Real Thought

Friday for a two week summer cruise aboard my Sea Scout Ship Chaser.  We will be leaving Napa and going to Avalon on Catalina Island.   The itinerary includes stops at Santa Cruz Island, Avalon, Ventura, Santa Cruz and San Francisco.  It has been over three years since we did any serious offshore cruising and most of my scouts have never been on the boat for an extended length of time.  We have made vast improvements to the Chaser.  She has new Caterpillar diesels, updated safety equipment and navigation software and I think this cruise ought to be a great adventure.  For more information about the Chaser, you can look here.  I will try to post as we are on cruise when ever I can get wifi.  The route we will be taking looks like this:

While American children are watching the Boobahs, the Care Bears and Barney, Palestinian children are watching Mickey Mouse advocating the annihilation of the Jews and world domination in a children’s program produced by Hamas and broadcast by the Palestinian Authority. How many examples do we need to show that these people are simply not civilized?

Much has been made about the Interim Iraq Report in the news over the last twenty four hours.  I have actually read the report and here is what it says, the Iraqi government has made satisfactory progress in the following areas: constitutional review, forming semi-autonomous regions, establishing an Independent High Elections commission,  establishing various committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan, providing three brigades of Iraqi soldiers for Baghdad operations, making sure that Baghdad does not become a safe haven for terrorists, reducing the level of sectarian violence, establishing joint security stations in Baghdad, protecting the rights of minority political parties and allocating resources for reconstruction projects.  The Iraqi government has failed in several key areas including de-Ba’athification, distributing oil revenues, establishing a military that can act independently, coordinating with coalition forces, and setting dates for local and regional elections.

Many are taking this report as a reason why we should withdraw from Iraq.  It is obvious that the Iraqi government is semi-functional at best and completely impotent at worst.  For those who would like the United States to withdraw and leave the Iraqi people to their most assuredly uncertain fate, I would like to offer a short history lesson.

In 1780, the United States won their independence from the Empire of Great Britain.  At that time, the United States was a very small country, made up of thirteen independent states with no effective central government.  We had a government under the Articles of Confederation, but it was weak and impotent with no power to tax, raise an army or even enforce it’s own laws.  The British refused to abandon their forts between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware were engaged in open conflict over the fishing grounds in the Chesapeake Bay, frontier settlements were under constant attack, the Spanish controlled the Mississippi and there was an open rebellion in Massachusetts.  It looked at though the new republic was doomed to failure.  Keep in mind that Americans had, at this point,  nearly 200 years of experience in rational self-government.  A constitutional convention was called in 1787 to address these and other issues and finally our current Constitution was adopted in 1789.  It took nine long years of near chaos and anarchy for the United States to develop a workable and stable central government even with long experience in self government.  Should we expect the Iraqis to do any better?

Here she is, our new West Highland White Terrier. Her name is Dixie.

That the United States contributes somewhere between 25 to 28 percent to the entire world’s economic output. After all, we only have about 5 percent of the world’s population so maybe we don’t have time for vacations like our European cousins do because we are too busy providing goods and services to the rest of the world.

Today is the day in which the Second Continental Congress declared the independence of the United Colonies from the state of Great Britain.  It would take another five years of bloody and, at times, desperate warfare for that independence to become a reality.  The people of the fledgling United States fought and defeated the most powerful empire on the Earth at that time.  Amidst the fireworks, picnics, barbeques and celebration I think we should take just a little time to remember those who sacrificed themselves so that our nation could be born and just perhaps see them as an example of what a determined people can do.

Happy Independence Day!

Japan’s Defense Minister, Fumio Kyuma apologized for some remarks he make about the United States decision to drop the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. He said, and I quote here, “My understanding is that it helped end the war and that it couldn’t be helped…I don’t hold a grudge against the United States.” Evidently this remark has angered some of the opposition and insulted some Nagasaki survivors.

Well, to those offended by the Minister’s remarks, I have an American reply, not only was the use of atomic weapons necessary but you brought it upon yourselves. You brought it upon yourselves with your imperialistic and aggressive war against China. You brought it upon yourselves with the bombing of the Panay. You brought it upon yourselves with the Rape of Nanking. You brought it upon yourselves with the prostitution of Chinese women and the enslavement and execution of their fathers, brothers, husbands and children. You brought it upon yourself when you attacked Pearl Harbor. You brought it upon yourselves with the Bataan Death March, the forced conscription of prisoners of war to work in mines, build railroads and the general hellish conditions which prevailed in your prisoner of war camps. You brought it upon yourselves when you slavishly supported Emperor Hirohito and the fascist War Government.

You brought it upon yourselves and it is a shame that over 60 years later you can’t face the simple truth and you brought the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki upon yourselves and that you deserved it.