I originally posted this entry last night on my main blog at www.bouhammer.com.

There is no way, NO WAY this is going to happen. In about 5 minutes I will be on a Blogger’s Roundtable talking with Mr. David S. Sedney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, and Brig. Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr. Director, Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell, Joint Staff. I am going to ask some hard questions about the timeline that the President just outlined.

Why does he think that a mere 1 year after he surges in 30,000 additional forces, that he can start withdrawing forces. How is that much progress going to happen in 12 months. In Jan, 2007 MG Durbin stated that he wanted Task Force Phoenix to start mentoring and training the Afghan Police and wanted them up to the level of the Afghan Army (which we had been embedded with for the last 5 years). We said then that MG Durbin was on crack to think we could turn around the ANP that fast. Well I am starting to think that again now of the President.

I wrote earlier about how there is no way they can have the logistics in place support this surge in the next six months. But despite that, they have to find enough ANA and ANP candidates that are going to stay around, that are not going to go AWOL, that are not going to run at the first bullets launched at them. Oh and then have to get them trained up to a competent level of performance so that a drawdown can start just 12 months after all the forces get there. No FRIGGEN WAY!! It is not going to happen. I am telling you there is no way.

But let me also say that I don’t except the drawdown to happen in Jun of 2011. He is hoping that that can happen, but the President said the “situation must allow it”. Lets call it like we see it. 2011 will be in the heart of the next Presidential Campaign window and it is all in his best interest for re-election to try and pull out of Iraq by end of 2011 and start a pull out of Afghanistan by mid-2011. He is “hoping” that he can do that, just like he is “hoping” that the NATO countries will pony up the additional 10,000 forces that are missing from Gen McChrystal’s original request. Just like my old Battalion Commander, COL Forney, used to say, ‘hope is not a method’.

The ‘Best Man for the Job’ (GEN McChrystal) asked for 40,000 troops, yet he is only getting 30,000, which is 3/4 of what he asked for. It took something like 83 days to come up with that? It only took 50+ something days to overthrow the Taliban and Al-Queda in 2001. Not giving the General who was noted as the “best man” what he asked for is a slap in the face of the General and of all the military.

The President is playing politics with our military and with our country. Shame on him with trying to appease both sides of the aisle. Don’t tell certain groups of Americans what you think they want to hear, tell them the truth.

There is NO WAY this is going to happen in the next 18 months.

This was sent to me by a good friend, fellow milblogger and warrior. Since I just wrote a post a few minutes ago that this would have went well with, I decided to throw this one up real fast too.

It speaks to a lot of the issues that the military has with the current Administration and why there is NO respect for them, or some of those around them.

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/11/11/help-wanted-commander-in-chief.php

Since President Obama was selected yesterday as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize there has been lots of strong feelings and comments from all sides. Personally I think the idea of giving it to him is an outrage and makes the award worthless and disrespects all those before him who have won. Not only because he has been in office for less than a year and has not really done anything tangible, but also because the nomination deadline was only 12 days after he was nominated. So was he nominated on “hope” that he would do something? Shouldn’t there be a minimum criteria for even being nominated?

The Nobel prize for science seems to have this criteria and I think is still something that is regarded as a high honor. But just giving this to Obama will make many in American question any award with the name “Nobel” in it.

Many people do many great things in this world for many reasons, of which none are ever an award. Nobody gets up and sacrifices every day in hopes of getting an award like the Nobel Peace Prize, however I think it is a slap in the face of those that have done tons of great things to see this guy who has done nothing get it. I mean what could it be for? Giving away our interrogation secrets, keeping Gitmo open, creating more Czars than any other President, lowering the level of protection and security that we have as a country by canceling the missile defense shield but not getting anything in return from Russia, making empty threats to Iran, not being able to make a decision on Afghanistan? What could be the reason?

Compare those “accomplishments” with those made by Dr. Sima Sumar.

Dr. Samar was the first Hazara woman to obtain a medical degree from Kabul University, back in 1982. After a four-month residency at Wazir Akhbar Khan Hospital in Kabul, she was forced to flee for her life as Soviets and Mujahedeen fought bloody street battles in the capital. She returned to her home village of Jaghoori, where she began treating the sick in rural Afghanistan. Soon the Russians arrested her husband and, once again Dr. Samar fled, this time with her young son, to Pakistan. In Pakistan she founded a clinic to treat refugees of the war in Afghanistan and has since described the conditions in the refugee camps as “appalling.”

You can read the rest of Dr. Sumar’s story and learn a lot more about her by heading over to my buddy, PJ Tobia’s blog at http://trueslant.com/pjtobia/2009/10/10/afghan-woman-loses-nobel-prize-to-obama/

Dr. Sumar is just one of what I am sure many overly qualified people that could have been great choices to win this once-respected award. It is truly sad that the Nobel selection board is so biased and so slanted to one side that they too have drunk the kool-aid that the ultra left liberals are serving.

There is no way anyone can come up with an argument on why he deserved this. If you think you can, then I invite you to “BRING IT” in the comments and I will be glad to shut your argument down with facts.

I have a bunch of news alerts that get sent to my email when certain topics are written about.  For example, “Blue October”, “Army”, “Silver Star”, “Medal of Honor”, “Distinguished Service Cross”, etc.  So, it was with interest that I clicked on a link in one of my “Silver Star” emails with the title, “Why are Democrats far more likely serve in the military than Republicans” written by, in a strange twist of irony, “Mr. Objective.”

As someone who still claims to be an independent, I couldn’t help looking further into this.

BLUF is that “Mr. Objective” wasn’t very objective at all.  Turns out he really just copied something published on the leftist website, www.awolbush.com and passed it off as his own.  As I dug deeper, it looks like the AwolBush site has been plagiarized by ALL the leftists.  I also found it highly ironic that the people writing these stories hadn’t served themselves!

So, what is the truth?  It’s somewhere in between.  It would be easy for me to hypothesize that the reason more Democrats than Republicans have served is because Democrats believe in sucking the teet of big government.  What better place to go after military service than back into government work?  But, one would have to assume that the inaccurate belief that more Dems than GOPers actually service in Congress.

If you check out the link to that story and start reading what the author is passing off as his own, you begin to immediately notice some glaring omissions.  For example, since the article is highlighting PROMINENT politicians, I couldn’t help but notice the exclusion of such political heavyweights as Representative Pelosi, Senator Reid, President Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden – to name just the top three.  Even more of note is the lashing that the author give VP Cheney for his “several deferrments” without so much as mentioning VP Biden’s FIVE and eventual Selective Service classification of “not available for service” due to a sudden asthma problem.

I also found it irksome that an article that highlights “prominent politicians” (let’s assume this is an original writing for the sake of argument) includes people I’ve never heard of:  Representative Tim Walz, Representative Phil Hare, Representative David Bonior, Representative Leonard Boswell, Former Representative “Pete” Peterson, and Rep. Mike Thompson to name a few.  They’ve even thrown a failed Democratic candidate for Governor in Floride into the list, Bill McBride.  There’s nothing “prominent” about any of these people.  Add this to the neglectful omissions of the aforementioned REAL prominent people and you see where I have issues with this misrepresentation.  Maybe I should report the site to flag@whitehouse.gov?

Now, I can’t speak for what is happening TODAY in the military.  I left military service in 2004, but when I was in almost everyone around me, officers and enlisted, considered themselves Republican.  Could it be that maybe the truth is just that more Democrats go into political office after leaving than Republicans and the author(s) are just misusing the “data?”
I thought it prudent to do a micro census to test my theory that this article is just wrong.  What better place to test it first than in the Senate Armed Services Committee?  Here’s what I found:

Carl Levin (D-MI) – Chairman of the Armed Services committee – DID NOT SERVE
Edward Kennedy (D-MA) Armed Services Committee – DID NOT SERVE
Robert Byrd (D-WV) member – DID NOT SERVE
Joe Lieberman (D/I – CT) member – DID NOT SERVE
Jack Reed (D-RI) member – VETERAN
Daniel Akaka (D-HI) member – VETERAN
Bill Nelson (D-FL) member – VETERAN
Evan Bayh (D-IN) member – DID NOT SERVE
Ben Nelson (D-NE) member – DID NOT SERVE
Jim Webb (D-VA) member – VETERAN
Claire McCaskill (D-MO) member – DID NOT SERVE
Mark Udall (D-CO) member – DID NOT SERVE
Kay Hagan (D-NC) member – DID NOT SERVE
Mark Begich (D-AK) member – DID NOT SERVE
Roland Burris (D-IL) member – DID NOT SERVE
John McCain (R-AZ) Ranking Member – VETERAN
James Inhofe (R-OK) member – VETERAN
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) member – VETERAN
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) member – DID NOT SERVE
Lindsay Graham (R-SC) member – VETERAN
John Thune (R-SD) member – DID NOT SERVE
Roger Wicker (R-MS) member – VETERAN
Mel Martinez (R-FL) member – DID NOT SERVE
David Vitter (R-LA) member – DID NOT SERVE
Richard Burr (R-NC) member – DID NOT SERVE
Susan Collins (R-ME) member – DID NOT SERVE

Just using this as a measurement, 26% of Democrats are veterans while 45% of Republicans are.  Let’s look at the House side and pry into the House Armed Services Committee, shall we?  It’s a little closer, with 25% of Democrats on the committee that are veterans and 28% of Republicans.  Now, you’ll also notice that unlike our liberal friends, I don’t go around disparaging who did and did not serve in a combat zone. Many troops do not have the option of going into combat, but the mere act of volunteering and facing that possibility is good enough for me – even if it is not good enough for liberals.

We could probably go through this member by member and I’m willing to bet that the results would still either be close to equal or definitely on the Republican side.  Notice how the writer also mentions a bunch of “former” senators, representatives, etc!

Jonn over at This Ain’t Hell tells how the Democrats are trying to sneak Cap and Tax by us without it being examined. To say that I am perturbed would be an understatement.  I suppose the “transparency” that was used to jam the stimulus package down our throats is still in play (and even as I’m typing this, BHO is having a presser about a potential immigration reform amnesty bill and touting “transparency”).  Why do I get the feeling that Cap and Tax will be considered “emergency legislation” by the administration in order to avoid that promised five day review period?   Time to light up those Congressional switchboards.

But it sounds like they were not really happy with the visit or want him back. Head over to Blackfive.net and read the whole story at www.blackfive.net/main/2009/06/president-obama-visits-wounded-troops.html

“Yesterday. Dave Jr. was ordered to be at the  National Naval Hospital with another 12 soldiers and  Marines to meet with Obama.  Obama was supposed to  arrive at 11:30 AM.  He finally got there at 3:00 PM.”