More Bad Iraq News for the Democrats

Ya know how the Democrats like to demean the surge by claiming that it hasn't brought political progress? Well, that claim just got a lot harder to support--not that that will stop the lefties.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament adopted legislation Saturday on the reinstatement of thousands of former supporters of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to government jobs, a key benchmark sought by the United States as a step toward easing sectarian tensions.

The bill, approved by a unanimous show of hands on each of its 30 clauses, is the first piece of major U.S.-backed legislation approved by the 275-seat parliament. Other benchmarks languish, including legislation to divide the country's vast oil wealth, constitutional amendments demanded by minority Sunni Arabs and a bill spelling out rules for local elections.

Oops... there really is political progress happening, folks. It may be slow, but the Iraqi Parliament has still passed more substantive laws than the US Congress has managed. Reid, Pelosi, et al are apparently more interested in beating the dead horse of pulling out of Iraq (what is it now, 40+ failed attempts?) than actually doing what they're supposed to do, like pass spending authorization bills.

Anbar Ready For Transfer of Security

More on the victory over the terrorists:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Iraq's western province of Anbar, hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency for the first four years of the war, will be returned to Iraqi control in March, a senior U.S. general said Thursday.

In a telephone interview from Iraq, Marine Maj. Gen. Walter E. Gaskin, commander of the roughly 35,000 Marine and Army forces in Anbar, said levels of violence have dropped so significantly - coupled with the growth and development of Iraqi security forces in the province - that Anbar is ready to be handed back to the Iraqis.

Thus far, nine of 18 Iraqi provinces have reverted to Iraqi control, most recently the southern province of Basra in December. The process has gone substantially slower than the Bush administration once hoped, mainly because of obstacles to developing sufficient Iraqi police and army forces. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that he expects the process to continue.

And yet Harry Reid is still trashing the surge.

I begin to believe that Democrats don't live in the same time-space continuum as the rest of us.

Iraqi Woman Walks Again

Fair warning: If you think that the American Armed Forces are made up of people that are barely one step above Neanderthals, you might not want to read this article... the crushing of a stereotype can be very painful, and I want to save you the agony.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER, Iraq – Standing upright and walking on her own is something 20-year-old Soham Hassan Ka-Naan, a young woman from Khargulia, never thought she would be able to do again.

After receiving her second prosthetic leg Dec. 20 at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, Soham was able to walk upright with the assistance of crutches.

Soldiers of Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division found Soham in July, after an insurgent rocket attack hit her house, amputating both of her legs. Since then, she has undergone multiple trips to the 28th CSH for surgery, prosthetic fittings and physical therapy.

The journey was a painful one according to Soham; however, her final fitting leaves her pain free with two prosthetic legs. One of the legs fills in the missing calf and foot on her left leg, and the other extends from the beginning of her right hip.

“I am very happy, I have no pain,” she said through a translator. “I feel normal again.”

The Blackfive article (link in the title) includes a picture, and her smile says it all. A job well done, ladies and gentlemen. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

Peace March in Baghdad

Got bad news for all those nattering nabobs of negativism who say that there is no hope for Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites to live together in peace:

BAGHDAD — Approximately 1,000 Iraqi citizens, of both Shia and Sunni religions, joined together on the sectarian fault line in Rawaniyah, the Karkh District of Baghdad, to march with one another in what they called a “Peace March”, Dec. 19.

It was an Iraqi initiative to ease sectarian tensions, solely driven by Iraqi Neighborhood Council (NAC) and District Advisory Council (DAC) leaders and Sheiks from both religious sects in the area, said Capt. Marcus Melton, commander of Pale Horse Troop, 4th Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

With Iraqi Army and Iraqi policemen maintaining the security on the streets and within the crowd during the event, they were able to successfully complete the march for united peace among all Iraqis.

Drums beat, children ran, silly string littered the air and one man nearly wept. It was an exciting, yet emotional day for the Iraqis who participated.

Just one more way the lefties have been wrong about Iraq.

Merry Christmas, lefties!

VDH Debunks Conventional Wisdom on Iraq

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson takes on several of the more common canards about Iraq and the broader war on terror, and tears them to shreds.

Washington is an echo chamber. One pundit, one senator, one reporter proclaim a snazzy “truth” and almost immediately it reverberates as gospel. Conventional wisdom about Iraq is rarely questioned. A notion seems to find validity not on its logic or through empirical evidence, but simply by the degree to which it is repeated and felt to resonate.

Read the whole thing--link is in the title, as usual--and bookmark it for quick reference when debating a lefty.

More Bad News for the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism in Iraq

The MoveOnocrats are in for another surprise if this report from the Kuwaiti News Agency gets much coverage here:

BAGHDAD, Nov 27 (KUNA) -- Leading Shiite cleric in Iraq Ali Sistani Tuesday banned the killing of Iraqis, particularly the Sunnis, and urged the Shiites to protect their brother Sunnis.

Sistani bans the Iraqi blood in general the blood of Sunnis in particular. His announcement came during a meeting with a delegation from Sunni clerics from southern and northern Iraq.

The clerics are visiting Najaf to participate in the first national conference for Ulemaa of Shiites and Sunnis.

Sistani called on the Shiites to protect their Sunni brothers, according to Sheikh Khaled Al-Mulla, head of the authority of Ulemaa of Southern Iraq, noting that the Fatwa of Sistani would have positive impacts nationwide.

"I am a servant of all Iraqis, there is no difference between a Sunni, a Shitte or a Kurd or a Christian," Al-Mulla quoted Sistani as saying during the meeting.

Sistani warned the Sunni clerics from the plans of the enemies to plant seeds of discord among the Iraqis.

The visiting delegation voiced relief for the meeting and said they backed Sistani's stance.

In other words, religious coexistence is on its way, perhaps even religious cooperation, in Iraq.

Sorry, Defeatocrats, no religious civil war in Iraq today. Too bad you're so invested in defeat that you can't rejoice at that.

For more on Sistani and his influence both inside and outside Iraq, see NRO's The Tank, whom I owe a tip of the blogging hat for this story.

Another Measure of Our Success in Iraq

Shhhh... don't tell Harry Reid, John Murtha, or any of the rest of the MoveOnocrats...

Iraqis who fled their country are now returning home by the thousands.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the U.S.-Iraqi efforts to pacify Baghdad, said border crossings by returning refugees numbered 46,030 in October alone. He attributed the large numbers to the "improving security situation" resulting from the successful military surge orchestrated by Gen. David Petraeus.

"We are receiving tremendous numbers of displaced families at the borders of Syria and Jordan," says Maj. Gen. Mohsen Abdul Hassan, head of Iraq's department of border enforcement. "We have difficulties dealing with the large numbers. There are long lines of vehicles."

Of course, we all know Iraq is a failure, that there can never be any success there, that Iraqis want us out, etc, etc, etc.

Meanwhile, the citizens of that nation who once fled in terror from terrorists are now voting... with their feet... and returning.

How the (British) Left Supports the Troops

And you thought it was just an American thing:

Injured soldiers who lost their limbs fighting for their country have been driven from a swimming pool training session by jeering members of the public.

The men, injured during tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, were taking part in a rehabilitation session at a leisure centre, when two women demanded they be removed from the pool. They claimed that the soldiers "hadn't paid" and might scare the children.

The incident has sparked widespread condemnation. Adml Lord Boyce, a former head of the Armed Forces, said last night the women should be "named and shamed".

"These people are beneath contempt and everything should be done to get their names and publish them in the press," he said. "It is contemptible that people who have given up their limbs for their country should be so abused when they are trying to get fit again."

It comes after calls for the public to do more to welcome home troops back from tours of duty and to recognise the bravery of those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unpleasant scenes broke out at Leatherhead Leisure Centre in Surrey when the wounded veterans, who are at Headley Court Military Hospital, had to use the 25-metre public pool because the hydro-pool at the defence rehabilitation centre is not big enough for swimming.

Seems like this neighborhood is the British version of Berkley:

There was uproar earlier this year after residents objected to planning permission to convert a home into a six-suite hostel for injured soldiers' families to stay in. The local council later approved the building work.

I guess moonbats live everywhere these days.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

NYT: Dems Must Keep At Fruitless Iraq Votes

Looks like the NY Times wants the Democrats to continue looking like total idiots, pushing forward Iraq withdrawal bills that it admits are fruitless.

Courtesy NRO's The Corner (since I refuse to link directly to the NY Times):

News section (Pg. 15): Iraq votes were ‘repeated and fruitless’

… House and Senate Democrats have made some rookie management mistakes in their first year of combined Congressional control. They have angered Republicans with occasional heavy-handed treatment, as well as repeated and fruitless votes on the war.

(“Off for Break, Congress May Still Face Stalemate,” November 17, 2007)

Editorial (Pg. 18): Democrats ‘must keep at it’

Democrats say they will continue to push the president and his Republican allies to concede their failed war policy and change course. They must keep at it.

(“Democrats Find Their Voice,” editorial, November 17, 2007)

So there ya go. The NY Times wants Democrats to "keep at" their "repeated and fruitless votes on the war."

Is Karl Rove running the NY Times now?

Saddam's Iranian Bluff

It sometimes happens that one small piece of information can help a lot of other things make sense. Thus it is with this revelation:

Ever since American forces invaded, overran and occupied Iraq in 2003, and discovered no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the great lingering question about the war has been why Saddam Hussein would spend an entire decade acting as though he possessed WMDs when he didn’t. Since the ceasefire agreement he’d signed in 1991, in order to remain in power after the first Gulf War, obligated him to get rid of them, why would Saddam intentionally endure crippling United Nations sanctions as he jerked around, and finally ejected, weapons inspectors? Why wouldn’t he just come clean if he had nothing to hide?

The answer, according Ronald Kessler in his new book, The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack, is that Saddam ultimately feared United Nations actions less than he feared an attack from Iran . . . which, he calculated, would be much more likely if the leaders of Iran knew he had no WMDs. Kessler based his conclusions on information obtained by an Arabic-speaking FBI agent named George Piro who debriefed and befriended Saddam after the dictator’s capture in Iraq, during his months of captivity before his eventual execution.

In retrospect, Saddam’s calculus looks altogether logical. He’d fought a brutal stalemated war against Iran in the 1980s and viciously persecuted Iraq’s Shiite majority out of fear they might align themselves with their Shiite neighbor. More alarming still, from Saddam’s standpoint, was the fact that his own military had been decimated by the 1991 conflict with the American led coalition. If Iran did attack, he had no chance in a conventional war.

His last option was a bluff: Since he once possessed WMDs, and the entire world knew it, he pretended he still did. He knew it would antagonize America, as well as the rest of the U.N. Security Council, but he figured that the threat of an American invasion to enforce the provisions of the 1991 ceasefire was less dire than the threat of an Iranian invasion to crush a bitter enemy and take control of Iraq’s oil resources. According to Kessler, “Saddam said that if America thought that he had WMDs, then of course Iran would, and this would fulfill his goal of making sure that Iran did not want to attack Iraq.”

What Saddam never counted on, of course, was September 11, 2001. Kessler’s book should put to rest, once and for all, the notion that Saddam was somehow involved in Osama bin Laden’s plot. The 9/11 attacks were Saddam’s worst nightmare because they changed the risk equation for the United States. Suddenly, the prospect of Saddam hiding WMDs went from being an ongoing nuisance to a mortal dread. What was to stop him from handing them off to al Qaeda?

President Bush decided the risk was intolerable — and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

So now it all makes sense. All the evidence for Saddam's WMDs was indeed cooked up--by Saddam himself, in a desperate gamble to keep Iran at bay. It must be admitted, he succeeded in that. However, in the long run, his strategy was a dismal failure, since it brought the attention of a nation whose armed forces he could not hope to beat--namely, the USA. In attempting to forestall invasion by one nation, he invited invasion by another. Of course, he's now paid for that mistake with his life.

However, this is good ammunition against the Bush-lied-people-died meme. It would be better if it were reworded to Saddam-lied-Saddam-died.

Iraqis Take On Al-Qaeda On Their Own

More signs of progress that Reid, Pelosi, MoveOn, and those of like mind will not care to see:

BAGHDAD - Former Sunni insurgents asked the United States to stay away, and then ambushed members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, killing 18 in a battle that raged for hours north of Baghdad, an ex-insurgent leader and Iraqi police said yesterday.

The Islamic Army in Iraq sent advance word to Iraqi police requesting that US helicopters keep out of the area because its fighters had no uniforms and were indistinguishable from Al Qaeda, according to the police and a top Islamic Army leader known as Abu Ibrahim.

Abu Ibrahim said his fighters killed 18 Al Qaeda militants and captured 16 in the fight southeast of Samarra, a mostly Sunni city about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

"We found out that Al Qaeda intended to attack us, so we ambushed them at 3 p.m. on Friday," Abu Ibrahim said. He would not say whether any Islamic Army members were killed.

Much of the Islamic Army in Iraq, a major Sunni Arab insurgent group that includes former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, has joined the US-led fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq along with Sunni tribesmen and other former insurgents repelled by the terror group's brutality and extremism.

An Iraqi police officer corroborated Abu Ibrahim's account, but said police officers were not able to verify the number of casualties because the area was still too dangerous to enter.

(emphasis mine)

Then there's this:

Meanwhile, farther east, in Diyala Province, members of another former insurgent group, the 1920s Revolution Brigades, launched a military-style operation yesterday against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Iraqi Army said.

About 60 militants were captured and handed over to Iraqi soldiers, an Army officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to media.

Afterward, hundreds of people paraded through Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, witnesses said. Many danced and fired their guns into the air, shouting "Down with Al Qaeda!" and "Diyala is for all Iraqis!"

Like the Islamic Army, the 1920s Revolution Brigades includes former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party and officers from his army. Hundreds of 1920s members now work as scouts and gather intelligence for American soldiers in Diyala.

And at Baghdad's most revered Sunni shrine, the Abu Hanifa mosque, voices blasted from loudspeakers yesterday urging residents to turn against Qaeda: "We are your sons, the sons of the awakening, and we want to end the operations of Al Qaeda."

Looks like we're doing good work there... but the Defeatocrats still want us to pull out.

Remember that next November.

Another Story the Leftymedia Ignores

Yet another example of the leftymedia ignoring anything that doesn't fit their preconceived notions of what is going on in Iraq:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE No. 20071026-01
October 26, 2007

Iraqi Army at Besmaya Installation Support San Diego Fire Victims
By U.S. Army Sgt 1st Class Charlene Sipperly
Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq Public Affairs

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Members of the Iraqi Army in Besmaya collected a donation for the San Diego, Calif., fire victims Thursday night at the Besmaya Range Complex in a moving ceremony to support Besmaya's San Diego residents.

Iraqi Army Col. Abbass, the commander of the complex, presented a gift of $1,000 to U.S. Army Col. Darel Maxfield, Besmaya Range Complex officer in charge, Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq, to send to the fire victims in California.

The money was collected from Iraqi officers and enlisted soldiers in Besmaya. In a speech given during the presentation, Col. Abbass stated that he and the Iraqi soldiers were connected with the American people in many ways, and they will not forget the help that the American government has given the Iraqi people. Abbass was honored to participate by sending a simple fund of $1,000 to the American people in San Diego, to lower the suffering felt by the tragedy.

Sure, $1,000 isn't much to us, but to these people, it's probably a lot. And the gesture itself is very noteworthy.

But don't look for it in the leftymedia.

It's Over for Beauchamp and TNR, Part II

It is official.

The Army has released documents showing the results of their investigation of "Shock Troops," and the allegations contained therein.

The results: Scott Beauchamp lied through his teeth, and TNR printed it without checking.

The documents were originally on Drudge, but have been removed for some reason, but Little Green Footballs has them.

#3 is the most interesting to me. I've never gotten that much thrill out of reading transcripts of phone calls.

Heads should roll at TNR now, but they probably won't. However, no thinking person will accept TNR's word for anything for a long, long time.

Democrats Lose as the US Wins in Iraq

Let's see if we can't cause a few more lefty heads to explode (I love that sound):

The Democrats engaged in endless efforts to make sure the war really was lost. They failed. Now it looks as if the war, despite the Democratic Congress's best efforts, may well be won. It's the congressional Democrats who are the losers. And so could be the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. Are the American people likely to elect the candidate of a party that has tried its best to lose a winnable war?

May I remind my readers that after Vietnam the Democrats only elected two Presidents, and one of those was because of the gross malfeasance of a Republican (if you don't know who I am talking about, blame a history teacher).

Simply put, the public does not put candidates from a party that loses wars in the Oval Office.

Thus, General Petraeus' success is the Defeatocrats' loss. That's why the "General Betray Us" ad, and Rep. Stark's comments, and so on. They are desperate, and thrashing about as desperate people do.

Milblogger: We've Won

From a milblogger using the nom-de-plume of Greyhawk:

I've been writing about Iraq here for four years now - in and out of country. I've been here during many of the most violent months of the war; from the second battle for Fallujah through the January, 2005 elections, and from the launch of the surge to the present - and I'm not homebound yet. In all that time progress has been achingly slow, and back steps have been mixed with forward - but never the majority. Throughout it all - until now - I've never declared victory, seen "light at the end of the tunnel", or even claimed to have "turned a corner" - you can take your bumper sticker slogans and shove 'em. Over here a tenacious and bloodthirsty enemy has fought a well-designed and multi-faceted campaign against us, perhaps secure in the knowledge that blame for every child they killed or each holy place they defiled would be shifted to us even as they washed the blood from their hands. Their efforts gained support from many quarters (not all of which were anticipated in preparation for or included in response to their actions) and condemnation from few. But the ranks of their opponents - at least here in Iraq - are large and still growing, and theirs are neither. The battles are diminishing but ongoing, losses will be suffered, and blood will still be shed. Still more of their supporters may redouble their efforts. But in short, while I recognize this will provoke immeasurable rage from those who feel we've lost, and consternation among those who know we've won but lack the fortitude to make the declaration at this point in time, I'll say it again: we've won the war in Iraq.

Those noises you hear are the sound of lefties grinding their teeth, their heads exploding, and so on and so forth.

WaPo Gets It

Finally, a chink in the wall of silence from the leftymedia:

NEWS COVERAGE and debate about Iraq during the past couple of weeks have centered on the alleged abuses of private security firms like Blackwater USA. Getting such firms into a legal regime is vital, as we've said. But meanwhile, some seemingly important facts about the main subject of discussion last month -- whether there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq -- have gotten relatively little attention. A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that "civilian deaths have risen" during this year's surge of American forces.

A month later, there isn't much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.

They summarize with:

This doesn't necessarily mean the war is being won. U.S. military commanders have said that no reduction in violence will be sustainable unless Iraqis reach political solutions -- and there has been little progress on that front. Nevertheless, it's looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus's credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong.

Thank you, WaPo, for admitting it.

What You Didn't Hear From The Leftymedia

Iraq: The insurgency lives, but it's directed toward al-Qaida, not U.S. and allied forces. A British newspaper, not our legacy media, is reporting that a "transformation has swept" across the Western part of the country.

Reporting from Anbar, the Telegraph's Damien McElroy says the shift in the region "allows Marines to walk through areas that a year ago were judged lost to radical Islam control and hear nothing more aggressive than a late-night game of pool."

"Behind the shutters," he reports, "the Sunni Muslim residents of the province are enjoying the dividends of driving out al-Qaida fighters who had imposed an oppressive Taliban-style regime."

Seems like the quagmire is something that al-Qaida is having to deal with. Or maybe not, since its terrorists are being forced out by the locals, many of whom were America's enemies not too long ago.

Today, the locals talk freely and sometimes cheer U.S. patrols, alert them to locations of weapons caches and turn in anyone who is acting suspicious. In the town of Husaybah, the absence of al-Qaida has led to "an economic revival and restoration of favorite pastimes," writes McElroy.

Gee, now I wonder why ABCCBSCNNNBCNPRPBS didn't report that?

Why We Are Winning In Iraq, Part V

A gentleman by the name of Bartle Bull, editor of the Middle East Monitor, has penned (typed?) an article for OpinionJournal, giving his own ideas about why we're seeing success in Iraq. He concludes:

The biggest unifier of all currently might be the most predictable one. Help from foreigners is welcome in Iraq. The country's elected prime minister, possessing after Iraq's heroic elections more popular legitimacy than almost any leader in the world, often points out that the Coalition is there as invited guests. When the U.S. Senate passed its disingenuous "plan" for extreme federalism in Iraq last week, the uproar in the country crossed the sectarian divide. Iraq already has a constitution. It was written by freely elected Iraqis and ratified overwhelmingly by the public in a brave vote two years ago.

Thousands of Americans and their allies have died helping to give Iraqis this opportunity. We have shown enormous skill and bravery in helping them fight their enemies, and immeasurable goodwill in sending our young men to protect Iraqi schools, mosques and polling booths. The reason we and Iraqis are winning this war together is that its purpose is to give Iraqis what they want.

Indeed. And they don't want people in Washington, many of whom have never set foot in Iraq, telling them how to set up their own government.

They're At It Again!

The Party of the Donkey is trying once again to kill the the War on Terror in Iraq while at the same time desperately attempting to avoid looking like they're doing so. They're returning to an old method they used in Vietnam--cutting off funding.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's request for nearly $200 billion more to fund the Iraq war will not be approved unless it is linked to a plan to bring home U.S. combat troops by January 2009, the head of the House appropriations committee said on Tuesday.

Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, told a news conference his panel would not even consider the war funding request until early 2008, by which time he estimates funding for military operations will have run out. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently outlined the request to Congress.

[snip]

In proposing the new timetable for withdrawing troops, Obey said, "As chairman of the appropriations committee, I have no intention of reporting out of committee any time in this session of Congress any such (war funding) request that simply serves to continue the status quo."

Of course, the "status quo" in Iraq is that we are winning. Both military and civilian deaths are down, fears of a civil war are fading, Al-Qaeda is on the run... and Obey admits he doesn't want to continue that?

Can he really be that blatant about wanting to lose? Or is he so stupid that he believes the anti-war propaganda rather than the reports from the Pentagon?

Hat Tip: Confederate Yankee

Oakland Locks Out Our Troops

Commenter Mark emailed me this, submitting it for the blog as it was too long for the comments. I reprint it here with but one minor editorial change (in capitalization of one word). The rest is as he wrote it -CCG

Oakland is part of the San Francisco bay area. San Francisco is where many of the 60’s and 70’s peace-nick ‘hippie’ radicals gathered once they ‘found their way’. Flowers replaced rifles. Drugs replaced discipline. “Freedom” meant being free to do anything they wished. “Make peace, not war” became their religion. And God was no longer welcome in the city by the bay. Apparently, Oakland followed suit and there is no distinguishing between the two now.

I read the story about a plane load of soldiers and marines posted at http://christianconservativegeek.blogspot.com/ on September 30^th shortly after it was up. I was incensed by the actions of the Oakland International Airport authorities. Incensed to the point of blind, white-hot rage. I bit my tongue and tried to contain the anger. I posted a quick comment to the story expressing that anger and the fact that I would not write more until I could get it under control. Then I thought.

Imagine you are a member of the US military and have been at war for about a year. You return via a chartered airliner to US soil and a US airport on your route refuses to let you into the terminal due to what can only be assumed to be (drum roll, please) ‘security issues’. Apparently, TSA has not screened you. Yes, you, a soldier who has been fighting a war. All you may want to do is buy a Coke, stretch your legs, or maybe even make a quick call home. And the airport will not let you inside the terminal.

Another day, another time and these young souls would have been spit upon. They would have been called ‘baby killer’ and ‘murderer’.

Excuse me, but I thought the Viet Nam anti-troop mentality was done. I thought calling soldiers, sailors, air-men, and marines “baby killer” was out of vogue. I thought freezing military personnel out of society was decided to be ‘beyond the pale’. I thought the citizenry of the US had finally put to rest this ‘hate the troops mentality’ of the 60’s and 70’s peace movement. I thought ‘We the People’ had decided it was noble and generous for a young man or woman to take the oath to serve in this country’s military. I thought…“Oh”, I said to myself with dawning realization.

We had.

It’s back.

This is the way cancer works.

We have a choice. Succumb to the disease or fight it. I know which side I’ve chosen, how about you?