Thursday, May 10, 2007

Does Any of this Sound Familiar?

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 US 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 WW2, 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. And 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 in 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.

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 3,300 American lives, which is roughly 100% 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 minute 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 get 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 this 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 the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, 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 everything, 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 3,000 killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the 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 lost 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).

It's difficult to understand why the American left does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.

Raymond S. Kraft

"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's safe. Why don't we see Peace Activists demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most?

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.

Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.
Misinformation

On April 25th, I posted a letter I received in email. I received the following today. I apologize for perpetuaing something that was apparently incorrect in content and can rectify that by publishing the following. I also am tired of misinformation that is perpetuated on the Internet. I do note that the email was "signed" by Lt. Col Joe Repya and the following is "signed" by Lt. Col. Dave Rapya. I have not changed a word of either and can't explain the different names, so, dear reader, make up your own mind.

I'm tied of misinformation. This is my original letter.

"I'm Tired"
Two weeks ago, as I was starting my sixth month of duty in Iraq, I was forced to return to the USA for surgery for an injury I sustained while in Iraq. When I recuperate they will want me to return to Iraq to finish my tour. I left Baghdad and a war that has every indication that we are losing, to return to a demoralized country much like the one I returned to in 1971 after my tour in Vietnam. Maybe it's because I'll turn 60 years old in just four months, but I'm tired:

I'm tired of spineless politicians, both Democrat and Republican who lack the courage, fortitude, and character to see anything but shallow solutions that are based on waging war.

I'm tired of the hypocrisy of politicians who want to rewrite history by rushing to war when the going gets tough.

I'm tired of the disingenuous clamor from those that claim they 'Support the Troops' by forcing them to re-enlist while not supporting them when they return home.

I'm tired of a mainstream media that can only focus on car bombs and casualty reports because they are too afraid to show the real story of civilian deaths and atrocities at the hands of our military.

I'm tired that so many Americans think you can enforce democracy through war.

I'm tired that so many ignore the bravery of the Iraqi people to go about their daily lives.

I'm tired of the so called 'Elite Right' that prolongs this war by justifying it with lies.

I'm tired that my generation, the Baby Boom-Vietnam generation, have such a weak backbone that they can't or won't stand up and protest war as a course they no longer support.

Mostly, I'm tired that the people of this great nation didn't learn from history that war does not solve problems, it creates problems.

Sincerely,

Dave Rapya,
Lieutenant Colonel, U. S. Army
101st Airborne Division

# posted by Anonymous : May 10, 2007 1:46 PM
What Happened to the Fax I Sent??

Twice in the last 24 hours I've received information saying that the fax I sent had not been received. Now, I know this happens, but it's still aggravating.

Situation #1: I'm in the process of changing banks (the bank doesn't know it yet, so don't say anything!). I had an automatic transfer set up between two accounts going into a third. The fax was sent to the fax number provided on the bank's website. I sent an email a day or so later to see if they had received the fax and found they had not. The return email stated they had not received a fax at the same number as stated on the website. Luckily, I had a confirmation sheet that gave the number I faxed to. Yep, same number. So, I sent another email saying that my confirmation sheet stated the fax was sent to this number on this day.

I despise this bank. It's been sheer laziness and procrastination that kept these account open as long as they have been. This is the same bank who failed to even suggest that when my husband and I opened personal accounts we put the other on the account as at least a beneficiary. Because my husband didn't list me as his beneficiary, I don't have access to his account and can't get the money in his account without a court order. No matter that I have a marriage license and a death certificate and can prove 90 ways to Sunday who I am. Luckily, the amount in his account was minimal and it's not going to mean the difference between keeping the house and being on the street. In the bank's defense, this is apparently required by Florida law if a person dies without a will.

I just checked and I haven't had a response to my latest email to the bank. I deal in emails when I can because I can't trust myself to remain civil when dealing with this bank. And, I have a paper trail to refer to. Normally, my paper trails are so that I will know I've done, but in this case, it's so that I will also know what the other party has done.

Situation #2: About two weeks after my husband died, I went to our local Sprint store and asked to close his account At that time, I understood the bill was paid up and no money was due. I gave the original death certificate to the Customer Service Representative who went into a back office with it. When he came out, he told me that he had faxed it to Sprint (headquarters, main office, billing office, accounts receivable office - whatever) and the account was now closed. About a month later I got a bill from Sprint that included time after the account was supposed to be closed. I sent the bill back with a letter explaining what I had already done and a copy of the death certificate. I haven't had a bill since, so I "assumed" all had been taken care of. Today, I got a call from a collection agency for payment of about three months billing. Huh?

As politely as I could, I explained to the lady at the collection agency that I would not pay this bill, and explained what I had previously done. She asked that I fax a copy of the death certificate to her so that the account could be closed out. I declined to do so as I had already taken the required steps with Sprint (and then supplied another copy of the DC) and this should not have happened.

I then called Sprint. After being on hold for I would guess 20-30 minutes (or longer), a spoke to a very pleasant lady who listened to my story. Oh, she did say at one point that I was breaking up, so I took the headset off my Sprint phone and spoke through the handset. Either the headset I bought through Sprint doesn't work very well, or walking from the kitchen into the living room made a difference. I don't know-don't really care. Anyway, she put me on hold and spoke to the billing office. They want me to fax another copy of the DC to Sprint. I asked why I should do this as I had already faxed it from the Sprint store and then send a copy through the mail. Well, she was nice and said she was only relating what the Billing office asked. I said I wasn't mad at her she was trying to be pleasant to someone who was obviously annoyed. I understood she was only the middleman. I have too much to do today to run around looking for a fax machine and I work this weekend so I told her I would try to do it by the first of next week.

I'll pay any amount due prior to the first fax being sent from the local Sprint office. But not a dime after. I wish this had happened before I renewed my Sprint contract or I'd be with another company today.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Iraq Statistic

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of the U.S. involvement in Iraq , here is a sobering statistic:

There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,867 deaths. That gives a
firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington.
LINDER ANNOUNCES RECORD 60 CO-SPONSORS FOR FAIRTAX BILL

Washington, D.C. - Congressman John Linder (GA-07) announced today that his revolutionary tax reform legislation, the FairTax, achieved 60 co-sponsors, which is a record number for H.R. 25.

“I am ecstatic, but I have to say, I am not terribly surprised. This has been the case all year. Grassroots support across the nation is motivating Members to call us up and ask for information on the FairTax, and when they read it they are always eager to put their name on the bill.”

Congressman Linder pointed out that the FairTax is the most highly co-sponsored piece of tax reform legislation in U.S. House of Representatives. In fact, the Flat Tax, which is the only other serious piece of tax reform legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, falls far short of that number with only four.

“Again, I am just not surprised. In fact, this past Saturday I traveled to Macon, Georgia, to speak to another FairTax training session. They had around 50 people come out for several hours, on a Saturday, to learn how they can better educate others on the FairTax. That is real passion, and it is real traction, and I think that is what you see reflected in this incredible list of co-sponsors.”

Congressman Linder also expressed his appreciation to Representatives Darrell Issa (CA-49) and John Boozman (AR-03) for being the most recent cosponsors of H.R. 25, and for surpassing the bill’s highest number of co-sponsors in merely the first four months of the 110th Congress.

May 8th, 2007 Contact: Derick Corbett