Gulf War. Take a look at what a British DU expert has to say about the dangers of depleted uranium munitions.

Moret is putting forth another fellow "non-expert" as an expert witness. So that the readers know, Catherine Euler, Ph.D. is not a physicist. In fact, she has no scientific credentials at all. Her Ph.D. is in history and she specializes in women's issues. It is important to know that as you read Dr. Euler's comments.

Dr. Catherine Euler, Ph.D., of the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium in Manchester, England, (http://nucnews.net/2000/du/99du/990831dw.htm) reports:

The categorisation of DU as a low-level radioactive waste relates particularly to its effect outside the human body. Once ingested or, most particularly, inhaled, even relatively low-level radioactive particles can have a damaging effect on nearby cells. If adult men and adult women receive equal doses of radiation, cancers are 1.5 times as likely to occur in the women. Children are also especially at risk because their bones are still growing and their expected life span means they have a longer period in which latent cancers can develop (Bertell, 1999b). So, in addition to their damage to general human rights, DU aerosols can also have a particularly damaging effect on the human rights of women and children.

To those who dismiss DU as harmless, Dr. Euler has these words:

In fact, the toxicity of uranium is well-known, and it should not be needed to prove it again. "In Volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Occupational Health, under uranium alloys and compounds, p. 2238, it reads: ‘Uranium poisoning is characterised by general health impairment. The element and its compounds produce changes in the kidneys, livers, lungs and cardiovascular, nervous and haemopoitic systems…Chronic poisoning results from prolonged exposure to low concentrations of insoluble compounds…it is reported that uranium exposure inhibits reproductive activity and affects uterine and extra-uterine development in experimental animals. Insoluble compounds tend to be retained in tissues and organs for long periods.’" (Bertell, 1999a, citing Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety).

The key distinction between DU and natural uranium, according to Dr. Euler, is that DU is insoluble in its ceramic, aerosolized form:

Recent statements by the US Department of Defense have minimised the harm which depleted uranium weapons can cause, discussing only the external effect of the radiation, not its effect within the body, and suggesting that we all take in natural uranium in food and water every day. This is true, but we ingest natural uranium in such small quantities that the body is able to excrete again quickly without much harm done. Natural uranium is present in approximately 1 part per million parts of soil. It is present in a soluble form, not an insoluble ceramic form. This is a crucial difference.

Dr. Euler goes on to describe the connection between birth abnormalities and DU contamination areas in Iraq back in 1999:

We do know that DU has been found nine years after exposure in the urine and seminal fluid of several US, Canadian and UK Gulf War veterans, as well as in the urine of a few of the DU-exposed Iraqi civilians. The illnesses which the veterans report are similar to the illnesses reported among the southern Iraqi population which was also exposed to a widely dispersed DU aerosol. The US Department of Defence have published a map which shows the extent of the DU aerosol contamination in southern Iraq. At an international conference in London last month [August 1999], Iraqi doctors reported a 7-10 fold increase in the rate of birth abnormalities occurring in approximately the same regional area as is indicated on the DoD map.

What Can We Do?

Sanborn: In closing, what do you recommend that we, as citizens, do about DU?

Moret: We can protect ourselves by eating well to boost our immune systems. Eat deeply colored fruits and vegetables, and those with antioxidants, such as pomegranates and blueberries. Drink green tea, too. If you eat right, you can counteract the free radicals. Drink filtered water, using a reverse osmosis filter. Don’t smoke, because the tobacco leaves have depleted uranium on them, due to the fact that their leaves are fuzzy and sticky and tiny particles of depleted uranium are rained out onto the leaves as they are washed out of the atmosphere.

Here Moret betrays her true motive, which is strictly her anti-war bias.

Another thing we can do is to support counter recruiting in our schools and at recruiting stations. Young people need to know the health risks of depleted uranium prior to making the decision to join the military. All young men who have not had children should leave sperm deposited at sperm banks before they deploy to contaminated regions and even for training on gunnery ranges here in the US.

In addition, we can attempt to pass bills in our state legislatures to require the testing of soldiers.
Ok, finally something not entirely unreasonable.

Sanborn: Thank you for taking the time to speak with the Republic Broadcasting Network.

Moret: You’re welcome. Please remind your readers that they can find out more about DU by contacting me by phone or email. Readers can buy my educational DVDs that can be used to inform their family and friends about depleted uranium and its consequences.

Next time: The Other Side of DU

Leuren Moret has worked tirelessly for the cause of educating the world about DU and its devastating effects. She has a series of interviews, presentations, and films about radiation that can be purchased, and she is available for public speaking events. Ms. Moret has a series of 40 DVDs formatted for Public Access TV stations called "Global Nuclear Cover-up” that you may purchase by contacting her (see below). Buy several to educate your friends and family, and air them on your local public access TV stations. To support her work, please donate generously by contacting Ms. Moret by phone or email.

Call Leuren Moret: 510-845-3139

Email Leuren Moret: leurenmoret@yahoo.com

© 2008 Kathy Sanborn

http://www.kathysanborn.com/

Leuren Moret Interview Part II

2008-03-11T21:31:00.000-04:00

It's late. I'm tired. But it popped up on Kathy Sanborn's site. Part II...every bit as "entertaining" as Part I, but more insane.

This is just a teaser until I post it tomorrow, but the interview degenerated so fast into utter insanity that after I stopped laughing I had no energy to say anything. It speaks for itself...as you shall see tomorrow.

Dissecting an Interview

2008-03-09T14:01:00.000-04:00

I will be adding links to this post during the week for references cited herein. However, here is the analysis of a recent Depleted Uranium interview.

This is more on the discussions of Depleted Uranium (DU) that are currently being aired on radio stations and at various universities across the country. In this particular post, I will dissect Part I of an interview conducted by Kathy Sanborn and Leuren Moret that was carried by Republic Broadcasting. If one looks at Kathy Sanborn’s credentials as listed on her website, her credibility is as suspect than the person she interviews, but for now we will concentrate on the interview and Leuren Moret, alleged DU expert.

Sanborn opens her interview with this introduction: “Recently, I met with scientist Leuren Moret in her Northern California home. As an international expert on depleted uranium (DU), Moret works tirelessly to educate the public about the dangers of DU weaponry for both soldiers and civilians alike. Her biography includes a five-year stint at the Lawrence Berkeley nuclear weapons lab and two years at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab. Moret, a former Environmental Commissioner for the City of Berkeley, contributed to an expert report on depleted uranium for the United Nations regarding the illegality of DU munitions.”

Now how did Ms. Sanborn conclude that Moret is an “international expert” on DU? Let’s do what Ms. Sanborn failed to do, namely, check Ms Moret’s credentials. Ms. Moret holds a Bachelor of Science in Geology from The University of California at Davis (1968) and a Master of Arts in Near Eastern Studies from The University of California at Berkeley (1978). Her only other scientific background was as a lab technician at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for five years and Senior Scientific Technologist in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from October 1989 to August 1990 (this is a mere 10 months, not two years). Nothing in these credentials speaks of an expert in anything relating to physics, let alone DU. The scary part of what Sanborn says is that Moret contributed to an “expert” report for the United Nations on a topic for which she is singularly unqualified to comment in an expert capacity.

Sanborn asks Moret to explain what DU is to the audience. Moret replies, “Depleted uranium is the waste product of the uranium enrichment process. They have to mine the uranium, extract the ore, and then remove half of one per cent of Uranium-235. The rest of it, 99.5%, is radioactive waste. It is pyrophoric at low temperatures (at 190 degrees Centigrade it will ignite.) As it burns at high temperatures it forms a radioactive poison gas.”

To begin with, DU is not waste product; it is more properly a by-product of the process whereby U235 and U234 (commonly called enriched uranium) are extracted. This by-product, commonly called DU, consists of 99.8% U238, .2% U235, and .001% U234. Natural uranium ore, prior to the extraction of U235 and U234 consists of 99.27% U238, .72% U235 and .0054% U234. U238 is only weakly radioactive, giving off low-energy alpha particles.

An expert would make this distinction. Spent fuel from a reactor is a waste product. The key difference between DU and natural uranium ore, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) fact sheet on DU, is that it is only 60% as radioactive as uranium ore (due to the extraction of U235). DU, like natural uranium, is only weakly radioactive. It is the extracted U235 and U234 that are highly radioactive.

DU does not ignite at low temperatures. Furthermore, Moret’s figure of 190 degrees Centigrade (374 degrees Fahrenheit) is incorrect for the igniting temperature of DU. Per the WHO fact sheet, DU ignites on impact if the temperature exceeds 600 degrees Centigrade (1112 degrees Farhrenheit).

DU does not form a “radioactive poison gas” as it burns. Burnt DU forms uranium oxides which, while toxic, are only weakly radioactive. The concentrations required to have noticeable adverse health effects are beyond what even most tank crews experience when the tank is hit by a DU round. I’ll address the specific health risks when countering Moret’s health risk statements.

Sanborn then asks if DU should be considered a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). To which Moret replies: “Yes, DU is considered a WMD under two of the three categories defining WMD under US Federal Code. DU is also illegal under all international laws and under US military law as well. Depleted uranium is part of a global nuclear war on the population that is at least ten times more intense than nuclear bomb tests.”

So now Moret is a lawyer too. DU is considered a WMD by whom? Do we really think that if this were true, that no one in Congress would bring it up? Moret never cites the code or the alleged categories. She merely makes a blanket statement on it being illegal without offering any proof.

The next claim is just as ludicrous. DU is not illegal under any laws. Virtually every NATO country, Russia and China have DU programs. DU is used in a wide variety of civilian applications as well, including as shielding in medical radiological applications.

The final statement is not quantified in any way…or proven. We can easily imagine and there are studies that have measured radiation from bomb tests. Ten times greater intensity using a weakly radioactive element? One’s dead skin layer is enough to deflect the radiation given off by DU.

Moret then goes on to bring up the 1943 “Groves Memorandum” titled “Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon,” as proof that the military knew the dangers of DU as early as 1943. She argues that critics point out that the memo was not talking about DU, but she feels the title is sufficient proof. Yet she totally ignores the paragraphs in the memo that refer to gamma and high-energy beta emitting materials that would be required to produce a radiological weapon. DU, it should be noted, is primarily an alpha emitter and therefore totally unsuited for this purpose.

Sanborn then goes on to ask why, if the military knows the dangers of DU, do they use it in Iraq and elsewhere.

Moret’s reply is nothing short of amazing: “You’re looking at a depopulation campaign waged on citizens.”

Considering that DU weapons are first and foremost armor defeating weapons, one can only be amazed by such a statement. Nor can she point to any policy that would even remotely suggest that such a campaign exists.

Moret goes on to say: “Just as Agent Orange was used to depopulate Vietnam as proposed in WWII by the Manhattan project, DU has been, and is being, used to wipe out civilians in war zones …and beyond.”

Agent Orange was used as a defoliant. It was not used with the intent to kill humans. Secondly, Agent Orange is not remotely radiological and thus has no connection to her tie-in to the Manhattan Project. Civilians, unless they are driving around in tanks, are not the target of DU.

Moret continues her march of insanity with questionable disability statistics. She seems to be making the claim that since disability rates are rising, it is because of DU. However, she offers no breakdown of disabilities. In fact, the number one reported disability is hearing loss. Second, her rising numbers include all veterans, not just the ones who served in war zones.

Sanborn then asks how DU produces such devastating effects. To which Moret replies: “Uranium has an affinity for the chemical makeup of DNA, and US patents exist that show Uranium is used by Monsanto and other GM corporations to genetically modify organisms.

The target organ of depleted uranium is the brain. The French Atomic Energy Agency made a detailed study of the effects of uranium on lab animals and found a tremendous effect on the brain.”

First, notice that Moret slips casually between DU and Uranium, ignoring any differences between the substances which are in fact, substantial. The WHO DU fact sheet, says nothing of the sort. In fact, the WHO fact sheet points out that the primary danger of DU and natural Uranium is not radiation at all, but heavy metal toxicity and the primary organ targeted is the kidneys.

As proof of her erroneous assertions, Moret offers two examples of soldiers who returned from the war zone and committed murder-suicide. The articles offered make absolutely no mention of DU, or any other contagion. It is Moret who assumes there is a link and Sanborn does not question it.

Sanborn then states: “Your colleague, Dr. Arun Mitra, says other effects of DU exposure can be cancer, leukemia, chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and muscle pain, neurological and/or nerve damage, mood disturbances, auto-immuno-deficiencies, lung and kidney damage, vision problems, skin rupture, increase in miscarriages, maternal mortality, and genetic birth defects/deformation.” To which Moret replies, “yes”.

This is a case of blatant misrepresentation by both Sanborn and Moret. Dr Arun Mitra made all these comments not about DU exposure, but about downwind effects from a nuclear blast. The two are not the same. Keep in mind that the radiation effects from a nuclear blast include high-energy beta and gamma radiation, while DU radiation is low-level alpha radiation. Dr. Mitra is a key member of The Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). A review of the ICAN website and publications available on their website shows no references to DU.

The WHO DU fact sheet states explicitly that none of the medical issues mentioned by Sanborn and Moret are in fact linked to DU, with the exception of kidney damage in the most extreme doses.

Sanborn then asks how DU gets into the body, to which Moret replies: “Inhalation is the worst type of depleted uranium exposure. If the DU is inhaled, about 70% of it goes directly to the bloodstream. (If you only eat the DU, most of it will stick to the food and pass through your body.) Our troops and the Iraqi civilians are continual victims of DU as they inhale the particles every day.

The chemical and physical nature of the nanoparticles is what makes people sick. The particles enter human cells in forty-eight hours after exposure. The DU nanoparticles are insoluble, and once inside the body, very small amounts can be excreted.”

Here Moret mixes fact with fiction. Inhalation is, in fact, the most dangerous intake path for DU because the fraction absorbed into the blood is greater. However, it is the soluble forms that cause the damage and are absorbed in the blood, not the insoluble forms. Her percentage quoted is incorrect: for soluble forms, between 20% and 30% can be absorbed by the blood, not the 70% that she quotes. 70% of the uranium that is absorbed by the blood will be filtered by the kidneys and excreted in urine within 24 hours. 90% is gone within a few days. Finally, after all the discussion about radiation, Moret almost states an accurate fact. It is the chemical toxicity of DU (like any other heavy metal) that is the risk and that risk is primarily to the kidneys which perform the filtering function.

All studies to date conducted by peer-reviewed sources such as the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), World Health Organization (WHO), The Royal Society and others, indicate that DU contamination stays within a few meters of where it impacted. All studies to date also indicate no specific health risks associated with this contamination. However, as a precaution, they do advise better education for civilians (to keep them off destroyed vehicles), monitoring of sites, and cleaning up DU fragments where they can be identified. Again, it is because of the chemical toxicity that all heavy metals share, not radiation.

I am looking forward to the second part of this interview. What other fiction will these women spin?

Debunking a Fraud

2008-02-27T14:54:00.000-05:00

Over on the blog, Principled Stand, I’ve been having a discussion about Depleted Uranium (DU). You can read the discussion yourself, but an interesting point popped up in the course of the discussion. A key “witness for the prosecution”, Douglas L. Rokke, Ph.D. turned out to be a fraud.

Why is this so? The Internet, it seems is a great place where one may find tons of good information and excellent resources. The Internet, it seems is a cesspool where one may find tons of credible-sounding rubbish and inaccurate resources. In other words, it can be a two-edged sword if one is not careful about vetting one’s sources. Dr. Rokke is an excellent case in point.

There are three other sources that blog owner “Doug” cites who are also not what they claim, but rather make this post a complete book I’ll simply make it a chapter and show why Dr. Rokke is a fraud and not to be believed. Use this as a case study in how to get led astray using what appear to be credible Internet sources.

In reading the course of the discussion on Principled Stand, it should be noted that I was skeptical of Dr. Rokke from the beginning, but then, I have first-hand knowledge that “opened the door” to my skepticism. Perhaps one without such knowledge would not be as skeptical, as seems to be the case when one peruses the many web sites that quote the esteemed doctor. If one does an Internet search using the words “depleted uranium”, references to Dr. Rokke will appear near the very top or at the top of the search results regardless of which search engine used. In fact, it is very difficult to find any other person so prominently named. At first glance, such result seems reasonable because the first claim that pops out is “the U.S. Army’s leading expert on depleted uranium”, or words to that effect. However, that claim is a lie.

In examining the many search results and web sites, one will find references to Dr. Rokke’s expertise cited either by a third party or by Dr. Rokke himself stating the following major credentials in one way or another.

1. Physicist, Ph.D.
2. In charge of DU decontamination and cleanup after Desert Storm, while assigned as health physicist of the 3rd Army, DU Assessment Team (1991).
3. The Army’s foremost expert on DU.
4. Director of the Army’s Depleted Uranium Project (1994 – 1995).
5. Director of the Bradley Research Laboratory at
Fort McClellan, AL (1997 – 1998)
6. Retired Major with 35 years of military service.

Other claims are made, but these are the most prominent and most often repeated ones. Let us now examine each claim.

Dr. Rokke is a Ph.D. That much we can say with certainty. However, is his Ph.D., or even his M.S. in Physics? We can confirm that he did graduate from Western Illinois University in 1975 with a B.S. major in Physics. Now let us look at his two theses.

• Rokke, D.L. (1986). The necessity and educational acquisition of selected vocational skills by Food Science graduates. Thesis (M.S.) – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1986.

• Rokke, D.L. (1992). Perceived physics concepts needed to teach secondary technology as general education. Thesis (Ph.D.) – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1992.

Somehow both these theses strike me as being about education, not physics. And indeed, that is what they are. Would not one expect a Ph.D., 16 years removed from his thesis, to have produced at least one published work in his field? Dr. Rokke has none, not as primary author and not as contributing author, nor does he claim any. How about peer-reviewed scientific journals? Would not one expect some additional research or insights from the Army’s foremost DU expert? There are none, nor does he claim any. Would not one expect the Army’s foremost DU expert to have been able to parley that level of expertise into a physics professorship at a college somewhere? Dr. Rokke is a high school teacher in Rantoul, Illinois.

Credibility as a physicist demolished, let us examine his second claim; that he was “in-charge” of DU cleanup and decontamination after Desert Storm (also known as Gulf War I). Simultaneously, it will become evident that he was never considered “the Army’s foremost expert on DU.” To do this we need to examine his military assignment history and the DD Form 214 (Certificate of Release or Discharge From Active Duty) pertaining to his Gulf War service. A review of these official documents reveals the following:

Dec 1967 – Sep 1971 Active Duty U.S. Air Force Bomb System Navigation Mechanic. SGT E-4 (in Army terms that would make him only a corporal) He then has over two years break in service.

Jun 1974 – Jul 1974 Active Duty Marine Corps OCS Student, Private. (Note that the course is 90 days…he lasted 30) He then has over six years break in service.

24 Apr 1980 Enlisted in the Illinois National Guard and was assigned as a Company medic in Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry. (He served in that capacity through 1 Sep 1982.) Another claim often made about Dr. Rokke is that he was a “combat medic”. A combat medic is, by definition, a medic who has served in a line combat unit under fire. He was never in a line combat unit, he was in the Headquarters Company of a Battalion and 130th Infantry was never under fire in the early 1980’s, ergo he is most definitely not a combat medic. He then had a year break in service.

31 Aug 1983 Enlisted in the US Army Reserve, assigned to the 5035th U.S. Army Reserve School in Peoria, Illinois as a Nuclear, Biological, Chemical NCO and Instructor. (His rank at this time is SGT E-5.) If you look at his duty MOSC 54E5H, it is broken down like this, 54E is his technical specialty, the second “5” is duty position rank, the “H” is the instructor designator. The fact that the far right column shows two efficiency reports means that he was at least a SGT E-5, because that is the lowest rank for which the Army does efficiency reports. At some point, he went through the Reserve Component commissioning process because in June of 1986 he accepted appointment as a 2LT in the Medical Service Corps. (Second Lieutenant is the lowest commissioned rank).

At the same time he was reassigned to the 30th Hospital Center at Fort Sheridan, Illinois as a Nuclear Medical Science Officer. (USAR-Ready) means that he was considered ready to be deployed on “short notice”. A Nuclear Medical Science Officer is responsible for training the medical staff on how to deal with potentially contaminated patients while treating wounds, and for making sure the medical unit is up to date on how to maintain a “clean” environment, instruments, etc. so that contamination is not spread. He remained in this position until called to active duty on 21 Nov 1990. Remember, the Reserve Component Soldiers drill one weekend per month, and two weeks during the summer. This was not his full-time job.

Most of the Army’s 68B / 72A (Nuclear Medical Science Officers) are in the Reserves and not in the Active Army. His recall then should not be construed as being because he was some sort of “genius”, but part of a normal activation of 68B’s throughout the Reserves to support imminent hostilities where there was a threat of the enemy resorting to NBC warfare. As of his deployment, he was not yet a Ph.D. in anything.

10 Dec 1990 he reported to the 12th Preventive Medicine Detachment in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia, again fulfilling the same role as in the 30th Hospital Center. Two days later, Colonel Charles E. Day III in writing to Captains Brett Armstrong of the 74th Preventive Medicine Unit, Charles Brannon of the 1st Medical Group, and Jon Carter of the 62d Medical Group with concerns about being prepared to handle contamination, including DU contamination, informs the Captains of the arrival of 1LT (First Lieutenant) Rokke in theater saying, “The 12th PVNTMED is now over there. 1LT Rokke is the 68B with that unit. The odds are very good that he knows little to nothing about the main 68B issues facing you all, so please try to locate him, and bring him up to speed. Share the materials I have sent you. I’ll start including him in the correspondence as soon as I can get an APO number on him.” This is hardly a ringing endorsement of 1LT Rokke’s expertise. (emphasis added)

25 Mar 1991 he was assigned to the Army Materiel Command, in Saudi Arabia. Note that this assignment is not, as he has claimed with the 3rd Army DU Assessment Team, but with the Materiel Command (the logisticians who test stuff and get it where it needs to be). His duties with AMC as Health Physicist (a lofty-sounding title) would have been similar to those he had with the medical units, only this time the “patients” were vehicles being prepped for return to the US, a job he held for all of two months. He spent the entire five months and 29 days in Saudi Arabia and never ventured north to where DU was extensively used.

Keeping in mind that 1LT Rokke at this point is not a well-known, highly regarded physicist or expert on DU, can we really believe that he was assigned such a sensitive mission as being “in charge” of DU cleanup in the Gulf? Do we really believe that the Army would place a 1LT in such a position over and above all the higher ranking officers who were in the theater at the time?

8 Jun 1991 he returned to his peacetime unit of assignment and duties at Fort Sheridan. REFRAD (Released from Active Duty). This seems to be a rather abrupt end for the man allegedly in charge of cleaning up all the DU contamination in the Gulf. Either he was incredibly efficient and accomplished his task in record time, or that was not his mission.

Let us now examine the next two assertions: Director of the Army’s Depleted Uranium Project and Director of the Bradley Research Laboratory at Fort McClellan.

15 Aug 1992 – 31 Oct 1993 he was assigned the 320th Medical Detachment at Fort Sheridan.

30 Jul 1994 – 13 Jul 1995 he was called to Active Duty at Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 84th Chemical Battalion at Fort McClellan, AL. It is here that his lofty title of Project Director comes into play. First, his call to Active Duty was most likely an obligation he incurred by having the Army pay for part of the cost of his Ph.D., which he received in 1992. The Ph.D. is in Education, not Physics. Hence it would make perfect sense to have the Army use the skills he acquired in Education to oversee the preparation of training material at the Chemical School. This does not make him “the Army expert on DU”. In fact the materials he is alleged to have prepared are simply the Chemical School’s input in how to handle potential contamination involving DU. Other agencies are the proponents for DU in the Army arsenal.

30 Nov 1995 he was REFRAD again and transferred to the 330th Medical Brigade at Fort Sheridan. He assumed the same duties as Nuclear Medical Science Officer and remained in that position through November 1998. His duty specialty changed, probably due to recoding of specialties that occurred in 1996. He was never again brought back on Active duty. So how can a Captain, not on Active Duty and possessing no scientific credentials beyond a physics major B.S. be in charge of an Active Army Laboratory at an Active Duty installation in Alabama, while simultaneously being assigned to the 330th Medical Brigade at Fort Sheridan, IL? The easy and correct answer is he can’t.

Lastly, let us review his claims to be a retired Major with over 35 years of Army service. By 1998 then, he had served a grand total of 5 years and 9 months on active duty (including his Vietnam service), and 12 years and 9 months in the Reserves or National Guard. This puts him at about 19 years, 8 months of total service by the time the current conflict begins, far short of 35 years of service, or 24 years of service, as he has claimed, but close to twenty. Major Rokke only became a Major in 2000 and left the Reserves in 2002 prior to the start of the current hostilities (Gulf War II, 2003 - ?). So we can add 4 more years to his service, giving him 24 years. If we add his breaks in service (which total almost 10 years) we are then close to the 35 years of service that he claims by drawing a straight line on the calendar from the time he entered the Air Force in 1967 until he left the Army Reserve in 2002. His assigment history looks as if it would be difficult to achieve the points necessary to "retire". However, without looking at either a copy of retirement orders, or full knowledge of the “points” he accumulated toward retirement as a Reservist, we can’t verify whether he is truly retired, or simply dropped out of the Reserves. I have been told, but I have no confirming documentation, that Dr. Rokke was transferred to the Retired Reserve for "non-participation" (he was not attending drills/training per his obligation).

In reviewing Dr. Rokke’s case, we can see the importance of verifying a source’s credentials before accepting their “expert” witness. Dr. Rokke is by no means alone in fluffing credentials in order to “sell” a particular position. When looking at discussions of technical or scientific nature, it is advisable to check the credentials before using those sources. That admonition is no less true for books, but as the Internet makes things so much easier and the “cut and paste” capability speeds the process, wrong information can be propagated fast in the Internet world.