"Red Fridays"

Someone sent this to me. I am not certain who originated this as it came to me without the original message. Let's appreciate those who volunteer to protect us. They do not choose the mission, they just seek to carry it out.


Will you give this to my Daddy?

Last week I was in Atlanta , Georgia attending a conference. While I was in the airport, returning home, I heard several people behind me beginning to clap and cheer. I immediately turned around and witnessed one of the greatest acts of patriotism I have ever seen.

Moving thru the terminal was a group of soldiers in their camos. As they began heading to their gate, everyone (well almost everyone) was abruptly to their feet with their hands waving and cheering.

When I saw the soldiers, probably 30-40 of them, being applauded and cheered for, it hit me. I'm not alone. I'm not the only red-blooded American who still loves this country and supports our troops and their families.

Of course I immediately stopped and began clapping for these young unsung heroes who are putting their lives on the line everyday for us so we can go to school, work and home without fear or reprisal.

Just when I thought I could not be more proud of my country or of our service men and women, a young girl, not more than 6 or 7 years old, ran up to one of the male soldiers. He kneeled down and said "hi."

The little girl then asked him if he would give something to her daddy for her.

The young soldier, who didn't look any older than maybe 22 himself, said he would try and what did she want to give to her daddy. Then suddenly the little girl grabbed the neck of this soldier, gave him the biggest hug she could muster and then kissed him on the cheek.

The mother of the little girl, who said her daughter's name was Courtney, told the young soldier that her husband was a Marine and had been in Iraq for 11 months now. As the mom was explaining how much her daughter Courtney missed her father, the young soldier began to tear up.

When this temporarily single mom was done explaining her situation, all of the soldiers huddled together for a brief second. Then one of the other servicemen pulled out a military-looking walkie-talkie. They started playing with the device and talking back and forth on it.

After about 10-15 seconds of this, the young soldier walked back over to Courtney, bent down and said this to her, "I spoke to your daddy and he told me to give this to you." He then hugged this little girl that he had just met and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He finished by saying "your daddy told me to tell you that he loves you more than anything and he is coming home very soon."

The mom at this point was crying almost uncontrollably and as the young soldier stood to his feet, he saluted Courtney and her mom. I was standing no more than 6 feet away from this entire event.

As the soldiers began to leave, heading towards their gate, people resumed their applause. As I stood there applauding and looked around, there were very few dry eyes, including my own. That young soldier in one last act of selflessness, turned around and blew a kiss to Courtney with a tear rolling down his cheek.

We need to remember everyday all of our soldiers and their families and thank God for them and their sacrifices. At the end of the day, it's good to be an American.

RED FRIDAYS ----- Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority". We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers.

We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions. Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops.

Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday -and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that.. Every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar will wear something red.

By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers.

If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family. It will not be long before the USA is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once "silent" majority is on their side more than ever; certainly more than the media lets on.

The first thing a soldier says when asked "What can we do to make things better for you?" is...We need your support and your prayers.

Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example; and wear something red every Friday.

IF YOU AGREE -- THEN SEND THIS ON.
IF YOU COULD CARE LESS THEN HIT THE DELETE BUTTON --- IT IS YOUR CHOICE.
WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE.
THEIR BLOOD RUNS RED---- SO WEAR RED! --- MAY GOD HELP AMERICA TO BECOME ONE NATION, UNDER GOD.

HAVE A GREAT DAY








peAce...
topbop!

...the "truth" about Iraq, part III...

A principal architect of Iraq’s interim constitution, who resigned in August as one of the country’s top diplomats, has laid out a devastating critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. occupation, telling NBC News that, functionally, “there is no Iraqi government.” Has the U.S. remade Iraq in it's own image? "The Iraqi government is an illusion", said Istrabadi, who is now a visiting professor at the Indiana University Law School. “You’ve got patently incompetent men appointed to important positions.”

...read full story...

Feisal Istrabadi was Deputy Permanent Representative of the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations, which position he held from 2004 until recently. In 2004 he was also appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Iraqi Ministry for Foreign Affairs. As a legal advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. al-Istrabadi negotiated U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 (June 2004). He was also a principal legal drafter of the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period, i.e. the transitional constitution of the country (2003-2004) and author of the bill of Fundamental Rights. Before engaging in the reconstruction of Iraq, Mr. al-Istrabadi had been a practicing barrister in the United States for 15 years, with approximately 70 jury and bench civil trials in federal and State courts, and numerous administrative hearings. He is a Senior Fellow for Legal Reform and Development in the Arab World, the International Human Rights Law Institute, College of Law, DePaul University, Chicago.

Ambassador Istrabadi holds a JD degree from Indiana University and a Master of Laws degree from Northwestern University.



peAce...was a better choice...
topbop!

...the "truth" about Iraq, part II

"September 2007 - More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered..."

"In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003."

... full story

Do the math... 1,000,000 Iraqi civilian deaths divided by 2,974 fatalities on 9/11 yields 336 and 1/4 lives lost in Iraq for each life lost in America on 9/11. And Iraqis did not even cause 9/11!!! Look for "evil insanity" in the dictionary and this will be there as a prime example of it's meaning!


why not...
peAce?
topbop!

...the "truth" about the U.S.A.

...from the Carpet Bagger:

"For six years, we’ve been warned that the Bush administration needs sweeping new authority, free of checks and balances, in order to keep us safe. Officials, without warrants, should be able tap Americans’ phones and read their emails. The Patriot Act was absolutely necessary. Torture policies should be written and practiced in secret. Habeas corpus need no longer be a guiding principle. We’re all used to words and phrases like “rendition,” “enemy combatants,” and “indefinite detention.”

All of this is completely justifiable, we’ve heard, because there are dangers lurking in every corner and terrorists in our midst. But it appears there may be a disconnect between what we’ve been told and what is true.

Six years of investigations and prosecutions have turned up little evidence of Islamic jihadists at work in the United States, according to a study released Monday.

The study, conducted by New York University’s Center on Law and Security, tracked 510 cases billed as terrorism-related when arrests were made.

But it found only 158 of those people arrested since al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks were prosecuted for terrorism.



And how many people were convicted of planning attacks within the United States? Four, including Zacarias Moussaoui and “shoe bomber” Richard Reid."



...wouldn't you prefer...
peAce?

topbop!

The "truth" about Iraq...

"... nightmare with no end in sight..."





Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, slammed the handling of the war and gave a bleak assessment of the current situation in Iraq.

“There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight,” Sanchez told a convention of military journalists on Friday.

In sharp words for President Bush, he said: “From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan to the administration’s latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronise its political, economic and military power. National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved by military power alone.”

He also accused the Bush administration of failing to “communicate effectively the reality to the American people” of the situation in Iraq. He labelled US political leaders as ‘incompetent’ and ‘corrupted’, adding that "...they would have faced courts martial for dereliction of duty had they been in the military."

“The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable.”

“There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

Continuing changes to military strategy alone will not achieve victory, rather it will only “stave off defeat,” he said.

...read more... Stars and Stripes


...how about...
peAce..?
topbop!

Emmett Till 1955=Martin Lee Anderson 2006

Emmett Till was a fourteen year old African-American boy from Chicago, Illinois brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. His death mobilized the civil rights movement. Martin Lee Anderson died in January 2006 after he collapsed during forced exercise and was hit by guards at a boot camp for juvenile delinquents in Panama City, Florida.



What has the 2006 death of Martin Lee Anderson brought out into the light? Same thing still happening 20+ years later... A process takes time to unfold...

...and now this... "Guards acquitted in teenager's 'boot camp' death"


peAce...someday...we pray...
topbop!

Blackwater = U.S. terrorists?

Blackwater is a private security contractor working for the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan. The record of their actions, if performed by a group that was not employed by the U.S., would be labeled as "terrorism". By extension, the U.S. State Department would be a government that "supports terrorism".

In a document published by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, the Committee writes the following:

"Blackwater Shootíng Incídents. Incident reports compiled by Blackwater reveal that Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 "escalation of force" incidents in Iraq since 2005 that involved the firing of shots by Blackwater forces. This is an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week. Blackwater's contract to provide protective services to the State Department provides that Blackwater can engage in only defensive use of force. In over 80% of the shooting incidents, however, Blackwater reports that its forces fired the first shots. In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fires shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties. Even so, Blackwater's own incident reports document 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 incidents with property damage, primarily to vehicles owned by lraqis. In over 80% of the escalation of force incidents since 2005, Blackwater's own reports document either casualties or property damage."

"The reports describe multiple Blackwater incidents involving Iraqi casualties that have not previously been reported. In one of these incidents, Blackwater forces shot a civilian bystander in the head. In another, State Department officials report that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed an apparently innocent bystander. In a third, Blackwater provided no assistance after a traffic accident caused by its "counter-flow" driving left an Iraqi vehicle in "a ball of flames." Blackwater also reports engaging in tactical military operations with U.S. forces."

"In addition to Blackwater, two other private military contractors, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, provide protective services to the State Department. Blackwater reports more shooting incidents than the other two contractors combined. Blackwater also has the highest incidence of shooting first, although all three companies shoot first in more than half of all escalation of forces incidents.

State Department Responses. Documents provided by the State Department raise serious questions about how State Department officials responded to reports of Blackwater killings of Iraqis. In a high-profile incident in December 2006, a drunken Blackwater contractor killed the guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi. Within 36 hours after the shooting, the State Department had allowed Blackwater to transport the Blackwater contractor out of Iraq. The State Department Charge d'Affaires recommended that Blackwater make a "sizeable payment" and an "apology" to "avoid this whole thing becoming even worse." The Charge d'Affaires suggested a $250,000 payment to the guard's family, but the Department's Diplomatic Security Service said this was too much and could cause Iraqis to "iry to get killed." In the end, the State Department and Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment. One State Department offrcial wrote:
"We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission. "The State Department took a similar approach upon receiving reports that Blackwater shooters killed an innocent Iraqi, except that in this case, the State Department requested only a $5,000 payment to "put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly." There is no evidence in the documents that the Committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater's actions, raised concems about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company's high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation."



If these actions were done by those opposing the will of the United States, the perpetrators would be labeled "terrorists" and hunted down to be "killed or captured". Their demise would be reported with great fanfare on Fox News and CNN. Please look at what this administration is doing in YOUR name...


peAce...now!
topbop!

more guns, more guns...

Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police...

"Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.

The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops."

"In 2004 and 2005, the United States bought 185,000 AK-47s from an Eastern European country -- after Iraqis rejected U.S.-made M-16 assault rifles -- as part of a $2.8 billion program to deliver military equipment to Iraq. But a recent Government Accountability Office report said that 110,000 of them were unaccounted for, with about 30 percent of all arms distributed to Iraqi forces by the United States since 2004 missing."

This will certainly assist with the police state being created in Iraq.


full story here...





peAce...
topbop!

...whose country is this anyway?

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, "Only about 25 percent of Americans support the administration's $190 billion war funding request; 70 percent want the proposed allocation reduced..."

Did anybody else have a class called "Civics" when they were in school? If I remember my lessons from that class correctly, I would say our democracy is dysfunctional, no, worse, it has been hijacked.

"Overall, 55 percent of Americans want congressional Democrats to do more to challenge the president's Iraq policies, while a third think the Democrats have gone too far. The level of agitation for more action in opposition to the war has not dissipated since August 2005, when Democrats were the minority party in Congress."


...read more here...

...the article @ washingtonpost.com



pay attention America!!!

peAce.... is better...
topbop!

...don't diplomats do diplomacy anymore?

"Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Tory delegates in Britain Sunday that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country."

"If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back," he said.


...more lunacy from the lunatics...

read story here...



how about we try peAce...?
topbop!