The Lasso of Truth

Can we have more of the same?

My pick for the next Medal of Honor recipient...

A Gurkha soldier has been flown back to the UK after hacking the head off a dead Taliban commander with his ceremonial knife to prove the dead man’s identity.

The private, from 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, was involved in a fierce firefight with insurgents in the Babaji area of central Helmand Province when the incident took place earlier this month.

His unit had been told that they were seeking a ‘high value target,’ a Taliban commander, and that they must prove they had killed the right man.

The Gurkhas had intended to remove the Taliban leader’s body from the battlefield for identification purposes.

But they came under heavy fire as their tried to do so. Military sources said that in the heat of battle, the Gurkha took out his curved kukri knife and beheaded the dead insurgent.

He is understood to have removed the man’s head from the area, leaving the rest of his body on the battlefield.

This is considered a gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved.

Maybe we should ask Daniel Pearl for his opinion on the whole consideration for the dignity of Muslims thing.

The death of a soldier

I am a big supporter of the military.  In fact, a detractor once labeled me a “dimply wart tar”, which rang true enough to become a point of pride for me.

I appreciate the work our soldiers are doing and I feel nothing but humble reverence for the sacrifice of those who are killed in the course of their duty.  For this reason, I understand and appreciate the impulse that many of my fellow citizens have, to line the side of the highway and the overpasses of the 401, to pay their respect to the men and women who make their final journey home.  Their hearts are in the right place and by no means do I think that final journey should be made without any of us taking notice.

One thing bothers me though.  When I hear the term “Highway of Heroes”, and now “Route of Heroes”, it gives me the impression of saying “this is the way that heroes go…”  Like it is a soldier's destiny to return home in a box.

No disrespect.  It just seems a bit (albeit unintentionally) defeatist.

Who approved this?!

I definitely think whoever decided to inscribe American military gun sights with Bible verse codes should be fired immediately!

If he had half a brain, he'd ensure that all weapons be oiled with pork fat, instead. Sheesh!  What, are you new?!

A medal for the ultimate cowardice?

Have we all lost our minds?

Do we honestly want to treat a soldier who commits suicide while on active duty, as an honourable death on the same plane as those who truly give their life in service to their country?

Soldiers who commit suicide would receive the medal if the suicide is found to have been service-related, according military officials hosting a media briefing Monday.

I think it's disgraceful.  This is the most certain form of desertion and should be treated as the shameful act it is.

The enemy are big fans of suicide, too.  Why not give them all medals?

Willfully Blind

Whenever I hear about a shooting in the east end, I immediately expect the victim and/or perpetrators to be black.

Whenever I hear about a baby murdered or abandoned in central Canada, I immediately expect the delinquent parent to be Native.

That same instinct kicked in on the first report of a bloody massacre at a military base in Texas, and led me to the assumption that somehow, the Koran and one (or more) of it’s deranged followers had to be involved.

We’re all made to feel bad for thinking it, but the truth is stereotyping is just patterning based on informed observation.  My own bigoted assumptions, mentioned above, are accurate more than 90% of the time and I make them without the benefit of a psychology degree or any training in criminalistics – something which can’t be said of the scores of “learned experts” who spent the entire network prime time last night, prostrating themselves to avoid having to declare the blatantly obvious:  That 13 Americans died yesterday because the dozens of checks and balances in the U.S. Military were ignored or over-ruled by the politically correct notion that the radicals can only be found in caves in the desert.

***Or, in other words: 

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

Obama hates soldiers

The big, gaping O's "my pet goat moment" inspires my own Kanye West moment.

Can you imagine the outrage if George W. had been yucking it up at a partisan luncheon while the levies were bursting?

Fort Hood

I'm not sure the word "tragedy" adequately describes when a hand full of America's best and bravest are slaughtered on their own ground, by one of their own -- who apparently identified more with nations of nameless, faceless co-religionists he's never met, than the men and women he worked and trained with for 10 years.

Canada is nobody's whore

Charles Adler on the bitter pill of blood and treasure being spent for the sake of legalized rape and the stoning of women...

I don't want the women of Afghanistan to be thought of as whores unless they cover up, shut up and submit to the cave dwellers. I don't want my country to be treated like a whore by some charlatans who want our blood and our treasure, but not our most cherished value of all, the right of a human being to be treated like a human being. That's not right wing. That's not imperialist or colonialist. That's simply the difference between human and beast. And when I see the headline, “Afghan women stoned by men,” and I know and you know that not one of the stoners is going to do one day of prison and that not one of the rapists will pay for raping his prisoner, a.k.a wife, we understand perfectly well what we are dealing with here, and it doesn't feel like a society that will be inhospitable to Bin Laden's boys.

I support every one of our men and women in uniform. But the people of Afghanistan need to know that Canada is nobody's whore, and we will never support our country being turned into a whore by the pimps of the Stone Age.

Amen to that. RTWT

A smart enemy knows you don't attack a superior force from the front, you undermine it from below -- on it's weakest flank

And now that we've finished biting the hand that feeds us, let's move on to driving a shiv into the back that takes the blast for us...

The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.

The worst idea ever?  I'd have to agree...

In case you’re new here, my husband Rupert (not his real name) is a veteran but has no service-related injuries so we have no immediate skin in this game, but when I mentioned this “idea” to him last week, his first reaction was essentially, “Are those dipshits trying to make sure no one ever enlists again?” You do have to wonder.

[..]

That asshole does not care about these men and women and he will never, ever understand what they and their families endure.

When the election was lost to Robin-from-the-Hood, Mikey and I consoled ourselves that the worst we were likely looking at was four years along the lines of another Carter disaster.  Sadly, only a few weeks in and he is on pace to eclipse Carter's humiliating absurdity by orders of magnitude in the first year.

The real question now is, what will be left of America when he's finally tossed out?  And who will be left to defend it?

I shudder to think.

Dispatch from Afghanistan

Damian checks in on the "thankless and rewarding" job of corrections...

When the average Canadian hears about our mission in Afghanistan on the television or radio, or reads about it in the newspaper, he likely learns of fighting. No, he likely learns of Canadians dying in an IED explosion, since that's really all that seems to attract the public's attention these days. With very few exceptions (and congrats to Darah Hansen, who was at Camp Nathan Smith at the same time I was for telling this story as well), the picture Canadians see of their nation's work in one of the poorest, neediest countries in the entire world is nothing but an incomplete sketch.

He needs your help to pay for this trip!  Please Chip In >>>

Challenger at 23

‘He may thwart our escape by land or sea but the sky is surely open to us: we will go that way: Minos rules everything but he does not rule the heavens’.  *

A fitting tribute at Hot Air, as well.

Patrol

The Afghans have the most fascinating faces. Old men, FAG's (Fighting Age Guys), and young children - all look directly into the camera in such a frank and disarming way. I could have photographed them all day.

Damian in Afghanistan.  Part 1 ans Part 2.  Don't forget to "Chip in" >>>

Dispatches from Afghanistan

Our friend Damianhas arrived in Afghanistan and has wasted no time giving us a lay of the land...

Welcome to the two-way range sets the stage and The winning percentage blows the lid off.

Well worth the read and don't forget, he's relying on donations to help cover the costs of his trip.  At last check, he was 68% toward his goal.  Please help him out!

The Mercenary Perspective

From one who would know...

What's the transition to civilian life like?

Civilians don't understand why you risk your life in the first place, and once you get away with it, at least physically, why you go do it again and possibly become even more psychologically damaged than you are.

[..]

Are you afraid of dying?

When I was in Iraq, my nightmare was not of getting killed but of getting captured. I worry about my reputation. How's it going to look if I lose my client? If I'm captured and wind up on national TV in an orange boilersuit, how embarrassing would that be? So you have to fight to the death. There's no way I would have been captured alive.

"Arguably, that is why we’re here..."

"The vast majority are delighted that we’re here trying to protect their citizens themselves, if you would, from the type of foe who would throw acid on young girls trying to get an education."

Lest We Forget

The vapid, self-righteousness of blowhards who sit in a privileged cocoon of safety, while others do the heavy lifting...

The historians tell us that 9.7 million military personnel died in the First World War.

But if you look at the big pie chart o' dead from that awful enterprise, even more civilians died -- 10 million. And chances are good that all the military types running around had something to do with the dead civilians.

That's one of the conundrums about Remembrance Day now. It's no longer a time to consider the overall carnage of war.

Now it's a gathering to give a collective "good-for-you" to the First World War soldiers who died doing their duty while -- inadvertently or not -- causing the demise of an even greater number of civilians.

[..]

But I've come to see those lapel decorations, the choreographed Remembrance Day hoopla and all the grandiloquence about dead soldiers as mostly a marketing device for recruiting the next generation of dead soldiers. This year I won't be wearing the poppy.

True, it is important to remember the many casualties of war, civilian and military.  I'd even venture to say the families left behind by servicemen, an ocean away from the battlefield, should also be recognized for the sacrifices they made.

I do however, believe there should be a clear distinction made between those who cowered in corners and ran for the borders while bullets flew and bombs fell...and those many brave souls who took up the charge and headed toward the battle instead of away from it.

This is a distinction of character that is somehow lost on fools like Dan Murphy, who's forgotten that in 1940's Germany, many of those innocent civilians he mourns were ratting out their Jewish neighbours and padding their pockets with seized Jewish assets.

I'll be wearing my Poppy today, and remembering the ones who chose to end their lives fighting that kind of madness.

Some things humble even me

Although my hiatus was fairly brief, it was packed full of work and worry.  Preparations for an ugly court battle consumed all of my time and concentration.  That battle was fought and lost on the 4th of July.  As such, in our self-absorption, both Mikey and I utterly missed an historic event -- one that would have lifted my spirits somewhat, at a time when they were at their lowest.

Luckily, I have a dedicated and distinguished reader who was kind enough to pass it along.  A little late, but no less significant...

Attached are pictures of the "largest re-enlistment ceremony ever held in military history". The ceremony was held July 4, 2008 at Al Faw Palace, Baghdad, Iraq. General Petraeus officiated. It is obvious that all of the young men and women in these photos think that what they are doing is important and they want to continue to be part of it. Somehow this did not make it onto network news broadcasts.  This is just the Army reenlistment .... there was also a Marine ceremony, Air Force ceremony and Navy ceremony.

And I will add one (you may have already seen) this is just the 101st guys reenlisting at another of Sadams palaces...

Bob Krumm also offers a detailed account of the event, along with stirring video...

While most Americans probably slept, 1,215 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines raised their right hands and committed to a combined 5,500 years of additional service during the largest reenlistment ceremony in the history of the American military. Beneath a large American flag which dwarfed even the enormous chandelier that Saddam Hussein had built for the Al Faw Palace, members of all services, representing all 50 states took the oath administered by Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq.

For a media, obsessed with casualty counts and timelines, to virtually ignore a reenlistment ceremony 1,215 strong, while engaging in in-depth interviews with enemy snipers and providing prophetic coverage of insurgent attacks is, I think, a stinging indictment of their collective priorities and allegiances.  When the deserters get minute-by-minute media coverage of every grievance, while genuine heroes get little more than a footnote, the average citizen becomes the sole source of support and appreciation to those who put themselves in harm's way to preserve our way of life.

That this palace -- one of many -- which used to be a place of murder, degradation, suffering and oppression, is now in use to reaffirm the dedication and determination of a force of individuals who understand and appreciate the price of freedom, is a most eloquent statement on the righteousness of our fight.