This picture was taken by a lady returning on a cruise (July 28, 2001). It is a sunrise over lower Manhattan.

SHE Writes:  As I watched the beautiful skyline of New York City float past me I noticed the sun was about to line up just behind the twin towers. I was lucky enough to snap the picture at exactly the right  moment.

If you look at the sun rays it is almost prophetic. - a little  spooky.

When I show this picture to anyone they almost always ask for a copy. I just want to share it with all who want it.  Please take this  picture and share it with anyone and everyone who likes it.

If you have guessed that I am furious, you are right.

First,
For the attack by Muslim fanatics who have been whipped up into a suicidal frenzy by the likes of Usama bin Laden.

But also~~~

For the cowards, the peaceniks, the pacifiers, and the appeasers. Are you too young to remember Neville Chamberlain and the 55 million who perished in WWII because we didn't act until it was almost too late?

For those who say "'Someone' should do something about this ~~~ but not me". Is this an obscure way of expressing your cowardice?  My guess is, "yes".

For those who say we should try to "understand" these people and their motives. You are living in a fantasy world. Wake up! These people are lunatics and there is no way to understand them. They killed 3,000 innocent people here without remorse and will try to do it again. Try to understand THAT!

For the timid press and TV anchor men who don't want to take sides, who want to appear neutral and refuse to characterize these terrorists as such, and who will not let the American flag or patriotic ribbons or pins be shown in their news room or be worn on air. Well, what has your impartiality gotten you? Anthrax attacks? Good thing you haven't taken sides.

For the show-biz personalities who hogged all of the TV Channels to raise funds for the victims. Were my eyes deceiving me or was there not one American flag or any display of Red, White, and Blue during that broadcast? Help the victims but don't upset Bin Laden, right? And where is the money? Who is accountable for it?  And how much, if any of it has actually been distributed to the families of the victims?
You guys love a photo-op and there would have been one if you were handing out money ~~~~~~ but I didn't see it.

To the large charities who collected megabucks but distributed so much of it first to your many levels of your own bureaucracies that it didn't reach any of the families until Bill OReilly and other persistent TV folks shamed you into it. Don't knock at my door again for donations. The answer will be NO!!!

For the opportunists who are taking advantage of the situation to try to stop the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of God Bless America and America the Beautiful and the display of "GOD BLESS AMERICA" on a school marquee because GOD is mentioned and they consider it "divisive".
You clowns are the ones being divisive. Put this atheist bull on the back burner until this crisis is over.

An Ex-Marine Sounds Off

I sat in a movie theater watching "Schindler's List," asked myself, "Why
didn't the Jews fight back?"

Now I know why.

I sat in a movie theater, watching "Pearl Harbor and asked myself, "Why
weren't we prepared?"

Now I know why.

Civilized people cannot fathom, much less predict, the actions of evil
people.

On September 11, dozens of capable airplane passengers allowed themselves to
be overpowered by a handful of poorly armed terrorists because they did not
comprehend the depth of hatred that motivated their captors.

On September 11, thousands of innocent people were murdered because too many
Americans naively reject the reality that some nations are dedicated to the
dominance of others. Many political pundits, pacifists and media personnel
want us to forget the carnage. They say we must focus on the bravery of the
rescuers and ignore the cowardice of the killers. They implore us to
understand the motivation of the perpetrators. Major television stations
have announced they will assist the healing process by not replaying
devastating footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers.

I will not be manipulated.

I will not pretend to understand.

I will not forget.

I will not forget the liberal media who abused freedom of the press to kick
our country when it was vulnerable and hurting.

I will not forget that CBS anchor Dan Rather preceded President Bush's
address to the nation with the snide remark, "No matter how you feel about
him, he is still our president."

I will not forget that ABC TV anchor Peter Jennings questioned President
Bush's motives for not returning immediately to Washington, DC and
commented, "We're all pretty skeptical and cynical about Washington."

And I will not forget that ABC's Mark Halperin warned if reporters weren't
informed of every little detail of this war, they aren't "likely - nor
should they be expected-to show deference."

I will not isolate myself from my fellow Americans by pretending an attack
on the USS Cole in Yemen was not an attack on the United States of America.

I will not forget the Clinton administration equipped Islamic terrorists and
their supporters with the world's most sophisticated telecommunications
equipment and encryption technology, thereby compromising America's ability
to trace terrorist radio, cell phone, land lines, faxes and modem
communications.

I will not be appeased with pointless, quick retaliatory strikes like those
perfected by the previous administration.

I will not be comforted by "feel-good, do nothing" regulations like the
silly "Have your bags been under your control?" question at the airport.

I will not be influenced by so called,"antiwar demonstrators" who exploit
the right of expression to chant anti-American obscenities.

I will not forget the moral victory handed the North Vietnamese by American
war protesters who reviled and spat upon the returning soldiers, airmen,
sailors and Marines.

I will not be softened by the wishful thinking of pacifists who chose
reassurance over reality.

I will embrace the wise words of Prime Minister Tony Blair who told Labor
Party conference, "They have no moral inhibition on the slaughter of the
innocent. If they could have murdered not 7,000 but 70,000, does anyone
doubt they would have done so and rejoiced in it?

There is no compromise possible with such people, no meeting of minds, no
point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: defeat it or be
defeated by it. And defeat it we must!"

I will force myself to:
      -hear the weeping
      -feel the helplessness
      -imagine the terror
      -sense the panic
      -smell the burning flesh
      -experience the loss
      -remember the hatred.

I sat in a movie theater, watching "Private Ryan" and asked myself, "Where
did they find the courage?"

Now I know.

We have no choice. Living without liberty is not living.

MGySgt. Ed Evans  USMC (Ret.)
Not as lean,   Not as mean,   But still a Marine.   Semper Fi.
 
 

(The name of the cameraman is anonymous but I assume from the URL that he is a Mr.Camazotz. Whatever his name, he bicycled all over Brooklyn and Manhattan to get these pictures and his camera work is superb.)
 
 

  Bold and uncompromising words were spoken by American (and British) leaders
 in the immediate response to the Manhattan Massacre. But they may be  succeeded by creeping appeasement unless public opinion insists that these leaders stick to their initial resolve to destroy international terrorism  completely. One central reason why appeasement is so tempting to Western  governments is that attacking terrorism at its roots necessarily involves  conflict with the second-largest religious community in the world.

It is widely said that Islamic terrorists are wholly unorthodox in their belief that their religion sanctions what they do, and promises the  immediate reward of heaven to what we call "suicide bombers" but they insist are martyrs to the faith. This line is bolstered by the assertion that Islam is essentially a religion of peace and that the very word "Islam" means "peace." Alas, not so. Islam means "submission," a very different matter,  and one of the functions of Islam, in its more militant aspect, is to
obtain  that submission from all, if necessary by force.

  Islam is an imperialist religion, more so than Christianity has ever been, and in contrast to Judaism. The Koran, Sura 5, verse 85, describes the inevitable enmity between Moslems and non-Moslems: "Strongest among men in enmity to the Believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans." Sura 9, verse  5, adds: "Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them, in every strategem [ofwar]." Then nations, however mighty, the Koran insists, must be fought "until they  embrace Islam."

  These canonical commands cannot be explained away or softened by modern  theological exegesis, because there is no such science in Islam. Unlike Christianity, which, since the Reformation and Counter Reformation, has continually updated itself and adapted to changed conditions, and unlike Judaism, which has experienced what is called the 18th-century Jewish enlightenment, Islam remains a religion of the Dark Ages. The 7th-century Koran is still taught as the immutable word of God, any teaching of which is literally true. In other words, mainstream Islam is essentially akin to the most extreme form of Biblical fundamentalism. It is true it contains many  sects and tendencies, quite apart from the broad division between Sunni Moslems, the majority, who are comparatively moderate and include most of  the ruling families of the Gulf, and Shia Moslems, far more extreme, who dominate Iran. But virtually all these tendencies are more militant and uncompromising than the orthodox, which is moderate only by comparison, and by our own standards is extreme. It believes, for instance, in a theocratic state, ruled by religious law, inflicting (as in Saudi Arabia) grotesquely cruel punishments, which were becoming obsolete in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages.

  Moreover, Koranic teaching that the faith or "submission" can be, and in  suitable circumstances must be, imposed by force, has never been ignored. On  the contrary, the history of Islam has essentially been a history of conquest and reconquest. The 7th-century "breakout" of Islam from Arabia was followed by the rapid conquest of North Africa, the invasion and virtual conquest of Spain, and a thrust into France that carried the crescent to the gates of Paris. It took half a millennium of reconquest to expel the Moslems  from Western Europe. The Crusades, far from being an outrageous prototype of Western imperialism, as is taught in most of our schools, were a mere  episode in a struggle that has lasted 1,400 years, and were one of the few occasions when Christians took the offensive to regain the "occupied  territories" of the Holy Land.

  The Crusades, as it happened, fatally weakened the Greek Orthodox Byzantine  Empire, the main barrier to the spread of Islam into southeast and central  Europe. As a result of the fall of Constantinople to the ultramilitant Ottoman Sultans, Islam took over the entire Balkans, and was threatening to  capture Vienna and move into the heart of Europe as recently as the 1680s.

  This millennial struggle continues in a variety of ways. The recent conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo were a savage reaction by the Orthodox Christians of Serbia to the spread of Islam in their historic heartlands, chiefly by virtue of a higher birthrate. Indeed, in the West, the battle is  largely demographic, though it is likely to take a more militant turn at any moment. Moslems from the Balkans and North Africa are surging over  established frontiers on a huge scale, rather as the pressure of the eastern tribes brought about the collapse of the Roman Empire of the West in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. The number of Moslems penetrating and settling in Europe is now beyond computation because most of them are illegals. They are getting into Spain and Italy in such numbers that, should present trends continue, both these traditionally Catholic countries will become majority  Moslem during the 21st century.

  The West is not alone in being under threat from Islamic expansion. While the Ottomans moved into South-East Europe, the Moghul invasion of India destroyed much of Hindu and Buddhist civilization there. The recent destruction by Moslems in Afghanistan of colossal Buddhist statues is a reminder of what happened to temples and shrines, on an enormous scale, when Islam took over. The writer V. S. Naipaul has recently pointed out that the destructiveness of the Moslem Conquest is at the root of India's appalling poverty today. Indeed, looked at historically, the record shows that
Moslem  rule has tended both to promote and to perpetuate poverty. Meanwhile, the  religion of "submission" continues to advance, as a rule by force, in Africa  in part of Nigeria and Sudan, and in Asia, notably in Indonesia, where  non-Moslems are given the choice of conversion or death. And in all countries where Islamic law is applied, converts, whether compulsory or not, who  revert to their earlier faith, are punished by death.

  The survival and expansion of militant Islam in the 20th century came as a surprise. After the First World War, many believed that Turkey, where the Kemal Ataturk regime imposed secularization by force, would set the pattern  for the future, and that Islam would at last be reformed and modernized. Though secularism has - so far - survived in Turkey, in the rest of Islam  fundamentalism, or orthodoxy, as it is more properly called, has increased its grip on both the rulers and the masses. There are at present 18 predominantly Islamic states, some of them under Koranic law and all ruled  by groups that have good reason to fear extremists.

  Hence American policymakers, in planning to uproot Islamic terrorism once and for all, have to steer a narrow path. They have the military power to do what they want, but they need a broad-based global coalition to back their action, preferably with military contributions as well as words, and ideally including such states as Pakistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. To get this kind of support is not easy, for moderate Moslem rulers are far more frightened of the terrorists than of Americans, and fear for their lives and families. The danger is that they will insist on qualification of American  action that will amount, in effect, to appeasement, and that this in turn will divide and weaken both the administration and U.S. public opinion.

  It is vitally important that America stick to the essentials of its military response and carry it through relentlessly and thoroughly. Although only Britain can be guaranteed to back the White House in every contingency, it is better in the long run for America to act without many allies, or even alone, than to engage in a messy compromise  dictated by nervousness and  cowardice. That would be the worst of all solutions and would be certain to lead to more terrorism, in more places, and on an ever-increasing scale.

Now is the ideal moment for the United States to use all its physical capacity  to eliminate large-scale international terrorism. The cause is overwhelmingly just, the nation is united, the hopes of decent, law-abiding men and women everywhere go with American arms. Such a moment may never  recur.

  The great William Gladstone, in resisting terrorism, once used the phrase, "The resources of civilisation are not yet exhausted." That is true today.  Those resources are largely in American hands, and the nation - "the last,  best hope of mankind" - has an overwhelming duty to use them with purposeful justification and to the full, in the defense of the lives, property, and freedom of all of us. This is the central point to keep in mind when the weasel words of cowardice and surrender are pronounced.
 

Editorial From a Romanian Newspaper

Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble one another even if you
paint them! They speak all the languages of the world and form an
astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct,
others are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious
beliefs, not even God can count how many they are. Still, the American
tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart.
Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret services that
they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts.
Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about. The Americans volunteered
to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the first moments of
panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps
and ties in the colours of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings
and cars as if in every place and on every car a minister or the president
was passing. On every occasion they started singing their traditional song:
"God Bless America!".

What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul.

What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their
galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an
answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like
commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles!

REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS

http://www.legacy.com/LegacyTribute/Tribute.asp

Below is a letter written by a retired USAF officer who is a Military Historian and was head of the History Dept at the USAF Academy.  It is not a pleasant read...in fact it is uncomfortable.  Agree with it or not...it will make you "inventory" your resolve, because YOU are the key to victory more then anything else.
 

Dear friends and fellow Americans             14 September, 2001

Like everyone else in this great country, I am reeling from last week's attack on our sovereignty. But unlike some, I am not reeling from surprise.

As a career soldier and a student and teacher of military history, I have a different perspective and I think you should hear it. This war will be won or lost by the American citizens, not diplomats, politicians or soldiers. Let me briefly explain.

In spite of what the media, and even our own government is telling us, this act was not committed by a group of mentally deranged fanatics. To dismiss them as such would be among the gravest of mistakes. This attack was committed by a ferocious, intelligent and dedicated adversary.

Don't take this the wrong way. I don't admire these men and I deplore their tactics, but I respect their capabilities. The many parallels that have been made with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are apropos. Not only because it was a brilliant sneak attack against a complacent America, but also because we may well be pulling our new adversaries out of caves 30 years
after we think this war is over, just like my father's generation had to do with the formidable Japanese in the years following WW II.

These men hate the United States with all of their being, and we must not underestimate the power of their moral commitment. Napoleon, perhaps the world's greatest combination of soldier and statesman, stated "the moral is to the physical as three is to one." Patton thought the Frenchman underestimated its importance and said moral conviction was five times more
important in battle than physical strength. Our enemies are willing - better said anxious - to give their lives for their cause. How committed are we, America? And for how long?

In addition to demonstrating great moral conviction, the recent attack demonstrated a mastery of some of the basic fundamentals of warfare taught to most military officers worldwide, namely simplicity, security, and surprise. When I first heard rumors that some of these men may have been
trained at our own Air War College, it made perfect sense to me. This was not a random act of violence, and we can expect the same sort of military competence to be displayed in the battle to come.

This war will escalate, with a good portion of it happening right here in the good ol' U.S. of A. These men will not go easily into the night. They do not fear us. We must not fear them.

In spite of our overwhelming conventional strength as the world's only "superpower" (a truly silly term), we are the underdog in this fight. As you listen to the carefully scripted rhetoric designed to prepare us for the march for war, please realize that America is not equipped or seriously trained for the battle ahead. To be certain, our soldiers are much better
than the enemy, and we have some excellent "counter-terrorist" organizations, but they are mostly trained for hostage rescues, airfield seizures, or the occasional "body snatch," (which may come in handy). We will be fighting a war of annihilation, because if their early efforts are any indication, our enemy is ready and willing to die to the last man.

Eradicating the enemy will be costly and time consuming. They have already deployed their forces in as many as 20 countries, and are likely living the lives of everyday citizens. Simply put, our soldiers will be tasked with a search and destroy mission on multiple foreign landscapes, and the public must be patient and supportive until the strategy and tactics can be worked out.

For the most part, our military is still in the process of redefining itself and presided over by men and women who grew up with - and were promoted because they excelled in - Cold War doctrine, strategy and tactics. This will not be linear warfare, there will be no clear "centers of gravity" to strike with high technology weapons.

Our vast technological edge will certainly be helpful, but it will not be decisive. Perhaps the perfect metaphor for the coming battle was introduced by the terrorists themselves aboard the hijacked aircraft - this will be a knife fight, and it will be won or lost by the ingenuity and will of citizens and soldiers, not by software or smart bombs. We must also be patient with our military leaders.

Unlike Americans who are eager to put this messy time behind us, our adversaries have time on their side, and they will use it. They plan to fight a battle of attrition, hoping to drag the battle out until the American public loses its will to fight. This might be difficult to believe in this euphoric time of flag waving and patriotism, but it is generally acknowledged that America lacks the stomach for a long fight. We need only look as far back as Vietnam, when North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap
(also a military history teacher) defeated the United States of America without ever winning a major tactical battle.

American soldiers who marched to war cheered on by flag waving Americans in 1965 were reviled and spat upon less than three years later when they returned. Although we hope that Usama Bin Laden is no Giap, he is certain to understand and employ the concept. We can expect not only large doses of
pain like the recent attacks, but also less audacious "sand in the gears" tactics, ranging from livestock infestations to attacks at water supplies and power distribution facilities.

These attacks are designed to hit us in our "comfort zone" forcing the average American to "pay more and play less" and eventually eroding our resolve. But it can only work if we let it.

It is clear to me that the will of the American citizenry - you and I - is the center of gravity the enemy has targeted. It will be the fulcrum upon which victory or defeat will turn. He believes us to be soft, impatient, and self-centered. He may be right, but if so, we must change.

The Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, (the most often quoted and least read military theorist in history), says that there is a "remarkable trinity of war" that is composed of the (1) will of the people, (2) the political leadership of the government, and (3) the chance and probability that plays
out on the field of battle, in that order.

Every American citizen was in the crosshairs of last Tuesday's attack, not just those that were unfortunate enough to be in the World Trade Center or Pentagon. The will of the American people will decide this war. If we are to win, it will be because we have what it takes to persevere through a few more hits, learn from our! mistakes, improvise, and adapt. If we can do that, we will eventually prevail.

Everyone I've talked to In the past few days has shared a common frustration, saying in one form or another "I just wish I could do something!" You are already doing it. Just keep faith in America, and continue to support your President and military, and the outcome is certain.

If we fail to do so, the outcome is equally certain.

One Country under God

The only thing I don't understand is the fact that this terror, hate, and killing is based on respective religion~~~~  just the opposite of what both Jesus and Mohammed preached.
The USA will never be the same.

No Compulsion in Religion--As Long As You're a Muslim

"Islam, the true religion ...will defeat all other religions and it will be disseminated, by Allah's will, through the Muslim Jihad fighters."
-Palestinian textbook
 

Never before have so many had to learn so much in so short a time.  Islam, not exactly a household word in America, is now widely pronounced upon by journalists who know little.  Many assure us it is just another religion like, say, Lutheranism.

The six million Muslims who live in the United States enjoy the same absolute religious freedom as Baptists and Catholics, as well as people who worship trees, water spirits, or Satan.  In the wake of the act of war against the United States on September 11, major Islamic organizations have been busy
proclaiming that Islam is a religion of peace and justice.  In this
context, Muslim leaders frequently assure Americans that the Quran teaches that "there is no compulsion in religion." They neglect to mention that the verse speaks of compulsion by God, not Islamic states.

Tell the eight Christians in Afghanistan, on trial for having preached the Gospel, that "there is no compulsion in religion."  Tell that to Catholic Ayub Masih, sitting on death row in Pakistan for alleged blasphemy (he is said to have made a favorable comment on Salmun Rushdie, another alleged blasphemer
still under a death sentence from Iran).  Tell that to Jews, who have no existence, much less the right to worship, in any Arab country.

Tell that to the thousands of Christians circumcised with machetes, then forcibly converted or martyred, in Indonesia. Tell that to the thousands of Christians daily persecuted in Islamic countries and the two million people killed in the
Sudan for their religions by an Islamic state that practices forced conversion, kidnapping, slavery, and genocide. Tell that to Kuwaiti Robert Hussein, who,for daring to convert to Christianity, was deprived of his children,property,and citizenship.

Tell that to any Christian working in our ally Saudi Arabia, where
churches, rosaries, pictures, and even private worship at home are absolutely prohibited; where Bibles are sometimes seized at the airport and shredded; and where malefactors are tortured,imprisoned, and denied access to counsel.  During
Desert Storm, mobs attacked ambulances marked by the Red Cross.  Religious charities in Arabia often guarantee that donations will go only to the relief of non-Muslims.

One Saudi bristled when asked why his country had no religious
freedom.  "We are one hundred percent free to be Muslims!"

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948) spells out the basic protections which all nations should honor, but the fifty-five Islamic nations disagree.  For this reason, Islamic nations and organizations issue alternate documents on human rights, including the relatively new constitutions of countries like Oman. In many of these, the right to religious freedom is so
hedged that it can be revoked on any pretext--for example, "offensiveness" to Muslims.  In Oman, Christian ministers worked hard for months to hold the first ecumenical conference in Arabia, on the "Love of God." An hour before it began,
an Israeli Rabbi was, without explanation, denied a visa and the conference cancelled.

Other such constitutions and declarations state that all rights are to be interpreted according to the Sh'aria, or Islamic law.  Under this proviso, a person may be executed for converting or reconverting to Christianity.

Under many interpretations, any Muslim may simply assassinate the defector.

If you are a Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Bahai, Shinto, or Ahmadi, you have no existence in Islamic countries because your religion was not recognized in the Q'uran.  In the so-called moderate Islamic countries, church buildings existbut crosses--Muhammed hated them--are not permitted, Bibles and church bulletins may not be disseminated, and congregations are segregated behind walls,
sometimes with a warning on the gate to Moslems that the compound is "haram" or forbidden.

Doubters may go to the State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom (2000) and look at Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan,Pakistan, Indonesia, Kuwait, UAE, or Egypt. Compare the report on Israel.

President Bush is right to rally Americans to respect the persons of Muslims who live in this country and to demand that no violence be done to them.

He is on much boggier ground when he makes sweeping statements about the values and practices of Islam, a religion that fosters neither democracy, nor human rights, nor freedom of religion throughout most of its 55 nations.

In America, of course, many Muslims who fled here from tyranny sing a different tune.

Take all American women who are within five years of menopause - train us for a few weeks, outfit us with automatic weapons, grenades, gas masks, moisturizer with SPF15, Prozac, hormones, chocolate, and canned tuna - drop us (parachuted, preferably) across the landscape of Afghanistan, and let us do what comes naturally.

Think about it. Our anger quotient alone, even when doing standard stuff like grocery shopping and paying bills, is formidable enough to make even armed men inturbans tremble.

 We've had our children, we would gladly suffer or die to protect them and their future. We'd like to get away from our husbands, if they haven't left already. And for those of us who are single, the prospect of finding a good man with whom to share life is about as likely as being struck by lightning. We have nothing to lose.

 We've survived the water diet, the protein diet, the carbohydrate diet, and the grapefruit diet in gyms and saunas across America and never lost a pound. We can easily survive months in the hostile terrain of Afghanistan with no food at all! We've spent years tracking down our husbands or lovers in bars, ardware stores, or sporting events...finding bin Laden in some cave will be no problem.

Uniting all the warring tribes of Afghanistan in a new government? Oh, please ... we've planned the seating arrangements for in-laws and extended families at Thanksgiving dinners for years ... we understand tribal warfare.

 Between us, we've divorced enough husbands to know every trick there is for how they hide, launder, or cover up bank accounts and money sources. We know how to find that money and we know how to seize it... with or without the government's help!

 Let us go and fight. The Taliban hates women. Imagine their terror as we crawl like ants with hot-flashes over their godforsaken terrain.

I'm going to write my Congresswoman. You should, too!

Think it is funny to scare someone by sending them some harmless powder in the mail? A woman did it and she was caught but let go because they weren't quite sure what they could charge her with. What if she had yelled "FIRE" in a crowded theatre? Isn't this essentially the same thing? Lucky for her, she doesn't live in Florida or she could do BIG time in prison.

 Subject:
       GOVERNOR BUSH WARNS IT IS A CRIME IN FLORIDA TO CREATE A HOAX
       THREAT OF BIOLOGICAL TERRORISM
    To:
       <webmaster@pierce-evans.org>

--Florida Department of Law Enforcement offers up to $5000
reward for information regarding real or hoax threats of
weapons of mass destruction-

BOCA RATON-Governor Bush and Florida Department of Law
Enforcement (FDLE) Commissioner Tim Moore highlighted
severe penalties under Florida's tough new weapons of mass
destruction law, passed by the Legislature and signed by
the Governor in 2000.  Under the law (Florida Statute
790.166), it is a second degree felony punishable by up to
15 years in prison to manufacture, possess, sell, deliver,
display, use, threaten to use, attempt to use, conspire to
use, or make readily accessible a hoax weapon of mass
destruction with intent to deceive or mislead another to
believe the weapon is real.  The law encompasses delivery
of substances that are intended to mislead others into
believing they are Anthrax, other disease agents, a harmful
chemical, or are radioactive substances.  The Governor made
today's announcement during a visit to Boca Raton where
federal, state and local officials continue to work on the
ongoing Anthrax investigation.

"Unfortunately, there are people out there with hidden
agendas seeking to use the events of September 11th and
recent Anthrax scares to create fear or seek retribution
against other innocent Floridians," said Governor Bush. "To
the individual who thinks there is no penalty for sending
harmless substances to others in an attempt to cause fear
or panic, I say think again.  In Florida, it is a severe
crime.  It is a felony.  We will find you and when we do,
we will do all we can to send you to prison for 15 years."

In addition, the FDLE is offering up to a $5000 reward to
anyone with information leading to the successful arrest
and prosecution of a person regarding a real or hoax threat
of a weapon of mass destruction, including false Anthrax
activity.  Since the September 11th incidents, law
enforcement officials have received a rash of hoax weapons
of mass destruction threats. These threats have caused law
enforcement to spend valuable time and resources away from
their public safety mission, and they generate unnecessary
fear and alarm among our citizens.

"This kind of behavior is unacceptable!  We have zero
tolerance for anyone who utilizes a hoax device or object
that appears to contain Anthrax or any other dangerous
substance for whatever reason.  We will aggressively
investigate every threat - whether real or a hoax - to
ensure justice is brought to those responsible for such
acts," stated FDLE Commissioner Moore.

Further, Florida's weapons of mass destruction law provides
it is a first degree felony to make, use, attempt to use,
or even possess without lawful authority an actual weapon
of mass destruction, including infectious or biological
substances capable of causing disease or death.  If a death
occurs, the crime is a capital felony.

The Florida weapons of mass destruction law passed the
Florida Legislature in 2000 and was signed into law by
Governor Bush on June 5, 2000.  The law's sponsors were
Senator Tom Lee (R-Brandon) and Senator Howard Futch
(R-Indialantic) who at the time was a member of the Florida
House of Representatives.

"Florida has one of the toughest, if not the toughest law
in the nation when it comes to punishing those who create
false threats of biological terrorism," said Governor Bush.
 "I think it's important for the people who would commit
this crime and those who might have information about such
hoaxes to know this.  It should also help innocent
Floridians to know that we are going to do everything we
can to find and prosecute these criminals."

FDLE continues to encourage responsible citizens to notify
law enforcement of any suspicions or concerns by contacting
your local law enforcement agency or by calling FDLE at
1-800-342-0820.

During WW II if we had listened to the media alarmists.

The United States would have sent no ships to sea, as they might be torpedoed!

Killing Osama Bin Laden will only create a martyr.

Holding him prisoner will inspire his comrades to take hostages to demand his release.

Therefore, I suggest we do neither.

Let the Special Forces, Seals, or whoever, covertly capture him, fly him to an undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform a complete sex change operation.
Then we return 'her' to Afghanistan to live as a woman under the Taliban.

To: Osama & the Boys
From: An American Wife & Mother

Yo, Osama!
Well, the government finally named you as a suspect, so I guess it's
fair to talk about you now. Thought you had us, didn't you? What a laugh! You
did more to unify this country than George Washington.

See, we Americans had gotten sort of distracted. We worried about things
like lockboxes, taxes, and who was committing hanky panky with whom. We
were too stressed to reach out to one another, to sit down and talk with
our kids, to call our spouses at work and tell them we loved them. We
were MUCH too busy to even think about giving blood or going to the hardware
store to buy and hang an American flag.

You changed all that, Osama, you and your gang of creeps. I met my
neighbors in the park across the street tonight. We talked quietly while
everybody gathered. Then we lit our candles and just stood there
silently, holding them. Without anybody saying anything, we walked back to our
neighborhood and set them on our doorsteps. They are still burning. You
will never be able to put them out.

See, Osama? You think you get ticked off when someone messes with your
culture, your beliefs, your country? Just wait a minute you flea bitten
miserable excuse for human DNA! You haven't seen anything like the anger
of a MOTHER who's son has to go off to defend their homeland against your
cowardice and hatred. You haven't seen anything like the WIFE of a
fireman, policeman or EMT who clings to hope wondering if he'll ever return from
trying to help his fellowman in your moment of destruction.

You haven't seen anything like the WOMAN who will keep her family, and
her neighbors family, and her best friend's family, and country's family
going when hope and energy falls low. You haven't seen anything like the
good OLE GIRL who weeps tears of agony for family's she's never known or
never will meet, just because she cares.

You think the American MEN are bad? You just better thank your lucky
stars that you aren't dealing with one of us American WOMEN right now.
Trust me, the men are the ones showing restraint. I have heard the best
ideas of just how graphically you need to be disposed of lately in the
beauty shop, nail salon and the grocery store lines.

I've had more meaningful conversations with my teenager this week than
in the last couple of years combined. Tonight I was driving her to a
friend's house when the voice of Lee Greenwood came over the radio singing "I'm
Proud to Be an American." We were stuck in traffic, and normally we would
have been snapping at one another. She started singing along softly with
the radio. I joined in. By the second verse we were singing at the top of
our voices with the windows rolled down. People stuck in traffic on
either side of us joined in. By the time we were finally able to move a little,
perfect strangers were wiping their eyes, blowing their horns and
shouting good wishes to one another.

I hung an American flag on my house yesterday for the first time in my
life. I'd like to get another one, but there are no flags or anything
else red, white, or blue left in any store in this town. My daughter and I
did find some white and blue ribbon in the sewing box. Tomorrow we're going
to make a huge blue-and-white bow and fasten it to the front grille of the
car.

I called my husband at work today just to tell him I loved him. I hadn't
done that for a while - too busy, I guess. It felt wonderful. We are
going to send some money to a fund to help the victims. Tonight at the dinner
table we talked about the various charities and tried to decide which
one was best. Normally we just eat and run. It was the best dinner table
conversation we've had in a long time. We finally decided on a fund
that's been set up for the children of the rescue workers who were killed in
New York City. We'd never given much thought to appreciating all they do for
us before now.

My husband and I are on a waiting list to give blood. It'll be awhile
before our names come up; there are over 500 people ahead of us. There's
been a shortage of blood in this area. I wouldn't be surprised if the
blood donated all across this country eventually saves more people than you
killed. That would be a fitting memorial to those who died.

We're sticking together. Our politicians are rising to the occasion.
Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush never looked half as statesmanlike as they
have this week. Partisan bickering? What's that? Half the Congress stood on
the steps of the Capitol the other night and sang "God Bless America."

See, Osama, you underestimated us. And maybe for too long we've been
underestimating ourselves. This is the greatest, strongest, richest, most
beautiful country in the world. Our firefighters, policemen, EMTs, and
people like the ones on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania have
reminded us that we're also the bravest and most determined.

You can't destroy us, and you can't stop us. Because we're coming,
Osama.

Just thought you oughta know. And, just to show you how good hearted we
Americans are, I will end by saying THANK YOU. Not for the lives taken,
for which we now mourn, nor for the destruction, but for instilling back
into the hearts of every American, young and old, black, white, red, or
yellow, what we always knew deep down. We are strong. We are brave. We are ONE
NATION, UNITED UNDER GOD. We will overcome this as we have always
overcome those moments that tested our very being.

And, Osama, I say this, all the while asking God to forgive ME, for I do
not feel any compassion or have any mercy on your soul, but...may you
and all your cowardly friends soon sit happily in those front row seats you
have reserved in Hell.

author unknown

The following letter was published in the Gazette,
Hyattsville, MD, October 11, 2001,
on the Community Forum page.

You worry me.  I wish you didn't.

I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country.  But you don't blend
anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.

I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands, and professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now.  I don't fully understand their grievances and hate but I know nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.

On Sept. 11, nineteen Arab-Muslims hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those
planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants and
children's mothers.

So I notice you now.

I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help.

As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to differentiate between you. How do I differentiate between the true Arab-Muslim-Americans and the Arab-Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks,  while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same
good neighbors and children?

The answer to my own questions that it is past the time for me to try to determine this.  The events of Sept. 11th changed the answer.  It is time for every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it for me.

I want to know, I demand to know, if you love America.  Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it?  Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords?  A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots? Are you willing to preserve this freedom with the spilling of your own blood? Do you love America? and if this is your commitment, then I need you to start letting me know about it.

Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and religion to protect the
United States of America. Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the "innocent" (I worry who you regard as "innocent") and condemnation of "unprovoked" attacks (I worry what is "unprovoked" to you.)  I am not interested in anymore sympathy, I am interested only in action. What will you do for America-- the country -- at this time of crisis, at this time of
war?

I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the flag in the streets.  I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America." I want to see Arab-Muslim young men enlisting in the military. I want to see
a commitment of money and time and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.

The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack.  Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities.You know them. You know
where they are. Deliver them up, now.

But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action.

Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities.
You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisal.

The few Arab-Muslim representatives that have appeared on the media are defensive and equivocating.  They seem more concerned with making sure the U.S. prove who is responsible
before they act, and protecting their own people from anyviolence directed toward them, here in the U.S. and abroad.

If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people, then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up.

Because even if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true, it matters little if large numbers of current Islamic practitioners interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion.

I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is within my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters.

I am pleading with you to let me know.  I want you here; as my brother, my  neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American.  But there can be no "gray" areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to you to show me where you stand.

Until then...you worry me.

(signed)  Kevin Daly, Beltsville

We're coming, Osama.

We're gonna find you and the rest of your murderous thugs, and when we do, we're gonna kick your butts all over the face of the earth.  You are gonna REGRET the day you messed with AMERICA!

Just thought you oughta know.

YEAH RIGHT!!!
I get down on my knees every day and thank God that neither Clinton nor his clone, Gore, is in the White House right now.

Did you know?

After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and injured 1,000, President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed five U.S. military personnel, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted downand punished.

After the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and injured 200 U.S. military personnel, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 and injured 5,000, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 and injured 39U.S. sailors, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

Maybe if Clinton had kept his promise, an estimated 7,000 people would be Alive today.

 But Wait, there's more.
 

In case you didn't know ...

Terrorist pilot Mohammed Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986.

he Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him.

As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in
1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called "political
prisoners."

However, the Israelis would not release any with "blood on
their hands."

The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher,"insisted" that all prisoners be released.

Thus Mohammed Atta was freed and eventually "thanked the US" by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center.

This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified.

And Bill & Hillary wonder why they were booed when they appeared before the police and firefighters in NYC.

Clinton White House axed terror-fund probe

Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published 4/2/2002
 
 

     The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic charities, concerned that a public probe would expose Saudi Arabia's suspected ties to a global money-laundering operation that raised millions for anti-Israel terrorists, federal officials told The Washington Times.
     Law enforcement authorities and others close to the aborted investigation said the State Department pressed federal officials to pull agents off the previously undisclosed probe after the charities were targeted in the diversion of cash to groups that fund terrorism.
     Former federal prosecutor John J. Loftus said four interrelated Islamic foundations, institutes and charities in Virginia with more than a billion dollars in assets donated by or through the Saudi Arabian government were allowed to continue under "a veil of secrecy."
     "If federal agents had been allowed to conduct the investigation they wanted in 1995, they would have made the connection between the Saudi government and those charities," said Mr. Loftus, now a St. Petersburg, Fla., lawyer who filed a lawsuit last week accusing a Florida charity of fraud.
     "Had the charities been shut down, they would have been unable to raise the millions that since have been used by terrorists in hundreds of suicide attacks," he said.
 
 

An interesting question:

This question was raised on a Philly radio call-in show. Without casting
stones, it is a legitimate question.

There are two men, both extremely wealthy. One develops relatively cheap
software and gives hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. The other
sponsors terrorism.

That being the case, why is it that the US government has spent more
money chasing down Bill Gates over the past ten years than Osama bin Laden?
 
 

Dear Friends,
The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer.  He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this life.  When he writes, I read.  When he talks, I listen.
Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.
-Gary T. Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the
Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?"  Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've
never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York.
I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the
Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan.  They're not even the government of Afghanistan.  The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan.
When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler.
And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the
concentration camps."   It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity.
They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if
someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food.
There are millions of widows.  And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves.  The soil is littered with land mines, the
farms were all destroyed by the Soviets.  These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make
the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done.
Turn their schools into piles of rubble?
Done.
Eradicate their hospitals?
Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health
care?
Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs.  Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around.  They'd slip away and hide.
Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with
true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed.  Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout.
It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to
Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he
wants.
That's why he did this.  Read his speeches and statements. It's all
right there.  He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view.  He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
 Tamim Ansary

First Annual Kabul Air Show Scheduled
 (AP) Kabul, Afghanistan
 17:52GMT - Sept. 19, 2001

 Citizens of Afghanistan are reportedly looking forward with great
 anticipation to reports of an international air show to be held in the
 skies over their nation.

 An unnamed official informed us that "Now the rest of the world will ook  upon our beloved city with great honor just as they do Farnborough, England  and Paris, France", referring to the sites of two other famous international air shows.

 The exact date and time of the upcoming Kabul International Air Show has not yet been announced. It is believed that event organizers feel that such an announcement would detract from the fun of the celebration by, "spoiling  the surprise".

 Unlike most air shows the Kabul Air Show will feature almost no static ground displays but will have an unusually high number of aerial  demonstrations and fly-bys. "We are most pleased by this feature of our air show. Instead of a lot of different kinds of airplanes just sitting around on the tarmac, the aircraft attending our show will actually be up in the air demonstrating what they do best!" we were told.

 Participation will probably be heaviest by aircraft of the United States  Air Force and Marine Corps. Including appearances by F-15's, F-16's, A-10's, B-52's and Apache helicopters. It is rumored that opening ceremonies will feature a tomahawk-cruise fireworks display. A few B-2's, and F-117A's may also help out in some unseen capacity.

 Several other counties have expressed an interest in sending
 representatives. These include all nineteen nations in the NATO alliance as well as Australia. The excitement generated for this gala event has even prompted the Israeli Air Force to apply for participation.

 Of course, no one is more excited than the Afghan people themselves.
Great numbers of them are in the streets of Kabul looking constantly
heavenward in gratitude for the historic event, which will soon take place in their skies. It has been observed that some are so concerned about missing the show that even as they bow to the East they keep snatching worried glances towards the West. Thousands, in fact, have been seen leaving the city and fleeing to the mountains carrying food and blankets, obviously anxious to get a good vantage point for the air show, and to make a picnic of it.

 (Here is a photo of one of the USAF Entries.)

Kabul, Afghanistan--September 17, 2001 --

A shocking development took place today as the ruling members of the Taliban held a press
conference threatening the United States if its territory is invaded.

Immigration Czar Mohammed Ali Momaluke stated that the Afghan
authorities "would not hesitate for a moment" to cut off the US supply of convenience store
managers!

I have a moral question for you.   This is an imaginary situation, but I
  think it is fun to decide what one would do.

  The situation:

  You are in the Middle East, and there is a huge flood in progress.  Many
  homes have been lost, water supplies compromised and structures destroyed.

  You are a photographer getting still photos for the CNN news service and
are  traveling alone, looking for particularly poignant scenes.

  You come across Osama bin Laden, who has been swept away by the flood
  waters.  He is barely hanging on to a tree limb and is about to go under.

  You can either put down your camera and save him, or take a Pulitzer Prize
  winning photograph of him as he loses his grip on the limb.

  So, here's the question  ...  and think carefully before you answer the
  question below:
 
 
 

  Which lens would you use?

From: The White House
 To: Albert Gore
Dear Al:
We found some more votes.   You won.   When do you want to take over?
 Sincerely,

WE NEED MORE OF THIS

This is from a jet driver and POW in Viet Nam, AJ Myers.

***********************************************************

I arrived in Moscow, Idaho (Home of Idaho University one block from Best Western) and went to dinner at Best Western.  About 85-100 people were in the restaurant.  I'm at a table for about 5 minutes when this "Group" comes in (20 people).  They have Anti-War Picket signs with them.  It appears that two of these demonstrators are Professors.  They all sit at a large round table behind me and begin to talk very loudly about US atrocities in Afghanistan.

One of the "Professors" stands up and gives a brief talk about how the "US is famous for atrocities" and Afghanistan will be no different. One of the students asked a question about Viet Nam POW's.  The "Professor" makes a comment about how that was only US propaganda about poor treatment of POW's.

OK - I'm really mad now and I jump up and go over to their table.  (In retrospect - Over the entrance to the Restaurant is a huge American Flag. On each table is an American Flag and a small hand painted sign "United We Stand") I excuse myself and ask the Professor if I can ask him a question.

He says, "Yes".

I said that he appears to be of age to have served in Viet Nam, and asked him if he had served.

His answer was, "NO - I defended this campus and told the truth to the students."

I then asked if he remembered what he was doing on February 16, 1969.

When he answered, "Of course not - that was too long ago."

I responded, "Really.  I remember what I was doing.  That was the second day of my capture and I had been standing in a bamboo cage for 24 hours with water up to my chest".  I then said "Sir, your comments about how POW's in Nam were treated are a lie and I personally say to you, you are a******* liar, as you never were there.  I was a POW and they did not treat our POW's humanely.  The only other person I have ever heard make statements like you have is Jane Fonda.  Is she telling the truth and not me?"

He stood up and after about 10 seconds said, "Jane is a great patriot and I cannot visualize her lying."

With that, I reached over and grabbed the small American Flag and United WeStand sign and said, "I'm taking this back to my table where it can be appreciated."

No one said a word to me as I started to walk back.  However, after a few seconds, people started standing up and applauding all around the restaurant.  Two men got up from a table across the room and walked over to me.  The first identified himself as former US Marine Lieutenant Flynn and the other man was former Gunnery Sergeant Graboski.  In a loud voice after introducing themselves, Lt.  Flynn said they were former Marine Guards at a US Embassy.  He then said, "We are over at this table to defend the US Flag from all foes, both foreign and domestic." They then sat down and asked their waitress to bring their meals over to my table.

A few more minutes went by with loud comments from the "Anti-War" table. All of a sudden, "Gunny" Sergeant Graboski stood up and in a loud voice said, "All of you heard what the President said the other night. You are either with the United States or you are with the terrorists." He then said, "Please stand and join me in God Bless America." As he started singing, people all around the restaurant stood up and joined in.  Several of the students at the "Anti-War" table also stood up half way through the song and
joined in.

Both Professors and the majority of the students remained seated and refused to sing.  At the end there was a great ovation.

The Manager came up to my table.  (He and his staff came out from the kitchen and sang).  He thanked me for what I started and then went over to the Anti-War table and asked them to leave.  "I will pay for what you have had so far but I cannot in good conscience serve you - get out now!!"

One of the Professors then made a remark, "Well, we are not going to pay one dime for how shabbily we have been treated."

As they were leaving, one customer stood up and said, "Manager, here is $5 towards their bill, anyone else willing to chip in to get this scum out of here?" All over the restaurant, people stood up reaching for their wallets and saying, "I'll chip in."

The Manager, in tears, said,  "My family is from Poland, I am now a citizen and am so proud of what I see tonight." He started crying and a couple of the waitresses helped him into the kitchen.

The two Marines and I were there for about another 20 minutes and finished our meal.  The Hostess came up and showed us more than $100 dollars that all the other tables had told their waitresses to give towards our bill.

I thanked her but said I could not take the money.  Lt Flynn suggested donating it in the restaurant's name to the New York Relief Fund, so I guess that's what will happen.  I just can't believe how Americans are coming together now.  Just thought you would like to hear how the rest of the country is reacting to what happened!!!

Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, school official remove “God Bless America” signs from schools in fear that someone might be offended....

Channel 12 News in  New York, orders flags removed from the newsroom and red, white,
and blue ribbons removed from the lapels of reporters. WHY? Management did not want to appear biased and felt that our nation’s flag might give the appearance that “they lean one way or another.”

Berkeley, California, bans U.S. flags from being displayed on city fire trucks because they didn’t want to offend anyone in the community.

In an “act of tolerance” the head of the public library at Florida Gulf Coast University ordered all
“PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN” signs removed so as to not offend international students.

I, for one, am quite disturbed by these actions of so-called American citizens; and I am tired of this nation worrying about whether or not we are offending some individual or their culture.

In the past month there has been a surge in patriotism by the majority of Americans. However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled in New York and Washington, D.C., when the “politically correct” crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others.

I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to America.

In fact, our country’s population is almost entirely comprised of descendants of immigrants.

HOWEVER, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, need to
understand.

First of all,

It is not our responsibility to continually try not to offend you in any way. This idea of America being a multi-cultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity.

As Americans, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language, and our own lifestyle.

This culture, called the “American Way” has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and
victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

Our forefathers fought, bled, and died at places such as Bunker Hill, Antietam, San Juan, Iwo Jima, Normandy, Korea, Vietnam.

We speak English not Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society--learn our language.

“IN GOD WE TRUST” is our national motto.

This is not some off-the-wall, Christian, Right Wing, political slogan; it is our national motto.

It is engraved in stone in the House of Representatives in our Capitol and it is printed on our currency.

We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation; and this is clearly documented throughout our history.

If it is appropriate for our motto to be inscribed in the halls of our highest level of Government, then it is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.

God is in our pledge, our National Anthem, nearly every patriotic song, and in our founding documents.

We turn to God in prayer in times of crisis.

If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture and we are proud to have Him.

We are proud of our heritage and those who have so honorably defended our freedoms. We celebrate Independence Day, Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day, and Flag Day.

We have parades, picnics and barbecues where we proudly wave our flag.

As an American, I have the right to wave my flag, sing my national anthem, quote my national motto, and cite my pledge whenever and wherever I choose.

If the Stars and Stripes offend you, or you don’t like Uncle Sam, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet, for they are part of our culture.

The American culture is our way of life, our heritage, and we are proud of it. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don’t care how you did things where you came from.

If it was so superior, go home.

We are Americans, like it or not. This is our country, our land, and our lifestyle.

Our First Amendment gives every citizen the right to express his opinion about our government, culture, or society, and we will allow you every opportunity to do so.

But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about our flag, our pledge, our national motto or our way of life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other great American freedom.

THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.

If you agree, pass this on to other Americans!!

It is time to take a stand!!

MAY GOD BLESS AMERICA

LAND THAT WE LOVE!!!!

And what about Hillary?

What is SHE doing? At last count, she had attended exactly NONE of the funerals of any of the heroes of the WTC atrocity. What a compassionate honey she is.
 
 

Subject: Forgive?

       "It is Allah's job to forgive Osama bin Laden.
       It is our job to arrange a face to face meeting."

               - An American Serviceman
 
 

 Subject: 01/02/02 Message from a recon Marine in Afghanistan just outside of Ab Gach, in the northwest panhandle of Afghanistan between Tajikistan and Pakistan.

It's freezing here.  I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs
at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River
watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave.  Stake out, my
friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.  I also glance at
the area around me every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion
sting.
I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but the
scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. The antidote tastes like
transmission fluid but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of
it in my pack.

The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they
are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water.  That
requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in
handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to  the
satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware.
We bash some heads for a while then I track and record the new movement.
It's all about intelligence.

We haven't even brought in the snipers yet.  These scurrying rats have
no idea what they're in for.  We are but days away from cutting off supply
lines and allowing the eradication to begin.  I dream of Bin Laden
waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit a
bloody ear into his face and plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his
frontal lobe.  But you know me. I'm a romantic.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  This country is worthless.
It's not even a country.  There are no roads, there's no infrastructure,
there's no government.  This is an inhospitable, rockpit ruled by eleventh
century warring tribes.  There are no jobs here like we know jobs.  Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army.  That's it.  Those are your options.  Oh, I forgot, you
can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste
and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if that's your idea of a party.
But the smell alone of those "tent cities of the walking dead" is enough to
hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen
hours a day.

And let me tell you something else.  I've been living with these Tajiks
and Uzbeks and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and a half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of em, are Huns.
Actual, living Huns.  They LIVE to fight.  Its what they do.  Its ALL they do.  They have no respect for anything, not for their families or for each other or for themselves.  They claw at one another as a way of life.
They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human
cockfights to defend the family honor.  Huns, roaming packs of savage,
heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism.  Idiot cavemen with
AK 47's.

Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.  I'm freezing on this hill because my
lap warmer is running out of juice and I can't recharge it until the sun
comes up in a few hours.  Oh yeah!  You like to write letters, right?  Do me a
favor.  Write a letter to CNN and tell Judy and Bernie and that awful,
sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban "smart."  They
are not smart.  I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they
are looking for is "cunning."  The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and
hyenas and wolverines.  They are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted,
cowardly.  They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and
destroy everything else.  Smart.  Pfft.  Yeah, they're real smart.
They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter.  Talking to
a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach
an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks
you in the eye with it. OK, enough.

The sun will be up soon so I have to get back to my hole.  Covering my
tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice but I'm getting good at it.
Please tell my fellow Americans to turn off their TV sets and move on
with their lives.  The story line you are getting from CNN is utter nonsense
and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen
through the commercials.  We've got this one under control.  The worst
thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over
here because you have no idea what we're doing and, really, you don't want to
know.  We are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to
do.

You wanna help? Buy some stocks, America.

Saucy Jack

Aw geez. Where do I start on this one?

We've got a gazillion dollar airline industry whose job it is to convey people from one place to another in airplanes. It does (and has done) this with a safety record that's truly remarkable.
Recent events, however, have shown us that the world harbors some seriously deranged people who are willing to climb aboard airplanes and do really nasty things with them.

Because of this, we've had to give airport security a hard look.

This turned up several problems. One was that, under harsh scrutiny, "Did you pack your own bag today?" didn't turn out to be the hardnosed deterrent it was meant to be. A much more
serious problem, however, was  the finding that airport screeners were not well trained, had a horrendous turnover rate, and were often paid less than janitors working at the same airport.

Enter Congress - a group renowned for the fact that rational thought seldom ripples the serene surface of its collective mind. After looking into the situation, they said we had to improve airport security.

(A good start.)

They said we had to improve the quality of airport screeners, reduce turnover, and increase their pay.

(I was still with them.)

They said that pork, politics, and partisanship would be put aside for the good of the country.
Airline safety was going to be the bottom line.

(I had tears in my eyes, my hand over my heart, and was humming " America the Beautiful.")

They said, "We're going to turn airline security over to the federal government."

(Do what??)

The federal government, do consider, which is home to: The Helium Reserve (in case our fleet of battle blimps ever runs low on helium); Federal Housing (now, in many places, being
dynamited into oblivion); The War on Poverty (motto: "Trillions down the drain and we ain't plugged it yet."); and the Honey Subsidy (those bees are still suffering) - to name but a few.

So, Congress federalized airport screeners. Then, in a move guaranteed to make us feel safer, the Transportation Security Administration announced that (I couldn't make this up if I wanted to) airport screeners will not be required to have high school diplomas.

I wonder what the recruiting posters are going to say? "Didn't finish 9th grade? Have we got a job for you!"

What about entrance exams? Are they going to have something to do with Legos© and finger-painting?

But wait. There's more.

To ensure we never offend anyone - particularly fanatics intent on killing us - airport screeners will not be allowed to profile people.

They will continue random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents who are members of the President's security detail and 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips.

Pause a moment and take the following test.

In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
(a) Norwegians from Ballard;
(b) Elvis;
(c) A tour bus full of 80-year-old women; or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
(a) A pizza  delivery boy;
(b) Crazed feminists screeching that being able to throw a  grenade beyond its own burst radius
was an unfair and sexist requirement in basic training;
(c) Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day; or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
(a) Luca Brazzi, for not being  given a part in "Godfather 2;"
(b) The Tooth Fairy;
(c) Butch and Sundance who had a few sticks of dynamite left over from the train thing; or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
(a)Mr. Rogers;
(b) Hillary, to distract attention from Wee Willie's women problems;
(c) the WWF, to promote its next villain: "Mustapha the Merciless;" or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and destroyed by:
(a) Bugs Bunny,
(b) the Supreme Court of Florida trying to outdo their attempted  hijacking of the 2000
Presidential election;
(c) Mr. Bean; or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

How'd you do? Did you detect a pattern that would indicate we'd better take a close look at a certain type of individual who might be boarding an airplane with something on his mind other
than "What's the in-flight movie?"  You think so? Horrors! You're nothing more than a closet racist who could never be hired as an official federal airport screener. You probably molest goats too - but that's another column.

So, as it now stands, we have the Transportation Security Administration (letterhead: "No way WE'RE flying.") trying to improve the professionalism of airport screeners by lowering standards and forbidding the use of common sense in screening people. Makes sense, right? Right.

Pardon me while I go bang my head against the wall. Maybe that'll help me understand.

But the photo of firefighters raising a flag over the
wreckage of the World Trade Center is a picture of four "white guys" raising the flag.  To cut off their heads and replace them with politically correct African, Hispanic, and Asian faces is an unacceptible bastardardization of this picture and an insult to the men in the photo.

Let the sculptor design an appropriate monument, but not one based on this picture. If he is not creative enough to do this, he should not get the job.

Next thing we know, these PC loonies will want to
chop the heads off all of the figures depicted in the Iwo Jima flag raising statue and replace them
with a PC ethnic mix.
 
 

Little David comes home from first grade and tells his father that they learned about the history of Valentine's Day.

"Since Valentine's day is for a Christian saint and we're Jewish," he asks, "will God get mad at me for giving someone a valentine?"

David's father thinks a bit, then says "No, I don't think God would get mad.

Who do you want to give a valentine to?"

"Osama Bin Laden," David says.

"Why Osama Bin Laden," his father asks in shock.

"Well," David says, "I thought that if a little American Jewish boy could have enough love to give Osama a valentine, he might start to think that maybe we're not all bad, and maybe start loving people a little bit.
And if other kids saw what I did and sent valentines to Osama, he'd love everyone a lot.  And then he'd start going all over the place to tell everyone how much he loved them and how he didn't hate anyone
anymore."

His father's heart swells and he looks at his boy with newfound pride.
"David, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."

"I know," David says, "and once that gets him out in the open, the Marines could blow the s--- out of him."

Dear Mom,

What can I say? War is hell, but Guantanamo is fab. Temps are hovering in the low 70s, finally got rid of that rat's nest the T'bans called a beard, and am eating better than we ever did at Osama's. I've already put on 10 pounds.

When I get out of here, I'll bring you a box of Froot Loops.

When do I get out of here -- now there's the question of the millennium.

But, hey, who's in a hurry? Like I said, they feed us, let us shower, pray, write home. They even gave us a mattress, prayer mats and a copy of the Koran. What a bunch of twits.

Speaking of which, have you been following the news about our maltreatment here? It's a hoot. Amnesty International and a bunch of other bleeding-heart organizations have been giving the Americans hell for being hard on us.

They said that shaving our heads and beards was a human-rights violation because it humiliated us. I'm telling you, who needs Comedy Central? Me?
I'm just happy to be rid of the lice, but don't tell anybody. Ha, ha.

Our self-anointed protectors also say that making us live in these open-air pens is cruel. Obviously, they've never lived in a cave. We've got a roof -- remember those? -- and plenty of shade. The soldiers watching over us are sweating like pigs in their tents while their guys still in Afghanistan would probably trade their baby sisters for a weekend in my "cell."

Anyway, all us guys are loving the attention, as well as the distraction.
We're just waiting for the right moment when we can get back to business.

All that training wasn't for nothing. Hannibal Lector, eat your own heart
out. One chance, that's all I need, and a Marine's aortic valve will be my breakfast. I hope it's a woman. Nah, just kidding, Ma. Speaking of women, how's it going over there? I hear lots of mud huts have Blue Burqa curtains these days. Tsk, tsk, how Gone with the Wind.

As you might have gathered, the Americans have weird ideas about women.

Let me put it this way -- Christiane Amanpour! The sexes are totally equal and women act and talk just like men. If they were our women living under our laws, we'd have to shoot every last one of them.

But typical of these Western psychos, n'est-ce pas? (isn't it so?)

Americans don't realize that they're their own worst enemies. They're so consumed with doing the right thing, with being sensitive (even soldiers
have gender-sensitivity training, for Allah's sake), and not hurting
anybody's feelings that they're practically rocking us to sleep at night.
Hey, tell Amnesty International I need cable! And while they're at it, I
could use some Dasani. This local stuff is a tad cloudy. As far as I can
tell, the only American with any spine or sense is that dude Rumsfeld. Of course, he was a soldier before John Gray started carrying on about Mars and Venus. Are Americans stupid or what? They believe that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Yeah, right. Anyway, Rumsfeld understands that we would disembowel any American without hesitation or regret. He seems to get it -- that our whole purpose in life is to destroy America. We don't hate freedom, Mr. Prezzie, we just hate you and all your stinking ilk. That goes for all you hyphenated-Americans, too. Think hard. We shoot our own mothers for stepping outside their houses without our permission, and you think we'd hesitate to rip out a soldier's jugular when he bends down to make sure our handcuffs aren't bruising our little wristy-poos?

You gotta love 'em, Mom. We've used their naiveté against them before; We'll do it again and die happy.

Well, I better go now. They just called us to prayer (die laughing here)

and I'm hoping for a quick nap before dinner. Ciao for now.

Love, Muhammad Mohammed Mohamed.

P.S. That time I beat you for laughing too loud? Sorry, I didn't mean it. By the way, have you gone back to your anesthesiologist job yet?
 
 

A doctor tells it like it is

I was just reading Yahoo news and the San Antonio Express newspaper.You know what upsets me? People with absolutely nothing to do with their lives, so they complain on how the U.S. is treating the prisoners or "Detainees" from Afghanistan.

Do you know why they are complaining? They see a picture on the news
or the internet and they see someone who is shackled and blindfolded and
walking with two armed guards behind razor wire. This picture tells
them they are treated unfairly.

Here is what I see....

I see a thin, sickly looking person who under severe mental duress
from being bombed, was cleaned up, given a haircut to prevent infestation
of parasites, and given new clothes and shoes to wear. I see a person who
is given three nutrious meals per day and a bed to sleep in in a tropical
climate, not the cold desert floor of Afghanistan, eating worms, bugs,
and goat. I see a person who will be able to get relief from their pains
and illnesses without paying a dime for medical expenses. They will get
rest, educated, and their mental stress levels will have dropped
tremendously because they were taken out of a combat area and will not be shot at again.

I see these people blindfolded and shackled behind razor wire. I have
the intellectual ability to understand why they are this way. For those
that do not have this ability, let me explain it to you. They are
blindfolded to protect OUR U.S. SOLDIERS from further harm. These people can not plan to destroy something if they can not see it. They are shackled because these same people have proven they will easily give up their lives to kill just ONE AMERICAN. We are protecting their life as well as our own. The
razor wire is a mental deterrant, just like the little alarm company warning
signs most of you out there have on your home, but don't have the actual
alarm system. You would think many times over before actually trying
to cross that razor wire. For all of you people out there thinking how bad
these poor detainees have it under such strict guard, you need to do a lot
more thinking about other things in your life.

I was born on September 11th, 1966, and every birthday I have from now
on will never be a happy one. Why, do you ask? Because as I am out
somewhere trying to have a nice dinner, someone will have a candle or a
ribbon or something, crying about the anniversary of a national tragedy.
And then I will think, about how insignificant my one little birthday
actually is compared to everything else that had happened on that one
day.

It boggles my mind that there are actually people out there in this
world, in leadership positions, head of companies that actually think that we
are doing something wrong when it comes to protecting our nation and our
people. These same people will be the first ones to complain about something that happens to them when they are vacationing outside this country. They will ask why the U.S. does not do anything about their misfortune.These are the same people that complain about taxes and how bad their lives actually are.

If you receive this email, please pass it on to everyone in your address
book. I am not afraid or ashamed to speak my piece. I am an American.
My father fought for this country, and was willing to die for it.

Dr. Steven Tomaselli
Uvalde, Texas
United States of America
 
 

America
 

Osama Bin Laden, your time is short;
 We'd rather you die, than come to court.
 Why are you hiding if it was in God's name?
 Your just a punk with a turban; a pathetic shame.

 I have a question, about your theory and laws;
 "How come you never die for the cause?"

 Is it because you're a coward who counts on others?
 Well here in America, we stand by our brothers.

As is usual, you failed in your mission;
If you expected pure chaos, you can keep on wishing
Americans are now focused and stronger than ever;
Your death has become our next endeavor.

What you tried to kill, doesn't live in our walls;
It's not in buildings or shopping malls.
If all of our structures came crashing down;
It would still be there, safe and sound.
Because pride and courage can't be destroyed;
Even if the towers leave a deep void.

We'll band together and fill the holes
We'll bury our dead and bless their souls.
But then our energy will focus on you;
And you'll feel the wrath of the
Red, White, and Blue.

So slither and hide like a snake in the grass;
Because America's coming to
kick your ass!!!

Keep this email going. PASS IT ON

From an unnamed newspaper.

Traitors get all the glory

I simply do not understand all the fuss and bother about bringing the so-called "American Taliban," JohnWalker, to trial. Sure, he is a traitor to his country, but who cares?

While our country was actively fighting North Vietnam, Jane Fonda traveled there and gave who knows what type and how much "aid and comfort" to our enemy. She even posed with them for propaganda photos, on an anti-aircraft gun of the type being used to shoot down and kill American pilots. She then returned to Hollywood for a life of enjoyment of all the benefits of wealth, fame and freedom.

At about the same time, a college student down in Arkansas lied to his draft board, fled to England and
wrote a letter boasting how his generation "loathed" the American military. He was able to come home
and be elected and re-elected president.

I say we should free Walker now (with our apologies to him for his inconvenience) so he can begin a
career in the entertainment industry, perhaps with an eye toward someday running for high public office!
 
 

by Rush Limbaugh

I think the vast differences in compensation between the victims of the September 11th casualty, and those who die serving the country in uniform, are profound. No one is really talking about it either because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11th. Well, I just can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country.

If you lost a family member in the September 11th attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million.

If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable.

Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs.

If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry.

And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt. (Note: there's also SGLI* up to $200,000)

*Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance, a low cost group life insurance plan, the premiums for which are paid by the servicemember.

Keep in mind that some of the people that are getting an average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it's not enough.

We also learned recently that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11th families are getting.

In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensations as well.

You see where this is going, don't you?

Folks, this is part and parcel of over fifty years of entitlement politics in this country.

It's just really sad.

Every time when a pay raise comes up for the military they usually receive next to nothing of a raise.

Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on foodstamps and live in low rent housing.

However our own U.S. Congress just voted themselves a raise, and many of you don't know that they only have to be in Congress one-time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month and most are now equal to being millionaires plus.

They also do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system.

If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7 you may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed you in harms way receive a pension of $15,000 per month.

I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

"When do we finally do something about this ??"

If this doesn't seem fair to you, it is time to forward this to as many people as you can.
 
 

We'll all be watching a lot closer next time we see
President Bush on TV. Have you noticed a difference in
the salute given by our military men and women as
President Bush walks by? Most folks would not notice
anything, but military people see it right away.
Watch: When President Bush leaves his helicopter or
Air Force One, the honor guards salute and face him as
he disembarks, then turn their faces towards him as he
passes by. They continue to salute his back as he
walks away. This kind of salute has not been seen
in the previous eight years, though it is customary
courtesy to the Commander-in-Chief. You see, soldiers
aren't required to turn and face the President as they
salute. They are not required to salute his back. They
are only required to salute. They can remain face-
forward the entire time.

And that is what they did during Bill Clinton's
entire Presidency. Our soldiers were forced to obey
Clinton's orders, but they were not forced to
respect him. From their salutes, we can surmise
that they did not. Why is such respect afforded to
President Bush? He doesn't even know how to bite
his lower lip and not get teary-eyed whenever he
speaks!

The following incident from Major General Van Antwerp
may give us an insight. Gen. Antwerp is president of
the Officers' Christian Fellowship. He lost nearly all
his staff when the Pentagon was attacked Sept. 11. His
executive officer LTC Brian Birdwell was badly burned
and in the hospital when President Bush visited him.
Our President spent time and prayed with Brian. As he
was getting ready to leave, he went to the foot of
Brian's bed and saluted. He held his salute until
Brian was able to raise his burned and bandaged arm,
ever so slowly, in return. The Commander-in-Chief never
initiates a salute, except in the case of a
Congressional Medal of Honor winner. The injured
soldier did not have to return the salute. But he did,
out of respect! to his President -a Soldiers'
President.

Congressman JC Watts (R. Oklahoma) said, "Character is
doing the right thing when nobody is looking." The
nation and world learned some of what our last
President did when nobody was looking. That President
has been disbarred this week-the worst disgrace (other
than imprisonment) to a lawyer. CNN will have a
difficult time shining his or his wife's tarnished
images. In this time of war and danger, I am so
grateful to have a President whom the soldiers
salute fully.

On Special Report with Brit Hume, (hosted by Jim
Angle this evening), at the close of the show when
they normally have some funny video clip, they showed
President Bush and the First Lady on their way to
Marine One to leave for Camp David for the weekend. As
the video starts, the First Lady is leading the way
into the helicopter with the spaniel dog on the leash,
and the president is right behind her with the Scotty
on the leash. As the First Lady entered the chopper,
the Marine at the gangway saluted and held his salute.
The Scottie the president was walking decided it
wanted to squat right when he got to steps. The
president pulled on its' leash, but the stubborn
Scottie persisted in squatting. The president bent
down and scooped up the pooch and entered Marine One.
After he entered, the Marine cut his salute and
returned to the position of attention. Moments later
the president reemerged from the helicopter and out
onto the steps. The Marine was standing at attention,
head and eyes straight ahead. The president leaned
over and tapped him on the left arm. The startled
Marine turned his body toward the president and
received his returned salute! I was so impressed by
this true act of respect for our military people by our
president! He really does get it. Most any other
person of his stature would have just continued his
journey, disregarding the neglected return salute.
Not George W. Bush. He is earning the respect of the
military community, not expecting it-as most have and
would.

Subj: Our President George W. Bush The man who
admitted to having a drinking problem in younger
years, and whose happy-go-lucky lifestyle led him to
mediocre grades in college and an ill-fated oil
venture. Who mangled syntax and whose speaking mis-
steps became known as "Bushisms." He came within a
hair's breadth of losing the election in November.
While votes were counted and re-counted, Bush quietly
but confidently waited at his ranch. Make no mistake,
his orders were carried out, but he stayed in the
background, faithful and confident. Bush named Jesus
Christ as Lord of his life on public TV. Not an
oblique reference to being "born-again" or having
a "life change." He actually said the un-PC-like
phrase, "Jesus Christ!" On September 11, he was thrust
into a position only known by Roosevelt, Churchill,
Lincoln, and Washington. The weight of the world was
on his shoulders, and the responsibility of a
generation was on his soul.

So President George W. Bush walked to his seat at the
front of the National Cathedral just three days after
two of the most impressive symbols of American
capitalism and prosperity virtually evaporated. When
the history of this time is written, it will be
acknowledged by friend and foe alike that President
George W. Bush came of age in that cathedral and
lifted a nation off its knees. In what was one of the
most impressive exhibitions of self-control in
presidential history, President George W. Bush was
able to deliver his remarks without losing his
resolve, focus, or confidence. God's hand, which
guided him through that sliver-thin election, now
rested fully on him.

As he walked back to his seat, the camera angle was
appropriate. He was virtually alone in the scene,
alone in that massive place with God, just him and the
Lord. Back at his seat, George H. Bush reached over
and took his son's hand. In that gesture his father
seemed to say, "I wish I could do this for you, son,
but I can't. You have to do this on your own."
President George W. Bush squeezed back and gave him a
look of peace that said, "I don't have to do it alone,
Dad. I've got help." What a blessing to have a
professing Christian as President.

Please take a moment after you read this to "pray for
him". He truly does have the weight of the world on
his shoulders. Pray that God will sustain him and give
him wisdom and discernment in his decisions. Pray for
his protection and that of his family. After you have
prayed, send this to everyone on your e-mail list. Our
President needs Christians around the world to be
praying for him. As this makes the e-mail rounds,
eventually there could literally be millions of people
praying for him.
 
 

 I've just returned from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Naval Air Station base
where we did three shows for the troops and toured several locations
around the post visiting with some of the finest military personnel on
planet earth. The kids seemed to really enjoy the shows and especially
liked "This Ain't No Rag, It's A Flag" and "In America". We had a great
time with them. We saw Camp X-Ray, where the Taliban detainees are
being held only from a distance, but I picked up a lot of what's going
on there from talking with a lot of different people.
The truth of the matter is that this operation is under a microscope.
The Red Cross has an on site presence there and watches everything that
goes on very closely. The media is not telling you the whole truth about
what's going on over there. The truth is that these scum bags are not
only being treated humanely, but they are probably better off healthwise
and medically than they've ever been in their lives.
They are fed well, able to take showers and receive state of the art
medical care. And have their own Moslem chaplain. I saw several of
them in a field hospital ward where they were being treated in a state
of the art medical facility.
Now let's talk about the way they treat our people. First of all, they
have to be watched constantly. These people are committed and wanton
murderers who are willing to die just to kill someone else. One of the
doctors told me that when they had Taliban in the hospital the staff had
to really be careful with needles, pens and anything else which could
possibly be used as a weapon. They also throw their excrement and urine
on the troops who are guarding them. And our guys and gals have shown
great restraint in not retaliating.
We are spending over a million dollars a day maintaining and guarding
these nasty killers and anyone who wants to see them brought to the
U.S.A. for trial is either out of their heads or a lawyer looking for money
and notoriety. Or both.
I wish that the media and the Red Cross and all the rest of the people
who are so worried about these criminals would realize that this is not
a troop of errant Boy Scouts. These are killers of the worst kind. They
don't need protection from us, we need protection from them.
If you don't get anything else out of this soapbox, please try to
realize that when you see news coverage much of the time you're not
getting the whole story, but an account filtered through a liberal
mindset with an agenda.
We have two fights on our hands, the war against terror and the one
against the loudmouthed lawyers and left wing media who would sap
the strength from the American public by making us believe that we're
losing the war or doing something wrong in fighting it. Remember these
are the same people who told us that Saddam Hussein's Republican
guard was going to be an all but invincible enemy and that our smart
bombs and other weapons were not really as good as the military said
that they were. They also took up for Bill Clinton while he was cavorting
around the Oval office with Monica Lewinsky while the terrorists were
gaining strength and bombing our Embassies and dragging the bodies
of dead American heroes around the dusty streets of Somalia.
It's a shame that we can't have an unbiased media who would just report
the truth and let us make up our own minds. Here I must commend
Fox News for presenting both sides much better than the other networks.
They are leaving the other cable networks in the dust. People like being
told the truth. Our military not only needs but deserves our support.
Let's give it to them.
The next time you read a media account about the bad treatment
of the Taliban in Cuba, remember what I told you. Been there done that.
Footnote: I got an e-mail from a rather irate first cousin of mine the
other day who has a daughter who's a lawyer and she seemed to think
that I was painting all lawyers with the same brush. Please understand
that I'm not doing that at all.
That would be like saying that all musicians were drug addicts.
There are a lot of good and honest attorneys out there.
I happen to have one of them. But it seems that they never get any
airtime.
It's always the radicals who get their opinions heard, who fight the
idea of the military tribunals and cite The Constitution and the integrity
of America as their source of justifying their opinions.
Well, first of all The Constitution says "We the people of the United
States", it doesn't mention any other country. And secondly as far as
integrity is concerned, I don't think some of these folks would know
integrity if it bit them in the posterior.
What do you think?
God Bless America
© Charlie Daniels

To all,
    Below is  a column by Thomas Friedman (Middle east corespondent for the New York Times).  It was published 9/4/02 in the New York Times.  I think it's a must read for all Americans.  Judge for yourselves:

=============================================================

Thomas L. Friedman

The Times just ran an article about the trouble teachers were having in
deciding what to tell students on Sept. 11. That's a serious question. This
is a moment for moral clarity, and here are the three lessons I would teach:

Lesson #1: Who are they? This lesson would emphasize that while most people in the world are good and decent, there are evil people out there who are not poor, not abused - but envious. These extremists have been raised in
societies that have failed to prepare them for modernity, and the most evil
among them chose on Sept. 11 to lash out at the symbol of modernity -
America. As the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem put it in Time magazine,
"Beneath their claims ... these extremists are pathologically jealous. They
feel like dwarfs, which is why they search for towers and all those who tower
mightily." Their grievance is rooted in psychology, not politics; their goal
is to destroy America, not reform it; they can only be defeated, not
negotiated with.
Assigned reading: Larry Miller's Jan. 14, 2002, essay in The Weekly Standard:
"Listen carefully: We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with
me now and free yourselves. You see, folks, saying 'We're good' doesn't mean
'We're perfect.' Okay? The only perfect being is the bearded guy on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The plain fact is that our country has, with
all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be the greatest
beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in history. If you
need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what happens. In about half
a day, the entire world would be a ghost town, and the United States would
look like one giant line to see 'The Producers.'... So here's what I resolve:
To never forget our murdered brothers and sisters. To never let the
relativists get away with their immoral thinking. After all, no matter what
your daughter's political science professor says, we didn't start this."

Lesson #2: Who are we? We Americans are not better than any other people, but the Western democratic system we live by is the best system on earth.
Unfortunately, in the Arab-Muslim world, there is no democracy, too few
women's rights and too little religious tolerance. It is the values and
traditions of freedom embraced by Western civilization, and the absence of
those values and traditions in the Arab-Muslim world, that explain the main
differences between us.
Assigned reading: "An Autumn of War," by the military historian Victor Davis
Hanson: "Our visionaries must be far clearer about the nature of our
struggle. In their understandable efforts to say what we are not doing -
fighting Islam or provoking Arab peoples - they have failed utterly to voice
what we are doing - preserving Western civilization and its uniquely tolerant
and human traditions of freedom, consensual government, disinterested inquiry and religious and political tolerance. ... We must cease the apologetic tone we have developed with the Arab world, and make it clear that their ministers who hector us are not legitimate without elections, their spokesmen are not journalists without a free press, and their intellectuals are not credible without liberty. The right to admonish Americans on questions of morality is not an entitlement, but something earned only through a shared commitment to constitutional government."

Lesson #3: Why do so many foreigners reject the evil perpetrators of 9/11 but
still dislike America? It's because, while we have the best system of
governance, we are not always at our best in how we act toward the world.
Because we want to drive big cars, we support repressive Arab dictators so
they will sell us cheap oil. Because our presidents want to get votes, they
readily tell the Palestinians how foolishly they are behaving, but they
hesitate to tell Israelis how destructive their West Bank settlements are for
the future of the Jewish state. Because we want to consume as much energy as we please, we tell the world's people they have to be with us in the war on
terrorism but we don't have to be with them in the struggle against global
warming and for a greener planet.
The point, class, is that while evil people hate us for who we are, many good
people dislike us for what we do. And if we want to win their respect we need
to be the best, most consistent and most principled global citizens we can
be.
Assigned readings: The U.S. Constitution, Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech, and the Declaration of Independence.

Mourning As A Performing Art
Migraine Television
Home Columns
 

September 9--We’re going to do it, I know we are. We’re about to celebrate Bin Laden’s Victory Day. By all indications, it will be a media circus, like when Princess Di did—a grand battle in the ratings wars. We’ll wallow in mawkishness, and whimper, and humiliate ourselves. Watch. There will be manufactured solemnity, factitious reverence, sorrow by Disney, and an unremitting ooze of therapy. Heaven help us, we’ll probably get in touch with our feelings, and Heal. Maybe booths will sell cotton candy.
 

 It’s embarrassing.

 I suppose I have a bad attitude about the upcoming festivities. On my office wall is a row of magazine covers I shot for Soldier of Fortune in a previous life as a freelance photojournalist. One of them (November, 1983, written as Rick Venable) shows Marines coming ashore in Beirut, the lead guy carrying an M-203. I spent a week or two with those guys, patrolling downtown and suchlike. Shortly afterward, the truck bomb arrived. Moslem terrorists. Two hundred forty-one dead.

 America didn’t do anything about those killings, then or later. There was no carnival of mourning on the anniversary. I guess the networks forgot. What do you suppose? As for dead Marines, who cared? After all, they didn’t go to Princeton, and you never saw them in pricey booze chutes in Manhattan.

 Judging by appearances, the forthcoming coverage will be appalling both in quantity and moral fraudulence. The ad agencies, I have read, are pondering what tone to use on September 11. It is a delicate question. The trick is to gull the rubes without disturbing their sensibilities. (Singing toilet paper may not be just the thing. Unless it sang a dignified dirge maybe. Mining the dead for ad revenue is harder that it might seem.)

 The Moslem world is going to love every minute of it. In fact, I see in the Washington Times that they are going to have anti-American rallies in London to celebrate the great day. How convenient, they must think: The Americans are going to crawl for us. I’ll give you odds bin Laden is comfortable somewhere, probably in Saudi Arabia, laughing and laughing and laughing. I would be.

 Maybe he’s not really in Saudi. Maybe he’s in Vail, waiting for good powder. But he ain’t been caught. I tell you, he’s one slick A-rab. I don’t like the guy. I’d shoot him if I could, and poke holes in his towel. I have to respect the sucker, though. He changed the United States forever. We’re going to be a scared security state for all time, with the cops reading our email. The home of the free, land of the brave.

 I assume, subject to correction by events, that we’ll have every television truck on earth at Ground Zero, and the rest at the Pentagon. There will be endless tributes to the Hallowed Dead, who will be treated as saints crossed with Joan of Arc. Actually of course they were just people who happened to be at work on the wrong day. Being hit by an airliner is no more heroic or tragic than being run over by a dump truck. This is the age of Oprah Consciousness, though. We’ll have contrived tears from televised airheads who didn’t know the dead and don’t care about them.

 People get mad if you say it, but, fact is, we got stomped. One raghead with a few subordinate loons took down the Trade Center, turned us into a docile police state, made us spend billions bombing peasants in Afghanistan without issue, frightened us into letting our airlines go into bankruptcy, and now we have Homeland Security, which makes flying so unpleasant that most of us will take trains. The best we could do now is just to shut up. Naw. We’re gonna wave it around on prime time. We’ll let everybody watch it again.

 Time was, this wouldn’t have happened. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we squashed them. When the Nazis attacked us, we invaded. But that was before Oprah Consciousness. Now the Moslems kill a few thousand people in New York, and the President immediately goes to a mosque. Don’t you love it?

 After Pearl Harbor, did Roosevelt go to a Shinto temple?

 The whole thing is surreal. We can’t even admit who did it.

 Quiz: What people have been consistently kicking our teeth in for decades? Chippewas? Latvians? Tibetan monks? Or Moslems?

 It was the Iroquois who took over our embassy in Tehran and make fools of us for months, until Jimmy Carter sent in that comic-opera rescue team and independently made fools of us. Isn’t that what you remember? Iroquois?

 The Norwegians blew up the Marine barracks in Beirut, right? Damn those Norwegians. The Cole? The Starke? Presbyterians did it. I’m sure of it.

 Is there no limit to our absurdity? (No. The question was rhetorical.) We all know who the terrorists are, but we won’t even search Moslems because that would be discrimination. We won’t arm pilots because guns are, Squeeeeak! so fwightening. We take away fingernail clippers as deadly weapons. This is the country that stormed Iwo?

 It gets sillier. We’re going to wage an international crusade against terrorism, yet we throw little boys out of school for drawing pictures of soldiers, and we don’t let them play dodgeball because it’s so violent. The earth must be laughing.

 A pretty good rule of diplomacy might be that you shouldn’t huff and puff if you aren’t going to back it up. It’s undignified. It invites more trouble. The Towers went down, and we huffed. Grrr, woof. Bush said fiercely that we were going to make terrorists everywhere wish they had never been born. For at least two weeks everybody was solidarified and America was on the march and companies sold Instant Patriotism kits, with a little flag for the aerial and a bumper sticker. Bow-wow-wow. Wurf.

 And then we fizzled. We bombed Afghanistan some, but I can’t see that it did much. We sound as though we may do something unpleasant to Iraq. I guess that’ll get rid of terrorism. We’ll see. It’s hard to know what we’re going to do. These days wars are declared by the president, not congress.

 I’ll root for us, but bet on them. The Moslems have got our number. They have the momentum. They appear to rely on what is becoming an international formula for defeating the United States: Don’t give the Yanks a point target, and draw the war out until they get bored. Do you reckon it’s working?

No matter what you think of this day--a day of sorrow, a day of remembrance, a day never to forget, or a day best forgotten--all who were alive a year ago will have this day forever imprinted in their minds.

Many things--both bad and good--have followed the initial shock of the attacks last year: the evil that exists in the minds of some people and the good that exists in others.  The cowardice that leads to the horrible events we have been witness to and the bravery it brings out in others.  The hatred that some people are doomed to live with and the outpouring of love that others have given to try to overcome the hatred.

No matter what you think...

Please use this day to show those you care about what's under the surface--that the depths of the love and kindness that we are capable of are there for the giving.  Remembering the special people in our lives is at least as important as celebrating an anniversary of a cataclysmic event.  Send a note or call someone that you've been out of touch with for too long, or even someone you talked to yesterday and let them know that they are still in your thoughts as you are in mine.

My wish for you is that the coming years bring more joy than sorrow, more smiles than tears, more ups than downs and that you know that there is someone out there who cares very much about you.

Love,
(Name Withheld)

Noah and 9/11

September 11, 2002
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
 
 

Over the past year several friends have remarked to me how
much they still feel a pit in their stomachs from 9/11. One
even said she felt as if this was the beginning of the end
of the world. And no wonder. Those suicide hijackings were
such an evil act that they shattered your faith in human
beings and in the wall of civilization that was supposed to
constrain the worst in human behavior. There is now a big
jagged hole in that wall.

What to do? For guidance, I turned to one of my mentors,
Rabbi Tzvi Marx, who teaches in the Netherlands. He offered
me a biblical analogy. "To some extent," said Tzvi, "we
feel after 9/11 like we have experienced the flood of Noah
- as if a flood has inundated our civilization and we are
the survivors. What do we do the morning after?"

The story of Noah has a lot to offer. "What was the first
thing Noah did when the flood waters receded and he got off
the ark?" asked Tzvi. "He planted a vine, made wine and got
drunk." Noah's first response to the flood's devastation of
humanity, and the challenge he now faced, was to numb
himself to the world.

"But what was God's reaction to the flood?" asked Tzvi.
"Just the opposite. God's reaction was to offer Noah a more
detailed set of rules for mankind to live by - rules which
we now call the Noahite laws. His first rule was that life
is precious, so man should not murder man." (These Noahite
laws were later expanded to include prohibitions against
idolatry, adultery, blasphemy and theft.)

It's interesting - you would have thought that after wiping
out humanity with a devastating flood, God's first
post-flood act wouldn't have been to teach that all life is
precious. But it was. Said Tzvi: "It is as though God said,
`Now I understand what I'm up against with these humans. I
need to set for them some very clear boundaries of
behavior, with some very clear values and norms, that they
can internalize.' "

And that is where the analogy with today begins. After the
deluge of 9/11 we have two choices: We can numb ourselves
to the world, and plug our ears, or we can try to repair
that jagged hole in the wall of civilization by insisting,
more firmly and loudly than ever, on rules and norms - both
for ourselves and for others.

"God, after the flood, refused to let Noah and his
offspring indulge themselves in escapism," said Tzvi, "but
he also refused to give them license to live without moral
boundaries, just because humankind up to that point had
failed."

The same applies to us. Yes, we must kill the murderers of
9/11, but without becoming murderers and without simply
indulging ourselves. We must defend ourselves - without
throwing out civil liberties at home, without barring every
Muslim student from this country, without forgetting what a
huge shadow a powerful America casts over the world and how
it can leave people feeling powerless, and without telling
the world we're going to do whatever we want because there
has been a flood and now all bets are off.

Because imposing norms and rules on ourselves gives us the
credibility to demand them from others. It gives us the
credibility to demand the rule of law, religious tolerance,
consensual government, self-criticism, pluralism, women's
rights and respect for the notion that my grievance,
however deep, does not entitle me to do anything to anyone
anywhere.

It gives us the credibility to say to the Muslim world:
Where have you been since 9/11? Where are your voices of
reason? You humbly open all your prayers in the name of a
God of mercy and compassion. But when members of your
faith, acting in the name of Islam, murdered Americans or
committed suicide against "infidels," your press extolled
them as martyrs and your spiritual leaders were largely
silent. Other than a few ritual condemnations, they offered
no outcry in their mosques; they drew no new moral red
lines in their schools. That's a problem, because if there
isn't a struggle within Islam - over norms and values -
there is going to be a struggle between Islam and us.

In short, numbing ourselves to the post-9/11 realities will
not work. Military operations, while necessary, are not
sufficient. Building higher walls may feel comforting, but
in today's interconnected world they're an illusion. Our
only hope is that people will be restrained by internal
walls - norms and values. Visibly imposing them on
ourselves, and loudly demanding them from others, is the
only viable survival strategy for our shrinking planet.

Otherwise, start building an ark.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
 
 

What we know about Osama bin Laden is this -- he's worth $300 million, he has five wives and 26 kids ...and he hates Americans for their 'excessive' lifestyle."

  -- David Letterman
 

  "More and more details coming out now about spoiled rich kid Osama bin
  Laden. Time reports this week he was one of 52 kids. Mother must be
  exhausted. This guy inherited $80 million at age 13 and has since
  expanded it to $300 million through construction, smart investments and  gas and oil investments. This way, he can use the money in his war
  against capitalism."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "You read about all these terrorists, most of them came here legally,
  but they hung around on these expired visas, some for as long as 10-15
  years. Now, compare that to Blockbuster; you are two days late with a
  video and these people are all over you. Let's put Blockbuster in charge
  of immigration."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "More and more facts coming out about Osama bin Laden. You know, he
  never sleeps in the same place two nights in a row... just like Clinton."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "This Osama bin Laden guy, spoiled rich kid worth $300M. I have three
  words for this guy: Anna Nicole Smith. We send her over there. She'll
  get his money. He'll be dead in a week."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "It was reported today that Osama Bin Laden has 50 brothers and sisters.
  Which absolutely shocked me because I had no idea he was Catholic"
  -- Conan O'Brien
 

  "CBS News finally received anthrax in the mail. As usual, we're number
  three."
  -- David Letterman
 

  "Things have really changed here in Hollywood. Used to be people in this
  town couldn't wait to get an envelope full of white powder."
-- Jay Leno
 

  "I don't mean to harp on this, but it's like the networks are a how-to
  manual for terrorists. You see them on the news. This reporter is
  standing outside a water treatment plant, going, 'If they poured the
  poison right here it could wipe out thousands because the guard is off
  duty from noon until 1 every day!'"
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "The FBI is urging all Americans to beware of any letters or packages
  that have badly misspelled words. Man, this is going to be terrible news
  for the rap industry."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "In Pakistan anti-American protesters set a Kentucky Fried Chicken
  restaurant on fire. The protesters mistakenly thought they were
  attacking high-ranking U.S. military official Colonel Sanders."
  -- Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update
 

  "Tomorrow night on NBC a very special episode of West Wing, it makes a
  direct reference to what happened in New York City. The exact plot is
  being kept top secret. We are the only country in the world where we put our battle plans on CNN, but the plots to our TV shows are top secret."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "Pakistan's ruler Pervez Musharraf predicted the Taliban will fall for
  hiding Osama bin Laden. Ex-king Zahir Shah is standing by to replace
  Mullah Mohammed Omar. And the most ominous sign of all, President Bush
  has learned all their names."
  -- Comedian Argus Hamilton
 

  "There was a rumor that Jesse Jackson was going to go over there to talk
  with the Taliban; apparently they were having trouble rhyming the word
  Jihad."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "Now this really annoys me: All these people getting on the Internet and
  saying Nostradamus predicted this. If Nostradamus were alive today his
  name would be Miss Cleo and he'd be charging $2.99 a minute."
  -- Jay Leno
 

  "U.S. Government has said they are now going to go after the terrorist's
  electronic banking system. You know what they should do? They should
  transfer bin Laden's funds to my bank. They'd mess up his deposits,
  screw up his statement and nickel and dime him to death with service
  charges."
  -- Jay Leno
 

"People want to say there isn't racial profiling at the airport, but
let's be honest. If your first name is Mohammed, and your last name
isn't Ali, arrive at the airport extra early."
-- Jay Leno
 

 

 

       In Case You Forgot,
   Here are The Democrats on
  
     Weapons of Mass     Destruction

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them.  That is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998 "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear.  We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998 "Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998 "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998 "We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens Carl Levin (D-MI), Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry ( D - MA), and others Oct. 9, 1998 "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998 "Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." - Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999 "There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." - Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001 "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002 "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002 "The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons...." - Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002 "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002 "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002 "He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do." - Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002 "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapon stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002 "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation .. And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003 SO NOW THESE SAME DEMOCRATS SAY PRESIDENT BUSH LIED, THAT THERE NEVER WERE ANY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, AND THAT HE TOOK US TO WAR UNECESSARILY? .

This WAR is for REAL! (We have not yet been able to ascertain the identity of the original author. ) To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII). The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means. First, let's examine a few basics: 1. When did the threat to us start? Many will say September 11, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001 with the following attacks on us: * Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979; * Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983; * Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983; * Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988; * First New York World Trade Center attack 1993; * Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996; * Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998; * Dares Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998; * Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000; * New York World Trade Center 2001; * Pentagon 2001. (Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide). 2. Why were we attacked? Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter. 3. Who were the attackers? In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims. 4. What is the Muslim population of the World? 25%. 5. Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful? Hopefully, but that is really not material. There is no doubt that the predominately Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no difference. You either went along with the administration or you were eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests). (see >http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm ) Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the six million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities. Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others. Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way -- their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else. The point here is that just like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on doing -- by their own pronouncements -- killing all of us "infidels." I don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up or die? 6. So who are we at war with? There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting. So with that background, now to the two major questions: 1. Can we lose this war? 2. What does losing really mean? If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions. We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does losing mean? It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our business, like post Vietnam. This is as far from the truth as one can get. What losing really means is: We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us, over the past 18 years. The plan was clearly, for terrorist to attack us, until we were neutered and submissive to them. We would of course have no future support from other nations, for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see, we are impotent and cannot help them. They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do will be done. Spain is finished. The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast! If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us, if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else? The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war, and therefore are completely committed to winning, at any cost. We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost. Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win. So, how can we lose the war? Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by "imploding." That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose, and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can win! Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation. President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war! For the duration, we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently. And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII, and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then. Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him? No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness, and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head. Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and weakening. It concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause. Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war, perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying. We have recently had an issue, involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war, by a small group of our military police. These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein. And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters, who recently were burning Americans, and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq. And still more recently, the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of American prisoners they held. Compare this with some of our press and politicians, who for several days have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners -- not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them. Can this be for real? The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can. To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned -- totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world. Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife. Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media people are disloyal. It simply means that they are absolutely oblivious to the magnitude, of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us, for many years. Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill all infidels! That translates into ALL non-Muslims -- not just in the United States, but throughout the world. We are the last bastion of defense. We have been criticized for many years as being 'arrogant.' That charge is valid in at least one respect. We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world! We can't! If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in the world will survive if we are > defeated. And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equal rights for anyone -- let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the world. This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read. If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by little, on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves, over what should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar? Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece. And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power. They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"? I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. I hope  the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in, and will unite to save our country. It is your future we are talking about! Do whatever you can to preserve it. After reading the above, we all must do this not only for ourselves, but our children, our grandchildren, our country and the world.

Riots in France by Thomas Sowell
 Nov 8, 2005

Riots that began on the outskirts of Paris have spread into the center of the French capital and to other communities in other parts of the country. Thousands of cars have been set on fire and the police and even medical personnel have been shot at.

 Like many other riots, whether in France or elsewhere, this one started over an incident that just happened and was then seized upon to rally resentments and unleash violence. Two local boys in a predominantly Moslem neighborhood tried to escape the police by hiding in a facility that transmitted electricity -- and accidently electrocuted themselves.

 This was the spark that ignited volatile emotions. But those emotions were there, ready to be ignited, for a long time.

 A substantial Moslem population lives in France but is not really of France. Much of that population lives in social isolation in housing projects away from the center of Paris, as unknown to many Parisians as to tourists.

Like housing projects in America, many of these are centers of social degeneration, lawlessness and violence. Three years ago, profound British social critic Theodore Dalrymple wrote of "burned-out and eviscerated carcasses of cars everywhere" in these projects, among other signs of social degeneration. This was in an essay titled "The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris" that is reprinted in his insightful book, "Our Culture, What's Left of it."

 While Dr. Dalrymple called this Moslem underclass "barbarians," a French minister who called the rioters "scum" provoked instant outrage against himself, including criticism from at least one member of his own government. This squeamishness in word and deed, and the accompanying refusal to face blatant realities is also a major part of the background for the breakdown of law and order and the social degeneration that follows.

 None of this is peculiar to France. It is a symptom of a common retreat from reality, and from the hard decisions that reality requires, not only in Europe but also in European offshoot societies like Canada, Australia, New Zealand -- and the United States of America.

 European countries especially have thrown their doors open to a large influx of Moslem immigrants who have no intention of becoming part of the cultures of the countries to which they immigrate but to recreate their own cultures in those countries.

 In the name of tolerance, these countries have imported intolerance, of which growing antisemitism in Europe is just one example. In the name of respecting all cultures, Western nations have welcomed people who respect neither the cultures nor the rights of the population among whom they have settled.

 During the last election, some campus Republicans who were holding a rally for President Bush at San Francisco State University were harassed by Middle Eastern students, including a woman who walked up to one of these Americans and slapped his face. They knew they could do this with impunity.

 In Michigan, a Moslem community loudly sounds their calls to prayer several times a day, without regard to whether that sound bothers the original inhabitants of the community.

 The Dutch were shocked when one of their film-makers was assassinated by a Moslem extremist for daring to have views at variance with what the extremists would tolerate.

 No one should have been shocked. There are people who will not stop until they get stopped -- and much of the media, the political classes, and the cultural elites of the West cannot bring themselves to even criticize, much less stop, the dangers or degeneracy among groups viewed sympathetically as underdogs.

 Not all Moslems, nor necessarily a majority of Moslems, are either a cultural or a physical danger. But even "moderate" Moslem organizations in the West who deplore violence and try to discourage it nevertheless encourage their followers to remain foreigners rather than become part of the countries they live in.

 So do our own intelligentsia and political and cultural elites. Balkanization has been glorified as "diversity" and diversity has become too sacred to defile with anything so gross as hard facts. But reality is not optional. Our survival may in the long run be as menaced by degeneration within -- from many sources and in many ways -- as was that of the Roman Empire.

                 WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS?

      "Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not
      started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not  brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly  three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

      And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet? Well, I don't. I don't care at all.

      I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents  for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

      I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start  caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

      I'll care when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tells the world he is sorry for  hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his
gurgling, slashed throat.

      I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out  and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by
hiding in mosques.

      I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

      I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First  Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.

      In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave Marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.

      When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college hazing incident, rest assured that I don't care.

      When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don't care.

      When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can
absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I don't care.

      And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran"  and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and -- you guessed it, I could not have said  any better myself!

      Sooner or later, this'll get to the people responsible for
this ridiculous behavior!
 
      If you disagree, please don't  complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great country.


"Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow." - Mahatma Gandhi

 
 

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