What's wrong with this picture? (Nothing)

Folks, it is with humility that I am amending this message. I screwed up. I made the very same mistake that I have accused others of: I do not fully and properly check my sources. I received the original report, did a quick review and allowed my emotions to override my logic.

Snopes.com has researched the original message that has been circulating around the internet and determined that it is a hoax. The also are reporting the following statement from the ACLU:

"The ACLU has no knowledge about the photograph of Marines praying that has circulated on the Internet. The ACLU has also never had a spokesperson — quoted by news organizations as "Lucius Traveler" — by this name."

While I continue to believe that the ACLU is an evil in today's world, I also believe that in this particular case, I owe them an apology.

That said, I also want to point out that there are two other points made in the original report and I stand by those.

R*







The picture above has been making the rounds the internet recently. As heartwarming as the site of Marines bowing their heads in prayer during a ceremony honoring the birthday of the Marine Corps might be, the picture is not really the issue.

The issue is, once again, the ACLU.

"These are federal employees," says Lucius Traveler, a spokesman for the ACLU, "on federal property and on federal time. For them to pray is clearly an establishment of religion, and we must nip this in the bud immediately."

When asked about the ACLU's charges, Colonel Jack Fessender, speaking for the Commandant of the Corps said (cleaned up a bit), "Screw the ACLU."

Three things come to mind. The first is that the ACLU is clearly a tool of the liberal left and is being used to further the leftist agenda of removing any expression of religious faith from the public eye and replacing it with reliance upon Big Government. There is no other way to explain the senseless actions of the ACLU. Folks, troops have been praying since the creation of our country - why is it a problem now? Could it be that the liberal left (aka "progressives") are afraid of
the strength of a people who possess a strong religious faith?

Item two, the liberal left is obviously in high panic mode. In addition to the attack from the ACLU, leftist politicians are calling our troops terrorists (John Kerry) and claiming that our military is unable to successfully complete their mission in Iraq (Howard Dean). So desperate are these self-important demagogues to gain power that they will say or do anything possible to disrupt our nation, our military and our
personal lives.

The third and most important item is that these troops; our children, brothers, sisters, mothers, dads and friends, deserve our unwavering support and that the single best way to help them is through our prayers.

The email that brought this to our attention offers a simple prayer that we would like to share with you:

"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen."

We ask that all Americans join together in offering this simple prayer to the Lord on behalf of all of our military forces everywhere.

The Amazing Deano

Howard Dean continues to be one of America's leading idiots. A dismal failure as a Presidential candidate, he is currently leading the Democrat party down the path of ruin. As if he does not have enough to do as a major fool, the Amazing Deano is now branching out as a military strategist.

In an interview posted on the WOAI web site
[READ] , Amazing Deano has declared that the US will not win in Iraq and has proposed a bug out plan only a leftist could love. The "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," according the Dean. He continued on say, "I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

Well, folks, that's it. The Amazing Deano has shared his wisdom and we might just as well fold up the tents, pack up the troops and bug out immediately.

However, what the Amazing Deano fails to mention are the reasons that we ended up losing in Viet Nam. For the record, the military did not lose the war in Viet Nam. Our troops were quite capable of handling the enemy. Despite the claims of the media at the time, the vaunted Tet Offensive by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies was a resounding victory for US military forces. An unbiased review of the record clearly shows that our military was superior. But we did end up bugging out.

Make no mistake about it, the defeat in Viet Nam was due to the interference of self-centered, pompous idiot politicians, each convinced that they knew more running a war than the professionals in the field. In this, both the White House and Congress equally share the blame. But did the politicians learn this lesson? Apparently not, or at least not the Amazing Deano and his pack of liberal ninnies.

By law, the military of the United States reports to the civilian government. This is how it should be. But once the civilian government has committed our forces to battle, the task of winning should be the exclusive provence of those professionals trained to fight and not a bunch of pampered politicians sitting by their warm fires back home.

Time and again, interference with the conduct of a war has needlessly cost lives. The American Civil War should have been won within two years but political wrangling in Washington DC managed to stretch the death and destruction out for a full five years. Viet Nam was a repeat of the very same mistake and now, if idiots such as Howard Dean have their way, so will the Iraq war.

Hopefully, the American people are intelligent enough to see the stupidity of allowing politicians such as Dean to determine how wars are fought. After all it is our sons and daughters who are doing the fighting and dying and it is our duty to let the politicians know that we do not any more interference from idiots safe within the Washington DC Beltway.