With all the excitement for conservatives (and some liberals) over the decisive smack-down in the United States Senate to kill the amnesty bill, something big was overlooked.
This week the news media euphorically cheered on Republican Sens. Dick Lugar and George Voinovich for undercutting our troops in Iraq.
Democrat leaders and the media reported Lugar has switched sides and come out against the surge. They certainly got that wrong.
NEWS FLASH! Sen. Lugar opposed the surge from the get-go. There was no change in policy for Lugar, and the Senator from Indiana to this day still doesn't have a clue as to what we should do in Iraq, but instead whines endlessly about the proposals of others in that endearing way of his.
Consider his speech to his colleagues in the U.S. Senate:
We need to recast the geo-strategic reference points of our Iraq policy. We need to be preparing for how we will array U.S. forces in the region to target terrorist enclaves, deter adventurism by Iran, provide a buffer against regional sectarian conflict. ...
Is the senator speaking Urdu? Somebody call the State Department for a translation.
It was Dick Lugar's incompetence and confusion as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, combined with Sen. Voinovich's act of betrayal, that blocked American patriot John Bolton's nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Now Lugar and Voinovich are teaming up again to undercut America and our troops in Iraq. They've gone over to the "dark side" and embraced the arguments and rhetoric of the Kool-Aid drinkers in the anti-military left.
American hero retired Lt. Col Buzz Patterson, USAF, has just released a new book, ""War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror," which explains how the actions of the politicians in Washington and activists in the anti-military movement in America are sending the wrong message to our troops serving overseas.
I would challenge Lugar to explain why he has chosen to undermine our troops to Sgt. Mark Leach who wrote an e-mail quoted on page 183 of "War Crimes" explaining his feelings towards the anti-military activists in this country:
What angers and hurts me as a soldier is that they parade their anti-war views in the face of my brothers and sisters who are recovering from the same battlefield that I fought on and am still fighting on as I type this e-mail. Is there no honor or dignity left in the anti-war movement? Do they have no shame? Do they have no integrity? Do they have no heart? Do they have no soul? I can answer that with a simple no! How can they say they support the troops but protest where they try to recover from war? You interviewed one gentleman, and I use that term loosely, who stated. "If I was injured, I would want someone to speak for me like this." Well, let me tell him something: We do not want you to speak for us and we do not need you to speak for us!
Countless soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom share Sgt. Leach's sentiments.
It's not just sissy men politicians like Richard Lugar and the weeping George Voinovich who have ticked off our troops.
In his new book, Col. Patterson documents the fact that the troops are nearing a breaking point with the bias of the media and their gross misreporting of events in Iraq. Consider the words of 1st Sgt. Jeff Nuding as printed on page 104 of "War Crimes":
We daily see the gross distortions. We can't recognize the caricatures they (the media) scratch out, neither in our fellow soldiers, nor on the battleground. I know they claim to be objective, but really they're nothing more than accomplices in the face of this evil.
Maj. Eric Egland, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, echoed Sgt. Nuding's words:
The troops' No. 1 frustration has consistently been the media reporting. The way the press mishandled Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo had a tremendous negative effect on us. It inflamed the Iraqis at a time when we were making great progress in their support and willingness to help.
These are remarkable words from men who are serving America.
However, the gross injustice to our troops is so wounding that it has forced these brave men and women to risk reprimand and damage to their military careers by speaking out.
Their words are so stark and poignant that on occasion, Patterson gave anonymity to the individual. But the plainness of the meaning from these nameless individuals cuts straight to the heart and speaks to the basic truth – that the American media has consciously chosen to lie to the American people in their reporting on Iraq and the war on terrorism because of their ideological opposition to the commander in chief and their general dislike of warfare and the U.S. military itself.
As this anonymous U.S. Air Force airman told Col. Patterson:
The only thing that I get to see from the American people is what is portrayed on the news. The media, and the people that listen to what they say and believe it almost makes me more pi---d off than the Iraqis that are over here shooting at us. At least when the Iraqis are shooting toward us, it is to our face, instead of like the traitors that call themselves Americans who stab us in the back.
Sens. Lugar and Voinovich are craven, cowardly and grasping for stabbing U.S. troops in the back– and for what? So they can get a better lunch table at the Palms Restaurant in Washington with their Democrat friends and media buddies?
Given their gutless actions this week, the question I have is this: Who has more testosterone, Dick Lugar or Elizabeth Edwards? I'm putting my money on Elizabeth Edwards.
You can receive a FREE copy of Buzz Patterson's new book, "War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror," simply by making a tax-deductible contribution to the pro-troop non-profit group Move America Forward.