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American Military Quotes

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Again, as I’m cleaning out some old e-mails I’m coming across some pretty interesting ones. The first military quote below has been confirmed by Snopes.com while the other two are not on their site. It would be nice if the valor, honor, and truth of these statements carried through all discussions regarding the American military (no matter where one falls on the political spectrum). Enjoy!

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building’ by George Bush.He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.”

It became very quiet in the room.

Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?”

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?”

Once again, dead silence.

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, ‘whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.’ He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’ Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied ‘Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’

You could have heard a pin drop!

Zing!

No News in Iraq is Good News, Right?

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One of my students made an excellent point in a response paper the other day. He cited Charlie Gibson on ABC World News Tonight at some point last week (may have been the week before). Apparently Gibson made the following comments:

One item from Baghdad today. The news is… that there is no news. The police told us that, to their knowledge, there were no major acts of violence. Attacks are down in Baghdad and today no bombings or roadside explosions were reported.

My student took offense to the second sentence – that the news is that there is no news since there were no attacks. My student, correctly, deduced that if no attacks = no news, then does the mass media assume that attacks = news? Further, is it fair to the American masses that their media outlets are dictating what is “news” and what is not?

The student made many good points in his paper and I was impressed with his logic. Truly, no one can deny that today’s major media outlets and media figures are generally skewed far to the left or far to the right. This particular example shows that some media consider the only newsworthy items in Iraq to be those that are negative. For all that I’m worth, I wait to hear about new Iraqi schools being built or to hear about how the infrastructure of the country is being rebuilt. I once saw a story about the Iraqi stock market (I think it was on MSNBC) and it was fascinating!

This stuff is “news” – even though people aren’t dying! Anyway, take a Google search of this particular topic and you’ll find some interesting pages out there. Enjoy!

Convenient Flaws in the Truth?

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Earlier today I found an interesting little diddy on FOXNews.com regarding some of Al Gore’s assertions in An Inconvenient Truth. The article is written by a FOX News contributor named Steven Milloy who, by all accounts, appears to be a strong conservative in all of his policy and political leanings. So bear that in mind if you choose to go read the article.

This is an interesting post to me because Milloy’s article quotes a British judge who has ruled some of Al Gore’s findings as unscientific. In other words, the judge says there is no science to back up some – not all, but some – of Gore’s claims. There is no discussion of where the judge got his doctorate in environmental science, though…

Later in the article, some legitimate incorrect assertions are detailed and I think those are all known to the public at this point (the wrong date being given for a cigarette advertisement, 2005 NOT being the hottest year on record, there not being a cure for polio, etc). But those are all somewhat moot points (except the one about 2005 not being the hottest year on record – that’s an exaggeration of the truth).

In any event, I fail to see how a judge has the standing to make such decisions. This may be more politics than anything else. Of course, this is all taking place across the pond, so I don’t care about it too much, but I thought some of you folks may find it interesting.

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President Clinton is the Man!

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While I was watching Bill O’Reilly earlier he had a “Talking Points” memo about President Bill Clinton tearing apart some complete lunatic who was screaming the extremist mindset that 9/11 was an inside job. Bill O’Reilly’s compliments to President Clinton (and condemnation of Hillary) aside, I absolutely loved Clinton’s response to the whack job in the audience:

I’ve never been more proud of President Clinton! Good for this man! And I agree – how DARE the lunatics in this world say that 9/11 was an inside job. The problem here, folks, is that these idiot losers who are out there spreading these moronic lies used to be the people that you never saw out in public. Why? Because they generally live in their parents’ basement playing Dungeons and Dragons and cutting themselves all day.

Good for President Clinton! If this is his stance towards these extremist lunatics, then maybe it won’t be the end of the world when he moves back into the White House in January 2009!

The Fort Dix Terror Plot

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You can’t even trust the pizza man any more! In a huge success for this nation’s anti-terror task forces, a plot to shoot-up Fort Dix was thwarted yesterday when six Islamic extremists were apprehended before their terrorist plans could become reality. Thank God for the diligence of the hero in this case, a simple store clerk who was vigilant following the September 11th attacks.

This guy should be given the highest honor that this country can give at every level it can be given. As the linked article says, this group of 6 was preparing a platoon to take on an army. Granted, the United States military would have dispatched their platoon pretty quickly, that does not mean that they couldn’t have killed a large number of our men and women who serve – even if they’re serving on stateside.

There are a few really disheartening things that come out of this episode, though. Not the least of these is the fact that now there are quasi-home grown terrorist groups that are springing up that want to be Al-Qaida, yet are not. So not only are the “professional” terrorists plotting against our country, now we have wannabe terrorists doing the same. Great.

And I’m confident that some multiculturalist fanatic out there already trying to find ways to NOT blame this on six men of Middle Eastern/near-Middle Eastern descent. When this country’s politicians get balls enough to endorse extra security screening for young, male, Middle-Easterners we will finally have a politician who cuts through the bullshit and works in favor of this country’s best interests.