Sometimes two events come together to remind us of a very special moment in history. A few days ago the 2024 edition of the “Paris-Chartres Pilgrimage” concluded. This is an annual event in which devout Catholics, typically numbering more than 15,000, make a 60 mile trek from Paris to the renowned gothic cathedral of Chartres to celebrate the feast of Pentecost. The pilgrimage, which has taken place for the better part of a millennium, occupies an important spiritual place, particularly among those who wish to see a revival of traditional Catholicism. It is especially fitting that it should culminate with a Mass celebrated at a 12th Century cathedral, described in its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as “one of the most beautiful and historically significant cathedrals in all of Europe.” [I]t nonetheless deserves our attention, a reminder that the so-called “dash across France” was never the bloodless romp that the history books want to portray. UNESCO also notes that the cathedral is well-preserved, which takes us to the second event, and with it, a very special story for this Memorial Day weekend. In August 1944, General George S. Patton’s Third Army had just been activated as part of Operation Cobra, the “breakout” from Normandy that marked the beginning of the destruction of the German armies west of the Seine and the liberation of France. Racing across France, the XXth Corps of the Third Army had liberated Le Mans and Angers and was in the process of outflanking Paris to the south. The small city of Chartres stood squarely in its path, a logistics hub for the German army and the location of an important Luftwaffe airbase. Although the rapid advance had disrupted any coherent line of defense, the Germans still fought desperately to defend as many key strongpoints as possible. One such strongpoint was Chartres, a place where several key roads came together, with important bridges over the river Eure. For the Wehrmacht, holding Chartres, if only for a few critical days, meant allowing more units to escape eastward and reconstitute a defensive barrier. For Patton, seizing Chartres on the run meant trapping more Germans, maintaining the momentum of the Third Army’s drive toward the German border, and, above all, making sure that the retreating Germans remained off-balance. Two divisions of the XXth Corps, the 7th Armored and the 5th Infantry, were tasked with taking Chartres, the armored if it could be seized on the run, the infantry if a more deliberate assault proved necessary. (READ MORE from James H. McGee: Pro-Hamas Panty Raids: A Destructive Dynamic) On August 16, 1944, the 7th Armored had run into increasingly heavy resistance as it pushed from the outskirts into the center of Chartres. The city is located on the plain of Beauce, the center of farming country, the terrain flat for miles around. The cathedral sits on the only hill of significance, and its towers, the tallest some 371 feet high, are visible for miles around. For the approaching American GIs, not simply visible, but oppressively so, for such dominant features were almost always associated with German artillery observers, looking down with binoculars from on high, calling down the dreaded 88s on anything that moved. Even as the 5th Infantry moved in to take over the fight, riflemen of the 7th Armored found themselves drawing sniper fire from the cathedral, significant in and of itself, all the more so because it seemingly confirmed that the Germans were using the cathedral as an observation post. As these riflemen returned fire, the call went up the chain of command for an artillery barrage to flatten the cathedral. At XXth Corps Headquarters, the request came to Colonel Welborn Barton Griffith, a young colonel and the chief of Operations (G-3) on the Corps general staff. Griffith had already been in the city the night before, and, while he knew of the reported sniper fire, he also knew that the order to destroy an historical structure of such significance should not be given lightly. With only his jeep driver as an escort, he drove to the front lines around the cathedral, then through no man’s land to the entrance to the cathedral itself. He entered the cathedral and searched it, including climbing hundreds of steps up into the bell tower. Satisfied that the Germans were no longer present, he blocked the order to bombard the cathedral. Welborn Griffith, West Point photograph, 1925. Col. Welborn Barton Griffith, Jr., is credited with personally saving historic Chartres Cathedral during World War II. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. A happy ending then? Sadly, not entirely. Already far forward of his post back in the rear echelon at Corps Headquarters, he continued to reconnoiter, soon encountering a  strong German patrol. He withdrew, found an American tank and some infantry, and led them forward to deal with the German patrol. Standing exposed behind the turret of the tank, directing the tank and the infantry forward, he was shot and killed. French villagers maintained a vigil over his body until it could be recovered. A plaque now marks the place of his death, and his courage was recognized with the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. Today Colonel Griffith’s body lies alongside some 4,404 of his comrades in the Brittany-American Cemetery in St. James, France. Less famous than the Normandy American Cemetery above Omaha Beach, smaller than the Lorraine and Luxembourg American cemeteries, filled with those killed in the massive slugging matches at Metz, the Siegfried Line, and the Battle of the Bulge, it nonetheless deserves our attention, a reminder that the so-called “dash across France” was never the bloodless romp that the history books want to portray. I grew up with the story of the decision not to destroy Chartres Cathedral. As I’ve recounted elsewhere, my dad was a junior officer in the 5th Infantry Division, and the fight for Chartres was among the stories he read to me from the division history. But the story of Colonel Welborn Barton Griffith was absent from that narrative, largely because it was written in 1946, and Griffith’s heroism received little public recognition in the U.S. until many years later — and this largely because of the French in the little community where he was killed. On this Memorial Day weekend, I think he deserves to be remembered with a hero’s salute. He deserves to be remembered alongside the hundreds of thousands of Americans who, over the life of our nation, have given their lives to protect our freedom. But he also deserves his salute because of the moral character of his actions on August 16, 1944. It would have been easy to allow the artillery bombardment to go forward. Not doing so meant potentially risking the lives of dozens, if not hundreds of the GIs for whom he was responsible as a senior officer. And many other officers would have made the decision, one way or the other, from the relative safety of his Headquarters, and no one would have faulted them for doing so. But he decided that it was important enough to risk his life to make sure, and then to risk his life yet again doing something that colonels might reasonably have delegated to a lieutenant. (READ MORE: Gentlemen, Scholars, Thugs: The Real Heroes Behind The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) On this Memorial Day weekend then, a week after thousands of believers enjoyed the inspirational beauty of Chartres Cathedral, let’s pause to remember Colonel Welborn Barton Griffith of Quanah, Texas, West Point Class of 1925. November 10, 1901 — August 16, 1944. James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His 2022 novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region, and a forthcoming sequel carries the Reprisal team from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited. The post The Hero Who Saved a Cathedral appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

This is the lede from Euro News in Brussels just five days after the Hamas committed its atrocities against the people of and guests within the Jewish state: October 12, 2023 – Israel has the right to defend itself, but some of its actions since Hamas’ unprecedented assault on Saturday “counter” international humanitarian law, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Tuesday evening…. Speaking to reporters following an extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers … ” I have often considered most of the meetings of the EU to be “extraordinary,” given the vacuous comments and inane promulgations often forthcoming from such august colloquia. But that is an issue for another essay. The above pattern of Israel responding under duress to the caprice of her “allies,” prevailed during each of her engagements from 1948 to 2024. You will no doubt already have heard the above familiar (and safe) refrain a multitude of times unless you have been incommunicado somewhere north of the arctic circle and your short wave hasn’t been working for six months. The news is full of pontificates on both sides of the political divide trying to be the first and most vocal (perhaps persistent) to have their “two cents” worth of support for Israel reported by the mainstream liberal media. But give it a few months and my, how things change, especially the views of those “clinched fisted” Israel supporters. The mantra is no longer Israel’s “right to defend itself.” The rhetoric becomes: Israel’s “right to defend itself, BUT” only with back-handed caveats, to which Israel must subscribe or there will be consequences — political and economic consequences from the “international community.” In other words Israel’s “close allies” (Britain, U.S., and the EU ala France) do not want there to be political fallout in the Middle East, because they do not want a similar backlash at home from Israel’s response, especially since these “close allies,” provided overtly or covertly economic, political and/or military support to Israel in its response to the slaughter of innocent people at the hands of Hamas. But let us be clear about that support — it comes with “strings” attached. In the case of the U.S.-Israeli foreign policy arrangement that tether has a 10-year $40 billion political “carrot” at the end of it. And that means Israel will respond to the political winds gusting from Washington, not Jerusalem, during times of concern in the Middle East. Thus according to DC, Israel has the right to defend itself as long as it acts in compliance with what is in the best interest of Washington and Israel’s other “close allies,” Britain and the EU through France. It seems as though the ghost of Sykes-Picot is still manifest. (READ MORE from F. Andrew Wolf Jr.: Master of Our Own Consciousness or Slave to the State?) The political fallout at home for these countries is just a colloquial expression for several domestic issues which plague Britain and France, not the least of which is energy — an economic concern of their own making — as well as large restive Muslim populations. And in the U.S., an election in the fall of this year in which an incumbent left wing president is lagging in the polls. Every vote counts, or at least, this year, we hope so. Certainly, to the vast majority of those who peruse the pages of this magazine, much of the above is not necessarily news. The State of Israel has been with us since 1948 and the idea of such an entity since before Balfour in 1917. Moreover, the general contours of its history are well known to most. But if one considers what is occurring today in the context of Israel’s past, a pattern emerges that is undeniable. Since 1948 Israel has been engaged in 17 major conflicts (or wars depending on how one defines the latter). This calculus does not include the almost daily internal armed struggles with its detractors. This number is important because in each situation Israel has been either supported or otherwise by its “close allies” all because of the “prevailing winds” in the current geopolitical climate. In some engagements circumstances were such that Israel’s “allies” helped then hindered then impeded Israel in its effort to hold on to its right to defend itself. The current conflict in Gaza is representative of this latter situation, but there have been others. And each decision made was always done in the context of the politics of the moment. I say moment because presidents, prime ministers, and the vicissitudes of the political spectrum come and go — there’s an ebb and flow to politics. But with regard to the Jewish state, that hasn’t seemed to make much difference. The decisions made about and advice given to Israel regarding what the Jewish state ought to do before, during, and after each of the 17 engagements it fought was the same. It begins with the same vacuous refrain: Israel has the right to defend itself, but she is always told at the incipient stages to not engage unless no other choice avails itself; once engaged be quick about it and do everything that no other military in the world would even consider doing to avoid military and civilian casualties; do not let the fact that you are being attacked and that your population is at risk or being injured or killed influence your decisions with regard to any military response. And finally, at some point, if the engagement has not been completed within the timeframe agreeable to Israel’s “close allies,” the Jewish military must stop (irrespective of whether it has accomplished its military objective) because of the political imperatives warranted by these “allies.” The above pattern of Israel responding under duress to the caprice of her “allies,” prevailed during each of her engagements from 1948 to 2024. There were, of course, some differences regarding which ally or which ones were more emphatic in their caution or demands, but always with their own political agendas at the time driving Israel’s decisions because they bind Israel’s choices to only limited options. And lest we forget, one way or another the issues influencing the actions of Israel’s “allies” during the conflicts, including in Gaza, are a function of Sykes-Picot of 1916, which permanently altered the geopolitical schema of the Middle East. And this has been true much to the detriment of the peoples of the region, then and now. (READ MORE: US and Israel’s Humanitarian Mission to Gaza) Yet, today, even in the face of the Hamas atrocities in October of last year, Israel remains circumscribed by its “allies” to the degree that it is urged to defeat an enemy, but without civilian casualties or significantly disrupting infrastructure that is likely employed by the enemy for military purposes. Of course, say the “allies,” Israel always has the right to defend itself. But that is precisely the problem: Israel should not just have the right to defend itself. It has been doing that for 76 years in Judea and Samaria, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and recently in Iran, Lebanon again, and Gaza again. What Israel and its “close allies” need to understand is that since no nation state under international law has the right to exist, and since Israel has already been defending its determination to exist for 76 years, it has the right to live in peace if it can achieve this. And this is where we are today in the Middle East, especially with Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s right to live in peace is an entirely different concept — a uniquely different state of mind with profound implications about its present and future state of affairs. It no longer walks to the cadence of a foreign rhythm, but one emanating from the land of Judea and Samaria — with what is in the best interest of the Jewish people of Israel at its center. The latter was created 76 years ago for just that purpose. This by no means is an impossibility or the voice of naivety. Israel has been moving in that direction since October of last year. She has taken on the respect and, of course, the wrath of the world in her determined efforts to rid Gaza and the region of the horror of Hamas. But such actions do not embody retribution or vengeance of which she regularly stands accused in the modern liberal press; rather, the calculus is both cautious and careful so as to not respond disproportionately. Israel knows what this hole is like — she has been here before. But the accusations of disproportionate response are without merit. If Israel’s aim is to no longer merely exercise her right to defend herself (in perpetuity which has been the case for 76 years), but to defend herself, her lands, and her people such that from this point forward she may live in peace, the Jewish state is pursuing a just goal in its military efforts in Gaza and Lebanon. The pursuit of a just peace, rather than interim periods of non-hostility, must continue to be the goal of Israel and the Jewish people, and it may take time to achieve. But if Israel accepts the wisdom of the text of Habakkuk in the Hebrew Scriptures to trust in the faith of God’s sovereign purpose for her, the Jewish state can live in peace and stop doing what she is expected to do — merely continue to defend herself against those that seek her demise and those who seek only what is in their own best interest, not Israel’s. If the right to live in peace is what Israel is currently pursuing with respect to Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran this will, for the first time in 76 years, be perhaps the first time a real chance for a just peace is actually upon her. Perhaps, Israel will become … …master of her own consciousness and slave to no other’s. The post Israel Has a Right to Peace appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The coming of spring is pretty much the same everywhere, but it is especially glorious in the Netherlands. The winters are cold and clammy, the sky almost constantly gray; most winters, in most Dutch cities, there is little if any snow, but the air always feels damp, the sun rarely if ever shows itself, and the rain can seem never-ending. Then, at around this time of year, it all changes, quite suddenly and quite gloriously: the rains cease, the sun not only emerges but shines with such intensity that you can feel the warmth in your bones; as if on cue, the café owners all put their sidewalk tables out again and the householders fill their window boxes with tulips. Looking around you, you’re reminded what an extraordinarily beautiful country it is.  [W]hat decent, liberty-loving individual could do other than to cheer the ambitions of Wilders and his coalition partners? So there was something especially moving about a statement Geert Wilders made at a historic press conference last week. Just under six months had passed since the November 22 elections in which his Freedom Party (PVV) won 37 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, making it the nation’s largest party for the first time since its founding in 2006. The results represented a spectacular upset for the ruling coalition of four parties, all of which experienced losses, as well as for the Dutch political establishment generally. Since that establishment has long considered Wilders a dangerous extremist, and since some of the fifteen parties that are represented in the lower house still want nothing to do with him, the question of how exactly his party’s success could be translated into the formation of a viable government representing the will of the Dutch electorate was not an easy one. (READ MORE from Bruce Bawer: Citizen Bawer: On Acquiring a Second Nationality) Indeed, it has taken many months of proposals, counter-proposals, and elaborate negotiations for the the PVV and three other parties — the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy), the NSC (New Social Contract), and the BBB (Farmer-Citizen Movement) — to work out detailed plans for a coalition government whose goals have been spelled out in a newly released 26-page document. Announcing this agreement at his press conference, Wilders promised to institute “the strictest asylum policy ever,” to lower taxes (including taxes on gasoline), to reduce development aid, to address the housing crisis, to take a “tougher approach to terror,” and to “work toward deporting criminal refugees.” In short, the coalition government will “set a new course for our country” under the motto “hope, courage, and pride,” and will seek to make Dutchmen “proud of this country again, of our beautiful Netherlands.” In short, as Wilders put it, “the Netherlands will become safer and the sun will shine again.” The sun will shine again! Yes, it was political rhetoric, but as a great admirer of Wilders and a lover of the Netherlands — especially of Netherlands in the spring — I found it moving.  The new government will be an unusual one. Half of its members will be non-politicians — business people and other experts in various fields. Neither Wilders nor any of the other party leaders will become prime minister. It’s not a bad idea. In parliamentary democracies, cabinets tend to consist exclusively of members of parliament who belong to the ruling party or parties; as a result, important ministries like finance or defense can end up in the hands of callow young people with no background whatsoever in these areas. (Of course, if the wrong person is in charge, the same thing can happen in the U.S., where a buffoon like Pete Buttigieg is named Secretary of Transportation simply because he fulfills certain identity criteria that have nothing to do with the duties of the job.) And of course in any system where career politicians run government departments, sensible decision-making can easily take a back seat to political considerations.  Needless to say, the Netherlands’ legacy media has no interest in giving Wilders’s coalition a chance. In the view of the editors of NRC, a leading newspaper, the Netherlands was now “joining a sad European trend” whereby “right-wing radical parties … are coming to power by sharpening their sharpest edges.” Responding to Wilders’s use of the word “pride,” NRC lamented that it seemed “to refer mainly to a Netherlands that is anxiously turning inwards, no longer wanting to look beyond the dikes.” Wilders, NRC charged, was leading the Netherlands full-speed into a “climate crisis” and was putting “the ‘ordinary’ Dutchman” ahead of “asylum seekers, Muslims, nature, Europe, the cultural sector” — a patently unacceptable choice. Sound familiar? The problem for NRC, obviously, is that Wilders’s program is, to all intents and purposes, a Dutch variation on Trumpism — favoring natives over illegal immigrants, national sovereignty over subordination to international organizations (the UN) or superstates (the EU), the voting power of “deplorables” over the tyranny of a small unelected elite, and common-sense environmentalism over radical climate ideology. To sensible people, every bit of it makes sense: but to NRC it’s “raw right-wing conservatism.” NRC does admit that this “is what a majority of voters who voted for these parties apparently want.” But NRC, like many mainstream media in the U.S., isn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of actually allowing the electorate to choose its own country’s leaders and chart its own country’s path.  The Dutch media are particularly uneasy about the coalition’s possible actions on immigration, especially of the Islamic variety. Wilders, of course, has for years been his country’s most prominent voice on the subject — a role formerly occupied by, in succession, Pim Fortuyn (who was murdered in 2002), Theo van Gogh (who was murdered in 2004), and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who left for the U.S. in 2006). Owing to his frank talk about Islam, Wilders has lived for years in a bulletproof house, is driven to work in an armored car, has the most secure office in the Dutch Parliament (believe me, I’ve been there), and goes nowhere without a full-time cohort of six bodyguards. In other words, he’s told the truth and fought the good fight at great personal sacrifice. (This is the man about whom the editors of NRC have the audacity to say: “Wilders has not cared about his voters for years.”)  To be sure, some of Wilders’s plans don’t sound as sweeping as one might wish: during last year’s campaign, his proposals included banning mosques and madrassas and even the Koran. (For my part, I’d send every household in the Netherlands a booklet containing all the most incendiary passages in the Koran.) But given that he’s working under the constraints that go along with being part of a coalition, the bullet points in the agreement with regard to Islam, immigration, and integration seem like a reasonable start: freezing decisions on asylum cases; deporting people without valid residence permits; ending the current practice, in the allocation of public housing, of prioritizing refugees with temporary residence permits over native-born Dutch citizens; tightening border controls; imposing stricter policies for admitting refugees, which includes an end to the practice of rewarding refugees who’ve discarded their identity documents; tightening “family reunification” policies; shortening the appeals process for refugee applications; making it possible to deport criminal aliens quickly; taking stricter action against asylum seekers in “reception centers” who commit acts of violence against women, gays, or Christians; punishing those who’ve failed to comply with deportation orders; and taking a more aggressive approach to integration, which, the coalition agreement specifies, means, among other things, requiring a higher level of competency in Dutch and extensive education about the Holocaust. (READ MORE: Biden Is George III. Who Does That Make Trump?)  Is this new start for the Netherlands too little, too late? Perhaps. But if Wilders’s coalition can put its program into effect, and carry it out with enough force and (yes) toughness, it could make a positive difference. It could encourage politicians in other Western countries who share Wilders’s determination to preserve their own countries’ freedom, tradition, and values — and who recognize the rampant ongoing Islamization of Western Europe as a cataclysmic threat to these things — to amp up their own efforts. In any event, when one turns from Wilders’s program to (for instance) the British government’s approach to Islamic perfidy — as exemplified by its long-term whitewashing of Muslim rape gangs, its hands-off approach to even the most violent participants at pro-Hamas rallies, and its brutal attempts to silence (or even destroy) critics of Islam like Tommy Robinson — what decent, liberty-loving individual could do other than to cheer the ambitions of Wilders and his coalition partners? Better, after all, to go down fighting than to yield power to a merciless enemy all the while hoping desperately and pathetically for mercy.  The post Will the Sun Shine Again in the Netherlands? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“Iran Gets Great Price on Chinese Helicopter,” editorial cartoon by Shaomin Li for The American Spectator, May 26, 2024. The post Iran Gets Great Price on Chinese Helicopter appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from Press For Truth:  TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Eric Zuesse, The Duran: U.S. President Joe Biden is now seriously considering the recommendations by his neoconservative Secretary of State Antony Blinken and by the neoconservative Victoria Nuland (whom Obama had assigned to plan and oversee the 2014 U.S. coup in Ukraine, which started the war in Ukraine) — their recommendations that America must now send to Ukraine […]

Modfather Paul Weller isn't shy about voicing his opinion –and he lets fly when asked what he thinks about politicians