Thanks, Guys

CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq - Four-hundred and fifty Gulf Catering Company food service employees from India were awarded Letters of Appreciation at the Lakeside dining facility for their hard work and dedication Aug. 4.

The war in Iraq is over.  We won.  I know this because some five and a half years after coming to Iraq, American Force Protection officers can now accept the risk of large numbers of Host Country National Locally Employed Personnel (milspeak for Iraqis) on our Forward Operating Bases.  

Read Really, Really Trusting Iraqis at Strategy Page.

Third Country Nationals, civilian contractors who aren’t Americans or Iraqis, contributed more than most Americans know to victory in Iraq. Indians, Sri Lankans, Nepalis and Pakistanis from Gulf Catering Company fed us. Filipinos from Prime Projects International cleaned our latrines and manned our recreational facilities. Macedonians with Albanian names from Ecolog washed our clothes. Ugandans from SOC-SMG protected our High Occupancy Facilities from infiltration by Person-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices. Hungarians sucked out our porta-potties. Turks, Lebanese, Sudanese, Somalis, Bosnians, South Africans, Gurkhas, were all encountered on TQ two years ago.

The work they did would have been done by details of draftees in previous American wars. Our soldiers weren’t paid very much in those days, and we had lots of them to keep busy and out of trouble. The work the TCN’s do on big FOB’s still has to be done by the troops themselves at the little Combat Out Posts and Joint Security Stations. There are still places without latrine trailers and porta-potties where people do their business on a one-holer into a cut down 55-gallon drum. The TCN’s relieved the war fighters of most of the house-keeping/sanitation/chow hall/post police drudgery soldiers in camps have been saddled with since Deuteronomy. Good food, email, recreation, clean clothes, and air conditioned sleeping quarters mitigated a lot of combat stress, extending the number of high-intensity days troops could be subjected to before Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder rendered them combat ineffective. Such things are not “obscene amenities.”

So now the TCN’s are being replaced with locals. They did a good job. They earned more respect and appreciation than they’ll ever get.

UPDATE: Contractors: The New Element of Military Force Structure

UPDATE No. 2: Foreign Civilian Contractors Disappearing

Obama: PSYOP Master

Heard this on the radio today:

 

1. sarah p Says:
   October 27, 2008 at 5:04 amOk, I want to clear my conscious a little. Hopefully you could make a blog post to help some fellow clinton supporters out.I work for a campaign and can’t wait for this week to be over.I was doing it for a job. I was not a fan of any candidate but over time grew to love HRC.The internal campaign idea is to twist, distort, humiliate and finally dispirit you.We pay people and organize people to go to all the online sites and “play the part of a clinton or mccain supporter who just switched our support for obama”We do this to stifle your motivation and to destroy your confidence.We did this the whole primary and it worked.Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.People makes posts to the effect that the world has “gone mad”

   Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.

   We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn’t control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.

   see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become “sheeple”

   The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.

   Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and “fair and balanced” and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.

   This is why nothing sticks.

   The operation is massive, the goal is to paint a picture that is that of a winner, regardless of the results.

   There is no true inauguration draft or true grant park construction going on. There will be a party, but we are boasting beyond the truth to make it seem like the election is wrapped up.

   Our goal is to continue to make you lose your moral. We worked hard at persuasion and paying off and timing and playing the right political numbers to get key republican endorsements to make it seem even more like it was over and the world was coming to an end for you all.

   There is a huge staff of people working around the clock, watching every site, blogs, etc. We flood these sites. We have had a goal to overwhelm.

   The truth is here. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

   I am saying this because I know HRC was better for the country, and now realize this. I was too late by the time I connected to her. To me Barack was just a cool young dude that seemed like a star. I didn’t know him or his policies, but now I understand more than I care to and I realize his interests are more for him, and the DNC and all working like puppets with dean. I always thought a president wanted the better good for the country. The end result I see is everyone dependent on the government, this means more and more people voting for the DNC. This means the future is forever altered. I don’t see this as america, so I am now supporting John Mccain.

   Sarah Palin is a huge threat, and our campaign has feared her like you can’t imagine. If it seems unfair how she has been treated, well its because she has had a team working round the clock to make her look like a fool.

   this is a big conspiracy and I am so shocked that its not realized.

   We released a little blurb the other day that the Obama campaign was already working on reelection and now putting our efforts towards 2012. This was to make it seem like it was above us to continue caring about 2008. Trust me, its a lie. David is very smart, but its a sticky ugly not very truthful kind of intelligence.

   Its not over yet, but I think the machine is working. And its a hill to climb.

   I will be quitting my post on nov 5th and my vote will be for John Mccain. Fortunately, my position has been a marketing position and I don’t feel I had any part of anything I would feel guilty for. But I look forward to getting out of this as the negativity and environment upsets me.

   I wish you all well, and goodluck.

   PS my name is not really sarah. but I am a female and I understand your plight.

H/T: The MahaRushie,  TenthAmendmentChampion and Bitter Knitter. BK references Texas Darling, Cinie’s World and hillbuzz

ADDENDUM:   There is no real way to verify whether or not sarah p really works for a campaign.   Obamunists will quickly point that out while declaring such comments as manufactured “smears”  by a desperate campaign facing inevitable defeat.  Governor Palin’s admirers, on the other hand, will see in the comment confirmation of things long suspected.  We’ve seen what sarah p describes.  We know for a fact that somebody is working overtime to suppress the enthusiasm and optimism of decided and potential McCain-Palin voters.  What sarah p reveals in her comment is consistent with what we already believe to be true.  She either is what she says she is and speaks the truth, or she is not what she says she is and still describes the Obama campaign’s Morale Operation accurately, or she is not what she says she is and is lying about the whole thing. 

I like the idea of sarah p being a lone wolf civilian irregular information operator who actually doesn’t work for any campaign in any offical way.  Her comment is so good it should be true, and her message of resistance may very well buck up those who receive it.

UPDATE: Ace is suspicious.
UPDATE II: Either Anonymous_14 is sarah p’s sock puppet or there is another disgruntled mole in the Obama camp. Read the whole thing.  My favorite excerpts pasted below:

Put simply, you are being manipulated. That was and is our job – to manipulate you (the electorate) and the media (we already had them months ago). Our goal is to create chaos with the other side, not hope. I’ve come to the realization (as the campaign already has) that if this comes to the issues, Barack Obama doesn’t have a chance. His only chance is to foster disorganization, chaos, despair, and a sense of inevitability among the Republicans. It has worked up until now. Joe the Plumber has put the focus on the issues again, and this scares us more than anything.

3 – Obama’s radical connections. Standards operating procedure has been to cry “racism” whenever one of these has been brought up. We even have a detailed strategy ready to go should McCain ever bring Rev. Wright up. Though by themselves they are of minimal worth, taken together, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfelger, and now, Rashid Khalili, are exactly what the campaign does not need. The more focus on them, the more this election becomes a referendum on Obama. The campaign strategy from the very beginning was to make this election a referendum on Bush. Strategists have been banging their head on how successfully McCain has distanced himself from Bush. This has worked, and right now the tide is in his favor. People are taking a new look at Barack Obama, and our experience when this happens tells us this is not good news at all. When they take a look at him, one or more of these names are bound to be brought up. McCain has wisely not harped on this in recent weeks and let voters decide for themselves. This was a trap we set for him, and he never fully took the bait. Senator Obama openly dared him to bring up Ayers. This was not due to machismo on the part of Obama, but actually due to campaign strategy. Though McCain’s reference to Ayers fell flat in the last debate, people in the Obama campaign were actually disappointed that he didn’t follow through on it more and getting into it. Our focus groups found this out: When McCain brings these connections up, voters are turned off to him. They’d rather take this into consideration themselves, and when this happens, our numbers begin to tank.

What truly bothers this campaign is the fact that some pollsters get up to an 80% “refuse to respond” result. You can’t possibly include these into the polls. The truth is, people are afraid to let people know who they are voting for. The vast majority of these respondents are McCain supporters. Obama is the “hip” choice, and we all know it.

The only way he wins is over a dispirited, disorganized, and demobilized opposition. This is how it has been for all of his campaigns. What surprises me is that everyone has fallen for it. You may point to the polls as proof of the inevitability of all of this. If so, you have fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

Getting Ready to Give Up

Just watched FRONTLINE:  The War Briefing.  Gloom, doom, we can’t win, alles kaput.  What struck me the most was the total absence of any Afghan National Army or Afghan National Police in the show.  The US Army looks to be in the Korengal Valley by themselves, with a terp.  They can’t even recover a humvee from a ditch.  Watching them blow it in place just plain pissed me off.  Pissing me off and lowering my morale, preparing the mental battlespace for collectively throwing up our hands in exasperation and picking up our marbles and going home, seemed to be the purpose of the show. 

PBS interviewed a bunch of people, some of whom were worth listening to. There are some undigested corn kernals in this road apple of a show, but you have to be pretty hungry to dig for them.

I’ll have more on this later.

UPDATE: No I won’t. Old Blue took care of it for me. Click. Read. Learn.

We Can’t Logistically Support A Surge

Pakistan and Taliban battle for key tunnel

The Taliban attacks stretch all the way south from the Afghan border to Karachi, where weapons, ammunition, food and oil supplies arrive at the docks before being transported by road.

More attacks against the Afghan main supply route . Westhawk sez:

Why are the Pakistani government and army only now showing some fortitude against the Taliban? Although Pakistan harbors little affection for the United States, what it fears even more is to be abandoned or written off by America.

Listen to your Loggy Toads. 

They’re trying to tell you your LOC is subject to interdiction.

Jerking Our Supply Chain.

Kuwait, Dubai, and Qatar are too far away and Kandahar and Bagram can only handle so much traffic. We must get cooperation, or quit.

The Pakistan Fuel Connection

if the flow of fuel from Pakistan is completely cut off, American forces could be running on fumes within a fortnight.

Red Ball Express Rides Again?

The beans and the bullets and the go-juice must get through.  Some times it has to be fought through. 

The deal made with Musharraf back in 2001 was “give us overflight, a SPOD at Karachi, and an MSR and we’ll give you billions of dollars worth of bribes, plus F-16’s with which to threaten the Indians.  We’ll let you play us like rubes as long as you keep the LOC open.  Alternatively, we could just nuke you back to the Stone Age.”  Musharaff took that deal.  He’s out, now, and the next deal is still under negotiation.

Putting 30,000 more Western troops at the end of that tenuous cracker line is a bad idea.  Pulling out 30,000 non-essential personnel and caveated salsa dancers to be replaced by 30,000 Police Mentoring Team,  Embedded Training Team,  Operational Mentor and Liaison Team, and Human Terrain Team members, along with USDOJ, USDA,  and DHS Border Patrol augmentees,  would be a better idea. 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE: The Captain’s Journal has more on our vulnerability at Targeting of NATO Supply Lines Through Pakistan Expands and at Logistical Difficulties in Afghanistan

Distance Recruiting and Training of Low-IQ Lily Whites

Bomber Nicky Reilly was brainwashed online by Pakistani extremists

Reilly, who converted to Islam in his mid-teens, is thought to have encountered British-based Muslim radicals in internet cafés near his council home in Plymouth, which he shared with his mother.

Security sources said that radicals encouraged him to visit internet chat rooms and other websites where he encountered the men based in Pakistan who helped to mould a violent hatred of the West. Reilly, who appeared in court as Mohamad Abdulaziz Rashid Saeed Alim, set up his own page on YouTube, Chechen 233, where he discussed with the men who his targets should be. They answered his questions and directed him to bomb-making websites.

Wonder what role RICU played in this investigation?

“There is no cohesive and comprehensive outreach and communications strategy in place to confront this threat,”

The Al Qaeda Media Machine

Tribal Ruff Puffs

To fight Taliban, US eyes Afghan tribes

Afghan arbakai push out Taliban

A year ago in Nangarhar Province, they were sorely needed. Taliban fighters had returned to the caves of Tora Bora – the last known Afghan hideout of Osama bin Laden in 2001. From Tora Bora, they struck American forces in the district. In one ambush, they disabled an American Humvee that later had to be recovered by Afghan soldiers, says Zahir, the elder.

Then, after an attack on the district headquarters itself, Governor Gul Agha Sherzai asked Zahir, a member of his administration and an elder from the area, what could be done.

First, Zahir talked to the elders of the district. Then he delivered his message to Governor Sherzai: “I told Sherzai to go back to Jalalabad, and I will be able to defend my area.”

“I don’t need a tank, I don’t need a plane, I don’t even need a single bullet,” he recalls saying to the governor. “I will use sticks and I will use the guns my people have to defend themselves.”

Together with the elders, Zahir collected 600 volunteers. “But as soon as they [the Taliban] had learned what we decided, they left,” Zahir says.

It is efforts like these that the US is seeking to formalize and make part of a coherent Afghan strategy – a dramatic shift from even a year ago.

In January, Gen. Dan McNeill, then commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, dismissed the idea of supporting arbakai as applicable only in a few provinces, “and it’s not likely to work beyond those geographic locations.”

So use it where it will work.  Use it where one tribe dominates the village or district.  Use it where the maliks are respected and the jirgas meet regularly.   Soviet invasion, civil war, Taliban rule, and the last seven years have been tough on traditional Pashtun ways of doing things.  Sort of like what small pox, winter campaigns, buffalo hunters and reservations did to our Plains tribes.  Taliban commanders and war lords have been undermining the maliks for decades.  The opium cartels buy maliks, and they pay better than Kabul.  Pashtun tribes aren’t like Iraqi tribes in Anbar.   Fine.  Improvise, adapt, overcome and get some Popular Forces wherever we can.  Their feet won’t be in boots, but they’re already on the ground and we could use the augmentation.

The writ of Kabul has never run all that far.  In the old days, what law and order there was amongst the Pashtuns was based on the Pashtunwali, their tribal code of honor, as interpreted by individual tribesmen, maliks, elders, and jirgas, enforced by the power of public opinion and the arbakai, the men responsible for the enforcement and implementation of the Jirga decisions.  In ancient Aryan tribes, the Arbakai led groups of warriors in wartime and maintained law and order in peacetime.  Today, they take orders from a commander.  They are given considerable immunity in their communities and cannot be harmed or disobeyed.  Those who flout these rules are subject to the punishments set by the Arbakai organization.  I have compared them previously to Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. An inexact comparison, to be sure, but my target audience in the Amriki tribe are acquainted with Plains Indians soldier societies, while the intricacies of Ghaznavid ethnology glaze the eyes.

Honest Tajik Dudley Dorights like Col. Jalil Shamal of the Afghan National Police are too scarce. 

See also:

Arbakai @ [My] State Failure Blog
Arbakai Aim to Protect Their Villages in Afghanistan @ Development News from Afghanistan
CLC’s Good, Arbakai Bad
We will also work to increase the involvement of Afghan tribes.
Afghan tribes will not fit into a modern framework
The Death of the Anbar Militia Strategy in Afghanistan @ Ghosts of Alexander

 

An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth

You better watch where you go and remember where you been
That’s the way I see it I’m a Simple Man

 

Do unto others as they have done unto you. Worse, whenever you can. What goes around comes around. Make those SOB’s pay. Denial of legitimacy, the politics of personal destruction, and BDS are proven successful tactics. Intensity is everything. Loud, obstreperous, snarky, acidic opposition will likely be the only veto left. Inflict pain upon them for every agenda item they achieve. The power of weaponized ridicule, incessant insult, continuous, bitter, mean contempt, total scepticism, and massive manifestations of resistance, non-acceptance and non-cooperation displayed in every forum, every media, every common may be the only power the new domestic oppositional elements have left to undermine, retard, delay and impede progressive “progress.” Until they shut us all down.

First they corrupt the ballot box with vote fraud.

Then they control the soap box.

Fill up your bullet boxes while you still can.

What brought on this rant?

I FIND THIS EMAIL FROM READER DONALD GATELY DEPRESSING. Mr. Gately speaks for me.

What’s Coming. Mike is right.

IF ELECTED, OBAMA WILL BE MY PRESIDENT He may occupy the office because of voter fraud, and I may outwardly respect his rank as Commander-in-Chief in the interest of good order and discipline, but I’ll be faking it like a good Stay Behind. Rick Moran would have made a great Petainist.

never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. — Winston Churchill, via Leo Linbeck III at The Belmont Club.

See also varifrank’s comment at Vodkapundit.

John Rambo McCain Versus Obama bin Laden

Click here. Then click WATCH THIS MOVIE! over on the right side of your screen.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/460299

“OMG! We’re screwed!”

If you can’t get a chuckle out of this, you’re taking this shit too seriously.

H/T: No. 1 Girl-san Molly Pitcher.

One Man Human Terrain Teams for IW

Over on the Pak side of the Durand Line, the tribes are restless. Over on the ISAF side, attention may finally be paid to getting Pashtun irregulars into the fight against the Taliban. This could work. The Taliban themselves are Pashtun irregulars. Students of American military history are aware of the use of indigenous scouts, but up until recently the weakness and illegitimacy of Karzai’s regime made any paramilitary forces organized along local, district, provincial or tribal lines unacceptable. Finally, after almost seven years, propping up the regime we installed in Kabul after deposing the Taliban may not be the first priority.

The Pashtuns are not a tribe, but an ethnic and linguistic community of tribes, khels, clans, and Mafia families. Some of these people in RC East still retain traditions like respected maliks, or chiefs, discussion of issues by jirgas or tribal councils, enforcement of jirga decisions by arbakai, or tribal police, and applying muscle against interlopers with warrior bands of Kalashnikov-waving lashkars.

We haven’t really tried to make use of these tribal irregulars because the Amriki still don’t have enough fluent Pashto-speaking, snake-eating, scalp-taking, ear-collecting 18A Dog Soldiers to spare from DA hunting HVT’s. My perception has been managed to think that our potential Tony Poe’s are too dependent upon what terps, academics and Karzai’s guys tell them. Or maybe our military and intelligence communities no longer appreciate unconventional, loose-cannon characters who actually could thrive outside the wire.

We don’t need a surge. We need to make better use of everybody on the headcount we have now. We need a great culling of the fobbits. Tell everybody who is so caveated that Force Protection is their only mission thanks for coming have a safe trip home. We need a hard core group of stayers, who aren’t putting X’s on the Maxim calendars in their hooches for every day down, guys committed to multiple-year tours and/or contracts, promoted/paid appropriately for that level of committment and sacrifice. We need the stayers drinking chai with the elders, speaking Pashto, taking off the battle rattle, walking around like they aren’t afraid of anybody, gaining respect, developing informers, telling wedding parties from gangs of Taliban, knocking on doors instead of kicking them down, going native. But they’d be our natives, vetted, trustworthy, cleared professional soldiers, law enforcement officers, and intelligence agents, each a one-man Human Terrain Team. The British called them Political Officers. Honest Indian Agents could win us the war, or at least tamp things down enough for us to Afghanize the war, achieve Peace With Honor, and leave on our own terms instead of being run out .

See also: Losing the psy-war in Afghanistan
Sons of Dir Awakening
We will also work to increase the involvement of Afghan tribes.
Afghan tribes will not fit into a modern framework
“Any U.S. plan to combat Islamist extremism that relies on effective ground action from the Pakistani Army, the FC, or the Khasadars will fail.”
Pashtun Irregulars Disbanded
Seconded to the Afghan Constabulary
No Sons of Afghanistan Need Apply

UPDATE: via SWJ, Future Face of Conflict: Human Terrain Teams. A lot of GI’s have become amateur anthropologists when they stay overseas long enough. They used to call it “going Asiatic.” Going South West Asiatic is much tougher, because the South West Asians keep their sleeping dictionary cultural advisors locked away.

Reprinted Here For Maximum Dissemination

There are a lot more intelligent, thoughtful, and articulate commenters than there are bloggers. The troll tactic of spamming the comments sections with stupidity to drive off lurkers recognizes the force multiplier effect good commenters have on the effectiveness of a blog. Some of the best thinking on the internet is in comments, but it is time consuming and usually aggravating to pick through the horse apples in hopes of discovering the odd undigested corn kernel. Read cfbleachers’ comment of Oct 4, 2008 – 5:52 am on Kyle-Anne Shiver’s piece at Pajamas Media. It’s about political warfare, propaganda, counterpropaganda, old media bias, and other subjects often discussed on this blog.

There is a frightening aspect of intimidation, repression, suppression of facts, and deconstruction of evidence that surrounds the campaign …and, indeed the life…of the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

The standard “hard bounceback” response to almost any inquiry into the vetting process of the almost completely unknown history of the Senator from Illinois…is a mixture of empty platitudes, non-answer denials, accusations of racism, threats of retaliation and revenge and secreting of documentation.

The Democratic Party Media (DPM) operatives have engaged in a nearly universal conspiracy of silence…which is only broken to ridicule, lampoon and deride those with the hubris to merely make an inquiry into the murky associations and thuggery tactics of those associated with the Obama campaign. Anyone asking any questions about the Democratic candidate, are met with hurled epithets, slander, false accusations, false attributions, and suggestions that they are paranoid, Rovian Robots, or racist pigs.

But, they never answer the questions. The campaign has taken on a bizarre Nixonian flavor with enemy lists and carefully orchestrated “action orders” to take down anyone who disagrees.

This stinks of Soros and the vile little gremlins of the brown-shirted lefist variety at Move.on….who emulate their sugar daddy’s utter disregard for ethics and morality…while iron fisting socialism down the throat of and unwilling public body.

The conspiracy of silence extends to a new brand of leftism in our own land, much more aggressive and oppressive in tactics and now containing an “in your face” quality…in which truth, facts and news are subjective Machiavellian whims to be trifled with and bent, if necessary, to meet the “message”.

Fact finding is now a “distraction” from the “real” issues. Digging for the truth is met with an immediate “call to action” whereby all inquiries are shouted down by the Ayers Youth.

Public and university libraries conspire to shroud documents in layers of phony legal obstructions, while they stall, hinder and delay requests for freedom of review.

There is a brewing dark cloud rumbling and the conspiracy of silence calls down the thunder.

It is impossible to know at this moment in time, what is real, what is imagined, what is overblown and what is not…about the associations, beliefs, actions and intentions of the Democratic nominee. But a chill wind precedes the whole of it. Nancy Pelosi has proven to be an unstable hand at the helm of the Democratic ship, which anticipated smooth sailing to dominance over our body politic in all but the Supreme Court. And, the days ahead will certainly put total authoritarian dominance of even that body in play.

I’m always uncomfortable when one of the two parties has total dominance over all three branches of government. I’m especially concerned today. The “fairness doctrine” threat by Pelosi and her minions and lackeys…intending to bring back the halcyon days for liberals when they owned the “truth” in media lock, stock and barrel…and could infuse leftist propaganda without dissent virtually unfettered into the information stream. John Kerry in his inimitable dense manner, in essence blurted out to Charlie Gibson…”hey, you are supposed to be on OUR side”…removing the veil of pretense…that has all but been stripped bare in this election.

But, the weasels ripping flesh modus operandi of Soros and his thugs was most glaring and jarring…when turned against Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton. It became increasingly apparent and even more frightening to watch the spectacle…when used against a former Democratic nominee for vice-president, and a former Democratic first lady and candidate for first female Democrat running for the top of their ticket. Moral bankruptcy with an automatic stay provision on ethics ruled the day.

If we are to self-govern this land of ours, through representative government…we cannot do this with fauxtography, forged documents, photoshopped caricatures, libraries hiding evidence, …essentially a gang raped information stream. We can’t…it’s not open to serious or rational debate. The conspiracy of silence must be broken. Our ability to get facts upon which we make decisions about how we govern this land of ours…is a public trust.

Public institutions and certainly universities and public libraries are not free to disseminate information and evidence upon a political whim. That’s a violation of a public trust adherence to which should be sacrosanct.

Moreover, the dominant public information gathering places, television news, major metropolitan newspapers, radio, wire services, magazines, Hollywood, …which shape our views based upon the reliability of facts being separated from opinion…and more importantly, facts being separated from intentionally misleading screeds of a particular political persuasion…is a quasi public trust.

These trusts have been violated. In a manner and with a depth that is dangerous and at times, treasonous to our own country.

I have no idea about the eventual answers related to Sen. Obama’s lingering murky and shadowy past. I have no idea where he was born, or if that is a legitimate issue of discussion. It may not be.

I have no idea what influence Frank Marshall Davis had upon him, his radical professors at college, his attachment to Ayers, Dorhn, Klonsky, Wright, Pfleger, Sam Graham-Felsen, Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, Cynthia Miller, Jennifer Mason, Soros, Odinga, Massoud, Rezco, Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abunimah, Robert Malley, …all I do know is…there are enough smoldering embers of extremist radicalism touching his campfire …that no journalist of modest integrity could ignore with the resolve and steadfast silence that the DPM has shown en masse.

The DPM has shown a face of passive acquiescence toward the thuggery of shouting down principled dissent, but as character shallow as that is, it is there conspiracy of silence and refusal to engage in even asking the questions that has blackened their names for eternal condemnation. They won’t even ask the questions. They won’t work for the truth…they are so owned by the “message”.

Rev. Wright asked God to damn America. By way of conspiracy of silence by our 4th Estate and complicity in corrupting the process by which we govern, he may have gotten his wish.

This needs to go viral. Spread it around.

Dissent Is Only Patriotic When The Dissenter Is A Patriot

H/T: Outlaw 13. More like these at The People’s Cube.