 President Barack Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law. Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”. The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party. The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world. Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz. During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular “man-made law” and the West’s “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism”. |
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Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a Yemen native, was returned to his homeland after being imprisoned for seven years. A federal court in May ruled that Ahmed – who was detained in Pakistan in 2002 – could no longer be held at the military detention facility in Cuba and ordered him released. The Yemen Embassy, in a statement released Saturday, said it welcomed Ahmed’s release. It also praised President Barack Obama’s decision to shutter Guantanamo Bay. The two other detainees, whose names were not disclosed for security reasons, have been sent to Ireland. In July, the Irish government agreed to accept the two Uzbek prisoners, one of at least four European nations that have said they would take detainees. Source>>> |
WASHINGTON (AP) – With the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison by a January deadline in doubt, the Justice Department Saturday announced the transfer of three detainees to the governments of Yemen and Ireland.
By Richard Walker The CIA and the White House are watching nervously as political and public pressure builds in Britain for the truth to be told about the British role in facilitating the “rendition” of suspects to CIA “black” sites and to pro-Western Middle East intelligence services that routinely use torture. Just like the clamor that forced the British government to launch an open inquiry into the Iraq war there is now similar pressure for a major investigation into whether the British government of Tony Blair permitted British intelligence services to participate in the rendition process and allowed the CIA to house “ghost detainees” at Britain’s Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean. A human rights committee set up by both Houses of the British Parliament waded into the fray on August 4, 2009, with a report calling on the government to order an independent inquiry into whether Britain was complicit in the alleged torture of detainees. The committee also issued a stinging criticism of the government for trying to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of the issue. Some commentators in Britain believe this could have the effect of blowing the lid on rendition and torture. Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq Inquiry, speaks at a news conference on July 30 in London. The head of a British inquiry into the Iraq war said he will call former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bush administration officials to testify, but acknowledged it MATT DUNHAM/WPA POOL/GETTY IMAGES Craig Murray, a former British diplomat, told the committee that when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, she ordered the intelligence services to disregard any evidence, that they knew had been acquired under torture. But Tony Blair changed that policy after 9-11. David Davis, a former shadow cabinet minister, reacted to the committee’s recommendations by saying he was certain Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown, had seen evidence of Britain’s “clear violations of its international obligations.” For months, the Obama White House has grown increasingly concerned that a British inquiry into rendition could expose the history of the program and how the CIA did business with intelligence services that tortured. Recently, Obama instructed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to impress upon her British counterpart, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the need for the British government to keep rendition and intelligence acquisition classified matters. After Clinton met Miliband in Washington, he declared publicly that the U.S. and Britain had a unique intelligence sharing relationship based on “fundamental principle that they did not disclose each other’s intelligence publicly.” Nevertheless, deep down Miliband must have known the rendition train had already left the station. Most British politicians have made it clear they are fed up with the drip-drip of information from government since 2005 when the practice of rendition was first made public. It took years for the government to admit that at least two renditions took place through Diego Garcia. Now, MPs want to know why the Diego Garcia flight records for 2002 to 2008 have vanished without trace. A further scandal has erupted over revelations that the British intelligence agency, MI5, may have been aware of the torture in Morocco of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Binyamin Mohammed. Two high court judges have already said, from evidence they reviewed, they believe MI5 sent the CIA questions to ask Mohammed while he was being interrogated. In 2005, Blair and his then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, gave the House of Commons an assurance that Britain had never played any role in the rendition of suspects. In 2008, David Miliband was forced to apologize to Parliament, saying the assurance given by Blair and Straw had been inaccurate. That was followed by the home secretary publicly admitting in February 2009 that Britain had played a separate role in the rendition of two suspects from Iraq to U.S. custody in Afghanistan. There have also been questions asked in Parliament about a “ghost detainee,” Mustafa Naser, whose whereabouts have remained a mystery since 2005. His wife has hired British lawyers to pursue the case of her husband because one of their children was born in Britain. Naser is Spanish and a Spanish judge has also launched an investigation into his disappearance. Two retired CIA officers have told Naser’s lawyers he was in CIA custody in 2005 before being transferred to Syrian intelligence for interrogation. The Spanish authorities have sources that suggest he may still be held somewhere in Syria. One of the cases that may open up the British role in the CIA’s rendition program is that of Mohammed Madni, who was pulled off the streets of Jakarta in Indonesia in January, 2002, beaten and placed in American custody. His lawyers say he was put in a coffin and flown by way of Diego Garcia to Cairo where he was tortured by Egyptian intelligence. Later he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay and eventually released without charge. According to Madni, the authorities at Guantanamo admitted they had made a mistake and told him that when he was arrested in 2002 he had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the British government is forced through a court order to admit that Madni was rendered through Diego Garcia, it will open the floodgates to a series of legal actions that could place Britain in the dock of the European Human Rights Court. As Madni’s lawyers have pointed out, if the Blair government knew suspects were being sent for interrogation to countries like Syria and Egypt, they also knew it was not for a Club Med experience. The ongoing cases in Britain of men who were rendered is very worrying for Washington because it could shine a light into one of the most questionable and secret programs of the Bush era, especially the CIA’s use of what were termed “black sites.” They were facilities housed within prisons, detainee camps and on board ships in international waters. While Diego Garcia is believed to have housed at least two major al Qaeda suspects, other sites included “the Salt Pit,” an old brick factory outside Kabul in Afghanistan, which was used as a prison but had a sealed off section given over to the CIA. Szymany Airport in Poland, a former Soviet base, was another CIA interrogation and holding center. “Temara,” an interrogation center within the headquarters of the Moroccan security service, was the place where the British detainee, Binyam Mohamed, was held for 18 months. His British lawyers have assembled a large file of information about his captivity including years he later spent at Guantanamo. They claim that while he was being tortured in Morocco his genitals were sliced with a knife. Two other CIA “black sites” were located within the Eagle Base in Bosnia and the Ariana Hotel in the center of Kabul, which has been under CIA control since 2001. Camp Bucca, a detainee holding facility in Iraq, close to the border with Kuwait, had within it a classified area used only by the CIA. It was sometimes visited by members of allied and foreign intelligence services. The two U.S. ships that had CIA interrogation facilities were the USS Bataan and the USS Peleliu. The Bataan was previously used as a floating prison and rendition site during the Clinton era, which raises questions about how long rendition has been a secret practice. Many focus on the Bush era as though rendition began then. But it clearly did not. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, suspects were also “disappeared” and sent to countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for interrogation. That is why the ObamaWhite House and the CIA fear a wide-ranging investigation of rendition in Europe. It could potentially open up a can of worms and it might prove difficult to put the lid back on. When Blair was challenged recently about rendition, he shocked the Obama White House by suggesting Obama would probably continue using aspects of rendition. Some of Blair’s critics in Britain said it was a typical example of Blair turning the spotlight on others to shield himself. Of course, Blair has more to worry about than Obama, Bush or Clinton. He sits at the heart of Europe with a court system that would not flinch from trying him for crimes against humanity if evidence pointed to his guilt. Some British lawyers argue that, if it could be shown Blair approved rendition that led to torture, he could be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. From Obama’s perspective, he has made it clear he does not wish to dwell on the past because it could divide the country and complicate his presidency. However, the British inquiry into the Iraq War has the potential to produce startling revelations and if the rendition program was exposed too through yet another inquiry, both those events could force Obama’s hand. RichardWalker is a New York based writer and a former news producer. Subscribe to American Free Press. Online subscriptions: One year of weekly editions—$15 plus you get a BONUS ELECTRONIC BOOK – HIGH PRIESTS OF WAR – By Michael Piper. Print subscriptions: 52 issues crammed into 47 weeks of the year plus six free issues of Whole Body Health: $59 Order on this website or call toll free 1-888-699-NEWS . Sign up for our free e-newsletter here – get a free gift just for signing up! (Issue # 33, August 17, 2009) |
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WASHINGTON – A newly unclassified Department of Homeland Security report warns against the possibility of violence by unnamed “right-wing extremists” concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty and singles out returning war veterans as particular threats.
The report, titled “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” dated April 7, states that “threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts.”
However, the document, first reported by talk-radio host and WND columnist Roger Hedgecock, goes on to suggest worsening economic woes, potential new legislative restrictions on firearms and “the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”
The report from DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines right-wing extremism in the U.S. as “divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”
“[T]he consequences of a prolonged economic downturn – including real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit – could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past,” the report says.
It adds that “growth in these groups subsided in reaction to increased government scrutiny as a result of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and disrupted plots, improvements in the economy and the continued U.S. standing as the pre-eminent world power.”
“Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans likely would attract new members into the ranks of right-wing extremist groups as well as potentially spur some of them to begin planning and training for violence against the government,” the report continues. “The high volume of purchases and stockpiling of weapons and ammunition by right-wing extremists in anticipation of restrictions and bans in some parts of the country continue to be a primary concern to law enforcement.”
Most notable is the report’s focus on the impact of returning war veterans.
“Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to right-wing extremists,” it says. “DHS/I&A is concerned that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize veterans in order to boost their violent capacities.”
The report cites the April 4 shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh as an example of what may be coming, claiming the alleged gunman holds a racist ideology and believes in anti-government conspiracy theories about gun confiscations, citizen detention camps and “a Jewish-controlled ‘one-world government.’”
It also suggests the election of an African-American president and the prospect of his policy changes “are proving to be a driving force for right-wing extremist recruitment and radicalization.”
The report also mentions “‘end times’ prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as the violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.”
“DHS/I&A assesses that right-wing extremist groups’ frustration over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration has the potential to incite individuals or small groups toward violence,” the report continues.
The report states the DHS will be working with state and local partners over the next several months to determine the levels of right-wing extremist activity in the U.S.
Last month, the chief of the Missouri highway patrol blasted a report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center that linked conservative groups to domestic terrorism, assuring that such reports no longer will be issued. The report had been compiled with the assistance of DHS.
The report warned law enforcement agencies to watch for suspicious individuals who may have bumper stickers for third-party political candidates such as Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.
It further warned law enforcement to watch out for individuals with “radical” ideologies based on Christian views, such as opposing illegal immigration, abortion and federal taxes.
Chief James Keathley of the Missouri State Patrol issued a statement that the release of the report, which outraged conservatives nationwide, prompted him to “take a hard look” at the procedures through which the report was released by the MIAC.
“My review of the procedures used by the MIAC in the three years since its inception indicates that the mechanism in place for oversight of reports needs improvement,” he wrote. “Until two weeks ago, the process for release of reports from the MIAC to law enforcement officers around the state required no review by leaders of the Missouri State Highway Patrol or the Department of Public Safety.”
“For that reason, I have ordered the MIAC to permanently cease distribution of the militia report,” he said. “Further, I am creating a new process for oversight of reports drafted by the MIAC that will require leaders of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Department of Public Safety to review the content of these reports before they are shared with law enforcement. My office will also undertake a review of the origin of the report by MIAC.”
Sixty members of the Aryan Guard marched carrying WPWW banners in downtown Calgary, Alberta, where they were attacked by violent Marxist thugs who enjoyed the protection of the police. Three people were arrested, and the violent “anti-racist” protestors hurled rocks and projectiles, a typical unlawful act usually indulged in by these groups of violent ideological Marxist thugs.
The “anti-racists” are actually violent anarchists, Marxist-Leninsts, and revolutionary terrorists who use the cover of “anti-racism” as a means to promote their ideology of the violent overthrow of freedom and liberty. They are a ruthless and criminal cult.
Upon their arrival, several Communists and assorted riff-raff proceeded to pelt the activists with rocks, cans and assorted debris.
A number of individuals assaulted participants in the march, and were beaten down by Guards.
More than a dozen people off the street joined in the march, and attended the post-march celebration with the Aryan Guard and friends.
This morning, Finnish activist Henrik Holappa was arrested in Pennsylvania and taken away.
Henrik’s web sites:
http://enationalist.com/henrik-holappa/
http://www.kansallinenvastarinta.com/
Henrik Holappa: Affidavit – Political asylum application
I have been persecuted by the government (army, police, prosecutors), the mass media, and an employer in my country starting on August 8, 2006, when the security police, the SUPO, visited my apartment, which I shared with my sister Natalija, and then my school, asking both her and me many questions and warning me to abandon my beliefs — or else I would lose my prospects of ever being a security guard, and also be “unwelcome in Germany,” a country I intended to visit.
Then the Finnish police obviously notified all Finnish security companies that I should not be employed even as a security guard. I found no one would hire me, although I had graduated from the security guard school Osakk on August 25, 2006. The security company ISS had verbally promised me employment guarding University Hospital in Oulu, but at the end of October 2006 it suddenly had no record or file at all of my job application and two-hour interview on October 9, 2006. So I lost that career possibility.
For centuries, my family has honorably served Finland in military service, under Swedish, Russian and Finnish governments, and both my grandfathers fought against the Soviets in WWII; many of my father’s cousins fell for Finland’s freedom in the war. Both grandfathers suffered greatly in the war, and one never quite recovered from Soviet captivity, suffered severe depression and died in his forties. It was therefore extremely painful to me as an patriotic Finn to be in effect dishonorably discharged on September 6, 2007 from the Finnish Army Reserve solely because of my political views. My reservist duty was to be renewed in January 2008.
I had considered a full-time military career before that, and in fact had left high school to join the army out of love of military service; this career was now also destroyed.
The police came to my apartment on Tuesday, January 16, 2007, at 3:20 pm, and ransacked it, throwing things on the floor, and seized both my computers (returning them three days later.) They then went to my parents’ home, where I was raised as a child, and the criminal police officer Sari Isometsa Tihinen (whose business card is enclosed with my application) threatened my mother that:
–I was “in big trouble,” that
–“Henrik might not come home for a long time,” and that
–if I pursued my beliefs, I “would not have any part in our society.”
I was in police custody for 24 hours at the Oulu police station that same day in a concrete cell with the lights burning day and night, on suspicion of sending a photograph or writing an article, both unprovable charges, and I was not allowed to make any phone calls. After the 24 hours I was told that I was now under arrest, and spent two more days in that cell with nothing to read or do, incommunicado, without visitors, and with no phone call to anyone. The police told my mother that I was under arrest. I was released without charges on the 19th.
When I emerged from jail, I discovered that the main newspaper in northern Finland, Kaleva, had violated on the day of my detention, January 16, the Finnish press custom of never reporting the name of a suspect, even a murder suspect, under the presumption of innocence, until he had been actually convicted at the end of a trial. However, the article mentioned me by my name in the very first paragraph, and stated falsely as a proven fact that I had written a certain article in December 2006.
It was an article denouncing gangs of African rapists of my countrywomen of whom many were and are still running around un-arrested in my city. The article highlighted the infamous “scissor rapists” — Sudanese black Africans who clitorectomized a Finnish female rape victim with scissors in June 2005 in Oulu and were sentenced to three years in prison in January 2006. The author asked why Finland was bringing in such immigrants and why there were no subsequent arrests for the other African gang rapists still terrorizing my city. (Finland itself has no history of gang rape among the native Finns.)
The media article also stated as fact the unproven assertion that I had sent off a clipped newspaper photo to America – as a serious “copyright violation” — and the lie that while living in Oulu as a young Finn without any website skills, I was “the webmaster” of an American website.
This was obviously a coordinated campaign by the Finnish government, police and media, all together, to make me a hated person to both leftist Finns and to the very Somali and Sudanese gang rapists who then, as now, are on the loose in the city of my birth. (There have been no prosecutions of African gang rapists there since the scissors rapists were convicted in January 2006, 33 months ago, although the problem continues and these immigrants stand out memorably by their appearance to both their victims and the public in my Scandinavian country.)
There are also many black immigrants, all Muslim Africans, in my apartment building, who live on my street and in my neighborhood, and they can know who I am, because the main newspaper in all of northern Finland, Kaleva, with a daily circulation of 300,000, used my name. They can afford this newspaper because they can get up to 3,000 euros a month in welfare for a family, while an unemployed Finn can get only 400 euros a month.
The security police, SUPO, could even remind the African Muslim communities of my name and address.
On May 11 or 12, 2008 I received a phone call while visiting neighboring Estonia from the same Sari Tihinen, asking me when I could come to the police station in Oulu. She further informed me over the telephone that the top prosecutor in Finland, Mika Illman, whose name suggests Jewish ancestry and thus animus toward me, had “dug up [my] case again.”
On Tuesday, May 20, 2008 this same policewoman further warned me, now at the Oulu police station, that I was to be indicted by the government of Finland on three serious charges so as to “make an example of me for other racists in Finland,” as follows:
1)two years imprisonment for “incitement of racial hatred” [sic];
2)two years behind bars for “defaming the honor of the African community of Finland” [sic]; and
3)six months imprisonment for “copyright violation.” (I had merely scanned a photo of “multiculturalism” from a Finnish newspaper, and sent it as a private email attachment to an American friend. He then, unbeknownst to me, posted it on an American website.)
I believe I was targeted because the Finnish authorities hate my views and see me as a young leader whose crushing would preclude any political movement I could start. (I have never started any movement; I only turned 23 in July.)
I am sure that the Finnish government would harm me on my return by arresting me and prosecuting me, and putting me in prison next to Somali and Turkish felons who might hate me and seek to beat, rape or kill me. The Finnish government would itself be my main persecutor, and might not protect me at all in prison. In fact, it might invite inmates to get a sentence reduction if they harmed me.
They might also put me, as an “extremely dangerous person” (the policewoman’s words to me and to members of the True Finns political party of which I was once a member) in a maximum security prison where I would be shut up in a cell for 23 hours a day. This is a form of severe mental harm, especially for an innocent person who deserves no punishment.
The Finnish government is modern and controls all the territory of Finland, so there is no place in my country where I could hide for long. Furthermore, all other European Union countries have laws similar to Finland’s and would arrest me on a European Union arrest warrant to extradite me back to Finland or to any other EU country that objects to my views.
Just one week ago, Dr. Fredrick Toeben, an Australian, was arrested by British detectives on the runway of Heathrow Airport near London on an EU arrest warrant issued in Mannheim, Germany. His plane from the USA to Dubai had merely landed there to refuel and discharge some passengers. The German prosecutor said he feared a German “could” read Toeben’s English-language Australian website.
I left Finland by plane and flew via Iceland to the United States on July 11, 2008. I came here as a bona fide tourist, but decided toward the end of my tourist stay that I loved America, its people, its beauty and its freedom of speech and that I did not want to be imprisoned and possibly murdered in Finland.
It seems President Barack Obama’s ‘post-racial America’ is not post-racial at all – and Young Jeezy and Jay Z are making that very clear.
Along with the saying “My President is Black”, Young Jeezy and Jay Z have made themselves perfectly clear – they are racist and are not following “their black president” Barack Obama’s call for a new, post-racial America.
Here are their lyrics:
“My President is black my Maybach too and I’ll be goddamned if my diamonds ain’t blue. My money’s light green and my Porsche is light grey. I’m going to DC anybody Feel Meh! My president is black in fact he’s half white, so even in a racist mind he’s half right And if you got a racist mind it’s alright… My President is black but his house is all White….Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther Could walk, Martin Luther walked so Obama could run, Barrack Obama ran so all the children could fly, So imma spread my wings you could meet me in Da sky!!! I already got my own clothes already got my own shoes, I was hot Before Barrack imagine what I’m gonna do…Hello Ms. America, hey Pretty Lady.. Red, White, and Blue Flag Wave For Me Baby Neva thought I’d Say this shit baby I’m good You can keep ya Puss, I don’t want no more BUSH! No More War, No More Iraq! No More White LIES, My President is BLACK!”
The city that Henry Lee (Robert’s Father) left behind him, the city of Robert Lee’s widening consciousness, was a pleasant place of 7500 people, situated on the west bank of the Potomac River, six miles below the fields where the capital of the republic was rising.
Robert E. Lee Childhood Home
Organized in 1749, Alexandria had been peopled in part by Scotch of good station, but had later received Pennsylvania Quakers and native Virginia colonials in such numbers that by 1815 it differed little from the other towns of the Old Dominion.
Despite war, smallpox, building booms, and fires, the kindred plagues of most early American cities, Alexandria had grown. Ships of many flags tied up at its ample wharves. Fishermen brought thither their weighty catches from the lower stretches of the river. Hundreds of hogsheads of tobacco rolled in from nearby plantations and disappeared in the deep holds of ships bound for England. Thirty-four tavern keepers and more than 260 merchants competed sharply for the trade of sailor, farmer, traveller, and resident. Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Quaker, Baptist, and Roman Catholic churches all offered the comforts of religion to the pious, or held the threat of hell above the profligate’s head. Justice sat with dignity, for Alexandria had become a part of the District of Columbia in 1791 and was under exclusive federal jurisdiction. A town hall Alexandria boasted, a market place, a Library even, and a jail atop whose chimneys stood grim pikes where once the town had set in lasting warning the heads of slaves who had preached insurrection. In her prosperity the city abandoned wooden building dwellings for enduring brick, but in her thrift she allowed herself few gardens. At some of her corners deep wells rewarded with clear water those who would tug at the complaining windlass. Buried cannon, placed there before the Revolution, marked other crossings. There were oil lamps on the streets, and in each ward the town paid a watchman to go the rounds every night, to cry the hours, and to make the drowsy burgher glad of his shelter by telling him in loud tones how hard the wind was biting. And if fire broke out, was not the Friendship Company ready to race to the flames with its engine? Did not each member of the Sun Company hasten with his two leather buckets and with his two-bushel Osnaburg bag, in which to store salvaged valuables?
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Biography (1807-1870), American soldier, general in the Confederate States army, was the youngest son of major-general Henry Lee, called ” Light Horse Harry.” He was born at Stratford, Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 19th of January 1807, and entered West Point in 1825. Graduating four years later second in his class, he was given a commission in the U.S. Engineer Corps. In 1831 he married Mary, daughter of G. W. P. Custis, the adopted son of Washington and the grandson of Mrs. Washington. In 1836 he became first lieutenant, and in 1838 captain. In this rank he took part in the Mexican War, repeatedly winning distinction for conduct and bravery. He received the brevets of major for Cerro Gordo, lieut.-colonel for Contreras-Churubusco and colonel for Chapultepec. |
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After the war he was employed in engineer work at Washington and Baltimore, during which time, as before the war, he resided on the great Arlington estate, near Washington, which had come to him through his wife. In 1852 he was appointed superintendent of West Point, and during his three years here he carried out many important changes in the academy. Under him as cadets were his son G. W. Custis Lee, his nephew, Fitzhugh Lee and J. E. B. Stuart, all of whom became general officers in the Civil War. In 1855 he was appointed as lieut.-colonel to the 2nd Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Sidney Johnston, with whom he served against the Indians of the Texas border.
In 1859, while at Arlington on leave, he was summoned to command the United States troops sent to deal with the John Brown raid on Harper’s Ferry. In March 1861 he was made colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry; but his career in the old army ended with the secession of Virginia in the following month. Lee was strongly averse to secession, but felt obliged to conform to the action of his own state. The Federal authorities offered Lee the command of the field army about to invade the South, which he refused. Resigning his commission, he made his way to Richmond and was at once made a major-general in the Virginian forces. A few weeks later he became a brigadier-general (then the highest rank) in the Confederate service. The military operations with which the great Civil War opened in 1861 were directed by President Davis and General Lee. Lee was personally in charge of the unsuccessful West Virginian operations in the autumn, and, having been made a full general on the 31st of August, during the winter he devoted his experience as an engineer to the fortification and general defense of the Atlantic coast. Thence, when the well-drilled Army of the Potomac was about to descend upon Richmond, he was hurriedly recalled to Richmond. General Johnston was wounded at the battle of Fair Oaks (Seven Pines) on the 31st of May 1862, and General Robert E. Lee was assigned to the command of the famous Army of Northern Virginia which for the next three years ” carried the rebellion on its bayonets.” Little can be said of Lee’s career as a commander-in-chief that is not an integral part of the history of the Civil War.
His first success was the ” Seven Days’ Battle ” in which he stopped McClellan’s advance; this was quickly followed up by the crushing defeat of the Federal army under Pope, the invasion of Maryland and the sanguinary and indecisive battle of the Antietam. The year ended with another great victory at Fredericksburg. Chancellorsville, won against odds of two to one, and the great three days’ battle of Gettysburg, where for the first time fortune turned decisively against the Confederates, were the chief events of 1863.
In the autumn Lee fought a war of maneuver against General Meade. The tremendous struggle of 1864 between Lee and Grant included the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor and the long siege of Petersburg , in which, almost invariably, Lee was locally successful. But the steady pressure of his unrelenting opponent slowly wore down his strength. At last with not more than one man to oppose to Grant’s three he was compelled to break out of his Petersburg lines (April 1865).
A series of heavy combats revealed his purpose, and Grant pursued the dwindling remnants of Lee’s army to the westward. Headed off by the Federal cavalry, and pressed closely in rear by Grant’s main body, General Lee had no alternative but to surrender. At Appomattox Court House, on the 9th of April, the career of the Army of Northern Virginia came to an end. Lee’s farewell order was issued on the following day, and within a few weeks the Confederacy was at an end. For a few months Lee l ived quietly in Powhatan county, making his formal submission to the Federal authorities and urging on his own people acceptance of the new conditions.
In August he was offered, and accepted, the presidency of Washington College, Lexington (now Washington and Lee University), a post which he occupied until his death on the 12th of October 1870 He was buried in the college grounds. By his achievements he won a high place amongst the great generals of history. – Though hampered by lack of materials and by political necessities, his strategy was daring always, and he never hesitated to take the gravest risks. On the field of battle he was as energetic in attack as he was constant in defense, and his personal influence over the men whom he led was extraordinary. No student of the American Civil War can fail to notice how the influence of Lee dominated the course of the struggle, and his surpassing ability was never more conspicuously shown than in the last hopeless stages of the contest.
The personal history of Lee is lost in the history of the great crisis of America’s national life; friends and foes alike acknowledged the purity of his motives, the virtues of his private life, his earnest Christianity and the unrepining loyalty with which he accepted the ruin of his party.
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Barack Obama insists that he and his staff were not involved in the alleged schemes Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich cooked up to sell off the president-elect’s vacant Senate seat.
But the timeline of activity outlined in the FBI’s 76-page complaint against Blagojevich suggests Obama’s team was aware that his home-state governor was playing political hardball in the weeks before his arrest.
That’s because shortly after Blagojevich allegedly told his advisers, in an expletive-laced conference call, that he would not appoint Obama’s pick to the Senate absent huge favors in return, Obama’s apparent pick promptly dropped out of the running for the Senate and joined the new White House staff.
“Reading between the lines … clearly somebody from (Obama’s) operation did have a conversation with Blagojevich,” Democratic strategist Bob Beckel told FOX News. He added that Obama’s representative evidently wasn’t trying to cut a deal since Blagojevich indicated he was “getting nothing out of the Obama people.”
