A 4th of July Tribute

Received this in an email from a good friend.  Thought I will pass it on early.

 

Happy 4th of July!................ ......let's  get this started now, So it will be out there on the fourth!!!!

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO  THE FLAG, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT STANDS,

ONE NATION UNDER GOD,

INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY
 
AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

KEEP IT LIT!! KEEP IT LIT!

For All of our other military personnel, where ever they may Be
Please Support all of the troops defending our Country.

And  God Bless our Military who are protecting our Country for our Freedom.
Thanks

To them, and their sacrifices we can celebrate the 4th of July

PLEASE KEEP IT GOING TO YOUR FRIENDS, DON'T LET THE FLAME DIE OUT!
PLEASE KEEP THE SPIRIT OF THIS GOING

We must never forget  who
Gets the credit for the freedoms we have, of which we should  be
Eternally grateful

I watched the  flag
Pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze.

A young Marine
Saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.
 
I looked at
Him in uniform
So young, so  tall, so proud,
With hair cut square
And eyes alert
He'd  stand out in any crowd.
 
I thought how many  men
Like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died  on foreign
Soil
How many mothers' tears?
 
How many pilots'  planes
Shot down?
How many died at sea
How many foxholes were soldiers'
Graves?
No, freedom isn't free.
 
I heard the sound of Taps
One night,
When everything was  still,
I listened to the bugler Play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant 'Amen,'
 
When a flag had draped a
Coffin.
Of a brother or a friend.
 
I  thought of all the
Children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and
Husbands
With interrupted lives.
 
I Thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the  sea
 
Of unmarked graves in
Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.
 
Enjoy Your Freedom
&God Bless Our Troops
Show  Your Support Send
This Page Along Today
 
When You receive this, please stop for a moment
And Say a Prayer for our servicemen. ! This can be very powerful....
Just send this to  all the people in your Address book. Do not stop
this
please... Of  all the gifts you could give A US Soldier, Prayer is the
very best  One.

Foreign Terrorists Have Constitutional Rights

Courtesy of CNSNews.com

- In a major blow to the Bush administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right under the U.S. Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

The detainees affected by Thursday's ruling includes 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times." Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens joined Kennedy to form the majority.

In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts criticized his colleagues for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants." Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also dissented.

Scalia said the nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) said his initial reaction is one of concern for U.S. troops on the battlefield:

If foreign enemies rounded up on the battlefield now have access to U.S. federal courts and have the same protections as American citizens under the Constitution -- "what does this say to an American solider who captures one of these terrorists on the battlefield... in terms of collecting evidence, the rights of the person that he's captured?" Hoekstra asked.

He was interviewed Thursday on Fox News, moments after the ruling came down.

The Bush administration -- faced with the problem of what to do with "enemy combatants" who wear no uniform and cannot be considered prisoners of war -- in 2002 set up a military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- putting the suspects beyond the reach of U.S. courts.

But in June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the reach of the U.S. courts did extend to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that President Bush exceeded his authority when he ordered war crimes trials for Gitmo detainees.

Congress subsequently passed the Military Commissions Act in December 2006. The law established procedures governing the use of military commissions to try "alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States."

At the first military tribunal hearing -- which took place last week -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed requested a death sentence so he can become a martyr.

Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, has said he would close Guantanamo Bay, because it has projected an image around the world that is detrimental to America's reputation. "I would move those prisoners to Fort Leavenworth. And I would proceed with the tribunals," McCain told CBS News last year.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, also wants to close Guantanamo, but unlike McCain, he rejects military tribunals for the detainees:

"As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions," Obama said last summer in Washington. "Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists."

See Earlier Stories at CNSNEWS:

Republicans Accuse Democrats of 'Coddling' Terrorists (28 Sept. 2006)

Supreme Court Sides With Gitmo Detainee (29 June 2006)

Technorati tags: supreme court, bush, mcCain, republicans, democrats, liberals, black robe judges, constitution, war crimes, war prisoners, obama, guantánamo, terrorist, terrorism suspects, gitmo

Global Warming Stupidity

TIME MAG MARS WWII MONUMENT W/GLOBAL WARMING STUPIDITY
Courtesy of Rick Roberts, KFMB, San Diego

Everyone knows of what has got to be the most famous, patriotic image from WWII that shows five U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the American flag during the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

It is a moving image that embodies America’s selflessness and sacrifice… and the cost of freedom.

But Time doesn’t see it that way. They see “red, white, and blue as the new green”. That’s according to their editor…

The cover of the April 21st issue of Time took the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal and replaced the flag with an evergreen.

I’m all for stupid people saying stupid things… but this goes beyond the pale.

This isn’t a First Amendment issue.

This is an issue of vandalism: This is no better than burning the American flag.

You may as well spray paint something like ‘global warming is the real issue’ on the National WWII Memorial… or tear out part of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Wall to make room for a statue of Al Gore.

Send the Editor an email: richard_stengel@timemagazine.com… Give him a piece of your mind.

Technorati tags: times magazine, US Marines, Amerian flag, global warming, iwo jima, richard stengel, timesmagazine.com, national wwwII memorial, vietnam veteran memorial wall, al gore

Bodies of Two Kidnapped American Security Contractors Recovered in Iraq

Press Release, Courtesy of the FBI

For Immediate Release
March 24, 2008

Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691

U.S. authorities in Iraq have recovered remains that have been identified as two American contractors in Iraq.

The victims have been identified as:

• Ronald Withrow of Roaring Springs, Texas, who worked for JPI Worldwide when he was kidnapped on January 5, 2007, and

• John Roy Young of Kansas City, Missouri, who worked for Crescent Security Group when he was kidnapped on November 16, 2006.

The FBI’s Office of Victim Assistance has been in contact with the victims’ families since the men were kidnapped, and they have already been notified of the recovery.

The men and women of the FBI wish to express our deepest sympathy to the victims’ families. We understand that this is a very difficult time for all the families involved, and the FBI will continue to provide any assistance it can.

This is an open investigation, and the FBI, working with its partners in the Hostage Working Group in Iraq, will continue to aggressively investigate every available lead in order to identify, apprehend, and bring to justice those responsible for this heinous criminal act.

Technorati tags: FBI, Iraq, Murder, American Contractors

Wesley Clark, utter nonsense

Courtesy of my friend Big Dog. BD and I are friends and he is not a member of the forum. So, I thought to post his comments regarding good old Weasely Clark.

Wesley Clark: Hillary More Qualified than McCain on Military Matters

General Wesley Clark, a man who has had his nose up the Clinton’s rear ends (he must be hoping for the SECDEF job) has made a completely asinine statement with regard to John McCain and Hilary Clinton. According to Clark, Clinton is better qualified to be the Commander in Chief by virtue of her jet setting around the world while First Lady than is McCain who actually served for several decades.

In the national security business, the question is, do you have — when you have served in uniform, do you really have the relevant experience for making the decisions at the top that have to be made? Everybody admires John McCain’s service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There’s no issue there. He’s a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot — and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam — that doesn’t prepare you to be commander-in-chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn’t give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.

If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as the First Lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, her representing the U.S. abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think she’s the most experienced and capable person in the race, not only for representing am abroad, but for dealing with the tough issues of national security. Source: NRO

Now, according to Clark, the issue is having relevant experience to make the decisions at the top that have to be made. Clark believes that McCain had the wrong kind of military experience so he would not be good s the CINC. Hillary, on the other hand, would be wonderful because she has NO MILITARY EXPERIENCE. Instead, she gained her qualifications by visiting 80 countries while First Lady. General Clark was a military man and he believed that he had what it takes to be the CINC. That is why he ran for the presidency in the last election. However, using his criteria, every First Lady in modern history would be more qualified than Clark, McCain or any other military man simply because they jetted around to other countries. By this standard, Laura Bush is just as qualified as Hillary so we should ask her to run because she is evidently more qualified than McCain and a hell of a lot more pleasant than Clinton.

I wonder if this jackass ever thinks before he speaks. He was with that dipstick Captain at the Kos convention trying to intimidate a soldier who happened to attend while in uniform. The soldier was not participating in a rally or supporting a candidate and Clark was unaware of military regulation. Now he is saying that McCain’s military experience makes him less qualified than Hillary who has absolutely no military experience and has spent her life with a general loathing of the military. She treated the military working in her husband’’s White House horribly and somehow Clark thinks this makes her more qualified than McCain.

I am not saying McCain would be the best president in the word or that he does not have flaws. I am sure there are issues the other candidates might have a better grasp of than he but one thing is absolutely certain. John McCain has more experience than both of the others put together and he has far more experience needed to be the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. John McCain has forgotten more about the military than these two will ever know so if they want to pick on him they should try something that actually makes sense.

Having Wesley Clark make stupid statements about the right kind of military service is not helpful and should Hillary miraculously win and decide that Clark will be the SECDEF we would have to question any statement he made because he has already proven he is incompetent and, like the Clinton’s, will say anything to get a win.

It is Big Dog's opinion that Wesley Clark is a moron who has no clue as to what it takes to lead as demonstrated by his ridiculous statements regarding McCain and Clinton. What do you think?

Technorati tags: wesley clark, bill clinton, hillary clinton, john mccain, american politics, jackass, commander in chief, armed forces

Al Qaeda Fighters Flee Cities, Head for Desert or Out of Iraq

Courtesy of Multi-National Force Iraq

A summary to date of operations in Multi-National Division - North as part of Operation Iron Harvest, part of the countrywide Operation Phantom Phoenix in Iraq. Graphic by Fred W. Baker III.

WASHINGTON — A surge in military operations and a shift in local support in northern Iraq has driven many al Qaeda fighters out of cities that once provided them safe haven and into the desert, or even out of the country, a commander in the region said Monday.

Citizens in the four-province region of Multi-National Division - North have begun shifting their support to Coalition and Iraqi forces in “droves,” and security gains are increasingly putting extremists on the run with no clear place to go to be safe, said Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, commander of Multi-National Division - North and the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division. The northern division is about the size of Pennsylvania and includes Diyala, Salahuddin, Ninevah and Tamim provinces.

Some foreign fighters are returning to their home countries of Syria and Saudi Arabia, he said, taking with them funds earmarked for fighters in Iraq. Some are trying to reorganize outside the country’s borders, but Hertling’s troops are watching the border and have arrested some as they try to return, he said.  Others, who no longer feel safe in the cities because they are afraid that local citizens will turn them in, are hiding out in abandoned mud huts, canals or caves in the desert.

“That's their biggest fear. So many of them are going to the desert regions to just get away from being ratted out by the citizens by being pointed out and captured,” Hertling said.

But, even their desert hideaways are targets under six-week-long Operation Iron Harvest, part of the countrywide Operation Phantom Phoenix.

“Some of them are saying it's not even safe in the desert because the night raids are coming to get them,” Hertling said. “And that's a good thing. We want them to keep thinking that they can't sleep well at night because we're coming after them, because, quite frankly, we are.”

Hertling could not give specific numbers on how many fighters have left or an estimate of the size of the enemy force remains in the region, but he said fewer al Qaeda fighters are in the province now than six weeks ago.

“We’re doing exactly what we’re trying to do, and that is make the cities safer for the Iraqi citizens while continuing to target al Qaeda and the other extremist groups,” the commander said.

Diyala province, specifically, is much safer today than it was a month ago, Hertling said. Citizens are less afraid to go out on the streets, and markets are opening, he said.

Hurtling attributed the gains in the province to the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces, the installation of local bases in the province, and improving local and national governments.

In Iron Harvest operations over the past 45 days, Coalition and Iraqi security forces there have conducted 74 missions. They have captured or killed more than 70 high-value individuals, and “hundreds” of enemy fighters, the general said. They found more than 430 caches with tons of explosives and weapons, he added, and they have cleared 653 homemade bombs, 42 house bombs, 35 car bombs and three bomb factories.

Attacks have leveled off in the region since December, following a drastic drop. Attacks range from about 20 to 50 daily, Hertling said.

(Story by Fred W. Baker III, American Forces Press Service)

In Other Recent Developments Here:

BAGHDAD — Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers arrested a suspected suicide bomb facilitator during a raid in the Rashid District of the Iraqi capital, Feb. 9.

BAQUBAH — Newly registered “Sons of Iraq” led Coalition Forces to an al-Qaeda in Iraq safe house, Feb. 8.

Technorati tags: multi-national force iraq, hertling, baghdad, coalition forces, american military, war in iraq, al qaeda fighters, iraqi

Imad Mughniyeh Dispatched to Hell

 

Courtesy of Fox News

Imad Mughniyeh, the militant accused of attacks that left hundreds of Americans and Israelis dead, including a U.S. Navy diver during the infamous 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner, was dispatched to hell, Hezbollah said Wednesday.  He will not collect 72 virgins and he will not go to paradise.

Lets take a trip down memory lane in terrorism in the Middle East in regards to Mugniyah: Do you rememeber Mohammed Hamadi?

Hamadi was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight 847 from Athens, Greece, to Rome. The hijacked plane landed in Beirut, Lebanon, where hijackers beat, shot and killed 23 year old United States Navy Petty Officer Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac. Stethem was the only casualty during the hijacking ordeal, in which 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. Hamadi was paroled to Lebannon in November 2005, much to the dismay of the United States.

Now lets recall Mohammed's brother Abbas. Abbas, was arrested in Germany in 1987 and charged with helping to kidnap two German businessmen in a bid to use them as bargaining chips for Mohammed Hamadi's freedom. Abbas Hamadi was released in 1993 after serving half of his sentence. At the time, German news media reported, that he was let go as part of a deal between the German government and Hezbollah to release two other Germans held hostage in Lebanon. Guess who was the Hezbollah Security Chief at the time, Imad Fayex Mugniyah.

Both of the Hamadi boys are linked to Mugniyah.

Here is some background that was posted in previous articles in The Bosun Locker about Mugniyah; a terrorist who has been active on the terrorism circuit for the past 20 years:

Mugniyah allegedly has been tied to kidnappings and bombings throughout the world over the past two decades, including the following:
▪ April 18, 1983 bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut, which killed 63
people including 17 Americans
▪ October 23, 1983 simultaneous truck bombings against the French paratroopers and US Marine killing 58 French soldiers and 241 Marines.
▪ September 20, 1984, he attacked the US embassy annex building and is believed to have killed William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut
▪ Linked to the numerous kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut through the 1980s – some were killed, some by beheading, and a few were eventually released.
▪ Orchestrated the 2000 abductions of three Israeli soldiers in the southern part of Lebanon
▪ Abduction of Israeli Colonel Elchanan Tenenbaum.
And he has been active in the western hemisphere, too.
▪ March 17, 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires Argentina, which killed 29
▪ July 1994 bombing of the AMIA cultural building in in Buenos Aires Argentina, killing 86 people Source: Laura Mansfield

---

According to World Net Daily article in 2006, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Damascus in January 2006, he took a special guest with him on the flight from Tehran – one of the world's most wanted terrorists. Imad Mugniyah

Intelligence experts have told the London Times Ahmadinejad has recruited Imad Mugniyah, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah's overseas operations, to oversee retaliation against Western targets if the U.S. orders a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. World Net Daily reported that Mugniyah and the Iranian President Ahmadinejad met with other leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus in what has been called a "terror summit." Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas all have carried out attacks on Israel and Israelis over the years. Link to World Net Daily article, Ahmadinejad recruits Hezbollah terror chief

So as you can see this terrorist, Imad Mugniyah, got his.  Burn in Hell, Imad.   Comment from a friend at Hannity Forum:

Celtic Pax

"I am sure that his supporters and protectors are well aware of the significance of this action and will know that these killers will eventually be eliminated no matter how long it takes. OBL is very aware of this. If he didn't realize that we will never stop until he is dead, this action should drive that lesson home."

See Ya.

Technorati tags: imad mugniyah, hezbollah, iran, syria, terrorists, elchanan tenenbaum, beirut, william buckley, mohammed hamadi, stethem, abbas hamadi, beirut marine barracks, amia cultural building, israeli embassy buenos aires, mahmoud ahmadinejad, tehran, islamic jihad, hamas