Stealing my Mom's Money

My mom and dad belonged to the greatest generation of Americans. My mom lost her first husband over the Sea of Japan. My Dad was in Germany with the Air Corp. When he came home it was back to the ranch where he doubled the size of the business he had inherited from his parents. My parents had to put up with a lot of hardship and stress that comes with working in a business with variables that are not in your control such as the weather, overseas markets, and the price of feed, which is also dependent on the weather. I learned at a young age to pray for rain. When Algore reinvented America he effectively killed the sheep industry that was the lifeblood of our family. Simply put he removed a program that protected us from highly subsidized Australian and New Zealand wool and lamb. Fine, in a capitalist society if you can’t compete get out. Dad had already passed away when we made the decision to sell the ranch but Mom now had a sizable chunk of change which she could live on if prudently invested.

When World Com went under she lost a portion of her nest egg. However she was diversified and didn’t complain knowing that investing carries with it some risk. What she lost in one sector she gained in others, most noticeably in Energy with her oil company investments. Yes, my mom is part of big oil. However we now learn that the evil oil company’s profits are seen to be obscene and should be taken from my mom. The Senate Finance Committee is seeking $30 billion in tax increases, including an indirect $5 billion tax on oil companies. This is only fair, when we were losing money in sheep ranching, when we were loosing money in World Com, when we loose money in other investments, the government is there to give some of it back to us right? Of course not, we live in a capitalist society when you loose money but we are a socialist country if you make money.

Sgt. Hook received an email from a mother whose son is currently fighting in Iraq. He and his platoon wrote this:

Mom,

Be my voice. I want this message heard. It is mine and my platoon’s to the country. A man I know lost his legs the other night. He is in another company in our batallion. I can no longer be silent after watching the sacrifices made by Iraqis and Americans everyday.Send it to a congressman if you have to. Send it to FOX news if you have to. Let this message be heard please…

My fellow Americans, I have a task for those with the courage and fortitude to take it. I have a message that needs not fall on deaf ears. A vision the blind need to see. I am not a political man nor one with great wisdom. I am just a soldier who finds himself helping rebuild a country that he helped liberate a couple years ago.
I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.

Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most American’s are born into their God given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth.

Ironically you will find the biggest outcries of opposition to our cause from those who have had no military experience and haven’t had to fight for freedom. I challenge all of those who are daring enough to question such a noble cause to come here for just a month and see it first hand. I have a feeling that many voices would be silenced.

I watched Cindy Sheehan sit on the President’s lawn and say that America isn’t worth dying for. Later she corrected herself and said Iraq isn’t worth dying for. She badmouthed all that her son had fought and died for. I bet he is rolling over in his grave.

Ladies and gentleman I ask you this. What if you lived in a country that wasn’t free? What if someone told you when you could have heat, electricity, and water? What if you had no sewage systems so human waste flowed into the streets? What if someone would kill you for bad-mouthing your government? What if you weren’t allowed to watch TV, connect to the internet, or have cell phones unless under extreme censorship? What if you couldn’t put shoes on your child’s feet?

You need not to have a great understanding of the world but rather common sense to realize that it is our duty as HUMAN BEINGS to free the oppressed. If you lived that way would you not want someone to help you????

The Iraqi’s pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldier’s in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet American’s badmouth our President for having us here.

Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqi’s. Yes there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future.
I have watched brave souls give their all and lose thier lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.

My fellow countrymen and women, we are not overseas for our country alone but also another. We are here to spread democracy and freedom to those who KNOW the true taste of it because they fight for it everyday. You can see the desire in their eyes and I am honored to fight alongside them as an Infantryman in the 101st Airborne.

Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know. We are in Operation Iraqi Freedom and that is our goal. It is a cause that I and thousands of others stand ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice for because, Cindy Sheehan, freedom is worth dying for, no matter what country it is! And after the world is free only then can we hope to have peace.

SGT XXX and 1st Platoon
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

We are Winning, Part 2 (if the left and the GOP Senate let us)

Senate Republicans are calling "for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war." The strategy was laid out for anyone willing to listen at the State of the Union address. As Iraqis step up we will step down. They are stepping up. We can soon begin the step down process. The left has to get us out of Iraq soon because we are winning and only a premature pullout will save them from another “Bush was right” moment.

Operation Steel Curtain continues in its goal of restoring Iraq’s borders to Iraqis. Terrorists, many of whom are foreigners and al Qaeda, are systematically being killed, captured or forced to leave the al Qaim region. Iraqi and coalition forces swept the city of Husaybah from east to west, driving the terrorists into nearby Karabilah. Now Karabilah has been secured and both cities will continue to be secured by the Iraqi Army. Once the locals realize that the area will be continuously held they wholeheartedly lend their support to the operation by telling us who supported the terrorists, where they are hiding, where weapons and ammo are located as well as other intell. Yesterday began the task of capturing Ubaydi, 20 km from the Syrian border

Every day the Iraqi armed forces are getting better trained, more experienced, and better equipped. Gradually they take over operations, bases, towns, and whole regions freeing up American and other coalition forces who can then further take the fight to other areas. Iraq is getting smaller and smaller for the terrorist. Since September Forward Operating Base Lima in Karbala, Camp Zulu in As Suwayrah, and one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in his home town of Tikrit, Forward Operating Base Dagger have been turned over to Iraqi Forces. 25 bases in all are now in full Iraqi control. 6th Iraqi Army Division took over authority of the Kharkh, Rusafa, Thawra and Adhamiyah districts of Baghdad on Oct. 3. This is not a quagmire as the left likes to portray it, we are winning. Fallujah is firmly in our control, there are no al Qaeda bases left in country and we are now securing the Syrian border. You can never fully cut off smuggling routes but the ability to come and go across the Syrian Iraqi border gets more difficult every day. Its now easier for al Qaeda to slip across American borders than Iraqi borders, at least in the West. The Iranian border will be next.

We hear of each American Armed Forces casualty but not of their bravery or success. While we continue to have our brave soldiers killed, we are also killing the enemy, but there is no point in reporting those deaths, that won’t help the left’s anti-war effort. More important is the number of suspects captured, 202 since November 1st according to Multi-National Force Iraq press releases. That includes the capture of Hamid Sharki Shadid, the leader of the New Ba’ath Party in Diyala Province. Asadallah and Abu Zahra, two known al Qaeda leaders, and Majid Adnon Swedowi,head of a terrorist network in Ramadi, have been killed. Along with the suspects huge caches of ammunition, AK 47s, mortars and other munitions are being captured, discovered or identified by friendly Iraqis.

All of these suspects may not be terrorists, we just released 500 other suspects from custody, but many were caught red handed. If McCain has his way we will have to treat these guys with all the rights criminals in America get with no hope of interrogating them without their ACLU lawyers present. If the Senate has it’s way we will be seen as dictating to the Iraqis that they need to step up in their defense of Iraq, something they are already doing. Bryan Preston at Michell Malkins's site asks ..” how much worse would a Democrat senate majority really be? The GOPers spend too much, they killed ANWR drilling again, and they're making moves on the war that are at least head-scratchers and probably counterproductive to actually winning the war.”

Update:

The terrorists are making a last stand at Ubaydi. Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail reports:

Since the assault force of Operation Steel Curtain moved from Husaybah and Karabilah to Ubaydi early Monday, eighty insurgents and terrorists have been killed in the town, with thirty killed since just last evening. Over 150 insurgents are believed to have been captured since Steel Curtain began.

Operation Steel Curtain has had a noticeable impact on the terrorist’s supply chain. Reports indicate 36 weapons caches, including “several that contained suicide vests and bomb making material”, along with 107 IEDs and multiple homes rigged as bombs have been discovered. These are weapons that will not be able to be used to disrupt the upcoming parliamentary election on December 15th.

With Husaybah, Karabilah and Sa’dah hosting a strong Coalition contingent directly on the Syrian border, Coalition forces holding the bridges and roads eastward, and the borders essentially closed down at Tal Afar in the north and Rutbah in the south, the insurgents in the region may be finding it difficult to move around and reestablish a base of operations elsewhere. Jihadis attempting to flee the battlefield are resorting to humiliating tactics to evade capture; “Several detainees were captured trying to sneak out of the area by crawling among a flock of sheep.” Such is the state of the mighty warriors of Zarqawi.

BTW Bill will be sending himself to Iraq next month to better report the war. Go to his site and lend a little support.

We Are Winning in Iraq

Happy birthday United States Marine Corp, hoo rah!

Everyday we hear reports on every explosion and casualty out of Iraq. What’s missing from these MSM stories are the victories that we are experiencing daily. Have you seen any reports on Operation Steel Curtain by the MSM? I had to go, where else, to the blogosphere to get my news. The news is we’re winning and the MSM doesn’t want you to know that. In fact, from printing CIA leaks and stories about phony Koran flushing, to the lack of fact checking traitorous marines, (you don’t know how much it hurts to say that), the MSM seems to want us to loose. We are however gaining ground every day. Our Armed Forces along with elite Iraqi forces secure areas and other trained Iraqis take over security in those areas. We heard that 2000 soldiers had died by the MSM, but did they mention that 200,000 Iraqis are now members of the police force or National Guard?

Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail conducted an interview with the Commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team – 2, Colonel Stephen W. Davis. His Marines and Iraqi units are in the border town of Husaybah. Some excerpts:

Bill: What is the current status of Operation Steel Curtain?

Col Davis: Husaybah has been cleared and secured. Coalition forces are now conducting combat patrols. Construction is underway for basing of Iraqi and U.S. troops to maintain a permanent presence in the city, and provide security. We had a real good plan, but the execution was even better. I am pleased with the results of Operation Steel Curtain.

Bill: MNF-West states there were 1,000 Iraqi troops involved, while CNN and other news outlets reports 550. Is there an explanation for this discrepancy?

Col Davis: The number is just a hair short of 1,000. There is one full battalion of Iraqi Army soldiers, one brigade headquarters unit, units from the Desert Protection Force, and a Special Operations Forces unit, which was trained by [U.S.] Army Green Berets. These SOF units are high caliber units with a great deal of expertise and bring it to the battlefield.

Bill: How is the Desert Protection Force organized and trained?

Col Davis: These are platoon sized units recruited locally and trained in reconnaissance and scout techniques. They add a level of granularity due to their experience and local knowledge of the region. They have been very, very helpful during Operation Steel Curtain.

This next comment especially tells me we are winning, that each day brings us closer to an Iraq stable enough for us to pull out.

The Desert Protection Force escorted residents out of harms way to the displaced persons facility, where they receive food, shelter and medical care. Word spreads pretty fast throughout the city and they came to the facility on their own. As in all of the cities and towns out here, once the citizens are free of the influence of the insurgents and are assured the Iraqi Army will remain, they open up and show us who has been supporting the insurgency, where they are hiding, lead us to ammunition dumps and safe houses and provide tips on what the insurgent have been saying and planning.

CIA Leaks

When Robert Novak outed already outed CIA operative Valerie Plame the CIA reacted by asking the Justice Department to investigate the leak and see if any laws were broken. After two years the only law broken turns out to be the alleged lying by Scooter Libby to investigators about a crime that didn’t occur. Giving the name of a covert agent to the press is against the law but even the woman that wrote the law said that Plame was not covert, and as others have shown her association with the CIA was well known as she had already been outed by her husband Joe Wilson, the CIA itself, and others. As this would have been obvious to the CIA what it sought to get the leakers on was, as Fitzgerald has said, that the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified and leaking classified information to the press is illegal. One other thing to consider in all this is that national security was in no way endangered by this whole affair.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at secret prisons in several other countries. Now, if true, that would certainly fall under classified information, and giving that information to the press would certainly harm national security. This could open the U.S. to legal challenges in foreign courts, cause a backlash here and abroad, and cause us to loose facilities that may be producing valuable information and saving countless lives now and in the future. The EU has already formed a commission to look into the allegations since some of the prisons are supposedly located in Eastern European countries. Of course the Post doesn’t care about national security as long as it can hurt Bush, but does the CIA? Will these leaks by “officials familiar with the arrangement” be investigated? We shall see.

Update: The Justice Department has received a request by the CIA to investigate the leaks, it’s in their hands now.