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."
In his dealings abroad, remember “hope and change,” the “reset button,” and all the grandiose promises of a year ago? Barack Obama assured our critics that he would have the dreadful Bush Guantanamo Bay detention center closed by now. But then the reality that most of the detainees were cold-blooded killers who would revert to terrorism upon release — and many were Yemenis eager to join up with al-Qaeda at home — made those repeated boasts inoperative. I will be surprised if Obama ever closes Guantanamo.
The architect of 9/11 and self-confessed beheader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was supposed to be accorded a big public civilian trial a couple of thousand yards away from the scene of his mass-murdering. There, his attorneys could plead that the Bush-Cheney nexus had waterboarded him, as he voiced to the world all his grievances against a purported neo-imperialist, colonialist, and racist Bush America — hoping that at least one sympathetic juror might fall for his “America made me do it” defense.
That too seems now to be history. Sometime around Christmas, Obama discovered that al-Qaeda both still wishes to kill us and does not appreciate that we give Miranda rights to our would-be killers. I would be surprised if KSM is ever tried in a civilian court in the United States. Barack Hussein Obama, who would distance himself from America’s past sins, dating all the way back to the coup against Mossadegh in 1953. Ahmadinejad would faint in ecstasy like the 2008 campaign crowds, as he gave up his nuclear-weapon plans and fell in love with the new postnational America. And now? Iran does the same old, same old — “Israel must be destroyed,” and no one dare tell us to stop our nuclear program. The latest theocratic communiqué promised the “end of American civilization” — as we rush anti-missile batteries to the Gulf. I would not be surprised to see Iran set off a bomb this year or next. In full by Hanson in the National Review...
