Attention Alaskan Conservatives: You Are Goddamned Cowards - Don’t Call Yourselves Americans

We went into Anchorage today.

When we came home we discovered that the Scott McAdams signs had been taken from our front yard.

Somebody with roughly size 12-14 boots ran through the snow from a truck idling on the road into my yard, ripped the sign from the frozen ground, and ran back to the truck.

Ran. Like a coward.

I posted this to my Twitter and Facebook accounts and got numerous reports of the same bullshit all over the MatSu Valley and up to Fairbanks.

This pisses me off. No really, you have no idea, no idea whatsoever, how much this pisses me off.

But you couple this nonsense to the voter intimidation and Murkowski’s write-in list chicanery at the early voting booths and my blood really starts to boil.

Then there’s this:

Sarah Palin took aim at Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski late Friday evening, after a phone call from the senator’s camp resulted in the suspension of a local conservative radio talk show host.

“Does all this sound heavy handed? It is,” wrote Palin in a Facebook post. “It is an interference with Dan Fagan’s constitutional right to free speech. It is also a shocking indictment against Lisa Murkowski. How low will she go to hold onto power? …She made it clear that if you disagree with her and encourage others to exercise their civic rights, she’ll take you off the air.”

Really? Is that right? Interference with a constitutional right to free speech? What do you call it when your goons come into my yard and take my signs? What do you call it when your thugs stomp on people’s heads? What do you call it when members of the media are handcuffed by your hired storm troopers for asking a question?

You, Sarah Palin, are disgusting travesty of a human being. You’re nothing but a fucking Nazi whore. And you Tea Party SA are the most pathetic excuses for Americans I have ever had the displeasure of running across. You dumb fuckers should just pin swastikas on your brown shirts and call it like it is.

Listen up, Palin, Miller, Teabaggers, and the rest of you conservatives assholes, because I’m only going to say this once: You keep talking about how much you like guns? You got it. You set foot on my property again, you attempt to intimidate me or mine, you attempt in any way whatsoever to interfere with my Constitutional rights and you will regret it.  I’m armed and I damned well know how to shoot. I am, in fact, an expert. A very experienced expert. This is Alaska, you set foot on my property again and I’ll ship you back to Joe Miller’s campaign headquarters in a fucking bag. Count on it.

New signs are up.

Shotgun is loaded.

Your move, Motherfuckers.

Racist Asshole Deserves No Mercy (updated)

I'm sitting in the Elmendorf base exchange food court.

Fox News is on the TV. I'm watching the President of the United States answer questions on healthcare reform at a townhall meeting.

An old man and his wife sit down across from me.

He's wearing a US Army retired hat.

He says loudly and with anger in his voice, "I wish to hell they wouldn't put this fucking nigger on TV."

I was standing before I even realized it. Face flushed, blood boiling. I honestly haven't been that offended in a long, long time.

I spoke very, very harshly. I told him to take that army hat off in as much as a racist asshole like him had no business wearing the symbol of America's freedom. Fuck him, fuck his wife, and fuck the horse they rode in on. They're entitled to their opinion, as noxious and dishonorable as it is. They are not entitled to express it in public among the men and women sworn to defend this country and sworn to obey the orders of that very President. Then I told them to get the fuck out. They did, sullenly, but they did - and it's a damned good thing because I was fully prepared to punch a 70 year old man directly in his bigoted mouth.

I'm sick of these bastards telling me that I should leave this country, that I'm not American enough, that my president isn't American enough. I'm tired of hearing these nasty sons of bitches call the President a traitor and me a traitor for voting for him. I'm tired of being told that freedom means only thinking and choosing exactly as they do. I'm sick and tired of these sorry bastards and their spoiled childish sour grapes attitude. America voted, Americans exercised their right to democracy, Americans choose Barack Obama as their president overwhelmingly, the Electoral Collage choose Barack Obama in a virtual landslide, and these petulant whining pricks just can't seem to understand that America is so very much more than their stinking racist vision. These idiots let Bush run roughshod over us for eight damned years and they cheered while he pissed on the Constitution and did everything in his power to destroy this country. I've had it with these small minded ignorant backward assed fucks and their version of patriotism, and I'm sick of having to apologize for them, and I'm tired of cleaning up their messes, and I've been pushed as far as I'm going.

And if they don't like it, they are welcome to pack a bag and leave.

From now on, I'm showing these racist assholes the door.

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Update: Apologies for the, uh, density of the language in the original post, I've edited it a bit.

In my defense, I was seriously pissed. My hands shook for a half an hour afterward. I really wanted to belt that guy. He was just a mean nasty angry pinch faced asshole. One of those miserable old racist bastards who hates everybody and everything. It was written all over his face, he's miserable and it's everybody else's fault. One of those people who seem to think that "we" are taking "his" country away from him, one of those guys who seem to think that because he's old and because he's a veteran he can loudly spout racism and bigotry and frothing hatred and the rest of us should just put up with it, ignore it, pretend that it's OK because he's from a different time when such things were acceptable. He was very obviously used to having things his own way - and it just plain fucking pissed me off.

It's not acceptable. Nobody is taking his country away. It's not his country. America belongs to all of us. If you have no respect for that, you deserve no respect in return.

I was so damned mad I just wanted to beat the ever living hell out of him.

But there was more to it than that - I was embarrassed. There were only a handful of people around, but there were children in the food court area. There was at least one dependent wife (I assumed she was a dependent wife, I don't know for certain) with her kids, I think she was Hispanic. He spoke loudly, obviously intending for people to hear. His statement made me feel ashamed. It made me feel angry that those children should hear such things, that they should hear such things while their father was out there in uniform defending the nation. It made me angry that this guy thought he was superior to all of the rest of us who serve or have served - just because of the color of his skin. It made me angry that his skin color is the same as mine - I don't want him, I don't want to be associated with him, I don't want people to look at me and see him because of the color of my skin. It made me angry that he can't disagree with the President in any manner other than by race.

The Alaska Territorial Guard: A Debt of Honor Unpaid (Updated)

ATTENTION BLOGGERS, PUNDITS, AND NEWS MEDIA

This article is the intellectual property of Jim Wright and Stonekettle Station, it is protected by copyright.

I explicitly do not give permission to quote this article solely in order to attack the President of the United States or to make any other rightwing political point. Period and no exceptions. And I explicitly do NOT give permission to use my words to praise former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin in any way whatsoever.

Let's be honest here, not one of you conservative pundits gave a good Goddamn about these people either, none of you did a damn thing to bring this matter to the attention of the American people, and none of you actually care now - you're only using this to attack the current administration. So save your outrage and self-righteous indignation and leave my words out of it. You're welcome to your hypocrisy, but you can do it without quoting me. Clear?

You may quote me, providing you quote only a brief passage (one or two lines), give a link to this article, AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA DID NOT CREATE THIS MESS.

While I absolutely DO NOT agree with Obama's current veto of this bill and I find it unacceptable, the plight of the ATG is the result of 70 years of bad policy by both republicans and democrats. I.e. There's plenty of blame to go around. Laying it at the feet of the current president or claiming that it's part of some greater anti-military liberal agenda only clouds the issue further. And it should be noted that one of the principle people leading the fight to restore full benefits to the members of the Alaskan Territorial Guard is Senator Mark Begich, a liberal, and a member of the Democratic Party.

Acknowledge the actual situation as it exists and don't use my words to further your agenda, and you may quote me in accordance with fair usage as defined by US copyright law. Otherwise, don't.

This applies to both liberals and conservatives and any damned body else. This means you.

If you feel that you should be granted some kind of exemption or you have questions regarding exactly what you can quote or not quote, you may email me at the address on the main page of Stonekettle Station and we'll discuss it.

- Jim Wright, Stonekettle Station.

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In 1937, US Army Chief of Staff, General Malin Craig, said “The mainland of Alaska is so remote from the strategic areas of the Pacific that it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which air operations from there would contribute materially to the national defense.”

Less than five years later, General Craig was proved rather obviously and painfully wrong.

General Craig retired in 1939, relieved by General George Marshal, and while Craig’s attitude towards the Alaskan territory was significantly shortsighted, he can be forgiven for it. Craig was by no means a fool, instead he was a highly decorated and experienced soldier who demonstrated commendable courage and leadership during the St. Mihiel and Argonne-Meuse Offensives in World War I . He was recalled to active duty in September of 1941 and served honorably until his death on July 25th, 1945. He was buried with honors in section 30 of Arlington National Cemetery where he rests to this day.

Craig’s military assessment of the Alaskan Territory was typical for his time, i.e. the intra war period of the 1930’s. The territory was remote and by and large inaccessible (there were no roads to Alaska then and damn few roads inside Alaska, and few ports - none of which were deep water). Alaska’s vast resources were mostly unknown then, the easy gold deposits were long gone and little else mattered except maybe a small amount of platinum and some silver. General Craig was also a product of the so called Mahan Doctrine – the military philosophy adopted by all major powers of the time and named for Naval Academy strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, which basically said that a nation’s ability to define its own destiny was vested in sea power, or more specifically in capital ships, i.e. Battlewagons. Nations of the time were embarked in a race to see who could build the biggest and most powerful fleet of battleships without going bankrupt. WWI had also taught men like General Craig that if you didn’t want to get bogged down in the trenches of France and Belgium, you’d better have a big, powerful mechanized army – i.e. tanks, and lots of them – and this also was part of the Mahan Doctrine, because in order to move those tanks and the rest of your troops and equipment and supplies, you needed a powerful fleet to protect the transport ships. If you’re paying attention, you should now understand why Germany built all those U-boats and why Craig himself was responsible for the single largest modernization effort in US Army history (which led in no small part to US military superiority during WWII).

However, what Craig and the other Western military men of the time didn’t know, was that the Mahan Doctrine was utterly obsolete – and had been since 11:02 on the morning of January 18, 1911. On that cold, crisp winter morning in San Francisco harbor, a tall skinny daredevil named Eugene Burton Ely, a pilot with the Curtiss Aircraft Company, landed a Curtis #2 Pusher on the deck of the heavy armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania AC-4. Fifty-four minutes later, he took off again (scared shitless - he wasn’t afraid of crashing, but rather of drowning - Ely couldn’t swim and was terrified of water) and changed the world. Naval aviation was born. It took thirty years of development, thirty years to train the pilots, build the planes, build the aircraft carriers, and to work out the techniques. During most of that time, General Craig’s time, aviation was regarded as a military support function by Western militaries and not a combat function – the term “Air Superiority” and the concept it embodies hadn’t been conceived of yet – in the West.

All of that changed on the morning of December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese, striking from ships steaming hundreds of miles away, dealt a devastating blow to the US Pacific Fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. In that single moment the military philosophies of Alfred Thayer Mahan and General Malin Craig were violently demonstrated to be long obsolete. The weapon of the modern age would be airpower, long range airpower – and suddenly, Alaska was was very, very important indeed. Not to just the US, but to the Japanese who invaded the Aleutians and began pushing toward the mainland.

The US military suddenly found itself fighting on a dozen fronts, the Marines and Navy in the Pacific, the Army in Europe, and the Navy and Coast Guard in the North Atlantic (it would be five years before the US Army Air Corps would become the new US Air Force). There was little to spare for Alaska, but the territory had to be defended. The Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the Alaskan Canadian Highway, a muddy rutted jeep track built by Buffalo Soldiers and other units of the USACE. A deepwater protected port, Whittier, was constructed on a shelf blasted out the solid granite mountains on the western edge of Prince William Sound and a 2.5 mile long tunnel was blasted straight through the base of the mountains to connect the new port to the growing military city of Anchorage. Island fortresses were built on Kodiak and on Adak and Shemya in the Aleutians. New airfields were blasted from the wilderness at Richardson Field, Greely, Delta, King Salmon, Cold Bay, and a hundred other places so remote that most Americans had never even heard of them. That vast effort and the heroism of that long ago time is part of the history of Alaska – it changed the very fabric of the territory and led directly to statehood in 1959. All of us Alaskans today benefit from those efforts, from the Alcan, and Whittier, and the railroads and airfields and the roads.

But it wasn’t enough, not back then.

See, despite all – there was still Alaska itself. It is a vast and powerful land, rugged and unforgiving. The troops who came to defend the territory in 1941 were in large part unprepared. Their equipment was ill-suited for the harsh environment, much of it failed or was simply overwhelmed by conditions that can freeze 80-weight differential oil solid as amber. Their training in cold weather survival was inadequate, many suffered serious cold related injuries. Veterans of the Bulge speak of that horrible winter in the black forests of the Ardennes, but the troops who braved Alaska’s brutal winters to fight in the Aleutians often had it far worse – though their tribulations are largely forgotten today.

And so the Army set out to find a solution – something to protect the vital Alaskan coastline and patrol the remote areas, something to give early warning in the event of a Japanese threat to the critical Lend/Lease corridor to Russia, something to train the troops in arctic survival and operations.

And they found it.

They found their solution in the remote and isolated villages of the Aleut, the Yupik, the Athabaskan, the Inupiaq, the Tlingit, the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Eyak, and the other native Alaskan peoples. Incorrectly called Eskimo Scouts, the Alaska Territorial Guard was formed from mostly native Alaskan volunteers. Both men and women, the oldest 80 and the youngest 12. From 1942 to 1947 these unpaid volunteers from 107 native communities patrolled Alaska. Officially there were 6,368 of them, unofficially it was more like 20,000. These men and woman rallied to a flag and a cause that was largely not their own. They learned to fight and to shoot and to operate Army equipment and they did it so well that battle hardened veterans from Outside were often left in awe of their abilities, dedication, and perseverance under some of the harshest conditions on Earth. The members of the Alaskan Territorial Guard, the ATG, managed weapons and ammunition stores for the Army, trained themselves in drill and firearms and tactics, managed communications and transported equipment under conditions that no others could function in, constructed buildings and support facilities including airstrips and ports, conducted coastal surveillance and long range extended patrols on foot, broke hundreds of miles of wilderness trails, cached emergency stores and ammunition for the Navy, performed land and sea search and rescue of downed airmen and shipwrecked sailors, and directly fought against the enemy in the Aleutians. The ATG was commended for shooting down a number of Japanese bomb balloons and remote surveillance radiosondes and for the difficult rescue of downed airmen from planes that crashed on the arduous journey to Siberia in the Russian Lend Lease program. Members of the ATG also performed medical care for wounded soldiers at a field hospital in remote Kotzebue. And above all, the ATG provided training to the regular army in cold weather operations – training that saved thousands of lives and who’s legacy continues to this day for the troops who guard Alaska and its vital resources.

Though heroic, the efforts of the ATG are long forgotten by history, just another footnote in a time of chaos and war. The bases they built molder on the shores and in the interior, I’ve walked through the ruins of many and marveled that men could carve such places from the wilderness. I’ve stood before the monument at Soldier Summit in the Yukon, the Military Memorial on the Parks Highway just south of Denali National Park, and before the monument on Attu at the far end of the Aleutians – and stood in awe of those who rallied to a banner not their own and swore to give their lives in defense of a desperate nation that barely even acknowledged their existence and called them Eskimos instead of by the true name of their peoples.

But because they were volunteers, and because they were natives and members of the ATG – the Army did not recognize them as true soldiers. After the war they were largely forgotten by the outside world, and many returned to their homes. But some, some continued to serve and they didn’t forget us, in 1959 many former members of the ATG were the driving force behind Alaskan Statehood. And former native members of the ATG were instrumental in the implementation of racial equality within the ranks of the army and within Alaskan communities.

In 2000, largely due to efforts by former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, a bill was signed into law ordering the Secretary of Defense to issue Honorable Discharges to all members of the Alaska Territorial Guard. The bill was intended to repay the debt of honor we as a nation owe these people, these Americans, and provided many of the surviving members (now in their 80’s and many living far below the poverty line) with retirement pay and survivor’s benefits and medial care. However history views Ted Stevens it must be noted that he was largely responsible for righting a dishonorable and inexcusable injustice. However, the story of the ATG doesn’t end there – most of the elderly surviving members of the ATG live in remote and inaccessible locations. Finding them was long and difficult. In 2003 Colonel Bob Goodman USA(ret), undertook the effort to find and assist the remaining members of the ATG, at first funded by the state and later out of his own pocket. So far he and his people have located over 150 former members of the ATG, and they estimate there are several hundred more – and they continue their efforts to this very day. Many of those located in the last five years have since died of old age. For those who remain, the benefits provided aren’t much, some medical care and a couple hundred dollars a month, but for folks who now live far below the poverty line in villages where gasoline costs more than $10 per gallon – those benefits mean the difference between life and death.

Those benefits, that mere pittance in retirement pay, would seem to be the least we can do for those forgotten veterans of that long ago conflict.

It would seem to be the very least we could do.

But it’s not.

It turns out we could actually do less.

It turns out that the Army could suddenly decide, say yesterday in fact, to reinterpret the law to read that these men and women of the Alaska Territorial Guard, these men and woman who came to defend our nation in its time of need, these men and women who fought bravely for a flag not even their own, who built the roads and the airfields and the hospitals and the bridges and who rescued downed airmen and stranded sailors and braved the cold and the isolation and the horror of war – these men and women – are not, in fact, entitled to even that small effort.

That’s right. The Army has decided to cut off retirement pay for the twenty-six surviving members of the ATG. Twenty-six, and applications from thirty-seven more identified by Colonel Bob Goodwin and his people have been suspended. Apparently we can not afford to take care of even this small handful of people, this small handful of veterans, this small handful of Alaskans, this small handful of Americans.

However, in a good hearted move, the Army will not seek to recoup past payments.

Big of them, wouldn’t you say?

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Update: In response to some seriously bad publicity in the press and on the net, and following a visit by an Alaskan congressional delegation, Army Secretary Pete Geren has decided to do the honorable thing. Because that's just the kind of guy he is, apparently. Secretary Geren has ordered the Army to dip into emergency funds and issue a one time only payment, equal to two months retirement pay, to the ATG members who had their retirement pay cut off last week.

No mention of why it took a congressional demand, letters to the President, and a shitload of bad press to get the Army to behave in accordance with their professed core values of honor and duty. Funny how the funds were found to pay this debt only after it looked like it might negatively impact unpopular wartime recruiting efforts. Oopsy, should have seen that one coming. Also funny how this emergency payout costs less in total than the new furniture and carpeting the Secretary and Joint Chiefs get in their offices every two years, or the cost of those motivational posters they think are so fucking inspiring, or the gardening bill for one flower bed outside the Pentagon, or the cost of fuel to fly the Admiral's private Gulfstream III over to this year's Tail & Hookers convention, or one of those spiffy static displays in front of every Air Force Base in the world, or one paycheck to the average Haliburton contractor washing towels in Bagram, or...oh, fuck it, nevermind. I suppose I should be glad that it happened, even sullenly and under duress.

Supposedly this one time payment, gives Congress time to fix the law permanently. We'll see.

Meanwhile? Meanwhile there's still 300 hundred surviving members of the ATG out there.

Army honor does't seem to extend that far though.

Forgive me if I'm somewhat less than impressed.

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* Alaskan Senators Lisa Murkowski (R) and Mark Begich (D) are preparing legislation to restore full retirement pay to the surviving members of the ATG who qualify, and they have sent a letter to President Obama asking him to directly intervene. The fact that this should be necessary is a disgusting travesty. The nation, and the Army in particular, owe a debt of personal honor to these men and women – and an apology. I strongly urge you to write to your congressional representative and demand that Congress clearly amend the law and require the Army to repay this debt

Update: Additionally, I think the CINC should order the Army to search out and contact every surviving member of the ATG and inform them of their rights in person. There's plenty of Army in Alaska, plenty of helicopters and plenty of uniformed bean counters. Cost? Sure it'll cost, look's like the Generals don't get new carpet this year. Too fucking bad, maybe we should cut off the heat in their offices too.

** The Army is legally correct in its actions, so far as I can tell. Once the discrepancy was identified, HRC is required to take action and suspend payments. Morally, however, well I'll leave that up to you. Personally, in my military opinion, honor demands that this debt be paid.

Update: while legally correct, it is obvious at this point that the Army does have the discretion to pay these men. Secretary Geran's action proves that. It should have been the Army who went to Congress about this matter and demanded that Congress fix the law and plus up the retirement account. Again, Army honor seems to be in short supply these days.

*** Where is our Governor in all this you ask? Busy, apparently, signing a $3 million book deal, and preparing for her run at the White House in 2012.

Update: Correction, apparently, Palin also signed the letter to President Obama. One wonders where she found the time, at least she didn't blame this failure on Tina Fey.

- CWO Jim Wright, USN(ret)

From the "Somebody needs a good ass kicking" Category

This is how the Pentagon thanks those wounded in combat.

Jordan Fox, an Army sniper from Mount Lebanon, PA, who was partially blinded by an IED while on patrol in Iraq, was notified by the Pentagon that he would have to repay $2,800 of his $10,000 enlistment bonus, since he was no longer able to complete his service obligation. When called on the carpet for this nonsense by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), Army officials said it was an isolated "clerical error" and canceled the debt. Good enough, right? Everybody makes mistakes.

Not exactly.

If Fox's case was an "isolated incident, there has been no explanation of why hundreds of other wounded veterans have also received letters demanding repayment, Schumer said. "When you talk to the Pentagon, you get different answers from different people."

Different answers from different people? At the Pentagon? No, say it ain't so.

Democratic front-runner and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen Hillary Clinton (D-NY) sent a 'Strongly Worded Letter' to the Secretary of the Army, requesting reversal of the repayment policy.

A strongly worded letter? Big. Fat. Hairy. Deal.

Unless Clinton comes out on top as the person who will clearly be our next President, the Secretary of the Army isn't likely to listen to a damned thing she has to say. What we need here are three things.

1) An Executive Order from the White House, directing all armed services to fulfill their obligations to those disabled in the performance of their duties while in the combat zone. Period. No loop holes. No bullshit. No more nonsense. Pay, and pay now. The White House sent us to Iraq and Afghanistan. The White House authorized the Military to offer incentive pay for enlistment. The President stood up on Veteran's Day and talked about 'our fallen heroes.' The son of a bitch better start living up to his words (yeah, I'm holding my breath here, you bet).

2) A permanent law. Congress needs to fix this immediately. And it's simple and easy to do. The Act doesn't need to be more than one page long. No riders. No loop holes. No partisan bullshit. No more nonsense. Those disabled in the combat zone, and unable to complete their military obligation, will be promptly paid what they were promised by the government who sent them into the meat grinder. Any military member killed in combat will have the remainder of their bonus immediately paid to their survivors. Any disabled service member who has already been forced to repay bonuses, will have those bonus immediately repaid plus 50% interest. Period. It shouldn't take more than an hour to draft the legislation, and it shouldn't take more than a week to get the vote in both chambers of Congress. And it sure as hell ought to be unanimously approved. Fuck the President and his veto, send his ass into combat if he doesn't like it, it's about time that spoiled rich little coward started leading from the front.

3) Fire the Secretary of the Army, publicly and immediately, for cause. That cause being actions which have brought discredit and dishonor to the Service. No retirement. No pension. Fuck Pete Geren, I hope the lying bastard ends up living in box under a freeway overpass. And while we're at it, fire any Pentagon disbursing officer who approved letters demanding repayment from wounded vets. Send a clear and unequivocal message to the Pentagon that this bullshit will not be tolerated. Send a message that any officer who places bureaucracy above honor, who places bean-counting above the welfare of those who have risked their lives in combat, who is unable or unwilling to place his own ass on the line to do what is right, will be immediately cashiered. Period. And don't try to tell me that these officers were just following procedure, that's my point exactly. When procedure takes precedence over honor, then that person is clearly lacking in the single most fundamental qualification for being an officer in the first place. And the proof is in the pudding, they were able to waive Specialist Fox's obligation when they were forced to, weren't they? It can be done, they just care more about their precious spreadsheets than about people.

Americans need to stand the hell up and demand that this situation be put right. Now, not later, not in 2009, but now. This President, this Congress, these rich smug bastards who send us into harm's way need to be held accountable. But like I said above, I'm not holding my breath. Congress will spend ten times more money investigating the situation and making speeches on both sides of the isle, on drawing this out so that both sides can make it into a campaign issue, than we would if we just paid the damned bonuses in full right now.

Gah. I need to go out to the woodshop for a bit and cool down, before I draft the letters that will be going to both my Senators and my Representative.

Jerkoff (s) of the week, maybe the whole year

Between 2001 and 2004, I was stationed onboard the Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser, USS Valley Forge homeported in San Diego, and so we found ourselves living in Southern California. We rented a house in the (relatively) small town of Fallbrook, about 40 miles north of San Diego off Highway 15 between Escondido and Temecula, up the hill from USMC Camp Pendleton and the Naval Weapons Station.

As such, in October, 2003, we were smack dab in the middle of the wildfires that raged across Southern California. We were surrounded by huge fires on all sides. During the week of the 20th, there were fires burning on Camp Pendleton to our west, fires north burning around Temecula, and to the east the sky glowed an evil hellish orange from the huge fires burning around Julian and Mount Palomar. The air was filled with smoke so dense you could hardly see and the smell of fire was everywhere.

At the 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego, ships were kept in a high state of readiness, prepared to put to sea if necessary. On Valley Forge, we rotated the crew through duty cycles, keeping one quarter of our complement onboard (the minimum necessary to get underway) for 24 hours, and sending the rest home to save their families. About ten percent of the crew were directly threatened by the fires burning in Scripps Ranch, Chula Vista, and La Mesa and couldn't make it in through the fires to stand their watches. Some, who fled the fires with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing, including our Captain who nearly lost his life saving some of his elderly neighbors in Scripps Ranch, ended up in shelters trapped in the chaos trying to save their families. We didn't hear from some of them for nearly a week. We made do, working around our missing shipmates, hoping to hell they were OK. Some critical specialists, like the engineers, stayed onboard the entire time, filling in for those who were missing, putting their duty and the ship above their own personal concerns (on the other hand, Navy families are pretty dammed good at taking care of themselves).

And so it was for me and mine. I packed up our utility trailer with our camping gear and filled the back of the jeep with our important papers and computer harddrives and emergency supplies. My wife loaded up emergency food and the things she would need to take care of herself and our six-year old son. I hooked the trailer to the Jeep and left the rig sitting in the driveway, ready to go at a moment's notice. Becky and I discussed what she should do if fire threatened Fallbrook (at that time we could see flames more than two hundred feet high to the east, across highway 15). We were basically surrounded, so we decided that if it came down to it, she would take the Jeep and attempt to cross Camp Pendleton and reach the Pacific Ocean (driving straight into the sea, if that's what it took). And me? I did one of the hardest things I've ever done, I took the truck and headed south to San Diego to do my duty, leaving her and my son to fend for themselves. South to Escondido on the 15 wasn't too bad, but I was stopped at a police roadblock just before Miramar. I showed my military ID and they shrugged and waved me through. There were flames fifty feet high on either side of the highway and I dodged fire trucks and fire crews for several miles. Seconds after I passed the the Miramar exit, a wall of flame a hundred feet high washed across the highway, and I sped south to the roar of F-16's and C-130's thundering off the runway at Miramar, heading out out to safety in the sky.

I made it to Valley Forge and assumed my duties as the ship's Force Protection Officer. There were four of us Officers onboard and we, along with the duty section Chiefs, gathered in the Wardroom to lay out a watchbill and divvy up responsibilities should we have to take Valley Forge down the channel and to sea by ourselves. We were all pretty experienced people, but getting a Cruiser away from the pier and safely out of the harbor by ourselves, without tugs, without two thirds of our crew including the CO and XO, wasn't something any of us wanted to do. I spent most of that night, and the following one, on the ship's bridge wing, watching the fires that raged in the dark above San Diego and reading reports coming in over our communications circuits. I spoke to my wife via cell phone when I could, she was still holding position at our house in Fallbrook listening to the sirens, watching the fires burning on the ridge lines above the town and waiting for the evacuation order.

After two days, the winds died down, the weather cooled, and the fire teams began to make progress. My relief finally made it in through the disaster and I gratefully headed home through the charred remains of Scripps Ranch and Miramar. The fires came within four miles of our house (4 miles seems like a large distance, but when the Santa Anna is blowing fires can cover that distance in minutes) but never threatened my house directly, and, thankfully we never had to put the ship to sea. When it was over, more than 500,000 acres had burned, hundreds of homes and billions of dollars were lost, hundreds of thousands were displaced, and 24 people had died - including a family who waited too long to evacuate, and were burned alive in their truck attempting to flee outside of Julian.

It was a close thing, and I was grateful that it hadn't been worse. But that gratitude turned to anger when I learned that the Julian Fire was started by some idiot hunter, who had gotten himself lost and fired a flare to attract help. It is not possible to get lost in Southern California, if you don't know where you are, sit down and wait, and within ten minutes there will be fifty people along up to see what you're doing. That was bad enough, but my anger turned to white hot rage, rage I still feel, when I learned that at least half the fires were set deliberately by arsonists. Pathetic, wretched little assholes whose daddies didn't buy them a pony when they were children, little paste-eating fucks obsessing over the fact that they were picked on by the cool kids when they were in junior high school twenty years ago or couldn't get a girlfriend or whatever. These sorry excuses for human beings wanted to make things worse because, like cockroaches, they thrive in chaos and disorder and because their sick deformed minds take delight in the tragedy of others.

And so it is again today with the current disaster unfolding in Southern California. Yes, it is beyond stupid that California refuses to mandate steps that would reduce the fire danger that the state faces every year, things like outlawing asphalt shingles and flammable house siding, things like calling tinder dry chaparral "wild life sanctuaries" and refusing to clear those areas or create permanent fire breaks. Refusing to mandate neighborhood emergency citizen fire fighting teams, and stationing permanent diesel water pumps and hoses at every golf course and neighborhood pond, lake, and swimming pool. Yes, there are many, many things that Californians could do to lessen the danger every year, and don't. But, this is no excuse for the actions of the arsonists. I hope the authorities catch these sick sons of bitches, and I hope that they are brought to swift justice. I think the death penalty is too good for these bastards, I think they should spend the rest of their pitiful lives at hard labor, rebuilding what they have destroyed. They love chaos, pain, and fear? Let them rot in it.

The Divine Right of Presidents.

Wait. What?

Congress is demanding to know if phone companies turned over records of their customer's calls to NSA and other intelligence organizations.

The White House says no, the phone companies can't provide that information to Congress because it's a State Secret. It's National Security (cue patriotic Lee Greenwood song and flag waving. Everybody hold up their lighter, it's the flame of Liberty! Oh, I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, la la la...). We, the citizens of the United States, can not, must not, know what information is being collected on us, because that will compromise our own safety. We, like children, cannot be trusted with our own safety. Only The Decider, with His Benevolent God-like Wisdom(tm), is intelligent enough and wise enough to manage the safety of The Nation. This is for our own good.

Among the questions, posed by the committee on Oct. 2, were what information the carriers gave the administration without a court warrant, whether they were paid for any of it and whether the administration asked them to install equipment to intercept e-mails.

Just so I'm clear on this. No warrant, no just cause, no reasonable suspicion is required for the Executive Branch to data mine my private information and monitor my private communications in direct violation of the 4th Amendment, and there will be no Congressional oversight of this process in direct violation of the Constitution itself? And furthermore, without any Constitutional checks and balances, we are to trust the benevolent judgment of one man, and one man only. A man who has demonstrated his selfless dedication to service. A man who has proven to be a brilliant military commander. A nation builder. A beloved liberator. A crackerjack economist. An educator. An environmentalist. Soldier. Statesman. Friend to the working girl, so to speak. That guy. We should blindly trust that guy's judgment.

And who do we have to blame (besides ourselves) for the fact that our freedoms and rights are brushed aside, for the greater good of "National Security" of course, at the whim of one man?

" Congress approved a temporary measure in July allowing spy agencies to continue intercepting, without a court warrant, phone calls and e-mails of foreign-based terrorists that are routed through the U.S."

That's right. Congress gave the President permission to continue this nonsense. Congress abrogated their Constitutional duty of checks and balances on the abuse of Executive power. Supposedly the intercepts are just phone calling records and emails from "foreign based terrorists." Speaking as a former Intelligence Officer, there are several problems here: first, the White House decides who is a terrorist and who is not, so in actuality Congress' approval of the temporary measure gave the President unlimited authority to decide who will be monitored. Now, since The Great Decider is too busy deciding big important things, he doesn't actually have time to pour over lists and records of un-American Americans, so in actuality it is the recently unfettered intelligence agencies themselves who now determine who and what to monitor. No potential for abuse there. Two, since it is impossible to determine in advance which phone calls and emails are from officially certified, grade-A terrorists - you have to monitor everything and everybody. Everybody, every single person, within our boarders becomes a suspect. Every phone call, every email, is a potential hostile communication. And it doesn't take long for this mindset to become policy and paradigm, i.e. you are a suspect, always. Don't believe me? Try to strike up a friendly conversation with a TSA agent. This is exactly the mindset the Executive Branch has regarding it's citizens. And finally, it's not enough to look solely at phone calling connections, you actually have to listen in to determine content - otherwise if the local Fraternal Order of Police representative, for example, uses his home phone to call a suspected terrorist's phone number, which happens to be in his calling area, soliciting funds - well, then that Cop ends up on the Sooper Sekret Doubleplusungood List. And now we've got to pull his calling records, and the records of everybody he talked to, and then their records and etc. Like some insane looping computer program playing the Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon, eventually all of us are suspects. Unless you listen in, which you have to do in order to filter out false contacts. You have to, otherwise the nodal mapping you're doing is useless. Wire tapping without Warrants violates so many Federal and State laws and regulations that it is impossible to list them all. In essence, Congress' action (or lack of action actually) gave the Executive Branch cart blanc to ignore the law. The director of National Intelligence claims the National Security Act of 1947 gives the President the authority to do this. Hmmm, no, sorry that's just flat out wrong. First, the 1947 Act established a number of Security and Intelligence organizations and gave the Executive some limited powers, subject to Congressional oversight, in specific crisis situations. Title V of The National Security Act clearly spells out the requirement for Congressional oversight. Second, the Act was modified by Congress in 1952 and later by acts in the 1960's, 70's and 80's in response to abuses by intelligence agencies. Anybody remember Watergate? This is specifically why the FISA court was established, along with very specific directives which put very, very specific limitations on domestic intelligence activities.

Now it gets better, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell "acknowledged the existence of the program in August and said telecommunications companies should be given immunity from lawsuits claiming privacy violations" (emphasis mine). Now, I guarantee you that the DNI's call for immunity is not out of any concern for the telecoms, it is for one reason and one reason only - to keep this entire issue out of the courts. Because if there ever was an issue that is Constitutional in nature, and therefore bound to end up on the Supreme Court docket, it's this one. And while Congress may have been derelict in it's Constitutional duty, it is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court will be.

And that is what the White House fears more than anything else.

This I believe - an open letter to Congress

There's a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy is in a castle on the Austrian/German border. He looks over the edge of a balcony, down upon a secret German command center. Sighing, he pulls his head back and says to his companion, "Nazis! I really hate these guys."

President Bush, demanding "flexibility" in the pursuit of suspected terrorists, insisted Wednesday he would not sign a new domestic spying bill if it unduly limits the administration's authority to eavesdrop without warrants. (emphasis mine)

Sigh. George W. Bush and his cronies! I really hate these guys.

As an American, and as an American who has spent his life (and nearly lost it more than once) defending this nation, I am outraged. This is not hyperbole, I am truly filled with rage at this statement. I will NOT tolerate this kind of behavior from the elected leader of the United States. Every American should be outraged. If you do not immediately see why this is statement is unconstitutional, if you can not immediately see why this statement is the very epitome of tyranny, then you need to educate yourself. Stop reading this blog now, right now, and go read the United States Constitution. Read Every Word. Read it again and again until you understand it in your bones. Read the Declaration of Independence. Read the Federalist Papers. Read them out loud, you can hear the power, the sheer raw power, of the words. Read these documents until you understand that they are not just words, but ideals. Read these documents until you understand that those ideals are the single greatest achievement of the human race. Read them until you understand that these ideals are a sacred trust of every single American. Go do it, I'll wait.

As I may have mentioned elsewhere, I believe in the Constitution. I believe in the principles that this country was founded on. I believe in it so much, that I was willing to give most of my adult life in defense of those ideals. And to be perfectly blunt about it, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the current administration is more, far more, of a threat to those principles than King George III, the Confederacy, Hitler, Hirohito, Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy, or that bearded pissant Osama Bin Laden ever was.

The wise and brilliant men who founded this country, those men who fought a bloody war against tyranny and oppression, those men who agonized over the drafting of the Constitution, had one burning concern above all others - that no one man, would ever again have unlimited power over his fellows. They rightly feared the power of government, even as they struggled to build a new government of their own, the likes of which had never been seen before in the history of mankind - a nation founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all of it's citizens, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people - Not a government TO the people like some blood spattered jackboot on the throat of it's citizens. A nation founded on ideals so powerful, so true, so pure, that over time they would change the very fabric of that nation and her people, all of her people, and indeed the whole world itself. Those words are powerful. The sheer force and beauty of those words have rung like a bell throughout the last two hundred and thirty one years of human history. For over two centuries, those words have flared like a brilliant unwavering beacon and inspired literally billions of people worldwide to risk their very lives and all they hold dear in pursuit of the ideals those words embody. There was a time, not so long ago, when millions came to shores of America, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of distant teeming shores. They came because they believed in those words, because they saw the beacon of liberty and freedom burning in the wine dark sky, because they knew in their heart of hearts that America was the land of a free and brave people. They knew that America was a land where no one man would ever hold capricious and arbitrary power over their children again. That is why they came. There was a time, not so long ago, when other nations yearned to be like America, there were revolutions in Europe, in France especially, inspired by the 'noble experiment' that was America. There was a time, not so long ago, where America rode into the valley of death and sacrificed her children to free the peoples of Cuba, Europe, and Asia from injustice and tyranny and holocaust and they were welcomed with tears of joy. There was a time, not so long ago, when the name, America, inspired awe and hope among the oppressed peoples of the world, and struck utter abject fear in the hearts of tyrants, kings, despots, and dictators. There was a time, not so long ago, when Americans could be proud of their nation, their government, themselves.

No longer.

I believe, believe more strongly than anything I have ever believed in, that our great republic is truly in peril. More so now, under this simpering, lying, paranoid, smirking, childish, power mad, insane tyrant of a president, that America the Ideal is in great jeopardy. When a people become ashamed of their own nation, that nation is most surely in imminent peril. I truly believe that we, America, stand upon a precipice, and that we are sliding faster and faster into the dark festering depths of tyranny - the very thing that our founders feared above all else. The very thing that they warned us, their descendants, of over and over again. This is how it always ends, this is how all the great republics of history have died.

But it does not have to be this way.

A great man, a brilliant and wise man, Edmund Burke, once said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing," or words to that effect.

Congress, you are the elected representatives of America. You, you, represent all Americans, every single one - not just those who voted for you, not just those who gave you money and favors, not just those of your political party or your church or your country club - but every single man, women, and child in the United States. You carry on your shoulders the weight of history, past and future, you are the guardians of Democracy, Liberty, Freedom, Duty, Country, and the hopes and dreams of all those multitudes who gave their own lives for the last two hundred and thirty one years because they believed in the ideal that is America. It is your sworn and sacred duty to preserve this nation, to defend with your lives if necessary the principles of the Constitution. And you have been betrayed, all of you, all of us. This is a moment in history that will always be remembered, just as Julius Caesar's betrayal of the Roman Republic is remembered. You must stand together, you must hold, you must not waver, you must prevail - or this nation will indeed perish from the Earth. Republicans, Democrats, Independents it does not matter, party be dammed we have all been betrayed, you represent all of us - you, all of you, are the check that holds tyranny at bay. I implore you, don't give in to this evil, this President who has no intention of sharing power with you. This president who has made Americans afraid in their own country, who has made Americans ashamed of their own nation and identity. He casts aside those who displease him, those who don't knuckle under to his insane Orwellian vision of America. Only you can stand against him. Now is the time, right now, for good or ill history will remember what you do in this moment. Use the power of the Constitution, stand together as Americans and fight, Goddammit!

From the Declaration of Independence: "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." Hear me, Congress, I do not consent. I DO NOT CONSENT. I. DO. NOT. CONSENT! I refuse to give up my rights. I refuse to go quietly into darkness and tyranny. I refuse to see the Republic perish because good men did nothing. I DO NOT CONSENT!

The president is not a king, he is not Caesar, unless you, good men and women, do nothing.