By Mark Thompson
TIME
Sept. 26, 2007
(Emphasis added)

It’s hard to imagine an American weapons program so fraught with problems that Dick Cheney would try repeatedly to cancel it – hard, that is, until you get to know the Osprey.

As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Cheney tried four times to kill the Marine Corps’s ungainly tilt-rotor aircraft.

Four times he failed.

Cheney found the arguments for the combat troop carrier unpersuasive and its problems irredeemable. “Given the risk we face from a military standpoint, given the areas where we think the priorities ought to be, the V-22 is not at the top of the list,” he told a Senate committee in 1989. “

It came out at the bottom of the list, and for that reason, I decided to terminate it.” But the Osprey proved impossible to kill, thanks to lawmakers who rescued it from Cheney’s ax time and again because of the home-district money that came with it – and to the irresistible notion that American engineers had found a way to improve on another great aviation breakthrough, the helicopter.

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By Michael Benge (See bio at the end of this article)
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, September 27, 2007

President Bush’s use of the Vietnam-Iraq analogy in his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars last month was accurate but lacking. Most of his critics, including those in Congress, know little about the history of the Vietnamese communists, and they choose to blindly ignore what is glaringly known about the intentions of al Qaeda and the radical Muslim jihadists in the Middle East.

Where the President fell short in his analogy is he forgot to mention that while the communists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos did not announce their genocidal intentions at the onset of the war, al Qaeda and the Muslim jihadists have – as demonstrated by 9/11 attacks and by numerous other acts of barbarism, such as the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl.

George Santayana said, “Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.” Karl Marx wrote, “History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were tragedies, but if the defeatists in Congress get their way, the US withdrawal from Iraq will be both tragedy and farce.

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
By Col. David Hunt
(Emphasis added)

Our generals are betraying our soldiers … again

Sorry, but I have to get your attention on this one.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States Army — not the much maligned “LIBERAL PRESS” or BILL CLINTON or the LIBERALS IN CONGRESS — NO, the UNITED STATES MILITARY is prosecuting its soldiers for doing their jobs.

I have tried, I have yelled, I have used nasty words. I have even tried to use humor, but none of this is sticking.

You either do not believe me … or much worse, you do not care.

We did one of these stories on O’Reilly last week. Two great Special Forces soldiers, along with their team, tracked down a terrorist who was on the 10 Most Wanted list in Afghanistan. The Special Forces soldiers were operating under the much- hated rules of engagement, which said to capture and kill the bad guy, who was a bomb maker and terrorist leader. The soldiers followed this killer to his house/compound, used guile and trickery and lured the waste of life out of his lair and put a bullet in his head.

From Major Chris Steiny USMC, Iraq

Thanks for the humor Bill.  Nothing too unusual to report for Ramadan here in Al Anbar Province. 

The climate here has changed considerable due to the full-court press the the Marines, sailors (and a few Soldiers) have made here in the past few years.  

I have been on a few vehicle patrols and a foot patrol and the biggest threat still appears to be snipers and IEDs.  We know there are still some”bad actors” out there, be they AQI or just criminal thugs.  It seems as though the majority are pleased to have the Marines here. 

They know that we bring security and are quick to “wack-a-mole” when the insurgents are dumb enough to pop their heads up.  Not sure how it will be in the long term, but we are heavily engaged training and operating with the Iraqi Police and Military, who run the spectrum from very good to very bad. 

It is a bit too early to tell in Haditha, as the Police Force is in its infancy.  They seem to do well when conducting combined operations, but we need to teach them to fish for themselves. 

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