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REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

12/13/2006

The Last Word


(Beware those who caution against carrying a big stick,
especially when your enemy is carrying a bloody sword)

Jonah Goldberg's got it right on this one:

In Washington, sometimes it’s preferable to be wrong in a group than to be right alone. Nothing demonstrates the triumph of this truism than the release of the final Iraq Study Group Report. The Commission’s Chairman, James A. Baker III, could not have been more obvious if he had used hand puppets to illustrate what he thought was most important about this supposedly momentous occasion: the fact that all the report’s authors actually agree with its contents.

Their product, Baker gushed, ‘is the only recommended approach that will enjoy, in our opinion, complete bipartisan support, at least from the ten people you see up here.’

Whoop-de-do! No one in the media was sufficiently motivated to ask the emperors why they had no clothes on, or to raise the simple question, ‘Who cares?’ Instead, viewers at home (all three broadcast news networks broke in to cover the ‘news’ live) watched as one commission member after another grew misty-eyed over their own statesmanship.

Former Clinton Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta, waxed lyrical about how this document represented ‘one last chance at unifying this country on this war.’

Heads sagely nodded at the relentless self-adulation of the commissioners who put their ‘partisan differences’ behind them in the spirit of unanimity, unity, bipartisanship, comity, handholding and all around mutual respect and love. (It’s no wonder one of their key recommendations is to form an international Iraq ‘support group’. Who can resist the image of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whining about how his father never loved him, only to be interrupted by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia complaining that the Zionists ate all the good doughnuts?)


(end of Goldberg's eloquent rant :)
______________________



Too many similar imbeciles populate the halls of congress (and more will be sworn in in January). We cannot abide weak-kneed, self-worshipping, blind-sided creators or evaluators of policy at this most perilous time in the history of the free world, no matter the lofty label they or their handlers choose to affix to their propaganda machine.

Nor do we need their platitudinous advice as to how best to ‘get along’ in a bipartisan fashion – because those in the other party (as well as the weak-kneed compromisers in what was once the republican party) do not represent the kind of leadership with which we had better seek unity -- i.e., if you see a 'bipartisan' animal of any kind in your field of vision, run like hell in the other direction! Their brand of unity requires capitulation and a desire to negotiate with sub-human, sadistic barbarians who, if given a choice, would rather disembowel a non-believer (or, better yet, a thousand or two) than look him in the eye in an honest quest to find fertile ground upon which the mirage called ‘peace’ can be built.

Middle-ground bipartisanship is not a viable location of safety when the partisan with whom one is negotiating is completely incapable of movement in your direction. Feet firmly implanted in leftist soil ... thick, black, unrelenting leftist soil that values political power exponentially more than it values American freedom and sovereignty.

I, for one, now seek to segregate myself (‘unity’ be damned) from Pollyannas/traitors (take your pick, they fit into one or the other category, and no other) who continue to embrace a ‘we are the world’ philosophy on the issue of confronting Islamo-fascism.

Longfellow, whose writing and philosophy I generally adore, once wrote, ‘If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.’

Longfellow’s wisdom was forged in a different time – a time in which a man’s beliefs and behaviors could be traced to his unique personal and ancestral history. We now live in an historically unprecedented era in which tens of millions of men, simply by virtue of where on this earth they are born, are taught from birth that their ‘god’ demands of them to wreak torment and painful death upon large populations of their fellow man. Longfellow’s foundation of personal ‘sorrow and suffering’ fades into irrelevance, in deference to the germination of a singular wicked seed planted in the minds and (what’s left of the) hearts of hordes of vile, evil-nurtured barbarians.

As a contributor to this weblog recently wrote: No more talk, no more lies, no more dissembling, no more diplomacy. They stop, and they stay stopped, or they die, and their countries die with them. In Iran, in Syria, in Somalia, in Waziristan, leaders and civilians who support terrorists have forfeited their right to breathe the air of this planet. We don't have to occupy them, we don't have to rebuild them, we don't have to ‘bring them to justice,’ or grant them habeas corpus or let them have lawyers. We just have to destroy them.

And to the many here among us in America who serve as either purposeful or unwitting cogs in their propaganda machine (many of whom serve in leaderhip positions in Washington): The still-activist sixties leftist flower children -- now dupes, or avowed One-World Marxists -- have every right to continue to wallow in their ignorance-induced or liberty-loathing stupor. But don’t attempt to bring me, and my informed, patriot countrymen into your mirage. We have better things to do just now, and, concerning those ‘better things’ ... be forewarned ... you are counted among the enemy.

Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis!

More to follow …

~ joanie

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Count me in with your "Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis!" group, gal!

Anonymous said...

Don't call it the "Iraq Study Group". The correct name is "Iraq Surrender Group".

Anonymous said...

It doesn't help when many of our own leaders, and former leaders, are anti-Semites.

Anonymous said...

Who can resist the image of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whining about how his father never loved him, only to be interrupted by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia complaining that the Zionists ate all the good doughnuts?)

That is exactly what "diplomacy" has become in 2006.

Anonymous said...

And to the many here among us in America who serve as either purposeful or unwitting cogs in their propaganda machine (many of whom serve in leaderhip positions in Washington): The still-activist sixties leftist flower children -- now dupes, or avowed One-World Marxists -- have every right to continue to wallow in their ignorance-induced or liberty-loathing stupor. But don’t attempt to bring me, and my informed, patriot countrymen into your mirage. We have better things to do just now, and, concerning those ‘better things’ ... be forewarned ... you are counted among the enemy.

I second that motion and offer an "AMEN!"

Anonymous said...

Well done, as always.

Anonymous said...

Great gif, and excellent comments as always! I agree with it all.

Anonymous said...

Baker is a Jew-Hater from way back.

He said "f*** the Jews" at a cabinet meeting decades ago.

Over the last last 35 years he has written numerous op-ed articles whining about how Syria is mistreated, giving the distinct impression he has been on the take from Syria for many years.

Not a single member of Baker's Surrender Report has a military background.

Not a single one of them has spent any appreciable amount of time in Iraq.

The Baker Surrender Report says that Israel's "borders" should be determined at a multinational "conference" from which Israel is excluded.

It also advocates the straight 'palestinian' talking point of "right of return" for 'palestinians,' something never before advocated by any US source.

I saw Baker on a TV interview show with the Adams Family child, Tim Russert

where Baker was seething with rage as he defended his Surrender Report from criticism he felt it had gotten.

I took it from his rage filled appearance that he felt he had been clobbered by comments on his 'report' in the short time since it had come out.

.

Anonymous said...

You are a treasure, Joanie. So perceptive and well spoken. I agree with every word of this one.

Anonymous said...

Interesting Longfellow connection. People in the eighteenth and nineteenth century couldn't have foreseen what we are facing today. They wouldn't believe it.

Anonymous said...

Longfellow, whose writing and philosophy I generally adore, once wrote, ‘If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.’

Longfellow was a leftie.

He was from New England.

How does New England vote today?

Where is Ithica located?

Who elects Hillary and Ted Kennedy by large margins?

In Longfellow's day Northeastern US inhabitants considered themselves 'superior' to their 'inferiors' in the South and other parts of the US.

Longfellow knew exactly what he was writing.

Anonymous said...

I’ve been reading your answers on here for quite a while and you never say anything positive about Joanie’s or anybody else’s writing. All you do is “inform” and quibble. What is your purpose? The post above is condescending. Do you really think Joanie doesn’t know about New England’s liberalness, or what Ted Kennedy is like? And what does today’s New England politics have to do with the politics of that area in the early nineteenth century?

You really don’t have a grasp of what you claim to understand because “liberalism” in the mid 1800’s was much different than today’s “liberalism” and comparing today’s New England with the New England of Longfellow’s time is ridiculous! Maybe you ought to stop “instructing” and learn something here once in a while and stop thinking you always know better than everyone else, even the creator of this weblog.

Anonymous said...

Dan, my college degrees are in both math and English, and my focus in my English studies was on nineteenth century American writers (favorites being Longfellow, Hawthorne and Poe). I wrote several papers on Longfellow, and would describe him as a liberal. But, as you correctly point out, liberalism in the mid-eighteen-hundreds was a far cry from what is now known as liberalism (what I prefer to call ‘leftism’).

My most beloved ‘liberal’ figure of that era is Joshua Chamberlain – and, similar to Longfellow, most aspects of his ‘liberalism’ are to be admired. I strongly suspect that, if immersed into today’s socio-political climate, he would embrace modern conservative tenets. Genuine liberals (as were the majority of those so labeled in the mid nineteenth century), in the true sense of the word, would more closely resemble today’s conservatives than they would those who have co-opted their name.

Longfellow was adamantly anti-slavery (as I would have been), and pro-preserving the Union at any cost (with which I would have vehemently disagreed), but he was also extraordinarily intent on using his literary works and talents to portray the unconquerable, courageous American individuality as opposed to the older forms of European aristocracy and despotism. He venerated our Founders and considered the American Revolution to be one of the most important, far-reaching examples of human courage and dignity in the history of mankind.

Some of my favorite Longfellow observations:

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night.

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.

For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress. And as the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed to have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning -- an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.


~ joanie

Anonymous said...

There is only one good reason for American troops to be in Iraq. It is the reason we sent them there in 2003: To fight and win the “war on terror” — i.e., the war against radical Islam — by deposing rogue regimes helping the terror network wage a long-term, existential jihad against the United States. You can argue that Iraq was the wrong rogue to start with; but destroying radical Islam’s will and its capacity to project power is what the war is about.

Iraq is but a single battlefield in that war. It is not “the war.” Stabilizing or even — mirabile dictu! — democratizing Iraq is not winning the war. It is the overseas equivalent of rebuilding the World Trade Center. The hard reality is that war exacts a terrible toll and its fallout must be addressed. This is why we hate war and resort to it only in the face of greater evils. But cleaning up war’s unavoidable messes is not the same as winning.

Winning the war means taking on the regimes and factions that are waging it. That is what the president promised to do after 9/11. “You’re with us or you’re with the terrorists.” ---Andy McCarthy

Anonymous said...

The Baker Commission would leave our troops exposed:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12032006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_iraq_mutiny__opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

Anonymous said...

I became a huge fan of Poe after reading "The Telltale Heart" in high school.

Interesting Longfellow quotes--especially, "Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."

Thanks, Joanie.

Anonymous said...

Krauthammer's take on Iraq:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701616.html

Anonymous said...

The Baker committee are just a group of pompous, conceited hand wringers who've now given the MSM more fodder for their anti-war machine. Idiots all.

Anonymous said...

Sandra,

I seem to remember that comment by Baker at the cabinet meeting. Isn't it odd how some people are tarred and feathered for life because of a comment like that and others can get away with it? It all depends on who you're offending and who you have "on your side." Offending Israel is o.k. and being a spokesman for the arabist cause grants a lot of forgiveness for "slips of the tongue."

Anonymous said...

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed to have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.

Interesting!

Anonymous said...

Good writing and beautiful site.

Anonymous said...

rob,

The muslims have LOTS of money to spread around.

"Statesmen" like the recently exhumed Jim Baker dance for that money.

Baker's been doing that for decades.

Watch Jimmy Carter dance for his muslims.

.

Anonymous said...

But don’t attempt to bring me, and my informed, patriot countrymen into your mirage. We have better things to do just now, and, concerning those ‘better things’ ... be forewarned ... you are counted among the enemy.

Yes!

Anonymous said...

Santa Hat-Wearing Bus Driver Allowed to Keep Job


Ken Mott (Newsday)

A Santa hat-wearing school bus driver on Long Island, N.Y., has won the right to keep wearing his festive headgear, Newsday reported.

Kenneth Mott, who keeps a long, white beard, almost lost his job after a parent called the bus management to complain. Mott, who has worn the red and white hat every Christmas since he started with the Bauman & Sons bus company five years ago, was ordered to stop wearing the hat because a child didn't believe in Santa Claus and was bothered by the hat.

"I said, 'What, are you kidding me?'" Mott recalled. "I thought it was a big joke," Newsday reported.

However, after Mott told other parents he might be fired for wearing the hat, supervisors changed their stance and said he could continue to wear the hat.

Anonymous said...

Look at this bilge from the Associated Press.

[Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s vice-president, was an unelected US president.]
__________________________________
Former President Ford dead at 93

AP on Yahoo ^ | 12/26/06 | AP
LOS ANGELES - Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.