American Heroes

I have a beef with Ron Paul.

While I might find some of the libertarian candidate’s political positions appealing, a recent clip which aired on CNN of a Paul political rally put a very bad taste in my mouth.

At the rally, Paul introduced Army Corporal Jesse Thorsen, an “active duty” soldier who proceeded to stump for the candidate – in uniform.

Okay, first of all, this Thorsen fellow is a very poor representation of the United States Military.  He’s wrong for being there in uniform, because engaging in political activity so dressed is a clear and flagrant violation of Army policy.

And how about that enormous neck tattoo?  Army Regulation 670-1 was recently updated to allow tattoos on the BACK of the neck, as long as it isn’t visible from the front.  The new regulation clearly states, however, that throat tattoos (from the earlobes forward) are prohibited.  According to current Army policy, Cpl Thorsen should be given the option of having the tattoo removed or being discharged from the service.

Thorsen claims to have served ten years in the military.  According to a little digging done by the Atlantic Wire, Soldier Jesse is actually a reservist (not active duty) and has only actually served six years, (in two stints).  He also conveniently failed to mention that his second term of enlistment was precipitated by a burglary conviction, in which Thorsen was given the option of that or several years of probation.

What’s worse is this:  Ron Paul should know better.  Paul is a former Air Force officer, and should be smart enough to know that by allowing an Army Corporal to speak at his campaign rally, heads would roll, specifically those of Thorsen and his immediate commanders.  In addition, Paul misspoke by claiming Thorsen had served in Afghanistan and Iraq (he’s only been twice to Afghanistan).

Besides, if he wanted to find a military hero to speak at his rally, he could likely find a better example than Cpl. Thorsen.  And as long as that person didn’t do his stumping in uniform, there wouldn’t have been a problem.

Just before Christmas, the last combat troops arrived home from Iraq to a joyous welcome by friends and family.  Every one of them was, no doubt, very glad to be home.  They left behind a country vastly changed by eight years of conflict – infinitely better in many ways, but with a future never more in doubt..

I’m not so concerned about the wave of new violence being reported in Iraq in the wake of the US pullout. That was to be expected as the remnants of the Iranian-supported insurgency make a bid to fill the power vacuum left by our departure.  What is more dangerous is the power struggles taking place in the highest echelons of the Iraqi government.  Iraqi president Nouri Al-Maliki might be the democratically-elected president of the country, but he’s beset by infighting within his administration and, as some reports attest, he’s having major trouble bringing together the varied tribal factions that make up his country. 

The truth is, though Maliki himself called for the Americans to leave, and the Obama administration is busy congratulating itself on “ending” the war in Iraq, the Maliki government has a long way to go before Iraq will be on anybody’s list of tourism hot spots.  And as our president may soon discover, ending the war is not the same as winning it. 

History may very well record that Barack Obama presided over the snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. 

Rememberinig the 70th anniversary of the now second worst attack on American soil, perpetrated by a foreign entity which, in retrospect, didn’t work out so well for them.

Take a moment and watch this rare color footage of “the victory which lost Japan the war.”

I was in Panama on January 3, 1990 when Manuel Noriega, the dictator we’d gone to depose, surrendered to US authorities and was promptly flown to Miami for trial. 

Since that trip, I’ve been back to Panama nearly 30 times, most recently a few days ago.  Manuel Noriega has spent the intervening years in a federal prison in Miami, convicted of drug related charges and money laundering.  After 21 years in US custody, he was transferred to France, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison for similar charges.

But this coming week, Manuel Noriega may finally return to the country of his birth.  A French judge granted a request by the country of Panama that he be returned.  But his trouble with the courts is not over.  Once he returns to Panama, Noriega will face decades-old murder charges for the deaths of several of his political rivals.

The country Noriega left has changed dramatically since 1990.  Gone are the US bases that dotted the canal zone.  The Panama canal is expanding under Panamanian control, and the country has the highest standard of living in Central America.  What were once bases that belonged to the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) are now high-rise condominiums and five-star resorts. 

One spot, however, has been untouched since Noriega left.  His home in a wealthy suburb of Panama city has remained eerily empty, and has fallen into disrepair.  Once the deposed dictator returns, he may want to refurbish the old place, because by Panamanian law, if Noriega is convicted of the crimes he faces there, he can serve his sentence at home because of his advanced age.

Most people I’ve spoken to in Panama see Noriega as a relic of a distasteful period of their history.  It will be interesting to see the reception he gets when he arrives back on his home turf.  

I hope you got a chance to watch this story I did recently on the Alaskan Oil Pipeline being threatened with closure. If the EPA continues with its pattern of crushing regulation and draconian permitting practices, we may well see the end of the Alaskan Oil pipeline in the next few years. This would spell disaster for our country’s bid to become independent of foreign oil.

And while nobody in congress or the white house can seem to decide if we should allow drilling in the arctic, our “competitors,” that is, Russia and China, are putting together plans to do just that.  So while the United States dithers and argues about sustainability and green energy, we may soon watch while Russia pumps oil from the arctic that we could have pumped ourselves, then sells it back to us. 

On a more cheerful note, the planned community Russia is building in the arctic is the stuff of science fiction movies.  I would love to visit once they get the dome in place. 

Mexican President Felipe Calderon took the stage at the UN last week to ask for more help in combatting the violence that has painted his country as a war zone for the last several years.

Even though the violence is actually less widespread than most Americans realize – 85% of the drug violence in Mexico happens in only five cities – four of them along the US-Mexico border.  But that doesn’t make much difference when cartels are dumping dozens of headless bodies in the streets in broad daylight. 

Nevertheless, Calderon went on to claim that the drug problem is mostly America’s fault.  We need to do more to reduce the demand for illegal drugs.  That’s true, though I’m afraid the solution he proffered – legalization – would not help.  There isn’t much likelihood that cartels would suddenly become law-abiding and begin to pay taxes on something they’ve never paid on before.  I could be wrong on that, however, one thing I know for sure – the only thing that will make a lasting difference in the demand for drugs is to change the heart of our nation from a self-indulgent culture back to one of selfless service.

Of course, Calderon couldn’t suggest that.  Instead he fell back to beating his tried and true dead horse – quoting the absolutely false statistic that 85% of firearms found in Mexico are purchased in America.  Do some study about the source of this number, which is often quoted by politicians on both sides of the border – and you’ll see how it is really an attempt to blame our second ammendment for the violence in Mexico. 

In Mexico, while there is a constitutional right to bear arms, that right has been legislated away to the point that owning a firearm legally is all but impossible for the law-abiding citizen.  Criminals can aquire them easily, of course, because they are criminals.  All the laws on the books don’t stop them.

Here in America, your average citizen is still able to defend  himself legally.  I believe this is the biggest reason we don’t yet see the kind of violence they have in Mexico.  An armed citizenry is much harder to victimize.

In mexico, citizens will just have to continue to hope – and wait for their government to get their act together. 

If you happened to read my post a week ago about the e-trace scandal waiting to happen, you’ll be interested in these recent developments in Colombia.

I raised the issue of the ATF sharing its e-trace databases with more than 70,000 non-U.S. citizens in more than 30 foreign countries as a huge potential security threat, since these databases contain reams of personal information on millions of American citizens.

Many of these foreign governments are as corrupt as the day is long, and that makes for a huge potential threat of massive identity theft.

Now reports from Colombia (one of the countries with access to E-trace) that government officials have been sharing classified documents with Narco-cartels should make every American shudder. 

The U.S. government should lock down these databases immediately and cut off access to foreign governments. All it takes is one corrupt official who decides to make a little extra income by selling the names, social security numbers, drivers license numbers, addresses, and other personal details to the highest bidder – which may very well be hackers bent on stealing your identity.

Someone needs to do something about this before it’s too late.

Sergeant Dakota Meyer became the first living Marine in 41 years to wear the nation’s highest award for valor when it was awarded to him on thursday.

But if he could have chosen, he never would have had to do what he did to receive it.

Meyer saved the lives of more than 35 of his fellow Marines and their Afghan counterparts during a horrific firefight two years ago.  He charged into enemy fire again and again, retrieving the bodies of two of his fallen friends in the process.  To do this, he had to disobey orders not to enter the kill zone. 

Three Army officers are likely looking at the end of their careers today for refusing to send reinforcements to aid the beleagured Marine Embedded Training Team and the Afghans they had been training.  Unfortunately, it’s a scenario that is being seen all too often in Afghanistan today – something I’ve referred to as “institutional timidity” on the part of rear-echelon commanders in theater.  As the war has dragged on, it has become more and more apparent with each passing year – too many officers are more concerned with avoiding losses than they are with winning the war – more concerned with following rote procedure than with leading their men to victory.  

This sand in the gears of the military machine has led many junior non-commissioned officers to throw up their hands in disgust, and more than one that I know personally has made the choice to leave the military when they had  previously planned to make it a career.  Worse yet, bureaucratic cowardice has, without a doubt, caused the needless deaths of dozens of American men and women.  And it is a real shame to see.

But the good news is that for every indecisive rear-echelon commander there are dozens, if not hundreds of audacious warriors like Sergeant Dakota Meyer.  Men who are willing to put their fledgeling careers on the line to do what they know is right even when commanded to do otherwise.  This willingness to act of their own accord has always been the hallmark of the American NCO – and it has always been the singular trait that sets our military apart from any other.  Not that they are a bunch of out-of-control yahoos – far from it.  Today’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on the front lines are tough, professional, and best of all, audacious.  And qualities like that give me hope for the future of this war.

How would you feel if our government collected your personal information – including your name, address, date of birth, place of birth, height, weight, sex, driver’s license information, and vehicle information, then made it available on the internet for hackers to get hold of?

Upset?  Vulnerable?  Furious?

Well, if you’ve purchased a gun from an authorized dealer anytime since 1989, you might want to sit down.

The ATF’s trace request submission system, known as eTrace, does just about what I’ve described above.  It’s a series of databases that track gun purchases in the US, and whenever a citizen applies for a gun in the U.S. the form they fill out gets filed with the ATF’s eTrace system.  This is used by law enforcement agencies to trace weapons to their original owners, among other things.

Only in the last couple of years, this system and its data has been made available to the law enforcement agencies of more than 35 countries.  Places like Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Suriame, Jamaica, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.  What do many of these countries have in common?  Deep rooted endemic corruption throughout their government and law enforcment agencies. 

As of right now more than 17,000 people around the world have access to the data in this system.  What are the chances a couple of them might decide that selling the personal information (to include Social Security Numbers) of millions of Americans might make a profitable side business?

How do you feel about your personal information being made available in real time to foreign governments?  Perhaps it’s time to tell your elected officials to do something about that.

I’m currently in Alaska, where I’ve been spending time with some unsung heroes – the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Alaska Air National Guard.

Two days ago I had the privilege of accompanying a crew of Coast Guardsmen on a high-tech helicopter patrol over Kodiak Island.  The rescue pilots spend lots of time responding to emergencies in the area, since some of the communities around them are so remote that travel to medical facilities would normally be measured in days.  But with these pilots willing to go at a moments’ notice in all kinds of weather, hundreds of lives are saved each year. 

Further north, the 212th Rescue Squadron is an air guard unit of pilots and pararescuemen who perform similar functions in Alaska’s rugged interior.  Over the weekend, this team was busy working one of more than a hundred real-world missions they do each year when a small plane went down in bad weather 150 miles from Anchorage. 

Many of these “PJ’s” are veterans of multiple combat deployments in the Global War on Terror.  Their experience saving the lives of their brother soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan makes them perfectly prepared to respond to even the most grisly and dangerous rescues in the last frontier. 

In Alaska, the weather is their worst enemy, but at least here, nobody is shooting at them.

Stay tuned for some great video from our embeds here in Alaska.