"It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."
The Declaration of Arbroath - April 6th, 1320
The current political squabbles in America between the liberal, socialist left and the moral capitalist conservative right are merely a skirmish line on the edge of two colliding civilizations. The combatants are not the free market, individual centric conservatives and libertarians vs. the Nanny State, socialist plantation liberal straw bosses. Not at all!
The Elephant in the room is Islamofascism - and President Bush and his brilliant General Petraeus, at the head of the greatest Army of our lifetime, are decisively engaged. What is at stake dwarfs the '08 elections topics of single payer medical care, unfunded social security, or our billions of dollars held by China and Saudi Arabia, for economic blackmail.
Life as we know it -- the profound blessings of the Age of Enlightenment and the spectacular technological progress in the arts and sciences that resulted -- is, absent a courageous defense, doomed to be devoured in the maws of a barbarian Islamofacism if President Bush's war leadership fails. Militant Islam means to convert, enslave, or exterminate the infidel non-Muslim world, depending on the degree of resistance encountered. The Koran demands it, and militant Islamists are implementing it wherever they have the critical mass to enforce it. Secular pluralism and a democratically established Rule of Law will not survive, absent protectors that exercise lethal force to defend it. This should be the litmus test of who should be our next president, and no other.
Democrats are fearful of any good news from Iraq. Democrats have invested in the US being defeated in Iraq.
"Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), House majority whip, recently said it would be "a real big problem for us" - Democrats - if Petraeus reports substantial progress.
Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.) recently found reports of progress unendurable. She left a hearing of the Armed Services Committee because retired Gen. Jack Keane was saying things Boyda thinks might "further divide this country," such as that Iraq's "schools are open. The markets are teeming with people."
Boyda explained: "There is only so much you can take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while . . . after so much frustration of having to listen to what we listened to."
"What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media were definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!" - General Giap, North Vietnam (memoirs)
The tragedy of Vietnam is too large to be contained in one speech. So I'm going to limit myself to one argument that has particular significance today. Then as now, people argued the real problem was America's presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end.
The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism -- and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."
After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.
In 1972, one antiwar senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?" A columnist for The New York Times wrote in a similar vein in 1975, just as Cambodia and Vietnam were falling to the communists: "It's difficult to imagine," he said, "how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." A headline on that story, date Phnom Penh, summed up the argument: "Indochina without Americans: For Most a Better Life."
The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea.
Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. (Applause.) Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps," and "killing fields."
There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle -- those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."
His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."
Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently.
We must remember the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror -- but it's the central front -- it's the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it's the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating. (Applause.)
If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America. (Applause.)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - New military tactics in Iraq are working but the best way to honor U.S. soldiers is "by beginning to bring them home," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told war veterans Monday.
Clinton, seeking the Democratic nomination for president, praised the work that soldiers have done in Iraq but described the government there as "on vacation," leaving American troops in the middle of a sectarian war.
Later the Veterans of Foreign Wars were told by Sen. John McCain, who is seeking the GOP nomination, that withdrawing from Iraq would be a historic mistake — far worse than previous U.S. missteps in the country.
McCain said he understands that Americans are "sick and tired" of the war, which he said hasn't gone well. Still, he said Gen. David Petraeus and other military leaders deserve patience.
Petraeus, the U.S. commander who will report to Congress on progress in Iraq next month, told the group that in some areas, partnerships between coalition forces and Iraqi soldiers are "quite robust." He also said that Iraqi losses have been three times those suffered by the U.S.-led coalition.
Clinton and McCain spoke to hundreds of members of the VFW, which is holding its annual convention in Kansas City. On Tuesday, Democratic candidate Barack Obama and former GOP Sen. Fred Thompson are to speak. President Bush arrives Wednesday.
Let's see, who speaks like a commander in chief and diplomat. Clinton: Troops are doing well, let's bring them home. Clinton: Iraqi government is on vacation Nope, she doesn't sound like a leader
McCain: that withdrawing from Iraq would be a historic mistake.. McCain: Far worse than the mistakes already made. Better, but lacks force.
Blacks, Whites...wait African Americans and Caucasians, Asians, excuse me. Vietnamese, Filipinos, Koreans and Jamaicans or Haitians, waitin' Hispanics y'all.
Please be patient Mexican, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelan, Cuban, Dominican, Panamanian Democrats I beg your pardon, you partied with the late, great Reagan? Republican, Independent, Christian, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, 7th Day Adventist, 5 Percenters, Hindu, Sunii Muslim, Brothers and Sisters who never seen the New York city skyline when the twin towers still existed. But still She called.
From the bowels of Ground Zero she sent this 911 distress signal. Because She was in desperate need of a hero, and didn't have time to decipher what to call 'em, so she called 'em all Her children. The children of the stars and bars who needed to know nothing more than the fact that she called. The fact that someone attempted to harm us this daughter who covered us all with her loving arms. And now these arms are sprawled across New York City streets. A smoke filled lung, a silt covered faced, and a solitary tear poured out of her cheek. Her singed garments carpets Pennsylvania Avenue and the Pentagon was under her feet. As she began to talk, she began to cough up small particles of debris and said, "I am America, and I'm calling on the land of the free." So they answered.
All personal differences set to the side because right now there was no time to decide which state building the Confederate flag should fly over, and which trimester the embryo is considered alive, or on our monetary units, and which God we should confide. You see, someone attempted to choke the voice of the one who gave us the right for choice, and now she was callin. And somebody had to answer. Who was going to answer?
So they did. Stern faces and chiseled chins. Devoted women and disciplined men, who rose from the ashes like a phoenix and said "don't worry, we'll stand in your defense." They tightened up their bootlaces and said goodbye to loved ones, family and friends. They tried to bombard them with the "hold on", "wait-a-minute's", and "what-if's". And "Daddy, where you goin?". And, "Mommy, why you leavin?". And they merely kissed them on their foreheads and said "Don't worry, I have my reasons. You see, to this country I pledged my allegiance to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic. So as long as I'm breathin, I'll run though hell-fire, meet the enemy on the front lines, look him directly in his face, stare directly in his eyes and scream, "I AM AMERICA! WE WILL NOT BE TERRORIZED! WE WILL NOT BE TERRORIZED! I REFUSE TO BE AFRAID! I'LL FIGHT YOU ANY COUNTRY, ANY CONTINENT, ANY TERRAIN. I'LL FIGHT TO MY LAST BREATH!"
And if by chance death is my fate, pin my medals upon my chest, and throw Old Glory on my grave. But, don't y'all cry for me. You see, my Father's prepared a place. I'll be a part of his Holy army standing a watch at the Pearly Gates. Because freedom was never free. POW's, and fallen soldiers all paid the ultimate sacrifice along side veterans who put themselves in harms way. Risking their lives and limbs just to hold up democracy's weight, but still standing on them broken appendages anytime the National Anthem was played. You see, these were the brave warriors that gave me the right to say that I'm Black. Or white.
Or
African American or Caucasian, I'm Asian, excuse me. I'm Vietnamese, Filipinos, Korean, or Jamaican. I'm Haitian, Hispanic
Y'all, Please be patient. I'm Mexican, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, Cuban, Dominican, Panamanian, Democrat I beg your pardon, you see I partied with the late, great Reagan. I'm Republican, Independent, Christian, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, 7th Day Adventist, 5 Percenters, Hindu, Sunii Muslim,
Brothers and Sisters We're just Americans. So with that I say "Thank You" to the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, for preserving my rights to live and die for this life and paying the ultimate price for me to be...FREE!
