Jimmy Carter, our 39th President and man who ran the most disastorous presidency of the 20th century, has come out today calling President Bush's foreign policy the worst in our nation's history. He has equally kind and uplifting words for Tony Blair.
One wonders what is going on with Mr. Carter. His presidency was an utter catastrophe. In his post-presidency years, Mr. Carter actually accomplished far more for humanity building houses and erradicating parasites in Africa then he ever did as President. Why he did not maintain some dignity and stick with what has worked for him is a mystery.
Please note that I am not criticizing Mr. Carter solely to make an ancillary attack on his veracity and judgment. Rather, Mr. Carter's history and his view of acceptable foreign policy must be considered in assessing the worth of his judgment. And that assessment can only be that Carter's judgment of Bush's foreign policy is worthless as a valid criticisim. Actually, one could even go beyond that and argue that Carter's censure is actually to be taken as a sign that Bush is doing all the right things in the foreign policy arena.
Carter, besides domestically presiding over double digit inflation and the worst economy since the depression, was a tsunami of disaster in foreign policy. His one success was the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. For a general walk down bad memory lane, here is a retrospective on the Carter years from 2002 by Jay Nordinger.
Perhaps President Carter's most infamous contribution to the mess that is the world today was his enablement of Khomeini's revolution in Iran and Carter's refusal to take effective action to end the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. As Amir Taheri recently explained:The first contact between the US and the mullahs was established in November 1978, soon after Khomeini set up shop in a suburb of Paris. George Cave, the CIA's Iran specialist traveled to Paris and met Khomeini's close aides at the time: Abol-Hassan Banisadr and Ibrahim Yazdi. The message from President Jimmy Carter was one of support for the ayatollah and his Islamic Revolution.
See here. And, for those of us who lived through the next 444 days, treated to video of our citizens paraded on t.v. while Khomeini consolidated power and made speech after speech about the Great Satan America, Carter's ineffectualness is seared into our consciousness. It is not unfair to say that Carter was midwife to the birth of political and radical Islam in the modern era.
When the Shah's regime collapsed, the early signs were encouraging for Carter. Khomeini's first Cabinet, under Mahdi Bazargan, included five ministers who had immigrated to the US from Iran and had become US citizens.
The Carter administration saw the Khomeinist revolution as the first step towards creating what Zbigniew Bzrezinski, the National Security Advisor, described as "a green Islamic belt" around the Soviet Union. The idea was that, in time, the "belt" would, become a noose that, when pulled, would strangle the Soviet empire.
Eight months after Khomeini had seized power, Bazargan met Bzrezinski in Algiers and obtained promises of US aid, and a resumption of military supplies, in the context of shared anti-Communist sentiments. Bzrezinski told Carter that Bazargan was "a man with whom we could do business."
A few days later, however, a band of militants raided the US Embassy in Tehran and seized its diplomats hostage. Bazargan and Yazdi, foreign minister at the time, were kicked out, never to return to power.
Carter's recollection of events varies somewhat. According to Carter, he was responsible for ending the hostage crisis by his noble efforts.:President Carter committed himself to the safe return of the hostages while protecting America's interests and prestige. He pursued a policy of restraint that put a higher value on the lives of the hostages than on American retaliatory power or protecting his own political future. The toll of patient diplomacy was great, but President Carter's actions brought freedom for the hostages with America's honor preserved.
That from an article on the subject available at the Carter Library. It's not even good fiction. Actually, the hostages were not released until the day Ronald Regean was sworn in as President. Only a fool would credit Carter with ending the crisis rather then Khomeini's calculus of Regean's likely response to Iran on Day 2 of his Presidency.
Possibly just below Iran on the scale of calamity, there was Carter's disastorous meddling in North Korea. In 1994, Clinton was in the midst of addressing North Korea's nuclear program when Carter, on his own initiative, travelled to North Korea and negotiated an utterly worthless agreement with North Korea that has, today, resulted in North Korea attaining nuclear weapons capability.
I could go on, but the legacy has been covered in far greater detail by far better authors then I. I would recommend that you go to Powerline and do a search for Jimmy Carter. The bottom line is, for Jimmy Carter to criticize Bush's foreign policy is the height of lunacy.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Jimmy Goes (Pea)Nuts
A Tale of Two Iraqs
This is a tale of two polar opposite views of Iraq. Since both purport to tell objective fact on the same topic, only one can be true. The first is written by an influential left wing British think tank. The author drafted it safely in the confines of London. That study was recently relied upon by the Washington Post for the proposition that Iraq is a lost cause. The second is written by a former soldier who has spent most of the last four plus years embedded with troops in Iraq and Afganistan. He is currently living with the Marines in Anbar province. His reporting is routinely ignored by the Washington Post, along with the rest of the MSM. The first view of Iraq comes from a study by Chatham House. The second view comes from Michael Yon.
First, the view of Chatham House, whose study on Iraq the Washington Post cited the other day. I posted:
[The WP] headline is "60 Die in Iraq, Study Warns of Collapse." . . .Do please read the Chatham House Study. Then read this e-mail from Michael Yon sent yesterday to Glen Reynolds and that Glen posts on his site, Instapundit. It discusses life at the moment in Anbar Province after the "local actors" decided to challenge Al Qaeda a few months ago:
The WP quotes liberally from the study's conclusions - mostly to give a very contrarian view to statements by our own U.S. Ambassador in Iraq. But the WP does not quote from the Chatham House study's underlying findings, few if any of which seem supported by fact.
For example, Al Qaeda in Iraq is under extreme pressure, having been largely driven into Diyala Province from its former bases in Anbar Province and Baghdad. Indeed, one major change on the ground in Iraq that is extremely well documented has been the success of the locals in Anbar Province turning on Al Qaeda in Iraq and, with MNF support, driving them largely out of the province. Its been so successful that Marines in Ramadi are complaining of boredom and monotony. Nonetheless, in asserting that things are only getting worse in Iraq, Chatham House actually roots for al Qaeda, ascribing to them the big mo' while downplaying the incredible success of the Anbar Salvation Council:Al-Qaeda has a very real presence in Iraq that has spread to the major cities of the centre and north of the country, including Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul. Although Al-Qaeda’s position is challenged by local actors, it is a mistake to exaggerate the ability of tribal groups and other insurgents to stop the momentum building behind its operations in Iraq.
This gives a bit of the flavor that thoroughly infests the Chatham House Study. They do the same for the Mahdi Army and downplay recent moves by the SICI to switch allegiance to Grand Ayatollah Sistani. . . .
Am still in Anbar and just went another day without hearing a single shot fired. Am out with a small group of Marines who live with a much larger group of Iraqis. I enjoy the Iraqi food more than the food at the dining facilities. . . .So who do you think is giving us an accurate picture of Iraq and the effects of the "local actors?" Well, at least we know whom the Washington Post would have us believe. As Bernard Lewis let's us know, leaving Iraq now is fraught with extreme peril and long term consequences for us and the world. So why is the Washington Post unquestioningly citing to a Chatham House study so obviously flawed?
I was told that a chemical munition (artillery shell) was found within the last few days.
Today, went on a patrol with Iraqis and a couple of Marines and we talked with Iraqi villagers for a couple of hours. I got to talk with a man who was about 81. His hearing was not good, so I had to sit close. He said he worked for the British RAF here in about 1945-46. I asked him if the British treated him well and he said they treated him very well. Said he made the equivalent of about 25 cents per day but that was good money back then. There is, in fact, a British-Polish-Indian-Aussie-Kiwi cemetery nearby. (I visited and photographed many of the headstones some days ago.)
All the villagers we got to talk with were very friendly. Kids wanted their photos taken, that sort of thing. They were not asking for candy and that was nice. There was a train track nearby (looked to be in very good condition), and a locomotive turned over on its side, derailed. I asked a man what happened, and he said that about four years ago, during the war, an "Ali Baba" (thief) tried to steal the train but ran head-on into another train! He said the police caught the Ali Baba and he has no idea what happened after that.
Marines are getting along well with the locals. They wave a lot, and stop to talk. If the rest of Iraq looked like this, we could all come home!
A Psychological Perspective on the OIC & the Canard of Islamaphobia
I posted below on the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), who first, in a move that can only be described as Orwellian, redefined terrorism as Islamaphobia before the next day coming out with strong statement condemning terrorism. You can't make this stuff up, unfortunately. As a cure for the sickening hypocrisy of it all, I posted a critical and humorous look at Islam by British comic Pat Condell. Now Dr. Santy has waded into the morass.
Dr. Santy, psychologist to the Islamaphobic masses, has, in the wake of the OIC's ominous and fantastical actions, graced us with a psychological perspective on the canard of Islamaphobia. It is well worth the read:
. . . [B]eing afraid of "the religion of peace" after the innumerable acts of violence, terror and depravity committed in the name of Allah is not exaggerated; not inexplicable; and most certainly not illogical.Read the entire post here. So sayeth the doc. So let it be written. And for what it is worth, I note here my prior post arguing that Islam has to have reasoned criticism - such cannot be cut off by charges of hate speech or Islamaphobia else we doom ourselves and the Islamic religion.
What the OIC is exhibiting is a sort of meta-Islamophobia--an Islamophobicphobia, to be precise; or, as I would define it, " an exaggerated,usually inexplicable and illogical fear of mere criticism of Islam, as well as a pathological reluctance to hold it to account for the actions and behavior of its followers.
"There is much written both in the Middle East and in the West about the proposition that Islam is "under siege" and that hatred of Islam is a rising concern. This has been repeated frequently particularly since the global war on terror (which actually is a global war on Islamic fanatiacism).
Those who decry this reality are not only reluctant to admit that the wave of terror and irrational hatred sweeping the world is specifically associated with the religion of Islam; they simultaneously blame the victims of the terror and the objects of the irrational hatred as the one's responsible for its existence. Islam is given a free pass and the shouts of "God is Great" that precede the latest atrocity apparently have nothing to do with what is written in the Koran.
It is getting harder and harder to keep a straight face as the knee-jerk denial and sanctimonious utterings of organizations like CAIR and the OIC fill the news media on a daily basis.
Islamophobia? Anyone who by now has not realized that Islam has given carte blanche to the fanatics in its midst is either completely out of touch with reality, or living on another planet (e.g., planet Hollywood, or planet Marx).
Muslims in Europe claim they are justified in rejecting Western society for a variety of reasons:
(1) oppression;
(2) poverty;
(3) the Iraq War; and/or
(4) the institutionally "racist" culture of the West, which "forces" Muslims to accept the values of the countries they choose to imigrate to.
Interestingly, Muslims seem to expect that those countries should be forced to abandon their own traditions and adopt Muslim values.So, let me say for the record that I reject being labeled as "Islamophobic" utterly.
Rather, I have a healthy, rational fear of a religion that aggressively seeks my submission or death. . . .
Islam has forced me to explicitly and loudly state that I absolutely, thoroughly and unequivocally reject Muslim values. What follows is not an exhaustive list, but let me touch on some of the highlights that form the basis of my rejection:
. . . After September 11th, I could continue to live in a state of denial and ignorance about the fact that Islam had come to represent all the values that are incompatible with human life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Or, I could face reality and recognize Islam as a serious threat to all I hold dear and value in the world.
No; a rational, healthy fear of Islam's barbaric medievalism and its desire to subjugate the entire human race under the yoke of its god is perfectly appropriate and continually justified by the fanatical behavior of millions of Muslims everywhere on the planet.
This is not Islamophobia; this is common sense.
Vote . . . Buying?
Vote buying of one sort or another has a long history in democracies. Indeed, our founding father, George Washington, was known for providing free libations to voters as election day neared. Most vote buying schemes of more recent vintage amount to little more then pedestrian corruption. Others . . . well, others are more creative. And as to this particular scheme in Belgium, ahh, what the hell, she has my vote. See here. Only if over 18 and a consenting adult.
(h/t Jules Crittenden)
Thomas Sowell on Left Brain versus Right Brain
Thomas Sowell has one of his always insightful articles out today, this time discussing the fundamentel differnce in paradigm between the left and the right. He opines that elite left's belief, that by their superior knowledge, they can better govern by fiat then can the unwashed masses by voting, is fundamentally and fatally flawed.
Radically different conclusions about a range of issues have been common for centuries. Many have tried to explain these differences by conflicting economic interests. Others, like John Maynard Keynes, have argued that ideas trump economic interests.Read the entire story here.
My own view is that differences in bedrock assumptions underlying ideas play a major role in determining how people differ in what policies, principles or ideologies they favor.
Millions died of starvation when the economic ideas of Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China were inflicted on the population living . . . under their iron rule. . .
Yet what the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.
They may not impose their presumptions wholesale, like the totalitarians, but retail in innumerable restrictions, ranging from economic and nanny state regulations to "hate speech" laws.
If no one has even one percent of all the knowledge in a society, then it is crucial that the other 99 percent of knowledge - scattered in tiny and individually unimpressive amounts among the population at large - be allowed the freedom to be used in working out mutual accommodations among the people themselves.
These innumerable mutual interactions are what bring the other 99 percent of knowledge into play - and generate new knowledge.
That is why free markets, judicial restraint, and reliance on decisions and traditions growing out of the experiences of the many - rather than the groupthink of the elite few - are so important. Elites are all too prone to over-estimate the importance of the fact that they average more knowledge per person than the rest of the population - and under-estimate the fact that their total knowledge is so much less than that of the rest of the population.
Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.
The ignorance of people with Ph.D.s is still ignorance, the prejudices of educated elites are still prejudices, and for those with one percent of a society's knowledge to be dictating to those with the other 99 percent is still an absurdity.
Democrat Politics - Iraq, Murtha on Pork, Pelosi Trys to Silence Republicans, Ethics Rules, - Its a Circus
Lots going under the big top on the left side of the aisle this past week that I haven't had time to blog about - at least not until my recent bout of insomnia.
The lead has to be the political games being run by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, sending the Iraq bill to the President, this time only sans the pork and earmarks that had no business in the bill to begin with. You have to love their feigned disappointment when President Bush refused to agree to Democratic terms of surrender in Iraq, whether or not waiverable. See here. My favorite of all the Democratic posturing on this, though, has to be David Obey, House Appropriations Committee Chairman:
The offers that we made today represented very large steps toward compromise on our part . . . And I think we got an inchworm response from the administration.Sorry, Mr. Obey, but including terms of surrender in the funding bill does not qualify as any reasonable attempt at compromise.
Jack Murtha apparently likes his pork without criticism or challenge. The government moved to close down National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) located in Murtha's district on the grounds that it is not functioning to expectations and it is no longer needed. When Murtha had continued funding for the NDIC put into the budget, Republican Mike Rogers of Michigan sought to have it cut. Murtha went ballistic, accroding to the WP story: According to Rogers' account, which Murtha did not dispute, the Democrat angrily told Rogers he should never seek earmarks of his own because "you're not going to get any, now or forever."Rogers will submit a motion to censure Murtha before the House on Monday. Nice to see someone standing up to Murtha. It needs to go a lot further, though.
"This was clearly designed to try to intimidate me," Rogers said in an interview Friday. "He said it loud enough for other people to hear."
House rules prohibit lawmakers from placing conditions on earmarks or targeted tax benefits that are based on another member's votes.
On a different front, there are the lobbying rules that Democrats promised to clean up as a function of their campaign against a "culture of corruption." But it seems now that many Democrats kind of like that culture. This from the NYT:
House Democrats wavered Thursday in their vow to tighten Congressional ethics rules as their leaders scrapped a campaign pledge to double the current one-year ban on lobbying by departing lawmakers and senior staff members.Then there was the attempt by Nancy Pelosi to change a House Rule in effect since 1822
Democratic leaders in the House faced a rank-and-file revolt over the measure, which would significantly cramp the ability of lawmakers to cash in on their government service for million-dollar paychecks on K Street as soon as they leave office. . .
allowing the party in the minority to submit a Motion to Recommit on bills before the House. You can get a thorough explanation at Fausta's Blog and the links therein. Nancy's talk of bipartisan cooperation was, it would seem, lacking in any substance - she attempted to completely shut off the minority from their 185 year old procedural right to impact on legislation she and her Democratic majority would bring before the House. Fortunately, she failed in this endeavor, at least for now.And on the "insuring ideological purity" front, Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the House Majority Leader, was one of several Democrats who voted against the McGovern Bill a few days ago. That bill, would have mandated an immediate withdraw from Iraq. Enjoying the full support of the George Soros propaganda machine MoveOn.org, it was nonetheless defeated by a vote of 255 to 171. Hoyer, it should be noted, at least as recently as December, 2005, admitted to strong differences of opinion on the Iraq War with Nancy Pelosi, saying that if she "had her way it 'could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation's security and credibility.'" See here. I couldn't agree more.
Such ideological variance from the mainstream of Soros-thought is not to be tolerated in the Democratic Party. Thus, it is no surprise that Soros's MoveOn.org is running attack ads against Hoyer in his district for failing to vote "yea" on the McGovern bill. They are also running attack ads against Carl Levin for his suggestion that Democrats would vote to fund the war without requiring surrender on a date certain. See here. It is not nice to disagree with George Soros. Not if you are a Democrat.And thus ends a week of politics in the Democratic majority. I personally was glad to see the Republicans bounced from the majority on the grounds that they had become wholly unmoored from their conservative, small government roots. What I am not glad to see is the Democratic circus that has replaced them.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Fjordman on the Islamization of UK & European Cities
Fjordman, noted European essayist and a keen and insightful chronicler of the growth of Islam in Europe, has crafted yet another troubling essay on the matter:
. . . Historically, the major cities have constituted a country’s “head,” the seat of most of its political institutions and the largest concentration of its cultural brainpower. What happens when this “head” is cut off from the rest of the body?. Read the entire story here.
In many countries across Western Europe, Muslim immigrants tend to settle in major cities, with the native population retreating to minor cities or into the countryside. Previously, Europeans or non-Europeans could travel between countries and visit new cities, each with its own, distinctive character and peculiarities. Soon, you will travel from London to Paris, Amsterdam or Stockholm and find that you have left one city dominated by burkas and sharia to find… yet another city dominated by burkas and sharia.
For some reason, this eradication of unique, urban cultures is to be celebrated as “cultural diversity.” Britain’s population is projected to rise by more than seven million in the next 25 years. The predictions were even greater than those made by the Migrationwatch UK think-tank, whose forecasts had been dismissed in the past as alarmist. Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said the figures were “staggering.” “They totally demolish the Government’s claim that it has a ‘managed migration’ policy. In fact they show that immigration into the UK is out of control.” British citizenship has been granted to nearly one million foreign nationals since Labour and Tony Blair came to power in 1997. “Grants of citizenship have quadrupled under the present Government. This is a direct result of their ‘no limits’ immigration policy.” “Immigration on this scale is changing the nature of our society without public consent. It is no longer acceptable.”
More white families are moving from London to the regions while many immigrants arrive in the capital from overseas. Migrationwatch said that the change in 10 years had been “extraordinarily rapid” and “unprecedented.” Whites will soon become a minority in Birmingham and other major British cities, posing a “critical” challenge to social stability, Britain’s race relations watchdog warned. Statistics showed that white and ethnic minority communities were becoming increasingly segregated.
“Asian youths,” a British euphemism for Pakistanis and Muslims from South Asia, in parts of Oldham are trying to create no-go areas for white people. One of them told: “There are signs all around saying whites enter at your risk. It’s a matter of revenge.” However, it’s not just the white natives that are targets of Muslim violence, but other non-Muslims, too. A report on Hindus being driven out of the English city of Bradford by young Muslims was described by some Hindus as “ethnic cleansing.” Some of them want to leave the city to escape the “Talibanization of Bradford.”
In an online story in newspaper The Daily Telegraph that was removed “for legal reasons,” former Muslim Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo warned that British Muslims could soon form a state within the state. Dr Sookhdeo believed that “in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.” “In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe laid out their strategy for the future – and the fundamental rule was never dilute your presence. That is to say, do not integrate.” “Rather, concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures. The education system will be Islamic, the shops will serve only halal food, there will be no advertisements showing naked or semi-naked women, and so on.”
The next step will be pushing the Government to recognize sharia law for Muslim communities – which will be backed up by the claim that it is “racist” or “Islamophobic” to deny them this. Sookhdeo noted that there is already a Sharia Law Council for the UK. “There are Muslim men in Britain who marry and divorce three women, then marry a fourth time – and stay married, in sharia law, to all four.” “The more fundamentalist clerics think that it is only a matter of time before they will persuade the Government to concede on the issue of sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that.”
In France, Muslims already have many smaller states within the state. Criminologist Lucienne Bui Trong wrote that: “From 106 hot points in 1991, we went to 818 sensitive areas in 1999.” The term she used, “sensitive areas,” was used to describe Muslim no-go zones where anything representing a Western institution (post office truck, firemen, even mail order delivery firms) was routinely ambushed with Molotov cocktails. The number was 818 in 2002, when the French government decided to stop collecting the statistics.
In some of these areas, the phenomenon of gang rape “has become banal.” Violence against and pressure on women is part of daily life in the suburbs, where boys can dictate how girls should dress. Pressure is mounting for Muslim women to wear veils. In 2002, a 17-year-old girl was set alight by an 18-year-old boy as his friends stood by. The support group “Ni Putes, Ni Soumises” (“Neither Whores nor Submissives”) says the number of forced marriages has risen in recent years, with roughly 70,000 girls pressured into unwanted relationships each year in France. A leaked study conducted between October 2003 and May 2004 under the auspices of France’s inspector-general of education, Jean Pierre Obin, described an educational system where Muslim students regularly boycotted classes that concerned Voltaire, Rousseau and Moliere, whom the students accused of being anti-Islamic. Orbin’s report cited Muslim students’ refusal to use the “plus” sign in mathematics because it looks like a crucifix; Muslims boycotting class trips to churches, cathedrals and monasteries; and forcing wholesale changes in school lunch fare to accommodate their religious practices.
The influence of radical Islamist groups is a growing threat to French business, too, a leading intelligence expert warned, citing the discovery of secret prayer-rooms at the Disneyland theme-park outside Paris. A report commissioned by several retail and courier companies stated that the Islamists’ strategy is to “take control of Muslims within the workforce” and then “challenge the rules in order to impose Islamic values.” French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that the riots in 2005 were rather “well organized.” Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post noted that some Muslim leaders explained that what they wanted was autonomy in their ghettos: “They seek to receive extraterritorial status from the French government, meaning that they will set their own rules based, one can assume, on Sharia law. If the French government accepts the notion of communal autonomy, France will cease to be a functioning state.” Following three weeks of unrest, the police said 98 vehicles torched in one day marked a “return to a normal situation everywhere in France.” Some of the rioters left boasting messages on various Internet forums. “We aren’t going to let up. The French won’t do anything and soon, we will be in the majority here.” One observer stated: “In France, the majority of young Muslims believe that French society is dying, committing suicide. More like 10 percent to 20 percent of them believe that they are in the process of replacing European civilization with an Islamic one.” In the southern city of Marseille, Muslims make up at least a quarter of the population, and rising fast.
In the Netherlands, Muslims will soon make up the majority in all major cities. “Today, we have 1 million Muslims out of 16 million Dutch,” according to Frits Bolkestein, Dutch politician and former EU Commissioner. “Within 10 years, they will have an absolute majority in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We are staring into the face of a shortly to be divided community. Muslims have the right to their own schools, so there is no teaching of evolution, gay teachers are not tolerated but anti-Semitism is.” A researcher for the Netherlands Ministry for Immigration and Integration found that 40% of young Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands rejected Western values and democracy. Six to seven percent were prepared to use force to “defend” Islam, and the majority were opposed to freedom of speech for offensive statements, particularly criticism of Islam.
We are witnessing a dramatic change in Europe, which men like Bolkestein see as underlined by a drop in national confidence in European countries over the entirety of the last century. The immigration problem, he said, “has to do with the loss of confidence in one’s own civilization. It started with World War II, which was really a mass European suicide. Then, the rise of fascism, the Holocaust and the 1968 student cultural revolutions across Europe. There is no clear European identity today. This has a real impact on foreign policy.”
Douglas Murray attended a conference in memory of the murdered Islam critic Pim Fortuyn in 2006, and noted with concern the strict security measures and what he saw as a nation under siege. “All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice. Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.” A survey in April 2005, after the murder of another critic of Islam, Theo van Gogh, indicated that 32 percent of Dutch people wanted to emigrate abroad.
They leave what was once their country in favor of people such as Dyab Abu Jahjah, founder of the Arab European League (AEL). The AEL, founded in Belgium in 2000, now has branches in the Netherlands and France, and intends to spread across the EU. Jahjah, who has called the 9/11 attacks “sweet revenge,” recruits Muslim youth to spread his ideology, which calls for the introduction of sharia in Europe. “We have three basic demands,” he says. “Bilingual education for Arab-speaking kids, hiring quotas that protect Muslims, and the right to keep our cultural customs.” “Assimilation is cultural rape. It means renouncing your identity, becoming like the others.” Jahjah has also demanded that Arabic should be made an official language in Belgium. Belgium’s Jews, in particular Antwerp’s Jewish diamond merchants, have earlier felt threatened by the Arab European League (AEL), which issued a statement: “The AEL calls on the Jewish community in Antwerp to cease its support of, and distance itself from, the state of Israel. If not, attacks in Antwerp are almost unpreventable.”
Security sources in Germany warned that the country was home to between 3,000 and 5,000 potential Islamic suicide attackers. A Berlin court in 2005 ruled that a well-known Turkish religious leader should be extradited to Turkey. In his Berlin mosque he repeatedly said that “all Germans were stinking people and doomed to go to hell because they were useless creatures and infidels.” Shortly before, the press spokesman of this mosque had told about the Turks’ strong interest in fostering good relations with native Germans. TV correspondent Reinhard Laska feared that the opinions voiced by the Imam were only the tip of the iceberg: “There was nobody in the mosque who stood up and demanded that the Imam stop his nasty talk about Germans,” he said. “Nobody seemed to mind at all.” In 2006, “Valley of the Wolves,” a virulently anti-Semitic film about the Iraq war, sold out to cheering audiences from Germany’s 2.5 million-strong Turkish community.
According to Der Spiegel, Germany’s and Europe’s biggest weekly magazine, an estimated number of 50 women in Germany have been murdered in so-called honor killings in the past decade. Their crime? Trying to break free and live Western lifestyles. Within their communities, the killers are revered as heroes for preserving their family dignity. Much of this insular and ultra-religious world is out of public view, “often hidden in inner-city apartments where the most influential links to the outside world are satellite dishes that receive Turkish and Arabic television and the local mosque.” “In these families, loyalty and honor are elevated virtues and women are treated little better than slaves, unseen by society and often unnoticed or ignored by their German neighbors.” It caused an outcry when a group of 14-year-old Turkish boys mocked one victim during a class discussion. “She deserved what she got. The whore lived like a German.”
In Denmark, the nation-wide organization of Women’s Crisis Centres claims that a number of taxi drivers with immigrant background are spying on female immigrants who are in hiding, sending information about their whereabouts to their families. It was a group of taxi drivers who informed a Pakistani man where he could find his sister. He murdered her in broad daylight outside a train station because she had married a man from Afghanistan against her family’s orders. 80% of the women seeking help at crisis centres in the city of Oslo, Norway, are from immigrant background.
Non-western immigrants account for nearly 86% of the Norwegian capital’s total population growth over the past ten years. Muslims make up such a high percentage of cab drivers that it can be hard to obtain a taxi during Islamic holidays. Blind people with their guide dogs are finding it increasingly difficult to get a taxi ride, as demonstrated by a lady in the city of Drammen outside Oslo. Grethe Olsen, accompanied by her guide dog Isak, experienced being rejected by no less than 21 taxis before finally getting a ride. Olsen thought the taxi drivers said no for religious reasons. The Norwegian Blind Association confirmed that this is a well known problem all over the country, especially in cities with many immigrants. Dogs are considered extremely dirty animals in Islam and only permitted for certain limited uses, such as guarding your property. Two hadith, traditions relating to the words and deeds of Muhammad, state that: “The Prophet said, ‘Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or there are pictures’ and ‘Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and we would send (men) in Medina and its corners and we did not spare any dog that we did not kill.’”
Mullah Krekar, former leader of Kurdish guerilla group Ansar-al-Islam, lives in Oslo. He has praised Iraqi al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has stated that “Osama bin Laden is a good person” and that he was willing to sacrifice himself for bin Laden. Krekar told an Oslo newspaper that there’s a war going on between the West and Islam, and that he was sure that Islam would win. Rumor has it that Krekar is such a respected man among many fellow Muslims that he gets taxi rides for free. Which means that it is easier to get a taxi ride in Norway’s capital if you praise Osama bin Laden than if you are blind.
It has been reported that shopkeepers in certain areas of Oslo now need to pay protection money. The criminals are more trigger-happy than ever, and since many of them abide by the rules of blood vengeance, violence is rapidly increasing. In Sweden, reports about criminal gangs and mafias, a phenomenon that is growing day by day, are coming in from urban areas all over the country, and a feeling of powerlessness is spreading among ordinary citizens. “We have no other possibility than to flee from this area. Families cannot fight against these problems alone. We are talking about survival, you can get stabbed here. We can only survive by attempting to avoid getting targeted.”
Feriz and Pajtim, members of youth gang Gangsta Albanian Thug Unit in the Swedish city of Malmö, explain how they mug and beat people downtown. “Many of us participated in gangs that fought against the Serbs during the war in Kosovo. Violence is in our blood,” Feriz said. They target a lone victim and make him a scapegoat. “We make it look like he bumped into one of us. Then we have an opportunity to attack him. We surround him and beat and kick him until he no longer fights back,” he said. “You are always many more people than your victims. Cowardly?” “I have heard that from many, but I disagree. The whole point is that they’re not supposed to have a chance.” Neither Feriz nor Pajtim expressed any sympathy for their victims. “If they get injured, they just have themselves to blame for being weak,” said Pajtim and shrugged.
They bring with them a rather brutal culture to Sweden. A BBC article described how the centuries-old custom of blood feuds has made a comeback in Albania in recent years. “The law and order vacuum created by the collapse of communism sent many Albanians back to the ancient customary laws of their tribal roots.” “The Kanuns sanction blood feuds and regulate them from all points of view,” said professor of law Ismet Elezi. “And first they established the rule: whoever kills will be killed. Blood is avenged with blood.” In an effort to end to this perpetual cycle of revenge, the Albanian education ministry has set up programmes for children affected by blood feuds. Each local authority tries to identify the children who do not attend school because they are in hiding or confined to their homes. “It’s between the families. If we go and ask for the police to help this thing will get even worse.”
What the BBC conveniently “forgot” to mention in this article was that these blood feuds are rooted in Islamic teachings. Two men were killed in a row involving a group of second generation immigrants in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2005. According to imam Abu Laban, who was later responsible for whipping up hatred against his country of residence because of the now famous cartoons of Muhammad in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the thirst for revenge could be cooled if 200,000 kroner were paid by the family of the man who fired the shots. 200,000 Danish kroner is approximately the value of 100 camels, a number based on the example of Muhammad himself. The idea of blood money originates from the Koran, 2.178. Indemnity is secured through the payment of blood money to the next-of-kin or the injured party, as opposed to retaliation, in which the killer is put to death or has a like injury inflicted on him/her. It depends upon what the family of the deceased or the injured party wants.
Politiken, a left-leaning newspaper championing Multiculturalism in Denmark, argued that the principle of blood money might be worth considering. Luckily, they were met by an outcry from angry citizens. Apart from the apparent 7th century time warp Muslims seemed stuck in, many commentators missed out on the worst part of the blood money concept: The compensation to be paid is not the same for all people. The only full members of the Islamic community are Muslim men. All others have fewer rights, due to their religion, sex or slave status. The rates for blood money mirror this religious apartheid system, which is deeply ingrained in Islamic law. A Saudi Arabian court ruled that the value of one woman’s life was equal to that of one man’s leg.
A secret high-level UK police report concluded that Muslim officers were more likely to become corrupt than white officers, with complaints of misconduct and corruption against Muslim officers running 10 times higher than against their colleagues. “Asian officers and in particular Pakistani Muslim officers are under greater pressure from the family, the extended family [...] and their community against that of their white colleagues to engage in activity that might lead to misconduct or criminality.” The report argued that British Pakistanis live in a cash culture in which “assisting your extended family is considered a duty” and in an environment in which large amounts of money are loaned between relatives and friends. It recommended that Asian officers needed special anti-corruption training. Only an extremely small percentage of the inhabitants of Pakistan, and many other Muslim countries, actually pay taxes. If Pakistanis don’t even pay taxes in Islamic Pakistan, why should they pay taxes to, or feel any loyalty towards, infidel, Western states? The clan is everything, the state is an enemy, a mentality people from these countries bring with them to the West, along with the corruption and the tribal violence associated with it.
The massive concentration of Muslims in major European cities will have dramatic consequences, some of which are already visible. If it is allowed to continue, it will destroy the coherence of society that is necessary for our democracies and our legal systems to work. Increased urban insecurity means that the state is not able to guarantee the security of its citizens. If ordinary citizens feel that the state is no longer able to guarantee the safety of their loved ones, then perhaps native Europeans will create groups and “clans” of their own, to counter the Muslim clans. The result will be a re-tribalization of our countries. The downfall of the nation state, if it happens, will be chaotic, painful and bloody. Can it still be avoided? Only time will tell
A Cure for Islamic Hypocrisy
If there ever was a cure, it is free speech, reasoned criticism, and a dash of humor. Or, in other words, Pat Condell, the British comedian. Well, at least most of his criticism is reasoned. Below is his scathing and a humorous take on the religion of peace. A bit over the top, but well worth watching, particularly if your stomach is still churning from reading my posts on the latest from the OIC. They would no doubt define this video as the worst terrorism imaginable.
Mr. Condell does not really care for any religion and has made similar videos on Christianity. Though he received no criticism for that one, I doubt that will be the case for putting Islam under the microscope. I wonder how long it will be before there are calls to have him jailed in the UK for the crime of hate speech. This is one to watch closely. For what it is worth, I note here my previous post arguing that the last thing Islam or the world need is for criticism of Islam to be silenced by charges of hate speech or Islamaphobia.
The Hypocrisy of Islamic States is Breathtaking
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), is an organization made up of fifty-seven Islamic nations. During their conference this week, the OIC managed to come up with a definition of terrorism - something even the UN can't do - and to condemn it in no uncertain terms. Of course their definition sounded a bit unusual to the average Westerner who has been on the receiving end of what most of us would conclude was terrorism - i.e., the cold blooded slaughter of civilians to achieve political ends. That is not how the OIC saw terrorism - defining the "worst form of terrorism in the world today" as "Islamaphobia," something which they further defined as any criticism of Islam. See here.
One must keep that firmly in mind when one tries to make sense of the final declaration issued by the OIC today, "strongly" condemning "the global menace of terrorism and vow[ing] to make collective efforts to fight against it."
The OIC further followed up with calls for "a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict and an end to the "foreign occupation" of Muslim countries to promote global peace and security." Apparently, surrendering to al Qaeda in Iraq and allowing Israel to be over-run by Hamas are the OIC cures for global peace and security. Oh, and the worst forms of terrorism - one cannot forget that. I predict that following the OIC suggestions is a sure way to ultimately solve the worst forms of terrorism.
Do read the entire article here.
Update: A link is included in the first comment below that I now include here. I strongly recommend reading it.
It's Not Just The 800 lbs Gorillas in the Room That You Have To Watch Out For
Hillary Gets All Important Porn Star Demographic
Jenna Jameson, one of the big names of the porn industry, has thrown her backing to Hillary Clinton. Initially, in an interview, Ms. Jameson indicated that her support for Hillary was alturistic:
. . . "I love Hillary. I think that in some ways she's pretty conservative for a Democrat, but I would love to have a woman in office. I think that it would be a step in the right direction for our country, and there would be less focus on war and more focus on bettering society."But then Ms. Jameson indicated that there were also significant business considerations:
The Clinton administration was the best years for the adult industry and I wish that Clinton would run again.Apparently Bill was single handedly supporting the porn industry during his tenure in office. Though this is the first time I have heard this, who could possibly be surprised. I wonder if its still possible to get the pay-per-view records for the White House during the Clinton Administration? At any rate, Jenna continues, letting us know the deep thoughts behind her choice of candidates:
When Republicans are in office, the problem is, a lot of times they try to put their crosshairs on the adult industry, to make a point. It's sad, when there are so many different things that are going on in the world: war, and people are dying of genocide...I look forward to another Democrat being in office. It just makes the climate so much better for us, and I know that once all our troops come home, things are going to be better and I think that getting Bush out of office is the most important thing right now."Read the whole story here.
The Washington Post & Chatham House - Two Sides Of One Sided Reporting
There is little new about today's Washington Post reporting on Iraq. It is its usual one sided anti-war self, giving a count of friendly casualties while ignoring all else in Iraq. Reading the news about the Iraq War in the Washington Post is like getting half of all the baseball scores. "In baseball today, its the Orioles 3, and in other games . . ."
If you want a realistic view of ongoing operations in Iraq - at least other then al Qaeda and Iranian successes - one must go to sources outside of the Washington Post to places such as here (coalition kills 4, captures 30 al Qaeda terrorists), here (soldier receives silver star for bravery in combat), here (Iraqi SOF capture terrorist leader in Basra), or here (Iraqi police ops kill two insurgents, capture 51). I could go on, but I am sure you get the idea. The Washington Post's reporting on Iraq is so one sided as to be despicable.
The Washington Post does go slightly beyond the norm today. Their headline is "60 Die in Iraq, Study Warns of Collapse." In the body of their story, the WP does not link to the study. I will though. Here. Its from the Chatham House in the UK.
The WP quotes liberally from the study's conclusions - mostly to give a very contrarian view to statements by our own U.S. Ambassador in Iraq. But the WP does not quote from the Chatham House study's underlying findings, few if any of which seem supported by fact.
For example, Al Qaeda in Iraq is under extreme pressure, having been largely driven into Diyala Province from its former bases in Anbar Province and Baghdad. Indeed, one major change on the ground in Iraq that is extremely well documented has been the success of the locals in Anbar Province turning on Al Qaeda in Iraq and, with MNF support, driving them largely out of the province. Its been so successful that Marines in Ramadi are complaining of boredom and monotony. Nonetheless, in asserting that things are only getting worse in Iraq, Chatham House actually roots for al Qaeda, ascribing to them the big mo' while downplaying the incredible success of the Anbar Salvation Council: Al-Qaeda has a very real presence in Iraq that has spread to the major cities of the centre and north of the country, including Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul. Although Al-Qaeda’s position is challenged by local actors, it is a mistake to exaggerate the ability of tribal groups and other insurgents to stop the momentum building behind its operations in Iraq.
This gives a bit of the flavor that thoroughly infests the Chatham House Study. They do the same for the Mahdi Army and downplay recent moves by the SICI to switch allegance to Grand Ayatollah Sistani. In truth, the report reads much more like a fantasy drafted by Harry "we've lost the war and the surge has failed so let's leave before the '08 election" Reid then any reasonable attempt to ascertain reality in Iraq. That certainly does not stop the Washington Post from referring to it and trumpeting its findings over the opposing views expressed by Ambassador Coker. It only stops the Washington Post from linking to the report.
Do read the article here, then you decide. And if you are tired of the Washington Posts one sided reporting, do let the WP (foreign@washpost.com) and the article's author know. Don't you think it is about time to start to demand some balance from the nation's supposedly objective journalists in MSM?
Bias, BBC & Bolton
The BBC, that incredibly left wing and virulently anti-American organization that is paid for by all Brits, interviewed John Bolton on BBC-4 radio yesterday. Every sterotype and bias of the BBC is evident in the questioning, and Bolton is utterly brutal and forthright in his answers. It gets to the point by the end that the poor Beeb interviewer is left mumbling as he attempts to defend the assumptions underlying his questions - i.e., the United States is lacking in moral authority, it had no business whatsoever invading Iraq, and the U.S. of today is a "busted flush."
If you listen to naught else this day, do listen to this here. It will brighten your day.
(H/T EU Referendum)
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Lieberman Slams All Sides of the Senate On Iraq
Senator Joe Lieberman has posted his remarks at a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He continues to be possibly the only eloquent defender of remaining in Iraq in either party. And he has appropriate words of both warning and criticism for the Democratic presidential hopefuls who would abandon Iraq to gain the Presidency and the moderate Republicans who are are dispensing with their principles as they look towards the polls:
. . . Now, I know there are some who are probably wondering—what is a nice Independent Democrat from Connecticut doing at a Republican event like this?
Well, a funny thing happened on the way to reelection last year... And as Rabbi Hillel said, the rest is commentary.
In all seriousness, many of you in this room stood with me last year through the long journey up a winding road that was my 2006 reelection campaign. You came to my side without regard for party affiliation, and you stayed there even after I ran as an Independent but said I would caucus with the Democrats. Your non-partisanship in my race is a model for what our politics should be. I thank you personally and deeply for it. I could not have won without it. And I pledge to you that I will do everything I can to vindicate your confidence.
We gather at a critical time for the future of our country. The war in Iraq has now become the defining issue for this Congress and for this presidency—although the decisions we will make in the weeks and months ahead about Iraq will have consequences that reach far beyond the terms of anyone now in office.
Part of the disagreement we face over Iraq comes down to a genuine difference of opinion.
On the one hand, there are those who believe, as I do, that the struggle against Islamist extremism really is the central challenge of our time, and that, as General David Petraeus—our commander in Iraq—recently said, Iraq is now the central front of the war against Islamist extremism.
On the other hand, there are those who reject this view—who genuinely believe that the threat of Islamist extremism is overstated, or that Iraq is a distraction from the "real" war on terror, or that the war there is lost, or not worth fighting to win.
It is my deeply held conviction that these people are not only wrong, they are disastrously wrong—and that the withdrawal they demand would be a moral and security catastrophe for the United States, for Iraq, and for the entire Middle East, including Israel and our moderate Arab allies.
Let there be no doubt—an American defeat in Iraq would be a victory for Al Qaeda and Iran... the two most threatening enemies we face in the world today. It would vindicate the hope of our enemies that America is weak and that we can be driven to retreat by terrorism, and it would confirm the fear of our friends—not only in Iraq, but throughout the world—that we are unreliable allies who will abandon them in the face of danger.
The fact of the matter is, you cannot claim to be tough on terrorism while demanding that our military withdraw from Iraq, because it is the terrorists—particular Al Qaeda—that our military is fighting in Iraq.
You cannot claim to be committed to defeating Al Qaeda, while demanding that we abandon the heart of the Middle East to Al Qaeda.
And you cannot claim to be tough on Iran, while demanding the very thing that the mullahs want most of all—the retreat of the American military from the Middle East in defeat, leaving a vacuum that Iran will rush to fill.
I recognize that this war has been controversial, and there are those who oppose it on principle. I respect that.
But too much of the debate we are having today about withdrawal from Iraq has little or nothing to do with principle, or with reality in Iraq.
It is about politics and partisanship here in Washington.
For many Democrats, if President Bush is for it, they must be against it. If the war is going badly, it is bad for Republicans and it is good for Democrats. It is as simple as that, and it is as wrong as that.
For many Republicans, the unpopularity of this war and this President has begun to shake their will. They say that they have no choice but to abandon General Petraeus and his strategy because the American people tell the pollsters they want out. If previous generations of American leaders had allowed their conduct of war to be shaped by partisanship or public opinion polls, we would not be the strong and free nation we are blessed to be today.
Republicans in Congress delude themselves if they think they will be helping either themselves, their party, or their country if they now attempt to wash their hands of Iraq, out of a sudden sense of political anxiety.
Democrats in Congress delude themselves if they think they will not be held accountable for the bloody consequences of the retreat from Iraq they seek.
The fact is, a loss to Al Qaeda and Iran in Iraq would be devastating to our security. These are fateful days and critical decisions we are making about Iraq. We must make them with our eye on the safety of America's next generation, not the outcome of America's next election.
It is to the everlasting credit of President Bush that in the war against Islamist extremism he has shown the courage and steadfastness to stand against the political passions of the moment.
I have never hesitated to express disagreement with the President on any issue when I felt he was wrong—and I have criticized his administration many times for the serious mistakes I believe it made in prosecuting the war in Iraq.
But let me tell you this: I believe that each of us should be grateful that we have a commander-in-chief who does not believe that decisions about war should be driven by poll numbers. And each of us should be grateful that we have a commander-in-chief who does not confuse what is popular with what is right for our security as a nation. The public opinion polls may not reflect this today, but I believe history will tomorrow.
My friends, as Ronald Reagan once said, now is the time for choosing.
If we stand united through the months ahead, if we stand firm against the terrorists who want to drive us to retreat, the war in Iraq can be won and the lives of millions of people can be saved.
But if we surrender to the barbarism of suicide bombers and abandon the heart of the Middle East to fanatics and killers, to Al Qaeda and Iran, then all that our men and women in uniform have fought, and died for, will be lost, and we will be left a much less secure and free nation.
That is the choice we in Washington will make this summer and this fall. It is a choice not just about our foreign policy and our national security and our interests in the Middle East. It is about what our political leaders in both parties are prepared to stand for. It is about our very soul as a nation. It is about who we are, and who we want to be.
Will this be the moment in history when America gives up—when Al Qaeda breaks our will, when our enemies surge forward, when we turn our backs on our friends and begin a long retreat from our principles and promise as a nation?
Or will this be the moment when America steps forward, when we pull together, when we hold fast to the courage of our convictions, when—with a new strategy, and a new commander on the ground—we begin to turn the tide toward victory in this long and difficult war?
I know that we can rise above the anger and smallness of our politics. I know we can rise to the greatness that this moment demands of us.
The question is—will we choose to do so?
I would like to close today by sharing with you a story from my last visit to Iraq a few months ago. It was in Anbar province in western Iraq—the center of the insurgency—a part of the country that conventional wisdom last year dismissed as hopeless.
In fact, on September 11, 2006, the Washington Post ran a front-page story reporting that even the chief of Marine Corps intelligence in Iraq had concluded that Anbar was "lost," and our position there was "beyond repair."
I was in Anbar last December, on a forward operating base just outside Ramadi, the capital of the province. As one of the briefings with our military commanders ended, a colonel who had been sitting in the back of the room came up to me. He said something that I carry with me to this day—something that I hope you will carry with you as well.
He said: "Sir, I want you to know on behalf of the soldiers in my unit and myself that we believe in why we are fighting here, we want to finish this fight. And we know we can win it."
Today, five months later, Anbar has been dramatically transformed. Thanks to the bravery, ingenuity, and commitment of our men and women in uniform, shops and schools have reopened, Al Qaeda is on the run, thousands of Iraqis have joined the local police, and—yes—no less than the New York Times reports that we have turned the corner there.
My friends, now is not the time for despair. Now is the time for resolve.
Now is not the time for reflexive partisanship and pandering to public opinion. Now is the time for the kind of patriotism and principle America's voters have always honored.
I ask you to plead with every member of Congress you can in the days and weeks ahead—
Do not surrender to hopelessness.
Do not succumb to defeat.
Do not give in to fear.
Rise above the political pressures of the moment to do what is right for America.
Believe, like that colonel, in why we are fighting in Iraq, and know, as he and his soldiers know, that we can and must win there."
This is from Lieberman's website. It is just one more in a string of excellent speeches by Lieberman on the Iraq issue. But I think we all need to e-mail Senator Lieberman and remind him that he holds the key to shutting down Harry Reid and Chuckie Schumer today.
(H/T Steve Halter)
Orwell & Islam
There is some truly amazing stuff coming out of the Middle East today. I agree with the eco-nuts that weening us off of oil has to be priority number one in this nation. And we then need to share the technology free of charge to every nation on this earth. The only way this Muslim menace will end is when the price of a barrel of Saudi Crude falls below $5 permanently. This today from Ridyah's Arab News:
Foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) yesterday expressed grave concern at the rising tide of discrimination and intolerance against Muslims, especially in Europe and North America. “It is something that has assumed xenophobic proportions,” they said in unison.Interestingly, Walid Phares, in his book "Future Jihad," noted that it was the plan of radical Islamists to cause a significant backlash against Muslims living in the West with 9-11. Phares, said that they believed such a backlash would have been a massive boon to recruiting for radical Islamists. It appears that, in the absence of any backlash, the Muslims in the Middle East are now just as content to make one up out of whole cloth.
Speaking at a special brainstorming session on the sidelines of the 34th Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM), the foreign ministers termed Islamophobia the worst form of terrorism and called for practical steps to counter it.Nice to see at least someone in the Middle East is reading, even if it is only old George Orwell novels.
The ministers described Islamophobia as a deliberate defamation of Islam and discrimination and intolerance against Muslims. “This campaign of calumny against Muslims resulted in the publication of the blasphemous cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in a Danish newspaper and the issuance of the inflammatory statement by Pope Benedict XVI,” they said. During a speech in Germany last year, the Pope quoted a 14th Century Christian emperor who said the Prophet had brought the world only “evil and inhuman” things. The Pope’s remarks aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world.And here I thought terrorism was the slaughter of innocent individuals solely for the glorification and advancement of Islam. Apparently, terrorism = Islamaphobia = any reasoned criticism of Islam or any attempt to subject it to the bright lights of critical analysis. My own personal belief is that criticism of Islam needs to be a loud and vibrant part of Western culture, and it needs to be emenating from our top leaders. So far, of all the poliiticans out there, the only one I have seen address Islam even close to head on is Fred Thompson. On the opposite end of the specturm are several of the Democratic leaders in Congress, such as Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers, who are working hand in hand with CAIR to advance the cause of radical Islam in America.
“The increasingly negative political and media discourse targeting Muslims and Islam in the United States and Europe has made things all the more difficult,” the foreign ministers said.More difficult for what? For turning the West into Dhimmis? For rolling over the West and imposing Wahhabi Islam on the world? For financing terrorism from within the West? This statement could use a bit more explanation.
“Islamophobia became a source of concern, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but the phenomenon was already there in Western societies in one form or the other,” they pointed out. “It gained further momentum after the Madrid and London bombings. The killing of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh in 2004 was used in a wicked manner by certain quarters to stir up a frenzy against Muslims,” the ministers pointed out. Van Gogh had made a controversial film about Muslim culture.
There is a very fundament psychological disconnect in this paragraph, is there not? The West suffers a series of brutal and ruthless attacks by Muslims motivated to kill by Wahhabi Islam, and any response thereto makes the victims the Muslims. The only way this statement can possibly be made is if the people making it are operating from a standpoint that Islam is and should be the only religion in this world. And it makes of Muslims perpetual victims, irregardless of the context.
The OIC foreign ministers deplored the misrepresentation in the Western media of Islam and Muslims in the context of terrorism. “The linkage of terrorists and extremists with Islam in a generalized manner is unacceptable,” they said.Funny that our own CAIR should take the same position the other day, asking America to disregard that the Ft. Dix Six were motivated by Wahhabi / Salafi Islam to murder non-believers in the West.
This is further inciting negative sentiments and hatred in the West against Muslims,” they said. The ministers also pointed out that whenever the issue of Islamophobia was discussed in international forums, the Western bloc, particularly some members of the European Union, tried to avoid discussing the core issue and instead diverted the attention from their region to the situation of non-Muslims and human rights in the OIC member states.These people are operating on a completely different plane of reality. This is what happens when from birth you are subject to teachings about your own rights to triumph and the evils of all others in racist diabrtibes that would shame the KKK.
The foreign ministers said prejudices against Islam were not helping the situation. “Because of Islamophobia, millions of Muslims in the Western countries, many of whom were already underprivileged in their societies for a variety of reasons, are further alienated and targeted by hatred and discrimination.”I don't know about you, but I am anxiously awaiting the list. It would be like having the old Soviet Union circa 1960 draw up a list of their agent provacateurs in the West. At least we'll know whom to watch.
The selective application of the existing legal frameworks and anti-discrimination and anti-blasphemy laws in Western countries also came in for criticism. “They are being applied in a selective manner when the victims are Muslims,” the ministers said.
The ministers also noted the many praiseworthy initiatives to bring together the West and the Muslim world such as the EU-OIC Forum of 2002, Dialogue Among Civilizations, Alliance of Civilizations and various other interfaith dialogue meetings. “However, it remains a fact that anti-Islamic sentiments are being fanned in the West with the implicit and explicit support of racist anti-immigrant and ultra-right political parties and certain media outlets.”
The ministers agreed that in Europe there was a need to enhance efforts to promote greater understanding and awareness of Islam. “In the Muslim world, endeavors have to be made to dispel misperceptions about the West and to promote democracy, human rights and good governance.”
According to OIC’s European observers, the taking over of the European Union presidency by Slovenia in 2008 will augur well for Muslims. “Because Slovenia has declared that intercultural dialogue will be among the first four priorities of its EU presidency, it has accordingly set up a task force to implement the ‘European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008’ program.” The OIC observers said the Slovenian minister of foreign affairs had already invited the OIC secretary-general to Ljubljana before or during the Slovenian EU presidency to discuss possible joint projects.
At the end of the session it was decided to shortlist reputable Muslim and non-Muslim think tanks, academics and NGOs in the US and UK and other leading European countries for cooperation in monitoring and countering anti-Islam campaigns. The ministers said Muslim think tanks and NGOs in the Western countries should be encouraged and urged to develop closer contacts with their non-Muslim counterparts and to remain engaged in regular contact and dialogue. They felt the international media should be properly cultivated to motivate them to be more responsible in carrying out their responsibilities.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Of Dem Presidential Candidates & the Senate Vote to Defund Iraq War
The Good: Both the Washington Post and the NYT are reporting on the failure of the Senate to pass a bill today that would have ended funding for the Iraq war. This from the NYT:
Democrats who are highly critical of President Bush’s Iraq war strategy suffered a stinging defeat today when the Senate overwhelmingly rejected a measure to cut off money for the military campaign by March 31, 2008.The Bad: Harry Reid claims that he is still not discouraged in his campaign to end the war by hook or crook, and the majority of Senate Democrats per this vote now support an immediate withdraw. Harry Reid continues his Orwellian doublespeak with calls for "fully funding" the soldiers with calls for ending the mission for which the funding is needed. And according to Congressman Steny Hoyer, it appears that Congress may adjourn for Memorial Day without passing the funding measure. Those in this country who care will be honoring our soldiers in harms way while the Dems take a much needed vacation from the trials of subterfuge. And yet again, there is no indication that in debate over this measure, anyone brought up the only issue that matters - the blank check we will be signing if we retreat from Iraq - the one that dwarfs by orders of magnitude the cost of securing and stabilizing Iraq.
The measure, in the form of an amendment to an unrelated water-projects bill, was effectively rejected, 67 to 29, with 19 Democrats voting against it in a procedural vote. Sixty “yes” votes were required for the measure to advance, so it fell short by 31 votes.
Though the vote was largely symbolic, the outcome was nevertheless significant, in that it underscored the divisions among Democrats over how to oppose the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, as well as widespread fear of being seen as undercutting American troops.
Today’s vote was preceded by an emotional debate. “Too many blank checks have been given to this president,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, who was a sponsor of the cutoff measure along with Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.
“As we speak, more than 150,000 brave American troops are in the middle of a violent civil war,” Mr. Feingold said. “Meanwhile, the president has repeatedly made it clear that nothing — not the wishes of the American people, not the advice of military and foreign policy experts, not the concerns of the members of both parties — will discourage him from pursuing a war that has no end in sight.”
“Congress cannot wait for the president to change course,” Mr. Feingold said. “We must change the course ourselves.”
The Really Ugly: Obama and Clinton both voted for the bill, as did all other Democratic Presidential hopefuls in order to establish their bona fides with the far left, but then Hillary tried to muddy the water just enough to be able to claim that she really wasn't voting to end the war. This is dissimulation, Hillary style:
Two candidates for their party’s nomination in 2008, Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, said for the first time on Tuesday that they would support legislation to curtail major combat operations in Iraq by March 31, 2008, cutting off financing for all but a limited mission of American forces. Both of them were among the 29 who voted “yes” on the procedural vote today.How ridiculous and craven can you get? Though I must admit, this is nothing more then Hillary acting consistent with with her more then a little inconsistent past. Raise your hand if you want to trust any Democrat, let alone Hillary, with this nation's national security? They have no principals that go beyond the ballot box and the polls.
“We are doing everything we can to influence the president to change the war in Iraq,” Senator Clinton said shortly after the vote. “It’s very important for us to do all we can to try to express the will of the American people.”
But when asked by a reporter whether she supported the underlying idea of the Feingold bill, to cut off financing for major combat operations next spring, she declined to say yes or no. One day earlier, a spokesman said the senator supported the legislation.
“I’m not going to speculate on what I’ll be voting on in the future,” she said today.
Read the entire story from the NYT and from the Wash. Post.
Jane Arraf Interviews General Petraeus
Jane Arraf of Iraqslogger had a short interview today with General Petraeus on May 15. His main points:
- "Petraeus . . . said he’d been shocked when he arrived back in Baghdad [for his current tour of duty] at some of the devestation caused [in 2006] by sectarian fighting unleashed by the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year."
- "[I]t is difficult to predict how well the surge of troops in Baghdad will succeed before the full number of troops arrive." They are expected in early June. And even then, it will take time to work the troops into the counterinsurgency plan and begin to see trends.
- "[T]here is "incremental progress being made on the ground in Baghdad,” as evidenced by the lack of car bombs in major markets that have seen large attacks in the past, and a dramatic improvement in security in Haifa Street, previously a haven for al-Qaeda.
- There has been “stunning progress” in Anbar where some of the fiercest fighting in Iraq has been quelled by tribes turning against al-Qaeda and allying themselves with Iraqi forces . . .
Read the entire story here.
Anbar Infects Diyala
Today, Anbar is a reasonably safe province in which to be stationed as an American soldier. A year ago, Anbar was the center of the Sunni revolt and the home of al Qaeda in Iraq. The change was driven by the Sunnis themselves when one major sheik decided to turn to the Iraqi government and to fight to expel Al Qaeda. The very first step on this road was the formation of the Anbar Salvation Counsel.
Many have speculated that this development, if replicated in other hot spots, would be a major step towards driving out al Qaeda and securing the country. Al Qaeda center of mass has now been driven into Diyala province. Baquba is the capital city of Diyala province. And today, a large cross section of Baquba's leaders have announced the formation of the "Baquba Salvation Council."
An official in Diyala Province announced that more than 280 prominent personalities and tribal and military leaders have formed a “Baquba Salvation Council” to confront acts of violence in the province, focusing especially on combatting the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq.”Read the entire story here. If this group has the success of the Anbar Salvation Council and if they embrace the Iraqi government with the same fevor, then this will be a critical development indeed.
Al-Melaf reports in Arabic that Shaykh 'Awad Najm al-Rabi'i, the head of the new “Baquba Salvation Council” announced that around 280 tribal leaders, academics, military leaders, from the full range of sects and ethnicities have formed the council to confront the deteriorating security situation in the province and confront the “gangs” that operate under the organizational rubric of the “Islamic State.”
Citing “resentment and anger among the tribal leaders at the conduct of these gangs,” al-Rabi'i said the leaders were insistent on “declaring war against them and expelling them from the province and bringing security back to the citizens,” the agency writes.
The tribal leader added, “We are prepared to cooperate with the armed factions that maintain loyalty to a nonsectarian, non-partisan Iraq with the goal of rooting out these terrorist groups,” adding that the current situation in the province was “tragic” and saying that it was urgent that the government get involved to deliver the city from the control of “takfiris and tens of Arab and Afghan terrorists that hide in the agricultural areas,” al-Melaf reports. Takfiri is a term used to refer to extremists who practice takfir, or the pronouncement of other Muslims to be non-Muslims. . .
(H/T Dinah Lord)
Fact - & Spin - Checking the NYT Iraq Reporting
Here is a gem of weak reporting and strong speculation from the New York Times, suggesting that the surge is not having an effect. They name but do not cite to the GAO report that they rely upon. I link to it below. After reading this analysis, do please read the GAO report. You have to in order to understand the rather wide swath of dissimulation cut by the NYT in this latest gem. Iraq Attacks Stayed Steady Despite Troop Increase, Data Show
Great headline. It certainly suggests that the surge is having no impact. The problem with that, of course, is we know that it is not true. The initial goals of the surge are to stop a slide towards a civil war and to secure the major areas of Baghdad and Anbar. We know Anbar today is one of the safer places to be in Iraq, and sectarian violence of the "civil war" variety is down two thirds. So how does the NYT come up with this as a headline? What Pinch's boys have done is to build that headline and an entire news story around one paragraph and one graph in a sixty odd page report dealing with Iraq's Oil & Gas sector. You can find the report here.Newly declassified data . . .
Stop. This is hogwash. The GAO just published a report and included therein is a single graph listing daily number of attacks in theatre since 03. The graph is of the kind released quaterly in the Pentagon report to Congress, and the GAO report was never classified. This is a minor point, but the NYT makes it sound like the military is playing hide the ball. Given the NYT's firm position that we should leave Iraq yesterday and the Democrats' new meme that General Petraeus and the military lie and cannot be believed, I can't let this one slip by without raising the brown flag that has "B.S." printed on it. There is nothing to suggest the information in the GAO report was ever classified.. . . data show that as additional American troops began streaming into Iraq in March and April, the number of attacks on civilians and security forces there stayed relatively steady or at most declined slightly, in the clearest indication yet that the troop increase could take months to have a widespread impact on security.
Here is the problem with looking at one statistic taken out of the larger context. Actually, that statistic tells us nothing more then the surge is underway. We have moved our troops out of cantonement areas and into the back yards of the folks we want to stop. It is sort of like the difference between watching a bee hive from 100 feet away, and walking up next to it and giving it a good swift kick. I am actually surprised that the number of attacks isin't up a lot more. For example, we have troops living in Sadr City today - what was not too long ago almost a no-go zone.
So what does the number of attacks tell us about the nascent surge. Next to nothing, really, including about the "impact on security." It is impossible to make a logical leap from the number of attacks to the overall security situation. If the number of attacks has increased in Diyala (where al Qaeda in Iraq has taken up residence after being tossed from Baghdad and Anbar) while down in Baghdad and Anbar, that means the security situation has improved in a very short period of time, and that al Qaeda is under intense pressure. If the attacks are far lesser in lethality, that is another marker of an improved security situation. But again, despite the NYT suggesting that they have reached a firm conclusion, there is nowhere near enough data inthe GAO report to support the NYT's speculation.Even the suggestion of a slight decline could be misleading, since the figures are purely a measure of how many attacks have taken place, not the death toll of each one. American commanders have conceded that since the start of the troop increase, which the United States calls a “surge,” attacks in the form of car bombs with their high death tolls have risen.
You have to love this one. Even the suggestion of a decline cannot be taken as objective proof that the surge is working. How about General Petraeus and his hour long plus brief to the United States but a few weeks ago. Does any of the enormous amount of information he imparted count as solid evidence? Or by ignoring that and concentrating on a single ambiguous paragraph in a report not directed towards the surge, is the NYT suggesting that the information provided by Petraeus is not a valid objective indicator?. . . Over all, the attack statistics, which the accountability office has been compiling since the early days of the conflict, paint a sobering picture of where the country is headed. The number of daily attacks remained low through 2003 and the early months of 2004, but then began a relentless climb even as the United States promoted what it saw as important political milestones in Iraq.
So now, the NYT says that this one paragraph about the number of attacks in theatre is indicative of greater future violence and an ever detriorating security situation, irregardless of the surge. This sounds like Pinch living in a fantasy world. The NYT ignores that the jump in violence in 2004 was the result of an Al Qaeda attack on the Golden Mosque. They ignore that Al Qaeda is on the run today. The NYT ignores switch in loyalties of the Sunnis in Anbar and Diyala, and the switch in loyalty of the SICI. And they ignore a host of other facts you can get off this blog and the links therein. The NYT are dangerous. The quicker Pinch runs their stock value down to $0, the better for America - and for honest journalism.
. . . As troops continued to arrive, the statistics show, the early effect on countrywide attacks was at best marginal, although there does appear to have been a slight decrease. The daily attack figures for March and April, released yesterday for the first time, were 157 and 149, respectively. . .
Fred On The Cause of Muslim Hatred
After watching Mickey the Martrydom Mouse on Hamas channel, Fred Thompson isin't buying into the claim that Muslim violence is a natural reaction of any sort of supposed wrongs committed by Israel. Rather, its a powerful message of hatred whose teachings begin at an early age:
Just when you think you’ve seen just about everything; in this case I’m talking about that video of the Palestinian children's show featuring a costumed Mickey Mouse character. An awful lot of you have watched this footage, posted on Websites and then played on television news shows. For the few who haven't, the squeaky-voiced Disney icon is shown encouraging Palestinian children to become martyrs in the struggle to achieve worldwide domination -- starting with the destruction of Israel.Read the entire story here.
This message isn't new by the way. The ruling Palestinian party, Hamas, produces music videos that encourage the youngest children to become suicide bombers. The Hamas website for children is filled with the same hateful fanaticism. Public-service announcements on Palestinian television feature a boy in heaven, supposedly killed by Israeli soldiers, calling out to other children to follow him through martyrdom.
. . . It's even more shocking given the current political situation. The Palestinian people are suffering badly right now. The flow of international aid to them has been slowed -- because their government refuses even to pretend it will stop trying to destroy Israel.
Nevertheless, support has been growing in the UN and Europe for restoring financial aid. The two competing Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, had agreed to stop killing one another and get back on message -- blaming Israel. Once again, the international press was parroting the notion that Palestinian violence is caused by Israel's security fence and border checkpoints. The tide seemed to be turning.
So, naturally, somebody decided it was the perfect time to launch a murderous new kid’s show. . .
But the Internet has changed things in good ways and bad. In the old days, Yasser Arafat could condemn terrorism in English and promise more attacks in Arabic -- and almost no one would hear about it. In this new age, one subtitled video posted to the Web can get the world's attention and trigger international repercussions.
That's a good thing but, of course, the same technology can also be used for evil. According to press reports, the six New Jersey terror plotters were immersed in extremist videos and propaganda from pro-jihad Websites. Their message of hatred is so powerful and widespread that it persuaded grown men, living in the United States, to give up their own lives to murder Americans.
Think how much more effective this type of propaganda must be when it is aimed at children. Now think about an entire generation of Palestinians, Pakistanis, Iranians and others -- saturated with this message their whole lives. That's the real message we should take from that Mickey Mouse video.
Bernard Lewis On Radical Islam & The Cost of Quitting Iraq
America's premeir orientalist, Bernard Lewis, has written an article explaining the dangers of being viewed as weak and appeasers by the Islamic world. Most importantly, Professor Lewis discusses how quitting Iraq will have enormous consequences for the United States and the Islamic world:
During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?"Read the entire story here. Reading this makes one cringe when thoughts turn to Harry Reid and Chuckie Shumer openly discussing how they would fan the flames of opposition to continuation of the war in Iraq for the explicit goal of achieving political power in the 2008 elections. Likewise with Jack Murtha going labeling General Petraeus a liar and claiming all he says is politically motivated. It is suicide by cynical manipulation of the electorate. Why can we not get the attention of the nation shifted to the only issue that matters today - whether in fact leaving Iraq will have incalculable costs and "consequences - both for Islam and America?" Why doesn't George Bush have Bernard Lewis stand at his side and give this speech to the nation? For God's sakes, why not?
A few examples may suffice. During the troubles in Lebanon in the 1970s and '80s, there were many attacks on American installations and individuals--notably the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, followed by a prompt withdrawal, and a whole series of kidnappings of Americans, both official and private, as well as of Europeans. There was only one attack on Soviet citizens, when one diplomat was killed and several others kidnapped. The Soviet response through their local agents was swift, and directed against the family of the leader of the kidnappers. The kidnapped Russians were promptly released, and after that there were no attacks on Soviet citizens or installations throughout the period of the Lebanese troubles.
These different responses evoked different treatment. While American policies, institutions and individuals were subject to unremitting criticism and sometimes deadly attack, the Soviets were immune. . . . Most remarkable of all was the response of the Arab and other Muslim countries to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Washington's handling of the Tehran hostage crisis assured the Soviets that they had nothing to fear from the U.S. They already knew that they need not worry about the Arab and other Muslim governments. The Soviets already ruled--or misruled--half a dozen Muslim countries in Asia, without arousing any opposition or criticism. Initially, their decision and action to invade and conquer Afghanistan and install a puppet regime in Kabul went almost unresisted. After weeks of debate, the U.N. General Assembly finally was persuaded to pass a resolution "strongly deploring the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan." The words "condemn" and "aggression" were not used, and the source of the "intervention" was not named. Even this anodyne resolution was too much for some of the Arab states. South Yemen voted no; Algeria and Syria abstained; Libya was absent; the nonvoting PLO observer to the Assembly even made a speech defending the Soviets.
One might have expected that the recently established Organization of the Islamic Conference would take a tougher line. It did not. After a month of negotiation and manipulation, the organization finally held a meeting in Pakistan to discuss the Afghan question. Two of the Arab states, South Yemen and Syria, boycotted the meeting. The representative of the PLO, a full member of this organization, was present, but abstained from voting on a resolution critical of the Soviet action; the Libyan delegate went further, and used this occasion to denounce the U.S.
The Muslim willingness to submit to Soviet authority, though widespread, was not unanimous. The Afghan people, who had successfully defied the British Empire in its prime, found a way to resist the Soviet invaders. An organization known as the Taliban (literally, "the students") began to organize resistance and even guerilla warfare against the Soviet occupiers and their puppets. For this, they were able to attract some support from the Muslim world--some grants of money, and growing numbers of volunteers to fight in the Holy War against the infidel conqueror. Notable among these was a group led by a Saudi of Yemeni origin called Osama bin Laden.
To accomplish their purpose, they did not disdain to turn to the U.S. for help, which they got. In the Muslim perception there has been, since the time of the Prophet, an ongoing struggle between the two world religions, Christendom and Islam, for the privilege and opportunity to bring salvation to the rest of humankind, removing whatever obstacles there might be in their path. For a long time, the main enemy was seen, with some plausibility, as being the West, and some Muslims were, naturally enough, willing to accept what help they could get against that enemy. This explains the widespread support in the Arab countries and in some other places first for the Third Reich and, after its collapse, for the Soviet Union. These were the main enemies of the West, and therefore natural allies.
Now the situation had changed. The more immediate, more dangerous enemy was the Soviet Union, already ruling a number of Muslim countries, and daily increasing its influence and presence in others. It was therefore natural to seek and accept American help. As Osama bin Laden explained, in this final phase of the millennial struggle, the world of the unbelievers was divided between two superpowers. The first task was to deal with the more deadly and more dangerous of the two, the Soviet Union. After that, dealing with the pampered and degenerate Americans would be easy.
We in the Western world see the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union as a Western, more specifically an American, victory in the Cold War. For Osama bin Laden and his followers, it was a Muslim victory in a jihad, and, given the circumstances, this perception does not lack plausibility.
From the writings and the speeches of Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, it is clear that they expected this second task, dealing with America, would be comparatively simple and easy. This perception was certainly encouraged and so it seemed, confirmed by the American response to a whole series of attacks--on the World Trade Center in New York and on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in 1993, on the U.S. military office in Riyadh in 1995, on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000--all of which evoked only angry words, sometimes accompanied by the dispatch of expensive missiles to remote and uninhabited places.
Stage One of the jihad was to drive the infidels from the lands of Islam; Stage Two--to bring the war into the enemy camp, and the attacks of 9/11 were clearly intended to be the opening salvo of this stage. The response to 9/11, so completely out of accord with previous American practice, came as a shock, and it is noteworthy that there has been no successful attack on American soil since then. The U.S. actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had been a major change in the U.S., and that some revision of their assessment, and of the policies based on that assessment, was necessary.
More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences--both for Islam and for America--will be deep, wide and lasting.
Statistics & Crime Under the Labour Government
Every time I read the Guardian, I learn how statistically improved law enforcement has become across the pond, apparently compliments of the incredibly efficient central planners of the Labour Government. There is no local police force in the UK. It is all centralized. Indeed, even mention of devolving power to the uneducated masses to vote for their local police leadership is anathema to the socialists in Labour.
Thus I have often found it curious that policing should have so statistically improved under ten years of Labour rule when, from my friends in the U.K., I hear regularly that the lack of proper policing is one of their major complaints. As always in such cases, pulling up the government's skirt and thoroughly examining its dirty knickers leads inexorably to an answer.
Police spent months gathering statements from 542 people who donated money to a youngster who collected £700 for Comic Relief but then kept it.Read the rest of the story here. Would a local police chief answerable to the locals by way of election for his position put up with this insanity. Hardly. But, when the central planners at Labour want their statistics to convince the confused U.K. voters just how effective the police in the U.K. really are . . . .
The case was then recorded as 542 crimes of obtaining money by deception, boosting detection rates even though the youngster only received a warning, the Police Federation conference in Blackpool heard yesterday. It also emerged that an unidentified child in North Wales received a "penalty notice for disorder" (PND) for chalking on the pavement.
The cases were highlighted as absurd examples of the "target culture" reviled by many rank and file officers in England and Wales, which is "criminalising middle England".
The critics say pressure to boost the apparent success rate against crime forces police to make ridiculous decisions and use arrests, cautions or fines for trivial incidents which would not previously have been treated as crimes.
Investigation of more serious offences is then neglected. . .
This would be a major scandal in the U.S. It seems to have caused only a should shrugging ripple across the pond at this point. I do hope it picks up steam. God forbid our police should ever become as good statistically as the U.K.'s. Then we will know it's time to vote the bums out.
Bolton For Bomb'n
John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., is saying that the time for imposition of sanctions on the Iranian regime is near over and the time for lift off from the carriers is almost here. This story is getting zero play in the U.S. press, but its the lead on the U.K. Telegrasph.
The ball really is in the European court now. They face every bit as much danger from a nuclear armed theocracy in Iran as do we. But the Europeans are Iran's biggest trading partners. I think it is time to demand that the Europeans end their trade - or we can end it for them with a blockade of Iranian ports, which of course would itself be an act of war.
In either event, the Iranian economy is in a shambles at the moment, and on top of that is a very restive population which Ahmedinejad is attempting to control by turning up the repression. That is a classic scenario for revolt and revolution. Significant sanctions could in fact not only stop the Iranian march towards a nuclear weapon, but they could also lead to regime change - the textbook solution. A military strike might invoke a nationalist fevor that would see the theocracy through their economic crisis. Thus, the first choice has to be getting Europe to act with their long term interests at heart - for once. The only viable second choice is war.
At any rate, Bolton makes similar arguments for one last round of heavy sanctions and an attempt at regime change, then to war:
Iran should be attacked before it develops nuclear weapons, America's former ambassador to the United Nations said yesterday.Read the entire story here.
John Bolton, who still has close links to the Bush administration, told The Daily Telegraph that the European Union had to "get more serious" about Iran and recognise that its diplomatic attempts to halt Iran's enrichment programme had failed.
Iran has "clearly mastered the enrichment technology now...they're not stopping, they're making progress and our time is limited", he said. Economic sanctions "with pain" had to be the next step, followed by attempting to overthrow the theocratic regime and, ultimately, military action to destroy nuclear sites.
Mr Bolton's stark warning appeared to be borne out yesterday by leaks about an inspection by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Iran's main nuclear installation at Natanz on Sunday.
. . . Mr Bolton said: "It's been conclusively proven Iran is not going to be talked out of its nuclear programme. So to stop them from doing it, we have to massively increase the pressure.
"If we can't get enough other countries to come along with us to do that, then we've got to go with regime change by bolstering opposition groups and the like, because that's the circumstance most likely for an Iranian government to decide that it's safer not to pursue nuclear weapons than to continue to do so. And if all else fails, if the choice is between a nuclear-capable Iran and the use of force, then I think we need to look at the use of force."
President George W Bush privately refers to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has pledged to wipe Israel "off the map", as a 21st Century Adolf Hitler and Mr Bolton, who remains a close ally of Vice President Dick Cheney, said the Iranian leader presented a similar threat.
"If the choice is them continuing [towards a nuclear bomb] or the use of force, I think you're at a Hitler marching into the Rhineland point. If you don't stop it then, the future is in his hands, not in your hands, just as the future decisions on their nuclear programme would be in Iran's hands, not ours."
. . . Such a strike would only be a "last option" after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed but the risks of using military force, he indicated, would be less than those of tolerating a nuclear Iran. "Imagine what it would be like with a nuclear Iran. Imagine the influence Iran could have over the entire region. It's already pushing its influence in Iraq through the financing of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbollah."
. . . But his is still a highly influential voice and Mr Bush remains adamant that he will not allow Iran to become armed with nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon has drawn up contingency plans for military action and some senior White House officials share Mr Bolton's thinking.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Hillary's Nightmare is Dick
Dick Morris has to be one of Hillary's worst nightmare. He knows her intimately, he knows the history, he knows where the skeletons are buried, he doesn't think Hillary will make an acceptable President, and he has the powers of the pen and a national audience. Call it "A Nightmare on Dick Street."
And Dick shows us why that is today when, in true slasher fashion, he straps Hillary to the table and begins to dissect her Iraq policy. And it's obvious he's taking a lot of sadistic enjoyment in the task :
* . . . She voted in the Senate for H.J. Res. 114, the "Authorization of the Use of Military Force Against Iraq," in October 2002. But now she wants to repeal it. Why? Because, according to Hillary, President Bush misinterpreted the "Authorization of the Use of Military Force Against Iraq" resolution to mean that the use of military force against Iraq had been authorized by Congress.Read the entire story here. Trying to justify the hard left Hillary has had to make in order to win a Democratic Primary now controlled by the far left of the party is something she will be having nightmares about for a long time. At least as long as Dick Morris is getting to play the role of sandman.
* At the time of her vote, she stated that her vote for the troop authorization bill was made "with conviction . . . as being in the best interests of the country."
* But once the war became unpopular, Hillary claimed that she hadn't really voted to send troops to Iraq when she voted for the resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.
No, according to Sen. Clinton, all the "Authorization of the Use of Military Force Against Iraq" really did was to toughen the support we were already giving to United Nations inspectors who were looking for weapons of mass destruction. Although the text of the resolution never mentions a single word about strengthening the U.N. inspectors, Hillary believed that was the purpose of the bill.
* She won't apologize for voting for the use of military force resolution because she knew that it did not authorize the use of military force. That's always been clear to her. It was Bush's mistake, not hers. He misled her.
But, if she had known then that he would have interpreted the bill to authorize sending troops, she would have voted against it.
* So now she wants to rescind the authorization to go to war that she voted for in 2002 (although she certainly did not intend to vote for sending troops) - so that President Bush can't send any more troops to Iraq.
* But she will still vote to appropriate funds to pay for the war, even though it would be illegal for Bush to spend money for a purpose that Congress hasn't authorized.
* She's repeatedly said that she would not support a definite timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, but then she introduced a bill to begin withdrawal of the troops 90 days from the day her bill passes. (Given her legislative record, that could be 90 days from the Twelfth of Never.) And she voted for the Democratic troop-withdrawal bill.
* As president, she would definitely end the war, she says . . . but she wouldn't pull out all the troops. Instead, she'd leave U.S. servicemen and -women troops there for the following missions: air, logistical and intelligence support for the Iraqis; training of the Iraqi forces; guarding the hundreds of miles of border with Iran to prevent infiltration, and chasing al Qaeda operatives in Iraq. The only thing they wouldn't do is fight an "urban civil war."
* Despite the extensive mandate of the residual mission, she would not commit large numbers of troops. She won't say how many.
* And all of the troops she sends in will have full body armor. . .
The Left's Selective Affinity For Blank Checks
What is it with the left and "blank checks?" You could fill an entire box set of CD's with every Democrat out there repeating the meme "No more blank checks." But, truth be known, whether the issue is Iraq or domestic legislation, it seems the only blank checks that the left oppose are those that don't satisfy their parochial and partisan interests. For example, on the domestic side, there is this:
Buried in section 4010 of the Water Resources and Development Act on pages 315 and 316 is an earmark directing the secretary of the Army to conduct a feasibility study for a project on flood control of the San Francisco Bay’s south shoreline, restoration of the bay’s salt ponds and “other related purposes, as the secretary determines to be appropriate.” No amount of federal tax dollars are authorized for the project.Read the whole post here. I think this on top of the billions in earmarks in the supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq, the refusal to let CRS publish information on earmarks in pending legislation, and the fact that the Democratic committees are sitting on anti-earmark legislation makes an utter joke of Nancy Pelosi's pledges to clean up earmarks and corruption in Congress.
The 4010 earmark is not unique, however, as there are 35 other earmarks in Title IV of the WRDA, 27 of which similarly do not specify an amount of federal tax dollars to be spent. The bill — which mainly concerns the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — was reported to the Senate by its Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
The fact that no specific spending amounts are specified for these earmarks makes many of them essentially blank checks that senators are being asked to approve, in effect while wearing legislative blindfolds.
. . . Being open-ended, these earmarks make a mockery of the official estimate of WRDA’s cost at approximately $15 billion. The truth is nobody, least of all the senators voting for it, knows the actual cost of the bill.
Be that as it may, the domestic blank checks the Dems would have us sign aren't the worst of it. There is bigger and more important one. Call it the "Dems in 08" blank check. Its the one America will be paying in installments for generations to come if we pull out of Iraq now. I am pretty sure that blank check will dwarf by orders of magnitude the costs to put Iraq into a position of security and stability. And, according to Gateway Pundit, Dick Cheney agrees. But there is no need to rely on Mr. Cheney alone. If you want an opinion from an unimpeachable source, you ought to listen to Bernard Lewis. He gives some idea of just how big the "Dems in 08" check is going to be.
It is far beyond the time that we call the Democrats to compare the costs of bringing Iraq to security and stability with some realistic assessment of the long term costs of quitting Iraq now. And do remember, my friends left of center, that the 9-11 Commission assigned the blame for 9-11 to a lack of imagination.
Congrats to Imam Talal Eid & the Bush Administration
Imam Talal Eid, a 54 year old native of Lebanon, today became the first Muslim cleric appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religous Freedom, an organization which which monitors overseas conditions and makes policy recommendations to the president, State Department and Congress. I must admit, I was sharpening my fingers for a highly critical piece, but all that I have found from the news and from blogs indicates that Imam Eid is precisely the type of moderate voice that our administration needs to be singling out and amplifying. For example, this from a Boston-area newspaper in 2005:
Mosque leaders bar Imam Eid from pulpitRead the entire story here. Gone are the days in the aftermath of 9-11 when a clueless Bush administration was inviting CAIR and their ilk to the White House. It sounds like this appointment of Imam Eid is a good step. Unfortunately, the above article is also a textbook example of the method by which mosques in America have been being taken over for years by radical elements.
Imam Talal Eid was at the Islamic Center of New England's Quincy mosque for the Friday service, as he said he would be. But he preached no sermon and led no prayers.
Moving quickly to enforce a resignation Imam Eid claimed isn't valid, the center's board of directors barred him from the pulpit Friday and sent a board member to act as imam in his place.
. . . [Imam Eia, a] nationally-known native of Lebanon resigned in January, to protest what he said was a move by a hostile board majority to limit his duties as overall religious director for the center's two mosques, in Quincy and Sharon.
Imam Hafiz Masood, a native of Pakistan, has led worship services in Sharon since 1998.
Imam Eid's supporters, most of whom are affiliated with the Quincy mosque, say critics have hounded him for years for being too moderate and too involved with interfaith programs. Zaidi and other board officers deny that's the case.
. . . The dispute has plunged New England's oldest, most diverse Muslim community into the worst crisis of its 41-year history, with charges that conservatives are maneuvering to take control and counter-charges that Imam Eid's supporters are being bad Muslims for airing the dispute in public.
Those divisions were in evidence Friday. As Zaidi and others criticized published comments by Imam Eid's supporters, board member Jamina Hassan of Canton and numerous others spoke of the turn of events in anger and disappointment.
As board member Aboubakr preached in the upstairs prayer room about Abraham's faithfulness and why Muslims should ‘‘leave matters to Allah,'' several mosque members stayed outside.
‘‘I'm not going to pray behind this guy,'' one longtime member said, referring to Aboubakr. . .
Fred.net
Michael Moore decided to go after Fred Thompson after Fred's remarks a week or two ago on Moore's glorification of healthcare in the Cuban worker's paradise. Moore takes Fred to task for an alleged affinity for cuban cigars and challenged him to a debate. And Fred responded quickly - complete with large cigar in mouth on internet video.
This has generated some interesting observations from the net.
From Instapundit: If this is a foretaste of a Thompson campaign, it's pretty potent.Fred continues to impress on just about every front. The last politician we had who understood the media of his day this well was Reagan.
From Bob Krumm: I don’t know what’s the best part of this video response to Michael Moore’s publicity stunt: the cigar, the appropriate disdain, the lecture, the humor, or the quickness of the response, but what I do know is that if Fred Thompson is the first politician anywhere to understand how the speed of the internet can change politics.
From Richard A., another blogger at Bob Krum.com: By the way, Thompson’s reponse to Moore will have a much greater impact on the presidential campaign than anything said at [the Republican debate] tonight. It’ll be seen by many more people too.
And I was quite happy to see Fred with a cigar. Who knows, perhaps he can redeem the storied stogie and return some respectability to the association between fine cigars and the White House.
Talks with Iran or Ultimatums to be Delivered?
The MSM is abuzz with the fact that the Bush administration has consented for the State Department to hold talks with Iran's theocracy on the issue of Iraq. The Washington Post and much of the rest of the MSM has portrayed the U.S. as going to these talks with hat in hand and engaging from a position of weakness. Jules Crittenden thinks otherwise. He thinks that we are going into the talks with a stick, not a hat, and from a position of strength. He lays out a very convincing set of rationales in support of his conclusions:
. . . [W]hy would the Bush administration, always so obstinate, now seek to sit down with Iran, and why might those talks be useful? What has changed?Read the entire post here. Ultimately, Mr. Crittenden concludes that the purpose of the meeting will be to "deliver notice to Iran, face to face, that there will be a severe price to pay for continuing to meddle with murderous intent in its neighbors’ affairs, for failing to act in its own interest."
Short answer: Everything.
Here’s a quick review, in case you’ve been discouraged by the news media’s fascination with daily body counts and car bomb roundups as measurements of progress:
1) Since the ISG’s call for appeasement was issued five months ago, the Bush administration’s surge strategy has been brought to bear, and it has produced results. Sectarian violence in Iraq has been sharply curtailed, terrorists put on the run and killed and captured by the hundreds.
2) Anbar province, as recently as six months ago thought to be a lost cause, is turning to the government, and there are indications Diyala province, where many of the terrorists fled, may do the same.
3) Thousands of Sunni tribesmen in Anbar have turned on al-Qaeda, are actively attacking al-Qaeda, and want to join the Iraqi security forces.
4) Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who met with Sunni tribal leaders in a gesture of reconciliation earlier this year, has been compelled to assure them a role in the security of their own areas.
5) The Iranian-founded and affiliated Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, despite its insistence that it has not repudiated Iran, has in fact publicly distanced itself from Iran, becoming the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, overtly an Iraqi organization under the spiritual guidance of Iraqi Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has counseled against and largely avoided religious interference in government.
6) The Mahdi Army, having largely stood down during the surge, is in disarray, reportedly divided between those eager to avoid conflict and extremists being trained and armed by Iran. Moqtada al-Sadr, in hiding in Iran, has been unsuccessful in his efforts to control and undermine Nouri al-Maliki’s government.
7) Mounting evidence has emerged of Iranian support for both Shiite and Sunni terrorists targeting both American and British soldiers as well as Iraqis. The evidence includes both weapons and the seizure of Iranian agents engaged in supporting the insurgency.
Iran still faces a united international front against its nuclear ambitions, with sanctions added.
8) Despite the public perception of an Israeli disaster in Lebanon last summer, in fact Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, was decimated and marginalized.
9) Iran has suffered an embarrassing defection of a high-level general.
10) While the taking of British hostages by hardline elements gave Iran an opportunity to crow publicly, Iranian moderates forced the hardliners to back down.
11) Meanwhile, hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s international antics have brought him under heavy domestic pressure over the price of tomatoes.
12) Domestically, President George Bush continues to prevail against the efforts of an increasingly divided and ineffective Congress to curtail the war.
None of this means conditions are ideal for talks. They could have been better.
The Democratic leadership of the United States Congress, agitating for talks, hasn’t helped. They could have significantly advanced their pro-dialogue agenda by remembering that partisanship stops at the water’s edge, and helping to present a united front in our national interest.
The Royal Navy could have resisted the humiliating seizure of its seamen, and the British could have avoided appeasing Iran’s act of war.
Aggressive cross-border U.S. raids could have been staged on Iranian terrorist training camps and supply routes, and Iran’s military and nuclear weapons infrastructure could have been reduced.
As a result, the United States is in a position it was not in five months ago. A position of strength.
Nevertheless, Iran’s ability to influence events in Iraq and throughout the region has been compromised. And Iran can be reminded that the reduction of its capacity for causing trouble remains on the table. Iran can be encouraged to quit while it is ahead.
Update: Ahmedinejad is continuing with his usual bombast, threatening massive retaliation if the U.S. strikes Iran and at the same time telling us to pack our bags. He also stated that has agreed to talks with the U.S. "for the good of the Iraqi people." See here.
(H/T Steve Halter)
Fred's Firsts
Fred Thompson spoke to a gathering at the Council for National Policy the other day, expounding on the Constitution, the rule of law and the role of federal judges in that scheme. Below are excerpts from his speech:
. . . I want to talk a little about . . . first principles. . .Read the entire story here. With the debates going on and some serious attention now being paid to the candidates, I wonder how much longer Fred can wait before throwing his hat into the ring? The only thing I question in the above remarks and would like to see Fred explain more fully is his contention that the First Amendment was meant to protect the church from the state. I don't think that I agree with that, just as I do not agree with the "separation of church and state" contention as its been applied, and relying as it does on language outside the First Amendment.
For Americans, these are found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They include a recognition of God and the fact there are certain rights that come from Him and not the government. They are based upon a respect for the wisdom of the ages, and a belief that human beings are prone to err; that too much power must never rest in too few hands. The result is a system of checks and balances and a separation of powers that flow from our guiding documents and from the rule of law.
Finally, if we want to change or alter these concepts or any provision in the Constitution, we are given a specific method to do that — by Constitutional Amendment.
So how are we doing as a nation in upholding these first principles? The answer is we could be doing better … a lot better.
. . . First, an observation. Our nation is based upon the proposition that our statutes, common law and the Constitution will not only be applied fairly between litigants, but will also be observed by the government. People will be able to rely upon the rules, usually long established, and their consistent application. This engenders respect for the law. It is a sad irony that a nation that is so dedicated to the rule of law is doing so much to undermine the respect for it.
Our founders established an independent federal judiciary to decide cases, not social policy. Yet more and more that is exactly what it is doing. Roe v. Wade is a classic example. And nowhere is it more apparent than with regard to the issue of church and state.
Many federal judges seem intent on eliminating God from the public schools and the public square in ways that would astound our founding fathers. We never know when a five to four Supreme Court decision will uphold them. They ignore the fact that the founders were protecting the church from the state and not the other way around. Instead of having the basic rules of society changed in the way clearly set forth in the Constitution by two-thirds votes of both Houses and by three-fourths of the states, the entire process is reversed by the stroke of a pen and supporters of the rule of law have the burden placed upon them, which is usually insurmountable.
We have always held our federal judiciary in high esteem, even at a time when most of our institutions are under assault. However, if judges continue to act like politicians they will get the respect currently given to politicians. It is already rapidly headed in that direction. The antidote for this, of course, is good judges. And presidents who know one when they see one … one like John Roberts.
John Roberts is the first of the individuals I referred to earlier. The President asked me to help Judge Roberts through the Senate confirmation process. Certain things were apparent at the outset — he was a Conservative, he believed deeply in first principles, including the rule of law and, lastly, his opponents would do everything they could to defeat his nomination.
Judge Roberts’s character, intellect, and devotion to the law were unassailable. Of course for a conservative this is just the beginning of the discussion, not the end. The usual liberal outside groups mounted their horses and charged, but we fought the battle and won. However, we were reminded once again of several things during this process.
· What a steep price even the best Conservative nominee has to pay. The Washington Post “Style” section criticized the way his small children were dressed. The New York Times was caught trying to get the adoption records of his children unsealed.
· We were reminded how desperate the liberal community is to keep the deck stacked in their favor.
· And most importantly, we were reminded that the quality of an individual can overcome all obstacles. So he is now Chief Justice John Roberts.
I kept wondering throughout all of this, why would politicians want this to be the last experience a man would have before he assumed the role of Chief Justice of the United States?
This also brought home again the importance of elections of a President and the Senate. It is ironic indeed that any President’s legacy could well be formed on the basis of something that is usually very far from the public’s consciousness — the nomination of federal judges. And on this nomination and that of Justice Alito this President can be proud and our entire nation can be grateful.
The other man is in a less lofty position. After years of sacrifice and service to his country, he sits at home with his wife and two children awaiting a prison sentence. His name is Scooter Libby.
As you may recall, for some inexplicable reason, the CIA sent the husband of one of its employees to Niger on a sensitive mission. She had suggested it. He came back to the U.S. and proceeded to publicly blast the administration. Naturally, everyone wanted to know “who is this guy?” and “why was he sent to Niger?” Just as naturally, the fact that he was married to Valerie Plame at the CIA was leaked.
Having virtually guaranteed that Ms. Plame’s identity would be ultimately disclosed by using her, shall we say, “politically active” husband, the CIA then demanded that this leak of her name be investigated by the Justice Department for a possible violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
The Justice Department, bowing to political and media pressure, appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the leak and promised that the Justice Department would exercise no supervision over him whatsoever — a status even the Attorney General does not have.
The only problem with this little scenario was that there was no violation of the law, by anyone, and everybody — the CIA, the Justice Department and the Special Counsel knew it. Ms. Plame was not a “covered person” under the statute and it was obvious from the outset.
Furthermore, Justice and the Special Counsel knew who leaked Plames’s name and it wasn’t Scooter Libby. But the Beltway machinery was well oiled and geared up so the Special Counsel spent the next two years moving heaven and earth to come up with something, anything. Finally he came up with some inconsistent recollections by Scooter Libby, who had been up to his ears studying National Intelligence Estimates. But he worked for Dick Cheney, so that apparently was enough for the special counsel.
I didn’t know Scooter Libby, but I did know something about this intersection of law, politics, special counsels and intelligence. And it was obvious to me that what was happening was not right. So I called him to see what I could do to help, and along the way we became friends. You know the rest of the story: a D.C. jury convicted him.
In our system all citizens are guaranteed equal protection. And when we appropriate unlimited resources and give unlimited power and direct it all toward one individual, there had better be extraordinary circumstances. There were none here. Just a case of public officials without the courage to do the right thing and stop this farce before it began. In no other prosecutor’s office in the country would a case like this one have been brought.
Incidentally, this was shortly after Sandy Berger, the National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton, received a slap on the wrist by the Justice Department for lying about and then confessing that he stole and destroyed what we think were classified documents. We’ll never know, because he destroyed them. But we do know that he didn’t want the 9-11 Commission to see them. But nobody was clamoring for his head. Back to Libby.
I have called for a pardon for Scooter Libby. When you rectify an injustice using the provisions of the law, just as when you reverse an erroneous court decision, you are not disregarding the rule of law, you are enforcing and protecting it.
The Roberts nomination shows us that we can win against those who would use the Constitution for their own ends, even though it is always a fight.
Libby’s prosecution demonstrates how injustices can occur when public officials lack the courage to go against the public clamor and to do the right thing, thereby perverting the rule of law.
All this of course, reminds us of what Washington has become and why more good people are not coming into public service. Add to that the bitter divisiveness on Capitol Hill with regard to all things large and small, and you can almost see Americans throwing up their hands. They’ve got to be wondering, how are today’s leaders going to lead us with regard to all these difficult issues if they can’t even agree on fundamentals — things that are supposed to bind us together.
. . . We have road maps — at least two of them in fact — the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — to guide us. How can we look at the world without thinking about inalienable rights, and doing everything necessary to protect our country? How can we think of fiscal policy or even health-care policy without remembering the limitations appropriately placed upon government and the importance of individual freedom? . . .
Monday, May 14, 2007
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani versus Iran
I posted here on the significance of the formal change of loyalty of Iraq's largest Shia political party, SCIRI. This organization, created in Iran and sworn to fealty towards Iran's Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has now changed their name to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and officially broken with Iran, pledging now to take their guidance from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Sistani's philosophy of apolitical Shia'ism is directly at odds with that of Iran's theocracy. The Boston Globe today details the importance of Sistani, and why the Iranian government is afraid of him:
Iran's ruling clerics have long prided themselves on running the world's only Shi'ite Muslim state -- a state that imposes religion, dictating what imams can preach, what the media can report, and what people can wear.Read the entire story here. It would seem that one goal of the war in Iraq - to put in place a democracy, even though imperfect and under seige from many forces, including Iran's theocracy - is having an impact. Do we really want to sacrifice Iraq's Shia's to Iran's theocracy?
So some Iranians are intrigued by the more freewheeling experiment in Shi'ite empowerment taking place across the border in Iraq, where -- Iraq's myriad problems aside -- imams can say whatever they want in political Friday sermons, newspapers and satellite channels regularly slam the government, and religious observance is respected and encouraged but not required.
In Tehran's storied central bazaar, an increasing number of merchants are sending their religious donations, a 20 percent tithe expected from all who can spare it, to Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric -- rather than to clerics closer to Iran's state power structure, said Jawad al-Ghaie, 48, a wholesaler of false eyelashes and nail extensions and a respected lay donor.
Speaking carefully to avoid directly challenging the Iranian government, he and several fellow merchants suggested that Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani holds more spiritual sway because of his lifelong commitment to quietism. That is the school of thought that says Shi'ite leaders should stay out of government, and Sistani has stuck to it despite the great temptation to wade into the chaos of Iraqi politics.
Haamed Hussein Warraqi, another merchant, contrasted the different ways in which Sistani and the Iranian religious authorities deal with overly exuberant revelers on Arbayeen, an important Shi'ite holiday. In Iran, he said, riot police line the streets to rein in men who cut their scalps with knives -- a show of mourning that the Iranian government and some religious scholars deem Islamically incorrect.
In contrast, "Sistani uses the authority of his word," said Warraqi, 27. "The domain of Sistani is in religion, and he is obeyed by the people. Here they want to rule according to politics. That's why they have to use the riot police."
"Any time religion is imposed by the government," Ghaie added, "there is a bad reaction."
. . . But ever since US-sponsored elections brought the Shi'ite majority to power, Iraq's imperfect liberation has quietly influenced the debate among religious Shi'ites about the role of religion in government .
After Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded a state that rests on his concept of velayat e faqi, or guardianship of the jurist. There are elections and parliamentary debates, but ultimate authority rests with a supreme leader who is appointed by a council of clerics.
Traditionally, Shi'ites have believed that clerics should stay out of politics until the return of the Mahdi, the last of the revered early Shi'ite imams, who disappeared in the ninth century. Shi'ites believe he went into hiding and will someday reveal himself.
Only he can establish a perfect Islamic state, according to traditional believers -- including some in the Tehran bazaar, whose influential religious merchant class backed the revolution but has since grown more skeptical of the ruling clerics.
"Only the Mahdi is the genuine leader," said Ghaie's brother Mohammad, 45, whose family, like many Iranian merchants, has lived in both Iran and Iraq over generations.
Expressing such opinions is dangerous: Several prominent religious scholars -- chief among them Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- are under house arrest or other official sanctions for opposing clerical rule or proposing limits on it.
The quietist philosophy suited disempowered Shi'ites, who through most of their history lived under Sunni powers. Shi'ites are a minority among Muslims and within all modern Middle Eastern states except Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain.
But now, in Iraq, Shi'ites are witnessing a new alternative: They can defend their rights at the ballot box, without establishing a religious state.
. . . "We believe that politics is separate from religion," said Iraq's ambassador to Iran, Mohammed Majid al-Sheikh. "Of course there are debates about this. If Iran wants to take on these debates, it will benefit. And I could say that the experiment of Iraq will ripple throughout the Middle East."
Iran has worked hard to influence Iraq. US officials have accused it of fomenting violence there. Analysts say Iran welcomes low-grade chaos in Iraq in part to prevent the emergence of a democratic Shi'ite alternative that could embolden Iranian reformists, while at the same time courting Shi'ite Iraqis by presenting itself as a stable and benign neighbor.
But influence is a two-way street, especially between two countries whose shrine cities and capitals have been tied by trade and pilgrimage for centuries. About 1,500 Iranians go to Iraq on pilgrimage every day, Sheikh said. The Ghaie brothers went recently and were impressed to see the parade of Iraqi politicians visiting Sistani's modest house in Najaf -- voluntarily -- for advice.
Last month, the Iranian press reported, Jalaluddin Taheri, a dissident cleric who resigned as Isfahan's Friday prayer leader in 2002 after criticizing the regime as corrupt and autocratic, went to Najaf to pay respects to Sistani.
The representative of Iraq's most pro-Iran political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, touted Iraq's freer system. . . .
(H/T Instapundit)
An Ominous IAEA Report On Iran
In advance of the IAEA report expected next week the New York Times is reporting that the IAEA, in a "short notice" inspection of Iran's main nuclear plant, discovered that Iran now has some 1,300 centrifuges up and is expected to increase that total to 3,000 by June. It takes 3,000 centrifuges working for one year to produce sufficient fissle material for one nuclear bomb. Iran's intent is to have 8,000 centrifuges running by the end of the year. In other words, time for tepid sanctions appears be completely gone. Unless economy-crippling sanctions are imposed - or we launch off the carriers - Iran will either have or be positioned to have a nuclear arsenal in the very forseeable future:
Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have concluded that Iran appears to have solved most of its technological problems and is now beginning to enrich uranium on a far larger scale than before, according to the agency’s top officials.Read the entire story here. What to do next should not be a tough call. Europe needs to pony up to the bar and end its lucrative trade with Iran. It is that or war with Iran in the very near future.
The findings may change the calculus of diplomacy in Europe and in Washington, which aimed to force a suspension of Iran’s enrichment activities in large part to prevent it from learning how to produce weapons-grade material.
In a short-notice inspection of Iran’s operations in the main nuclear facility at Natanz on Sunday, conducted in advance of a report to the United Nations Security Council due early next week, the inspectors found that Iranian engineers were already using roughly 1,300 centrifuges and were producing fuel suitable for nuclear reactors, according to diplomats and nuclear experts here.
Until recently, the Iranians were having difficulty keeping the delicate centrifuges spinning at the tremendous speeds necessary to make nuclear fuel and were often running them empty or not at all.
Now, those roadblocks appear to have been surmounted. “We believe they pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich,” said Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the energy agency, who clashed with the Bush administration four years ago when he declared that there was no evidence that Iraq had resumed its nuclear program. “From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge. People will not like to hear it, but that’s a fact.”
It is unclear whether Iran can sustain its recent progress. Major setbacks are common in uranium enrichment, and experts say it is entirely possible that miscalculation, equipment failures or sabotage — something the United States is believed to have attempted in the past — could prevent the Iranian government from reaching its goal of producing fuel on what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran boasts is “an industrial scale.”
The material produced so far would have to undergo further enrichment before it could be transformed into bomb-grade material. To accomplish that, Iran would likely first have to evict the I.A.E.A. inspectors, as North Korea did four years ago.
Even then, it is unclear whether the Iranians have the technology to produce a weapon small enough to fit atop their missiles, a significant engineering challenge.
While the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend all of its nuclear activities, and it has twice imposed sanctions for Tehran’s refusal to do so, some European nations, and particularly Russia, have questioned whether the demand for suspension still makes sense.
The logic of demanding suspension is that it would delay the day that Iran gained the knowledge to produce its own nuclear fuel — what the Israelis used to refer to as “the point of no return.” Those favoring unconditional engagement with Iran have argued that the current strategy is creating a stalemate that the Iranians are exploiting, allowing them to make technological leaps while the Security Council steps up sanctions.
. . . In a telephone interview, R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for policy, who is implementing the Iran strategy, said that while he has not heard about the I.A.E.A.’s newest findings, they would not affect American policy.
“We’re proceeding under the assumption that there is still time for diplomacy to work,” he said, although he added that if the Iranians did not agree to suspend production by the time the leaders of the Group of 8 industrial nations meet next month, “we will move ahead toward a third set of sanctions.”
Mr. ElBaradei has always been skeptical of that strategy, telling European foreign ministers that he doubts the Iranians will fully suspend their nuclear activities and that a face-saving way must be found to resolve the impasse.
“Quite clearly, suspension is a requirement by the Security Council and I would hope the Iranians would listen to the world community,” he said. “But from a proliferation perspective, the fact of the matter is that one of the purposes of suspension — keeping them from getting the knowledge — has been overtaken by events. The focus now should be to stop them from going to industrial scale production, to allow us to do a full-court-press inspection and to be sure they remain inside the treaty.”
The report to the Security Council next Monday is expected to say that since the Iranians stopped complying in February 2006 with an agreement on broad inspections by the agency around the country, the I.A.E.A.’s understanding of “the scope and content” of Iran’s nuclear activities has deteriorated. I
. . . The inspection conducted on Sunday took place on two hours notice, a time period so short that it appears unlikely that the Iranians could have turned on their centrifuges to impress the inspectors. According to diplomats familiar with the inspectors’ report, in addition to 1,300 working centrifuges, another 300 were being tested and appeared ready to be fed raw nuclear fuel as soon as late this week, the diplomats said. Another 300 are under construction.
“They are at the stage where they are doing one cascade a week,” said one diplomat familiar with the analysis of Iran’s activities, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. A “cascade” has 164 centrifuges, and experts say that at this pace, Iran could have 3,000 centrifuges operating by June — enough to make one bomb’s worth of material every year. Tehran may, the diplomat said, be able to build an additional 5,000 centrifuges by the end of the year, for a total of 8,000.
The inspectors have tested the output and concluded that Iran is producing reactor-grade uranium, enriched to a little less than 5 percent purity. But that still worries American officials and experts here at the I.A.E.A. If Iran stores the uranium and later runs it through its centrifuges for another four or five months, it can raise the enrichment level to 90 percent — the level needed for a nuclear weapon.
In the arcane terminology of nuclear proliferation, that is known as a “breakout capability,” the ability to throw inspectors out of the country and then produce weapons-grade fuel, as North Korea did in 2003. . .
Krauthammer - Of Dogs & Men
I ran across this eloquent piece the other day by Charles Krauthammer, wherein he mourns the loss of his family's labrador retriever and speculates on the historical development of human-house pet relationships.
I couldn't resist posting this one. If you haven't noticed the pic on the side of this blog, I have three labrador retrievers. I am a true fanatic when it comes to labs. Life with them is 5% speechless anger (things chewed), 10% resignation (same things chewed more), and 85% pure enjoyment (all else). Labs almost all share common traits that Krauthammer captures perfectly in this article. They are boisterous, incredibly friendly, and have only one speed - full bore. Until they hit about age three, they are unguided missles with the mind of a friendly puppy stuffed into a 60 to 90 lbs frame - usually. And no matter how hard or bad your day, you can always, always count on getting the exact same greeting from the hounds the moment you walk in the door - pure tail wagging, face licking, lab jumping anarchy. I know that I could train that out of them, but I never have wanted to do so.
And they each have unique personality. Daisey has the speed and grace of a gazelle combined with the intelligence of a canine evil genuis. And she, more so then the others, is convinced she is a human. It is not uncommon to find her sitting at the table awaiting burgers off the grill for lunch. Gwenavyre is the only retriever I know who likes to play keep away. Ulysses is by far the best behaved of the three - which, at 110 lbs and no fat, is a good thing. He has never quite mastered the size of his huge body, making his coordination the tiniest bit off and giving just about everything he does an element of comedy. At any rate, do read this Krauthamer article. Its quite good:
The way I see it, dogs had this big meeting, oh, maybe 20,000 years ago. A huge meeting — an international convention with delegates from everywhere. And that's when they decided that humans were the up-and-coming species and dogs were going to throw their lot in with them. The decision was obviously not unanimous. The wolves and dingoes walked out in protest.Read the entire story here.
Cats had an even more negative reaction. When they heard the news, they called their own meeting — in Paris, of course — to denounce canine subservience to the human hyperpower. (Their manifesto — La Condition Feline — can still be found in provincial bookstores.)
Cats, it must be said, have not done badly. Using guile and seduction, they managed to get humans to feed them, thus preserving their superciliousness without going hungry. A neat trick. Dogs, being guileless, signed and delivered. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I must admit that I've been slow to warm to dogs. I grew up in a non-pet-friendly home. Dogs do not figure prominently in Jewish-immigrant households. My father was not very high on pets. He wasn't hostile. He just saw them as superfluous, an encumbrance. When the Cossacks are chasing you around Europe, you need to travel light. (This, by the way, is why Europe produced far more Jewish violinists than pianists. Try packing a piano.)
My parents did allow a hint of zoological indulgence. I had a pet turtle. My brother had a parakeet. Both came to unfortunate ends. My turtle fell behind a radiator and was not discovered until too late. And the parakeet, God bless him, flew out a window once, never to be seen again. After such displays of stewardship, we dared not ask for a dog.
My introduction to the wonder of dogs came from my wife Robyn. She's Australian. And Australia, as lovingly recounted in Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, has the craziest, wildest, deadliest, meanest animals on the planet. In a place where every spider and squid can take you down faster than a sucker-punched boxer, you cherish niceness in the animal kingdom. And they don't come nicer than dogs.
Robyn started us off slowly. She got us a border collie, Hugo, when our son was about 6. She knew that would appeal to me because the border collie is the smartest species on the planet. Hugo could 1) play outfield in our backyard baseball games, 2) do flawless front-door sentry duty, and 3) play psychic weatherman, announcing with a wail every coming thunderstorm.
When our son Daniel turned 10, he wanted a dog of his own. I was against it, using arguments borrowed from seminars on nuclear nonproliferation. It was hopeless. One giant "Please, Dad," and I caved completely. Robyn went out to Winchester, Va., found a litter of black Labs and brought home Chester.
Chester is what psychiatrists mean when they talk about unconditional love. Unbridled is more like it. Come into our house, and he was so happy to see you, he would knock you over. (Deliverymen learned to leave things at the front door.)
In some respects — Ph.D. potential, for example — I don't make any great claims for Chester. When I would arrive home, I fully expected to find Hugo reading the newspaper. Not Chester. Chester would try to make his way through a narrow sliding door, find himself stuck halfway and then look at me with total and quite genuine puzzlement. I don't think he ever got to understand that the rear part of him was actually attached to the front.
But it was Chester, who dispensed affection as unreflectively as he breathed, who got me thinking about this long-ago pact between humans and dogs. Cat lovers and the pet averse will just roll their eyes at such dogophilia. I can't help it. Chester was always at your foot or your hand, waiting to be petted and stroked, played with and talked to. His beautiful blocky head, his wonderful overgrown puppy's body, his baritone bark filled every corner of house and heart.
Then last month, at the tender age of 8, he died quite suddenly. The long, slobbering, slothful decline we had been looking forward to was not to be. When told the news, a young friend who was a regular victim of Chester's lunging love-bombs said mournfully, "He was the sweetest creature I ever saw. He's the only dog I ever saw kiss a cat."
Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it produces a vision — a creature — of the purest sweetness?
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Islamberg
The Canada Free Press contains a very disturbing report written by Paul Williams about Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a radical Islamic organization originating in Pakistan, and the establishment of their Islamic paramilitary compounds in the U.S.:
Situated within a dense forest at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, Islamberg is not an ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden.Read the entire story here.
. . . It is home to hundreds - - all in Islamic attire, and all African-Americans. Most drive late model SUVs with license plates from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The locals say that some work as tollbooth operators for the New York State Thruway, while others are employed at a credit card processing center that maintains confidential financial records.
While buzzing with activity during the week, the place becomes a virtual hive on weekends. The guest includes arrivals from the inner cities of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and, occasionally, white-robed dignitaries in Ray-Bans from the Middle East.
Venturing into the complex last summer, Douglas Hagmann, an intrepid investigator and director of the Northeast Intelligence Service, came upon a military training area at the eastern perimeter of the property. The area was equipped with ropes hanging from tall trees, wooden fences for scaling, a make-shift obstacle course, and a firing range. Hagmann said that the range appeared to have been in regular use.
. . . Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who refers to himself as "the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr," Gilani, has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra or "community of the impoverished," an organization that seeks to "purify" Islam through violence.
Though primarily based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has operational headquarters in New York and openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system. Members live in hamaats or compounds, such as Islamberg, where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority. Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulane Country, California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington. Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.
Before becoming a citizen of Islamberg or any of the other Fuqra compounds, the recruits - - primarily inner city black men who became converts in prison - - are compelled to sign an oath that reads: "I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's sake."
In the past, thousands of members of the U.S. branches of Jamaat ul-Fuqra traveled to Pakistan for paramilitary training, but encampments, such as Islamberg, are now capable of providing book-camp training so raw recruits are no longer required to travel abroad amidst the increased scrutiny of post 9/11.
Over the years, numerous members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra have been convicted in US courts of such crimes as conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers' compensation fraud. Others remain leading suspects in criminal cases throughout the country, including ten unsolved assassinations and seventeen fire-bombings between 1979 and 1990.
The criminal charges against the group and the criminal convictions are not things of the past. In 2001, a resident of a California compound was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff's deputy; another was charged with gun-smuggling' and twenty-four members of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations.
By 2004 federal investigators uncovered evidence that linked both the DC "sniper killer" John Allen Muhammed and "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid to the group and reports surfaced that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded in the process of attempting to obtain an interview with Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan.
Even though Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been involved in terror attacks and sundry criminal activities, recruited thousands of members from federal and state penal systems, and appears to be operating paramilitary facilities for militant Muslims, it remains to be placed on the official US Terror Watch List. On the contrary, it continues to operate, flourish, and expand as a legitimate nonprofit, tax-deductible charity.
Greedy, Gutless & Short-Sighted: Only Magic WORD$ Get the Attention of Today's GOP
Do you want to contact the RNC or your elected representatives and actually get their attention? If so, Dinah Lord has discovered how to do it.
The background to this story is that I went bonkers when Jack Murtha got on Hardball claiming that Al Qaeda in Iraq is unrelated to bin Laden's Al Qaeda, that Iraq is in a state of civil war, that General Petraeus is lying to America, and that Petraeus did not brief Congress during his recent visit. It was utter insanity. Yet not a single elected representative from the Republican Party said word one in response. Such lack of communication has aleady mortally wounded the Republican Party, and may well result in a withdrawal from Iraq come September, if not sooner.
In my post about Murtha's Hardball performance, I suggested that we need to contact the RNC and our elected representatives and ask them to please, for God's sake, respond to Murtha.
I sent off e-mails to my elected officials and the RNC. No response.
Dinah Lord e-mails the RNC. She gets a response promising to bring the matter to the attention of RNC Chairman that day.
So what was the difference between her communication and mine?
Here is Dinah's e-mail to the RNC:Until someone stands up and takes the gloves off to address the lies and misinformation Jack Murtha is spreading I will not be donating a single, solitary dime to any 2008 election campaigns.
.
Who among the Congress, Senate, Cabinet, Administration, RNC will stand up and turn the tide of Democratic spin.
I beg of you - get involved. Fight back. Somebody please.
Then stand back and watch your poll numbers improve.
Here's a good place to start. Jack Murtha's appearance on Hardball where he outright lies about General Petraeus and no one says a word about it
The only material difference between Dinah's e-mail and mine was her statement: "I will not be donating a single, solitary dime to any 2008 election campaigns."
This establishes two points. One, the substanive ideas that any single voter might wish to share with the RNC and their elected representatives matter far less then the $ub$tance underlying those ideas. Thus, to get the attention of one's elected representatives and the RNC, threaten not to donate money to election campaigns.
Two, our Republican party, once the home to Ronald Regan and the folks who stood for the principles embodied in the Contract With America, is largely no more. While a good portion of such folks remain in the party's rank and file, as leaders we have Trent Lott, Jerry Lewis, Ted Stevens and, until recently, Duke Cunningham. It is utterly disgusting. Unfortunately, even this incredlbly cynical and unprincipled crowd now in office appear the only viable alternative to the suicadal far left contolling the Democratic Party.
Update: Pete Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, responded to my e-mail without the necessity of invoking campaign contributions. He is one of ten.Thank you for contacting my office about the current situation in Iraq.
There is no doubt that al-Qaeda is playing a role in Iraq. In 2005, al-Qaeda leader, al-Zawahiri, outlined their strategy and cited their top priority for what they openly call the "Jihad in Iraq." The first stage is to "Expel the Americans from Iraq." Their second goal, according to al-Zawahiri, is to "Establish an Islamic authority...then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate." In other words, they want to get rid of the U.S. Military so that they can place Iraq in the hands of militant, murderous jihadists.
Once they have accomplished their mission and America has disengaged them in Iraq, these ruthless jihadists will have safe haven in which to continue plotting against us, and frankly we know what they are capable of as demonstrated most recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria and Morocco. I will continue to say this whenever and to whomever will listen.
Congress needs to continue encouraging open and robust debate about its policy concerning Iraq and the broader war against radical Islam because there are no easy answers or solutions. It will be a long and difficult struggle that will require the United States work on a broad number of fronts to succeed.
Again, thank you for contacting me.
Pete
Videos From Iraq
The latest from MNF-Iraq is shades of 1991. This is the view from an F-16 as bombs obliterate two IED factories.
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A Significant Political Development in Iraq as the SCIRI Goes Local
There was a very positive political development Friday involving Iraq's largest Shia political party, the Supreme Counsel of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The SCIRI was originally a resistance organization formed in the 1990's by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al Hakim. Al Hakim had fled to Iran to escape a death sentence from Saddam Hussein. With the support of Iran's theocracy, al Hakim formed a political organization, the SCIRI, that pledged to take direction from the Supreme Giude of Iran. The organization also had a military wing, the Badr Brigade. Anyone viewing the situation in 2003 would likely conclude that SCIRI was an Iranian proxy along the lines of Hezbollah. Events since 2003 have proven otherwise.
SCIRI joined Iraq's political process following the 2003 invasion. While the Badr Brigade pledged to disarm, they did not do so. Nonetheless, SCIRI has not engaged in the extreme anti-American rhetoric of Iran's other best friend in Iraq, Sadr, nor have they engaged in any sort of major hostilities with coalition forces. Actually, to the contrary, they have assisted coalition forces in several notable instances, though the slate is not clean. The Badr Brigades have been accused of playing a significant role in reprisal attacks against Sunnis in the months following the bombing of the Golden Mosque. But, even if true, there is no evidence of any ongoing major role in the sectarian violence.
Politically, the SCIRI has proven far more pragmatic then its religious origins and relationship to Iran's brand of Khomeinist political Shia'ism would lead one to project. Indeed, in December, 2006, in order to stop the havoc caused by the ever increasing sectarian attacks being carried out by the Sadr militia, SCIRI reached across the aisle to Sunni and Kurdish legislators to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition government that would isolate Sadr and his 30 member bloc in Parliament. This may well have been a critical event in moving Prime Minister Maliki to break with Sadr and support the counterinsurgency effort that today sees Sadr hiding in Iran while the U.S. military and Iraqi forces occupy Sadr City.
Now the latest acts of SCIRI suggest a much cleaner break with the Iranian theocracy:Iraq's biggest Shi'ite party on Saturday pledged its allegiance to the country's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in a move that would distance it from Shi'ite Iran where it was formed.
Read the entire story here. This is all very good news. Grand Ayatollah Sistani, himself an Iranian, is at odds with Iran's theocracy. He subscribes to the traditional principles of apolitical Shia'ism, which Khomeini shredded when he established a clerical regime in Iran following the 1979 revolution. Indeed, according to the Middle East Institute, Sistani's belief in non-political Shia'sm present "a serious threat to Iran’s Islamic Republic." Thus, for example, Sistani has refused to involve himself in criticizing or negating political proposals for de-baathification that would open the way for Sunnis to retake positions in government. The SIIC formal turn towards Sistani and break with Iran's theocracy is very significant. On its face, this move by 'SIIC' seems a very positive political development indeed.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said it had introduced significant policy changes and changed its name to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) -- dropping the word "Revolution".
Party officials told Reuters on Friday that the changes were aimed at giving the party more of an Iraqi flavor and to reflect the changing situation in the country since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
They said the party had been close to Sistani for some time, but a two-day conference on Baghdad that ended on Friday had formalized relations with the influential cleric.
"We cherish the great role played by the religious establishment headed by Grand Ayatollah Sayed Ali al-Sistani ... in preserving the unity of Iraq and the blood of Iraqis and in helping them building a political system based on the constitution and law," said Rida Jawad al-Takki, a senior group member, who read out the party's decisions to reporters.
The party pledged to follow the guidance of the Shi'ite establishment, he said.
Sistani, a reclusive figure who lives in the Iraqi holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, is the spiritual leader of Iraq's majority Shi'ites. He rarely makes public statements but his utterances are closely monitored by his followers.
Officials said the party, which was formed in Iran in the 1980s to oppose Saddam, had previously taken its guidance from the religious establishment of Welayat al Faqih, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran.
They said the party had been close to Sistani for some time, but a two-day conference on Baghdad that ended on Friday had formalized relations with the influential cleric.
"We cherish the great role played by the religious establishment headed by Grand Ayatollah Sayed Ali al-Sistani ... in preserving the unity of Iraq and the blood of Iraqis and in helping them building a political system based on the constitution and law," said Rida Jawad al-Takki, a senior group member, who read out the party's decisions to reporters.
The party pledged to follow the guidance of the Shi'ite establishment, he said.
Sistani, a reclusive figure who lives in the Iraqi holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, is the spiritual leader of Iraq's majority Shi'ites. He rarely makes public statements but his utterances are closely monitored by his followers.
Officials said the party, which was formed in Iran in the 1980s to oppose Saddam, had previously taken its guidance from the religious establishment of Welayat al Faqih, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran. . . .
(H/T Dinah Lord)
The Al Qaeda End Game
I previously posted that Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group General Petraeus has identified as our most immediate opponent and the group responsble for the vast bulk of the casualties in Iraq, appears to be heading towards its final cataclysmic battles. Largely driven from Anbar and its bases in Baghdad, al Qaeda in Iraq's center of mass has shifted to Diyala Province where they are preparing Hezbollah style defenses. Further, the Sunnis in Diyala seem to be organizing against al Qaeda just as the Sunnis in Anbar have done. All of this suggests that we are nearing, if not in, the end game with Al Qaeda in Iraq. Pat Dollard analyzes the situation and comes to a similar conclusion.
Terrorists are parasites. They rely on a host body to support them. Now they can terrorize a host body into providing them support, but that will only go so far. Ultimately, the host body must be somewhat sympathetic to the terrorists, or else, by sheer dint of numbers, the members of the host body will be able to reject the terrorists. These two principles explain the entire history of Al Qaeda’s reign over Al Anbar. Al Anbar, like Al Qaeda, is a Sunni entity. The people of Al Anbar were sympathetic enough to Al Qaeda that they provided them sanctuary, support and even manpower - which is to say, the very lifeblood that this parasite required. Finally, the Sunnis of Al Anbar had enough of the bleak and empty future, and very bloody present, that comprised the entirety of Al Qaeda’s offerings. And so the host body rejected the parasite. The parasite is now in its last possible refuge, the mixed Sunni/Shiite Triangle of Death/Diyala Province, just south of Baghdad. My time in Iraq started there, and will likely end there. Along with Al Qaeda’s time.Read the entire story here. Once Iraq is free of the mix of al Qaeda and Baathist insurgency that is moving swiftly towards its last major battles at the moment, it will still be a long time before Iraq is completely free of terrorism. Even after al Qaeda in Iraq is crushed - assuming the Democrats in Congress give us enough time to finish that fight - Syria and Iran both still have a vested interest in trying to prevent the formation of a stable democracy in Iraq. And both have a very long history of deadly meddling with their neighbors. Both nations will need to be addressed forcefully at some point in the future. And as to Iran, with their drive for nuclear weaponry, that point will inevitably come sooner rather then later.
. . . In the short term, Al Qaeda will need to reopen its supply lines from Syria, which flow through through Al Anbar. They would also love nothing more than to reestablish themselves as the masters of Al Anbar. It is critical we keep our alliance with the Al Anbar Sunni tribes intact, and deny Al Qaeda both a home and its critical supply lines. And yes, the elephant in the room cannot be ignored as well: Syria must be forced to stop feeding Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is comprised of Jihadis from around the globe. For example, in Fallujah, I lived in a Chechen barracks. ( Fallujah is not in Russia ). During the battle of Fallujah, the Marines recovered passports from 18 different nations on the Jihadi dead. Most of Al Qaeda’s fighters come through Syria. Syria must be made to heel. Nancy Pelosi wearing scarves and whispering sweetly will not do the trick. In fact, she has only encouraged Syria and Al Qaeda to stick to their ways, to keep up the fight against us. Why should they quit when the Democrats keep promising them victory? When Pelosi lied, our soldiers died. And they still do. If we are allowed by the Leftists, the mainstream ( which is to say Leftisist ) media, and the career-coward Republican lawmakers to get tough with Syria, we can defeat Al Qaeda.
Petraeus has a three pronged agenda, whether he knows it or not, and I’m sure he does. 1. Hold Al Anbar. 2. Defeat Al Qaeda in it’s last possible home in Iraq, the Triangle of Death/Diyala area, by simultaneously attacking them aggresively and winning over the local Sunni tribes to help us in that effort - - just as we did in Al Anbar. 3. Break the back of the Shiite/Iran Baghdad to Basra insurgency by maintaining a ruthless military campaign; by further marginalizing or killing Al Sadr; by co-opting as many Shiite tribal leaders as possible; and by forcing Maliki to appropriately support us in all this; and lastly by rooting out as much evidence as possible to finalize the case against Iran.
Just like today’s story of the loss of U.S. servicemen, and the spectacular Baghdad/Diyala bombings of the last three weeks, you will continue to see many more Al Qaeda horrors. But these may just be the terrorist organization’s death throes. It is an historical maxim that every empire becomes more violent in it’s final, beleaguered days. We live with the conundrum that there is as much good news as bad in this current carnage. But it will become all bad if we let this opportunity for final conquest slip through our fingers.
The Carnival of the Insanities
The Carnival is back in town, and it is truly a rat hole of insanities this week. Do please visit the good doctor as she deals with everything from terrorist mice to Sarkozy and Mother's Day. You will find the Carnival here.
Jasser On Lessons From The Arrest of the Ft. Dix Six
M. Zuhdi Jasser, a former Naval Officer and the President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, weighs in on the messages that should be coming out of the recent arrest of six Islamists who planned to conduct a terror attack on Ft. Dix:
1) While most Muslims have never met militants like those arrested, Muslim organizations should understand that only Muslims hold the keys to the way to overwhelm and counter the ideology which fuels these radicals. Muslim organizations should be clamoring to expose and infiltrate the ideology and sources which drove these traitors to sprout their radical cell. We need an Islamic vaccine (the separation of spiritual Islam from political Islam) to the virus which afflicted these men. Until Muslim anti-Islamists can defeat Islamism (political Islam) as an ideology, we will not make any headway at preventing the germination of the next cell. We will only be left waiting, praying, for the FBI to help us, yet again, dodge the next bullet.Read the entire story here. Now compare his approach to the arrest of the Ft. Dix Six with CAIR's request to the nation's news organizations not to mention that the six arrested were motivated by Islam to conduct their terror attacks.
2) Will the FBI’s success here answer the question as to why we need to protect each and every citizen in America who practices the principle of “see something, say something” as the heroic video-store clerk (“John Doe”) did here? What if this “John Doe” had contrarily chosen to be silent due to a fear of litigation?
3) Will we continue to deny the fact that America is not exactly that far behind Europe in our susceptibility to homegrown terror cells?
Taliban Commander Mullah Dadullah Killed in Afghanistan
This is a major development. The incredibly brutal commander of Taliban military forces has been reported killed in Afghanistan:
The Taliban's top operational commander, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in a clash in Afghanistan, security officials said on Sunday.Read the entire story here. For more background information on Dadullah and just how important his death is, see this article from Der Spiegel.
"Mullah Dadullah has been killed and his body is in Kandahar," said Saeed Ansari, spokesman for the intelligence department.
Another intelligence official said the one-legged Dadullah was killed in a clash with Afghan troops in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday night.
Apart from leading most Taliban attacks in the south, the notorious Dadullah was also believed to be behind a series of kidnappings of foreigners and Afghans.
. . . If confirmed, his death would be a heavy blow for the Taliban, fighting to expel foreign troops since they were ousted in a U.S.-led offensive after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
He would also be the most important Taliban killed since then. . . .
The EU's First Steps Towards A Sane Policy on Islam?
It seems that the EU is taking the first steps towards something resembling a sane policy towards the Islamists in their midst. And the radicals are none too happy about it:
Security officials from Europe's largest countries backed a plan Saturday to profile mosques on the continent and identify radical Islamic clerics who raise the threat of homegrown terrorism.Read the entire story here.
The project, to be finished by the fall, will focus on the roles of imams, their training, their ability to speak in the local language and their sources of funding, EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told a news conference after a meeting on terrorism.
Italian Interior Minister Guiliano Amato said Europe had extensive experience with the "misuse of mosques, which instead of being places of worship are used for other ends.
"This is bringing about a situation that involves all of our countries and involves the possibility of attacks and developing of networks that use one country to prepare an attack in another," Amato said.
The transit attacks in Madrid and London _ along with several thwarted terror plots _ have raised concerns across Europe about the susceptibility of disaffected young Muslims to the messages of extremist clerics.
British police have said the bombers in the July 2005 London suicide attacks listened to the sermons of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical cleric who was sentenced last year to seven years in prison for inciting followers to kill non-Muslims.
Britain also recently ordered the deportation of a Jordanian-born cleric, Abu Qatada, accusing him of links to terrorism and being a threat to national security. Abu Qatada is appealing.
Adel Smith, a well-known Muslim activist in Italy, said mosques in Italy are already extensively monitored and called the EU plan discriminatory.
"I think this is nonsense, I think mosques have been well monitored for some years," he said in a telephone interview. "It is a form of religious discrimination."
Frattini emphasized the need of deeper dialogue with the Islamic communities "to avoid sending messages that incite hate and violence." . . .
(H/T Eye on the World)
Bad News Out of Iraq
Lots of bad news being reported from Iraq - ambushed and kidnapped soldiers, faulty math or corruption in the oil sector, and an unconfirmed report of an increase in sectarian violence.
An undersized squad of seven soldiers and an interpreter riding in two vehicles were ambushed near Mahmudiyah, a small town south of Baghdad. Five of the eight were found dead at the site of the ambush; three were absent from the scene and suspected kidnapped. This from the Washington Post:
At 4:59 a.m., an unmanned surveillance aircraft relayed images of two burning vehicles. By 5:40 a.m., a U.S. quick-reaction force had arrived at the scene, secured the site and launched the hunt for the missing soldiers, Caldwell said.Read the entire story here. It does seem that al Qaeda is keeping well abreast of Democratic news releases and press briefings. I wonder just how many lives will be sacrificed because of Harry Reid's "the war is lost" statement, citing four suicide bombers as his proof?
The mayor of Mahmudiyah, Muaiad Fadhil Hussein, said the attack happened near the village of Beshesha, west of the city. He described it as "one of the most dangerous areas of the city, in which Arab and Iraqi terrorists exist, and not even innocent civilians can enter it."
A curfew has been imposed on Mahmudiyah and surrounding areas, he said, adding that "we, as a mayoralty, are working to provide intelligence information and moral support" to the U.S. and Iraqi forces conducting the search.
Abdullah al-Ghareri, a well-known preacher in Mahmudiyah, said the forces, backed by helicopters and "tens of tanks," were conducting search operations into the night and had made some arrests. Residents said many insurgents had fled the city as U.S. forces entered it.
A senior Iraqi army official said he believed that the attack had been carried out by Sunni insurgents. "This area is really full of al-Qaeda members," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Mohamad al-Janabi, a reputed al-Qaeda member in the nearby city of Salman Pak, said in a telephone interview that he was unable to contact his comrades in Mahmudiyah to determine whether they were responsible for the attack.
But he added: "I can assure you that we will start pressuring Bush in a new way at the same time he is facing pressures from the Democrats and the American people. And there will be no problem to sacrifice 10 soldiers in order to abduct a single American soldier and get him on television screens begging for us to release him."
I personally think this al Qaeda member's stated goal of putting captured American soldiers on broadcast might well result in a textbook demonstration of the law of unintended consequences. It would not be a wise move.
We will have to wait for more information to percolate up on this. The rule of thumb is, the larger the element, the greater the security, and platoon size elements of 30 people have proven capabale of holding their own in response to any ambush. Where we have gotten in trouble is when we have smaller elements operating without cover. Thus, I question why such a small element was travelling detached in an area known to be infiltrated by insurgents. That seems like a gross tactical error but, without all of the facts, it is impossible to say definitively. I do not feel confident that we will see the kidnapped soldiers alive. We can only hope and pray.
The NYT published an article on a government report concluding that Iraq's oil production figures do not add up. Either the official figures are incorrect, overstating production, or their is ongoing corruption and theft on a grand scale:
Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.
Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.
The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry.
The report also covered alternative explanations for the billions of dollars worth of discrepancies, including the possibility that Iraq has been consistently overstating its oil production.
Iraq and the State Department, which reports the numbers, have been under relentless pressure to show tangible progress in Iraq by raising production levels, which have languished well below the United States goal of three million barrels a day. Virtually the entire economy of Iraq is dependent on oil revenues.
. . . But a State Department official who works on energy issues said that there were several possible explanations for the discrepancy, including the loss of oil through sabotage of pipelines and inaccurate reporting of production in southern Iraq, where engineers may not properly account for water that is pumped along with oil in the fields there.
“It could also be theft,” the official said, with suspicion falling primarily on Shiite militias in the south. “Crude oil is not as lucrative in the region as refined products, but we’re not ruling that out either.” . . .
Read the story here. Lastly, the Guardian is reporting an increase in sectarian violence.
In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies - men murdered by death squads - dumped around the capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of 25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive next month.Read the story here. I post this from the Guardian, but we need to await confirmation from other sources. The Guardian occasioanlly has significant factual problems with its reporting from Iraq. If the figures are accurate, it means the Shia death squads are picking up the pace. I will be very interested in hearing if this is coming from those Shia now acting as proxies under the pay and control of Iran.
Not a good day.
