This IS NOT your 'pedestrian grade' OIL THREAD!

[dlaing]

Um, not on the infamous, well-worn Road to Hell that you're paving, Dave. Not ever in history, not since the Dawn of Man.

 

Better wake up to the fact that it's a one-way street you and your crew are paving with your "good intentions", Dave. Even a casual student of history knows that it leads to the same place it's always led. . . <_>

 

Again, see: The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek, various presentations at the London School of Economics, and abundant background source material available via the Ludwig von Mises Institute. http://www.mises.org.

 

Err, I don't b'lieve you have the faintest clue who "my buddies" are, Dave.

Why don't you enlighten and surprise us.

Your personallity is conservative, pro-war, libertarian-like, yet with no evidence of respect for personal freedom, malicious and arrogant. And you say don't have pro-corporate, anti-human buddies!

 

Now I've provided you with at least a dozen reminders that your favorite target of hatred and Satan Incarnate-elect, Dubya sure ain't one of 'em, neither your second-favorite hatred target and vice-Satan Incarnate-elect, D!ck Cheney -- nor your cliche'd Corporate Twin Pillars of Evil, Exxon/Mobil and Halliburton. . . As I've explained to you repeatedly without apology, Dubya is among my least favorite Presidents in my lifetime, and likely the most disappointing to me of all Presidents in our Nation's history. . . So just WHO d'you think you're referring to as "my buddies"??

 

BTW, Dave, when Dubya and Cheney are gone after next year, who'll be the next focus of all your blind, seething hatred?

You keep saying you dislike Dubya and @#$$#! but I don't think I have ever seen you say why. Why do you dislike them? You seem to agree with everything they do.

I have no "blind, seething hatred" Your words are hostile, and appear to come from blind hatred of me. Why are you so desperate that you need to resort to these low tactics?

 

 

As far as labeling me "pro-corporate", I'll accept this with great enthusiasm. It would appear from your abundant posts to the effect, that you're more than just a bit "anti-corporate". No doubt this is because of the thuddingly stupid Hard Left, left-over, and recycled from the '60's cliche's that corporations are raping Moms Gaia, they exploit employees, and trample the rights of "the little guy". Does your employer know any of this, Dave? Any of your investments or retirement funds invested in stocks or mutual funds built on stocks of corporations? How many of the material benefits of wealth created by corporations d'you suppose you benefit from directly and personally every day, in all aspects of your own life? Do you feel guilty about any of this? Ever consider leaving this country permanently to get away from the greed of capitalism and evil corporations? It's quite easily done, you know. . . Why, being anti-corporate would make you more'n a bit of a hypocrite as long as you enjoy living in such an EEEEEVVVVIIIILLLL capitalist nation, would it not?

No Ratchet, I believe in a better America than that.

As I said, there is more than one direction to head in. The better America is in the direction laid out by the constitution, and spelled out by many progressives. The road to take is not the one being paved by your right wing think tanks.

Maybe you will be the one headed to the Cayman Islands when a Liberal becomes President....but fret not, they are corporate pawns and will keep the status quo.

If only McGovern had become President....

"You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing."

--George McGovern

 

Now lumping me in with some unspecified group of "anti-humans" would seem particularly specious of you, and is quite vicious, as well as entirely unfounded, I would say. Upon what possible basis would you say that I'm anti-human, praytell?? Or is it just anyone who disagrees with your particular er, inclinations who recieves an "anti-human" label??

I did not say you were anti-human.

I said, "There are more than two directions.

There is the road that your pro-corporate anti-human buddies have us on, and there is any other way but that."

Pro-corporate anti-human is a term to describe putting corporations before people. Nobody is purely anti-human. But when bombs are dropped on apartment buildings and people justify it, the term Pro-corporate anti-human fits.

Just about anyone endorsing the US going to war or anyone counter-endorsing a move towards greater economic equality, falls into the put corporation before humans category, whether they know it or not.

 

 

D'you realize Dave, that the political principles that you seem to identify with without reservation have been responsible -- just in the last century -- for more human mass murders, more gruesome forms of torture and REAL slavery, than all deaths due to known diseases of humankind since the Dawn of Man -- including the infamous plagues -- both of biblical times and in the Middle Ages?

 

Take just one example, the USSR, once the Darling of your Hard Left in this country. In one century, the failed Socialist model resulted in 100 million political murders -- an average of a mil a year. Quite impressive, Dave. Take your pick of any other murderous thugs besides Lenin and Stalin, who sold the wonders of Socialism to idiots like you -- the regimes of Mao, Pol Pot, Fidel, all the way up to Chavez -- That's the identical model for a People's Paradise that you now wish us to follow here , Dave. . .

 

Fidel has long been a favorite of you and your Hard Left Socialists -- right along with his murdering thug henchman, Che. Cooba is already planning the largest celebration in half a century very soon. Got any idea why, Dave??

 

Now being anti-corporate, I peg you as a Marxist, in the grand tradition of Fidel, Che, and "Oogo" -- right along with your Presidential hopeful, Her Fuhreress Hitlery, faithful student of Marxist Saul Alinsky. If you're voting next year, Dave, I b'lieve it'd be a fair assumption that Hitlery is YOUR GAL. Now for your information, you might find it interesting to know that it was Saul Alinsky, prolific Marxist author and political radical, who first personally mentored Hitlery away from her activism in the Republican Party as a Barry Goldwater campaigner in the '60's, and got her to embrace Alinsky's First Principle of Action for seizing the reigns of political power -- that principle is, "EMBRACE CORRUPTION fully and without reservation." And Wot a job Hitlery has done as an Alinsky acolyte!

 

D'you reckon that the hopeful Klinton II Regime, still consistently illegally funded (per all the recent news) by the Chinese government, will be acting in YOUR best interests, and that Her Highness will finally be THE ONE SOCIALIST EXPERIMENTER in all of human history to finally make Socialism actually work without murdering millions of our own Citizens in the process of stifling speech, not to mention trampling the rest of our God-given rights? Never mind the fact that it's never been done before. Must be something VERY SPECIAL about Hitlery, n'est-ce pas?

 

Sorry, Jaap. I just had to . . .

Il n'est pas. But there is something VERY SPECIAL about your bizarre take on leftism.

Leftism is not about killing. Thugs like Stalin and Lenin are the product of revolution. They are not the product of leftism, they only use it as a cover.

This nation is already very socialistic in many ways, and the murdering has come from those who oppose the socialism, not the other way around.

Although I suppose you are correct, the man who paved a road of bloodshed with death of the most Americans, a Republican, shared the leftist pro-human anti-freedom or rich white guy idea of abolition of slavery. Did the ends justify the means? I don't know. I imagine those southern white boys would have evolved eventually. Is the abolition of fossil carbon burning on Hilary's agenda? I see it as a reduction, not an abolition, and if people are going to kill over it, it will be the right wing doing the killing, like they are in the middle east.

[Guest ratchethack]

Just about anyone endorsing the US going to war or anyone counter-endorsing a move towards greater economic equality, falls into the put corporation before humans category, whether they know it or not.

Il n'est pas. But there is something VERY SPECIAL about your bizarre take on leftism.

Leftism is not about killing. Thugs like Stalin and Lenin are the product of revolution. They are not the product of leftism, they only use it as a cover.

This nation is already very socialistic in many ways, and the murdering has come from those who oppose the socialism, not the other way around.

Although I suppose you are correct, the man who paved a road of bloodshed with death of the most Americans, a Republican, shared the leftist pro-human anti-freedom or rich white guy idea of abolition of slavery. Did the ends justify the means? I don't know. I imagine those southern white boys would have evolved eventually. Is the abolition of fossil carbon burning on Hilary's agenda? I see it as a reduction, not an abolition, and if people are going to kill over it, it will be the right wing doing the killing, like they are in the middle east.

Dave.

 

I realize that this thread has pushed all your buttons. But it appears that pushing so many at once has overloaded your central processing unit. Please step back, take a few deep breaths of fresh air, and try very hard to organize your thoughts. If you want to refute something I've presented here, may I suggest take one point at a time, and bring something coherent and credible to the table to back up your position.

 

The last time I heard anyone actually say things like the above was in the early '70's, when I attended a number of anti-war protest rallies on 3 separate major college campuses over a four year period. My motivation was to take an open-minded approach to evaluating what I heard for the purpose of understanding whether or not there were any messages of value, any underlying principles of any merit, or any reasonable points. The Leftist dreck was already pretty stale by that time, being well worn out since the previous decade. The air was always thick with pot smoke, and I was always stone sober. There wasn't a single trace of logic, reason, or value to be found in any of the rallies I attended. Without exception, these "demonstrations" amounted to a string of the most vacuous, reeking heaps of meaningless, insane drivel that I had ever seen or heard -- before or since. These idiots were deluded into believing themselves to be doing something very important. In reality, the ridiculous mobs of "student protesters" were simply clusterfests of the most incredibly naïve, uneducated, and decadent pre-adults behaving like gutter-level mentally deficient juvenile delinquents, taking delight in suddenly finding themselves without adult supervision, indulging in mindless groupthink, and posing in the latest nouveau hip costumes, pretending to be "insiders" in the latest, trendiest fad du jour. It was an up close and personal exposure to the future Leftist "leadership" (soon to become what has since passed as enlightened "educators" and "journalists" via suddenly and dramatically lowered academic standards). I'll never forget it.

 

Your post above reads for the most part just like Jane Fonda sounded after inhaling deeply and repeatedly (just out of camera range) before taking a microphone (I was within 20 feet of her and witnessed this) before she meandered on aimlessly and incoherently for 30 minutes in front of several thousand in attendance as a warm-up for the typical SDS and Marxist speakers, while equally mindless and equally drug-addled fools repeatedly expressed their fawning admiration with delirious shouts of, "Power to the People!", "Death to America, the eeeeeevil oppressor!", "Peace Now!", "Free the Chicago 7!", and "Legalize herb!", among various other mindless, incomprehensibly stupid clichés of "the Vietnam era".

 

Your post above is punctuated with the same terms of infantile Leftist drivel left over from the '60's, yet possesses so little content and is so poorly focused, shooting off wildly in all directions, that it can't be rationally responded to. I recognize it as the familiar incoherent, poorly informed and illiterate, irrational and mindless rambling of the product of pre-engineered designer propaganda and sloganeering, or what today passes for "bumper-sticker" or "sound bite" ideology. It cannot be reasoned with, it's impervious to facts, it has no relationship with reality, and it's certainly nothing possible to debate -- nor is it worthy of any attempt. I've recognized this same pattern of horrifically mindless confusion in many others of identically programmed mind conditioning as yourself for over 30 years. Drugs or not (drugs always seemed to make the most preposterous lies easier for the dolts to swallow and embrace as if they had dreamed up the typical fallacies themselves). It's EXACTLY the state of mind that propagandists historically create in their target stooges in order to leverage, encourage, and develop a weak and rudderless enemy softened up for the yoke of tyranny, per the Socialist model of the last 100 years that thas taken down the 26 nations previously listed via the identical modus operandi that has very evidently been so successfully performed on you. It's old, it's pathetic, and it's boring.

 

If you haven't yet noticed, I've brought numerous credible sources to this discussion, including a highly accomplished West Point teacher and author on the subject of the war in Iraq with a doctorate degree in military history, a link to The Library of Congress record of applicable and relevant anecdotes from the life and times of Winston Churchill, with his most important speeches (also streaming audio that would be truly inspiring to anyone interested in advancing and protecting the cause of Freedom), and sources such as The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post , The Los Angeles Times, and others. Now I know that as someone who proudly thinks of himself as a Hard Leftist, Dave, you're painfully tempted -- or is it obliged? -- to label all of this as right-wing propaganda of EEEEEEEEEVVVVIIIILLLL corporations, and therefore you've been tempted to ignore all of it. It appears to me that you've done exactly that. May I suggest that this doesn't mean that just because you have no sincere interest in the facts, nor any knowledge of history or the credible sources or reality behind this discussion, that others who may not be so willfully ignorant and myopic as yourself are necessarily in the same boat.

 

I'm sorry, Dave. I'd be pleased to accomodate you with something more concrete, but I find that I cannot respond to a heap of mindless mush such as your post above. I'd need a very large slop bucket and a very large mop. Having gained great familiarity with it (and its sources) decades ago, I've since been much more inclined to step around this kind of hogswallop rather than attempt to clean it up. I find no more sense in it than I did in Jane Fonda's cannabis-addled, idiotic ramblings. Now please don't make the silly mistake of believing that you've "won" some kind of an argument here, just because I find myself unable to respond any other way. . .

[dlaing]

 

Your post above is punctuated with the same terms of infantile Leftist drivel left over from the '60's, yet has so little content and is so poorly focused, shooting off wildly in all directions, that it can't be rationally responded to.

I was just responding to you following your pattern of organization.

If there is any sense of shooting off in all directions, that explains it.

You can respond but you choose not to for some reason.

I asked who your buddies are? You can answer by giving us a clear image of how you think government should be run. More money for the RICH? the POOR? or you believe in trickle down economics. Describe what justifies a war, especially the Iraq war.

And most importantly describe why you don't like bush. I can only figure it is incompetence and not his agenda that fills you with 'blind seething hatred'

What is your political philosophy?

Why don't you like Bush?

Which politicians do you like?

Please but don't go shooting off in wild directions.

[Guest ratchethack]

I was just responding to you following your pattern of organization.

If there is any sense of shooting off in all directions, that explains it.

You can respond but you choose not to for some reason.

I asked who your buddies are? You can answer by giving us a clear image of how you think government should be run. More money for the RICH? the POOR? or you believe in trickle down economics. Describe what justifies a war, especially the Iraq war.

And most importantly describe why you don't like bush. I can only figure it is incompetence and not his agenda that fills you with 'blind seething hatred'

What is your political philosophy?

Why don't you like Bush?

Which politicians do you like?

Please but don't go shooting off in wild directions.

Um, excuse me Dave.

 

Who my friends are and what my political affiliations and philosophies are, are none of your business. Who are YOU to demand such things of me on a public forum?!

 

Your frustration at not finding a familiar HATRED HANDLE to grab onto here is quite palpable, Dave.

 

Of course, Socialism requires a clear target of hatred by the proletariat at all times in the "bait" phase, preferrably of the "seething" variety. As soon as you hate to the level that you regularly demonstrate here, Dave, your propagandists have their ring in your nose. Why, you'll go anywhere they lead you now without question, mindlessly, and nearly effortlessly. . . Your hatred, as so well laid out in previous threads, is a "text book" example of the Socialist propagandist's "ideal". If you had any sense of history (see previous posts), you'd know that in the "switch" phase, this hatred target becomes exposed as entirely meaningless, as it soon becomes completely lost in the ensuing reign of terror on the uninterrupted pattern so well demonstrated by history, as the original targets of hatred are displaced by necessary focus on the means of simple survival .

 

I recognize your perceived need to put me in a group, Dave. You've been well indoctrinated and conditioned to demonize people based on group affilliation, rather than taking the more responsible adult-level challenge of refuting ideas on their merit, using credible facts. This is the oldest and cheapest political ploy in the history of mankind, and you evidently don't have the slightest clue that you've fallen for it. I'm neither obliged, nor inclined in the slightest to provide you with any such kinds of personal information about groups I might be associated with, Dave. So without a group association to demonize me with, I'm afraid you're faced with actually dealing with my ideas and positions and the quality of the credible backup sources I've brought to this discussion that support them.

 

You see, Dave, most of this nation -- as well as the rest of the planet -- doesn't fit the simplistic and childlike, primitive pigeon-holes that your propagandists have designed and used to fashion your perceptions of "Us versus Them" and "Rich versus Poor" into powerfully emotional class envy for your consumption in the "bait" phase.

 

I'm afraid you're well committed to struggling on here in the self-inflicted darkness and confusion that you've long ago brought upon yourself as a voracious consumer of propaganda, my friend. . .

 

Hey Dave -- ever get to know someone well who actually survived both the "bait" and the "switch" phases of Socialism? I had a good friend many years ago who took his family through both phases in an Eastern European country, defected from behind the Iron Curtain (a practical necessity required to keep victims of Socialism -- aka prisoners -- from escaping) to Italy under a death warrant in a "borrowed" Soviet airplane (a MIG-15), and had his family smuggled out through the Iron Curtain to join him here. This is a man who risked his life and subjected his family to the living hell of years of hiding underground for the hope of what he recognized (as a well educated man unsullied by the propaganda that his nation had been soaked in his entire life) as the great privilege of offering his family the opportunity to become American Citizens via the legal route. Through decades of grinding poverty and subsistence-level struggle, he managed to keep both his and his family's hope and trust high, never suffering a second's loss of clarity or lack of understanding of why it was well worth the effort -- an effort no doubt inconceivable to you in your sorry state of abject designer confusion. He understood exactly what Socialism is, and reviled it with a contempt unimaginable to those (like yourself) who take their freedom for granted without having a clue what it means. But that's a story for another time. . . Suffice it to say that no one but the most mentally deficient fool who lived through both phases would ever fall for it again the rest of their lives anywhere -- including here. And yes, unlike yourself, they well recognize the "bait" phase of the propaganda of the familiar Socialist "bait and switch" routine when they see it coming -- decades in advance.

 

HINT: The "bait" phase in this country started in earnest 80 years ago. . .

[Greg Field]

Ratch:

 

We have been lied to so much by the bandits who currently occupy the White House that I can never again believe anything they say or any story they plant. They tell me that suddenly we are winning. Maybe we are and maybe we aren't, but if they say it or the story is based on something they said or some special access they gave, I don't believe it. Their credibility is dead in my eyes. I didn't kill it; they did, so don't blame me or tell me I'm being foolish. I voted for these bandits the first time. I feel foolish for that, while at the same time knowing that Gore may well have been an even worse president than the goobster has proven to be.

 

Ryland: I am willing to discuss what I would do, but let's do it elsewhere, OK? Jaap might appreciate such consideration.

[Guest ratchethack]

Ratch:

 

We have been lied to so much by the bandits who currently occupy the White House that I can never again believe anything they say or any story they plant. They tell me that suddenly we are winning. Maybe we are and maybe we aren't, but if they say it or the story is based on something they said or some special access they gave, I don't believe it. Their credibility is dead in my eyes. I didn't kill it; they did, so don't blame me or tell me I'm being foolish. I voted for these bandits the first time. I feel foolish for that, while at the same time knowing that Gore may well have been an even worse president than the goobster has proven to be.

Greg, thanks for the coherent and rational responses, by the way. I appreciate the clear-headed thinking. I'm for the most part right with you here and have likewise been made a fool of for having voted for Dubya, which I did, knowing it was a Hobson's choice at the time, the lesser of two evils, and which I now regret very deeply, even knowing the alternate would STILL have been a far worse choice. As I've stated many many times, I have never trusted Dubya, his father, nor the RNC any farther than I can throw my Guzzi over the back fence -- and for ample reason, based on the historic record.

 

This doesn't mean that I throw in with all those who fall for the popular propaganda tactic of demonizing the man and his political Party, to the extent that I would likewise find blame and fault for everything under his control and everything that could be under his control, as so well orchestrated by and demonstrated in the captive mainstream media, as well as just about everywere else one looks, including this thread. . .

 

As for Algore, how far can anyone trust a man STILL preaching the end of life as we know it (the clock ran out seven years ago on this prediction from his book, Earth in the Balance ) in an attempt to exploit the gullible for political control?! This is the man who pays carbon offset credits to HIS OWN CORPORATION as "penance" for using 20 times the average US taxpayer's energy as a blatant "excuse" to run his 3 mansions, not to mention the infamous Algore personal jet and limousines -- while preaching low energy use for the rest of us?!

 

-- Not much of a choice last time around, was it? But I digress. . .

 

Having heard Gen. Petraeus' recent testimony to Congress, like most on both sides of the aisle in Congress, I'm not at all of the MoveOn.org (and captive mainstream media affiliates) position that the hapless Dubya, nor any entity of the RNC whatsoever, controlled Petraeus' legal testimony (see Frederick Kagan's summary presented in full in post #44). Nor am I inclined to make the knee-jerk, unsubstantiated claim that err, many hereabouts would make, that both Kagan and his alma mater at Yale (as examples) are pawns of Corporate America, having been bought and paid for on the filthy lucre of capitalist greed. . .

 

It would seem that your take is that the entire military is much more directly controlled by corporate interests than I believe there's evidence for, or that there's justifiable reason to believe. Yeah, I know there are more contractors on the ground than troops in Iraq. But Diane Feinstein's husband's blatant war profiteering notwithstanding (as just one example of many), I take general exception to the above notion, from a standpoint of our response to the declaration of war initiated against our nation, the direct attacks against our nation resulting in loss of thousands of lives of innocent citizens, and Congress' responding declaration of war.

[Greg Field]

I don't believe it's the military that's controlled by corporate interests, but the can be. Once that's effected, the military becomes controlled by those corporations. Ask any country in Central America. Our military has steamrolled just about all of them at one time or another at the beheast of a corporation.

 

As for the attack on the US, I do not recall any Iraqis in the mix. I do recall the current bandits claiming there was a link. I do not believe them. Lots of Saudis were in the mix, though, but instead of attacking them, we spend all our money and military might defending them and their oil export machinery. Face it: The attack on Iraq was nothing more than payback for Saddam having tried to kill Poppy. I've looked at all the evidence available and balanced it, and I think it's an honest and almost certainly correct conclusion.

 

I see the current bandits's spin machine is now pinned at full throttle about the sins of Iran. I am a strident critic of the Mullah-ocracy of Iran. I don't trust them. SO, I'm in the odd position of not knowing who is the most egregious set of liars: my own government or the mullahs. This is the biggest crime the current bandits have perpetuated.

[Guest ratchethack]

As for the attack on the US, I do not recall any Iraqis in the mix. I do recall the current bandits claiming there was a link. I do not believe them. Lots of Saudis were in the mix, though, but instead of attacking them, we spend all our money and military might defending them and their oil export machinery. Face it: The attack on Iraq was nothing more than payback for Saddam having tried to kill Poppy.

Well, we'll certainly part ways here, Greg. No offense meant, and none taken, either.

I've looked at all the evidence available and balanced it...

Evidently not. You clearly haven't looked at some of the most basic and critically germane evidence, Greg -- including the thrust of Petraeus' Congressional testimony last week. Or if you have, you've evidently dismissed it. I'd be interested to know on what grounds you dismissed the testimony and evidence presented by Gen. Petraeus that Congress unanimously accepted in full.

 

As far as the infamously propagandized "link" goes, the enemy of our Nation is the enemy of the Iraqi people (again, please read the article in post #44). If you don't read it, you can't disagree with it! This fact is well supported in the article and is a fundamental starting point for any reasonable discussion about Iraq, and I don't know of any member of Congress who participated in the hearings last week -- on either side of the aisle -- who would would even begin to take exception to it.

 

The simple fact is that we've been on the same side as the Iraqi people since the beginning. If you have any credible evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it. If you can provide anything credible here via link that supports this, I promise to study it well. Ever talk to a soldier who actually served there, or read any of the accounts of those who have, Greg? Your idea, popular though it is in the captive mainstream media, is 180 degrees out of phase with those who've actually lived the reality on the ground.

 

I reckon you disagree not only with Petraeus and with the WSJ article by Kagan, but you also believe that they and all who agree with them are part of a conspiracy by corporate America and the military to murder innocent civilians for the ultimate purpose of plundering Iraqi oil??

[Greg Field]

No. I believe they were used. Some continue to allow themselves to be used.

[Guest ratchethack]

I've looked at all the evidence available and balanced it...

 

Hey Greg. Take a look at this, I think you'll be interested.

 

If you're sincere about wanting to maintain a "balanced" perspective on "all the evidence", and yet you're NOT interested in reading what a West Point Military Historian, Doctorate in Military History, teacher, and author has to say about Petraeus' televised Congressional testimony on the state of Iraq in the WSJ (post #44), and you're also NOT interested in either that testimony itself, or Congress' SUBSTANTIALLY REVISED take on the state of Iraq after that testimony, per my prev. post, I thought you might possibly have more interest in reading first-hand a recent email just over a week ago from a Major in the Army, straight from his present deployment in Southern Baghdad.

 

The following unedited email just showed up in my inbox, fwd'd. from an ex-Navy pilot and good Pal.

 

NOTE: Lest anyone be tempted to claim this email is a politically motivated fraud, it can be verified via the ID of the poster, provided.

 

I thought the Major's comments about General Petraeus' Congressional testimony and his take on the captive mainstream media's regularly expected gross mischaracterization of it, and his ability to contrast this with the reality on the ground from first-hand experience might be of interest, also his account of his briefing with Washington Representative Baird (Democrat) -- would Baird be your Rep, Greg?? who had originally voted against the war multiple times, and who changed his mind completely after a tour and the briefing, was particularly revealing.

 

It isn't long into the message before it's clear what he means by "winning the National Championship".

 

An Email from Iraq

 

September 24, 2007

 

All,

 

I haven't sent an update in a while, and as we are in the 13 1/2 week

 

of a 5 month deployment, frankly I am a little tired which minimizes my

 

energy to write e-mails just to write. I know all of you are busy doing what

 

you do (it isn't easy preparing your "unit" to win the National Championship --

 

but I am pulling for Coach to do it). But I figured that if I gave you a quick heads-up as to what is going on

 

here, you would find the time to read it and "stay informed."

 

 

 

What really spurred me to write was any of the multitude of articles

 

relating to the testimony of General Petraeus to Congress last week. I

 

cannot comment on what he said point for point, nor can I comment on

 

what he was asked point for point -- not only do I not have TV for the most

 

part where I am out, I don't have the time to read the transcripts either.

 

The truth is, I really don't want to. We have hosted multiple

 

congressional delegations down here South of Baghdad and in every case, those who

 

wandered far away from the Green Zone all walked away with a more

 

positive view of the progress being made. A few weeks ago, REP Baird (D-WA)

 

visited us and told us that he absolutely voted against the war on multiple

 

occasions, but that after a brief (by yours truly) and a tour of our

 

market he said he had changed his mind. True to his word, when he returned

 

back to the states, he announced the same to the media, much to the chagrin of

 

many of his peers. As for those who "visit" but never venture far from the

 

Green Zone, well I am not sure that they were over here to see any progress

 

made anyway.

 

 

 

Now while I would rather not get into the political fray (it is so

 

polarized right now that I don't think either side really cares to pay

 

attention to what is happening) what I do want to do is tell you how

 

things are for me and my Soldiers right now.

 

 

 

We haven't had an IED in our area since May (since shortly after the

 

May 12 attack when our Soldiers were ambushed and two were taken prisoner).

 

We haven't had any major attacks on our Soldiers in almost three months

 

and we haven't had a casualty since we lost one on an air assault the

 

beginning of August (and it was May for the last one before that).

 

Since our Soldiers were killed in May, the tribal leaders have stepped

 

forward and have committed to fighting Al Qaeda with the Iraqi Army

 

and with us. This occurrence was much more subdued then the more

 

publicized "Anbar Awakening" but it has the same effect. We have established

 

personal relationships with all the major tribal leaders in our area and that

 

has enabled us to secure our area, improve the essential services and help

 

these people get on with their lives. Every area has power now (for

 

more hours a day than Baghdad and higher than 2004 levels) and that also

 

equals better water. We have rebuilt 4 schools and are rebuilding all the

 

rest in our area -- two more should being construction this week. Roads are

 

open to civilians for the first time in 4 years and the kids are all back to

 

school. In fact, this morning the local school minister conducted

 

make-up testing for the school kids that missed the tests at the end of the

 

last school year.

 

 

 

Where we had on average 10 attacks a day, mostly lethal attacks that

 

resulted in death or injury, for the first 10 months we were here, we now

 

AVERAGE less than one a day for the last 3 months.

 

Commerce is so much better -- the largest market in our area (where the

 

congressmen toured) was hit by a vehicle IED last October and has been

 

operating at about 20% capacity until about June. Well now it is at

 

about 85% capacity and the locals are actually building new stores to keep

 

up with demand.

 

I would be lying if I told you that I would rather be here than home

 

with my awesome kids and lovely/wonderful wife. But I am enjoying myself

 

and I never imagined that we would make and see as much progress as my unit

 

has experienced over the last year+.

 

 

 

I also talk to so many of my friends and peers all over the country.

 

Some are still sustaining casualties, but even in those areas, everyone

 

agrees(in my circles) that things are so much better today than they

 

have been in a long time.

 

I read an article in the Stars and Stripes newspaper by Adrianna

 

Huffington that said that there is only one side of this story and that no matter

 

what anyone says, we are losing over here. Maybe I just had a bad night's

 

sleep for one article to bother me so much. I have never met Ms. Huffington

 

but I can say with certainty that she has never visited Southern Baghdad,

 

nor has any of the naysayers that seem okay with the United States quitting

 

and leaving the Iraqi to fend for themselves.

 

Now even if you don't agree with war, or if you don't agree with why

 

we went to war, I do believe that all of you support the Soldiers -- heck

 

I hope you all at least support one Soldier and his unit). Well, be

 

proud in what this Army has done with your support behind us. In the last 6

 

months, we have really turned this country around and headed in the right

 

direction. We have reached out and are bringing Iraqis together for

 

the first time in years.

 

 

 

The next time you are at your favorite Starbucks and the discussion

 

turns to Iraq, speak with confidence that the men and woman who represent

 

our

 

>great country are doing well and doing it right. With time, we will be

 

able to leave Iraq in the capable hands of Iraqi security forces, with the

 

hope that the region is a little more stable in the hands of a proud people

 

and not in the hands of a dictator.

 

 

 

I tell the Sheiks around here that my next visit to Iraq, I want to

 

bring my son to visit them all and show him how the tribal systems work and

 

how beautiful and historic a country Iraq is. Now that is a few years

 

off, but the point is, there is an optimism around here that hasn't been

 

prevalent in probably a few years (though I am always optimistic).

 

 

 

I hope to be home sometime in November and if I am lucky I will be

 

able to see many of you over the next many months. I hope all of you are doing

 

well. Even though I have not done a good job of keeping you all

 

updated on a more frequent basis, know that you all are in my thoughts

 

constantly.

 

 

 

Thank you again for all of your support and most of all, your

 

friendship.

 

 

 

RFG

 

 

 

Pro Patria!

 

Major Robert F. Griggs

 

S-3, 4-31 Infantry, 2 IBCT, 10th MTN DIV

 

Fort Drum, NY 13602

 

DSN 772-7514

 

Commercial (315) 772-7514

2007-09-25 01:02:54 GMT