The Truth

Via Instapundit

Professor HAIM HARARI, a theoretical physicist, is the Chair, Davidson Institute of Science Education, and Former President, from 1988 to 2001, of the Weizmann Institute of Science.
During his years as President of the Institute, it entered numerous new scientific fields and projects, built 47 new buildings, raised one Billion Dollars in philanthropic money, hired more than half of its current tenured Professors and became one of the highest royalty-earning academic organizations in the world.

Throughout all his adult life, he has made major contributions to three different fields: Particle Physics Research on the international scene, Science Education in the Israeli school system and Science Administration and Policy Making.


A View from the Eye of the Storm Talk delivered by Haim Harari at a meeting of the International Advisory Board of a large multi-national corporation, April, 2004


As you know, I usually provide the scientific and technological "entertainment" in our meetings, but, on this occasion, our Chairman suggested that I present my own personal view on events in the part of the world from which I come. I have never been and I will never be a Government official and I have no privileged information. My perspective is entirely based on what I see, on what I read and on the fact that my family has lived in this region for almost 200 years. You may regard my views as those of the proverbial taxi driver, which you are supposed to question, when you visit a country.

I could have shared with you some fascinating facts and some personal thoughts about the Israeli-Arab conflict. However, I will touch upon it only in passing. I prefer to devote most of my remarks to the broader picture of the region and its place in world events. I refer to the entire area between Pakistan and Morocco, which is predominantly Arab, predominantly Moslem, but includes many non-Arab and also significant non-Moslem minorities.

Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate neighborhood? Because Israel and any problems related to it, in spite of what you might read or hear in the world media, is not the central issue, and has never been the central issue in the upheaval in the region. Yes, there is a 100 year-old Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main show is. The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel. The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel. The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds of civilian in one village or another by other Algerians have nothing to do with Israel. Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait, endangered Saudi Arabia and butchered his own people because of Israel. Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen in the 60's because of Israel. Assad the Father did not kill tens of thousands of his own citizens in one week in El Hamma in Syria because of Israel. The Taliban control of Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to do with Israel. The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had nothing to do with Israel, and I could go on and on and on.

The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally dysfunctional, by any standard of the word, and would have been so even if Israel would have joined the Arab league and an independent Palestine would have existed for 100 years. The 22 member countries of the Arab league, from Mauritania to the Gulf States, have a total population of 300 millions, larger than the US and almost as large as the EU before its expansion. They have a land area larger than either the US or all of Europe. These 22 countries, with all their oil and natural resources, have a combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium and equal to half of the GDP of California alone. Within this meager GDP, the gaps between rich and poor are beyond belief and too many of the rich made their money not by succeeding in business, but by being corrupt rulers. The social status of women is far below what it was in the Western World 150 years ago. Human rights are below any reasonable standard, in spite of the grotesque fact that Libya was elected Chair of the UN Human Rights commission. According to a report prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and published under the auspices of the U.N., the number of books translated by the entire Arab world is much smaller than what little Greece alone translates. The total number of scientific publications of 300 million Arabs is less than that of 6 million Israelis. Birth rates in the region are very high, increasing the poverty, the social gaps and the cultural decline. And all of this is happening in a region, which only 30 years ago, was believed to be the next wealthy part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which developed, at some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in the world.

It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented breeding ground for cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders and general decline. It is also a fact that almost everybody in the region blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except themselves.
Do I say all of this with the satisfaction of someone discussing the failings of his enemies? On the contrary, I firmly believe that the world would have been a much better place and my own neighborhood would have been much more pleasant and peaceful, if things were different.

I should also say a word about the millions of decent, honest, good people who are either devout Moslems or are not very religious but grew up in Moslem families. They are double victims of an outside world, which now develops Islamophobia and of their own environment, which breaks their heart by being totally dysfunctional. The problem is that the vast silent majority of these Moslems are not part of the terror and of the incitement but they also do not stand up against it. They become accomplices, by omission, and this applies to political leaders, intellectuals, business people and many others. Many of them can certainly tell right from wrong, but are afraid to express their views.

The events of the last few years have amplified four issues, which have always existed, but have never been as rampant as in the present upheaval in the region. These are the four main pillars of the current World Conflict, or perhaps we should already refer to it as "the undeclared World War III". I have no better name for the present situation. A few more years may pass before everybody acknowledges that it is a World War, but we are already well into it.

The first element is the suicide murder. Suicide murders are not a new invention but they have been made popular, if I may use this expression, only lately. Even after September 11, it seems that most of the Western World does not yet understand this weapon. It is a very potent psychological weapon. Its real direct impact is relatively minor. The total number of casualties from hundreds of suicide murders within Israel in the last three years is much smaller than those due to car accidents. September 11 was quantitatively much less lethal than many earthquakes. More people die from AIDS in one day in Africa than all the Russians who died in the hands of Chechnya-based Moslem suicide murderers since that conflict started. Saddam killed every month more people than all those who died from suicide murders since the Coalition occupation of Iraq.

So what is all the fuss about suicide killings? It creates headlines. It is spectacular. It is frightening. It is a very cruel death with bodies dismembered and horrible severe lifelong injuries to many of the wounded. It is always shown on television in great detail. One such murder, with the help of hysterical media coverage, can destroy the tourism industry of a country for quite a while, as it did in Bali and in Turkey.

But the real fear comes from the undisputed fact that no defense and no preventive measures can succeed against a determined suicide murderer. This has not yet penetrated the thinking of the Western World. The U.S. and Europe are constantly improving their defense against the last murder, not the next one. We may arrange for the best airport security in the world.. But if you want to murder by suicide, you do not have to board a plane in order to explode yourself and kill many people. Who could stop a suicide murder in the midst of the crowded line waiting to be checked by the airport metal detector? How about the lines to the check-in counters in a busy travel period? Put a metal detector in front of every train station in Spain and the terrorists will get the buses. Protect the buses and they will explode in movie theaters, concert halls, supermarkets, shopping malls, schools and hospitals. Put guards in front of every concert hall and there will always be a line of people to be checked by the guards and this line will be the target, not to speak of killing the guards themselves. You can somewhat reduce your vulnerability by preventive and defensive measures and by strict border controls but not eliminate it and definitely not win the war in a defensive way. And it is a war!

What is behind the suicide murders? Money, power and cold-blooded murderous incitement, nothing else. It has nothing to do with true fanatic religious beliefs. No Moslem preacher has ever blown himself up. No son of an Arab politician or religious leader has ever blown himself. No relative of anyone influential has done it. Wouldn't you expect some of the religious leaders to do it themselves, or to talk their sons into doing it, if this is truly a supreme act of religious fervor? Aren't they interested in the benefits of going to Heaven? Instead, they send outcast women, naïve children, retarded people and young incited hotheads. They promise them the delights, mostly sexual, of the next world, and pay their families handsomely after the supreme act is performed and enough innocent people are dead.

Suicide murders also have nothing to do with poverty and despair. The poorest region in the world, by far, is Africa. It never happens there. There are numerous desperate people in the world, in different cultures, countries and continents. Desperation does not provide anyone with explosives, reconnaissance and transportation. There was certainly more despair in Saddam's Iraq then in Paul Bremmer's Iraq, and no one exploded himself. A suicide murder is simply a horrible, vicious weapon of cruel, inhuman, cynical, well-funded terrorists, with no regard to human life, including the life of their fellow countrymen, but with very high regard to their own affluent well-being and their hunger for power.

The only way to fight this new "popular" weapon is identical to the only way in which you fight organized crime or pirates on the high seas: the offensive way. Like in the case of organized crime, it is crucial that the forces on the offensive be united and it is crucial to reach the top of the crime pyramid. You cannot eliminate organized crime by arresting the little drug dealer in the street corner. You must go after the head of the "Family".

If part of the public supports it, others tolerate it, many are afraid of it and some try to explain it away by poverty or by a miserable childhood, organized crime will thrive and so will terrorism. The United States understands this now, after September 11. Russia is beginning to understand it. Turkey understands it well. I am very much afraid that most of Europe still does not understand it. Unfortunately, it seems that Europe will understand it only after suicide murders will arrive in Europe in a big way. In my humble opinion, this will definitely happen. The Spanish trains and the Istanbul bombings are only the beginning. The unity of the Civilized World in fighting this horror is absolutely indispensable. Until Europe wakes up, this unity will not be achieved.

The second ingredient is words, more precisely lies. Words can be lethal. They kill people. It is often said that politicians, diplomats and perhaps also lawyers and business people must sometimes lie, as part of their professional life. But the norms of politics and diplomacy are childish, in comparison with the level of incitement and total absolute deliberate fabrications, which have reached new heights in the region we are talking about. An incredible number of people in the Arab world believe that September 11 never happened, or was an American provocation or, even better, a Jewish plot.

You all remember the Iraqi Minister of Information, Mr. Mouhamad Said al-Sahaf and his press conferences when the US forces were already inside Baghdad. Disinformation at time of war is an accepted tactic. But to stand, day after day, and to make such preposterous statements, known to everybody to be lies, without even being ridiculed in your own milieu, can only happen in this region. Mr. Sahaf eventually became a popular icon as a court jester, but this did not stop some allegedly respectable newspapers from giving him equal time. It also does not prevent the Western press from giving credence, every day, even now, to similar liars. After all, if you want to be an antisemite, there are subtle ways of doing it. You do not have to claim that the holocaust never happened and that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem never existed. But millions of Moslems are told by their leaders that this is the case. When these same leaders make other statements, the Western media report them as if they could be true.

It is a daily occurrence that the same people, who finance, arm and dispatch suicide murderers, condemn the act in English in front of western TV cameras, talking to a world audience, which even partly believes them. It is a daily routine to hear the same leader making opposite statements in Arabic to his people and in English to the rest of the world. Incitement by Arab TV, accompanied by horror pictures of mutilated bodies, has become a powerful weapon of those who lie, distort and want to destroy everything. Little children are raised on deep hatred and on admiration of so-called martyrs, and the Western World does not notice it because its own TV sets are mostly tuned to soap operas and game shows. I recommend to you, even though most of you do not understand Arabic, to watch Al Jazeera, from time to time. You will not believe your own eyes.
But words also work in other ways, more subtle. A demonstration in Berlin, carrying banners supporting Saddam's regime and featuring three-year old babies dressed as suicide murderers, is defined by the press and by political leaders as a "peace demonstration". You may support or oppose the Iraq war, but to refer to fans of Saddam, Arafat or Bin Laden as peace activists is a bit too much. A woman walks into an Israeli restaurant in mid-day, eats, observes families with old people and children eating their lunch in the adjacent tables and pays the bill. She then blows herself up, killing 20 people, including many children, with heads and arms rolling around in the restaurant. She is called "martyr" by several Arab leaders and "activist" by the European press. Dignitaries condemn the act but visit her bereaved family and the money flows.

There is a new game in town: The actual murderer is called "the military wing", the one who pays him, equips him and sends him is now called "the political wing" and the head of the operation is called the "spiritual leader". There are numerous other examples of such Orwellian nomenclature, used every day not only by terror chiefs but also by Western media. These words are much more dangerous than many people realize. They provide an emotional infrastructure for atrocities. It was Joseph Goebels who said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. He is now being outperformed by his successors.

The third aspect is money. Huge amounts of money, which could have solved many social problems in this dysfunctional part of the world, are channeled into three concentric spheres supporting death and murder. In the inner circle are the terrorists themselves. The money funds their travel, explosives, hideouts and permanent search for soft vulnerable targets. They are surrounded by a second wider circle of direct supporters, planners, commanders, preachers, all of whom make a living, usually a very comfortable living, by serving as terror infrastructure. Finally, we find the third circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare organizations, which actually do some good, feed the hungry and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation with hatred, lies and ignorance. This circle operates mostly through mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments but also through inciting electronic and printed media. It is this circle that makes sure that women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable and that exposure to the outside world is minimal. It is also that circle that leads the way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the miseries of the region.

Figuratively speaking, this outer circle is the guardian, which makes sure that the people look and listen inwards to the inner circle of terror and incitement, rather than to the world outside. Some parts of this same outer circle actually operate as a result of fear from, or blackmail by, the inner circles. The horrifying added factor is the high birth rate. Half of the population of the Arab world is under the age of 20, the most receptive age to incitement, guaranteeing two more generations of blind hatred.

Of the three circles described above, the inner circles are primarily financed by terrorist states like Iran and Syria, until recently also by Iraq and Libya and earlier also by some of the Communist regimes. These states, as well as the Palestinian Authority, are the safe havens of the wholesale murder vendors. The outer circle is largely financed by Saudi Arabia, but also by donations from certain Moslem communities in the United States and Europe and, to a smaller extent, by donations of European Governments to various NGO's and by certain United Nations organizations, whose goals may be noble, but they are infested and exploited by agents of the outer circle. The Saudi regime, of course, will be the next victim of major terror, when the inner circle will explode into the outer circle. The Saudis are beginning to understand it, but they fight the inner circles, while still financing the infrastructure at the outer circle.?

Some of the leaders of these various circles live very comfortably on their loot. You meet their children in the best private schools in Europe, not in the training camps of suicide murderers. The Jihad "soldiers" join packaged death tours to Iraq and other hotspots, while some of their leaders ski in Switzerland. Mrs. Arafat, who lives in Paris with her daughter, receives tens of thousands Dollars per month from the allegedly bankrupt Palestinian Authority while a typical local ringleader of the Al-Aksa brigade, reporting to Arafat, receives only a cash payment of a couple of hundred dollars, for performing murders at the retail level.?

The fourth element of the current world conflict is the total breaking of all laws. The civilized world believes in democracy, the rule of law, including international law, human rights, free speech and free press, among other liberties. There are naïve old-fashioned habits such as respecting religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances and hospitals for acts of war, avoiding the mutilation of dead bodies and not using children as human shields or human bombs. Never in history, not even in the Nazi period, was there such total disregard of all of the above as we observe now. Every student of political science debates how you prevent an anti-democratic force from winning a democratic election and abolishing democracy. Other aspects of a civilized society must also have limitations. Can a policeman open fire on someone trying to kill him? Can a government listen to phone conversations of terrorists and drug dealers? Does free speech protects you when you shout "fire" in a crowded theater? Should there be death penalty, for deliberate multiple murders? These are the old-fashioned dilemmas. But now we have an entire new set.

Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage? Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital? Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests hostages? Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to reach their targets? Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her belly? Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately behind a group of children? Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital? Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to another, always surrounded by children? All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided.

Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that someone would openly stay in a well-known address in Teheran, hosted by the Iranian Government and financed by it, executing one atrocity after another in Spain or in France, killing hundreds of innocent people, accepting responsibility for the crimes, promising in public TV interviews to do more of the same, while the Government of Iran issues public condemnations of his acts but continues to host him, invite him to official functions and treat him as a great dignitary. I leave it to you as homework to figure out what Spain or France would have done, in such a situation.

The problem is that the civilized world is still having illusions about the rule of law in a totally lawless environment. It is trying to play ice hockey by sending a ballerina ice-skater into the rink or to knock out a heavyweight boxer by a chess player. In the same way that no country has a law against cannibals eating its prime minister, because such an act is unthinkable, international law does not address killers shooting from hospitals, mosques and ambulances, while being protected by their Government or society. International law does not know how to handle someone who sends children to throw stones, stands behind them and shoots with immunity and cannot be arrested because he is sheltered by a Government. International law does not know how to deal with a leader of murderers who is royally and comfortably hosted by a country, which pretends to condemn his acts or just claims to be too weak to arrest him. The amazing thing is that all of these crooks demand protection under international law and define all those who attack them as war criminals, with some Western media repeating the allegations. The good news is that all of this is temporary, because the evolution of international law has always adapted itself to reality. The punishment for suicide murder should be death or arrest before the murder, not during and not after. After every world war, the rules of international law have changed and the same will happen after the present one. But during the twilight zone, a lot of harm can be done.

The picture I described here is not pretty. What can we do about it? In the short run, only fight and win. In the long run ? only educate the next generation and open it to the world. The inner circles can and must be destroyed by force. The outer circle cannot be eliminated by force. Here we need financial starvation of the organizing elite, more power to women, more education, counter propaganda, boycott whenever feasible and access to Western media, internet and the international scene. Above all, we need a total absolute unity and determination of the civilized world against all three circles of evil.
Allow me, for a moment, to depart from my alleged role as a taxi driver and return to science. When you have a malignant tumor, you may remove the tumor itself surgically. You may also starve it by preventing new blood from reaching it from other parts of the body, thereby preventing new "supplies" from expanding the tumor. If you want to be sure, it is best to do both.

But before you fight and win, by force or otherwise, you have to realize that you are in a war, and this may take Europe a few more years. In order to win, it is necessary to first eliminate the terrorist regimes, so that no Government in the world will serve as a safe haven for these people. I do not want to comment here on whether the American-led attack on Iraq was justified from the point of view of weapons of mass destruction or any other pre-war argument, but I can look at the post-war map of Western Asia. Now that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony. Perhaps Sudan should be added to the list. As a result of the conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq, both Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by territories unfriendly to them. Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the Gulf States, Iraq and the Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union. Syria is surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. This is a significant strategic change and it applies strong pressure on the terrorist countries. It is not surprising that Iran is so active in trying to incite a Shiite uprising in Iraq. I do not know if the American plan was actually to encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation.???

In my humble opinion, the number one danger to the world today is Iran and its regime. It definitely has ambitions to rule vast areas and to expand in all directions. It has an ideology, which claims supremacy over Western culture. It is ruthless. It has proven that it can execute elaborate terrorist acts without leaving too many traces, using Iranian Embassies.. It is clearly trying to develop Nuclear Weapons. Its so-called moderates and conservatives play their own virtuoso version of the "good-cop versus bad-cop" game. Iran sponsors Syrian terrorism, it is certainly behind much of the action in Iraq, it is fully funding the Hizbulla and, through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South America and probably also in Uzbekhistan and Saudi Arabia and it truly leads a multi-national terror consortium, which includes, as minor players, Syria, Lebanon and certain Shiite elements in Iraq. Nevertheless, most European countries still trade with Iran, try to appease it and refuse to read the clear signals.

In order to win the war it is also necessary to dry the financial resources of the terror conglomerate. It is pointless to try to understand the subtle differences between the Sunni terror of Al Qaida and Hamas and the Shiite terror of Hizbulla, Sadr and other Iranian inspired enterprises. When it serves their business needs, all of them collaborate beautifully.

It is crucial to stop Saudi and other financial support of the outer circle, which is the fertile breeding ground of terror. It is important to monitor all donations from the Western World to Islamic organizations, to monitor the finances of international relief organizations and to react with forceful economic measures to any small sign of financial aid to any of the three circles of terrorism. It is also important to act decisively against the campaign of lies and fabrications and to monitor those Western media who collaborate with it out of naivety, financial interests or ignorance.

Above all, never surrender to terror. No one will ever know whether the recent elections in Spain would have yielded a different result, if not for the train bombings a few days earlier. But it really does not matter. What matters is that the terrorists believe that they caused the result and that they won by driving Spain out of Iraq. The Spanish story will surely end up being extremely costly to other European countries, including France, who is now expelling inciting preachers and forbidding veils and including others who sent troops to Iraq. In the long run, Spain itself will pay even more.

Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution. If democracy is just free elections, it is likely that the most fanatic regime will be elected, the one whose incitement and fabrications are the most inflammatory. We have seen it already in Algeria and, to a certain extent, in Turkey. It will happen again, if the ground is not prepared very carefully. On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not work in Russia and would not have worked in China.

I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail. But the longer it takes us to understand the new landscape of this war, the more costly and painful the victory will be. Europe, more than any other region, is the key. Its understandable recoil from wars, following the horrors of World War II, may cost thousands of additional innocent lives, before the tide will turn.

9/11 Staff Reports Exciting but Unpersuasive

The staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, popularly known as the “9/11 Commission” has recently issued “Staff Statements” number 15, 16 and 17. They can be a good read.

Staff Statement number 17 is entitled “Improvising a Homeland Defense.” This reports details how the highjackers dropped off the FAA radar screen by the simple expedient of turning off the aircraft’s transponders. A transponder is a radio transmitter that tells the FAA air traffic system not only the plane’s position but also its identity and altitude. According to the report the FAA system relies primarily on transponder signals rather than primary radar that bounces a radar beam off of an aircraft.

The Statement then takes us into virtually a minute-by-minute account of the FAA’s actions and that of the military. They report that the highjackers gave the impression that this was an “ordinary” highjacking.

8:24 am - From American flight 11: “We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you’ll be O.K. We are returning to the airport.”

8:34 am – from American flight 11: “Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don’t try to make any stupid moves.

8:46 am – American flight 11 hits the World Trade Center.

Elapsed time from ordinary highjacking to impact: 13 minutes.

8:51 am - United 175 changed transponder codes – refuses to answer ATC controller.

8:55 am – Controller-in-charge notifies New York Center that United 175 has been highjacked.

9:03 am – United 175 hits the World Trade Center.

Elapsed time from suspicion of highjacking to impact: 8 minutes.

This is no only fascinating reading, it underscores the incredible stupidity of those who are trying to blame the government for not reacting fast enough to prevent the destruction, like shooting the planes down. From the first hint of trouble at 8:24 am until the second plane hits the World Trade Center, we have exactly 39 minutes. From the time that American 11 hit the South Tower – signaling that this was no “typical” highjacking until the second plane hit was only 17 minutes.

It’s when the staff gets into making judgment calls that the wheels come of their credibility and their biases are exposed.

The staff dismisses the allegation, made by Czech intelligence agents that Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer, thus dismissing an Iraqi connection to 9/11. Edward J. Esptein makes some excellent points about the staff’s role and its judgment.

For the original report by Epstein click
here.

Question:
In Staff Statement #16, the 9-11 Commission's staff comes to the conclusion that the alleged 2001 meeting between hijacker Atta and an Iraqi official "never occurred." In reaching that conclusion the staff says it relied on written government documents, a FBI liaison, and its own "judgment calls."

Yet, just four months earlier, CIA director Tenet,testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the same meeting, and came to a different conclusion about whether it occurred: "We can't prove that one way or another." Presumably Tenet had access to the same documents and intelligence reports as the Commission staff.

It is up to the Commission to determine whether the Staff or the CIA Director is correct. What key facts are missing in Staff Statement #16 that the Commission needs to know to make this judgment ?

Answer:

It is the business of the staff to produce evidence
for the committee members to appraise, not to make
"judgment calls" without presenting any evidentiary basis. The staff omits at least seven facts in "Staff statement #16" that the full Commission deserves to know to render its own judgment.

They are:

1) Atta made 2 prior trips to the Czech Republic in 2000 at a time he was engaged in the 9-11 plot. They were the first two trip Atta made outside of Germany after he obtained his US visa.

2) In applying for his Czech visa (BONN200005260024), Atta identified himself as a" Hamburg student."

3) An eyewitness identified Atta as the person meeting the Iraq official, Al-Ani,on the outskirts of Prague on April 9th.

4) Atta's whereabouts is unknown to the FBI on the day in question. The FBI found no witness to his whereabouts between April 4, 2001 and April 11th.

5) The FBI has not been able to determine Atta's purpose in withdrawing $8,000 in cash from his bank account on April 4th.

6) There is no chain of evidence showing that Atta himself was in possession of a cell phone on which billing records indicate calls were made from Florida on April 9th. It is possible he left the phone behind (since it did not function in Europe) and it is possible the phone was used by his roommate or others. The billing records show the whereabouts of a phone, not of Atta.

7) A surreptitious search of the Iraq Embassy (presumably conducted after the defeat of Iraq) showed, according to a Czech official, that Al-Ani had scheduled a meeting on April 8, 2001 with a"Hamburg student." The staff report makes no mention either of the appointment book or of the "Hamburg student."

Frank Gaffney, writing in Fox News, believes that the desire to deny an Iraqi connection is due to the mindset of the man who wrote the report, Douglas MacEachan.

9/11 Commission Fails to Connect Terror Dots

The 9/11 Commission’s (search) conclusion that “We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States” does not augur well for the rest of the panel’s inquiry.

If the members of the commission could not connect dots that are all too obvious – or recognize their staff’s inability to do so – it seems likely that their work will fall short in other important areas as well.

[snip]

This sort of proof-by-assertion is all too familiar to those who used to confront the unwillingness of some in the U.S. intelligence community to recognize that the Soviet Union was a state sponsor of terror and a serial violator of arms control agreements. Perhaps, as the communists used to say, the similarity is “no accident.”

As it happens, the staff member who reported to 9/11 Commission members yesterday that there was no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and Al Qaeda was none other than Douglas MacEachin (search) – a man who once held senior positions at the CIA, including posts with the Office of Soviet Analysis from 1984-1989, the Arms Control Intelligence Staff for the next few years, and the job of Deputy Director for Intelligence from 1992 until 1995.
In these capacities, MacEachin appeared to colleagues to get things wrong with some regularity. For example, he was reflexively averse to conclusions that the Soviets were responsible for supporting terrorism. He reportedly rejected as “absurd” analyses that suggested Moscow was illegally developing bioweapons. And, as DDI, he forced CIA analysts to tailor their assessments to please Clinton administration policy-makers.

In short, in the old days, MacEachin refused to believe the Soviets were a threat. Now, he offers support to those who insist that Iraq was no threat. There may be a role for a "see-no-evil" sort of guy, but it should not be at the Central Intelligence Agency — and certainly not at a commission whose charter is to connect the dots, no matter where they lead.

Even as the press had a feeding-frenzy over MacEachin’s statement absolving Saddam of ties to Al Qaeda, fresh evidence of malevolent intentions toward the United States that would have made anti-American collaboration between Saddam and Al Qaeda only natural was supplied by an unlikely source: another old intelligence hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to Putin, his intelligence agencies shared sensitive information with the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks and before the United States went to war with Iraq in March of 2003. According to Putin's intelligence, Saddam Hussein’s regime was crafting plans to execute terror attacks against America, both inside and outside of this country.

Thus far, Putin has not elaborated on whether Al Qaeda was also involved with these particular plans. At the very least, however, this information confirms the Bush team’s contention that Saddam dealt deeply in terror and its judgment that to leave Saddam in power would be to invite murderous attacks in the future.

NY Times Loses Remaining Credibility

This morning's lead editorial in the New York Times is another vicious attack on the Bush administration, titled "Show Us the Proof." The theme of the editorial is that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are lying when they insist that there were ties between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda. The editorial begins:

When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.

[snip]

For the entire article that shows the Times lying click Here

However, the conclusion is clear:
As a news organization, the New York Times is illegitimate. It no longer seeks to inform its readers; rather, its daily effort is to misinform and mislead them. You simply can't believe anything you read in the Times.

Jack the al Qaeda

Paul Johnson was murdered yesterday. He was murdered in a particularly brutal way: his head was sawed off. To celebrate and publicize this crime, the perpetrators then placed his severed head on his body and photographed it. Those pictures were then published on the Internet. You can see them HERE. Careful! Very graphic.

As I saw these pictures, I am reminded of a book I read recently: “Portrait of a Killer.” It’s about Jack the Ripper. What made Jack the Ripper famous was the brutality of his crimes; his victims were mutilated and dismembered. In addition, the killer lusted for publicity and wrote dozens of letters to the police bragging of his deeds.

There is a disturbing parallel between Jack and the moral monsters that beheaded Paul Johnson. The poor women who were Jack’s victims in the seedier parts of London were as good as dead when he approached them. Paul Johnson was as good as dead when he was abducted. The depraved minds that mutilated their victims did so with a purpose: they have a message to send.

For Jack, one of his pleasures was taunting the police. For the Islamofacists who sawed off Paul Johnson’s head, the message is “fear me.”

The police never apprehended Jack. But there was only one of him. Unfortunately for us, Radical Islam has spent the last quarter century creating thousands of would-be Jack the Rippers. We have no choice about fighting them. If we turn away, we will become victims who will, like the women Jack preyed upon, die screaming.

From Little Green Footballs - a Marine's Story

For a direct link: CLICK.

No One Asked Us
By Major Stan Coerr, USMCR

George Bush coalesced American support behind invading Iraq, I am told, using two arguments: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the capability to deliver them, and Iraq was a supporter of Al-Qaeda terrorism, and may have been involved in the attacks of 9/11. Vicious words and gratuitous finger-pointing keep falling back on these points, as people insist that “we” were misled into what started as a dynamic liberation and has become a bloody counterinsurgency. Watching politicians declaim and hearing television experts expound on why we went to war and on their opinions of those running the White House and Defense Department, I have one question.

When is someone going to ask the guys who were there?

What about the opinions of those whose lives were on the line, massed on the Iraq-Kuwait border beginning in February of last year? I don’t know how President Bush got the country behind him, because at the time I was living in a hole in the dirt in northern Kuwait. Why have I not heard a word from anyone who actually carried a rifle or flew a plane into bad guy country last year, and who has since had to deal with the ugly aftermath of a violent liberation? What about the guys who had the most to loseâúõwhat do they think about all this?

I was there. I am one of those guys who fought the war and helped keep the peace. I am a Major in the Marine Reserves, and during the war I was the senior American attached to the 1 Royal Irish Battlegroup, a rifle battalion of the British Army. I was commander of five U.S. Marine air/naval gunfire liaison teams, as well as the liaison officer between U.S. Marines and British Army forces. I was activated on January 14, 2003, and 17 days later I and my Marines were standing in Kuwait with all of our gear, ready to go to war.

I majored in Political Science at Duke, and I graduated with a Masters degree in government from the Kennedy School at Harvard. I understand realpolitik, geopolitical jujitsu, economics and the reality of the Arab world. I know the tension between the White House, the UN, Langley and Foggy Bottom. One of my grandfathers was a two-star Navy admiral; my other grandfather was an ambassador. I am not a pushover, blindly following whoever is in charge, and I don’t kid myself that I live in a perfect world. But the war made sense then, and the occupation makes sense now.

As dawn broke on March 22, 2003, I became part of one of the largest and fastest land movements in the history of war. I went across the border alongside my brothers in the Royal Irish, following the 5th Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton as they swept through the Ramaylah oil fields. I was one those guys you saw on TV every night- filthy, hot, exhausted. I think the NRA and their right-to-bear-arms mantra is a joke, but by God I was carrying a loaded rifle, a loaded pistol and a knife on my body at all times. My boots rested on sandbags on the floor of my Humvee, there to protect me from the blast of a land mines or IED.

I killed many Iraqi soldiers, as they tried to kill me and my Marines. I did it with a radio, directing airstrikes and artillery, in concert with my British artillery officer counterpart, in combat along the Hamar Canal in southern Iraq. I saw, up close, everything the rest of you see in the newspapers: dead bodies, parts of dead bodies, helmets with bullet holes through them, handcuffed POWs sitting in the sand, oil well fires with flames reaching 100 feet into the air and a roar you could hear from over a mile away.

I stood on the bloody sand where Marine Second Lieutenant Therrel Childers was the first American killed on the ground. I pointed a loaded weapon at another man for the first time in my life. I did what I had spent 14 years training to do, and my Marines - your Marines - performed so well it still brings tears to my eyes to think about it. I was proud of what we did then, and I am proud of it now.

Along with the violence, I saw many things that lifted my heart. I saw thousands of Iraqis in cities like Qurnah and Medinah - men, women, children, grandparents carrying babies - running into the streets at the sight of us, the first Western army to arrive. I saw them screaming, crying, waving, cheering. They ran from their homes at the sound of our Humvee tires roaring in from the south, bringing bread and tea and cigarettes and photos of their children. They chattered at us in Arabic, and we spoke to them in English, and neither understood the other. The entire time I was in Iraq, I had one impression from the civilians I met: Thank God, finally someone has arrived with bigger men and bigger guns to be, at last, on our side.

Let there be no mistake, those of you who don’t believe in this war: the Ba’ath regime were the Nazis of the second half of the 20th century. I saw what the murderous, brutal regime of Saddam Hussein wrought on that country through his party and their Fedayeen henchmen. They raped, murdered, tortured, extorted and terrorized those in that country for 35 years. There are mass graves throughout Iraq only now being discovered. 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, out of Camp Pendleton, liberated a prison in Iraq populated entirely by children. The Ba’athists brutalized the weakest among them, and killed the strongest.

I saw in the eyes of the people how a generation of fear reflects in the human soul.

The Ba’ath Party, like the Nazis before them, kept power by spreading out, placing their officials in every city and every village to keep the people under their boot. Everywhere we went we found rifles, ammunition, RPG rounds, mortar shells, rocket launchers, and artillery. When we took over the southern city of Ramaylah, our battalion commander tore down the Ba’ath signs and commandeered the former regime headquarters in town (which, by the way, was 20 feet from the local school.) My commander himself took over the office of the local Ba’ath leader, and in opening the desk of that thug found a set of brass knuckles and a gun. These are the people who are now in prison, and that is where they deserve to be.

The analogy is simple. For years, you have watched the same large, violent man come home every night, and you have listened to his yelling and the crying and the screams of children and the noise of breaking glass, and you have always known that he was beating his wife and his children. Everyone on the block has known it. You ask, cajole, threaten and beg him to stop, on behalf of the rest of the neighborhood. Nothing works. After listening to it for 13 years, you finally gather up the biggest, meanest guys you can find, you go over to his house, and you kick the door down. You punch him in the face and drag him away. The house is a mess, the family poor and abused — but now there is hope. You did the right thing.

I can speak with authority on the opinions of both British and American infantry in that place and at that time. Let me make this clear: at no time did anyone say or imply to any of us that we were invading Iraq to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, nor were we there to avenge 9/11. We knew we were there for one reason: to rid the world of a tyrant, and to give Iraq back to Iraqis.

None of us had even heard those arguments for going to war until we returned, and we still don’t understand the confusion. To us, it was simple. The world needed to be rid of a man who committed mass murder of an entire people, and our country was the only one that could project that much power that far and with that kind of precision. We don’t make policy decisions: we carry them out. And none of us had the slightest doubt about how right and good our actions were.

The war was the right thing to do then, and in hindsight it was still the right thing to do. We can’t overthrow every murderous tyrant in the world, but when we can, we should. Take it from someone who was there, and who stood to lose everything. We must, and will, stay the course. We owe it to the Iraqis, and to the world.

Stan Coerr is a SuperCobra attack helicopter pilot and Forward Air Controller, and was recently selected for Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. He lives in San Diego.

The Iraq Al Qaeda Connection is NOT Obscure

BECAUSE the headlines thoughout the country, taking their cues from wire service reports and the New York Slimes, have chosen to lie about the relations that Saddam had with Al Qaeda, it is neccessary to review what we know.

A good start is Andrew McCarthy's article in national Review Online. Click HERE.

Virginian Pilot 9/11 Commission Headline Lies

There are two headlines in today’s Virginian Pilot. The top one is a lie.

“ON IRAQ: No Links to al-Qaida”

As is so often the case, the real story is not the news; it’s the press’ spin on the news.

During the Clinton Presidency, the press reported the Clintons’ “spin” – which they knew to be a lie – not with outrage (that’s reserved for Republicans) but with a sense of admiration: see Clinton lie about having sex with Monica; isn’t it amazing how he can say that with a straight face? What a man! See Clinton redefining the meaning of “is.” Isn’t that just marvelous? The press suspended its judgment about the morality of the issues of lying, perjury, even rape. With almost no exceptions, it viewed these issues in a moral vacuum, judging only their political impact. Of course that was when their man was in office.

Having abandoned its vaunted neutrality the press has decided, like the woman who has lost her virtue, that it enjoys its freedom to be a whore.

I have read the 9/11 Commission reports that were released on June 16. You can find them here

On page 5 of Staff Statement No. 15 the staff of the 9/11 commission states that “We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.” In this same paragraph, the commission staff states that “Bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein’s secular regime….A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Laden in 1994….There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan ”

After the press willfully misinterpreted a single sentence in this report, the co-chairmen of the 9/11 Committee issued a statement defending the Bush administration in its characterization of the connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. The administration never claimed that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks. It has claimed that there were ties between many of the terror groups in Middle East, including al Qaeda and Iraq, but also including Iraq and Palestinian terrorists.

Unlike the headline, the reports state that there are links between Iraq and al Qaeda but the 9/11 commission is not charged with determining this. In fact, reading the reports one is struck by the commission’s single-minded focus on 9/11 and Bin Laden. Reading reports 15, 16 and 17; the commission has a laser beam on Osama bin Laden. Everyone else is a bit player in the commission’s drama.

But before we conclude that the staff report is the final word on terrorist connections, it is useful to understand how tenuous the commission staff ‘s ability to connect the dots.

I found the following paragraph fascinating:

“By this time U.S. intelligence learned that a year-and-a-half before the bombing of the Saudi National Guard facility, al Qaeda leaders and members of other aligned groups had decide to attack U.S. targets in Saudi Arabia and directed a team to ship explosives there. The shipment was a case study in collaboration: Bin Laden supplied the money for purchasing the explosives; the Sudanese Ministry of Defense served as the conduit for bringing them to Sudan; they were stored briefly in the warehouse of one of Bin Laden’s business facilities; transported in a Bin Laden company truck under cover of Ministry of Defense invoice papers; moved to a warehouse provided by the Ministry of Defense at Port Sudan on the Red Sea; and then transported on a Bin Laden-owned boat to Islamic army operatives residing in Yemen. From there they were moved by land to the eastern part of Saudi Arabia…...”

Before I end this paragraph, keep in mind that the 9/11 commission is critical of the FAA and US Air Force for not connecting the dots on 9/11; for not immediately realizing that these highjackers were not like dozens of highjackers before them; for losing the planes when the highjackers turned the planes’ transponders off; for not knowing what was on the minds of these particular thugs before they drove their planes into the Word Trade Center; for not directing the Air Force to blow American passenger planes filled innocent civilian out of the air within minutes of realizing the planes had been highjacked.

So with this amazing bit of hindsight in mind, here is how the staff report ends the previous paragraph:

“…Bin Laden’s role and his organization’s role in this attack remains unclear…”

The people who come to these conclusions make Inspector Clouseau look positively clever.

There is at least one additional piece of interesting information given no coverage in the press as they comb these reports with the sole purpose of impeaching the Bush administration. THE PERSON WHO ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED OF THE CONCEPT OF THE 9/11 ATTACKS, KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMED (KSM), WAS NOT PART OF OSAMA’S AL QAEDA ORGANIZATION WHEN THE PLAN WAS FIRST PROPOSED. KSM was a terrorist long before he pitched his idea to Bin Laden, who, according to Staff Statement No. 16 was at first non-committal.

Why is this important? The attempt to narrow the focus of the War on Terror to al Qaeda is ridiculous. The War is a global war and, just as Word War II involved numerous countries, the War on Terror involves numerous organizations. The attempt by the press and the Left to isolate al Qaeda as the sole source of Islamic terror is neither accurate nor particularly helpful.

Perhaps as a result of its charter, the commission has self-imposed blinders. The reports really do not address the issue of Islamic terrorism except in a very peripheral way. It is solely interested in convicting Osama bin Laden.

I predict that there will be very little that will result in the way of the management of homeland security as the result of the 9/11 Commission. The lessons we learned from that day of terror have already been applied to our defense posture. The focus of the report on al Qaeda may even have a negative effect. Those who learn to read between the lines of this blinkered glimpse of the world of terror will realize that the threat is much larger than one man and his relatively small organization.

Based on the headlines showing the willful obtuseness of the mainstream media, I hope the innate wisdom of the American people, the Internet and the “new media” will help a majority see this truth. Otherwise this war may be lost.

Is the War on Terror "Self Declared?"

Glenn Frankel of the Washington Post Foreign Service began his front-page article on Israeli treatment of prisoners with this:

NABLUS, West Bank -- The accounts of physical abuse of Iraqis by American guards at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad sounded achingly familiar to Anan Labadeh. The casual beatings, the humiliations, the trophy photos taken by both male and female guards were experiences he said he underwent as a Palestinian security detainee at an Israeli military camp in March of last year.

The third paragraph begins:

Many of the questions raised by the Abu Ghraib scandal, and by the United States's self-declared war on terrorism, are the kinds that Israel has been wrestling with for decades.

“Self declared?” Has 9/11 really slipped into the media’s memory hole already? Has Frankel not heard of Osama’s declaration of war against the US? Have thousands of deaths from terrorist attacks, going back to the Reagan administration simply slipped his mind?

It takes a certain kind of mind to refuse to accept that we are at war after being attacked. The kind of mind that is so hidebound that it defines war as uniformed armies marching across a border. If it isn’t the Germans invading France or Grant taking Richmond, it isn’t a war. Everything else is a matter for the cops. Blow a hole in the Cole: send the FBI to Aden. Kill 3,000 people by ramming passenger planes into tall buildings: ask why and ask the Afghans to extradite Osama bin Laden.

Frankel continues:

Where is the line in a democracy between coercion and torture?

Why the reference to “democracy?” If a terrorist chops off your fingers or hooks your private parts to an electrical generator, isn’t it torture? If a terrorist uses a dull knife to saw off your head, isn’t it torture? If you are raped in Saddam’s rape rooms is it different than if you are raped by democrats? Is torture in a democracy different than torture in a theocracy, in a dictatorship, in a terrorist cell?

What kinds of interrogation techniques are morally acceptable when dealing with a suspect who may have knowledge of a "ticking bomb" -- an imminent attack? And what about the damage those techniques inflict on relations between an occupying power and its subjects?

The damage that the Abu Ghraib activities have inflicted are largely confined to the US, and even here they are largely the property of the Liberal media. Polls have shown that the average American is tired of the issue, believes that it is being dealt with and believes that it is being exploited by the media for political purposes.

The average Iraqi, accustomed as he is to Saddam’s brutality, wonders what all the fuss is about.
(article)

The Attack on the Khobar Compound - Unexpurgated Version

On May 29th terrorists attacked the Khobar complex in Saudi Arabia. 22 people were killed. The US media gave us the sanitized version. Those killed were identified by their nationalities; the manner of their death was glossed over. It can't be squeamishness on the part of the American media, as the relentless pictures and descriptions of Abu Ghraib will testify.

MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, has given as a somewhat more graphic insight into what happened that day, in the words of Fawwaz bin Muhammad Al-Nashami, commander of the Al-Quds Brigade that took responsibility for the May 29 attack at Khobar, Saudi Arabia. The following are excerpts from the interview. Note the piety of the practitioners of the “Religion of Peace.”

For those who are interested in the complete interview click Special Dispatch Series - No. 731

"We turned to the third site, which was the most fortified center of all the compounds. Our plan was to remain in the car until we were alongside the American Hummer. When we were next to it, the brothers appeared from the windows [of the car] and began shouting 'Allah Akbar,' and shooting them. And I saw the skull of the soldier standing behind the machine gun explode before my eyes. Allah be praised. I think the driver was also killed.

"It was our [original] plan to enter through the exit gate, and immediately upon entering I would blow up the car amongst them [the guards], while the brothers will go on to charge [into the compound].

"As soon as we arrived, we passed the Hummers and exchanged fire with them. At one of the gates, Allah brought to us a security guard, whom we had seen in the street. We ordered him to open the gate and thus we did not need to blow up the car.

"Brother Nimr swaggered around inside the compound. Then we drove on the main road inside the compound. The compound is very big indeed, and its area spreads out over a number of kilometers, and in it there are a number of compounds.

"We went to one of the buildings. Brother Nimr, may Allah's mercy be upon him, shoved the door until it opened. We entered and in front of us stood many people. We asked them their religion, and for identification documents. We used this time for Da'wa [preaching Islam], and for enlightening the people about our goal. We spoke with many of them.

"At the same time, we found a Swedish infidel. Brother Nimr cut off his head, and put it at the gate [of the building] so that it would be seen by all those entering and exiting.
"We continued in the search for the infidels, and we slit the throats of those we found among them. At the same time, we heard the sound of the patrols and the gathering [of the security personnel] outside. These cowards did not dare to enter. About 45 minutes or an hour had passed since the beginning of the operation.

"We began to comb the site looking for infidels. We found Filipino Christians. We cut their throats and dedicated them to our brothers the Mujahideen in the Philippines. [Likewise], we found Hindu engineers and we cut their throats too, Allah be praised. That same day, we purged Muhammad's land of many Christians and polytheists.

"Afterwards, we turned to the hotel. We entered and found a restaurant, where we ate breakfast and rested a while. Then we went up to the next floor, found several Hindu dogs, and cut their throats. I told the brothers to leave them on the stairs so the troops of the Taghut would see them when they burst in, and be terror-stricken. [3] But it seems I thought too well of these cowards, because they did not enter [the hotel] until after we had left.

"We utilized the time for [teaching] the Koran to the Muslims who remained. We taught them how to read [Surat] Al-Fatiha properly. They were amazed by us, [and said], 'How are you able to do this in such an inflamed atmosphere?' Thanks be to Allah for enabling us to do so.

"The Indian Muslims told us that their manager was a vile Hindu who did not permit them to pray, and that he would arrive shortly. When [the manager] arrived, we verified his religion by means of his identifying documents, and we kept him with us for a short time.
……

"At the same time, brother Hussein was on the stairs and noticed an Italian infidel. He aimed his gun at him and told him to come closer. The infidel came closer. We saw his identifying documents and decided that he should call Al-Jazeera and talk to his people and send them a warning about the war of Islam and its people, and that afterwards we would cut his throat and dedicate him to the Italians who were fighting our brothers in Iraq and to the idiotic Italian president who wants to confront the lions of Islam.

"We called Al-Jazeera and I told the broadcaster to speak with him [i.e. the Italian]. The broadcaster asked me, 'Does he speak English?' I told the broadcaster, 'Do you have Italian translators?' He said, 'Yes,' and I said, 'Let him speak in his own language.'
"He [the Italian] spoke for several minutes. I asked the broadcaster, 'Did you record that?' He said, 'Yes,' and then the hero Nimr cut his throat." [
…..


"As soon as we entered, we encountered the car of a Briton, the investment director of the company, whom Allah had sent to his death. He is the one whose mobile phone on the seat of his car, with the blood on it, they kept showing [on television]. We left him in the street.

"We went out, and drove our car. We had tied the infidel by one leg [behind the car]. We left the company [compound] and met the patrols. The first to arrive was the jeep of a patrol, with one soldier, and we killed him. With the rest we exchanged fire, and we got through.

"Allah be thanked, we had learned more than one route to the second site. When the patrols blocked the way, [we] had no chance of returning by the same route, so we went another way – via the coast, and then via Khobar, that is, the Damam highway – a distance of four kilometers.

"The infidel's clothing was torn to shreds, and he was naked in the street. The street was full of people, as this was during work hours, and everyone watched the infidel being dragged, praise and gratitude be to Allah.

"When we arrived at one of the bridges, we encountered an ambush of jeeps of theTawaghitdogs [i.e. Saudi government troops] and the guards of the Americans, and we exchanged fire with them. [2] When we crossed the bridge, the rope [by which the Briton was tied] snapped and the body of the infidel fell in the middle of the intersection, between the four stop signs, and everyone who was stopped at the stop signs saw the infidel on the day that he fell from the top of the bridge.

"The brothers had exchanged fire with the patrols, all the while shouting, 'Allah Akbar,' and 'There is no God but Allah.'"

A note to my brethren who are professional journalists: doesn’t this make for riveting reading?

Isn’t this at least as interesting as a pile of naked men at Abu Ghraib?

Isn’t there something instructive in this narrative, telling us of a mindset that we must understand?

This has all the hallmarks of a good story. Why do I have to go to the Internet to find it? Please, anyone, what’s the answer?

Pulling Teeth: the education of Dave Addis

Dave Addis is a Virginian Pilot columnist and so, to one one’s surprise, Liberal. It’s part of the job description.

Today’s column is headlined “In Hindsight it seems Reagan had an eye for evil.”

As they lay Ronald Reagan to rest today, it might be a good time to lay to rest the debate over one of the many controversial things he said .

Few of the president’s statements while in office caused more hair-pulling and sputtering, here and around the globe, than his description of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.”
Critics, aghast at such an undiplomatic utterance, complained that the ol’ Cold Warrior was at it again, tossing gasoline on a fire that the rest of the world – including diplomats from his own country – were hoping to extinguish.

As one encyclopedia describes the reaction to Reagan’s reference, many feared that “by attempting to assume moral superiority in the Cold War, the U.S. was further inflaming East-West tensions and enhancing the risk of nuclear conflict.”

Not a big Reagan fan at the time, I was among them. I thought it was an unnecessarily crude and unhelpful thing to say when, in the early 1980s, tensions already were frightening enough. After all, as wisdom has it, when you poke an angry bear with a stick, you tend only to make it angrier.

A couple of years after Reagan left office, and a couple of months after the Soviet Union fell apart, circumstances placed me in Moscow as an editor/adviser to the new Russia’s first free-market newspaper, Commersant. One day, while discussing our nations’ past differences with a Russian colleague, the “evil empire” remark came up.

My colleague, Sergei Voitishkin, was a young, liberal democrat – small “D” – who couldn’t have been happier at the collapse of the whole communist nightmare. But his view as a Russian liberal contrasted sharply with that of American liberals when it came to Reagan and the “evil empire” flap.

“You know,” Voitishkin told me, “we were quite surprised at the reaction to what he said. We couldn’t understand why so many people were upset.

“Of course it was an evil empire. When Reagan finally said that, we were quite happy. Our reaction was, 'Finally, somebody over there understands what has happened to us.’”
That was quite a revelation. The very people we’d think would have been the most offended – the smart, young, educated, worldly liberals – had been the ones cheering Reagan the loudest.

Let me interrupt Mr. Addis long enough to make one or two points. First, there is a phenomenal amount of hubris in asserting that this article by an obscure columnist for the cut-and-paste job that is the Virginian Pilot will lay anything to rest, let alone the issue of whether the USSR was an “Evil Empire.” And whether President Reagan should have spoken “Truth to Power” as members of the Left like to say.

Second, the article is really about the intellectual journey of Mr. Addis. An intellect so veiled in false liberal certitude that it was able to ignore the truth about historical drama that unfolded itself before us during the 1980s. It took the face-to-face testimony of one of Communism’s freed serfs to remove certain self-imposed blinders.

To continue:

It only goes to show that the definition of a liberal and a conservative can get pretty well twisted around, depending on where you happen to be standing at the moment in question.
President Reagan said a lot of things while in office that remain suspect. He was prone to mish mashing scenes from real life with scenes from Hollywood movies. He once told Israel’s Yitzak Shamir that he’d personally filmed the liberation of a Nazi death camp. In reality, because of his poor eyesight, the Army never sent him past the California state line. He reportedly told a similar tale to Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

Reagan is accused by his opponents of living in a dream world where reality and his film roles blend seamlessly into each other. I have attempted to search the Internet for this particular accusation but was not successful. Fact: newspaper reporters now have the credibility of used car salesmen; columnists are not that well regarded. The NY Times has instituted a regular corrections section devoted just to its columnists like Paul Krugman and Maureen “Ellipses” Dowd. I’m afraid I won’t take Mr. Addis’ word for his version of this story.

Maybe the most suspect of all was his argument that trees cause more pollution than automobiles. (If so, why isn’t Yellowstone under a smog alert?)

This was a comment that caused Liberals to roll over on the floor laughing. Trees? Pristine, Holy, Nature? A source of pollution? What a moron! Except, except…

I did find reference to this on the Internet. It seems that during a campaign speech in either 1979 or 1980 (the date varies depending on the source) Candidate Reagan referred to a study by an industry group that asserted that trees gave of more of the stuff that causes smog than cars. Some reports indicate that he took a swipe at the EPA for hiding this report.

Rather than taking the word of a newspaper writer for the validity of this viewpoint, let’s go to some scientific sources:

1. According to a study by the University of Helsinki, coniferous forests--that is to say, those composed of trees such as pines--release nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere that combine with other pollutants to form smog.

2. The Geological Society of London: When Ronald Reagan said trees caused pollution, most people thought he was up a gum tree. Australian researchers have now discovered that, in the case of eucalypts at least, the President was right after all.

Australia's native plants emit chemical compounds that can interact with other air pollutants to exacerbate smog in cities. Scientists from CSIRO Energy Technology and Atmospheric Research have been commissioned by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to investigate emissions of organic compounds from Australian eucalypt trees and grasses that contribute to the formation of photochemical smog.

"It's not just cars and industry that cause air pollution," says Mr Ian Galbally, from CSIRO Atmospheric Research. "Plants release highly reactive hydrocarbons that can add significantly to photochemical smog problems. That is, smog caused by the reaction of sunlight with chemical compounds like those from industry, car exhausts — and now, as we've discovered, plants," he says.

"The blue haze you often see over the Dandenongs in Victoria and in the Blue Mountains near Sydney is caused in part by the gases released by vegetation. We found that grasses, particularly when cut, are potent emitters of reactive hydrocarbons."

"Plants release these compounds into the atmosphere in large quantities. These volatile compounds add to the photochemical smog in the same way as emissions from human sources — there is no discrimination," says Dr Peter Nelson, senior research scientist with CSIRO Energy Technology.

3. And finally, from the Canadian Globe and Mail:

Ottawa — Coniferous forests around the world may be emitting more smog-causing nitrogen oxides than traffic and industry combined, suggests a report in the prestigious journal Nature.
The report, released Wednesday, flies in the face of the accepted view that forests reduce pollution by absorbing it — a theory Canada relied on in demanding credit for forests as pollution "sinks" under the Kyoto climate change accord.

Scotch pine needles release nitrogen oxides directly into the atmosphere when exposed to ultraviolet light, says a study led by Perrti Hari of the University of Helsinki.
Nitrogen oxides are smog precursors: They combine with other pollutants to form ground-level ozone, a major component of smog.

The emissions from Scotch pines increase in proportion to the amount of ultraviolet radiation they receive, says the study.

"Although this contribution is insignificant on a local scale, our findings suggest that global NOx emissions from boreal coniferous forests may be comparable to those produced by worldwide industrial and traffic sources," says the report.

Actually the scientific community has known these things for a very long time. It doesn’t take advanced degrees to determine what plants produce during growth and decay. There are few scientists, however, who are willing to stick out their necks to be chopped by the yahoos at “Earth First” or the feature writers of the newspapers.

Besides, what good would it do? We are certainly not going to chop down the world’s coniferous forests to end smog. The only activists on this issue are the Luddites who prefer a pre-industrial age. Not the real one, of course, where people died of overwork or common diseases at an early age. They prefer an airbrushed version, or should we say “the movie version.” Preferably, one in which they are in charge, steering the fates of the lumpenproletariat from their desks with the stroke of a pen. You know, the ideal society that was the Soviet Union, only this time – because they are in charge – not an Evil Empire but the Communism “with a human face.”

Back to Addis:

But when it came to recognizing an evil empire, Reagan’s eyesight was 20/ 20. I didn’t understand that at the time he said it. But when I finally got to see it for myself, it was clear that you didn’t need prescription lenses to figure out what you were looking at.

Although I have given Mr. Addis a hard time for his ideological blindness, He has seen the truth. There are many in his camp that still refuse to face the facts he faced. Who blame Reagan for destroying their dream, their Socialist fantasy. But perhaps, unlike Dave Addis, they did not have it rubbed in their faces by those freed from that Evil Empire.

Keep working on it Dave. Who knows, one day we may see you out in the woods cutting down those “killer trees.” At that point, we’ll know you have come away from the Dark Side.

Farewell President Reagan

Ronald Reagan is arguably the most loved and revered modern President. Yet, in intellectual circles on the Left, he is widely dismissed as – in Clark Clifford’s famous phrase – “an amiable dunce.”

Yes, this is the same Clark Clifford, one of the Democrats' "wise men" who acted as a front man for Middle Eastern crooks and after becoming embroiled in the BCC banking scandal, pled old age and senility to escape a jail term.

So why was Reagan viewed by Washington sophisticates as stupid? The reason is actually so simple that it is virtually always overlooked: he disagreed with the conventional Washington wisdom. It is a natural human emotion to assume that people who disagree with us on fundamental issues are wrong. And if they continue to disagree with us after we have explained to them why they are wrong, they must be stupid. The other alternative is that they are evil.

Reagan did not believe that communism was merely another economic choice. He believed that we could prevail over the “evil empire.” He did not believe that high taxes led to economic well-being. He did not subscribe to the notion that every problem called for a governmental solution. Despite protestations to the contrary today, these were widely held beliefs when Reagan became President. In fact they are held by the Kerry/Dean/Gore/Kennedy wing of the Democratic party today and are taught as gospel on America’s campuses.

What is especially galling to his enemies is that he succeeded spectacularly, tearing down the Berlin Wall, ending the Soviet Union, freeing Eastern Europe, defeating communist expansion in Central America and ushering in a decade of spectacular economic growth at home.

The “Reagan was stupid” camp has convinced itself, in a bout of historical revisionism, that the country was united against Communism; that the fall of the Soviet Union was inevitable and Reagan had the dumb luck to be around when the fall occurred. Their message during this period of official mourning is that Reagan was “The Great Communicator;” an actor playing a part who got lucky.

The importance of luck was illustrated by two hillbillies playing poker. Big Joe Bob has a real good hand, so he raises. Li'l Clem has a daisy, too, so he sees and raises. Back and forth it goes. Finally, Joe Bob calls. Clem spreads his cards, grins broadly, and says, "I got me four aces!" He reaches for the pot. "Jest a minute," says Joe Bob. His hand goes to his boot and brings up something long and shiny. "I got me this right sharp knife." The color drains from Clem's face. Then he recovers, shakes his head, and laughs. "Doggone you, Joe Bob," he says. "You're the luckiest feller I ever seen!"

The “Reagan was evil” camp is represented by people like Henry Fairlie, who, in the Washington Post, writing on the Republican convention in 1980:
"The Reaganites on the floor were exactly those who in Germany gave the Nazis their main strength and who in France collaborated with them and sustained Vichy.” Fairlie was just warming up; adding that Reagan’s constituency was “narrow minded, book banning, truth censoring, mean spirited; ungenerous, envious, intolerant, afraid; chicken, bullying; trivially moral, falsely patriotic, family cheapening, flag cheapening, God cheapening; the common man, shallow, small, sanctimonious.”

Of course that was when Reagan was very much alive. Now that he is dead, we have Danny Glover, the actor who adores Fidel Castro and every other communist dictator: "We all know Ronald Reagan's legacy, from the Iran-Contra affair to the funding of the Nicaraguan military in which over 200,000 people died. The groundwork for the move steadily to the right happened with the Reagan administration. People want to elevate him to some mythic level, they have their own reason for doing that."

Many a moral monster has surrounded himself with glittering friends. They can be deceiving. If you want to know about a man’s soul, look at his enemies. If Danny Glover is your enemy, you are my friend.

The American people are blessed to have had Ronald Reagan as its leader at a critical juncture in history. When he came into office communism was on the march, the Ayatollahs held our embassy staff hostage, inflation was rampant and Jimmy Carter could not buy a clue. Commentators were opining that the job of President hat gotten beyond the capacity of any one man. It was certainly beyond the capacity of Mr. Carter.

When Reagan left office, the USSR was on the verge of collapse, the economy was booming and confidence had been restored in the ability, and the essential goodness, of the American experiment. And he did it all with unfailing good humor and by never listening to the advice of the New York Times.

As we remember Ronald Reagan, let us not mourn him. Let us instead celebrate his life. His eternal spirit has been released from his body, his family has been freed from a terrible burden, and we can rejoice in the fact that he has left the world a better place than he found it. Thank you Ronald Reagan.

Village Voice Calls for Extermination of Republicans

The evidence is becoming all too clear that Liberals are becoming a real danger to our country. Click here for the entire article by Michael Fiengold.

Here's how he starts:

No U.S. president, I expect, will ever appoint a Secretary of the Imagination. But if such a cabinet post ever were created, and Richard Foreman weren't immediately appointed to it, you'd know that the Republicans were in power. Republicans don't believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don't give a hoot about human beings, either can't or won't. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.

This opinion is presumably not shared by Foreman; you can gauge the breadth of his imaginative compassion from his willingness to extend it even toward George W. Bush, idiot scion of a genetically criminal family that should have been sterilized three generations ago.

Mark Steyn: The Tenent CIA

I have been ambivalent about the George Bush's decision to retain George Tenent as well as Tenent's decision to resign. No longer. This analysis nails it as far as I am concerned. For the complete article click here.

Some excerpts:

The good news is that George Tenet has resigned as CIA Director. The bad news is he's two-and-three-quarter years late getting around to it. Tenet is the second longest-serving director, after the 1950s spymaster Allen Dulles, but Dulles's longevity availed him nought after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. By any measure, September 11 was a much bigger fiasco, and Tenet should have gone on Carringtonian grounds: "There has been a British humiliation," said Lord Carrington after the Argies seized the Falklands. "I ought to take responsibility for it." [snip]

When you look at all the recent "setbacks", "scandals", "Bush LIES!!!!!!" and other frippery that has plagued the Administration in recent months, one finds that in almost all of them the same three letters recur. From Iraq's WMD to Saddam buying uranium in Africa, from Ahmad Chalabi to Valerie Plame, at heart they are all about what the CIA said or didn't say, advised or didn't advise, leaked or got leaked on.

Everything that is wrong with the agency was made plain a few weeks ago with the much-anticipated release of a classified CIA "Presidential Daily Brief" from August 6 2001. This was supposed to be the smoking gun which would reveal that Bush knew 9/11 was coming. It turned out to be far more damaging than that. It revealed somewhat carelessly that the CIA - the most sinister acronym in the world, the all-knowing spooks behind the dirty tricks in a thousand Hollywood thrillers - crib most of their info from television shows and foreign intelligence services.

Under the headline "Bin Ladin [sic] Determined To Strike In US", the most lavishly funded intelligence agency in the Western world led off its analysis with its top piece of "classified" "intelligence": "Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 'bring the fighting to America'."

Terrific. Your crack CIA operative knows how to go into deep cover in his living room and pose as an average American couch potato by switching on the television. Then, just when the rest of the country is settling in for the Friends rerun, he surreptiously flips the remote to the Osama interview on CNN.

Next in the briefing came a couple more historical generalities about bin Laden supplied by foreign intelligence agencies in the late 1990s.

Third on the list was the CIA's only self-generated contribution to the assessment - one sentence, three years old: "A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks." This turned out to be wrong. The attacks in New York were perpetrated mainly by Saudi youth, let into America on inadequately-filled paperwork processed through the State Department's Saudi "Visa Express" programme.

The CIA ended the briefing on a reassuring note: "The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related." That was also false. The FBI may have had several dozen "open cases" vaguely bin Laden-related, but it wasn't "conducting" anything like that number of active investigations. So that is the Agency's summation on Osama bin Laden as it stood in August 2001: two old television interviews, two generalities from foreign agencies, one rumour from the late 1990s, and a concluding assertion that demonstrates the CIA doesn't even know what the FBI's doing, never mind anybody else. Hard to see why it was ever "classified", as you could have picked 99 per cent of it from your daily newspaper. This would just about pass muster for an intelligence briefing in a small nation with no role in the world - Luxembourg, say...


Tenet's defenders say, ah, well, easy for you to say, but it's very hard to get a guy and plant him in al-Qaeda's inner circle. True. But no one is asking that. The CIA's critics want to know why its human intelligence is so poor even in nominally friendly states. One reason why Bush has been embroiled in this business about Saddam trying to buy uranium from Niger is because it's obvious that the CIA has no clue about what is going on in that part of Africa. And, when they were invited to check out the claims of British and French intelligence, the agency dispatched not an intelligence specialist but an ex-career diplomat turned "adjunct scholar" at the Saudi-funded Middle East Institute. So, to investigate the case for war with Iraq, the CIA sent an anti-Bush partisan on the House of Saud's payroll who drank mint tea with a couple of Niger bureaucrats and then wrote it up as a third-rate travelogue for The New York Times ("Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger river"). The CIA are tourists in the heart of darkness.

Mark Steyn on the Saudi Problem

There is more than one problem to be solved in fighting the War on Terror. The future of Saudi Arabia is one of them. Mark Steyn is arguably the best stylist in the English speaking world today. He has a great analysis of the Saudi dilemma here

His home page is here.

Good and Evil

Here's Jonah Goldberg's take on how one "angy atheist" deals with the question of good and evil via Buffy the Vampire Slayer. click

The Best Summary of the Bush Administration's Enemies … Ever.

Doyne, you're being unfair. Opponents of the administration and its policies and personnel make very valid points, and this is one of them. Rather than going to war, the US should have tried peaceful diplomatic engagement with the ruler of sovereign Iraq, but without shaking hands [reference to Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in the 1980s]. Remember, Saddam was brutal dictator who we were wrong for supporting, and it was wrong of us to overthrow him. If this diplomacy failed, we should have continued our policy of economic sanctions against Iraq, rather than the brutal policy of economic sanctions against Iraq. And remember, Saudis were the majority of terrorists on 9/11, so rather than attacking an oil-rich terrorist-supporting Arab nation, it would have made more logical sense to attack an oil-rich terrorist-supporting Arab nation, which of course would be wrong. Also, the war on Iraq diverted us from the war in Afghanistan. And the war in Afghanistan is wrong. And we're being distracted from the War on Terror. And the War on Terror is a straw man.

I know this all sounds very contradictory, inconsistent, and incoherent, so I'll simplify it - whatever the administration or the US does is wrong, and if they do the opposite, that will be wrong, too.

For the whole discussion, click
here

If the Disaster Isn’t “Made in the USA,” It Isn’t News

Thanks to InstaPundithere I found out that:

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today appealed for an end to the looting that has forced it to suspend food distribution across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), …
For the whole story click here

WFP has been providing 150,000 people in South Kivu province with 3,500 tonnes of food a month through nutritional centres and hospitals, as well as to food-for-work and other programmes.

Thousands of Congolese attacked UN offices and peacekeeping bases yesterday, angry that fewer than 1,000 UN peacekeepers were unable to prevent 2,000 to 4,000 rebels from seizing Bukavu, South Kivu's provincial capital, on Wednesday. The DRC's military in Bukavu unexpectedly collapsed, the chief of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations said.

Fifteen DRC nationals working for WFP remained in the city, most of them hiding with their families for a second day. The last two WFP international staff members in Bukavu were taken yesterday by a helicopter owned by the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) to the north-eastern city of Goma.

…WFP staff members were told to stay at home for their safety. … a mob burned down the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office and smashed shop windows.
…
More than 2,000 Banyamulenge from the Bukavu area fled into neighbouring Rwanda over the past couple of weeks, …

You can’t make this up. Refugees fleeing TO RWANDA?

And, by the way, this is not found in the “all the news that’s fit to print” press. Guess it doesn’t fit. Sigh.

Virginian Pilot Slams Catholics

Dennis Hartig is the Editorial Page Editor of this vapid collection of outsourced news. Apparently he doesn't think much of the decision of some Catholic Bishops to deny communion to abortion advocates. I mean, just because Catholics condemn abortion as a sin? So today we are treated to an editorial cartoon by Mike Peters who is with the Dayton Daily News. The picture is of a church with one lone parishioner and two clerics in the pulpit. The priest says to the Bishop: "Well first you banned pro-choice politicians, the pro-choice voters, then stem cell advocates, then gays, then gay marriage judges, then..."

Funny, my experience with people in the pews is that if the advocates of abortion, infanticide, and gay marriage were "banned," attendance would increase. The fastest growing church groups in this country are the ones that most closely adhere to traditional Christian teaching. The go-along-to-get-along churches are the ones who are dying.

But that's not the opinion of Mr. Hartig. If he goes to a church on Easter Sunday - and have no idea if he does - I would be willing to place a hefty wager on this choice of denominations.

Howell Raines - Bare

God – or (for the unchurched: Providence) must surely be at work in the US. Exhibit one is Howell Raines. You remember Raines, don’t you? He was the editor of the New York Times until Jason Blair blew up like a car bomb in Baghdad and Raines was the collateral damage.

Since Raines no longer is constrained from disguising his core beliefs, he is beginning reveal himself, like Al Gore before a MoveOn.com audience. And who does Raines hate? Not just George Bush but also Christians, “The Rich,” Republicans, Ronald Reagan, freedom, free enterprise, in fact anything to the right of Vladimir Lenin.

Raines is fully exposed in This blog by John Hinderaker in “Powerline.” A great read.

Virginian Pilot Lacks Reporters, Reprints NY Times

There are more than a few sources for the President's speech to the graduates of the Air Force Academy on Wednesday. You can go to the White House web siteor you could have turned on the TV set and caught it live.

But the Virginian Pilot is apparently short staffed so they decided to run the NY Times version of the speech. I say the "NY Times version" because this "news" story is so loaded with modifiers and qualifiers that it deserves to become part of a case study in some Journalism class on how you editorialize on the front page.

I wish I could do justice to it, but another Blogger got there ahead of me. Unfortunately, when I e-mailed the blog from my office to my home, I lost the blogger who wrote the actual analysis, but I will try to find it for you and give proper credit later. Here goes:
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That darn New York Times

The New York Times coverage of Bush's speech at the Air Force Academy is a special treat. Like a complete idiot, I hurt my back doing dead lifts in my garage, and so spent a fair part of yesterday on my back in the family room, looking for entertainment on the tube, and caught W's address. It was actually a very good speech, but poorly delivered. The Times puts it this way:

In a grim commencement speech on a sparkling morning at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Mr. Bush outlined in the most detail yet what he sees as the continuing threat of terrorism. Rather than expressing any misgivings about the course of the war in Iraq, Mr. Bush emphatically affirmed his belief in striking enemies before they can strike first to protect Americans against Al Qaeda and other terrorist threats.

Giving a grim speech on a nice day? We can now add meteorological insensitivity to Bush's many other style-crimes. "What he sees" as the continuing threat of terrorism? This is idiosyncratic? Maybe it's not a threat anymore? And only the Times would think it was good journalism to add "[r]ather than expressing any misgivings about the course of the war in Iraq . . ." at the beginning of a sentence describing what the speech was about. I suppose we should be grateful that it did not read, "As car bombs exploded in Iraq, killing American soldiers and Iraqi children, the President . . . "

We do get this choice insight, however:

The president's remarks appeared to try to strike a balance between frightening Americans and offering himself as the only choice to lead the nation out of danger and to shore up his credentials as commander in chief in an election year when polls show support for the Iraq war and his presidency declining.

Either that, or a sincere attempt to inform Americans about real threats facing them, and to do the graduates and their parents the dignity of acknowledging the danger he is responsible for sending them into. I watched the speech, and the Times fails to mention the standing ovation Bush received when he said, referring to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war against terrorism, that he intended to take the fight to the enemy. The Times describes Bush's speech as "interrupted intermittently by applause, most of it modest" and this is true. The applause was modest, except when it was enthusiastic.

The Times informs us that

Mr. Bush also tried to answer critics who say that his policies and the war in Iraq have simply created more terrorists.

But only tried, of course. The "we better not make the terrorists mad at us" argument is so compelling on its face that attempts to answer it are bound to be futile, but Bush did the best he could with his limited resources.

But the choicest passage is this:

Casting forward to his D-Day speech, Mr. Bush told the cadets that "on this day in 1944, General Eisenhower sat down at his headquarters in the English countryside and wrote out a message to the "Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces" who would soon be invading Normandy. Mr. Bush said Eisenhower wrote that "the eyes of the world are upon you" and "the hopes of prayers or liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."

Mr. Bush omitted the first line of Eisenhower's message, which was, "You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months."

The president used the word "crusade" once soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to describe the campaign against terrorism, and it was criticized in the Arab world for its association with the medieval struggle between Christians and Muslims.

I think we may be seeing the emergence of an exciting new doctrine of political correctness here. Not only may we not use words like Crusade, at least in the positive sense of a noble fight against a crazed ideology that wants to murder us, but, we should not use any language from a paragraph that includes such a verboten word. As to whether D-Day was still a good thing, even though Ike called it a Crusade, I admit I cannot say. Perhaps the Times will clear that up for us some objective reporting at a later date.
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Some time ago I ran into a former Virginian Pilot employee who lamented the personnel cutbacks on the paper. I have no idea if this has led to the paper's current deplorable condition, but reprinting contentious rubbish from the NY Times - as opposed to watching TV or getting the speech from the White House web site strikes me as bizarre. After all, this is not reporting from the wilds of Afghanistan. Any intern can write this story, and go a better job of "reporting." But perhaps not a better job of editorializing on page A6.

The Press, The UN and Terror

Until now, the "Mainstream" Press has be remarkably shy about the UN's Oil-for-Food scam that appears to have diverted literally billions of dollars into bribes to foreign and UN officials. Demonstrating the reticence of Victorian virgins, there has hardly been a whisper in the "official" press about this, with the lone exception of the Wall Street Journal and - of course - the bloggers on the Internet.

Apologists for the press will claim that since there are no graphic pictures, a la Abu Ghraib, the TV networks and the Lords of the Print Press may believe it does not have the grab appeal of pictures of West Virginia sluts holding a naked man on a leash wearing Victoria Secret's latest creation.

Well, how about a video of Arab terrorists making their entrance and exit from the murder of six Israelis in UN Ambulances? It has it all: violence, clear pictures, and wrongdoing. But wait ... it does not fit the media template. Just keep repeating: the UN are the Good Guys, the UN are the Good Guys, the UN sanctifies all things.

For a view of the movie, click on Michelle Malkin's article: Here.

The Virginian Pilot Wants Your Kids in Government Schools

An editorial in the Pilot titled, “The public education of southern Baptists” begins by asserting that “there are plenty of valid reasons why individual parents my choose to educate their children at home or in private schools.” And then never mentions that line of thought again.

The editor is apparently terrified that the second largest denomination in the country (after Catholics) would urge its members to withdraw its children from public schools.

As well he (or she) should. Public schools are notorious for turning out graduates who cannot read their diplomas. Even the “better” public schools graduates are virtually illiterate in history, geography or basic science. Math problems are done on calculators.

On top of this, what bothers Baptists – and many other Christians – is that public schools now teach values that are inimical to Christian values. Historical Christian Holidays like Christmas have been re-named to remove their religious roots. Public schools actively promote sexual practices which most Christians view as sin and many people – Christian or not – consider perversions.

So what reasons does the Virginian Pilot give to ask Baptists to stay? Well, they appeal – wait for it – Baptist’s PATRIOTISM! It’s patriotic to give your children to the government because that makes a commitment to “a pluralistic society.” And our children get an opportunity to “weight their values … against others;” an admission that Christian values and government school values are not compatible.

The writer asks, “Do the Baptists really want to deprive all other children of the opportunity to hear from their sons and daughters?” Apparently the editor has not heard how Christian students who have attempted to share their values with others have fared. One little girl who passed out pencils with “Jesus Loves You” was threatened with expulsion.

After admonishing Baptists parents that withdrawal from government schools will deprive those schools of the benefits of hearing from its children, we get the intellectually opposite concept when the writer says that “the schools are America’s mixing pot.” Well, which is it: are the schools a place for little Baptists to tell others their beliefs, or are the schools a place for little Baptists to learn to be little agnostics?

This, of course, from a newspaper so painfully politically correct that it everywhere and always celebrates multiculturalism; the very antithesis of the Melting Pot that the US was once thought to be.

I applaud the Southern Baptists and hope that this resolution passes in their upcoming convention. After all, isn’t multiculturalism a “Good Thing?” Can’t Baptists become part of the “Grand Mosaic” that the Left is always nattering on about? Why should Baptist children be ground down in to the undifferentiated goo of ill educated, over sexed graduates of government schools? Let’s “…DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!”