In a recent commentary (Scripps Howard News Service, 11/29/05), Clifford D. May responded to Rep. John Murtha’s recent statements that the war in Iraq "cannot be won" and that "it's time to bring the troops home." 

Mr. May addressed Rep. Murtha in what follows:

“Clearly, we should not fail again to plan adequately. So I would ask you about your plans for the aftermath of the defeat you say we must now accept (italics mine).

“For example, it's obvious that if the U.S. military can't stand up to Al-Qaida in Iraq, the fledgling post-liberation Iraqi military won't have a prayer. That means we must plan for the possibility that Al-Qaida will come to power in part or all of Iraq. What, if anything would you propose to do in response to that?

“Even if Al-Qaida only manages to shore up its positions in the Sunni areas of western Iraq, we must expect it will use that base to continue attacking Jordan and other countries in the region. Maybe we'd send advisers to help the Jordanian king? But help him do what exactly? Decide when the fight has become hopeless?

“Also possible: … Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein, could take over (maybe in some kind of de facto coalition with Al-Qaida). They might even release Saddam from the jail where he has been awaiting trial … and restore him to power. What would we do in that case -- ask the U.N. to restart sanctions and the Oil-for-Food program?

“The Shia of Iraq would turn to Iran's mullahs for protection against both Al-Qaida and the Baathists. To whom else could they turn? If what followed was an Iranian anschluss -- annexation -- of southern Iraq, will you have a plan to deal with that contingency?

“Iraqis who "collaborated" with us would undoubtedly face execution -- perhaps tens of thousands of them would be killed for revenge or just to send a message. I guess Congress could offer a resolution condemning such behavior.

“Thousands, perhaps millions of Iraqis would no doubt flee the country. Should the United States accept them as refugees? Or turn them away?

“In many other countries where Al-Qaida has been applying pressure -- Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand, to name just a few -- three things would now be clear:

• It is dangerous to be allied with the United States.

• It is futile to resist Al-Qaida.

• Bin Laden and Saddam were correct in predicting that if you bloody Americans, they will always turn tail and run (italics mine).

“As evidence they'd cite not only Iraq but Mogadishu and Beirut and, of course, Vietnam, where you served honorably. In truth, after that defeat -- while millions of Southeast Asians suffered and died -- Americans got on with their lives and we even went on to win the Cold War.

“Is that the idea, congressman? To cross our fingers and hope that our defeat in Iraq will follow the Vietnam pattern? Because if so, I have to say candidly, sir, that isn't much of a plan.

Once again, it has to be said.  It is easy to stand on the sidelines and boo the players.  It is much harder to follow up that condemnation with a better game plan.  Many Democrats and even a few Republicans who authorized going into Iraq are not willing to fight the good fight to the end.  They want to cut and run.  That is easy to say until they are asked to “put it in writing” in the form of a vote.  Even then, they continue to criticize from the sidelines…while offering NO BETTER PLAN for defeating our enemy and securing our nation.

Talk is cheap.  Defeatism is easy.  Fighting to win and destroying those who would kill us…now THAT is the hard part. 

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.

It is all about acceptance, right?!  That is what we are told.  Everyone in the world is accepting of everyone else, except those of us in good old America.  We apparently don’t accept anyone except ourselves.  At least, that is what we hear from the leftists in Europe and America, as well as the islamofascists we are fighting.

BUT…is the leftist mantra the truth? 

Why is it that American women who travel to various part of the Middle East have to wear head coverings?  Americans don’t force Arab women to NOT wear head coverings. 

Why is it that an American trying to worship in a Christian church in many parts of the Middle East is not allowed to worship?  Americans allow Muslims in this country to take time from work to pray throughout the day?  Why is that??? 

Why is it that we don’t even allow our own citizens to wear symbols of their religion in our public schools but we allow Muslims to wear whatever they want?

This is not about Muslim vs. Christians or Jews.  The truth is that it really IS all about acceptance.  The problem is Americans are the only ones practicing it.

There are two serious issues related to the Iraq front in the war on terror.  The first is the effectiveness of fighting islamofascists on Middle East soil rather than on American soil.  It seems to me that the answer to that question is clear.  It is even clearer when we recall that Iraq was listed as an official supporter of terrorism prior to our decision to fight the war on that front.

The second issue is equally as important.  That is the question as to whether or not we are fighting the war effectively.  Some soldiers say we are doing a good job while others say we are not.  That sounds about right.  While I was in Vietnam we had the same dichotomy of opinion about the way we were being allowed to fight the enemy.  I feel fairly confident in saying that we are probably not doing the best that we could. 

The issue is that in every war there has been both a military and political responsibility.  If allowed to fight the war in Iraq strictly from a military point of view, our soldiers would have had the best equipment and we would have destroyed the country in a week.  That would have been efficient.  Then we would have proceeded to Iran and Syria and done the same.  Saudi Arabia would have seen the writing on the wall and all would be over.

If we had followed the protocols laid down by the U.S. State Department we would have used diplomatic efforts until our diplomats were blue in the face.  Then we would have talked some more.  Nothing would have happened and Iraq woudl still be an official state sponsor of terrorism. 

Every war is undertaken as a balance between politicians and warriors.  Personally, I would prefer that we enter any war much closer to the warrior side than the politician side.  Unfortunately, that is not my choice.

I believe that the truth is evident.  We entered the war in Iraq without adequate equipment.  Billions of dollars had been stripped from the Pentagon budget by President Clinton.  We didn't have the right armor or the right number of helicopters or fighter planes.  We didn't even have the right number of troops given the draw down that took place under President Clinton. 

President Bush saw the need to address the Middle East threat.  He did it with what we had. He also did it while facing the hatred of the soft-on-terror United Nations and the corrupt Europeans who were being bribed by Saddam.  He balanced the needs of the military with political need.  I wish he hadn't.  But that is reality.

The email sent by Meltindex (see previous post) is touching.  I know what it is like to fight in a war in which we are not allowed to fight to our highest level.  I only hope that the email is authentic.  If not, it would be a disservice to our military.

Thanks to all who check in.  I appreciate it very much. 

As we sit down at our tables today, I hope that we will all give thanks to our soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They are without their families.  I know that it can be a very lonely feeling.  They are doing their part to help America remain secure.  Let's send them our best wishes and prayers.

I have written often of the gradual erosion of individual rights in America.  Attacks on personal choices such as eating, smoking, and wearing helmets are examples.  So too are attacks on our Second Amendment right to bear arms and our First Amendment Right to free speech.  None of this has anything to do with the Patriot Act and the limitations being put on some privacy in order to defend our nation against terrorists. 

I have linked this erosion to leftists and their desire to control Americans in order to maintain power.  I have also linked this erosion to our system of secondary and higher education, noting that leftists from the seventies found a niche from which they could brainwash not only their students but the students of their students who teach our youth in secondary schools and colleges.  I have written that the takeover has been relatively gradual, to the point that many of us didn’t even notice.  Even those within education have not paid attention and see the status quo as “the way it has always been”.  Clearly, the gradual erosion of personal freedoms is the most dangerous of all, like a lobster dying slowly in gradually heated water.  Most frightening of all is the fact that our state and federal judicial systems have increasingly supported the erosion of freedom (e.g., the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision on eminent domain allowing governments to seize personal property and hand it over to other private entities simply for financial gain).

Now, NBAJam, a regular contributor to this blog, has informed me of yet another example of infringement of individual rights.  This one is another attack on the First Amendment right to free speech.  

As you will recall, the First Amendment states, in part, that: “Congress shall make no law…abridging freedom of speech, or of the press…”.  Apparently, however, in our “progressive era” it is fine for the judicial branch to “make laws” that are not founded in the Constitution and to support our education systems in further eroding individual rights, including that of free speech.  Here is the situation as I understand it from my reading of the documents to which I was referred by NBAJam and which are listed below.

In 1988, in a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier that public high school officials had significant authority to censor most student newspapers and other forms of student expression sponsored by the school.  The ruling applied far beyond libel and obscenity, including cases in which the school viewed the content to be “poorly written, ungrammatical, biased, or inconsistent with the shared values of a civilized social order”. (2)  This ruling gave secondary schools the right to take away the freedom of speech and of the press for high school students.

What the Hazelwood ruling did NOT do was apply to the student press within universities. 

In 1995, Kentucky State University seized 2,000 copies of the student yearbook, at least in part because the color of the cover was different than the school colors.  Students filed a lawsuit.  In 2001, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of the students and prevented the Hazelwood ruling from finding its way to the University student press. 

Now things are becoming much more complicated.  In Hosty v. Carter (2005), the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled “that a university dean’s attempt to censor a university sponsored newspaper violated students’ First Amendment free speech rights”. (3)  On the face of it, that sounds like a good thing for those of us who value freedom of speech and of the press.  However, the issue is deeper.  The ruling states that “if school officials have recognized their student media – either by policy or practice – as ‘designated public forums’ and allow student editors to determine their own editorial content, Hazelwood’s lesser standards…won’t apply.  The Seventh Circuit made clear that in a designated public forum student newspaper, ‘no censorship [is] allowed.” (2)

So what is the problem?  Remember how we have talked of the gradual erosion of individual rights?  In order for freedom of speech to apply to university student press, the university must first have designated the publication as a “designated public forum”. (3)  Just the fact that a publication is extracurricular does not make it a designated public forum.  Only the university may make such a designation.  Public forum status is not automatic and administrators can take steps to prevent such designation. 

Since the Hazelwood decision in 1988, administrative censorship of high school students has escalated.  But here is the real issue.  This is what I have been talking about for years.  “…students started to graduate from high school without the foggiest idea of a living First Amendment and why it is relevant and vital to how things are supposed to work in our country.  The high school years are often our newest citizens’ first introduction to the idea of what it means to be a participant in the United States.  For many, it will be their only formal civics education before we cal upon them to start taking an active role in the process of self-government.  Certainly, for way too many (of those students) this introduction to American civics has been sorry indeed.”

Even worse than the fact that our students have no idea what America is about is the fact that those who teach our high school students don’t get it either.  Many of them are useful idiots who are naively allowing our enemies to gain control.  Even worse than is the fact that many of them DO get it and are willing instruments in the destruction of American values.

In league with one another, unknowingly or not, the educational and judicial systems of our nation have set the stage through Hazelwood and Hosty to once again limit individual freedom.  No one notices because it seems benign.  IT IS FAR FROM BENIGN.

1.http://www.splc.org/legalresearch.asp?id=49

2.http://www.studentpress.org/acp/trends/~law0705college.html

3.http://www.nsba.org/site/doc_cosa.asp?TRACKID=&VID=50&CID=487&DID=11501

My mind is jumbled, so this will be more rambling than usual.  Please bear with me. 

This started when Republicans called for a vote requiring that those calling for immediate pull-out from Iraq “put it in writing” via a House vote.  Only three Democrats voted “yea”.  Now Democrats are calling it a “maneuver” or a “trick” or just “politics”.  I don’t get it. 

This is just another example of things that make my head spin. Self-contradictions that seem so clear to those offering them but that clot the neurotransmitters in my brain and send me searching for relief in the archives of newspapers, books, and journals…just to find some trace of reality.

Using the example above…how is that that when people say out loud that we should do “X”, that they are afraid to vote for “X” in an open way on the House floor?  I am not sure, but can come up with only one reason in this case:  Those saying we should do “X” don’t really want to do “X”.  They just want to make the Republicans look bad.  They are themselves just playing politics with the lives of Americans.  They failed again, as usual.

There are many other examples.

People who attend anti-war demonstrations say they want peace but end up committing both verbal and physical violence.  How can that be?  All I can suggest is that there are all sorts of people at anti-war demonstrations.  The “Naïves” who believe that the intent of John Lennon’s song “Imagine” can really come about; the “Wishfuls” who doubt that the intent of “Imagine” can happen but keep trying out of habit; and the “Evil” who don’t really want peace at all but want to see America defeated by…(fill in the current ideology).  “Naïves” and “Wishfuls” are generally fairly peaceful (by definition).  It is the “Evils” that get them all stirred up.  I can’t think of any other explanation for this confusion.

Here is a double oxymoron.  (a) The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) defends every group claiming that it is a “minority” as long as that group doesn’t want to uphold traditional American morals and values.  (b) Those group that are defended by the ACLU generally despise American values and yet it is American values that allow the ACLU to defend the enemies of our nation.  For example, (a) the ACLU defends terrorists but not those trying to fight terrorism and (b) terrorists hate the country that allows the ACLU to protect them as they try to destroy America. Have you ever heard ACLU and basic American morality in the same breath?  Have you ever heard ACLU and anti-terrorism in the same breath?  I can’t come up with any real reason for these facts other than that the ACLU is itself trying to defeat America from its core.

Well, I have many more examples but my brain is too tired to try to find explanations for them.  I will just list a few.

Communists, socialists, and islamofascists talk incessantly about how they hate American social and economic values.  Yet they thrive here. 

Leading Democrats (Caucasian and African-American) who yap constantly about defending the poor are themselves wealthy?

People who have never taken a penny from government welfare coffers still vote Democrat because their parents voted for Democrats from a totally different Democrat Party. 

People who have been taken in as immigrants and given a chance to succeed in the greatest country in the world refuse to learn English and/or denounce America as not giving them a chance or as evil. 

Okay, I admit that I don’t get it.  Back to the newspapers, books, and journals.  Maybe there is a reality somewhere.

On August 16^th Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.  Murtha is a 37-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps.  He served in Vietnam and was decorated for his service.  For all that, he should be commended.

The problem is that the liberal press continues to portray Murtha as a Democratic “hawk”.  In some way this is supposed to change our views.  If a Democrat who is perceived as a hawk is now calling for troop withdrawal, we simply must withdraw.

Even if Murtha was a hawk, it wouldn’t mean that America has to cut and run.  Most rational people know that to do so would be devastating. 

The truth is that Murtha is not a hawk at all.  Go to his website. 

http://www.house.gov/murtha

On that site he states the following:  “I have been pressing this administration for more than two years to provide an exit strategy for this war.”

This does not seem like a hawk to me.  In fact, for the mainstream media to characterize Murtha as a hawk seems much more an effort to manipulate our thinking than to convey the real truth about his actions and goals.

This is a time for clear thinking.  To cut and run from Iraq would lead to the deaths of thousands of Iraqi’s.  Even worse it would symbolize once more to friend and enemy alike that America has no resolve and will not fight a battle until the end.  The world already views America against the backdrop of Vietnam, Somalia, and the first Gulf War. Many of our own citizens do not believe that we are strong enough to defeat a global enemy.  Just last night an acquaintance told me that we could not possibly win the “war on terror” because we would have to kill a billion Muslims.  Of course the truth is that we only have to kill the few thousand Muslim extremists that want to spread their theology and violence across the world.  That is not a billion people, it is a few thousand.  And it is people like Murtha that continue to convey this pessimism about our nation across the world.

In response to the irresponsible actions of Murtha and many of his Democrat colleagues, House Republicans led a brilliant counterattack.  They called for a vote to cut and run.  The vote was 403-3 against.  Of course the three votes for cutting and running came from Democrats: 

• Jose Serrano of New York
• Robert Wexler of Florida
• Cynthia McKinney of Georgia

Remember those names.

Also remember the names of the six Representatives that voted “present” (i.e., too scared to take a stand):

• Jim McDermott of Washington;
• Jerrold Nadler, Maurice Hinchey and Major Owens of New York
• Michael Capuano of Massachusetts
• William Lacy Clay of Missouri

America cannot continue to cut and run.  Our troops deserve to see us standing tall and united behind them.  The cause is honorable and just.  Fight on and win this war!

Many Germans who immigrated to the United States after World War II rightfully look back in contempt at the actions of their homeland during the reign of Adolph Hitler.  They see the horror; the murder of six million Jews; and the millions killed in a war of conquest.  Some of them participated in that horror.  Many others claim that they had no idea what was happening.

I am glad that those Germans that America took in as brothers and sisters after the war can feel contempt for the vile actions of their homeland.  I am equally glad that they want to ensure that it never happen again.

However, many of these people are spending a great deal of their time speaking out against their new homeland.  Sigrid Bachman is an example (Doug Grow, Minneapolis StarTribune, 11/18/05).  A retired pediatrician, she came to America from Germany 40 years ago.  She speaks of her contempt for the actions of the Nazi’s (of which she claims to have had no knowledge at the time).  Like thousands of other German immigrants, she equates American actions in the Middle East with Germany actions during World War II.  She sees America as the aggressor and as the real global enemy.  

I cannot understand this distorted world view.  I cannot understand the lack of gratitude expressed by these people for a nation that took them in when they had nothing; a nation that gave them opportunity that they would never have had in a Germany devastated by its own actions.

Like the Nazi’s, Al Qaida is committing world wide aggression, using terror as a tool.  Its stated goal is an Islamic dominated world.  Like Hitler, bin Laden is leading a devastating movement to end freedom and to supplant it with control by the few.  Just today it was reported by the Associated Press (11/18/05) that Al Qaida terrorist Al-Zarqawi has threatened to kill the King of Jordan.  He also justified the killing of 59 civilians in a triple suicide bombing in Jordan.   The real equation here is not between America and Nazi Germany but between the Nazi’s and Al Qaida. And yet, many of these German immigrants see President Bush as the modern day Hitler.

The fact that these German immigrants cannot see that point is phenomenal to me.  But even worse is the fact that people like Bachman cannot see that America is doing just as it did during World War II.  America is trying to stop the spread of world wide evil.  America is the same America that saved the lives of millions of Europeans.  The real equation is America during World War II and America during the war on Islamofascist dominance of the world.

In my view, these German immigrants seem to be as blind to evil today as they claim to have been during World War II.  They condemn those who gave them an opportunity and ignore the violence and destruction being spread by an evil monster.  Their presumptuousness amazes me.  It also reminds me of the poem I posted here a few months back:

Presumptuous (adj. displaying excessive self-confidence and taking liberties)

like an enemy,

taken in,

nurtured,

allowed to reach his potential,

never defending

and ever condemning the very nation

that let him thrive.

Today, even without the support of German immigrants like Bachman, America has answered the call to defeat another horrific global enemy.  Still, it would be nice if these people would take a clearer look at the world and realize just who ARE today’s Nazi’s.  It is not the Bush Administration; it is Al Qaida. 

I am beginning to fear that America, as we know it, has very little time left.  The anti-American far-left defeated our nation during the Vietnam War.  Remember Jane Fonda?  Any thinking American knows that she should still be tried for treason.  President Clinton listened to the same leftists when he got 18 Americans killed in Somalia before ordering retreat.  Those same leftists and their ill-begotten children tried to do the same during the first Gulf War.  Remember Senator Paul Wellstone at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, desecrating the memory of 58,000 dead American heroes?  Remember the calls by the far-left for America to cut and run?  As a result, President George H.W. Bush pulled out prematurely, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and necessitating a second Gulf War.

Now, in 2005, America is caving again at the hands of the left.  They have been joined, once again, by the weakest of Republicans…people only interested in re-election in 2006 and 2008. 

Granted, the left has a powerful bully pulpit.  Practically all of the electronic and print media have propagandized against America during the current war.  They have presented it as an ill-informed war with Iraq.  In reality, this war has very little to do with Iraq.  This is a war against those who would kill us.  This is a war against islamofascists who have used Iraq (an officially designated nation in support of terror) for financial support and physical refuge.  This is a war against a global enemy using terrorism as a tool.  This is a war against global bullies.  It is a war to end the terror being perpetrated by fascists against Americans and against all the people of the world that do not succumb to the bullying tactics of those who want their way…regardless.  This is a war against people who kill their own as well as those “westerners” that they supposedly find vile.  Most of all, this is a war against evil. 

Despite all this, the far-left is once again defeating America without firing a shot.  Joined by their weak Republican colleagues, they have put forth an edict of ridiculous dimension.  They are requiring “quarterly reporting” by the administrative branch on the course of the war.  Many of them want an exit strategy.

Brilliant.  Let’s tell our enemy when we are leaving so they can hold tight and then re-take control of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East once we are out the door. 

Everyone listen up!  The enemy knows us well.  It has studied Vietnam, Somalia, and the first Gulf War.  It knows it cannot beat America militarily.  It also knows that it can defeat us with the help of anti-American propagandists living right here in America. People whose ignorance or evil intent leads them believe that America should not defeat this evil enemy. 

This is not a war with Iraq!  This is not a joke.  This is a war of World War dimension.  Our leftist educators may teach our children to avoid fighting back against bullies.  We cannot use that same strategy against islamofascists.  If we do, we will suffer the same fate as our children in our schools…but the consequences will be even greater.

What America needs today is not an exit strategy but a VICTORY strategy.  If America loses this war…if America fights the war with half-hearted resolve and cuts and runs again as we did in Vietnam and Somalia we will ALL be dead.

Great movie:  Cool Hand Luke. 

Great line:  The Captain (Strother Martin) delivers one of the greatest lines in any film in American history.  That line is:  “What we’ve got heahhh…is a failure to communicate”.

That line got me thinking.  I know, some will question that ability but I assure you I do think sometimes.  And this is where this little sound bite led me.

Clearly there is a failure to communicate between far left liberals and conservatives.  This is becoming clearer every day and is being spotlighted in the midst of the current attempt to appoint the current Bush nominee to the Supreme Court. 

Judge Samuel Alito has been clear that he opposes abortion.  So too has been his mother.  He has admitted that this is his personal view.  He has also stated that he judges on the basis of fact and law, not personal viewpoints and FEELINGS.

Therein lays the problem.

Far left liberals understand very well that they make decisions based on their own personal viewpoints and feelings…regardless of the facts.  Far left liberals have packed the bench with those who interpret the Constitution (and thereby change foundational American law) based on their feelings. I believe that leftists truly do not believe it possible to make decisions or try cases at any level based on originalist, factual conceptualization.  I believe that leftists cannot understand that it IS possible to separate feeling from action…to be against abortion and not let that feeling impact judicial decision making.  Leftists cannot understand that a person OF the law can act on law instead of feelings. 

Honest mistake.  Leftists almost always decide based on feeling.  Conservatives almost always decide based on fact.  Unfortunately, that difference leads to a very serious “failure to communicate”.

Thank you Strother Martin.

I spent some time in New HampshireHam this weekend.  Nice people, family and friends.  Most of them were liberal, but most were open to discussion on the basis of fact.  My blood pressure went down.  Then I got back home and found a column by Molly Ivins in the Minneapolis StarTribune (November 14, 2005).  The column had all of the pro-American qualities of any Ivins column.  It was titled “Land of the free and home of the gulag”.  Molly, as usual, is raging in her ignorance.  She doesn’t like the idea of America having “secret prisons” where it “tortures people”.  She states these as fact.  Apparently she has a top secret CIA clearance….??? 

As an “inclusive” liberal she spends time in the article shaming President Bush for having been a “cheerleader” in college rather than a football player.  Judging from how she appears on television, SHE might have been a football player but that doesn’t mean every male has to have been one in order to be President.  She acknowledges that President Bush played tennis but minimizes that as apparently not masculine enough.  She goes on to state that our President has a “fake machismo”, another sexist comment.  If anyone said that Hillary had a “fake femininity” he or she would be destroyed in the press.  (By the way, Hillary does appear to have a “fake femininity”).

The highlight of her article is that “torture does not work”.  She repeats that phrase repeatedly.  Of course she is wrong.  Torture DOES work.  Most people who have been tortured admit that fact.  (Despite his current assertions to the contrary even Senator John McCain admitted in his book that torture worked on him.)  It would work on most of the bleeding hearts in this country that have no idea of how to take a stand.  It would work on most terrorist…who are cowards.  It would probably work on Ms. Ivins (but I definitely wouldn’t suggest trying it, nor would it be worth anything because she is ignorant of any fact anyway).

Of course torture is not a favorite thing to do.  It is difficult for all involved.  Bu the fact is that any normal person would use any tactic necessary to get information out of bad people who have knowledge of bad acts that are about to occur, if it would save lives.  That is what Ivins doesn’t understand.  But why can’t she see this basic fact?

Ivins provides two clues to her ignorance. 

First, she hates the President because she went to high school with him and, although he didn’t play football, he became somebody and she didn’t. 

Secondly, she states that she “grew up with all this pathetic Texas tough” (e.g.,) “I’m gonna open me a can of whip-ass….” 

And that, my friends, is the real issue.  Ivins grew up in a state that still values the warrior…the person (male or female) that stands tough in battle.  Ms. Ivins clearly does not pass muster in Texas.  She is ashamed and she is striking out at those who have fought for RIGHT in America. 

Molly Ivins can keep talking.  That is a basic right in this nation that she has done nothing to support or to make stronger.  We do not have to keep listening.

Meanwhile, my friends and relatives in New Hampshire continue to discuss and debate.  The bottom line stays clear…LIVE FREE OR DIE.

A letter writer to the Minneapolis StarTribune (Jack McHugh, 11/9/05) reminded me of a very timely poem written by Rudyard Kipling.  The name of the poem is “Tommy”.

“For it’s ‘Tommy this’ and ‘Tommy that,’ and ‘chuck him out, the brute!’  But it’s ‘Savior of his country’ when the guns begin to shoot.”

Let’s remember our troops regardless of the state of the world.  And especially now, let’s salute them for their valor.

I am off for a few days vacation.  I wish you all well and will see you early next week for more on the state of our world.

It is obvious that America is viewed as weak by islamofascists.  Here is yet another reason why that is true. 

Our government has known for months that the city of Hasnybah is a “bastion for cells of Al Qaida in Iraq” (Kirk Semple, Edward Wong, New York Times, 11/6/05).  While the government has authorized American troops to carry out at least a dozen operations along the stretch of land used by terrorists to gain access to Iraqi targets, the flow of terrorists continues.  Troops are working their way through the city, house-by-house.  As of 11/6, they had a mile to go to reach the far side of the city. 

With every step, they risk their lives.

And even before our troops arrive, the enemy is warned.  They leave.  All that our troops find is empty rooms and a number of snipers set on killing our soldiers or themselves or both. 

What a disservice to our troops. 

We know where the enemy is.  We telegraph our punch.  They leave and our troops are killed.  There is no reason for our troops to die this way.  We have the technology to make it possible to win the war with very few American casualties.

Here is the formula.  Identify the enemy location.  Blow it up from the air.  Kill every living person in the city.  Then burn the city.  Turn it into a vast empty hole instead of what it is today…”a cesspool” (Col. Stephen Davis, USMC).  Burn everyone who was there because everyone of them was the enemy.  They were either terrorists or harboring terrorists.  No difference.

The way we are forcing our troops to fight the Iraq War is very similar to the way our troops were forced to fight the Vietnam War.  That is why we lost 58,000 good men and women in Vietnam.  That war set the tone for how America is perceived by the enemy…as weak and irresolute. 

We have a chance to correct that view.  Destroy a few towns and all will end.  Islamofascists only understand one thing and that is strength.  They take advantage of weakness just as did the communists of North Vietnam.  It is time to show our strength!  It is time for our leaders to stop catering to anti-American communists, socialists, Europeans, brainwashed high school and college students, media elites, entertainers, and other assorted morons. 

Get tough!  Fight the war and win the war!

I was listening to some people talk today.  They went on and on about the right wingers who are trying to change America.  They talked about two columnists for a major newspaper as “columnists” but labeled a third as a ‘right wing columnist”.  Interestingly, the two who were not labeled are remarkably far left of center while the one labeled as a right winger actually espouses what used to be viewed as traditional American values.

Therein lays the problem.  Today in America, normal, moral American values are labeled as right wing thought.  Thanks to our ever liberalizing educational, media, and political systems, communist and socialist thought has become “mainstream”.  What was once feared by mainstream America is now the status quo for many who don’t even know what they are seeing and what they are losing as a result.  Communism could not beat America militarily.  They are succeeding through control of the media and our educational and political systems.

Another sad commentary on the course of our nation…

It is time that we wake up!

Somehow I have to believe that normal people understand simple ideas and basic ideas.  If I didn’t believe that I would just have to give up.  I can’t do that.  I mean, doesn’t it make sense that a regular person would understand the need to study both sides of an issue before making a decision?  It seems like common sense to me.

Of course, it would be much easier to just read and listen to those who agree with me.  It takes less time and it involves much less thought and reflection. 

I admit that those on the left have it harder than those of us on the right.  Almost everything published or broadcast comes from the leftist slant.  They don’t have to look far to find ideas that agree with them.  They do have to do a bit of research to find an opposing view.  But those views are available with a little digging.

Those of us on the right have no problem finding the leftist view.  It is everywhere.  We too have to search out the conservative voice.  Of course we do.  And, of course we find it.

Here is the problem.  Some on the left simply choose to take the easy road and refrain from seeking out the opposing view.  They are the ideologues, the lazy and the self-satisfied.  We know who they are.  My real concern is those on the left who don’t even know there is an opposing view.  Those are the people that scare me most.  They are the truly ignorant.

It is just common sense to understand all sides of an argument before coming to a decision.  Let’s hope that all of us do so.

Yesterday, (11/4/05), the Washington Post and other newspapers reported that President Bush’s approval rating is at a new low.  A majority of Americans question his integrity. 

Surprised?

I’m not.  Anyone who has been reading the papers and watching the mainstream electronic and broadcast media knows that the drumbeat against our President has been incessant.  Anyone who is a casual observer of the news can see nothing else but the negative messages about the President.  Every time a columnist for a major newspaper writes a positive story, he or she is drowned out by three anti-Bush stories.  This is especially bizarre since the President has often acted more like a liberal President than one who is conservative (e.g., the border policy, the Katrina policy, the prescription drug benefit). 

President Bush won the election.  Granted, he is not the greatest of communicators.  But he has stood hard and fast against the leftists who have tried to undermine his every move.  In doing so, they are undermining the nation.  The negative views of the President being forwarded by the press have nothing to do with facts.  Those views have to do with ideology.  If a President doesn’t support the leftist causes of unlimited abortion, gun control, unlimited welfare and secularism, he will be attacked unmercifully.  This is what is happening to President Bush.  His personality, intelligence, and integrity have been slandered.  I would love to see him come out and fight back.  I sincerely hope he does.

A few weeks ago, NBAJam, a commenter (and a very bright one at that) passed on information about a class he is taking in college.  The instructor has done everything that he can to give an anti-American bias to his students in his communications class.  Of course, he denies it.  They always do.  But seeing what he is teaching and seeing how he responded to the commenter who attempted to challenge his information, it is clear that he is not just an instructor who teaches facts but a propaganda merchant who teaches bias against America.  In commenting on my last post, NBAJam noted that the propaganda continues and that attempts to provide an alternative view are shut off.  This is what I wrote back to NBAJam:

The instructor clearly has an agenda, as evidenced by his biography that you sent a few weeks ago.  His goal, and the goal of all like him, is to undermine the moral and political fabric of this nation. 

Students from various high schools in the Twin Cities area staged an "anti-war protest" on Wednesday.  The event was organized by Socialist Alternative.  Socialist Alternative is the American branch of the Committee for a Workers' International.  The goal of the latter is to "win support for the ideas of genuine Marxism among working class people".  On their website they include as a recommended reading Marx's "Communist Manifesto". (For more see Katherine Kersten, Minneapolis StarTribune, 11/4/05).  Clearly, they were able to take some naive kids and get them to play their game.

What appears to be is not always what it is.  Anti-war demonstrators are not always anti-war demonstrators.  More often, they are anti-American demonstrators.  Instructors on college campuses are not always trying to teach their students facts.  Often, they are trying to brainwash them to be as un-American as they are. 

I am glad you are not naive and that you are standing tough.  Keep trying but not to the extent that you are punished with bad grades.  There will be time after you finish the course to challenge these people.  I would love to be part of that challenge.

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Politics as usual.  The left thinks they have found a nick in the armor that is truth.  Once again, they are accusing the President of lying about the reason for going to war.  I have listed all the reasons that were given at the time in previous posts.  WMD was only one.  Everyone in the world believed that Saddam had WMD including President Clinton, Senator Kerry, and Senator Kennedy.  Of course, none of them has the integrity to say so now.  It is politically expedient to attack instead of join.

There were many reasons for going to war with Iraq.  The belief that Iraq still had WMD was one of those reasons.  The FACT that Iraq was funneling money to terrorist operations throughout the Middle East was another.  Probably even more important was the fact that Iraq is located centrally in the Middle East, right in the middle of most of the enemies that we have or will face in that region.  But of the greatest importance is the fact that America had to finally demonstrate resolve in fighting the Islamic fundamentalist enemy.  America caved repeatedly under President Clinton.  Somalia was specifically mentioned by Osama bin Laden in voicing the view that America will not fight when the fighting gets too tough.  We did nothing after the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the first attack on the World Trade Center.  America had to show Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East that we will fight back when attacked.  Not just via criminal action against the specific people who attacked us, but military action against them and all those who lend support to them.  Before we took a stand in Iraq, Saudi Arabia was snubbing its nose at our nation.  Since we entered the war with Iraq, Saudi Arabic has shown a great deal of cooperation with the United States.  Libya has come around as well. 

Under the Carter and Clinton administrations, America was seen as weak.  Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush have taken a stand and that has led to a dramatic change in the level of cooperation we receive from our so-called allies in the Middle East.   This war is much more than an attempt to liberate the people of Iraq.  It is a statement that we will not accept hostile behavior from anyone in the Middle East.  Period.

If the anti-American left would stop their sabotage, we would be perceived as stronger around the world and we would be able to take the steps necessary to eliminate the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism.  We would be able to end the war much sooner as well.  Because of the weak-kneed and anti-American left, we are facing the same problem we faced during the Vietnam War.  We are being pressed to hold back. 

The terrorists need to know that if they attack anyone or anything anywhere, America will respond.  They need to know that we will not only respond with equal force but with a force that is one-hundred-fold as deadly.  For every person they kill they must know that we will kill a hundred.  For every building they destroy they need to know that we will destroy a hundred, including their most “sacred” holy sites (after all, they blow up each others’ mosques anyway). 

I encourage President Bush to hold the course.  Never turn back.  Never give up.  Never run like we did in Vietnam.  If we show cowardice in the face of this war, we will lose it all.  Let’s stand up together…and fight.

I just got back from hunting.  Several pheasants died to support the families of many.  It was good. 

I had no access to the news while I was gone.  But I returned to find that the President has nominated a viable candidate for the Supreme Court.  A man with experience and with an originalist approach to the judiciary.  Much debate will ensure but this is the debate we have been waited for.  Let the left show their true colors.  They do not want people on the Supreme Court who will interpret law based on the original wording of the Constitution.  They want people who will legislate anti-American values from the bench.  This is the big battle and we have to win.  America has to win or we will lose not only the battle but the war for American values.

Let's call our legislatures and get the ball rolling for America!