Help fight teenage affluenza...

... it's rampant across the U.S.

An inspirational commercial from the Marines

Be grateful and proud America:


(hat tip Michelle)

Thanksgiving links...

Start with Mark Alexander at the Patriot Post. Then check out their Family Thanksgiving Quiz with your kids.

Then check out Newt Gingrich discussing how to Make Thanksgiving Meaningful Again.

Robert Huchinson talks about The Biblical Roots of Thanksgiving.

Jennifer Rubin says we have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.

Ken Connor wonders if Americans really understand to whom they should be thankful.

Michelle Malkin says before Thanksgiving brings out the worst in you, stop before you gripe.

Archbishop Charles Chaput thinks this is a time for acknowledging our dependence on God.

Ollie North is thankful for people like John Bolton who expose the U.N.

God bless you all... have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving.

A must-read letter to the troops from General Petraeus...

Thanks and gratitude to Michael Yon, who comments in his post:

... We are making progress but the odds are still against us. We cannot take chances or play fast and loose with our own values. In addition to something immoral occurring, it could be the final straw for this war. All it would take is a weak leader behaving immorally, or a tired leader not recognizing the stress level of his soldiers and reacting accordingly, and we might have the proverbial straw that breaks this camel’s back.

This letter from General Petraeus deserves the widest possible dissemination. It should be published widely, and posted on every headquarters wall, and read aloud by every troop in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can pummel al Qaeda and other terrorists mercilessly and grind them into the dirt, but we cannot afford to turn local populations against us while we do it. ...

Now, the letter to the troops from General Petraeus (link to PDF):

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in Multi-National Force-Iraq:

Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground. This strategy has shown results in recent months. Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate attacks, for example, have finally started to turn a substantial proportion ofthe Iraqi population against it.

In view of this, I was concerned by the results of a recently released survey conducted last fall in Iraq that revealed an apparent unwillingness on the part of some US personnel to report illegal actions taken by fellow members of their units. The study also indicated that a small percentage of those surveyed may have mistreated noncombatants. This survey should spur reflection on our conduct in combat.

I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq. I also know first hand the bonds between members of the ” brotherhood of the close fight. ” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arrns—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk;” however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact, our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.

We are, indeed, warriors. We train to kill our enemies. We are engaged in combat, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly, and we must be violent at times. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings. Stress caused by lengthy deployments and combat is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign that we are human. If you feel such stress, do not hesitate to talk to your chain of command, your chaplain, or a medical expert.

We should use the survey results to renew our commitment to the values and standards that make us who we are and to spur re-examinat ion of these issues. Leaders, in part icular, need to discuss these issues with their troopers—and, as always, they need to set the right example and strive to ensure proper conduct. We should never underestimate the importance of good leadership and the difference it can make.

Thanks for what you continue to do. It is an honor to serve with each of you.

David H. Petraeus,

General, United States Army

Commanding

Not as important, but Dennis Prager also just wrote A Letter to Our Soldiers in Iraq that's worth reading:

...You know that what you are doing is worth continuing. You see on an almost daily basis the faces of people who count on you to help them make a freer society than they have ever known. You know that your presence in Iraq is all that stands between numberless men, women and children and a horrible death. But, for whatever reasons, the fate of these people and their country do not matter to those who feel you are wasting your time and our nation's resources in Iraq.

You know that the fight you wage is worth waging. You know that you are not, by and large, fighting Iraqis who do not want you there but fighting people from other countries who come into Iraq in order to blow up and maim as many innocent Iraqis as possible.

You know that you are fighting the most vicious and primitive ideology in the world today. It is the belief that one's God wants his followers to maim, torture and murder in order to spread a system of laws that sends societies back to a moral and intellectual state that is pre-civilization.

You know that the war you wage against these people and their totalitarian ideology is also necessary because a society unwilling to fight for its values does not have values worth sustaining. And for that reason, you in Iraq and many of us back home are worried about America.

You know that there is real good and real evil in the world. You have seen both more than any of us at home will probably see in a lifetime. Why so many in America and the West generally no longer believe that there is good and evil, let alone in the importance of having good vanquish evil, is a subject for a book. But that is the problem here. So when, God willing, you return healthy and victorious, you will have another battle to wage -- on behalf of moral clarity. In that regard we are losing our way. Millions of our fellow Americans -- often the best educated -- do not understand that those who send young people to blow up weddings, kindergartens, market places and college libraries in the promise of a paradise filled with young women are the Nazis of our time.

You know all these things. And tens of millions of us back home also know these things. ...

Read the rest from Dennis here.

Giving thanks... for MEMRI

Michelle Malkin with HotAir Films has the video of Arab reactions to 9-11 five years later. --->

MEMRI is indispensible.

MEMRI Films too.

Related:
Exposed: The Extremist Agenda - A one hour Glenn Beck special event... (updated)

Newt Gingrich Plans Massive Outreach to Renew GOP... (updated)

NewsMax has the story:

The Georgia Republican is spearheading a program called "American Solutions for Winning the Future” in an effort to revitalize the GOP with Ronald Reagan conservatism. ...

Newt is the only visionary I see out there that can pull this off... stay tuned!

Update/Related: Newt discusses the real meaning of Thanksgiving.

Upadate #2: Newt on Searching for Victory in Iraq

Christian Peacemaker Teams: A roundup...

The Ingrates Say Thanks, BUT...

Well, look at this addenda posted at 9pm EST tonight by the radical left-wing Christian Peacemakers Team:

Addenda 23 March 2006, 9 p.m. ET
We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed to have Jim, Harmeet and Norman freed, that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them, nor remembered those still in captivity. So we offer these paragraphs as the first of several addenda:

We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet.

BUT then the belated, grudging expression of gratitude is immediately followed by this:

As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues. We are thankful to all the people who gave of themselves sacrificially to free Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom over the last four months, and those supporters who prayed and wept for our brothers in captivity, for their loved ones and for us, their co-workers.

We will continue to lift Jill Carroll up in our prayers for her safe return. In addition, we will continue to advocate for the human rights of Iraqi detainees and assert their right to due process in a just legal system.

Ingrates to Their Very Souls

It's not clear whom the CPT statement means by "our enemies." But the only enemy they seem to recognize is the U.S. and its allies, whose "occupation" of Iraq is the "root cause" of the ex-hostages' captivity, and whose detention of "thousands of Iraqis" they liken to their own kidnapping and (in one case) murder by terrorists.

CPT Celebrates "Release" of Captives in Chicago

I popped over to the CPT website and read about the celebration, called Jake, and we made plans to check it out. Following is a pictorial of the event (with commentary, of course!)...

Ingratitude Isn't a Christian Value

Their kidnappers may have done what they did because of the presence of coalition troops, but without the troops, there would be still be violence done to people in Iraq. It would be state-sponsored, however, which apparently the CPT folks would prefer to violence that results in the ability of the people to determine the course of their own country.

Churches urged to consider more radical peacemaking following Iraq hostage release

“Christian peace makers have great respect for those who carried out the operation to free the captives, but they nevertheless remain firmly committed to nonviolence as the only effective, long-term way to break the cycles of hatred, revenge, terror and killing which are destroying Iraq and threatening the world.”

"Christian Peacemaker Teams have made it clear that they will not be deterred by threats or opposition. They are tough-minded people who know the situation and know what they were doing. When Jesus called on his followers to make peace, he never said it was going to be anything other than risky – and he paid with his life.”

"The answer that our Christian community gives to these questions has implications for all of our future and it requires our best thinking and action. In the face of overwhelming danger should peacemakers leave Iraq? Do peacemakers belong in such confusing conditions?"

Quoting the words of Jesus Christ about peacemaking in the gospels, which have inspired such figures as Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jnr he said; "I would like to invite congregations and parishes to take one or more Christian Education hours to discuss the following scripture, Matt. 5: 9-15 in the backdrop of this experience of captivity and the ongoing crisis of detainees and captives."

"Can we work to answer the question, how should Christian peacemakers place themselves into difficult situations where terrorism is rampant? Is there a more disciplined way in which peacemaker work might function more effectively in our congregation to overcome terrorism and war? These are the two questions I bring to these words from Matthew. You are invited to ask your own questions from your situation remembering that our answers have everything to do with the future of our children, our youth and students, our family life and retired people."

Similar nonviolent initiatives to those run by Christian Peacemaker Teams in hotspots around the world have received widespread praise by such people as former US President Jimmy Carter.

The varieties of pacifism: (Part I)--Gandhi's absolutism

There is an ancient Talmudic saying: "He who is kind to the cruel ends up being cruel to the kind." The fact that in Gandhi's efforts to stop violence "he indirectly provoked far more violence than was in his power to control" is a good example of that principle in action.

Gandhi is venerated by peace activists worldwide. I wonder whether they have studied his actual words, or the real-world consequences of his actions. If they did, would they still emulate and revere him?

A Simple Twist of Fate

HE (Tom Fox) CAN TEACH us about forgiveness. Tom would want us to forgive the person who killed him because his violent death was an act of fear, not an act of terrorism. His capture, along with James Looney, Harmeet Sooden and Norman Kember, his CPT co-workers, was an act of desperation, not one of hatred. The actions of the members of the Swords of Righteousness Brigade have been out of anger at something bigger than these four men. It was retaliation, perhaps, but they picked the wrong people to victimize. He would be quick to point out that thousands of Iraqis have lost loved ones, through kidnapping or death, for decades. He would mention that his death is one of countless others in the name of war. He would not want to be made an example of, he would not want to be seen as anything other than another loss during wartime. He was a soldier for peace.

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