I am also disappointed if what I’ve read about bin Laden’s final send-off is true. Was the creep’s corpse actually washed, wrapped in a white sheet and had an Islamic prayer read over it before it was dropped into the sea? If I remember correctly, bin Laden played a major role in the murder of 3,000 Americans, forcing a number of them to leap from skyscrapers because their option was to be incinerated, and we’re giving him a respectful burial? If it had been up to me, I’d have wrapped his cremated remains in a pigskin and then had a midshipman punt him off the poop deck. – Burt Prelutsky
Islamic Terrorism
Godspeed The Ft. Hood Victims
Damsel and I have the Ft. Hood victims in our thoughts and prayers tonight. We are still following the news as it develops.
Looking around the internet and watching the news, we see various reports and opinions about this horrific event. I found this tweet from K.J. Lopez, who blogs at the NRO Corner, very interesting:
re fort hood: why do we reflexively rule out terrorism?
Given the identity of the alleged shooter, Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, we have to ask the same question.
Image: Ft. Hood commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone making statement to press
UPDATE: Talk about the inmates running the asylum – Hasan was an Army psychiatrist!
UPDATE: Col. Terry Lee (RET), a psychiatrist who worked with Hasan, told Fox News that several times Hasan made radical statements and thinly-veiled threats against US involvement in the War on Terror.
Flight 93 — Courage Remembered
We got our e-newsletter from the National Parks Service today. One interesting write-up tells about the events scheduled for Shanksville, site of the Flight 93 crash:
“Upon This Sacred Ground, Courage Remembered,” is the theme for the eighth anniversary of the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. A new national park is being created at this sacred ground, commemorating the heroism of the 40 passengers and crew members.
A number of activities will take place in observance of September 11. A special ceremony will be held in Shanksville during the morning and is open to the public. General Colin Powell will deliver keynote remarks, and country music performer Trace Adkins will sing the national anthem. The names of the passengers and crew members will be read at 10:03 a.m. — the exact time of the crash — by family members, first responders and local residents.
A small group of Flight 93 family members are embarking on Ride With the 40, a cross-country motorcycle journey to “complete Flight 93.” The riders will leave from Newark Liberty International Airport on September 3 and stop in towns and cities along the way before arriving in San Francisco on September 11. A traveling temporary memorial, similar to one displayed in Shanksville, will accompany the riders during their 3,000-mile trek.
In addition, an up-to-date listing of these and other activities to commemorate Flight 93 and September 11, as well as information about supporting the Flight 93 National Memorial Campaign, can be found at honorflight93.org.
Cheney’s Top 10
Former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered his speech on National Security the other day. Cheney delivered sharp criticism to the current administration’s limp-wristed approach to terrorism. The recently-minted Fox Nation website excerpted the top-10 thoughts from Cheney’s speech:
No. 10: The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security.
No. 9: In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we’ve captured as, quote, “abducted.” Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.
No. 8: If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
No. 7: Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.
No. 6: To completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.
No. 5: This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, “We brought it on ourselves.” It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America’s moral standards, one way or the other.
No. 4: Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance.
No. 3: To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.
No. 2: In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy.
No. 1: Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.
Courtesy Editors of Fox Nation.
Getting It Right for the USS Cole
It is slightly embarrassing that I wrongly placed a photo of the Limburg oil tanker bombing in the Never Forget Tribute instead of images of the USS Cole. The mistake was an honest one, since the image I lifted from the internet was labeled “cole.jpg.” It turns out that the Limburg was also bombed in October of 2000, probably by the same al-Qaeda terrorists that carried out the Cole attacks. One thing stands out is that neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations did much to avenge these acts of terror, just as the Obama administration is likely not to do in the future.
Image right: damage to the port side of the USS Cole – Click on thumbnail to enlarge.
After doing some research (which should have been done the first time), I located these two actual images of the USS Cole. I modified the Tribute again, this time with the correct images.
The image above shows the 40-by-60 feet hole blown in the side of the USS Cole. The blast hit the ship’s Galley, where crew were lining up for chow. The image to the left shows the USNS Catawba towing the Cole to be transported back to the United States.
Image left: Catawba towing the USS Cole – Click on thumbnail to enlarge.
Thanks go to Gary Swenchonis, Sr., who provided me with feedback on the Tribute. Gary is the father of Fireman Gary Swenchonis, Jr., who perished in the attack on the USS Cole. Gary has a couple of anti-terrorism websites set up:
Obama Judge Drops USS Cole Terror Charges
A Pentagon judge dropped charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an al-Qaida suspect held at Guantanamo and accused of masterminding the USS Cole bombing. Obama holds meeting with victims’ relatives after the fact, but not all relatives were in attendance.
Al-Nashiri and the other defendants are not about to be turned loose. The cases against them were dismissed without prejudice, which means new charges can be brought against them. And they are still enemy combatants. Obama has declared his intention to remove them from Guantanamo by January, but he has not pledged to free them. Releasing these terrorists would endanger American security.
All of this legal and political maneuvering is very distressing to the families of the sailors killed on the USS Cole. They have been struggling to get justice for over eight years now and are worried that the people of our Nation are forgetting what happened.
One of those families is that of Gary G. Swenchonis, Jr. Gary’s father, Gary, Sr. wrote why he chose not to accept President Obama’s invitation to meet with him:
It is because of the Obama Administration’s latest move toward surrendering to terrorism, that I now include a panel in the Never Forget Tribute to commemorate the Cole attack. Check it out in the sidebar.
We are very proud that Mr. Swenchonis, Sr. includes our tribute on his Blogspot page. We are also proud that the tribute is seen on hundreds of sites and will soon have passed the 50 million hits mark.
We must NEVER FORGET.
Pre-Thanksgiving Reminders
A couple of things:
First, reach out to our men and women in uniform this holiday by supporting one or more of these important charities.
- Wounded Warrior Project
- Soldier’s Angels
- Any Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman or Guardsman
- United Service Organization (USO)
- Packages From Home
Just scroll down in the right sidebar and find our links to these charities. Click on over and check out how you can help our uniformed heroes.
Year end is coming and tax write-offs are a good thing, but not as good as that nice glow you get knowing that you have made a military man. woman or family a little happier this holiday. Just do it.
Next, this article came in today from Afghanistan from Michael Yon. It reminds us of the grim truth that our job is not done when it comes to the Global War on Terror:
Happy Thanksgiving from Zabul Province, Afghanistan.
The Taliban seem to be mostly afraid of American soldiers. They do attack U.S. and inflict damage, but all around I hear from Afghans and U.S. soldiers that the Taliban are mostly trying to avoid contact with U.S., while focusing attacks mostly on Afghans. Some people see the Taliban as courageous, but I am seeing more and more that they use cowardly tactics, often hiding behind women and children.
I am tonight in Zabul Province and have been out with New York National Guard. Their morale is high and they think they are winning the fight, despite the long series of frustrations that come with the terrain of war. Especially in Afghanistan.
Our cell phones are not working tonight; the Taliban forces cell phone operators to turn off the towers at night. The Taliban are afraid of being tracked, and are afraid the Americans will interrupt their sleep. The cell towers are cut off from 5:30 PM to 7:00 AM. An American captain told me that one group of operators decided to turn off the system late one night, so the Taliban came, killed one man, and tortured two others.
On an interesting side, Americans and Afghans are giving very high marks to the Lithuanian Special Forces who operate here. They are less impressed with Romanians; Afghans and Americans say the Romanians are afraid of the Taliban, but that the Lithuanians are having a field day chasing and killing Taliban.
On the Iraq front, please read Down with Barriers, Up with Iraq.
The Iraq war is over, but the Afghan playoffs will begin in 2009. This fight is just getting started. Please send lots of Marines, and lots of training teams for the Afghan Army and police.
Your correspondent,
Michael