Mike Walker, USMC Colonel (retired) is correct. Who is celebrating the achievements of our service members? Almost a decade has passed with only a few non anti-military-Michael Mooreish films being made. Iraq military accomplishments are sent to page 17(if the paper still has a pg17) and Abu Graib still makes it to page 1.....

Marines,

Was watching the HBO series “The Pacific.” This is a follow-up to the “Band of Brothers” series. Clearly the best presentation of life in the infantry ever conceived.

These are stories that all who served in the infantry can relate to, but more importantly, view with the deepest of respect for the soldiers and Marines who served in combat in that war.

For anyone who has served in the infantry, the series vignettes are timeless and always strike close to home. The life of “grunt” has not really changed all that much over the years.

There is, however, a special aura of those who served in the rifle companies in time of war. We who were young, like myself, when the battle siren did not call are only the faint connecting files, the keepers of the flame, for those who were tested in the sting of battle. To them the laurels must go and rightfully so.

That is why, for a Marine, “The Pacific” is so important.

There is one scene that deserves special attention, the closing scene of episode two.

In the scene a sailor tells four Marine ‘grunts’ that:

“You guys are on the front page of every newspaper in America. You are heroes back home.”

Those are words no Marine Korean or Vietnam War veteran ever heard and those are words no Marine veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan will ever hear.

And that belies the truth that they deserve those words ever equally as much. We are no different.

Yet, no matter how courageous, no matter what the sacrifice, in complete indifference to those who gave the last full measure of devotion to our country, today's Marines will never hear the seventeen words uttered in “The Pacific” series.

That is a national disgrace and disservice to those who serve.

We will never hears those words because the 21^st century American media is lost and adrift in a misconceived ideal of 'constitutional-internationalist' elitism, faux intellectualism, and plain and simple ignorance when confronted with the best and brightest of America, our men and women in the Armed Forces.

They cannot relate the truth about the actions of our combat heroes in uniform to the American people today because they are too conflicted by their prejudices and bias.

Where is our Ernie Pyle? Missing in action and will remain so.

Our American media: SNAFU.

Semper Fi,

Mike

So This Is What Change Looks Like

Bond Markets Reflect the True Cost of Obamacare

By Michael Barone

Not many people noticed amid the Democrats' struggle to jam their health care bill through the House, but in recent weeks U.S. Treasury bonds have lost their status as the world's safest investment.

The numbers are pretty clear. In February, Bloomberg News reports, Berkshire Hathaway sold two-year bonds with an interest rate lower than that on two-year Treasuries. A company run by a 79-year-old investor is a better credit risk, the markets are telling us, than the U.S. government.

Buffett's firm isn't the only one. Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Lowe's have been borrowing money at cheaper rates than Uncle Sam.

Democrats wary of voting for the health care bill may have been soothed by the Congressional Budget Office's report that it would reduce federal deficits over the next 10 years. But bond buyers know that the Democrats gamed the CBO system to get a good score.

The realities, as former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin pointed out in The New York Times, are different. The real cost is disguised by the fact that the bill includes 10 years of revenue but only six years of spending. It includes $70 billion in premiums for long-term care that will have to be paid out later. It excludes $114 billion in discretionary spending needed to run the program. It includes nearly half a trillion dollars in unrealistic Medicare savings.

Holtz-Eakins's bottom line: The bill will not lower deficits, but will raise them by $562 billion over 10 years. Treasury will have to borrow that money -- and probably pay much higher interest than it's paying now.

Moreover, once the bill is fully in effect, the Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds points out, its expenses are likely to grow at least 7 percent a year -- significantly faster than revenues. At that rate, spending doubles every 10 years.

No wonder that Moody's declared last week that the Treasury is "substantially" closer to losing its AAA bond rating.

It's not only the federal government that is heading toward insolvency. State governments will have to spend more under the health care bill -- $735 million in Tennessee alone, according to Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen.

And state governments are already facing a huge problem called pensions. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that state government pensions are underfunded by $450 billion. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Andrew Biggs argues in The Wall Street Journal that the real figure is over $3 trillion.

The reason: State governments set aside cash to invest in pensions, but they typically assume that their investments will rise 8 percent a year indefinitely. They haven't been getting such high returns and are not likely to do so in the future. But they are under legal obligations, which courts won't allow them to escape, to pay the pensions. Retirees get paid off before bondholders, which means that states are going to have to pay more interest when they borrow.

Back in the 1990s, Clinton adviser James Carville said that if he was reincarnated he would like to come back as the bond market -- "because you can intimidate everybody." Governments, like all organizations, need to borrow routinely. But investors won't lend unless they think they will be paid back. And they will demand higher interest rates as their loans become riskier.

On Sunday, 219 House Democrats, soothed by their leaders' gaming of the CBO scoring process, voted in reckless disregard of what the bond market has been telling them. Some may share Speaker Nancy Pelosi's optimism that the government's looming fiscal disaster can be avoided by imposing a value-added tax -- in effect, a national sales tax.

But, as we know from the experience of high-tax Western Europe and relatively low-tax America over the last three decades, higher taxes tend to retard economic growth. Lower economic growth means less revenue for government than in CBO projections. Less revenue means more borrowing -- and at some point lenders are going to call a halt.

Barack Obama's project of transforming the United States into something like Western Europe is, according to the CBO, raising the national debt burden on the economy to World War II levels. I see train wrecks ahead -- as the bond market forces huge spending cuts or tax increases first on states and then on the federal government. It will make what happened in the House Sunday look pretty.

Copyright 2010. Creators Syndicate Inc.

WE'RE AN AMERICAN MAN

Posted by Scott Johnson, Powerline

In Letter III of his Letters From an America Farmer (1782), J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur famously asked: "What then is the American, this new man?" He answered: "He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He has become an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all races are melted into a new race of man, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims." (More on De Crevecoeur here.)

The Census Bureau will have none of it. Mark Krikorian observes: "Fully one-quarter of the space on this year's form is taken up with questions of race and ethnicity, which are clearly illegitimate and none of the government's business (despite the New York Times' assurances to the contrary on today's editorial page)." The editorial to which Krikorian refers is here.

Mark Krikorian harks back in spirit to De Crevecouer. Krikorian has set up a Facebook page inviting Americans to follow his example:

In 2010, the new CENSUS will be taken.
Last time, instead of listing my race, I listed me as "HUMAN."
This next year, I will be listing myself as "AMERICAN"... please Join ME!!
If you believe, as do I, that when America QUITS asking people what their COLOR, RACE, Ethnicity is, then we will all become a stronger Group: Americans.

Krikorian therefore suggests:

[W]e should answer Question 9 by checking the last option -- "Some other race" -- and writing in "American." It's a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, "American" was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.

So remember: Question 9 -- "Some other race" -- "American." Pass it on.

As he says, pass it on.

It has been evident that there are several in Hollywood that have taken up "jihad" against American values and governmental systems. Two big examples are Matt Damon with his series of man-against-ruthless-machine films (Bourne series) and Tom Hanks and his faith based attacks (Da Vinci Code, Big Love, etc) These are not just films or just entertainment, these are statements in a more well developed Michael Moore mode. German propaganda worked so well before and during WWll because the message was consistent and polished.

Here is an interesting look at Mike Walker's (USMC Colonel, retired) view of the Green Zone.

All,

Let the Hollywood silliness begin with yet one more Iraq War film.

Did you know the new Matt Damon action thriller "The Green Zone" is based on an Iraq Survey Group (ISG) mobile exploitation team (more accurately called a mobile collection team (MCT)) in 2003?

Probably don't care either but...

That was my unit in Qatar and Iraq in 2003 and went on a number of exploitation missions in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

Cannot wait to see if the fantasy has any connection whatsoever to reality. Doubtful.

Please note that any resemblance between movie star Matt Damon and myself is totally coincidental. I am more distinguished looking when in uniform.

For the record, personnel assigned to the ISG were part of a combined joint/multi-agency intelligence task force operating in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was made up of personnel from all four services, US Government Agencies, the Australian and UK Armed Forces as well as UK and Australian Governmental Agencies.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Special Assistant for Strategy directed ISG operations and the Director for HUMINT, DIA, oversaw day-to-day ISG operations.

The ISG mission was to organize, direct, and apply intelligence capabilities and expertise to discover, capture, exploit and disseminate information on individuals, documents and other media, materials, facilities, networks, and operations relative to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Terrorism, Former Regime Intelligence, as well as Iraqi or Third-Country Nationals associated with the Former Regime, detained by the Former Regime, or subjects of Indictment for War Crimes or Crimes against Humanity.

Gee that was a mouthful!

So now you can see why Hollywood likes it, a golden opportunity to disparage/discredit our men and women in the military (except one lone hero, no doubt), plus the CIA, and whole host of other governmental spooks, geeks, and snake eaters along, with our allies to boot!

Despite my dripping cynicism, I will watch it, eat my popcorn, and quite probably enjoy it.

Liked "A Few Good Men" even though it had no real resemblance to service in the Marines. But that is the beauty of a Hollywood film, a hopefully pleasant escape from reality.

However, "The Green Zone" will be as valuable an insight into the Iraq War as a Three Stooges movie is on how to conduct you interpersonal relationships.

Semper Fi,

Mike