My Farewell to My Squadron

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1727238/posts

I just finished a longer than normal reserve tour of duty with an AF squadron stationed outside the CONUS. I was trying to pep some of the people up from some of the doom and gloom they were feeling.

My Farewell to My Squadron by Deuce Traveler

As I head out to wrap-up my five month active reserve tour, I am sad to notice a certain questioning about the direction of the War on Terrorism. So I have something to say to my fellow military members as I walk out the door, and it’s something I feel must be voiced. Please bear with me, as this has been on my mind often in the last few weeks.

Every day we hear on the news about another bombing in Baghdad, or about unrest on the Pakistani border to Afghanistan. Recently, another five soldiers were killed in Iraq and sectarian violence is threatening to rip the country apart. And the question that keeps being asked is, "Can we win this?" A simple question, but one that is entirely misguided. We’ve already won our fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only question left is "How far can we take our victory?"

Never again will Al-Queda use Afghanistan to train and send terrorists to attack our homeland. Women now hold elected positions in the country and are going to school, homosexuals aren’t being killed by having walls collapsed upon them, children can fly kites with their fathers in fields without being beaten, people may now listen to music, adults vote in a representative government, and the soccer fields are now used for games instead of mass executions.

Never again will Saddam Hussein use his once-large army to invade his neighbors. The Kurds will not be gassed with WMDs, and have turned their portion of the country into the safest part of Iraq. The two sons of Saddam, Uday and Qusay, will never again patrol the streets of Baghdad looking for women to abduct. The Hussein’s will never again oversee the dropping of their enemies into human-sized shredders, nor will they ever house international terrorists in their country on guests. Terrorists such as Abu Nidal, who killed over 900 people in 20 countries and who was a guest living in Iraq for nearly a decade. And al-Zarqawi, the Iraqi al-Queda leader who fled to Iraq after our invasion of Afghanistan, obtained medical treatment under direction of Uday, and is now taking the eternal dirtnap.

Sometimes it doesn’t seem like a victory, especially since al-Queda appointed a new leader in Iraq to continue the war. But we know his name and we know his face, and his time will also come. And as tiring as the violence in the Middle East may be, we must acknowledge that we’ve moved the forward edge of the battlefield from the skyline of downtown New York City to the territory of the enemy. This may be our greatest victory.

So where do we go from here? How do we capitalize on our achievement of removing two despotic regimes placed on the opposite end of the globe in the course of several years? By giving the Afghan and Iraqi people their shot at republican democracy. Note that I did not say by creating democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, because that can only be done by the citizens, and can never be imposed. That is the moral strength of what we are trying to accomplish; to come as saviors and not as an empire. It took our country eight years to win our own Revolutionary War, and four years later we had to create a new constitution before we could make it work. The French Revolution took longer than two decades, and failed, returning the country back into a monarchy. The Afghans have had five years to attempt the same; the Iraqis three.

I’m not a predictor of the future. I’m not a seer. Maybe the nascent Afghan and Iraqi governments will fall into chaos. Maybe the will of the people will be to slaughter one another, neighbor against neighbor, cousin against cousin. But for now our fellow brothers and sisters in uniform are performing amazing feats everyday to give those citizens their one shot at achieving a way of life that those regions have never known in all their existence. And should it fail- should chaos tear their countries apart- there will be people who will dream of a time when their voices were represented by those who governed, and a time when a statue of a tyrant was pulled down and people came from the voting booths while raising purple-stained hands in pride. And maybe those memories will allow for the next generation to step forward when their forebears did not.

But if they do succeed now? Then the band of authoritarian countries that wrap around the world from Morocco to Indonesia will have been sliced, and many of the world’s tyrants will sleep uneasily in fear for the rights that their own people will demand. For this I pray.

As for me, I have nothing but pride in what my country has done, and for what it is attempting to do during these chaotic times. Instead of sitting back, we are attempting to change the world for the better, and are making the conscious decision to try to actively engage the world instead of the passive, depressed manner of other nations. Whether we succeed in establishing democracy in the region or if we fail, we entered with the righteous intention of keeping our civilians safe, and the enlightened hope of freeing people locked in servitude to the vicious and brutal elements in their midst.

When my daughter grows up, in whatever uncertain state the world will be in, I know I can look her in the eyes and say that I was there during the initial chaotic years of the new millennia, and that I fought to leave the world a better place than I had found it. For this opportunity that my country has given me, and for the honor to serve alongside the greatest military servicemen in the world, I will always be proud.

POW Lawsuit Could Force Kerry To Come Clean

Thirty five years ago John Kerry slandered an entire generation of men who fought in Vietnam branding them as a "war criminals." Today, much of the same thing is being said about our young men and women in Iraq.

Now, a lawsuit filed in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas will test the very foundation of Kerry’s anti-war persona for the first time. It isn’t dubious medals or Kerry’s disputed service record in Vietnam that is being called into question. This time Kerry may finally be forced to answer for the events that launched his public career, one that made him an anti-war hero for many American liberals and a turncoat for millions of Vietnam veterans.....

read the rest at http://www.vvlf.org/default.php?page_id=77

Results of 2003 Bush Tax Cuts

2003 Bush Tax Cut: By The Numbers

Historic Tax Cut Boosts Growth, Lifts Stock Market, and Increases Jobs

$14,374,330,000,000 Total Increase in Household Wealth Since April 2003

$5,700,000,000,000 Total Increase in Shareholder Wealth Since May 20, 2003

$863,654,000,000 Total Amount of Tax Cuts Enacted Since Fiscal Year 2003

$783,890,000,000 Total Amount of Additional Tax Cuts to be Returned to Taxpayers Through 2010

$625,000,000,000 Total Increase in Federal Tax Revenues Since FY 2003

$207,788,000,000 Reduction in the Deficit in the Past 29 Months Due to Stronger Economic Growth

$98,600,000,000 Combined Income Gains for Shareholders From Dividend Increases & Tax Savings 03-05

$62,000,000,000Surplus of Capital Gains Tax Revenue Not Accounted For By Revenue Estimators

$60,000,000,000 Deficit REDUCTION Since the Tax Cut Was Signed Into Law

300,001,643 Total Number of Americans benefiting from President Bush’s Tax Cut

91,000,000 Number of Individuals Owning Shares of Stock in America

23,000,000 Number of Small Businesses Benefiting from Income Tax Reductions

6,600,000 Number of Jobs Created Since the Tax Cut Was Signed Into Law

12,000 The Magic Number of the Dow Jones Industrial Index is an Arms Length Away

$2,092 Tax Increase for a Family of Four With $50k of Income if Tax Cuts Are Repealed

200 Number of House Members Who Voted Against This Growth Generating Tax Cut

50 Number of US Senators Who Voted Against This Growth Generating Tax Cut

25 Number of Years Dividend Paying Companies Declined Prior to the 2003 Tax Cut

164.0% % Increase in the Dividend Tax Rate if the Income and Dividend Tax Cuts Expire

123.0% % Increase in Dividend Income and Share Repurchases Since 2003 Tax Cut

91.0% % Increase of Stock Ownership in the Bottom Quintile of Income Distribution Since 1995

74.0% % Increase in S&P 500 Companies Boosting Their Dividend Since 2002

65.0% % of Voters Who Were Investors in the 2004 Elections

51.2% % of Total Tax Cut "Cost" That Has Been Recouped From Higher Levels of Growth

14.0% % Margin of Victory for Republicans From Investor Voters in 2002 Elections

4.6% Unemployment Rate Which Continues To Disprove the Constant Economic Pessimism

3.7% % Average Quarterly GDP Growth Since Tax Cut Was Enacted (long run average is 3.3%)

So You Still Think Democrats are American?

Mid Term elections, Democrats, Socialists, Communists

So You Still Think Democrats Are American?

by J.B. Williams
Friday, October 13, 2006

"The Nov. 7 midterm elections are less than six weeks away. The stakes have never been so high: Control of the House and Senate and governorships nationwide. A recent poll shows that 75 percent of voters are disgusted by the Republican majority House and Senate, the highest disapproval rate since 1994. They are frustrated at Bush's endless Iraq war, by Republican cronyism and corruption, tax giveaways to the rich, cutbacks in vital services, and criminal negligence in the wake of Hurricane Katrina."

"Bush's policies of war and repression have made us less secure. The people are angry and they want change."

Are these the words of DNC Chairman Howard Dean? John Kerry? Ted Kennedy? Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid? Al Gore? Dick Durbin? George Soros? Is it Hillary Clinton? Is it one of the Hollywood cast of idiots, or maybe the Ditzy Chicks? While all of these people and their many minions have regurgitated these words until we're sick of hearing them, this quote is taken directly from a mid-term campaign appeal issued by The National Board of the Communist Party USA, released Sept. 25, 2006.

"The pressure for troop withdrawal is growing, so much so that earlier this summer Democrats introduced two resolutions in the Senate. One, authored by Senator Kerry, envisions a short exit strategy and a role for the international community. The other, which has the support of nearly 40 Democratic senators and may be re-introduced this fall, calls for troop withdrawal beginning this winter, but the flaw is that it leaves the process open-ended, which is precisely what Bush does."

"Nevertheless, the fact that a majority of Senate Democrats are supporting this resolution constitutes an important shift in their approach to the Iraq occupation. Much work by the peace majority still needs to be done, but the playing field is far more favorable for organizing a congressional majority in favor of ending the occupation than it was even a few months ago."

Sound like the anti-war rhetoric of today's democrats and their lamestream press? Yes it does... However this quote was also taken directly from the Communist Party USA web site and references a column in the international Communist newspaper, the People's Weekly World Newspaper, dated 08/17/06.

And you still think that today's secular socialist progressives are just average American democrats?

Why - just because they claim the name and run the party? Have you not been paying any attention to what they've been peddling for years now? Do you really still think you are just an American democrat?

Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman were American democrats of old and they are no longer welcome in today's DNC. Democrats like Truman and JFK, or like my aunts and uncles, my grandparents. Those democrats are either dead and gone, or greatly outnumbered by the new secular socialist progressive variety of democrats currently running roughshod over the once great Democratic Party.

Anti-American socialists masquerading as anti-war activists, like Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Danny Glover, Sean Penn and Harry Belafonte, all of whom have more in common with Hugo Chavez, Karl Marx and Castro than either George Bush, or most any other American. These people are not just anti-Bush, they are wholly anti-America. They don't like national defense, national security, national sovereignty or capitalism and they hope to elect democrats who will carry their anti-America banner in this falls' mid-term elections. Are you really stupid enough to follow their lead to slaughter?

Democrats hope to focus voters upon Mark Foley and paint every republican a pervert between now and November. Why? Because their own agenda would never sell in America without making the opposition appear so unattractive that voters will opt for anything else.

"HOW CAN George W. Bush be stopped? Many people among the millions who oppose Bush's wars abroad and at home are asking that question." This quote sounds like the DNC mantra from the 2004 Presidential Election, or maybe like the rantings of Jack Murtha. But it is a quote from the International Socialist Review, taken from a July 2003 column titled Anybody but Bush?

Today's liberal democrats think they are fresh, inventive and progressive, when in reality, they are just parroting the same old tired socialist propaganda that Marx and others wrote decades ago. There isn't an original idea in the bunch. It's as if the entire Democratic Party is reading from cue cards. It's as if they simply adopted the Socialist Party agenda in its entirety, political rhetoric tip sheet and all.

Democrats, the same people who told you that Bill Clinton's perjury was "only about sex", and that Barney Frank's young male prostitute is just an "alternative lifestyle" deserving of the same benefits and respect as the traditional family unit, now want you to help them march every republican to the hanging tree for Mark Foley's stupidly perverted behavior. If you had to vote for them on the merits of their past track records or their already failed progressive ideas, they already wouldn't have a Party.

But any vote against a republican is in fact a vote for a democrat, and that will do in their quest to regain progressive socialist power.

Are you kidding me? Is America really this deaf, dumb and blind? All those red counties from shore to shore - they're really going to hand power to socialist progressives in a fit of anger towards liberal republicans? Really???

If this is how ignorant and short sighted our nation has become, then so be it. But I just can't imagine my fellow Americans being so foolish. Many yes... but a majority? God help us!

We have listened to democrats parrot all of the above statements for years now. If you go read their party initiatives along side that of the Socialist or Communist Party's, you will find no real differences between them. Now those are the facts... If you prefer to believe something other than the facts, then you deserve whatever you get. But I'm sticking to the facts as they exist and that means, until the DNC becomes American again, they will never get a vote from me...

JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a writer. A no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy. He is published nationwide and in many countries around the world.

Outsourcing Combat Reporting to the Enemy

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20060925.aspx

Outsourcing Combat Reporting to the Enemy

September 25, 2006:

U.S. troops continue to be mystified at the odd reporting coming out of Iraq. What the troops witnessed is not what reporters are sending back. The bylines on those stories are American, as are the talking heads they see broadcasting from Baghdad. Some troops attribute the inaccurate reporting to bias, with journalists sending back what they want to be the truth, rather than what is actually happening. The troops see a very different Iraq from the one journalists are reporting.

But the fact of the matter is that few of these journalists are reporting much. On any given day, fewer than a dozen reporters are embedded with combat units, and actually out there. A third or more of these are working for military oriented publications ("Stars and Stripes," Armed Forces Network). Most journalists are in the Green Zone, or some well-guarded hotel. There, they depend on Iraqi stringers to gather information, and take pictures for them. In reality, these reporters could do this from back home, and many more media organizations are doing just that.

Nothing new about using local stringers in dangerous areas. It's common sense, given that the bad guys are in the habit of kidnapping, or just killing, foreign reporters. The problem is, the pool of available Iraqi talent is mostly Sunni Arab. Many of these folks side with the bad guys. And all Iraqi journalists, especially those working for foreigners, are subject to intimidation, or bribery. While some of the foreign reporters may be aware of all this, some aren't, and many of the rest don't care. The truth won't set them free, but supplying stories their editors are looking for, will.

It wasn't always this way, but that's the way it is these days. And, sadly, about the only people to notice the problem are the many troops who have been in Iraq, and don't have an editor telling them what to think, and report.

What's the Difference Between the Mafia and Congress?

as reported on the Captains Quarters Blog

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

What's The Difference Between The Mafia And Congress? Scale

Ever wonder how caucuses in the House choose their leadership? In the Senate, it comes from seniority. In the House, they determine it like a multi-level marketing plan. As the New York Times reports, money talks ... loudly:

To move up the ladder in Congress, you must do more than win votes. You are, quite literally, expected to pay your dues.

If you are a rank-and-file member of the House, the amount is up to $100,000. If your ambitions are to preside over a powerful committee, the duty is $300,000. For a top party leader, the tally can climb beyond $600,000.

Make those checks payable to the Republican or Democratic Congressional campaign committees. ...

Four years after Congress tried to reduce the influence of money in politics by rewriting the rules of how campaigns are financed, Republicans and Democrats alike have found myriad replacements for the river of financial contributions known as soft money.

The practice of paying what the parties refer to as dues is not illegal, and it is not an entirely fresh notion by either party. This year, Democrats are hoping to glean about $33 million in dues from their House members, an amount that would be about one-third of their fund-raising goal. That makes the dues an important piece in the Democrats’ strategy to overtake the Republican majority.

Let's just make this perfectly clear. Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002 because John McCain, Russ Feingold, Christopher Shays, and Marty Meehan all told us that money has become too influential in politics. They forced us to give up the right to name names in political advertising in the last 60 days before an election. In exchange, the House selects its leadership on the basis of how much cash members can raise for the party.
Seems to me that Shays and Meehan forced us to pay for their addiction.

This tradition, which appears more in line with the Mafia than with competence, has its humorous moments. Nancy Pelosi takes this so seriously that she sent around a spreadsheet showing the assessments for each Democrat in the house and what they had contributed to party coffers. Predictably and understandably, this grandstanding upset a few members, including Maxine Waters, chief deputy whip for the Democrats, who has only kicked in less than 20% of her $250,000 assessment.

Luis Gutierrez, ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, declared he would contribute nothing at all until Pelosi made a two-minute phone call. Gutierrez made his first dues payment shortly thereafter.

Rather than punish the electorate for the sins of the politicians, the BCRA contingent should have focused on the behavior of Congress first. If the Democrats and Republicans want to take the smell of cash out of politics, perhaps they would have been better suited getting the stink off of leadership assignments in the House.