If it Doesn't Bleed, it Doesn't Lead, Give Us Dirty Laundry

It wasn't so long ago that people were all up in arms protesting the war in Iraq and the staggering loss of lives that our troops have suffered (significantly less than any prior engagement that has lasted half this long). Where is the news from Iraq now?

Don Henley had a song out several years back (yes, I know I'm dating myself by using this reference, but it's applicable) concerning the media and how they approach the news. Aptly enough, the name of the song was "Dirty Laundry." In the song there are several situations that are mentioned, such as a plane crash, an operation in which the camera crew wants to film the procedure and the question is asked, "Is the head dead yet?"



In no instance is this attitude of "if it bleeds, it leads" more evident than in the coverage of the war in Iraq. When there was a significant amount of gunfire and conflict, the main stream couldn't get enough of it, to the point of fabricating stories along the way about American troops shooting up places that they hadn't opened fire on (note if you will in clicking the link that the bullets the woman is holding have never been fired, they are still in their shell casing), or about 20 headless bodies being found in a mass grave.

I can't help but wonder if the movie 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag inspired that story.

So I'm guessing that building schools, hospitals, and an infrastructure, along with police operations to mop up the pockets of insurgents that are starting to dwindle, aren't newsworthy now?

I'm guessing it isn't bleeding enough.

Getting a story on the evening news isn’t easy for any correspondent. And for reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a solution when she is talking to the network.

“Generally what I say is, ‘I’m holding the armor-piercing R.P.G.,’ ” she said last week in an appearance on “The Daily Show,” referring to the initials for rocket-propelled grenade. “ ‘It’s aimed at the bureau chief, and if you don’t put my story on the air, I’m going to pull the trigger.’ ”

Ms. Logan let a sly just-kidding smile sneak through as she spoke, but her point was serious. Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever.

“If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts,” Ms. Logan said.

It drives many of us into a state of brain damaged myopia as well

I wonder if a reporter causing a bureau chief to bleed would be bloody enough? It would create a moral dilemma for the dinosaur media, though.

"To bleed or not to bleed, that is the question."

It's a matter of money, and the dinosaur media isn't going to continue investing money in a region that doesn't have enough blood and guts coming out of it to fill the time slots for the evening news. Inside sources have indicated, on the condition of anonymity, that they are concerned that the "big three" would withdraw their organizations from Baghdad after the November elections.

It's at this point that one has to wonder why the November elections are the deciding point for the withdrawal of major media encampment in Iraq. Could this say something to a propaganda factor that the big three have been running against the current Presidential administration of George. W. Bush? It is HIS war, after all, if some pundits are to be believed. How much credibility is lost in close examination of the media and their coverage of Iraq when closely examining how much negative attention has been given to the war during the time period when our armed forces were in the process of bringing stability to the region, and the subsequent lack of information coming out of the area now that the situation is becoming more manageable. Does this show a concerted effort by the main stream media to try to discredit and bring down a sitting Republican President?

Or does there need to be more bleeding involved for them to continue that effort?

As to Lara Logan and others who have come forth, it will be interesting to see what turns their careers take in coming weeks and months.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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"why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings"

I have long maintained that reporters and news journalists should do one thing: present information without putting their opinions into it.

All too often, in my opinion, news journalists and reporters allow their own personal biases and their egos to creep into their writing or reporting, using their medium to sway public opinion.

Swaying opinion is not the job of the media.

The job of the media is to report the facts as they become available.

How many people out there realize, just for instance, that the Spanish-American War at the turn of the twentieth century was media driven? The New York Journal created the war with their "reporting" and sent our nation into war with the Kingdom of Spain.

Have things really changed so much over the past century? It doesn't seem to be the case. "Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it." We are a nation doomed. Why? Because we still allow ourselves to fall victim to "yellow journalism."

Isn't it HOT outside today? I was just outside a bit ago and saw a dog looking at a cat WISHING it was cool enough that he could chase it. Anywhere you go in the continental United States today you'll find one common thing going on: it's damned hot outside. The news is FULL of stories about the heat, about global warming, about the high temperatures, so forth and so on.

Global warming.

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret, something that you may not realize because the media CERTAINLY seems to have overlooked it. Ready? This is startling and may shock you, so brace yourself. It's AUGUST. It's the middle of SUMMER. OF COURSE it's going to be hot. I hear people my age saying all the time "I don't remember it being this damned hot when I was younger." Of course you don't, when you were younger you could handle the heat better and didn't give two hoots in hell whether it was hot or not you were going to do what you were going to do and that was that.

But the media and certain of our politicians are in a virtual FEEDING frenzy trying to convince you that YOU are the reason that things are getting hotter.

Now, before you start rolling your eyes at me, I will confess that I do believe that there is such a thing as global warming. I also believe in another concept called global cooling. Why? Ask any GOOD geologist or paleontologist and he'll tell you why. The Earth goes through cycles of heating and cooling. Let me give you two PRIME examples, and I'll put them into concepts that the general public can relate to.

Remember the Jurassic Park movies? Scientists had used genetic engineering to recreate dinosaurs. Do dinosaurs live where it's cool? No, so the dinosaurs had to be created on islands along the equator. The equator is the middle of the earth, from north to south, and the place where the planet is closest to the sun. Why did they choose the equator? Why not, oh, say, the Everglades? The southern tip of Florida, hot as it is in the summer, is not close enough to the temperature of the earth at the time OF the dinosaurs.

Remember the movie Ice Age? My kids loved that movie. Ask yourself this, though. Can you imagine saber tooth tigers or wooly mammoths vacationing in Hawaii? Cancun? I don't think so. Why? Too damned hot. They were creatures best fitted for cold weather.

Periods of global warming, periods of global cooling. How many of you know that Mars is undergoing global warming as well? Both Earth and Mars are coming out of ice ages, ours being what is called a "little ice age."

We, humans, have less impact on this than the alarmists would have you believe, and any time something comes out contrary to what the left wishes to spoon feed you, it's attacked.

From Newsweek: (Via memeorandum)

Greenhouse Simplicities

By Robert J. Samuelson
Newsweek

Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - We in the news business often enlist in moral crusades. Global warming is among the latest. Unfortunately, self-righteous indignation can undermine good journalism. Last week's NEWSWEEK cover story on global warming is a sobering reminder. It's an object lesson of how viewing the world as "good guys vs. bad guys" can lead to a vast oversimplification of a messy story. Global warming has clearly occurred; the hard question is what to do about it.

If you missed NEWSWEEK's story, here's the gist. A "well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change." This "denial machine" has obstructed action against global warming and is still "running at full throttle." The story's thrust: discredit the "denial machine," and the country can start the serious business of fighting global warming. The story was a wonderful read, marred only by its being fundamentally misleading.

So Samuelson knows better than scientists.

Right.

HE ADMITS BIAS in the opening statement of his article. That is a presentation of the facts?

Here is a bit FROM that "misleading" article.

The Truth About Denial

Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine

By Sharon Begley
Newsweek

Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."

Honestly I fail to see what Samuelson is whining about in his article. It seems to me that the original article was written with enough leftist slant that nothing further needed to be said to claim the opposite of what the article seems, at first glance, to discuss.

Yellow journalism at it's finest, I tell you. I'm sure Al Gore is sitting somewhere in one of his big ass houses, riding in an SUV, or flying around in a private jet somewhere feeling very proud indeed.

We're an arrogant lot, and sometimes we have to have that pointed out to us. We may take offense at it when it happens, but by God that doesn't make it any less true. Here's one such instance of it being pointed out. I happen to very much agree.

Mark Steyn: Warm-mongers and cheeseburger imperialists

MARK STEYN
Syndicated columnist

Something rather odd happened the other day. If you go to NASA's Web site and look at the "U.S. surface air temperature" rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed.

Then again, you might not. They're not issuing any press releases about it. But they have quietly revised their All-Time Hit Parade for U.S. temperatures. The "hottest year on record" is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone's ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn't have a word to say about it.

And yet we survived.

So why is 1998 no longer America's record-breaker? Because a very diligent fellow named Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.com labored long and hard to prove there was a bug in NASA's handling of the raw data. He then notified the scientists responsible and received an acknowledgment that the mistake was an "oversight" that would be corrected in the next "data refresh." The reply was almost as cool as the revised chart listings.

[...]

As Pogo said, way back in the 1971 Earth Day edition of a then-famous comic strip, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Even when we don't do anything: In the post-imperial age, powerful nations no longer have to invade and kill. Simply by driving a Chevy Suburban, we can make the oceans rise and wipe the distant Maldive Islands off the face of the Earth. This is a kind of malignant narcissism so ingrained it's now taught in our grade schools. Which may be why, even when the New Republic's diarist goes to Iraq and meets the real enemy, he still assumes it's us.

Having said all of that, I'll say this, leaving this posting with the source of my title for this piece. Lewis Carroll was an amazing wordsmith, and could show us through his writings how words can be used to manipulate, to compel, and to convince. If you remember reading Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, or watching the Disneyized version Alice in Wonderland, you'll immediately recognize the source of my title for today. If not, for the sheer amusement of reading the works of one of the great masters, I'm including The Walrus and the Carpenter:

The Walrus and The Carpenter

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.


The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.


The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"


"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.


"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."


The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.


But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.


Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more--
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.


"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."


"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.


"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed--
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."


"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf--
I've had to ask you twice!"


"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"


"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.


"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

Don't be oysters, people.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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We could REALLY USE that Gore effect right about now...

It's damned hot, people.

Damned hot.

We really, really need brother Al to come home to TN and give us a talk on global warming, because we could certainly use the snow right about now...

Hat tip to Michael Asher at DailyTech for this one:

Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data
Michael Asher (Blog) - August 9, 2007 11:49 AM

Years of bad data corrected; 1998 no longer the warmest year on record


My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.

[...]

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.

The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the US global warming propaganda machine could be huge.

He closes this article stating that he doesn't think the media will give it proper attention.

That's ok, amigo, we'll help you get the word out.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Breaking News From Around The World?

New Wave of Immigrants Catches White House Attention
Baghdad

3JUL07

Sources in the Green Zone have reported sightings of unidentified objects flying in the night skies over the Iraqi capital city. Reports have also been said to have come in from Fallujah and as far away as Tel Aviv, Israel, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Once source, Jamal Miletr, is quoted as saying that he could see "little gray men waving" from "windows on the side of a flying saucer."

However, one military source on the ground, Major Flyn Monbatt, RAF, has confirmed the reports at least from Baghdad. "It's true," Major Monbatt said in an exclusive interview. "These little gray men bear a striking similarity to the bodies of those recovered in Roswell, New Mexico, half a century ago."

Pentagon sources have declined to comment.

White House sources state that President Bush is consulting with attorneys and members of Congress to try to include the little green men in his next version of the Immigration bill...



Orlando

6JUL07

Irrefutable Proof Dolphin Intelligence

Sea World scientists today announced in a press conference that they have finally cracked the dolphin language barrier.

"It was the most amazing thing," says Dr. Hyram "Hy" Falutiin. "We have spent decades trying to decipher the whistling and grunting, the various things that the dolphins seemed so desperately that they were trying to say to us."

The dolphins seemed to be content in having finally been understood, and have mysteriously disappeared from all research facilities around the world. In fact, Dr. Hy Falutiin reports that there have also been reports that there are no dolphins to be found anywhere on the planet, to include the oceans.

"It's like they understood that their message had been delivered, and that they have moved on somewhere else." While not specifically tying the disappearance of the world's dolphin population to the sightings of "little gray men" around the globe, Dr. Falutiin has not ruled out the possibility of a relation between the incidents. "Suppose that the dolphins had been sent here BY visitors from another world, with a specific message for us, and that they had made arrangements to go where ever they came from after the message had been translated."

There is one problem with the message, according to Dr. Falutiin. "We're going to make the message public, because we're not sure what it means, exactly. 'So long and thanks for all the fish..."


Stan Lee Signs New Superheroes

New York

2JUL07

Stan Lee, creator of such amazing comic book sensations as Spiderman, the Hulk, the Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, the Avengers, and so many others, has announced that Marvel Comics has signed exclusive rights with the Wolf Boy and the Bat Boy to use them as characters in an upcoming comic book series, entitled "Batboy and the Wolf."

While specific details of the contractual agreements are not known at this time, it is reported that the Bay Boy has contacted a local Remax Realtor concerning the purchase of a cave ridden property somewhere along the East Coast, and the Wolf Boy had been in negotiations for a sheep ranch somewhere in Montana.

When asked for comment, a smiling Lee simply said, "EXCELSIOR!"


hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I COULD write for the AP...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

The grass is always greener...

The late Erma Bombeck once wrote a book entitled The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Septic Tank. Humorous, witty, I wonder if the Palestinians are feeling any sort of humor and wit at their current situation as they lament not being under the protection and jurisdiction of Israel.

We told you about this situation in recent weeks with spree's posting this week "First They Came for the Jews", my posting on the 3rd entitled "The enemy of my enemy...?", and we revisit it today with hat tips to little green footballs and News Busters.

To refresh everyone's memory, there has yet to be a nation named "Palestine." The Dinosaur media has created in the public mindset the concept of a misplaced people living in refugee status since the middle of the last century; people misplaced by the creation of the nation of Israel. What the media fails to report is that in truth it was the Israeli people who had been displaced for CENTURIES and that they had returned to their homeland.

The "Palestinians" were squatters.

And now, after decades of the media making Israel to be so unfair to the Palestinians and being so harsh to them, where are Palestinians heading to escape violence in the Gaza Strip?

Israel.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Earlier, dozens of Palestinians arrived at the Erez Crossing in an attempt to escape the Gaza Strip and enter Israel. IDF soldiers shot into the air to try to prevent the approaching crowds from infiltrating through the security fence.

Many of the Palestinians arrived at the crossing carrying large suitcases and were planning to run away from the Strip following Hamas's takeover.

One young man shouted "bye, bye, Gaza," and waved as he walked through the covered walkway that leads to the Israeli side.

My my my my my what oh WHAT will the leftist anti-semitic dinosaur media DO now that Israel has been SHOWN not to be the bad guy here?

Katie Couric might just explode on camera.

One can only hope...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

.

The enemy of my enemy...?

Middle East politics is an amazing thing to follow. Just when you think you have it all figured out, something happens that absolutely changes the shape of everything that analysts and political scientists have speculated on and predicted.

Hat Tip to Moderate Voice for this amazing story that you won't likely find on the front pages or in the opening segments of the nightly news:

'We Are Facing a Second Nakba'-Reactions in the Palestinian Press to the Hamas-Fatah Clashes

By: C. Jacob

"The situation in the Gaza Strip, and especially in the city of Gaza, is scary. Murders are committed by the dozen, using every [conceivable] weapon... The murder machine, fueled by every conceivable type of hatred, is hurtling in every direction, all the time, everywhere... in the mosques... in the schools... [There are] executions... Leaders are attacked, and their families humiliated... Children and innocent civilians are being murdered..." Talal Okal, columnist for the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Ayyam, May 17, 2007.

Introduction

The current wave of violent Hamas-Fatah clashes is one of the most brutal the PA has known, especially considering that it broke out only a short while after the signing of the Mecca Agreement, which was supposed to put an end to the mutual fighting. The large number of casualties, and the fear that has taken hold of the Gaza streets, have sparked intense protest among Palestinians and Arabs, with harsh criticism directed towards both the PA and Hamas.

Some consequences of the clashes are public statements by residents calling on Israel to reenter the Gaza Strip, and concerns regarding the effect of the fighting on the international community's faith in the Palestinians' ability to establish a state, to honor agreements, and to maintain peace.

Among the solutions proposed in the Palestinian media were to launch a third intifada, this time against those responsible for the internal chaos, and to bring in Arab or international forces to keep the peace between the Fatah and Hamas.

Does that sound like the peace that Palestinians had expected from not being under Israeli rule?
What would one expect the reactions to be from this situation? Not, probably, what you would think...

Who is Responsible for the Clashes? - Mutual Accusations by Fatah and Hamas
Fatah and PLO spokesmen accused Hamas of staging a coup against the Palestinian Authority and of trying to renege on the Mecca Agreement. The PLO Executive Committee issued a statement saying: "What is happening in Gaza is an attempted coup against the legitimate security apparatuses, aimed at imposing by force the legitimacy of the armed militias, and especially the legitimacy of the Hamas militia [known as the] Executive Force." It should be noted that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pronounced the Executive Force illegal immediately after its establishment." [1]

A statement issued by the Fatah Central Committee said: "Behind the mutual killing of Palestinian by Palestinian stand local leaders and field [commanders] from Hamas who are working to overthrow the national unity government and the Mecca Agreement." [2] In a similar vein, Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa accused Hamas of losing control over its armed militias. [3]

Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Azzam Al-Ahmad demanded that all armed gunmen from both sides be removed from the streets, saying: "PA President [Mahmoud Abbas] issued a presidential decree proclaiming the Executive Force illegitimate only two days after its establishment was announced." On another occasion, Azzam Al-Ahmad called to dismantle the Executive Force, accusing its men of carrying out executions that were pushing the Palestinians to the brink of civil war. [4]

Yousef Al-Qazzaz, a senior Palestinian Broadcasting Authority official and columnist for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, wrote: "A strong smell of Al-Qaeda is rising from what is being done in Gaza by the [forces] of chaos, which are murdering Palestinian security personnel and killing innocent women and children [right] in front of Prime Minister [Ismail Haniyya] from Hamas, who is unable to restrain them." [5]

Hamas spokesmen, on the other hand, accused Fatah of collaborating with the U.S. and with Israel, and claimed that the revolutionary faction within Fatah was rebelling against the Palestinian government. In response to Azzam Al-Ahmad's call to dismantle the Executive Force, Hamas demanded that his immunity be revoked and he stand trial. Hamas Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said: "Al-Ahmad represents the Legislative Council and the Fatah party. How can he demand the dismantling of a legitimate police force?" [6] Hamas representative Ayman Tah asked: "Why doesn't Azzam Al-Ahmad speak of the Fatah's [own] executive force, about its illegitimacy and its massacre of residents? Why doesn't he speak of the presidential club, which has become an execution chamber for residents and which has made it licit to kill the [Palestinian] people?" [7] Another Hamas statement said: "Israel's jets did not hesitate to respond to Azzam Al-Ahmad's call to [come] and wipe out the interior ministry's Executive Force." [8]

Hamas also characterized the events in Gaza as a rebellion by commanders from the revolutionary faction within Fatah against the Palestinian government and against the agreements signed by Abbas and Haniyya. [9] Haniyya's political advisor Ahmad Yousef accused factions within Fatah and the security apparatuses of "following orders from the U.S. and Israel to escalate the violence. Both movements," he added," need a second Mecca Agreement in order to resolve the problems that still remain, such as the hierarchy within the security apparatuses and the appointment of an interior minister." Ahmad Yousef also accused the U.S. of strengthening Fatah at the expense of Hamas." [10]

Arab on Arab violence in the Gaza Strip? Is this what was expected with Israeli withdrawal?

The Clashes "Are Murdering the Palestinian Cause"

Al-Ayyam columnist Abdallah Awwad attacked both Fatah and Hamas: "Between one murder and another, between one kidnapping and the next... our leaders continue to sit in their [meaningless] seats and to speak of 'resistance,' 'liberation,' 'unity,' and 'return'... They are all liars. The weapons they wish to retain, [ostensibly] as the weapons of resistance, are actually weapons of internecine terrorism and murder... You are murdering the [Palestinian] cause, [our] people and [our] future... Oh murderers, you have ruined our world, castrated our nationalism, prostituted our resistance... You have turned our lives into hell. [In fact,] hell is preferable... Take your government, your militias, and your gangs and go to hell." [16]

Palestinian columnist Abd Al-Nasser Al-Najjar wrote in a similar vein: "Oh murderers in the streets of Gaza, we renounce you. You cannot have emerged from the womb of the Holy Land. You are despicable. You are chasing after [what is left] of our shattered government, [pursuing your own] interests... You are neither Muslims nor believers... Today, we are ashamed to speak out loud of our Palestinian [identity], when in the past we took pride in our Palestinian self-sacrifice, revolution and martyrdom. Oh you mercenaries, you have betrayed our dreams and murdered our promised state. [Our] enemies have used you as a Trojan horse. Oh murderers, you are the Satan of Palestine... Know that a bullet you fire in the Gaza street, no matter what your affiliation, will turn into a curse that will pursue you to your own graves. Oh murderers of Gaza... you have no place [among us] now that you have killed everything that is beautiful within us." [17]


Palestinian Officials: The World Perceives Us as a People Incapable of Establishing a State

Columnists also expressed concern that the fighting would affect the Palestinians' image in the eyes of the international community. Bassam Abu Sharif, who was an advisor to Arafat, wrote: "The situation in Gaza has reached the explosion point, and the Israeli message to the West and to Washington is 'do you really want these people to establish an independent state? If they are shooting each other [now], what will they do when they have a state? If they violate the agreements they have signed with each other and with the Arabs, what will they do with the agreements [they sign] with Israel?" [18]

Columnist and Palestinian official Yousef Qazzaz wrote: "To this very day, I do not understand why most of our senior [officials] are afraid to declare in all honesty that we - [our] government, [our] security apparatuses and the [Palestinian] people - have [all] failed in implementing the law and in maintaining security. We are immersed in the worship of chaos, in the destruction of our national institutions and our home. Why are we angry with those who say that the Palestinians are incapable of managing their country's affairs?" [19]

So what do the Palestinians see as a solution to their problems? Here's the surprise to this story:

Columnists: People in Gaza Long for the Return of the Israeli Occupation

Papers reported that some people in Gaza even want the Israelis to return to the Strip. Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad, journalists for the Israeli-Arab weekly Al-Sinara, wrote: "People in Gaza are hoping that Israel will reenter the Gaza Strip, wipe out both Hamas and Fatah, and then withdraw again... They also say that, since the [start of the] massacres, they [have begun to] miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than [the Palestinian gunmen] who do not even know why they are fighting and killing one another. It's like organized crime, [they said]. Once, we resisted Israel together, but now we call for the return of the Israeli army to Gaza." [20]

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida columnist Yahya Rabah wrote: "When the national unity government was formed, I thought, 'This will be a government of national salvation.' If a government that includes Fatah, Hamas, other factions and independents associated with [various] factions has not been able to save the day, it means that no one can, unless Israel decides that its army should intervene. Then it will invade [the Gaza Strip], kill and arrest [people] - but this time not as an occupying [force] but as an international peace-keeping force. Look what we have come to, how far we have deteriorated, and what we have done to ourselves." [21]

Palestinian journalist Majed Azzam wrote: "We should have the courage to acknowledge the truth... The [only] thing that prevents the chaos and turmoil in Gaza from spreading to the West Bank is the presence of the Israeli occupation [in the West Bank]... [as opposed to] its absence from the Gaza Strip." [22]

Bassem Al-Nabris, a Palestinian poet from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, wrote: "If a there was a referendum in the Gaza Strip [on the question of] 'would you like the Israeli occupation to return?' half the population would vote 'yes'... But in practice, I believe that the number of those in favor is at least 70%, if not more - [a figure] much higher than is assumed by the political analysts and those who follow [events]. For the million and a half people living in this small region, things have [simply] gone too far - in practice, not just as a metaphor. [It did not begin] with the internal conflicts, but even earlier, in the days of the previous Palestinian administration, which was corrupt and did not give the people even the tiniest [ray of] hope. The fundamentalist forces which came into power [after it] also promised change and reform, but [instead, people] got a siege, with no security and no [chance of] making a living... If the occupation returns, at least there will be no civil war, and the occupier will have a moral and legal obligation to provide the occupied people with employment and food, which they now lack." [23]

Isn't it an amazing thing how that Israel has been so villainized for their treatment of the Palestinians? How long has the world blamed Israel for the plight of Palestine? Let me fill you in on a little clue that so many seem to forget or overlook. Ready? Hold on, this is HUGE. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A NATION CALLED PALESTINE. But how much terrorist activity has taken place in it's name? TOO much. Israel IS the Jewish homeland, historically as well as Biblically. And now the Palestinians recognize exactly what they had under Israeli rule, having suffered greatly since Israel withdrew from Gaza.

Amazing, that.

Read the whole story here. It boggles the mind. And it goes to show that Israel is not the horrible overlord that the dinosaur media and the U.N. paints it to be...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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A liberal in Soldier's clothing...

When is a door not a door? When it's ajar.

Silly old kids joke, I know, but it leads into another question: when is a liberal not a liberal? Answer: a liberal is ALWAYS a liberal, no matter how hard it tries to pretend it isn't.

I've seen a lot of strained, forced behavior in my day, but Spencer Ackerman takes the cake in his piece entitled The Bitter End. I can't even begin to figure out exactly where he's going with his article, it's that convoluted and, as my seventeen year old son would say, "random." On the one hand, he tries to make the case for Congressional demands that the war in Iraq come to an end; on the other, he tries to show the troops impressions on how they feel about a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Haunted by Vietnam, Democrats are determined to express support for the troops. This is admirable. The truth of the matter, however, is this: many troops in Iraq, perhaps even most of them, want to stay and fight. That doesn’t mean that we should stay in Iraq any longer. It does mean, however, that if Democrats want to bridge the divide between themselves and the military—an effort further complicated by their opposition to the war—they’re going to have to recognize that arguing in the name of the troops isn’t going to work.

Okay, so the Democrats don't want the war, but they don't want to be seen as not supporting the troops, so they try to say that since they care about the troops, they want them safe, let's bring them home? Is that the message? John "Breck Boy" Edwards seems to think so. I hope to gods I don't see any of his damned suggested signs this weekend, either, by the way. I think I may just have to go off on someone.

Ahem.

Sorry, sidetracked.

We continue.

Democrats, liberals, have tried to use this "protect the troops" tactic for quite a little while now. Is our military so pitiful it needs the brave, protective Congress to protect it? I don't think so. "George W. LIED to the American people, he LIED about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he LIED about al-Qaeda involvement in Iraq." Is that a fact. I reckon Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore lied about it, too, then, because they said the same things before W was elected to office. Amazing how liberals gloss over that and ignore it.

Soldiers may see that their unit is accomplishing its objectives and feel a boost in morale. They may search a house and find a weapons cache, for instance, or they may track down a crucial member of a terrorist cell and take him into custody. Frustratingly, as obvious and long as the list of tactical successes may be, absent dramatic political improvements they rarely coalesce on their own into a change in a counterinsurgency’s overall fortunes. And these aren’t questions soldiers can afford to concern themselves with. “Once you’re engaged, eyeball to eyeball, you tend not to think about those strategic issues at all. You’re trying to shoot and shoot back,” says retired General Merrill McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff and Vietnam veteran. “Your entire focus becomes tactical.”

In addition, with the bar for success getting increasingly lower, even small improvements feel big. “They have a new commander over there, and at least the appearance and the rhetoric of a new strategy,” says military expert Richard Kohn of the University of North Carolina. The soldiers, says Kohn, will tell themselves, “All right, this is it. This is the one last chance.” (Indeed, this is almost exactly what Smith and Miller expressed to me.)

Okay, has the man not heard of gathering intelligence and information from unit and squad debriefing sessions? You put all the information together that comes in from the battlefield, from the rear, from the support units, the firebases, and so on and so on and so on and you put together a big clear picture of what's going on.

Fortunately, Congress seems to be, grudgingly, admitting at last that we can't abandon Iraq or the Middle East. For the record, before I include what follows, I want it made perfectly clear for the record that I still WILL NOT watch CNN news for their traitorous act of showing an American soldier being executed by a sniper first on television, then as a download on their site. WUA still uses them as a source, however, and sent this to me, ergo I felt compelled to include it. CNN remains, however, on my shitlist until they make ammends for treasonous acts.

House, Senate pass war funding bill
POSTED: 0202 GMT (1002 HKT), May 24, 2007

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congress sent a $120 billion war spending bill to the White House late Thursday, abandoning a call for most U.S. troops to leave Iraq after an earlier veto by President Bush.

The bill replaces the earlier goal of withdrawing U.S. combat troops by March 2008 with a series of political benchmarks for Iraqi leaders to meet in order to receive continued American support.

But the move sharply split the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, where 140 members -- including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- voted against the plan.

Simmer down, Nancy, at least your plastic surgeon hasn't signed up. It's about damned time that Congress did something right. Lord knows they've done enough wrong, ESPECIALLY in the last six months since this Congress was sworn in.

This bickering back and forth, the media lies, the Congress men and women and Senators with yellow stripes down their backs, are wearing on the people in the uniforms of our nation's service. Instead of being part of the solution, they're being part of the problem. A HUGE part of the problem. In some cases, they ARE the problem:

Carlson: Shift news to successes in Iraq, soldier urges

JOHN CARLSON'S IOWA

A tired and disgusted Iowa soldier fired off an e-mail a few days ago, telling family and friends how things are going in Iraq.

A Blackhawk helicopter pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Jim Funk has flown more than 80 combat missions since he arrived there in October.

He described his Boone-based unit's successes after 5,000 hours of flying out of LSA Anaconda, a huge American base north of Baghdad. He talked about the tragedies he and his fellow Iowans have witnessed and his worries of becoming complacent as he goes on mission after mission.

Morale?

"We're treading water," the Ames man told the people closest to him. "We continue to kick butt on missions and take care of each other, even though we know the American public and government DOES NOT stand behind us.

Ohhhh, they all say they support us, but how can you support me (the soldier) if you don't support my mission or my objectives. We watch the news over here. Every time we turn it on we see the American public and Hollywood conducting protests and rallies against our 'illegal occupation' of Iraq."

His greatest frustration? The performance of the people who deliver the news to the American people

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Go read the full article, read his letter, his words are compelling and from the heart.

Can a liberal pass himself off as a conservative? Not really. Not well, at any rate.

This is Memorial Day weekend. Honor well those who have fallen in defense of our freedom, in defense of our way of life. Respect those who wear the uniform still today, and support them. Not just with lip service, really, honestly support them.

They put themselves in harms way to make sure that the American people don't have to.

God bless them one and all.

To our soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors, you have the thanks of this veteran, and I salute you. And I think regular readers of our site know that that ain't just lip service...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Israel Under More Attacks...Will the Media Blame Them Again?

Israel is a nation constantly under the gun. Not only from their active, shooting enemies, but from the media and indeed the United Nations. The UN has repeatedly shown their bias against this small nation in the Middle East, blaming Israel for problems when the Israeli's have returned fire or counter attacked against forces moving against them. The dinosaur media eats it up, each and every time, and according to them it's ALWAYS Israel in the wrong for fighting back.

Keep a watch over the next few days and see if it doesn't happen again when Israel responds to these latest attacks:

Israel threatens Hamas political leaders

By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Israel's deputy defense minister threatened Tuesday to target Hamas political leaders, calling them "terrorists in suits" after a rocket attack by the Islamic militant group killed an Israeli woman.

The harsh words were backed up by action. Israel airstrikes targeted two suspected arms caches and two Hamas bases. Later, an Israeli helicopter strafed a rocket launch site with machine-gun fire near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Palestinian officials said a total of 10 people were wounded.

The 31-year-old woman who died Monday night was the first Israeli killed by a Palestinian rocket since November, inviting a harsh response. Militants fired nine more rockets at Israel on Tuesday, slightly wounding two people, the army said.

Israeli leaders suggested that even Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas could be targeted in reprisals, with Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh calling Hamas' leaders "terrorists in suits" in a radio interview.

"We don't care if he's a ringleader, a perpetrator of rocket launching or if he is one of the political leaders," Sneh later told The Associated Press. "No one has immunity."

Wary of Israeli strikes, leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza have lowered their profiles, turning off cell phones and staying off the streets.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri threatened harsh retaliation if the group's leaders were attacked.

"Harming ... any of Hamas' leadership will cost the occupation dearly," he said. "This will mean responses." He did not elaborate.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of the moderate Fatah, traveled from his West Bank headquarters to Gaza for talks with Hamas leadership in a last-ditch attempt to salvage a truce with Israel and rein in factional bloodletting between the two factions.

Abbas himself is seen as a potential target of Hamas. Witnesses said he entered the strip Tuesday evening in a motorcade of dozens of vehicles bristling with armed guards, while presidential security forces locked down central Gaza thoroughfares and marksmen staked out rooftop vantage points along the route to his seafront official residence.

Fatah officials said Abbas would meet Haniyeh but would not divulge the timing or location, citing security concerns.

After a six-month lull, Israel resumed airstrikes on militant targets in Gaza last Wednesday in response to heavy rocket fire. More than 40 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed.

Despite Israeli vows of harsh retaliation in response to Monday night's Sderot attack, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged there is no quick solution for the rocket barrages.

Israel's high-tech military has not been able to find a solution for countering the crude homemade rockets. In the past week, more than 150 rockets have landed in and around Sderot, a town of 24,000 people about a mile from the Gaza border.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told visiting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that Israel was holding off on launching a major ground offensive into Gaza in order to give diplomacy a chance to defuse the crisis, Peretz's office said.

The government evacuated hundreds of Sderot residents to hotels in other parts of the country for the Shavuot Jewish holiday, which began at sundown. The evacuation was orderly, and Israeli soldiers helped people board the buses.

Mechi Friederwitzer-Fendell, who immigrated to Israel from New York city in 2000 and has raised seven children in Sderot, said she is staying put. But she urged the government to get tougher still with the Palestinians.

"Maybe we should knock down some houses," she said. "They fire a missile and we destroy a few houses, let them realize that we can't stand for this."

Hamas' rocket attacks apparently have been aimed at triggering an Israel response that could unite Palestinians and end the infighting. Some 50 people were killed in the factional violence last week.

Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official, said the group would consider talks on a cease-fire, if Israel first stopped its "mad attacks."

"The aggression must stop so we can talk about a comprehensive cease-fire," said Youssef, a top aide to Haniyeh. "The government is working on expanding the truce. This is a national interest."

Israel dismissed talk of a new cease-fire, saying Hamas never sticks to truces.

"Hamas ... is leading the violence," Peretz said. "We don't intend on stopping. We will stop at the point that the rockets stop."

To the dinosaur media, you are being watched. You are being scrutinized. You are under the microscope. Will you do the right thing this time and report this situation accurately? Will you stand up to the Islamic extremist's to whom you have been bowing down to the past several decades? Or will you continue to show your bias, your lies, your corruption and once again blame the Israelis as they retaliate for the strikes against their national sovereignty? We are WATCHING you, and you will be held accountable for your actions, as will the forces of evil driving the assaults against the nation of Israel.

Americans are starting to wake up to the truth, shaking off the shackles of complacency and apathy that you have enslaved them in for so long with your lies and biased reporting. The truth always comes out. The truth is coming out now, even as I write this...

The Sleeping Giant is reawakening.

And he's PISSED.

Shalom, Israel.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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My turn...

It seems that the day has been filled with commentary on William M Arkin’s WAPO article The Troops Also Need to Support the American People. I’m a little bit late in the day on coming on board with the comments and postings, because unlike the ESTEEMED Mr. Arkin I do actually work for a living, but I’m in from work for the day and have read his piece (of shit) and have decided, after reading spree’s posting and those of several others, that enough can’t be said about this self important son of a bitch and his article regarding our troops.

My turn.

The very title of the article smacks of self righteousness. Does this knucklehead not understand the fact that the troops DO support the American people by devoting themselves, a portion of their lives, if not their entire careers, TO the American people?

Obviously not.

So right off the bat, his article is derogatory and hateful. That’s before reading even the first sentence.

I'm all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn't for them to disapprove of the American people.

It’s apparent to me that this knucklehead follows the Orwellian model from Animal Farm; “some are more equal than others.” EVERY citizen of the United States is assured of the right to freedom of speech. Not just asshole Op-Ed writers and journalists for such bird cage liners as WAPO. YES, Comrade Arkin, even those in UNIFORM (hat tip to Uncle Jimbo at BlackFive for the suggestion that Arkin was turned by the Soviets. Well put, Top) have the rights of the Constitution of the United States of America. Deservedly so. They are the defenders of it.

Sure, it is the junior enlisted men who go to jail. But even at anti-war protests, the focus is firmly on the White House and the policy. We don't see very many "baby killer" epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.

Tell that to Joshua Sparling. I’m sure he’d heartily agree that the flying spittle that landed on him was done quite by accident (man I wish there was some way to show a smirk in writing this).

Rose colored fucking glasses, or lying through his teeth one or the other. What a dickhead.

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

The typical enlisted personnel’s wages usually put them well below the norm of the poverty level. Add to that the restructuring of health care benefits some years back where the military is under more of an HMO type program than when I was in.

But it is the United States, and the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

Yeah, that’s really indulging our “mercenary” force, all right.

Mercenary \Mer"ce*na*ry\, n.; pl. {Mercenaries}. One who is hired; a hireling; especially, a soldier hired into foreign service. --Milman. [1913 Webster]

Ahem. Don’t you just love Webster’s?

To give the devil his due, Comrade Arkin DID say, “I was wrong in using the word mercenary to describe the American soldier today.” But words mean things, do they not? When WERE American soldiers mercenaries? They must have been at some point in time, according to this lame assed attempt at a non-apology. I’m guessing that my generation of veterans were the mercenaries, those of us who did our time during the 80’s when it was all “me me me.”

Fuck you, Comrade.

I'll accept that the soldiers, in order to soldier on, have to believe that they are manning the parapet, and that's where their frustrations come in. I'll accept as well that they are young and naïve and are frustrated with their own lack of progress and the never changing situation in Iraq. Cut off from society and constantly told that everyone supports them, no wonder the debate back home confuses them.
America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform. I don't believe America needs a draft though I imagine we'd be having a different discussion if we had one.

We owe them our gratitude for being willing to put themselves in harms way to keep our nation safe. We owe them our thanks for the sacrifices that they make for their love of family and country to leave their homes and go to foreign soil to keep our enemies from coming to our soil. We owe them our RESPECT for the courage it takes to go out into hostile environs and confront people that they don’t know, people that they are unsure of, in order for us to sit here at home and maintain our way of life. YOU, Comrade, owe them a great deal of all of the above for them making it possible for you to sit on your fat leftist ass and deride them.

Fuck you, Comrade.

Personally? I would LOVE to be young enough, and healthy enough (and skinny enough, har har har) to reenlist. But since I can’t, our troops have my full support, my full respect, for what they do. I know, as do so many others of us out here in the unpolled, unresearched, mostly silent majority. It takes a certain kind of insane to be WILLING to go into a combat region, much the same way it takes a certain kind of insane to go up to a burning building while everyone else is running away, armed with nothing more than heavy clothing, a water hose, and an axe.

Or are fire fighters a coddled lot in your mind as well, Comrade Arkin?

Our military today is made up, as has been SO many times, of the best and the brightest of our country. They serve because they choose to do so. As soldiers, as Marines, as sailors, they understand that sometimes they may be in less than desirable conditions. They work hard for what pay that they DO get, and people like you berate them.

You have the freedom TO berate them BECAUSE of them. Ironic, that. Ironic because the very freedom you are exercising is one that has been fought for, has cost lives, and no doubt, will cost more lives.

COMMON FUCKING SENSE says that the 9/11 attacks won’t be the last we see out of these terrorist groups. It certainly wasn’t the first. But it was the most deadly.

You, Comrade Arkin, bring my Cherokee blood to a high boil. I won’t do this, nor am I making a threat to you in any way whatsoever, but the mental image of you being staked out naked under the hot summer sun over an ant hill with just a couple of drops of honey put into your ears certainly does make me smile.

Sadistic, I know, but then again I remain…

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man.


A little post script for Greg Daniels, just to let you know that you haven’t escaped my eyes:

Regarding your comment to one of spree’s posting, The Left Wants our Soldiers to SHUT UP, in which you said, “This is a non-event. Who cares what this guy says?” Let me remind you of some key facts. During the Viet Nam era there wasn’t as much communication between the troops overseas and the home front as there is today. Al Gore hadn’t blessed us with the internet (another smirk for this one), so soldiers on deployment weren’t able to keep up with the news the same way they are today. Censorship was very highly practiced by the Armed Forces Radio Network in country to keep troop morale from being damaged by what the media back home was saying. Somewhere along the way, all that changed with advances in modern technology. Do I think that it’s a bad thing that the troops see what the dinosaur media is saying? Not at all. I think it reminds them on a daily basis how far our country has sunk into a state of moral apathy. My hope is that it gives them an extra reason to hold their heads up proudly and wear the uniform of a nation that was once great, and can be so again. Do we need the left? Absolutely, just as much as we need the right. Two halves to make a whole, with there being some modicum of balance found in between.

However, that being said, someone commented the other day that the left today was not the same left of the FDR era, when the left was as fiercely patriotic as the right, and both sides had the best interests of the American people as a whole in their hearts and minds. There was respect, granted it was often given grudgingly, but they were able to come to a common ground and work together, especially when it came to meeting the threat of a foreign hostile force that threatened our way of life and took the lives of our citizens.

Extremism is never a good thing. It accomplishes nothing; it inspires hatred and distrust. Take a lesson from Comrade Arkin when you start to make your commentaries, Greg. This man has inspired the hatred not only of the American military, but the American veterans and a great number of our civilian population as well.

When one can be so extreme as to inspire that much anger, that much hatred, can we truly say that it is a “non event?”

I think not…

Mike

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