Friday Mornings at the Pentagon

ABOUT THE WRITER

Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young
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Friday Mornings at the Pentagon
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers

Over the last 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals.
This week, I’m turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.

Here’s Lt. Col. Bateman’s account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May 17 on the Weblog of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Website.

“It is 110 yards from the “E” ring to the “A” ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.

This hallway, more than any other, is the `Army’ hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew.

Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this press of bodies in this area.

The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares. 10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.

“A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.
“Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden … yet.

“Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier’s chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.

“Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal, or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.

“11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. My hands hurt. Please! Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway – 20, 25, 30… Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.

They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along.. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.

“There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband’s wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20’s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son’s behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.

These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years.

“Did you know that?

The media haven’t yet told the story.”

Terry O’Brien

Obama grants INTERPOL diplomatic immunity, freedom from US Law

Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order “Amending Executive Order 12425.” It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other “International Organizations” as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945.

By removing language from President Reagan’s 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates – now operates – on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
What, exactly does this mean? It means that INTERPOL now has the full authority to conduct investigations and other law enforcement activities on U.S. soil, with full immunity from U.S. laws such as the Freedom of Information Act and with complete independence from oversight from the FBI.

In short, a global law enforcement entity now has full law-enforcement authority in the U.S. without any check on its power afforded by U.S. law and U.S. law enforcement agencies.

A bit of background is in order here, and Hot Air provides it:

During his presidency, Ronald Reagan granted the global police agency Interpol the status of diplomatic personnel in order to engage more constructively on international law enforcement. In Executive Order 12425, Reagan made two exceptions to that status. The first had to do with taxation, but the second was to make sure that Interpol had the same accountability for its actions as American law enforcement — namely, they had to produce records when demanded by courts and could not have immunity for their actions.

Barack Obama unexpectedly revoked those exceptions in a change to EO 12425 last (week)…

Thus, Interpol now can conduct its operations on U.S. soil with ZERO accountability to anyone in this country.

And you beginning to understand now just what the ‘end game’ is on the part of those who are currently running the U.S. Government?

Let’s go a step further in fleshing out exactly what this means in practical terms. It gets ugly…and scary. Again, from ThreatsWatch:

Section 2c of the United States International Organizations Immunities Act is the crucial piece.

Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable. (Emphasis added.)

Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens’ Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery (“unless such immunity be expressly waived.”)

Property and assets being immune from search and confiscation means precisely that. Wherever they may be in the United States. This could conceivably include human assets – Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.
Why would INTERPOL be arresting American citizens on our own soil, without oversight from our own law enforcement agencies? And remember, citizens who are thusly arrested would have no legal authority to demand full documentation from the International Police concerning the charges brought against them.

Andy McCarthy at National Review asks these crucial, sobering questions of the secretive Obama order:

Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
At least one answer to these questions is very clear. A coup is underway in the United States of America, the goal of which is to establish complete, unquestioned authority over the citizens–a ‘fundamental change’ to the United States where citizens have no legal recourse against an authoritarian central government.

Passage of H.R. 3962, another nail in the coffin of Freedom

With the narrow passage of the Health Care Bill last night America has witnessed another part of freedom die with a loud gasp. It was drown out by the noise of 220 Congressman cheered for their attack on Liberty”…..our Liberty. Millions upon millions have been loudly protesting this hostile take over of of 1/6th of the American Economy, only to have their concerns fall upon deaf ears and hardened hearts. What makes the Leftist this this bill is so great? American Small businesses will be forced to spend more in these already hard economic times. The youth and healthy who do not want to buy health insurance will be forced to purchase it, under the threat of punitive fines and jail time!
Where is the individual freedom and personal accountability?
How American is forcing everyone in this country to do something?
Why can’t State, who give the Federal Government powers, opt out of this bill?
What happened to the 10th Amendment?
This is a pure and outright power grab by the Socialist movement in this country.

UnAmerican actions of a U.S. Senator

This is a disgrace! For the first time in U.S. History the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today released a bill to the senate floor without a full quorum being met! Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today broke Standing Rules of the Senate. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, issued a statment to bring focus on this grevious injustice to the American People.

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today released the following statement regarding the Committee’s approval of S. 1733, the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act: 

“Senator Boxer said, A Majority of the EPW Committee voted to send the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act – S. 1733 — to the floor of the Senate today in full accordance with longstanding Committee and Senate Rules. 

We did it for three reasons.   

1. S. 1733 addresses a crucial issue of our time and advancing the bill is a necessary step on the road to garnering the 60 votes we need for a comprehensive bill that will be melded together from various Committees and Senators from different regions of the country.  This bill is already being worked on by Senators Kerry, Lieberman, Graham and others.

 

1. We found, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans’ demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars. The absence of the Republicans during the EPA’s presentation was a clear message that their criticism of the EPA analysis was not a substantive one.  Indeed, the EPA said their economic analysis was “unprecedented” in scope and was never done for any other energy or climate bill at this stage of the process.

 

1. The Committee and Senate rules that have been in place during Republican and Democratic majorities are there to be used when the Majority feels it is in the best interest of their states and of the nation to act.  A majority of the Committee believes that S. 1733, and the efforts that will be built upon it, will move us away from foreign oil imports that cost Americans one billion dollars a day, it will protect our children from pollution, create millions of clean energy jobs, and stimulate billions of dollars of private investment.

 

We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott, we have been able to move the bill.”

There are many issues with this thinking. This is the first time in history that a bill has moved from committee without a quorum being met.

                   Rule 2. Quorums

(a) Business Meetings: At committee business meetings, six members, at least two of whom are members of the minority party, constitute a quorum, except as provided in subsection (d).

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, issued the following statement in response to Chairman Boxer’s violation of committee rules by reporting out S. 1733, the Kerry-Boxer bill:

I am deeply disappointed by Chairman Boxer’s decision to violate the rules and longstanding precedent of the committee.  The Republicans offered a clear path forward to a bipartisan markup, but it was summarily rejected by Chairman Boxer.  Instead, she decided to ignore the entreaties of all 6 ranking members from Senate committees with some share of jurisdiction over climate change legislation, as well as leading moderates in the Senate.  Her action signals the death knell for the Kerry Boxer bill.

“As was written recently, the Kerry-Boxer bill is ‘bad policy’ that ‘resembles the failed climate proposals of the past.’  It is time for a different approach, one that grows, rather than shrinks our economy, creates, rather than destroys jobs, and strengthens, rather than weakens our energy security.  We can do this by encouraging development of all of America’s vast energy resources.”

With this move the Socialist Progressive Party of America, known as the Democratic Party is one step closer to a Marxist form of Government that the American People can not seem to stop.

The Dismantling of America

I read this and feel that I can not express in my own words what the author has conveyed. So Here is the entire article, very insightful:

From:

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official — not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, but simply one of the many “czars” appointed by the President — could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another “czar” would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers’ survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called “experts” deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.

How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to “change the United States of America,” the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles, and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: “God d— America!” Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn’t know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America’s influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration’s enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama’s own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

DNC Contestent finialist Video contains desecrated Flag

The DNC is holding a contest for an ad for Health Care. One of the finalists however features a video where the  American flag is desecrated. This ad is on Obama’s political web site and depicts Old Glory being defaced with graffiti and desecrated with slogans about health care reform. Then the ad asks viewers for money to help air this garbage!  It is bad enough that the left wants to control 1/6th of the U.S. Economy by the hostile takeover of the Health Care system but now they desecrate the symbol of American freedom to push this agenda? Remember this is being sponsored by The Democratic National Committee!! This is deplorable! Does this cross the line? How American is this? What, if anything positive can come from this? Here is the video, you decide.

Service.gov And Its Soviet Similarities

I saw this and had to post the entirety,  I have been real busy this week. I should return soon!

USSR, 1959: I am a “young pioneer” in school. History classes remind us that there is a higher authority than their parents and teachers: the leaders of the Communist Party.

The story of young pioneer Pavlik Morozov is required reading. Pavlik reported his father to the secret police for disobeying government regulations. His life exemplified the duty of all good Soviet citizens to serve their government.

From the first year in school, all of us are made aware of our ethnicity (ethnic Russian, Jewish, Asian, etc.) and class (proletariat, intelligentsia), around which society is structured. This inherent divisiveness makes it easy for the government to stir ethnic and class tension and in this way distract from economic failure.

Newspapers and TV transmit government-approved news. Any critical voice is immediately suppressed and publicly denounced.

My parents, as all citizens of the USSR, work for state-run companies. All workers are unionized — another way the state controls the citizens. There is no private enterprise in USSR.

Whatever small private farms or shops that existed before 1930 have been taken over by the state. All medical care and schools are state entities. The government regulates what kind of technology, service and compensation are allowed.

From school age through adulthood, citizens are called to public service four to five times a year. Activities such as farming, cleaning places of work, and paper/metal scrap collections are mandatory.

Religious symbols are forbidden in schools or on state property. Most old religious buildings are transformed for secular use.

The Soviet government imposes the Iron Curtain. The state has strict control over our ability to travel abroad. This prevents us from realizing the discrepancy between the media’s image of the great socialist country and the reality of our low standard of living.

USA, 2009: “Progressives” control the government. Children in some public schools sing songs about the president and study his directives.

Progressives view people not as unique individuals, but as groups. They play on class envy, or divide people by ethnicity (African-American, white, Hispanic, etc.). From early childhood they remind children of their ethnic identity. The idea of a color-blind society united under the American flag is not politically correct.

The mainstream media are aligned with the government. Those media outlets critical of government policy are publicly criticized by government officials and are in danger of suffering repercussions.

Government seizes a majority stake in two major auto companies and, through TARP money, has control over major banks. Congress discusses capping salaries in private businesses and is in the process of increasing its control over the health care industry.

Most from the left will say we who think these similarities are just a far flung coincidence, or a figment of our imagination.  With Net Neutrality in the works how will we be able to tell the truth from what THEY want the truth to be. Know the truth and live by your own convictions, do not let your foundation be swayed.

Global Warming, a big steaming pile of… Wealth Redistribution

The Kyoto Protocol is set to expire in 2012. The Kyoto Protocol which sets binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has been signed and ratified by 184 parties of the UN Climate Convention.The United States refused to sign this treaty. Why? Because it did not involve action on the part of major developing countries. and it would be harmful to the US economy. The replacement, the UN Climate Change Treaty. This Treaty is a poison pill that most world governments are expected to take in Copenhagen next month–including the United States. In a nutshell the treaty takes from the rich and gives to the poor. Rich industrialized nations will be, under treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, costing the individual, privately owned companies billions to convert to a more “Eco Friendly” way of controlling emissions. If they do not conform and comply the are fined. In return the poorer signing nations will be paid by those fines. Here are a couple of quotes from the document:

“Page 122:
“(a) Compensate for damage to the [less developed countries’] economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;

(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.”
Page 127:

“(b) Fulfil the implementation of the commitments contained in Articles 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.8 and 4.9 in the context of Article 4.7 of the Convention and be underpinned by the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. ”

Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources and transfer technology to developing country Parties to make full and effective repayment of climate debt, including adaptation debt, taking responsibility for their historical cumulative emissions and current high per capita emissions.

Developing country Parties will, in pursuing economic development and poverty eradication, take proactive measures to adapt to and mitigate climate change;”

Here is a video of Lord Monckton

Global Redistribution of wealth? Yes.

National Sovereignty being signed away? Yes.

What next? If Corperation XYZ does not conform and comply will the U.N. troops come and take control and arrest the CEO for not following Global mandates? Time will only tell of this is not stopped.

Hummer sold to Chinese Company

Who would of thought, Hummer, a brand who manufactures the tough High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMVW) for  the U.S. Military was sold to the Chinese Company Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp. China for a long time has been manufacturing HUMVEE knock offs for its own Military now owns the iconic brand. Where does this leave our military for new replacement vehicles and parts? What about protecting the supply of the same parts? What will the military do if the US and China break off relations? This has happened with Iran and the US in regards to the F-15 fighters delivered to them before the Shaw was overthrown.

This has me thinking, would this have happened under another administration? Would this have happened if the Government not taken over General Motors? What price will the US pay for this? Who in their right mind would have authorized this? If this would have transpired under the Bush Administration could you imagine the outcry? Until the replacement for the HUMVEE is rolled out this is a serious issue that might not be addressed until there is a real issue with national Security, then it will be too late.

Read the full story here

Obama Surrenders U.S. Sovereignty in more ways than one…

Under Obama U.S. Economic Sovereignty was surrendered at the G-20 summit. The G-20 Conclave will coordinate and submit all economic policies and programs to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for comment, final drafting and approval.

from

“We are to subject our most basic national economic policies to the review of a group of nations that includes autocratic Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. Even though our GDP is three times bigger than the second-largest economy (Japan) and equal to that of 13 of the G-20 nations combined, we are to sit politely by with our one vote and submit to the global consensus. Europe has five votes (U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and the EU) while we have but one.

And the process will be administered by the IMF, whose counsel to less-developed nations during the past two decades consistently has called for social pain and economic austerity. The IMF’s misguided policies have been responsible for more revolutions than Marx, Engels, and Lenin combined. Its bureaucrats’ arrogance is legendary and their search for appropriate punishments to fit the crime of spending too much on the poor smacks of colonialism and imperialism. They are our new overseers.

This combination of the IMF and the G-20 will work not only to structure national economic policies but also to limit executive compensation at financial institutions. The watchful, wise leaders of such nations as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia — among others — will monitor Wall Street to assure themselves that its compensation is not out of line. One particularly looks forward to the views of the Saudi monarchy on this question of excessive personal enrichment.

Perhaps as part of his public spasm of apology, President Obama also strove, successfully, to increase the voting strength of the debtor nations on the IMF from 43 percent to 48 percent. This is the economic equivalent of giving deadbeat debtors more votes on their bank’s governing board of directors.

thus, the world’s most successful economy — ours — which is the only one that has produced reliable economic growth for three decades and has lifted real personal incomes almost every year, is going to subject itself to the burden of justifying its own economic policies in front of a global community of 20 nations, some of which do not even embrace free-market economies in the first place.

Indeed, it is only through access to our markets that nations have been able to escape poverty. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, and India sequentially have trod this path into prosperity

Obviously, we live in a global economy. But the United States is 24 percent of it. We are entitled to more than one-20th of a voice, and it is the world that should be following our policies — not the other way around.”

Not the end of it yet!

This is not where it ends, now the Russian Government will have unprecedented access to our Nuclear stockpile under the guise of a new strategic arms treaty. It has roots in the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which expires in December and negotiators have been trying to reach agreement on a new plan. Obama and Clinton, with this new agreement, will inform Russia exactly how many nukes we have and their exact location. This all is in pursue of diplomacy with Iran.

What would they do with this information?

Who will have access to it?

When will this end?

Click here for the full story