Who Were You With?

(Compiler's note: I know some of you have seen this short piece, but it is so revealing about us Marines that I thought I must share! And yes, I frequently wear my cap with the most familiar eagle, globe and anchor. My cap is black and it goes well with my silver hair -- but like other Marines, I still remember as if it were just yesterday .....)

by William R. Miller

A few years ago I was strolling with my wife through a fall festival in a small Kansas town. I was wearing a red ball cap with an eagle, globe, and anchor logo on the front. I noticed another man with a similar hat as he passed us in the crowd. He stopped, turned to me, and said, “Who were you with?”

“1st Marine Aircraft Wing, MASS Deuce [Marine Air Support Squadron 2], Dong Ha on the DMZ [demilitarized zone], ‘68–‘69. You?” I answered without thinking.

“2/5 [2d Battalion, 5th Marines], Hue City, Tet ‘68, Semper fi,” he said and walked on.

“Who was that?” my wife asked.

“Just another Marine,” I said. Just another Marine, what an understatement I thought.

At other times that day, I saw a cruise jacket, a sweatshirt, and two more ball caps all representing the Marine Corps. I saw the emblems of no other Service. Since then I have become more aware, and I have noted that I see Marine Corps bumper stickers and rear window decals, not Army. I see Marine Corps flags outside homes, not Air Force. And I see Marine caps and jackets, seldom Navy.

I started counting, and I actually see about 20 Marine symbols to each display of the other Armed Forces. Yet, the Marine Corps is still the smallest of the Services. Could it be that “once a Marine, always a Marine” is true? Could it be that there is a greater pride in having been one of the few?

For the last 5 years I, too, have asked the question, “Who were you with?” I have always gotten an answer; no one has ever asked, “What do you mean?” Marines understand the question. A few times the ball cap has represented a son or daughter. But even their parents know the units with whom their children are serving. The pride of their being with the Marines is also in the parents.

This year, at the same festival, I met four Marines. One young man said he spent the Marine Corps birthday, 10 November 2004, in Fallujah with 1/3; the second had helped the 2d Marine Division take Kuwait City in 1991; and the third served with me in Vietnam, only farther south at Chu Lai in 1970. But the one that I remember the most was the man in a worn, faded cruise jacket, walking slowly with a cane, and being passed by the crowd.

I walked to his side, slowed to his pace, and asked, “Who were you with?” He stopped, turned, stood up straight, and looked me in the eye. “5th Marine Division, Iwo Jima, 1945,” he said. A chill went through me and I knew I was in the presence of a history maker. “Thank you,” I said. He smiled and said, “You?” As we talked I told him that I had been an air control officer in Vietnam and that my son had just completed three tours in Iraq with Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2. Then before I knew it, he was thanking me. He continued to tell me how much harder it is today to tell who the enemy is and how much he admires our young Marines.

Today I teach biology at Baker University in Kansas, and I often tell my students that they have not yet had history happen to them. They do not remember Pearl Harbor or know what happened at the Chosin Reservoir or even where to find Con Thien on a map. At times I get to tell them about Marines whom I have met and the history they helped make. But still it is hard for them to understand what an injured Army captain I met on China Beach meant when he told me, “The most beautiful sight in the world is a Marine F–4 rolling in hot with snake and nape.”

These events are not just part of history; they are history. Had their results been different, the world would be different. “Who were you with?” says more than “Where were you when . . . ?” or “What were you doing when . . . ?” It says participant not spectator. It says Marine.

So the next time you see an eagle, globe, and anchor on a hat or shirt pocket ask the simple question, “Who were you with?” Listen to the answer of a unit, a place, and a time and think about that moment in history. But more than that, listen to the pride saying, “I am a Marine.”

>Dr. Miller served with the 1st MAW, Marine Air Control Group 18, MASS–2 in Vietnam from 1968–69. He is currently working in the Department of Biology, Baker University, Baldwin City, KS.

Experts warn Barack Obama of a nuclear Iran

Iran poses the greatest foreign policy challenge to Barack Obama, the President-elect, with Tehran on course to produce a nuclear bomb in the first year of an Obama administration, a coalition of top think-tanks gave warning yesterday.....

GLOBAL TRENDS 2025: THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL'S 2025 PROJECT

(Compiler's note: A must read item)

From the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council

"Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" is the fourth unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future. It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. Our report is not meant to be an exercise in prediction or crystal ball-gazing. Mindful that there are many possible "futures," we offer a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss.

Some of our preliminary assessments are highlighted below:

• The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.
• The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future.
• Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources—particularly energy, food, and water—raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply.
• The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East.

As with the earlier NIC efforts—such as Mapping The Global Future 2020—the project's primary goal is to provide US policymakers with a view of how world developments could evolve, identifying opportunities and potentially negative developments that might warrant policy action. We also hope this paper stimulates a broader discussion of value to educational and policy institutions at home and abroad.

Purchase a Hardcopy of "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" from the Government Printing Office (ISBN 978-0-16-081834-9) (33.4 MB)

Electoral College scam: Where dead people vote

By Bob Unruh

Lawyer challenging eligibility seeks investigation of process

A lawyer playing a major part in a California lawsuit urging officials to prevent the state's 55 Electoral College votes from being recorded for Barack Obama until questions about his citizenship are resolved has written to county clerks around the state, seeking an investigation into a process that has allowed a dead woman to be listed as an official elector.

Barack Obama

According to Gary Kreep, executive director of the United States Justice Foundation, the clerks have been advised about the "irregularity" in the list of electors provided by the Democratic Party

in California.

"In the 28th Congressional District (Congressman Howard Berman), situated in Los Angeles County, Ilene Huber is listed as the presidential elector designated in that district. However, as shown in the attached certified statement of Dean C. Logan, registrar-recorder/county clerk of the county of Los Angeles, state of California, there is no Ilene Huber listed as a registered voter in the County of Los Angeles. A statewide search of public records has revealed only one Ilene Huber in the state of California, and she is deceased-a copy of her certificate of death is attached hereto as well," the advisory said.

"Further, according to Chris Myers, director of research for the California Democratic Party, who submitted the list of presidential electors for the Democratic Party to the office of the California secretary of state, there are additional, undisclosed, 'errors' in the list of electors. This admission was made in a telephone conversation with a representative of the American Independent Party on or about November 20, 2008," the letter continued.

"It is therefore respectfully suggested to you that an investigation be made by each of your respective offices into the accuracy and validity of the list of presidential electors submitted for the ballot in your respective counties. It is believed that an attempt will be made to 'revise' the list of such electors so that those named individuals that were selected by the voters will be replaced by other names. Such 'revisions' will, in all likelihood, result in litigation being filed to challenge such attempts to alter the ballot post election, and may result in your county being included as a defendant therein," it said.

Kreep said the integrity of elections in the U.S. needs to be maintained, or "the vote of the people becomes merely something that can be ignored by those who hold the reins of political power at the moment."

Kreep previously told WND that because of the lack of proof of Obama's U.S. citizenship and the consequent questions over his ability to meet the Constitution's requirement that only a "natural born citizen" can be president, the Obama administration will be considered by some to be fraudulent.

"We will file lawsuits on his actions, every time. As long as we have money , we will keep filing lawsuits until we get a decision as to his citizenship status," he previously told WND. "We're already talking to groups who are willing to be plaintiffs."

As WND reported, Kreep filed a legal challenge in California with presidential candidate Alan Keyes as a plaintiff questioning Obama's birthplace.

The complaint urges the California secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast until the issue of Obama's eligibility to hold office is resolved.

The case is one of more than a dozen legal challenges brought over Obama's citizenship. The cases all cite Obama's clouded history and the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a natural born citizen.

Sign WND's online petition to insist on release of Barack Obama's birth certificate.

There have been allegations Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as his campaign has reported, that he could be considered a British subject because of his father's residency in what then was a British protectorate that later became Kenya, and that the "Certificate of Live Birth" posted on his website simply shows his mother registered his birth in Hawaii after he was born, but does not document a location of birth.

There also have been questions raised about his travels as a youth, including the years he spent registered as a Muslim in an Indonesian school, and his later travels to Pakistan at a time when U.S. passports weren't welcome in that nation.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question remains why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin. Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born, while a video posted on YouTube features Obama's Kenyan grandmother Sarah claiming to have witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya.

The California action was filed on behalf of Keyes, as well as Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

"Should Senator Obama

be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.

U.S. State Department officials declined to respond to WND inquiries about the process for keeping a U.S. citizenship while attending schools in Indonesia, or the possibility of a U.S. citizen keeping that status while traveling on another nation's passport.

But several online "fact" sites have contended that the concerns over Obama's citizenship are much ado about nothing.

Factcheck.org, for example, has posted an image described as Obama's "birth certificate." But within the image can be seen the words "Certificate of Live Birth," which is not the same document. In Hawaii at the time Obama was born the state issued a "Certificate of Live Birth" to a parent registering a birth, but it does not indicate the location of the birth.

"FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate," the group said in a statement accompanying the image of the "Certificate of Live Birth."

The website Snopes.com also attested to Obama's U.S. citizenship, citing information from the campaign.

However, WND columnist Janet Porter, who has investigated the dispute, wrote in her column that there are too many questions to ignore.

"In Hawaii, a Certification of Live Birth is issued within a year of a child's birth to those who register a birth abroad or one that takes place outside a hospital," she said.

"There's the matter that Obama traveled to Indonesia, Pakistan, Southern India and Kenya in 1981. He said he went to Indonesia to see his mother. This seemed plausible, except for the fact that his mother returned to Hawaii in August of 1980 to file for a divorce from her second husband, Lolo Soetoro. Unless she went back to pal around with the man she divorced, she wasn't there at the time of Obama's visit," Porter wrote.

"There's another problem. No record of Obama holding an American passport prior to the one he received once becoming a U.S. senator has been found. If he traveled to Pakistan with an American passport, he wouldn't have been allowed in – since Pakistan was in turmoil in 1981 and under martial law. It was also on the State Department's travel ban list for U.S. citizens," she wrote.

"If he couldn't get into Pakistan with a U.S. passport, perhaps he went there with an Indonesian passport. But the only way you can get one of those is if you are an Indonesian citizen," she wrote.

Spencer: Still Unprepared Against Terror

(Compiler's note: A must read and heed article.)

In Human Events this morning, some lessons from Mumbai:

Why was India -- a nation that has suffered enormously from terrorism in the past seven years -- unprepared for the Mumbai attacks? And why are America, Britain and most of the rest of the civilized world equally unprepared even now, so many years after 9-11?

London’s Telegraph reported Monday that “the former head of Britain’s SAS has revealed that Britain is not adequately prepared for a Mumbai-style terror attack. He said hundreds of civilians would have been massacred if such an assault was carried out in this country.”

The primary reason for this unpreparedness, of course, is the unwillingness or inability of government, law enforcement, and the mainstream media to confront the ideology of the jihadists and the Islamic doctrines that provide the foundation for that ideology.

Instead, it is an ironclad dogma in the American public square that the overwhelming majority of American Muslims decisively and unequivocally reject that ideology and doctrine and have nothing but abhorrence for the jihadists. Thus it is unsurprising that it was a Kuwaiti journalist, rather than an American one, who in the wake of the Mumbai attacks dared to observe that the Emperor has no clothes: “Unfortunately, we have yet to see a distinguished popular condemnation in the traditional Arab or Muslim communities that strongly rejects what is happening in the name of Islam.” So wrote the Kuwaiti columnist Khaled al-Jenfawi.

Underscoring this imperial nudity is the fact that as the full magnitude of the Mumbai carnage was still unfolding, some Muslim leaders as they condemned the attacks appeared principally concerned that they would hurt Islam’s image. Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain lamented that “a handful of terrorists like this bring the entire faith into disrepute.” Likewise Kazim al-Muqdadi, a lecturer at Baghdad University, complained that “the occupation of the synagogue and killing people in hotels tarnishes the Muslim faith.”

How to polish this tarnished image? One way might be to end the duplicity that is all too common. For example, Saudi Arabia announced that it “strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act” in Mumbai. However, Jonathan Fighel of Israel’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism observed that the Saudis had been sending financial support to the jihadists in Kashmir, the brothers-in-arms of the Mumbai attackers. “This demonstrates,” noted Fighel, “exactly the double game and, I would say, the hypocrisy of the Saudi regime.”

Of course, there is one thing they could do about that that would actually begin to make people think better of Islam. Imams could begin to saturate mosques and madrassas with the message that jihad warfare is never justified, that the imperative to subjugate unbelievers under the rule of Islamic law must be decisively rejected, and that peaceful coexistence as equals with unbelievers is to be maintained indefinitely. But they do not. They continue to play the same double game that the Saudis do.

Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al recently declared that “the day will come, within several years, when this world will change, submitting to the Arab Islamic will, Allah willing.” If Islamic clerics stopped talking about making the world submit to Islamic law and began to teach genuine tolerance of unbelievers and acceptance of them as equals, Islam’s image might begin to improve.

If Muslim leaders worldwide energetically condemned all those who maintained belief in the Qur’an’s literal words of war and in the traditional Islamic doctrines regarding jihad warfare (whether by hot war or by stealth), as well as declaring beyond the fold of Islam anyone who wished to impose Shari’a upon unbelievers by force, and if those leaders demonstrated their sincerity by actions instead of mere words, informed non-Muslims might begin to think better of Islam.

Until they do, how can we?

These things will not happen. Instead, Deepak Chopra and others have rushed to blame the West for the Mumbai jihad massacres -- while at the UN, Islamic states have successfully pushed through a resolution criminalizing “blasphemy,” i.e., criticism of Islam, while ignoring one that was introduced denouncing violence committed in the name of religion. That in itself is telling.

Vice President of Muhammad Mosque Cops 20 Years For Housing Fraud

from Jihad Watch

Liberty City mosque leader goes to prison for housing fraud

BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH/MIAMIHERALD

* One cannot live on Muhammedanism alone…

snesmith@MiamiHerald.com

A leader in a Liberty City mosque was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a housing scam that stole homes from the elderly — and even from dead people.

Sameer Muhammad, the vice president of Muhammad Mosque No. 29 at 5600 NW 7th Avenue, was convicted earlier this year of nine counts of grand theft, forgery and using a false identification related to the scam.

Investigators said Muhammad, 51, and a partner targetted elderly residents with liens on their homes, registering fraudulent deeds to the homes and then selling them.

The partner, Carolyn A. Murphy, would file fraudulent deeds showing herself as the owner of the home and pay off the liens.

Then Muhammad would sell the homes through his real estate investment corporation, Bar None Properties, Inc., and the two would split the proceeds.

In one case, investigators found a deed a couple purportedly signed transferring their home to Murphy — years after they had died.

Murphy was convicted last year and sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Muhammad is listed in corporate records as the vice president of the Liberty City mosque at 5600 NW 7th Avenue.

Miami-Dade’s Inspector General investigated the case.

”These individuals represent the worst in our society because they prey on those that are most disadvantaged,” said Inspector General Chris Mazzella.

Scotland: Police and Muslims to swap roles so officers can be more "sensitive"

from Dhimmi Watch

Officers may also be required to visit mosques in order to "raise cultural awareness." "Police and Muslims to swap roles so officers can be more sensitive," by Michael Howie for the Scotsman, December 2:

ANTI-TERROR police hope to participate in role-reversal sessions with Muslims in an attempt to ease concerns about the "harassment" of Scottish Asians travelling through Glasgow Airport.

The away-days are designed to improve relations between police and the Muslim community and reach a common understanding about the need to question people at the airport.

The move, based on a pilot scheme south of the Border called Operation Nicole, is among a raft of proposals that the country's head of anti-terrorism will put to aggrieved Muslims, who say they are continually harassed by repeated interrogations when they arrive in Scotland from Pakistan.

Other steps drawn up by Assistant Chief Constable Allan Burnett include ensuring special branch officers at ports wear uniforms, the introduction of "behavioural detection" training to teach officers how to spot potential terrorists, visits to mosques to raise cultural awareness and a mentoring scheme for new special branch recruits.

The creation of a new body to maintain dialogue between police and the Muslim community will also be discussed...

U.S. 'Warned India' of Potential Terror Attack on Mumbai

U.S. and Indian intelligence agencies received information as early as September that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, an official said Tuesday, as the government demanded that Pakistan take "strong action" against those behind the deadly rampage.

Mumbai attacks: Terrorists took cocaine to stay awake during assault

Terrorists who battled Indian commandos for 60-hours last week relied on cocaine and other stimulants to stay awake for the duration of the fight.

Mumbai Massacre Proves Gun Control Works–for Terrorists

Romans also tried Bailouts

(John Walker) Every generation convinces itself that it's living in a "new era," where "all the rules have changed," and consequently stumbles into the same potholes which swallowed countless ancestors ...