What do we owe to those who fight and give, as President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, “their last full measure of devotion”?
More, surely, than appreciative applause for the troops on airplanes and at professional sporting events . . . with their high-priced, taxpayer-paid military promotions.
First, vets are entitled to contracted-for medical care, as I addressed in greater detail at Townhall.com yesterday — not a Veterans Administration that systematically denies them needed diagnoses and treatments.
Second, wiser strategic decisions going forward. Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.
Bring on the if-you-knew-then questions!
But wait, what about a non-hypothetical: Are we today at war against the Islamic State?
We really should know . . . I mean, on Memorial Day and all.
President Barack Obama claims he has the constitutional power to engage militarily against the Islamic State under Congress’s 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). A number of legal scholars vehemently disagree. Which may be why, back in February, Obama asked for a new, anti-ISIS AUMF. Congressional Republicans balked, complaining the president’s proposed AUMF isn’t strong enough.
Of course, nothing prevents congressional Republicans from passing a stronger version.
Or better yet, demand that President Obama keep American boys and girls out of harm’s way in the always-messy Middle East.
The murderous leaders of the Islamic State may wish to be at war with us, but we don’t have to humor them. Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “Memorial Day Questions”
Why don’t you write how our leadership has carried us ar away from the dreams of the founding fathers. Dreams that worked so well for a hundred years before the progressives seduced the public and veered away from the noble cause of freedom. Today we are asked to honor those fallen inthe cause of deending our country. That may have been true once, but since the Spanish American War, the USA has been the aggressor nation and we honor those who have died as the result of the selfish ambions of a handfull of egotistical self seving would be emporers. On Memorial Day, we are now honoring the memories of those who died in vain. We aare no longer a free nation nor are our national imperatives honorable.
Agree! Impossible to listen today to the radio or TV. All the fallacious cliches are being touted as great truths. We who understand non aggression have a lot of education to do. Not much weather or news info but plenty of platitudes on how great war is and the wonderful sacrifices that have been made., David Barton went on and on, while on the Glenn Beck special show about all the lives lost in the wars. Stop and think, Yes! Lives lost. Wasted, never to live, achieve and have happiness. And in his (Barton’s) shallowness he thinks that was worthwhile. As soon as my hands were free I had to turn him off. Pardon me while I GAG.
I agree strongly with your editorial, as usual. We need to stay out of other countries problems unless we have a clear interest. We have a recurring habit of jumping into other’s fights and making them worse. have we learned anything from the mess we made in Iraq? That whole area is much worse off than if we had not invaded them. We have gone from a secular dictatorship which was not pretty, but which maintained calm and a functioning society as long as you didn’t cross the rulers to chaos, with hundreds of thousands of Iraquis and thousands of Americans killed or crippled, for what looks now like a horrible disaster for both Iraq and Syria.
“Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.”
AMEN! I would like to add one more suggestion. Since we keep hearing that we are ‘fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them over here’, can we please put a moratorium on ALL Muslim travel to the US? I realize that most Muslims don’t support ISIS but, given the horrific acts of violence by Muslim ‘refugees’ in the US, we should admit that we can’t tell the good ones from the bad ones. It should not be our responsibility to do so. Any Muslim who is fleeing chaos in his own country has dozens of other Muslim countries to choose from.
Two Middle East agendas going on. One: to destabilize stable autocracy especially and create a power vaccum for the jihadists to fill.
Two:to continue to pay lip service to the support of the dynasty ruling Saudi Arabia since their complicity with us in insisting that oil be traded in dollars is one of the main things that has kept the dollar from collapsing and postponed the collapse of our currency.
Still looks like this is a stopgap measure with nothing on the horizon addressing the unfunded liabilities of the US, currently north of $200 trillion.
With that amount of true debt guaranteeing eventual “crash and burn” of our economy ( witness Venezuela,Argentina, Weimar Republic), really hard to get politicians excited about making it happen on their watch. Historically, the public usually attributes blame to whomever is at the helm at the time and is not kind to those folks when the music stops.
Last I knew, Iran attacked our embassy in March and again in October of 1979. That is an act of war. To my knowledge they have never apologized nor made restitution. It would seem to me that any activity by Iran to extend their influence, such as by backing ISIS or Syria, should be countered by the U.S. To not do so is just an invitation to any country to attack us since we will not defend.