"Support the Troops"

[red states rule]

What difference does it make?

Lieberman is a putz anyway!

Who listens to him?

Did you vote for him in 2000, or did you support Pres Bush?

 

[Rosotar]

Lieberman's article shows how the Dems are losing the war for America

Try harder to put your country ahead of your party

The Ny Times has reported the same thing as Mr Hamilton

So let me get this straight....

The NYT is a credible source of information to you?

What about the wingnut, tinfoil-hat wearing, conspiracy theories about the "liberal" MSM?

 

[maineman]

I say again:

I understand what Lieberman's editorial suggests. I asked why you posted it in response to my questions about your assertions concerning the 9/11 report and the irrelevance of Lee Hamilton's statement that does not support your assertion.

When will you produce the quote from the 9/11 commission report that proves that Saddam assisted Osama bin Laden or was in any sort of alliance with him?

 

[red states rule]

So let me get this straight....

The NYT is a credible source of information to you?

What about the wingnut, tinfoil-hat wearing, conspiracy theories about the "liberal" MSM?

Once in a blue moon the truth does ooze out from the liberal media

BTW, did you vote for Bush or Gore in 2000?

 

[Rosotar]

This is the type of good news that seldom makes it into the liberal media


Marines Save Iraqi Baby to Honor Fallen Medic
Routine Patrol Turned Into Mission to Help Sick Child
(Dec. 8) - The story of a group of Marines' quest to save a sick baby in war-torn Iraq gives some hope to humanity this holiday season.


At the center of the story is Navy medic Chris Walsh and the 1st Battalion 25th Marines. The Marines were patrolling the streets of Fallujah in June when they faced an enemy attack.

"An IED exploded immediately adjacent to Chris' vehicle, so they all piled out to chase the trigger man," said Capt. Sean Donovan.

But the Marines had a surprise encounter in their pursuit.

"And as they did so, a woman came from one of the houses calling to them that the baby was sick. So they stopped, and Chris came up and looked at the baby," Donovan said. "And this was baby Mariam, and it was immediately clear to him that this baby desperately needed care."

Baby Mariam was just 2 months old and suffering from a rare intestinal abnormality. Under the threat of another attack, Walsh had to make a quick decision.

"Right on the spot, the mission changed from the trigger man to the baby girl," Donovan said.

A routine military mission suddenly became a lifesaving mission for Walsh and those around him.

"The shared willingness to engage this mission was the bravery of the family in bringing her forward," Donovan said.

Visiting Under Cover of Darkness

For the next three months, Walsh and the team made house calls under the cloak of darkness into the dangerous city to help the baby.

They were trying to get baby Mariam stabilized, taking photographs, consulting experts, and trying to get her papers to leave the country for medical care.

Staff Sgt. Ed Ewing led the visits.

"We showed up at all different times of the night," Ewing said. "They never knew when we were coming. We did that purposely to protect us and protect their family."

As months went by, the unit continued its routine patrols. On Sept. 4, tragedy struck when one of their Humvees was hit once again by an IED.

This time three men in the unit were killed -- Lance Cpl. Eric Valdepenas; Cpl. Jared Shoemaker; and Walsh, baby Mariam's guardian angel.

For those who survived, saving baby Mariam became a eulogy to their fallen comrades.

"To honor Chris, to honor the other men that died in battalion, we had to go through with the mission and keep fighting," said Father Marc Bishop.

Mission Accomplished

Eventually the Marines won their fight, and baby Mariam was granted permission to leave Iraq.

Dr. Rafael Pieretti from Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital performed the surgery, which took place in October.

"She's doing well," Pieretti said. "She's gained weight. She's socializing more. She has a different life."

On the eve of baby Mariam's arrival, Walsh's mother, Maureen, received a letter from Donovan, telling her the story of a life that was saved because of her son's big heart.

The letter from Donovan read in part: "Although he won't be visible, Chris will be very much on that patrol, the hope for Mariam's very tiny life having arisen from the charity and gallantry of your son."

Recently Maureen Walsh met baby Mariam.

"It made me feel like Chris was there," she said. "He wanted something like this. He wanted to make a difference in somebody's life."

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/marines-save-iraqi-baby-to-honor-fallen/20061208101409990001

This is all great news!

I suppose in your mind all this anecdotal stuff makes the whole thing worthwhile huh?

 

[red states rule]

It shows there are good things going on in Iraq, and the troops are not the baby killers the kook left has portrayed them to be

 

[Rosotar]

Did you vote for him in 2000, or did you support Pres Bush?

I voted Green Party.

 

[red states rule]

I voted Green Party.

oh, another wasted vote

 

[Rosotar]

It shows there are good things going on in Iraq, and the troops are not the baby killers the kook left has portrayed them to be

How about some links to examples?

 

[Rosotar]

Once in a blue moon the truth does ooze out from the liberal media

You mean like whenever they write something that perfectly fits your preconcieved notion of what you think the "truth" is?

That's convenient!

 

[Rosotar]

oh, another wasted vote

Given that the election was eventually handed to Bush by the Supreme Court I'd say there were a lot of "wasted" votes.

Come to think of it there were thousands of votes purged from the system by Kathleen Harris and the rest of that demented kook squad in Florida weren't there?

Yeah.....we know EXACTLY what Republicans mean when they talk about "wasted" votes!

 

[Louie]

we are all anxiously awaiting "red states" first hand account of all the "good" news coming out of iraq. best wishes on your trip to baghdad.

 

[maineman]

It shows there are good things going on in Iraq, and the troops are not the baby killers the kook left has portrayed them to be

no one in leadership in the democratic party....no democratic elected official at any level has ever called our troops baby killers.....certainly there are kooks on the left...does RSR really want to suggest that there are not kooks on the right who say things that embarrass the mainstream of his party? Hell...for that matter....RSR, I am sure, embarrasses the mainstream of his party on this site.

 

[Louie]

did red states go yet??? off to baghdad son, we need some first hand reporting!

 

[Louie]

those oldies but goodies remind me of uuuuuuuuuu

US troops investigated over Iraqi massacres
By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil
Published: 22 March 2006
The US military is investigating two incidents in which American soldiers killed at least 26 Iraqi civilians and then claimed that they were either guerrillas or had died in cross fire.

The growing evidence of retaliatory killings of unarmed Iraqi families, often including children, by US soldiers seemingly bent on punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark comparisons with the massacre of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.

US troops have been notorious among Iraqis for their willingness to shoot any Iraqi they see in the aftermath of an insurgent attack. But it is only now that convincing and detailed information is becoming available about the killings.

In the most recent incident, in the town of Ishaqi north of Baghdad last week, Iraqi police said that US troops had shot 11 people, including five children, in their home. The local police chief, Colonel Farouq Hussein, said that all the dead had been shot in the head, according to autopsies. "It's a clear and perfect crime," he said. In an incident in the town of Haditha in western Iraq on 19 November last year, US soldiers went on a rampage in a village after a bomb attack and killed at least 15 civilians, according to witnesses and local officials cited by Time magazine in an investigation.

The US military first claimed a roadside bomb had killed a US Marine, Miguel Tarrazas, along with 15 Iraqi civilians caught in the blast. Later, a military statement said "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire" and in returning fire the Marines killed eight insurgents.

But after Time presented the US military with what Iraqis said had happened, an official investigation found that 15 of the civilians had been deliberately killed by US soldiers.

The bomb attack on the US Humvee took place at 7.15am. Eman Waleed, a nine-year-old child, lived in a house 150 yards from the explosion. "We heard a big noise that woke us all up," she recalled later. "Then we did what we always do when there's an explosion: my father goes in to his room with the Koran and prays the family will be spared harm."

The Marines claim they heard shots coming from the direction of Waleed's house. They burst in to the house and Eman heard shots from her father's room. They then entered the living room, where the rest of the family was gathered. She said: "I couldn't see their faces very well - only their guns sticking in to the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny."

The US soldiers started shooting in to the corner of the room where Eman and her eight-year-old brother, Abdul Rahman, were cowering. The other adults in the room tried to protect the two children with their bodies and were all shot dead. Eman and her brother were both wounded.

"We were lying there, bleeding and it hurt so much. Afterwards some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I was crying, shouting, 'why did you do this to our family?' And one Iraqi soldier tells me, 'we didn't do it. The Americans did it'."

The Marines' explanation is that they heard the sound of a Kalashnikov being readied to shoot and had then fired their weapons. The Marines say they were fired at from a second house, where they broke down a door, threw in a grenade and opened fire. The eight who died in the second house included the owner, his wife, the owner's sister, a two-year-old son and three young daughters.

In a third house the Marines searched four young men were shot dead. A military investigation decided these were insurgent fighters, along with four others killed in the street.

The Marines later delivered 24 bodies to a hospital in Haditha, claiming they had been killed by shrapnel from a bomb. Dr Wahid, the director of the hospital, said: "It was obvious to us there were no organs slashed by shrapnel. The bullet wounds were very apparent. Most of the victims were shot in the head and chest - from close range."

An US military investigation decided the deaths were "collateral damage". Relatives were paid $2,500 (£1,400) for each of the dead.

 

[red states rule]

Dems have not changed since the Civil War


Copperheads, Then and Now
The Democratic legacy of undermining war efforts.

By Mackubin Thomas Owens

While recovering from surgery recently, I had the good fortune to read a fine new book about political dissent in the North during the Civil War. The book, Copperheads: The Rise an Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, by journalist-turned-academic-historian Jennifer Weber, shines the spotlight on the “Peace Democrats,” who did everything they could to obstruct the Union war effort during the Rebellion. In so doing, she corrects a number of claims that have become part of the conventional wisdom. The historical record aside, what struck me the most were the similarities between the rhetoric and actions of the Copperheads a century and a half ago and Democratic opponents of the Iraq war today.

In contradistinction to the claims of many earlier historians, Weber argues persuasively that the Northern anti-war movement was far from a peripheral phenomenon. Disaffection with the war in the North was widespread and the influence of the Peace Democrats on the Democratic party was substantial. During the election of 1864, the Copperheads wrote the platform of the Democratic party, and one of their own, Rep. George H. Pendleton of Ohio, was the party’s candidate for vice president. Until Farragut’s victory at Mobile Bay, Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, and Sheridan’s success in driving the Confederates from the Shenandoah Valley in the late summer and fall of 1864, hostility toward the war was so profound in the North that Lincoln believed he would lose the election.

Weber demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the actions of the Copperheads materially damaged the ability of the Lincoln administration to prosecute the war. Weber persuasively refutes the view of earlier historians such as the late Frank Klement, who argued that what Lincoln called the Copperhead “fire in the rear” was mostly “a fairy tale,” a “figment of Republican imagination,” made up of “lies, conjecture and political malignancy.” The fact is that Peace Democrats actively interfered with recruiting and encouraged desertion. Indeed, they generated so much opposition to conscription that the Army was forced to divert resources from the battlefield to the hotbeds of Copperhead activity in order to maintain order. Many Copperheads actively supported the Confederate cause, materially as well as rhetorically.

In the long run, the Democratic party was badly hurt by the Copperheads. Their actions radically politicized Union soldiers, turning into stalwart Republicans many who had strongly supported the Democratic party’s opposition to emancipation as a goal of the war. As the Democrats were reminded for many years after the war, the Copperheads had made a powerful enemy of the Union veterans.

The fact is that many Union soldiers came to despise the Copperheads more than they disdained the Rebels. In the words of an assistant surgeon of an Iowa regiment, “it is a common saying here that if we are whipped, it will be by Northern votes, not by Southern bullets. The army regard the result of the late [fall 1862] elections as at least prolonging the war.”

Weber quotes the response of a group of Indiana soldiers to letters from Copperhead “friends” back home:

Your letter shows you to be a cowardly traitor. No traitor can be my friend; if you cannot renounce your allegiance to the Copperhead scoundrels and own your allegiance to the Government which has always protected you, you are my enemy, and I wish you were in the ranks of my open, avowed, and manly enemies, that I might put a ball through your black heart, and send your soul to the Arch Rebel himself.

It is certain that the Union soldiers tired of hearing from the Copperheads that the Rebels could not be defeated. They surely tired of being described by the Copperheads as instruments of a tyrannical administration trampling the legitimate rights of the Southern states. The soldiers seemed to understand fairly quickly that the Copperheads preferred Lincoln’s failure to the country’s success. They also recognized that the Copperheads offered no viable alternative to Lincoln’s policy except to stop the war. Does any of this sound familiar?

Today, Democratic opponents of the Iraq war echo the rhetoric of the Copperheads. As Lincoln was a bloodthirsty tyrant, trampling the rights of Southerners and Northerners alike, President Bush is the world’s worst terrorist, comparable to Hitler.

These words of the La Crosse Democrat responding to Lincoln’s re-nomination could just as easily have been written about Bush: “May God Almighty forbid that we are to have two terms of the rottenest, most stinking, ruin working smallpox ever conceived by fiends or mortals…” The recent lament of left-wing bloggers that Vice President Dick Cheney was not killed in a suicide bombing attempt in Pakistan echoes the incendiary language of Copperhead editorialist Brick Pomeroy who hoped that if Lincoln were re-elected, “some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.”

Antiwar Democrats make a big deal of “supporting the troops.” But such expressions ring hollow in light of Democratic efforts to hamstring the ability of the United States to achieve its objectives in Iraq. And all too often, the mask of the antiwar politician or activist slips, revealing what opponents of the war really think about the American soldier.

For instance, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. Charles Rangel have suggested that soldiers fighting in Iraq are there because they are not smart enough to do anything else. Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois has suggested a similarity between the conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq and that of Nazi soldiers in World War II. His Illinois colleagues, Sen. Barack Obama, claimed that the lives of soldiers lost in Iraq were “wasted.” And recently William Arkin, a military analyst writing online for the Washington Post, said of American soldiers that they are “mercenaries” who had little business taking critics of the war to task.

The Copperheads often abandoned all decency in their pursuit of American defeat in the Civil War. One Connecticut Copperhead told his neighbors that he hoped that all the men who went to fight for the Union cause would “leave their Bones to Bleach on the soil” of the South. The heirs of the Copperheads in today’s Democratic party are animated by the same perverted spirit with regard to the war in Iraq. Nothing captures the essence of today’s depraved Copperhead perspective better than the following e-mail, which unfortunately is only one example of the sort of communication I have received all too often in response to articles of mine over the past few months.

Dear Mr. Owens

You write, "It is hard to conduct military operations when a chorus of eunuchs is describing every action we take as a violation of everything that America stands for, a quagmire in which we are doomed to failure, and a waste of American lives."

But Mr. Owens, I believe that those three beliefs are true. On what grounds can I be barred from speaking them in public? Because speaking them will undermine American goals in Iraq? Bless you, sir, that's what I want to do in the first place. I am confident that U.S. forces will be driven from Iraq, and for that reason I am rather enjoying the war.

But doesn't hoping that American forces are driven from Iraq necessarily mean hoping that Americans soldiers will be killed there? Yes it does. Your soldiers are just a bunch of poor, dumb suckers that have been swindled out of their right to choose between good and evil. Quite a few of them are or will be swindled out of their eyes, legs, arms and lives. I didn't swindle them. President Bush did. If you're going to blame me for cheering their misery, what must you do to President Bush, whose policies are the cause of that misery?

Union soldiers voted overwhelmingly for Lincoln in 1864, abandoning the once-beloved George McClellan because of the perception that he had become a tool of the Copperheads. After Vietnam, veterans left the Democratic party in droves. I was one of them. The Democratic party seems poised to repeat its experience in both the Civil War and Vietnam.

The Democrats seem to believe that they are tapping into growing anti-Iraq War sentiment in the military. They might cite evidence of military antipathy towards the war reflected in, for example, the recent CBS Sixty Minutes segment entitled “Dissension in the Ranks.” But the Democrats are whistling past the graveyard. The Sixty Minutes segment was predicated on an unscientific Army Times poll, orchestrated by activists who now oppose the war. The fact remains that most active duty and National Guard personnel still support American objectives in Iraq. They may be frustrated by the perceived incompetence of higher-ups and disturbed by a lack of progress in the war, but it has always been thus among soldiers. The word “snafu” began as a World War II vintage acronym: “situation normal, all f****d up.”

Union soldiers could support the goals of the war and criticize the incompetence of their leaders in the same breath. But today’s soldiers, like their Union counterparts a century and a half ago, are tired of hearing that everything is the fault of their own government from people who invoke Gitmo and Abu Ghraib but rarely censure the enemy, and who certainly offer no constructive alternative to the current course of action.

The late nineteenth century Democratic party paid a high price for the influence of the Copperheads during the Civil War, permitting Republicans to “wave the bloody shirt” of rebellion and to vilify the party with the charge of disunion and treason. If its leaders are not careful, today’s Democratic party may well pay the same sort of price for the actions of its antiwar base, which is doing its best to continue the Copperhead legacy.

— Mackubin Thomas Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...QwZjgyOGFkZTU=

 

[actsnoblemartin]

My defintion of what support this is: Give the troops everything they need to win the war: I.E. Weapons, Body Armor, Health Care, Including Mental Health, Adequate pay, etc, etc

Now, as long as you do that. It doesnt matter whether you support the war or not, you have in my opinion, and my definition. You have supported the troops

Agree or disagree.

And obviously, im not talking about illegal conduct, such as raping and murdering innocent civilians, the u.s. military has rules of engagement, and prosecutes those who commit crimes. While al queda, and other islamic terrorists throw them a party

 

[red states rule]

My defintion of what support this is: Give the troops everything they need to win the war: I.E. Weapons, Body Armor, Health Care, Including Mental Health, Adequate pay, etc, etc

Now, as long as you do that. It doesnt matter whether you support the war or not, you have in my opinion, and my definition. You have supported the troops

Agree or disagree.

And obviously, im not talking about illegal conduct, such as raping and murdering innocent civilians, the u.s. military has rules of engagement, and prosecutes those who commit crimes. While al queda, and other islamic terrorists throw them a party

Libs are giving the troops what they always given them - nothing

 

[actsnoblemartin]

What bothers me, is how alot of these LEFT WING- Liberals. Can harrass our service men at walter reed, and then suddenly pretend to care about the outrage of their health care.

These are the same people who spit on our troops in the 60's, and who want to take away their funding now.

Listen, dems, if you dont give them everything they need, then send them home now.

Yes, I have been critical of bush, for the mistakes he's made, so dont turn this into I hate dems, I will praise you if you do something good.

And criticize bush if he does something bad.

 

[red states rule]

Walter Reed: A Model of Excellence
Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A Kafkaesque nightmare of unsanitary facilities, incompetent staff, and forgotten patients condemned to wither away on perpetual waiting lists for shoddy treatment and ineffective medication. Thousands of our bravest, babykilling troops put their lives on the line for absolutely no reason save to steal Iraq’s oil and provide the Shrub with a few photo-ops, but now they are nobly making up for their selfishness by beta-testing Hillary’s National Health Care Plan.

No, the system isn’t perfect, as evident by how so many wounded soldiers were actually able to obtain any treatment at all. That’s just one of the few kinks that will need to be ironed out in order to ensure that all patients are treated on a level playing field of mediocrity. However, I am positive that by the time Hillary assumes her rightful throne and her brilliant plan goes national, all Americans will look forward to receiving the sort of substandard medical care one should expect from a government-run health care system, and one that our Quran-mishandling troops most definitely deserve.

http://blamebush.typepad.com/