Filed under: Europe, Foreign Policy, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Arrogant, Classless, Rude
President Obama is off to Norway to accept his Nobel Peace Prize. Rejecting it politely as undeserved, seems never to have occurred to Mr. Obama. He is writing his own acceptance speech, we are told.
He has been invited to lunch with King Harald V, as is customary, but has turned down the opportunity, and will skip his own exhibition in the Nobel Peace center, which prize winners usually open. “Everybody wants to visit the Peace Center except Obama,” said the Norwegian daily Aftenposten. “A bit arrogant — a bit bad,” said another headline. The Norwegian public is upset.
“In Norwegian culture, it’s very important to keep an agreement. We’re religious about that and Obama’s actions have been clumsy” said Norwegian public-relations expert Rune Morck-Wegeland. “You just don’t say no to an invitation from a European king. Maybe Obama’s advisers are not very educated about European culture, but he is coming off as rude, even if he doesn’t mean to.”
Filed under: Africa, Environment, Global Warming, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Climate Change, Climate Gate, Vice President Al Gore
Netherlands newspapers and news sites broke the story today about the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University — about the icecap on Mount Kilimanjaro, which has become a symbol of anthropogenic global warming.
Their research shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was never the result of cold air, but rather of large amounts of precipitation which fell about 11.000 years ago, at the beginning of the Holocene period. The melting and freezing of moisture on top of the mountain appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The current melting is not the result of manmade environmental damage.
In the dry period between 12,800 and 11,500 years ago, Kilimanjaro was ice-free. At the end of this period, a dramatic climate change from dry to very wet took place — driven by changes in solar radiation — which resulted in the creation of an icecap.
The website of Elsevier magazine, the most widely circulated Dutch political weekly carried the headline “Dutchman discredits Al Gore’s climate evidence.”
Filed under: American Elephant, Foreign Policy, Military | Tags: Obama, Support the Troops!, West Point
A U.S. Army cadet reads a book entitled Kill Bin Laden as he waits with other cadets for U.S. President Barack Obama to deliver an address on U.S. policy and the war in Afghanistan at the U.S. [read more]
Drudge reports that he was reading it during Obama’s speech, which I suspect is an error. I think those young cadets are far too disciplined and respectful to do that, no matter how much they may have wanted to. Still it’s nice to see this clever cadet expressing himself with a clarity and resolve that the president failed to muster.
His neighbor was reading Brad Thor.
Filed under: Islam, Military, National Security, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Afghanistan, Freedom, Pakistan
President Obama’s speech announcing his strategy on Afghanistan at The United States Military Academy at West Point was an odd speech. He announced a surge of 30,000 troops, partly in the hope that NATO would make up the rest of the 40,000 that General Stanley McChrystal requested. His strong words about the necessity for success were belied by his defensiveness about doing so.
To be fair, the President is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He clearly doesn’t want to be involved in Afghanistan, and is much more comfortable with his hard left base who oppose all war on general principles. He made sure to mention that he “opposed the War in Iraq which left our unity on national security issues in tatters, and created a highly polarized and partisan backdrop for this effort.”
Obama seems unable to recognize that his constant attempts to blame everything on Bush, denigrate everything that the Bush administration did, is not only classless, but exactly what has created a “highly polarized and partisan background.” When politics permeates everything, it doesn’t stop at the water’s edge, as our tradition demands.
The Left opposed the War in Iraq by claiming that the “right war” was instead in Afghanistan — going after al Qaeda. That allowed the Left to avoid being characterized as anti-war; but now, faced with Afghanistan, they have no excuses and are united in opposition. And they really don’t want to spend any money on the war. The money is needed for their dream of socialized medicine, and that is going to be very expensive indeed. Spending the rest of the stimulus money on the war or scaling back health care is, of course, not an option. They’ll tax “the rich” some more.
Obama is trying to have it both ways. He doesn’t like the war, and wants “to end the era of war and suffering,” but it had better be cost-effective and cost-effective within 18 months.
The Left got onto this “exit strategy” thing with Iraq, demanding to know what Bush’s “exit strategy” was. Those a little more familiar with war find the question foolish. The exit strategy is when you win, when you accomplish your objective, but not a date which the enemy can just wait for.
We want President Obama and his strategy to succeed in Afghanistan. We want success on the battlefield. There is a lot of talk about “nation building”, but our aim is to protect the citizens and to train the Afghan army to protect the citizens. The people fear the Taliban, and will not help unless and until they feel secure.
My sense of this is that President Obama is completely uncomfortable with war. He has little knowledge of combat or battle, and little understanding of the military or how it works. “Victory” was never mentioned. He said “As President, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests. And I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces. I don’t have the luxury of committing to just one.”
I suspect that he never watches war movies, nor has read accounts of battles. It’s just unfamiliar, uncomfortable territory. Which is why he thinks an exit strategy is important, and a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons is plausible. And why he dithered for three months about simply making a choice.
And why he brags about his small efforts to recognize the military like “signing a letter of condolence to each family, reading letters from parents and spouses, and traveling to Dover to meet flag-draped coffins.” The commitment and pride with which Americans volunteer to serve in the military must be near incomprehensible.
“Ive spent this year renewing our alliances and forging new partnerships,” he said. “And we have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim world — one that recognizes our mutual interest in breaking a cycle of conflict, and that promises a future in which those who kill innocents are isolated by those who stand up for peace and prosperity and human dignity.” Soaring words, but with little relation to the real world. An odd speech, very odd.
I will support the effort in Afghanistan unreservedly. I hope the President does as well. The men and women who serve deserve our full support.
Filed under: Economy, Energy, Environment, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Statism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Taxes, The Deficit, The National Debt, Unemployment
Rasmussen Reports that 71 percent of Americans are Angry at the federal government. That figure includes 46 percent who are Very Angry.
The latest national telephone survey finds that only 27 percent are Not Angry about the government’s policies, including 10 percent who are Not at All Angry.
Men are angrier than women. Voters over 40 are more angry than those who are younger. A majority of those over 40 are Very Angry. Only 25 percent of under-30 voters share that view. And the data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 46 percent who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points since September.
Only nine percent of voters trust the judgment of America’s political leaders more than the judgment of the American people. Americans now view being a member of Congress as the least respected job one can hold. Ouch!
Well, polls come and go, but if I were a member of Congress debating the health care bills now being considered, these polling results might just make me stop and think — or then again, maybe not. And that might be the very reason why voters are so very, very angry.
Filed under: American Elephant, Foreign Policy, News, Politics | Tags: Iran, Obama
Iran announces huge nuclear expansion:
Iran’s Government today announced plans to build ten new uranium enrichment plants and said work would start within two months.
Each site will be the size of the existing Natanz plant with the aim of producing between 250-300 tonnes of uranium a year. [read more]
More of the “change” conservatives tried to warn people that Obama would bring.
Filed under: Law, National Security, Politics, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Civilian Trial, Islamic Terrorism, Military Commissions
Obama demands military trial for KSM
But that was then and this is now. Do they not understand the dangers and the consequences, or do they just not care?
(h/t: Breitbart.com)
Filed under: Environment, Junk Science, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Science/Technology, The Elephant's Child, United Kingdom | Tags: Global Warming Fraud, Scientific Scandal, Taxpayer Funded Fraud
An enormous scandal is roiling the scientific world. A researcher, investigating the climate numbers behind anthropogenic global warming, had filed a Freedom of Information request to look at the data behind recent claims, from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), and was met with stalling, refusal, files not available, that sort of thing.
A hacker broke into the University’s CRU and released 61 megabytes of confidential files onto the internet. The files include 1,079 emails and 72 documents exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing the anthropogenic global warming theory. Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed in an interview that they are genuine.
The emails suggest manipulation of evidence, destruction of evidence, private doubts about whether the world is really heating up, efforts to force dissenting scientists out of the peer-review process, attempts to delegitimize journals that allowed publications by skeptical scientists, and manipulation of IPCC reports.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) was founded in 1988 as a political organization to publish special reports on climate. They do issue occasional reports, and more importantly issue a summary of each report written by bureaucrats and politicians which is usually the only thing read by governments and the media, for the actual report comes along months later.
Much of the drama in the IPCC reports came from a graph of global temperatures over many centuries by Dr. Michael Mann. It showed temperatures going along without much variation for hundreds of years and then suddenly shooting up in the late 20th century, like the blade of a hockey stick. Here was cause for real alarm. If temperatures were climbing, so was the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Correlation does not mean causation, but that rule was quickly tossed to the winds, for hated fossil fuels are clearly the greatest source of carbon. Governments wanted to know how bad, and what to do. Vast amounts of money flowed from governments all over the world to scientists who would establish how humans were causing the warming. Scientists in every field were suddenly writing grant proposals. Career advancement, prestige, money, university distinction.
Canadian researchers got interested in the data behind Dr. Mann’s “hockey-stick” graph. After all, it eliminated the Medieval Warm Period — a time when the climate was much warmer, when the Vikings farmed in Greenland, wine grapes grew in England and civilization flourished. They found statistical errors that would have produced a “hockey-stick” graph no matter what data was entered. The graph was in error.
Then James Hansen, head of the Goddard Center at NASA, was found fudging data in the claim that October of 2008 was the warmest year on record. Anthony Watts enlisted hundreds of citizen volunteers to photograph the temperature stations around the United States and measure and describe their location. Situated next to parking lots, air-conditioner exhausts, trash burners, reflective concrete walls, busy streets their location precluded any accurate temperature being recorded. The surface temperature records were flawed, and recorded temperatures much higher than actuality.
Stephen McIntyre, the aforementioned Canadian researcher, looked into tree-ring data from an examination of tree rings from 12 trees from a Siberian peninsula that seemed to be proof of warming. When rings from 35 nearby trees were included, temperature anomalies disappeared. A senior researcher at the EPS’s National Center for Environmental Economics, Alan Carlin, dared to say that “available observable data..invalidate the hypothesis” that humans cause dangerous global warming. He was silenced.
Viscount Monckton is furious about the content of the leaked CRU emails and says you should be too:
The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.
Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up.
It is fraud for the EPA to claim that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant” that should be regulated. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on studies of global warming and poured into agencies that have encouraged the global warming fraud. Christopher Horner, author of Red Hot Lies said that the initial revelations “give the appearance of a conspiracy to defraud, by parties working in taxpayer-funded agencies collaborating on ways to misrepresent material on which an awful lot of taxpayer money rides.”
Don’t bet on a quick or easy resolution. Careers, reputations, money, funding are all involved along with government and media exposure. Nobody is going to give up easily, and governments are inclined to protect their own.
The most thorough coverage be followed at Climate Depot, and at Anthony Watts website where you can find a video from Dr. Timothy Ball. Dr, Roy Spencer’s comments can be found on his website. Climate Depot has constantly updated links to the emails, the documents and comments from all over the world.
Filed under: Law, Military, National Security, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: 9/11 Trial in New York, Civilian Trial, Military Commission
The potential trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York civilian court is causing a well-deserved uproar. Attorney General Eric Holder testified today before the Senate Judicial Committee, and was thoroughly taken to task by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
There is enormous confusion about semantics, the law, the Constitution, military law and international law. Since I am not a lawyer, have no special knowledge of the law and am completely unqualified to comment on this, I will explain. The law is the group of rules that a society agrees to adhere to for the sake of domestic peace and some semblance of fairness.
We don’t really agree on even the most basic things — for example in the case of murder, some believe in the death penalty and some abhor it. No middle ground there.
What could be clearer than “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech?” Yet look at all the trouble that one has caused — speech codes, hate speech, the fairness doctrine, political correctness — we fight these out over and over because there is no agreement. That’s why we have judges and courts who are, after all, only fallible humans.
Liberals like to favor the underdog. That may make them feel noble, but underdoggieness has no place either in civilian law or in military law. Terrorists, by definition, use terror and breaking all the rules of law to accomplish their ends. That they do not necessarily have all the elaborate equipment of a formal army does not make them underdogs who are entitled to some special compassion. William McGurn explains in the Wall Street Journal:
We don’t often speak of incentives in war. That’s a loss, because the whole idea of, say, Geneva rights is based on the idea of providing combatants with incentives to do things that help limit the bloodiness of battle. These include wearing a uniform, carrying arms openly, not targeting civilians, and so on.
Terrorists recognize none of these things. They are best understood as associations of people plotting and carrying out war crimes, whether that means sowing fear with direct and indiscriminate attacks on marketplaces, offices and airlines—or by engaging enemy troops without distinguishing uniforms, so that the surrounding civilians essentially become used as human shields. Terrorists reject both the laws of war and the laws of American civil society. To put it another way, they reject both the authority and the obligations their legal rights imply. (…)
The perversity here is that the overwhelming evidence of their war crimes gain them protections denied a soldier fighting in accord with the rules of war.
It even gains them more protections than their associates who attack military targets. This double standard means that the perpetrators of the USS Cole bombing are sent to military tribunals while the perpetrators of 9/11 are sent to federal court.
Andy McCarthy, who was the lead prosecutor of the “Blind Sheik” in the first bombing of the World Trade Center adds:
The decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other top al-Qaeda terrorists to New York City for a civilian trial is one of the most irresponsible ever made by a presidential administration. That it is motivated by politics could not be more obvious. That it spells unprecedented danger for our security will soon become obvious.
John Yoo, law professor at U.C. Berkeley and an official in the Justice Department from 2001-2oo3 writes that:
Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial will reveal. The proceedings will tie up judges for years on issues best left to the president and Congress.
Whether a jury ultimately convicts KSM and his fellows, or sentences them to death, is beside the point. The treatment of the 9/11 attacks as a criminal matter rather than as an act of war will cripple American efforts to fight terrorism. It is in effect a declaration that this nation is no longer at war.
This is another bad move by the Obama administration. It paints a large target directly on New York City, will take years to resolve, and is completely unnecessary. One would hope that the Senate would refuse to go along with Attorney General Holder’s irresponsible plans.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, History, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Emperor Akahito, Japan, Protocol
He’s at it again. Obama goes abroad to puff up himself and disparage his country. In Japan, he proclaimed himself “America’s first Pacific president.” He spoke of the importance of “multilateral organizations that can advance the security and prosperity of this region.”
I know that the United States has been disengaged from these organizations in recent years. So let me be clear; those days have passed.”
What? Yes, this was intended to be the now-routine dig at President Bush. It has never mattered whether the blame-Bush bit is true. “Let me be clear” is always an indication that Obama is making things up again. This one is particularly classless in view of President Bush’s long history in the region.
The “first Pacific president” hooey is the back to the me, me, me theme. Born in Hawaii, kid in Indonesia, “colorful personal narrative.” And he once again ignores American protocol that American presidents never bow to royalty, nor dip the flag except when warships may dip their flag in response to a dip from another. Ideological multiculturalism. Sigh.
ADDENDUM: Hot Air Pundit has assembled pictures of other heads-of-state greeting the Emperor of Japan. Somebody should show this to President Obama.
Filed under: Law, Middle East, National Security, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Civilian Trial, Military Commissions, Shocking Decision
Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo detainees will be tried in New York in civil court, presumably with the same rights as common American criminals. The decision is not only shocking, but entirely unnecessary.
Mr. Holder said that these people should be tried in court where they committed their crimes, a statement that suggests that the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor should have been tried in civil court in Honolulu. This is absurd.
Rudy Giuliani, who knows a thing or two about New York and 9/11 and the law, runs through the problems of Obama’s decision in a video from Neil Cavuto’s show. It’s long, but worth it, for all of the consequences are not readily apparent. And there are real consequences.
Andy McCarthy, who prosecuted the first World Trade Center bombing trial, observes:
Today’s announcement that KSM and other top al-Qaeda terrorists will be transferred to Manhattan federal court for civilian trials neatly fits this hidden agenda. Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials. They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses — intelligence sources — must expose themselves and their secrets.
A major problem seems to be that the Left just doesn’t get “terrorism”. They sneered constantly at Bush’s “fearmongering,” for clearly 9/11 was a “one-off” event that would never be repeated. Victor Davis Hanson points out their error and their flawed assumptions, in an essay on our 9/10 mindset.
Filed under: Middle East, Military, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: "Exit Strategy", Afghanistan, Indecision
President Obama is apparently going to throw out whatever was undecided after all his meetings with everyone concerned, and unconcerned, with Afghanistan except General McChrystal.
Mr. Obama is trapped between a rock and several hard places, with his supporters on the hard left urging him to abandon the whole thing on one side; the General who is the world-renowned expert in counterinsurgency and the other Generals who have been fighting this war on the other side, and everything in between.
The President would like to find a nice middle road that will please everybody and reflect well on him — and that undoubtedly doesn’t exist. The choices are all crappy. Unfortunately, making hard choices is the job of the President.
President Obama seems to want a clear “exit strategy.” He wants to know when the Afghan army and police will be up to the challenge, so he can make a promise to his very, very angry left about how soon we will leave.
The far left wants us out of Iraq and Afghanistan right now, as far as I can tell, because they hate George W. Bush, and they want to repudiate his wars to prove how much they hate him. Bush Derangement Syndrome is still very much alive, particularly in the White House.
There are all sorts of spurious arguments about why we should abandon Afghanistan immediately. The length of the war is usually mentioned, as if all wars were expected to last 5 years and not a moment longer. Doesn’t work like that. Historically we have a range from the Hundred Years War, to the Six Day War. Wars begin when someone is attacked and end when someone surrenders. Endings (“exit strategies”) cannot be planned in advance, war is an uncertain activity.
There is the “graveyard of empires” argument, the we can’t do “nation-building” argument (counterinsurgency is not “nation-building).” You can’t create a democracy in the Middle East argument. (We did. You may not have noticed, but we won in Iraq. General Petraeus says it’s more like “Iraqracy,” a form of their own. They are increasingly having their fights and arguments in their Parliament rather than shooting each other). That’s what we wanted.
What is important about Afghanistan are the consequences. And the consequences should not arise from domestic popularity polls. There are consequences that arise from an undefeated al Qaeda, there are consequences that arise from either al Qaeda or the Taliban undefeated and becoming bigger and stronger because they drove the Great Satan out. We have already experienced the consequences of a strong and resurgent al Qaeda.
David Kilcullen, one of the world’s leading authorities on counterinsurgency and a key adviser to NATO as well as the British Government and the U.S. State Department said that Obama’s delay in reaching a decision over extra troops has been “messy,” and creates uncertainty the Taliban could exploit. He said:
Obama, in a speech to troops in Jacksonville , Florida, a fortnight ago, had said he would never lightly put them in harm’s way.
That’s not the situation we are in. As an analogy, you have a building on fire, and it’s got a bunch of firemen inside. There are not enough firemen to put it out. You have to send in more or you have to leave. It is not appropriate to stand outside pontificating about not taking lightly the responsibility of sending firemen into harm’s way. Either put in enough firemen to put the fire out or get out of the house.
Before his Fort Hood trip this week, Obama said the visit “absolutely has an impact because it reminds me that these aren’t abstractions.” He needs reminding?
If the American people are opposed to sending more troops, or to our being in Afghanistan, a good part of the opposition is directly due to the indecision and lack of leadership from the White House. The more Obama dithers, the more the public doubts that he will give our troops wholehearted support, and those doubts are also consequences.
Filed under: Europe, Freedom, History, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Peter Robinson, Ronald Reagan, The Berlin Wall
Germany today celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of East and West Germany that resulted, and the collapse of Communism. It was a big day for the Germans, and they have been celebrating for some time. The leaders of all the Western Democracies were there.
The United States sent a delegation headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Obama did not attend. He sent a video of himself, noting that Jack Kennedy once spoke at the Brandenburg Gate, and that he, Obama, was the first African-American President of the United States. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John-Paul, Helmut Kohl and all the people who had a real part in bringing the wall down, were not mentioned.
Power Line has printed an excerpt from Peter Robinson’s memoir How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. Robinson was the speechwriter assigned to write the Brandenburg Gate address and the excerpt is an account of how the speech came about.
The usual liberal pieces have appeared on schedule today, noting all the world’s walls. The Israeli wall, the wall between the U.S. and Mexico — supposedly comparable. What they never seem to grasp are the differences. The Berlin Wall was constructed to keep the German people in East Germany in. It was a prison wall, tall— with barbed wire, watch towers, floodlights armed guards and machine guns — to keep desperate citizens from escaping to freedom.
And the idea that communism killed over 100 million of their own people has been conveniently assigned to the memory hole.
Filed under: Law, Military, National Security, Progressivism., Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Fort Hood, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The American Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, says that her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after Thursday’s dreadful massacre by U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is enlightening to see just what the Obama administration means by “homeland security.” Can’t offend anyone. Don’t want any hurt feelings.
Filed under: Law, National Security, Terrorism | Tags: And Other Newsroom Nonsense, Political Correctness, Root Causes
THIS WEEKEND IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON:
On Halloween, Police Officer Timothy Brenton and rookie Officer Britt Sweeney were sitting in a car following a traffic stop when shots were fired in a clear assassination attempt. Officer Brenton was killed and Sweeney was grazed in the neck.
On Friday, police detectives were pursuing a tip from a resident who said that a car at an apartment complex in suburban Tukwilla matched the description of a car seen nearby when Brenton was killed.
Officers examined the car, which was covered with a tarp, and when they walked to speak to other law enforcement conducting surveillance, Christopher Monfort (seen above) approached the three detectives. Detectives started asking Monfort questions when he pulled a gun and tried to shoot. Monfort was shot by the detectives.
In Monfort’s apartment investigators found rifles and improvised explosive devices which they disarmed before removing them.
Monfort graduated from the U.W. in March of 2008 with a degree in Law, Societies and Justice. He was seeking a job in law enforcement, and listed as one of his accomplishments an internship with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Seattle police have had no problem in clearly identifying Monfort as a “lone domestic terrorist,” which the media repeat, attributing the phrase to the police department.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT FORT HOOD, TEXAS:
Mark Steyn comments this morning in the Corner at NRO:
Nidal Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers and the shooting of 38 more at Fort Hood in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijah mosque in Great Falls ,Virginia in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists. …
[Hasan's] fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan’s “anti-American propaganda,” but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.
…The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) established the Presidential Transition Task Force, comprised of national and homeland security experts, policymakers and practitioners…The goal was to determine the top strategic priorities to advance the nation’s security in the coming decade…
Among the event participants was Nidal Hasan, representing the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, who just last week shouted “Allahu Akbar” just before gunning down 51 of his fellow members of the military on their own base.
The nothing-to-see-here media continues to carefully avoid any mention of the word “terrorist” or “Islamist” and instead blathers on about pre-post-traumatic stress disorder apparently acquired by contact with someone who has served in combat. The New York Times went for this theme while explaining how mortified he was at having to deploy. CNN explained that “Treating trauma victims may cause it own trauma.” J.R. Salzman who is a little more familiar with PTSD than veterans of newsroom desks, is not amused.
There are many Muslims serving proudly in the United States Military, accepted completely by their fellow troops. Silly gyrations by the media to search for some fantasized root cause that will explain why Major Hasan became a Islamist domestic terrorist accomplish nothing except to fan the contempt the public holds for practitioners of political correctness.
Filed under: Military, News, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Impressions, Massacre at Fort Hood
It is being described at President Obama’s “My Pet Goat Incident.” The reference, of course, is to the morning of 9/11 when President George W. Bush was reading a storybook to a group of primary schoolchildren.
An aide came in to inform the president of the first strike on the twin towers, and then of the second strike. The President blanched noticeably, but continued to finish the story rather that terrify a room full of little children.
Democrats tried to portray his reaction, which was courageous leadership, as somehow incorrect — as if a few minutes could make all the difference. Heck with the little kids, leap up and run out of the room? Please. It takes character to do the right thing in spite of your immediate instincts.
President Obama was informed about the terrorist massacre at Fort Hood two hours earlier. He chose to do all the lighthearted introductory thanks and “shout-outs,” before he even mentioned the Fort Hood attack in a startling and very odd quick and seemingly insincere flip in demeanor.
President Obama ordered flags flown at half-mast, gave a couple more speeches, put the pressure on wavering Democrats for the health care bill, announced that he would attend the memorial service next week for the victims at Fort Hood, and departed for the weekend at Camp David.
President George W. Bush and Laura quietly went to the hospital where the wounded were being treated to offer their condolences, concern and encouragement. No press, no photo-op. Governor Perry also dropped by.
Filed under: Europe, Foreign Policy, Freedom, History, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Angela Merkel, Collapse of Communism, The Berlin Wall
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. She said:
[F]or me America seemed completely out of reach . . . then on the 9th of November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.
And this border which had divided a nation, for decades, keeping people in two different worlds, was now open. And this is why for me, today is first and foremost a time to say thank you.
I thank all those American and Allied pilots who heard and heeded the desperate appeal of then-Mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, in 1948, who said, you, the nations of this world, cast your eyes towards the city.
For months, these pilots flew food to Berlin for the airlift, saving the citizens from starvation. Many of these soldiers risked their lives. Dozens lost their lives. We shall remember and honor them forever…
I think of John F. Kennedy, who won the hearts of the Berliners, when, during his visit in 1961, after the wall had been built, he reached out to the desperate citizens of Berlin by saying, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” I think of Ronald Reagan, who, far earlier than most, clearly saw the sign of the times and, standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate, already in 1987, called out, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” This appeal shall remain forever in my heart.
The 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall is a very important occasion. Americans, in 1989, didn’t seem to really grasp that shift in the condition of the world, or perhaps the leftists among us didn’t consider it an event to be celebrated. There have been books written about the lack of appreciation for the enormity of the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War.
But then Liberals prefer to attribute the whole thing to Gorbachev and Perestroika. Ronald Reagan, who? Pope John Paul? Margaret Thatcher? George Meany? Why do they always try to rewrite history? And once rewritten, it becomes gospel. Obama has made a major mistake in not attending, but so far he is not doing well with the foreign policy thing. No character, no class.
