Tag Archives: National Security

Commentary

The verdict is in for the movie “Act of Valor”: it’s a hit!

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The new movie gets a review in the Houston Chronicle.

Full review:

I don’t watch R rated movies. I’ve just found that I don’t like the filth in so many of them. I have never allowed my kids to see R rated movies as long as they were living in my house. But I made an exception last night. I took my 15 year son to see “Act Of Valor.” My 19 year son went with us as well, but for my youngest, it was a big deal. Mom was letting him see R rated movie! *Gasp* The R rating was for violence and some language.

In case you haven’t heard about it, the movie was inspired by true events, but the unique thing about it is that  it stars active-duty Navy SEALS. The plot and story line are nothing to talk about. The acting of the Navy SEALS is also nothing to write home about, but I promise you, you will be glued to the screen the entire movie. There is something about knowing these are real Navy SEALS, doing exactly what they have been trained to do, that just brings you into it. It is emotional, spell binding, and heart wrenching.

This movie gives you such an appreciation of not only the valor and ability of our Navy SEALS, but an appreciation of what our boys go through on the battle field, and the caliber of men and women it takes to serve our country.

In the movie the enemy are terrorists from Russia determined to get suicide bombers into the U.S. There is one scene where a Navy Seal Commander is interrogating (really just having a conversation) with the lead terrorist. The terrorist asked the Navy SEAL to just please not harm his family. The Commander says, “We would never harm your family.” And I thought to myself, “That is the difference between us and them.” After you see the movie, you will see exactly what I mean. Many of the action sequences used live ammunition, and the realism comes through, even when the acting does not.

You walk away from this film, not thinking of the story, or the plot, but of the men who fight for our freedom, who give up everything for us. In the end, my heart was full of gratitude and love for our military. I thought my heart was pretty full of that already, but this film just makes it overflow. I saw how amazing our ships, planes, and equipment are. Some things they do, I wasn’t aware of. I was in awe.

I’ve never been to a movie where when it ended, no one moved. The packed theatre was completelysilent. No one got up to leave. The words on the screen said that this film was dedicated to the SEALS who had lost their lives since 9-11. Then came the list of names. No one moved. Well, that’s when I lost it. And I wasn’t alone.

Run, don’t walk, to see this movie. You will thank me later. Pay no attention to the wussie pansy waist know nothing Hollywood critics who diss this film. We all know they don’t have a clue.

God bless our military, and God bless this great country of ours.

I almost never see movies in the theater, but this is one we all need to support so that we get more like it!

News

Should the Obama administration be apologizing to Afghanistan?

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From National Review. (H/T Doug Groothuis via Mary)

Excerpt:

We have officially lost our minds.

The New York Times reports that President Obama has sent a formal letter of apology to Afghanistan’s ingrate president, Hamid Karzai, for the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base. The only upside of the apology is that it appears (based on the Times account) to be couched as coming personally from our blindly Islamophilic president — “I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. . . . I extend to you and the Afghani people my sincere apologies.” It is not couched as an apology from the American people, whose frame of mind will be outrage, not contrition, as the facts become more widely known.

The facts are that the Korans were seized at a jail because jihadists imprisoned there were using them not for prayer but to communicate incendiary messages. The soldiers dispatched to burn refuse from the jail were not the officials who had seized the books, had no idea they were burning Korans, and tried desperately to retrieve the books when the situation was brought to their attention.

Of course, these facts may not become widely known, because no one is supposed to mention the main significance of what has happened here. First, as usual, Muslims — not al-Qaeda terrorists, but ordinary, mainstream Muslims — are rioting and murdering over the burning (indeed, theinadvertent burning) of a book. Yes, it’s the Koran, but it’s a book all the same — and one that, moderate Muslims never tire of telling us, doesn’t really mean everything it says anyhow.

Muslim leaders and their leftist apologists are also forever lecturing the United States about “proportionality” in our war-fighting. Yet when it comes to Muslim proportionality, Americans are supposed to shrug meekly and accept the “you burn books, we kill people” law of the jungle. Disgustingly, the Times would inure us to this moral equivalence byrationalizing that “Afghans are fiercely protective of their Islamic faith.” Well then, I guess that makes it all right, huh?

Then there’s the second not-to-be-uttered truth: Defiling the Koran becomes an issue for Muslims only when it has been done by non-Muslims. Observe that the unintentional burning would not have occurred if these “fiercely protective of their Islamic faith” Afghans had not defiled the Korans in the first place. They were Muslim prisoners who annotated the “holy” pages with what a U.S. military official described as “extremist inscriptions” in covert messages sent back and forth, just as the jihadists held at Gitmo have been known to do (notwithstanding that Muslim prisoners get their Korans courtesy of the American taxpayers they construe the book to justify killing).

Do you know why you are supposed to stay mum about the intentional Muslim sacrilege but plead to be forgiven for the accidental American offense? Because you would otherwise have to observe that the Koran and other Islamic scriptures instruct Muslims that they are in a civilizational jihad against non-Muslims, and that it is therefore permissible for them to do whatever is necessary — including scrawl militant graffiti on their holy book — if it advances the cause. Abdul Sattar Khawasi — not a member of al-Qaeda but a member in good standing of the Afghan government for which our troops are inexplicably fighting and dying — put it this way: “Americans are invaders, and jihad against the Americans is an obligation.”

Because exploiting America’s hyper-sensitivity to things Islamic advances the jihad, the ostensible abuse of the Koran by using it for secret communiqués is to be overlooked. Actionable abuse occurs only when the book is touched by the bare hands of, or otherwise maltreated by, an infidel.

We’re doomed. Our foreign policy is being run by idiots.

ECM sent me this article that talks about how the U.S. Navy wants to engage in affirmative action in order to get more non-white SEALs. That’s right. Affirmative action for an ELITE military unit. Because elderly gay Hispanic women are not well represented in the Navy SEALs.

News

Former DEA chief warns of cooperation between Hezbollah and drug cartels

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

The Iranian-supported Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah has spread its influence all the way to the U.S. border with Mexico, a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere heard on Thursday.

Michael Braun, a former chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Agency, said Hezbollah had developed relationships with the powerful Mexican drug cartels to “move their agenda forward.” He cited a plot, recently uncovered by the DEA, involving an Iranian operative in Mexico allegedly planning to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C.

“Hezbollah are absolute masters at forming close relationships with existing organized crime groups around the world that helps them facilitate what they need to do to move their agendas forward,” Braun told CNSNews.com following the hearing. “And if anyone thinks for a moment that they don’t have their eye on the southwest border and all of our country, then they couldn’t be more wrong.”

In his prepared remarks Braun, who also served as interim director of the Department of Justice’s Drug Intelligence Fusion Center, said Hezbollah and other terrorist groups understand that the Mexican cartels are already operating successfully inside the United States.

“If anyone thinks for one moment that these terrorist organizations do not understand that the Mexican drug trafficking cartels now dominate drug trafficking in our country – reportedly in more than 250 cities – than they are very stupid or very naive,” he said.

“And these groups most assuredly recognize the strategic value of exploiting that activity, and all that has been built to support it, for moving their vision forward in this part of the world.”

This is disturbing particularly given the news of Iran’s new Spanish-language TV channel in Venezuela.

Iran and Hezbollah

The Washington Times reports on arms sales from China to Iran.

Excerpt:

China is continuing to provide advanced missiles and other conventional arms to Iran and may be doing so in violation of U.N. sanctions against the Tehran regime, according to a draft report by the congressional U.S.-China Commission. “China continues to provide Iran with what could be considered advanced conventional weapons,” the report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says. According to the report, which will be made public Nov. 16, China sold $312 million worth of arms to Iran, second only to Russia, after Congress passed the Iran Freedom Support Act in 2006 that allows the U.S. government to sanction foreign companies that provide advanced arms to Iran. The report also noted that, after Russia began cutting back arms transfers to Iran in 2008, China became the largest arms supplier to the Iranian military. Most of the weapons transfers involved sales of Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles, including C-802 missiles that China promised the United States in 1997 would not be exported to Iran. China also built an entire missile plant in Iran last year to produce the Nasr-1 anti-ship cruise missile.

The Nasr-1 has a range of 19 miles. The C-802 has a range of 75 miles. That means that the C-802 has about the same range as a Harpoon SSM. Not good. I am not worried about the Nasr-1, but the C-802 is a problem. These weapons could be used by terrorists to attack allied naval vessels. In fact, the New York Times reported that Hezbollah, a terrorist group linked to Iran,used the C-802 missile to sink an Israeli Saar 5 corvette back in 2006.

Excerpt:

The power and sophistication of the missile and rocket arsenal that Hezbollah has used in recent days has caught the United States and Israel off guard, and officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria.

While the Bush administration has stated that cracking down on weapons proliferation is one of its top priorities, the arming of Hezbollah shows the blind spots of American and other Western intelligence services in assessing the threat, officials from across those governments said.

American and Israeli officials said the successful attack last Friday on an Israeli naval vessel was the strongest evidence to date of direct support by Iran to Hezbollah. The attack was carried out with a sophisticated antiship cruise missile, the C-802, an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese Silkworm, an American intelligence official said.

At the same time, American and Israeli officials cautioned that they had found no evidence that Iranian operatives working in Lebanon launched the antiship missile themselves.

But neither Jerusalem nor Washington had any idea that Hezbollah had such a missile in its arsenal, the officials said, adding that the Israeli ship had not even activated its missile defense system because intelligence assessments had not identified a threat from such a radar-guided cruise missile.

[…]Officials said it was likely that Iran trained Hezbollah fighters on how to successfully fire and guide the missiles, and that members of Iran’s Al Quds force — the faction of the Revolutionary Guards that trains foreign forces — would not necessarily have to be on the scene to launch the C-802.

At the same time, some experts said Iran was not likely to deploy such a sophisticated weapon without also sending Revolutionary Guard crews with the expertise to fire the missile.

Note that this is the same Quds force that likely trained Iraqi terrorists in the use of IEDs and is suspected of being involved with the recent attack on the Saudi ambassador on American soil.