USA: Americans celebrate Independence Day.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Read the whole thing here. Listen here. Scott Johnson at Power Line on the eternal meaning of Independence Day:
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience when Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas invited Lincoln to come join him on the balcony to watch the speech. In his speech Douglas rang the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and fall for Douglas’s Senate seat.
Douglas paid tribute to Lincoln as a “kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent,” but took issue with Lincoln’s June 16 speech to the Illinois Republican convention that had named him its candidate for Douglas’s seat. In that speech Lincoln had famously asserted that the nation could not exist “half slave and half free.” According to Douglas, Lincoln’s assertion was inconsistent with the “diversity” in domestic institutions that was “the great safeguard of our liberties.” ...
Go to the post to read Lincoln's response.
Israel: Entebbe remembered. On the day of America's bicentennial, Israeli commandos executed one of the most daring hostage rescues in history.
It took Israeli commandos minutes to conduct one of the greatest and most daring rescue missions in modern history, in Entebbe, Uganda, on July 4, 1976.
During those brief fateful moments, good triumphed over evil; the innocent were saved and the terrorists who threatened them were routed.
It was 11:30 pm Saturday night, June 27, 1976. The seventh night that over 100 Israelis, non-Israeli Jews, and the twelve-member Air France crew were held in the Entebbe airport since PFLP (Popular Front Liberation Palestine) terrorists and two West German supporters, hijacked the jet, Air France flight 139, while on the ground during a stopover in Athens as it was bound from Tel Aviv to Paris. The Ugandan regime under Idi Amin Dada supported the terrorists and gave them cover. ...
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost his brother on that day:
The rescue operation, was renamed Operation Yonatan in honor of its commander, Yonatan Netanyahu, 30, who was cut down by a Ugandan sentry.Netanyahu believed from the outset that the plan could be accomplished and his confidence influenced government leaders and his fellow commandos. On that day, one of Israel’s greatest soldiers had fallen.
China: Uighur hijackers killed by their hostages. More recently, 'Two men who allegedly tried to hijack a plane in far west China by battering the cockpit door with a crutch and trying to set off explosives have died, state media said Monday.' Atlas covers it. Rantburg provides commentary.
Turkey: Bodies of two airmen recovered. 'The bodies of the crew members of a Turkish jet shot down by Syria last month have been found. Turkey's TRT television said the two airmen were found on the Eastern Mediterranean seabed by a US deep-sea exploration vessel, according to AP. The F-4 Phantom jet was shot down on 22 June, after Syrian authorities claimed it had violated their airspace, a claim disputed by Turkey. ...'
