Read up on the Posse Comitatus Act here then read this article in the Army Times.
Our country has a professional full time military whose purpose it is to kill bad guys who threaten our nation from the outside. We have local law enforcement who are responsible for protecting citizens within our country. They are not to be mixed.
Does anyone find it creepy that the military now seems to be making it part of their full time mission to “help people at home”? I’d prefer not to have our full time military’s help here at home. If the governor wants to call out the guard in a local emergency that is one thing…but the army/airforce/marines? No thanks.
Maybe I deserve some mocking about my tin foil hat being too tight…but it is still very creepy to hear that our military is being prepared for use in American cities. That isn’t what it was meant for.
Hat Tip: The Agitator
Yeah…I’ve got it and its nasty. I haven’t been around everyone’s favorite militant progressive at all lately but his symptoms sound like what I’ve got. It stinks.
Since I’m tired and miserable I’m only going to link to other people today and call that fulfilling my blogging responsibilities:
Bob Rules. Sign the petition.
Paramaphil thinks Sen. Margaret Dayton is worse than Buttars when it comes to stupid racist statements. He makes a great argument. Who would have thought someone would say something even more stupid than the “black baby” comment.
For The People catches Sen. Buttars in a lie.
David at Pursuit of Liberty links to an excellent description of why the free traders are right and Lou Dobbs is an idiot.
Frank Staheli thinks American militarism is expanding in a very real and scary way. As usual he’s right.
RudiZink points out that the legislature is owned lock stock and barrel by real estate developers who would sell their own mothers for a little more easy month. We should spend a little less time focusing on fools like Sen. Buttars and more focusing on the blatant corruption on display daily from the legislature. Thank you WCF.
Utah may have its problems…but our local blogosphere rocks.
I have purposefully tried to stay away from commenting on foreign policy for quite a while on this site. I just find the subject too depressing to dwell on. On this day every year the topic of U.S. foreign policy is more significant to me than normal so I figured today I’d link to the most insightful blog post I could find relating to our nation’s present troubles then link to it and feel like I’ve fulfilled my quota on this topic for the next year or so.
He doesn’t know it but Frank Staheli, a veteran of the Iraq war and a Utah blogger, is one of my heroes. He is completely wrong on the latest Republican scheme to provide a new welfare entitlement for people who don’t need it in the form of tuition vouchers but that can be forgiven. Frank is absolutely correct in everything he says when he blogs on the topic of American foreign policy. If anyone ever needs to know what’s right for our nation in the post 9/11 years I’m happy to refer them to Frank. Here’s his post today…it doesn’t directly relate to America’s post 9/11 policies but it covers what I think are the most important points. I’m grateful that he is out there making the case for a more humble and thoughtful American foreign policy. It would sure be great if Utah’s politicians who hold national office would listen to him.
Will Collier at Vodkapundit has a great story about an Afghani hero who saved Americans in a recent bombing there. Check it out. It is nice to hear some of the good stories coming from the middle east every once in a while.
It seems that Congressman Chris Cannon isn’t the only one in our government who is making up facts about crimes in our country in an effort to artificially increase our fear of terrorism. The inspector general of the Justice Department has reported that the DOJ and FBI have been fudging the data on reported terrorism cases.
Check out this post at The Agitator.
Congress is supposed to be overseeing the war effort but they don’t have the first clue what is even going on in Iraq…or why its happening. I wonder how many people in the executive branch would fail this same quiz.
I plan on watching the show ABC is going to air called “The Path To 9/11″. The show purports to be a “docudrama” about America’s response to Al Queda starting in the 90’s. If it shows the Clinton administration as being inept at dealing with this terror organization or terrorism in general I think it will be accurate. If it shows that the Republicans in Congress during that time reflexively accused Clinton of “wagging the dog” every time he brought the subject of terrorism up that would also be accurate.
I just read this post at the blog called Uncorrelated. The author is excited about ABC’s show coming on because he believes that it will convince people to agree with him that returning Democrats to power will be a “death sentance to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of regular Americans.” I am led to believe that the author is either trying to get attention to his blog by spouting such obvious idiocy or he’s just really that stupid. I’ll assume he just wants the attention and start working on the first fisking of someone else’s blog post ever produced on this site.
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I haven’t talked a lot about the Iraq War in a while mostly because I hate admitting when I’m wrong.
I was wrong to support the idea of America’s invasion of Iraq before it happened. I wasn’t wrong to publicly hope it was successful and give the president and troops the benefit of the doubt at every step of the way once it started. Now however…it’s clear that it is time for American troops to come home or be re-deployed.
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Senators Rick Santorum and Peter Hoekstra gleefully revealed their success in getting a Pentagon report on WMDs in Iraq declassified today. (read the whole posted link for a full transcript of the press conference) The report states that the U.S. Military did find and secure as many as 500 chemical munitions (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq as far back as 2003. The report also claims that the government knows there are more weapons out there that have not yet been secured by the military.
Here’s my question: Why has Bush been quiet about this?
The belief that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq has been used to pummel the president, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld and most all other administration officials and other supporters of the war in Iraq (me included) nearly every day since March of 2003 when the invasion started. Do you really think the administration would have taken all of this political damage if it weren’t extremely important that this knowledge be kept quiet? Senators Santorum and Hoekstra bragged about winning a fight with intelligence services in getting the portions of this WMD report they were reporting on declassified today. I know intelligence people can be a little over protective at times but doesn’t this topic seem like something they should be given the benefit of the doubt on? There has to be a good reason the Administration allowed itself to be pummeled on this topic rather than release this information. I wonder how much damage these “patriotic” Republican Senators did to our national security today? I wonder if we’ll ever know?
UPDATE (06/26/06 4:00 PM): Rep Hoekstra and Sen. Santorum are complaining in the Wall Street Journal today about stonewalling on the part of the Intelligence community in regards to the documents they “unveiled” last week.
Some officials in the intelligence community withheld the document we requested on WMDs, and somebody is resisting our request to declassify the entire document while briefing journalists in a tendentious manner. We will continue to ask for declassification of this document and the hundreds of thousands of other Saddam-produced documents, and we will also insist on periodic updates on discoveries in Iraq.
The demands they are making are absurd since it is obvious that the administration doesn’t want this stuff declassified. It seems to go beyond partisan politics for the administration which means it must be extemely important that this remain classified. The president will only gain more public approval for his ventures in Iraq if news about large stocks of captured WMDs comes to light…and yet…he wants this stuff kept quiet and even downplays the information recently released. I could be wrong about all of this but it sure seems counter-intuitive for the administration to be blocking these outspoken and desperate Republican congressmen if there isn’t a greater interest at stake.
Do you remember the cold uncomfortable feeling that stayed with you all through the fall of 2001?
If you want to remember what it felt like read this. Be warned…its scary…and it might tick you off a bit.
Link courtesy Instapundit.
UPDATE: There was some confusion about whether or not this story was real. It has been confirmed.
Read this short piece about Pat Tillman, a soldier who died in Afganistan recently. Its been a while since I teared up after reading news piece. This did it…
(Link courtesy Dan)
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America should make sure that our troops have access to every technology that could possibly help them kill our enemies. Here is a really cool one…the Recon Round:
The 2-pound, 6 inch-long reconnaissance device, made from off-the-shelf parts such as digital camera components, would be used in weapons like mortars that launch shells high in the air. Far above the battlefield, a separation charge opens a parachute, and the surveillance device floats down transmitting digital images as it descends.
…Typically deployed at a height of about 1800 to 2000 feet, the reconnaissance round has a field of view of 600 feet by 400 feet and can view terrain as far as 3.1 miles.
Thats pretty cool.
Sam argues that technologies like this are of more value to America than technologies like missle defense that the Pentagon is currently spending tens of billions of dollars to develop. I have a hard time refuting that argument…
One of my recent commentors (see this post) sent me an email with a link to an opinion piece by Ret. Col. David H. Hackworth* about the armored vest fiasco that has probably resulted in dead American soldiers.
It is no secret that I am a fan of this administration’s foreign policy…including Iraq. I think it is important that the United States do something besides eliminating one country that was harboring Al Queda (Afganistan). We need to work on eliminating all regimes that harbor and actively support Islamo-facist thugs. Creating a working Democracy in Iraq…even a very weak and ineffectual one…is a major public step in weakening the dictatorial regimes in the middle-east that are breeding grounds for these animals. More should be said on this about what else needs to happen but this is an argument for another day.
*Hackworth is America’s most decorated living soldier
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This looks bad for the Palestinian people. It is also an example of the soundness of Israel’s new wall strategy.
If the barbarians (Al Aqsa, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc) are going to be destroyed it is going to be because they beat each other to death. How many innocent Palestinians have to die because of these animals?
