Stix Blog

Petition for General Patreaus

I got this from a RedState email.

Dear RedState Reader,

All the best,

I'm sorry to have filled your inbox this week, but there are so many pressing matters this week.

First up, please consider signing Congressman Mike Conaway's petition in support of General Petraeus, who keeps getting attacked by the Democrats to undermine his credibility.

Second, The Democrats and the media are at it again.  This week is very instructive for how the media and Democrats coordinate their activities together.  It also shows just how ignorant Democrats and the media are about the military, both equating a military presence with actually being at war.  Do we want a President who shows such a profound misunderstanding?

Barack Obama has said repeatedly in the past several weeks, things like this:  "[McCain] wants to continue this war in Iraq maybe for another 100 years."

Then Obama's campaign strategist would say, as he did Monday morning on MSNBC, "Senator Obama hasn't said that Senator McCain said we would be at war for 100 years."

The media would then report on the Presidential campaign using quotes from Barack Obama like this one in the Chicago Tribune:  “Meanwhile, Sen. McCain has been saying I don’t understand national security, but he’s the one who wants to keep tens of thousands of United States Troops in Iraq for as long as 100 years,’ Obama said.”

No where would they point out that major nonpartisan fact checking organizations have called that statement a "gross distortion."

Just so you have the facts, here is what John McCain said in response to a question about leaving troops in Iraq for 50 or 100 years:

"We've been in Japan for 60 years, we've been in South Korea for 50 years, that'd be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.  That's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training and recruiting and equipping people."

Clearly McCain was talking about a peace time standing presence.  The "not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" line kind of gave that away.

Notwithstanding that, the DNC is now out with an email blast begging for money, saying again that John McCain wants to fight another 100 years.  No doubt the media will keep repeating it, never pointing out the gross distortion of what McCain said.  It is important, however, that we all have the facts to point out the Democrats and media are working together to push this lie.

Of course, it could just be that the Democrats are clueless about the military.  Someone should ask the Democrats if they think we're still at war with the confederacy, the Germans, and the Japanese given all the standing American armies in the South, Germany, and Japan.

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

Liberal Values does not agree

   

Remembrance Poem for the Holiday Season

I received this via e-mail from a cousin who works at Boeing:

Subject: A Different Christmas (and Thanksgiving) Poem


The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.


Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.


My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.


The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.


My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.


A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.


"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"


For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,


I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,


I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at '

Pearl

on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."


My dad stood his watch in the jungles of '

Nam

',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.


Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.


I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..


Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."


"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."


Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.


For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."


PLEASE, Would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many
people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is
due to our U.S.service men and women for our being able to celebrate
these festivities.  Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of
what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and
dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.


LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30t h Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum ,

Iraq

.

Two Chicago Stories

Via the Corner at National Review On-Line, two really inspiring stories.

STORY NUMBER ONE

Many years ago, Al Capone virtually owned Chicago .. Capone wasn't famous for anything heroic. He was notorious for enmeshing the windy city in everything from bootlegged booze and prostitution to murder.

Capone had a lawyer nicknamed "Easy Eddie." He was Capone's lawyer for a good reason. Eddie was very good! In fact, Eddie's skill at legal maneuvering kept Big Al out of jail for a long time.

To show his appreciation, Capone paid him very well. Not only was the money big, but also, Eddie got special dividends. For instance, he and his family occupied a fenced-in mansion with live-in help and all of the conveniences of the day. The estate was so large that it filled an entire Chicago City block.

Eddie lived the high life of the Chicago mob and gave little consideration to the atrocity that went on around him.

Eddie did have one soft spot, however. He had a son that he loved dearly. Eddie saw to it that his young son had clothes, cars, and a good education. Nothing was withheld. Price was no object.

And, despite his involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach him right from wrong. Eddie wanted his son to be a better man than he was.

Yet, with all his wealth and influence, there were two things he couldn't give his son; he couldn't pass on a good name or a good example.

One day, Easy Eddie reached a difficult decision. Easy Eddie wanted to rectify wrongs he had done.

He decided he would go to the authorities and tell the truth about Al "Scarface" Capone, clean up his tarnished name, and offer his son some semblance of integrity. To do this, he would have to testify against TheMob, and he knew that the cost would be great.

So, he testified.

Within the year, Easy Eddie's life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago Street.

But in his eyes, he had given his son the greatest gift he had to offer, at the greatest price he could ever pay. Police removed from his pockets a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medallion, and a poem clipped from a magazine.

The poem read:

The clock of life is wound but once, And no man has the power To tell just when the hands will stop At late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still.

STORY NUMBER TWO

World War II produced many heroes. One such man was Lieutenant Commander Butch O'Hare.

He was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific.

One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission. After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realized that someone had forgotten to top off his fuel tank.

He would not have enough fuel to complete his mission and get back to his ship.

His flight leader told him to return to the carrier. Reluctantly, he dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet.

As he was returning to the mother ship he saw something that turned his blood cold: a squadron of Japanese aircraft was speeding its way toward the American fleet.

The American fighters were gone on a sortie, and the fleet was all but defenseless. He couldn't reach his squadron and bring them back in time to save the fleet. Nor could he warn the fleet of the approaching
danger. There was only one thing to do. He must somehow divert them from the fleet.

Laying aside all thoughts of personal safety, he dove into the formation of Japanese planes. Wing-mounted 50 caliber's blazed as he charged in, attacking one surprised enemy plane and then another. Butch wove in and out of the now broken formation and fired at as many planes as possible until all his ammunition was finally spent.

Undaunted, he continued the assault. He dove at the planes, trying to clip a wing or tail in hopes of damaging as many enemy planes as possible and rendering them unfit to fly.

Finally, the exasperated Japanese squadron took off in another direction.

Deeply relieved, Butch O'Hare and his tattered fighter limped back to the carrier.


Upon arrival, he reported in and related the event surrounding his return. The film from the gun-camera mounted on his plane told the tale. It showed the extent of Butch's daring attempt to protect his fleet. 

He had, in fact, destroyed five enemy aircraft.

This took place on February 20, 1942, and for that action Butch became the Navy's first Ace of W.W.II, and the first Naval Aviator to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

A year later Butch was killed in aerial combat at the age of 29. His home town would not allow the memory of this WW II hero to fade, and today, O'Hare Airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the courage of this great man.


So, the next time you find yourself at O'Hare International, give some thought to visiting Butch's memorial displaying his statue and his Medal of  Honor. It's located between Terminals 1 and 2.

SO WHAT DO THESE TWO STORIES HAVE TO DO WITH EACH OTHER?

Butch O'Hare was "Easy Eddie's" son.
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Source:  http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODBmOGNjYzAwN2RhZjRjNjg4MWQ4YWI4MzY3OGE4NTI=

Julia

America is no Rome

Great op ed from the head of the US Bureau for The Times of London. 

From The Times

September 14, 2007

A quick history lesson: America is no Rome

The tired analogy of imperial decline and fall

Gerard Baker

The ethnic origins of General David Petraeus are apparently Dutch, which is a shame because there’s something sonorously classical about the family name of the commander of the US forces in Iraq. When you discover that his father was christened Sixtus, the fantasy really takes flight. Somewhere in the recesses of the brain, where memory mingles hazily with imagination, I fancy I can recall toiling through a schoolboy Latin textbook that documented the progress of one Petraeus Sixtus as he triumphantly extended the imperium romanum across some dusty plain in Asia Minor.

The fantasy is not wholly inapt, of course. General Petraeus was the star turn in Washington this week, testifying before Congress about the progress of the surge by US forces in Iraq. Some evidently see America’s wearying detention in the quagmire of Mesopotamia as a classic example of imperial overreach of the kind that is thought to have doomed Rome. Who knows? Perhaps 1,500 years ago one of the forebears of General Petraeus was hauled before the Senate to explain the progress of some surge of Roman forces to defeat the insurgents in Germania.

The US is indeed in the middle of another gloomy ride around the “America as Rome” theme park of half-understood history lessons. The pessimists, equipped with their Fodor’s guidebooks, their summer school diplomas, and their DVD collection of Cecil B. DeMille movies, are convinced it’s all up for the people who march today under the standard of the eagle, just as it was for their predecessors. They see military defeat abroad and political decay at home; they watch as far-flung peoples chafe at the dictates of imperial rule and as the plebs at home grow metaphorically hungry from misgovernment. The only real uncertainty in their minds is who will play the Vandals and lay waste to Washington?

It’s a familiar and very tired analogy, of course. From the moment that America became top nation in the middle of the last century, people have been racing to be contemporary Gibbons, chronicling the decline and fall even as it was supposedly happening. Not the least of the objections to their efforts is that Rome’s domination of the known world lasted about 500 years, and survived more than the odd thrashing or two at the hands of barbarian tribes. In modern America, it’s always the same. Every lost battle or turbulent day on the foreign exchanges and the obituary writers are sharpening their pencils.

The bigger objection is that America is not much of an empire after all. No one pays tribute, no one declares allegiance to Caesar, and what kind of empire is it that owes its foreign subjects a couple of trillion dollars? Still, as Gibbon himself noted in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.” Which brings us back neatly to General Petraeus and the Iraq war.

The antiwar crowd’s efforts to depreciate America’s efforts in the Middle East hit a new low on the first day of the long-awaited congressional testimony, when MoveOn.org, the self-appointed leftwing base of the Democratic Party, took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times that called the commander “General Betray Us” and accused him of lying about the progress of the surge. As stunts go, it was as startlingly offensive as it was politically self-defeating.

Not many Americans – not even those who oppose the war – like the idea of calling their generals traitors. They have a vaguely disconcerting sense that they know where that leads – and it’s not Rome but a rather shorter-lived empire of the 20th century that springs to mind. And so it had the signal effect this week of forcing Democrats to distance themselves from the antiwar movement. Most of them – especially those who harbour presidential ambitions – had to go out of their way during the hearings to emphasise their admiration for the general and his soldiers.

This is good. You can argue about the surge. The evidence is encouraging that the increased US military effort, together with a change in tactics, has reduced the violence in Iraq. On the other hand there are legitimate questions about the long-term viability of the strategy. But if America is to emerge from Iraq with a renewed sense of its global role, you shouldn’t really debase the motives of those who lead US forces there. Because in the end what they are doing is deeply honourable – fighting to destroy an enemy that delights in killing women and children; rebuilding a nation ruined by rapine and savagery; trying to bridge sectarian divides that have caused more misery in the world than the US could manage if it lasted a thousand years.

It is helpful to think about Iraq this way. Imagine if the US had never been there; and that this sectarian strife had broken out in any case – as, one day it surely would, given the hatreds engendered by a thousand years of Muslim history and the efforts of Saddam Hussein.

What would we in the West think about it? What would we think of as our responsibilities? There would be some who would want to wash their hands of it. There would be others who would think that UN resolutions and diplomatic initiatives would be enough to salve our consciences if not to stop the slaughter.

But many of us surely would think we should do something about it – as we did in the Balkans more than a decade ago – and as, infamously, we failed to do in Africa at the same time. And we would know that, for all our high ideals and our soaring rhetoric, there would be only one country with the historical commitment to make massive sacrifices in the defence of the lives and liberty of others, the leadership to mobilise efforts to relieve the suffering and, above all, the economic and military wherewithal to make it happen.

That’s the only really workable analogy between the US and Rome. When Rome fell, the world went dark for the best part of a millennium. America may not be an empire. But whatever it is, for the sake of humanity, pray it lasts at least as long as Rome.

Source:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article2448867.ece

Julia   

A great open letter

sent via email

Maybe you have seen this, but it's worth a repeat.

The mess we are in, and who got us there!!

Sergeant Major J.D. Pendry says more in this short e-mail than most
professional authors say in ten articles. (J.D. Pendry is a retired Army
Command Sergeant Major who writes for Random House. HE IS QUITE ELOQUENT
and he seldom minces words!!!)

Jimmy Carter, you're the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You
threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then
lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our
people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief.

Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the
terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in
Somalia, and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the U.S.S. Cole
and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings emboldened the
killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately they grew bolder, until 9/11.

John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied
about American Soldiers in Vietnam. Your military service, like your
life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our Soldiers of terrorizing women
and children in Iraq . You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong
time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam. You're a fake. You want to
run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the
Vietnamese. Iraq , like Vietnam is another war that you were for, before you were
against it.

John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win
militarily in Iraq. You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded
murder without proof. And said we should redeploy to Okinawa. Okinawa John? And
the Democrats call you their military expert. Are you sure you didn't suffer
a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume?
You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a
Marine, sir. You wouldn't amount to! a good pimple on a real Marine's
***. You're a phony and a disgrace.

Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis,
tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who
murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned South
East Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same
fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us!! See Dick
run.


Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu
Grhaib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted
you saying that Iraqi's torture chambers were open under new management. Did
you see the news this week, Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrate real
torture for you again. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world
poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of
it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a
Communist victory there. You're a bloated drunken fool bent on repeating
the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to
homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your
wide, gin-soaked as-s in Washington

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane
Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer, et
al ad nauseam. Every time you stand in front of television cameras and
broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied, that
the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq,
you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated
American Soldiers - cause to think that we'll run away again, and all
they have to do is hang on a little longer.

American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you
publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence
gathering methods, you become one United, with the sub-human pieces of camel dung
that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike
up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my
country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about
that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer.

You are America’s "AXIS OF IDIOTS". Your Collective Stupidity will
destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist abetting news scoops are
more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent
civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in
the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing.
There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering
terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war
as they extended Vietnam. If you want our Soldiers home, as you claim,
knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly
political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I'm questioning your
patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing
air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the
protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this
country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through
and the country to people who are willing to defend it.

No, Mr. President, you don't get off the hook, either. Our country
has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those
who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside
force. It's your obligation to support them by confronting the AXIS OF IDIOTS.
America must hear it from you that these Self-centered people are
harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little
anger, please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must
prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You
must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets. Our
Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot. They need you
to do it now.

AMEN
J.D. Pendry Army Command Sergeant Major, retired

More Military News

Troops Capture Seven Suspects, Find Weapons American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 27, 2007 – Coalition and Iraqi forces captured seven terrorism suspects and destroyed illegal weapons today, military officials reported. In Mosul, coalition forces captured two suspected terrorists with alleged ties to al Qaeda in Iraq. The suspects were accessing a weapons cache consisting of mortar tubes, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-aircraft rounds and several thousand rounds of small-arms ammunition. The cache was destroyed to prevent future use by terrorists. A suspect reportedly involved with al Qaeda was detained in Tarmiyah, and another was captured in Fallujah with alleged involvement in a foreign fighter facilitation network. Iraqi and coalition forces captured three suspected terrorists in Najaf. Intelligence reports indicated individuals in the targeted area were involved with the facilitation of weapons into Iraq. (Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq and Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)

Related Sites: Multinational Corps Iraq Multinational Force Iraq Defenselink