JUAN WILLIAMS AND THE FALLACY OF RACIAL PROFILING

Unless you just came out of a coma, or like myself have just emerged from a week-long barrel ride over the falls; then you're aware of course of the remarks that Juan Williams made on Bill O'Reilly's show that resulted in his termination from NPR:

"I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”



What we have here, remarkably enough, is a black liberal endorsing the concept of racial profiling.

This attitude is backed one of this country's leading experts on race, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, about 18 years ago; "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery . . . then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."

We are used to the hypocrisy of the Left, of course. The same personalities of that clucking hen show The View who walked out on Bill O'Reilly for having the audacity to declare that the Ground Zero Mosque is innapropriate because, "Muslims killed us on 9/11," now rush to Juan William's defense. Whoopi Goldberg said this of Williams: “I don’t think he should have been fired, because, in fact . . . lots of people have this idea,”

It may or may not surprise you to learn that as a security professional, I do not endorse the concept of racial profiling. People deplore the security procedures at our airports - "Why does a 100-year-old grandmother have to take off her shoes and be subject to the same searches as an Arab male of military age?"

I'll tell you why. Consider; up until the events of September 11th, 2001, the worst terrorist attack in North America - and one of the worst in world history - was the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma . . .




. . . an atrocity perpetrated by THESE individuals:


Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols don't fit the mental image most Americans have of terrorists.

Perhaps you recall that in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, immediate suspicions fell upon the Arab & Pakistani populations in and around Deerborn, Michigan? In fact, this was partially McVeigh's & Nichol'S motivation - inspired by The Turner Diaries, McVeigh's goal was to kick-start a race war within the United States.

Then there's THIS guy:

The traitor Adam Gadahn - American-born self-convert to Islam, the al Qaeda Minister of Propaganda; now deceased thanks to Predator Drone.

Then there's THESE lovely personalities:

Chechen leader & mastermind of the Beslan Elementary School massacre, Shamir Basayev.

The Chechens are not Arabs, they are Caucasians. Some of them are blond haired and blue-eyed, and as anybody who has faced them down in combat will tell you, they are a THOUSAND TIMES more lethal than any Arab, any day.

Check out the Chechen WOMEN terrorists:






"The female of the species is more deadly than the male." - Ancient Truism


Now back to that 100-year old grandmother, going through the security line at the airport - SHE's not of military age, she's OBVIOUSLY not a terrorist - why should SHE have to take off her shoes, then be lifted out of her wheelchair and be subjected to the humiliating search train?

I'll tell you why - and I'll tell you how anyone can be turned into a terrorist, no matter what their age, race, sex or skin color. All the bad guys have to do is rock on up to Grandma's house and show her a video of her lovely 4-year-old granddaughter they're holding at gunpoint, and tell her that before they kill the child they're going to rape her in every hole, and . . . you get the point.

Bottom Line: racial profiling against Muslim males is not security, it is the ILLUSION of security. The enemy knows we're on heightened alert for dark Arab males of a certain age; and this is precisely WHY we should be on alert for the blond-haired, blue-eyed All-American types . . .

. . . or little old ladies in wheelchairs.



SEAN LINNANE SENDS



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ANTI-WAR ORGANIZATION PHONY

Theo sent me this link to a post at THIS AIN'T HELL and I'm sorry I didn't get back to you earlier on this Theo - I've been heavily engaged. To anybody who knows the meaning of the phrase "gooks in the wire" - well, I've been involved in the corporate equivalent of that, past couple of weeks now.

This imagery is apparently from a recent anti-war protest in Seattle. Act Now to Stop the War and End Racism (ANSWER) was there, Military Families Speak Out, Veterans For Peace and some other participants.

OK the focus is on this guy: four rows of ribbons with the Combat Infantry Badge beneath them, and his pin-on Master Sergeant rank there on his pocket flap.



Any vet who was ever earned the CIB would put it above everything. Period.

OK lets take it from there: Master Sergeant rank - only enlisted rank higher is Sergeant Major - there is no way a real Master Sergeant would get his fruit salad wrong like this guy:



Top row: Korean Defense Service Ribbon, Army Commendation Ribbon, Meritorious Service Ribbon;

Second Row: Army Achievement Ribbon, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal;

Third Row: Iraq Campaign Medal, Overseas Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon (with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters - DEAD WRONG - lovingly referred to as the "Basic Training Ribbon" or "Thanks For Showing Up" there are NO Oak Leaf Clusters, numeral devices, NOTHING for the ASR - you only get one, once).

Fourth Row: National Defense Service Medal, Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi), Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait).

Award precedence is right to left, top to bottom - so he's all wrong there; his highest award is the MSM, which should be top right. Korean Defense, which he has as the highest award, should go below the Iraq Campaign Medal, and the National Defense would go before either of those.

If he really earned an Iraq Campaign Medal and the Saudi/Kuwait stuff, he should also have a bronze service star on the National Defense Service Medal, and a GWOT Service Medal at a minimum. The Kuwait ribbon is upside down, it also looks like the campaign star(s?) on the Iraq Campaign medal are upside down.

Now, it's possible (I suppose) for a Master Sergeant with combat infantry experience NOT to have earned a Bronze Star - but I haven't ever seen it like that.

There’s no NCO Development Ribbon - impossible to make it to Master Sergeant without picking up this one. So he thinks he’s a Master Sergeant, but got his ribbons and medals mixed up and upside down? And if I’m not mistaken, the Korean Defense Medal is for combat during the Korean War, or some of the post-war DMZ engagements - last one of those I'm aware of was a thirty-minute firefight up there in 1984.

I'm calling this guy out as a phony. This guy is a Phony Wannabe; full of Phony Baloney.

OK now, I have a question for the Veterans For Peace organization: if you've got to front up obvious fake veterans like this Bozo to promote your agenda, what does this say about the legitimacy of your cause?

There's a greater question, of course: How come none of the Batt Boys from 2nd/75th were there to kick this disrespectful sunnuvabitch's ass?


SEAN LINNANE SENDS


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Friday's Filly is HERE



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ONE-ARMED BANDIT

For years, Brooklyn commuters have opened their wallets for Robert McMahon, handing cash to this heroic and heartbreaking figure, a Vietnam vet in combat fatigues, his left arm missing and his right leg crippled, as he panhandles on Ocean Parkway in Kensington.

Robert McMahon appears an arm short.

He plays to their patriotism, having scrawled his nickname, "Rambo," on the back of his camouflage jacket, along with his years of service with the Marines and two stints in 'Nam that saw heavy action. The top of his empty left sleeve is pinned to his uniform shoulder, and he drags his bum leg behind him.

At day's end, he counts his cash - with both fully functioning arms.

When drivers stop for red lights, McMahon, 53, hobbles over and salutes gallantly, juggling a paper cup and a cardboard sign that reads, "Vietnam vet." They give freely.

While begging for cash in Brooklyn, he plays up his phony stints in Vietnam.

They are being scammed.

McMahon has two arms - and was seen using them last week to count the wads of cash he took off kindhearted New Yorkers.

He is not crippled, and it seems he never served in the Marines nor in Vietnam, according to Corps and Veterans Administration officials who could not find any record of him.

At day's end, he counts his cash - with both fully functioning arms.

But he carries on with his wounded-soldier act, day after day, weaving through traffic and occasionally cursing out people who refuse to give. He's been at it since at least 1987, when he pretended to have a missing leg and pushed himself around in a rusty wheelchair.


Read the entire story HERE



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VETS-ARE-PSYCHO-KILLERS DEPT.

An outfit called the Bay Citizen contacted me:



Hello Sean,

I'm with The Bay Citizen, an online news service based in San Francisco. We've just published an analysis of official death certificates on file at the Department of Public Health that reveals that more than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008. That figure is three times higher than the number of California service members who were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts over the same period.

The analysis represents the first attempt to measure casualties for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans after they return home. The figures, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs, legislators and experts in post-traumatic stress, underscore how veterans in Bay Area communities and across the state engage in destructive, risky and sometimes lethal behaviors.

The data shows that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were two and a half times as likely to commit suicide as Californians of the same age with no military service. They were twice as likely to die in a vehicle accident and five and a half times as likely to die in a motorcycle accident.

After reviewing your blog I thought your readers would be interested in this report. Thank you for the valuable information. I hope you find the article useful.

Aaron Rosenthal



My reply:


Hello Aaron,

If you've read any of my personal posts on STORMBRINGER, you may or may not know that you and I already have something in common; although I'm Australian by birth, I lived in San Francisco for several years before I joined the US Army - my entire time on active duty (over 25 years) I was a California state resident, although nowadays I live out on the mid-Atlantic coast.

Bottom Line Up Front: I am VERY suspect of any awareness campaigns that suggest veterans are susceptible to some kind of mysterious malady that makes them go crazy, dangerous to themselves and the people around them.

This theme began in the anti-war days of the 1970s and peaked with the Rambo movies. Basically, combat veterans are ticking time bombs.

We are not this.

This is an unproven hypothesis.

How about some statistics that show that veterans are more likely to succeed in life, at any venture they embark upon? That veterans give back more to their communities and to the nation than people who did not serve? The statistics are out there, and they tend to show that incredibly enough somehow, the combat experience leads to a more productive, enriching life.

Example: how do you explain for the World War II generation's incredible success? Those guys saw TEN THOUSAND TIMES MORE horrific combat than did veterans of Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan COMBINED, and yet they returned home, got to work, re-tooled American factories for peacetime goods and services, completed the Interstate Highway System amongst other things.

Regarding your analysis - I am always wary when statistics are thrown out there, and I don't like the word "expert". What makes a person a PTSD "expert"? I was taught that there is no such thing as an expert, only serious students.

Underscore how veterans in Bay Area communities and across the state engage in destructive, risky and sometimes lethal behaviors.

• Yes it is true veterans engage in risky, destructive behavior - but these kind of behaviors are not exclusive to veterans.

The data shows that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were two and a half times as likely to commit suicide as Californians of the same age with no military service.

• Although suicide IS a symptom of PTSD, again, this is not exclusive of veterans. One of the examples in your article could probably be more realistically described as "death by misadventure" - causes of death can sometimes be creative on death certificates. Drug overdoses are sometimes logged as suicides, although this is not always legit.

They were twice as likely to die in a vehicle accident and five and a half times as likely to die in a motorcycle accident.

• This might be so if veterans in that age group are twice as likely to own cars, and/or five and a half times likely to own motorcycles. What are the statistics on automobile and motorcycle ownership?

My point is that raw statistical data is not enough to tell the complete story. While PTSD is real and yes, IT IS LETHAL, way too much is unknown at this time to draw any kind of definitive conclusions.

For example, my community outside Fort Bragg is infested with paratroopers, Green Berets, and other Special Operations soldiers. We are career soldiers, professionals. The five houses that touch my property and across the street include a Green Beret sergeant major, a retired Marine who also did a stint in the French Foreign Legion, a squadron commander from SFOD-D, an Air Force reservist with multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, a North Carolina State Trooper, and a civilian who drives a cement truck. Between us we have over a hundred years of service time, and about twenty-five years of combat time. We all own heroic gun collections, and are all active shooters, hunters, outdoorsmen. Nobody beats their wife; no DUIs, no drama, nothing. The only guy we worry about is the civilian, and all he does is fish.

I can say the same of my many, many brothers in the Special Forces community around the Fort Bragg area, and around the country.

On the other hand, I DO know two guys who committed suicide and yes, I attribute this to PTSD. Two out of several hundred known friends, colleagues and professional acquaintances. I won't bore you with war stories, but yes it is common knowledge amongst professional soldiers that we have some sort of PTSD and it manifests itself in strange ways.

For what it's worth my brother has called me a "trained killer" and he's scared to death of me - and yet I've held a security clearance AND have carried a loaded gun on and off duty for over 27 years, there's nothing on my record worse than a speeding ticket, can't remember the last time I was in a fight of any kind, and the security job I hold is in a field so sensitive that a psych eval and regular urinalysis is required and any kind of reported aberrant behavior is basically a career killer.

Of course, my brother and his wife both think I'm the true-life inspiration for the Rambo movies - AND he's a journalist, so he'd probably be all over your analysis.

If you like, you can use the above for your paper - it would be a great honor for me to be published in my adopted home town of San Francisco.

Sincerely,
Sean Linnane


Needless to say I have not heard back from them . . .


SEAN LINNANE SENDS



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