Tag Archives: Frank Salvato

03/12/15

Duty to Country Is Deadly Business

By: Frank Salvato

I awoke to the news that 7 Marines and 4 Army soldiers went missing, all presumed dead, after a special operations training mission helicopter crashed not far from where I live; not far from the pristine beach where I took the picture that sits atop my Facebook page. It is a sober reminder that those who volunteer to place themselves in harm’s way; between the evil and the innocent, face dangers even as they train to protect the nation they serve and the innocent they swear to protect.

ABC’s WEAR Channel 3 in Pensacola reports:

“Seven Marines and four soldiers went missing early Wednesday after an Army helicopter crashed during a night training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in Navarre.

“Defense officials say the military members aboard the aircraft are presumed dead. Heavy fog is having an impact on recovery efforts. Human remains have washed up on shore but the number of remains has not be released at this time. This is still considered a search and rescue mission…Pentagon officials say the heavy fog played a role in the crash.”

In a time when the chattering class demands that we debate the ideological genesis of the deadly threat to our nation – and Western Civilization – emanating from the Middle East, it would well serve our nation’s collective soul to personalize not only the seriousness of the threat, but the guardians of our nation; the rough and ready men and women who step into the coarse void between the way of life afforded us by the American dream and the oppression and cruelty many around the world would love to inflict upon us.

When we have the courage to confront and accept the truth, it is undeniable that there are vicious zealots committing atrocities; crimes against humanity, in the name of Islam. Yet, some among us in the West; some whose ideological addictions force them to see everything through a morally relativistic lens, seek to designate our nation as one of many among equals; our military personnel as simple countermeasures to enemies who have equal claim to ideological and moral legitimacy. But this stunted line of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth and, in fact, serves as a smear against the brave men and women of the US Armed Forces; our sentinels who stand between “the barbarians and the gate.” I know this to be true because my wife and I live among them; we know them and love them like family.

Our enemies, those who willingly join the ranks of Daesh (the Islamic State, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, al Shabab, etc.), execute barbaric acts of tyranny in the name of their religion, committing unspeakable acts of ferocious cruelty in an effort to either convert the un-Islamic or cleanse the earth of those who refuse their dictate, all in an aggressive pursuit of global domination.

The men and women of the United States Armed Forces, in extreme contrast, step into the ugly void of a no-man’s land where the weak and oppressed suffer at the hands of tyrants; a land where the cowardly fear to tread. They inject themselves into situations to free the oppressed, to preserve the liberty of the innocent and to vanquish the tyrannical. And as they do they carry with them the moral clarity that understands “good versus evil”; “right verses wrong”; “duty, honor, country,” lessons gleaned from the righteousness of the American dream, not the ideological clap-trap of theorists hell-bent on believing in the impossibility of global utopia, or the manipulation of political creatures questing for power, influence and fame.

Our military men and women are sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, and neighbors. They go to the store for food, they fill-up their cars with gas, they help their children with their school work, they laugh, and the cry, just like those who do not serve. They cut their grass, they take out their garbage, they pay their taxes and they socialize. The live, laugh and love. But sometimes when they kiss their spouses goodbye at the door; sometimes when they kiss their children good night; sometimes when they promise to be back in a few days, sometimes those kisses are their last and those promises to return are broken, not of their own commission, but because their call to duty, their call to serve, sent them on a path that does not return home.

So it is with the 7 Marines and 4 US Army soldiers who kissed their loved ones goodbye with every intention of returning in a few days. So it is with many military families who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

A close friend of mine who teaches at a military special operations school wrote me after I queried him about the training accident. He closed by saying, “This business is a dangerous business.” Indeed it is. It is dangerous and it is necessary. It is necessary for the longevity of liberty and freedom. And it is rightly necessary for all of us to thank and honor them for their sacrifices; honor them like family, because they protect us like we are family.

Frank Salvato is the Executive Director of BasicsProject.org a grassroots, non-partisan, research and education initiative focusing on Constitutional Literacy, and internal and external threats facing Western Civilization. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His opinion and analysis have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, The Jewish World Review, Accuracy in Media, Human Events, Townhall.com and are syndicated nationally. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel, and is the author of six books examining Islamofascism and Progressivism, including “Understanding the Threat of Radical Islam”. Mr. Salvato’s personal writing can be found at FrankJSalvato.com.

03/8/15

Obama’s Unbelievable Hillary Email Alibi

By: Frank Salvato

President Obama has again extended a jaw-dropped reaction to news of yet another scandal in what has become a parade of scandals scaring his administration. This time the President is trying to convince the American public that he learned of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account during her time as Secretary of State through…wait for it…the news media. It’s curious how every time someone in his administration fails at spinning his or her way out of a career-ending scandal he just happens to find out about it through the news media, as if he were as innocuous as the average American citizen.

When asked by CBS News’ Bill Plante about when he learned about the unethical – and most likely illegal – use of a private email account, complete with home-based servers, for official government correspondence, Mr. Obama replied, “The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.” He continued, “the policy of my administration is to encourage transparency…and that’s why my emails, the BlackBerry that I carry around, all those records are available and archived.”

Effectively proving that this response was coordinated, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the President learned about the issue through the newspapers. Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s “Rasputan-like” senior advisor, made a statement equally as incredulous as the one issued by the President in asserting that she never received an email from Mrs. Clinton’s private email account and was unsure if anyone in the inner-sanctum of the White House ever did either.

All of these alibis are issued in the face of credible reports that Clinton’s personal staff had made the informed decision to suppress the news of the email account after the White House, State Department and Clinton’s personal office learned this past August that House Republicans had been provided information proving that Clinton used a private email account to conduct official government business, including the possible transmission of secret and sensitive documents, to a server that Qualys SSL Labs rates an “F” for security.

Let’s take a breath and consider these alibis; all of the realities that would have to exist for these alibis to be even remotely palatable.

If, in fact, President Obama was unaware that his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was not using a government issues secure email account, reality would mandate that he never – not once – received an email from her. Is it possible that in an age of instant communication, and in a White House where everyone is connected to their BlackBerries and iPhones, that not one email was sent from the Secretary of State – whose position in presidential succession is fourth in-line – to the President? To borrow a phrase from Mrs. Clinton, one would have to employ a willing suspension of disbelief to even consider the thought.

But, let’s – for the moment – assume that Mr. Obama never did receive an email from his chief diplomatic officer, even as the Arab Spring was exploding, and even as the “reset” with Russia was afoot. Let’s assume that his senior advisors were playing “gatekeeper” with Mrs. Clinton’s correspondence. That would create a reality where Mr. Obama’s senior-most advisor, Valerie Jarrett, was not receiving the Secretary of State’s emails. Further, if we are to believe the picture the White House press secretary is painting we have to believe that no one in the White House was receiving email from the Secretary of State, again, as the Middle East was aflame, Mr. Putin was positioning aggressively toward the Ukraine, North Korea was acquiring nuclear weapons capability, etc.

All that assumed, this would create a reality where the President, the upper-echelons of the White House and everyone attached to it were completely non-communicative with the US Secretary of State during one of the most troubling times the world has ever seen. At best this scenario proves ineptitude heretofore unseen in the Executive Branch of the United States government. At worst, it proves collusion at the highest levels of government to provide political plausible deniability to the President and his senior staff; collusion so debilitating that it corrupted communications between the President and his chief diplomat to the world.

Further, to consider these scenarios is to acquiesce to the truth that someone at the White House knew Mrs. Clinton was using a personal email account and chose not to report the violation of Obama Administration policy to superiors.

But I have drifted too far into the unrealistic. One would have to believe in unicorns and the tooth fairy to believe that the President and his Secretary of State never communicated by email for the total of Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

Sorry, Mr. President, but I simply don’t believe you. You are now the “boy who cried media.”

Frank Salvato is the Executive Director of BasicsProject.org a grassroots, non-partisan, research and education initiative focusing on Constitutional Literacy, and internal and external threats facing Western Civilization. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His opinion and analysis have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, The Jewish World Review, Accuracy in Media, Human Events, Townhall.com and are syndicated nationally. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel, and is the author of six books examining Islamofascism and Progressivism, including “Understanding the Threat of Radical Islam”. Mr. Salvato’s personal writing can be found at FrankJSalvato.com.