The Democrats were cranky about the homage they are forced to pay the Commander-in-Chief, they have vowed to make this a public spot light the rest of the Bush tenure. That will be interesting how that works out.
Sderot and the Western Negev are the victims of 1.8 Kassam rocket daily from Gaza. This is occurring even when there is an agreed cease fire between Palestinian Terrorists and Israel. It is the classic example that nations cannot negotiate with terrorists.
Israel continues to do nothing frozen into inactivity by America and the EU. America and the EU should be taking action to join Israel in a military operation to seek and destroy the rockets and capture or kill the perpetrators the murderers of civilian populations.
Eventually Israel will be forced to protect its citizens regardless of the international desire to watch Israelis being relentlessly attacked.
…The main headline of the Ma'ariv newspaper's weekend edition, after last summer's Lebanon war, read: "This war has no symbol." The widespread feeling is that people don't know who they're fighting for, and for what reason. What solution can be given to the Russian Roulette reality, which includes the firing of over 6,000 rockets into Israel for the last 6 years? The country has accepted the fact that rockets are being fired at it, and has to decide what 900 million shekels ($220 million) should be invested in: Should Israel invest the money in protecting the houses of the 8,000 Western Negev residents, or should the money be invested in an anti short-range rocket system, which will take approximately two years to develop?
What other western democratic country in the world would have allowed a reality like ours to persist?
On February 7, the Sderot Parents Association went to the Supreme Court and demanded the protection of all classrooms, in all 24 educational institutions in the town. The country, for its part, agrees to protect only the first to third grades, claiming that the other classes can settle for protected areas outside, and which children can get to on their own.
Is there a parent that can imagine the feeling of sending an 8 year-old boy to study in an unprotected classroom, while an average of 1.8 rockets are fired daily from Gaza towards Sderot and the Western Negev, even during days of "ceasefire?" And on standard days, when approximately 3.2 rockets are fired? No one can expect an 8 year-old boy to run through the school corridors along with 70 other children and reach the safe areas outside in less than 15 seconds, after hearing the tzeva adom (color red) alarm. What should one tell an 8 year-old boy who wants to go back to third grade because the classroom there is protected?
As a resident of Sderot, who has lived in this town for the past half year, I realize that it makes no difference whether the rockets hit an open area or the town itself. When the tzeva adom alarm goes off, you realize that you have 15 seconds to take cover. No one takes risks today, and one can't say, "It won't happen to me..."
During a visit to the security officer's office in Sderot, I noticed that the town's map was hanging on the wall, and that there were dots marking the rockets' landing points. The security officer explained that he had stopped marking dots on the map two years ago, because if he had continued, it would have been impossible to tell that the map was of Sderot. It is reasonable to conclude that there is no neighborhood, no street, no family, no child in Sderot, who has not experienced a rocket attack somewhere nearby. Over 3,600 trauma cases have been opened, just from the rocket attacks.
The media neglects to mention that rockets are being launched at Sderot and Ashkelon from areas in the northern Gaza Strip that Israel evacuated during the Disengagement.
The website of Izadeen Al-Qassam Brigades, a branch of Hamas, makes it clear that from its point of view, all Israeli communities are "settlements": "In response to the occupation forces' attack on the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian resistance declared that it fired two rockets towards the Zionist Sderot settlement.” Hamas' military wing generously offered to stop firing Kassam rockets in return for the evacuation of Sderot.
When the usual report is broadcast over the radio or television, saying, "2 Kassam rockets hit an open area nearby Sderot. No one was injured, there was no damage, a trauma victim was evacuated, and now, the weather report," can the meaning of "anxiety" or "trauma" be grasped? That is the reality inside the bubble of Israeli radio, TV and newspapers, the bubble in which most Israelis live. In Sderot that bubble has long ago burst.
*Noam Bedein is coordinator of communications for Sderot and the western Negev. Reuven Koret of the Sderot Information Center participated in the editing of this excerpted article.
I wonder what the government of the United States of America would do if Mexico began using vociferous language toward America claiming the right of return for the land America conquered in war. Do you understand the amount of land I am speaking about? That land ranges from California and the rest of the South Western States though to Texas and Oklahoma. This is land ceded to America via victory in war over Mexico. (Texas had their own war of independence from Mexico led by American immigrants, then eventually joined the Union as the State of Texas).
Here we are in the 21st century (not really that far from the wars of the mid-1800’s) and Latinos are flowing into America. The point of initiation is land taken by America.
Now imagine a drug lord that Mexico has little control over because of Mexican government corruption. Now this Mexican drug lord has decided that his cartel needs an unhindered market for his drugs across the border in the land formerly sovereign territory of Mexico. He begins missile bombardments of border towns to strike fear in the Gringos. The drug lord produces a public message he is exercising the right of return for Mexican nationals who had their land taken by the American military.
What would America do?
If a Democrat was in the Office of President America start giving some land to the drug lord believing his promise of peace. Unfortunately the more land given by a Democratic President the more land the drug lord demanded who made his point by launching more missiles and raids into America murdering American men, women and children in their cities and fleeing back across each border line agreed upon by the appeasement minded Democratic President. There is an ever increasing American death toll and an ever increasing giving of land to the drug lord who continues to promise peace to the American government.
If a strong Republican was in the Office of President and the drug lord and his cartel began its war of terror to strike fear into the Gringos on former Mexican land, I suspect that President would respond differently. The Republican President would invade Mexico in a Mexican/American War II. That Republican President would find Mexicans who wanted the rule of law established in Mexico and make an alliance with them giving them aid, training and physical support. In the meantime, a strong Republican President would eschew the Democratic Party anti-war/Surrender land for peace advice. That President would develop an agenda to win a victory even it is not politically correct to secure safety for American citizens. (That was President Bush’s deficiency: no plan to manage a complete victory.)
This is the situation Israel has faced ever since its modern inception as a sovereign nation.
Prime Minister Olmert is acting like an American Democrat allowing Islamofascist terrorists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, etc) to send missile at the nearest Israeli city to Gaza – Sderot. Olmert continues to do nothing for fear of International repudiation for attacking poor victimized Islamofascist homicidal terrorists. That repudiation also is feared from Israel’s closest ally – America.
Palestinian terrorists want a sovereign nation called Palestine PLUS the right to return to land their ancestors fled in 1948 out of fear when Arab armies surrounded and invaded the fledgling nation of Israel.
The thing is a Palestinian nation is risky business for Israel; the so-called right of return would be national suicide for the nation of Israel.
Here is some refreshing and disturbing news. A large majority of Mohammedan-Americans condemn Islamist terrorism. This majority have decidedly assimilated into American culture accepting American values. That is the good news.
Here is the disturbing news. One in four Mohammedan-American youths has found violence to achieve Islamist goals justifiable.
Apparently as in the case in the case of Leftists in America, Islamists in America seem to pull the communication strings. I say this because many of the mosques in America receive their literature from Wahhabi schooled Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi School of Mohammedanism is radical Islamist in theology calling for a return to medieval standards of Sharia Law.
Personally I am still a little leery of Mohammedans in America. Even if Mohammedan-Americans are assimilating the books revered as holy directly confirm Wahhabi thought. Quran, Hadiths, Sunna, Sharia Law all promote the kind of Jihad that the Wahhabi School draws their radical ideology. So personally I would like to see a public repudiation from Mosques and Mohammedan organizations of Islamist terrorists. This is not just al-Qaeda (which is huge). There is Jamaat ul-Fuqra of Pakistan which has set up radical communities throughout America. I have posted about Islamberg as an example. Hezbollah in Lebanon has Shi’ite cells in America and receives financial support from the largest Shi’ite concentration in America: Dearborn (Dearbornistan), Michigan. Hamas has a huge connection to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt which in turn are Wahhabi School ideologues. The Mohammedan organization that self-proclaims itself as the protector of Mohammedan civil rights in America is CAIR. Many of CAIR’s founding and current leadership have had direct ties to the terrorist organization Hamas. Some have been jailed.
The Pew Research Center indeed shows according to their poll that a majority of Mohammedan-Americans have assimilated American values; however I am not seeing the corresponding action from the Mohammedan elites that influence Mohammedan thought in America.
President Bush is rapidly declining in popularity with Conservatives. The President has been hated almost hysterically by Leftists and Democrats for nearly seven years.
Dwell on this: Internet buzz is a major modem of Conservative dissemination of information because Conservatives KNOW the Mainstream Media (MSM) will not truthfully portray a story that supports Conservatism or President Bush. The difficulty with Internet dependence is that the information dissemination needs to often be verified by many reputable Conservative sources before it can be conceivable that the information has not been warped or planted merely as propaganda.
Now that the President is becoming unpopular with Conservatives he has become the target of Conservative venom as nearly the twenty-first century Benedict Arnold of Conservativism and Neoconservativism. There is a laundry list of betrayals: Ramos and Campos imprisoned for stopping illegal aliens doing drug smuggling, I. Scooter Libby being allowed to be convicted on trumped up charges, the harassment of Tom DeLay, collaboration with a Democratic Senate on a controversial illegal alien Bill and on and on.
Cliff Kinkaid who writes for Accuracy in Media is a person of huge respect as a source of information. I say that to honor him. Kinkaid has written an article that adds to the Conspiracy Theory of George W. Bush flirting with selling America out. The Bush Administration has called the concept of a North American Union (Canada, America and Mexico) is rumor and manipulation of a little fact to create a lot of myth. Kinkaid cites evidence to the contrary. Kinkaid reports that President Bush could not pass the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) when the Republicans controlled the Senate. Kinkaid believes that Bush can push UNCLOS through a Democratic controlled Senate. Kinkaid believes the NAU and UNCLOS are both instances that will pass American sovereignty away from the USA and to the United Nations.
Are these issues Conspiracy Theories that should be banished to the works of fiction? OR are these issues the shadows of a changing global politic that will affect traditional American Constitutional government and sovereignty?
According to Melanie Morgan of MoveAmericaForward, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid appear to be backing off from their “immediate” cut-n-run sentiments:
Harry Reid & Nancy Pelosi are on the retreat!
A brand new Move America Forward television commercial is being released today that criticizes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for their surrender/retreat/withdrawal proposals with regard to Operation Iraqi Freedom and the war against Islamic terrorism.
Today Reid & Pelosi reportedly backed away from their demands of an immediate withdrawal and surrender in Iraq, after feeling the heat from so many patriotic Americans like yourself.
And now we're going to push even harder to get our leaders to stand firmly behind our troops AND THEIR MISSIONS. (MoveAmericaForwardEmail 5-22-07)
I have not corroborated Melanie Morgan’s belief that Reid and Pelosi are backing off; nonetheless Morgan attributes the success to MoveAmericaForward ads that have resulted in Americans writing to the Democratic Party Leftists.
You can see that latest ad at YouTube HERE. [* Same Ad posted at the top.]
If John Wayne were alive today, he would be 100 years old. The Duke was my hero growing up. He represented an American man’s man. He was tough yet compassionate. If there really was a code of the West, John Wayne was its epitome.
Below is a bit of a tribute to the Hollywood I admired. That Hollywood envisioned by John Wayne definitely was not Leftist or had an agenda to undermine American Patriotism.
John Wayne celebrated on 100th birthday
By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer May 22, 2007 Yahoo News
On the 100th anniversary of John Wayne's birth, the Duke still swaggers through the American psyche as not just an actor, but a patriot — his centennial spawning fond remembrance, and perhaps a few small protests on the side.
Wayne's legacy is unique because of the dual perspectives that pervade his memory. Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Garry Wills, who wrote "John Wayne's America" in 1997, described Wayne as "the most popular movie star ever, but also the most polarizing."
It could be argued that no other film actor has ever come to symbolize so many things: rugged masculinity, the frontier, even America itself. The Duke has remained, in the truest sense, an icon.
For many, an entire way of life is epitomized in the tired, unblinking eyes that peered knowingly from his cocksure pose ("walks around like a big cat," said Howard Hawks). His voice, too, seems etched in the collective memory: With a simple "pilgrim," a whole lost world is summoned.
Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison, would have turned 100 on Saturday. He died at 72 of stomach cancer in June 1979 after a career that spanned more than 170 films. He didn't win an Academy Award until 1970 for his performance in "True Grit." (He was nominated twice earlier — for best actor in 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima" and best picture for 1960's "The Alamo," which he directed and produced.)
To this day, he still ranks atop polls rating the most adored actors; a Harris Poll conducted just this year rated him as the third-most popular movie star behind Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks.
Nostalgia for strong, silent heroes like those Wayne portrayed can regularly be spotted in places like HBO's "The Sopranos." Of course, even Tony Soprano sees a shrink, and Wayne's rugged masculinity is now often viewed as the symbol of bygone era; feelings are now meant to be openly expressed and analyzed. Those who keep their emotions locked up have even been referred to as suffering from the "John Wayne syndrome."
He seldom deviated from heroic roles, often set in the West or on the battlefield. Among his most beloved and acclaimed films are "Stagecoach" (1939), "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949), "The Searchers" (1956) and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). His range was limited, but he mined a narrow path of the reluctant but obligated hero — a consistent approach that furthered his iconic stature.
He knew it, too.
"When I started, I knew I was no actor, and I went to work on this Wayne thing," he once said. "I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror."
It's a notably different — and perhaps dated — tactic in a profession that values, above all, malleability. If you want to be an actor, study Brando. But if you want to be a movie star, study Wayne.
"He never tricked the audience with the characters he played," says Gretchen Wayne, who heads her late husband Michael Wayne's film company, Batjac Production, which was formed in 1954 by her legendary father-in-law. "His films started in the late '20s, early '30s, so there's three generations of people who have grown up with him."
She will host an evening presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles on Thursday, where a new restoration of "The High and the Mighty" (1954) will be shown. (Wayne was married three times and had seven children.)
Turner Classic Movies has been paying tribute throughout the week by airing a 35-film festival of his movies. His birthplace, Winterset, Iowa, will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday for a new John Wayne museum. "Hondo" (1953), recently restored in digital 3-D, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival.
Hollywood studios are also rolling out a small army of DVD releases, including collector's sets from Lionsgate, Universal, Warner Home Video and Paramount.
This is all evidences an enduring love for Wayne that may surpass even his esteemed contemporaries: Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, whose centennial was earlier this month.
Unlike some of the stars of his day, Wayne never served in World War II, ironic since Gen. Douglas MacArthur said he "represented the American serviceman better than the American serviceman himself." He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1979 shortly before his death.
Jim Olson, a Sam Houston State University history professor who co-wrote the 1995 biography "John Wayne: American," believes Wayne's guilt over not serving in the war propelled him to compensate by being a fervent anti-communist and symbol of American ideals.
"Wayne was a confused young man," says Olson. "He sort of grew up searching for the meaning of life and I think he found it in the values he ended up portraying on screen. His screen image and his individual persona kind of kept ricocheting off each other over time until the image on screen became his alter ego."
Especially in his later years, Wayne came to symbolize political conservatism and a dedication to country. His stand against communism during the Cold War was so influential that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin plotted to assassinate him, according to Michael Munn's 2005 biography "John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth."
Wayne famously said, "I always thought I was a liberal. I came up terribly surprised one time when I found out that I was a right-wing conservative extremist."
He angered more people with his support of the Vietnam War, which he expressed openly in 1968's "The Green Berets," a film he co-directed and starred in.
"Wayne lived in a world of absolutes. He did not like ambiguity," says Olson. "He lived in a world where, in his mind, right was right and wrong was wrong. And evil was real and evil had to be crushed with violence if necessary.
"There's a generation of Americans that kind of grew up with Wayne, matured with Wayne and grew old with Wayne, through all the trials and traumas of modern American history — and in doing so, found in him a voice they understood."
It's been not only 100 years since his birth, but nearly three decades since his death. Yet Wayne still remains one of the most recognizable faces in the world. He is, as New York Times film critic Vincent Camby once wrote, "marvelously indestructible."
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