Scoop’s Views

While you and I are sitting at home, enjoying all the creature comforts, American fighting men and women are in distant lands, including Afghanistan and Iraq, sweating their butts off, literally, while going on patrols, doing raids, and other duties, and their performance – or responses – could be the difference between life-and-death.

As for Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is doing a tour of specific areas in Afghanistan and Iraq, supposedly getting a first-hand look at the situation on the ground, things are much different. His environment will be hot, sandy, dirty, but secure, for the most part. Because Obama, like McCain and others during past trips, are members of Congress, the military will provide a shroud around the “dignitaries” – ensuring, to the best of their ability, the survival of the elected officials, even at the expense of service men and women.

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The late General Douglas MacArthur was once quoted as saying, “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” That’s a concept that many today have forgotten, often in lieu of protesting or other self-serving goals, such as passing on military service, attending law school, and later in life, seeking office of President of the United States.

As many around the country prepare for today for a long weekend, it seems a lot of people have forgotten what this particular holiday weekend is centered around Memorial Day. It’s a traditional day of remembrance of those military men and women who selflessly laid down their lives in order that those of us, here at home, may continuing living in freedom, mostly peacefully, and without a dictatorship or junta as the controlling party of the nation.

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Sometimes payback is slow in coming, but when it does, just remember that it will be very pointed. That seems to be what happened earlier this morning in Mogadishu when missiles were fired at a house suspected of being inhabited by al-Qaeda operatives.

If you remember the town’s name — Mogadishu — it was the site of a a 1993 battle between members of the U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force against a local warlord, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, and his gun-toting followers.

Tags: 75th Rangers, al Qaeda, al-Qaeda operatives, Bill Clinton, Delta Force, heroes, missile strike, missiles, Moagishu, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, Rangers, Special Forces, U.S. Army, U.S. Army Rangers, U.S. Navy

It seems more and more in the U.S., as well as other Christian-based countries, that if you’re a Christian or believe in God, you’re one of the last legal targets of humiliation, harassment, and any legal challenge some loonies can toss about.

Tags: Bill Donohue, Buddha, Buddhists, Catholics, Christ, Christianity, Christians, Episcopalians, heroes, Islam, Islamic, Israel, kill God, Muslims, Philip Pullman, role models, Snopes.com, sports figures, The Catholic League, The Golden Compass, the Holy Bible