Weekend Reading Assignment
- Posted by Beth on October 29th, 2005 filed in Blogs, Funny, General, Journalism, Links, Politics, SCOTUS, Support the Troops
See also the WLWOTPCFCD post for trackbacks and the Comments post
Military/Support the Troops:
- Janette (Common Sense Runs Wild) and SondraK have the story of Army Sgt. Walt Gaya who was injured in Iraq, and as an Argentinian citizen, is now having trouble getting his US citizenship because he was severely injured “just eight days before he was to be sworn in as a U.S. citizen in a ceremony in Iraq.” Janette has details on whom to write/call/email to get this US soldier some help!
- New site for Milbloggers and milblog readers: Milblogging.com. If you’re a milblogger, get your site listed there! You can make a list of favorites (pick me!), sorta like a blogroll. I found some blogs there yesterday that I hadn’t seen before, and you can sort them by gender (I’m looking at you, SHoP), location, branch of service, etc.–and yes, retirees and family members are listed there, too. (I was also told via email that on the “to-do” list is a blog feed function of some kind.)
- Join the Marines! Well, sort of. Holly Aho is running the USMC team for the Project Valour-IT fundraising competition and wants lots of people on the team. If you can help by spreading the word, go on over and enlist your services with Holly.
- Blackfive’s post about
“the 2000th Soldier”SSG George T. Alexander made a leftard cry. Awwwww, the truth hurts, doesn’t it? -
More about SSG George Alexander here, here, here, here, here, and more. (Read about the man–not a number–before you party like it’s
19992000, you bastard leftards.)
The Plame Game:
The more I read, the more disgusted I am about the whole thing. Of course, if Scooter Libby DID lie under oath or obstruct justice, that was unquestionably wrong. How, though, the BDS sufferers (to include Joe Wilson) think this is an indictment of President Bush or the war is beyond me. I can’t believe how intellectually dishonest these people are, and yet they think Bush is dishonest? HA! Too bad the left-winger morons can’t be indicted for being moronic, filthy, lying liars. Just keep repeating the meme for years, eventually it’ll stick, regardless of the truth. As Steven Hayes says here in The Weekly Standard,
But the antiwar agitators are not nearly as dumb as their slogans make them sound. They appear to understand that a scandal-hungry news media, the ongoing difficulties in Iraq, and a weary American public provide an environment hospitable to even their most outrageous claims.
For stuff you’ll never read in the “mainstream” press or the lying leftard blogosphere, read follow the links from Jeff Goldstein’s posts here and here (much of it at The Corner), especially Stephen Hayes’ article (not the same article as the one linked above) and this at the Weekly Standard’s foreign policy blog. Going through all of it will take some time, but it’s worth it if you want to understand the issue from the non-moonbat perspective.
UPDATE: Via the Anchoress’ Random Hits, JunkYardBlog has the appalling story of the man responsible for the forged Iraq/Niger documents.
It locks in several important Iraq-related threads and thoughts as facts: The French are our enemies, the UN is corrupt, and Joseph Wilson isn’t operating in good faith and never was.
The Media, The Left, and America
- Just read this: The Art of the Painless Coup, at The Anchoress.
Funny/miscellaneous stuff:
- Found at Milblogging.com: Love from the Latrine. Hilarious!
- The Darth Side: Memoirs from a Monster (Darth Vader’s blog!)
- The Guy’s Guide to Geek Girls (I’m lookin’ at you, MacStansbury!)
- Stereograms! I love these things. Shut up.
- Ahem. I’m sure I could NEVER be a part of this online group. I’m much too sweet and passive. ;-)
- Throw your cameras in the air, wave them like you just don’t care
- Halloween games!
- NOT FUNNY: MRE = Meals Ready for eBay? Scumbags!
UPDATE: basil moved to WordPress! w00t! Open trackback party at basil’s!
The Anchoress » Random Hits says:
[...] Beth at MVRWC is on a mission to support the troops, and she is asking for help with PROJECT VALOUR IT [...]
Sean says:
So you think that all critics of the war are leftist? Guess again. I’ve been contractor in Tikrit and Baghdad off and on for the past 18 months and if I were ever able to tell my story all of the fake cons and the libs who supported this war would be toast. And the misguided like you, who otherwise seem decent, would think twice before allowing yourself to get lied to again. Your taxpayer dollars are ending up in the hands of the insurgents, idiot! Our objectives are simply untenable in so many ways. Aside from the fact that Saddam and his sons are gone, there is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING right about this war at all. Anybody at this point who is stupid enough or self-deluded enough to not see how wrong this war is….. Grrrr……
Beth says:
Hey, assclown,
So you were a contractor in Iraq, therefore you know everything, huh? More than the troops serving there, I suppose? Wanna compare how many of YOU there are vs. how many who understand what the war is about and support the mission and have served in Iraq?
You don’t support the war, but you keep going back? Who’s the idiot, then?
Guess I know who’s the “misguided” one, then. I don’t give a damn if you’re “fake con” or “lib” or leftist, you’re just an asshole.
You’ve got a lot of nerve with the drive-by shi’iteting in comments, Cluetard.
I got yer “Grrrr…” and I’ll raise you a few. Idiot!
Turing word: BOSS. That would be me, and this boss says to use some netiquette.
William Teach says:
I just do not get the whole “forged niger documents” thing. I mean, this was reported over a year ago. WHy are the lefties going, well, moonbat, over this NOW? Why not back then?
You can just see the hands of America Coming Together behind this Leftist blitz on the story, forcing the Right to take notice.
Stereograms: COOL!!!!! I love those things to, however, it is your fault when I get a headache from trying to look with my contacts in, forcing me to drink more then normal while watching the Giants slaughter the Deadskins :grin:
Sean says:
Okay. I was a bit rude. I’m sorry. Why do I keep going back? Well, I won’t be going back anymore. The money was an allure, but initially I also believed I was doing the right thing. Now I’m disgusted by almost everything we are doing there. The whole thing is rotten to the core, and our policies, as I see now, don’t, never did, never will, and in fact never CAN be forged to work well with the reality of the the situation over there. They are, and only can be, based on ideals and not on practicalities.
Don’t get me wrong. Some Iraqis like us (what do you expect when you evict a Saddam and have lots of largesse in hand to spread) and are benefitting, and I don’t like the lib msm generalizations about “how they all hate us.”
As far as talking to the troops…. A) I have two cousins there now, one safely up in Kirkuk and the other in a more dangerous and because of his role, confidential location; and my brother-in-law was there twice and now is thankfully unlikely to ever to go back. B) Don’t forget that I lived with them for an aggregate 14 months over the past 18.
In fact, it was conversations with the troops, long before I began to see the corruption around me, that began to cause me to re-examine our role. I mean, most of my fellow civvy contractors claimed to be there out of some sort of religious obligation. THEY weren’t going to be the ones who opened my eyes. While I don’t have data to prove, I would wager anything that if you polled most regular troops more than 50% would tell you off the record that we didn’t belong there. And close to 90% of guardsmen would tell you the same thing. Now, the shoot-on-sight Blackwater folks in their tricked-out Hummers would probably tell you differently. So would the Special Forces, who are caught up in a big video game.
It is so ugly and messy and convoluted over there and I know that this is YOUR blog, so I won’t go on. But I’m just frustrated that there isn’t a way to express to more conservatives that there is nothing “conservative” about the war. Unless, of course, you think that LBJ and MacNamara were conservatives.
Ciao, and sorry again for my brusqueness.
Sean
MacStansbury says:
boy Sean, you should’ve been with my Unit. if you polled them, you would’ve got, oh, about 151 out of 152 saying “we don’t belong there.” their reasons for saying that? far too numerous for me to name here. then again, you can do the same thing in, oh, every war, ever.
but you know what? guess how many deserters we had? none. they did their job. in fact, if you were talking to them in the sandbox, then they MUST want to be there, since it’s really not that difficult to get out.
sorry to break it to you, but you were doing the right thing. and if you’re just now waking up to the reality of how fragile government is? well, welcome to the planet. living in stable America ruins the perspective. did you know we are the only county on the planet with such resources of fresh water? we are blessed in America.
finally, as a troop, getting my troops ready to go back, or for the first time, the wrong time to ask them about foreign policy is when they are dodging bullets. tend to get unrealistic answers driven by fear or patriotism. the same goes for contractors dealing with how corrupt ALL governments are.
like I say, welcome to the real world.