The Wounds Within

The war doesn’t end when troops get home. I saw this documentary on the The Pentagon Channel:
The Wounds Within
RECON
Exploring the debilitating condition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You’ll meet servicemembers whose physical battlefield injuries have healed, but yet emotional wounds linger on.

I’m very familiar with PTSD, having been diagnosed with that and dissociative disorder many years ago. By God’s grace I’m completely recovered now, but I do pray for the troops in this regard, and giving them Godly resources may help them get through the emotional wounds they are sure to sustain. These men and women volunteered to take on burdens that the rest of us can’t or won’t bear. We need to support them every way we can. John Piper’s Desiring God ministries is giving his book, “Don’t Waste Your Life” to soldiers at Fort Benning:

Desiring God was recently contacted by a U.S. Army Captain serving out of Fort Benning with a special request. His words both moved and excited us:

Recently, I partnered with our unit chaplain to provide a table with religious literature free for our soldiers in our large reception areas. Presently, we cannot keep the table filled with enough Bibles and other tracts, such has been the demand.

As Desiring God has communicated the gospel in my own life, my desire is to see the gospel work in the lives of these soldiers. On behalf of our unit ministries and the support of my chain of command, we would like to be a partner with Desiring God in giving soldiers the opportunity to have the gospel available to them.

After sharing this letter with John Piper, we were moved to provide a copy of Don’t Waste Your Life for all 30,000 soldiers who will pass through Fort Benning this year. But we need your help. We estimate it cost around $1 per recruit to purchase these materials and ship them out. Will you help us cover the cost of this tremendous project? Imagine being able to touch the lives of 10 men and women in uniform in such a meaningful way for only $10.00!

Find out how to give here.

Liberals Express Their Feelings About Affirmative Action College Admissions

Some quotes redacted so you can’t tell who they’re talking about. Go read the article and more comments here.

Here’s what surprising, that [] even got into Harvard Law! How an ivy league school with its self proclaimed ‘best of the best’ cry, can admit an [] is beyond me. He’s so disappointing on many levels. Then there’s Richardson, at the debate, saying he knows [] and his humble origins, and [] is a Harvard Law School graduate! Tuition is sky high therefore, [] ain’t that humble (or smart, IMO). Somebody, please explain to me HOW this happens!
simi | Email | Homepage | 04.29.07 - 6:55 am

[] got into Harvard based on his minority status. But you know what, ‘I don’t really recall’ how he got into Harvard. Most likely NOT on his good looks or academic status.How embarrassing for the current and former graduates of the law school, to have an idiot like [...].
NEVERvoteRepublicanagain | Email | Homepage |

I was SHOCKED to hear that [] had graduated from Harvard and wondered how he got admitted. I’m sure the fact that he’s a minority played into his admission. He’s sucked up to people who’d otherwise be employing him as their gardener. [...]. Intellectual lightweights who’ve gotten passes at some time or another in their lives and ended up in situations over their heads.
JeffColsOH | Email | Homepage | 04.29.07 - 7:31 pm

Sure, they hate him for what he’s done that they think is wrong. And I’m no fan of the guy myself, for other reasons. But instead of sticking to their policy grievances, they go for the race/class card. This happens whenever a minority crosses their racial picket line to join conservatives; from Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, pundits including Michelle Malkin, Bob Parks, La Shawn Barber… Draw your own conclusions. And consider the reaction if conservatives had said these things about a liberal.

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War Reporting, NY Times WWII Examples

Dhimmi Watch has an interesting post on what the NY Times did during WWII - much the same as it is doing today. It dovetails nicely with my complaints about war reporting, comparing WWI to today. The Dhimmi Watch post is less about the substance and more about the selection of the reporting. Everyone knows, or should know, about Walter Duranty. We’ve certainly seen the Gray Lady minimize reporting on good news in Iraq and Afghanistan since almost the beginning of the war, and we’ve seen one of their reporters embed with the enemy and write a book about the enemy’s brave struggle. As it turns out, the Times had a similar track record in WWII, at least in some areas:

It also did a terrible job in its reporting on Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, and the persecution of Jews throughout the 1930s, and then of course, on the mass round-ups (”Aktion”) and murders during the war. Many things were not mentioned at all. Others were relegated to tiny paragraphs deep inside the paper. You can read all about it in excellent book by Laurie Leff (of Northeastern University).

Because of the miserable coverage of the Nazi war against the Jews, many of the readers of The Times, and readers of other less well-endowed newspapers that did not have foreign bureaus but took their lead from The Times, never published the truth. And many readers of The Times had relatives in Europe, and could have done things to save them, had they been properly informed, properly alarmed. And perhaps, too, those in Washington who treated the groups of Orthodox rabbis who went to Washington to implore that something be done, might have done more, might have done something, anything. Instead, they let a cabal of antisemites stymie their efforts. These included Breckenridge Long in the State Department — see “The Truth About the State Department” by William Bendiner, a pamphlet written during the war, who was determined to keep Jewish refugees out, and John J. McCloy, that swinish “pillar of the establishment.” As Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, McCloy prevented the bombing of the rail lines to Auschwitz, even though American bombers were successfully destroying targets just a few miles away. One of the pilots on the first daylight bombing raids over Berlin, incidentally, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor, was one of my relatives. He and those who flew with him would have gladly bombed any rail-lines leading to death camps, had they only been given the information, and the target.

I’ve emailed Fitzgerald at Dhimmi Watch to learn more about the Laurie Leff book he references. At minimum, it looks like NYT WWII reporting was a very mixed bag, from the hyper-patriotic on some topics to downright antisemitic and quisling on others. Between her book and some other WWII journalism books I’m checking out, maybe a fuller picture is available.

We Don’t Live In A Democracy

For some wacky reason, at every liberal blog I visit and some conservative ones, there is always at least one comment that “we used to live in a democracy!” or “Chimpy is destroying our democracy,” or “We can shut the war down because this is a democracy and that’s what the people want to do,” “this is a democracy and that’s why we’ll never let them get our guns,” and so on.

Wrong. Where did these people go to school? The United States of America is not now and never has been a democracy. We are a constitution-based federal republic. No need to take my word, or the CIA World Factbook’s word. Even the Wikipedia agrees, along with every encyclopedia I’ve ever seen. Go to the library and look it up.

Why is that better than a democracy? Well, Thomas Jefferson (who actually said that dissent is “a great evil“, not “the highest form of patriotism”) said this about democracy:

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

I’ll take the constition-based federal republic, thanks.

[Update: Perri Nelson has a good article on this, including how the Wiki has been manipulated on this topic. I link to Wiki occasionally because it’s convenient and sometimes accurate, but it’s worth noting that just because it was accurate once, doesn’t mean it will stay that way. The comments are excellent too, with some references to other good articles.

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War Reporting, Compare and Contrast

Then, media provided background information and explained strategy:

1918: Hindenburg Line is broken*
The Hindenburg Line, a strong system of German defenses in northwestern France, was broken by the Allied forces today. German leaders had previously believed the line was impregnable, comparing it to the Great Wall of China.

“Americans and British have smashed the whole Hindenburg line south of Cambrai advancing two miles over an eight mile front, according to information received from the front this afternoon. The break thru the Hindenburg line was made from just north of the fortress of La Catelet to just north of St. Quentin,” wrote the Oxnard Courier on September 30, 1918. “La Catelet was taken by storm by the Americans and was the first of the Doual-Cambrai-St. Quentin forts of the Hindenburg line to fall.”

The line was nearly 100 miles long and ten miles deep in some places. The Battle of the Hindenburg Line, as it is called, began on September 18 and was an important turning point in the Hundred Days Offensive, as well as the war itself.

Now, media provides anecdotes and body counts of our troops, allies, and civilians (but not enemies):

U.S. announces 9 troop deaths in Iraq By KIM GAMEL Associated Press Writer
A car bomb exploded Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala as the streets were packed with people heading for evening prayers, killing at least 58 and wounding scores near some of the country’s most sacred shrines. Separately, the U.S. military announced the deaths of nine American troops, including three killed Saturday in a single roadside bombing outside Baghdad.

With black smoke clogging the skies above Karbala, angry crowds hurled stones at police and later stormed the provincial governor’s house, accusing authorities of failing to protect them from the unrelenting bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents. It was the second car bomb to strike the city’s central area in two weeks.

Near the blast site, survivors frantically searched for missing relatives. Iraqi television showed one man carrying the charred body of a small girl above his head as he ran down the street while ambulances rushed to retrieve the wounded and firefighters sprayed water at fires in the wreckage, leaving pools of bloody water.

The Americans killed in Iraq included five who died in fighting Friday in Anbar province, three killed when a roadside bomb struck their patrol southeast of Baghdad and one killed in a separate roadside bombing south of the capital.

The deaths raised to 99 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died this month and at least 3,346 who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Now, you have to get the real war news from Pat Dollard and other war bloggers in Iraq:

Today a bomb went off at one of the Shiites’ holiest shrines in Iraq. The media will report this vaguely as “sectarian violence” and not as part of the apocalyptic final deathgrip we are now locked in with Al Qeada. They will mention Al Qaeda, but that’s about as close as to the big picture that they will get. While the maisntream media hasn’t been giving you the real narrative, I’ve been reoporting to you, for nearly two weeks, that a dramatic offensive, conducted by our Marines and our new Sunni allies, many of whom had been fighting us just months before, had driven Al Qaeda out of their Al Anbar base. As a result, Al Qaeda has launched a devestating counterattack in the Baghdad/Triangle of Death area, and has been trying to make some noise in smaller towns outside of Ramadi. Petraeus has reported all of this over the last 72 hours, but the media instead presents only a muddied picture of seemingly random violence. Perhaps to do so might provide America with clarity and hope. Perhaps that is the problem.

The Shrine was destroyed by Al Qaeda to try to create a civil war in Iraq, thereby leveraging, amongst other things, a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. There is no civli war in Iraq. Just ganglords recruiting and fighting turf wars under color of sectarianism.

The people of Iraq have no investement in civil war, and this is why civil war is not being waged on a populist level. Al Qaeda and Al Sadr are trying to change all of that.

If Pat Dollard, Bill Roggio, Michael Fumento and Michael Yon can go over there and get the news, why can’t CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and the rest do it? The media is not practicing journalism, it is waging a propaganda war against the United States.

[Update: Welcome, Stuff You Can Use readers... I can't comment on the post which linked here, but I do have a response: While the news in WWI and WWII may well have been biased, it was not biased in favor of our enemies. It is today. There are literally thousands of examples, from CNN showing enemy propaganda sniper video, to the NY Times exposing a perfectly legal program which in fact had been exactly what the 9/11 Commission prescribed, to consistently burying any positive war news ten or more paragraphs down in articles. Part of this is the "if it bleeds, it leads," phenomenon, but that doesn't come close to explaining the day in/day out pressure for us to lose this war. The facts on the ground do not support the view that we have already lost the war, or that we cannot possibly win it. But the media consistently promotes that view, and has since very early on. Part of the reason is that they are relying on stringers who often have a motive for not reporting accurately. The truth is that our military is fighting amazingly well, and that losing less than 3,500 troops speaks volumes about their skill, training, and professionalism. This is no Vietnam. After listening to what Gen. Petraeus has said, seeing the statistics so far on a surge where only 60% of the new troops have been deployed, and reading what soldiers on the ground and Iraqis are writing about the surge, we should have every expectation to win this. I'll even give the Democrats credit. As Joe Lieberman said earlier this week, they complained all along that basic security should have been addressed, and that more troops should have been sent. Now they're getting what they've wanted all along and it's working! But they refuse to believe the general they unanimously voted to send, and the media refuses to report on the successes of the surge.

It's not a coincidence that the media, which admits overwhelmingly to being more liberal than conservative, reports on the war from the perspective of the Democratic Party. I'm not saying that there is a grand conspiracy and this is all planned out in smoke-filled back rooms - far from it. But there is certainly a "conspiracy" of shared values.

Finally, netchicken wrote:

Read her links to what she considers good reporting, but be thankful that we have the ability to mine such rich sources of news in our society. Its the best of all worlds when it comes to war reporting more than any time ever in history.

I AM thankful that there are so many avenues of information out there. If there were not, I would be among the millions of Americans who rely on the MSM and genuinely believe that the war is hopeless, lost, and that we can cut and run again with no real penalties.]

[Updated again: Here's another example - as seen at Hot Air, the NY Times has finally, grudgingly, begun reporting the successes in Anbar that blog readers have known about for some time. They admit in the article that this turnaround began last September. Why is this the first time most people are hearing of it? This was big news six months ago to the people fortunate enough to learn of it - and if I, a web developer in New Orleans, could learn it, then I feel safe in saying that reporters in Iraq could have as well. The media may try their best to avoid it, but they can't ultimately hide the truth - there are too many alternatives sources now. They are doing their best to delay and minimize it, hoping that things will turn back their way before 2008.]

*Subscription required to view these articles:
Americans Breaking Hindenburg Line
The Lima Daily News, September 29, 1918
Continued: Americans Break Hindenburg Line
Hindenburg Line
La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, September 29, 1918
Whole West Line May Collapse
The Evening Telegram, September 30, 1918
Break Huns’ Line
Oxnard Courier, September 30, 1918

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Global warming debate ‘irrational’: scientists

Heh: Global warming debate ‘irrational’: scientists

Stephanie Stein / Standard-Freeholder Local News - Thursday, April 26, 2007 @ 10:00 The current debate about global warming is “completely irrational,” and people need to start taking a different approach, say two Ottawa scientists. Carleton University science professor Tim Patterson said global warming will not bring about the downfall of life on the planet. Patterson said much of the up-to-date research indicates that “changes in the brightness of the sun” are almost certainly the primary cause of the warming trend since the end of the “Little Ice Age” in the late 19th century. Human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas of concern in most plans to curb climate change, appear to have little effect on global climate, he said. “I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we’re about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere,” said Patterson. “The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it’s not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles.” Patterson explained CO2 is not a pollutant, but an essential plant food.

Hidden Secrets Movie Trailer

Just a reminder - in a few days the movie “Hidden Secrets” will be opening up in theaters all over the country.

Read my review, enjoy the trailer, and go watch this movie - it opens on Monday, April 30th!

A British Jihadi Saw The Light; Pity That The Democrats Can’t

h/t to LGF for this Times Online extract from an upcoming book called The Islamist by Ed Hussain. This book looks like it’s going to be very interesting. Ed Hussain grew up in the west, but still promoted radical Islam… at least until he lived in Saudi Arabia and learned what it is like in practice, not as preached in western countries where you can do as you like after you leave the mosque. He wrote:

I had never expected to see such naked poverty in Saudi Arabia.

At that moment it dawned on me that Britain, my home, had given refuge to thousands of black Africans from Somalia and Sudan: I had seen them in their droves in Whitechapel. They prayed, had their own mosques, were free and were given government housing.

Many Muslims enjoyed a better lifestyle in non-Muslim Britain than they did in Muslim Saudi Arabia. At that moment I longed to be home again.

All my talk of ummah seemed so juvenile now. It was only in the comfort of Britain that Islamists could come out with such radical utopian slogans as one government, one ever expanding country, for one Muslim nation. The racist reality of the Arab psyche would never accept black and white people as equal.

…Racism was an integral part of Saudi society. My students often used the word “nigger” to describe black people. Even dark-skinned Arabs were considered inferior to their lighter-skinned cousins. I was living in the world’s most avowedly Muslim country, yet I found it anything but. I was appalled by the imposition of Wahhabism in the public realm, something I had implicitly sought as an Islamist.

…In my class the following Sunday [after the 7/7 bombings], the beginning of the Saudi working week, were nearly 60 Saudis. Only one mentioned the London bombings.

“Was your family harmed?” he asked.

“My sister missed an explosion by four minutes but otherwise they’re all fine, thank you.”

The student, before a full class, sighed and said: “There are no benefits in terrorism. Why do people kill innocents?”

Two others quickly gave him his answer in Arabic: “There are benefits. They will feel how we feel.”

I was livid. “Excuse me?” I said. “Who will know how it feels?”

“We don’t mean you, teacher,” said one. “We are talking about people in England. You are here. They need to know how Iraqis and Palestinians feel.”

“The British people have been bombed by the IRA for years,” I retorted. “Londoners were bombed by Hitler during the blitz. The largest demonstrations against the war in Iraq were in London. People in Britain don’t need to be taught what it feels like to be bombed.”

Several students nodded in agreement. The argumentative ones became quiet. Were they convinced by what I had said? It was difficult to tell.

Two weeks after the terrorist attacks in London another Saudi student raised his hand and asked: “Teacher, how can I go to London?”

“Much depends on your reason for going to Britain. Do you want to study or just be a tourist?”

“Teacher, I want to go London next month. I want bomb, big bomb in London, again. I want make jihad!”

“What?” I exclaimed. Another student raised both hands and shouted: “Me too! Me too!”

Other students applauded those who had just articulated what many of them were thinking. I was incandescent. In protest I walked out of the classroom to a chorus of jeering and catcalls.

My time in Saudi Arabia bolstered my conviction that an austere form of Islam (Wahhabism) married to a politicised Islam (Islamism) is wreaking havoc in the world. This anger-ridden ideology, an ideology I once advocated, is not only a threat to Islam and Muslims, but to the entire civilised world.

He describes a threat we must take seriously. To those who say that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will leave us alone, I would remind them that, as Joe Lieberman pointed out, the facts do not support that theory. Where we have left Iraqi cities undefended, terrorists have taken control and wreaked havoc, enforcing Shariah on an unwilling populace. London hosted the largest anti-war rallies, as Hussain pointed out. It provides a comprehensive welfare system that supports many of the Imams who preach radicalism in London mosques, yet was rewarded with a terrorist attack.

I’ve written before about how the “tiny percentage” is a substantial threat:
June 19, 2006: “The problem is that even though only a small percentage of people who declare themselves Muslim actively want to fight us because they say their faith compels it, the numbers involved are huge. For example, after the London bombings last summer, a survey of UK Muslims was taken. Only 5% thought that more attacks were justified. This sounds like great news until you do the math. Unfortunately 5% of Muslims in the UK means 80,000 people thought more attacks were justified. If only 5% of the 5% were actually willing to act on that feeling of justification, that’s still 4,000 jihadis in the UK alone. Considering how few managed to successfully attacks us on 9/11, I’d say that’s cause for concern.”

July 16, 2006: “A July 4, 2006 Times Online article revealed that “13% of British Muslims think that the four men who carried out the London Tube and bus bombings of July 7, 2005, should be regarded as “martyrs”.” Believing that more attacks are justified, and believing that those who carry out attacks are martyrs are roughly equivalent. (If you are a martyr, it follows that your cause was just; otherwise you are referred to as a terrorist or a criminal.) From 5% to 13% in a year. 13% of 1.6 million Muslims is 208,000. Again, holding to the idea that only a tiny minority of 5% would act on those beliefs, 5% of 208,000 is 10,400.”

February 19, 2007: “Now we have this article at Jihad Watch [emphasis added]:

Again, guesstimating that of the 12% who approve, only 5% might be willing to actually act on it, that gives you 4,200 Muslim Canadian jihadists.

What if we figure that only a tiny percentage of those willing to act could actually be effective? Of those estimated who are willing to act, let’s guess that 5% are smart enough, have the connections and the ability to come up with an effective plan and carry it out.

That would mean in England, there are 520 effective jihadis. In Canada, 210.

Nineteen people took down the World Trade Centers.”

Raymond Ibrahim also did some math on this topic and writes:

Thus, even if we were to agree with Ramadan that the vast majority of Muslims are “moderates” and that, say, only a mere 20 percent of Muslims are “literalists,” that simply means that some 200 million Muslims in the world today are dedicated enemies of the infidel West. At any rate, when it comes to instilling terror, numbers are of no significance. It took only 19 to wreak great havoc and destruction on American soil on 9/11. It won’t take much more to duplicate that horrific day. This is precisely why, to use Ramadan’s own words, “we are obsessed by the few [radical Muslims] and not seeing the many [moderate Muslims].” That most Muslims are good, law-abiding citizens and that only a mere minority of the umma, say, 200 million, are hell-bent on destroying the West — how is that supposed to be any comfort to us?

It is in this environment that top Democratic Presidential contenders bobbed and weaved when asked the following very clear question:

“If, God forbid, a thousand times, while we were gathered here tonight, we learned that two American cities had been hit simultaneously by terrorists,” Williams said, “and we further learned beyond the shadow of a doubt it had been the work of al Qaeda, how would you change the U.S. military stance overseas as a result?”

If we learned beyond a shadow of a doubt… yet Obama and Edwards still answered the question by questioning the intelligence in this theoretical situation. It reminds me of Reid simply refusing to believe General Petraeus. Edwards went even further, promising investigations of our security apparatus to find out how the attacks were successful. (Hmmm… what does Edwards think about the Patriot Act, so called domestic warrantless wiretapping, and the financial tracking program exposed by the NY Times?) Hillary says “if there were nations that supported or gave material aid to those who attacked us, I believe we should quickly respond.” IF… and respond to whom? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Bill Richardson said he’d respond aggressively, while getting international support (heh - good luck with that!), improve intelligence (goody, more investigations, or does he mean we can go back to using the programs Democrats have been griping about for years?) and he’d respond with surgical strikes. How would he know where to strike surgically? Biden, at least, had a somewhat realistic response:

Still later, Sen. Joseph Biden dispensed with the limits of a “surgical” response and gave the Democrats’ only full-scale endorsement of military force. “Let’s stop all this happy talk here [that] the use of force doesn’t make sense,” Biden said. “The use of force in Afghanistan is justified and necessary; in Darfur, justified and necessary; in the Balkans, justified and necessary. You guys can have your happy talk, there’s real life.”

He’s deliberately overlooking an important point. If force is justified in the Balkans and Darfur, it is even more justified and necessary in Iraq. That’s real life. None of them except Biden can even formulate a response to hypothetical terror attacks that doesn’t involve navel-gazing investigations, and he seems unaware of the strategic necessity of our presence in Iraq or the real nature of terrorism.

One jihadi saw the light, not from enjoying the freedoms of the west, but from suffering the restrictions of what he advocated. Perhaps we ought to be encouraging the Democrats to take even more, and longer, trips over to terror-sponsoring countries. At this point, I don’t see how it could hurt.

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