Yeah, I guess I’ts been a little while since my last contribution to this site. Sorry about that. Well, ....honestly, not really that sorry. I had my reasons.

You see; In my real, non-cyber life, there have been some big doings transpiring which called for 110% of my attention. All of it good I assure you, but as a result I was forced to close the cover on my laptop for a while so I could try in earnest to reach a goal which has eluded me some time. I have reached that goal as of today, so now I can return to my normal life, (kinda), including one of my favorite endeavors, conversing with folks who are passionate about politics.

Had I not been so busy pouring myself into my real-life projects, I must also admit though that as of late, my will to put a lot of effort into this endavor has been waning a bit as well.

“Has Para lost his passion for politics? you might ask. The answer, of course, is an unwavering and resounding NO! But it would seem that many of the people on my “team” ( no I’m NOT speaking of Jim or Lee or any of you for that matter) have begun to realize thier own defeat in the great debate over the War on Terrorism. None of them will admit it, few even realize it. But if you read thier writings, or listen to them on the radio or TV, you’ll notice that they have taken the first great step towards defeat in this debate.

Almost every major blogger, talk show host, TV news show, and magazine which was pro-war two years ago has begun discussing when we should pull out from Iraq. I’ve seen viewer polls on O’Reilly’s show about it, I’ve heard Rush discussing it, I’ve even read lenghty diatribes about what a bad idea it would be if we did pull out. While most pundits still maintain the ol’ chestnut “We’re there now, it would be a disaster to pull out now”, the simple fact that they are even discussing it is a losing strategy. WHY??? Because that discussion is the discussion of the Liberals and the Doves. It is a discussion about advancing THIER agenda, rather than advancing OURS. By engaging in such discussion, the right-leaning pundits are ( perhaps subconsciously) submitting to the the left-leaning pundits point of view by validating it with such lenghty and serious response.

The ONLY answer to the question “When do you think the US should pull out of Iraq” is; “WHEN WE WIN! PERIOD. NEXT QUESTION” There is no “debate” in the idea of pulling out of Iraq or the War on Terrorism that does not include a partial defeat for the U.S. We must stay and fight until the bad guys are all dead or have surrendered. There is no other option that excludes some level of defeat for the good guys. To entertain a “cutting our losses” type of discussion is an admission that we ( the righties) are at least willing to entertain the idea of not completely winning this war. That, my friends, is fucking unacceptable.

So, you see, to join in that type of a discussion is an admission that partial defeat, is well, partially acceptable. Therefore, I have not felt like chiming in on that debate, because I do not recognize it’s validity. I refuse to engage in a discussion where the Liberals are setting the tone and asking the question and calling the shots and setting the agenda. They LOST the election. They LOST the House. They LOST the Senate. By default, they lose the right to make me engage them on thier terms in a stupid fantasy conversation full of “what if’s “. 

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, the Republicans who we elected to represent us in Washington need to seriously grow a pair and stop pandering to these snakes among us who see our defeat in Iraq as the fastest wayfor the Democrats to regain power. I swear it seems that if the Liberals had to choose between a White House run by Republicans or an Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban, they’d actually choose the Taliban. No matter what, the Republicans will never win the Liberal vote. They need to stop trying to include them in the decision making process in hopes of looking “inclusive” and just go do what is best for this country regardless of the amount of vitriol hurled at them from the tree-hugging, granola crunching, tax the rich, get rid of Christmas, crowd. I can understand why the Republicans pander to the “Jesus-fish-emblem-on-the-back-of-the-car” crowd, they at least have a chance of getting some of those votes, but they should just give up on wasting thier time trying to pick up a stray moonbat vote here and there.

As for the rest of the pundits, they’d be wise to realize that the Democrats have already begun to turn victory to thier side, simply because we are responding to thier ideas, even if we reject them.

Some of you might see the use in engaging the Moonbats in discussions about advancing thier agenda.

Some of you might acknowledge the wisdom of letting the electoral losers have thier say.

Some of you might feel like it’s a good thing to let the Michael Moore’s and Cindy Sheehan’s of the world frame the debate.

Some of you might feel it’s not harmful to entertain partial defeat.

Not me, not ever.

We must not even think about allowing ourselves to lose this war, or we are doomed to do just that. 

Looking for new writers

Read about it here.

A picture is worth a few dozen words

I know...she’s old news, but I can’t help illustrating her hypocrisy with her own words and deeds.

Open Letter to George Bush
by CindySheehan
Thu Nov 24, 2005 at 08:42:24 PM PDT

November 24, 2005

George,

My family is spending our 2nd Thanksgiving without Casey thanks to you and your lies. I am spending the day crying on a plane on my way to come to Crawford to again ask you for a meeting.

Wanna see Casey’s Mom crying as she gets off the plane?

Michael Moore & Me

Moorewatcher Alex sent this in a few days ago, but I’m slow and lazy.  So I’m just now getting it to all of you. 

I’m a Brit, and I just thought you would like to know about the anti-Moore documentary shown just now on Sky Two.

It was hosted by Janet Street Porter, and it basically went through Moore’s rise to fame, with clips of his documentaries, and how he mischieviously edited them to mislead his audience, as well as interviews with his past employees and work partners who shout about how horrible he is. Janet Street Porter attempts to get an interview with him to discuss these allegations with him, including leaving a letters in his postbox (his house is ridiculously massive BTW), leaving messages with the receptionist at his NYC apartment, and even taking out an ad in the NY Post.

There were many great moments, including an intentionally edited speech which makes it look like Moore is amorously praising Bush and Blair, and some footage of a former employee of his (I think his name was Edelstein), challenging him at a College lecture, with Moore simply brushing it off, and refusing to answer. One bit really stuck in my mind though:

As you know, he did a few comedy shows at the Roundhouse here, and Porter interview the production assistant during these shows. He told this story:

His production partner was working there one night, and he met a woman who had driven all the way from the Midlands with an apple pie. She said that her mother had gone to school in Michigan with Moore’s mother, and that she knew Moore. The girl mentioned she was fan of Moore and asked him if he could give Moore the pie she had baked. The production assistant gladly agreed. He goes to Moore’s dressing room with the pie and explains the story to Moore, after he did so, Moore replied ‘Put it in the bin,’ the production assistant tried to explain to Moore how she had come all the way from the Midlands with this pie, and Moore just shouted, ‘PUT IT IN THE FUCKING BIN!’.

I felt sorry for the man, who probabaly had to lie to the nice girl afterwards.

BTW, Porter never got the interview, nor even got to meet Moore.

Check that out if you are in Merry Olde England...maybe BBC America will try to get it one of these days.  Thanks also to the other folks who emailed this in...much appreciated.  I may not reply, but I promise I see everything you send.

Speaking of emails....Someday I hope I can share some of the great stories that people who have worked for Mikey tell us.  Unfortunately a lot of these folks are still making a living in the film game...and Mike has powerful friends named Weinstein who will kill a career just as soon as look at someone if crossed.  Suffice it to say stories like the ones in this Sky Two documentary are not uncommon.

Update from Lee: I was intrigued by this story, and I wanted to read up on it, so I did a little Googling.  One of the sites returned was this UK message board which has a discussion devoted to the documentary.  If you want an insight into the mindset of Michael Moore’s drooling UK fans, you won’t find a better site than this one.

Hate Mail

Now this is the type of hate mail I love to get!

From: [email protected]
To: Lee
Subject: your website

I just wanted to say what a waste of time your website is.  Michael Moore is a true patriot who lets the American people know the truth about the corruption of our current administration.  I know that every administration has corruption, but this one takes it to another level.  Let me ask you, when did it become our policy to invade another country based on the premise that they “MIGHT” cause harm to our country.  For hundreds of years our country was based on defending itself, not provoking wars.  After 9/11 the world was on our side, we had support in this “war on terror”. Now with this pre-planned war,(before Bush was “given” the presidency by the supreme court,) has alienated our allies and we are seen as the terrorists throughout the world.  We are torturing innocent(among the guilty) prisoners, killing thousands of Iraqi citizens, draining our economy, ! exhausting our military, and countless other things based on “faulty intelligence”.  So if you think what we are doing is wrong you are labeled a liberal, a tree hugger blah blah blah.  Why not just admit that the oil is not flowing the way our Texas Tea-Black Gold President thought it would and the Muslim world is now our enemy for life.  It is not about Osama anymore.  There are a million Osama’s now.  For every one terror plot 5 yrs ago, there are now a thousand.  Our country is lost. Our undereducated citizens who look to their elected leaders have been missled.  The administration has divided our country on purpose.  They have allowed religion into our government.  Our President makes “faith based decisions” The last person to speak the way Bush does was Hitler.  We are now the great invaders.  Believe me, I want nothing more than to live in a safe peaceful world, and I know we have to kick some ass sometimes! to do it, but to provoke a war and invade a country who h ad never even killed a US citizen is wrong.  During Desert Storm our media worked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry, they were in hotels in Baghdad, did you see the Iraqi army storm in there and behead one person, NO!  Now Americans are a target all over the world, and if you think this foreign policy of ours has done anything to make us safer, you are lying to yourself.  Let’s not forget that we helped Saddam fight Iran, and provided him with chemical weapons, which he turned and used on his own people.  I guess in Mike Moore’s movie when he showed Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam in 1980 to make that deal that was a lie.. I also suppose that when we gave weapons to the Mujahadeen Army (Osama and other rebel fighters fighting Russia in the Afghan/Russian war),since that was in Mike Moore’s movie that was a lie as well. 
Do you also realize the US is the largest petroleum consumer in the world.  As the oil reserves run low the need to control the oil runs greater.  What no one wants to admit is we invaded Iraq for the sole purpose of controlling the oil fields.  The only problem was the idea that we would be welcomed with roses and parades was horse shit.  Even though Saddam was a tyrant, he was their tyrant.  Not a “western infadel” like we have put in power now.  The middle east population would take a million Saddams over one of our American leaders telling them what to do.  We don’t understand Islam, we don’t care to understan Islam and the rest of the world sees us as ignorant Americans, who are now the “Great Invaders.” This war has nothing to do with 9/11 and when Bush was making a case for it he compared the two.  It was a lie, it still is a lie, and to waste your time trying to make a liar out of Mike Moore i! s exactly what this spin doctor administration wants you to do.  Stop wasting your time arguing with eachother over partisan politics and start finding the leaders who will get us out of this mess and make America the great respected nation we once were.  Support our troops, they should be home securing our swiss cheese borders.  While we are invading Iraq, our country is being invaded everyday, by illegals(not immigrants) just illegals.  I hope they don’t have a certain date that the ones that are here pick up the weapons they have amassed off the streets and just start killing everyone in sight.  We had a 1 week warning about Hurricane Katrina and couldn’t handle that, heaven forbid that we wake up on a sunny Tuesday morning with a bunch of radical muslims running around with machine guns blowing up apartment buildings.  Wake UP AMERICA!!!!!

Hey, if you’re going to be a moonbat, be a barking moonbat!

Another side of Iraq

The always amazing Michael Yon has a wonderful photo essay up on his blog.  It’s a side of Iraq that the legacy media refuses to show you.

Seek it out for yourself.

Happy birthday to you! You look like a Marine, and you smell like one too!

Happy 230th birthday to the United States Marine Corps.  What better way to celebrate than to give to Project Valour IT on behalf of the Corps?  If you don’t know what Project Valour IT is, you can read about them here.

Confirmation

Of course, Moorewatch readers knew all of this last year, but it never hurts a case to have others verify your information independantly.

However, our research shows that the volunteer force is already equitable. That is, it is highly likely that reinstating the draft would erode military effectiveness, increase American fatalities, destroy personal freedom, and even produce a less socio­economically “privileged” military in the process.

In summary, we found that, on average, 1999 recruits were more highly educated than the equiv­alent general population, more rural and less urban in origin, and of similar income status. We did not find evidence of minority racial exploitation (by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). We did find evidence of a “Southern military tradition” in that some states, notably in the South and West, provide a much higher proportion of enlisted troops by population.

If you’d like a refresher on what this site presented last summer, you can read paratrooper’s excellent articles here and here.

Another liar caught in a lie

The Moore-ons should be careful whom they latch on to as proof of their claims.  They may find them lacking in the credibility department.

In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians.

Among his claims:

Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.

Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.

Massey’s claims have gained him celebrity. Last month, Massey’s book, “Kill, Kill, Kill,” was released in France. His allegations have been reported in nationwide publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today, as well as numerous broadcast reports. Earlier this year, he joined the anti-war bus tour of Cindy Sheehan, and he’s spoken at Cornell and Syracuse universities, among others.

News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey’s claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth.

He wasn’t.

Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey’s own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey’s unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

Shame on him, and shame on each and every person who was so willing to believe him.  Read the whole article.  It paints the portrait of a liar who lied for the attention (Link goes to Quicktime, 30MB movie of Massey with Sheehan).  Sound familiar to anyone?

Among his big piles of bullshit…

The details of Massey’s stories changed repeatedly.

For example, he almost always told his audiences and interviewers of an event he said he’d never forget: Marines in his unit shooting four civilian Iraqis in red Kia automobile.

In some accounts, Massey said Marines fired at the vehicle after it failed to stop at a checkpoint. In another version, he said the Marines stormed the car.

Sometimes he said three of the men were killed immediately while the fourth was wounded and covered in blood; sometimes he said the fourth man was “miraculously unscathed.”

Sometimes he said the Marines left the three men on the side of the road to die without medical treatment while the fourth man exclaimed: “Why did you shoot my brother?” In other versions, he said the man made the statement as medical personnel were attempting to treat the three other men, or as the survivor sat near the car, or to Massey personally.

There is no evidence that any of the versions occurred.

Many of us around these parts knew Massey’s stories smelled like bullshit when they came up the first time.  I’m glad someone investigated him.

Some folks owe a lot of other folks apologies off this one...starting with the press that was all too willing to spread his lies without fact-checking anything.

Update

It gets worse.  He’s giving evidence in a criminal trial in Ireland.

A former US marine has told a jury that he was given “carte blanche” to kill and was told to “shoot first and ask questions later” while serving in Iraq following the outbreak of war in 2003.

Jimmy Massey was giving evidence in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial of five antiwar protesters accused of criminal damage of a US aeroplane at Shannon Airport in February 2003.

In response to Mr Nix’s query as to what was their “firing policy”. Mr Massey replied: “To shoot first and ask questions later. We were given carte blanche to kill.”

Asked by counsel if this was in breach of the Geneva Convention, Mr Massey replied: “Yes sir”.

Mr Nix: “Did it happen?” - “It did, many times. Over a three month period more than 30 innocent people were killed that I know of.”

This prick deserves to be prosecuted.

Michael claims another victim

Just received this via email.  It’s just another example of what a scumbag Mike can be in pursuit of the story he wants to tell.  Here’s the money segment, but read the whole thing after the jump.

I went to Lila Lipscomb, who I still thought may be an actress. I asked what was going on and that is when I said the scene was staged. She explained that her son was killed in Iraq. I told her how sorry I was for her loss, I gave her a hug, and told her I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through. I have a son, so I know how horrible it must be. My heart went out to her and I was teary-eyed. She said the President killed her son and I said “No, it was Al-Qaeda and these terrorists that shot down your son.”

I said, “Many people have lost sons and daughters,” and then a voice interrupted me and said, “Did you lose someone in Iraq?” I turned and saw I was being filmed. I said, “No, I was referring to 9/11!” Coming from New Jersey I know many people who have lost loved ones on 9/11, including some very close to me. I thought this was the local news, I still did not know this was for Michael Moore’s movie.

In the movie, Michael Moore edited out what I said, edited out all the sympathies and emotion I expressed for Lila. When she said, “I lost my son,” he edited it to make it appear as if my response was simply “Many people have lost sons and daughters,” making me look heartless to the world. He knew I was referring to 9/11, he was right there listening.

How any rational, thinking human being puts any faith in Moore’s work anymore is beyond me.  I literally don’t get people who still trust him.  Anyway...more to read.  Check it out, and if you can help this woman legally-speaking, I’ll bet the author of the piece will put you in touch.

But , but , but … we were DUPED!!!

Surfing Moore’s site today, I clicked a link to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, whose editorial board is apologizing to its readership for allowing itself to be “duped” by the Bush administration in the days leading up to the Iraq war on the matters of WMD’s.

But, yes, regrettably on the matter of WMD, count us as among the many who were duped. We should have been more skeptical. For that lack of skepticism and the failure to include the proper caveats to the WMD claim, we apologize, though I would note that, ultimately, we didn’t believe that the president’s central WMD argument warranted war. Not then and especially not now.

Hate Spam

To whoever the dumb fuck is who has been signing me up to mailing lists all day: don’t you realize that every one of them requires an email confirmation?  By not responding to the email I don’t get added to the list.  And besides, it takes me all of about five seconds to add those addresses to my spam filter.  If you want to waste hours signing me up for mailing lists be my guest.

Yes, everyone.  Michael Moore fans are this stupid.