November 5, 2008

Obama's Inaugural Speech

"My fellow Americans. Our nation is at a crossroads in history. We must choose, together, whether to continue the foreign policy goals of the past or to pursue a new course - one which considers the welfare of nations beyond just our own.

Now, with this historic election behind us and a hopeful future ahead, I have spent countless hours receiving the counsel of the man who knows more about the state of affairs in this world than any other American, President George W. Bush. By now everyone understands my priorities and beliefs, and to those I have added significant insight into the importance of events in our recent history. As a result I now pledge to the armed forces of the United States, the American people, and to the world that this nation will not abandon the cause of freedom that has been served for the past five years in Iraq. America will remain a steadfast ally of the Iraqi people and will enter into a joint forces pact with their government.

Let there be no confusion in the capitals of Iraq's neighbors as to the commitment and determination of the American people to prevent tyranny and militancy from ever regaining their former positions in this important part of the world."

Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Posted by JohnGalt at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2008

Weather Underground: Kill the "die hard capitalists"

From LGF: Bill Ayers' Terrorist Group Discussed Genocide of Americans (includes video)

Quoting Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant and member of the Weather Underground, in a 1982 documentary on the group:

"I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.

And they were dead serious."

I wonder if McPalin's last week of TV ads will include anything from this list. Though I suspect it may require pictures of Obama and Ayers building pipe bombs together to get through to some people.

Hat tip: Blog brother Cyrano

Posted by JohnGalt at 11:39 AM | Comments (1)
But Perry Eidelbus thinks:

Population planning, from abortion to forced sterilization, has always been part of the liberal/collectivist agenda.

"In order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate three hundred and fifty thousand people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it." No one batted an eye when Jacques Cousteau said this completely contemptuous thing.

Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at October 26, 2008 2:23 PM

September 11, 2008

Always Remember

Has it been seven years?

Posted by AlexC at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2008

Sept 11 Pictures

My brother sent me this MS Powerpoint presentation. I am not certain of its origins or authenticity. It contains many stark photos of Ground Zero that I had never seen before.

Posted by jk at 4:27 PM | Comments (2)
But John thinks:

broken link?

Posted by: John at June 11, 2008 9:24 PM
But jk thinks:

Hmm. It works for me. It is a Microsoft Power Point file. You'd need to have a player set up with .pps as a MIME type. Let me know if you'd like it emailed (jk at threesources dot com)

Posted by: jk at June 12, 2008 10:12 AM

May 23, 2008

Lying to Win

Pa Congressman Paul Kanjorski:

"I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we...the Democrats, I think pushed it as far as we can to the end of the fleet, didn't say it, but we implied it. That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts...and people ate it up."

Democrats lying about the war for electoral gain? You're kidding!

Read the whole post, and watch the video.

(tip to Ace)

Posted by AlexC at 12:04 PM

March 11, 2008

God's good graces

Blind obedience to faith or manipulative rationalization? You decide: Gaza Hamas leader thanks God for his son's death in Israeli air strike

"This is a part of our people's path and, God willing, our people will achieve victory," Khalil al-Haya said.

He has himself escaped assassination attempts, including an Israeli strike last May that killed two of his brothers and six other relatives gathered at a family home. Al-Haya was not in the building at the time.

How unfortunate for mister al-Haya that God frowns upon him so, and denies him the glory of martyrdom. Many others in his family were apparently in good graces with Him, however.

"I thank God for this gift," Khalil al-Haya said. "This is the 10th member of my family to receive the honor of martyrdom."

Man, that's a lot of virgins!

Seriously though, if Islamists really believed that being blown to bits by Israeli helicopters in the "conflict with Israel" was a gift from God they'd be lining up with targets on their heads.

Posted by JohnGalt at 11:43 AM

February 12, 2008

Bravely Voting "Not Present!"

The roll call on the FISA Bill shows two profiles in courage: Senators Obama and Clinton, when asked to decide important issues about the balance of civil liberties with homeland defense -- well, they continued with their campaigns of course!

The NYTimes calls it "a major victory for the White House," and Senator McCain made it to vote Yea. But the Democratic candidates did not vote. Lindsey Graham was the only other Senator not voting [insert punchline].

The Senate rejected a series of amendments that would have restricted the government’s surveillance powers and eliminated immunity for the phone carriers, and it voted in convincing fashion — 69 to 29 — to end debate and bring the issue to a final vote. That vote on the overall bill was an almost identical 68 to 29.

The House has already rejected the idea of immunity for the phone companies, and Democratic leaders reacted angrily to the Senate vote. But Congressional officials said it appeared that the House would ultimately be forced to accept some sort of legal protection for the phone carriers in negotiations between the two chambers this week.


Is this what they mean by change?

UPDATE: The WSJ Ed Page points out that Senator Obama did make it in to vote Yea on Sen. Dodd's Amendment to deny immunity from lawsuits to companies that cooperated with anti-terrorism efforts.

It says something about his national security world view, or his callowness, that Mr. Obama would vote to punish private companies that even the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee said had "acted in good faith." Had Senator Obama prevailed, a President Obama might well have been told "no way" when he asked private Americans to help his Administration fight terrorists.

Posted by jk at 6:49 PM

October 12, 2007

This Calls For a Pointless Gesture!

AlexC rightly ridiculed the importance of a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, and over-reaction to it from left-of-center bloggers. Our legislators must be "Animal House" fans -- they seem to always have time for pointless gestures.

Speaker Pelosi, however, gets a prize. As political payback for Armenian constituents, she will thumb her nose at an important ally to redress, for the third time, a 92 year old event. John Fund writes in the Opinion Journal Political Diary:

More Turks have died in Iraq than any other foreign nationality, because it's Turkish truck drivers and logistical workers who bring in so much of the material used by U.S. troops there. The U.S. Air Base at Incirlik in Turkey channels 70% of all air cargo going into Iraq and one-third of the fuel U.S. troops use in Iraq comes through the Turkish port of Adana.

All this makes it all the more inexplicable why the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27 to 21 this week for a controversial resolution condemning the 1915 Armenian genocide, in which Ottoman Turkey -- then an ally of Imperial Germany -- was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians as it expelled them from the country. The measure now goes to the House floor for a vote that will take place by mid-November.

Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO and is a key U.S. ally, can't understand why the resolution is being brought up now at a most sensitive time in Turkish politics, when the country's secular democracy is under pressure from Islamic radicalism. Many in Turkey still bitterly dispute the nature of the 1915 internal upheaval in their country, claiming many Muslim Turks died alongside Christian Armenians in inter-ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the resolution yesterday, chiding critics for presumably believing "it's never a good time" to commemorate the mass killings of Armenians. Many of the descendents of the victims now live in the U.S., where they form a potent political lobby. In what the Fresno Bee at the time called "a vivid case of targeted ethnic politicking," just before the 2006 midterm election that cleared her path to the speakership, Ms. Pelosi herself gave a prominent Armenian newspaper publisher a written statement promising her support for a genocide resolution.

But the House passed a similar resolution against the Armenian atrocities in the 1970s and another in the 1980s. Bluntly put, why is another necessary now? Congress is undermining relations with a key U.S. ally largely to satisfy domestic political concerns. It's too much to expect that politics should stop at the water's edge these days, but Congress ought to be responsible enough to set aside another vote on the resolution until a time when U.S. troops aren't so dependent on Turkey's key support for their mission in Iraq.


The gavel of speaker really is in the hands of America's children.

Posted by jk at 12:46 PM

October 11, 2007

Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Iran

John Morgan, liberal progressive blogger is bent out of shape that Bobby Casey voted to ... well let him explain...

Senator Robert P. Casey is trying to explain his vote on the Lieberman/Kyl Amendment granting George W. Bush the authority to begin military combat operations against Iran. He sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton meaning our most esteemed representatives in Washington are completely susceptible to brainwashing and are utterly incapable of reading an actual text before voting.

The overwhelming majority of blogospheric traffic about this is on the left, and it's generally dripping with hysterics.

Meaning it's likely a mountain out of a molehill.

Indeed, despite doing a good job of posting the scary text of the bill, he does so without a) providing a link b) providing a few more paragraphs of context... probably because it would blow the outrage right out the door.

The words he (along with the rest of the liberal bloggers) neglected to post: "It is the sense of the Senate".

Sense of the Senate (or House) aren't very "toothy" declarations of anything!

But don't believe me. Believe C-SPAN.

SENSE OF THE SENATE is legislative language which offers the opinion of the Senate, but does not make law.

Bed wetting is so tacky once you're older than two or three.

Posted by AlexC at 11:29 AM | Comments (2)
But John Morgan thinks:

The text of the entire Amendment and a link are contained in an earlier article about the vote which my regular readers are familiar with.

Posted by: John Morgan at October 11, 2007 12:02 PM
But AlexC thinks:

You linked, but did you read?

Surely you would have noticed the Sense of the Senate text?

Isn't that rather important to the imminence of the invasion?

Posted by: AlexC at October 11, 2007 12:35 PM

October 9, 2007

Democrats Cut and Run!

Congressional Democrats rode anti-war sentiment to victory last fall — but they are staking their success in the final months of this year’s calendar on more traditional domestic issues amid concern that the war may not be the potent political issue it once was by Election Day 2008.
Martin Kady II writes in Politico that defeat may not be a path to victory after all.

Hat-tip: Insty, who links it with this awesome comparison to 1864.

Posted by jk at 11:32 AM

September 23, 2007

Gathering of Eagles

I don't have the audio, but I understand this ad will start running in the Philly area shortly.

Last week, George Soros’ shadow political party Moveon.org, acting in concert with the New York Times, launched a despicable character assassination against one of our country’s most decorated and respected military leaders.

I’m Chris Hill, an Army Veteran and National Director of Operations for Gathering of Eagles. Our mission is to publicly confront these treacherous assaults on the integrity of our fighting men and women and expose the anti-American sources behind them.

Not only did this leftist faction call Gen. Petraeus a liar, but they arrogantly stated he betrayed the very country he has selflessly served for over 33 years. These outrageous attacks from the likes of Moveon.org, Code Pink, and ANSWER must not go unchallenged! An entire generation of patriots returning home from Viet Nam faced similar abuse and suffered the emotional scars for decades.

Please help us combat these hateful attacks on our military heroes by these well funded groups who wrap themselves in the bogus refrain, “we support the troops but not the war”.

Please contribute whatever you can at gatheringofeagles.org that’s gatheringofeagles.org to combat these lies and distortions. We will act as trusted custodians of your generous donations. Thank you.


For as deep as MoveOn.org step in it, you think more Democrats would stand up and denounce their "fellow travellers"... instead we get silence or tacit approval.

This Saturday, September 29th there will be a "counter"-protest in West Chester, at the Chester County Courthouse (High & Market Sts) from 11am to 3pm.

Posted by AlexC at 1:31 PM

September 20, 2007

POW Habeas Corpus

It really breaks my heart when bills in the Senate can't hit the supra-constitutional 60 vote cut off.

Really, it does.

The Senate on Wednesday rejected legislation that would have allowed terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to petition federal courts claiming that they're being held in error.

The 56-43 vote in favor of the bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to cut off Senate debate, blocking the legislation. Both Washington state senators voted for the measure.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would have given military detainees the right of habeas corpus — the right to challenge one's detention in court, rooted in English common law dating from before the Magna Carta of 1215 — which serves as a check on arbitrary government power.

Posted by AlexC at 1:51 PM | Comments (3)
But Perry Eidelbus thinks:

Actually, I would support such a measure: even "enemy combatants" should be allowed to prove, if they can, that they're innocent. There's evidence that some were turned over to U.S. forces by their neighbors, because of family feuds.

But on the flip side, if we prove we captured them for a good reason, we should just execute them summarily.

Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at September 21, 2007 3:21 PM
But jk thinks:

They deserve some process, which I understand that they get. But the full panoply of the US understanding of habeus corpus is too much.

We cannot allow a captured, foreign terrorist to demand to learn how evidence against him was collected and to see the full evidence. For an American citizen, this would and should be required.

You nail the alternative -- if the hallal rice pilaf at Gitmo is not up to epicurean standards, enemy combatants can always be (quite legally) shot. Wanna reconsider, Ahmed?

Posted by: jk at September 21, 2007 3:41 PM
But Perry Eidelbus thinks:

It wouldn't have to be the full process, just a military tribunal where they can present evidence and, if they were seized in a raid, find out what the evidence was. Not all were captured on the battlefield, and I'm troubled because some circumstances were questionable. If a neighbor rats you out as a terrorist, is it true, or the result of a feud? So I think we should give them a good chance to prove their innocence, even if it demands they question how we knew they were terrorists.

On the other hand, I don't think any process should be given to anyone captured in battle -- American citizen or not. John Walker Lindh should have been shot where he was found, and it would have saved us a lot of headaches.

Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at September 22, 2007 10:55 AM

September 10, 2007

"Worked out"

So I was flipping through the channels and landed on an interview with Helen Thomas on CN8, the Comcast Channel.

She was talking about Iraq and the need to pull out, using references to Vietnam. She eventually said, "We left the Vietnamese eventually, and let themselves work it out."

Sure did.

Posted by AlexC at 2:19 PM

September 9, 2007

"I, Osama, was surprised that Kidney Failure could cause ED"

Send out a seven day free sample pack of Cialis®

WASHINGTON - Seemingly taunting Osama bin Laden, President Bush's homeland security adviser said Sunday the fugitive al-Qaida leader is "virtually impotent" beyond his ability to hide away and spread anti-American propaganda.

I watched that interview and smiled when she said that. Yahoo/AP picked it up as a news headline. I hope it makes the rounds.

Posted by jk at 6:31 PM

September 5, 2007

We've Always Been at War with Eurasia!

John Fund finds an unusual omission from the DVD shelf in today's Political Diary.

Did Sandy Berger Steal this DVD?

As the sixth anniversary of 9/11 looms, it's beyond curious that last year's five-hour ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11," which drew more than 28 million viewers, hasn't been released on DVD.

Normally, repackaging the film for the home video market would be a no-brainer. After all, it recently received seven Emmy nominations. But Cyrus Nowrasteh, who wrote the screenplay, is convinced that Hollywood suits are keeping the film under wraps for political reasons -- namely to protect Bill Clinton's presidential legacy and, by extension, the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Mr. Nowrasteh told the Los Angeles Times he was bluntly informed by a top executive at ABC Studios: "If Hillary weren't running for president, this wouldn't be a problem."

Mr. Nowrasteh says everyone should be concerned if that's the case. "This is a bad precedent, a dangerous precedent, to allow a movie to be buried," he says. "I think this town needs to stand up."

Certainly, Clinton loyalists put enormous pressure on ABC to drop the film last year, which ultimately led most advertisers to avoid supporting the project. Some Democrats saw the film as a biased effort to pin blame for not stopping Osama bin Laden on the Clinton administration, including a memorable scene in which then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger hesitates to order a strike against bin Laden. Mr. Berger was later convicted of removing original documents relating to anti-terrorist efforts -- for which there may not have been copies -- from the National Archives when the official 9/11 Commission was investigating the history of U.S. policy.

Mr. Clinton himself also got into the act indirectly, engaging in a finger-wagging tirade against Fox News' Chris Wallace shortly after "The Path to 9/11" aired. The former president accused the mild-mannered Mr. Wallace of performing a "conservative hit job" on him by asking about his administration's failed efforts to kill or capture bin Laden.

For its part, all ABC will say is that it "has no release date at this time" for Mr. Nowrasteh's movie. Meanwhile, almost every anti-Bush movie made in the last few years, including Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," is readily available for rental or purchase on DVD.


Posted by jk at 1:09 PM

August 21, 2007

Influential Democrat Senator calls for overthrow of elected leader

Pity the poor Iraqis. They are going to learn about democracy from the likes of Senator Carl Levin. One can question the competence or efficiency of PM Nouri al-Malaki, but he is the first freely elected Prime Minister under the new self-directed Constitution on a free Iraq. WaPo: Senator Calls for Malaki's Ouster

Levin is understandably cranky that the American troops are doing so well -- but it is still irresponsible of him to call for the ouster of an elected leader in a sovereign nation.

Declaring the government of Iraq "non-functional," the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq's parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.

"I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.


But the Democrats are conflicted. Is defeat their goal or should they be content to whack President Bush through any victory? We'll have to convene some focus groups, but in the meantime, there's division.
Still, Democrats have quietly begun to voice a view that Maliki must go; Durbin said he told White House national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley that last week. But they acknowledge that they do not know what would happen next. If it appeared that Maliki had been ousted at Washington's behest, his replacement would be seen as a U.S. puppet -- a "kiss of death" in the region, Durbin said.

And Democratic leaders might feel compelled to ease their antiwar position to allow a new government to take root.

"Imagine if we have to step in with a brand-new leader and a new government," Durbin said. "How many more months would we have to wait?"


I hate being such a partisan hack, but the conduct of the Democratic leadership is so much at odds with our nation's -- and the world's -- interest, I cannot ascribe any good motives.

Posted by jk at 10:45 AM | Comments (2)
But KYJurisDoctor thinks:

Should Bush not second the call for Al-Maliki's ouster by parliamentary means?

http://osi-speaks.blogspot.com/2007/08/calls-start-to-mount-for-malikis-ouster.html#links

Posted by: KYJurisDoctor at August 21, 2007 10:29 PM
But jk thinks:

No sir. I am having a tough time opening your link (Google problems, I think the link is fine).

We pushed for Democracy in a land that has not seen much liberty. We cheered as they held purple fingers aloft. I cheered as they boycotted, yelled and walked in and out of legislative sessions as opposed to shooting each other.

PM Maliki is not, perhaps, the incarnation of Alexander Hamilton in our century. But he was FREELY ELECTED by free Iraqis under their own Constitution.

It sends a bad signal to have Senator Levin (and whomever is on your list) call for a supra-Constitutional "do over" because the PM is not popular in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I wish Senator Levin were as interested in removing Assad in Syria or Ahmadinejad in Iran as he was the freely elected leader in-between them.

Posted by: jk at August 22, 2007 10:33 AM

August 16, 2007

They Can't All Be Beauchamp

Great dispatch from Iraq in The Corner.

Along the op route, we stopped by the house of a poor Iraqi family with at least seven small kids — beautiful, smiling children (girls and boys, none more than 10-years-old) all wanting to hold my hand, and wear my sunglasses and helmet. Of course, I let them. One of them — a smiling boy of about eight— was sitting on the floor, naked, his lower body partially covered by a sheet. At first I noticed his little hand when he reached up for mine: His left index finger was gone and the dirty remaining nub was somewhat ragged looking.

That depravity of war thing. If you can read this coast to coast without tearing up, you have no pulse.

Thanks to all who serve.

Posted by jk at 1:17 PM | Comments (1)
But Perry Eidelbus thinks:

Nope, not a drop of extra moisture from me. Some might say it's because I'm a sick, jaded bastard, and at least one of those is true, but, I am Locutus of Borg. The experience of the human...jk...had prepared me.

So where are the bloodthirsty American troops we keep hearing about, the ones that would have killed the kid for fun, let alone a mercy killing, after raping the mother and daughter?

Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at August 16, 2007 3:07 PM

July 30, 2007

Good News from Iraq

An op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "A War We Just Might Win" proclaims:


VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.


I thought Harry Reid already said we lost?

Posted by Harrison Bergeron at 10:59 AM | Comments (3)
But jk thinks:

Merciful Zeus. That is as upbeat a report on "the surge" as I have read on a milblog or in the Weekly Standard -- on the Ed Page of the Grey Lady!

HB didn't say it, but I will. Read the whole thing. Read it to your Senator.

Posted by: jk at July 30, 2007 11:33 AM
But AlexC thinks:

When a major political party stakes it's electoral victory on military defeat abroad, is it anyone that when they win, they don't/won't notice what's going on?

"We won! It's cause we're losing! Yay!"

Posted by: AlexC at July 30, 2007 11:45 AM
But jk thinks:

Before you conclude that the NYTimes has joined the forces of light and modernity, read Don Surber.

Posted by: jk at July 30, 2007 12:36 PM

Iraqi Sports News

The WSJ Ed Page says "An old saw has it that the best proof of a man's loyalties lies in the sports teams he roots for." As many Democrats and Republicans have called for splitting Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia nations, the editorial (paid link) uses the pride in the team's 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia to say that Iraq is not "a notional country."

It is easy to get carried away by the symbolism of a single soccer victory. Still, it was remarkable that the winning team -- known as the "Lions of the Two Rivers" -- was Iraqi in the broadest sense of the word. Younis Mahmoud, the team captain who scored the winning goal, is Turkman. Teammate Hawar Mulla Mohammed, who put the ball into position, is Kurdish. Goalkeeper Noor Sabri is Shiite Arab.

No less remarkable were the circumstances in which the team had to train and compete. Coach Jorvan Vieira of Brazil had to move the Iraqi players beyond their political differences. The team, which could not train on home turf, went from match to match in economy seats. (Their Saudi rivals traveled more comfortably.) The celebration of their previous victory, over South Korea, was cut short by a suicide bombing that killed 50.

Yet for everything they lacked, the Iraqis had a powerful if intangible asset over their more pampered rivals: a country to fight for. Perhaps their victory will give all Iraqis a taste of what they may yet achieve together.


Posted by jk at 10:40 AM

July 28, 2007

Second Link

ExcaliburBlog seeks to use an Army of Davids/Wisdom of Crowds approach to military, national security, and counterinsurgency development. I doubt I will be submitting any aircraft designs, but it is an interesting read and a good source for non-mainstream views and news about the War

Hat tip to Terri, who is credited as the first link to the blog.

Posted by jk at 3:45 PM

July 25, 2007

Patton '07

(tip to Patrick Ruffini)

Posted by AlexC at 5:27 PM

June 25, 2007

Rage Boy

Slate Magazine uses this photo to illustrate a general character Christopher Hitchens calls "Rage Boy."

rageboy.jpg

My favorite is still "Behead Those Who Insult Islam."

Hitchens is rightfully concerned that by fear of offending or inciting "Rage Boy," we allow him to set the rules of debate. Neither Hitchens nor I am too keen on avoiding any topic that offends him, because he looks rather easy to offend. Is it me, or does he look a little angry right now?

Over the last few years, there have been innumerable opportunities for him to demonstrate his piety and his pissed-offness. And the cameras have been there for him every time. Is it a fatwah? Is it a copy of the Quran allegedly down the gurgler at Guantanamo? Is it some cartoon in Denmark? Time for Rage Boy to step in and for his visage to impress the rest of the world with the depth and strength of Islamist emotion.
[..]
This mental and moral capitulation has a bearing on the argument about Iraq, as well. We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world's Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government—along with the Israelis, of course—paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?

The whole piece is superb. Hat-tip: Insty

Posted by jk at 4:46 PM | Comments (2)
But AlexC thinks:

How dare you call us an angry and violent people! You must die!

Posted by: AlexC at June 25, 2007 5:37 PM
But johngalt thinks:

This same expression is found in the Primate Panorama at the Denver Zoo. It looks like this.

Posted by: johngalt at June 26, 2007 3:40 PM

June 10, 2007

Remember Me

Do you remember me? Do you know who I am? I'm your son daughter brother sister husband wife father mother uncle aunt nephew neice grandson granddaughter boyfriend girlfriend cousin best friend fiancee neighbor. Aren't you proud? Are you still there? Did I do something wrong? Did I make you angry? Aren't you missing me? Because I miss you. I need you to support me. To be behind me. I need you to tell me that you'll be waiting for me. Why? You're what I'm fighting for. I want to come home to smiling faces. But if I don't... I need to know That you love me And that you'll miss me. I do my job. I don't ask for much. Some people hate me. But I don't complain. All I want is for you to say, "I'm proud of you." "I remember." I am lucky and grateful to have you in my life. I love you. I miss you. I'll be home soon.

These are the words of Lizzie Palmer's YouTube video that while profound, are not nearly as moving in plain text as in her video presentation.

The clip is sweeping the internet (11.7M views and counting) and made Lizzie Chris Wallace's "Power Player of the Week." [Not a permalink]

Chris Wallace said Lizzie plans to join the army when she graduates from high school. I'm taken by the maturity of this 15 year-old, and her ability to grasp the power and value of abstract ideas despite her likely education in public schools. Commenters on messages.snopes.com think it is a "Glurgey piece of crap."

You decide.

Posted by JohnGalt at 12:56 PM | Comments (1)
But jk thinks:

I had seen it but had no idea it was the product of a fifteen year old. What an honor to share a country with a young lady like Ms. Palmer.

Posted by: jk at June 10, 2007 5:57 PM

March 20, 2007

WSJ Imitates Tom Tancredo

I'm afraid JK ain't gonna like this... (and no, it's not about illegal immigration.)

Way back in July of '05 Tom Tancredo was asked, "Worst case scenario, if they do have these nukes inside the borders and they were to use something like that, what would our response be?" Tom's response can be paraphrased as, "Nuke Mecca."

On this morning's WSJ editorial page, board member Bret Stephens writes:

What would a sensible deterrence strategy look like? "Even nihilists have something they hold dear that can be threatened with deterrence," says Max Singer, a collaborator of the great Cold War theorist Herman Kahn. "You need to know what it is, communicate it and be serious about it."

Would it hinder Islamist terrorists if the U.S.'s declared policy in the event of a nuclear 9/11 was the immediate destruction of Mecca, Medina and the Iranian religious center of Qom?

Twenty months ago JK found such a suggestion "completely off the table" and that it's "irresponsible to discuss it."

About this Stephens says, "One needn't have answers to these questions to know it requires something more than pat moralizing about the terribleness of nuclear weapons or declaring the whole matter "unthinkable." Nothing is unthinkable."

I fully agree with Stephens that, "the question of what to do after a nuclear 9/11 is something to which not enough thought has been given. We urgently need a nuclear doctrine--and the weapons to go with it--for the terrorist age."

For my part I still stand by The List.

Posted by JohnGalt at 10:58 AM | Comments (6)
But jk thinks:

jk's tougher than you think.

I liked Stephens's article and agree that we need a strategy going forward. I supported the development of small, tactical nukes, and the idea of modernizing the current inventory sounds reasonable and proper.

Though it is a small part of the article, I cannot disagree with your interpretation that Stephens has joined the "Nuke Mecca Club" (Dick Cheney Nuked Mecca -- and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!)

I must disagree with both Stephens and Rep. Tancredo that there is any tactical value to an explicit threat to destroy a holy site if it matches the religion of a terrorist.

A holy site in Iran for Iranian involvement would be a valid target but Mecca and Medina are in the sovereign nation of Saudi Arabia -- a soi disant ally in the War on Terror.

I think Stephens does a disservice to his goal of starting reasonable dialogue with the inclusion of that out-of-the-mainstream suggestion. WE should discuss 21st Century nuclear weapons, deterrence and strategy. I don't see "Nuke Mecca" fitting in to that discussion.

Posted by: jk at March 20, 2007 12:21 PM
But johngalt thinks:

I appreciate your well drawn distinction between applying a nuclear deterrent strategy and where those weapons are targeted. The critical point is that in the discussion of pre-defined targets (pre-defined for their deterrent value) EVERYTHING which these nihilists hold dear must be "on the table."

Since Islamists consistently threaten our very existence (unless we abandon our principles and adopt theirs) how could it be irresponsible to threaten a few of their religious totems? (Or even to discuss it?)

Posted by: johngalt at March 20, 2007 2:59 PM
But jk thinks:

Many -- as in Billions of people -- hold these sites dear and no control over the terrorists who threaten us or our way of life.

To draw upon the distinction I made, the Iranian is sadly culpable for living in a country ruled by the Mullahs and Mr. Ahmadinijad. If they provoke us and we bomb them or a venerated religious site that is sad but just.

If a Pakistani, or German, or British, or American Muslim whacko commits an act of terrorism, I don't think that all Muslims are responsible and I cannot condone taking it from them.

Posted by: jk at March 20, 2007 5:33 PM
But El-Visitador thinks:

France is ahead of the U.S.:

Jacques Chirac, France’s president, has threatened to use nuclear weapons against any state that supported terrorism against his country or considered using weapons of mass destruction.

I predict with absolute confidence that the first 10,000-plus-victim terrorist attack will not happen against France.

The value of nukes lies in the other guy thinking you are trigger happy. Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for the French, only the French have made it clear they are trigger happy.

Posted by: El-Visitador at March 22, 2007 1:28 AM
But johngalt thinks:

EX-actly right. 'Bush the cowboy' was much better in this regard than is 'Bush the best buddy.'

Posted by: johngalt at March 22, 2007 2:53 PM
But jk thinks:

I like the cowboy as well.

I suspect, however, that we are losing track of the original concern: France (Mon dieu!) will nuke "any state" that supported terrorism or defamed croissants or thought that the new Airbus was unwieldy...

Rep. Tancredo was not threatening a state but rather threatening important religious sites. I still consider that off the table (as Stephen Fry might say, it's on "the top shelf of a locked cabinet").

Posted by: jk at March 22, 2007 4:04 PM

February 20, 2007

Victory or Blow?

Headline: Court blow for Guantánamo prisoners

Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay cannot challenge their imprisonment at the US detention facility, a US appeals court said on Tuesday, delivering a significant legal victory to the White House.

The DC court of appeals ruled 2-1 that recent legislation precluded inmates at the Cuba-based prison from contesting their detention in US civilian courts.

Congress passed the Military Commissions Act last year after the Supreme Court ruled that the original structure of the military commissions created to try prisoners at Guantánamo Bay was unconstitutional.

While the MCA restructured the commissions to comply with US and international law, it also stripped detainees of habeas corpus – the right to appeal against their detention in the US civil court system.

In dismissing the case, Judge Randolph Raymond wrote that the detainees had provided arguments that were "creative but not cogent" and that accepting them "would be to defy the will of Congress".


Victory against terrorists or blow for prisoners. You be the judge.

Posted by AlexC at 5:36 PM

January 25, 2007

Senatorial Surrender Monkeys

First the Democrats...

US Senate panel opposes plan to send more troops to Iraq
"The committee adopted the measure by 12-9 vote with one Republican, Senator Chuck Hagel, breaking ranks to join the 11 Democrats on the panel in approving the resolution."

Then the Republicans...

Senate showdown looms for troop buildup in Iraq
"The Foreign Relations Committee approved the resolution Wednesday on a vote of 12-9, with Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, joining 11 Democrats in supporting the measure."

Key GOP senator opposes Bush's Iraq plan
"Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, is one of four principal sponsors of a compromise that would express the Senate's opposition to the additional deployment, but avoid calling it an "escalation" of the four-year-old war."

Brownback could back rival resolution against troop increase

War stage set: Congress v Bush
"And, with several Republicans advancing their own resolution opposing the president's troop deployment, Democrats are negotiating for a common wording that could lead to a bipartisan vote against the war."

All of this about-facing and navel gazing is nauseating, and unseemly for a stately body such as the United States Senate. But it does remind me of the way I felt back in 2003 when another group of surrender monkeys was wringing its hands. Here's what I said then and here's

what I say now.

Posted by JohnGalt at 7:44 PM

Perspective On The Surge

[Then] Maj. Greeley responded to a post on my old Berkeley Square Blog and we have kept up an intermittent email conversation ever since. Greeley played high school football with Paul Gigot of the WSJ Ed Page. Though retired, he went back to Mosul, Iraq to train troops on safety.

I haven't heard in a while, but he sent me a unique view of Gen Petraeus and the surge:

I hope you are well,

UP Date... Well the Adm is our GRANT and LTG Petraeus is our Sherman...

We knew we had it right back in the first days.. GEN Petraeus called the ball... well now they are asking him to do the impossible he thinks he can.. and we all need to support him and those being sent to make it happen.

Life as we know it may very well hang in the balance.

ALL THE BEST!
[...]
Retired and still serving on Active Duty


Thanks to all who serve.

UPDATE: Our friend was promoted to LTC. He retired on Sept 9 and was called up again on Sept 10 (not a lot of time for golf...) He was transferred from Baghdad to Wash DC and active duty was extended another year.

Thank you, Colonel, for your service.

Posted by jk at 10:46 AM

January 19, 2007

I'm Not Surprised

Many are surprised by the results of a new Fox Poll. MichaelW at A Second Hand Conjecture links and points to the shocking question:

19. Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?

——————————– Yes —- No — (Don’t know)
16-17 Jan 07 ————- 63% — 22 — 15
Democrats ————— 51% — 34 — 15
Republicans ————– 79% — 11 — 10
Independents ———— 63% — 19 — 17


Forty-nine percent of Democrats polled either want us to fail or don't care; 37% of the public at large.

I'll side-step the party-line question, juicy as it is. But I cannot feign surprise that a little over a third want the mission to fail. A little over a third do not believe in American exceptionalism and see the projection of power, American values and American-style governance as a mistake.

I've long felt that is what divides war supporters from war opponents. Thirty-three to 37% seems about right, and a sizeable chunk of them registering as Democrats is not befuddling either.

While I strongly disagree, I cannot say that their opinion is illegitimate. "I like America but do not choose to make Iraq more like America." Again, I disagree, but I cannot say that idea has no merit.

UPDATE: Dean Barnett has a letter from the 37% that confirms this belief.

Posted by jk at 4:14 PM

January 11, 2007

Surging into Iran

Larry Kudlow agrees that the focus of the new strategy and surge is Iran. In The Iranian Card he pulls the relevant quote:

No question now that Iran is squarely in President Bush’s sights.

One of the big pieces in his speech last night was an aggressive warning to Iran:

“We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”
This is tough stuff.
Indeed. The same post details "U.S. troops raided Iran’s consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil," "Secretary of State Condi Rice warned Iran this morning that "the United States is not going to simply stand idly by," "another aircraft carrier group is moving into the Persian Gulf," and "the Treasury Department barring Iran’s oldest bank from American financial markets."

All this and a "swabbie" heading CENTCOM. Even the lefty blogs are getting it, tough they're not quite on board as Kudlow is. Meanwhile the MSM seem rather focused on the President's having admitted mistakes. Talk about burying the lede: The President admitted making mistakes in Iraq as he declared war on Iran. This is thought to be the first time he has admitted...

Posted by jk at 1:25 PM

January 7, 2007

What's behind the "religion of peace"

Many, myself included, believed that American appeasment of mideastern terrorists began with the Iranian hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Examination of this historical timeline shows that it began at least as early as July 26, 1956.

7/26/56 Suez Canal nationalized; Egypt blockades Straits of Tiran. France, Britain and Israel take the canal. US pressures them to withdraw (November).

This wasn't, however, the worst example of surrender on the part of America's government, nor was the aforementioned hostage crisis. But this one is in the running.

(I can't effectively excerpt this article. There's just too much valid information. I have copied it all to "continue reading" to make sure it doesn't get lost.)

Is it too late to try President Nixon for treason?

Hat tip: Dr. John Lewis

Jewish World Review Jan. 2, 2007 / 12 Teves, 5766

With the quiet release of a 33-year-old US State Department cable, a good chunk of the edifice of the longest-running big lie was destroyed

By Caroline B. Glick





Time for world to admit it was duped to the tune of billions of dollars


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Yasser Arafat was a master of the big lie. Since he invented global terrorism with the founding of the Fatah terror organization in 1959, Arafat successfully portrayed himself as a freedom fighter while introducing the world to passenger jet hijackings, schoolhouse massacres and embassy takeovers.


To cultivate the myth of his innocence Arafat ordered his Fatah terror cells to operate under pseudonyms. In the early 1970's he renamed several Fatah murder squads the Black September Organization while publicly claiming that they were "breakaway" units completely unrelated to Fatah or to himself.


In 2000, as he launched the current Palestinian jihad, he repeated the process by renaming Fatah terror cells the Aksa Martyr Brigades and then claiming that they were completely unrelated to Fatah or to himself. This fiction too, has been successful in spite of the fact that all Aksa Martyr Brigades terrorists are members of Fatah and most are members of Palestinian Authority official militias who receive their salaries, guns and marching orders from Fatah.


Last week, with the quiet release of a 33-year-old US State Department cable, a good chunk of the edifice of his great lie was destroyed.



ON MARCH 1, 1973, eight Fatah terrorists, operating under the Black September banner stormed the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan during a farewell party for the US Embassy's Charges d'Affaires George Curtis Moore. The terrorists took Moore, US ambassador Cleo Noel, Belgian Charges d'Affairs Guy Eid and two Arab diplomats hostage. They demanded that the US, Israel, Jordan and Germany release PLO and Baader-Meinhof Gang terrorists, including Robert F. Kennedy's Palestinian assassin Sirhan Sirhan and Black September commander Muhammed Awadh (Abu Daud), from prison in exchange for the hostages' release.


The next evening, the Palestinians brutally murdered Noel, Moore, and Eid. They released their other hostages on March 4.


Arafat denied any involvement in the attack. The US officially accepted his denial. Yet, as he later publicly revealed, James Welsh, who served at the time of the attack as an analyst at the National Security Agency, intercepted a communication from Arafat, then headquartered in Beirut to his terror agents in Khartoum ordering the attack.


In 1986, as evidence of Arafat's involvement in the operation became more widely known, more and more voices began calling for Arafat to be investigated for murder. As the New York Sun's online blog recalled last week, during that period, Britain's Sunday Times reported that 44 US senators sent a letter to then US attorney-general Edwin Meese, "urging the American government to charge the PLO chief with plotting the murders of two American diplomats in 1973."


The article went on to note that the Justice Department's interest in pursuing the matter was making senior State Department officials uneasy: "State Department diplomats, worried that murder charges against Arafat would anger the United States' friends in the Arab world, are urging the Justice Department to drop the investigation."


As late as 2002, in spite of President George W. Bush's pointed refusal to meet with Arafat, the State Department continued to protest his innocence. At the time, Scott Johnson, a Minneapolis attorney and one of the authors of the popular Powerlineblog weblog, inquired into the matter with the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Bureau. In an emailed response from the bureau's deputy director of press affairs Gregory Sullivan, Johnson was told, "Evidence clearly points to the terrorist group Black September as having committed the assassinations of Amb. Noel and George Moore, and though Black September was a part of the Fatah movement, the linkage between Arafat and this group has never been established."


So it was that for 33 years, under seven consecutive presidential administrations, the State Department denied any knowledge of involvement by Arafat or Fatah in the execution of its own people.


Until last week.



THE CABLE released by the State Department's historian states, "The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, (PLO), and the head of Fatah. Fatah representatives based in Khartoum participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy."


Although clearly skilled in the art of deception, Arafat could never have succeeded in creating and prolonging his fictions and with them, his crimes, without the cooperation of the US government and the media.

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In this vein, the release of the State Department cable raises two daunting questions. First, how is it possible that the belated admission of a massive 33 year cover-up of the murder of senior American diplomats spanning the course of seven consecutive presidential administrations has been ignored by the US media? A Google news search for Cleo Noel brought up but a handful of stories - none of which were reported by the major news networks or national newspapers.


On the face of it, the released cable, which calls into question the very foundation of US Middle East policy for the past generation is simply stunning. The cable concludes, "The Khartoum operation again demonstrated the ability of the BSO to strike where least expected. The open participation of Fatah representatives in Khartoum in the attack provides further evidence of the Fatah/BSO relationship. The emergence of the United States as a primary fedayeen target indicates a serious threat of further incidents similar to that which occurred in Khartoum."


The media's silence on the issue does not merely raise red flags abut their objectivity. By not availing the American public to the knowledge that Fatah and the PLO have been specifically targeting Americans for 33 years, the media has denied the American people basic knowledge of the world in which they live.


The media's abject refusal to cover the story raises an even more egregious aspect of the episode. Specifically, what does the fact that under seven consecutive administrations, the US government has covered up Arafat's direct responsibility for the murder of American diplomats while placing both Arafat and Fatah at the center of its Middle East policy, say about the basic rationale of US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians? What would US Middle East policy looked like, and what would have been the results for US, and international security as a whole, if rather than advancing a policy that made Arafat the most frequent foreign visitor to the White House during the Clinton administration, the US had demanded his extradition and tried him for murder?


How many lives would have been saved if the US had not been intent on upholding Arafat's big lie? How would such a US policy have impacted the subsequent development of sister terror organizations like Hizbullah, al-Qaida and Hamas, all of which were founded by members of Arafat's terror industry?


Sadly, the release of the cable did not in any way signal a change in the US policy of whitewashing Fatah. In contravention of US law, for the past 13 years, the State Department has been denying that Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority are terrorist organizations, and has been actively funding them with US taxpayer dollars.


This policy went on, unchanged even after Fatah gunmen murdered three US embassy employees in Gaza in October 2003. This policy continues, unchanged still today, as Fatah's current leader, Arafat's deputy of 40 years Mahmoud Abbas works to form a unity government with Hamas. Indeed, the central component of the US's policy towards the Palestinians today is the goal of strengthening Fatah by arming, training and funding its Force 17 terror militia.


In a November 14, 2006 interview on Palestinian television, Ahmed Hales Abu Maher who serves as Secretary of Fatah in Gaza, bragged of Fatah's role in the development of international terrorism. In his words, reported by Palestinian Media Watch, "Oh warrior brothers, this is a nation that will never be broken, it is a revolution that will never be defeated. This is a nation that gives an example every day that is imitated across the world. We gave the world the children of the RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenades], we gave the world the children stone [-throwers], and we gave the world the male and female Martyrdom-Seekers [suicide bombers]."


Imagine what the world would have looked like if, rather than clinging to Arafat's big lie that he and his Fatah terror organization were central components of Middle East peace, the US had captured and tried Arafat for murdering its diplomats and worked steadily to destroy Fatah.


Imagine how our future would look if rather than stealthily admitting the truth, while trusting the media not to take notice, the US government were to base its current policies on the truth, and the media were to reveal this truth to the world.

Posted by JohnGalt at 9:17 PM | Comments (3)
But jk thinks:

Both Natan Sharansky and Christopher Hitchens refer in their books to mock war crimes trials for Henry Kissinger. Toss in Nixon -- and Dulles for his role in the Suez Canal if you want.

The real trouble is not that they weren't tried, the problem is that their intellectual progeny fill the State Department, MSM and Washington "establishment" thinking. Arabist, detente, realist appeasers are the flavor of the month.

President Bush was brave and true to reject and oppose this thinking but the seconds are ticking off the clock. If Iraq does not improve soon, the Scrowcroft-Zbrenski axis of appeasement will claim they were right all along, and America will not act again for freedom in any of our lifetimes.

Posted by: jk at January 8, 2007 11:26 AM
But TrekMedic251 thinks:

I'll have to cross-post this!

Posted by: TrekMedic251 at January 8, 2007 8:50 PM
But johngalt thinks:

Now THAT'S a reaction I can celebrate! Thanks Medic!

Posted by: johngalt at January 9, 2007 4:13 PM

December 11, 2006

Then & Now

As a companion piece to the previous post 'RESOLVE' I give you this Cox & Forkum cartoon, "Then & Now."

06.12.07.ThenNow-X.gif

What made them the Greatest Generation? When they were compelled to go to war, the weren't afraid to kill the enemy, sack his capital, and WIN.

Posted by JohnGalt at 3:09 PM | Comments (5)
But jk thinks:

Can I light the flamethrower?

I think that those who attack the President as being not aggressive enough on pursuing the war should be very careful not to overstep their bounds. The choice in 2006/7 is NOT Bush vs. Macarthur but rather Bush vs. Murtha-Kerry-Pelosi-Rangel.

Responsible critiques from those who want a more vigorous prosecution of the war are, of course, legitimate. (Dissent is patriotic and all). This cartoon, humiliates the President and undermines his ability to pursue his policies.

Destroy his credibility and more GOP Senators will fly out of orbit and give advantage to the Sens. Dodd-Levin axis.

I don't think that will make Misters C&F much happier.

Posted by: jk at December 11, 2006 6:38 PM
But johngalt thinks:

Fret not, fellow Bush fan. This cartoon does not humiliate the president so much as it derides the state of American popular opinion. (See "RESOLVE" below.)

As I said, the 'Bush Doctrine' was brilliant. Even if he didn't write it, he said it, and I believe at the time he meant it. The problem is that the intelligentsia was given too much time (and too few military accomplishments in exemplary rebuttal) to make their postmodern case that "war is never the answer." (For the too few accomplishments failure I blame Colin Powell and the State Department apparatchik.)

Posted by: johngalt at December 12, 2006 1:19 AM
But jk thinks:

Okay, but "the state of popular American opinion" is not shown with its ears shaped to match Tojo's and Ahmadinijad's.

Posted by: jk at December 12, 2006 10:28 AM
But johngalt thinks:

Well, I didn't say the cartoon doesn't humiliate Bush AT ALL, did I? For failing to stand up for the policy he articulated, he's earned this portrayal.

Posted by: johngalt at December 13, 2006 1:00 AM
But johngalt thinks:

And not a single word of comment about the ideas behind this cartoon, expressed in the RESOLVE post. And I even put "burn that regime to the ground" and "The Islamic State" in boldface.

Where're them lefty peaceniks when you wanna pick a fight?

Posted by: johngalt at December 13, 2006 1:04 AM

Resolve

The "Bush Doctrine" was a brilliant moral statement by the president. Unfortunately, it's become a glittering jewel of squandered opportunities. What the world needs now is... Harry S. Truman in the White House. From The Potsdam Declaration, July 26, 1945, adapted to remove references to Japan:

The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the enemy armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the enemy homeland. . . .

The time has come for the enemy nation to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought them to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason. . . .

Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay. . . .

There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world. . . .

Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established. . . .

We call upon the enemy to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative is prompt and utter destruction.

These words, delivered to the Japanese Empire in 1945 by America and Great Britain with the endorsement of Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek, are equally relevant to the budding Islamist Empire whose center of power and influence is Teheran, Iran.

As the Declaration states, "The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the enemy armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the enemy homeland..." If anything, our military power is only greater in strength and capability. What has suffered since the departure of President Truman is "our resolve." We no longer believe, as a people [evidenced by who we elect to represent us] that the only thing more terrible than fighting in a war is failure to win it.

John Lewis, the author of the excerpt above as part of a brilliant piece entitled “No Substitute for Victory” The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism ends with this:

The best thing Americans did for themselves (and, incidentally, the kindest thing for the Japanese) was to burn that regime to the ground. So it is today. The Islamic State—Totalitarian Islam—must go. And it is the moral responsibility of every American to demand it.

As I said, it is brilliant. Read the whole thing! (18 pages when printed) You'll be glad you did.

It's worth recognizing at this point that then, as now, the USSR (nee Russia) makes noises about solidarity with the free world and does... nothing (at best.)

Posted by JohnGalt at 2:45 PM

December 7, 2006

Iraq "Surrender" Group Report

" . . . more than six people cannot agree on anything, three is better -- and one is perfect for a job that one can do. This is why parliamentary bodies all through history, when they accomplished anything, owed it to a few strong men who dominated the rest. Never fear, son, this Ad-Hoc Congress will do nothing . . . or if they do pass something through sheer fatigue, it will be so loaded with contradictions that it will have to be thrown out." --Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, pg 162 [Robert A. Heinlein]

I've been waiting all week for someone to blog the celebrated Iraq Study Group report, for I have a comment I'd like to make about it. Alas, nobody has obliged on these pages. But with each passing day I've come to realize that the real blogging is taking place on the front pages of the major dailies. They took the slap dash 97 page report as their kernel and proceeded to concoct every sort of meaning from it in their headlines. Every one, that is, except for making the world safe for liberty. Well, here goes.

Let's start with part I, subpart D: Achieving Our Goals:

We agree with the goal of U.S. policy in Iraq, as stated by the President: an Iraq that can “govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.” In our view, this definition entails an Iraq with a broadly representative government that maintains its territorial integrity, is at peace with its neighbors, denies terrorism a sanctuary, and doesn’t brutalize its own people. Given the current situation in Iraq, achieving this goal will require much time and will depend primarily on the actions of the Iraqi people.

It is critically important to understand that, with Saddam gone, Iraq matters little in the present war between civilization and archaic totalitarianism. Re-read the passage above and replace "Iraq" with "America." An America that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. [...] Given the current situation in America, achieving this goal will require much time and will depend primarily on the actions of the American people."

And where America represents civilization in this war, the seat of archaic totalitarianism today is... anyone? anyone? Bueller? That's right: Iran. Now re-read the passage above replacing "Iraq" with "Iran." In our view, this definition entails an Iran with a broadly representative government that maintains its territorial integrity, is at peace with its neighbors, denies terrorism a sanctuary, and doesn’t brutalize its own people.

Now, what actions of the American people can do anything to help Iraq "govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself?"

Posted by JohnGalt at 3:10 PM | Comments (5)
But jk thinks:

Speaking for myself, I was so happy that the report wasn't worse. I think it significantly undercuts the cut and run crowd and can be used more to the President’s favor than his detractors.

The idea of using Iran and Syria seems tedious but there is an interesting context. I don't know if you saw Brit Hume's panel discussion on this (you get kicked out of the VRWC if you don't watch 4x a week) but Secretary Baker believes that Syria might be incentivized to help us and the Sunnis. "Flip Syria" he said to Brit as they were packing up their cameras.

It's a long shot and I hate to think of the price but it is not necessarily "nuts."

Posted by: jk at December 7, 2006 7:33 PM
But AlexC thinks:

They want peace in the middle east. That's a bold vision.

How much did we pay for this, again?

Posted by: AlexC at December 7, 2006 11:54 PM
But johngalt thinks:

And now, my long awaited comment. With respect to diplomacy with Iran, or even Syria:

"Do steers sign treaties with meat packers?" -Robert A. Heinlein

I agree with John Murtha. It is time to redeploy coalition forces to "another region in the Middle East." TEHRAN

Posted by: johngalt at December 8, 2006 8:51 AM
But jk thinks:

I also resent the implication that ThreeSources was behind in commenting on the ISF. We hit the idea of Syria help on November 21.

Posted by: jk at December 8, 2006 11:51 AM
But johngalt thinks:

Credit duly noted. And that post also reminded us what we get whenever we employ "realpolitik" when killing people and breaking things is in order.

Posted by: johngalt at December 8, 2006 3:09 PM

November 21, 2006

Syrian Help

Gov. Dean, Senators Kerry and Levin and quite a large hunk of the WashDC Conventional Wisdom brigades are pretty hot on the idea of working with Iran and Syria to extricate ourselves from Iraq.

If our President were not so bellicose, we're told, we'd talk with Iraq's neighbors, certainly sign a piece of paper someday, and use diplomacy to end the violence.

At the risk of shading my sunny optimism, might I suggest that these folks might not share our ambitions for the region?

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Pierre Gemayel, an anti-Syrian politician and scion of Lebanon's most prominent Christian family, was gunned down Tuesday in a carefully orchestrated assassination that heightened tensions between the U.S.-backed government and the militant Hezbollah.

Anti-Syrian politicians quickly accused Damascus, as they have in previous assassinations of Lebanese opponents of its larger neighbor. Gemayel, 34, an outspoken opponent of the Syrian-allied Hezbollah, was the fifth anti-Syrian figure killed in the past two years and the first member of the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora to be slain.

The assassination, in Gemayel's mainly Christian constituency of Jdeideh, threatens further instability in Lebanon at a time when Hezbollah and other parties allied with Syria are planning street protests unless Saniora gives them more power.

The United States denounced the killing, calling it ''an act of terrorism.'' The U.N. Security Council said it ''unequivocally condemns'' the assassination as well as any attempt to destabilize Lebanon.


On an equally pessimistic note, I can find no fault with Christopher Hitchens's suggestion that Sec. Baker is the wrong choice to lead Iraq policy. Hitch starts with a warning about Lebanon that looks pretty prescient:
The summa of wisdom in these circles is the need for consultation with Iraq's immediate neighbors in Syria and Iran. Given that these two regimes have recently succeeded in destroying the other most hopeful democratic experiment in the region—the brief emergence of a self-determined Lebanon that was free of foreign occupation—and are busily engaged in promoting their own version of sectarian mayhem there, through the trusty medium of Hezbollah, it looks as if a distinctly unsentimental process is under way.

Worse, he reminds the country of some 15-yaear old history.
n 1991, for those who keep insisting on the importance of sending enough troops, there were half a million already-triumphant Allied soldiers on the scene. Iraq was stuffed with weapons of mass destruction, just waiting to be discovered by the inspectors of UNSCOM. The mass graves were fresh. The strength of sectarian militias was slight. The influence of Iran, still recovering from the devastating aggression of Saddam Hussein, was limited. Syria was—let's give Baker his due—"on side." The Iraqi Baathists were demoralized by the sheer speed and ignominy of their eviction from Kuwait and completely isolated even from their usual protectors in Moscow, Paris, and Beijing. There would never have been a better opportunity to "address the root cause" and to remove a dictator who was a permanent menace to his subjects, his neighbors, and the world beyond. Instead, he was shamefully confirmed in power and a miserable 12-year period of sanctions helped him to enrich himself and to create the immiserated, uneducated, unemployed underclass that is now one of the "root causes" of a new social breakdown in Iraq. It seems a bit much that the man principally responsible for all this should be so pleased with himself and that he should be hailed on all sides as the very model of the statesmanship we now need.

I don't fault President GHW Bush for not deposing Hussein. He clearly lacked a mandate. While it would have been a benefit to us today, I throw no fault for not rolling into Baghdad. Sitting still while Hussein massacred the Shia and Kurds right after the war, however, was a failure of catastrophic proportion, and Sec. Baker's hands are still dirty on that account.

Posted by jk at 5:47 PM

November 16, 2006

NYTimes: Don't Cut and Run.

The News Pages at the New York Times give favorable coverage to the generals urging against imposing a timetable.

Michael R. Gordon, in a bylined article titled "Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say" points out that even some retired generals who have been critical of Secretary Rumsfeld are not signing up for a timetable for troop withdrawal.

This is the case now being argued by many Democrats, most notably Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who asserts that the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq should begin within four to six months.

But this argument is being challenged by a number of military officers, experts and former generals, including some who have been among the most vehement critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.


Zinni goes on to say “Well, you can’t put pressure on a wounded guy. There is a premise that the Iraqis are not doing enough now, that there is a capability that they have not employed or used. I am not so sure they are capable of stopping sectarian violence.”

The article is thoughtful and well balanced, which made Josh @ EverydayEconomist wonder (he sent the link in an email) why they didn't provide this information before the election. I'd call that a fair question.

Even the Brooking Institution is not on the Murtha track:

Kenneth M. Pollack, an expert at the Brookings Institution who served on the staff of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, also argued that a push for troop reductions would backfire by contributing to the disorder in Iraq.

“If we start pulling out troops and the violence gets worse and the control of the militias increases and people become confirmed in their suspicion that the United States is not going to be there to prevent civil war, they are to going to start making decisions today to prepare for the eventuality of civil war tomorrow,” he said. “That is how civil wars start.”


UPDATE: Mickey Kaus asks the same question: "Now they tell us, Part XXVIII"

Posted by jk at 10:11 AM

October 26, 2006

Wiretap Dancing

The Washington Times editorial board picks up on Bob Casey's "direct answer" to the Philadelphia Inquirer on wiretapping.

    The one thing Sen. Rick Santorum's backers and critics agree upon: Everyone knows where he stands on the issues. Then there's Democratic challenger Bob Casey Jr., who was for warrantless surveillance of terrorists before he was against it. Or something like that.

Calling his evasive answer Kerryesque, they continue...
    Mr. Casey's position is not clear -- not at all.

    We call on Mr. Casey to tell voters what he really thinks about surveillance. At present he is tiptoeing around the subject because commonsensical Pennsylvania voters want one answer while his liberal campaign funders at Moveon.org insist upon another. Whatever Mr. Casey says is bound to antagonize somebody. The fact that he can't answer at all should give everybody pause. If he can't make a hard decision like that now, imagine what kind of senator he would make.


We can call on Mr Casey to answer the tough questions, but he won't. In fact, the Santorum campaign and the blogosphere has been doing that on any number of issues. Even in the primaries, the left blogosphere was doing the same thing.

He has two weeks to keep his mouth shut. What makes anyone think he'd do otherwise? He managed to say very little during four debates. Being a stealth candidate is all about waiting the other guy out.

He's not going to start now (and definately blow it).

Posted by AlexC at 12:11 PM | Comments (3)
But mdmhvonpa thinks:

You know, I have not heard a peep out of Specter. You would think that the RINO would make a nice gesture towards Santorum after all the support he got .... but then again ...

Posted by: mdmhvonpa at October 26, 2006 3:56 PM
But AlexC thinks:

I happened to drop by Santorum HQ today to pickup some signs. There was a mailer being assembled with Specter on it.

But Specter support is a mixed blessing.

1) Santorum's conservative base hates him. Especially the Santorum choosing Specter over Toomey.

2) Specter is popular with moderates, independants and some Democrats. See number 1.

Posted by: AlexC at October 26, 2006 4:00 PM
But TrekMedic251 thinks:

While a Specter endorsement wouldn't send REAL Republicans over to Casey's side, his endorsment, plus $2.60 gets me two SEPTA tokens, OK?

Posted by: TrekMedic251 at October 26, 2006 10:47 PM

September 28, 2006

Looking Through Western Eyes

If you read one thing today, make it Fouad Ajami's Featured Article on OpinionJournal.com.

Ajami stresses that we must look at Western and coalition actions as they are seen by the residents in the MidEast. Read the whole thing, but here's a taste:

But this brutal drawn-out struggle between American power and the furies of the Arab-Islamic world was never a Western war. Our enemies were full of cunning and expert at dissimulation, hunkering down when needed. No one in the coffeehouses of the Arab world (let alone in the safe houses of the terrorists) would be led astray by that distinction between "secular" and "religious" movements emphasized by the Senate Intelligence Committee. They live in a world where the enemies of order move with remarkable ease from outward religious piety to the most secular of appearances. It is no mystery to them that Saddam, once the most secular of despots, fell back on religious symbols after the first Gulf War, added Allahu Akbar (God is great) to Iraq's flag, and launched a mosque-building campaign whose remnants--half-finished mosques all over Baghdad--now stand mute.

Posted by jk at 4:22 PM

September 15, 2006

The History of Appeasement

John Hawkins writes about one of Dr Seuss' gigs.

Political cartoonist.

    The funny thing about cartoons like this one is that if you change the foe from the Nazis to the terrorists and their backers, these cartoons are every bit as applicable to the Democrats today as they were to the isolationists back then:

    I will say one thing in defense of the isolationists like Charles Lindbergh: after Pearl Harbor, almost all of them changed their minds. In my book, that puts them ahead of the liberals today who still aren't serious about fighting terrorism even after 9/11.

Round after round after round after round of round of "diplomacy" with some of these guys gets you where exactly?

Just look at Iran. They've bought themselves time. Time and again more time. There isn't going to be a lollypop or carrot tasty enough one day.

NewsMax adds...

    The United States and its European partners "should end phony negotiations" with Iran over its nuclear program, an influential U.S. senator up for re-election this November said Thursday.

    Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who has been trailing his Democratic challenger, Bob Casey, in opinion polls until recently, said the United States should "increase sanctions" on Iran and "fund, promote and support the pro-democracy movement, both inside and outside Iran."

    Speaking with Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Reza Pahlavi, son of the former shah of Iran, Santorum called for "free and fair elections" in Iran, and blasted the Iranian regime for "continued action against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

There's actually a whole collection of Dr Seuss' work at this site.

Imagine if someone drew one like this for Abu-Ghraib or Gitmo?

Posted by AlexC at 12:44 AM | Comments (3)
But jk thinks:

Awesome post! My mom had a book of his cartoons "for grownups" that I liked. Many were anti-tax (a guy tying his shoes with a long moustache to avoid taxes on laces).

Looking at his portrayals of Hitler and Tito, I wondered what he might have done with the Prophet Mohammed?

Posted by: jk at September 15, 2006 11:26 AM
But TrekMedic251 thinks:

I agree! Awesome post and new materials sources!

Imagine Dr. Seuss in Muslim countries: Green Eggs and Ham! HAM??? Ahhh! You insult Allah! Death to Seuss! Death to America!!

Posted by: TrekMedic251 at September 16, 2006 11:43 AM
But AlexC thinks:

LMAO!

Posted by: AlexC at September 16, 2006 6:39 PM

September 12, 2006

The Liberals' War

As I can only provide a paid link, I am going to excerpt heavily. Bret Stephens has an excellent column in the WSJ today. Eloquently saying what I've heard Chrostopher Hitchens explain. The real beneficiaries of a war against Islamofascism are liberals

This may be reading too much into Ms. [Rachel] Newman's essay. Yet after 9/11 at least a few old-time voices on the left -- Christopher Hitchens, Bruce Bawer, Paul Berman and Ron Rosenbaum, among others -- understood that what Islamism most threatened wasn't just America generally, but precisely the values that modern liberalism had done so much to promote and protect for the past 40 years: civil rights, gay rights, feminism, privacy rights, reproductive choice, sexual freedom, the right to worship as one chooses, the right not to worship at all. And so they bid an unsentimental good-bye to their one-time comrades and institutions: the peace movement, the pages of the Nation and the New York Review of Books, "the deluded and pathetic sophistry of postmodernists of the left, who believe their unreadable, jargon-clotted theory somehow helps liberate the wretched of the earth," as Mr. Rosenbaum wrote in the New York Observer in 2002.

Five years on, however, Messrs. Hitchens, Bawer et al. seem less like trendsetters and more like oddball dissenters from a left-liberal orthodoxy that finds less and less to like about the very idea of a war on Islamic extremism, never mind the war in Iraq. In the September issue of the Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows, formerly Jimmy Carter's speechwriter, argues that the smart thing for the U.S. to do is declare victory and give the conflict a rest: "A state of war with no clear end point," he writes, "makes it more likely for a country to overreact in ways that hurt itself." Further to the left, a panoply of "peace" groups is all but in league with Islamists. Consider, for instance, QUIT! -- Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism -- a group that, in its hatred for Israel, curiously fails to notice that Tel Aviv is the only city in the Middle East that annually hosts a gay-pride parade.

An instinct for pacifism surely goes some way toward explaining the left's curious unwillingness to sign up for a war to defend its core values. A suspicion of black-and-white moral distinctions of the kind President Bush is fond of making about terrorism -- a suspicion that easily slides into moral relativism -- is another.

But there are deeper factors at work. One is appeasement: "Many Europeans feel that a confrontation with Islamism will give the Islamists more opportunities to recruit -- that confronting evil is counterproductive," says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born, former Dutch parliamentarian whose outspoken opposition to Islamism (and to Islam itself) forced her repeatedly into hiding and now into exile in the United States. "They think that by appeasing them -- allowing them their own ghettoes, their own Muslim schools -- they will win their friendship."

Posted by jk at 12:49 PM

September 10, 2006

Abu-Graib BACK to Iraqi Control

... and wouldn't you know, they want the Americans back in charge.

    Access to the part of the prison containing terrorism suspects was denied, but from that block came the sound of screaming. The screaming continued for a long time.

    "I am sure someone was being beaten, they were screaming like they were being hit," the witness reported. "I felt scared, I was asking what was happening in the terrorist section.

    "I heard shouting, like someone had a hot iron on their body, screams. The officer said they were just screaming by themselves. I was hearing the screams throughout the visit."

    The witness said that even in the thieves' section prisoners were being treated badly. "Someone was shouting 'Please help us, we want the human rights officers, we want the Americans to come back'," he said.


Reminds me of Gitmo. The prisoners wanted to stay instead of being sent back to their country of origin.

Posted by AlexC at 5:34 PM

September 7, 2006

Profiling and Economics

Josh at The Everyday Economist makes an economic case against profiling. While many call for more scrutiny of, say, young Arab males in the wake of the London thwarting, Josh is not sold.

The dismal science teaches us that individuals respond to incentives. For example, the government allows individuals to deduct mortgage interest from their taxes. This occurs because the government wants to encourage home ownership. Thus they provide an incentive for individuals to take out loans to purchase a house.

Profiling is no different. It provides terrorists with an incentive to change their behavior.

Screening every Arab male that attempts to board a plane will eliminate the aforementioned correlation, but not the endeavor. In other words, a policy of profiling on the basis of race, religion, and sex gives the terrorists a strong incentive to recruit and train individuals that do not fit the profiled description.

Those who argue that the terrorist organizations would not be able to do so have obviously forgotten John Walker Lindh, who certainly did not fit the profile of a Taliban member. Similarly, is there any reason to believe that females are incapable of carrying out attacks? Tell that to the Israelis.


A commenter on the site makes my point that it will at least make it more difficult. Now that "Underperformin'" Norman Mineta is leaving his DOT post, I was hoping that profiling would be added to the toolbox. Josh is correct that it would be dangerous to over-rely on profiling, but I think it is equally foolish to pretend that all those guys on the news the past few years did not have some common physical features.

Posted by jk at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)
But johngalt thinks:

And the number of white westerners who've turned Taliban can be counted on one hand, with three fingers tied behind your back. And of those two, neither has committed a suicide attack.

I was actually thinking about this as I drove down the street today, doing some "people watching" and considering the clues to geographic and ethnic origin that can be deduced from a person's appearance. While it's true that all "middle-eastern males aged 18-40" are not terrorists, there's a phenomenal correlation between that group and the smaller group that is willing to kill themselves if they can kill others in the process.

To say that obvious evidence for suspicion must ALWAYS be ignored is a rather simplistic and dogmatic attitude, isn't it?

Posted by: johngalt at September 7, 2006 3:38 PM

September 4, 2006

Another One Bites the Dust!

"And another one's gone, and another one's gone. Doop doop doop da doop!"
Al-Suaidi mug shot.jpg

From Australia's Herald Sun:

US and Iraqi forces have arrested the second most senior figure of al-Qaida in Iraq and killed 20 fellow militants.

{...}

"Hamid al-Suaidi led a group that kidnapped people. He ordered bombings and mortar attacks that killed a number of our armed forces and our citizens. Al-Qaida in Iraq is severely wounded," Rubaie [Iraq's national security advisor] said.

"After his arrest he gave critical and important information and we ended up killing 11 militants of the second tier of leaders and nine of the lower tier," Rubaie said of Suaidi.

I had to scroll through the "all 825 news articles" Google link to find one from Australia in order to avoid liberal media bias in the report. For example, the ITV [Britain] version that I took the photo from waited until the fifth of seven paragraphs before mentioning the captured man's name, and even then did it thusly:

Hours after an "embarrassed" US military again postponed a ceremony to hand command of Iraqi troops to the government, the national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie summoned reporters to a news conference to announce that Hamid Juma Faris al-Suaidi had been seized some days ago.

So after starting the story with, "Security officials [no mention of whose] claim [as it's apparently in dispute] to have arrested the second-in-command of the terror [what, no scare quotes?] group al-Qaeda in Iraq," they morphed this news item into a slanted report on the so-called occupation of Iraq by the US military. In the process they inplicity question Washington's sincerity to "let Americans go home."

If you still wonder why the majority public opinion is that things are going "badly" in Iraq, here's your answer.

Posted by JohnGalt at 10:15 AM | Comments (3)
But jk thinks:

Al-Qaida in Iraq?

Posted by: jk at September 4, 2006 10:48 AM
But TrekMedic251 thinks:

Is it me,..or does that green thingy under his chin look like the bottom of a gallows??

Posted by: TrekMedic251 at September 5, 2006 12:59 PM
But jk thinks:

What is that? I've seen that picture a hundred times and never quite got it.

The New Republic today says that this guy wasn't important and that the London explosive guys weren't really dangerous. Even our wins are losses.

Posted by: jk at September 5, 2006 1:14 PM

August 20, 2006

Free Market Airline Security

UK's Daily Mail

    The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

    Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

    The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people [what kind of "people"? -AlexC] allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.

    It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.


Here's a crazy idea. TSA and airport security do their job (ie not-profiling), and encourage the passengers do the final round of security. Like this flight.

These two passengers raised enough concern (right or wrong) that the other passengers held the plane up. The passengers (and the crew, natch) have their own safety intimately in mind. Let them make the call.

The logistics of it might be tricky. (Does each seat have a "protest a passenger" button?)

Thoughts?

Posted by AlexC at 4:09 PM | Comments (3)
But jk thinks:

It's free market, but it is not really grounded in rule-of-law. It appears that these folks were guilty only of looking Asian, speaking Arabic, and wearing Jumpers on a hot day.

I've no problem with further empowering of the security crew. (Here's a blogger scoop, how many pilots are armed now? What institutions are holding them up?) But this is a little too unstructured for my tastes.

Posted by: jk at August 20, 2006 7:53 PM
But AlexC thinks:

The "Survivor(tm)-method" of passenger screening would be at the discretion of the airline.

If you're shopping for safe (non hijacked/terrorized) flights, and you know that one airline allows passengers to vote other passengers off "for whatever reason", and you're looking to fly safe, that's a good reason to fly those "friendly" skies.

On the flip side, if you're looking to cause trouble, you might steer clear of that airline.

It'd be safer, wouldn't it? Army of Davids theory, perhaps.

Posted by: AlexC at August 20, 2006 8:59 PM
But johngalt thinks:

Airlines slowly, gradually, grudgingly, but ultimately universally, banned smoking on aircraft. Banning middle-eastern males aged 18-40 from aircraft would increase market share for every airline with the balls to do it.

Posted by: johngalt at August 21, 2006 3:29 PM

August 11, 2006

Surveillance

More details on as mentioned yesterday...

    The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs.

    And almost on political cue yesterday, Members of the Congressional Democratic leadership were using the occasion to suggest that the U.S. is actually more vulnerable today despite this antiterror success. Harry Reid, who's bidding to run the Senate as Majority Leader, saw it as one more opportunity to insist that "the Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists."


Sad, but true.

(tip to the professor)

Posted by AlexC at 9:31 AM | Comments (1)
But jk thinks:

I usually don't use "magnanimity" and "Sen. Ried" in the same sentence, but has he none? I am stunned by the lack of appreciation for Scotland Yard.

Dan Henninger pointed out the bad timing of declaring yourself as the anti-war party on Tuesday, and this on Thursday, but why couldn't Ried have thanked those foiled the plot and said "this shows the importance of international alliances that are being squandered by this..." or some equally vacuous Riedspeak.

I hope everybody reads the whole editorial, regardless of party affiliation. It is damning to the Democratic party but they deserve it.

Posted by: jk at August 11, 2006 12:14 PM

August 10, 2006

Terrorists Foiled

The NYTimes Europe reports

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — American intelligence officials said today that they and their British counterparts had been tracking terrorists for months before the schemers were rounded up in Britain, and that they could not say positively that all the plotters had yet been caught.

Am I the only one around here who is worried that some of their civil rights may have been violated in this surveillance? Why didn't the New York Times alert these poor people in time?

Posted by jk at 5:51 PM | Comments (1)
But AlexC thinks:

I too, have concern for the terrorists. I mean, did we intercept their phone calls? Library withdrawls?

Posted by: AlexC at August 10, 2006 10:56 PM

August 4, 2006

Prosecute Nasrallah

I have called America's European Allies and some domestic Democrats "unserious." You may accuse me of name calling, think I don't go far enough, whatever.

An article in TCS today supports my case.

Authors J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss wonder when the human rights organizations will hold up MidEastern war criminals to the scrutiny applied to, say, Don Rumsfeld (my example, not theirs).

Accordingly, groups like Human Rights Watch, which issues press releases accusing Israel of war crimes following the death of civilians in Qana, mentions Hezbollah's offenses (which of course include using the Qana residents as unwilling pawns) only as an afterthought. In so doing they knowingly sacrifice consistency and integrity for "relevance" (ephemeral publicity) and "solidarity" (political correctness).

What happens when we apply the standards of the recent jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah? Our conclusion is that he could easily be indicted under at least nine broad indictments -- with potentially thousands of individual counts -- of crimes against humanity, violations of "common Article 3" (of the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II), and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. Herewith, then, our indictment of Mr. Nasrallah:


The article then lists eight infractions which are war crimes, violations of the Geneva Convention, or crimes against humanity. Nasrallah is clearly guilty of every one.
In short, the case for prosecuting Hassan Nasrallah as an international criminal is open-and-shut. However, we are not holding our breath for the usual international justice advocates and NGOs to protest audibly -- or even to be vexed -- when the eventual United Nations-mandated "resolution" does not include any provision for proceedings against Nasrallah. Those who hope for an accounting may have to rely on a more elemental -- though no less righteous -- justice, such as the targeting mechanism of an Israeli missile system.

It is unserious of Israel's critics to ignore this. Yet they will.

Posted by jk at 3:11 PM

July 31, 2006

More GITMO Abuse

Sickening.

    The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during th