From John McCain via AOL

Mr. McCain recently came under fire from Democrats and other critics for what they called an overly optimistic assessment of security conditions in a Baghdad market, which he toured under the protection of more than 100 soldiers. Mr. McCain later said that he would have been prepared to tour the market with much less protection.

In the interview, Mr. McCain said that if he became the commander in chief, he might keep Robert M. Gates as defense secretary. For the post of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he suggested that he would consider Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander in Iraq, and Adm. William J. Fallon, the newly appointed head of the Central Command. They are carrying out the new strategy in Baghdad. Mr. McCain has been critical of their predecessors, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the former American commander in Iraq, and the former secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld .

Mr. McCain also said he would seek to attract corporate leaders to improve the management of the Pentagon, citing figures like Frederick W. Smith, the chief executive of FedEx Corporation, and John T. Chambers, the chief executive of Cisco Systems.

“I would go to these people and say: ‘Look, you’ve made a billion dollars. Come on now, and do what David Packard did years ago. Serve your country,’ ” Mr. McCain said, referring to the co-founder of the Hewlett Packard Company who served as deputy defense secretary in the first Nixon administration.

Mr. McCain also described retired Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander and Marine commandant, as one of his closest friends, adding he expected he would “play a key role.”

Mr. McCain discussed Iraq during an hourlong session on Thursday at his Senate office, sipping cappuccino and talking in measured if intense tones in the presence of two aides. He ended the interview to go to the White House for a meeting with Mr. Bush.

“One of the things that I’m going to tell him, and I don’t often talk about my conversations with the president, is that the American people need to be told more often what’s happening,” he said. “Where we’re succeeding; where we’re failing; where we’ve made progress; where we haven’t, here’s the state of readiness, here’s why we continue to see suicide bombers.”

“There’s got to be more communication with the American people,” he added. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt did it.”

“So how do you motivate the Maliki government? Well, one of the ways is go sit down and have dinner with him like Lindsey Graham and I did last week,” he said, alluding to his Republican colleague from South Carolina. He said that he and Mr. Graham had warned Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the patience of the American public was running out. Many members of the Bush administration and other lawmakers have met with Mr. Maliki to make the same point.

“We’re telling you, there’s been votes in both houses of Congress which portend, unless the American people see measurable success, that we’re going to be out of here,” Mr. McCain said, recalling the message he had delivered to the Iraqi leader. “No matter whether I happen to agree with it or not.”

“He gets it. He gets it,” Mr. McCain said of Mr. Maliki. “The question is whether they do it or not.”

According to the military’s deployment schedule, only three of the five additional combat brigades that are to be deployed in and around Baghdad under Mr. Bush’s plan have arrived. Mr. McCain said the prospects for the new strategy would be known “within months.”

Even more unclear is what Iraq might look like by the time a new president takes office in the United States. The most optimistic course of events he envisioned involved a steady reduction in violence and a gradual turnover of security responsibilities to the Iraqis during the remainder of the Bush administration. Under those circumstances, Mr. McCain said, the United States military would gradually withdraw to its bases in Iraq, though he did not provide a timetable for how long that might take.

American air and ground forces could continue to operate from those bases when needed but then eventually leave, he said. He said that he had recently met with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, and had been told that Pakistan and other Muslim nations would be prepared to help Iraq if the country was secure.

One plan proposed by some Democratic lawmakers is to withdraw American troops to Kuwait, from where they might carry out strikes against terrorists in Iraq belonging to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Mr. McCain argued that this approach reflected a naïve understanding of the difficulties in obtaining intelligence and conducting operations in Iraq. “The fact of modern warfare is that you can’t parachute into places,” he said. “You can’t go in without a solid base of support if you’re going to be engaged in heavy fighting.”

Another plan, advocated by Mrs. Clinton, would maintain a reduced force at bases in Iraq to stabilize Kurdistan, deter neighboring nations from intervening and to fight terrorist groups there. “That assumes somehow that the place has not descended into chaos,” said Mr. McCain, who warned that reducing the force without first stabilizing Iraq would put the American forces in the position of being “rocketed in their bases.”

Putting additional emphasis on training the Iraqi Army, Mr. McCain also argued, would not be effective unless security in Iraq was improved. “I’d be very reluctant to send your men into a country where there is chaos and tell them they’re going to be trainers.”

Partitioning Iraq into Sunni , Shiite and Kurdish enclaves, as some experts have proposed, was “totally unrealistic,” Mr. McCain argued, because the Iraqis are opposed to measures that would lead to the further dislocation of the population and even divide families.

He also suggested that setting deadlines for withdrawing troops — as many lawmakers were seeking to legislate — would backfire, hamstringing commanders and giving opponents a way to wait out the Americans.

Mr. McCain acknowledged that his message — that a long, hard and uncertain road still lies ahead in Iraq — was not a popular one, and could mark the end of his political ambitions. However, it could be as politically treacherous for Mr. McCain to back away from his support of the war as it is for him to stay with it.

During a recent speech at the Virginia Military Institute, Mr. McCain noted that he had recently met Petty Officer First Class Mark Robbins, a member of the Navy Seals who was shot in the eye in an ambush outside Baghdad, in a military hospital in Germany and that he planned personally to award him the Purple Heart.

“Oh, God, I’ve seen a lot of things in my life,” Mr. McCain recalled in the interview. “I’ve seen a lot of things. That kid sitting up there. His head. Blood all over the back of him.”

“Grabs my hand and says, ‘I’m honored you’re here. Thanks for your support. We can win this fight.’ You know, I’m supposed to worry about my political future?”

It's Not Massachusetts' Fault, Somebody Else Has To Be Responsible

This sounds like a good job for the Massachusetts National Guard. Place them all around the border to prevent the evil citizens of the United States of America from sending all of those nasty firearms to the citizens of Massachusetts who are misbehaving (committing crimes sounds so BAD).

In my honest opinion, when the honest citizens are restricted from firearm ownership, then the less honest and more willing to issue harm citizens can then have their own way.

I know the State of Massachusetts disagrees with me and I can only say:

How is it working out doing it your way?


Massachusetts Named Most Violent in the Northeast

Updated: April 13th, 2007 05:18 PM EDT

E-mail Story Print Story Most Read Most Emailed
Story by thebostonchannel.com, taken from Officer.com on 4-14-07:

Amid an increase in youth violence, Massachusetts is now the most violent state in the northeast, according to the FBI.

NewsCenter 5's Steve Lacy reported that community leaders met on Thursday to look for ways to combat the trend.

"The proliferation of guns in my neighborhood and my community where I go to bed and hear gunshots -- I hear them. I don't come into my community and talk about it. I live it," said Rep. Marie St. Fleur.

Lawmakers are calling for new legislation to crack down on the number of guns flooding the city's streets.

"Gun violence tears at the soul of our community," said the Rev. Jeffery Brown of the Ten-Point Coalition.

The proposed changes would make it illegal to fail to report a lost or stolen gun; it would create a state database to track the resale of guns in the secondary market; and when setting bail, judges would be allowed to consider whether a suspect was in possession of a gun at the time of their arrest.

"We also want to see police with better tools at their finger tips when investigating these crimes," said Sen. Jarrett Barrios.

The renewed call to crackdown on guns comes as the city struggles to combat a recent spike in violent crime.

But not everyone is sold on creating new gun laws saying there are enough restrictions on lawful gun ownership and greater enforcement of existing laws is needed. People who live in some of the city's hardest hit neighborhoods disagree, saying any law that can reduce the number of guns is welcomed.

"We need to be using all of our forces at every border that surrounds Massachusetts and stop this flow of guns and drugs in our communities," said Rep. Gloria Fox.

There have been 17 homicides so far in 2007. Thirteen of the victims were 25 or younger.