5 Black Robbed Tyrants in California Redefine Marriage for All of Us

And Arrogantly Overturn 6000 Years of Human History.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gaymarriage16-2008may16,0,6182317.story

An Example of What the Left Will Bring to Amerrica, Compliments of Canada

The Resistance Must ContinueBy David Warren
As was perfunctorily reported on Thursday, the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission, one of three HRCs to which Islamists took Maclean's magazine for having published Mark Steyn, has self-protectively dismissed the case before it could come to tribunal. The Ontario HRC had previously dismissed it: but with an outrageous statement from its chief commissioner, Barbara Hall, to the effect that Maclean's was guilty of publishing "hate," nonetheless. She regretted that her commission had no mandate to try the case, but looked forward to a time when this mandate would be extended.
A British Columbian "human rights" tribunal did, however, decide that it had jurisdiction over what a Toronto-based magazine could publish, and the show trial against Maclean's continues there, with judgement awaited. The Alberta HRC continues to try Ezra Levant and his Western Standard magazine (now defunct in print) -- in proceedings that have gone on for more than two years. The Canadian HRC has taken 16 months in preliminary consideration of the case a gay activist brought against the small Toronto-based Catholic Insight magazine. Indeed: prolonged and arbitrary delays appear to be part of the method by which the HRCs bleed their respondents dry with legal and other expenses.
I have mentioned only the current cases in which periodical publications have been prosecuted, in the strange new world of "Kafkanada" -- where you can be tried for the same imaginary "hate crimes" in any or all federal and provincial jurisdictions, simultaneously or sequentially. A single complaint by any reader anywhere is enough to launch a secret inquiry. The target has no right to confront his accuser, and will not at first even be told who he or she is.
Truth is no defence, the absence of harm is no defence, there are no rules of evidence -- due process is entirely subverted. The inquisitors of these kangaroo courts may ultimately reach any "judgement" they please, after months or years of playing cat-and-mouse with their selected victim.
A Protestant minister in Alberta was, for instance, recently ordered to publicly renounce his Christian beliefs, as well as pay a big lump sum to the anti-Christian activist who had prosecuted him, in a case I mentioned in a previous column, and which I am pleased to see is getting wide publicity in the United States even if not up here. "Re-education" programmes are frequently assigned, for which the victim must also pay.
All of the complainant's expenses are paid by the taxpayer, as well as all of the overheads and expenses of the jet-setting "human rights" bureaucrats, who do all the prosecutorial work, as well as providing both judge and jury. The system is, in principle, indistinguishable from that in place during the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China. It was perpetrated by leftwing activists on the Canadian people while they were sleeping. It is a system of the activists, by the activists, and for the activists.
The people are still sleeping, but some "blowback" has finally begun to occur. Given its very eccentric inquisitorial practices, which have been documented and publicized on the Internet, the CHRC is now under an RCMP investigation, a Privacy Commission investigation, and there is a Parliamentary investigation pending. (As a public relations exercise, the CHRC has also hand-picked its own "independent" investigator to do what we can only assume will be a defensive whitewash, as usual at taxpayer expense.)
It is against this background the CHRC decided that the better part of valour is discretion, and that it truly did not need to be prosecuting such high-profile targets as the bestselling author, Mark Steyn, and the mainstream newsweekly, Maclean's, at the present time. The CHRC can retrench, and return to its bread-and-butter business of destroying little people who command no publicity -- biding their time until circumstances are propitious to "extend their mandate" again.
Vigilance is the price of liberty, and it is crucially important that we not take the heat off Canada's HRCs when they retreat. Canadians need to know the whole truth about what these vile "human rights" investigators have been doing, and in due course, their past victims should be exonerated.
Given what has already occurred, it is not enough to simply fire the people responsible for specific abuses. The Human Rights Code must be rewritten to eliminate future challenges to free speech and press, and the HRCs themselves taken down. The very notion that "your freedom ends when I begin to feel offended" must be shown for what it is: totalitarian flotsam in the foetid swamp of "politically correct thought."
otiosus@sympatico.ca

Another Great Post from Craig Cox and How Much Better the situaiton in Iraq is Getting. Hello Media?

Rain, anyone?

Just a couple of months ago I was reading an article on how global warming was going to turn the center of the US back into a dust bowl comparable to the 1930’s. I’m thinking that this will not be the major problem this summer. I don’t think that anyone on this list is being affected by all of the water problems across the mid-section, and I hope that continues to be the case. On the topic of rain, it actually began to rain here a couple of weeks ago during a sand storm. The result was basically mud globs falling from the sky. The rain part didn’t last very long.

Everyone is probably already aware of the fact that IEDs are the main killer of our troops over here right now, with 80% of US casualties being caused by IED strikes. My guess is that I don’t even have to define what those initials stand for, but just in case, they stand for Improvised Explosive Device. There are now several variants on the IED term. A VBIED is a vehicle borne IED, while a SVBIED is a suicide vehicle borne IED. The difference is that a person is in the SVBIED when it is detonated, while the VBIED is a parked vehicle that is detonated by remote control or timer. There is also the HBIED, or human born IED, which could involve a SVEST, or suicide vest. Basically, it seems that if anything explodes and belongs to the insurgents, it has the term IED attached. The most deadly to date has been the Iranian provided EFP IED, which is an explosively formed projectile IED. These devices have copper placed inside of them and upon explosion, the copper shoots out towards the target at super high speeds and in a molten state so that it penetrates through armor. The EFP has been a Shiite weapon due to their close ties to Iran. The Sunni up here in the north have fortunately not been able to get their hands on those things yet, although they are trying to make their own version.

While I was eating dinner last week, I was approached by a couple of lieutenants who informed me that they have used the Lessons Learned handbook on route clearance, but that this handbook, being two years old now, was outdated due to the rapidly changing enemy tactics and procedures. They wondered if I would be interested in working with them to update the information in the publication. That happens to be one of the reasons I am over here, so of course I was interested. These lieutenants are combat engineers who work in a route clearance company. Their purpose in life over here is to clear routes of IEDs, so naturally they invited me along to watch them practice their trade.

Needless to say, we have convoys and patrols out on the roadways constantly. These route clearance units are some of the most appreciated units out here, and in my opinion, they are manned by some of the most courageous soldiers on the battlefield. Their priority is to find and clear any IED that is along their assigned route. To clear it is to make it safe before it explodes. If they do not successfully recognize an IED, they will tell you that their second goal is to have that IED explode on them rather than on another US or Iraqi convoy against vehicles that are less protected from the blast than the vehicles they use. This is what these route clearance units do, every day and every night, all over Iraq.

The big vehicle in the attached picture is called a Buffalo. It is a 25 ton monster, and that mechanical arm on top is used to poke around at suspicious objects. The caging that you see is used to defeat rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs. While the route clearance crews have to keep a sharp eye out for IEDs, they also have to keep an eye out for the angry insurgents, who obviously are not happy when these crews remove their IEDs. While the Buffalo is by no means invincible, it can take a pretty big punch and keep on moving.

I jumped in and rode in the Buffalo on a morning route clearance mission that took us on a round trip from Tikrit all the way south to about Samarra and back. We were clearing a well traveled divided highway with 2 lanes in each direction. The route clearance patrol is made up of four vehicles, and they take up both sides of the highway, with 2 vehicles driving against traffic and 2 driving with traffic. The locals understand the drill by now, so when they see the vehicles coming, they pull over and stop. This does tend to tie up traffic, but the other option for the locals is for them to hit more IEDs themselves if the Americans weren’t out clearing their roads.

There are different ways for an insurgent to detonate his IED on a vehicle. One way is through a remote control device, such as a cell phone. They also use pressure plates over their IEDs, or crush wire, which is exactly what it sounds like. If you have never seen an Iraqi roadway (and chances are that you haven’t), they are strewn with trash and discarded tires and anything else you can imagine. All of this stuff makes for great hiding places for IEDs. The crews travel these roadways enough that they are very good at recognizing when something is out of place. It is a technique called change detection. There are blast holes all along the route from previous IED attacks, yet these guys will notice when a hole looks as if it has been re-used. Among all of the trash, they are able to recognize when something looks out of place, and they are great at noticing wires on the roadway. They don’t take chances by passing on something that looks suspicious. Just because a hole was empty yesterday doesn’t mean that it will be empty today, so the patrol is slow and meticulous. These guys are very good at what they do, and countless fellow soldiers are alive today as a result of their efforts.

The crew poked and prodded at several objects during our patrol, but we didn’t find anything IED related. A couple of impatient locals tried to weave their way through the patrol at one point, but that isn’t allowed due to the VBIED threat. They kept coming despite the flashing lights and blowing air horns, but the site of a .50 caliber machine gun aiming down at them made them reconsider. For the record, the patrol does move off of the roadway on several occasions to allow the cars to pass. An unfortunate side effect of that nice gesture is that the locals sometimes find the IEDs that the route clearance team may have found. The insurgents will watch for the route clearance patrol, and they will try to arm their munitions to hit the US trucks when they see them coming. They know that the cars have to remain behind the patrols. On occasion, the patrol has pulled off to allow traffic to pass, not knowing that an IED has been armed just up the street. The result is obvious. AQI is losing its popularity right now, so they really don’t like to kill locals unless they are police or army, so these types of incidents don’t go over well for their cause.

While there are still plenty of IEDs being placed, total IEDs found and hit have been reduced by 50% up here in the north in the past six months. Route clearance crews are on the job both day and night, and yes, they are even spotting these IEDs at night.

The big Iraqi Army (IA) push up in Mosul is having some pretty decent effects. While the IA arrested over 800 suspects up there, our guys estimate that about 200 were high value targets. Not a bad haul. While many AQI headed west to escape back to Syria over the open desert, the US had some task forces out there waiting for them. Over 300 AQI were killed trying to get to the Syrian border in the past couple of months, and many more were captured. It now appears that some of the AQI who escaped Mosul are heading back in this direction down the Tigris River Valley. Looks like it’s time to call on those Navy Riverine forces to come into action up here. The Marines have actually been using the Navy forces over in Anbar Province in the Euphrates River Valley, so maybe they will let our side borrow them for awhile. Unfortunately, over the past couple of days, AQI has gone to Iraqi Police homes in Mosul and placed RCIEDs (Remote Controlled IEDs) next to their front doors. They have also killed 2 Sheiks up in western Mosul for calling on the locals to help the IA defeat the insurgency. As I have said before, AQI vowed never to be pushed from Mosul, so they aren’t going to leave quietly.

To give you some idea about the reduction in the level of violence in Iraq, there have been fewer than 160 enemy attacks in the past week up here in the northern sector. Standing alone, that number doesn’t mean much. However, there were fewer enemy attacks in the rest of Iraq combined than there were in the north last week. I am not pointing that out to suggest that things are out of control in the north, but that things are settling down in the rest of the nation. The Sunni are still battling up here the best they can, and Syria is close enough to keep offering sanctuary and support. To put that 160 in perspective, one year ago, there were approximately 160 enemy attacks per province per week in the north. Now there were fewer than that in the entire region. An attack does not mean killings, by the way. It is just enemy action directed against coalition forces or IA or other local nationals. The battle is certainly not over, but the violence is heading in the right direction.

Let me give you a quick Vince Lombardi quote. He once said, “It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it.”

I write that quote to segway into the fact that Saturday was the Army’s 233rd birthday, and I have to put in a plug for my service. The Army is doing some heavy lifting over here and over in Afghanistan. Our sister services are here as well, but the Army is carrying the bulk of the load. Its forces are taking the heaviest casualties, both in killed and wounded. That isn’t surprising since this is mainly a ground fight. However, as I have mentioned before, there are several other federal agencies that are missing in action, and the Army is filling in where they are absent.

We use the term, “The Army,” but that Army is made up of individual soldiers who get up, suit up, and head out into the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan to perform their duties – every day. It really isn’t possible through email to do justice to the work they are performing or to the situations that they are encountering, but I can tell you that they are definitely “doing” and they are “achieving” – every day. They aren’t running from AQI, or Ansar al-Sunnah, or al-Mahdi, they are running after them. It is a pretty amazing feeling to link up with a platoon of soldiers, gather in a circle and unashamedly say a prayer, then load up and go search for bad guys. I am honored to be having the opportunity to work with these soldiers who are, in their words, just doing their jobs. I can tell you that you can be proud of the soldiers in your Army as it turns 233.

A disappointing update on the soccer tournament up in Kirkuk. So far, the Iraqis are up 2 games to 0, after whipping the US 6-1 and 4-1. Nobody listens to the lesson’s learned guy, but I’m telling you, football; play them in football. On second thought, I’ve watched the Army football team in recent years, so maybe that isn’t such a smart idea, either. In all seriousness, these games are attracting hundreds of people from the community. They are really enjoying it.

Everyone stay dry, and take care.

MAJ Craig Cox
1AD CALL LNO
COB Speicher
DSN: 318-849-0064
sVoip: 318-778-0176
1AD NIPR: craig.w.cox@1ad.army.mil
SIPR: craig.w.cox@1ad.army.smil.mil

More from Craig in Iraq

Hello everyone,

Since I last wrote, the days were filled with dangerous travels, emergency surgery, and a hospital stay. That about sums it up for Tina and the kids, so now let me move on to my story.

That actually is a good summary of Tina’s travels so far as she has had to plan her driving around the thunder storms that won’t seem to let up back there. Once they made it to New York City, Victoria had her appendix go out on her, so she ended up having surgery at St. Lukes Hospital in the big city. That whole ordeal only set the family back by one day, so they are now enjoying a few days of non-traveling back in Ohio. I may let Tina take over with the emailing as her adventure might end up being more interesting than mine.

For my latest travels, I didn’t go all that far, but I did switch gears from the Police Transition Teams to a Military Transition Team, or MiTT. I spent some time with one of our MiTT teams just a little south of Tikrit in Salah Ah Din Province. The MiTT is housed at a little outpost called Forward Operating Base (FOB) Dagger, which sits on a bluff overlooking the Tigris River. To get to Dagger from Speicher, there was no air travel option this time. We went by ground convoy, which can be a little more interesting with the constant IED threat. The route from here to there is covered heavily with Sons of Iraq (SoI) and Iraqi Police (IP) check points, so the IED implanters are having a tougher time getting too many IEDs buried out there right now.

Dagger used to be a US FOB, but it was turned back over to the Iraqi Army (IA) a couple of years ago. In the one attached picture, you can see the old palace, which is now the headquarters for the 4th Iraqi Army Division, or 4IA.

One of the initial differences that I noticed between being with a PTT and being with a MiTT is that there is a much greater level of trust between our soldiers and the Iraqi Army than between our guys and the Iraqi Police. The police units are much more infiltrated by insurgents than is the army. When in an IP station, none of the US soldiers go anywhere without several other soldiers. On Dagger, it is common for our MiTT members to walk over to the IA headquarters by themselves without a problem.

When I arrived at Dagger, the MiTT Operations advisor showed me around camp. The Iraqis operate quite a bit differently than we do. The operations officer and I walked over to the Iraqi motor pool and we looked at a small privately owned car that had its front end blown off. The car belongs to the Iraqi Division Engineer, a full-bird Colonel. The Colonel was ordered by his commanding general to drive down the oil pipeline and check for saboteurs. In our army, the engineer would normally not be the first person chosen to go hunting for saboteurs, but more importantly, our guys wouldn’t jump in the old family car to complete that task. Lucky for the Colonel, he lived through the IED blast. The family, however, will be needing to look for other transportation.

The 4IA Division is a very large Iraqi division, but it is not a mobile unit. The 4IA soldiers are tied to an infrastructure protection mission, which keeps them in checkpoints along the oil pipeline that crosses Salah Ah Din, and it keeps them guarding power lines and highways. The fact that the division engineer takes the family car on missions with him probably makes it obvious that the 4IA is short on transportation assets. Unlike their sister divisions up in Ninewa Province who are engaged in the big AQI fight right now, these guys don’t move around a lot. The good news is that they are good at protecting the infrastructure, which is good for growing the economy, which is good for keeping citizens from joining the insurgency. I guess we can be critical of the fact that the 4IA doesn’t conduct a lot of patrols and they use unsafe vehicles when they do get out, but the fact of the matter is that they don’t possess a lot of maneuverability equipment. We sit on the edge of the Al Jazeira Desert, and it would be unreasonable to expect the 4IA to patrol that desert on foot.

The 4IA leadership is fairly diverse, which should be a good lesson for other sectors of Iraqi society to emulate. The Commanding General (CG) is a Turkman, his assistant is a Shiite, his Chief of Staff is a Sunni, and his Operations Officer is a Kurd. The CG tries hard to squash corruption in his forces, so he rotates his forces around every six weeks. He thinks that if a unit is in one location too long, those with tendencies to start extorting money from the locals will start to do just that. By rotating his forces, he has actually run a pretty clean ship. If the 4IA was actually engaged in a lot of combat actions, it might not be such a good idea to shift people around like this, but these guys are essentially moving from one check point situation to another.

When I was getting the grand tour of Dagger, the MiTT Operations Officer and I walked over to the palace to look at the IA Tactical Operations Center, or TOC. A US Division TOC is a busy place. Representatives from each staff section are on duty 24 hours per day in our TOC. When we walked into the IA TOC, there was one Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) sitting behind the phones, sound asleep. We startled him, of course, and he jumped up, buttoned his shirt and put his shoes on. We said our hellos and moved on so that he could get back to sleep. It was around 3 o’clock in the afternoon at that point, and these IA types don’t do much of anything between about 10AM and 6PM. They relax during the heat of the day, and that TOC officer was sure relaxed.

The next morning, we attended a battle update brief at the IA TOC, and it was full, although every one of the staff officers had his cell phone ring at some point during the briefing. After the briefing, the IA Operations Officer (called a G3), invited us into his office for Chai tea (of course). He had a lot on his mind and he wanted to share some of his thoughts, most of it dealing with the tactical situation with his forces. During our visit, the Deputy Commanding General (DCG) came into the office and he ordered another round of Chai tea for everyone. I am getting my share of Chai tea, which is OK because it is very good.

The general (General Essa) wanted to talk about my job and the Center for Army Lessons Learned. We just helped the Iraqis start their own lessons learned center six months ago, so he wanted to see if the Iraqi center was operating like ours. He thinks that his center has too many civilians working in it, so he is not sure how much they will know about military operations. General Essa had a pretty good grasp on the English language and he was very friendly and interesting to talk to. It shouldn’t be surprising, but they are just as interested in our world as we are in theirs, so we talked quite a bit about the US. General Essa and his G3 really want to talk more and provide insights on this war from their viewpoint, so I will be returning to Dagger in several weeks to talk to them and their other staff officers.

Our MiTT team feels like they are making slow but steady progress with the Iraqi Army. The Iraqis will never operate like we do, so the MiTT members have learned to not get frustrated by the Iraqi system. The Iraqi Army tends to be further ahead in their core competencies than the Iraqi Police, but again, they come from a very different culture than we do. Keeping in mind that they are engaged in a war, the schedule under which they operate is 10 days on, 10 days off for every soldier. Each soldier literally only works half a year under this schedule. This schedule includes the commanders and staff, so when the CG is gone, the DCG is in charge, although he isn’t allowed to make any decisions for the CG. You can see the challenges in conducting a war this way. The Iraqis don’t understand the concept of having to plan. They tend to simply get up and go without really thinking things through too much, such as where they are getting their fuel or water. The MiTT teams used to cover all of this for them, but now they are making the Iraqis think through these issues or live with the consequences if they forget to include these issues in their “plan.” There is one request that the Iraqis submit any time they actually do plan, and that request is for Apache air support. I had to put that plug in for my old aircraft. Conducting a raid? They want Apaches; manning a checkpoint? How about some Apaches. They love our Apaches, and the MiTT members say that they actually fight harder when Apaches are providing cover for them. That shouldn’t be all that surprising considering the fact that our guys like the air cover as well.

I understand that this is war, but you have to find humor where you can. This probably falls into the category of pathetic humor, but you’ll get my point as you read about a recent event here.

The SoI at a checkpoint just south of Dagger stopped a water truck and asked to look into the tank, just as they are supposed to do. The driver reached down and offered the SoI a handful of money to let him drive through without a search. The SoI called for Iraqi Police backup for a suspicious truck. He then informed the driver that he was going to search the vehicle. As the SoI member walked to the back of the truck, the driver jumped from the cab, yelled something, and then blew himself up with the suicide vest that he was wearing. As I understand the purpose of a suicide vest, called a SVEST, it is supposed to be used to kill a lot of other people as well. Mass casualty vest is probably a more accurate term. Well, this poor AQI member took the “suicide” term literally, so he blew himself up with no one standing anywhere near him. One enemy gone. After this stunt, an AQI member jumped out of a hole on the top of the tanker portion of the truck, jumped over the side, yelled something, and then blew himself up as well. Two enemy down. As #2 blew himself up, he blew the side of the tanker open, exposing seven of his best AQI buddies to the SoI and Iraqi Police. The seven remaining AQI members started firing at the SoI and IP, but the good guys took out all seven without any casualties of their own. A US convoy was rolling past and was prepared to assist, but they didn’t have to. An Iraqi police officer video taped the entire incident, and the SoI and IP performed very well with no US intervention at all. I hope you can see the weird humor in the hapless AQI actions at this checkpoint, but if you can’t, sorry.

The good news is the way that the SoI and IP performed. They didn’t call for US help, and it is a huge deal that the SoI member turned down the bribe. The insurgents often get around through bribery and threats, and this SoI member put his life on the line and became a real hero. Based on the documents found in the truck, the vehicle was headed for a big event in Samarra where they intended to kill a lot of people.

Over to our east in Kirkuk, the situation has stabilized to the point that one of our brigades is hosting a series of 7 soccer tournaments against local Iraqi teams. Soccer is fine, but when you hear that they are hosting football tournaments, then you will know that we have really crossed the Rubicon.

Our CG, who does not take 10 days off for every 10 days worked, pointed out to the Division that things are going well enough right now that it makes him nervous. He obviously doesn’t want complacency during the summer months when activity usually gets a little heavier. With the Iraqi election registration about to begin, I imagine that all of the insurgent groups will try to step it up a little bit in the coming weeks. We will just have to see how it goes.

The second attached picture is obviously me after a patrol, and the colorful picture is of the Tigris River running past FOB Dagger. It actually looks pretty nice down there.

Everyone take care, and I hope not to have many more Cox family incidents to pass along.

MAJ Craig Cox
1AD CALL LNO
COB Speicher
DSN: 318-849-0295
sVoip: 318-778-2107
1AD NIPR: craig.w.cox@1ad.army.mil
SIPR: craig.w.cox@1ad.army.smil.mil