Romeo Area Tea Party

Archive for the ‘Foreign Policy’ Category

presents…

Three important and compelling videos for our monthly Movie Night.  Although each video is brief, they are meaningful, educational and inspiring.

• John McManus of the John Birch Society, presents a very educational 30 minute video,“Americans for America,”

This video explains the various forms of government across the political spectrum.  In an easy to understand way, John also lays out the differences between the various forms of monetary systems in the world, from the controlled economies of communism to free market capitalism.

• Daniel Hannan, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), speaks before the most recent CPAC gathering last February in Washington D.C. In this 27 minute video, he provides an outsider’s look at the United States of America and what she has to offer the world. In this intense and compelling address, he reminds Americans of our blessings and the dangers we face.

• Allen West, the heroic first-term congressman from Florida’s 22nd district, answers a reporter’s question about what he meant when he referred to 76 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus as “Communists”. Congressman West is a patriot who is unafraid to call it as he sees it. This 4 minute video clip will make you want to stand up and cheer!

This FREE event to be held on 
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 7 p.m.
Washington Twp. Offices, Ruby Room
57900 Van Dyke, Washington Twp, MI 48094

President Obama to Focus on U.S. Military Presence in Australia

The plan would like involve beefing up U.S. Naval operations and give troops access to Australian facilities. The cost of the initiative is unclear, and no one’s saying if these troop reassignments are Jobs Created or Saved. Some are especially critical of the move as the Defense department is facing steep cuts, and even more if the Congressional so-called super committee fails to reached a deal next week.

Back on October 21st President Obama made it clear that US Troops would be leaving IRAQ in 2012. Obama’s statement put an end to months of wrangling over whether the U.S. would maintain a force in Iraq beyond 2011. He never mentioned the tense and ultimately fruitless negotiations with Iraq over whether to keep several thousand U.S. forces in Iraq as a training force and a hedge against meddling from Iran or other outside forces.

Once the darling of evening news, CBS has fallen so far that its difficult to call their product “Broadcast News”.  Last night CBS aired the first “broadcast” GOP debate of the season.  Clearly the LOOSER at the debate was the CBS News Room, as their liberal bias shined clear. Right out of the shoot, moderator Scott Pelley tries to cut Mitt Romney short when he begins to criticize President Obama.

Just about everything went wrong for CBS, as they aired only 60 minutes of the advertised 90 minute debate.  Clearly the candidates knew what they were in for, when dealing with CBS, as demonstrated when Newt Gingrich “just says no” to the moderators.

So, it was Bad News for CBS:

Nobody terrible at CBS Republican debate.

Today, President Obama

addressed the United Nations Assembly.

In President Obama’s speech, he praised the many regime changes that occurred over the past year, citing how change does not necessarily need to come by violence.  Specifically, the portion of text from his speech to the U.N. Assembly was…

“So this has been a remarkable year. The Qaddafi regime is over. Gbagbo, Ben Ali, Mubarak are no longer in power. Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him. Something is happening in our world. The way things have been is not the way that they will be. The humiliating grip of corruption and tyranny is being pried open. Dictators are on notice.”

Here again, is the same text,

parsed with snippets of news reports of the day.

“So this has been a remarkable year. (The unemployment rate in the United States was last reported at 9.1)

The Qaddafi regime is over.(Libyan rebels on Monday said they had sent more fighters and weaponry to Tripoli…)

Gbagbo, (Toure says no U.N. troops were involved in Mr. Gbagbo’s capture which he says was carried out by fighters…)

Ben Ali, (The departure came as a dramatic climax to weeks of violent protests against Ben Ali’s rule in the north African nation…)

Mubarak (It was a moment they had anticipated throughout long days of relentless demonstrations — sometimes violent — that demanded Mubarak’s departure….)

are no longer in power (Rockets pound ghost city as allies say Gaddafi must go…)

Osama bin Laden is gone, (The president called the killing of bin Laden the “most significant achievement to date”…)

and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him.

Something is happening in our world. (The crowd I saw and spoke with were well informed, and deeply concerned Americans about the direction their country was headed. They were polite, courteous and above all–patriotic.)

The way things have been is not the way that they will be. (“We’ve come to take our government back,” Paul declared to a cheering throng.)

The humiliating grip of corruption and tyranny is being pried open. (A federal jury found former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich guilty of 17 of the 20 counts…)

Dictators are on notice. (President Barack Obama is rapidly advancing an executive dictatorship)

The only question that remains is,

“Who will write the history”?

What a ridiculous question!

Both Governors Snyder and Granholm seek a new Bridge to Canada between Detroit and Windsor.  The “Bridge Issue” has raised intense feelings on both sides of the fight (as well as the border).  By and large, conservatives oppose government funding of a new bridge at this time.  This conservative stand seems to hold steady, regardless of which government pays for the bridge: 1) the State of Michigan, 2) the U.S. Government, or 3) the Canadian government.

For months the RATP has considered the “Bridge Issue” and had wished to present its members with plenty of facts, so individuals could make up their own mind.  There is no shortage of studies “for or against” the Bridge Issue.  Imbedded here we provide but a few of the many research links we have found on the topic.  We caution you, that you must consider the source of each study as a premise for the study’s conclusions.

For Fiscal Conservatives, we present the “Bridge Question” in the following simple analogy.  Try to recognize the components of the Bridge Issue as you read our analogy.

The RATP Bridge Fable

Suppose you belong to a family of six.  You and your spouse have four children who are reasonably close in age to each other.  Most of your children are about thirty years-old in the present day.  Back in 1995 your oldest child had just received their first State of Michigan driver’s license.  At that time, the family was planning to add at least one car to the driveway.  In a very short time you have more cars and build an additional one car bay on your existing garage.

As time passed, all of your children learned to drive, graduated high school, went on to college and eventually left the home.  (No, this isn’t a reality show.  It’s a fable, but let just pretend for the moment.)

Through the years your driveway became cluttered and that extra garage really helped with all your extra stuff.  Today though, you merely pay more taxes for the extra garage and your driveway is only challenged on a few weekends or holidays.  Most of the time, there is plenty or room in the driveway to spare.

This morning your spouse approached you with a request to widen the driveway and add another bay onto the garage.  The thought was to prepare your home for all the cars your grandchildren would drive when they come to visit.  You’ve already paid off the previous addition, but you continue to incur annual property taxes and on going maintenance caused by the previous expansion.

Meanwhile, you’re closing in on retirement and money is in short supply.  The company you work for has cut out all overtime.  You get by every month, but mostly because the kids have moved on and your expenses are reduced.  You continue to make payments on all the other promises you’ve made, which includes helping to pay off some of those student loans.  The bank is willing to loan you more money for the project.  The talk around the holiday dinner table includes the promise of many grandchildren.  What do you do?

STOP !!  This is just crazy!

Now reread the story above making the following substitutions:

1)       The State of Michigan is your Family of Six.

2)       Each bay of the garage is a border crossing.

Note: Michigan added a span to the Blue Water Bridge in 1997

3)       The passage of NAFTA is you child’s Driver’s License.

4)       Your annual Property Taxes is the annual Bridge maintenance costs.

5)       Cars in the drive are cars on the bridge.

6)       The Bank is the Federal Government (pay me now or pay me later).

7)       Those Student Loans are the Federal Debt.

No body’s pregnant!  You’ve got more room now, than every before!

From what we can discern from all the Bridge Studies we’ve reviewed, even the proponent’s own data indicates a 25%-30% reduction in traffic volumes.  The question must be raised, “what exactly is the point of our fiscally strapped government(s) in seeking to build a new Detroit Windsor bridge?

The best research link we could find on the subject is U.S. Government’s own Bureau of Transportation Static’s interactive query site.  Click here to do your own research, by border state, individual border crossing location, date range, vehicle type, etc.  Use this tool to quickly raise your own questions about the issue.  From this research tool, consider the following basic points.

Since the implementation of NAFTA in January 1994, total boarder crossings by trucks in Michigan remain virtually unchanged, peaking in the 2004-2005 era.  Meanwhile, bus traffic is down 30+% peaking in 2003-2004 and personal vehicle crossings have declined steadily by 40% over the same time frame.  Note: That time frame includes the addition of a second Blue Water Bridge span, while all Michigan border crossings declined.

It can now be said that idiots, like bad luck itself, come in groups of three.

Consider the news of just the last few days. We have a French Socialist who is vying for the presidency of France sitting in Riker’s Island prison awaiting indictment on charges of criminal sexual behavior against a widowed hotel chamber maid. We have Arnold Schwarzenegger, coming off of 8 wasted years as the Governator of California – still rated the worst state in the union for business – with a now grown child by a former housekeeper. And last but not least we have Newt Gingrich, a man who evidently finds it  impossible to take the lives, ideas and hard work of others seriously (yeah, there’s a noun for that, it’s called ‘smart ass’), throwing his Republican party under the bus. So how are ordinary folks like us supposed to understand such news?

In the wake of President Bill Clinton’s legal troubles due to his own aggressive sexual exploits with employees, Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky among others, The New York Times and every other liberal news outlet, told us the real problem was us. We were just a bunch of cranky old Puritans, you see, wandering around in other people’s private lives just so we could shake our finger at them. The French had it right; just witness the funeral of their former President Francois Mitterand featuring both his family and his mistress + daughter. From a 1997 article entitled “American’s Jaded Eye on Sex in Public Life” comes the following chestnuts:

The New World is not yet at that Gallic point reached after the death of President Francois Mitterrand last year, when a state funeral featured a wife and mistress in the same sharing of official grief.

and

Modern America certainly seems more willing to be steeped in and even laugh out loud at the lewd details of political sex scandals, but that should not necessarily be construed as an easing of the Puritanical tradition that can so suddenly punish American public figures for private behavior.

and

Caught in the grind, the President and his lawyers, like everyone else, are trying to survive. The nation may be inching toward the European tradition on sex and politics, one Clinton adviser estimated, ”but we’re not ready for Mitterrand’s funeral.”

Now it’s the French asking themselves questions, and alas that last vestige of progressive sophistication, The New York Times, must print the following:

Now, the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is once again challenging the assumption that the private lives of the rich, famous and powerful are off limits to public scrutiny.

and this from “Pierre Haski, one of France’s leading political commentators:”

“I knew that when Roland Dumas was foreign minister, he was romantically involved with the daughter of Syria’s defense minister,” he said. “I didn’t write it because it was a matter of his ‘private life.’ I was wrong. It had an impact on France’s foreign policy.”

Americans have often wondered about French foreign policy as they seem awfully standoff-ish about their relationship with the USA, which has twice sacrificed blood and treasure to free France. Now we understand: The French are thinking about other things; well, one other thing, but it’s very important and very sophisticated. You would never understand.

Arnold meanwhile tries his best impersonation of Mitterand and he must be wondering “Vere’s de love?” No more trips to the Kennedy beach homes on the east coast, no more cigars with the politically sophisticated, no more…Arnold.

And then there is Newt, or should we say then there was Newt. Newt seems like a smart guy. The kind of smart guy who always seems to find the empty seat next to you and then proceeds to tell you how the universe works today and how it ought to really work, as soon as he has time to get around to correcting it.

So Newt goes on Meet the Press and tells the world that Paul Ryan’s budget plan is radical. Chuck Schumer must have nearly jumped out of his skin, as The Wall Street Journal reports:

None other than Chuck Schumer, the chief Democratic proponent of using Medicare as a political club. The New York Senator told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that “Newt and I are considered political opposites, but I couldn’t agree more with what he said Sunday about the plan to end Medicare.”

Mr. Gingrich “acknowledged that this is right-wing social engineering,” Mr. Schumer said, according to media accounts of the call. “Gingrich was saying what everyone knows to be true. The plan is extreme.” That sure sounds like a Democrat using Newt’s words to tell Republicans to drop dead politically.

The problem here is that Newt has a very sophisticated view of Obamacare and Medicare and Ryan’s plan that the rest of us need to try a little harder to understand. OK, we’re busy right now, but we’ll give you a look Newt, in 2013.

When you look around the room at the next RATP meeting, this Monday by the way, take notice of all of the unsophisticated people in the room and ask yourself how it is that they almost always get it right, and the Arnolds and Newts and NYTs of the world almost always get it wrong. It’s a funny little game the universe plays, isn’t it?

Two events of the past week could not be more different and unrelated, and yet they have a strange connection.

Last week, after a lot of prodding from Donald Trump, President Obama released his actual long form birth certificate, showing, unless you are completely deranged, that the Barack Obama was indeed born in Hawaii. He’s a real American. Then on Sunday night just as we were getting ready to settle down to the latest edition of National Review,  we hear that the President will address the nation shortly. About 80 minutes later, we learn that Osama Bin Laden has been killed in a strike by US Special Forces. That’s awesome. Couldn’t have happened to a better target. So Mr. Obama is indeed a real American, and perhaps he has now started to act like a real American.

Over the first two years of his presidency, Mr. Obama seldom looked like a fellow American to many of us. Most of us were never interested in his birth certificate and never gave the entire topic any thought at all until the Donald brought it up. But many of us had a hard time trying to understand the man in the Oval Office. He didn’t seem to sound like and American, like we do, like our parents did, like our grandparents did. He seemed separate and distant, like he was a little embarrassed by the rest of us. He was the urban metro-sexual who can’t believe that the entire country doesn’t live in New York, Chicago, San Francisco or Los Angeles. We were near do wells clinging to our bibles, guns and heritage, while the anointed one drifted across the landscape feet barely touching the ground.

The Sunday night announcement made us recall a fascinating article by Dorothy Rabinowitz in The Wall Street Journal, from June of 2010: “The Alien in The White House.”

A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

For the first two years the administration, top to bottom, acted like 9/11 was a story we made up:

Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president’s appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security…

Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan’s murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of “Allahu Akbar!”), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. “People have different reasons” he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn’t want “to say anything negative about any religion.”

After the raid on Bin Laden what does the future hold for Mr. Obama’s presidency? It seems that he has an opening here to make a ‘right’ turn toward a more normal American posture that puts our values, heritage and future at center of the conversation. Can Mr. Obama shake off Columbia and Harvard Law and reconnect with the American People, or will we continue to see him as he seems to see himself: Self-appointed World Leader?

It may be more difficult for the President to make this turn than we realize. First he, the administration and his base need to come to a more realistic view of the world and our place in it. Like it or not, it was the counter-terrorism apparatus put in place by Mr. Bush that produced the raid that killed Bin Laden. It was enhanced interrogations at Guantanamo that produced much of the evidence, and it was warrantless wiretaps by the NSA that produced the lynchpin to the whole operation. Just like he had to eat crow on closing Guantanamo, the President must now take a serious look at what works and make sure it continues working. His successor at the White House needs the same tools and actions that Mr. Bush left him.

Also, the Administration could use a little more consistency. How do we square the fact that Attorney General Eric Holder wants to give the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Mohammed an American jury trial in Manhattan, while the President sends our special forces to execute Bin Laden inside a sovereign nation without notifying them? This doesn’t make sense Mr. President, and if you were to align your policies we could at least start to see you and understand you as an American leader. We approve of the President’s action against Bin Laden; we simply wish we had seen more actions like these the past few years, and hope we see more like it in the future.

It sounded a little like “We the People…”

Some try to predict the future by reading tea leaves, while others seek a peace and serenity from concoctions of the leaf. Few have explored World History, much less the history of Middle East countries as author Tom Standage did through the prism of Six Glasses (including tea).

Tom’s book, apply named “A History of the World in 6 glasses” provides excellent insight into the vacuum of governmental powers left by the East India Trading Company (know today as the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company or A&P), when the company (i.e. the British government) abruptly left the region to rule itself in the 1800s. Perhaps nowhere in the world did a simple cup of tea influence history more.

And again, Tea played an import role in history when American Colonist defended their potential for prosperity, to carry on unfettered trade, as The Boston Tea Party revolted against the Tea Act of 1773 imposed by London. The Tea Act was enacted to raise money for paying off debts from the French and Indian war. But, the act had been imposed on the people without representation.

The well know Boston Tea Party was just the first such revolt, when 342 chest of tea were tossed overboard in the Boston harbor in less than three hours. Other similar “tea parties” followed in other ports, but were less documented in the books of history. Most Americans have come to understand enough history to know that these “weaponless revolts” ultimately triggered the U.S. Revolutionary War, yielding perhaps the greatest document ever drafted, the U.S. Constitution.

For the most part, the recent uprising in Egypt was a “weaponless revolt”, though not perfectly so. Ultimately, President Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak, who served as the fourth President of Egypt, from 1981 to 2011 bowed to the voice of the people of Egypt and stepped down on February 11^th. It appears that the people of Egypt have prevailed in preliminary attempts to implement democracy.

Meanwhile, many Americans fear the Muslim Brotherhood will take control of Egypt, causing great unrest for the region, Israel and the United States. Such concerns are perhaps warranted, both by the apparent history of the Muslim Brotherhood and the example of a similar fate dispelled in Iran when “students” ousted the Shaw, some thirty plus years ago. No one really knows how strong the Brotherhood’s role was in Egypt these past few weeks, with most legitimate news sources estimating less than 30% of Egyptians are followers.

Perhaps history has proven to the world once again the simple adage, “Absolute Power, Corrupts Absolutely”. Too often, good men (and women) have come to power with good intentions, but find the drug of power itself too intoxicating. Time and again we find persons of power (or politicians) becoming drunk on this drug, to the point they sell off their core beliefs for yet another dose. Maybe the drug of power is a temptation humans cannot easily overcome, like other fruits dangled before us.

It is (to me) uncanny how the founders of this fine nation drafted such a perfect document as the U.S. Constitution. Our U.S. Government balances on a three legged stool, defined by our constitution with checks and balances of power, who’s ultimate source rest in the hands of an educated people. Ah yes, the people who relinquish limited control to politicians from time to time, but ultimately “We The People…” seem to find our way back to self control. I would assert that the peoples of the world (including Egypt and Iran) seem to find their way to self control as well, but their path is often generations long, without the implementation of a perfect Constitution like our own.

For a political leader like Nancy Pelosi, the lack of a central T.E.A. Party leadership brought her frustration, when she could find no one to attack directly with her name calling. She finally resorted to a generic phrase of criticism, “Tea parties are part of an ‘astroturf‘ campaign”, back in April of 2009. Clearly Pelosi, drunken on the drug of power forgot the people she represents. Completely isolated in a house of glass, Pelosi could not (and would not) listen to the people, as she helped to force Health Care Reform on a people so enraged, they sprouted thousands of T.E.A. Parties across the country in revolt. Her time will come, as did that of Hosni Mubarak.

After thirty years as president Mubarak’s love for his country was blinded by the drug of power, when he addressed the people of Egypt on February 10^th and failed to step down. Ultimately, Mubarak gave into the protesters of Cairo and relinquished his power one day later. Now the question on the mind of most westerners is, “will the Muslim Brotherhood gain control over Egypt and if so, what will the Brotherhood do with their new found power”?

Will the people of Egypt know to use this moment in history to assert control over the government by the masses, or will they fall victim to a similar fate as did their Islamic brothers in Iran?

The lessons of history appear so clear to us, the enlightened people who have already achieved personal freedoms we hold dear.

Perhaps even the leaders of the T.E.A. Parties themselves will conclude that the voice of membership cannot be overlooked. The concerns of the masses will need to be addressed or they too may become irrelevant in their role. While no two T.E.A. Parties are alike and few members in the T.E.A. Party movement are mirror images, it is clear the movement is a revolt against an existing two party political system, whereby Republicans and Democrats alike who’s party affiliation trumps the interest of the people, will no longer stand unchallenged by the masses.

History has many important lessons, which unlearned, are destined to repeat themselves.

May the people of Egypt find true democracy without the bloodshed of of our U.S. Revolution or the War in Iraq. May the masses of Egypt be educated in global history, to be enlightened in the successes of self government. And, may the Middle East find peace amongst themselves and the world.

…Shouldn’t throw stones. We all heard this from our mothers, or should have. This week we were reminded that this ancient wisdom is both metaphorically and literally true.  Every time a protester in Egypt threw a stone at the opposition, the opposition hurled it back. The fellow below figured out not only a defense against his stone’s return, but a unique protest fashion statement.

When they hurl my stones back at me...

In the short history of the Romeo Area Tea Party, we have spent precious little time on foreign policy. This makes sense since we originally came together when the financial crisis led to government takeovers, soaring debt, a stalled economy, and a health care bill that to us is 2800 pages of complete disregard for the American Constitution, American traditions, the American free market and American values.

But the foreign policy of the new Obama administration, while in the background, still grated us . One of the president’s first acts was an Executive Order to close Guantanamo. And we noted with dismay the president’s frequent apologies for us to foreign countries, foreign governments, and even foreign dictators. After eight years of vicious criticism of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, the new president, a man of limited achievement and limitless confidence, was going to show us the way to make the United States beloved of the world’s peoples while maintaining strict adherence to our fundamental values. He introduced these ideas like he was the first person to think about them seriously. Take a look at this video of his 2009 speech to college students in Egypt. Like many of Mr. Obama’s speeches, this is more a lecture than an address. The gist is that with the professor’s unique understanding of the past the future path is known.

But these past two weeks remind us how complex the world is. A man, an unknown simple man, set himself on fire in Tunis and we now have revolution in Tunisia, Egypt and several other Middle Eastern states. Who knows what the next month brings? We certainly don’t know and we would be foolish even to speculate an answer. Revolution is like that.

Walter Russel Mead has an excellent essay on America’s historic experience with revolution. It opens as follows:

The Obama administration is now living through one of the oldest and most difficult recurring problems in American foreign policy: what do you do when revolution breaks out in an allied country?

The only clue history offers is not an encouraging one: there is often no satisfactory resolution of the dilemmas revolutions present.

The timing of the revolution could not be worse for the administration. After a “shellacking” in midterms, they were all set to work like never before to get the economy, and the voters, working again. Jobs, jobs, jobs was going to be the new focus of the administration, but they have now run squarely into the 24 hours in a day problem. Huge foreign policy issues are like that, they suck up the energy of the White House like nothing else – just ask George Bush.

So where do we go from here? A lot of people think that the Obama administration is Jimmy Carter’s second term, so is this President Obama’s 1979? Victor Davis Hanson thinks it is in this post. Hanson poses the dilemma we face when we host state dinners for the adversarial, communist leader of China, as Obama did for Hu on his recent visit, and then, in the course of the same month, turn our back on a friendly, anti-fundamentalist dictator in Egypt. Is Obama being idealistic or pragmatic? Certainly he can’t be both, but he has thrown his stones now, and we must wait to see how and who hurls them back at us.

Click to visit Dave's website

Friends,
       Yesterday’s Operation Freedom Show is now available at  www.davejanda.com .We have had great feedback on the show. The three guests we had on the show were very insightful on the unrest in Egypt and the Middle East. The information on this show has been either missed or not yet uncovered by the main stream press. If you want a better understanding of what is happening and where the situation is going….. time to listen to the pod cast.  

Dave Janda
 

 January 30, 2011–Topics Discussed:  Egypt, The Muslim Brotherhood, revolution, Sharia, The State of the Union, FCC and Net Neutrality, Health Care Reform, Repeal of Obama Care, World Economic Forum, global governance, China, Russia, Albania,, Lebanon, Yemen, Tunisia  

First Hour Guests:  Thad McCotter(R-Mi), Frank Gaffney, Founder, The Center For Security Policy 

Second Hour Guest:  Dr. Jack Wheeler, Founder, To The Point News (www.tothepointnews.com) and famed geo-political expert. 

Click here to see the list of podcasts from the Operation Freedom Show