Mark Bossingham

Merry Christmas

IF YOU read one end-of-year political story this short one should be it. Christmas eve morning here in Japan. While others sleep I type, and try to fend off the dog that wants a trip outside. It's cold out there, but much like a torture victim, I can't hold out for long. If you are in harm's way, stay safe.

If it's war they want ...

THE NEW York Times and the Washington Post have declared war on America. They continue to illegally publish top secret information that aids our enemies and gets our troops killed. It is long past time that the rest of us stopped them. If the leakers and their enablers want war, let there be war. If I had released information as sensitive while I was in the Navy I would be in a federal penitentiary. Simply put, this is treason. If the press had acted as irresponsibly during World War II, FDR would have suspended habeas corpus, declared martial law and locked them up. Bill Keller deserves a long stretch in prison, as do his sources at the the CIA and State. A special prosecutor must be put in place to find, indict and lock up these criminals.
    In a speech earlier today, President G.W. Bush made it clear both what was at stake and the damage the deranged press has done. Incredibly, if Bush had been LESS successful protecting the nation from attack we wouldn't be having this problem. This latest "leak" in conjunction with the filibuster of the Patriot act by the Democrats in the Senate and John McCain's thoughtless torture legislation has placed the United States directly in harm's way.
    Certainly the NYT thinks the American people are idiots. A careful reading of their outing of the NSA makes it quite clear that the government's actions were well known to both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. It was only "secret" in the sense that we didn't tell the terrorists. Now, the New York Times has.
    But Americans are not fools. If there was ever any doubt that the Democrats couldn't be trusted with national security, there is none now. The blowback will be tremendous. They have wildly overplayed their hand.
    Bush said: In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.
    This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

Boo, Bush

DUDE YOU simply gotta get over this "uniter not a divider" nonsense. They hate you. Their rage burns like the sun. You are spectacular on the war on terror and the economy, but you really need to get a grip--on that veto pen.
    Just because a majority of the the members or Congress are craven opportunists doesn't mean you should chuck out core principles and sign McCain's absurd "no torture--wink, wink" legislation. The bill is a fraud on so many levels and needs to be aborted late-term or no.
    McCain is chirping that terror doesn't work. Of course it does. Remember the phrase "everybody breaks"? Well, it's part of the lexicon for a reason. Everybody spills their guts under duress. That is exactly why the military years ago changed the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) years ago. When I first went into the Navy, we were still under the edict: Name, Rank and Serial Number (SSN). Tell your captors anything else and you were theoretically liable to be brought up on charges. Knowing that everyone will eventually talk if tortured, and wishing to spare the troops the pain (of trying to hold out) and guilt (of failing), the rules were changed. We took classes where the change was explained. No, they didn't say torture never works. On the contrary, our instructors told us that we should hold out as long as we could; that we would eventually talk; that we shouldn't feel guilty; that it wouldn't be our fault and it would not be held against us.
    But McCain needs to make the fatuous case that torture never works because if he admitted that it did, he would then be forced to think a bit more about if and when it should be employed.
    To top off this opportunist/media darling's hypocrisy, when asked about the "ticking time bomb scenario" (a terrorist is in custody and we know he knows where the nuke is hidden), McCain said the president or an interrogator should "break the law" and use torture to extract the information. This illegal act would be "forgiven" because so many lives were saved. Ugh. Painful to even contemplate, that this lunacy could even be considered policy.
    Read Krauthammer? He had it exactly right--the military should never torture. That, on the rare instances when required, must be left to covert civilian operators.
    Back to you, Bush. You are no better. Your "niceness" has been a disaster for the Republican Party. Get a spine and get a pen with some ink in it. I'm sure Condi Rice would be happy to lend you one.

Congrats Iraqis

HAVEN'T POSTED in ages but couldn't let the Iraq election pass without comment. Nothing profound, just a big high-five the the Iraqi people for their perseverance in the face of continuing danger. They prove again what a precious and rare commodity freedom really is, and what an unfree people will endure to get it. It is no coincidence that America's strongest allies in Europe are former Eastern Bloc countries.
    Now, the biggest obstacle to peace and stability in Iraq isn't the terrorists of whatever stripe, but the Murthas, Deans and Kerrys. They are the real enemies of the Iraqi people. The Marines have reduced the terrorists to a sideshow.
    Haven't heard much out of Democrats, or their galley slaves in the press for a couple of days. These pauses (always accompanied by major steps forward in the democratization of Iraq) in their effort to undermine the United States and buck up our enemies are always a relief, but they never last long. It seems the new Democrat Party line is: We aren't going to tell you OUR plan for Iraq. We don't have to and you can't make us.
    Well, that's just dandy with me. The last time the Democrats were called on their cut-and-run rhetoric, when push came to shove, they didn't have the gust to vote for what they truly want (immediate withdrawal). If you dispute that, then you are in support of the U.S. government's current policy. Either you finish the job or you go home with your tail between your legs. You can't have it both ways. Maybe we could outsource it to the U.N.? Naah, look what's happened in Afghanistan--our NATO allies can't even manage to do the tiny little bit they promised. The Dutch can't field an armed force unless it's protected by the U.S., and the Germans have managed to train a grand total of 200 new police officers (who promptly deserted). Thanks for nothing Old Europe.
    Whining that you are stupid and that a super-clever Bush tricked you into supporting a war is amusing, but intellectually dishonest. Let's face it, the left are either dummies or dishonest. Or both.
    Actually, their dirty little secret is they are not at all interested in democracy. Talk about disenfranchised voters--God, these self-selected campus, Hollywood, NYC and Frisco elites would dump this whole egalitarian nonsense in a heartbeat if they could. We are far too ignorant to run the country. We should let them do it and be grateful. Sean Penn, Mike Farrell, John Kerry, Tookie Williams (oops, he's dead) are just the men to lead the United States to greatness.
    Anyway, off I go on one of my horribly unscripted tangents. The point was to congratulate the Iraqis on their brilliant election and to assure them that not all Americans are criminally irresolute invertebrates. Go Iraq!

AP commits fraud

TODAY I switched from Yahoo or My Way News on my browsers to the Chinese news agency Xinhua's site. That the day would come that I would find a communist newswire's reporting consistently more accurate than the Associate Press is a bit overwhelming.
     The final straw was AP's flogging of a story about a successful  insurgent pushback in Ramadi. The AP had the terrorists overrunning the city, "owning" the streets, and attacking U.S. positions with mortars. There, according to the AP, was no U.S. or Iraqi counterattack. At some point, the insurgents simply melted back into the population. The AP even provided video (this, too, turned out to be inaccurate--old footage not related to current events--that ran on CBS and elsewhere).
    Even I was fooled. It sounded at little odd, but, after years of using AP on my pages, I can still be caught out when the organization runs a full-fledged propaganda operation at the behest of Zarqawi and his diminishing band of terrorists.
    I have become used to the wire's dramatic shift to the left, but the idea that it would create and promulgate easily verifiable "news" was still a bit much. That an American news organization would actively work for the enemy in wartime is still hard to swallow, but there you have it. I wonder what FDR would do if this was 1943?
    Bottom line. None of it happened. The melting back into population was a clever out, because the enemy and its dupe, the AP, knew the fiction couldn't be maintained for long.
    Don't take my word for it. Here, complements of Bill Roggio over at ThreatsWatch, is a more concise critic of The Associated Press' performance in Ramadi by Cpt. Jeffery Pool, Public Affairs Officer for the 2nd Marine Division, “Today I witnessed inaccurate reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack journalism at its worse.”

 

 

New Photo Album

YO! I'VE posted a new photo album: USS Blue Ridge. A few pics of me and Navy buddies in various dives in Asia and aboard ship. This was my last ship. I was a member of the embarked 7th Fleet Staff, not Blue Ridge ship's company. Pretty much a distinction without a difference, as we lived aboard the ship, as did the Blue Ridge sailors. Of course, this was pre-women on ships, so no women-sailor pics, I'm afraid. The photo albums are in the left-hand sidebar.

Kerry's delusion

IN HIS speech in Annapolis President Bush said the U.S. will not set an "artificial timetable of withdrawal" in Iraq.
    In a hilarious circumnavigation of reality, John Kerry (failed presidential candidate) finally announced the Democratic position in his response. He called for, get this, "an estimated timetable for success."
    What the hell is that supposed to mean? Only John Kerry knows. Ask him.