“His Words Bore No Relation To His Intended Actions”

USS Cole

From: The Pen Of Gary Bauer

Back in February, President Obama met with 9/11 families and the families of American sailors who died in the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole. The meeting was necessitated by the administration’s soft stance in prosecuting the war on terror, the president’s promise to shut down the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the decision to drop charges against Abu Rahim al-Nashiri, the suspected mastermind of the Cole bombing. Faced with a potential onslaught of negative publicity from the victims’ families, the Obama White House went into campaign mode and invited 40 family members to the White House. One of those in attendance was Debra Burlingame, co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America.

[Recently], Ms. Burlingame released an op-ed recounting her experience at the meeting and reviewing some of the administration’s actions since that February day at the White House. She said the president warmly greeted the families of the Cole victims and called them the “conscience of the country.” President Obama assured them that he would “seek swift and certain justice” for those responsible for the terrorist atrocities on 9/11 and Cole bombing, which killed 17 American sailors. According to Ms. Burlingame, the families pushed back – making the case for GITMO and reiterating the problems with prosecuting terrorists in U.S. courts. The president sought to “assuage their fears” and told the families, “This isn’t goodbye, this is hello,” promising an open line of communication if they had future concerns.

Seventeen days later, the administration announced that it was releasing Binyam Mohamed from GITMO. Mohamed had been recruited and trained by Al Qaeda to carry out post-9/11 attacks in America ranging from attacking subways (as Al Qaeda did in London), to spraying cyanide gas in night clubs, to blowing up gas tankers or bringing down apartment buildings with a natural gas explosion. Ms. Burlingame notes other administration actions, including its plans to release some GITMO detainees in America, and concluded, “We’d been had. …Given all the developments since our meeting with the president, it is now evident that his words to us bore no relation to his intended actions on national security policy and detainee issues. … I asked Cmdr. Kirk Lippold (captain of the USS Cole) why some of the Cole families declined the invitation to meet with Barack Obama at the White House. [He replied] ‘They saw it for what it was.’”

The Only Door By Which We Enter Into Life

John Calvin

Quoting John Calvin:

Therefore, although the preaching of the cross is not in accordance with human wisdom, we must, however, humbly embrace it if we would return to God our Maker, from whom we are estranged, that he may again become our Father. It is certain that after the fall of our first parent, no knowledge of God without a Mediator was effectual to salvation. Christ speaks not of his own age merely, but embraces all ages, when he says “This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent,” (John 17: 3.) The more shameful therefore is the presumption of those who throw heaven open to the unbelieving and profane, in the absence of that grace which Scripture uniformly describes as the only door by which we enter into life.

Elementary Thoughts: Rebellion – Part 7

My purpose in writing this is to help you understand that the important issue in disciplining your child is not whether you spank or not. The important issue is, are you consistent in teaching your child to behave in a responsible way? The really important issue is, are you consistently modeling a responsible life before your child?

In concluding this section on consistent discipline, I would like to share a mission statement with you that was written by one husband and

father concerning his role in the family. Mission statements can be written in other forms according to your own style. In reading this example, see if you can identify the issues which are important to this father and how they might affect the discipline of the children in this home if they are consistently lived out.

“Subsequent to pleasing God, I will give my wife and children priority consideration in all matters. As I lead, I will promote their spiritual growth and welfare. I will set a good example for them. I will consistently pray for them. I will love them unconditionally. I will provide for them. I will control my tongue in order that they will think of my words as edifying and encouraging. I will give them my time and attention. In addition to husband and father, I will be a friend to my family.” (Continued tomorrow)

Peace In Our Time?

Quoting David Limbaugh:

“It is axiomatic that ideas have consequences, a theme being played out by the Obama administration’s turning a blind eye to the magnitude of terrorist evil and seeing a rough moral equivalence between beheadings by terrorists and aggressive American interrogation techniques to extract lifesaving information from terrorists. Commentators who believe Obama only released the ‘torture memos’ to appease his bloodthirsty, Bush-hating, leftist base, which would be bad enough, are missing the point that Obama shares his base’s beliefs. Obama is commander in chief, and his guiding foreign policy doctrine is ‘peace through weakness.'”

The Bond Of Love

Alexander MacLaren

From: The Pen of Alexander MacLaren

Every Christian man is under the obligation to recognize his kindred with every other Christian man — his kindred in the deep foundations of his spiritual being, which are far deeper, and ought to be far more operative in drawing together, than the superficial differences of culture or opinion or the like, which may part us. The bond that holds Christian men together is their common relation to the one Lord, and that ought to influence their attitude to one another. You say I am talking commonplaces. Yes; and the condition of Christianity this day is the sad and tragical sign that the commonplaces need to be talked about, till they are rubbed into the conscience of the Church as they never have been before.

Do not let us suppose that Christian love is mere sentiment. I shall have to speak a word or two about that presently, but I would fain lift the whole subject, if I can, out of the region of mere unctuous words and gush of half-feigned emotion, which mean nothing, and would make you feel that it is a very practical commandment, gripping us hard, when our Lord says to us, ‘Love one another.’

I have spoken about the accidental conditions which make obedience to this commandment difficult. The real reason which makes the obedience to it difficult is the slackness of our own hold on the Centre. In the measure in which we are filled with Jesus Christ, in that measure will that expression of His spirit and His life become natural to us. Every Christian has affinities with every other Christian, in the depths of his being, so as that he is a great deal more like his brother, who is possessor of ‘like precious faith,’ however unlike the two may be in outlook, in idiosyncrasy, and culture and in creed, than he is to another man with whom he may have a far closer sympathy in all these matters than he has with the brother in question, but from whom he is parted by this, that the one trusts and loves and obeys Jesus Christ, and the other does not. So, for individuals and for churches, the commandment takes r this shape — Go down to the depths and you will find that you are closer to the Christian man or community which seems furthest from you, than you are to the non-Christian who seems nearest to you. Therefore, let your love follow your kinship, and your heart recognizes the oneness that knits you together. That is a revolutionary commandment; what would become of our present organizations of Christianity if it were obeyed? That is a revolutionary commandment; what would become of our individual relations to the whole family who, in every place, and in many tongues, and with many creeds, call on Jesus as on their Lord, their Lord and ours, if it were obeyed? I leave you to answer the question. Only I say the commandment has for its first scope all who, in every place, love the Lord Jesus Christ.

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