"AMERICA's BEST DAYS ARE YET TO COME" - Ronald Reagan

I love America. I love everything she stands for. I love the freedoms I enjoy here, and I love the fact that America is the most powerful beacon for Freedom - which to me translates as Hope and Opportunity - in the entire world.

Having said that, here's a great piece I found on Donald Douglas' worthy blog American Power from Walter Russell Mead at Wall Street Journal:

The Future Still Belongs to America
This century will throw challenges at everyone. The U.S. is better positioned to adapt than China, Europe or the Arab world.

It is, the pundits keep telling us, a time of American decline, of a post-American world. The 21st century will belong to someone else. Crippled by debt at home, hammered by the aftermath of a financial crisis, bloodied by long wars in the Middle East, the American Atlas can no longer hold up the sky. Like Britain before us, America is headed into an assisted-living facility for retired global powers.

This fashionable chatter could not be more wrong. Sure, America has big problems. Trillions of dollars in national debt and uncounted trillions more in off-the-books liabilities will give anyone pause. Rising powers are also challenging the international order even as our key Cold War allies sink deeper into decline.

But what is unique about the United States is not our problems. Every major country in the world today faces extraordinary challenges—and the 21st century will throw more at us. Yet looking toward the tumultuous century ahead, no country is better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities or manage the dangers than the United States.

And HERE's one incredible reason why I find Don's blog worthy . . .


STORMBRINGER SENDS


.

TANGO MIKE MIKE

I once had the honor of meeting Roy Benavidez. What they don't tell you on this montage is that this was Roy's second tour in Vietnam when he earned the Medal of Honor. He stepped on a landmine during his first tour and was medically released from the Army. Roy built his body back up, proved to the docs he was fit for service and then went on to try out and complete Green Beret training.

The scuttlebutt amongst the old Sergeant Majors I used to work with at the Special Warfare Center was that when Roy was put in for the MOH it was turned down by the powers that be in the conventional Army, on the grounds that a disproportionate number of Medals had already gone to Special Forces. It wasn't until after the war wound down and we'd endured the shame and discontent of the Carter years that the case for Roy's Medal could be pushed up to the highest level.

President Ronald Reagan awarded the Medal of Honor to Roy P. Benavidez on February 24, 1981.

Reagan reportedly turned to the press and said: "If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you would not believe it". He then read the official award citation:

Medal of Honor

BENAVIDEZ, ROY P.

Master Sergeant. Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group, Republic of Vietnam

West of Loc Ninh on May 2, 1968

Master Sergeant (then Staff Sergeant) Roy P. Benavidez United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small arms and anti-aircraft fire. Sergeant Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters returned to off-load wounded crewmembers and to assess aircraft damage. Sergeant Benavidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing where he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small arms fire to the crippled team. Prior to reaching the team's position he was wounded in his right leg, face, and head. Despite these painful injuries, he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of an extraction aircraft, and the loading of wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team's position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy's fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader. When he reached the leader's body, Sergeant Benavidez was severely wounded by small arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sergeant Benavidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sergeant Benavidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gunships to suppress the enemy's fire and so permit another extraction attempt. He was wounded again in his thigh by small arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed with additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed two enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed, and to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. Sergeant Benavidez' gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.

Today's Bird HERE


.

OBAMA = REAGAN . . . . . . . . . PUH-LEEZE

The Left-Wing Mainstream Media has over-reached itself this time:

The Obama Political Machine is obviously in a panic mode - they've seen the poll numbers, they know everything they're doing to the economy and on the international scene is blowing up in their faces, the election last November was a rout that makes Custer's Last Stand look like a Sunday School picnic. State of the Union is report card time and their man gets up there and flubs that - he's got nothing to say and the whole world gets to watch him waffle it.

The fact of the matter is the U.S.S. Obama is leaking like a sieve, but not quite yet dead in the water. In a desperate attempt to save any hope for the future, the Democrats come up with THIS brilliant propaganda theme:


"OBAMA LOVES REAGAN"

The managing editor at TIME Magazine, Richard Stengel, attempts to explain their latest cover; an image of Reagan with his arm around Obama:

"The cover is Why Obama Loves Reagan. It's a Photoshopped image of the two men together. They never actually met, but I'd like to think they'd have a good time if they were sitting down at the White House together and it's basically how Obama from even the 1980s started looking at Reagan as a transformational politician - not in terms of substance, but in terms of style with someone he would model himself after, and that has happened over the last 20 years.


GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK! DEPARTMENT

Obama HATED Reagan - he even wrote about it in his book Dreams From My Father:

"When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn't answer them directly. Instead, I'd pronounce on the need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds . . ."

Further on, Obama criticizes Reagan for "verbal legerdemain"; accusing Reagan of duplicity in the gap between his optimistic words and the actions of his administration.


This attempt by the Left to repackage Obama as the new Reagan strains the imagination; one of Obama's stated reasons for wanting power was to do away with what Reagan had accomplished. Obama has nothing in common with Ronald Reagan. If Reagan were alive today watching all this, he'd puke at what's being done to his legacy and to the great work he did as President.

Everybody knows that liberals all hate Reagan, they all despise Reagan, to a man. A singular, constant objective of the Left always has been to revise Reagan history; during Reagan's time in office they berated his economic policy - trickle-down; "a rising tide lifts all boats" - their catch phrase for it was 'Voodoo Economics'. Never mind that his policies actually worked, and led to a twenty-eight year economic boom, unparalleled in the history of the entire world.

Reagan fought the Communists when the rest of the world had resigned itself to turning their collective back to the Red Threat, drop trousers, bend over and grab the ankles. He alerted on the arm shipments into the Western Hemisphere from Communist sources, and in Grenada and Nicaragua he did something about it. What did the Democrats do to admire and support this Cold Warrior? They attempted to destroy him for domestic political gain - Iran-Contra - and a lot of good, decent mens' careers were ruined in the process.

They mock Reagan, suggest he was suffering from Alzheimer's while in the office. Just recently a young wet-behind-the-ears whippersnapper informed me that Ronald Reagan was nothing more than a drooling, Disney automaton during his last two years in the Whitehouse - the fact that this kid was in diapers during that time frame illustrates the effectiveness of the Left's ongoing campaign against Ronald Reagan.

Here's Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address to the Nation, some ten months after leaving office:




Sounds lucid enough to me . . . and listen to the glorious things the Ron Bomb is saying: he's celebrating patriotism, love of country, American Exceptionalism, and deploring the fact that a portion of this has been lost amongst the younger generation.

Obama, on the other hand, has made a career out of badmouthing his country, and shaking hands with such well-known America haters as hate-spewing preacherman Jeremiah Wright and the terrorist Bill Ayers:

"GOD D*MN AMERI-K-K-K-A ! ! !"

"I DON'T REGRET SETTING BOMBS. I FEEL WE DIDN'T DO ENOUGH."


So now that Obama's lost his mojo, what's a closet Communist gonna do to save his political bacon? Who you gonna call? The ghost of Ronald Reagan.

Richard Stengel continues: "A lot of parallels. Reagan obviously lost both houses in that midterm election. His popularity went down to 35%. But the economy in Reagan's case came back that next year, came back at 7% GDP growth. If Obama gets half of that, he's lucky. But the other difference is, I mean there are a lot of similarities but one difference is you always knew where Ronald Reagan stood. I mean for 25 years he was talking about government is the problem, not the solution. And Obama doesn't quite have that same clear through line that Reagan has. And he's trying to get that. You can't say the opposite of that, that government is the solution, not the problem. And in the story, he talks about how there needed to be a correction to the Reagan correction. And that's what he's trying to do."

These people hate Reagan, they despise Reagan, they're against everything that Ronald Reagan stood for, and now they're trying to make Obama the next Reagan. Yet Stengel himself admits that Obama wants to reverse Reagan. The body always rises to the surface; the truth always comes out.


CONTRAST AND COMPARE:

Ronald Reagan's message was that America is a shining city on a hill, whose best days are still ahead of her.


Barack Obama apologized to France and Europe ("America Has Shown Arrogance" speech Strasbourg, France, April 3, 2009.); apologized to the Muslim World ("We Have Not Been Perfect" interview with Al Arabiya, January 27, 2009); apologized for the War on Terror ("We Went off Course" speech at the National Archives, Washington, D.C., May 21, 2009); apologized for Guantanamo ("A Rallying Cry for Our Enemies" speech at the National Archives, Washington, D.C., May 21, 2009)


Reagan's message was that Government is not the solution to our problems, that Government IS the problem.


Obama insists that Government's mission is to "spread the wealth around". In cavalier style he signs off on the greatest government expenditure in the history of the Republic - GREATER than the total sum combined government spending in the entire history of the Republic - and shrugging it off, he dismisses the citizenry; "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, . . . they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion . . . to explain their frustrations."


THERE IS NO COMPARISON

Obama loves Ronald Reagan? Sorry, I ain't buying it . . .


. . . . . . . . . . . . . SEAN LINNANE SENDS


.

GIANT LASER WEAPONRY AND THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER

Remember how the Liberals mocked the entire concept of "Star Wars", and swore that space should "never be weaponized"? Remember how even the threat of a then-undeveloped space-based weapons system drove the Soviets to the bargaining tables and ultimately caused the Evil Empire to fold?

The Soviet Union is gone, thanks in part to the threat of "Star Wars" weaponry. Now a new threat emerges; rogue nuclear states such as North Korea and Iran seek to develop their own nuclear arsenals, and Pakistan - an unreliable ally - already possesses such rocketry.

Thanks to the inspired vision of a B-grade Hollywood actor, just in the nick of time Star Wars arrives . . .





"Laser weapon knocks down test missile off California coast"


THANK YOU, RONALD REAGAN!



This image provided by the U.S. Department of Defense shows an infrared image of the Missile Defense Agency’s Airborne Laser Testbed, right point, destroying a target missile, left point, on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010.


Meanwhile, in other laser news . . .

Ray Guns Real: Army Betting Big on Laser Weapons
Fox News January 21, 2010



Boeing is developing a mobile laser weapon for the U.S. Army. Mounted in an Osh Kosh armored vehicle, the weapon will will enable the military to fight at the speed of light.



Watch Laser Weaponry at work!!!


How Military Lasers Work


Illustration of a free electron laser. A beam of electrons is sent through an undulator -- an array of magnets with alternating north and south poles. The magnetic field in the undulator forces each bunch of electrons to oscillate back and forth, causing them to emit a laser-like beam of light.


"We have 3 missions: We're going to harness that energy and use it for the benefit of our national security, for enabling clean energy here on earth, and for advancing frontier science."



The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's “Sun on Earth” opens for business . . .

NIF Laser “Sun on Earth” Opens for Business with the Hope of Humanity

So-called "green energy alternatives" are politician's pipe dreams; solar, wind, wave, geo-thermal, conservation and recycling simply cannot produce the amount of energy our society requires. The future is nuclear, but traditional nuclear reactors produce irradiated waste that lasts 10,000 years. Controlled thermonuclear fusion is the true future of nuclear power:


Fission vs. Fusion



“When all 192 beams are operational in 2009, NIF will direct nearly two million joules of ultraviolet laser energy in billionth-of-a-second pulses to the target chamber center. When all that energy slams into millimeter-sized targets, it can generate unprecedented temperatures and pressures in the target materials – temperatures of more than 100 million degrees and pressures more than 100 billion times Earth’s atmosphere.”



Credit for this STORMBRINGER post goes to guerrillas "Rider of Rohan" and "VA Shepherd" - Sean Linnane

.

THE THIRTY YEAR WAR

Secret embedded message to loyal STORMBRINGER readers: due to operational constraints I could not make it to a computer; this post is 24 hours overdue - S.L.



This day in History - November 4, 1979 - Iranian Revolutionary Guards storm the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran.



File photo: One of the American hostages is surrounded by some of his captors at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Former captives have identified the second man from the right as Iran’s future President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



This was the opening shot of the current war of Islamic Fundamentalists on America; thirty years ago today.



Student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini send shock waves across America when they storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The radical Islamic fundamentalists took 90 hostages. Days later, Iran's provincial leader resigned, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's fundamentalist revolutionaries, took full control of the country--and the fate of the hostages.




Here's how it worked: a bunch of enraged university students stormed the US Embassy, took the place down. Ayatollah looks over there and says, "YOU DID W-H-A-A-A-A-T? HOLY SHIT! ARE YOU FRIKKIN' CRAZY ? ? ? NOW THE U.S. IS GOING TO GO HOG-WILD ON US ! ! !"


Two days later, NOTHING HAPPENS . . .











This man balked . . .












Two weeks after the storming of the embassy, the Ayatollah began to release all non-U.S. captives, and all female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the United States government. The remaining 52 captives were left at the mercy of the Ayatollah for the next 14 months.



President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis, and on April 24, 1980, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight U.S. military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued.




It was the absolute low point of American prestige and honor around the world in the post-Vietnam era. I still remember feelings of confusion, how I hung my head in shame.




Three months later, the former shah died of cancer in Egypt, but the crisis continued. In November 1980, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Soon after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations finally began between the United States and Iran.










You can say whatever you want about the man - Ronald Reagan got a LOT of respect from the Bad Guys.











On January 20, 1981--the day of Reagan's inauguration--the United States freed almost $3 billion in frozen Iranian assets and promised $5 billion more in financial aid. Minutes after Reagan was sworn in, the hostages flew out of Iran on an Algerian airliner, ending their 444-day ordeal. The next day, Jimmy Carter flew to West Germany to greet them on their way home.




The wall of the former US Embassy in Tehran, now referred to as the "US Den of Espionage."





I guarantee that if - three days after our Embassy had been taken down - Jimmy Carter had flown the 82D over there and dropped them onto DZ Tehran, we wouldn't be putting up with ten percent of the bullshit we're having to deal with right now in the Sand Pile.

18 Americans Kidnapped, 1982 - 1991 Lebanon,
CIA Bureau Chief William Francis Buckley and Marine Colonel William Higgins were both kidnapped and murdered - a group called the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth claimed responsibility, but the real suspects are the Hezbollah guerillas.

Truck Bombing of U.S. Embassy, Beirut Lebanon, April 18, 1983 - 63 killed; Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Marine Barracks bombing, Beirut Lebanon, October 1983 - 299 Americans killed. A French paratrooper base was blown up minutes later, 58 French soldiers killed. A terrorist group called the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

December 4, 1984, American diplomat Charles Hegna murdered during a 1984 terrorist hijacking of a Kuwaiti Airlines flight by Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah.

TWA Flight 847 hijacking June 14, 1985 - one American murdered - US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem - by Lebanese Shia Islamists (Hezbollah).

Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking, October 7, 1985 - wheelchair-bound American passenger Leon Klinghoffer murdered by Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorists who then threw his body overboard.

TWA Flight 840 Bombed, April 02, 1986, Athens, Greece - four people were killed, nine others were wounded. A terrorist group called Ezzedine Kassam Unit of the Arab Revolutionary Cells claimed responsibility

La Belle Disco bombing, West Berlin, April 5, 1986 - two US servicemen and one Turkish woman killed. The operation was determined to be conducted by Libyan intelligence officers.

Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, Lockerbie Scotland, December 21, 1988 - Libyan intelligence officers allegedly involved with the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine - 243 passengers and 16 crew members killed, 11 citizens of Lockerbie Scotland also killed. They were heading home for the holidays.

CIA Employees in Langley, VA are Shot, January 25, 1993
Langley, Virginia

A Pakistani man, Mir Aimal Kasi, who lived in Virginia drove up to the CIA building in Langley, Virginia and shot two CIA agents. He was angry because he believed that the United States were mistreating Muslims who lived in the Middle East.

World Trade Center in New York Bombed, February 26, 1993 New York - Six people were killed and more than 1,000 are injured in this terrorist attack. A group of Muslim terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives and driven into the World Trade Center's underground parking garage.

U.S. Military Complex bombed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 13, 1995
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Seven people killed; Three terrorist groups: Islamic Movement for Change, the Tigers of the Gulf, and the Combatant Partisans of God claim responsibility for the bombing of this military center.

US military quarters Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia bombed - 19 American soldiers killed, 500 more people were wounded. The Movement for Islamic Change claimed responsibility for the bombing.

U.S. Embassies bombed August 07, 1998 simultaneously Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - more than 5,000 people were injured and 224 were killed when the buildings that they were working in collapsed during the explosions.

USS Cole Bombed at dock in Aden Yemen October 12 2000 - 17 U.S. Navy seamen killed when the explosion blew a 20 by 40 foot hole in the side of the ship.

Then of course there's the big one . . . September 11, 2001 New York City, Washington, DC, Shanksville Pennsylvania - World Trade Center is Destroyed and the Pentagon is Attacked - in total 2,993 people, including the hijackers, died in the attacks.



We are under attack. Perhaps a better name for what we've got is 'The One Hundred Years War' . . .

. . . STORMBRINGER SENDS