The Iranian War

Iran has declared war on Iraq, the US, and Britain even if no one wants to admit it. Sadr’s rebellion was financed by Iran. Spies have been caught and confessed on videotape. Arms have been stopped at the border including timers, detonators, and sophisticated explosives. Four American soldiers were killed in Iraq Sunday before last by a roadside bomb in Baijifour by one of the new shaped charges. Iran’s been killing Americans since at least 1983 when Iranian funded Hezbollah carried out the Beirut bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines. Iran supported another terror cell that in 1996 truck bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. 19 Americans were killed and 372 wounded. Terrorists are being trained in Iran and allowed to use it’s border to cross into Iraq. Michael Ledeen points out:

The centrality of Iran in the terror network is the dirty secret that most everyone knows, but will not pronounce. Our military people in both Iraq and Afghanistan have copious evidence of the Iranian role in the terror war against us and our allies. Every now and then Rumsfeld makes a passing reference to it. But we have known about Iranian assassination teams in Afghanistan ever since the fall of the Taliban, and we know that Iranians continue to fund, arm, and guide the forces of such terrorists as Gulbadin Hekmatyar. We know that Zarqawi operated out of Tehran for several years, and that one of his early successes — the creation of Ansar al Islam in northern Iraq, well before the arrival of Coalition forces — had Iranian approval and support. We also know that Zarqawi created a European terror network, again while in Tehran, and therefore the “news” that he has been recycled into the European theater is not news at all. It is testimony to his, and the Iranians, central role in the terrorist enterprise. And we know — from documents and photographs captured in Iraq during military operations against the terrorists — that the jihad in Iraq is powerfully supported by Damascus, Tehran, and Riyadh.

Iran knows it's at war, and may be planing to step that war up a notch. Amir Taheri writes that back in May registered presidential candidate Abrahim Asgharzadeh warned:

A coalition of military commanders and mullahs is in the making with the aim of provoking "a direct confrontation" between the Islamic Republic and the United States in the Middle East, especially Afghanistan and Iraq.

"If these schemes go through the nation will be led into dangerous waters," Asgharzadeh warned. "There are people who want to push Iran into a war against the rest of the world, especially the United States."

Mr Taheri also reports:

Defense Minister Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani has said his ministry had "comprehensive plans" to make "life like hell" for the US and its allies throughout the region. "Wherever they [i.e. the Americans] are, we are also," he said. "And wherever they can hit us we can hit them, and harder."

Khamenei has claimed that the Middle East and the Muslim world at large were now faced with a choice between "American-imposed" democracy and "revolutionary Islam" offered by Iran.

There can no longer be any doubt that the purpose of Iran’s nuclear program is to build a bomb. Iran has said they will resume uranium conversion and are not afraid of UN sanctions. That is because China or Russia will veto any sanctions. Russia may not but China most likely would. Memri TV watched as Hosein Musavian explained why Iran entered into negotiations with the EU in the first place. Mr. Musavian is Iran’s chief negotiator on the nuclear issue.

The negotiations with Europe bought us time to complete the Esfahan UCF Project and the work on the centrifuges in Natanz.

When the Taliban refused to give up the 911 masterminds who killed thousands of Americans we considered it a an act of war. We invaded when they refused to surrender those monsters to our justice. The Mullahs refuse not just to give up the terrorist who are very much involved in the violence in Iraq but also supply, train, and allow them free access to Iran and it‘s borders. How is that different from the Taliban? Yet we do NOTHING. President Bush and the State Department have stated a “No regime change” policy towards Iran. Iranian Kurds currently being butchered in the streets get no support. Iranian dissidents get nothing but lip service. A military option is only being discussed in relation to the nuclear facilities and not to the greater problem of massive terrorists efforts operating out of Tehran. We need to do more or our troops and our Iraqi friends will continue to be killed daily and support for Iraqi Freedom will continue to erode. Unless Iran cease to be a base for the terrorists winning in Iraq will not be possible.

This post submitted to Basil's Breakfast.

The Gaza pullout.

Honest Reporting has a quiz out on the Gaza pullout.

The Gaza Quiz Do you know the facts behind Israel's pullout from the region?

Our friends the Kurds.

President Bush in his last State of the Union speech had this to say:

And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.

I can’t tell! Do not the Kurds in Iran count as Iranian people? Civil demonstrations and protests in Iran’s north-west Kurdish regions has Iranian troops and Islamic vigilantes cracking down with brutal force resulting in scores dead. What, you haven’t heard this? The MSM for whatever reason really haven’t given this much coverage. While media access to Iran is limited by the Mullahs, Kurdish and Iranian opposition sources are available but ignored. Shahin B. Sorekli at KurdishMedia asks:

Why is it that the shooting of an Israeli or Palestinian (although unfortunate and sad) is shown over and over by TV channels such as BBC and CNN, leave Al Jazira TV aside, while the shooting of at least 13 Kurds and several large demonstrations in the Kurdish regions of Iran remain unmentioned?

That question answers itself, you can't blame Jews, Bush, the military, or even America for this. If those factors don't apply then expect more coverage of the latest Abu Grahaib allegations than on what is actually happening to the Kurds.

We expect as much from the MSM. But the Bush administration hasn’t had much to say either. For a little background Gerald A. Honigman gives an historical account of how Britain, whose Navy was switching from coal to oil, gave in to it’s WWI Arab allies, abandoning Jewish, Kurdish, and Sudanese national aspirations. The resulting Balkanization of these Middle Eastern countries leaves us with large ethnic minorities in those Arab countries and the resulting atrocities used to subjugate and suppress those minorities. In the case of the Kurds, we’re talking about Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Turkey is allegedly an ally, although when we needed them they told us to kick rocks. We don't want to anger Turkey by supporting Kurds, they are a persecuted minority in Turkey and support of Kurds elsewhere might encourage Turkish Kurds to fight for their basic human rights. Can’t have that. Likewise Iraq. The U.S. and Britain are pressuring the Kurds to compromise on Kirkuk and federalism. Basically we are asking the Kurds to give up the autonomy they have had since GWI and hope a Shi'ite controlled government later gives it back. Same with the historic capital of Southern Kurdistan, the oil rich region of Kirkuk. The Kurds recognize that they need constitutional protection from Shi'ite majority tyranny. But Bush doesn't want to rock the boat, hoping that this region that has never seen Democracy will eventually put national interests ahead of religious and tribal loyalties. He's hoping the Democrats will do the same. A hopeless hope on both accounts.

Along with Israel the Kurds are our greatest allies in the Middle East. But just as we expect Israel to bend over backwards in dealing with their enemies we expect the Kurds to do the same. It's time instead to support our allies and tell our enemies to kick rocks. Iraq doesn't stand much of a chance as long as Syria, Iran, and Iran's favorite terrorist organization Hammas continue as they are. Support for the Kurds in all of the countries that are trying to keep them down is in our best interest, and no more so than in Iran.

Update:

Michael Ledeen gives us some insight on why politicians will turn a deaf ear on information that they don’t want to have to act on. Mr. Ledeen was present at a meeting in 2001 in Rome with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian expatriate who provided information to the Pentagon. "That meeting produced very high-quality information that we did not have, which, according to American armed forces in Afghanistan, saved American lives," Mr. Ledeen has said. However, the CIA and State Department took steps to shut down the information channel. Later Rumsfeld gave orders that Pentagon officials were forbidden to talk to Iranians, period.

This is similar to the “Able Danger” affair where the 911 hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit. Ledeen says:

We have two cases where life-saving information was available, but the system refused to accept it, because the political considerations were more important. In the Weldon story, the administration didn't want to know about terrorist groups operating inside the United States. In the Rome story, they didn't want to know about Iranian groups killing Americans. In the first case, we'd have had to act against sleeper cells, which is a very nasty business. In the second case, we'd have had to act against the biggest terror sponsor in the Middle East, another can of worms. Better to pretend we didn't know, hope that nothing terrible would happen, and concentrate on career advancement.

Atlas Shrugs has some graphic pictures of the atrocities the Mullahs are inflicting on Kurdish children!

Ganji is dying.

Massoumeh Shafieh, the wife of Akbar Ganji, is risking her freedom and probably her life in an effort to save her imprisoned husband from death. Akbar Ganji is on his 54th day of a hunger strike protesting his and other dissident’s brutal captivity. He will continue until he is released or dead. His crime is being a journalist, or rather a journalist that has criticized the regime, which in Iran is seen by the Mullahs as criticizing Islam. Despite being ordered by the regime not to talk to foreign reporters, Ms. Shafieh told the N.Y. Sun

We are appealing to the United Nations, human rights groups, and other nations to pressure our government to release my husband. Our struggle must reach out past the borders of Iran now. Our leaders will not listen to their people, they will only respond to external pressure

She is right to be concerned, the regime has killed many journalist, the most notable being Zahra Kazemi. Ms. Kazemi was a Canadian-Iranian who was arrested for photographing regime thugs beating young Iranians who were demonstrating for freedom. After being beaten and raped she turned up dead in a local military hospital. We will not see a Turquoise Revolution in Iran until the fear such human rights violations instill in Iranians is muted.

Make no mistake, Iran is a powder keg waiting for a spark. From an article by Slater Bakhtavar:

In Iran, pro-democracy students have taken to the streets several times during the past couple of years. A poll conducted this month by student activists at Amir Kabir University the countries second largest university provided a discomfiting message for the reigning Ayatollahs. The University poll chronicled a mere five to ten percent support for the mullahs and eighty-five percent support for a secular democratic government. President Bush has consistently reached out to this nation that Michael Rubin of the Washington Enterprise Institute dubbed the "most pro-American in the entire region, if not the world", and Thomas Friedman of the New York Times called "the ultimate red state. . ."

Because the world is watching Mr. Ganji, hopefully the government won’t let him die and become such a spark. But then the Mullahs have not always shown good judgement.

We all have a stake in Iran. The State Department reports:

Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2004. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security were involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups to use terrorism in pursuit of their goals.

Specifically regarding al Qa’ida:

Iran continued to be unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa'ida members it detained in 2003. Iran has refused to identify publicly these senior members in its custody on "security grounds." Iran has also resisted numerous calls to transfer custody of its al-Qa'ida detainees to their countries of origin or third countries for interrogation and/or trial. Iranian judiciary officials claimed to have tried and convicted some Iranian supporters of al-Qa'ida during 2004, but refused to provide details. Iran also continued to fail to control the activities of some al-Qa'ida members who fled to Iran following the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Hamas, Hizballah, and others:

During 2004, Iran maintained a high-profile role in encouraging anti-Israeli terrorist activity, both rhetorically and operationally. Supreme Leader Khamenei praised Palestinian terrorist operations, and Iran provided Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist groups -- notably HAMAS, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command -- with funding, safe haven, training, and weapons. Iran provided an unmanned aerial vehicle that Lebanese Hizballah sent into Israeli airspace on November 7, 2004.

And as pertains to the greatest threat facing Fascist Islamists, a successful Democratic Iraq:

Iran pursued a variety of policies in Iraq during 2004, some of which appeared to be inconsistent with Iran's stated objectives regarding stability in Iraq as well as those of the Iraqi Interim Government (IIG) and the Coalition. Senior IIG officials have publicly expressed concern over Iranian interference in Iraq, and there were reports that Iran provided funding, safe transit, and arms to insurgent elements, including Muqtada al-Sadr's forces.

Oh, and don’t forget the Nukes.

What can we as bloggers do to support Ganji and the freedom movement in Iran? Join and support Blog Iran and Regime Change Iran. Go to the Release Ganji web site and scroll down to the activities section. Above all, don’t stay silent. We are the Blogs and are a loud voice in the world. Ask CBS and Dan Rather. As Regime Change Iran states:

Those of us in the blogosphere need to publish the news on Iran in order to help Iranians searching for news know that we support their efforts to replace the existing regime with a real democracy. This is why we ask you to publish our campaign logo on your blog.

Why republish the news? Because the regime is blocking access to most major news sites and the blogosphere is a means to frustrate their efforts. It is also important for the people of Iran to know that people around the world are standing with them in their struggle. This support has proved invaluable to others that successfully overthrew their oppressive regimes in other places around the world, such as Georgia, the Ukraine, Lebanon and elsewhere.

The choosing of assassin and torturer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the Mullahs to be the President of Iran shows that they are not going to reform. As Peter Ackerman has said:

When the people realize they have the power to expose the deceit underlying a government prone to repression, it is the beginning of that regime's end.

We can be that power.

Update: 17 March 2006 Ganji is released.

Help!

A fellow blogger needs our help, Christmas Ghost's niece is missing. She was last seen in Marin County, Ca. I’ll get a picture up soon but for now please go to his site for more information. Here’s a chance for us to help one of own, something unique to the web. Pass this on.

Our friends the Australians

Howard bitch slaps those who would blame us.


PRIME MIN. HOWARD: Could I start by saying the prime minister and I were having a discussion when we heard about it. My first reaction was to get some more information. And I really don't want to add to what the prime minister has said. It's a matter for the police and a matter for the British authorities to talk in detail about what has happened here.

Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.

Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.

And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.

Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?

When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?

When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.

Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.

PRIME MIN. BLAIR: And I agree 100 percent with that.

La Migra No, Hillary Si!

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y wants the Hispanic vote. While I’m Hispanic I’m one of those “not Hispanic enough Hispanics” wherein if your politics are conservative you’re a “token” or an “Oreo”. For instance I’m against illegal immigration. FYI anyone against illegal immigration is a bigot and a racist. Hillary certainly isn’t against illegal immigration, she wants to reward it. In a speech to La Raza she pledged her support of the DREAM Act, which would allow illegal immigrant children who finish high school in the United States to avoid deportation, earn a path to citizenship, and possibly receive in-state college tuition rates. If we need all of these people in our labor market, and I believe we do, then put in mechanisms to allow them to immigrate legally. As legal immigrants many of the problems they have to contend with are gone. They will have to be paid a decent wage. They wont be afraid to seek protection from law enforcement. They wont have to risk their lives crossing southern deserts. As a bonus we may begin to have control of our borders in a time of war with an enemy that wants to infiltrate itself in our country and commit the most horrendous attacks against innocent men, women and children.

Gaza pullout, good or bad for Israel?

A vote in the Israeli Knesset today rejected by a large majority three bills to postpone the August 17 date for the evacuation of the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank by up to one year. Many Israelis see the pullout as rewarding terrorist and of such importance that the survival of Israel itself is at stake. The handing over of such a strategic area to Hamas will also have grave consequences to the United States’ War on Terror. As this is written tens of thousands of people are marching to Kfar Maimon to protest the pullout. Twenty thousand IDF and police are there to meet them, with instructions to use their riot batons freely.

My feelings were to pull out, give the Palestinians their state and then hold them accountable for the actions of their citizens. When attacks on Israel continue, and they will, bomb the hell out of them and repeat as necessary. I also believed that bringing Israelis inside the wall was just common sense. After reading articles like Professor Arieh Eldad's I changed my mind. Israel is being pressured to do this by the US and the EU. It is a capitulation of the principle that terrorism not be rewarded. Hamas will gain control of Gaza and it will become a major terrorist base with access to the sea.

Battle of Britain II

Our prayers go out to the British people, especially the families of the victims. Many will say that Bush and Blair are to blame. Some will say that Spain holds some responsibility. Anti-Semites will blame the Jews. London’s Islamic appeasing Mayor will be blamed. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and other terrorist supporters and cheerleaders will be blamed. Me, I blame Qutbist Terrorist, Qutbism being what is taught in so called Wahhabi Madrassas in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, because that’s who actually did this. I don’t call them Wahhabi and I don’t call them Muslims. They all come from Saudi sponsored Madrassas that originated from those set up in Afghanistan. These Afghan madrassas differ from the traditional madrassas in that they were not concerned about scholarship. They were more concerned about training religious fighters who would go into the Afghan field and fight the Soviets. It is a cult that threatens not only the West but much of the Middle East as well. More Muslims are being killed by these monsters than Christians and Jews combined.

An add that was on my blog called Americans on Britain seeks input from Americans in order to discover what the citizens of each country think and believe about each other. When I think of Britain I usually get a mental picture of a brave steadfast people enduring the Battle of Britain. Sir Winston Churchill often comes to mind.

…We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender…

Now is that an accurate portrayal of today’s Englishman? Tony Blair certainly fits the mold. In the wake of the 7/7 bombing he will not waver on his support for the US and the WOT. What of the average Brit however, most of which were not in favor of going to Iraq in the first place? They are the target of the bombings, the people the terrorist wish to mobilize into an anti-war movement that will strip Britain from the Coalition. It worked in Spain. Can Blair continue to keep troops in Iraq if a large majority of Britains are against it? As Commander in Chief Bush can and will prosecute the WOT however he sees fit and Congress can do little about it other than withhold funding from the military. George Bush isn’t about to let opinion polls drive his policy, he will do what he thinks is right even if most Americans oppose him. That’s what leaders do. Does Blair have the same authority? I hope so because I’m not to hopeful that the average Brit has the same determination to fight evil as their parents had.

Bloody Last Stand for Libs.

The last vehicle the Left has to drive its agenda is the judicial system. They can’t get their way at the ballot box on things like prayer in school, gay marriage, the death penalty, affirmative action, socialism, etc. That’s why the upcoming fight to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice will be a bloody affair. When elections don’t go the lefts way the will of the people can be thwarted in court. Liberal Judges look and find things in the Constitution to strike down laws they disapprove of. Try and find a woman’s right to an abortion or the right to commit sodomy in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. It takes some doing but advocate judges have found them. Find out where it defines “The public” to mean “Corporate developers”. Where does it say you can be held accountable for vicious acts of murder only if they are committed after your 18th birthday? The founding fathers, while mostly religious, forbade the establishment of a State religion, but where does it say religion itself should be outlawed on any government property? In the minds of advocate judges, that’s where.

So expect Democrats to stage a last stand against any Bush nominee right of Ted Kennedy. Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Schumer has already been heard to say “We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this.” This before any names have been put forward. From the Washington Post

Democrats signaled that whoever the nominee is, their three likely lines of attack will be to assert the White House did not consult them sufficiently, then paint the nominee as ideologically extreme and finally assert that the Senate had not received sufficient documents about the candidate.

Whoever the nominee is.

While Roe vs. Wade is not in danger of being overturned if a pro-life Justice gets in, the left is playing it that way despite still having five votes for abortion. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NOW, Feminist Majority Foundation, and The National Abortion Rights Action League are all saying that if Bush puts in an originalist, someone who will interpret the Constitution based on what it says, a woman’s right to choose is in jeopardy. The media, BTW, is very pro-abortion. Will Bush nominate a strict originalist that might place limits on abortion or actually overturn Roe vs. Wade? Ed Kilgore believes he must.

This appointment represents the giant balloon payment at the end of the mortgage the GOP signed with the Cultural Right at least 25 years ago. Social conservatives have agreed over and over again to missed payments, refinancings, and in their view, generous terms, but the balance is finally due, and if Bush doesn't pay up, they'll foreclose their entire alliance with the Republican Party.

Sure, they care about other issues, from gay marriage to taxes to Iraq, but abortion is the issue that makes most Cultural Right activists get up in the morning and stuff envelopes and staff phone banks for the GOP. And for decades now, Republicans have told them they can't do anything much about it until they can change the Supreme Court. With a pro-choice Justice stepping down, the subject can no longer be avoided. And thanks to the Souter precedent (and indeed, the O'Connor and Kennedy precedents), there's no way Bush can finesse an appointment that's anything less than a guaranteed vote to overturn Roe.

So expect all these forces to be unleashed when the first nominee is put forward. The left expects to pick the nominee and is even saying it has to be consulted about the nominees according to the Constitution. Of course that’s not what the Constitution actually says. Article II, Section 2 says the president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint" judges. Advice and Consent after nomination. This is how libs play fast and loose with the Constitution. It’s as if they still don’t get the fact that they lost last November. As for picking the choice Alexander Hamilton once stated

There will, of course, be no exertion of choice on the part of the Senate. They may defeat one choice of the Executive, and oblige him to make another; but they cannot themselves choose - they can only ratify or reject the choice of the President.

However the Senate will not get to ratify or reject the President’s choice because the liberal minority will filibuster. We will need to go nuclear.

Chaos for the Cameras

The President mentioned last night that the terrorist “take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras”. Would those be the cameras of reporters embedded with the terrorists from the Washington Post, CBS, Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press Staff ,or others? The reason the MSM is allowing the “insurgents” to use them as a propaganda tool is because they are journalist first and Americans, Brits, etc. second. In his book Over There: From the Bronx to Baghdad Alan Feuer has a “quarrel” with CNN’s Bob Franken that illustrates this perfectly.

His quarrel with Franken had begun the very moment Franken had expressed his horror that Fox News anchors wore American flag lapel pins on the air.

“How can you be a patriot and a journalist?” Franken had asked. “They’re mutually exclusive occupations.” T.R., who considered himself both, had asked why Franken could not love his country, to which had come the answer, “America is not my country. I’m a citizen of the world.”

Jay Rosen at Press Think believes the Newsroom Religion taught at Journalism began with Water Gate. The press is seen as a Forth Estate that can act as another check and balance to the Government. It’s the dream of every journalist to bring down a President, but of course personal beliefs dictate that to a MSM that is mostly liberal the dream is to bring down a Republican President. Add to that the belief that it was a press hostile to the Vietnam war that brought our boys home and condemned millions of Asians to tyranny. What you get is a media that actively paints the worst picture of the Iraqi situation and totally ignores all the good news coming out of Iraq.

The President outlined the failures that the terrorist have endured.

The terrorists, both foreign and Iraqi, failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war. They failed to prevent free elections. They failed to stop the formation of a democratic Iraqi government that represents all of Iraq's diverse population. And they failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large numbers with the police forces and the army to defend their new democracy.

The terrorist will not give up. They believe America will eventually cut and run and leave the field to them. Constant negativity by the MSM and defeatist politicians like Ted “where’s my car” Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee and others make this a possibility but not while GW is in the White House.

Media Bias

This should surprise no one but the same MSM that totally ignored Dick Durbin’s remarks that were delivered on the Senate floor jumped all over Karl Rove’s remarks. From the Washington Times

Major news outlets that largely ignored the controversial comments of the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate last week immediately reported on a fiery speech by White House adviser Karl Rove, giving the story front-page prominence and the lead of newscasts.

Early yesterday morning, NBC's "Today" show, the CBS "Morning Show," and ABC's "Good Morning America" all featured the Democratic outrage over Mr. Rove's comments that after September 11 liberals "wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers" while conservatives "prepared for war."

Each network's nightly newscasts on Thursday also ran stories on Mr. Rove's speech, delivered Wednesday night.

Yet CBS did not broadcast a single story on the Illinois Democrat's comments. "Today" and "Good Morning America" and those networks' nightly news programs didn't air anything about it until the senator apologized after a week of complaints by Republicans, the Anti-Defamation League and veterans groups.

It was Bloggers that opened debate on Derbin’s outrageous comparison of Gitmo’s alleged interrogation techniques to WWII German concentration camps, Soviet Gulags and Pol Pot’s killing fields. It was the Blog storm that resulted in his non-apology apology. Karl Rove's statement that generated such outrage among liberals got plenty of coverage but it’s the Blogs that are demonstrating the truth of his remarks. See Hugh Hewitt’s Blog.

Big-name Democrats have foolishly engaged Karl Rove exactly as he no doubt hoped they would. Ankle-Biting Pundits has it figured out, but the Mehlman statement from the RNC underscores how the rush to condemn Rove for speaking the truth about the Michael Moore/George Soros/MoveOn.org left now obliges those very same people attacking Rove to argue that the evidence produced by Mehlman is either inapplicable or misunderstood.

Which of course they can’t. The left wants to treat terrorism as an illegal act to be handled by our Justice Department. That means giving the terrorist all the rights we afford criminals. Conservatives want to treat the war on terror like, well, A WAR!

Supreme Socialist Court

The story is as old as mankind. The land was the King's and the people serfs. The people were in effect renters, if the King needed that land away you went. Finally the people revolted, for many reasons but one important reason was that a man's property was his own and could not be legally taken without due process. It could not be taken from him just because a more powerful man coveted it. That principle just changed today with a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court. If a rich developer wants your house the local Government can seize it, pay you what they think it's worth, and give or sell it to the developer. In this case it was Pfizer Corp. who was seeking to expand its' research center with an adjoining riverfront hotel, health club and offices that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront. The "little people" who did not want to sell their homes, some of which had been in the family for generations, for the betterment of the State were hit with eminent domain power to seize private property if the land is for public use. This of course means for roads, dams, railways, White Sands Missile Range, etc. But how is a private company considered "public use"? Because it will bring in more taxes.

What American would bow to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans. Damn Republicans? Actually the Judges who voted for this were liberal judges John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Anthony Kennedy, AKA "Reagan's greatest mistake". Why would these "champions of the common man" vote for large corporate interests? Because it is a vote for large government's interests, namely tax revenue. The founding fathers who were opposed to unrestrained search and seizure are rolling in their graves.


Update:

Jay777 at Stop the ACLU! has a petition up that has two goals:

#1 --Support Supreme Court and lower court judicial nominees who
will uphold the Constitution and thereby defend public
faith and the unborn.
#2 --Ensure that President Bush’s nominees receive an up-or-down
vote in the U.S. Senate.

Garbanzo Toons got this E-mail from an anonymous source. Pass it on, people won't be hearing this from the MSM.

Marine Capt. Brian R. Chontosh received the Navy Cross Medal from the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, during an awards ceremony Thursday at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Training Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Photo by: Cpl. Jeremy Vought

This will make you proud!

Those of you who might not know, the man on the left is the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and he is proud to know the man on the right.

Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored the uniform he wears.
Meet Brian Chontosh.
Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991.
Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Husband and about-to-be father. First lieutenant (now Captain) in the United States Marine Corps.
And a genuine hero.
The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.
At 29 Palms in California Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United States can bestow. That's a big deal.
But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you read in Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing.
The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not covering the American military.
The most plugged-in nation in the world is receiving virtually no true information about what its warriors are doing. Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have fallen.
And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And we're almost on a first-name basis with the jerks who abused the Iraqi prisoners.
And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us. We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom.
But we don't hear about the heroes. The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue. The ones we completely ignore. Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee. When all hell broke loose. Ambush city. The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in charge. It was do or die and it was up to him. So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire. It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish. And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack.
He told his driver to floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the 50 cal unload on them. Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines. Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride. And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers. And he killed them all. He fought with the M16 until it was out of ammo. Then he fought with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo.

At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion. When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more. But that's probably not how he would tell it. He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on.
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."

That's what the citation says. And that's what nobody will hear. That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts of American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you wonder if the role of the media is to inform or to depress - to report or to deride. To tell the truth, or to feed us lies. But I guess it doesn't matter. We're going to turn out all right. As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform. If you are as proud of this Marine as I am, then send this to EVERYONE YOU KNOW !!

Minuteman

Tom Clancy’s new book The Teeth of the Tiger has four groups consisting of four Jihadists each entering the United States to commit acts of terror. While airport security is frisking your grandmother these guys take a short walk across the border into New Mexico. After 9/11 everyone was saying "we never considered terrorists would hijack a plane and fly it into a building", Clancy had already written a novel where that happened. He is probably equally prescient in the border crossing scenario. But everyone knows this, at a time when we are at war our borders are practically unguarded. Overwhelmed Border Patrol agents apprehended 1.1 million illegal immigrants last year, but untold hundreds of thousands slip through. Most of these are of course hard working immigrants that are vital to the American economy. But how many are terrorist or smugglers? We have no way of knowing and apparently our government doesn’t care.

I’ve just become a Minuteman. The Minuteman Project that highlighted the problem on the Arizona border has expanded and they need our help. In October the Minuteman organization will monitor the borders of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California. They will observe and report any crossings to the border patrol. They will not make contact with anyone, will not be armed, will not trespass, will not make arrests. In effect they will be a neighborhood watch program the type of which have helped law enforcement all over America.

But they are not wanted by the Border Patrol, at least not officially.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned.

They are not wanted by our governor.

"The Minutemen should not feel that they need to come to New Mexico. We've got the Border Patrol. We've got New Mexico law enforcement,'' Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday. "We can enforce our laws.''

No we can’t Governor. For a man that is considering running for President that is an idiotic thing to say. For anyone that can read that is an idiotic thing to say. Tens of thousands cross into the U.S. a year through New Mexico alone. Senator Bingaman says;

"What we need are an adequate number of highly trained Border Patrol agents securing the border, not untrained volunteers."

I can’t argue with that except to say that we don’t have an adequate number of highly trained Border Patrol agents securing the border.

"I don't know that a Minutemen organization is the best solution to the rampant illegal immigration problems on our border, but I can clearly understand the mounting frustration in the region."

So says Senator Domenici. I’m sure it’s not the best solution but doing nothing is worse and that frustration is my motivation for joining in this effort to at least draw attention to the problem. The senators and Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., sent a letter Wednesday to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner asking that security be increased along New Mexico's border. The letter said New Mexicans have growing concerns about their safety and the security of their property. "Daily, our constituents along New Mexico's southern border deal with illegal aliens who travel across their land, cutting their fences and damaging their property," the letter states. "Our constituents who have first-hand knowledge of the situation believe hundreds of illegal aliens cross into New Mexico this way every day."

I believe in legal immigration. My Grandparents were legal immigrants. We should vastly increase the number of legal immigrants who wish to enter the U.S. Our local labor force can’t fill all the jobs our economy creates, the low unemployment rates of around 5% show that even with massive illegal immigration we are close to full employment. But we have to have control of who we allow in and that means control of our borders. Hopefully the Minuteman project will point out that need before Clancy’s terrorists.

Iranian "elections"

Iranian elections for president will be held on June 17th and the Mullahs are hoping for a large turnout. Before you think anything approaching Democracy exist in Iran understand that the power of the president to accomplish anything is dependent on the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Council of Guardians. All legislation goes through the council whose members are chosen by Khamenei. In fact the council has to approve the candidates for election. Out of 1014 who registered as candidates 8 have been allowed to run. Blog Iran is calling for a boycott of the sham elections but the opposition is split on whether or not to vote.

Akbar Ganji, a dissident journalist, has just been release on sick leave from prison. As Michael Ledeen explains these releases are part of the torture regimen employed by Iran.

The cheerless creatures who rule the Islamic republic of Iran have developed a particularly wicked use of torture. Not only do they use the full panoply of physical and psychological horrors on their captives, but they then send the victims back into their homes and neighborhoods for brief periods of "parole" or "medical leave," so that their friends and families can see with their own eyes the brutal effects of the torture.

Despite the fact that he faces being arrested again Ganji is urging voters to stay away. But the leader of Freedom Movement Ibrahim Yazdi wants voters to support Mostafa Moein at the polls. You can catch the debate at
Free Thoughts on Iran.

One pro-boycott argument is that a large turnout legitimizes the elections. The anti-boycott argument is that any democratic exercise should be supported and voting for Moein, a reformer, sends a message to the Mullahs that the Iranian people want change. My thinking is that no amount of voter turnout can legitimize this election except in the minds of idiots like Juan Cole. But the outgoing President was a reformer and the Council shot down any attempts to change the status quo that he tried. So why bother, why vote or even run for that matter? I do hope that our State Department and Bush explain to the American people that what they are hearing about elections in Iran are a farce that will change nothing.

Update:

Charles over at LGF gives us a heads up that the moonbats are ready to hype this charade.

Did you know that Sean Penn is now visiting the Islamic dictatorship of Iran, to report on their "elections" for the San Francisco Chronicle? Getty Images has photos of Spicoli grooving on the Friday prayers at Tehran University. (Hat tip: sharona.)

Prisoner #1387

What should our foreign policy be towards Egypt? The problems we confront in Egypt include a 53 year old military dictatorship, supported by the U.S., religious persecution of Copts and Christians, a bloated bureaucracy littered with corruption, and an extremist Islamic Brotherhood waiting in the wings.

What do Egyptians want of us? A recent Middle East poll showed that most Middle Easterners want more aid and less interference. Can Egypt, a society civilized for more than 5000 years, really believe we can settle for that. The earliest markets were based on the maxim 'you can't get something for nothing'. Many Egyptians aren’t even very enthusiastic for Democracy, fearing it would be a one man, one vote, one time affair leaving the MB in charge. They would rather wait until a more secular opposition develops.

Which brings us to Ayman Nour, prisoner #1387. Under the Egyptian Constitution 50 members are required to form a viable political party. Nour had over 5000 special powers of attorney to verify the 50 member requirement. So in 2004 the Tomorrow Party was born. 89 days later Nour was arrested for allegedly forging some of those documents. Safely assuming he did not forge 4951 of them one has to ask why forge any? Especially those of his father's, his wife’s, and his own. Egyptians understand that the charges were ridiculous to the point of making the government look foolish. That he was set up Mr. Nour knows, what he doesn't is why. In a letter from prison he speculates:

But no one, including myself, is sure why precisely I've been jailed. Many pointed to a brief meeting I had with Madeleine Albright a few hours before my arrest. Am I counted as a U.S. agent for brushing shoulders with a foreign dignitary who is out of office? Some sarcastically say that the Egyptian government "fired" me for being too ambitious. Could the government not bear my calls for constitutional reforms? Yet another line of speculation ties my arrest to an interview I gave to Al Horra TV, in which I declared that my party would run in parliamentary elections in 2005; I also called for a constitutional amendment to allow any Egyptian to run for president. Did I take democracy too seriously?

Should the U.S. pressure Egypt to right this wrong? On the face of it the answer is obvious. If we really support Democratic movements as George Bush has stated numerous times then we must support Ayman Nour. But this is the Middle East. When Codoleezza Rice expressed "deep concerns about Nour's detention some of his supporters bristled at American interference. As today’s only Super Power any action we take will be seen as heavy handed and arrogant, regardless of how many secretly support our actions. So what others 'feel' about us should be of no great concern to us but any actions we take vis-a-vis Mr. Nour has to take into account how it affects him. We do after all want to help not hinder him. I ask my Egyptian Blogger friends what do they believe we should do for Mr. Nour and for Egypt overall. Should we make some of the billions of dollars in aid contingent on Mr. Nour being freed? Contingent on Democratic or economic reforms? Or should we shut up and just give more money?. Before choosing one of those two choices I will remind my Egyptian friends of a third and increasingly popular choice, popular at least in America. We keep our money and let Egypt fend for itself.

Mark Felt Deep Throat

NRO K-lo asks 'Why do "we" love Mark Felt and hate Linda Tripp?'

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.