Tag: Iraq

Obama to Iraq: Here’s the Book. Here’s the Phone. See You Later. It’s Tee Time!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

ObamaISISYesterday, while President Barack Hussein Obama was enjoying a leisurely Fathers Day on the links, every good thing that our Best and Brightest accomplished in Iraq was being turned into ashes, as that country continued to be under siege from the Muslim Terrorist Organization, known as ISIS.

How did this happen?

GOING…

cnn.com, 8/31/2010

Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq with a different mission: advising and assisting Iraq’s security forces; supporting Iraqi troops in targeted counterterrorism missions; and protecting our civilians. Consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year.

As our military draws down, our dedicated civilians — diplomats, aid workers, and advisers — are moving into the lead to support Iraq as it strengthens its government, resolves political disputes, resettles those displaced by war and builds ties with the region and the world. That’s a message that Vice President Biden is delivering to the Iraqi people through his visit there today.
This new approach reflects our long-term partnership with Iraq, one based upon mutual interests and mutual respect.

…Today, old adversaries are at peace, and emerging democracies are potential partners. New markets for our goods stretch from Asia to the Americas. A new push for peace in the Middle East will begin here tomorrow. Billions of young people want to move beyond the shackles of poverty and conflict. As the leader of the free world, America will do more than just defeat on the battlefield those who offer hatred and destruction — we will also lead among those who are willing to work together to expand freedom and opportunity for all people.

GOING…

whitehouse.gov, 10/21/2011

Good afternoon, everybody. As a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end — for the sake of our national security and to strengthen American leadership around the world. After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011.

As Commander-in-Chief, ensuring the success of this strategy has been one of my highest national security priorities. Last year, I announced the end to our combat mission in Iraq. And to date, we’ve removed more than 100,000 troops. Iraqis have taken full responsibility for their country’s security.

A few hours ago I spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. I reaffirmed that the United States keeps its commitments. He spoke of the determination of the Iraqi people to forge their own future. We are in full agreement about how to move forward.

So today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.

Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq — tens of thousands of them — will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldier[s] will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.

But even as we mark this important milestone, we’re also moving into a new phase in the relationship between the United States and Iraq. As of January 1st, and in keeping with our Strategic Framework Agreement with Iraq, it will be a normal relationship between sovereign nations, an equal partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect.

…So to sum up, the United States is moving forward from a position of strength. The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward, and our troops are finally coming home. As they do, fewer deployments and more time training will help keep our military the very best in the world. And as we welcome home our newest veterans, we’ll never stop working to give them and their families the care, the benefits and the opportunities that they have earned.

This includes enlisting our veterans in the greatest challenge that we now face as a nation — creating opportunity and jobs in this country. Because after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build — and the nation that we will build — is our own; an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we’ve restored our leadership around the globe.

GONE.

foxnews.com, 6/15/2014

The Obama administration said Sunday the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad will remain open amid the growing sectarian violence in Iraq but will increase security and that some embassy staff will be temporarily evacuated.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the staff will be moved to U.S. Consulate Generals posts in Basra and Erbil and to the Iraq Support Unit in Amman, Jordan.

The embassy is within the Baghdad’s Green Zone. It has about 5,000 personnel, making it the largest U.S. diplomatic post in the world.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — swept across northern Iraq last week and captured the major cities of Mosul and Tikrit.

Iraqi government officials said on Sunday that ISIS fighters were trying to capture Tal Afar in northern Iraq and raining down rockets seized last week from military arms depots.

The government, meanwhile, bolstered its defenses around Baghdad a day after hundreds of Shiite men paraded through the streets with arms in response to a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for Iraqis to defend their country.

ISIS has vowed to attack Baghdad, but its advance to the south seems to have stalled in recent days.

Meanwhile, Iraqi troops, many of them armed and trained by the United States, are fleeing in disarray, surrendering vehicles, weapons and ammunition to the powerful extremist group, which also fights in Syria.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama continues to receive updates on the situation from National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

And Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby confirmed that the U.S. military is providing security assistance to diplomatic facilities in Baghdad. He also said the relocation of some staffers will be done with commercial, charter and State Department aircraft and that the U.S. military has “airlift assets at the ready” should the State Department request them.

A U.S. military official told The Associated Press about 100 Marines and Army soldiers have been sent to Baghdad to help with embassy security.

United States Ambassador Chris Stephens remains unavailable for comment.

Almost 4 years ago, on 6/23/2010, I wrote a blog titled, Obama’s Kamikaze Presidency Part 2: Foreign Policy, in which I observed that

Obama’s Foreign Policy Agenda seems to follow a similar path to his Domestic Agenda. This administration appears to be re-active instead of pro-active. Smart Power! appears to be a euphemism for Crisis Management. That is a management style in which those in power procrastinate until a deadline or crisis, and then react in a frenzy, barking orders that are not easily questioned because of the immediacy of the deadline or crisis. In between deadlines and crises, those practicing this management style float along like the feather at the end of Forrest Gump.

And now, an ineffective, flailing, scrambling President Barack Hussein Obama is looking like a fool to a world who used to look to America as a bastion of strength and freedom, not weakness and political expediencies.

President Barack Hussein Obama has placed us in an untenable position with his weak and vacillating Smart Power! Foreign Policy.

Those who used to cringe in their desert tents, while calling us the Great Satan, now laugh in our faces as they walk across our southern borders with the rest of the illegal immigrants.

That is, if Obama simply does not invite them to the White House and meet with them, as he has the Muslim Brotherhood.

Unfortunately for our safety as nation, Obama’s Fantasyland view of the world, which is not unlike the old Coca Cola Advertisement where everyone had a Coke and a smile, set him up to be a disastrous failure at Foreign Policy.

A failure, which finds our enemies in Iran still working on a nuclear bomb and Russian Leader Vladimir Putin beginning the process of annexing surrounding countries and rebuilding the old Soviet Union, which was dissolved, thanks to the efforts of a real leader and American President, Ronald Reagan.

The popular defense, currently being thrown against the wall to see if it sticks by Liberals on behalf of their fallen messiah’s failed Foreign Policy, is to attack those who are critical of it, by claiming that we are all of bunch of “Christianist Raaaciiist Hate Mongers”.

In fact, the opposite is true.

We are Americans. We love our country. We cherish our freedom….and we praise and worship Our Creator, who gave it to us.

As we see our own freedom slipping away through the actions of a failed president and his willing minions, we are sympathetic to those Christians being killed for their faith by the followers of Mohammed in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East and North Africa. Additionally, we pray for Ukraine and the other former Soviet Bloc nations, who are presently under the threat of having their freedom taken from them.

We are critical of this president and his failed Foreign Policy because it is costing these nations their freedom, just as his failed, dangerous Domestic Policy is in the process of costing us our own.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Hundreds of Civilian Contractors Under Siege in Iraq…Obama Goes Golfing and Fundraising

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

ObamaclownsI’m so mad I could chew iron and spit out nails.

After reading this, you should be, too (if you’re not a Anti-American piece of trash).

…In 1974, the island nation of Grenada was granted independence from Britain. The new government, led by Sir Eric Gairy, slowly unto a dictatorship, which triggered a revolt.

When Gairy was in New York, speaking at the United Nations in March 1979, Maurice Bishop, a well-liked and educated leftist, led a bloodless coup to overthrow the Grenadan government.

Bishop championed a government to be based on the New JEWEL Movement (New Joint Endeaver for Welfare, Education, and Liberation), a rural activist association. JEWEL had merged with the Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP), an organization whose sprung out of the Black Power movement. Bishop’s Marxist beliefs caused him to ally with Cuba, Russia, and other left-wing countries.

Bishop invited Cuban engineers to his island to build an international airport, “in order to enhance tourism”. That was seen by President Ronald Reagan as a threat to the United States because the airstrip could be used to build up an arms cache, and propel a military build-up in the Caribbean.

While this was going on, hard-line Marxist Bernard Coard, Bishop’s deputy prime minister and “friend”, decided that Bishop didn’t operate far enough to the left. On October 19, 1983, Coard, backed by his own military, seized power in a bloody coup, leading to the execution of Bishop and members of his inner circle.

That latest attempt to install a Marxist-Leninist government within the U.S. sphere of influence freaked out the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, causing them to ask the U.S., Barbados, and Jamaica to intervene.

At stake was not only a struggle of ideologies, but also a threat to about 1,000 medical students living on the island, many of whom were Americans.

On October 25, the president dispatched an invasion force, dubbed “Operation Urgent Fury,” to liberate the island and rescue the students.

Grenadan troops numbered about 1,200, with about 800 Cubans (mostly construction workers with handguns) and 60 advisors from the Soviet Union, North Korea, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Libya. That small contingent was soon confronted by a U.S.-led international force of about 7,300 men.

The operation was a success, with minimal U.S. casualties (19 killed, 106 injured), and was wrapped up in mid-December. Coard, his family, and close advisors were arrested. Coard was tried and sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. The remaining Cubans and other survivors were arrested; native Grenadans were released, and a pro-American government took power.

Fast forward to today where…

A U.S. contractor in Iraq told WND the Iraqi Air Force has begun evacuations from Balad Air Force Base, where 200 American contractors were trapped by the al-Qaida-inspired jihadists who have seized control of two cities and are now threatening Baghdad. 

A contractor with Sallyport Global, who asked not to be named, told WND through a Skype instant message that he was transported from Balad to Baghdad and was communicating from a C-130 preparing to take off to Dubai.

He said 300 in total have been evacuated from Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, and another 100 are still awaiting airlift. He said the Iraqi Air Force is trying to evacuate everyone by midnight local time.

WND previously reported Friday that private contractors who have recently returned to the U.S. from Iraq said their former colleagues effectively had been abandoned by the U.S. military and were fighting for their lives against an army of jihadists surrounding the base who belong to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

The U.S. contractors were at Balad to help the Pentagon prepare the facilities for the delivery of the F-16 aircraft the Obama administration has agreed to provide the Iraqi government.

The surrounded Americans said they were under ISIS fire from small arms, AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs.

The contractors had been able to hold the base, but those on the scene reported it was only a matter of time before the ISIS terrorists succeeded in breaking through the perimeter. The sources confirmed the contractors were still under siege, despite an Associated Press report Thursday, citing U.S. officials, that three plane loads of Americans were being evacuated from Balad.

Some reports claim that the number of civilian contractors under siege, actually numbers 500.

Civilian Contracts have played a huge role in both the Iraqi War and its aftermath.

As the Christian Science Monitor reported in March of 2013,

By 2008, the US Department of Defense employed 155,826 private contractors in Iraq – and 152,275 troops. This degree of privatization is unprecedented in modern warfare.

One of the most important lessons of the Iraq war is that this military privatization is likely to continue in future conflicts. This could be a good thing, as contractors can enhance US military capacity. But any large-scale use of private military contractors also entails risks. Recent US experience with private security contractors, in particular, holds several critical lessons for the future.

Recommended: 3 views on NSA reform
OPINION: After US withdrawal from Iraq, a tallying of the balance sheet
Of course, private contractors are not new to war zones. They supported all the major US conflicts of the late 20th century, including in Vietnam, the Balkans, and Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. But in these cases, they mainly provided logistical and base support.

Now, the US military has developed a growing dependence on private contractors – and for a wide range of functions traditionally handled by military personnel. The Army spent roughly $815 million ($163 million per year, or about $200 million per year in 2012 dollars) to employ contractors under its Logistics Civil Augmentation Program between 1992 and 1997. But between 2001 and 2010, that expenditure grew to nearly $5 billion per year. Of course, this latter cost coincides with US involvement in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

A more pertinent question – and what truly sets the Iraq war apart – concerns the role of these private civilian contractors. Throughout the war, the majority (61 percent) of contracted jobs continued to be base-support functions. The next-largest group (18 percent) of Department of Defense contractors were security contractors. They provided security services, such as guarding installations, protecting convoys, or acting as bodyguards.

Moreover, this outsourcing trend continued in Afghanistan, where there were 94,413 contractors in 2010, compared with 91,600 US troops.

Our nation owes these brave men and women a great deal of gratitude.

So, where is the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama? Is he working to get our citizens our of this tumultuous Middle Eastern Nation, which he left to his “Muslim Brothers”?

Ummm…. NO.

With the situation in Iraq at critical mass and Baghdad on the verge of falling into the hands of the Islamic militant group known as ISIS, and the impending humanitarian crises unfolding on the southern border with Mexico, folks were simply astonished at what they were seeing.

Mark Knoller @markknoller
From ND, Pres Obama heads to CA for a long weekend that includes golf in Palm Springs, another commencement & Dem fundraiser on Saturday.
5:55 PM – 12 Jun 2014

You are not hallucinating. With American Citizens under siege during an invasion of Iraq by ISIS, a murderous Muslim Terrorist Group, the President of the United States is turning his back to them, to go golfing and fundraising.

Last Thursday, Georgetown Law professor, Foreign Policy magazine columnist and former Obama administration official Rosa Brooks summed up tthe Obama Administration’s responses to the situations in Syria, Russia and Iraq with one little Tweet:

US respnse 2 Syria,Russia,Iraq:
1)Huh?
2)We’re watching this closely
3)With concern.
4)Hey, stop-
5)We won’t tolerate that!
6)Mmm. Whatever.
8:04 PM – 12 Jun 2014

Can we impeach this Can we impeach this Anti-American, Muslim, Marxist B******d, yet?

Until He Comes,

KJ

Impeachment, Egyptian Style: Obama Still Stands with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Eqyptian Uprising 1Back in March of this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges of political and economic reforms by gifting the Administration’s new-found friend $250 million of OUR tax money to support the country’s “future as a democracy.”

At the same time, Lurch…err…Kerry also told Morsi that the Obama administration will keep close watch on how Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president, honors his commitment and that any additional “gifts” would depend on it.

So, there’s $250,000,000 of OUR money down the cotton-pickin’- drain.

And, the sad thing is, even after his own countrymen threw Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood buddies out on their ear, our dhimmi president is still “standing with the Muslims”.

Bloomberg.com reports

The Obama administration’s call for an “inclusive” political process in Egypt with a role for the Muslim Brotherhood has been overshadowed by deadly clashes between security forces and supporters of the Islamist group.

Violent protests yesterday in Cairo and elsewhere over the military’s ouster of President Mohamed Mursi raised doubts about prospects for an eventual accommodation that would allow the Brotherhood that supports him to compete in new elections.

Enlarge image Obama Call for Muslim Brotherhood Role Eclipsed in Egypt Fight

While President Barack Obama’s administration has stopped short of condemning the July 3 military takeover, it has called on Egyptian leaders to pursue “a transparent political process that is inclusive of all parties and groups,” including “avoiding any arbitrary arrests of Mursi and his supporters,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said July 4 in a statement.

The administration has urged the Egyptian military to stop using heavy-handed tactics, according to two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified commenting on private communications. They said the administration is concerned that some in the military may want to provoke the Islamists to violence and provide a rationale for crushing the movement once and for all.

Such a move would fail and probably prompt a shift to al-Qaeda type terrorist tactics by extremists in the Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere, the U.S. officials said.

In 2006, in an article titled “The Truth about the Muslim Brotherhood”, posted on frontpagemag.com, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen wrote that…

Given that political subjugation of non-Muslims is built into Islamic law, and that the MB desires to return to “classical Islam,” it is not surprising that the organization was the fountainhead from which all Sunni terrorist organizations have flowed. Its offspring include Al-Qaeda,[157] HAMAS, [158] Palestinian Islamic Jihad, [159] Gamaat Islamiyyah, [160] the Philippine Abu Sayyaf group,[161] and the Algerian Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) [162]and Armed Islamic Group (GIA) [163]. Between 1992-1998, the Algerian terrorists murdered an estimated 200,000 people. [164] Today, according to Italian security agencies, and as reported by Kathryn Haahr-Escolano [165] of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, GSPC cells in Italy not only target Italy, but “employ a dual-track approach to planning terrorist attacks and provide support infrastructure—safe houses, communications, weapons procurement and documentation—to GSPC networks in other European countries.”

The ties of all these terrorist groups to the MB are evident from their identical strategies and overall Islamist agenda, and they often carry out joint operations. The MB even influenced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [166] who developed the Iranian version of their ideology in the 1970s. Indeed, Khomeini adhered to the teaching of Egyptian MB leader Qutb [167]and followed the lead of Muhammad Navab-Safavi, [168] who was a guest of the MB in Egypt in 1953. [169] Navab-Safavi later formed the dreaded Iranian death squad, the Fedaiyon-e-Islam, or the ‘Soldiers of Islam.’

In Egypt, where the group was founded in 1928 and later banned, the Brotherhood worked under the Islamic doctrine of “concealment” (kitman) [170] in order to “Islamize” the country. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, the MB collaborated with the Nazis. Hajj Amin al-Husseini,[171] the MB chief in British Mandate Palestine, strongly supported Arab links with the Nazis, particularly in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, where he backed the short-lived pro-Nazi regime of Rashid Ali al-Gailani [172] in 1941. In Egypt too, the MB orchestrated riots, occupied police stations and attempted coups d’etat. Following their failed 1954 attempt to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser, [173] MB loyalists fled Egypt to the universities[174] of Saudi Arabia, where they were granted business monopolies to finance their future reemergence; in 1961 the sympathetic King Sa’ud [175] even funded their establishment of the Islamic University in Medina. In October 1981, an MB offshoot group assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In the last decade alone, MB offspring including Gama’a al-Islamiya and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades repeatedly attacked Western tourists, killing hundreds and wounding many more.

Since the history of the MB is full of instigating civil wars and committing atrocities in countries such as Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Algeria, their expansion and success elsewhere is destined to wreak more havoc and destabilize every nation in which they are allowed to operate freely.

So, why is the President of these United States, Barack Hussein Obama, standing with an enemy of freedom? An enemy who wants every single American Infidel beheaded, and, who, to this day, refers to this sacred land as “The Great Satan”.

It is well known, that a young Obama, after his mother wed a  quite well-off fellow from Indonesia, attended a Madrassa, or Muslim School, in Jakarta.

I believe that the time he spent among “the religion of peace” in his youth, and the 20 years he spent under the “Reformed Muslim” (Liberation Theology) teachings of “ex”-American Muslim, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, molded and cemented his attitude toward Muslims.

Obama innately trusts Muslims…even radical ones.

Lari Regan, in an article for americanthinker.com, published in April of this year, wrote that…

Obama did not create the Islamist ideology that has fed the fervor of modern-day terrorism.  But from his Cairo speech through his speech Monday night just after the Boston bombings, in which he refused to call the attacks terrorism (he conceded the point the following day), he has made it clear that he does not believe that terrorism is a continuing threat to the lives and safety of Americans.  His refusal to use the terms “War on Terror” and “Islamic fundamentalism” are just examples of a belief either that he can wish away evil or that evil simply does not exist.  But what the country needs is a president who understands Islamic jihad for what it is — the totalitarian, fundamentalist dogma that drives the violence perpetrated by those who have waged holy war on the West.  And Obama has yet to give us any indication that he understands these very real threats, or that he is interested in, and capable of, protecting us from them.

Indeed.

Even after over 4 and 1/2 years in office, Obama, if he has a clue as to how barbaric and devious radical Muslims are, sure doesn’t let on.

Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood have visited OUR White House several times now, during the Obama Presidency. Obama truly believes that he can broker peace in the Mid-East by standing by and supporting the Grandfather of all Islamic Terrorist Groups.

Naivete or a Fellow Traveler? You be the judge.

His love for, and embracing of,  these murderous barbarians could very well be the death of us all.

It sure as shootin’ hasn’t done the good folks living in the Land of the Pharaohs any good, whatsoever.

Until He Comes,

KJ 

Rep. Lt. Col. Allen West: Shooting from the Hip

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) spoke Sunday at a campaign event in his district, where he said the following about President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmm):

He does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning, and having that title of American. He’d rather you be his slave.

Lt. Col. West tells it like it is. Check out his Facebook Post from yesterday:

U.S. Manufacturing Shrinks for First Time in 2 Years: U.S. manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in nearly two years, another troubling sign for the economy, which is still faltering under the failed policies of President Obama. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, reported that its index of manufacturing activity fell to 49.7. That’s down from 53.5 in May and the lowest reading since July 2009. While the President often touts the recent growth of manufacturing jobs, the economy has actually shed 599,000 manufacturing jobs since the month President Obama took office and this news shows the sector could be in more trouble.

Federal Deficit Totals $844.5 Billion Through 8 Months of FY 2012: According to the Department of Treasury, the U.S. has racked up $844.5 billion in deficits through the first eight months (October 2011 – May 2012) of fiscal year 2012, keeping the nation well on track to hit a $1 trillion deficit for the fourth consecutive year. Prior to President Obama taking office, the highest U.S. deficit ever was $458 billion.

President’s Healthcare Law = Reduced Access for Medicare Beneficiaries, Higher Costs for Everyone Else: A May 2012 memo from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) Office of the Actuary discussed the projected payment rates for physician services, currently scheduled to be reduced by 31 percent in 2013 under President Obama’s federal takeover of healthcare law. Updating their original projections from 2010, the memo stated that the fiscal effects of the law would result in negative margins (i.e. unprofitability, or losing money) for a significant percentage of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies. In other words, providers will stop serving Medicare patients, or increase costs for everyone else.

Who is this straight shooter? Wellll, in case you didn’t know:

Congressman Allen West (FL-22) proudly and humbly serves the constituents of Florida’s 22nd district, encompassing parts of beautiful Broward and Palm Beach Counties along South Florida’s coastline. Patriotism is in Congressman West’s blood. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, in the same neighborhood where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr once preached, West is the third of four generations of military servicemen in his family. Before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, West served as a Field Artillery Officer in several combat zones: in Operation Desert Storm, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was battalion commander for the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, and in Afghanistan, where he trained Afghan officers to take on the responsibility of securing their own country.

In 2004, when it was time to retire from service, West brought his wife and two young daughters to South Florida, where he taught high school for one year. He then returned to Afghanistan as an advisor to the Afghan army.

In November of 2010, Congressman West was honored to be able to continue his oath of service to his country when he was elected to be a Representative in the United States Congress.

“I have traded in my camouflage uniform for a suit,” West said. “But the commitment to protect the people of the United States is still my mission.”

Congressman West received his Bachelors degree from University of Tennessee and Masters degree from Kansas State University, both in political science. He also holds a Master of Military Arts and Sciences from the US Army Command and General Staff Officer College in political theory and military operations.

In his Army career, Col. West has been honored many times, including a Bronze Star, three Meritorious Service Medals, three Army Commendation Medals (one with Valor), and a Valorous Unit Award. He received his valor award as a Captain in Desert Shield/Storm, was the US Army ROTC Instructor of the Year in 1993, and was a Distinguished Honor Graduate III Corps Assault School. He proudly wears the Army Master parachutist badge, Air Assault badge, Navy/Marine Corps parachutist insignia, Italian parachutist wings, and German proficiency badge (Bronze award).

Congressman West is an avid distance runner, a certified SCUBA diver, motorcyclist, and attends Community Christian Church in Tamarac Florida.

What this biography, written by the GOP, doesn’t tell you, is the stuff legends are made of, and one of the reasons this man is admired by patriotic Americans and a Tea Party Favorite:

He was the officer in charge on Aug. 20 of that year [2003] when soldiers under his command in Taji, Iraq, beat an Iraqi policeman they believed was hiding information about imminent attacks. Not getting the information he wanted, West took over the interrogation and, according to court reports, discharged his 9 mm pistol just above the policeman’s head. According to West, the Iraqi then spilled the beans about a planned ambush.

The policeman, Yehiya Kadoori Hamoodi, told The New York Times almost a year later that he had blurted out meaningless information to West out of fear and pain. But West has said that after the confession, no further attacks were made against his battalion until the time he was relieved of duty two months later.

[The LA Times wrote this from their decidedly Liberal point-of-view.  Lt. Col. West saved his men. Period.]

West was charged with assault and violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The military decided not to court-martial him, which would have meant years in prison and a dishonorable discharge if convicted. Instead, he was given an administrative Article 32 hearing and fined $5,000 for misconduct and assault.

An outpouring of support — the conservative blogosphere characterized West as a victim of a flawed system — and a letter signed by 95 members of Congress to the secretary of the Army may have helped West avoid more serious punishment.

A man like this…do you think he’s worried about how Obama and his sycophants are going to react to what he said Sunday?

Nope. Not a bit.