On Thursday, President Barack Obama stated that he will not make a decision on Afghan troop levels until after the Thanksgiving holiday. This development came at the end of President Obama’s eight-day Asia tour, where he took time to stop at Osan Air Force Base in South Korea. While there, he remarked to 1,500 troops, “You guys make a pretty good photo op.”

-

That says a lot, doesn’t it? Upon examination, photo-ops certainly seem to be President Obama’s main concern. If you will recall, just a few weeks ago, Obama visited Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as some of our fallen servicemen were brought home to rest. For reasons unbeknownst to many, the president thought it would be appropriate to allow cameras at the event. Most families were made uneasy by this, and in fact, only one family allowed cameras to follow their proceedings.

Because of that, his visit came off as self-serving, especially when contrasted with former President George W. Bush’s visit to Fort Hood, where he insisted that no press be permitted.

The underlying point of all this, is that President Obama only seems interested in our armed servicemen and women when he can use them as a prop to get his picture taken or to get himself on television.

It has been weeks since General Stanley McChrystal requested an additional 40,000 troops for the effort in Afghanistan, and in the process making it emphatically clear that this was indeed necessary, claiming that the effort was not sustainable with current resources. On top of that, General McChrystal was only able to secure a 25-minute meeting to make the request in the first place.

Something is desperately wrong here.

Does anybody remember the campaign, where Obama insisted that Afghanistan was a top priority? The war we should be most focused on, if you will? What happened to that?

The answer to that is simple. It was nothing more than a campaign promise. It has become quite clear that our Commander-in-Chief clearly has no interest in our effort there, and by extension, it shows exactly what he actually thinks of our troops, which is, not much.

You have to pay attention to what Obama is saying here, and the words that he uses. He is saying he will not make a decision until after Thanksgiving. He’s not saying he won’t commit more troops until after then. This is nothing short of him saying “Yeah, I’m going to continue to put this off until at least after turkey is served.”

Brave sons and daughters dying over there on a daily basis, and our president is content to dither and play games with American lives and American security. This is clearly a tactic he is using in an effort to placate his left wing base, military advisors and cost to America be damned.

This man has already made his decision, and deep down we all know what it is. He may finally be forced at some point to send additional resources at some point, but he clearly has no real interest in doing so.

The only future Barack Obama is interested in is his own.

Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) gave a speech on the senate floor yesterday to push for “Rosa’s Law”. Rosa’s law is a piece of legislation that mandate the phrase “mentally disabled” be used in place of “mentally retarded” when referring to such citizens on health and education paperwork.

“In changing the language, we believe it will be the start of new attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities.”

-

This madness must end. America is in the middle of two strenuous wars, and we have an economy on the brink of total collapse, yet we have a senator who seems preoccupied with the use of a certain descriptor used in government documentation. Yet again, another bleeding heart Democrat who is more concerned with feeling good, rather than doing good for the nation as a whole.

Now, before I get chastised for being heartless by those who would accuse me of standing in the way of a little girl’s supposed happiness, I would like to disclose the following:

I am physically disabled. I have Cerebral Palsy, which prevents me from walking without the assistance of an orthopedic device or another person. I have been called many things, such as “disabled”, “differently-abled”, “handicapped”, “handi-capable”, “crippled”, and a few other words along the way that can’t be shared here.

Guess what?

In spite of all the labels that have been assigned to me and others like me, one thing has remained constant:

My condition has never changed. People need to learn that while words do have meaning, which is important, context is also a key component in this equation. For instance, “retard” means to slow or hinder. It does not mean “stupid”, and the modifiers “mental” or “mentally” refers to the type of impediment. It is not, in and of itself, an attempt at ridicule or character assassination. Referring to someone as “mentally retarded” in official paperwork is not the same as yelling it in anger toward the person who cut you off at the intersection. It just isn’t. The words have a benign meaning. It’s the context in which they are used that can change them.

Quite frankly, when one looks at this objectively, this proposed law is nothing more than a time wasting exercise by those in our legislature, which will change nothing, except maybe making a few self-loathers feel better about themselves.

For the Record, the namesake of this legislation, Rosa Marcellino, has Down’s syndrome. She is, for all intents and purposes, mentally retarded. She is also 7 years old. With that in mind, one could probably say with a high degree of certainty that Rosa has no interest in official health and education paperwork at this point in her life. So, it stands to reason that this crusade was most likely started by a family member looking for attention, and Rosa is to be used as a face for it.

Honestly, that is just sad.

More than that, has anyone thought of the road this could lead us down? This is one step away from thought policing. How long will it be before legislation is introduced which will prevent us from saying certain words? It may very well be just around the corner. Such measures may never pass, but the mere possibility of such things being proposed should frighten any freedom-loving American.

We should be more concerned with today’s truly pressing matters. There are circumstances today which threaten our very way of life, yet some of our legislative officials seemed more concerned with how you feel, and more importantly, how they feel about themselves. The future of America is too important. We shouldn’t be wasting time on this drivel.

Words are just words. The only powers they have to offend are the ones that we decide to give them.

President Obama recently bowed to Emperor Akihito in Japan. At this point, one might wonder exactly who is advising Barack Obama, if any one at all. If you will recall, this is the latest in what seems to be a string of inappropriate greetings in international settings by our Commander-in-Chief.

So far to date, Barack Obama has bowed to Saudi King Abdullah, given an exaggerated nod to Queen Elizabeth II, and there has been speculation as to whether or not he has offered a similar gesture to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

This is troublesome, and embarrassing. Common sense would indicate that it would more than likely be difficult for international leaders to take our president seriously if he is constantly subordinating himself to them. Perception goes a long way on the international stage, and at this juncture, an honest observer of the situation would be hard pressed to find an incident where Obama has projected himself as leader of the free world when he travels abroad, let alone an equal.

For those who would argue that President Obama is trying to “make amends” for some of America’s supposed arrogance of the past, it should be made known that bowing to other leaders is not a traditional form of greeting, particularly in the case of Emperor Akihito. The Emperor is most commonly greeted with a simple handshake.

So, with that in mind, it could be fair to say that what is going on here goes far beyond supposed protocol. This appears to be another whistle-stop in the “Obama Apologizes for America tour”. It doesn’t seem that he has given up on his concept of being a “citizen of the world”, and it looks like he intends to remain in a never ending campaign to be personally adored until the end of his term in office.

Americans thought they had elected a leader. It doesn’t look like that happened. Instead, they got a teenage girl who just transferred to a new school and is desperate to do anything to fit in with the cool kids. However, unlike high school, when President Obama ends up getting stuffed in a locker, America will be the one who feels the pain and humiliation.

Sign up for the military and don’t want to live up to your side of the bargain? Don’t come to Canada with sob stories of how persecuted you are in the United States, because that’s bullshit.

A Fort Hood soldier was sentenced Wednesday to a month in jail for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan over his beliefs that the war violates international law.

Spc. Victor Agosto, 24, of Miami, pleaded guilty to disobeying lawful orders and was sentenced at the central Texas Army post. The judge also reduced his rank to the Army’s lowest level, a private, which also was part of the maximum penalty he faced in his plea agreement with the military.

Also, Agosto cannot be discharged at a level lower than other-than-honorable conditions, an administrative discharge. A discharge was not mentioned in the hearing, but Agosto is expected to be released from the Army after completing his jail term.

Oh the humaaaaanity! Get Amnesty International on the line! A month in the disciplinary barracks at Leavenworth and a reduced rank is the MAXIMUM he faces. Wow.

Seriously? We need protest marches through downtown Toronto in honor of these pussies? Either do your job, or face the consequences. That’s life, bitch.

Oh, and yet again, this guy joined AFTER the war had already started. Funny how that keeps happening.

So first this whiny pussy runs away to Canada from a legal employment contract. Then when he has to haul his ass back for a minor spanking (probably a fine or a couple months in a nice tidy military DP), he busts into tears like the hero we all knew him to be.

Sporting a dragon tattoo on his forearm and skulls on both biceps, Cliff Cornell looks tough. But he dissolves into tears as he reflects on his return to the Army four years after he fled to Canada to avoid the war in Iraq.

“I’m nervous, scared,” Cornell said, wiping puffy eyes beneath his sunglasses Monday at a Savannah hotel after a three-day bus ride from Seattle. “I’m just not a fighter. I know it sounds funny, but I have a really soft heart.”

Pretty soft head, too, by the sounds of it.

“During my training, I was ordered that, if anyone came within so many feet of my vehicle, I was to shoot to kill,” said Cornell, who enlisted in 2002 but never deployed to war. “I didn’t join the military to kill innocents.”

Musta joined for the volleyball team, then.

Having many friends in the US military, I can honestly say I’m glad this coward hid out in Canada instead of putting my friends’ lives in danger by wimping out in the show.

We are of course at the end of the year and thoughts and wishes turn to 2009 and what that year will be like for each of us. Most thoughts of course are naturally personal. Happiness love and prosperity. For many of us, its political. What will the environment be like in the western world. I’m going to guess most readers of this blog already recognize there are problems with western liberal democracy. Massive ones. Earth shaking ones as the experiment in equality and freedom fails. I’m going to guess that few know what to do about it as our politicians over all seem more worried about the illusion of stability rather than the true maintenance of liberalism as Thomas Jefferson saw it.

I believe right to my heart and bones that the only thing that can be done is in fact individual acts of defiance. But defiance of what? Of ill^liberalism. Of imposed tyranny by the intolerant left, Islam, all who would tell us what we are allowed to say think wear and do.

History has a few consistent messages for us. When we submit to tyranny more will follow. Even when its something benign and seemingly for the public good such as no smoking sections in bars and restaurants by legislation which violates larger principles of freedom of property and individual rights it leads to absurd laws such as we have for patio’s now where any outdoor patio which has any degree of fixed cover or even too many umbrellas may not allow patrons to have a cigarette and a beer in the same place.

I ask you especially who despise cigarettes and ask yourselves if this loss of freedom is worth it to you.

When Ezra Levant and the Western standard were taken to the Human rights courts for 900 days of investigations and what would amount to about 5 years salary for me in costs to defend himself from accusations of racism for publishing the Danish cartoons, the center of a storm which was the largest news story on planet earth for months, one has to ask what the cost to all of us was for the submission by everyone else to not publish.

Once we agree to not say or do anything that might offend Muslims we are in fact living as second class citizens or ‘Dhimmis’ under a form of proxy sharia law. In this spirit I ask you for your defiance. The T shirts available here are a great statement. but not the only one possible. The distinction between deliberate offense of a religion for its own sake such as the ‘art’ piece which was proudly displayed at the National Gallery of Canada, ‘The Piss Christ’ which was merely a Catholic crucifix in a jar of urine was celebrated by the art world. The art world needs to know that under Islam art is forbidden altogether short of a few decorative lines on clay pots.

Additionally, most modern thinkers would have us believe that daring to confront the religious authority, any religious authority would be the work of the artist, the consummate renegade, the social malcontent or the plainly retarded. But defiance at it’s best is the domain of all thinking men and women; those whose refusal to submit to the workings of irrational codes of conduct ensures the natural progression of the creative, human mind. It was no coincidence that Hitler’s regime sought out first and foremost to capture and destroy artists; Pol Pot was no different in his culling and extermination of the most dangerous minds to him and the Iranian regime first murdered over one hundred thousand people in the arts, the very people the Ayatollah used to overthrow the Shaw and install the Islamic regime in Iran. But the artists now here as then are merely the useful idiots for the new tyrants of political correctness and ironically Islam.

So wear a T shirt which shows non submission. With an image of Mohamed or whatever. Maybe showing the stone Buddhas that the Taliban destroyed as a signal to the world. Collectors offered to buy the statues at the time and move them but the Taliban wanted to be clear that Islam would not tolerate images of other faiths nor even any image of something god made as they see it to merely exist . No images of people or animals as we see in Bangladesh where Muslims are busy destroying works of art depicting flocks of birds and frankly of anything at all.

We KNOW what submission brings. More demands for more submission. I ask for defiance. Eat a ham sandwich during Ramadan for lunch. Why is that defiant? In England governments are being asked not to serve food at all during daylight hours in meetings of city council so as not to ‘offend’ the muslims there.

What we in Canada especially consider an opportunity to be polite and show kindness by adjusting to the sensitivities of others no matter how irrational has become in fact the first step to actually mandating these acts of submission. They are simply no longer acts of kindness when they are forced.

This may be a good time to remind people how Galileo drew a cartoon of the pope in his courageous book on celestial mechanics for which he was jailed. One could argue that had he not ridiculed the church it may have slowed down the growth of reason in Europe a great deal. It was his willingness to personally sacrifice by ridiculing irrational religious authority that bought us all freedom beyond the understanding of most of humanity for most of our history. To be clear on this, its not merely a right to criticize irrational religious authority, its a duty and even a historical responsibility to do so.

We have become not only good at destroying every taboo in western classical society by questioning it out of existence we have become cynical about them. This as a stand alone thing, not so bad. But add to it a kind of fascination with primitive and barbaric even superstitious cultures and the notion that because we represent our own history as barbaric usually with little or no understanding of it, we somehow think that those culture’s current barbarism is somehow to be expected and accepted. Be warned, we are indeed truly on a precipice to the end of a golden age of liberty and individualism.

Ultimately I would like to extend to all liberals those who agree and those who hate me but choose to answer me by arguing and hopefully changing my mind, my favorite moments are when I am shown to be wrong and accept a new view by reason, a merry Christmas and all the best fruition of your hopes and dreams for the new year. To the irrational and authoritarian left, to those Muslims who believe I have a right to think and live exactly as you do, who would force me to submission of your values like the Human Rights Commission did to Rev. Boission, I offer you scorn. Scorn contempt and defiance.

James Cohen Dec 2008

I wrote earlier about the latest celebre du jour duty shirker who ran off to Toronto to hide from his duty in the eeeevil American war.

Well, turns out there’s way more to the story.

Well, let’s start with the basics. First, SPC Jemley is in signals intelligence; despite the fact that he knows Arabic, he will never ever be required by the Army to interrogate anyone. Indeed, without obtaining the Human Intelligence Collector MOS and then certifying, he would be breaking the law were he to try to do so.

The contractor job at Guantanamo that he complains about had nothing to do with his military career. He used his training and security clearance, paid for by the US Army, to get a highly paid civilian contractor job, and then supposedly balked at the requirements. No one in the Army ever required him to go to Guantanamo. No one in the Army could order him to work as an interrogator at Guantanamo. If you are afraid that “coercive techniques” might possibly constitute torture, you probably shouldn’t apply for jobs where you might use them–never mind the fact that the worst you might face is getting fired when you refuse to do so.

Go read the entire smackdown at Sig. He’s in the same unit, under the same commander. An insider’s take on the cowardice that drove Peter Jemley to flee to Canada.

Unmentioned is what would happen if Jemley came back–he’d be re-classed into some other non-Intelligence job and could finish out his enlistment and earn an honorable discharge. Even after deserting, MAJ B was willing to give him a chance. No dice. Unmentioned also is the fact that he will never again be trusted with my nation’s secrets either way–he’ll never be in danger of being called to interrogate anyone. Ever.

Another cowardly American is seeking refuge in Canada after volunteering for a war he didn’t want to be a part of. This man enlisted in 2005, and only a few months ago decided there might be torture afoot. Remember, Americans have been fighting in various places since 2002, and this man enlisted in 2005. Voluntarily.

“I did everything I was supposed to. I’m not afraid to be deployed. I’m not afraid to die,” Jemley said.

But he’s awful scared to end up in lovely Leavenworth for a few months, isn’t he? We’d be glad to host him here in Kansas, at the Disciplinary Barracks at the Fort. C’mon, Peter, join us! You craven pussy.

An American soldier who fled to Canada when his unit was deployed to Iraq plans to plead guilty Friday to a reduced charge of desertion, his lawyer said.

Pte. Robin Long, 25, of Boise, Idaho, faces up to three years in prison and a dishonourable discharge, civilian lawyer James Branam said Thursday.

Long fled to Canada in 2005, but his request for refugee status was denied. He was deported from British Columbia on July 15 and sent to Fort Carson, Colo. after a judge refused to grant a stay of his deportation order.

How did you like that free college education, Private?? Pussy.

Doesn’t it?

For two years, U.S. coward Corey Glass has been hiding out in Canada, whining about the “illegal war” he would have had to fight if he hadn’t let his bowels turn to water, and all this time… He wasn’t even in legal trouble for deserting! Basically, we’ve been harboring this coward for no reason at all!

But it turns out Glass has had little reason to be on the lam, ABCNews has learned.

Unknown to him and his legion of supporters, Glass, 25, was actually discharged from the U.S. Army shortly after he went AWOL in 2006.

“I had absolutely no idea that I had been discharged,” said Glass when ABC News informed him of his status. “This is insane. This is so weird. There are no warrants? No one is looking for me?”

Wow. He has no backbone, but he has quite an ego. No pal, no one is looking for you. You don’t matter. Get over yourself and go back home. You are not welcome here.

Thanks to Richard for the tip.

The two pansies trying to seek refugee status in Canada from the eeeevil United States have been turned down for the final time.

Two U.S Army deserters have exhausted their appeals for Canadian refugee status and now face deportation.

In a ruling released yesterday, a three-judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeal upheld decisions by the Federal Court and the Immigration and Refugee Board that Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are not entitled to refugee status.

My heart is NOT bleeding! The US Military is all-volunteer. They signed up knowing that it could mean more than just a free education. They signed up knowing that someday they may be called upon to pay the piper.

They argued they were conscientious objectors and had well-founded fears they would face persecution if returned to the U.S.

The board, Federal Court and its appellate division rejected those arguments.

The latest ruling noted neither made full use of steps open to them in the U.S. to win conscientious objector status, before fleeing here.