Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen 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 soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt 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."
Those "Palestinians" with their self-inflicted "plight" get short shrift from Pat Condell. Arabs don't hate Jews, he says, because of Israel - they hate Israel because of Jews - Edit.
This yearās overlap of Christmas and Chanukah brought startlingly different, but ultimately connected, developments overseas. In Nigeria, word of five suicide bombs by an extremist Muslim sect murdering and maiming Christians at prayer, and wiping out whole families, cast a pall on many of the faithful. Meanwhile, archaeologists working in Ir Davidāthe ancient neighborhood adjacent to Jerusalemās Old City Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock, announced a discovery validating the historicity of a heritage central to Jews but also important to Christians.
Bearing two Aramaic words meaning āpure for G-d,ā a rare, coin-sized clay seal was found not far from the site of the Beit Hamikdash ā Holy Temple where Judaismās holiest rituals were practiced until it was destroyed by the Romans two thousand years ago.
The seal of ritual certification was similar to the seal on a jar of untainted oil that the Maccabees--heroes of the Hanukah story--were so desperately looking for when they secured the Holy Temple from the occupying Greeks. Such seals were likely in use when Jewish pilgrims came to visit the Holy Temple. Such discoveries deepen the connection to the past for todayās religious pilgrims to Jerusalem, Christians as well as Jews.
For Jewish families, the sealās discovery also serves as another concrete confirmation of Judaismās near-miraculous continuity and of our peopleās millennial-old link to Davidās City.
Unfortunately, Palestinians loathe such discoveries. Because the seal with the words, āpure for G-dā, also debunk the lies of a global campaign of religious-and-historical Denial spawned by the Palestinian leadership. Simply put, the Palestinians insist that todayās Jews and have no authentic connection to the Holy Land dating back to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or to the biblical Prophets and Kings of Israel.
Indeed, the serial denial of the Jewish peopleās legitimacy is the one core issue that Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas and the Muslim Fundamentalist Hamas can agree upon.
Even as Abbas steps up his efforts to merge his Fatah Movement with the Muslim Fundamentalist Hamasāwhose founding Charter fuses traditional religious anti-Semitism with the secular, genocidal Jew hatred of The Protocols of the Elders of ZionāAbbasā Palestinian Authority has accelerated its broader campaign to expunge Jewish history and identity from the Holy Land.
Leveraging the voting muscle of Arab and Muslim states at the UN, a committee of the United Nationsā Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), recast as a mosque, the iconic Rachelās Tomb near Bethlehemārecognized by Christians as well as Muslim for centuries as a venerable Jewish site.
The Palestiniansā historical amnesia about Jewish roots also extends to archaeological evidence of King David and King Solomonās ties to Holy City. This is a radical break from the Islamic past when Muslim recognition of the Jewsā sacred connection to Jerusalem and its holy sites was traced back to the Caliph Omar in the seventh century and extended all the way up to 1953 when the Supreme Muslim Councilās guide to Al-Haram Al- Sharif (The Temple Mount) declared: āItās [sic] identity with the site of Solomonās Temple is beyond dispute.ā
In his āhistoricā speech before the U.N. General Assembly seeking international recognition for a unilaterally declared Palestinian State, used the world stage to invoke the āHoly Landā as the place from where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven and where Jesus was born, but pointedly omitted any reference to Abraham, Moses, King David or Jeremiah. Not a hint of censure from the diplomats representing 192 nations.
Hand-in-hand with the historic amnesia, is the Palestinian Authority promotion of classic anti-Semitism. Evidence the recent article, published in the UNESCO-funded Palestinian youth magazine, Zayzafouna. In it, a ten-year-old Palestinian girl is purported to have had a dream in which Hitler told her, āYes. I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world.ā Brought to international attention by Palestinian Media Watch, nothing was done about the article until a protest by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the United States ambassador, forced UNESCO to end its funding of the magazine. But the hatred remainsā fuelled by a mixture of hateful secular and religious ideologies.
As events in 2011 proved, the international communityās silence over campaigns of religion-inspired hatred, wonāt bring peace to Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land, or restore Christmas as a public holiday in Gaza, nor protect Copts in Egypt, Catholics in Nigeria, or Christians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Silence only fuels the spread of more toxic bigotry in the name of G-d.
We can only hope and pray that in 2012, democratic governments, international agencies and NGOs will finally find the step up and construct a firewall of truth and civility to protect the faithful and their right to a future. Hat tip: Jihad Watch.