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Wednesday Hero - Nicholas J. Manoukian

This Weeks Hero Was Submitted By Mark Bell

LCpl. Nicholas J. Manoukian
22 years old from Lathrup, Michigan
1st Marines 6th Batallion 2nd Marine Division
Oct 21, 2006

Here is a website that LCpl. Manoukian's mother set up for her son after he lost his life in Ramadi.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. It Is Foolish And Wrong To Mourn The Men Who Died. Rather We Should Thank God That Such Men Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. If you would like to participate in honoring the brave men and women who serve this great country, you can find out how by clicking here.

The wrong lesson

I heard this read on the radio this morning on my way in to work. It's a pretty interesting piece of commentary from Foreign Policy, and I think it's worth a read. Here are a few highlights:

Vietnam taught many Americans the wrong lesson: that determined guerrilla fighters are invincible. But history shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different. Now that it finally has a winning strategy, the Bush administration is in a race against time to beat the insurgency before the public's patience finally wears out.

The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of "surging" additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. ... Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes.

Mistakes like giving up before the job is done. Like flushing out a sewer without stopping the crap that blocked it up in the first place from flowing back in.

Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were lucky—they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States...

Similar misunderstandings persist over the Soviet Union's defeat in Afghanistan, the other supposed example of guerrilla invincibility. But it was not the mujahidin's strength that forced the Soviets to leave; it was the Soviet Union's own economic and political weakness at home. In fact, the regime the Soviets established in Afghanistan was so formidable that it managed to survive for three years after the Red Army left.

The anti-war crowd and the Democrats would have us believe that we can't beat an insurgency. They'd have us believe that this is the lesson that we've failed to learn from Vietnam.

The left constantly wants us to remember the lessons of Vietnam. Maybe that's why they've trotted out Jane Fonda again. So they can re-live their "glory days" once again.

The real lesson that we've failed to learn is that when you listen to negativity every day your will is sapped. And you can't win without the will to win.

We lost Vietnam because we lost the will to win. We'll lose in Iraq if we lose the will to defeat the so-called insurgents and provide the real security needed to keep them out.

Isn't that what the left and the Democrats are preaching at us now? "Get out", and "We can't win"? They never did learn, did they?

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, third world county, Faultline USA, The Random Yak, stikNstein... has no mercy, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, Renaissance Blogger, Planck's Constant, Common Folk Using Common Sense, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

AWOL "officer" to get off light.

Lt. Watada just can't resist getting in another dig at the government that feeds and clothes him. Even as the Army has dropped two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer his lawyer just has to get in a dig at the government. From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

A week before the court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada is to begin, the Army has dropped two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer, Fort Lewis officials and Watada's supporters said Monday.

The dismissal means Watada now could face a maximum of four years in prison if convicted instead of six. It also means two reporters subpoenaed to testify about statements Watada made in interviews with them will not be called.

He signed a statement agreeing to the authenticity of statements he made. That's how he got two of the charges dropped.

In a news release, Watada's lead lawyer, Eric Seitz of Hawaii said, "By agreeing beforehand to all of the facts the government would ask of the subpoenaed reporters, Lieutenant Watada shielded these journalists from the heavy-handedness of the government."

What a scum-bag. "Heavy-handedness"? Give me a break. Watada's not much better than a traitor. His defense tried to put the government and the war on terror on trial. That got thrown out. They still can't seem to get over the fact that civilian law doesn't apply here, and that they can't try this case in the media.

Watada faces one count of missing movement with his unit to Iraq and two of conduct unbecoming an officer for public statements he made to the media and at a Veterans for Peace national convention in Seattle last summer.

Lt. Watada is getting off light. Four years instead of six. He ought to be breaking rocks.

Trackposted to third world county, Faultline USA, stikNstein... has no mercy, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Planck's Constant, Common Folk Using Common Sense, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

A few observations

I work on Seattle's Capitol Hill. It's a rather interesting place. Within easy walking distance of where I work, there's a Safeway, a QFC, a 7-11 and a bunch of small restaurants. There's no shortage of food at lunchtime, so I occasionally go for a walk to get some.

Invariably as I walk I notice posters and signs tacked or pasted to the telephone poles, light poles, and even all over newstands and other surfaces. A few of them are posters advertising some band, club or play. Most of them are political in nature. Of those, I have yet to see a single one that advocates a conservative point of view.

That shouldn't be a surprise. After all, I work in Seattle.

The latest example of this political speech was advertising some sort of event to discuss the events that took place on September 11, 2001. The "loose change" crowd was involved. That's a group that proves that facts don't matter to the left. I'm sure they'll be issuing sheets of tinfoil at the door.

Another poster that's prominent is getting pretty old. It has been pasted just about everywhere, and most of the posters are old, torn or weather-worn. But they'll never go away because you'd have to take a steam-cleaner to them to get them off of everything. These are the "Replacements Needed" posters that for the last couple of years were counting up the number of military and Iraqi casualties.

There are small "shac" stickers on the back of stop-signs. "Drive out the Bush Regime" and "The World Can't Wait" posters are popular too.

I spent some time looking up the organizations behind these posters. I've visited their websites. I've looked at the lists of contributors.

Almost all of them are overt communists, socialists, or anarchists. A few of them advocate the forcible overthrow of the U.S. government and the abolition of capitalism.

One of the more interesting posters I read lately discussed the irony of the anti-war position in the home of Microsoft and Boeing. Of course they were solidly anti-capitalist.

If there's an anti-American cause being championed anywhere in the U.S., it's almost a sure bet that eventually one of their posters will end up stuck to a telephone pole somewhere on Seattle's Capitol Hill.

This isn't the liberal mainstream... yet. Wait a decade or two though and it will be.

Liberals like to cloak their views with euphemisms. They prefer the term "progressive" to "liberal". For a while I thought that it was just an attempt to own the terms of debate, after all, who isn't for "progress"?

I've changed that view though. I think they prefer the term "progressive" because that's how they implement their agenda.

Compromising with liberals is a bad idea. Liberals don't compromise. Instead, they wait for "moderates" and "mavericks" on the right to "move to the center". Of course any time someone on the right "moves to the center" it's really just a slide to the left. When that happens, the center progressively moves leftward.

Pretty soon, conservative values like self-reliance, integrity, and responsibility become "extremist right-wing" ideology. In Seattle, they've even become part of the definition of "racism".

If posters are the way to convince the left, maybe conservatives should start putting them up. Hey, it worked for the left in the '60s right?

Trackposted to Right Pundits, Outside the Beltway, Mark My Words, The Random Yak, Big Dog's Weblog, basil's blog, DragonLady's World, Shadowscope, The Bullwinkle Blog, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Wake Up America, third world county, The HILL Chronicles, stikNstein... has no mercy, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Planck's Constant, Dumb Ox Daily News, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.