Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Home Front: WoT

Former CIA officials reveal attempts by Bush administration to misrepresent Intelligence for Iraq war

2023-03-22

In which unnamed people who claim to be former CIA say mean things about the integrity of the George W. Bush administration.

[ShafaqNews] Two former CIA officials have come forward with firsthand accounts of the George W. Bush administration's attempts to misrepresent intelligence in order to justify the US invasion of Iraq. The officials, referred to by pseudonyms due to the sensitivity of their positions, spoke to Insider ahead of the 20th anniversary of the invasion.

According to the officials, the administration attempted to assert a connection between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda, despite evidence assembled by the CIA suggesting that no such connection existed. One example of this false connection was the supposed meeting between Mohammed Atta, the chief 9/11 hijacker, and Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague. Then-Vice President Dick Cheney falsely claimed on "Meet the Press" in December 2001 that the meeting was "pretty well confirmed."

The officials, with a combined service at CIA totaling more than four decades, explained that their role was to keep such "ridiculous notions under control." However,
you can observe a lot just by watching...
they faced pressure from the White House to provide a justification for the invasion, despite there being no intelligence that would change their opinion. The Bush administration was "very explicit" about its obsession with Iraq almost immediately upon taking power, said one official.

Although Saddam Hussein knew about al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq, there was no working relationship between the two entities, according to the officials. Instead, it was about surveillance. The officials added that the US decision to invade Iraq had already been made, and the administration was looking for "selling points" to justify the war publicly.

The officials also revealed that British intelligence realized early on that the US was going to invade Iraq, regardless of what intelligence analysts wrote. The US was moving its forces to the Middle East in large numbers, and British intelligence essentially said, "It doesn't matter what we write."

The US invasion of Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003, has been estimated to have cost the lives of approximately 300,000 people.

Bush, Cheney, and other officials did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

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Fifth Column

Cheney's loss in Wyoming completes GOP's near-total capitulation to Trump's 'election lie'

2022-08-17

Advisory: This is MSN - and illustrates what 'journalism' has sunk to.
In a watershed moment for the GOP, Rep. Liz Cheney, the most fearsome
eh... you misspelled toothless... again
and resolute Republican opponent of former President Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, was rejected by Wyoming voters in her own party Tuesday night.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, lost her primary election to Trump-endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman, who paid fealty to Trump by echoing his false claim that the 2020 election was "rigged."

Hageman had been leading Cheney in the polls for months, and appeared to have defeated her opponent by a large margin Tuesday night. The result signals a turn for the Republican Party toward a greater embrace of baseless myths
Baseless myths - which happend to be backed by a rather large pile of actual *evidence*. Not that Cheney would recognise evidence if it goosed her.
about the 2020 election that have already incited violence and unrest, such as the Jan. 6 assault
Assault - what else do you call walking around the capital picking your nose after being let in if not a violent ASSAULT!
on the U.S. Capitol, and are likely to foment more over the next fewer years.
Cheney was defiant in defeat. "Now the real work begins," she told supporters after the race was called. "I have said I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Donald Trump is never anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it."
So if you happen to see her on the street corner - just pass her by - you don't want a piece of that!
Cheney’s defeat — which she called "the beginning of a battle" in which "our democracy really is under attack" — caps a four-month series of Republican primaries which tested the extent to which Trump still commands loyalty among party voters. Trump started out wobbly,
With only what you might call a whole shitload of endorsement successes.
as his attempt to punish Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was clearly doomed by late March.

But Trump’s late entry into the Ohio Senate primary, on behalf of high-profile author J.D. Vance, gave him an early win that blunted Trump’s humiliation when Kemp won in late May.

The spring and summer contests had ups and downs for Trump-backed candidates.
I mean he only had about 100 endorsement victories and what, six losses. Terrible statistics... Just horrible!
But leading up to the Wyoming results, candidates who refuse to acknowledge the 2020 election results ran the table in Arizona’s Republican Party.

Cheney, however, has always been Trump’s biggest nemesis,
who he pretty much ignored - except for an occasional mean posting.
and with her defeat, the purge of the Republican Party is nearly complete. With a few exceptions, Republican lawmakers who firmly reject Trump’s false election claims have been all but wiped out.
And that is a very good thing!
But after the 2020 election, Cheney refused to bow to Trump’s evidence-free
Well except for hours and hours of video, stacks of affidavits, and analysis that Biden's win was statistically impossible, All the audits since which showed widespread cheating, 2000 mules and that is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
insistence that he had been cheated. On Jan. 3, 2021, she distributed a 21-page memo to her Republican colleagues in the House, and to the public.
I'm sorry - I have to stop now and wash the layers of Bullshit off my waders. Boy I hope the stink goes away...

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Home Front: Politix

Tell me again how Trump will drain the swamp...

2022-01-31

[Breitbart] I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney, is reportedly planning to attend a fundraiser in March for embattled Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is targeting Trump on the January 6 Committee.
Trump just doesn't get it. The people who keep on pulling for him in the face of this kind of thing don't get it either.
Libby was convicted in 2007 of obstruction of justice and other crimes related to a leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. The conviction was widely viewed as a miscarriage of justice, especially because Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage later admitted that he was the likely source of the leak, not Libby. President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s sentence, but despite the urging of then-Vice President Cheney, he declined to issue a formal pardon for his aide.

It was only Trump who pardoned Libby in 2018, taking the political heat for doing so and standing up for Libby’s record of public service. Former Vice President Cheney called Trump personally to thank him for pardoning his long-time aide.

Now, both the former vice president and his aide are participating in a fundraiser for Cheney, who defied her own party to participate in the one-sided January 6 committee, which aims to damage Trump ahead of the 2022 and 2024 elections.

The Hill reported Wednesday (emphasis added):

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is participating in a fundraiser for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in March as the Wyoming incumbent looks to protect her seat against Trump-endorsed Republican primary challenger Harriet Hageman, according to an invitation obtained by The Hill.

Other guests include former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife; former chief of staff to Cheney Scooter Libby; former U.S. solicitor general Ted Olson; former chief of staff to the late Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) Sheila Burke; and former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), among others.

Ironically, Dick Cheney believed that Libby had been the victim of an overzealous prosecutor, a biased Washington jury, and those in the government who wanted to damage the Bush administration because of growing opposition to the Iraq War.

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-Great Cultural Revolution

Is Populism Going to 'Fritter Away Over Time' as W Predicts?

2021-03-28

[Townhall] Last week, former President George W. Bush said he's not worried about the current moment in American politics because "these populist movements begin to fritter over time." I don't know Bush well personally, but I served in his administration for eight years. As a senior staffer to Vice President Dick Cheney, I was in numerous meetings with Bush each week. While I did not agree with the president on every policy issue, I did leave my service with a feeling that, agree with him or not, Bush is a good person who cares a lot about our country.

That's why his statement is so frustrating.

The country is going through profound changes and political difficulties, to say the least. Populist sentiments started way back with the Tea Party movement on the right in 2009 and the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left in 2011. You could even argue that the first signs surfaced with the Ross Perot presidential candidacy in 1992. The populist movement has been building for many years, and it shows little sign of slowing down. The majority of voters on the Republican side are Trump populists, and all the energy in current Democratic politics is with the socialist wing led by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Populism is, of course, less of a political ideology than it is a sign people are unhappy with American leadership. The approval and trust levels for elected leaders and leading institutions have been in free-fall for years. On the left and on the right, there is a growing belief that society's riches are flowing too heavily to a privileged and well-connected few and not enough to the average American.

In the worst-case scenario, our leaders can ignore the warning signs and hope things just fritter away. That's the scenario we are in, unfortunately. Populism can definitely turn ugly. We have seen some of that already. And historically, ignoring the concerns of regular people led to almost 100 years of repressive communist rule in Russia and the development of a Nazi state in Germany that didn't end until millions were killed in a world war.

Our leaders aren't ignoring all of today's warnings because they are bad people; they do it because our society has become so segregated that people who are thriving are surrounded almost exclusively by others who are also thriving. This segregation facilitates worldviews that can grow detached from reality.
In conclusion -
The same voters now clamoring for change once voted for Barack Obama and George Bush. They haven't turned into bad people overnight. They just don't believe our system is really working for their interests. That concern can lead to positive reform, or it can turn really ugly. It's still up to us. Either way, this isn't likely to just fritter away.

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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Trump Plans to help Primary Never-Trumpers

2021-01-25

I did not include the third party remarks, covered in another posting.
[Newsmax] With President Joe Biden having been given a peaceful transfer of power ~~with 25,000 praetorian guards~~ and the Jan. 6 ~~planned-in-advance~~ storming of the Capitol getting further in the rearview, Trump reportedly believes it is now far less likely that 17 Republicans will join Senate Democrats in to convict him on the House article of impeachment: inciting an insurrection attempt.

Just 10 never-Trump House Republicans, led by Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, voted to impeach Trump in the House.

It is likely those Republicans will be among the primary targets of Trump's political influence, fundraising, and rallies in the coming months and years

Link

-Land of the Free

Trump issues 26 more pardons, including Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner

2020-12-24

President Donald Trump
...the Nailer of NAFTA...
issued 26 pardons on Wednesday night, including ones to his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, real estate mogul Charles Kushner, and to his 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort and Republican wardheeler Roger Stone.

The latest grants of executive clemency by Trump came a day after the president issued a first wave of 15 pardons, a week after the Electoral College confirmed he had lost the presidential election to Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden
Joe <q>Foreign Policy Whiz Kid</q> Biden

Joe <q>Foreign Policy Whiz Kid</q> Biden

...Candidate for president in 2020. Old, boring, a plagiarist, fond of hair sniffing and grabbing the protruding parts of women, and not whatcha call brilliant...
Trump also pardoned Margaret Hunter, the estranged wife of former Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who pled guilty to charges of misusing campaign funds for personal expenses.

Duncan Hunter, who was convicted in the same case of the same crimes, had been pardoned the night before by Trump in a first wave of pardons by the president, who refuses to concede he lost the presidential election to Biden.

Trump also commuted all or part of the criminal sentences of three people.

Two of them were Mark Shapiro and Irving Stitsky, who were each serving sentences of 85 years in prison for their key roles in a real-estate-related Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 250 people out of $23 million.

Before Tuesday, Trump had issued just 28 pardons — 13 fewer than his total from Tuesday and Wednesday — making him the stingiest of U.S. presidents in the modern era in terms of granting executive clemency.

Trump’s previous pardons have included ones to financial fraudster Michael Milken; press baron Conrad Black; former Arizona sheriff Joe Arapaio, who was convicted of contempt of court; Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former advisor to ex-Vice President Dick Cheney for obstruction of justice; conservative gadfly Dinesh D’Souza, for campaign contribution fraud; and ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, for tax and other crimes.

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Government

Coronavirus Propaganda Mimics War Propaganda

2020-05-28

[Mises.org] In the period leading up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration and its media accomplices waged a relentless propaganda campaign to win political support for what turned out to be one of the most disastrous foreign policy mistakes in American history.

Oh lord. This is what happens when you let economists think about things other than money.

Nearly two decades later, with perhaps a million dead Iraqis and thousands of dead American soldiers, we are still paying for that mistake.

I s’pose it could be argued that we should have dropped a few Daisy Cutters or neutron bombs, then warned them not to catch our attention again, but Dave D. laid out why that should not be our first choice that first time. I have the link somewhere — if I find it I’ll add it in the comments, or perhaps he will if he happens to wander in today...

Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were key players behind the propaganda‐which we can define as purposeful use of information and misinformation to manipulate public opinion in favor of state action. Iraq and its president Saddam Hussein were the ostensible focus, but their greater goal was to make the case for a broader and open-ended "War on Terror."

That’s one name for the current phase of the 1300+ year Muslim conquest of the world in the name of Islam. The Prophet Mohammed (bees piss on his knees) started it in the 7th century AD, and it won’t end until they either conquer or are destroyed.

So they created a narrative using a mélange of half-truths, faintly plausible fabrications, and outright lies:
Bull. Shit. They should be ashamed to even think such things.

Iraq and the nefarious Saddam Hussein were "behind," i.e., backing, the Saudi terrorists responsible for 9-11 attacks on the US;
...not backing, but certainly training them at Salman Pak. The reports are in our archives.

Hussein and his government were stockpiling yellowcake uranium in an effort to develop nuclear capability;

Yep. Killed some entrepreneurial locals who discovered it and thought it was pretty. The reports are in our archives. Some of our Rantburgers can talk about it more directly, if they’re willing.

Hussein was connected with al-Qaeda

...Al Qaeda and all the other Sunni and secular Arab terror groups, not to mention most of the others that wanted to learn how to hijack airplanes and make explosives. Again, Salman Pak stories are scattered throughout the Rantburg archives...

Iran was lurking in the background as a state sponsor of terrorism, coordinating and facilitating attacks against the US in coordination with Hamas;
...also in our archives, including in recent days...
Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and other terror groups were working against the US across the Middle East in some kind of murky but coordinated effort;
Duh!

We have to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here";

That is a matter of taste, of course — some think it’s unsportsmanlike to not let them get at our civilians at home, just like we let a nice variety of narco-gangs fight over territory in our city ghettos...

The Iraqis would welcome our troops as liberators.

And so they did. Once again we have articles, photos, and video in the Rantburg archives.

And so forth.

So forth, indeed.

But the propaganda "worked" in the most meaningful sense: Congress voted nearly 3–1 in favor of military action against Iraq, and Gallup showed 72 percent of Americans supporting the invasion as it commenced in 2003. Media outlets across the spectrum such as the Washington Post cheered the war. National Review dutifully did its part, labeling Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Lew Rockwell, and other outspoken opponents of the invasion as "unpatriotic conservatives."

Et cetera at length, turned to the WuHu Flu issue. After that introduction I can’t be bothered to read further. So if you do, dear Reader, feel free to comment on it for us.

Link

Home Front: WoT

I cheered the Afghanistan invasion. I was wrong.

2020-03-04

[The Week] It is a cliché to say that certain eras "end not with a bang, but a whimper," but the old trope is true in Afghanistan. U.S. and Taliban officials signed an agreement over the weekend that should lead to the withdrawal of American troops from that country — a development mostly overshadowed by the spread of coronavirus and developments in domestic presidential politics.

That shouldn't be the case. Attention must be paid. Along with the war in Iraq, the Afghan experience defines the U.S. interactions in the world in the 21st century — a righteous display of might that ultimately devolved into an unending, unsolvable, exhausting slog.

The war began on 9/11, when hijackers flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — another plane crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside — killing 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers. More than 2,300 American servicemembers have died in Afghanistan over the last generation, while estimates say that 157,000 people died there during the war — including more than 43,000 civilians. Everything about the war has been a tragedy.

The invasion of Afghanistan is the only U.S. military offensive that I have wholeheartedly rooted for during my adult life. A few weeks after 9/11, I drove from my home in Kansas to New York — via the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania — to witness history for myself. Smoke was still wafting from the bowels of the Twin Towers. Like Americans everywhere, I wanted revenge.

I didn't believe for one second that the Al Qaeda terrorists hated us "for our freedom," the easy explanation offered Americans during the early days of "why do they hate us?" questioning after the attack. But thousands of civilians had been killed — in the first days after 9/11, it was widely believed that tens of thousands of civilians had been killed — and in the heat of the moment, it seemed that such massive violence must be met with equally massive violence. When Vice President Dick Cheney went on TV the next weekend to hint at the likelihood of torture in the coming conflict — promising U.S. personnel would work on "the dark side, if you will" — even that seemed to make sense to a nominal pacifist like myself.

I was wrong. We — all of us who cheered the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan — were wrong.

We were wrong because we ignored world history. There was a reason that Afghanistan — occupied over the years by the British, then by the Soviets — was already known as "the graveyard of empires." For cultural and geographic reasons, no would-be conqueror of the country has ever fully subdued its people. Responding to the 9/11 attack was not necessarily America's big mistake. Staying and trying to recreate Afghanistan in something like our own image was the crucial error, both hubristic and well-intentioned — we thought we could be the conquerors who left the country better than we found it. We are not.
Article re-posted using proper font. Feel free to add in-line comments that may have been deleted. Thank you for your post.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Bush should be punished, not awarded medal: Analyst

2018-11-14

[PRESSTV] Former US President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney should be exposed and jailed for their crimes, not awarded medals, says an American analyst.

Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush were awarded the Liberty Medal this week at the National Constitution Center.

The medal was awarded amid protests from veterans who blocked the entrance to the National Constitution Center.

Organizers from Veterans Against The War, a group of post-9/11 service members and veterans, said the protesters aimed to end “a foreign policy of permanent war and the use of military weapons, tactics and values in communities across the country."

US-based political analyst William Jones told Press TV in a phone interview on Monday that awarding the Liberty Medal to Bush was "completely ironic".

He added that the only thing that was more ironic would be if Cheney received the award.

Jones said people like Bush and Cheney, who is a senior neoconservative politician and served under four Republican presidents, were responsible for the planning and implementation of American military operations in the Middle East that continued to go on to this day.

If we look back on the Middle East in the past two decades, what we see is continual fighting and chaos and it all began with the Iraq war under George W Bush,” he said.

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Government

Cheney Says U.S. Should Restart Enhanced Interrogation Programs

2018-05-11

[The Hill] Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday the CIA should restart the controversial enhanced interrogation program used during the George W. Bush administration.

"If it were my call, I would not discontinue those programs. I'd have them active and ready to go," Cheney said during an interview with Fox Business. "And I'd go back and study them and learn."

Cheney, a former secretary of Defense, has long defended the interrogation program that was launched after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While critics denounce the techniques that were used as torture, Cheney says the program was necessary to keep the nation safe.

"I think the techniques we used were not torture. A lot of people try to call it that, but it wasn’t deemed torture at the time," he told Maria Bartiromo. "People want to go back and try to rewrite history, but if it were my call, I’d do it again."

Following the capture of terrorist suspects like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind 9/11, Cheney said the only method to collect information couldn't just be "please tell us."

"You tell me that the only method we have is 'please, please, pretty please, tell us what you know?' Well, I don’t buy that," Cheney said.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Nasrallah: US offered Hezbollah money to cede resistance

2018-04-10

[PRESSTV] His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...
says the US offered money to Hezbollah to forgo resistance following the failure of several attempts to destroy the resistance movement.

Nasrallah said Sunday the United States, Israel and their regional allies have been conspiring against the resistance movement since the 2000 liberation of southern Leb from the Israeli occupation.

The Hezbollah chief made the remarks during an electoral rally in the town of Nabatiyeh, calling for a high turnout in Leb’s upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled to be held on May 6.

"Following the 2000 victory, the Israeli enemy, along with the US, had realized that Leb’s real power lies within its resistance, which has managed to force the Israeli occupation out of Leb without any condition," he said.

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney assigned the US-Lebanese journalist George Nader to offer Hezbollah anything at that time in return for stopping resistance, Nasrallah said.

"We were offered money and to be part of the authority in Leb on condition that we cede resistance," he said, noting that "My fault at that time was that I didn’t accept to take his paper, so that it would be a proof now."

Nasrallah stressed that the US offer was repeated after the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Leb in 2005. The Hezbollah chief said some European countries also made such offers.

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Home Front: Politix

Benghazi Surviver Awarded Defender Of The Constitution Award By CPAC

2018-02-25

[Breitbart] Mark "Oz" Geist spoke eloquently on a panel about the challenge U.S. military members face transitioning from the battlefield to the workforce.

But he wasn’t prepared for what happened next at the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Geist, who served as a Marine, sheriff, and police officer before working for the federal government as a security consultant, was chosen for CPAC’s annual Defender of the Constitution award.

Geist’s security work led to his being sent to Libya, where he survived the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith were killed. CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty also were killed in the attack.

Lee said that Geist didn’t accept the "stand down" order given in Benghazi but instead tried to save lives during the terrorist attack.

"Mark is a defender of freedom," Willes Lee, ACU board member, said. "I am proud to call Mark Geist my friend."

"Through his sweat and blood he has defended our Constitution," Lee said.

"When you enlist in the military you enlist to defend our nation," said Lee, a retired Army officer and Airborne Ranger. "When you fight, you fight for the guy on your left; you fight for the guy on your right."

"His arm is smashed; his legs and face is sliced by all that crap that flies through the air in combat," Lee said. "You don’t feel fear when you’re fighting, but after the fight, your body goes through these trembles."

"It’s the adrenaline running out of your muscles," Lee said. "You can describe that in the book; you can show in the movie. What you can never describe is the smell of combat."

"Mark always looks you [directly] in the eye when you speak to him, except when you call him a hero," Lee said. "And then he’ll divert his eyes and he’ll say, ’No, I was just doing my job.’"

Lee said Geist announced when he was in kindergarten that he wanted to be a soldier. In interviews, Geist has explained his family’s military history, including his grandfather, who served under General George S. Patton during World War II.

Millie Hallow, ACU Foundation vice chairman and managing director of executive operations at the National Rifle Association, said Geist was the right pick for this year’s award.

"We thought it was prime time that we give the Defender of the Constitution award to someone who has physically ‐ physically ‐defended the Constitution," Hallow said, noting that past recipients include Attorney General Ed Meese, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Each year the award is made from a historic document signed by Founding Fathers. This year Geist was given a framed shipping transfer document signed by President James Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe in 1811.

"We think this document is perfect for honoring and thanking you for your service for defending our country and our Constitution with grace, modesty, and dignity," Hallow said.

"You know we have a lot of freedoms in this country, and they come with sacrifice," Geist said in accepting the award. "Some of us in our military and working as contractors make that ultimate sacrifice."

"And for us that don’t ‐ are able to continue on ‐ for me, it’s about making that worth it. We live our lives going forward to make it worth the sacrifice that all those guys that didn’t come back home have done," Geist said.

"So every day think of going forward and making sure that you are living your life to the fullest; following your dreams; doing everything to make the sacrifice they’ve made worth it," Geist said.

Such an honor today to receive this award. I humbly except it and commit myself to continue protecting and serving this country and our Consitution. Thank you @NRA @CPAC and the people of this great country. #CPAC18 #CPAC #OZ https://t.co/39gHqWpQsX

‐ Mark Geist (@MarkGeistSWP) February 24, 2018

Lee said even after years of military service and time spent in law enforcement, Geist is still helping other contractors and their families through an organization he founded with his wife Krystal.

The Shadow Warriors Project website states:

Our goal with the Shadow Warriors Project is to create a better everyday life for as many American contractors and their families as possible. We decided to start SWP when Mark returned home from an incredibly dangerous operation. He was hurt both mentally and physically and we wished there was a system that could have helped us repair.

"Stand strong," Geist told the crowd as it rose to its feet. "The Constitution’s there."

"We’ve got to stand behind it because they want to tear it down," Geist said. "Thank you for supporting us that defend it."
The night of the attack they ignored Soetero/Hillary regime orders to stand down. Two of them laid down their lives fighting off Al Qaeda that night to protect American lives. Almost 6 years later, they are finally being honored.

Almost six years, and a very, very different president.

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