Monday, June 16, 2014
From: Gary L. Bauer
Our Vets DID NOT Fight In Vain
A terrible narrative is gaining traction as the scenes of jihadists driving toward Baghdad dominate the news. The narrative boils down to this: that the thousands of U.S. servicemen and women who fought, were wounded and died did so in vain.
The narrative is fueled by leftists who blame George W. Bush for getting us into Iraq and by some on the right who blame Obama’s weak foreign policy for eroding the hard-fought gains our brave soldiers won.
Here’s my take. No matter what happens in Iraq or Afghanistan, the sacrifices of our fighting forces were not made in vain. We went into both countries for many reasons: to destroy Al Qaeda, to take out Saddam Hussein and to destroy weapons of mass destruction.
But we went to war for another reason too: to put the jihadists on the defensive in order to prevent an even worse 9/11. And we did!
Our brave men and women in uniform bought us more than 12 years in which we have raised our children, enjoyed liberty, worshipped God, started families and lived in freedom without experiencing another horrible attack on our homeland.
There is nothing that anyone can do to take away those 12 years or destroy the blessings that 300 million Americans enjoyed because of the sacrifices of the real 1% — our men and women in uniform.
Join me this week in reaching out to every military family you know to simply say, “Thank you” and to assure them that their sacrifices were not in vain.
Radical Islam On The March
The news out of Iraq continues to be disheartening and disturbing. Evacuations from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad have begun. ABC News reports that specially-trained Marines and additional security personnel have been dispatched to protect the embassy.
Over the weekend, ISIS jihadists seized the city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul. Fighting has also been reported in Baquba, which lies about 40 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, President Obama is calling for “political efforts” and negotiations to ease the tensions, while he continues to take his time deciding whether to do something as limited as air strikes against an enemy that is very exposed as it travels through the Iraqi desert.
There is no negotiating with these terrorists. Shocking video has emerged of ISIS fighters claiming they killed 1,700 Iraqi Air Force recruits. Roads are reportedly lined with decapitated bodies.
I have yet to hear anyone on the left express outrage at these war crimes. I guess it must not be as serious as forcing prisoners at Abu Ghraib to wear ladies underwear. Then again, men wearing ladies underwear would likely be seen as a sign of progressive success by the left.
Connect The Dots
Unfortunately, our own elites continue to refuse to connect the dots about what is happening all over the world — radical Islam is on the march.
There was breaking news out of Kenya this morning about the brutal attack on the coastal city of Mpeketoni. Liberal commentators assure us that the attack was carried out by a criminal gang and has nothing to do with Islam.
Imagine our puzzlement when reports indicated that the al-Shabab attackers gave their victims a pop quiz. Those who correctly answered questions about Islamic theology were allowed to leave. Those who did not were killed.
The Taliban protested elections in Afghanistan this weekend through a series of bombings that killed dozens of innocent civilians. In addition, they cut off the fingers of those who voted as a warning to others.
In Israel, three defenseless teenagers, one of them an American citizen, were kidnapped last week. The Israeli government believes Hamas is responsible. They were most likely abducted so they could be used as bargaining chips for future prisoner swaps.
“See You In New York”
The atrocities being committed in northern Iraq illustrate the dangers of the recent decision to release five Taliban generals from Guantanamo Bay. It turns out that the leader of the ISIS forces, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was released by the Obama Administration in 2009.
Al-Baghdadi had been arrested and detained by U.S. troops in 2005 and was held in an Iraqi prison base known as Camp Bucca. When al-Baghdadi was released, he reportedly told the guards, “I’ll see you guys in New York.”
Al-Baghdadi is not likely to be walking the streets of New York any time soon. But yesterday Senator Lindsey Graham warned that the next 9/11 could well be planned in the territory under ISIS control. On “Face The Nation” yesterday, Senator Graham said:
“Syria is a launching pad and it’s all come together. … They can operate ISIS from Baghdad to Kurdistan, all the way into Syria. They will eventually march on Jordan and Lebanon. … and they will attack us from that part of Iraq and Syria. According to our own national– director of National Intelligence, FBI director — the next 9/11 is coming from here.”
Lerner’s “Lost” Emails
Late Friday afternoon the IRS informed members of Congress that it was having trouble complying with a congressional subpoena to hand over all of Lois Lerner’s emails. The problem: Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Any messages prior to 2011 may be difficult, if not impossible, to recover.
Responding to Friday’s news dump, Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said: “The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to congressional inquiries. There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the inspector general.”
Even liberal journalists aren’t swallowing this one. CNN’s John King asked rhetorically, “Do you believe in the Easter Bunny? Do you believe in Santa Claus? Do you believe that Lois Lerner’s e-mails just suddenly went ‘poof??'” National Journal’s Ron Fournier wrote, “If the IRS can’t find the emails, maybe a special prosecutor can.”
No Pride For the National Guard?
Here’s a report that speaks volumes about the cultural decay in America.
An application by the National Guard to sponsor a booth at the up-coming San Francisco “gay pride” celebration was rejected by the event’s organizers in protest of the military’s ban on transgendered soldiers. To further protest the ban, the organizers selected Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, as their honorary grand marshal for the event.
I don’t know which is worse — that the National Guard thought it needed to find its warriors at a San Francisco homosexual celebration or that the leftists in San Francisco decided to honor a convicted traitor.
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