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Howard Kaloogian
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This week several hundred thousand protestors are expected to do all they can to disrupt the Republican National Convention being held in New York City.

We’ve prepared an ad entitled “We’re Proud” that will be broadcast throughout the nation to counter the message and tactics of the protestors (and what will surely be ample coverage from the news media - sympathetic to their cause).

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Howard Kaloogian
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We devote a lot of our focus at Move America Forward to our heroes in the military who are fighting to ensure America never suffers an attack like 9/11 again.

This story that appeared online at the “Navy Newstand” reminds us that our troops need support when they return home as well.  A program called “Courage to Care” helps our troops to reintegrate back into their families after surviving the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the article notes:

Whether it’s taking care of a soldier who’s lost his legs or whether it’s taking care of a child with chronic diabetes, we forget what it means and how much of a family’s energy goes to those activities,” said the retired Air Force colonel. “It requires their courage to face it every day in order to manage those types of health problems.”

CLICK HERE to read about the “Courage to Care” Program

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Howard Kaloogian
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The Washington Times published an intriguing OpEd by Sylvain Charat.

What’s particularly compelling about this opinion piece is that the author was chief of staff for Alain Madelin, former secretary of finance for French President Jacques Chirac.

I thought that having someone who used to work in the Chirac Administration supporting the War in Iraq warranted your attention.

“Indeed, there is no room for balancing, nor for regrets. In the light of the above facts, President Bush’s decision was responsible and legitimate. International law was not despised, it merely showed its limits and should be reconsidered and even rebuilt in the light of warfare changes. And at least now, there’s hope for democracy in Iraq, even if the fight for it will be hard. But it is worth fighting.”

CLICK HERE to READ THE OP ED

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Howard Kaloogian
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I found this essay by Amir Taheri interesting.  He does a good job of defining what is at stake in post-war Iraq and he deftly casts aside the side-arguments by some with agendas of blocking progress for the Iraqi people.

Here’s an excerpt:

A COUNTRY, NOT A CAUSE

By AMIR TAHERI


What is the real issue in Iraq today? It is to create a new government whose legitimacy is based on free elections. Opponents of the democratic option, however, constantly try to shift the focus to other issues.

For example, they say the Arabs are humiliated because non-Arab armies changed an Arab regime. Well, the reason that that happened is simple: Saddam created a regime that could not be overthrown by the Iraqi people alone, and there were no Arab armies to come to the rescue. So the Americans led a coalition that liberated the people of Iraq from their oppressor.

Does that amount to a political version of the original sin? Should the Iraqis be forced to live under another despotic regime simply to cure the Arabs of their supposed humiliation?

The U.S.-led Coalition was able to enter Iraq because Iraq had been denied normal, not to say democratic, politics for half a century. The only way to get the Coalition out of Iraq is to allow that country to have normal democratic politics. Car bombs, throat-cutting, hostage-taking and hiding in shrines will not drive the Coalition out. Only a freely elected government can ask it to withdraw in accordance with the latest resolution by the U.N. Security Council.

By opposing democratization, Sadr, Saddam and Zarqawi are, in fact, prolonging the country’s occupation. Free elections in Iraq would not only spell the end of occupation but could also end all three careers.

The Iraqi people should do all they can to prevent their country from becoming a “cause” for pan-Arabists and Islamists. Iraqis want a country in which they could live as normal human beings. They don’t want a cause for which they die while other Arabs nurse their humiliation.

CLICK HERE to read the entire column.

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Howard Kaloogian
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Be sure to check out this wire report on Al Qaida’s efforts to recruit supporters in Latin America and exploit our poorly enforced southern border as a means to enter our nation.

CLICK HERE to read the report from AP.

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Howard Kaloogian
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I wanted to call everyone’s attention to this website - www.DivestTerror.org which I became aware of through Frank Gaffney’s column in the Los Angeles Times.

Put The Heat On If Your Pension Fund Aids The Terrorist Cause

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

For the first time since Sept. 11, Americans have a chance to do something that millions of us have yearned to do: help win the war on terror.

Millions of people who invest in public pension plans can act to deny upward of $70 billion to nations that finance, train, arm and otherwise sponsor terrorist enemies of the United States. The Center for Security Policy, in a report titled “Terrorist Investment of the 50 States” (www.DivestTerror.org), identifies where much of this money goes and through which companies.

There can be little doubt about the effect of keeping such immense sums out of the hands of the Iranian, Libyan, Syrian, North Korean and Sudanese regimes. They would have less money to fund their terrorist allies, less money to buy or build weapons of mass destruction, less money to threaten U.S. interests and allies. It might even precipitate the sort of cash-flow crisis that ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union — catalyzing regime changes where they would do the most good without firing a shot.

Read Gaffney’s entire column by CLICKING HERE

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Howard Kaloogian
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PoliticsOnline is an outfit that follows the use of the Internet in politics.

They asked their subscribers to nominate the top political websites and Move America Forward was one of the top nominees.

We will now be in contention with MoveOn.org, Al Jazeera, John Kerry’s E-Team, Joe Trippir from the Howard Dean campaign, and many others.

You can vote for Move America Forward - just look for my name, Howard Kaloogian, on the list of nominees:

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Howard Kaloogian
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Kudos to columnist Michelle Malkin for noting our work in monitoring anti-war protest plans for the Republican National Convention.

Read her column CLICK HERE

Be sure to also read about the abusive treatment she received from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.  Read that column by CLICKING HERE

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Howard Kaloogian
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You can view our latest television ads online by CLICKING HERE

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Howard Kaloogian
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The Real Iraq Story
Americans don’t often get the right picture out of Iraq.
By Karl Zinsmeister

How insightful is the Iraq reporting that you’ve been consuming? Take a little test.

If I tell you that scores of Iraqi detainees have been killed and maimed this year in Abu Ghraib prison, you may not be surprised. But you’re probably guessing wrong about who hurt them. The moronic American guards who are now on trial for improperly humiliating some Iraqis caused no deaths or injuries: The many casualties in the prison were all inflicted by Iraq’s guerilla terrorists.

During this spring’s frenzy of reporting on the plight of detainees at Abu Ghraib, I was surprised that none of the stories mentioned what anyone who has spent time at the prison (as I have) knows is the central danger to the prisoners there. By far the gravest threats to the Iraqis in that facility are the mortars and rockets that guerillas regularly lob into the compound — knowing full well that the main victims of their indiscriminate assaults will be fellow Iraqis. One attack on April 21 of this year, for instance, killed 22 detainees and injured another 91.

The number-one priority for Arabs and Americans concerned about the rights of Iraqi detainees, therefore, ought to be eliminating the merciless assaults of the terrorist insurgents. The sexual indignities imposed by the prison’s rogue guards would have to come second on any sensible list.

Shouldn’t the reporting on Abu Ghraib have provided some context along those lines? Wouldn’t a fuller media presentation of these facts on the ground in Iraq have given the public a better perspective on the various problems at the prison?

Or take another of the Iraq stories most loudly trumpeted in our media: the electricity shortages. You know Baghdad continues to suffer periodic blackouts — news reports remind us of that ad nauseum. Just one more example of U.S. ineffectiveness in this war: The generating system is broken and nothing gets fixed, right?

Wrong. Despite continuing efforts by guerillas to sabotage the grid, Iraq is now generating more electricity than existed in the country before the war. So why do we continue to hear about shortages? Two reasons:

First, Saddam shamelessly hogged the country’s electricity in his capital, shunting 57 percent to Baghdad while the provinces were starved for juice. Today, power is distributed fairly to all population centers, and Baghdad gets 28 percent of the total. Though that means occasional shortages in privileged neighborhoods unused to such things, Iraqis as a whole are better off.

Second, Iraq is in the midst of a consumer surge. The economy will grow an estimated 60 percent this year. Iraqis, who have flocked to cell phones and imported a million cars, are also snatching up washing machines, air conditioners, and electronic devices never before available to them. A third of the country now has satellite TV. Electricity demand is thus rising even faster than the steady increases in generation.

CLICK HERE to read the entire story from National Review Online