Orson Welles would have enjoyed this.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Suddenly and shockingly, Belgium came to an end. State television broke into regular programming late Wednesday with an urgent bulletin: The Dutch-speaking half of the country had declared independence and the king and queen had fled. Grainy pictures from the military airport showed dark silhouettes of a royal entourage boarding a plane.
Only after a half hour did the station flash the message: “This is fiction.”

It was too late. Many Belgians had already fallen for the hoax.

Frantic viewers flooded the call center of the RTBF broadcaster that aired the stunt. Embassies called Belgian authorities to find out what was going on, while foreign journalists scrambled to get confirmation.

Heh heh…

Now the atheistic left is turning their beady eye on the Department of Defense.

Christian military officers who share their faith at work in the Pentagon pose a threat to national security, according to a group that advocates for religious neutrality in the military.

Public displays of faith by high-ranking military officers project an image of a Christian nation waging war on non-Christians, both inside and outside the United States, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation said Monday.

This created an “internal national security issue every bit as great as the one we’re fighting outwardly,” said the organization’s president, Mikey Weinstein.

Do these liberals ever actually listen to the idiocy that emerges when they open their mouths? From the relevant to the pedestrian, in this case the latter, they use the most ridiculous arguments to support the most inane, political agenda related rhetoric.

Handily, the perfect reply to this maudlin, moronic and picayune attack comes from a woman who obviously has her priorities straight:

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, criticized Weinstein for asking the DOD inspector general’s office to spend time investigating the video.

She said that because the video is accompanied by a disclaimer and does not ask for money, it doesn’t raise concern with her.

“The Department of Defense inspector general has an awful lot of issues on their plate, on their agenda, and I don’t see this as something so important that everything else should be put on hold,” Donnelly told Cybercast News Service after viewing the video. “The DOD IG has a lot more important things to do.”

Kinda’ reminds me of W.C. Fields saying, “Go ‘way, kid, y’bother me.”

Thanks to the usual politics, an assault on Fallujah, Iraq by Coalition forces was set back six months, during which time the various mujahideen (heretofore muj) forces, from all over the Middle East and as far away as Chechnya were provided ample time to transform the city of 39,000 buildings into a veritable fortress, “converting buildings into bunkers”, using “nearly half of the city’s mosques, along with most of the hospitals and schools, as supply dumps or strong points”.

To quote a senior Marine,

“In one mosque, every room contained different munitions, rockets in this room, mortars in that room, machinegun rounds in that room. Mosques were used as fighting positions or to store weapons. Yet G-d forbid I should attack the building, or it’s on the news that the Marines desecrated a mosque.”

Shortly thereafter,

According to America’s usual rules of engagement, buildings like mosques and hospitals are supposed to lose their immunity when they are put to military use; yet the political leadership above the Marines refused to allow these targets to be attacked.

In We Were One, author Patrick K. O’Donnell, a war historian with exponentially more guts than the vast majority of the so-called “embedded” journalists of the mainstream media (I say so-called because most of them un-embedded themselves and headed for the tall timber as soon as a shot was fired, and filed stories based wholly on second and third hand information – sometimes troops needed badly in combat situations had to be pulled out to escort these “journalists” to the rear echelons) went to Iraq and was embedded, after a time, with 1st Platoon; Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (heretofore the 3/1), just in time to accompany them on their bloodiest incursion into Fallujah. Mr. O’Donnell was right there in the thick of things, not sitting at the bar in a Baghdad hotel.

Fallujah was pure, house-to-house urban warfare, the most dangerous kind. The 3/1’s job was clearing buildings, room by room, of muj guerillas. This meant going through doors not knowing whether the rooms beyond were empty, booby trapped with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or contained enemy fighters with weapons leveled at the doors, fingers on triggers. Holes had been punched through building walls so that entire blocks could be traversed by the muj and weapons caches were placed strategically along those blocks. To make matters worse, the enemy went into battle intending to die. Three or four would give their lives to kill one Marine without a second thought.

Mr. O’Donnell paints a vivid picture of the hell these brave Marines found themselves in the midst of as they did their duty; what was in their heads, what they said, how they did the particularly terrifying and deadly job – reading the book was as close to being there as one can get without…. Well, being there.

The author profiled each of the Marines, discussed their relationships with one another, their closeness as brother Marines and as comrades in combat, each willing to give his own life to save the life of a fellow Marine. He brought out the grief felt by each at the loss of a comrade, and the bravery of each as they backed one another up in terse situations, which were very nearly a constant in Fallujah.

Sniper, mortar and rocket attacks, insane mass charges by drugged muj (the enemy fighters were using cocaine, adrenaline and other stimulants to bolster their effectiveness), attacks by suicide bombers and ambushes were a daily occurrence. The Marines froze at night and fought in blazing heat by day, yet took it all as it came and prevailed. Every last man in the 3/1 was a true hero.

Other interesting, though by no means a revelation, information was imparted in We Were One, such as the endangerment of American servicemen’s (and others’) lives as a result of U.S. anti-war politics. The political hay the left and the mainstream media made out of Abu Graibh resulted in a large number of terrorists being released to continue fighting Coalition troops and terrorizing elsewhere in the Middle East, one a year later the bomber of a Jordanian wedding at which nearly sixty innocents died.

Though faulty intelligence was partly to blame (the politicians believed that there remained a large number of noncombatants in Fallujah and were therefore afraid to allow an attack on the city), the gist of the reason that our troops were restrained from entering Fallujah before it became the death trap that eventually claimed so many more American lives than necessary is summed up in one paragraph in Chapter 5:

…Politicians at home were tying the Marines’ hands because of risk aversion and political correctness. Fear of generating bad press was jeopardizing American lives every day in Iraq. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that every war the U.S. military fights is a two-front war. The military has to contend with both the enemy in the field and the media, who at times distort the news and impede the war effort, while turning a blind eye to the enemy who gets away with breaking the most basic rules of war.

The 3/1 lost most of its members in combat at Fallujah, while killing about 1,000 enemy fighters. In the course of clearing buildings, the 3/1’s 1st Platoon also found al-Qaeda’s Fallujah headquarters (you know, those folks the MSM says are not in Iraq), a generous find for Intelligence (one item therein was a restraint device for torture, and lots of dried blood, some of it in hand prints, on the wall beside it – nice people, those al-Qaeda who aren’t in Iraq).

I was highly impressed with We Were One. I found the book to be packed with information, humorous situations and graphically presented action that moved as smoothly and readably as in a fast-paced novel. You actually feel like you are right there as everything takes place, hearing a bullet crack past your head, feeling the heat and overpressure as a building explodes, hearing the screams of a dying muj or the loud call for a medic as a Marine is hit, and the incessant rattle of smallarms fire, the boom of grenades and mortar rounds in the background.

I would recommend this book highly to anyone who is interested in learning truths about our involvement in Iraq that the anti-war, anti-Bush mainstream media prefers to ignore or gloss over for purely political reasons. Take the benevolent interactions of our troops within the Iraqi civilian community, for example. While the MSM and our liberal politicians like to tell us that the Iraqis hate us and want us to leave, the people are happy our troops are there and demonstrate this daily. Mr. O’Donnell describes the positive things done for Iraqis, for families and for children, by several Marines. The MSM avoids this, as it puts a human face on our troops.

While the MSM reports every IED that goes off and takes the life of an American serviceman yet dumbs down the killing of the enemy by our troops, We Were One illustrates the other side of the coin: The killing of the enemy in far greater numbers by the American military. Even out-manned and out-gunned at times, our troops continue to surprise superiors every day, continuously surpassing their expectations.

When the Iraqi government and the MSM announced that the fighting in Fallujah was over, it was news to the Marines of the 3/1, as they were still embroiled in combat in that city, which wasn’t even close to being over, in fact the worst was yet to come.

While I have always had a deep respect for the United States Marines, for their integrity, their patriotism, their sense of honor and their out-&-out abilities as true warriors, We Were One quadrupled that respect – as the Black Jack Pershing quote heading up Chapter 4 so aptly says, The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle.

We Were One, published by Da Capo Press, also contains sixteen pages of photos.

…. my next post was going to be my book review, but I’ve run into something else in the meantime… A particuar idol of mine, Julia Gorin, has some really great stuff, we’re talking rare patriotic comedy (that’s right, rare — most of today’s comedy seems to come from the far left — not just the left, mind you, but the far left).

Here, we see some education in progress.

Julia is the hot, cute, dark haired woman.

Moving right along, let’s think about programs like The View, or whatever that show is, that allows a treasonous, tongue-in-something other than cheek kind of gal to make treasonous statements against our government and honor an equally treasonous, leftist midget to the point that they allow him to come on the air drunk out of his mind and demean our country.

Here is Julia’s response to that one , and even though one of the only two hats I ever wear is a ball cap that says: Animals: It’s what’s for dinner, that hat goes off to her.

From the awesome Julia Gorin

While I am beginning my book review on We Were One and had intended to make it my next post, I simply must share this great Julia Gorin OpEd I found in yesterday’s JWR Political Mavens, in which she gives, generousy, her take, as a woman, on actor/traitor George Clooney.

Following the recent decision of my awesome blog friend(why don’t we get to meet more such people in person!!!?) Atheling2’s very good example, I’m taking a couple of days off…. from politics.

Things get so goldarned frustrating in these days of liberal political dominance that, well… I’m taking a couple of days off from it all. Tomorrow, I have a ton of stuff going on — actually, as it’s 1:16 AM, today is a bit more apt.

I have a red pasta sauce going in the kitchen, ground prime rib, chiante, ’shrooms (no, not that kind, Cheech!), peppers, lots of fresh garlic… I decided last night to go all out, and have much mellow ancient Jefferson Airplane music playing, stuff like DCBA 25, My Best Friend, Comin’ Back To me, How Do You Feel?, etc. C’mon, if you wanna hear a guy who can sing Rock without raising his voice, Marty Balin’s the one. (Of course I’m not ignoring Eric Clapton, gimme a break!) Yeah, yeah, I know it’s zero dark hundred hours, but I’m one of those folks for whom the time of day (or night) is relative to my own activities rather than the other way around.

Or something like that… Hell you know what I mean, I hope.

I’m getting ready to rent out my house while I am engaged in earning my daily bread elsewhere, and tomorrow will be the day all the cosmetic things need to be done, along with realtor stuff. I love this house and I’ve poured time, work and money into making it and the 1/3rd acre of property as a whole into what I can only call my ultimate ideal for a home, so I’m gonna be all but oppressively discerning as to whom I lease it out to.

The realty guy is all cash business, hardcore bottom line, etc, so he’s going to be at least a bit taken aback — I’m going to rent the property expensively furnished and with every appliance and amenity known to man — just bring clothes and a shower kit — and be prepared to pay the utilities and so forth, and a monthly rent that is high for this part of the country but well worth it.

If I’d already figured out how to put pics in my blog, I’d show you what I mean, but doing so would require stuff that for now would require time and attention I simply don’t have. So maybe later….

I finally just received a book I’ve been dying to read for awhile, Mark Steyn’s America Alone, but I even have to place that in the second slot because I’ve promised to read a new book (I’ve received and begun reading an advance copy) and review it on this blog, a book about the valiant U.S. Marines 3rd Infantry, 1st Battalion and their taking of Fellujah. I’ve begun reading the book and find it rivetting, and look forward to finishing it and writing my review. To tell the truth, I’m both humbled and honored that the publisher asked me; It’s the first time I’ve ever received a book in the mail that was “Advance Reading Copy…. Not For Sale”. Wow!

Wow, indeed, we’ve moved into the excellent track by Quarterflash, Harden My Heart. I really like things mellow and relaxing, though I know a lot of younger conservative bloggers are enamoured of the blasting, screaming, heavy metal stuff.

While a recording like For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her is among my favorites, however, I also enjoy groups like Veruca Salt and Lacuna Coil. Look that up in your Funk & Wagnall’s!

Am I drifting? Yeah, you’re right, I am.

In the manuscript I’m working on (a novel) Travis James, a retired CIA paramilitary type has just met with DEA SAC (Chicago) Elena Munoz to discuss his helping her office in nailing a major drug ring in DeWitt County, Illinois run by local officials, but… at the same time, he’s being called upon by the Agency to address a spectacular terrorist act destined(though there are no actual facts as to where at the time) to go down at and during a major global security conference (not attended by politicians, but by actual security experts) in a Nevada casino hotel… Needless to say, though it’s a lot of work, I’m having tons of fun with that. If I ever get published, Travis James will appear in future novels, as will lead character security consultant Eric Thomas. If not, well… Que Serra Serra, they’re enjoyable to work with….

In the meantime, I’ll keep my trap shut re further details, until and if my book plans reach fruition.

Gotta go deal with the sauce, talk at you later….

…. so this is the oath all those new Democrats in the House of Representatives will take during their swearing-in ceremony, presided over by then new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

My question is, who will defend the Constitution against Nancy Pelosi and her leftist majority? And while I’m on the subject, since when do today’s Democrats bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution? Am I missing something? Is there something someone’s not telling me?

On another note, I sense even more hypocrisy here — given their war against having any references to G-D being attached to anything of a governmental nature, won’t these portsiders have any kind of problem with “So help me G-D”? I mean, Pelosi’s friends in the 9th Circus didn’t even want to keep G-D’s name in the Pledge of Allegiance!

Well, at least one new Representative won’t have that problem, he’ll only have to say, “So help me Allah”.