Thank you to my father, father-in-law, grandfather, uncle, my son and all of the brave men and women who have served in our Armed Forces.
Veterans Day – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nov 112011
Sep 112011
This is only one of thousands of stories of courage, sacrifice and honor that came out of that day, but a rather special one. It is hard to believe that 10 years have passed since that day…
By Steve Hendrix, Published: September 8 in the Washington Post
Late in the morning of the Tuesday that changed everything, Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.
The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.
Except her own plane. So that was the plan.
Because the surprise attacks were unfolding, in that innocent age, faster than they could arm war planes, Penney and her commanding officer went up to fly their jets straight into a Boeing 757.
“We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We’d be ramming the aircraft,” Penney recalls of her charge that day. “I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.”
For years, Penney, one of the first generation of female combat pilots in the country, gave no interviews about her experiences on Sept. 11 (which included, eventually, escorting Air Force One back into Washington’s suddenly highly restricted airspace).
But 10 years later, she is reflecting on one of the lesser-told tales of that endlessly examined morning: how the first counterpunch the U.S. military prepared to throw at the attackers was effectively a suicide mission.
“We had to protect the airspace any way we could,” she said last week in her office at Lockheed Martin, where she is a director in the F-35 program.
Penney, now a major but still a petite blonde with a Colgate grin, is no longer a combat flier. She flew two tours in Iraq and she serves as a part-time National Guard pilot, mostly hauling VIPs around in a military Gulfstream. She takes the stick of her own vintage 1941 Taylorcraft tail-dragger whenever she can.
But none of her thousands of hours in the air quite compare with the urgent rush of launching on what was supposed to be a one-way flight to a midair collision.
First of her kind
She was a rookie in the autumn of 2001, the first female F-16 pilot they’d ever had at the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard. She had grown up smelling jet fuel. Her father flew jets in Vietnam and still races them. Penney got her pilot’s licence when she was a literature major at Purdue. She planned to be a teacher. But during a graduate program in American studies, Congress opened up combat aviation to women and Penney was nearly first in line.
“I signed up immediately,” she says. “I wanted to be a fighter pilot like my dad.”
On that Tuesday, they had just finished two weeks of air combat training in Nevada. They were sitting around a briefing table when someone looked in to say a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. When it happened once, they assumed it was some yahoo in a Cesna. When it happened again, they knew it was war.
But the surprise was complete. In the monumental confusion of those first hours, it was impossible to get clear orders. Nothing was ready. The jets were still equipped with dummy bullets from the training mission.
As remarkable as it seems now, there were no armed aircraft standing by and no system in place to scramble them over Washington. Before that morning, all eyes were looking outward, still scanning the old Cold War threat paths for planes and missiles coming over the polar ice cap.
“There was no perceived threat at the time, especially one coming from the homeland like that,” says Col. George Degnon, vice commander of the 113th Wing at Andrews. “It was a little bit of a helpless feeling, but we did everything humanly possible to get the aircraft armed and in the air. It was amazing to see people react.”
Things are different today, Degnon says. At least two “hot-cocked” planes are ready at all times, their pilots never more than yards from the cockpit.
A third plane hit the Pentagon, and almost at once came word that a fourth plane could be on the way, maybe more. The jets would be armed within an hour, but somebody had to fly now, weapons or no weapons.
“Lucky, you’re coming with me,” barked Col. Marc Sasseville.
They were gearing up in the pre-flight life-support area when Sasseville, struggling into his flight suit, met her eye.
“I’m going to go for the cockpit,” Sasseville said.
She replied without hesitating.
“I’ll take the tail.”
It was a plan. And a pact.
‘Let’s go!’
Penney had never scrambled a jet before. Normally the pre-flight is a half-hour or so of methodical checks. She automatically started going down the list.
“Lucky, what are you doing? Get your butt up there and let’s go!” Sasseville shouted.
She climbed in, rushed to power up the engines, screamed for her ground crew to pull the chocks. The crew chief still had his headphones plugged into the fuselage as she nudged the throttle forward. He ran along pulling safety pins from the jet as it moved forward.
She muttered a fighter pilot’s prayer — “God, don’t let me [expletive] up” — and followed Sasseville into the sky.
They screamed over the smoldering Pentagon, heading northwest at more than 400 mph, flying low and scanning the clear horizon. Her commander had time to think about the best place to hit the enemy.
“We don’t train to bring down airliners,” said Sasseville, now stationed at the Pentagon. “If you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target. My thought was the cockpit or the wing.”
He also thought about his ejection seat. Would there be an instant just before impact?
“I was hoping to do both at the same time,” he says. “It probably wasn’t going to work, but that’s what I was hoping.”
Penney worried about missing the target if she tried to bail out.
“If you eject and your jet soars through without impact . . .” she trails off, the thought of failing more dreadful than the thought of dying.
But she didn’t have to die. She didn’t have to knock down an airliner full of kids and salesmen and girlfriends. They did that themselves.
It would be hours before Penney and Sasseville learned that United 93 had already gone down in Pennsylvania, an insurrection by hostages willing to do just what the two Guard pilots had been willing to do: Anything. And everything.
“The real heroes are the passengers on Flight 93 who were willing to sacrifice themselves,” Penney says. “I was just an accidental witness to history.”
She and Sasseville flew the rest of the day, clearing the airspace, escorting the president, looking down onto a city that would soon be sending them to war.
She’s a single mom of two girls now. She still loves to fly. And she still thinks often of that extraordinary ride down the runway a decade ago.
“I genuinely believed that was going to be the last time I took off,” she says. “If we did it right, this would be it.”
Aug 282011
Chinese President Calls for Global Governance with Increasing Power for China and Russia over Global Economic System.
The following news article contains additional information along with some comments from the Chinese President. The world financial system is quickly deteriorating and the only reasonable resolutionn will be a new world economy governed by a world government body. When the current system collapses there will be little trouble quickly introducing a new world order.
Chinese president calls for joint efforts to address world economic challenges
English.news.cn 2011-06-17 16:40:41
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 17 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Friday that China would like to discuss and make joint efforts with other countries to address major world economic challenges.
Hu, who arrived here from Moscow earlier in the day, put forward a three-point proposal to address challenges to global economic development in a key-note speech delivered at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
He said more than two years after the international financial crisis, the world economy was recovering slowly, with a weak foundation, many uncertainties and its deep impact still unsolved.
China was willing to actively discuss and solve the major issues in global economic development and meet the challenges together with other countries, he said.
The Chinese president said the world should first strengthen global economic governance and continue to advance the reform of the international financial system.
The international financial crisis not only dealt a heavy blow to the world economy and the economic development of all countries, but also highlighted the defects of the current international financial system and the deficiency of the global economic governance mechanism in dealing with crisis, he said.
The weight of emerging economies and developing countries in the global economy and their role in global governance was increasing, he said.
Therefore, a new global economic governance mechanism should mirror changes in the world economic pattern, follow the principle of mutual respect and collective decision-making, and increase the representation and voice of emerging economies and developing countries, he said.
“We should support and promote a bigger role for the Group of 20 (G20) in global economic governance, and boost the overall recovery and growth of the world economy,” he said.
“We should actively perfect global economic governance, promote the building of a fair, just, inclusive and orderly international monetary financial system, oppose all forms of protectionism and push the international economic order toward a more just and reasonable development,” he said.
Second, the world should accelerate the transformation of the economic development pattern and reasonably adjust the economic structure, Hu said.
All countries should deeply understand and follow the world development trend, adapt themselves to changes in the international economic environment, unswervingly transform the economic development pattern and adjust economic structures, he said.
Moreover, in that process, countries should learn from each other to make unremitting efforts for a strong, sustainable and balanced development of the world economy, he said.
Third, the world should give full play to the potential of scientific and technological achievements and speed up the integration of science and technology with the economy, the Chinese president said.
All countries should push for enhanced cooperation in scientific and technological innovation, promote industrialization of the achievements of science and technology, and promote global economic development that was driven more by scientific and technological innovation, he said.
On relations with Russia, Hu said China, as a friendly neighbor and strategic cooperative partner, always paid attention to and supported Russia’s development and rejuvenation.
“We were glad to see that Russia carried out a series of effective measures in the face of the big impact of the international financial crisis,” Hu said, adding that “the Russian economy has shown good momentum again.”
The Chinese president hailed the achievements that Russia had made in adjusting its economic structure, promoting a comprehensive modernization strategy focusing on innovation, as well as in developing various enterprises, in addition to improving its people’s living standard.
Hu said both China and Russia were the main emerging markets of the world. Sustained and stable development of the two countries would provide opportunities for each other’s development and also be conducive to promoting the development of the world economy.
Thanks to joint efforts, China and Russia had become major trading partners with a robust revival of bilateral trade and economic cooperation in recent years, Hu said.
The two sides had agreed during this visit to boost bilateral trade, with the goals of reaching 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2015 and 200 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, he said of his meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
“We will deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in the fields of two-way investment, energy, nuclear energy, aerospace, aviation, science and technology, and finance and between local areas,” Hu said.
The Chinese leader ended his speech with an outline of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) for socioeconomic development, which will take scientific development as the theme and accelerate the transformation of economic development pattern.
He said China would continue to uphold the banners of peace, development and cooperation, stick to an independent and self-ruled foreign policy of peace, unswervingly take the path of peaceful development and abide by an open strategy that was mutually beneficial.
China welcomed all countries, including Russia, to take part in China’s development, share the opportunities that were generated by China’s development, and jointly create a bright future, Hu said.
For his part, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who also took part in the forum, elaborated on Russia’s development strategy and goals. He said all undertakings in Russia have been carried forward in a steady way since the formation of the Russian Federation 20 years ago.
Russia is committed to boosting modernization, improving the standard and quality of people’s livelihood, and actively and effectively participating in international affairs, the Russian president said.
Hailing China as a major force in safeguarding world peace and stability, Medvedev stressed that the Russia-China strategic partnership of cooperation is very strong.
More than 4,000 delegates are attending the 15th forum in Russia’s second largest city.
The forum was launched in 1997. This year’s event focuses on the significance of the emerging markets in achieving global economic growth, and other major issues that Russia and the world face.
May 25, 2011
From Joel Rosenberg’s blog
(Jerusalem, Israel) — Will it work?
That’s the key question as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu finishes his high-profile trip to Washington, meeting with President Obama, addressing 10,000-plus pro-Israel activists at the AIPAC Policy Conference, addressing a Joint Session of Congress, and doing a flurry of major media interviews. Will his passionate case that Israel is America’s best friend, the only solid and secure democracy in the Middle East, endangered by Iranian nukes, and in need of unwavering American friendship and support in tumultuous times fully convince the President, the Congress and the American people to stand with Israel through the darkest of times that are steadily approaching?
I would like to believe this will be the case, but Bible prophecy says otherwise.
The Hebrew Prophets such as Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Joel tell us again and again that Israel will be all alone in the last days of history. All the nations will eventually turn against her. All the nations will work to divide the Land of Israel. Jerusalem, too, will be divided. The New Testament reconfirms this. Indeed, the Scriptures indicate that the only hope for Israel is for her to turn fully and completely to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As the “time of Jacob’s troubles” approaches — as the Day of the Lord approaches — the Bible tells us that the nations will betray the Jewish people. Only the Lord will be faithful. The question is, when the dark times come will Israelis turn their hearts to the Lord?
The Hebrew Prophet Joel warned us that the Lord is going to judge “all the nations” because “they have divided up My Land.” (Joel 3:2) Yet Joel doesn’t call Israel to political activism, to international diplomacy, to military adventurism, or any other human endeavor. The Lord says through the Prophet Joel, “‘Yet even now, return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments’…Now, return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil.” (Joel 2:12-13) And if Israel does this, Joel tells us: “Then the Lord will be zealous for His land and will have pity on His people.” (Joel 2:18, 27)
The Prime Minister’s speech to Congress was excellent in many ways. He rightly described the “epic battle” underway in the epicenter. He described a great shaking going on in the Middle East. He rightly warned that Iran and her nuclear program is the greatest threat, that Hamas is the new al Qaeda, and that in all of the Arab world, only Israeli Arabs have true safety, security, and fully protected human and civil rights. I’ve included some important excerpts from the speech below. However, it should be noted that Netanyahu never cited the Bible, never called on the name of the Lord, and never called the Jewish people to trust fully and completely in the God of Israel, but rather promised to divide the land of Israel as a concession to the Palestinians, even while promising never to divide Jerusalem. These were mistakes. He wasn’t the first Israeli Prime Minister to make them. But he is making them nonetheless. He was right to thank the U.S. for all our help and support of Israel over the years, and he was right to seek continued help and support from the American people and government. But neither he nor Israel should become dependent upon American help because the Bible tells us it won’t be there for long.
The Bible is clear: only the Lord will save Israel. It is time for Israelis to consider this very carefully. For time is short. “The Day of the Lord is coming; surely it is near.” (Joel 2:1)
Excerpts of PM’s speech to Congress:
- “An epic battle is now unfolding in the Middle East, between tyranny and freedom. A great convulsion is shaking the earth from the Khyber Pass to the Straits of Gibraltar. The tremors have shattered states and toppled governments. And we can all see that the ground is still shifting….”
- “These extraordinary scenes in Tunis and Cairo, evoke those of Berlin and Prague in 1989. Yet as we share their hopes, but we also must also remember that those hopes could be snuffed out as they were in Tehran in 1979. You remember what happened then. The brief democratic spring in Iran was cut short by a ferocious and unforgiving tyranny. This same tyranny smothered Lebanon’s democratic Cedar Revolution, and inflicted on that long-suffering country, the medieval rule of Hezbollah. So today, the Middle East stands at a fateful crossroads…”
- “Courageous Arab protesters, are now struggling to secure these very same rights for their peoples, for their societies. We’re proud that over one million Arab citizens of Israel have been enjoying these rights for decades. Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights. I want you to stop for a second and think about that. Of those 300 million Arabs, less than one-half of one-percent are truly free, and they’re all citizens of Israel! This startling fact reveals a basic truth: Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what is right about the Middle East….”
- “When I last stood here, I spoke of the dire consequences of Iran developing nuclear weapons. Now time is running out, and the hinge of history may soon turn. For the greatest danger facing humanity could soon be upon us: A militant Islamic regime armed with nuclear weapons. Militant Islam threatens the world. It threatens Islam. I have no doubt that it will ultimately be defeated. It will eventually succumb to the forces of freedom and progress. But like other fanaticisms that were doomed to fail, militant Islam could exact a horrific price from all of us before its inevitable demise. A nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It would give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. It would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger throughout the world. I want you to understand what this means. They could put the bomb anywhere. They could put it on a missile. It could be on a container ship in a port, or in a suitcase on a subway….”
- “Now the threat to my country cannot be overstated. Those who dismiss it are sticking their heads in the sand. Less than seven decades after six million Jews were murdered, Iran’s leaders deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, while calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state….”
- “The Ayatollah regime briefly suspended its nuclear program only once, in 2003, when it feared the possibility of military action. That same year, Muammar Qadaffi gave up his nuclear weapons program, and for the same reason. The more Iran believes that all options are on the table, the less the chance of confrontation. This is why I ask you to continue to send an unequivocal message: That America will never permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons. As for Israel, if history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously. We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust. When we say never again, we mean never again. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself….”
- “Two years ago, I publicly committed to a solution of two states for two peoples: A Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state. I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace. As the leader of Israel, it is my responsibility to lead my people to peace. This is not easy for me. I recognize that in a genuine peace, we will be required to give up parts of the Jewish homeland. In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo. This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace. No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land….”
- “So now here is the question. You have to ask it. If the benefits of peace with the Palestinians are so clear, why has peace eluded us? Because all six Israeli Prime Ministers since the signing of Oslo accords agreed to establish a Palestinian state. Myself included. So why has peace not been achieved? Because so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state, if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it. You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about. In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said yes. The Palestinians said no. In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli Prime Ministers, to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six Day War. They were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees….”
- “My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said: ‘I will accept a Palestinian state.’ It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say: ‘I will accept a Jewish state.’….”
- “As for Jerusalem, only a democratic Israel has protected freedom of worship for all faiths in the city. Jerusalem must never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel. I know that this is a difficult issue for Palestinians. But I believe with creativity and goodwill a solution can be found….”
- “Hamas is not a partner for peace. Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction and to terrorism. They have a charter. That charter not only calls for the obliteration of Israel, but says ‘kill the Jews wherever you find them’. Hamas’ leader condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden and praised him as a holy warrior. Now again I want to make this clear. Israel is prepared to sit down today and negotiate peace with the Palestinian Authority. I believe we can fashion a brilliant future of peace for our children. But Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of Al Qaeda. So I say to President Abbas: Tear up your pact with Hamas! Sit down and negotiate! Make peace with the Jewish state! And if you do, I promise you this. Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations. It will be the first to do so….”
May 262011
By Ryan Jones
For years, the US administration has insisted on only making “even-handed” statements about the Middle East peace process, while in reality being harshly critical of Israel.
This practice has intensified under US President Barack Obama, who more than any other president has demanded dangerous “goodwill gestures” from the Jewish state in order to pacify the Palestinian Arabs.
On Tuesday, the White House appeared to shift course when it announced that it was about time for the Palestinians to “give Israel confidence” that the peace process is leading somewhere positive.
Israel “is going to require a credible answer from the Palestinians about the role that Hamas is going to play in the new government, and whether a Palestinian partner and interlocutor can credibly say it recognizes Israel’s right to exist,” Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, told reporters.
Rhodes’ remarks echoed the demands laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington. It cannot be ignored that the White House appeared to change its tune after Netanyahu addressed the US Congress and won wall-to-wall support from American lawmakers for Israel’s positions.
Prior to Rhodes’ press conference, Obama and his adminisration had been strongly suggesting that Israel was at fault for the lack of peace in the Middle East.
