Monday, February 05, 2007

One Solution for Several Problems

Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in this country lately; illegal immigration, hurricane recovery, wild animals attacking humans in Florida

Not me. I concentrate on solutions to problems. The result is a win-win-win situation:

+ Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border
+ Use the dirt to raise the levies in New Orleans
+ Put the Florida alligators in the moat.
Deck of Cards
It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for some reason hadn't been heard. The young soldier knew it was Sunday, the holiest day of the week.

As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid them out across his bunk.

Just then an army sergeant came in and said, "Why aren't you with the rest of the platoon?

The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with the Lord."

The sergeant said, "Looks to me like you're going to play cards."

The soldier said, "No, sir. You see, since we are not allowed to have Bibles or other spiritual books in this country, I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards."

The sergeant asked in disbelief, "How will you do that?"

"You see the Ace, Sergeant? It reminds me that there is only one God.

The Two represents the two parts of the Bible, Old and New Testaments.

The Three represents the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

The Four stands for the Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The Five is for the five virgins that were ten but only five of them were glorified.

The Six is for the six days it took God to create the Heavens and Earth.

The Seven is for the day God rested after making His Creation.

The Eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives - the eight people God spared from the flood that destroyed the earth.

The Nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed of leprosy. He cleansed ten, but nine never thanked Him.

The Ten represents the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses on tablets made of stone.

The Jack is a reminder of Satan, one of God's first angels, but he got kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways and is now the joker of eternal hell.

The Queen stands for the Virgin Mary.

The King stands for Jesus, for he is the King of all kings.

When I count the dots on all the cards, I come up with 365 total, one for every day of the year.

There are a total of 52 cards in a deck; each is a week - 52 weeks in a year.

The four suits represent the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

Each suit has thirteen cards - there are exactly thirteen weeks in a quarter

So when I want to talk to God and thank Him, I just pull out this old deck of cards and they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for"

The sergeant just stood there. After a minute, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he said, "Soldier, may I borrow that deck of cards?"

Please let this be a reminder and take time to pray for all of our soldiers who are being sent away, putting thir lives on the line fighting for us!

Prayer for the Military. Please keep the wheel rolling.

It will only take a few seconds of your time, but it'll be worth it to read on....

Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need.

I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

Amen.
Who Said What??

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18,1998

"[WE] urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI), Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry( D - MA), and others Oct. 9,1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." - Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." - Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9,2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" - Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real" - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 20 03
This is History

...That has been left out of our textbooks.

Some of you/us are not old enough to remember that nearly every family in America was grossly affected by WWII. Most of you probably do not remember the rationing of meat, shoes, gasoline, and sugar. No tires for our automobiles, and a speed limit of 35 miles an hour on the road. Not to mention no new automobiles.

I found this to be an EXCELLENT writing. Well thought out and presented. It has Historical Significance.

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk more than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and America for food and war materials. At that time the U.S. was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, which had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing.

We had few allies. France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia.

Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe. America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from Norway to Italy, except Russia in the East, was already under the Nazi heel.

America was certainly not prepared for war. America had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WWI and throughout the depression, so that at the outbreak of WWII, army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. A huge chunk of our navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England, that was actually the property of Belgium, given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).

Actually, Belgium surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could. Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its air force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later, and first turning his attention to Russia, at a time when England was on the verge of collapse, in the late summer of 1940.

Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany .

Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone... 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers.

Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. And the Nazis could possibly have won the war.

All of this is to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. And now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history!

There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world.

The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. And that all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. This is their mantra.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not known yet which will win -- the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies.

The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge. (The rational mind of today says this).

We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e. the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements.

We have to do it somewhere. And we can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing... in Iraq. Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things:

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist. Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the
Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.

World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again .. a 27 year war.

World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars.

WWII cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $160 billion, which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York . It has also cost about 2,200 American lives, which is roughly 2/3 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11. But the cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.

This is not 60 minutes TV shows, and 2 hour movies in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.

The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq , then we have an " England " in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. And now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to have nuclear weapons. Unless somebody prevents them.

We have four options:

1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.
2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is)
3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.
4. Or, we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and maybe most of the rest of Europe . It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.

If you oppose this war, I hope you like and accept the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law), an America that resembles Iran today.

The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win. Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.

Remember, perspective is every thing, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.

The Cold war lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany.

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan.

World War II resulted in the death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million people, depending on which estimates you accept.

The US has taken more than 2,000 killed in action in Iraq.

The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on ONE morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.

In WWII the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years.Most of the individual battles of WWII cost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.

But the stakes are at least as high ... A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms .. or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Tokyo Rose

She had the best music on her station and most people just laughed.

The ship I was on was sunk no less than five times but each time Davey Jones threw her back up.

Tokyo Rose During World War II -- the Japanese developed a way to demoralize the American forces.

Psychological warfare experts developed a message they felt would work. They gave the script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose" and every day she would broadcast the same message packaged in different ways, hoping it would have a negative impact on American GI's morale.

What was that demoralizing message? It had three main points:

1. Your President is lying to you.
2. This war is illegal.
3. You cannot win the war.

Does this sound familiar?

Is it because

Tokyo Hillary,
Tokyo Harry,
Tokyo John,
Tokyo Teddy,
Tokyo Nancy,

have picked up the same message and are broadcasting it on

Tokyo CNN,
Tokyo ABC,
Tokyo CBS,
Tokyo NBC,
to our troops?

The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them.

Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose told the troops she was on their side, too.

-----

It's not only the negative message itself, but the theme is repeated again and again. This is based on the concept that if you hear a lie often enough, you begin to believe it.

Did you watch M*A*S*H? there was a recurring character who was heard only over the PA system. She was the Korean equivalent of Tokyo Rose; I can't remember the name of the character. I remember one episode where she told the 4077th that their wives and girlfriends were unfaithful. That they were playing around with the Toms, Dicks, and Harrys who had stayed behind. Col. Blake began thinking about a Harry who worked at their country club back in Bloomington, Illinois. He thought it through and realized Lorraine would never fool around with this guy. But, for just a moment he bought into the propaganda.

I'm not endorsing the war in Iraq, nor am I saying we shouldn't be there. What I am saying is that we each have to think about the motives behind what is being said, and who is saying it. Think for ourselves and make a decision based on fact and logic and not pure emotion.

All we seem to hear from the media is negative. Think about it: there must be something that the US and coalition forces are doing right. But we never hear it. I have heard on ::gasp:: other than mainstream media that more people in Iraq have electricity than have ever had electricity before; that more children are going to school than have gone before and more. Maybe all of this is false. I don't know, I'm not there.

I will defend the right of anyone to say that President Bush is wrong. It's a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. I will say that the people listening to the politicians and pundits have the responsibility to think about

what is being said
why it's being said
who is saying it
what could that person gain by saying it

One other thing I remember from M*A*S*H. Hawkeye's childhood friend was in Korea as a soldier, but was using the experience to write a book. He was shot and died of his injuries. Hawkeye is devastated by the death of his friend (who wouldn't be?) and Henry Blake tells him something that he learned in Officer Training School. There are two rules of war: Young men die, and doctors can't change rule number 1.

I hate the fact that young people, men and women, are dying in another country. I wish it could be different. But wishing won't make that happen. I do believe that if we pull out now, without making a real difference in Iraq, whatever that difference is, then we have failed and those young people will have died in vain.

And that is the real tragedy. That there was no good that came from those deaths. No matter what side of the political fence you are on, you have to look at what's being said and weigh the facts and think without emotion. Is that easy? I hope not. I want it to be hard. I want the people making those decisions to do so knowing that they hold lives in their hands. I want them to have sleepless nights. And I want them to think about their own sons and daughters, their grandsons and granddaughters. If they can make a decision knowing that their own child could die as a result of their action, then they will be more careful with the lives of your child. Please don't think that it's easier if you don't have kids. It shouldn't be any easier to make those decisions. If it is, you should be doing something else in life.

I don't have any answers. I don't have access to all the facts. I just know I want those who make the decisions to do so carefully and deliberately. And that those who disagree do so with intelligence and the respect they want given to them.