More thoughts on Haditha

As the Haditha investigation winds down another side to the story, which Michelle Malkin has uncovered here, begins to unfold. Quite frankly I took it for granted from the start that the fact that in combat some of the most stealth enemies you face are of the civilian populace - even children.

During 'Nam' the MSM was quick to tell the story of GI's burning villages, but would skip the fact that many times these villages were occupied by Cong and other Northern sympathizers, men, women and yes even children. In fact, back during that war you never heard the real stories of how the enemy would use the civilians to strike out at us.

They wouldn't report the stories such as when children would run up and hug a GI's leg, begging for candy - which would be cute - except that the brat had a grenade strapped to their leg. By the way, it was usually a family member - like the mother or father that pulled the pin. Yeah, cute as a button. Deadly as the most cunning enemy soldier. Same result - dead American GI's.

Like it or not, no matter what the real story Haditha is going to be protrayed as My Lai by the MSM. Just like during the Vietnam war. Yet thankfully with one difference. That difference being that the world of information and news isn't ruled by the MSM anymore and thanks mainly to the influence of the blogsphere - a potent force.

While no one excuses misconduct - if indeed this was misconduct - those who have experienced war in its abject horror understand that it's not a golf match, or "American Idol".

It's hell on earth.

For the most part these are kids - highly trained, professional - but kids. In basic training you're not trained to shake hands and bow, but to kill the enemy, no matter who that enemy might be. Let me say that again. You KILL the enemy. If you don't, you risk not only your life and the life of your comrades, but the mission itself.

True, civilians are to be treated differently than armed soliders, but when those civilians arm themselves they become the enemy that you are trained to kill.

Ask yourself, if you saw a nine-year old kid running towards your buddy with a explosive device strapped to his leg, and you had your weapon at the ready, what would YOU do? Would you shoot or let your buddy take the hit? What would you do?

How about a family of snipers shooting from a window and they just dropped your boyhood chum? There he lays with no head? A minute ago he was telling you what he was going to do when he got "back to the world". What would you do?

Again, I'm not prejudging the situation - because I don't know what happened. But again, there's always more to the story.

Keep that in mind.

UPDATE: In as much as not everything is known, Tom Ricks of the Washington Post, gets closer to where the investigation is focusing.

UPDATE II: More wisdom.

UPDATE III: Jed Babbin.

UPDATE IV: Micheal Yon with a perspective similar to mine.




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Say Goodnight Hastert

In playing the Prima-Dona, Rep. Hastert has commited political suicide. In fact he ought to quit now.

Ben Stein:

"Now comes Speaker Hastert, at the very first moment where House Republicans can push back against an image of corruption, to step all over both the law and especially the politics in order to assert a highly dubious congressional privilege. As if Congress doesn't already look privileged enough.

READERS WILL BY NOW, OF COURSE, be familiar with the crazily loud and intemperate complaints shouted by Hastert about the FBI's duly warranted search of Rep. Jefferson's office. Legal opinion is somewhat fractured on the constitutional issues involved, but the dozens of both conservative and liberal experts who have pronounced the search perfectly valid does indicate, at the very least, that Hastert's assertion of legal privilege from such searches is far from a slam-dunk. All of which makes the intemperate tone of his complaints all the more objectionable: The more dubious the legal case, the more circumspect should be its embrace by a political leader.

Worse still, of course (in the short term, at least), is the nature of Hastert's political blunder. In the face of a general public already fed up with congressional malfeasance and self-absorption, the very last thing the Speaker should do is to sound as if Congress is above the law.

Sen. John Warner was entirely right, in contradistinction to Hastert, when he said that "Congress should not set itself apart from citizens. We should be treated alike when it comes to criminal codes." That bit of wisdom should be familiar to Hastert and others who signed the Republican Contract with America in 1994: As has been widely noted, one of the most popular, applause-generating parts of the Contract was its pledge to, "FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress."

The inviolability of one's own office space against a duly and carefully executed search warrant is far from being a law generally applicable to the "rest of the country."

If Hastert's outburst against the Jefferson search were an isolated incident, a rare lapse in judgment, it certainly would be forgivable. Because, however, it is part of a consistent pattern of abuses of ethical norms or of simple fairness, and because Hastert's own compromised image is helping drag down his whole party's electoral prospects for November, this Speaker should silence himself politically.

As Republicans realized way back when they first took the majority in Congress, eight years is long enough for any Speaker to become the source of horrible static -- and to be replaced, forthwith."

Amen. Couldn't have said it better.

H/t to ever vigilant Carol, a frequent commenter.

UPDATE: Further on Hastert's betrayal from The Observer.




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Newsweak - Dragging our heros through the mud

Newsweak crossed the line today this totally bogus article lead on Mogadishu and specifically on the fiasco that happened there On the afternoon of October 3, 1993.

"June 5, 2006 issue - Mogadishu is a place most Americans would rather forget. During the 1990s, the "Black Hawk Down" debacle symbolized the dangers of dabbling in far-off lands we don't understand. TV images of a half-stripped GI being dragged through the dust by gleeful Somalis—he was one of 18 U.S. Army Rangers killed in a botched effort to arrest a warlord—became an emblem of American vulnerability. But Mogadishu, it seems, won't be forgotten. Somalia is erupting in violence again. And with little warning, Americans find themselves once more in the middle of battles they only dimly comprehend—and may well be losing."

Let's me clue in both Michael Hirsh and Jeffrey Bartholet - the writers of this f-king piece of sh_t article.

Mogadishu was only a debacle ONLY because of Clinton's arrogance and dereliction of duty, and NOTHING else.

The mission was 'comprehended, but the Commander and Chief left us high and dry for no other reason than he's an incompetent boob, choosing to "cut and run" ( a Democrat trait) instead of finishing the job.

Newsweak should be removed from every newsstand on every military base in the world, and banned. This isn't journalism, it's an opinion and not even a half assed educated opinion.

Newsweak - the rag that once again shows it will go to any length to slime the service and honor of those who gave their lives and drag them through the mud so to make their biased military/Clinton loving point.

They're useless.




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Moore Flack

Via Stop the ACLU:

The New York Post:

"A double-amputee Iraq-war vet is suing Michael Moore for $85 million, claiming the portly peacenik recycled an old interview and used it out of context to make him appear anti-war in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Sgt. Peter Damon, 33, who strongly supports America's invasion of Iraq, said he never agreed to be in the 2004 movie, which trashes President Bush.

In the 2003 interview, which he did at Walter Reed Army Hospital for NBC News, he discussed only a new painkiller the military was using on wounded vets.

"They took the clip because it was a gut-wrenching scene," Damon said yesterday. "They sandwiched it in. [Moore] was using me as ammunition."

Good for Sgt. Damon, hope he gets every dime out of that fat assed fake.




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The Coming Storm - Rep. William Jefferson - V - Slick Willie

While "Senselessbrenner" fumes and other pundits ask, "Well why didn't they call Rep. Jefferson and give him a heads up before they raided the poor soul?"

Now we know why.

"The Justice Department yesterday vigorously defended the recent weekend raid of Rep. William J. Jefferson's Capitol Hill office as part of a bribery investigation, asserting that the Democratic lawmaker attempted to hide documents from FBI agents while they were searching his New Orleans home last August.

The government questioned in a 34-page motion filed in U.S. District Court here whether it could have obtained all the materials it had sought in a subpoena if it had not launched the surprise raid on Jefferson's congressional office May 20. According to the government filing, an FBI agent caught Jefferson slipping documents into a blue bag in the living room of his New Orleans home during a search.

"It is my belief that when Congressman Jefferson placed documents into the blue bag, he was attempting to conceal documents that were relevant to the investigation," FBI agent Stacey E. Kent of New Orleans stated in an affidavit that was part of the government's court submission. The document was filed in response to Jefferson's lawsuit demanding that the government return to him documents seized during the raid on his Capitol Hill office 11 days ago."

...Last Aug. 3, FBI agents searched Jefferson's New Orleans home while the congressman and family members were present. Kent said she was assigned to watch Jefferson and his family during the search, according to her affidavit accompanying the government motion yesterday.

She said she observed him looking at several pieces of paper on a table. At one point, she said, he asked to see a copy of the subpoena.

"After a copy had been brought to him and he reviewed it, I observed Congressman Jefferson then take the subpoena and the documents he had been reading earlier and place them together under his elbow on the kitchen table."

At one point, she said, he moved to the living room, which had just been searched, and sat on a recliner. While sitting, he slipped the subpoena and the documents into a blue bag that he knew had already been searched, Kent's affidavit said.

"After several minutes, I approached Congressman Jefferson and told him that I needed to look at the documents that he had placed into the bag," the agent stated. "Congressman Jefferson told me the documents were subpoenas."

He finally pulled out the documents that were from a B.K. Son. The search warrant had asked for all communications between Jefferson and Son, the affidavit said. Son is the chief technology officer of iGate."

You know what? I'll cuff him myself. Jefferson is a crook and a dirtbag and the longer Senlessbrenner and the rest of the "Idiots of the House" defend him the more they continue to commit political suicide.




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Haditha - If you want facts the MSM and Murtha are the last place to go

As we know, something happened in Haditha, just what is purely a matter of specuation. I repeat, purely specuation. No one - not Time Magazine, MSNBC or cut and run Murtha, knows what went on there other than what they have picked up from certain sources, witnesses, etc. Murtha knows next to nothing.

It's a good thing we most often don't get the truth from the news. We get the hysteria, the hype, and in some cases faked news outright lies.

But watching the news tonight it's clear the MSM has the same script it's had for the last few years. Like, "Coverup to the very top", with the slow, but steady drumbeat to fire Rumsfeld. If this is proved to be correct get ready for the already beginning mantra of My Lai — Iraq — Vietnam, etc.

However, talking with REAL sources, apparently what happened is bad, but not as what the MSM is protraying (no duh there), but that doesn't clear the Marine unit involved either. Word is that the investigation has NOT completed, but that it looks like there will be disciplinary action taken.

As to the "all the way to the top!", The command of the unit in question appears to have been commanded by a first line supervisor, who is being defended by Bush critic and Iraq war vet and failed politician Paul Hackett (nuff said).

In other words if true this was a single unit under a single leader with a god complex.

Again, the last source to believe on anything is the MSM which over the course of the last few years has had it's share of false reports. Let's also not forget how they ran with the bogus Jessie MacBeth story.

But there are so many questions that we're going to have to wait. But again as in Abu Grab (as in any war) there are many such incidents in war. The important fact to always remember that these are ISOLATED incidents and not indicative of the 100,000 plus soldiers who do the job right.

As I said before, if the allegations are true, then let justice prevail, but we'll have to wait.

UPDATE: Good read from Thomas Owens at NRO. Echos my thoughts exactly.




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Idiots in the House

****Bumped and Updated****I'm harping on this for a while

Well Rep. Hastert now has some company on the Hill of Beans:

"WASHINGTON - House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner said Tuesday he will summon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller before his panel to explain their decision to raid a lawmaker’s office for the first time in history.

“I want to have Attorney General Gonzales and FBI Director Mueller up here to tell us how they reached the conclusion they did,” said Sensenbrenner, one of President Bush’s most loyal House allies. Sensenbrenner’s hearings, which began Tuesday, are examining whether the raid on May 20 violated the Constitution.

Calling the decision to authorize the raid “profoundly disturbing,” Sensenbrenner signaled that he would not be among the lawmakers backing off their criticism of the Bush administration. Any progress in talks between House and Justice Department lawyers in crafting guidelines for future criminal investigations of Congress would not deter Sensenbrenner from calling the administration to account for weekend search of Rep. William Jefferson’s offices.

“They didn’t get it right this time,” Sensenbrenner said."

Let me see...what words am I looking for? Oh yeah....IDIOT! MORON!! Along with Hastert, I believe some members of the House have lost their collective minds.

Here we have the Democrats craming the Republican Party with the "Culture of Corruption lable", and instead of jumping on the truth that Rep. Jefferson is a crook and more, they take out their &$%# out of their shorts and begin stomping on them.

Sorry - it's the best analogy of what I see is collective political suicide. Senlessbrenner, can have his hearings proclaiming that Congress is above the law, but he will do so without my support politically.

Per Byron York at National Review, I'm not alone.

UPDATE: More at Called as Seen as well.

UPDATE II: Watching the Hill proceedings today its apparent that this flap over the legal and warranted search of Rep. Jefferson's office is bogus. This is all about a group of spoiled kids getting back at the President over immigration reform and nothing else. The problem is that they are going to lose HUGELY in public opinion.

There is NO constitutional issue here - period. The DOJ followed the letter of the law - the very letter. Perhaps they should be reminded that it's a sign of guilt to criticize the cops.

What? You mean if a it was known that member of congress was constantly raping children in their office the FBI would have to give a "courtesy call" before they could slap cuffs on the slime and rescue the children?

My ass! Think I'm using an extreem example? After viewing some of the warrant and the evidence against Jefferson, doing a "Michael Jackson" is about the only thing he hasn't done.

Absolute morons. I've had it. Stay tuned.





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The Pelosi Factor - Won't pressure Jefferson and the CBC will call off the dogs

Via reader Carol:

Heres real character for you:

Per Roll Call:

"A closed-door meeting last week between a half-dozen senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yielded an uneasy and potentially temporary truce between the two sides in the dispute over Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson’s (D) seat on the Ways and Means Committee."

No doubt this will erase any potential opposition to her becoming (in her dreams) the Speaker of the House after 2006.

Can you say, "Weasel Whip?"





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Viva Kos Vegas

Video at Hot Air.


Got to get my webcam up to. Just as soon as I can book Mel Gibson and get him to pretend he's me.

Meanwhile Gateway Pundit with the RIGHT way to deal with moonbats.

Long Time Due

Stop the ACLU with the info on President Bush signing the Funeral Protest Ban into law.

Long time coming. Nuff said.

"Saddam is a Gentle Tyrant" Journalist Injured in Iraq

Here at Macsmind, I'm rough on the mainstream media, and for good reason as for the most part their coverage on the war is both biased and agenda oriented.

Yet saying that, no one, including yours truly wants to see an embedded reporter injured, much less killed. I might not agree with you, but I don't wish you dead.

Today CBS corospondent Kimberly Dozier, who once referred to Saddam as a "Gentle Tyrant", was severely injured in a roadside attack. Thankfully, according to reports she will recover.

Two other journalists with here were not so fortunate.

Kimberly has been in Iraq reporting over the last three years, most of her reporting has been decidingly anti war, and anti-administration policies, and in some cases sympathetic to our enemies. In other words typical left wing reporting.

But I would never wish this event on her or anyone else regardless of beliefs, I'm glad she is doing well.

Memorial Day is for the men and women in uniform who gave it all. But in war there are man casualties - it's just the way war is. Unfortunately some die who didn't go to fight, but still paid the ultimate price.

So let's not forget those journalists who have died while covering not only the war in Iraq, but in all wars throughout our history.




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