Merry Christmas

I want to wish all of my readers, both those whom celebrate and those whom don't a joyous and blessed Christmas...filled with warmth, light, love and cheer.

Kid's Cards For Wounded Vets Refused By VA Because they Mention 'G-d' and 'Christmas'

 

Here's a story for you to ponder.

A group of elementary school kids in North Texas thought it would be a wonderful idea to make some handmade Christmas cards for wounded warriors in a local VA hospital at Christmastime. What happened next is a pretty good sign of what Obama's America has become:

"I'm hoping that it might make their day because their family might live far away, and they might not have somebody to celebrate Christmas with and I'd like them to know they've not been forgotten and somebody wanted to say thank you," said fourth grader Gracie Brown.

Gracie and her brother, Luke, put a lot of thought and effort into their Christmas cards.

"It includes ‘Merry Christmas,' and when you open it up, it says 'Thank you for your service' and the American flag," said Luke.

Fifty-two students at Grace Academy in Prosper spent Friday making the cards they planned to hand deliver to bedridden veterans at the VA hospital in Dallas Monday morning.

When Gracie and Luke's mom, Andrea, found out they wouldn't be able to, she was outraged.

"This wasn't the country I grew up in, when you couldn't say ‘Merry Christmas,' you couldn't say ‘God bless you' or reference any scripture," she said.

The cards were the idea of Susan Chapman, a math teacher at Grace Academy. She's married to a veteran and volunteers with the American Legion and other veterans' organizations.

"It really didn't occur to me there would be a problem with distributing Christmas cards," said Chapman.

She didn't find out about the VA's holiday card policy until she called Monday morning to arrange details for the cards' delivery.

"I told him my students made cards, we'd like to bring them down for the veterans," said Chapman. "And he said, 'That's great. We're thrilled to have them, except the only thing is, we can't accept anything that says ‘Merry Christmas' or ‘God bless you' or any scriptural references because of all the red tape.'" [...]

Parents say as disappointing as this experience was for their children, they're more heartbroken for the veterans.

"They couldn't believe the people that these people they wanted to honor weren't going to get the chance to see what they had done," said Andrea.


Personally, as a non-Christian I can't imagine lying in a hospital as a wounded warrior at any time of year and not being warmed inside by getting this sort of thing from children.

I suspect this policy is likely the work of atheist and virulent anti-Christian activist Mikey Weinstein. President Obama's czar in charge of secularizing the military and eliminating all mentions of G-d and religion, period.

Obviously the servant is doing his master's bidding..the Obama's own 'holiday cards' have no mention of Jesus, G-d or even Christianity.



But they do show the White House dogs, in front of an empty building, which actually says a great deal the president didn't intend. And remember, these cards are being sent out at Christmas time ostensibly from a Christian man and his family.

This kind of wholesale rejection of the principles our nation was founded on is going to come with a price, and I only pray that this is reversed before that price becomes heavier than we can bear.

The ObamaCare Xmas Present Obama Plans - Single Payer And A Taxpayer Bailout

Unfortunately, here's a nasty lump of coal for your stocking, courtesy of President Obama and his Democrats.For al the talk about ObamaCare crashing and burning on its own, did you really think our Dear Leader and his friends were going to let that happen just because it's dysfunctional and the American people are finally on to what a plundering of the nation's wealth it is?

Regular readers of these pages will know that I have always said that ObamaCare was merely intended as a gateway to force single payer, government run healthcare on the nation, like it or not. Harry Reid and others have admitted as much. As Dr. Charles Krauthammer explains above, the pathway to single payer was baked into this destructive piece of tyranny from the start, with provisions for a massive, mandated taxpayer bailout if not enough people sign up for the exchanges...exactly what's happening now.

Insurance companies will become government-controlled lackeys, you and your family will be shaken down to pay ultra high rates for rationed, inferior health care and yet another one of those quasi-independent occupations that used to provide Americans with a middle class living will disappear as insurance agents are replaced by ObamaCare navigators.

The president and his team will try to shove this through by executive order if need be, citing massive damage to the insurance industry unless they bail it out. They will, of course, not mention that this is damage they willfully caused.Or that simply revoking ObamaCare would allow the industry to rebuild over time.

One possible prevention is a bill passed in congress that prevents a bailout of the insurance companies in exchange for raising the debt ceiling...if the Republicans unite behind it, a big if. Marco Rubio is pushing for just such a bill right now in the Senate, and provided Boehner and the House go along there might be enough vulnerable Democrats in congress to support it as well.

As an alternative, the House could simply stand up to the president for once, do the job the Constitution mandated them to do and refuse to allocate funds for the bailout.

In any event, you need to contact your members of congress and insist on no bailout for insurance companies. Now.

Once Again, Obama Shows His Contempt For His Fellow Americans

President Barack Obama, in response to some pointed questions directed at White House Spokes person Jay Carny finally went ahead and signed up for ObamaCare. The way he did it is an indication of how much contempt he actually has for middle class Americans he wants to force on to ObamaCare.

First of all, the president already has the best health coverage your money can buy free of charge from military physicians of the White House Medical Unit.

So this is 'symbolic'. And to add insult to injury, he signed up for ObamaCare's Bronze coverage, the cheapest available and the one with the most minimal coverage, which of course he'll never use, even after his term in office is over. And did he sign up using the ridiculous website he spent close to a billion dollars of our money on? Are you kidding?

Obama also did not enroll through the troubled Healthcare.gov or the D.C. exchange’s website. Aides signed him up in person over the weekend, due to the “complicated nature of the President’s case,” the White House aide said. Some of Obama’s personal information is not readily accessible on the government databases used by the website for identity verification.

So, our president signed up for peon level coverage he will never use, exempted his family, didn't even have to struggle with the dysfunctional website and isn't going to have his personal information subject to those 'navigators' he wants the rest of us to entrust our own personal data to who lack even a criminal background check as a prerequisite to be hired.

After all the lies, the misery and lost jobs and income this president is directly responsible for, somehow he got the notion that this 'symbolic gesture' is going to look good and make us forget about that.

Simply astounding.

Forum: What Do You Think The Meaning Of Christmas Is? What Does It Mean To You?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or just daily life. This week's question: What Do You Think The Meaning Of Christmas Is? What Does It Mean To You?

 The Independent Sentinel: For me, Christmas means getting together with family and friends to celebrate the birth and life of Christ. He modeled and exemplified the virtues I strive to attain. It is a time to give generously and wish people well in his name.

For all the people on the left, he was not a socialist. He was a religious leader and, for some of us, he is God. In either case, he was above politics.

Christmas is a National Holiday and should be above politics. It should be fun for everyone. It has historical significance because of who our Founding Fathers were.

There is enough that is secular about it to make it acceptable to everyone if they will allow it. One can have a black Santa, a winter tree...it doesn't matter.

People should be glad for the day with loved ones and have a good time.

 Liberty's Spirit: I have gone through a bit of an evolution about Christmas in my lifetime. Being Jewish we did not celebrate Christmas in any way shape or form growing up. We did not sing carols nor participate in the Christmas programs in school. And yes they had Christmas pageants in our public school. I grew up in the deep South, my family having moved from New York. We moved to Memphis one month after MLK was assassinated and after the Supreme Court had made prayer illegal in public school. Not that anyone in any of my schools paid that Supreme Court ruling much heed.

During my first year in Memphis, my parents informed the school that my sister and I, the only Jewish students in the school, would not be participating in the Christmas pageant. From that moment on, the teachers decided to torment us. We were not allowed to participate in music class and during the school-wide presentation of each class' song, my sister and I were singled out, sent to sit by ourselves away from the other children into the back of the auditorium. The following year they didn't even bother to bring us to the auditorium, we were told to stay in our classrooms, alone, without adult supervision until the school assembly was over. That particular teacher that year, enjoyed reading from the Bible the one line passage about how the Jews killed Christ as well. When I objected, she retorted that I didn't know what I was talking about and I should sit down and be quiet before I got into trouble. The following year, my sister was beaten up by a boy in her class because she refused to kneel. The teacher looked on and did nothing. Simply turned around and walked out of the classroom while my sister was attacked. We were respectively in 3-5th grade during those years.

So what effect did it have on me, this antisemitism around the Christmas holiday? Well it did not predispose me to the season at all. I not only grew to resent the season but those who were religious Christians as well. For every carol sung I felt the sting of hatred that happened to me as a small child. I felt they tried to make me ashamed of my Jewish heritage but infact all they did was reinforce in me the desire and need to be Jewish. But what it also did was to make me feel a stranger in m own nation. The country that my father had fought for during Korea and that I had been taught to love and respect didn't want me. I think that is what I resented the most. That someone out there thought they could try to take from me my rights as an American because I was Jewish.

And now?

Life has a way of changing your perspectives. Not because the sting of the ignorance I faced has faded. Not by any means. But in reality over the years, some of the people who have been the kindest and most endearing to my children have been religious Christians. When you have a child, especially one with special needs, you seek out those who are best for your child. It turns out that the village we created for my sons had people from every walk of life, every religion, every race and most creeds. That I saw all the professionals, work so very hard to enable my sons to have a true future, that to me was more important than holding on to the feeling of the marginalized little girl from so many decades ago. I also learned from these people what it meant to be a real Christian and live those values.

But you know what also changed? I think America as a whole changed too. There is more acceptance of all religions. Its as simple as hearing a Hanukkah greeting on the radio or television, having the children learn Hanukkah music at holiday time in public school, studying in some manner the Holocaust, seeing Jewish politicians, Jewish captains of industry and even when a Jewish Senator ran for Vice President. It's having May designated Jewish history month too. It's an acknowledgement that Jews were, and are, an integral part of the American landscape almost from the very beginning of our nation's history. (As an aside I did read in a history book when I was in 7th grade about Chaim Solomon, a Jewish merchant who gave up his fortune so the American colonies could buy what it need for the Continental army. Little did I know at the time, that I would one day grow up to marry one of his descendants.In truth that little blurb in a history book helped that little Jewish girl living in the deep south who had been so wrongly treated. I remember at the time feeling pride and knowing that noone can take away my American heritage from me, no matter how hard they tried.)

So what does Christmas mean to me now? It is a holiday time when the majority of Americans celebrate a joyful holiday. Decorations are abundant, happiness and hope is in the air. It is a time when the impossible could become possible. It's a reminder of the human spirit and what humanity could accomplish if it actually wanted to.

As far as what do we, a Jewish family do on Christmas Day? Well we do what most Jewish-Americans do....go to the movies and order in Chinese food.

 Bookworm Room : First and foremost, the meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Christ. It makes no difference that Christ was probably born around March. December 25 is his official birthday, and he deserves a big celebration.

Second, Christmas is about bringing light to winter's dark days. It's no coincidence that a 3rd century pope blended the Celtic Yule and the Roman Saturnalia, both celebrated around the winter solstice, into Christmas. The dark days force contemplation, but they also demand celebration.

Third, Christmas is about generosity. At the religious level, Christ grew up to give his life to save mankind, which is the ultimate generous act. At a less rarefied (or, should I say, deified) level, Christmas is about presents. Unfortunately, though, most American parents have realized that their generosity is just the flip side of their children's sense of entitlement. To me, though, there's a more fundamental generosity around Christmas in America: American Christians share this holiday. You don't have to believe in "Christ the Savior" to enjoy the music, the lights, and the festivities. I don't put lights on my house, but I'm free to drive around and admire other people's house. Unlike certain other countries that shall go nameless, America's Christians share their holiday with me, rather than foisting it upon me with social pressure or violence.

I adore Christmas. I love the music, I love the lights, I love the happiness that fills those people who aren't bogged down in the whole commercial aspect, and I love living in a country where I am free not to celebrate Christmas but, instead, can freely celebrate others' joy.

 JoshuaPundit: I don't mind at all admitting that I really like Christmas.

Not for the usual reasons, probably. I don't celebrate it. There's no religious context for me, although I certainly find the faith that others express moving. The thought of slogging through a mall any time of year let alone Christmas sees me gritting my teeth and think 'hmmm, flight,or fight?'

My main thought about the lights and decorations, honestly,  is that they're kinda pretty but I'm  very glad I don't have to put them up, although I confess to being moved by  nativity scenes here and there and some of the wonderful art that this holiday has inspired over the years. I can't imagine anyone with an ounce of musical taste listening to Handel's Messiah or some of the carols or secular songs in the right setting and not being moved. Christmas trees? I'd rather see one live out in the forest myself, but that's me.

Yet the irony is that all of these things contribute to what I most like about Christmas..they are sort of psychic triggers for the spirit that seems to permeate everyone during this time. At least, unless you consciously choose to close yourself off from it.

People are easier, nicer to one another. They give of themselves. They smile more, and treat each other with more courtesy, generosity of spirit and decency.. The cop who ordinarily might ticket you for going 35 in a 30 mile zone to meet his monthly quota will say 'Heck, it's Christmas. Just be more careful, OK?' People go out of their way to do favors for you or help you out  in ways they ordinarily wouldn't because it's, you know, Christmas.

I suppose, in a way, what people are trying to do is to imitate how they view the behavior of Jesus Christ to the extent they can. That's a beautiful thing. And being a Jew, I have to admit that I'm far more comfortable with non-Jews who embrace that spirit as opposed to those who don't.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

 GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD:A celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ the Saviour. "For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever will believeth on Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life" St John 3:16

The Glittering Eye: The basic belief that Christians hold is the transcendental made immanent. "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son". There's no use in trying to rationalize that belief. It's irrational. It's mystical. Christmas is our celebration of that mystery.

That Jesus came among us as weak, helpless, and poor is a reminder to us of just how great that love was.

The basic vocation of Christians is the imitation of Christ. We are to imitate Jesus in humility, in love, in caring, and in healing.

It is at this time of year that I am reminded most forcefully of what a poor excuse for a Christian I am but that the new year is an opportunity for me to try and do better.

May we all see the love and grace of God in our families, friends, and all those we meet this Christmas season and may be do our best to show that love to others.

 Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Israel: Terrorist Attack On Bat Yam Bus

There was an attempted attack on a Dan bus in Bat Yam, Israel today that was only foiled by the vigilance of the passengers and the quick thinking of the bus driver.

Bus 240 was en route from Bat Yam to Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv when alert passengers spotted a black bag sitting by itself on the floor.

In Israel, for obvious reasons, an unattended bag gets noticed.

Quick witted bus driver Michael Yagur asked his twelve passengers if the bag belonged to any of them, and when they said it didn't he immediately stopped the bus at the corner of Mivtza Sinai and Katznelson streets in Bat Yam, ordered the passengers off the bus, and alerted police, who sent bomb experts to the scene.

Meanwhile, one of the passengers had actually looked inside the bag and seen what he described as something that looked like a pressure cooker inside with red wire coming out of it.

Yagur promptly ordered his passengers a safe distance away from the bus...which exploded as the police sappers arrived on the scene.

Yagur "displayed outstanding resourcefulness" in a situation where the timing was key, said Eitan Fiksman, a spokesman for Dan Bus Company, which runs the route. Yagur was the last off the bus and the bomb detonated immediately after he disembarked, Fiksman added.

In characteristic Israeli fashion, Yagur insisted that he was "no hero", just doing his job.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, of course, praised the attack and vowed that more were coming.

Actually, the attack probably originated either from Arabs living in the Arab-occupied part of Judea and Samaria or from Arabs living in Israel.

More as this develops.

Duck Dynasty: A&E And Cracker Barrel Cave

The tyranny meted out by GLAAD and other Christian hating groups appears to be backfiring badly.

After the Robertson family announced publicly that it would be unthinkable for them to continue with the top rated show without their patriarch Phil Robertson, the suits at A&E and Disney, who owns them seem to have had a change of heart...especially after feeling the heat from their viewers, ( a 'boycott A&E' Facebook page received over 1.5 million likes in a matter of a couple of days) and very likely after consulting with their lawyers about what their violation of Robertson's civil and First Amendment rights was likely to cost them in court.

Phil Robertson's suspension is apparently over, and he will return to the show in January.No word on whether a fifth season is in the works, but if it works out contractually and the Robertsons are no longer obligated to A&E, don't be surprised if Duck Dynasty appears on a different outlet.

Knowing how these things work, aside from an apology, I wouldn't be surprised if the Robertsons received a cash somethin' somethin' from A&E/ Disney in order to let bygones be bygones and continue the show.

Apparently the owners of Cracker Barrel felt the heat as well for embracing politically correct tyranny.
Just days after they announced they were removing Duck Dynasty products from their stores, they posted this craven apology:

Dear Cracker Barrel Customer:

When we made the decision to remove and evaluate certain Duck Dynasty items, we offended many of our loyal customers. Our intent was to avoid offending, but that’s just what we've done.

You told us we made a mistake. And, you weren't shy about it. You wrote, you called and you took to social media to express your thoughts and feelings. You flat out told us we were wrong.

We listened.

Today, we are putting all our Duck Dynasty products back in our stores.

And, we apologize for offending you.

We respect all individuals right to express their beliefs. We certainly did not mean to have anyone think different.

We sincerely hope you will continue to be part of our Cracker Barrel family.

Unfortunately for Cracker Barrel, a lot of folks now realize that they can buy the products in question directly from Duck Commander and bypass an outlet like Cracker Barrel entirely.

Embracing tyranny always carries a price.

Crash And Burn - Obama Waives Individual Mandate On ObamaCare

I can't help laughing out loud at this, schadenfreude though it may be.

President Obama has made the 14th illegal change to 'settled law' (please, my sides!), of course without consulting congress.

Our Dear Leader has now decided to suspend the individual mandate provision of ObamaCare for a year or possibly even longer:

The Obama administration will not require the millions of Americans who received health-insurance plan cancellation notices to purchase a new policy next year.

They’re granting those consumers an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, a Department of Heath and Human Services spokeswoman confirmed. The mandate requires everyone to have health insurance or face a tax penalty, the greater of $95 or 1 percent of income in 2014.

The administration will also allow those consumers to sign up for catastrophic coverage. Those bare-bones plans are available to people who are under 30 or qualify for a “hardship exemption.”

But since there are now no fines to pay, why would anyone bother to buy catastrophic insurance..since they can just purchase it when they have that car accident or find out they've contracted a disease? And without the mandate (an unconstitutional tax) of course, there's no way to pay for ObamaCare anyway except more government spending, and quite possibly a tax payer bail out.So much for another lie we were told, about how ObamaCare was going to lower the deficit.Remember that one?

Let's look back at how this progressed. First, President Obama and his team as well as a number of Democrat members of congress lied to the entire nation knowingly about how people who were satisfied with their current healthcare would be able to keep it.

Meanwhile, the president was handing out waivers to the politically connected and to government bureaucrats at state and city levels. And when major corporations voiced discomfort over what ObamaCare was going to do to their bottom lines, the president illegally changed the law to postpone the employer mandate until after the 2014 midterms.

Then, when the lie became became apparent about Americans being able to keep their policies if they wanted to and people's policies began being canceled by the busload, we were told that by the president and his team that ObamaCare was a great bargain with great, affordable coverage. And our Dear Leader told us (in the midst of a ludicrously self-serving non-apology) that all he was doing was trying to protect us from 'bad apple insurance companies' with lousy, inadequate policies. You see, we were all just too stupid to realize how bad those policies we liked were and what an amazing boon our Dear Leader was giving us.

Congress and their staffers didn't share that opinion and screamed bloody murder, so the president allowed a change in the law again and let them have a 70% subsidy to cover their precious behinds.Oh, and President Obama? He likes his healthcare just fine thank you. And he's going to keep it. He's yet to sign up for ObamaCare, and neither has his family. That's for, you known, his inferiors.

As people realized what lousy coverage ObamaCare actually was going to offer them at as much as ten times what they were paying before, and as even more policies got canceled, President Obama changed things again, saying that he would allow those awful insurance companies to issue those rotten policies the peasants loved so much, but without changing thew law, leaving those companies open to lawsuits and litigation if he changed his mind again!

Needless to say, they weren't anxious to fall into that trap. Aside from the fact that the policies no longer existed because of the new law, and actuarial rates had already been set for 2014. So that even if the companies wanted to bring the new policies back, it would have cost them millions of dollars in administrative costs on top of the millions they had already spent tooling up for the restrictions imposed on them by ObamaCare over the last three years and exposed them to serious liability and financial loss.

Meanwhile, the big ObamaCare roll out turned out to be one of the biggest fiascoes in American History. At a cost of almost a billion dollars and with three years to put it together, the company the company this president gave a no bid contract to - with of course, an Obama donor and an old crony of the First Lady at the wheel - put together a garbage website that still lacks the capability of even allowing people to actually buy the overpriced garbage coverage ObamaCare is selling. All they can do, provided they get lucky and the site is actually up is to 'register', inputting all their personal data to a site with totally inadequate security provisions and able to be accessed by 'navigators' who aren't even given a criminal background check before they're hired. And with good reason, because a lot of them come straight from ACORN, where fraud was a game everyone could play.

So now, having destroyed millions of people's insurance coverage, created havoc in the industry, cost people their jobs and the cutting of their hours to comply with ObamaCare's insane diktats and wasted literally billions of taxpayer dollars, our Dear Leader has now decided he'll allow people to buy a bare-bones catastrophic plan instead. While destroying any incentive for them to do so even if they wanted to, because these plans aren't going to be able to be created, assessed by actuaries for risk, written up, billed correctly and made available for purchase on a website that still doesn't work in the remaining 11 days of 2013.

And as Avik Roy notes, the catastrophic plans the president is allowing are hardly better than no coverage at all.

Thanks to this president, far less people have insurance coverage today then did before he slithered into the Oval Office.

Like the coward he is, the president announced this at a rare news conference. On a Friday afternoon, of course. During which the Obama website went down . Again.

Ya Basta. Enough.

If President Obama actually worked for a living as any kind of executive for a private company or even a non-profit, he would have been fired a long time ago for sheer incompetence and possibly imprisoned for criminal fraud.If he was a realtor, a stockbroker, a doctor or a lawyer, he would have been disbarred or had his license to practice yanked ages ago. And if he were a military officer who commanded an operation with this level of ineptness and sheer dishonesty, he would have been cashiered and tossed out of the service on his rear end and possibly even do some stockade or brig time.

And this is just one of his colossal failures.

We don't put presidents in jail, and that's both logical and proper. But henceforth, I am not going to take seriously anyone whom suggests that this president shouldn't be impeached. Nor will I take seriously from now on anyone who says that impeachment isn't richly deserved and warranted, or that it would not be the best course for the country.

While the political circumstances don't allow for it just yet, they very well may soon, provided the Republican Party doesn't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again. In fact, it would restore a considerable amount of my respect for the Democrats if they put country ahead of party and made this a bipartisan effort, unlikely though that may be.

It's high time we sent President Barack Hussein Obama packing. In fact, it's long past time we did so.

The Council Has Spoken! This Weeks' Watcher's Council Results

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and another Watcher's Council match up is engraved in the vast halls of cyberspace!




The winner this week, The Right Planet's excellent I Don't Believe In Defeat is aptly named,because it concerns the mindset and the tactics used in times of conflict. Here's a slice:

A little while back I was on Twitter and started to express my frustration with something I’ve seen too much over my lifetime; and it’s only gotten worse, in my opinion. I’m referring to what I would call a “spirit of defeatism.”

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve listened to people say they believe the whole game is rigged, so to speak. The “man” is in total control and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. In the end, according to the defeatists, we’re just cogs in a giant machine being controlled by mysterious dark forces that we have no control over; but they have total control over us, as the story goes; we are simply helpless victims who are powerless to do anything about it: “It’s just how it is.”

This sort of defeatism has never sat well with me, because at the end of the day–even if it were all true, and it may be, for all I know–it’s an excuse to do absolutely nothing about anything. Why should one waste any energy trying to change something for the better that cannot be changed?

But I can’t help, at times, to feel the frustration, anger, and even downright demoralization, of living in a world where so much evil does exist. I always agreed with Ephesians 6:10 in the Bible: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

I don’t believe in defeat, even though defeat may be a part of life, even our own–which brings me to the ancient military philosopher Sun Tzu and his view of defeat. Years ago I read the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu. The book left a big impression on me. It is not a lengthy work. One might argue it’s not really a book per se.

Although Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War, it really is a collection of maxims from many sources throughout history that Sun Tzu collected and organized, along with his own maxims on war. I quickly discovered it’s not a book you read just once and put down; it’s really a reference you return to over and over again. People refer to the Bible regularly as a reference, and often see something new in it each time they read it. Sun Tzu’s treatise is much the same way; it could be thought of as the bible on warfare.

One day, not too long ago, following a day of frustration with certain individuals who I would say are seriously afflicted with the cancer of defeatism, I got on Twitter and sent out the following Tweet:

Brent Parrish ® ‏ @therightplanet1

Sun Tzu did not believe in DEFEAT. He just changed tactics when confronted w/ a superior or inferior force. ONE WORD: VICTORY! #USA

Thomas Huynh @SunTzuShine Follow

@therightplanet1 You got that right

What’s interesting is who replied. It wasn’t just anybody; it was Thomas Huyne. At first, I wasn’t sure who he was, but for some reason his name and face just rang a bell. And then I thought about it a little more and wondered if I had seen him interviewed somewhere, or if it was his name that I recognized. The only thing I could think of was a rare documentary on Sun Tzu and The Art of War I saw on the History Channel a while back. So I Tweeted Mr. Huyne and asked him if he had anything to do with the documentary. Huyne responded by saying, yes, indeed, he was one of the primary consultants for the History Channel’s documentary on The Art of War.

Much more at the link

In our Non-Council category,the winner was Council alumni David Gerstmanfrom Le.gal In.sur.rec.tion with Al Qaeda is on the Run ...to Everywhere submitted by Liberty's Spirit.

David took on President Obama's famous statement about al-Qaeda being 'on the run' and gave it a pretty vicious going over..a great read.

OK, here are this weeks' full results. Both The Razor and The Mellow Jihadi were unable to vote this week, but neither was subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 2/3 votes! The Right Planet – I Don't Believe In Defeat


• Second place with 3 1/3 votes -Joshuapundit-"American Betrayal".. A Review


• Third place with 1 2/3 votes –The Noisy Room – Inside the Empire of Horror


• Fourth place with 1 vote – Bookworm Room – To sell their ideas, conservatives must first re-train Americans to recognize their humanity


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Colossus of Rhodey – "Horrible person"


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Nice Deb – ObamaCare Whistleblower: I was Told IRS Harassment 'Came From The Top' (Audio)


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Rhymes With Right – A Dozen Candidates In Congressional District 36 GOP Primary


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! - Snowden Revisited: Hero or Zero Now?


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Simply Jews – Obama's handshake with Raul Castro: the alternatives


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Mellow Jihadi – Fargham, Iranian space monkey (& friends)


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Political Commentator – The Ghost of Obamacare Yet to Come: UK healthcare in shambles!

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 votes! – David Gerstman/Le.gal In.sur.rec.tion – Al Qaeda is on the Run ...to Everywhere submitted by Liberty's Spirit


• Second place with 1 2/3 votes – Martin In The Margins – Understanding the new Christian anti-Zionism: Part 1 submitted by Simply Jews


• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Bob Tisdale/Watts Up With That? – Open Letter to the Executive Producers of YEARS of LIVING DANGEROUSLY submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Phyllis Chessler –Beneath the burqa -- a bruised and badly beaten teenager submitted by The Razor


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -David P. Goldman/ PJ Media – It’s About the Settlements, Stupid submitted by Joshuapundit


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -David J. Shestokas – Natural Law and the Legitimate Authority of the United States submitted by The Right Planet


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -War Is Boring – ‘Ender’s Game’ and Maneuver Warfare submitted by Watcher


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes - House Of Marathon – Courting a Nemesis Out of Necessity: An Israeli-Saudi Alliance submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes -David Bernstein/Volokh COnspiracy – Is Refusing to Provide Commercial Services for a Circumcision Discrimination against Jews? submitted by Rhymes with Right


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes -National Journal- Politics trumped policy, truth for Obama's reelect submitted by Bookworm Room


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -Allen West –Maybe we need Michelle "Death Stare" Obama to negotiate with Iran submitted by The Noisy Room


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -Mises Institute -Starvation and Military Keynesianism: Lessons from Nazi Germany submitted by The Political Commentator


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -Althouse –"National Security Agency officials are considering a controversial amnesty that would return Edward Snowden to the United States..." submitted by The Mellow Jihadi


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -Cato @ Liberty – The Constitution Still Applies on College Campuses submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -Truth Revolt -Unions Paid MSNBC's Schultz $177,000 in 2012, $75,000 in 2013 submitted by Nice Deb

See you next week! Don't forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week's Watcher's Forum, as the Council and their invited guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and weigh in...don't you dare miss it. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

The Duck Dynasty Witchhunt

I'm not a TV fan, but there's a TV show out there I haven't seen on A&E called 'Duck's Dynasty', that, from what I've heard, is a about a family in Louisiana who openly espouses Christianity and what we could call traditional American values on the air.

The show is a huge, off the charts success in the ratings.

Apparently there's a huge controversy now going on because of an interview the family patriarch, 67-year-old Phil Robertson did with GQ magazine.

Let me underline that...the remarks made were not made on the air, but in a magazine interview several weeks ago.

A lot of the interview, of course, concerned the family's Christian beliefs and Phil's own wild past before he became a Christian. As you can imagine, he sees Duck Dynasty as something of a push back against a lot of what constitutes popular culture today.

“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” he says. “Sin becomes fine.”

When asked what he considered sinful, he replied:

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

Later in the interview, he made a point of saying that he's not trying to be judgmental, but that these are merely his views as he sees them, saying, " “We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

That sentiment on his part didn't change things one iota. His equating homosexuality with sin, just as the Bible he believes in says it is was all it took.

Because of those remarks, he's been indefinitely suspended from the A7E television show.

My friend Terresa Monroe-Hamilton over at The Noisy Room had an excellent take on this:

For telling the truth and stating what he personally believed, A&E put him on indefinite hiatus. They fired him. I would be very surprised if the family did not tell A&E to stuff it. They managed to take THE most popular rated show ever and scuttle it. Phil had told A&E earlier that if they insisted he remove God or guns from his show, they were through [...]

Drudge headlined this whole shameful turn of events on his site this morning with: “Roasted ‘Duck’ – Leader Fired After Gay Rant. The title is misleading as I don’t consider Phil’s statement as a rant, but a confirmation of his beliefs and faith. He has a right according to the First Amendment to state his views. And while A&E has a right to run their channel as they see fit, they obviously care more about the rights of Gays than they do of Christians and they fear the backlash from the LGBT community and their supporters. They don’t give a crap about Constitutional rights and evidently they are willing to throw away millions in revenue to placate a certain segment of society. That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? A&E chose sides with GLAAD, took a stand and walked off a cliff. It’s okay for militant Gays to attack Christians and hunt them down, but when a Christian stands up and says what he believes… well, that’s hate don’t ya know.

She's entirely correct.GLAAD is a far Left group that despises Christians, and was conspicuously noticeable by its absence after Alec Baldwin's anti-gay slurs, which were a whole lot worse than anything Phil Robertson had to say.

Greg over at Rhymes With Right makes the point that firing Phil Robertson is also a blatant violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act:

"It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer - to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;"

A&E has made a public announcement to the effect that it has suspended Phil Robertson from his employment on the series Duck Dynasty for having expressed his religious beliefs outside of the workplace. This action certainly "otherwise discrimnate[s] against an individual with respect to his. . . terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individuals. . . religion". Will the Obama Administration take action to uphold the civil rights of Phil Robertson in the face of this flagrant and public violation of his rights under the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Or will this be one more example of the administration picking and choosing what laws it enforces based upon whether upholding and enforcing the law benefits those constituencies that support Obama and his political agenda?

Oh,I think we know the answer to that one. There's far too much donor money involved.Would the president and his attorney general be going public and unleashing the Justice Department on A%E if Phil Robertson were a gay man fired for bashing Christianity and extolling the virtues of homosexuality in a private interview ? Would three quarters of the media be going absolutely berserk? I think we know the answer to that one too.

To the people out for Phil Robertson's scalp, this is not a matter of civil rights per se, but a matter of 'our rights trump yours, just because'.

The truth of the matter is that the show and the Robertson family have been 'sitting ducks' for quite some time.They champion everything the Left has been trying to destroy for years - America's traditional culture of Judeo-Christian faith, the Second Amendment, self-reliance, traditional marriage and the nuclear family.

The show's financial success kept the wolves at bay for awhile, but A&E (along with Disney, who owns A&E) have made a business decision to listen to their voices and violate Phil Robertson's First Amendment rights

How that plays out based on the blowback they get from it will be another business decision they'll have to make.

U.S. Army Seeks To Purge Lee, Jackson And Other Confederate Generals From Facilities

 

Various U.S. Army facilities are discussing whether to purge all mentions, statues, portraits and other memorials that mention former Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee, Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson, James Longstreet, Jeb Stuart or other American military figures who fought on the Southern side of the War Between the States.

I would bet my dollar to your dime that this came as a diktat from the White House:

The U.S. Army War College, which molds future field generals, has begun discussing whether it should remove its portraits of Confederate generals — including those of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

Nestled in rural Pennsylvania on the 500-acre Carlisle Barracks, the war college is conducting an inventory of all its paintings and photographs with an eye for rehanging them in historical themes to tell a particular Army story.

During the inventory, an unidentified official (emphasis mine) — not the commandant, Maj. Gen. Anthony A. Cucolo III — asked the administration why the college honors two generals who fought against the United States, college spokeswoman Carol Kerr said.

“I do know at least one person has questioned why we would honor individuals who were enemies of the United States Army,” Ms. Kerr said.

“This person was struck by the fact we have quite a few Confederate images,” she said, adding that the portraits were rehung on a third-floor hallway. “[Lee] was certainly not good for the nation. This is the guy we faced on the battlefield whose entire purpose in life was to destroy the nation as it was then conceived. … This is all part of an informed discussion.”

It is the kind of historical cleansing that could spark an Army-wide debate: Lee’s portrait adorns the walls of other military installations and government buildings.

It seems fairly obvious that some apparatchnik from the Obama Administration raised a fuss, so the College simply moved the portraits out of the line of fire, so to speak.

Well, let's have that 'informed discussion', shall we?

There are quite a few military facilities,statues and portraits honoring military figures who fought for the South, including at West Point.

In the first place, most of them had seen honorable service under the stars and stripes, and most had been decorated for conspicuous gallantry in conflicts like the Mexican War. And however you want to manipulate the history, the facts are that most of these men made an anguished decision to resign their U.S. Army commissions and fight to defend their homes only after the Lincoln administration had called for volunteers to invade the southern states. In fact, most of the southern states including Lee's home state of Virginia held out against secession until that decision was made.

And that decision was solely the choice of the Radical Republicans, who were Lincoln's sole political base as a newly elected minority president. While there were also a number of hard liners south of the Mason-Dixon line, there was little attempt by Lincoln's government to attempt to allow cooler heads to prevail and to seek a political settlement that would have avoided the war and preserved the Union while dealing intelligently with the slavery question.

Lee, in fact, was offered command of the Union forces in 1861 at the outbreak of war and declined it for that very reason. He knew what leading a Union army into the South was going to lead to, and so did many others in his position.

Secondly, this politically correct 'purging' destroys and dishonors the spirit of reconciliation that Lee, General Sherman, General Grant and President Lincoln himself championed at the end of a brutal, bloody war, the most costly in our history. It opens wounds long healed to no purpose.

And finally, it deliberately demeans some of the most gifted and accomplished soldiers in American history. They fought with bravery and distinction against huge odds and students of military history still study their battles and campaigns as brilliant examples of tactics. However one feels about their cause, their accomplishments on the battlefield cannot be denied without indulging in an Orwellian makeover of history.

In an army that has banished any mention or study of jihad and radicalized Islam from its training manuals, purging the historical examples of what men like Stonewall Jackson achieved is not a 'reasonable accommodation' to political correctness but a massive error and a disgrace.

If nothing else, our warriors may very well need Jackson and Lee's example in the future.Mark my woirds on that.

Watcher's Council Nominations -Snow In The Holy Land Edition

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

This week, AskMarion, The Optimistic Conservative, Maggie's Notebook and The Pirate's Cove took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some excellent articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something of yours to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning.

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And it's all good right?

So, let's see what we have this week....

Council Submissions

• Liberty's Spirit – 6-Year-old Suspended for Kissing a Girl: Too Much, Yet Not Enough


• The Noisy Room – Inside the Empire of Horror


• The Political Commentator – The Ghost of Obamacare Yet to Come: UK healthcare in shambles!


• The Razor – The Keys to the Kingdom Should Not Be Available to the Peasants


• Simply Jews – Obama's handshake with Raul Castro: the alternatives


• Joshuapundit-"American Betrayal".. A Review


• The Mellow Jihadi – Fargham, Iranian space monkey (& friends)


• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – War Weary Myth


• The Colossus of Rhodey – "Horrible person"


• Rhymes With Right – A Dozen Candidates In Congressional District 36 GOP Primary


• Nice Deb – ObamaCare Whistleblower: I was Told IRS Harassment 'Came From The Top' (Audio)


• The Glittering Eye -The Reality Sinks In


• The Right Planet – I Don't Believe In Defeat


• VA Right! - Snowden Revisited: Hero or Zero Now?


• Bookworm Room – To sell their ideas, conservatives must first re-train Americans to recognize their humanity

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion - Still Think There Is No War on Christmas-WoC 2013
  


• Maggie's Notebook - IRS Targeting Now ‘Reverse-Engineered’ to Isolate, Shut Down TEA Party: Clintons See Limitless Future


• The Optimistic Conservative - Biofuels for defense: Cronyism and the banality of evil


• The Pirate's Cove - The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug – My Take

Non-Council Submissions

• David Gerstman/Le.gal In.sur.rec.tion – Al Qaeda is on the Run ...to Everywhere submitted by Liberty's Spirit


• Allen West –Maybe we need Michelle "Death Stare" Obama to negotiate with Iran submitted by The Noisy Room


• Mises Institute -Starvation and Military Keynesianism: Lessons from Nazi Germany submitted by The Political Commentator


• Phyllis Chessler –Beneath the burqa -- a bruised and badly beaten teenager submitted by The Razor


• Martin In The Margins – Understanding the new Christian anti-Zionism: Part 1 submitted by Simply Jews


• David P. Goldman/ PJ Media – It’s About the Settlements, Stupid submitted by Joshuapundit


• Althouse –"National Security Agency officials are considering a controversial amnesty that would return Edward Snowden to the United States..." submitted by The Mellow Jihadi


• House Of Marathon – Courting a Nemesis Out of Necessity: An Israeli-Saudi Alliance submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Cato @ Liberty – The Constitution Still Applies on College Campuses submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey


• David Bernstein/Volokh COnspiracy – Is Refusing to Provide Commercial Services for a Circumcision Discrimination against Jews? submitted by Rhymes with Right


• Truth Revolt -Unions Paid MSNBC's Schultz $177,000 in 2012, $75,000 in 2013 submitted by Nice Deb


• Bob Tisdale/Watts Up With That? – Open Letter to the Executive Producers of YEARS of LIVING DANGEROUSLY submitted by The Glittering Eye


• David J. Shestokas – Natural Law and the Legitimate Authority of the United States submitted by The Right Planet


• FOX News – Tax-exempt academic group's boycott of Israel draws firesubmitted by VA Right!


• National Journal- Politics trumped policy, truth for Obama's reelect submitted by Bookworm Room


• Camille Paglia – It’s a Man’s World, and It Always Will Be submitted by The Watcher


• War Is Boring – ‘Ender’s Game’ and Maneuver Warfare submitted by Watcher

Enjoy! And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

"American Betrayal" ... A Review

 

There has been a very important book written recently that has not gotten anywhere near the press or attention it deserves, "American Betrayal - The Secret Assault On Our Nation's Character" by Diana West.

It is a fascinating, well written and controversial book that has been attacked, oddly enough, by a number of Red Diaper babies turned conservatives like Ron Radosh and David Horowitz...who were both contemporaries and pals back in the good old days of the Communist Youth League summer camps, when they too were apologists for Stalin.

Given that these men, particularly Horowitz, are known for being quite frank about their own past and being resolutely anti-communist, that's somewhat puzzling, but the reason becomes evident when you examine what this book is actually about.

David Horowitz, whom I know very slightly and have tremendous respect for originally had one of his writers post a positive review of the book. He then yanked it, (obviously after Radosh go hold of him) on the strange grounds that his writer employee 'didn't have the understanding of West's source material' even though West included a fairly complete set of notes, references and sources. David Horowitz then posted on FrontPage what amounted to a 7,000 word screed by Radosh entitled “McCarthy on Steroids”, which was referenced in a few other attacks.Horowitz,in a revealing aside said "she shouldn't have written the book". Why? Surely it can't be simply because he and Radosh disagreed with her on a few things, or because some of the material had been written about elsewhere. No, there's something deeper here.

After all, if you read something like "American Betrayal" and had to reflect that you were very much part of the dark side back then...

Diana West responded with a three part rebuttal carried on Breitbart that I will let the reader peruse and make up his or her own mind on. Horowitz replied, you can easily find his responses online and this has evolved into something of a back and forth.

Frankly, I'm more interested in telling you what I thought of the book. Full disclosure...I have enjoyed Diana West's writing for quite some time and this is a great piece of work, but as you'll see, I too have my disagreements with her.


"American Betrayal", briefly, is a meticulously sourced history of the Soviet penetration into American life and culture and especially records the influence Soviet sympathizers and actual Soviet agents enjoyed in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Even more importantly to my mind is the parallel she draws between the pro-Soviet influence in that time and the influence of Islamists in the Bush and the Obama Administrations today, something I've written about frequently on these pages and which I think is a great deal more dangerous than we realize.

The Soviet's use of Gramscian warfare - named after Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, one of Lenin's favorite communist strategists - started with the establishment of the Comintern in 1919, a Soviet institution designed to bring every communist party worldwide under Soviet control and domination for the purpose of exporting the Bolshevik revolution to the West. Gramsci's strategy, which Lenin and the Comintern adopted, was to do this covertly by penetrating and corrupting a nation's cultural, educational, political and labor institutions from within and dominating them, while marshaling the members under 'party discipline', which meant essentially following Soviet orders without question.

Anyone seeking to know more about this then we once did now has the tools of the Venona papers, an Army intelligence project started to intercept and translate Soviet cables to their agents here in America and the records of the Soviet archives, which scholars enjoyed brief access to during Boris Yeltsin's tenure as Russian president.

West documents how the Roosevelt administration was totally penetrated. One of FDR's first moves as president in 1933 was to pioneer the formal recognition of the USSR in spite of the show trials, the terror famines and the ruthless nature of Stalin's regime.

Soviet agents like Alger Hiss, Owen Latimore, Harry Dexter White, virtually the entire staff of the influential wartime Office of War Information (OWI) and a number of others tended to occupy key advisory posts behind the scenes rather than high profile spots in the administration, with one possible exception...FDR's 'co-president' Harry Hopkins, who controlled much of the access to the president especially in later years and was at best a Soviet sympathizer, at worst a possible Soviet agent.

Especially of interest is how Hopkins, who was in charge of U.S. aid to our allies in WWII via the Lend-Lease program put the Soviets at the top priority for U.S. arms shipments, even ahead of the British or our own forces. The Russians, who were happily trading with Hitler until the Nazi invasion of June 1940 received the equivalent over $300 billion in military aid from the U.S. in today's money, much of which they later used to occupy eastern Europe. West presents evidence that this aid may even have included nuclear materials, although other sources suggest that the evidence is mixed.

When at one point J.Edgar Hoover told Hopkins that an FBI investigation had discovered that Russian diplomat (and Comintern agent) Vasily Zarubin had made a payment to U.S. Communist Party official Steve Nelson to help place espionage agents ‘in industries engaged in secret war production', Hopkins actually warned the Soviet embassy in Washington DC about the investigation and the FBI's knowledge of the relationship between Nelson and Zarubin, according to documents from the KGB archives smuggled out by [former Soviet intelligence officer Vasili Mitrokhin.Hoover never trusted Hopkins again.

One of the chief contentions Diana West makes is that the entire Second Front and the D-Day invasion in Normandy was essentially a betrayal of American interests by communist agents and sympathizers in DC designed to allow the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. As evidence for this, she cites the winding down of our front in Italy, Allied insistence on 'unconditional surrender' and our failure to utilize supposed anti-Nazi movements in Germany led by figures like the Abwehr's head Admiral Canaris.

That, to me, is one of the places where the book delves into sheer speculation. To my mind, when you look at things like the topography of Northern Italy and the geopolitics of the time, using Italy as a springboard to Central and Eastern Europe poses a number of problems. Italy's Alpine areas provide an easily defensible redoubt for troops trying to halt a forcing of the passes into central Europe against hostile troops, as everyone from the Romans on has found out. With modern artillery and machine guns controlling the high ground, it's a place where a relatively small force can bottle up a much larger army and inflict heavy losses for quite some time...especially with air cover. And if, as West suggests, it brought German bases closer for Allied bombers, it also did the reverse for the Luftwaffe, as well as putting our troops within fighter plane range. Forcing a passage through Northern Italy would have been no cakewalk,and might very well have been a stalemate that would have prolonged the war.An amphibious landing from Italy on the Dalmatian Coast presents similar problems because of the rugged mountainous terrain.

For all the carnage of D-Day, once the initial breakthrough was made, the relatively flat topography of France and the long border with Germany made the outcome of WWII only a matter of time.

As for the anti-Nazi groups in Germany, frankly, they were mainly concerned with saving their own hides. For the most part, they were fine with Hitler's excesses as long as he was winning the war, but the reverses of 1944 got some of them thinking. The essential idea was that the U.S. and Britain would make a separate peace with the Germans after they deposed Hitler, leaving the Wehrmacht intact and able to concentrate exclusively on the Soviets. The problem with this is that the anti-Hitler groups never made any particular headway and were a dicey proposition at best, not to mention how American public opinion would have dealt with us making a separate peace with the folks who were in charge of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belson.

Another thing Ms. West doesn't consider adequately, in my opinion, is the actual nature of the relationship between Stalin and the allies.

In spite of their status as 'allies', Stalin was an extremely petulant and unreliable partner. The allies never really knew whether Stalin was going to be the one to make a separate peace with Germany as Russia did in WWI, with tremendous implications for a longer war and much greater allied casualties. Yes, there are historians who speculate that Stalin could not have done that, but a lot of experts said the same thing about Russia in 1915, and there's no telling exactly what someone like Stalin might have done.According to Winston Churchill's history of WWII, Stalin actually hinted at doing just that on several occasions. Also, at that time, the allies fully expected to have to invade the Japanese home islands after Germany's defeat.There was no expectation of a Japanese surrender. The estimates of allied casualties in that invasion were at least one million, based on battles like Saipan and Okinawa, where suicide attacks were common.Also, there were still undefeated Japanese armies in places like Manchuria, Korea and Vietnam.I respectfully disagree with Diana West that given what was known at the time, these were a false narrative or negligible concerns.

While Stalin received a lot of things he should never have gotten and a lot of it was due to communist influence and/or sympathizers in the White House, much of it was probably a bribe to keep the USSR in the war to help defeat the Wehrmacht, and with the expectation the Soviets would declare war on Japan after the victory over the Nazis. Should the allies, and the U.S. in particular have kept Stalin on a much tighter rein and insisted that the Soviets declare war on Japan a lot earlier than a few days before the war ended? Should Roosevelt have been a lot more suspicious of Stalin's intentions? Undoubtedly.

But then again, you also have to look at the total picture. Unlike another wartime president I'm familiar with who was faced with a devastating attack on our country, FDR had no problem identifying who our enemies were,and that they were evil. After Pearl Harbor, he didn't tell the American people that Bushido was a creed of peace, that it was only a few fanatics who had attacked us and that we were in a great War on Aviation. Instead, he inspired the nation as a leader and commander in chief, something none of the men whom ran against him as president could have done as well.

He secured our borders, deported or interned anyone who looked, talked or smelled like a security risk, put the FBI to work rounding up spies and saboteurs and put the country's industry on a war footing.He didn't handcuff our military in the name of politically correct 'hearts and minds'. He admitted no outcome except total victory,even as he called on Americans for the sacrifice it would take. You can disagree with a number of his wartime actions and policies. But that was no small accomplishment.

Which leads me to another thing that I think needs to be considered.

By 1944, FDR was an extremely sick man who was easily maneuvered by Harry Hopkins and his top State Department adviser Alger Hiss.It was Hiss, a Soviet agent, who was Roosevelt's main adviser at Yalta. Even FDR's most laudatory biographers agree that during this period, he had severely diminished energy, mental and physical capacity. One can either take the position that FDR was a Soviet dupe or that he was simply not in a sufficient mental or physical position to deal with Stalin and his willing, treasonous helpers in the Roosevelt Administration at that point. I personally think the second scenario is more accurate, and one of the harshest critics of West's book, the aforementioned Ron Radosh supports that unintentionally by relating a statement FDR reportedly made to Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, his unofficial adviser on labor matters two weeks before his death when he said, “Averell [Harriman] is right: we can’t do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of his promises he made at Yalta.” If in fact he said this, the implication that FDR had belatedly woken up to how he had been misled is clear. But by then, it was too late,and Roosevelt never even took the obvious step of briefing Harry Truman on any thoughts or conclusions he had along those lines before his death, let alone telling Truman about the A-bomb.

The truth may very well have elements of both scenarios.These things are seldom all of a piece. Certainly FDR's active interference with Rep.Martin Dies' and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) investigations of communist penetration in our government, FDR's continued reliance on Harry Hopkins as 'co-president', his continued acceptance of obvious Soviet sympathizers as advisers and his apparent belief in a policy of convergence, that the Soviets would gain some territory at the Wests' expense and become more democratic while the West would lose some territory and become more socialistic suggest that in some respects at least, FDR was perhaps a lot more pro-Soviet than most Americans realize.

That in itself is one of the more controversial elements of "American Betrayal".And it's worth reading.

Another extremely valuable part of "American Betrayal" documents the media's role in whitewashing the evil of the Soviet Empire,beginning in Chapter 6:

Who stole our history?

Because stolen it was, diverted from its natural course and re- channeled to the point where the beaten path became a shortcut from reality to deception. This, I believe, is confirmed every single time one of those gigantic corrections of the false record, flagged by scholars shouting “Eu- reka!,” fails to enter our general histories, fails to capture popular imagination, fails to become part of our popular understanding, and fails to occur to us as a mainstream thought. Like a skiff on a dry creek bed, these corrections go nowhere.

West chronicles, among other things, the failure of western media to report on Stalin's show rials, the murder of millions of Russians in the name of collectivization, or the Soviet induced famine in the Ukraine,where an estimated 5 million people may have perished after all seed grain, livestock and literally anything the Soviets could carted away that was edible was removed and the the borders were closed.

She tells the full story of how the Katyn Forest Massacre of 22,000 Polish nationals in 1940 by the Soviets after their invasion of Eastern Poland was covered up by western media and the Roosevelt Administration,who swallowed Stalin's lies about the Nazi's having done it even after Stalin refused a request by the Polish government in exile to have the International Red Cross examine the site of the mass graves, which were found by the Wehrmacht in 1943 during the invasion of Russia.

And most shamefully, she reveals how something like two million Russian and East European prisoners who begged for asylum in the West were forcibly repatriated to Stalin's clutches after the German surrender and ended up in Soviet gulags, where most of them perished under unimaginable conditions.

And amazingly, after their complicity with Hitler, after their policy of state genocide and mass murder, the Soviets were allowed to participate in the Nuremberg war crimes trials - with their chief judge being the same person whom had overseen Stalin's show trials.

The forced repatriations, the gifting of Eastern Europe to Stalin and allowing Stalin's pet 'judge' to participate in the Nuremberg trials all happened (along with many other questionable actions) on President Harry Truman's watch. Imagine,if you will,how the post war history would have been different if Truman had been more cautious about the postwar dismantling of our military, had given Stalin a polite but firm ultimatum to get his troops out of Eastern Europe and Northern Korea when we had the bomb and they didn't, and had cut the Soviet Union out of participating in the UN. For all of the good the Marshall Plan accomplished, in the end Truman's appeasement of Stalin still doomed millions to communist slavery for decades and gave the Soviets the time they needed - with help from folks like the Rosenbergs - to develop the atomic bomb. None of it need have happened.But it happened, in part because the Truman administration was riddled with the same Roosevelt holdovers like Alger Hiss who were either outright Soviet Agents or Soviet sympathizers. The rot went so deep that according to a 1949 FBI memo, General Omar Bradley,then Army chief of staff, instructed the Army personnel running the Venona Project to keep it secret and not to reveal it to any members of the Truman Administration, not even the president.

West's argument in the book - and hence the title - is that this appeasement of what President Reagan aptly called the Evil Empire affected our national character adversely. Certainly, it led to the enslavement of Eastern Europe and decades of Cold War with a huge expense in treasure and American lives. There's a great deal of truth in that, and FDR's 1933 recognition of the Soviet Union helped the process along immensely. But it's also worth remembering that even prior to 1933, the Soviets were busy at work infiltrating American institutions. Men like Harry Hopkins, Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss did not suddenly materialize out of thin air:

“The fact is, the implications of normalizing relations with the thoroughly abnormal USSR didn’t just reward and legitimize a regime of rampantly metastasizing criminality. Because the Communist regime was so openly and ideologically dedicated to our destruction, the act of recognition defied reason and the demands of self-preservation. Recognition and all that came with it, including alliance, would soon become the enemy of reason and self-preservation. In this way, as Dennis J. Dunn points out, we see a double standard in American foreign policy evolve, and, I would add, in American thinking more generally. It was here that we abandoned the lodestars of good and evil, the clarity of black and white. Closing our eyes, we dove head first into a weltering morass of exquisitely enervating and agonizing grays.”

And documenting that is one of the most important aspects of West's book. While one can disagree with some of her conclusions about WWII, there's no mistaking that she documents quite well how the Soviets used Gramscian warfare against the United States to subvert academia, our media, our culture and our political institutions.And the linkage she establishes with what's happening with the Islamist penetration in DC today is important, even if she merely touches on it.

That, and West's accessible style makes this book a must read.

Were The Saudis Complicit In 9/11? - What You Won't See Elsewhere

Something rattling the blogsphere thew last two days is an op-ed in the New York Post by investigative reporter, author and columnist Paul Sperry. It concerns an alleged cover up by the Bush Administration on Saudi involvement in 9/11:

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.

But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

It was kept secret and remains so today.

President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).

A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.

Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.

The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.

Sperry goes on to detail a number of specific instances, all of them factual, as is his habit. He cites Saudi diplomats like Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy, Saudi intelligence agents Omar al-Bayoumi, Osama Bassnan actually set up safe houses for the 9/11 hijackers and provided them with funds. He relates how these men set up private meetings for the hijackers with American al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who fled America to escape terrorism charges and was later killed by a drone in Yemen.Bassnan later fled America as well after 9/11.

He also says that then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan, much of whom went to the hijackers and to al-Qaeda. The questionable donations are not actually not classified, but a matter of public record...yet nothing happened to Bandar and he was simply recalled.

it is also a matter of record that a number of Saudi government official and nationals were given priority after 9/11 in getting out of the country, including members of the bin-Laden family.

None of this is news, frankly, to anyone who took an honest look at 9/11. Nor is the news on how FBI attempts to investigate 9/11 were stymied by the Bush Administration.

Where Sperry and I part ways is his conjecture that this was an organized attack and an act of war by the Saudi government.

What we had instead, I think, was a number of high level members of the Saudi government and the royal family, plus others in the Gulf Emirates who funded and supported bin-Laden, mostly because, you know, jihad. Some were more involved than others, but probably few of them really believed a second attack on the WTC would succeed, or that it do the damage it did. If you recall, even bin-Laden was pleasantly surprised as how successful the attack went.There was no upside to the Saudis attacking the U.S.

So now we come to the Bush Administration's role in this.

Revealing that high level Saudis had been involved in 9/11 would have meant a declaration of war. Now had I been president, I would have had no problems going there, or at the very least getting a full Saudi mea culpa, financial compensation, the guilty Saudis repatriated back to America to stand trial and an end to their financing mosques and jihad friendly imams here in America.

But President Bush's relationship with these people was, shall we say, somewhat different.



As more than one Bush biography relates, the Bush family was so close to Prince Bander that his nickname within the family circle was 'Bandar Bush'. And a look at Neil Bush of Silverado Trust fame also reveals the family's close connections with the Gulf States.

Nor is it limited to the Bushes. A look at the 'bi-partisan' Carlyle Fund(a huge mega-hedge fund mainly run by former cabinet members, influential congressmen and yes, a few former presidents that included substantial investments by the bin-Laden family), the plethora of six and seven figure speaking and 'consulting fees' enjoyed by a number of political figures on both sides of the aisle including the Clintons, Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and former senators Bob Dole and Tom Daschle just to name a few, the vast amounts spent to fund presidential libraries and foundations, former president Bill Clinton's special 'business relationship' with the Sultan of Dubai that made him a multimillionaire and helped fund Hillary's Clinton's last presidential campaign..lots of members of our ruling class have had their snouts in the trough.

Which by the way, might just tell you why America has never sought to seriously become energy independent even though we have ample oil and are one of the top five petroleum exporters.

In any event. let's just say taking out Saudi Arabia would be bad for business with all that money involved...not to mention that as keeper of the Muslim shrines at Mecca and Medina, a strike at the Saudis might have widened the scope of the war just a bit.

Or would it? Aside from the Saudis and the Gulf Emirates, there was another Muslim country that was very much complicit in 9/11. And unlike The Saudis, we are talking about direct, proven government involvement.

Hezbollah and Iran were directly involved in the 9/11 attacks and it is a matter of record thanks to a federal trial that took place in response to lawsuits filed by families of 9/11 victims.

Iran facilitated the transit of the 9/11 hijackers into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, just like they allowed entry to al-Qaeda fighters after we invaded their stronghold in Afghanistan.

On page 240 of the 9/11 Commission’s final report, it mentions a “senior Hezbollah operative” who accompanied some of the future 9/11 hijackers on their final airline flights into and out of Afghanistan, Iran, and Lebanon.

It's now known beyond any doubt that the “senior Hezbollah operative” was our old friend Imad Mugniyeh. You'll remember that he was not only a member of al-Qaeda but a founding member of Hezbollah and a former member of Yasser Arafat's Force 17. He was the commander of the operation that killed 247 marines in Beirut, the man who tortured to death Marine Colonel William Buckley,videotaped the proceedings and sent it to the White House, and the facilitator in the Karina A arms shipment, which involved Iranian weapons sent to the PLO.

Mugniyah was the natural liaison man for the 9/11 hijackers as well,because he was one of the few people trusted by by all parties involved...Hezbollah, Iran and al- Qaeda. He was finally sent to hell in 2008, most likely by the Israeli Mossad.

The 9/11 commission report strongly suggested further investigation of the Iranian complicity at the time, but neither the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration ever saw fit to follow up.

As evidence given in the trials show, in addition to directing Mughniyah’s extensive involvement in recruiting, guiding, and training the hijackers, Iran provided vital material support to those hijackers by ordering its border and passport officials not to stamp their passports when they crossed Iranian territory. That meant they could enter the U.S. with clean passports, no questions asked and was of huge help in maintaining their cover.

Not only that, but there's evidence that emerged from the trials that the hijackers may even have received some training in Iran.

According to testimony by a former senior Iranian intelligence officer, Abolghasem Mesbahi, Mugniyeh helped train the hijackers in a camp set up by the MOIS, Iran's intelligence service. Mesabi, who has also been a witness for the German BND in investigating and trying cases involving Iranian assassins of expatriates and dissidents in that country, testified in Federal court that al-Qaeda received instruction in spy craft, explosives, communications, operational guidance and time on a flight simulator purchased by Iran from China for the exact model of domestic airliner the hijackers would use in the 9/11 attacks...which Iran did not have as part of its domestic air fleet in IranAir at the time.

None of this has ever been followed up on.

So, if we were actually talking about going after the perpetrators of 9/11, it seems like Iran Hezbollah, and probably the Saudis and some of the Gulf Emirates might have been on our list. Pretty specific targets, either for a diplomatic or military reckoning. Instead, we went after al-Qaeda, the jihad subcontractors, and we have done so in two consecutive administrations. Worse than that, we continue to appease these regimes who were involved in butchering 3,000 of our fellow Americans.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has talked several times about reconvening the 9/11 Commission to get some answers. As you might imagine, the response from the White House has not been overwhelming and I doubt it will happen.

The complicity of a number of Muslim countries is what they're not telling you about 9/11, and that's why more evidence of Saudi complicity in 9/11 is no big news.

The real story is how we got from there to where we are now over the past 12 years, and why. That's what we have yet to find out.