The Bergdahl Deal: When Bowie Comes Marching Home

Obamabergdahl2I have been writing all week about the inequitable trade, made by the President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, in which he released 5 “4 Star General”,Afghan Muslim Terrorists, into the welcoming arms of the Muslim Nation of Qatar.

In return, we got an American soldier, who had supposedly been held in captivity by Afghan Muslim Terrorists for the last 5 years.

Needless to say, Obama believed that both he and Pfc. (now Sgt.) Bowe Bergdahl would be hailed as heroes.

Obama overestimated his own intelligence. Evidently, he did not think that the real truth about Bergdahl would ever come out.

Major mistake.

Per foxnews.com,

Fellow soldiers who remembered Bergdahl as an outsider who studied Rosetta Stone lessons in the native language and talked of hiking to China, told Fox News they believe Bergdahl is a deserter, an offense punishable by death in the military code of justice.

“Yes, I do believe he deserted, without a doubt in my mind,” Cody Full told Megyn Kelly Monday. “He did not serve the United States with honor. We all took an oath — he violated his oath when he deserted us and put other Americans in jeopardy.”

Despite the conflicting claims, sources who had debriefed two former members of Bergdahl’s unit told Fox News Bergdahl left behind a note the night he left base in which he expressed disillusionment with the Army and being an American and suggested that he wanted to renounce his American citizenship and go find the Taliban. U.S. military officials would not confirm the existence of the letter, but if it does exist, it would likely be part of the original file on the investigation into Bergdahl’s disappearance.

Some of Bergdahl’s activities prior to his disappearance, including reportedly mailing his gear home, indicated premeditation, according to Full, a 25-year-old former infantryman now living in Houston. It bothers them that a soldier they believe betrayed his comrades, possibly leading to their deaths in subsequent rescue efforts, could be seen as a hero.

“I just don’t want to see him hailed as a hero and I just want him to face the consequences of his own actions and possibly face court-martial for desertion,” Gerald Sutton, a 31-year-old Michigan college student who left the military in 2012 after serving with Bergdahl in Afghanistan, told Kelly.

The accusations are not new. Almost from the beginning, there were questions about the circumstances that led to Bergdahl’s capture. He would later say on a hostage video released by his captors that he had been snatched after falling behind his patrol. But a Pentagon probe in 2010 concluded that evidence was “incontrovertible” that Bergdahl walked away from his unit near the Pakistan border, according to a former Pentagon official who has read it. 

Unfortunately for Obama and his Administration, it was not just his fellow soldier, who witnessed Bergdahl’s Desertion.

According to The Washington Post…

Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something was wrong with the American. And he seemed to be deliberately heading for Taliban strongholds, they say.

“It was very confusing to us. Why would he leave the base?” said Jamal, an elder in the village of Yusef Khel, about a half-mile from the American military installation. (Like many Afghans, he goes by only one name). “The people thought it was a covert agenda – maybe he was sent to the village by the U.S.”

Locals remember Bergdahl walking through the village in a haze. They later told Afghan investigators that they had warned the American that he was heading into a dangerous area.

“They tried to tell him not to go there, that it is dangerous. But he kept going over the mountain. The villagers tried to give him water and bread, but he didn’t take it,” said Ibrahim Manikhel, the district’s intelligence chief.

“We think he probably was high after smoking hashish,” Manikhel said. “Why would an American want to find the Taliban?”

And now, the best laid plans of mice and men have gone awry.

Yahoo News reports that

In calling off the June 28 event, the officials cited concerns that they lacked the resources to safely manage the thousands of supporters and protesters who were expected to converge on the small mountain community of 8,000 residents.

The decision came as pressure mounted to cancel the rally in the face of rising hostility, expressed in a torrent of emails and phone calls directed at city officials and businesses, over claims by Bergdahl’s onetime Army comrades that he deliberately abandoned his post in Afghanistan.

Some have asserted that the search for Bergdahl after he went missing under murky circumstances on June 30, 2009, may have cost the lives of up to six fellow soldiers.

Days ago, the central Idaho town near the upscale ski resort of Sun Valley erupted in elation over news that the 28-year-old Army sergeant had been freed in a prisoner exchange with the Taliban.

But the festive mood prevailing on Saturday after Bergdahl’s release was soon tempered by criticism from some former members of his combat unit that he was unfairly being hailed as a hero.

Hailey Police Chief Jeff Gunter said he received a phone call from a fellow police chief in Tennessee asking him, “‘What’s wrong with you people?'” Asked what he meant, Gunter recounted that the caller angrily replied: “‘What the hell’s your problem for supporting this deserter?'”

A rally organizer, Stefanie O’Neill, said as late as Tuesday it would go ahead as planned. But as recriminations grew, O’Neill and her mother, Debbie, a co-organizer, paid a visit to the sergeant’s parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, to ask whether they wanted the celebration to proceed.

The city later said the rally, originally planned while Bergdahl was still a captive as a show of solidarity around the anniversary of his disappearance, was canceled.

In honor of this lack of an auspicious occasion, I channeled my inner bard, and wrote the following little ditty, to the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”.

Everybody sing!

WHEN BOWIE COMES MARCHING HOME

When Bowie comes marching home again,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout.
The ladies they will all turn out.
And we’ll all be glad when Bowie comes marching home.

Oh wait, you say that he bugged out?
Oh, no! Oh, no!
What happened to our cub scout?
Oh, no! Oh no!
From the Army base he strayed,
And new Taliban friends he made,
Now, we won’t show up when Bowie comes marching home.

Obama lied to you and me,
The Putz! The Putz!
The backlash he did not foresee,
The Putz! The Putz!
Five Muslim Terrorists he did trade,
Upon the Public’s trust he preyed,
Now no one’s fooled when Bowie comes marching home.

Now Obama’s in a world of hurt,
Oh, crap! Oh,crap!
He can not hide behind Val’s skirt,
Oh,crap! Oh,crap!
A bonehead move he did make,
And came off looking like a snake,
Let’s impeach this fool when Bowie comes marching home

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The Bergdahl Deal: “Forget Benghazi. We Leave No Man Behind.” Narcissistic-Reality-Denial-Over-Educated-Beyond-Their-Intelligence Syndrome Strikes Again.

ObamatradingprivatebergdahlYesterday, United States President Barack Hussein Obama was in Poland, holding a joint Press Conference with their president. While there, an intrepid reporter asked “The World’s Smartest Man” about the rapidly unraveling Bowe Bergdahl Fiasco. Obama replied:

The United States has always had a pretty sacred rule, and that is we don’t leave our men or women in uniform behind. And that dates back to the earliest days of our revolution.

We have consulted with Congress for quite some time about the possibility that we might need to execute a prisoner exchange in order to recover Sergeant Bergdahl. We saw an opportunity. We were concerned aboutSergeant Bergdahl’s health. We had the cooperation of the Qataris to execute an exchange, and we seized that opportunity. And the process was truncated because we wanted to make sure that we did not miss that window.

With respect to the circumstances of Sergeant Bergdahl’s capture by the Taliban, we obviously have not been interrogating Sergeant Bergdahl. He is recovering from five years of captivity with the Taliban. He’s having to undergo a whole battery of tests, and he is going to have to undergo a significant transition back into life. He has not even met with his family yet, which indicates I think the degree to which we take this transition process seriously — something that we learned from the Vietnam era.

But let me just make a very simple point here, and that is, regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity. Period. Full stop. We don’t condition that. And that’s what every mom and dad who sees a son or daughter sent over into war theater should expect from not just their Commander-in-Chief but the United States of America.

In terms of potential threats, the release of the Taliban who were being held in Guantanamo was conditioned on the Qataris keeping eyes on them and creating a structure in which we can monitor their activities. We will be keeping eyes on them. Is there the possibility of some of them trying to return to activities that are detrimental to us? Absolutely. That’s been true of all the prisoners that were released from Guantanamo. There’s a certain recidivism rate that takes place. I wouldn’t be doing it if I thought that it was contrary to American national security. And we have confidence that we will be in a position to go after them if, in fact, they are engaging in activities that threaten our defenses.

But this is what happens at the end of wars. That was true for George Washington; that was true for Abraham Lincoln; that was true for FDR; that’s been true of every combat situation — that at some point, you make sure that you try to get your folks back. And that’s the right thing to do.

Q: Could Sergeant Bergdahl face — (inaudible.)[probably Court Martial on charges of desertion]

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That’s not something that we’re discussing at this point because our main priority is making sure that the transition that he’s undergoing after five years of captivity is successful.

We’re all familiar with the fact that a Stand Down Order was given on that fateful night of September 11, 2012, as 4 Americans were fighting for their lives at the U.S. Embassy Compound in Benghazi, Libya.

It has yet to be determined who gave that order. However, on August 7th of 2013, investors.com reported that

The omnipresent power behind the throne some have called the president’s Rasputin had the power to call off three strikes against Osama bin Laden. She may have used that power again the night four Americans died in Benghazi.

The Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, came while America failed to mount a rescue mission despite sufficient time and assets. Included in that disaster were the unaccounted whereabouts of President Obama during eight critical hours, the lack of Situation Room photos, the failure by the president to follow up with subordinates before his trip to Las Vegas and the fabricated story that the whole thing was prompted by an Internet video.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer said recently on “The O’Reilly Factor” that the “biggest scandal of all” regarding that Benghazi slaughter has yet to emerge.

“I think there is a bigger story here … that will in time come out,” Krauthammer said. “The biggest scandal of all, the biggest question is: What was the president doing in those eight hours?”

The columnist noted: “He had a routine meeting at 5 o’clock. He never after, during the eight hours when our guys have their lives in danger, he never called the secretary of defense, he never calls the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he never calls the CIA director.”

One of the people Obama always talks to is Valerie Jarrett. She emerged from the same Chicago cauldron of radicalism where Obama got his ideological baptism.

The Iranian-born Jarrett (her parents were American-born expatriates) is the only staff member who regularly follows the president home from the West Wing to the residence and one of the few people allowed to call the president by his first name.

…Did Obama run the Benghazi decision not to send help past Jarrett that night?

We do know Obama had a face-to-face briefing from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, early in the evening.

After dinner in his living quarters, Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed Iran and other issues in a two-hour phone call.

Present as the call was made, reports blogger Chip Jones at Conservative Report Online, was Valerie Jarrett, who, as the call was ending, went from the living quarters to the White House Situation Room, where the attack in Benghazi was being monitored by Dempsey, Panetta and other top-ranking officials.

What she may have said and whether the president sent her is unknown. We do know the president retired for the night, and no rescue mission was launched.

Once before, Jarrett had called off the military for political purposes. She may have done it that night as well — an action that would answer many questions and may be what the White House is really hiding.

On September 22nd of 2010, I wrote about a disease that I’ve noticed that most of the Far Left exhibit:  Narcissistic-Reality-Denial-Over-Educated-Beyond-Their-Intelligence Syndrome.  The patient tends to rely on his self-assumed superior intellect, denying the reality of the world around him to the point of forsaking both his allegiance to and concern for the people of the country that has provided him with both his livelihood and his well-being.

This syndrome seems to be extremely pernicious in academic and political figures. The patient actually believes that he is an expert on everything, to the point where he can write and distribute instructional theses to seasoned professionals while lecturing them in a didactic manner.

This syndrome causes patients to contradict themselves once they have committed others’  lives to a cause or mission.  It is all a part of the denial of reality, along with a self-imposed aloofness caused by feelings of superiority.

Additionally, I have noticed that this disease, causes those in power to take for granted and, to even consciously undermine our Best and Brightest.

Hence this idiotic trade, which as all of its Muslim and anti-American layers become revealed, is turning out to be fodder for serious talk of impeachment.

Obama has always thought of our Armed Forces as a “Political Tool” to be used to achieve his Political Goals.

So, what goal was Obama trying to accomplish by trading those 5 murderous Afghani Muslim Terrorist Leaders for an Army Deserter…who happens to also be a Muslim-Sympathizer?

Was his goal to take our attention away from the Veterans Administration Scandal?

Was this simply a step in his quest to close down Gitmo?

Or, with Bob Bergdahl being a Muslim Convert and Bowe being a Muslim Sympathizer, was this an Islamic thing?

I don’t know, but Obama actions have placed American Travelers, civilian and military, in worldwide danger.

The only treatment for Narcissistic-Reality-Denial-Over-Educated-Beyond-Their-Intelligence Syndrome at this time is “refudiation” and isolation.  The people who are being affected by these individuals must, in a clear and over-whelming  manner, let the patient know that they do not accept their attitude or actions and put them in a “time-out”.

And, because of that, let the hearings commence.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

Obama Brokers Deal: 5 Afghan Muslim Terrorists for One Deserter Who Was “Ashamed of America”

ObamabergdahlYesterday, It was announced that President Barack Hussein Obama and his administration had released 5 murderous Afghani  Muslim Terrorist Leaders from Gitmo, in exchange for US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

Conservative Pundit Michelle Malkin reported on July 20, 2009, that

The circumstances of Bergdahl’s capture weren’t clear.

On July 2, two U.S. officials told the AP the soldier had “just walked off” his base with three Afghans after his shift. He had no body armor or weapon and they said they had no explanation for why he left. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

On July 6, the Taliban claimed on their Web site that five days earlier “a drunken American soldier had come out of his garrison” and was captured by mujahadeen.

In the video, Pfc. Bergdahl said he was lagging behind a patrol when he was captured.

Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.

There are two theories out there, concerning why the Sergeant wandered off of base. The first theory is that he was deserting. The second is that he was simply drunk.

According to reports, Sgt. Bergdahl was under the influence when he walked off his base in Paktika Province, Afghanistan and into the arms of the Haqqani terrorism network.

However, Dailymail.co.uk reports that

From the beginning, Bowe Bergdahl was not your conventional US Army Sergeant.

Traveling extensively and trained in ballet, he had sailed across the Atlantic by his late teens, but was home-schooled in a small town in Idaho with a population of about 8,000.

His friends say he enlisted in the army to help the Afghan people and provide philanthropic support to the war effort.

As the Taliban’s sole American prisoner was freed after five years, a portrait has been painted of an adventurous and idealistic seeker, who was known for his manners and would stop at nothing to test new experiences.

But there is controversy, too. Rolling Stone magazine quoted emails Bergdahl is said to have sent to his parents that suggest he was disillusioned with America’s mission in Afghanistan, had lost faith in the U.S. Army’s mission there and was considering desertion.

Bergdahl told his parents he was ‘ashamed to even be American’.

Bergdahl, who mailed home boxes containing his uniform and books, also wrote: ‘The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong.’

The Associated Press could not independently authenticate the emails published by the magazine in 2012. Bergdahl’s family has not commented on the allegations of desertion, according to Col. Tim Marsano, a spokesman for the Idaho National Guard.

Marsano is in regular contact with Bergdahl’s mother, Jani, and father, Bob, who has grown a long, thick beard and learned to speak the Afghanistan tribal language Pashto.

Yeah…about that…

On May 28th, Bob Bergdahl posted the following Tweet, which he deleted before his son’s release…

bergdahltweet0601

 

Appearing with President Obama in a brief Rose Garden event,Bob Bergdahl recited “Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahm,” according to the Daily Caller. In English, that means, “In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate.”

When he finished reciting, his fellow dhimmi, President Barack Hussein Obama, hugged him.

And then, scant hours after appearing at a press conference to give thanks for the freeing of his POW son in exchange for five top Taliban leaders, Bob Bergdahl returned to Twitter to promote a Guardian video in which family members lobby for the release of five Tunisians held at Guantanamo Bay,

Ten years in Guantánamo: Tunisian families hope for loved ones’ release – video http://gu.com/p/34tjp/tw via @guardian

Additionally, the president is required by law to give Congress 30 days’ notice before transferring any prisoner out of Gitmo. He never told Congress a cotton-pickin’ thing.

The reason for his breaking the law is very simple: Congress would have refused the deal and told him that he was out of his ever-lovin’ mind.

For more than 200 years, the United States has had a policy of not trading prisoners for American hostages. That policy has been irreparably destroyed, and, by doing so, Obama has now placed a target on the back of every single American – civilian and military alike.

No place in the world will now be safe for Americans to travel.

Author Brad Thor, writing for theblaze.com, makes an excellent point:

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release raises many more questions than it answers. But will anyone in the mainstream media ask those questions? Will any of them discuss the recidivism rate of Gitmo detainees who, once released back into the wild, return to terrorism? How about the lives and limbs lost in the effort to capture those Gitmo detainees in the first place? What about the possibility that the Obama Administration may have directly funded a terrorist organization responsible for slaughtering American military personnel and countless innocent civilians?

The great author, G.K. Chesterton once wrote about Islam that,

There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. . . . A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it.

It appears to me that Obama and his minions, by brokering this lopsided, dangerous deal which has potentially sold out the safety of our nation, have acted like the fool who keeps feeding the tiger…hoping that the tiger will eat him last…and by doing so, throwing fuel on the fire of this perpetual Islamic Revolution that Chesterton wrote of, and giving confidence to those who wish to kill us all.

To quote Elmer Fudd…

Something awfuwwy scwewy’s goin’ on awound heah…

Until He Comes,

KJ

It Takes a Radical: The Very Political Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton

PROLOGUE: This past week I researched the following information and recorded it as a 4 part series about the 2016 presumptive Democratic Presidential Candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. I am offering it today, as a 5,500 word essay, because I feel that it is imperative to share this information in a form where it will be easy for you , gentle readers to share with your friends and family. 

Please take this opportunity to do so. Our nation’s future may depend on it.

God Bless.

Hillary Clinton 1On October 26, 1947, Hillary Diane Rodham entered this world in Chicago, Illinois.

Hillary Rodham, the oldest daughter of Hugh Rodham, a prosperous fabric store owner, and Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, was raised in Park Ridge, Illinois, a quaint little suburb located 15 miles northwest of downtown Chicago. Hillary has two younger brothers, Hugh Jr. (born 1950) and Anthony (born 1954).

In her youth, the future Democrat was active in young Republican groups, even campaigning for the 1964 Republican Presidential Nominee, Barry Goldwater.

According to Hil, she was inspired to work in some form of public service after hearing the Reverend Martin Luther King speak in Chicago. She became a Democrat in 1968.

The young ingenue attended Wellesley College, where she was active in student politics, being elected Senior Class President before she graduated in 1969.

After that, Hilary enrolled in Yale Law School, where she met Bill “Bubba” Clinton.  Afer graduating with honors in 1973, she then enrolled at Yale Child Study Center, where she took courses on children and medicine and completed one post-graduate year of study, which explains her whole “It takes a village” philosophy.

While a college student, Hillary worked several summer jobs. In 1971, she arrived in Washington, D.C. to work on U.S. Senator Walter Mondale’s sub-committee on migrant workers. The next summer found her out west, working for the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern.

Then, in the spring of 1974, Rodham became a member of the presidential impeachment inquiry staff, advising the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives during the Watergate Scandal.

Her boss back then, Jerry Zeifman, now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, tells a very revealing story concerning her work there.

According to Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former Yale Law Professor, Burke Marshall, also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair.

When the Watergate Investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation. That made the Future First Lady and Secretary of State one of only three people who earned that badge of dishonor in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

Why?

According to Zeifman,

Because she was a liar. She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.

Zeifman claims that she was one of several individuals including Marshall, Special Counsel John Doar, and Senior Associate Special Counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum, who plotted to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.

Zeifman believes  that they were deathly afraid of putting the break-in’s mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by Counsel to the President.  The reason being, Hunt had the goods regarding some dirty dealings  in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a kid busting open his Piggy Bank…dealings which purportedly included Kennedy’s complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.

Hillary and her associates were acting directly against the decision of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, who all believed that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel.

The reason that Hillary and the rest came up with the scheme is because they believed that they could gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon.

In order to pull off this scheme, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.

Hillary wanted to present in her brief that there was no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. Zeifman told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970….

As soon as the impeachment resolutions were introduced by (then-House Minority Leader Gerald) Ford, and they were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the first thing Douglas did was hire himself a lawyer.

Douglas was allowed to keep counsel by the Judicial Committee in place at the time, which clearly established a precedent. Zeifman told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committee’s public files.

That was  a mistake, per Zeifman…

Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public.

Hillary then wrote a legal brief which argued that there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding…ignoring the Douglas case completely.

The brief was so laughingly fraudulent, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had ever actually submitted it to a judge.

Zeifman says that if Hillary and her associates had succeeded, members of the House Judiciary Committee would have also been denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, and denied the opportunity to even be a part of the drafting of articles of impeachment against Nixon.

After President Richard M. Nixon resigned in August, rendering the matter of her deception moot, Hillary became a faculty member of the University of Arkansas Law School in Fayetteville, where her Yale Law School classmate and boyfriend Bill Clinton was also teaching.

Hillary Rodham married Bill Clinton on October 11, 1975, at their home in Fayetteville. Before he proposed, Bubba had secretly purchased a small house that Hillary had previously said that she liked. When she accepted his marriage proposal, he revealed that they owned the house.

Hillary Clinton #2After she married Bill in 1975, Hillary Rodham Clinton worked on Jimmy Carter’s successful campaign for presidenti in1976, while Bill got elected Attorney General of the state of Arkansas.

Hillary joined the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock after Bill became Attorney General, and made partner only after he was elected governor, according to Former Clinton Confidante Dick Morris.

That event occurred in 1978.

President Carter appointed Mrs. Clinton to the board of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in 1978. This was a federally funded nonprofit organization which was designed as a way to expand the social welfare state and grow social welfare spending. According to Dick Morris, the appointment was in exchange for Bill’s support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary went on to become board chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter’s choice to be chairman.

Hillary more than tripled LSC’s annual budget, from $90 million to $321 million, in taxpayer funds (OUR money). LSC used these funds in several different ways, most notable among them, the printing of political training manuals showing “how community organizations and public interest groups can win political power and resources,” and the financing of training programs that taught political activists how to harass their opposition.

While Hillary was running the LSC board, the Corporation also

1. Worked to defeat a California referendum that would have cut state income taxes in half

2. Called for the U.S. government to give two-thirds of the state of Maine to American Indians

3.  Paid Marxist orators and folk singers to wage a campaign against the Louisiana Wildlife Commission

4.  Joined a Michigan initiative to recognize “Black English” as an official language;

5.  Sought to force the New York City Transit Authority to hire former heroin addicts so as to avoid “discriminat[ing]” against “minorities” who were “handicapped.”

When it became clear that Ronald Reagan was on the verge of beating Democrat President Jimmy Carter in 1980, LSC redirected massive amounts of its public funding into an anti-Reagan letter-writing campaign by indigent clients. After Reagan was elected in November 1980, LSC immediately laundered its assets — some $260 million — into state-level agencies and private groups so as to keep the funds away from the board that Reagan would eventually appoint. Hillary Clinton left LSC in 1981.

While Bubba was  Governor of Arkansas from 1978 to 1980, and again from 1982 to 1992, Hillary was very active “behind the scenes”.

During these years, she continued her legal practice as a partner in the Rose Law Firm. In 1978 she also became a board member of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), and from 1986 to 1992 she served as chair of the CDF Board.

From 1982 to 1988, Hillary also chaired the New World Foundation (NWF), which had helped to launch CDF in 1973. While running the NWF, the Foundation made grants to such organizations as the National Lawyers Guild, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Christic Institute, Grassroots International, the Committees in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (which sought to foment a Communist revolution in Central America), and groups with ties to the most extreme elements of the African National Congress.

According to Dick Morris, when Clinton was considering not running for another term as Governor of Arkansas in 1990, Hillary said she would run if he didn’t. She and Bill even had Morris take two surveys to assess her chances of winning. The conclusion was that she couldn’t win because people would just see her as a seat warmer for when Bill came back licking his wounds after losing for president. So she didn’t run. Bill did and won. But there is no question she had her eye on public office, as opposed to service, long ago.

So, while Bill was the Front Man, Hil worked “the Back of the House”, in preparation for her “moment in the spotlight”.

During the Clintons’ time in Arkansas, they also both became involved in a little matter which later became known as “The Whitewater Scandal”.

In 1978, while Bubba was Attorney General of Arkansas, Hil and he partnered with James and Susan McDougal in a purchase 220 acres of land that would evolve into the Whitewater Development Corporation. The real estate venture tanked, costing the Clintons a reported $40,000 in losses. After that James McDougal went into the banking industry, forming Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan.

In 1986, federal regulators investigated another real estate investment backed by James McDougal. The investigation led to McDougal’s resignation from Madison Guaranty and the eventual collapse of the bank. Questions surrounding the Clintons’ involvement in the Whitewater deal grew during President Clinton’s first term in office and an investigation into the legality of the Whitewater transactions was launched.

All subsequent inquiries into the Whitewater land deal yielded insufficient evidence to charge the Clintons with criminal conduct. However, several of their associates were convicted as a result the investigations.

In July 1992, William Jefferson Clinton was nominated by the Democratic Party as their Candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

In August of that year, Daniel Wattenberg wrote the following prophetic statement in the opening of an article for “The American Spectator” titled, “The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock”…

Hillary Clinton has been likened to Eva Peron, but it’s a bad analogy. Evita was worshipped by the “shirtless ones,” the working class, while Hillary’s charms elude most outside of an elite cohort of left-liberal, baby-boom feminists-the type who thought Anita Hill should be canonized and Thelma and Louise was the best movie since Easy Rider. Hillary reckons herself the next Eleanor Roosevelt. But, standing well to the left of her husband and enjoying an independent power base within his coalition, Hillary is best thought of as the Winnie Mandela of American politics. She has likened the American family to slavery, thinks kids should be able to sue their parents to resolve family arguments, and during her tenure as a foundation officer gave away millions (much of it in no-strings-attached grants) to the left-including sizable sums to hard-left organizers. She is going to cause her husband no end of political embarrassment between now and November-and who knows how long afterward.

Mr. Wattenberg nailed that one, huh?

Hillary Clinton #3Bill Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States of America on January 20, 1993.  Standing right behind him…and pushing hard was Hillary Rodham Clinton, by now widely known as the more-driven, and politically ambitious one of the couple.

Billed as “the New Camelot” by the Main Stream Media, the Clintons strode arm-in-arm into their castle to preside over their new kingdom, where Progressivism in the name of “Moderation” would be the Law of the Land.

However, just as the reign of Arthur and Guinevere ended badly, into the Clintons’ storybook “Co-Presidency”, “a little rain” fell in the form of scandals and quite a few “Bimbo Eruptions” which brought about an inglorious end to all of their “peace and harmony”.

Rose Law Firm Billing – As I wrote previously, in 1978, while Bubba was Attorney General of Arkansas, Hil and he partnered with James and Susan McDougal in a purchase 220 acres of land that would evolve into the Whitewater Development Corporation. The real estate venture tanked, costing the Clintons a reported $40,000 in losses. After that James McDougal went into the banking industry, forming Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan.

In 1986, federal regulators investigated another real estate investment backed by James McDougal. The investigation led to McDougal’s resignation from Madison Guaranty and the eventual collapse of the bank. Questions surrounding the Clintons’ involvement in the Whitewater deal grew during President Clinton’s first term in office and an investigation into the legality of the Whitewater transactions was launched.

After nearly two years of searches and subpoenas, the White House announced on the evening of January 6, 1996, that it had unexpectedlydiscovered copies of missing documents from the Rose Law Firm that describe Hillary Rodham Clinton’s work for a failing savings and loan association in the 1980′s.

Federal and Congressional investigators had issued subpoenas for the documents since 1994, and the White House claimed not have them. The originals disappeared from the Rose Law Firm, shortly before Bill Clinton was inaugurated as President.

The newly discovered documents were copies of billing records from the Rose firm. The originals were found under the Clintons’ bed in the White House, shortly after the statute of limitations ran out.

All subsequent inquiries into the Whitewater land deal yielded insufficient evidence to charge the Clintons with criminal conduct. However, several of their associates were convicted as a result of the investigations.

Death of Vince Foster – On July 20, 1993, Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy counsel to the president of the United States, and former partner with Hillary, in The Rose Law Firm, was found lying neatly face-up on a steep embankment in Marcy Park with his feet pointing down, dressed in expensive trousers and a white dress shirt, less than eight miles from the White House, with a single gun-shot wound to the head. Dead. Some of the blood on Foster’s face was still wet, but starting to dry. A trail of blood flowed upwards from his nose to above his ear. The man who found his body said there was no gun, but after he left to notify police, a gun appeared in Foster’s hand. President William Jefferson Clinton’s Arkansas childhood friend, First Lady Hillary Clinton’s Rose Law Firm partner, and White House confidante’s death was to become the subject of controversy.

Due to Foster’s involvement in Whitewater, both at Rose and in the White House, the Senate Whitewater Committee investigation’s conclusion revealed that there was “a concerted effort by senior White House officials to block career law enforcement investigators from conducting a thorough investigation” into Foster’s death, and recommended “that steps be taken to insure that such misuse of the White House counsel’s office does not recur in this, or any future, administration.”

So, was Vince Foster murdered? And, why?

In 1999, a book titled, “Bill and Hillary: The Marriage”, caused a lot of consternation among the Clintons and their supporters.

The author, Christopher Andersen, claimed that in 1977 she began an intensely passionate affair with Vince Foster.

The affair supposedly took place when the two were lawyers at The Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, while Bubba was governor.

Rumors of an affair first started buzzing around after Foster was found in Marcy Park. The book did not say when the relationship ended.

To this day, the circumstances surrounding the death of Vince Foster, remain a topic for conjecture.

 Travelgate – In early summer of 1993, 6 employees of the White House Travel Office were fired, after Hil and Bubba determined that the Travel Office workers, who served at the pleasure of the president, could be fired and that the Travel Office business, and the commissions that came along with it, Coulee be taken over by a cousin of President Clinton’s, Catherine Cornelius, who already owned her own travel agency.

However, they could not just go ahead and hand over a governmental office to a relative, without a backlash, so the Clintons made up a story, claiming that the Travel Office was rife with corruption and the workers there had to be fired. An audit of the Travel Office ensued, and while the record-keeping at the office was found to have been pretty inadequate, no corruption or embezzlement were found. That did not matter to the Clintons, so they went ahead and pressured the FBI to make arrests, and the local US Attorney was given instructions to prosecute the employees for corruption.

Of course, the Clintons denied being behind any sort of scheme in the matter. However, leaks by those involved, led to a firestorm of media criticism. Most of the Travel Office employees were eventually given other government jobs or retired and the trial for corruption of the head of the Travel Office, Billy Dale, ended in a verdict of “NOT GUILTY”.

Clinton’s cousin was subsequently removed as new head of the Travel Office.

Afterward, Independent Counsel Robert Ray wrote a report that concluded that, while she did not make any knowingly-false statements under oath, First Lady Hillary Clinton had made a number of inaccurate statements concerning the firings and her role in them.

Bimbo Eruptions – Back in the Bill Clinton era, White House advisor Betsey Wright coined the term “bimbo eruptions” to describe a long list of presidential gal pals.

BIll “Bubba” Clinton’s Bimbo List” included, but is not limited to (I’m sure) Jennifer Flowers, Former Miss America Elizabeth Ward, Paul Corbin Jones, and, of course, Monica Lewinsky.

The Lewinsky scandal was a sensation that enveloped the presidency of Bill Clinton in 1998–99, leading to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives and acquittal by the Senate.

Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state worker who claimed that Bill Clinton had accosted her sexually in 1991 when he was governor of Arkansas, had brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against the president. In order to show a pattern of behavior on Clinton’s part, Jones’s lawyers questioned several women believed to have been engaging in sex  with him. On Jan. 17, 1998, Bubba took the stand, becoming the first sitting president to testify as a civil defendant.

During this testimony, Clinton denied having had an affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, an unpaid intern and later a paid staffer at the White House who worked in the White House from 1995–96. Lewinsky had earlier, in a deposition in the same case, also denied having such a relationship. Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel in the Whitewater case, had already received tape recordings made by Linda R. Tripp (a former coworker of Lewinsky’s) of telephone conversations in which Lewinsky described her involvement with the president. Asserting that there was a “pattern of deception,” Starr obtained from Attorney General Janet Reno permission to investigate the matter.

The president publicly denied having had a relationship with Lewinsky and charges of covering it up. His adviser, Vernon Jordan, denied having counseled Lewinsky to lie in the Jones case, or having arranged a job for her outside Washington, to help cover up the affair. Hillary Clinton claimed that a “vast right-wing conspiracy” was trying to destroy her husband, while Republicans and conservatives portrayed him as immoral and a liar.

In March, Jordan and others testified before Starr’s grand jury, and lawyers for Paula Jones released papers revealing, among other things, that Clinton, in his January deposition, had admitted to a sexual relationship in the 1980s with Arkansas entertainer Gennifer Flowers, a charge he had long denied. In April, however, Arkansas federal judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed the Jones suit, ruling that Jones’s story, if true, showed that she had been exposed to “boorish” behavior but not sexual harassment; Jones appealed.

In July, Starr granted Lewinsky immunity from perjury charges, and Clinton agreed to testify before the grand jury. He did so on Aug. 17, then went on television to admit the affair with Lewinsky and ask for forgiveness. In September, Starr sent a 445-page report to the House of Representatives, recommending four possible grounds for impeachment: perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and abuse of authority.

On Dec. 19, Clinton became the second president (after Andrew Johnson) to be impeached, on two charges: perjury—in his Aug., 1998, testimony—and obstruction of justice. The vote in the House was largely along party lines.

In Jan., 1999, the trial began in the Senate. On Feb. 12, after a trial in which testimony relating to the charges was limited, the Senate rejected both counts of impeachment. The perjury charge lost, 55–45, with 10 Republicans joining all 45 Democrats in voting against it; the obstruction charge drew a 50–50 vote. Subsequently, on Apr. 12, Judge Wright, who had dismissed the Jones case, found the president in contempt for lying in his Jan., 1998, testimony, when he denied the Lewinsky affair. In July, Judge Wright ordered the president to pay nearly $90,000 to Ms. Jones’s lawyers. On Jan. 19, 2001, the day before he left office, President Clinton agreed to admit to giving false testimony in the Jones case and to accept a five-year suspension of his law license and a $25,000 fine in return for an agreement by the independent counsel, Robert W. Ray (Starr’s successor), to end the investigation and not prosecute him.

In a later interview, Hillary claimed that Bill suffered childhood abuse which may have caused him to philanderer and experience “bimbo eruptions” later in life. She described her philandering husband as “a hard dog to keep on the porch”.

The Clinton Co-Presidency ended with the Inauguration of President George W. Bush on January 20, 2001.

However, Hillary Clinton’s “time in the Spotlight” was just beginning.

Hillary Clinton #4On November 6, 2000, Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected Democratic Senator for the State of New York, serving unremarkably until leaving Office on January 21, 2009.

During her undistinguished career in the U.S. Senate, Hillary Clinton voted on a variety of key pieces of legislation as follows:

  • in favor of a 2003 bill to ban oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
  • in favor of an October 2002 joint resolution to authorize the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against Iraq
  • against major tax-cut proposals in 2001 and 2003
  • in favor of a 2007 proposal to end the use of a point-based immigration system, (i.e., a system that seeks to ensure that people with skills that society needs are given preference for entry into the United States)
  • against a 2007 amendment designating English as the language of “sole legal authority” for the business of the federal government, and declaring that no person has a right to require officials of the U.S. government to use a language other than English
  • against a 2008 bill urging an expansion of the zero-tolerance prosecution policy for illegal aliens; calling for the completion of 700 miles of pedestrian fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border; allowing for the deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard members to the U.S. southern border; and encouraging the identification and deportation of illegal immigrants currently in the American prison system
  • in favor of the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold Act), which put restrictions on paid advertising during the weeks just prior to political elections, and tightly regulated the amount of money which political parties and candidates could accept from donors
  • against separate proposals (in 2004 and 2005) to ban lawsuits against gun manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers for damages resulting from the misuse of their products by others
  • against a 2003 proposal to ban the late-term procedure commonly known as “partial-birth abortion”
  • against a 2004 proposal to make it an added criminal offense for someone to injure or kill a fetus while carrying out a crime against a pregnant woman
  • against a 2006 bill making it illegal to knowingly transport a pregnant minor across state lines in order to obtain an abortion, as a way to escape state laws requiring parental consent

One week after Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States, on November 4, 2008, he called Hillary and offered her the job of Secretary of State, despite the fact that she had no Foreign Policy experience. It was a suspicious choice at best, considering that fact that when they were running against each other in the Democratic Primaries,Obama had specifically criticized Clinton’s Foreign Policy credentials and the initial idea of him appointing her had been so unexpected that she had told one of her own aides, “Not in a million years.”

The fact that she had campaigned unreservedly for Obama after he defeated her for the Democratic Nomination, led to speculation that the Secretary of State job was a “reward for her loyalty”.

Hillary accepted the position, and now, as speculation concerning a possible Presidential Campaign runs rampant, even the Main Stream Media is hard-pressed to come up with anything she accomplished as Obama’s First Secretary of State.

So, how did she do?

On January 26, 2013, after Hillary had stepped down as Secretary of State and was replaced by Senator John Kerry, the following conversation took place between Fox News Anchor Chris Wallace and Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume…

WALLACE: Yeah, I want to pick up on that, Brit, because during the hearing, what struck me was the Republicans were tough on Hillary, on Benghazi and the Democrats weren’t. But, both sides kept on saying what a great secretary of state she had been and to praise her service. And here’s some of the points that have been brought up, some of her accomplishments. She helped assemble the bombing campaign in Libya to topple Muammar Qaddafi. She helped assembly the coalition that imposed the toughest sanctions ever on Iran. And, she established diplomatic ties with Burma.

Question, Brit, how do you rate Hillary Clinton’s performance, record as our top diplomat?

HUME: I think those examples you cited would add up to a case for her competence. They do not add up to a case for greatness, after all, the groundwork on Burma had been done by the previous administration. And the administration properly followed through on it. You look across the world, now at the major issues. Are Arabs and Israelis closer to peace? How about Iran and North Korea and their nuclear programs? Have they been halted or seriously set back? Has the reset with Russia, which she so famously introduced with the photo-op in Moscow with the reset button, has they lead to a new and more cooperative relationship? Is there a Clinton doctrine that we can identify that she has articulated and formed as secretary of state? Are there major treaties that she has undertaken and negotiated through to a successful conclusion? I think the answer to all those questions is that she has not. And those are the kinds of things that might mark her as a great secretary of state.

She has certainly been industrious. She has visited 112 countries. Her conduct as secretary of state has been highly dignified. She does her homework. There have been no gaffes or blunders. So I think she has been a capable and hard-working secretary of state, but I think the case for her being a great secretary of state is exceedingly weak.

Brit was being gracious. Here are seven Foreign Policy Disasters, which happened under Hillary’s watch as the Architect of “Smart Power!”, in no particular order:

The decision to overthrow President Gaddafi in Libya – The short-sighted, ill-conceived action not only undermined an ally in the (now defunct) “global war on terror,” it also served to throw gasoline on the bonfire known as “Arab Spring.

The Afghanistan “surge”- A military campaign that fails to result in a desired political outcome is con only be considered a failure. What exactly was Obama and Hillary’s desired outcome when they called for this?
It is a fait d’accompli that the Karzai Government will be able to survive long once the U.S. completes its withdrawal of its combat forces from the country in 2014. This is can only be considered a failure, A failure which cost too many of our Brightest and Best.

Granting Afghanistan major non-NATO U.S. ally status – Why did Barry and Hill decide to grant Afghanistan the status of a major non-NATO ally? When we pull out, our enemied will pour in. And, with “friends” like these, you don’t need enemies.

Maintaining the status quo with Pakistan – Pakistan has a long history of sponsoring Sunni jihadists of various stripes. Following the 2001 attacks on the United States, they did an about-face, becoming a chief partner in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan as well as its “global war on terror.”
10 years later, following the successful May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan that resulted in the death of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, Pakistan promptly denounced the U.S. and closed its vital supply routes to NATO-bound shipments to Afghanistan.
Hil and Barry got “played”.

The East Asia “pivot” – Strictly an exercise in containment,attempts at containing China will only fuel Chinese fears of foreign encirclement, that will encourage Chinese assertiveness, that will further encourage containment.
This pivot is only a bluff on behalf of the feckless purveyors of “Smart Power to begin with.

As shown by the continued drawing of “Red Lines”, they will not stand up to our enemies.

Arab Spring – The Arab Spring was a series of protests and uprisings in the Middle East that began with unrest in Tunisia in late 2010. The Arab Spring has brought down regimes in some Arab countries, sparked mass violence in others, while some governments managed to delay the trouble with a mix of repression, promise of reform and state largesse.
Through this all Hillary and Obama have back the Muslim Brotherhood, the Godfather of Muslim Terrorist Organizations, in deposing Moderate Muslim Leaders.
Doesn’t make a while lot of sense, does it?

BenghaziGate – On September 11, 2012, Muslim Terrorists stormed the US Embassy Compound in Benghazi, Libya, slaughtered 4 brave Americans, including US Ambassador Chris Stephens, whose lifeless, sexually assaulted body they drug through the streets, while taking cell phone pictures of his corpse.
I have written several blogs about the Administration’s Cover-up of this atrocity, but the seminal moment, regarding Hillary Clinton came in January of 2013, during an exchange between her and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Johnson asked her about the administration’s conflicting explanations for the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed the ambassador and three other Americans. Hillary, as we say down here in Dixie, “got on her high keys” and said,

With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.

SUMMARY: In concluding this 4 Part Series on The Saga of Hillary Clinton, and considering the possibility of Hillary Clinton running for President, a great many thoughts enter my head…some of them even repeatable.

In fact, there are a lot of images that race through my mind, as well, as I sit here at my computer.

I remember the image of a lone terrorist, brandishing a machine gun, standing in front of the burning Benghazi Consulate.

I also remember the image of Benghazi barbarians dragging a murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens through the streets, taking pictures every few yards, with their cell phones. 

My mind envisions the image of two brave Americans, up on a roof holding off 100 Muslim Terrorists, trying desperately to hold out for help which was denied to them, until finally the overwhelming numbers which comprise the horde of barbarians, murdered them as well. 

I imagine Ambassador Stevens’ elderly mother, making the trip from the West Coast to the East Coast to pick up the lifeless body of her abused and murdered son, whom she and her entire family were so proud of.

Finally, I remember the show of hypocrisy involving members of this anti-American Administration solemnly welcoming the bodies of those brave Americans home.

Former Secretary Clinton…the truth makes a big difference…to the families of those that were so savagely murdered that fateful night…and to the millions of Americans who still believe in this “Shining City on a Hill”.

Americans deserve the truth.

And, you should be ashamed to even consider running for President of the United States.

Until He Comes, 

KJ

***The information contained in this Blog may be found at biography.comcanadafreepress.combiography.com, discoverthenetworks.orginvestopedia.com, The American SpectatorThe New York Timescanadafreepress.com, bbc.co.uk, frontpagemag.com, theguardian.com, infoplease.comdiscoverthenetworks.orgrealclearpolitics.compolicy mic.com,mideast.about.com, and wsj.com.***

No Ways ‘Tahd: The Saga of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Part 4 – From Senator to Secretary

Hillary Clinton #4On November 6, 2000, Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected Democratic Senator for the State of New York, serving unremarkably until leaving Office on January 21, 2009.

During her undistinguished career in the U.S. Senate, Hillary Clinton voted on a variety of key pieces of legislation as follows:

  • in favor of a 2003 bill to ban oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
  • in favor of an October 2002 joint resolution to authorize the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against Iraq
  • against major tax-cut proposals in 2001 and 2003
  • in favor of a 2007 proposal to end the use of a point-based immigration system, (i.e., a system that seeks to ensure that people with skills that society needs are given preference for entry into the United States)
  • against a 2007 amendment designating English as the language of “sole legal authority” for the business of the federal government, and declaring that no person has a right to require officials of the U.S. government to use a language other than English
  • against a 2008 bill urging an expansion of the zero-tolerance prosecution policy for illegal aliens; calling for the completion of 700 miles of pedestrian fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border; allowing for the deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard members to the U.S. southern border; and encouraging the identification and deportation of illegal immigrants currently in the American prison system
  • in favor of the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold Act), which put restrictions on paid advertising during the weeks just prior to political elections, and tightly regulated the amount of money which political parties and candidates could accept from donors
  • against separate proposals (in 2004 and 2005) to ban lawsuits against gun manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers for damages resulting from the misuse of their products by others
  • against a 2003 proposal to ban the late-term procedure commonly known as “partial-birth abortion”
  • against a 2004 proposal to make it an added criminal offense for someone to injure or kill a fetus while carrying out a crime against a pregnant woman
  • against a 2006 bill making it illegal to knowingly transport a pregnant minor across state lines in order to obtain an abortion, as a way to escape state laws requiring parental consent

One week after Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States, on November 4, 2008, he called Hillary and offered her the job of Secretary of State, despite the fact that she had no Foreign Policy experience. It was a suspicious choice at best, considering that fact that when they were running against each other in the Democratic Primaries,Obama had specifically criticized Clinton’s Foreign Policy credentials and the initial idea of him appointing her had been so unexpected that she had told one of her own aides, “Not in a million years.”

The fact that she had campaigned unreservedly for Obama after he defeated her for the Democratic Nomination, led to speculation that the Secretary of State job was a “reward for her loyalty”.

Hillary accepted the position, and now, as speculation concerning a possible Presidential Campaign runs rampant, even the Main Stream Media is hard-pressed to come up with anything she accomplished as Obama’s First Secretary of State.

So, how did she do?

On January 26, 2013, after Hillary had stepped down as Secretary of State and was replaced by Senator John Kerry, the following conversation took place between Fox News Anchor Chris Wallace and Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume…

WALLACE: Yeah, I want to pick up on that, Brit, because during the hearing, what struck me was the Republicans were tough on Hillary, on Benghazi and the Democrats weren’t. But, both sides kept on saying what a great secretary of state she had been and to praise her service. And here’s some of the points that have been brought up, some of her accomplishments. She helped assemble the bombing campaign in Libya to topple Muammar Qaddafi. She helped assembly the coalition that imposed the toughest sanctions ever on Iran. And, she established diplomatic ties with Burma.

Question, Brit, how do you rate Hillary Clinton’s performance, record as our top diplomat?

HUME: I think those examples you cited would add up to a case for her competence. They do not add up to a case for greatness, after all, the groundwork on Burma had been done by the previous administration. And the administration properly followed through on it. You look across the world, now at the major issues. Are Arabs and Israelis closer to peace? How about Iran and North Korea and their nuclear programs? Have they been halted or seriously set back? Has the reset with Russia, which she so famously introduced with the photo-op in Moscow with the reset button, has they lead to a new and more cooperative relationship? Is there a Clinton doctrine that we can identify that she has articulated and formed as secretary of state? Are there major treaties that she has undertaken and negotiated through to a successful conclusion? I think the answer to all those questions is that she has not. And those are the kinds of things that might mark her as a great secretary of state.

She has certainly been industrious. She has visited 112 countries. Her conduct as secretary of state has been highly dignified. She does her homework. There have been no gaffes or blunders. So I think she has been a capable and hard-working secretary of state, but I think the case for her being a great secretary of state is exceedingly weak.

Brit was being gracious. Here are seven Foreign Policy Disasters, which happened under Hillary’s watch as the Architect of “Smart Power!”, in no particular order:

The decision to overthrow President Gaddafi in Libya – The short-sighted, ill-conceived action not only undermined an ally in the (now defunct) “global war on terror,” it also served to throw gasoline on the bonfire known as “Arab Spring.

The Afghanistan “surge”- A military campaign that fails to result in a desired political outcome is con only be considered a failure. What exactly was Obama and Hillary’s desired outcome when they called for this?
It is a fait d’accompli that the Karzai Government will be able to survive long once the U.S. completes its withdrawal of its combat forces from the country in 2014. This is can only be considered a failure, A failure which cost too many of our Brightest and Best.

Granting Afghanistan major non-NATO U.S. ally status – Why did Barry and Hill decide to grant Afghanistan the status of a major non-NATO ally? When we pull out, our enemied will pour in. And, with “friends” like these, you don’t need enemies.

Maintaining the status quo with Pakistan – Pakistan has a long history of sponsoring Sunni jihadists of various stripes. Following the 2001 attacks on the United States, they did an about-face, becoming a chief partner in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan as well as its “global war on terror.”
10 years later, following the successful May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan that resulted in the death of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, Pakistan promptly denounced the U.S. and closed its vital supply routes to NATO-bound shipments to Afghanistan.
Hil and Barry got “played”.

The East Asia “pivot” – Strictly an exercise in containment,attempts at containing China will only fuel Chinese fears of foreign encirclement, that will encourage Chinese assertiveness, that will further encourage containment.
This pivot is only a bluff on behalf of the feckless purveyors of “Smart Power to begin with.

As shown by the continued drawing of “Red Lines”, they will not stand up to our enemies.

Arab Spring – The Arab Spring was a series of protests and uprisings in the Middle East that began with unrest in Tunisia in late 2010. The Arab Spring has brought down regimes in some Arab countries, sparked mass violence in others, while some governments managed to delay the trouble with a mix of repression, promise of reform and state largesse.
Through this all Hillary and Obama have back the Muslim Brotherhood, the Godfather of Muslim Terrorist Organizations, in deposing Moderate Muslim Leaders.
Doesn’t make a while lot of sense, does it?

BenghaziGate – On September 11, 2012, Muslim Terrorists stormed the US Embassy Compound in Benghazi, Libya, slaughtered 4 brave Americans, including US Ambassador Chris Stephens, whose lifeless, sexually assaulted body they drug through the streets, while taking cell phone pictures of his corpse.
I have written several blogs about the Administration’s Cover-up of this atrocity, but the seminal moment, regarding Hillary Clinton came in January of 2013, during an exchange between her and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Johnson asked her about the administration’s conflicting explanations for the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed the ambassador and three other Americans. Hillary, as we say down here in Dixie, “got on her high keys” and said,

With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.

SUMMARY: In concluding this 4 Part Series on The Saga of Hillary Clinton, and considering the possibility of Hillary Clinton running for President, a great many thoughts enter my head…some of them even repeatable.

In fact, there are a lot of images that race through my mind, as well, as I sit here at my computer.

I remember the image of a lone terrorist, brandishing a machine gun, standing in front of the burning Benghazi Consulate.

I also remember the image of Benghazi barbarians dragging a murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens through the streets, taking pictures every few yards, with their cell phones. 

My mind envisions the image of two brave Americans, up on a roof holding off 100 Muslim Terrorists, trying desperately to hold out for help which was denied to them, until finally the overwhelming numbers which comprise the horde of barbarians, murdered them as well. 

I imagine Ambassador Stevens’ elderly mother, making the trip from the West Coast to the East Coast to pick up the lifeless body of her abused and murdered son, whom she and her entire family were so proud of.

Finally, I remember the show of hypocrisy involving members of this anti-American Administration solemnly welcoming the bodies of those brave Americans home.

Former Secretary Clinton…the truth makes a big difference…to the families of those that were so savagely murdered that fateful night…and to the millions of Americans who still believe in this “Shining City on a Hill”.

Americans deserve the truth.

And, you should be ashamed to even consider running for President of the United States.

Until He Comes, 

KJ

***The information Contained in this blog may be found at discoverthenetworks.org, realclearpolitics.com, policy mic.com, mideast.about.com, and wsj.com.***

In Defense of “Lone Survivor” and Our Brightest and Best: An Open Letter to Amy Nicholson From an Average American

Lone SurvivorPREFACE:  Yesterday, as I was surfing the web at lunch, I came across a headline from TheBlaze.com, which stated that Glenn Beck had challenged a LA Times Writer to say what she had written about the more popular movie in America, the heroic tale of the self-sacrificing Navy Seals, led by Marcus Luttrell, who, except for Luttrell, all gave their lives in the call of duty, to the face of the “Lone Survivor” himself, Marcus Luttrell.

The writer in question is Amy Nocholson, an unabashedly Liberal hack.

In order for you to complete understand the epic rant which I am about to unleash, I chose to reprint the article in question in its entirety. I hope you have a strong stomach.

SYNOPIS:  Based on The New York Times bestselling true story of heroism, courage and survival, Lone Survivor tells the heroic, patriotic tale of four Navy SEALs, led by Marcus Luttrell,  on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda operative who are ambushed by the enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan and are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.. Faced with an impossible moral decision, the small band is isolated from help and surrounded by a much larger force of Taliban ready for war. As they confront unthinkable odds together, the four men find reserves of strength and resilience as they stay in the fight to the finish.

THE ARTICLE: 

Here’s a movie that’ll flop in Kabul. Lone Survivor, the latest by Battleship director Peter Berg, is a jingoistic snuff film about a Navy SEAL squadron outgunned by the Taliban in the mountainous Kunar province. After four soldiers — played with muscles and machismo by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster — get ID’d by Afghan goat herders, they’re in a race to climb to the top of the nearest summit and summon an airlift before these civilians can sprint to the nearest village and alert local leader Ahmad Shah. It doesn’t go well. 

Berg’s flick bleeds blood red, bone-fracture white, and bruise blue. It’s based on the memoir Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by sole evacuee Marcus Luttrell (played by Wahlberg) — and that’s only a spoiler if you’ve ignored the title. Luttrell didn’t exactly write his book. Rather than sitting in front of a word processor, he was back in action in Iraq. Instead, the United States Navy hired British novelist Patrick Robinson, who, among other embellishments, upped the number of enemy Taliban fighters from 10 to 200. Hey, whatever, man. Those aliens in Battleship weren’t real, either. 

Lone Survivor’s problems are more complex than its Rambo-esque exuberance for machine-gun fire. The near-wordless second half is a deadly dubstep of bullets and snare drums punctuated with the occasional curse. Here’s 90 seconds of dialogue transcribed in its entirety: “Goddamn, this sucks!” “Fuck you!” “Fuck!” “Damn, fucking burns!” This doesn’t help advance the plot, which can pretty much be summed up as: Don’t die. And the film actually gets worse when the guys open their mouths.

These four men were heroes. But these heroes were also men. As the film portrays them, their attitudes to the incredibly complex War on Terror, fought hillside by bloody hillside in the Afghan frontier with both U.S. and Taliban forces contributing to an unconscionably high civilian body count, were simple: Brown people bad, American people good. When the guys debate whether to kill the three goat herders who’ve stumbled onto their hiding place — a dilemma that, morality aside, could have been solved if any of them had recalled that middle school logic problem about the fox, the chicken, the feed, and the too-small boat — Foster grabs an unarmed teenager by the face and insists, “That’s death. Look at death.” And when the firefight starts, he bellows, “You can die for your country — I’m going to live for mine.”

We’re meant to cheer, not that anyone in my theater did. But there will be audiences who do, and I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with what they’re cheering for. This is death. Look at death. 

Berg is no dummy. He’s done the right thing by refusing to whitewash these guys as saints, although three of the four are depicted as devoted husbands and fiancées, and the fourth gets to be Mark Wahlberg. And Berg is justified in hoisting these guys up as real-life action stars, building his case with an opening montage of actual Navy SEAL training footage in which screaming instructors winnow a pack of athletes into an all-for-one-one-for-all band of badass brothers who, when forced to float in freezing ocean waves, link arms and sing “Silent Night.”

They were ready for action. “We wanted that fight at the highest volume,” Wahlberg says, “the loudest, coldest, darkest, most unpleasant of the unpleasant fights.” OK, but did the local villagers whom we see get caught in the crossfire want that fight? Each, like Wahlberg’s Luttrell, had families and friends and a full life, and each gets dispatched without a second thought.

I’d like to think that, on some level, Berg is questioning the sense of a film — and a foreign policy — that makes target practice of our magnificent teams of hard-bodied, hairy-chested, rootin’-tootin’, shootin’, parachutin’, double-cap-crimpin’ frogmen, these soldiers who decorate their bunks with baby pictures of themselves next to an American flag and are so nobly eager to sacrifice their lives for each other and their country. But the ammo doesn’t stop blasting long enough for their deaths to have weight. Instead, Lone Survivor just reads like a quasi-political exaggeration of a slasher film: the cellphones that don’t work, the rescuers just out of reach, the killers chasing our victims through the woods.

What are we meant to learn from this waste of life? Who is even to blame? All Lone Survivor offers is the queasiest apology of the year. Grunts a battered Wahlberg to his even more-battered best buddy, “I’m sorry that we didn’t kill more of these motherfuckers.” Replies his fellow soldier, “Oh, don’t be f!@king sorry. We’re going to kill way more of them.”

KJ’S RANT…err…RESPONSE:

Exactly when did Liberals lose their cotton-pickin’ minds?

Well, I believe that this present-day Liberal ungrateful insanity can be traced back to the 1960s. During the days of the Vietnam “Conflict”, even though Adult Liberals were opposed to the war, they were respectful of our Brightest and Best. It was Collegians and under who acted like a bunch of idiots, disrespecting our Armed Forces, and traditional American Values.

As this generation moved through Adulthood, their children had children, and produced the mindless zombies we confront everyday, who classify themselves as Liberals or “Socially-Liberal Libertarians”.

Ms. Nicholson is one of those zombies.

Please note her use of the word “Jingoistic” This is a derisive word which has been in vogue with Liberals for a while now to describe the emotion which normal Americans feel, called “Patriotism”.

Liberals, such as Ms. Nicholson, are selfish, cravenly creatures. They do not seem to, nor care to understand that they live in the greatest country on Earth. They are too narrow-minded to fathom the sacrifices which brave American men and women have made and are making, on their behalf.

Just as an infant  knows that if they cry loud enough, some one will pay attention to them and give them what they want, so do Liberals understand that if they are anti-American enough in their statements and actions, then they will receive the attention that they so crave from the rest of the “smartest people in the room.”

Ms. Nicholson, believing in her own “superior intelligence ” and “moral superiority”, decided to do a hatchet job on this movie and the brave men who protected her freedom to denigrate them in print.

Ms. Nicholson is representative of those same effete snobs who believe that any movie, such as the Box Office Bomb “Redacted”, which attacked our Armed Forces, will be a sure-fire hit, and then, cannot understand why such a movie is welcomed by the sound of crickets in America’s movie theaters.

I have ranted before that there is a Culture War going on in our country…one between the effete Liberal slobs, located in the Northeast and on the Left Coast, and average Americans, like you and me, struggling to cope with the consequences of their stupidity, here in the Heartland.

You and I would never disrepect our Fallen Warriors, like this ignorant hack has. We were raised right.

The respect we have for patriotic men of courage, like the Lone Survivor, the Patriot, Marcus Luttrell, and all of our Fallen Warriors, is immeasurable.

Ms. Nicholson, you haven’t got a clue.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Former Secretary of Defense Gates Spills the Beans About America’s Prevaricator-In-Chief

ObamalyingThe hottest story in the News today revolves around the revealing White House Insider Information from a soon-to-be published memoir by Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

To set up these stunning revelations properly, let’s hop in the Wayback machine, Sherman,so that we can ponder the words of a rising young wunderkind…a certain Democrat Senator from the great state of Illinois…

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.

– then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., January 10 2007, discussing then-President Bush’s proposal for a surge of troops in Iraq

Today, 1518 days after it began, the war in Iraq rages on, with no sign of a resolution. The Iraqi people appear no closer to the settling their differences. The Iraqi government is more divided and dysfunctional than ever. The Iraqi parliament speaks of adjourning for the summer, without addressing the major issues standing in the way of a ceasefire. And our brave young servicemen and women are still fighting and dying to police someone else’s civil war… In January, I introduced a plan that already would have begun redeploying our troops out of Iraq, with the goal of removing all of our combat troops by March 31. But it also would offer enough flexibility to delay our exit in the event that the Iraqis responded with meaningful steps toward peace. I still believe in that approach, which the President vetoed earlier this month. Ultimately, I think it will become the framework for a bipartisan coalition the President can’t resist.

Today, I have reintroduced that plan.

Tomorrow, I expect cloture votes on two other proposals. One is the Reid-Feingold plan, which would begin a withdrawal of troops in 120 days and end all combat operations on April 1. The other is Senator Levin’s proposal, which would create standards and benchmarks for additional funding.

I will support both, not because I believe either is the best answer, but because I want to send a strong statement to the Iraqi government, the President and my Republican colleagues that it’s long past time to change course.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to press for my own plan, and work to find the 16 votes in the Senate to pass it with a veto-proof majority and bring our troops home quickly, safely and responsibly.

– Statement of Sen. Obama on May 15, 2007, before voting to withdrawal US combat troops from Iraq within four months, with all troops gone by March 31, 2008

The surge is not working.

– Obama for American website changed in July 2008

Now, I’m certain that Sen. Obama gathered all the pertinent facts about the proposed surge before he made those statements, aren’t you?

Are you kiddin’?

Dailymail.co.uk reports that

Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely Democratic Party standard-bearer in the 2016 presidential contest, staked out her military-related positions in the 2008 race based on how they would play politically, according to a former secretary of defense who served in both the Obama and Bush administrations.

Describing a ‘remarkable’ exchange he witnessed, Robert Gates writes in a book due out next week that ‘Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary.’

Obama, too, ‘conceded vaguely that [his] opposition to the Iraq surge had been political,’ Gates recounts. ‘To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.’

And Gates recounts how, as the president lost faith in Gen. David Petraeus’s handling of hostilities in Afghanistan, he – Gates – lost faith in Obama’s commitment to accomplishing much of anything.

‘As I sat there,’ he recalls, ‘I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand [President Hamid] Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his.’

‘For him, it’s all about getting out.’

Hillary Clinton staked out her Iraq policy in late 2006 not on a military calculation, but based on how she could aid her soon-to-come presidential campaign, according to Gates’ memoir.

Gates puts on paper his reflections about Obama’s own troop surge, a move of 30,000 armed personnel into Afghanistan meant to stabilize the country in advance of a final all-out troop withdrawal.

The commander-in-chief, he says, was ‘skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail.’

‘I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops,’ Gates insists, ‘only his support for their mission.’

Ultimately, Gates nearly quit over Obama’s hand-wringing about Afghanistan, he writes.

The Bush administration hold-over reveals in his memoir that he was ‘deeply uneasy with the Obama White House’s lack of appreciation – from the top down – of the uncertainties and unpredictability of war.’

Describing a contentious day when Obama evaluated his Afghanistan strategy, Gates recalls: ‘I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure, though no one knew it.’

Mrs. Clinton’s cameo in the book is more brief but equally damning.

While a U.S. senator and former first lady, she announced in the days leading up to her entry in the 2008 White House race that that she opposed the George W. Bush administration’s ‘surge’ of 20,000 troops in Iraq. 

At the time, she proposed a freeze in the number of active military troops there, and suggested instead that more U.S. forces should be sent to Afghanistan to protect against a feared Taliban offensive. 

In late 2006, nearly two years before the Democrats’ nominating convention, Clinton could not afford to be seen as hawkish when other Democrats – especially Obama, her presumed principal opponent – were blaming President Bush for putting ever-more boots on the ground in the Middle East.

In the Senate, she had voted in favor of an October 2002 use-of-force resolution that put the United States on war footing against Iraq, following allegations that the dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

So, Obama, a Former Collegiate Protester and Far Left Radical, can’t stand our Brightest and Best.

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

The feeling is mutual. Back on October 23rd, 2013, theblaze.com reported that

Nine senior commanding generals have been fired by the Obama administration this year, leading to speculation by active and retired members of the military that a purge of its commanders is underway.

Retired generals and current senior commanders that have spoken with TheBlaze say the administration is not only purging the military of commanders they don’t agree with, but is striking fear in the hearts of those still serving.

The timing comes as the five branches of the U.S. armed forces are reducing staff due to budget cuts, and as U.S. troops are expected to withdraw from Afghanistan next year.

“I think they’re using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don’t agree with them or not tow the party line. Remember, as (former White House chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel said, never waste a crisis,” a senior retired general told TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity because he still provide services to the government and fears possible retribution.

“Even as a retired general, it’s still possible for the administration to make life miserable for us. If we’re working with the government or have contracts, they can just rip that out from under us,” he said.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, said the White House fails to take action or investigate its own, but finds it easy to fire military commanders “who have given their lives for their country.”

“Obama will not purge a civilian or political appointee because they have bought into Obama’s ideology,” Vallely said. “The White House protects their own. That’s why they stalled on the investigation into fast and furious, Benghazi and Obamacare. He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

I don’t know why the Major General is so concerned. I’m sure that Obama’s firing of America’s Military Leadership was nothing personal.

Like his opposition to the Iraq Surge…it was strictly political.

Now…doesn’t that make everyone feel better? …And, safer?

Until He Comes,

KJ

Karzai Links Obama to the Taliban. This is Smart Power?

Obama-Shrinks-2Back in January , President Karzai of Afghanistan and U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) had a meeting, where it was decided to speed up America’ s military withdrawal from that war-torn nation. The two presidents seem to have gotten along famously.

Well…that honeymoon’s over.

Bloomberg.com reports that

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was greeted on his first visit to Afghanistan since taking office by suicide bombs, threats and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s accusation that the U.S. is colluding with the Taliban.

As Hagel prepared to leave a U.S. military compound in Kabul on March 9, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Ministry of Defense, and another suicide bomb detonated in Khost province. Yesterday, Karzai said that those attacks, which together killed 19 people, aided U.S. goals. A joint Hagel-Karzai press conference at the presidential palace was canceled for what Pentagon officials said were security reasons.

While the Taliban said the attacks were aimed at sending a message to Hagel that the insurgents remain a powerful force, Karzai said in a speech yesterday that the U.S. is holding peace talks with the radical Islamists and the bombs were in the “service of America.”

“On the surface and to this outside observer, it appears that Karzai has gone way off the reservation, perhaps more so than he has in the past,” said David Maxwell, a retired U.S. Army colonel who’s associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. “I cannot see how we could work with such an apparently delusional leader much longer, but unfortunately I do not know if we have any other good options.”

Karzai’s allegations and the suicide attacks gave the new defense secretary, who took office March 1, a close-up view of the military and political obstacles the Obama administration faces as it tries to extricate the U.S. from a war it’s been waging for more than 11 years, train Afghan forces to take over the fight, root out official corruption, curb opium trafficking, and develop the Afghan economy.

President Barack Obama has ordered the withdrawal of 34,000 of about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by February. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that the drawdown will occur in stages, with the force dropping to 50,000 by November, after the summer fighting season, and then to 34,000 by February. More troops will come home after Afghan elections planned for early 2014, Panetta said.

“When you spend 48 hours in Afghanistan or any part of the world that’s still dangerous, you again recognize the complications that exist every day in these parts of the world,” Hagel, a combat veteran of Vietnam, told reporters at a U.S. military base after he met with Karzai yesterday. Asked about Karzai’s accusation that the U.S. was colluding with the Taliban, Hagel said he “spoke clearly and directly” to Karzai on the matter. Hagel didn’t elaborate.

Earlier yesterday, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s International Security Assistance Force, said the Afghan president’s comments were “categorically false.”

Perhaps, Karzai is a just a  wee bit torqued over all the unmanned drones flying over his country:

With debate intensifying in the United States over the use of drone aircraft, the U.S. military said on Sunday that it had removed data about air strikes carried out by unmanned planes in Afghanistan from its monthly air power summaries.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Afghanistan war, said in a statement the data had been removed because it was “disproportionately focused” on the use of weapons by the remotely piloted aircraft as it was published only when strikes were carried out – which happened during only 3 percent of sorties. Most missions were for reconnaissance, it said.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has increasingly used drones to target against al Qaeda-linked militants overseas.

Civilian casualties from drone strikes have raised ethical concerns and angered local populations, creating tension between the United States and Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Some U.S. lawmakers have also questioned the legality of targeted killings and whether drones would allow the killing of American citizens inside the United States.

The debate was intensified by Obama’s decision to nominate his chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, an architect of the drone campaign, as the new director of the CIA.

The Air Force Times said air force chiefs had started posting the drone strikes data last October in an attempt to provide more detail on the use of drones in Afghanistan.

The newspaper said the statistics were provided for November through January, but the February summary released on March 7 had a blank spot where the drone data had previously been listed.

“A variety of multi-role platforms provide ground commanders in Afghanistan with close air support capabilities, and it was determined that presenting the weapons release data as a whole better reflects the air power provided” in Afghanistan, Central Command said in its statement.

“Protecting civilians remains at the very core of AFCENT’s (Air Force Central Command’s) mission,” it said. “The use of all AFCENT aerial weapons are tightly restricted, meticulously planned, carefully supervised and coordinated, and applied by only qualified and authorized personnel.”

The statement said the decision to stop reporting the drone strikes was taken with the International Security Assistance Force – the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Brennan was sworn into office on Friday following a protracted confirmation battle that saw Senator Rand Paul attempt to block a vote on the nomination with a technical manoeuvre called a filibuster, in which he tried to prevent a vote by talking continuously.

Paul held the Senate floor for more than 12 hours while talking mainly about drones, expressing concern that Obama’s administration might use the aircraft to target U.S. citizens on home soil.

Back in 2009, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. , wrote the following in an article for ForeignPolicy.com:

In her confirmation hearings, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America. . . . We must use what has been called ‘smart power,’ the full range of tools at our disposal.” Since then, editorial pages and blogs have been full of references to “smart power.” But what does it mean?

“Smart power” is a term I developed in 2003 to counter the misperception that soft power alone can produce effective foreign policy. Power is one’s ability to affect the behavior of others to get what one wants. There are three basic ways to do this: coercion, payment, and attraction. Hard power is the use of coercion and payment. Soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction. If a state can set the agenda for others or shape their preferences, it can save a lot on carrots and sticks. But rarely can it totally replace either. Thus the need for smart strategies that combine the tools of both hard and soft power.

Judging by their appeasement of our enemies, and their total naivete (at least, I hope it’s just naivete) of the Muslim World, Obama and his State Department have Nye’s “Smart Power” down pat. The only problem is, the only things those barbarians understand are strength of will and brute force. Therefore using unmanned drones, instead of traditional Armed Forces, only solidifies their opinion of Obama as a wimp.

Therefore, Karzai and his friends in the Muslim Brotherhood, are not impressed.

God protect us.

Until He Comes, 

KJ

Panetta Disarms Our Troops

How bad is the disdain that the Obama Administration has for America’s Best and Brightest when our soldiers are forced to disarm in order to attend a speech given by the Secretary of Defense?

Telegraph.co.uk has the story:

Less than a week after a US staff sergeant allegedly massacred 16 civilians in Kandahar, American soldiers were banned from bringing guns into a talk by Mr Panetta at a base in Helmand province.

Around 200 troops who had gathered in a tent at Camp Leatherneck were told “something had come to light” and asked abruptly to file outside and lay down their automatic rifles and 9mm pistols.

“Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy – we just adjust,” said the sergeant who was told to clear the hall of weapons.

Major General Mark Gurganus later said he gave the order because Afghan troops attending the talk were unarmed and he wanted the policy to be consistent for all.

“You’ve got one of the most important people in the world in the room,” he told the New York Times, insisting that the decision was unrelated to Sunday’s killings. “This is not a big deal.”

The New York Times adds to the story:

Mr. Panetta flew from Washington to Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on his usual plane, a reconfigured Boeing 747 with “United States of America” emblazoned on the side, but as usual for security reasons, he transferred to a gray C-17 military cargo plane for the unannounced trip to Afghanistan.

In a sign of the nervousness surrounding the trip, a sergeant major abruptly told the Marines gathered to hear Mr. Panetta in a tent at Camp Leatherneck to get up, place their M-16 and M-4 automatic rifles and 9-millimeter pistols outside, and return unarmed. The sergeant major, Brandon Hall, told reporters that he was acting on orders.

“All I know is I was told to get the weapons out,” he said. Asked why, he replied: “Somebody got itchy — that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy. We just adjust.”

Normally, American forces in Afghanistan keep their weapons when the defense secretary visits and speaks to them. The Afghans in the tent had not been armed to begin with, as is typical.

Later, American officials said that the top military official in Helmand, Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, had decided on Tuesday that no one would be armed while Mr. Panetta spoke, but that word had not reached those in charge in the tent until shortly before Mr. Panetta was due to arrive.

General Gurganus told reporters later that he had wanted a consistent policy for everyone in the tent, and that “I wanted to have the Marines look just like their Afghan partners,” noting, “You’ve got one of the most important people in the world in the room.” He insisted that his decision had had nothing to do with the massacre; later, defense officials said the decision had had nothing to do with the truck at the airfield.

Ah, yes…the truck at the airfield…

A tense visit to Afghanistan by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta got off to an alarming start on Wednesday when a stolen pickup truck sped onto a ramp alongside a runway at a British military airfield and crashed into a ditch as Mr. Panetta’s plane was landing.

Mr. Panetta was not hurt, but Pentagon officials said the Afghan driver emerged from the vehicle in flames.

No explosives were found on the driver, a civilian, or in the truck, the officials said, and the Pentagon was not immediately considering the episode an attack on Mr. Panetta. But it reinforced the lack of security in Afghanistan at the beginning of his two-day visit, the first by a senior member of the Obama administration since an American soldier reportedly killed 16 Afghan civilians, mostly children and women, in Kandahar Province. The visit had been planned months ago, but took on new urgency after the Sunday massacre.

Mr. Panetta, like President Obama, has denounced the deaths and vowed to bring the killer to justice, a message he was to deliver in person to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. The killings have further clouded already strained Afghan-American relations. On Wednesday, an American official said the suspect had been moved out of Afghanistan. That is likely to further anger Afghans, who called for him to be tried in their country.

What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is a’goin’ on here?

Yes, what that American soldier purportedly did what horrible and he should be punished.  However, not in an Afghanistan Kangaroo Court, but in an American Military Tribunal, where justice will be served.

Secondly, Secretary Panetta, I don’t care if you have been a Political Administrator/Operative all of your life.  These are the men and women who are fighting and dying at your and your boss’ command.  They do not deserve the distrust and disrespect you showed them by disarming them during your speech.

They deserve the same loyalty and devotion from you, that they show America.

Semper Fi.

Addendum:  Last night, a couple of retired soldiers related on a Conservative website, that the only time that they had previously been disarmed when a “bigwig” visited, was for Hillary Clinton.

Remind me again…what previous administration did Secretary of Defense Panetta work for?