Yesterday morning, in the wake of Osama Bin Laden’s announced death, a gentleman called a local talk-radio host to express how grateful he is to know that his son, who has served several tours in Iraq, did not serve in vain. What I urge this man to remember, what I urge us all to remember, is that even if Bin Laden was never found, never killed by our Navy Seals, none of our service men and women protecting our nation over the past 10 years has served in vain. We have remained safe for the past 10 years because of their sacrifice, and because of the controversial foresight of our former President, who stayed the course in this mission, despite efforts led by the mainstream media, leftwing politicos and Hollywood types, and our current president to appease our enemies.
While we celebrated yesterday, so did we also witness those leftwing minions genuflecting at the alter of their messiah. Don’t even bother holding a 2012 presidential election, they shouted from the rooftops, virtually ignoring the fact that it was U.S. Navy Seals who actually carried out the mission (ignoring, as well, that many on the left have for almost a decade chalked 9/11 up to an evil plan perpetrated by George W.).
Yet certain tidbits of information nevertheless trickled out into the light of day, as tidbits always do. The intel, for one, that led to Bin Laden’s ultimate demise, apparently came from extreme interrogation methods carried out under the former administration’s watch — the same methods the left, including the current president, have fought valiantly to render obsolete. And apparently the Navy Seals who took out the world’s most wanted terrorist were members of an elite force referred to derisively by the left when they operated under a different administration, as Dick Cheney’s “Assassination Ring.”
The information I find most troubling, however, relates to the fact that Bin Laden was buried at sea almost instantly after he was killed. We can’t let his burial place become a shrine, we were told. That’s all well and good, but why was he dispatched so quickly? And, even more importantly, why was he given full Islamic funeral rites before the burial? No legitimate justification has been offered to answer this latter question, and, frankly, there is none.
What I have not heard floated is the idea that perhaps this administration mandated the sacred/speedy burial in an attempt to play both sides: “Sorry guys,” they may have been telling the Islamic world, “you know we had to take him out, but, hey, look, we are honoring him according to your rituals so you’ll like us!” Already we are hearing noisy grumbles over this from so-called “average” Americans (or “slugs,” as our president allegedly called us several days ago at one of his pricey campaign fundraisers). Expect those grumbles to become louder in the days, weeks, even months ahead.
While yesterday was a day of celebration, we must today remember that the war on terror continues, and it is just that: a war on terror, not a series of “manmade disasters” or “cultural misunderstandings” or whatever foolish euphemism this administration has mandated it be called. While we may thank this president for defying his own documented opposition to the war on terror and giving the order this last weekend, given what we have experienced over the last two-and-a-half years, I have come to regard with suspicion and skepticism anything that emanates from this White House. So much theater. So many photo-ops. So much trite and artificial symbolism. And always such “coincidental” timing. Indeed how provident that this president would announce that he took out Bin Laden on the anniversary of the day the American people learned Adolf Hitler was dead — and, lo and behold, eight years from the day that George W. made his much-vilified “mission accomplished” speech.
Providence? Coincidence? You be the judge. But amid the careful timing and the theatrics (lab-coated doctors in the Rose Garden, a fake Parthenon in Denver), let us not forget this Thursday, when Obama accepts his accolades at Ground Zero for “getting” Bin Laden, that if he had had his way, there would have been no critical intel gathered by methods this president and his ilk have vehemently opposed. There would have been no Navy Seals in Pakistan to pull the trigger on the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda. And if he has way, the end of Bin Laden and his own golden words will blind the fawning masses, the slugs, to the crushing debt facing our country; to gas, and, thus, ultimately food, prices that threaten to grind our nation to a halt; and to unemployment rates skyrocketing as fast as our taxes into the stratosphere.
I, for one, do not intend to ignore the current state of our nation. Today, and every day, I will pray that we the people will continue to maintain our vigilance, as our founders urged, toward all, both foreign and domestic, who seek to harm our nation and blind us to the threat.
Inconvenient Timing for Barack Obama’s “Surprise” Visit to Afghanistan
May 1, 2012 | Comments (0)As we know, Barack Obama is all about the show (think white-coated doctors in the Rose Garden and a memorial/pep-rally in Tucson), so there was no way he would pass up the chance on this first anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death to make a “surprise” trip to Afghanistan to take credit for both Bin Laden’s demise and what he has called the end of the war on terror. (How better, too, for Obama to deflect attention away from this May Day and the Occupy movement he has so publicly and unpopularly embraced?)
Indeed the president probably thought the timing perfect for such a dramatic commemoration of his only true success as president: giving the Navy Seals the go-ahead to take out Bin Laden. But upon closer examination, it would appear the timing is proving rather inconvenient. How inconvenient for Obama, for example, that Jose Rodgriguez, head of the post-9/11 enhanced interrogation of the vicious souls responsible for that terrible day, has chosen this same moment in time to broadcast how critical those enhanced techniques were for locating Bin Laden and for the ongoing safety of our nation. With a fearlessness Obama can only imagine, Mr. Rodgriquez has made it clear that these techniques have been repeatedly denounced by this president and his followers, yet they have saved thousands of American lives in our post-9/11 world. Mr. Rodgriguez has made clear who the true heroes of this story are, and a gloating, showboating president is not one of them.
How inconvenient for Obama, as well, to have his most recent desperate campaign tactic against Mitt Romney fly back in his face. You know the one: his campaign ad starring himself and Bill Clinton, claiming that probable republican candidate Romney would not have given the order to take out Bin Laden. And how inconvenient for the president that Governor Romney would so easily dismiss the charge as ridiculous, claiming that “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.”
And finally, how inconvenient for Obama’s theatrics to be overshadowed by Navy Seals, retired and current, who have chosen this same moment in time to denounce the president’s opportunistic boasting of his own success in this mission, a mission, they remind us, that was carried out, not by Obama, but by their Seal brethren. The Seals have gone on to suggest that perhaps the president is fudging a bit when detailing his role in the mission, knowing he can because those active in the armed forces are not allowed to speak out against their commander-in-chief. But as retired Seal Sniper Chris Kyle has said, someday the truth will come out, as the truth always does, and it’s not likely to match what the president has told us for the past year from various podiums, various stages, both foreign and domestic. When that truth does make its appearance, I have a feeling most of us will find it just as “surprising” as we found the president’s carefully orchestrated “surprise” visit to Afghanistan today.