The Other Deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats agreed on Tuesday to clear the way for the Senate to vote on the controversial nomination of John Bolton as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which was expected to pass mainly on party lines.

Washington Post - Senate Democrats refused to end debate on John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador yesterday, extending the contentious issue into next month and angering Republicans only three days after many had heralded a bipartisan breakthrough on judicial nominees.

Why do these deals at all if they mean nothing. The Judicial deal is also going to turn out to be meaningless. Clinton has set the standard for honesty in the Democrat party.

Iran

Not too long ago President Bush promised that if an oppressed people in the Middle East rose up against their oppressors they would have the support of the United States of America. They soon found out such hollow promises were made by a politician that when faced with geopolitical realities reneged on his word. Starvation, torture and massacre were the result. I’m talking about George H.W. Bush and his promise to the Shiites of southern Iraq.

In his State of the Union address President Bush’s son George Walker Bush made a similar promise to support those who fight for democracy in oppressive regimes everywhere. The difference we were told is this Bush says what he means and means what he says. I can’t tell.

Young Iranians are rising up against the Mullahs all across Iran. At great risk of torture and death they take to the streets to protest any of a number of human rights abuses and to call for real democracy from the tyrants. Do we hear of this from the Main Steam Media? No, but then no surprise there. Do we hear of this from our State Department, from our Congress, or from the President’s bully pulpit. Surprisingly no. It’s not as if Iran is a fragile tyranny that if we withdrew support would result in a hostile Islamo-Fascist theocracy. That’s already happened. No, this is not Saudi Arabia this is the power behind Hammas and a supporter of terrorism in America and Iraq. An enemy that will soon go nuclear. Why is there no support for the forces of Freedom in Iraq?

The Deal

A deal was made last night in the Senate when Democrats agreed not to filibuster Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and Bill Pryor in exchange for sacrificing Henry Saad and William Myers. Why were these two Judges thrown to the wolves? Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said of Henry Saad

All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree there is a problem there.

In the worst kind of slime he refers to a confidential report and infers that something is seriously wrong without saying what it is. Is it as serious as Bolton’s meanness to a subordinate? Was it as petty as the charge of threat Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow leveled? In an e-mail to a supporter, Saad wrote of Stabenow,

This is the game they play. Pretend to do the right thing while abusing the system and undermining the constitutional process. Perhaps some day she will pay the price for her misconduct.

He mistakenly sent the e-mail not only to his supporter but to Stabenow's office.

William Myers’ problem is that he isn’t an environmentalist whacko. He even took the side of a rancher over BLM’s. One of the reasons we sold our ranch is that half of it was BLM owned and because of that it just wasn’t profitable. Also because of the BLM land we got a price less than half of what we could’ve had had it been all private. So this guy apparently leans toward businesses over Government bureaucracies. How evil. The point is these Judges are qualified, which is what advise and consent is supposed to be about, but they’re just not liberal enough.

The bigger question in my mind is why make the deal at all? Why not go nuclear and confirm all five? Maybe because RINOs Lincoln Chafee (RI), Olympia Snowe (Me.), and John McCain (Az.) wont support their President. Two more Senators break ranks and we don’t have the votes necessary. Fence sitters include Senators Chuck Hagel (Ne.), Mike DeWine (Ohio), John Warner (Va.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Ak.), and Arlen Specter (Pa.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The argument they make is similar to McCains’. McCain says that he wanted to preserve the right to filibuster future judicial nominees appointed by future Democratic presidents. But that’s dumb, the Democrats have the balls to go nuclear and will if the Republicans ever abuse the filibuster the way the Democrats have.

Updat:Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will fight to get all ten Judges an up or down vote.

May 24th, 2005 - Mr. President, though I am not a party to the memorandum of understanding signed last night by 14 of my colleagues, I have had the opportunity to further review the agreement in more detail. I believe the memorandum of understanding makes modest progress, but falls far short, of guaranteeing up or down votes on judicial nominees. It needs to be carefully monitored and executed in good faith.

Let me briefly share my thoughts on the understanding reached last night and my expectations going forward.

First, the memorandum of understanding begins to break the partisan obstruction of the past two years and guarantee fair up or down votes on several judicial nominees. Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and William Pryor all will receive the courtesy and fairness of up or down votes. I will continue to fight for other qualified nominees who have been waiting for votes and deserve the same courtesy and fairness.

Hypocrisy

Janice Rogers Brown, Bush's choice for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a conservative African-American woman, and for some that alone disqualifies her nomination to the D.C. Circuit, widely considered a stepping stone to the United States Supreme Court. I don't know a whole lot about Ms. Brown but it seems she knows socialism.

Once again a majority of this court has proved that 'if enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.' But theft is theft. Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery.

Oh boy is she now in a fight for her Judicial life against the left.

According to the NAACP she's a racist.

Janice Rogers Brown has a record of hostility to fundamental civil and constitutional rights principles, and she is committed to using her power as a judge to twist the law in ways that undermine those principles, said Hilary Shelton, director, NAACP Washington Bureau.

Well in Hi Voltage Wire Works v. San Jose, a 2000 case that involved Proposition 209, California's constitutional amendment banning race and sex favoritism by government, she seems to think that race should not be considered in awarding government contracts. At issue was a city public-works program that required applicants for contracts to engage in special "outreach" efforts to contact disadvantaged subcontractors - not on a colorblind basis, but targeting racial minorities.

She gave Proposition 209 a broad and forceful reading, interpreting it to outlaw not just explicit quotas but also race and gender "goals," because "a participation goal differs from a quota or a set-aside only in degree."

Brown set the measure in historical context, hailing it as a statement of the venerable rule that no one should be treated better or worse than another on account of race.

She quoted the late Yale Law School Professor Alexander Bickel: "[Discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, inherently wrong, and destructive of democratic society."

Fair enough, if you don’t think minorities should get preferential treatment then in the eyes of the left you’re a bigot.

Any time someone pulls the racism card I like to play the switch game. Switch one phrase to white and see if it sounds racist.

"a city public-works program that required applicants for contracts to engage in special "outreach" efforts to contact white subcontractors - not on a colorblind basis, but targeting whites."

Yep, sounds racist.

According to the left;

As a state supreme court justice, Brown has issued only one opinion dealing with abortion, but it raises serious concerns about her judicial philosophy concerning women's constitutional right to privacy and reproductive freedom.

I still can't find that damn right to privacy or the right to reproductive freedom in the Constitution, but I digress.

"she argued that the court majority's decision ruling unconstitutional a parental consent law for minors seeking abortions would "dismiss societal values" and would allow courts to "become final arbiters of traditional morality."

This isn't even an abortion argument, it's a parental right's argument. Ok, lets do the switch thing again. It's OK for kids to have abortions without parental consent but it would be wrong for a kid to purchase a gun without parental consent.

According to Ted “where’s my car?” Kennedy

Brown told an audience that people of faith were embroiled in a “war” against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots.

Tell me that's not right!

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown was first nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in July 2003. The D.C. Circuit is thought of as second only to the Supreme Court in influence over law and policy in this country. A sharecropper's daughter in the segregated South Ms. Brown has come a long way. She deserves a vote in the senate, not based on whether she is too conservative or too liberal but whether she is qualified. But it won't happen because the Democrats will filibuster. It's time to go nuclear.

Senator Barbara Boxer was for the filibuster before she was against it.

as someone who once wanted to end the filibuster myself at an early stage, I really now understand how foolish I was at that point.

Why did I want to end it When I first came here as a freshman? Because we had the majority and the Republicans were thwarting us

Other Boxer quotes.

Mr. President, I am very glad that we are moving forward with judges today. We all hear, as we are growing up, that, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’ and we have, in many of our courts, vacancies that have gone on for a year, 2 years, and in many cases it is getting to the crisis level. So I am pleased that we will be voting. I think, whether the delays are on the Republican side or the Democratic side, let these names come up, let us have debate, let us vote. Congressional Record, January 28, 1998


I make an appeal: If we vote to indefinitely postpone a vote on these two nominees or one of these two nominees, that is denying them an up-or-down vote. That would be such a twisting of what cloture really means in these cases. I make an appeal: If we vote to indefinitely postpone a vote on these two nominees or one of these two nominees, that is denying them an up-or-down vote. That would be such a twisting of what cloture really means in these cases.

it is the full Senate which is to give advice and consent. That process has been defeated by merely a threat of a filibuster. And of course, the filibuster can only be "closed" — or brought to a cloture vote — by a two-thirds vote. That, implicitly, does two things: It changes the constitutional requirements for the approval of judges, and by virtue of the fact that these internal rules cannot be changed except by an even greater vote — a two-thirds vote — it makes it impossible for a newly composed Senate to exercise their representational responsibilities.

The short and the long of it is, it's the American people who have been deprived of their abilities to express their will, by this misbehavior of the Senate. We have selected a president, and we have selected the members of the Senate with our votes, but the majority will has not been allowed to be heard because a minority, in essence, is holding the process hostage.

I agree wholeheartedly with Senator Boxer. It's going to snow.

La Shawn Barber reminds us that blogger's freedom of speech rights are in jeopardy.

A bipartisan group of bloggers drafted an online petition urging the FEC to grant bloggers a media exemption and “that the FEC promulgate a rule exempting unpaid political activity on the Internet from regulation, thereby guaranteeing every American’s right to speak freely and participate in our democratic process.”

Fundamental to our system of government is the freedom of speech to criticize our government, elected officials, each other, and to support our candidates of choice without being fined and penalized for the privilege. In March I wrote that this threat to our First Amendment rights is something liberal and conservative bloggers and readers can agree on. Let’s stand together.

Sign the petition or shut up. Red State says "the period for the FEC's proposed rulemaking regarding your freedom online ends on June 3rd."

Back to square one.

Well my template disappeared again, leaving me with a blank, bleak, black page. What happened? Did I screw up and publish a change in the template that wiped out everything? Is blogger unreliable in that things "happen" to your web page and you get what you pay for, i.e. nothing? OR WAS I HACKED? That has to be the pinnacle of hubris, to think that someone noticed me enough and felt me enough of a nuisance to actually hack my web site. I must of screwed up. Lesson learned, save your work. After 31 years working with computers you’d think I’d know this.

Our friends the Chinese

Through an ingenious series of tunnels that most of us started as children we now have a secret means of getting troops into China from below. SMOOT, the Secret Mole Organization of Tunnelers, developed as thousands of kids in the 50s and 60s began digging holes to China. As our tunnels inadvertently intersected with each other the organization began to form. After Tiananmen Square we realized that reform in China was unlikely to happen and we redoubled our efforts with the goal of providing an underground railroad to ferry Muslim Uighur, Tibetans, Christians, activist, journalist, and anybody else on the long list of people China brutalizes. So far we have kept this secret but must now make these tunnels accessible to our military should an invasion become necessary.

Newsweak

What is it that drives the MSM to go above and beyond in their efforts to harm America? Newsweek is owned by the Washington post. Are they trying to relive their glory days by bringing down another President? Are they part of the get Bush at any cost crowd? The cost this time 16 dead and hundreds wounded. America on every Muslims’ hit list. Propaganda served up on a silver platter to our enemies. And the story? Try and flush a copy of Newsweek down the toilet. Ain’t gonna happen. How about a 600 plus page book? In our prison you aren’t allowed to touch an inmate’s Koran or prayer rug. We follow that rule, it’s counter productive to make an inmate angry at you. We get enough of that just doing our jobs. To further anger an inmate just puts yourself and your fellow officers at greater risk. I can’t believe that guards at Gitmo would do this. Interrogators who are trying to obtain information also don’t seem to have much to gain by making America out to be the Great Satan they had been preached about. One would think this type of technique would result in the inmates further digging in their heels, give them more dedication to their cause, give them more resolve. But if it makes the US look bad, go with a story based on one source that is guaranteed to incense the entire Muslim world. Cause it’ll make Bush look bad.

Our Friends the Kurds

There are 30 million Kurds without a state. Yet what does the international community fixate on? The 600,000 or so Palestinians that fled to Arab countries with the promise of regaining all of Israel once the Jews were exterminated. Whether you believe Palestinians should have a state before or after they stop killing Jews, how can anyone who supports them not equally support the Kurds?

Pretty much everything Israel is condemned for in it’s treatment of Palestinians Turkey is guilty of in it’s treatment of the Kurds. While the PLO, Hammas and other terrorists plague Israel the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, terrorizes Turkey. Turkey has responded by forcibly displaced noncombatants, failing to resolve extrajudicial killings, torturing civilians, and abridging freedom of expression. Unlike Palestinians who are taught at birth to kill Jews, most Kurds don’t support the few thousand member PKK. Yet hundreds of thousands of Kurds have been forced from their homes supposedly by Turkish counter-insurgency campaigns seeking to root out support for the PKK. The Kurdish language may not be taught; Kurdish language broadcasts are illegal; Kurdish publications and media are restricted; Kurdish political parties are banned or harassed.

Human Rights Watch says the Turkish government has failed to honor pledges to help 378,000 displaced people, mainly Kurds, return home more than a decade after the army forced them from their villages in southeastern Turkey.

In southeastern Turkey, the government has failed to provide infrastructure such as electricity, telephone lines and schools to returning communities, and has not provided proper assistance with house reconstruction.

What’s worse, the government’s paramilitary village guards are attacking and killing returnees in some parts of southeastern Turkey.

Turkey still has much to do on the protection of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, language rights and protection against torture.

In Iraq The Kurdistan Observer notes:

The proposed constitution for Iraqi Kurdistan describes the Kurdish north as one of two regions, the other being Arab, making up a "federal Iraq" that would have a "democratic, parliamentary and republican system."

The Kurdish region would comprise Kirkuk in addition to the three provinces currently included in the enclave, namely Arbil, Dahuk and Suleimaniya, based on pre-1968 administrative borders.

Kirkuk would be the capital of the Kurdish region, whose four provinces would be sub-divided into eight districts.

The region would have its own flag, alongside the Iraqi flag, and defense forces drawn from the present Kurdish fighters, or peshmergas. It would have its own legislative and executive authorities, including a president directly elected by the people and a cabinet.

However Kurdo’s World points out that Al Jafaari changed the Iraqi Democratic Oath.

Jafaari starts to replace the "original" oath which has the word "democratic & federal" with his own one which doesn't have "democratic federal".

Jafaari and all those after him will read "Jafaari's version of the oath" which does not have the words "federal and democratic Iraq".

What does this mean?

The Kurds were the most supportive section of the population of Iraq towards the US led overthrow of Saddam. We now have to support them in their efforts to have an autonomous Kurdistan that includes Kirkuk as its capitol. We have to support them in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. It's only right.

Update

Based on my reading of Kurdish Blogs I may have made some assumptions that were not fact. The PKK is not a terrorist organization in the eyes of some, and may actually have allot of support of the Turkish Kurds. I am literally learning daily of the plight of the Kurds and others that I champion on my new Blog so I welcome the opinions and references of others.

From an article at NRO.

The PKK has denuded villages in the mountains of the "triangle border" where Iran, Iraq, and Turkey come together. The PKK occupies homes and farms, extorts illegal taxes, and metes out summary justice to those who do not comply. On occasion, the PKK mines roads. In a region where adults and children pile into the back of pick-up trucks for transportation, carnage from PKK mines can be immense.
The PKK's terror in northern Iraq stretches more than a decade. In 1994, PKK terrorists rained mortars down on the rooftops of the mountaintop settlement of Amadya. Touring the ancient town in March 2001, residents showed me the damage to their homes.

PKK members also sabotaged bridges, cutting off villagers from their fields and disrupting the local economy. No matter how poor were Masud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic party and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan at their nadir, neither cultivated nor smuggled drugs. The same is not true of the PKK, which facilitates drug smuggling from Iran through Iraq and Turkey and into Europe

Sounds like terrorists to me.

Muslims Against Terrorism

Today’s Free Muslims Against Terrorism march will hopefully garner tens of thousands of Muslims against terror. But don’t bet on it. This rally is seen by some as an overdue response to the nagging public perception, right or wrong, that American Muslims have been too hushed in their criticism of Islamic extremists. Critics think it's the right message, but Nawash is the wrong messenger.

Why should the messenger determine whether the message is worth supporting? Rancher

President of the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism Kamal Nawash says "Muslim American leaders hesitate to come down hard on terrorism, not because they support the violence, but because they share with terrorists the dream of a theocratic Islamic state."

What the hell is Iran? I think the reason is many Muslims support some terror, especially against Israel. Rancher

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent civil rights and advocacy group based in Washington, bridles at Nawash's characterization of CAIR and other Muslim American organizations as doing practically nothing to denounce terrorism. Hooper lists dozens of anti-terror actions, from a small rally held in Dallas in October 2001 to condemning specific acts as they've occurred.

CAIR is a direct outgrowth of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP). According to Oliver Revell, the FBI's former associate director of Counter-Intelligence Operations, the IAP "is an organization that has directly supported [the Palestinian terror group] Hamas' military goals.

Here are some other anti-terror actions from CAIR. (Hat tip Daniel Pipes)

In October 1998, the group demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as "the sworn enemy," finding this depiction "offensive to Muslims."

In 1998 CAIR denied bin Laden's responsibility for the twin East African embassy bombings.

In 2001, CAIR denied his culpability for the Sept. 11 massacre.

The conviction of the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing it deemed "a travesty of justice." The conviction of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh who planned to blow up New York City landmarks, it called a "hate crime." The extradition order for suspected Hamas terrorist Mousa Abu Marook it labeled "anti-Islamic" and "anti-American."

When President Bush closed the Holy Land Foundation in December for collecting money he said was "used to support the Hamas terror organization," CAIR decried his action as "unjust" and "disturbing."

On Feb. 2, 1995, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White named Siraj Wahhaj as one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments. Yet CAIR deems him "one of the most respected Muslim leaders in America" and includes him on its advisory board.

Maybe Hamas isn’t a terrorist organization.

A Chronology of Terrorist Attacks Carried out by Hamas Since September 2000

Or maybe it is.

Update

The turnout was less than expected and expectations were low. Hey Muslims! We think you support terrorism and you fail to do anything to change our minds. We think you like it when innocent men women and children are murdered in order to change policy . Why do we feel this way? Because you talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.

Our friends the Syrians?

Syrian authorities are holding 137 Saudi nationals suspected of trying to cross into Iraq, where militants have been waging a two-year insurgency since the U.S. invasion, the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan said on Thursday.

If true this is great news. Even if this is only a token response by Assad to give the impression he is trying to control terrorist crossing his border it's still 137 less terrorist in Iraq. Pulling out of Lebanon, recognizing the Kurds, and now this, good things seem to be happening in Syria.

And bad things.

Syrian authorities have detained 40 Syrian students in northern Syria and tortured them, a Syrian human-rights group says.

Syrian authorities accused them of setting up an underground Islamist group called Sunaa al-Hayat.

An Egyptian Intellectual

Ahmad Naji Kamha has written a great article that illustrates the problems in Egypt that led to an average Egyptian with no affiliation to any terrorist organization to go out and commit “Jihad”. A few main points;

The State Behaves as if it is Scared to Tell its Citizens About its Decision to Have a Strategic Alliance with the U.S.

The State Has Made a Mistake by Letting its Voice Be Weaker Than the Publications Inciting... for Jihad Against Anything American or Western

The Lie Behind the Inciting Claims that the U.S. is the Great Satan Must Be Exposed

The Inciting Writings and Agitation Rely upon the Religious and [Pan-Arab] Nationalist Dimensions

Gitmo "Abuses"

Is this torture? The Dumb North African (formerly Mind Bleed) thinks so.

Whether to use torture on prisoners is a question that we in America have not addressed. Is it permissible to destroy one man to save hundreds or maybe thousands of lives? These are not citizens so they do not have the protections guarantied by the constitution. The Geneva convention does not protect them, they are not affiliated with any country and certainly don’t reciprocate when they capture our military or civilians. Psychological or physical interrogation methods exist at various levels, interrogation methods that our police departments use have been described as “torture”. Many would find the scene described by Saar less onerous than boiling of body parts. This needs to be addressed by congress. How much do we value basic human rights against the security of our country? What methods are we willing to use and at what level? If we decide to place limits on interrogations then we can’t be sending our prisoners to other countries that will exceed those limits, that gains us no credibility.

Our Friends the Qatari

This is getting tedious. Do we have any allies in the ME that we can hold up as paragons of Democracy and basic human dignity? Besides Israel? Apparently not Qatar.

Why is Al-Jazeera Silent?

The Qatari Interior Ministry recently revoked the citizenship of 5,266 Qatari men, women, and children, all of them members of the Al-Ghfran tribe, which is a sub-group of the Aal-Marra tribe. The official reason given was that the members of this tribe hold both Qatari and Saudi citizenship. The real reason, however, seems to be that several members of the Aal-Marra tribe were apparently involved in the 1996 coup attempt.

Following the move, Qatari authorities cut off electricity and water supplies to the homes of the tribe members. Their salaries were cut off, and they were denied education, health, and other services. Many were pressured to leave Qatar, and about 3,500 of them emigrated to southern Saudi Arabia where they had relatives. Those who were outside Qatar at the time of the decision to revoke their citizenship were prohibited from reentering the country.

In a letter sent to the UN for help;

"Reasons given by the government is due to the possession of dual nationality, whereas tens of thousands of Qatari possess dual nationality and some declare this openly without fearing deportation. Also not all 6000 citizens has a dual nationality.

As usual most Arab and Muslim organizations remain silent about this collective punishment, something they are so quick to accuse Israel of.

Cuba Libre Socialized Medicine

This poor man was transporting his sick father to a hospital in Havana on a wheelbarrow, because there were no other means of transportation available!

What media bias?

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs searched high and low for this picture of Bush's huge reception in Georgia. Visit her site for the low down.

Our Friends the Jordanians

Sandmonkey alerted me to some of the human rights abuses of our allies the Jordanians. Should we ignore such abuses because King Abdullah II is cooperating with Bush in the war on terror? We do so in Putin’s Russia, in Prince Abdullah’s Saudi Arabia, in Karimov’s Uzbekistan, and in Mubarak’s Egypt. Let us focus on Jordan.

Mohammed Abed, a 22-year-old Jordanian, shot and killed his 19-year-old sister Hanan in what he told the court last January was a "fit of fury". Her crime? "Going out to eat with another man, and receiving gifts and money from him." Abed was jailed for six months.

Yasmine Abdullah, 20, was shot four times in the chest by her brother, Sirhan, last March after she reported having been raped by a family member. Although the victim of the rape, she too had tarnished the family "honor". Sirhan spent six months in prison.

Between 25 and 30 Jordanian woman a year are reported murdered by relatives claiming they were protecting their family "honor" after suspicions of improper behavior.

Well King Abdullah II is on top of this. In 2001 he passed a temporary bill imposing harsher penalties for honor killings. But parliament voted to dissolve the bill. Jordanian MPs argue that more lenient punishments will violate religious traditions and damage the fabric of Jordan's conservative society, where men have the final say.

A friend of mine recently asked me that rather than condemning radical Islamist wouldn’t it be more productive to find out why they feel the need to attack us? I told him that they are against Democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and equal rights for women. They object to our culture which in the Wahabist version of Islam is Kufr .

Free Muslims Against Terrorism

Why we are Marching Against Terror.

To date,70 organizations have sponsored the first ever Muslim led March Against Terror. Approximately 20 of the 70 organizations are Muslim, Arab or Middle Eastern. This is the good news. The bad news is that of the leading Muslim organizations four have refused to participate or endorse the rally. The absence of these organizations is ironic. For the past 10 years, these organizations have complained that they are unfairly being accused of not doing enough to fight terror. But when a Muslim organization takes the lead to organize a March Against Terror they argue that it is not necessary and refuse to join.

Noticeably absent are the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA), Muslim American Society (MAS), Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Muslim Student Association - National (MSA-N), and Project Islamic Hope (PIH). These are the largest Muslim organizations in America and they seem to be saying they are not against terrorism. But maybe I’m profiling them.

Anyway, aside from those who believe in blowing up men, women and children indiscriminately, I hope the rest of you support this by marching or spreading the news of the march.

Syrian Kurds May Soon Be Recognized

This could be huge. Syria said it would leave Lebanon, both troops and intelligence agencies. I certainly didn't expect them to actually do this but they seem to have done so. Now they may be planning on recognizing Syrian Kurds. Is Assad actually reforming his country, the great hope of the west when this London trained ophthalmologist gained control in June, 2000?

At the time, Syrians called it Damascus Spring.

Their young president, just months into office, hinted of a new era. He tolerated criticism and pledged modernization. Activists exulted, drafting petitions for free elections and further reform.

But within a year, authorities clamped down. Outside the government, people could only wonder whether Assad or his influential aides had ordered the crackdown. But it would become the pattern of Assad's government: a winding path between tolerance and suppression, isolation and engagement, as he strains to modernize his father's empire without causing its collapse.

Hopefully Assad is the one now fully in control. If he is starting to reform he faces several obstacles. His is a minority government, secular in a country that is turning more toward religion. Alawite in a country that is majority Sunni. Fighting corruption against the resistance of entrenched officials that weaken the reforms before they can even be implemented. If he moves carefully maybe we will see a Jasmine Revolution in the future.

Our friends the Saudis

The following are against the law in the land of Saud. Threatening national unity, i.e. no making waves. Doubting the independence of the Saudi judiciary, how dare anyone suggest such a thing? Organizing meetings, none of that assembly stuff allowed. And of course justifying violence. Not violence itself mind you, at least not when applied by the religious police or the government. But any justification of violence not sanctioned by the government, a government which is using violence to crush any dissent.

Violence by the religious police is accepted because those being beaten are decadent amoral individuals that commit such crimes as holding hands in public or dancing. Even when such “policing” results in horrendous acts such as herding schoolgirls back into burning buildings because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress.

No, that is not a crime, but criticizing a phony National Commission on Human Rights and threatening to organize your own human rights organization will get you charged with violating the above mentioned laws. Ali Al-Domaini, Matrook Al-Falah and Abdullah Al-Hamed were subsequently put on trial on August 9, 2004. The proceedings have been carried out behind closed doors. The attorney representing Dr. Al-Falah was arrested for making a public petition to Crown Prince Abdullah demanding a fair trial for the three. Surely these are the real criminals in Saudi Arabia, not the zealots that caused the deaths of 15 girls.

Outsourcing Torture

Can we as a country espouse human rights on one hand and then on the other hand utilize a country’s abuse of human rights because it serves our national interest? Let me rephrase that, because obviously we can.

Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.

Outsourcing torture to other countries is thought to give the US “plausible deniability”, although that argument only flies if terrorist are repatriated. It does not give us any moral deniability. I have no great problem in returning criminals to their country of origin if there is no overriding jurisdiction covering their crimes. American criminals know that if they expect to flee to Mexico to evade the US justice system that they should commit a capital crime such as murder so that they cannot be extradited. Since Mexico considers the death sentence a human rights violation they will not extradite anyone that may get that sentence. Criminals may then trust their fate in a corrupt Mexican judicial system where money may “grease” the way to an acquittal. I don’t consider that justice. I consider repatriation legitimate, but within limits. If criticizing the regime is a capital offense then extradition is not warranted. If killing innocent men, women, and children is a capital offense, extradite.

Nevertheless a crime against the United States should be dealt with by the United States. Sending those persons to countries that utilize torture so that we may gain intelligence gives us neither plausible deniability nor moral deniability. It is plain hypocrisy and does not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. We lose credibility and our protest against human rights violations by others ring hollow. If we as a nation believe “torture” is justified to save hundreds or maybe thousands against terror then we should say so and administer it ourselves. I put the word torture in quotes because what some consider mild abuse such as panties on the head or nude pyramids others consider torture. While some Americans may have no problem with interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, drugs, and maybe electroshock, they may have problems with beating, often with blunt weapons, asphyxiation with a gas mask, boiling of body parts, or plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Those are the techniques allegedly used by Uzbekistan. Can we actually say that these methods were not used on our prisoners? Shouldn’t we know or is our ignorance a collective bliss?

Victory for the Cedar Revolution.

When the Lebanese government formally announced elections will be held on time the tent-city began to dismantle.

The million-person demonstration, the two-month sleep-in at the tent-city, the countdown campaign, the village campaign, the media pressure, the international pressure - it all came together. It's a new era in Lebanon now. The time of post-war occupation and oppression is over. The Cedar Revolution is now over, too.

Why did this happen? Was it the people in the tent city? That didn’t work at Tiananmen Square. Maybe the numbers, the fact that the divide and conquer model looked ineffective, the fact that Syria was in hostile territory? Still not enough to stand up to tanks and an army. Not to mention there were allot of Syrian workers and supporters, the ones at the pro Syrian demonstrations. What was the deciding factor that made Asad decide to cut and run? Maybe the presence of 150,000 United States Armed Forces next door. Maybe.

Rebuttal

In the interest of fairness, Luhaidan Claims Audio Recording Was Tampered With. I had posted of Luhaidan's recording here.

Feds offer $1 million reward for fugitive Chesimard

Need cash? A cop killer that Castro has given asylum to has had her bounty increased from $150,000 to $1,000,000.

"We have pretty long institutional memories," Fuentes said at a news conference at State Police headquarters on the 32nd anniversary of the killing. "This is a debt that she owes to the residents of the state of New Jersey for the crimes she committed."

Foerster responded as backup when another trooper had stopped Chesimard and two companions for a faulty tail light on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick. Shots soon rang out and Foerster was hit. As he lay on the ground, authorities said, Chesimard took his gun and fatally shot him.

Syrian protestors cry Freedom, Freedom!

From the Tharwa Project we learn of a small protest in Syria. Didn’t catch it on the MSM, they must be too busy following the Michael Jackson trial.

DAMASCUS: Chanting "freedom, freedom," about 200 Syrians protested on Sunday outside a Damascus state security court where a prominent human rights campaigner accused of opposing the state was on trial.

The area was sealed off by about 50 riot police as demonstrators, including many Kurds, carried posters of the defendants and banners denouncing the emergency law in force in Syria since the Baath Party took power in 1963.

Among three activists on trial Sunday was prominent campaigner Aktham Naisse, who faces between three years and life in jail if convicted on charges of activities against the state.

Naisse, who heads the Committee for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, was detained in April 2004 after he organized a rare demonstration calling for the lifting of the emergency laws.

He was freed on bail after five months in detention.

Human rights groups have repeatedly called for the release of detainees, as well as the scrapping of the security court and the emergency law.

I realize this isn’t exactly local news but these protests that are happening in Syria and Iran are important and need to be seen and supported.