Like many of you, I am stuffed with Turkey, and ready to be mounted on a wall. Today is my last day in the Carolinas. Tomorrow it is back to Los Angeles.
Rather than deal with the seriousness of life in a state of food coma, I felt I had two options.
Since getting into fistfights with soccer moms over the newest toy at the mall is not my favorite hobby, a lighthearted post Thanksgiving Fun Friday is in order.
I rarely allow guest columns, but these were priceless. The second story is from one of our fine soldiers. The first one speaks for itself, and comes from Richard Baehr at American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/
“Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup 2008-11-25 14:23:00.260 GMT
November 25 (Bloomberg) — The Somali pirates, known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.
The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $2 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said. “You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything,’ said Ali.
The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS’s are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody’s and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS’s.
Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said ‘we need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster.’ Shandu added, ‘We don’t call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better.'”
With that, I now offer a story from one of America’s best.
“Here is a US Marine who is not afraid to tell it like it is..Political Correctness doesn’t mean beans to this tough young warrior.”
“From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan”
“It’s freezing here. I’m sitting on hard, cold dirt
between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush
Mountains along the Dar ‘yoi Pomir River watching a hole
that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my
friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to
fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I’ve
actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but
them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a
bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid but God
bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it
or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat
food and drink water. That requires couriers and that’s
where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track
the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage
facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the
coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air
commanders where to drop the hardware, we bash some heads
for a while, then I track and record the new movement.
It’s all about intelligence. We haven’t even
brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no
idea what they’re in for. We are but days away from
cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to
begin.
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him
with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and
plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his frontal
lobe. But you know me. I’m a romantic. I’ve said it
before and I’ll say it again: This country blows, man.
It’s not even a country. There are no roads, there’s
no infrastructure, there’s no government. This is an
inhospitable, rock pit sh*t hole ruled by eleventh century
warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his
family: join the opium trade or join the army. That’s
it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live
in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle
paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if
that’s your idea of a party. But the smell alone of
those ‘tent cities of the walking dead’ is enough to
hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs
for eighteen hours a day.
I’ve been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks and
Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and a
half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all
of ’em, are Huns Actual, living Huns. They LIVE to
fight. It’s what they do. It’s ALL they do. They
have no respect for anything, not for their families or for
each other or for themselves. They claw at one another as a
way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their
five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the
family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless
beasts who feed on each other’s barbarism Cavemen with
AK47’s. Then again, maybe I’m just cranky.
I’m freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my
lap warmer is running out of juice and I can’t recharge
it until the sun comes up in a few hours
Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor,
Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson
and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop
calling the Taliban ‘smart.’ They are not smart. I
suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are
looking for is ‘cunning.’ The Taliban are cunning,
like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and
ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful,
malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy
everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they’re real smart.
They’ve spent t heir entire lives reading only one book
(and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene
and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They’re
still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter Talking to a
Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like
trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just
gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.
OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon so I have to get back
to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of
practice but I’m good at it. Please, I tell you and my
fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with
your lives.
The story line you are getting from CNN and other news
agencies is utter bullsh*t and designed not to deliver truth
but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the
commercials. We’ve got this one under control The worst
thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what
we’re doing over here because you have no idea what
we’re doing and, really, you don’t want to know. We
are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to
do.
You wanna help? Buy Bonds America.
Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi”
Well all, Fun Friday will be followed by Sleep Saturday, followed by of course NFL Sunday.
eric
God bless you Jack, I cant thank you enough, do what cha gotta do bro.
No questions asked on this end.
While I’m worryied if the hues of red in my cranberry sauce will compliment the platter I picked out you’re probably trying not to think about your next MRE.
Thanks for pegging CNN for the sack of crap they can be.
Nothing pleasures me more than to hear straight from the mouths of our brave how destructive and counter productive the leftist media can be.
next time dont forget to include Jackass Cafferty in your line up.
Prayers.
If only we’d concentrated on Afghanistan in the first place and left Iraq alone – Jack and all the rest of them would be home for the holidays right now.
JMJ
Yea right Jersey.
You never fail to put a negative spin on things by implying that the guys in Iraq are doing the wrong thing.
You can guess that with more troops in Afghanistan the job would be finished, but anyone who can shove their rabid hatred for anything Bush for just one second would at least have the clarity of mind and the honesty to say that they “MIGHT” be home for the holidays.
That frame of mind and logic (or lack of) only reflects the ignorance on the left that explains why you all inadvertantly or out of stupidity minimize the efforts and job to be done.
If this, if that bla bla bla, when the man just got done telling us;
The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what
we’re doing over here because you have no idea what
we’re doing ”
And I would think the same applies to our guys in Iraq.
I do know this much.
These men and women volunteered, enlisted, stepped up to the plate all on their own long after they knew where they were going, what the deal was, what the mission was, what the stakes were, all in the name of believing in the same mission that their commander n chief believes in.
That alone right there makes what they are doing honorable and with purpose other than the disgusting labels you and the idiotic left give to this war.
Basically what your telling any troops who enlisted after it was clear why were in Iraq is that they are voluntarily contributing to, being a part of “excuses to steal our tax dollars for an ill-planned, ill-advised, ill-conceived, ill-willed, just-plain-ol’-ill occupation of Iraq.”
Way to go bro, you really know how to make a soldier feel good
We need to be in Iraq for many strategic reasons that have more to do with securing a stabalizing force in the middle east and not this BS label of our prescence being an ill concieved colonial occupancy with oil as a motivator.
Whats going on right in India is a perfect example of why we need to be there and weed out these bastards and impact their movement enough so that this crap comes to a manageable level.
Then again, if the war were fought in Afganistan with the left in charge the casualty rate would probably be thru the roof cuz you guys would be too busy setting up your pre conditions for your fellow “freedom fighters”.
While you were making the camp fire and putting the marshmallows on the sticks you’d get your brains blown out from under you.
(this is not why troops sit on their helmets)
I think you’d have to be nuts to enlist post-invasion of Iraq. But that’s just me. To each his or her own. I still think Iraq was stupid and counter-productive, and worse still, it tok away from Afghanistan, where we truly needed an all-out invasion.
But hey, I’m far from alone thinking this. I think most people now agree with me. I just have the foresight to have seen it from the beginning.
JMJ
Yea, you’re not alone.
I have the same list of choice words for all the others like you.
So, now you’re calling our troops “nuts” also.
Smooth move exlax
You had no foresight.
All you had was a position from the beggining drawn of hatred for anything the right does.
Foresight involves looking past hatred ond bigotry in order to see that there is a definite strategic relation to our being there.
Its not about hearts and minds or oil or any of that crap.
Its about placing ourselves in and with an ally that has the foundation for a decent economy therby being a viable partner in our fight against radical Islam.
We have the largest embassy there that weve ever had anywhere, we will have bases in a centralized location in the middle east. We will be to Israel and Iraq what we are to South Korea and Japan. Ensuring ours and there stability in that part of the world.
Only the narrow minded BDS far left conspiracy theorists think that its about Cheny and Haliburton, Us stealing oil, or political trade offs for contracts.
You guys are clueless as you only look at what your BS partisanship, suspicions and hatred lead you to see.
There is no way we could implement the same kind of prescence and relationship in Afghanistan with the crappy economy (almost none at all) and destabalizing elements coming from everywhere along with neighbors worse than those of Iraq
As Jack said, theres pretty much nothing to do there but grow dope or enlist.
The action is not really in Afghanistan anymore half as much as it is in northern Pakistan, Syria and other states that skirt the middle east.
One of these days the left is going to learn to look at the big picture instead of focusing on localized minute issues.
Were trying to strategically deal with hundreds of various unfriendly elements across the globe, each with their own set of logistical and cultural problems and you guys are under the delusional impression that all these elements in the world will just come togeteher because Obama says he can do it.
You had no foresight, you had contempt for any military leadership under Bush.
Anyone who thinks it was all about toppling one man is the one whos truly nuts.
One or two F 14s could of done that.
When you can make a case for pulling out of Iraq thats half as good as my case for staying and going in the first place then I’ll be impressed.
Until then, you’re just denegrating and disrespecting our troops.
As usual.
Sorry man. Just being honest. I wouldn’t sign up under this president for a million bucks. If somebody wants to sign up and fight in Iraq, then good for them. Whatever floats their boats. Me? I think you’d have to have a screw loose. It’s not contempt or anything. I just think that you’d have to have one pretty crazy level of valor to sign up under this commander in chief and administration.
And Afghanistan wouldn’t be such a $#@!hole if we’d done it right. But as usual and always, the cons got everything wrong.
JMJ
You cant do Afghanistan right or for any other way than what it is.
All military stratrgists agree that a full blown invasion as you suggest would have more misses than hits because of the demographics and the lay outs.
Yea, real good analysis after the fact.
These no honesty in after the fact armchair quarterbacking.
I guess its safe to say that you dont support the troops unless you approve of the war they’re fighting. anything different are just a buch of nuts right ?
“I wouldn’t sign up under this president for a million bucks.”
I’ll remember this next time one of you asks us on the right to reach across, lets work together with this new pres and abandon our partisanship.
Not that nomne of you entertained that thought before Obama was elected anyway.
“But as usual and always, the cons got everything wrong.”
Of course, this statement is a clear reprtesentative of pure bigotry and stupidity.
Its just about as true as saying the left always gets everything wrong.
Especially since Clinton had 8 years to catch Bin Laden or deal with Al Queda and got that way way way wrong.
Which reminds me, you chickened out and never answered my question from Wednesday.
Now, lets try this so that I can point out just what you’re being.
Tell me one thing good thats come out of the Dem majority in the last 2 years ?
(thats the 4th time I asked you)
Our fight has never been in Afghanistan and never will be. As noted in the great Marine’s letter, there’s nothing there – so if there is no infrastructure to take out, and there isn’t, and there are no jobs to be deleted, there aren’t, then go there? The Afghans didn’t have an Army. They are trying to build one, but they are a lifetime away from self-reliance. The Iraqis have an infrastructure. They had an Army. They had a program called the artist formerly known as investigative reporting that was swapped for agenda and is still killing the US with bile. Iraq is all but won. Yes, we got rocketed the other night. They missed. There were three civilians killed in the local village. The Iraqi police killed the two suspects. Wow. Just like any city USA! The tip of the spear was, and still is, Iraq. Afghanistan is a ….hole and always will be. Peace, love, and all that hippie stuff
Micky, you said, “All military stratrgists agree that a full blown invasion (of Afghanistan) as you suggest would have more misses than hits because of the demographics and the lay outs.” I have no idea where you get that from or why “misses then hits” is even relevent to the conversation. Of course, the larger the assault the greater the misses – but also the greater the hits. And a larger assault doesn’t imply what sort of tactics to be employed by a larger force. Just dropping bombs all over the place has never won a war. But a larger ground presence could secure the urban centers, the ports and farms. It could squash the opium trade, and keep the Taliban at bay. It could better secure the Afghan/Pakistan border.
And all this is beside the point. One of the main rhetorical reasons to invade Iraq was to lure the terrorists there. Why did we do that? There were few terrorists there to start with. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan we knew for a fact that terrorists found safe haven there and were using the country as a central base and headquarters. We didn’t ave to lure them there – they were already there! A full scale invasion of Afghanistan would have accomplished more in the GWOT than any other strategy. But Afghanistan has no OIL, and in the end, war profiteering and oil were the real reasons for invading Iraq. And that gets to the main reason I wouldn’t sign up for that – I don’t want to risk my life for war profiteers and oil.
As for your silly and innane question about the Dem majority on the Hill – ask me that two years from now, when they have a more sizeable majority and a Dem in the White House.
“Our fight has never been in Afghanistan and never will be.”
Well, Eagle, you have finally gone over the cliff of eternal and infinite cognitive dissonance. I just don’t know what else to say about this.
JMJ
I’m going to listen to Jack before I listen to a guy who analogizes terrorists as unruly children.
Seems to me we need small precise forces that can give GPS locations for precision bombings etc…
Something along those lines
” in the end, war profiteering and oil were the real reasons for invading Iraq”
I already gave a much more logical and pragmatic explanation above but you still insist on taking your talking points from the 2003 looney leftist moonbat handbook.
Wheres this oil we went after ? HUH ?
Haliburton, Blackwater ?
The profits from that are a million to one in relation to the cost of the war. JEEZ.
“they were already there!”
No, only local revolutionaries hoping to gain control.
Al Queda and Uran cam later, gimme a break.
“As for your silly and innane question about the Dem majority on the Hill – ask me that two years from now, when they have a more sizeable majority and a Dem in the White House.”
NO JERSEY !!!!!!
You asked me what our recent con majority had done.
I am asking you the same question in regards to the recent dem majority.
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE RIGHT ???
A MORE SIZABLE MAJORITY ???
ARE YOU OUTTA YOUR MIND ????
They only need a couple more seats and they’ll have complete control.
Tell you what, if a dem has to be in office lets use the congress in place when Clinton was in office.
What a chicken you are man !
Total chicken of the worst kind.
My question is no more silly or inane than yours.
It is exactly the same question except that the word republican has been replaced with democrat.
Dissonative cognisance ?
Loose the word alreadyJersey.
You use it so much that half the time its outta place and doesnt even apply.
You’re just using it so you can sound edumacated and fancyshmancy.
Whenever someone makes sense that you cant get past you attack their thinking, intellect or sanity.
It makes you look pathetically weak and feeble.