There has been an awful lot of discussion surrounding the torture subject again since the Obama administration has floated the idea of criminal investigations into the harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA to extract information from al-Qaida operatives. The Obama administration has received both harsh criticism and demands for further investigation after the releasing the CIA memos detailing the interrogation methods used by the CIA and the decision making process surrounding them. I believe this is a reckless step aimed at political gain and poses a great risk to our nation on many fronts.

To begin this discussion, one must first decide what exactly torture is and what remains a harsh interrogation method that does not cross this line. This is a question over which much debate has raged throughout the last few years. While some clearly see water boarding as torture, others disagree and find the practice perfectly acceptable when used in high level, critical interrogations where other methods have failed. Many would also argue that these interrogation methods are ineffective and do not produce reliable results. However, it appears that the evidence in hand on that point tends to demonstrate otherwise.

This is a difficult question to answer, as Americans have always fought against regimes that torture and abuse people. Therefore to even consider such measures must place great strain on our core beliefs. Herein lies a question faced by many of our great leaders in the past, to what lengths can we go to protect this nation without destroying what this nation stands for? When President Lincoln was faced with the dissolution of the Union, he suspended the basic rights guaranteed under by Constitution under the Bill of Rights and marched a standing army against American citizens to preserve that Union. When President Truman faced the decision to invade Japan at the cost of millions upon millions of American and Japanese lives, or to drop tremendously devastating weapons of mass destruction on civilian population centers in an attempt to force a Japanese surrender, he chose the lesser of two evils and the lower cost of life. When President Bush was faced with another impending terrorist attack on this nation, he authorized what methods he thought legal and justified to extract the information from our enemies that allowed us to prevent these attacks. For none of these men were these decisions light, but they were easy ones to make. They did what they must to protect this nation in dire times of need. They chose the only path they could to save this nation or the lives of her citizens.

For me this question is simple. I for one do not consider water boarding to be torture, nor do I consider many of the other methods detailed in the memos that were foolishly released by the Obama administration to be above the uncrossable line. When dealing with a ruthless enemy who will slowly cut the head off of an innocent American contractor while filming it for propaganda purposes, I find it perfectly acceptable that we would pour water over his head until he decides to talk. When dealing with a people who believe it acceptable to murder their own children in ‘honor killings’ because they have not behaved in some particular way, I find no problem sticking them in a room with an insects that they fear. When dealing with a people that strap bombs on to women and children, teach that it is acceptable to beat your wives and kill indiscriminately innocent people who will not yield to their way of life, I do not see a problem with slamming them up against a wall and threatening to beat the information out of them.

Someone asked me a very simple question one day in an attempt to define what I saw as torture. If your children had been kidnapped and the man sitting before you had the information that would save their lives, to what lengths would you go to obtain that information? Where ever you chose to stop or whatever you decided you could not do, was your definition of torture. After contemplating the question for some time, I realized that it is not that difficult of a question for me to answer. This may make me a horrible person in some people’s eyes, but I could think of very little that I would not do to save the life of just one of my children, not mention all of them. If the person still possessed the ability to draw breath once they gave me what I needed, they should consider themselves very fortunate indeed. I would gladly water board him and his entire family to save my children and I would sleep well at night knowing I had done so. I would stop at nothing to protect my children. How could I think less of a nation that did likewise to protect her citizens?

Someone once argued with me that I would be sacrificing my morality by taking such actions, even in the defense of my children. I disagree. I feel that it would be a moral imperative to do anything and everything possible to save my children. Failing to do so would be the ultimate moral failure. These people have sworn to kill as many innocent Americans as the possibly can by any means that they can. We are at war with an enemy that knows no rules and respects no boundaries. Our citizens and soldiers are offered no quarter and are brutally murdered and hung in public as examples of their barbarism. How there are people in this country who have a problem with pouring water on these people to scare them into releasing information that will thwart their horrific plans is far beyond me. Failing to do so, to me, seems the ultimate failure of a nation and its moral obligation to protect its people.

In the short month since President Obama has been inaugurated he has made good on his promise to deliver change to this nation. We have seen a massive increase in Federal spending from the pork laden $820 billion stimulus package to the Omnibus appropriations bill filled with over 8,500 earmark projects. Earlier this week the President hosted a fiscal responsibility convention where political leaders from across this nation gathered to discuss our soaring deficit and struggling economy. At the conclusion of this summit, President Barack Obama stood before the nation and simply lied to our faces. He promised that the Federal government would operate on a pay-as-you-go program and ensured us that he would not spend any money that we did not actually have. He promised to cut non-essential programs in favor of those critical to the success of this nation, not raise taxes on any families making less than $250,000 annually and ensure that Washington did not leave a massive debt that would crush our future generations. Apparently, it was all a lie.Yesterday, Obama released his new fiscal budget to Congress totaling nearly $3.5 trillion dollars in a direct contradiction to his words just days earlier. Considering the $700 billion dollars already allocated to financial bailouts, the $820 billion dollars in the federal stimulus package, the $420 billion dollars in the Omnibus appropriations bill and not the $3.5 trillion dollars in the new Federal budget, within his first month in office, President Barack Obama has spent over $5.4 trillion dollars with promises of more to come. Our nation and our economy will be crushed under this massive debt. This is more money that any country has ever spent in such a short time in the history of this planet. This is the change we were looking for?

To show a fine example of more undesirable change, allow me to explain the new decision handed down by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Since 1991 it has not been permissible for the media to photograph fallen soldiers returning home from a war zone. President George H.W. Bush prohibited this practice in 1991 during Desert Storm as a means of protecting those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation from being politicized in the media. Acknowledging the dishonor that this nation did unto its servicemen in past wars by using them and their sacrifice as political tools to seed dissent, President Bush (41) decided that he would no longer allow the media to photograph fallen soldiers returning to military bases in this nation. Yesterday, Secretary Gates decided that the media’s desire to plaster images of dead soldiers on television, websites and periodicals across this nation in an attempt to discredit this war should be allowed. I will give him the credit for providing the stipulation that the families must give permission for this to occur, but I can just imagine what will come of this. The first time a media outlet convinces a family to allow them to photograph their fallen loved one so that they might honor their service and sacrifice and then turns around an politicizes the soldiers death as a means to further a political agenda, Gates’ resignation should be demanded.

The media claims that Americans have been sheltered from the real cost of war by not allowing them to photograph our returning dead. Bullshit. We know the cost of war. We know the sacrifice made by those that the media dismisses as murderers before a fair trial. We know the price paid by the returning dead and wounded. I know personally. I have a dear friend who fought willingly for his country and fell in battle to a sniper round. Luckily the brilliance of military surgeons saved his life in Baghdad, but he will never be the same. The round stuck him in one temple and exited the other doing serious brain damage along the way. By the skill of those surgeons and the grace of God he managed to live, but his life is forever changed due to his injury. We know the cost.

If the media were not completely biased and had shown willingness to report fairly about this conflict, this might be a different story. All we ever hear from Iraq and Afghanistan is negative. None of the good is ever reported. I still have friends serving there. I hear from them how the children run to them when they see them on the street and how civilians invite them into their homes to thank them for what they have done for their country. We hear of Marines who killed innocent civilians, but we do not hear of the ones that placed themselves in extraordinary danger to avoid civilian casualties. We hear of soldiers who violated their rules of engagement, but never of those who lost their lives because those rules so restricted them from defending themselves as they needed to.

I have another friend, a Marine. This is a good man, good father and fiercely dedicated soldier. He flies an F/A-18 Hornet for the Corps and I personally know he has taken innocent lives in this conflict. Were the incident left unto the media, my friend would be labeled as a murderer, a horrible example of American aggression, but he is so far from that it is not the least bit humorous. What was his crime? What drove him to kill several innocent civilians? The answer is very simple: bad intelligence. What he thought was a legitimate, approved target containing high level al-Qaeda leaders, was not. Was it his fault that the wrong vehicles were in the wrong place and the wrong time? Was it the analyst fault or the soldiers that collected the intelligence that they were sure was solid? Was it the commander’s fault who issued the strike order? Was it the fault of the ground crews that loaded his weapons or the tanker crew that topped him off on his ingress to his target? No. None of them deserve the blame as this was not an intentional attack on civilians. This was an unfortunate mistake; something that happens quite often in war. This does not make my friend or anyone else involved some horrible person who disregarded human life. It makes them all soldiers doing the best to serve their country with honor and integrity. Things such as these unfortunately occur in war, but left to the wiles of the media my friend, this good faithful soldier, would have been made out to be a murder instead of the hero that he is. They would not have cared about all the close air support missions he flew covering other soldiers and Marines that were pinned down. They would not have cared that at times he took out targets using only the cannon on his fighter to avoid collateral damage when he carried a full payload of much more destructive weapons that would have kept him out of harm’s way. They would not have cared that this incident tore him up emotionally; leaving him unable to fly combat missions for weeks until he stopped blaming himself for those innocent deaths and realized that it was part of war. They would not have cared that this strong, seasoned jarhead called his wife crying the day that it happened and was unable to even tell her why. To the media, he would just be a murder. We know the cost of war and we know where the intent of the media lies.

Now these people have the ability to photograph our fallen dead as they are returned in honor to an ungrateful nation and a mourning family. This is the change we can believe in? Well, this is the change that we got.

I think he will win quite a few of these. First, what does John McCain think about placing the importance of politics over that of us being victorious against those who mean us harm?

“I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Sen. Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign,” – John McCain

What does Obama think about winning a war versus playing politics with the lives of our troops? See for your self:

This man is a moron. He has no clue how to lead this nation and will cost the lives of countless American service men and women through his arrogance, inexperience and blatant stupidity. This video illustrates his dishonesty, his deceit and his willingness to placate to the political demands of the moment and not the reality of the challenges we face.

If this nation votes to place this man in charge of the well being of our Armed Services, we will be doing them the greatest injustice in the history of this nation.

I try to teach my children to cherish their freedom and know that the liberties that we have come at a dear price. My nine year old son is incredibly inquisitive and often asks about the war and the soldier fighting in it. I always attempt to impress upon him what a great sacrifice is made by those who willingly lay their lives on the line for our way of life. I try to teach him to respect and honor those who serve in any capacity and remember that the good things we have in our lives were paid for by men and women such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

When I picked my son up from school today he handed me a letter he had written to our military men and women. I wanted to share this with my readers because it made me proud to see the respect and admiration that he has for those who fight. Below is the unedited version of his letter:

Dear Military,

Thank you for fighting war for us. I know deep down you miss your loving family. It’s sad for you because mabe your best friend got killed. My family is really American. My brother loves planes. His favorite is the F-14 and the A-10. My favorite is the F-16. My dad listens to Hannity and Colmes and his favorite channel to go to sleep to is the Military Channel. I bet your favorite song is, “I just came back from a war.” That’s my favorite song. One of my favorite movie series is “Band of Brothers.” I love that movie. My nana is planning on going to see the men from the Army in the hospital.

Love Alexander.

I am proud to see that he understands and is very grateful for the gift of service which so many freely give. I only wish that more adults would have this level of respect and honor for our troops, and not some political bullshit about supporting them but not supporting their fight.

The buzz this weekend has been about a Senate Intelligence Committee report released last Friday stating that there was no evidence establishing a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the US invasion of that country. Democrats were quick to jump on this report claiming that it is more proof that the President lied and misled us into war. Some even claim that this should finally refute the administrations claims that Iraq was involved with the 9/11 attacks and shows that President Bush used the tragedy to forward his own agenda.

There are several problems with this report.

First, the Senate report apparently chooses to ignore all the facts establishing connections between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al Qaeda in favor of a concocted falsification prepared by a former John Kerry campaign volunteer as the basis for the report.

“Now, National Review Online has learned that a key Republican committee staffer in the politically charged prewar intelligence investigation is a veteran of the 2004 Kerry presidential campaign. Eric Rosenbach, hired by Sen. Hagel to work on prewar intelligence issues, came to the Senate after completing studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government under Rand Beers, a top foreign-policy adviser for Kerry. In Fall 2004, Rosenbach took three weeks to volunteer for the Kerry campaign in York County, Pennsylvania.” – The National Review Online, Byron York, June 21, 2006.

Many have accused Mr. Rosenbach of ‘cherry picking’ the information so as to present a picture of absolutely no involvement between Iraq and Al Qaeda. What I find disturbing is that Stephen F. Hayes could find enough material to write a book called ‘The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America’ based on open source and public information and the SIC Phase II, with its wealth of information, could not find anything. What about the documents showing Abu Al-Zarqawi received sanctuary and medical assistance Uday Hussein after he fled US forces in Afghanistan? What about Salmon Pak? What about the recently released “Iraqi Papers” which showed Iraqi officials working to foster additional relationships with Al Qaeda? Hayes’ book details many of the ‘connections’ that the Senate Intelligence Committee failed to acknowledge or chose to ignore.

The main point is that none of it really matters. Bush never said we were going into Iraq because Saddam was sleeping with Al Qaeda and that was the only reason. It was only one of many. He said that we knew members of Al Qaeda were there and that any nation that supports or gives safe haven to terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda was our enemy. Well he was right, there were members of Al Qaeda taking refuge there, and when he made this speech both sides of Congress stood and gave him a standing ovation.

The other ludicrous piece of this puzzle is that the Democrats continue to state that Bush knew there was no link between Iraq and 9/11. While this is plainly true they state it as if it should come as a surprise. President Bush has stated many times during and since he addressed the nation about us going into Iraq, that while Iraq was not directly related to the September 11th tragedy, it was a state that still supported terrorist, had defied multiple UN resolutions and was seen as a potential threat to the United States. Again, almost everyone agreed with him, including: John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Al Gore, Carl Levin, Nancy Berger, etc… (I can make that list go on for quite a while.)

I just find it odd how orgasmic the responses from the left is when something like this surfaces that really doesn’t matter and has been hashed over plenty of times before. Yet, when there are reports of successful terror plots broken up due to intelligence acquired from detainees captured in of all places, Iraq, it is swept aside. When it is listed that over two-thirds of Al-Qaeda leadership has been caught or killed, primarily in Iraq, well then that is just ignored. When it is pointed out that we are fighting terrorist on a daily basis in Iraq, and not in New York or Montana, then it is not good enough. When it is pointed out that no terror attacks have occurred on soil in the past five years, there is always some excuse why that is and of course it is never because we have them on the run and preoccupied with fighting us in Iraq.

The one thing this report does confirm is that Bush did not lie. He was presented with National Intelligence Estimates that he used to formulate his basis for removing Saddam Hussein from power. It has been questioned that those NIE’s were either not thorough enough or were presented without reservations attached to them. Regardless, the information that the leaders of this country were basing their decisions on told them three things: Iraq was pursuing WMD both chemical and biological and possibly nuclear, Iraq was supporting Al-Qaeda either directly or indirectly and allowing safe haven for them, and that Iraq was still a threat. Based on that information, our President, his staff and the entire Congressional body decided to lead us to war.

Now, if they acted on this information in good faith, and later some of the information was found to be incorrect or not thoroughly investigated, you cannot call them liars. Not the President, his top aides or Secretaries nor any member of Congress who voted us to war.

So thanks to the Senate Intelligence Committee, we now know that President Bush did not lie. Thanks guys.

I have been watching the events running up to the fall elections with great concern. The Democratic party is poised to take control of some key House and Senate positions and I am hoping that the Republican party can front a wining strategy to avoid this at all costs. We have seen recent evidence as to why having a Democrat controlled House or Senate would be disastrous for this country. I will attempt to show you what scares me the most out of this prospect while I make a serious attempt to avoid the rhetoric.

The Patriot Act:
While probably not perfect in all aspects, the Patriot Act has been one of the most influential tools in combating terrorist domestically since its inception shortly after 9/11. The Democrats did everything possible to defeat this bill, including a filibuster on the Senate floor.

“We killed the Patriot Act,” boasted Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, to cheers from a crowd at a political rally after the vote. - Patriot Act extension filibustered, by Charles Hurt, The Washington Times, December 17, 2005.

NSA Monitoring Programs:
Key Democrats have directed the party into fighting against many efforts of the National Security Agency even when those actions have been legal and the Senate Intelligence Committee had been fully briefed, including both the data mining efforts and the foreign intercepts. There have been calls for investigations into classified operations for intelligence gathering that would severely hamper the ability for our military to gather information.

Last night, I filed an amicus brief with 71 other Democratic Members of Congress in two cases challenging the Bush Administration’s illegal warrantless domestic spying.

It is very disturbing that, on the same day we learn that the NSA has been secretly collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, we also learn that the Department of Justice has abruptly cancelled its investigation into the Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program. These developments clearly point to the urgent need for oversight and review of this program. Congress has failed to provide this critical oversight which has led us to the courts. – 72 Democrats Challenge Illegal NSA Domestic Spying, by Congressman John Conyers, Thu May 11, 2006 at 10:38:15 AM PDT (as posted on the DailyKOS).

This program was in no way illegal, highly classified and had been briefed to the Senate Intelligence Committee long before it was brought to the public light. The Department of Justice halted its investigation because of the classified nature of the intelligence operation and the lack of evidence that it was illegal. Also, this program involved NO warrantless wiretapping, only data mining and algorithmic calculation of calling patterns to known/suspected terrorist numbers.

Recently they cheered the ruling of a liberal activist Judge who said that the foreign intercepts that the NSA was conducting on communications involving known/suspected terrorists was illegal. This program involved the monitoring of communications from within this country to numbers know or suspected to be Al-Qaeda related. It only involves monitoring of an American citizen if they are contacting a suspected/know terrorist number. It involved no monitoring of internal communications at all. Thus under the National Security Act of 1947, the Constitutional powers of the President to conduct war and even under the FISA law, which does not apply to foreign communications, it is in every way a legal activity. The Democrats hailed this ruling as a major victory.

Joe Liberman:
A staunch Democrat who votes down the liberal party line 90% of the time, yet had the audacity to support President Bush in his efforts to fight terrorism and the war in Iraq. The Democrats are currently engaged in a wholehearted attempt to destroy Joe Liberman politically and prevent him from running and winning as an Independant in Connecticut. This further proves how intollerant and dangerous the Democratic party has becom. It also means that there is no hope for and no tollerance left for a “moderate” liberal in the party. You must fall in line or be destroyed. The idea that if you don’t support the “Party” then we will destory you, is straight out of Communist Russia or Nazi Germany. Better polish those boots and start practicing the Michael Moore goosestep if you want to be a Democrat.

Foreign Policy:
The Democrats, as are many in this country, are sour on Iraq. They are claiming that it is deterring our fight against terrorism, even though it is the conflict responsible for most of the confirmed eliminations of known terrorists. Many of them want us to pull out of Iraq prematurely. This would be one of the gravest mistakes in modern times. With Iran pursuing nuclear weapons and assisting Hezbollah along with Syria against Israel, a premature withdrawal of forces from Iraq would signal a staggering victory for Islamic extremist and embolden them to become more audacious with their tactics.

The thing I fear the most is that the Democrats keep saying we need a change in Iraq, a different direction. When put to the question and asked directly what they would do in Iraq as Sean Hannity did to a Democratic strategist last night, something very frightening emerges. If answered at all, the response is that they would engage more people in discussion. What? Talk? I am sorry the time for talking is past. What will it take to make these people realize that you cannot talk or negotiate with extremists. My God, if we have learned nothing else I assumed we would have learned that.

We have seen Democratic foreign policy through the mistakes of Bill Clinton. He practically handed North Korea nuclear weapons, refused to take Osama Bin Laden from the Sudan when they offered him up, did nothing in response to the USS Cole and made a horrible mess of Mogadishu by pulling out as soon as things got tough. Mogadishu taught Bin Laden that America was weak and could not handle casualties. His own words, not mine. We cannot afford and may not be able to survive more Democratic foreign policy.

Detention of Combatants:
The Democrats have cheered the illegal decision of the Supreme Court which requires us to apply Geneva Convention rights upon terrorist subjects, in direct violation of the Convention rules. They have tried to convey Constitutional rights on the detainees and allowed them access to the American civil Criminal Justice system. You tax dollars have paid to defend the very people who want to kill you in your own court system. These combatants clearly fall under the jurisdiction of military tribunals since they are 1) not US citizens, 2) were captured in a combat zone on foreign soil and 3) the illegal acts of violence against a recognized military force were committed on foreign soil. They have no standing in a US civilian court.

Bush Lied to Us:
If that were true, then so did every major Democratic leader. They were all saying the same thing when we went to war with Iraq. He was a grave threat. He had to be stopped. Oh, yeah, and he had weapons of mass destruction. I could quote you Albright, Kerry, Clinton, Reid, Pelosi and on and on, all saying the same thing.

No WMD:
Now that we finally have evidence of WMDs, all of a sudden those are not the ones we were looking for. That is about the single lamest argument I have heard during this whole conflict. It

is like telling a police officer who is searching a man’s home for crack cocaine that he should not arrest him for the dead bodies he found in his bedroom. It is insane logic.

Impeach! Impeach! Impeach!:
For what? What crime has the president committed? I challenge anyone to show me one crime that this President has committed. I am not talking all this crap about misleading us to war, the legal illegal intelligence gathering or some whackjob theory of how he personally destroyed the twin towers through some elaborate government plot and controlled explosives. I mean a real crime punishable through impeachment as defined under the Constitution of the United States. If the Democrats gain power, our President may face a push to impeach him on ludicrous charges for the last two years of his term instead of being allowed to continue to fight our enemies.

Ends Do Not Justify Means:
This is more of the rant that circulates the left. Well I am sorry, people but sometimes they just might. Let’s list the ends that we have:

• Two-thirds of Al-Qaeda leadership dead or captured.
• A brutal dictator responsible for the oppression of millions and deaths of hundreds of thousands removed from power.
• Millions of people now free with an elected government and a chance at their own destiny.
• Momar Qadafi has turned over all remaining WMDs and pledged to help Middle East peace.
• Egypt has conducted free democratic elections.
• Multiple terrorist organizations funds have been seized, communications disrupted, leadership dismantled and safe havens reduced.
• Multiple terrorist plots have been stopped before they occurred.
• NO TERRORIST ATTACK ON UNITED STATES HOLDINGS!

I am sorry, but I think those ends have clearly justified the means by which we brought them about.

I fear what will happen if we revert to a Democrat led congress and see Democratic foreign policy return. I fear for my country. I fear for my children.

As we see events in the Middle East unfolding, we began to wonder if there will ever be peace in that region. The history of the region has been dotted with violence, terrorism, occupation and oppression for longer than then what most people currently suggest.

Alexander the Great conquered from Memphis to Gaza to Babylon to Kabul in between 334BC and 323BC and brought to a knee the great Persian Empire. This is one of the most challenged parcels of earth throughout the history of mankind. Whether it has been over territory, resources or religion, this area has been fought over for literally thousands of years.

In modern times, we see the Ottoman Empire dismantled after World War I and European nations laying claims to vast territories in the Middle East. World War II brought the creation of Israel and major United States involvement in the region to support Israel and ensure supplies of petroleum. Israel since its inception has faced nothing but violence. During the Six Day War in 1967, Israel repelled invasion form Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Egypt and Syria tried again during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and were handed a rapid defeat by the outnumbered Israeli forces. Violence continued against the Jewish state through out the 70’s and 80’s culminating in the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. During this time Iran’s Islamic Revolution occurred and tensions between Iraq and Iran began to deteriorate rapidly. During the early 80’s the region practically turned itself inside out with upheaval and conflict. The Soviet Union began a ten year long campaign in Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war erupted, Israel saw the formation of and increased terrorist attacks by the PLO, the Hezbollah and the Hamas. Some nations such as Egypt, still licking its wounds from the Yom Kippur defeat, sought to normalize relations with Israel. Others swore to destroy the fledgling nation at all costs.

Finally, in recent years Israel has pulled out of Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in an attempt to stabilize relations with the Palestinian people and allow settlement of the contested territories. One of the conditions of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was the disarming and dissolution of the terrorist organization known as Hezbollah. Due to the failure of this and the unrelenting hatred of Israel from many of the countries in the region, we are now watching the entire Middle East teeter on the brink of open warfare.

What some people fail to understand about the conflicts that are occurring in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Israel, is that they cannot be resolved with negotiation, cooperation or appeasement. The basic mistake that people make is that we are against a rational regime that has simple philosophical differences with us and that by sitting down and talking to them, we can some how come to an agreement. The entities we face have a great deal in common with threats from our past. During World War II we faced fanatical enemies that we had never before encountered. Nazi dogma taught that the Arian race was the only true race and that its supremacy over all others was pre-ordained. Hitler’s answer to the Jewish question was total annihilation of an entire race and culture. Hitler believed his destiny was to rule the world and destroy all signs of Jews and Judaism from the earth. Early on, when Britain and France attempted to negotiate with him and appease his expansionist desires, Hitler signed agreement after agreement, while behind the scene he plotted to conquer Europe. The Imperial Japanese were no better. While their ambassadors courted our government promising to maintain the peace in the Pacific, their planes rained destruction down Pearl Harbor. During our retaking of the Pacific, the Japanese fought to the death to hold every square inch. Even when hopelessly our numbered and losing isle after isle in the Pacific, they refused yield. This led to the United State’s choice to deploy a nuclear weapon on the Japanese homeland to force surrender. Facing Kamikaze plane attacks, thousands of Japanese troops still entrenched in the Pacific and Imperial Japan refusing to surrender, the United States was faced with tens of thousands of additional troop losses if they were to secure Japan. Finally, after deployment of the second nuclear weapon, Japan was forced to yield. Negotiation failed. Appeasement failed. The only thing that either Japan or Germany responded to was absolute defeat. This current threat is no different.

The lines that can be drawn between Nazism and fundamental Islam are frightening. The one underlying thing that connects both is fascism. Fascism is defined as: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. You cannot reason with fascist. You cannot trust fascist. You cannot turn your back on fascist. You must defeat fascist.

The insurgency in Iraq does not fight against the newly established Iraqi government. They fight against the spread of freedom and liberty. They fight against the United States because we symbolize freedom and liberty. If we leave Iraq and completely leave the Middle East, they will not stop. Their fight is against us and our values and ideals. They will follow us. They will bring the fight to the shores of this country, much as we have seen in India, Britain, Canada and Spain. Israel pulled out of the contested areas and they struck Israel from the very territories that were supposed to ensure peaceful relations. They will not stop. They must be destroyed.

Peace is not the absence of violence. We were not at peace with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there were just no hostilities. Peace is when the good guys win and destroy the evil regimes that promote violence, genocide and oppression. For those disillusioned of you who think that the way to win this war is to sit down and talk with these people or try to form some means of understanding, you need to study history. The only thing that negotiating with terrorists guarantees is that terrorists will always exists. If you show them that we will not tolerate this behavior by destroying anyone who holds this country hostage by violence or threat of violence, you will discourage this type of behavior. If you immediately destroy threats as they arise or even before they can strike, you will send a clear message that terrorism is an ineffective tactic.

The only way to reach these people, the only way to stop the bloodshed and violence, the only way to end the conflict and bring peace is the total destruction of all terrorist organizations and terror sponsoring states. This means Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and any others that stick their head up above the sand. This means the removal of the governments of Iraq, Iran, Syria and North Korea or any others that threaten our security, by any means necessary. When any nation states that the total destruction of the United States and her allies is its goal, it is time for us to strike. When they claim they will wipe one of our allies off the face of the map, it is time for us to strike or at the very least support our allies when they strike. When they capture, kill or harm our soldiers or citizens, it is time for us to destroy them and anyone who supports them. When they supply weapons to our enemies, it is time for us to destroy their infrastructure.

This idea of appropriate and proportionate response is ludicrous. For every American that died in the Pacific Theater in World War II, we killed 21.6 Japanese. Was that a disproportionate response of force? Of course not, it was a war and we did what we had to do to win. For all the bleeding hearts, that is after all the point of going to war, to win and to destroy your enemy. I understand that we departed form this idea during the Vietnam conflict,

but I thought we had learned our lessons from that debacle. When America comes to fight, we come to win.

The only way to end this struggle is to absolutely and unmistakably destroy our enemies. Wipe them out. Kill them all. I am sorry that this is the way it must be. It will cost dear American lives to accomplish this, but we must.

We cannot negotiate.
We cannot capitulate.
We will not tolerate.
We will not appease.
We will not surrender.
We must destroy our enemies.

One of the things I find most irritating about the political left is how they tend to spin their failures squarely on to the shoulders of their opponents, chiefly President Bush. If you were not aware, it is clearly President Bush’s fault that the two terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah committed terrorist acts against Israel.

According to Howard Dean, if the Democrats were in power, the world would not be holding its breath and praying that the Middle East does not implode on itself due to acts of terrorism. Apparently, Bush is to blame that the Hamas and Hezbollah hate Israel. Dean claims that the Bush administration has been disconnected and uninvolved in the Middle East, which I find hilarious since we are conducting military operations in two of its countries. A brief history of the conflict will show the foolishness of this sentiment.

Israel and Lebanon have been in a de facto state of war since 1948. Stilled at times by armistices, agreements and U.N. resolutions, the violence between the countries has never fully ceased. Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon in 2000 and under U.N. Resolution 1559, Lebanon was supposed to disband and disarm Hezbollah. Instead of using its military to provide a buffer zone on Israel’s northern border and disband Hezbollah, Lebanon elected more Hezbollah members to its parliament. Oddly enough, the number of resolutions passed against Israel is staggering, while the number passed against Hezbollah and Lebanon for allowing their continued existence are practically non-existent. Also suspiciously absent are resolutions preventing Syria and Iran from supporting these terrorist organizations or using them to harm Israel. There are a few, but we can now see how effective they have been.

Since 2000, violence has been sporadic but not elevated to the level of armed conflict. Suicide bombers will hit an Israeli bus, Israel will respond with an air strike on a terrorist training camp. A rocket will be launched into Israel, Israeli artillery will respond against the rocket site. This back and forth exchange of hostilities has continued even though Israel completely withdrew its forces from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, allowing the Palestinians to completely settle the territories. This withdrawal was at the urging of President Bush and his Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East as he outlined on March 14th, 2003 during an address to reporters from The Rose Garden. This administration has worked with Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to foster a sense of security throughout the Middle East. We have conducted military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to remove destabilizing influences and applied political pressure on Syria and Iran to curb their support of terrorism. Obviously, not everything has worked since it is impossible to reason with religious zealots.

Here is Dean’s reasoning: “You know, people say the Republicans are tough on defense. How can you be tough on defense if five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still at large, the Iranians are about to get nuclear weapons, North Korea’s quadrupled their nuclear weapons stash. . . . Explain to me how it is that this president is tough on defense? I think this president is weak on defense and he’s hurt America because he hasn’t done the right thing.”

Well, I can explain it this way. Osama bin Laden is a coward. He hides in the cavernous mountains somewhere in or near Afghanistan and issues orders and decrees from the safety of hidden camps. He has also lost his ability to conduct major operations against the United States, because he is always on the run. He has to settle for allowing the insurgency in Iraq to be his main focus which is preferable to it being New York. We have only been actively pursuing him for about three years. He evaded Russia for over ten years in the same area we are hunting for him. Iran is trying to get nuclear weapons and has been doing so for about fifteen years according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). When we discovered their intentions and how close they were, Bush immediately began putting pressure on them and forming an international census that Iran could never be allowed nuclear weapons. What would the Democrats have done? Talked with Iran and promised we would give them nuclear reactors and fund their development of an energy infrastructure, only if they promised to be nice and not to use the reactors to make weapons? Oh, yeah that didn’t work with North Korea, which brings me to Dean’s next point. North Korea quadrupled their nuclear weapons cache, because former disappointment William Jefferson Clinton gave them the means to. Yes, if only Democrats had their way, all the totalitarian regimes that are hostile to the United States would have nuclear weapons. Is that the conclusion we are to draw? North Korea did not suddenly make all its nuclear weapons immediately after Bush’s inauguration speech in January of 2000. They have been secretly making them since the Clinton/Albright concessions in the 90’s. When President Bush found out about this he withdrew our aid and support and claimed that North Korea was in violation of our agreements. He again began and international campaign to bring world pressure on North Korea to cease its nuclear weapons program.

Dean went on to blabber about how we have lost our moral credibility in the Middle East, as if the Islamic fundamentalist thought we had mountains of moral credibility under Clinton. He further stated that, “This country is in the worst shape since Richard Nixon, and probably before that. We’ve lost the high moral high ground everywhere in the world. We want to be respected around the world again. We want our moral authority to be restored, because part of defending America is not just well-armed troops; it’s having the high moral ground.”

Hmmm, I wonder what started Nixon down the path to loosing our high moral ground. Could it have been the Democratic disaster he was handed known as Vietnam? I won’t defend Tricky Dicky, but Democrats always seem to forget that they got us into Vietnam. They kept us and tied our hands in Vietnam. Republicans got us out of Vietnam. We may well have gone to Vietnam for the right reasons, stopping the spread of Communism is a worthy goal, but we stayed there for all the wrong reasons. America should go to war only with the intention of winning the war. I guess that is the part of the Bush doctrine that Democrats fail to understand. We are not in this war to make friends; we are here to annihilate those who mean us harm.

We have the moral authority to protect ourselves, enforce the cease-fire agreements that we have entered into, eliminate the spread of terrorism and the propagation of weapons of mass destruction and to remove brutal governments from enslaving, murdering or oppressing millions. We do not need hugs from the United Nation to make us feel all warm and fuzzy about what we are doing. We do not need France’s glowing approval; we have seen how they defend themselves. We do not need Germany, Russia or China condemning our actions abroad; we have seen their style of oppressive foreign policy in the past. We need more politicians who state it the way it is. We need a President who tells our allies, “What they need to do it to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit.” We need cowboy diplomacy. You know the one thing that was clear about the Old West? Cowboy diplomacy got the issue solved. One was left standing. The other was in the ground. You know another great President was made fun of by being called a cowboy. He brought us an
end to communism in the Soviet Union, a free Europe, strategic defense programs and major advances in military technology. He also saw peace and freedom spread through millions of those formerly oppressed.

We need strong leadership with the commitment to win. We do not need Howard Dean, “the chief spokesman of a party that has highlighted obstruction and hasn’t provided real answers that matter to the American people.” – Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

I will now present you with more proof of the asinine attitude that the mainstream media possesses and proof of their complete bias against this President and this administration.

A Governing Philosophy Rebuffed
Ruling Emphasizes Constitutional Boundaries
By Peter Baker and Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 30, 2006; Page A01

For five years, President Bush waged war as he saw fit. If intelligence officers needed to eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls without warrants, he authorized it. If the military wanted to hold terrorism suspects without trial, he let it.

Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country. In rejecting Bush’s military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate.

(Continue reading…)

Let’s analyze this a bit.

The first statement: “For five years, President Bush waged war as he saw fit.” Really? He is after all the President of this country and the Commander in Chief of its armed forced. Oh, no! He fought the war the way he saw it needed to be fought. IMPEACH!

The second sentence: “If intelligence officers needed to eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls without warrants, he authorized it.” Uhm, yeah. You see there is no requirement of a warrant or even probable cause to listen to foreign communications. The CIA is, wait for it, a SPY agency. Ooooh! They exist solely to gather intelligence from foreign sources (i.e. overseas telephone calls) and protect the security of the United States by the use of that intelligence. He doesn’t even have to authorize it. That is what the CIA does. They need no warrant, no special permission, no passing of any Congressional act. They certainly do not need the approval of the Washington Post.

Sentence three: “If the military wanted to hold terrorism suspects without trial, he let it.” Well now, if you define them as Prisoner of War and apply the Geneva Convention, they are typically held until the conflict has ended and then returned to the authority of their government or tried as war criminals. If they are not Prisoners of War and the Geneva Convention does not apply, then they are terrorist captured abroad who interfered with the U.S. Military and can be detained indefinitely so a not to pose an additional threat to U.S. forces.

Asinine comment number four: “Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country.” Excuse me, but the Constitution gives the President the right and sworn duty to protect this country. The Supreme Court has absolutely no jurisdiction, nor business, to involve themselves in matters pertaining to war. The Supreme Court’s function as defined by the Constitution is to examine laws made by the legislature and judge if they apply and are fair here within the borders of the United States of America. They are not supposed to make shit up as they run frolicing about spreading liberal idealism like Johnny Appleseed and trampling on the Constitution. This decision did not “strike at the core of his presidency.” I don’t remember Bush running with the campaign slogan, “I promise to create independent tribunals to deal with the murderous thugs that we have captured, and not allow them to waste American tax dollars on phony technical defense through our tortured legal system that might actually let them escape justice.” Not that it would have been a bad slogan. Oh, and you five brain-dead jackasses need to loosen your robes a bit and let the circulation return to your brains. The President alone CAN decide how to defend this country. The Congress gave him that power by declaring war. If he does so recklessly there can be consequences, but no president has every been run down in the way that George Bush has. Not even the one who turned the military on its own citizens nor the ones who dropped nuclear weapons causing civilian deaths in the thousands. I was necessary and it was the right thing to do to protect this country. Read your Constitution!

Finally we come to number five on the stupidity manifest: “In rejecting Bush’s military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate.” Uh, what? Where the hell did this come from? What constitutional confines? The constitution in no way whatsoever deals with any rules, regulations or confines pertaining to the aspect of conducting or waging war. The only stipulations, all for the Representative branch, do the following:

• To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
• To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
• To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
• To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
• To provide and maintain a Navy;
• To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

So what constitutional confines do they refer to? Actually, the ruling yesterday allows the president to return to Congress under Constitutional Law and request that Congress establish tribunals to del with those terrorist “Captured on Land and Water.”

These are only the first two paragraphs of the article posted in the Washington Compost. The rest of the article recites the same tired old left wing agenda talking points. No bias in the media my ass.