Carl Langley Speaks Out

The following letter from local scribe Carl Langley appeared in the Aiken Standard today. To read the several comments made on his letter go here

 How far do we go with diversity?

In the awful aftermath of the shooting deaths of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, by a Muslim serving as a major in the U.S. Army, I was shocked at the words of the Army's top general, George Casey.

Gen. Casey's words, in which he declared that the shootings would not deter the military on its path to diversity, would have been better left unsaid. He should have spent his face time on television deploring the act of a mad man.

I watched with my mouth agape as Casey said diversity is building a strong society and a strong military. I ask him if diversity isn't now being given priority to building, training and maintaining the kind of military service needed to keep this country safe in a hostile world.

Gen. Casey should have limited his time to expressing his condolences to the families of those murdered and promising that the military would extact justice and retribution for this awful crime.

Watching Casey tap dance around the awful catastrophe at Fort Hood and go to mouthing the preachments of a society now being driven by liberal thought and speech at every level was too much for me.

I served in the Army long ago and am proud of my grandson who serves today as a captain in the same branch. I gave thanks that my grandson wasn't in the Fort Hood building that became a slaughterhouse.

While I agree that we have become a polyglot nation and must adapt to this changing world, promoting diversity is no excuse for the failure of Casey's army, or any other organization, to weed out those with religious and political agendas that drive most of them insane.

In the liberal world, conservatives, Tea Party protesters and those who disagree with the president and his administration are the real terrorists. Not so the Muslim radicals who are out to exterminate anyone who does not submit to Allah.

Because of this leap into diversity, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who coldly shot down and murdered 13 people, is being referred to as the "alleged shooter." Can you imagine that? Here's a man whose killing spree was witnessed by dozens, included among them the more than 25 he wounded, and he is referred to as the "alleged shooter."

Here is a classic case in which liberalspeak or legal speak takes precedence over the obvious facts.

Considering the current sad state of affairs in the American justice system, let me offer that the trial of Hasan will be a long time coming because of the Byzantine maze that has been built into the justice system, both inside and outside the military.

This Hasan case will be around for a long time. During the coming months and years he will be lionized by Muslim radicals around the world, even here in this country, as a hero who stood against the infidels. They will be aided by American news media, especially People magazine and the like, who will clamor for a chance to tell his story, complete with pictures. Today's seniors will be long gone before justice is done in this case, if ever.

But back to Gen. Casey. After listening to his comments about the killings of his soldiers, I am left wondering who he is taking his orders from and who is clearing his commentary. I must assume it is some bureaucrat in the Defense Department.

I am among those who believe that if diversity continues at the expense of common sense we are likely to lose our nation, the anchor of, for the time being, the free world.

Carl Langley

Aiken

Frank Gaffney: The Speech We Need

This is a terrific photo of President Obama. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy suggests a speech for the President to deliver tomorrow night at West Point:

 Frank Gaffney: The Speech We Need

President Obama's much-anticipated speech at West Point Tuesday night  constitutes an opportunity with the potential to be as strategically momentous as Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972.  Mr. Obama is in a unique position to tell the truth about the nature of the enemy we confront, not just in Afghanistan but worldwide, and thereby put the effort to defeat that enemy on a sound, coherent and supportable footing.  Will he rise to the occasion?More

Lindsey Graham destroys Eric Holder

The following youtube videoshows Lindsey at his best. There is a very good commentary on this showdown at the Powerline Blog.

Obama and the General

The following article appears in the WSJ Opinion Journal today. To read the entire article and the many excellent comments go here:

Democrats have found someone worth fighting in Afghanistan. His name is Stan McChrystal.
The other night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, "with all due respect," for supposedly disrespecting the chain of command. Around the Congressional Democratic Caucus, we're told Members refer to General McChrystal as "General MacArthur," after the commander in Korea sacked by Harry Truman.

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President Obama and General McChrystal

White House aides have fanned these flames with recent leaks to the media that "officials are challenging" his assessment asking for more troops. In the last two days, the White House National Security Adviser and the Secretary of Defense have both suggested that the general should keep his mouth shut. President Obama called him in Friday for a talking-to on the tarmac at Copenhagen airport.

A Great Patriotic Video

I received the following in an email today. It has been around since May and and has been viewed many times on You tube.

"This video resulted from a Mom in Alabama asking her high school son to help with a commercial for the Tea Party she was involved in organizing.

Boy, does it slam the message home. Very impressive. Here is her note: "I asked Justin if he could help me make a commercial for my group's Tea Party. He sat down at the laptop for about an hour, and then brought this to me and asked, 'is this okay, Mom?'

After I finished watching it, my stomach was in my throat. Everyone that I have sent it to has really enjoyed it, so I wanted my friends to see it. I am so proud!"

A very powerful video...turn up the sound & sit back....!!! "

Ivan Castro Continues to Inspire

Ivan Castro was in Augusta a few years ago being treated for his egregious wounds. He is still on active duty and a remarkable man. The following article appeared in an Annapolis newspaper.

Army officer blinded in Iraq inspires mids

By JENNIFER HLAD Staff Writer

Published 09/18/09

TOP: Gin Kai — Courtesy of the Naval Academy

 BOTTOM: Ivan Castro, a blind Army special forces officer, jogs with  midshipmen. 

 

Capt. Castro spoke Wednesday to the Brigade of Midshipmen during the Forrestal lecture at the Naval Academy. Castro lost his right eye and the vision in his left eye after a mortar attack in Iraq in 2006. He passed on a message of perseverance to the mids. When Capt. Ivan Castro learned his vision was gone, he started to second-guess his doctors. He hoped for a miracle, that he would wake up one morning and be able to see.

Then he started to think about his future, he told the Brigade of Midshipmen Wednesday night.
The special operations soldier couldn't stand up on his own, he had lost 50 pounds of muscle and gained 70 pounds of fat since two 82-mm mortar rounds exploded near him in Iraq in 2006. But as he lay in a bed at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, he heard some nurses talking about the Marine Corps Marathon and decided he wanted to do it, he said.
Three years after he lost one eye and the vision in the other, he has run the Army 10-miler three times, hiked the 14,270-foot Grays Peak in Colorado, completed two half marathons, seven full marathons, a 50-mile race and a triathlon, Castro told the midshipmen gathered in the Naval Academy's Alumni Hall for his speech, which was part of the Forrestal Lecture Series.
Now Castro, the only blind special operations officer in the Army, is a student at the Maneuver Captain's Career Course at Fort Benning, Ga.
"What gets me fired up is all life has to offer," he said. "Live every day to the fullest."
Castro enlisted in the Army in 1988 and, after earning his degree, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in December 2004. He told the midshipmen about his experiences as a soldier and as a leader, saying they are in the perfect place to determine their leadership style and build the foundation they will need as officers.
"We are a nation at war, and you guys joined at a time of war," he said. "That makes me proud."
Castro served in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm as well as the current Iraq war. He also has served in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and South America. Before he was injured, "all I wanted to do was deploy," he said.Now, Castro figures that by doing a desk job, he can allow someone else to go out and do the missions he wishes he could still do.
"I believe I can still contribute to the force," he said.
Still, Castro stressed he wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of his command, his friends and family, particularly his wife, Evelyn Galvis.
"I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for my wife," he said.
Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, Naval Academy superintendent, said the message Castro delivered was the same one he and the commandant try to send to the midshipmen, but it may carry more weight coming from Castro.
"We try to make this special, a little different than their day-to-day classes," Fowler said. "We want this to be engaging."
The midshipmen were required to attend the lecture, but their reactions throughout the speech showed they remained engaged. He spoke for about 30 minutes, then opened the floor for questions. When he finished speaking, the brigade gave him a standing ovation, then cheered when he put on a Navy jacket.
As they prepared to sing "Blue and Gold," Castro stopped them.
"I heard that at the end of this song, you say something, and you were told not to say it because I am here," he said. "Stay true to what you believe. … I want to hear it."
The midshipmen obliged, shouting a hearty "Beat Army!" to end the evening.
"I think it was pretty amazing," Midshipman 1st Class Nathan Tocco of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., said after the speech. "It is inspiring to know that even if something like that happens to you, you can still overcome."

Retirement Ceremony at Fort MacDill

Donna and I spent the past week in Florida with our daughter Becky and her family. She is retiring from the U.S.Air Force after 25 years of reserve and active duty. The Special Operations Commander Admiral Eric Olson officiated at the retirement ceremony and we were honored to be there. We are very proud of her and all the incredible men and women who serve our country.

                                                   

                                                           God Bless America.

The U.S. Special Operations Commander Admiral Eric Olson and Colonel Becky at the ceremony.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Inside the Iraq War

The following partial quote from a book review appears on the Claremont Institute website. The review is long but definitely worth the time if you want a better perspective on the Iraq war.  The entire review can be read here

 

 

Inside the Iraq War

A review of War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, by Douglas J. Feith

By Stanley Renshon Posted March 26, 2009

When the political venom and hyperbole fade, those interested in understanding the decisions and debates behind the critical first years of the war to remove Saddam Hussein from power will have to put Douglas Feith's book on their must-read list. He was, of course, the much maligned and caricatured deputy under secretary for defense under Donald Rumsfeld, and as such central to the Pentagon's efforts and the interagency debates that shaped the war.
Mischaracterizations of Feith's intelligence and book have been echoed by shallow pundits like Dana Milbank who clearly have no first-hand knowledge of the war-making process. In fact, Feith has decades of government foreign policy experience and is a thoughtful and reliable guide to the many debates that took place inside the administration. His own views on these matters are expressed clearly, as are the facts and judgments that led him to take those positions. Unlike so many books that have emerged about the war, Feith lays out the different positions in those debates and respects his readers enough to allow them to sort through the evidence and arrive at their own judgments. One wishes, in vain, that other writers had demonstrated the same even-handedness in providing context and counter-arguments.
So many of the other books to emerge about the Iraq War to date focus on the difficulties that American forces faced because of the brutal insurgency that took hold after Saddam was disposed. The tenor of those books is reflected in their titles: Fiasco, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, and The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End. The none too subtle subtext of books like these is that the decisions made by the Bush Administration were both wrong and thus obviously avoidable. The explanations for these "facts" in the view of critics is that they are the obvious result of ignorance, arrogance, incompetence, and an increasingly irrational investment in rigid neoconservative ideology at the expense of selecting sound options which to the critics, writing in retrospect, were obvious."

The Gaza Campaign- An interesting Analysis

The following analysis reported in the The Daily Wire is  interesting and reasonably objective "

 -- Analysis // Ben Frankel


Gaza civilians suffer as a result of Hamas's tactics -- and Israel's

Published 7 January 2009

Israeli drew many lessons from its inconclusive 2006 war in Lebanon; one of the more important ones is that Israel had been too restrained, too careful about distinguishing between Hezbollah and the state of Lebanon (i.e., civilian population and institutions) -- with the result being too many Israeli soldiers dead and an inconclusive end to the fighting; whether the different, more ruthless tactics used in Gaza will succeed remains to be seen

We wrote on Monday that Israel, in its current campaign in the Gaza Strip, has gone back to the strategic approach associated with David Ben Gurion, the founding father of the state. This approach can be described as a strategy of "moderate goals ruthlessly pursued" (see 5 January 2009 HS Daily Wire).

Others, too, have began to notice the change in Israeli strategy, even if they do not engage in the historical analysis we offered. Noah Shachtman, the security maven at Wired, asks: "Are the Israel Defense Forces deliberately being less careful about civilian casualties than they were before?" He points to today's article by Amos Harel, the military correspondent for Haaretz, who writes:

The incident in which some 40 Palestinian civilians were killed when Israel Defense Forces mortar shells hit an UNRWA school in the Jabalya refugee camp Tuesday surprised no one who has been following events in Gaza in recent days. Senior officers admit that the IDF has been using enormous firepower.

"For us, being cautious means being aggressive," explained one. "From the minute we entered, we've acted like we're at war. That creates enormous damage on the ground ... I just hope those who have fled the area of Gaza City in which we are operating will describe the shock. Maybe someone there will sober up before it continues."

Matt Mathews, a U.S. Army historian, observed that during Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, "reports circulated that growing concern over casualties caused IDF commanders to become overly cautious" (see his We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War). As the New York Times's Ethan Bronner noted, after the conflict, many in Israel's leadership felt that Israel "had been too restrained, too careful about distinguishing between Hezbollah and the state of Lebanon." The perception was that Israeli soldiers were killed as a result.

Harel writes that,

Following the trauma of the war in Lebanon in 2006, the army realized that heavy IDF casualties would erode public (and especially political) support for the war and limit its ability to achieve its goals.... Therefore, it is using aggressive tactics to save soldiers' lives. And the cabinet took this into account when it approved the ground operation last Friday, so it has no reason to change its mind now.

Hamas made a strategic decision to use the Palestinian population as a human shield. Hamas's tactical decisions, too, aim to increase the scope of Palestinian civilian death and destruction: thus, placing caches of arms and explosives under residential buildings, mosques, schools, and hospitals assures that when Israel hits these caches, the secondary explosions wreak even more death and destruction in the surrounding area.

We cannot underestimate the suffering of the Palestinian population which Hamas strategy -- and Israel's response -- have caused. Of the 700 Palestinians killed so far, 150, or 20 percent, are civilians. They include the 31 members of the Samouny family who were killed when a shell hit their house in Gaza City on Monday, and the 13 members of the Al-Daiya family who where killed later that day by another Israeli bomb. Nearly half of the 2,700 Palestinian wounded and maimed so far are civilians. The psychological damage to the population, especially children, is incalculable.

Shachtman notes that the Israeli decision to be more ruthless in this campaign dovetails with the decision, made in the wake of 2006, to keep the press out of Gaza. This approach keeps valuable information out of Hamas' hands, and also "blunts some of the damage when a terror group sets up shop inside a school or hospital -- and then parades around civilians' bodies, when Israel hits the place."

We note that Israel's total superiority in the air allows the IDF yet another advantage in the propaganda war which accompanies the real war: The dozens of Israeli UAVs continuously circling on the Gaza skies offer real-time video images of practically every rocket launch and mortar fire. The information is used to trigger an instantaneous attack on the launching crew (as we noted on Monday, Israel is using new ISR systems which dramatically shrink the sensor-to-shooter loop; see 5 January 2009 HS Daily Wire). The same images also help Israel prove some of its claims. For example, in the case of the UNRWA school incident in which forty Palestinian civilians were killed, Israel has provided the UN with images showing two Hamas operatives using the roof of the school as a firing position from which they operated a mortar. TV pictures of the school also show the dead bodies of two Hamas fighters, and many shell casings, among the bodies of the dead civilians. These images serve as the basis for Israel's complaint to the UN about the fact that UNRWA allows Hamas to use the agency's schools as Hamas military positions.

Ben Frankel is editor of HS Daily Wire

WOUNDED WARRIORS NEED HELP

FROM THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE

Fighting For War's Wounded
Augusta lacks advocates to help veterans with benefits
By Johnny Edwards Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2008
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The passing of time has only made the pain worse, says Iraq war veteran Daniel Smith.
Iraq war veteran Daniel Smith, of Graniteville, said he found it hard not only to ask for help when he returned home, but to find it. The Wounded Warrior program aims to help veterans get benefits. For full story follow this link:http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/071308/met_465535.shtml