First of all, I read this at Rosemary's Thoughts:

Code Pinko vs. Move America Forward

Now is the time to fight back. If you have to wear pink just to get in under cover, do so. They are on to our plan to show up on the 12th. They are planning to stack the deck by having all code pinkos sitting in those chairs. DO NOT ALLOW THIS. Here is the e-mail I received from Move America Forward:

The radical anti-military group, Code Pink, has been paying attention to our plans to organize a pro-troop demonstration in front of the Berkeley City Council Chambers on Tuesday, February 12th. (Located at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley, CA - CLICK HERE FOR A MAP).

We learned of this posting from Code Pink and their allies today: www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/07/18477667.php.

EXCERPT: "Our efforts to close the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Station have galvanized national attention. The pro-war forces, represented by the group Move America Forward, are mobilizing to descend on Berkeley on Tuesday, February 12, starting at 5am! They plan to spend the day attempting to intimidate our peace-loving City and City Council."

As if this were not enough, a member of the city council, Linda Maio, had this to say in an e-mail:

"…we have received info that the marines and their supporters are gearing up to come to the Feb 12th council meeting to shame us and attack us, in large numbers. Now that Laurie and Betty have put on a recommendation to rescind what we did (on the agenda of Feb 12th) we expect they will jam the microphone with their diatribes. Press will be there in full force. The regular meeting starts at 7 p.m. People need to get there early enough to get in and grab a seat. Pls help pass on the word. The fire dept will not allow more people in than room can hold. Therefore, I am urging people to come early and occupy a seat, and be prepared to speak too and represent our city's values next Tuesday."

OK, I admit, this kind of pisses me off.

As a City Council member, she has a responsibility to ensure that access to the public is maintained for all, not just for the ones she likes.

Consider that her comments above are a direct challenge to the 1st Amendment, both for the right to free speech and for the right to Petition the Government for the redress of Grievances.  In her zeal she would sacrifice the reality of the freedoms she so forcefully claims to advocate.

In other words, both sides have a right to be heard, so sandbagging the meeting by encouraging one side to crowd the room is just a little biased, don't you think?

I have all confidence in Melanie Morgan and Move America Forward to do their part to be heard, no matter how badly the liberals and Code Pink want to stack the odds in their favor.

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

Battle royall brewing at Berkeley council meeting

If you want to get a seat at Tuesday night's Berkeley City Council meeting, you better start lining up now. And you might want to bring earplugs. And a flak jacket.

Hundreds of protesters from across the country and the political spectrum are expected to descend on City Hall with bullhorns, drums, banners and plenty of vitriol in anticipation of the City Council's debate over the Marines' recruiting station in town.

…

On Monday, Councilwomen Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli introduced an item for this week's meeting, asking the city to retract its statements about the Marines and clarify that the city is against the war, not against the armed forces.

"We're starting to get people coming in from all over the U.S.," said Catherine Moy, executive director of Move America Forward, one of several pro-military groups planning an all-day protest Tuesday at Maudelle Shirek City Hall. "People are pretty upset. We want to avoid clashes, but it could be really, really big. We don't really know what's going to happen."

I wish I could be there to add my voice.  I can't wait to see how it ends. 

The whole issue really involves around the concept of supporting the troops versus opposing the war.

Now, unlike many conservatives, I believe it is possible to support the troops and be in opposition to the war.

In fact, as a public service, I will let a the anti war crowd in on a secret:  Conservatives hate war too.  In fact, only a psychotic maniac loves or even likes war.  War sucks.  Period.  No one likes it.

Where the two factions differ, is that one side sees the benefit of war when it serves the greater good, and when it accomplishes something.  The other side says there is never a benefit to war.

Now, in between are a lot of people with varying degrees of the two arguments above, but in general, that's how the sides really run.  The anti war liberals when pressed will often not even admit that other wars had benefits.

Don't believe me?  Let's go back to the videos I posted last week.  In clip 5, Dona Springs says (@4:00):

"…There was a time when the Marines were defending the country, and that's in World war II….Perhaps."

Perhaps?  Are you kidding me?  PERHAPS?  Perhaps they were defending our country in World War II?

Is there any friggin doubt? I will be sure to let the families of the 24,000 marines killed and the 68,000 marines wounded in World War II know that Dona says that perhaps they were defending the country.

I am convinced that the anti war people do not understand the Military.

It may be that they do not understand the Military now as opposed to the Military of their Vietnam days of protest glory.  Consider Councilman Anderson, who claims to have been drummed out of the Corps for opposing the Military.  He, a self proclaimed former Marine spent his time on clip 5 trashing the Marines.  He opened up by blasting the Marines as gangsters and trying to paint the Corps as racists killers.

But he seems to miss the point that when he was a Marine, presumably as a draftee, he was given no choice but to serve.  Pride may have been harder to find in an unpopular war when the conscripts didn't want to fight.

Whereas, now the Marines (and the whole Military) are volunteers who see the choice of service as a good one.

Which brings us to Councilwoman Olds, in Clip 1, who says the Marines are not our friends, but she sees benefit in having them exist because they get the worthless losers off of the street.

How kind.  Frankly, ala John Kerry, this seems to be how they see the Military in general.  Apparently they missed the Heritage Foundation's report.

Rather then the Military being filled with uneducated poor losers, it is filled with middle class well educated people.

But the anti war people cannot see the changes, their protest glasses are rose colored and all they see if the times past when recruits died in droves.

I will not debate the Vietnam war, nor will I castigate them for their protests.  Not my war, not my problem.

I will however debate the realities of this war and the realities of the present troops.  And in that debate, it seems to continue to point to a liberal group that does not understand force, war and the Military.

They understand police and laws.  The problem is that war goes beyond law. The UN is not going to have the ability to throw the olive branch and dove into every conflict.  There are times when war is necessary.  Like World War II.

I close with an excellent essay by John Ringo.  I hope all liberals read it with an open mind because they seem to want to doom us to the alternative.

War vs Not War

Take two people, Joseph Cop and John Soldier. Call them Joe and Johnny for short. Each of them has their job to do and each of them does it well. And in some circumstances, that job, unfortunately, causes someone to die. Let us look at a case in point.

Joe Cop is walking down a city street when a person begins firing at him from the second floor of a house. Since it's probably only this one madman, he takes cover, calls for backup and waits for the SWAT team to arrive and burn down the house. Or, hopefully, bring the poor deranged gun-nut to trial and eventual commutation far away from his guns.

Johnny Soldier is walking down a city street when a person begins firing at him from the second floor of a house. He first tries to determine if he can engage and destroy the sniper with direct fire. Determining that he cannot, he has a choice of maneuver to close or call for heavy fire. Since there are snipers all over the place, he calls down two battalions of artillery fire, F-16s with five hundred pound bombs, a wall of fuel air explosives and a B-52 arclight strike. That way the sniper dies, or at least quits shooting, and Johnny can go marching home again hurrah, hurrah. Or at least drive on with the mission.

Now, let's take a look at "Operations Other Than War." Bosnia is a great example. I recall, vividly, the image of a British major talking with a CNN crew as the major and the fighting vehicle he was with came under very poor quality sniper fire. The major kept the proverbial English stiff upper lip and noted that there were usually only a few rounds and then the sniper would go away. Pling! Pling! Duck! He also noted that they knew, pretty well, where the sniper was. Pling! Pling! But they preferred to let him continue firing rather than try to drive him off or kill him. Pling! Finally, after this went on for a bit and they took a casualty, the major ordered the gunner of the fighting vehicle to fire a few rounds of cannon fire at the sniper. After that the sniper either died or gave up, they did not send a patrol up to find out which. They might take casualties.

So what we have here is Johnny Soldier being Joseph Cop. And the two are clearly incompatible. As a cop, you want to contain the position and minimize casualties. That is an "operation other than war." As a soldier, you have to advance to take and hold territory by closing with and defeating the enemy. That is war. Unfortunately, if we prosecute the war on terrorism as "Operations Other Than War" we'll be breathing anthrax on a random basis for the next thirty years. Or until they find a way to really annoy us.

So we need to fight it as a war.

War means closing with and destroying the enemy. I can't say that enough. It means destroying his means to fight and his will to fight. It means killing the enemy using any reasonable force. There is nothing clean or surgical or pretty about it; as one Civil War general said: "Mars is not an aesthetic god."

One of the reasons for the high level of restraint in OOTW is the treaties that hem our troops and the care of the surrounding civilians. In a real war, though, you have to think first of your national survival, second of the survival of your forces and a distant third of "laws." That does not mean becoming death-crazed criminals, it would take much to bring Americans to that. But it does mean ignoring the convenient boundary. It will mean civilian casualties among the populace of wherever we are fighting, especially since the enemy will place its positions among civilians for that very purpose. And it does mean using overwhelming force and not "moderate" or "minimal force." William Slim during the Burma campaign preferred to have five or six to one odds. When a senior staffer commented that "That's a bit like crushing a walnut with a steam-press", Slim replied: "There's nothing wrong with that if you have a steam-press to hand and don't care about the condition of the walnut."

Slim, and Grant, and Sherman and Patton, all saw instances in which other officers attempted to use "appropriate" or "minimal" force to achieve an objective. And were soundly trounced for it. From this all of them came to the conclusion that the right way to assault an enemy was with the most force you could bring to bear, as fast as you could get it on target. In other words, "there is nothing wrong with smashing a walnut with a steam-press."

But that, as it should be, is anathema to "Operations Other Than War". And "Operations Other Than War" was what all our officer corps was told would be the future. We decided to study war no more. And what we get is…

Joe Cop. With no backup.

It's time to study war some more. Or at least find some "rough man" who has.