BY TONY BLANKELY
Reprinted from Townhall.com
With apologies to George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward and their 1935 classic song, “Summertime” (and the living is easy):
Summertime,
And the living is queasy
Taxes jumpin’
And foreclosures are high
Tag Archives: Tony Blankley
Wikileaks Is Espionage
BY TONY BLANKLEY
Reprinted from Townhall.com
“Wiki” is a cute Hawaiian word for “quick” — borrowed by Ward Cunningham, creator of the first Internet wiki — from the name of a fast little inter-terminal shuttle at Honolulu International Airport.
But cute and innocent as the word may sound, when attached to damaging wartime leaks by WikiLeaks operator Julian Assange, its cuteness should not protect Mr. Assange from being prosecuted and possibly executed by the U.S. government for wartime espionage.
Title 18 U.S. Code, Section 794, Paragraph (b) reads:
“Whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, collects, records, publishes, or communicates, or attempts to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval or military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification or defense of any place, or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.”
Wikileaks Crime Should Shock America
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
I wonder if there is a family somewhere in America whose son’s or daughter’s life was put at risk because of the Wikileaks.org release last month of 76,000 classified documents?
I wonder if there is an Afghan family whose son’s or daughter’s life was put at risk because of those leaks that we are told contain the names of Afghani citizens who have tried to help U.S. soldiers in their war against the Taliban.
I’m the father of five and I wonder about those things because war must get very personal and very heart wrenching for parents with children—age doesn’t matter and adulthood doesn’t exist for parents—involved on the violent fronts of the conflict.
So it was especially alarming to read the reactions of those detached observers suffering from chronic arrogance and elitism who thought the release of the documents was boring, telling us little we didn’t know already. “Overall, though, the most shocking thing about the ‘War Diary” may be that it fails to shock, wrote columnist Eugene Robinson. His colleague Richard Cohen went further: “The news in that massive data dump…is that there is no news at all.”
Lincoln or Kagan on Our Rights
BY TONY BLANKLEY
Reprinted from Townhall.com
Abraham Lincoln: “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” Lincoln address in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 1861:
“That sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty … to the people of this country … Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? … if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.”
Lincoln’s inaugural address of March 4, 1861: “The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was ‘to form a more perfect Union.’ ”
Half of Country Shocked and Appalled
BY TONY BLANKLEY
Reprinted from Washington Times
This country is divided into three parts concerning national politics. About a third think President Obama is moving in the right direction, with many of them impatient for the president to be bolder with his leftist agenda. Somewhere in the vicinity of 40 percent to 50 percent of Americans are shocked and appalled at the nation’s rush toward bankruptcy, socialism, fundamental transformation of our way of life and the permanent weakening and impoverishing of America. And some 15 percent to 30 percent are quite concerned about the current state of the country but see no imminent crisis and think that with some substantial adjustments, Mr. Obama’s efforts may end up being useful. (The foregoing numbers are merely my subjective judgment, not based on any particular poll.)
Afghanistan Sinking
BY TONY BLANKLEY
For the Washington Times
Last summer the President spent several months publicly anguishing over what he would or wouldn’t do in Afghanistan. Finally, he agreed to ramp up troop levels, but warned that he intended to start getting American troops out in 18 months. After myself anguishing in several columns over the President’s anguishing, I concluded in November 2009:
“If the Taliban and al-Qaida retake Afghanistan, the world (and America) will have hell to pay for the consequences. But this president and this White House do not have it in them to lead our troops to victory in Afghanistan. So they shouldn’t try. The price will be high for whatever foreign policy failures we will endure in the next three years. Let’s not add to that price the pointless murder of our finest young troops in a war their leader does not believe in. Bring them home. We’ll need them later.”
Is Government Really Broken?
BY TONY BLANKLEY
If you want to see broken government, consider the fall of the constitutional Roman Republic and the rise of Julius Caesar: “Fortune turned against us and brought confusion to all we did. Greed destroyed honor, honesty and every other virtue, and taught men to be arrogant and cruel, to neglect the gods. Ambition made men false. Rome changed: A government which had once surpassed all others in justice and excellence now became cruel and unbearable.” So said the historian Sallust at the time.