Another 9-11: Vigilance or Venality

Another 9-11: Vigilance or Venality?

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

September 9, 2015

Another September 11 is upon us and while the memories fade farther into the sunset, the United States finds itself in a more perilous predicament than on that fateful sunny Tuesday morning in 2001. On that date radical Muslim terrorists flew planes into both towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon in Arlington, VA, and into a field in Shanksville, PA headed for Washington, DC murdering nearly 3,000 innocent people.

Since that date there have been thousands of terrorist attacks committed by Muslim extremists, punctuated by those in London, Madrid, Bali, and Benghazi, yet more and more people in the government of the United States can’t bring themselves to utter the words Islamic extremists, radical Muslims, or any other form of accurate verbiage describing the myriad acts perpetrated by a people hell bent on the destruction of Israel, the United States, and Western Civilization.

Since that date al-Qaeda continues to flex its muscles, as have Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, and if those terror organizations aren’t enough of a threat, ISIS or ISIL is demonstrative of new and improved ways to torture, murder, and destroy. This is the same ISIS Barack Obama ignorantly and lightly dismissed as a “JV team.” Well, Mr. Obama, that so-called JV team is committing mayhem and chaos on a major league scale with headless Christian, Jewish, and even Muslim bodies strewn across the countryside of far too many locales.

And while terror is on the rise, the United States is under the thumb of a narcissistic so-called leader who has drawn down the size of military – a military that should be the largest on the planet to remind the world of Ronald Reagan’s call for “peace through strength.” Instead, there is the feckless call for “leading from behind,” a deleterious theory only putting the United States in greater jeopardy.

The United States lacks vigilance both abroad and on the domestic front. The bridge connecting the two is the lack of a strong policy regarding immigration – both legal and illegal. Sleeper cells are awakening in the United States, many of which are populated not just by illegal aliens slipping across the southern border, but countless thousands overstaying visas – visas legally obtained due to a pathetic system too afraid to tell people from enemy nations they are not permitted entry into this country.

For more on the insane situation that is the ongoing spate of illegal aliens, please read the following:

http://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2015/07/san-francisco-is-no-treat.html

http://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2015/02/fund-homeland-security-not-illegals.html

http://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2014/12/illegal-still-means-breaking-law.html

http://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2014/06/what-southern-border.html

(Once a flat or fair tax system is enacted to replace the mess that is the IRS, the money saved by eliminating those jobs can be used to hire more people to make more sound judgment regarding who should be allowed entry into the United States and be able to follow up on all visas prior to expiration.) A strict immigration policy must not only be enacted, but adhered to with harsh penalties. The United States may be a land of immigrants, and have an open door, but the United States must no longer be the doormat of the world.

A nation of political correctness in government, the public square, and the public schools is destroying itself from within faster than we can save it. More and more people are thinking it is acceptable to have fewer freedoms and more censorship in media and everyday language – especially in the halls of academia.

Places like at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, where Deepa Kumar, a professor of media studies, born in India, has said “the United States is more brutal than ISIS.” Kumar was the leading proponent against having former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the commencement speaker at Rutgers, who kow-towed to Kumar and her ilk. Apparently liberal tolerance stops with conservatives permitted to speak at a public university.

This will only weaken the United States. The answer to speech with which one disagrees, is not less speech, but more speech. The preservation of the First Amendment to the Constitution is imperative for the preservation of the American way of life. We are not China, Cuba, Iran, or Russia.

It is the left in the United States seeking to shrink the First Amendment, shrink the military, eliminate the Second Amendment, and pray the police, which they march in protest against, will protect us while they call for more police firings or even deaths. I should backtrack, I said the left would “pray the police…” – how silly, the left doesn’t pray – it is their lack of prayer that allowed for condoms in the schools, abortion on demand, but mention G-d anywhere, and there is holy hell to pay.

The recent Planned Parenthood expose detailing their selling of baby body parts is as barbaric as the terrorist activities overseas. For more on that issue, please see: http://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2015/07/planned-parenthood-americas-isis.html.

The United States is aiding in its own downfall. Terrorists and illegals are using our own laws against us and the United States is a laughing stock with the so-called feminist movement crying over insignificant issues while a genuine war on women is being perpetrated overseas on a mass scale. While a handful of women want to parade around topless and call it an injustice that they can’t, a real war on women exists in Muslim countries where rape victims are stoned to death under the charge of adultery.

And the supposed “champion” of women’s issues, one Hillary Clinton is raking in millions for the Clinton Foundation from countries whose treatment of women is abysmal at best, but hypocrite Hillary talks out of both sides of her mouth – telling potential voters she is for women, yet delivering speeches and profiting from Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

This is the same Hillary Clinton who has endorsed and supports the Obama deal with Iran that will allow them unfettered access to the materials to build nuclear weaponry, with virtually no true inspection systems in place, and with cash in the pockets of the Iranian despotic regime to the tune of $150 billion. This is the worst foreign policy deal in the world since Munich in 1938. Obama has done his best impression of Neville Chamberlain. For more on the disastrous Iran deal, please see: http://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2015/08/schumer-must-whip-up-minyan.html.

There is no unity opposing a deal so weak one must wonder if those supporting it have forgotten the severity of September 11, 2001. While Iran was not the perpetrator behind the devastation that shocked the world 14 years ago, it vows to execute damage infinitely worse once it becomes a nuclear power, the keys to which are being handed to them by the Obama administration. Without nuclear power Iran is already the chief state sponsor of terror funding terrorist activities in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

So venal are the supporters of this deal, they put party over country, and legacy over security. For all of its faults and foibles, the United States is still the greatest country in the world. People are forever attempting to make this country their home, not escape it. It is incumbent upon the decent citizens of the United States to strengthen our resolve to ensure the future of this nation is one where people are free to speak their minds without fear of retribution, where the rule of law is respected, where an American education actually benefits its recipients in the competitive real world of law, medicine, technology, communications, engineering, architecture, literature, and education itself.

We are at a crossroads in the United States. It is time to take back our country before it becomes another Sodom and Gomorrah. Let not the sacrifice of those who died making the United States what it once was be lost, and let not those 2,977 souls who perished on September 11, 2001 have died in vain.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living on Westfield, IN. On September 11, 2001 he was working for a newspaper in Northern Virginia and was 10 minutes from the Pentagon on that fateful day.

Peace through Strength? Not on Obama's Watch

Peace through Strength? Not on Obama’s Watch
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
September 12, 2012

Continuing its weak and embarrassing dogma of apology and supplication, the Obama administration has once again proven feckless in its ability to properly handle a crisis – this time a foreign policy crisis that saw two embassies attacked and four Americans murdered, including one ambassador.

And yet, while bereft of any cogent demonstration of strength or backbone, it was Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney who was assailed by the so-called mainstream media for being too quick to condemn and criticize.

A little seen video, with no link to the American government, containing ridicule of Islam’s prophet Mohammad was the impetus to the violence and murders that occurred in Egypt and Libya.

That the carnage took place on September 11 is certainly no coincidence – adding to the angst of the commemoration of the most horrific day of terror on American soil in 2001 when the World Trade Center twin towers were destroyed, the Pentagon in Arlington, VA attacked, and a plane diverted from Washington to crash in a field in Shanksville, PA, where roughly 3,000 innocents were murdered. Yet, Obama called the attacks “shocking.”

While the mocking of any legitimate religious figure is inappropriate and distasteful, there is still a little something called the First Amendment to the United States Constitution providing that: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” This amendment was not defended or supported by the Obama administration in the language used by the American embassy in Cairo.

The initial statement from the embassy condemned “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims, as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

As violence erupted at the American embassy in Cairo, radical Muslims tore down, shredded and burned the American flag, replacing it with the black banner representing Muslim extremism. This included chants of “Obama, we are here to sacrifice for Osama.” This was followed by statements from the embassy supporting the previous call to not offend the religious sensibilities of Muslims, all the while; Muslims are attacking the American embassy.

Over in Benghazi, Libya, the American embassy was also invaded by radical Muslims who murdered US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, 52, a native of California and a 20-plus year Foreign Service veteran, along with three other Americans.

While the administration continued its cow-towing to the attacking and murdering Muslims, GOP nominee Romney rightfully criticized Obama’s weakness and condemned the attacks on the embassy as well as the murders of Ambassador Stevens and the other three Americans.

Romney exhibited strength and presidential acumen in his condemnation of the attacks on the two embassies, the murder of four American citizens, and the fact that embassy security is the responsibility of the host country, who clearly failed to do their jobs.

To be fair, Obama absolutely condemned the attacks and declared his desire to work with the Libyan government to bring the killers to justice. That’s a nice idea, Mr. Obama, but what government? Libya, since the ousting of Moammar Gaddafi, has been a virtual anarchist state.

Making matters worse was after the initial embassy statement, the Obama administration tried to disavow itself from the apology/condemnation of free speech rights, and then hours later, the State Department supported those very words.

Instead of condemning the Obama administration, the media went after Romney during his comments for jumping the gun in his condemnation of Obama for his continued weakness and capitulation to enemies of the American people.

Romney expressed condolences to the Stevens’ family as well as the families of the other murdered diplomats. After calling the attacks “disgraceful, outrageous and disgusting,” Romney maintained his criticism of Obama.

“I think it is a terrible course for America to issue an apology for our values. An apology for America’s values is never the right course,” said Romney, adding that Obama’s foreign policy has been a “hit-or-miss approach” lacking consistency.

Romney continued by mentioning the three “fundamental branches” of his foreign policy: confidence in the cause with no apologies for American values; clarity in the purpose; and resolve in the might of the United States – that hopefully it is needed rarely, but when it is necessary, to be swift and use overwhelming force in the clarity of the mission.

The Obama administration more and more resembles that of the failed term of Jimmy Carter – weak economy, high unemployment and a lack of respect abroad. This, sadly, is reminiscent of the Iranian hostage crisis which put the final nail into the coffin of the Carter reelection bid in 1980.

It was no accident that on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated those very hostages were on their way home. Peace through strength was the Reagan mantra, and it worked. It restored America’s rightful place in the global community, brought confidence back home to American citizens and began to right the ship of state.

Mitt Romney may not be Ronald Reagan, but he certainly exhibited Reagan-esque qualities that will help turn around a floundering economy, restore confidence in the business community and lead through strength on the foreign stage.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

G-d, Jerusalem Booed by Democrats

G-d, Jerusalem Booed by Democrats
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
September 6, 2012

Same sex marriage and abortion on demand are in, while G-d, Jerusalem and generations of support of Israel, the United States’ only democratic ally in the Middle East, are out.

Is this your Democratic Party? It most certainly is not the party of President Harry Truman, who mere seconds after Israel’s independence was declared, officially recognized the new Jewish state.

And while the Democratic party at their convention in Charlotte walked it back a day later, the cat was out of the bag – officially declaring its antithesis toward people of faith and not having the courage to recognize what the GOP and millions of Americans of both major political parties have known for years – that Jerusalem is indeed the capital of Israel.

While most people consider reading a party platform boring or a waste of time, those who report the news should consider it an obligation to not just read, but report about for those who do not read it. Here, The Indianapolis Star failed miserably.

Not only did The Star not report the language removed from the platform on Tuesday in Wednesday’s newspaper, but they failed again to report on that same language being reinstated in the platform the very next day. A huge article on the inclusion of language sanctioning same sex marriage was front and center in Wednesday’s Star paper, but nothing about the exclusion of G-d and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the platform could be found in that day’s paper.

Likewise, the reinsertion of G-d and the language noting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was included in the Thursday’s Star paper amidst the glowing, obsequious fawning over the speech given by former President Bill Clinton.

More importantly, the manner in which the Democratic convention chairman shoved the reinstated language down the throats of their rank and file was ignored by The Star and media outlets nationwide save for Fox News.

The language removed from the Democratic platform is as follows, from its own 2008 platform:

The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist, and abides by past agreements. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient efforts and the personal commitment of the President of the United States. The creation of a Palestinian state through final status  negotiations, together with an international compensation mechanism, should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel. All understand that it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations to be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949. Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths. (www.breitbart.com)

In order for the Democratic Party platform to be amended, a two-thirds vote of approval from the delegates was required. Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland introduced the amendment with the language from the 2008 platform to be reinserted in the 2012 platform. However, the amendment did not reinsert the language demanding Hamas to renounce terrorism or even recognize Israel.

Convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for the yeas and nays via voice vote. The first time the nays were the clear majority, so a confused-looking Villaraigosa called for the vote a second time with the same results. A woman on stage with the L.A. mayor was overheard saying into the still live microphone: “You gotta let them do what they’re gonna do.”

Clearly Villaraigosa wanted no part of that and emphatically called for the vote yet a third time with the overwhelming majority still in opposition to the reinsertion of G-d, Jerusalem and the Israel language to the platform.

A stunned and flummoxed Villaraigosa looked around the convention hall, then read from the teleprompter this already loaded statement: “In the opinion of the chair two-thirds having voted in the affirmative, the motion is adopted and the platform has been amended as shown on the screen.”

The already charged up convention floor became even more obstreperous, vociferously booing the insertion of G-d, Jerusalem and the language supporting Israel. Delegates holding their Arab-American Democrat signs and atheists were up in arms. This was a major error by the Democratic Party, not just the removal of the language, but not knowing the beliefs of a clear majority of its rank and file as the showed their true colors.

This entire menagerie of errors making the Democratic Party look foolish was aptly summed up by Democratic pundit Paul Begala calling the incident “beyond awkward, embarrassing, and stupid.”

This is not the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Scoop Jackson or Joe Lieberman. The media has a responsibility to inform the public of the news – whether it agrees with the story or not. The media has a responsibility to report the news fairly, accurately, and objectively. Clearly that has not been the case on a national level or here at home in Indiana.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.