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Now home, the 15 members of the British Royal Navy crew held by Iran offer details on their capture and ordeal. As Fox News reports, the sailors and marines said that they were in Iraqi waters when they were taken, despite what was said in videos made by their captors where they admitted to entering Iranian waters and offered regrets.
Describing their capture, Marine Captain Chris Air said, “From the outset, it was very apparent that fighting back was not an option.” The Iranian crew leveled heavy machine guns on the Britons after ramming their boats. While held hostage, the crew was blindfolded for much of their 13-day ordeal and spent their time in isolation.
Though some condemned the crew for apologizing when they had done nothing wrong, Royal Navy Admiral Sir Jonathan Band felt that the crew “acted with considerable dignity and a lot of courage.”
Iran, though it failed to get a public apology, nevertheless got to show its strength and appear somewhat reasonable. Not what one would expect from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is certainly not something that should fool observers into thinking he is less dangerous than what they thought before this incident.
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In an American Thinker column, John Robinson provides a brilliant analogy for those who claim to support US troops but not the their mission. Likening Martin Luther King, Jr. to the troops and the Civil Rights Movement to the mission in Iraq, Robinson shows how you can’t support one without supporting the other.
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The AP reports that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling and allowed the Pentagon to continue its support of the National Boy Scout Jamboree.
Two Chicago-area “religious leaders,” aided and abetted by the ACLU, sued the Pentagon in 1999, whining that the Boy Scouts should not receive public support because Scouts require members to swear an oath of “duty to God.”
But the court displayed better sense than the men who filed the suit. “Even assuming that it is correct to characterize the BSA as a ‘religious’ organization, this statute is for the purpose of assisting the military in persuading a new generation to join its ranks and in building good will. This is a secular and valid purpose,” the court wrote.
The ACLU shot back; “We continue to believe that government funding to support private activities which exclude persons on the basis of their beliefs is unconstitutional,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Adam Schwartz said.
The ruling is positive for two reasons. First, it protected the rights and traditions of the suits primary target; The Boy Scouts of America. But just as importantly, it protected the suits secondary target, our military; upholding the rights and traditions of our servicemen and women.
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President Bush took advantage of lawmaker’s inability to obstruct his appointments this week, a New York Times article reports. With Congress not in session for Easter break Bush used recess appointments to make Sam Fox the ambassador to Belgium, Andrew G. Biggs the deputy commissioner of Social Security, and Susan E. Dudley the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the office of Management and Budget. Democrats strongly opposed all three candidates during previous hearings.
Fox, who contributed to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, was subject to Kerry’s questioning during the hearings. But in bypassing Congress, Bush denied the Senator his revenge against a Swift Boat contributor.
Biggs only offense is his views on privatizing Social Security. Democrats, opposed to both allowing Americans the freedom of choice and removing even a little of government from where it has already encroached into citizens lives, shot down Biggs confirmation.
Environmental and consumer groups opposed Dudley, claiming she was hostile to government regulation. All the more reason she needs to be in where Bush wants her.
The three can legally serve only until the end of 2008 – but that is long enough for Bush’s purposes as his term will then practically be over.
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The Washington Times reports that in raids against terrorists forces (conducted on March 3rd), American and Iraqi soldiers killed six and captured another 41 in their ongoing effort to destroy the multiple warring groups terrorizing Iraq.
In response to this success both the Iraqi government and some Iraqis themselves say the situation has improved since February when the US stepped up its security measures. Thanks to the success Iraqi officials are pushing back the nightly curfew from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. and individual Iraqis feel that several neighborhoods are now safer.
Staff Sgt. Brian Long sees progress but admits that it is “too early to tell if the surge is working.” Still, he said, “even coming to an agreement to not kill each other is a step in a positive direction; it has happened in some neighborhoods.”
The article concludes by noting that most Iraqis are adopting a wait and see attitude but that some see the U.S. forces as the only thing preventing complete chaos in Iraq. Hassan, who asked that his full name not be used, said that if the U.S. “retreat and leave everything to the Iraqis, at that time the civil war in Iraq will start.”
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An MSNBC report that details House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Damascus, Syria, reveals how she has apparently forgotten the fact that America speaks through one branch of government – the Executive - when dealing with other nations. In her absentmindedness, she has “great hopes” for talks with the Syrian president that will in reality do nothing more than reinforce the notion that America’s opponents can merely wait out one administration in hopes of a friendlier successor.
If Pelosi’s actions are any indication of things to come (she refused to let the House vote on a resolution condemning Iran for holding 15 British sailors and marines hostage) she and her fellow Democrats will prove to be the perfect and willing ally of terrorist sponsoring, tyrant ruled states.
Pelosi’s “great hopes” for her trip rest on Bashar Assad, an anti-Semite who said the election of Ariel Sharon proved that Israel was “a racist society, even more racist than the Nazis,” supported Saddam and often spouts anti-American rhetoric. The nation he rules allegedly acts as a safe haven for terrorists, finances Hezbollah, and is home to the offices of both Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.
The White House, opposed to the trip, claimed that such visits send mixed messages to Assad. Bush clearly understands the dangers in rewarding terrorist-supporting nations with the seeming legitimacy that comes with normal diplomatic relations and has therefore refused to open direct talks with the Syrian government. In her recklessness, Pelosi has not only disregarded these dangers but has directly assaulted the authority of the office of the President of the United States.
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According to a Times Online article, a recent study shows that many UK teachers have opted to ignore George Santayana famous warning that failing to remember history condemns one to repeat it. Declining to instruct their students on such topics as the Holocaust and the Crusades, they have decided to put the feelings of their students above the facts of history.
The study, funded by the Department for Education and conducted by the Historical Association, shows that fears of offending students from certain races or religions (read, Muslims) as well as an unwillingness to challenge the skewed view of history taught in the students homes and mosques, leads to a superficial understanding of emotionally and politically charged historical topics.
Such irresponsibility is why Holocaust survivors and their supports feel the need to wear “Never Again” buttons. For more information, Encarta has articles on the Holocaust and the Crusades.
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In a speech delivered before the United Nations Human Rights Council, Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of UN Watch, exposes the truth about the council’s anti-Semitic bent. And while it is already difficult to take seriously a body supposedly concerned with human rights where China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia have sat as members, Neuer’s analysis is dead-on and shatters any remaining illusions as to the council’s credibility.
UN Human rights Council President Luis Alfonso De Alba makes no defense against Neuer’s charges. Rather, he opts to threaten that any similar comments made against the council will be removed from the records. Essentially, since he cannot deny the charges, the president of the Council of Human Rights decides to suppress the right of free speech.
It is outrageous that the United States pays the lion’s share of the UN’s regular budget (22%) and its peacekeeping budget (27%). In 2006, that worked out to over $423 million dollars for the regular budget and, in 2005, $1.28 billion for peacekeeping budget (though the US only paid about half the peacekeeping amount). Why does the US fund an organization that not only barks at Israel but bites the hand that feeds it?
