Military Preparations

Look here to see how the military is preparing for another President Clinton.

Rush On Rush

Good take from Brian @ Liberty Pundit on the Democrats' ridiculous criticism of Rush Limbaugh after taking some comments of his from a recent show entirely out of context. I am particularly disgusted by Tom Harkin's consistent representation (or lack thereof) of the state of Iowa. You can watch this video of Harkin wondering if Rush is "high on his drugs again." Hey, Senator Harkin, it's so far beyond cliché that I hate to ask, but you know what happens when you "assume," right? Limbaugh (who I find to be one of the most arrogant-sounding radio hosts I've ever tried to listen to) was speaking of "phony soldiers," such as this one, in Rush's own words:

One of them was Jesse MacBeth. Now, he was a "corporal," I say in quotes -- 23 years old.

What made Jesse MacBeth a hero to the anti-war crowd wasn't his Purple Heart. It wasn't his being affiliated with post traumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, though. What made Jesse MacBeth, Army Ranger, a hero to the left was his courage in their view off the battlefield.

Without regard to consequences, he told the world the abuses he had witnessed in Iraq: American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women, even children. In one gruesome account translated into Arabic and spread widely across the internet, Army Ranger Jesse MacBeth describes the horrors this way:

'We would burn their bodies. We would hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque.'

Now, recently, Jesse MacBeth, a poster boy for the anti-war left, had his day in court, and you know what? He was sentenced to five months in jail and three years probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs' claim and his Army discharge record.

He was in the Army. Jesse MacBeth was in the Army, folks, briefly -- 44-days before he washed out of boot camp. Jesse MacBeth isn't an Army Ranger. Never was. He isn't a corporal. Never was. He never won the Purple Heart and he was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen."

This is an example of a "phony soldier." Not someone who questions the war or the decisions of his superiors (that's another debate altogether). But someone who lies about his service and gets used by politicians to spread propaganda.

Defense Appropriations

I can't think of a better way to enhance a National Defense Authorization Act than to give amnesty to illegal immigrants. Wait. Let me read that again. What? What in the world does immigration have to do with a defense spending bill? The geniuses are at it again in our nation's capital.

From Liberty Pundit:

I don’t know how many of you have heard of NumbersUSA but they are a group that is leading the fight against Amnesty and trying to stop illegal immigration. Below is a copy of their latest email bulletin. It is important that we all act because something very sinister is happening. There are some measures being voted on in the Senate that would basically take all of the bad things about the amnesty bill that they couldn’t get passed in a “comprehensive” plan and instead they are now trying to sneak them by one by one. What’s worse is they are attaching them to a Defense Spending Bill. Here are the details and the email bulletin from NumbersUSA…

OPEN-BORDERS SENATORS PLAN END-RUN DREAM ACT AMNESTY

Friends, this is not a do-it-if-you-have-time request.

This is the most urgent kind of request for your action Friday – and again Monday.

Please send free faxes to your Members of Congress. You’ll see some faxes on your Action Buffet corkboard immediately. We’ll be sending you links to other new faxes during the day Friday.

In the middle of actions on Defense next week, the open-borders Senators are going to attempt to attach three proposals that would give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and dramatically increase the importation of additional foreign labor for American jobs.

Many of the Senators who helped us kill the Comprehensive Amnesty in June are indicating they are in favor of these preferences for illegal foreign workers and new foreign workers over American workers.

We must keep them from attaching the Dream Act Amnesty to the Department of Defense authorization bill.

And we also must keep them from taking hundreds of thousands of our high tech jobs from American students and middle-age American workers and giving them to foreign workers.

Our NumbersUSA legislative department outlines these three threats in sections below.

THE QUICK MESSAGE YOU CAN GIVE TO SENATE OFFICE FRIDAY AND MONDAY

1. Call the Senate switchboard at:
202-224-3121

2. Ask for your Senator. (You can find the names of your Senators and all their contact info at: numbersusa.com/myMembers [or contact your Senators through the Senate's website.])

3. Tell the person who answers that you are calling to ask the Senator to vote NO next week on three measures that are being considered for the Defense Authorization bill.

a. Vote NO on Amendment 2237 that would attach the Dream Act Amnesty.

b. Vote NO on any measure to increase H-1B visas and permanent greencards for foreign workers to take jobs from skilled American workers and students.

c. Vote NO on any attempt to increase H-2B visas for seasonal foreign workers to take jobs from America’s most vulnerable workers.

…

* The DREAM Act (Amendment 2237 to the Defense Authorization bill) is a nightmare. It is a massive amnesty that extends to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of 16.

* There is no upper age limit. Any illegal alien can walk into a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office and declare that he is eligible. For example, a 45 year old can claim that he illegally entered the United States 30 years ago at the age of 15. There is no requirement that the alien prove that he entered the United States at the claimed time by providing particular documents. The DREAM Act’s Section 4(a) merely requires him to “demonstrate” that he is eligible-which in practice could mean simply making a sworn statement to that effect. Thus, it is an invitation for just about every illegal alien to fraudulently claim the amnesty.

* The alien then has six years to adjust his status from a conditional green card holder to a non-conditional one. To do so, he need only complete two years of study at an institution of higher education, including any vocational school. If the alien has already completed two years of study, he can convert to non-conditional status immediately (and use his green card as a platform to sponsor parents and other family members). As an alternative to two years of study, he can enlist in the U.S. military for two years. This provision allows Senator Durbin to claim that the DREAM Act is somehow germane to the defense authorization bill.

* An illegal alien who applies for the DREAM Act amnesty gets to count his years under “conditional” green card status toward the five years needed for citizenship. On top of that, the illegal alien could claim “retroactive benefits” and start the clock running the day that the DREAM Act is enacted. In combination, these two provisions put illegal aliens on a high-speed track to U.S. citizenship-moving from illegal alien to U.S. citizen in as little as five years. Lawfully present aliens, meanwhile, must follow a slower path to citizenship.

* It would be absurdly easy for just about any illegal alien-even one who does not qualify for the amnesty-to evade the law. According to Section 4(f) of the DREAM Act, once an alien files an application-any application, no matter how ridiculous-the federal government is prohibited from deporting him. Moreover, with few exceptions, federal officers are prohibited from either using information from the application to deport the alien or sharing that information with another federal agency, under threat of up to $10,000 fine. Thus, an alien’s admission that he has violated federal immigration law cannot be used against him-even if he never had any chance of qualifying for the DREAM Act amnesty in the first place.

* The DREAM Act also allows illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition rates at public universities, discriminating against U.S. citizens from out of state and law-abiding foreign students.

* The DREAM Act also makes the illegal aliens eligible for federal student loans and federal work-study programs-another benefit that law-abiding foreign students cannot receive-all at taxpayer expense.

* A consistent theme emerges: Illegal aliens are treated much more favorably than aliens who follow the law. There is no penalty for illegal behavior.

Lone Survivor

In June of 2005, an MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by the Taliban, and all 16 personnel on board were killed. The helicopter had been going in to help out four U.S. Navy SEALs who had been ambushed by an estimated 140 members of the Taliban. Only one of the SEALs survived the attack, and he is now telling his story.

Marcus Luttrell, who at the time was a petty officer second class, wrote Lone Survivor, telling the story of his survival and rescue from Afghanistan, along with the heroism of his three fallen comrades. His story is an amazing story, one that I don't even want to try to summarize. I just want to get my hands on a copy of this book and read the whole account for myself.

Here are some links to various accounts & interviews regarding the book and Luttrell's story:

• From the ArmyTimes: Surviving SEAL tells story of deadly mission
• From the NavyTimes: Interview with Marcus Luttrell
• From the Washington Post: The Sole Survivor
• From the Glenn Beck radio show: Part 1 and Part 2 of an interview with Luttrell
• An excerpt from Lone Survivor

I cannot imagine what these guys go through on a day to day basis. The sacrifices they make for our freedom our unbelievable. A couple of Bible verses come to mind:

• Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. - John 15:13 (ESV)
• For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:7-8 (ESV)

Please pray for the men & women who are serving our country in the various branches of the military. At the very least, pray for their safety. And pray that God would be glorified in their lives and in their missions.

A Good Reason To Stay

I think this is about as good a reason as any for the U.S. to maintain (if not increase) forces in Iraq:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Wednesday on U.S. and other foreign forces to leave neighbouring Iraq

Common Sense?

Why can't more politicians detach themselves from the D or R that follows their name and stand up for their convictions and display some common sense. One such politician is Joe Lieberman, who wrote a column in the Washington Post about the war in Iraq:

Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians -- innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.

If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus's security strategy has failed and that the war is "lost."

And today, perversely, the Senate is likely to vote on a binding timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.

This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there.

What is needed in Iraq policy is not overheated rhetoric but a sober assessment of the progress we have made and the challenges we still face.

We need more politicians who are willing to be honest about our successes as well as our failures, and to work together to find real-world solutions that don't involve surrender or leaving other people to clean up a mess that we helped contribute to. We are way beyond debating why we went to Iraq in the first place; we need to come together to figure out a way to help the Iraqi people - to get the job "done" - and bring our troops home as soon and safely as possible. That is not going to be accomplished by limiting the military funding by setting an arbitrary and artificial time line for withdrawal. This isn't a game, it's war. And we're facing an enemy that couldn't care less about things like the Geneva Conventions or the Hague Conventions, let alone political correctness. If we had more politicians that were more concerned with the United States of America than their party affiliation or their special interest groups, then maybe we would be better able to trust those in charge with the decisions they make.

(HT: Iowa Voice)

Honor Our Troops

One of my favorite things about blogging is when someone else writes something so I don't have to. I had been thinking about this in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, but rather than taking the time & energy to verbalize my own thoughts, I'll let an Army sergeant do it:

An Army sergeant complained in a rare opinion article that the U.S. flag flew at half-staff last week at the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan for those killed at Virginia Tech but the same honor is not given to fallen U.S. troops here and in Iraq.

In the article issued Monday by the public affairs office at Bagram military base north of Kabul, Sgt. Jim Wilt lamented that his comrades’ deaths have become a mere blip on the TV screen, lacking the “shock factor” to be honored by the Stars and Stripes as the deaths at Virginia Tech were.

“I find it ironic that the flags were flown at half-staff for the young men and women who were killed at VT, yet it is never lowered for the death of a U.S. service member,” Wilt wrote.

(HT: Iowa Voice)