Medal of Honor Recepient Draws Support for Flag Pole

There are 26 pages of comments and climbing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In Richmond, VA, we have a population that appears to be quite patriotic and isn't ashamed to admit that there is a problem with not being able to fly the Flag of the United States of America from a flagpole, rather than from a small stick coming from the front porch. It made Fox News. That’s hilarious. The Board of the HOA that had a law firm notify this Medal of Honor recipient, this man who has had a highway named after him, that he is in violation of a covenant in the by laws of the neighborhood, in which he lives.

The story, he goes out everyday to raise the American flag up the flag pole in his yard, then in the evening he lowers the flag. According to his story, he has always been around the flag, from WWII to Vietnam. That's 3 wars he has been involved with and 3 wars that the flag of the United States has been beside him.

Maybe, just maybe, there should be something in the U.S. Constitution stipulating the right of Americans to display the Flag of the U.S.A. in a manner, which would override a local zoning ordinance or Home Owners Association's (HOA) rules governing how the Flag is displayed.

I can enjoy the fact that we have this many people still remembering what things are great about America. Our men and women who serve in our Armed Forces and the Flag for which they saluted and fought beside. I think the HOA is outgunned and outclassed. But, I can see a future where this may just slip away, quietly after a surrender. ...lakotahope
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Col. Van T. Barfoot, the 90-year-old Medal of Honor recipient who refuses to remove his flagpole from his property, speaks out on what the flag means to him.

RICHMOND, Va. -- A flood of help is building for an embattled Medal of Honor winner in Henrico County who was ordered this week to remove a flagpole from his yard by his community's homeowners association.

From the halls of Congress to the 90-year-old colonel's old infantry unit, a local law firm and scores of service members, help is making its way to Col. Van T. Barfoot.

"He said he was outraged and wanted to help," Barfoot's daughter said yesterday, speaking of U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., who learned of Barfoot's plight on TimesDispatch.com yesterday.

In a five-paragraph letter that he received Tuesday, Barfoot was ordered to remove the flagpole from his yard in the Sussex Square community in far western Henrico County. The decorated veteran of three wars raises the American flag every morning on the pole, then lowers and folds the flag at dusk in a three-corner military fashion.

The Coates & Davenport law firm in Richmond sent a priority-mail letter ordering Barfoot to remove the pole by 5 p.m. Friday or face "legal action being brought to enforce the covenants and restrictions against you." The letter states that Barfoot will be subject to paying all legal fees and costs in any successful legal proceeding pursued by the homeowners association's board.

A Richmond law firm, Marchant, Honey & Baldwin, offered yesterday to represent Barfoot at no cost, partner John Honey said.

In a statement released last night, the association said Barfoot is in direct violation of its board's July decision to deny his request to erect a flagpole.

"This is not about the American flag. This is about a flagpole," the statement reads, noting that many homes in the neighborhood display the American flag.

Margaret Nicholls, Barfoot's daughter, said last night that the statement is using semantics to back up a board decision about the pole that was made on aesthetic, not regulatory grounds. There is no covenant that expressly forbids flag poles, she said.

Warner has known Barfoot for years and has a high regard for him, Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said. "The senator definitely wants to step in to get something resolved."

Nicholls said her father's phone "is ringing off the hook." Members of the 157th Infantry Unit, with which he served, have called along with scores of people concerned about Barfoot's welfare, she said.

Barfoot can't understand why the board allows a flag to hang from an angled pole mounted to the side of a house but disallows a flag flown from a free-standing vertical pole.

"Where I've been, fighting wars, displaying the flag, military installations, parades, everything else, the flag is vertical. And I've done it that way since I was in the Army," Barfoot said.

"Dad sort of feels like this is the end," said Nicholls, who lives a few doors away. But she said yesterday that she and her husband are attempting to generate support for her father's cause, a flag-raising rite that he has undertaken for most of his life.

Barfoot received the Medal of Honor on the battlefield during World War II in Italy and fought as well in the Korean and Vietnam wars. A portion of a highway in rural Mississippi, his native state, was named in his honor this fall. A building at McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Richmond, also carries his name.

Barfoot regularly began flying the flag on Veterans Day this year, after he returned from an extended trip that began in September, despite the Sussex Square board's decision.

He said last month that not flying the flag would be a sacrilege to him.

"There's never been a day in my life or a place I've lived in my life that you couldn't fly the American flag," he said.

Barfoot's neighbors are split, with some saying that the community covenants should have no exceptions, and that Barfoot was given the community's covenants before he bought the property. Others support him regardless.

Sally Hedleston, whose house has a legal flagpole attached, said she has asked board members to make an exception for the Medal of Honor winner.

"Some board members say that rules are rules -- well, how many of them have broken the speed limit every day here?" she asked.

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Contact Bill McKelway at (804) 649-6601 or bmckelway@timesdispatch.com .

Ahmadinejad: Says Israel Cannot Stop Iran From Enriching Nuclear Fuel

The President of Iran is quite outspoken about what Iran will do to its neighbors and what it will do to have "peaceful power" options in place for itself. Stating Israel can't stop Iran from making enriched uranium, Ahmadinejad forgets that the world can stop them and if needed, the United States can and will stop them from producing nuclear weapons. Whether the USA acts after weapons are produced is quite the unknown. As of this time, I believe if the USA discovered Iran had weapons, it wouldn't be long into the future that we would be quite adamant about removing Iran from the nuclear club.

Iran is isolated to the point that only North Korea would support them as Russia recently voted along with the Western Nations in denouncing Iran and its nuclear ambitions. Russia and its sale of the S-300 long range missile system to Iran is still being held up and will be a "large game changer" where Israel and the United States is concerned. . ... Lakotahope

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said there isn't a "damn thing" Israel can do to stop its nuclear program, Reuters reported.

"The Zionist regime (Israel) and its (western) backers cannot do a damn thing to stop Iran's nuclear work," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech, according to Reuters.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday Iran will now enrich its uranium to an even higher level, defying a U.N. call to halt the process due to fears over the country's nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad expressed frustration with negotiations over a U.N.-backed deal to swap Iran's low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched fuel rods to power its medical research reactor.

"I declare here that with the grace of God, the Iranian nation will produce 20 percent (enriched uranium) and anything it needs itself," Ahmadinejad told a cheering crowd of thousands in the southern city Isfahan.

"We told them, give us the 20 percent fuel (in an exchange)," he said. "But then they started adding conditions. So we said, if you want to give us the fuel we'll take it. If not, then fine and goodbye."

The defiant call is similar into tone to the president's announcement Sunday that the country would boost its nuclear activity 10-fold, despite the widespread belief that Iran simply does not have the resources to match its boasts.

Iran currently has one operating enrichment facility, at the central town of Natanz, which has churned out around 3,300 pounds of 3.5 percent enriched uranium over the past years.

The research reactor in Tehran, however, needs uranium enriched to 20 percent.

Enriching uranium even further, to levels around 90 percent, however, results in material suitable for a nuclear war head, something the West feels Iran is striving to do secretly.

The idea behind the swap was to get the bulk of Iran's uranium out of the country so it would not have enough material build a bomb.

Iran denies the charge and insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

What knucklehead came up with this plan to admonish troops after they captured a known terrorist that was probably on a "most wanted list". We usually punish errant soldiers when they do something heinous and inhumane--not for something as miniscule as a bloody lip. By doing this type of idiotic prosecution, our troops will not know for whom they fight. Certainly, not their leaders up the food chain.... lakotahope

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Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

March 31, 2004: Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as the charred

and mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, Iraq.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

The three SEALs will be arraigned separately on Dec. 7. Another three SEALs — two officers and an enlisted sailor — have been identified by investigators as witnesses but have not been charged.

FoxNews.com obtained the official handwritten statement from one of the three witnesses given on Sept. 3, hours after Abed was captured and still being held at the SEAL base at Camp Baharia. He was later taken to a cell in the U.S.-operated Green Zone in Baghdad.

The SEAL told investigators he had showered after the mission, gone to the kitchen and then decided to look in on the detainee.

"I gave the detainee a glance over and then left," the SEAL wrote. "I did not notice anything wrong with the detainee and he appeared in good health."

Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, spokeswoman for the special operations component of U.S. Central Command, confirmed Tuesday to FoxNews.com that three SEALs have been charged in connection with the capture of a detainee. She said their court martial is scheduled for January.

United States Central Command declined to discuss the detainee, but a legal source told FoxNews.com that the detainee was turned over to Iraqi authorities, to whom he made the abuse complaints. He was then returned to American custody. The SEAL leader reported the charge up the chain of command, and an investigation ensued.

The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that "Objective Amber" planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and "they had been tracking this guy for some time."

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq.

The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph.

Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

The military is sensitive to charges of detainee abuse highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The Navy charged four SEALs with abuse in 2004 in connection with detainee treatment

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

The three SEALs will be arraigned separately on Dec. 7. Another three SEALs — two officers and an enlisted sailor — have been identified by investigators as witnesses but have not been charged.

FoxNews.com obtained the official handwritten statement from one of the three witnesses given on Sept. 3, hours after Abed was captured and still being held at the SEAL base at Camp Baharia. He was later taken to a cell in the U.S.-operated Green Zone in Baghdad.

The SEAL told investigators he had showered after the mission, gone to the kitchen and then decided to look in on the detainee.

"I gave the detainee a glance over and then left," the SEAL wrote. "I did not notice anything wrong with the detainee and he appeared in good health."

Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, spokeswoman for the special operations component of U.S. Central Command, confirmed Tuesday to FoxNews.com that three SEALs have been charged in connection with the capture of a detainee. She said their court martial is scheduled for January.

United States Central Command declined to discuss the detainee, but a legal source told FoxNews.com that the detainee was turned over to Iraqi authorities, to whom he made the abuse complaints. He was then returned to American custody. The SEAL leader reported the charge up the chain of command, and an investigation ensued.

The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that "Objective Amber" planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and "they had been tracking this guy for some time."

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq.

The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph.

Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

The military is sensitive to charges of detainee abuse highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The Navy charged four SEALs with abuse in 2004 in connection with detainee treatment