Archive for August, 2008
Although the Dutchess COunty weekly Troop Support Rally is the youngest of our weekly scheduled moonbat encounters, it is unique in that one of the opposition organizers is a celebrity, the folk singer and admitted communist Pete Seeger. Pete has gotten on in years and is not at the protest every week any more so it is hit or miss to catch him there.
Today was one of those days. We arrived early and had already gotten the first acclamations from passing cars (before we had even unloaded our vehicle) when two people walked up to us to ask where Pete Seeger was holding his vigil. They were told by Dennis that the anti-troop vigil would be across the street, that we were certainly NOT with that group, that we were the pro-troop pro-America group.
It turns out that they were part of a four person film crew from Holland HBO (?) filming a documentary on Pete Seeger. That ensured that Pete would have a big turnout today, probably shipping people in from out of town to boost his numbers. This has happened in the past and is a problem unique to Poughkeepsie, but the Dutchess crew likes nothing more than a challenge. Well the well-scripted moonbat coreography was to bear no fruit today. Continue Reading »
It is an honor and a privilege to present this video of the first Blue Star Mom Vice-President of the United States! God Bless Our Troops, God Bless Their Blue Star Moms and God Bless America!
Human Rights Watch issued a report yesterday which links to UN Satellite maps confirming the widespread wholesale destruction of ethnic Georgian villages inside South Ossetia.
Human Rights Watch representatives were able to report on and take some still images of the destruction being wreaked upon the Georgian villages in or near South Ossetia in Georgia. These are from last week.
Photos in and around the city of Gori (Warning: First Image is graphic)
Russian-backed paramilitaries are “ethnically cleansing” villages on Georgian soil, refugees and officials told The Times yesterday.
South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people and even murdered civilians in the lawless buffer zone set up by the Russian Army just north of Gori. The violence, close to the border with the breakaway republic recognised by Russia this week as independent, has prompted a new wave of refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tbilisi.
- “They had no uniform — I think they were Ossetians,” said Siyala Sereteli, 73, who fled her village of Irganeteye the previous day when irregular forces arrived. Weeping, she lifted her sleeve to show a deep bruise inflicted by a blow from a rifle stock. “They took everything they wanted, even the fans. They beat up a man using sticks and a chair and then threw him in the river,” she said. Continue Reading »
Washington Post Editorial 8/28/08
A flurry of [Russian] presidential statements on Georgia mix lies with a dangerous new doctrine.
IN TIME WITH Russia’s unilateral recognition of the independence of the two Georgian provinces it invaded this month, President Dmitry Medvedev issued a statement, penned an op-ed and granted an unusual flurry of interviews. His intent was to justify Moscow’s latest provocation of the West, which has been united in condemnation — as was demonstrated yesterday by a statement by the Group of Seven industrial nations. Instead Mr. Medvedev merely revealed the dangerously arrogant and reckless mood that seems to have overtaken the Kremlin in recent weeks.
What’s striking, first of all, is the spectacle of a leading head of state making statements that not only are lies but that are easily shown to be such. Continue Reading »
From the Opinion Journal comes this excellent report out of Georgia written by Melik Kaylan, a New York based writer who often reports from Georgia.
‘Anybody who thinks that Moscow didn’t plan this invasion, that we in Georgia caused it gratuitously, is severely mistaken,” President Mikheil Saakashvili told me during a late night chat in Georgia’s presidential palace this weekend.
“Our decision to engage was made in the last second as the Russian tanks were rolling — we had no choice,” Mr. Saakashvili explained. “We took the initiative just to buy some time. We knew we were not going to win against the Russian army, but we had to do something to defend ourselves.” Continue Reading »
Yesterday I linked to part 1 of Laughing Wolf’s posting at Blackfive about the personal experiences of a Georgian emigre to the United States. Today he continues her story. Read both segments to gain a better understand of the background for Georgia’s aspirations for freedom and the price they have paid along the way.
For years we have lived in the fantasy world that our actions regarding energy production here at home were merely an environmental issue. 911 should have woken us up and paved the way for a realization that we were seriously undermining our national security and that of our allies by allowing the circumstance where oil producing nations could extort tremendous profits by manipulating supply. Those profits, in turn, could be used to fund terrorism and rebuild militaries run down through years of neglect. Worse, the producing nations could use energy as a weapon to beat their opposition into submission without firing a shot. Continue Reading »
Michael J. Totten files this report with a wealth of information about what is really happening in Georgia. Updated with Video.
TBILISI, GEORGIA – Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.
Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war. Continue Reading »
This weekend a ride that will live in legend took place. The New York based Fire Family Transport Foundation held a motorcycle ride to escort a cross of 911 steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center to the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department who responded to the crash of Flight 93 on that day of infamy. Hundreds of motorcycles gathered at the old Floyd Bennet Airfield in Brooklyn and formed up for the morning launch of their escort duty. At 7am they rode out onto the Belt Parkway and started their long pilgrimage to another place where heroes died that day.
My brother, a member of the Fire Riders, and his friend made that trek and remarked that he never saw anything like the turnout along the way. Every bridge over the Belt Parkway had fire rigs and spectators crowding to catch a glimpse of the cross and to watch the long rumbling stream of bikes as they passed beneath.
When they reached the long sweeping shore of Gravesend Bay leading to the Verrazano Bridge the venerable FDNY Fireboat Firefighter stood to about 1,000 feet offshore with all its water cannons blasting streams of red, white and blue water high into the air. Continue Reading »
Gathering of Eagles: NY 