Don Singleton

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Two 'Bridges to Nowhere'

NYT reported Congressional Republicans decided Wednesday to take a legislative wrecking ball to two Alaskan bridge projects that had demolished the party's reputation for fiscal austerity.

It is good that they removed the earmarks for these two projects. But Alaska will still get the money, to spend any way they want. They should remove all of the earmarks for the other projects, and return the funds to the treasury.

Straining to show new dedication to lower spending, House and Senate negotiators took the rare step of eliminating a requirement that $442 million be spent to build the two bridges, spans that became cemented in the national consciousness as "bridges to nowhere" because of the remote territory and small populations involved. The change will not save the federal government any money. Instead, the $442 million will be turned over to the state with no strings attached, allowing lawmakers and the governor there to parcel it out for transportation projects as they see fit, including the bridges should they so choose. Lawmakers said widespread news coverage had turned the bridges, near Ketchikan and Anchorage, into symbols of Congressional excess. Some members of Congress said they got more questions at town meetings about the bridges than about the new Medicare drug program. A Republican pollster warned that the projects were a political albatross.

They still have the albatross around their necks; just the albatross dead.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Terrorism: The Root Causes

David Meir-Levi wrote in FrontPage magazine Many of our contemporary intellectual and political leaders are continually in anguish trying to figure out what the U.S. has done to make so much of the Arab/Moslem world hate us. They desperately search for the ways they believe the U.S. is responsible for triggering terrorism against itself. The terrorists and their supporters, meanwhile, knowing that the West perpetually looks for reasons to blame itself, provide the world with many compelling – but false – reasonns why the West should be blamed in the terror war. If we accept these faux explanations uncritically, we shift our focus in the war against global terrorism and the terrorists will have a much easier time defeating us.

In order for us to be able to fight – and win – this terror war effectively, we must discredit the false explanations of why Islamists wage war on our free societies. It is a priority, therefore, that we highlight how the enemies of Western freedom are not telling the truth. And we can do that by dealing with the following issues concretely:

The State Department defines the enemy for us. Its website lists those defined as terrorist groups and terrorist leaders worldwide. Almost all of them are Moslem. Almost all of these Moslems are Arabs. Many non-Arab Moslem groups have carried out terror attacks in conjunction with Arab Moslem groups, or with Arab Moslem leaders. The recent Beslan carnage is an example of a non-Arab Moslem group with Arab (Saudi, to be more specific) leaders.

In his ground-breaking book The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington lists scores of conflicts caused by Moslems: Bosnia, Kosovo, Turks vs. Greeks, Turks vs. Armenians, Chechens vs. Russia, Ingush vs. Ossetians, Bangladeshi Moslems vs. Buddhists, Myanmar Moslems vs. Buddhists, Indonesian and Malaysian Moslems vs. ethnic Chinese, Thai Moslems vs. their Buddhist government, Moslem East Timor government represses Catholic Indonesians, Chad and Kenya, and Tanzanian Moslems attack Christian groups in Nigeria.

Based on this you would think that the Moslem religion is a religion of violence. There certainly are violence sections in the Koran, just as there are in the Bible (particularly the Old Testament), but that is just because both are history books, and there was violence in the past. But the Islamofascists causing all of the problems just focus on the violence sections, and treat those references as instructions to do likewise.

In addition, many current conflicts have been initiated and maintained by Moslem forces: Afghanistani Taliban and al-Qaeda, Mauritanian slavery, Sudanese slavery, Sudan's 19-year civil war, Ivory Coast's recent revolt, Nigeria's 10-year war, Algeria's 10-year war, Ethiopia vs. Eritrea, Iraqis vs. Kurds, 8 years of the Iran-Iraq War, then Kuwait, Lebanon’s 27-year occupation by Syria, Lebanon’s 12-year occupation by the PLO, The PLO's war against Jordan (1967-70), Pakistan vs. India in Kashmir, Indonesia (with Bali the latest manifestation), Arabs vs. Jews in Israel, jihad in Philippines, Islamists in Daghestan, Uighur in China, Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, Ditto in Pakistan, Thailand's Moslem insurrection, Chechnya and Arab/Moslem involvement in Beslan, Syrian training grounds for terrorists of all creeds, colors, Iraq "insurgency" (Syrian, Iranian and Saudi terrorists), and al-Qaeda in Somalia.....

There is a lot more to this article, including a list of possible "reasons" why they hate us, with each being specifically debunked. Also check out Dr Sanity's take on this article: The root cause of terrorism is very simple. It is the interaction of a backward and aggressively misogynistic Arab culture with a rigidly medieval religion, within which its most sadistic aspects not only thrive, but are enshrined as religious doctrine.

Air America resorts to spamming

Danny Carlton blogged Received via email...

Dear Friend of Air America:

There's is no way in the world anyone could have ever mistaken me for a “friend of Air America”. The email was to my yahoo address, which spammer frequently sent crap to by simply guessing common names.
I'm thankful for you.
Heh, heh, heh, boy are they in for a big surprise.
With your help, voters across America have sent a powerful message to the Bush Administration and their right-wing cronies.
Right-wing cronies...hey, that would be me, wouldn't it?
The party's over.
Well, apparently someone's been hitting the bottle.
Last Tuesday's sweeping victories for Democrats and progressives pulled back the curtain from the much-vaunted Bush-Cheney-Rove political machine, revealing what Air America listeners have known all along: there's nobody there. After five years of lies, fear-mongering and electoral manipulation, voters from New Jersey to Virginia said, "Enough."
Sweeping? In Virginia the Democrat candidate for governor won by 52%. But the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General won. In New Jersey the democrat candidate for governor won by just 53%. How in the world is that “sweeping”?!? You can more accurately say that 48% of the voters in Virginia and 47% in New Jersey voted against the Democrat. To imply that either election was about national politics is quite an illogical leap.
Governor-elect Jon Corzine summed it up succinctly in his acceptance speech: "I want to thank the people of New Jersey for rejecting the Bush-Rove tactics that we see in politics."
LOL, those Libs like their strawmen, don't they.
And it was more than just the victories in New Jersey and Virginia that sent shockwaves through the Republican establishment. The right-wing agenda took a major hit from voters across the nation last week:

· In St. Paul, Minnesota the incumbent Democratic mayor, who last year endorsed George W. Bush for a second term, was trounced in his own reelection bid by a Democrat who made that endorsement the centerpiece of his campaign.
He was “trounced” in the primary, because he is a Democrat. St. Paul, MN, voted 3-1 for John Kerry in the last Presidential election, so it could hardly be said that this is an example of what Americans at large are thinking.
· In Maine, an effort to repeal a law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination was defeated
Yeah, and a last minute media blitz by homosexual activists with deep pockets had no effect at all on that, did it.
· In Dover, Pennsylvania, all eight of the local school board members who supported the teaching of "intelligent design" were voted out.
They lost their seats because voters didn't want to pay the massive legal fees to defend the schools against litigation giants like the ACLU. In Dover, ignorance won because the ignorant had more money. Not something to brag about.
But now is not the time to sit back and rest on our victories. Our fight to restore progressive values in America still has a long way to go.

With your support, Air America Radio will remain at the forefront of that fight. There are three ways that you can help right now:

1) Join the Air America community by strongly supporting the AAR Associates campaign by clicking here: https://secure.airamericaradio.com.
If you're winning, then why can't your network get enough of an audience to pay its bills without begging or stealing money from poor children?
2) If you're listening to Air America Radio on your local station, thank them for carrying your favorite AAR programs.
Yeah, both of you.
3) If you don't yet have an Air America Radio affiliate in your area, let us know today.
LOL, what a deluge of calls that would be.
The biggest obstacle progressives face isn't even the Bush Administration or a Republican-controlled Congress.
No, it would be your own massive stupidity, obtuseness, bigotry and condescension.
Our greatest challenge continues to be the stranglehold of the right-wing propaganda machine over our nation's media
ROTFL. That's a good one.
Thirty percent of Americans now say that their primary source of news is talk radio.
Because most of the rest is nothing but Liberal propaganda.

And a lot of the rest get their news analysis from the Blogosphere

And fully ninety percent of talk radio is dominated by the leading propagandists of the Right: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage and their factually-challenged ilk.

Right Wing Talk Radio is powerful because the MSM is so left wing, and that is why Air America is finding it hard to get listeners, because they hear the same thing the MSM spews out.

Yet they thrive in a free market, where the only limitation is who people actually want to listen to. And as for the “factually-challenged” bit, these Libs have yet to come up with any real evidence of that, that isn't minuscule compared to their own lies.
With your strong support, Air America Radio has defied the so-called "experts" who said that progressive talk radio would never succeed.
Oh, this is rich. It' s hanging on by donations, and that's a success?!?
In less than twenty months, Air America Radio has grown to include more than 70 stations, reaching over 60% of the country.
And gets constant free advertising in the NYT as well as other liberal papers and media sources. Even then 70 stations is pretty paltry considering that there are well over 1,000 talk radio stations in the US.
More than ever, we must continue that growth. With the 2006 mid-term elections less than a year away, we need Air America Radio to remain a powerful voice for progressive values in the public square.
In warms the cockles of my heart to think that the “powerful voice for progressive values” is such a whiny, little radio network that after all this time can't even turn a profit. The voice of Liberalism is a screaming gnat.
Become a part of the Air America community by joining the AAR Associates campaign today at https://secure.airamericaradio.com.
Uh...no thanks.
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, there are strong signs that the right-wing's domination of talk radio is finally coming to an end. And that's something for which we can all be thankful.
Sincerely,
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Well, Robert, I think you've been in the Kool-Aid line, way, way too long.

Deal averts Internet showdown

CNN reported A summit focusing on narrowing the digital divide between the rich and poor residents and countries opened Wednesday with an agreement of sorts on who will maintain ultimate oversight of the Internet and the flow of information, commerce and dissent.... Negotiators from more than 100 countries agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge of the Internet's addressing system, averting a U.S.-EU showdown at this week's U.N. technology summit.

This is very good news. The incompetent UN would have screwed up the internet beyond recovery.

U.S. officials said early Wednesday that instead of transferring management of the system to an international body such as the United Nations, an international forum would be created to address concerns. The forum, however, would have no binding authority.... The accord reached late Tuesday also called for the establishment of a new international group to give more countries a stronger say in how the Internet works, including the issue of making domain names -- currently done in the Latin languages -- into other languages, such as Chinese, Urdu and Arabic.

That is reasonable, but it needs to be checked carefully to make certain that domain names in those other languages are consistent with existing design specs.

Under the terms of the compromise, the new group, the Internet Governance Forum, would start operating next year with its first meeting opened by Annan. Beyond bringing its stakeholders to the table to discuss the issues affecting the Internet, and its use, it won't have ultimate authority. Gallagher said the compromise's ultimate decision is that leadership of the Internet, and its future direction, will remain in the hands of the private sector, although some critics contend that the U.S. government, which oversees ICANN, if only nominally, could still flex its muscle in future decisions. "The rural digital divide is isolating almost 1 billion of the poorest people who are unable to participate in the global information society," the agency said in a statement.

The rural digital divide is caused by political and economic problems in some countries, not with who controls the root servers for the internet.

Claudia Rosett wrote in Opinion Journal Why dictators are cheering the U.N. Internet turf grab.... The United Nations' so-called World Summit on the Information Society opens today in Tunis, Tunisia, proposing to set up U.N. sway over the Internet under the slogan of bridging the "digital divide." But that's the wrong metaphor. This three-day jamboree is a U.N. turf grab: the latest case of the U.N. misinterpreting its noble mandate to promote peace as a license to take a piece of anything it can get.

The corrupt UN wants a piece of the pie, and authoritarian and totalitarian countries want to be able control the flow of information into (and out of) its countries.

For anyone who cares about the vast freedoms and opportunities afforded by the Internet--for pajama-clad bloggers, for journalists, for businessmen and especially for people in the poorest countries--it is time for a call to arms. Sen. Norm Coleman, whose investigations into U.N. corruption have provided him with more insight than most into the cracks and chasms of that aging institution, has already warned in The Wall Street Journal against the possibility of Tunis becoming a "digital Munich." Whether America retains control over the root directory or some other setup ultimately evolves, the clear bottom line right now is that allowing the U.N. to involve itself in these questions is the wrong answer. A U.N. unable even to audit its own accounts or police its own peacekeepers has no business making even a twitch toward control of the Internet.

Worse, the corruption and incompetence at U.N. headquarters, however disturbing, are the least of the problems linked to the U.N.'s bid to control interconnectivity. The deeper trouble is that the U.N. has embraced the same tyrants who in the name of helping the downtrodden are now seeking via Internet control to tread them down some more.... Mr. Annan concluded with what I suppose was meant to be a clarion call: "I urge all stakeholders to come to Tunis ready to bridge the digital divide," etc., etc.

What Mr. Annan evidently does not care to understand, and after his zillion-year career at the U.N. probably never will, is that for purposes of helping the poor, the problem is not a digital divide. It is not the bytes, gigs, blogs and digital wing-dings that define that terrible line between the haves and the have-nots. These are symptoms of the real difference, which we would do better to call the dictatorial divide.

In free societies, all sorts of good things flourish, including technology and highly productive uses of the Internet. In despotic systems, human potential withers and dies, strangled by censorship, starved by central controls, and rotted by the corruption that inevitably accompanies such arrangements. That poisonous mix is what prevents the spread of prosperity in Africa, and blocks peace in the Middle East, and access to computers, or for that matter, food, in North Korea (which is of course sending a delegate to Tunis).

But never mind the realities, as long as Mr. Annan and his entourage see an opportunity for more U.N. turf, job patronage, global clout and funding (including the prospect of a "ka-ching" for the U.N. cash register every time someone logs on). Leading the charge, with policy documents posted on the U.N. information summit site, are such terrorist-breeding blogger-jailing regimes as those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and such millennial pioneers of backward motion on free speech as Belarus and Russia. China's rulers, who have recently been availing themselves of modern technology to censor the Chinese word for "democracy" out of Internet traffic, and to track down and punish its users, have been toiling away to add their two cents to this summit. Sudan, better known for genocide than free speech, has registered to set up a pavilion. Were Saddam Hussein still in power in Iraq, as Mr. Annan tried to arrange, the odds are good that a front company for his regime, with U.N. blessing, would be setting up a booth in Tunis as well.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Pajama-Clad Revolutionaries

Andrew Leigh wrote in NRO A year ago, Jonathan Klein, current president of CNN, airily dismissed the bloggers who dethroned Dan Rather. "These bloggers have no checks and balances... You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [at 60 Minutes] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

60 minutes with its multiple layers of checks and balances was wrong; the bloggers in their pajamas were right.

Of course, it wasn't so long ago (25 years, to be exact) that CNN was the new media outlet on the block. And the neighborhood kids turned their noses up at Ted Turner's brainchild. Broadcast newshound Sam Donaldson derided CNN as the "Chicken Noodle Network." Time, you see, not only heals all wounds.

It wounds all heals.

It heels all mavericks, making top dogs out of underdogs. The underdogs of our time, journalistically speaking, are bloggers. And the online unraveling of Rathergate was their first unmitigated triumph.

One of the bloggers who led the charge against Rather is Charles Johnson, proprietor of the curiously named Little Green Footballs. Shortly after this triumph, Johnson joined forces with another popular blogger, Roger L. Simon, to form (thumbing their noses at Klein and all other doubters) Pajamas Media.

I am proud to say that I am a member of Pajamas Media

Aside from blogging, Simon is a screenwriter and novelist, Johnson a session musician and computer-software entrepreneur. The business partners have spent the past several months lining up bloggers and investors to participate in their new venture. "Our intention is to create an aggregation of good blogs, quality-wise, to provide an alternative to the mainstream media," Simon tells NRO.

Next-Day Pill

NYT reports Top federal drug officials decided to reject an application to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill months before a government scientific review of the application was completed, according to accounts given to Congressional investigators.

That sounds like a reasonable way to do it. Premature sale of a drug that might cause deaths would just open the Drug Companies for additional litigation.

The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, concluded in a report released Monday that the Food and Drug Administration's May 2004 rejection of the morning-after pill, or emergency contraceptive, application was unusual in several respects. Top agency officials were deeply involved in the decision, which was "very, very rare," a top F.D.A. review official told investigators. The officials' decision to ignore the recommendation of an independent advisory committee as well as the agency's own scientific review staff was unprecedented, the report found. And a top official's "novel" rationale for rejecting the application contradicted past agency practices, it concluded.

Drug approval should not be made for political reasons, either because of pressure from Pro Choice or Pro Life organizations. Until the scientific study is completed, the boys should keep their pants up, and the girls should keep their skirts down.

The pill, called Plan B, is a flashpoint in the debate over abortion, in part because some abortion opponents consider the pill tantamount to ending a pregnancy. In scientific reviews, the F.D.A. has concluded that it is a contraceptive. The report suggested that it quickly became apparent that the agency was not going to follow its usual path when it came to the pill. "For example," it said, "F.D.A. review staff told us that they were told early in the review process that the decision would be made by high-level management."

That is wrong.

Another Set of Scare Tactics

E. J. Dionne Jr. wrote in WaPo Mr. President, it won't work this time.

You must be afraid it will, or you would not have written this piece.

With a Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll finding 57 percent of Americans agreeing that George W. Bush "deliberately misled people to make the case for war with Iraq," the president clearly needs to tend to his credibility problems.

That 57% is because the MSM has been helping the Dems spread that lie.

But his partisan attacks on the administration's critics, in a Veterans Day speech last week and in Alaska yesterday, will only add to his troubles. Bush was not subtle. He said that anyone accusing his administration of having "manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people" was giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

He is right. But the NYT and WaPo provide aid and comfprt to our enemy all the time.

"These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will," Bush declared last week. "As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them." You wonder: Did Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, send the wrong signal to our troops and our enemy by daring to seek the indictment of Scooter Libby on a charge of perjury and obstruction of justice? Must Americans who support our troops desist from any criticism of the use of intelligence by the administration?

Fitzgerald made it clear that his indictment had nothing to do with the war in Iraq.

here is a great missing element in the argument over whether the administration manipulated the facts.

Because it is a foolish discussion. Dems dont want to talk about it because they supported it; they just want to destroy Bush with fake charges about fooling them into doing something their left wing did not like, and Republicans want to focus on getting the job done right.

Neither side wants to talk about the context in which Bush won a blank check from Congress to invade Iraq. He doesn't want us to remember that he injected the war debate into the 2002 midterm election campaign for partisan purposes, and he doesn't want to acknowledge that he used the post-Sept. 11 mood to do all he could to intimidate Democrats from raising questions more of them should have raised.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Terror For Export

Newsweek reported Afghanistan used to be the place to go for terrorist training, funding and real-world experience in battle. Not anymore. Iraq has become, in President George W. Bush's words, "the central front" in the war on terror. And compared with distant Afghanistan, Iraq has more fighting, more people, more money and a far better strategic position in the heart of the Middle East. If Afghanistan under the Taliban was a backwoods school for terrorism, Iraq is an urban university. "Bin Laden and Zawahiri remain in the leadership's safe haven in Afghanistan," says a senior Taliban official who uses the nom de guerre Abu Zabihullah. "But Iraq is where the fierce encounters take place, where we recruit and dispatch fighters and where jihad's spirit thrives."

But fortunately it is a place where we have over 100,000 forces to do battle with the jihadists, so that our military is confronting the Islamoterrists in Baghdad and Basrah rahter than Broken Arrow, Boston, or Beumont; in Mosul rather than Muskogee, Memphis, or Mesquite; in Karkuk and Karbala rather than Ketchum, Kansas City, or Kilgore; in Tall Afar and Tikrit rather than Tahlequah, Texas City, or Texarkana. And the idiots that are pushing to see our forces withdrawn must want us to fight them on our own country. Is not the loss of 3,000 people and two tall buildings on 9/11 enough for them to understand it is better to fight them over there than over here?

The suicide bombers Zarqawi sent to slaughter hotel guests and wedding parties in Amman on Nov. 9 (a date that in Jordan would be written "9/11") were all Iraqis, according to a Web site used for Qaeda pronouncements. But Zarqawi is also suspected by European officials of running or inspiring cells in Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands, as well as an underground railroad for terrorists between Iraq and Italy. American intelligence officials believe his network is trying to recruit in the United States.

I hope they are smart enough to get some people inside the cells.

U.S. officials are also increasingly worried that a global underground of financiers that once served Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is now aiding the Iraqi insurgency. Treasury officials have specifically designated a Libyan in Dublin, Islamic journalist Ibrahim Buisir, as a terrorist financier. "Especially given the merger between Al Qaeda and Zarqawi's group," a U.S. official says on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, "we are concerned that Buisir may be helping to finance the [Iraqi] insurgency." (Buisir denies the charge, telling NEWSWEEK, "I'm not involved in anything... your country has gone crazy.") French investigators worry that 10 of their fellow citizens killed or captured while fighting in Iraq may be just the beginning of a wave. "Iraq is a great black hole that is sucking up all the [radical] elements in Europe," French antiterrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere told BBC Radio recently, worried that such radicals already are returning home with more knowledge and training.

Europe has a number of radical elements, and they allow them to exist unchallenged, so I dont think they have anything to worry about all of them getting sucked into Iraq.

Sitting there in the middle of that hole is Zarqawi, a Jordanian who until the Iraq war was a relative nobody as terrorists go. "He was a small man, with a small group, in a small jail," says Jordanian journalist Abdallah Aburomman, who spent three months in the same prison with Zarqawi in 1996. Zarqawi's jihadist views were even more extreme than bin Laden's at the time, says Aburomman, who was jailed on political charges. "The Taliban were trying to win Afghanistan's seat in the United Nations, and he said, 'Why do they want to belong to an infidel organization?' "

As Zarqawi became increasingly successful in Iraq, through a combination of brazen suicide attacks and gruesome propaganda videos, he publicly appealed to bin Laden for support and pledged to follow his lead. Bin Laden responded by anointing him "emir" of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and lavishly praising his newfound protege. Zarqawi gained recruits, and made common cause with Saddam's Baathist followers, whom he had long bitterly denounced. Even in Jordan, where he was widely despised before the Iraq war, a semiofficial poll in August (quickly suppressed) suggested that 70 percent of Jordanians approved of Zarqawi's actions in Iraq.

Jordanians are not nearly as approving of what he is doing since the three hotels were destroyed in Jordan, killing primarilly Jordanians.

A world gone mad

Caroline B. Glick wrote in JWR Last week it was reported that the US has given the Palestinian Authority $4.4 million dollars to pay the salaries of terrorists from Fatah's Al Aksa Brigades. For its part, the terror group showed its gratitude to the US by becoming the first Palestinian terror organization to publicly endorse Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

No further payments should be made until they at least disarm the other terrorist groups.

Then we have the latest machinations of the Sharon-Peres government regarding Israel's policies now that we have vacated Gaza.

This week the IDF announced that it was removing non-essential personnel from bases bordering Gaza. The move is being made due to information that terrorists are digging tunnels beneath the bases for the purpose of either bombing the bases or infiltrating Israel for the purpose of bombing civilians. Since the withdrawal, 16 bombs have been discovered along the new border.

The fence is a good idea, but it is not enough, there needs to be a second parallel fence 1 mile inside the other, and the area between the two needs to be patrolled by soldiers with equipment to look for tunnels.

As critics of the withdrawal from Gaza warned, the Palestinians have smuggled shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles into Gaza from the Sinai Peninsula. After denying these reports for six weeks, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz finally acknowledged that these missiles have in fact been brought in during testimony before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.

Firecontrol radar needs to be mounted on the fence, and armed UAVs used to target anyone with a rocket, sholder fired or Katyusha or other.

Air Force commanders, whose forces are the only ones that remain active in Gaza, told the media last week that they are revising their operational methods over Gaza in light of the presence of these missiles. That is, the IAF considers these missiles to be a threat to its aircraft.

If these missiles manage to find their way into Judea and Samaria they will threaten not only IAF aircraft but civilian aircraft taking off and landing at Ben Gurion Airport. The fact that al-Qaida — whose presence in the Sinai is enormous, according to IDF Intelligence Analysis Chief Brig.-Gen. Yossi Kupperwasser — and its Palestinian allies wish to attack Israeli civilian aircraft was made clear this summer with the Katyusha rocket attack on Eilat's international airport as well as in the 2002 attack on the Israeli jetliner in Mombassa, Kenya.

Since late 2002 when then Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna put forward the notion of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip replete with the uprooting of Israeli communities from the area, critics of the move argued that such a plan would open Israel to grave security risks. These warnings became increasingly detailed and specific as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in late 2003 adopted Mitzna's plan after basing his campaign for the premiership on laughing at it.

The withdrawal made sense. There were too many military being used to protect too few settlers outside the border wall/fence.

Critics of the plan explained that a unilateral departure from Gaza, particularly if such a withdrawal included vacating Gaza's border with Egypt and surrendering control over the airspace over Gaza and its coastline, would enable and indeed invite international terrorists to use Gaza as a new international terror base. Critics further warned that terrorists in Gaza would transfer their center of operations to Judea and Samaria and place the major population centers of Israel at risk of rocket and mortar attacks. The communities in Gush Katif and northern Gaza stoically absorbed some 6,000 such attacks over the past five years. In their absence, and as the critics warned, those rockets and mortars have already become the scourge of residents of some 40 communities surrounding Gaza in the western Negev. Just last week the IDF arrested two terrorists attempting to transfer rockets to Judea and Samaria.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Wounded Chirac

Times Online reported Wounded Chirac ‘losing grip’ of riot-hit France

How could he lose his grip; that would imply he once had a grip on things.

Franceyesterday ordered a ban on public meetings likely to provoke disturbances as thousands of police were deployed on the streets of Paris to stop youths turning the tourist centre into a battlefield. The initiative came as speculation mounted over a severely discredited Jacques Chirac’s ability to endure the last 17 months of his presidential term.

He will not resign, but he is clearly in over his head

Ringleaders of the riots that have shaken France for the past two weeks were suspected of planning to set ablaze the affluent Champs Elysées. Through text and internet messages they were encouraging followers armed with Molotov cocktails to converge on the tree-lined tourist haunt just a stone’s throw from Chirac’s palace.

Five Questions For Muslims

La Shawn Barber blogged

Why are you so quiet?
i suspect they are afraid of being targeted themselves. After all, most of the people being killed by terrorists in Iraq are Iraqi, and most killed in Jordan were Jordanians.
Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
Because Christ preached Peace, not Conquest
Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?
Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?The Islamofascists are not civilized
Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?
Because if they only persecuted fellow Muslims, the people would turn against them more rapidly.

Iraqi Woman Confesses on Jordan TV

Yahoo! News reported An Iraqi woman confessed on Jordanian state television Sunday that she tried to blow herself up along with her husband during a hotel wedding reception last week, saying that the explosives concealed under her denim dress failed to detonate.

It did not take long for the Jordanians to find her, and even less time to get her to talk. But then they don't have congress micromanaging how they interrogate people that blow up hotels and kill their citizens.

Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, made her statement hours after being arrested by authorities tipped off by an al-Qaida in Iraq claim that a husband-and-wife team participated in Wednesday's bombings at three U.S.-based hotels. The attackers killed 57 other people at the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels. Al-Rishawi's brother was once the right-hand man to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, said deputy premier Marwan Muasher. He said the brother, Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, was killed in the former terrorist stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq.

Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’

Times Online reported Al-Qaeda has threatened the Queen by naming her as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video message to justify the July bombings in London.

Another stupid thing they have done. Britain has had very liberal acceptance of even violent Islamists in their country, and now those that were not already ticked off because of the 7/7 bombing are not going to be happy about a threat against their Queen. And particularly because Prince Charles tried to tell Bush to be nicer to the Islamofascists.

The warning has been passed by MI5 to the Queen’s protection team after it obtained the unexpurgated version of a video issued by Al-Qaeda after the 7/7 attacks. Parts of it were broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite channel. In the video, Ayman al- Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden, targets the Queen as ultimately responsible for Britain’s “crusader laws” and denounces her as an enemy of Muslims.

Jordanians turn against al-Qa'eda leader over bombings

Telegraph reports Sympathy for al-Qa'eda's leader in Iraq turned to hatred in his home town yesterday as clan members and ex-neighbours dismissed the justification for the Amman bombings.

And this is surprising?

The terrorist who chose his nom de guerre, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to honour his birthplace, used to enjoy wide support on these tatty, rundown streets because of his rabid anti-Israeli rhetoric. The backing continued when he took up the fight against American troops in Iraq and did not waiver when his followers began beheading kidnapped aid workers and contractors. But Wednesday's hotel attacks that killed 57 innocent people, mostly Jordanian civilians and all Muslims, appeared to have quickly transformed him from hero to villain.

I suspect they fear other Jordanians will turn against them.

"I feel ashamed of what he did in the name of Islam," said Moussa Rashid Khalayleh, a senior member of Zarqawi's Khalayleh clan.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

White House's Iraq Argument

WaPo President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence. Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

But both are substantially correct.

The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

Glad you at least admit that.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers,

Not the chair and vice chair of the intelligence committees.

who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

What about when Clinton was in the White House; he had access to the same things Bush did.

.... But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers.

Considering how much congress leaks, I am happy he does not.

Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

Hotel Bombings in Jordan Fuel Anger at Exiles

WaPo reports As new details emerged Friday about the bombings of three hotels that killed nearly 60 people, tension appeared to be mounting between Jordanians and the Iraqis who have streamed into this country by the thousands in recent years, Amman residents said. Their presence has both boosted Jordan's economy and inspired resentment, while complicating already thorny relations between the neighboring countries.

I am not surprised they are ticked off at people who would bomb three of their hotels, and particularly focus on a wedding party in one, but merely being mad at foreign nationals is not the answer (neither is blaming Israel, as some are doing. The need to focus on the Islamofascists that want to impose a Taliban style government over all the area, replacing the peaceful Jordanian government and other governments in the area. They need to identify the Islamoterrorists in their country, and let the government deal with them.

Hearts Voting

Aaron ammounces voting for the Queen of Hearts, a favorite female blogger, is open.

Currently two favorites of mine, Anchoress and Michelle Malkin are in first and second place, and LaShawn is in the list. I nominated Greta from EIMC, so I voted for her.

Friday, November 11, 2005

"War" on Christmas

Media Matters blogged In the November 9 broadcast of his television show, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said "I don't believe most people who aren't Christian are offended by the words 'Merry Christmas.' I think those people are nuts."

I am not sure whether O'Reilly ever said that, but certainly Media Matters is distorting things by saying "O'Reilly opens new front in "war" on Christmas". The war on Christmas (and Christians in general) was declared by the ACLU and the left wing MSM. O" Reilly is just coming to the defense of the large number of Christians who are tired of the continual efforts to get any recognition of Christianity out of the public market place, and instead to hype the desires of people of minority religions.

Later, when guest Philip Nulman, an advertising and marketing executive, said that using the phrases "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" does not offend Christians, O'Reilly disagreed. "It absolutely does," he said. "And I know that for a fact."

It certainly offends me. I would not be offended if they said Happy Hannukah on that holiday, or even Happy Ramadan when that period ends, but December 25 is Christmas (not Winter Holiday), and 85% of US Citizens say they are Christians, so the Christian Holiday should be recognized for what it is. And that recognition should include Nativity Scenes. Have images of Santa Claus if you want, but honor the true meaning of the celebration.

O'Reilly's comments occurred during a discussion about his "decision to look at some retail policies this year" in light of the purported fact that "some department stores even tell employees to avoid saying 'Merry Christmas.' " Introducing the segment, he described various retailers' policies on using the term:

O'REILLY: Here's what we found out: Sears/Kmart would not answer our questions.
Subsequently I have heard that they are one of the Happy Holiday companies. And if you want to let them know what you think of their policy, and that you are considering a boycott because of it, leave them a message. Another Happy Holiday instead of Merry Christmas company is WalMart. Let them know what you think. Last year I recall Home Depot just celebrated Happy Holidays. Ask them what they plan this year.
Spokesman Chris Braithwaite simply ducked the issue. Their website banners: "Wish Book Holiday 2005." They were the worst we had to deal with. OK? Sears/Kmart. JCPenney says its catalog is always called "Christmas catalog." Federated Department Stores -- Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Burdines -- says the words "Merry Christmas" will be used in most advertising. Same thing at May, Filene's, Lord & Taylor, and Marshall Field's. But Kohl's refused to define how the company will deal with Christmas. Dillard's, however, will use the slogan "Discover Christmas, Discover Dillard's." So there you go. Shop where you like the atmosphere. Just remember, Kohl's and Sears/Kmart, basically, not all right.

The segment was part of an ongoing series of reports on Fox News highlighting a purported "Christmas Under Siege" by "secular progressives," which O'Reilly promoted along with Fox News host Sean Hannity before Christmas 2004. In recent weeks, O'Reilly has renewed the campaign, including, for example, an October 20 discussion on his TV show in which he blamed the "loony left" for the "war" on Christmas while promoting Fox News host John Gibson's new book, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought (Sentinel, October 2005). In addition, during the November 1 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, he claimed that, like the country's Founding Fathers, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. does not "want all mention of Christmas stricken from the public arena."

Read More...

Summary only...

French Fried

Mona Charen wrote in Townhall French socialists have set the table for the current crisis. Yes, the rioters are all Muslim youths from North Africa and the Middle East. And the racism of French society may fuel the flames to some extent, but the most important factors in this story are economic. The French have accepted wave after wave of immigrants with no prospect of employing them. In the U.S., the unemployment rate among natives and immigrants is the same. Not so in France.

The unemployeed stay in France because it is a socialized country, and while they may not be able to find a job, they make more money from socialistic doles than they could working for a living elsewhere. That is the way the Democrats kept blacks in America on welfare, and completely dependent on the state, so they could threaten them with what would happen to their welfare if Republicans were elected.

The French have enacted all of the economic policies that liberals would like to see implemented in this country. So, for example, jobs are protected. If a French company employing more than 600 people wants to fire someone, it must endure administrative procedures that last an average of 106 days. Because it is so difficult to fire employees, French companies are less willing to take risks in hiring.

And they don't want to hire people that can't speak French.

This hurts young, inexperienced workers disproportionately. Once unemployed, 40 percent of French workers can expect to remain so for more than a year. Not only are jobs hard to find, but joblessness is softened by generous benefits. Unemployment benefits range from 57 to 75 percent of the worker's last salary and can last as long as three years (with a cap of 5,126 Euros per month).

Diana West wrote in JWR At least the once-Western world is consistent: Like the terrorism that has engraved the blood-drenched anniversaries of 9/11, 3/11, and 7/7 into collective memory, and has transformed Amman, Amsterdam, Baghdad, Bali, Beslan, Davao, Hadera, Haifa, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Nairobi, New Dehli, Sharm al-Sheik, Tel Aviv and Tunisia into hallowed outposts of mass murder, the rioting that has convulsed France has nothing to do with Islam. At least, that's the agreed-upon narrative. It's Our Story, the subtext, the thread to which we cling. The problem driving "youths" to incinerate lines of parked buses or immolate the occasional grand-mere on crutches is French racism, institutional neglect, failure to integrate. It's also snobbery, and don't forget George W. Bush. But not Islam. Not anything to do with Islam and its non-assimilable legions in the heart of Europe.

That's the word from intelligentsia all over. Even before the riot's last fires have been kindled, let alone cooled, The Washington Post editorial page, for example, said — no, it insisted: "Islamic ideology and leaders have played no part in the disturbances and many of those who are participating are not Muslim." Writing in The New York Times, Olivier Roy ruled Islam out with equally categorical and doctrinal confidence.

Socialism may have spawned the riots rather than Jihad, but as France shows how weak it is, Jihadist demands will not be far behind

How do they know? Yes, the thugs we see depicted through the smoke of burning civilization aren't dressed for the part by Central Casting — either in the beards and robes of the mosque, or the mask and scimitar of the jihad. They look like urban punks, "scum," as French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called them before diving under the covers with the rest of the Gallic government. They are, we hear tell, unemployed toughs and secular criminals, devoted not to Allah so much as to what you might call, loosely and very grimly, French "culture" — French pop culture, that is.... These are the motifs, at least, of brutal conquest, patterns and expressions familiar to students of jihad for having repeated themselves over the centuries as non-Muslim lands — Dar al Harb (Land of War) — were conquered and subjugated as Dar al Islam (Land of Islam). Is that what's going on in France? Without doubt, such music prefigures a state of war, although no one but the rioters seems to have been listening. Too bad no one is listening still.

Hug a veteran

EIMC blogged If you see a soldier or veteran today - thank them for their service and give them a hug (not too hard)!

Thank you to all who have served.

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