Face of Defense: Wounded Warrior Leads Medical Battalion

When Army Cmmand Sgt. Maj. Mark Cornejo was wounded in Iraq, he had to return stateside for medical treatment, reluctantly leaving his comrades and mission behind.

But one thing that never left him was his desire to serve.

After three months of in-patient treatment and more than five months in rehabilitation at Brooke Army Medical Center here, Cornejo assumed responsibility for 187th Medical Battalion from Army Master Sgt. Dwight Wafford during a May 13 ceremony at the battalion headquarters here.

“Giving up never entered my thought process,” Cornejo said, speaking of his recovery. “It wasn’t ‘if,’ it was ‘when’ I was going to get back. I just wanted to know how fast I could get fixed so I could get back.”

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Taliban bombed 'to brink of defeat'

[HT:SK]
Kabul - Missions by coalition forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have ''decapitated'' the Taliban and brought the terror movement to the brink of defeat in Afghanistan, military leaders said yesterday. The commander of British forces in Afghanistan told London's Daily Telegraph that new ''precise, surgical'' tactics had killed scores of insurgent leaders and made it extremely difficult for Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to operate...

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France offers Iraq rebuilding aid

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is in Iraq to offer help in rebuilding the country and promoting national reconciliation. Mr Kouchner, whose visit began in the southern city of Nasiriya, is holding talks with senior officials. France was one of the fiercest critics of the 2003 US-led invasion, and this is Mr Kouchner's second visit to Iraq in less than a year.

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Islamists charged over plots

Madrid - A Spanish court charged 11 Islamists today with offences related to suicide bombings which it said they had been planning in Barcelona and Germany. A High Court document said 10 of the men had been on the brink of carrying out suicide bombings on public transport in Barcelona when they were arrested in Spain's second-largest city in January.

[G.W.O.T.]

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Chinese hack computers at congressman's office

WASHINGTON — A Virginia congressman said today the FBI has found that four of his government computers have been hacked by sources working out of China. In remarks prepared for delivery this afternoon, Rep. Frank Wolf says he has been told by the FBI that four computers in his personal office were compromised. The Virginia Republican says that similar incidents — also originating from China — have taken place on computers of other members of Congress and at least one House committee...

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For the Record: The U.N. Partners With Terror

Two English language Arab news outlets reported this week that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has partnered with the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). [snip]

"The IIRO-PHL is a source of funding for the al Qaida-affiliated ASG. IIRO-PHL has served as a liaison for the ASG with other Islamic extremist groups. A former ASG member in the Philippines familiar with IIRO operations in the country reported that a limited amount of foreign IIRO funding goes to legitimate projects and the rest is directed to terrorist operations. These terrorist groups are also on the United Nations 1267 Committee's consolidated list of individuals and entities associated with the Taliban, al Qaida and/or Usama Bin Ladin."

IPT readers should recall that stateside, the self-proclaimed prominent Islamic "civil rights" group, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), also has a history of "partnering" with IIRO, receiving close to $30,000 from the terrorist-linked entity.

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NYT 1993: ' Study of Greenland Ice Finds Rapid Change in Past Climate'

Written by Walter Sullivan, "Study of Greenland Ice Finds Rapid Change in Past Climate" addressed findings that suggest "the period of stable climate in which human civilization has flourished might be unusual, and that the current climate may get either warmer or colder much more quickly than had been believed -- in spans of decades or even less."

Doesn't sound like today's hysterical press claims concerning global warming, does it? Neither does this:

The new studies found that the average global temperature can change as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit in a couple of decades during interglacial periods, [Dr. J. W. C. White of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research of the University of Colorado] said. The current average global temperature is 59 degrees Fahrenheit.

You mean natural forces -- i.e. unrelated to anything done by man -- can create temperature swings of 18 degrees in a couple of decades? And folks like Nobel Laureate Al Gore, along with most in the media and an overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress are advocating economically destabilizing legislation all because temperatures have risen about one degree in the past 150 years?

But there was more...

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Energy

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Free the offshore drillers
Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) has introduced an amendment to s spending bill that would free up offshore drilling more than 50 miles off our coast, enabling American companies to drill in waters already being exploited by the Chinese, among others.

"For 27 years, Congress has deliberately locked up vast offshore oil and natural gas reserves," Peterson said, according to USA Today. "With the price at the pump increasing daily - with no end in sight - and the cost of natural gas trading at record levels, Congress needs to unlock these reserves."

Let us watch very carefully for those who vote to restrict oil supplies (and thereby continue raising prices). We have an election coming up and gasoline prices are an issue, in case you haven't noticed.
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House Subcommittee Rejects Plan to Open U.S. Waters to More Oil Exploration
Washington - A House subcommittee has rejected a Republican-led effort to open up more U.S. coastal waters to oil exploration. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., spearheaded the effort. His proposal would open up U.S. waters between 50 and 200 miles off shore for drilling. The first 50 miles off shore would be left alone. But the plan failed Wednesday on a 9-6, party-line vote...
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[meanwhile...]

China's Drilling for Oil in America's Backyard
House Republicans want the American people to know that right now -- around 60 miles off the coast of Key West, Fla. -- China is drilling for oil, thanks to a lease issued by Cuba. But 1,200 miles north of Key West, Democrats in Washington are blocking the United States from conducting its own environmentally-safe oil and gas exploration in similar U.S. coastal areas (Snip)

"Do congressional Democrats actually believe China has more ingenuity and more concern for the environment than the United States?"

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CBS Blames Gas Prices In GM Closures, Disregards Expensive Union Labor

High gas prices strike again, says the "CBS Evening News."

The "Evening News" blamed surging gas prices and General Motors reluctance to produce "more fuel-efficient vehicles" for closure of several plants, including one in Janesville, Wisc.

But Bowers omitted one detail: GM (NYSE:GM), Ford (NYSE:F) and Chrysler all have ties to the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which forces those manufacturers into collective bargaining agreements with very expensive labor costs.

And, the foreign automakers that sell "more fuel-efficient vehicles" - which include Toyota (NYSE:TM) (opening a plant in Tupelo, Miss.), Honda (NYSE:HMC) (Greensburg, Ind.), Volkswagen (FRA:VOW) (tAlabama) and KIA (SEO:000270) (West Point, Ga.) - are building their new plants in places where the UAW doesn't have a presence and won't make them less competitive by raising overhead costs.

As an August 2007 Investor's Business Daily editorial pointed out, unions are a principal reason many Americans have lost jobs. "[I]t's hard to fathom how a middle class could be created by an institution that has ... forced many Americans out of the labor force because of the high wages it has compelled businesses, through the power of its government protection, to pay," the editorial said.

[the only arena labor unions don't spell the death of organizations is where there's no competition - say, like government]

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Newsweek shills for Obama

Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain granted an interview to Newsweek’s Jon Meacham and Holly Bailey, and in the first sign of a long, uphill campaign with the media, McCain was asked how he could defeat such a "hugely gifted politician"?

[what bias?]

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MSNBC: 'Old-Fashioned' McCain vs. 'Centrist' Obama 'Helping People'

Mitchell cast the battle of the candidates' tax plans as McCain's "old-fashioned" [?] supply-side economics [ah, I believe it's Keynsian economics that's considered old, which supply-side has displaced - close though Andria] versus Obama's [ironically, Keynsian] "mainstream [?], centrist"[??] plans that "do help people" while responsibly "paying for everything."[??? !][layer upon layer...]

View video here.
[View new MSNBC logo here:

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Chicago Daily Herald: Vote for Obama or You're a Racist

The Daily Herald, a Chicago area paper, waxed triumphant over the ascendancy of Barack Obama to the assumed position as the Democratic Party nominee for the presidency today. (Snip) Of course, the Herald's piece is centered on America's past as a pretext to say that Obama might somehow deserve to become president because of our past history of oppression.

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La. governor stirs GOP imaginations

Give Bobby Jindal some dap.

Asked what color he is he says, "Red, white and blue."

[anyone unfamiliar, note the name - you'll be hearing it in the future]

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Personal carbon credits: the trick
[UK]
Get out your gas masks and tin hats. We are under attack from a noxious army of doom-troopers demanding that we treat climate change as a rerun of the Second World War. In the latest move to militarise everyday life, the Environmental Audit Committee of MPs has seriously proposed energy rationing, aka “personal carbon credits”. What next? Little (green) Hitlers patrolling the streets yelling “Put that high-energy light out!”?
[yes]
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San Francisco Schools' Special Salute

California

Wonder why San Francisco has a reputation as the American left's most intolerant city?

Consider the fact that concerned San Francisco citizens are now gathering signatures for a ballot measure to get the school board to overturn a 2006 vote which shut down the 90-year-old Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. ['ROTC', snip]

When the board was preparing to vote to kill the program, Yu told me, "I thought, no way is the board going to do that." There were 1,600 students enrolled -- in a program supported by parents and educators, in part because it has provided strong role models for minority teens. When the board turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the many people who turned up at public meetings to save the program, Yu said, it "galvanized me." [snip]

You see, the San Francisco school board only recognizes the right to expression with which it agrees. Disagree, and the board will shut you down. If students suffer -- well, that's politics...

[as usual, that city just makes your proud-all-over to be a Californian]

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There Is a Military Solution to Terror

Sadr City in Baghdad, the northeastern districts of Sri Lanka and the Guaviare province of Colombia have little in common culturally, historically or politically. But they are crucial reference points on a global map in which long-running insurgencies suddenly find themselves on the verge of defeat.

For the week of May 16-23, there were 300 "violent incidents" in Iraq. That's down from 1,600 last June and the lowest recorded since March 2004. Al Qaeda has been crushed by a combination of U.S. arms and Sunni tribal resistance. On the Shiite side, Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army was routed by Iraqi troops in Basra and later crumbled in its Sadr City stronghold.

In Colombia, the 44-year-old FARC guerrilla movement is now at its lowest ebb. Three of its top commanders died in March, and the number of FARC attacks is down by more than two-thirds since 2002. In the face of a stepped-up campaign by the Colombian military (funded, equipped and trained by the U.S.), the group is now experiencing mass desertions. Former FARC leaders describe a movement that is losing any semblance of ideological coherence and operational effectiveness.

In Sri Lanka, a military offensive by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has wrested control of seven of the nine districts previously held by the rebel group LTTE, better known as the Tamil Tigers. Mr. Rajapaksa now promises victory by the end of the year, even as the Tigers continue to launch high-profile terrorist attacks.

All this is good news in its own right. Better yet, it explodes the mindless shibboleth that there is "no military solution" when it comes to dealing with insurgencies. On the contrary, it turns out that the best way to end an insurgency is, quite simply, to beat it.

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Cocky Ignorance

Now that Senator Barack Obama has become the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States, to the cheers of the media at home and abroad, he has written a letter to the Secretary of Defense, in a tone as if he is already President, addressing one of his subordinates. The letter ends: "I look forward to your swift response."

With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a Secretary of Defense might have some other things to look after, before making a "swift response" to a political candidate. Because of the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among American troops have gone up, Senator Obama says he wants the Secretary of Defense to tell him, swiftly:

"What changes will you make... [snip]
"What training has the Pentagon provided... [snip]
"What assistance are you providing... [snip]
"What programs has the Pentagon implemented... [snip]

What has been widely publicized in the media is that suicides among American troops have gone up. What has not been widely publicized is that this higher suicide rate is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable U.S. civilians...

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[Barry might want to receive this blog - could have saved a stamp;

FLASHBACK 5/30/08:

Army Deploys Prevention Programs to Combat Soldier Suicides
WASHINGTON, May 29, 2008 - The Army is deploying a multitude of prevention programs as part of efforts to stop soldiers from taking their own lives, senior Army officials said
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[quick points on this topic, as it's getting wide MSM coverage reporting the 108-115 suicides (reports have varied) in '07 without any accompanying context whatsoever. Unimportantly (but interesting) is that Russia's military suicides numbered 341 for '07.

Importantly, our military's current level is below its peace-time average. And critically, the service member suicide rate is consistently below that of the 'general' US population for the same age group. None of which makes any rate acceptable - but does put the lie to the epidemic-because-we're-at-war subtext the much of the old media has been trying to imply.]

[HT:MN]

US: Iranian warhead blueprint 'alarming'

A ranking International Atomic Energy Agency official called Teheran's possession of a drawing showing how to make part of an atomic warhead "alarming" Thursday and said the onus is on Iran to prove it had not tried to develop nuclear arms, said diplomats attending a closed briefing. The US said the evidence detailed by IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen increased concerns that Teheran had tried to make such weapons...

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