Lose sight of what you are defending and defense isn't all that important, is it?

This simple reminder compels us to shift focus for the moment from our combative enemies and onto that which we defend. We do not engage in such rigorous defense - in its many forms - simply to preserve soil or borders or lives. We engage in rigorous defense of ideas. Ideas embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. We do not defend simply the shores and borders and people of America. We defend - rigorously - so much more than that. We defend what it means to be American. We defend what it is that inspires so many countless others to risk life, limb and treasure to get to America even still.

And, to put it plainly, there is tyranny afoot and it must be confronted and defeated with confidence, determination and passion. The confrontation is not about health care or any other piece of legislation. It is not about politicians, politics or parties.

The confrontation is about process. The confrontation is about fidelity to the Constitution.

House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter says she is "prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill." She continued, explaining how House passage of a separate bill containing "changes" to the Senate version would lead House leadership to "deem" the actual Senate HealthCare Bill passed - without a direct vote.

This is not simply tyrannical in nature, it is absolute political cowardice.

Whether any American likes or dislikes any bill - any bill - none of us are governed under a Constitution nor any Congress within a Constitution that affords for an individual in an elected body to "deem" anything. We elected you, for better or worse, to vote on legislation, whether we like the specific outcome or not. There is a process within both the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

The notion of anyone "deeming" anything "passed" without going through the actual voting process of real passage is the kind of governance seen in Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Bashar Assad's Syria or Castro's Cuba.

Few things in this lifetime have inspired such furious rage as this brazen attempt to undermine the legislative process as set forth within the Constitution of the United States.

In 1985, I swore an oath. It was not an oath to defend soil, borders or even lives. It was to defend something vastly more important than any of them, revered as they are. I swore the following:

"I, Steve Schippert, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

That oath stands honored - and, frankly, more thoroughly understood and respected - to this day, long after my 8 years of active duty service as a United States Marine.

Nowhere under that oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States is it stated or implied to include defending the right of any individual in an elected Congressional body to have the power, through assumption or parliamentary "rules changes," to "deem" anything passed without the majority consent (through votes) of the full elected body of Congress.

I understand, House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, that this may be lost on you.

Understand that it is not lost on me. Understand that it is especially not lost on veterans who view the Constitution as something more than an artifact and a museum piece.

Understand that the blood spilled and lives lost on historic battlefields here and on distant shores abroad were not sacrificed in order that an individual in government might acquire the power to deem fundamental changes to America's systems or society. Blood, treasure and lives have been sacrificed standing against precisely that, which is an affront to the concept of "consent of the governed" and individual Liberty.

"Deem" a single thing as "passed" and I and many others will go broke and into bankruptcy driving you and those who stand with you out of our House of Representatives in order to preserve and restore fidelity to the Constitution within our own government.

Discount this at your peril. For it should not be lost upon you or others that men who have sworn (and likewise performed) that the Constitution of the United States is worth more than any of our individual lives would likewise also hold that it is worth more than our mere monetary treasure, be it modest or great.

A wise man once warned a foreign enemy that "there is a price we will not pay and there is a line you must not cross." Ms. Slaughter, you and those who stand with you are standing on that line.

No man, no bill, no law, no program, no amount of treasure is worth more than the Constitution of the United States of America. We swore to defend this, not simply soil or to merely fight wars when so ordered.

I, Steve Schippert, do solemnly swear that I still support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I still bear true faith and allegiance to the same. So help me God.

And I am not alone. I am, in fact, in the majority of Americans - not in opposition to the legal passage of a Health Care bill that I do not agree with. But rather in opposition to an individual in any elected body with the assumed or altered power to "deem" any legislation passed without proper vote as proscribed by the Constitution of the United States of America.

Our Constitution does not afford for the legislating of tyranny, nor for "rules changes" to affect the same.

This we will defend.

Lose sight of what you are defending and defense isn't all that important, is it?

12:20 AM | Permalink | Feedback (5) | Print

In war, and particularly in an Afghanistan counterinsurgency effort, there are always three sides to the coin: the good, the bad and the ugly. This is especially true in President Obama's new Afghanistan strategy, finally announced to the American public Tuesday from a West Point backdrop.

The prescribed influx of much-needed American warriors onto the battlefield is clearly and rightly the good. And the good can withstand the bad, a Taliban enemy in the absence of reliable partners in the Afghan and Pakistani governments.

But the glimmering light of the good will surely be eclipsed by the ugly, an incoherence of strategy beneath the surface sheen of a surge. The devil is always in the details.

Sending additional troops, whether decided upon from intellectual deliberation or from political calculation, is the right call. The details of their usage, the never-ending questions of "exit strategy" and the general unwillingness to commit to victory is wholly unacceptable.

As the commander in chief, the president must act with a clarity of mind and mission. In doing so, he sends a message that the American people will do what is necessary, for as long as necessary, to defeat those who would oppress others or hide while plotting additional attacks on innocents in Afghanistan, Pakistan or here in the United States. The necessity in doing so should be clear, as the Afghan people are resistant to American aid due to the questionable commitment we've made to them. In this vital aspect, the commander in chief has failed.

For a counterinsurgency effort to succeed, the willing partners aren't in Kabul or Islamabad, no matter the demands made upon each. Rather, they reside in the villages and towns spread through the provinces of Afghanistan. Winning over the local leaders will strengthen our position and ultimately lead to the Afghan people demanding better governance from Kabul.

This requires - in both word and deed - clear demonstration of presence and resolve, not in intellectual arguments for an exit strategy. There are no exits for the Afghans we seek to defend in parallel with our own security and interests.

White House thinking is evident in carefully managed leaks throughout the months-long process. The latest wave consistently explains the strategy as being centered on this demand for an exit strategy.

The guiding exit strategy is based upon handing control over to Afghan forces. Two things fly in the face of this logic. First is the administration's recently expressed, inexplicable opposition to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's request to double the size of Afghan security forces.

Second, according to yet another managed leak to the New York Times on Monday, is a determination to hand over control of provinces down that road on an undefined timetable that "would not be tied to particular conditions on the ground." Considering the rabble-like state of the Afghan army and the current initiative of the Taliban enemy, how can conditions on the ground not be the determining factor? What conditions remain other than purely political?

The president has yet to use the word "victory" or even "success" in describing Afghan-theater ambitions. Last week, he offered merely that he intends "to finish the job," a purposely vague reference to which we have become accustomed. This affords his political allies and adversaries alike to infer their own meaning. It is Mr. Obama once again voting "present." Don't for an instant think that this goes unnoticed by the Afghan population. When and where it is needed most, this is not leadership.

And on top of it all, while the commander in chief sells the American public on the numbers of an Afghanistan surge, there is even inconsistency in that. The leaders of NATO nations last week announced an intention to supply an additional 7,000 troops for a surge. Yet these same leaders will descend on London in January to hammer out the final details of a proposed full withdrawal from Afghanistan within a year. This explains why European representatives are so steadfastly "negotiating" with Taliban factions within Afghanistan, even while it is the Taliban who are negotiating from a position of strength.

None of this bodes well for the Afghans, who have no exit. Nor does it bode well for the American war fighters valiantly defending them. Short of major changes to this Afghanistan strategy on the fly, the outcome is predictable.

Taking the long view, the Taliban and al Qaeda must be licking their chops as American leadership, even in announcing a surge strategy, demonstrates more clearly than ever before that it lacks the stomach for the fight. "Ride the storm out," Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar are surely saying. "The Americans want exit more than they want victory."

This OpEd was written for the Washington Times and appeared in its December 2, 2009, edition.

7:15 AM | Permalink | Feedback (1) | Print

As the Earth spins, the effect dictates that its inhabitants are driven into the predictable cycle of night and day, day and night. And so too it can be said of the effect of periods between election cycles and American media coverage of war.

Bill Dupray at the Patriot Room notes an article drawing attention to the fact that in Afghanistan "Obama's war casualties nearly double Bush's worst year," and the American media are virtually silent.

Statistical Reference: iCasualties: Operation Enduring Freedom - Afghanistan

Now, I'm no more a fan of calling our fallen "Obama's casualties" any more than I was of calling them "Bush's casualties" over the previous 7+ years. It's ignorant political hackery and a cheapening of their sacrifices. This isn't a criticism of Bill Dupray, as I'm reasonably certain that he sees it much the same way, even in noting the article as it was written.

But the media? Yeah, they're fair game. Their prior conduct makes them so.

From the period of the 2004 Presidential election cycle through about the middle of the Iraq Surge that turned the tide there, it was virtually impossible to drive a car and listen to a radio news break that did not contain a nameless mention of how many Americans were killed in action the previous day. Nor could one watch a single newscast without the same episodic phenomenon even more laden with anti-Bush commentary in context of the casualty figure of the day. It was a daily rolling body count. It was a disgusting display of the demise of journalism in which honoring the fallen by name or personal story simply could not manage a measure of committed air time.

Driving to work or watching the news today is a blessed relief. Gone are the incessant nameless, faceless body counts as commentary disguised as news. All one needs the stomach for is a daily dose of Nancy Pelosi and the apparent life-and-death crisis of our generation's time: Government-run and -mandated health care.

I'm actually all for it. If you can never find the time or space to honor even a few of the fallen by name, show his or her face and tell their stories, I prefer not to be deluged with body counts.

But even in relief, the crickets from the MSM double-tiered and double-standard observation deck on reporting casualties is an outrage that should not go without conscious acknowledgment. For only the cognitively challenged can conclude that if President George W. Bush or any other Republican were president today, the reportage on casualties would be no different than it is for President Barack Obama.

And that is not an indictment of President Obama. It is an indictment of a media congregation that clearly reports and editorializes similar circumstances differently depending on which political party and/or popular figure is in power.

The war is ours, not his. The casualties our ours, not his.

Editors and journalists, report on our war and pause before selecting and editorializing news to suit your political agendas and favorites. Leave that to us, the ever-dwindling consumers of your product. But it is unlikely you will heed our plea. But Christmas is coming soon. And that leaves us relegated once again to ask for that from Santa. For the eighth year - and two presidents - running.

4:40 PM | Permalink | Feedback (1) | Print