WHEN
THE PHONE RINGS AT 3 AM
PART 1 of 2
By Jon Christian Ryter
April 16, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
Army 4-star Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American troops in Iraq and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker were called to testify before the House and Senate Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. That is expected, and mandated by the Constitution because in our republican form of government, the people rule, and government is answerable to the people (an oxymoron today). Bet that makes you sleep better at night. It would if politicians had not destroyed the Republic in 1913 with the ratification of the 17th Amendment that removed the States from the equation of governance. (But that's a bug-up-my-butt for another day.) Today I'm ticked off about American citizens who see nothing wrong with letting their elected "officials" use four-star generals as political puppets in their made for TV political war games on the campaign trail in order to get a foot up in the polls. It's reprehensible.
Granted, the appropriate House and Senate committees—the Armed Services Committee and the Select Intelligence Committees—have an obligation to oversee what the military does. Two of the current three stooges: Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain are on the Armed Services Committee, so their politicking by interrogating Gen. Petraeus at least had a semblance of propiety. McCain is, in fact, the ranking Republican on that committee. Sen. Barack Hussein Obama, on the other hand, is not on either committee. He's on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is why that committee stuck its nose into business over which it has no jurisdiction. The Democratically-controlled Congress wanted to create the illusion that presidential candidate Obama is presidential. I'm sure the Arab state press corps were taking notes for Al Jazeera when Obama dazzled the media with his antiwar rhetoric. I wasn't impressed. Obama sounded like a little boy demanding a second dip of ice cream after being told he could only have one. Clearly, the shoes of the president don't fit this man—and, they never will.
How many people asked themselves why this committee was interrogating Petraeus? It would have been appropriate for the Foreign Relations Committee to call US Ambassador Ryan Crocker since he is in the diplomatic service and then, perhaps, they would be justified in calling Petraeus to support or refute Crocker's testimony. But calling Petraeus to testify before the Foreign Relations Committee was pure grandstanding for the benefit of the junior Senator from Illinois. Since none of the three stooges are on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, which would have been the appropriate venue for a hearing, it would have been a wasted photo op making it clear to everyone that the only purpose for the hearings was to make Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama look like something they are not?presidential.
The only Democrat on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee up for re-election this November is the Committee Chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV [D-WV], who has formally endorsed Barack Obama for his party's presidential nomination. Rockfeller does not need to pander in front of the TV cameras since he virtually owns his Senate seat even though he's running for re-election this November. Rockefeller—one of the most credible politicians in the world because of his family name and wealth—endorsed Obama, saying, "The indisputable fact is Barack Obama was right about Iraq when many of us were wrong. It was a tough call and the single greatest national security question, and mistake, of our time. Today, we remain a country at war, and countless mistakes over the last six and a half years have made us less safe. The stakes have never been higher, and that is why we must take a stand...As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am all too aware that the threats we face are unconventiional. They are sophisticated. They are constantly changing and adapting. And they are very serious. What matters most in the Oval Office is sound judgment and decisive action. It's about getting it right on crucial national security questions the first time—and every time." That's politicalspeak for not rocking the boat in the vast sea of oil the Muslim world controls in a troubled world. Obama won't rock the boat. He is more likely to help the Muslim world paddle.
Rockefeller, like Hillary Clinton, supported the Iraqi invasion because Rockefeller, like Clinton, saw what the House and Senate believed was conclusive evidence that Iraq possessed non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction and was working on, and/or possessed, guided missiles that could deliver chemical, biological and/or radiological warheads beyond the 600 mile range they were allowed to possess by UN decree. In fact, it was the evidence presented by the Bush-43 Administration to the House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees that mysteriously made its way to France and Germany, and from Paris and Berlin to Baghdad. When Rangers and Specials Forces troopers secured the locations where chemical, biological and/or radiological weapons had previously been stored, every building was empty and every buried weapons cache had been moved. And even though biological and chemical weapons did exist, that the Iraqi regime was connected to al Qaeda, and that Iraqi money was financing their activity, and that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups were training on Iraqi soil was revealed in the 60-plus thousand pages of recently translated Iraqi and Afghani documents captured by the US military since 2002, the Democrats have used far left media fodder suggesting there were no weapons of mass destruction and that there were no ties between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda or any other Islamic extremist groups that vowed to kill Americans.
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Congress—particularly since it is now controlled by the antiwar far left—feels an extra sense off obligation to put their 4-star generals before the glaring lights of satellite TV where they can chastise and belittle them for the amusement of our enemies. The "warfare" the far left wants to expose in front of the TV cameras is not the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the political war fought in the "blue" states where former First Lady and junior US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton [D-NY] are engaged in ferocious hand-to-hand combat with her own Muslim threat, junior US Senator Barack Hussein Obama [D-NY], who pretended he was not a Muslim as he took up pew space in Jeremiah Wright's black separatist church for the past 20 years. Hillary, who according to former FBI agent Gary Aldrich in his best-selling 90's book, Unlimited Access [Regnery © 1996], decorated the family Christmas tree in the White House living quarters in 1994 with colorful condoms and sex toys (pgs. 106-107), also pretends to be a Christian while she publicly conceals her contempt for anything or anyone remotely resembling a Christian.
McCain? He's 72 and glad to be alive. With his explosive temper, he's a prime candidate for a heart attack or a stroke. But, with 26 years of congressional experience McCain lords it over the inept Jack and Jill who like to pretend they're something they aren't up on the Hill—national security-experienced.
In Hillary's mind, being First Lady and lurking around the corridor outside the Oval Office when the real politicians were discussing national security issues, qualifies her make to make lightning quick decisions when the national security phone rings at 3 a.m. Her only White House experience in answering the phone at 3 a.m. was to pass the phone to her president husband, saying: "It's for you, Bill." I suspect her next remark would have been: "Tell your girlfriends to stop calling at 3 a.m." On the campaign trail, Hillary claims she has 35 years of political experience. Before marrying Arkansas' Attorney General Bill Clinton, Hillary served a brief stint as a congressional lawyer during the Watergate hearings in 1973. She moved to Arkansas in 1974 and married Clinton the following year. Her 35 years of political experience consisted of one year as a Watergate lawyer, then as the wife of Arkansas' attorney general and governor and finally as the First Lady. Apparently second hand political experience works for Hillary.
Obama, with less than two years experience in government at the federal level, is barely qualified to handle the job he has. He is, quite frankly, not qualified to answer the national security phone at 3 a.m. The only candidate in the presidential fray this year who is less qualified to lead the nation than Obama was former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani who dropped out of the race when it became apparent that most Americans realized that mayors—even mayors of Ameerica's largest cities—simply don't have the experience or know-how to lead a nation
Watching Obama and Clinton grill Petraeus on Tuesday, April 8 was a chilling heads-up that neither Clinton nor Obama should be anywhere near that phone ringing at 3 a.m. In response to Patraeus who would not commit to a time table to remove troops from Iraq, Clinton said: "It might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and again at such tremendous cost to our national security." Clinton, who is every bit as much an antiwar socialist as Barack Obama, called for an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.
The Clintons pretended to be pro-military by sending troops to Somalia in 1993. But they were personally responsible for the October massacre in Mogadishu when Muslim extremists brought down two MH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, leading to what became known as the Day of the Rangers on October 3-4. Eighteen US soldiers were killed and 73 were wounded. Habr Gidr rebels dragged the corpses of American soldiers through the streets as they declared victory over US forces. The Muslim extremists suffered 700 dead and over 1,000 wounded. Between 300 to 1,000 Somalian civilians died during the battle. Had the US troop level in Mogadishu been of sufficient strength, and had they been adequately armed, the Battle for Mogadishu would never have happened. US troops were armed only with sidearms against Muslim extremists with AK-47s because the Clintons didn't think it looked right for the Rangers to be heavily armed since they were ostensibly peacekeepers. The Clintons, like the rest of the antiwar doves, appear never to be happy unless American troops are being killed by the enemies of this nation. To the far left, the best wars are those America loses. America's loss in Vietnam was their biggest victory.
Obama, the current Democratic front runner—and the most outspoken dove in the Senatee—was not alone in asking Patraeus to commit to a timeline when, and under what conditions, he would recommend further troop reductions in Iraq. It was a dialogue that should never have taken place in an open Senate hearing. Particularly just for the sake of partisan politicking, which is why the hearing took place. Sadly our elected officials feel they have a right to pander national security issues (that should only be discussed in closed door sessions of Congress) in the public arena. That they would do so without considering the potential consequences is mind-boggling. Our enemies watch TV, too. When the far left attacks the military and demands arbitrary reductions in military strength, or our complete withdrawal from the fields of battle, they are instructing our enemies what they need to do to prevail against us. For part two click below.
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� 2008 Jon C. Ryter - All Rights Reserved
[Read "Whatever Happened to America?"]
