Hi Eric (& LR Readers)!

Just a quick note to say I am alive and well and in the middle of things here in Kandahar Province!

Keep up the fire back home!

v/r Katherine

Release...

Capt. Katherine Jenerette Receives Combat Spurs Award in Afghanistan?

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan - Capt. Katherine Jenerette, who has been serving with the 5th Squadron 1st Cavalry Regiment Task Force Blackhawk since June 2011 was inducted into the 'Order of the Combat Spur' by Lt. Col. David Raugh, Commander of the 5-1 CAV and CSM McFarlan, Command Sergeant Major in a ceremony on September 5, 2011. The Order of the Combat Spur is an Army tradition reserved for Cavalry members who have earned the right to wear 'Golden Spurs' for service during combat operations and have conducted combat patrols or missions outside the Forward Operating Base during their deployment. Capt. Jenerette, of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has been serving in Kandahar Province since March 2011 on numerous missions ‘outside the wire’ and recently took part in a Air Assault Operation in northern Shah Wali Kot's Baghtu Valley(see photo).

Editor's note - Katherine was a candidate for US Congress in 2010. Tim Scott, her friend and Tea Party colleague, beat her in the primary. Katherine immediately endorsed Rep. Scott.

From Eric Dondero:

On Friday it appeared as though the NFL was prepared to fine players who wore patriotic gear on 9/11. By Saturday, the league made a complete reversal.

From SFGate.com (via AP) "Players plan patriotic displays for Sept. 11 games":

The move came a day after Chicago linebacker Lance Briggs tweeted that he had expected to be fined for wearing red, white and blue cleats and gloves designed by Reebok. Briggs said it would be "by far the best fine he will ever have to pay."

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league does not "anticipate any issues."

"We have extensive plans for Sunday to respectfully recognize the significance of the day," Aiello said in an e-mail. "Lance Briggs and all players will participate."

Fans will also be encouraged to wear red, white and blue attire for all NFL games Sunday and Monday.

But after 9/11 Memorial Cermonies it's back to usual

From Eric Dondero:

Well even Hitler loved his dog.

And so it is with the 9/11 Truthers. At least they have a modicum of common sense.

From the NY Times "9/11 ‘Truthers’ to Tone Protests Down, for a Day":

“No bullhorning during the memorial.”

That’s always been the rule of thumb among “truther” demonstrators at ground zero on Sept. 11, out of respect for relatives of victims of the terror attack, said Mike Skuthan, 32, a Web designer from Long Island who attends the demonstrations every year.

But after this Sunday’s memorial, Mr. Skuthan said, the bullhorns and signs will again be brought out and the groups will walk from one location to another in Manhattan chanting their message and engaging passers-by to help them call for a new investigation into the attacks.

“You have the usual chants — ‘9-11 Truth Ends Wars,’ or ‘Two planes, three buildings,’ ” Mr. Skuthan said. “The popular one this year will probably be, ‘Ten years, no justice.’ ”

The Times also mentions the emergence of "moderate Truthers":

Members of the so-called 9-11 Truth movement range from extreme conspiracy theorists who believe that the Bush administration engineered the attacks to consolidate power, roll back civil liberties and help oil mogul friends. But then there are more moderate factions that simply insist that top government officials know more about the attacks than they have acknowledged, and then used then used the attacks as a pretext for invading Iraq.

Editor's comment - Funny, that "moderate Trutherism" sounds vaguely familiar to the line promulgated by certain activists on the libertarian left.

Photos - Justin Raimondo of AntiWar.com, Karen Kwiatkowski of LewRockwell.com and Alex Jones/Charlie Sheen. credit - Pirate News

"Demilitarization... has led to catastrophe in the past"

From Eric Dondero:

Rudy Giuliani gave the Republican address over the weekend, stressing preparedness, and a tough approach to the threat of Islamic terrorism.

From TheHill:

A committed military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped protect America from further terror attacks like the one experienced on Sept. 11 a decade ago, Giuliani said, and the nation should resist the urge to minimize the remaining threat to justify withdrawing from the Middle East.

"It's a re-emergence of a dangerous historical pattern that sometimes afflicts America -- a desire to demilitarize by minimizing the dangers we face and that’s led to catastrophes in the past," he said.

"American security requires a long-term military presence in the part of the world where people and organizations are plotting to kill us," he said. "We must not allow impatience to prevent our military from achieving its objective in Iraq and Afghanistan and the objective is the elimination of the threat to our nation."

He also noted that broad breakdowns in security are still possible, made evident by the failed bombing attempt of a jet landing in Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009. And poor decisions and the "irrational application of political correctness" enabled the shooting at Fort Hood.

Excerpt, from American Military History, Chapter 19 "Between the Wars":

War Department officials, especially in the early 1920's, repeatedly expressed alarm over the failure of Congress to appropriate enough money to carry out the terms of the National Defense Act. They believed that it was essential for minimum defense needs to have a Regular Army with an enlisted strength of 150,000 or (after the Air Corps Act of 1926) of 165,000. As Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur pointed out in 1933, the United States ranked seventeenth among the nations in active Army strength...

For almost two decades ground units had to get along as best they could with weapons left over from World War I. The Army was well aware that these old weapons were becoming increasingly obsolete, and that new ones were needed. For example, General MacArthur in 1933 described the Army's tanks as completely useless for employment against any modern unit on the battlefield. Although handicapped by very small appropriations for research and development, Army arsenals and laboratories worked continuously during the 1920's and 1930's to devise new items of equipment and to improve old ones... not much new equipment was forthcoming for ground units in the field until Army appropriations began to rise in 1936.

For a number of years only about one fourth of the officers and one-half of the enlisted men of the Regular Army were available for assignment to tactical units in the continental United States. Many units existed only on paper; almost all had only skeletonized strength. Instead of nine infantry divisions, there were actually three. The continued dispersion of skeletonized divisions, brigades, and regiments among a large number of posts, many of them relics of the Indian wars, was a serious hindrance to the training of Regulars, although helpful in training the civilian components... in 1932 the 24 regiments available in the United States for field service were spread among 45 posts, with a battalion or less at 34. Most of the organic transportation of these units was of World War I vintage.

Editor's comment - And the non-interventionist foreign policy of left-libertarians differs from that of Neville Chamberlain and appeasement, just how exactly?

Photos - 1938 UK PM Neville Chamberlain, US Army on horseback circa 1930s.