Weekend Reading

Salamander posted it, but it's worth re-posting:


An opinion on the Gitmo prisoner habeas decision worth considering here:

For the first time in our history, the Supreme Court has rejected the considered judgment of both the Congress and the president on an issue of national security. The writ of habeas corpus, a bulwark of domestic liberty, has been extended to foreign nationals whose only connection to the U.S. is their capture by our military.

Where was all the left wing screaming about "rights" when this guy was a prisoner?
As not so fondally remembered:

As the American POWs returned home in 1973, they spoke out about the inhumane treatment and torture they had suffered as prisoners of war. Their stories directly contradicted Jane Fonda's earlier statements of 1972. Some of the American POWs such as Senator John McCain, a former Presidential candidate, stated that he was tortured by his guards for refusing to meet with groups such as Jane Fonda's. Jane Fonda, in her response to these new allegations, referred to the returning POWs as being "hypocrites and liars."

See also here:

There is no disputing the fact that Jane Fonda toured North Vietnam, engaged in what amount to a propaganda campaign on behalf of the communists, and participated in an orchestrated "press conference" with American POWs in 1972. There is no denying that she defamed the POWs by whitewashing their treatment in Viet Cong prison camps and later calling them liars when they spoke out.

Steeljaw Scribes covers the Hellcats of the Navy, and that is not the awful submarine movie featuring Ronald Reagan.

A disturbing link to the UN's one way standard of freedom of speech from The Counterterrorism Blog.

Irregular warfare is a problem that will be with us for some time, a Marine general says at the Small Wars Journal Blog here:

Terrorists embrace irregular warfare as a countermeasure to U.S. military supremacy, Mattis explained, noting they are intelligent, persistent and patient.

“This enemy is not going away any time soon,” the general observed.

Anyone who believes the terrorists can be reasoned with are wrong, Mattis said, noting their worldview is totally at odds with that of civilized societies.

The United States, the Soviet Union and China did not want to use their nuclear weapons during the Cold War, Mattis said. However, he said, it’d be different if al Qaida terrorists acquired nuclear or chemical weapons. “I firmly believe that if they got chemical or nuclear weapons they would use them,” he emphasized.

Me, too.