Banned For Life? Give Me A Break!

We've just survived a week of tensions over the issue of free speech. Freedom of expression, if you will. Burning the Koran. Building a mosque too close to Ground Zero. Everyone be calm - and tolerant we were told over and over. Everyone from the President to General Petreaus pleaded with a man never before heard of to please not burn the Korans - which was his right to do and would have gone mostly unnoticed if everyone hadn't over reacted. Muslims around the world were having a great time burning American flags.

Is it becoming a way of life with us? Look at the TSA and their invasive searches. Heaven forbid you don't want the body scan. The pat down is even more invasive. It's over reaction.

Yep. A way of life. What else can you say when a 17 year old British teen who had a snoot full wrote Obama a letter in which he called him a p***k, is banned from the United States for life. The asterisks appeared in the news stories, they are not mine. I'm assuming the word is prick.

The FBI was enraged and told the local police to inform the young man the insult was unacceptable. There will be no criminal action taken by the local police. Why should there? If everyone in this country was banned for calling the President by some profanity or another there would be a whole lot fewer of us. Not that I condone the lack of respect, but it's a 17 year old college kid who readily admitted to it, not understanding the big deal.

Remember during the campaign when Jesse Jackson wanted to remove part of his anatomy? There was no outcry over that!

The article does say the letter was full of abusive and threatening language. What's missing here? Were the threats serious enough to ban him and if so why is the incident being made of a anatomical reference? Or did the FBI plain over react?

Banned for life. According to Homeland Security, wouldn't you know, there are about 60 reasons a person can be barred. I shudder to think what the other 59 might be.

An American Muslim Who Has It Right!

Yesterday was certainly quite a day. If you listened to the news reports you heard Imam Rauf literally threaten the United States with violence if his mosque were to be moved. I suspect many of you, as did I, consider his words as words of instruction to the Muslim world. I was seething.

Today it remains questionable whether or not Korans will be burned. If not by Reverend Jones, someone else. Such is the way of fanaticism. If this should happen the results will be unsettling to say the least. However, it is their right and the government cannot intervene with everyone who may have similar ideas in support of Reverend Jones.

I've been asking for months for American Muslims to step forward in condemnation of extremism. Today, in The Wall Street Journal, one did. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a doctor and former Navy officer, is founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

I'd say he is a very courageous man because he asks Muslims in general, and Rauf in particular, to answer some very tough questions. Best of all, he says of himself that he is American first and Muslim second. I only wish his column would get worldwide distribution. Too few read the Journal , but it's a start.

I admire his courage and wish him well. It will not sit well with Islamism. If this controversy is one of interest to you, please follow the link and read what he has to say.

Combat Isn't Over When Our Soldiers Are Still Being Killed

We've left the job in Iraq undone ~ all to meet a deadline. Just today two U.S. soldiers were shot by an Iraqi. An Iraqi soldier no less. The very people those left behind are to be training. He paid with his own life. The U.S. casualties were not the first since the withdrawal.

We have fifty thousand still deployed. They go on patrols with the Iraqis, they carry weapons and they are just as much at risk. How can it be said that combat is over? The Iraqi army is obviously not yet able to assume responsibility for their own security. That's why we're still there.

Somehow I think combat will not be over for our soldiers until every last one of them is out of the country. To claim that it is seems a disservice to them.

I wonder how those looking ahead to deployment as "instructors" feel. I wonder how their families feel, knowing that their loved ones are not going merely to train the Iraqis but to continue to protect them. They will be at even more risk as violence escalates as it seems to be doing. It was not unexpected.

The big difference between now and before the troop withdrawal is that our soldiers have no one to watch their backs.
No, combat is not over.

The President may think it's time to turn the page and focus on domestic issues but it's it's a long time until the end of 2011 when everyone is due out. How many more deaths will those troops suffer? I can't imagine anyone accepting the claim that combat is over.

What In God's Name Are They Thinking?

It never ceases to amaze me what people do in the name of God. There is of course the group of Baptists that protest profanely at military funerals. It turns my stomach.

Now it seems a "church", the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville Florida, plans to burn Korans on September 11 . A dismayed General Petraeus fears the idea will catch on across the country putting U.S. troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq in extreme danger of retribution.

Talk about unintended consequences! Or would it be? I don't exactly know what the 50 people who belong to this organization call themselves - are they Christians? I should hope not.

For a General to speak out about such an action is rare. Therefore you can be sure Petreaus means what he says.

The burning has been denied a permit but that seems to make little difference to Terry Jones, who is pastor of this organization.

Fifty people. Fifty people who feel they have the right to do what they want regardless of the consequences. Funny, how similar it seems to Congress! That aside, millions of Muslims consider the Koran their holy book. They all do not hate the west in general nor the U.S. in particular. An action such as this will certainly change the minds of many. What are they to think?

The dove is supposed to be a symbol of peace. Promoting hatred aimed at Muslims on 9/11 will certainly desecrate the image of the dove and disgrace America as a whole. Fifty people.

The Messianics Among Us

I had to chuckle when I read where Kathleen Parker described Glenn Beck as messianic. She was equating him to the typical recovering alcoholic, which he freely admits. I put it in terms I'm more familiar with. There's nothing worse than a reformed drunk. Or a successful dieter. Having been neither, I can't speak with any authority except to look around me at the people who strike me as similar to Beck.

How many time have you hear Obama described as messianic, or the anointed one. It's manner. Is it good or bad? If you like him you probably think of him a s regal. If you don't you probably think of him as arrogant. Messianic? That denotes passion and I haven't seen him portray any of that since the campaign.

Let's look at Beck's peers however. Here's my short list of messianics. Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Beck and Keith Olbermann. Beck has the oratory of an evangelist, the other two strike me as little more than pompous.

Then there are the wannabes. Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity top that list. I'm not sure which is lighter in the gray matter. My guess it's Hannity. Deciphering their babble makes it difficult. They both talk over their guests way too much adding nothing.

There are dozens of also rans like Greta and Laura. Lightweights in comparison.

Do you learn anything from any of them? Mostly what not to take to heart.

I'm sure there are others and oddly enough there are actually some pretty good pundits on both sides of the fence. The problem is they can barely be heard above the din the others make.

Obama, I'm sorry to say, does not live up to bombastic expectations. It's a shame however, that young man in the fiery chariot leading us to hope and change during the campaign seems to have relinquished it to squeakier wheels!