Coby Dillard: “As a Navy veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, no one is prouder than I to see our troops return from combat. However, President Obama made his speech tonight more about the fulfillment of a campaign promise than about the brave, honorable and victorious service of our fighting men and women. It is unfortunate to see him attempt to lay claim to a victory that his brief voting record in the Senate and remarks as a presidential candidate shows he didn’t support and whose end was negotiated by President George W. Bush — the same Bush whose policies and actions Obama routinely speaks of as ‘failed.’

“Instead, the victory belongs to the legacy of the 4,416 service members killed in Iraq and the millions more who served and returned safely home.

“Having secured a military victory in Iraq, our efforts there now turn to ensuring that a lasting peace is won. As the Iraqi government and people continue to take the lead on the road to prosperity and freedom, we as Americans should restate our commitment to this young democracy that many of our countrymen gave their lives to establish.” (Coby Dillard is a member of the Project 21 black leadership network, a tea party organizer in Hampton Roads, Virginia and a Navy veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

Kevin Martin: “While President Obama says combat operation are officially ended in Iraq, this turn of phrase will not change the fact that the remaining American troops will continue to battle remaining rouge elements as Iraqi forces work to get a handle on things.

“At the time, Senator Obama — along with many of his liberal allies — claimed the surge of troops into Iraq would fail before it even started. Now that he commands these same troops, will he have the courage to admit he was wrong and apologize to those who have given their all to bring forth a mostly stable Iraq?

“President Obama needs to give credit where credit is due, and that goes to the fine men and women who put on the uniform and carry out their duty no matter the odds and no matter what burden they may face as politicians simply seek to score points with voters.” (Kevin Martin is a member of the Project 21 black leadership network, has participated in many pro-troop rallies in the Washington, DC area and is a Navy veteran formerly detailed to Bosnia.)

Washington, D.C. – The following is a statement by David A. Ridenour, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research:

The international community should be denouncing Turkey, not Israel, for the loss of life on the so-called “Freedom Flotilla.”

That’s because Turkey, the flag state of the ship, had an obligation to ensure that the ships making up the flotilla adhered to international law.

It didn’t.

Though neither Turkey nor Israel are parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty presumably spells out what the states ratifying the treaty believe to be acceptable rules of behavior. Many of those countries are now, rather hypocritically, denouncing Israel.

The Free Gaza Movement announced its intention to breach Israel’s barricade of Gaza – requiring it to violate Israel’s territorial waters.

Article 19 of the Law of the Sea Treaty specifies that “any act of propaganda aimed at affecting the defence or security of the coastal state” or “the loading or unloading of any commodity, currency or person contrary to the customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws or regulations of the coastal state” are deemed “prejudicial to the peace, good order or security” of that state. This flotilla – as with ones before it – would have done both if allowed to proceed.

While Article 19 only gives the coastal state the authority to act within its territorial waters, the bloodshed may well have been greater had Israel waited until then. If reports are accurate that some activists carried arms, Israeli commandos would have lost the element of surprise.

It also appears that Israel may have been within international norms in boarding the ship as all states have an obligation under Articles 109 and 110 of the treaty to stop unauthorized broadcasts (those intended for the general public, but not distress calls), including in international waters. The so-called “Freedom Flotilla” was broadcasting their voyage live.

Blood is on Turkey’s hands.

President Obama should do the right thing and recall the U.S. ambassador.

Note: David A. Ridenour is the author of “Ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty: A Not-So-Innocent Passage.“

I’m sure it began long before our obsession with self-esteem. So consumed we became with making sure our kids’ feelings were never hurt, we lost all reason and understanding and began teaching that exceptionalism wasn’t “fair”. (Oh, there’s the four-letter word that should be banned.)

Was it diversity? We were being indoctrinated that diversity was admirable, that some was good and more was better. Lost in all this was the importance of retaining identity, for without identity how can a child’s self-esteem have a foundation?

I’m afraid it all began a long time ago. Little by little we lost the focus of what made America great.

Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison and Edward Rutledge, are only a few of the exceptional people who signed our Declaration of Independence. One trait that made them exceptional was their desire for and understanding of freedom. They didn’t want to be like England or any other. They wanted to be like America.

John Adams at a very young age wrote of his dreams that someday America would be the greatest nation on earth, not to look down on others but to draw them up unto this country’s greatness. Adams’ dream came true. America did become the greatest nation on earth, doing more to help other people than any other nation. It came from liberty, the freedom to excel, the desire to be the best of the best. It was called exceptionalism. It is what made America a magnet that draws others to come here. Why do we want to extinguish the magnetism?

As I sat yesterday and watched the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderone, stand at the stage of the greatest legislative conclave on earth, the symbol of liberty and everything great, and ridicule America while members of that Congress stood in applause for such treasonous, anti-American sentiments, I wondered if the above mentioned exceptional men had been sitting in that audience, what their reaction would have been.

As President Barack Obama stood outside the White House with Calderone, in what certainly appeared to be an affirmation from our President of his hatred toward America, I pictured George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson gathered amongst the bushes of the Rose Garden, standing in utter disbelief.

Tom Remington

Photo from fOTOGLIF

New York, NY: As terrorists continue to infiltrate America, the Obama Administration is tasking some of our nation’s most elite intelligence-gathering agencies to divert their resources to environmental scientists researching global warming.

Experts with The National Center for Public Policy Research are decrying this practice as a distraction from important counterterrorism duties. They further question if it a possible avenue to renew climate change subterfuge already plaguing some of these scientists.

“This is another example of President Obama not taking terrorism seriously,” said Deneen Borelli, a fellow with the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network. “Our enemies must be laughing at the Obama Administration’s incompetence.”

A January 5 article in the New York Times reported that the White House restarted a program in which scientists are obtaining classified intelligence data from the Central Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office. Information from these secret government surveillance programs is being used to track climate change.

A similar program was discontinued by the Bush Administration in 2001. Former vice president and current climate change entrepreneur Al Gore began lobbying for its renewal in 2008. It now reportedly has the strong support of CIA Director Leon Panetta.

“Given the very real threat posed by terrorists, it is ridiculous and downright dangerous to divert any intelligence resources to monitoring polar ice,” added Project 21′s Deneen Borelli. “Its said this won’t hinder regular intelligence-gathering, but it’s also clear that agencies can’t yet share data and track a terrorism suspect who was identified by his own father. It’s unwise to further distract our intelligence network by forcing it to consult with scientists about icebergs, polar bears and sea lions. The Obama Administration appears to be putting a left-wing political agenda before the safety and security of our nation.”

Speaking on the involvement of Al Gore, Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project, noted: “If anything, Al Gore is the real national security threat. Gore’s climate change fear mongering, which lines his own pockets with cash, has stoked a war against the fossil fuels so vital to our nation’s economic prosperity and national security. His self-serving agenda is stymieing domestic energy exploration and production efforts. Now, he successfully lobbied to resurrect this diversion of our intelligence assets after the Bush Administration wisely ended it.”

The claims of some scientists are already suspect after the Climategate scandal. Tom Borelli pointed out: “We’ve already seen climate scientists discussing the idea of destroying raw data to preserve climate change models that may be seriously flawed, and then it turns out that very same sort of data was allegedly ‘lost.’ How can we trust them to not behave similarly with CIA data – such as denying the proper peer review under the guise that the data is secret? The real question is: who’s going to be watching the scientists?”

The National Center for Public Policy Research http://www.nationalcenter.org is a non-partisan educational foundation based in Washington, DC. It receives less than one percent of its funding from corporate sources.

Wikipedia, a publicly compiled usually biased site, can give us a publicly compiled, usually biased definition of racial profiling.

Racial profiling is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a “predictable” manner.

Amnesty International describes racial profiling this way.

Racial profiling occurs when race is used by law enforcement or private security officials, to any degree, as a basis for criminal suspicion in non-suspect specific investigations. Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality or on any other particular identity undermines the basic human rights and freedoms to which every person is entitled.

Profiling without the race is defined also by Wikipedia.

the extrapolation of information about something, based on known qualities

Racial profiling ends up being simply a subset of profiling in general. I suppose from that perspective we can have gender profiling, intelligence profiling, interests profiling, educational profiling, character profiling and so forth.

Whenever we label something as racial, it nearly always ends up as being interpreted as something bad. And it very well can be but does not have to be. The truth is, we learn or are trained, however you want to describe it, to profile from infancy. It is all a natural part of life otherwise how would we function?

We profile – “the extrapolation of information about something, based on known qualities” – based on our own developed qualities, ideals, morals, etc. Profiling directs us in our everyday lives; where we live, who our friends are, the kind of job we want, the college we choose to attend, who we buy a house from, etc., etc. In short, isn’t profiling just an everyday part of our lives? And aren’t we kidding ourselves if we think that we can make a law prohibiting profiling that it will stop what’s bred in us?

Let’s be honest. Racial profiling in its simplest definition is wrong. Nobody should look at a Muslim and declare them to be a terrorist simply because they are Muslim. It’s wrong and does nothing to stop terrorism.

Race is only one part of profiling. If we focus on profiling at airports, train stations, etc. as part of a routine to thwart terrorism, it would not only be wrong to suspect only Muslim or “Muslim looking” people because of race but because not all terrorists are of “Middle Eastern” decent.

Police have used profiling for years to help solve cases. Years of collected data has helped them to be able to profile a suspect, even when they don’t know who that suspect is. Behavior patterns are determined from the same data. While not a perfect system, it can help solve crimes and solve them quicker.

Law enforcement officials are trained and have learned from experience what to look for when patrolling or searching for suspects etc. Police can recognized the position of a person driving in a car and make a reasonable determination whether that driver is intoxicated. When police ask people questions, they’re not just seeking an answer. They observe behavior patterns, body language, etc.. They can then tell if someone is lying or hiding something. Without this kind of profiling, crimes would never get resolved.

Should we be profiling at airports and other venues that attract terrorists? Absolutely, but exclusively profiling only race is not only wrong, it’s stupid and does nothing to deter crime, no more than pulling aside a 90-year old grandmother and strip-searching her.

One of the problems with airport security is that screeners are scared to death that if they select the wrong person to screen, they will get into trouble. This has to stop.

Authorities continue to collect data about terrorists. With this information they then can extrapolate that out to determine a profile, complete with behavior patterns.

We need to stop labeling the efforts to screen passengers on planes as racial profiling. It’s profiling and yes, a person’s race is all just a part of the entire overall picture.

It’s a shame that our lives have had to come to this. Flying stinks, especially since 9/11 and presently after the Pantie Bomber’s success in getting explosives past security. This leaves us with the choices of either not worrying about security and we can all take our chances when we fly or do the best job we can to screen passengers, including all those that fit a profile. If this is an infringement on your rights, then don’t fly. If we can’t make flying safe, there won’t be any flying therefore it won’t matter anyway.

Tom Remington

Those on the right have engaged in their own levels of attacks on President Obama, myself included. However, I have never had and will never have a problem with anyone attacking issues. But we all know that it goes beyond just issues and can get very nasty.

The other night I watched President Obama’s speech from West Point about his intentions for our military in Afghanistan. I have to confess that this is the first speech I have listened to of Obama and I’ll tell you why. I believe that when it comes to military operations and decisions such as those we as a nation face, politics should not play a role. My interest in listening to the speech was because of my concern and support of our soldiers that are protecting this nation. The reason this was my first is that I refuse to listen to Obama’s speeches because they are just meaningless words used in order to make people feel good and contain virtually no truth at all. I don’t need pep talks from rally speeches. It’s not my bag.

I was relating to my son the other day that back when President Clinton was in office, he laid out his plans to go into Bosnia with air strikes only. There was a lot of discussion, bantering, posturing and negotiating but in the end, a decision was made and for the most part the republicans shut their mouths and showed their full support to win the war there – as it should have been.

This was not the case after 9/11. It was initially, but when the democrats saw an opportunity to try to destroy George W. Bush and the Republican Party, they seized on every opportunity to do so, regardless of the effects of those efforts on our fighting men and women. Personally, I thought it disgusting. Playing politics with the lives of our soldiers is about as low as humanity can go.

Bush is gone! Obama is in and it is his war now. He knew full well when running for the highest office in the land, that should he win, he would inherit everything, including the War of Terror. He dithered for far longer than I think he should have in his Afghanistan decision. Over 140 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan while he put off making any decision.

At West Point he unenthusiastically laid out his strategy for Afghanistan which included what many are saying is a time line to begin withdrawing troops from the region, when we have no idea what the circumstances will be come July 2011.

For me, once the dickering and posturing and all the other stuff is complete and our troops have made their way to the war front, the time of dumping on President Barack Obama about the details of the surge is over. Our full support must go toward our troops to insure victory and we pray for as few casualties as God will give us.

So, the debating goes on with little support at this point from those on the right, at least concerning the time table issue. We have heard some support from Sen. John McCain and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. They support the surge and are interested in negotiating some of the finer points of the details, including the withdrawal time line.

I have seen from several media organizations and individuals something that I take issue with. I will not name names but will just say it is out there and it needs to stop. It is my opinion that they are taking remarks President Obama said about the withdrawal time line in an incomplete fashion and as much as I hate the expression, out of context. It comes across as Obama bashing or Obama derangement syndrome as many of the same ones like to call the left’s effort, Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Here is the actual text of President Obama’s speech from West Point.

But taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground. We’ll continue to advise and assist Afghanistan’s security forces to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul. But it will be clear to the Afghan government — and, more importantly, to the Afghan people — that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country. (emphasis added is mine)

I have repeatedly heard politicians, news media, television and radio talk show hosts from both sides state only the very first part of the paragraph ending with “July of 2011″

I have to admit that when listening to the speech, I didn’t think the President put much emphasis at all on “taking into account conditions on the ground” but he did state it. From this entire paragraph, whether I agree with the strategy or not about any kind of time line, the impression some are trying to make is that President Obama is planning to begin bringing home troops, all of them, in July of 2011 regardless. I just don’t see that as factual.

As much as I dislike this President’s policies, it’s very easy to jump on the same wagon but I refuse when it comes to military issues. I have to believe that Obama gathered his people together and hashed out a plan with his military leaders. I am hopeful that once the final decisions are made with this surge, that the right doesn’t become guilty of what they so adamantly complained about with the left and President Bush. Our support needs to shift to the war effort and complete support for our troops in order that we can achieve victory.

Tom Remington