Waterboarding

'And not a drop to drink'!

Drafting Guys over 50 into the armed forces

Drafting Guys over 50 into the armed forces ----this is funny & obviously written by a Former Soldier---- New Direction for any war: Send Service Vets over 60! I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35. For starters: Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy. Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry' We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while. An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell. Besides, like I said, 'I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical s-of-a-b.... If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser. Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling. They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training. Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet. An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.. These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way. Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them. ***How about recruiting Women over 50 ...with Menopause !!! You think Men have attitudes !!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my God!!! If nothing else, put us on border patrol....we will have it secured the first night! Share this with your senior friends. It's purposely in big type so they can read it.

One of Bin Laden's Sons May Have Died in Missile Strike

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 24, 2009

A CIA missile strike early this year is thought to have killed one of Osama bin Laden's oldest sons, a 27-year-old who had followed his father's footsteps into al-Qaeda, U.S. counterterrorism officials said Thursday.

Saad bin Laden -- one of at least 23 children fathered by the al-Qaeda founder, according to "The Bin Ladens," by Steve Coll -- was apparently killed inside Pakistan in an attack by one of the spy agency's unmanned Predator aircraft. Intelligence officials said that the attack occurred in late winter and that the younger bin Laden had not been the intended target.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,">>>

Band Of Brothers, Darrell Powers, Dies

One of the "Band of Brothers" soldiers died on June 17, 2009.

We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry.

If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne, or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said, "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said, "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?"

At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was and I know what D-Day was.

At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland , into Arnhem ."

I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France , and he said; "Yes. And it's real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn't know hat to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I'd take his in coach.

He said, "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center .

No wall-to-wall, back-to-back, 24x7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that's not right.

Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way.

Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially, to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

"A nation without heroes is nothing."
Roberto Clemente

A Class of Generals

• JULY 25, 2009, 4:55 A.M. ET

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN

West Point, N.Y.

Ray Odierno was a floppy-haired teenager who was recruited into West Point’s class of 1976 to play football. An average student, he spent his free time tailgating outside the military academy’s football stadium and leading excursions to an off-campus bar.

His classmate Stanley McChrystal came from a military family. His idea of a practical joke was mounting a fake assault on one of the campus’s office buildings using decommissioned weapons and “grenades” made out of rolled-up socks. When the prank drew the attention of the military police, then-Cadet McChrystal’s career almost ended.

Thirty-three years after graduating, the two men are four-star generals running the nation’s two wars. Gen. Odierno is the top officer in Iraq. Gen. McChrystal recently took command in Afghanistan. It’s the first time in West Point’s 207-year history that graduates of the same class command two wars simultaneously.

The class of 1976—who left West Point at a low point for both the Army and its famed training ground—has produced a striking number of generals now influencing the shape of the U.S. military. All told, at least 33 active and retired generals, now all in their mid-50s, were among its 855 graduating members. Gen. McChrystal’s deputy in Kabul, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, was a classmate, as was the officer leading U.S. efforts to train the Iraqi army, Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick. Retired Lt. Gen. Dave Barno, who spent 19 months as the top commander in Afghanistan, was also West Point ’76.

“It’s really sort of unprecedented,” says Stephen Grove,>>>

Hillary's Cares

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Nuclear Proliferation: Hillary Clinton's campaign last year called her "tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world." The secretary of state is now failing a life-and-death test on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

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Related Topics: Iran

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The "3 a.m. phone call in the White House" was supposed to bring Democratic primary voters to their senses. Hillary's infamous TV spot, showing children safely and soundly asleep while "something's happening in the world," was meant to shock Americans out of their "fairy tale" dalliance with smooth-tongued ex-community activist Barack Obama.

Only the former first lady, who "already knows the world's leaders, knows the military," could navigate the rapids of foreign policy, not this neophyte from Chicago's South Side.

After the bitterness between the two had flowed under the bridge, the new president made the grand Lincolnian gesture of appointing Hillary secretary of state; the 16th president had done the same for his own presidential rival, William Seward.

Even Hillary critics expected a foreign policy run by her to add toughness to an Obama administration entranced by the miraculous powers of top-level negotiation with America's enemies.

But such hopes are being dashed.

The pre-eminent threat in the world today is the Islamofascist mullahcracy in Tehran. On a direct path toward atomic weapons, its rulers share the fanatical mind-set of the 9/11 al-Qaida hijackers. Yet the secretary of state's most recent remarks suggest an accommodationist stance.

Speaking to Thai television,>>>

Winning Is All

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 24, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Afghanistan: It was a bad week for the president. After accusing Cambridge, Mass., police of acting stupidly, he called victory unnecessary in Afghanistan. Does the commander in chief misunderstand the use of force?

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Read More: Middle East & North Africa

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In the dark days of May 1940, Winston Churchill famously outlined the task before the British people: "You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terrors, victory however long and hard the road may be — for without victory there is no survival."

Contrast that with what the president told ABC News last Thursday: "I'm always worried about using the word victory, because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur."

If the goal of the U.S. in Afghanistan isn't victory, what is the purpose of the blood, toil, tears and sweat of our forces? What is the meaning of the struggle and suffering of their families?

According to Vince Lombardi, "If you can accept losing, you can't win."

Now, in fairness to our president, he doesn't seem to be saying that losing is an option. He noted in the same interview that "when you have a nonstate actor, a shadowy operation like al-Qaida, our goal is to make sure they can't attack the United States."

Going on, he said the U.S. "will continue to contract the ability of al-Qaida to operate," which the president called "absolutely critical." We agree.

But we are at something of a crossroads in Afghanistan. The toil, tears, sweat — and especially blood — have increased of late.

As a result, public displeasure is on the rise in Britain, Canada and Germany, which with their tens of thousands of troops are taking part in the U.S.-led coalition — the kind of coalition, by the way, that liberal Democrats consider absolutely vital before fighting wars against terror states.

Our allies could eventually pull out. So at a time like this, the job of the president is to remind them, and the American people, that we are in a world war against a network of evildoers.

Barely two months into this administration, the Pentagon was sent a memo announcing that we were no longer engaged in a global war on terror; this was not a "long war" the American people were faced with.

No, the endeavor U.S. servicemen and women were being asked to spill their blood for would from now on be called an "overseas contingency operation."

How's that to stir your patriotism?>>>

Obama: 'Victory' Not Necessarily Goal in Afghanistan

Can you believe this is our president declaring that victory is not our goal in Afghanistan? Then why are we spending blood and treasury over there?

FOXNews.com

Thursday, July 23, 2009

President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but "victory" in the war-torn country isn't necessarily the United States' goal, he said Thursday in a TV interview.

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.

The enemy facing U.S. and Afghan forces isn't so clearly defined, he explained.

"We're not dealing with nation states at this point. We're concerned with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Al Qaeda's allies," he said. "So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can't attack the United States."

The United States and Afghanistan are struggling to shore up security in the country, amid increasing violence. The Obama administration this year stepped up U.S. military operations in the country as the U.S. military presence begins to wind down in Iraq.

"We are confident that if we are assisting the Afghan people>>>

Report: Iranian Militias Marry, Rape Virgin Prisoners Before Executions

Monday, July 20, 2009

AP

FILE: Members of Iran's Basij paramilitary force on parade in Tehran. A reputed militia member said prison guards in Iran marry and rape female virgins the night before their executions.

TEHRAN, Iran — Members of Iran's feared Basij militia forcibly marry female virgin prisoners the night before scheduled executions, raping their new "wives" and making it religiously acceptable to execute them, a self-professed member of the paramilitary group said.

The anonymous militiaman told the Jerusalem Post that at age 18 he was "given the 'honor' to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death."

In the Islamic Republic of Iran it is illegal to execute a woman if she is a virgin, the former guard told the newspaper. So the government arranges "wedding" ceremonies to be conducted the night before executions, and prisoners are forced to have sexual intercourse with a guard.

Raped by her new "husband," a female prisoner is now fit to be put to death.

"I regret that, even though the marriages were legal," said the militiaman, who told the Jerusalem Post he had just been released from prison himself after freeing two teenagers rounded up during post-election protests.

Some of the prisoners in his care were drugged with sleeping pills to make them docile, as the girls in their custody always fought back, he said, fearing the night of the rape more deeply than their executions the following day.

and much more here>>>

Targeting Terrorists

• JULY 18, 2009, 4:46 A.M. ET

By RICHARD A. CLARKE

Not since 1975 when the Church Commission investigated Nixon-era abuses in intelligence agencies, have such unusual things occurred in the world of Washington intelligence agencies as in these past few weeks. The Democratic House of Representatives threatened to pass an intelligence authorization bill which the Democratic White House has promised to veto. The former Democratic congressman who now heads the Central Intelligence Agency has been having a public disagreement with leading House Democrats about whether the CIA lies to Congress. There is a controversy about a secret CIA program to do something most Americans presumably want the CIA to do, to kill al Qaeda terrorists. The attorney general is rumored to be looking for a special prosecutor to investigate CIA interrogators, even though the president seemed to have earlier told CIA employees that there would be no prosecutions about alleged torture. Former CIA employees are publicly trotting out the claim that all of this attention “hurts the Agency’s morale” and that damage could result in another successful terrorist attack on the U.S. Even seasoned Washington policy wonks are finding it hard to navigate their way through all of those stories and make some sense of what has been going on.

View Full Image

Reuters

A U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone aircraft killed at least six people, including three Arabs, in a Pakistani tribal region regarded as a safe haven for al Qaeda and Taliban militants in October 2008

Unless we understand what all of this drama is really about, we will not get the delicate balance right between the needs of a democracy and the rule of law on one side and the requirements of a secret intelligence service on the other. And this democracy needs a functioning secret intelligence service to protect it against the current genres of threat.

All of this recent Washington activity about intelligence is perhaps best understood as three distinct, but related stories playing out against a backdrop of suspicion about what the previous administration may have done in reaction to the 9-11 attacks. It is also part of a 60-year historical pattern of manic swings of opinion in Washington about the efficacy of covert action.

The first story should probably have been>>>

All Is Fair In Love And War

Read the following explanation before looking at the picture! Most Syrians struggle to even read Arabic, much less have a clue about reading English. So, how do a group of Syrian protest leaders create the most impact with their signs by having the standard 'Death To Americans'(etc..) slogans printed in English? Answer: They simply hire an English-speaking civilian to translate and write their statements into English. Unfortunately, in this case, they were unaware that the 'civilian' insurance company employee hired for the job was a retired USArmy Sergeant! Obviously, the results were PRICELESS! This picture is not doctored.

Mixed-Up On Iran

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 08, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Mideast: As Iran continues to work on a nuclear weapon that will forever shift the world's balance of power, the U.S. position gets muddier by the day. What, exactly, is our policy?

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Related Topics: Iran

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Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the "clock has continued to tick" on Iran, which so far has ignored the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.S., NATO and the European Union to proceed with its prohibited nuclear program. But what's it ticking down to?

The U.S. has officially decided to give Iran until the end of this year to halt its nuclear program and show its good faith as a member of the global community.

All well and good. Let diplomacy work. But what about when time expires, and Iran's still building a nuke? What then? The signals the White House is sending are mixed, to put it mildly.

Last Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden seemed to suggest the U.S. has given Israel a green light to attack Iran. As he said on ABC's "This Week": "We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they're existentially threatened."

Within hours, the State Department corrected Biden, saying there's "no green light" for an Israeli attack. This, it emphasized, is a matter for Mideast governments to work on, and the U.S. would seek "even stricter" sanctions on Iran if talks fail.

And on Tuesday, President Obama reversed Biden's remarks, saying the U.S. had "absolutely not" approved an attack by Israel. "We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East," Obama said.

Problem is, Saudi Arabia — the Mideast's major Arabic power broker — has already made it clear it would not stop Israel from flying over its territory to attack archenemy Iran.

Is all this an exercise in constructive ambiguity, keeping the opponent off guard by not letting him know your true intent? Are we winking at Israel and Saudi Arabia? Or is it simply confusion?

According to several news reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided not to ask the U.S. for permission to attack Iran. He fears the new administration would say no.

Given Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for Israel to be wiped off the map, Israel lives with a very real threat — one that will become deadly if Iran gets a nuke.

A nuke in the hands of Iran would be a game changer — one that would endanger not just Israel, but also Iraq, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Southern Europe. The world's balance of power would shift, and many of our allies would be in danger.

With so much at stake, is ambiguity the best policy? Not as far as we're concerned. In both word and deed, the U.S. needs to make it clear to Tehran that a nuclear weapon will not be tolerated.

Intelligence estimates say the Iranians may be as little as one year away from having a workable nuclear weapon. If they think we won't do anything about it, they'll keep working on it.

"I'm hopeful," Mullen says, "that . . . dialogue is productive. I worry about it a great deal if it's not." So do we.

Did NKorea Attack U.S. Government Web Sites? Associated Press Jul. 08, 2009. 10:03 AM EST

Putin's Patsy?

Attention: I am issuing a Red, White and Blue Alert ! Our American way of life
may be in danger. Please read and share with all of our freedom loving friends.
Brought to you by: RedWhiteandBlueAlert.com and AmericanFreedomAlert.com

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 07, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Diplomacy: Russia's nondemocratic rulers over the years have shown an uncanny knack for detecting weakness in their foes. Russia's Vladimir Putin is continuing the tradition.

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Related Topics: Europe & Central Asia

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President Obama no doubt believes he was dealing with honest brokers when he agreed with Russia's leaders to cut U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads to about 1,600 each. For the U.S., that's a cut of about a third.

But please read the fine print. This is a "preliminary" agreement. In order for it to go into effect, Russian leaders say they want the U.S. to give up its plans for a missile defense system.

To do so would, in effect, be a unilateral disarmament by the U.S. against the most feared weapons on earth — nuclear missiles. It's an abandonment of our allies, including Poland and the Czech Republic. It's not an acceptable bargaining chip.

It's reminiscent of the time in 1961 when President Kennedy — like Obama, youthful, attractive, intelligent, well-spoken — met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. During that meeting, Khrushchev quickly sized up Kennedy as a foreign-policy lightweight.

Within months, he tested Kennedy's mettle — erecting the Berlin Wall, and, the following year, sending missiles to Cuba to challenge the U.S. just 90 miles off its own coast.

In public, Kennedy stood up to Khrushchev; behind the scenes, he caved, trading our missiles in Turkey for the ones in Cuba. Kennedy, in interviews, later regretted his own callowness.

Compare that with President Reagan's 1986 showdown with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. That came on the heels of a U.S. deployment of missiles in Europe, Reagan's refusal to sign a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and his 1983 "Star Wars" speech. He was negotiating from strength — the only thing Russians get.

In 1985, Reagan had told Gorbachev bluntly during Geneva arms talks: "We won't stand by and let you maintain weapon superiority over us. We can agree to reduce arms, or we can continue the arms race, which I think you know you can't win."

In Reykjavik, with the world's media egging him on to make a deal, any deal, on nuclear arms with the USSR, Reagan said, "Nyet." Why? He wouldn't give up U.S. missile defense. With that stand, the Soviet Union's demise was assured.

By contrast, Obama on Tuesday called Russia, a country that's falling apart, a "great power" and reassured the nondemocratic Putin he'll keep Russia's interests in mind while crafting U.S. policy.

"As I said in Cairo," the president said, "given our interdependence, any world order that tries to elevate one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. That is why I have called for a 'reset' in relations between the United States and Russia."

This implies an equivalency between Russia and the U.S. that simply doesn't exist. Russia comes up short on any measure of civilizational success you might want to use. Indeed, we have elevated a country that has invaded a neighbor, uses energy as a weapon against our democratic allies and refuses to help in our effort to halt Iran's dangerous nuclear program.

Russia is not a "great" power. It's a Third World nation with First World nuclear weapons. It's in a downward spiral due to its collapsing population, shortening life-spans and shrinking economy. It might not even survive this century as a nation.

This has been the U.S.' biggest mistake: to give Russia respect it hasn't really earned. Maybe, as it turns out, Putin, a former top KGB operative, is more clever than Gorbachev. He knows our president needs a foreign affairs success.

Before President Obama signs off on anything, he'd do well to review the presidential history of dealings with the Soviets. He can learn from both Kennedy and Reagan.

Mighty Mouse

Duty Done

Duty Done

Liberty And Liberation On July 4

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Mission Accomplished: The withdrawal of U.S. troops from 15 Iraqi cities makes this a time to remember the sacrifices that made success possible — and the president who refused to lose.

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Read More: Iraq

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The concerns that former Vice President Dick Cheney recently expressed regarding our forces in Iraq are not to be taken lightly.

Reacting to the announcement last week that U.S. soldiers would leave Iraq's cities in a 24-hour span, Cheney reflected to the Washington Times that "one might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks."

Army soldiers from the 1st Squadron, 7th Calvary, Fort Hood, Texas, pause for a photograph at an American base on the outskirts of Baghdad. U.S. troops pulled out of Iraqi cities last Tuesday in the first step toward winding down the war effort by the end of 2011.

The former defense secretary for the first President Bush understood that the Iraqis eventually "have to stand on their own, but I would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point."

With over 4,300 of our servicemen and women having fallen to rid the world of the threat of Saddam Hussein and bring freedom to Iraq, it certainly should be a priority not to waste so much valor.

Unfortunately, President Obama's main concern seems to be something else: Keeping to his self-imposed, artificial timetable to end U.S. combat operations in little more than a year and get all our troops out by the close of 2011.

The president calls the troop pullback a "precious opportunity." But it's as much an opportunity for sleeper insurgent terrorists within Iraq, not to mention for neighboring Islamofascist Iran, as it is for the Iraqi people. That is why the U.S. should not get itself wedded to the feel-good notion that the mission is irreversibly accomplished.

With everyone fully aware that more violence is certain no matter how well prepared Iraq's more than 600,000 security force personnel may now be, the president warned of "difficult days ahead." He said he knew "there are those who will test Iraq's security forces and the resolve of the Iraqi people through more sectarian bombings and the murder of innocent civilians."

But he also made it pretty clear that the Iraqis will soon no longer be able to depend on America. "Iraq's leaders must now make some hard choices necessary to resolve key political questions to advance opportunity and provide security for their towns and their cities," the president said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking last Monday when four soldiers were killed, called Iraq "still a dangerous situation." Yet the president considers our activities there to be so off Americans' political radar screens that he is handing Iraq policy over to the increasingly clownish Vice President Joe Biden.

Sweeping Iraq under the rug is no way to finish such a gruelingly difficult job. The president's obvious wish that Iraq go away as he turns to other foreign policy challenges is in stark contrast to the manner in which his immediate predecessor handled the long war there.

President George W. Bush does not escape blame in his handling of Iraq. He should have recognized much sooner that the U.S. military strategy, which was not focused enough on counterinsurgency, was not working well.

Perhaps a Ronald Reagan would have done better on that mark. But once Bush saw that he had an intolerable situation on his hands he did something extraordinary.

Almost the entire Washington establishment of both parties ganged up on the White House to force a kind of "dignified surrender" down the president's throat. His father's secretary of state, James Baker, was summoned to co-direct what became known as the Iraq Study Group. Even conservative hero Ed Meese, Reagan's attorney general, was prevailed upon to join up.

But what the Iraq Study Group failed to study in very much depth was George W. Bush's rock-solid commitment to winning the war the terrorists started on Sept. 11, 2001. As Bob Woodward quoted him telling congressional Republicans visiting the White House in 2005, "I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney (the White House dog) are the only ones supporting me."

Bush's response to a unified, defeatist Washington was the Surge — substantial reinforcements led by a new commander, counterinsurgency warfare guru Gen. David Petraeus. Most experts and commentators said it had no chance of succeeding. Today, all concede that the Surge turned Iraq around.

It is questionable if even Reagan could have resisted the kind of united pressure from political friend and foe alike that George W. Bush was under during the months preceding the Surge. As we celebrate this 4th of July, we should be thankful for a 43rd president who refused to allow another Vietnam.

And we should hope his successor does not undo what history will remember as one of the great instances of presidential fortitude.

Highway of Death 1991 Iraqi Army Retreat from Kuwait

Gulf War 1991 Video Montage - Destruction / Oil Well Fires

A Major Rescue Effort In Iraq

By BRIAN J. ARTHURS
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 4:30 PM PT

Army Maj. John Detro was in the heat of the Gulf and Iraq wars as a medic and physician's assistant.

He says the greatest advancement made between the two operations was in the quick treatment of soldiers wounded in combat.

The military has a better grasp of treating seriously injured patients on the battlefield, keeping them alive until a doctor can operate.

Detro, during one of his two tours in Iraq, is an Army major stationed these days at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he trains fellow medics.

The result is fewer battlefield deaths. Detro demonstrated that fact during his decorated mission in northern Iraq on Sept. 5, 2005.

Serving as a medic leader with the 3rd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Detro and his fellow GIs went on a mission to kill terrorists, high-value targets he called "deck of card guys," referring to the military's most wanted list .

"We knew we were facing a hardened group of fighters who were unlikely to surrender," Detro told IBD. "But we didn't realize their force was almost equal to ours."

The Rangers hoped they could enter the building in silence and grab the target as the people around him slept. Such an element of surprise wasn't possible. The Americans had to use explosives to get in.

Prior to the mission, then-Capt. Detro arranged to bring extra medics and pre-position helicopters near the combat site as a precaution.

The decision was wise. The first two Rangers to enter were shot, and Detro jumped into action to treat the wounded amid the firefight.

Trouble From Above

The terrorists were on the second floor overlooking a courtyard, firing guns and tossing grenades at the Rangers. As Detro and one other medic took on fire, they used their bodies to shield the wounded from grenades bouncing nearby and continued treating them at every break. While the explosions didn't make direct hits, shrapnel struck Detro, causing minor injuries.

"I took some shrapnel on my extremities, anywhere that wasn't covered by body armor," he said. "It was a chaotic scene, with the enemy shooting and throwing grenades. There was smoke everywhere."

Shrugging off his wounds, Detro continued assisting soldiers in need. He got two to safety. Then "the platoon sergeant came to the medical vehicle and stated we had a seriously injured member in the courtyard," he recalled. "The majority of the force had vacated the area, so two of us went back inside and found the ground force commander and my medic providing care to a seriously injured soldier."

The fallen GI had taken a bullet near his arm pit, severing an artery and opening a bloody floodgate.

Detro moved fast. He applied a newly developed dressing to the wound, stopping the bleeding.

But the heat from above didn't stop. The terrorists hid in spider holes — hollowed-out wall areas — and fired on the Rangers as they tried to exit the courtyard. "The whole area was about the size of half a football field, and there were about 100 people fighting," said Detro. "So it was pretty intense."

Eventually Detro and his medics evacuated the bleeding GI to a medical facility 30 minutes away by helicopter in time to save his life. "If we didn't have the helicopters positioned nearby, we wouldn't have been able to save his life," he said.

"Detro held no sense of preservation for personal safety, putting the literal lives of others above his own," Sgt. Casey Loose, a medic on the mission, told IBD by e-mail from Afghanistan. "He and the other medics performed with the utmost stellar skill and concentration required in an operating room."

Detro lauds the military's medical grip. "It's so important to have soldiers trained in basic first aid because so much can be done in the first minutes of an injury to give a patient a better chance at surviving," he said. "This is something that is happening, and the survival rate for injured soldiers is increasing."

Detro had witnessed the improvement in Army battlefield medical techniques firsthand. He served as a medic in 1991's Operation Desert Storm, where only people in his field could provide effective emergency treatment. Today all Rangers are trained to give quick medical aid so critical for a wounded soldier.

Fourteen years later, Detro was in for more action that hectic night in Iraq. When he returned to the medical facility with the wounded, he worked through the morning and into the next night assisting on nine surgeries alongside Col. James Ficke and his staff.

Of the 50 men on the mission, 22 were wounded, five seriously. Thanks in great part to Detro and his team of medics, all of the Rangers survived and many of them are still on active duty. And the military reported the mission successful, with 50 terrorists killed.

For his sound judgment and exceptional performance, Detro was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor and the Purple Heart.

He also earned the admiration of his medics, who upon returning home nominated Detro for the Army Physician's Assistant of the Year Award.

After winning it, he said: "I never expected to receive that award. That (the medics) would (nominate me) was just awesome."

Detro's career in the military began when he enlisted in 1987.

He had attended Sienna Heights University in his native Michigan, studying biology and running track.

He would be inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame, where he's described as "perhaps the best distance runner in Sienna Heights track and field history."

After donning Army green, he became a medic and focused on what he truly enjoyed: treating patients.

He did that behind the lines in Desert Storm, then applied for the Army's physician's assistant program. By 1999 he was ready for battlefield medical operations, so at 38 he signed up for Army Ranger School to prepare for combat.

With his athletic background, he was able to excel in the demanding program despite his age.

"Ranger School prepares you to handle difficult situations," said Detro, who in addition to Iraq has served in Afghanistan. "Ranger School is actually more difficult than combat, physically and mentally, because you are forced to cope with extreme situations where you have to make difficult decisions when you're tired and hungry.

"I was older than most, but was fit enough to handle it."

Ready For Action

Detro says the training helped him and his fellow Rangers survive that intense night in northern Iraq.

He was a part of the Army's initial advance into Afghanistan in the months after 9/11 and has served two tours in Iraq.

Today Detro, 47, is stationed in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he trains medics. He is married to Moraima, and they have three children.

What keeps Detro in the Army?

1. His fellow soldiers and their families, many of whom have known nothing but combat since they joined the military. "Their dedication inspires me every day," he said.

2. The medics he trains. "Many have gone on to become P.A.s (physician's assistants), and one went to medical school," he said. "It's a very proud day when one of your students is selected for P.A. school or goes on to medical school.

High-Tech Soldiers Head for Combat in Afghanistan

Thursday, July 02, 2009

When the soldiers of the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division hit the ground in Afghanistan this month, they'll be carrying the latest in high-tech gear.

Their officers and squadron leaders will be using "Land Warrior," a $48,000 wearable computer system that will let each user view maps of terrain, track his fellow soldiers with GPS navigation and communicate with others via text messaging or whispers.

The men and women of the 5-2 have been training with Land Warrior at their base in Fort Lewis, Wash., reports the Tacoma News-Tribune.

That could come in handy as U.S. and Afghan forces step up their offensive against the Taliban. They launched a major operation Wednesday in Afghanistan, intended to bolster the security of the local population in the face of the Taliban threat.

The Pentagon continues to beef up its capabilities>>>

Talked To Death

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, May 27, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Axis Of Evil: Did U.S. weakness invite North Korea's nuclear provocations? Like Tehran, Pyongyang has rejected Obama administration diplomatic overtures. Are these rogue states seizing a new opportunity?

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Read More: East Asia & Pacific

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One of the most jarring of Barack Obama's campaign promises was his oft-stated willingness as president to conduct direct talks with any head of state in the world, without preconditions.

Even if the other party was a brutal dictator, like Kim Jong Il, willing to starve millions of his countrymen; or a Jew-hating Islamofascist fanatic like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, surely sharing a nice pot of tea in the Oval Office could do no harm.

Endless talk in U.S. foreign policy may have already begun to do measurable harm. This week it was revealed that in spite of Venezuela strongman Hugo Chavez's soulful handshake with President Obama at the Summit of the Americas last month, Chavez's government has been supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program in a policy designed to undermine the U.S., according to the Israeli foreign ministry.

And Ahmadinejad this week rejected a proposal to freeze the progress of Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for there being no new economic sanctions imposed on Iran, ruling out the possibility of talks on the topic with the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, which planned to invite Iran to meet.

At the same time, in his re-election campaign, Ahmadinejad has mischievously challenged Obama to debate him "at the United Nations to discuss problems and world management for peace and participation of all for security and stable peace."

The president will now visit Saudi Arabia on top of Egypt in his trip to the Middle East and Europe next week, so he can discuss Iran's nuclear stubbornness with King Abdullah in Riyadh.

But there is nothing that the Saudis or Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak can say or do that will substitute for a good dose of U.S. realism in dealing with terrorist states.

Tehran senses a new era of blind faith in the powers of negotiation. So does Pyongyang as it undergoes a succession struggle in the wake of an apparent stroke suffered by Kim Jong Il last year.

In Foreign Affairs magazine in 2007, candidate Obama promised, "I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea."

The current repressive regime in North Korea clearly has been negotiating in bad faith all along, during both the Bush and Clinton administrations, never intending to get rid of nuclear weapons. Still, for Obama to denounce the six-party talks, which included Japan, China and Russia, was to invite this week's nuclear bomb and missile tests.

The Obama administration seems to believe that offering bilateral talks involving a presidential envoy comes off as so flattering that no tin-pot dictator can resist the prestige it bestows. North Korea's obvious answer: No thanks — nukes will give us even more prestige.

Buying off North Korea with dubious bribes like multibillion-dollar light water reactors (that themselves pose a proliferation risk) and economic aid may no longer be feasible. North Korea is intent on going nuclear, and the U.S. must make missile defense a top priority — one spending program the Obama administration has not been interested in, cutting its funding by 16%.

Meanwhile, what more damage will America's new era of "tough diplomacy" cause in the coming months and years? Will Communist China, for instance, decide that now is the golden opportunity to strike Taiwan? Will North Korea make a move against South Korea? Will Russia under ex-KGB operative Vladimir Putin sense that there will never be a better time to flex its expansionist muscles against its neighboring former Soviet republics?

What, after all, could the U.S. do under any of these scenarios? We are already waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The trouble with believing too much in talk is that your enemies can conclude you don't believe in action.

The War On Terror Just Won't Go Away

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, April 24, 2009

Fighting Terror: It's a very real threat when people who are our sworn enemies suddenly begin capturing territory at the expense of our allies. And today, that's exactly what's happening in Pakistan.

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Read More: Global War On Terror

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"Taliban Militants Stay In Control Near Pakistan Capital." That headline should send a chill through you.

Because it means the forces of medieval darkness and terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan are gaining ground — and are perhaps just one leap away from capturing Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and its nuclear arsenal.

Pakistan's government made the big mistake a week and a half ago of agreeing to let Taliban-linked groups in the North-West Frontier Province enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley.

Since then, the Taliban and its radical affiliates have begun infiltrating members into surrounding areas, especially the Buner Valley — just 60 miles from Islamabad. They smell weakness on the part of the Pakistani regime, and are going to push until they're stopped.

At this rate, if unchecked, they'll control Pakistan by year-end — not to mention the Pakistani government's 24 to 55 nuclear weapons.

We're glad to see this isn't going unnoticed.

"Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last Wednesday, in blunt remarks that took some by surprise.

This, surely, is the "test" that Vice President Joseph Biden warned that President Obama would face early in his presidency.

Now, the question is, recognizing the problem, what do we do?

The answer's unclear. True, Obama has sent 17,000 added troops to Afghanistan. And pressuring the Pakistani government to "do more" will at least put the heat on it to take the Taliban seriously.

But what concerns us is this administration's failure to recognize, as the previous administration did, that this isn't only about Pakistan; it's about Islamic extremism, a worldwide movement whose ultimate goal is to weaken, subvert, defeat and replace a demoralized West.

Pakistan would be quite a prize for the extremists. As we said, that nation has nuclear weapons

It lies adjacent to India, Pakistan's most bitter enemy, one of our best allies and the world's largest democracy.

We agree with Clinton that this is a mortal threat. We wonder, though, how we can defeat our enemies if we can't even bring ourselves to call them terrorists. How we can win the global war on terror when we downgrade it rhetorically to merely an "overseas contingency operation"?

And how can we defeat them if we're on the verge of revealing dozens of photographs that purport to show U.S. military personnel mistreating captives in Afghanistan?

Surely, that will inflame Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, making the job of our military now engaged in a life-or-death struggle for Afghanistan with the Taliban all the more difficult.

It will end up costing American lives. And for what? To score a few cheap political points against former President Bush's policy of pursuing terrorists to the hilt?

The problem is, the only reason Pakistan's government made a deal with the Taliban in the first place is, frankly, it doubts the bona fides of the Obama administration when it comes to fighting terrorism.

Better to cut a deal with the renegades and hope for mercy later than to have the U.S. sit and do nothing to aid a vital ally, as we did when the shah of Iran fell in 1979.

Worse, if we and Pakistan's feckless government allow a Taliban takeover, how seriously will Iran take our protestations as it marches toward its own nuclear answer to the West?

Last week, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the world to defeat Islamic extremists, calling them as big a threat as communism was in the 20th century.

"Our job is simple," Blair said. "It is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam, but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating extremists who don't."

We agree. But it will take more than pressuring the locals and their governments to do the job.

We have a major problem in Pakistan, and no, contrary to the assertions of the Obama White House, it's not just al-Qaida. It's only one part of a multifaceted, international problem, as Blair rightly pointed out.

And while we show an interest in diplomacy, these foes see diplomacy as the last resort of weaklings. At the very least, we must insist that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani reassert control over the country.

We also must recognize that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which U.S. forces treat as something real and inviolable, is little more than fiction.

The war on terror has no borders.