As the troop levels in Iraq increase to the number required to fully carry out the current offensive referred to as The Surge, the Run-and-Hide rhetoric from the Democrats and turncoat Republicans in Congress also has risen to a level that can best be described as shrill.

Both houses of Congress have passed bills calling for our defeat in Iraq, which President Bush will rightfully veto, and once again the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction is the focus of the pro-terrorist arguments. The WMD issue is and has been a diversion, useful for limited political purposes at home, but in the long run harmful to the US, our allies, and our troops who are fighting this war.

So once again, it is time to revisit those halcyon days after 9-11, but before we invaded Iraq, to take a look at what was really going on. First, everyone and their brother, going back to 1990 and the Gulf War, believed that Saddam Hussein had and would use WMDs. He had gassed the Kurds, killing thousands, and was actively working to build a nuclear bomb, leading politicians from the middle of the Clinton Administration onward to call for his expulsion, overthrown or death whichever came first.

But then came 9-11, and our successful invasion of Afghanistan. US troops joined with the Northern Alliance of Afghan fighters which had been actively, but not successfully opposing the Taliban. Together they made short work of the Islamic extremists who had turned Afghanistan into a living hell and had provided a haven for the leaders of the terrorist movement that attacked us on 9-11.

During that fighting, a little known but historically significant event occurred that would have far-reaching ramifications on American politics and unified support for the War on Terror. A Taliban leader, Abu Al-Zarqawi, who was close to the leadership of Al-Qaeda, and would become much closer, was seriously wounded in the fighting.

His wounds required extensive hospitalization in a modern facility for short-term stabilization, long-term treatment, and then would require extensive physical rehabilitation in a secure environment.

Al-Zarqawi was evacuated and transported not to Pakistan, not to Somalia, not to Syria, not to Iran, but rather to Iraq, to Baghdad in fact. (The fact that this occurred should give us a better idea of the extent and resources of the world terrorist movement.) There he was given sanctuary, security, treatment and rehabilitation all under the watchful eyes of Saddam Hussein, whose son Uday ran the hospital where Al-Zarqawi was being treated.

Ultimately he was back on his feet, so to speak, and was released. But Al-Zarqawi did not return to Afghanistan, or follow Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, into the sanctuary of the mountains on the border with Pakistan. Instead, he stayed right where he was in Iraq.

Why? Because the Taliban had been effectively demolished in Afghanistan, there was no army to speak of, a major political reform movement followed the defeat of the Islamic extremists, and he no longer had a political or military power base.

But in Iraq, Saddam Hussein gave him sanctuary and training camps to mold a new generation of suicidal extremists along with the security and financial support to carry out his mission. It was obvious to anyone who was monitoring world-wide terrorist activity that Iraq would be the launching pad for the next wave of terrorist attacks on the US.

George Bush was given this information and decided that it would be best to take out Iraq, including its leader Saddam Hussein and any terror groups he was supporting, before we were attacked again.

Bush had enough support in America to carry out his plan. We had been enforcing no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq since the Gulf War, international sanctions had been in place, but strangely enough, not working for the better part of a decade, and Americans were in no mood for diplomacy anyway. Bush had promised to track down and "smoke out" the terrorists who had attacked us, wherever they were hiding, and if that was Iraq, so be it.

But somewhere along the way someone convinced Bush that we needed an international coalition supporting us to effectively carry out an invasion of Iraq without harming our international standing. Here is where the WMDs came in.

Bush and his administration created a list of reasons why we needed to invade Iraq for presentation to the international community. Saddam's pursuit of WMDs was on that list, although pretty far down from the top. But since WMDs in Iraq would be more of a danger to his neighbors, and even our so-called allies in Europe, than they were to us since Saddam didn't have the delivery capabilities to reach the US, they became the focus of the drive for international support.

Unfortunately, the center for international support was in New York City in the Untied Nations building. But in that building, dozens of alleged diplomats who should have been solidly on our side, were secretly taking huge bribes, hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes, from Saddam Hussein through the UN administered Oil For Food program, to let him circumvent the economic sanctions, which is why they weren't working.

As later investigations would show, these diplomats included representatives from France, Germany, Russia and China, all of whom were on the UN Security Council that would have the last say in whether that august body would support Bush. Surprise of surprises, they voted to "get tough" with Saddam, and to enforce even more sanctions, but no way would they support an invasion.

So we went ahead, with huge support from the United Kingdom, Poland and dozens of other countries across the globe that fully understood the ramifications of letting Saddam go unchecked - and weren't a bunch of bribe-taking thieves and charlatans.

But in the eyes of the American Left, also known as the Democratic Party, it wasn't the right coalition, therefore it wasn't valid, and the criticisms began - small at first, but growing over time. These same critics, by the way, were saying that a successful invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam would take three years and cost tens of thousands of American lives.

We all know how wrong that prediction turned out to be. Our troops devastated everything in front of them from the southern border of Iraq to Baghdad, and were poised to destroy Saddam's northern army, which turned south from Kurdistan and headed toward Baghdad to do battle with our forces, but mysteriously melted away into nothing on the way south.

And right there, amidst a stunning victory, the criticisms began. We didn't use enough troops, we didn't anticipate such a quick victory, we didn't plan for the aftermath, we didn't secure the borders, we didn't have enough MPs, we didn't stop the looters, we didn't secure weapons caches, we didn't do this, we didn't do that. The fact that we had overthrown, and eventually captured Saddam and his murderous, rapist sons, and in the process had totally disrupted Al-Qaeda's plans for further attacks on us, was disregarded as inconsequential.

Then, horror of horrors, it was revealed that the much anticipated (or dreaded) WMDs were nowhere to be found. Suddenly, WMDs became the only reason why we invaded Iraq, and suddenly George Bush and his administration had become world-class liars.

Frankly, I think that response had far more to do with our shutting off the bribery pipeline than anything remotely involving real criticisms of progress in the War on Terror.

I believe, based on hard experience that can't be learned in any formal school setting, except for the University of Hard Knocks, that when you encounter a potential adversary, the extent of the weapons he may use is NOT the first thing you need to know. When you are facing a potential adversary, the first thing you need to know is whether he is in fact an adversary - in other words you need to know intent.

If you leave an office building late at night, your car is on the far side of the parking lot, in the dark, and you suddenly see a hulking figure between you and your vehicle, you don't ask yourself whether that person is armed, and with what. You ask yourself what that person intends.

For all you know, it may be a security guard, assigned to walk you to your car safely. But if he is not, if he is in fact a mugger, your first responsibility is to ascertain intent, not weaponry.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein and Abu Al-Zarqawi's intent was evident all across that country. So we went in and took them out before they could carry out their plans.

Yet, from the point it became evident that we couldn't immediately find WMDS, regardless of the fact that a new political system was born in Iraq, regardless of the fact that we are helping rebuild an army that serves its citizens rather than murdering them, regardless of the efforts to bring an end to age old hostilities that have constantly kept the Iraqis from even dreaming of, much less achieving, their full potential nationally and internationally, and regardless of the fact that we have killed tens of thousands of terrorists elsewhere, rather than here, our efforts in Iraq have been portrayed by America's Democrats and the mainstream media as an unworkable mistake.

Nonsense. I don't know if I am more surprised by the outlandishness of the claims by the Run and Hide proponents, or that so many Americans seem to be unaware of just how difficult and dicey any military campaign can be. There are no slam dunks.

We won WWII, but not without costly and lethal mistakes. Take some time to review the battle history of the North Africa campaigns, the battle at Anzio, the Battle of the Bulge, the Battle for Leyte Gulf, just to name a few. Major mistakes were made on all of those fronts and cost lives in numbers that Congressional Democrats and the media would salivate over today.

But each time we recovered, and drove on to victory. If a Republican sitting in the White House had been presiding over a war rife with the kind of mistakes that occurred on FDR's watch, the calls for impeachment would be deafening.

I don't agree with everything that the Bush Administration has done, and I shouldn't be expected to, nor should anyone else. But it is important despite occasional disagreements to keep the war in perspective, and not take our eyes off the ultimate goal which still is to keep our borders secure and defeat world-wide terrorism.

Our troops have helped create a new Iraq whose citizens have a chance for freedom and democracy. This new Iraq can be a real ally to the US, a stabilizing force in the Middle East, and a deterrent to further terrorist attacks against us.

Not everything that was done in Iraq was done perfectly, yet we still are showing tremendous progress on all fronts. To arrive at these conclusions we must view the war from historic and military perspectives, and above all we should listen to the troops.

One reason I dedicated this column to the HMM-161 Greyhawks, who are again serving proudly and effectively in Iraq, is because I served in 161 when I was in the Marines. In fact I spent most of my active duty time in that unit.

I heard from two current members of my former unit within the last week, both deployed to Iraq, both career Marines. When you communicate with the people who are actually tasked with doing the fighting for the 99 percent of America that is not in the service, and the 93 percent of America that has never been in the service, one word comes across consistently.

"Motivated."

There are things these Marines, and by extension all our service members, know because they are in the middle of the fighting. They know we are winning, they know the other side is taking a horrendous beating compared to our casualties, they know Iraq is progressing to democracy and sustainable freedom, and they know the biggest threat to achieving an overall victory is not the terrorists, but the US Congress.

I heard a Democratic Congresswoman say on Fox News last Saturday that 60 percent of the Americans believe we should withdraw from Iraq immediately. Bull! I'd love to see the poll that she is quoting, and I don't mean the results, I mean the methodology. I'd love to see how the questions were worded, who was polled, and what choices they were given for answers.

Even polls that are done honestly are going to be skewed since the media reports only on car bombings, suicide bombers and American casualties, thus skewing our knowledge and thus our opinions. It takes time and effort to find out what is really going on in Iraq and the answers aren't in the mainstream media or polls.

What Americans really want in Iraq is evidence of progress and victories. Based on what I hear from the people actively engaged in the fighting there is plenty of progress and there are plenty of victories but the media has no interest in reporting them.

So I will pass this on to all who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially my Marine brothers and sisters, particularly to those in helicopters, and especially the Avionics personnel of the HMM-161 Greyhawks. Regardless of what you may have been told, your predecessors who fought in Vietnam didn't just win every battle, we crushed the communists, and twice they were ready to surrender until they were bailed out by communist sympathizers in the US Congress and the media.

Ultimately South Vietnam fell not because we ever lost anything, or did anything wrong on the military front. South Vietnam fell because our government was infiltrated - and some who are responsible for the debacle in Southeast Asia 30 years ago are still in Congress today - and they pulled the plug on an ally who demonstrated in 1972 that they could stand pretty much on their own if we still supported them.

The same thing is happening today, but there is one huge difference. The Vietnam vets got no support from the general populace and far too many Americans willingly believed every lie they were fed by the media.

But we are still here, and we know the truth. As the Gathering of Eagles in Washington, D.C., on March 17 showed, we can and will stand up for our country, ourselves, and most especially our troops. We don't need the mainstream media because we have the Internet. We can communicate with each other, we can communicate with you, and we are doing it.

We will not let the same thing happen to you that happened to us. We will not desert you as previous generations of Americans did to us. We fully understand the enormity of your task, but we also understand and support your ability to carry it out.

For those of you in 161's Avionics section I would also pass on one last point. When I served in 161 in Vietnam, and flew gunner in addition to my regular duties, we lost three members of the Avionics section KIA, and five more wounded, out of the 20 killed in our deployment.

Not one day has gone by that I don't think of my friends from back then, those who survived, and those who did not. It was difficult to say the least, the conditions were atrocious, and many of us refined 'bitching' to a high art form as a way of relieving the tension.

In the years since, your predecessors have gone on to many other endeavors - teachers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, writers, farmers, fishermen, builders, administrators and managers to name just a few. Most married and became parents, raised families, contributed to their communities. In short, we achieved the American dream and made contributions on many fronts.

But for all of us, regardless of what happened in the US Congress, and despite our complaining while in the combat zone, (I admit I was one of the biggest offenders) our time together in the Marines, especially as members of the HMM-161 Avionics section, was an unparalleled experience.

So take a moment when you can, and absorb every facet of your current deployment. Commit to memory the faces, the names, the sounds, the smells, the sensations of where you are, and what you are doing. If you are a writer, take notes. Keep copies of your orders. Get home addresses for your friends in 161 and other units.

The day will come when this will end, and you will understand what I am saying now. You will be the victors, you will be the ones who put terrorism down. You will want to reunite. You will want to remember, not forget.

Above all, stay 'motivated' and dedicated to the task. You are winning over there. Those of us who did serve, and did fight, know and understand this.

America pulled the rug out from under us and our allies three decades ago. We will NOT let that happen to you. Remember that 25 million veterans and our families, regardless of political affiliation, are on your side and are fully supportive of you.

As difficult as it may seem, try not to pay attention to the nonsense you hear from Congress or in the media, and don't let it get you down.

Concentrate on winning the war over there. We have your backs over here.

Semper Fi

In 1958, when I was very young, then-Vice President Richard Nixon visited South America and along the way his motorcade was stoned in Caracas, Venezuela's capital. Nixon and his wife Pat were spat upon.

I remember seeing the incident on television and reading about it in the local papers. I also remember that it made me sad to think that the vice president of the United States of America, my country, was treated so poorly by one of our neighbors. But at least back then, members of America's executive branch had to travel outside the country to experience anarchy, street riots, out of control politics, and sheer lousy manners.

Nearly fifty years has passed since that unfortunate incident, and now our country has deteriorated to the point where an American president can be treated like a doormat without ever leaving the Oval Office. If you were to believe the daily talking points hammered out by the Democratic Party, run by left-over communists making one last stab at world domination, and their public relations agency, the Associated Press, you would think that America is one step away from sliding into the ocean and joining the Lost City of Atlantis.

Since I care about politics, and the state of our military, I often am tuned in to a variety of news outlets, but all I hear from the vast majority of them is bad news.

Even when the news is great, it is portrayed as bad news. If our guys win a battle in Iraq or Afghanistan, we don't hear that they won, or how many terrorists they killed, captured or wounded. We only hear about our losses, which, while regrettable, are usually minimal in comparison to the victory we won - but you don't hear that.

Case in point - I wrote recently that the AP makes a big deal of it if Taliban fighters cross the border from Pakistan to Afghanistan, attack a village, kill some local police and take over the village square for a few days. But when NATO troops or the Afghanistan army attack, kill hundreds of Taliban and send the battered remnants limping back over the border, you hear nothing.

Well, on Thursday a Taliban army unit attacked a small village in Afghanistan, and it took them five hours in a pitched battle against the local police to overrun the village square. Two police and the mayor were killed, and 10 Taliban were killed.

The AP reported that the Taliban took over the entire district, and what an embarrassment this was to the Afghan government! Yet when the Afghan army units got there - to the village, not the district - the mighty Taliban had run for the border to lick their wounds. That didn't get very much play from the AP, which should be of no surprise to anyone.

On the domestic financial front, when the stock market tanks for a couple of days, the media claims it signals the end of the capitalist economic system. When it reaches new highs, it simply means the rich are getting richer, while the poor are being used as step ladders.

When unemployment drops to historic lows, it barely gets a mention. When hundreds of thousands of new jobs are created, they aren't the right kind of jobs. According to the media and the Democratic party, every single job created in America since George Bush was elected is a menial, minimum wage embarrassment that proud and capable people would never stoop to if they weren't in dire straits.

When the minimum wage issue arises, which is used to create an artificial benchmark from which unions boost their wage and benefit demands, it seems that every single minimum wage earner is an uneducated, single parent with 12 children who will never get promoted or take advantage of adult education opportunities.

And every single one of these issues is George Bush's fault! Or so the media would have us believe.

Global Warming? George Bush, even though it has been going on for more than a century. American dependence on foreign oil? George Bush, even though he at least is promoting alternative fuel use and development.

Gas prices? Bush. High cost of chain store coffee? Bush.

Lousy date last night? Bush. Bad hair day? Bush.

Crime? Bush. Weather? Bush. Gun Control? Cheney. (Hah, just checking to see if you're reading.)

Aside from the War on Terror and the Battle for Iraq, the number one issue on most Americans' minds is illegal immigration. While we certainly have to come up with a cohesive national policy on that issue, let's face it, the issue exists because millions of people are trying to get in to the United States. Why? Because things are so much better here than in most of rest of the world!

Are there things George Bush does that I don't agree with? I certainly hope so! I don't vote in elections from the local to national levels to put puppets into office. I want to hear ideas that are different from mine, I want to debate issues, and I want to see that creative thinking is going on all along the political process.

If you want lock-step, mindless, bureaucratic governments, go to communist or socialist countries and see how you like it there. I guarantee you, not one of them has an immigration problem. Most of them have human rights issues and armed guards to keep the labor force in, otherwise all they would see is the heels of their citizens as they run for the borders to get out!

I saw Jesse Jackson on TV this morning, getting ready to march in New Orleans because that city hasn't been cleaned up or rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina despite the US Congress providing billions of dollars in aid to do just that! So whose fault is that? George Bush? Hardly.

He isn't responsible for the ineptness and corruption in New Orleans any more than he was responsible for keeping federal troops out of Louisiana during the emergency. Unfortunately, far too many Americans have no idea that the section of the federal code detailing how and when federal troops can be deployed for law enforcement purposes in national emergencies - formally known as Posse Comitatus - requires that the governor and legislature of affected states approve the deployment except in cases of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons use, or insurrection.

Personally, I think the president should have invoked the insurrection clause when Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco refused to allow the military to be deployed for nearly a week in the aftermath of Katrina, while the residents of New Orleans suffered. I also think President Bush was far too lenient on her and should have been screaming from the rooftops that she was the primary obstruction. But that is one of those areas where I disagree with him and it isn't a matter of national security.

As far as the current situation in New Orleans, Jackson said his real concern is that the former residents of that city won't return, and that will upset the voting demographics and Congressional representation there, which is the real reason he is marching there. The money is there, the aid is available. If New Orleans and Louisiana's government bureaucracies are too inept or corrupt to handle it properly, investigate yes, prosecute if necessary, but don't blame it on George Bush. There is only so much he can do.

In Iraq, I have had my disagreements with the president. I think we were far too lenient with the militias, especially the militia run by Muqtada Al Sadr, right from the start. I disagree with Rules of Engagement, and I vehemently disagree with the way our service people have been arrested and treated for claims of wrongdoing that aren't standing up to scrutiny.

If someone is shooting at our guys from a mosque or other 'holy' building, we are not the ones disrespecting their religion. They are, and the building should be leveled if that is what it takes to get the bad guys at minimal exposure to our guys.

If terrorists are hiding in neighborhoods and the residents of those neighborhoods are cooperating with them, it should be a free fire zone. I don't like it any better than anyone who has never gotten closer to a war than their TV or movie screen, but it is the best way to ensure the safety of our troops.

If you can drop a bomb from an airplane or a shell from an artillery battery without holding the gunners responsible for innocent deaths - in a war - then the same conditions should apply to the infantry. Other than provable incidents of troops deliberately targeting the civilian populace for crimes not involving split-second decisions in combat, the Rules of Engagement should be tossed!

Al Sadr should never have been allowed to build his militia and we never should have agreed to stay out of Sadr City. If you want to bring security to Iraq you start out by being the baddest guy on the block and you make sure that any anarchists who challenge you are flattened, immediately and irrevocably. That is how you create a secure environment out of chaos.

Those points aside, I am happy that the president has changed commanders in Iraq and is embarking on an offensive designed specifically to bring stability there long enough for the Iraqis to get their feet solidly on the ground. I am happy that he is standing firm in the face of some outright treasonous comments from Congress - Democrats and Republicans alike - and I am confident that given full support from their commander in chief, our troops will accomplish their mission.

On the political front, I was told by a very well educated Republican operative the other day that we have to be "civil" in our dealings with the Democrats. Really? Where is that written? Who said that?

Are the communists who run the Democratic Party being civil to anyone who disagrees with them? Check it out. They attack people in or running for office on every single level of the political process from local to national, and even international if they don't like our UN ambassador.

Every day America is forced to sit through interminable accusations and hearings in Washington, none of which has accomplished anything, but which perpetuate the appearance of chaos in our nation's capital.

Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush are portrayed as murderers who engineer wars just to keep their friends rich, but no one talks about how successful they have been in preventing further terrorist attacks on our shores since 9-11. They both have lost valuable members of their staffs because the communists running the Democratic Party have targeted them for disposal, and say outright they intend to "get" this or that staff member. Karl Rove is the name they use most often.

Meanwhile, no one says squat about leaks to the media from within Congress on our surveillance, detention or financial tracking methodology. If those leaks had occurred in the World War II, the perpetrators would have been caught, tried and most likely, shot.

If I had one suggestion for President Bush it would be to take a good hard look at the people who are surrounding him inside the DC beltway. It is nice, it is absolutely wonderful, to have highly educated staffers and operatives and telemarketers.

But if they have only formal education and have no life experiences that give them the ability to apply that education, the result is ineffectiveness - in other words, you lose elections, you lose Congress and your life becomes infinitely more difficult.

A highly educated, Washington-based staffer who doesn't know that the Gathering of Eagles is not a Republican fund-raising unit, and who worries more about what his liberal Democratic friends will be saying over cocktails after work than whether we are effectively combating efforts to dismantle our form of government, is not being helpful.

This is a hard time for America, and overall George Bush is doing well, despite what is said about him on the political front. But he and Vice President Cheney have far more to worry about than constant belittlement and distractions from their political opponents.

Instead of running for cover and hiding away as they are doing now, the Republican fence-sitters and even the Republican turncoats in Congress should be standing up and taking on some of the fight so the executive branch can function as it should. Otherwise, they can expect to see their seats move from the R to the D category in coming elections.

Remember, I live in Connecticut, where the state Republican Party was dominant a decade ago and now is an endangered species. It didn't happen because the Democrats were so much better, it happened because our party was infiltrated, distracted, and rendered ineffective.

All the while people who were in office did nothing, said nothing, and now are on the outside looking in.

Harry Reid, Nevada's Democratic Senator, the grand poobah of the U.S. Senate, the man who is sending U.S. troops to their deaths daily through his unchallenged support of terrorists in Iraq, says he doesn't have to respond to Vice President Dick Cheney's criticisms because Cheney has a 9 percent approval rating.

Aside from the stifling hypocrisy of a man leading the U.S. Senate at the same time he has gone over to the side of the enemy in the War on Terror, and has a second job as a cheerleader for Islamo-fascists, Reid's claims that he doesn't have to answer for his actions are the best example yet of his disdain for the American system. Reid obviously has forgotten that he is a public servant, not a tyrant or dictator, and as such he is required to explain himself regardless of who is questioning his actions.

But I'd also like to get a look at the polling sample that says the VP has a 9 percent rating. Since I work in public relations I am familiar with polling and how it can help potential clients.

What I have found is that you can do an honest poll and get some real results that are helpful in directing your marketing and advertising efforts, or you can be a political hack and turn out poll results that were scripted beforehand and serve only to give you what you wanted in the first place. (In my firm we only do honest polling.)

The methodology for skewed polling is pretty straightforward. If you want to get an overwhelming result against the death penalty for instance, your best bet would be to do a sampling of death row inmates. If you can't get access to enough of them to give you a "fair" sample, then you get a mailing list from an active anti-death penalty group and use those people for your sample.

But polling has become far more sophisticated than that. Professional pollsters know that they can predict the results of their questioning based on how they frame the question, the potential answers provided, who they question, the population demographic they sample, and even when the people polled are questioned.

In my little corner of the universe, when I am in the company of people I consider friends and allies - which by the way includes Republicans, Democrats and Independents, veterans and non-veterans who nonetheless support the military - people generally like the VP. Far more people like him than dislike him, and they think he is doing a great job of speaking up and out for America.

Some people think Vice President Cheney is the only Washington figure speaking out for America and while they are royally frustrated with the Republican Party in general, their dissatisfaction doesn't extend to the VP.

So if I ran a poll today of let's say 100 acquaintances, and threw in maybe a dozen staunch Democrats who would say they hate the VP even if the VP was Mother Teresa, I could turn in an approval rating well in excess of 80 percent. I guess that would mean I can approach Reid and MAKE him answer why he is supporting the terrorists who are killing our troops.

This over-reliance on pre-engineered polls is dangerous, not to mention ridiculous. We send people to Congress to represent us, but we also give them the opportunity to let us know what is going on in places like Iraq where the average citizen has little to no access.

But instead, we have Congress continually using supposedly objective polling data to support political positions that actually have no resemblance to reality. The polls not only are skewed themselves, but the information given to the public by the media, on which the polls are then based, is also skewed.

So we end up with a constant cycle of decline, rather than an informed populace. This could not happen if the mainstream media wasn't just a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, but unfortunately most Americans still get their news from people who have their own political agenda.

For instance, if a bomb blows up in Iraq, according to the Democrats, the communist media and especially Harry Reid & Associates, it means we have failed for that day, that week, and that month in that area, especially if bombs have blown up in that area before.

But what these bomb blasts really mean is that the terrorists have failed at intimidating the residents of that area, and we are still there, and they can't mount anything remotely resembling an offensive that has a chance of succeeding.
It means they are failing. They haven't defeated us, they haven't defeated that neighborhood, they haven't cowed anyone and they have to return repeatedly using the most heinous, cowardly means possible to try yet again to make their point.

This type of terrorism has failed time and again. It failed when used by communists, anarchists, Nazis, and now Islamo-fascists, yet we see Reid and the Congressional Democrats using their version of these events to push their 'Run and Hide' philosophy.

There are many things wrong with the way the war in Iraq has been handled, and virtually all of them come from political interference from people who have never been in a knock-down, drag-out fist fight, and have no idea how to proceed to victory in that arena.

We let enemies like Muqtada Al-Sadr go, when we had him in our grasp, which allowed him to turn his 'army' from a group of a few hundred to several thousands, all by use of terror tactics.

Today, the whole world knows that we are in the middle of an offensive against Al-Qaida in Iraq, as well as Sadr's army, and that we don't even have the troops who will be engaged in this 'surge' up to full strength. Why? Why do we know so much about what is happening today, and is intended for tomorrow and beyond?

One reason why the allied invasion of the German empire succeeded on D-Day, June 6, 1944, was because the Germans didn't know where our troops were going to land. It was brutal fighting, and we lost more than 4,000 killed in a few hours that fateful morning, but the landing in Normandy succeeded because some of the German Army's best troops and equipment were elsewhere.

We didn't alert the Japanese as to which island the Marines would be hitting next in the Pacific campaign during WWII, so why do we alert the terrorists not only that we are starting an offensive, but where it will happen, the timetable involved and even how many troops will be there?

Muqtada Al Sadr heard we were coming to his neighborhood even before this 'surge' got underway, and took off for Iran where he was giving sanctuary and the ability to maintain lines of communication with his troops. That ladies and gentlemen, is just plain stupid of us.

Lately, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the multi-national force in Iraq, has been called to Washington to brief the Congress on the progress of this offensive, that still isn't up to full steam. Why?

If he is in charge of the fighting in Iraq, and our troops are in the middle of an offensive, his place is in Iraq, doing his job. If Congress needs yet another bogus round of hearings to micro-manage the military, then the uninformed among them should charter a plane, go to Iraq, and sit around the Green Zone cooling their heels until the General or his aides have a moment for them.

They he can brief them all at once, and get them the hell out of his hair and get back to fighting the war.

This appearance in Washington not only took him away from his post during combat, a court-martial offense for anyone below the rank of General, unless his name is John Kerry, it was counter-productive at worst and meaningless at best.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi refused to attend the General's briefings, and instead talked with him on the phone. But then we get a skewed version of what the general said.

Pelosi claims he agreed with her and Reid that the war in Iraq can't be won. That isn't what I heard the general say. I heard that he says a military victory is only one facet of ultimate victory there, the others being political, social and economic stability.

If Gen. Petraeus believes we can't score a military victory in Iraq then he should have been screaming it from the top of the Capitol building as well as in the halls of Congress. He should have been telling Congress to get us out of Iraq right this minute and the consequences be damned! That is his job and he should say so.

But he didn't say that, and it was disingenuous of Pelosi to imply otherwise.

But you watch. Reid and Pelosi, abetted by the media, will continue to claim that the war not only can't be won, it already has been lost. They will repeat the big lie, their accomplices in the media will continue to spread the big lie, and ultimately polls will show that some majority percentage of Americans believe the big lie.

But it still will be a big lie. And we can only hope that Dick Cheney will continue to expose it for what it is, and understand that out here in the real country called America, his approval rating is far higher than 9 percent, and we don't like Harry Reid at all.

Al-Qaida-in-Iraq, the Islamic-extremist group that lately is enjoying an elevated status in the world of terrorism thanks to Senate Democrats Harry Reid and Carl Levin, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, is claiming 'credit' for a suicide truck bombing that killed nine U.S. paratroopers and wounded 20 in Iraq Monday, April 23.

It was the deadliest attack on ground forces since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 on a foot patrol near Fallujah, and marks an escalation in tactics used by the terrorists.

According to numerous statements from Reid and his cohorts in Congress, US troops have been wasting their time in Iraq, fighting people who aren't Al Qaida terrorists, but instead represent competing factions within the Muslim religion, in short, a religious civil war. However, news reports said the statement taking credit for the attack came from The Islamic State of Iraq, an insurgent umbrella group that includes terrorists such as Al Qaida.

The statement said it sent "two knights" in explosive laden dump trucks into the base, a highly unusual action for terrorists fighting America's armed forces. The first truck exploded, knocking a hole in the building's defenses, and the second truck then drove into the building before it too exploded.

"The first knight exploded his truck on them and he was followed by his brother in the second truck, exploding it on what remains from the soldiers inside the headquarters," the terrorists' statement said.

The victims were all members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. Military spokesmen have said that 15 of the 20 troops who were injured returned to duty.

"Almighty God has guided the soldiers of the Islamic State of Iraq to new methods of explosions," according to the statement on the terrorists' web site. Apparently Reid and Almighty God have been collaborating on how to employ new tactics to best advantage in Iraq, and when to use them for maximum political impact in the US.

It doesn't take an expert on military tactics to figure out that recent statements from Reid, Levin and Pelosi that the war in Iraq has been "lost" by America and its allies, emboldened the terrorists to use the new and more dramatic tactics. Congressional Democrats use near daily press conferences to showcase every enemy action and bombing as proof of their point of view.

In fact, virtually all of the discussions on the conduct of the war including the number of American casualties, the number of troops America is employing, where they are to be stationed, and when, are held at news conferences or Congressional hearing rooms rather than closed-door meetings where terrorists would not have access. Rather, what should be classified discussions on the conduct of the war are broadcast live to a world-wide audience including the terrorists who use them as intelligence gathering opportunities.

The use of a suicide bomber in a direct assault against U.S. forces was unusual because terrorists, who according to reliable reports are being killed at a rate at least ten times that of coalition forces, usually rely on remotely detonated roadside bombs and hit-and-run attacks. Superior firepower and tactics used by Americans and other coalition forces regularly result in heavy terrorist casualties.

However, it is rare that the news organizations covering the fighting in Iraq reveal any information on terrorist casualties. Print, electronic and Internet news reports from Iraq over the past week have discussed numerous clashes and bombings and are pinpoint specific about coalition casualties, but contain no information on terrorist casualties.

There is no doubt in my mind that the renewed vigor and change in tactics by the terrorists is a direct result of Congressional interference in the conduct of the war. This includes messages of support directly to the terrorist forces in the near-daily news conferences, ongoing efforts to undermine America's current offensive by attempting to set withdrawal deadlines and funding cut-offs, and issuance of statements that discourage troop morale while simultaneously invigorating the terrorists.

There is no doubt in my mind that the non-stop pro-terrorist rhetoric from Reid, Levin, Pelosi, their supporters and Republican turncoats is working to invigorate and inform the terrorists. When the ongoing offensive began for instance, terrorist forces, including their leader Muqtada Al Sadr, fled as fast as they could, with Al Sadr going into hiding in Iran.

But Congressional Democrats have waged an intense disinformation campaign ever since the so-called "Surge" began, giving the impression that American troops will soon be gone, and in recent days attacks on Americans, other coalition forces and Iraqi civilians have intensified.

Reid, Pelosi and Levin can spin this any way they want and employ an army of apologists to try to deflect blame from them. But I have no doubt that the attack on the 82nd Airborne troops and the recent escalation by the terrorists is a direct result of their public statements.

Maybe when the bodies of the brave paratroopers who died in Iraq Monday are brought home for burial, Reid will tear himself away from the Washington media spotlight, or his vast real estate holdings in Nevada to attend every single funeral. There he can explain to the troops and the families of the deceased exactly why he is sending regular messages of support and encouragement to the enemy that caused their deaths.

I have visited Fort Bragg where the 82nd Airborne is based, and knew several members of that elite force many years ago. If today's paratroopers are anything like their predecessors, I am sure that Senator Reid, and anyone who accompanies him, such as Levin, Pelosi and their supporters, will be greeted and dealt with appropriately.

First there were the reports, duly buried by the pro-communist American Terrorist Media, that a Chinese Navy submarine had sneaked right up on one of our aircraft carrier groups, completely evading our most advanced sonar capabilities.

Then they 'painted' one of our communications satellites with a laser beam, showing that they could target it for destruction if they were so inclined. A month later they destroyed one of their own older weather satellites with a rocket, demonstrating that they weren't kidding around and could smash our defense satellites too.

Now we find that the widespread contamination of pet food that caused deaths and serious sickness to dogs and cats across the country resulted from a deliberate act of sabotage in - you guessed it - China.

Then, when US government officials told the Chinese that they wanted to inspect the plants in China where the contamination took place, the Chinese open-trade policy suddenly went south. The response from China was along the lines of "Uh, visas? What visas? We don't have your visas. Don't you have your visas? Gee, we can't let you in without visas? I guess you'll have to apply for new ones. It'll take time though."

Yeah, just enough time to get into those plants and make sure that anything that might constitute incriminating evidence is long since departed.

As a recap on the pet food contamination issue: Federal officials say ingredients imported from China - and used in the more than 100 brands of recalled pet foods -may have been intentionally spiked with melamine, an industrial chemical used in plastics and fertilizers, to boost their apparent protein content. The Food and Drug Administration is investigating how the melamine contaminated at least two ingredients imported from China, wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, used in the pet foods.

China's immediate response was to block the FDA's efforts to inspect the facilities that manufactured these melamine-tainted ingredients.

Taken together these incidents and 'provocations' to use one of the communists' favorite words, amount to a continual assessment of our defenses - probing the perimeter as we used to say in Vietnam. They obviously are looking for weaknesses, ways to get to us on a number of fronts simultaneously, and by all appearances, they have found something.

They know that they can evade our sonar. They know that they can destroy our communications satellites, which would render much of our essential military communications inoperative. (Let's all take a moment to properly thank the Bill Clinton administration.) This is more than communications between headquarters and far flung field ops; it also would include targeting systems right on the battlefield, including tanks, artillery and air cover, cell phones, and global positioning systems.

Now they also have a good idea of just how well, or unwell, our food inspection system works. I consider the pet food incident a test of our system. This time it was Pekingese, next time it will be us.

How long have we been worrying about possible contamination of our food and water by terrorists or other enemy forces? Is there an outside chance that the e-coli bacteria outbreak a few months ago was also deliberate sabotage, right here inside the USA?

How much food do we import from China anyway? Lots. Fruit, vegetables, and fish for starters, all of which have had contaminated shipments stopped on the docks when they arrived in American ports. CBS News reported today that some of the same contaminants found in the pet food supply also made it to the human supply before quietly being pulled.

Some say the contamination and animal deaths are to be expected, a natural outgrowth of globalization due to China's fractured food supply and inspection system. Maybe that's true, but it also doesn't hurt, if you are a die-hard communist still holding on to dreams of world domination, to use those flaws to create problems for your number one adversary while simultaneously probing and testing defenses.

It seems with all the constant pettiness in Washington, D.C., the non-stop attacks on one administration official after another, the incessant public battling over the conduct of the War on Terror, and especially the Battle for Iraq, that our other adversaries, the Chinese and Russians, are making hay while the sun shines.

In all likelihood we have more than a billion friends in the Chinese and Russian populaces, but we have zero friends in their governments. They are still communists - in practice in China, at heart in Russia - and like the Islamo-fascist terrorists we are fighting, they believe the battle should go on on forever, regardless of the cost.

It works very much in the communists' favor if America and our western allies end up in a religious war pitting Christians and Jews against Muslims. We can see by the conduct of the communists' allies and fifth-columnists in Congress that extended warfare can have a debilitating effect on the country.

If this is repeatedly hyped in the media, as it is, the public eventually becomes psychologically war weary, much as troops encounter battle fatigue after long periods in combat.

The best evidence of this is President George Bush. Have you taken a close look at him in public appearances lately? The man is exhausted, and probably suffering from sleep deprivation, as we all would be if we were perpetually fighting both foreign and domestic battles.

I don't believe the Democrats in Congress are as interested in sending members of the administration to jail as they are in exerting constant pressure on Bush on the domestic front, hoping to wear him down and assist the terrorists who aren't doing as well on the foreign military front.

They were successful in getting Tom DeLay and John Bolton out of loop, but that didn't stop anything. Scooter Libby, who didn't do anything wrong, nonetheless is facing a jail term for perjury, but he probably wouldn't have been convicted if he had been tried anywhere except in a D.C. court.

Then it was on to Alberto Gonzales, who also didn't do anything wrong, but you wouldn't know it from the Democrats' statements combined with the royally unfavorable press coverage. Then we have the ultimate threat to 'get' something on presidential adviser Karl Rove. I have yet to hear exactly what it is that DeLay, Gonzales or Rove have done that earns them these constant attacks, but obviously wrong-doing isn't a prerequisite.

All you have to do to prove this is to listen to some of the unbelievably stupid comments from Congressional Democrats - that lack of evidence of wrongdoing is evidence of a cover up!

The upshot of the constant pressure from the Democrats and a handful of Republican turncoats, is the appearance of distraction and inability to cope in the Oval Office. If continued successfully for another 18 months this could result in a change in political parties in the executive branch to match the changeover in the legislative branch.

But that short-term goal, and the short-term gain it would represent, ignores the long-term damage to our country. The Democratic majority in Congress, led by Sen. Harry Reid, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, already have shown that they have no stomach for any kind of real fight, other than their nursery school-level verbal slap fests in the media.

With wimps like them in charge the terrorists wouldn't have to fight any longer, they'd be able to march in and take over unopposed. Then Reid and Pelosi would learn the terrible truth about their duplicity, but by then it wouldn't just be all over for the collaborators, it would be all over for all of us.

There is a sure way to offset this. President Bush needs to take Pelosi, Reid, Levin, and the turncoat Republicans by the throat and smash their stupid, pudding filled heads into a brick wall - figuratively speaking of course - until they start to get the message.

That would ensure that their supporters in and out of Congress would crawl back under their rocks and garbage piles, just like cockroaches when the lights come on, and we can get back to sensible governance.

There will be some resistance, of course, from Democrats, the media and turncoat Republicans, but it will be short lived. But Bush has to come out swinging and I don't mean verbally.

He needs to invoke the powers of his office to apprehend and bring to trial the collaborators and spies who are undermining his office, the war effort, our troops and our country. If he does it forcefully and completely he will have the full support of the majority of Americans.

Anything less, and he will get 18 more months of the same old attacks, resulting in failed initiatives, a lost war, and a failed presidency.

There is a groundswell of anger and frustration growing within Middle America, crossing racial, ethnic, gender, generational, religious and political lines.

It is aimed at the Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives and Senate and was fueled this week by claims from Michigan Senator Carl Levin and Nevada Senator Harry Reid that the war in Iraq is lost.

Levin declared the war lost on Fox News Sunday, April 15, and this week Reid said, "I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week."

House Minority Leader John Boehner responded "He is telling our enemies they have won. ... Mr. Reid's comments are demoralizing to our troops, and just plain wrong."

"Just plain wrong" doesn't cut it. Their claims, and supporting commentaries from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are so outrageous, so harmful to our troops, so un-American that citizens across the spectrum are calling for their arrest and trial on treason charges.

Meanwhile, Americans are equally angry and frustrated that President George Bush appears to have done little to nothing to stem the escalating attempts by the Democratic majority in Congress to sabotage the war effort, our troops and our country. I am not talking about giving speeches here.

I have seen some of the president's recent speeches, and they are certainly to the point. But we are way past the time for talk, and well beyond the threshold for direct, effective action.

I share the country's outrage as do many who lived through similar lies and sabotage in the Vietnam era. We are well aware of the resultant carnage in Southeast Asia. But I would like to take my outrage in a slightly different direction.

I don't think Reid, Levin and Pelosi should be tried for treason, because that would imply that they are Americans. I think they should be arrested and tried as spies, collaborators and infiltrators, because there is no way in hell they can be citizens of this country.

On paper, maybe. But in the heart where it counts the most, no way.

Many people believe Reid, Pelosi, Levin and their supporters should be tried under the section of the U.S. Constitution that defines treason as giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. I would agree except that they may be able to beat the charges by claiming what I believe to be true - they can't give aid and comfort to the enemy because they are the enemy.

Citizen: a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it.

Spy: a person employed by one nation to convey classified information of strategic importance to another nation.

Collaborator: to cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one's country.

Ever since 9-11 we have worried about terrorist "sleeper cells" emerging from within our country to wreak havoc on our citizens. We have been diligently searching for bombs, sabotage to our infrastructure, or possible nuclear, chemical or biological attacks. But I think we were looking in the wrong places.

Reid, Pelosi, Levin and their supporters are engaged in an ongoing campaign to dismantle our efforts to protect ourselves from terrorists and defeat them militarily. While the terrorists have been soundly defeated in every battle we have fought with them, and have made no gains anywhere, the internal campaign by their collaborators in the US Congress has been steadily eroding our national will and abilities.

I believe Reid, Pelosi, Levin and their supporters constitute a sleeper cell that has emerged from hiding and is wreaking havoc on our country.

I am not saying that they as representatives of the people don't have a right to voice their concerns. But we are in a war and although none of them ever served in the military and thus have no personal point of reference to understand the impact of their words, they certainly have been told enough times by enough people of the magnitude of harm they are causing.

They are saying that men and women who are engaged in combat operations against terrorists in Iraq, the same terrorists who also are fueling an internal war between factions of the Muslim religion, are making needless, futile sacrifices.

How can you make a statement like Reid made, or Levin made, and then expect our service personnel to willingly go out on the field of battle? The answer is simple. You can't.

The only thing you can and should expect from our military once you have made a statement that they are fighting a lost cause is that they would want to disengage as quickly as possible before any more damage is done.

If the Reid, Pelosi, Levin triad actually believes we are losing in Iraq and should retreat as fast as possible, there is a time and place for questioning the strategies, tactics and possible outcome of war fighting. It is in closed-door discussions between top civilian and military leaders with no media present, not in front of a bank of TV cameras and reporters.

Making their false claims in front of the media not only shows their assertions to be politically motivated for short-term gain at home, it also uses the world media to send messages directly to the terrorists that the United States has no will to continue the fight through to victory.

When terrorist leaders, like any other leaders, get good solid intelligence that their tactics are working and the enemy, in this case us, is wavering, they unquestionably will redouble their efforts, regardless of the cost to them, because they have been given more than reasonable assurances of ultimate victory.

Reid, Levin and Pelosi know this. They are obviously anti-American, to say nothing of unpatriotic, but they aren't completely stupid.

Yet, in all of the rhetoric, there is one question that no one seems willing to ask these self-anointed military geniuses. If we are losing the war, could you tell us where and when this occurred?

We have lost somewhat more than 3,000 troops over a five-year period, about 500 less than the number of U.S. Navy personnel killed over a three-month period in the Battle of Okinawa in WWII. I mourn those losses as do all real Americans.

But in the meantime, terrorist casualty figures compiled from military and press accounts from outside of America show that at least 35,000 and possibly more than 50,000 of their fighters have died.

I can find no instances of battles or campaigns lost by coalition forces in Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia. I can find no instances of our generals surrendering their flags, their swords or their troops. We have had minimal instances of POWs taken by the terrorists.

So where exactly did this defeat occur? Where did we lose? Answer that one please.

Meanwhile, the world media is showing pictures this week of a 12-year-old boy beheading a Pakistani man who was charged with collaborating with the anti-Taliban forces. Some say this is an example of the reprehensible teachings of the terrorists we are fighting.

I agree, but I also would point out that in Vietnam as communist casualties escalated beyond comprehension - an estimated 1.4 million North Vietnamese troops killed in action, and the entire 70,000 man Viet Cong guerrilla force wiped out - the communists turned to younger and younger replacements to fill their ranks.

Considering the magnitude of the terrorists' losses in this war thus far, it is reasonable to conclude that they also are recruiting from ranks of children, who obviously are easier to delude. We have to ask ourselves if the Muslim religion really has an unlimited supply of uneducated stooges who are willing to blow themselves up on the odd chance that a limited and quite fantastic version of paradise might be waiting for them.

There are signs all along the way that our military is having a devastating effect on the terrorist ranks. But those successes are not even mentioned in the American Terrorist Media because they don't fit the template of their political aims.

To show any signs of weakness now, and to deliberately transmit false claims to the terrorists while simultaneously undermining support for our troops is more than unpatriotic, it is cause for arrest and trial.

But while the focus of America's growing anger is the Democratic majority in Congress, many also are totally fed up with the administration's apparent inability or unwillingness to deal effectively with those who are sabotaging our country. Take a look at three items a regular reader sent me this weekend ...

1) Bush and all the members of the Federal government act like its "them" against "us," when in reality we the people hold the power. But instead the administration is more concerned about "getting along."

2) How incompetent must you and your administration be to: 1) allow Scooter Libby to go on trial when there shouldn't have been an investigation; 2) not be able to expose who's leaking secrets to the NY Times; and 3) your attorney general is under fire.

The last is all the more ridiculous when we remember that the very people who are now putting the current AG's feet to the fire didn't say s**t when Janet Reno ordered the assault resulting in the murders of more than 80 people, including women and children, at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX. And let's not forget the execution of an innocent wife, son, and infant child at the fiasco in Ruby Ridge, ID.

This government seems to be great at going after American citizens but we just let the Chinese and all others have full access to our defense secrets. Brilliant by God!

3) Mr. President, you swore an oath to God to faithfully discharge the duties of
your office. Yet, you have people in your administration and in Congress committing treason on a weekly basis and take no action. You know you're not faithfully discharging your duties.

These aren't rantings of a disquiet mind. They are representative of emails I have seen from across the country. I have been asked many times in recent months when America will reach the "tipping point" and rise up against the fools and incompetents who are selling us out.

I believe that time has come. I understand that President Bush is a good Christian, and he may well feel that turning the other cheek is a preferred form of governance. Maybe so if it was him who was getting hit on the other cheek. But is is not the President who suffers the most from his lack of action, it is the American populace and specifically our military.

It is way past time to stop turning the other cheek. It is time to "loose the fateful lighting of his terrible, swift sword."

Mr. President, you are the commander-in-chief of the best and most powerful military in the world. They want, need, and deserve a man of vision, action and dedication leading them. They will go to the end of the earth for you and this country and give up their lives if necessary. But you must see beyond the needs and rhetoric of the DC beltway, and give our country the leader it deserves, and you claim to be.

A groundswell of anger and dissatisfaction is building across America. Soon, it will become a tsunami. It would be far better to ride that wave, than to stand in front of it.

Contact information:
Fed up with the status quo in Washington? Want to say so, directly the the people causing your dissatisfaction? Here are a few numbers to try:

Reid's fax is 202-224-7327 in D.C. and 702-388-5030 in Nevada.

Pelosi's fax 202-225-8259 in D.C. and 415-861-1670 in California.

MOAA also provides a toll free number to call Congressmen 1-866-272-6622 ... when the operator answers ask for the Senator/Rep you want to reach.

Have a nice day!

America is in shock. America is mourning the victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech. America is grieving and needs time to grieve.

Out of respect for the families and friends of the victims, I decided to temporarily suspend this column this week to observe a period of mourning. It was not much, but it was all I had to offer.

Many years ago, in one of those situations that all too often seems like just yesterday, my family experienced a similar tragedy and loss that was at once the result of appalling negligence and a deliberate act of violence. For decades I have felt and observed the devastating impact it had on my family and people close to us.

With this as a background I felt that the most respectful thing I could do to appropriately express my respect and condolences for the victims, their families and friends was to mourn the loss of so many innocents in silence.

During this period I have had many opportunities to observe the responses of individuals, organizations and countries around the world, and I have to say, I am appalled at how quickly some used this tragedy to press their own political agendas.

The first, and most barbaric responses came virtually immediately as spokesmen for the American left jumped up screaming "I told you so, I told you so! See? See? Gun control! If there were no guns in America this wouldn't have happened."

They were so anxious to use a monumental tragedy for their own purposes that some didn't even take time to express their condolences to the victims' families and friends.

The response from the Islamo-fascists around the world was typical and to be expected - Allah is paying America back for being the Great Satan. That nonsense is so predictable I could probably write five paragraphs of it here off the top of my head, do an Internet search for the key words and find a verbatim example out there somewhere.

Of considerable surprise was a comment from Australia's prime minister, who has benefited from considerable goodwill and support here in America, who also said that this shooting was a result of our "gun culture." More on that later.

But it was the communist party in Italy that really ticked me off, calling this tragedy "As American as apple pie."

What an incredibly mind-numbing, ignorant, Neanderthal commentary. Only knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, bottom feeders would stoop to such a despicable level of uncivilized commentary.

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Communists world wide have been bashing the United States for decades. After all, we represent freedom of choice while they advocate totalitarian government control at any cost, including truth.

Yet, while communists within in the U.S. and worldwide have a vested interest in painting a false picture of American society, especially regarding gun ownership, there is a substantial body of research that shows a completely different picture, one that the communists, fascists and terrorists would prefer to suppress.

Take for instance an ongoing scholarly work that was released last year in Canada. Titled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence by Gary A. Mauser, professor at Simon Fraser University and Don B. Kates (retired) this working document reveals some startling facts about gun ownership and crime that unfortunately doesn't make it into the media.

Italicized below are some excerpts from that work that I believe are important to share with you. The full text can be found at http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/1564/ and believe me, it is worth reading.

One is the compound assertion that: (a) guns are uniquely available in the U.S. compared to other modern developed nations, which is why (b) the U.S. has by far the highest murder rate.

Though this has been endlessly repeated, in fact b) is false and a) substantially so. The false assertion that the U.S. has the industrialized world's highest murder rate is an artifact of politically motivated Soviet minimization of true Russian homicide rates since at least 1965.

As of many years before that date Russia had extremely stringent gun controls which were effectuated by a police state apparatus providing for extremely stringent enforcement. So successful was that regime that few Russian civilians have firearms and very few murders involve them.

Yet manifest success in keeping its people disarmed has not prevented Russia from having far and away the highest murder rate in the developed world. In the 1960s and early '70s, gunless Russia's murder rates paralleled (generally exceeded) those of gun-ridden America. As American rates first stabilized and then steeply declined, Russian murder increased so drastically that by the early 1990s the Russian rate was three times higher than the U.S.

Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, has a murder rate 10 times higher than gun-dense Norway and Germany where handguns are legal and gun ownership in general is very high

The same pattern appears when comparisons of violence to gun ownership are made within nations. Indeed, "data on firearms ownership by constabulary area in England" show "a negative correlation." i.e. "where firearms are most dense, violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest" (quoting a description of what American data have also consistently shown). Many different data sets from various kinds of sources are summarized as follows by the leading text: ... there is no consistent significant positive association between gun ownership levels and violence rates: across (1) time within the United States; (2) U.S. cities; (3) counties within Illinois; (4) country-sized areas like England; (U.S. states); (5)regions of the United States; (6) nations; or (7) population subgroups ...

Whatever the reason, the upshot is that violent crime, and homicide in particular, have plummeted in the United States ... In 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office, violent crime increased during the 1990s. This contrast should provoke thinking people to wonder what happened in those nations adopting policies based on the belief that introducing more and more restrictive firearm laws would reduce criminal violence. Perhaps the United States is doing something right.

Capping decades of severe restrictions on gun ownership throughout the British Commonwealth, the last half of the 20th century saw several of the countries in the Commonwealth impose Draconian firearm laws, confiscating hundreds of thousands of firearms from owners law abiding enough to turn them in.

Canada brought in universal gun registration and banned small handguns, the United Kingdom banned all handguns, Australia banned semiautomatic firearms, and both the Republic of Ireland and Jamaica attempted sweeping firearm bans. These gun laws were adopted amid predictions that they would stem violence, but ... none of these measures can be shown to have successfully reduced criminal violence, homicide or suicide in any of these countries.

More of Professor Mauser's research at http://www.garymauser.net/

It occurred to me in this past week that the willingness of America's critics, even from countries that claim to be our friends and allies, to constantly portray Americans as world-class bad guys, itself may be partly to blame for tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shootings.

Virtually anywhere you go in the world, governments and groups take great delight in bashing the US at every opportunity. I believe this is done to cover up and compensate for their own failures and inadequacies, but the end result is that many in the world believe it is fine to murder Americans.

I think that this "Bash America culture" leads some already demented people to think that Americans are useful only when we are targets.

But in this context, I'd like to ask Italy's communists whether they thought so little of us in WWII when gun-toting Americans were inching their way up the Italian peninsula under fire from Italian fascists and German Nazis, neither of whom had much use for communists.

Was that as "American as Apple Pie?"

And while we're on the subject of communism and shootings, when Joseph Stalin exterminated subjects of the Soviet Union who didn't share his views or simply got in his way at a rate exceeding one million per year, was that as "Russian as Borscht?"

When Mao Tse Tung, was similarly exterminating millions of Chinese - estimates vary here, it could have been as 'low' as 40 million or as high as 70 million - was that "As Chinese as Lo Mein?"

When Pol Pot, the late communist leader of Cambodia was slaughtering millions of his subjects was that "As Cambodian as Prahok?"

How about Fidel Castro? When he went on an extended extermination plan, wiping out his subjects by the tens of thousands (instead of millions,) did that make him benevolent? What that an example of "As Cuban as good cigars?"

There is only one reason I can find why countries want their citizens disarmed. That is so the citizenry has no means available to forcefully disagree with the government when the government thinks it exists to dictate rather than serve. Unarmed citizens against tanks make great photo ops, but they are historically totally ineffective.

It is obvious that the world's communists and other terrorists would love to see the United States disarmed. Their zealotry is so rabid that they can't even use their well-honed propaganda machines to make their outlandish comments at more appropriate times, preferring to hit our grieving citizens when the impact of this tragedy is immediate.

Thus, I would like to pass on an invitation to Italy's communist party. And I would very much appreciate it if the leaders of that party could extend this invitation to others of their ilk from around the globe, and the leaders of terrorist organizations wherever they exist.

If you are so crude, so boorish, so unsophisticated and so uncivilized that you can't even allow us our time to grieve without also having to deal with your petty comments and ignorant remarks, please do us a favor - go stick you heads way down deep in a vat of Chianti.

Stay there, upside down, immersed in the best that Italy has to offer until I decide to get back to you.

But don't hold your breath.

Of all the racist comments that have been tossed around the airwaves over the Don Imus imbroglio, the most asinine I have heard yet, aside from his, came from a black rap-industry executive who was interviewed by Michelle Malkin when she was guest host on the Bill O'Reilly show this week.

I didn't catch the man's name, but he claimed that the filthy, sexist lyrics that dominate the most popular rap songs are required by the owners of the record companies that produce rap music. These people he claimed, are "white slave masters," and it is all "whitey's" fault that black rappers glorify drugs and violence, demean black women, and produce videos that are one click shy of live sex shows.

Apparently, these same white "slave masters" are forcing this guy and all the rap artists to take their multi-million dollar salaries and buy huge homes, expensive cars and jewelry, and live extravagant lifestyles. Oh, the Horror of it all. Make them stop, someone please!

In response to what was obviously a tongue-in-cheek question from Malkin, this guy replied that he does in fact believe that George Washington bears some responsibility for this filth. Not George Bush, mind you, the guy that the left claims is responsible for every other bad thing on earth.

He says the responsibility for drug and alcohol abuse, gang violence, prostitution, classlessness and filthy mouths rests squarely on the long-dead shoulders of George Washington!

Let's get something straight right now. I, as a white Christian male, am sick to death and fed up to my eyeballs with being blamed for every unpleasant factor and historic malfunction of the human race, by everyone who represents a racial, ethnic, or religious group that is different from mine.

My ancestors are Irish on my mother's side, Scottish highlanders who themselves descended from Vikings on my father's side, and despite long and exhaustive research I can't find a damn thing about my ancestors ever being involved in the American slave trade!

My father and his family arrived here from Scotland in the mid-1920s, long after the Civil War had ended and slavery had been outlawed. My Irish grandmother came here a decade before him, when she was a slip of 16 year old, by herself, with no attachment to anyone in this country, and no involvement in the long since passed slave trade.

The closest I can find to anything involving slavery is that the Vikings, from whom I am about 1,000 years removed, did occasionally take slaves during their raids along the coast of northern Europe and England around 900 A.D., as did every other military power in existence at that time! But by and large, these slaves were IRISH! Maybe even the occasional ANGLO-SAXON.

Yes, Viking ships did make rare forays as far away as Africa, and one of my ancestors, a member of Clan Gunn, is said to have been part of an expedition that made it as far as modern-day Massachusetts 100 years before Columbus 'discovered' America. But that expedition was for exploration, settlement and trade, not slavery.

So enough of this slavery crap already. No one is alive in the U.S., nor the entire world today, who was kept as a slave in the American south. No one. And let's not forget, the slave trade from Africa to the New World was allowed to flourish by and large not because massive numbers of white European soldiers invaded Africa, but because warring African tribes took their enemies hostage in the interior and marched them to the coast where they sold them to the slavers.

Slavery was a reprehensible facet of human existence for thousands of years, and it was practiced by all races, and all races profited from it.

Here's another bone to chew on. Before, during and after America became the United States of America, my Scottish ancestors were slugging it out to retain their homes and way of life, all of which were under siege from the ENGLISH! Other WHITE GUYS!

From the Battle of Culloden in 1746 onward, the English engaged in the Highland Clearances against my ancestors. The Clearances were a 100-year reign of terror and genocide that ended the clan way of life, murdered and displaced thousands upon thousands of Scots, many of whom were forced to the shores where they were put on the first ship going anywhere, separated from homes, friends and family, and never allowed to return.

Since Clan Gunn was located in the Caithness area of Scotland, far in the north, the Clearances didn't directly affect them until after the War of 1812. Clan lore says that around 1816 land speculators showed up in Clan Gunn territory and were promptly run off.

But they returned with the English Army, and my unarmed ancestors (the English had imposed gun control on the Scots - sword control too) made a valiant, but fatally flawed stand against the English, which the clan lost. The survivors were forced off their land and dispatched to the four winds and the seven seas. It is said that many ultimately made their way to what is modern-day Ottawa. My father's family went south to the Dundee area where he was born a century later.

None of my direct ancestors were here before the Civil War, nor took part in it on either side. But just for historic record, we should note that in that war, which ended slavery, roughly 360,000 northern troops were killed and another 370,000 wounded. The vast majority of them were WHITE!

Here's another point. When I went to bed last night I decided what time to set my alarm for, and when it went off this morning I decided whether to get up or hit snooze. When I did get up I decided what to have for breakfast, which way to turn when I left my driveway, and what I was going to do with my day.

There are inequities in life to be sure, not just in America, but across the world, yet by and large most Americans of all backgrounds get to make the same choices and decisions I do from morning til night. We can decide whether or not to pursue higher education, what fields we are most interested in, whether to join corporate America or work for ourselves, where we want to live, and how we want to live.

And the great thing is that every single one of us, regardless of race, creed or color, gets to make those choices. Even better, in America it is against the law to prevent anyone from pursuing the life of their choice due to the above mentioned race, creed, color, national origin, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, or just about anything else.

If you don't like the life you are living, change it. In America you can do that.

Now, about Juan Williams. I have watched him on television several times a week for years now, primarily because my favorite news shows are Special Report With Brit Hume where Juan appears as a panelist; and Fox News Sunday hosted by Chris Wallace where Juan also is a panelist.

For a long time I discounted Juan's point of view because it is always liberal left and appears to come straight from the Democratic National Committee's daily talking points. My television screen is the unfortunate victim of a fair share of eruptions from me at something Juan said that contradicted what I believe.

But I began to change my mind about him somewhat when FOX did a segment on his daughter launching a program to obtain prom gowns for girls whose homes had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

I gained additional respect for him when his book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America was published last August. In it he is critical of the current generation of black leaders and maintains that the black community should stop blaming everything and everyone else for every ill, real and perceived, and start taking responsibility for their actions, or lack thereof.

I also was impressed by Juan's willingness to stand up for his point of view when so many other black leaders, particularly Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, were once again playing the race card in the Imus issue. Sharpton and Jackson, who I think are co-pastors of the Church of the Crooked Path to Divine Self-Absorption, came across as the ultimate hypocrites - and Hillary Clinton stooges - by chastising Imus and Sen. Barack Obama, who had nothing to do with the issue - but giving only lip service to actually taking on the rap industry and its degradation of black culture.

Juan was interviewed several times and aside from the fact that no one made Imus say what he said, he put the blame for this entire culture right where it belongs, on the rappers who created it, exploit it and profit from it. I think we need to hear a lot more from Juan Williams and and lot less from Jackson and Sharpton.

In my view of America, we aren't a motley collection of individuals with no common goals, we are a collection of cultures that share a common goal of freedom. I see America as the ultimate steel girder. Not the make-believe steel that only Rosie O'Donnell has ever seen, the kind that can't melt, but real steel, the kind of metal alloy that uses a variety of ores to make the original iron even better.

Added to iron, metals such as nickel and manganese give steel its tensile strength, chromium increases the hardness and melting temperature, and vanadium helps reduce the effects of metal fatigue. Chromium and nickel give stainless steel a hard oxide on the metal surface to inhibit corrosion.

Each in its own way is viable, useful and valuable. But when a bar of iron sits next to a bar of nickel or chromium or manganese, they retain their basic properties and nothing more. It is only when their properties are combined that they make the materials that enable us to build, expand, survive and thrive.

America needs to combine the strengths of all facets of our society if we are to survive and thrive in this world.

I believe the real black America, the one that gets little to no coverage from the mainstream media, is the black middle class that has quietly taken advantage of the civil rights legislation enacted in the 60s. Those laws enabled black families to pursue equal job and education opportunities and as a result there has been an exponential explosion of the middle class.

But only the downside of black culture gets the coverage. Thus, I am calling on Juan Williams to work with other black leaders who share his beliefs and start turning this around. The first step in that process is ensuring that the next time an issue of this nature arises, and it will, we all know that, Juan Williams or Charles Payne, or Clarence Thomas or Colin Powell should be the 'go-to guys' for the mainstream media, not Sharpton or Jackson.

Those last two have a vested interest in perpetuating racial tensions in America because they make their livings off of exploiting those tensions. I don't believe they represent the real black America at all, yet the real black America is suffering because of their dominance of the media, and as a result all of America is suffering.

Juan Williams, due to his familiarity with the media and high visibility, should take the lead in forming an umbrella group of like-minded black leaders. They should insist that the TV and radio networks and national newspapers seek them out for opinions, rather than going for the race-baiting cheap-shot tactics that dominate now. They can and should work to ensure that the true voice of black America is the one that gets the media attention, and that the detrimental aspects are exposed for their shallowness.

For my part, I promise to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and back-to-back with Juan in any fight of this kind. Maybe the only changes I can make exist in my own back yard, but it is a start and my backyard is still one piece in the puzzle. I'll also let Brit Hume deal with the political debates. My television, and my wife, will thank me for it, and Brit is far better at it anyway.

So, what do you say Juan? The ball is in your court.

I first heard a Don Imus radio show in the mid-70s, after a friend who knew me well enough to appreciate my warped sense of humor tipped me off to his irreverent approach to broadcasting.

The first time I tuned in Imus announced that he would take a call from the 50th female caller, and then proceeded to pick up and hang up the phone, time after time, announcing "caller 26, caller 31, caller 42," until finally reaching the magic number 50. Thereupon he supposedly convinced the caller to disrobe, and talked her out of her blouse, bra, panties, etc., with a constant commentary - "Are you naked baby?" - to the vast enjoyment of his listeners.

At that time, in that place, I thought it was pretty funny, and I became a fan.

Imus wasn't considered a 'shock jock' at that time, because I don't think anyone was using that term yet. But he was a ground breaker and he was funny.

My previous experiences with New York radio had also been tremendously positive, when my fellow Marines and I would listen to Cousin Brucie and Dan Ingram on WABC while travelling though the 'Tri-State Area' on weekend liberty runs.

Imus's new format was fun, he still played music, and very good music at that, and on top of it all he was funny, and kept me tuned to New York radio.

Imus's personal problems caused him to come and go from the New York scene, but eventually he got it under control and landed back there for good. In the mid-80s I listened to virtually every hour of every show he did for a three month period when I was an investigative reporter sitting in a vehicle for hours on end doing surveillance for a story series.

By then he had surrounded himself with a talented crew of comics and straight men, and had added pre-recorded skits including Crazy Bob - The Original Old Timer; and Moby Worm. In between he played music, really good music, and he was funny.

I lost track of Imus for a few years when I moved to Florida where the morning drive time was dominated by Bubba The Love Sponge and other radio stations that focused on the horrendous rush-hour traffic, or Oldies or the Top 40. But when I moved back to New England in 2001 I again went looking for Imus to start my day.

What I found was someone who said he was Imus, and looked like Imus, but to me he wasn't Imus. He was on both radio and cable TV, broadcasting over MSNBC, but somewhere along the line he had transformed from a witty, relevant though acid-tongued entertainer, to another in a long line of ho-hum political pundits.

He was solidly attached to the liberal Democratic view of politics and the world. Even though he had enraged Hillary Clinton with pointed barbs about missing Rose Law Firm records at the White House Correspondents Dinner in the 90s, he could be counted on to host an unending line of liberal politicians, operatives and columnists.

There were some bright spots. Occasionally Mary Matalin or John McCain would appear and insert some common sense information into the daily rants of the Bush haters and Bush bashers. But their appearances were too few and far between.

Imus was always complaining that MSNBC has minuscule ratings, and even with a new studio and occasional live appearances by blues or country western bands he couldn't get away from the lunacy and stodginess of his new format. He didn't play enough music, I could hear the Democratic National Committee talking points at dozens of other spots if I was so inclined, and he stopped being funny.

I really liked his support for the troops and all the fund-raising he has done for the wounded coming back to America for rehab. I admired his efforts to make life better for kids with cancer at his ranch in New Mexico, and I applaud his support for parents who have lost babies to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

But somewhere along the line it occurred to me that if he could continue those worthy programs without doing daily broadcasts it might be a better use of his time.

I don't remember who was talking on the Imus program when I made my permanent switch to Fox and Friends. I think it was that Oliphant guy who writes for one of the Boston papers, but I'm not sure, and that is my point. Imus's show had become solidly forgettable.

I hadn't heard any more about him until last week when he burst onto the national consciousness after making an incredibly stupid, unfunny, derogatory, racist remark about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Amid all the uproar, my first thought was that Imus had finally found a way to reverse his declining ratings. He had been saying outrageous things that ticked people off for more than 30 years, and while his most recent commentary was reprehensible it certainly wasn't out of character. But it was drawing attention to his show.

I finally tuned in MSNBC for the first time in a couple of years, just to hear what he was saying about it.

But as the reaction against him continued to grow, and the two most hypocritical black men on the national political scene, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, called for him to be fired, I began to grow suspicious.

For starters, Imus has long been attempting to ingratiate himself with the black urban scene, referring to the comings and goings of whatever Rap artist is currently in the news, and making references to "getting down, with my bro' Snoop," or commenting on the latest escapades of "Fitty-Cent." In addition to sounding absolutely ludicrous, (small l, not referring the other rapper) it occurred to me that Imus was desperate for ratings and would go to extremes to attract audiences that otherwise would ignore him.

It was this combination of desperation and far-left leaning politics that was making Imus so unattractive to what had previously been a dependable audience. Yet, Imus had made other comments over the years that were equally reprehensible and could have raised an equal ruckus, but they didn't. He was ripe for outrage for instance, when he referred to a black female journalist at the New York Times as a 'cleaning lady.'

So why now? Well, maybe he has seen that MSNBC is going nowhere and he was looking for an opportunity to jump ship, both from that venture and his morning show on CBS radio. Some commentators are saying this is a great opportunity for him to join Howard Stern on Sirius Radio.

Maybe it is. But the biggest question I have is why has he suddenly become the target of the black activist community?

Look at what happened in sequence. First Sharpton and Jackson, neither of whom can attract any kind of following in Middle America, come out screaming 'racist,' even though they have had plenty of opportunities to do this for years. They make all kinds of noise about his use of the word "ho" which is black, urban, rap slang for "whore," although that word, usually used in the company of "bitches" is a mainstay of Rap music lyrics.

Then, wonder of wonders, Sharpton and Jackson start taking shots at Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, a black politician who has eclipsed both of them in popularity not just in the Democratic Party but also on the national scene. They claimed he was not fast enough to denounce Imus and thus doesn't speak for the real black community in America.

Obama also has shaken the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign to its core with his fund-raising prowess, and although she didn't comment on the the Imus incident either, it was only Obama who was singled out for criticism.

Hillary finally had something to say about this after Obama said he would never appear on the Imus show again. He had only appeared once, but that was enough for Sharpton and Jackson.

Why would Obama suddenly find himself in the midst of this controversy? Because his meteoric rise to the top of the Democratic political scene not only threatens Clinton's chances for a shot at the White House, it also draws support away from Sharpton and Jackson, who make buckets full of money by selling out the very black community they claim to represent.

How so? By ignoring the huge black American middle class, that since the mid-60s enactment of civil rights legislation has been doing very well for itself in the capitalist world. But activists, especially phony hypocritical activists, can't make a living from complaining about things going well for their constituency.

So they have to continue pressing the image that all is not well, and in this case, the issue of the day is that all white Americans think young black student athletes are nothing more than "bitches and ho's." If Barack Obama, Condoleeza Rice, Bill Cosby, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and thousands of other successful black Americans are seen as the true leaders of America's black population, then donations to Sharpton's and Jackson's lavish lifestyles could and probably would suffer.

As would the Democratic Party.

So first make Imus's comment a national issue, then turn it so it becomes a useful political tool. Increase Sharpton's and Jackson's visibility, and possibly their viability, make Hillary look like a rational, reasonable leader, undercut Obama and voila, the status quo is restored!

But central to this theme is that Imus first had to be tossed under the bus. My question is Why? He has been sucking up to the urban black community and the far left side of the Democratic party for a long time. They kept him under their umbrella and tolerated previous commentaries of this nature without so much as a peep. Why did this one line suddenly become the flash point?

Maybe someone with far better sources inside the Democratic party can answer those questions. Maybe we'll never know.

But regardless, there is one thing Imus should have known. Male Rappers not only glorify drugs and violence, and not only refer to women as bitches and ho's, they refer to themselves as "gangsta's." They glorify the world of the streets, street crime, and the street fighters.

One thing common to all street fighters whether they are American Rappers or Islamo-fascist terrorists is that they will never trust and never accept an outsider who sucks up to them. They may make use of suck-up artists and allow them to hang around if there is a temporary benefit to it, but when that benefit is gone, the suck-up artist is gone too.

Imus could talk all he wanted about his Bro' Snoop, but it was his Bro' Snoop who issued a statement a week after the incident began, saying straight out that in his world it is allowable for black men to refer to black women as bitches and ho's, but white boys like Imus better not.

That is a tough lesson to learn, especially if you have allowed yourself to believe that you really were part of the community or movement you have been sucking up to. Imus wasn't raised in the 'hood, he isn't black, and he would never be truly accepted in that environment.

If Imus really wanted to make a positive difference he should have been working far more, and far more publicly, on behalf of the black middle class.

Imus has been around a long time and he should have understood that. He sure as hell understands it now.