HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: HERO IN FALLUJAH: Marine Laid Himself on Top of Grenade to Save Rest of Squad by Oliver North

Posted Dec 16, 2004



Compare these two soldiers, one a REAL hero, the other a deserter and then look at the way the MSM (main stream media) looks at them. I can't hardly believe it!_Joe

"It's stuff you hear about in boot camp, about World War II and Tarawa Marines who won the Medal of Honor," Lance Corporal Rob Rogers of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment told the Army Times. Corporal Rogers was describing the actions of his fellow Marine, Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Mexican immigrant who enlisted in the Marine Corps the day he received his green card.

Most readers of this column probably haven't heard about Rafael Peralta. With the exception of the Los Angeles Times, most of our mainstream media haven't bothered to write about him. The next time you log onto the Internet, do a Google search on Rafael Peralta. As of this writing, the Internet's most used search engine will provide you with only 26 citations from news sources that have bothered to write about this heroic young man. Then, just for giggles, do a Google search on Pablo Paredes. Hundreds of media outlets have written about him. The wire services have blasted his story to thousands of newspapers. Television and radio debate programs gladly provide the public with talking heads that can speak eloquently on the actions of Pablo Paredes.

You see, Pablo Paredes, a Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class, did something the liberal elites consider "heroic" and the media consider "newsworthy" - he defied an order. Last week, Paredes refused to board his ship bound for Iraq along with 5,000 other sailors and Marines. He showed up on the pier wearing a black tee shirt that read, ``Like a Cabinet member, I resign.''

We know this because Petty Officer Pablo Paredes had the courtesy and forethought to notify the local media that he would commit an act of cowardice the following day. Perhaps he hoped to follow the lead of another famous war protestor who went on to become a U.S. Senator and his party's presidential nominee by throwing away his military medals. Petty Officer Paredes stopped short of trashing his military I.D. in front of the cameras because he said he didn't want to be charged with the destruction of government property. The media, we are promised, will continue to follow this story intently.

It is a shame that the media focus on such acts when they could tell stories about real heroes like Rafael Peralta who "saved the life of my son and every Marine in that room," according to Garry Morrison the father of a Marine in Peralta's unit - Lance Cpl. Adam Morrison.

On the morning of November 15, 2004, the men of 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines awoke before sunrise and continued what they had been doing for seven days previously - cleansing the city of Fallujah of terrorists house by house.

At the fourth house they encountered that morning the Marines kicked in the door and "cleared" the front rooms, but then noticed a locked door off to the side that required inspection. Sgt. Rafael Peralta threw open the closed door, but behind it were three terrorists with AK-47s. Peralta was hit in the head and chest with multiple shots at close range.

Peralta's fellow Marines had to step over his body to continue the shootout with the terrorists. As the firefight raged on, a "yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade," as Lance Corporal Travis Kaemmerer described it, rolled into the room where they were all standing and came to a stop near Peralta's body.

But Sgt. Rafael Peralta wasn't dead - yet. This young immigrant of 25 years, who enlisted in the Marines when he received his green card, who volunteered for the front line duty in Fallujah, had one last act of heroism in him.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta was the polar opposite of Pablo Paredes, the Petty Officer who turned his back on his shipmates and mocked his commander in chief. Peralta was proud to serve his adopted country. In his parent's home, on his bedroom walls hung only three items - a copy of the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and his boot camp graduation certificate. Before he set out for Fallujah, he wrote to his 14-year old brother, "be proud of me, bro...and be proud of being an American."

Not only can Rafael's family be proud of him, but his fellow Marines are alive because of him. As Sgt. Rafael Peralta lay near death on the floor of a Fallujah terrorist hideout, he spotted the yellow grenade that had rolled next to his near-lifeless body. Once detonated, it would take out the rest of Peralta's squad. To save his fellow Marines, Peralta reached out, grabbed the grenade, and tucked it under his abdomen where it exploded.

"Most of the Marines in the house were in the immediate area of the grenade," Cpl. Kaemmerer said. "We will never forget the second chance at life that Sgt. Peralta gave us."

Unfortunately, unlike Pablo Paredes, Sgt. Rafael Peralta will get little media coverage. He is unlikely to have books written about him or movies made about his extraordinarily selfless sacrifice. But he is likely to receive the Medal of Honor. And that Medal of Honor is likely to be displayed next to the only items that hung on his bedroom wall - the Constitution, Bill of Rights and his Boot Camp graduation certificate.

Yes, Virginia, there are still heroes in America, and Sgt. Rafael Peralta was one of them. It's just too bad the media can't recognize them.

Lt. Col. North (Ret.) is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of the new FOX News/Regnery book, War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Mudville Gazette

Mudville Gazette

December 17, 2004
That's the Spirit!

From the Orlando Sentinal, a story headlined American Spirit Takes Root In Iraq:

'Tis the season, and Americans deserve some holiday cheer. Herewith some of the good things happening in Iraq, beginning with Omar and Mohammed.

Regular travelers of the blogosphere, that rare and wonderful new universe where bloggers post news, commentary and other ruminations on the Web, may be familiar with the names Omar and Mohammed.

They, too, are bloggers. In Iraq with brother Ali, they created a blog called Iraq The Model, through which they've kept the blogosphere abreast of events from their native, on-the-ground perspective.

Last week, Omar, 24, and Mohammed, 35, both dentists, came to the United States to meet their American blogging counterparts and to shake hands with someone they hold in high esteem -- President George W. Bush. They wanted to thank him.

The two Iraqi brothers, who are Sunni, came to the United States under the sponsorship of Spirit of America, a nonprofit organization founded by technology entrepreneur Jim Hake that helps Americans serving abroad improve the lives of others.

A great article, and appearing in several sources, including the Chicago Tribune, where the headline has been altered to read "Freedom's spirit takes root in Iraq".

We'll assume they think that means the same thing.

Meanwhile, Jim Hake emails:

BLOGGER CHALLENGE

Our Blogger Challenge ended at midnight on Wednesday. Nearly 200 bloggers joined the effort and, as I type, raised $90,247. Incredible!!! There was a great flurry of activity in the final hours and, in amazing come-from-behind effort, Iraq the Model, jumped into the lead. Iraq the Model has raised $17,140 . The leading team is the Northern Alliance of Blogs. The Alliance has raised $12,135. Thanks to the bloggers we now have more than 11,000 contributors. A 10% increase in 2 weeks.

We are still accepting checks and will have a final total and rankings next week. Thank you to all the bloggers that participated. It is an enormous contribution. Woooohoooooo!! We even had two foreign teams (that I know of) - from Canada and Spain. Please click here to see all the bloggers that joined the effort and thank them, too:

PRESIDENT BUSH

Last Thursday, I met with President Bush for 1/2 hour in the Oval Office along with SoA's Kerry Dupont, Omar and Mohammed from Iraq the Model and Friends of Democracy. The meeting came as a surprise. We received a call in our taxi while we were headed back to our hotel asking if we could be at the White House in 25 minutes. I'm told those close to the President thought it would be good for him to hear from "ordinary" Iraqis and to hear about Spirit of America. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secy of Defense, and a staff member from the National Security Council were also there.

I found the President to be focused, interested, intelligent and committed. He also has a good sense of humor, which he employed liberally. Let me assure you, Spirit is not, and never will be, a political or policy organization. We view the work we are doing as something that people of every political persuasion should support. We're not going to blow it by playing politics. Nonetheless, we have one President. He is the Commander in Chief of the servicemen and women we are helping in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should want his support and now I'm glad we now have it.

The first part of the meeting focused on Omar and Mohammed's views of Iraq. Then we talked about Spirit of America. After hearing about what we are doing, the President turned to Omar and Mohammed and said, "You see gentlemen, that is the beauty of America. I never met this man before but he's out there helping to win this war on terror just as much as 'Wolfie' here." I would have expected President Bush to have kind words for what we are doing. I wasn't sure if he would see the strategic importance of what we are doing but I'm very happy he does. He went on to talk about the importance of private-sector, grass roots activities - people helping people, saying "that's what I believe in." Of course, that's what Spirit of America is about.

For you dog lovers, as we left, we met Barney - the President's dog - and learned that Barney is getting a sister named Beasley.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS

Unlike the serendipitous meeting with Pres. Bush, the meeting with Tommy Franks had been in the works for a while. I'm happy to say that he also understands the value of what we're doing. This is best relayed by paraphrasing what he said. Gen Franks makes an important distinction between terrorists and terrorism. He said the military can deal with terrorists pretty well with a 9mm bullet. But terrorism was a whole different, more complex thing. He said he thought that Spirit of America and the America people had a better opportunity to deal with/reduce/defeat (I forget the exact word) terrorism than the U.S. Government bureaucracy. Of course, the commitment of the U.S. Government is essential. His point, I believe, was to highlight the importance of the American people and the particular approach of Spirit of America.

I hope General Franks will be able to be involved in some of our activities moving forward. Either way, we have a great new friend.

Here in Mudville it was Mrs G who led the charge, and though we joined rather late in the effort I'm amazed and grateful to the readers who contributed. Thanks to you all! If you requested pogs and Dinar, they'll get to you. The Mrs has her work cut out for her, and holiday mail being what it is (from around the world, no less), your patience is appreciated.

Power Line: Iraqis Eagerly Await Election

Power Line: Iraqis Eagerly Await Election: "Iraqis Eagerly Await Election

Last night, the Trunk and I (authors of the Powerline Blog) taped a television show. We waited for the taping to start in a green room that included a couple of liberals who derided the 'disaster' in Iraq and sneered at next month's elections. Why? Beats me. Arabs are about to vote in an election, I believe, for the first time in world history (except in Israel, of course). Why isn't that worth celebrating?

Haider Ajani has translated the results of a poll of 5,000 Iraqis, taken in and around Baghdad, that appeared yesterday in the Arabic newspaper Alsabah:

What will you base your vote on?

Political agenda----------------------------65%
Factional origin----------------------------14%
Party Affiliation---------------------------- 4%
National Background----------------------12%
Other reasons--------------------------------5%

Do you support dialog with the deposed Baathists?

Yes-------------------------------------------15%
No--------------------------------------------84%
Do not know----------------------------------1%

Do you support the postponing the election?

Yes-------------------------------------------18%
No--------------------------------------------80%
Do not know---------------------------------2%

Do you think the elections will take place as scheduled?

Yes-------------------------------------------83%
No--------------------------------------------13%
Do not know---------------------------------4%

As we've said before, the only people who want the elections postponed are the ones who want them never to take place. The vast majority of Iraqis can't wait to begin exercising their privileges as free citizens. And it's good to see that an overwhelming majority expect the U.S. to stand by its commitment to January elections, rather than giving in to the terrorists and Democrats. They have learned, I guess, that President Bush is a man who says what he means and means what he says. As, thankfully, have we."

Belmont Club

Belmont Club
Austin Bay, returned from Iraq begins with this provocative leader:

Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt. ...

Put a circle around Jan. 9. That's the day Palestinians go to the polls to elect a president. ... Draw another circle around Jan. 30. That's Iraq's first election day. Underline the two weeks prior to Jan. 30. That will be a savage fortnight in which terror campaigns and political campaigns collide. Democratic candidates will be assassinated and polling stations will be blown to bits, as Saddamite and Al Qaeda reactionaries -- the Middle East's ancien regime of tyrant and terrorist -- attempt to force an oppressed people to submit one more time to the yoke of fear.

But they are going to fail.

And earlier Belmont Club post linked to a Marc Ruel Gerecht article which argues much the same thing in principle: that a new Iraqi state represents a real threat to the Mullahs in Iran. He explains why.

Which brings us to the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq. Clerical Iran's primary objective is to ensure that Iraq remains destabilized, incapable of coalescing around a democratically elected government. Such a government supported by Iraq's Shiite establishment is a dagger aimed at Tehran's clerical dictatorship. ... What clerical Iran ideally wants to see next door is strife that can produce an Iraqi Hezbollah. ... The birth of the Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran's ruling mullahs view as their greatest--only--foreign success, required a civil war and an Israeli invasion. In Iraq, Iran's ruling clerics have an American invasion. What they lack is civil war. ...

If the neighboring one-man, one-vote clerics can be downed and America can be physically and spiritually drained in Iraq, then the two most feared, disruptive forces in Iranian politics--Western-oriented Iranian youth and pro-democracy dissident clerics--can be further weakened. ... In Iraq, the U.S. ought to have two obvious goals. To crush the Sunni insurgency before it can provoke the birth of an exclusive, angry Shiite political identity willing to do to the Arab Sunnis what the Baath once did to the Shia. If such an identity is born, it is most unlikely democracy can prevail. Washington must thus ensure that the democratic process in Iraq, regardless of the violence, keeps on rolling. As long as it does, clerical Iran will not be able to gain much traction inside the country.

The really fascinating aspect of both men's analysis is the idea that freedom and politics are really going to be the agents of destruction for the "ancien regime of tyrant and terrorist", not as a figure of speech but as literal truth. The role of the US military would be strategically indirect and subtle: to ensure that the old regimes cannot contain the forces that would naturally spring up against them.

In this view, victory against terror need not take the form of the 101st Airborne marching into Teheran. It would be enough to merely hold the ring in Iraq to win over the Mullahs. Nations often return to strategies which they are most familiar with. Iran instinctively turned to the Lebanese experience to model its confrontation with America. It was natural that the United States might remember Europe and Korea when at war again. In both cases America won a decisive victory not by marching into Moscow or Pyongyang, but by merely ensuring that Western Europe and South Korea developed separately. In Iraq the old was new again.

John Burns of the New York Times describes the potential of the Iraqi election to rock Damascus, Teheran and even Washington.

On a list of 228 candidates submitted by a powerful Shiite-led political alliance to Iraq's electoral commission last week, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's name was entered as No. 1. It was the clearest indication yet that in the Jan. 30 election, with Iraq's Shiite majority likely to heavily outnumber Sunni voters, Mr. Hakim may emerge as the country's most powerful political figure.

Mr. Hakim, in his early 50's, is a pre-eminent example of a class of Iraqi Shiite leaders with close ties to Iran's ruling ayatollahs. He spent nearly a quarter of a century in exile in Iran. His political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was founded in Tehran, and its military wing fought alongside Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war. American intelligence officials say he had close ties with Iran's secret services.

For the United States, and for Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which have Sunni Muslim majorities, the prospect of Mr. Hakim and his associates coming to power raises in stark form the brooding issue of Iran's future influence in Iraq.

It was the Americans who seem most confident about the possible outcomes. "They say Iraqi clerics are generally wary of the idea of religious government, partly because of an entrenched doctrinal opposition among Iraq's Shiite religious leaders to direct rule by clerics, and partly because they recognize that Iraq's Sunni Muslims would fiercely resist it." Hakim himself has publicly said that clerics should keep out of politics and remain in the mosques.

In addition, Iraqi and American officials say, the ethnic and cultural divisions that have carved deep historical fissures between Iran and Iraq militate against Iraq becoming a client state of Iran. ... American and Iraqi officials said polls commissioned by the American occupation authority, and more recently by the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, have shown that ordinary Iraqis, including Shiites, are deeply suspicious of Iran's religious leadership and strongly averse to a government dominated by religious figures. ...

Many American and Iraqi officials say the talk of Iranian influence here reflects what they call a more plausible fear: that Shiite dominance in Iraq, coupled with Shiite rule in Iran, would reshape the geopolitical map of the Middle East. The development would be particularly threatening to Sunni-ruled states that border Iraq and run down the Persian Gulf, the officials say, carrying as it would the threat of increasing unrest among long-suppressed Shiite populations.

The outcome is far from foregone. The great likelihood is that the Palestinian and Iraqi elections, far from pouring oil to calm the waters, is likely to ignite them. While there may be a reduction in physical violence, the elections herald a shift in the ethnic balance of power and inaugurate a new standard for a political change in the Middle East. The US is calculating that its armed forces and political process will give it the edge in the tectonic upheavals that it will itself provoke.

Power Line: Missile Defense "Failure"? MSM Exageration!

Power Line: Missile Defense "Failure"?
The MSM will continue to denounce missile defense as impossible--I think they've given up on the argument that it would be "destabilizing"--right up to the moment when it is successfully deployed.

Andrew Olmsted dot com: There Is Just One More Thing...

Andrew Olmsted dot com: There Is Just One More Thing...: "Over at the Angry Bear you can see a graph displaying the projected surpluses and deficits in Social Security and the General Fund (i.e., the rest of the federal budget) through 2012. The Bear's point is well taken: for the next fifteen years, at least, the bigger problem we're facing is the fact our government is spending a lot more every year than it takes in in taxes, a spending plan that seems a bit more urgent to address.

On the one hand, this can be construed as another example of the you're f'd up syndrome I discussed the other day. The fact that we've got a serious problem living within our means doesn't mean we can't also address the question of how to deal with Social Security's problems.

On the other hand, if we don't get federal spending under control, we're probably going to run off the rails well before 2017. In this instance, I think the Bear wins on points. I'd prefer to fix both problems, but we don't live in a perfect world, and the budget problem is more significant than the Social Security problem.
Posted at 07:14 AM | Politics | TrackBack (0)

"

Instapundit.com !!!!!

Instapundit.com

Right Wing Spic: Please don't ridicule Kwanzaa, the made-up holiday.

Right Wing Spic: Please don't ridicule Kwanzaa, the made-up holiday.: "A Brief History of Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by Dr. Maulana 'Ron' Karenga, a former black militant, Marxist and convicted felon. Claiming to have the unity of black people in mind, Karenga committed most of his crimes against blacks (click the headline above). Approximately five years after Karenga invented Kwanzaa, he was convicted of torturing two black women by stripping them naked, beating them with electrical cords, placing a hot iron into the mouth of one and mangling the toe of the other in a vice. During the ordeal, he forced them to drink detergent.
For some reason, most Kwanzaa greeting cards don't mention this information. I assure you they would if I were designing them.

According to Karenga, Christianity is a myth: 'Belief in spooks who threaten us if we don't worship them and demand we turn over our destiny and daily lives must be categorized as spookism and condemned.' Now he claims that the purpose of Kwanzaa is to give 'reverence to the Creator.' That's interesting - is he referring to the same creator whose existence he flat-out denied just a few years earlier? I'm confused.

According to the article linked above, Karenga has concocted some bits of lore, lingo, and mumbo-jumbo that are intended to make Kwanzaa look like something out of Africa instead of something from Los Angeles County (its true origins), but his efforts have been feeble. If you scan The Official Kwanzaa Web Site you'll read that the origins of Kwanzaa lie in 'the first harvest celebrations of Africa,' which allegedly 'are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia' -- but there is no explanation of why any ancient Egyptians or Nubians might have held harvest festivals around the time of the winter solstice, and there is no identification of the crops that they harvested. Karenga's formula for celebrating Kwanzaa requires the use of two ears of maize -- but maize is a New World plant, and it wasn't known at all in ancient Africa. Whoops.

Again, I urge you not to make fun of this spiritual, deeply serious holiday. Stop laughing, I'm trying to be multicultural."

Andrew Olmsted dot com: Politics and War

Andrew Olmsted dot com: Politics and War: "Would it be better to make sure that every soldier we send into battle is equipped with the latest and greatest equipment available? Absolutely. But we're not willing to pay that price, and with good reason. One uparmored HMMWV runs $155,000, and the military needs close to 10,000 for operations in Iraq. That would mean we would have needed a stockpile of $1,550,000,000 worth of HMMWVs alone standing by for the operation (and probably more, but call it $1.5 billion for argument's sake). Add to that the costs of maintaining a fleet of uparmored HMMWVs (since they require additional maintenance and training to operate), and you're talking a nontrivial addition to the defense budget. In retrospect it seems cheap, a few billion dollars, but in peacetime any expenditure on the military frequently is seen as expendable when balanced against more constituent-pleasing expenditures like, well, take your pick."