Michael Yon on The New Republic and Scott Beauchamp

I had mentioned in the story below, the story of a real "phony soldier" that was "writing" for the New Republic, a left wing rag. Now, one of my favorite journalists, and he is the genuine article, Michael Yon has penned his thoughts on the whole affair. So I decided to re-post this from Yon's blog. If you want to know what's really going on in Iraq, he is the guy. He doesn't sugarcoat anything and he doesn't try to color the news. He tells it like it is. This is a very good read and I thought if anyone was interested, you should read this and then you will understand the whole "phony soldier" story.

Beauchamp and the Rule of Second Chances
October 25, 2007
Beauchamp and the Rule of Second Chances: Pass it Along
I’d known that General Petraeus was once accidentally shot in the chest, but I first heard the full story this summer in Baqubah, from an eyewitness whose account I wrote about in Second Chances.

The story of General Petraeus getting accidentally shot in the chest is a case in point. One of his own soldiers had pulled the trigger. Normally, something very bad would have happened to that soldier and his commander. Instead Petraeus sent that soldier to Ranger School, and his Captain (Fred Johnson) was promoted early. In June, I witnessed LTC Fred Johnson helping to restore security and rebuild Baqubah. Fred Johnson is a believer in second chances.

Some months ago, a soldier in Baghdad wrote a piece on the way war can degrade the morals and affect the judgment of combat soldiers. His story was published at face-value in The New Republic magazine. In it the soldier wrote terrible things about his unit, making the article sensational.

I was in Iraq when it first hit the stands and someone asked me about the plausibility of the events described in the article. I skimmed the story but it did not even pass a simple sniff-test. With a shooting war going on, there is no time for trivial pursuits, so my only comment was something like, “It sounds like a bunch of garbage.” Turned out it was.

The soldier’s name was Beauchamp. He’d tried to hide his identity, but poor Beauchamp had no idea that the blog world would get on his trail and tree him like a coon. Beauchamp crawled up to the top of that tree, looked down into the snarling spotlight, and suddenly knew he was caught. His simple mask was no more effective than a coon’s, and that in itself might provide a little insight into how deeply Beauchamp had thought this all through. In any case, he was up in that tree, surrounded by hounds who’d done this plenty of times, yet always found this part exciting. The hunters would have written the last sentence if the choice was up to them.

Some wanted Beauchamp to go to prison; some were baying for blood. The fellas in his unit were unhappy, as were his commanders, since he’d made some of them look like immature dimwits while others he’d cast as deliberately cruel in the worst of ways. Nobody likes to risk life and limb in the hope they are doing the right thing only to be spat upon and accused of criminal acts.
It took a while for the truth to eke out; there was almost none of it in what was published. As the real story unfolded, The New Republic looked increasingly culpable and ridiculous trying to hide behind a fact-checking process that was clearly stuck on the difference between fact and fabrication. In the lingering spotlight, no one seemed to appreciate the soft shoe.

It was not a story I followed closely because then—as now—I was focused on the war. But what struck me as most important was not that Beauchamp wrote some bad combat stress fiction, but that a media organization printed it as truth.

And what of Beauchamp? Because he was the man who originally wrote the lurid overwrought fable of puppy-killing among the grave-desecrating cretins who made fun of a woman disfigured by bombs, the tepid outcome left many people unhappy. Especially those who wanted to see him humiliated (he has been plenty humiliated). Beauchamp was allowed to stay in the Army and suffered only a minor administrative setback.

I was at a reconciliation meeting between Sunni and Shia in the West Rashid district of Baghdad on 24 October, and it happened by complete coincidence that I was with Beauchamp’s battalion. In fact, I was with his old company commander for much of the day, although I had no idea for most of it that I was with Beauchamp’s old company commander.

At the reconciliation meeting, Beauchamp’s battalion commander, LTC George Glaze, politely introduced himself and asked who I wrote for. When I replied that I just have a little blog, the word caught his ears and he mentioned Beauchamp, who I acknowledged having heard something about. LTC Glaze seemed protective of Beauchamp, despite how the young soldier had maligned his fellow soldiers. In fact, the commander said Beauchamp, having learned his lesson, was given the chance to leave or stay.

The reality of war is hellish enough: the IED that left this massive crater in the road in Mosul also killed four soldiers and an interpreter.

It can be pretty tough over here. The soldiers in Beauchamp’s unit have seen a lot of combat. Often times soldiers are working in long stretches of urban guerrilla combat dogged by fatigue and sleep deprivation. This is likely one of the most stressful jobs in the world, especially when millions of people are screaming at you for failures that happened three years or more ago, and for decisions to invade Iraq that were made when you were still a teenager. Just as bad is the silence from the untold millions who have already written off your effort as hopeless. Add that to the fact that buddies are getting killed in front of you. (More than 70 killed in Beauchamp’s brigade.) I see what these young men and women go through, and the extraordinary professionalism they nearly always manage to exude awes me on a daily basis.

Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but that’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.

Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.
So much depends on soldiers who are sometimes all too human.

The commander said I was welcome to talk with Beauchamp, but clearly he did not want anyone else coming at his soldier. LTC Glaze told me that at least one blog had even called for Beauchamp to be killed, which seems rather extreme even on a very bad day. LTC Glaze wants to keep Beauchamp, and hopes folks will let it rest. I’m with LTC Glaze on this: it’s time to let Beauchamp get back to the war. The young soldier learned his lessons. He paid enough to earn his second chance that he must know he will never get a third.

Though Beauchamp is close, I’m not going to spend half a day tracking him down when just this morning I woke to rockets launching from nearby and landing on an American base. Who has time to skin Beauchamp? We need him on his post and focused.

As for The New Republic, some on the staff may feel like they’ve been hounded and treed, but it’s hard to feel the same sympathy for a group of cowards who won’t ’fess up and can’t face the scorn of American combat soldiers who were injured by their collective lapse of judgment. It’s up to their readers to decide the ultimate fate.

The New Republic treed like a bandit . . . personally, I think they would make a nice Daniel Boone hat.

Another Phony Solider story

So in light of the recent bruhaha over Rush's Phony soldier comments that drew the ire of the democrats, comes another story that has exposed yet another example of the "Phony Soldier" that Rush was referring to. I have been following this over at Hugh Hewitt's blog at http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog.

According to reports, Scott Beauchamp, an army private has been "reporting" on events in Iraq and supposed incidents, yet again, of indiscretions by the military. I have read some of the accounts that he had written and found them incredible in the sense that if they were indeed happening, it had the potential of being another huge scandal. However, after Hugh and other bloggers started doing some research and inquiring at the "The New Republic" who has been publishing these "dispatchs", it has been been revealed that the incidents in question, have turned out to be embellishments and lies. Yet another example of the left using a "phony solider" in the sense, that even though Beauchamp is indeed a US Army solider, his accounts are by and large a lie that the kook left have been using to denigrate the US military. Below is a flash from Drudge today;



SHOCK DOCS: THE NEW REPUBLIC 'SHOCK TROOPS' STORY COLLAPSES
WED Oct 24 2007 12:29:44 ET

The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained internal documents from the investigation of THE NEW REPUBLIC'S "Baghdad Diarist", Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private turned war correspondent who reported tales of military malfeasance from the Iraq War front.

The documents appear to expose that once the veracity of Beauchamp's diaries were called into question, and an Army investigation ensued, THE NEW REPUBLIC has failed to publicly account for publishing slanderous falsehoods about the U.S. military in a time of war.

Document 1: Beauchamp Refuses to Stand by Story (Beauchamp Transcript Part 1)

THE NEW REPUBLIC has been standing behind the stories from their Baghdad Diarist, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, since questions were first raised about their accuracy over the summer. On August 10, the editors at TNR accused the Army of "stonewalling" their investigation into the stories by preventing them from speaking with Beauchamp. The DRUDGE REPORT has since obtained the transcript of a September 7 call between TNR editor Frank Foer, TNR executive editor Peter Scoblic, and Private Beauchamp. During the call, Beauchamp declines to stand by his stories, telling his editors that "I just want it to end. I'm not going to talk to anyone about anything really." The editors respond that "we just can't, in good conscience, continue to defend the piece" without an explanation, but Beauchamp responds only that he "doesn't care what the public thinks." The editors then ask Beauchamp to cancel scheduled interviews with the WASHINGTON POST and NEWSWEEK.

Document 2: Beauchamp Admits to "Gross Exaggerations and Inaccurate Allegations" (Beauchamp Transcript Part 2)

The DRUDGE REPORT has also obtained a signed "Memorandum for Record" in which Beauchamp recants his stories and concedes the facts of the Army's investigation -- that his stories contained "gross exaggerations and inaccurate allegations of misconduct" by his fellow soldiers.

Document 3: Army Investigation: Tales "Completely Fabricated," Beauchamp Wanted to be Hemingway

The third document obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT is the Army's official report on the investigation into the allegations made by Private Beauchamp. The Army concluded that Beauchamp had "completely fabricated" the story of mocking a disfigured woman, that his description of a "Saddam-era dumping ground" was false, and that claims that he and his men had deliberately targeted dogs with their armored vehicles was "completely unfounded." Further the report stated "that Private Beauchamp desired to use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemingway."

The report concludes that "Private Beauchamp takes small bits of truth and twists and exaggerates them into fictional accounts that he puts forth as the whole truth for public consumption."

Developing...

4 million (bumped)

Of course, as I searched the NBC and PMSNBC (MSLSD to all my fellow Mark Levin friends), it was only obvious that they wouldn't post one of the biggest stories of the last couple of weeks.

Rush Limbaugh's Auction got 2.2 million for a letter (now referred to as "the Declaration of Incompetence" by a majority of listeners to Rush's show) from the defeatist democrats that was sent to Mark Mays, President of Clear Channel communications, hoping to have Mr Mays reprimand Rush if not outright muzzle him. Talk about turning Lemons into lemonade.

Now, that means, as Rush has stated, he will match the final winning bid, so another 2 million, to the total, bringing the total to a whopping 4 million dollars to go to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement foundation, a program started after the OKC bombing to help the children of fallen military and law enforcement people with scholarships as well as helping veterans of the military with other needs. Truly, a very worthwhile organization. Rush sits on the board of directors.

(NOTE): A reader commented that they had read that Reid had tried to attach himself to the auction, trying to include himself "in" on the auction. True. Also, as of this amended entry at 01:47 Wednesday morning, NOT ONE OF THE DEMOCRATS WHO SIGNED THAT LETTER HAS CONTRIBUTED toward this cause or to the foundation. Yeah, they really support the military, right?


Whether or not you agree and listen to Rush (I do, having started listening to him in 1988 as I was driving my daughter to school in the first week of his broadcast) you have to admit, that 4 million dollars, (2 million from the auction on Ebay and another 2 million from Rush) is nothing to sneeze at as that is some big money. This after Harry the body Reid hammered Rush on the Senate floor for remarks that "the Body" more than likely heard from his masters over at Think Progress or Media Matters. I was listening the very day that the whole thing started after Rush and a caller were talking about the bogus soldiers, in particular one Jesse McBeth whom never even made it out of basic training and the now famous or infamous "Phony Soldier" comments came out of. I heard what Limbaugh said and I knew right away that he was talking about these weasels that the left try to trot out as honorable soliders to somehow impunge the honor of the real military personnel who are serving in all theatres in the GWOT.

In all the years that I have listened to Rush, I have heard only sincere admiration and respect for the fighting men and women in our armed forces. But yet, as Rush has pointed out, not once did the left (or the MSM whom are basically mouthpieces for the left anyway) go over to his site or ask him what he really did say.

So, I thought (how silly of me) that maybe, just maybe the "journalists" (snicker) over at the peacock network would have done a story on the results of this auction. Nope. Not a word was found, not a word was mentioned on NBC Nightly News (I was switching air Friday night after the auction) by Brian ("have a good week-END" what a pretentious little F***) Williams. To think that they did indeed run the story about the whole bru ha ha to begin with, they did what they do best, as soon as it looks like the left is going to get hammered, slimed or the door shut on their face, they don't do anything.

What people don't realize about the TV MSM is that they take their stories from the New York Times or the Washington Post, both once great newspapers, but anymore, just partisan leftwing mouthpieces for the left. To a newscast, you can watch all 3 networks, CNN and PMSNBC and it's obvious that their news directors have taken the stories off the front page of each. How do I know this? Simply because I have worked in TV for all the years I have. I know how they operate and it doesn't really change whether at the network level or the local level.

What Rush did was significant for several reasons. It showed that the left does indeed not care, in fact abhors, the military, it showed that average Americans do in fact respect and admire the military in the support shown to Rush by the auction and it showed that Americans are not heartless and to help out the children of fallen military and Law enforcement officials, is something that many Americans have no trouble doing, in other words, they do support the troops and the mission of those troops. My whole problem with the left and their "we support the troops but not the war" mantra is, that's like saying, "we support the police, but we don't support them using force or arresting people". As the old saying goes, "next time you are in trouble, call a hippie". And sadly, it shows how the so-called compassionate liberals, who are forever saying that the current administration tries to stifle free speech, do not in fact believe in free speech at all (unless of course, it concurs with their agenda), as the leadership in the most august body in the US government, tries to muzzle and intimidate a private citizen. Now who in the government is trying to shut whom up? Well, it ain't Dubya, that's for sure.

But woe was me, there again as far as I know, was any mention of the biggest auction in Ebay history (Jay Leno got 800k for a motorcycle), instead the MSM was totally silent about the results. The money is going for a very worthy cause and I think it further shows just how out of touch the liberals are about what America feels toward our military. Too bad.

Pete Starks ridiculous comments

Rep. Pete Stark (D-California) was on the house floor the other and made some ridiculous comments regarding the S-chip Debate funding and the funding for the war in Iraq. Now, this story is a couple of days old, but still worthy of repeating. He was trying to drum up support to have the veto overridden, but Thank God, it went down in flames.

The democrats are upset over the President vetoing the S-chip bill. What they haven't told anybody is, they wanted to expand the program to cover children of middle-class parents when the program was originally designed to help poor children (at the poverty level) with no health care. However, the democrats wanted to expand it to cover children of parents who are making up to $62, 000 a year. This would have 1) caused a tax increase for everyone else out there that on their own, provides health care for their children, so in essence, Mr and Mrs America who already pay for their children's health care through hard work, would now be paying, through higher taxes, for someone else's kid, even though the family receiving the benefit could make up to 62k a year. 2) would have been a back-door-stealth way for them to incrementally start down the road to nationalized health care. The president had already put in his budget, to increase by 20%, funding for the program, but the democrats saw a way to try and start down that slippery slope to socialized health care.

So, good old Pete Stark from California was on the floor lamenting the President's request for additional funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan combat theaters, and here's what he said. Someone tell me that the democrats really are behind the troops. Since his comments were made, he has "apologized" for his remarks.

I was reading some things at the American Thinker and found this article. Since my poor mac is suffering as a result of having it's original processor in it until I get my replacement, I decided to post the entire article instead of picking out the highlights. It's a very good read for those students of history and military campaigns.

For those that decry our experience and loss in the GWOT, to put things in perspective, when the battle of Stalingrad was over in February of 1943, the Russians had lost more lives than the combined deaths of US & UK soldiers in WWII.

What we are fighting today is the contemporary equivalent of both Soviet style socialism and Nazi fascism that is insidious as the enemy is not state sponsored as much as cellular and capable of hiding in the open. The following article shows how victory has been redefined by political nuance instead of just plain "we won, you lost." Much of the blame can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the American left and modern democratic party. Read this and you get a unique insight into why.

Return to the Article

October 16, 2007

Buried Victories

By J.R. Dunn

A war's end has its necessary rituals. The defeated must bow their heads and acknowledge failure. The victors must have their triumph, plus the privilege of dictating the terms of peace as they see fit. If this process does not occur, then there is no closing, no climacteric. The war remains unended on the symbolic and psychological level, which means, for all practical purposes, that it hasn't ended at all.

Victory goes a long way toward shaping a war. A mishandled victory often leads to a failed peace. Consider WW I: the brutal provisions of the 1919 Versailles Treaty, which humiliated Germany, made it impossible for the Germans to recover in good order and set the stage for the rise of Hitler. It also did nothing to redeem the anguish and misery of the four years of the trenches, much less the 16 million-plus dead.

Then turn to our own Civil War. During the last months, there was talk among Rebel forces of refusing to surrender, of taking to the hills to really make the Yankees bleed. That ended at Appomattox, in large part due to two distinct gestures. The first by Grant who, distracted by the gleam of Lee's sword, added a line to the surrender document directing that "officers will retain their sidearms". The other was by the legendary Joshua Chamberlain, at that time holding the rank of brigadier general. As Confederate troops approached to lay down their arms, Chamberlain ordered his men to salute as they passed. The Rebels gazed back stunned for a moment, then returned the salute. That was all it took. From that point on that war was over. Despite regional tensions between the South and the rest of the country that continued for a century, the thought of secession never seriously recurred.

Without a just ending, war is merely a parade of atrocities and massacres, killer apes doing what killer apes have done for three million years or more. It is the victor who gives shape to the ending, who decides whether it will be yet another episode in the long Halloween or something that partakes of the higher aspects of human nature: mercy, honor, and reconciliation.

Which is why victory is hated by antiwar types, no matter what their ideology and motivation. (This is not even to mention the agendas of the hard left and the Democrats, which we don't have space to get into.) They don't want war redeemed. Anything that lessens its loathsome aspects makes it easier to view war as a possibility. Victory is one of the failings of war that must be gotten rid of. But of course, in any conflict (excepting wars of exhaustion, which we don't often see) there will be winner and a loser. Victory can't be denied to that extent. But the rituals, the salutes, the expressions of respect and magnanimity, can be undermined. And so we get buried victories.

A buried victory is one that has been downgraded and ignored, one that has been hedged with so many qualifications and second thoughts that it is scarcely a victory at all any longer. A buried victory is one from which all the human aspects have been drained, and replaced -- if that's the word -- with bureaucratic procedure.

We've seen this for fifty years or more. U.S. forces had effectively secured most of South Vietnam by 1972. The Viet Cong had been a nullity since being effectively wiped out during the Tet Offensive, and the People's Army of North Vietnam had to a large extent been chased across the borders into Cambodia and Laos. South Vietnam was a stable political entity, and with adequate support could have remained that way.

But the American left, for purely political reasons, portrayed the situation as a defeat, and in a series of Congressional actions through 1973 and 1974, cut off support for the Saigon government until it was hanging by a string. It fell at last on April 30, 1975, after a heroic final defense at the gates of the city.

In the years that followed, close to 3 million were murdered in Southeast Asia.

In 1991, having wiped out the bulk of the Iraqi Army in a matter of days, the U.S. contented itself with an incomplete victory. It unilaterally brought the war to a close without demanding recognition of defeat from the Iraqi military, and above all, from Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party. Instead of a clear victory, we were treated to the spectacle of U.S. forces standing by while thousands of innocent Shi'ites and Kurds were slaughtered. Twelve years later, we had to do it all over again, under -- as we are all now well aware -- far more difficult circumstances. (Being self-inflicted, this is another case of Bush Senior adapting the ideas and behavior of his opposition -- "read my lips" in military form.)

(Compare those two incidents to the Grenada and Panama conflicts. In both cases, the U.S. fought to the finish, destroyed enemy capabilities, brought down the tyrannies, and remained to oversee the reestablishment of civil government. Today both are free and prosperous nations.)

But the most egregious example is the Cold War. Only those who lived through the period have any clear idea of the miracle embodied in that conflict's end. For decades, it was widely believed that the Cold War could climax only with a universal catastrophe, or at least a paroxysm that would leave tens of millions dead. But thanks to Reagan's boldness and acumen, (and not to forget Gorbachev's humanity) it closed without a single ICBM so much as quivering in its silo.

It was one of the great victories of the modern epoch, one of a trio of defeats handed out to the enemies of human freedom during the 20^th century: absolutism, fascism, and at last, communism. A victory at the highest levels of human endeavor, with nothing of the primitive or brutish about it. "One of the great unsordid acts," as Churchill once put it. At the same time, it was a victory of the common and workaday, in which the average and unheralded individual shared as much in the triumph as any general or diplomat or premier. A glance at the footage of the destruction of the Berlin Wall will reveal as much.

And it was buried.

"Let's not engage in triumphalism," we were told by the media, by the left, by the academics. "Let's not humiliate the Russians... Both sides were at fault here." We were even told that "Now capitalism must be defeated." As if capitalism ever built walls, or Gulags, or massacred millions for the sake of demonstrating a theory.

In not taking its place as the rightful victor, the U.S. was unable to mold the post-Cold War world as it molded Europe after WW II. Bush Senior could talk all he liked about a "New World Order", but nothing of the sort came into being. An individual transported to the present from the mid-1980s would have no difficulty recognizing the world he saw about him -- a belligerent Russia, a conniving and expansionist China, a Latin America flirting for the hundredth time with Marxism, an Africa on the skids. Even Burma in a state of political chaos.

The sole new aspect is the internationalization of religious terror by the Jihadis. In 1989, the U.S. was given a once-in-a-century opportunity to remake the global community in the manner of the Treaty of Westphalia or the Congress of Vienna. We decided to be a New Age, politically-correct country instead. Does anyone like the result?

Today we see a similar process occurring in Iraq and in the Afghanistan/Pakistan arena. None of the achievements of the Coalition or the Iraqis has gained more than momentary recognition. The purple revolution, the elections, the reconstruction -- all have been dismissed or ignored. What has replaced them is an endless chronicle of suffering and destruction - of war without victory. (In what other conflict would Arthur Chrenkoff's sorely-missed "good news from Iraq" column have been necessary?)

The "Mission Accomplished" incident set the tone. George W. Bush's appearance in a military flight suit beneath the banner bearing those words was greeted with a storm of insults and mockery that grew more frantic as the violence in Iraq failed to abate. Today, many believe -- because they were led to believe -- that the banner was placed there by the administration itself, in the kind of cowboy gesture often ascribed to Bush, though seldom actually seen. In truth, it was the work of the ship's crew, who had completed a difficult job with no serious losses and were proud of the fact. This truth failed to get across, and now it will never get across. There will be history books a century from now explaining how Karl Rove put that banner up personally.

Once burned, the administration -- along with other branches and agencies of the government -- has been unwilling to claim any accomplishments whatsoever. Saddam Hussein's capture passed without much in the way of acknowledgment. (Quick -- what troops captured him and how were they rewarded?) The same with the killing of Zarqawi and numerous other incidents. Even when making a claim, government spokesmen end with the same sorry whimper, "Of course -- we still have a long way to go.... " providing the media with the precise peg they need to hang their stories on.

And the media has obliged. News reports of Coalition or Iraqi achievements became conventional, their form and content as invariable as a Noh play. First would come the announcement of a Coalition triumph -- the capture of an Al-Queda emir, the breakup of a bombing ring -- written in what amounted to a dull monotone. Then the counterpoint: how many bombs went off that day, how many civilians had been killed, how many troops (always ending with the number added to the war's overall total). This part was usually longer than the first, and often enlivened by quotes, eyewitness reportage, and local color, in contrast to the dull prose of the "official news". So each announcement of a triumph was accompanied by its own negation. A narrative has been created in which the impression of victories simply could not occur

Now we're achieving the real thing, on the most massive scale. The major element of the "insurrection" (an unsatisfactory term, but does anyone have one better?), the Al-Queda, is being chewed to pieces. The new "surge" strategy -- actually a classic counterinsurgency strategy similar to that utilized in the final years in Vietnam -- has proven itself as clearly as any on record. The enemy has been unable to respond, and is on the run wherever engaged. The Sunnis have been coming over in ever-increasing numbers, fulfilling one of the basic requirements of a successful counterinsurgency effort: the full cooperation of the civilian population. A serious reconciliation has been blooming between the newly-dominant Shi'ites and Sunni minority.

Barring unforeseen setbacks, the Coalition appears to be set to prevail. (A number of critics newly cognizant of counterinsurgency are pointing out that it takes years for such an effort to succeed, overlooking the unique aspects of the Iraq situation: the "insurrection" is actually a form of invasion by outside forces, namely Al-Queda. Destroy them, end the invasion, and the "insurrection" becomes a matter of bandits and diehards, easily handled by domestic Iraqi troops.)

And how is all this being depicted? It isn't. Early coverage of the surge emphasized how it could go wrong. A "September surprise", a sudden rise in casualties prior to General Petreaus's report to Congress, was predicted. Discord between Iraq factions was emphasized. Several Jihadi "offensives" were announced. None of it came to anything. No "surprise" occurred. The factions are, for the moment, reconciled. Al-Queda offensives, if they ever existed, fizzled out.

And in recent weeks... almost nothing. Suddenly, Iraq is not a topic. Achievements in the field have gone unmentioned in a media that couldn't get enough of car bombs, IEDs, massacres, and assassinations. The focus has shifted to the domestic: the endless campaign, bogus "health-care" bills, Al Gore's latest prize. If Iraq is mentioned at all, it's in the context of scandal, as in the Blackwater shooting incident, quite serious in and of itself, but nothing to overshadow the events of the past three months. It's as if news of Pvt. Eddie Slovik's execution overwhelmed any mention of the Allied advance into Germany.

We will see more of this. Last Friday, the New York Times, which has granted no meaningful coverage to the surge, featured no less than three stories dealing with civilian casualties. Reportage of a speech by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez ignored his criticism of the media's role in Iraq (or the fact that he calls for redoubling our efforts there), in favor of his attacks on the administration's war efforts. Last week the UN demanded not greater support for the newly-invigorated Iraqi government, but an investigation into the Blackwater incident.

There are muted lanterns in the graveyard, the clink of shovels on gravel. Victory in Iraq, one of the hardest-fought in recent American history, is being buried before our eyes.

This is unacceptable. American victories are not those of a Tamerlane piling up skulls, of SS units reveling in genocide. As Victor Davis Hanson revealed in his classic study, The Soul of Battle, American wars are fought to free the enslaved, to punish the tyrant, to set right what has been overturned. American victories are nothing to be ashamed of.

Pacifist opposition to victory in war is a case of misapplied idealism creating more of the very horrors it decries. A war not properly ended simply engenders more conflicts and creates more misery.

If war is useful for anything, it is for solving intractable problems completely and finally. Victory is a key element of this. Victories that are not victories, but simply cessations of combat, will always end up being only temporary.

They used to ring bells, the bells of churches, in both thanksgiving and celebration when a war ended victoriously. We don't do that anymore. But we do need to discover the equivalent for the new millennium. The rituals that will enable us to reclaim victory, and with it a lost portion of our humanity.

Many thanks to Arthur Herman for his thoughts on the matter.

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.

If you have the cash...

This money will go to charity. Rush Limbaugh is auctioning off the letter Sen. Harry "the Body" Reid sent to Clear Channel communications to try and have them reprimand Rush for supposed negative comments Rush made about the troops.

Right.

I was listening that day, and I archive Rush's show, and he never said anything negative about our military. What he did comment on, was the phony soliders that claimed to have seen atrocities in Iraq committed by our soldiers, yet upon further investigation, were either never in Iraq or their story didn't check out when investigated. That's where he called them phony soldiers, especially referring to one Jesse McBeth, of Washington state, who claimed he was a Ranger, and had seen atrocities committed by US Army troops in Iraq. The only problem was, McBeth never even made it out of Basic training, he washed out!

So, Good ole Harry the body Reid and his leftist buddies, decided, "hey, here's a chance to take the heat off our good buddies over at Moveon.0rg" for their cheap shot and slanderous shot at Gen David Petreaus. Reid acting so sanctomoniously, gets out on the senate floor and calls for a condemnation of Rush for supposedly calling the Troops returning from Iraq, that may or may not agree with the mission, phony. And then, in that fine liberal tradition of tolerance and free speech, sents a letter to the head of Clear Channel asking that Rush be reprimanded for "slamming" the military.

Right.

so, anyway, just as a joke, I am posting this widget, as I know anyone of you out there can't affored to pay for this, the original letter from our fine Liberal, moveon.org, marxist, we own defeat senators that wanted Rush shut up. The money will more than likely be used for the military in some way or another.

"We'll look back and realize how foolish it was"

Prophetic Words from Dr. William Gray, Ph.d on Al the Bore's "Blowhard Smarming" campaign.

Well, gee, seems that Al Gore ain't getting much love for his campaign to mis-lead people about "Blowhard Smarming". I have a problem with Gore for a myriad of reasons, some of which are;

He claims to have grown up in Tennessee, which isn't true, he grew up in DC at a hotel, the son of a prominent politician.

When the Buddhist temple scandal happened, he famously claimed (or infamously) that there was "no controlling authority" to explain his lapse of using religious sites for campaign fund raising.

He also was known and caught using Government resources and offices again for campaign raising.

Mr Gore said during the 2000 presidential race that because of his sister, who died of cancer, would ensure that big tobacco would suffer because of the 'evils' of smoking yet, his farm in Tennessee, even at that time was still growing tobacco to be sold to big tobacco.

So, this guy, who flunks out of divinity school, is not a scientist, is a career politican, somehow claims to be a spokesman for "BS" and is looked upon as some kind of authority on climatology? But if challenged by those who do have the credentials about his claims, poo poos them off saying they are misguided. As I noted in the previous post, Dr William Gray has now come out and said that Gore is wrong and for a lot of the reasons why I don't think that "BS" is happening.

Dr Gray gave a speech at the Univ of North Carolina and this is from the Sydney Morning Herald;

Gore gets a cold shoulder

Steve Lytte
Sydney Morning Herald
October 14, 2007

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr. William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth. His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing." Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.

But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place. However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years. "We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error. He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed. "The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science. "It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

Al Gore wins the Nobel (Lenin) Peace Prize

So, Al the Bore wins a Nobel (Lenin) peace prize. I couldn't help but be struck at how much the award reminds me of a profile shot I have seen of one the left's favorite people, V.I. Lenin, otherwise known by many as "Vlad". He is also known as "Lenin" the leader of the Soviet October Revolution that was paraded around for a while like a circus freak after being dead and embalmed for so many years, so that the newly formed Russian government could make some money after the Soviet Union fell. Good times. Friends of mine who have taken Russian studies in College have told me about the old Soviet joke of "who is really buried in Lenin's tomb?"

So, considering that Gore and the rest of his ilk are "socialist marxist lite" I figured, what the hell. I mean, c'mon, even the "League of Nations" (aka the United Nations) and the American left are a thinly veiled, anti-American, Anti-Semite, Anti-Republican conservative anything for that matter organization. How much you wanna bet even George Soros has his hand in that gang of thieves?

So, anyway, I was wondering why the hell someone as irrelevant and a hypocrite as Gore would win such an award and voila! all I had to do was a little research. Here is a guy that is supposedly the juice on "Blowhard Smarming". Well, that's interesting since so many professional people in the scientific world have come out against his view of "BS", including Dr Roy Spencer, Ph.D who is an expert on all things dealing with the climate and Dr. Willam Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts. Now, people are fond of saying that "most" scientists believe that man-made global warming is a reality, but I have yet to really find 0ut who these people are as no one can give me a definitive list of who is who. If "BS" is happening, somehow I don't think 1) it has anything to do with human activity and 2) Science does not work on concensus.

Anyway, I have a problem with someone winning a Nobel (Lenin) Prize, considering the fact that it was given to of all people, Yasser (Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini ) Arafat. For some odd reason, for all the years that I would see Yasser on TV, he always reminded me of a pot-bellied pig who needed a shave really bad. He was the modern day godfather of terrorism, purportedly representing the oppressed Palestinian people, yet himself was born in Egypt, albeit to Palestinian parents. That cat was a waste of human skin.

And then there is good ole' Jimmy Carter who lost all credibility with the "sweater speech" and of course, the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Good ole' Jimmy just didn't have the stomach to back the shah, who was corrupt, but didn't do anything to encourage an election in Iran to replace said corrupt dictator meanwhile, he is also very vocal about recent American elections. He also didn't want to offend the Iranians and send in a force big enough to put the Iranian radicals in their place and rescue the hostages. Of course we know that there would have been casualities, but still, Jimmy was too worried about his legacy. It's interesting to have lived through 2 of the most inept Presidents in History, Clinton and Carter and now to see how whackos are rewarded by more whackos over absurd behavior. Go figure. I have often wondered just how different the world would be now had Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination and General Election in 1976.

So, I stopped by the Powerline blog to do a little reading and found the following. I had to repost this as it is good. Here is some infomation on some of the past Nobel (Lenin) Peace Prize winners. You can read the rest here

Changing the climate, one winner at a time

When did the Nobel Peace Prize go off the tracks? Today's award to Al Gore and the IPCC "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" fits in with a subset of cosmopolitan frauds, fakers, murderers, thieves, and no-accounts going back about twenty years:

2005 MOHAMED ELBARADEI (joint winner). He's done such a nice job with Iran.

2004 WANGARI MAATHAI. The Kenyan ecologist peacefully teaches that the AIDS virus is a biological agent deliberately created by the Man.

2002 JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America. A true cosmopolitan, he has undermined the foreign policy of his own country and vouched for the bona fides of tyrants and murderers all over the world.

2001 UNITED NATIONS, New York, NY, USA. KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General. Among other things, they have respectively served as the vehicle for, and presided over, one of the biggest scams in history.

1994 YASSER ARAFAT (joint winner), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority. He was a cold-blooded murderer both before and after receiving the award.

1992 RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. She is the notorious Guatemalan faker and author, sort of, of I, Rigoberta Menchu.

1988 THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES (snicker, that's good) New York, NY, U.S.A. Notwithstanding rapes and sex abuse committed by the team in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Congo, still doing fine work all over the world.

How about some recognition for the scientists of Laputa discovered by Gulliver in the course of his travels? Is it too late to recognize them for their fine efforts to extract sunlight from cucumbers? (Thanks to reader Anthony Ragan for his contribution.)

UPDATE: Reader Michael Slade thinks we need to extend the list a bit further back in time to include Betty Williams ’76, whom he deems "deserving of a place for her remarks about killing President Bush."

Just in time for Halloween

Need I say more?

From DNC Pharmaceuticals

This ad is for a new pharmceutical for those leftist and centrist democrats that would like to forget about the 8 years of "Billary".

This had to come from a woman, yep, it is

While I was on AOL checking email and doing some other things, I saw this story "Secrets that most men keep". Ok. Being a man myself, the last time I checked, I was intrigued to find out exactly what secrets men keep. Of course, I realize that it's on AOL, but it comes from Redbook (that's a dead giveaway) and it's written by whom? a woman! Well, nice to know that a woman knows what secrets a man will keep.

My problem with this is one that plagues many "news and information" sites, generalization. Often times, we as human beings, tend to generalize ideas and information. Now, you may asking why I choose to post this. Well, as I said, it generalizes men (and women). So, I thought for fun, I would respond to each "secret" that the author lists. Not all men or people for that matter, follow a template. Now, stereotypes do have some truth in basis, but it doesn't always apply to everyone. Not every long haired rock n roll guy takes drugs or hits on any woman, 8 to 80, blind, cripple or crazy. I certainly don't.

But, when a lot of women read this, I am sure, they start thinking and that's where they get into trouble. They get the ole CPU going thinking as they are looking at the "Rib" (my term for a boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other, husband, wife, etc) that "hmmm, what secrets ARE THEY KEEPING from me?". Then they start the process of digging for answers and often times, there are no answers for them to get, "but damn it, I know he's got some secrets he's not telling me". Instead of just asking the poor guy, they look at everything suspiciously as if he might be a serial killer that the police haven't found! Sometimes, it's just better to let a sleeping dog lie and if the person wants you to know something, I am sure they will tell you!

The reason being is that their rib does not fit the template that Ms. Wegner (the author) has used. She is talking about HER husband more than likely and chances are, her husband is different from other men in that she is used to his M.O. While men and women do share many common traits, we are after all different in many ways and judging all men or women by generalizing is the very thing that causes misunderstandings anyway.

So, I thought for fun, I would try and respond to her statements of what secrets men may keep from their women. I really think this should have been titled "What secrets my husband keeps from me".

____________________________________________________________________

You may think you know your husband better than anyone, but chances are he has at least one ''don't-tell-the-wife'' secret -- and he may have 11 of them!

Men get smarter as they age. While a younger man might think being honest is always the best policy, he quickly learns that some things are best kept secret the first time he confesses to his girlfriend that yes, he was watching that pretty young thing in the bikini wash her car.

Women are known for keeping things close to the vest. But what are the things she's been hiding from you? Find out!

Magazine writer and editor Ty Wenger revealed in Redbook what every woman wants to know: What secrets is her husband keeping from her?

Although men who tell too many lies and keep too many secrets risk souring a relationship from lack of trust, some of the more innocuous lies are told and secrets are kept to keep the peace. That is the kind of secret Wenger is revealing. And ladies, some of these secrets will melt your heart and make you so happy you married the man you did.

Eleven secrets most men keep, including your husband:

1. Yes, he falls in lust 10 times a day -- but it doesn't mean he wants to leave you.

(Nope, not me. In fact, it's really very rare for me to fall in lust at all. Now, I may be older, but I still love looking at a beautiful woman. After all, there are only 3 works of art in the world to me, my children, a good guitar and a woman. Granted, I might see a good looking woman and think she's beautiful, but that's about all. I think maybe younger guys, many but not all, whose hormones are still raging, may do that, but that's how people are built. We were, after all, designed for the continuation of the species, DUH!)


2. He actually does play golf to get away from you.

(Nope, I don't play golf to begin with, in fact, I don't really like sports anyway. I don't find sitting around the house during a sporting event drinking beer with my buddies and high fiving when "our team" scores applying to me. I would rather something historical or dealing with the scientific or even a really good comedy or watching news to be more preferable to watching sports. As for getting away from the Rib, nah, people need to have interests outside of their marriage or keep interests they had before they were married. I don't see that as getting away from anyone.)

3. He is unnerved by the notion of commitment, even after he has made one to you.

(maybe in the beginning, but who isn't? isn't anyone a bit unnerved by the prospect of buying a new car? of starting a new job? or buying a house? It's natural to be a bit apprehensive about the idea of committing to one person as you have to start figuring out where the boundaries lie. Is the woman going to kill you for talking to a female friend of yours you have known before you were married? is she going to get jealous? or is she just simply going to accept the fact that there is a woman who is a friend of yours, and yes a friend. Commitment in any form can be unnerving)


4. Earning money makes him feel important.

(Well, yes and no. Earning money doesn't make me feel important. Hell, it's a necessity to survive. I don't feel important earning money. I don't really feel important doing what I do for a living. Sure, I have it better than a lot of people in that I still enjoy working the technical aspects of TV, but it's just a job. Thinking about it, I don't really feel important at all. Pride might be a different thing however. I do take pride in doing the best I can in any situation, what person wouldn't?)

5. Though he often protests, he actually enjoys fixing things around the house.

(LOL, usually when I was married, I initiated doing any projects or repairs as it was usually me that saw something that needed to be fixed. However, that being said, I tend to prioritize things, i.e., "if I don't fix this right now, will the house burn down?" or "does this need to be done before the other thing that needs to be done?" I do enjoy fixing and working on things, but that is probably because of my technical adept ability as an engineer. I don't like working on cars anymore, as they have gotten a bit too complicated, though I can. I have always enjoyed taking things apart, seeing how they work and then putting them back together or building something. I have built a couple of hotrods, and any more, I enjoy working on Mac computers)

6. He likes it when you mother him, but he's terrified that you'll become your mother.

(Again, yes and no. In my case, no. What person doesn't like being "mothered"? Women like to be pampered, men may like being mothered in some cases, but not all. I am a big boy now, so although I do love my own mom, I prefer to be my own person and I am old enough now that I don't need to be mothered anyway, I think that job is done)


7. Every year he loves you more.

(that one I can agree with only if she's the one that I really do love, that's self-explanatory. Also another DOH! statement)


8. He really doesn't understand what you're talking about when you discuss "issues" in your relationship. It makes no sense at all to him -- even though he will nod in agreement and apparent understanding.

(That may be true of many men, but not all. For one thing, men usually work off logic more so than women, who tend to be more sensual creatures. Women seem to think more with their feelings than men do. Not all men are afraid to discuss the mechanics of a relationship. Often times, in fact most of the time, it's communication or lack thereof, that dooms a relationship. You have to learn to convey your thoughts and emotions in order to understand the other person)

9. He is terrified when you drive.

(if she's a bad driver, or on the cell phone? hell yeah!)

10. He'll always wish he was 25 again.

(Nope, I don't wish I was 25 again. 25 was a very confusing time. What many people don't see is that 25 is just an older teenager. I don't think people really start maturing until their 30's. Some do, not all, but in my opinion, most people don't really get their sea legs until at least their 30's. Wishing you were 25 again infers that you have regrets, I don't. Everything I am today, good and bad, is the result of the events of growing. Sure, we all could say that we wish we could go back and change something, but you can't, so what's the use of wishing so?)

11. Give him an inch and he'll give you a lifetime. Translation: Let him be a dumb guy and play poker with his buddies or go on vacation alone, and he'll love you forever for that.

(I don't play poker either. No interest in that and I wouldn't dream of going on vacation alone with the "Rib" if I had one. I would prefer taking her with me and both of sharing the experience together. Sure, sometimes you need or want a break from seeing each other all the time, but that's what work is for, LOL. Unless of course you work together! But yeah, it works both ways for men and women. Sometimes, she needs to go out with the girls and have fun and sometimes I may want to spend time with my friends and do something like working with other musicians. It really has nothing to do with getting away from her. Real love is unconditional. If you love the other person, you will be happy to let them be themselves without expectations or conditions.

"And that's the truth," insists Wegner. (according to her anyway)

(Source: Redbook)