Day of Thanks

I am reposting this from last year. Cause I like it.


Today is Thanksgiving, and in some strange far off land there is an American hunkered down, scared and longing for home, yet willing to serve his or her country in the proud tradition of the United States Military.

You deserve our respect. Insh Allah you will come home safe.

Following is Abraham Lincoln's proclamation establishing the first official Thanksgiving.

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln

The Funny's with Mike Luckovich

No End in Sight, Redux

The War in Afghanistan for the United States is in it's eighth year, mostly out of neglect from the Bush Administration and it's invasion of Iraq as well as a dubious strategy that lacked any foresight or basic intelligence. As a result of these failed policies and it's blundering into, and inability to get of, Iraq, President Obama is forced to start from scratch and develop a coherent strategy for combat operations and civilian support in Afghanistan.

After the failed six years of flailing around Iraq and the countless poor decisions and utter lack of planning for the invasion and aftermath of Iraq, is it no wonder the Bush Regime completely failed in Afghanistan?

Strategery, Redux?

President Barack Obama, in one of his first actions since being sworn in, signed an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within one year. This being the place where Americans tortured suspected terrorists under direct orders from the highest levels of the United States government.

It would have been easy to predict the complaints from those who support these tactics, such as "America will be less safe" or "enhanced" interrogations work. No, the plumb that the right wingers are hurling around is this one: "How dare he do that without proper planning." You heard right, the Republicans are mad that the President is entering into serious areas of national security and foreign policy without proper "planning."

Now, anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the invasion of Iraq and it's horrible aftermath, you might find this laughable, if it were not that the complete lack of planning from the moment the government in Iraq fell has directly led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi's, and the lives of over four thousand two hundred Americans.

Let's review. The GOP, the Republicans, are upset over poor PLANNING!

Imagine this. The U.S. has successfully toppled Saddam Hussein and overthrew his government. Within weeks, weeks! the entire senior military command was being replaced, yes that great Tommy Franks cut and ran the minute the statue came down. In addition, the planning that was going on was to withdraw most of the troops within 6 months from Iraq, not planning for the possibility of an armed insurgency, which has led directly to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi's and the lives of four thousand two hundred Americans.

Furthermore, the lack of planning for the occupation from a quality of life standpoint for the average Iraqi was criminal, in my opinion. Baghdad still only gets half a day of electricity.

And the Republicans still want to discuss planning? In the words of EX- President Bush: "Bring it on."