It’s June 6th, today, and it’s the anniversary of D-Day: the Allied invasion of northern France – the beginning of the end of World War 2. One of the most pivotal events of that day was the assault on German gun emplacements by members of the Army Rangers at a fortified position called “Pointe du Hoc”.
President Ronald Reagan recognized the soldiers who attacked Pointe du Hoc back in 1984:
Ronald Reagan also made the case for gratitude and vigilance:
Here’s the hymn that starts to play at the end:
The Boys of Pointe du Hoc
Here’s a summary of the Pointe du Hoc mission:
[Lt. Col. James Earl] Rudder took part in the D-Day landings as Commanding Officer of the United States Army’s 2nd Ranger Battalion. His U.S. Army Rangers stormed the beach at Pointe du Hoc and, under constant enemy fire, scaled 100-foot (30 meter) cliffs to reach and destroy German gun batteries. The battalion’s casualty rate for this perilous mission was greater than 50 percent. Rudder himself was wounded twice during the course of the fighting. In spite of this, they dug in and fought off German counter-attacks for two days until relieved. He and his men helped to successfully establish a beachhead for the Allied forces.
You can watch a three-clip documentary on it, too: part 1, part 2, part 3.
You can read the complete story about their successful effort to destroy the 6 155mm German guns here on Military History Online. Although initially, the Rangers did not find the guns where they had expected them, they did find them further back behind the cliffs and destroyed them there, removing a threat to the forces that would be landing later.
What does D-Day mean to Christians in particular?
A female Christian friend asked me what she should be thinking about when I sent her one of the videos above, and so I wrote her this to explain why I sent her the video:
To make you close your eyes and think in a more practical way about what it means for someone to sacrifice their lives to save you, of course. What it means to look up cliffs at machine guns, barbed wire and mortars raining death on you and to take a rope in your hands and to climb up a sheer cliff, under heavy fire, in order to save generations yet unborn and freedom itself.
To think about a concrete example helps us to be able to appreciate what Christ did for us in giving his life for us so that we could be free of sin, as well.
This is the insight that drives my entire interest in war and military history, in fact.
What does this mean: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
The more you know about D-Day, the more fearful what Jesus did appears, and the more you can be grateful.
Bullets and shrapnel are scary… and so are nails and lashes. Why on Earth would anyone endure either for me? And what should my response be to it?
I think it is helpful to explain Christianity to those who are not yet Christian, and for Christians to fully appreciate what Christianity is all about.
We were in peril. And now we have been saved. But at a cost.
I think that it’s important for Christians to look to history, art, poetry and music to help them to reflect and comprehend the sacrifice that Christ made for us in dying on the cross to protect us from peril. What must the cross have looked like to Jesus? It must have been something like what the Omaha beach looked like to the Americans landing in Normandy. Jesus saw whips, thorns and nails, and the heroes of Normandy saw 88 mm AT guns, 81 mm mortars and MG42 machine guns. How should you feel about people who face death on your behalf? Think about it.
There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel
Dina tweeted this editorial in the radically leftist UK Guardian, of all places.
Excerpt:
Hamas’s charter includes the aspiration that “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews)”. While many concentrate on its death-cult worship, its bloodthirsty killing of adversaries, or its contempt for women, Christians and homosexuals, it is this aspiration for genocide that is at the root of Hamas activities. This is the primary reason why Hamas, the governing regime in Gaza, will never recognise or accept a peace accord with Israel in any form.
Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, thousands of rockets have rained down on Israeli cities and towns in deliberate contravention not just of international law, but all humanity and morality.
[…]Every rocket from Gaza is a double war crime. First, the rockets are aimed at civilians; second, they are fired from built-up civilian areas, often close to schools, mosques and hospitals. And about 10% of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza don’t reach Israel, exploding in Gaza. Mohammed Sadallah – a four-year-old killed on Saturday, his body displayed in a press conference with Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader – was, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, most likely killed by an errant Hamas rocket.
Hamas leaders frequently declare that their people actively seek death. Fathi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas, stated in 2008 that “for the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women and children excel. Accordingly we created a human shield of women, children and elderly. We seek death as you [Israelis] desire life.”
[…]Israel has successfully targeted in excess of 1,300 weapons caches, rocket launchers and other elements of Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure. Yet despite this, the number of Palestinian casualties remains around one for every 13 strikes, the majority killed being active members of Hamas and combatants.
There is no moral equivalence here – one side is good and the other side is evil. It’s a black and white issue.
When I was in graduate school, I was partnered up with an exchange student from Egypt. She said that Israelis were terrorists because they killed civilians while using force. I told her that terrorism is the intentional targeting of civilians for attacks rather than military targets. Therefore, Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists, and Israel is not. Israel uses arms in self-defense, and they try to minimize civilian casualties by giving warnings of strikes. Islamic groups intentionally target civilians – schools and hospitals. The Islamic groups are terrorists and the IDF is acting in self-defense against unprovoked rocket attacks.
If Islamic terrorists laid down their arms, then tomorrow there would be peace. But if Israeli Defense Forces laid down their arms, then tomorrow, Israel would be destroyed, and every Jew in it. That is why the IDF has to do what the IDF has to do. And this time, I hope that they don’t use half-measures to stop the flow of rockets into Israel. They must use the appropriate force necessary to stop the rocket attacks.
We all know that Paul Ryan is conservative on fiscal issues. He’s the man with a plan to stop overspending and solve the debt problem. But where does he stand on other issues?
Here’s an article from the liberal Washington Post about Ryan’s foreign policy views.
Excerpt:
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave a speech Thursday to the Alexander Hamilton Society in Washington. If one is looking for clues as to Ryan’s interests beyond chairing the House Budget Committee, a speech, as he put it, to “a room full of national security experts about American foreign policy” would merit attention.
…Ryan delivered an above-the-fray talk on the subject of American uniqueness (a less loaded term) and the myth that American decline in inevitable. He posited, “Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course; and if we fail to put our budget on a sustainable path, then we are choosing decline as a world power.”
Ryan contends that the debt crisis is not a bookkeeping problem or even simply a domestic problem; it is about maintaining our status as a superpower and about American values.
[…]He plainly is not with the cut-and-run set on Afghanistan. “Although the war has been long and the human costs high, failure would be a blow to American prestige and would reinvigorate al-Qaeda, which is reeling from the death of its leader. Now is the time to lock in the success that is within reach.” Nor can he be accused of wanting to “go it alone.” “The Obama administration has taken our allies for granted and accepted too willingly the decline of their capacity for international action. Our alliances were vital to our victory in the Cold War, and they need to be revitalized to see us through the 21st century.”
As for China, he bats down the idea that we should go along to get along… He’s clear that China has “very different values and interests from our own.”
And finally on defense spending, he rejects the sort of penny-pinching isolationism of Jon Huntsman or Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.).
According to On The Issues, he’s solid on military spending:
Rated 22% by SANE, indicating a pro-military voting record
YES on $266 billion Defense Appropriations bill
YES on deploying SDI
YES on emergency $78B for war in Iraq & Afghanistan
YES on continuing military recruitment on college campuses
YES on restricting no-bid defense contracts
He’s solid on counter-terrorism:
NO on Veto override: Congressional oversight of CIA interrogations
NO on requiring FISA warrants for wiretaps in US, but not abroad
YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent
YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight
YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant
YES on removing need for FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad
YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms’ warrantless surveillance
And supports military intervention against Islamic terrorists:
Strengthen sanctions on Syria & assist democratic transition
Sanctions on Iran to end nuclear program
YES on authorizing military force in Iraq
YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no exit date
NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq starting in 90 days
NO on investigating Bush impeachment for lying about Iraq
Ryan, the top Republican on the Budget Committee who has a strongly pro-life record, talked about the place social issues have in the election in an interview with CNBC last week.
“We will agree to disagree on those issues,” Ryan said last Monday on CNBC. “But let’s rally around the tallest pole in our tent
Ryan also released a statement today that LifeNews.com received saying pro-life issues are not on a list of menu items that have to be given up during the election season.
“Healthy debate should take place within the Republican Party on specific policies, but it is a false choice to ask which natural right we should discard
“All planks – economic liberty and limited government; keeping our nation secure; championing America’s founding truths and the dignity of every human person – are rooted in same timeless principles, enshrined in our Founding and the cause of our exceptionalism,” Ryan added. “The American family must remain at the core of our free society, and I will remain ever-vigilant in its defense.”
Conor Sweeney, a top Ryan spokesman, told LifeNews.com today that Ryan doesn’t agree with the “truce” on social issues Barbour and Daniels have advocated.
“Paul Ryan rejects the false choice that our natural rights to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ are a menu of options,” he said, adding that Ryan has been “calling upon his colleagues to defend the sanctity of life.”
He also pointed to comments Ryan made in a Weekly Standard interview rejecting the “truce” language and putting him outside the Daniels-Barbour circle.
“I don’t see it quite the same way [as Daniels],” Ryan said in June, “we don’t need to ask anybody to unilaterally disarm.”
“I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” Ryan continued. “You’re not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they’re unavoidable, and I’m never going to not vote pro-life.”
Here’s his voting record on pro-life issues:
Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record
Rated 100% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-life stance
Prohibit transporting minors across state lines for abortion
Bar funding for abortion under federal Obamacare plans
Congress shall protect life beginning with fertilization
Prohibit federal funding to groups like Planned Parenthood
Grant the pre-born equal protection under 14th Amendment
YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion
YES on banning partial-birth abortions
YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad
YES on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes
YES on funding for health providers who don’t provide abortion info
YES on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life
YES on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime
YES on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions
NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research
NO on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines
And he is also a strong defender of traditional marriage:
Rated 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance
YES on banning gay adoptions in DC.
YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage
YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman
YES on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation
NO on enforcing against anti-gay hate crimes
Tough on crime:
Rated 30% by CURE, indicating anti-rehabilitation crime votes
YES on more prosecution and sentencing for juvenile crime
NO on funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons.
NO on expanding services for offendors’ re-entry into society
Favors school choice:
Rated 8% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes
NO on environmental education grants for outdoor experiences
NO on $40B for green public schools
And an increased role for families and churches:
YES on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations
YES on treating religious organizations equally for tax breaks
NO on instituting National Service as a new social invention
So definitely not just a fiscal conservative. He’s conservative across the board. And STRONGLY so.
Female readers of the Wintery Knight blog may now swoon.
WINTERY KNIGHT 