Newsradio 620 WTMJ: Charlie Sykes

Spitting on Marines:

Now if they can just get on to calling us "baby killers," the antiwar left will be back to full-swing Vietnam mode.

On Thursday night, an antiwar protestor in Milwaukee spit on a returned Iraqi war veteran, Marine Major Jerry Boyle. Boyle is a Republican candidate for Congress in Milwaukee. Boyle served in Operation Iraqi freedom and was posted to Baghdad shortly after the invasion.

Boyle, the kind of gentleman we expect an officer to be, did not deign to notice. A gentleman duels only with equals, after all, and no such person is the equal of a United States Marine.

Female soldiers eyed for combat - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - October 22, 2004

Women in Combat:

The Army is apparently planning to do away with additional restrictions on women being placed in combat positions. The reasoning for this change is fairly sound: it's become so hard to distinguish what is and is not a "combat area" that enforcing the regs literally would mean keeping women confined to bases in the US. No point letting them enlist if you won't let them serve.

My favorite line from the story is this one, which explains that the military is already deploying women to these spots, regs or no regs:

Some Pentagon officials, who asked not to be named, said the proposed Forward Support Companies are at the least 'skirting' the existing ban if not violating it.

Yeah, I wouldn't want my name associated with a pun like that, either.

Foreign Policy: NGOs: Fighting Poverty, Hurting the Poor

Friendly Fire in the War on Global Poverty:

There is no such thing as friendly fire:

The war against poverty is threatened by friendly fire. A swarm of media-savvy Western activists has descended upon aid agencies, staging protests to block projects that allegedly exploit the developing world. The protests serve professional agitators by keeping their pet causes in the headlines. But they do not always serve the millions of people who live without clean water or electricity.

Increasingly, the NGOs are the enemies of the causes the espouse. It isn't just poverty either. How many times must Human Rights Watch or Amnesty attack the United States, before they sort out that we are the single most committed defender of human rights in the world today?

The enemy of your enemy is meant to be your friend. Even if they aren't perfect.

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | The last post

[Nigh-Endless Laughter]

It turns out that the last words of the UK Guardian sound remarkably like the joke about "the Redneck's Last Words."

Hey, watch this!

Hm... that didn't go too good.

Ya'll were on the wrong track from "the Tony Martin school of foreign policy." You might have checked to see just how many letters old Tony has gotten from the USA, these last few years. I wrote one myself.

My Way News

AP: Can't Trust Kerry

That, at least, is my reading of this paragraph from an AP story on Kerry "hunting for conservative voters" (more election violence!):

Kerry returned after a two-hour hunting trip wearing a camouflage jacket and carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, but someone else carried the bird he said he shot.

"Someone else carried the bird he said he shot." Now, I don't think Kerry can be trusted either. It's pretty clear that he'll say or do anything. Even I, however, am willing to believe that he could hit a goose with a double-barrel 12-gauge.

In other news, Kerry -- who has been taking pains to hunt in every state he's visited lately -- is going to be giving a speech on his values. His spokesman, McCurry, said, "The fact that Senator Kerry is a person of faith is something that might help voters who are undecided."

Personally, I would be surprised to learn that any remaining undecided voters are very religious. People for whom faith is a guiding light usually don't have a lot of trouble making up their minds on the important questions. What's to be undecided about, if you know your own moral center?

In addition to which, churches are involved in this election more than previous ones. I can't think that you'd need to explain your faith to religious voters...

...unless you're having trouble with a core constituency, that is.

UPDATE: Via PoliPundit, a writer who sees some similarities between Hunting Kerry and Elmer Fudd.

Elmer is the hunter who can't really stomach the kill. In fact, in the Bugs Bunny short A Wild Hare, he's grief stricken when he believes he's really shot the rabbit. "I'm a murderer!" he wails, to Bugs's (and the audience's) supreme amusement. (Kerry went from War Hero to Anti-War activist upon his return, the children of Vietnam vets have a message for Kerry.)

Elmer Fudd: Reminiscient of Genghis Khan!

UPDATE: Reader Gracie provides evidence that, once again, Kerry is trying to play the game from both sides:

UPDATE: Drudge apparently got a longer report from the journalists sent to cover the report. It sounds like they were pretty well torqued about the whole thing.

My favorite part is where they're speculating about whether or not Kerry will actually dare to be seen bringing back a dead animal. Or maybe Osama bin Laden, who'll have been hiding in the bush.

Mudville Gazette

"Saint George for Merry Fiji!"

The Mudville Gazette reports that, when every nation of old Europe had failed, Fiji boldly steps forth:

The United Nations says Fiji's government has become the first to agree to provide troops [to secure the UN efforts]... Wednesday UN spokeswoman Maria Okabe announced that 130 Fijians would provide security details for senior UN officials and a guard unit to protect UN facilities in Baghdad. "These contributions are critical to the UN's efforts to strengthen the security arrangements for its personnel in Iraq," she said, quoted by the Associated Press news agency. "This would make it possible for the United Nations to consider expanding its activities in Iraq as circumstances permit."

It's worth asking why Fiji has the kind of moral and physical courage lacking in so many. Greyhawk provides the answer by posting the flag of Fiji. In the upper hoist quadrant, there is a Union jack; in the field, a Cross of St. George.

Fiji's part of the Anglosphere.

My Way News

Damn Yankees:

The one time I've ever said anything nice about anything called a "Yankee," and look how they repay me. I should have known better. You just can't trust that ilk.

Battlegrounders on National Review Online

Democratic Realignment:

Zell Miller is out winning votes for Bush in PA. Not, mind you, firing up Republicans to vote for Bush: convincing Democrats to vote for Bush.

Westmoreland is a county heavily dominated by Democrats in municipal offices, as well. Its board of commissioners has a Democratic majority; its state House delegation is overwhelmingly Democratic....

Belying its registration statistics and political character at the local level, Westmoreland County over the last 15 years has become an increasingly reliable source of votes for Republican candidates. And reliance on that trend was one of the foundations of an aggressive GOP-controlled redistricting plan that dramatically reshaped the state's congressional map two years ago.

What this reflects is a drift of socially conservative voters away from the Democratic Party that presents a key challenge to Kerry and other Democratic candidates....

The issues of abortion and gun control are repeatedly cited by Republican and Democrats as among the keys to the GOP inroads in counties like Westmoreland across the western half of Pennsylvania.

Whatever the outcome of this race, there is going to be a realignment of traditional Democrats. Many, of course, will go Republican. But it may be that others of us will split the party. I think a Jacksonian Democratic party would be able to look toward 2008 with pleasure. Although it would lose most of the left wing of the current Democratic party, it could capture the center-right of the Republican party. I see no reason such a party shouldn't be the leading force in American politics.

Ashley's Story

"I Have Knocked on the Door of this Man's Soul and Found Someone Home."

You can see "Ashley's Story," if you have not, at that address.

I personally believe that character can be a sufficient cause to vote for one candidate over another--character is the one thing on which you can finally rely. The law won’t restrain a man of sufficient power or connections or fame. Past a certain level, character is the only thing that can.

Everyone must finally evaluate these mens’ characters for themselves. It seems to me that this story is enlightening in that regard, given the great number of assaults that have been directed at Bush’s. Yet, finally, he is a decent man.

Kerry is not. He betrayed his oath as an officer, and his brothers in arms--first by leaving them under fire, then by meeting privately with the leaders of their enemies, and then by entering those leaders’ propaganda into the Senate record, while advocating that enemy’s plan. That he did so is not even contested. People who wish to support him merely try to excuse or explain what everyone recognizes that he did.

There are many things the Bush administration does of which I don’t approve. Yet, finally, Bush is a decent man, and Kerry is not. To me, and to others, that will be sufficient.

gladwell dot com / The Ketchup Conundrum

Ketchup:

Want to read something really interesting, that has nothing whatsoever to do with politics or the military? Read "The Ketchup Conundrum." It will explain several things you never knew you didn't know: why your toddler won't eat anything new, why nobody's ever gotten rich selling gourmet ketchup, and several other things besides.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

The Navy At Work:

Best of the Web runs this AP headline:

'U.S. Navy Makes Skirts Optional for Women'

BotW wonders if this won't distract the men. As any student of Marine Corps / Navy jokes knows, however, the answer is...

As Grim's Hall is a family site, that sentence will not be concluded. Still, Marines in the audience are grinning broadly.

(Similar adolescent humor: One evening, hanging around with a couple of soldiers and some former Marines at a jujitsu club in Gainesville, GA, a debate arose over which service was better. One of the women there, Renee, said, "This is just silly. Everyone knows the services go hand in hand." To which former Marine sergeant Ken Caton replied...)

Really, military humor is just unprintable. I apologize to everyone for this walk down memory lane.

MSNBC - Bush campaign voices worry about military vote

"A Litigation Strategy" Against Military Voters:

Should the military be allowed to vote in the presidential elections? Both Florida and Ohio have massive numbers of deployed soldiers, as do NJ, PA, and other swing states. But Democratic lawsuits may prevent military voters from having the chance to speak out.

My reading of the polls is that the general trends give the election to Bush, if military voters are counted. If the Democratic party can get military ballots thrown out, or prevent them from being issued in time for the election in the first place, Kerry could win. Ohio is close enough, excepting military voters, that Kerry has a chance of carrying it.

Is there anything we can do to make sure the servicemen get to vote? Nope. By putting the matter in the courts, partisans remove it entirely from any democratic (small d-) pressures -- indeed, that is why the courts are generally preferred by advocates of positions that horrify the electorate. If the partisans can manage the delays long enough, they could win by disenfranchising the deployed military, and no political action by any side or group can stop it. It's just a matter of whether the courts reach a resolution in time to get approved ballots to the troops, get them filled out, and returned in a proper fashion.

No point in speculating on what the proper response would be, should the litigation strategy succeed in disenfranchising military voters. Maybe things will work out right. Perhaps the court system will work. I suppose we'll see.

Froggy Ruminations: Vox Blogoli: Why George Bush

The Operators:

Froggy Ruminations:

As a SEAL Reservist, I have tried to maintain contact with my friends in the Teams who have remained on active duty. This President has authorized SOF operations that were unthinkable with the prior administration. If I told you the places my friends have been, you would be shocked. President Bush's risk tolerance for operations in support of the GWOT is satisfyingly high. While John Kerry promises to double SOF which is impossible, the President has shown a detailed understanding of what the SEALs are up to and how they are getting it done. The President has mandated the creation of 2 additional SEAL Teams, but he told our top Admiral that he would not abide the degradation of training and selection of men. This is music to the ears of a Navy SEAL who places his life in the hands of his comrades in training and war.

SEALs that I have talked to love the President and Donald Rumsfeld as well.

There's more.

Da Grunt's Support Team! - - Fotopages.com

Warlords:

JarHeadDad invites you all to drop by and see the pictures from Iraq. The 2/2 is just back, and he's got some new shots just developed and posted online. There are some older things too, if you missed them the first time around.

War's Wrenching Counterpoint to Quints' Arrival (washingtonpost.com)

Sgt. Horton:

Thanks to everyone who sent me this morning's story from the Washington Post. Turns out he's in Bethesda, which is only a couple of hours from here. Maybe I'll drop in to see the fellow next week, if the National Naval Medical Center allows visitors. Does anyone know?

War's Wrenching Counterpoint to Quints' Arrival (washingtonpost.com)

Sgt. Horton:

Thanks to everyone who sent me this morning's story from the Washington Post. Turns out he's in Bethesda, which is only a couple of hours from here. Maybe I'll drop in to see the fellow next week, if the National Naval Medical Center allows visitors. Does anyone know?

The Command Post - 2004 Presidential Election

Really, His Senate Record Means Nothing At All:

Yet again we are being told by the Kerry campaign to please ignore the last two decades of his career:

When asked to reconcile all that she had said about Kerry's purported positive views on space with a voting record wherein he repeatedly voted to cut or cancel various NASA activities including the ISS, Garver noted that she was not all that concerned about this - and that one should not consider Kerry�s Senate voting record as being indicative of how Kerry would view NASA as President.

Come on, now. How the man has voted for two decades says nothing whatsoever about his opinions on the military, intelligence,and now space policy? Just what is the role of a Senator's vote, then?

Marine Corps Times - News - More News

A Troubling Note to An Earlier Story:

Marine Sgt. Joshua Horton, the Marine who deployed just in advance of the birth of quintuplets, is back in the USA. Sadly, it's because he was seriously hurt:

A Marine sergeant who was seriously injured in Iraq just days before his wife gave birth to quintuplets has been told about the new babies, a Marine spokesman said Wednesday. 'His mom and sisters met with him today. He's been able to talk to doctors and he knows he?s a dad five times over now,' said Maj. Rick Coates, a spokesman for Sgt. Joshua Horton's Chicago-based unit, the 2nd Battalion 24th Marine Regiment. The couple has two other children.

Coates said Horton, 28, was concerned about the babies who all weighed less than two pounds when they were born premature Monday in a Naperville, Ill., hospital. But he said Horton talked to his wife, Taunacy, who reassured him that the babies were in good health. The babies remained in critical but stable condition Wednesday, according to Edward Hospital.

Sgt. Horton himself is also in critical but stable condition. Grim's Hall sends our best. Thanks to Janie from Seattle for dropping a note to me about it. If anyone hears more, including especially ways to help out, let me know.

MOOSE CREEK PUBLISHING

AuthentiSEAL:

I've just realized, while looking at the AuthentiSEAL webpage, that the book about their exploits uncovering fake SEALs was written by an old friend of mine. Steve Robinson, known to me as "Tiny," is not only a former SEAL and investigator of false claims to military glory. He's also a blacksmith, the first Westerner ever to be admitted into the Russian Hammerman's guild, and also a member of the ancient Scottish Hammerman's guild.

Since Tiny has posted a few pictures of himself on the website, I thought I'd give you one that was a bit more recent. Here is Tiny at the Grandfather Mountain Scottish Highland Games, wearing his "Clan McTablecloth" tartan greatkilt.

Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge - October 13, 2004 - The New York Sun

Kerry Dishonorably Discharged?

You've probably seen the The New York Sun piece explaining why it is likely that Kerry was dishonorably discharged from the Navy. This is a well-researched story, founded in exactly the kind of details about military procedure that usually escapes the journalist community.

Is the author right? Perhaps. I know that the director of AuthentiSEAL has been looking into just this question for quite a while. I've gotten the chain email started by Mr. Nash several times, though I haven't published it because it contained questions but no answers. The Sun piece is different -- it's got some hard facts:

According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all....

There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry's medals were reissued.

All that is reasonable -- as is the presumption that a Naval Officer who secretly met with the Viet Cong leadership and negotiated a peace treaty with them might not have been honorably discharged. Indeed, one would expect that the least that he would face would be a dishonorable discharge. That Kerry did so is not disputed by anyone, so far as I know, and his work on "The People's Peace Treaty" is a matter of public record.

Will this story get enough legs to impress itself into the public mind between now and 2 November? I hope so, if it's true. A man who violated his oath as a Naval officer ought not to be trusted to keep his oath as President.

This is a point made recently by BlackFive, discussing LtCol Khan's recent removal from command. "For example, look at the comments surrounding the posts here about Marine LtCol Khan who may very well be facing a dead end career because he won't fight his removal from command...he won't fight BECAUSE IT WOULD COST THE MARINE CORPS TOO MUCH. LtCol Khan doesn't want to cause a stir while Marines are fighting overseas. "

How that contrasts with a man who went out of his way to undermine the cause for which his fellow sailors were fighting. How it contrasts with a man who went out of his way to cause a stir ('If we chain crippled vets to the White House fence, will you cover it?'). Then there was that Senate testimony of 1971, in which another Mr. Khan was invoked by John Kerry, who said he was the model for the military's behavior.

Kerry's not out of the woods with military men, not yet. The stories about his bad behavior hurt him in August, but there has been a respite since then. Yet now, with only a few weeks to go, there is a last chance to make Americans aware of Kerry's dishonorable actions, and unfitness to serve in any high or respected office.

Carter may have pardoned him, but we have not.