Monday - April 30, 2007

On This Day In History

April 30, 1975

Thirty-two years ago today, the Democratic Party in the United States watched as the their efforts to lose the Vietnam War and throw that country to the wolves finally reached fruition. Saigon fell ... and the purges and mass murders began. The violence spread to Cambodia and Laos and before long Southeast Asia became a bone yard filled with corpses and broken promises.

It was a Democratic President, Kennedy, who began the bloodbath by replacing advisors with troops on the ground. It was another Democratic President, Johnson, who ratcheted the war up to a point where over 50,000 American soldiers were killed. Finally, when a Republican President, Nixon, started to bring the war to a close and prop up the South Vietnamese government to allow them to continue the fight - the Democrat-controlled Congress cut him off at the knees, first with Watergate and subsequent distractions and finally by just flat-out denying any aid to South Vietnam.

After that final act of cowardice by the Democrats, the fall of South Vietnam was inevitable and as predicted, the “Killing Fields” were beginning. Shortly after the fail of Saigon, a Democrat was elected President and during his term our present crisis in the Middle East was triggered with the fall of the Shah in Iran and the establishment of a tyrannical, religious theocracy - as well as the rise to power of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Now, as we sit here thirty-two years after the fall of Saigon, we find that we haven’t learned a damn thing. We’re still allowing the Democratic Party to get us involved in foreign wars costing billions of dollars and thousands of soldiers’ lives - and then watch them turn their mess into a political weapon by blaming the Republicans. The conflict in Iraq didn’t begin with George W. Bush. It began with Jimmy Carter. It just took a few years to all come to a head.

So now we have come full circle. Bill Clinton sat on his ass and did little or nothing to avert the current crisis. Yet, Democrats have the audacity to blame Bush for Carter’s Folly? We are now seeing the same thing in the Middle East that happened in Southeast Asia. The Democrats are gearing up to declare surrender and run away from another mess they gave birth to.

The only question left in my mind is when the NY TIMES will have a front page story about the evacuation of the American Embassy in Baghdad as Iranian tanks roll into that city to begin the purge of the Sunni population. Will Iran annex Iraq or will they just set up a puppet regime in Baghdad? How will the Saudis react to a strong Shia neighbor on their borders? What about Israel? Iran will have nukes by then if their present course holds up? Will Armageddon begin?

It may not come to all this. I’m just projecting a worst-case scenario. The point is the hypocritical, cowardly, partisan, political hacks in the Democratic Party will have done it to us again and our international credibility will be gone with the wind. Unfortunately, we are a nation with a short memory so the Democrats will just blame Bush and wait for their next chance to further destroy America. In a few years, the Democrats’ perfidy will be forgotten and drowned out by constant repetition of “It was Bush’s war” by the Left.

No one today remembers January 16, 1979 and what began with a flight out of Teheran of a single airplane carrying a passenger who had been our ally for decades and who was refused asylum in the US by President Carter and who eventually died in Egypt. No one remembers the Fall Of Teheran and the domino effect that caused in the region. No one except Democrats, that is. On that day, the cycle began that would eventually bring us to another “Vietnam Moment” for the Party Of Treason.

If the Iraqi people would only look at what happened on this day in history thirty-two years ago, they might be inclined to work a little harder to get their act together before the Democrats in America stick a knife in their backs. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Over and over and over and ....

Saigon, South Vietnam (NY TIMES) - April 30, 1975 - Communist troops of North Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam poured into Saigon today as a century of Western influences came to an end.

Scores of North Vietnamese tanks, armored vehicles and camouflaged Chinese built trucks rolled to the presidential palace.

The President of the former non-Communist Government of South Vietnam, Gen. Duong Van Minh, who had gone on radio and television to announce his administration’s surrender, was taken to a microphone later by North Vietnamese soldiers for another announcement. He appealed to all Saigon troops to lay down their arms and was taken by the North Vietnamese soldiers to an undisclosed destination.

[Soon after, the Saigon radio fell silent, normal telephone and telegraph communications ceased and The Associated Press said its sire link to the capital was lost at 7 P.M., Wednesday, Saigon time (7 A.M. Wednesday, New York time).

[In Paris, representatives of the Provisional Revolutionary Government announced that Saigon had been renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honor of the late President of North Vietnam. Other representatives said in a broadcast monitored in Thailand that former Government forces in eight provinces south of the capital had not yet surrendered, but no fighting was mentioned.]

The transfer of power was symbolized by the raising of the flag of the National Liberation Front over the presidential palace at 12:15 P.M. today, about two hours after General Minh’s surrender broadcast.

Hundreds of Saigon residents cheered and applauded as North Vietnamese military vehicles moved to the palace grounds from which the war against the Communists had been directed by President Nguyen Van Thieu, who resigned April 21, and by President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was killed in a coup in 1963.

Broadcasting today in the early hours of the Communist take-over, the Provisional Revolutionary Government’s representatives said:

“We representatives of the liberation forces of Saigon formally proclaim that Saigon had been totally liberated. We accept the unconditional surrender of Gen. Duong Van Minh, President of the former Government.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/30/2007 at 09:13 AM   
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   Sunday - April 15, 2007

On This Day In History

Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg; 866 Rescued By Carpathia,
Probably 1,250 Perish; Ismay Safe, Mrs. Astor Maybe, Noted Names Missing
(NEW YORK TIMES) - April 15, 1912

CAPE RACE, N.F., April 15.—The White Star liner Olympic reports by wireless this evening that the Cunarder Carpathia reached, at daybreak this morning, the position from which wireless calls for help were sent out last night by the Titanic after her collision with an iceberg. The Carpathia found only the lifeboats and the wreckage of what had been the biggest steamship afloat.

The Titanic had foundered at about 2:20 A.M., in latitude 41:46 north and longitude 50:14 west. This is about 30 minutes of latitude, or about 34 miles, due south of the position at which she struck the iceberg. All her boats are accounted for and about 655 souls have been saved of the crew and passengers, most of the latter presumably women and children. There were about 1,200 persons aboard the Titanic.

The Leyland liner California is remaining and searching the position of the disaster, while the Carpathia is returning to New York with the survivors. It can be positively stated that up to 11 o’clock to-night nothing whatever had been received at or heard by the Marconi station here to the effect that the Parisian, Virginian or any other ships had picked up any survivors, other than those picked up by the Carpathia.

The first news of the disaster to the Titanic was received by the Marconi wireless station here at 10:25 o’clock last night (as told in yesterday’s New York Times.) The Titanic was first heard giving the distress signal “C. Q. D.,” which was answered by a number of ships, including the Carpathia, the Baltic and the Olympic. The Titanic said she had struck an iceberg and was in immediate need of assistance, giving her position as latitude 41:46 north and longitude 50:14 west.

At 10:55 o’clock the Titanic reported she was sinking by the head, and at 11:25 o’clock the station here established communication with the Allan liner Virginian, from Halifax to Liverpool, and notified her of the Titanic’s urgent need of assistance and gave her the Titanic’s position. The Virginian advised the Marconi station almost immediately that she was proceeding toward the scene of the disaster.

At 11:36 o’clock the Titanic informed the Olympic that they were putting the women off in boats and instructed the Olympic to have her boats read to transfer the passangers. The Titanic, during all this time, continued to give distress signals and to announce her position. The wireless operator seemed absolutely cool and clear-headed, his sending throughout being steady and perfectly formed, and the judgment used by him was of the best. The last signals heard from the Titanic were received at 12:27 A.M., when the Virginian reported having heard a few blurred signals which ended abruptly.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/15/2007 at 11:51 AM   
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   Friday - March 30, 2007

On This Day In History

I don’t mean to alarm anyone or get the Bush-haters all excited but there seems to be something about Presidents and past history that everyone is overlooking ....

Washington, March 30, 1981 (NY TIMES) - President Reagan was shot in the chest today by a gunman, apparently acting alone, as Mr. Reagan walked to his limousine after addressing a labor meeting at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The White House press secretary and two law-enforcement officers were also wounded by a burst of shots.

The President was reported in ‘’good’’ and ‘’stable’’ condition tonight at George Washington University Hospital after undergoing two hours of surgery. ‘’The prognosis is excellent,’’ said Dr. Dennis S. O’Leary, dean of clinical affairs at the university. ‘’He is alert and should be able to make decisions by tomorrow.’’

The hospital spokesman said surgeons removed a .22-caliber bullet that struck Mr. Reagan’s seventh rib, penetrating the left lung three inches and collapsing it.

A rapid series of five or six shots rang out at about 2:30 P.M. as Mr. Reagan left the hotel. A look of stunned disbelief swept across the President’s face when the shots were fired just after he raised his left arm to wave to the crowd. Nearby, his press secretary, James S. Brady, fell to the sidewalk, critically wounded.

Eyewitnesses said six shots were fired at the Presidential entourage from a distance of about 10 feet. The assailant had positioned himself among the television camera crews and reporters assembled outside a hotel exit.

The authorities arrested a 25-year-old Colorado man, John W. Hinckley Jr., at the scene of the attack. He was later booked on Federal charges of attempting to assassinate the President and assault on a Federal officer.

Within minutes, Americans were witnessing for the second time in a generation television pictures of a chief executive being struck by gunfire during what appeared to be a routine public appearance. For the second time in less than 20 years, too, they watched as the nation’s leaders scrambled to meet one of the sternest tests of the democratic system.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/30/2007 at 09:32 AM   
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   Thursday - March 22, 2007

300

I went and saw 300 last night.  Since I had read some reviews, I was expecting a bloodfest, and boy did I get it!  To be honest, I did not get the same emotional high as I did with movies like Braveheart, The Patriot and Gladiator, but it was a fun film nonetheless.  It was based on a comic book Graphic Novel after all.

Well, apparently there has been no small amount of the vapors because it is not historically accurate.  Did I mention it was based on a comic book Graphic Novel?

Victor Davis Hanson speaks to this in his latest article.

‘300’—Fact or Fiction?
Crowds are flocking to see the film “300” about the ancient Spartans’ last stand at the pass at Thermopylae against an invading Persian army. Yet many critics, in panning “300,” have alleged that the film is essentially historically inaccurate. Are they right?

Here are some answers. But first two qualifiers. I wrote an introduction to a book about the making of “300” after being shown a rough cut of the movie in October. And, second, remember that “300” does not claim to follow exactly ancient accounts of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Instead, it is an impressionistic take on a graphic novel by Frank Miller, intended to entertain and shock first, and instruct second.

Posted by Mr. Christian     on 03/22/2007 at 12:50 PM   
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   Monday - February 26, 2007

On This Day In History

The Clinton administration had eight years to determine who was trying to destroy the World Trade Center and forestall another attack. For eight full years US intelligence sat on its hands and did nothing while Al-Qaeda plotted and planned and Osama Bin Laden trained operatives and collected funds for the second attack that took place on September 11, 2001 ... an attack that destroyed the World Trade Center for good and cost the lives of 3,000 Americans. 

On 9/11, President George W. Bush had been in office only nine months yet several in the mainstream media and on the Left politically, blamed him for not preventing the attack. The same people are even now protesting the pre-emptive strike in Iraq to remove another madman from power and reduce the threat of further attacks from the Middle East.

How much warning do we need before we realize these people want to kill us? If we withdraw prematurely from Iraq and allow the Taliban to resume control of Afghanistan, as some would have us do, how many Americans will die in the next attack? All I can say is that if even one American dies, I will never forget the names of the liberals, peaceniks, leftist politicians and others who caused it. You can take that to the bank ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/26/2007 at 12:23 PM   
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   Sunday - January 28, 2007

On This Day

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/28/2007 at 02:02 AM   
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   Monday - January 22, 2007

On This Day In History

Roe v. Wade: High Court Rules Abortions Legal the First 3 Months
_{(NEW YORK TIMES) - January 22, 1973}

The Supreme Court overruled today all state laws that prohibit or restrict a woman’s right to obtain an abortion during her first three months of pregnancy. The vote was 7 to 2.

In a historic resolution of a fiercely controversial issue, the Court drafted a new set of national guidelines that will result in broadly liberalized anti-abortion laws in 46 states but will not abolish restrictions altogether.

Establishing an unusually detailed timetable for the relative legal rights of pregnant women and the states that would control their acts, the majority specified the following:

For the first three months of pregnancy the decision to have an abortion lies with the woman and her doctor; and the state’s interest in her welfare is not “compelling” enough to warrant any interference.

For the next six months of pregnancy a state may “regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health,” such as licensing and regulating the persons and facilities involved.

For the last 10 weeks of pregnancy, the period during which the fetus is judged to be capable of surviving if born, any state may prohibit abortions if it wishes, except where they may be necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

Today’s action will not affect existing laws in New York, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, where abortions are now legally available in the early months of pregnancy. But it will require rewriting of statutes in every other state.

The basic Texas case decided by the Court today will invalidate strict anti-abortion laws in 31 states; a second decision involving Georgia will require considerable rewriting of more liberal statutes in 15 others.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote the majority opinion in which Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justices William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan Jr., Potter Stewart, Thurgood Marshall and Lewis F. Powell Jr. joined. Dissenting were Justices Byron R. White and William H. Rehnquist.

Justice White, calling the decision “an exercise of raw judicial power,” wrote that “the court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life which she carries.”

The Court’s decision was at odds with the expressed views of President Nixon. Last May, in a letter to Cardinal Cooke, he opposed “liberalized abortion policies” and spoke out for “the right to life of literally hundreds of thousands of unborn children.”

But three of the four Justices Mr. Nixon has appointed to the Supreme Court voted with the majority, with only Mr. Rehnquist dissenting. The majority rejected the idea that a fetus becomes a “person” upon conception and is thus entitled to the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Constitution. This view was pressed by opponents of liberalized abortion, including the Roman Catholic Church.

Justice Blackmun concluded that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the 14th Amendment, does not include the unborn,” although states may acquire, “at some point in time” of pregnancy, an interest in the “potential human life” that the fetus represents, to permit regulation.

It is that interest, the Court said, that permits states to prohibit abortion during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy, after the fetus has developed the capacity to survive.

In both cases decided today, the plaintiffs had based their protest on an assertion that state laws limiting the availability of abortion had circumscribed rights and freedoms guaranteed them by the Constitution: due process of law, equal protection of the laws, freedom of action and a particular privacy involving a personal and family matter.

In its decision on the challenge to the Georgia abortion law, the high court majority struck down several requirements that a woman seeking to terminate her pregnancy in that state would have to meet.

Both of today’s cases wound up with anonymous parties wining victories over state officials. In the Texas case, “Jane Roe,” an unmarried pregnant woman who was allowed to bring the case without further identity, was the only plaintiff after the Supreme Court disqualified a doctor and a childless couple who said that the wife’s health would be endangered by pregnancy.

In the Georgia case, the surviving plaintiff was “Mary Doe,” who, when she brought the action, was a 22-year-old married woman 11 weeks pregnant with her fourth child.

Today: The following graph is from: “Roe v. Wade: The divided states of America” (USA TODAY) - April 17, 2006

The procedure was recently banned in 2003 when the House and Senate passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (Public Law 108-105, HR 760, S 3) and was signed into law by President Bush.

In 2005, Norma McCorvey, who was the “Jane Roe” who challenged the Texas anti-abortion law in the famous case, appeared on “Hannity & Colmes” and described how she had become a born-again Christian and was working to pressure the Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision. In recent years, she has become a outspoken opponent of abortion, arguing that the procedure may harm women and goes against Christian teachings.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/22/2007 at 08:11 AM   
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   Saturday - January 20, 2007

On This Day In History

The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis lasting from November 4, 1979 until January 20, 1981. The situation involved members of the “Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line,” student proxies of the new Iranian regime, holding 63 diplomats and 3 additional US citizens hostage inside the American Diplomatic mission in Tehran, Iran.

The captors released several captives, leaving 52 hostages at the conclusion of the crisis. During the crisis the United States attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw. The operation failed and resulted in the deaths of eight US soldiers. Some historians argue that the crisis was one of the primary reasons for U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s loss in the US Presidential Election of 1980.

The crisis reached its conclusion with the signing of the Algiers Accords, and on January 20, 1981, twenty minutes after the newly elected President Reagan’s inaugural address, the hostages were formally released into U.S. custody after having spent 444 days in captivity.

The death of the Shah on July 27, 1980 and the invasion of Iran by Iraq in September 1980 made Iran more receptive to the idea of resolving the hostage crisis. In the U.S., Carter lost the November 1980 presidential election in a landslide to Ronald Reagan. Shortly after the election, but before the inauguration of President Reagan, the Carter administration, with the assistance of intermediaries such as Algerian diplomat Abdulkarim Ghuraib, opened fruitful, but demeaning, negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. This resulted in the “Algiers Accords” of January 19, 1981, which entailed Iran’s commitment to free the hostages immediately.

Point I of the accord: Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs was essential to the Algiers Accords, and was reportedly considered a non-negotiable requirement by Iran. The Carter Administration reluctantly conceded Point I, which read, “The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.”

Other provisions of the Algiers Accords were the unfreezing of $8 billion of Iranian assets and immunity from lawsuits Iran might have faced. On January 20, 1981, twenty minutes after President Reagan’s inaugural address, the hostages were formally released into U.S. custody, having spent 444 days in captivity. The hostages were flown to Algeria as a symbolic gesture for the help of that government in resolving the crisis, where former President Carter, acting as an emissary for the Reagan administration, received them. The flight continued to Rhein-Main Air Base in West Germany. After medical check-ups and debriefings, they took a second flight to Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh, N.Y. and a bus ride to the United States Military Academy, receiving a hero’s welcome all along the route. Ten days after their release, the former hostages were given a ticker tape parade through the Canyon of Heroes in New York City.

The Washington Post reported that many Europeans and leaders around the world thought that Reagan was “a cowboy” and “scary.” Carter’s campaign implied that Reagan was “a trigger happy cowboy.” The Iranian hostage-takers in particular reported being unsure of what Reagan would do. Iranian uncertainty about Reagan’s plans may have been the main motivation behind the timing of the release of the hostages. Iranian anger at Carter’s support of the Shah likely also played a part. Such complex events usually have multiple causes and multiple players, so history may find any single motivation alone insufficient to explain the timing of the end of the crisis.

-- Wikipedia, “Iran Hostage Crisis”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2007 at 01:49 PM   
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   Monday - December 25, 2006

On This Day In History

December 25, 1991 - Moscow

Gorbachev, Last Soviet Leader, Resigns;
U.S. Recognizes Republics’ Independence

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the trailblazer of the Soviet Union’s retreat from the cold war and the spark for the democratic reforms that ended 70 years of Communist tyranny, told a weary, anxious nation tonight that he was resigning as President and closing out the union.

‘I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,’ declared the 60-year-old politician, the last leader of a totalitarian empire that was undone across the six years and nine months of his stewardship.

Mr. Gorbachev made no attempt in his brief, leanly worded television address to mask his bitter regret and concern at being forced from office by the creation of the new Commonwealth of Independent States, composed of 11 former republics of the collapsed Soviet empire under the informal lead of President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia. Within hours of Mr. Gorbachev’s resignation, Western and other nations began recognition of Russia and the other former republics.

‘We’re now living in a new world,’ Mr. Gorbachev declared in recognizing the rich history of his tenure. ‘An end has been put to the cold war and to the arms race, as well as to the mad militarization of the country, which has crippled our economy, public attitudes and morals. The threat of nuclear war has been removed.’

Mr. Gorbachev’s moment of farewell was stark. Kremlin guards were preparing to lower the red union flag for the last time. In minutes, Mr. Gorbachev would sign over the nuclear missile launching codes for safeguarding to Mr. Yeltsin, his rival and successor as the dominant politician of this agonized land.

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/25/2006 at 01:37 PM   
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   Sunday - December 17, 2006

TV Alert

Now that Dan Rather has been given the boot and Mike Wallace’s brain finally turned into peanut butter, it may be safe to watch 60 Minutes again. I don’t know for sure but I’ll watch it tonight and see for myself although I haven’t watched SEE-BS’s weekly news magazine in over twenty years.

I’m going to watch tonight (and maybe even record it) because of one particular segment that might prove to be interesting if for no other reason than the fact that it covers 50 million pages of meticulous documentation the Nazis kept on those they murdered in the Holocaust.

These documents have been sealed and inaccessible to the public for over 60 years. They are finally being made available for viewing at a most propitious occasion with Iran currently hosting it’s convention of Holocaust-deniers.

Not that President Ahmawhackjob will watch the show or ever look at any of the documents. He is too busy building nuclear weapons to be concerned with the facts of history ... especially those facts that prove the IslamoNazis’ goal of “wiping Israel off the face of the Earth” is nothing new.

The only difference is Hitler had to chase down the Jews, homosexuals and gypsies all across Europe while “Whacky” and his fellow travelers in the Religion Of Piss have the Jews bottled up in one tiny plot of land.

There is one other minor difference that the IslamoNazis need to keep in mind ... I’d bet a ton of money that this time the Jews won’t be led to the slaughter and if Israel is indeed destroyed they won’t go down without a fight.

I’d also bet that Teheran, Damascus, Medina, Mecca, Cairo, Amman, Tripoli and a few other cities might be reduced to smoking, melted sand that glows in the dark for centuries to come. Come to think of it, I’d be perfectly willing to push the button myself.

Never again ...

Revisiting The Horrors Of The Holocaust
Millions Of Nazi Documents Are Being Made Available To The Public

When: Sunday, December 17 - 7:00PM ET/PT (CBS)

One man holds his fate in his hands: a list of inmates — his name among them, but crossed off — who were sent to a notorious slave labor camp few ever emerged from. Another holds the very card he signed as a teenager upon his entry to a concentration camp.

A third sees a form the Nazis created to track the mail he never received in Buchenwald because the rest of his family had already been murdered at Auschwitz. All three Holocaust survivors are viewing for the first time the records the Nazis meticulously kept on them and 17 million other victims of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Their stories and other revelations from the secret archives previously closed for 60 years are part of correspondent Scott Pelley’s report, this Sunday, Dec. 17, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on 60 Minutes.

Seized when Germany fell to the Allies in 1945, the documents were deposited in an archive in the German city of Bad Arolsen and have been tightly controlled for privacy reasons ever since. Sitting on 16 miles of shelving, they number 50 million pages covering 17.5 million victims, not only Jews but also millions of slave laborers, political prisoners, homosexuals and Roma. They reveal the horrible: For 90 minutes on Hitler’s birthday, a prisoner was shot every two minutes as a gift to the Führer. They tell the mundane: Lice on prisoners were counted and classified as small, medium and large.

They contain a few familiar names, Anne Frank, for one, and a famous list, the one belonging to factory owner Oskar Schindler, who put prisoners’ names on his list to save them from death. Both stories were immortalized in literature and film. But the records mainly hold the names of millions of unknown victims, some of whom survived to tell their stories, like Miki Schwartz, Walter Feiden and Jack Rosenthal. 60 Minutes was able to secure a private viewing of the records for these three men before they are made more accessible within a year.

The documents were quite a revelation, and Schwartz says he was glad he saw them. He also has a message for people who doubt the horrors he went through, especially the Holocaust deniers whose convention just ended in Iran. “Those people who said the Holocaust didn’t happen, like the president of Iran, if they have any questions about it, please come to Bad Arolsen and check it out for themselves,” says Schwartz.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/17/2006 at 12:35 PM   
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   Thursday - December 07, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“USS Arizona Memorial”
_{(Click image for larger 1600x1200 image in popup window)}

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/07/2006 at 05:45 PM   
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   Wednesday - November 29, 2006

On This Day In History

¹ IN THE BEGINNING, there was chaos, sand and camels. And the United Nations said “LET THERE BE A PARTITION”. And lo, the Jews were to be separated from the Arabs and each would govern his own and peace would be created in the region.

² But on the next day, Satan approached the Arabs and said unto them “Why settle for half when you can have all? I will show you how.” And Satan enjoined the Arabs living in the region to wait until the dark of night and then leave their homes and hide in the desert while the warriors of the surrounding Arab nations crushed the sons of Abraham.

³ It was to come to pass that the evil plan was destined to fail for the twelve tribes of Judea had been warned by an angel of the Lord and were prepared for the Arab invaders who were sorely beaten and even thrashed by the hand of God on the next day.

⁴ And when the dust of the conflagration had settled the Arab armies were smashed and the Arabs who had livedd in the region were forced to flee and condemned to wander the Earth in poverty and shame as their Arab brethren turned their backs on them and refused them succor.

⁵ From that day forward, the desert bloomed with gardens and the sons of Abraham were fruitful in the land God had promised them in the Covenant.

⁶ But after time the United Nations became known to the world as a useless, corrupt and ineffectual entity and the Arabs licked their wounds and plotted secretly to destroy that land which God had summoned His people to.

ASSEMBLY VOTES PALESTINE PARTITION; MARGIN IS 33 TO 13;
ARABS WALK OUT; ARANHA HAILS WORK AS SESSION ENDS
(NEW YORK TIMES) - November 29, 1947

The United Nations General Assembly approved yesterday a proposal to partition Palestine into two states, one Arab and the other Jewish, that are to become fully independent by Oct.1. The vote was 33 to 13 with two abstentions and one delegation, the Siamese, absent.

The decision was primarily a result of the fact that the delegations of the United States and the Soviet Union, which were at loggerheads on every other important issue before the Assembly, stood together on partition. Andrei A. Gromyko and Herschel V. Johnson both urged the Assembly yesterday not to agree to further delay but to vote for partition at once.

The Assembly disregarded last minute Arab efforts to effect a compromise. Although the votes of a dozen or more delegations see-sawed to the last, supporters of partition had two votes more than the required two-thirds majority, or a margin of three.

The roll-call vote was as follows: For (33) - Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, South Africa, Uruguay, the Soviet Union, the United States, Venezuela, White Russia.

Against (13) - Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.

Abstentions (10) - Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia.

Absent (1) - Siam.

All other questions before the Assembly were disposed of a week ago, and it ended its second regular session at 6:57 P.M. after farewell speeches by Dr. Oswaldo Aranha, its President, and Trygve Lie, the Secretary General. The Assembly’s third regular session is to open in a European capital on Sept. 21.

The vote on partition was taken at 5:35 P. M. Representatives of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen, four of the six Arab member states, announced that they would not be bound by the Assembly’s decision and walked determinedly out of the Assembly Hall at Flushing Meadow. The Egyptian and Lebanese delegates were silent but walked out, too.

Sir Alexander Cadogan, representative of Britain, which is to terminate the League of Nations mandate over Palestine and withdraw all British troops by Aug. 1, made a brief statement after the vote. He requested the United Nations Palestine Commission to establish contact with the British Government about the date of its arrival in Palestine and the coordination of its plans with the withdrawal of British troops.

The United Nations commission which will be responsible to the Security Council in the event that the Arabs carry out their threats to fight rather than agree to partition, will be composed of representatives of Bolivia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Panama and the Philippines.

This state, which is understood to have the backing of the United States, was proposed by Dr. Aranha and approved without opposition after the Arab delegates had walked out.

The commission, as proposed by the partition subcommittee, of the Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, was to have been composed of Denmark, Guatemala, Iceland, Poland, and Uruguay, but the question was left to the Assembly because of United States opposition.

The Assembly, without discussion, also approved an appropriation of $2,000,000 for the expenses of the commission, which will take over authority in Palestine after the British terminate the mandate and will then transfer it to the “shadow governments” of the two states.

The walkout of the Arab delegates was taken as a clear indication that the Palestinian Arabs would have nothing to do with the Assembly’s decision. The British have emphasized repeatedly that British troops could not be used to impose a settlement not acceptable to both Jews and Arabs, and the partition plan does not provide outside military force to keep order.

Instead, it provides for the establishment of armed militia by the two nascent states to keep internal order and that any threats to peace by the neighboring Arab states are to be referred to the Security Council.

The Assembly decided Friday to take a recess of twenty-four hours to give the Arabs time to submit a comprise proposal, but this turned out to be what Mr. Johnson called a mere resurrection of the proposal for a federal Palestine, which had been recommended by a minority of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.

The resolution to return the entire question to the Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, introduced by Mostafa Adl, the representative of Iran, would furthermore have directed the committee to take into account the last-minute Arab proposal.

A simple procedural resolution returning the question to the committee would have had precedence over the partition proposal, but Dr. Aranha, after considerable reflection, ruled that the extraneous provisions barred it from being treated as a procedural motion and that it could not be voted on until after the Assembly’s decision on partition.

Camille Chamoun, the Lebanese representative, tried to meet Dr. Aranha’s ruling by demanding that the committee vote first on the eleven principles on the future government of Palestine, which had been approved unanimously by the Special Committee on Palestine last summer.

Mr. Chamoun remarked that the resolution before the Assembly did not mention these principles, but Dr. Aranha replied that they were covered by the plan substituted by the Palestine committee, to which the Assembly’s resolution will give effect, and rejected the final Arab attempt to postpone a decision.

Dr. Alfonso Lopez, the Colombian representative, who on Friday had submitted a complicated proposal that, among other things, would have returned the question to the committee, had arranged with another delegate to make a simple proposal to recommit. However, the delegate, sensing the mood of the Assembly, remained silent and Dr. Aranha called for the decisive vote.

The United States delegation played its part in persuading the delegate in question not to present the motion for recommittal, and supporters of partition agreed that, after long hesitation, it had sincerely done its best to obtain Assembly approval of partition.

It was still difficult to account for the fact that Greece, which otherwise followed United States leadership throughout the long Assembly, voted against partition and that some Latin American countries abstained.

Britain, which brought the Palestine question before the Assembly last March, abstained on all votes in the Palestine committee and in poling on the issue in the Assembly.

It was expected that had the Assembly failed to reach a decision the United States would have asked Britain to stay on in Palestine. Sir Alexander’s statement after the decision was taken was welcomed as being more cooperative than previous ones. It was generally expected that the United States and Britain would now agree on a working arrangement to facilitate the commission’s work.

The Arab delegates, particularly after the vote, referred bitterly to the “heavy pressure” exerted on other delegations. Other delegates interpreted these complaints as attacks on the United States.

The Syrian representatives led this attack. Faris el-Khoury, in a statement before the vote, charged that the proportion of Jews to the rest of the population in the United States was 1 to 30. Jews were trying to “intimidate the United Nations ... and hiss the speakers here,” which, he said was “proof that they are dominating here.”

This assertion drew hisses from the gallery, and Dr. Aranha pounded his gavel for order.

A few minutes before the Assembly convened Arab spokesmen announced that they had drawn up a new six-point program in twenty-four hours of conferences. The program involved this formula:

(1) A federal independent state of Palestine shall be created not later than Aug. 1, 1949.

(2) The Government of Palestine shall be constituted on a federal basis and shall include a federal government and governments for Arab and Jewish countries.

(3) Boundaries of the cantons will be fixed so as to include a federal basis and shall include a federal government and governments for Arab and Jewish countries.

(4) The population of Palestine shall elect by universal, direct suffrage a Constituent Assembly, which shall draft the Constitution of the future federated state of Palestine. The Constituent Assembly shall be composed of all elements of the population in proportion to the number of their respective citizens.

(5) The Constituent Assembly, in defining the attributes of the federated government of Palestine as well as of its legislative and judiciary organs and the attributes of the governments of the cantons and of the relation of the governments of these cantons with the federal government, shall draw its inspiration chiefly from the principles of the Constitution of the United States as well as from the organization of laws in the states of the United States.

(6) The Constitution will provide, among other things, for protection of the holy places, liberty of access to visit the holy places and freedom of religion as well as safeguarding of the rights of religious establishments of all nationalities in Palestine.

Posted by The Skipper     on 11/29/2006 at 12:53 PM   
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   Friday - November 24, 2006

On This Day In History

I know a lot of you weren’t even born on November 24, 1963 but a lot of you have to remember .... where were you on this day in history? As for me, I was on the other side of the world (literally), fast asleep, and didn’t find out about it until the next day. I woke up to find it all over the TV news (most of which was in another language). The grim pictures told the story for me though and I started thinking conspiracy theories out the wazoo.

To this day, I still have a little bit of tinfoil-hat over my head over this one. Was it the mafia? Castro? The Soviets? Or a Republican conspiracy by George W. Bush (who was planning his White House run even then)? Seriously, will we ever know the whole truth? Do we want to? Have at it, team! Today is your day to have a little fun with conspiracy theories. What do you think really happened ... ?

At 12:20 p.m., in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

On November 22, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy’s murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.

Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found him guilty of the “murder with malice” of Oswald and sentenced him to die.

In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.

The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

-- The History Channel

Posted by The Skipper     on 11/24/2006 at 12:27 PM   
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   Sunday - November 19, 2006

On This Day In History

In the three days in July that the battle of Gettysburg raged during the Civil War, there were nearly 60,000 casualties. Lincoln took time out in late November to dedicate the field in Pennsylvania where so many sacrificed their lives in defense of liberty and the union.

It is also fitting that we take time today to remember a battle that ended in another field in Pennsylvania not more than fifty miles from Gettysburg on the morning of September 11, 2001. The 40 passengers and crew of United Flight 93 proved once again that courage, sacrifice and the defense of freedom are timeless and part of what we are - Americans. Let’s roll!

November 19, 1863 - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Posted by The Skipper     on 11/19/2006 at 06:36 PM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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