Posted on 01/01/2007 5:36:55 AM PST by Dick Bachert
Insight of a Sergeant Major (The author, J.D. Pendry, is a retired Army Command Sergeant Major who writes for Random House.)
Jimmy Carter, you're the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the Runner-in-Chief.
Bill Clinton, you played "ring around the Lewinsky" while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia, and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses embolden the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately they grew bolder, until 9/11.
John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam. Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our Soldiers of terrorizing women and in Iraq. You called Iraq "the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"... the same words you used to describe Vietnam. You're a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam, is another war that you were for, before you were against it.
John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win militarily in Iraq. You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof. And said we should re-deploy to Okinawa. Okinawa, John? And the Democrats call you their military expert. Are you sure you didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a Marine sir. You wouldn't amount to a pimple on a real Marine's ass. You're a phony and a disgrace. Run away John.
Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned South East Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? See Dick run.
Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Grhaib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraq's torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news this week Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrate real torture for you again. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese which led to a communist victory there. You're a bloated fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington.
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer et al ad nauseam. Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied. That the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers. That we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we will run away again and all they have to do is hang on a little longer.
American news media, the New YorkTimes particularly. Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Meccato admire your Pulitzer.
You are America's axis of idiots. Your collective stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam. If you want our Soldiers home, as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with -self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war and this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.
No Commander in Chief, you don't get off the hook either. Our country has two enemies. Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It's your obligation to support them by confronting the axis of idiots. America must hear it from you that these people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little anger please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets. Our Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot. They need you to do it now.
His Rules of Engagement for the mission were very restrictive. He insisted on lots of practice for the mission. He insisted on such a low risk approach, that they would not allow the best forces for the mission to be used, nor would they allocate sufficient forces. There were not enough helicopters, and the "low risk" ROEs dictated that Marine or Navy helicopters be used, rather than the Air Force ones designed for just such a mission, for fear that someone might notice the Air Force birds on the Navy carriers. He didn't allow any prepping of the battlefield, and really treated the whole thing like a stateside SWAT affair. There was no air cover provided, which all by itself is close to a criminal act.
I remember during the hostage crises discussing how we would set up a rescue mission with a guy who worked for the same company, and who I'd known when we were both Air Force officers on active duty.
Our sketchy solution. Send in the B-52s, many cells of them, bomb all the approaches to the location where the hostages were being held, plus radar sites, naval bases and air fields. The last cell, or two or three, would actually be C-141s or C-5s, with a whole bunch of airborne troops, who would drop in, rescue the hostages, and then wait for the helicopters to come get them all. It would have been a much larger mission, and it would have broken a lot more stuff and killed a lot of Iranians.
We knew that it was probably a bit too ambitious, but would never have guessed at such a mission as was actually laid on.
But even given that the mission that was laid on failed, there were no further missions, no retaliatory bombings, not even any threats to do so. No "Release them, or else".
With Ronald Reagan they knew there would be an "or else", so they released the hostages on his inauguration day. With JC, they didn't believe in "or else", rightly as it seems.
No, he sent the military to rescue the hostages, and ordered them to kill as few of the citizens of the hostage taking country as possible, even at the risk of mission failure. Which is exactly what happened.
Thank you Sir for having the courage to pen the truth.
A Very Happy New Year to you and yours.
The Air Force prides itself on feeding it's enlisted members properly.
That mess you ate in was the same one the guys who fix, fuel and load the airplanes eat at.
And yes their breakfasts are excellent.
When I was on active duty, an additional duty for us non-rated types was "Operations Duty Officer", and one of the duties was to eat a meal, usually supper, in the mess hall, which officers normally are not allowed to eat in, if the O-club is open. The purpose was quality assurance, and there was a report to file on the matter.
That all stems from the days of Curtis LeMay, when he was the first head of SAC. He knew that the highly technically trained airmen he needed for SAC would not be staying in the military if they had to eat bad food and stay in shitty quarters.
No doubt, but intentions have nothing to do with responsibility. He is responsible. OTOH, Ronald Reagan also bears some responsibility for pulling the Marines out of Lebanon after they were attacked, rather than hitting back, hard, probably at Syrian and/or Iran, but at least at Hzb'allah. Both helped teach the IslamoNazis that the US would cut and run if attacked. They found out that Texas based politicians are a little different, at least some of them.
Thanks for posting.
While living at Fort Myers, Va. and working at the Pentagon I've dealt with a few Command Sargent Majors and I find that they all knew more then nearly any other group of individuals.
They'd been there and done that and learned from doing, not just bullsh-tting. I don't know of a politician that could carry a C.S.Majors jock.
Good call sir.
Listen to you, B-52's! The hostages were being moved around. An airstrike or any major move like that would have tipped them off.
As I said before, I'm not going to argue the obvious failure of the mission. That's not the point. The point is that the author used the hostage situation to illustrate Carter's lack of spine. He was wrong. The fact that a mission, a mission that could have worked, was undertaken does not illustrate a lack of spine. The author should have used another example.
"We knew that it was probably a bit too ambitious"
Ya think?
HOOOOAH!
Well, there was that unpleasantness in Iran & the hostage thing.
There has not been one treason trial in this country for decades (I believe not since the Rosenberg's, but could be wrong). Bush is a shining example of moral impotence, but he did not start the trend. Our President has a duty to God and country to show as much courage against our domestic enemies as our boys in the field show against our foreign enemies. He also has a duty to allow them to locate and kill our enemies in the field, not forbid them from fighting the rock-chuckers, ordering them to just walk around as sniper and IED targets instead.
Bush will stand accountable before God for not buying the absolute most amount of freedom and safety for our country with most precious currency of the lives of innocent American warriors.
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