the gov/world

[Blownb18c]

what do you think or the way the gov is now/ how the world is? i personally think it sux--discuss

[redrumracer]

its alright doesnt really bother me any.

[SloWRX]

i personally think its just gonna get worse and worse

[Echonova]

what do you think or the way the gov is now/ how the world is? i personally think it sux--discuss You make a lot of valid points in your argument. I find it hard to argue a counter-point when you're so persuasive. Although I find your long term strategy flawed, I do like your forward (if not out-of-the-box) thinking. The gender struggle in Bangladesh shows your attention to details in the world view.




Gender equality is central to achieving all the Millennium Development Goals and critical to a world of equity and tolerance – a world fit for children. Yet gender bias remains pervasive in every region of the world. I have been examining the discrimination women face throughout their lives – and what must be done to eliminate gender disparity. [Bangladesh] As much as I would love to debate these and other topics, the Targa of New Foundland is on Speed right now.

[Echonova]

This section of your post touched me.

Female Genital Mutilation The practice of female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, occurs throughout the world, but it is most common in Africa. Female genital mutilation is a tradition and social custom to keep a young girl pure and a married woman faithful. In Africa it is practiced in the majority of the continent including Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mozambique and Sudan. It is a cross-cultural and cross-religious ritual, which is performed by Muslims, Coptic Christians, Protestants, Catholics and members of various indigenous groups. Female genital mutilation is usually performed on girls before they reach puberty. It is a procedure where either part or the entire clitoris is surgically removed leaving a reduced or total lack of sexual feeling. This procedure is an attempt to reduce the sex drive of women, making them less likely to be sexually active before marriage or engage in extra-marital affairs. Although this procedure can be seen as a means to control a woman’s sexuality, the act of female circumcision determines the gender identity of women. A circumcised woman is a virgin, ready for marriage and to bear children for her husband, “Girls who are infibulated will probably not find husbands. In most cases they will become outcasts.” Female genital mutilation is not a new practice. In fact circumcised females have been discovered among the mummies of ancient Egyptians. A Greek papyrus dated 163 BC refers to operations performed on girls at the age they received their dowries. A Greek geographer reported the custom of circumcision of girls he found while visiting Egypt in 25 BC. In Africa female circumcision has been reported in at least twenty-six countries and can be viewed as a public health problem “because of its wide geographic distribution, the number of females involved and the serious complications caused by the operation.” Female genital mutilation is practiced in three major forms: “Sunna” circumcision, Clitoridectomy, and Infibulation. Sunna circumcision consists of the removal of the tip of the clitoris and/or the prepuce (covering). Clitoridectomy, also referred to as excision, consists of the removal of the entire clitoris (both prepuce and glans) and removal of the adjacent labia. Infibulation, also referred to as pharaonic circumcision, is the most extreme form. The clitoris is removed as well as the adjacent labia and the scraped sides of the vulva are joined across the vagina. The sides are secured with thorns or sewn with catgut or thread, allowing a small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. Female genital mutilation is often compared to male circumcision. Both procedures remove all or part of the functioning genitalia and both seek to control the body and sexuality. However, this is where the similarities end. All comparisons aside female circumcision is far more drastic and damaging both physically and psychologically. A more precise analogy would be between a clitoridectomy and penisdectomy where the entire penis is removed. The traditional performers of the circumcision and the age at which it is performed vary among the different African ethnic groups. The majority are village midwives who perform these operations for a living and enjoy a position of status in the village. Others who perform the operation include gypsies and fortunetellers. These women’s knowledge of anatomy and hygiene are minimal. The tools they use to operate with are rarely sterilized and include knives, razor blades, scissors, and in some cases sharp stones and pieces of broken glass. These instruments are used on several girls in succession without being sterilized and the patient is rarely given anesthesia. Circumcision among the Yoruba occurs one week after birth while in Ethiopia girls are operated on after they are forty days old. In Somalia individuals or groups of girls are operated when they are between the ages of five and eight. In Kenya, many girls are circumcised between the ages of eleven and fifteen while in the Ivory Coast the operations are performed as a village puberty rite. In midwestern Nigeria operations occur before the birth of the first child. In the Mossi area of Burkin Faso, group circumcisions are held every three years for girls between the ages of five and eight. Girls line up with their mothers each waiting their turn. Meanwhile, the circumcisor “uses a knife-like instrument reserved specifically for this purpose; after each operation she simply wipes the knife on a piece of cloth, sometimes rinsing it in water first.” Before the operation takes place there is a small ceremony where the girl drinks tea and sometimes eats sweets and snacks. Afterwards, the girl is given hot porridge with butter to eat and some water to drink. The female is operated on while in a sitting position or lying on her back with her thighs being held apart. The operator uses a cutting instrument, a collection of thorns for suturing the wound, and a powder mixture of sugar, gum, and other herbs, ashes or pulverized animal manure, which is later applied to control excessive hemorrhaging. The child is in so much pain that some have actually bitten their tongues off. If the child faints, powder is blown up her nose to revive her. When the operation is completed, usually within fifteen minutes, the wound is closed and the women present are allowed to inspect the wound to ensure that the procedure was properly completed. Finally, the girl is sutured and the powder mixture is applied. The girl must then remain immobilized for up to three weeks in order to heal properly. In most recent cases, educated families are choosing to have the procedure done in sterile environments such as hospitals and by paramedical personnel. The child is given a local anesthesia, which reduces the pain but because the child does not struggle more unnecessary tissue is removed. This is not the final operation that these women must endure. Re-infibulation is carried out on women who are divorced or who become widowed. When a woman marries or remarries she must be deinfibulated, enlarging the enclosed vulva. In some parts of Africa this must be done by the husband on the wedding night, using a piece of glass or wood. In the northern part of Somalia a midwife opens up the woman on her wedding night in the presence of her husbands relatives. Besides the initial pain of this operation there are long-term physiological, sexual and psychological effects. Unsanitary conditions result in infections of the genital and surrounding areas and often results in the transmission of the HIV virus. Other side effects include: hemorrhaging, shock, painful scars, keloid formation, labial adherence, clitoridal cysts, delayed menarche, genital malformation, urinary infection and pelvic infections. When the woman is older she will most likely have gynecological and obstetric problems including sterility. In cases where death occurs the practitioner is seldom blamed. In these cases, the death is blamed on the act of an enemy, the evil spirits, or is excused as God’s will. Infibulated women experience depression, anxiety, irritability, and reduced feelings of femininity. Sexual and marital problems are very common because women become frigid and do not enjoy sexual intercourse because of the lack of nerve supply in the vaginal region. Pregnant women tend to eat less than they should because they fear their babies will grow too large to pass through the vaginal canal in a. The justifications for female genital mutilation vary from culture to culture but they all possess one central theme: to keep a woman pure and faithful. A woman who is infibulated will be less likely to engage in pre-marital intercourse and adultery. Other reasons suggest that female genital mutilation prevents vaginal cancer, prevents nervousness and prevents the face from turning yellow. The removal of the clitoris is believed to make the face more beautiful, eliminate vaginal odors and preserve the life of her husband and child. Some believe that the clitoris is a poisonous organ which can cause a man to sicken and die upon contact. If the baby’s head contacts the clitoris during birth it is believed that it will be born with excess cranial fluid and the mother’s milk will turn to poison. Although female genital mutilation is illegal in some countries of Africa, this has not reduced the number of girls mutilated each year. Those who practice female genital mutilation do not report it and most of the time it occurs in remote places where the government does not have easy access. Therefore, the governments of these countries have no way of monitoring the spread and practice of female genital mutilation. Adding to these difficulties is the uncooperation of the women who seek out the operation. Women are often unwilling to change these customs because it is the way things have always been done. Going against this custom would be refusing to follow in their mothers, grandmothers, and aunts footsteps, which would bring shame against herself and tarnish her family honor. Female genital mutilation is such a brutal and barbaric practice that it is amazing it is still occurs today. The health hazards associated with it should be enough to have it terminated. However, the reasons women have forgoing through with the operation is the custom of female genital mutilation is so engrained in their sociocultural system. The importance of family honor, virginity, chastity, purity, marriageability, and childbearing in these societies cannot be overstressed. Therefore in the minds of the people who adhere to this belief, the benefits gained from this operation for the girl and her family far outweigh any potential danger.

[Echonova]

And this section on man considering the Earth as a infinite resource. Outstanding.



The consumer-driven economy of the United States is based on a constellation of concepts about ourselves, God, growth, wealth, and the world we live in. These conceptions deny the relevance of God or spiritual life to business activities. Nature is primarily to be used for human benefit, and anything that cannot be counted or measured in monetary terms has limited or marginal "utility."

The Earth is valued for its resources, which are assumed to be an infinite and inexhaustible. Even if not, we have faith that human ingenuity will find suitable substitutes for any shortages, and technological "fixes" for serious degradation of our natural environment.

The consumer-driven economy presumes that nations and corporations must grow in order to "progress," and assumes that the "rational economic person" will strive to amass as much material wealth and experience as much pleasure as possible. "You only go around once in life," the Schlitz beer commercial used to implore, "So go for all the gusto you can!" These beliefs encourage overconsumption as a way of life, for they posit a world of boundless freedom without natural limits or moral restraints on human action.

Electing freedom to disobey God's limits, mankind exits the Garden of Eden and enters a world where nature is to be conquered rather than accepted or embraced. The roots of our alienation from nature are deep; not surprisingly, then, the institutional engines of overconsumption are many and varied. They include the "free market economy" as presently practiced in the U.S. and the "free trade" regimes of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The institutional supports for overconsumption also include laws which protect the rights of "free speech" as exercised by large corporations in lobbying, advertising, and contributing to political parties and candidates. Such supports include the U.S. political system generally, political parties, the U.S. judicial system, the media, and administrative agencies.

In the course of this article, various laws, domestic and international, will be examined as part of national and global legal structures, along with international institutions that - unwittingly or not - promote overconsumption. Overconsumption, like any general phenomenon, is multi-faceted and eludes precise definition. In a broad sense, we use or consume many kinds of things in our lives (air, water, electricity, wool, land, cotton, fertilizer, paper, chocolate, plastics, CFCs, graphite, fuel oil, food), and corporations "consume" many things in the production of goods and services for "consumers." Moreover, not all consumption degrades the environment. But a broad and growing literature strongly suggests that we are consuming in ways that are unhealthy for ourselves and unsustainable for our natural environment. In this article, I will suggest that overconsumption occurs where (1) people (individually or collectively) make consumption an end in itself, rather than a means to some higher human purpose, where (2) economic/legal systems fail to follow free market principles, or where (3) the economic/legal system fails to adequately recognize and account for future costs, the interests of future generations, or finite limits to the use of natural resources as "capital."

[Spektrewing386]

Thank you. I know that seated in the front of this hall are VMI cadets who have served in Iraq. I am grateful for your service, honored by your presence,and mindful that I speak to an audience that can discern truth from falsehood in a politician's appraisal of the war. You know, better than most, whether our cause is just, necessary and winnable. You have risked much to make it so. Thank you.
I'd also like to salute a few old comrades of mine, Orson Swindle, Jim Berger and Paul Galanti, whose example of steadfast courage helped to sustain me in a difficult time.This institution is steeped in the ideals of service and sacrifice exemplified by the veterans here today. VMI has helped to form the character of many fine patriots, none greater than George Marshall, whose long, selfless service to our country was of inestimable value in some of the most consequential moments of the last century. As we celebrate this year the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, VMI's Corps of Cadets should take renewed pride from their association with his good name and in knowing the lesson of his character and patriotism has been a part of your education.
I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq. Unlike the veterans here today, I risked nothing more threatening than a hostile press corps. And my only mission was to inform my opinions with facts. We still face many difficult challenges in Iraq. That is undeniable. But we have also made, in recent weeks, measurable progress in establishing security in Baghdad and fighting al Qaeda in Anbar province. To deny the difficulties and uncertainties ahead is an egregious disservice to the public. But as General Petraeus implements his plan to correct the flawed strategy we followed in the past, and attempts to spare the United States and the world the catastrophe of an American defeat, it is an equal disservice to dismiss early signs of progress. And now we confront a choice as historically important as any we have faced in a long while. Will this nation's elected leaders make the politically hard but strategically vital decision to give General Petraeus our full support and do what is necessary to succeed in Iraq? Or will we decide to take advantage of the public's frustration, accept defeat, and hope that whatever the cost to our security the politics of defeat will work out better for us than our opponents?
For my part, I would rather lose a campaign than a war. However it ends, the war in Iraq will have a profound influence on the future of the Middle East, global stability, and the security of the United States, which will remain, for the foreseeable future, directly affected by events in that dangerous part of the world. The war is part of a broader struggle in the Arab and Muslim world, the struggle between violent extremists and the forces of modernity and moderation. In the early days after 9/11, our country was united in a single purpose: to find the terrorists bent on our destruction and eliminate the threat they posed to us. In the intervening years, we have learned the complexity of the struggle against radical Islamic ideology.
The extremists – a tiny percentage of the hundreds of millions of peaceful Muslims – are flexible, intelligent, determined and unconstrained by international borders. They wish to return the world to the 7th century, and they will use any means, no matter how inhumane, to eliminate anyone who stands in the way.
But the vast majority of Muslims are trying to modernize their societies to meet the challenges of the 21st century. While al-Qaeda seeks to destroy, millions of Muslims attempt to build the same elements of a good life that all of us want – security, opportunity, peace, and hope.
The war on terror, the war for the future of the Middle East, and the struggle for the soul of Islam – of which the war in Iraq constitutes a key element – are bound together. Progress in one requires progress in all. The many complex challenges we face require more than a military response. This is a contest of ideas and values as much as it is one of bullets and bombs. We must gain the active support of modernizers across the Muslim world, who want to share in the benefits of the global system and its economic success, and who aspire to the political freedom that is, I truly believe, the natural desire of the human heart. No matter how much attention their ruthless tactics receive, terrorists are not the true face of Islam. Devout Muslims in Lebanon, Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, and in Iraq, aspire to progress for their societies in which basic human needs are met for more than the privileged few and basic human rights are respected. The United States needs stronger alliances, coalitions, and partnerships worldwide to engage this long and multidimensional struggle. We need to pay careful attention to America's image and moral credibility. And in this broad effort, the outcome of the war in Iraq will play a pivotal role.
On my trip, I traveled to Baghdad, Ramadi, and Tikrit, met with Iraqi cabinet officers, our top military leadership, including Generals Petraeus and Odierno, and with embassy officials, including our new ambassador, Ryan Crocker. I also had the privilege of spending time with our soldiers, from generals to privates. Their courage and resolve in this frustrating war is an inspiration, and serves as a reminder of our obligations to avoid the expediency of easy, but empty answers or the allure of political advantage to choose the path in Iraq that best honors their sacrifices.
Every day we read about or watch on television the latest car bombing, IED explosion or sniper attack. But something else is happening, too.
For the first time in my visits to Iraq, our delegation was able to drive – not fly by helicopter — from the airport to downtown Baghdad.
For the first time we met with a Sunni tribal leader in Anbar province, who is working with American and Iraqi forces to fight al Qaeda. Sixteen of the twenty-four Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar are now working with us.
We visited Iraqi and American forces deployed together in Baghdad – an integral part of the new security plan – where they maintain a presence in a neighborhood cleared of militias and terrorists, and hold the ground they have retaken rather than return to base, after which the enemy returns to impose its will again on a defenseless population.
The government of Prime Minister Maliki is delivering on its promise to deploy Iraqi brigades to Baghdad.
A plan to share oil revenues equitably among all Iraqis has been approved by Iraqi ministers and is pending approval by the parliament.
After an important visit by Prime Minister Maliki to Ramadi in Sunni dominated Anbar, he promised a new policy to allay Sunni fears that they will be excluded from sharing in the political future of the country.
An important result of the new security plan is the cooperation we are receiving from the Iraqi people, who are beginning to provide us with actionable intelligence about the whereabouts and plans of the enemy. These welcome developments have occurred even though only three of our five additional brigades have arrived.
These and other indicators of progress are encouraging, but they are not determinative. I understand the damage false optimism does to public patience and support. I learned long ago to be skeptical of official reports that are long on wishful thinking and short on substance.
As we make progress in some areas, the enemy strikes where we do not have as great a presence. But security in the capital is indispensable to a greater level of security throughout the country so that political and economic progress can occur. And in Baghdad, we are making progress.

We have a long way to go, but for the first time in four years, we have a strategy that deals with how things really are in Iraq and not how we wish them to be.
I criticized the search and destroy strategy and argued for a counter-insurgency approach that separated the reconcilable population from the irreconcilable. That is the course now followed by General Petraeus, and the brave Americans and coalition troops he has the honor to command.

It is the right strategy. General Petraeus literally wrote the book on counter insurgency. He is a determined, resourceful and bold commander.
Many in Washington have called for an end to our involvement in Iraq. Yet they offer no opinion about the consequences of this course of action beyond a vague assurance that all will be well if the Iraqis are left to work out their differences themselves. It is obviously true that no military solution is capable of doing what the Iraqis won't do politically. But, my friends, no political solution has a chance to succeed when al-Qaeda is free to foment civil war and Iraqis remain dependent on sectarian militias to protect their children from being murdered.

America has a vital interest in preventing the emergence of Iraq as a Wild West for terrorists, similar to Afghanistan before 9/11. By leaving Iraq before there is a stable Iraqi governing authority we risk precisely this, and the potential consequence of allowing terrorists sanctuary in Iraq is another 9/11 or worse.
A power vacuum in Iraq would invite further interference from Iran at a time when Tehran already feels emboldened enough to develop nuclear weapons, threaten Israel and America, and kidnap British sailors. If the government collapses in Iraq, which it surely will if we leave prematurely, Iraq's neighbors, from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt, will feel pressure to intervene on the side of their favored factions.
This uncertain swirl of events could cause the region to explode and foreclose the opportunity for millions of Muslims and their children to achieve freedom.

We could face a terrible choice: watch the region burn, the price of oil escalate dramatically and our economy decline, watch the terrorists establish new base camps or send American troops back to Iraq, with the odds against our success much worse than they are today.To enumerate the strategic interests at stake in Iraq does not address our moral obligation to a people we liberated from Saddam Hussein's tyranny. I suspect many in this audience, and most members of Congress, look back at America's failure to act to prevent genocide in Rwanda with shame. I know I do. And yet I fear the potential for genocide and ethnic cleansing in Iraq is even worse. The sectarian violence, the social divisions, the armaments, the weakened security apparatus of the state – all the ingredients are there. Unless we fight to prevent it, our withdrawal will be coupled with a genocide in which we are complicit. Given our security interests and our moral investment in Iraq, so long as we have a chance to prevail we must try to prevail. As General Petraeus has repeatedly stated, it will be several months or more before we know with any confidence whether we can turn this war around.

Elements of the new civil-military strategy are still being drafted, almost half of the additional troops have yet to arrive, and many of the new civilians have yet to take up their posts. We are off to a good start, but significant results will take time.What struck me upon my return from Baghdad is the enormous gulf between the harsh but hopeful realities in Iraq, where politics is for many a matter of life and death, and the fanciful and self-interested debates about Iraq that substitute for statesmanship in Washington. In Iraq, American and Iraqi soldiers risk everything to hold the country together, to prevent it from becoming a terrorist sanctuary and the region from descending into the dangerous chaos of a widening war.
In Washington, where political calculation seems to trump all other considerations, Democrats in Congress and their leading candidates for President, heedless of the terrible consequences of our failure, unanimously confirmed our new commander, and then insisted he be prevented from taking the action he believes necessary to safeguard our country's interests.
In Washington, cynicism appears to be the quality most prized by those who accept defeat but not the responsibility for its consequences.
Before I left for Iraq, I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission. Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender?

In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering. A defeat for the United States is a cause for mourning not celebrating. And determining how the United States can avert such a disaster should encourage the most sober, public-spirited reasoning among our elected leaders not the giddy anticipation of the next election.
Democrats who voted to authorize this war, and criticized the failed strategy that has led us to this perilous moment, have the same responsibility I do, to offer support when that failure is recognized and the right strategy is proposed and the right commanders take the field to implement it or, at the least, to offer an alternative strategy that has some relationship to reality.

Democrats argue we should redirect American resources to the 'real' war on terror, of which Iraq is just a sideshow. But whether or not al-Qaeda terrorists were a present danger in Iraq before the war, there is no disputing they are there now, and their leaders recognize Iraq as the main battleground in the war on terror.
Today, al-Qaeda terrorists are the ones preparing the car bombs, firing the Katyusha rockets, planting the IEDs. They maneuver in the midst of Iraq's sectarian conflict, sparking and fueling the horrendous violence, destroying efforts at political reconciliation, killing innocents on both sides in the hope of creating a conflagration that will cause Americans to lose heart and leave, so they can return to their primary mission – planning and executing attacks on the United States, and destabilizing America's allies.

It is impossible to separate sectarian violence from the war against al Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is following an explicit strategy to foment civil war in Iraq. The only way to reduce and finally end sectarian violence is to provide greater security to the population than we have in the past, as we are doing now in Baghdad; to encourage Iraqis to abandon their reliance on local militias, and to destroy al Qaeda and other truly irreconcilable enemies of the United States and the Iraqi people.
Our defeat in Iraq would constitute a defeat in the war against terror and extremism and would make the world a much more dangerous place. The enemies we face there harbor the same depraved indifference to human life as those who killed three thousand innocent Americans on a September morning in 2001. A couple of days before I arrived in Baghdad, a suicide car bomb destroyed a large, busy marketplace. It was a bit unusual, because new U.S. and Iraqi security measures in Baghdad have reduced the number of car bomb attacks. But this time the terrorists had a new tactic: they drove their car to a security checkpoint and were waved through because there were two small children in the back seat. The terrorists then walked away from the car, leaving the children inside it, and triggered the explosion.
If the terrorists are willing to do this terrible thing to Iraqi children, what are they willing to do to our children?
Some argue the war in Iraq no longer has anything to do with us; that it is a hopelessly complicated mess of tribal warfare and sectarian conflict. The situation is complex, and very difficult. Yet from one perspective it is quite simple.
We are engaged in a basic struggle: a struggle between humanity and inhumanity; between builders and destroyers. If fighting these people and preventing the export of their brand of radicalism and terror is not intrinsic to the national security and most cherished values of the United States, I don't know what is.
Consider our other strategic challenges in the region: preventing Iran from going nuclear; stabilizing Afghanistan against a resurgent Taliban; the battle for the future of Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others; protecting Israel's security; the struggle for Lebanon's independence.
Does any honest observer believe those challenges will be easier to confront and at lesser cost in American blood and treasure if the United States accepts defeat in Iraq?
We all agree a military solution alone will not solve the problems of Iraq. There must be a political agreement among Iraqis that allows all groups to participate in the building of their nation, to share in its resources and to live in peace with each other. But without greater security imposed by the United States military and the Iraqi Army, there can be no political solution.

Responsible political leaders – statesmen – do not add to the burdens our troops carry. That is what Democrats, intentionally or not, have done by failing to provide them with the resources necessary to succeed in their mission. Every day that passes without the necessary funds appropriated to sustain our troops, our chances of success in Iraq dwindle and our military readiness declines further.
We have sent the best Americans among us to fight in Iraq, at the least, we must give them the tools they need to do their job. When the president vetoes, as he should, the bill that refuses to support General Petraeus' new plan, I hope Democrats in Congress will heed the advice of one of their leading candidates for president, Senator Obama, and immediately pass a new bill to provide support to our troops in Iraq without substituting their partisan interests for those of our troops and our country.
But I also know the toll a lost war takes on an army and a country. We, who are willing to support this new strategy, and give General Petraeus the time and support he needs, have chosen a hard road.
Democrats, who deny our soldiers the means to prevent an American defeat, have chosen another road. It may appear to be the easier course of action, but it is a much more reckless one, and it does them no credit even if it gives them an advantage in the next election.
We all respect the sacrifices made by our soldiers. We all mourn the losses they have suffered in this war. But let us honor them by doing all we can to ensure their sacrifices were not made in vain.
In closing, I'd like to bring to your attention the gallantry and patriotism of one American who served with distinction in Iraq, a Navy SEAL, who refuses to quit his mission and let the country he loves so well suffer the terrible harm our defeat would entail.

A few days ago, Petty Officer First Class Mark Robbins'unit was ambushed outside Baghdad. During the ensuing firefight, he spotted an insurgent with an RPG, and immediately stepped out from cover and exposed himself to enemy fire to take out the terrorist before he could fire.

He saved the lives of his comrades, but was gravely wounded as he did so. He was shot in the eye by another insurgent with an AK-47. The bullet exited the back of his head about three inches behind his ear. He was initially knocked unconscious but came to, continued to fight and then, despite the severity of his wound, walked to the evacuation helicopter.

He was eventually taken to Landstuhl military hospital in Germany. As is the custom of Navy SEALs, he was accompanied by one of his comrades, Petty Officer Second class McLean Swink.
Petty Officer Mark Robbins, an American hero, believes we can still win this fight. I'll take his word for it, and accept my responsibility to help the cause he sacrificed so much to defend. Thank you.



Truely touching to the heart.

[Blownb18c]

lol

[BABY J]

Forecast For Tonight:

Darkness... continued darkness until the sun comes up -- then some light and sh*t.

[TheGodfather]

Wow this thread fails on many levels.

1. You shouldn't hate your government when you can't even spell sucks correctly. I'm sure the public school system, IE your momma teaching you some reading, didn't work too well.

2. Wrong section. Noob.

3. Bitching about America is getting old. Stop complaining and please just leave.

4. You seem like one of those bandwagon haters, like everyone who hates Bush yet doesn't know why? Yeah, just like those dumbasses.

Tips to improve this thread?

1. Chug bleach.

2. Get off the internet.

3. Delete this thread.

4. All of the above.

[ShooterMcGavin]

Wow this thread fails on many levels.

1. You shouldn't hate your government when you can't even spell sucks correctly. I'm sure the public school system, IE your momma teaching you some reading, didn't work too well.

2. Wrong section. Noob.

3. Bitching about America is getting old. Stop complaining and please just leave.

4. You seem like one of those bandwagon haters, like everyone who hates Bush yet doesn't know why? Yeah, just like those dumbasses.

Tips to improve this thread?

1. Chug bleach.

2. Get off the internet.

3. Delete this thread.

4. All of the above.

ditto on the bolded pt above.

and i like how you're making him an offer he can't refuse :lmao:

[TheGodfather]

Wow this thread fails on many levels.

1. You shouldn't hate your government when you can't even spell sucks correctly. I'm sure the public school system, IE your momma teaching you some reading, didn't work too well.

2. Wrong section. Noob.

3. Bitching about America is getting old. Stop complaining and please just leave.

4. You seem like one of those bandwagon haters, like everyone who hates Bush yet doesn't know why? Yeah, just like those dumbasses.

Tips to improve this thread?

1. Chug bleach.

2. Get off the internet.

3. Delete this thread.

4. All of the above.

ditto on the bolded pt above.

and i like how you're making him an offer he can't refuse :lmao:

Hahah, I had to.

[Ran]

what do you think or the way the gov is now/ how the world is? i personally think it sux--discussYeah, this world and it's ways of thinking suck!


Yet gender bias remains pervasive in every region of the world. Actually, maybe it's not so bad.