Very Upsetting Story from Texas

I have always tried my best to give this administration and its staff the benefit of the doubt. But I have tried to be honest about its shortcomings. Even through the Blackwater fiasco, I tried. This story that I read about today is inexcusable. I'm going to post a link to a story that I read on ABC News.com via the Drudge Report today that makes me very sad and very angry. I can honestly say that I have never felt so let down as I do by the United States Departments of State and Justice. The legacy of former A.G. Gonzalez continues and a huge problem for which the Secretary of State must answer.

This is the kind of garbage that makes it difficult for our brave men and women overseas to do their job, to earn the respect of the world, and to earn the respect of the people and nations that they are serving. Iraq is a noble cause, but it has been so messed up by the present bureacracy and administration that I am embarrassed to have voted for them. I hope the story of this young woman leaves many people in Washington unable to sleep tonight. The screams of help from this young lady should ring in every politician's and Iraq contractor's head for a long time to come.

Rape Cover-up in Iraq reported by ABC News via The Drudge Report.

I've been very critical of the media throughout the Iraq War and I think it's more than justified. I think that very much has been made of very little. And I think that very little good has been reported of the abundance that has happened. But I do think that this story needs to be told--VERY LOUD, and VERY CLEAR. A young women named Jamie Leigh Jones deserves justice. It just goes to show that brutality is not only a quality of the extremists that our brave Soldiers and Marines are fighting. It is also a quality of a few who answer to no law in Iraq. Our goal should be to protect the innocent. It should not be used to shield the guilty.

Let me be clear. This - in no way - has anything to do with any group of people as a whole. Nor does this story have any relation to tactics used by the CIA in the questioning of terrorist suspects and enemy combatants. I do hope that leftist partisans do not try to draw this into the "torture" debate. But I am afraid that Harry Reid (political hack that he is) is going to blame the President and every other member of the Bush administration for every brutal detail. What is sad is that he might even get the support and sympathy of the media to go along with him. The administration is responsible for their inability to earn justice for this young lady. Only the men who perpetrated these actions (and possibly the company) are responsible for the crime.

KBR & Halliburton executives should be screaming from the rooftops for investigations and apologizing all over themselves. I am absolutely disgusted that these companies are American and continue to remain silent. The management of these companies verges on incompetency and its stockholders should be disgusted. If they are responsible for setting this culture in their organization, then they should also be punished to the full extent of the law. I would also hope that a free market would exercise its right to sell off their shares and/or replace the management if need be.

Am I speaking before I've heard all the facts? Yep. I hope I don't have to eat my words, but I could not keep silent on this.

My thoughts and prayers are with Jamie and her family.

mR

Picture Source: ABC News.com

Democrats: "The War Is Lost"

It is indeed a sad day when a leader of the US government conceeds defeat to an enemy of our country. According to Reuters and Fox News, Harry Reid (NV), the top Democrat in the United States Senate informed the media Thursday that he had told the president that "this war is lost" referring to the Iraq conflict. Only just into the beginning of the ramp-up of U.S. forces into the country, he is ready to give up. Is that anything new? Of course not. The majority of the democratic party joined the extremist left and the media's white flag years ago.

I still don't know if I agree or not with Senator Reid. While I have a firm belief that it is imperative that we win this war, I don't know if we can win in Iraq but i'm hardly ready to concede.

There are too many things against us. And shame on the president that he didn't fix this years ago. This is a Almost Average American's take on why this war may never be won.

1. No one did their homework before this conflict began. Incompetent, god-complexed Rumsfeld put together the war plan. Don't be confused--our top generals didn't come up with that rediculous plan. Rumsfeld did, and rammed it down everyones' throat. The president trusted him and was too weak to fire him when things started moving from bad to worse. He may have waited to long to turn this around.

The president didn't know any better and followed Rumsfeld blindly into the desert. He sold a war to the public under points that turned out not to be true. Don't be fooled, the democrats believed those points too. They were just able to back off of them, deserting the president when our nation needed all of them to stand together. But no, they saw a way to win the next election.

There were 10 good reasons to take action in Iraq. It just so happens that the 3 the president used in his State of the Union and on his "Iraq War Bus Tour" were wrong. Our democratic friends seem to have forgotten this too. They want us to go it alone in Darfur, but when 1.5 million people were slaughtered in Iraq, we should have used diplomatic efforts and followed the good judgment of the UN. Yeah, good strategy.

I will try to address some of the reasons why the Iraq incurrsion was a good thing to do in an upcoming post. Things like putting an American base right in the middle of Syria and Iran. There's no Korea, Japan, or Germany in the Middle East. Things like ending the tyranical reign of a murderous dictator. Things like showing the Middle East up close that we are a benevolent society and aren't as bad as we are made out to be. Things like keeping a religious fanatical government from controlling the entire balance of power in a very dangerous part of the world.

2. Never admit your mistakes. The poor decision making at the beginning of the war continued to the middle of the war because our commander in chief was too afraid to admit that his administration might have been wrong. At what point are we so afraid to admit mistakes that our country and our armed forces must suffer for it? At the point where the looney nutso's of the fringe of any ideology are the people who hold the power.

3. Minority Rule. Just to complete a thought... We are at a point in our history where it's no longer "We the People." It's "We the Extremists." At what point did we allow Michael Moore and George Soros (not originally from the U.S.) on the left and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the right to hijack our political process? Apparently at this point. When lawyers from Pat Robertson's school of law are working in powerful positions in the Justice Department. When eccentric billionaires born in other countries can effect U.S. elections, then is all hope lost? I hope not, but I wouldn't bet my measley net worth against it.

To Be Continued....