OS Has A Question: Who Are The Afghanis Captured By Border Patrol In South Texas, And What Pray Tell Were They Doing In McAllen?

The local newspaper article is very short on details, but the bare facts of the story are chilling enough.

McALLEN — U.S. Border Patrol officials confirmed three Afghan nationals were detained this week in the Rio Grande Valley.

Border Patrol confirmed the detentions, but would not say where or when they occurred.

Enrique Mendiola, assistant chief Border Patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley sector, said "with the current decline in illegal cross border activity" human smugglers may see moving people besides Mexican nationals as a "business opportunity."

"Average smuggling rates for other-than-Mexican nationals far exceed those of Mexicans and Central and South Americans," he said in a statement.

Mendiola noted the Department of Homeland Security is working with governments in Central and South America to "identify and disrupt transnational smuggling organizations and routes, that sometimes can span the globe."

Federal court records showed no arrests involving anyone accused of smuggling Afghan nationals. No further information was available late Friday evening.

Hmmm....perhaps they were just poor innocent souls seeking a better life NorthOfTheBorder.  Isn't that the constant meme of The Left, explaining to us all ever so patiently why border security doesn't matter, illegal immigration is no problem?

Or, perhaps, they traveled here for some other reason.

How did they get into Mexico? Whose money was spent to get them halfway across the world? How many more are there, the ones who weren't captured?

OK, Let's Go Over This Question Again, Slowly, So Even Fundamentalists Can Understand It

Burning books is a reprehensible thing to do, even if you are convinced the books you are burning are reprehensible. OldSouth has been over this with ya'll once already.

OS, like so many, was cradle-born Southern Baptist (No longer, but still a conservative Protestant. Another story, another day perhaps.) What that meant was, that every child learned his Bible, front to back. We had Sword Drill on Sunday nights, when the teacher would call a chapter and verse and we little ones would scurry to find the passage first in our copies of the King James Bible (which, of course, was the one written by the Almighty Himself, for the benefit of all English-speaking and right-thinking people everywhere). We knew that book cold, and OS is forever grateful to all those adults who gave so much of their time and energy to make certain that happened.

Never, not once, does the Good Book ever endorse burning books. Golden calves, yes. The Prophets of Baal fared pretty badly at the hands of Elijah on Mount Horeb if memory serves. Our Lord, in his days upon earth, did have his words eventually recorded by his followers. There's a good bit of overlap in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew/Mark/Luke), and nope, not one endorsement of burning books one takes offense at. The Master directed his most acid words at bankers, lawyers, and fundamentalist legalistic nutter clergy types--the type who prey upon the emotions, hopes and finances of humble people. In the end, they got together to perform judicial murder upon Him, proving His point in the process.

This last week, against all sane advice, it appears a nutter preacher in Florida staged a Koran barbecue. In America, that's protected Free Speech. Black-letter law, no argument about it. In Afghanistan, some other nutter decided the response to that should be to stage a suicide bombing, and kill a bunch of UN aid workers. That's murder, and unspeakable tragedy.

And there is no excuse for it. Period. Even if the Florida nutter incinerates a thousand Korans. It's ink on paper, just like those KJV's we used in Sword Drill in that Breeko-block little church. The content matters, not the newsprint.

But what OS wishes to repeat, for all who might read, is this: The Florida nutter is exercising his American right to Free Speech. That doesn't make him a Christian, and what he did was not a Christian act, in any possible definition of the word. It was done to draw attention to himself, to piss people off, to create headlines and controversy. Our Lord did not behave that way, except on one occasion, for very specific reason, and never out of malice. He did not endorse that method of operating in the world, nor did any of his immediate circle, when it came time for them to write down their accounts.

The nutter set a tragic chain of events into motion, giving another nutter an insane pretext to commit a foul act of mass murder. Florida Nutter did not 'cause' Afghan Nutter to commit murder, but he certainly helped set the stage.

Whatever this nutter in Florida is, he is not Christian. This is not the practice of Christianity. He is a heretic, plain and simple.

And a nutter. (Did OS mention that already?)

And heresy always, in the end, breeds tragedy.

A Canadian Military Physician Offers Insight On Our Culture: Diseases Of Affluence

The coming days will be extraordinarily busy, so for that loyal handful that check in on OS's scribblings, rest assured he's ok, just up to his ears in his professional life.

A Canadian military physician, Kevin Patterson, offers up a long (sometimes wandering) but insightful article about our North American/Northern European culture. While serving in Afghanistan, the contrast between the physical condition of the Canadians who arrived for treatment of wounds and their Afghan counterparts was striking.

For someone used to the life and the pathologies of the rich and settled, much about practicing medicine in Afghanistan felt unfamiliar. One of the striking differences was the way gunshot victims’ abdomens looked in CT scans. Back home, I was used to seeing organs stand out with some prominence from the abdominal fat. In fact, in Canadians, the state of the kidneys can be partly assessed by the degree of inflammation in the perinephric fat that envelops them. It’s the same with the pancreas, and the liver often looks like it belonged to a French goose fattened for foie gras. Indeed, the idea of “normal” in a Canadian body proceeds from the assumption that it might be normal to spend one’s days tied to a grain spout, beak pried open, being filled with cracked corn.

Not the Afghans. The surgeons, in fact, often commented on how the abdominal contents spilled out once the abdominal wall was opened; every loop of bowel immediately visible, unobscured by mesenteric fat, which, in Canadians, would cling to every organ like yellow oily cake. Excessive fattiness is precisely why, when caring for the critically ill in North America, glucose levels are tightly controlled with insulin—a procedure necessary even for those not thought to be diabetic. Stressed by the infection, or the operation that has brought us to the intensive care unit, our sugar levels rise, paralyzing our white blood cells and nourishing the bacteria chewing upon them. But it was never necessary to give the Afghans insulin, no matter how shattered they were.

...and, later...

Afghans die through causes that are widely considered avoidable—war being chief among those, but also tuberculosis, complications of childbirth, measles, meningococcus and polio. This fact is revealed conclusively by the life expectancy in Afghanistan, the lowest in the world: thirty-nine. Westerners are made ill by diseases the Afghans avoid—even among the very elderly, traditional peoples do not suffer cardiovascular disease—while the Afghans perish from diseases we are too rich to tolerate.

This is sobering--and the article goes on to discuss other parallel situations around the world. We've accomplished so much, and have created this fabulous free and prosperous life. We're in danger of self-destructing from our own self-indulgence. It need not be this way, really. We need not immediately don hair shirts and cover ourselves in ashes, but we need to take heed, and repent while there is yet time.

The old theological term repent is much misused and disrespected. At bottom, it means 'turn around and walk the other direction', back toward what is right, even if it feels uncomfortable. Because the path we're on leads straight over the cliff onto the rocks below.

It's well worth a read, and a ponder. The quote of the article is:

Every generation sees itself as a decadent, diminished version of its predecessors. What is different is the extent to which we actually are.

Kabul Bank, As In Kabul Afghanistan, Our Next Bank To Bail Out

Of course, we'll have to fit the FDIC staff with flak jackets before we send them in next Friday. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe ShoreBank should be handed the job of taking it over.

Or, maybe the gubbermint will just do another 'ShoreBank' rescue. Bail it out and hand it back to the corrupt players who destroyed it first time, and will do it again; whereupon we'll bail it out and hand it back to the corrupt players who destroyed it the second time, and will do it again; whereupon we'll bail it out and hand it back to the corrupt players who destroyed it third time, and will do it again; whereupon we'll bail it out and hand it back to the corrupt players who destroyed it the fourth time, and will do it again...

What could possibly go wrong when the President's brother is handed the keys to the safe of the largest bank in the country?

What do we say to the American, Canadian, British, German, and other allied forces families who have lost children, husbands and fathers to this war?

It would all be laughable, if it weren't so terribly tragic.

James Corum Asks The Relevant Question: Why Do Our Soldiers' Lives Matter So Little To Our Elites?

James Corum is a sober, thoughtful voice in the ongoing debate about peace and war, and how each should be waged.

OS enjoys reading his thoughts, and hopes his readers will take a few moments to ponder them as well.

This time, he discusses the massive WikiLeaks scandal, abetted by the Yew Nork Times.

He asks the cogent question:

Take a hypothetical situation. In 1943 some British and American military intelligence personnel decided that the public had a right to know how the war was really going. They gave the documents to the New York Times and Guardian, who published them in accordance with “the public’s right to know”. Along with the routine reports, the media published thousands of pages of low level intelligence documents including documents that mentioned army staff meetings. The media blacked out the names of the sources and some details – but a clever enemy could quickly figure out which meetings had been compromised and who had likely compromised them. They would also have likely figured out which information had come from signals intercepts – and would then quickly change their procedures and codes to shut off intelligence to the Allies. As a result of the compromise, many Allied soldiers would likely die.

What would be the response of the British and US governments to such a leak of classified information?

And, more to the point, he poses a sharper question at the end

[W]hy were soldiers lives considered valuable in 1943 and not even considered at all by the political and media elites in 2010? The answer is that the liberal elites who think leaking documents is worthy of praise appear to have no regard at all for the lives of the soldiers they send to war, if such lives get in the way of their momentary ego gratification. Our elites are making it very clear that their moment of fame, of self-righteous glory, and their moral posturing far outweigh the lives of our soldiers.

It's a question that goes to the heart of our culture, and needs to be addressed head-on.

Now, by contrast, OS is on a business trip in Northern Kentucky this week. The local paper is covering the funeral of a local young man killed in service of his country. Ambushed in Afghanistan, leaving behind a widow and three children. The accounts are, well, heartbreaking.

Carroll County and neighboring county residents are encouraged to attend a community memorial service on Friday, July 30, to “honor the life of Staff Sgt. Chris Stout.” The announcement was made on Monday, July 26, by Carroll County Judge-Executive Harold “Shorty” Tomlinson.

Stout was among three soldiers killed on July 13 when their unit came under attack by insurgents in Kandahar City, Afghanistan. Stout was assigned to 1st Batallion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, based in Fort Bragg, N.C. He served much of his career as a rigger with the 782nd Main Support Battalion and other quartermaster units on Fort Bragg. It was during this time that he sang with the 82nd All American Army chorus. Stout reclassed to become a chaplain’s assistant in September 2006.

“This is a service not only for the people of our Carroll County community,” Tomlinson said, “but for neighboring communities as well. We need to make sure our younger generation realizes that there is a real cost for the freedoms we enjoy.”

Plans were still incomplete at press time regarding who would be the speakers and other active participants in the service, Tomlinson said.

Stout grew up in the Worthville community and attended Carroll and Owen county schools. He resided in Fayetteville, N.C., with his wife Misty and daughters Audreanna and Kristen. His oldest daughter Jacqueline resides in Bedford, Ky. Stout is the first chaplain’s assistant killed in action since 1970 during the Vietnam War.

It is maddening to see the disconnect between the outpouring of sympathy for this fine young man, and the cynicism of the elites whose reckless behaviour leads to these tragedies. Not just the loss of a soldier's life, but the lives forever altered by his death. It matters not a whit to the soulless editors seeking that next Pulitzer by climbing over the corpses they create.

If we are going to set this culture back on track, we must begin to speak with clarity, repeatedly and loudly, that this sort of travesty is not acceptable.

Condolences to the family and friends of Sgt. Stout.

May an incurable pox afflict the editorial staff of the New York Times.

The Marine And The IED: The Marine Won

An inspiring story encountered on the way to other places.

Enjoy!

Well, There's A Fine How-D'ya-Do

Harmid Karzai appears to be unhappy with his protectors (that would be our military), and threatens to align with the Taliban.

Sot of makes ya' warm and fuzzy all over, thinking about how Our Beloved Leader booked it over to Kabul on Air Force One just after passage of his health care bill, to have a pow-wow with the President of Afghanistan. Not much mentioned about what they talked about, but it appears to not have gone well. Oh, well, there's that couple of million melted away, what with flying the Presidential plane, all the military escorts that fly along, the mid-air refuels of one and all, etc. etc.

In the meantime, Bibi Netanyahu, the president of the one real friend we have on that side of the world, gets publicly dissed when he shows up to meet with The One.

Hmmm...lessee...

How many lives have we lost, US, UK, Canadian, NATO in Afghanistan? How much money have we spent? We've spent a bunch of cash on Israel, too, but at least they do their own soldiering, and know which end of the rifle to point at the bad people.

Girls, put down those school-books, and pull out them burkhas! Turn that damn music off! The Taliban is back in business.

No worries, just smile along with the Beloved Leader, and repeat after him:

Yes, we can!

Yes, we can!

Yes, we can!

Doesn't that feel better now, dearies?