Jerusalem and Georgia

Obadiah is the shortest of the books of the Old Testament of the Bible, a mere twenty-one verses long. Most religious scholars believe it was written by one of seven “post-exile prophets,” the book is self-titled, and has much in common with the Old Testament books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos in their criticism and condemnation of the ancient Middle-Eastern nation of Edom. It clearly must also be associated with other prophecies of Hebrew/Israelite/Jewish restoration within the community of nations on Earth, such as those noted in Joel 3:17-21, Amos 9:11-15, and Micah 7:8-20.

Little known outside the halls of biblical scholarship, the book of Obadiah may well be one of the most profound in dealing with the rights and justice of nations toward one another in the eyes of the single God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Almost nothing is known of the prophet Obadiah. His name is translated as “servant of the Lord” and is one of at least a dozen others by the same name referred to in the bible, and there is no autobiographical information within the scriptures or in any other known source about the prophet. There, too, is some question as to exactly when the Book of Obadiah was written. It is felt that there are two potential eras in which it could have been recorded – after the Arab-Philistine attack on what is now the Holy Land, c.844 B.C., or more likely two-and-a-half centuries later in the years after the sacking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian Empire in 586 B.C.

Edom, a nation to the south and east of the Hebrew monarchy of Judah, aided and abetted Babylon in the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem. This might be considered a continuation of Edomite-Judean antagonism whose origins stretched back at least as far as the Exodus of the Hebrew nation from Egypt 839 to 651 years previously. During this initial encounter between the nations, Edom refused to grant the Hebrews passage toward their destination of Canaan. And while there was a period of peaceful co-existence in the intervening years, by the time of Jerusalem’s destruction relations were poor. Soldiers of Edom helped to sack the city, carrying off innumerable riches and wealth alongside their Babylonian allies. All this antagonism, ironically, occurred despite the common lineage of the nations to the biblical patriarch Isaac’s sons Esau and Jacob – Edom descended from Esau and Judah’s lineage traced to Jacob. Whatever was the cause and reasons of the animosity, the result was that the destruction of Jerusalem led to a long Diaspora of the Israelite nation that would continue for some 2534 years.

Edom straddled what is today’s southern Israeli border areas with Egyptian Sinai to the west and Jordan to the east, from the central Negev to the north, down to today’s Red Sea seaport of Eilat on Israel’s southern tip. Edom’s capitol was Bozrah, today the small Jordanian town of Bouseira.

Interestingly, many modern Christians believe that Bouseira will be one of the major venues of the Last Judgement. It is their belief that here the Messiah will return to earth to judge the holy and the wicked.

Nevertheless, it was the destruction of Jerusalem and the following Diaspora that apparently led to Obadiah’s short Biblical book.

Today, Edom’s most widely known city is the famed cave-city of Petra, of which there may be some reference within Obadiah’s work: “…Your capital is a fortress of solid rock...” although Bozrah’s ruins appear to have also been built of rock. But there is no doubt that Obadiah accurately predicted the utter and total destruction of Edom and its eventual absorption by a Hebrew nation some two-and-a-half millennia after the sack and destruction of Jerusalem. Obadiah 19 states, “People from southern Judah will occupy Edom; Those from the western foothills will capture Philistia; Israelites will possess the territory of Ephraim and Samaria; The people of Benjamin will take Gilead…”

This eventually occurred beginning in 1947 as the newly established United Nations (knowingly or otherwise) began the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and mandated the re-establishment of a Jewish nation. And it did indeed lead to the fulfillment of Obadiah’s prophecy when on May 15, 1948, Israel declared independence. Outmanned and outgunned, owning a rag-tag air force and navy barely deserving of the names, and an army of militia, the new Israeli nation fought overwhelming and incredible odds beginning even before independence. This new Hebrew nation, miraculously, was able to defeat the combined might of six Arab nations, the Palestinians living in the region, and the benign neglect of its British colonial predecessor. It conquered Israel, Judah, and Philistine of Biblical times, and drove south to secure what had been the Edomite heartland of 2500 years before. The Israeli Order of Battle followed the prophecy of Obadiah almost to the letter, though its complete fulfillment would eventually come within a generation in later years and in later wars.

Obadiah’s prophecy is clearly a lesson to all nations that they are their brothers’ keepers. Edom was a neighbor and, by their common ancestry to Isaac, a brother nation in the region. With Edom’s lack of assistance to Judah and support of the Babylonian Empire, Nebuchadnezzar was able to effectively destroy Hebrew governance in the area for two-and-a-half millennium. While for the vast majority of that period this looked to be the end of the Hebrew nations of Israel, Judah, and the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, clearly it was not. Israel’s re-establishment in 1948 is ample testimony of God’s power over the nations. Over seven million Jews live today within the borders of the State of Israel, the new Hebrew nation, as do millions of others all over the World.

God stated in the prophecy of Obadiah 8-10:
"On the day I punish Edom, I will destroy their clever men and wipe out all their wisdom.
The fighting men of Teman will be terrified, and every soldier in Edom will be killed.
Because you robbed and killed your brothers, the descendants of Jacob, you will be destroyed and dishonored forever."

Today, one can see and tour the sites and ruins of Bozrah and Petra and marvel at the incredible architecture and craftsmanship of the artisans and workers who built an apparently talented, great, and wealthy nation. Thousands do today and the Edomite city of Petra has even been featured in an Indiana Jones movie. Yet today there is not a single Edomite alive. Not one.

This is a stark and important lesson to other nations today. I would even argue that even now God is at work through his lessons in Obadiah. Barely three generations ago the earth saw two of the World’s greatest nations refuse to come to the aid of their fellow weaker nations and those great powers have since paid a heavy price.

In 1938, France and Great Britain, at the time the greatest colonial and military powers on Earth, pledged to stand by Czechoslovakia as a resurgent, newly bellicose, Godless and pagan Germany threatened. Both nations failed to assist the endangered nation, approving an agreement allowing Germany to roll into the disputed western Czechoslovakian region of Sudetenland effectively destroying the nation’s sovereignty. Eleven months later, to the day, Germany invaded Poland as both Britain and France again stood by. The best that either nation could or would do was when the Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets instead of bombs over the German Ruhr and the French Army occupied three square miles of uninhabited Germany territory for three days before retreating back into France.

Of course, these tepid responses plunged the earth into the Second World War, which then led both directly and indirectly to the nearly complete dissolution of both the French and British empires within a single generation. Today, both nations are slowly being absorbed into the greater nation of the European Union and may be but a memory by the end of this century.

The lesson of Obadiah’s writing and prophecy is that God is the king over the Earth and of all nations and man. It is the responsibility of man and the nations of man to assist and defend their neighbors, and to do so for the glory of God and his people on Earth. The failure of the great European powers led to the loss of empire and their relegation to rump nations and their eventual loss of sovereignty into the European Union. The failure of Edom to do the same two-and-a-half millennia previously led to the total and utter destruction of the nation. Today, Edom has its portions divided between Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, with a vast majority within the boundaries of Israel.

Does this lesson bode poorly for America’s and Europe’s response to Russia’s aggression in the tiny Republic of Georgia? What happens if we do not stand up to an identically resurgent, newly bellicose, Godless and pagan Russia? Is Georgia a new Czechoslovakia?

This is an issue that needs to be closely and carefully studied. Edom will never be restored as a nation as there is not a single Edomite left to return. God’s prophecy has been fulfilled – completely and totally.

She Blinded Me With Science

“She blinded me with science!” It’s a line from British musician Thomas Dolby’s 1982 song of that same title. I love the song – it’s catchy, fun, and has that great catch phrase. And it so reminds me of the world today.

One of the great ruses used by the modern neo-atheist is to use science to prove that God, religion and the supernatural do not exist. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, et al., have been trying to use logic to point out that there is no scientific laws, rules, definition or reason justifying the existence of God. I can accept that.

I do know, though, that the hand of God has been guiding me, and that those people I know who have given their lives to God and his service are the happiest I’ve ever encountered. I KNOW these things. I see these things. I also know that many have given themselves over to IDEOLOGY, and are violent, miserable, sad or just frustrated. These latter people are the true fodder of the books of the atheists.

What is far more unfortunate is the tendency of people in our culture to want science to prove their faith, or whatever belief they may have. And this is where things can get dangerous.

We are all born with certain strengths and weaknesses, talents and foibles, desires and urges, that we have to deal with and handle in our lives. I know, as I’ve had to handle a few. I have a violent temper that has gotten me very close to serious trouble in the past. I am also a VERY sexual animal, with quite a powerful libido. Yet, I have been able to control these things, mostly through the realization that to lose control of them is to commit sin and to do wrong.

God challenges us all with various things. Some of us are born with an urge to drink way too much. It can kill us eventually. I’ve known at least two people who have died from destroying their internal organs with alcohol.

I’ve known people who have destroyed promising lives with drugs. A close friend in college did just that. A classic image of a Preppie – penny loafers, khakis and button-down shirts were all that occupied his closet – he left after our freshman year with a 0.0 GPA and a habit that included marijuana, pills, acid and cocaine.

Still others suffer from kleptomania. This is a disease that makes people totally incapable of not being a thief. They MUST steal to satisfy their urges. I had a soldier some years back who was jailed and discharged because he had an insatiable desire to steal. He was an excellent soldier otherwise, technically and tactically one of our best. But he was convicted of theft, jailed, and eventually kicked out of the army. Tragically, he had a wife and children, but his moral compass had been crushed.

We now know from modern science that in almost all these cases, there is a genetic or chemical reason for these illegal and immoral actions. It is the same with homosexuality.

But, in our society, we justify homosexuality’s ‘morality’ by using science and genetics. By this logic, we should scrap Alcoholics Anonymous, get rid of all laws concerning drugs and narcotics, toss out DUI and DWI laws, and make stealing legal. Why? Because these ARE lifestyle issues. And since these issues are illegal or immoral, we are causing these people great suffering by making them feel as though they are wrong. It hurts their feelings to find out that what they desire is immoral.

Some people get satisfaction from hurting others. They enjoy torturing animals or people. It gives them a sense of power and well-being. Being homosexual does the same for those who a predisposed as such, despite the obvious fact that homosexuality is a practice that has caused many deaths due to disease. What, really, is the difference?

We have embarked in our society on a wave of empowerment that uses science to usurp morality. We grey in the areas that some groups have been able to convince us are white and aren’t, or vice versa (no pun intended). Seriously? Why are drugs and alcohol illegal in some or all cases? Because, first, they are immoral, and second, they are dangerous. Stealing is immoral as it hurts us all as a society. Homosexuality should still be immoral because every society in history that adopted homosexuality as ‘normal’ soon found itself destroyed. Not because of homosexuality, per se, but because the idea that what is wrong is actually right destroyed those nations’ moral compasses. And they were then destroyed.

Now, illegalizing homosexuality is not what I advocate. But allowing homosexuals to take over the nation’s moral compass is wrong. Homosexuality is and always has been wrong in moral societies. Using science to justify immoral behavior is at once perverse, and is aberrant and abhorrent. Science is NOT morality, though morality IS based in logic and science. Don’t let us be fooled.

She Blinded Me With Science

I must apologize. This most recent post was issued without my usual effort to edit, read, and proof. It was rushed. After I posted and slept on it, I realized that I didn't say what I wanted and that it would probably read way too harsh and in the end did not convey what I meant. I will rewrite it and repost it soon.

Could Obama Hurt Race Relations?

So, Barack Obama is the candidate of choice of the Democratic Party. All during the Democratic primary season, all I could think of was that the choices that the party had were unequivocated Evil (Hillary Clinton) and complete, total Naiveté (Obama). It’s a scary scenario, but what can you expect of a party that foisted the new Narcissus on America sixteen years ago?

Now a note on how I was raised. My father and mother were both Southerners born and bred. They came from a generation that still believed in the dignity, courage and righteousness of the Confederacy, and that believed blacks were a severe problem. Incredibly, though, my parents raised their three offspring that ALL people should be judged by nothing except their actions and character. I never heard them utter a single racist profanity during the time I was in their home, and was frankly surprised (maybe I was just naïve) at some of the actions I saw fellow Whites perform when I went to college.

It excited me to see General Colin Powell, a black man, become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because it showed me that Mom & Dad were right. And it distresses me to no end when we are continually bombarded today when such “firsts” as the recently-installed Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court being a black woman is considered newsworthy by the media. Why should it be? This is America, and the best person for the job should be placed in that job. Why should race be an issue today?

But, that is what has me worried. Barack Obama could very well become President of the United States. Yes, he is half-black (though in our Liberal nation that means he is “really” fully black), and he is considered by the Democrats to be the best person for the position. And that is part and parcel of what I find frightening. Why? you may ask.

Barack Obama is completely unprepared to perform the job. Except for less than one six-year term in the Senate, all his political background is local and populist. He has no military, foreign policy, administrative, or commercial experience of which to speak, except for “bringing home” the troops in Iraq. This does not bode well for a nation that leads the World in all those categories. Like President Jimmy Carter in 1980, he is running on nothing but rhetoric and sound bites. He has yet to elucidate a single sound policy on any issue, except to say that he will change America.

So, the problem? Every politician today touts “change.” And that is quite alright, though I’m pretty sure that “change” really means more of the same. What worries me is that a naïve populist, having not a single solid policy, being a “minority,” could be just as bad as President Carter and truly set back race relations in America twenty-to-thirty years.

A poor presidency by this man and you could have every racist kook and nutcase, egged on by a media who truly cares less about integrity than winning awards that they bestow upon themselves, gain some legitimacy and point to race as a factor. Can you see the next presidential race with a black candidate, regardless of party, being boiled down to what Obama did? That is not what America needs. It's not a good thing for our nation. What America needs is a capable, effective leader, regardless of race, who has vision, policies, moral integrity and the knowledge to do what the nation requires.

And I’m afraid Obama can’t do that today.

Why Is AIDS Not STD?

I’m getting older. We all do every day; it’s a fact of life. When we’re young we question things and we allow ourselves to soak up knowledge and ideas and opinions. These things, of course, form us and eventually help to make up who we are.

When I was young, in my teens, I was lucky. When it came to Sexually Transmitted Diseases, we called it Venereal Disease in those days - “VD.” We were pretty lucky I’ve learned. “The Clap,” the slang term used for all VD, could all be fought with drugs, and there were only a couple or three. I only knew one person who had contracted it by the time I left college at the age of twenty.

Then came Herpes. Now Herpes scared us, because it’s not curable. It wasn’t as bad as the others, but sores all over you when you were trying to impress the opposite sex were not at all helpful. It was a nuisance then, and is now manageable with drugs, but it was a venereal disease. Interestingly, VD was treatable for years much like Herpes is today, though no cure was known until the advent of antibiotics in the name of Penicillin and the like in the 1940’s.

Through it all, though, we had condoms, which many of us used anyway because The Pill wasn’t 100-percent effective. But condoms kept you more-or-less safe from parenthood and likely disease-free.

Then, in 1981, a strange series of ailments began to pop up in the male homosexual population in places like New York and San Francisco. Soon dubbed Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID), then soon after Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in an effort to recognize that it could infect heterosexuals, it was quickly recognized as a sexually transmitted disease, or ‘STD.’ In this age of the ‘politically correct,’ which I prefer to call the ‘politically confused,’ STD sounds nicer than VD. But, by any measure, AIDS is “an illness that has a significant probability of transmission by means of sexual contact.” At THAT is and was the definition of VD.

Now, AIDS is a disease of choice and of morality. Except for a very small group, AIDS is transmitted by immoral behavior. And it is because of this that AIDS is NOT VD! That’s right. Gonorrhea, syphillis, and herpes are VD. But AIDS is a disease that affects lifestyle. Mind you, immoral lifestyles can be affected by VD, but most are curable. AIDS to date is not.

AIDS has affected the homosexual community dramatically. Now the homosexual community will never admit that their very choices are what drives the AIDS epidemic, nor would the Free Love Generation of the sixties have done so either, I’m sure. But it IS these choices that have caused the spread of this horrific disease. As an example, one of the small groups noted above, those who suffered from hemophilia, have suffered disproportionately from AIDS. Hemophiliacs have a deficiency in the agent that causes blood to clot, and desperately require infusions of clotting agents. Once known as ‘bleeders,’ these innocent people received clotting agent that was a cocktail extracted from the blood of many, including AIDS-infected homosexuals, many who knew they were sick. But, in many cases these infected people donated plasma for money. As a result, many hemophiliacs were infected and died of AIDS. The homosexual community generally ignored their plight, as did the media. Hemophiliacs are well represented in the media, mind you.

I am continually heart-broken when I see a young heterosexual person on TV, a talking head for HIV/AIDS, explain how they never thought they were in danger. How it was ‘just once,’ or he/she didn’t know their partner was infected, or even worse – I don’t even know his/her name. These poor victims are trotted out by AIDS activist organizations and used to somehow make us all believe that we can catch this horrible disease, just by being heterosexual. They’ve been victimized twice – first by the disease and then by the activists.

I will readily admit that a huge group of heterosexuals in the Third World have contracted AIDS. But, without a doubt, the underlying reason that it has spread there is through prostitution, an inherently immoral act. Throughout the world today, if a married couple is free of AIDS, and stays monogamous, the chance that either will contract the disease are so infinitesimally small as to be unreadable. These are facts.

AIDS is caught almost exclusively but those who are participating in immoral acts, many of which are aberrant or abhorrent. This includes homosexuality, drug use, multiple sexual partners, anonymous sex, and the like. These are simple truths. And until we begin to look at AIDS as what it is, a Venereal Disease, it will continue its toll.

Liberal Ideas (Almost) Never Work

I’ve described myself politically for years as a conservative-leaning independent libertarian (I’ve emphasized the title so as to make clear that none of those words is meant to be capitalized). I have never belonged to a political party, although a number of so-called third parties look better as I grow older – and hopefully wiser.

The reason I bring all this up is probably obvious. This nation is heading into an election, the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long number of years. We will have on opposing major party tickets opponents who are not incumbents in the sense that they are from the previous or preceding administrations. The Republican is a “Maverick,” known for his strong personal and moral views on some subjects, but on others he will take a totally unexpected tangent and surprise everyone. The other candidate, though currently presumptive, is a political unknown. His record screams far-left liberal, but he spouts “change.” (That’s weird because the USA has been in the throes of liberalism since about 1932. For true change, the nation would have to move to the hard right or extreme libertarian, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what he means.)

I’m almost fifty. I’ve seen a lot, but nothing close to what others older than I have seen. I sat up late one night in 1969 and watched a human being walk on the moon for the first time in history. I’ve seen a younger generation in the span of ten years nearly tear asunder everything that was built by this nation over the previous 200-plus years. I’ve seen phones go from single rotary-dial appliances in most homes to nearly Star-Trek-sized communicators in the pockets of nearly every man, woman and child in America. Computers now have more power in a single chip than was used in the whole of the Apollo manned moon missions utilizing gigantic rooms full of six-foot tall computer cabinets. It has been truly amazing, and I am awed and excited by all of it.

America is a wealthy nation. We, as barely four percent of the World’s population produce fully twenty-five percent of the World’s wealth. America’s poor are, on average, wealthier than nearly all other people on earth. And it is this wealth that causes liberals (or Progressives as they prefer to be called) to make us believe that we are greedy, or not benevolent, or just too self-centered to see the problems around us. So, they must come up with solutions to make us fix our problems.

Sorry, but I don’t have any problems, except with liberals. Really. I don’t see a single issue out there that liberals and government can fix any better than I or my fellow citizens can. And while I understand that all these programs are based n the best of intentions, I also know to that the Road To Hell is paved with those same intentions. The examples are profuse, but I’ll dwell on but a handful.

In the 1930’s, in the throes of the Great Depression and the dustbowl and drought of the era, the liberal-hero-administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and its Soil Conservation Service and Civilian Conservation Service planted innumerable acres of kudzu, a decorative, Japanese vine, for use as a measure to combat erosion. The result? An incredibly invasive weed that has no natural predators and that can grow as much as one foot per day. They can overgrow whole sections of forest, cutting out sunlight to the engulfed trees, destroying it.

We all know of that Great Society program introduced during the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson – welfare. To date in America, welfare has been a boon to no one except politicians and government employees and bureaucrats. The original estimate of the cost of the program was well less than $100 Billion dollars. To date it has cost well over ten times that, and the amount of poor in the nation has stayed approximately the same, as a percentage of population. Additionally, the social destruction caused to the American family, especially those it was meant to help, has been catastrophic. Single-parent homes, especially in the minority community, have grown exponentially. This has had an arguably detrimental effect on at least two generations of children, and will likely be the same on many more. The result of this program? No fewer poor and the average American family giving well over one-third of their hard-earned income to the government. On top of that, today a black child is less likely to be raised in a two-parent household than he was during Slavery.

Energy policy in America has been driven by two items in the past two generations: fading memories of the Arab Oil Embargo and the subsequent Energy Crisis of the early 1970’s, and the environmental lobby. Ironically, America has more coal reserves than the Middle East has oil! We also have huge oil reserves. And the environmental laws that have been enacted forbid American companies from using much of the coal available or drilling for and extracting much of the oil that is sitting under US territory. On top of all this, as America expands and needs more energy, environmental laws have made the construction of new, expanded, or upgraded refineries impossible. So, the result of these liberal programs and laws? Nothing less than $4.00-per-gallon gasoline.

And while we’re on the subject of energy and gasoline – in the 1980’s there was a great hoopla over oxygenated fuels for cars. At the time, the mixing of ethanol into gasoline was detrimental to some autos, so an alternative was needed. MTBE, this new alternative, was hailed by the liberal environmental community. It would lower emissions, including ozone, and lead to cleaner-burning engines, and was legislated into the gasoline supply. At the time I was in Colorado and Denver and Colorado Springs embraced the new chemical as the way to help clean the smog in the air! The result of this program? MTBE, short for methyl tertiary butyl ether, has now contaminated innumerable groundwater aquifers. The EPA has concluded that MTBE may cause cancer in high doses. The cost of this well-intended, liberal fiasco will be as much as $30 Billion.

So now, we have Hillary and Obama, both with Liberal and Progressive stamped all over them, wanting to continue in the mold of nearly every American president since Johnson (except for Reagan). Nationalize healthcare! Bush 41 wasn’t any better with a massive expansion of government with Medicare Part D, a liberal program barely started and already grossly over-budget. Welfare as it exists, were it a privately-run charity, and would be on most attorneys’ general Grinch Lists at Christmas. At yet, these people want more.

Outside of Civil Rights, which was too long in coming, I have yet to see a liberal social program that did not eventually become stagnant, old, despotic, and too cumbersome. America doesn’t need new programs, America needs to get rid of many, if not most, of the ones it has.

And the sooner it happens, the better off we will be.

MILITARY CONTRACTORS

Over the past decade a lot of press has been devoted to the contractors supporting war and peacekeeping efforts. Most of this attention has been directed toward the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, or “KBR” as it’s known universally in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the military and contracting. The simple fact of the matter is that despite, or in spite of, the fact that Vice President Richard Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO before becoming the Vice President, KBR is the only company in the world today capable of handling the job that they perform.

There are many logistics, security, and service companies today that drool over the prospect of winning the sort of contracts that KBR have been awarded. Unfortunately for them, KBR got there “the firstest with the mostest.” When the US military of President Bill Clinton was looking for civilian assistance for the International Force (IFOR)/Stabilization Force (SFOR) mission in Bosnia, it was the deep pockets of KBR parent Halliburton that put up the money for then small KBR to perform the mission. And perform they did.

KBR’s business acumen and expertise built a relatively small subsidiary ready to fill the needs of the Clinton Administration’s military requirements into the powerhouse company it is today serving the military of the Bush Administration. Ironic, no? But, no matter the history, what can be said is that little KBR has learned what they needed to learn, built up a base of expertise second to none on this earth, and has performed quite admirably for America’s fighting men and women, and for its stockholders. THAT is how American capitalism works, and how it should.

In fact, the only organization in the world today outside Halliburton that is capable of performing the job they are doing is the US military. And despite what some in Congress and the media may say, outside of the US military only Halliburton’s KBR can ensure the successful performance of the support they perform under one umbrella. KBR trucks move cargo, KBR employees cook and serve the meals, KBR builds the infrastructure. The only thing that they don’t do is provide security.

And there’s the rub.

Contracting in support of the US military clearly has its place. Port-a-john maintenance and service is clearly a non-military profession that can be clearly filled by contractors. There are other jobs that could be filled with civilian personnel, but those jobs are highly specialized – manufacturers’ representatives and the like. But, the wholesale use of contractors is clearly becoming detrimental to the ability of the nation to fight wars.

This is a lesson that has been learned (and unfortunately forgotten) over and over by this nation and others. Rome’s army was essentially a mercenary and contractor army by the end of that empire and, with no loyalty to the command or nation, Rome’s army and navy fought poorly and the nation was lost. All the while Rome’s citizens all felt that serving in the military, and therefore defending the nation, was beneath them. Their job was commerce, and, of course, participating in the public debate of how to defend the nation.

America’s Continental Army utilized contract personnel, a large group being mule skinners and teamsters, early in our War of Independence to transport its equipment and goods. Those same contractors turned and ran when gunfire began. They were concerned that their investment in wagons, horses and mules, and equipment would be lost. Why should they care? The Continental Army was a pack of rebels to the British Crown, and if they lost, the contractors and their equipment could find other work. It wasn’t worth losing their property over. The Continental Army soon formed its own units to handle its cargo and transportation needs. And in a pinch, those Continental Army transporters could be put into the front lines to fight.

In World War II, US marines and sailors at Wake Island were assaulted by Japanese forces immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack. This was a full-scale air and sea attack by elite Imperial Japanese troops, steeled by years of fighting in China and other places in Asia. There were numerous civilian construction contractors on the island who soon found themselves armed and in the front lines with their military employers, totally ill-equipped and ill-trained to fight the battle-hardened invaders. Wake was lost and the tragic loss of those civilian construction contractors and the manner in which they were lost led to the formation of the US Navy’s Seabees.

History has taught that trained warriors are needed to fight wars. As the previous three examples of history demonstrate, contractors have not the training, expertise, or loyalty to properly function in a combat environment. And they can quit at any time. They are not required to have any loyalty to anyone but themselves and their wallets.

In Iraq and Afghanistan only specific contractors (those hired by such entities as the State Department) are allowed to carry weapons. Most contractors – those performing vehicle and aircraft maintenance, cooking and serving food, driving civilian trucks – are unarmed and are REQUIRED to be unarmed in the war zone! They are protected by soldiers and other contractors. In a fight, they are totally useless. And, just in case you didn’t know, there are big fights going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Iraq, the largest US base is Logistics Support Activity (LSA) Anaconda, a large former-Iraqi Air Force base about forty miles north of Baghdad close by the Tigris River. Of all the personnel there, about one-in-three is a civilian. This ratio places an undue burden on the military personnel there.

The major reason behind civilian military contracting has been to place the soldier in jobs that the military specifically does well, such as killing the enemy and “blowing things up,” as GIs jokingly say. But at LSA Anaconda, with one-third of the personnel unarmed civilians, the responsibility of securing the perimeter and providing security FOR 100% OF THE PERSONNEL falls on the GI. Nearly all this duty falls on soldiers whose jobs are to perform paperwork, maintenance, transport, and any number of myriad jobs that a soldier may be required to perform in their regular duties.

Soldiers perform guard and security duty twenty-four hours at a time. Once their duty is complete, they are (generally) released from all duty for another twenty-four hours to rest and recuperate. So the unit loses the services of that soldier for two days. Now, normally a unit will have five, ten or fifteen soldiers on details on any given day. That of course means that there are the same number of soldiers resting from duty the day before. In many units this can be as much as ten percent of the unit! These soldiers are not maintaining equipment, repairing parts, performing maintenance, or doing any of the jobs they are regularly required to do. This burden would be reduced by fifty percent at LSA Anaconda if all those civilian contractor positions were filled by soldiers! The WHOLE burden of security falls squarely on the soldier.

There are other issues involved, too. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the rules of war as laid down by the Geneva Convention consider contractors as mercenaries, and as such are not covered by these rules. The military’s jurisdiction is non-existent. In one case in Bosnia, a contractor was found to be running a prostitution ring with some locals and a colleague. He was fired and shipped home. The Bosnians had no clear jurisdiction, nor did the US judiciary. The military could do nothing. A soldier would have been subject to military prosecution.
This is just one example of where the military and the contracting worlds collide.

In Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and elsewhere, soldiers are required to wear their uniform and to wear certain equipment. Additionally, they lug around weapons, ammo and other items as required. Contractors technically are supposed to mimic the requirements of the military, except of course the weapons, but they feel no real need to do so. It aggravates soldiers to no end when in 130 degree heat they are wearing helmets, body armor, full uniform, weapons, ammo, canteens, and whatever else they may need, and then they see a contractor in sorts, a t-shirt and a ball cap with his helmet and body armor slung over his shoulder, “because it’s just too darn hot to be wearing that stuff.” Soldiers are being held to high professional and personal standards, and the very people who they are told are working for them, and who the soldier must protect, flaunts his freedom. It breeds a lot of resentment.

And the single greatest injustice to the soldier is the pay differential. A contractor who never leaves the base and does nothing but maintenance, may make twice-or-three-or-four times the pay of a soldier performing the exact same job. But, that soldier has to perform guard duty on the perimeter.

The bottom line is this. War is the business of the military. Contractors are mercenaries and should not be needed in a nation of citizen soldiers, the standards of which are the highest in the world. Contractors end up reducing the fighting power of the very people they support and are useless to those people if the situation were to spiral into a real fight. We need to keep contractors out of our military operations and get more troops into the military.

Period.

Talk Radio IS The Alternative

I consider myself politically to be a conservative-leaning independent libertarian. Yeah, it’s a mouthful, but I believe it best identifies me. And yes, those are all lower-case. I don’t belong to a party. There are things I believe staunchly that you would put into the libertarian column, and others that would throw me into the conservative line. I have voted for independent candidates, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, and one or two other parties. I have NEVER voted for a socialist, Socialist, Communist or National Socialist (Nazi) candidate. I’m independent, not stupid.

I used to be, though. When I was young, I believed that a European form of socialism (i.e. Christian Democracy, Social Democracy, etc.) was the natural state of things and the next logical step for stable nations. That was, of course, before I grew up. Growing up and seeing the world as it really is, and experiencing what it is like to have a family, raise children, service a mortgage, turned me into what I am today.

In other words, I’m a realist.

But, politically, one thing of which I am sure is that America’s media is in-and-of-itself, Liberal - with a capital ‘L.’ No question. I’ve debated this with a lot of people and every time I do, they will concur, even if only grudgingly. And every time –EVERY TIME - they always bring up Fox News as a clarion for Conservatism and the Republican Party.

I always answer with the question, “That’s it? Just Fox?”

I can name almost a dozen major media outlets right here that espouse liberalism and claim that’s it’s ‘mainstream,’ or ‘middle-of-the-road’ or whatever tag or moniker they place upon it. ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, ETV, Link TV, MSNBC, NBC, NPR (radio), and pretty much every other network out there, except Fox.

You’ll notice that I only mentioned a single radio source. There’s a reason. Right now, today, outside of Fox the only other true conservative news outlet is talk radio. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Mike Savage, Mike Reagan, and their ilk, are all financially successful and are doing well. Limbaugh claims, probably quite accurately, the he single-handedly saved AM radio. And the reason? Because, outside the emergence of Fox, this outlet is the ONLY alternative for truly opposing points of view in the media.

And it could be argued that talk radio is the reason that Fox is here today.

The only alternative to conservative talk radio, and a non-television mirror to the broadcast networks, is Air America.

Air America debuted with great fanfare and a lot of cheering from the visual broadcasters. Ah, FINALLY, an alternative to Rush, Glenn, and all those horrible, right-wing, hate-mongers. All we really needed was someone to put up the bank roll (in this case, for a goodly portion of the sum, Al Gore). Well, poor Al is failing just as spectacularly as his presidential bid. Air America is in bankruptcy and has floundered since its first broadcast.

It just proves the point. Air America is not needed. Americans tune to talk radio for an alternative, an opposing view. ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, ETV, MSNBC, NBC, NPR, and Link TV, etc., all say the same thing. Only Fox and talk radio are different.

And THAT is why they are successful.

AMAZING, BUT TRUE

An amazing thing is happening in America today. Nearly every other nation on earth avoids it so fiercely and completely that an international organization has been formed to perform the act in their stead. This thing occurs in but a handful of nations and it is the United States that has and will likely be the leader in this field for the foreseeable future.

What am I writing about here? War crimes trials. That’s right. Since the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal at the end of the Second World War, the US has been the leader in the prosecution of war crimes BY ITS OWN TROOPS. Really. Outside of Western Europe and North America it’s almost unheard of. But to date, we have or are prosecuting at least a dozen soldiers and marines for war crimes ranging from mistreatment of prisoners, to torture to murder of enemy soldiers and combatants, and even the rape and murder of a teenaged girl and her family, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That’s an amazing thing in this world. Can you imagine Syria prosecuting a soldier for shooting a handcuffed Israeli prisoner? Or Mexico trying its military personnel for torturing Zapatista rebels? Neither Japan, Germany, the Soviet Union, or Italy ever prosecuted any of their troops during World War II for committing war crimes. Certainly, the Soviets never did for any of the war crimes committed by their troops in Afghanistan, which was an ugly, vicious contest that saw children targeted with booby-trapped toys.

So why do we? I have a hypothesis.

We Americans are immigrants all. Most of us left our homes to escape persecution, poverty, injustice or for the adventure. Almost none of our ancestors were wealthy. Some of us were forced here through indenture or slavery. The wealth of the nation and we as a people was built from hard work and the honesty of a handshake, in many cases. These are facts. So wealthy a nation are we that even our poor are wealthier than most of the rest of the world. We expect to be able to have one’s word and believe in it. We believe that there is justice for all and that most people deserve what it is they get and have.

And so, when we see injustice in the world we cringe. We feel that we must do something to make things right. And so it is in war.

War, by definition, is unjust. Waged flagrantly, it kills all people in its way – men, women, children, the elderly, the young. We have developed weapons in this country that have changed the face of war. We can target specific people, places or things and eliminate them with a minimal chance of hurting others. The US has built a military that is as discriminate as any that is available with current technology. It is all because of the nation’s sense of justice, of what is fair, of what is right and wrong.

So, when we see the people who have volunteered to defend us and the nation do something we believe is wrong, it is we who want justice as much as the people who have been harmed. This is perhaps unique in the world. We see ourselves as moral, kind and helping. And we expect all Americans to be the same.

This, clearly, is a good thing.

My hypothesis is that, “Americans expect all Americans to be as good, moral and honorable as we expect or want ourselves to be.” It’s as simple as that. We have expectations that our children, who inevitably are the young troops that fight the wars, are moral, chivalrous, kind and fearless at the same time. Occasionally, some stumble.

Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq was an incredible stumble by some of these same troops. I know a bit more about it than the average American as I know someone who was there. I’ve asked all the questions everyone would want asked, and the answers are frightening, but somewhat understandable in context.

How many of us have teased the geek or nerd in high school? Or made fun of someone we believed was “beneath” us? How many of us wanted revenge on people who did that to us? And how many have taken their anger out on someone who didn’t deserve it? We all have. And without someone or something there to correct, calm or counteract us, we would continue to do it. That is what crime and punishment is all about.

Those young soldiers at Abu Ghraib Prison were undermanned by about half, overworked and forced into positions and responsibilities that they weren’t trained to do. Animal instinct took over. I asked my contact, “So, just what happened in that cell block?” His answer was, “Remember that study years ago where they divided up kindergarten children into blue eyed and brown eyed kids and then told them that blues eyes were better?” Within two days the blue-eyed children had set up a hierarchy of violence and abuse that caused the study to be shut down. “That’s what happened at Abu Ghraib.”

Deprived of proper supervision due to the lack of personnel, they made their own decisions and their own rules. All this despite frequent requests up the chain for more personnel, equipment and materiel to perform their jobs.

The result? One young soldier reported the abuse and now a number of troops directly and indirectly involved have been tried or have been convicted and are serving time for war crimes. This is something that no Middle Eastern nation outside of Israel has ever done to its own troops. Does that really surprise anyone?

The United States, despite its detractors, is STILL the beacon of justice that it has been for 200 years. And we will continue to prosecute and punish our own, because that is what a just and fair nation should do. And we won’t need the U.N. or any other organization to do it for us.

WAS MARILYN MONROE FAT?

Marilyn Monroe has been invariably lauded as the world’s greatest sex symbol, American model, Hollywood icon, cultural icon, and fashion icon – you name it. And she certainly was an incredible woman. Norma Jean Mortensen, as she was christened at birth, came from simple origins – she worked in an aircraft factory during World War II – to become the dream of nearly every American male. She was truly incredible.

And yet today, most would call her fat.

Marilyn Monroe was a size 13. That’s before the sizes were surreptitiously bumped upward by the fashion and apparel industry to fool Americans into believing they weren’t REALLY becoming fat. (When I was in college and much thinner I wore XL. Today I wear Large – but that’s another story.) Think about that. The world’s most amazing sex symbol WAS A SIZE 13.

I prefer the Marilyns of this world. You know the ones. Those awesome, busty, curvy, women with beautiful legs and the occasional blemish. Those that really need a bra to support their cleavage, not just cover it up. This is perfection in my world. It boggles my mind that a woman as beautiful as Alyssa Milano can be skewered by the paparazzi for being ‘fat,’ which incredibly has happened recently. Are these people insane? If she’s fat, I’m the Michelin Man. Okay, I may be a bit overweight, but I’m NOT the Michelin Man. And Alyssa Milano is NOT fat.

We constantly see this tilted view of women today, and thankfully there has been a backlash both socially and even medically. We’ve all seen the horror stories of bulimia and anorexia. These are recent sociological and psychological ailments, brought to us since the 1960’s by a warped view of feminine beauty. But, truly for many women it is too little, too late. And we have yet to address one of the roots of the problem:

Why do we, as a society, allow homosexual men to set the standard for female beauty?

Watch a fashion show. Any fashion show presenting women’s fashions. Every model is overly tall, incredibly thin and has no curves. Black, white, oriental, blonde, brunette, no matter. No cleavage, no hips, no bottom. Nothing. Even when I grew up, in my high school of 750 students, there might have been two or three girls built like that. And I assure you that of those, only one was in any way attractive. So, where do they find all these undernourished models?

Then the men who are hiring these women to act as moving manequins almost invariably are homosexual. Now, their selection probably makes perfect sense to them. What would a homosexual man find attractive? Probably a tall thin man with few features. Or the opposite – a man who’s really incredibly built, with large pecs and muscular, who ripples when he moves. If you’re dealing with a woman though, you’re likely going to have to go with the former rather than the latter when you are dealing with women’s fashions. And that is their idea of feminine beauty. A woman with absolutely none of the physical feature that truly make them a woman. A woman who looks more like a … well … a boy.

So, why do we, as heterosexual men and women, allow this to occur? What is the logic here? I see these rail-thin women on TV, in commercials, on movie screens, and notice the occasional ‘normal’ woman. They, of course, are invariably shown as ugly, or bossy, or bitchy, or ditzy. I revel, though in Alyssa, and even in Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Tisha Campbell (My Wife & Kids), Delta Burke (Designing Women) and Kirstie Alley (Cheers). Hey, these women are beautiful even if they are large and occasionally fat. They’ve got cleavage. They’ve got legs. They’ve got a butt, and they generally carry it all well. They DO NOT look like boys. They are real women, just as God intended.

A lot like Marilyn Monroe.