Re:#99815 by lodipete on 9/11 at 10:00 am
(11 comments total)

My apologies for my poor English. It was a statement.
The statement referred to your comment about the front of his uniform (this is Patraeus you were referring to) being covered with medals.
What I did not put into so many words was: actually the medals you referred to were what we called “I was (wuz, variant spelling used in informal comunications) there” ribbons. These ribbons showed that an individual was in a certain zone, theatre, etc., hence the slang term for them.
I was able to recognize a Purple Heart device and my comment about paper cuts being nasty referred to some officer’s feeling the need for a PH for non combat ‘wounds’.
Hope this cleared it up for you, and again, my apologies for not being clearer in the post.

My Dad has a Purple Heart, from his combat time in Korea. And of course he still has the permanent disability that earned it. No papercut his, but the real deal bullets to the hip, resulting in gradual (albeit minor) amputations over the years.

He used to get his care from the VA. But....things have certainly changed there as well, as we have all witnessed.

Patreus didn’t mention any of that though. He didn’t say a thing about what we might do about taking care of those troops that he might eventually allow to come home, all too often to an eventual homeless existence.

Anyway, my now 84 year old dad made an odd observation recently, and again yesterday. According to him, there must not be any real fear (on the part of our leaders) about any additional attacks on “the homeland” which of course is what we’ve been taught to live in fear of, for the past 6 years.

HIS logic, is that they can’t possibly be expecting another such event as 9-11 or worse, because otherwise, they wouldn’t have our entire military force tied up 6,000 miles away...including the National Guard, who....at one point in time, was designed to defend the homeland...AT HOME.

I have no doubt that HIS logic is sound, but as we see, it’s not the logic of the leaders.

We’ve been using the same logic in our “guessing” attempts on when Cheney will give the order to attack Iran. The common response has been to suggest that there’s NO WAY we would attack Iran, when we’re already so terribly bogged down in Iraq. Here again, we rely on conventional wisdom, and that is our error, because it is NOT the logic utilized by those who are calling the shots.

So, when Congress figures out that they are supporting a team of madmen, who have never operated on the level that the rest of us comprehend, then maybe...if it’s not already too late, we can try this experiment in government again. I don’t know.

Meantime, I’m actually getting tired of the complaints against the Dems in Congress, since it is clearly not a majority of THEM, who are keeping us in this war.

No, the whole flippin’ batch of them have failed us. So, we’ll see how they decide. If they agree to more money for this, that will be the final straw. It will be time to go over there and pick up our kids ourselves.

“From what I saw, most were I wuz there ribbons. Did see one Purple Heart. Paper cuts can be nasty.”

Rephrase the question or statement in English so I can understand it.

Lodipete
From what I saw, most were I wuz there ribbons. Did see one Purple Heart. Paper cuts can be nasty.

“It’s always puzzled me how a soldier like Petraeus, whose been leading his “men” from behind a desk for decades, wind up with the front of his uniform plastered in every available spot with nice shiny medals while your average GI Joe, through maybe 2 or 3 REAL wars, with front-line combat and real bullets coming at him may wind up with only two little rows of decorations?”

Here’s how it worked in VietNam; if a firefight led by a platoon leader or a company CO lasted long enough, sooner or later a batallion CO(Major or LC) would show up,do nothing, but give himself a medal. If it lasted long enough, a regimental CO(Col.) would fly over, give advice, flyoff and give himself a medal. If it went on a bit longer, the Div.CO(Maj.Gen.) would fly over, observe the fight, keep on going and give himself a medal. I observed the spectacle of a Lt.General taking charge of a platoon size fire fight from an obs plane and damned near getting everybody BUT the NVA killed. I’m sure he gave himself a medal.

The usual false rhetoric by Bush operatives. Any statement is for effect, not communication. Thus a withdrawal of 30,000 troops carries the word withdrawal but fails to recognize that it will put us at pre-surge level and thus sustaining any surge is impossible anyway (without drastic measures such as a draft). A real withdrawal (after the 30K drop) step is conspicuously missing in his statement.

Greg,

Are you looking for a job as a research assistant?

I can’t pay much, but maybe we could swing the same kind of deal with OBL as Katz and Venzke have managed?

Anyway, thanks again for all of the info. You do great work. About Ben Venzke...for whatever the reason, his name sounds very familiar, in connection with the Official 9-11 Omissions Lies. I could almost swear it, and I think I even have it stored somewhere on this computer.

How odd is that? I’ll check.

#99632 by PAIDTRIOT on 9/10 at 12:05 pm
(Unregistered commenter)

Your “name” says it all.

It’s always puzzled me how a soldier like Petraeus, whose been leading his “men” from behind a desk for decades, wind up with the front of his uniform plastered in every available spot with nice shiny medals while your average GI Joe, through maybe 2 or 3 REAL wars, with front-line combat and real bullets coming at him may wind up with only two little rows of decorations?

It’s all about show business, ain’t it?

We’re being told that Bin Laden is getting ready to release another video, maybe tomorrow, the 9/11 anniversary.

Yet, try Goggling the supposed al-Qaeda web page called “as-Sahab Institute for Media Production” and you won’t be able to find their home page on the web.

Yet, aL-Qaeda regularly releases video to places like S.I.T.E.--run by Jewish immigrant Rita Katz and to a place called IntelCenter, run by a Ben N. Venzke, who has Jewish surname.

So just how in the hell do the #1 enemies of BL and aL-Qaeda always seem to be the first ones to get their hands on these aL-Qaeda videos?

Has aL-Qaeda signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Katz and Venzke?  How else would one explain these videos only be delivered--or made--at Katz’s group, called S.I.T.E. and Venzke’s group called IntelCenter?

Sure is nice of BL and his pals to sign away exclusive rights to some of their good buddies and pals in the Jewish world of intelligence???

Here’s some info from Source Watch on Ben Venzke and his IntelCenter:

April 2006: A video featuring Qaeda no. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he said the US military had “seen only ‘loss, disaster and misfortune’ in Iraq”, “was first obtained by IntelCenter”.[2].
In June 2006, a video of “20th hijacker” Fawaz al-Nashimi, who died in a shootout in Saudi Arabia in 2004, “was released by IntelCenter”.[3]
On 30 September 2006, IntelCenter “made available” an 18-minute Al-Qaeda tape in which Al-Zawahiri called Bush “a deceitful charlatan”.[4].
On 2 October 2006, IntelCenter and Venzke were again referenced as a source in an article detailing a silent Al Qaeda video recently released in which two 9/11 hijackers, Muhammad Atta, and Zaid Al-Jarrah, read their last will and testaments[5].
On 4 July 2007, an al-Zawahiri video was “provided by al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab Media to ... IntelCenter”.[6] Another US-based intelligence group, SITE, “said it had obtained the tape ahead of its release on the internet by militant web sites”.[1] The video was “first reported by IntelCenter and SITE”.[7]
For one easy payment of $995 US, you too can have the benefit of an “Incident Component,” and “Identity Component,” containing “profile data on individuals associated with terrorist and other threat actor groups.” Not to mention, “The Group Component,” focusing “on terrorist, rebel, and other similar organizations.”

Like Tempest Co., IntelCenter’s sister company, it is apparently based out of a post office box in Alexandria, Virginia (according to the contact information on both websites). Both companies mention one Ben N. Venzke as CEO, this according to both Wikipedia and the companies’ websites.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=IntelCenter

What’s next?  Rita Katz and S.I.T.E. signing a exclusive licensing contract with the Aryan Nation?

He betrays himself.  He did not present that status report with any energy; he did not defend it with passion.  He sounded like someone who had been given his orders and he is following them--he answers to the commander in chief. 

Now we’ll see if Congress bases its decisions on this so-called information--none of which has ever been credible before--or if they do their jobs and determine the true facts. 

Biden is already covering.  On MTP yesterday, he insisted that funding was necessary to protect soldiers and that funding could not disrupt war plans.  Does that mean you just lie down and write out a check, no questions asked, no demands presented?

So Gen. Petraeus thinks that we have to wait another Friedman Unit before we can decide whether to drawing down troop levels.  It sounds as if he has taken his marching orders from the White House to put an optimistic spin on the situation without having to act on it.  Postponing the decision until the middle of the Presidential primaries is a deliberate political move.

“...and that it is likely that a new plan needs to be put in place.”

I’ll settle for a FIRST plan - you know, the plan that should have been conceived and thought through by people who know something about thinking, planning and the region/people in question. Of course, if that had happened, there would have been no invasion, no war, no on-going misery for all concerned.

I do hope those responsible and all those who have aided and abetted them are prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for the rest of their unnatural lives.

The only bright spot was Arlen Spector saying that all the ‘facts and figures’ need to be closely examined...and that it is likely that a new plan needs to be put in place.
Unfortunately, for a new plan to evolve, Shrub will have to be removed and so far, the Republician’s are too ashamed to admit that they have blindly followed a clueless leader and allowed things to get to this point.
One Congress critter was quoted as saying that progress has been made in making the Iraqi Army more professional. Uh...standing in formation with your shoe laces tied does not equal professionalism.
The Iraqi Army will never be effective as there are too many different loyalties, from familial to religious for them to be effective within Iraq.
We have been training them, at great cost to our taxpayer’s for better than 3 years and they still aren’t ready.
An 18yo enlistee gets 6 weeks recruit training, 8-12 weeks advanced training, based on his MOS and then that recruit is expected to fight.
Why even the Shrub can’t see a disconnect there is beyond understanding. ‘Course he is more interested that the right Republican donor’s get the oil drilling rights in Iraq, such as the Hunts of Texas.
It ain’t what nor who ya know, it’s who ya bribe that counts.