Profiles in Courage and in Cowardice - A Commentary

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

There are times when it is appropriate for the Madison Conservative to step out of its analytical stance and head off into the realm of personal commentary.

This Saturday necessitates that action.

Before addressing the title of this post, however, a quick aside that provides a wonderful example in contrasts.

This past week saw a group of World War II veterans say to hell with a barricade that was preventing them from visiting the open air World War II memorial in Washington D.C., closed due to the government shut-down. No one has yet explained how an open air memorial can be closed, but that is for another day. These men, visiting the Memorial on what are called ‘Honor Flights’ pretty much sums it all up nicely. These men are men of honor, men who deserve the title ‘hero’, men who exemplify the term courage under fire, and their stance of removing the barricades and pushing past the security officers encapsulated the event nicely. These heroes had no patience for cowardice, political or otherwise. They were intent on honoring their fallen brothers, and the thought that politicians playing games would somehow impede their final mission was unacceptable.

So they acted as heroes act – they took positive action to achieve their goal.

The fact that this administration, that our commander-in-chief would allow the barricades to be erected borders on political cowardice.

This nation has had a sacred compact with our service men and women from America’s founding. We do not allow petty political gamesmanship to dishonor our veterans.

What is little known or addressed is the fact that due to the petty budgetary politics currently in play, the cemetery in Normandy, France is being neglected, a victim of the government shutdown.

America does not treat her heroes this way – it is a disgrace and the President should be taken to task and be asked how he has allowed it to happen.

His failure to do so must be accepted as evidence of his abdication of duty as commander in chief.

So we have the acts of heroes this week in Washington, and this Saturday we have the anniversary of murdered active duty seamen and the subsequent acts of true cowardice by the then sitting president in response to those acts of war.

To wit:

{ed. note. I am the son, grandson and nephew of World War II veterans, and a proud Navy vet myself}

The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole on October 12^th 2000, while it was harbored and being refueled in the Yemen port of Aden.

Seventeen American sailors were killed, and 39 were injured.

The terrorist organization al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack.

For those who may have somehow forgotten, al-Qaeda are the terrorists who less than a year later were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

President George W. Bush has been long held accountable by the political left for being somehow responsible for not doing more to prevent the attacks.

The liberal left should examine the facts before making those claims, but to do so would require honest thought.

The reason al-Qaeda was able to plot the 0/11 attacks was due solely to the cowardice, the raw unadulterated cowardice of President William Jefferson Clinton, he of the impeachment, of the convicted charge of perjury, the abdication of his law license as a result, as well as the $90,000 fine for lying under oath, while as president, to a federal judge.

And for repeatedly molesting a woman not much older than his daughter.

This is the man the liberal left idolizes fondly as a great president.

William Jefferson Clinton took no action as a result of the USS Cole attack.

What constitutes an act of war more than murdering active duty sailors, on an active duty naval vessel?

Clinton took the cowardly response of assuring “that the guilty would be brought to justice”.

This is what President Obama has claimed on several occasions in response to acts of terror, most notably in the case of the September 11^th attacks on our embassy in Libya.

An assault on our embassy, where the ambassador and three brave American service men were murdered, sounds an awful lot like an act of war.

President Obama has promised that the guilty would be punished.

Uh-huh.

It is surely hoped that he will not follow the Clinton model of cowardice under fire.

The American people must take note of Clintons’ cowardice, and hold President Obama to the same standard.

We must honor our veterans, past, present and future.

Putting up barricades to memorials and letting those who murder our military walk free is not the way to honor those who honor us by their service.

I will continue to use this platform to remind anyone who will listen that Clinton was a coward. There is little worse than can be said than to denote a commander as a coward, but Clinton has earned it.

The American people must pray that President Obama does not earn the disgraced sobriquet of coward.

9/11/12 - A Commentary

(ed.note – 9-11 is a time to reflect on the true nature of this greatest of nations. Events have obscured that fact this year and thus a personal commentary is appropriate)

September 11^th is a day that transformed America while focusing a bright light on much of what is so uniquely good about this nation.

The Madison Conservative would suggest watching two videos, links posted below, to help remind the citizenry of those facts. The Madison Conservative does not mean to diminish any of the brave Americans and their heroic efforts on that day and on every day since by singling out the firefighters of these videos, but the firefighters will always have a special place in the heart of the Madison Conservative.

343- We must never forget:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHayXNAuD8A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT6tCQioI9E

The second issue relative to September 11^th this past week has to do with a vile, disgusting and intellectually dishonest op-ed piece written for ‘The New York Times’. The author will not be given acknowledgement by name in this post; such putrid and insipid nonsense merits author identification.

The purveyor of this literary pornography attempted to place blame for the attacks solely on the shoulders of President George W. Bush.

Such outright lies should be discarded on their face, but this op-ed made its way into the presentations and discussions of the mainstream media and so will be refuted here and now, and hopefully for time immemorial.

The first attack on the World Trade Center was in 1993, under the administration of Democratic President William Jefferson Clinton, the convicted perjurer. Our African embassies were bombed in 1996, under the same impeached president. Both cases brought about gravitas statements that the perpetrators, known to be Al Qaeda, would be brought to justice.

The U.S.S. Cole was attacked in 2000, resulting in the murders of 17 active on duty United States servicemen. The cowardly President did nothing, save for more stern proclamations that justice would be brought to bear.

Consider the mindset of a terrorist that just attacked a naval vessel that resulted in no retribution, no measure of retaliation. Of course they would consider bigger and bolder targets. The planning for 9/11 did not occur after the inauguration of President Bush, but rather under the administration of the sexual predator-in-chief.

The Madison Conservative does not intend to place specific blame upon the borderline treasonous President Clinton; the ability to attack this nation lies in the fact that we are a free and open society.

The point here is that if the imbecilic minds that traffic in an op-ed and accept its premises as fact, then the facts must be clearly presented. If there is specific blame to be placed for the potential of a 9/11 attack, then it must be placed solely at the feet of the Clinton administration.

President Bush made many mistakes in dealing with the war on terror, and 9/11 prevented history from knowing what a Bush administration might have accomplished, but in no way can he be held accountable for the attacks.

Such claims are an affront to the American people and must be challenged each and every time they are presented as an historical  fait accompli.

The Madison Conservative extends the offer to publicly debate this issue with the intellectually dishonest purveyor of the Bush accountability claim.

Lastly, while it is too soon to assess the root causes and governmental culpabilities of the September 11^th, 2012 attacks in Libya & Egypt, this point must be made.

The Obama administration is making the claim that a little viewed online movie trailer is responsible for the violence perpetrated upon this nation this past week, and that the assassination of our ambassador to Libya and the breaching of our embassy in Egypt is tied solely to the aforementioned video. The assertion is that the anniversary of 9/112 and none of the administration policies are tied to the violence.

The absolutely ridiculous nature of such a position is belied by the facts as we currently know them.

The American people deserve better than what they are being offered in the way of true leadership.

The Madison Conservative will address these issues in future blogs, before the November election.

The Clinton War On Terror

The recent killings of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki coupled with the tenth anniversary of the September 11^th terrorist attacks created a flood of political and media focus on the presidency of George W. Bush. There was a common thread attached to the discourse; President Bush had somehow been derelict in assessing the potential impact al-Queda could have upon the American homeland.

The now popular myth is that the war on terror began on George W. Bush’s’ watch and that he was ineffective in its prosecution.

This is not a defense of his administration or its policies, but the now accepted mythology must be addressed.

The first acknowledgement is that his decisions brought us to the point that, a decade later, allows us to be in a position to evaluate our recent history. In the aftermath of 9/11 our future was uncertain; the potential unknown of further attacks and greater devastation was a very real possibility. His leadership in this area must be commended.

This week will mark the eleventh anniversary of the commencement of the war on terror and as such is an appropriate time to clarify the record and correct the accepted perception on how we arrived at this point in history.

The war on terror began on October 12^th, 2000 with a direct assault on our military.

A 35-foot boat laden with the explosives RDX and TNT with two bombers on board rammed the USS Cole port amidships while it was refueling in the Aden, Yemen harbor, ripping a 32-foot by 36-foot hole in the hull and causing extensive internal damage.

It cannot be argued with any degree of seriousness that a direct attack on a nation’s active-duty military is not an act of war. The Clinton administration and President William Jefferson Clinton specifically, however, attempted to make that very argument. Their stance was that the perpetrators of this attack would be brought to justice under the principle that this was a legal issue that needed to be resolved within the court system of the United States.

There was no reciprocal military retribution taken by the Clinton administration, and no legal prosecution evolved.

Declining action after active duty personnel were murdered can best be described as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The legal construct of that argument is the definition of treason. The political reality of that path is best described as nothing less than cowardice.

The question now is that after a specific, unanswered  attack on an United States naval vessel, what must have been the mind set of al-Queda; that America would not fight back. At that point, the 9/11 attacks were inevitable.

President George Bush did not let the terror attacks go unanswered.

We were not attacked again during his administration.

The historians will make the decision on the Bush administration policies and decisions, but we must not allow the fog of history to cloud the reality of history.

We must never forget.

To that end, herein are the names of the first seventeen heroes lost in the war on terror:

Petty Officer 2nd Class Kenneth Eugene Clodfelter, 21, a hull maintenance technician from Mechanicsville, Va.;

* Chief Petty Officer Richard Costelow, 35, an electronics technician from Morrisville, Pa.;

*Seaman Lakeina Monique Francis, 19, a mess management specialist from Woodleaf, N.C.;

* Seaman Timothy Lee Gauna, 21, an information systems technician from Rice, Texas;

* Seaman Cherone Louis Gunn, 22, a signalman from Rex, Ga.;

* Seaman James Rodrick McDaniels, 19, of Norfolk, Va.;

* Petty Officer 2nd Class Marc Ian Nieto, 24, an engineman from Fond du Lac, Wis.;

* Petty Officer 2nd Class Ronald Scott Owens, 24, an electronics warfare technician from Vero Beach, Fla.;

* Seaman Lakiba Nicole Palmer, 22, of San Diego, Calif.;

* Seaman Joshua Langdon Parlett, 19, an engine room fireman from Churchville, Md.;

* Seaman Patrick Howard Roy, 19, a fireman from Cornwall on Hudson, N.Y.;

* Petty Officer 1st Class Kevin Shawn Rux, 30, an electronic warfare technician from Portland, N.D.;

* Petty Officer 3rd Class Ronchester Manangan Santiago, 22, a mess management specialist from Kingsville, Texas.;

* Petty Officer 2nd Class Timothy Lamont Saunders, 32, an operations specialist from Ringgold, Va.;

* Seaman Gary Graham Swenchonis Jr., 26, a fireman from Rockport, Texas;

* Ensign Andrew Triplett, 31, of Macon, Miss.; and

* Seaman Craig Bryan Wibberley, 19, of Williamsport, Md.

Their deaths must be answered for, lest we lose our sense of national self.