Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Burning Books and Children - Bush was right: They do hate us for our freedom By Kevin D. Williamson
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
President George W. Bush had a peculiar way
with words. He was relentlessly mocked for saying of al-Qaeda et al.,
“They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of
speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other,”
which was soon reduced to “They hate us for our freedoms” and held up
for scorn. “No, dummy,” said both the antiwar Right and antiwar Left
(Remember the antiwar Left? Whatever happened to those guys?), “they
don’t hate us for our freedoms, they hate us for our bombs, for our
support of strongman governments, for our alliance with Israel, etc.” As
was so often the case, President Bush’s critics, left and right, got it
wrong. They should have listened to his actual words and not relied
upon the Will Ferrell précis.
There are no words adequate to the
horrific attack on a group of schoolchildren in Nigeria, carried out by
the jihadist Boko Haram outfit, a partner to the Algeria-based al-Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb, which claimed the lives of 42 children and
teachers on Saturday. The jihadists set fire to the school and then shot
children as they tried to escape; many were burned alive. In was the
group’s third attack on a school this summer. Randi Weingarten of the
American Federation of Teachers sent out the obligatory press release —
because when it comes to terrorist massacres, America needs to hear from
its union bosses — in which she identified a “violent religious sect”
(no word on which religion) as the malefactor. “No religion demands the
callous murder of children,” she wrote. Perhaps George W. Bush could
take a moment to tutor Ms. Weingarten on the finer points of the English
language: No religion should demand the callous murder of
children. But one does. The word “Islam” of course appears nowhere in
that press release. It is necessary to hear what is said, and equally
necessary to hear what is not said.
Liberal values — “our freedoms,” in President Bush’s words — are
precisely what Boko Haram objects to, which is why the organization
makes a point of attacking schools. The organization’s name is the subject of some linguistic dispute,
which may seem trivial but is not. “Boko” is a Hausa word meaning
“education,” an adaptation of the English word “book.” “Haraam” and
“haram” are related terms in Islamic jurisprudence, both denoting
“forbidden.” “Haraam” is the opposite of “halal” and denotes the highest
level of religious prohibition; “haram” means “sacred,” or forbidden in
the sense that access to holy places and sanctuaries is restricted.
It
is a linguistic irony that the Arabic word for “sacred” is closely
related to the word for “sinful,” both deriving from an earlier Semitic
word for “forbidden,” used to denote a restricted place, as in the
English borrowing “harem.” It is another linguistic irony that Boko
Haram, an anti-Western group (formally Jamā’a Ahl al-Sunnah li-Da’wa wa
al-Jihād, or Congregation and People of Tradition for Proselytism and
Jihad), cannot express its agenda without adapting an English word in
Hausa. “Boko Haram” is generally translated as “Western education is
sinful,” but it might well be rendered “books are banned.” Boko
Haram is a mutant: part indigenous group, part Islamist group, part
motorcycle gang, founded by a virulently anti-Western cleric with a
graduate degree, good English, and a Mercedes-Benz. Some analysts
describe it as a cult. But we should not dismiss the group’s own words:
It is an organization for Islamic proselytism and jihad, and its aim is,
among other things, to forbid education. Read the whole article here at The National Review....... — Kevin D. Williamson is a roving correspondent for National Review. His newest book is The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome.
