Please spare us talk of the "rule of law." If that was the primary consideration, the U.S. already has a judicial process in place. The current special military tribunals were created by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was adopted with bipartisan Congressional support after the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal "enemy combatants" captured since 9/11.No one doubts these men's guilt, but what if--what if--they receive reduced or no sentence because of some procedural rule that ought not apply to enemy combatants?
Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren't a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday's decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.
One must not speak of such things. Not even now. Not even after we know that Hasan was in communication with a notorious Yemen-based jihad propagandist. As late as Tuesday, the New York Times was running a story on how returning soldiers at Fort Hood had a high level of violence.And Mark Steyn:
What does such violence have to do with Hasan? He was not a returning soldier. And the soldiers who returned home and shot their wives or fellow soldiers didn’t cry “Allahu Akbar!” as they squeezed the trigger.
The delicacy about the religion in question — condescending, politically correct, and deadly — is nothing new. A week after the first (1993) World Trade Center attack, the same New York Times ran the following front-page headline about the arrest of one Mohammed Salameh: “Jersey City Man Is Charged in Bombing of Trade Center.”
Ah yes, those Jersey men — so resentful of New York, so prone to violence.
“Diversity” is one of those words designed to absolve you of the need to think. Likewise, a belief in “multiculturalism” doesn’t require you to know anything at all about other cultures, just to feel generally warm and fluffy about them. Heading out from my hotel room the other day, I caught a glimpse of that 7-Eleven video showing Major Hasan wearing “Muslim” garb to buy a coffee on the morning of his murderous rampage. And it wasn’t until I was in the taxi cab that something odd struck me: He was an American of Arab descent. But he was wearing Pakistani dress — that’s to say, a “Punjabi suit,” as they call it in Britain, or the shalwar kameez, to give it its South Asian name. For all the hundreds of talking heads droning on about “diversity” across the TV networks, it was only Tarek Fatah, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, who pointed out that no Arab males wear this get-up — with one exception: Those Arab men who got the jihad fever and went to Afghanistan to sign on with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In other words, Major Hasan’s outfit symbolized the embrace of an explicit political identity entirely unconnected with his ethnic heritage.It used to be that the pursuit of "diversity" in the form of affirmative action put some less qualified people in school or a job in place of a more qualified applicant. While stupid & unjust, such behavior rarely resulted in the deaths of 13 people and injury of dozens more.
Mr. Fatah would seem to be a genuine “multiculturalist”: That’s to say, he’s attuned to often very subtle “diversities” between cultures. Whereas the professional multiculturalist sees the 7-Eleven video and coos, “Aw, look. He’s wearing . . . well, something exotic and colorful, let’s not get hung up on details. Celebrate diversity, right? Can we get him in the front row for the group shot? We may be eligible for a grant.”
The brain-addled “diversity” of General Casey will get some of us killed, and keep all of us cowed. In the days since the killings, the news reports have seemed increasingly like a satirical novel the author’s not quite deft enough to pull off, with bizarre new Catch 22s multiplying like the windmills of your mind: If you’re openly in favor of pouring boiling oil down the throats of infidels, then the Pentagon will put down your e-mails to foreign jihadists as mere confirmation of your long established “research interests.” If you’re psychotic, the Army will make you a psychiatrist for fear of provoking you. If you gun down a bunch of people, within an hour the FBI will state clearly that we can all relax, there’s no terrorism angle, because, in our over-credentialized society, it doesn’t count unless you’re found to be carrying Permit #57982BQ3a from the relevant State Board of Jihadist Licensing.
Ezra Levant, my comrade in a long battle to restore freedom of speech to Canada, likes to say that the Danish cartoons crisis may one day be seen as a more critical event than 9/11. Not, obviously, in the comparative death tolls but in what each revealed about the state of Western civilization. After 9/11, we fought back, hit hard, rolled up the Afghan camps; after the cartoons, we weaseled and equivocated and appeased and signaled that we were willing to trade core Western values for a quiet life. Watching the decadence and denial on display this last week, I think in years to come Fort Hood will be seen in a similar light. What happened is not a “tragedy” but a national scandal, already fading from view.
I don't think the fact that the party of the President really matters in discussions on whether the troops like him or not. That said. The current president has a lot of deeds to make happen in order to overcome his words:(h/t DrewM @ Ace)
[ed. note: click link and see video of Obama accusing US military of haphazardly bombing villages & killing civilians. Damned by his own words.]
I mean, come on, would YOU want to work for a boss that has that kind of appreciation for you and your brothers blood?
Most active-duty service members continue to oppose President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to allow gays to serve openly in the military, a Military Times survey shows.Why is this significant? Because Obama's press secretary has promised to kill "don't ask, don't tell."Moreover, if the policy was repealed, nearly 10 percent of respondents said they would not re-enlist or extend their service, and 14 percent said they would consider terminating their careers after serving their obligated tours.
A great many progressive liberals find fault with this policy and they desire a military that embraces people's various sexual lifestyles in an open, respectful way. Unfortunately, a great many progressive liberals have absolutely no desire to serve in the military -- whether don't ask, don't tell is the law or not -- which means that the military will continue recruiting from a population which does not share the enlightened, humane, pro-homosexuality goo-goo of the progressive liberals.Me too.Don't ask, don't tell makes military service less attractive to gays and progressive liberals. But they, largely, are not inclined to serve in any event. Repealing the code makes service less attractive to traditionalists and, yes, conservatives (as well as blacks and Hispanics) who tend to be liberal on many issues but not particularly progressive about homosexuality) who actually are inclined to serve.
One can argue about the fairness but those actually willing to join the club ought to have some say in its rules. Those unwilling to join should have far less a say.
If Gleen Grenwald and other humane, compassionate, forward-thinking liberals announce their intention to sign up in great enough numbers to offset the losses among the current cohort of recruits, fine, we can dispense with the issue of how this policy affects the military's actual purpose -- to fight and win wars. And then we can have the debate solely on the grounds the liberals wish to have it on, on the questions of fairness and dignity and openness to diverse sexual orientations. And other gay [stuff] of this nature.
But somehow I doubt that any such large-scale pledge to serve will be forthcoming.
The one thing that hit me right away about this is that repealing don't ask don't tell is just one more way for BHO to reduce defense spending. Not only that, he could point to the decrease in spending being a result of "natural" attrition and possibly not have to pay as much of a political consequence because, "People just aren't willing to sign up like they used to."I read an article awhile back on the Op-Ed page of the WSJ in which the author argued for Keynesian-style spending on the military. At least, he said, if you're going to spend huge amounts of money, you might as well spend it on things that are useful rather than just making stuff up like, "green jobs." He specifically outlined increasing the military budget to pay for big ticket items--new jet fighters, expensive parts for destroyers and carriers and other things along those lines.
"Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified, because he feared reprisals from the Obama administration.Okay, maybe I added that last clause.
When asked who has their best interests at heart — Obama or President George W. Bush — a higher percentage of respondents picked Bush [...]It's nice to see that members of the military are more skeptical and not as susceptible to Obamania as other Americans in their age group.
Cyd Leslie, an Army specialist who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other posts abroad for the past year and-a-half, has only seen her daughter’s steps on video.Whether they're friends, family, or strangers, take a moment to think about and thank the men and women in the military who keep us safe and protect our liberty.The last time Leslie saw Cheyenne in person, she would take a few tentative steps and stumble.
So to finally see her walking, much less running, is nothing short of a miracle, a taste of everything her little girl will be able to accomplish in life.
For years, 24-year-old Cyd has been hoping “kids don’t tease” Cheyenne and “wondering if she’s going to have a boyfriend.”
But when Cheyenne bounded into her arms Tuesday night, she thought, “I’ll never forget this feeling.”
During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t miss any shots, despite the enemies’ rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.For an R-rated (you've been warned), Chuck Norris-style lauding of the young corporal's deeds, click the link.“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.”
Sometimes in life we have to finish a job that was started by someone else or in error, but it must be finished in order to not marginalize, minimize, or totally negate the sacrifice of others.UPDATE 18 November 2:54am BST: More good news from Iraq, this coming from General McCaffrey's AAR:
Sorry, but I spent two years living in South America under a dictatorship and watched people suffer from the autrocities of oppression. Regardless of whether this was to fight the war on terror (which I believe it was, but our liberal friends have no concept of how to bring an unseen enemy out of the shadows to fight), or to keep control of oil, it can and has created a country where people have the freedom to choose their direction. Who are we to say they aren't worth that effort. What if we were the ones oppressed, wouldn't we welcome the restoration of our liberties? Or would we refuse the help because it was too hard and continue suffering?
THE BOTTOM LINE:Like his denunciation of Nafta, I hope Obama's promise to 'withdraw, regardless of conditions on the ground,' was just empty primary campaign boilerplate, designed to get the anti-war moonbat wing of the Democrat party on board, and not, you know, his grown-up position.a. The United States is now clearly in the end game in Iraq to successfully achieve what should be our principle objectives:
• The withdrawal of the majority of our US ground combat forces in Iraq in the coming 36 months.
• Leaving behind an operative civil state and effective Iraqi security forces.
• An Iraqi state which is not in open civil war among the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds.
• And an Iraqi nation which is not at war with its six neighboring states.
b. The security situation is clearly still subject to sudden outrage at any moment by Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) or to degradation because of provocative behavior by the Maliki government. However, the bottom line is a dramatic and growing momentum for economic and security stability which is unlikely to be reversible. I would not characterize the situation as fragile. It is just beyond the tipping point.
• Daily attacks hit a high of 180+ in July of 2007--- they are now down to 20+ per day.
• Civilian deaths dropped from 3700 per month in Dec 2006 --- to 400 + in October 2008.
• US military deaths dropped from 110 in May of 2007---to 10 in October 2008.
• Iraqi Security Forces KIA dropped from 310 in June 2007--- to 50 in October 2008.)
President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"Since that original designation, 11 November has been expanded to be a day in which all veterans of all wars are remembered and their sacrifices honored.
John graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962, receiving a commission in the Marine Corps. In October of 1966, he assumed command of “Lima” Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment in Vietnam. During this tour he was wounded in action and awarded the Silver Star medal for valor.
John had a successful career in the Marines, serving as an infantry battalion and regimental commander. He also earned the “Quad Body” distinction, graduating the Army’s Rangers School (he is the only Marine in the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame), the Army’s Airborne school, Marine reconnaissance training, and Britain's Royal Marines training course.
At John McCain’s rallies these days, the talk is of taxes and Joe the Plumber and the financial crisis and mortgage relief and an end to wasteful federal spending. Those are all perfectly fine things for a campaign to emphasize; polls show voters of all stripes are overwhelmingly concerned about the economy. But at McCain’s events, you’ll also find people who’ve come for another reason, one that is slipping in the polls of voters’ concerns but is deeply personal to them: the war in Iraq.
“I just gave John McCain my Purple Heart,” Marine Sgt. Jack Eubanks told me a few minutes after McCain finished a speech at a campaign rally in Woodbridge, Virginia Saturday. “I said, ‘I want to give this to you, sir, as a reminder that we want you to keep your promise to bring us home in victory and honor, so it will mean something.’"
“We fought over there, and we want it to mean something,” Eubanks continued. “We don’t want to come back and it just be all for nothing.”
Eubanks, 22 years old, knows as much about the war as anyone. On October 3, 2005, he was in a Humvee on patrol near the Syrian border when an IED went off. “I was thrown from the vehicle, took some shrapnel, landed on my spine and mashed it up a little bit,” Eubanks told me in a remarkably good-humored way. He was injured much more than just a little; it took him eleven months to recover. And then — then he volunteered to go back. In August 2007, he was hurt again in a strangely similar way. “Hit by a mortar, thrown from a vehicle — the same situation,” Eubanks told me. Now, he’s teaching recruits at Marine Corps Base Quantico — and walking with a cane.
These days, as he ponders the war and the meaning it has for him — he says he saw remarkable progress in Iraq between his 2005 and 2007 tours — Eubanks’s overwhelming fear is that it might all be for naught. “I think Obama’s just going to pull everyone home as soon as he can, despite what’s going on over there,” he told me. “I just don’t want it to turn into another Vietnam or worse where everything we fought for, and all my buddies who died over there, it was just for nothing.” Eubanks believes McCain — he called McCain “so inspiring” and said he was in awe of the senator during their brief meeting — will prevent that from happening.
As I talked to Eubanks, just a few feet away a conversation — well, a pretty loud exchange of views — was wrapping up. It involved the now-famous Tito the Builder, who I wrote about a few days ago, and reporters who questioned Tito’s fervent support for McCain. Near the end of the conversation, a tall man joined in. “Obama’s not interested in change for the United States,” the man said. “He’s interested in himself.”
The subject of Iraq came up. “We are winning!” said Tito. “We are winning!”
“My son was over there,” the man added. “And all these guys came back and said the media was causing the hype that we were losing that war, and that was not true.” More debate followed.
Finally, the talk wound down, and the tall man walked away. I walked over and asked his name. He was Greg Medina, and he lived nearby in Woodbridge. His son had been to Iraq? “He was with 1/3,” Medina said, referring to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.
“We buried him two years to the day after he graduated from boot camp.”
Medina told me the story of his son, Brian, who was killed after being in Iraq less than two months, shot to death on November 12, 2004 in fierce house-to-house fighting in Fallujah. The day it happened, Greg had slept badly and had a vague and awful premonition in the hours before Marine officers knocked on his door to deliver the news. Brian was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Now, Medina, who himself served 20 years in the Navy, is filled with the dread that his son’s death will have no meaning. “My fear is that if Obama gets elected, everybody who went over there and died, died in vain because he’s just going to drag this country through the mud,” Medina told me. He knew that sounded a little harsh, so he added, “That’s my opinion.” And then he said: “Whoever wins, I wish them luck, obviously, because I live in this country, and I don’t want to see anything bad happen.”
Talking to Medina brought back a conversation I had with McCain back in October 2007 as we rode around Iowa in a campaign van. McCain was talking about how badly the Bush administration had mismanaged the war. “The thing that makes you almost cry is that one of the battles that will rank among the most courageous the Marines have ever fought is the battle of Fallujah,” McCain told me. “They lost 86 guys and several hundred wounded in the most bitter kind of house-to-house fighting. And you know what happened then? They left. They left. After sacrificing 86 of those brave young 19- and 20-year-olds, they left. I mean, it’s unconscionable.”
Brian Medina was one of those 20-year-olds killed in that fighting. Less than a year later, Jack Eubanks was blown out of his Humvee. Now, Eubanks and Greg Medina are counting on John McCain to keep his promise, should he become commander-in-chief. Some things are more important than the economy.
The bad days are when you put your buddy in a body bag and you don't even recognize him because his limbs are missing and there holes in him everywhere. The miracles are when his last words are, "tell my wife and kids I love them," before he dies in his best friend's arms after struggling for several agonizing minutes to get the words out because there is a fist-size hole in his head.(h/t DrewM @ Ace)
And last but not least, the best days are when an Afghan comes up to you thanking you for everything that you have done to help them and for making their (home) a better place now that the Taliban are gone.
If anything, this is probably the biggest reason why I proudly enjoy being over here. I can't explain it to anyone and there is no description of what it feels like, but it was the same feeling I got when I was in Iraq as well. And I am sure it's the same feeling that generations of American soldiers before me have gotten as they fought and sacrificed their lives for the freedoms that we enjoy today.
Perhaps the biggest thing that has made being over here much more bearable, is the amount of public support that we have received from people. Getting a care package or a letter of support when you are out in the middle of nowhere from a complete stranger, thanking you, does make the day seem a little better.
I can't say that's what I'm seeing every day. But my fellow soldiers are. When we go out on missions to the different FOB's... we see this stuff. And his writing is right on with what is going on here. The idea that there are so many Taliban around... and that they can just flee into Pakistan to get away from us... it's ridiculous. I love the article though. Thanks for sending it and opening the eyes of those who read this. The bias[ed] media of today has no idea what we go through out here... this is a breath of fresh air. Please pass this article along so that people get a feel for how the war is out here.(emphasis added)
Death in the Corn: Part I of IIIUPDATE 8:58pm MDT: Be sure and check out my friend's blog. He writes a little more about his personal experiences in Afghanistan.
Death in the Corn: Part II of III
