Shame

While reading about the Glasgow bombing attack, I came across this Associated Press article. Here's the lead:

They had diverse backgrounds, coming from countries around the globe, but all shared youth and worked in medicine. They also had a common goal, authorities suspect: to bring havoc and death to the heart of Britain.

The eight people held Tuesday in the failed car bombing plot include one doctor from Iraq and two from India. There is a physician from Lebanon and a Jordanian doctor and his medical assistant wife. Another doctor and a medical student are thought to be from the Middle East.

All employees of the United Kingdom's National Health Service, some worked together as colleagues at hospitals in England and Scotland, and experts and officials say the evidence points to the plot being hatched after they met in Britain, rather than overseas.

"To think that these guys were a sleeper cell and somehow were able to plan this operation from the different places they were, and then orchestrate being hired by the NHS so they could get to the UK, then get jobs in the same area — I think that's a planning impossibility," said Bob Ayres, a former U.S. intelligence officer now at London's Chatham House think tank.

"A much more likely scenario is they were here together, they discovered that they shared some common ideology, and then they decided to act on this while here in the UK," he said.

No one has been charged in the plot in which two car bombs failed to explode in central London early Friday and two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas cylinders into the entrance of Glasgow International Airport and set it on fire the following day.

Do you notice anything missing? How about any reference to the fact that the suspects being held are radical Muslims believed to be linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq? The press and government spokesmen (especially in the U.K.) are falling all over themselves to avoid ... what, exactly? Careful parsing of the information that has been released by the government shows that (a) the suspects were all radical Muslims, and (b) the U.K. government is confident that the suspects were members of a group linked to (and most likely directed by) Al Qaida in Iraq. So why aren't they just saying it directly?

Because the liberal, multi-culti mindset is very uncomfortable – nay, offended – at the idea that we might associate Muslims with terrorism. That would be so arrogant and biased of us! Never mind that virtually all terrorist attacks on Western targets in the last 20 years have been perpetrated by radical Muslims. Never mind that they tell us, over and over again, loudly and often (though our lamestream media reports it only infrequently) that we are infidels and it is their duty to kill us. Never mind that the alleged "moderate" Muslim community, every time it is polled, overwhelmingly supports jihad and the imposition of sharia law. Those things, in the multi-culti world, are just not to be spoken of.

The multi-cultis are the spittin' image of that dumb ostrich with his head in the sand.

Can't you just imagine the discussions that occur amongst the Al Qaida members about this phenomenon? Right after they shoot some women, blow up a few schoolchildren, and hack of the heads of some more (as occurred outside Baquba just a few days ago), they flip on CNN and see something like the story above – how encouraged they must be! Their enemies are so stupid, they don't even know they're being attacked, or who is doing it! Then a little later, when they see a of clip of Murtha, Reid, or Pelosi babbling about how the war is lost (by the Americans), can't you just hear the jihadis cheering? Their enemy is giving up!

A thought experiment: if the jihadis could vote in the 2008 Presidential election, who do you suppose they would vote for? I don't think it's Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, or John McCain. It disgusts me to have to acknowledge there are viable candidates for that office whom the jihadis would be delighted to vote for – such as Barack Obama, Ron Paul, John Edwards, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton. The willingness (nearly eagerness) of those candidates to trade American security and our soldier's lives for their own political gain is way beyond the pale.

I'm ashamed of them...

Rescued!

This sounds like a corny Hollywood stunt, but it really happened -- yesterday, in Iraq. Chief Warrant Officers Mark Burrows and Steven Cianfrini were flying their OH-58 Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter in Iraq when they came under heavy ground fire. Their helicopter was shot down, but they survived with only minor injuries. They were attacked on the ground as well, so they crawled out of the helicopter and into a nearby canal full of reeds, and immediately got stuck in the mud on the bottom of the canal. They thought they were done for -- and then:

After five to 10 minutes, the machine gun fire slowly started to dissipate. An unmanned U.S. drone aircraft circled above them. Help was not far behind.

A pair of Apache helicopters from the 1st Calvary Division pushed back the insurgents. Burrows was able to climb out of the mud and up an embankment, signaling the Apache for help. Using his M4 rifle, he pulled Cianfrini out of the mud.

Because the Apache has just two seats, one of the Apache pilots and Burrows had to strap themselves to the outside of the aircraft, braving 120 mph winds on the ride back to base. Cianfrini rode inside in the Apache.

Burrows, who without a helmet gripped the outside of the Apache, called the 10-minute flight back to the base in Baghdad “a pretty wild ride.” “I could endure anything at that point after what we had just gone through,” Burrows said in the department of Defense interview.

That's two very happy guys and their families on this Independence Day! Read all about it here and here.

Independence Day

Two hundred thirty one years ago, on July 4, 1776, fifty-six men representing the English colonies in America signed the Declaration of Independence. I've reproduced it in its entirety below in celebration of this day:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

-- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

-- He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

-- He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

-- He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

-- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

-- He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

-- He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

-- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

-- He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

-- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

-- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

-- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

-- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

-- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

-- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

-- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

-- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

-- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

-- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

-- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

-- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

-- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

-- He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

-- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

-- He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

-- He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

-- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Every time I read this document (as I try to do every July 4th), the ponder sets in: if the signers of this document could see how America has evolved, what would they think?

This time another ponder set in: with just a little editing, this document could be updated to serve as a Declaration of Independence from the current political parties. The list of grievances the original document contains is startlingly apropos of today's political environment...

But that's a thought I'll pursue another day. Today I reserve for celebration of the amazing courage and fortitude of this countries forefathers...