He has served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and will be leaving again in January for his fifth tour.

Aaron is a great person, a hero, and someone I respect immensely.

….

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If you get a chance, watch it tonight, here’s the trailer:

Ever wonder what happens to that $4 a gallon you spend at the pump, or better yet, what about the $600 billion or so we as a nation spend each year?

Yes, we need to curb our consumption. My ranting about energy is not that oil is the ultimate answer. It is a current one, however. Wind, electric, solar, bugs (seriously), and/or whatever else are all a part of the final solution. We need to start to turn away from Middle Eastern oil.

This in turn might reduce problems for us in so many other ways!

As impossible as it might have seemed a month ago, Americans are able to reduce fuel consumption. Good. It’s a start.

So was the Iraq War really about Oil? Now that Iraq is finally awarding contracts for its Worlds Third Largest reservoir of black gold, it makes you wonder. American companies are of course involved, though not the only ones.

In case you missed it, the Gulf War (the first one) is paying off: Kuwait is pumping billions into our economy.

So when you pay $4 per gallon you might assume that, what, at least a dollar of that goes right into the pocket’s of the evil oil executives, right!?

First the government, which does nothing, takes about 60 cents right off the top in taxes. Then there are other taxes that the oil companies pay just to be able to be, well, oil companies. Yes, if our government really wanted to give us instant relief, they would lower or remove SOME aspects of taxation on energy.

But don’t worry, at least a part of the $600 billion or so per year goes to the Middle East where it is helping out in big ways. For one, look at what they are building in Dubai, an 80-Story Tower With Revolving Floors Powered By Wind Turbines. At least our money is being put to good use. So take pride in pumping that SUV full of gas, just look at what it is accomplishing (—>).

Anyway, as I said, curb consumption and develop our own sources of energy so that in my lifetime we can be nearly, if not totally, free of foreign sources.

These include but are not limited to: coal liquidification, natural gas, and nuclear, along with conservation and alternative sources already mentioned. I hope energy is an issue you will consider this November.

But more importantly, by eventually getting away from sending $600 billion to the Middle East, South American Dictators, and the like, this might also reduce our global involvement in the Middle East and elsewhere. Yeah, wishful thinking.

C

Manuscript Update: I ended up a few weeks ago rewriting the preface for my manuscript. I also, as some of you know, came across a series of letters recently written by several members of the 11th Wisconsin (the regiment I wrote about) on ebay that were previously unknown. I had to win two auctions for some of them and then found out there were another dozen or so. I had to negotiate with the collector/dealer to delay his listing them and get photocopies of the letters. After a week or so of talks I ended up paying a $200 deposit for the photocopies with a promise to send another $500 to him by July and he would not auction the letters and send them to me at that time. It was a pretty steep price, but what else can I do? You know how I feel about history (primarily letters and diaries) being sold on ebay.

So I have those letters and am now in the middle of transcribing them and there is some good content. I am hopeful I will be able to include these 14 or so letters in the manuscript. I plan on posting in a day or so with some of the highlights from these letters. Once again, I don’t hoard history and/or jealously protect it so no one else can see it…

Anyway, sorry for my lack of posts lately, it was not intentional.

Cheers!

… U.S. Army is drawing lessons from the guerrilla raids, ambushes and skirmishes of 1860s Missouri to train its leaders to fight insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This is a laboratory. Missouri had more civilians killed by guerrilla warfare than any other state,” said David Chuber, a retired lieutenant colonel and now regimental historian with the U.S. Army Chemical School at Fort Leonard Wood in southern Missouri.

It’s the latest addition to a long-standing program called “staff rides,” in which soldiers study historic battles and role-play past military leaders during visits to the actual terrain.

In this case, the battlefield in the Missouri town of Centralia is the site of an 1864 massacre of Union soldiers by William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson and his pro-Confederate “bushwhackers,” including Jesse and Frank James.

Read more…

I’ve attempted, I feel, with great success to keep my personal beliefs and feelings removed from this meager blog. However, I feel I can no longer do this, especially in regard to the current war on radical Islamic fundamentalism. A war that so many believe is a farce created by people only interested in world domination and oil. You know, the West as the ultimate bad guy.

I know there are those who will in one breath condemn what has happened as today it was announced that the mangled remains of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, were found. And in another breath suggest that the United States (the Western world) has brought this down on itself. In a way we are responsible for some failures, no doubt. I say we have used too much restraint. I was already in a depressed mood after I read an Interview with Andrew Bacevich: The Arrogance of American Power over at the HNN.

He was asked:

TD: What about the Iraq War at present?

Bacevich: There are a couple of important implications that we have yet to confront. The war has exposed the limited depth of American military power. I mean, since the end of the Cold War we Americans have been beating our chests about being the greatest military power the world has ever seen. [His voice rises.] Overshadowing the power of the Third Reich! Overshadowing the Roman Empire!

We’ve been beating our chests? And I know there are many who believe this. First Bacevich contradicts himself. His premise is that we are arrogant and have attempted to subjugate the world. Yet we are not even the military equals of the Third Reich. Fine. I do not understand Bacevich and I know those who do will not understand me. It is our restraint that is getting us into trouble in Iraq. I was not in favor of going in, but it’s three years and it’s time to get it right. We are a nation, who at the height of our military production during WWII, could place more equipment and machines into battle than Germany, Japan and England combined. If we had cranked up the machine of war a few years ago, instituted the draft, and placed even just 25% more of our resources toward the effort in Iraq, we would have it under control by now. Our own military has reported that had we deployed several hundred thousand more troops the war would have been shorten and we would be on our way to withdrawal at this very time. However, we all know that it would have been a political nightmare to do such a thing.

The director of the Iraqi defense ministry, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said, “With great regret, they [the two soldiers] were killed in a barbaric way” after admitting that they showed signs of having been tortured. Does anyone remember the ideological makeup of Japanese soldiers indoctrinated under the tenants of Bushido? When Japan started industrializing during the second half of the 19th century it kept the belief system Bushido from its former warrior class the Samurai. Bushido was a way of life; it was about submission of body and soul. It held very strict rules for behavior and did not allow for much individual identification. It was an ideology. It helped them create a robotic military that could systematically execute orders and people. It helped them create the belief of cultural and racial superiority.

How many of us really even understand or know the basics of Islam? What is it based on? Here’s a quick refresher. The word “Islam” means to submit, more precisely, “submission to will of God.” To be a Muslim is to be one who submits to the word of God. The religion is founded in submission, which does not allow for a lot of freethinking. When you are told something by a caliph or respected holy person, you do it. I am not a deeply Christian person. I do not regularly attend church, as I believe that being a Christian is a way of life and has nothing to do with identifying myself with a sect. But I am very much concerned with those who try to pass off Islam as this piece loving religion. It is based on war and submission. It spread because of war and do not believe it for a moment if someone tries to tell you that the term “Jihad” has been “misunderstood.” It is all about a holy war. A warrior of a jihad who dies in battle is believed to enter an afterlife of “sensual paradise.” Though initially the founder of Islam (a prosperous Arab merchant, Muhammed) called for Christians to be treated with some level of respect as he considered them to only be “misguided” in their beliefs. However, if they tried to block the expansion of Islam they were to become targets of the Dar Ar-Harb (Adode of War). Jihads targeted all none-believers as it spread. Within a century of its founding in the 7th century, Islam “conquered” Persia, Egypt, and Syria. That was just the beginning.

Too often I hear people, even historians, call the Western world (America) nothing but a crusading nation. They even point to the Crusades as the beginning of Islam’s distrust and anger with the West. Anyone who has read or studied the Middle East and Islam would know that the Crusades were more than just wealthy Christians plundering religious holy lands. As a matter of fact, for years after the expulsion of Christians from Jerusalem Arab historians failed to give the events much notice. It meant little to them. Of course, you do know that the word “crusade” is a modern term as the real Crusaders never used the word. They saw themselves as pilgrims. Expert and historian Thomas F. Madden makes the point, “for western Europeans the crusades were epic struggles that helped fashion their image of themselves… [for] Muslims the crusades were hardly worthy of attention. As late as the seventeenth century the crusades remained virtually unknown in the Muslim world.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. Yes the Crusaders could be brutal and there were slaughters. Both sides cut off plenty of heads. But Christianity has grown and developed a conscience that is missing from radical fundamental Islam. I’m not saying all of Islam. (See his book, “The New Concise History of the Crusades,” 2005, preface.)

My ranting has spun off to the Crusades, but with good reason. Hopefully, you begin to see how we take and use history and distort it to fit our own needs. Certain aspects of the Muslim world since 9/11 have pointed back to the Crusades as some kind of justification for what is happening now. Or how about the deduction that we are simply on another Crusade today for oil or global domination. Let’s go back to Bacevich and his evoking of the Third Reich and Roman Empire as some kind of measuring stick for the United States today. I contend that of all the superpowers of world history, and we are one of them, that we have for the most part used our force only when provoked and have used it with much restraint.

My blog post today will probably be seen by some as nothing more than the ranting of a racist, paranoid, ignorant far right radical. Now if I stood up and called the United States arrogant, imperial, ignorant, and Christianity an evil institution, I would be hailed. Oh well.

But I have a final and more important point to make. I know that the argument is that we (Westerners) essentially created al-Qaeda. That via colonialism, racism, American hegemony, or our support for Israel, we have created the anger that the Middle East has for us. Al-Qaeda to many people was a natural reaction to our actions. As Victor Davis Hanson and many others have noted it is arguably the “widespread failure to adopt free institutions, democracy, open markets, and civilian audits” that have led to discontent among the masses in the Middle East. These same people whose lives are based on submission and inequality. But the fact is, al-Qaeda would be alive and kicking regardless. Case in point, Iraq. All that oil money yet the vast majority of the country lived in poverty or near the poverty level. Have you researched how far different Iraq was before Saddam? It is easy for radical fundamentalist groups to point to the wealthy U.S. and say, “Look, there’s your problem…” when in fact it is their very own making.

Finally, I’ll let the terrorists (radical Islam fundamentalism) speak for themselves:

“We give the good news … to the Islamic nation that we have carried God’s verdict by slaughtering the two captured crusaders,” said an Internet post which appeared on an Islamic militant Web site where insurgent groups regularly post statements and videos.

“With God Almighty’s blessing, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer carried out the verdict of the Islamic court.”

The nature of American military power in our age is defined by how it is constrained — through nuclear deterrence, political realities, and cost/benefit analysis. How does the United States employ its overwhelming military superiority to achieve political aims, especially when even friends and neutrals often wish us to stumble — if for no other reason than to see the world’s sole superpower occasionally humbled?

To read more…

(CBS) President Bush and the Republican Congress show nearly record low ratings while Democrats are viewed much more favorably in their performance on the issues that matter most to Americans, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.

Only 31% of those polled approve of Mr. Bush’s job performance and 68% believe the United States is worse off today than it was before Bush became president.

Personal evaluations of Mr. Bush are the lowest they’ve ever been during his presidency. On the public’s confidence in Bush’s ability to handle a crisis, 51% had been the previous low in September 2005. That figure is now at 50%. The President’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis is tied to that decrease.

Read more…

That America’s real error was not the invasion of Iraq, but the failure to plan and manage its reconstruction seems never to have occurred either to Mr Bush or to his opponents. Yet the many Iraqis who initially welcomed the Americans as liberators from the tyranny of Saddam must surely have reached this conclusion: what destroyed Iraq was not the American invasion, but the arrogance and incompetence of Donald Rumsfeld.

Read more…