Organizers Beware! UPDATE: Nevermind

I had a Tea Party on the 15th of April, and it was very peaceful and educational. I received more of an education today. See, when I called on the 16th of April to get my next Tea Party going (July 4th), I had to leave a voice mail. The Detective called me today and informed me that I had the wrong office. He said not to think of this as anything more than a simple thing, but I needed to speak with the Department of Homeland Security!

He asked if I was from a national organization and I told him I wasn’t. He didn’t believe me. He also thought I was against our country or our government (I don’t quite remember the questions, because my blood was boiling). I straight out answered him, “NO! I love our beautiful country, and I just want to make sure it’s still here when our children and grandchildren grow up!” Can you believe this? I even told him how much the national debt was at the time I wrote my post, $11,221,539,981,704 and rising every moment!

Our gross national product is around $12,000,000,000. Now you tell me, how can we survive if these congress critters keep spending our hard earned money like there’s no tomorrow? Oh yes, he asked me if I voted for Obama. I told him I voted for Sarah Palin. 🙂

Are they allowed to ask who we voted for? I didn’t think so. Ya know, I’ve wanted to run for office for a long time now, but I’ve been too afraid to try. There is dirt in my past from when I was a juvenile and a little bit when I turned 18 and then in the year 1985. I am not proud of it, but how long do I have to pay for crimes which were perpetrated against me? Long story, no answer.

(I did fill out the paperwork and inform the city clerk that I would be running for City Council a few cycles back, but I pulled out of the race for lack of money.)

Just be careful when you have your Tea Party. Don’t even bother to involve the Special Events unless you have more than 75 people coming. Ya know, you could always claim, “Oh my! What a turn-out. I never expected so many people!”

PS. I’m pretty upset but not rattled. Keep on keepin’ on, my brothers and sister!

Update: I just got off the phone with a DHS detective, and he informed me that we do not, in fact, need their permission to have a Tea Party. It was odd though. He acted as if he had never heard of a Tea Party. When I brought up the Tax Day Tea Party, he went, ‘Ooohh, THAt.’ Excuse me? Am I missing something here? Or am I just being paranoid? Why would the police officer think it necessary to send me to DHS in the first place? Hmm. I’m going to give him a call tomorrow. Stand-by for the update…

May you walk with the LORD always, and when you cannot take another step, may He carry you the rest of the way until you can walk along side Him again.

Cross-posted @ SGP and Rosemary’s Thoughts. Digg!

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Chairman Tours Afghanistan’s Forward Outposts

by Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

COMBAT OUTPOST DEYSIE, Afghanistan, April 22, 2009 – Military support “enablers” are Regional Command East’s most important need in Afghanistan, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here Wednesday.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown clearly that the main units “have to be supported by these enablers.” Enablers are units such as engineers, civil affairs, military intelligence, helicopters, military police, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets. “We are looking throughout the system to generate more capacity to support these units as they flow in here,” Mullen said.

Commanders have had to make hard decisions between Iraq and Afghanistan to get enablers into the country, but they are starting to flow, the chairman said. Some of the units were set to deploy to Iraq, but have been switched to Afghanistan.

The military has to change institutionally to meet this demand, Mullen said. “One of the discussions in Washington right now is the fiscal 2010 budget,” he said. “The big decision in that is to focus on these enablers.” Army and Marine Corps leaders have increased the capacity, and though it takes time to train and equip the units, they must do it as quickly as possible, he added.

Part of the purpose of the chairman’s trip is to meet with the men and women who are on the leading edge of the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. “I’m very encouraged with what I see here,” Mullen said. “Just the discussions we’ve had about development and the local people who are feeling more supported than they did a few months ago.”

Mullen emphasized that the Afghan people are the center of gravity in the struggle. “What I’m most heartened by is that our people understand that,” he said. “Everything I’ve heard since I’ve been here today is focused on the Afghan people, and that’s the right answer.”

Mullen cited progress here in Paktia province, noting road development that contributes to commerce. But he acknowledged the strategy in Afghanistan will take time to work.

“I’m hard-pressed to say whether this is going to take [a specific amount of] time,” he said. “I think we need to make a lot of progress in many areas in the next couple of years.”

What happens this year and next will give planners a much better idea of how long the campaign will take, the chairman said.

Mullen said he’s noticed “significant improvement” since a visit to Afghanistan last summer. “But I can’t measure that and say we’ll be here three years or four years or five years,” he said. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

U.S., NATO and NATO-allied forces are working to train the Afghan security forces, and civilian agencies are sending people to the country to help with the economy and governance. “It isn’t all about combat for an extended period of time,” the chairman said. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

The Taliban in Pakistan are a problem inside Afghanistan. Commanders told Mullen that Taliban forces are flowing back into Afghanistan after a winter spent training and refitting in Pakistan. The addition of U.S. combat power in Afghanistan means the Taliban won’t find it so easy to come back, Mullen said, and the border issue is getting attention. “I’m comfortable that we understand the challenges of [the Afghanistan-Pakistan] border, and that we need to address this challenge regionally on both sides,” he said.

Pakistan’s Frontier Corps has improved greatly its border security in the past few months, the chairman said. Pakistani units have launched operations on their side of the border, but these have to be sustained, he said.

“I believe the Pakistani military has to increase pressure as pressure increases on this side to stop that insurgent flow,” the admiral said. “They have the capacity to do that, but … switching from a conventional mindset to a counterinsurgency mindset is one of the big challenges the Pakistanis have.”

Commanders in Afghanistan are interested in the information operations part of the campaign, wanting to get out ahead of the Taliban’s message, Mullen said.

“To me, that’s an important statement and goal,” he said. “The whole idea is to provide security for the Afghan people so they have more confidence in our forces, they have more confidence [in themselves], and they develop more confidence in their own government. And all of our operations are done with Afghan forces. We have the strategy, and the commanders on the ground understand it.”

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talks to soldiers assigned to Forward Operating Base Airborne, Afghanistan, April 22, 2009. Mullen is on a six-day tour of the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility escorting a USO tour, meeting with counterparts and visiting troops.

Source: CENTCOM.

Cross-posted @ Rosemary’s Thoughts.

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