Marine Who Saved 36 in Afghanistan Gets Medal of Honor

I was at lunch today and watched President Obama award the medal to Cpl. Dakota Meyer.

At Los Angeles Times, "Marine is awarded rare Medal of Honor at White House":

The desperate call crackled over the radio in predawn darkness: A small team of American and Afghan troops was pinned down in a remote village under withering fire from three sides. A young lieutenant was begging for artillery or air support. Without it, he yelled, "we are going to die out here."

Can't be done, came the reply. It might kill civilians.

Less than a mile away, Marine Cpl. Dakota L. Meyer heard the radio exchange in agony. His buddies were dying, yet Meyer was under orders to stay where he was. Four times he requested permission to go to their aid, and four times he was refused.

After two hours, Meyer decided to defy his superiors. The powerfully built 21-year-old with a soft Kentucky drawl climbed into the turret of a gun truck mounted with a .50-caliber machine gun and, with another Marine driving, raced toward the battle.

On Thursday, Meyer was at the White House to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor, for saving the lives of 36 combatants — 13 Americans and 23 Afghans — and personally killing at least eight Taliban fighters that day, Sept. 8, 2009. He is the first living Marine to receive the award since the Vietnam War.

Meyer, now 23, stood at attention in dress uniform as President Obama recounted what happened in the village of Ganjigal in Afghanistan's Kunar province.

Added: Bing West's essay, "The Afghan Rescue Mission Behind Today's Medal of Honor."

Israel's Memorial to September 11

At Berman Post, "Israeli 9/11 Memorial":

If the measure of a true friend is how sincerely they mourn for your loss, Israel once again showed how close of an ally they are to the United States.

RELATED: At Jerusalem Post, "PM on 9/11: We are still susceptible to terror attacks."

9/11 Tributes

From Bruce Kesler, at Maggie's Farm, "My Son, Age 11, Made This 9/11 Video For His 6th Grade Classmates."

RELATED: From Dana Loesch, at Big Journalism, "All Hail Salon, the 9/11 Tribute Police."

EXTRA: At Atlas Shrugs, "INFAMY."

MORE: From Glenn Reynolds, "SO HOW TO NOTE THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11?"

9/11 Remembered — Ezra Levant

Really astounding commemoration.

I enjoy Ezra Levant more each time I listen, via Blazing Cat Fur:

George W. Bush Speech at Shanksville Flight 93 Memorial

Watch President Bush in full at Gateway Pundit, "George W. Bush at Flight 93 Memorial: “One of the Lessons of 9-11 Is That Evil Is Real and So Is Courage” (Video)."

Ari Fleischer Remembers 9/11

This is an extremely fascinating discussion, from Alexis Garcia, at Pajamas Media, "PJTV: Ari Fleischer on 9/11 and the Fog of War." I'm struck by Fleischer's discussion of signalling to President Bush, upon first learning of the attacks, when he was still at the Florida elementary school, that he wasn't to go public with announcements or statements that the U.S. was under attack:

Herman Cain 9/11 Tribute

Via The Other McCain, "Herman Cain Records Moving 9/11 Tribute, Alex Pareene Calls It ‘Tasteless’."

Ten Years Without an Attack

From John Yoo, at Wall Street Journal (alternative link). Discussing President George W. Bush's leadership, Yoo writes:

Looking back over the decade, the first clear lesson is the critical importance of Mr. Bush’s decision to consider the struggle with al Qaeda a war. Unlike past administrations, his chose not to view al Qaeda as a Middle Eastern version of the mafia, if on a grander scale. The 9/11 attacks constituted an act of war—they were a decapitation strike, an effort to eliminate our nation’s leadership in a single blow. If the Soviet Union had carried out the same attacks, no one would have doubted that the United States was at war.

Al Qaeda’s independence from any nation state would not shield it from the American military and leave it solely to the more tender mercies of the FBI and the courts.

Choosing war opened the arsenal that has decimated al Qaeda’s leadership and blunted its plan of attack. A nation at war need not wait for a suicide bombing to arrest the “suspects” who remain. Instead, it can fire missiles or send in covert teams to pre-emptively capture or kill the enemy. Our government doesn’t need a judge’s permission before tapping an al Qaeda operative’s phones, intercepting his emails, or arresting him.

We need not provide terrorists with Miranda warnings, lawyers and jury trials. A nation at war can detain the enemy without lawyers or civilian trials and interrogate them for information to prevent future attacks.

In its second critical decision, the Bush administration pushed to translate knowledge into action. Winning the war requires, above all, the gathering, analysis and exploitation of intelligence. Before 9/11 our national security bureaucracies, prodded by the civil liberties worries of the courts and Congress, had deliberately handicapped their ability to pull all intelligence into a single mosaic. Passage of the Patriot Act, the expanded interception of international terrorist emails and phone calls, and the tough interrogation of a few high-ranking al Qaeda leaders broadened and deepened the pool of information on our enemy.

At the same time, the intelligence community and the U.S. Armed Forces have honed the integration of tactical intelligence and operations to a deadly knife’s-edge. Bin Laden’s killing this summer was not a one-off lucky shot, but the culmination of a decade of work combining intelligence-gathering, analysis and rapid strike teams. American presidents did not have such reliable options in the past—witness Jimmy Carter’s disastrous attempt to rescue the Iranian hostages or Bill Clinton’s failure to kill or capture bin Laden.

RELATED: "John Yoo at David Horowitz's West Coast Retreat, April 3, 2011."

Michael Coren Loves Zionism!

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Pamela Geller on 9/11: A Day of Mourning, Grieving and Remembering

I so much wish I could be in New York for 9/11, but it's not happening this year. Ten years is a long time, but decades from now I'm confident that Pamela Geller will be remembered as one of the brightest lights commemorating the fallen. She'll also be remembered for sounding the tocsin of "Never Again." And for that, she takes a lot of grief for all of us who live in dignity and work to preserve our cherished freedoms against the forces of modern totalitarianism.



Here she's interviewed by Ezra Levant, via Blazing Cat Fur:

And see Pamela's post, "PAMELA GELLER ON SUN TV WITH EZRA LEVANT: 911 FREEDOM RALLY."

AP Interview With Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani

It's getting close to the 10-year anniversary, so expect lots of 9/11 coverage across the media-sphere over the next couple of weeks. See "AP Interview: Post-9/11 politics of Rudy Giuliani" (via Memeorandum).

Hugs and Thanks to Maggie Thornton

Maggie picked my piece on teaching the Gettysburg Address: "Donald Douglas: A Professor Teaching Real Political History."



And from the comments there:

In today’s American world, this professor is a gem!

Well, thank you!!



More at Maggie's Notebook.



Also, a warm appreciation goes to Gator Doug: "The DaleyGator supports our friend, Donald Douglas."



I get by with a little help from my friends.

'I Admire Your Passion'

My classes went really well last week. And recall on Tuesday I mentioned that I'd be covering Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address during lectures. Well, I stress how President Lincoln appealed to Thomas Jefferson in the first paragraph of the Address, where he wrote:

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.

The Civil War was not initially fought for the emancipation of the slaves, but for the preservation of Union. After Gettysburg the correlation of forces was shifting, and when Lincoln was asked to present at the dedication for the Soldiers' National Cemetery, he put great effort into composing a dedication that would transcend divisions and unify the continued campaigns around an elevated set of war aims focusing on human freedom and the American experience. Should the country be forever divided, it was very well possible that the spark of liberty would forever "perish from the earth."



While presenting the discussion to my students, I pull up my photo of President Lincoln's statue at the Lincoln Memorial, and I ask if students have visited Washington, D.C. A lot of students have not been to the nation's capital, so I share how I felt when I've visited, and I stress how deeply affected I have been, and how especially moving is the Lincoln Memorial. My textbook features a photograph of the left-hand wall of the Memorial, where the Address is engraved, and I mention how there are always people sitting down beneath it, reading quietly in appreciation. And then I remind students that Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Memorial. And if you visit, make sure to look for the inscription at the top of the steps, where it says that MLK delivered his speech from that very spot, August 28th, 1963. And I recite for my students how Dr. King challenged the country to "live out the true meaning of its creed, that all men are created equal." And I draw the line of liberty back from Dr. King to Abraham Lincoln to Thomas Jefferson, and I remind folks that while this nation was indeed founded in crisis --- the crisis of slavery --- our greatness lies in our charter documents, pieces of parchment holding the political philosophy that pushes Americans to a higher moral standard, a template of universal goodness, one that still shines bright in the world. And we as citizens can't just stand on the sidelines hoping that the American democracy will continue, but that we have an obligation to ourselves and our fellow citizens to continue the work of our forefathers, to continue to ensure that democracy "shall not perish from the earth."



In any case, I do enjoy the discussions with students, and after my very last class on Tuesday, a young woman named Rebekah came up after I dismissed the class, and she said to me, "You know, Dr. Douglas, I admire your passion." I thanked her and I returned the compliment, because she's been very engaged in class, asking questions and volunteering to lead the discussions. Moments like that are what really make teaching meaningful. I hope I have a lot more of these over the course of the semester.



Also, related, I blogged Steven Givler's recent essay on the New York Times, where he mentioned we might benefit from the example of community college professors, and after I commented at the post, Steven wrote:

Hi Donald, I was actually thinking of you when I mentioned the community college.

As I always say, conservatives are good people. And I'm strengthened by the periodic feedback I receive that I am indeed doing something that is good and decent, and those efforts are not entirely overlooked by both my students and those who have followed my writing. Those of us of good moral standing know that decency and right always prevail, but we can never let our efforts wane, for Satan's toilers stalk along the sidelines, looking for a chance to weaken us and pave the way for darkness to spread across the land. We have faced the danger in history and we have come near to it again of late. Thankfully, the Obama interregnum is now half past, and we can soon push to victory in 2012 and reclaim some of the liberty that the dark side has vanquished.



Be strong dear friends and readers. I'm still in the fight.

Aqsa Parvez Memorial

Via Reliapundit:

And see Atlas Shrugs, "AQSA IN ISRAEL," and Jihad Watch, "Aqsa Parvez Memorial Grove dedication in Israel, August 24."

'Stairway to Heaven'

AoSHQ is a big Zeppelin fan, so here's this for my Thursday place-holding video.

And check Ace of Spades for some hot blogging throughout the day.

Marco Rubio at the Reagan Library

Via The Blog Prof:

With Glenn Beck by the Temple's Walls

From Barry Rubin, "Glenn Beck’s program in Israel went off without a hitch."

The Gettysburg Address

Delivered by President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I spend time discussing the Gettysburg Address during my coverage of Chapter One in Bessette and Pitney's, American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship. Yesterday, as I pulled the speech up onto the projection screen, I asked students in class what they thought of it. Not a single student raised their hand. And this has been a pretty lively discussion group so far, so they honestly weren't familiar with it. That's why I spend extra time on it. I feel it's important and also that students are shortchanged by not knowing so powerful a statement on human freedom. It's such a vital affirmation of our liberty and the promise of equality. I love Abraham Lincoln. I'll be discussing the speech all day today:

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.

Ten Commandments Still the Only Solution to the World's Problems

This is nothing short of an astonishing essay, at National Review, "The Decalogue is as relevant today as it was 3,000 years ago." The 9th Commandment is particularly relevant, considering what's been going on around here this past few months:

9. Do not bear false witness.



Lying is the root of nearly all major evils. All totalitarian states are based on lies. Had the Nazis not lied about Jews, there would not have been a Holocaust. Only people who believed that all Jews, including babies, were vermin, could, for example, lock hundreds of Jews into a synagogue and burn them alive. That similar lies are told about Jews today by Arab governments and by the Iranian state should awaken people to the Nazi-like threat that Islamic anti-Semitism poses.

Painting Credit: "Moses with the Ten Commandments," Rembrandt (1659), via Wikimedia Commmons.

Robert Stacy McCain Covers Mitt Romney in Iowa

See: "Mitt Romney Comes to Des Moines, Attracts Massive Media Coverage."



And a Romney campaign ad, "Civility":

RELATED: At New York Times, "With Return to Iowa, Romney Heeds Call of G.O.P. Strategists."