Apr 30 2007
Democrats’ Blood II
The Democrats better stop playing games and get the money and material flowing to our troops. Their partisan greed has already sent signals to al Qaeda and others to ramp up the killings – which they gleefully did. But now protective vehicles are being held up ONLY because the money is not flowing
The armored carrier has a grim black slash across its side, burn marks on the door and a web of cracks along the window.
Like most of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Anbar province, this one has been hit as many as three times by enemy fire and bomb blasts. Yet, to date, no American troops have died while riding in one.
But efforts to buy thousands more carriers, each costing about $1 million (euro730,000), could be delayed if the White House and Congress do not resolve their deadlock over a $124.2 billion (euro91 billion) war spending bill.
About $3 billion (euro2.2 billion) for the vehicles is tied up in the legislation. The spending plan has stalled because of a dispute over provisions that would set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
At a hearing last month, lawmakers urged the Army to get more of the carriers to the battlefront as quickly as possible.
Got that? Last MONTH Congress told the military to get these life saving vehicles to the front was critical and this month they refused to send the funds without any conditions. This is what political desperation looks like. This is power lust. To say these systems are critically important and then in the next breathe hold them hostage is the epitome of hypocrisy. Dems claim Bush is not listening? Hell, the Dems are not listening TO THEMSELVES! Supply our troops! Save lives! Pass the damn clean Bill already!
Addendum: The hypocrisy of the Surrendercrats is stunning. Check out this statement from Dorgan (D-ND):
Senators pressed for more. “We’re buying far too few of them,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat. “If we have that capability, why would we not do everything to mobilize, to move as many of them into the field as is possible?
Why Senator? Because, you fool, you did not give Bush the funds he needed? Even when you knew a veto was imminent you took politics over lives? How many will die because of your crass partisanship?
With respect to Syria and Lebanon, you idiot, of course Damascus is in Syria and Bekaa is in Lebanon – but it wasn’t death to Americans if you weren’t a redneck hayseed with a big mouth. I crossed the borders of Lebanon in a Syrian Defense Ministry van, fool, and I never said Russian advisors were in Lebanon.
I stayed in the Sheraton too; and funny, I never saw you there!
Visited the Souk many times, and travelled the road to Latakia, counting BMP’s and BTR’s.
Frankly, you’re full of crap, if you say you were hanging out in the Bekaa in ’83 & ’84!
Nice try though…..
Hahhahahahhah…..
In 1985, the Soviets shot and killed a US Army Major who tried look at one of their Tanks; basically, you had access to nothing!
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzkwY2E4OTVhZWQ3N2FmNGU3NzgxMDY1MmMzMzAyNDg=
Haahahahahahahah, especially in ’83 – 84; you certainly were NOT travelling into the Bekaa, from Syria, in 83 – 84, and you were NOT drinking tea with Russian Military advisors!
Hahahahaha……
And yes, you clearly implied you with the Soviet advisors in the Bekaa, and when I called you on it, because it was an obvious lie, you immediately backtracked…
Hahahahahaha….
What a Leftist Buffoon….and proven liar….
Hahahahaha……
I stayed at the Damscus Sheraton and spent a lot of time in the Salsabil Lounge where the sheiks from the emirates would come to indulge in forbidden pursuits, and Walid Jumblatt would come in with his bodyguards for a tall cool one.
And yes, Walid Jumblatt, a Druze by the way, but you wouldn’t know that; did, and does hang out in Damascus.
But Emiriti Sheikhs have never hung out in Damascus!
In Cairo, in Beirut, before it blew up; but in the early – mid 80’s, they were hanging out in Bahrain, and still do till today…
Nice try though……
Hahahahaahahahahah….
Dale, you’re such a bad liar. You couldn’t even answer where you stayed in Damascus, and if you think emiriti didn’t hang out in Damascus, then you didn’t see them come in and eye the Polish all-girl string quartet while they fingered their prayer beads.
As for Jumblatt, I thought it was somewhat odd he was in Damascus, as the cognoscenti believed that it was Hafez al Assad who had whacked Jumblatt’s dad, and oddly enough, I wrote an article in ’83 that talked about the Jumblatt and the Druze. But then again, you’d have to be able to read to have seen it.
That’s funny, I just said I stayed in the Sheraton in Damascus, when I wasn’t travelling around Syria, or up to Latakia! Of course, that’s when I wasn’t in Cyprus, or Cairo, or Tunis, or Khartoum, or Muscat, or Manama, or Doha, or Sharja, or Dubai, or Abu Dhabi, or taking the ferry from Algeceris over to Ceuta, and then driving the mountain road to Tangiers….ad naseum….
Yeah, I’m sure you wrote an “article” on Jumblatt in ’83..
Hahahahaha…..
Quick, back to your Search Engine, you need to Google yourself some more “facts”, opinion, and Leftist talking points…..
Hahahahahahaha….
A good answer if you don’t know of any other places in Damascus. If you’d been there, you’d know that as you pull up in front of the hotel and step thru the sliding doors, the first thing you smell is Turkish coffee being brewed on a charcuterie right there in the lobby.
When you “stayed” at the Sheraton, were they playing the Abba videos over and over on the TV? On my first trip, Dynasty was the favorite TV show, but in ’84 I recall they started playing A-Team reruns with Mr. T . . . and yes , I DO pity the fool.
Maybe I had access to the Russian Tanks on the Syrian bases because they didn’t know what I was there for. When the Russians weren’t around, the Syrians let me climb inside the suckers, cause they thought the Russians were “fascists”.
Maybe you did. Maybe I bought you an Amstel at the bar right off the lobby, how would you know?
I took the trip to Latakia a couple of times, and stayed at the French airlines owned hotel there, where apparatchiks from Poland and Bulgaria came to vacation on the Mediterranean, and Bob and Eva, a Capt adn Tenille style band played in the supperclub. Eva played bad guitar and Bob played about 10 different keyboards, and did soft-rock 70’s music.
When you were in the souk did you check out the Temple of Jupiter or the Omayyed Mosque?
Did you make it up to Aleppo or Homs? Funny thing, in Syria the locals make fun of “people from Homs” and if you take all the Polish jokes you know and substitute “a man from Homs” you can keep the Syrians laughing for a long time.
If you were in the Sheraton, you’d know that when you walked into the lobby, that right off to the right hand side, is where they kept the Reuters, AP etc., newsfeeds, coming in all day long, and you could stand there, and read the latest news, as it came off the wires!
There was only one Sheraton in Damascus, at that time, and now they have a second, and a third one somewhere else, but I haven’t been there either.
No, I didn’t watch TV, and I didn’t watch Abba videos, and I hate Turkish coffee, and I’m proud to say, I never drank ONE CUP of the damn, thick, crappy stuff, in all my years in the Middle East.
I did drink copious amounts of too sweet Shay, everywhere, 50% shay and 50% sugar, from Tangiers to Zakho in Northern Iraq.
No, I didn’t vist the Temple of Jupiter or the Omayyad Mosque, when in Syria; I spent my little amount of free time in the Souk, shopping for inlaid furniture, and brass, which I had to ship home to the US, via the Embassy up in Turkey!
I never visted Homs nor Aleppo; but I did travel to Latakia several times, and on the way, I’d stop off in Tartus, sit in a little cafe on the Corniche, drink tea, and watch the Syrian Navy train off of Arwad Island.
I did use to sit in the extreme northwest corner of Iraq, where the borders of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq meet, and with my Kurdish friends, watch as Kurds from the Syrian side, would cross the river to meet with the Peshmerga, as the Syrian soldiers on the other side “looked the other way”..; but that was later on…not the timeframe you are talking about…
Turkish coffee being brewed on a charcuterie right there in the lobby.
If I’m not mistaken, that was on the extreme right hand side, when you walked thru the doors; or it was, when I was there…
You came thru the doors, and had to do 90 degree to get to it; and the Reuters/AP feeds, were straight ahead and a little to the right…
And the Desk/check in, were to the left, when you came in the front door..
At least that’s how I remember it, haven’t been there in over 15 years….
Beg to differ on the wireservice desk. I recall it as being beyond the main desk up against the left-hand wall. Other than that your recollections seem accurate.
My favorite Syrian guy was a Sgt. Mohammed ap Omar, who tho only a non-com was the guy who could getyou anything. He had a smuggling operation going with a cousin in Lebanon who would buy VCR’s in Lebanon, strap them on a trained donkey, and let the donkey make its way across the border. One Monday he was really upset – cause the donkey was blown up, the inventory was lost, now he would have to train a new donkey, and he had an angry general who had backordered a deluxe VHS machine.
I recall it as being beyond the main desk up against the left-hand wall.
They may have moved it; I remember if from a quick trip I made in the fall of 1990 to Damascus, very well, because I had gone out to dinner the night before, came back to the hotel, slept late, had to get up the street to the AmEmb for a meeting with the DAO in the morning, ran downstairs, took a quick read of the AP, and a British business man said to me, “…what do you think of the war..?
I said “..what war…?”
and he said “…doesn’t matter, it’s over anyhow, it started at 6am this morning, and was over by 9am…”
I just looked at him as said, what are you talking about, and he said “the Iraqis took over Kuwait..”
I ran out of the Lobby, grabbed a taxi, and went up the street to the Emb; the DAO and all of them were saying….”this isn’t a big deal, we’re ignoring it, who cares..”
And I said, Sir, we’re going to go to war, over this; and they laughed at me!
I cancelled the rest of my trip, and booked a flight out the next day.
I went down to the Souk that afternoon, to grab a few more things, and I was in a shop buying some inlaid wood, and a Palestinian who had a shop nearby, was drunk off of beer, guessed I was an American, and came into the shop and started screaming at me, because he had just heard on the news that President Bush Sr had ordered a US Aircraft carrier over to the Arabian Gulf.
He was mad as hell, and was telling me it was none of our business, and to stay out of it.
Finally, I looked at the shop owner, and said “I’m your guest, and am trying to conduct business, and you’re letting this guy come into Your shop, and attack me, what kind of hospitality is that…???”
He got embarrased, and dressed the Palestinian down severely in Arabic, and ordered him out of the shop!
(Good tactic to use by the way, if you’re in the Arab world, and get in trouble, find someone in “charge”, and embarrass them by playing upon their belief in their hospitality! WARNING: doesn’t work with Jihadis, they just cut your head off….).
Anyway, I left Damascus the next day, flew back to Southern Spain, and haven’t been back since!
Kaboom, Dale! Took the sorosite out. It’s so fun to watch those who hate America go down.
SS:
Your either bad luck or good at your job, two trips and two places blow up.
Soothsayer:
you’ve kept it very well hidden, but based upon your time in Syria, you are, or were, a Journalist, aren’t you?
I wrote a couple of feature articles about my experiences there, but my job there, and what gave me extraordinary privileges in-country, was as a technical consultant to an intelligence community related company.
I know a couple of them; but I will not guess over an open forum. I’ll leave it at that.
Maybe you could get a gig with Pelosi and Murtha.
DC:
Intelligence was the key word in that statement, why would Murtha and Pelosi be interested in intelligence?
So they could help Syria and/or Iran.