Interview With A Soldier In Iraq

Jim over at Thinking-Right.com has an interesting interview with an American soldier in Iraq. Here are some excerpts...

Q. Tell me about some good things that are happening there… hospitals, schools, Iraqi troops, etc.

A. There are hundreds of missions going on EVERYDAY that you all back home do not hear about. It does not meet the media agenda I guess. We have teams here that specialize in rebuilding Iraq, and they carry out tons of projects to better this place. They are repairing sewer systems, building wells, building schools, even repairing the roads in this country. The truth is that there are hundreds of them going on everyday in this country without the media attention reserved for the “blood and guts” coverage. We have even started women’s schools for the advancement of the women in this country, which is a far cry from the treatment of women throughout the Middle East...

Q. Do you feel the security situation is improving?

A. YES. Problem for you all is that they will never report it back there in the states. For instance, I saw a press conference from General Casey, the MNF-I Commander, in regards to the provinces here. Iraq basically has 19 “states” compared to our 50, except they call them provinces. That said, in terms of security 14 are considered “green”, 3 are “amber” and 2 are still “red”. Instead of telling the American public that story (I believe it is called the truth) the reporters they send over here sit in their cozy hotel in the IZ in Baghdad and only report the doom and gloom from the footage they buy from local reporters...

Why is it that Hollywood stars will rush to support the end of genocide in Africa with 200,000 deaths, when Saddam systemically committed genocide on his own people for over 2 decades, more than 2 million lives lost and the only time a Hollywood star came here was to protect Saddam’s reign?

Q. What can the American public do to help you… to support both the troops and the mission?

A. The American soldiers are growing VERY disenfranchised with the American media and the impact it is having on the American people’s view of this war. The media is not telling the truth about this war, they are not telling what is going on over here...

I met a man here that was a LT Colonel pilot under Saddam, and he made $75 a month. Now, he makes $15 dollars a day selling Iraqi gifts, and he has employed his son to work for him, also making $15 dollars a day. Their family income went up 12 fold in the new Iraq. Imagine a minimum wage family that makes a combined income of $40,000 a year suddenly making $480,000 a year. Iraq’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the world and the guys with street side markets in Baghdad say they earn 30 times what they were ALLOWED to make under Saddam...

Yet, no one wants to show the positives of Iraq. No one wants to tell both sides of this story. Instead of going out and telling the true tale here, the reporters want to sit in the green zone and live off the footage they buy from the local reporters (with no means of authenticating the coverage). We’re not asking for much, just be fair and tell both sides of the reality of Iraq...

War is never an easy endeavor. To win, it takes commitment, and if you are TRULY “for the troops” then you cannot be against the war. If you are “for the troops” then what people need to say is “get the job done, then come home” rather than trash the efforts we are sweating and bleeding for over here. See the positives in bringing freedom to a decimated people and creating a democracy in the middle east...

If the American public just loved this nation HALF as much as the American soldier we’d be so much better off- where are all those flags we saw flying after 9/11??

Q. Tell me about the attitude of Iraqi’s towards our troops (do they want us there… do they want us to stay).

A. I don’t interact with them daily. So, let’s look at this issue in purely numerical terms. Iraq is a country of 24 million people. If they TRULY wanted us to not be here, we wouldn’t be. If only 5% of Iraqi’s took up arms against us, that would be an army of 1.2 million people, and we’d be running for Kuwait!

So, imagine if the people of Iraq truly “didn’t” want us here. This is their country and when they are ready, we’ll be gone and they’ll be running it. In the meantime, they want what every other person wants- they want security, food on their plate and a chance to better themselves and their families...

They want to be able to do their jobs without masked gunman taking them hostage, or long American convoys driving by that they have to pull over for. They want what we all want- normalcy...

Q. What are your thoughts on keeping troops in Iraq?

A. If you pay someone to side your house, and half way through the project they come into some problems that are going to cost more money and time on your house. Do you quit the job, fire the crew and curse the job they did and especially the decision to side the house in the first place? And if you do that, do you expect your house to get better after the half job is done? No...

Q. What are your thoughts on the call for an immediate pull out? And what would the effects be on the troops?

A. To quit in Iraq now, will make every life lost part of something less. There are patriotic Americans who have given a loved one towards this cause, and they want to know it was for something important, something real and something honorable...

If we leave Iraq, Iran, Syria and Al Qaeda will undermine everything we have done. Iran will mobilize the Shiites and Al Qaeda the Sunni’s. The country will fall into complete rebellion as both groups fight to gain control of one of the world’s largest oil reserves. We will be forced to watch on our nightly news as the violence (which we think is bad right now) in Iraq is compounded by the complete loss of all morality into large scale genocide. What will happen in Iraq if we pull out now will be genocide the modern world has never seen. What we stand for as Americans could be lost forever if we pull out...

Read the whole interview HERE.

All Your Dreams Will Come True

Do you remember that movie Snow White & The Seven Dwarves by Walt Disney? Did you ever really look closely at the villian? That's right, the evil stepmother queen was none other than Nancy Pelosi...

"And because you've been
so good to poor old Granny,
I'll share a secret with you.
This is no ordinary apple.
It's a magic wishing apple."

"A wishing apple?"

"Yes! One bite and all
your dreams will come true.
The War on Terror will be over.
Al Qaeda will leave us alone.
Our soldiers will redeploy in victory.
We will return to the Clinton era
of hiding our heads in our butts.
And no one will blow up a nuke
in downtown New York!"

"Really?"

"Yes! Now, make a wish and take a bite."

Soldiers In Iraq Starting To Worry

Let's face it, American soldiers are not stupid. They are quick to recognize political posturing and Washington, D.C. double-speak. It's pretty hard to say you support the soldiers, while at the same time saying you don't support the work those soldiers are doing, or the cause that they are dying for.

American soldiers are highly motivated. They believe in the mission. They believe we are winning in Iraq. They believe in the cause they are fighting for. They want to help the Iraqis achieve freedom and democracy. They want to crush Al-Qaeda in Iraq. They want to quell the insurgents. They want to see sectarian violence end... through VICTORY. They know better than the rest of us, that if we pull out of Iraq prematurely, the violence will not end. They know that it will only get worse... like the slaughter that took place at the hands of Pol Pot when the Americans pulled out of Vietnam. American soldiers want "peace through victory".

Barack Obama said today, "We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged and to which we now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."

But American soldiers don't agree with that statement. American soldiers don't believe that the lives of their brothers and sisters were "wasted". American soldiers believe that those lives were sacrificed for a noble cause: the liberation of the Iraqi people. Those lives will ONLY be wasted if the anti-war crowd gets their way and surrenders to the insurgents and the forces of evil. Those lives will ONLY be wasted if Congress makes a conscious decision to throw their lives away. Those lives will ONLY be wasted if Congress subverts the mission of our troops and unilaterally turns the nation of Iraq over to the fundamentalist Islamic forces of Al-Qaeda, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Is it any wonder then that our soldiers are beginning to worry?

From CyberAlert: The following story is from a January 29th CyberAlert. It briefly describes the frustration of American soldiers with those back home who say "they support the soldiers, but not the war".

Friday's NBC Nightly News gave rare voice to soldiers in Iraq disturbed by criticism of the war back home. Embedded with the Army's Stryker Brigade's Apache Company (the Fort Lewis, Washington-based 1st Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment) in Hurriya, Richard Engel relayed how "troops here say they are increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war. Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of what they've been fighting for.

Twenty-one-year-old Specialist Tyler Johnson is on his first tour in Iraq. He thinks skeptics should come over and see what it's like firsthand before criticizing." Johnson asserted: "You may support or say we support the troops, but, so you're not supporting what they do, what they're here sweating for, what we bleed for, what we die for. It just don't make sense to me."

Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun directly took on the spin of war critics, complaining that "one thing I don't like is when people back home say they support the troops, but they don't support the war. If they're going to support us, support us all the way." Engel soon powerfully concluded: "Apache Company has lost two soldiers, and now worries their country may be abandoning the mission they died for."

To see the video from NBC in Windows Media format, click HERE.

The Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection

Hat tip to Hankmeister for pointing out this Power Line Blog article...

A Trip Down Memory Lane
The current flap over the Pentagon Inspector General's report on Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans has embarrassed the Associated Press, the Washington Post and, if he has any shame, the Inspector General. The controversy does have the merit, though, of raising once again the issue of the relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda and other terrorists.

The Inspector General said it was "inappropriate" for Feith's group to question the wisdom of the CIA's dogma that Saddam Hussein, a "secularist," would never cooperate with bin Laden or other Islamic terrorists. There was a time, though, when the likelihood of such collaboration was widely reported and understood. Thus, courtesy of Power Line Video, we are rescuing from the memory hole this ABC News report from 2000.

NOTE: According to a posting in December 2005 at Free Republic HERE, the ABC video with reporter Sheila MacVicar was done as early as 1999...

1999 VIDEO: ABC News Report Linking Saddam Hussein And Osama Bin Laden
There is also a link to the same video in Real Player format...
HERE

Villainous Honors

I was surprised to learn that I was recently honored, without my knowledge. The honor...? Well, one of my articles was selected to be the first link in a recent post over at Villainous Company. I don't know how or why it happened. (I usually fly pretty far below the radar.) But even a random accident of unexpected "View"-ership by an "influential" blogger is truly satisfying.

Thanks "Villainous"... can I call you that?

(:D) Regards...

Why Do Liberals Hate? - Part 2

In response to my last post, our dear friend Elroy asked me a meaningful question. I think it deserves an honest answer, so here goes...

"Why on earth do conservatives think liberals 'hate' all these things? Really. I want to know. --Elroy"

I can only respond to that question as follows:

It is easy to "love" something when you find it attractive, beautiful, iconic, monumental, memorable, unblemished, harmonious, satisfying, worthy, etc. The more that a thing appears to be unattractive, blemished, ugly, stained, disreputable, unharmonious or foul... the less likely we are to "love" it.

When we find something wrong with a situation or a thing, our human nature urges us to change it or "fix" it because we don't like it in its present state. We want to bring it into a state which we find to be less offensive. And when we truly "hate" something, we find it to be SO OFFENSIVE or vulgar that we are forced to rail or rebel against it in an effort to destroy it, squash it, remove it, kill it, or silence it.

Conservatives and patriots find it easy to "love" America because they find America, its institutions, its founding documents, its founding principles, its freedoms, its heritage, its culture, its religious expressions, its traditions, its military, its economic opportunity, its capitalism... to be beautiful, monumental, iconic, satisfying, worthy, attractive things.

And this is why conservatives assume that liberals must "hate" all the things on this list. It would appear that liberals not only seem to find almost everything about America offensive, they seem hell-bent on changing everything about it. They want to change its Constitution, its culture, its religious expression, its institutions, its military, its capitalism, its traditions, and its principles.

Liberals appear to be so incensed with those things that America is and stands for, that they are forced to rail and rebel against it. They scream in the streets. They scream in Congress. They scream in the press. They scream on the network news. They scream on the cable news.

They belittle America when they are at home or abroad. They equate America and its institutions with Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia. They seek to destroy, squash, remove, kill or silence those things to which they object. The level of animosity we see from liberals can only lead us to believe that they "hate" America and everything about it.

If they "love" America, as they often claim, then why do they treat it and everything about it with such disrespect? If they treated a person in the same way, one would hardly call it "love". Is it an expression of "love" to continually bad-mouth someone, to speak poorly of them behind their back, or to continually try to change everything about them?

I think not.

Why Do Liberals Hate?

Mark Levin of WABC-AM New Talk Radio (New York) asked some interesting questions in his program yesterday. It's unbelievable when you think about what these libs stand for. Sometimes it takes something like this to bring it all in focus. Simply unbelievable...

If you have any problems with the player above, you can download the file and play it at your convenience...

MP3 Version
AVI Version
WMA Version

UPDATE: For those of you with bandwidth problems, here is the transcript...

I have some questions for you liberals.

Why do liberals hate this country?

Why do they hate individual liberty?

Why do they hate the American culture?

Why do liberals hate American sovreignty?

Why do they hate the United States military?

Why do they hate law enforcement?

Why do liberals hate the Constitution?

Why do they hate the founding Fathers? ...who they disparage all the time.

Why do they hate free political speech?

Why do they hate talk radio?

Why do they hate the free exercise of religion?

Why do liberals hate gun ownership?

Why do they hate capitalism?

Why do they hate private property rights?

Why do liberals hate competition and successful people?

Why do they hate hard-working people... and merit?

Why do they hate profits?

Why do they hate employers?

Why do they hate a color-blind society?

Why do they hate unborn babies?

And why do liberals hate the nuclear family?

Just a few questions to ponder.