THIS IS PATRIOTIC?

The antiwar, anti-Bush crowd is always crying about how no one has the right to question their patriotism. In fact, they tell us that their protests and criticisms are patriotic. So, are they patriots? What is a patriot. From Merriam-Webster Online:

one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests

I'll concede that some of them are. But some of them, too many of them, aren't. Like the sorry excuses for humanity that are responsible for this:




I took these pictures this morning in the town of Clifton Park, NY. Here's some background on the story from the Albany Times Union:

Vandals desecrate Old Glory

CLIFTON PARK -- Someone spray-painted obscenities on a prominent American flag visible from the Northway and a nearby American Legion memorial.

The graffiti "(expletive) Bush" and a depiction of a penis were scrawled on the 20-by-40-foot flag attached to the side of Wit's End gift shop in Clifton Park and visible from the Northway between exits 9 and 10.

Similar pictures in the same shade of green were painted on the American Legion Mohawk Post on Grooms Road in Halfmoon. Vandals defaced a rear door and white fence that surrounds its recently built memorial to deceased veterans, past commander Bob Dyer said Monday.

He and Wit's End owner Susan Hoffman said they believe the sites were damaged sometime Saturday night. The graffiti, and disbelief, remained Monday as cleanup strategies were being considered.

"The most outrageous thing is they did it on the flag," Hoffman said. "It's not the place to air your political views and make statements."

She said passing motorists spotted the vandalism, which marred the flag's white stripes, and called from cellphones to inform her of the damage.

Defacing the flag, especially by writing obscenities and drawing genital pictures on it, is not patriotic. It's immature and it's disrepectful. And it's about the level of discourse I expect from the left these days.

ELECTION SEASON--IS IT OVER YET?

OK, I know. I'm a lazy blogger. It's been a whole week since I've posted anything here. I guess it's time I got off my butt and did so. It's just that the news has been so depressing lately. As we get closer to the 2006 election, the news media is waging their own Tet offensive in a desperate attempt to win back Congress for the Democrats. The Dems are up and the GOP is down, they tell us. Nancy Pelosi is picking out new drapes for the Speaker's office. Americans are unhappy with the President, and with the Republicans in Congress. But does that mean that traditionally Republican voters are ready to become Democrats?

As someone who usually votes Republican, I count myself among those who are disappointed with the GOP. What are they doing wrong? Here's a short list:

-Too many of them, especially the President and the Senate Republicans, refuse to do anything to protect the borders.

-Ditto on immigration.

-Why are we screwing around in Iraq? Why is Porky (pig) al Sadr still alive? When are we going to start fighting to win, and stop worrying about our popularity on the "Arab street?" You can't make people love you, but you can make them respect you. Ask any drill sergeant, they'll explain it to you.

-No one wants to tell America the truth about our military: it's too small. I don't care how "flexible" or "lethal" an army is, you need more people if you're going to be in more places at one time. We need a cold war-sized military. Structured differently, to be sure, but as large as it was in the '80s. And it's going to cost money.

-School choice, anyone? The GOP needs to grow a backbone and take on the teachers unions. The public schools are still a sinkhole for tax dollars. We need a voucher program.

-And speaking of tax dollars, our fiscal "conservative" Republicans in DC are spending tax money like drunken sailors. Or sober Democrats.

So, am I going to sit the election out, like so many other conservatives are supposedly going to do? Am I going to withhold my vote; send a message to the GOP? The answer to this question is based on what I see happening if the Democrats take over Congress. Here's what I think we can expect:

-Endless investigations of the White House, and possibly impeachment proceedings against President Bush, as payback for the Clinton-Lewinski fiasco.

-Lawyers and "due process" for terrorists (i.e. illegal combatants) on the battlefield. A whole slew of terrorists will be released.

-No more NSA terrorist surveillance program. It'll be replaced by a law enforcement-style investigation program that'll look a lot like the method the Clinton administration used to fight terrorism.

-Cutting off money to bring about a withdrawal from Iraq.

-Higher taxes.

-More liberal judges, who'll give us more partial birth abortions, no notification for the parents of underage girls getting abortions, gay "marriage," and more constitutional rights for terrorists.

I could be wrong, of course. But based on the rhetoric of the past couple of years, I don't think I am. Sorry, but I can’t sit this one out, and I'm not voting for Democratic candidates. As much as I’d like to send a message to the lazy-ass Dem-wannabe GOP clowns in Congress, I won’t make my country pay the price for my anger with their stupid antics. I’ll hold my nose and pull the lever for GOP candidates. They may lose anyway, but it won’t be my fault.

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS

There's a column on Military.com by Paul Reickoff about which members of Congress support the troops.  The column contains a link to the website of the Iraq and Afghnaistan Veterans of America (of which Reickoff is Executive Director).  The IAVA site allows you to search for any member of the House or the Senate and to see the score the IAVA gives them for their support of the troops. 

I went to the site and checked out the scores of the Senators and Congressional Representatives from New York.  Much to my surprise (insert sarcastic tone here), all of the Democrats got scores of "B-" and above (except for Major Owens, who got a "C"), and all of the Republicans got a score of "C+" or below.  Now how could that be?  The IAVA is "nonpartisan," or so Reickoff claims in his column.

I did a Google search using the keywords "IAVA" and "partisan."  I found this post on Blackfive's site from March of 2006.  To summarize:

The IAVA has a few good points to make, but most of their intent is purely partisan politics.  Let's hope that their pro-military/pro-veteran stances aren't drowned out by opportunists like Gen. Clark and partisan political bull$#*!.

Hmm.  Maybe the IAVA is partisan after all.  On the other hand, maybe they aren't, and Blackfive is the one who doesn't support the troops.  But I'm inclined to believe the former.  And the latter is just ridiculous.

WAGING WAR LIKE YOU MEAN IT

Retired Army officer Ralph Peters' column in Frontpage Mag yesterday takes a hard look at where we're going wrong in the GWoT.

Killing with Kindness?

Have we lost the will to win wars? Not just in Iraq, but anywhere? Do we really believe that being nice is more important than victory?

It's hard enough to bear the timidity of our civilian leaders - anxious to start wars but without the guts to finish them - but now military leaders have fallen prey to political correctness. Unwilling to accept that war is, by its nature, a savage act and that defeat is immoral, influential officers are arguing for a kinder, gentler approach to our enemies.

They're going to lead us into failure, sacrificing our soldiers and Marines for nothing: Political correctness kills.

Obsessed with low-level "tactical" morality - war's inevitable mistakes - the officers in question have lost sight of the strategic morality of winning. Our Army and Marine Corps are about to suffer the imposition of a new counterinsurgency doctrine designed for fairy-tale conflicts and utterly inappropriate for the religion-fueled, ethnicity-driven hyper-violence of our time.

We're back to struggling to win hearts and minds that can't be won.

Peters is right.  There is nothing we can do to make the "Arab street" love us, but we can make them respect us.  This is done by winning the war.  And to do that, we need to start fighting like we want to win.  If we lose, then it won't matter how civilized we were while we were doing it.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

As if we needed more evidence of the arrogance of judges.

Judge goes off the hook, hangs up court 2 days

New York Court of Claims Judge James Lack, who once chased a woman driver into her garage in a fit of road rage, shut down two days of court hearings scheduled at an upstate prison after he refused to surrender his cell phone to enter the facility, state officials confirmed yesterday.

Lack, 61, a former Republican state senator from East Northport, was supposed to hear 12 cases brought by prisoners suing the state for matters ranging from personal injury to medical malpractice beginning Wednesday. When guards at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Fallsburg, asked him to follow prison policy and either leave his cell phone in his car or allow them to store it, he refused, officials said.

 "He was visibly upset," said Linda Foglia, state Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

"There was some reference that he was doing us a favor, and he left."

Lack declined to comment when reached at his court office in Hauppauge yesterday. But Court of Claims Presiding Judge Richard Sise said Lack was unaware of the policy and had told people with other court business to reach him on his cell phone.

"He just couldn't be out of touch that long," said David Bookstaver, Office of Court Administration spokesman.

Officials offered him the use of the facility's telephones, but he refused, Foglia said. The ban, in effect since September 1993, is so strictly enforced that even the state corrections commissioner is not allowed to bring a cell phone.

"If the governor came in, he would be required to give up his cell phone," said Denny Fitzpatrick, state corrections officers' union spokesman.

What a clown.  Do you think Judge Lack would let an attorney bring a cell phone into his court during a trial?  "I'll take HELL NO! for a thousand, Alex."  How many of my tax dollars were wasted on this dipshit's  temper tantrum?

ATTENTION CRYBABIES: GTFO

I saw this story linked on the Drudge Report:

Now even Yanks claim UK asylum

BRITAIN is such a soft touch that even Americans are coming here to claim asylum and sponge off the state.

The incredible revelation comes from immigration whistleblower Rory Clarke.

And yesterday the Government was forced to admit figures that backed him up.

Disgusted Rory, 34, contacted The Sun to expose the true depth of the asylum shambles. He said:

"Britain is seen as such a soft touch that poor people from countries such as America are even coming here now.

A couple of years ago I met two black guys from the States who were over here because they thought they could get a better standard of living.

One was from Ohio and the other from Kansas. They claimed asylum because they said they were racially discriminated against at home.

But they freely admitted they were here for the free healthcare and accommodation. It is an absolute joke.

They could have been here for up to five years before their application was processed."

Last night the Home Office admitted five American nationals have claimed asylum this year alone.

I think this is a great idea.  We should encourage every whining crybaby in the country to seek asylum elsewhere.  Sure, we'd lose most of our university professors, journalists, and lawyers (and almost all of our entertainers), but it would be worth it.

DEFENDING THE DEFENDERS

It's sad that there is a need for this kind of thing, but I'm glad it's out there.

Vietnam Vets Open War Crime Defense Fund

BROCKTON, Mass. - Gray-haired Patrick Barnes still wears a crew cut and sits ramrod straight in his chair. Before clamping his cell phone shut, he says "Semper Fi" to a buddy instead of "bye."

Barnes, a 58-year-old Marine veteran of Vietnam who earned a Purple Heart for wounds suffered during the 1968 Tet Offensive, is still military through and through. And he knows that in war, things happen "Boom!" - just like that - and triggers are pulled in split-second decisions.

That's why Barnes and fellow Vietnam veterans are starting a legal defense fund for Americans charged with war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We're not concerned with guilt or innocence," he said. "We just want to make sure they have the best defense possible. Sitting here in Brockton or Quincy or New York or California, we don't know what happened."

Other similar defense funds have been sprung up. The mother of a Marine from New York who was cleared of murder charges created a fund, as did a group led by a retired Marine officer in Greensboro, N.C., who was twice wounded in Vietnam.

The funds have been set up in reaction to a series of cases in which U.S. servicemen have been charged with murder.

The Pentagon has contended that many of these cases do not involve split-second decisions made in the fog of war, but were deliberate, vengeful killings.

Among the major cases: Marines are under investigation on suspicion they deliberately killed 24 Iraqis civilians in a revenge attack after one of their own died in a roadside bombing Nov. 19 in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in Iraq.

Separately, seven Marines are awaiting trial at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on charges of murdering an Iraqi last spring in Hamdania. Prosecutors said that Marines frustrated in the search for an insurgent dragged a civilian from his home, stuck him in a hole and shot him to death. They are accused of leaving a rifle and shovel nearby to make it look as if he had been caught digging a hole for a roadside bomb.

The Brockton veterans say they respect the Judge Advocate General Corps, the legal arm of the military, but fear the corps' young officers won't provide the best defense, especially against higher-ranking, experienced prosecutors. The defense fund would enable the servicemen to hire civilian defense attorneys if they want.

The article doens't give out an address or contact information for the fund.  If I can find it, I'll post it here.

DEMOCRATS BEHAVING BADLY

Columnist/blogger Lorie Byrd asks an excellent question: What if the Democrats behaved better?

One of the favorite topics of discussion in the media and among Iraq war critics is whether or not the Bush administration has properly prosecuted the war, but the topic I have yet to hear discussed is whether or not the anti-war left and the media in America have properly prosecuted their roles during the war in Iraq.

With Bob Woodward’s book, State of Denial, in the news, and the recent declassification of the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, the topic of how things are going in Iraq, whether we are more or less safe, and whether or not the action there has led to the recruitment of more terrorists, is a hot topic.

Not being debated, though, is what the status of the war in Iraq might be today if Democrat leaders and the media had conducted themselves differently. If all the successes of American troops in Iraq had been reported as studiously as the setbacks, would terrorists have been able to convince their young, impressionable followers that they were winning? If it were clear to the Iraqi people that politicians in D.C. were committed to finishing the mission in Iraq, would the attitude of the people there be different? If politicians and anti-war activists had not accused our own troops of engaging in torture, and worse, would world opinion, and specifically the opinion of the Iraqi people, be different?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, wars aren't fought by armies alone. If the politicians and the public aren't behind a war, the military can't win it. Our enemies understand this. The people who are supposedly poised to win control of Congress don't. As far as I'm concerned, that's all you need to know.

ALBERTO MARTINEZ UPDATE

I've been tracking the story of Alberto Martinez closely, but there haven't been any developments in some time.  Until today.

 GI could face execution in 'fragging'

FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- A Schaghticoke soldier accused of killing two U.S. officers in Iraq will face death penalty charges at an arraignment scheduled for Nov. 3 at Fort Bragg, military officials announced Monday.

Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez, a 37-year-old New York Army National Guardsman, is charged with using explosives to "frag" Capt. Phillip T. Esposito, 30, of Suffern, Rockland County, and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa., in June 2005 near Tikrit in Iraq.

He faces the death penalty on two counts of premeditated murder, wrongfully possessing private guns and alcohol; and wrongfully giving or selling printers and copiers to an Iraqi national.

Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the General Court Martial Convening Authority, referred the charges to General Court Martial last week, and sent the case up as a capital case, according to a Monday news release by the XVIII Airborne Corps Public Affairs Office in North Carolina.

A military judge at Fort Bragg will formally present the charges against Martinez. The judge also will ensure during the hearing that Martinez has adequate counsel, Fort Bragg officials said. Martinez, a former member of the 42nd Infantry Division, could have paid for his own civilian defense but opted for military lawyers assigned to him at no personal cost.

The military charged Martinez last year in Kuwait with killing Esposito and Allen. Authorities say he held a grudge against Esposito, and detonated a mine and three grenades in the officers' room.

TODAY'S MUST-READ COLUMN

Former Air Force officer (and Democrat-turned-Republican) Jeff Clonts has a column posted on Militarty.com today titled The Politics of Hypocrisy.  It offers an interesting look into the liberal debate technique.

The modern liberal loves hypocrisy. It's just too easy and so politically correct. When faced with a diverse point of view, just raise the notion that your opponent is not worthy of taking a position. Some favorite fodder for liberals in our national history include slavery, our treatment of the American Indian, ignoring the Holocaust, US support for the Shah of Iran, the Iran-Contra fiasco, Viet Nam, and, of course, faulty intelligence about Iraqi WMDs. No matter the topic of discussion, you can bet the liberals will bring up one of these as proof we are we are not allowed to assume the moral high ground.

Every now and then I watch Prime Minister's Questions on C-Span. This is where the Prime Minister of Great Britain stands before the House of Commons and answers their questions. The first time I saw this I was astounded. Here was Tony Blair of the Labor Party receiving questions from his Conservative rivals and actually responding on-topic to the question at hand. They actually addressed each other, made extremely persuasive arguments, and debated national topics. Unlike our Congress, where most speeches are political sound bites made to empty chambers, or our presidential debates, where the candidates are not allowed to address each other directly, these men and women actually called each other on the carpet. At the end of the evening, the average British citizen not only knows why Blair supports an issue, they know both sides of the issue and can form their own decision.

Although all politicians are capable of political-speak, I've never heard a liberal actually answer a question with a salient, on-topic answer. They constantly criticize the war in Iraq and our efforts to fight terror, but when asked what they would do differently, they spout something like, "George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and took us into this war under false pretenses. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with September 11th. We must change course. New leadership is required, a new vision, a new strategy." Did I miss something here? The President's stated strategy is to train the Iraqi security forces until they can handle the job themselves, then bring our forces home. This may or may not be a good strategy, but it is a strategy. If the Democrats have a better one, what is it? I'm not opposed to a better strategy. How about giving us one, please!

(emphasis mine)

Someday, I hope to see our politicians engage in actual debate, as opposed to the sound bite snark-offs that we have now.  Unfortunately, thoughtful debate doesn't make for exciting television.  So don't expect the media to take any steps to encourage it. 

TIME TO GET TOUGH WITH LEAKERS

In his latest column, Brian Bresnahan, a former Major in the USMC takes on the spate of leaks coming from our intelligence community.

The potential damage and consequences to our nation from what is becoming an increasingly transparent intelligence community are immeasurable, but they are not intangible. Predicting the worst-case scenario because our nation's secrets can't be kept is suddenly not just something that has to be done as a matter of planning and war game preparation. It becomes a necessary exercise because the possibility of someone using our own information to harm us has gotten one step closer to reality.

A passionate concern for our nation's top secrets should apply regardless of the administration or political party in charge. America's classified material needs to be kept classified and only published for public consumption under the laws and through the processes established for doing so. Acceptance or indifference of anything less than strict adherence to these laws sets a dangerous precedent all future administrations and generations will suffer from.

Damn right!  It's time the Bush administration started doing something about all these leaks.  I know why they aren't.  They're afraid that investigation of the leaks, and the subsequent prosecution of the leakers will look politically motivated.  But a politically motivated failure to investigate and prosecute is just as reprehensible as politically motivated investigations and prosecutions. 

National security is at stake here.  The defense of our country is more important than avoiding verbal attacks by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  They're going to criticize anyway.  It's better to catch hell for doing the right thing than to catch hell for sitting on your ass.  It's high time we start locking these blabbermouths in the intel community up.  We're at war, people.  Screw politics.