When people see monkeys rampaging in India, they think of Frank.
Numerous alert readers have sent me a story about how monkeys have overrun New Delhi. India is a newly burgeoning democracy, but you can’t be a prosperous nation and be overrun with monkeys. As proof, take a look at the good ‘ole USA, the most prosperous nation there is and ever will be; are we overrun with monkeys? No. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
Of course, it took work to clear out North America of its monkey menace. This was illustrated by the tall tales of Johnny Monkeykill who roamed the plains of America killing monkeys left and right. In reality, though, it was an opium-fueled posse that did the simicide, painting our pristine landscape with monkey blood.
Anyway, back to India, monkeys definitely our the main barrier separating the country from prosperity. In the monkeys’ cold black hearts there is nothing but monkey evil and a desire to menace and destroy. Thus it was a good step that their Supreme Court declared that New Delhi must be monkey-free. This will anger Hanuman, the monkey god, though, who must also be eliminated. Now, I don’t know a damn thing about killing gods, but, anytime I’m not sure how to kill something, such as a zombie or an alien, first thing I do is try my shotgun. Hardly anything can stand up to buckshot fired at close-range.
Good luck, India, and good hunt’n.
My senator, Bob Graham, will not run for reelection. This is good because he is a Democrat and I don’t like them. It’s time for Florida to have a Republican senator to combat that other senator… uh… what’s his name… Florida does have a second senator, right? Yeah, all states have two senators – even Wisconsin. Anyway, my point is I want my new senator to be a Republican unlike the other senator who I’m pretty sure is not.
There are a number of abandoned websites out there. I’m serious! It’s good we have CNN to tell us things like this.
Tonight, the Democrat presidential candidates will get to debate before our youngest and dumbest voters. Does anyone care about the Democrat’s primary anymore? Just end the farce and pick some doofus already. It was funny watching the Democrats implode for a while, but now it’s just getting sad.
I hate Bill Clinton. It wasn’t as much his political views (he was pretty much a moderate) as that he was just a complete scumbag, a disgrace to the office of the President. Still, despite my strong feelings against him, there were times I didn’t see him as Bill Clinton, lecherous, bloated hillbilly, and instead saw him as the President of the fking United States of America, and that’s when he was attacked by other countries as a way of attacking America and when we had military operations going on. I can’t remember Somalia too well, but I know with Bosnia conservatives like me only wished the best our troops and didn’t see any tragedy (such as when some troops were captured) as a partisan political opportunity. Whatever disagreements with the leader, this was still our country and our people out there fighting.
But now there are people that, when hearing about a tragedy in Iraq, there first reaction is not horror but delight at an opportunity to attack the president. They cry crocodile tears for our soldiers (these are some of the same people who chase ROTC off of college campuses) so they can attack a president they hate for whatever wacky reasons they have. I pointed out one example, but we hear plenty of others coming from a significant minority. Now I don’t brandy this word about lightly, but this has gone from political discourse to just being plain evil – a very mild but growing evil that show a real disconnect from one’s fellow man.
There are our men and women fighting and dying out there. They are fighting for us and they are fighting for a people yearning to live free from tyranny. And I just can’t understand how the phrase “We are losing a soldier a day,” can be followed by anything other than, “so let’s get those fking bastards.”
That wasn’t funny, but I’m pissed and sometimes I need to vent. I’ll be more funny tomorrow.
When I hear people go on about the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and how we should pull out of there, I am angered.
First, those soldiers volunteered, just like I volunteered back in the eighties. They know that the job is dangerous and they stepped up. Why? Because they actually give a damn and are willing to die to make teh world a better place.
Second, all the hippies who complain about it haven’t given a second thought to the damage that would be caused to the people of Iraq or to Americans when all the pissy little countries decide that America won’t fight. Those hippies don’t understand personal sacrifice and would never really give of themselves for the betterment of others. They are four-year-olds kicking and screaming on the floor hoping they will get some attention.
Third, we really need a draft. It motivates lazy kids to do something. It gets people into a sitation where they will learn discipline. It increases government expenditures which is good for the economy. It shuts up the hippies who can serve their country in a camo uniform or in a bright orange one labled “Federal Penitentiary”.
“And I just can’t understand how the phrase “We are losing a soldier a day,” can be followed by anything other than, “so let’s get those f**king bastards.””
Amazing isn’t it, until you realize that they really don’t give a shit about soldiers dying. The only thing they care about is their liberal agenda.
I live in Wisconsin and I’m afraid I have to disagree about us having two Senators. I believe that we have a munchkin named Herb Kohl (of Grocery store money) and a girlyboy named Russ Feingold. Betwixt the two of them there is only about 1/2 of a person.
No. I’m not talking about the protesters again. And this isn’t another tirade about the Clinton administration: “…it’s no surprise to find government buildings overrun with monkeys.” Frank J.’s worst nightmare. Well, at least, he’s not in India right…
Frank is brilliant as usual. I loved this: Does anyone care about the Democrat’s primary anymore? Just end the farce and pick some doofus already. It was funny watching the Democrats implode for a while, but now it’s just getting sad….
Gawddamn stinky stupid hippies.
If we had a draft, it should only select from looney liberals, and they should all go into a “special” unit. You know, the kind that looks for landmines with sticks.
Looking for landmines with sticks is important work that wouldn’t be too much of a strain for them. They wouldn’t have to directly confront hostile foregners or anything. I fully support having hippies look for landmines with sticks. If they won’t do it, it’s back to using indigenous kids.
Being also from Wisconsin, I have to agree with Joe, although I do the math differently:
1 stupid Democrat + 1 stupid Democrat = one worthless Senator with 2 votes.
Clearing land mines with sticks isn’t a job for hippies. They’d eff it up and we’d lose good troops.
Clearing land mines by marching troops through isn’t a new idea, the Soviets would march a brigade through German minefields. Of course the Soviets did all kinds of dumb stuff, they’d send infantry companies into battle with only two thirds of their grunts carrying guns, the unarmed ones were expected to pick up the weapons dropped by their KIA and WIA. I think it was late 1943 or early ’44 before they had a gun for every combat troop.
Since hippies adore communism one would think they’d be glad to march through minefields and go into battle without a shootin’ iron.
Do you think that Lt Gen. Sanchez is an hippie because it seems that the troops in Fallujah don’t have any secured roads, not even one, that the region is dangerous enough to carry the troops with helicopters, but air flit are worth a trip than land roads.
Loosing 16 troops makes me anger after the army, because I only think that all this is due to a deep lack of competences from the commanders.
You know block heads… the sacrifice… serving to die, all those crazy things that make you feel loose the war. The officers in the army are graduated for intelligence in the military strategy. They know all the basis also if they have no vocation in leading a war. Actually, Sanchez make the troops take risks that real front fighters don’t have to face, and that’s unfair, because those who have died for the most are not combatants but medical and administratives.
The uniform does not mean that those people engaged to die, but to learn and to practice everything they need to survive. Sanchez does not give them a chance to this, and actually, he is the only person after the President, Rumsfeld and Myers to take the decision. But Sanchez is a block head. He does not know to take any decision without orders. He has not the guts of a commander and that’s why US troops are dieing. I would have my son in Iraq, I think I would have petitionate against Sanchez and ask General Franks to finish his job, because he has left his troops in the middle of a deadly field, and that’s not fair.
It’s no surprise there are abandoned websites out there. The Internet is not a place for the weak, like our master of poor English, Amphyitryon.
Seems to me that if we’re in a war and we’ve lost only a few hundred troops, that speaks to some very competent officers and enlisted men.
But, then, looking at it in perspective would ruin any chance to make the war look like Vietnam. So I guess I should stop.
Big, Dog,
I think that you suggest me to applause.
BTW, thank you for the poor English, it shows the hit about the US officers. Sanchez is a real criminal, but you are right, that’s not Vietnam. You people, seem only want to wake up for a score as in Vietnam. In fact you have a poor appreciation of your troops life.
Tell me, would you play the trumpet in Fallujah ?
And… and… Amphitryon is not written double YY… at least, proof is that you are not master in reading even Latin alphabetical scripts.
If it speak to them, the officers, I really don’t understand why they have enclosed a village near Tikrit where nothing never happen and why they still have not enclosed Fallujah and cleaned up the house as done at war. House after house…
When you say that those officers are really concern, why then Sanchez dared to answer the White House that if they had not secured the borders with Iran, it is because he did not have the orders. He is Lt Gen. or not ? He is the one who should bring the information up, not to wait that the orders come down. If you compare the work done by Sanchez and the work done by Petraeus, I say that Petraeus should be a General double stars because he has managed a job in a place which was more hot than Fallujah. Some people have guts to do things, some people have not, but lastly only the results count. Petraeus did not wait the orders to bloc the frontiers with Syria. He done it and control it with the Iraqi people.
Sanchez, here is a new character to create because this guy is a real danger to the US.
Amphitryon:
Don’t sweat the English thing. I think you communicate remarkably (considering it’s not your primary language) and seem to have some very specific complaints about field operations in Iraq, and don’t just seek to bash US/Bush policies. It’s an interesting insight I’ve never heard before. You add color to this commentary.
I have no second language and appreciate that others learn my language and can join in intelligent civil discourse.
Here’s what I don’t get: How is it that a simple woman such as I can figure out that as long as we have soldiers in hostile territory, there will be people trying to kill them? That seems like a no-brainer and yet there are actually people out there in Washington D.C. who represent people like me in Smallville, USA, who just don’t seem to get this. Uhm…guys… FYI…there really are bad guys out there and when I say bad guys, I don’t mean the kind that steal your halloween pumpkin from your front porch, but the kind that really really don’t like us and really really would like any and all Americans–including you, ya punk-ass nimrods–to die a really really icky death. Did I make that simple enough for them to understand?
In the liberals’ cold black hearts there is nothing but liberal evil and a desire to menace and destroy. Your complacence with our camouflaged simians suggest me to mock and laugh evilly. Would you play the trumpet in Fallujah prematurely?
Minion,
I don’t know whose Minion you are but you are using arguments about a subject you don’t know. As for your question playing trumpet, the question in here is the cost in lives for the show.
bwah bwah bwah
Maybe no glory in Taps at Arlington, but very, very much honor. We should all be ultimately grateful when we hear that. Volunteer force = self sacrifice.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” -John 15:13 NIV
These men do not only this, but sacrifice for those who would not be their friends as well.
I do agree with Amphitryon in that these men should be given the best chance at victory (and survival) by their leadership. The dogs of war are too easy to kick while on a leash. Are we just trying to build their ferocity? Cut the leash, political correctness be damned!!
You are right Ken.
Baghdad would have never fallen that quickly if a few team of militaries would not have dared to enter alone in Baghdad and conquest the palace of Saddam. It was a psychological choc for the people, because they could see the US tanks had entered in Baghdad.
Bravura is one thing honorable when it is made for the survival, but it become rude when the sacrifice is made easy. The troops must be given the chance to fight, to defend themselves. In the particular situation of Fallujah they cannot defend themselves. They enter the so called RPG alleys and pray, because that’s all they can do. Do you imagine going at work taking a dead zone avenue ?
There are front line troops, trained to fight to death and there are suppliers, who only have vocation to help the front line troops to survive. They would probably give their lives for their brothers, but here is not the point. The troops dieing in Fallujah don’t give their lives to anyone, but only for the “fun” of the Iraqi photographers. The troops dieing are not asked to fight. They are asked to shut up because of the incompetence of some few commanders, who I name, Lt. Gen. Sanchez.
I would have my son in Iraq, I would make a petition against him to have back the General Franks, at least for him to finish the job on the ground. The mistake was to leave his troops only because the air plane bombing could stop. Air plane attacks, and ground fields are two things working together but quite different. Also if most Iraqi places are quiet, the sunni triangle needs to be cleaned up, squared, marked, and put under surveillance. Marines surveillance I mean.
—>…I’ll be more funny tomorrow.
Hey, wait a sec….
Doesn’t this statement presuppose that you were funny to begin with??
Ha ha- Just kidding. Please don’t send the monkeys after me. Love this site and my keg is turning into a six-pack from all the giggles I get. I also get a daily reminder (as if we needed one) that the Demo-craps only care is with the power, not the people.
Support our troops.
Frank:
I don’t blame you for wanting to block Bill Nelson from your mind. What a disappointment!
You know, he used to be the Congressman from your district (mine too — I grew up in Satellite Beach), and he was generally a reasonable Democrat (please — I know it’s an oxymoron). I had hoped when he got to the Senate, he’d pull a Zell Miller (can somebody tell me why THAT guy is a Democrat?). But he’s just fallen in line with the rest of his liberal compatriots.
He has all the markings of a one-term Senator. Maybe Katherine Harris could take him on in ’06, if she doesn’t jump into the ’04 Senate race. Or maybe Dave Weldon — after all, he replaced Nelson as your Congressman; why shouldn’t he replace him as your Senator?
I think we should make move the capital from Baghdad. Just move everything…including the paychecks…to a more welcoming area. The new locals can alert our guys to any strangers coming in from out of town and in the meantime, they get the new airport, they get the nice roads, they get the oil pipelines, they get the new hospitals and good doctors, etc.
Let Baghdad just go right straight down the tubes for all we care. All those locals who think the Americans are so terrible can sit in the dark and hope the Syrian and Yemeni terrorists can fix their power grid and their water plants. And so can the people who knew stuff was up and didn’t rat the bad guys out. Screw ’em both. The lot of them aren’t worth the dandruff from the private who cleans the johns at any U.S. base.
Amphitryon, over the last few decades the enemies of the West have hit upon a new strategy, it’s normally called the Somalia Strategy. It’s killing as many Western troops as possible, to no tactical gain. This gets the folks in the West to demand to pull out. It’s really older than ‘Blackawk Down’ in Somalia, it worked for them in Southeast Asia where millions died after we pulled out of Viet Nam.
It happened again in Lebenon after the Beirut bombing. This left Lebenon a wholly-owned subsidiary of Syria and Iran.
As a veteran I’m as saddened, if not more so, than you to see that Chinook go down, but that stuff happens.
The fact that the bad guys are sometimes successfull is not a sign of bad leadership or criminality on our part. The bad guys make plans too. Iraq had many thousand of those Strella shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, it’s silly to expect us to find them all. It is only to be expected that some of those missiles will find us.
There are millions of tons of explosives, thousands and thousands of RPGs, mortars and machine guns. Entire divisions of the Iraqi forces melted away into the populace without our forces ever engaging them, many of those Iraqi troops took their weaponry with them.
It’s a God Damned shame but that’s the brutal reality of war. If the bad guys don’t want to kill us there’s no reason to fight them. The fact that some of our troopers are buying the farm is proof that we need to fight them.
In war a soldier doesn’t have to do anything wrong to get killed or wounded, all he (and now she) has to do is get a little bad luck. Ever have things go wrong on your job, through no fault of your own? When things go wrong for a soldier it means Daddy is never coming home. Soldiers accept that. There isn’t anyone wearing Uncle’s suit that isn’t quite aware that everywhere we send soldiers, we send body bags. They know that the lion’s share of those bags will be used on the enemy but some will contain my brothers and sisters. They take that chance because it’s worth taking. For decades militant Islamists have been bring the fight to us, embassies, two attacks on the WTC, the Beirut bombing, the USS Cole, dozens of aircraft and that cruise ship. Now we’re taking the fight to them. Some soldiers die, others are wounded. The rest close ranks and soldier on, praying that the folks at home don’t lose their nerve and make their sacrifices in vain. Soldiers know that we’ve got to fight these sonsabitches someplace and sometime. Afghanistan and Iraq now is better than Paris, London, Tel Aviv and New York next year.
It’s them or us.
Sorry for the length of this, Frank. Someday I’ll tell a funny war story.
Peter,
I cannot resign with the fatality of death. I just imagine the poor guy, age 20, 22, going on an RPG avenue. Fallujah is a place where there are not any incident. It is repetitive attacks with proves that people are behind those attacks, but there is not any control over the population of Fallujah… neither to enter, neither to get out.
Fallujah sounds like the story of the goat and the wolf that want to eat the goat… Diversion troops still should be able to defend themselves.
Kim du toit, if there would be a collect to send you in Fallujah, I would contribute with a few coppers.
I hate to be a contrarian, but House and Senate Republicans most certainly did criticize Clinton’s intervention in Bosnia, and definitely brought up the spectre of possible US casualties in the process.
It is my belief that such criticisms were very much their right and responsibility, as are the criticisms offered by the Democrats of current Bush policy — some policies work and some don’t, so we need to have this ongoing national debate.
I continue to be utterly amazed at the prowess and skill of our fighting men and women, especially in Iraq. But I believe that they are in service of a politically impossible goal, and that their skill and lives are being thrown away in pursuit of that goal. Further, I believe that US security interests would have been better pursued by using our armed might elsewhere. That said, we are in Iraq now and need to figure out what kinds of endings would constitute something resembling victory so that we can recognize and implement them to the best of our ability.
When I hear people go on about the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and how we should pull out of there, I am angered.
First, those soldiers volunteered, just like I volunteered back in the eighties. They know that the job is dangerous and they stepped up. Why? Because they actually give a damn and are willing to die to make teh world a better place.
Second, all the hippies who complain about it haven’t given a second thought to the damage that would be caused to the people of Iraq or to Americans when all the pissy little countries decide that America won’t fight. Those hippies don’t understand personal sacrifice and would never really give of themselves for the betterment of others. They are four-year-olds kicking and screaming on the floor hoping they will get some attention.
Third, we really need a draft. It motivates lazy kids to do something. It gets people into a sitation where they will learn discipline. It increases government expenditures which is good for the economy. It shuts up the hippies who can serve their country in a camo uniform or in a bright orange one labled “Federal Penitentiary”.
“And I just can’t understand how the phrase “We are losing a soldier a day,” can be followed by anything other than, “so let’s get those f**king bastards.””
Amazing isn’t it, until you realize that they really don’t give a shit about soldiers dying. The only thing they care about is their liberal agenda.
I live in Wisconsin and I’m afraid I have to disagree about us having two Senators. I believe that we have a munchkin named Herb Kohl (of Grocery store money) and a girlyboy named Russ Feingold. Betwixt the two of them there is only about 1/2 of a person.
Monkeys Terrorize Government Buildings
No. I’m not talking about the protesters again. And this isn’t another tirade about the Clinton administration: “…it’s no surprise to find government buildings overrun with monkeys.” Frank J.’s worst nightmare. Well, at least, he’s not in India right…
Thought for the Day
Frank is brilliant as usual. I loved this: Does anyone care about the Democrat’s primary anymore? Just end the farce and pick some doofus already. It was funny watching the Democrats implode for a while, but now it’s just getting sad….
Gawddamn stinky stupid hippies.
If we had a draft, it should only select from looney liberals, and they should all go into a “special” unit. You know, the kind that looks for landmines with sticks.
Looking for landmines with sticks is important work that wouldn’t be too much of a strain for them. They wouldn’t have to directly confront hostile foregners or anything. I fully support having hippies look for landmines with sticks. If they won’t do it, it’s back to using indigenous kids.
Why give them sticks? Just make them march across the terrain in close order.
Being also from Wisconsin, I have to agree with Joe, although I do the math differently:
1 stupid Democrat + 1 stupid Democrat = one worthless Senator with 2 votes.
Clearing land mines with sticks isn’t a job for hippies. They’d eff it up and we’d lose good troops.
Clearing land mines by marching troops through isn’t a new idea, the Soviets would march a brigade through German minefields. Of course the Soviets did all kinds of dumb stuff, they’d send infantry companies into battle with only two thirds of their grunts carrying guns, the unarmed ones were expected to pick up the weapons dropped by their KIA and WIA. I think it was late 1943 or early ’44 before they had a gun for every combat troop.
Since hippies adore communism one would think they’d be glad to march through minefields and go into battle without a shootin’ iron.
Do you think that Lt Gen. Sanchez is an hippie because it seems that the troops in Fallujah don’t have any secured roads, not even one, that the region is dangerous enough to carry the troops with helicopters, but air flit are worth a trip than land roads.
Loosing 16 troops makes me anger after the army, because I only think that all this is due to a deep lack of competences from the commanders.
You know block heads… the sacrifice… serving to die, all those crazy things that make you feel loose the war. The officers in the army are graduated for intelligence in the military strategy. They know all the basis also if they have no vocation in leading a war. Actually, Sanchez make the troops take risks that real front fighters don’t have to face, and that’s unfair, because those who have died for the most are not combatants but medical and administratives.
The uniform does not mean that those people engaged to die, but to learn and to practice everything they need to survive. Sanchez does not give them a chance to this, and actually, he is the only person after the President, Rumsfeld and Myers to take the decision. But Sanchez is a block head. He does not know to take any decision without orders. He has not the guts of a commander and that’s why US troops are dieing. I would have my son in Iraq, I think I would have petitionate against Sanchez and ask General Franks to finish his job, because he has left his troops in the middle of a deadly field, and that’s not fair.
It’s no surprise there are abandoned websites out there. The Internet is not a place for the weak, like our master of poor English, Amphyitryon.
Seems to me that if we’re in a war and we’ve lost only a few hundred troops, that speaks to some very competent officers and enlisted men.
But, then, looking at it in perspective would ruin any chance to make the war look like Vietnam. So I guess I should stop.
Also, I should note that I really hate it when I accidentally use BB code instead of HTML on these comment things. Bloody hell.
Big, Dog,
I think that you suggest me to applause.
BTW, thank you for the poor English, it shows the hit about the US officers. Sanchez is a real criminal, but you are right, that’s not Vietnam. You people, seem only want to wake up for a score as in Vietnam. In fact you have a poor appreciation of your troops life.
Tell me, would you play the trumpet in Fallujah ?
And… and… Amphitryon is not written double YY… at least, proof is that you are not master in reading even Latin alphabetical scripts.
If it speak to them, the officers, I really don’t understand why they have enclosed a village near Tikrit where nothing never happen and why they still have not enclosed Fallujah and cleaned up the house as done at war. House after house…
When you say that those officers are really concern, why then Sanchez dared to answer the White House that if they had not secured the borders with Iran, it is because he did not have the orders. He is Lt Gen. or not ? He is the one who should bring the information up, not to wait that the orders come down. If you compare the work done by Sanchez and the work done by Petraeus, I say that Petraeus should be a General double stars because he has managed a job in a place which was more hot than Fallujah. Some people have guts to do things, some people have not, but lastly only the results count. Petraeus did not wait the orders to bloc the frontiers with Syria. He done it and control it with the Iraqi people.
Sanchez, here is a new character to create because this guy is a real danger to the US.
Amphitryon:
Don’t sweat the English thing. I think you communicate remarkably (considering it’s not your primary language) and seem to have some very specific complaints about field operations in Iraq, and don’t just seek to bash US/Bush policies. It’s an interesting insight I’ve never heard before. You add color to this commentary.
I have no second language and appreciate that others learn my language and can join in intelligent civil discourse.
That’s very kind of you Ken to remark the effort. Actually, I love to speak English because it is a language where I still have to learn a lot.
Here’s what I don’t get: How is it that a simple woman such as I can figure out that as long as we have soldiers in hostile territory, there will be people trying to kill them? That seems like a no-brainer and yet there are actually people out there in Washington D.C. who represent people like me in Smallville, USA, who just don’t seem to get this. Uhm…guys… FYI…there really are bad guys out there and when I say bad guys, I don’t mean the kind that steal your halloween pumpkin from your front porch, but the kind that really really don’t like us and really really would like any and all Americans–including you, ya punk-ass nimrods–to die a really really icky death. Did I make that simple enough for them to understand?
There is no reason to beat on each other’s language skills here; Amphitryon was making a well-argued point.
In the liberals’ cold black hearts there is nothing but liberal evil and a desire to menace and destroy. Your complacence with our camouflaged simians suggest me to mock and laugh evilly. Would you play the trumpet in Fallujah prematurely?
Minion,
I don’t know whose Minion you are but you are using arguments about a subject you don’t know. As for your question playing trumpet, the question in here is the cost in lives for the show.
bwah bwah bwah
And, they are playing trumpet in Arlington too. There is no glory about that.
Maybe no glory in Taps at Arlington, but very, very much honor. We should all be ultimately grateful when we hear that. Volunteer force = self sacrifice.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” -John 15:13 NIV
These men do not only this, but sacrifice for those who would not be their friends as well.
I do agree with Amphitryon in that these men should be given the best chance at victory (and survival) by their leadership. The dogs of war are too easy to kick while on a leash. Are we just trying to build their ferocity? Cut the leash, political correctness be damned!!
You are right Ken.
Baghdad would have never fallen that quickly if a few team of militaries would not have dared to enter alone in Baghdad and conquest the palace of Saddam. It was a psychological choc for the people, because they could see the US tanks had entered in Baghdad.
Bravura is one thing honorable when it is made for the survival, but it become rude when the sacrifice is made easy. The troops must be given the chance to fight, to defend themselves. In the particular situation of Fallujah they cannot defend themselves. They enter the so called RPG alleys and pray, because that’s all they can do. Do you imagine going at work taking a dead zone avenue ?
There are front line troops, trained to fight to death and there are suppliers, who only have vocation to help the front line troops to survive. They would probably give their lives for their brothers, but here is not the point. The troops dieing in Fallujah don’t give their lives to anyone, but only for the “fun” of the Iraqi photographers. The troops dieing are not asked to fight. They are asked to shut up because of the incompetence of some few commanders, who I name, Lt. Gen. Sanchez.
I would have my son in Iraq, I would make a petition against him to have back the General Franks, at least for him to finish the job on the ground. The mistake was to leave his troops only because the air plane bombing could stop. Air plane attacks, and ground fields are two things working together but quite different. Also if most Iraqi places are quiet, the sunni triangle needs to be cleaned up, squared, marked, and put under surveillance. Marines surveillance I mean.
About photographers, you should read that, that, that and that also.
—>…I’ll be more funny tomorrow.
Hey, wait a sec….
Doesn’t this statement presuppose that you were funny to begin with??
Ha ha- Just kidding. Please don’t send the monkeys after me. Love this site and my keg is turning into a six-pack from all the giggles I get. I also get a daily reminder (as if we needed one) that the Demo-craps only care is with the power, not the people.
Support our troops.
Frank:
I don’t blame you for wanting to block Bill Nelson from your mind. What a disappointment!
You know, he used to be the Congressman from your district (mine too — I grew up in Satellite Beach), and he was generally a reasonable Democrat (please — I know it’s an oxymoron). I had hoped when he got to the Senate, he’d pull a Zell Miller (can somebody tell me why THAT guy is a Democrat?). But he’s just fallen in line with the rest of his liberal compatriots.
He has all the markings of a one-term Senator. Maybe Katherine Harris could take him on in ’06, if she doesn’t jump into the ’04 Senate race. Or maybe Dave Weldon — after all, he replaced Nelson as your Congressman; why shouldn’t he replace him as your Senator?
that fool
Frank J thinks if he’s intelligent and moving we’ll forgive him for not being funny. Hah! I say we hang him….
I think we should make move the capital from Baghdad. Just move everything…including the paychecks…to a more welcoming area. The new locals can alert our guys to any strangers coming in from out of town and in the meantime, they get the new airport, they get the nice roads, they get the oil pipelines, they get the new hospitals and good doctors, etc.
Let Baghdad just go right straight down the tubes for all we care. All those locals who think the Americans are so terrible can sit in the dark and hope the Syrian and Yemeni terrorists can fix their power grid and their water plants. And so can the people who knew stuff was up and didn’t rat the bad guys out. Screw ’em both. The lot of them aren’t worth the dandruff from the private who cleans the johns at any U.S. base.
Amphitryon, over the last few decades the enemies of the West have hit upon a new strategy, it’s normally called the Somalia Strategy. It’s killing as many Western troops as possible, to no tactical gain. This gets the folks in the West to demand to pull out. It’s really older than ‘Blackawk Down’ in Somalia, it worked for them in Southeast Asia where millions died after we pulled out of Viet Nam.
It happened again in Lebenon after the Beirut bombing. This left Lebenon a wholly-owned subsidiary of Syria and Iran.
As a veteran I’m as saddened, if not more so, than you to see that Chinook go down, but that stuff happens.
The fact that the bad guys are sometimes successfull is not a sign of bad leadership or criminality on our part. The bad guys make plans too. Iraq had many thousand of those Strella shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, it’s silly to expect us to find them all. It is only to be expected that some of those missiles will find us.
There are millions of tons of explosives, thousands and thousands of RPGs, mortars and machine guns. Entire divisions of the Iraqi forces melted away into the populace without our forces ever engaging them, many of those Iraqi troops took their weaponry with them.
It’s a God Damned shame but that’s the brutal reality of war. If the bad guys don’t want to kill us there’s no reason to fight them. The fact that some of our troopers are buying the farm is proof that we need to fight them.
In war a soldier doesn’t have to do anything wrong to get killed or wounded, all he (and now she) has to do is get a little bad luck. Ever have things go wrong on your job, through no fault of your own? When things go wrong for a soldier it means Daddy is never coming home. Soldiers accept that. There isn’t anyone wearing Uncle’s suit that isn’t quite aware that everywhere we send soldiers, we send body bags. They know that the lion’s share of those bags will be used on the enemy but some will contain my brothers and sisters. They take that chance because it’s worth taking. For decades militant Islamists have been bring the fight to us, embassies, two attacks on the WTC, the Beirut bombing, the USS Cole, dozens of aircraft and that cruise ship. Now we’re taking the fight to them. Some soldiers die, others are wounded. The rest close ranks and soldier on, praying that the folks at home don’t lose their nerve and make their sacrifices in vain. Soldiers know that we’ve got to fight these sonsabitches someplace and sometime. Afghanistan and Iraq now is better than Paris, London, Tel Aviv and New York next year.
It’s them or us.
Sorry for the length of this, Frank. Someday I’ll tell a funny war story.
Peter, well said.
What Peter said.
Actually, fighting in Paris wouldn’t be all that bad; just think of the collateral damage!!
Peter,
I cannot resign with the fatality of death. I just imagine the poor guy, age 20, 22, going on an RPG avenue. Fallujah is a place where there are not any incident. It is repetitive attacks with proves that people are behind those attacks, but there is not any control over the population of Fallujah… neither to enter, neither to get out.
Fallujah sounds like the story of the goat and the wolf that want to eat the goat… Diversion troops still should be able to defend themselves.
Kim du toit, if there would be a collect to send you in Fallujah, I would contribute with a few coppers.
I hate to be a contrarian, but House and Senate Republicans most certainly did criticize Clinton’s intervention in Bosnia, and definitely brought up the spectre of possible US casualties in the process.
It is my belief that such criticisms were very much their right and responsibility, as are the criticisms offered by the Democrats of current Bush policy — some policies work and some don’t, so we need to have this ongoing national debate.
I continue to be utterly amazed at the prowess and skill of our fighting men and women, especially in Iraq. But I believe that they are in service of a politically impossible goal, and that their skill and lives are being thrown away in pursuit of that goal. Further, I believe that US security interests would have been better pursued by using our armed might elsewhere. That said, we are in Iraq now and need to figure out what kinds of endings would constitute something resembling victory so that we can recognize and implement them to the best of our ability.
vonamen – heiraten – geburtstagskarten – witz