Hot Air has a pretty funny post which shows a video mocking outspoken protestors who think that it is a good idea to advance their agenda by yelling loudly on cameras. This type of political discourse purported by Code Pink and some of Ron Paul’s more loathsome supporters will hopefully come to an end. This sort of thing was common in the 1960s (at least from what I hear) with examples such as the Yippies shouting things at the 1968 DNC protest in Chicago like “’We will burn Chicago to the ground!’ ‘We will f*** on the beaches!’ ‘We demand the Politics of Ecstasy!’ ‘Acid for all!’”. I’m thankful for the internet’s existence merely because such ridiculous groups can be brought to light, discussed, and ultimately discredited. The internet and blogosphere provides a voice for these people, but like a double-edged sword, they can be easily dismissed as buffoons. If the internet wasn’t around, there would be no way I could hear about these groups while out in Iraq. I think it’s important to keep myself apprised of the political situation back on the homefront, at least in my spare time.
Al-Arabiya is a Saudi-owned sattelite TV station operating out of Dubai. It’s in Arabic, but some of their reports they release in English for us displaced Westerners. It’s pretty moderate compared to Al-Jazeera and has a lot of stories about the Sahwa members in Iraq suceeding in defeating Al-Qaeda, so that’s always good. But this new promo they are running is downright bizarre. I couldn’t watch the thing since our bandwidth has been lousy, but the Fox News website had a quick blurb on their website talking about how a guy who gets chicken in a cafe relates to the polar ice caps melting relates to refugees on an island relates to terrorism. It’s like playing 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon combined with the proverbial “Butterfly flapping it’s wings in Taiwan” analogy, uh I guess. Independent Arabic TV is relatively new and still developing marketing techniques, so we’ll have to be patient and provide a little helpful feedback in the meantime.
If only the man hadn’t ordered chicken, car bombs would never happen!
Mr. Ahmadinejad is coming to my neck of the woods in Iraq (h/t McClatchy Watch). I’m all about diplomacy as opposed to war, but it’s hard for the Iraqis to have dialogue with a guy who denies the holocaust and thinks there is no homosexuals in the country. It sort of puts him in the nutjob category. You can peruse the softer side of a theocracy on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s blog, but I remain skeptical. Keep an eye on this one and standby to throw up the BS flag.
Pronounce it right, you Western infidels!
Admiral Smith had a pretty solid news conference the other day that highlighted all the brutality and twisted logic of Al-Qaeda in Iraq for 2007. Unless you are one of the 20 people that subscribes to the Pentagon Channel, you probably didn’t catch it, but the transcript and graphs are up on the MNF-I website for your perusal and analysis. The Admiral talked extensively about Al-Qaeda in Iraq, while the group is mostly Iraqis, it is led by foreigners and the suicide attacks are conducted by primarily foreigners (mostly Saudis BTW). While us Americans have been fortunate to not have a serious Al-Qaeda attack on American soil since 9/11, the Iraqis haven’t been:
These bombings were just two of the more than 4,500 attacks by al-Qaeda Iraq in 2007 that targeted civilians. Al-Qaeda murdered 3,870 Iraqis, injuring nearly 18,000 additional innocent civilians. The violence peaked in March and April and as the surge of operations pressed through the summer, the number of high profile explosions slowly began to decrease, however the numbers still remain alarmingly high.
I will say that Al-Qaeda in Iraq wasn’t really around before the 2003 invasion, and connections with Saddam are a little far-fetched. I’ve seen some stuff about Zarqawi here in 2002, but not much evidence. But now that they are here conducting this campaign of brutality (read the story about the teenaged suicide bomber in Fallujah), we pretty much owe it to the world to exterminate them. Long War Journal is a great resource in keeping up with terrorism from Algeria to Pakistan. Methods of accomplishing the long war can be debated extensively so stay informed.
The Sinjar truck bombings in August ‘07 killed 100s of minority Yazidis, but got little American media attention
One thing that I’ve learned from being in Iraq is that sometimes you have to adopt a pragmatic approach that compromises various conflicting ideas to reach some sort of practical solution. I think the reason that I’m such a moderate on most political matters is because ideological groups are heinous. Here’s some examples:
Code Pink (link)
These yahoos storm into the Petraeus/Crocker September testimony with stupid signs and funny looking hats to insult a 4-star general in the name of “supporting the troops”. Geez, Code Pink, I think the guy might know a thing or two about “the troops” having been in the Army since you were smoking pot during the 1970s. These hippies are just looking for any cause to stir up trouble and, conveniently for them, there’s a war going on, so that they can leave their mark before they zip off into the cosmos or whatever aging hippies do once they croak. (SGT Freedom eloquently explains)
Lyndon Larouche Democrats (link)
These guys seriously freak me out. When I was in college, they used to always have a leaflet table set up with very poorly patched-together signs that made absolutely no sense about how we were headed for an economic depression and that the only thing that could save us was Roosevelt-style socialism and building choo-choo trains through Africa. My friend was brainwashed by them and invited me to their “compound” out in LA once to get some “education”. They verbally assaulted me for supporting Thomas Jefferson-style democracy and claimed I was some sort of British agent or maybe even a “speculator”. What these insults meant still haunt me to this day. Good thing they didn’t get my name. Some other groups many years ago weren’t so lucky, since the Larouchers attacked them with nunchucks during something known as Operation Mop-Up. Creepy.
9/11 Truthers (link)
You ever wonder why the world is run by old white dudes in masonic hoods who control the world’s banks and engineer wars and famines to stuff their coffers with gold. Well, after being on this planet for 27 years, I have realized that no one is that smart to pull off a ruse on that magnitude. Good god, some of our leaders can barely tie their shoes let alone manufacture 9/11 to start a global conquest under the pretense of fighting terrorism. Think about it.
Westboro Baptist Church (link)
And you wonder why I’m a tad vigilant against religious fundamentalism creeping into politics. These crazies think it’s a good idea to spread the righteous word that “God Hates Fags” by protesting the funerals of our fallen brothers and sisters! Apparently, since the US accepts homosexuality, God is punishing our military by killing us with IEDs. The logic is completely absurd.
Maybe you can now see where I’m coming from. Please add your own nefarious groups as I only had time to publish these 4 and Long live the Moderate Revolution!
Apparently, Osama Bin Laden’s son is becoming a “peace activist“. Reading the AP article (h/t to Jules Crittenden), I discovered these disturbing words:
“My father thinks he will be good for defending the Arab people and stop anyone from hurting the Arab or Muslim people any place in the world,” he said.
I’m not very religious, and don’t pretend to know too much about Islam, but how has Osama and Al-Qaeda been good for the Muslim world. The bombing of the Al-Askari shrine in Sammara, Iraq in 2006 resulted in the escalation of sectarian violence between Muslims that has only recently been quelled. The targets of most of Al-Qaeda’s brutal suicide bombings is other Muslims in places like Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. I would venture that Osama Bin Laden has been the biggest aggressor against the Muslim world rather than defender. I’m not buying this whole “peace” thing from his son and I wish the media would just ignore him.
Most military folk who go into Iraq or Afghanistan pass through the oil-rich country full of sandstorms and camels, Kuwait. I recently passed through it on the way back to the states for R&R for a couple days. Despite my griping about the lack of sheets in the transient tents and the process by which the Army moves people from point A to point B, I took it upon myself to be chatty and talk with the soldiers who were stuck in purgatory with me. A good place to start a conversation is the smoke pits conveniently located on the rocky walking paths. Most soldiers don’t know what to make of me as a Naval officer lounging about smoking Kools, but I try not to give off an aura of uppityness so that people will be able to shoot it to me straight.
The consensus for the soldiers in Iraq is that things have calmed down significantly. This is especially true for the folks who dwell in the western province of Anbar. I talked with one SSGT who mentioned that the Shiite enclaves on the east side of the Tigris in Baghdad were still quite dangerous and traveling by convoy was still a source of concern for most. One PFC in the Guard asked me when he thought we would be getting out of Iraq. As an officer I’ve always hated myself when I couldn’t properly answer a question, but this one really disturbed me. I honestly have no idea when coalition forces will be out of Iraq, and I am starting to lose faith in the policy makers in Washington for having an answer to that question as well.
As for Afghanistan the consensus was that it was very cold in the mountains this time of year. I asked how the fight was going and there seemed to be an uptick in violence, along with NATO forces routinely rounding up foreign jihadists. Many of the folks heading out on R&R lamented that it was their third or fourth tour, but were generally ecstatic that they were heading home on a bird for the holidays. As bored as I was waiting around to get out of there, it was certainly interesting to get such clarity on a cross-section of issues in both Iraq and Afghanistan in this nexus of information. It was definitely more interesting than sitting around watching South Park episodes on my laptop for the umpteenth time. I hope all these folks enjoyed the holidays with their friends and family, and I thank them for helping me pass the time.
Rightwing News had the 40 most obnoxious quotes for 2007 recently posted. Topping the list was probably the most offensive thing I’ve seen to veterans in my lifetime (note: I was born after “Hanoi Jane”). It’s a cartoon by Ted Rall which states that “Only idiots signed up; only idiots died. Back home, the average I.Q. soared!” implying that only morons sign up for the military in a time of war and that somehow benefits the gene pool. You can view the vile tripe here. Not only is this offensive, but it is highly inaccurate, since the young people I have worked with in the military are head and shoulders above the average 18-25 year olds who only care about updating their facebook profile and vomiting at parties on weekends. While I believe that most of the American public remains highly supportive of the military, it is necessary to keep an eye out for those in pop culture who are out to sabotage us. This will prevent our current generation of vets from being treated as poorly by American society as our brothers and sisters who served in Vietnam were.
My name is John, I am a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom with the Army Reserves. I was one of the lucky people who was activated from inactive reserves (IRR). I also am a financial analyst and (until recently) I had bad credit. On December 18th I closed on a house I bought using a VA loan. The news lately had me pretty scared! I was worried that I would never get approved with my credit because of the sub prime market situation. I did a little research and a little hard work and I was able to get approved. With this blog I hope to inform you not only how to get a VA loan but also how to make your credit score look a little better!
Your Credit Report
The first time I had checked my credit report I was in my late 20’s and I just knew it was bad…plain and simple! I was the guy in college that would get credit cards, max them on pizza, and not pay…that was just the beginning! I didn’t mention my student loans I skipped out on! A few years later I was starting a successful career, my wife was about to become an RN, and we were renting a house. We started to look at homes and found one we liked. We spoke to the builder’s mortgage company and they offered us a 10% interest rate. Obviously we knew we had to wait! I went home and logged onto https://www.annualcreditreport.com. This is a site that gives you access to the 3 major credit reporting companies. From here you can access your credit report from each of the 3 companies once a year for free. Remember, this is your credit report…not your credit score! They may charge you a small fee to view your credit score. I pull my report and pay for the score at least twice a year. They also might sign you up for a credit monitoring service free trial. Make sure you cancel if you do not want the service! I cancel the day I pull my report so I don’t forget!The first time you pull your report it might seem like you are reading a foreign language. Review your negatives and make sure you recognize them. If you see anything on your report that you do not recognize then you can report it and it may be removed from your report. I don’t know if it is legal so check before you do it (in other words don’t blame me if it is illegal and you are busted) but I fought every negative on my credit report. I was shocked at some of the things that were removed! Clean it up the best you can (pay off some of the small debts).
Tips on improving your credit score
Ok so you see an ad in the paper where they will fix your credit for you…I don’t trust them! You can do it on your own a lot cheaper! The first step which I already mentioned is to dispute your negative items on your credit report. You can do this online or by sending a letter registered mail to the address on your credit report, I just did it online. Second you need to get new positive credit. The first step I did was to get a high interest, high annual fee credit card. Orchard Bank is who approved me, there are a few others like them. Don’t max it out, but use it for gas or something that isn’t too hard to pay quickly if you need to! Anther trick is to get a loan. I read an article about a website that is like eBay for loans. Visit http://www.prosper.com (if you join though my referral page you’ll get a $25 discount on your loan http://www.prosper.com/join/djohn78). The way prosper works is you create an ad (like on eBay) saying how much money you want and what interest rate you are willing to pay and that’s it! The lenders will see your credit history condensed. They will not see your score but they will see your rating. Lenders (who would be the buyers in the eBay example) see your ad and they bid on your loan. The nice thing is the bidder always wins! You can get a loan for $1000 and have 10 people bid $100. You now owe those people $100 (plus interest) each! Prosper will direct deposit the money into your checking account (minus a small fee). To make yourself more marketable you can sign up to have your payments come out of your bank automatically (just the minimum payment). You can also make additional manual payments. Every time a payment is made, it is split among the lenders.
Be Patient
Good credit scores are all about history so there is not a way to turn a score of 522 into a 615 in a month. It does take time. However small steps like this spread out over a year will make a big difference, they want to see a good payment history. If you are going with a VA loan there may be some other tricks that I’ll get to in the next section.
Getting the VA Loan
I’m not going to go into the steps of getting a VA loan, VA Joe has a good section on that, this is more about getting approved for the loan! Your mortgage company will be able to customize this for you but here are the basics. The VA is very forgiving when it comes to credit. You can have 10 maxed out, never paid credit cards from 10 years ago and it may not effect you. The VA looks more at history then they do score. They are mostly worried about the last 24 months. You don’t want to have any missed payments in that time frame. We had a couple of payments that were late in that time frame and our mortgage broker told us to write a letter to the underwriters telling them why we were late. Come up with a better excuse then “I forgot to pay” you may need to use your imagination! This is just an outline of what you need to know, again your mortgage broker will be able to customize this plan for you.
