Thursday, June 17, 2010

Mishaberach L'Chayalei Zahal*

*Prayer for Israel's Defense Forces

Well, we can't visit Gilad Shalit, but this morning, we were able to visit I. & D., two of the Navy Seals injured on the Humaniterror Flotilla.

Standing Together, an organization dedicated to letting the soldiers of the IDF know how much they are appreciated by the people they protect, organized a trip this morning to visit the two soldiers. With baskets of goodies in hand, we convoyed to Tel HaShomer hospital to meet up with our Navy Seal escort.

One of these two good-looking, young soldiers was in great spirits, with his family around; the other was more quiet and seemed a bit uncomfortable with the attention, but was surrounded by friends from the Seals (male & female). Interviews weren't allowed, and of course, we couldn't take pictures of the soldiers, but we wished them well (the Hebrew speakers did. I stood around and smiled a lot).

They've received lots of posters and notes, which are up on the wall of their hospital rooms. This is just a small sample.

(And yes, they have seen "We Con The World" and thought it was funny.)

Three weeks after the attack, and these two young men are still in hospital, bandaged, in casts, on crutches, faced with still more recovery and rehab. If anyone wants to question how real this attack was, come talk to us.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Rabbit or hare, it's still a bunny

What the hell is wrong with us? I've sort of gotten used to Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, et al terrorists being referred to as "militants." It infuriates me that the rest of the world does not see people who blow up schoolchildren on a bus as terrorists, but I know I can't change that.

Today I read the following headline: "Muslim militants behead 3 Filipino loggers" Fairly benign - "muslim militants" can mean anything in this context. Open the article, however, and the very first line - in fact, the very first words - read "Al-Qaida-linked militants..."

I've moved to the other side of the world, and I'm getting older now so I forget things sometimes, so please do correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't Al-Qaida the ladies auxiliary group responsible for dropping four planes on our big, fat US ass, two on the World Trade Center and one on the Pentagon, killing nearly 3000 people?

"Militants"?? The FBI regularly referred to groups such as the Black Panthers and the Weathermen as terrorists, yet the damage they did was negligible compared to what modern terrorist groups have accomplished. And still, we wuss out and call them militants.

Our (and by "our" I mean all targets of Muslim extremist goups) enemies have repeatedly stated that their goal is to destroy us, to Islamicize the world. As long as we continue to consider our enemies "the misunderstood little boy next door," no matter how many times he drowns our kittens and sets our garage on fire, we will lose this battle.

You must know your enemy in order to defeat him. The idiot who throws red paint on your fur coat is a militant. The man who beheads you because you are a Jew or Christian is a terrorist. It's time we spoke the truth.