Mission Accomplished

On or about 2200 hours EST 29 December 2006, Iraqi courts carried out sentence and executed Saddam Hussein and two conspirators. Mission accomplished. Unreported by the mainstream media, the military objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom consisted of:

• First, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein.
• Second, to identify, isolate and eliminate, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
• Third, to search for, to capture and to drive out terrorists from the country.
• Fourth, to collect intelligence related to terrorist networks.
• Fifth, to collect such intelligence as is related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction.
• Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian support to the displaced and to many needed citizens.
• Seventh, to secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people.
• Eighth, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government

Despite a massive propaganda campaign to the contrary by the media both here and in Iraq, judging from the stated goals above, it looks like we're not only winning, but we have all but won. And contrary to the Iraq Study [Surrender] Group's published reports, newly declassified documentary evidence indicates that Iraq and Hussein had links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban prior to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centers.

The United States did the right thing by removing Saddam Hussein, freeing millions of Iraqi people, and initiating a program to instill democracy in the middle east. We're the good guys, and if the 110th congress doesn't arbitrarily surrender to the secular terrorists, we will win this conflict.

Lunar Base? It's About Time!

Supporting President Bush's 2004 call for an off-world manned base, NASA plans to develop a permanent manned Lunar Base by 2020, probably at the moon's poles. One promising location is the Shackleton Crater at the south pole, which, in addition to having an area that is almost permanently sunlit, it is adjacent to a permanently dark area that might yield water ice. A permanently manned base would serve as a staging and operations for sorties on the lunar surface, as well as a launching area for manned missions to Mars. And it's about time!

The last humans to walk on the lunar surface, Astronauts Cernan and Schmitt, were members of the Apollo 17 mission. Why has it taken 34 years to return to Earth's closest neighbor? If the proposed lunar base is established and manned by 2020, it will be nearly a half-century since our return. Why so long? Perhaps, in part, because Apollo missions 12 and 14 photographed strange ruins and artifacts on the surface. Yet NASA has steadfastly denied their existence. Maybe NASA has only now decoded the meaning - if not the origin - of the unusal and otherworldy remains that only a dozen men have ever seen. And maybe now finds it necessary to continue the exploration.

Life on Mars? You bet!

In 1999, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) photographed gullies carved into the sides of Martian slopes. After in-depth studies, scientists believe the gullies were caused by flowing liquid water.

In images sent back by the Surveyor, one gully on a crater wall that was imaged in 2001 was found to have filled with light-coloured material when it was re-imaged in 2005. A similar new light-coloured deposit appears in a 2004 image of crater gullies previously imaged in 1999. The researchers suggest the deposits were made by liquid water flowing out from beneath the surface. The researchers estimate that each flow would have involved 5 to 10 swimming pools' worth of water. The evidence indicates that in the last five years, liquid water is flowing from underground to the Martian surface, and where's there's water, there's most probably life.

Couple this finding with the discovery of crinoids and other fossilized lifeforms, and evidence of life on Mars is strongly indicated. While NASA keeps much of the information coming back from Martian probes very close to its proverbial vest, we do know that the MGS suddenly went silent, and hasn't been heard from since November 5th, 2006. In an unusually open gesture, NASA asked the European Space Agency to help look for the missing orbiting spacecraft.

NASA re-programmed its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to try to take pictures of MGS on November 17th and again on the 20th. But the images did not reveal the spacecraft, perhaps because MGS had shifted in its orbit since last contact. Mission members say MGS may already be dead, and if so, it will continue orbiting Mars for decades to come. But its orbit is expected to decay with time, causing it to plunge into Mars’s atmosphere after about 40 years. If MGS is still aloft, surely MRO will spot it. If not, it should find the wreckage on the Martian surface. If neither of these instances occur, one can only wonder how a orbiting space craft can just simply disappear.

GWOT SitRep

Not convinced that radical Islam is a world threat? The Global War on Terror (GWOT) continues. Consider:

• Thailand: Islamofascists burn schools in south Thailand, where most teachers are Buddhists.
• United States: Two border patrol agents face up to a dozen years in prison for attempting to stop illegal alien smugglers. One bad guy was shot in the gluteus maximus, fled back to Mexico and subsequently sued USBP for $5 million. Three jurors attested through sworn affidavits that they had been coerced to issue guilty verdicts. The GWOT goes space based, as the US interrupts Islamofascists' GPS, jamming their navigation, radar and money transfers.
• Cuba: Fidel Castro is reported to be at death's door. Back door diplomacy through the Swiss Embassy in Washington may yield a "normalization" of relations with the communist and terrorist-supporting nation. The White House has indicated it will not recognize a government under Raoul Castro, the dying dictator's brother.
• United Kingdom: Al Quaeda seeks nuclear technology to attack UK. Foiled airline plot was designed to down 10 airliners over major American cities, rather than over the Atlantic, as first believed. ABC news reported that the 11 indicted terrorists raised money by selling items on eBay. Civilian deaths in Iraq has been "grossly overestimated" by some half million.
• Germany: Priest protests spread of radical Islam by immolating himself at the Augustine monastery, where Martin Luther spent years as a monk.
• France: With a high population of Muslims, France reports an average of 15 attacks on law enforcement officials by Islamofascist terrorists per day.
• Algeria: Tribesmen from Mali and Niger repel attacks by Islamofascists.
• Nigeria: Sadistic Islamofascists demand parents refuse free polio vaccines for children.
• Ethiopia: President Meles Zenawi says country officially at war with Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a group of Somali Islamofascists.
• Somalia: Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) found to be supported by Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Islamofascist countries.
• Russia: Nato warns Russia that its proposed oil cartel alliance with Iran, China and other OPEC countries will sway balance of power.
• Lebanon: Unintended consequences arises from Lebanon-Israeli war outcome as Islamofascist Hezbollah demands more seats in Lebanese cabinet in order to gain veto power and ultimate control of the Lebanese government.
• Iraq: 14,000 US supplied small arms weapons have gone missing. DOD supplied rifles, pistols, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers to Iraqi security forces.
• Afghanistan: Taliban chief Mullah Omar on the run in Pakistan, according to Karzai government. Nato troops kill 1,000 Taliban terrorists in September. Afghani drug loads hire European mercenaries to provide military training to the drug cabals.

Never Forget, Again

" . . . December 7th, 1941, a date that will live in infamy." So spoke President Franklin D. Roosevelt, referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 65 years ago today. In just one hour, some 2,403 Americans died in that early morning bombing, 188 planes were destroyed, and 8 battleships sunk, destroyed or crippled. The Amercian Pacific Fleet was nearly wiped out. In the ceremonies that will take place today in Hawaii, 650 survivors and their families will remember the morning of December 7th, those who died, and perhaps will issue a call to this generation, to wake up and resist yet another enemy who has attacked us.

On September 11th, 2001, another sneak attack occurred on US soil. Four commercial airliners were hijacked by Islamic radicals and flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 innocent and unsuspecting Americans lost their lives in this early morning coordinated terrorist act.

The parallels of events leading up to World War II and the present conflicts against terrorism (i.e. Islamic radicalism) are too obvious to ignore. We have our appeasers and castrati now as we did then, calling for "talks" with the enemy. In 1939 Chamberlain returned to Britain with the report that " . . . we can do business with Hitler," despite the fact that eastern Europe was already under siege from the Third Reich.

Today, as we learn of the ISG's recommendations, we can see the enemy is already interpreting this as a sign of weakness on our part, which they most certainly will exploit. We can expect more violence, not less; more demands for land and concessions, not fewer; and more death for infidels as the Islamists have no notion of compromise.

Have we lost the will to respond to our enemy, and to prevail against him with will and resolve, as we did 65 years ago? With the release of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, better named the Iraq Surrender Group, it would seem that we have indeed lost our will to prevail. What we must do is recognize who our enemy is, and how he intends to harm us. No matter how politically incorrect that may be to acknowledge, our sworn enemy is radical Islam, and we must take the fight to him, and destroy him completely. Given the chance, he will certainly do so to us.

Lose An Election? Sue!

There's still one contested election from the midterm, and that's the Florida Congressional District 13 seat. This district covers a Republican-heavy area of Gulfcoast Florida south of Tampa Bay that includes Bradenton, Sarasota, and Venice.

The Republican candidate, Vern Buchanan, won the election by the narrowest of margins, less than 1%. By state law a mandatory recount is required, making the challenger's suit unnecessary. After the recount Buchanan won again, with a slightly higher margin. But that didn't satisfy Democrat Christine Jennings, who now has added the manufacturer of the voting machines to her lawsuit.

At issue is the intent of some 18,000 "undervotes" - people who voted in the election but chose neither Buchanan nor Jennings for the congressional seat. Pending the outcome of the election, both candidates went to Washington to attend the freshman orientation.

However, even having lost the election twice, Jennings will not concede. To make matters worse, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House-elect, allowed the unelected Jennings to cast a vote on a Judicial Committee matter.