Olaf in Combat.
03 November 2009
British soldiers at war are an incredible group. Courageous, competent, and committed in very difficult conditions. An email came today from London, from a BBC correspondent who has been to Afghanistan saying that Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid had been killed. (more…)
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And I don’t mean the movie. “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is a remarkable feature film about harsh Sharia law twisted by a husband against his wife. The film is brutal, honest and unflinching. Based upon Freidoune Sahebjam’s 1994 novel, the film straddles the world between fact and fiction, present and future.
“Soraya” epitomizes a woman’s plight in the Islamic world and reaches across the globe into communities which welcomed Muslim immigrants into their secular societies. But the question left unasked by these societies – face to face – is this: Will you accept the strictures of our society based upon Freedom and mutual respect?
Some Muslim immigrants (not all) refuse to embrace their adopted country’s mores and behaviors. They choose isolated communities. In France, a friend told me that many third-generation Algerians still don’t speak French. News reports about “disaffected youth” riots veil the source of burning cars in Paris – radicalized Islamist youth. Herein lies the question about enforced societal acceptance of multiculturalism and freedom.
Freedom is a tough concept to sell. You know it when you have it. You can see when it’s absent, i.e., Iran, Zimbabwe, socialist left-wing dictatorships like China, etc., But it’s taken for granted in America. Unfortunately in our ADD, media-centric world of flash, celebrity and shock, the world’s impression of freedom is excessive violence, sexuality and degradation. Freedom is confused with approval. The best definition I ever heard for Freedom was “The right to do what you want and the responsibility to take the right course of action.” (more…)
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So according to a new poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org, Barack Obama is the most trusted political leader in the world. The poll was of nearly 20,000 residents of the largest nations, including even Macau. Oh how I love Macau. From my own experience, the authorities tend to look the other way when it comes to so many things.
So Obama was right: he truly is the citizen of the world, even as his own country is left wandering and confused. I suppose it’s easy, however, for Jabrail in Azerbaijan to swoon over Obam, when he’s not faced with cap and trade, nationalized health care, and those new mandatory curly light bulbs. But then again, in Azerbaijan, I guess you’re just happy to have any kind of light bulb. Even if it’s a candle shaped like a light bulb.
But I digress. The poll looked at “confidence ratings” and found that while Obama had the highest, and would “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had the lowest. Now, these standings might mean something, if Obama actually had the balls to take advantage of them. I mean, what’s the use of being loved if you can’t actually scare the crap out of those who love you? It’s what confuses me most about our President. He chose initially to sit on the sidelines – as the people of Iran cried out for help – preferring to see which dude wins. A true leader, however, would know that it’s not the leaders who matter, but the people caught in the middle. (more…)
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I am on vacation in South East Asia visiting friends and touring some areas that I am quite familiar with and some not so much. I have not had much access to news or the internet until the last two days. However, from what I have heard recently, there are definitely a few things that need to be addressed.
A few days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech in we he agreed for the first time to the possibility of a two state solution. To many countries in the world, this is considered a major breakthrough in the Palestinian conflict. For the first time in recent memory, Israel is ready to consider giving the Palestinians a homeland. The entire western world applauded the concessions. Of course, the Palestinians did not: they condemned them. (more…)
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President Obama has left the United States for a foreign trip that includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France and Germany. Unfortunately, a stop in Israel is not included. Why? With increasing rhetoric, Mr. Obama and his administration seem to be leaving Israel in the cold and partnering up with Israel’s Arab enemies at the same time that he is not taking the threats of North Korea seriously.
In the past few weeks, President Obama has told Israel that it must now accept a two state solution to the Palestinian problem, and just yesterday, he told Ehud Barak that Israel must stop all growth in the West Bank settlements. Further, the President has taken the position that Iran may continue its nuclear programs provided that it intends only to pursue nuclear energy and not nuclear weapons, in contravention of Israeli wishes.
What is going on here? Does the President believe that by kissing up to our enemies; i.e. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Radical Islam, that he is going to make all of the problems of the world go away? Does he believe that by allowing Israeli/US relations to go by the wayside, he is going to make Al Qaeda disappear? I think not.
In fact, yesterday another tape of Osama bin Laden appeared condemning the United States for backing the Pakistani military in taking on the Taliban. The tape made it clear that President Obama was no different from President Bush in bin Laden’s eyes and that the blood of Muslims and retribution for their deaths would be on Obama’s hands. The War on Terror is not over regardless of what President Obama wants to call it, and based upon the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is about to escalate. (more…)
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As a veteran, I want to say “Thanks” to Hollywood.
Too often, the only thing we hear about the Industry is that a new movie is coming out that portrays our soldiers as near mindless half-wits turned into raving murderers by America’s unjust wars. But that kind of nonsense is not the whole story.
Recently, J.J. Abrams, the director of the new “Star Trek” re-boot packed up cast members like Chris Pine, Eric Bana, and the lovely Zoe Saldana and flew off to premiere their film. This premiere was not for a bunch of overpaid, over-pampered movie stars in some gaudy theater. Instead, it was in a dusty hangar in the Middle East, and the audience was made up of our troops. And that is not the exception. (more…)
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I’ll be the first to say it; Barack Obama’s G20 speech inspired me over the past week… I tell you no lies. In the spirit of his apologetic, butt-kissing extravaganza, I felt compelled to make some additional apologies on behalf of our backwards nation. I suggest you all pitch in and add your own. As Americans, we’ve all got a lot to be sorry for… But admitting that we have a problem is the first step towards recovery.
To England: I would like to apologize on behalf of my American Forefathers, for flipping you the finger, fleeing your tyranny and kicking the ever-loving crap out of you only to become the world’s greatest superpower within a mere century.
I’d also like to apologize for all of the goods, services and exploding ingenuity that resulted from our crazy new liberty-based system being put into place. Capitalism is a bitch. I get that now. (more…)
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Most 12-step programs start out by requiring that people understand that they’re powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a Power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity. Far be it for me to suggest that I am that Power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls. Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much.
First, though, they have to acknowledge that Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, are not moderates, but, rather, leftists with a Socialist agenda. Furthermore, they must recognize that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN, the three major networks, the news magazines and the New Yorker, are not objective in their reporting of political events, and neither are Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher, in their commentary. If these entities and individuals are not on the payroll of the DNC, they certainly should be. They certainly put in longer hours than Howard Dean. (more…)
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