Last Thursday a security report from the UK may have been a low level announcer of a new benchmark in Jihadi Terrorism. British Police said it arrested nine, including an Amjad Mahmoud, for allegedly plotting what authorities called Iraq-style kidnapping. Counter Terrorism units arrested the men for planning on kidnapping a British Muslim soldier and post his beheading on internet. According to the reports the serviceman, in his 20s, has served in Afghanistan. The suspects, per the reports are of Pakistani origin wanted to act a la Zarqawi. They had been monitored for six months by Scotland Yard before the arrests would take place. Besides, the city of their plot had witnessed a previous sweep. Last summer, raids foiled a plot involving suspects from Birmingham, London and other British cities who had planned to blow up ten trans-Atlantic flights. Last week's arrests, conducted in Birmingham, would be a crossing of a new benchmark in the Jihadi war against Britain, perhaps even in Europe. Here is why:
1) A factory: The repetitive arrest in this important city, if anything, tells us that a hub is producing successive waves of Jihadists, ready to strike within Great Britain. If over a period of time, one particular location is producing more than one plot, aimed at the same global target and inspired by the same ideology this logically leads observers to conclude that a factory is in place. In other words there are ideologues who, seem to be convincing more individuals, from the same doctrinal pool, to devise and launch repetitive Terror operations.
2) Urban pocket: The concentration of Jihadi Terror activities in this one city (along with other possible sites) could mean that the militants have formed an urban pocket out of which they can coordinate activities, and in which they have established one or more safe havens. I have mentioned this potential mutation in my book Future Jihad as well as in several presentations to US and European, including British, audiences in the past few years.
3) Urban Battlefield: The decision to conduct a kidnapping operation against a British soldier, to behead him and to post the criminal scene online presumes that the British Jihadists have chosen the option of Urban battlefield. They seem to be confident in several matters: One, that they have the necessary numbers to wage successive operations. Two, that they have established a feeder, that is a continuous flow of new recruits. Three, that they can engage against open targets, and stretch the operation for hours, maybe a day or more. This means that the cells, networks and their strategic thinkers inside Britain believe they have reached urban survival: They can project a variety of operations, focusing on the nerve systems of the enemy: In this case soldiers, particularly Muslim ones. Four and probably most importantly, to carry out such types of complex and horrific plans, assumes that the ideologues wanted to trigger wider waves among greater pools. If one cell assassinates a serviceman, other cells will emulate them and more military will be targeted later. That is very indicative of a specimen of operations which if multiplied on a wider scale in the future- would create the objective conditions for the Urban Jihad I have warned from.
4) Seizing the community: One of the most dangerous Terrorist tactics is to apply violence within a particular community, so that the Terrorist leadership would break the ties between the group and the general society. A very risky choice, but from a Jihadi thinking process, it is unstoppable. Comparing to the Algerian model, note how the Salafists have waged a savage war against Muslims who oppose them in the 1990s: Thousands of policemen, women, children and elderly were killed. In Iraq, Jihadists have also conducted notorious murders against Iraqi civilian and military claimed they were purifying their midst from traitors. But seizing a community through fear and Terror "within" the West will have unique consequences. In the mind of the Jihadists, eliminating moderate Muslims, starting with the ones who work with Government, particularly in defense and security matters, will spread terror in the hearts of the community, further isolating it. And by doing so, the Jihadists will seize power within the social group, while the ideologues would seize its political message.
Thus, the Birmingham Jihadi plot is not just another Terrorist happening. It is a crossing of a line, a benchmark. Somewhere in a British city, a war room has decided to create an enclave of terror. The arrests are certainly important, but what the Terrorists wanted to achieve is even more important. It is one of these signals, that in Britain and probably in many European cities, a new phase has begun.
Dr Walid Phares is the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar with the European Foundation for Democracy. He is the author of Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West.
#2
The Brits are still disarmed, that alone provides a great measure of security for the jihadists.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/06/2007 9:38 Comments ||
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#3
Yes, disarmed, and discouraged by law from defending themselves from muggers, burglars or anyone else who might do them harm. Even the police are subject to Draconian restrictions on their use of force.
When he ran for president in 2004, just as when he ran for the U.S. Senate five years earlier, Democrat John Edwards cast himself as a Southern moderate. In Congress, he joined centrist coalitions and built a voting record the National Journal said set him "comfortably apart from Senate liberals." Exit polls in Southern primaries showed him winning votes from moderates and even conservatives. Now, as he throttles toward 2008, Edwards has veered left, outflanking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and several other presidential rivals for his party's liberal base.
He has staked out positions on the war and health care popular with liberals. He has marched with union pickets and championed a new war on poverty. He crusaded across the country to raise the minimum wage, joining one rally alongside Sen. Ted Kennedy, a liberal icon. "I, like all of you, have evolved," Edwards, 53, told a Dartmouth College audience last week.
Edwards adviser Ed Turlington said that while Edwards hasn't changed his core beliefs, he brings more "energy and focus" to this campaign. But he has also brought a change in tone. In 2004, Edwards was relentlessly upbeat. He passed up digs at party rivals. Now he questions the experience of Sen. Barack Obama, a freshman senator from Illinois, and has suggested Clinton, of New York, should apologize like he did for voting to authorize the war. Both are leading Democratic candidates.
Last month, in comments widely seen as aimed at Clinton, he criticized congressional Democrats who hadn't spoken out against President Bush's troop increase in Iraq. "Silence," Edwards said, "is betrayal."
"The cynic in me would say it's Howard Dean's rhetoric with John Edwards' smile," said Chuck Todd, editor of The Hotline, a daily political digest. "He seems to have adopted sharper elbows. He's not going to be running the same tone of a campaign that he ran four years ago, when he never, ever wanted to go negative."
A different candidate
Nowhere has any leftward tilt been more pronounced than on Iraq. Running for vice president in 2004, Edwards criticized the Bush administration's management of the war but defended his own 2002 vote authorizing it. A year later, he recanted that vote. "I was wrong," he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed piece.
Last week, he criticized a nonbinding resolution opposing the president's troop surge as an empty gesture, implicitly chiding Democrats who support it. Edwards got 80,000 people to sign electronic petitions to Congress to block funding for what he calls an "escalation."
"He's shown a real capacity to grow and learn," said Tim Carpenter, executive director of the Progressive Democrats, an anti-war group. "A lot of people are kind of romanticizing a little bit in watching his transformation."
Edwards acknowledged to The New York Times recently that he's a different candidate. And he is. Running for the Senate in 1998, he talked of his "mainstream North Carolina" values. In his first four years in the Senate, he compiled a clearly centrist record. The National Journal, which rates congressional votes, said his "consistent moderation placed Edwards among the center-right of Senate Democrats."
Those votes became more liberal as he ramped up his first presidential campaign. "He sort of felt cut free from the restraints of a North Carolina electorate," said John Aldrich, a political scientist at Duke University, adding that he believed the transformation also is rooted in Edwards' tenure as head of a poverty center at UNC Chapel Hill. "He's found his voice on this inequality issue," Aldrich said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 09:07 ||
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James Taranto, "Best of the Web," Wall Street Journal
Last Monday we faulted Sen. Hillary Clinton for demanding that President Bush "extricate" America from Iraq before he leaves office, and for saying, of the president's view that troops will have to remain there into his successor's (i.e., her) term, "I really resent it." We wrote, "If withdrawing from Iraq is in America's interests, why doesn't Mrs. Clinton--who by the way voted for the war--simply urge President Bush to do so on that ground, or promise to do so herself if elected?"
By the end of the week she had done as we suggested--or so the headlines seemed to indicate. "Clinton Promises to End War if Elected" was the title of an Associated Press dispatch Friday afternoon, which reported that Mrs. Clinton told a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will."
Well, now, that sounds definitive. . . .
The most telling line in Mrs. Clinton's speech is that counterfactual conditional: "If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war." This is quite an astonishing statement, seeing as how in October 2002 Mrs. Clinton voted for the war. And yet when you stop and think about it, the statement is not intuitively false. If you can imagine Mrs. Clinton as president in October 2002, you probably can imagine her not starting the Iraq war.
Whether or not you think the war was a good idea, it was indisputably the product of President Bush's leadership. He rallied the country behind it, so that it commanded something like 70% support in opinion polls. Congress's support was similarly strong, with 69% of the House and 77% of the Senate (including not just Mrs. Clinton but also fellow Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, along with John Kerry) voting in favor of the war.
Mrs. Clinton now says that if she were president in 2002, she would not have led the country to war. This amounts to an acknowledgment that her vote in favor of the war was not an act of leadership--that she was a follower. Was she following the president? This president? Obviously not. President Bush led the public to support the war, and Sen. Clinton followed the public. Now that public opinion has turned against the president and the war, so has Mrs. Clinton.
How does Mrs. Clinton deal with a problem about which public opinion has not yet gelled? On Thursday she spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and blogress Heather Robinson captured this choice quote:
I have advocated engagement with our enemies and Israel's enemies because I want to understand better what we can do to defeat those who . . . are aiming their weapons at us. . . . This is a worthy debate. . . . There are many, including our president, who reject any engagement with Iran and Syria. I believe that is a good-faith position to take, but I'm not sure it's the smart strategy that'll take us to the goal we share.
What do I mean by engagement or some kind of process? I'm not sure anything positive would come out of it . . . but there are a number of factors that argue for doing what I'm suggesting.
Says Robinson: "And what was it she was suggesting, exactly? Well, she never said."
So on Iraq, Mrs. Clinton stands resolutely on the side of public opinion, whichever side that may be in any given year. On Iran, about which public opinion is unformed, she is maddeningly noncommittal. This is fine for a senator, who merely casts one vote among 100. But the president--especially in times of international peril--needs to be able to make decisions in the national interest. Sometimes that means shaping public opinion, as President Bush did when he persuaded the public and Congress to support the war in Iraq. Sometimes it means defying public opinion, as Bush has done lately by resisting pressure to flee.
Were these decisions bad ones? History will judge, but at the moment most Americans seem to think so. Mrs. Clinton is seeking to become President Bush's successor by countering his dangerous boldness with extreme caution. She is presenting herself as the candidate who won't make bad decisions because she won't make decisions--who won't lead us astray because she will not lead.
But an excess of caution is itself a form of recklessness. Someone who won't make decisions won't make good or necessary decisions either. Therein lies the peril of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
(Emphasis added.)
Posted by: Mike ||
02/06/2007 06:36 ||
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#1
NEWSJOURNAL + WND, etal blogs/sites are still widely reporting that Osama had indeed purchased "suitcase nukes" andor WMDS from the black market, mainly from the Russian mafias. BY THIS SCOPE, 2008 ELEX > is about whom will control America's POST-AMER HIROSHIMA/NEW 9-11 REACTIONS, i.e. AMER-DOMINATED [SOCIALIST?]OWG; vs ISOLATIONIST ANTI-SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST USA UNDER ANTI-US SOCIALIST OWG.
Rudy Giulianis star has hardly dimmed in the five years since terrorists attacked his city on Sept. 11, 2001, and he became a national hero the face of U.S. resolve at a time of tragedy. "If he can handle the scrutiny, and if events break his way, sure, he can win," said Fred Siegel, who wrote a Giuliani biography, "The Prince of the City."
Hes a moderate Republican from New York City, on the wrong side of social issues in the eyes of hard-core conservatives who are a crucial voting bloc in the primaries. His mayoral tenure was marked by criticism of an overzealous police force. Hes linked to the citys scandal-plagued ex-police chief Bernard Kerik. His thicket of business interests could pose conflicts. Hes been divorced twice.
His challengers - John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney - no doubt will try to exploit his background and record. For now, both are trying to gauge how much of a threat he may be. "I believe theyll look at the picture as a whole," said Tony Carbonetti, Giulianis longtime political adviser. "This (New York) was an unmanageable city, and I think what people want today is a manager, someone to lead in difficult times and to lead in not-difficult times."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
OTOH, LUCIANNE > GOP is $4.6 Milyuuhn in campaign debt.
#2
...Friends, I gotta tell you - there's a lot about Guiliani I'm not crazy about. On the other hand, there's more I'm not crazy about regarding the other guys. It's not a 'lesser evil' situation, far from it. He's got a lot of good qualities that we need in the White House. But he may very well turn out to be the only electable Republican.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/06/2007 6:49 Comments ||
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#3
Hear, hear, Mike. While I don't like a lot of his stances on social issues, here's what I see. A strong leader in the WoT. Supposedly, even more conservative than Bush on taxes, spending and "big government" issues. I'd hold my nose and vote for him over Hillary ten days to Sunday.
And, on the social issues, if you truly think about it, how much affect does a President have? By that, I mean, look at Bush's fight to just pass the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, and then it got smacked down by the courts. So here's how I see the social issues:
* Abortion: will be "solved" in the courts, not by the Prez.
* Gay "rights": Again, will be shoved down our throats "solved" by the courts. Just note how many State bans on gay marriage are in effect, even by OVERWHELMING majorities when voted upon by the public, only to be forced upon the State by a bunch of oligarchs in black robes.
* Gun control: Sure, Rudy may be a "gun grabber." But, I'd be willing to bet the NRA could sway his vote. Also, note, your other option on this issue is Hillary...not much choice there, either.
Sure, maybe Mitt Romney is a lot more attractive to us "social conservatives." But, he's not electable in my book. You ask the average Joe on the street who he is, and they'll say "Mitt who?" Rudy is "America's mayor" and showed outstanding leadership in the days, weeks and months after 9/11. Everyone recognizes him, and he'd attract some of the "moderate" Democrats out there to vote for the trunks too.
Posted by: BA ||
02/06/2007 9:09 Comments ||
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#4
Rudy is probably the GOPs best shot, and he gets it when it comes to the WoT. At least the best I can tell, he does. At this point, it looks like he has the best chance at beating Billary or Obamalamadingdong.
How I would love to watch the Donks seethe over losing another election.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2007 9:40 Comments ||
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#5
I'm waiting on a player to be named later.
I mean: crikey... it's the beginning of 2007. This will end up being the longest friggin' presidential race in history.
#6
Giuliani has already telegraphed his tap dance on social issues. He will claim to be a federalist and he will emphasize his intentions to nominate federal judges that are strict constructionists. That should allow some cover for his right to choose and domestic partner stances but his Second amendment ole soft shoe will need some polishing.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2007 13:19 Comments ||
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#11
I still dont get the Rudy love from consies, vs the McCain hate.
Giuliani is MORE socially liberal than McCain. Taxes, whoever wins is going to have to deal with the reality of the budget deficit.
The war. Rudys big selling point is 9/11, right? But I thought everyone around here is convinced that this war CANT be won with LE only, its a WAR, that must be one overseas. So between an ex-navy pilot, whos been active in defnese issues since election to the Senate, vs a guy whose sole involvement in the WOT was as a mayor, running a police and fire department, you want Rudy? Yet you laughed at Kerry for saying fire stations were the way to win the WOT?
Oh, and crime came down in NY. Of course it came down in DC under Anthony Williams, but I dont see anyone running him for prez. AFAICT his overall record in NYC was mixed, and that will come out in the campaign.
AFAICT its all cause y'all hate McCain for McCain-Finegold, mainly, and secondarily for Rummy bashing, and for pursuing a compromise on torture (a compromise which the left screams was a cave by McCain, BTW) Well then = what has Rudy said about torture? About the McCain approach on that? Is he agin it? And does he defend Rummy? If he does, ya think Hilary wont use that against him? Ya think the middle is gonna be won by that?
I dunno, it should be an interesting race on the GOP side.
#12
Hawk, Rudys advantage over McCain is his leadership and that he seems to be less of an attention hound.
Plus, Rudy will make the Donks spend more money in New York and New Jersey than they would if McCain gets the Trunk nod.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2007 14:09 Comments ||
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#13
Well. I'm more libertarian than conservative, LH, but I'll take a stab at it.
"Giuliani is MORE socially liberal than McCain." Is that more likely to make him win or lose? Won't this election still need to draw from centrist Democrats, non-affiliateds, and moderate Republicans? It strikes me that in a theoretical battle between two extremes (far left and far right), it would be pretty risky for the Pubs to "cling to the right" in the 08 presidential election. And winning they still strive to do.
As far as the WoT and 9/11, I don't imagine that true conservatives have a real issue with either Rudy or McCain-I think either one would be viewed as strong. McCain has an authentic and respected viewpoint because of what he dealt with personally as a POW, but he will risk losing some votes because his definition of terror will be seen by many as a bit hyper-sensitive and over the top.
"Defending Rummy?" How long a shelf life will that have in the presidential election?
I think one factor in 08 is going to be star quality. I still think Obama has a good chance for the Dem nomination, and the Republicans will need a heavyweight star to go up against that. They shouldn't follow the Dem model of 2004 and pick a field of bores.
I have a personal reason to prefer Rudy but don't see McCain as a bad choice, at least internationally. Rudy just has more of that rare charisma than McCain. This race obvisouly has much more to be fleshed out.
#14
I still dont get the Rudy love from consies, vs the McCain hate.
I perceive McCain to be the Senior Senator from Meet the Press more than I do a member of the Republican Party. Of course, I'm not a member of the Republican Party, so I don't know why that should bother me. It does, though.
#15
Plus, McCain didn't kick Yassir Arafish outta his State, did he? That alone, gets my nod for Rudy!
Posted by: BA ||
02/06/2007 15:37 Comments ||
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#16
Rudy was a mayor of a city larger than several states. He has as much or more executive experience than governors of many states, such as Vermont.
John McCain has been a Senator for many years. He knows how to negotiate, conciliate, compromise, and other things Senators do.
Personally, there are three things that are most important to me in any candidate in 2008:
1) WOT
2) WOT
3) WOT
Very little else matters. If we lose the war on terror, everything else - abortion, gun rights, national health care, and so on will fade into oblivion.
#17
I like Rudy, and I think a conservative like Gingrich should be asked to run for VP. That would cement the party together with a star quality ticket.
And in this corner, Thankles and Osama Obama.
If its Obama vs Rudy, I will seriously consider voting for Rudy. Or Edwards vs Rudy. Really, I dont see Rudy as stronger than McCain in the general - I will admit freely I like McCain more. If McCain runs against Hilary (whos still my preferred Dem) Id be seriously considering voting for McCain. But no, Im genuinely trying understand something puzzling.
#23
I think Rudy is an attention hound too, he just hasn't gotten as much as McCain. He also has never sold out conservative judges for the sake of attention bipartisanship. That will give him an advantage over McCain.
The one drawback I see for him is that he has to become more than the 9/11 mayor guy. Its good for him, but if he can't become more than that, he's going to be in trouble.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2007 17:27 Comments ||
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#24
[RANT ON]
Although youve all heard me sing this song before, allow me to once again repeat myself: I am a Republican specifically because of my opposition to Gun Control, not in spite of it. Like five million other Americans, I am also NRA first, and a Republican second. Rudy Giuliani and his Grima Wormtongue (Michael Bloomberg) are our sworn, vocal enemies. In New York City, they have persecuted and imprisoned Americans like myself. I have no doubt that Giuliani will do the same thing on a national level if given a chance. Oh, I also have no doubt that Clinton or Obama will come after us as well: but I prefer being screwed by members of the other guys party, not my own. Call me old fashioned.
Oh, and please dont BS me with all of this talk about how little control over gun rights the Whitehouse has. The Clinton administration has already shown that to be false.
Giuliani will come for my guns in the name of fighting crime or national security. The Donks will do it for the children. In the end, its all the same to me. This freedom the right to keep and bear arms - is one of my core values. It is why I am in the process of selling all that I own in urban California and moving to very rural Nevada. It is why thousands of others are making similar moves. Nominate a man who has made a career of striking at this core freedom, and the Republican Party will make enemies of us in the process, regardless of how much else we have in common.
Allow me to explain: after all of my years of being a gun owner in California, if Barbara Boxer or state Senator Don Perata became a staunch supporters of the war on terror, I would probably go buy a Koran and start scrapping match heads for gunpowder. I hate their kind that much and Giuliani is one of them 100%. Does that sound insane? Have any of you ever wondered why radio host Michael Savage sounds so insane? Thats what being a conservative in San Francisco does to you after a few decades.
If Rudy gets the nod, expect to loose five million votes to the Loosertarians in 2008 and the Whitehouse to the Democrats.
[RANT OFF (I feel better now)]
#27
I like Rudy but I don't think he'll have much chance in the primaries where the party tends to lean away from centrists.
McCain is percieved as having betrayed the Republicans with his group of 12. The support he'd get from staunch Republicans would be of the lesser of two evils variety which is not the kind of thing that fires up the troops.
I'm still hoping for Duncan Hunter. He's a long shot but the best of the names I've seen so far.
#29
Great rant, Secret Master, spot on! I agree with you on the Second Amendment thingy. He (Rudy) was going to be on Hannity this afternoon (Radio) and Sean was hyping him up that he's changed his tune somewhat on guns, that the only affect a Prez has on abortion is Judicial nominees, and that, he's actually a lot more conservative (socially) than we think on abortion.
Here was Sean's take on Rudy now:
* Abortion: for free-choice, but with limits. Endorses Parental Notification laws, as well as the Partial Birth Abortion ban. Would limit abortion ban exemptions to the life of the mom only (says not to limit it to health, as then some judges would consider "mental health" a reason to abort).
* Taxes/Crime/Spending: a real Reagan type conservative in these arenas.
* Gun-grabbing: says he won't be a gun grabber, like he was in NYC. While I understand your point about "I'd rather be screwed by the other party than the guy I know," we ALL know too, that a few thousand votes in the right places can make or break Hillary's run for the white house. And, voting Loosertarian is pissing away your vote and helping Madame Hillary in the interim.
* Gay rights: Supports at the most, civil unions, not marriage. I'd assume he'd respect the will of the people when they vote on it at the State level.
* Judges: Says he'd nominate Constructionists and specifically mentioned Alito, Roberts and Scalia as the types of people he'd nominate to the bench.
* WoT: He's spot on!
So, actually to me, he's (in some respects) more conservative than even Bush. Think taxes, spending and "big gov't." On other issues (abortion and maybe "gay rights") he's about the same or less conservative, but again, how much affect does the Prez have on that (especially if there's a Donk-controlled Congress).
My dream ticket? Rudy for Prez with Tancredo for V.P. Rudy's spot on in the WoT, Taxes/Spending, and crime. Tancredo can focus on the illegal immigration "issue" which I still don't get as to why that's NOT part of the WoT to Bush. And, Rudy's the only one I think can beat Hillary (w/ the exception of McCain, possibly, but I'd have to REALLY hold my nose for that media-whore to vote on him).
Posted by: BA ||
02/06/2007 18:49 Comments ||
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#30
If Rudy were a donk we would all be calling him. A gun grabber. The difference between him and Hillary on the matter is probably that Hillary is considered more of a totalitarian. He has a lot of work to do on that issue. I don't know how he gets around it. I read the transcript of his interview with Hannity on Fox and his position seemed to be the flip and the flop all at once. Something about what is right for one city is not right for another.
I suppose he could make the case that he was just being responsive to what the people of New York want, but I have to think saying that would hurt him more than help him.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2007 19:55 Comments ||
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#31
I could take Hillary with a trunk congress easier than Rudy with a donk congress. And I hope we do end up with split government, either way. The performance of the trunks for the last 6 years has been shameful and they deserve to be the minority. Not that the donks have done anything to deserve to be in the majority. As long as they both do nothing, I'm happy.
#32
BA:
Promises from politicians of almost any sort are close to worthless UNLESS that politician has a solid voting record on a particular issue. Unfortunately, Rudy has a solid record: the wrong one. I shall say no more
#33
The Republicans had 6 (SIX) years to get it at least 70% right or TRY to get it right and they outspent the Dems, did not adhere to core values, etc. They are DEMs light. Now they want us to vote again for them. Many of us Rantburgers gave money, some serious money to the Republicans. The only one that has seemed to be true to basic principles is Duncan Hunter of San Diego (good work, Commodore Frank G.). The Republicans got their a$$es kicked because of their lack of values and that the President did not make things happen in the war satisfactorily.
So now we are faced with the same ole Republicans with some half-assed candidate against the LLL Dems and Billary the HildaBeast. This makes me so mad that I could have a stroke.
Both parties are taking this country to the cleaners. Ya know, as crazy as Michael Savage can be, he had a point on his broadcast yesterday. He is mulling running for president, not because he thinks that he could win, but because he wants to get the life-and-death issues facing this country out in the open for debate, and to revitalize the flaccid republican party. His feeling is that if the republicans keep going on the way that they are going, without leadership, without standing by principles, they will lose, and the whole country will lose or be lost.
We are at a crossroads, and I sure hate to bet my country and my life and family on Giuliani's promises. Damn! We're in a tight spot!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/06/2007 21:57 Comments ||
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#34
I think its important for a president to inspire the people. I just can't get inspired by McCain. Rudy seems to be better with people.
#35
One strong plus for Giuliani is that he has a record of standing up to tough bureaucracies and fighting until he wins. I think we would all agree that this is much needed in the federal government.
#1
If 9/11 doesn't matter to Americans, being nuked one or more times won't matter either. There is such a thing as invincible stupidity. Look at George Soros, John F. Kerry and Noam Chomsky, for starters.
#3
Within the previous 72 hours a series of eight successive, delayed nuclear devices had been detonated. Indescribably large portions of metro Washington D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and two thirds of the island of Manhattan have been turned into steaming craters.
I dunno'...having large portions of blue-state America turned into steaming craters doesn't sound all that bad...(gotta' see that silver lining)...
In all seriousness, though, this would have the effect of really pissing off the rest (red-state America) of the country. You want to see America really take its revenge and anger out on somebody, anybody, go ahead and do this. There's not a rock big enough to hide under this side of Jupiter.
Lashing out at the rest of the world in revenge and hate is not something I would encourage in red-staters or Americans in general. We have this tendency to break things and kill people when we're pissed off.
#4
I think this essay is nonsense, but... But while the political center of the Federal government is in Washington, DC, the military are more diffuse, both at home and abroad; there are plenty of people fully capable of taking on the responsibilities of higher rank; and, they have private communication systems not tied to the public grids. If something like this were to happen, I'd expect a massive military response within days against Iran and others already pre-gamed and on file. As a result we'd have peace on Earth for at least a full generation, possibly two... and any disturbances after that would not be from jihadis... or China, either.
#5
I dunno'...having large portions of blue-state America turned into steaming craters doesn't sound all that bad...(gotta' see that silver lining)...
*cough* Ahem, Dallas is not a Blue City, and Texas is not a Blue State. I for one (living in Fort Worth) would be very pissed if they popped a nuke in my backyard.
#6
*cough* Ahem, Dallas is not a Blue City, and Texas is not a Blue State. I for one (living in Fort Worth) would be very pissed if they popped a nuke in my backyard.
What? You missed the rest of the comment (or simply ignored it)?
"Large portions" of the areas mentioned are, in fact, blue state areas. And you should be rightly pissed off if anyone popped off a nuke in your backyard or anywhere else in the USA, blue state or otherwise.
#7
Unless they take out Cheyenne Mountain and other hardened military sites, all that the nuke attacks would do is kill millions of civilians, cause trillions of dollars worth of damage, and result in the thermonuclear extermination of the Muslim population centers. There are in-place plans and orders for the military to function if there ever were a successful decapitation strike against the US. Besides which, in this scenario, there is no surviving civilian oversight for the military; and a population screaming for revenge writ large. Dresden, Nagasaki, and blitzed London would look like cakewalks compared to the MAD strikes on the Muslim world.
#8
LEFT + ANTI-US AGENDISTS > All reasons, directly or indirectly, justifys ANTI US OWG + national-global SOCIALISM = GOVERNMENTISM - you know, Laissez Faire-Libertarianism. We all know how everyone in the USSR-Red China, etal Commie Bloc = Third World despotic states tippy-toed naked thru the tulips , drugged/spaced out + frivol waavy graavy flower-waving during the Cold War, BECUZ THE ULTRA-LEFT ARMY-POLICE STATE LET THEM, now don't we!? PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM. Remember, WOT > inducing = forcing America under anti-US OWG + Socialism. NOW LETS ALL WATCH CNN AGAIN AND HEAR OSAMA HIMSELF SAY IN FRONT OF CAMERA + PARTY BOYZ THAT HE = RADIC ISLAM WILL DO ANYTHING TO BRING ABOUT THE DE FACTO DEFEAT AND DESTRUCTION OF THESE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. REST ASSURED OSAMA, etal. ARE NOT GONNA CARE WHETHER AMERICANS = AMERIKANS BELIEVE HIS WARNINGS + FATWAS OR NOT.
FOX > KONDRACHE [paraphrased] > for the prior Congressional elex, every candidate = gener MOVING TO THE LEFT REGARDLESS OF ANY POLLS?SURVEYS IN SUPPORT OF DUBYA. Remains to be seen iff it will change for the 2008 POTUS elex.
#9
Because, President-elect means jackshit until he is sworn in : refer to the 25th amendment and the Presidential Succession Act. Meaning that if any of the Cabinet officers listed are alive and functioning, that person is now Commander-in-Chief until the new President is sworn in, 3 months later. Lots of smoke and ashes were the Muslim world used to be in that time frame. Or in the alternative, the existing National Security Directives hold sway until the new President in sworn in on January 20, 2009.
Besides which, with no House or Senate to do the formal confirmation of the Electors votes, how legal is the President-elect : look at the Constitution and prior US Supreme Court decisions about elections? And without a Supreme Court, White House, Congress, or major agency centers left, how is the non-military side of the government going to do anything?
#10
Also, the strike against Israel would have resulted in the Samson Option being taken, which in and of itself leave very little of the Arab world behind. Especially for Iran, the Israeli MAD strikes would eliminate the Iranian cities, military, and general population centers. Now if the story was that the Iranians waited until the strike on the US, might be a bit more believable.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali fled fanaticism in Africaand Holland. So what does she make of her new conservative friends in D.C.?
To her admirers, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a maverick, bravely defying the Netherlands political correctness to address Europes growing cultural rifts. To detractors, shes a charismatic bomb-thrower with as little regard for her adopted nations safety as for her own. Both sides would have to admit that the former Somali-Dutch politician is a master of self-reinvention. After a rough childhood (circumcision, daily beatings) in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia, she escaped to Holland from a forced marriage, eventually joined the Dutch Parliament as a Muslim criticizing her own culture, and made a provocative film with Theo van Gogh that got him killed and sent her into hiding. When a rival threatened to revoke her citizenship, the resulting furor toppled the governing coalition. But Ali just moved on, resigning and moving to Washington, D.C., where she now works for the American Enterprise Institute. Its all retold in her eloquent new memoir, Infidel. Stopping by Soho House recently, she spoke with New York about life and politics in her latest adopted land.
Youve been here for six months. How do you like the U.S.?
That is the question they all ask! I love it. The most comforting thing is the anonymity. Im not allowed to talk about securityto tell you who in this room is security and who is notbut the pressure cooker of Holland is over. I am now just one individual in the melting pot.
Youre at a conservative think tankperhaps an odd place for a harsh critic of religion in political life.
I consider myself nonpartisan, but Im a liberalnot in the American sense, because Americans seem to refer to communists as liberals. What we see in Europe, because of the welfare state, is government pretending to provide all sorts of services they shouldnt be providing.
But what do you make of Christian conservatives in your ranks?
No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think thats what the West is all about.
But youre with them on the whole clash of civilizations thing?
When I was in Holland, the idea was, all cultures are equal and all are to be preserved. My idea was, no, all humans are equal but not all cultures are equal. In the culture of my parents, we never seemed to be able to succeed in such basic issues as getting food, interacting and living in peace with each other, or adapting to our environment, and the West, theyve succeeded in all those. Id been taught Western cultures only bad. Maybe thats good for your self-esteem, but it wasnt taking us anywhere.
Youve dismissed accusations that youre lashing out because of childhood traumas. So why write a memoir graphically detailing the abuse you and your siblings suffered?
It became important to say, Okay, you guys keep accusing me of using my past. Let me tell you my story, and my story shows that I do not blame the death of my sister on Islam. I do not blame female genital mutilation on Islam. My whole awakening was triggered by the eleventh of September, and it did not affect only me, it affected a lot of people.
Do you regret certain things you said about Muhammadlike that he was a pervert and a tyrant?
I dont regret that. Im still convinced that for Muslims to integrate fully into modern society, we cannot avoid discussing the prophet. We didnt only deal with communism militarily, but we said it is a bad idea. The works of Karl Marx were discussed.
Maybe academia would have been a betterand less dangerousvenue.
Politics is not a good thing for me. But I wanted to bring out the issue of Muslim treatment of women in Holland, and I could only accomplish that in Parliament. If I had been a professor, it would just have disappeared in a cabinet.
What are you working on next?
A book called Shortcuts to Enlightenment. Its [about] waking up the prophet Muhammad in the New York Public Library and having him have a conversation with Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek, and John Stuart Mill. Its a philosophical novel.
If you had citizenship in time for 08, whom would you vote for?
Any candidate who succeeds in uniting. Theres peacetime and theres wartime, and you dont need polarization on wartime issues. You need polarization on all other issues. Now there is an enemy from outside wanting to destroy all of us. A true leader is one who says, I am capable of getting unity on this, on a party level and on a transatlantic level.
A uniter not a divider? Doesnt sound like Bush.
Bush is not running.
#1
Love this Q&A. It shows the bias of the NYMag and shows Hirsi's great put down.
Q- Youre at a conservative think tankperhaps an odd place for a harsh critic of religion in political life.
A- I consider myself nonpartisan, but Im a liberalnot in the American sense, because Americans seem to refer to communists as liberals. What we see in Europe, because of the welfare state, is government pretending to provide all sorts of services they shouldnt be providing
#2
Notice how the Left in the form of the magazine goes out of its way to condemn her for her truthfulness on her early life, and the abuse she suffered as an African woman under Islam. Real actual abuse that was socially sanctioned, due the religious and tribal leaders where she was. Think the magazine would have been so critical of her views if she was a white leftist female complaining about abuse under a white Christian family/society?
The Left's total abandonment of all persons complaining about Third World/Islamic abuse is the greatest moral and intellectual betrayal that the Left is capable of. They would rather condemn hundreds of millions to suffering and death, than acknowledge the failings of the Third World/Islamic countries.
The exaggerations of so called human rights activists
"MURDER," WROTE William Shakespeare, "will out."
News of the cold-blooded murder of five civilians by Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir have demonstrated, once again, the inexorable working of this maxim. What hasn't become transparent, though, is either the scale or significance of such incidents.
For the most part, reportage on disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir has consisted of little other than variations on a standard set of narrative motifs: faded photographs of the victim, his grieving mother or sister, his orphaned child. While emotionally compelling, such accounts tell us little of just how widespread such killings in fact are.
Ever since this newspaper obtained documents establishing that at least three separate Rashtriya Rifles battalions murdered civilians in cold blood, and then passed them off as unidentified terrorists, these questions have occupied the centre stage of political life in Jammu and Kashmir. Sadly, there have been few answers.
Facts and fiction
In 2003, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed moved to fill the fact void. In an effort to draw votes from supporters of the secessionist movement and win the support of the Hizbul-Mujahideen, Mr. Sayeed promised a full investigation into what he then characterised as large-scale killings of innocent civilians.
Within months, the government introduced numbers to the argument. In March 2003, Law Minister Muzaffar Beig announced that 3,744 people were missing from Jammu and Kashmir a figure that was seized on by activists to claim that their allegations of large-scale enforced disappearances had been vindicated.
Mr. Beig's figure was, however, only a compilation of the numbers of persons reported to be missing for any reason at all. Later that year, Chief Minister Sayeed declared that just 60 persons had in fact "disappeared" since 1990 or, put more bluntly, had been established to have been kidnapped and then presumably murdered by security forces.
Mr. Sayeed's figures came from scrutiny of a list of 743 provided to the Jammu and Kashmir Government by human rights groups, notably the Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons. Led by Parveena Ahanger, the mother of one of those missing, and lawyer Parvez Imroz, the APDP had fought a sustained campaign on the issue.
Investigators first focussed their attention on the 84 disappearances human rights activists said had taken place between November 2002, when Mr. Sayeed took power, and August 2003. Of these, the Jammu and Kashmir Police discovered, the names and addresses of only 58 tallied with actual individuals.
For example, the lists put out by human rights activists contained the name of Mohammad Altaf Yatoo of Aripathan village in Beerwah. Investigators, however, obtained signed statements from Aripathan residents that no one of that name had ever lived in the village.
Of the 58 verifiable cases, the police said, 26 were traced to their homes a fact journalists were able to cross-check with relative ease. Another "disappeared" individual turned out to be in Srinagar central jail. Six others, the police said, had turned terrorists, while two were kidnapped by jihadi groups. Still others had been killed in exchanges of fire.
While human rights groups protested part of these findings, no full rebuttal was prepared. Given that organisations such as the APDP had long been claiming that between 8,000 and 10,000 individuals had been victims of enforced disappearances, the failure to put out a credible list of just a few hundred was a significant failure.
Research failures
One key problem, journalist Masood Husain reported in The Economic Times in September 2003, were Mr. Imroz's data-management procedures: "Lacking an organised data bank, another of his colleagues said they go on making the missing list on basis of the complaints they receive but there are no deletions."
Much of the literature on the subject, moreover, did not comprehend the distinction between missing persons and those subject to human rights violations. "Did They Vanish Into Thin Air," a compilation painstakingly prepared by journalist Zahir-ud-Din and often referred to in the literature, reflects the confusion.
A moving and passionate work, Mr. Zahir-ud-Din's compilation suffers from its failure to draw distinctions between innocent civilians kidnapped and killed by security forces and terrorists who crossed into Pakistan individuals for whom the Jammu and Kashmir Government or Indian Army cannot reasonably be expected to account for.
For example, several independent media accounts have said there were thousands of young men from Jammu and Kashmir living in jihadi training facilities or refugee centres in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Others may have been killed while crossing the Line of Control but security forces would have no way of establishing their identity.
Shoddy research has contributed to the confusion. In a November 16, 2003, article published in the Karachi-based Dawn, activist Rita Manchanda reported the illegal detention of Srinagar resident Tariq Lone in an operation that involved "the J Branch, the office of the Intelligence Bureau."
In fact, the Intelligence Bureau has no `J' Branch. The Border Security Force, which was also by Ms. Manchanda's account involved in the case, does have a `G' Branch, which among other things provides counter-terrorism intelligence. It is unclear, however, if this is the organisation Ms. Manchanda is referring to.
Activists have done themselves no favours with overblown comparisons of events in Jammu and Kashmir with the carnages perpetrated by General Augusto Pinochet's military regime in Chile or even Nazi Germany comparisons that serve only to valorise the dissent of those who use them, rather than accurately describe reality.
But India's use of such errors to stonewall action against the perpetrators of human rights violations both demeans its democratic project and undermines the credibility of its institutions. Even if Mr. Sayeed was correct in asserting that just 60-odd enforced disappearances have taken place since 1990, that is still five dozen too many.
As Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad pointed out, it would naïve to expect zero human rights violations in the midst of a quasi-war. But the Ganderbal killings have demonstrated that the system can deliver justice when it chooses after all, had investigators thrown away a mobile phone the truth about the murders would never have been known.
Mr. Azad has now put the figure of the missing at 1,017, after removing the names of who are known to be terrorists or living in Pakistan.
If he is serious about undoing the harm the Ganderbal killings have inflicted on India's credibility, the Chief Minister may do well to ensure those cases and any future complaints are fully investigated.
Posted by: john ||
02/06/2007 15:53 ||
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Our hyperactive president's walkabouts, radio talks, interviews, conferences on energy, the economy, and obesity-and his recent State of the Union address-find him looking well and speaking well, but rather in the manner of the Wizard of Oz. When the curtain is drawn back on the big flashing pronouncements, the Wizard is revealed not as a powerful magician but someone who can't even dispossess a wicked witch of her broomstick without the help of a young girl, her little dog, a scarecrow, a toothless lion, and a tin man. (Cast those characters yourself!) The only thing that is melting before the wizard's eyes is not the wicked witch but the wizard's own support in the country, in the Congress, and within his own party.
George W. Bush bet his presidency on Iraq. And now he's betting his party's future on it. If the new troop "surge" fails, it will destroy the Republicans' reputation on national security for at least a generation.
The president said, "Nothing is more important at this moment in our history than for America to succeed in the Middle East, to succeed in Iraq." He's right. Abandoning Iraq would plunge the country we went to war to save into a grim horror movie. The Iraqi government cannot stop sectarian killing when it is able to call on the world's most powerful military. Who can expect it to do so if the Americans leave? Indeed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi professionals-physicians, academics, and the like-have divined the answer and fled to other countries.
Of course, most Americans believe the nightmare in Iraq simply cannot get much worse. Wrong-it most certainly could. Advocates of a "phased" withdrawal of our troops must reckon with the certainty of a serial disaster: a full-blown civil war spreading a contagion of violence across the region, with Iran virtually uncontainable. Our enemies, as the president said, would emerge with new safe havens, new recruits, and new resources. The head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, put it starkly: "An al Qaeda victory in Iraq would mean a fundamentalist state that shelters jihadists and serves as a launching pad for terrorist operations throughout the region and against our own homeland." A premature pullout would condemn Iraq and the region to unbelievable horrors. It would be a historic victory for our Islamic enemies. If America is defeated in Iraq, a victory in the broader war on terror will be impossible. And unlike what happened after Vietnam, the enemy will undoubtedly follow America home.
How the president must rue his idealized concept of the war, and his obstinacy in persisting with the "too little, too late" way it was conducted. The desire for democracy in Iraq is a noble one, but democracy is not achieved by a single election. It was exhilarating to see so many Iraqis proudly raising their inky voting fingers in the face of threats, but installing democracy is different from organizing an election. Democracy requires security. It requires civil institutions, of which Iraq had none, except for the mosque where Islamists organized to the detriment of dreams of a secular state. It requires respect for the rule of law, for which the Shiite and Sunni extremists have only contempt. It requires tolerance for minorities, but in Iraq today people are murdered daily because of their name or the street where they live. Indeed, those elections had counterintuitive consequences for they divided the country into three sectarian communities and hardened the differences among them.
As for the "plan" the president proposed, it is, like "democracy," a mere bromide. Putting 21,500 more troops into Baghdad may well be repeating the error of undercommitment, which doomed Bush's Iraq venture in the first place. The plan, the president tells us, requires the elected Iraqi government to do things for which it has shown no enthusiasm and, indeed, about which it has been obstructionist. Bush may insist that the weaselly prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, listen. But Maliki has only one ear, it seems-for Moqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shiite cleric and sworn foe of America. On CNN last week, Maliki again poured cold water on the Bush plan for Baghdad.
This, of course, should have come as no surprise. Back in June, in Operation Together Forward, the president vowed that "a joint effort" would be made by 26,000 Iraqi soldiers, backed by 7,200 mostly U.S. forces, to secure Baghdad's violent streets. No more than 9,000 Iraqi soldiers showed up. Then there was Stage II of the operation. Of the six battalions supposed to join an additional 5,500 Americans, only two showed up. A half-year into this critical joint undertaking, the U.S. has committed 15,000 soldiers to the mission. Iraqi combat forces in Baghdad have never numbered more than 10,000.
The continual failure of Maliki to deliver brings to mind the quote from Henry IV: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep," says Owen Glendower. To which Hotspur replies: "But will they come when you do call for them?"
#1
The head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, put it starkly: "An al Qaeda victory in Iraq would mean a fundamentalist state that shelters jihadists and serves as a launching pad for terrorist operations throughout the region and against our own homeland."
General Hayden has it right. I hope all of his Klingon colleagues were listening.
#2
Klingons Vs Orcs, no question who wins that match, poor orcs don't have a chance.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/06/2007 9:55 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Democracy requires security" - D'oh! Iraqi Orcs have been running rampant for years now.
The attention span of the American electorate has apparently been exhausted. God save the Iraqis, we won't.
Hotspur should have replied, "But will those spirits from the vasty deep do your bidding, if indeed they show up in the first place?"
#4
"Call for them" - the USA + Allies are trying to empower Western-style democracy = democracy wid local characteristics in a nation and region that has had little to no experience or tradition of same. Patton + MacArthur were not afraid to use the bayonet to make it clear to the opposition whom controls whom - THE IMAGE OF A PATTON OR MACARTHUR "ASKING" MALIKI TO "PLEASE" ASK HIS TROOPS TO SHOW UP IS TOO FUNNY. SHOWS THE POST-CLINTON USDOD HAS LOST ITS ABILITY TO KNOW WHEN TO SELECTIVELY PROPERLY APPLY THE BAYONET = CALL IN THE TANKS.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
When he ran for president in 2004, just as when he ran for the U.S. Senate five years earlier, Democrat John Edwards cast himself as a Southern moderate. In Congress, he joined centrist coalitions and built a voting record the National Journal said set him "comfortably apart from Senate liberals." Exit polls in Southern primaries showed him winning votes from moderates and even conservatives. Now, as he throttles toward 2008, Edwards has veered left, outflanking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and several other presidential rivals for his party's liberal base.
Rudy Giulianis star has hardly dimmed in the five years since terrorists attacked his city on Sept. 11, 2001, and he became a national hero the face of U.S. resolve at a time of tragedy. "If he can handle the scrutiny, and if events break his way, sure, he can win," said Fred Siegel, who wrote a Giuliani biography, "The Prince of the City." 
