A Different Kind of Avatar

Miriam E. Mendelson, writing at American Thinker, compares her impressions of the movie Avatar to her own experiences in the theater of war. I wish I could say her observations were atypical of our so-called “entertainment” industry -- which I largely boycott. I have no interest in seeing Avatar.

Quoting Miriam E. Mendelson:

“The ‘military’ characters in the movie were portrayed as uncaring and unfazed by the suffering of others -- willing to take lives with nary a second thought. They were portrayed as deserving to die because of how little they cared for the lives of others. It wasn't just some of the military that were portrayed this way -- it was all of them. Only the rogue protagonist was different….

The soldiers I had gotten to know so well -- who was going to tell their stories?”

[And then, a few stories get told…]

“The purpose of this piece is not to make a statement about war. Leave that for the politicians. Rather, it is to testify to the character of soldiers -- men and women of character, compassion, and honor. There are enough stories like the above to fill a book (being written), and many more yet untold. Yes, there are bad soldiers, just as there are bad doctors, bad cops, etc. Yet the vast majority risk and sacrifice their lives to protect not just us, but innocent people of other nations as well. When it comes to the military, let's not let one (otherwise entertaining) movie be the only story that gets told.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here & examine some of what
so-called “journalists” overlooked in Iraq.

Good News From Iraq Will Not be Televised

Quoting Charles Krauthammer (emphasis mine):

“Preoccupied as it was poring over Tom Daschle's tax returns, Washington hardly noticed a near-miracle abroad. Iraq held provincial elections. There was no Election Day violence. Security was handled by Iraqi forces with little U.S. involvement. A fabulous bazaar of 14,400 candidates representing 400 parties participated, yielding results highly favorable to both Iraq and the United States.”

“The big strategic winner here is the United States. The big loser is Iran. The parties Tehran backed are in retreat. The prime minister who staked his career on a strategic cooperation agreement with the United States emerged victorious.”

“Despite Obama's opposition, America went on to create a small miracle in the heart of the Arab Middle East. President Obama is now the custodian of that miracle. It is his duty as leader of the nation that gave birth to this fledgling democracy to ensure that he does nothing to undermine it.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here to learn more.

Dear Mr. Obama

Dear Mr. Obama:

Click here & learn who REALLY lied about Iraq.

Click here for my primary post on Obama.

Click here for the next post on Obama.

Still MORE Progress in Iraq!

Quoting The New York Times:

“Two years ago, Anbar Province was the most lethal place for American forces in Iraq. A U.S. marine or soldier died in the province nearly every day, and the provincial capital, Ramadi, was a moonscape of rubble and ruins. Islamic extremists controlled large pieces of territory, with some so ferocious in their views that they did not even allow the baking of bread.

On Monday, U.S. commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police. The ceremony, including a parade on a freshly paved street, capped one of the most significant turnabouts in the country since the war began five and a half years ago.

Over the past two years, the number of insurgent attacks against Iraqis and Americans has dropped by more than 90 percent. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been severely degraded, if not crushed altogether, in large part because many local Sunnis, including former insurgents, have taken up arms against it.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here to learn more.

Who Lied About Iraq?

Quoting Randall Hoven at American Thinker:

“If lying is an art, our media have mastered it.”

“The invasion of Iraq was arguably the most justified case of military action the US has ever taken in its history, based on national defense, validated intelligence and legal authority, not to mention morality. Articles of impeachment would have made more sense if Bush had not invaded.

That the exact opposite story is what a majority of Americans appear to believe, and a super-majority of non-Americans, is a scary thought. The truth has been sabotaged, and not by President Bush or his allies.”

Click the image (of Goebbels), verify the FACTS
& discover who the REAL propagandists are:

Click here for another angle
on Iraq, WMD & al Qaeda.

More Evidence of Progress in Iraq

Update - 2/8/10:
This post was full of broken links.
They have now been updated.

Heaven help me,
I’m quoting The New York Times:

“Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived”

The same story then cautions:

“the gains are tenuous and unlikely to survive without an American effort that outlasts his tenure”

Click the image & read the rest:

Meantime, Obama has promised to:

“immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months”

Click the image & watch the associated ABC video:

Click here to enlarge the cartoon.
Click here for more cartoons.

It appears that both The New York Times AND ABC know that Obama’s plan for Iraq is nuts.

Remember, this is MSM we’re talking about!

The question is, how many voters will educate themselves before they cast their ballot?

Click here to learn more.

Terrorism in Decline

Quoting this press release from Simon Fraser University:

Researchers found:

• Fatalities from terrorism have dropped by 40 per cent while al-Qaeda has faced a dramatic collapse in support throughout the Muslim world.
  
  
• There has been an “extraordinary, but largely unnoticed, positive change” in the sub-Saharan African security landscape, with the number of conflicts being waged reduced by more than half between 1999 and 2006, and the combat toll dropping by 98 per cent.
  
  
• A decline in the total number of armed conflicts and combat deaths around the world also continues.

Click the image
& read the entire report:

Anybody wonder why so-called “journalists”
have been loath to report on this study?
Not me!

Click here for analysis & commentary on the study.

Click here to learn more.

Who Obama Should See in Iraq

Who Obama Should See in Iraq:

- Sheikh Abu Risha. He's a founder of what's become known as
Sahawa al Iraq, or the Anbar Awakening Movement

- The military men and women who re-enlisted on July 4

- Ambassador Ryan Crocker

- The press corps

[I would add General Petraeus]

Click The Image & Read the Commentary:

Click here for more quantitative facts on Iraq.

Iraq War Media Deceptions 101

Let’s just barely skim the surface of the media deception regarding the war in Iraq:

1) Read the 2002 Congressional authorization to use force in Iraq (supported by 58% of Senate Democrats and 39% of House Democrats).

2) Iraq had WMD stockpiles and the United Nations knew it!

If Saddam had no stockpiles of WMD, how do you explain 16 UN Security Council Resolutions over a period of 12 years, 14 of which deal directly with WMD?

Pay special attention to UNSCR 1441, which essentially said to Saddam (paraphrasing):

“Better hide the WMD, The United States will be invading 30 days from today”

But, that notice was given on 11/8/02 and we did not invade until 3/20/03. No wonder we have not found most of the WMD which the United Nations KNEW was there!

Even so, ISG, post war, REPORTED they found limited quantities of WMD. ISG also found clear evidence of intent to produce more WMD, including thermonuclear weapons. They failed to find clear evidence of large quantities of recently manufactured WMD. But, they were also:

“unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war.”

Various other sources offer evidence that the WMD was evacuated to Syria.

Given fighter jets were buried in the desert, there clearly exists the possibility that WMD was buried in the desert.

3) 550 metric tons of yellowcake

The Iraq Survey Group devoted an entire section of their report to a “Survey of Structures at Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center”. In that section, they reported that (emphasis mine):

“Certain structures pose hazards from a radiological and unexploded ordnance point of view. These structures were not entered, and the precise hazards were not determined”

During the first week of July, 2008 we finally learned that 550 metric tons of yellowcake had been secreted from Baghdad to Canada.

Was that huge stockpile sitting in one or more of those structures which “were not entered”?

Combine the above report with this quote from the (ISG) Duelfer Report:

“Senior Iraqis—several of them from the Regime’s inner circle—told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended”

4) Saddam trained al Qaeda in the use of chemical and biological WMD.

Quoting an excerpt from the July, 2004 report from Bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

"The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support for Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically, chemical and biological weapons"

Chapter XII, Page 346, Conclusion 94

In other words, Saddam trained al Qaeda in the use of biological and chemical WMD.

Every Democrat on that committee signed off on that finding.

5) Bin Laden was offered “a safe haven in Iraq” (and even Bill Clinton knew it).

Quoting The Bi-Partisan 9/11 Report:

“Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq”
Page 66

“Saddam Hussein wanted bin Laden in Baghdad”
Page 134

In other words Saddam wanted to give al Qaeda precisely the same state sponsorship that led to 9/11.

A more comprehensive analysis of just how badly the world was misled by the so-called “journalists” who “reported” on the findings of the 9/11 commission can be found here. Each quote can be verified here.

Note: If any given quote spans 2 or more lines, the Adobe Acrobat “find” feature will not find it. If you fail to locate any given quote, select various smaller subsets of the quote until you find it (and you will).

6) Whether he trained the 9/11 terrorists or not, Saddam clearly trained terrorists at Salman Pak.

Quoting PBS in conjunction with The New York Times:

“I assure you, this operation [9/11] was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam [at Salman Pak].”

The above assertion may or may not be true. Contrary to what so-called “journalists” would tell you, it has not been proven either way. But, no reasonable person, Charles Duelfer included, denies that Saddam trained LOTS of terrorists at Salman Pak.

Click here for more on Saddam’s terrorist training camps.

Click here to explore the Saddam - al Qaeda link in FAR more detail.

7) Now, put 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 together and tell me what you get.

What you get is a WMD 9/11, quite probably a thermonuclear 9/11! But, I guess our so-called “journalists” forgot to tell you that!

Click here to learn more

Progress in Iraq

Updated 2/9/10 - Fixed some broken links with updated data.

By every objective, quantitative metric, the surge is working:

Click the image to enlarge
Click here to see the entire set of graphs

1) Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, our Ambassador to Iraq, agrees. The surge is working.

2) With reports last September of improved security in Iraq, critics shifted their attention to less than stellar progress on the political front.

However, we now have irrefutable evidence of impressive political progress:

"Overall, according to Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, the government of Iraq 'has now met 12 out of the original 18 benchmarks set for it, including four out of the six key legislative benchmarks. It has made substantial progress on five more, and only one remains truly stalled.' The one benchmark that remains stalled is the hydrocarbon law, but its purpose (the equitable sharing of oil revenues) is being accomplished de facto through the budget."

Click here for the details on the benchmarks.

3) For a time, the Dems argued that Iraq was a “distraction” from the central front of the war against al Qaeda. However, as this link eloquently proves and broadly substantiates, that argument was too preposterous to take seriously:

“It would appear that our military, our allies, the Iraqi government and even al Qaeda itself believes that Iraq is the central front in the war against al Qaeda. At the other end of the spectrum is the Democratic leadership and Senator Chuck Hagel, oh yes, and certain media outlets, which insist we have set off a civil war with al Qaeda responsible for a minor share of violence"

Now that we have irrefutable evidence of strong military, political and economic progress in Iraq (the central front in our larger war), the Dems have shifted their focus again. They now claim we cannot afford the monetary price of victory. That, of course, is a bald faced lie. The fact is that, as a percentage of GDP, defense spending has been on a long term downward trend.

A) According to The Washington Post, these are the trends in defense spending as a percentage of GDP:

World War II - “nearly 40 percent”

Korean War - “15 percent”

Vietnam War - “10 percent”

Currently - “less than 5 percent”

B) As a percentage of GDP, current defense spending is below the average for the last 45 years:

* From the Congressional Budget Office (click the image to learn more):



* From Heritage.org (click the image to learn more):



* Click here to access the 2009 Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Table 8.4 (which Heritage.org cited):

4) If only we could say the same about Entitlements (also measured as a percentage of GDP):

* From the Congressional Budget Office (click each image to learn more):





* From Heritage.org (click each image to learn more):





* Again, for those who don’t believe the Congressional Budget Office or Heritage.org, The Washington Post reported on this in
May of 2007:

"Entitlement programs have dramatically changed the budget landscape. Today, national security spending accounts for less than 5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product -- compared with nearly 40 percent during World War II, 15 percent during the Korean War and 10 percent during the Vietnam War. That makes it sound like it should be easy to win the needed defense funding. It won't be. The enormous sums committed to mandatory federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid dwarf all other aspects of the budget. Left unchecked for a decade or two, they will consume a larger share of the nation's GDP than all our federal programs today combined. Coupled with increasing interest payments on the government's rising debt, they will either force up taxes or produce dangerous deficits. Unless we get entitlement costs under control, Social Security will inevitably square off against national security."

The sad fact is, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have already squared off against national security. But, neither the Dims nor their propaganda arm (the media) will admit it.

Even sadder is the fact that we could completely eliminate the tiny 4% of GDP we currently spend on Defense and it wouldn’t even make a dent in how long it will take for Entitlement Spending to bury us alive.

Folks, deficit spending is not driven by Defense Spending, it is driven by Entitlement Spending. And, without immediate reforms, Entitlement Spending will bury us alive!