Obama...We've Got Him

Remember the 2004 debates, when John Kerry won the first one, lost the second and he may have won the third narrowly? Although he won two of three debates, the main result was that he gave the Republicans two excellent sound bites to use against him: "global test," and [Saddam would] "not necessarily still be in power." He further lost points for normalcy in that when asked to talk about his wife, he talked about his mother, so all three debates helped the Bush campaign.
Fast forward to last night, in which the Democrats seem determined to give ammunition to their adversaries. Since 2002, Hilary Clinton has been running in the center on the war and illegal immigration because she will eventually have to run in the general election. Barack Obama and John Edwards are running only for the primary and seeking to placate their anti-war fringe. Last night, a hypothetical question asked the candidates if they would launch military strikes after a simultaneous attack on two U.S. cities that they knew al Qaeda had perpetrated. Edwards and Obama did not endorse military action, saying that they would make an internal response, fire somebody at Homeland Security, assess our intelligence problems, etc.
What did Rudy Giuliani say this week about the Democrats? He did not say we would have another 9/11 - that was a drastic misquote from Politico.com. Giuliani said that if they were in power, the forces of this country would only play defense. This debate will haunt Obama if he is the nominee (I have too much respect for Democrat voters to imagine that they might nominate that slimey ambulance-chaser, so no mention is necessary of "if Edwards is the nominee.") because he has outlined a plan for security that calls for waiting until a terrorist attack, then waiting until the next terrorist attack... The Man of Hope has a chink in his armor.

Victory for Civil Discourse! Rosie is Gone!

Last week, I caught the end of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, when he gives his mini-state-of-the-union address. At that time, Don Imus was the big news, so his firing represented a victory for civility in pubic discourse, Mr. Gumbel informed all of his thoughtful listeners. Now, the biggest reward we could imagine: a victory not only for civility but for sanity. The woman who recently accused the British/American military of staging the capture of fifteen British sailors, (She thinks the two armed forces are one and the same, that George W. Bush and Tony Blair are Siamese Twins, and that Karl Rove breathed fire to bring down the World Trade Center buildings, etc.)...excuse me, I just drifted off out of the sane America for a second. Anyway, Rosie O'Donnell has at last received her pink slip as co-host on The View. Her rounds of insult-sparring with Donald Trump has left the old man with the last laugh. She has been fired multiple times, which is par for the course in broadcasting, has now lost her place on two shows, and the man with the wave-kopf (a little German lingo there) is the last one standing. As you might recall, their exchange of insults began when Rosie said that Trump had gone bankrupt. That was a lie, certifiably, and he has spoken of a slander suit. Talk radio hosts everywhere are bemoaning this sad turn of events because they will have so much trouble getting funny material hereafter. She spoiled them rotten on a daily basis. Oh well, condolences to them and cheers for all of us. May she find the anonymity she has so long deserved.

Martyrs in Turkey

The country currently campaigning for admittance to the European Union has a problem. The Turkish government in Ankara has just announced the arrests of five young men, students all living in the same housing complex, in the city of Malatya. They have been accused of murder in the deaths of one German and two Turks, who were found tied with their throats slit. The German, Tilman Ekkehart Geske, owned a publishing house where he printed, in addition to other texts, Christian Bibles. The Turks had converted to Christianity. When the suspects were detained, all five were bearing notes with vows of martyrdom. The story is here: http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Apr18/0,4670,TurkeyBibleAttack,00.html
This is the second brutal murder in Malatya this year of a victim whose only offense was publishing Bibles. Last year, a teenager shot a Roman Catholic priest in Malatya. Another Turkish nationalist murdered Hrant Dink, an Armenian Christian publisher, earlier this year. Several Turks marched to protest Dink's murder, and 100,000 people attended his funeral, but a mere 150 people protested this latest attrocity, holding candles and carrying a banner in Istanbul. The Turkish government has a difficult case on its hands. They will prosecute these murderers, but the consequences may be far-reaching. The Quran states in no uncertain terms that the penalty for conversion to another religion is death, as is the penalty for persuading a Muslim to convert. If the Prophet is the highest authority, the actions of the murderers were justified. This case will bear watching, as Turkey's stance as a secular nation is tested.
This story is brought to you from the United States, where we have proudly called a chopping tool an "ax" for two hundred years. Out with the British.

Evidently Not a Connection

As more details emerge about the sad case of Cho Seung-Hui, it appears that he had no attachment to Islam other than aesthetic inspiration. In the package he sent to NBC, he left his return address simply as "Ishmael," spelled the Judeo-Christian way, and his videos contain several references to Christianity. The only thing his videos reveal is that he was troubled and a loner, not by any means a Jihadist. The upshot of it all is that evil people commit these crimes and we may not ever figure out the reasons why. As great a milestone as it was to have my first bigotry accusation on the 7-month anniversary of my first posting, I will delete my previous two postings because their evidence has checked out either inconclusive or red herring.

The Bigotry Accusation

After my last posting, a fellow blogger has accused me of bigotry, predictably enough. My question mark in the title, to which I called attention, stressed my lack of certainty, but the central points of the posting stand: Cho used the Muslim spelling for "Ismail" and his video called Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold "martyrs," as he criticized American "debauchery," both of which Jihadists do. His videos, which came out after my posting, show him saying he is going to "die like Jesus," so he appears to be borrowing metaphors from both religions to some degree. My critic questions whether any Muslim traditions have Abraham wielding an ax. The source for my posting, came from an article to which Melissa Drosjack, Paul Wagenseil and the Associated Press contributed, posted here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266523,00.html. The exact source of the ax reference was one who spoke to the Chicago Tribune. I had not heard that story previously either, but trusted the authority of the AP, Fox News and the Tribune.
One minor element of my posting was slightly inaccurate. Christians believe that the Dome of the Rock marks the spot where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac. Muslims do not, placing the location near Mecca. The religions differ, but my posting was correct for the Christian version of the site. If you really want to split hairs, the Dome of the Rock is a shrine, not a mosque, and the Al Aqsa Mosque is near it. Muslims hold that the Dome of the Rock marks the spot on Mount Moriah where Mohammed ascended to Heaven.
Perhaps we should define bigotry. Bigotry is promoting some unflattering and inaccurate image of a person or group. It is not bigotry to call the French surrenderers based on their war record, but it would be bigotry to warn, for instance, that French people have voracious sexual appetites and want to rape American women. In view of the violence that Muslims have perpetrated in terrorist fashion over the last several years, it is not bigotry to ask a question when a mass murderer uses Muslim spellings for a Muslim icon, uses Jihadist terminology, and tapes himself taunting the outside world with the violence he is preparing to perpetrate. Jihadists make video tapes of themselves delivering messages routinely. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but so many terrorists are Muslims that my question had a historical foundation.

Cho Seung-Hui Murders 32 at Virginia Tech

For the record, the Virginia Tech murderer's name was Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean resident alien who took the lives of two students in the dormitory West Ambler Johnston Hall, prompting a 911 call to the police at 7:15. While the police began their investigation at the dormitory, Cho proceeded at some point to Norris Hall, a classroom building, and chained the front door shut, opening fire there over two hours later. A 911 phone call to police at 9:45 alerted them to his rampage in the classroom building, where he took 30 lives, and after breaking the doors down, the police found him dead with his victims at 9:55. As of now, ballistics tests have matched the 9mm handgun he carried to the shootings in both buildings. Cho Seung-Hui also carried a .22 caliber pistol, but it is not certain now whether he used it.
Now that we know the basic details, which will get updated when the victims have all been identified, we should keep our terminology straight: the VT incident is a crime, not a tragedy. Tragedy implies a mishap without a perpetrator, such as a storm. The death toll of this crime is 32, not 33 - good riddance to the murderer whose life justice would demand anyway. The killer in this situation is sin, not weapons. The evil in men's hearts will find fruition in actions by whatever means they can obtain. We must pray for the families of the victims, that God will provide them comfort and that they will seek Him in this very difficult time of grief.

Stem Cell Watch IV

Stem cell discoveries are starting to hit close to home for me. The Times of London reports here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1637528.ece that diabetics have been able to stop taking insulin after undergoing treatment with stem cells harvested from their own blood. That gives a whole new meaning to the saying, "Physician, heal thyself!" Now, it's more like, "Patient, heal thyself." The developers estimate that it will be five to eight years before this treatment is available to the public for use by Type 1 diabetics like my wife, but this news is extremely encouraging.
The Times article, of course, puts in a few blistering words, bashing President Bush for opposing the destruction of human embryos, but, like all other treatments using stem cells, this advance employs adult stem cells. I do not know the precise score of treatments that have been developed, but it stands close to this:
Adult stem cells: >100
Embryonic stem cells: 0
Bear in mind that with last year's bill, Congress did not ban embryonic stem cell research. Anyone in the private realm who thinks embryonic stem cells furnish all of the cures to all known diseases (as Arlen Specter has said they do) may sponsor funding for them at any time. Congress prohibited the spending of public funds on embryonic stem cell research; nothing more and nothing less than that. Cheers for another great medical advance!

The Duke Witch Hunt Has Ended

Today at 2:30, Attorney General Roy Cooper of North Carolina will announce that all charges are being dropped against the three Duke Lacrosse players. It might be unfair to the Salem witch hunters to call Mike Nifong's travesty a witch hunt. Now Nifong is under indictment by the state bar for a long rapsheet, including withholding excupatory DNA evidence from the defense and lying to both the court and the bar. He will stand trial in June and face disbarment, after which time I hope the three students sue him for defamation for every penny he has. I don't know what the law says about suing frivolous prosecutors, so I do not know whether they can do that. I would love to see false arrest charges brought against the accuser, but Attorney General Roy Cooper has announced that he will not bring charges against her, Crystal Gail Mangum, because she may have believed the stories she was telling. I wish his brand of justice had been applied to Scooter Libby. At Foxnews.com, her family chose to remind all of us that they are poor and black. I suppose it was poverty that influenced Mangum's attempt to run over a policeman with a car in 2003.
Nifong never had a case to begin with. If we need to rehash it, here are the small problems he faced from the first moment of the investigation: 1) the accuser, Crystal Gail Mangum, described her attackers as heavy-set, 270-280 pounds, which is 100 pounds heavier than any Lacrosse player. 2) Mangum repeatedly failed to pick out Lacrosse players from the lineups that policemen furnished 3) one indicted player had an airtight alibi supported by a taxi driver and ATM recoeds 4) Mangum changed her story more times and in bigger degrees than Britney Spears has changed her hairstyle, 5) the other stripper said that the accuser was never alone with anyone, and 6) Crystal Mangum had DNA from several men on her, but none matched a Lacrosse player. Other than that, it was a good case. From Day 1, Nifong did not have a single piece of evidence other than the word of the accuser, who had made similar frivolous accusations before. I hope the bar throws the book at Nifong. This case has thus far resulted in the resurgence of the New Black Panther Party, the reelection of Mike Nifong, and the defamation of three students, who were unwise to hire strippers but completely innocent of rape and kidnapping.
Also, those 80+ professors at Duke who signed a document condemning the players need to apologize, but that probably is not going to happen this side of eternity either.

Popejoy and the Speaker

Private Popejoy was a soldier who literally shot himself in the foot while performing the arduous combat task of climbing off of a HUMMV. As his Executive Officer, I was awakened at 2:00 in the morning to attend the momentous event of helping carry his stretcher as we loaded him onto an ambulance and sent him off by chopper out of our base in Scania, Iraq.
Speaker Pelosi and he share a number of things in common, as she has now committed another gaffe that in tennis would be called an unforced error. If Republicans could have enumerated their dream scenario of her first four months as Speaker, I am not sure they could have improved on her present performance. After losing her first battle, the internal squabble over her Murtha-for-Majority-Leader stance, she passed a few insignificant bills and announced victory in the First Hundred Hours. In the supplemental bill for the troops, Pelosi put every Democrat in the House except two on the record voting to attach strings to funding for the troops in Iraq. Even President Bush found his voice for fighting words, which he has almost never managed to do on domestic issues, and threatened to discover that he has veto power. That vote will haunt dozens, especially the so-called Blue Dogs, who might better be termed Blue Gelded Dogs because I have never seen them break ranks at voting time.
Now, she has acted on her Messiah complex - the same impulse that led her to ask the Air Force for her own private 757 - and appointed herself Secretary of State of Israel. While in Syria recently, she announced that the Israelis had sent her to deliver a message: Israel is ready to negotiate peace and the road to peace in the Middle East leads to Damascus. Of course Ehud Olmert immediately contradicted her because what she said was not true. Of course it was not true - Israel would never use a foreign legislative leader as a diplomat; the very idea is absurd - but don't you see that it should have been true. Can't these people understand that Nancy Pelosi wanted it to be true?!! She wants peace in the world so badly!! I am not being sarcastic when I observe that clearly our Speaker has taken to heart and tried to apply the words of the song:
Let there be peace on Earth
And let it begin with me
Children sing that song at kindergarten graduation to express their desire that the future of the entire world will be better than the past because they will be peaceful. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi still believes the trite, simplistic, naive message of this song. She believes that her mere appearance on the soil of foreign lands should bring about instant and perfect peace because she is so good, tolerant, understanding and compassionate. She said the gavel would be in the hands of the children, so should it surprise us that she is now acting like one? We have yet another reminder of why we need adults running our government.

BBC: No Heroes Allowed!

It pays to know at the outset that the Victoria Cross is the highest award a British soldier can earn. The VC has occupied the same place as our Medal of Honor for British soldiers ever since Queen Victoria occupied the throne. In May 2004, Private Johnson Beharry drove a Warrior armored personnel carrier (which looks much like our Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle) through heavy enemy fire to rescue a foot patrol from an ambush. Insurgents fired several rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and pummeled the vehicle, but Beharry managed to secure the foot soldiers and led a group of five Warriors through the ambush. After clearing the immediate line of fire, he climbed out of his vehicle and administered first aid to his wounded crew members while under fire. On a later date, Beharry was again driving the lead vehicle when an ambush hit his vehicle with a number of RPGs, wounding the vehicle commander and injuring Beharry in the head. Although his wounds would later require brain surgery, Beharry drove the vehicle out of the kill zone and reached safety just before losing consciousness. In these two instances, his cool conduct under fire with total disregard of his own safety saved several lives. The consensus to bestow the Victoria Cross on him must have been unanimous because the medal arrived quite promptly.
Recently, the BBC has cancelled funding for a movie about Beharry's courage, allegedly because it portrays the War in Iraq in too positive a light. London's Daily Telegraph reports the story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/08/wiraq308.xml
Spokesmen for the BBC will not confirm exactly why they have pulled their funding from the project, but they have seldom been shy about expressing their hostility to the war effort. All good news must be censored at all costs. I have to give the Brits credit: at least they started making this movie, and if another distributor signs on, they can complete it.
Our media does the same thing, of course. While I was in Iraq, my father and I separately exchanged a series of tense emails with the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, whose reporters could never seem to find any successful missions to report on. I wrote to inform them about a number of successful raids in which troops captured large stocks of enemy weapons - over one ton of explosives on a few occasions - and they informed me that they do not print news about anything combat-related other than deaths of soldiers. We are still waiting for the movies about our heroes from the last two wars. Sergeant Smith earned the Medal of Honor four years ago, but we are still waiting for the film about his life. Personally, I'd like to see a film about Captain Brian Chontosh of the Marine Corps, but I'm not holding my breath. None of the movies about Desert Storm has shown true-life soldiers doing heroic deeds. When will our movies show soldiers as heroes again?