MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial day is about remembrance of those in uniform who sacrificed their lives so that we may live free of tyranny. 

Every year it is one of many sobering reminders of how freedom is never free, and there is always the lurking peril concocted by evil to usurp power and leave us in servitude. 

Always be vigilant, and defiant, of those --irrespective of ideology-- who, in clever guises, seek totalitarian control in the name of the "greater good."   This threat is lately disguised within such noble sounding "isms" -- "globalism/liberalism/multiculturalism"-- that forfeit individual identity (as in a nation/people who share a common heritage/language). This endeavor is complemented with the need to make us forget the lessons of history to ensure complacency, denial and betrayal. 

With continued appeasement, and the longer the head remains in the sand, the greater will be the human and economic costs. What is tragic is how human beings fail to learn from the past. A past in which so many made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and way of life.

Breaking from family tradition, we will head out to the Quantico National Cemetery later in the week as one of our boys is sick. Perhaps, on reflection, this delay isn't unfortunate. To pay our respects, as a family, to the fallen when the crowds have departed, and the bands, and the bugles are once again silent. 

HAPPY 241ST BIRTHDAY UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS!

Since November 10th, 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized two battalions of the Continental Marines to be formed, American Marines have honorably served from the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli and beyond "to fight for right and freedom and to keep [their] honor clean." Samuel Nicholas ("the fighting Quaker"), the first Marine (and Commandant) would be proud of the Marines who've served honorably during the last 241 years in every clime and place. May God bless the Marine Corps, and may God bless these United States in the years ahead. 

Proud of our son, Armstead Liebl, who continues what is now a family tradition of USMC service.

Ray Edward Liebl, circa 1959 (age 22)

(1937-1992)

Served in USMC (1954-1976); Last MOS 2549

Vietnam War ( 1968-1969 (Purple Heart)

Vernie Roy Liebl, circa 1980 (age 22) 
USMC (1980-2006); Last MOS 0202

(Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom)

Armstead Brandon Burki Liebl, circa 2016 (age 19)

MOS 0351 (Assaultman)

For Armstead The Journey Has Begun

Today, our son Armstead Brandon Burki Liebl left with other poolees for Parris Island USMC boot camp for recruit training to become a US Marine. How apropos a date for him to leave...the fight is a generational one over ideology, identity and way of life.

IF

By Rudyard Kipling

(1865-1936)

If you can keep your head when all about you
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
  And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.

A Man is He Who is Resolute

By Khushal Khan Khattak

(1613-1689)

A man is he who is resolute
And who will share his blessings,
Who's gentle with his fellow men.

In all he does in life;
His face, his face-- his word, his word.
His promise always kept.

Who never lies, never deceives,
Never succumbs to greed;
Whose words are few, many his deeds,
All silently performed.

Who's like a rosebud, smiling mouthed,
His breast open to see;
When there is talk of lowliness
Or else stateliness.

Who's like the heavens in his grandeur,
Or humble as the dust.

In dignity like to the cypress,
But in bounteousness
Like to the vine, its branches laden,
Spread in all directions.

His face bright as a new blown rose
That makes the garden fair,
While all around the nightingales
Pour out their joyous song.

TABLIGHI JAMA'AT: Proselytizing Missionaries or Trojan Horse?

Given that the recent terrorist attack/massacre in San Bernardino by Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik has Tablighi Jama'at linkages, I'm posting my Tablighi Jama'at article (published in 2012) to warn others on the danger this highly secretive movement poses to us here in the United States after it has already suborned Pakistan and is working on Bangladesh and, to a lesser degree, India (which is overwhelmingly Hindu)

Syed Farook, like John Walker Lindh (captured in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban), attended a Deobandi mosque (the Deobandi movement is the South Asia equivalent of the Wahhabi movement and has Saudi ties). Some reports are claiming Syed Farook belonged to the Tablighi Jama'at and his wife, Tashfeen, belonged to the Jama'at-i-Islami. For someone raised in Pakistan, these two facts alone would raise some alarm bells.

Here is the article.

Journal of Applied Security Research, 8:98–117, 
(online December 19th, 2012


The Tablighi Jama’at: Proselytizing
Missionaries or Trojan Horse?
SHIREEN KHAN BURKI
Independent Scholar

Tablighi Jama’at, a transnational Deobandi (Sunni) Muslim proselytizing group with branches in over 150 countries today, has
garnered attention in the West since 2001. With increasing frequency, terrorist plots in the West reveal Jama’at linkages. Although its leadership enunciates a peaceful, apolitical stance; the organization does share the same core ideology and ultimate objectives (the expansion of Dar al Islam and the establishment of a global Caliphate) as the Salafis, Wahhabis and other “revivalist” Islamist movements such as the Ikhwan al Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood).

The only difference between the Jama’at and the Ikhwan, for example, is their respective modus operandi. Although the Tablighi
Jama’at stress proselytism as their sole objective, they have also provided cover, a conduit and a fertile recruiting ground for jihadi
organizations such as Al Qaeda and Lashkar-i-Taiba.

KEYWORDS Tablighi Jama’at, Islamic activism, Al Qaeda, Deobandi, Taliban, terrorism, Lashkar-i-Taiba, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi,Jihad bil Saif, Muslim Brotherhood, Jaish-i-Muhammad, Jihad




Tablighi Jama’at (“Proselytizing Group”)—hereafter “TJ” or Tablighi—is the largest Islamic (Sunni) Deobandi missionary and revivalist movement in the world today (Zaman, 2007). However, many non-Muslims have never heard of them notwithstanding their presence in the West, beginning in the 1960s. The TJ have attracted controversy due to exposed linkages of some of its members with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-i-Taiba,
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Jaish-i-Muhammad, and Sipah-i-Sahaba. Given the secret nature and amorphous structure of this group, it has been hard to gauge the actual intent of these proselytizing missionaries. The growing linkages between exposed terrorists and the TJ, however, does raise questions which require a careful scrutiny of this organization, rather than a tendency (in certain academic circles) to take them at face value, and to accept their pro forma statements which condemn violence in the name of Islam. This 
article will scrutinize the TJ and its modus operandi to glean whether or not it is an incubator for “jihadis” in the West and/or has the potential for metamorphosis into a more lethal and violent organization.

THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS: WHEN HUBRIS MEETS REALITY

We are at war. This is the new phase with innovative strategies, unholy alliances and unconventional tactics. It will get much worse. This is guaranteed. We are too late. Our leaders have ignored signs. Worse, they have been complicit on so many levels. They have, in fact, contributed/created Da'ish through the overthrow of regimes in the MENA (Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Egypt) and have worked feverishly, and illegally, to furnish an assortment of military hardware through Libya to Syrian rebels to overthrow the secular Assad regime. Washington supports regimes that covertly support Al Qaeda, Hizballah and the Muslim Brotherhood (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran). 



Parisians, on Friday the thirteenth (of November), were terrorized by eight young European born Arab Muslims, including two recent arrivals (Syrian "refugees"). The target of these Muslim youth: Western youth. 

Over a hundred --mostly young-- people were slaughtered as they enjoyed the start of the weekend. In cafes, bars, a soccer game and a concert, they were mowed down. None were armed and none tried to tackle their murderers. Like sheep, they were butchered. None resisted. Their false sense of security, notwithstanding recent foreboding events, placed their lives in peril. 

There has been so much slaughter since 9/11 globally in the name of Islam, and it has generally been business as usual. Carry on. Don't be a "racist" or an "Islamophobe" is you dare to express concerns about a certain group of people. 


DA'ISH (aka the Islamic State/ ISIL/ISIS) is Al Qaeda on speed. The objective is shared. The objective is one that all devout Muslims believe in: spreading the 'true faith' of Islam (submission) across the Globe until there is no fitna (strife) and no kuffar (infidels or disbelievers).

OUR DIRTY WAR IN WAZIRISTAN: US Drone Strikes Bolster the Pakistan Army's War on Pakhtunkhwa

IF

Kipling's India
circa 1915
flickr




IF

By Rudyard Kipling

(1865-1936)

If you can keep your head when all about you
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
  And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.