Don't ask, don't argue

I've been considering the question currently on the lips of the moderate- to far-left, of rescinding the military policy of don't-ask-don't-tell. The argument used is that the policy "forces people to live a lie." Therefore, the policy must die.

I really don't get the part where this policy forces lies. All it requires is discretion. In other words, keep your sex life to yourself. It's pretty much the same rule for women in service, isn't it? Fraternizing is frowned upon, so don't get caught. They don't want to know that you're having sex, let alone with whom. That's been my own personal view for a while, too. Not that I'm against people having sex... I just don't want to have to think about their doing so. I have an unfortunately graphic imagination, and I'd like it to not go there.

But here the liberal masses are, trying to revoke a policy which was, actually, written to protect gays in the military from unfortunate repercussions... the policy against fraternization and the policies against various turpitudes are old-fashioned and yet designed to maintain a certain solid structure, a solidarity among the troops, a grounding for trust from top to bottom, as it were.

There are still problems with sexist behaviors within the ranks, violence against homosexuals and against women, as well as against others who may not immediately be seen as "fitting in" with the rest of a given unit. And, too often, the internal judicial system doesn't measure up to the needs of those who have borne the brunt of such attacks. It seems to me, before the military lifts the policy on sharing information on your sexual habits with everybody around you, the real target should be, simple and plain, making sure that the troops are ready for the reality that women and gays and other "outsiders" will be let in, and will be able to actually serve their country well.

They don't need to lift a mind-your-own-damned-business policy. They just need to make sure that the real issue that gets addressed always will be the individual's capability and worth in service.

Are we still allowed to support the troops?

In 2006, Congress passed an act making March 26 National Support the Troops Day. They didn't make it an annual event -- they just passed it for March 26, 2006. The repeated the act in 2007 and again in 2008. I haven't seen anything about making tomorrow the same, though. Are we still supporting our troops by Congressional act, or is it back to just us folks who genuinely care and respect the men and women who serve?

Either way, today, like all days, my family and I thank our servicemen and women, and thank all those who serve alongside them, and all those who make it possible back home for these good people to protect and defend freedom throughout the globe.

There are still people at home who have your six.

Gratuitous postcards: To commemorate wars past

Zombietime has up a post well worth reading. The war in Iraq is over and won. It is time the world recognized it, in the same way it recognized the end of hostilities in wars past.








Thanks be to the brave ones.

Thank you to all veterans, on your day

To all who served:

May there come a day when we no longer need your services, and never again come a day when you are not appreciated.

Happy birthday, USMC!

Happy birthday, Marines!

Thank you for your continued service.

From the many, the humble... the free.

Postcard: Not forgotten

News we can use

Iraqis are more than the sum of what we see in the media, and Richard Lowry gives a short report on one way the MSM has missed big time. You won't see it on the networks, or in the newspapers, but it's seriously worthy. Pass the news on.



Oops! Where are my manners? Hat tip to Drew M. at AoSHQ.

Elizabeth Edwards: disabled unqualified to work

Folks who have even mild disabilities barring them from military service would naturally be barred from all other work. At least, that would be the natural extension of logic, were we to take Elizabeth Edwards at her word:

My classmates went to Vietnam, he did not. He was 4F. He had a medical disability, the same medical disability that probably should have stopped him from spending a lifetime in a radio announcer’s chair; but it is true, isn’t it? If he has an inoperable position that allows him not to serve, presumably it should not allow him to sit for long periods of time the way he does.

I gather that Mrs. Edwards had never heard of doughnut cushions, or of ergonomic chairs, or of sitting funny? Try taking any of these options through boot camp, let alone into battle!

(Quit snickering, people, or drop and give me twenty.)


More to the point, Edwards (inadvertently, I hope) implies that people who are physically incapable of soldiering therefore have no right to any job, even the cushy ones where you just sit sideways and talk into a microphone.

For the record, Snopes clarifies that Limbaugh was not initially 4-F, but 1-Y (he could only be called up in case of national emergency).

My father was 4-F, for the genetic back problem which plagues two of his offspring today, and for being blind as a fruitbat without thick spectacles -- and those only eased, but didn't correct, the problem. There was no way in all the netherworld that Pop could have served in the field, or even, for that matter, survived basic training. He managed, nonetheless, to stand, several hours every day, to teach college students the basics of physics, mathematics, astronomy, and several other subjects as the need arose on campus. And, he managed to keep a pretty good eye on his teen-aged daughters, through those thick lenses. He's still contributing to society today, in his mid-to-late-70s.

Now, I know most people who are launching in on Mrs. Silky Pony are challenging her husband to put up his military service records, or both of them shut up. But his records don't matter any more than do those of Limbaugh. None of these three has a real dog in that fight.

The real issue is, does she have the right to a job in her future -- as First Lady or any position other than one involving no walking or talking -- if she keeps putting her foot in her mouth and chewing so vigorously?

HT: McQ at QandO

Postcard: lest we forget

May your Memorial Day be peaceful and filled with friends and loved ones.

A salute, on Armed Forces Day (with postcard)

How happy am I when my soldier is by,
While he kisses and presses his Annie O.
'Tis a soldier alone can delight me O,
For his graceful look do delight me O;
While guarded in his arm
I'll fear no war's alarm,
Neither danger nor death shall e'er affright me O.

-Dumbarton's Drums (Trad.)

I won't limit my admiration and affection to soldiers alone. Every man and woman serving in our armed forces, today, earns hugs, kisses, and a big, serious salute.

NYT assaults family of slain serviceman, gets away with it

Michelle Malkin has the news that none of the other biggies seems to be covering -- in light of the Arkin pile of manure that still stinks up the WaPo, I can understand that, but the NYT's conduct is abominable, as well.

It seems that, in direct violation of the rules which all journalists and publishers sign off on (rules, which I might add, are for basic common decency), the NYT not only ran the news of a soldier's death before the Pentagon had the chance to inform his family, but they ran a disturbing video of his actual death, at their website.

That's one helluva way to find out your loved one is gone -- have the press show you the film at eleven.

Now, I'm not a journalist, myself, but it seems to me the practice of allowing the authorities to inform families first is an old, honored one, and that even the crappy little bottom-rung papers like the one which publishes my rantings each week knows it well, and keeps that practice.

And yet, the NYT not only runs the video, but loses no privileges as a result!

It seems to me, not only do the editors and reporters for the Slimes owe the family a public apology, but they owe the rest of the troops over in Iraq and Afghanistan a display of genuine contrition. Not that I think they have a clue what contrition is, even with their gigantic print-media vocabularies.

Further, I think the Pentagon owes it to the families of all the troops to see that this sort of thing never happens again -- by removing the NYT blight from any embeds. If they can't do that, then I hope the soldiers who get stuck with Slimes reporters can figure out how to effectively maximize the time and skills of those "journalists."

The people the "anti-war" crowd love to support

via Power Line, the news (I come to it a day late) is that the soldiers who were kidnapped from a U.S. Army compound last week (by men wearing American-looking uniforms, driving vehicles identical to those issued to our troops, etc...) were found yesterday. It is not exactly the best news possible.

Let me rephrase that: the NY Post has the right of it. It is an Atrocity in Karbala.

Four U.S. soldiers, one of them a New Yorker, were captured - and promptly murdered - last Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles from Baghdad, officials confirmed.

Two of the slain soldiers were found handcuffed together in the back of a vehicle.

Soldiers die in combat, of course.

But the murder of disarmed and helpless troops - killing POWs, in effect - is what's at issue here.

Now see the latest on this: Iran apears to have played a major role in the entire attack:

The American Forces Information Service provides the details of the attack in Karbala. Based on the sophisticated nature of the raid, as well as the response, or cryptic non-responses, from multiple military and intelligence sources, this raid appears to have been directed and executed by the Qods Force branch of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps. My sources agreed this is far to sophisticated an operation for the Mahdi Army or Badr Corps, while al-Qaeda in Iraq would have a difficult time mounting such an operation in the Shia south. "The Karbala Government Center raid the other day was a little too professional for JAM [Jaish al-Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army]," according to a military source.

This raid required specific intelligence, in depth training for the agents to pass as American troops, resources to provide for weapons, vehicles, uniforms, identification, radios and other items needed to successfully carry out the mission. Hezbollah's Imad Mugniyah executed a similar attack against Israeli forces on the Lebanese border, which initiated the Hezbollah-Israeli war during the summer of 2006.

And, yet somehow, I know there will be those who will automatically say either, "the US troops were over there, so they deserved it," or, "It's all Bush's fault." Those who do need to study Iranian history, and, perhaps, the history of Islam a little better. The only thing the American troops deserved was respect, and Bush's fault would be in doing what nobody else wanted to do -- to help clean up that scorpion's nest built up over the past centuries, and allowed to grow and fester further during recent administrations.

Nobody. But. Nobody. deserves to be tortured in this fashion.

We don't do it. But the friends of John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi do.

Gratuitous postcard: Cutting through the mountain...

After I watched the President's speech last night, I'm beginning to think the White House has actually started paying attention to polls, and the POTUS is getting ready to level a few neighborhoods in and around Baghdad.

Gateway Pundit has some nice stuff, too. And, he points out that, with Saddam gone, Iraq's economy is improving. That's one successful "surge" in Iraq... and one more to go.

As a follow-up, it seems, Condi Rice kicks butt.


Update: I've often wondered what it is that the Dems think they're accomplishing by kvetching nonstop, never offering any reasonable alternatives to the plans put forth by the Prez. I mean, Harry Reid, for example, spends hour upon hour of media time shrilly proclaiming that the President's plan is wrong, and, when asked how he would solve the problem of terrorism and Iraq, he says, in essence, "that's not my job, man!" In that, he's right. Foreign policy is the job of the Executive branch. But, if he's so sure he has all the answers, why doesn't he offer a few to the POTUS, just as a basic courtesy as an American citizen? He criticizes everything, and offers no useful advice. Can it possibly be that Reid has no plan except the nasty mother-in-law approach?

The plan, as I read it, is fairly simple: We're the hired help, there to clean house. We've been washing the floors constantly, and the animals keep tracking muck all over the house after we finish. Now, we send in a few extra troops to block the doors so the animals can't come back in, and they help scrub the dark corners. Plus, we get the homeowner trained to (a) keep the animals out on days when we're not coming in, and (b) clean up for themselves, so our services will soon be no longer required.

In theory, it could work. As long as the homeowners don't let in the neighbors to start peeing on the rugs.

Ethiopian/Somalian army besieges Mogadishu

Dear Mister Clinton,

This is how it's done. It's called finishing what you started.

Sincerely,
rk


Updated link: 15:41 hrs CST
Updated update: Friday. Second link fixed. I am so ashamed.

Gratuitous Postcard: A salute, for Veterans Day

For veterans* -- and for those who are currently serving, as well -- the little verse on the upper left corner of this card reads:

I'd like to load a gun like this
With a message and perhaps a kiss
To let you know how proud I am
That you have backed up Uncle Sam.

This American thanks you.


*including my brugly other and his wife

I sigh because I am loved

And I sigh again because I am misunderstood. My lefty friend has responded to my column with these words, among others:

It hurts my sensitive Democratic heart to hear a friend so brainwashed by the Exurbian Psychosis gripping this nation. It angers me when references to 9/11 justify failed political policies that have to date killed and maimed more Americans that the original heinous act. The death toll is rapidly approaching 9/11 totals. Any doctor, psychologist, or spiritual mentor will tell you that there comes a time to end the grieving, a time to begin healing. America needs that right now.

It seems Tannish -- like so many others -- thinks we can sit down and lull ourselves to sleep once more, right now.

T, you've missed the point. This isn't about grieving. It's about survival.

The mentality which drove those men to hijack planes on 9/11/01 was not new in 2001. It was not born during Bush's term, nor in Clinton's term, nor in Reagan's, nor even in the most-inept Mister Carter's day, when he (among other things) mishandled the Shah, Arafat, and pretty much the entire Mideast. Their hatred has existed for centuries, in one form or another. It has simply metastasized, these past decades, gained focus and gained capability.

Think of both attacks on the WTC, etc., as boils rising to the surface and rupturing. They are not singular events. There is a deeper infection, a dark cancer. The President has acted as surgeon, cutting out one grossly infected tissue -- Saddam Hussein, who financed terrorism, had strong links to those who murdered Americans in acts of overt war, and who had been at war with the US since 1991. Troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan are the next phase, the chemotherapy, the antibiotics, the truly difficult part of the cure.

If you think that the healing process can be forwarded before the disease has been stopped, check with your local oncologist. Islamic terrorism and its effects are not a little boo-boo to be band-aided over and then we go back to our bike ride in the park. If you think that by simply sitting down and saying, "sorry for existing," we're going to prevent another attack on our soil, check on that fairy godmother again.

Until the disease is brought under control -- and it is slowly, gradually happening, by the most recent accounts -- the infection still has a chance to rise again. If it is allowed to regrow, like most diseases, it will be stronger, more resistant to known cures.


Update: Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughtful words toward the attitudes held by my heart-wounded friend and his single-minded leftist buddies. for example:

We also forget that Iraq, contrary to popular slander, was not “cooked up” in Texas or at a Washington, D.C., neocon think tank. Rather, it was a reaction to two events: a decade of appeasement of Middle East tyrants and terrorists, and the disaster of September 11. If one were to go back and read the most popular accounts of the first Gulf War, The Generals’ War by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor of Cobra II fame, or Rick Atkinson’s Crusade, or research the bi-partisan arguments that raged across the opinion pages in the 1990s following the defeat and survival of Saddam Hussein, certain themes reappear constantly that surely help to explain our current presence inside Iraq.

Please, read it all.

Gratuitous postcard: Cleanup in aisle four

Call out the Disinfecting Squad!
(Click on image for larger version, and Flickr page with further info about this card.)

Back to light blogging, again, due in part to a wee bout with food poisoning last evening. Okay, so it wasn't wee, it was something else. But just don't eat day-old sandwiches from the grocer's deli section. Trust me on this.