Video: Passenger Is Dragged off Overbooked United Flight

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Video of police officers dragging a passenger from an overbooked United Airlines flight sparked an uproar Monday on social media, and a spokesman for the airline insisted that employees had no choice but to contact authorities to remove the man.

As the flight waited to depart from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from a window seat, pulling him across the armrest and dragging him down the aisle by his arms. The airline was trying to make room for four of its employees on the Sunday evening flight to Louisville, Kentucky.

Other passengers on Flight 3411 are heard saying, “Please, my God,” ”What are you doing?” ”This is wrong,” ”Look at what you did to him” and “Busted his lip.”

(Read more from “Video: Passenger Is Dragged off Overbooked United Flight” HERE)

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The Left Seeks to Silence Pro-Life/Pro-Family Voices

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Silencing your opponent. That is now the main response of the political left in America.

You have seen the footage of speakers on college campuses being shouted down. You have heard about the liberal professor attacked by students for defending a conservative professor. You have watched black-masked rioters smashing the windows of stores and burning cars.

We are told that views that may conflict with the liberal world-view are no more than violence and hate and therefore may be silenced.

In recent days, C-Fam has come under that kind of attack and I am deeply worried. (C-Fam is a New York and Washington DC-based research institute accredited with the UN Economic and Social Council and the Organization of American States.)

C-Fam’s Lisa Correnti was chosen as a public-sector delegate for the Trump Administration to the just-concluded UN Commission on the Status of Women. Almost immediately the left attacked us. They harassed the US State Department for choosing us. The campaign to silence our voice went global. It was covered by the New York Times and Reuters, along with various LGBT blogs and news-sites. (For more from the author of “The Left Seeks to Silence Pro-Life/Pro-Family Voices” please click HERE)

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The Troubling Relationship Between Soros and US’ Biggest Foreign Aid Agency

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Foreign aid can help advance U.S. national interests, for example, by promoting our values globally or by demonstrating to the world the goodwill of the American people. Calls to eliminate funding outright often fail to weigh this important function.

But our lead aid agency has itself been jeopardizing this effort, and risking all-important public support, by irresponsibly funding leftist agitprop around the world—and enlisting the help of billionaire progressive activist George Soros in the process.

Trying to persuade Colombians, Macedonians, Kenyans, and the Irish to accept violations of traditional norms that are still being debated here was surely not what Congress had in mind when it passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and thereby created the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

Support for wooly leftist causes around the globe, and teaming up with the vast network of Soros organizations trying to transform the world, isn’t new for USAID.

But for the past eight years, President Barack Obama politicized the agency to such a degree that six Republican senators in mid-March rightly called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to launch an investigation into how the agency spends billions of taxpayer dollars.

The response from a mid-level career official at the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, Executive Secretary Joseph E. Macmanus, offered a pro-forma defense of USAID with sentences like, “The Department of State’s foreign assistance programs are rigorously designed, implemented, and monitored to ensure that they are based on core American values.”

Soros supporters are naturally pleased. But was the letter reflective of the administration’s political leadership? The slow pace of political appointments at the State Department—and throughout the executive branch—has created a situation where career bureaucrats and caretakers put in place by the previous administration retain an outsized influence.

In this instance, sources tell us that the letter the senators sent Tillerson never reached him. As I explained in the New York Post last Saturday, the Macmanus letter didn’t even acknowledge the senators’ request for a probe. Telling six senators, in essence, to take a hike is not wise at the best of times.

But it is especially unwise when the senators are raising legitimate concerns that resonate with Trump voters. What core American values were served in Colombia when USAID funds a Soros-owned media portal that attacks President Donald Trump, capitalism, and “patriarchal society”?

And what American values are served when USAID and Soros’ Open Society Foundations team up to teach Macedonians Alinskyite tactics, continuing a lamentable trend here in the states to redefine civics as street mobilization and representative democracy as “participative democracy”?

And what core American values, indeed, are served when we support same-sex marriage in countries like Ireland? The Supreme Court only read this right into the Constitution two years ago, in a hotly contested 5-4 decision that is far from settled even here.

Indeed, many of these ideas continue to be hotly debated between one part of the population that wants to retain traditional norms and another that wants to transform society.

As the senators’ letter asked, what do these things have to do with our national interests?

By refusing to heed the senators’ call, the career civil servants who have taken over our agencies were doing exactly what the Open Society Foundations requested. In an op-ed in Foreign Policy magazine two weeks ago, the head of the Open Society Initiative for Europe, Goran Buldioski, wrote that “Tillerson should ignore the letter, because there’s nothing to investigate.”

Buldioski smeared the U.S. senators, saying that their letter was “littered with inaccuracies about the foundations’ work,” and he trotted out the most tired trope in the Soros arsenal, that the “senators echo Kremlin talking points.” As I have argued here and here, it is precisely our promotion of tendentious radical ideas overseas that often drive conservatives who would ordinarily side with us into the arms of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But the most important part of the piece came not in these clichés, but in the argument Buldioski made when he said that the senators were asking Tillerson “to shut down democracy promotion that is ‘disrespecting national sovereignty.’ Such an interpretation assumes that governments are sacrosanct and sovereign, not the voters who elect them.” (Emphasis added).

That is a tempting argument. The individual certainly is ultimately sovereign in that his own conscience is the ultimate arbiter.

This separation between “national sovereignty” and “individual sovereignty” is not new, however, but has been emphasized by those who argue for transnational governance.

In a speech in Stockholm in 2009 in which he expounded on the subject, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, for example: “We are now living in a true global age. We are interconnected as never before. Frontiers are increasingly irrelevant. Nation-states are increasingly powerless to act alone in the face of global forces.”

But as my friends and colleagues David Azerrad and Arthur Milikh reminded me in an email exchange on this subject, classical liberalism views countries as sovereign in the international realm.

The opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another” and “We the people”—make this amply clear.

When a government stops securing the unalienable rights of people, it is their right “to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.” But individuals form a sovereign “people,” and we can remain sovereign only if we remember the common good and the social contract.

Let’s debate these things some more here at home before we spend billions trying to persuade our friends to buy into them. (For more from the author of “The Troubling Relationship Between Soros and US’ Biggest Foreign Aid Agency” please click HERE)

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Peggy Noonan, Who Explored Why Trump Appeals to Americans, Wins Pulitzer for Commentary

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In a rare acknowledgement of conservative journalists by the most powerful arbiter of serious journalism, political commentator and columnist Peggy Noonan on Monday won a Pulitzer Prize for her columns for The Wall Street Journal on the 2016 presidential campaign.

Awarding her the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, judges said Noonan earned it for “rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.”

The Pulitzer judges recognized Noonan’s graceful but grounded work—she tends to write as if passing along personal, first-person musings on what she has observed or friends have said—in 10 columns published between Feb. 27 and Dec. 31, 2016.

In the first entry, she writes of the divide between two classes—the “protected” and the “unprotected”—and the dissatisfaction among the latter, ordinary Americans, that powered Donald Trump’s campaign:

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance.

Mr. Trump came from that.

Noonan would be sharply critical of Trump during the campaign, but saw early that he not only could win the nomination but also the general election against Hillary Clinton.

Although her columns and commentary sometimes have been kinder to more centrist or even liberal Republicans such as John McCain and George W. Bush than to conservatives such as Sarah Palin or Ted Cruz, many conservative Americans still claim Noonan, 66, as one of their own.

This is perhaps because she continued to hold up the example of one of her greatest political heroes, Ronald Reagan.

Noonan, who first drew national attention as a speechwriter and special assistant to President Reagan from 1984 to 1986, has written a weekly column for The Journal since 2000.

The Brooklyn native also is the author of nine books, five of them best-sellers, beginning with 1990’s “What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era,” through 2015’s “The Time of Our Lives: Collected Writings.”

As her Wikipedia entry notes, Noonan wrote Reagan’s acclaimed “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech in 1984 marking the 40th anniversary of D-Day. Millions of Americans also heard Reagan deliver a moving, Noonan-penned address to the nation following the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986.

While writing speeches for Vice President George H.W. Bush (she was chief speechwriter for his successful campaign to succeed Reagan as president), Noonan coined the phrases “a kinder, gentler nation” and “a thousand points of light.” She also came up with “Read my lips: No new taxes”—a memorable pledge (and play on Clint Eastwood) that came back to haunt Bush.

In a column published Nov. 26, less than three weeks after Trump defeated Clinton, Noonan warned that the incoming president’s reputation as a garrulous dealmaker needed to undergo a transformation so that he is seen as patriot above all.

She wrote:

The press does not believe, not for a second, and Democrats do not believe, not for a second, that Mr. Trump will be able to change the habits of a lifetime. They are relying on it.

Mr. Trump shocked them by winning. He should shock them now with rectitude.

(For more from the author of “Peggy Noonan, Who Explored Why Trump Appeals to Americans, Wins Pulitzer for Commentary” please click HERE)

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How Free Trade and Economic Freedom Help the Poor

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Today, many people argue that trade disproportionately hurts poor Americans.

They say free trade creates a wage gap between low- and high-income earners, and constructs barriers that make it increasingly difficult for the less fortunate to climb the economic ladder.

But recent data from The Heritage Foundation shows that this simply is not true.

The Heritage Foundation’s 2017 Index of Economic Freedom shows that removing tariffs and other trade barriers leads to a number of tremendous benefits.

The creation of freer trading conditions establishes a mutually beneficial relationship between both parties—people voluntarily trade with each other only if it is in their own interest.

As a result, those who have greater opportunity to participate in the global exchange of goods and services find themselves with increased prosperity and diminished poverty.

According to the Pew Research Center, from 2001 to 2011, the number of “poor” individuals—those living on less than $2 a day—decreased by 14 percent globally.

During the same period, world trade (as a percentage of gross domestic product) increased by over 9 percent, from 51.5 percent up to 60.7 percent.

This strong correlation between trade freedom and reductions in poverty seems to refute the narrative we often hear. Rather than hurting the poor, the removal of international trade barriers allows millions of impoverished people to escape poverty.

A recent report from the World Bank Group gives further support to this correlation. Based on the most recent estimates, while 35 percent of the world’s population lived on less than $1.90 a day in the year 1990, that percentage had dropped to 12.4 percent in 2012.

The percentage dropped even further in the year 2013 to 10.7 percent.

For a practical example of how trade barriers hurt the American poor, consider U.S. import restraints on food and clothing.

These inflict substantial financial burdens on the poor because they drive up the price of these goods, which make up a larger proportion of poor people’s incomes than of wealthy people’s incomes.

The Heritage Foundation’s Patrick Tyrrell and Daren Bakst show the effects of these restraints in their recent special report: Americans paid a 20 percent import tariff on some dairy products in 2016, a whopping 132 percent import tariff on certain peanut products, and up to a 35 percent import tariff on canned tuna.

Reducing or getting rid of tariffs will clearly reduce these prices for consumers, and will relieve a disproportionate amount of pressure from the poor.

But the benefits of economic freedom extend well beyond aiding the poor. The data show a strong correlation between economic freedom and other positive outcomes.

As James M. Roberts and Ryan Olson of The Heritage Foundation report, countries with higher levels of economic freedom have citizens who enjoy a longer life expectancy, take better care of the environment, and spend more time in school—an important factor for poverty reduction.

On trade and economic freedom, the data speak loud and clear. In order to further reduce global poverty, governments should promote economic freedom and allow their citizens to participate in and enjoy the benefits of free trade. (For more from the author of “How Free Trade and Economic Freedom Help the Poor” please click HERE)

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College May Punish Students Who Disrupted Conservative’s Speech

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Claremont McKenna College officials have announced possible repercussions for students who protested a conservative speaker’s speech last week.

Protesters successfully blocked students and professors from entering an on-campus building to hear Heather Mac Donald’s pro-police speech, as reported by The Daily Signal last Friday. Mac Donald is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

In response, Hiram Chodosh, the president of Claremont McKenna College, or CMC, released a statement Friday, saying, “Blocking access to buildings violates College policy. CMC students who are found to have violated policies will be held accountable.”

Joann Young, director of media relations for CMC, elaborated on Chodosh’s statement, telling The College Fix in an email that students could face a variety of repercussions, including “temporary or permanent separation from the college.”

Steven Glick, a senior at Pomona College, one of the five undergraduate institutions that make up the Claremont Colleges alongside CMC, covered the protests as editor-in-chief of The Claremont Independent, an “independent journal of campus affairs and political thought” that is dedicated to “upholding truth and excellence at the Claremont Colleges,” according to its website. The publication receives no school funding.

“I wasn’t able to speak with many of the protesters and about what they were doing,” Glick said. “Several protesters prevented me from conducting interviews by pushing me, putting their hands and clothing in front of the camera, and shouting over anyone who did try to talk to me. Another correspondent from The [Claremont] Independent was threatened with physical violence while he attempted to interview protesters.”

Glick’s interactions with protesters were shared on The Claremont Independent’s Facebook page through Facebook Live.

Glick said it was evident many protesters “had no clue what was going on.”

“They chanted about Palestine for quite a while, which had nothing to do with Heather Mac Donald’s planned lecture,” Glick said. “It seems that protesters simply viewed Ms. Mac Donald as an opponent of progressivism, and felt it apt to chant about any progressive cause they could think of.”

Since CMC is one of eight institutions that make up the Claremont Colleges, many of the protesters were not students of CMC, and some, according to Glick, were not students at all. “Some of the protesters were middle-aged people who were clearly just there to help organize the protest,” Glick said.

When asked how students have responded to the protest, Glick said, “I get the sense that most students were disappointed that the protests led to the cancellation of the event, whether they agreed with Heather Mac Donald or not.”

As The Daily Signal previously reported, Peter Uvin, vice president of academic affairs for Claremont McKenna College, said in an email to students after the incident that he understands that “words hurt” and “people have strong opinions and different—often painful—experiences with the issues Heather Mac Donald discusses.”

Uvin went on to add that he “could not accept” students’ attempts “to make it impossible for her to speak, for you to listen, and for all of us to debate.”

In reaction to the administration’s response, Glick said:

The CMC administration should have had a bigger presence at the protest and told the students what consequences, if any, they would face for their actions. By remaining largely absent from the scene, they effectively gave the protesters a free pass.

(For more from the author of “College May Punish Students Who Disrupted Conservative’s Speech” please click HERE)

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Dramatic Escalation in Syria

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According to Syrian media sources, the Russian government has taken measures to guarantee more security for its forces in case of possible attack regarding the recent U.S. Tomahawk air strikes on the Shayrat air base on April 7.

At this moment, two Russian all-purpose jets capable of spotting and intercepting cruise missiles are barraging in the Eastern Mediterranean. Moreover, the Russian forces are ready to carry out retaliatory strikes on the U.S. ships that launch cruise missiles if they attack the Russian military objects (including Khmeimim and Tartus bases).

Meanwhile, the Russian military advisors have arrived at the Syrian bases equipped with the anti-aircraft defense systems to assist Assad’s forces to counter cruise missiles strikes.

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian air base on Friday from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched earlier in the week, escalating the U.S. role in Syria and drawing criticism from Assad’s allies including Russia and Iran.

“What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well,” said the statement.

The joint command center also said the presence of U.S troops in northern Syria where Washington has hundreds of special forces helping the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to oust Islamic State was “illegal” and that Washington had a long-term plan to occupy the area.

The regional alliance said the U.S. cruise missile strikes on a Syrian base killed dozens of civilians would not deter their forces from “liberating” all of Syrian territory.

It’s notable that the British paper Daily Mail has removed an article titled “The United States supported the plan to carry out a chemical attack in Syria and blame Assad regime” dated January 29, 2013.

Meanwhile, thousands took to the streets to protest against the U.S. airstrikes against Syria yesterday. Protesters from all across the country made it clear that they will not stand for U.S. aggression in Syria, in a direct clash with the recent actions ordered by the Trump administration.

As the U.S continues to intervene in Syria, the majority of protesters expressed their concerns saying that money spent on these weapons of mass destruction, should rather go towards funding, “jobs, schools and healthcare.” The Tomahawk missiles that struck Syria in the first wave of airstrikes reportedly cost $60 million USD in total as one Tomahawk missile is valued at approximately $1 million USD. (For more from the author of “Dramatic Escalation in Syria” please click HERE)

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Shocking Video Shows Moment Suicide Bomb Blast Rips Through Egyptian Coptic Christian Church

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HORRIFYING CCTV footage shows the moment a blast from a suicide bomber ripped through a church in Alexandria as attacks on two religious sites in Egypt claimed the lives of at least 47 people.

Hundreds were injured as bombs ripped through two Coptic Christian churches within hours of each other in attacks claimed by ISIS.

Egyptian media has beamed CCTV footage of the Alexandria bombing and reporting that a man seen in a blue jumper is a suspect.

Two clips show the man approach the main gate to St. Mark’s cathedral, before being turned away and directed toward a nearby metal detector.

The man then passes a female police officer chatting to another woman and enters the metal detector before an explosion engulfs the area sending debris flying. (Read more from “Shocking CCTV Shows Moment Suicide Bomb Blast Rips Through Egyptian Coptic Christian Church” HERE)

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Finally: Justice in Twin Falls Refugee Assault of Five-Year-Old Girl

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A community torn apart by an unspeakable horror is finally getting some justice and closure, even if many of its members are set on continuing the same refugee policies that led to the atrocity in the first place.

In June 2016 in Twin Falls, Idaho, a 5-year-old developmentally-challenged girl was allegedly sexually assaulted. The three suspects charged in connection with this crime were refugee children, ages seven, 10, and 14, of Iraqi and Eritrean origin.

According to the charges, while one of the boys assaulted the little girl in an apartment complex laundry room, the other two recorded the incident on a cell phone. Few details have been available, as all of those involved are minors and the records have been sealed.

While what happened to that little girl can never be undone, this week her family and her community are one step closer to seeing justice served.

The three boys charged with the crime have pleaded guilty to felonies or aiding felonies, according to a report at The Idaho Statesman. All three have struck plea bargains that the victim’s family has agreed to.

“We agreed to the plea bargains. That by no means implies my clients were, or are, fully satisfied with the outcome of these cases or the prosecuting attorney,” Mark Guerry — an attorney for the victim’s family — told the newspaper.

“After 10 months their right to some form of justice was long overdue,” the statement continues. “They were prepared to testify at a trial or enter into to plea agreements months ago. More importantly, no convictions or mere words in statements could ever mitigate the unrelenting trauma and grief their little daughter now suffers as a result of this vicious sexual assault.”

This result didn’t come easily for the family, who not only had to endure the slings and arrows of open borders pundits and politicians, but also the media’s near-blackout of their story.

At first, the little girl’s story received little more than modest local media attention, noted Michelle Malkin, senior editor at Conservative Review, but a conservative social media groundswell, “untethered by the constraints of political correctness,” began asking the questions mainstream journalists ignored and eventually brought out the facts of the case.

In a recent episode of “Michelle Malkin Investigates” — which focuses on Europe’s refugee rape crisis — Malkin delves deeper into the political media cover-up surrounding the Twin Falls case.

Here’s a preview:

While justice may finally be served and closure coming to a beleaguered family, Twin Falls’ refugee question is far from over, as pro-refugee policies have come to mean big money for local vendors.

One of the largest employers in the area, Chobani, operates the world’s largest yogurt factory in the area and employs refugees as nearly 30 percent of its workforce, a business dynamic that has skewed local debate on the issue.

Speaking to WND last month in a story that outlines the problematic local politics surrounding the case, Guerry even accused the local Republican Party of taking the refugees’ side in the matter after Jim Jones — a former state supreme court judge — came to a local Rotary meeting to chastise those skeptical of refugee resettlement in the area.

“He trashed and browbeat everyone who challenged that refugee center for having a negative effect on business in Twin Falls,” Guerry told the website.

“My read on it is the local Republican Party has become just so corrupt and does whatever the prosecutor and other local muckety mucks [in Twin Falls] tell them to do,” he concluded. “I think they brought Jones down for the very purpose of trying to kill this story and browbeat and shame people and guilt them for standing up to the refugee center. And it’s all about the dollar for Chobani and others, just wagging their finger at anyone who opposes the refugee center and trying to make them feel guilty and ashamed for harming local business.” (For more from the author of “Finally: Justice in Twin Falls Refugee Assault of Five-Year-Old Girl” please click HERE)

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I’m an Old Soldier. Now My Son Might Deploy to Syria, and I’m Worried

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I was an infantryman. My brother was an infantryman. My father was an infantryman. My grandfather was an infantryman in both World War II and the Korean War. And so on, up through my family tree. I’ve been a soldier in a family of soldiers that has served this country in most of the wars it has fought since its founding.

This week my son deploys to the Middle East. And Donald Trump appears to be changing before our eyes into something none of us voted for. Before long my son could be on the ground in Syria, part of a new American campaign that’s no more likely to produce any good than anything else we’ve done in that troubled part of the world.

Beyond scaring me down on my knees, these facts have forced me to think about America’s legacy in the region. Things are not always as they seem. Remember all the warnings we heard about how Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction? About its ties to the attacks on 9/11? Remember Colin Powell at the United Nations, putting all his credibility, and America’s, on the line, to urge the world to join us? It was based on bad intelligence. Dust in our eyes. Dust in the wind.

The real question now is not whether Assad is a bad guy. Of course he is. But look at the real alternatives. They’re all much worse for religious minorities in the area, including Christians.

Our Broken Promises in Iraq

More important than bad intel from past conflicts, remember the promises we made to Iraq and its people. We swore that we would bring freedom, order, and prosperity. Do we even remember that now?

Iraqis do. With bitterness.

In January I traveled to Iraq and Kurdistan, researching a film I’m making. Its heroes? The one million Christians who were purged from their ancient homeland, right under our soldier’s noses. (Our men were following orders, and the Bush administration never ordered them to prevent it.) I’m documenting these and other religious refugees as they fight for their faith and their families. As they cling to their human dignity in the wasteland we left behind.

As I made my way toward Mosul, I passed through the legacy of our last “humanitarian” intervention. Our last war against a war criminal. Our proud patriots’ achievement stretched out before me as I snaked down the dusty roads: one abandoned settlement after another. Some places with noble and ancient names were now neatly organized piles of rubble.

Here’s what the locals told me: After the U.S. invaded, dissolved their army, fitfully tried to keep order, then finally — under Obama — cut and ran, those towns were captured by ISIS. The men and boys were hunted, the girls kidnapped and raped. The survivors hid out in the hills. Then U.S. airstrikes flattened all the buildings. Then ISIS booby-trapped the rubble and burned whatever was left. And that’s what is left of much of Iraq.

America’s Elite Plays on Our Goodness, But What Results is Evil

While I was still in Kurdistan I finally got overwhelmed. I met with local imams, whose people had suffered alongside the Christians. As The Stream has reported, those groups now fight together against ISIS. They also fight al Qaeda, and its Turkish sponsors and allies. After I heard their stories, I blurted out an apology. “I’m sorry. Americans are sorry that we invaded then abandoned you.”

The imam nodded solemnly, and addressed me with great dignity. “We know that Americans think they are responsible for the actions of their government. We are not so naive. Americans are good people. Your elite must play on your goodness even to do evil.”

A Long Series of Half-Truths & War Propaganda

As responsible citizens, it’s our duty to listen skeptically when men with power call us to war. We owe at least that much to the victims of past mistakes. It has become standard practice in American war-making to take some atrocity, inflate it or invent it and use it to sell a war to the general public. The spurious “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” sold us the whole Vietnam War.

We were sold the first Gulf War in part by the fiction that Iraqi soldiers were yanking premature babies out of incubators in Kuwait. (The “witness” who spoke before Congress was a relative of Kuwait’s ambassador, coached by a PR firm.) There were good reasons for liberating Kuwait. So why did our leaders decide to lie to us? Do they think we can’t be trusted with the truth?

In the three months since I’ve returned to our peaceful shores, I’ve been haunted by what I saw. By the fathers who choked up as they told me what happened to their daughters. By the pastors who were still picking through the ruins of ancient churches. By the ruin left behind by irresponsible politicians. Now I wonder whether my son will risk his life to pile up rubble in yet another country. (For more from the author of “I’m an Old Soldier. Now My Son Might Deploy to Syria, and I’m Worried” please click HERE)

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