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.

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.

Read the entire story here.

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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?"

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.

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?

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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.

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. . .

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 . . . .

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.

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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.

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.

Read the entire story here.

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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.

* 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. . .

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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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 pulpit

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. . .

Read 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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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?

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.

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."

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)

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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. . .

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? . . .

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.

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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.

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. . . .

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?

(H/T Instapundit)

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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.

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. . .

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.

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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.

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?

Read the entire story here.

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Day by Day . . . in Iraq & the MSM

Today's Day by Day Cartoon is particularly apropos:

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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.

. . . 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.

Read the entire story here.

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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

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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.

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. . . .

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.

(H/T Dinah Lord)

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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.

. . . 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.

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.

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