Strange Consequences of the Internet:the need for each individual to learn things for themselves

If you haven't bookmarked the Belmont Club then you are missing a vital piece of your equipment as much as if you left on patrol without your clips of ammo or extra water. This is going to be not only a long war but the landmarks you once used to navigate are no longer valid or useful such as the nice man from the media...for this reason you must continue to read and educate yourself and the Belmont Club is a great place to start.

Belmont Club: "One of the strangest consequences of the development of Internet was the reimposition of the need for each individual to learn things for themselves. It is a task most would gladly do without, but it is the burden of sentience and the price of freedom."

...... there is literally no more front line. It therefore came as no surprise that the media -- that is to say the newsrooms, editorial desks and reportorial -- proved but one more foxhole in the conflict. The Jerusalem Post (hat tip: The Counterterrorism Blog) describes how some representatives of major wire services and news agencies were in the paid service of terrorist organizations. A small sampler of dubious connections is given below:

Meanwhile, the Associated Press and Reuters, which have their own TV production services, rely almost entirely on footage provided to them by Palestinian crews covering events in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The material, distributed to thousands of subscribers worldwide, mostly focuses on Palestinians as victims of IDF operations; the cameramen decide from which angle to film and which material to send at the end of the day to their employers in Jerusalem. The Associated Press also has a journalist -- Muhammad Daraghmeh -- who works for the PA's Al-Ayyam. "It's like employing someone from the [Israeli] Government Press Office or one of the Israeli political parties to work as a journalist," comments a veteran foreign journalist based in Israel.

The Counterterrorism Blog asks: "Well, excuse me, but how about the 'journalists' in the Arab world who were either on Saddam's or Arafat's payroll? Why hasn't the media seen fit to pursue those secret arrangements and admit that perhaps those payments twisted the coverage of those two thugs by Western media?" This can only be a rhetorical question. It is entirely probable that there is no, and possibly was never any collectively responsible, self-policing, ethically consistent 'media' able to act as single organism. Saddam and Arafat discovered this long ago and its audience is only belatedly realizing it now.

This process of corruption has pulled a curtain of suspicion over all information products. No longer is it possible to rely on the assurance of a brand name. Each item of news must now be sniffed, examined, poked and weighed to determine its authenticity. Collateral confirmation, once the staple of skeptical intelligence analysts, is now the task of every sophisticated newsreader -- at least those who want to avoid being taken for a ride. Once the media itself became an informational battleground the most natural greeting in the dark became 'who goes there?' That skepticism has in part, empowered the blogosphere, which provides some filtering for readers too busy to do it themselves. Yet the blogosphere is not in principle immune from any of the corroding influences of fear, money or influence, as the readers of Armstrong Williams and the Daily Kos discovered to their disillusionment. We are, in James Jesus Angleton's famous phrase, in a 'Wilderness of Mirrors', though he himself had the idea from T. S. Eliot.

I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?

These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors.

Fortunately for most there is the salvation of the common senses: the ability to observe the real through the packaging, and to learn from the airplane crashing into the tower facts we could not read in the newspapers. One of the strangest consequences of the development of Internet was the reimposition of the need for each individual to learn things for themselves. It is a task most would gladly do without, but it is the burden of sentience and the price of freedom.

Slashdot | Future of Internet News?

January 17, @06:06PM
from the not-your-father's-style-of-journalism dept.
Matthew asks: "Now that the Internet has become an integral part of many people's lives, it has also become the place where many of us get our daily news reports (think Slashdot, New York Times, etc). The decentralization of the Internet offers many advantages over traditional media such as newspapers and television, as the user has more control over what to view and when to view it. But how does the future of this utopia look? With the uprise of ad blockers, are we going to be able to get our news for free? Will the Internet become a place for the "selected few" with money to spend? How do DRM and Trusted Computing play into the role? What does Darwin say will happen to newspapers, radio, television?"

Slashdot | Future of Internet News?

The national media: slow to report on things that have been handled correctly. CMC

The CMC is much too kind to our weasel info hackers considering that they are on a quest to defeat the USA by writing stories that will incur casualties reduce moral and encourage the Thugs. They are not slow to report on the good our Marines produce in the field; their plans require they omit all success stories completely as they last thing they want is to encourage the support the troops have from the home front. They are the Fifth Column! Consider, for example, this headline :

Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.

The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.



Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Marine Corps Commandant, said he still is an ardent proponent of embedding journalists with combat troops.
“How many American people know what we do, know what you and I do for a living, what you and I do for this country?” Hagee asked cadets and officer candidates Monday night at the Coast Guard Academy. “We should not be afraid to show the American people what we do.”
Hagee recalled a reporter hyperventilating as he reported from a battlefield with bullets whizzing overhead. The reporter experienced the kind of personal peril that soldiers take for granted, and told the American people about it.
The embedded reporter process “has informed the American public. ... I think it's absolutely the right thing to do,” Hagee said. “They may not always agree with how we see the battlefield, but that's OK.
“Unfortunately,” Hagee added, “I don't think (the coverage) is very balanced.”
The national media, he said, has been slow to report on things that have been handled correctly.

More Aiding and Abetting by the Fifth columnist media

Lance Frizzell,(Lance in Iraq blog), a 2nd Lt Medical Platoon Leader with the Tennessee National Guard 278th Regimental Combat Team, currently serving in Northern Iraq adds to the current examination of our media as info-aiding-and-abetting-the-enemy weasels:

Sweet justice
If you really want to know how most Iraqis feel about terrorists, check out this photo. (Hat Tip: Iraq The Model).
I've been meaning to mention Iraq the Model for awhile because it represents mainstream thought in Iraq. However, the views found there are mostly ignored by American media because they are generally pro-American.
At the risk of getting off topic, too many U.S. journalists believe their war-reporting should be mainly about scrutinizing our own government instead of focusing on exactly who is attempting to thwart our effort to bring liberty to the citizens of Iraq.
In the past, journalists saw themselves as being on the side of human rights, celebrating the spread of freedom. Sadly, most mainstream media practitioners in America have chosen to turn away from this proud heritage at the risk of painting the current administration in a positive light. Too bad. Lance In Iraq: Sweet justice

Power Line:Col. Ryan is too kind to the American press

Power Line:

"On the whole, I think Col. Ryan is too kind to the American press. I think that the press's undermining of our war effort is, in many instances, deliberate. It appears to me that many, if not most, American reporters, editors and news executives want to make it impossible for America ever to fight a war. To further this goal, I think they use their reporting to undermine our effort in Iraq. The idea is that if we are defeated in Iraq, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for us to fight another war anywhere for a generation. Is this assessment too harsh? I don't think so."

BLACKFIVE: Aiding and Abetting the Enemy

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Ryan - a Task Force (Battalion +) Commander in Iraq lets the media have it right in the kister for acting like fifth columnist. From BLACKFIVE:
BLACKFIVE: Aiding and Abetting the Enemy: "

What about the media's portrayal of the enemy? Why do these ruthless murderers, kidnappers and thieves get a pass when it comes to their actions? What did the media not show or tell us about Margaret Hassoon, the director of C.A.R.E. in Iraq and an Iraqi citizen, who was kidnapped, brutally tortured and left disemboweled in streets of Fallujah? Did anyone in the press show these images over and over to emphasize the moral failings of the enemy as they did with the soldiers at Abu Ghuraib? Did anyone show the world how this enemy had huge stockpiles of weapons in schools and mosques, or how he used these protected places as sanctuaries for planning and fighting in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq? Are people of the world getting the complete story? The answer again is no! What the world got instead were repeated images of a battle-weary Marine who made a quick decision to use lethal force and who now is being tried in the world press. Is this one act really illustrative of the overall action in Fallujah? No, but the Marine video clip was shown an average of four times each hour on just about every major TV news channel for a week. This is how the world views our efforts over here and stories like this without a counter continually serve as propaganda victories for the enemy. Al Jazeera isn't showing the film of the CARE worker, but is showing the clip of the Marine. Earlier this year, the Iraqi government banned Al Jazeera from the country for its inaccurate reporting. Wonder where they get their information now? Well, if you go to the Internet, you'll find a web link from the Al Jazeera home page to CNN's home page. Very interesting."
....."In Fallujah, the enemy death toll has already exceeded 1,500 and still is climbing. Put one in the win column for the good guys, right? Wrong. As soon as there was nothing negative to report about Fallujah, the media shifted its focus to other parts of the country. Just yesterday, a major news agency's website lead read: "Suicide Bomber Kills Six in Baghdad" and "Seven Marines Die in Iraq Clashes." True, yes. Comprehensive, no. Did the author of this article bother to mention that Coalition troops killed 50 or so terrorists while incurring those seven losses? Of course not. Nor was there any mention about the substantial progress these offensive operations continue to achieve in defeating the insurgents. Unfortunately, this sort of incomplete reporting has become the norm for the media, whose poor job of presenting a complete picture of what is going on in Iraq borders on being criminal.

....This war is not without its tragedies; none ever are. The key to the enemy's success is use of his limited assets to gain the greatest influence over the masses. The media serves as the glass through which a relatively small event can be magnified to international proportions, and the enemy is exploiting this with incredible ease. There is no good news to counteract the bad, so the enemy scores a victory almost every day. In its zeal to get to the hot spots and report the latest bombing, the media is missing the reality of a greater good going on in Iraq. We seldom are seen doing anything right or positive in the news. People believe what they see, and what people of the world see almost on a daily basis is negative. How could they see it any other way? These images and stories, out of scale and context to the greater good going on over here, are just the sort of thing the terrorists are looking for. This focus on the enemy's successes strengthens his resolve and aids and abets his cause. It's the American image abroad that suffers in the end.

Capt. Robert Whalen Jr. First LAR

The Suburban and Wayne Times - News - 01/13/2005 - Marine captain from Wayne talks about Iraq service: "'I'll never forget women holding their babies, waving their baby's hands and yelling, 'U.S.A. good!' in English,' Whalen told the World Affairs Council of Valley Forge Inc., at its monthly luncheon last Thursday at Waynesborough Country Club in Paoli.
Whalen, a Wayne resident and Malvern Prep graduate, was with the 1st Marine Division that seized Saddam Hussein's palace in Tikrit in 2003. His division shared the field with 'ABC World News Tonight' reporter Bob Woodruff; while Whalen grew to enjoy his company, even speaking with him after the soldier returned from Iraq, he does have a bone to pick with the media.
Whalen's contention is that news anchors have spent too little time on the armed forces' accomplishments in the war-torn country.
'Twelve people getting killed by a bomb sells more than building a water-pumping station in Iraq,' Whalen said.
The military's accomplishments were the backbone of his speech. Marines in the 1st Division, Whalen said, helped rebuild five schools and a community center, four water-pumping stations, five regional hospitals and two dams.
'When I left Iraq I felt very good about what we had done,' he told a crowd that included a group of students from Octorara High School's Model UN team, 'knowing that Saddam Hussein was gone.'"

The New Tactics: Finding the Seam in WAM (War against the Media)

OpinionJournal - Extra:

In months of travels with the American military, I have learned that the smaller the American footprint and the less notice it draws from the international media, the more effective is the operation. One good soldier-diplomat in a place like Mongolia can accomplish miracles. A few hundred Green Berets in Colombia and the Philippines can be adequate force multipliers. Ten thousand troops, as in Afghanistan, can tread water. And 130,000, as in Iraq, constitutes a mess that nobody wants to repeat--regardless of one's position on the war.
....... The American military now has the most thankless task of any military in the history of warfare: to provide the security armature for an emerging global civilization that, the more it matures--with its own mass media and governing structures--the less credit and sympathy it will grant to the very troops who have risked and, indeed, given their lives for it. And as the thunderous roar of a global cosmopolitan press corps gets louder--demanding the application of abstract principles of universal justice that, sadly, are often neither practical nor necessarily synonymous with American national interest--the smaller and more low-key our deployments will become. In the future, military glory will come down to shadowy, page-three skirmishes around the globe, which the armed services will quietly celebrate among their own subculture.

Robert Kaplan

ARMOR GEDDON

Check it out. A tankers blog. From the action in Fallujah not much there but what there is great. Especially interesting is a fire mission in the middle of mosque city that despite the hair raising complexity resulted in a major hit against the Thugs.

K-k-r-r-BOOM. An explosion went off right where they had all been gathering. It was dead center of where the guys had disappeared.
“Ramrod 18, Red 6. That shit was right on. Fire for effect. Fire for effect!”
“Roger. 20 rounds. Observe effects.”
“Holy shit. 20 rounds? That’s gonna be bigger than the barrage.”
K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM.
“Oh SHIT! Look at that! No WAY that just happened.” I was in shock.
Explosions went up 5 to 10 stories. Huge grey clouds shot upwards. It looked like volcanoes were erupting. But that wasn't what shocked me. On top of the explosions, bodies were thrown straight up into the sky. It wasn’t like the movies at all, where the explosion goes off and the guy is airborne, flailing his arms and legs. It looked like a child threw some action figures straight up in the sky. They didn’t flail at all. They just went straight up end over end and bloomed outwards like the petals of a flower blooming in fast-forward on the Discovery Channel. It was unreal. Each explosion sent up 3, 4, or 5 terrorists up into the sky.
K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM. It was the funniest thing we had ever seen. It was also unreal. You never expect to see bodies do that. So when you see it, it feels surreal



ARMOR GEDDON

The Counterterrorism Blog

Bookmark this site as it looks and reads solid. Real

Missed Opportunities? The December 1994 Air France Hijacking

Missed Opportunities? The December 1994 Air France Hijacking

time info by CT experts. A must read site for your continuing education.The Counterterrorism Blog

Today's News & Columns

• Why Syria Backs Iraqi Terrorists (column)
  
• Insurgents Using Bigger Bombs; Zarqawi Group Claims Killing of Deputy Baghdad Police Chief
  
• Internal U.N. Audits Ignite Debate Over U.N. Oversight of Program to Alleviate Sanctions on Iraqis
  
• U.S.: Bin Laden Could Be in Afghanistan
  
• Circle Squared - Iran, Iraq, Syria (column)

1,050 yards confirmed kill by USMC sniper

"' Our (company commander) told us to go find where the mortars were coming from and take them out so we went back out,' remembered Hancock. 'We moved south some more and linked up with the rear elements of our first platoon. Then we got up on a building and scanned across the river. We looked out of the spot scope and saw about three to five insurgents manning a 120mm mortar tube. We got the coordinates for their position and set up a fire mission. We decided that when the rounds came in that I would engage them with the sniper rifle. We got the splash and there were two standing up looking right at us. One had a black (outfit) on. I shot and he dropped. Right in front of him another got up on his knees looking to try and find out where we were so I dropped him too. After that our mortars just hammered the position, so we moved around in on them.'

The subsequent fire for effect landed right on the insurgent mortar position.

'We adjusted right about fifty yards where there were two other insurgents in a small house on the other side of the position,' said Flowers. 'There was some brush between them and the next nearest building about 400 yards south of where they were at and we were about 1,000 yards from them so I guess they thought we could not spot them. Some grunts were nearby with binoculars but they could not see them, plus they are not trained in detailed observation the way we are. We know what to look for such as target indicators and things that are not easy to see.'

Hancock and Flowers then scanned several areas that they expected fire from, but the enemy mortars had silenced.

'After we had called in indirect fire and after all the adjustments from our mortars, I got the final 8-digit grid coordinates for the enemy mortar position, looked at our own position using GPS and figured out the distance to the targets we dropped to be 1,050 yards,' said Flowers with a grin. 'This time we were killing terrorism from more than 1,000 yards.'

From :In Iraq for 365: Logan, Iraqi Boy Wonder

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
William Shakespeare



Iraqi boy assists Soldiers as an interpreter and a friend
MOSUL, Iraq – If the Army had an adopt-a-child program, Logan would be the poster child. For more than a year, the 13-year-old boy, who contends he’s 13 and a half, has lived and worked with Coalition forces at a forward operating base in Mosul. The boy speaks four languages and his official title at the FOB is translator and supervisor, but he is a Soldier at heart.
“I love American Soldiers. I want to help them in every way possible, because without them we (Iraqis) would have nothing,” said Logan, who also speaks Turkish, Arabic and Kurdish and is currently learning Spanish. “When Saddam ruled Iraq, he would kill somebody for speaking English or Kurdish. Things were very bad, but now we are much happier and I can speak all my languages freely.”
Not a day goes by that Logan doesn’t use his four languages. At the FOB, he helps Soldiers with more than 50 workers, who maintain buildings, electricity and plumbing.
“It would be very difficult to do my job without Logan. Some of the workers only speak Kurdish, Turkish or Arabic. Rather than having a translator for each group, Logan can talk to all of them,” said Staff Sgt. Phillip Powers, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the contracted workers on the FOB. “We tell him what we need done and then he supervises the workers on the project. Sometimes you forget he’s just a kid because he’s telling grown men what to do.”
In Iraq for 365: Logan, Iraqi Boy Wonder

A late Christmas card from Iraq

From The Convoginators



Today I played Taps for another memorial service for a great young soldier who lost his life serving his country and making Iraq a better place for it's people. I did not know the soldier, but his commander and platoon leader gave a very good glimpse of this commendable young man. He was simple, short on words, always ready for a mission, not known to gripe, and when attacked by the enemy had the reputation of being first to lay down suppressive fire and maintain a calm demeanor in danger. Not unlike many other great soldiers in our nation's history, he will be sorely missed by those who knew him, and he will be missed in a society that desperately needs more people that have such an unselfish attitude towards serving a greater good.

Marine Major Benjamin Busch Photography on Display at Md. UC

baltimoresun.com - Through a Soldier's Eyes: "....his photographs are the subject of an extraordinary exhibition that opens today at the University of Maryland University College in Adelphi. On Sunday, his unit, the 5th Civil Affairs Group leaves for Camp Lejeune in North Carolina en route to Iraq, where its members will help repair the infrastructure and develop local government.

Called The Art in War, the show of 40 color photographs reveals not only the chaos and upheaval of a country at war but also the intensely personal responses of a Marine who observes the grim profession of war with the eye of an artist.
"

From The American Thinker an open letter to all leftys by Herbert E. Meyer

An open letter to opponents of the War in Iraq
January 4th, 2005

I am not writing to quarrel with your judgment about the war in Iraq. Rather, I am writing to protest your attitude toward the war. And the point I want to make is this: sometimes, you have to choose between proving yourself to have been right, or helping make a project succeed despite your opposition to it.

Since all our tempers are running hot, it might be best to illustrate my point with a non-political example: Imagine that a husband and wife are planning their vacation. One wants to spend it on the beach at Puerto Vallarta, and the other wants to go traipsing around Europe’s battlefields. They cannot do both, and it makes no sense to try and split the difference geographically by spending two weeks in, say, Baltimore. So one spouse wins, and the other loses. If you are the winner, it’s a good idea to avoid gloating. But if you are the loser, you have a very difficult choice to make. You can prove yourself to have been right by making the vacation as miserable as possible – by whining about the food, the weather, the lack of a DSL line in your hotel room, and by generally being a pill. Or, you can recognize that the vacation isn’t nearly as important as the marriage itself – in which case you swallow your defeat gracefully, look cheerful even if you aren’t, and do whatever you can to make the vacation a success. If it’s a disaster anyway – well, next time your spouse may take your advice. But if you give it your best shot despite your misgivings, you will at least preserve the marriage. And – I speak from experience – it’s even possible the vacation itself will turn out better than you had expected.

It’s the same in politics. When a policy is adopted that you don’t like, sometimes – not always, but sometimes -- you must choose between fighting it in hopes of proving you were right, or pitching in to make it work, despite your misgivings, for the good of the country.

Now, let’s talk about the war in Iraq.

Jolting Islam Forward

Simply put, Iraq has become the focal point of the entire war on terrorism. That’s because President Bush’s strategy for winning the war, in addition to fighting al Qaeda terrorists wherever we can find them, is to spread democracy itself throughout the Middle East. More precisely, his strategy is to create conditions in that part of the world that will trigger an Islamic revolution whose objective is to jolt Islam itself from the Seventh Century into the Twenty-first Century. In other words, we want Islam to do what Judaism and Christianity did centuries ago: namely, to reconcile with the modern world. If this actually happens in Iraq, the President believes, it will crack political ice throughout the region and trigger a chain reaction that will spread to other countries. And as the President sees it, only if democracy takes root in the Middle East will the threat of terrorism subside and will it be possible to finally end the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Now, you may be among those who believe that the President’s strategy is absurd – that there isn’t the slightest possibility of Islam reconciling with the modern world and of democracy taking root in the Middle East. Or, you may believe that the strategy is plausible, but that the President has made an historic mistake by choosing Iraq as the first Mideast country in which to make it work. Or, you may believe that it can be done in Iraq, but that we have gone about it badly, for instance by not putting enough troops on the ground in that country to overcome the Baathists and the non-Iraqi terrorists who are fighting now to prevent the upcoming elections from succeeding.

In the end, history will prove you right – or wrong. But as of today, we simply don’t know how things will turn out in Iraq. Read the last sentence again, slowly, because it really is the heart of the issue. We are in the middle of a war and no one – absolutely no one – knows whether we will win or lose it.

What we do know for sure is this: our chances for success in Iraq will be greater if we all pull together to make it work. But if we fail in Iraq, the catastrophe of our defeat will spread beyond the Middle East and around the world. It will be taken as a huge victory for al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and all those who support them, including Iran and North Korea, and the result will be a barrage of terrorist acts the likes of which the world has never seen, and which will place us all in mortal danger.

The Last Freedom

And this means you must choose. Is it more important to you that you be proven to have been right, or that our country survives? And yes, the choice really is this simple. The fact is, we have gone to war in Iraq and the President who set this course has just been re-elected. That’s why it isn’t your judgment now that matters – history will settle that in its own time – but your attitude. And I mean this in the deepest, most personal sense. In his great memoir of survival in a Nazi concentration camp, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote that

“everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

To put it bluntly, your attitude stinks. You are so determined to be proven right that you are unhelpful at best, and at worst you are actively working to insure our defeat.

I am not suggesting that all politics be stopped, or that our democracy be suspended for the duration. Rather, I am suggesting that you recognize how much we are all at risk, and that right now you focus your energy, your experience, and your expertise on helping us to win. So, if you are a Washington big-shot, instead of complaining about the Army’s shortage of truck armor, get on the phone to the Pentagon’s bureaucrats or to the manufacturers and push them to boost production however they can. Instead of prattling on and on about the insufficient number of US troops in Iraq, call your colleagues and counterparts in governments around the world and urge them to send as many soldiers as they can. Instead of whining that the upcoming elections in Iraq will be flawed – which is obvious, for crying out loud -- do whatever you can to make these elections a visible success. And if you are just an ordinary American who believes the President has made a terrible mistake, keep in mind that while you have every right to demonstrate against the war these demonstrations play directly into our enemies’ hands.

Demoralizing Our Enemies

Your help, or your behavior, could make all the difference, not just in terms of practical assistance but in broader terms of showing our adversaries around the world that right now, despite our different judgments, Americans are united. This by itself would almost do as much to demoralize our enemies as the accomplishments of our wonderful Soldiers and Marines in the back alleys of Mosul or Falluja.

Don’t tell me that you cannot change your attitude, or that it’s your right and solemn duty as the loyal opposition to oppose the President however you can. The War on Terrorism isn’t just another Bush Administration initiative, like the No Child Left Behind program or his proposal to reform the structure of Social Security. In this war, our very existence hangs in the balance, and national unity is more important than political advantage -- or personal ambition. We are all in this together, as Americans, and we must all do whatever we can to help make the President’s policy work, whether we like that policy or not.

And if you think that asking you to change your attitude is asking too much, give a moment’s thought to what we are asking of the Iraqi people. After all, the President’s entire policy rests on a change of attitude within the world of Islam itself. We are asking the Iraqis, and others in the Middle East, to abandon their tribal, if-you-win-then-I-must-lose way of thinking; to shift from oppressing other ethnic groups to co-operating with them; to move from totalitarianism to democracy. In short, we are asking them to make a mental leap from the Middle Ages to the modern world – fast.

That’s a huge change in attitude to ask for, and the very least that you can do would be to set a good example.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. His DVD on The Siege of Western Civilization (www.siegeofwesternciv.com) has become an international best-seller.


Herbert E. Meyer





The American Thinker

Cpl.Gary A. Spangler LAR Bronze Star Kandahar

Cpl. Spangler received the Bronze Star for action under fire that make the book of odds spin crazy. All the M-16's in his fire team jam, except his. The machine gun was put out of action when the gunner tripped and fell. Down to 70 rounds of ammo Spangler's senior NCO took a hit and was out of action. One shot one kill.

"Thompson called out to the solitary figure: "We are Americans. We are Marines." He announced the Marines' presence because rules of engagement barred firing on unarmed civilians.

A split-second after Thompson spoke, he heard a distinct, metallic "click."

"The man on the boulder racked (cocked) an AK-47," Spangler said, "and opened fire."

Thompson put a shotgun blast in the man's chest before being struck in the thigh and groin by a ricocheting round. Spangler also fired and hit the suspected Taliban member. The man fell, blood-spattered and lifeless.

The ridge above them erupted in gunfire. The distinctive chatter of AK-47s and the boom of rocket-propelled grenades split the night air.

Thompson, who was knocked backward behind Spangler, cried out, "I've been hit." He told the Marines to "get the enemy."

Spangler remembers the flashes and the explosions and the smell of gunpowder. His sense of time was distorted by violence and adrenaline.

Payne jumped out and opened fire, trying to protect Thompson. "A minute later, I heard Payne say 'Ow ... I've been hit,'" Spangler said.

Spejcher rushed out, grabbed Payne's radio microphone and shouted "received contact, two casualties." He grabbed Payne under the arms and dragged him toward cover.

That frantic message got through. Eight miles away, other members of their platoon jumped into the vehicles and headed toward their embattled comrades.

But Spangler and the other scouts did not realize the call for help had been heard.

Spangler also didn't know that a heartbeat after the message was sent, a rocket-propelled grenade struck Payne in the chest and exploded, killing him and wounding the medic.

Spangler saw enemy combatants moving down the hill toward his left. With Thompson wounded and Payne silent, Spangler took charge of the scout squad.

As the Marines returned fire, things went from bad to worse. Rounds from the grenade launcher being fired by the medic took their toll, but it was apparent the machine gun was useless.

"It probably was damaged in the fall, and we didn't know it," Thompson said later.

Then one of the M-16s jammed.

"So here I am in this firefight, down to about 70 rounds and the only Marine left with a working weapon," Spangler said.

He returned fire carefully, remembering the deadly mantra: "One shot, one kill."

Two enemy combatants appeared on the same rock where the first man had been moments earlier. Spangler tossed a grenade. The ground shook, the explosion deafened him momentarily. That was the second time in his life he had thrown a grenade."

Tallahassee Democrat | 01/02/2005 | Local Marine honored with Bronze Star

How the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq

An article, written by an Iraqi, I have been waiting for ever since you liberated Iraq...and I saw film footage of Iraqi children being released from prison thinking now they'll get it... Saddamn is so twisted he imprisons children not to mention preys on his own people ---and my exasperation with a local lefty who refused to accept that American forces busting open the prison gates and releasing children was an act of the highest good....well that was nothing compared to Naseer Flayih Hasan's reactions to lefty justifications for the "crimes of America" and their opposition to freedom for Iraq.

Naseer Flayih Hasan
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 3, 2005

We did believe, however, that democracy and human rights were important factors in Western civilization. So it came as a shock to us when millions of people began demonstrating across the world against America’s build-up to the invasion of our country. We supposed the protests were by people who had no idea about the terrible atrocities that the regime had inflicted upon us for decades. We assumed that once they learned what had happened in Iraq, they would change their minds, or modify their opposition to the war.

My first clue that this would not happen was a few weeks after Baghdad fell. I had befriended a French reporter who had begun to realize that the situation in Iraq was not how the international media or the so-called “peace camp” described it. I noticed, however, that whenever he tried to voice his doubts to colleagues, they argued that he was wrong. Soon afterwards, I met a Dutch woman on Mutinabi Street, where booksellers lay out their wares on Friday morning. I asked her how long she’d been in Iraq and, through a translator, she answered, “Three months.”

“So you were here during the war?”

“Yes!” she said. “To see the crimes of the Americans!”

I was stunned. After a moment, I replied, “What about the crimes of the regime? It killed millions of Iraqis. Do you know that if the regime was still in power, the conversation we’re having now would result in our torture or death?”

Her face turned red and she angrily responded, “Soon will come the day that the Americans will do worse.” She then went on to accuse me of not knowing what the true facts were in Iraq—and that she could see the situation better than me!

She was not the only “humanitarian” who expressed such outrageous opinions. One afternoon, I was speaking to some members of the American anti-war group “Voices in the Wilderness.” One of the group’s members declared that the Iraqi Governing Council (then in power at the time) were “traitors.” I was shocked. Most of the Council were people whom we Iraqis knew had suffered and sacrificed in a long struggle against the regime. Some represented opposition parties who had lost ten of thousand of members in that struggle. Others came from families who had lost up to 30 loved ones to the Baathists.

After those, and many other, experiences, we finally comprehended how little we had in common with these “peace activists” who constantly decried American crimes, and hated to listen to us talk about the terrible long nightmare that ended with the collapse of the regime. We came to understand how these “humanitarians” experienced a sort of pleasure when terrorists or former remnants of the regime created destruction in Iraq—just so they could feel that they were right, and the Americans wrong!

Worse, we realized it was hopeless to make them grasp our feelings. We believed—and still believe--that America’s removal of the regime opened a new way for democracy.

This was very disappointing for someone like me, who thought for decades that the Left was generally the progressive power in the world. You can imagine how aghast I was when my French reporter friend told me that the Communist Party in his country actually considers the “insurgents” to be the equivalent of the French Gaullists!

Or "Michael Moore's Minute Men" continue on to Front Page website the entire article needs to be read....

"Resistance is Futile" The Borg

From Cafe Babel an expert for the European Society, Law and Religion research centre at Strasbourg’s Robert Schuman University advises Euroweenies to suck it up and become Muslim. An excellent example of a fifth columnist at work paralyzing the will to resist.

Must these Muslim communities adapt to fit into Europe?
The question, indeed the challenge, is not so much one of adapting Islam to our European society but of adapting our society to Islam. Discriminatory attitudes against the Muslim community increase Muslim frustration and harden the resolve of certain groups who turn to radicalism. The challenge for us is to create a framework in which Muslims may be integrated into our society as fairly as possible. Most European states use public money to fund religious groups yet Islamic groups very rarely actually receives such money. European mentalities and bureaucracies need to change. In Belgium, for example, Muslim groups cannot receive public funds because the authorities do not acknowledge them as representative bodies.
caf� babel, European current affairs magazine : comment and analysis from Europe

Class action lawsuit against CAIR Council on American-Islamic Relations

From Daniel Pipes.org a long awaited lawsuit against CAIR for their alleged work in support of terrorism in the United States under the guise of promoting better relations:

"CAIR's role in the events of September 11, 2001, from the second amended class action complaint, filed today:

86. Council on American Islamic Relations and CAIR Canada (collectively, CAIR), have aided, abetted, and materially sponsored and al Qaeda and international terrorism. CAIR is an outgrowth of the Hamas front group the Islamic Association of Palestine. The FBI's former associate director in charge of Investigative and Counter-Intelligence Operations described the Islamic Association of Palestine as an organization that has directly supported Hamas military goals and is a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants. It has produced videotapes that are very hate-filled, full of vehement propaganda. It is an organization that has supported direct confrontation.

87. CAIR and CAIR-Canada have, since their inception, been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism. These organizations play a unique role in the terrorist network. They emanate from the notorious HAMAS terrorist organization and like so many of the terrorism facilitating charities named and indicted by the United States government they are engaged in fund raising under the guise of assisting humanitarian causes they are, in reality, a key player in international terrorism. The unique role played by CAIR and CAIR-Canada is to manipulate the legal systems of the United States and Canada in a manner that allows them to silence critics, analysts, commentators, media organizations, and government officials by leveling false charges of discrimination, libel, slander and defamation. In addition, both organizations have actively sought to hamper governmental anti-terrorism efforts by direct propaganda activities aimed at police, first-responders, and intelligence agencies through so-called sensitivity training. Their goal is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities.

88. The role of CAIR and CAIR-Canada is to wage PSYOPS (psychological warfare) and disinformation activities on behalf of Whabbi-based [Wahhabi-based, DP] Islamic terrorists throughout North America. They are the intellectual "shock troops" of Islamic terrorism. In the years and months leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 these organizations were very effective in helping to ensure that North American law enforcement and intelligence officials were sufficiently deaf, dumb, and blind to help pave the way for the attacks on the United States. The role played by these entities is an absolutely essential part of the mix of forces arrayed against the United States as they help soften-up targeted countries so as to facilitate and enhance the likelihood for a successful attack."

CAIR Named as a Defendant in 9/11 Terror Lawsuit [Weblog] - Daniel Pipes

New Year's Resolution 2005

1"....they wish to be martyrs and we must help them to achieve martyrdom by every method at our disposal." Christopher Hitchens
FrontPage magazine.com :: Love, Poverty and War by Jamie Glazov: