Ken Nelson

You have a 1 in 30,000,000 chance of getting killed in a terrorist airplane attack.

Pretty decent odds.

What else has a 1 in 30,000,000 chance of killing you?

Airport Security Scanners.

It makes mathematical, and common sense, to move to a screening model that looks for bombers not bombs.  And if we would just keep Muslims off planes the odds of terrorist killing you in a plane would plummett even lower.

Alas, our government IS NOT interested in protecting us. All this TSA stuff is really about government union jobs and cover your ass by government bureaucrats.

Give us choice. Schedule flights which do not have security checks.  But… the crew is trained and armed. Perhaps they are ex-Seals (in my perfect world). They don’t serve, they protect.  If I want a snack, I bring it with me.  And the plane has sturdy cockpit doors. And give the air crew the right to say “sorry, you can’t take this ride” to any passenger for any reason.

This would be easy to do… just have a low security terminal. If you board at Terminal “L”, you just walk in, just like the old days.

I’d fly that way.

And eventually we could tell the 67,000 new Federal employees we’ve hired for the TSA since 2001 to go be a pension burden for somebody else.

The problem with our TSA is that their only solution is MORE TSA, LESS flyers, and LESS liberty.

And, as usual, Matt Drudge has it right.  The terrorists have won, a battle at least. They’ve made traveling in the West really uncomfortable, slow, and are damaging our economy because of it.

But… they couldn’t have done it without our government’s help.

The sham that is security doesn’t help, doesn’t work, and only adds cost and aggravation to US air travel.  Sure, I’m being groped and pictured nude, but Achmed the baggage handler is slipping whatever he wants onto planes.

The problem is that somebody EXTREMELY UNLIKELY to be a terrorist, me, is being cavity searched while somebody QUITE LIKELY to be a terrorist is handed a security pass and told to wander around the airport.

About all our government does well, outside of our fine military, is waste our money and our time.

Related… Abolish the TSA.

One year ago today a Muslim Army officer committed an act of terrorism at Fort Hood, Tx.  These soldiers, and an unborn baby, were killed by the terrorist:

Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, Havre de Grace, Md.
Maj. Libardo Caraveo, 52, Woodbridge, Va.
Cpt. John P. Gaffaney, 54, San Diego, Calif.
Cpt. Russell Seager, 41, Racine, Wis.
Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, Plymouth, Ind.
Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, Kiel, Wis.
Spc. Jason Hunt, 22, Tillman, Okla.
Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, Mountain City, Tenn.
PFC Aaron Nemelka, 19, West Jordan, Utah
PFC Michael Pearson, 22, Bolingbrook, Ill.
PFC Kham Xiong, 23, St. Paul, Minn.
Michael G. Cahill, Cameron, Texas [civilian]
Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, Chicago, Ill.
Velez, unborn child

I wish I could write that thankfully the Army learned its lesson and adjusted how it handles Muslim soldiers, but they haven’t. And they also still leave their soldiers unprotected on bases all over this country.  Soldiers are still not permitted to carry defensive firearms on or off duty.  Personally owned firearms are still banned on bases.

It is sad, and irritating, that the softest targets in America are our military bases.  The jihadists certainly know this.  I just spent 3 days at Fort Benning. I left my carry gun at the hotel when I went on base.  Security wasn’t particularly tight.  They did check identification and momentarily confused me with a Ken Nelson who is a violent murderer and is a wanted man, but was born one year earlier  than me. By the time they sorted it out I could have shot them all and made my way to softer targets on base.  Cars weren’t being searched. Any jihadist could have snuck in pretty much any amount of weapons. And had a fiest on America’s finest, but unweaponed, soldiers.  The jihadists would be safer on base than at a local mall.

When my son asks “Dad, should I join the Army”… I honestly can’t say what my response will be.  There are great things to learn and do in the Army, but at the same time, if the Army won’t protect him or let him protect himself, how can I approve?  And even more importantly, if they are willing to sacrifice troops for false political correctness at home, what is happening overseas?   I’m just not sure the Army’s and our political leadership have America’s interest in mind any longer.

Hint… this DC hot spot for lobbyists and what they purchase might be a target.

Terrorists have threatened to shoot into D.C. restaurants crowded with government workers:

"A random hit at a crowded restaurant in Washington, D.C., at lunch hour might end up knocking out a few government employees," Yahya Ibrahim writes in the 74-page jihadi how-to magazine.

Plus the terrorist could likely get away easily, especially if willing to ditch the weapon.

But hey, no worries, D.C. has an weapons ban, so don’t worry… the patrons won’t be shooting back.

I didn’t feel safer, but I did feel slower.

We spent the day on San Juan Island, an island in the Puget Sound off Washington State.   The ferry ride back took an hour. Alas, the exit from the ferry parking lot took well over an hour. Why?  Stupid nonsensical border checks for a boat load of people who had never left the U.S.   Our ferry had originated in Sydney, B.C. Canada, so some small proportion of folks had gotten on in Canada.

Instead of having a border agent on the boat to check them on the trip to Friday Harbor, they made ALL of us  - the 90% who hadn’t been to Canada wait in an infuriating line.  We were asked “Did you go to Canada?”. Ou answer, “No” and we were waved on our way. But we had to wait for all those who said “Yes”.

Stupid!

We can take it. Yes we can!

Woodward quotes Obama with this jewel:

"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."

Context is important. Was this in describing us as stiff upper lip Battle of Britain type America…. or was it justification that we should do less to prevent attacks, because ‘we can take it”.

Ace suggest the latter. He suggests Obama frames it context of we should put up with attacks and not over-react by attacking countries that hosted the perpetrators or being suspicious of Muslims:

The problem, you see, is primarily within us, those being targeted for murder. If only we understood that this was a good bargain in exchange for living in a multicultural country and global economy, then we could be good citizens of the world and not lash out so terribly and uselessly when some of the more aggressive proponents of multiculturalism blow up a few of our buildings.

It would be interesting for Woodward to spill the context of that quotation. Was it defending or rationalizing doing less to prevent attacks?

Oh sure he says “everything we can” but it is Obama speaking. His “everything” is quite different from a typical American’s view.

 
Here we go again.

If you read the highlights of Bob Woodward’s new book it seems clear that Obama doesn’t want to be in Afghanistan. I don’t know if that is because he is generally anti-war/anti-military, because he’d rather spend the money on unions, or because he just wants to hide his head in the sand.

But instead of just imposing his will as Commander in Chief, and taking responsibility for this decision, he instead takes the best advice of his military advisers and corrupts it. He thus ensures lots of soldiers are there to get hurt or killed, but not enough to get the mission done.  He even refuses to talk about the war in terms of winning or losing.

In this he rises his stock as American’s most evil, narcissistic, “it’s all about me”, President since Richard Nixon.  That’s right… evil.  Getting other people killed, for your political benefit, is evil in my book.

This isn’t hope and change. This is politics from 1970. Its retro… and not the good kind.

Those who voted for Obama ought to be ashamed. And if they haven’t yanked their support for him then they need their head examined.

Obama is 2010’s Nixon. There are no protests because there is no draft, and the military is a tiny percentage of our population. Our callow nation pays false homage to the sacrifices our volunteer military makes while voting in those that will abuse that service. It’s sick, frankly.  It says much about Obama, and even more about us.

Used to work with us

As I read this:

– The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there.

I couldn’t help but cringe as I thought of the problems that 3,000 well-trained, “elite”, Muslims will cause once we bail on Afghanistan.  It fits the old adage of "today’s solutions” becoming “tomorrow’s problems”.

I remain unconvinced that improving Afghanistan is key to our national security. Another option, untried, is keeping anywhere that trains terrorists as rubble.

It boils down to a lesson the Romans learned in training the Barbarians, the more we train Muslims the more they will use that training against us – eventually.

He seems very grounded that he was fortunate to be selected, for what he believes many others have also done,  and appreciative of the significance of the award.  I like him, as I do most Staff Sergeants I’ve met in my day.  Congratulations SSG Giunta. Well done!

If you can’t burn it, what CAN you use it for?

Foxes are bold and cunning. Gerbils are scared and tentative.

So which critter is Fox News now that it is scared to show a few burning Korans?

New Slogan: We decide. We report.

In America it takes decades of governmental malfeasance to bring thousands to the streets. But in the Muslim world alls it takes is a preacher with a weird weekend plan.

Frankly, I think these Muslims are too touchy. I don’t mind some of these Christian kooks burning the Koran, if just to stick the Muslim kooks a bit.

But Ken… what about “the troops”.

That’s a bunch of hokey. Anytime Democrats worry about the troops, they are lying.

This will stir up radicals in our country, thus exposing them to our FBI listening posts and spies. That is a GOOD THING.

Does it offset Afghanis marching?  Well, it seems to me that that country has a LOT more to worry about than what a preacher 8000 miles away with 50 members in is congregation does. Don’t you?

Muslims need to learn to not be so touchy. When they do, maybe they will also realize how close they came to utter destruction.

Good thing he wasn’t compared to a cat

Obama complaining about folks talking about him “like a dog” bothered me today. For two obvious reasons… one is that Presidents shouldn’t bitch about negative comments. The second is nobody has actually compared him to a dog.

But underlying my irritation was a 3rd reason that it just sounded “odd”, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Vox Day identifies what is odd about Obama’s complaint, from an American perspective:

To me, the most interesting aspect of this is that the first negative thing that sprang to mind when Obama wanted to express how people were badmouthing him, he thought of "a dog". That is not a normal American expression. One works like a dog, one is as loyal as a dog, one is dog-tired, whereas the negative forms tend to utilize the term "bitch" instead. Using dog in this perjorative sense is much more common in the Arab world.

So he may not be a Muslim (now), but his upbringing in the Muslim world has given him a fundamentally non-American way of thinking.

Which could be an excellent explanation for his un-American policies.

Ah… the good old days. 

I don’t understand all this “combat troops” out of Iraq talk.  It still is dangerous there. 50,000 troops remain, all with significant combat capability and with real world patrolling and defense missions. Sounds like “combat” to me.

Reports like this remind me that our newspapers and media outlets just have no idea what they write about. In this case, they just go along with what the Obama administration wants to tout.   The touting, btw, is in support of 100 billion in budget cuts, not “we won”.  It’s “yippee, it’s okay to cut”.  It is okay to be a tool, but at least know it. I doubt the media really get it.

I supported the initial invasion of Iraq. Maybe this was just me being patriotic, but also a lot of it was that I thought we would be smart in victory, not dumb. So after the first three weeks, I supported very little of what went on.  We did not need to drive around getting ourselves blown up. We did not need to defend Sunni against Shiite against Kurd against Wahhabi. Far better would have been to just seal off any WMD sites, and then go to the Iran border and let Iraq sort itself out.

Our military has done an amazing, but unnecessary, and unsustainable, job in Iraq but ultimately the Iraqi culture is not up to the task of being our democratic ally in the region.  Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, hope so, but… I’m usually right and expect to be here.

So at a cost of trillions, 4,000 US deaths, and thousands more casualties we now have a new, sort of democratic nation where only a few hundred are blown up each month in car bombings.  We now have a near nuclear Iran, and we now have a true ally (Israel) mortally threatened. And instead of a forward base against Iran we have a nation we are plotting to retreat from as soon as possible.

All in all… I’d have to say, if this is victory, losing must REALLY suck. Clearly, it wasn’t worth it, and all in all, I’d have to say it is just more evidence that we aren’t the country we once were.  Is it unpatriotic to say this?  Maybe. I’d certainly hate to have a son killed there and read stuff like this.  But… I’ve got a son getting older every day, and I’d like to avoid him being wasted on ventures like this.

Put another way… if I knew then, what I know now, I’d have never supported doing anything other than trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein, or possibly invading and making a sharp right turn.

And… it will take Pearl Harbor II to convince me that anything other than targeted assassination and massive bombing should be our next response against countries that act against our interests.

"Magnificent! Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.
God help me, I do love it so!"
- General George Patton Jr

25% of the anemic 2nd quarter growth of 1.4% was caused by defense procurement or consumption (i.e. war):

Alas, even the GWOT has to end sometime. Or does it?  Will we have a permanent military-war-on-terror complex, like we have left over from the Cold War?  That seems likely.