Confederate Memorial Day ... Alan Caruba

Confederate Memorial Day

By Alan Caruba

It seems odd, even to me, that a northerner, born and bred, should join in the celebration of Confederate Memorial Day on May 7th. Odder still because I saw the worst of the South with its Jim Crow laws that so cruelly oppressed the Blacks that lived there, but I spent enough years in the South to love its people, its music, its culture, and its history.

It is said that the winner of wars gets to write the history of those conflicts and that is true, but there is ample history of the Confederacy to gain a much-needed understanding of why, on February 4, 1861, the representatives of seven States, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, would meet to formally secede from the Union to form a new republic. On February 8, the convention announced the establishment of the Confederate States of America and declared itself its provisional Congress.

State's Rights Versus the Federal Government

The Confederacy was always a paradox. The central issue for the South was states’ rights, not slavery, though slavery was the stain that shaped elements of the U.S. Constitution, an issue that the Founders had concluded must await the judgment of a later time.

It was about the South’s interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. In his inaugural address, Jefferson Davis said, “The constitution formed by our fathers is the constitution of the (newly formed) Confederate States." The Civil War was a war against the federal government in 1861 and the years leading up to it that had led the South to conclude it could no longer remain in the Union.

The Confederacy lasted from 1861 to 1885 and its history constituted the first modern war in which the awful technologies of war left the South with an estimated 94,000 battle deaths, and 164,000 dead from disease. Fully 258,000 men fought under its flag. The North lost a total of 360,222 to death and disease. Along with the Reconstruction, the South paid a fearsome price for its integrity and beliefs.

It is a little known fact that there is a monument to the Confederate dead at Arlington National Cemetery. Its inscription says, “Not for fame or reward, Not for place or for rank, Not lured by ambition, Or goaded by necessity, But in Simple Obedience to Duty as they understood it, These men suffered all, Sacrificed all, Dared all—and died.”

Confederate Memorial Day will be celebrated throughout the South. On May 7th in North Carolina, the Sons of Confederate Veterans will gather at the Columbus County Courthouse and the Whiteville Memorial Cemetery.

Here’s where the past and present meet. The featured speaker will be H.K, Edgerton, a man who had spoken last year. “At times the audience was laughing, uproariously, and at others weeping. His presentation is knowledgeable, perceptive, sensitive, politically incorrect, historically correct, humor, and serious—all rolled into a professional presentation of Confederate history that will leave you wanting more.” Edgerton is a Black American of southern heritage, a former president of the NAACP’s Ashville, North Carolina branch.

He has said of his ancestors, they “went to war with their masters”, serving as cooks or farriers, even taking up arms. “There was a love that existed between black and white in the South that transcended the bonds of slavery. We were family.”

That’s something those raised in the North and other regions are not taught and do not understand. It would take, however, another hundred years for the wrongs of slavery to be fully set right in the era of the civil rights movement. It takes more than a Constitutional Amendment to change the human heart.

The sharp political divide that present-day America is experiencing is every bit related to the issue of state’s rights as any that preceded it.

The fear that the federal government has grown too large and is too intrusive in the affairs of the States and of all Americans is a legitimate one. The Union is being severely tested and it is an irony of history that the source of much of that fear and anger is the nation’s first Black President.

It is common parlance these days that “In 2008 we voted for Obama to prove we were not racists. In 2012 we must vote for someone else to prove we are not idiots.”

© Alan Caruba, 20011

Obama Treats Americans As “Sheeple!”

Obama Treats Americans As “Sheeple!”

Congress Provided With “FAKE” Photo?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Obama, the leader of the Marxist division of the US government, just does not believe the American people can handle seeing a photograph of the dead Osama Bin Laden.  He apparently believes we are too simple minded, too sensitive, too easily frightened of and by violence, too easily traumatized by war to be allowed to view the photos of a dead Bin Laden. 

HE IS DEAD WRONG!  Heck, I’d like to stand over the body, which is supposedly now fish food in the Arabian Sea.  Believe me when I say, I would have preferred to have Bin Laden’s body on public display at Ground Zero in New York than given a proper funeral and buried at sea. 

The man was a monster who took the lives of thousands of Americans with that attack on American soil, and is responsible for many, many, more American deaths all around the globe.

Darn right, I want to see the photograph!   Rest assured, we WILL see it soon.  There is no way the government can keep it locked away. It will pop-up soon on the Internet.

Look, when Saddam Hussein was hanged, and the video published to the web, I watched that video three or four times.

What REALLY irks me about Obama’s withholding the Osama photo, is the way, we, the American people are being treated by him (Obama), and his elite, snobbish, limp-wristed bunch of socialist-Marxist effete posers who seem to believe they know better what is best for the American people than the American people, themselves, do.  But that is how Socialism-Marxism works. (Get rid of Obama in 2012 – or get used to it.  It will only get worse.) 

What we have here is a prime example of just exactly how the left views the American citizen.  It is obvious they see us as child-like, unable to think for ourselves and totally dependent upon them, our betters, to shepherd us as though we were, indeed, sheep, one of the dumbest animals on God’s green earth!

Remember, these are the people who ban the playing of “Tag” and “Dodge Ball” on the playground of our children’s schools while they teach them Marxist principles within the classrooms. 

We have warned for years that America has been rearing a generation of wussies! Now, we know that not only did we raise them, heck, we placed them in the White House and the “West Wing” executive offices of the Obama Administration! (I wonder if anyone fainted in the Situation Room, as they watched live coverage of the Bin Laden take down?)

I can’t wait for the 2012 election.  I am primed to vote for a candidate with some backbone. Frankly, I want a male in the Oval Office, an Alpha male, who will reassert America’s masculinity.  I am more than a little tired of the Democrats feminine approach to governing. America needs a LEADER.  In fact, we need a military man as President of the US during this time of war – a war that has no perceptible end.

It is painfully obvious to anyone, not of the political left, that America does not have a real leader in Obama.  What we DO have is a narcissistic, self centered, socialist-Marxist, who views himself as a member of the political elite upper class deserving of all the worship and praise HE THINKS HE SHOULD HAVE and all the perks America can provide for his reigning queen.  It is embarrassing to the average American. 

The death of Bin Laden is a victory for the American people.  It is a victory for the brave men of the US Special Forces and we demand to see the evidence that will, once and for all, close the books on the hellish evil of the man responsible for the deaths of so many of our fellow Americans.

We all know that, eventually, the “death photo” of Bin Laden will appear, most likely on the Internet, having been leaked by someone (most likely) in the government.  Already, one international news service is presenting photos of other terrorists killed in the Obama raid, which were reportedly sold to them by a Pakistani official.  You have to believe that money is being offered, even as we write, to anyone who can slip a copy of that banned photo to the various branches of the media.  It will be published – count on it.

This effort on the part of Obama’s handlers to gain political points in the polls for their ceaselessly campaigning President WILL back fire.  Indeed, it already has.

Seems to me a “grown-up” President would have announced that American forces located and dispatched Osama Bin Laden and that his body had been disposed of in an undisclosed location.  Period.  By going farther, in hopes of gaining temporary up spikes in the polls, the door was kicked open to everything happening today.  This bespeaks the amateurism in the White House.

Yes, I am troubled by Obama not allowing Americans to see the photo, but I am far more troubled by this demonstration of just how little regard he has for the people he is supposed to serve.

J. D. Longstreet

The Swirl of Conspiracy Theories ... Alan Caruba

 The Swirl of Conspiracy Theories

By Alan Caruba

It is testimony to how little Barack Hussein Obama and the government he heads is trusted when one considers the swirl of conspiracy theories that filled the forums on the Internet, the comments attached to articles analyzing the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the general discourse of the chatteratti on radio and television.

Soon enough, photographic evidence will be offered as proof and, even then, the conspiracy theories will question them.

This occurred to me as I searched foreign news websites for information that was not directly generated by the White House. To my surprise, Al Jazeera had a remarkably comprehensive round-up of statements and quotes by leaders from around the world, all welcoming news of Osama’s death.

It also struck me that many commentators took note of the fact that Obama had actually fulfilled former President G.W. Bush’s promise to find Osama and bring him to justice “dead or alive.” The fact that Obama has been, willingly or not, pursuing the objectives of his predecessor did not go unnoticed. In the end, Obama may not get all the credit he craves from the event.

The same Internet that invented and elevated Obama to the Oval Office has been dissecting and disputing virtually everything he has had to say, officially or not, over the past two years or so. He has not come off well.

While all presidents have had to circumvent the truth from time to time, Obama quickly earned a reputation as a serial liar, a 24/7 dissembler, and a thoroughly unreliable source for information about everything from his birth certificate, his two memoirs, and other pronouncements.

Little wonder that spinners of conspiracy theories immediately seized on the news of Osama’s death to wonder out loud about its timing. Was that intended to disrupt the airing of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”? Why was Osama buried at sea? Why was he living in a private compound just outside of Islamabad, Pakistan near a military facility? Et cetera!

I was reminded of Occam’s Razor. “The 14th century philosopher William of Occam had a keen eye for plausibility. We know his approach to problem solving by the label "Occam's Razor," an axiom often stated in shorthand as, "The simplest explanation is usually the best."


And then I thought of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Theory. The more closely you study the subject, the less clearly defined it becomes.

There are useful lessons to be drawn from both. The first is that the basic facts that have been released by the White House and reported widely are probably true. A Navy Seal Team, acting on intelligence gathered by the CIA, Pentagon, and other U.S. sources, identified where Osama was staying and killed him. This is the simplest explanation.

Beyond that, the speculation regarding the event only serves to obscure it.

Writing at the Middle East Forum, Raymond Ibrahim offered a very useful reminder.

“Years ago, Ayman al-Zawahiri, now al-Qaeda's undisputed leader, placed it all in context. After he was asked about the status of bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar, he confidently replied:

‘Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden—may Allah protect them from all evil—are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time.’”

Jihad does transcend time. In a dispatch published in The New York Times on May 20, 1876, “The Disturbances in Constantinople”, the reporter noted that “Our readers, not familiar with Oriental countries can hardly appreciate the passion of fanaticism which at times burns in the breast of the lower classes among the Mohammedans. The majority of these have no idea of the progress made by the Western races, or of the inferiority of their country to other modern states.”

Given 9/11 and modern communications, those in the West do better understand the fanaticism of Islam. Constantinople is now called Istanbul. And Turkey, a bridge between the East and West, has been sliding back into the fantasies and fanaticism of the past.

America, the apotheosis of the modern world, reached out to kill its avowed enemy. That is what great powers have always done and must always do.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

America Gets A Boost With The Killing Of Bin Laden

America Gets A Boost With The Killing Of Bin Laden

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

I doubt we will ever know who pulled the trigger on Bin Laden.   It would be more than stupid to release the name of the Seal trigger man, or any of the American troops participating in the raid that took down America’s most wanted criminal. It would, of course, lay them and their families open to retribution from terrorists for the remainder of their days.

Having said that, we urge the President to award ALL those troops with the highest decoration he possibly can -- in secret.

The assassination of Bin Laden gave Americans a sorely needed morale boost.  It was a reminder that even though America is undergoing one of the greatest financial and political trials of its history, we STILL have the capability of fighting three overt wars and one covert war -- simultaneously.  No other country on earth can do that. In other words, it sends a clear message to our enemies and detractors.  Don’t mess with America. If you do, you had better be prepared to pay an awful price.

American Special Forces are, indeed, special.  I am only about an hour’s drive from one of their training facilities and let me tell you, they are held in very high regard here.

I had the privilege of being acquainted with a couple of Special Forces men and both were exemplary young men -- both family men and both religious men who took their faith seriously. 

The US military is still the best on earth.  Those rough men allow us to sleep peacefully in our beds at night.

I must tell you that I am worried that the change up at the Defense Department and the CIA may weaken the US Armed Forces and our intelligence community.

I am not a great admirer of General Petraeus.  I have felt for sometime that he is more politician than military man -- and that suspicion seems to have been borne out.  So far as Leon Panetta goes, I fear that he is being placed as Secretary of Defense with orders from Obama to downsize the US military.  That would be, in my estimation,,  a dire mistake.  If anything,  we need to enlarge our standing military -- across the board.

Look, we are at war!  No matter that some in our national government donned their rose-colored glasses, way back in the 60’s, and continue to wear them today skewing their view of reality, there IS a War on Terror.  It is a ,war that will not stop at the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  If anything, it may very well intensify.  We have had an army in the field for over ten years now.  We are nowhere near victory. Nor shall we be in ten more years.  This is a war that has no perceptible end, at all.

Americans have to understand that as politically incorrect as it may be -- America is involved in a RELIGIOUS WAR.  It is, simply put: the Judeo/Christian religion - vs - the Islamic religion. I understand it is distasteful to even say it, but hey … there it is!

On a slightly different tack … will the killing of Bin Laden frighten Qaddafi enough that he will use what little reasoning capability he has left to remove himself from Libya, at the earliest possible moment, and go off to live a quiet life swearing off the practice of terrorism?  Will he stay and die, or go away -- and die?  I expect NATO is watching intently to see if Qaddafi is affected in any way by the events of May 1^st.

America must abandon its policy of attempting to win the hearts and minds of our Islamic enemy.  It isn’t going to happen.

Peggy Noonan in an article in the Wall Street Journal recently said:  “Our republic is now in a historical adventure period – that is not what is needed.  We are, or should be, in a self-strengthening one.  Our focus should not be on outward involvement but inner repair.  Bad people are gunning for us, it is true.  We should find them, dispatch them, and harden the target.  (That would be, still New York, through Washington, too.)  We should not occupy their lands or run their governments.  We think in Afghanistan we’re buying their love, but I have been there.  We’re not even renting it.

Our long wars have cost much in blood and treasure, and our military is overstretched.  We’re asking soldiers to be social workers, as Bing West notes in his book on Afghanistan, “The Wrong War.”

Ms. Noonan is correct.  Time spent building schools, roads, and hospitals, dulls the edge of the US military sword.  In the end it will cost the lives of many US troops.  That should never happen. The destruction of an enemy’s country should be a part of the price they must pay for attacking America. It should be viewed as a deterrent  -- not urban renewal!

Meanwhile, the war goes on -- with no end in sight.

J. D. Longstreet

Jihad is Forever ... Alan Caruba

Jihad is Forever

By Alan Caruba

Americans greeted news of Osama bin Laden's death with a celebration of the payback it represents for the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.

As former Vice President Dick Cheney said on hearing the news, “Today, the message our forces have sent is clear—if you attack the United States, we will find you and bring you to justice.”

This is part of the American psyche. A great power cannot allow itself to be attacked and harmed without rendering retribution. Every day bin Laden drew breath after 9/11 was a rebuke to America.

The 9/11 attack, however, grew out of a larger context, the Islamic central concept of jihad. Far from being “a religion of peace”, the Koran is a battle plan for the conquest of the world by Islam and jihad is regarded as a sacred duty for all Muslims.

This is why political correctness regarding how we deal with Muslim demands in the United States is a danger to the nation. Islam is one big hate crime directed at all other religious faiths. Failure to understand that is to sign the nation’s and the world’s death warrant.

The irony of al Qaeda’s legacy has been the vast numbers of Muslims that have died as a result of its efforts to overthrow the governments of nations whose wrath it invoked. In the bizarre illogic of the Arab world, even as many Saudis allegedly contributed to al Qaeda, one of its aims was to overthrow the Saudi royal family who bin Laden had condemned for allowing American troops to encamp on its “sacred sands” in the first war against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

Al Qaeda was and remains a threat to the existing governments throughout the Middle East and, of course, anywhere in the world it wants to target. The U.S. has cut off the snake’s head, but must now remain even more vigilant against retaliation. That said, there is no doubt the organization has been significantly weakened with the loss of its symbolic leader.

Osama bin Laden has become to many Arabs what the Cuban butcher, Che Guevera, became to Communists and their dupes.

My suspicion is that al Qaeda will break into more isolated, individual units in nations throughout the Middle East and become even more vulnerable to being dismembered and destroyed. It is, however, northern African and Middle Eastern nations that are being restructured from within by millions of Muslims who have grown tired of the century’s old oppression that has been Islam’s hallmark.

Americans should not expect democracy to break out in the Maghreb or the Middle East, but it can expect governments there to become more responsive to the expectations and demands of their people. Even those in the Middle East know they are far behind those in the West in terms of any true freedom and justice. They have seen it and they want it.

We are told bin Laden’s body is in American hands. My suggestion—a fanciful one—is that it be embalmed and put on display in the Smithsonian as a reminder of the threat the nation will continue to face for decades to come.

Lastly, at a time when there are discussions of cutting the defense budget, we need to take heed of the courage and skill of those military who attacked the bin Laden compound in Pakistan and rendered the ultimate justice.

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf” is a quote attributed to George Orwell, the author of “1984”, a novel warning against all forms of totalitarian government.

Americans, despite our present economic distress, have to keep in mind that our nation has real enemies in the world and they aren’t exclusively Muslim. They are the reincarnated version of the former Soviet Union, Chinese Communists, North Korea, and others that wish us ill.

Their greatest allies will be those who preach isolationism and passivity.

Thus, the role of our military, the wars we choose to fight and where we choose to fight them has never been more critical. Jihad is forever.

For that, we must put our financial house in order and soon---or we shall witness our enemies celebrating, just as we celebrate today.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

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 Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

One Down. Many to go.

“He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.”   Jesus Christ  (Matthew 26th Chapter.)

So did he live.  So hath he died.

Osama Bin Laden, DEAD May 1^st, 2011.

Next!  ...   

At This Rate Obama Wins By Forfeit!

At This Rate Obama Wins By Forfeit!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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The first GOP Presidential debate is coming up and the GOP still hasn’t fielded a candidate capable of winning against Obama.   If a Republican candidate (with at least a chance of winning) doesn’t soon toss his or her hat into the ring, Obama wins by forfeit… of a sort.

Honestly, it is becoming depressing!  The candidates, I personally could support, all seem to be sitting 2012 out and waiting on 2016.  The problem with that strategy is – there may not be a country to be President of by 2016!

My southern experience tells me, southerners enjoy the show Mr. Trump is providing, but we don’t take him seriously as an honest to goodness candidate – even if he decides to run. 

Mr. Romney cannot carry the southern states. Why?  A couple of things:  RomnyCare is one reason.  It is considered a form of Obamacare.  It has been referred to as ObamaCare Lite.  The second reason… well, let me put it this way:  Do you really expect Southern Baptists to vote for a Mormon?  Hey, it is an honest question based on my experience. I was reared in a Southern Baptist home.  I became Lutheran in my mid-twenties and today I am considered a “recovering Baptist.”

Look, I could tick them all off, but suffice it to say, as a southerner, I am not enthused about any of them and I do not see, hear, or feel, any excitement amongst my fellow southern Americans for any candidate, or would-be candidate, in the current field.

  

Over the weekend, the New York Times suggested “Republicans Are Pursuing a Wider Field for 2012 Race.” (Read the article HERE.)  I beg to disagree with that.  Well, sort of.  It is not a wider field we are looking for.  It is a winning candidate.  We are tired of the same old faces, the same old, “It’s my turn” plea, and the same old ambivalent promises.  We yearn for a fresh face with a strong character, leadership skills, and someone who will cut through the smoke and haze and “tell it like it is!”

With the first GOP debate coming up later this week -- we STILL don’t know who will be on the panel of candidates! This is no way to inspire confidence in neither GOP supporters nor fear in the democrats.  It is a sign of weakness right from the git-go. And THAT is depressing!

Telling it like it is in plain, simple language, even though some of his language is, uh, shall we say, “colorful,” is the reason why Donald Triumph has made such headway in the polls. 

I could add:  “Moderates and RINOS Need Not Apply.” Not this time, anyway.  There is a grassroots movement of conservatives just waiting to throw their considerable support behind a hardcore conservative Republican candidate and the sooner the better.  But where is he/she?  Where?

I really think it is a mistake for qualified GOP candidates to sit out 2012.  The country is in serious trouble.  It will only get worse if Obama is not sent packing and a general house cleaning of the various agencies such as the EPA, the FCC, …  well, heck, ALL of them by a new conservative President with the assistance of a GOP Congress is undertaken on day one of the new presidency.

Another thing:  There is not as much money out here in the hinterlands as there has been in campaign cycles past.  Sure, the money will begin flowing -- AFTER the candidates are announced and the field is set. 

We know the Obama people have the money and they have home field advantage with his incumbency. We are at half time.  The GOP took the first half but they can’t win the game if they only win the first half! Not in the game of politics.

Conservatives are waiting for a candidate they can rally around.  So far that candidate has not stepped forward.  So, we are still waiting, keeping our powder dry, just waiting, and waiting. 

The longer conservatives wait the more certain it becomes that some will simply turn away in disgust and sit out the election in 2012. 

May Providence forgive America for what we did to this country in 2006 and 2008.  We can at least TRY to redeem ourselves in 2012… but … NOT THIS WAY!

 J. D. Longstreet