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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | February 10, 2005 | Vol. VI No. 3 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | February 10, 2005 | Vol. VI No. 3 | ||
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You've heard the quote from James N. Mattis; Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, dozens of time by now:
"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for 5 years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
Displaying its usual knee-jerk antipathy towards the American military, the press seized on Mattis' comments, delivered in the middle of a panel discussion in San Diego last week.
The message was clear. The Iraq war hero is, in reality, a brute. A psychopath. A cold blooded killer whose attitude offered a window into the thinking that lurked behind the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
Amazing. How do elite liberal journalists, who would never dream of joining the military themselves, think a commander prepares his men to engage the enemy? Obviously, these reporters have never been in a football locker room at half-time.
A commander needs to help his men believe that they are risking their lives for a great nation which believes great things; that they fight an enemy who would destroy our way of life and our people. How does one do that without appealing to base emotions?
There are other quotes from the top Marine commander that reporters could have noted, words that show that he's anything but the Neanderthal killer they advertised in press accounts.
Here's the advice Gen. Mattis offered his troops on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom before leading them into battle:
"Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam's oppression . . .
"Use good judgment and act in the best interests of our Nation. You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit . . . .
"If [Iraqi soldiers] choose to fight they are going to regret it, but we also believe that part of the physicians' oath that says first do no harm. If, to kill a terrorist, we have got to kill eight innocent people, you don't kill them."
The words of an out-of-control psycho killer? Hardly. That's why the press didn't want you to hear them.
The anti-military media would rather portray Gen. Mattis as a Ghengis Khan, Jr., executing the policies of a reckless cowboy President who's leading the nation to disaster.
Oddly enough, some of the same pundits calling for Mattis to step down are defending Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who described 9/11 victims as "little Eichmann's" who deserved what they got.
The soaring cost of President Bush's Medicare prescription drug program has politicians from both parties fuming.
As the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, the White House now says cost of the new entitlement program is expected to exceed $720 billion over the next 10 years, rising to more than $100 billion a year in 2014.
"Medicare must have taken an overdose of Viagra, because the cost of the program has now been enlarged by 80 percent since it was first passed by Congress," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Just last week, CAGW criticized Medicare for announcing it would cover impotence drugs when "medically necessary."
The cost of the new Medicare prescription drug program worried many lawmakers from the start.
Some Republicans now say they voted for the program, only because the original cost estimate did not exceed $400 billion.
But four months after Congress passed the law creating the new drug entitlement, the White House increased the estimated cost of the program from $400 billion to $534 billion, prompting both Democrats and Republicans to complain they'd been misled.
The $720 billion figure mentioned on Wednesday sent shock waves across Capitol Hill and led the network newscasts Wednesday evening.
"The overarching lesson of the past 70 years is that the costs of entitlement programs explode out of control in the long run," Schatz said in a statement. (For example, when Medicare was first passed in 1965, it was predicted to cost $26 billion in 2003; the actual cost was $245 billion, CAGW noted.)
"Instead of fixing a Medicare program already headed toward insolvency, Congress added a massive universal benefit that was not necessary, since 76 percent of seniors already had some form of drug coverage," Schatz added.
Given the fact that the United States already is saddled with a $427 budget deficit, "this latest revelation of waste in Washington should be enough to arouse taxpayers to demand that the cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit be deflated," Schatz said.
"Without reform, the Medicare program will needlessly place an enormous burden on our children and grandchildren," he concluded.
The White House says the cost of the Medicare prescription drug program will rise as more baby boomers enroll in it. And it says the $720-billion estimate is the result of extending the ten-year cost projection from 2013 to 2015. The two-year difference in the time frame includes many more retired baby boomers.
Citizens Against Government Waste says it is dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
The House is expected to pass a bill today that would effectively block states from providing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants -- making moot California's simmering debate over the issue.
The legislation proposed by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., would require states to verify that all applicants for driver's licenses are American citizens or are living in the country legally. If states don't comply within three years, their licenses couldn't be used for federal purposes, including boarding airplanes.
The proposal by Sensenbrenner, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, was stricken from the national intelligence overhaul bill that Congress passed last autumn because it was considered too controversial. If it passes as expected in the Republican-dominated House, however, the bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
But Senate proponents are talking about attaching the bill to the Senate's first "must-pass'' legislation, perhaps the proposed $80 billion spending bill for the war in Iraq.
The proposal is part of a larger bill the House started debating Wednesday that includes other equally controversial sections, such as an effort to force asylum seekers to provide more corroborating evidence to support their claims of being persecuted in their home countries.
The Sensenbrenner bill also moves to complete the final 3-mile stretch of a 14-mile three-tier fence along the Mexican border around San Diego by giving the homeland security secretary the power to waive any laws, including environmental provisions and public bidding laws, that hold up the construction of it or similar border barriers.
The driver's license provision goes to the heart of an issue that figured in the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis, who had flip-flopped on legislation giving undocumented residents in California the right to get driver's licenses. Davis first opposed the measure, then signed it shortly before the recall election.
After taking office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger persuaded the Legislature to repeal the law and vetoed another licensing bill last September after failing to reach a compromise with legislators.
While California doesn't allow the undocumented to gain licenses, 10 states do, so if the bill becomes law it will have a direct impact on them.
Sensenbrenner, his House supporters and the White House, which announced President Bush's support Wednesday, say their bill is a homeland security measure -- not an immigration bill -- and seeks to fulfill recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 investigating commission.
They promise to pursue immigration law changes, which could include Bush's proposal for a guest-worker program, later this year.
Opponents -- who include a broad coalition of groups supporting immigrant rights, civil rights and states' rights and environmentalists -- say the bill would drive the country's 8 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants further underground, deprive legitimate asylum seekers of protection and gut environmental laws and endanger illegal immigrants' lives by allowing border fence construction.
"This legislation will make Americans safer and more secure,'' Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach (Orange County), who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, told reporters. "This is unfinished business from the 9/11 commission recommendations. ... I hope never again will we fail to see that border security is an integral part of homeland security,'' he added.
Proponents of the bill said the 19 plane hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, had 63 driver's licenses and other forms of government identification among them. Opponents said the 19 had entered the country legally, which made it easy for them to get such documents.
But Sensenbrenner pointed to the case of hijacker Mohamed Atta, who entered the country on a six-month visa but was given a six-year license by Florida. His bill would ban issuing licenses to immigrants past the expiration of their visas.
Entrepreneur Armen Eloyan has launched what he calls the "One Nation" wristband campaign for Operation Homefront, an organization that aids the families of American troops with both money and volunteer time. According to a statement from Eloyan, the organization, established after 9-11, "has successfully helped thousands of military families deal with everything from car repair to extremes like homelessness."
The wristbands are similar to the yellow ones used by the Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise funds for cancer victims. The popular Armstrong bands are inscribed with the amalgamated word "LIVESTRONG."
Eloyan's silicone wristbands, which are available online (http://www.nationone.us/), are red and state: "ONENATION." All proceeds from sales, he says, go to helping military families.
Eloyan, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, says he's grateful to American troops "for ensuring the rights of all people around the world."
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