A MESSAGE FOR THE TROOPS

Pic found at Strange Cosmos

WALTER CRANKCASE
"America's most trusted man" is at it again. According to Drudge, Walter Cronkite is engaging in speculation of the far-out-in-left-field-kind.

Former CBSNEWS anchorman Walter Cronkite believes Bush adviser Karl Rove is possibly behind the new Bin Laden tape.

Cronkite made the startling comments late Friday during an interview on CNN.

Somewhat smiling, Cronkite said he is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing."

Interviewer Larry King did not ask Cronkite to elaborate on the provocative election eve observation.

That's all we need from this legend of "journalism", more fuel for the fires being tended by the tin-foil hat crowd. I can't believe that Cronkite is dumb enough to believe this bullshit (the possiblity of senility notwithstanding), and I can't believe that he doesn't know the kind of harm his endorsement of such looney-toon conspiracy theories does.

So, tell us Walter, was Ho Chi Minh behind this?

Just back from Saigon, (Cronkite) rejected the official forecast of victory, predicting instead that it seemed "more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate."

I hear that Uncle Ho was "a very clever man" too.

A MUST READ
Blackfive addresses the shameful way in which one of the presidential candidates is campaigning on the issue of the GWoT.

You have read letters that I have posted here from Combat Commanders writing about (1) the media's anti-war and anti-Bush agenda and (2) how a few words from a certain presidential candidate is spurring the enemy to fight on.

In turn, the terrorist bombings fuel the far left's anti-war and anti-Bush fervor. Yesterday, John Kerry said it's a "bigger mess by the day."

I've said it before, "You can't be anti-war and support the troops at the same time." It just doesn't work. The terrorists are encouraged by anti-war rhetoric. And they will keep striking harder as our resolve appears to weaken.

B5's point, one which the left in this country cannot seem to grasp, is that war is a holistic thing. Armies do not win wars, nations do. World War II was not just fought by the brave members of the allied militaries. It was fought by the people on the homefront too. From Rosie the Riveter, to the people with victory gardens,everyone did their part to win that war.

Colin Powell once said "perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." I agree with that sentiment 100%. There is, however, another side to that coin. Perpetual pessimism is a force divider. If the folks on the homefront sink into an attitudinal abyss, our troops will too. They are not robots, they are human, just like the rest us. They cannot maintain a positive attitude when high ranking political officials continuously denigrate their mission. Soldiers derive a great deal of their pride from their mission. When you tell a soldier that his mission is pointless, you are telling him that his existence and his sacrifices are pointless. That's not much of a morale booster.

Either Senator Kerry does not know this (which would mean he is extremely stupid), or he does not care (which would mean he is extremely callous). As B5 points out, this is not a new M.O. for John Forbes Kerry.

John Kerry fought in Vietnam for four months, then came home and lied about the courage and valor of our military in order to get elected. And he's doing it all over again in order to win the presidency.

Sure Kerry was in Vietnam. Well, Bennedict Arnold wasn't a coward either.

They both turned against their brothers.

The piece goes on to list some good ways you can support the troops. You can read the rest of it here. Then keep it in mind when you pull that lever/punch that card/touch that screen on Tuesday.

ON THIS DAY...
in 1881, the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral took place in Tombstone, AZ. Actually, the gunfight took place behind the OK Corral. Tombstone Town Marshal Virgil Earp, his deputies (and brothers) Wyatt and Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday confronted Ike and Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury. The gunfight lasted thirty seconds and left Billy Clanton and the McLaurys dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp were both injured in the shootout.

To this day, there is still controversy over who shot first. The Discovery Channel did an installment of Unsolved History on the subject.

This site is probably the most complete on the web concerning Tombstone and the Earp/Clanton feud. It is maintained by Terry "Ike" Clanton, a descendant of the Clantons. It also contains a section on the ghosts of Tombstone to put you in a Halloween frame of mind.

Tombstone is one of my favorite movies. There is an excellent website about the movie here. It includes the Latin Duel Page, which translates the Latin phrases that Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo traded in the Oriental saloon.

Another good Tombstone site to visit is the one mainatined by Big Nose Kate's Saloon, which was named for Doc Holliday's infamous girlfriend.

If you're interested in visiting Tombstone someday, you can see what there is to do there on the city's official website.

EXPLOSIVES MISSING
Our illustrious news media is reporting that 377 tons of explosives are missing from the al-Qaqaa military facility in Iraq. Senator Kerry is on the attack over this.

"Terrorists could use this material to kill our troops, our people, blow up airplanes and level buildings," he told a rally in New Hampshire.

No sh*t Sherlock! What did you think that they were making those IED's from, breakfast cereal?

LIAR, LIAR
Last December, Senator John Kerry claimed, while speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, claimed to have met

"with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."

As it turns out, that isn't entirely true

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.

The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.

Ambassador Andres Franco, the permanent deputy representative from Colombia during its Security Council membership from 2001 to 2002, said, "I never heard of anything."

Although Mr. Franco was quick to note that Mr. Kerry could have met some members of the panel, he also said that "everything can be heard in the corridors."

If this was President Bush, everyone would be hurling the "L" word (liar, not liberal) at him. Let's see if this happens to Senator Kerry. I'm not holding my breath. Where is Lawrence "I hate lies" O'Donnell when you need him?

A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
On November 2nd, I am going to do something that I have never done before. Twenty years after my first vote in a national election, I am going to vote for a third party candidate. I have never given much credence to third party candidates. They are often single issue candidates, and they usually don't amount to much once the votes are counted. Of the ones who do have an effect, the majority serve only as spoilers. My first inclination is usually to dismiss a third party candidate as either a zealot for whatever cause they are espousing, or a hopeless megalomaniac (Ross Perot and Ralph Nader come to mind).

A few years ago, I tried to talk a friend out of voting for the Right to Life Party candidate for Senator. My argument centered around the fact that the RTL candidate didn't have a prayer, and that even though the GOP candidate was relatively liberal, he was a damn sight better than his opponent. As it turned out, the RTL candidate lost, the GOP candidate lost, and my state wound up with the most liberal senator it has ever had.

Living here in the great(?) state of New York, I'm "fortunate" enough to be represented in the US Senate by two of the most liberal politicians in the country: Hillary "let's nationalize health care" Clinton and Charles "never met a gun he didn't want to ban" Schumer. This year Schumer is up for reelection, and I don't forsee New Yorkers ridding themselves of him this time around. Senator Chuckie is running an aggressive television campaign. He is taking credit for everything from new airline service in the upstate region to the morning sunrise. A few minutes ago, Chuckie was on TV promising to make medicines less expensive.

The GOP's candidate is Howard Mills. The only reason I know this is because I have heard his name mentioned in a Marilyn O'Grady campaign commercial. O'Grady is the Conservative Party candidate for US Senate. While not as ubiquitous as Schumer's commercials, O'Grady's commercials air frequently on local TV. As for Mills, I have not seen one TV commercial, heard one radio commercial, or even seen a flier from his campaign. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. If there have been any, I haven't seen 'em.

While I don't believe that O'Grady has much of a chance of winning, I'm going to vote for her anyway. The New York GOP's sorry performance in this election has me pissed. I am not going to reward this lazy-ass attitude with my vote. Mills may have what it takes to be a great Senator, but he's not playing to win. If the GOP wants to make inroads into traditionally Democratic states, they're going to have to make their case to the voters. That'll require actual effort. Just showing up is not enough.

This year I'm going to "throw away" my vote on a third party candidate. If enough people do the same, maybe the GOP in NY will wake up and smell the donkey shit. It's time to grab a shovel and get to work.

MULTIMEDIA STRESS RELIEF
As the campaign has intensified, so has my stress level. Sometimes a little humor helps to lighten the load. Fortunately, there is no shortage of funny stuff in the internet.

Here you can see a photo essay (complete with captions) on "Interpreting John Kerry". (Hat tip: Blackfive)

David Zucker, the director of Airplane and Naked Gun has directed an anti-Kerry commercial for the Club for Growth. You can view it here.

My brother sent me the link to this toon that is a takeoff on Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Watch for a cameo from everybody's favorite unhinged VP at the end.

If you miss the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, you can see him here.


Is this the new Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker? (Picture from Flashbunny)

LOOK WHO'S TALKING

Former VP Al Gore blasted President Bush in a speech today.

"It is beyond incompetence – it is recklessness that risks the safety and security of the American people," the former vice president said during a speech at Georgetown University.

Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000 and loser of that bitterly contested election, complained that Bush's refusal to budge from "a rigid, right-wing ideology" has led him to forbid any dissent and ignore warnings that may conflict with his assumptions about Iraq, tax cuts and other policy issues.

"He is arrogantly out of touch with reality," Gore said. "He refuses to ever admit mistakes. Which means that so long as he is our president, we are doomed to repeat them."

The speech, sponsored by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org, was billed as Gore's last major policy speech before the Nov. 2 election. He delivered his remarks in strong but measured tones, avoiding the overheated passion that had marked several of his appearances earlier this year.

I'm not sure which is more ridiculous, ranting about rigid ideology at an event sponsored by MoveOn.org, or accusations of being "out of touch with reality" coming from a man who endorsed Howard Dean (and encouraged the eight other candidates for the Democratic nomination to drop out of the race).

NOT A GOOD SIGN
At a time when information and personnel security are most critical for the US military, a disturbing story emerges about a major lapse in the military's security controls. This story was brought to my attention via Michelle Malkin's blog.

Last week's issue of People magazine has a brief article about Liliana Plata, an illegal alien from Mexico who allegedly entered the Air Force by pretending to be Cristina Alaniz, a student at Texas State University. According to news reports, Plata was able to join the Air Force using identity documents she had purchased on the black market in Los Angeles for about $2,000. Plata argues that she should be spared punishment for fraud, and be spared punishment for violating our immigration laws, and be spared for deceiving the U.S. government because she served honorably in Iraq. A lot of soft-headed, open borders sympathizers agree with her.

Spared punishment? Let's see, identity theft, fraud, forgery, falsifying official documents (try one count for each document she signed as Cristina Alaniz); this dumbass has committed a whole slew of felonies. Wearing your country's uniform, or in this case, the uniform of someone else's country, is a privilige and an honor. It is not a "get out of jail free" card. They ought to throw the book at this bimbo.

Speaking of punishment, someone in the Air Force recruiting and personnel system really dropped the ball here. There are at least a few folks in need of a severe spanking over this. I doubt it will actually happen, but I hope I'm wrong. The next person who slips through the cracks could turn out to be a terrorist, or a terrorist sympathizer. For all we know, one already has.

DING DONG...
the witch is dead. Former US Navy SEAL Matthew Heidt has an excellent post on his blog about Usama bin Laden. His theory, one I happen to agree with, is that UBL is dead. Turned into a crispy critter at Tora Bora.

UBL has not been heard from since Tora Bora despite developments in the GWOT in Afghanistan and Iraq that make it unthinkable for him to have remained silent. Not to mention successful attacks in Bali, Madrid, Turkey, and Jakarta to name a few that remain unremarked upon by UBL. The invasion and occupation of an Islamic state by the US and not a word. Elections held for the first time in Afghan history, and he had nothing to say about it in the lead up. AQ tried once early on to air a tape that never mentioned key developments in the Afghan campaign and was quickly discredited as an attempt to put one over on his followers by airing a previous recording. Zwahiri decided that it was better to just pretend that UBL was alive because there was no plausible martyr story to tell. UBL went out running for his life like a coward. He is dead. His remains are turds shat by scavenging animals in the mountains of Afghanistan blown by the wind and stomped on by US troops.

He also offers an explanation as to why the administration hasn't made this known to the American public. Check it out, it's very enlightening.

SO CLOSE THE F'ING WINDOW, ALREADY!
Are you feeling a draft? Senator Kerry is, and he's sharing it with the electorate. Old Cap'n Flip-flop has gone from alluding to a return to the military draft, to saying outright that its return is in the works if President Bush is reelected.

Des Moines, IA, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry said there is a "great potential" for the reinstitution of a military draft if President Bush is re-elected.

"With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft," Kerry said during an interview with the Des Moines Register before speaking at an Iowa State Fairgrounds rally.

I guess that the Cap'n forgot that the bill that would reinstate the draft was soundly defeated in the House of representatives earlier this month.

Still, the Democrats' scare tactics are having an effect. It wouldn't be the first time that the Dems have whipped up emotion in order to trump reason. As retired USAF First Sergeant Rod Powers points out, the news media isn't helping matters any.

Various newspaper and magazine articles make it appear that the military is having problems attracting recruits and retaining members. Nothing could be further from the truth. They interview a few soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, who state they are getting out, and use that as "proof" that the services are having problems with recruiting and retention. The truth of the matter is that all of the active duty services have made their recruiting and retention goals this year, and for the past eight straight years. The first-term re-enlistment rate is about 50 percent, and for those re-enlisting for third and fourth terms is about 80 to 85 percent (and that's exactly where the services want those rates to be -- any higher would stagnate promotions).

Powers has written an excellent, and very detailed article on why a return to the draft is unlikely. You can read it here; then you'll have more ammo to use the next time you hear one of Cap'n Flip-flop's koolaid vendors telling people "Bush is bringing back the draft!" You probably won't convince the koolaid dweeb, but you may save a few folks from being persuaded. I'm beginning to believe that stupidity is contagious. We all have to do our part to stop the spread.

NEW KERRY AD(?)
(Sound blaring at full volume)DICK CHENEY'S DAUGHTER IS A LESBIAN!! GAY!! HO-MO-SEX-U-AL!!
(Faint whisper) I'mJohnKerryandIapprovedthismessage.

PESKY TERRORISTS!
Senator John Kerry clarifies his position on the War on Terrorism:

"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance… I know we're never going to end prostitution,” Kerry told Times interviewer Matt Bai. “We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life."

Is this guy lying in order to get elected, or is he really this freakin' clueless? I'm not sure which answer would scare me more.

REMEMBER THE ALAMO
Just what the military needs in the wake of Abu Ghraib, more tarnish for its image.

Two teenagers, identified by police as active duty soldiers at nearby Fort Sam Houston, were arrested Sunday evening for having sex at the Alamo.

A police report says the 18 year old woman and 19 year old man, both assigned to an Army medical batallion, were naked from the waist down when tourists spotted them having sex in an area of the Alamo which is open to tourists. Several visitors reported seeing the activity and reported it to police.

The pair was charged with public lewdness, a misdemeanor.

According to another article, the two dumbasses involved were Kristine Nissel, 18, and Matthew Hotard, 19, both members of the 232nd Medical Battalion stationed at Fort Sam Houston. Their parents must be so proud.

ON THIS DAY IN 1985...
...the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro were taken into custody after US F-14 fighters forced the airliner they were on to land in Italy.

On October 7, 1985, four members of one of the PLO's factions, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak persuaded the hijackers to surrender, but not before they shot to death a wheelchair-bound Jewish passenger from the United States named Leon Klinghoffer, dumping his body overboard.

Mubarak allowed the PLF leader and hijacking mastermind, Mohammed Abbas, and the other terrorists to fly to their headquarters in Tunisia. President Ronald Reagan sent U.S. warplanes to intercept the flight, however, and forced it to land at a U.S.-Italian air base in Sicily. The United States and Italy fought over jurisdiction in the case, but the Italians refused to extradite any of the men.

Inexplicably, Abbas was allowed to go to Yugoslavia. An Italian court convicted 11 of 15 others associated with the hijacking, while Abbas and another terrorist were tried in absentia and found guilty. Abbas was sentenced to life in prison. Bassam al-Asker, one of the Achille Lauro hijackers, was granted parole in 1991. Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi, another accomplice, disappeared in 1991 while on parole.

Abbas was never arrested. In 1990, he struck again from the sea, with an abortive speedboat attack on bathers on a beach near Tel Aviv.

Though he was sentenced to five life terms in Italy, and was wanted in the United States, Abbas remained a free man. He spent most of the years after the hijacking in Tunisia before moving to the Gaza Strip in April 1996, after the Palestinian Authority took control of the area as part of the peace agreement with Israel.

While in Gaza, Abbas said he was sorry for the hijacking, but the daughters of Leon Klinghoffer said that Abbas had been convicted of murder and should serve his sentence (CNN, April 23, 1996). As a result of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian interim peace agreement, however, Abbas and other PLO members were granted immunity for violent acts committed before the signing of the September 1993 Oslo agreement.

Abbas eventually made his way to Iraq where he was believed to be a conduit for Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Abbas was captured by U.S. forces in a raid in Iraq on April 15, 2003. He died on March 9, 2004, at the age of 56 in U.S. custody in Iraq. Klinghoffer's daughters said, “Now, with his death, justice will be denied. The one consolation for us is that Abu Abbas died in captivity, not as a free man.”

Let's see, the fact that Abu Abbas was captured in Iraq doesn't prove that the Hussein regime was a terrorist enabler? Nor does the fact that Iraq offered a safehaven and support to the likes of Abu Nidal and Abu Ibrahim (as far back as the 1980s)? I guess we'll have to wait for a signed confession from Saddam. Don't hold your breath.

DEBATE TONIGHT
Time to throw a couple of Coronas in the freezer to get them nice and cold for the debate. W better be on his game tonight. I don't believe that tonight is make or break for the Pres, but I can't handle another week of listening to the MSM gloat that Captain Flip-flop won.

THE UNITED(?) NATIONS
With the release of the Duelfer report on the Iraqi WMD program (or lack thereof), controversy is swirling around the report's conclusion that Iraq did not have WMD's.

Boiled down to its essentials, the report by the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group says Iraq had essentially destroyed what weapons of mass destruction it had in the early 1990s. Mr. Duelfer said Saddam Hussein had the desire, but not the capability, to restart those programs because of United Nations sanctions.

The status of Iraq's WMD programs has become a hot political issue because it was a key rationale for the Bush administration's decision to attack Iraq in 2003. In a highly charged election campaign, the new report is more fuel for the political fires.

This will undoubtedly provide more fuel for the fire of the "Bush lied" crowd. The fact that a virtual who's who of international leaders spent the 1990's repeatedly asserting that Saddam Hussein was pursuing WMD's is conveniently ignored.

While the MSM will continue to pound the point about Iraq's WMD's into our heads, they are less than enthusiastic about the report's other major conclusion. It appears that suspicions about corruption in the UN oil-for-food program were not only correct, they fell short of the true scope of illegal activity.

SADDAM Hussein believed that the United Nations system was so corrupt that it would protect his dictatorship from American aggression and allow him to complete quickly his quest for weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Detail from the full Iraq Survey Group report - compiled from scores of former Iraqi officials and captured intelligence documents - shows that Saddam was intending to resume his WMD programme as soon as UN sanctions were dropped.

His officials believed they could make WMD within two years - but the only flaw in their strategy was to think that Tony Blair and President George Bush would not invade Iraq without explicit UN permission.

Extraordinary detail from the report was reverberating around the world yesterday as the French government issued an angry denial that its ministers had privately assured Saddam they would use their UN veto to stop war in return for oil contracts.

The full text of the report shows that Saddam realised in 1995, after his son-in-law defected to Jordan, that he had no choice but to comply with UN weapons inspectors. He ordered the destruction of all documents - but told scientists to "preserve plans in their minds" and "keep the brains of Iraq’s scientists fresh".

His strategy was to use Iraq’s vast oil reserves as a lever to pull apart the international community, by bribing Russian and French officials. The report shows this policy carried out to a breathtaking degree.

Given that only 15 of Iraq’s 73 proven oilfields were being developed, Saddam’s officials started to offer lucrative deals to Russian and French oil companies, while personally targeting politicians considered corrupt.

Jacques Chirac, the president of France, was top of the list. Some 11 million oil-for-food vouchers were allocated to a businessmen named Patrick Maugein, who was "considered a conduit to Chirac", according to the report.

It also claims that Saddam’s officials paid the equivalent of £600,000 to the ruling French Socialist Party - and that Baghdad’s then ambassador to Paris handed the money to Pierre Joxe, the then French defence minister.

Russia, another of the five countries with the power to veto war under the UN system, was heavily courted. Saddam’s officials dealt directly with the oil companies, who he deduced were quickly assuming political power.

"Iraqi attempts to use oil gifts to influence Russian policy-makers were on a lavish and almost indiscriminate scale," it says. He targeted a "new oligarch class" and also bribed Lukoil, the oil giant, with oil-for-food vouchers worth $10 million.

Peter Rodinov, Russia’s energy minister, went to Baghdad in 1997 to discuss a $12 billion oil deal. Two years later, Russian experts travelled to Iraq to provide advice on missile-guidance systems.

Critics say that President Bush didn't work hard enough to get the UN on board with us in regards to Iraq. It's now apparent to anyone but the kool-aid addicts on the extreme left that the UN and some of our "allies" were bought and paid for by Saddam Hussein. John "did I mention that I was in Vietnam?" Kerry wants to give these corrupt yahoos a say in our national security. WRONG F'ING ANSWER, WAR HERO!

GLOBAL TEST
When John Kerry was asked in last week's debate whether he would, as President, take preemptive military action:

Kerry said in the debate that the United States had the right to take preemptive action abroad if it "passes the global test, where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

Asked Monday to clarify what he meant by a "global test", his response was:

"The test I was talking about is a test of legitimacy — not just in the globe, but elsewhere," he said. "If you do things that are illegitimate in the eyes of other people, it's very hard to get them to share the burden and risk with you.

"I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country. No one gets a veto over our security. No one."

Still confused? Okay, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe this will help.

IN NEED OF A DAY OFF
After a busy week, I had reseve duty this weekend, as if I wasn't already tired enough. To add insult to injury, we did chemical warfare training (a periodic requirement for all service members) on Saturday morning. A few hours of running around in a chem suit will do nothing to improve your disposition if you are already in a less-than-happy-place. The finale involved carrying a "casualty" to a casualty collection area. Naturally, he was one of the largest guys in training that day. Like the man says, you don't have to like it, you just have to do it. We did it. It's done. No more play-war stuff for another month, and no chem training until next year.

Wearing the gear sucks (it's even worse in the desert), but it's better than one possible alternative: exposure to chemical weapons.

This stylish suit is similar to what I was wearing on Saturday.