Target Centermass

Day: September 19, 2004

  • Bush Wants Truth Out on CBS Docs

    Finally addressing the documents presented as part of Dan Rather’s partisan attack, President Bush has said that the core issue of the controversy should be the veracity of the documents.

    President George W. Bush has for the first time raised questions about documents used to bolster a report that he received preferential treatment during his Vietnam era military service.

    And amid mounting Republican attacks, the CBS network, which broadcast the allegations against Bush, has stepped up its inquiry into the authenticity of the documents.

    “There are a lot of questions about the documents and they need to be answered,” Bush told the Union Leader newspaper based in Manchester, New Hampshire in an interview on Saturday. “Let the truth come out.”

    “I think what needs to happen is people need to take a look at the documents, how they were created, and let the truth come out,” he told the newspaper.

    As Rather continues his Dien Bien Phu defense of his story, ridiculously demanding the content of forged documents is the actual issue, CBS seems to hope the story will just blow over and leave the public consciousness. Will the storm pass? Today’s Sunday Reader section of the print version of the Dallas Morning News printed 24 letters from the public, a plurality of nine (mostly negative to CBS and Rather) dealt with the issue. This issue is not going away fast enough, andCBS’s stance behind a story based on four faked (I know it, you know it) documents and the testimony of a man, previously shown to be a liar on this same topic, cannot withstand the seige.

    The sooner the capitulation, the more integrity CBS can salvage.

  • Riders Reign as Texas League Champs

    Since my previous post was about baseball in Iraq, I thought I’d follow it up with a little minor league news, Texas-style. I posted previously that the Frisco Rough Riders had made the playoffs. This weekend, they wrapped up the championship.

    The Frisco RoughRiders shut down Express and capture their first Texas League title in just their second year of existence as Frisco closed the book on the best-of-seven Texas League Championship Series.

    ….

    Frisco needed just five games to dispose of Round Rock in the best-of-seven series. The Riders took games one and two while dropping game three in Frisco. Then, the Riders won games four and five in Round Rock on Thursday and Friday night.

    Alas! No more ballpark dogs, barbecue sandwiches, steak sandwiches and brews until next season. Oh well, I still have the Texas state fair coming up for my fix of deliciously-unhealthy food.

  • U.S. Soldiers Introduce Baseball to Iraqis

    Okay, here’s my feel-good story of the day.

    Gray-shirted Brusiks filled the bases in the final inning when the potential winning run strode to the plate — Kamaran Sabir, the team’s 14-year-old slugger.

    Kamaran clenched his teeth. The Nawruz pitcher, Diller Fakhraddin, stared back. Parents in the stands wrung their hands and shouted. Diller’s fastball whizzed in, and Kamaran hacked.

    Strike one. Strike two. Then, “Strike three!” yelled the umpire, U.S. Army Capt. Deron Haught. “You’re out!”

    And what may have been Iraq’s first organized baseball game was over, with the red-shirted Nawruz — the Kurdish word for New Year’s Day — beating Brusik, or Team Lightning, 10-7.

    The teams of 13- to 17-year-old boys are the only two in Altun Kupri’s new league, and Wednesday was opening day in this northern Iraqi village, a clutch of blocky buildings named for a 16th century Ottoman bridge that once spanned the Little Zab River here.

    It was a perfect evening for baseball. Parents crunched pistachios to the ding of aluminum bats. Soldiers from the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade stood guard at the soccer field-turned-ball diamond, with a Humvee parked at each outfield foul pole and another sitting just beyond the center field fence.

    This is real hearts-and-minds stuff. While I normally view such activity with a jaded eye, I think this is the kind that can work. Involve the children and families. Let them know that there’s life without war, without terror, without the boredom of soccer. Okay, it’s not time for this in the Sunni triangle, but perhaps it is time for more, much more of this in the majority of Iraq.

    Haught, commander of a platoon that occupies a small base in this town 205 miles north of Baghdad, said the soldiers hope America’s favorite pastime catches on in Iraq.

    “I’d like to see one of them get a scholarship at West Virginia University and then go and play for the Pirates,” said Haught, 37, a Pittsburgh fan who hails from Harrisville, W.Va.

    It’s not an impossible dream. Baseball has thrived in some countries where U.S. troops have deployed, including Cuba, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

    ….

    The idea for the league arose after Haught’s soldiers began playing baseball among themselves. They made a ball from wadded paper wrapped in duct tape. An aluminum cot leg was the bat.

    Haught said he mentioned the games to his sister back in West Virginia. “She felt bad. We were over here serving our country and we were playing baseball with a tape ball and a cot leg,” he said. “So she started Operation Home Run.”

    Packages began arriving filled with baseballs, bats and gloves.

    At the same time, the platoon was trying — and failing — to unify Altun Kupri’s sports clubs, which are grouped, like the town, into Turkomen and Kurdish camps. So the soldiers started their own sports club and made it a baseball league. In July, Haught persuaded the city council to send over a few dozen kids.

    He wasn’t sure it would work. Iraqis play soccer and volleyball, sports that don’t involve catching or throwing. But the kids picked up the basics.

    I think this is great stuff. I look forward to hearing about a future Iraqi counterpart talking of his childhood hero, Keith al-Hernandez.

    With the final out on opening day, Diller, the winning 16-year-old pitcher, and his teammates poured off the field, their arms in the air, shouting “Nawruz, Nawruz!”

    “I like this game. It’s better than soccer,” the lanky boy said.

    Perhaps we’re really not so different after all.

    EDIT: More on Operation Home Run here, here and here.

  • Quote of the Week, 19 SEP 04

    An item on my old blogspot page that I had some fun with was a quote of the week section. I’ve decided to resurrect that feature as a weekly post and a separate category. Here’s this week’s Quote of the Week:

    A belligerent who limits himself to defense alone can only expect to win by attrition.

    —Martin Van Creveld

    Previous Quotes of the Week from the old site:

    In war as in love, we must achieve contact ere we triumph.

    —Napoleon Bonaparte

    The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.

    —Theodore Roosevelt

    Pessimism never won any battle.

    —Dwight D. Eisenhower

  • Kerry’s Sister Tries to Sour Aussies on Coalition

    Apparently tired of lying about Bush’s “unilateral” campaign in Iraq, John Kerry might be taking steps to disperse our coalition himself, with his own sister acting as surrogate.

    JOHN Kerry’s campaign has warned Australians that the Howard Government’s support for the US in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists.

    Diana Kerry, younger sister of the Democrat presidential candidate, told The Weekend Australian that the Bali bombing and the recent attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta clearly showed the danger to Australians had increased.

    “Australia has kept faith with the US and we are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels,” she said, referring to the invasion of Iraq.

    Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters effectively takes Kerry to task for this maneuver.

    So much for “building alliances”! Kerry has now acted to undermine a critical relationship in the war on terror just to score some electoral points.

    ….

    Does John Kerry care more about grabbing power than he does about the United States? It certainly appears that way. Who gave the order for Diana Kerry to interfere with the Australian election? Who told her to act in a manner that is calculated to undermine the American-Australian partnership on the terror war? Frankly, not only should this disqualify him for the presidency, it should disqualify anyone involved in his campaign from ever holding public office. Those who condone this interference in a wartime alliance must be punished at the polls, and their party as a whole should be blocked from any power whatsoever until they atone for their actions.

    Just as interesting was this from CQ commenter Dismuke:

    Gee – why bomb trains prior to an election when you have the Kerry campaign out there trying to accomplish the exact same thing?

    Frankly, as the days go by, the more I’m disgusted by John Kerry. He is seriously doing all he can to turn my pro-Bush vote into an anti-Kerry vote.