I'm Out of Here!

I'm going on vacation! Be nice to my guest bloggers, Rivka and Mike while I'm gone!

Optimism, Anger and Protesting in Iran!

Patrick asked, Who are the Protesters in Iran?

He then linked to Laura Secor's column over at The New Yorker entitled, Optimism and Anger in Tehran. Secor was able to contact a friend in Tehran and here is some of what she found out:

She was one of the millions in Azadi Square on Monday. The energy, she told me, was indescribable. You could not feel afraid; the sense of common purpose was too powerful, and it had left her with a profound and nearly serene certainty that this movement would succeed.

Later on her friend said this:

The worst they can do is execute me. I have prepared myself for that. If I am worried, it is not for myself. It’s for the Iranian people, for young people, today’s generation and future generations. My freedom and my life, and those of one or two people like me, don’t matter.”)

Gateway Pundit has done an excellent post on Iranian Hero Kianoosh Sanjari. Sanjari had this to say,

"The people of Iran will not forgive Obama for siding with the Regime."

And Mike says, U.S. May Have to Apologize for Obama as He Picks Wrong Side in Iran. Mike mentions that when it comes to foreign policy Obama is already starting to look worse than even Jimmy Carter. It is amazing the scary similarities that I was seeing between the 2 men way back when Obama started running for president.

The people of Iran need to know the U.S. supports them in their desire for freedom, but with Obama they are out of luck!!

65th Anniversary of D-Day!

You can't remember D-Day without Ronald Reagan! An excerpt from "The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc" speech on the beach of Normandy on the 40th Anniversary:

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day: their rockhard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: ``I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

Later in the day, Reagan made another D-Day speech where he concluded with these moving words:

It is enough for us to say about Private Zanatta and all the men of honor and courage who fought beside him four decades ago: We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.

Mike remembers in 2 posts...

President Regan's Tribute at the U.S. Cemetery Above Omaha Beach

and
Reagan's D-Day Speech "The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc".

A Review of "The True Story of Black Hawk Down!"

"Winston Churchill said, 'We'll fight them in the air, we'll fight them in the water, we'll fight them on the beaches, we'll fight them from the cliffs. And we'll never, never surrender.'

Well, this episode sent the message that we'll fight them on the beaches, we'll fight them on the hills, but if they kill a few of our soldiers we'll give up and go away."--Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War

During the Battle of Mogadishu, on October 3-4, 1993, 18 American soldiers were killed and 73 were wounded. Mark Bowden wrote a book about the battle entitled, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. The book was quickly turned into a movie by Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridley Scott and called, Black Hawk Down.

I own, and have seen the movie numerous times. Yet, it wasn't until this past week that I got a chance to watch the History Channel's, The True Story of Black Hawk Down. It was well done and showed that the movie had been, for the most part, accurate and it made me want to read Bowden's book even more.

It drove home how ruthless the Warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid was in using starvation as a weapon against his own people. President Bush Sr. sent in 20,000 Marines in December of 1992 that were literally able to end the famine. The problems started again when the Marines were replaced by the UN national force.

Finally, it became evident that Aidid needed to be taken care of, but it was taking awhile to get to him. On October 3rd, Task Force Ranger took place and consisted of:

...an assault force made up of US Army Delta Force, Ranger teams, an air element provided by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, four Navy SEAL operators from SEAL Team 6, and members of the Air Force Pararescue/Air Force Combat Controllers, executed an operation which involved traveling from their compound on the outskirts of the city to capture tier one personalities of the Habr Gidr clan, headed by Aidid.

Aidid had the whole city of Mogadishu ready for them. They were able to shoot down 2 of the Black Hawk helicopters and damaged 3 others. Aidid's soldiers also set up numerous blockades so that the American Soldiers were trapped, many of whom were wounded.

When "Nightstalker Pilot" Michael Durant was trapped in a downed helicopter, unable to walk, Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart voluntarily went in to help. Gordon and Shughart literally fended off thousands of Somali's by themselves until they died. They were both posthumously awarded the medal of honor. After watching "The True Story" documentary, I re-watched the movie. When I saw Gordon and Shughart facing all of those Somali's to protect Durant, knowing they wouldn't make it, I got teary eyed. Especially, when I realized that their deaths were in vain because Clinton never allowed the other soldiers to finish the mission.

Mark Bowden said that he's often asked if any of the soldiers are bitter about being a part of the battle. He said they aren't bitter about having been a part of it but, "they're bitter about the fact that the day after this battle, their mission was called off."

Also, U.S. Air Force Combat Controller Dan Schilling had this to say about Clinton's unwillingness to finish the mission and actually go back in and get Aidid:

As the Commander-in-Chief, and leader of this country, which is always the same person, you absolutely have the the obligation to be as strong as the people you send out to die.

OUCH!!

In conclusion, one of Bowden's quotes:

One of the things that struck me working on the story of 'Blackhawk Down' was the tremendous courage and nobility of these young men. None of these young men who were trapped on the streets of Mogadishu, being shot at, wounded and killed had any part in the decision that put them there. They were there representing you and me as American citizens.