Posted on 09/28/2007 11:00:04 AM PDT by connell
For the left, the Iraq war nightmare is still yet to come.
By Christopher Cook
During the 2002 elections, Democrats became what Ann Coulter, in her book How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), colorfully called "jock-sniffers for war veterans." First among these vets was Senator Max Cleland, Democrat from Georgia. In an election cycle that was---in spite of what some push-pollers tried to engineer---NOT looking good for Democrats, they needed all the help they could get. Holding on to Cleland's seat in the heart of the once-reliably Democratic South was crucial.
The Democrats were well aware that, post-1968 at least, their record with the people on military matters was spotty at best. They knew that many of the people who currently make up their base today were, in their younger years, the same people who helped engineer a loss in Vietnam. Some of those people even spat on returning soldiers and called them "baby-killers." As we moved into the 80s, the Democrats became ever-more dovish, going so far as to oppose the sensible notion of developing missile defense systems to protect the United States from incoming Soviet ICBMs, while simultaneously suggesting that the USSR would have to be accommodated, because it could not possibly be defeated. As their credibility on foreign policy and military matters continued to wane, responsible voices like that of Scoop Jackson became increasingly rare (to the point where today, Joe Lieberman may be the only one left, and he was essentially ousted from the Party in 2006).
Then, President Clinton came on the scene. Not only was he the first president since FDR not to have served in the military himself, but his personal dislike for the military was generally known by the average American. He...
(Excerpt) Read more at modernconservative.com ...
It is my hope that this posted article, and the prognostications therein, will not only be a source of optimism for the faithful....but that they will also serve as the ignition source of a meme that ends up hastening the development of the prognosticated events.
Something of a temporal paradox, but it makes sense!
Only if they are allowed to vote. As you know any member of the military from a moonbat blue state is more then likely to see their vote thrown in the trash by the Democrats in the local and state election boards.
The media always fails to mention how Max Cleland lost his legs/arm in Vietnam. It was not enemy action. He was fooling around with a grenade, either waiting for a helicopter or as he was boarding it. Not to dimish his injuries, but not quite the battle glory implied by democrats when they claim republicans smeared a war hero.
A certain number of these will enter politics - and their stories of Democrat betrayal will be very forceful.
First one that comes to mind is Gen David Petraeus!! There are hundreds of others - many articulate proponents of the reasons for victory in Iraq....and elsewhere in the Middle East.
No, people, you do NOT send evidence to some dot com we have never heard of. If you have explicitly indictable evidence of such an event, you take it to prosecutors.
You do not send it to conservative dot coms. You do not send it to the media. You send it to District Attorneys. Let them get an indictment. The media covers indictments, not submittals from biased organizations.
Or, they can contact us regarding said evidence, and then we can work with them to help turn it over to the proper authorities, which is what was intended by that request for contact. But thanks for the clarification.
I have already seen this in action. One of our local returning vets is considering a run for the City Council. He has a great future.
While I agree with you, I don't think it really applies to this article, which is very well done. I very much hope these predictions come to pass that the author foresees.
How about Gen. Pace......who is retiring.
Ping!
Great article, I just hope it comes to pass.
Great article. My husband has been saying for a long time that the dems better be very careful about P O the people with the guns because it will back fire on them.
I’m glad to see this happen. I just went to the site and donated to his campaign.
Any money I donate to political causes this election will be to candidates of my choice and not to the party and to very few incumbents.
Don't you hate it when FReepers skim what you have written and rush to post a mistaken claim about what you said? It's frustrating.
Great article; and I hope it comes true. We need a change of heart in this country. People loved Reagan because, after years of Jimmy Carter's saying we were losers and our country was going to go into an inevitable decline, Reagan came on board with a big smile and just started reminding everyone of our nation's historic mandate, our great generosity, our spirit, and our will to fight evil, which made the left's heads explode. In the process, it brought down the Communist empire. Everything the socialist left has stood for since the late 1800s, in tatters. This USDem party is trying mightily to resurrect the Soviet system here. But they must fail.
Amen to that. I'm sick of their RINO mismanagement.
Take a good look, baby-boomers....your time is coming to an end.
Take a good look at the Boomer Vietnam vets who made this possible, Mr. Cook, and plant a large smooch on our posteriors. I don't really care about the rest of the article. And don't give me that slimy "Oh, I didn't mean you" crap, either - that was always the problem, they didn't mean us. It's bad enough to be forgotten by the antiwar side, it's a real bitch when it's your own.
Too bad. He was incompetent then, and he is incompetent now.
Max Cleland - Poster Boy for the slogan: Always remember, when the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
“....the fact that leftwing baby-boomers have near-complete control over the mainstream mechanisms of information dissemination. They also happen to be the generation that is currently “in charge.”
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Yeh.
“leftwing baby-boomers” is a generation.
Piss off, christopher cook, and take your blogspam with you.
Less than half of military votes overseas counted
Iraq War Veteran Blasts Mahoney For Trying To Keep Military And Overseas Voters In The Dark
At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election by Bill Sammon
“Less than half of military votes overseas counted”
I think that Military voters and their dependents outside of the US should somehow have their votes validated and counted by a special agency created for that sole purpose. Perhaps the FEC with DOJ oversight.....and carte blanche cooperation mandated within DOD.
NO!
The Voting process is a state issue. Federal Government (DOJ) is responsible for ensuring that overseas military voting rights are protected and that state processes provide a means for them to participate.
We need to get out of the mindset that the Federal Government must reolve all of our problems.
With Congress at 9% approval, it has already begun.
The Party of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan continues to set new record lows in depravity--and millions refuse to see it.
Links problem
The requested document does not exist on this server.
Help!
Jeez, I hated to see that first post that accused Max Cleland of “fooling around with a grenade” and the article itself says, “ ....(it actually occurred when Cleland was on his way to drink a few beers with friends near Khe Sanh).” That is putting the worst possible spin on an ordinary event and really amounts to slander. Its not inaccurate but by no means depicts the entire truth of what happened.
I’m not a Max Cleland fan but I am a retired military veteran who has respect for his VN service. I never met the man, don’t care for Democrat politics but it really gripes me to see some credible wartime service reduced in such a way.
The guy had a legitimate Silver Star before this ever happened. They were going to drink a few beers after a mission. What is wrong with that? The grenade fell off another soldiers harness.
Nobody was “fooling with a grenade” and that casually inaccurate comment shouldn’t have been said. Having read the entire thread before I posted I saw that these assertions are being uncritically accepted further down the thread.
Max went for the grenade laying on the ground and it went off. Nothing particularly heroic. It was an accident. To me its not enough to warrant making or keeping the guy a Senator but it’s an entirely different issue of personal integrity and honor. This guy is no John Kerry.
Here is the wiki entry. I believe it. If you don’t believe it give us a reason.
On April 8, with a month left in his tour, Cleland was ordered to set up a radio relay station on a nearby hill. A helicopter flew him and two soldiers to the treeless top of Hill 471, east of Khe Sanh. Cleland knew some of the soldiers camped there from Operation Pegasus. He told the pilot he was going to stay a while. Maybe have a few beers with friends.
When the helicopter landed, Cleland jumped out, followed by the two soldiers. They ducked beneath the rotors and turned to watch the liftoff. Cleland reached down to pick up the grenade he believed had popped off his flak jacket. The blast slammed him backward, shredding both his legs and one arm. He was 25 years old...
David Lloyd was a gung-ho, 19-year-old enlisted Marine, son of a Baltimore ship worker, who went to Vietnam because he “wanted to kill Communists.”
On April 8, 1968, he was in a mortar pit on a hill near Khe Sanh when he heard an explosion. Shrapnel bounced off his flak jacket. He ran to the injured officer, a man named Max Cleland. ‘Hold on there, captain,’ Lloyd told Cleland. ‘The chopper will be here in a minute.’
Lloyd took off his web belt and tied it around one of Cleland’s shredded legs. When the medics arrived, he left to help another injured soldier — one of the two who had gotten off a helicopter with Cleland.
That soldier was crying. ‘It was mine,’ he said, ‘it was my grenade.’
According to Lloyd, the private had failed to take the extra precaution that experienced soldiers did when they grabbed M-26 grenades from the ammo box: bend the pins, or tape them in place, so they couldn’t accidentally dislodge. This soldier had a flak jacket full of grenades with treacherously straight pins, Lloyd says. “He was a walking death trap.”[
Grenade Explosion Accident. In his own words,
On April 8, 1968, I volunteered for one last mission. The helicopter moved in low. The troops jumped out with M16 rifles in hand as we crouched low to the ground to avoid the helicopter blades. Then I saw the grenade. It was where the chopper had lifted off. It must be mine, I thought. Grenades had fallen off my web gear before. Shifting the M16 to my left hand and holding it behind me, I bent down to pick up the grenade. A blinding explosion threw me backwards.
Max Cleland Awards:
Cleland served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, attaining the rank of Captain. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for valorous action in combat, including during the Battle of Khe Sanh on April 4th, 1968.
Less than half of military votes overseas counted
Less than half of military votes overseas counted
DEMOCRATS WORKING TO SUPPRESS MILITARY VOTES ..... AGAIN! [UNGRIGGIN' REAL ALERT]
E-Mail Ballots for Military Questioned (Democrats Want to Suppress Military Votes)
Yeh. “leftwing baby-boomers” is a generation. Piss off, christopher cook, and take your blogspam with you.
You are misinterpreting his language. He is NOT saying that all baby-boomers are leftists.
He is saying that the baby-boomers who ARE leftists are also the persons largely in charge of the media due to their ages.
The Media Research Council has researched this point, and found that 90% of the reporters and media management in NY and DC are liberal and/or Democrat, as are the vast majority of professors in influential universities and elite journalism schools. Again, not everyone in the generation — just the ones who control mainstream media and opinion.
First Official “Military Old Fart” Ping!
If you are a Veteran of any branch of service, and would like to be on our “MOF Ping List” dealing with a variety of military topics, please post to Diana in Wisconsin to be added to the list. :)
Got it this time.
Thanks!!!!
Thanks for the correction. I should have done more research as to the date of origin of the term :-)
As noted in the Dem debate!! No longer are they talking about immediate and complete withdrawal.
The left is ‘stuck on stupid’, (General Russel L. Honare).
They are still arguing about the START of the Iraq war. We should just declare the war won, get on with the discussion of ‘keeping the peace’ and leave these worthless leftists in the dustbin of history.
They have ignored the rules
#1 Decision to go to war.
Nothing they say can change that. Even the useless rhetoric cannot be used for the next one. (God forbid there be a ‘next’ one.)
#2 Decision on how to fight the war.
they can’t be helpful cause they’re stuck on number 1.
So the adults grounded in reality are there to get the job done and they’re going to remember the disasterous ROE put upon them by politicians.
Here’s to a brighter and better future! Thanks to our military!
I agree generally with the spirit of your comment. If you continue reading the article, you will see my words of unequivocal gratitude to Cleleand specifically for his service.
“You are misinterpreting his language.”
Young master christopher is both a victim and propagator of revisionism.
All that is left for you and me to do is agree to disagree. I can read just fine, thank you.
Thank you very much for these links-—we will post them!
I am a Military Old Fart. USAF 1963-1984. Southeast Asia 1967. Please add me to the MOF ping list.
Don’t buy into all this negative junk on how the GOP is toast in the next election. This is pure rat propaganda...the GOP will hold on to the WH. And the house and the senate is way to early to call for the rats.
Done! :)
“I agree generally with the spirit of your comment. If you continue reading the article, you will see my words of unequivocal gratitude to Cleleand specifically for his service.”
It was not clear to me in the beginning that you posted an article that you wrote so I have a bone to pick with you. I would like to point out that just as the Democrats sexed up Max Clelands war injuries that you diminished them.
Your comment about the grenade explosion that caused his wounds was:
“....(it actually occurred when Cleland was on his way to drink a few beers with friends near Khe Sanh)”
So, the only reference that you made to the way he got his injuries was to link them to a plan to drink some beers. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what image that brings up in reader’s minds. “Here is some hippy goof-ball on his way to a drunk-fest who incompetently drops a grenade and blows his own dumb-ass up.” Right? And reading the commentary further down the thread that is exactly the conclusion some posters reached.
Secondly, you make no mention at all of his legitimate awards. No mention of a Silver or Bronze Star. Why not? Is he a make believe hero? If he had been awarded those medals fraudulently like Kerry or Murtha you would have mentioned it.
Without the medals we have an image of a hippy goof-ball who wasn’t in the war really...had some kind of dopey AlGore type of war. You could have given the guy his due and still made your point. You gave “unequivocal gratitude to Cleland” for some not clearly specified but mostly unexceptional service. Not good.
Did Max cooperate with the destruction of his reputation? I’d say there is evidence he allowed himself to be used. The Dems are appalled that it didn’t work but I would like to see the guy’s military record rehabilitated.
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