iraq

Lots of people enlist in the military, many more marry into it.
Others are born into it.

I’m one of those.

I was literally born into the Navy. So literally that my place of birth is the Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

Before I was nine, I was stationed at Portsmouth, Virginia, Jacksonville, Florida, and Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard, San Francisco. That’s where my Dad was transferred to a destroyer being converted from an older design, the USS Somers (DDG 34).

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing


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If I had to use one word to describe my three year experience in Iraq, one word which could say how I feel without discounting or dismissing the good things I personally saw and experienced, that word would be DISHEARTENING.

Unlike many Americans in Iraq, my experiences there brought me close up and personal to the Iraqis and their day to day lives. I worked with them and I lived among them in the red zone of Baghdad. As the V.P. of Aviation and marketing for the Sandi Group, a DC based Iraqi-American Corporation, I live on one of the city blocks in the middle of Baghdads Red District, away from the Green Zone and the protection of U.S. Forces. Those assigned to protect me were Iraqi, mostly Kurds from the Northern region of Iraq.

Every day as I traveled throughout Baghdad in the course of my work, it was Iraqi body guards who saw to my safety. We did not have armored cars, or soldiers to accompany us, as I would have later, being appointed into a U.S. Diplomatic mission in Baghdad. I trusted my Iraqi guards and befriended them. They never betrayed that trust. On more than one occasion, while on ambush alley in Baghdad, those Iraqi guards would cover me with their own bodies to ensure my safety when snipers opened up on our cars.

In the short time I have been a member here at BlueNC, I have noted from time to time writers who, when discussing Walter Jones, talk about him as though he were a Democrat in Republican clothing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I just took a sampling of his record for your edification.

IS CONGRESSMAN WALTER JONES A GOOD “BUSH” REPUBLICAN?
YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!

Rep. Jones voted against cracking down on the oil and gas industries price gouging.

Big oil and gas industries have given Rep. Jones $65,408.
Rep. Jones voted to strip overtime protection from millions of workers.

Big drug interests have given $30,635 to Jones over the Representative's career. They know who their friends are.
Jones has taken $1,000 from House Majority Leader John Boehner (.John Boehner actually handed out checks from the tobacco industry on the floor of the US Congress).

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing


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Looking ahead to 2008, several things are clear. First, we can see that Liddy Dole is more vulnerable than we would have expected a year or two ago. Second, we see that there is still a bit of apprehension about the race, and it's not considered to be a top-tier target for the Democrats. National Democrats think North Carolina is just too red, and their concerned that the Presidential race at the top of the ticket will drag down any Democratic candidate against DOle.

I happen to think that we can take Dole down - the latest poll data all seems to indicate that Dole is not popular, and the North Carolinians are open to the idea of a new Senator. I also happen to think that, if we're going to beat Dole, we need to start now. This is my strategy for beating Dole in 2008. Jerry Meek, take notes.

March 28th 07
A terrible thing happened to day in Iraq. 63 people, human beings, were killed by Iraqi police assisted by militiamen. According to the Washington Post, the police began roaming Sunni neighborhoods in the city, shooting at residents and homes. The Iraqi Army had to come in to stop the attacks. The carnage was the worst bloodshed in a surge of violence across Iraq.

President Bush cited the operation as an example that gave him "confidence in our strategy. (How many Police will be charged with murder? Zero). What kind of successful strategy is that?

"Meanwhile, hundreds of Iraqis detained in the U.S. security crackdown in Baghdad are being held in two detention centers designed to hold only a dozen or so people, The New York Times, reported today. The report also disclosed that 705 detained people were packed into an area built for 75 (by US forces) at one of the detention centers, south of Baghdad. The other center, held 272 people, including two women and four boys, in a space designed to hold about 50. (I have been to detention centers in Iraq. Not exactly a real model of success).

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing


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