Darryl Mason

A long comment I contributed to this post at Grods : I was in the US for a big chunk of 2001, and up until September 11, Bush was regarded by many on the Right, and particularly in the Righty media to be a dunce, pro-illegal immigrants and soft on Islamist terrorism. Fox News, and pundits like Michelle Malkin, went after Bush hard before the September 11 attacks somehow turned Bush into Hero President. In the first half of 2001, the online Righties were still pretty excited about what they thought was a great victory in smashing Bill Clinton into utter mockery, they thought they had real power and influence and they were going to make sure Bush did as they demanded. But Bush was not delivering what they wanted in the first half of 2001, they hammered him pretty hard, at least as hard as supposedly Lefty shows like John Stewart's The Daily Show did. Bush made a string of dimbulb verbal gaffes and took an incredible amount of holidays in those first nine months of 2001, and many of t...

American Sniper A Poem By Darryl Mason 1. "Kill one man, terrorise a thousand" the instructor had pointed to the sign on the wall at the school where I learned to kill Camp Pendleton , California it didn't have a fancy name, this school like 'tactical depopulation training' we called it what it was Sniper School three months training then they sent me here "Kill one man, terrorise a thousand" he smiled when he read the sign to me my scores were good he told me he was proud of me never heard a man say that to me before I see him now still tapping that sign to a roomful of kids who are now mostly dead "Kill one man, terrorize a thousand" That's what the sign said So I learned it and I loved it and now I'm living it 2. a rooftop in Fallujah came in by helicopter Black Hawk at full crank flying low enough to collect television aerials others in my squad are on other buildings on other rooftops close by we're alone here not enough of us...

How To "Cut And Run" Without "Abandoning Your Mates" This post was originally published on 'The Road To Surfdom' blog By Darryl Mason As expected, the wild and unhinged rantings of John Howard, Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson and Peter Costello regarding the Kevin Rudd plan for pulling Australian troops out of Iraq, is about to bite them back in the worst way. Tony Blair is but a few hours away from announcing the withdrawal timetable of UK troops from Iraq, with around 1500 to be pulled out within weeks, another few thousand by Christmas and all but a few ‘trainers’ out by the end of 2008. From the UK Guardian : The prime minister is expected to say that Britain intends to gradually reduce the number of troops in southern Iraq over the next 22 months as Iraqi forces take on more responsibility for the security of Basra and the surrounding areas. Ministers have taken on board the message coming from military chiefs over many months - namely that the p...