The bottom line is that we are there to show those countries that are actually enabling the continued destabilization of the fledgling Iraqi government from thinking they will be able to tear this country apart at the seams when the U.S. pulls out.

Yes the US can pull back troops directly from the country without pulling out from the region, and be ready to provide the kind of support necessary on a moments notice, however the WAR is over.  Operating civil police actions is the job of a civil police force, not a military.

From a purely political standpoint the farther you go on the left, the less grounded in understanding of global affairs you get.  Moderate Democrats get it, and a majority of Republicans get it too when it comes to the real reasons why we are still there.  The problem is that they don’t talk about it.

I seems to think that they (our politicians) must believe that talking about the real problems might invoke additional actions from these insurgent sponsoring governments.  The fact that they refuse to do anything about their citizens who chose to participate in these activities is precisely the reason that we are still there.

The obvious notion is that if military action continues over the next year or so deep into the next Presidential election, it will take someone with either a very significant political background or a person with strong military ties to win this election.

McCain is certainly a strong candidate with appeal in both parties.  He probably is the best suited for bring about reconciliation and with in Washington.  Hillary tends to be the strongest credible candidate so far from the Democrats, however she tends to be a bit too polarizing to win.  The most interesting development would still be the emergence of Al Gore on the scene.

While many people are early on the scene trying to create a name for themselves, the Internet will change things over night for a candidate, or create a sensation in a short time.

The bottomline is with the many challenges facing the next President, being strong on the global scene is what will be important in the future, both economically and militarily.

You have to earn these to wear these!

Poor Kinky Friedman, you just don’t understand.

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5528367&nav=0s3d

Mr. Duritz continued on to tell people that they need to stay informed about the news, because it is the indifference that ensure that people don’t vote.

 

 

 

The movie about Edward R. Murrow was an excellent slice into a time period that we seem to have forgotten. Mr. Murrow was quoted as stating,

“We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

I think that there is no American soldier on the battle field, no American sailor on the seas that doesn’t feel that they are defending freedom to ensure we have it at home. After all, like it says at the Korean War Memorial in Washington DC, Freedom is not Free! We needn’t go back into our own nation’s history and see what happens when the government begins to operate outside of the rule of law. If there isn’t anything more profound about the witch hunt for communists than the lack of evidence used to attempt to convict and scare people, is the way that the government has consistently ran amuck of our civil rights.

What happened to goverment OF the people, FOR the people, and BY the people. This is our country, while our soliders and sailor fight the good fight, we need to keep up our end of the bargin right here at home, to ensure that the freedoms that they have come to love and respect are still here when they get back.

Good Night and Good Luck!

“I believe that international terrorism is a modern form of warfare against liberal democracies. I believe that the ultimate but seldom stated goal of these terrorists is to destroy the very fabric of democracy. I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be ’someone else’s’ problem…. Liberal democracies must acknowledge that international terrorism is a ‘collective problem.’”

“I’m not a hawk or a dove. I just don’t want my country to be a pigeon.”

“If you believe in the cause of freedom, then proclaim it, live it and protect it, for humanity’s future depends on it.”

“The richest country in the world can afford whatever it needs for defense.” (1960, campaigning for Kennedy)

“We all want to put the brakes on the arms race…we all want to achieve arms control…but to those who say we must take risks for peace by cutting the meat from our military muscle, I say you are unwittingly risking war.”

After all, freedom isn’t free, who among you is willing to defend it?

Does Lieberman need defending as a Democrat? He has a pretty strong record. Check it out at http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=S0141103 But it seems that the “Anti-War”, single issue Green Party Democrats are attempting to hi-jack this election. If they do it here, it may spell doom and gloom for the Democratic party. The unfortunate thing is not that they are divided in thoughts about the war, but the fact that they are fighting amongst themselves about whether or not a candidate is electable based upon their position on the war.

This my friends is a very precarious position to be in. With North Korea launching rockets that can reach Japan and the US, do you want a Democrat who is torn between voting to protect America, and some bullshit anti-war stances that they ran on?

Many of the rants that I have read in places like Huffington Post, call Lieberman a “Zionist”, and those writers, pen it as if it was spoken by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who regularly denies the Holocaust. To accuse Lieberman of being a neo-con zionist is in effect suporting the likes of the Iranian President.

Maybe Lieberman is a bit too hawkish for some of you folks, but maybe you need to understand where it comes from, especially if you don’t live in New York or Connecticut. They don’t live far from the 9/11 epicenter. You don’t give folks from that region a black eye and expect for them to go home crying, after all, this is the area that was part of our original 13 colonies. There is a history of fighting.

I would imagine that, as an American Jew, Senator Lieberman has met many Holocaust survivors, and understands the history and need for Israel to exist as a country, the only Democracy in the region. As new generations come about that don’t have a grasp of the situation there, and play wed morning quarterback, because they weren’t there on monday or tuesday morning, and don’t even know a soldier who faught in WWII or a victim from a concentration camp. Yet these same people claim to have all the answers. I believe that Senator Lieberman has perspective that comes with a deeper understanding of all the facts, and unfortunately that is a constant underflow of anti-semitism that exudes from the far left of the Democratic party.

Cindy Sheehan maybe unwittingly is part of the problem of spreading that anti-semitism, she’s quoted:

“You tell me the truth. You tell me that my son died for oil. You tell me that my son died to make your friends rich. You tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East. You tell me that, you don’t tell me my son died for freedom and democracy…You get America out of Iraq, you get Israel out of Palestine”

Maybe Palestine should get out of Israel, read the FACT here at FLAME.

But the biggest reason that the Democrats should be taking Lieberman’s lead is because of what Colon Powell said. Like it or not, we have the Pottery Barn deal going. You break it, you buy it! We may not like it, but we created this mess, and it is ridiculous to believe that we can merely walk away and things will be alright. The smart thing to do is come up with an improved strategy and mission plan. Congress should be brief, just to be kept in the loop by the Commanders, on what the overall plan and desires are, and we should have defined goals and milestones, so we can achieve a status where our troops CAN exit without creating a vacuum.

Lieberman’s record is one of a true Democrat, you can read it yourself! He’s got your back, maybe it’s time for the Democrats to stop stabbing him in his.

I wonder who is priveed to what the executive branch of government is doing, since the legislative branch has been effectively shutout of executing this war on terror. The people of this great nation sign the paychecks of the people who are carrying out this war, but there needs to be some oversight. Oversight by our legislative branch, the Congress!

Since they fail to do their job, our last line of oversight seems to be The Press. That same press that has been accused of rolling over and not doing their jobs for the last 5 or so years.

According to Edward S. Herman in Z Magazine, the term “All The News That’s Fit To Print” comes from:

The New York Times’s masthead logo, “All The News That’s Fit to Print,” dates back to 1896, the first year of Ochs-Sulzberger family control of the paper, and both the family control and arrogant belief in the benevolence and superior judgment of the dominant owners persist to this day. The 1997 Proxy Statement of The New York Times Company explains the special voting rights that assure family control in terms of the desire for “an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and tinselfishly devoted to the public welfare.”

So how can a newspaper that is not privied to “Classified” information be accused of releasing it? See the Wiki: Classified_information .

So if investigative journalists are told that everything that they do is being held for national security and the war on terrorism, then we run into the potential of a quasi-censorship situation. While papers, such as the NY Times has used candor to ensure that they don’t quickly jump to publish stories without considering National Security, because they are not the government, they have different standards and rules when it comes to publishing material to the public, and that public can be more than just US Citizens.

Can we rely on the Press to be the eyes and ears of the people when our Congress has failed us? What will the people who are relying on its government to keep us safe do? Who is watching the watchers? Maybe there is more news that’s fit to print.

I’m thinking Nuke ‘em, because if they want to burn something, I say we help them burn their whole country to the ground. It’s alot easier to use nuclear weapons to solve problems than it is to send troops to do that. I mean it’s a great thing to pass a law to protect that flag, but what’s the punishment? I hope utter DEATH!

You know all the troops have to pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America, at least I think they do… hmmm…

I, Seaman/Airman Soldier, do solemly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed overme, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Well, I guess they don’t take a specific oath to protect the flag. Darn! I guess if we change the constitution, then we can have all sorts of laws to help defend the Flag. Dang… wait isn’t there already laws on the books to defend the flag?

<a title="Flag Code" href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=browse_usc&#38;docid=Cite:+4USC3">That would be Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 3 of the US Code. </a>

Sec. 3. Use of flag for advertising purposes; mutilation of flag

Any person who, within the District of Columbia, in any manner, for exhibition or display, shall place or cause to be placed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing, or any advertisement of any nature upon any flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America; or shall expose or cause to be exposed to public view any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign upon which shall have been printed, painted, or otherwise placed, or to which shall be attached, appended, affixed, or annexed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, or drawing, or any advertisement of any nature; or who, within the District of Columbia, shall manufacture, sell, expose for sale, or to public view, or give away or have in possession for sale, or to be given away or for use for any purpose, any article or substance being an article of merchandise, or a receptacle for merchandise or article or thing for carrying or transporting Merchandise, upon which shall have been printed, painted, attached, or otherwise placed a representation of any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign, to advertise, call attention to, decorate, mark, or distinguish the article or substance on which so placed shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $100 or by imprisonment for not more than thirty days, or both, in the discretion of the court. The words “flag, standard, colors, or ensign’’, as used herein, shall include any flag, standard, colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America.

I guess that used car dealer and sellers of those plastic commuter cups, and those paper flags that are used on cakes, and bikinis that ladies wear that look like the flag, are probably all Breaking the Law, by someone’s interpretation of this code.

I know that Energy policy, healthcare, our troops, and immigration are all less important than creating a band of Flag police, since there is such an outbreak of anti-american flag burning sediment here in the good ol’ US of A. If it is passed, don’t you worry! I’ll be first in line to pass out the fines!

You know how folks like John Stossel on ABCNews like to tout that Gas is a real bargin, when adjusted for inflation, in fact he claims it’s cheap! You know, that’s a real misconception. Maybe that’s the case, theoretically, however when you look at Minimum wage when adjusted for inflation, you can see that your dollars can’t buy the same amount of things as you could way back when. Look at this website: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html You can see that the minimum wage worker continues to see a reduction of real dollars when adjusted for inflation, and that converts into reduced buying power at the pump.

Mr. Stossel points out that ice cream, milk, water and other stuff costs way more than gas. First off, we don’t buy milk and ice cream at 20 or 30 gallons at a shot and need to fill up 4 to 6 times a month. Spending $1 for a quart of water is silly, since it doesn’t cost that much out of the tap, and you can filter it much cheaper yourself, if you feel the need.

The bottom line is that if minimum wage earners don’t see rises in their paycheck, what’s the incentive or chances that otehr industries will follow at a rate that will beat inflation?