RUTHFULLY YOURS

Mr. Lehman was secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, and a member of the 9/11 Commission.

The president disregards a policy that for decades has ensured effective leadership of the nuclear fleet.
President Obama, possibly unaware of the implications, has made a mistake by nominating Adm. John Richardson as the new chief of naval operations. Adm. Richardson likely would do a fine job in that important role, but by trying to move him from his current position as director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, the president has crossed a line and created a precedent that could have grave consequences for the effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear fleet.

First, a little history is in order. Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the U.S.Navy’s nuclear fleet and one of the fathers of commercial nuclear power, was a great man. Including his time at the Naval Academy, he served for 55 years on active duty and ran the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program for three decades until his retirement in 1982. He created and oversaw a culture of personnel and engineering excellence that is unique in the world.

Vladimir Putin’s recent decision to sell S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran over U.S. objections is more than an embarrassment to the Obama Administration. It is also the latest evidence of an emerging new threat to world order and U.S. security: the rise of authoritarian regional powers.

China, Russia and Iran are taking advantage of American retreat to assert political and (perhaps eventually) military dominance over their corners of the globe. They share a goal of reducing U.S. influence, bending neighbors to their political will, and ultimately using that regional base of power to diminish the global sway of Western democracies, especially the U.S. In addition to the rise of Islamic State, this will be the biggest strategic challenge for the next President.

If President Obama can forgive us our trespasses, he can forgive the Ayatollah Khamenei’s, too.

Can there be a rational, negotiable, relatively reasonable bigot? Barack Obama thinks so.

So we learn from the president’s interview last week with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg—the same interview in which Mr. Obama called Islamic State’s capture of Ramadi a “tactical setback.” Mr. Goldberg asked the president to reconcile his view of an Iranian regime steeped in “venomous anti-Semitism” with his claims that the same regime “is practical, and is responsive to incentive, and shows signs of rationality.”

The president didn’t miss a beat. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s strategic objectives, he said, were not dictated by prejudice alone. Sure, the Iranians could make irrational decisions “with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool.” They might also pursue hate-based policies “where the costs are low.” But the regime has larger goals: “maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their country,” and getting “out of the deep economic rut that we’ve put them in.”

A Handbook on Islam is intended to be a supplementary guide to Islam’s Reign of Terror, which was published by the Voltaire Press in 2013. The latter title offers a chronicle of terrorist acts committed since 9/11, which, as of the date of this writing, have neared 26,000 separate and deadly attacks of varying magnitudes. These attacks are now commonplace and are occurring daily, chiefly in the Mideast and in Africa, committed by ISIS (or ‘ISIL,” or the “Islamic State”), which has established beachheads in Libya and in Nigeria and in other unstable countries in that region. “Outbreaks” of Islamic terrorism – or Islamic mob rule – are occurring in the Far East in Pakistan and Afghanistan, when Islamic fundamentalists not necessarily connected with ISIS or Al-Qaeda persecute or slaughter Christians or target individuals for execution. Attacks continue in Europe and in the U.S., ostensively in “retaliation” for drawing images of Mohammad, the alleged prophet of Islam. In early January 7th 2015 Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, the French weekly satirical newspaper, and killed eleven of the staff, and later killed a French police officer who was directing traffic. Following that, more attacks occurred in other regions of France. In the U.S., Pamela Geller’s Draw Mohammad contest and event in Garland, Texas, on May 3rd 2015 was attacked by two Muslim “extremists” armed with automatic weapons; the gunmen made it only as far as the building’s parking lot before being shot dead by a single policeman. And, more than a supplementary guide, the author thought it a necessary work to help counteract the mainstream media’s refusal, inability, or unwillingness to grasp the perilous seriousness of the ends and means of Islamic terrorism and terrorist acts committed in the U.S. and abroad.

“What other spot so fitting for their last resting place as this under the shadow of the Capitol saved by their valor? Here, where the grim edge of battle joined; here, where all the hope and fear and agony of their country centered; here let them rest, asleep on the Nation’s heart, entombed in the Nation’s love!”

On May 30, 1868, a crowd of 5,000 gathered at Arlington National Cemetery for the first Decoration Day exercises. Before strewing flowers upon the graves of the dead, the crowd listened to an address by James A. Garfield (1831–81), then an Ohio congressman who had also served as a major general in the Civil War. In this first of such annual addresses at Arlington National Cemetery, Garfield, who in 1881 would become the 20th president of the United States, sets a standard by explaining what Decoration Day is all about and why it should be commemorated.

I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung. With words we make promises, plight faith, praise virtue. Promises may not be kept; plighted faith may be broken; and vaunted virtue be only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue. For the noblest man that lives, there still remains a conflict. He must still withstand the assaults of time and fortune, must still be assailed with temptations, before which lofty natures have fallen; but with these the conflict ended, the victory was won, when death stamped on them the great seal of heroic character, and closed a record which years can never blot.

I know of nothing more appropriate on this occasion than to inquire what brought these men here; what high motive led them to condense life into an hour, and to crown that hour by joyfully welcoming death? Let us consider.

In America’s cities and towns today, flags will be placed on graves in cemeteries; public officials will speak of the sacrifice and the valor of those whose memory we honor.

In 1863, when he dedicated a small cemetery in Pennsylvania marking a terrible collision between the armies of North and South, Abraham Lincoln noted the swift obscurity of such speeches. Well, we know now that Lincoln was wrong about that particular occasion. His remarks commemorating those who gave their “last full measure of devotion” were long remembered. But since that moment at Gettysburg, few other such addresses have become part of our national heritage—not because of the inadequacy of the speakers, but because of the inadequacy of words.

I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.

Yet, we must try to honor them—not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice.

Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we—in a less final, less heroic way—be willing to give of ourselves.

It is this, beyond the controversy and the congressional debate, beyond the blizzard of budget numbers and the complexity of modern weapons systems, that motivates us in our search for security and peace. War will not come again, other young men will not have to die, if we will speak honestly of the dangers that confront us and remain strong enough to meet those dangers.

It’s not just strength or courage that we need, but understanding and a measure of wisdom as well. We must understand enough about our world to see the value of our alliances. We must be wise enough about ourselves to listen to our allies, to work with them, to build and strengthen the bonds between us.

It would take a “global” village to subjugate and sack America. That is what is being proposed by Jeffrey Sachs. And who is Jeffrey Sachs?

There was the sack of Rome by Alaric and his Visigoths in 410 A.D. There was the sack of Rome by Charles I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1527. That pillage only ended when, after eight months, the food ran out, there was no one important left to hold hostage for ransom, and then a plague appeared caused by all the rotting corpses in Rome’s streets. When the destruction, rape, and looting stopped, only 10,000 residents were left in Rome.

Attila the Hun never sacked Rome, but did loot and destroy a great portion of northern Italy. It wasn’t for lack of trying to invest Rome. But his hordes contracted “camp disease” and fell too ill to pillage and loot. He had to withdraw his “freedom fighters” to try another day, but died about a year later before making another attempt, in 453 A.D.

Hackers claiming to belong to the Islamic State attacked TV5Monde, a French television network, and knocked it off the air globally. The network broadcasts in more than 200 countries. “Our websites and social media sites are no longer under our control.” — Yves Bigot, Director General, TV5Monde.

“We hate no one. We fight for our freedom and hence we object to totalitarian Islam, but we do not hate Muslims…. I am happy that we in the Netherlands and in Germany are allowed to demonstrate against each other. Without violence. Without hatred.” — Geert Wilders, Dresden, Germany, April 13, 2015.

WHAT A WOMAN….WOULDN’T SHE BE PERFECT FOR VICE PRESIDENT?

McSally earned her wings following graduation from Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laughlin AFB, Texas and was initially assigned to Laughlin as a First Assignment Instructor Pilot (FAIP) in the T-37 jet trainer. Following the repeal of the combat aircraft restriction for female pilots, she completed Lead-in Fighter Training (LIFT) in 1993.[7] McSally became the first woman in U.S. history to fly a combat aircraft into enemy territory when she flew into Iraq in support of the United Nations no-fly zone enforcement.[5]

McSally completed Replacement Training Unit for the A-10 Thunderbolt II at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, and was assigned to an operational A-10 squadron and was deployed to Kuwait in January 1995.[1] During that deployment, she flew combat patrols over Iraq in support of Operation Southern Watch, enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.[1] In 1999, she deployed to Europe in support of Operation Allied Force. McSally was selected as one of seven active duty Air Force officers for the Legislative Fellowship program, during which time she lived in Washington, D.C. and advised Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) on defense and foreign affairs policy.[8]

Promoted to Major, she reported to Joint Task Force Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2000 for an Operation Southern Watch temporary assignment. Promoted below the zone to Lieutenant Colonel, she took command of the A-10 equipped 354th Fighter Squadron at Davis-Monthan AFB in July 2004, and was subsequently deployed to Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom, where she employed weapons loaded on her A-10 in combat for the first time. In 2005, McSally and her squadron were awarded the David C. Shilling Award, given by the Air Force Association for the best aerospace contribution to national defense.[8]

Lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense (McSally v. Rumsfeld)[edit]
McSally was represented by the Rutherford Institute in a successful 2001 lawsuit against the Department of Defense, challenging the military policy that required U.S. and U.K. servicewomen stationed in Saudi Arabia to wear the body-covering abaya when traveling off base in the country.[9][10] At the time of the lawsuit McSally, as a Major (O-4), was the highest ranking female fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. Her suit alleged “the regulations required her to send the message that she believes women are subservient to men.”[11] In addition to the issue of religious garb, McSally noted that policies also included other requirements:

In a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast on CBS on January 20, 2002, she described the discrimination she experienced under the policy: “I have to sit in the back and at all times I must be escorted by a male … [who], when questioned, is supposed to claim me as his wife,” she said. “I can fly a single-seat aircraft in enemy territory, but [in Saudi Arabia] I can’t drive a vehicle.”[11]

During this process, she was granted audience with several high level officials, including two Secretaries of Defense, William Cohen and Donald Rumsfeld, which was atypical of a service member of her comparatively junior rank and position, especially in light of her public protest. General Tommy Franks, then commander of the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), announced in 2002 that U.S. military servicewomen would no longer be required to wear the abaya, although they would be “encouraged” to do so as a show of respect for local customs. Commenting on the change, Central Command spokesman, Colonel Rick Thomas, said it was not made because of McSally’s lawsuit, but had already been “under review” before the lawsuit was filed. News reports noted that McSally had been fighting for a change in the policy for seven years, and had filed the lawsuit after she had been threatened with a court martial if she did not comply and wear the abaya.[12]

Critics of the policy noted that while female U.S. military personnel had been required to wear the abaya outside of military installations in Saudi Arabia, the situation was not the same for “women diplomats” of the U.S. Department of State assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, who were actually encouraged not to wear the abaya when they were involved in official business, “…because they are representing the United States.” Embassy officials stated that, “…in their personal time, embassy employees can choose how to dress.” According to these U.S. officials, “…the Saudi government does not require non-Muslim women to wear a dark robe known as an abaya…. The official guidance, issued by the Saudi Embassy in Washington, says that foreigners should dress conservatively but they are not required to wear the robe.”[13]

Eventually the U.S. Congress “approved legislation that prohibited anyone in the military from requiring or encouraging servicewomen to put on abayas in Saudi Arabia or to use taxpayers’ money to buy them.”[14]

McSally has continued to speak out about gender relations in Saudi Arabia. McSally retired from active duty with 22 years of commissioned service in the U.S. Air Force on May 6, 2010. As of March 2011, she worked as a professor at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.[17]