Garden State Patriot

Benjamin Sherman is another brave American hero who gave up his life for his country. While on a mission in Afghanistan he lost his life when trying to save a comrade who had fallen into a river. Sherman jumped in to save his fellow soldier only for both of them to be swept away. 

In an interview with WCBV-Boston, Sherman’s grief-stricken mother and sister talked of their lost son and brother – describing the kind of person and soldier he was and how he would do anything for his country and his brothers-in-arms. 

But at the end of the interview, Sherman’s mother had some words for President Obama.

“It is time,” she said. “It is time to make a decision. This has gone on too long. They either need to come home or we need to end it.”

You can watch the video of the interview here.

Of course, if this were George W. Bush in office the lamestream media would have been showing this video ad nauseum in order to undermine the President. They would have tried to make Mrs. Sherman the next Cindy Sheehan. But now that Obama is in office, there is no such effort.

Hypocrisy aside, no matter where you stand on the Afghanistan question Obama’s ‘dithering’ on this matter has indeed gone on far too long. It has been two months – two months! -since General McChrystal ’s request for more troops. The men and women we send into battle deserve far, far better. And not one more family should have to experience the grief the Sherman family because their President can’t figure out whether the battle is worth fighting any longer. In fact, the indecision is simply unconscionable and beneath the office. It is time for the President to show some leadership on this issue and prove himself even the least bit worthy of the title Commander-in-Chief.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Sherman family, especially his wife and his unborn child who will never know him.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Here is my latest post from Conservatives with Attitude!

I’m sure I speak for many conservatives in saying that Barack Obama’s approach to national security and the War on Terror have us, at the least, very uneasy if not altogether scared to death.

In his first week, Obama has issued an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Almost simultaneously we learned of what could happen – and likely will happen much more frequently - if we change our current policy toward these terrorists and illegal enemy combatants. If they go free, they will continue their jihadist ways against America.

Interestingly, it wasn’t long ago that liberals chided George W. Bush for starting the Iraq war ‘without a plan to win the peace.’ Obama’s executive order likewise is an action without a plan. The move might pacify his pacifist base, but Americans deserve answers as to what will happen with these detainees. And those answers most assuredly won’t come easy, nor will they make those of us who are rightfully worried feel as if our nation we will subsequently be safer. As succinctly put by the Ediors of National Review:

We’d love to close Guantanamo, but we can’t right now; we’d love to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo, but other countries don’t want them; we’d love to give every detainee a civilian trial, but we don’t have enough evidence; we’d love to release the detainees we can’t charge with crimes, but our intelligence tells us they’re dangerous, so doing so would be irresponsible; and we’d love to stick to the highly civilized, detainee-friendly interrogation practices approved by the Army Field Manual, but every now and then there may be an emergency when something more severe is warranted.

Lest we forget what this is all about, these prisoners are not at Guantanamo Bay unjustly or without cause. They are there because they have waged war on America. They are there as part of our effort to make sure that another 9/11 or worse does not occur on American soil ever again. And so that people like Michael Burke have some measure of justice.

Mr. Burke is lost his brother William, an FDNY fire fighter, on 9/11. And in an op-ed piece he had this to say about Obama’s decision regarding Guantanamo Bay. I couldn’t have said it better:

With his shameful order to close Guantanamo Bay, President Obama has perfectly filled the stereotype of the classic clueless ultra-Liberal – the one who can generate great passion for the rights of the guilty defendant and none for the innocent victim.

With a single stroke of the pen, Obama has delayed justice for the victims of 9/11, and in essence granted a reprieve for Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11.

America does not honor our “rule of law and the rights of man” as he put in his inauguration speech by such an action. Instead, this nation abdicated its duty to justice.

It seems the new President is too far removed from the victims of 9/11. Victims like 11-year-old Bernard Curtis Brown, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. Everyone onboard was killed, as well as 66 people in the Pentagon. Curtis was on a trip with several of his classmates to California sponsored by National Geographic.

Obama and the Democrats have had a blind spot for 9/11 and have yet to show they have an ounce of understanding what happened that day.

Here is why we were attacked: Muslim extremists hate Americans and want us dead. Our policies in no way influenced the vitriol perpetuated on innocent Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

It is asinine to believe that Guantanamo Bay, even with its scandalously biased coverage, has in any way inspired a single terrorist.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has offered unapologetic confessions for 9/11 and also brags that he was the assassin of journalist Daniel Pearl (”with this blessed right hand I beheaded the Jew”) sits in an air-conditioned cell, innocent until proven guilty, receiving three square meals a day, specially prepared to satisfy his religious prescriptions, free medical and dental (already meeting Obama’s specifications of health care as a constitutional right) and the free services of an army of court-appointed lawyers.

Welcome to the American way of life.

Obama could grant these men full constitutional rights in an American court. And when they are exonerated, we, the U.S. taxpayers, supply a luxury cruise ship trip back home. And they will still hate us and want us dead.

The only thing Obama has accomplished is convincing these mass murderers that we are too narcissistic, too foolish and too weak to protect and defend ourselves. Just as the terrorists believed prior to 9/11.

And we do not enhance our Constitution by applying it to those it was never meant to serve. Rather, the move diminishes and threatens the foundation on which our laws are built.

It is impossible to fight the war on terrorism, like every war, under the Constitution. Consequently, we cannot convict our enemies under it. They will get off. Once free, they will, despite having enjoyed the benevolence of our constitutional rights, strike us again. The Constitution then becomes a means of our destruction. If it cannot protect us, then what is to stop somebody from trying to replace it? Obama would lead us down the road to dictatorship.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were unprecedented. Everything we did in response was made up along the way. Despite that, and contrary to the echo chamber of criticism, America has managed, by pummeling Al Qaeda and liberating the peoples of two nations, to make the world a freer and safer place. We have successfully defended ourselves against any further attacks. And we have done it with a proper respect for the “rule of law and the rights of man.”

Justice delayed is justice denied. That goes for the American victims of foreign attacks, also.

With this order to close Guantanamo, the countdown to the next attack has begun.

This speaks for itself. God bless our troops for defending America.

We won. The Iraq War is over.

I declare November 22, 2008 to be “Victory in Iraq. Day.” (Hereafter known as “VI Day.”)

By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country, deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new functioning democratic government, and suppressed any lingering insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.

Read the rest here.