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."
Hugh Fitzgerald: Rashida Tlaib and Jefferson’s Qur’an - Another case of Muslims negating history
Saturday, January 05, 2019
U.S. Marines Capture the Barbary Pirate Fortress at Derna, Tripoli, 27th April 1805
Jihad Watch : Rashida Tlaib, the newly-elected Democratic congresswoman from
Michigan, was sworn in yesterday on the Qur’an once owned by Thomas
Jefferson.
She claims this Qur’an shows that “Muslims were there at the
beginning.” The only thing that Jefferson’s Qur’an shows is that he was
curious about all sorts of things, and that, among those things, was
Islam. He apparently bought the Qur’an, in the 1734 translation by
George Sale, when he was a young man studying law.
We do not know when,
or even if, he read the book. Rashida Tlaib may think Jefferson’s owning
of the Qur’an was a sign of his respect for the faith. The facts
suggest otherwise. We do know that in March 1786, Jefferson and John Adams met in London
with the ambassador from Tripoli, Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, to discuss
Triopolitanian attacks on American shipping.
When they inquired
“concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who
had done them no injury,” the ambassador replied: “It was written in their Koran, (that all nations which had not
acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of
the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was
slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that
the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above
his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship,
every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which
usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter
at once.”
Jefferson came away from that encounter convinced that the only language
these Muslims understood was force, and that any payment to Tripoli, as
Abdrarahman had demanded, in order to stop attacks on American
shipping, would not work. Jefferson argued that paying tribute would
only encourage more attacks. However, even those who agreed with
Jefferson thought the American navy was ill-prepared to engage the ships
of the Bashaw of Tripoli, and it was not until 1801, when Jefferson had
become President, and turned down a demand from the Bashaw for tribute
in order to exempt American shipping from Tripolitanian attacks, that
the first Barbary War began.
Ever since his encounter in London with Abdrarahman in 1786, Jefferson had taken a dim, and realistic view, of Muslims. He understood that they attacked Christian shipping because they were convinced that they had both a right and a duty to do so.
Possibly Rashida Tlaib does not know about his encounter with the envoy from Tripoli. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if among the reporters covering her swearing-in — and with many no doubt gushing over this “first Palestinian-American” member of Congress — there will be at least one intrepid reporter who will remind readers that the Qur’an Jefferson owned was one of 6,487 books his library ultimately included, that he had bought it as a young law student, and that there is no indication that he ever read it, much less ever mentioned it respectfully.
Further, Jefferson’s own pugnacity toward the Muslim rulers of North Africa, and his refusal to countenance the payment of tribute to the Bashaw of Tripoli, which led to the First Barbary War, have their roots in his first encounter with a Muslim, the Tripolitanian envoy in London, Sidi Hajj Abdrarahman, who, when Jefferson asked him the reason why Tripoli’s sailors attacked Americans who had done nothing to them, coolly explained that:
“It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.”
