Posse Incitatus

The Guard to the rescue

Michigan is sending National Guard troops to help restore order in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  The Posse has learned that one of our friends (and frequent commenters) has been called up and will be heading to parts south early tomorrow.

Our prayers go with him and all of the troops trying to bring order out of the chaos down there.  He has promised to provide us with on-the-spot reporting whenever feasible.

If nothing else, we look forward to compiling his account when he returns.

Mudville Gazette has compiled a more extensive list of military involvment in disaster assistance.  As Mark Steyn noted months ago:  When lives are on the line, the US military is ready to answer the call. 

Hurricane relief

Inspired by the hated Instapundit, the Posse has endorsed Catholic Charities for Hurricane Katrina relief.

We would also posit that a few Hail Marys can't hurt, either.

About that Kimber

The Posse hasn't posted much about guns of late because we've been too busy to shoot.  However, that should change soon.

Reader Tim Tran asks:

Please Help! I need comment on New Kimber Desert Warrior.. good/bad ???
Thank you

The Posse hasn't evaluated this particular handgun, so we regret we aren't able to offer the first-hand expertise you request.

However we can say that Kimbers have an oustanding reputation.  We know several veteran shooters, all of whom swear by their Kimbers.  We've fired Kimbers recreationally on a few occasions and they are excellent machines.  If one is a big fan of 1911 models, they are the top of the line by all accounts.

The description we usually get is that for precision, match-grade shooting one can buy a good pistol and have it tuned by a gunsmith or just save time and buy a Kimber.  They are supposed to be superb to shoot "out of the box."

One suggestion we offer is that one forgo purchasing one as a first handgun if only because beginning guns tend to take quite a bit of punishment.  Furthermore, as one learns more about firearms, waiting until one gets the top of the line allows one to appreciate it that much more.

Invented casualties of war

Mudville Gazette nails it:

There are two types of Iraq war veterans that have a tremendous appeal to the anti-war crowd - the fictional and the dead. Both types have a common, irresistible trait - others can claim to speak on their behalf.

Indeed.  The sad, fake tale of "Kodee Kennings" is yet another exhibit on the ongoing anti-war effort to create fake casualties of war.

We can now add this to the list of frauds, fakes and liars that populate the anti-war movement.

One of the interesting things about these hoaxes is the ease with which they are discovered.  Often only the most cursory research (as happened in this case) exposes the truth.

Some bloggers have commented on the fact that it took two years for the paper to even verify if "Dan Kennings" was in the military - something the Chicago Tribune did as a first step to even looking at the story.

Perhaps those with a psychological background can explain why it is that these lies grow so big so quickly and yet are so simple to expose if only one looks closely. 

Indeed, there are often hidden clues that give the story away.  The name used may have some other significance (perhaps a relative or friend,) but if one looks up the word "kenning" one finds:

A figurative, usually compound expression used in place of a name or noun, especially in Old English and Old Norse poetry; for example, storm of swords is a kenning for battle.

The family were indeed, "kennings," a metaphor for the anti-war movement.  Just as a battle is not literally a "storm made of swords," so the Kennings were not literally casualties of war.

To the anti-war movment, such fictions are commonplace and justify their "higher goal" of ending BusHitler's Oil War.

But to the rest of us, they are nothing more than a lie spread by those without the courage to fully embrace the treason they hold in their hearts.

Scavengers

While many in the anti-war movement claim to be paragons of courage and virtue, their actions show otherwise.

Blackfive draws attention to behavior that is utterly reprehensible, and shows the truly cowardly nature of these jackals.

Apparently protesters from Code Pink have taken to camping out in front of Walter Reed Army Hospital and taunting the soldiers recovering from their wounds.

Signs include the ever-supportive "You got maimed for a lie" - not exactly the best way to demonstrate one's support for the troops.

This confirms the Posse's belief that these people are nothing more than scavengers, feeding off of the dead and infirm.  Faced with a healthy adversary, they skulk away or meekly submit. 

But when faced with the crippled or injured, they are suddenly fierce and cruel.

They are beneath contempt and their own traitorous and cowardly actions will come back to haunt them.

The demon SUV

The blogosphere is hopping with comments about the purported evils of sport-utility vehicles.  Defeatist Andrew Sullivan has now added full-bore socialist to his title, since he thinks massive, heavy-handed government intervetion is necessary to tell people how to live.

All for their own good, of course.

The irony of this debate is that it utterly misses the point (save for exposing the closet state-interventionists).

Fuel consumption isn't limited to SUVs.  They are certainly more fuel efficient than the cars of yesteryear and their exhaust is much cleaner.

And, as anyone with a decent-sized family knows, they are the only viable way to transport large numbers of people.

Due to its growing size, the Posse will probably purchase a larger vehicle as soon as finances permit.  While we enjoy the fuel economy of our sedan, it's simply too small.  Car seats notwithstanding, once one has two or more children, a five-seat vehicle is utterly impractical.

What Sullivan and company want is a tax on large families.  By imposing higher gas taxes, mandating expensive new fuel standards, they favor making it more difficult for those of us with children to move them about.

It should come as no surprise that anti-traditional family enthusiasts such as Sullivan favor this approach.

Of course, unintended consequences will still flow form yet another bout of massive state overreach.  Just as CAFE killed the station wagon, punitive standards against new, clean-burning SUVs will force more mid-to low-income familes to drive old, higher-polluting vehicles.

Faced with a steep price tag for a new, clean-burning SUV, rational consumers will simply opt to patch up the transmission on their 10- or 15-year old van.

They will rely on mechanics and their own family skills to keep the thing running by disabling pollution control equipment and so forth.

We see these jalopies everywhere.  Ironically many of the foulest, most polluting cars out there are beaten-up Volvos with their rusty bodies covered with liberal bumper stickers.  Oil leaks freely, the muffler has long since fallen off, but still the self-righteous driver tools around certain that this rolling hazmet site is somehow better than the brand-new SUV rolling off the lot.

This trend is already underway, which is why more jurisdictions are demanding emission testing.  Again, this only punishes the poorer classes of society, but when have elites ever really cared about them?

Before launching on a crusade against the latest offerings by GM, perhaps these smug interventionists would like to ask themselves if the SUV they which to abolish has anything like the emissions or fuel-efficiency of the oil-burning, fluid-leaking used models that are the only alternative for those of modest means.

Yet another take on chicken hawks

Captain Ed points to another tired ressurection of the chicken hawk smear - based as usual on flimsy to non-existent evidence.

What caught our attention was a trackback to this site, which attempts to refute the good captain.

We'll look at the core assertion and see where it goes.

The point of the chickenhawk smears is not that civilians shouldn't be in control of the military. Nor is the point that wealthier, Republican voters are less receptive to sending their kids to Iraq. So, really, Ed misses the point twice. Let me clear it up for him:

The point is that very few families--of any income level--want their kids serving in Iraq.

What is interesting here is the lack of proof.  For example, the military is less short of recruits now than it was in the later Clinton administration.

Was Iraq a factor back then?

Soldiering is, taken as a whole, a rather small percentage of the overall work force.  Millions of workers aren't in the military for a variety of reasons.

Many are tempermentally unsuited for active or even reserve duty.  Still others are physically unfit.

The problem with the chicken hawk smear is that it tries to label these career choices as cowardly or virtuous when the question is largely irrelevant.

The term "chicken hawk" is used perjoratively to stop debate.  It is an insult designed to avoid discussions of fact.

That is its entire purpose.

We have demonstrated repeatedly that logically it doesn't work.  The attempt by this poster to refine it therefore also fails.  Let us review the core assertion.

The point is that very few families--of any income level--want their kids serving in Iraq.

Could not the same be said of policemen and firemen?  In terms of population, relatively few people participate in these trades. 

Indeed, we're pretty certain that police and firefighters tend to be drawn not from the elite universities, either.  We know quite a few college professors and their children and we don't know a single one that chose law enforcement or emergency services as a career. 

Essentially, the problem is that every occupation has its ups and downs and the fact that someone chooses for example not to be a garbage man doesn't mean they are incapable of commenting on the status of refuse removal or that they can't truly wish to see trash properly disposed of.

This is where the logic of the chicken hawk argument leads:  to exclusion.

It it immaterial whether rich Republicans join the military at high rates becasue everyone has a stake in national defense.

What makes this particular variation on the argument even more specious is the esteem in which military members are generally held by Republicans.

The Posse has known more than a few "country club" Republicans who were inordinately proud of their children being in the service.  We have yet to meet a liberal college professor who shared the same enthusiasm.

Finally, there is the problem of reality.  Despite the spin, it is a fact that soldiers tend to be Republican.  The military votes in a rather lop-sided fashion for Republicans. 

It is not clear that this is because Republicans tend to enlist or that enlistments tend to turn people Republican.

What is clear is that for most serving military members and veterans, the chicken hawk smear itself is meaningless.  It is chiefly used by frauds, fakes and liars to stop a debate they don't want to have.

This pathetic attempt to explain it only underlines its incredible weakness as a logical position.

For that, at least, we can be grateful.

The left finds its new Soviet Union

The Belmont Club has remarked that the anti-war left will eventually be absorbed by the radical Islam it currently flirts with.

The Posse has found yet another example of this phenomenon, where Soviet sympathizers have found new friends in radical Islam.

Our exhibit is one Gwynne Dyer, who has given up preaching the virtues of coexistance with the Soviet Union and now supports a terrorist victory in Iraq.

Of course Dyer doesn't think the terrorist should win on the merits of their cause, indeed he is careful to couch himself as an internationalist and argues that an American defeat in Iraq is essential to bring about a "lawful international order" - run of course by that noted sink of corruption the United Nations.

Dyer's credentials as a leading theorist on war took a serious blow when Best of the Web Today exposed him as the "World's Laziest Columnist."

And faced with London's terrorist attacks, Dyer's response was to try to downplay them. 

The question remains, though: is Dyer really the objective military scholar who simply sees further and deeper than the idiot neocons or is he a morally blind defeatist whose simply decided that radical Islam is the new ally of convenience?

Thanks to the miracle of Google, the Posse has determined that not only was Dyer wrong about how the Cold War would end, he was on the wrong side of it.

Here's an interview from 1989 - when the Soviet Union was in its death throes - and Dyer is urging Canadian withdrawal from NATO.

The howlers in this interview pretty much come non-stop.  Here's a taste:

The beauty of SDI is that as a technological construct it is so implausible, it will probably fall of its own weight. It isn’t going to work, and eventually the Americans, being a people who like technology that works, will probably bite the bullet on SDI because it won’t even stop ballistic missiles. There is no way it can. There is never going to be a time when the cost of adding more missiles is greater than the cost of coping with more missiles through further refinements of SDI. Missiles aren’t expensive. Even if you believe they can get computers with ten-million line programs that will work right first time and all the other nonsense about the technological fantasies necessary to create any kind of SDI defence, the cost/benefit ratio between more Soviet missiles and more SDI technology is always going to favour the Soviets. That is a given of this and the next century’s technology. in the end Americans are sufficiently rational not to pour their entire national wealth down that particular rat hole, I think.[Emphasis added]

Dyer is chock full of spectacularly incorrect predictions:

In suggesting that Canada leave the alliance system, it is not with the hope that we go isolationist and somehow ride out a disaster. Instead, Canadian neutrality is an achievement that might prevent the system from going over the edge, that might begin to move the international system away from the focus on alliances, bi-polar confrontation, and all of that which is going to deliver us to the holocaust. [Emphasis added]

We haven't read Dyer's book, so we aren't sure how he deals with the resulting surge in terrorist attacks after Al Qaeda consolidates its grip on Iraq.

Perhaps, like the London bombings, they'll be just a "blip" in mortality rates to Dyer.

There are many paths to defeatism.  Dyer has trodden at least two.

Keeping busy

Posting will be light for the next few days, if it even happens at all.  Too much stuff to do around the ranch.

Next week the Posse hopes to do a range report and make some much-needed firearms-realted posts.

More ghoulish anti-war behavior

And so now it has come to this.  Desperate to find some traction, the anti-war movement feasts yet on the remains of a fallen warrior, sating their appetite for defeat with the grief of a mourning mother.

What words can the Posse use to express our complete and utter contempt for these creatures?  What language can we call upon that we have not already used to describe the callousness, the  opportunism, the blinding thirst for power that drives these allegedy compassionate people to destroy a family for the sake of scoring political points.

Iraq the Model has the best reply - answering the questions of why Casey Sheehan fell and what his sacrifice - and the sacrifices of thousands of brave men and women - has accomplished.

A cursory glance at the news reveals that her son is now nothing more than a footnote, something to be entered into the third of fourth paragraph.

He is a prop, a hook for a story about Chimpy BusHitler's callous reign of terror.

His life, his honorable decision to enlist and his ultimate sacrifice for freedom has been cheapened.

Whenever his name is mentioned, none will think of him as a good man, a loving man who dreamed, loved and was loved.  No, he will be "That dead guy whose mom is sticking it to the President."

One of the goals of the anti-war movement is to denigrate all things military.  Of late, this has been difficult because military members and their families are willing to fight back.  Men like LT Smash engage the protestors head-on and challenge their smears.  Witness how quickly these paragons of non-violent moral courage scatter when confronted with true bravery.

One of the Posse's purposes is to expose the anti-American hatred and defeatism at the core of the left.

We also document their cowardice - for what is more cowardly than picking on those who have no means to reply?

But in this case, we shall avoid adding more attention to the media circus.  We do this because every word of condemnation is music to the anti-war movement's ears and because each new act in this sad drama denigrates the sacrifice of Casey Sheehan a little more.