"I confess, I find it hard to come to Afghanistan and not ask: Why are we here? Who cares about the Taliban? Al Qaeda is gone. And if its leaders come back, well, that’s why God created cruise missiles."
"But every time I start writing that column, something stills my hand."
Seriously. This is worth a read. Good fodder for those of us who support the War.
How can anybody say we declared war on Islam?
Al Qaeda and the Taliban did!
Update July 21:
Along this same vein, Michael Yon has just posted some interesting photos with ample captioning, covering the Eastern European troops in Afghanistan and their roles and opinions about the work there. Highly recommended.
PLEASE represent your State and your country well by voting NO on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.
I hate to get personal, but she has very clearly been duplicitous on critical issues.
In her rulings and in her prior public pronouncements, she has shown a haughty disdain for the true role and meaning of the Constitution.
In the current hearings before the judiciary committee, she had either dismissed or claimed to be confused about the inseparable natural and civil rights to life and the defense of life, especially innocent life.
I could possibly respect her a little if she would at least be honest about her beliefs and philosophy.
But I have little tolerance for someone who would willfully and deliberately deny or even infringe our liberties.
In the immortal words of John Adams, "Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
Her cynical and dismissive comments about courts making law were utterly reprehensible and disgusting:
"(The) Court of Appeals is where policy is made," she said. "And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don't 'make law,' I know."
Please vote against her nomination. America needs leaders who respect and uphold our Constitution and traditions, not mock them.
I've included a video excerpt from tonight's Special Report broadcast on Fox News, and to help prevent this from being labeled some right-wing hatchet job, I've also excerpted a blog post from the CBS News Web site.
(Fox News has been very reluctant to report on this, but once news gets so big, I guess they just have to...)
"Here's a story tailor-made to burn up the Internet: A soldier is objecting to his deployment to Iraq because he believes President Obama wasn't born in the United States."
"Conspiracy theories about where Mr. Obama was born abound in some quarters despite the fact that the Obama campaign posted the then-candidate's Hawaiian birth certificate online last year. Skeptics call the certificate a forgery, though their claims have been repeatedly debunked."
No, it has not been debunked!
The core issue is that they issued a facsimile of a Certification of Live Birth, which is a virtually worthless document that even a non-citizen can be issued.
The core issue is that he has not shown or released his Certificate of Live Birth
You can't even work as a janitor in the White House without showing one of those!
Certification vs. Certificate: Words means things.
The CBS blog continues:
"Now comes word that U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, a reservist who lives in Florida, is challenging his deployment based on that argument. Reports the Ledger-Enquirer out of Columbus, Georgia: "Cook’s lawyer, Orly Taitz, who has also challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency in other courts, filed a request last week in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector for his client."
"Cook is arguing that because Mr. Obama isn't really the president (and thus isn't the commander in chief), the soldier "would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President's command. ... simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties."
The CBS blog says the soldier is being deployed to Iraq. Wrong. He's being deployed to Afghanistan.
# # #
UPDATE: 4:19 AM 7/16/2009
An amendment to the case:
"Major General Carol Dean Childers retired but subject to lifetime recall, and Lt. Col David Earl Graeff – Medical Surgeon in US Airforce Active Reserves, subject to recall any day, join in this Application for Preliminary Injunction because it is a matter of unparalleled public interest and importance and because it is clearly a matter arising from issues of a recurring nature that will escape review unless the Court exercises its discretionary jurisdiction."
The retaliation begins:
"Upon receipt of the revocation (of his deployment orders, without explanation - pupista), Plaintiff Major Cook called his civilian boss, the CEO of Simtech, Inc., a closely held corporation that does DOD contracting in the general field of information technology/systems integration, at which Plaintiff Major was employed until taking a Military Leave of Absence on Friday July 10, 2009, a senior systems engineer and architect, in preparation for his deployment to Afghanistan. (Plaintiff has five Cisco Systems certifications in information technology dating from 2000 and just recertified in June 2009 for the Cisco Certified Design Expert qualification exam.)
"The CEO of Simtech, Inc., Larry Grice, explained to Plaintiff over a series of four conversations within the next two hours, that he had been terminated."
Wouldn't it be funny if folks called to see if they're taking applications for any Cisco-certified I.T. folks?
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Disgrace) has proposed an ominous amendment to HR2647. The text of the proposed amendment as introduced says,
“A person associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence against groups or persons or the United States government, as determined by the Attorney General, may not be recruited, enlisted, or retained in the armed forces.”
Of course the key phrase here is "as determined by the Attorney General".
No due process, just a declaration by a bureaucrat, and you belong to a hate group, are discriminated against, and the "hate group" members and associates (just because Holder says they are, mind you) will have their rights infringed.
Couple that with Rep. Peter King's (R-NY) recent bill, HR2159, and you lose your gun rights, too.
I created a word cloud at Wordle using the Gettysburg Address.
I did not edit it. This is how it came out.
Very interesting...
Certain words jump out at you, and God is still over all...
Here's the original text:
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
