Saturday, September 19, 2009

Of Doucebags and Men

Americans bomb wedding parties, blow up schools, and shoot innocent people in the streets, and in their homes.

This is the image al-qaida wants the world to have, when they think of American soldiers, and the media willingly assist them in this travesty of truth and maligning of the average American military person.

War is not fun, innocent people will die, no matter how much we would wish it otherwise. Understand that as a fact and recognize our men in uniform, and women, do their very best to ensure the innocent do not die. I know this from, conversations with individuals who have served in each branch, and from the evidence we have from what our troops have done and what the other wise do regularly. I believe what I have heard, because it comports with what the average American believes about life, family, and the innocent.

Naturally, conversations with 5 Marines, 7 soldiers including 2 Rangers, 2 air force and 1 naval officer do not prove anything and may well be the exception (all total I believe it is about 17 people), but for what has been written by scores of others who have left the service, and what they experienced - all of it comports with the usual, the standard, the typical. There are also the stories that counter these recitals - those with quite a different story.

We have read and heard about the men and women who have been less than stellar in their behavior, some have admitted to crimes - without any actual act having been proven or discovered despite their admitting to a crime on a blog or MSNBC, one should wonder why facts cannot be found for their purported crimes, but suitcases full of evidence exist for stupid individuals with dogs and cigars in a prison - and everyone admitted to what they did. I would suggest there is more to the claimant than simply their desire to tell the truth - a buy-in of the purported crimes the media point out, coupled with someone who didn't agree with the mission and voila ... instant crime.

Their confessions may well help them in the after life, but none have been proven in this life. Their supporters would say - well, it is all a cover-up.

Ignorant, stupid, self-hating fools.

Early on in Iraq and incident occurred - a tank was passing over a bridge, followed by a vehicle with 4-6 soldiers in it. On the side of the road, two Iraqi's. The tank, egged on by the the men in the vehicle, squashed the car. The men in the vehicle were angry and screaming. After some communication with the two men who refused to be quiet about what had been done to their car, they were marched into the trees and down to the river where they were thrown in. One man could not swim. As I recall the incident, their hands were bound - one of the men, a good swimmer, managed to get his hands lose, and swam under, and over to trees along the bank, while his cousin drowned.

There is more to the story, but the basic details are presented. If ever there should be a cover up, this would be it. 1 Iraqi who would later come forward, no proof - his cousin's body was found days or weeks later, and was not in much of a condition to blame it on Americans. It could have been anyone from al-qaida to Shia militia to insurgents. Yet, the complaint filed by the Iraqi went up the chain of command and was investigated and ... all the men and woman involved were relieved of duty, arrested, and tried. Those directly involved were sent to prison, the others were discharged and disciplined. On the word of one man, an Iraqi with no evidence but a squished car.

Why? because when the investigation began, several individuals came forward - they found what had happened to be too much for them to cope with and they could not live with themselves. we are then to believe that men and women came forward to face prison and discharge for the murder of an Iraqi man, but in all these other cases where crimes are alleged by former enlistees, no one came forward, no one substantiated their claims, no one can find any evidence that anything in their stories were true. Amazing how that works isn't it, and the media more than covered those stories - the leftist media - from bloggers to MSNBC.

Another case - 4-6 soldiers were involved in the murder and rape of a girl and her family. I recall the vague details of the story - a soldier was interested in the girl, she said no, they went to her home, the family is there and in the end the girl is raped and the family murdered. Once again, no evidence to prove they did it other than the bodies which very well could have been done in by al qaida, insurgents or shia militia. In the end, several of the men involved could not live with what they had been part of and they came forward. Prison and discharge for all involved.

Why? because when the investigation began, several individuals came forward - they found what had happened to be too much for them to cope with and they could not live with themselves. We are then to believe that men and women came forward to face prison and discharge for the murder of the family, but in all these other cases where crimes are alleged by former enlistees, no one came forward, no one substantiated their claims, no one can find any evidence that anything in their stories were true. Amazing how that works isn't it, and the media more than covered those stories - the leftist media - from bloggers to MSNBC.

Yet my examples just produced over six people dead in two incidents - how does this prove Americans are not busy exterminating everyone for fun. We had at the high point, nearly 150,000 men in Iraq, and the detractors can find 10 or 15 who were bad. In a population of 100,000, a murder rate of 2 is a safe city (in the United States). In any population there will be bad people and when placed into a situation no one but those who have served can understand, it can change behavior, beliefs, values, and test the character of men and women.

Far more often, the following was a true story of what happened, whether it was a child or an adult - whether they were insurgents shooting at us, or a poor sod left by the road injured - more often Americans helped. Yet those stories are not told as often as they occur, and the world is left with the stories of Americans as killers. The media have the moral obligation to tell the other side, as loud or louder than they tell the negative - for one reason if no other - self=preservation: when they find themselves in war situations, and come face to face with al qaida, and al qaida decides to kill them, as a lesson to American killers in Iraq or Afghanistan, they (the media) will be in large part responsible for their own deaths. Or assume it was someone else - a missionary who was killed in retaliation for the deaths of innocent Iraqis and Afghans - courtesy of the media presentation - one that is not an accurate rendition of events.

If you disagree and believe Americans are baby killers - you are a douchebag. If you have served in the military and believe that Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan are baby-killers, you are a douchebag, sir.

It simply is not the case - when viewed in its entirety.


Why does al qaida or hamas or hezbollah or ... hide behind women, children, in hospitals, and schools? Honestly - if we are nothing but a bunch of murdering scum, the last place you would hide is where we want to go to slaughter everyone because you care so much about the people you would never put them in danger. Seriously, every member of al qaida and hamas and hezbollah and ... every group opposed to the US knows we first blow up hospitals, schools, nursery centers, mosques, churches, school buses, weddings, funerals - so if you are a member of one of those groups where would you NOT go? Easy - NOT to a hospital, school, police station, nursery center, mosque, church, school bus, wedding, or a funeral ! Best place to go - the middle of the street where no one would possibly notice you. So where do we find al qaida and their ideological cohorts - hospitals, schools, and mosques.

The truth is - they go to those places because they know something our media and the left cannot grasp - we don't blow those places up, and troops involved in incidents around those places place themselves at greater risk to avoid killing the innocent. Al Qaida doesn't feel the same way - they hand the children weapons and bombs, and tie bombs to the women, stick C4 in trolleys, and dress as women to gain an advantage against our troops.

What are we doing ... usually helping far more than we are destroying. Whether it is in the numbers of schools built, sewage plants operating, electric plants operational, roads fixed for the first time in decades, and opportunity that has never before been available is now ...

We don't help because we have to, we do it because we want to ... and if in helping some benefit is derived - even better. It does not in the slighest minimize the act or cause.







Fracture healed by US forces, Afghan boy goes home

By KEVIN MAURER
Associated Press Writer
Sat Sep 19, 2009

DAY KUNDI PROVINCE, Afghanistan – The Afghan father left the mountains on foot, carrying his 2-year-old son, but the health clinic could not treat the skull fracture that blinded the toddler and immobilized his left side. By chance the next day, two American medics stopped by the clinic in Day Kundi Province to check on another patient.

The rooftop fall that cracked Malik's skull Aug. 19 set in motion a chain of events that took the boy from his remote village to the U.S. military hospital in Kandahar, where doctors patched the tear in his brain and replaced the bone. On Saturday, his crescent-shaped wound healed, Malik — the baby in the family of five children — headed home with his father, Khodadad.

Khodadad carried Malik out to the gray truck hired to drive the rocky roads of central Afghanistan back to Ashtarlay, a northern district of Day Kundi. But for Khodadad, who traveled 50 miles (80 kilometers) in the first futile effort to reach the Afghan clinic, the return was worth every uncomfortable bump.

"God answered our prayers," Khodadad said. "God sent someone to save my son."

Josh, one of the medics who treated Malik and arranged to evacuate him to Kandahar, said the boy's father lights up every time he sees the Americans. The medics only give their first names for security reasons and as part of the Special Forces embed rules.

Lt. Col. James Miller, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, said the resolve of the U.S. medics to treat the child "demonstrates we mean what we say."

"And at the end of the day, the boy needed help," Miller said.

On Friday, his vision and movement restored, Malik was kicking around a soccer ball — and using both sides of his body as he played.

Josh and Khodadad shook hands Saturday — and Josh got a high-five from Malik. The father touched his heart and thanked Josh repeatedly before climbing into the truck, driving away as the medic looked on from the front gate of the team's base in Day Kundi.

"When Malik goes home, that is a village of mainly poor people. This will be their only memory of Americans," he said. "At some point somebody will be working in that village and hopefully they will say these are the guys that helped that baby."









afghanistan

Make Mine Freedom - 1948


American Form of Government

Who's on First? Certainly isn't the Euro.