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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; David Forsmark</title>
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		<title>The Looming ObamaCare Market Crash</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-forsmark/the-looming-obamacare-market-crash-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-looming-obamacare-market-crash-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Dec 2013 05:30:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Forsmark]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[crash]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213280</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How ObamaCare will damage the economy; let us count the ways. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gh.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-213288" alt="gh" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gh-450x326.jpg" width="315" height="228" /></a>It is routinely said that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, is a takeover of one sixth of the U.S. economy.  That’s true enough, but those who think that ObamaCare will <i>only </i>affect one sixth of the economy are in for a rude awakening.</p>
<p>By this, we are not talking about the various social regulations on smoking, drinking, trans-fats or sweets that may come along with the new health care regime &#8212; though that may well happen.</p>
<p>What no one is yet talking about is the fact that the insurance industry is a major player in the capitalization markets in the United States; and ObamaCare significantly changes the way health care is insured in this country.</p>
<p>What happens if trillions of dollars of private investment capital suddenly disappears from banks, lending institutions and investment markets in this already fragile economy?</p>
<p>The Great Depression was a result of deflationary measures undertaken by both Hoover and Roosevelt after the stock market bubble burst; followed by FDR’s war on business.  Obama has inflated the market following the crash of &#8217;08, has instituted a hostile regulations regime on U.S. businesses—and ObamaCare is a huge disincentive to hiring.</p>
<p>More people have lost insurance than have gained it—and the incentives in the law make it likely that will continue, no matter what “fixes” come to the website.</p>
<p>So far, ObamaCare has been the mother of myriad unintended consequences—and it’s still not really in effect yet.</p>
<p>There are many ways in which ObamaCare will impact the economy.  Some of these are easy to see; some are relatively hidden.</p>
<p><b>Trillions to Disappear from Capital Markets</b></p>
<p>At their very basic, level insurance companies are giant piles of money that go in different directions at, sometimes, high rates of speed.</p>
<p>When a premium is sent to the company some of that premium is held in what is called reserve.  Insurance companies, in an attempt to lower costs, take some of that reserve and invest it profitably.</p>
<p>The Left hates insurance companies as some great profitable exploiters of the masses.  But because of those investments, some insurance companies return $1.02 in benefits for every $1.00 in premiums.</p>
<p>Now, you may ask, how much money is held in reserve for each insured person?  Well, the answer is: It depends.  It depends on the company, it depends on the policy…in short…it depends.</p>
<p>Let’s do some simple math.  Forecasters say that 50-100 million people are about to lose their insurance &#8212; and according to some insurance company executives we spoke to on condition of anonymity that number is very real and perhaps underestimated.  As a result of this loss how much investible capital will no longer be in these reserve accounts?</p>
<p>Let’s look at the range of possibilities.  Let us also assume a $7,500 reserve is held for each customer.  That means something in the area of $375,000,000,000 is no longer able to be invested into the economy.  On the high end of the range being discussed it is $750 billion.</p>
<p>This is, according to some of the same insurance execs we talked to, a very low estimate.  It could be far, far worse.</p>
<p>That is money that would come out of reserve, as those patients no longer hold policies.  That is $750 billion -$2 trillion that would disappear from insurance industry investment in capital markets in the next year or so.</p>
<p>Proponents of the law who read this will probably counter, &#8220;Well, sure, but people are going to buy new policies, so there will just be a shift in who is investing the reserve.&#8221;</p>
<p>So far that isn’t the case.  People are losing coverage faster than they are buying new coverage.</p>
<p>Thanks to the outlawing of pre-existing condition exclusions, people can now wait until they are sick to purchase insurance.  In fact, many of the people purchasing through the exchange have huge medical issues.  The young and healthy are not showing up.</p>
<p>In short, to expect healthy people to flock to purchase insurance under these conditions rather than pay the much cheaper penalty flies in the face of human nature.  In economics, incentives always win out.</p>
<p>For five years the Federal Reserve, through quantitative easing, has printed money to prop up the stock market while at the same time artificially holding interest rates low.  This cannot go on forever—and the longer it goes, the harder the eventual fall&#8211; but every time the Fed even hints at slowing down the presses, the market tanks.</p>
<p>If trillions in real investment leaves the market, are we really going to just fill that gap with more paper money?</p>
<p><b>Billions Less Consumer Spending</b></p>
<p>Furthermore, there are now estimates saying that 1/3 of people will see premium increases due to this law.</p>
<p>The number of people with no money going into savings (if they have savings at all) has been shrinking.  According to Money Magazine in June of 2013 that number was 76%.  That means 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.</p>
<p>Let’s make another estimate based on the assumption that the average policy increase will be about $150.  So in that same accounting used above we would have 76% of those who lost coverage having to find somewhere between $5.7-$11.4 billion.</p>
<p>These numbers again represent a low-end number.  Likely this is higher.  The other problem is that this number is just the start.  Once this begins those businesses who would have had the additional patronage have less money to bring in new employees, and may in fact cut back on the hours those employees in their employ work.  These employees in turn have lower incomes and the downward spiral begins.</p>
<p>Also, the 1/3 estimate is only for starters.  Once the pool is filled with mainly those with pre-existing conditions, premiums will skyrocket.  Insurance companies are no longer merely spreading risk, but taking on the certainty of large payouts.</p>
<p>This, Ezekiel Emmanuel, is what you call a “death spiral.”</p>
<p>Even in the unlikely event Republicans can gain enough seats to repeal ObamaCare with veto-proof majorities after the 2014 election, the spiral will have already begun.</p>
<p>And if you think Ben Bernake was a Keynesian nightmare, wait until we get Obama’s Fed Chair nominee, Janet Yellin.  Her job will be to print enough money to inflate the can down the road a ways.</p>
<p>The economic chickens of ObamaCare will come home to roost.  Sooner or later.  Those William Devane gold commercials just may have a point…</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>Revising the Revisionists</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-forsmark/to-hell-on-a-fast-horse/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=to-hell-on-a-fast-horse</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:02:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Forsmark]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the epic chase to justice in the Old West.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Gardner.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58394" title="Gardner" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Gardner.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="526" /></a></p>
<p><em>To Hell on a Fast Horse:<br />
Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West</em><br />
By Mark Lee Gardner<br />
Morrow, $26.99, 336 pp.</p>
<p>Some things never change.  The New York Times, for instance, can always show sympathy for a cop killer with an excuse.</p>
<p>In 1926, a Times book reviewer criticized <em>The Saga of Billy the Kid</em>, one of the first books on the Kid and Pat Garrett that relied on actual reporting, for presenting Garrett as a hero.  The critic, who apparently had watched a few too many Tom Mix movies, thought the lawman with eight kids to feed should have given Billy “a chance to fight for his life.”</p>
<p>I didn’t know liberals were so into dueling. The statement is doubly ironic since the Kid’s most famous killing was the straight-up bushwacking ambush of the (admittedly corrupt) sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico.</p>
<p>Nearly a century later, the Times can still find fault with nearly every police shooting, while it romanticizes cold-blooded cop killers for &#8220;standing up to the Man&#8221;—especially if their politics are radical.</p>
<p>The story of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid often has been used as sort of a pseudo-Marxist fable&#8211; though, unlike Jesse James, John Dillinger and other outlaws who attained such status, the Kid didn’t rob banks.</p>
<p>One of the more infamous accounts of the legend is Sam Peckinpah’s <em>Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, </em>a glum disaster of a movie that basically killed what was left of the drunken director’s career (plus nearly snuffed out the Western genre itself in the early &#8217;70s).  Peckinpah imagined Garrett as a man who is bitter about being used as a capitalist tool to kill off a young rebel threat who sits around grousing about the greedy businessmen who have destroyed the code of the West.</p>
<p>But the truth comes out in Mark Gardner&#8217;s <em>Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West. </em>He reports Garrett was an enthusiastic, if not terribly successful, capitalist himself who had invested in and started several large cattle concerns and other enterprises.</p>
<p>And while Billy may have been on the right side in the famed Lincoln County War, it was the only time in his life that the career horse thief and casual killer had any justification for his actions.</p>
<p><em>To Hell on a Fast Horse</em> may not present a lot of new information, but it is a vividly told, action-packed and thoroughly enjoyable look at the complete lives of two of the Old West’s iconic figures.</p>
<p>Gardner tells the story as parallel biographies. The Kid was not born William Bonney (as usually reported) but probably Henry McCarty, the son of a poor Irish refugee.  A petty thief who gradually drifted West ahead of the law, the Kid graduated to stealing horses and constantly practiced with his pistols.  Personally charming, the Kid attracted a loyal band of cohorts — and women — and his dash and daring earned him admiration among some in the general public.</p>
<p>Garrett, meanwhile, was almost the Kid’s direct opposite.  A tall man of few words, Garrett was born on a prosperous Louisiana plantation but sought his fortune in the West. He worked as a buffalo hunter and cowboy, saving his money until he opened his own saloon in Lincoln County.  Garrett married Juanita Gutierrez, who died within months of the wedding. (The Kid, along with most of the county&#8217;s folks, probably attended the wedding reception, leading to the myth, central to Peckinpah’s film, that Garrett and the Kid had been good friends.) Garrett then married Juanita’s sister, Apolinaria, who bore him nine children.</p>
<p>Two things would forever shape how the American public would view both men.  First, the irony that the Kid worked his first straight job for John Tunstall, the most sympathetic figure in the Lincoln County War, a smaller entrepreneur looking for fair treatment in the cattle market. After Tunstall was shot down in cold blood, many saw the Kid’s subsequent actions — including shooting a corrupt sheriff from ambush — as honorably seeking vengeance and justice for his dead boss. His real motives, however, were far cloudier than that.</p>
<p>Garrett, on the other hand, would never live down the fact that he ultimately shot the Kid from a position of advantage in the dark, even taking into account the number of deputies Garrett had lost in the pursuit of the Kid, and his belief that the Kid was armed and making a move on him.</p>
<p>Garrett never garnered a reputation like Wyatt Earp, Bill Hickok and other legendary lawmen because of how he shot the Kid in the dark. Ironically, Garrett’s detractors generally ignore that the Kid had shot Lincoln County’s Sheriff Brady from ambush&#8211; and that Garrett had captured the Kid alive once, only to have the outlaw murder one of his deputies and escape.</p>
<p><em>To Hell on a Fast Horse</em> at times reads like a Louis L’Amour book, especially when Garrett’s posse pursues the Kid and his band and engages in a series of gun battles and hairbreadth escapes.  While such modern Western movies as <em>Open Range</em> have tried to be more “realistic” about the marksmanship in the Old West (if they couldn’t shoot better than that, many would have starved to death), Gardner relates gun battles in vivid detail that reminds us that these people were <em>very</em> familiar with weapons—and some of them could <em>really</em> shoot.</p>
<p>More importantly, Gardner gives a balanced and complete portrait of Garrett, a flawed and fascinating man whose ambition often exceeded his reach in business. He nonetheless remained an effective law enforcement officer who was constantly called back into service to solve particularly troublesome situations.</p>
<p>The legend surrounding Billy the Kid remains fascinating, as it does not quite fit into the usual template of the outlaw who becomes an American folk hero. He may have been charming and had flair to spare, but he also casually gunned down men who had no chance to fight back.</p>
<p>The Kid also was, by trade, a horse thief.  Unlike most other crooks-turned-icons, he didn&#8217;t rob banks that were regarded as the bad guys for foreclosing on American home and farm owners during hard times. (Though in pre-Federal Reserve times, small investors and farmers could lose their life savings because of such robberies.)  His only virtue was seen as standing up for the little guy against bigger corporate interests in avenging his murdered boss.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s elected officials today who rob the banks blind, call <em>them</em> the bad guys and seem to be hell-bent on killing small businesses …</p>
<p>Maybe moderns shouldn’t feel so superior and sneer so much about the “Wild West.”</p>
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		<title>Faith and Fiction</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-forsmark/faith-and-fiction/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=faith-and-fiction</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:04:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Forsmark]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A thriller writer and an FBI veteran eschew sermonizing for suspense in two Christian fiction hits.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/enemies.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56712" title="enemies" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/enemies.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="449" /></a></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595547134?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1595547134" target="_blank">The Long Way Home</a></strong></em><strong> </strong><strong><br />
By Andrew Klavan<br />
Thomas Nelson, $14.99, 352  pp.</strong></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805449787?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0805449787" target="_blank">Enemies Among Us</a></strong></em><strong><br />
By Bob Hamer<br />
Fidelis, $14.99, 336 pp.</strong></p>
<p>As an avid reader of contemporary  fiction, I&#8217;m wary of two phrases that tend to raise a red flag with  me: “Suitable  for all ages” and “Christian fiction.”</p>
<p>The former generally means  the book is either so benign that it’s devoid of reality, while the  latter usually signals a warning that sermonizing and pat plot resolutions  lie ahead.</p>
<p>But two terrific writers &#8212;  an acclaimed veteran thriller writer and a legendary veteran federal  agent whose life could be the basis for several thrillers — neatly  avoid those pitfalls without sacrificing immediacy or suspense.</p>
<p>Edgar Award-winning mystery  writer <a href="http://www.davidforsmark.com/4609/our-winter-of-no-pc-content" target="_blank">Andrew  Klavan</a> and first-time  novelist Bob Hamer, a retired undercover FBI agent, each has produced  an exciting thriller that is appropriate for teens and their elders.   Their new books would be equally at home on the mystery section shelf  at Barnes and Noble and at Family Christian Stores; and best of all, neither insults  the reader&#8217;s intelligence nor spends more time preaching than entertaining.</p>
<p>Klavan’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595547134?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1595547134" target="_blank">The Long Way Home</a>,</em> is the second entry in his “Homelanders” series, which is about  a young man trying to clear his name on murder charges while fighting  a group of homegrown Islamofascist terrorists.  That sounds like a tall  order for a high school senior, but that’s only the half of it —  Charlie West can’t remember any details of the past year that got  him into this fine mess.</p>
<p>But Charlie’s partial amnesia  isn&#8217;t the most unusual thing about him in the very girl-oriented world  of “Young Adult Fiction.”   He’s a guy, but not a misunderstood bookworm  or awkward geek—and he’s not about to be thrust into a world of  magic. Charlie is a church-going, patriotic, athletic and popular kid.  And,  fortunately for his current predicament, his sport is karate, not football.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.davidforsmark.com/5703/the-last-thing-i-remember" target="_blank"><em>The  Last Thing I Remembe</em>r</a>,  the series&#8217; first book, opened, Charlie was being tortured by terrorists  without a clue about how he got there. He spent the rest of the book  running for his life at a pace that would exhaust Richard Kimble.</p>
<p>Charlie’s still on the lam  from both the police and the Homelander terrorist group, and there are  still a satisfying amount of action set pieces (including a great escape  from a killer in a library that turns into a flight from a whole police  department), but <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595547134?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1595547134" target="_blank">The Long Way Home</a></em> gives us time to take a breath  as Charlie secretly returns to his home town.</p>
<p>As he enlists his loyal friends  — and his dream girl, who he frustratingly finds out fell in love  with him during the year of his life that he can’t remember — the  tale allows for more character development and rounds out Charlie’s  emotional life for the reader.  Stories of the hero who returns home to  right past wrongs fill a niche in classic mystery lore, and Klavan does  a fine job in adapting it for a younger audience.</p>
<p>Think <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FJGWBM?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B000FJGWBM" target="_blank">Memento</a> meets <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I5XOW8?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B000I5XOW8" target="_blank">The  Fugitive</a>, spiced with the plot twists and relentless suspense of 24 and  just a touch of the classic kid mysteries like The Hardy Boys, and you’ll  have an idea of the treat in store when you pick up Klavan’s Homelanders  novels.</p>
<p>Hamer, meanwhile,  is certainly  following the old saw to “write what you know about.” His nonfiction  debut, <em><a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35982" target="_blank">The  Last Undercover</a></em>,  was about his five-year infiltration of the pro-pedophile group NAMBLA.  Among  his other real-life adventures are posing as an arms dealer with the  Russian mob and busting the world’s largest counterfeiting ring run  by the North Koreans. But he chose a different yarn to launch his career  in fiction.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805449787?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0805449787" target="_blank"><em>Enemies Among U</em>s</a> is a  crackerjack novel about undercover FBI agent Matt Hogan’s investigation of  a charity that may be providing covert funding for terrorists. His superiors  have become worried that Hogan is becoming overly aggressive and even  reckless in the field, so they assign him the nice, quiet case of checking  out a charitable clinic that may have ties to bad guys.  Of course, the  assignment turns out to be as dangerous as any he’s ever taken.</p>
<p>Hamer brings a wealth of inside  knowledge and telling detail to his story. The twist is that the suspicious  charity is run by Christians, rather than the usual Muslim suspects,  and we don’t know if the clinic&#8217;s staff is filled with allies or dupes  of the terrorists.</p>
<p>The veteran FBI agent also  paints a realistic portrait of the bureaucratic and legal hoops that  agents must jump through in order to pursue the bad guys. Warrants aren’t  issued on the spot while the agent is driving across town in hot pursuit,  and getting instant lab results on forensic evidence.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805449787?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0805449787" target="_blank">Enemies Among Us</a> </em>is the  first novel to be published under Ollie North’s Fidelis imprint, a  new Christian publishing house that aims to be a little grittier and  less overtly preachy than their brethren.  Enemies is the perfect  start.</p>
<p>Unlike most books in the genre,  Matt is struggling with his faith, while his wife is the steadfast one. The  Hogans have a very healthy (off-scene) love life, and the book does  not stop dead in its tracks to sermonize even when it would seem perfectly  natural to do so. The characters&#8217; ideological and spiritual struggles  are seamlessly woven into the story in a way that is perfectly natural,  which makes the characters come alive instead of killing the pace of  the narrative.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595547134?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1595547134" target="_blank">The Long Way Home</a> </em>and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805449787?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0805449787" target="_blank"><em>Enemies  Among U</em>s</a> are exemplary in the way the authors make their points without  stacking the dramatic deck or overt sermonizing&#8211; and they can be enjoyed  by all ages. In these cases, that’s a good thing.</p>
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		<title>SEAL Warrior &#8211; by David Forsmark</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/david-forsmark/seal-warrior-by-david-forsmark/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=seal-warrior-by-david-forsmark</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:12:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Forsmark]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=33597</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The best book out there on Vietnam SEAL operations.]]></description>
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<p><em>SEAL Warrior<br />
Death in the Dark, </em><em>Vietnam</em><em> 1968-1972</em><br />
By Thomas H. Keith USN (Ret.) and J. Terry Riebling<br />
St. Martin&#8217;s, $28.95, 284 pp.</p>
<p>Walk into any chain bookstore and there&#8217;s apt to be at least a shelf dedicated to memoirs by former Navy SEALs. The most famous of these, of course, is Marcus Luttrell&#8217;s mega-selling <em><a href="http://www.davidforsmark.com/4582/the-dangerous-book-for-boys">Lone Survivor </a></em>and the book that started the trend, <em>Rogue Warrior</em> by Richard Marcinko.</p>
<p>I became a fan of this genre partly because of my friendship with Harry, a retired Navy ship captain and former SEAL who served in Southeast Asia <em>very</em> early in the Vietnam War (earlier, in fact, than most of these books admit there <em>were</em> SEALs in Vietnam).</p>
<p>While most of these memoirs are worth reading, darned few are as good as Thomas Keith’s <em>SEAL Warrior: Death in the Dark, </em><em>Vietnam</em><em> 1968-1972</em>. In fact, I would rank only <em>Lone Survivor</em> ahead of this book as being of general interest to readers &#8211; and, by far, <em>SEAL Warrior</em> is the best book I’ve read on Vietnam SEAL ops.</p>
<p>Keith provides more tales of the kind of snatch-and-grab missions that Harry told me about than any other book I’ve read.  In tone, it falls halfway between Marcinko’s constant chest-thumping and the memoirs that sound too much like slightly expanded versions of an officer’s SITREPs. Keith describes his team, his attitude and the lifestyle the SEALs adopted in Vietnam in compelling fashion; in fact, <em>SEAL Warrior</em> was the first book I’ve read where I could almost hear Harry’s voice as I read it.</p>
<p>I once talked to Harry about doing a memoir when all the SEAL books started hitting the market, and some limited details of his pre-Tonkin Gulf activities had begun to leak out. (In his 1992 book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Process-Political-Differences-Turned-Crimes/dp/0029001676/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1256484280&amp;sr=1-2" target="_blank"><em>Undue Process</em></a>, Elliot Abrams called those operations one of our worst kept secrets.)  Harry looked at me and said, “First, that’s classified, and I have a pension. And, second, there is a Democrat president, and I’m not sure what these clowns would call a prosecutable war crime.”</p>
<p>If I were Thomas Keith, I’m not sure I would have published my memoirs while Eric Holder is Barack Obama&#8217;s attorney general. With an administration that considers fake executions, waving a gun at a prisoner and just blowing cigar smoke at a detainee as possible war crimes, I might have hesitated to publish this great story:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;It took about a half an hour before Mingh was totally out of control but not a word had leaked out of the prisoners.<strong> </strong>In a fit of fake rage, Mingh grabbed up one of the prisoners that he was sure wasn&#8217;t the VC we were looking for and dragged him away from the others and around the back of the Quonset hut. Once there he was stripped of his black pajamas, and a Chieu Hoi [a defector from the VC] volunteer almost the same size as the prisoner slipped into them. While the fake stomach wounds and a horrific head wound were carefully put in place and fake blood was liberally poured where it would do the most good to hide the true identity of the volunteer, we slapped half empty sandbags with rifle butts. Mingh continued to scream questions, and, as the fake torture went on and on, another volunteer screamed out in artificial agony. When the fake wounds were ready and Boomer and I could keep ourselves from laughing, Al slowly fired three rounds from his M-16 into the ground. Then we picked up the stretcher with the now unrecognizable Chieu Hoi aboard and, with the fake entrails hanging out of the fake belly wound that was dripping blood, and the head wound gushing more blood, we paraded the stretcher past the line of prisoners sitting on the ground next to the Quonset hut. Mingh, his pants and boots covered in fake blood, stepped around the end of the hut, wiping fake blood from his hands onto his green camouflage shirt. He removed the prisoners’ gags and again asked who was the VC official. Nobody said a word. Mingh pointed to the last man in line and said, ‘Next.&#8221; Even before Jack started to pick the guy up, their eyes were open like saucers and they were all staring at one guy in the middle of the lineup. They were all trying to out shout one another and were calling him by name.”</p></blockquote>
<p>But on the eve of sending more troops to Afghanistan under rules of engagement that are so restrictive they encourage the enemy to hide behind human shields, knowing we will not take them out, perhaps Keith felt it was his duty to remind Americans there is a better way to go.</p>
<p>The following paragraph makes a dated delineation between draftees and professional soldiers, but it&#8217;s still instructive about merely throwing more bodies at the problem, an option that seems to appeal to John McCain in every situation. Just once, I’d like to hear a Republican &#8212; or anyone &#8212; say, “We need to let our men kill more bad guys,” rather than just call for more troops.</p>
<p>As Keith puts it:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The draft had put tens of thousands of men into uniform; but they were draftees and they didn&#8217;t have much interest in learning how to fight a guerrilla war.  Some of the draftees were real fighters, ready and willing to take on the NVA and VC, but they were in the minority.  Most of the draftees just wanted to stay alive.  They went through basic training served their tour and headed for home, and another newbie took their place.  Somebody up the chain of command needed to understand that just putting huge numbers of armed men on the ground can&#8217;t win a guerrilla war … to defeat the NVA and VC we didn&#8217;t need more draftees, we needed warriors who were well-trained, dedicated, and tough as nails. …”</p></blockquote>
<p>And, of course, allowed to do the job.</p>
<p>Keith is not the first SpecWar-type who&#8217;s wondered if keeping American involvement at the counterinsurgency level might not have been a much better idea in Vietnam.</p>
<p>This doesn&#8217;t mean that in designated “free fire-zone” &#8212; an area where American troops were allowed to fire on anything that moved — that care was not taken to protect civilians. On a mission to find and destroy a mine-making operation in a free-fire zone where the Americans were unaware of any noncombatants, the SEALs happened across civilians in their path and acted accordingly, even risking discovery by taking care:</p>
<blockquote><p>“There were dozens of small hamlets with six or eight families doing their best to keep what little they had away from the VC. Now we were not only in a free fire zone but we could expect to see lots of civilians and the VC were masters at hiding among the civilian population.  It always pissed us off when the magazines and newspapers or radio and television reports made it sound as if we enjoyed killing civilians. Innocent civilians did get killed, but it was the VC who used their own civilian population as shields, because they knew we didn&#8217;t kill civilians when it was possible to avoid it.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Conservatives too often try to equal liberal soldiers-as-victims rhetoric by acting as though each clueless or derogatory utterance by a liberal pol is potentially devastating to troop morale. It’s not news to combat troops that civilians and politicians don’t get it.  They aren’t always sure that military administrative types or people back at the Pentagon get it &#8212; hence the designation REMFs (which I can’t fully explain to you here, here&#8217;s a hint: the first two letters stand for Rear Echelon).</p>
<p>In fact, defeatist comments have more effect on the enemy. Making a jihadist think we&#8217;re one car bomb away from despair and defeat encourages more car bombings. Leading a news cycle with excessive breast-beating over reports of civilian casualties is the same as saying, “Hey, Mohammed, grab some more human shields.”</p>
<p>But soldiers are aware of outside events and it matters, though it may not effect whether they do their job, as this passage reveals.</p>
<blockquote><p>“One piece of good news that we celebrated long and hard was that (North Vietnamese leader) Ho Chi Minh had cashed in his chips but that good news was followed by some bad news that we had a tough time believing.  It was reported that massive antiwar demonstrations in Washington DC had attracted over a million protesters. …</p></blockquote>
<p>Even “worse news,” was that American soldiers had massacred civilians at My Lai. The press and antiwar politicians used this to smear the war effort, which enraged Keith and the SEALs who rightly thought perspective had been lost:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The poor peasants all over Vietnam had been killed left and right by the VC and NVA it took four weeks of house to house fighting before the US troops fought them to a standstill and forcing them to retreat from the city of Hue. In the rubble of what had been a beautiful peaceful city of 120,000 people the VC left over 2800 civilian dead behind them when they finally broke and ran. Those innocent people were not caught in a crossfire or killed by random fighting; they were murdered to send a message to every man and woman and parent in Vietnam: oppose us and we will slaughter you, your children and your grandchildren. The civilians who died in Hue were victims of premeditated well-planned summary executions and mass murder.  But the newspaper and TV reporters never reported those facts.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Still, as Keith concludes, the real effect of political pressure and media coverage is on the <em>politicians </em>— it&#8217;s <em>their</em> actions and reactions that decide whether a war is won or lost:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The half-million men and women who had put their boots on the ground and their lives at risk, who fought the war in Vietnam, were now no more than another pawn in a deadly chessboard. President Nixon had promised ‘peace with honor.’ He lied: Nixon and Kissinger had decided to put Vietnam behind them before the next (1972) election.  While American troops were protecting and defending the liberty and freedom of 150 million people and every sacred word of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, Nixon and his gang of co-conspirators were ignoring the two documents that make our nation worthy of any sacrifice. …. Politics in America had become a shit sandwich, and all of us who served in Vietnam were the meat in the middle.”</p></blockquote>
<p>After several hundred pages of great war stories about amazing feats of valor, bravery and mad fighting skills, Keith injects a rather modest note:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Even though people outside of the teams thought that what we did was dangerous I couldn&#8217;t agree. To my way of thinking there were only two things that made combat in Vietnam dangerous. The first was to be doing something you hadn&#8217;t been trained to do.  The second was to be fighting like I Corps or II Corps was in the north. The Army and Marines were taking hilltops, fighting the VC head on, and trying and dying to hold the ground they had won. In that kind of fight indiscriminate death was the rule, not the exception. No matter how well you were trained, an artillery or mortar round could turn you into a red spot in the jungle floor. … SEALs didn&#8217;t charge into enemy fire to take and hold ground.  We were guerrilla fighters. When we fought, it was in the enemy&#8217;s own backyard. They didn&#8217;t know that we were there, how many of us there were, how we got there, or how we would extract.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Yes, but that’s what the skilled trades of warfare always say, from World War I pilots who shuddered at the thought of the trenches but died at a much higher rate, to B-17 crews who, before the P-51 came to their rescue, suffered casualties exceeded only by the first wave of landing craft at places like Normandy or Tarawa.</p>
<p>It is true, however, that only a couple of dozen SEALs were KIA (officially) in 10 years of (official) operations in the Vietnam War — and probably only another half-dozen or so were killed in pre-Tonkin ops and later cross-border missions that were put down to other causes.  But that doesn’t make the SEALs any less brave.</p>
<p>One overriding attitude readers will take away from <em>SEAL Warrior</em> is that Keith and his team were eager for the fight, itching to take on missions against overwhelming odds and challenge the bad guys. Other than the pursuit of, say, stewardesses, the hunt for those who terrorized the villagers in the Rung Sat Special Zone brought them the most joy in life.</p>
<p>Thomas Keith served more than 30 years in the Teams.  I hope more installments are coming our way — as soon as they are declassified.</p>
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		<title>The Enemies List &#8211; by David Forsmark</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/david-forsmark/the-enemies-list-by-david-forsmark/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-enemies-list-by-david-forsmark</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:03:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Forsmark]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=32042</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unlike our president, our popular fiction writers can recognize the real enemies.]]></description>
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<p>While the Obama Administration is decisive about declaring war on Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but dithers on whether to go after the jihadists in Afghanistan, some of our most popular fiction writers are showing that they know who the real enemies are—and how to deal with them.</p>
<p><strong><em>Pursuit of Honor</em> by Vince Flynn</strong></p>
<p>We can now close the nominations for Book Most Likely to Provoke a Hissy Fit from the ACLU. In the fiction category, the clear winner is Vince Flynn’s latest Mitch Rapp thriller, <a href="http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/14/glenn-beck-new-vince-flynn-thriller%E2%80%94%E2%80%9Cconservative-porn%E2%80%99/"><em>Pursuit of Honor</em></a>, (Atria, $27.99) in which our hero is a one man wrecking crew against enemies foreign and domestic in a way that might make even Dick Cheney say, “Hey, wait a minute,” (though <a href="http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/14/glenn-beck-new-vince-flynn-thriller%E2%80%94%E2%80%9Cconservative-porn%E2%80%99/">Glenn Beck sure liked it!</a>)</p>
<p>(Nonfiction honors go to <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35982"><em>The Last Undercover</em></a>, by Bob Hamer, in which the former undercover FBI agent who was dubbed by colleagues “the Mitch Rapp of the FBI” exposes the ACLU’s collaboration with the child molestation conspiracy known as NAMBLA.)</p>
<p><em>Pursuit of Honor</em> takes place immediately after Flynn’s last book, <em><a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=33478">Extreme Measures</a></em>, as Rapp hunts the trio of al Qaeda terrorists who were behind the nearly disastrous attack on counter-terrorism HQ, and (ruthlessly) works to uncover the enemies at the CIA that helped make it possible.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Mitch is being investigated by an antagonistic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for twisting a terrorist’s arm as the attack was going down. (If that sounds far-fetched, remember that among the bill of particulars in Eric Holder’s current CIA investigation is that cigar smoke was blown into the face of some detainees at Gitmo.)</p>
<p><em>Pursuit of Honor</em> is about as subtle as a broadsword, but nuance is not what Flynn’s legions of fans are after—though subplots about the effects of violence on both sides of the fight are examined by Flynn with a surprising result.</p>
<p>It’s hard to say which will tick the Left off more: Rapp’s arguments in favor of torturing pretty much any bad guys who withhold information that endangers American lives; or his outrage that while he is out protecting babies from being torn apart by terrorist bombs, the same members of Congress who are indignant about Rapp’s methods are protecting the “right” of “doctors” to commit acts against the unborn (or partially born) that would make al-Qaeda shudder.</p>
<p><strong><em>Evidence</em> by Jonathan Kellerman</strong></p>
<p>While that was new angle for Vince Flynn, smacking around those for whom political or philosophical considerations take precedence over innocent human life is old hat for Jonathan Kellerman. Other than Dean Koontz, no bestselling novelist has written more pro-life novels—though Kellerman masterfully integrates his points seamlessly into the story, with considerably less lecturing.</p>
<p>In his latest, <em>Evidence</em>, (Ballantine, $28.00) psychologist and LAPD consultant Alex Delaware, and his best friend, Homicide detective Milo Sturgis, are investigating the murder of a lothario “green” architect, who was murdered in a decidedly un-green mega-mansion, along with an unidentified woman, and left in a decidedly undignified position.</p>
<p>The tangled web leads them through a “green” design firm which is basically a do-nothing hobby for a German trust fund baby; a nest of eco-terrorists who activities range from planting fake evidence of “endangered species” on about to be developed property to burning things down with “vegan napalm;” and a the shadow corporations of Muslim sultan from an obscure Indonesian province.</p>
<p><em>Evidence</em> is a solid entry in this popular and extremely long-running series. While the plot is an exceedingly intricate puzzle, the human factor is what matters here, and what keeps the reader engaged and turning the pages.</p>
<p><strong><em>The Siege</em> by Stephen White</strong>, and <strong><em>Hostile Intent</em> by Michael Walsh</strong></p>
<p>Our next two books have a lot in common. Both begin with a gripping Beslan-style hostage taking of students by terrorists—and each author has been seen as directly emulating one of the above mega-selling novelists.</p>
<p>One would hesitate to be crass enough to say that Stephen White’s <em>The Siege</em> (Dutton, $25.95) is “blessed” by good timing, but this story of murder and terrorism at Yale was released just as the bizarre real life murder of a Yale student was dominating the headlines.</p>
<p><em>The Siege</em> is more or less a stand-alone novel, though it features a supporting character from White’s series about Alan Gregory a crime-solving psychologist whose best friend is a cop—which sometimes draws him criticism for being essentially a Colorado version of Alex Delaware.</p>
<p>Aforementioned cop, Sam Purdy, on suspension from the Boulder PD, is asked by a family friend to investigate the fact that her daughter, a Skull and Bones initiate at Yale, has not been heard from in a while. Soon, Purdy finds that all the initiates are being held hostage in the Skull and Bones “tomb,” and while tense and deadly negotiations with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team go on in public, behind the scenes, Purdy discovers that the real ransom demands are going out to the parents—some of the nation’s most influential people.</p>
<p>I’m generally a fan of White’s Gregory series, but his two best books are his side projects, the ingenious <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4436">Kill Me</a>, which stripped away the easy “I wouldn’t want to live like that” cliché of assisted suicide, and this excruciatingly suspenseful book. <em>The Siege</em> examines “blowback” in the War on Terror, and the unexpected, but immensely satisfying conclusion, depends on whether America really is the indiscriminately violent country of leftist propaganda, or basically good and imperfectly trying to do the right thing in a violent and barbaric world.</p>
<p><em>The Siege</em> is one of those frightening books which one hopes the terrorists don’t read and say, “I never thought of that, that might work.” It’s one of the season’s very best.</p>
<p>Veteran novelist Michael Walsh has written columns for <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/09/28/where-have-all-the-heroes-gone-by-michael-a-walsh-2/">Frontpage</a> and Big Hollywood pitching his new series hero, comparing him to Mitch Rapp. Said hero, Devlin, is an operative so secret even the President cannot be trusted with the details of his existence.</p>
<p>The first Devlin novel, <em>Hostile Intent</em>, (Pinnacle, $6.99) opens with terrorists seizing an elementary school, but their real aim is to flush out Devlin and eliminate him, so a George Soros-like zillionaire can launch an operation to destroy America.</p>
<p>Devlin is probably more like Jason Bourne (from the books, not the cynical movies) than like Mitch Rapp, and in fact, this wide ranging (probably too wide-ranging) plot includes Bourne’s original nemesis in its wild finish. <em>Hostile Intent</em> is audacious in the extreme, and a lot of fun, though it makes any Ludlum book I’ve ever read seem linear and uncomplicated by comparison.</p>
<p><strong><em>Dexter by Design</em> by Jeff Lindsay</strong></p>
<p>If you think that Mitch Rapp and Devlin are too harsh in dealing with terrorists, then you definitely aren’t ready for the way Dexter Morgan interacts with the local predator population. In Jeff Lindsay’s macabre and clever re-invention of the serial killer genre, the “hero” is a blood spatter expert for the Miami Police Department by day, and a hunter of sick predators by night—and who really enjoys his night gig.</p>
<p><em>Dexter by Design </em>(Doubleday, $25.00) finds him newly married and settling into domestic life with surprising ease—until a bloody performance artist begins leaving displays all over Miami. And when Dexter’s cop sister is nearly killed by a suspect, Dexter finds he has at least one real emotion—rage.</p>
<p>Lindsay uses Dexter’s double life to examine the question—what is more important, what we think or what we do? What makes us moral, our thoughts or our actions? Dexter is so convinced he is a sociopath, for instance, that he thinks it’s proof of his cold cold heart, that he only pretends to care about things <em>no</em> man cares about, like his new bride’s selection of wedding décor.</p>
<p>While the Showtime series is actually better than the books at this point—and has gone in enough slightly different directions that it’s confusing to read the books while the show is in mid-season—Lindsay’s extremely clever take on what was becoming a moribund genre is still macbre fun—and subversively moral.</p>
<p><strong><em>The Hunted</em> by Brian Haig</strong></p>
<p>Haig takes a break from his superb series about wisecracking JAG lawyer Sean Drummond to deliver an excellent—and incredibly informative—thriller that gives the most entertaining and easiest to understand explanation I’ve read yet on how Russia went from Communism to near anarchy to the current thugocracy which openly supports Iranian aggression.</p>
<p>In <em>The Hunted</em>, (Grand Central, $25.99) Haig tells the story of Alex Konevitch, a Russian entrepreneur who positioned himself during Gorbachev’s reforms to become a business titan in a coming free market. A seemingly well-connected backer of Boris Yeltsin, Alex is kidnapped and tortured by the former-KGB thugs who formed the Russian mob, looted the country, and stole companies from people like Konevitch while Yeltsin partied like it was 1999.</p>
<p>Unlike most of would-be capitalists in Russia, Konevitch puts up a fight; and when he and his beautiful wife are forced to flee to America for safety in the Clinton years, they are not yet safe. They are forced to do legal battle with an ambitious FBI director who actually believes <em>Konevitch</em> is the criminal and that the <em>mafya</em>-controlled Russian security forces will actually help in the fight against the Russian mob if The U.S. turns Konevitch over to them.</p>
<p><em>The Hunted</em> is based on the amazing true story of Alex Konanykhin, though Haig condenses the real-life Alex’s decades-long struggle for dramatic purposes. This is a superb and informative thriller that will have freedom loving audiences cheering for an unusual and very appealing underdog.</p>
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