RetrophischLink to a legitimate news story showcasing a civil acts violation in the United States as a result of the PATRIOT ACT. Good luck.
To date, not one court or congressional committee has found evidence of any abuse of the powers under the Patriot Act.
Not one civil action has been filed against the government under Section 223, which allows citizens to seek damages for any willful violations of the Act.
Today President Bush posthumous awarded the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Paul Ray Smith of the U.S. Army. Sergeant Smith, in April of 2003, led a counter attack against members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard who had ambushed Army troops at the Baghdad Airport. His actions saved more than 100 men. Only three Medals of Honor have been awarded since the Vietnam War.
We are grateful for people like Sergeant Smith, and our hearts and prayers go out to his family, especially his children. Were that more of our countrymen of Sergeant Smith’s mind.
The AP editoralizes:
Italy said Tuesday it will start drawing down its 3,000-strong contingent in Iraq in September, putting a fresh crack in President Bush’s crumbling coalition.
Yet these same left-of-center “reporters” have also spent a considerable amount of “news” space editoralizing that the United States was acting “unilaterally” in Iraq, and echoing the words of Senator Kerry, who said our allies were just “window dressing.”
So which is it? Do we have allies or not? Are they simply “window dressing,” or are they actually participating in combat, supply, and support missions? Make up your minds, “reporters.” You do not get to have it both ways.
With the democracy domino wobbling and threatening to fall in Lebanon, there is a lot at stake for many in the region. The Wall Street Journal sums it up (paid subscription required):
An estimated one million Syrian guest workers reside in Lebanon and remit their wages to relatives back home, and Syrian officials have plundered much of the international aid Lebanon received over the past decade. The Bekaa Valley also serves as a lucrative transit point for narcotics and other contraband. Without Lebanon, Syria’s economy might collapse. So, too, might the Assad dynasty: Bashar’s grip on power is far less sure than his father’s, and the loss of prestige that a withdrawal from Lebanon would entail might well be politically fatal to him and the minority Allawite clique through which he rules.
For Iran the stakes are strategic. Its elite Revolutionary Guards operate terrorist training camps in the Bekaa. Iran has also placed upward of 10,000 missiles in Lebanon, including the medium-range Fajr-5 rocket, bringing half of Israel within their reach. It thus maintains the option of igniting a new Mideast war at any moment, as well as a hedge against the possibility of a pre-emptive Israeli strike on its nuclear installations. Yet if Syria withdraws, no pro-independence Lebanese government will indulge Iran’s military presence. The Lebanese have had enough of allowing their territory to serve, Belgium-like, as the battleground of choice for foreign powers.
For Hezbollah, the stakes are greater still. During the years when Israel maintained a security zone in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah could present himself as a patriot fighting occupation. But Israel removed its forces from Lebanon in 2000, and now Nasrallah’s support for Syrian occupation exposes a different set of motives: not patriotic, but Jihadist. And the last thing the Jihadists want is for Lebanon to again become a flourishing, pluralist, cosmopolitan Arab state. Syria’s withdrawal would likely precipitate a Lebanese decision to enforce UN Resolution 520, which requires the Lebanese Army to patrol its border with Israel, a function now performed by Hezbollah. At length, it could lead to the disbanding of Hezbollah as an independent militia, though its terrorist wings would likely continue to operate.
So let’s see: Syrian influence is weakened, the dictatorial ruling party is squashed, and the democracy domino potentially falls in that nation. Iran’s influence is further weakened, and its military presence threatening Israel loses ground; actual, physical ground. Lastly, Hezbollah’s power is further weakened, and the organization is exposed for what it truly is and always has been: a group of terrorists.
Tell me, o occupiers of the Left and haters of America, democracy, and liberty, what is the down side?
Peggy Noonan points to civil defense, not Social Security or tax cuts, as the real number-one domestic issue. The one no one is talking about.
A U.S. Marine, Staff Sgt. Steve Reichert, has scored a kill shot while engaging the enemy in Iraq, and the shot was over a mile away. For his actions, Staff Sgt. Reichert has been awarded the Bronze Star for Valor.
In the after-action report, the platoon leader made a remarkable account: that Reichert made the shot from 1,614 meters – about a mile away. His accuracy was the deciding factor in the outcome of the firefight.
For the math-impaired, 1,614 meters translates in to 1765.0918662 yards. There are three feet in a yard, so that number times three yields 5,295.2755986 feet. Staff Sgt. Reichert scored a kill shot at fifteen feet beyond a mile. Boys and girls, that’s a long, long way for a rifle shot.
The Toad reports on a new long-distance sniping record in Iraq, by a U.S. Marine sniper. I like Brian’s thought:
I wonder what goes through the minds of terrorist scum…when their fellow thugs are being systematically plucked out of the gene pool from that distance.
Indeed, snipers are extremely effective psychological weapons of war. Not to mention, the most cost-effective weapon available on the battlefield, even with their expensive training. A well-trained sniper with a few missions under his belt is worth his weight in gold, silver, platinum, and any other precious metal. Combined.
For the math-impaired reading the story linked above, a thousand yards is more than half a mile.
From the “Religion of Peace” Department, Jeff Jacoby:
In which country are Muslims being taught the following lessons?
“Everyone who does not embrace Islam is an unbeliever and must be called an unbeliever… . One who does not call the Jews and the Christians unbelievers is himself an unbeliever.”
“Whoever believes that churches are houses of God…or that what Jews and Christians do constitutes the worship of God…is an infidel.”
To offer greetings to a Christian at Christmas — even to wish “Happy holidays” — is “a practice more loathsome to God…than imbibing liquor, or murder, or fornication.”
Jews “are worse than donkeys.” They are the corrupting force “”behind materialism, bestiality, the destruction of the family, and the dissolution of society.”
Muslims who convert to another religion “should be killed because [they] have denied the Koran.”
Democracy is “responsible for all the horrible wars” of the 20th century, and for spreading “ignorance, moral decadence, and drugs.”
If you guessed Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, or any host of Muslim nations, well, you’d probably be right. But the point of the article is that it’s happening here in the States.