Remembering D-Day / Image Courtesy Times Online

It is an amazing fortnight that stretches from Memorial Day to D-Day.

Here in the USA, these two special days highlight our national commitment to Freedom like no other. Unfortunately, however, the cyclical nature of school and summer mask the purely American quality of the spirit of the fortnight.

These two days, Memorial Day and D-Day, make for the perfect bookends to a period of observances that should remind not just Americans but the entire world what America represents for millions of people. Not just military might, not simply streets paved with gold, even though they are part of it.

America represents the New World spirit of individual struggle, effort beyond the call of duty, a sense of sacrifice, a willingness to do the right thing. It is America’s duty, so we believe.  To spread freedom and liberty.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and a willingness if not an outright compulsion to share these ideals with the rest of the world, that’s that spirit embodied in this amazing two week stretch.

Anchored by the two special days that speak of sacrifices made by people, for people, one may well regard these two days are humanity’s ultimate gift to itself. Of course, up north the Canadians celebrate their Memorial Day to coincide with Armistice (Eleventh day of the Eleventh month, the year 1911, to denote conclusion of WWI).

Oh, what grandeur is embodied in the US Memorial Day, which originated in the tributes paid by liberated slaves to the Union soldiers during Civil War, and the D-Day which began the final efforts to liberate Europe. What romance conjured up by an ancient scribe of Greece or Sanskrit could ever match the symmetry and sweep of this majestic fortnight! A two week period of war, remembrance, memory and reflection. A reminder of America’s contribution to Humanity, a gift that continues to this day. And alas, must continue, for vast swathes of mankind are still in chains of one sort or another.

Whoever called it the American Century got it right. So much of what the world gained and gathered in the last 150 or so years has been the direct result of the Genius of America. A style of Democracy and Democratic Capitalism unique to human experience, robust individualism that engenders fulfillment of the total human potential, a social compact that is infused with the noble ideals of Freedom and Equality under law, this has been the gift of America. No less too, has been the much vaunted role of the USA as the policeman of the world.

Even as we speak, Americans are dying in far off wastelands, not for oil as the cynics say, but to bring a taste of that special American Genius to the wretched refuse of the world. This continues a long tradition dating back to the Charge on San Juan Hill, and Bunker Hill. With fewer mishaps than any civilization, America has forged a theory of a nation, long on promise, longer still on fulfillment of that promise. As any immigration lawyer will tell you, no matter how hard the times, people still want to come this way. Fewer than a hundred citizens give up on America in any given year.

Walt Whitman wrote in  By Blue Ontario’s Shore:

Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive and ever keeps vista,
Others adorn the past, but you O days of the present, I adorn you,
O days of the future I believe in you — I isolate myself for your sake,
O America because you build for mankind I build for you,
O well-beloved stone-cutters, I lead them who plan with decision and science,
Lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.

Bells of the Church at St. Mere Eglise, immortalized in the movie The Longest Day, and one of the most beloved and oft-visited site amongst WWII memorials. This is what the paratrooper John Steele probably heard, hanging by his chute ropes from the church steeple. Some 65 years later, folks still flock to this site of pilgrimage!

On the other hand, Cairo marks a low point in American diplomacy.

It is especially poignant to reminisce about American sacrifice nowadays, what with our leader going around the world apologizing, appeasing, and false-worshipping. Is America really that bad, do we really mean to harm humanity willy-nilly. Americans have killed fellow Americans to liberate blacks from slavery. Americans have jailed and punished fellow citizens to bring justice to immigrants, and yes even illegals. Americans have seen their family members killed in the service of the nation, to the benefit of people in far off lands, and of tribes friendly and otherwise. Christian Americans and black Americans, and Americans of every shade and ancestry have died to make this a better world for all humanity. And the leader of this nation thinks we have reasons to be ashamed.

Mr. Obama really does not represent sentiments of most Americans when he makes these misguided overtures to people who refuse to accept others’ faiths, and who continue on a sham spiritual path that is nihilistic and destructive toward the rest of humanity. America deserves better. At the very least, our president should get the facts right. With just about five million or so Muslims, the US is by no means “one of the largest” Islamic nations. If anything, our strength is in separation of church and state, nor a moral equivalence of all faiths. No, sir, all religions are not same, or readily comparable.

Let’s let someone who knows his Arab/Muslim history speak:

The choice of the date for Obama’s address indicates his attention to detail. It coincides with the anniversary of the start of the first battle between Islam, under Prophet Muhammad, and Christendom in the shape of a Byzantine expeditionary force in AD629. The “address to Islam” also marks the 30th anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini’s demise and the appointment of Ali Khamenei as the new “Supreme Guide of the Islamic ummah”. More importantly, it also coincides with the rebuilding of the Ka’abah, the stone at the heart of Mecca, which had been destroyed in a Muslim civil war. [sic]

By adopting the key element of the Islamist narrative, that is to say the division of humanity into religious blocs, Mr Obama also intends to send a signal to the Middle East’s nascent democratic forces that Washington is abandoning with a vengeance George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda”.[sic]

The problem is that the status quo in the Middle East was and remains unstable. Sixty years of “political realist” support for the regimes in the region produced five Arab-Israel wars, civil wars in Lebanon and Yemen, military coups d’état in eight Arab countries, the Islamic revolution in Iran, and two wars between US-led international coalitions and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. [sic]

In trying to prove that he is not George Bush, Barak Obama has committed big mistakes on key issues of foreign policy. His Cairo address, and his “one-size-fits-all” Islam policy, is just the latest. It encourages Islamists and ruling despots, discourages the forces of reform and change and, ultimately, could produce greater resentment of the United States among peoples thirsting for freedom, human rights and decent governance.

Amir Taheri, TIMES Online.

There are legitimate reasons for Israel to be afraid. The entire Islamic world has been arrayed against it for decades. It is quite possible our president is now aggravating the situation with a hard stance against Israel, while placating her enemies. In the speech Mr. Obama gave in Cairo, the audiences NEVER applauded for a pro-Jewish sentiment, but gave lusty applause when Israel was criticized. It’s as if our leader was leading Israel down the primrose path, and the audience knew it.

Watch this video of a debate between two Israelis, Caroline Glick and Gershon Baskin.

The bizarreness of our leader’s speech, full of fallacy, flattery, and dhimmitude, was matched by the galling, shrillness of this woman. This lady first crashes a Memorial Service to a fallen American soldier, unashamed that the said soldier was killed by a jihadist muslim now in detention, disturbs the somber nature of the moment, and eventually has the gall to feel insulted! Watch:

This is twilight zone we are living in!

This is getting out of hand!

Call me old fashioned, but the USA has had enough. We have had people hate America from within and from without, way too much. It’s time to let the world rot in it’s own stew. And time to give those who are hard on America, an old fashioned chiding.

What we need is some old time patriotism in this country. We have been on the mea culpa path for too long. To put in simple, country simple, terms: time to declare ourselves Good. Let Haggard speak for me finally: