A bit over forty years ago our embassy in Iran was seized and our citizens held for nearly two years as hostages with impunity while Jimmy Carter was president.
Eight years ago our embassy in Benghazi was attacked and Americans were killed with impunity while Barack Obama was president.
A few days ago Iranian terrorists attacked our embassy in Iraq and ran away once Donald Trump sent in marines and gunship. They thought that like during the Carter & Obama years they would pay no price.
They were wrong.
Iraqi TV and three Iraqi officials officials said Friday that Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, has been killed in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport.
The officials said the strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.
the Washington post isn’t happy that a killer of Americans is dead
Perhaps we can tell them they made a Youtube video that insulted Islam.
It’s possible, perhaps even probable that the Iranians commanders in Iraq will try to retaliate, but now those commanders know if they do to make sure their life insurance policies are paid in full because the risk will not just belong to the fanatical foot soldiers.
The oppressive paternalism that has become the hallmark of Washington
DC kicked into overdrive this past weak
when President Trump signed a military spending bill that also raised the
smoking and vaping age to 21 all across the United
States.
I am not a smoker. I
have not smoked a single cigarette, or anything else, so this article is not about
something I indulge in personally. I
strongly believe that government should not stop us from doing what we want to
do, even if it is bad for us. Allowing
the bad along with the good is an essential ingredient to maintain a free
society.
I am well aware of the very negative health consequences of
smoking. I believe that individuals
should make up their own minds whether they wish to smoke or not, not have
their behavior controlled by the government.
Eighteen has always been the age where we consider individuals to be adults, capable of making decisions on their own. That is the age anyone can enlist in the military so they can defend our country and die if necessary. There has been a steady drift in this thinking, which has increased in speed the past few years. This began with the drinking age, then spread to the age that some states allow the purchase of weapons, now it has spread to smoking and vaping. It does a tremendous disservice to 18 to 20 if we strip them of their adulthood and coddle them.
Banning something never solves a problem, and if you study the prohibition period, you’ll see banning things only causes more severe problems. Banning something from teenagers will only cause more demand. The banning of tobacco products will only make them more appealing because they are banned. This will result in a black market for tobacco products and a lot of 21 and over individuals becoming criminals after purchasing tobacco products for those under 21.
The US Constitution does not grant the federal government
the authority to ban anything. The
federal government twisted the original meaning
of the Commerce Clause to unconstitutionally grant itself that
authority. The Interstate Commerce
Clause only grants the federal government the authority to regulate the
large scale movement of goods and services between states by imposing
taxes.
President Trump not only signed the age increase, he celebrated it with this Tweet:
I will be signing our 738 Billion Dollar Defense Spending Bill today. It will include 12 weeks Paid Parental Leave, gives our troops a raise, importantly creates the SPACE FORCE, SOUTHERN BORDER WALL FUNDING, repeals “Cadillac Tax” on Health Plans, raises smoking age to 21! BIG!
This tweet really disappointed me. It proved once again that President Trump is a big government Republican type who believes in banning things rather than a truly conservative or libertarian president. He’s not perfect but he’s infinitely better than Hillary or any other progressive.
Eight years ago, just before an election our embassy was attacked in Benghazi and i wrote the following post on the subject:
Picture that night for a moment, In the end attackers lost 30-60% of their force but for the sake of argument let’s say only 25% of that was in the first wave. You’re attacking the compound, you’ve been attacking for hours and seen people fall all around you. You’ve been beaten back once and don’t actually know how many men are inside, what do you think would have happened if they heard the sound of a single helicopter gunship? A single plane? a single drone dropping a bomb on the force already bloodied at a rate that would cause most Western countries to declare the mission a disaster?
They would have run.
Instead there was no Helicopter gunship, there was no relieving force, there wasn’t even a single remote control bomb in those seven hours after all there is a fundraiser in Vegas to worry about.
The actions of the Obama administration in general and the President and Secretary of State Clinton in particular were a national disgrace, but fully in keeping with the philosophy that American interests in general and Americans lives in particular are not worth fighting for.
Fast forward seven plus years. Suddenly the Iranians are hitting our compound in Iraq. The media is in a frenzy ready to call this Trump’s Benghazi, celebs who support them are practically giddy with excitement at the prospect of embarrassment to President Trump in an election year
Here's your first 2020 crisis, Donnie! I hear you were out golfing and re-tweeting boxing matches! Way to go, babe!! So inspiring to all. Can't wait to hear your testimony in front of Congress…oh wait. https://t.co/zq68ncHvWH
But while the media was looking for a Benghazi sequel, the Iranians were looking for a different sequel, they were looking for a Rhineland sequel.
You don’t know about the Rhineland business in 1936? Well in March of 1936 the Germans under a fellow by the name of Adolph Hitler moved their army into the Rhineland in direct opposition to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, it was an aggressive move, a provocative move and a move that was completely dependent on the French not reacting, as one German officer put it:
“I can tell you that for five days and five nights not one of us closed an eye. We knew that if the French marched, we were done. We had no fortifications, and no army to match the French. If the French had even mobilized, we should have been compelled to retire.”
In fact one officer went so far as to suggest that if the French had intervened there in March of 1936 Hitler would have fallen.
By an odd coincidence the Iranians are having trouble at home and things are a tad shaky The Iranians could sure use a win and according to the international press, America is under the control of an incompetent leader who is in danger of being forced from office, so what better time to push the envelope against a paper power run by an incompetent leader unwilling or unable to fight back.
Alas for the Iranians the source of the reports of Donald Trump’s weakness and incompetence are a unreliable and unfortunately for them along with celebs like Ms. Midler and the media whose reports they rely on President Trump isn’t Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton:
VIDEO: AH-64 Apaches protect @USEmbBaghdad. 🚁“We have taken appropriate force protection actions to ensure the safety of American citizens…and to ensure our right of self-defense. We are sending additional forces to support our personnel at the Embassy.”~@EsperDoD 🇺🇸🇮🇶 pic.twitter.com/amABHBAOcL
— OIR Spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III (@OIRSpox) December 31, 2019
and those choppers didn’t come alone, they came with US Marines:
Do you know what happens when you send Apache Helicopters and US Marines to an embassy that Iranians are attacking? One guess:
All members of paramilitary groups and their supporters who have been protesting against US air strikes in Iraq have withdrawn from the perimeter of the US Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday, the Iraqi military said.”All protesters have withdrawn, tents dismantled, and other forms of demonstrating that accompanied these protests have ended and the Iraqi security forces have completely secured the embassy perimeter,” it said in a statement.
Or as it was put
The Left wanted another Benghazi but Trump called in the Devil Dogs! https://t.co/yv2KYzS5vX
….Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!
So instead the Iranians have run, their leaders, like Kim in North Korea are making threats and dismissing the president but actions speak louder than words and right now they know that they aren’t dealing with the pretend version of a president that the MSM has painted for them.
Trump took action and the Iranians are running and the ambassador remains unharmed and the US remains ready to protect our own.
For Iran that’s a disaster, and for the media and Democrats it’s a disaster too.
I’m old enough to remember when wouldn’t be able to say that about the press or Democrats.
Having been born in 1963 of Parents Born in 1921 & 1924 of Grandparents born from 1878-1896 me and mine have seen a lot of years of consequence.
For my grandparents 1914 would be the biggest year of consequence they were alive as it was the year where the entire history of the world pivoted on the decision of a single Serbian’s pistol shot.
For my parents it would be 1942 because in that year three allied battles Stalingrad (which started in 42 but ended in 43) El-Alamein (which started in 41 but ended in 42) and Midway all took place. The results of these battles meant that the 3rd Reich and their allies would not rule the world let alone survive World War 2 intact.
Until recently I thought the most significant year in my life would have been somewhere in the 1980’s where the combination of Reagan, Thatcher, St. Pope John Paul II & Lech Walesa lead to the fall of the Soviet Union and freedom for hundreds of millions around the world with perhaps 1986 being the key year, but 1984 (Reagan re-election) 89 (1st non communist government in Poland, 1983 (JP II 2nd visit to Poland) or even 1987 (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”). But the more I think of it, for good or ill the year 2020 is likely going to be the most significant year of my lifetime in terms of history in general and American History in particular.
This is the year we find out if America survives as a single united free capitalist country.
This is the year that we find out if in fact if socialist and communist turn their cold war defeat into a belated victory.
This is the year we find out without question if America will stand up to it’s enemies or back down.
This is the year we find out if American blacks will believe the evidence of their own eyes and wallets or the propaganda that has enslaved them politically for 50 years.
This is the year we find out if America has boarders or it doesn’t.
This is the year where we find out if we are energy independent and thus able to resist OPEC & Russia or not.
This is the year we find out if our laws will be based on the Constitution as written or as imagined by the left.
This is the year we find out if we are to be bullied by those who claim that there are as many genders as there are grains of sands on the beach.
This is the year we discover if America is truly the leader of the free world or not
This is the year we discover if my children and grandchildren will be able to follow their Catholic Faith freely without fear or pay a heavy price for a profession of Christian faith.
And this is the year that we discover if the deep state with it’s propaganda machines in the press, and entertainment and the universities will rule this country or not.
As we are still, at this point free enough to make this choice as a nation, nothing is certain. All my instincts and all the data suggests that we will make the wise choice, there is still that fear within me that we will not, and that my sons and grandchildren will have to risk their lives to fight their way out of the socialism that their peers and mine vote themselves into.
Americans will as always get the government we deserve, but this is the year will discover if what we deserve is freedom we were bequeathed or not.
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