Charlie Wilson R.I.P.

My first meeting with Charlie was like a cloak and dagger movie, in the mid 80's in Lufkin, Texas. And I last talk to him in 2007 at a reunion BBQ in Lufkin after the movie came out.

Charlie was a unique individual, a legend, his contributions to the safety and security of our nation will never be completely known.

Regardless of what anyone may think about his personal life, he was a TRUE American patriot .

What he did for the mujahedin was nothing short of amazing.

His efforts to free the Afghan people -- portrayed in the movie Charlie Wilson's War -- don't overstate or dramatize a thing.

He was all that.

God speed, Charlie.

You served your country well.

Goodbye old friend, you will be missed.

Oh yeah, he knew how to party too!

Wishing the best to Barbra...
**************

Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, a hard-partying Democrat who played a key role in the United States' covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, has died. He was 76.

Yana Ogletree, the director of media relations at the Memorial Health System of East Texas, says Charlie was at a meeting Wednesday morning in Lufkin with his friend Buddy Temple.

The former congressman started to have trouble breathing. Temple then drove Wilson to the hospital and flagged down an ambulance while en route. The ambulance then drove Wilson to the hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 12:16 p.m. CT.

Ogletree says the cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest.

Charles Nesbitt Wilson was born June 1, 1933, in Trinity.

He attended Sam Houston State University in Huntsville before earning his bachelor's degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1956.

Wilson served as a Naval lieutenant between 1956-60, then entered politics by volunteering for John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign.

He served in the Texas House and then in the Texas Senate before being elected to the U.S. House in 1972. "Charlie was perfect as a congressman, perfect as a state representative, perfect as a state senator.

He was a perfect reflection of the people he represented. If there was anything wrong with Charlie, I never did know what it was," said Charles Schnabel Jr., who served for seven years as Wilson's chief of staff in Washington and worked with Wilson when he served in the Texas Senate.

Schnabel said he had just been with Wilson a few weeks ago for the dedication of the Charlie Wilson chair for Pakistan studies at the University of Texas at Austin, a $1 million endowment.

He said Wilson had been doing "very good. Charlie, known as the “Liberal from Lufkin,” represented the 2nd District from 1972 to 1996. He became known as “Goodtime Charlie” because of his lifestyle, but was known locally for helping bring a Veterans Administration clinic to Lufkin and helping establish the Big Thicket National Preserve.

“Charlie loved this nation and had deep respect and gratitude for the men and women who defended her; he was a force for Veterans his entire career. Throughout his life, this was evident in his thoughts, words, and deeds,” said Dr. Anthony Zollo, director of the VA outpatient clinic that bears Wilson's name.

“The VA is a richer organization because of Mr. Wilson. He will be deeply missed.” Charlie, was considered both a progressive and a defense hawk.

While his efforts to arm the mujahedeen in the 1980s were a success -- spurring a victory that helped speed the downfall of the Soviet Union -- he was unable to keep the money flowing after the Soviets left.

Afghanistan plunged into chaos, creating an opening eventually filled by the Taliban, which harbored Al Qaeda terrorists "That caused an enormous amount of real bitterness in Afghanistan and it was probably the catalyst for Taliban movement," Wilson said in a 2001 interview.

The Soviets spent a decade battling the determined and generously financed mujahedeen before pulling the Red Army from Afghanistan in 1989 After the Sept. 11 attacks -- carried out by Al Qaeda terrorists trained in Afghanistan -- the U.S. ended up invading the country it had once helped liberate.

"People like me didn't fulfill our responsibilities once the war was over," Charlie said in a September 2001 interview with The Associated Press.

"We allowed this vacuum to occur in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which enraged a lot of people. That was as much my fault as it was a lot of others."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he knew Charlie when he was at the CIA and that the congressman "was working tirelessly on behalf of the Afghan resistance fighting the Soviets."

"As the world now knows, his efforts and exploits helped repel an invader, liberate a people, and bring the Cold War to a close. After the Soviets left, Charlie kept fighting for the Afghan people and warned against abandoning that traumatized country to its fate -- a warning we should have heeded then, and should remember today," Gates said in a written statement.

Mike Vickers, who as a CIA agent in 1984 played a key role in the clandestine effort to arm the Afghan rebels, said Wilson played a part in the Soviet Union's collapse, which happened just two years after its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Mike, now assistant secretary of defense for special operations, praised Wilson as a "great American patriot who played a pivotal role in a world-changing event — the defeat of the Red Army in Afghanistan, which led to the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Empire."

After leaving Congress, Wilson lobbied for a number of years before returning to Texas.

As member of the House Appropriations Committee, Charlie's help fund Afghanistan's resistance to the Soviet Union was chronicled in the movie Charlie Wilson's War.

Actor Tom Hanks portrayed Wilson in the 2007 movie about the congressman's efforts to aide the Afghani mujahedeen during their war against the Soviet Union.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas called Wilson "a lifetime public servant with a fiery passion for the people of East Texas, our men and women in uniform, our veterans and our freedoms."

"I have had the great privilege to work alongside him on several issues of importance to our veterans in Texas, and I will miss his leadership and dedication," he said.

Charlie is survived by his wife, Barbara, whom he married in 1999, and a sister.





Charlie Wilson arrives with his wife
Barbara at the world premiere of
Charlie Wilson's War in 2007

Ukraine wants to become the international capital of carrier aviation training

Decades ago, the Soviet Union built its aircraft carrier pilot training facilities at Nitka, outside Odessa, a city that is, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, in the independent country of Ukraine.

Ukraine is now trying to attract China and India as customers for these facilities. China has signed up, and is buying aircraft carrier equipment made in Ukraine.

China is expanding its own carrier aviation training center, and is buying consulting and technical services from Ukraine to assist in that project.

One interesting item to come out of the visits by Chinese naval aviation personnel to Ukraine, is that the Varyag, a former Soviet carrier that China bought from Russia six years ago, is being restored for use as a training carrier. This explains the spotty restoration work that has been done on the Varyag. However, the Chinese indicated that the Varyag could still be turned into an operational combat carrier, either before or after it enters service as a training ship.

The Nitka base was used by the Soviets to train MiG-29K and Su-33 pilots for service on their carriers. India is buying MiG-29Ks for their carriers, and China is apparently building, with Ukrainian help, a carrier version of the Su-30 (which is what the Su-33 was).

Ukraine offers satellite defence co-operation

Ukraine offers satellite defence
co-operation
with Europe and US

Ukraine inflamed mounting East-West tensions
yesterday by offering up a Soviet-built satellite facility
as part of the European missile defence system.

By Damien McElroy in Tbilisi

The proposal, made amid growing outrage among Russia's neighbours over its military campaign in Georgia, could see Ukraine added to Moscow's nuclear hitlist. A Russian general declared Poland a target for its arsenal after Warsaw signed a deal with Washington to host interceptor missiles for America's anti-nuclear shield.

The move came as the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a cease-fire deal that sets the stage for a Russian troop withdrawal after more than a week of warfare with its neighbour Georgia.

The deal calls for both Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted on August 8. As of last night, though, there was little apparent evidence of a Russian pull-out from the Georgian town of Gori, which Russian tanks and troops took last weekend. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insisted a broader withdrawal would be contingent on further security measures.

Just hours before Mr Medvedev put his signature to the ceasefire deal, Russian forces blew up a Georgian railway bridge on the main line west of the capital, Tbilisi, an act that critics interpreted as a malacious attempt to cripple the country's infrastructure. Moscow at first issued a denial, but television footage shot by the Reuters news agency clearly showed the bridge's twisted remains.

Ukraine said it was ready to give both Europe and America access to its missile warning systems after Russia earlier annulled a 1992 cooperation agreement involving two satellite tracking stations. Previously, the stations were part of Russia's early-warning system for missiles coming from Europe.

"The fact that Ukraine is no longer a party to the 1992 agreement allows it to launch active cooperation with European countries to integrate its information," a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.

It follows a declaration earlier this week from Ukraine's pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, that the Russian naval lease of the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sebastopol would be scrapped if any vessels joined the conflict in Georgia.

The crisis over Russia's display of military might in Georgia has alarmed ex-Soviet satellites states in a broad arc from the Baltics to Central Asia. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, all of which harbour bitter memories of Soviet occupation, have expressed solidarity with the Georgian position.

Yesterday President George W. Bush hailed what he saw as progress in resolving the Georgia crisis, describing the ceasefire agreement as "a hopeful step."

He reiterated, though, that the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia remained part of Georgia, despite Moscow's insistence that they should now be allowed to become part of Russia. "There's no room for debate on this matter," said Mr Bush. "The international community is clear that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia and the US fully recognises this reality."

Meanwhile, disturbing reports of abuse of ethnic Georgians in captured parts of the disputed region emerged. A group of captive soldiers were paraded in the streets of the South Ossetian capital, Tskinvali, and the bodies of at least 40 dead troops rotted in the sun.

Teams of ethnic Georgians, some under armed guard, were forced to clean the streets. It was the first apparent evidence of humiliation or abuse of Georgians in the Russian-controlled breakaway republic.

Why Georgia Lost The War

To no one's surprise, the Russians drove back a Georgian attempt to regain control of South Ossetia. There were several hundred military and civilian casualties. The fighting apparently began when some South Ossetia militiamen fired across the border at Georgian troops. This escalated to a Georgian invasion, and a Russian reinforcement of its peacekeepers, and the expulsion of the Georgian troops. All in the space of a week. The fighting continues, with Russian warplanes bombing civilians and military targets in Georgia and moving more troops into another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia. Georgia has asked for a ceasefire, but the Russians have not responded.

Since the early 1990s, Russia and Georgia have argued over who should control South Ossetia, a Georgian province on the Russian border. Just to the north of South Ossetia, is the Russian territory of North Ossetia. The Soviets often split ethnic groups between two provinces (or "Autonomous Republics") to make it more difficult for the people to unite in opposition to the Soviet Union. This, among many similar measures, worked. Since the Russians moved in their peacekeepers in the early 1990s, they have issued Russian passports to the South Ossetians and, in effect, annexed the region.

The Ossertians are a different ethnic group from the ethnic Georgians, as are the Abkhazians. This sort of ethnic mélange is common throughout the Caucasus. During the last years of the Soviet Union (1989-1991), ethnic tensions increased throughout the Soviet Union, as long dormant (and suppressed by a brutal police state) aspirations stirred once more. While the Soviet politicians pulled off an astonishing feat by dissolving the empire without bloodshed (and creating fourteen new countries from portions of the empire that decided not to stay with the new Russia), there were lots of smaller groups that still had separatist grievances. Two of these groups were in Georgia, and occupied the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The populations rebelled against the Georgian government and drove out Georgian officials, troops and ethnic Georgians. Thousands of ethnic Abkhazians and Ossetians fled to the new statelets. Since both of these areas were on the Russian border, Russia saw an opportunity to quiet things down (they did not want an ethnic based guerilla war going on along their border). So Russia offered its services as mediator and peacekeeper in the early 1990s, and peace was restored. The UN agreed all this, and a reluctant Georgia went along. But after that, the Russians refused to leave, or encourage the Abkhazians and Ossetians to work out a deal to become part of Georgia once more. Abkhazians and Ossetians wanted to be independent, and declared themselves so. No one else recognized this. In 2004, Georgia began cracking down on the smuggling and other criminal activity that was keeping the economy in South Ossetia going. This led to more and more gunfire along the border between Georgia and South Ossetia.

Two years ago, Georgia began a major expansion of its armed forces. Officially, the active forces were then about 26,000 troops, already up from about 12,000-14,000 just a couple few years before that. Unofficially, the government has raised strength to about 28,000. This was done by adding more professional troops and increasing the order-of-battle by two battalions of conscripts. The government goal is to increase the active force to about 35,000. In addition, Georgia began building a reserve force.

Until a few years ago the "reserves" constituted the entire body of conscripts discharged over the past 15 years. But this pool, of about 250,000 men, was just that, a pool. The "reservists" were not subject to periodic refresher training, and so no more than perhaps 10 percent of them could be considered useful in the event of activation. Beginning four years ago, Georgia instituted a more rigorous reserve training program. An active reserve has been created, which apparently numbers over 10,000 men, and is expected to grow to as many as 100,000 over the next few years, as conscripts (drafted at 18 to 18-24 months) leave active service, and enter 5-10 years of reserve duty.

While Georgia doesn't have the money for modern equipment (it's stuff is mostly Russian Cold War vintage), it does have enough professional soldiers from the old Red Army, and a military tradition going back centuries. Much to the discomfort of Russia, the United States has been supplying Georgia with military trainers and some equipment. Partly, this is in response to Georgian help in Iraq. Georgia first sent 800 peacekeepers to Iraq, and began increasing that force. Currently there are 2,000 Georgian troops in Iraq, where they obtain useful operational experience.

The principal reason for the military build-up is the secessionist regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Georgians wanted the option of trying for a military solution. There are also some Russian troops, leftovers from Soviet Union era garrisons, still in the country. Georgia has been trying get all the Russian soldiers out since the Soviet Union collapsed (and Georgia became independent once more) in 1991. But the Russians have come up with a long string of excuses for delaying a final pullout. To make matters worse, several thousand of those troops are "peacekeepers" in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. To most Georgians, the Russian peacekeepers are there mainly to keep the rebel regions free of Georgian control.

It's not yet clear what the Georgian government was thinking when they allowed the border skirmishing to escalate to a military effort to restore government control over South Ossetia. It didn't work, as the Russians promptly counterattacked and drove the Georgian troops out of South Ossetia. The Georgians can try a guerilla war, and hope that their new relationship with the United States and the European Union will add some measure of protection. That's a false hope. The Russians have made it clear during the last few years that any real, or imagined, Western influence or interference in nations that border Russia (what the Russians call the "near-abroad") will be opposed with lots of noise, followed by some firepower. The recent events in Georgia are an example of that, an example the Russians hope the West takes seriously, even if the Georgians don't.

Russian politicians have been playing the nationalism card, catering to widespread feelings that the Soviet Union should be restored. Most Russians never cared for the communist dictatorship, but they did like being a superpower. The Russians also feel that those fourteen nations that split off when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, left Russia surrounded by a lot of unstable and vulnerable nations. This sounds paternalistic and paranoid to Westerners, but not to Russians. And the Russians are willing to use force to back up these attitudes, as the Georgians just discovered. Russia still has nukes, and some Cold War attitudes that make for a potentially very dangerous situation.

Russian bombers to test-fire missiles in Bay of Biscay

For background see 'A Good Old Missile Parade'

January 22, 2008
Russian bombers to test-fire
missiles in Bay of Biscay
Times Online and agencies in Moscow

Russia has sent two long-range bombers to the Bay of Biscay, off the French and Spanish Atlantic coasts, to test-fire missiles in what Moscow billed as its biggest naval exercise in the area since the Soviet era.

A Russian Bear-H bomber

Firing missiles off the coastline of two Nato members is the latest in a series of Kremlin moves flexing Moscow’s military muscle on the world stage.

Russian bombers joined aircraft carriers, battleships and submarine hunters from the Northern and Black Sea fleets for the Atlantic exercises, which come as the country enters an election campaign to choose a successor to President Putin.

“The air force is taking a very active part in the exercises of the navy’s strike force in the Atlantic,” the Russian air force said in a statement reported by Reuters. “Today, two strategic Tu-160 bombers departed for exercises in the Bay of Biscay, which ... will carry out a number of missions and will conduct tactical missile launches."

There was no immediate comment from Nato about the exercise.

Mr Putin has used military manoeuvres, including controversial North Sea overflights, to revive domestic and international respect for Russia’s armed forces which were shattered by the chaos of the 1990s.

He has also boosted military spending, renewed long-range bomber missions and approved a plan to upgrade Russia’s nuclear attack forces, which he said was needed after Nato built up its forces close to Russia’s borders.

But some analysts note that while the sabre-rattling is popular at home, Russian military spending in absolute terms is substantially lower than that of China, Britain or France and less than a tenth of that of the United States.

Discipline is also still a major problem for Russia’s armed forces, which rely heavily on conscripts and outdated equipment.

Russia last month said it would begin major navy sorties into the Mediterranean, with 11 ships backed up by 47 aircraft, that would then travel to the Atlantic for exercises.

The navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the Soviet-made Admiral Kuznetsov, was leading the fleet in the Atlantic where Nato were trying to keep a close eye on Russian movements, Russian media reported.

“This is the biggest exercise of its kind in the area since Soviet times,” a spokesman for Russia’s navy said, adding that more details would be released later. There was no further

Information about where in the Bay of Biscay, which lies off the west coast of France and the northern coast of Spain, the missile tests were due to take place.

Russia’s air force said turbo-prop Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers, codenamed “Bear” by Nato, would join ATO, would join the exercise on Wednesday “From January 23, the aviation component in the zone where the exercises are going on will be widened and the following planes will take part: Tu-160, Tu-95, Tu-22 M3, Il-78, A-50,”, the air force said.

A Good Old Missile Parade

If you are my age or older,
You can remember the
USSR Missile Parade

Moscow returns to Soviet era
with weaponry on parade
Luke Harding in Moscow
Monday January 21, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, reviews troops during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

It was one of the highlights of the Soviet calendar, and a chance for the world's only communist superpower to show off its military might.
For ordinary citizens, it was also a rare opportunity to eyeball their gerontocratic leaders standing on top of Lenin's tomb - and to check that they were still alive, and could wave.

But 17 years after the last communist tanks trundled through Red Square, the Kremlin has decided to revive the Soviet-era practice of parading its big weaponry.

For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, combat vehicles will return to the heart of Moscow, driving past the Kremlin during Russia's annual military parade on May 9, Russia's defence ministry confirmed today.

As well as six thousands soldiers in shiny new uniforms, Russian generals plan to show off their latest tanks and rockets, including the country's new, and lethal, intercontinental ballistic missile, the Topol-M.

"Under the plan adopted by the president, land and air military equipment will be involved in the parade on Red Square," General Yuri Solovyov said today. The parade will include the new S-300 missile defence system - which Russia has just sold to Iran - and 32 fighter jets.

The decision to revive one of the most pregnant symbols of the Cold War is likely to provoke criticism from Russia's opposition, who accuse president Vladimir Putin of turning Russia into a pastiche version of the Soviet Union.

It might also raise a few quizzical eyebrows inside Britain's Moscow embassy. Last week Russia forcibly closed the British Council's two regional offices in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg using what British officials described as "'classic KGB tactics".

On Friday, Britain's ambassador in Moscow, Tony Brenton, compared post-communist Russia to the Soviet Union after officers from Russia's main domestic intelligence agency - the FSB - interrogated British Council workers.

President Putin has already demonstrated his fondness for Soviet emblems. He has updated the Soviet national anthem. Last year he said Russia should preserve the hammer and sickle on victory flags, arguing it was a part of Russia's past.

Today, one observer said that the Kremlin was using different symbols from Russia's Soviet and pre-revolutionary past to recreate a 'new national idea' of Russian greatness.

"It's a very complicated postmodern mix that borrows from the Soviet past, but also from Russia's imperial past and the tsarist era," Nikolay Petrov, scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Centre in Moscow said.

He added: "It's an ideological concept. The point is to show that Russia was great before the revolution, was great during Soviet times and to say we are restoring its greatness."

The Soviet Union's military parades, to celebrate victory over the Nazis on May 9 and the Bolshevik revolution on November 7, were a twice-yearly feature of Soviet life, watched by millions live on TV.

The parades invariably featured portraits of Lenin and Stalin, as well as balloons, motorcades and rictus-like grinning folk dancers. Kremlinologists used the occasion to try and divine who might become the next Politburo leader - by scrutinising who stood nearest to the current general secretary.

"We will be using military vehicles. But we haven't decided yet which and how many war machines will be used," Oleg Yushkov, spokesman for the Moscow military district told the Guardian. "We'll know by mid-March," he added.

Combat vehicles were last paraded in Red Square on November 7, 1990, shortly before the Soviet Union vanished. No parades were staged from 1991 to 1994. Parades resumed in 1995, but without any of the tanks and 20 metre-long missiles characteristic of the Soviet epoch.

As well as rehabilitating old Soviet imagery, Putin has also boosted defence spending. After the Soviet Union's demise, Russia's vast military economy collapsed. The squeeze continued in the 1990s, but since 2000 spending has gone up, with last year's budget of $31bn almost four times the amount spent in 2001.

Liberalism Will Lose This 'Cold War

Liberalism Will Lose This “Cold War”
By Christopher Adamo

On June 24, 1948, after having isolated West Berlin inside of the boundaries of Communist East Germany, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin suddenly cut off all road shipments into the city, essentially laying siege to it with the expectations that it could be starved into subjection and thus added to his expansionist regime.
In a daring and decisive response President Harry Truman ordered every available military cargo plane to the area thereby providing a lifeline of food and supplies to the beleaguered West Berliners. In many respects, the famous operation that became known as the Berlin Airlift represented the initial indirect “volley” of the Cold War.

Over the next four decades, the United States and the Soviet Union, vying for dominance on the world scene, engaged in one pitched battle after another on innumerable fronts. Yet throughout that entire time, incidents of direct military confrontation were almost nonexistent, since both sides feared the possibilities if any such engagement escalated to the point of involving either nation’s massive nuclear arsenals.

Nevertheless, virtually every meeting of the two superpowers, every cultural competition and every technological contest, represented a surrogate clash intended to establish dominance by one party over the other, while at all cost avoiding the direct use of military arms. As time passed the United States of America emerged time and again as the clear winner, thus eventuating the collapse of the USSR.

It is important to recognize the various “fronts” on which that war was conducted from the end of World War II until the Soviet downfall in 1988. From the technological battle signified by the Space Race (decisively won by the United States on July 20, 1969 as Astronaut Neil Armstrong planted the American flag on the surface of the moon) to the “line in the sand” of Reagan’s Grenada invasion, each stood as a milestone which could either foretell of America’s ultimate victory, or signal its
eventual defeat.

Indeed, the “Cold War” was no less a war than the two Twentieth Century World Wars that preceded it. And though not as dramatic on the nightly news for sheer death and mayhem, its battles were no less significant.

Sadly, many in the country believed that with the end of the Evil Empire, life would somehow become inherently safe. Adages of the “Peace Dividend” were heard incessantly, with an underlying message being that somehow, no more threats to America or the Free World existed, nor would any ever arise again. And for that time of utopian carelessness, America and the Free World are now paying an enormous price.

Dire threats, from militant Islam to the burgeoning Chinese empire, to the resurrection of Communist dictatorships in South America, are rearing their ugly heads. Worst of all, in face of such dangers, American elitists remain unwilling to recognize them and thus leave the country comparatively ill prepared to deal with them in the manner that it was during the heyday of the Soviet threat.

The dark force of liberalism and “political correctness” are working tirelessly to reorder America in their image. If allowed to continue unchecked they will cripple America’s ability to thrive and prosper, since an America made over in the image of the left can do neither. And if America fails, the rest of Western Civilization will follow.

Those who sought to undermine America during the original Cold War as campus radicals and participants in the leftist fringe underground are doing it this time around as tenured professors, entrenched politicians, and “mainstream” media pundits. More than just making noise and calling attention to themselves, they now influence policy and invoke the power of government to implement their agendas.

Consider, as one stark example, the present energy situation. America needs to access the petroleum reserves within its jurisdiction if it is to have any chance of extricating itself from dependence to hostile foreign governments, but more than eighty-five percent of America’s oil fields have been locked up by the eco-lobby.

In a telling act of institutionalized indifference, the recently passed “Energy Bill” does nothing to open America’s natural resources for the strength and security of Americans. Instead, it contains politically palatable but pointless symbolism, such as the outlawing of incandescent light bulbs, and the imposition of fuel standards that can only be achieved by severely degrading driving safety.

The fact that Americans, after a bit of grumbling at the gas pumps, will simply pay more money and keep driving, is at once a tribute to the nation’s prosperity and a disturbing harbinger of the likelihood that they will do nothing to properly address the problem before it reaches critical mass.

Federal Judges, through reprehensible abuses of power, find and expand “constitutional rights” for every vile enemy of the United States, including combatants who were taken prisoner in armed conflict against this country. Those who pose a real threat to the safety of Americans, such as the “flying Imams” who were removed from a commercial flight as they conducted an apparent dress rehearsal for a hijacking, are granted legal power to inflict revenge on their victims.

The infamous Kyoto Treaty would have hamstrung U.S. industry while granting exceptions to increasingly industrialized foreign competitors. Along with various other UN resolutions intended to accomplish the same ends, it mirrored the work of the “unilateral disarmament” crowd who would have abolished America’s nuclear deterrence force and thus left us defenseless against a Soviet nuclear attack.

The Old Testament Book of Nehemiah served as testimony of God’s providential Hand on His people and their resulting strength. It recounts the wall around Jerusalem that was rebuilt in less than two months, and how neighboring leaders recognized the strength of those who had built it.

What message is borne to the rest of the world by the fact that, in six years after the 9/11 attacks, no new towers have been built since any attempts to do so invariably become mired in “pc” squabbles? Just as disgraceful is the nation’s inability to recognize and support Americans and American greatness as exemplified by the abysmal “monument” to Flight 93, which has become a symbol of appeasement and concession.

Even more essential to the future than the physical symbolism of shining monuments, the towers resurrected, or even the continued prowess of America’s economic engine, the moral, cultural and spiritual roots of the nation are in grave need of restoration.



http://www.therealitycheck.org/2007/12/26/liberalism-will-lose-this-%e2%80%9ccold-war%e2%80%9d/