I was actually wondering about this from when I first heard of the protests. I had been thinking that whoever organized this really didn't care about their own supporters because they were willing to let them live in squalor in a misguided attempt to get their (incoherent) message out. This email shows that their planning was simply very bad. Their organizers are amateurs.

I seem to recall several Democratic Congress members advocating nationalizing the US Oil industry as a response to the New Horizon oil spill. This is taking private assets and putting them into public hands. Sounds like the textbook definition of Communism to me. Just because it never got beyond talking doesn't mean there wasn't support for it. I could probably find other examples with a few minutes on Google. I do not think every Democrat is a communist. But I do think that many members lean far enough to the left that they no longer have an accurate sense where the political center of the country is.

If you want to see a good movie this will probably be one. If your idea of "doing justice to the story" is historical accuracy then you will probably be sorely disappointed.

Braveheart: Good Movie, poor accuracy. If you got your history from the movie then you wouldn't know that Stirling Bridge was a major factor in the Battle of Stirling Bridge or that William Wallace actually lost the Battle of Falkirk.

At this point Mel Gibson is the best argument against the conspiracy theory that Jews run Hollywood.

I agree with Mr. Yon that the quality of our uniforms need to improve. We went through the same thing with the ACUs when they came out. That being said, there is a mechanism in place to get these soldiers replacements for damaged uniform parts. The acronym for it is ADO but I don't know what it stands for. It is administered through Company supply and delivered by the US Postal Service. It's even set up so it can be ordered by the individual Soldier so if it doesn't fit they have nobody but themselves to blame. For once we probably shouldn't blame the brass or Congress. This is a unit supply issue. Whoever these guys First Sergeant is he needs to kick his supply people in their third point of contact and tell them to get his troops the uniforms they need.

Different command climate I suppose. Yours may be more tolerant. My CSM would hang me by my balls and eat my soul. And politically correct is not the way I would describe him.

Ok, second try

Be glad to. Why don't we just call them sand ni**ers then? Does that cross any lines for you? I honestly don't give a rats a$$ what the terrorists or, more often, bandits think about what we call them. The problem is these terms wind up getting used for EVERYBODY over here, both friendlies and enemy. And there is no consistent way to tell the difference except through interaction and intel. This isn't WWII. The Germans and Japanese wore uniforms to distinguish combatants from non-combatants. If the Taliban are wearing uniforms nobody has noticed. Call a friendly a raghead and he's probably not going to be a friendly anymore. What's more, when you leave his village he's going to talk to his buddies and tell them what you said. Anything good you said will be treated with skepticism. Anything insulting will go out like a bull horn. Further, using these terms allows our soldiers to disrespect the enemy. Believe it or not, this is a bad thing. This disrespect leads to underestimating the enemy which leads to flag draped caskets at Dover. We do our best to keep our Soldiers alive. Keeping them in the proper mind set with the knowledge the enemy is ignorant, not stupid helps with that.

While the Russians didn't carpet bomb this place (why bother? trust me) they did a lot of the equivalent on the ground. They really did wipe out whole villages just to make a point. They left 10 years later having been whipped like a rented mule. Unlike them, we have been here 10 years and, while tired, still have a lot of fight in us. And, unlike the administration, we ain't looking for a draw.

He's not talking about health insurance, food stamps or welfare here. He's talking about building roads. And bringing electricity. This is the baseline of an economy. If the roads are crap (they are) then the free movement of goods are curtailed. That is why we are building roads.

Perhaps if Diana had actually attended the trial, she might have a different perspective.

Why didn't she attend the trial? Probably because nobody heard of this case until sentencing. The first I heard of it was when we got another briefing on Force Escalation here last week. This is the first time I heard about a body in a latrine. Where are you getting your information?

Rebas, please don't call them ragheads. Those of us over here fighting them generally don't call them that. You do not help your case by doing so.

I hope the defense attorney plans to appeal this. Even if what the defense attorney said was exaggerated something doesn't smell right. How did this kind of witness tampering get into the trial?

I really am getting tired of so many in the media repeating that Timothy McVeigh was a Christian when he clearly stated he was an Atheist.