Semper Fi!

More here.

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1 I love my Devil Dog.

Posted by: TMQ at November 10, 2008 09:59 AM (aMu45)

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why not dust off our atomic weapons at the same time?

Via Kat-Mo at Ace's digs, who points out that if we'd just make a bit more war, we might be able to make love in peace.

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Now this is downright charming:

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

Production of the first capsule -- consisting of two sealed rooms that can fit into the fuselage of a large military aircraft -- has already begun.

I'm not against providing luxury accommodations for political and military leaders, particularly given that we know sometimes they have to spend ridiculous amounts of time in the sky after terrorist attacks. I want them to be able to sleep aboard aircraft, if they have to be making decisions from the air.

And we might even need a version of Air Force One that has two beds; I remember thinking it was a shame that former President Clinton had to sleep on the floor when he traveled with Former President [H.W.] Bush. (A shame, but always appropriate for the younger man to grant the bed to the older man.)

But given what our troops are putting up with, and given what civilians are putting up with when we fly, this is an obscenity. If we've got that much extra cash lying around in the terror-fighting coffers, what a about coming up with a passenger-screening system that doesn't degrade the average tourist or business traveller, so we can be safe and still have . . . oh, I dunno: economic activity?

Captain Ed:

Perhaps the Luxury Pod has some sort of application for actual counterterrorist operations that we cannot yet discern. Maybe theyÂ’re meant to replace Gitmo as an interrogation capsule that would pass muster with Amnesty International. However, IÂ’d prefer that counterterrorist funds get spent on actual counterterrorist operations, and not featherbedding the travel accommodations of VIPs and Air Force staff.

Un-frickin' believable.

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as long as it's other people's kids who are keeping us free."

Bill Kristol in today's The New York Times:

The people at MoveOn.org have a new Iraq ad that is, if they do say so themselves, their most effective ever. Then again, for the group that brought us the “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” ad last September, that might not be saying much.

Nevertheless, the organization boasts on its Web site, “This isn’t your average political ad — it lays out the truth about McCain’s Iraq policy in a personal and compelling way.” MoveOn also claims, “We just got the results back and polling shows that voters found it to be more persuasive than any other ad we’ve tested before.”

Yeah, well, again: this is MoveOn.org, the set of activists who formed in response to an assault on the Chief Executive's God-given right to get blowjobs from young girls in the Oval Office.

Kristol again:

The ad is simple. A mother speaks as she holds her baby boy:

“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

Take that, warmonger!

Now it might be pedantic to point out that John McCain isnÂ’t counting on Alex to serve in Iraq, because little Alex will only be 9 years old when President McCain leaves office after two terms.

And it might be picky to remark that when McCain was asked whether U.S. troops might have to remain in Iraq for as long as 50 years, he replied, “Maybe 100” — explaining, “As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it’s fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world. ...”

In other words, McCain is open to an extended military presence in Iraq, similar to ones weÂ’ve had in Germany, Japan or Kuwait. He does not wish for, nor does he anticipate, a 100-year war in Iraq.

But it is surely relevant to point out that the United States has an all-volunteer Army. Alex wonÂ’t be drafted, and his mommy canÂ’t enlist him. He can decide when heÂ’s an adult whether he wants to serve. And, of course, McCain supports the volunteer army.

All of this is pretty much par for the course in political advertising. And IÂ’m of the latitudinarian school when it comes to campaign discourse; politics is supposed to be rough and ready. So, why, I wondered after first seeing the MoveOn ad, did I find it so ... creepy?

He finds his answer over at Blue Star Beth's site:

I wonder about the actress (I doubt sheÂ’s really the mother of the baby because sheÂ’s obviously acting) saying that John McCain canÂ’t have her son. Does that mean sheÂ’d rather her son live in a terrorist state or under the constant threat of acts of terrorism? Does that mean that she wants other peopleÂ’s sons to keep the wolves at bay so that her son can live a life of complete narcissism? What is it she thinks happens in the world?

Actually, I can relate to what she’s saying. I can’t imagine my son being off in a foreign land being shot at by people who are trying to kill him. Its horrific to even contemplate. Its a reality that many of us have to live with day in and day out as our sons do their duty for the country. Its an unimaginable and untenable thing … to have your son ‘over there’ and to know that at any moment something horrible can happen. You don’t go for a second not knowing that. Not for a second for the entire time he’s deployed.

But what would this little actress, or moveon.org, have us do? As a mother, I have learned that I have to let my children grow up and make their choices in life, just as I made mine. I respect the choices my children have made and I support them 100%. I am proud of my son. His deployment changed him, but mostly in good ways. He is definitely a man now. He has a self-confidence and personal strength he never had before. That doesnÂ’t mean I wanted him to go to Iraq. It just means that I understand that at some point a mother has to stand aside and allow her son to become a man.

I would rather do it than send my son to do it, but thatÂ’s not how it works. People like moveon.org would rather we surrender and appease than stand up to danger. By doing that, they put our sons in more danger.

Someone has to stand between our society and danger. If not my son, then who? If not little Alex then someone else will have to stand and deliver. SomeoneÂ’s son, somewhere. This commercial makes me angry. What she is saying is that she is not willing to do her part. SheÂ’ll put us all in more danger to hide herself and her child in a corner. I love my son as much as she loves hers. I held him in my lap when he was a baby. I watched him take his first steps and go to school for the first time. I sat with him when he was sick and listened to him when he was confused. I waited in terror the first time he took the car out for a drive by himself.

The hardest thing I have ever done is spend 15 months knowing that he was in imminent danger half-way around the world and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

This woman should get used to it. ThatÂ’s what its like to raise kids.

And Kristol concludes:

Unless we enter a world without enemies and without war, we will need young men and women willing to risk their lives for our nation. And weÂ’re not entering any such world.

We do, however, live in a free country with a volunteer army. In the United States, individuals can choose to serve in the military or not. The choice not to serve should carry no taint, nor should it be viewed with the least prejudice. If Alex chooses to pursue other opportunities, he wonÂ’t be criticized by John McCain or anyone else.

But thatÂ’s not at all the message of the MoveOn ad.

The MoveOn ad is unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past.

And the sole responsibility of others.

Well, you know: that is at the end of the day, all the military is to those who benefit from their vigilance: a pair of dirty hands.

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Last week, in honor of Ian Fleming (perhaps I should write "in honour"), Mark Steyn reprinted an obituary he'd written previously on the Canadian actress who played "Moneypenny" in most of the Bond films.

She is interesting, indeed. Even more interesting is the woman who is widely regarded as the model for Moneypenny, but ultimately didn't have that much in common with her except for the old Executive Assistant trait of having power out of proportion to one's rank: Vera Atkins.

There are two biographies out about Ms. Atkins: a work of journalism and a sort of romanticized version of her life that gets her hair color wrong.

She sent somewhere between 400 and 470 agents behind enemy lines into France, including around 40 women. She lost 118 agents, including a dozen women. It was Ms. Atkins who investigated their deaths, and helped to bring their killers to justice after the war at the Nuremberg Trials.

For the rest of Ms. Atkins' life, she endured criticism for having sent females to their deaths. But not, I suppose, the far larger number of males.

The NYT obit on Atkins is one of the best short summaries of her life, by the way. The Telegraph tribute is also quite good.

What an extraordinary woman.

UPDATE: For more on the women of the SOE, go to 64 Baker Street. The interface is a bit old-fashioned, but it's an amazing site—a real labor of love. (Or a "labour of love." You get the idea; we really need to agree on some trans-Atlantic spellings, style rules, and grammar, stat. It's a smaller world now than it ever was in the past.)

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remarks A the H.

Hackbarth, whom I never tire of linking, has a red-meat clip of writer Stephen King displaying his ridiculous prejudices about the armed forces in a public Q&A.

"Just the U.S. military?" I ask. "Or is it all of 'em?"

"I think he regards them all that way," A the H responds. "There's one book [The Stand] in which he has a group of soldiers masquerading as civilians, but they are so stupid that even out of uniform they still stand at attention and salute their officers, so the clever progressives are able to detect them."

Ladies and Gentlemen, the lowest-common-denominator brilliance of Stephen King.

UPDATE: It gets better: according to Ace, King has shut down his own message board, and is sending his fanbots after Newsbusters. Ace:

Wow. Steven [sic] King managed to write something that wasn't a thousand pages long.

BTW, the Newsbusters link above has lots of juicy details on Stephen-gate*; highly recommended.

* As you can see, after fighting the power for decades WRT "gate" as a suffix affixed to any scandal, I've decided to embrace the linguistic suck [age].

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:27 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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to the next level.

"Vote early and often."

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Wachel on Wupert's upcoming deployment:

I feel like a colossal asshole for sleeping in a comfy bed with comfy pillows in a quiet room every night while these guys are out there sleeping on cots in tents and lugging around half their weight in body armor every day. I also feel like a colossal asshole for never worrying about this stuff before. ItÂ’s not like the war started the day Rupert got called up. I guess sometimes things just have to get personal for a person to wake up to certain painful realities.

It just sucks. That’s what I know. I wish I had something profound to say about it but I don’t. It just sucks. I never really “got it” when I heard or read about how deployments wreak havoc on the troops’ families and how that in itself makes it so much harder for the troops themselves. Oh, I get it now, way more than I ever wanted to. I’m not saying my life is havoc right now, far from it. I just finally get what’s so different about your loved one being away from you for this reason as opposed to other reasons like college or moving across country or whatever. People do those things for themselves. They serve in the military for everyone else, and it’s physically, psychologically, and mentally a world apart.

And I tell you what, it makes me want to dismember people like [anti-troop idiot whose name Joy redacted for the same reason Rachel took out the link] (whom I shall not link to on second thought) and feed the parts to my dogs.

Holy shit, Rachel. My prayers with Rupert; you've really brought this home for me.

(Yeah; Imade a grammatical correction to the Lucas quote. I'll take it out on Rachel's request, if she can spot it. I know it was wrong to do that, but it was a weak moment. I mean, I could insert little "[sic]" notes into people's quotations, but that's, like, calling attention to 'em, ya know? It feels like a snide thing to do on a medium like the internet, wherein speed is so much the name of the game that even the very best bloggers sometimes . . . gulp . . . find that space aliens have inserted typographical errors into their work.

I could actually make a full-time job of writing discreet little emails to other bloggers, pointing out their mistakes. But no one would pay me, and even more people would hate me. So—no.)

Also: Rachel is reading Michael Yon's latest, Moment of Truth in Iraq. I can't wait to get my hands on it, but I spent this month's discretionary funds on a couple of tank tops in the first few days we hit ninety degrees here in SoCal. (Do me a favor: next time I brag about the weather here—which will probably be tomorrow—fuckin' shoot me. 'Kay?)

The Rach (aka The Rock) also recommends this post by James Aalan Bernsen on the surge.

About the suffering of military families—well, I don't know. I have discovered that when I turn on the "sensitive" switch I tend to melt into a puddle of sympathy, and I'm less effective as a human being. Just as I had to detach from squeamishness to take science classes, I have to detach from real human pain in order to (1) write essays about politics, or (2) write fiction about crime. (I remember having a stern talking-to with myself while I was doing research on serial killers; the careers of Ted Bundy and his colleagues make for tough reading if you are saddled with any compassion. I had to find the shut-off switch.)

I have no answers. I only know that I no longer have any inclination to prop up military leaders who cannot be coaxed into some kind of democratic inroads to human rights. Which leaves me hopeful that we can use capitalism to, um, give the Chinese government some rope. And it leaves me barely avoiding the dark pits of despair when it comes to North Korea.

And as a crime writer, of course, I will probably someday write the "detective nullification" plot that all the greats play with (even Dorothy L. Sayers did it once in a short story—though she condemned it in one of her novels).

But for the most part I serve the function of a traffic light, reminding my fellow creatures that—nine times out of ten—murder is evil.

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Cool. I really dig Patraeus; he's a sharp cookie.

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Via The Anchoress, a nice little Comedy Central segment on Code Pink vs. the U.S.M.C.:

David Linden and I had a discussion in the early 1980s about Berkeley vs. Boston. He had just got back from a trip to Massachusetts, and thought Boston was sort of a "snotty" city. "I mean," he remarked, "that entire place could use a very large Kleenex."

"But isn't Berkeley just as snotty in its own way?" I enquired.

"Well," he responded, "I've never got the impression in Berkeley that it wasn't okay to be an academic. But I certainly had that feeling in Boston."

I do love Berkeley, but part of its charm is its willingness to degenerate into self-caricature. It is a place devoid of irony. Very earnest. And, yes: the crepes are very good there.

My brother The Panther, a muti-decade denizen of the SF Bay Area, has accused me of being "very Los Angeles," and I imagine that's supposed to be a putdown. And yet, one would never hear an Angeleno sigh and remark, upon contemplating a menu in a cute little cafe, that she is "always torn between the sweet and the savory," as David's ex-girlfriend did with me some years ago. I stifled a smile. Torn. Torn.

Because Bay Area folks are every bit as Bay as I am an Angeleno. (Or Angelena. I never can decide whether to feminize that word; most Spanish speakers tell me not to bother, that it can function like the German mann.)

I was never able to get mad at the Berzerkleyites over the Marine recruiting issue; the whole thing just made me giggle. Berkeley is Berkeley, as obligated to act out its role as keeper of the 1960s flame as any picturesque little town along the Rhine, with its people traipsing around in traditional costumes of their own sort. Caught in the past, dependent upon its tourist traps. Living the dream. Have some wine, Man.

* Title stolen from a comedy skit written by my favorite former Marine.

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Perhaps the reason it's hard to kill American soldiers and Marines is that they are really fucking good at what they do.

Just sayin'.

Via Insty.

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. . . they can't refuse:

My favorite image from the USMC kerfuffle in Berzerkley.

Via ZombieTime, via Dave in Texas over at Ace's place, via former Marine and successful writer Write Enough.

That lay in the house that Jack built.

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Semper Fi. Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:40 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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. . . by a scumbag anti-military attorney. You'll recall that the Marine was told that the crime wouldn't be prosecuted as a felony, despite the fact that the damage exceeded the monetary amount to bump the charges up to felony level.

There's now a new update on the case at Blackfive, and it looks like (1) the case will indeed be prosecuted at the felony level, (2) the attorney/vandal involved is not making his situation any better, (3) the Marine had some civilian and military supporters there in the courtroom due to blogosphere attention, and (3) bloggers have really pushed this case to the top of the priority list for the local DA's office.

So I guess it won't be left up to the Chicago PD to dog this guy and watch how he handles stop signs.

In a way, that makes me sort of wistful . . .

Via Craig at Protein Wisdom.

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But, as Iowahawk likes to point out, she keeps forgetting her clothes!

Order her new pinup calendar here. But turn your speakers off, or be prepared to hear an early version of "The Boogey-Woogie Bugle Boy." (In a sad by not surprising twist, I'm more familiar with Bette Midler's version of that song. As I recall, it was playing in the background in a party on one episode of "An American Family," which might in fact be the first reality show ever made.)

Anyway, buy lots of calendars: Gina's current pix look even better than the ones she used for last year's calendar. Of course, I love the retro props, but I'm glad that for 2008 she stuck with her own beautiful dark hair: I didn't like the blonde wig she's sometimes used in the past. Just my own prejudice.

Remember: it's a beautiful calendar, and the proceeds go to a worthy cause!

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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A friend of a friend has developed an idea for making sure men and women who return from Iraq and Afghanistan after serving their country don't fall into abject poverty. If you're an American Express cardholder, you can go here to register and vote for Rachel's project. Here's her personal message about this brainstorm, and how to help secure funding for it via AmEx's contest:

FROM: Rachel Feldstein

RE: American Express Members Project

I want to alert all of you about a wonderful project that I have submitted to the American Express Members' Project. It is called Homeless Prevention for Vets from Iraq/Afghanistan. My personal project, it needs all cardmembers' help. If we win, I will be able to work with New Directions, a local nonprofit agency with a proven track record working with homeless veterans in Los Angeles, to develop a new program (and they will give us between $2 million and $5 million) to create a new program that will prevent homelessness among men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

If you have an American Express card, go to the Members' Project (link above), and register. Each registration puts one more dollar in the purse that they will donate to the winning cause. But more importantly, it allows you to vote. Please cast your vote for this project (number 1850) BEFORE July 13th, when the initial voting closes. Once we make the final 25, voting will again open up, and I will ask you to vote once more, so we can enter the top five. Eventually, you'll want to vote one last time so Homeless Prevention for Vets can win.

I need your help. PLEASE register and vote for my project, and pass this email along to everyone you know; ask them to do the same. Log on and vote for Project 1850, Homelessness Prevention for Vets from Iraq and Afghanistan. Your voice can help us keep veterans from "falling through the cracks" of society and becoming vulnerable to poverty.

Thank you for helping me make a difference.

—Rachel

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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. . . from BRD, over at Protein Wisdom:

It is on the occasion of Memorial Day that we should perhaps not only consider the innumerable sacrifices made for us around the world and throughout the history of this country, or even the values that so many people gave their lives defending, but rather that we have the exceptional honor and privilege of growing up in such a spectacularly unique society that over and over again gives birth to so many people of such noble and heroic character that time and time again they step to the forefront to defend their nation. It isnÂ’t necessarily the brave pilot who should attract our attention, but the huge number of people who could have much more easily shifted the burden to others, yet chose to take it upon themselves.

Read the whole thing.

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I'm doing some grilling this evening, prepping the Saturn so I can sell it this week, and figuring out how to drum up some business. So light blogging will continue until it stops.

But the Anchoress has a lovely Memorial Day roundup you won't want to miss.

If you believe in God, say a prayer for the men and women of the Armed Forces today. If not, please send good vibes and boycott the MSM. Thanks.

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I'm sorry, but they need me more than the right does. Their forgery skills are lacking, and their document-evaluation abilities haven't improved at all since Rathergate.

They've all let their subscriptions to Communication Arts lapse; it's sad.

I'm no graphic designer, but one does pick up a few things here and there after working in print for 20 years. And years of practicing my teachers' signatures to show my mother—and my mother's signature to show to school administrators—gave me something of an eye for these types of detail.

The left needs me. I must go.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:12 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Check it out over at Ace's digs: Talk about your Angry Black Men.

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