Word of the Day

Deplastisize - To remove plastic covering.

Though I usually try to keep things light and fluffy on my blog, I feel that events of our times deserve a bit of notice.

Thursday, August 4th, 2005

The Real Target

By Ralph Peters in the New York Post

In Iraq yesterday a roadside bomb killed 14 Marines. Two days earlier, six Marines from the same outfit were ambushed and killed. Yet those Marines were not the terrorists' primary target.

You were.

Our enemies know the Marines won't quit. But they hope you will.

The terrorists realize now that they can't defeat our military. Instead, they hope to achieve what the North Vietnamese did: To blur the reality on the ground and convince the American public that we're losing.

Those Marines were tactical targets of opportunity. You're the strategic target. The terrorists hope that our media will create an atmosphere of failure -- and that you'll give in to a sense of defeat.

The Marines are looking for a few good men (and women). The terrorists are looking for headlines.

The Marines who died on the Euphrates River battleground were closing down crucial smuggling routes from Syria. Recent operations have made life ever more difficult for the terrorists. Our enemies are fighting fiercely because they're cornered.

They certainly want to kill Marines. But that doesn't require video cameras. The rush to document and publicize their occasional successes makes it clear that the terrorists are fighting, above all, a media campaign. It's their only hope.

That's no comfort to the families of the Marines we lost, of course. And the fact that 20 fatalities within three days came from the same Ohio-based reserve unit, the 3rd Battalion of the 25th Marines, magnifies the pain.

But the unit's losses reflect the importance of its mission.

The terrorists want to hit that battalion as hard as they can, to break the unit's morale and gain some breathing space. They've been doing what any thinking enemy would do -- concentrating their resources on a decisive point. They probably studied the forces tightening the noose around them and decided that hitting a reserve unit offered the best chance of success.

They don't know the Marines.

Our troops will keep the pressure on even as they mourn. The Marines have faced far tougher enemies -- not least the suicidal Japanese, another enemy who showed no mercy (and beheaded prisoners, as well).

The difference is that the extremists in Iraq don't expect a battlefield victory. They're fighting for time. They hope to wear us down, to maintain a level of photogenic chaos in just enough of Iraq to keep the media hot. They'll keep chipping away at our forces, praying that our will will prove far weaker than our weapons.

They don't expect to force out our military through violence. They hope our political leaders will withdraw our troops. The terrorists have done their homework. They know that a disheartening number of our politicians share one of their beliefs: a low opinion of the American people, a notion that we're weak, that we're quitters.

The terrorists know that our Marines aren't afraid of them. But they believe that our politicians are terrified. Of you.

So you're the target of every bomb, bullet and blade our enemies wield. Those Marines were killed to discourage you. They were targeted to ignite political discord in the USA. They died to give ammunition to those in Washington who view our dead only as political liabilities.

There are many practical military issues the administration hasn't addressed. Our forces in Iraq have always have been too few. Much of the equipment with which our Marines and soldiers are equipped is old, inappropriate and inadequate. We went to war with a military designed by defense contractors, not by warriors.

But while those issues are real, we can't afford to play politics with the vital global struggle of our times, the battle with the psychotic strain of Islam that generates terror. Ultimately, the fate of Iraq won't be decided by our enemies. And it won't be decided by our troops. It's going to be decided by you. By your voice and your vote.

The terrorists mean to help you make your decision.

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As a proud mother of a United States Marine and a member of several online support communities, I would like to express my appreciation for Natalie Healy and her desire and determination to SPEAK OUT! God Bless Her...there are many Marine Moms cheering her on! I am indeed a PMM (Proud Marine Mom) and I pray that I never find myself in the position of losing a loved one to this or any war. I have my own opinions when it comes to Cindy Sheehan and her quest. Mothers like me have been told that our opinions don't count because we haven't lost a son or daughter to this war. The media chooses to only publicize the opinions Cindy Sheehan right now. So...I'm posting yet another article for you from another Mother (Natalie Healy) with a differing opinion. This Mother also lost her son so maybe her opinion matters.

Mother of fallen SEAL says she still supports the war

By SCOTT BROOKS Union Leader Staff

Natalie Healy made a decision this summer after losing her son in war-torn Afghanistan.

"I can't go to those mountains and climb them and I can't shoot a gun," she said. "But I can do everything I can to make sure we stay the course, and if that means speaking out, then that's what I want to do."

Less than two months after the death of her son, Navy SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer Daniel Healy, the Exeter mother and small business owner is following through on her word.

Healy is making her feelings known in response to the nation's interest in a California mother who has camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest the war in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan's 24-year-old son was killed in Iraq last year.

Healy said she initially sympathized with the grief-stricken mom. Now, however, as Sheehan's message continues to fill the airwaves, Healy said she fears a backlash against the war on terrorism.

"It's sort of like a tidal wave," Healy said. "And it's gaining and gaining and gaining. And I'm not sure what will stop it, to tell you the truth.

"My big concern is that the enemy will use Cindy Sheehan to their benefit. They will point to her and say, 'See? See how this American is calling the President a murderer? See how they're going to start weakening from within?'"

Healy said she was booked to speak on MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews last night. The interview got bumped just a few hours before the show, she said.

But Healy said spreading her voice to support the war effort is her "new mission in life."

"I'm hoping, by having another mother who's lost a son speaking out loudly and strongly, that the troops will hear it and be heartened by it," she said. "Because we all know how they're always shocked when they get home and they find out what has been reported."

Several national polls show that a majority of Americans now consider the decision to invade Iraq a mistake. Healy herself said she initially had doubts about the war. She is now convinced the United States cannot leave Iraq just yet.

"The fact of the matter is, at this stage in the game, we're over there," she said. "We have to complete the mission."

Healy said she doubted Sheehan's son, Casey, would support his mother's mission.

Rather, she said, "I think my son would be happy that I was trying to remind people that we have to stay the course. We have to, without a doubt. And I know he'd be saying, 'OK, mom. Good. Good, mom.'"

Healy recognized the public's opinion of the Iraqi conflict is not the same as its opinion of the war in Afghanistan, where her son died June 28. Daniel Healy, a 36-year-old father of four, was one of 16 soldiers killed when insurgents shot down their helicopter.

But Healy said the two conflicts are part of the same war on terrorism, and it's a war the U.S. must continue to fight.

"I think fighting for freedom in Iraq and fighting for freedom in Afghanistan is one and the same," she said.

Healy is hopeful that the public will hear both sides in the debate over pulling U.S. troops from Iraq. It would be harmful, she said, if Sheehan's voice carried the day.

"I just don't want it to be the only story," Healy said. "I want the other voices to be heard so that the young men that fought with my son -- that were broken-hearted from all their buddies getting killed --will know somebody else is speaking out for them. And maybe they won't be heard as much as Cindy Sheehan, but there's somebody trying, anyway."

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Murphyism of the Day

McGee's First Law

It's amazing how long it takes to complete something you are not working on.