They will never learn

When Iran first began the nuclear overtones, their President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became an east target of humor for me at the time.

I never really felt that a military or even a nuclear confrontation would transpire between Iran and America. After all, this is the 21st centaury; the cold war began to fade into history when the Berlin wall came tumbling down, ushering in an entire new era of freedom for a newly united Berlin.

At that point in time, the concept of a nuclear Iran seemed laughable and deep within me I knew that President Bush would never entertain a preemptive strike while the military was stretched to its limits. However, I do recall writing that President Bush missed a great opportunity to end the violence within the volatile Middle East at the time.

Many of the military experts had hypothesized the war in Iraq in Afghanistan should have been initiated in a completely different manner. That military strikes should have taken place in Iran and Syria, destroying their military machine, then a complete end-run attack, in conjunction with Israeli forces should have been implemented moving through each country and into Iraq and Afghanistan. They theorized this would have completely stabilized the Middle East for the balance of history.

That was then; this is now, the so-called experts I the Middle East are warning a preemptive attack on Iran could bring about a nuclear war encompassing, Russia, Iran, North Korea, England, Israel, ad nauseam. In other words, in the immortal words of Loony Tunes, “That’s all folks!”

My feelings on this are strong. First and foremost, I feel we need to put an end to the Taliban and their supporting jihad fighters in Afghanistan. We need to augment our Special Forces and Seal teams presently operating there with the proper military personnel and equipment to end this once and for all. It is requires low-yield nuclear weapons, then that is what is used to end this protracted war.

I believe we need preemptive strikes against any person, group or nation of terrorists who are planning terrorists’ attacks upon our country. At the same time, we need to punish through military strikes any nation harboring these same people or groups. Our Special Operations teams need to operate in tandem with England’s to destroy terrorist infrastructure anywhere in the world that it is found to be operating.

We need to totally rethink and redefine the present military strategies and policies in Iraq. I personally feel we made a huge mistake entering Iraq with the plan of being an army of liberators instead of a conquering military. We should have assumed complete control of the country and slowly implemented plans for their rebuilding and growth. Had they been a conquered nation the job would have been easier.

Unfortunately, none of this will occur, the present administration will leave after the next election, a bleeding heart, save the world liberal will assume control of the Presidency. All military will be pulled out of Iraq, leaving them to fend for themselves. Iran and Syria will immediately move in to assume control and from that point on, all hell will break lose in the world.

Perhaps, after so much will be lost, the media and the bleeding heart politicians will realize they were wrong. Then again, they may never learn.

Watching train wrecks, or learning to say "NO"

I was reading an article this morning about the support Britney Spears soon to be ex-husband is providing for her and began to think of what has been unfolding before all of our eyes.

The entire television fueled world watched in disgust, awe and amid questions while Britney Spears shaved her head. I remember watching a video of her and two bodyguards walking down the street while thousands of camera flashes popped around her.

The next thing was constant footage of her entering and immediately leaving rehab centers. Unlike a lot of people, I was not watching in awe, but total disgust for what the media is doing to someone.

Britney has grown up amid the public spotlight, where her entire world, from waking to using public restrooms is caught on video. Her entire world has been comprised of the media following every move she makes.

Take the now famous “shaved” photos of her getting into and out of cars that hit the internet. That literally disgusted the very fiber of my being. I was brought up to always turn my head when helping a woman out of a car, “as that is what a gentlemen does”, my Father used to say.

It is apparent the photographers following her every move was not and the act of being gentlemen is tossed out of the window when it is a celebrity.

The television was slammed with news and photos of her every move and what immediately struck me was not that Britney was acting strange, but that here was a young woman having a breakdown before the eyes of the public and the media was encouraging her to go further down into path of darkness.

Yes, we all agree that celebrities are a strange mix. It is evident that many of their problems can be stopped before they even begin if someone in their circle would learn to tell them “no”. However, if they did that, actually disagree with them; their money train may disappear leaving them in the unemployment line.

If someone, their family, friends, whomever, would stand up to them, instead of worrying about their own pockets, they may have better lives. The Hollywood types, actors, singers, all of them should have sat straight, listened and learned upon the early death of Anna Nichole Smith.

Here was another train wreck that media never tired of covering. Now she is dead and the world listens and learns that her life was a mixture of constant drugs and parties. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched television; the woman was constantly drugged out to the maximum. That partner of hers, Stern, should have placed her in rehab instead of capturing her life on video and lining his pockets with cash.

The beautiful people need to be told NO more often, perhaps they would have better lives.

Thoughts on a few things

Like many of my friends, I lived through the turbulent 60’s, paid my dues and bore the vented frustration of protesters awaiting us upon our return. They were standing there, screaming their insults, tossing eggs, tomatoes and whatever else they could find at anyone wearing a uniform.

I was totally unprepared for this reception, yes, I had read the articles, browsed through the magazines and was relatively aware there was disenchantment in America. Still, I had no knowledge that individuals were brave enough to take on returning military personal. My initial reaction was complete and total anger. Here stood men our own age, brave enough to stand up to hardened combat veterans, yet refusing to fight a war their country had deemed just and sound.

My overall feelings on the war were a mixed bag of emotions. Most of the men I served with all felt as I did, the whole thing was being ran by politicians in Washington, not the military. Therefore it was a total mess and doomed from the start unless they allowed military to run the military. However, there was one overall factor that each of us agreed upon. We had been sent by our government to do a job, as soldiers, we obeyed orders and that is exactly what we did.

Never once did I ever think of writing my congressmen, telling him my feelings on the war. Not because as active duty military I could have been brought up on charges, but because I was a soldier and as such, I followed the lawful orders I was given.

Granted, there were many times during my service that I did not want to do something that I was ordered. Not from a moral or religious perspective, but either through pure exhaustion or simply too lazy to do something.

As all GI’s, I complained loud and often to fellow soldier’s serving with me. However, I never once thought of directly disobeying the order I had been given. I was a soldier, a professional and my training and professionalism would have never permitted that action.

During the period I served we were not protected by any form of whistle – blower law permitting us to voice complaints to Congress. However, there were many times Congressmen would visit, always attempting to get one on one with someone in hopes they would confide their true feelings of the war. The GI was always informed their views would be held in complete confidence, still I never knew of one person who took them up on the offer.

We had our personal views which we did confide in one another, that the war was ran by the political idiots in Washington instead of true military action. That not directly attacking Hanoi or removing their political infrastructure was insane or even that the war was unwinnable due to the manner it was ran. We stood side by side and followed orders, we may have had personal views, but we all took an oath to our country and that was first and foremost on our mind.

Our military is comprised of professional, intelligent, brave men and women. The fact of 1000 signing a petition to Congress protesting the war has no bearing on the remaining thousands willing to serve their country. We must all remember that and we must all stand side by side as one voice and thank the ones serving, give prayers to those who have died and support those returning.

Yep, I am still here.

It has been quite awhile since I have been able to post something. This is by no means a reflection of my disgust with the present state of events; on the contrary, I have had so much to say that I have felt close to bursting. Unfortunately, with my eye situation, instead of writing, getting it off my chest, I am forced to bang my head against the wall, scream incoherently and cause all family members to immediately seek shelter.

What has transpired with my vision is a medical question onto itself. The surgery to correct the high pressure which was severely damaging my optic nerve was successful. For that and that alone I am thankful, for without that I would have totally lost all vision. However, I am experiencing a complication that has left me with severely limited eye sight that specialists are attempting to discover an answer for.

As everyone knows, the pupil of our eyes opens and closes in direct proportion to the amount of light striking the eye. In bright lights our pupil appears to be the size of a pin and in the dark, it is wide open to allow more light inside.

The pupil of my eye is no longer opening and closing in proportion to the light. It is in a fixed position and is remaining that way which has created many vision problems for me. I have to keep the room I am in as dark as possible, any lights will cause my eyesight to become totally blurred.

The last specialist I saw explained that the eye will do this at time to protect itself and to heal. It may begin functioning again, or it may not. So, it is a bit disheartening to me as I am unable to go outside without becoming totally visually impaired. I am keeping a positive outlook and have hopes the whole affair will soon be over and my life will return to normal.

Ranter

Time to remove the gloves.

According to news reports, the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, head of the militia often in question, has left the country of Iraq and is now in Iran. His departure has been linked to the new push against the militia he controls.

However, sources working for Muqtada al-Sadr are saying he is simply avoiding media coverage for thirty days.

If this is truly the case and he is now in Iran, then now is the time to totally destroy his infrastructure as well as those within his militia. They are leaderless and what better time than now to get the job done.

This leads us to the security crackdown presently under way in an attempt to secure Baghdad. The U.S. and Iraqi military have increased patrols, established checkpoints, earlier curfews and a host of other plans in their quest to bring peace to the city.

This is not going to accomplish much, for as we all know by now, the militia and insurgents simply put down their weapons and blend into the population.

If peace is to be established in Baghdad, then the gloves must be removed from U.S. forces enacted by the present administration in Iraq. Our military needs to be able to go into the neighborhoods and destroy the militia and insurgents as well as their leadership.

The borders need to be secured to stop the insurgents presently flowing in through Syria and Iran as well as the weapons used to arm these individuals.

The use of force must be approved by the Iraq leadership and if they fail to comply, then we need to ignore them and go in and get the job done once and for all.

Nothing ever changes

I must confess that the post operative problem of being visually impaired for over two months did have one small benefit. I did not have to tolerate the daily insanity anti-war nonsense presently encompassing every news site I visit.

We are faced with a deluge of anti-war protesting, elected officials screaming from rooftops, why not, it makes for great election year table discussion and the media reminding us every day that we cannot win this war. The people already have their new poster child in Obama and the media is digging even deeper into the land of intense nausea with this guy.

This morning I bring up Google News and the first thing my still healing eyes see is a headline stating, “In the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln”. I had no idea what this article was about, so stupid me, I click on it and read how Obama is now being touted as the new Lincoln. Somebody bring me a barf bag!

Iran is trying their best to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq and our government takes heat for going after their scumbags now working in that war torn country. Syria is sitting back trying their best to be quiet while sending their money to the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel, once the feared nemesis of all terrorists are presently embroiled in their own problems with the ruling party being accused of everything from rape to malfeasance.

Our Special Operations are being accused of operating in the Philippines, a direct violation of their laws and actively pursuing terrorist and killing them with extreme prejudice. Afghanistan is still a complete mess, the Taliban is trying their best to retake anything they can, even if it is a piece of dry desert. Of course, this is simply an exercise in futility as the only thing they accomplish is a fast trip to the promised land when they cross the border. and meet our Special Operation teams who are waiting for them.

With all of this in mind, I have reached a conclusion about all of this anti war nonsense. If we are so badly tied up in Iraq, why are we taking out every terrorists in other parts of the world. Perhaps someone in the anti war, bleeding heart media forgot to tell our military they will never be able to win this war. Rubbish, trash and election nonsense is what this all is and I for one am already sick of reading through it all.

The sad commentary is we will get some bleeding heart, tree hugging politician into the White House and all hell will break loose throughout the world. Terrorism does not go away just because we have pulled our troops out of an area. It does not melt into the woodwork, never to be seen again. On the contrary, they will go in the offensive and hit us in new and improved ways.

Something tells me it may be time to find a mountain top, build a cabin and hide.

The old glass house and throwing stones thing

After reading through an AP story on Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s allegations about America, it is relatively easy to understand exactly what Putin meant. After all, he was only looking after the safety and needs of his countrymen and women.

The AP reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted the United States Saturday for the "almost uncontained" use of force in the world, and for encouraging other countries to acquire nuclear weapons.

This comment struck me as being funny as anything could be. Here was our old enemy, the red menace, you all know who I am talking about, the red menace that would send in troops to any country they decided would be a nice addition to the Soviet Union. The same one that was responsible for the deaths of millions of their own citizens.

Wow, these are really nice people, so nice that they even had a secret police to watch every move their citizens made. These guys really loved their countrymen and woman, they would even have their secret police storm into citizens homes in the middle of the night, arresting everyone inside and taking them into the KGB headquarters for safe keeping. They were so thoughtful they would insure these same people would never return to their homes again.

Talk about protecting their countrymen and women, they would even place nuclear weapons and missiles in every country they assimilated, pointing these weapons of death at America, just so the citizens would not feel threatened. Wow, this just takes my breath away.

They would even send their citizens on an all expense paid vacation to their resorts, called the Gulags, of course, most of them never returned, but hey, this made more living accommodations for other citizens. They thought of everything, they really did.

I’ll bet they are concerned, even more than they are putting on. They are concerned that our military is far to close to their borders and they are well aware there is nothing they can do about it. The once mighty red military is in shambles, some soldiers are in the streets begging for food. The officers have not been paid in quite a spell, a large amount of them are poor and living off the welfare plans of their nation.

Their navy, once the fear of many a sailor is rusting in the docks. Their nuclear weapons, once controlled by one body of corrupt politicians are now in the hands of multiple countries ran by inept politicians. It is just a matter of time before they are being sold to terrorists groups throughout the world, so they can meet expenses for their countries.

They are even raising needed money by selling rides in their MIG 29s, once the ruler of many an airspace, Tanks, Ships and charging anyone with pocket change to spend a day at the range sending rounds downrange.

Russia is in a bad way, but history has shown the world to never count Russia out of a fight. Many a ruler and country has learned this lesson the hard way, Napoleon and Hitler failed to read history and they paid the ultimate price for their lack of understanding.

Our choppers cannot be shot down. No way!

It is readily apparent that what we learned in the Black Hawk down incident went into one bureaucrat’s ear and out the other. The only individuals who actually walked from that disgusting country were the pilots that are today risking their collective butts because, once more they being shot down.

We have been loosing a few helicopters in Iraq, in most cases they also contain the warriors of our military, resulting in multiple deaths. I have read a few blogs where witnesses have sworn the helicopter were hit in the tail with an RPG right before it went down. The response from the military has always been the same, mechanical problems resulting in the crash and subsequent loss of all on-board.

An article by. James Janega, in the Chicago Tribune available on Google discussed the possibility of hostile action and the new orders from the powers that be, allowing the pilots to change tactics to avoid the possibility of further loss of lives.

The article stated in its opening,

“The concern grew again Wednesday when a U.S. Marine helicopter crashed outside Baghdad, killing all seven aboard. It was the fifth U.S. helicopter lost in Iraq in 18 days, and the U.S. military says the four previous losses were all due to enemy ground fire.”

All Right! I was elated, a kid left in a candy store with ten dollars to spend and a whole bottle of Rolaids to take care of the night-time tummy ache. The military understands they really do. Maybe, someone, somewhere, in the higher ranks was finally issued a brain to think with.

My moment of happiness bubble was immediately burst when I read the next line.

“Although an insurgent group said that it shot down the CH-46 Sea Knight on Wednesday, U.S. officials said they suspected a mechanical failure and the helicopter was on fire when it went down.”

Where the hell are those Rolaids when I need them? Come on, someone please take a few of the legs the military keeps locked behind the Pentagon doors and explain to them exactly what hostile ground fire can do to a helicopter. Better yet, have them read the article on Military.com that states, U.S. Pilots Alter Tactics.

Perhaps someone should show these brain dead zombies the videos of U.S. helicopters being shot down the Iraqi insurgents have been posting on the web. Maybe, just maybe, they might make the decision that the helicopters are being downed by hostile ground fire. Maybe, that would sway them into the right frame of mind to order the veteran pilots to begin teaching the new ones defensive tactics to avoid this.

The sad statement is, when the multi-stared officers see the footage of four U.S. helicopters being actually shot down by ground fire, they will just think it was a complete coincidence that the helicopters developed mechanical problems at the exact moment an RPG was taking off their tail.

Update on my eyes

Greetings, I know it has been a spell since I have posted anything, but I assure you the blog is not down.

I have seen so many eye specialists that I am getting sick of my eye being poked, prodded and strangers I have never met looking deep into them.

The final medical reports made just as much sense to me as when I began my quest seeking solutions to the vision problems I have encountered. I started with a Doctor saying he was not sure what was causing the loss of vision. After seeing more specialists that I ever knew existed for one small item as an eye, they have no idea what is causing the loss in vision.

I still encounter vision problems at times, but not as severe as they began. At the start of my journey I was declared legally blind, some vision, objects, movement, but it was so blurred that making out any details, or performing tasks that required vision, reading and operating computers for example, was out of the question. The pupils in the eye was fixed, it was not opening and closing in relation to the amount of light it encountered. This made going into the sun or bright lights out of the question.

Some vision has returned, not that great when I am in strong lighting, as the sun, but it is returning. I have not done anything to bring this healing about, no drops, nothing, but it is returning never the less. A few specialists felt the eye had shut down due the trauma it experienced, placing itself in a healing stage and it would return.

I made the decision that as long as I can read the news, I can type what I felt. Of course, I may have bad days and good days, but I miss blogging.

With that in mind, I will continue to blog and hope my friends and readers continue to read.