President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address was only ten sentences long, and was delivered in just over two minutes. Yet in their stunning brevity, Lincoln’s words changed the course of history. What did he say? Why did he say it? And more than a century and a half later, why should you care? In this week’s video, Professor Doug Douds of the Army War College explains why Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg still matter to each and every one of us.
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Response from my English girl friend to my Valentine Greeting:
H----
And from K--: "You are Too Funny."
And:
Dear Dick,
I love your blog because you carry the torch that makes our democracy, the active discussion of the issues of the day. So today I enjoyed your comments about the Judicial Watch in terms of "deep government", "sun block" and "sunlight". I believe nothing is more axiomatic to power than the ever present grasping for more and nothing more critical to democracy than the checks that balance power. So I believe the evil of bureaucracies is their use of "sun block" to obfuscate their ever present creeping for more power and that the protection of democracy is the cleansing disinfectant of "sunlight".
With best regards,
S------"
And, another and:
He is in his mid-eighties, very well-dressed, hair well-groomed, great looking suit, flower in his lapel and smelling slightly of an expensive after shave. He presents a very nice image.Seated at the bar is a classy looking lady in her mid-seventies. The sharp old gentleman walks over and sits alongside her.He orders a drink and takes a sip.He slowly turns to the lady and says: "So, tell me... do I come here often?"
And a final and:
Just a little flare up that could lead to God know's where. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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Similar to what I recently wrote.
I will never forget American scrap dealers sold Japan scrap which they used to bomb Pearl Harbour. (See 2 below.)
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This was sent to me today but it a little out of date but perhaps still valid. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)The Iran-Israel War Flares Up
The fight is over a Qods Force presence on the Syria-Israel border. How will the U.S. respond?
By Tony Badran and Jonathan Schanzer
The conflict between Israel and Iran may be heating up after a half-decade simmer. On Friday night Iran dispatched a drone from Syria that penetrated Israeli airspace in the Golan Heights. Israel destroyed it with an Apache helicopter. Then on Saturday Israel sent eight F-16s across the border to strike the airfield in the Homs governorate, called the T-4 base, where the drone originated, as well as a handful of other Iranian targets. Although the mission was a success, one F-16 was shot down by Syrian antiaircraft fire—though the pilot made it back to Israel, where he and his navigator ejected successfully.
This was the most significant clash to date between Israel and the so-called Axis of Resistance—Iran, Syria’s Assad regime and Hezbollah—since Iran began deploying soldiers and proxies to Syria six years ago. Israel insists its response was limited and its intent is to contain this conflagration. Its critics worry that the skirmish could explode into one of the worst wars the Middle East has ever seen.
The Iranians have been exploiting the chaos of the Syrian civil war to build up military assets there that target Israel, all the while sending advanced weaponry to Lebanon by way of Damascus, also under the fog of war. The Israelis have been vigilant; they have destroyed some of this hardware in Syria with one-off strikes. In December they struck an Iranian base southwest of Damascus, some 30 miles from the Golan Heights. But they had never entered Syria with the kind of overwhelming force seen on Saturday morning.
What prompted this level of response is still unclear. Israeli military officials won’t say whether the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle was armed. It would be a surprise, though, if Israel’s reprisal was prompted by an unarmed UAV. Indeed, this was not the first drone incursion into the Golan Heights. Last year, Israel’s missile defenses intercepted several Iranian-built drones, operated by Hezbollah, attempting to enter Israeli airspace from Syria.
The Israel Defense Forces had warned that the T-4 base was crawling with fighters from Iran’s Qods Force, an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had paid multiple visits to Moscow hoping to convince President Vladimir Putin to curb the threatening activities of Iran and its proxies. Mr. Putin has established a formidable presence in Syria since 2015, when his forces entered the country ostensibly to combat Islamic State.
The Israelis took a significant risk Saturday of rankling the Russians, especially since they reportedly did not warn Moscow of the attack in advance. Russian personnel sometimes embed with Syrian air-defense units and are sometimes present at the T-4 base. Thus the strike might have been intended as a message to the Russians as much as to the Iranian axis.
Whether Russia had advance knowledge of the Iranian drone operation isn’t clear. Nor do we know whether Russia was involved in unleashing the Syrian surface-to-air missiles that downed the Israeli F-16. What we do know is that after many Israeli airstrikes in Syria over many months, this was the first time Syrian antiaircraft weapons managed to hit a target. That points toward Russian involvement.
Even so, the Israelis were not deterred from launching, within hours, a second wave of airstrikes against additional Iranian and Syrian targets, including air-defense sites, many of which likely had been monitored for months. According to Israeli sources, the second wave was the largest aerial attack against Syria since the Lebanon war of 1982, when the Israeli Air Force hammered Syria’s Soviet-built surface-to-air missile batteries in the Bekaa Valley.
Now all eyes are on Israel as it mulls its next moves. For Jerusalem, the status quo is unsustainable. The Iranians are clearly willing to absorb tactical strikes so long as they are able to consolidate their strategic position, which will prepare them for a future conflict with the Jewish state. So while Israel’s political leaders are eager to avoid conflict, the military brass may soon determine that postponing it would be the riskier course.
The Israelis also are working the phones with the Trump administration, which has affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself. That declaration will carry significance as Israel considers its options. Washington continues to tweak its new policy of targeting Iran with multiple instruments of American power. But this policy is encumbered somewhat by the White House’s agreement with Russia to maintain a “de-escalation zone” in southwest Syria—an agreement that clearly benefits Iran and the status quo.
The Pentagon and State Department have already condemned Iran and thrown their support behind Israel. The question now is whether the Trump administration will go further. In a speech last month unveiling the administration’s strategy for Syria, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson affirmed that the U.S. seeks not only to ensure its allies’ security but to deny Iran its “dreams of a northern arch” from Tehran to Beirut. A good way to achieve both objectives would be to back Israel’s responses to Iran’s aggression—now and in the future.
Mr. Badran is a research fellow and Mr. Schanzer senior vice president for research of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
1a) Putin Phone Call Ended Israeli Air Strikes
The official announcement by the Russian Foreign Ministry objected to the violation of Syrian sovereignty by Israel and totally ignored the event that provoked the eruption – the infiltration of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace. In the conversation with Netanyahu a few hours later, Putin asked him to avoid moves that could lead to “a new round of dangerous consequences for the region.”The Russians are also concerned about the proximity of the Israeli bombings to sites where their soldiers and advisers are serving, including base T-4 near Palmyra, where the Iranian control post from which the anti-aircraft missile was fired was bombed.
1b)
INITIAL PROBE: ALTITUDE MAY HAVE MADE DOWNED JET VULNERABLE TO SYRIAN FIRE
By BY ANNA AHRONHEIM
An initial probe into the downing of an Israeli F-16i jet on Saturday found that the altitude at which the plane was flying made it more vulnerable than the other eight planes flying in the formation
According to a report by Yediot Aharonot, the plane was flying at a height of 10,000 feet when the Syrian anti-aircraft missile exploded near the plane. Shrapnel penetrated the cockpit and caused serious injury to the pilot, who nonetheless initiated the evacuation procedure with his navigator almost immediately.
A direct hit on the plane, which was in Israeli airspace at the time of impact and not close to the Syrian border, would likely have caused the deaths of the two crew members.
The jet was part of a two four-plane formation that was taking part in retaliatory airstrikes following the infiltration of an advanced Iranian drone into Israeli airspace early Saturday morning.
During the operation, around 20 Syrian anti-aircraft missiles were fired at the Israeli jets and one locked onto a second plane in the formation. Unlike the first jet which was hit, the second plane was able to evade the missile.
Israeli Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Amikam Norkin visited the injured pilot at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital on Sunday.
“From the moment you understood that you needed to abandon the plane you made the right decision, and saved the life of the major and of yourself,” Norkin told the pilot.
In leaked transcripts of their debrief, Channel 2 news quoted the pilots as saying they had no time to report on their radio that they were bailing out of the plane.
“We were very focused on the mission. Then there was an explosion and we understood we were hit; it is a very uncomfortable feeling, the loss of control,” read the transcript.
“There is no long process and there is no time. A few seconds. The understanding [was] that we needed to quickly eject as a result of the physical damage to us and also as a result of the damage to the plane that ceased to function,” they were quoted as saying.
“We were extremely lucky. The missile exploded close to the plane and the force of the explosion could have killed us. The missile exploded at a certain distance from the plane and its shrapnel did enough damage to the plane,” the transcript continued.
The pilot, who was severely injured in the crash, has since been moved from the intensive care unit to a regular ward following a marked improvement in his condition. The navigator was released from hospital on Sunday.
Following the crash of the F-16i near Kibbutz Harduf in the lower Galilee, Israeli jets carried out the largest airstrike against Syrian air defenses in some 30 years.
The jets were once again met with massive anti-aircraft fire by the Syrian regime, but no jets were hit and according to military estimates they were able to take out nearly half of Syria’s air defenses.
Syria’s air defenses are largely Russian, with SA-2s, SA-5s and SA-6s, as well as more sophisticated tactical surface-to-air missiles such as the SA-17s and SA-22 systems. And while the majority of the systems have been neglected during the war, Russia has deployed the advanced mobile S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft batteries capable of engaging multiple aircraft and ballistic missiles at a distance of up to 380 km.
During an IAF operation in March to strike a Hezbollah arms convoy in Syria, regime air defense fired three surface-to-air missiles towards IAF jets. Following the incident in March Liberman warned against any further launching of missiles by the Syrian regime, threatening to destroy all Syrian air defenses.
Israel rarely comments on foreign reports of military activity in Syria, but on Sunday IAF Air Division, Brig. Gen. Amnon Ein Dar admitted that the IAF has carried out thousands of missions over the war-torn country in the past year alone.
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2) Olympiad of Appeasement
Editorial of The New York Sun
“North Korean athletes unite around Olympic flame to stay warm” is our favorite headline, at least so far, out of the games that are gathering at Pyeongchang in Free Korea. The headline appeared in the satirical website for American GIs, the Duffel Blog. The actual antics taking place at the games are less humorous. An attempt was made to maneuver Vice President Pence to sit at a small lunch with the so-called head of state of North Korea, Kim Yong-nam.
Mr. Pence had the good sense to duck out and go meet with American athletes. Plus, too, he was traveling with Fred Warmbier, father of Otto Warmbier, the American student who was so mistreated in a communist prison that when he was returned home to Ohio he died. Messrs. Pence and Warmbier also met with defectors from North Korea, while Kim Jong Un’s thugs were meeting with South Korea in an attempt to drive a wedge between it and America.
This is, sadly, the main event at Pyeongchang. It was launched on South Korea’s conceit that it could be a “peace olympics” but has become the olympiad of appeasement. By far the leading contender for the gold medal in appeasement is South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in. He was so eager for North Korean “participation” in the games that he sent emissaries to Kumming, in Communist China, where North Korean school-children were playing in a soccer match.
That nugget is in a New York Times dispatch that illuminates just how premeditated was South Korea’s campaign of appeasement. John Kerry couldn’t have been more abject, though the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thos. Bach, a one-time-fencer from Germany, seems to have bought into the idea of appeasement on his own and ended up pressing the case to South Korea. It was originally rejected by President Park Geun-hye.
A heroic hardliner, Mrs. Park was eventually impeached and cashiered from office (she’s now in prison). That precipitated the election in May a year ago of the human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in, who had campaigned for office on the idea of confederating Free Korea with the communistic regime in the North. It was, the New York Times account suggests, Mr. Moon who finally won President Trump’s support, albeit grudging, for including North Korea.
Zino Francescatti couldn’t have played a fiddle any better than Kim Jong-un played Mr. Moon and the rest of the Olympic lot. At one point, the Times reports, Mr. Bach even offered to pay for North Korea’s team to come play. Kim Jong Un’s sister is now being feted at the games, and Kim Yong-nam, the aging North Korean “head of state,” dined in style with the big guys while Vice President Pence avoided a handshake and stuck with our athletes.
Good for him. The Associated Press quoted Mr. Pence as warning, during his meeting with the defectors, of a “charm offensive by North Korea.” He said that it was “important to make sure the truth is told” — that North Korea is “a regime that imprisons, and tortures, and impoverishes its citizens.” No one gainsays that the magnificent athletes at Pyeongchang deserve their shot at sporting glory. The medal for appeasement will go to their governments.
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3)The Night the Democratic Party Committed Political Suicide
Townhall.com ^
By Wayne Allyn Root
Before I get to the embarrassment of the nasty, bitter State of the Union display by the Democratic Party, let me lead with great news.
First, the jobs front. Wednesday morning saw the release of ADP/Moody’s Analytics private payrolls report. New job creation exploded once again under President Trump. Businesses added 234,000 jobs in January versus an expected 185,000.
Manufacturing added 12,000 jobs and construction 9,000 new jobs - in a traditionally slow month. WOW.
Secondly, the numbers from Trump’s State of the Union. Fox News had the biggest audience for a State of the Union in the history of cable news. The old record of 6.5 million viewers was smashed by smithereens by Trump with an astonishing 11.7 million viewers. It was also the highest rated presidential address of any kind in the history of cable news.
Now to the reaction from viewers. CBS took an instant YouGov poll. Here are the amazing results:
97 percent of Republican viewers liked Trump’s speech.
72 percent of independents liked it.
Amazingly, 43 percent of Democrats liked it.
Overall 75 percent of Americans approved of the speech. And a shocking 8 out of 10 felt President Trump was trying to unite the nation, rather than divide it. Two-thirds reported the speech made them feel proud.
Which means anyone who isn’t a bitter, nasty, arrogant, hateful, Kool-Aid drinking socialist loved what they saw. Unfortunately, that leaves the entire Democrat Congress.
That’s why I report the Democratic Party committed political suicide on Tuesday night. Their response to Trump’s speech was out of bounds. It wasn’t normal. It was hateful. It was bizarre. Actually, in a word, it was “foreign.” The Democratic Party is now a foreign party in their own country. They no longer have any understanding of what people born in America think or feel. It's perfectly fine to be respectfully opposed to the politics of one party or president. That's acceptable. That’s as American as apple pie. But that’s not what happened on Tuesday night.
Democrats were outed as the party that is rooting for America's failure. Rooting against a booming economy. Rooting for misery, instead of prosperity. Rooting against job creation. Rooting against a booming stock market. Rooting against employee bonuses. Angry about the lowest black unemployment ever. Angry about the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever. Angry at the lowest female unemployment in 18 years. They openly frowned, grimaced, groaned and looked sick to their stomachs when President Trump celebrated the American flag…the national anthem… American freedom… and American opportunity. Bizarre. Self-destructive behavior.
But wait, it gets worse. Democrats appeared to be on the side of murderous MS-13 gangs. When Trump touted legislation to help stop gang violence, drug dealing and murder by vicious MS-13 gangs…and when Trump introduced the parents of two young girls murdered by MS-13 killers…Democrats booed and groaned. Democrats clearly believe discussing murders by illegal aliens is “racist.” Democrats clearly believe Trump has to be Hitler or KKK to publicly admit there are people of color (gasp) murdering innocent Americans. This was the second worst moment of disconnect in American political history.
Now to the single worst disconnect ever. Amnesty-loving Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez WALKED OUT upon hearing chants of “USA, USA!” It was too much for him. He appeared to be on the verge of tears. Democrats consoled him. To Democrats, it’s now “racist” to love your country.
The Democrats’ performance at the SOTU was shocking. Because if they had an ounce of common sense they could at least act like they love America, act like patriots, act respectful to parents of kids murdered by illegal alien gangs. Any sane politician would have acted civil - just to fool enough voters to win elections. Not these Democrats. They suffer from TID - “Trump Insanity Disorder.” They are on tilt. Trump triggers them to acts of self-destruction. They’ve lost their minds.
Turn out the lights. There is no one left to support the Democratic Party we saw on Tuesday night, except for illegal aliens, radicals, Marxists, felons and welfare addicts. A booming economy is a step backwards to this group. The American flag is something to be ashamed of. God is a curse. And job creation is a sin. It's clear they are the party that wants to “MAKE AMERICA MISERABLE AGAIN.”
This was the night the Democratic Party committed political suicide.
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