Using the following biographies:
Fox News
B.E.R.G. Associates
No Quarter

1. 1976: B.S. degree in Sociology, graduating CumLaude and Phi Beta Kappa, University of Missouri
2. 1978: M.S. degree in Community Development, University of Missouri
3. 1979-1983: American University’s School of International Service, teaching and working towards a Ph.D. in political science
4. 1985 through September 1989: employed by Central Intelligence Agency, paramilitary training, served in both Directorates of Operations and Intelligence, in 1989 received two Exceptional Performance Awards
5. 1989 until October 1993: U.S. State Department - employed as Deputy Director - Office of Counter Terrorism
6. 1996: U.S. representative, OSCE Terrorism Conference in Vienna, Austria [A search of the OSCE site reveals 137 documents from 1996. None of them mention a conference on Terrorism in July in Vienna.}
7. Current: principal in B.E.R.G. Associates, helping businesses protect themselves against fraud, product counterfeiting, contraband, or criminal subversion. The other two principals are ex-DEA.

The Fox News bio contains this item:

Mr. Johnson also supervised the multi-million dollar U.S. Anti-Terrorism Assistance Training Program, which provided training to more than 15,000 security officials from over 70 nations.

The web site for the program suggests that he was but a clog in the wheel.

During the early 1980s following several serious terrorist incidents throughout the world, it became evident that in countries where such incidents had occurred, many local police and security forces lacked the necessary expertise and equipment to deter and respond in an effective manner. Therefore in 1983, the U.S. Congress authorized the establishment of a special program designed to enhance the antiterrorism skills of friendly countries by providing training and equipment necessary to deter and counter terrorist threats.

Congress established the Antiterrorism Assistance Program under an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which provides its legislative mandate and assigns responsibility for its administration to the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS).

Perhaps Fox got the blurb incorrect? Because Larry didn’t work for Diplomatic Security. And the numbers quoted are over quite a period of time. The program’s web site currently states 25,000 trained, 2,741 in the year 2000. Unlikely that he was involved in training 15,000.

I cannot find any sign on the Net, other than from Larry, that OSCE had a terrorism conference in Vienna in July of 1996. It may just not be on the Net, though I will note that OSCE posts 137 documents from that year, including about a half dozen from July. His name does not appear in a Net search of the Department of State site, while even Joe Wilson does.

Who is Larry C. Johnson and why should anyone believe him? He had a modest career in government, and little or no public record afterwards. He maintains he is an expert in terrorism, and in intelligence matters, without any proof but jobs two decades past.

One more little niggle: The State Department Office of Counter-Terrorism is headed by a coordinator, not a director.

The predecessor organization to S/CT was the Office for Combatting Terrorism, created in 1972 upon the recommendation of a special committee appointed by President Richard Nixon following the Munich Olympics terrorist attack. The committee determined that an office was needed within the Department of State to provide day-to-day counterterrorism coordination and to develop policy initiatives and responses for the U.S. Government. The Office for Combatting Terrorism became the Office of the Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism in 1985, and the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in 1989.

In 1994, Congress officially mandated the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in Public Law 103-236 [H.R. 2333]. In 1998, Congress further defined the role of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in Public Law 105-277 [H.R. 4328]:

There is within the office of the Secretary of State a Coordinator for Counterterrorism…who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate…. The principal duty of the coordinator shall be the overall supervision (including policy oversight of resources) of international counterterrorism activities. The Coordinator shall be the principal adviser to the Secretary of State on international counterterrorism matters. The coordinator shall be the principal counterterrorism official within the senior management of the Department of State and shall report directly to the Secretary of State…The Coordinator shall have the rank and status of Ambassador at Large.

The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT) is led by Ambassador-at-Large Henry A. Crumpton. He is supported by Frank Urbancic, Principal Deputy Coordinator, and four Deputy Coordinators, each of whom leads a functional directorate. The Deputy Coordinators and their directorates are: Susan Burk/Homeland Security; Gerald Feierstein/Programs, Plans, Press and Public Diplomacy; Thomas Hastings/Operations; and Virginia Palmer/Regional and Trans-Regional Affairs.

Notice? No Deputy Directors.

Larry C. Johnson, darling of the left and self-proclaimed expert on terrorism and intelligence matters testified before Congress a few years ago. You will be startled at what he said.

House of Representatives - March 11, 2003 [PDF]

Nonetheless some countries continue to bankroll terrorists—principally Iran, Syria, and Iraq. We think it is important to highlight the fact that Iraq continues to provide financial support, safe haven, training, or weapons and explosives to groups or individuals that carry out terrorist attacks. While the links to Al Qaeda may be tenuous, there is incontrovertible evidence of Iraqi support for Palestinian terrorist groups. From 1991 thru 2001 there were 4143 international terrorist attacks throughout the world. Saddam Hussein and his regime were implicated in at least 73 of these incidents, which accounted for fewer that two hundred fatalities. According to Central Intelligence Agency data, there is no credible evidence implicating Iraq directly in any mass casualty terrorist attacks since 1991. As reported in Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000, Saddam Hussein’s regime “has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President Bush in 1993. However, Iraq continued to aggressively target and attack anti-regime opponents and UN personnel working in Iraq.”

Iraq has directed most of its support for terrorism to groups that have attacked Iran and Israel. The United States Government accuses Iraq of providing sanctuary and/or assistance to several groups which include:
• Arab Liberation Front
• Palestine Liberation Front (PLF & Abu Abbas)
• Abu Nidal (ANO)
• 15 May (Abu Ibrahim)

The Arab Liberation Front (ALF) is part of the PLO. The ALF, like the other factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, left Lebanon in a US-brokered deal after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Many ALF combatants ended up in Baghdad. The ALF continues to funnel money to Palestinians who carry out terrorist attacks against Israel.

The Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) split with the PFLP-GC in the mid-1970s. It subsequently split again, according to the U.S. State Department, into pro-PLO, pro-Syrian, and pro-Libyan factions. The pro-PLO faction, led by Muhammad Abbas (Abu Abbas), established a presence in Baghdad. Abbas’s group was responsible for the October 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship. The PLF also launched a failed 1990 seaborne raid against Israel. This group continues to focus its wrath on Israel. During 2002 Israel recovered documents and arrested PLF members who testified that had received military training for terrorist operations in Iraq.

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) was one of the most active and deadly terrorist groups in the 1970s and 1980s. Its leader, Sabri Al-Banna masterminded attacks that included the December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport massacres, the September 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73, and the July 1988 assault on the City of Poros day-excursion ship. During the 1990s ANO dramatically scaled back its activities and was implicated in only two terrorist attacks, with the last one occurring in 1995. Al-Banna disappeared from public view after seeking refuge in Baghdad in 1998, but resurfaced in August 2002 with the news that he shot himself several times in a successful “suicide” attempt while resisting Iraqi agents who were trying to arrest him.

The 15 May Organization, led by Muhammad al-Umari (aka Abu Ibrahim), was formed in 1979 and disbanded in the mid-1980s. 15 May was implicated in the 1981 bombings of El Al’s Rome and Istanbul, the August 1982 bombing of a Pan Am flight from Tokyo to Honolulu, and attacks against the Israeli Embassies in Athens and Vienna. It has not been linked to terrorist attacks since 1984. Abu Ibrahim reportedly still lives in Iraq.

Israel has been the major target of Iraqi sponsored terrorism. Iraq’s funding and training of members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -General Command (PFLP-GC) and the PLF now is beyond dispute. Documents seized by Israel in raids against Palestinian Authority offices in the West Bank during 2002 detail Iraq’s funding of Palestinian terrorism. Israeli officials provided CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl documents in September showing that Saddam’s closest deputy, Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, personally signed checks made out to Palestinian terrorist leaders who had organized suicide-bombing attacks. The captured documents included ledgers of “martyrs” who carried out suicide operations against Israel, showing how much and when each was paid and the number of the check. It included internal memoranda, computer disks, hard drives, videotapes and bank statements.

Oh, and he suggested that financial transactions be monitored by the Federal government.

Indeed, the PATRIOT ACT, enacted just a few months later modified the law (section 1960 of Title 18 US Code) making it a more important and effective tool for use in the prosecution of “unlicensed money remitters”. We would like to applaud the actions of the committee in moving that legislative amendment forward and making the law a more effective tool to combat international organized crime and terrorism. Likewise, we would like to applaud the efforts of the various federal law enforcement agencies, which have aggressively investigated and penetrated these “hawalas” and “black market financial systems” over the past 18 months. You should know that our work as a government contractor brings us into close personal contact with federal investigations from a variety of federal agencies and we can personally assure the committee that good use is being made of Title III of the PATRIOT ACT. Important investigations are being conducted and significant advances in the war against organized crime and international terrorism are being made using the recommendations made within these chambers on section 1960 of Title 18 US Code.

RECOMMENDATION:
The federal government should immediately conduct a review of the “cash letter” money laundering connection in money center banks and large correspondent banks and propose rules that would require those correspondent banks to monitor cash letter transactions for suspicious activity.

A vigorous monitoring program would identify and stop payment on suspicious instruments, thereby taking the profit out of the activity and making it difficult for suspect money to move through the system. Additionally, it would identify those overseas banks who are the most egregious offenders and put them on notice that they need to cease and desist their activities. If necessary and warranted, repeat offenders could be fined, sanctioned or lose their ability to bank through the United States.

Rochester New York

courtesy R News

U.S. Customs ordered the recall of a plane that took off from the Rochester Airport just after 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Investigators say customs agents detained two passengers who tried to board the plane before takeoff using suspicious passports. Shortly after the plane left, it was discovered that a bag belonging to one of those detainees was on board.

When one of the people made a questionable remark about the bag, authorities ordered the plane to return to Rochester.

Once back at the airport, Monroe County Sheriff's deputies provided perimeter security as customs and border agents investigated the incident.

As the plane sits at the airport, other flights have been allowed to take off and land.

Yet again, the media and the Democrats are using an “apples and oranges” argument to advance their false thesis that job growth is weak under President Bush.

BLS

The number of Americans with jobs rose in June from 143,976,000 to 144,363,000, an increase of 387,000 people. The number of people unemployed fell by 58,000 and the number of people not in the labor force fell by 87,000. That hardly appears weak or sluggish.

I’ve seen comparisons with the Clinton “robust” jobs growth. The graph below illustrates the growth for both Clinton and Bush for each of the years of their Presidency.

Note that Bush year six is only half over. We can reasonably expect a final number much higher than that displayed. Bush year one is, of course, the Clinton recession and the effects of the murders on September 11.

Note that Clinton did not add employment in any manner that could be described as robust, at least if your definition of “robust” includes steady growth or even maintaining existing growth. Bush has exceeded Clinton’s job growth two of the first five years of their administrations and is poised to do so for this year as well.

Let’s compare unemployment rates. Here is a graph showing the comparative averages for both Presidents, term year by year.

Would the term “virtually identical” be appropriate?

The facts are that job growth and unemployment have been at least as good under George Bush as they were under Bill Clinton. Job growth has trended upward for all six years of the Bush administration but it was not the case under Clinton. In fact, the trend was the opposite.

And… let us not forget that Bill Clinton was our first “black” President. Here is the term over term comparison for average yearly black unemployment.

It looks like the Bush record is “virtually identical” to the Clinton record.

The only way the media and the Democrats can spin these facts is by distorting them. The Bush economy is every bit as healthy as the Clinton economy, if not more so.

UPDATE: The lovely and talented Seafarious has brought to my attention that Dr. Jadick is portrayed in Newsweek as a medical doctor. The American Osteopathic Association has objected to the error. An osteopathic blogger also objects. Apparently Newsweek needs its perception of medical professionals adjusted.

UPDATE: See this post about another doc who received the Bronze Star for similar heroism, in Vietnam, Captain Andrew Lovy, D.O.

UPDATE: Dr. Jadick is the cover story in the March 13 or 20 Newsweek. Here it is online.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here I am. Send me!”
—Isaiah 7:8

To read about more such heroes, visit this link.

——————————————————————————-

Medical College of Georgia

Medical College of Georgia faculty, staff, students and residents are invited to honor urology resident Dr. Rich Jadick on Monday, Feb. 6 at 2:30 p.m. in the Banquet Rooms of the MCG Alumni Center, 919 15th Street.

Dr. Jadick traveled to Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Jan. 30 to receive one of the Marine Corps’ most prestigious awards, a Bronze Star with a Combat ‘V’ for Valor for personally saving the lives of more than 30 U.S. Marines during an ambush in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.

“In my 17 years in the service, through the Gulf War and then Iraq, I’ve never seen a doctor get a Bronze Star,” said Lt. Col. Mark Winn, who nominated Dr. Jadick for the award. “He is more than deserving of it.”

MCG President Daniel W. Rahn and Urology Section Chief Ron Lewis will conduct a brief ceremony to open the reception. Refreshments will be provided.

Times Union

The doctor and his team were initially called to help a SEAL, a special operations Navy sailor, who had a chest wound. A bullet had entered the SEAL’s back and exited his chest.

After Jadick secured an armored ambulance, he and his team went to the SEAL’s aid. As they were transporting him, the medical team was called to aid six badly wounded Marines and a sailor lying in the open in a street.

As Jadick and the medical corpsmen cared for the wounded, they were shot at from many directions, according to Winn. Despite the enemy fire, the medical team loaded the casualties on their ambulance and sped them to an evacuation point. One Marine died.

Jadick’s team was in luck. As team members raced to a collection site, their ambulance, an M-113 armored personnel carrier, was hit by several rocket-propelled grenades, Winn said.

The team was rushed back to action. At an edge of the battlefield, Jadick’s men were sent to treat and stabilize more than 60 Marines and Navy medical corpsmen and Seals.

During an 11-day period, he and his medical team provided lifesaving care for 90 combat casualties, often while under intense fire from small arms, rocket-propelled grenade and mortars, according to his award citation.

Jadick and his team then established a forward medical aid station at a government complex. Enemy forces targeted the complex and often fired at U.S. soldiers who went outside. “Anytime we were out of our buildings, we had to run,” Jadick said.

At one point, the aid station was so filled with wounded soldiers that Jadick had to triage patients outside and in the open while under sniper fire.

He said his team treated approximately 200 U.S. troops, Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians, and a few insurgents.

UPDATE: See also Medical College of Georgia

Fighting in Fallujah intensified as the day progressed. Dr. Jadick, the only physician in the city, formulated a plan to most effectively reach the growing number of U.S. casualties. Most doctors operate field hospitals in a safe area several miles from the battlefield, but Dr. Jadick feared the critically wounded might not survive the trip.

“Rich said that would be too late,” Lt. Col. Winn said. “He convinced me it was the right thing to do.”

Though the U.S. military had not gained a strong foothold in the city, his corpsmen moved into the government complex and set up a casualty collection point. Surrounded by insurgents and snipers, his team managed to secure a small prayer room in which to treat patients.

His corpsmen saw more than 90 combat casualties during an 11-day period, 60 within the first three days of arriving at the government complex. In addition to the U.S. casualties, Dr. Jadick treated countless Iraqis and civilians with no other means of medical support. He credits his young corpsmen with making the effort possible.

“I can’t give these guys enough credit,” he said. “These are kids who didn’t know anything about medicine. Some had never seen blood before, but here they were amputating legs.

“We were so tired, and we just kept getting casualty numbers,” he said. “We’d take care of eight, and 12 more would show up. We worked a lot of hours and they learned how to do a lot of things really quickly.”

Despite the exhaustion, Dr. Jadick was impressed by his corpsmen’s resilience. “At the end of the day, attitudes were always pretty high,” he remarked. “These guys never flinched – none of them – not the weakest guy there.”

I have argued in favor of separating marriage from the law in the past. The law’s involvement does have some practical aspects that need to be overcome before that can happen. Marriage as a legal status ensures that the legal system can both dictate and intervene in situations involving property or child custody. While much of this may be onerous to libertarians, replacing it will be a chore. A body of contractual obligations created and enforced by the law, will have to be reworked. A variety of marriage contracts will likely be developed, that will range into the hundreds of pages in some cases.

Glenn’s point is well taken. Polygamy in America will not resemble polygamy in Mali because the societal conditions driving it will be vastly different. As it is currently illegally practiced by outlaw Mormons, however, it appears to merely be a scheme to subject underaged females to the sexual attentions of older men. The social structure is coercive to the female child, and the extra young men are forced to seek a life elsewhere.

Remember, if you will, that we still have not resolved the age issue even in legal marriages. The age of consent varies by state, and used to be as low as 12 in the Carolinas. I recently saw a case where a woman in her thirties had married a 14 year old boy, because in a nearby state it was legal for 14 year olds to marry if the female was pregnant. The law was mean for pregnant 14 year old females, but seems to apply in this case as well.

We don’t have an example in existence for how polygamy would work in a modern state. The laws related to marriage are complex enough without attempting to weld an entirely new set of regulations onto the existing body of work. Yet, removing marriage as a state-defined status opens a huge number of issues for both the practitioners and for society at large. When Suzie has three mommies or four daddies, it starts to be a head-scratcher.

I firmly believe that the Founders had no belief that the Constitution regulated marriage in any manner. The Federal Government should butt out of any and all discussions on the matter. That said, 50 differing approaches to marriage presents a level of confusion and legal discord that may be unacceptable in our society.

And, no, I don’t think 35 year old adults ought to be able to marry 14 year olds under any circumstance, whether in Utah, South Carolina or Kansas.

to the cartoons.

Leigh Anne Hester joined the Army National Guard in April 2001. By 2005 she was managing a shoe store in Nashville, and had been deployed with her unit to Iraq. As a member of the Kentucky Guard’s 617th Military Police, she wouldn’t normally see combat.

That would all change on March 20, 2005. In a matter of thirty minutes, Leigh Ann Hester would join the pantheon of Army heroes that includes Alvin York, Audie Murphy, David Hackworth and many others. Others all men.

Trailing a coalition convoy southeast of Baghdad, her unit responded to an attack on that convoy. The ten Guardsmen found themselves in a fight to the death with dozens of attackers in a well-prepared ambush. The security team for the convoy was down, and it was up to the men and women from Kentucky to take action.

When the dust and smoke had cleared, 27 enemy guerillas were dead and seven captured. Three members of the Guard unit, Raven 42, were wounded. And Leigh Ann Hester would become the first woman to win a Silver Star in combat since World War Two. The first woman to win a Silver Star for combat.

The unit responded as their training dictated. First they flanked the enemy with their vehicles and heavier weapons. Then, they took the fight to the enemy. The unit’s commander, Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein, and Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester worked their way down a small canal the enemy was using as an entrenchment, shooting and tossing grenades. At least six of the enemies were killed in this part of the action alone.

By all accounts, Leigh Ann Hester is just a normal American girl. Quoted in the Courier-Journal on November 12, 2005, she said:

“When it was all said and done with, I had to sit down for a minute,” Hester said. “I was shaking, shaking really bad. I thought, ‘What just happened here?’ ” “Hopefully I won’t have to do it again. You can train all you want to, but until you’re placed in that situation, you don’t know how you’ll react to it.”

Leigh Ann Hester reacted as she had been trained. She demonstrated the courage and self-sacrifice of a hero. The members of Raven 42 received medals for their actions that day in March, and Sgt. Lester received the Silver Star. She is an American hero.

In warfare there are soldiers and then there are warriors. Brian Chontosh is a warrior. Marine Capt. Brian R. Chontosh is also a hero.

Captain Chontosh received the Navy Cross while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. The Navy Cross is the Marine Corps’s second highest award for heroism, exceeded only by the Medal of Honor.

On March 25, 2003, Chontosh’s platoon was moving north on Iraq Highway 1 when it ran into a fierce ambush by an entrenched enemy. Realizing that he had to clear the kill zone, and blocked by other units, he directed his unit to advance against the enemy.

Once in the trench, Chontosh exited his vehicle and began to clear the enemy from the emplacement. When he ran out of ammo, he twice picked up enemy weapons to continue the assault. Handed an RPG launcher by a fellow Marine, he used it to good effect.

When the fight was over, Chontosh had cleared over 200 meters of trench, killing more than twenty of the enemy.

You may have heard of Captain Chontosh. Fox News had an embedded reporter with his unit for much of its deployment. If the Marines were in combat and were victorious, Captain Chontosh was probably there. Fox clearly showed that he felt his place was at the front, and in the fight. A warrior and a hero.

Paul Smith was tough. As sergeants go, he was one of those the troops didn’t like much. In his unit, you drilled. You did things by the book. You kept your weapon clean and your tools handy.

Bravo Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion, attached to the 2-7 Infantry, had been assigned to build a POW camp at Baghdad Airport as our units completed the capture of the capital. There was a Republican Guard complex, with walls and a tower that seemed ideal for the conversion.

The Special Republican Guard was still there, however.

Less than twenty men faced hundreds of Saddam’s elite soldiers.

There were wounded. There was confusion. Smith leapt into the fray, doing his best. The wounded were tended to. The enemy was confronted.

Smith climbed into the gun mount of his tracked vehicle and told an enlisted man to keep the ammo coming. Using the .50 caliber machine gun, Smith began his defense. If his unit could not stand, the headquarters of the task force, the entire rear of the 2/7 was open to be slaughtered.

In the ninety minute fight, Smith emptied over four cases of ammo. Standing in the gun mount, he kept firing, pausing only for reloading.

Near the end of the fight, as the enemy was in retreat, the gun fell silent. When the smoke cleared, Paul Smith was found slumped in the gun mount, killed by a shot to the head. Sgt. Smith was the only American killed that day. In front of his position were the enemy dead, 30-50 enemy soldiers that would not threaten American lives again.

Sgt. Paul Smith, Bravo Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on April 4, 2005. The citation reads, in part:

Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. Sergeant First Class Smith’s extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Third Infantry Division “Rock of the Marne,” and the United States Army.

Leigh Ann Hester, Brian Chontosh and Paul Smith. These are the names of three of America’s heroes from the War on Terror. There are hundreds more. The military issues press releases about them. Sometimes their hometown paper picks up the story. But the odds are that you will never have heard of any of them.

There are 108 entries in my blogging category WOT Heroes. While some of the posts update previous stories, most are unique. Have you heard that there are 100 plus heroes in our military? Have you heard of any?

Mark Mitchell was one of the first into Afghanistan. He used a borrowed turban to scale a wall into a prison where two American CIA officers were being held, freed one and recovered the other’s body.

Teresa Broadwell was too short to fire the weapon on her vehicle. But she did, and saved her commanding officer who was down in the street.

Serena Maren Di Virgilio fought to keep a wounded soldier alive as her unit fought through an ambush.

Gary Villalobos almost single-handedly fought off an enemy ambush and recovered the body of Lt. Col. Terrence Crowe.

Dr. Rich Jadick ran a medical aid station in Fallujah under constant attack. He went to where the wounded were.

When I research a blog post about the WoT heroes, I start with the military news. I then search for any mention in the media that may be posted to the Internet. Sometimes, all there is to memorialize a hero is a short paragraph in a military press release. The blood, sweat and tears shed by our soldiers have somehow vanished between the battlefield and the news.

My brother has spent a great deal of time researching our family’s roots. It turns out that much of my family arrived here in the United States before the Civil War, with some arriving prior to the Revolution. That’s something we did not know.

There are no well-known names, no military heroes or politicians. It appears that most of my ancestors were just ordinary folks, living their lives in an ordinary way, like most of the other folks in the United States. They served in the military when necessary, the Revolution and the Civil War. But mostly they went about their lives in an ordinary way. Nobody got rich or famous.

In all, everybody seems to have arrived well before 1900. So, just what perspective could I have on immigration?

Well, my ancestors were part of the backbone of the United States. Their labor, and those of uncounted others built this country. Unsung, unheralded, unappreciated.

Just like immigrants today.

My ancestors came to this new land and went to work. Today’s immigrants seem to be doing just the same. You and I benefit every day from some immigrant’s hard work, whether they’re a janitor or a medical doctor.

Immigrant children appear to do well in school. They build on their parent’s work, and improve their lot in life. Gradually, without fanfare, they work their way into being as American as I am.

I’m in favor of immigration. The more the merrier, I say. When there isn’t work for immigrants, they will stop coming.

One of the things that tells me that our economy is not in as bad a shape as some would tell is that immigrants continue to pour into the United States. They all want a job, and nearly all find one. Within a short few years, most immigrants are an economic benefit to the United States.

The immigration problem isn’t that we have them. It’s that the Government can’t seem to find a way to sort out the few that come here to commit crimes. From the very beginning, immigration quotas have been a way to maintain racial or ethnic purity, and they still are today. Illegal immigrants are illegal primarily because of their ethnic background. We should be welcoming all who want to work, and sorting out the criminals. Instead, our system sends home the job seekers, and gives the criminals chance after chance to remain because of their rights in a criminal proceeding.

Our neighbors to the South are the future of the United States. They are our future trade partners, our future sources of materials and minerals and oil. And the peoples of our Latin neighbors are our future markets, as well as our future labor force.

Our immigration policy should be simple. The anonymous immigrants who built this country should be the goal of our policy. Want to work? Welcome! Commit as crime or leach off society? Buh Bye! We will be a richer society, a richer economy for it.

Mom grew up ‘lace curtain’ Irish. Dad grew up sleeping above a stable in Jersey City with a dozen other people. Their grandchildren know security and freedom from want in ways they could not have imagined. That’s America and the American way. Out of want and work comes success. Let’s offer that to everyone who is willing, regardless of skin color, language or ethnic origin.

• • Heroes of the War on Terror

  The mostly untold stories of the men and women who have defended our freedom with exceptional heroism and bravery.

  • The Stingy List

  The world-renowned series of posts that created and maintained the Stingy List. The Stingy List is a list of many of the private American, non-governmental donations for tsunami relief after the Indonesian tsunami of December 2004. Well over a billion dollars was donated by individuals, companies and private groups.

  • Americans Aiding Americans

  The stories behind the billion plus dollars donated by private Americans for relief and reconstruction after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma struck America’s Gulf Coast.

  • The Amanda Pinson Story

  The series of posts that moved a nation to tears. The story of a girl next door who fought for her country, died in the line of duty, and was honored by friends, family, strangers and even the National Security Agency.

  • Avian Flu

  The posts about the avian flu crisis of 2004-2006, how it was manufactured and the media hype that promoted it.

  • Mocking France

  It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

  • Archives and Category List

  Archives by month, and a category list. Browse for other gems here.

When freedom must be defended, a democracy needs warriors. The remainder of the time, it is usually Kipling’s verse: "For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck 'im out, the brute!" Patton said "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bas***d die for his." This is a call that democracies wish they did not need to give.

But they do. We do. And, it is a rare thing indeed. Our defense is based on men and women with the intelligence and skills and courage to fight and to win. Such a man is Rochester native Brian Chontosh.

On March 25, 2003, then Marine First Lieutenant Chontosh's platoon was part of the spearhead of military might charging towards Baghdad. It was four days after the war began and Chontosh’s Marines were deep into Iraq. On Iraq’s Highway One, south of Ad Diwaniyah, the platoon ran in to a large ambush. Under heavy fire, and blocked by friendly units from moving forward, Chontosh took the fight to the enemy.

He ordered his vehicles through a breach along the road and found himself among the entrenched enemy. What he did next puts him in the pantheon of great American warriors such as the Marines' own Chesty Puller. Here is what the Marines say:


That is a direct quote from Chontosh’s citation when he was awarded the Navy Cross. The Navy Cross is the second highest award for bravery in combat that a Marine can be awarded. He is one of eight men to have won this decoration for bravery in combat in Iraq.

Chontosh was not done being a warrior, however. Fox News followed India Company in the Fall of 2004 during the battle for Fallujah. When the Marines needed a warrior to lead the attack, they called Brian Chontosh. India Company was first in, and Captain Chontosh and his men began a seven day battle. On November 16, 2004 Chontosh led his men into a seven hour combined arms engagement. Chontosh led from the front, kicking in doors and directing fire. In the end over 20 enemy dead were found and over 50 were captured. In the entire week-long battle, Chontosh’s company suffered three dead and  22 wounded.

Chontosh teaches at the Marine Infantry Institute in Quantico, Virginia. The Marines he teaches are better Marines and better warriors because of the lessons he learned in the mud and dust of Iraq. We are safer because of what he can teach these Marines.

Brian Chontosh was given the second highest award for bravery in combat that the Marines and his grateful nation can give. He is a warrior for America, and he is a hero, too.

NRO prints an interesting column criticizing current Federal Reserve policies. The current policy is to control inflation through rate changes.

I've been equally critical of the Fed's policies based on the Greenspan induced recession that ended just after Bush took office in 2001. I am not at all certain that the Fed is managing inflation or trying to catch up to a perceived inflation. The rate actions that it has taken for the last decade or more have been based on guesses about the future based on very limited data about the past.

The only significant inflator in our current economy is oil pricing. Were we more of a manufacturing economy, world commodity prices would be a close and more worrisome second. For now, oil is the problem.

I would suggest that rate changes based on perceived inflation caused by increasing oil prices are the wrong move. Investment should be encouraged by the Federal Reserve at a time like this, when capital investment may be the best bet for reducing the importance of oil as an inflator in our economy. Making investment capital more expensive is counter-productive.

The authors of the NRO article treat China's economic moves and choices as if they were a Western nation. This is an incorrect view in my estimation. The Chinese at the policy making level do not yet appear to have an understanding of their place in a world capital and world trade marketplace. The policymakers suffer from Middle Kingdom Syndrome, wherein they believe that China is the center of the world. They clearly realize the peril that their nation is in because of the cyclic nature of government in Chinese history. The central planners hope to maintain their rule while knowing that Chinese governance has gone through many periods of economic and political collapse, ups and downs, over the thousands of years of Chinese history.

China will demand its due from the world, and especially from its neighbors in the next few years. It will do so because the central planners and their rule cannot survive without a dramatic influx of capital and natural resources. Until the crisis begins in earnest, the planners in Peking will continue their Ponzi scheme of funding the past by selling to the future.

The real chances of the Chinese allowing the yuan to float are zero. From their perspective, it's their currency and they alone can state what it is worth. From our perspective, floating the yuan kills the Ponzi scheme dead by lowering the amount of dollars coming in to Peking's coffers.

China's economy is expanding at a non-sustainable rate, provided they are telling the truth about their economic data. They are, after all, Communists, and they lie. At some point they will slow due to Adam Smith and the planners in Peking can do nothing about it. Once China decided to become a player in the world marketplace, it opened itself to market forces and nothing the Middle Kingdom does can stop that.

I am far from expert enough to challenge the authors' contention that central banks ought to base their rate decisions on commodities and market prices. Gold is cited as an example. I am confident in stating that the Chinese planners are neither basing their decisions on rates or on prices. Their sole reason for action or inaction is the effect on sustaining their rule and what comes to the Middle Kingdom.

At home, I don’t really care how the Fed decides rate policy as long as it does it far less frequently. The irrational belief that you can manage an economy with interest rate nudges is going to put us into another recession. Indeed, I believe that is the Federal Reserve’s true goal, a mild recession that they believe will allow some economic indicators to reset, such as housing markets.

That may be the final straw for China. Commodity prices, including oil, are at dangerously high levels for them. Any disruption in the flow of dollars from the United States, such as that created by a recession, begins a chain of events that ends very badly for the Chinese. They would then be forced to find capital and raw materials which are cheaper. That means Taiwan and the Russian Far East, and war.

The strong similarities between pre-war Japan and China at this time are striking. The sense of entitlement in the nation’s capital. The need for raw materials to sustain both a military and capital expansion. The reduced ability to purchase what is needed. There are a billion Chinese living like the Third World while getting letters and phone calls from their relatives in the cities living in First World condition. And, whether Peking likes it or not, the have-nots are coming. That means more of everything and fast.

The Fed has its eyes on the pebbles in the road, and is swerving the economic car to avoid them, while boulders teeter and threaten to fall from the hillside in front. America needs a strong economy to weather the problems that the forthcoming collapse of China will bring. We need to encourage investment in the United States. They need to quit raising rates.