SGT Walter J. Rausch is currently fighting in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division. He and his platoon have a message that they want the American public to hear. It is quite different from the message we are getting via the MSM, the anti-war crowd and the Bush-Lied politicians. He asked his mom to help get this message out and his mom wrote Sgt. Hook. I am reprinting the letter here because I think his message does need to get out.
Mom,
Be my voice. I want this message heard. It is mine and my platoon’s to the country. A man I know lost his legs the other night. He is in another company in our batallion. I can no longer be silent after watching the sacrifices made by Iraqis and Americans everyday.Send it to a congressman if you have to. Send it to FOX news if you have to. Let this message be heard please…
My fellow Americans, I have a task for those with the courage and fortitude to take it. I have a message that needs not fall on deaf ears. A vision the blind need to see. I am not a political man nor one with great wisdom. I am just a soldier who finds himself helping rebuild a country that he helped liberate a couple years ago. I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.
Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most American’s are born into their God given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth.
Ironically you will find the biggest outcries of opposition to our cause from those who have had no military experience and haven’t had to fight for freedom. I challenge all of those who are daring enough to question such a noble cause to come here for just a month and see it first hand. I have a feeling that many voices would be silenced.
I watched Cindy Sheehan sit on the President’s lawn and say that America isn’t worth dying for. Later she corrected herself and said Iraq isn’t worth dying for. She badmouthed all that her son had fought and died for. I bet he is rolling over in his grave.
Ladies and gentleman I ask you this. What if you lived in a country that wasn’t free? What if someone told you when you could have heat, electricity, and water? What if you had no sewage systems so human waste flowed into the streets? What if someone would kill you for bad-mouthing your government? What if you weren’t allowed to watch TV, connect to the internet, or have cell phones unless under extreme censorship? What if you couldn’t put shoes on your child’s feet?
You need not to have a great understanding of the world but rather common sense to realize that it is our duty as HUMAN BEINGS to free the oppressed. If you lived that way would you not want someone to help you????
The Iraqi’s pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldier’s in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet American’s badmouth our President for having us here.
Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqi’s. Yes there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future. I have watched brave souls give their all and lose thier lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.
My fellow countrymen and women, we are not overseas for our country alone but also another. We are here to spread democracy and freedom to those who KNOW the true taste of it because they fight for it everyday. You can see the desire in their eyes and I am honored to fight alongside them as an Infantryman in the 101st Airborne.
Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know. We are in Operation Iraqi Freedom and that is our goal. It is a cause that I and thousands of others stand ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice for because, Cindy Sheehan, freedom is worth dying for, no matter what country it is! And after the world is free only then can we hope to have peace.
SGT Walter J. Rausch and 1st Platoon 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
Via:QandO
R.I.P. Steven Malcolm Anderson
Minion
of the Week
Um, was this written before Murtha's broadside? How about Scowcroft's? Wilkerson's? and on and on and on.
Look -- I don't doubt this man's integrity. However, I would urge everyone who reads this to remember that his is one voice among many in the military; and there are many, many, many military men and women (as well as there families) who are speaking out, who are thirsty for leadership on the war effort. These people want a strategy for ending the war.
And, BTW, "Victory!" is not a strategy.
Pam, this is your brain on facts, any questions?
Yours,
Wince
The Viet Nam war was starting by a lie from the Johnson administration. It was prosecuted so bady FROM THE TOP that Colin Powell invented a doctrine to avoid another disaster like that one.
Too bad no one listened to him.
Read it somewhere. It was based on polling data, so you must beleive it. Austin Bay says the intelligence we are receiving from our public intelligence agency - the media - is very low quality. One of his quotes is Jim Dunnigan who says, "the mass media view of the situation is largely fiction". Do we really want to lose this war because of another intelligence failure? One which can be accurately described as largely fiction?
In other words, why are you rejecting the improved intelligence you are getting from this soldier, and all the many others who say that our public intelligence agencies are unconsciously misleading us.
Yours,
Wince
Yours,
Wince
But no, a reasoned, well intentioned suggestion was turned into a political football and its author labeled spineless by the VPOTUS and a coward by the Wicked Witch of West Cincinnati -- after his plan was stripped naked and turned into a stunt. Sickening.
Lord knows we've been recruiting and training for long enough (couple of years now) to have some kind of indigenous security force in place by now. If there isn't, someone's ass should be royally kicked. Or are we really stuck on stupid, believing in fairy tales, being lied to, or some combination of all three? If things are going so damn good, the responsible thing to do for all concerned would be to plan, seriously plan our exit strategy.
Like Ara often admonishes, look to what they do, not what they say. What I see the administration doing is increasing, not decreasing troop levels, losing as many soldiers a day as at any time during our occupation, politicians and attorneys being assassinated [insert lawyer joke here] all but halting Saddam's trial, cutting veterans' benefits and throwing baskets of red tape at our wounded -- even billing them for medical treatments required for their injuries?!! Cheap bastards.
What's more important, setting the conditions for a real, honest to goodness turnover of Iraq to the Iraqis, or that our stand-down looks like it was Bush's plan all along, wasn't some spineless Democrat's idea, and wasn't dictated by conditions here? Forgive me for being so reality based that I'm skeptical of those who claim to make their own reality telling me that things are going great but don't act like it is or show me the progress. Progress to me means that the violence trends in the opposite direction and our presence is required less and appreciated more.
So if things are really going so well, why don't we act like it instead of just telling stories?
You can't be serious?
In other words, why are you rejecting the improved intelligence you are getting from this soldier
OK, I get it -- you've got your tongue in your cheek.
and all the many others who say that our public intelligence agencies are unconsciously misleading us.
Wince, if you know me, you know I don't hold the MSM in high regard. Where you and I part company is in our opinion of whose interests they really serve.
IMHO, they're in Karl Rove's hip pocket and have been since about 1999. They're lapdogs. If the CIA leak scandal has revealed anything, it is that reporters like Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Russert, Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, Elizabeth Bumiller, et. al. are pampered and powdered poodles who don't care about serving their readers. It's all about ratings and the bottom line.
I'll quote dissenting soldiers if I like, Wince. Guys like Murtha, Scowcroft, Wilkerson, Wes Clark, these are career military men who have another viewpoint about the big picture. The fact that they dissent should tell you that the war is not the "slam-dunk" that we keep hearing that it is. THAT'S the story.
You would accept a landslide electoral result as decisive. Well, landslide numbers of soldiers say that we are winning in Iraq.
Wince, I'd be careful of using words like "landslide" when we already know that 2,100 soldiers are dead, over 10 thousand are injured and disabled for life, we've spent nearly $300 billion and counting and countless Iraqi civilians are dead. That's a landslide too.
And for what? An Islamic Republic that is already orbiting Iran?
It's a fiasco, Wince. Wake up.
The VP never referred to him that way, nor did Schmidt call him a coward.
Oh, please. You're really straining credulity here. For crying out loud -- Schmidt apologized for what you say she didn't do!
translated to mean that I want you to only read about and listen to the voices that support my cause
Well, no. Just no. That's what this administration has done from Day One -- brooked no dissent whatsoever, saying that it's unpatriotic and does a disservice to the troops.
There is another side to that debate and the sooner we put both sides up for an honest vote, the sooner we'll see progress, one way or another, in the war effort.
This has nothing to do with the administration. This has to do with your words and your quotes.
Don't say I didn't try to warn you.
Like I said elsewhere -- the Republicans are terrified that Jack Murtha will become the face of the Democratic Party. They know if that happens they will lose and lose big.
It will be an historic re-alignment of power that only happens every decade or two.
The Democrats know this and are swiftly moving to assimilate Murtha's proposal as the party's own.
Look out, Pam -- the train is coming around the track. Can you feel the ground rumbling under your feet? Can you hear that whistle blowing?
What does Rose say about Karma?
God, even Dean would, once in a great while, occasionally acknowledge that there is a separate reality from GOP spin -- but not you.
Your awesome!
If we're doing so well, why don't our policies reflect that reality?
Which real point are we talking about this time Mark? What policies are you referring to?
I understand that you respect the dissenters. I do to. What I don't understand is why you think we are drinking Kool-Aid. Some worthwhile opinion leaders (military men) back your position - that the war is a fiasco. The vast majority of worthwhile opinion leaders (military men) back our position - that the war is not a fiasco. That's why quoting dissenters doesn't help your position - since the bulk of the evidence is against it.
In short, even if your position is correct it is not obviously correct, so stop pretending it is. That is where you are ignoring a very important intelligence source. At least Bush that good solid groupthink on his side. You don't even have that excuse.
So, I'll ask my question again. Why are you ignoring or dismissing this importart intelligence?
Yours,
Wince
Whatever looming ethics smear is headed Murtha's way is immaterial to his point: Victory is not a strategy.
P.S. This is vintage Karl Rove. He smeared Max Clelland, John McCain, John Kerry. Now, Murtha is next. Note how all of these men were war veterans who ran against the Bush White House.
No matter. History will hunt Karl Rove down and consign him to that part of hell reserved for lying crooks.
I'll make you a bet -- On Election Day, 2006, Iraq policy will more closely resemble Jack Murtha's position today than it will resemble George Bush's position today. Know why? Because it's the right position and it's what the American people want.
Make the bet?
You answer my repeated question first. Why are you ignoring the vast majority of military personnel who think they are doing a good job and want to continue doing it until they are finished? What is the criteria you are using to dismiss this useful information?
I keep pointing at the elephant in the room. Why aren't you looking at the elephant? A predilection for donkeys?
Yours,
Wince
I hear both sides loud and clear. They are both credible messengers, as well as being honorable men and women. However, I trust my gut as well. And my gut tells me that one side has it right and the other one doesn't.
Pam:
if you subsituted Murthas name on those charges with DeLay, you would not be pontificating on his guilt.
correct me if I'm wrong -- you're saying I excoriate DeLay but reserve judgement on Murtha simply because one is a Republican and the other is a Democrat? Do I understand you correctly?
If things are going so swimmingly in Iraq, then why is a strategic withdrawal not the official US policy, why shouldn't it be?
Maybe you lost what I've been talking about in the noise, or maybe you simply enjoy baiting me. If the former please respond to the issue with some kind of thought, if the latter consider this the final time I will address you or consider your comments as anything other that gotcha games by a partisan hack.
One thing I've always liked about Rose is that she has always provided a place where people of completely divergent perspectives can at least try to brainstorm solutions and not just play one-ups-manship. If I wanted to play that game I'd log onto LGF.
Also I wasn't aware that Rose had a rule where we all must agree with you. You want brainstorming as long as people go along with your opinion. If it doesn't agree with your thoughts then the persoon is dense and a hack. When a person's statements are questioned you take that as a personal attack. Too bad for you.
As for the exit strategy, the DOD is planning on decreasing the level of troops directly after the elections in December. The exit will be gradual on a month to month basis. It would not surprise me if we don't fully withdraw though. I see us setting up a base much like we have in other areas of the world.
Well, I trust Austin Bay's gut, Jim Dunnigan's gut, Donald Sensing's gut and my gut on the issue of war far more than I do yours. After all your gut has a very low pay grade. :)But your gut is very good for political manuvers.
Don't miss what Reverend Sensing has to say about WMD. But the most interesting graphs are towards the end: That sentiment, Ara, is not to be trifled with. You ignore it at our country's peril. Your lousy Democratic Party leadership just pushed a moderate and sensible man who is not by any stretch of the imagination a Republican lapdog (unlike yours truly) over the line. My lousy Republican leadership did not wake up to the fact that we have to make the case for the war over and over and over. Well, maybe they woke up.
Yours,
Wince
DOD has contingency plans for everything, I hope. That's what they're paid for. I take it that since you cite their alleged plan you are also giving withdrawal tacit approval.
If so, why criticize Murtha's "Sense of the House" resolution with it's specific time-table for a strategic, graduated step-down when you are all ready to approve any damn thing DOD wants to put on the table sight enseen? You're the one cheering the 403-3 vote on the GOP's stunt replacement resolution as some kind of victory. It's not what Murtha proposed.
You're completely logically inconsistent, tragically myopic, and politically insensitive to the evidence. When Bush and Cheney or even Rumsfeld start talking as if they asked for an exit plan from DOD, then it's US policy. Generals submitting plans are neither making policy nor making policy recommendations.
What exactly do you expect to accomplish militarily with no change in policy or forces -- either a McCain build-up or a Murtha stand-down?
Why the stunt resolution? Why the heated rhetoric from the White House? Why are permanent bases there in our interest? Funny, I don't recall Bush telling us that we needed to pour blood and treasure into Iraq because we no longer could count on Saddam to protect our oil and had to put our own bases there. That is not a reason to go to war, and it is not a reason to continue a war.
Please don't be trite and purposely twist the meaning of "strategic withdrawal plan" and label that "cutting and running" which implies irresponsible cowardice. It means having a strategy. Having a plan. Having a goal. And working towards that goal -- leaving, ending the bloodshed, ending the abuse, giving their country back to its owners to do with what they will.
We have not done that, we are not doing that, and I have no faith in the intentions of the administration towards that end. They talk a good game but that only hides their lack of action, ulterior motives and political posturing. When I see it, I'll believe it. There is no progress in Iraq for the security of our personnel or civilians, and that is inexcusable. The administration is either lying about their intentions or stupid about the goal, take your pick.
At 11:15 a.m. I responded to that. Here is the answer and nothing has changed since that time.
Again it gets back to go along with you or you resort to the name calling.
And you are correct, I am cheering the 403-3 vote. The democrats in office had the chance to vote to get out of Iraq and end this quickly. Only 3 had the courage to vote against it.
I saw nothing vague about Murtha's original proposal, as opposed to what was actually voted on. You're response on the other hand . . .
Sean Hannity likes to call it the "Murtha Amendment" but the vote you're so proud of was introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and contained only one operative phrase -- "immediate withdrawal."
Murtha's actual proposal acknowledged in preamble that without a substantial introduction of additional troops -- at a level that would probably require a draft -- a stable, secure, democratic Iraq is not probable and we have seen no progress towards such ends. It then contained three operative sentences calling for redeployment, introduction of rapid response units, and diplomacy.
Was that idea given a fair hearing. Oh no. We aren't allowed to discuss reality without being called cowards. Not on the House floor. The people's House wasn't permitted to address what the American People actually want. Not yet anyway.
I know republicans don't like to do nuance, but dems aren't stuck on stupid. I simply can't believe you are serious when you claim you don't understand why the Dems didn't jump at the chance to vote for Hunter's resolution. My God, how could any American support that.
When the GOP mischaracterizes a desire to discuss how to end our occupation as a cowardly attempt to "cut and run," why are you surprised we get outraged? You're implying we're cowardly and unpatriotic -- which is nonesence.
BTW, I wasn't name calling before, believe me. I deleted the actual name calling and left my bare bones, honest assessment. Certainly uncomplimentary, but hardly derogatory.
If you can't respond with more than trite debating points, I'm done. I can abide some intellectual dishonesty, but wilful argumentative ignorance? No. I'm not sure which was more idiotic, proposing what would amount to dessertion in the face of the enemy or expecting the Dems to vote for it. That's a childish game even junior high school debate students wouldn't suffer, and it's simply is no fun.
I'll hazard a guess that my old mayor Dennis Kucinich was one of the 3 who voted for the Hunter Resolution, and seriously -- he's a looney.
yes that is what I am saying.