Telling It Like It Is

[Tigermike 3,044]

Telling It Like It Is

I will never trust John Kerry with my family's safety.

BY ZELL MILLER

Monday, September 13, 2004 12:01 a.m.

My critics in the national media are working overtime trying to paint me as an angry nut who got the facts all wrong in my speech to the Republican National Convention. Since there's not enough time to challenge all of these critics to a duel, let me set the record straight here and now.

First, the anger. A lot has been said about my angry demeanor. I've made enough speeches to know that you're supposed to connect with the audience by telling a joke or a humorous anecdote or some amusing tale. It's a tried-and-true formula that I've used for most of my life. But this was not a normal speech in a normal time.

Today, we are at the most serious moment of history that we may ever know, and I wanted to connect with the seriousness of this moment, not the audience.

Now, about those facts. I charged that John Kerry is weak on national security, and I listed some of the many weapons systems he has opposed over the years. My critics tripped over themselves to point out that Dick Cheney opposed some of the same weapons systems when he was defense secretary.

But, like with so many things in life, timing is everything. Mr. Kerry was proposing the cancellation of many of these weapons systems at the height of the Cold War--the worst possible time to weaken our military strength. It would be comparable to a senator in 1943 proposing to scrap the B-29 Bomber or Sherman tank or Higgins landing craft. By contrast, Mr. Cheney waited until after we had won the Cold War to propose modernizing our forces and replacing older weapons systems. There's a huge difference. Whether it's the Cold War of yesterday or the war on terror today, Mr. Kerry has sought time and time again to weaken our military at the exact moment we need to show our strength.

I also charged that John Kerry and his fellow Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator, and that nothing makes this old Marine madder. My critics pounced on that one, too. Aren't you aware, they sneered, that President Bush has used the term "occupiers"?

Do they mean when the president said this in April?--"As a proud and independent people, Iraqis do not support an indefinite occupation--and neither does America. We're not an imperial power, as nations such as Japan and Germany can attest. We are a liberating power." Are the people of Iraq not liberated from a terrible dictator? Did we not transfer sovereignty over to the Iraqi people exactly when we said we would?

John Kerry and his crowd derisively call American troops "occupiers" because it fits with their warped belief that America is the problem, not the solution. While more than 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq are enjoying freedom, Mr. Kerry is still fretting over whether the U.N. crowd likes us or not. The American people will not abide a commander in chief who gets squeamish over America's role as a liberating force in the world.

And my critics love to point out that I had nice things to say about John Kerry when I introduced him to a Georgia Democratic dinner in 2001. That's true and I meant it. But, again, timing is everything. I made that introduction in March 2001--six months before terrorists attacked this country on Sept. 11. As I have said time and again, 9/11 changed everything. Everything, that is, except the national Democrats' shameful, manic obsession with bringing down a commander in chief. John Kerry has been wrong many times, but he's never been more wrong than in his failure to support our troops and our commander in chief in this war on terror.

So, my critics can call me a psychopath and fire spitballs at me and froth at the mouth when an ex-president sends me a nasty letter. That's the freedom of speech they all enjoy, courtesy of the American soldier.

But for David Gergen and this newspaper's Al Hunt, among others, to call me a racist was especially hurtful. For they know better. They know I worked for three governors in a row, not just one: Carl Sanders, Lester Maddox and Jimmy Carter. They knew I was the first governor to try to remove the Confederate emblem from the Georgia flag. And by the way, when I called each of Georgia's former governors to tell them what I was about to attempt, Jimmy Carter's first question to me was, "What are you doing that for?" Mr. Gergen and Mr. Hunt also know I appointed the only African-American attorney general in the country in the 1990s and more African Americans to the state judiciary than all the other governors of Georgia combined, including that one from Plains.

So, they can call me names and ridicule my angry demeanor all day long. But facts are facts. And the fact is, John Kerry has a long record of proposals to weaken our national security in a time of war. And I would never put my family's safety in those hands.

Mr. Miller is a Democratic senator from Georgia.

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[Bottomfeeder 244]

Okay, neither will I. Heck, I trust no man for that matter. So, what else you got cause I am tired of watching the money we are suppose to spend here going to a country thousands of miles away or in the pockets of companies that don't produce anything here in the United States of America. That's right, keep my money here within the conus. Oh Yeah, whatever happen to the War On Poverty?

Rebuilding Infrastructure Key to Success in Terror War

By Mitch Frazier

Special to American Forces Press Service

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 12, 2004 - It will take more than bullets to win the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan; it will take new schools, power plants and infrastructure, a U.S. general said here Sept. 11.

"Never underestimate the importance of what each of us does here," said Army Brig. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, commander of the corps' Gulf Region Division, an agency charged with overseeing the multi-billion dollar Iraq reconstruction effort. "The men and women in uniform and the civilians with them are counting on us to win, and winning for us is delivering projects."

Bostick and his team of nearly 300 civilian engineers and program managers located across the country oversee nearly 650 U.S.-led reconstruction projects now under way. That number is slated to increase, as more than 1,800 projects are planned for start before the year's end.

"Many men and women in uniform and civilians have given their lives here and in Afghanistan. Their deaths will not be in vain," Bostick said. "We must deliver these projects; we must win."

The general gave the keynote address at an hour-long tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The event brought back the tears, anger and passion felt around the world in the wake of the attacks.

"It was upsetting," said Beth Hilliard, a 28 year-old quality assurance specialist and mother of two from Savannah, Ga., who now serves as a program analyst with the corps in Baghdad. "Going back to that moment when it happened on 9/11 and thinking about how difficult it must still be for the victims' families was tough."

Hilliard, clad in camouflage and a hardhat, stood alongside a soldier holding an American flag from the second story of the corps' headquarters during the ceremony, a scene presented in honor of the flag-draped gaping hole in the Pentagon seen shortly after the attack.

Like millions of Americans, Hilliard can recall in vivid detail where she was and what she was doing at the time of the attack.

"I was driving to Fort Stewart (Ga.) in a government car when I heard the reports on the radio," she said. "All I could think of was what was next, and if it was even a good idea to go to a military installation. I thought the first one was just an accident, but after I heard the second had hit and it was definitely terrorism, I was really scared," she said.

While the fright quickly vanished, her will to help continues today. "I just wanted to do whatever I could to help," she said. "I knew we were doing a lot of great work for the Iraqi people, and I wanted to come and be a part of the successes and make a difference."

As a member of the corps' Restore Iraq Electricity Directorate, that difference for Hilliard is measured one power station and one megawatt at a time. Since beginning its work in the country nearly a year ago, the corps has added an additional 1,621 megawatts to the Iraqi national grid, enough to service 4.8 million Iraqi homes and boost electricity far past pre-war levels.

"Make no mistake about it; what we do here in Iraq and what our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan are doing will have a huge impact on winning the war on terrorism," Bostick said. "We must win."

(Mitch Frazier is deputy public affairs chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division.)

Ain't This Just Peachy?

What happened to the 'War on Poverty' in this country? We have an economy that boasts more jobs lost since the 'Crash of 1929' during Hoover's reign and we seem hell-bent on spending what funds we have left by kiting checks to rebuild a country that we just spent $200 billion to bomb back into the stone-age.

Here's an idea...Let's have a nation-wide lottery to pick one of own depressed states to bomb. We can save lots of jet-fuel because the targets would be so much closer and the National Guard could get in their week-end commitments right close to home. It shouldn't take too long to bomb them into submission after enforcing the 'Patriot Act' and then we could go in and rebuild everything from the ground-up brand spanking new. Sure, there would be 'collateral losses' but we have a population-control problem here anyway. Who's gonna miss a few relatives at the Thanksgiving table more or less anyway? And just think how much better-off everyone will be when we're done. We could actually take one state from the lottery list every year and do this. Gee, every 50 years each state would get a free face-lift courtesy of Uncle Sam. Good idea, huh?

[CCTAU 3,336]

Once again you've proven why we refer to you as our own "village idiot."

Maybe they should just bomb your house and save us the time and effort of having to wade through the muck that you produce.

[rexbo 104]

So, what else you got cause I am tired of watching the money we are suppose to spend here going to a country thousands of miles away or in the pockets of companies that don't produce anything here in the United States of America.

Don't be an economic girlieman; the Iraqi's and the companies over there are not burning the dollars we are spending. And they are not going to bury them in the sand with their WMDs. They are going to put them in their bank, and when they get enough of them, they are going to buy something, hmm, maybe a Dell, dude, or maybe they will order a BMW, and send the dollars to Germany, and then Hans on the assembly line there will have some dollars, and what he is going to do? Visit Disney World, with the whole Familie. You see, these dollars are not being wasted, they are flowing, generating a robust world economy. And when we bring Iraq safely into the world of Nations, we will be sending even more dollars over there, as we buy their oil, and there will more middle class Iraqis to buy our products, to visit our tourist traps, and to spread the word of Freedom throught their region. A free Iraq, with dollars flowing in and out of their country, is a good thing for the United States of America.