Monday, May 29, 2006

Memorial Day: "FREEDOM IS NOT FREE"

Michelle Malkin has an outstanding post today, "FREEDOM IN NOT FREE’

It begins with a touching Cox and Forkum cartoon illustrating the hands of a grateful nation passing an American flag folded in triangle shape to the hands of the loved survivors.

Michelle then provides links to some of those honoring our military including La Shawn Barber and Mudville Gazette. We’re reminded The National Moment of Remembrance takes place at 3pm local time today for one minute. Op-For has President Reagan's tribute to the troops at Normandy. Dustin Hawkins has more memorable Memorial Day speeches. And there’s a lot more.

Michelle brings up Haditha and says while it’s casting a pall on this day, it cannot be ignored. She right.

She notes that chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, told CBS:

"[I]t would be premature for me to judge" the outcome of a Pentagon investigation into the killing of as many as a dozen Iraqi civilians by Marines.

But at the same time, Marine Gen. Peter Pace said he believes it’s critically important to make the point that if certain service members are responsible for an atrocity there, they "have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 percent of their fellow Marines have."
The post includes links to many Haditha news stories including ones at Time and the New York Times.

The final part of Michelle’s post is a tribute to Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas who was died after an IED exploded beside his vehicle in Haditha. He was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. R.I.P. and comfort to his family and friends.

I hope you all visit Michelle’s post.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think one reason these Middle Easterners cry so much about AG and Haditha is not the actual crime.

Nor is it that the crime is committed by a Western country.

I think it is because, under all the internalized lies, self destructive (boom and mental) behavior, and wildly educated irrationality there is always this: the United States are the good guys.

Good guys as in "can be manipulated" by victimology. As in "will give us aid in the end." As in a lot of things.

So in the end when we're not perfect (realpolitik anyone?) it violates one of the few things that is a constant.

-AC

PS - The reason I downplay the overplayed AG and the soon-to-be overplayed much more serious Haditha is because these are things that happen so frequently in the middle east (and Africa, etc) that they're not actually reported on, except as some unread UN footnote.

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