Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Previous “Deep Thoughts”

2:57 A.M.

5:20 A.M.

“When this campaign is over, political slogans like ‘experience’ and ‘change’ will mean absolutely nothing. The next president has to act.”

- Joe Biden, December 11, 2007

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

But I doubt Americans will elect a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate. I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”

- Joe Biden, New York Observer, 2007

September 26, 2007: Biden for President Campaign Manager Luis Navarro said, “Sen. Obama said he would do everything possible to end the war in Iraq and emphasized the need for a political solution yet he failed to show up to vote for Sen. Biden’s critical amendment to provide a political solution in Iraq.

Biden for President Campaign Manager Luis Navarro: “I’m confident that Iowans know what I know: our problems will require experience and leadership from Day One. Empty slogans will be no match for proven action.”

Assessing Obama’s Iraq plan on September 13, 2007: “My impression is [Obama] thinks that if we leave, somehow the Iraqis are going to have an epiphany” of peaceful coexistence among warring sects. “I’ve seen zero evidence of that.”

Biden on Meet the Press in 2002, discussing Saddam Hussein: “He’s a long term threat and a short term threat to our national security… “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.”

Biden on Meet the Press in 2002: “Saddam must be dislodged from his weapons or dislodged from power.”

Biden on Meet the Press in 2007, on Hussein’s WMDs: “Well, the point is, it turned out they didn’t, but everyone in the world thought he had them. The weapons inspectors said he had them. He catalogued — they catalogued them. This was not some, some Cheney, you know, pipe dream. This was, in fact, catalogued.”

Biden, on Obama’s Iraq plan in August 2007: “I don’t want [my son] going [to Iraq],” Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said from the campaign trail Wednesday, according to a report on Radio Iowa. “But I tell you what, I don’t want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years and so how we leave makes a big difference.” Biden criticized Democratic rivals such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama who have voted against Iraq funding bills to try to pressure President Bush to end the war. “There’s no political point worth my son’s life,” Biden said, according to Radio Iowa. “There’s no political point worth anybody’s life out there. None.”

Biden on Meet the Press, April 29, 2007: “The threat [Saddam Hussein] presented was that, if Saddam was left unfettered, which I said during that period, for the next five years with sanctions lifted and billions of dollars into his coffers, then I believed he had the ability to acquire a tactical nuclear weapon — not by building it, by purchasing it. I also believed he was a threat in that he was — every single solitary U.N. resolution which he agreed to abide by, which was the equivalent of a peace agreement at the United Nations, after he got out of — after we kicked him out of Kuwait, he was violating. Now, the rules of the road either mean something or they don’t. The international community says “We’re going to enforce the sanctions we placed” or not. And what was the international community doing? The international community was weakening. They were pulling away.”

Biden to the Brookings Institution in 2005: “We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out — equally a mistake.”

Analyzing the surge on Meet the Press, September 9, 2007: “I mean, the truth of the matter is that, that the — America’s — this administration’s policy and the surge are a failure, and that the surge, which was supposed to stop sectarian violence and — long enough to give political reconciliation, there’s been no political reconciliation… The reality is that, although there has been some mild progress on the security front, there is, in fact, no, no real security in Baghdad and/or in Anbar province, where I was, dealing with the most serious problem, sectarian violence. Sectarian violence is as strong and as solid and as serious a problem as it was before the surge started.”

Biden in October of 2002: “We must be clear with the American people that we are committing to Iraq for the long haul; not just the day after, but the decade after.”

On Meet the Press, January 7, 2007, assessing the proposal of a surge of troops to Iraq: “If he surges another 20, 30, or whatever number he’s going to, into Baghdad, it’ll be a tragic mistake, in my view, but, as a practical matter, there’s no way to say, ‘Mr. President, stop.’”

On Meet the Press, November 27, 2005: “Unless we fundamentally change the rotation dates and fundamentally change how many members of the National Guard we’re calling up, it’ll be virtually impossible to maintain 150,000 folks this year.” (The number of troops in Iraq peaked at 162,000 in August 2007, during the surge.)

5:46 A.M.

“My life is a rather grim one. One day, perhaps, I shall describe it to you in great detail.” - Igantious Riley

5:47 A.M.

“A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

-John Stuart Mill

Yeah, everything’s flying as fast and furious as always, and there’s a whole lot everyone wants to know, I know. I’m battling through a very dark and fucked up time right now, but that’s just more of the same, but soon finally ending. Don’t underestimate the darkness of human nature, the criminal nature of human nature, the ability of people to day after day after day after new person after new after new person just try and fuck you, unless perhaps, you’re able to keep yourself dealing with a tight close circle of trustworthy people. Not all of us can do that, and often we’re hobbled with some chain, some sickness, some weakness that just inspire the vultures to come in. War is not always so simple, timing, care and planning, regardless of firepower, are often key. Especially battling civilians. It’d be so much easier to just blow open some heads with impunity, but impunity ain’t happenin, hence the inablity to just strike as quickly as in a real war. Doesn’t mean you can’t strike, just not always as quickly. I’ve waited and taken care of some folks, but there’s more to come. It’s tough sometimes, fearing that a lack of immediate action will be perceived as weakness, and worse yet, when it actually is perceived that way. Just don’t stop moving, don’t stop feeding your strength, don’t stop doing whatever, whatever it takes to do it, to accomplish eact mission, to eliminate each target, to avenge each offense. No, I’m not crazy, and I’m not kidding. Talk to those who don’t act, who just suck up each offense and take everyone’s bullshit. You’ll find either a miserable, emotionally hung-over man, or you’ll find him in the later stages, a zombie, a vegetable, smiling and nodding and just eating more bullshit. Bullshit is great for plants. If you are one, I recommend you keep eating as much as possible. If not, then learn to kill. Before even learning to maim, learn how to kill. At that point you’ll know the basics of maiming, which is just killing light. But if you want to not only avenge a man, but keep him from attacking again, then you have an assessment to make. Is hurting him enough to keep him from striking again? Have I put a completely paralyzing fear of God into him? Most likely not, but sometimes yes. A good way to beat a murder rap, in fact, is to just turn someone into a vegetable. Brain dead, yes. Real dead, no. No murder rap there. But if you’re certain you’ll only exacerbate a feud instead of end it, then you need to kill him.

The problem with writing this blog as a true day by day, no-holds barred, just lay it all out confessional diary is that 1. I would give away too many strategies and plans to adversaries and 2. I would be under the greatest scrutiny, and arrested. No, I’m not kidding or blowing smoke. Wait for the book I’m writing, from a place far away. I don’t think the likes of it has ever been seen. Life, simply, is combat. And not always of the violent or confrontational type, but of the strategic type. Fate can fuck you randomly, or as the result of bad planning on your part. If you’ve got an asset, any asset, everyone you encounter will consider, at least once, of stealing it from you. If someone thinks you may be standing in the way of somethng they want, from an object to the achievement of a political goal, they will look to charm you out of the way, beg you out of the way, or attack, disable and kill you, either literally or through hobbling your ability to function, by such means as character assassination or interference with relationships. I’m not sure how many of us live truly simple 9-5 lives anymore, where the world we encountered was only our families, a small handful of friends, and the occasional service person and maybe traffic cop. I think we all tend to move in much more broad, stranger-filled, dangerous, competitive and combative circles anymore. You don’t have much business in such a game unless you’re in shape for it, understand it’s nature and its purpose, and are ready to do the things required to succeed. A player is a killer, llterally and figuratively. Keep a simpler life unless you’re ready for that.

And learn that when you are wounded badly enough, to walk away from the battlefield to heal, without leaving your team in a lurch. When you are the highest in the chain and no one can force you off, it’s harder to do, but it obviously has to be done.

And yes, war brings glory and can bring victory, but it also always brings this:

Scenes from the aftermath of a battle for a Gerorgian village, h/t Mike Swann

be ready.

I’ve been dead for four months. No more.

10:16 A.M.

For Megan: One More Battle Left

Arthur meets Guinevere, now a nun, lost to him all these plagued and destitute years, their marriage ripped asunder by her affair with Lancelot, the two old and as impoverished of body, heart and soul as the long-dying land of Camelot around them.

Arthur: Guinevere…accept my forgiveness…and put your heart to rest.

Guinevere: We’ve suffered too long.

Arthur: I have always loved you, and still love you..

Guinevere: I loved you as king……sometimes as husband……but one cannot gaze too long at the sun.

Arthur: Forgive me, my wife, if you can…..I was not born to live a man’s life… ..but to be the stuff of future memory.

Camelot was a brief beginning… …a fair time that cannot be forgotten. And because it will not be forgotten…that fair time may come again.

Now once more I must ride with my knights…to defend what was….and the dream of what could be.

Guinevere bends and reaches below the straw mattress on her cot. She pulls out a leather sheath with sword, and removes… Excalibur.

Guinevere: I kept it.

Arthur: I never dared to hope, all these years, that it was in your keeping.

Silence.

Arthur: I have often thought…that in the hereafter of our lives…when I owe no more to the future…and can be just a man…that we may meet…and you will come to me…and claim me yours…and know that I am your husband.

Guinevere, though tearing, does not respond.

Arthur: It is a dream I have.

8:02 P.M.

10:12 P.M.

11:45 P.M.

An Auspicious Start, An Omen Of Greatness:

After today’s Obama-Biden speeches to a massive crowd in Springfield, Ill., many reporters are rolling back the tape and asking each other, “Did he really say that?”

When introducing his running mate, Obama said, “So let me introduce to you the next president - the next vice president of the US of America, Joe Biden.” Video

And then when it was Biden’s turn to speak, the Delaware senator called the presumptive Democratic nominee “Barack America” instead of Barack Obama. Video

“My friends, I don’t have to tell you, this election year the choice is clear. One man stands ready to deliver change we desperately need. A man I’m proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next president of the United States, Barack America,” Biden said, per ABC News’ Sunlen Miller.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

1:51 A.M.

“A witty saying proves nothing.” - Voltaire

2:00 A.M.

Eerily, the first sentence of August 1’s “Deep Thoughts” was, “The first World War began with The Guns of August”. And then our August blew up.

I used to be seized with the sensation we were going to get blown up and keep it to myself or say out loud “We’re gonna get hit” and then a humvee in the convoy was blown up withing seconds, each and every time. Not often, each and every time. They showed one of the clips of this on “Red Eye”. After I called it and the second victor was hit ( light casualties, blown tire ) a Marine begins frantically checking that his flak is buttoned up right, we’re in the back of a deathbox ( a highback Humvee which is a moderately well-armored pick up truck ) because it was his normal vehicle that was hit and because as he told me later he he thought i was the devil for saying “You ready to get blown up?” and then in exactly 6 seconds, kaboom, his buddies are hit. I didn’t think calling this was funny but when you feel it so strong you feel a real fear especially when you know it might be your own death your feeling that there is just a certain defiance, a certain fuck you to death when you at least have the power to give it the tiniest of “fuck you”’s by saying “God’s on my side, that’s how I know you’re coming, and no matter what happens it’s God’s plan, you have no power over me only he does.” It was also a certain resignation, a gallows defiance, a gallows humor, a way of saying I’m ready for anything, I came out here, and I will as merrily as i’ll play with my child announce my own death like I don’t care like you can’t get to me you piece of shit jihadi bomb motherfucker. And they got close, and they wounded me twice. But I walked away. Fuck you. And thank you, God. I had the best of luck when I first arrived in Iraq, but the more I pissed in the Devil’s face, the deeper into evil I went, patrollng 6 times a day to the average Marine’s two, in the most deadly city in Iraq, Ramadi, it hit me one day that purely statistically speaking I was probably the most likely person to be killed in Iraq. So of course I got hit a lot. They called me an IED magnet. It was just the numbers game. But in a land where even the most devout of Christians, fighting for his life, blurs the lines in his mind that divide faith, reason and superstition, one platoon seargeant actually banned me from riding with his platoon. And we were friends, but he said “Look, man, we got three more weeks, I just, I just don’t want to chance anything. However, the Company Captain always rode with this platoon ( things are different boys, at least then, there was absolutely no such thing as a patrol without at least a Lieutenant ) and when heard the Sergeant say this, he said, “Shit…Pat you can ride with me in my vehicle any time. You just ride with me for the rest of the deployment.”
Of course, that motherfucker was nuts. He’d have the driver pull right up next to likely booby traps, and then get out and check them out himself. Which of cource obligated me to get out and film him whenever I couldn’t get a clear shot through the window. “Motherfucker!” I would think “If I get blown up getting an awesome shot of him getting himself blown up, then this fucking camera better survive, A, and B, I don’t care how good you’re supposed to be in heaven, I’m going to kick his fucking ass for about 6,000 miles of cloud. And there better be blood in heaven, cos I want to see it.” One time, behind the hootch, we’re talking poltics, he and I, and frickin’ mortars start coming in and of course he’s gotta play Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, no flnching, no reaction, no going for cover like every single other Marine on the little camp, so I’ve gotta match him iron nut for iron nut ( in war, bravery is mostly just not being the first guy to look like a pussy, at least as far as it went for me. People see the tapes and are just like “Man, you are a brave mother fucker” and “Oh my God, it’s so striking how you maintain your composure” sheeeiiit. I was not about to be the screaming, running, panicking fag amongst a bunch of guys i had to live with for months. You just don’t do it. Plus, and here’s where I will give myself at least some credit, the unit has to maintain focus and order, and I was not about to fuck things up for everyone else. The stakes were too high, they were Marines’ lives. I was going to be as professional, focused and tactical as anyone else, for the sake of safety. Plus the ego slips in too, there’s a bit of a game, being as cold and able to deal with anything as anyone, and even more so. Out there, there is a premium on calm, fast smart thinking,awareness, focus, and even humor in the face of adversity. He who excelled at those under any pressure, especially during and after bombings and contact, was functioning as the best a combat Marine could. So I pushed myself to be like that. It was part duty, and part ego, just the way it was. ) and we just keep talking about how fucked the mainstream media is, how they’ve killed Marines by dragging this war out, and no matter how important that conversation is, I must confess that initially I was ready to scoot my ass into the tin-roofed bathroom inside, cos it allegedly provided some cover and I knew that’s where everyone else was. But then I was like, okay motherfucker, you will not read one bit of concern or God forbid, fear, on my face ( even though he already had ), at least not any more and I’ll continue shooting the breeze with you, no flak no kevlar just so you’ll be sure to remember how fucking King Kong balled I was, just like you want me to remember how King Kong balled you were. After about four more 60’s or 80’s coming in we kept going another ten minutes and then headed to chow. It was breakfast. Good morning Ramadi, good morning Marine Corps. Bad ass motherfuckers, truly, top to bottom. More at the bottom, really, but officers are officers, what are you gonna do. But Captain Powridge was as bad as they come.

Anyway I started this to talk about how everyone’s psychic abilities kick in in war, and I think it has to do with the heavy presence of good and evil in a place like that, and how, if information is so important and so heavy, that it carries a certain weight or energy, for lack of better words, that allow it to transcend the normal barriers of space and time, and so things you aren’t normally able to know until they happen, coming slamming into your head beforehand. I don’t know, it’s part that, and part that wherever there is so much God and devil and life and death, nothing’s operating as normal. Nothing. We’re all on a wavelength that people normally aren’t on, and we just know things. A lot of things, not just the future.

The most intense experience like this was in Fallujah. I’ll be back to give that one open. I don’t like telling it much, the only good thing about the whole grand tragedy was that it was another cheat for me from God, a way for me to just know he was real, a rare moment when I got to just KNOW instead of having to only rely on faith.

6:15 A.M.

American Thinker:

Do not believe that post-invasion intelligence invalidates our justification for using military force against Saddam’s Iraq. The truth is the exact opposite. The US was fully justified to use military force against Iraq, even knowing what we know now — especially knowing what we know now. We should not allow the false story — almost accepted as fact — as we head into a Presidential election, to go unchallenged.

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