How political correctness took down Navy SEALs

NY Post

Matthew McCabe (pictured) and Jonathan Keefe caught the man who butchered American contractors. Their reward? Court-martial

"The night of Sept. 1, 2009, Echo Platoon of Navy SEAL Team 10 headed out into the Fallujah night. Their goal: concluding a five-year search for the al Qaeda killer who had been responsible for the shocking 2004 murders of four American military contractors — one of them an ex-SEAL — whose bodies were then burned, dragged through the streets and hanged from a bridge.

"This night the SEALs departed with these words from their commanding officer: “Gents, stay sharp, and expect a firefight.”

"In the event, no shots were fired, but the SEALs faced another kind of ambush: a humiliating, baffling, infuriating struggle with the military-justice system that would end with an unsatisfying victory.

"Because the man those SEALs captured — Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi, aka “the Butcher of Fallujah,” a man who lived for mayhem — somehow sustained a bloody lip on the night of his capture." ...
....
"But the lip injury was the only harm found on his body, and as the al Qaeda training guide known as the “Manchester Manual” (after the English city where a copy of it was discovered) advises, detainees should “always complain of mistreatment or torture while in prison.' ” Emphasis added.

A book mentioned in the above article:
HONOR AND BETRAYAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE NAVY SEALS WHO CAPTURED THE “BUTCHER OF FALLUJAH” — AND THE SHAMEFUL ORDEAL THEY LATER ENDURED

Honor and Betrayal

Obama’s Recessional; There is nothing accidental about the president’s apparent foreign-policy blunders.

Victor Davis Hanson  ... "Nonetheless, while Obama has never articulated strategic aims in the manner of Ronald Reagan or the two Bushes, it is not therefore true that there is no “Obama Doctrine.” Indeed, now that he has been in office five years, we can see an overarching common objective in otherwise baffling foreign-policy misadventures."

 "Collate the following: large defense cuts, the president’s suspicions that he is being gamed by the military, the pullout from the anti-missile defense pact in Eastern Europe, the pressure on Israel to give new concessions to its neighbors, the sudden warming up with an increasingly Islamist Turkey, the failed reset with Russia, radical nuclear-arms-reduction talks, the abject withdrawal of all U.S. peacekeeping forces in Iraq, the timetable withdrawals in Afghanistan, the new worries of our Asian and Middle Eastern allies, the constant euphemisms on the war on terror, the stepped-up drone attacks, the lead-from-behind removal of Moammar Qaddafi, the pullaway from Mubarak in Egypt, the support for Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the pink lines in Syria, the Iranian missile deal, the declaration that al-Qaeda was on the run and the war on terror essentially ending, the Benghazi coverup, and on and on.

"Does such American behavior display any consistent strategic coherence?

"I think it most certainly does." ....
....
Hanson finishes his essay with this conclusion:

In short, Obama has a strategy. He has found a means of advancing it. He believes in the ideological basis for seeing it succeed. And he assumes that the public, for a variety of reasons, is quite supportive of it.

 

Unaccountable Hillary Clinton

Brent Bozell   "CNN anchor Jake Tapper blandly admitted the obvious in a radio interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt. The same reporters that insist their former GOP favorite Chris Christie is ruined for 2016 by traffic jams on a bridge are letting Hillary Clinton skate for embassy-security neglect that led to four dead government employees at Benghazi."   More

This week in 1944: The Battle of Anzio

Army Center of Military History    "During the early morning hours of 22 January 1944, troops of the Fifth Army swarmed ashore on a fifteen-mile stretch of Italian beach near the prewar resort towns of Anzio and Nettuno. The landings were carried out so flawlessly and German resistance was so light that British and American units gained their first day's objectives by noon, moving three to four miles inland by nightfall. The ease of the landing and the swift advance were noted by one paratrooper of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, who recalled that D-day at Anzio was sunny and warm, making it very hard to believe that a war was going on and that he was in the middle of it."

Battle of Anzio map.   This could have been a master stroke by the allies, such as the Inchon Landings in Korea were, but there was no aggressive follow-up after the troops landed.



The Germans and their artillery in the hills could look down on everything the allies were doing.

 

Bill Mauldin in his book "Up Front" drew this post battle commentary on the beachhead, which the Germans called "a prison camp where the prisoners feed themselves".

The western Italy theater at the time of the Anzio landings

Stop jerking Canada around; America’s most reliable friend deserves an answer on the Keystone XL pipeline.

More of this president's dithering leadership.

Charles Krauthammer  "Fixated as we Americans are on Canada’s three most attention-getting exports — polar vortexes, Alberta clippers and the antics of Toronto’s addled mayor — we’ve somewhat overlooked a major feature of Canada’s current relations with the United States: extreme annoyance.

"Last week, speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canada’s foreign minister calmly but pointedly complained that the United States owes Canada a response on the Keystone XL pipeline. “We can’t continue in this state of limbo,” he sort of complained, in what for a placid, imperturbable Canadian passes for an explosion of volcanic rage.

"Canadians may be preternaturally measured and polite, but they simply can’t believe how they’ve been treated by President Obama — left hanging humiliatingly on an issue whose merits were settled years ago."
(Emphasis mine. TD)

Obama betraying democracy forces of Ukraine

Thomas Lifson   "Just as he did with the Green Revolution in Iran, which had the potential to topple the mullahs, President Obama is giving a cold shoulder to the Pro-Western demonstrators in Ukraine. Ever since President Viktor orbit of Western democracies, and instead moved to resume Ukraine's status as more of a Kremlin satellite, the people of that country have rebelled and taken to the streets."
Yanukovych last November decided to pull out of a landmark treaty with the EU that would have swung that country of 45 million strongly into the

Gorbachev asks Putin, Obama to save Ukraine from civil war

Pictures from: Op-ed: The pictures say it all

Just don't call them death panels

Thomas Lifson    Here is how "death panels" in the "Mother of All Nationalized Healthcare Systems", the UK nationalized medical care system.

Pensioners with cancer are being written off as too old to treat, campaigners said yesterday.
They cited figures showing survival rates for British patients aged 75 and over are among the worst in Europe.

"Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (referred to elsewhere as 'EZ-Kill Emmanuel.), one of the principal architects of ObamaCare, agrees in principle with the idea that fewer years of "useful" life left means that fewer dollars should be invested in care. President Obama, when asked in a town hall format about an elderly patient with a strong will to live who might need expensive treatment, responded that "a pill" might be the only treatment offered." Read more
 

Ignoring Facts and Attacking Character; The Left finds its foes not just wrong, but morally repugnant.

Thomas Sowell   "One of the things that attracted me to the political Left as a young man was a belief that leftists were for “the people.” Fortunately, I was also very interested in the history of ideas — and years of research in that field repeatedly brought out the inescapable fact that many leading thinkers on the left had only contempt for “the people.”

"That has been true from the 18th century to the present moment. Even more surprising, I discovered over the years that leading thinkers on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum had more respect for ordinary people than people on the left who spoke in their name." ...
....
"Maybe that is why there are so many fact-free arguments on the left, whether on gun control, minimum wages, or innumerable other issues — and why they react so viscerally to those who challenge their vision."

Case in point is this :
Dem Congressional Candidate 'Likes' Graphic With N-Word and 'Ching Chong' on Facebook
"Erin Bilbray, a Democratic congressional candidate in Nevada, uses Facebook to connect with friends and supporters alike. She also uses it to express support for musicians (Amy Winehouse, Dave Matthews) and, well, other not-so-wholesome things.

"Like this graphic, which the congressional candidate "liked" on Facebook:

"She's running against Republican Joe Heck."

Leno: Obama's New Slogan 'Yes We...'

CNS News

Is the prosecution of Dinesh d'Souza politically motivated?

This is a follow-up to our piece from yesterday titled Dinesh D'Souza indicted for violating U.S. election law .
Ms. Althouse mentions in this article: "(We saw D'Souza's movie, and I blogged about it here and here.)"

Althouse  Speaking as a lawyer, Ms. Althouse writes:
"Laws need to be enforced neutrally, across the board, or we need to be free of them. When the executive authority spares its friends or, worse, targets its enemies, what is revealed is the insufficient or fake commitment to rules that bind everyone and that deter rule-followers (like me) from engaging in activities we might want to engage in. I want to smoke out this insufficient or fake commitment to campaign finance law by challenging government to prosecute all violators. If that challenge is unmet, we deserve different laws."

Sick joke: Anti-Obama filmmaker indicted for election fraud  "Going after D'Souza is petty politics. He's not an important conservative author or commentator. Recent scandals have tainted his reputation. But "2016" was the second highest grossing political documentary of all time and savaged the president mercilessly
"Reason enough in Obama's mind to destroy him."

Lessons for Shove Guv Andrew Cuomo

"When you make people feel unwelcome, they just might take their business elsewhere."

Michelle Malkin   "When he railed against socially conservative Republican candidates in a radio interview last week, Cuomo hyperbolically singled out those he called “right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay” citizens. Sounding unapologetically purge-tastic, the governor said that these political opponents “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” His bigoted comments provoked a fierce social-media-driven backlash led by devout Catholics and Second Amendment activists in the Empire State. And now, he’s got job-creating, tax-paying conservative businesspeople threatening to leave. Heckuva job, Andy!"

Before you buy that electric car...

Electric Cars Won’t Save The Planet But Might Kill Their Drivers   "Environmentalists want us to believe that snowstorms and bitter cold are because of “global warming” and they tell us electric cars are the key to salvation. It’s all bunk. It turns out Smart Cars are as stupid as the people that buy them. A new study by the Environmental Science & Technology Journal proves what I’ve been saying all along: electric and hybrid vehicles will not reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere."

Don’t Buy an Electric Car   ... "Still, I’m not a green Grinch. Our house is entirely powered by an enormous solar array. My wife has owned a Honda Civic Hybrid since it first came out in 2003. It just turned over 100,000 miles today. It’s a good car.
"When it comes to energy and the environment, I like to think I’m a pretty sensible, practical person. But I wouldn’t buy an electric car if you paid me. Here’s why:" ...

The Fisker; What Killed the New Electric Car  " Fisker’s failure (like that of the solar company Solyndra before it) is, as a result, being held up as evidence of the futility of all government investments in green technology. Lou Dobbs said, simply, “All they pick are losers.” And House Republican Jim Jordan, who will be chairing a hearing next week on the government’s loan to Fisker, called the company’s troubles “a very timely case study of what happens when the Department of Energy plays venture capitalist with taxpayer money.”