We are all Israelis now

For those now condemning Israel's decision to confront and destroy Hamas, I suggest reading Ron Rosenbaum.  Rosenbaum, who wrote the book "Explaining Hitler", has written a compelling piece entitled Some differences between Hamas and the Nazi Party.   Rosenbaum doesn't mince words -- arguing in effect that Hamas represents a bigger threat to Jews than even the Nazis did: The Hamas founding covenant explicitly calls for the extermination of all Jews. Hitler never made total extermination an official plank of the the Nazi party platform. (see Holocaust scholar Omar Bartov’s article in the February 2, 2004 issue of The New Republic. 7th article of the founding Hamas covenanat which cites the Hadith (saying of the prophet). Here is a translation of the Hadith ina deeply disturbing summary of Hamas’ exterminationist anti-semitismby the Brown University scholar Andrew Bostom:

“The Prophet, Allah’s prayer and peace be upon him, says: “The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,’ except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Number 6985). 

In other words, Hamas is not committed merely to the political goal of expelling Jews from the land of Israel but to what they believe is a sacred religious goal of exterminating all Jews everywhere behind every tree in creation. (I’m not pinning any hopes on “the Gharqad tree”). I’d suggest those who deceive themselves into believing Hamas is just another Palestinian rights group, maybe a little on the extreme side, read the whole Bostom article. The exterminationist anti-semitism of Hamas is more excessive than Hitler’s.

Many might take issue with Rosenbaum's position by noting that Hitler actually killed millions of Jews at the head of a mighty industrial Nazi machine, and that Hamas has done comparatively little to carry out its genocidal ambitions.  But in this day of WMD and nuclear technology, it is important to give a disproportionate weight to intent: one suicide bomber with sarin gas or a nuclear bomb, and Article 7 of the Hamas covenant could be realized in an instant.

Nonetheless, Israel has (again) come under terrible fire from the left for it's "disproportionate response" to Hamas and the "poor people of Gaza" -- citing the fact that many Palestinian civilians have been killed and wounded. Of course, it is Hamas' strategy to put women and children in the path of the Israeli attack, so that civilians will be killed. Hamas knows that on the left, nothing Israel ever does in right, and that media pictures of civilian destruction is certain to bring condemnation from the UN, the EU and the other Palestinian apologists. Its so predictable -- and to Israel's credit, they have not been intimidated by it.

Nor should they be. Let's put this into perspective: suppose Al Qaeda -- a group with a sworn objective to destroy the United States and kill every last infidel in the West -- had developed a settlement over the U.S.-Mexico border and was lobbing missiles into San Diego on a daily basis, terrorizing the civilian population and killing and wounding American citizens.

Is there any chance in a million years that the United States would not wipe those settlements off the face of the earth to protect American lives?

Of course not. But because the much of the world wallows in anti-semitism and has fallen in love with the "Palestinian cause" there is a double standard at work. When Israel acts to defend itself, the world protests. No other nation would live under such a threat. But that doesn't matter -- because Israel never gets the benefit of the doubt.

In the end, we should be grateful that Israel has the courage to do what needs to be done. If they are successful here, they will destroy Hamas and free the Palestinian people to pursue statehood under a peaceful two-state system. That's the only future for the Palestinian people that makes sense. Israel is doing them a favor.

Let's hope that Israel is successful, and that this is but a precursor to them taking on (and taking out) the real 800 pound gorilla in the region: a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. This is a threat that Europe and a post-Iraq America have failed to face up to. Israel can't afford to be so cavalier.

We are all Israelis now.

Kris the Welder, Gold Star Dad

An Open Letter to Sen. Barack Obama: On the surface I would appear to be an example of your target audience, a perfect candidate for your message of “change.” In 2007 my world came apart. I lost my business and filed for bankruptcy. I lost my modest condo to foreclosure. Everything I owned is gone. And most importantly, I lost my son in Iraq. He was killed in action serving his country and protecting his “boys,” those who served beside him. If anyone has a reason to reach for the lifeline you describe in campaign stops, it is me.

But Sen. Obama, I have asked for only one thing from you and the leaders of your party. I have asked for a five minute phone call. I started calling your office last March and I have made dozens of calls to various Senators and Representatives who express their views about the war in Iraq with a “national” voice. You have ignored me. Why?

Perhaps had I stood on the street corner and shouted that “Bush Lied! Soldiers Died!” you would hear me. Perhaps if I screamed that corrupt lenders forced me to take a mortgage that was beyond my means, you would have heard me. Perhaps if I would have contributed money, you would have heard my cry. Perhaps. What I did offer was a private meeting with 25 Gold Star Dads. I know from your staff, you heard that and rejected it. Why?

Sen. Obama, I have lost everything in life that I held dear and you offer nothing to me of value. I do not want government gifts and yet I am now receiving aid from Medicaid and I have an application for a small benefit from Veterans Affairs. It pains me more than I can say to have fallen so low. But Sen. Obama, you were not responsible for these programs and they remain in place even with eight years of President Bush.

What I do want is for this country to consider the price paid for freedom and what freedom really means. FREEDOM includes the possibility of failure. I have failed many times over and that failure was of my doing. FREEDOM includes failure. It must or success is without value. FREEDOM includes the sacrifice of service and the reward of condemnation by those who hate without cause. FREEDOM means I will sit and cry as I consider the life my son might have had and the HERO he will remain.

Sen. Obama, you sell servitude cloaked as a “tax cut.” You claim support for our military while you plot with those who hate everything for which my son died. Sen. Obama, you are the Blind, Deaf and Dumb. You did not see William Ayers on your street, did not hear twenty years of hate in church and you did not speak out to save the life of a single unborn baby. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. If you are the answer as so many seem to believe, God save us from ourselves.

Kris Hager Gold Star Dad Venice, Florida

Set Sarah free!

I mostly listened to the Vice Presidential debate on radio, though I did get to see some of it on TV. Palin held her own and well exceeded the low expectations that the media had set for her. She was confident, poised and articulate -- even as she faced off against the verbosity machine that is Joe Biden. Biden was...Biden. He spoke quickly with an authority that is designed to make his statements seem like fact -- even when they aren't. Palin took him on effectively, and wasn't afraid to confront Biden's frequent exaggerations. I thought that had John McCain done that well last week against Obama the Republicans would be in better shape today.

Palin missed some chances tonight, specifically to refute the Obama-Biden claim that McCain was responsible for deregulation which got us into this mess. That's clearly only part of the story; Congress has been a big part of the problem by forcing too much regulation on Fannie and Freddie. If Fannie and Freddie had been forced to react to market risks on loans, they would never have made the vast number of sub-prime loans that they did.

Palin also missed a big chance to wack Biden on the War in Iraq -- specifically on his claim that Obama supports the same withdrawal plan that Maliki and Bush are negotiating about. Hello? The only reason anyone is talking about a withdrawal now is because of the surge that John McCain supported and Biden and Obama opposed. I wish that Palin had hit him over the head with that.

One thing that I didn't like about Palin's performance tonight: her consistent use of "corruption" and "greed" to describe Wall Street.  Certainly, some corruption always exists at the nexus of money and public policy -- but to make blanket statements that tar and feather an entire sector of our economy is populism worthy of John Edwards, not the Republican Veep candidate.  The mess we are in is more about the corruption of Capitol Hill and the lax interest rate policies of the Fed than it is any systemic disease on Wall Street.  Banks took advantage of the rules and pushed the limits to make money.  With risk comes reward -- and often failure. 

Also, I would have liked to hear Palin say also that the behavior of  borrowers played a role in this mess, too -- and that it wasn't just the responsibility of "predatory lenders".  People have to take personal responsibility for their decisions, and if this is not a theme promoted by McCain-Palin then they become nothing more than the victim-baiters that Obama-Biden are. 

In any event, my suggestion to John McCain is this: Set Sarah Free!

Let her go. Let her be spontaneous. Let her be the maverick, fun woman that she is. She's the only candidate who can relate to the American people as a real person. It is something that helps to differentiate the McCain-Palin ticket from Obama (effete, Chicago intellectual) and Biden (career Senator). It's what turned on the Republican base and got independents excited about McCain after the Convention. He needs to let her work her magic.

McCain's campaign -- and thus his chances to be president -- are in bad shape at this point. All polls in the battleground states are now leaning for Obama. He needs to do something dramatic to turn this around.

July 1969 at Firebase Stinson

Thirty-nine years ago this month, I was remembering the 4th of July Independence Day of 1969 from an Army combat forward firebase named L. Z. Stinson situated in South Vietnam's Quang Ngai Province. My recollections of that day, and those which followed, fill my mind and soul today. Freedoms are bought with the price our enemies demand: the blood and sacrifice of our country's patriot soldiers. At that place, where I served for ten and a half months as Chaplain for the First Battalion, 52nd Infantry, 198th Brigade, the Vietnam War was being waged for the worthy purpose of giving the South Vietnamese people the same opportunity to gain the same freedoms our country had honorably won by war for the peoples not only of West Germany but also of South Korea. Let's never forget that fact.

Toward the end of June 1969, Army Captain Ralph O. Bray, Jr. of Olathe, Kansas, who had already served over six years as an Air Operations Officer, arrived in-country and was assigned by my battalion commander to lead our Company C ("Charlie" company) whose mission was to protect the villagers and drive out the enemy in our Area of Operation (A O) between the Song Tra Bong ("song" in Vietnamese means river) to the north and the Song Tra Khouc to the south, and to do so in coordination with our Companies Alpha, Bravo, Delta and Echo's Reconnaissance Platoon. Our AO was about 8.5 miles north-south by 10 miles east-west---a lot of ground for eleven hundred American soldiers to protect and defend.

On or very near to that July 4th, I flew into Charlie Company's field location and met Captain Bray for the first time, greeted and welcomed him, and he granted me permission to give his men my religious worship service, devotion and prayers. When I finished, I talked awhile with Capt. Bray. He was warm, generous of spirit and well in charge. At his temporary CP, I greeted the company medic PFC Ron Cremer and an infantryman named PFC Cody Calkins both of whom I had known before Capt. Bray's command. To be frank, I left to fly on to my next day's service gratefully impressed with Capt. Bray, or I should say "Ralph".

About seven days later, I received word that Ralph Bray, Ron Cremer, Cody Calkins along with two other soldiers, Jose Cisneros and Barry Bickel, had all been killed on July 12th by a booby-trapped 105mm artillery round exploding in the hedgerow as they were setting up night laager and defensive perimeter at the end of that day's hot long march.

Their chaplain (this writer) immediately prayed for his men, one and all. God bless them and keep them, preserve their immortal souls. The pain penetrated, swelled up and would not quit that day or in the many days ahead, during which I carried on the same pastoral duties for all my men, every one, continuously until mid- March 1970. Little did I then know I would be mourning for 39 years for these five American soldiers, and not one bit less for the many more I knew, shepherded and served, as "their chaplain".

As I sat at my computer on July 4, 2008, listening to the fireworks sounding in the distance, I was reminded of two other facts I wish to share with you of those days, way back then.

Within a very few days of their deaths on the 12th of July, I performed a memorial service on the hill for these "dearly departed" soldiers of mine (they were of my flock) and of our beloved country: which has been so tragically and unjustly slandered throughout these 39 intervening years.

Shortly after the memorial, it came to my attention that Cody Calkins survived the blast that killed the four others, in fact he helped the company's remaining medic, Bill Daniels, with the dire triage sustained by the wounded, then Cody went aboard the last medevac helicopter because he told Daniels his head was aching. The that night or next morning, Cody died at the emergency hospital in Chu Lai from brain hemorrhage caused by a minute steel sliver blasted into his neck or head that last day of their precious lives.

This account is based on the best of my personal knowledge, gathered information and my memory, thus, it is subject to the limits of memory well known to all. It was my highest privilege in life to have served unarmed in the "Hell" that always is war during my 365 days in Vietnam in 1969-70. For that I shall be forever grateful to the United States of America and to you, The American People. To be further candid, my four years of service as an Army Chaplain (1968-1972) far outweigh in my estimation the 42 years I have been an attorney here in Georgia.

My younger brother, Brian Ritchie, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D. C. A naval flight officer, he died in the crash of his aircraft-carrier jet in 1972.

Families truly speak witness to the price this nation's enemies extract, which those slanderers cruelly discount, and may the latter stand fully rebuked.

The traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall lists Ralph O. Bray, Jr., Barry W. Bickel, Cody R. Calkins, Jose B. Cisneros and Ronald M. Cremer at Panel 21W, Lines 105, 106 and 107, that you might see for yourselves. I have a tracing in hand now, as the traveling Wall "happened" (there are no coincidences) to be in our Georgia town the very day after something moved me to recall and record these indelible memories.