Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Benghazi Cover up - Rep. Trey Gowdy Takes On Obama Administration

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-denies-knowledge-state-department-blocking-benghazi-testimony

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57582207/benghazi-whistleblowers-still-waiting-to-tell-their-story/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/30/obama-administration-threatening-benghazi-whistleb/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/30/special-ops-benghazi-whistleblower-tells-fox-news-government-could-have/?intcmp=trending

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/04/secrets-and-lies-and-threats-of-reprisals/

This appears to be getting very big-

Two days ago, I noted that I had my doubts that the new Benghazi hearings would amount to anything more than inquiries into failures to respond to pre-attack requests for more security and why "mistakes" were made during during the attack which resulted in the consulate staff being left alone.*
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/04/benghazi-hearings-not-over-but-i-am-not.html

I thank God that I now think that I was wrong.

There are of course others that are also doing the good work, but Rep Trey Gowdy of the Palmetto State deserves special mention. He has publicly promised legal representation and all measures of protection possible for anyone who will come forward to provide necessary information and testimony. This seems to include military, CIA, and State Department personnel. These individuals have reportedly been  threatened by Obama's thugs to refrain from divulging information, including their own knowledge of the events, that has been conveniently classified as Secret to ensure that it remains buried.

The Fox News link has a video in which one military Special Operations member speaks anonymously, He notes that assets were available to arrive on scene prior to the second attack. He also destroys the position of Obama and Panetta that we could not send help as we did not have enough information at the time of the attack; he clarifies that standard procedure is to send what is available to at least evacuate whatever members that can be rescued. What we are hearing now is that we had assets that could not only do that, but also to effect a more sure defense of the consulate and that this option was not taken.

This was no mistake of the bunch of Keystone Cops in the White House - they knew fully well that we had capabilities that were knowingly and purposefully held in check. This reeks of a criminal act.

The Gates of Vienna link has another video in which attorney Victoria Toensing, who is representing an employee that desires to be a whistleblower, states that not only has her client been threatened, but that he or she and Ms. Toensing had been denied access to and approval for testifying to events/material that has shamefully been given Secret classification. Ms. Toesing asserts that what the State Department is doing is illegal and that at one point they denied even being aware of her official requests.

Lined up with the intention of telling what they know are State Department Officials, a CIA employee, and military personnel. What they are waiting for is some guarantee of protection from prosecution or retaliatory actions against them that will hurt their careers.

PLEASE, click on the link below and use the contact page to give Rep. Gowdy your support. If this turns out to be the crime that all known indicators make it appear to be, then we have an event that makes Watergate look like a case of jaywalking. For months I feared that  nothing would come of this and that Obama, Hillary, Panetta, and Co. would be, ultimately, mercifully labeled as incompetent idiots. That they certainly are, but knowingly holding back available military assets is not the act of a dope - even a moron can dial 911 to call the cops. This administration has got to be far and way the most arrogant bunch ever to exist.

Why they did it is not really my concern. What I want is for the facts to be on record and have justice run its course.

https://gowdy.house.gov/forms/writeyourrep/default.aspx

I plan on dropping all other topics for posting as long as new reports of these hearings and White House stonewalling keep coming in.






Monday, April 29, 2013

Buddhist Monk Called Neo-Nazi for Protecting Religion/Heritage in Myanmar

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/28/new-numerology-religious-hatred-grows-as-myanmar-turns-from-its-military-past/

http://www.maungzarni.com/2013/03/stop-969-burmas-fastest-growing-neo.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/04/defeating-myarabia/#more-28296

In the US and Western Europe, it comes naturally to apply denigrating labels to anyone who works to protect the religion and culture of his nation or people. So knee-jerk is this reaction that we now have a Buddhist monk and his followers being referred to as neo-Nazis or criminals for doing so .

Now that the military junta has backed off and allowed some Democratic reforms, the Western media are now free to focus their attacks on the real enemies of the Left - religious people who honor their faith and heritage.

Wirathu, whose name coincidentally sounds very close to that of *Viriathus, a leader of a major Celtiberian  revolt against Roman rule in Hispana,  has initiated campaign to protect the religion and cultural inheritance of the people of Myanmar (Former Burma). One of his plans is to have Buddhists patronize establishments owned by their coreligionists as opposed to those of Muslims. The symbol that he has designated to mark his campaign is "969". In an echo of the pre-independence campaign of  non-importation in which American colonists engaged to support local business while denying the loss of hard cash to Great Britain, Buddhist businesses are expected to post the 969 outside of their establishments.

What the Western media have not surprisingly left out is that Muslims in the same country have utilized a similar plan. The use of "786", a Koranic reference, has been going on some time before the maligned 969 campaign began. Buddhist activists hold that Muslims in their country have been the beneficiaries or loans from other Muslims nations, that Muslims have long supported businesses owned by their own coreligionists, and that these have worked to spread Islam in a traditionally Buddhist nation. As expected, there also have been numerous reports of young girls being raped.

The Leftist media, in this case with even FoxNews joining in with the assault, have made Wirathu out to be a racist monster for his efforts to put a stop to the steady creeping of Islam in his nation.

As noted in works such as Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations, only a tiny minority of the various ongoing conflicts between different peoples or groups do not include one participant which does not claim Islam as its religion. These conflicts, which again overwhelming comprise of one Muslim side, are euphemistically refereed to as "ethnic tensions" or "sectarian clashes". Like those in the US and Western Europe who, in recognition of the threats to the identifies and security of their respective nations, call for integration and reductions in immigration, even non-Western/white individuals who take similar actions are hit with the labels of fascist, Nazi, and racist.

The logo for the 969 movement includes symbolism used by Asoka, the greatest ruler of the Maurya dynasty. This dynasty ruled over a large empire, which included the lands of modern Afghanistan in which the Bamiyan Buddhas once stood until the tolerance of Islamic took its toll. Wirathu no doubt is fully aware of what will be in store for his people if, a few generations from now, Myanmar becomes a Muslim-majority country.

Notes on *,**,and ***, are at bottom.

-Excerpts from Gates of Vienna:
The GOV post is linked near the top and should be read in its entirety.

"The
[Mainstream media] article also depicts Wirathu as a criminal and a creator of conspiracies: “His credo was and is that the Burmese Buddhists must protect themselves against the ‘Muslim conspiracy’, because if not, then the country will turn Islamic at the latest in 100 years”. And another article goes on saying that “Wirathu’s rhetoric is flush with conspiracy and paranoia. He claims that Muslim merchants receive cash injections from Middle East oil state brethren and use these funds to undercut Buddhist rivals.”

Sound familiar? Has the concept of Eurabia also not been declared to be a hoax and a colourful conspiracy theory? Have those warning about Eurabia** not been treated as paranoid mavericks and fuellers of “Islamophobia”?...........


The hair-raising and astonishingly barefaced MSM lies about the so-called “Ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Myanmar” and the alleged brutalities of the monks which followed this are nothing to be surprised about, of course. In the words of Oswald Spengler***: ““To-day we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery (the media) that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama.” These words are more valid today than ever before.......

Luckily enough, Wirathu has been given a voice at the Burmese online magazine “The Irrawaddy”. His declarations made to this magazine allow us to know the side of the story which the MSM so dhimmishly conceal:

“…I have been told about many cases, such as cases of fighting between Burmese and Muslims and rape cases of 4th- and 7th-grade girls. Most rape victims are students. Other cases are physical attacks and insulting Buddhism — to tell you the truth, there was a case of verbal abuse of monks. Other cases include illegal mosques; mosques and Muslim graveyards constructed without government permission. I’ve received over 50 such cases and I provided suggestions in over 100 cases. I told them to solve the cases in accordance with the law and most take my advice, even the senior monks. Everything is fine as I deal with the cases within the law. In our community, the real 969 [campaigners] do not use violence”
.
But nevertheless Wirathu is very aware of the real danger. He says that “If you buy in a Muslim shop, then your money does not remain there. It will be used to destroy your race and your religion.” That is, the money spent in a Muslim shop (or at least a part of it) will inevitably be used to fund any of the various forms of jihad.

This economic aspect of the issue allows us to draw our attention to another important feature of Wirathu’s initiative. According to another MSM article:

“This crisis is erupting in concert with the fast-spreading 969 campaign, which draws its code from a numerological arrangement of Buddhism’s core teachings. It is ostensibly a pride movement that urges Buddhists to patronize Buddhist shops. But the loudest proponents of 969, a set of nationalist monks, urge followers to avoid all shops unwilling to fix the 969 emblem to their storefronts. […]”
As one may have already guessed, this was dubbed as racist and nationalistic behavior, a sign of utter intolerance towards Muslims, a merciless “crusade” (it seems that the term “crusader” applies from now on not only to those of Christian faith; when it comes to “discrimination” against Muslims, certain words are suddenly granted an endless freedom of usage) against shops owned by Muslims. A Buddhist vendor was so daring as to declare that “‘Buddhists should go with Buddhists,’ he added, his eyes darting to a trio of Muslim men standing nearby and his voice lowering to an uneasy whisper. ‘And Muslims should go with Muslims.’”........

But, as always, the MSM forgets to convey the other side of the story, that which uncovers the full picture about the activities of the Burmese Rohingya Muslims.

Wirathu again: “Well, it is not the Burmese way, but a Muslim way and they do practice this [marking their shops with “786”]. So go around town and see how many Muslims visit Burmese shops. If they support their own shops, why won’t we Buddhists [Burmese] do the same? If we support our Burmese shops, we will not have problems and it cannot be that bad. Look what happened in Meikhtila; if people supported the Burmese gold shops then there would not have been an argument. [The unrest in Meikthila supposedly began as a fight between a Muslim gold shop owner and a Buddhist customer.] This kind of buying behavior doesn’t mean it’s discrimination. It can protect our people’s interests............"


*I am always searching for names-words that have survived the span of time and geography. Although the Burmese are clearly East Asians, their Buddhist religion was founded by a cultural descendant of the Indo-Aryans that migrated to India and brought the language (Sanskrit) that would become Hindi. Bengali, Marathi, etc., and provided the basis Sanskrit literature such as the Vedas and the Ramayana. Some Buddhist names may derive from their pre-East Asian origins in India. As the Celtiberian Viriathus  was a descendant of Indo-Europeans that had migrated westward, I have to wonder if the names Viriathus and Wirathu  have a proto-Indo-European cognate.

** Eurabia is the term coined by Bat ye'or for the intention of political Muslims to change the demographics of Europe by immigration and high birthrates to become the majority groups in these countries. Once this is completed, the Constitutions of these nations will be changed to reflect the new order and the attaching of Europe to the Islamic world. Although the concept is ridiculed relentlessly by Leftists, it only summarizes what political Muslims in and outside of Europe has fully admitted for decades. Video is below:

***I am ashamed to admit that it was only last week that I began to read Oswald Spenglers's The Decline of the West. I have put it off of far too long.
























Sunday, April 28, 2013

Benghazi Hearings Not Over, But I am Not Hopeful

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/27/gop-rep-promises-explosive-benghazi-hearings-are-coming/

"Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Saturday promised that “explosive” congressional hearings over the Benghazi, Libya attacks are on the way.

“There are more Benghazi hearings coming, I think they’re going to be explosive,” Gowdy said on Fox News.

Gowdy, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the hearings are going to be “coming quickly” and seemed to hint that the public might for the first time hear from witnesses to the September assault that left four Americans dead.

“I am bound by certain measures of confidentiality, but I would tell you that you are getting very warm,” Gowdy said when asked by a Fox News anchor whether witnesses could be coming forward. “[The hearings] are coming sooner rather than later.”

Gowdy followed that up by saying that in a trial, “direct evidence, direct testimony by eyewitnesses is always the most compelling.” He said that if there is anyone who wants to come forward, the House committee will make legal counsel available to them........"


I still have a lot of doubt that we will get the truth in what happened before and during the attack on The US consulate in Benghazi. We have a media which functions as not only a cheering section but as an effective screening force for the current administration in the White House. By their purposeful avoidance of any honest journalistic work, Obama, Hillary, and the rest have been largely free of any real criticism. Only with a media like that of our nation could Hillary dare take control of the hearing in which she was testifying; feigning indignation and changing the story to make it look like it was she and not those on the panel who understood that it was a problem that Americans were murdered during the attack. With any other administration, the media would be chasing after her like hornets rushing out of a broken nest.

If anything does come of these new hearings, I expect that we will hear more about the failures to address pre-attack requests for greater security personnel and equipment by the staff, we will also here of  the strenuous efforts of the administration to make us think that the uploading onto YouTube of a movie about Mohammed incited the attack.

What we will most likely never get from the hearings is an explanation for the order requiring the command staff of AFRICOM to "stand down" and refrain from sending any supporting elements to relieve the besieged personnel in the consulate.

This has all the marks of a criminal cover-up of epic proportions. Since General Carter Ham was relieved of duty following the attack, we have heard almost nothing at all about how it came that a respected leader was sacked.

What we did get back then, although it was shrouded in an (Probably enforced) haze and cannot in any way be confirmed , was this:

The General, doing his duty, took steps to bring elements within striking and support distance to the highest Readiness Condition. Orders came down from the top to "stand down". Noting that an illegal order, be it an act or requiring an omission, is not to be followed, he instead went forward with the giving of the order for units to move. It was at this point that his second-in-command placed the General under arrest and assumed command of AFRICOM, thus leaving the victims to their fate.

The silence on this event has been deafening. I have come to believe that our Generals and Admirals have come to be so concerned with their careers and post-service jobs that they will not only shirk their duties while hiding behind the orders that have been given to them, but also may be perfectly fine with the manner in which the military has been handled by this administration.

One response to this is the most obvious; since a commander does not know everything that is going on, he may be required to refrain from taking action. In this particular case, though, this answer does not hold water. The victims were under close-in assault. There consequently would be no order to send, for example a missile, bomb, or rocket as doing so would be just as dangerous to the besieged as for the attackers; the military term is "Danger Close".

Even if it turns out that a weapon of incredible precision could have been deployed, one that could kill and drive off the attackers with little or or no danger to the victims, then the question remains - "OK, I was relieved for my failure to obey orders, but how come you let the people be murdered instead of deploying the M-such-and-such system?"

That is the question that needs to be asked but I fear it will be left to rot. 

This thing has a lid on it that would survive a 1980's nuclear Armageddon scenario.


Yes, we rightly have civilian control of our military. Washington headed off our first possible coup when he nipped the Newburgh Conspiracy in the bud, thus saving us from a possible precedent that has wrecked other nations. But with civilian control or not, wrongful orders that are going to result in losses when action could have been taken are illegal by their very nature and should not be followed. We must note, though, that any military leader has roughly four options upon receiving an order


1) For the normal order - Simple, follow the order

2) For an order that is not terrible but gives one concern- I don't like this order, but I will keep my concerns to myself or maybe confide with my staff, but we will follow the order.

3) For an order that has all the marks of a foolish and/or dangerous move - This order is a mess, but we have to do it. I will be honest with my troops as they are not idiots and tell them that I need them to do their job despite the garbage sandwich that we have been dealt.

4) For an order, be it to take or desist from action when all the evidence points to the contrary - OK, we're not doing that.

Commanders must realize that in the course of their careers, they may be chosen by Fate or History to take action that may make life a little harder for them, possibly even denying them the benefit of a comfortable retirement. It's a hazard that comes with the perks of command.

That's a risk one takes upon becoming an officer, but even a troop in the ranks may have to do the same thing at his level..

I hope that I am wrong and that this thing gets blown wide open when new witnesses step forward.


http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/sacking_general_carter_ham.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/panetta-military-lacked-enough-information-to-intervene-during-benghazi-attack/

http://www.ijreview.com/2012/10/20529-jennifer-griffin-cia-requests-for-help-in-benghazi-attack-denied/2/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Article on Terrorist/Now Satisfied Marxist Bernardine Dorhn

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/26/former-weather-underground-leader-claims-violent-group-won-the-moral-war-talks-revolution-plus-whats-with-that-flower-in-her-hair/

Before the schools had produced enough brainwashed Western students to provide for the Leftist takeover of Western governments, we had Marxist terrorist groups.

West Germany had the Baader-Meinhof Gang, known by its members as the Red Army Faction. Japan had the Japanese Red Army. Italy had the Italian Red Brigades.The switch from an actual guerrilla force to a department store-bombing terrorist organisation marked the change of the IRA to a Leftist ideology.

The most vicious and most radical Leftist group in the US was the Weather Underground, also known as the Weathermen.

Their campaign of bombings, murders, and robberies has gone largely unpunished. Bernardine Dohrn and her husband, Bill Ayers, are the most widely known members of a terror group. In the article at top, Dohrn is quoted on her opinion of herself, her comrades, and their actions:

“[Speaking of being underground to avoid prosecution] No, I think I was 11 years underground. It wasn’t exactly a punishment,” Dohrn responded to the question of whether she escaped punishment. “I do think we won the moral war and it was hard [for] the government to call us terrorists or criminals. Certainly they tried, but we were such a home-grown product — I grew up in the midwest of America [in] a family who voted Republican all their lives, and I was the first person in my family to go to college. That’s an American story.”

That must have been a great thing for the family - have your first kid go to college and see her turn against the nation and culture that bred her.

One cannot believe that the Weatherman have been let off so easily due solely to their ability to hide well or to avoid having enough evidence to successfully charge them. By the time they were coming out of hiding the Left had obtained sufficient influence in the governing of our nation to ensure that they would be let off and that her comrades in hiding would be allowed to remain there.

Ayers, Dohrn, and Co. were and are vicious people who eagerly swallowed the college-supplied Marxist version of American history and sought to to destroy the greatest nation of any appreciable size ever to exist. They rightfully deserve the place that Dante in the Divine Comedy reserves for traitors to one's nation.

In many way she is correct in noting that they have won - not the moral war, on which she is still on the wrong side, but in the war to win the nation. Although their first attempts to bring on a massive revolution, aided by Soviet, Cuban, and North Vietnamese troops failed, they and theirs have obtained a secure foothold in the means by which this nation is run. Their new method, using the earlier Cultural Marxist principles of Lukaks, Gramsci, Marcuse, and others is winning - and handily so.

While this goes on, most of America sits on their hands while more youths are won over to their side. We of course still have time to break cleanly from them, formally acknowledging their gains in US states that are too far gone to save and restoring an American republic in salvageable US states, but we seem to be frozen like a batter watching an 0-2 curveball dropping into the strike zone.

Concerning their old plans to bring the US under full control of Communist forces, the videos in the three links at bottom must be watched. The former FBI agent who had infiltrated the Weather Underground recounts the horrific intentions of these graduates from Universities such as Columbia University in New York - itself a place in which the darkness of the Cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School* had taken root. Dohrn and her partners spoke with anticipation of the day when the US came under foreign occupation, the people forced into camps, and the recalcitrant - those who would not accept that "this is the way it is going to be", were to be executed. They coolly estimated that up to 25 million of us would be murdered to affect the fundamental transformation of the US.

Today, Dohrn Ayers, and all of their types are winning. The schools are making more of them every year. They, understandably, expect that they will get everything that they want. As for murdering those who refuse to submit to the new manner of transforming the US - after the possible success of today's slower but most assuredly effective style, Dohrn would no doubt still give the order once their hold on power has gone from its now-fairly secure status to absolute control, a state which is advancing steadily while we wait. 

People such as Dohrn and Ayers have an immeasurable scorn for the middle class. Disciples of Marx, they recognize as did he that this group comprises in their view a sort of fourth estate, having a vested interest in protecting society and our rights. Too large to kill off quickly or to woo with promises of protection as with our current Western oligarchs, we must be utterly ruined or done way with.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Fourth Grade Student's Essay - Doublethink and NewSpeak

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
-1984 by George Orwell

Just as the Cultural Marxists assured us, they are making sure that our children are being thought not to think but to parrot what the Party wants them to say and believe.

I read Orwell's 1984 in 1981. By the time three years had passed, even the mainstream media was predicting the ultimate failure of the Soviet Union. By the early 90's it was all over - or so we thought.

We are living in a world in which the slogans from the book would not be out of place.

Those who took up the Marxist cause in the West general avoided the full-blown Gus Hall strategies and instead worked to make straight the path for Socialism by undermining the culture of Western societies.

George Lukaks, Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse ,et al,  would be impressed.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/26/fourth-graders-reported-pro-gay-marriage-essay-if-it-creeps-you-out-just-get-over-it/

"An essay that was purportedly written by a fourth grader and subsequently uploaded to Reddit has captured quite a bit of attention. The short text — one that is said to have come directly from the mind of a child — addresses the controversial subject of gay marriage, telling opponents of legalization to just “get over it.”

Posted by user “rafa3l2,” an individual who claims to be the student’s teacher, the message accompanying the image reads, “One of my 4th grade students chose gay marriage as his topic for a persuasive essay. This is the result. More sense than some adults.”....

“Why gay people should be able to get married is you can’t stop two adult’s from getting married because there grown and it doesn’t matter if it creeps you out just get over it,” the essayreads (spelling and grammar kept in tact). “And you should be happy for them because it’s a big moment in their life. When I went to my grandparents wedding it was the happies momment.' "

Some of course think that this essay is not genuine, but given our current climate, I would not doubt its authenticity

The first obvious fact is that the phrasing of the essay betrays a child who has been subject to mind control. An adult or older teenager has clearly put words into his mouth. Those who are concerned that the government thinks that it can create rights and institutions (If it has to be made by the State it is not a right) and those who rightly fear our God, are contemptuously dismissed as being "creeped out". Kids don't think about aberrant things; they think about kid stuff.

-Which brings me to the next point. Children are in fact capable of occasional deep and insightful thoughts, but these are almost never mistaken. When a kid notes that a baby in a woman's belly is alive, she (I use the feminine here as I witnessed this in person) is doing so because she has not been subjected to lies that will ruin an older person's mind. She is simply using common sense.

The last point is the most frightening-

Note the positively Orwellian Newspeak/Doublethink comment of the teacher:

"This is the result. More sense than some adults.”....

The teacher is twisting common sense around to mean the opposite of what it is. A non-programmed kid would know what marriage is. A programmed kid will probably regurgitate what he he has been told to say and believe. Here we have a child, brainwashed to understand neither what marriage nor rights are, something that only could have been done by the wrecked mind of an adult, and the product of this victimization is described as making sense.

The totalitarian use of thought control by words is the norm today. Nonsense is sense. Euthanasia and abortion are good. Religion (Particularly Judaism and Christianity) is bad. Chastity is dysfunctional. Businesses are built by others than those who actually did so. Selfishness is generosity. Enslavement is protection. The ethical obligation of owning a firearm is a danger to the community.

Remember the bumper sticker "Pro-child Pro Choice"?

Samuel Adams' strategy was to put his opponent int the wrong and keep him there. The Left has already put themselves in the wrong on a host of issues, thus saving us the work, but we keep letting them pretend that they are in the right. We need to change the language of the argument by relentlessly proclaiming the truth and exposing their positions as wrong.

In the case of marriage, we must argue against the idea of governments creating rights and institutions that these can, by extension take away. We must make it clear that marriage existed long before any state did and that no artificial construct has the authority to change such an institution. Those who want to use legislation to play-act marriages are wrong and they do not make sense, but we keep failing to address these facts.

By letting the Left and their allies control the use of words, we are letting them control the debate. When it comes to right and wrong, we must seize control of the language of the debate or we will lose.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir%E2%80%93Whorf_hypothesis

The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its speakers conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view, or otherwise influences their cognitive processes. Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, orWhorfianism, the principle is often defined as having two versions: (i) the strong version that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories and (ii) the weak version that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behaviour.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Females in Combat Specialties - Army Makes Smart Move

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/04/23/army-studying-artillery-not-infantry-for-women.html

With the Left ramming females in combat down the throats of compliant Generals who want to lock in their post-retirement consultant and political jobs, the Army has quietly begun an ingenious pilot program to test the waters.

In the late 1980's the US military had promoted reading material that would benefit both officers and enlisted  members. One of these was Sun-Tzu's The Art of War. This classic is noted both for its keen insight in how to manage a military force and to wage war and also for its application of abstract and theoretical thought, both attributes being more commonly found in Western works.

Anyone who has read Sun-Tzu remembers,first and foremost, one maxim -

Win the battle without fighting it.

The Left and their radical feminist allies, supremely confident that our technological advantages will override all dangers of employing females in forward units (That being a verboten topic in our world of sacred Leftist pet positions), have claimed that we will be able to destroy the enemy's ability  to operate as cohesive forces regardless of whom we throw out there.

In response to the overwhelming pressure, backed by the Leftist dogma of the "march of history" that assures us that gender differences are to be done away with in the end, the Army has elected to go with an "OK, come on over, knock yourself out*" approach.

They took one of the harder jobs and are letting females try their hand there.


The U.S. Army is studying how female soldiers will fit into new field artillery jobs, but there is still no word on how the service plans to bring women into infantry, armor, and other direct ground combat units. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno told lawmakers Tuesday that the service is conducting a pilot on the standards female field artillery officers will have to meet in the future.

Last week, the Defense Department announced it will open more than 6,200 new jobs to women in the Army and Marine Corps, but none of those positions include the frontline combat positions that have garnered the most attention since the Pentagon eliminated gender barriers in January.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked Odierno when females were likely to begin serving as infantry officers Tuesday during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Odierno instead brought up the pilot being conducted for female artillery officers and how important it is to "ensure standards are the same for everybody." The service will likely conduct other assessments over the next two years and before integrating female officers into combat arms jobs at the battalion level and below, he sai
d.

This is a brilliant move. If the females are successful, or successful enough for a longer working test period, they will still be in positions that do not operate directly at the front or are otherwise engaged regularly by hostile forces. If what I think will happen does occur  though, the Left, the civilians who bit off more of the 'civilian control of the military sandwich' than they could chew, and the servant-like generals will look like fools.

The artillery is not a job for physically weaker individuals. In addition to heavy-duty maintenance work, the lifting is positively grueling. Males who are not on the strong side or have not been conditioned to the heavy lifting required to be a "cannon cocker" do not have an easy time of it. Projectiles are very heavy. It is extremely physically demanding work, especially over an extended period of time.

I hope that we get some reports on the progress of this pilot program soon. I do fear- however, that the findings will either be buried or that they will be censored by the apparatchiks to reflect the conclusions that they want. I will go out on a limb in this case and hope for the best.

For those who have seen the movie Saving Private Ryan, the fight scene in an upper-floor room between the US Private Mellish and the German soldier illustrates exactly what the real concerns are. No matter how well trained or conditioned one is, a hands-on fight for one's life with no help coming soon can happen to any soldier in direct combat. Physical strength and a testosterone-bathed brain will win out.


*"Knock yourself out" generally means that one does not care what the other wants to do. It can also imply, as in the above case,  that the other individual will probably not succeed in the attempt.


http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/01/panetta-to-allow-women-in-combat-units.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/05/female-soldiers-sue-for-combat.html

-From previous posts:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, acting ostensibly on the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left as his parting shot another Obama-inspired blow at the structure of our society. The one thing that must be remembered is that the Joint Chiefs no doubt only made whatever recommendation they were told to make by their nation-wrecking superiors. Not content with their pensions and book deals, these generals and admirals have sold out the organizations that made their careers possible in order to get commentator jobs thrown at them by CNN. The concept of civilian control of the military, albeit a necessary one, has been taken to the grossest of extremes by this administration more than once.

Women in all branches of the military soon will have unprecedented opportunities to serve on the front lines of the nation's wars.

Leon Panetta, in one of his last acts as President Obama's defense secretary, is preparing to announce the policy change, which would open hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war, the Pentagon confirmed Wednesday...."

The article describes this event as "groundbreaking". Yes, keep breaking ground until all that is left is a torn-up landscape.

The following is a previous post on this very subject. The last one is from a article written by a female Marine Capt. on her experiences with working long term in a combat environment.

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/09/female-marine-captain-on-women-in.html

The Liberal elite continue to press their demands that women be allowed to serve in all Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) in the US military. The Army, being traditionally more inclined to be swayed by political and even social pressure, has taken far more steps in the direction of full integration than has the Marine Corps.

There seems to be no corner of the Western world that is not targeted for dilution. If the targeted group is comprised mostly or entirely of males, the attacks are nonstop. When the US Military faces a new offensive by Liberals that essentially demands that all restrictions are dropped, the question of whether or not females are inherently capably of shouldering the physical and psychological burdens of the Infantry Soldier/Marine is almost never included in the discussion. We hear that restrictions from Infantry assignments cause unfairly laid obstacles in the members career path, that women have successfully performed in combat situations in the past, etc.

When we fight, we are dealing with people who want to kill us. Training and physical conditioning, along with superior equipment, go a very long way to providing us with an advantage. We can not forget that the advantages from these are not without limit. At some point in the fight, which may be a period of extremely vicious and confusing violence ("The fog of war"), the time in which abject exhaustion has set in, or a combination of the two, the fighter must reach down deeply and tap into his basest of survival instincts. If the opponents are all men, then the opponents have an advantage at that point. Not only will they tend to have a greater collective will to destroy the enemy, they will also posses the physical resources from which they must draw to muster one or more necessary efforts.

I am a history fanatic. I obsess over reading historical accounts from all periods. I can tell you that, for example, I have immeasurable admiration for women who have engaged in combat such as Countess Matilda of Tuscany. I could waste my time by rattling off name after name but that would not do us any good. Yes, these women do exist, so the question has nothing to do with this. The main question is whether or not a woman has the abilities to carry tremendously heavy burdens on their shoulders for long periods of time and still be able to, weeks later, move from point A to point B with the speed necessary to keep up with the rest of the unit and thus engage the enemy from as safe and effective a vantage point as possible. The secondary question is if the female mind possesses the killer mentality that is needed to engage the enemy when each side is trying to destroy the other.

All in all, the male-only restriction is treated as if it is an artificial construct, one that has no basis in the inherent differences between men and women. We are supposed to believe that restricting infantry assignments to capable men (Not all men can do this either) is the same thing as prohibiting blacks from playing in the same leagues as whites in professional baseball or maintaining segregated military units or schools.

It is not even remotely the same thing.

Engaging in combat duties/situations for brief periods of time, especially when the vast majority of military personnel alongside you are men (Near 100%) is in no way comparable to performing these duties for weeks and months on end. The physical grind is incredibly demanding.

Marine Captain Katie Petronio has recently written an article on her positions on this subject. Her qualifications as an expert far exceed mine. She is the real deal as far as combat experience goes. She is clearly a physically and mentally tough professional Marine Officer whom I would want on my side in a fight. To add to that, I would not have a problem taking orders from a straight-shooter such as she. Although she restricts her arguments entirely to the physical demands of the work, (Which she concludes exceeds the long-term abilities of a woman, she does not treat the violent, killer mindset that is almost non-existent in the females mind but is so necessary to a infantry Soldier/Marine. She does discuss the danger of lowering standards in order to accommodate, and lessen attrition rates for, females in training courses. Her article is aptly titled-
"Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal".
Her article will appear after the following excerpts from previous posts.

-From the following posts from this site:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2011/09/australia-lifts-ban-on-women-soldiers.html

The societal current in the West is one of enforced silence on issues such as this. Those who dare raise their voices are met with mockery, outright hostility, or at best pursed lips and raised eyebrows. Anything that does not support the pretend-world that we have created is prohibited. We are effectively not allowed to make mention of the fact that women's and men’s bodies are appreciably different from each other. This applies to short-term bursts of strength as well and the ability to shoulder heavy burdens for long periods of time. It also includes standard infantry tasks like moving, wearing and employing increasingly heavy body armor, weaponry, ammunition, as well as manual labor such as digging and filling sand bags.

I have witnessed this topic being brought up on numerous occasions. This point will of course be dismissed as biased as currently in the US military women are still barred from serving in these unit, but the fact remains that men who have actually been in these units are not calling for women even to share the burden in the infantry. If anything, they would call for stronger restrictions on what men are allowed to be in the infantry. Barely a current or former infantryman exists who, weighed down by a machine gun, a tripod, water, ammunition, a base plate or tube for a mortar (Can't assume that all mortarmen are uninjured), optical equipment, radios, and more, did not have thoughts of dropping out of a formation due to exhaustion while simply moving the distance from Point A to Point B.
The reason that he did not was that his body has the ability to be pushed physically by his will to continue.
A person, even one who starts out in great physical shape, may have all the right intentions to push on, but if the body does not have the tools to do so, it will fail.

I served both in units that allowed females and those that did not. The women, although in good shape and spirits, simply did not posses the ability to perform this type of heavy manual labor that was required. The only people whom I have witnessed calling for such a move are those who have not been in that environment.
Today we define things from the outside. We decide things are what we would prefer they be.

An interesting note is that I have heard isolated support for allowances of this type from some civilian police officers. It is a known fact that females do indeed make fine law enforcement officers; especially since the days of needing the 6' 4" 220 lb Sheriff/Cop are long gone. Our tools, which include tasers, pepper spray, and vastly improved radio communications have eliminated much of the advantages of the big guys in this case.
Some cops who have never been in the military though, tend to heap much importance on their work tasks and thus equate their work more or less with that of infantry soldiers (This is particularly true with SWAT personnel). They move and communicate tactically, shoot military-type weapons, stay in better physical condition, etc. The similarities stop at that point. From there the infantryman picks up a long, extremely physically demanding grind of heavy and extended work that taxes every guy until he needs to call upon himself to continue, even if it is to avoid being ostracized by his peers for failing to keep up.

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/05/female-soldiers-sue-for-combat.html

As societies become more safe and secure, one of the results is that women begin to demand to be allowed to everything that the boys can do. For most jobs, that works out well and fine. Few would hold that women cannot drive trucks, do tree cutting, roofing, sanitation removal, or any other civilian jobs.

Fighting, especially when it is done within the context of killing or destroying an enemy force's ability to destroy you, is an entirely different matter

When we begin to presume that the current level of security that we enjoy one that we have created as a result of years of technological and material superiority will continue forever, we paint ourselves into a dangerous corner.

Men's bodies are capable of shouldering much heavier burdens for long periods of time than are women. They have a much more aggressive, fighting-oriented mindset. This is of course partially due to environmental/cultural factors, but it is also a natural result of the male mind, which is formed by male hormones. When a man engages the enemy, he does it in a ruthless manner with the intention of killing him. This mindset is essentially foreign to that of a woman. The reason that men have borne the burden of fighting through the millennia has nothing to do with a “no girls allowed" mentality; the reason that women have not historically been fighters/soldiers is that they can not do the job in a manner that a guy can. Ancient societies needed soldiers that could wield clubs, swords, shields, armor, and other tools germane to those who will be either on a long campaign or sent to commit to a pitched battle. Any society that may have included women as part of its regular fighting force is no longer around. The reason for this is that any such force was annihilated in combat and therefore has been lost to history (For the record, although some ancient Iranic tribes did teach women to shoot arrows from horseback, the actual "Amazons" are an absolute myth).

An argument often employed in support of allowing women into combat roles is that we no longer have to fight with shield, sword and spear. The conclusion is that, since we now have so much heavy equipment and technology on which we can rely, brawn and killer instinct is no longer necessary.

Such a position leaves out a wealth of factors.

A fighting force needs people capable not only of being able to shoulder and fire a weapon, but also those who can carry, extra ammunition, body armor, communications gear, sufficient quantities of water, tripods for machine guns and base plates for mortars, etc., and still be able to relentlessly deliver aimed fire at their opponents for sustained periods of time.

Another factor not taken into account by the "girls are as good as boys" mentality is that nothing guarantees that any fighting force will always be able to operate in the manner in which they expected the operation to proceed. Sure, we have tanks, armored personnel; carriers, etc, but what happens of an enemy force of substantial size is able to approach one's position and attack at close quarters? When something like this occurs, being able to shoot a weapon like it is done at a rifle range or other training conditions is only a small part of what is now needed. The enemy must be repelled by vicious and terribly violent actions that are both physically and mentally exhausting. Not only must one be able to shoot, move and communicate while carrying his rifle, he may also have to pick up a machine gun, move it to another position, set it up, and have it delivering fire in a matter of seconds. We cannot ignore the possibility that the battle will turn into a matter of who can kill whom when ammunition is not longer available. At that point, swinging rifles and the utilization bayonets, knives, entrenching tools, and axes/tomahawks are what will make the difference.

Men are also much less likely to falter on a psychological level in combat. No one claims that men never suffer form Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The difference is that a man's mind is programmed to override the otherwise overwhelming fear during a high-stress situation. It is far more likely that a man, when faced with the powerful fear of being killed, will immediately be able to turn the switch and convert that fear into either a resolve to kill as many of the enemy as possible or to descend into an outright rage. A related factor is that that men are much more likely to so fear the loss of respect from their peers that would result from allowing fear to impair the ability to "keep up" in a fight that one, who would otherwise run away, will stand and fight with a fury to avoid having to be ashamed when faced with his teammates after a battle.

Even the normally mundane task of staffing a guard post at a checkpoint can turn into a maelstrom of hectic and savage violence in a second. That checkpoint is in place for a reason; it is needed both to prevent the entrance of an enemy and to serve as an observation post from with communications can be made so that reaction forces can be deployed in the event of an attack. If we allow women in combat roles, then we must allow that there will come a time when a checkpoint with be staffed entirely or almost entirely by females. In an event such as this, we are not looking at an infantry company in which one or two female soldiers are not going to make an appreciable difference in the fighting strength if the unit. At this point, those who staff the checkpoint are the fighting unit, and there is little between them and the inner perimeter of a military unit. That position must be defended with a ferocity, the nature of which is almost unimaginable. Are to assume that a force comprised of, say, experienced Taliban fighters, will be held off by females for a sufficient amount of time to deploy a reaction force to the threatened area?

The problem that we face is one inherent in political correctness. We are supposed to be so afraid of the social stigma of being branded a sexist that we bite our tongues when topics such as this arise.

Those in decision and policy-making positions at the Pentagon are going to have to be honest with themselves and the American public. War fighting, and the preparation for the same, is not a forum into which we can bring the “everyone gets a trophy” idea. If female soldiers want to be foolish enough to pretend that they are being unfairly discriminated against, then they need to be reminded do the facts. A Military is formed with the purpose of being able to destroy wither the entire enemy force or severely impair its ability to damage ours. It is not a place to make people feel good or “empowered”.

As an aside, we must also note that, is females are allowed in combat roles, there will be many more female prisoners of war. It is sickening that we are so afraid of hurting feelings that we would even consider subjecting our soldiers to, not torture and rape, but mob-rape. We cannot allow the hubris of some women who affect to be unconcerned about such a possibility to influence our decisions

Captain Petronio's article:
Bolding is added.

http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal

"The Marine Corps Times recently published a handful of articles in regard to opening Infantry Officer Course (IOC) to females and the possibility of integrating women into the infantry community. In mid-April the Commandant directed the “integration” of the first wave of female officers into IOC this summer following completion of The Basic School (TBS). This action may or may not pave the way for female Marines to serve in the infantry as the results remain to be seen. However, before the Marine Corps moves forward with this concept, should we not ask the hard questions and gain opinions of combat-experienced Marines (male and female alike) as to the purpose, the impact, and the gains from such a move? As a combat-experienced Marine officer, and a female, I am here to tell you that we are not all created equal, and attempting to place females in the infantry will not improve the Marine Corps as the Nation’s force-in-readiness or improve our national security.

As a company grade 1302 combat engineer officer with 5 years of active service and two combat deployments, one to Iraq and the other to Afghanistan, I was able to participate in and lead numerous combat operations. In Iraq as the II MEF Director, Lioness Program, I served as a subject matter expert for II MEF, assisting regimental and battalion commanders on ways to integrate female Marines into combat operations. I primarily focused on expanding the mission of the Lioness Program from searching females to engaging local nationals and information gathering, broadening the ways females were being used in a wide variety of combat operations from census patrols to raids. In Afghanistan I deployed as a 1302 and led a combat engineer platoon in direct support of Regimental Combat Team 8, specifically operating out of the Upper Sangin Valley. My platoon operated for months at a time, constructing patrol bases (PBs) in support of 3d Battalion, 5th Marines; 1st Battalion, 5th Marines; 2d Reconnaissance Battalion; and 3d Battalion, 4th Marines. This combat experience, in particular, compelled me to raise concern over the direction and overall reasoning behind opening the 03XX field.

Who is driving this agenda? I am not personally hearing female Marines, enlisted or officer, pounding on the doors of Congress claiming that their inability to serve in the infantry violates their right to equality. Shockingly, this isn’t even a congressional agenda. This issue is being pushed by several groups, one of which is a small committee of civilians appointed by the Secretary of Defense called the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (DACOWITS). Their mission is to advise the Department of Defense (DoD) on recommendations, as well as matters of policy, pertaining to the well-being of women in the Armed Services from recruiting to employment. Members are selected based on their prior military experience or experience with women’s workforce issues. I certainly applaud and appreciate DACOWITS’ mission; however, as it pertains to the issue of women in the infantry, it’s very surprising to see that none of the committee members are on active duty or have any recent combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they are attempting to change. I say this because, at the end of the day, it’s the active duty servicemember who will ultimately deal with the results of their initiatives, not those on the outside looking in. As of now, the Marine Corps hasn’t been directed to integrate, but perhaps the Corps is anticipating the inevitable—DoD pressuring the Corps to comply with DACOWITS’ agenda as the Army has already “rogered up” to full integration. Regardless of what the Army decides to do, it’s critical to emphasize that we are not the Army; our operational speed and tempo, along with our overall mission as the Nation’s amphibious force-in-readiness, are fundamentally different than that of our sister Service. By no means is this distinction intended as disrespectful to our incredible Army. My main point is simply to state that the Marine Corps and the Army are different; even if the Army ultimately does fully integrate all military occupational fields, that doesn’t mean the Corps should follow suit.

I understand that there are female servicemembers who have proven themselves to be physically, mentally, and morally capable of leading and executing combat-type operations; as a result, some of these Marines may feel qualified for the chance of taking on the role of 0302. In the end, my main concern is not whether women are capable of conducting combat operations, as we have already proven that we can hold our own in some very difficult combat situations; instead, my main concern is a question of longevity. Can women endure the physical and physiological rigors of sustained combat operations, and are we willing to accept the attrition and medical issues that go along with integration?
As a young lieutenant, I fit the mold of a female who would have had a shot at completing IOC, and I am sure there was a time in my life where I would have volunteered to be an infantryman. I was a star ice hockey player at Bowdoin College, a small elite college in Maine, with a major in government and law. At 5 feet 3 inches I was squatting 200 pounds and benching 145 pounds when I graduated in 2007. I completed Officer Candidates School (OCS) ranked 4 of 52 candidates, graduated 48 of 261 from TBS, and finished second at MOS school. I also repeatedly scored far above average in all female-based physical fitness tests (for example, earning a 292 out of 300 on the Marine physical fitness test). Five years later, I am physically not the woman I once was and my views have greatly changed on the possibility of women having successful long careers while serving in the infantry. I can say from firsthand experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not just emotion, that we haven’t even begun to analyze and comprehend the gender-specific medical issues and overall physical toll continuous combat operations will have on females.
I was a motivated, resilient second lieutenant when I deployed to Iraq for 10 months, traveling across the Marine area of operations (AO) and participating in numerous combat operations. Yet, due to the excessive amount of time I spent in full combat load, I was diagnosed with a severe case of restless leg syndrome. My spine had compressed on nerves in my lower back causing neuropathy which compounded the symptoms of restless leg syndrome. While this injury has certainly not been enjoyable, Iraq was a pleasant experience compared to the experiences I endured during my deployment to Afghanistan. At the beginning of my tour in Helmand Province, I was physically capable of conducting combat operations for weeks at a time, remaining in my gear for days if necessary and averaging 16-hour days of engineering operations in the heart of Sangin, one of the most kinetic and challenging AOs in the country. There were numerous occasions where I was sent to a grid coordinate and told to build a PB [Patrol Base] from the ground up, serving not only as the mission commander but also the base commander until the occupants (infantry units) arrived 5 days later. In most of these situations, I had a sergeant as my assistant commander, and the remainder of my platoon consisted of young, motivated NCOs.[Non-Commissioned Officers (Corporals and Sergeants)] I was the senior Marine making the final decisions on construction concerns, along with 24-hour base defense and leading 30 Marines at any given time. The physical strain of enduring combat operations and the stress of being responsible for the lives and well-being of such a young group in an extremely kinetic environment were compounded by lack of sleep, which ultimately took a physical toll on my body that I couldn’t have foreseen.
By the fifth month into the deployment, I had muscle atrophy
[This appears to be the opposite of atrophy from under-use] in my thighs that was causing me to constantly trip and my legs to buckle with the slightest grade change. My agility during firefights and mobility on and off vehicles and perimeter walls was seriously hindering my response time and overall capability. It was evident that stress and muscular deterioration was affecting everyone regardless of gender; however, the rate of my deterioration was noticeably faster than that of male Marines and further compounded by gender-specific medical conditions. At the end of the 7-month deployment, and the construction of 18 PBs later, I had lost 17 pounds and was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (which personally resulted in infertility, but is not a genetic trend in my family), which was brought on by the chemical and physical changes endured during deployment. Regardless of my deteriorating physical stature, I was extremely successful during both of my combat tours, serving beside my infantry brethren and gaining the respect of every unit I supported. Regardless, I can say with 100 percent assurance that despite my accomplishments, there is no way I could endure the physical demands of the infantrymen whom I worked beside as their combat load and constant deployment cycle would leave me facing medical separation long before the option of retirement. I understand that everyone is affected differently; however, I am confident that should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females.
There is a drastic shortage of historical data on female attrition or medical ailments of women who have executed sustained combat operations. This said, we need only to review the statistics from our entry-level schools to realize that there is a significant difference in the physical longevity between male and female Marines. At OCS the attrition rate for female candidates in 2011 was historically low at 40 percent, while the male candidates attrite at a much lower rate of 16 percent. Of candidates who were dropped from training because they were injured or not physically qualified, females were breaking at a much higher rate than males, 14 percent versus 4 percent. The same trends were seen at TBS in 2011; the attrition rate for females was 13 percent versus 5 percent for males, and 5 percent of females were found not physically qualified compared with 1 percent of males. Further, both of these training venues have physical fitness standards that are easier for females; at IOC there is one standard regardless of gender. The attrition rate for males attending IOC in 2011 was 17 percent. Should female Marines ultimately attend IOC, we can expect significantly higher attrition rates and long-term injuries for women......


 Even if a female can meet the short-term physical, mental, and moral leadership requirements of an infantry officer, by the time that she is eligible to serve in a strategic leadership position, at the 20-year mark or beyond, there is a miniscule probability that she’ll be physically capable of serving at all. Again, it becomes a question of longevity.

Despite my personal opinion regarding the incorporation of females into the infantry community, I am not blind to the fact that females play a key role in countering the gender and cultural barriers we are facing at war, and we do have a place in combat operations. As such, a potential change that I do recommend considering strongly for female Marine officers is to designate a new secondary MOS (0305) for a Marine serving as female engagement team (FET) officer in charge (OIC). 0305s would be employed in the same way we employ drill instructors, as we do not need an enduring FET entity but an existing capability able to stand up based on operational requirements. Legitimizing a program that is already operational in the Corps would greatly benefit both the units utilizing FETs and the women who serve as FET OICs. Unfortunately, FET OICs today are not properly screened and trained for this mission. I propose that those being considered for FET OIC be prescreened and trained through a modified IOC with an appropriately adjusted physical expectation. FET OICs need to better understand the infantry culture and mindset and work with their 0302 brethren to incorporate FET assistance during specific phases of operations to properly prepare them to serve as the subject matter experts to a regimental- or battalion-level infantry commander. Through joint OIC training, both 0302s and FET OICs can start to learn how to integrate capabilities and accomplish their mission individually and collectively. This, in my mind, is a much more viable, cost-effective solution, with high reward for the Marine Corps and the Nation, and it will also directly improve the capabilities of FET OICs.

Finally, what are the Marine Corps standards, particularly physical fitness standards, based on—performance and capability or equality? We abide by numerous discriminators, such as height and weight standards. As multiple Marine Corps Gazette articles have highlighted, Marines who can run first-class physical fitness tests and who have superior MOS proficiency are separated from the Service if they do not meet the Marine Corps’ height and weight standards. Further, tall Marines are restricted from flying specific platforms, and color blind Marines are faced with similar restrictions. We recognize differences in mental capabilities of Marines when we administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and use the results to eliminate/open specific fields. These standards are designed to ensure safety, quality, and the opportunity to be placed in a field in which one can sustain and succeed.

Which once again leads me, as a ground combat-experienced female Marine Corps officer, to ask, what are we trying to accomplish by attempting to fully integrate women into the infantry? For those who dictate policy, changing the current restrictions associated with women in the infantry may not seem significant to the way the Marine Corps operates. I vehemently disagree; this potential change will rock the foundation of our Corps for the worse and will weaken what has been since 1775 the world’s most lethal fighting force. In the end, for DACOWITS and any other individual or organization looking to increase opportunities for female Marines, I applaud your efforts and say thank you. However, for the long-term health of our female Marines, the Marine Corps, and U.S. national security, steer clear of the Marine infantry community when calling for more opportunities for females. Let’s embrace our differences to further hone in on the Corps’ success instead of dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda. Regardless of the outcome, we will be “Semper Fidelis” and remain focused on our mission to protect and defend the United States of America."









Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Suspended and Arrested for NRA Shirt - 8th Grader Defiant

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/23/8th-grader-suspended-arrested-over-his-nra-t-shirt-returns-to-schoolwearing-the-exact-same-shirt/

"Disciplined 8th-grader Jared Marcum returned to class on Monday after being suspended from school and arrested for refusing to change his NRA t-shirt at the request of one of his teachers. The shirt apparently pictured a firearm and the words “protect your rights.”

However, he apparently hasn’t learned his lesson — assuming that there was even any lesson to be learned. Fresh off his suspension, Marcum showed up to school on Monday wearing the exact same NRA shirt that sparked what many have labeled “t-shirt control.”

There were also other people wearing matching shirts in support of Marcum, WOWK-TV reports.

“There’s a lot of people wearing this same exact shirt, showing great, great support and I really appreciate it,” the student said Monday before going to school."

This kid and his friends put us all to shame for our lack of willingness to be truly defiant in the face of soft totalitarian political control.

His bold act reminds me of one of the lines uttered by  Rodney Dangerfield's character in the movie Back to School. Thorton Melon, a high school dropout-turned business success, decides to attend the same college as his son. Not interested in doing the work and beset by a snobby business professor who has it out for the new student, Melon hires people to do it for him and gets caught. (The exchange on the phone that he has with one of his "employees", no less than Kurt Vonnegut, is hilarious as the professor stated that whoever did the paper knew nothing about Kurt Vonnegut)  As Melon had given the school a huge endowment, the Dean, anxious to avoid expelling the donor, gives him a chance to prove himself by taking a comprehensive oral exam. 

After massive cramming, he makes it through most of this ordeal and comes to a point in which he is to be tested by the Literature professor, who has a soft spot for Melon.  She has him recite the Dylan Thomas poem Do not go gentle into that good night. Melon, swelling with emotion, positively nails the recitation of the powerful piece. Upon finishing, the professor asks Melon what the poem means to him.

Melon replies:

"It means,.. I don't take s- -t from no one."

Jared Marcum, I and many others tip our hats to you. You are an inspiration to all of us.

As the trailer from the movie Defiance reminds us: "Freedom begins with an act of defiance".











Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Revised:Atheist - Raising Kids in a Faith is Child Abuse


Added 4/30/13- I failed to note that there was another reason why radical atheists certainly want to prohibit the teaching of faith to children. It is far easier to convince a lifelong non-thinker to become an atheist than it is to do the same with a person who has been raised to contemplate more than the basics of eating, drinking, and reproducing. Religion and any true philosophy, as they both encourage deep-thinking, will expose the ludicrousness of the notion that Matter, and all that has come to life from the same, were simply accidents and thus bring to mind the existence of a Prime Mover. Like Leftists who excise the History of nation from textbooks to create blank slates in the minds of our youth, so too do angry atheists want ignorant children who will more easily be made into ignorant atheistic adults.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/23/famed-atheist-richard-dawkins-forcing-religion-on-kids-is-child-abuse/

"Famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins made a claim over the weekend that will likely draw the ire of religious people across the globe: That forcing religion upon children is a form of child abuse.

Rather than “indoctrination,” Dawkins called for a form of education in which children merely learn that different people embrace various theological claims.

“What a child should be taught is that religion exists; that some people believe this and some people believe that,” he told an audience at England’s Chipping Norton Literary Festival on Sunday, according to the Daily Mail."


Note the purposeful choice of words - 

Raising a child in a faith is forcing a belief on someone. 

The Left, along with their atheist, radical feminist, radical environmentalist and other sundry allies, know fully well that the people must be excised all all knowledge, ideas, and beliefs that give them a sense of identity.   

Atheists cannot maintain detente with people of faith. No, their campaign to eliminate any annoying reminders that they may be wrong must be relentless. They cannot be truly satisfied until everyone else lives in the same state of denial as they do. Town park monuments that have crosses or the ten commandments must be removed. Any and all prayers must be confined to the home or the church; no, wait! - that's not enough either, only adults can do these. The kids must be kept as ignorant as we choose to be.

Atheists revel in their lack of intellectual effort and the very fact that a young person may be able to think more deeply than they can irks them to no end. Parents should be allowed only to provide a summary of each type of religion and see what happens when they grow into adulthood.

Like Leftists as a whole, these individuals have decided to despise any type of culture. Religion is a major contributing factor to a culture of a nation or a people. Take away the faith, or forbid the teaching of it until the youth have been through the Leftist wringer of primary school, and rest assured there will be very few people showing up for church services in a few years.

The state is god for the atheist. Having no protection from the greed or aggression of his neighbor in a world without natural law, he needs a very strong government to make him feel safe from the most mundane of threats. In a world before government, atheists would, without a clear concept of right and wrong, never have been able to coalesce into orderly and productive societies. Each would be ruled by the same laws as animals - the most powerful and aggressive getting what they wanted, when they wanted it. Having been born in an age in which a powerful state is a reality though, they seek to make full use of its coercive power to call for everyone to be raised as they choose to be.

The one who denies the existence of God pretends to believe that we could have come to this point in history without any belief in a creator. They assert that religion has done more harm than good while ignoring that religion has been, even in the eyes of honest agnostics, a very effective brake against never-ending wanton seizures of people's bodies and property and a tool to promote a degree of civility in societies. An elderly priest or nun may confront an aggressor regardless of the consequences; an atheist affects to believe that the most convincing of their  number would be able to reason with him.

The attack on religion, especially against Judeo-Christian types, is a key part of the campaign against Western Civilization. Rarely if ever are other religions targeted. I have noted with dismay that even many people who see what the Left is doing to Western societies seem to be OK with the ongoing campaign against the faith that helped make the West what it is. If these individuals fail to return to an appreciation of Judeo-Christian virtue, even in a 18th century Deist manner, the Left and their atheist colleagues will find their job to be a much easier task. If parents are legally held to be wrong for doing what their religion requires - in this case teaching the faith to the children, parents will cease to exist as anything other than baby-makers. 







Monday, April 22, 2013

Earth Day - Marxist Origins of Environmentalism

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/22/do-you-know-the-history-of-earth-day/

The video in the above link, despite the atrocious fake Russian accent that was intended to add some fun sarcasm but only makes it difficult to hear all of the words clearly, is a good starter source for understanding the Marxist origins of environmentalism and Earth day in the West.

The Soviet Union, unable to compete on an economic level with the non-Communist world, set out to level the playing field. If the West could be made to accept handicaps, then Marxism would have a fighting chance.

Thus was born the environmentalist movement. Like the no-nukes and peace movements which were bankrolled by the USSR, it was supported by the Soviet Union. This legacy continues today with the Socialist/environmentalist alliance of Agenda 21. Mikhail Gorbachev, in his post-USSR career, has continued to advocate for Socialism and radical, people-controlling environmentalist polices. He is a major proponent of Agenda 21*.

Today we still are the beneficiaries of visionaries such as Ed Asner, who blandly assure us that Communism "just has not been done right yet". The European Union and the changes being effected in the US are manifestations of the style of Socialism that is, after the USSR, Mao, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc., being touted as the way to get Marxism right this time.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/22/the-eu-is-the-new-communism-the-fiery-speech-denouncing-the-eu-you-dont-want-to-miss/

The very fact that the the leaders of the Soviet Union made themselves out to be the guys who were concerned with the environment exposes their intentions. The Communists left Russia and much of the satellite Soviet states deplorably polluted wastelands (And I am not counting Chernobyl - an accident  that made the worst Superfund sites in the US look like a pre-Adam and Eve Gardens of Eden. The only sure way, short of destroying our culture (Which takes some time but is also in progress)  that the West could be quickly reduced in its capacity to outperform Marxist nations was to hamper its ability to do what it does - produce efficiently. The most recent of these agendas was to make Carbon Dioxide into a pollutant.

Make our industrial production and way of life too expensive and the job is half done.

When the children's indoctrination programs of the 90's hit full swing, shows such as Captain Planet and the Planeteers portrayed the Soviet girl as concerned about (Fake) overpopulation and the US boy planeteer as ignorant and stubborn. One line of his that I will always remember is "No one is going to tell me how many kids I can have." Although that is an honorable and proper answer, the show wanted us to think that he was being short-sighted and selfish.

We must of course not forget that the same people who brought us radical environmentalism sought to kill two birds with one stone. With the control of people and industry came the promotion of earth and earth-goddess worship. Gaia and other variants were sold to Western peoples to replace Christianity and Judaism.  When I recently saw a guy going through some sun-worship moves (No kidding)  at a municipal baseball field as the sun rose, I could not help but wonder if he had any idea of who is behind his new religion.

*http://www.stopagenda21inms.com/index.php?/What-is-Agenda-21/agenda-21-part-ii-globalist-totalitarian-dictatorship-invading-a-town-near-you.html

*http://agendatwentyone.wordpress.com/

*http://www.fsmitha.com/review/r-gorb.htm


Sunday, April 21, 2013

Prince Charles Dispenses With "Defender of The Faith" Title

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/more/moreaccount.html

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/more/moretrialreport.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/3454271/Prince-Charles-to-be-known-as-Defender-of-Faith.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261908/Hes-future-Defender-Faith--does-Prince-William-church-handful-times-year.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18056322


The ruling family of the UK, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, better known by the assumed name Windsor, has become a disaster for the people of Great Britain. Having ruled at the height of the power of the British Empire, and once defiantly remaining with their subjects in the darkest hours of WWII, they have since then been complicit in its destruction.  In our era, they have stood idly by while their nation has been purposefully been inundated with what amounts to hordes of Muslim immigrants, many of which have no intention whatsoever of integrating and have made repeated calls to, once there are enough of them, transform that nation into an Islamic state. Members of this family have become bosom buddies with the radical Socialist/environmentalists such as those of the Club of Rome, calling for, among other things,  forced reductions in population. They seem to look upon their own people as ignorant and needful of marginalization.

Prince Charles, who by his lifestyle and lack of morals has exemplified the decline of this family, has taken steps to hasten the fall of the people and the nation of the UK.

One of the titles of the British Monarch is Defender of the Faith. Not-so-Bonny Charlie, if he is able to gain the throne, would rather drop "the" from that title, rendering it "Defender of Faith". He will assume the responsibility of defending all faiths, which of course in practice will mean every faith except that of the Church of England.

His rationale? Implying that there is one true faith is insulting to people who are not Christian.

If I were to smoke enough opium to make Samuel Taylor Coleridge appear unimaginative, I could not come up with a move that both smacks of more hubris and offers a greater insult to a people.

When I was speaking with our contributor Scipio about this, he brought up a valid point for which I could not think of any argument  to the contrary. If the King or Queen takes it upon him or herself to change a required title, then is he or she not violating the oath that was administered and taken at one's coronation? And, if one wants to change the title and/or oath prior to the assumption of the throne, is that not also a violation or a proof of being unfit for the throne?  Scipio referred to the comments made by Thomas More just prior to the reading of the findings (I couldn't bear to the write "verdict" due to the meaning of its root word) of the jury at his trial. More asserted that, by Henry VIII's actions, he had violated both his obligations under the Magna Carta and the coronation oath.

-What brings me to a serious point.

If a monarch has clearly violated or wrongfully changed the oath (Or arbitrarily mangled a royal title) which provided one with the authority to rule, then does Parliament, specifically the House of Commons, not have, not the authority, but the obligation, to depose that monarch?

The House of Commons would not be charting new territory here; in the Glorious Revolution it took the very same option, declaring James II Stewart (Stuart) deposed and inviting his daughter Mary and her husband William to rule England (Not yet Great Britain).

Charlie may turn up his nose at Christianity and many centuries of English/British history and tradition; he may also fancy himself the champion of Islam, voodoo, santeria  what have you, but if he wants to do that he can do so honorably by imitating  Edward the VIII and abdicate. There is a reason why those crosses are in the Union Jack.

A monarch is, as is a government , bound by the Law just as are his subjects/citizens. Both the Magna Carta and the successful civil lawsuits that followed the issuance and executions of general arrest and search warrants in 18th century Britain attest to this fact. He does not have the authority to change things as he pleases.

Great Britain is at a crossroads. The identity and survival of this nation and its people as recognizable entities are clearly at stake. The House of Saxe Coburg and Gotha/Windsor must have its collective feet held to the fire. If they want to continue in their cozy arrangement, then they must choose to stand for their people and their nation. If not, the people, by act of Parliament, must assert their authority and choose either one from that same house who vows to rule within the boundaries of the law, invite a more appropriate family to rule, or dispose of the monarchy altogether.