Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
The Washington Post says that the president has given up on moving detainees into U.S., except for trial. Not sure where they will then be housed. Is this a loss for Obama? It depends on whether or not you believe he ever took seriously the idea that he could bring them into the U.S. This takes a good deal of credulity.
The fact is that the Bush administration chose Guantanamo because, as SECDEF Rumsfeld has said, it "was the least worst place." The same logic will/has impelled the Obama administration to conclude that they cannot bring these individuals here — both for political and legal reasons — and they are now finding how few of the president's "friends" in Europe are willing to take the detainees off our hands. This, of course, is uderstandable. Europe doesn't want them, at least not in numbers, for the same reasons that no sane or honest member of Congress wants the detainees housed in their state or district. No one in Washington, especially the Democrat leadership, ever really believed that these were innocent shepherds wrongly imprisoned — that was just cynical politics all along.
Ultimately, President Obama will have to continue the Bush policy of detention outside of the United States. We would disagree with Sec. Rumsfeld on one point here: Guantanamo is, in fact, the best possible place for this purpose. It is far from the battlefields, thoroughly secure, run by the military (Navy), and located in a country with which we already have bad relations. (As a result of those bad relations, the local civilian population is also not at risk). When you throw in the Caribbean climate and the fact that there is already a modern detention facility, with varying levels of confinment possibilities already in place, you could not ask for more — especially if you are a detainee. There are no prison gangs or overwhelmed prison guards and officials at GITMO.
As suggested above, it is difficult to believe that the Obama people did not see this all along — it is pretty obvious. They are now engaged in an effort to placate their base, and trying to avoid being caught out as the rank hypocrites they have indisputably been on this issue. Whether they will succeed here only time will tell. National Review
