Hey, it's late at night, (or early in the morning)and I had an idea...How about we start a fund to send Pejman, Dr Weevil or Godless to boot camp? Even if they are too old/infirm, a sufficient amount of money in a Congressmans' reelection fund might get us a private bill waiving age/minor physical infirmities, and thus allow them to "join up" which seems to be their fondest wish. I am sure that there are legions of NCO's and Officers who would be THRILLED to have such mature, motivated troops in their units. Shit, I might even go back onto active duty just to see this!

Damn...we really need to get onto this. I'll even administer the Oath of Enlistment for them after they finish up at MEPS and get their physicals and ASVAB tests out of the way. The only condition is that they are not allowed to join the Air Force; that would be too easy. It's gotta be (1) The Army (2) The Corps or (3) The Navy (an afloat unit, of course). I'll toss in the first $20. No donations larger than $20 please, after all we're going to need some money when Dubya finishes taking the economy into the dumper, just like Poppy did 11 years ago. And before all you Zoomies go busting on me, let's face it, life in the wild blue yonder club ain't tough on the same scale as your sister services...good duty, good chow, good bases, it's just a bit of envy from an old squid...

We can form the SACToW-PAC (Send A Chickenhawk To War - PAC) ...10 grand should get one or more of them in I would guess....although I don't know what Congressmans go for these days...

OK and just so we are all on the same page here, can someone who is clued into the pro-WAR pro-life (that's kind of oxymoronic, doncha think?) explain this to me? I was on active duty from the mid 70's to late 80's and into the Reserves until the mid-90's, and not being female, I can't tell you that I remember anything about this...but it seems sort of sorry that we are denying these women who are SERVING and potentially going into Harms Way a basic right...abortion is such a shitty deal, and it's been too politicized and makes us worse as a society for all the polarization it causes. Now the military is using an old policy from the Tail-Gunner Ron era to screw our women in uniform a second time. Gee, maybe it'll work to have abstinence lectures for sailors who are deployed...always seemed to work when I was in, I guess that's why the line for Clap Call was out onto the weather decks when we left Subic and Phattaya Beach....they all caught it at the Christian Science Reading Room from the toilet seats...

It's interesting that PejmanPundit and Dr. Weevil are so completely into wanting to send the folks at WBW to IRAQ to be "human shields".

I have seen some interesting discussions here in the Blogosphere in the last few months with respect to the whole "ChickenHawk" debate. I have to admit that I have contributed some to the discussion and that I really do feel that there is a double standard being put forth by the right in the discussion, to wit: it's ok to be for it (the WAR), as long as you chant the correct amount of patriotic rhetorical nonsense in sync with the Administration. Am I the only one who has noticed, or has the administration changed the rationale for invading Iraq from "the removal of the Evil-doer Saddam" to prosecution Saddams' regime for harboring terrorists to the excuse du jour...

OK, so I procrastinated, shoot me...not really, OK? After listening to Dubya's speech today and all the attendant sound bites (bytes?). I am disturbed by the amount of obvious prevarication by the administration about the impending Battle...We are now going to fight a war by marketing strategy. Does that mean that all the market research firms who contributed the least to the Bush Election Effort will be in the first wave into Baghdad? This is coming from the selling of the "message" last weekend on the Sunday Talking Head Shows and from Andy Card's comment about August not being the best time to "introduce a new product". Excuse me?
War is a Product? Do you have end aisle displays? Can I use my Kroger Plus Card to get a discount on the battle or skirmish of my choice? If I contribute to the RNCC, can I have a hill or objective named after me? "that's it Troops, we have to take Objective/Hill Jo Fish by 0900 so they can lay down a barrage of Willie-Pete"

I think I'm going to be sick.

--JF

Sickening

-JF

Is filling out an income statement really this difficult? Apparently so, Sen Bill Frist, MD of Tennessee had a wee bit o'trouble with his income statements concerning the sale of a Laundromat near Vanderbilt University...another "business saavy" politician claiminng "no knowledge" of the incident, check it out.

Well this is interesting, is Clarence Thomas next? Yikes!

Then again perhaps not everyone always gets it right all the time. I never thought of the New Republic as a neocon magazine...did they read something I missed? But their article (see link) makes several interesting points with quotes from Sen Chuck Hagel and Richard Armitage (both Vietnam Veterans, by the way):

"Because of his visibility and reputation as the hub of a pro-Likud network of national-security experts and media commentators, Perle was the target of a particularly sharp remark by Hagel, one of several prominent lawmakers decorated for their Vietnam service who oppose the rush to war."Maybe Mr. Perle would like to be in the first wave of those who go into Baghdad," he said recently, earning him an outraged rebuke in a Wall Street Journal editorial..." I think that moves Senator Hagel up into the crosshairs of some on the right side of the aisle...

and:

"Another highly visible hyper-hawk and Perle protégé, Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), also avoided military service during Vietnam. Powell's chief deputy, Richard Armitage, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served in Vietnam, has reportedly referred to Gaffney, as well as other members of the war party who dodged the draft, as a "pissant."."
I've always thought Armitage was a decent guy, even if I did not always agree with some of the things he said; at least you know what you're getting, more like him in Public Service would be great

Seems that there are more and more jes' folks who wonder about the credentials and such of those fearless desk-jockeys in DC. This piece from Lionel VanDeerlin in a San Diego newpaper piece on-line just reiterates the point...how can you ask my kids to go, when for sure yours' won't?

So, what exactly is the price of keeping kids safe? In Florida surprise, surprise, it seems to be something that pays a little less than McDonalds perhaps?
And they say the Bushiees don't love kids...jathink?

--JF

Eliot Cohen weighs in on the ChickenHawk debate here. He's half right I think, but seems to be too forgiving of those who were truly WEASELS and skipped out. It's one thing to enter into the Roosevelt/Marshall comparisons, and another to have punks like Ari Fleisher, and draft-dodging elected members of the Congress tell other elected representatives who have served honorably, like Tom Dascle, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel etc...to "watch what they say".

-JF

It seems that as more folks think about this war thing, more folk are starting to wonder. The New Hampshire Gazette's excellent Chickenhawk database has been drawing more and more interest..see the embedded graph. Probably done using MRTG, something the FBI will figure out in about 25 years or so....anyhow I like the quote from the Veterans for Peace statement about the war efforts ""Any veteran has more moral authority than the vice president of this country," said Barry Hanson, a veteran of Vietnam...and alot of these guys have really been there, and were not just some Cold-Warrior slob like me...

An amusing tale (Well except for CAPT Hejl) about some journalist's view of life in the Nav...I hate to break it to the braintrust that wrote this article, but the Shitty Kitty is not a Nuke and never will be. When I left the Navy, the standards for non-tolerance were pretty damn high, color-blindness was the rule; no one was in the business of racism, because of the Kitty Hawk's previous history. Access to the flight deck was never a problem while there were no flight ops going on, and hole-snipes were pretty damn proud of their jobs! More research, less invective boys, if you want any credibility...Nuclear-powered indeed...Sheeeeit.

Once again, my hat is off to Instapundit for look and a link to stupid FBI hiring practice. Here I am, in my 40's with a computer security background, 13 years of creditable service in the Navy as an Officer, and I could/can not get hired by the Feds to work as a special agent. Like I need to go to fucking Quantico to prove I can carry a rifle around...and I think that given some of their recent missteps with the handling of obvious leads, they have shown that they understand computers no better than the IBM Selectrics that are probably still an office standard...oh well, if the Army Guard ever gets around to needing mid-grade aviators to drive Helicopters around, I still have my name in the pool....

--JF

1. Hey, it's late at night,
   
2. OK and just so we
   
3. It's interesting that PejmanPundit and
   
4. Sickening Well, if you needed
   
5. Is filling out an income
   
6. Well this is interesting, is
   
7. Then again perhaps not everyone
   
8. Seems that there are more
   
9. So, what exactly is the
   
10. Eliot Cohen weighs in on