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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Fat Lady sings for Baitullah
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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China-Japan-Koreas
Clinton visit unlikely to change North Korea
No kidding ...
By Jon Herskovitz

SEOUL, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The United States is playing down talk of a breakthrough with Pyongyang after former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea this week to win the release of two jailed American journalists. Their release follows months of tension with North Korea, which has alarmed the region with a nuclear test, ballistic missile launches and threats to attack South Korea, raising concerns it could plunge the economies of North Asia into turmoil.

Here are scenarios about what may come next with North Korea:

A MORE DIPLOMATIC NORTH KOREA, BRIEFLY

North Korea has used military threats for years to squeeze concessions out of regional powers and it is not likely to alter its time-tested strategy over the long run. It may try diplomacy in the next few months to seek rewards that could benefit its broken economy, which has been hit by U.N. sanctions imposed for its May 25 nuclear test and long-range missile launch earlier this year.

Most analysts do not see North Korea ever giving up its nuclear arms programme, which is the state's biggest card and prime symbol of leader Kim Jong-il's "military-first" strategy.

NUCLEAR TALKS STAY ON HOLD

Clinton's visit to North Korea could reduce the chill in ties between Pyongyang and Washington. But few analysts expect it will be enough to revive six-way talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States to end the North's nuclear weapons programme in exchange for aid and better diplomatic standing.

North Korea has said it sees the often-stalled talks as dead in their current form and may be signalling it wants to deal directly with the United States by sending its top nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan to meet Clinton at the airport. [ID:nN04166831]. However, the other six-party countries would likely take umbrage at being excluded.

DYNASTIC SUCCESSION FIRMLY ESTABLISHED

South Korean government officials said the North's recent sabre rattling was aimed at firming up internal support for leader Kim, 67, as he prepares for succession in Asia's only communist dynasty and battles back from a suspected stroke.

The Clinton visit will be used by the North's propaganda machine as proof its recent military moves were a stunning victory for Kim that resulted in the former U.S. president coming to Pyongyang to pay tribute and negotiate.

With Kim feeling his footing is firmer with the country's powerful military and ruling communist Workers Party, he may make his intentions clearer about his successor, widely believed to be his youngest son Jong-un, thought to be only 25. Kim, who was groomed for years to take over the state, has yet to formally introduce his heir to a North Korean public largely unaware of any details about his offspring and needs to win the support of senior cadres for the continuation of his family's dynastic rule. [ID:nSP535186]

NEW DIRECTION FOR THE NORTH'S ATOMIC AMBITIONS

North Korea has not yet shown signs of restarting its ageing reactor or nuclear fuel fabrication facility at its Yongbyon nuclear plant, a Soviet-era plant that produces bomb-grade plutonium and was being taken apart under a six-party deal.

North Korea has said it was starting to enrich uranium, which could give the impoverished and isolated country with ample supplies of natural uranium a second path for making atomic weapons. North Korea is thought to have produced enough plutonium for six to eight nuclear weapons and may find it too expensive to restart all of Yongbyon and instead opt for uranium enrichment, which can be done out of the view of U.S. spy satellites.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/07/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
Fed Tries to Hide Money Printing Operations.
Instead of buying 7 year treasuries outright,the Federal Reserve bank apparently induced its primary dealers to buy up the debt, then less than a week later, the Fed buys those very treasuries and places them in its balance sheet.

Only a day before that event, a similar sale of 5 year debt went very poorly, suggesting that the Fed subsequently went to its primary dealers to arrange a demonstrate of "strong demand" for US government debt.

Instead of having "strong demand:" for US debt, the Fed effectively printed $14 billion and did it on the sly.
Posted by: badanov || 08/07/2009 02:25 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Also
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1304-BLATANT-Monetization-Uncovered.html
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 08/07/2009 8:44 Comments || Top||

#2  All governments are printing money at the moment. The UK is probably the worst offender.
Posted by: phil_b || 08/07/2009 9:06 Comments || Top||

#3  and we all know how successful printing money is ... *facepalm*
Posted by: Tyranysaurus || 08/07/2009 9:07 Comments || Top||

#4  and we all know how successful printing money is ...

?

It financed the War of the Revolution
The War Between the States
The Trans Continental Railroad
WWI
WWII
The Korean War
The Interstate Highway System
and a damn fuckload of most of the shit you take for granted. Hell yes, the folks in 1898 were paying off the debts of the War Twixt the States... you think they bitched about it? Of course they did! This country is all about bitching and the odd moaning. Still it got done.

Nao let's look at assets, the feds only do simple book-keeping which is so it can be explained to you.

For example deh CVN-68 (Nimitz the first) is purdy was costed to build 4.8 billion dollars. Which is roughly the cost of Congressional Airlift. However, that building cost is not amortized over the life of the carrier... nope it's a dead cold expense of the years built. So in some ways the deficit is a way of getting our kidz to pay for not being damn commie skum. Shut up pay up and your kidz won't be hippys.
Posted by: .5MT || 08/07/2009 12:48 Comments || Top||

#5  If they were actually spending that money on defense infrastructure, there might be a point to that. Instead a lot of it's going to pork barrel stuff, and 20 billion of it is going to further political agitation to make sure our kids do grow up to be hippies.

We're getting out of Iraq, and looking for an exit strategy for Afghanistan, which is nothing but a set of scattered tribes anyway, but it's still necessary to keep spending money at this rate at the federal level?

Bush's deficit wasn't this high back when we were actually fighting the Iraq war.

Fannie Mae and Goldman Sachs aren't vital to our national security.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 08/07/2009 13:03 Comments || Top||

#6  Our grand kidz gonna live in dem houses thar CabbageMan. The allocation of cost is the same.
Posted by: .5MT || 08/07/2009 13:15 Comments || Top||

#7  If they have jobs.

We didn't fight WW2 with printed money, btw, although other allied countries did, like China.

Shortly after the war was over they had a violent communist revolution with a couple million killed.

Inflation also didn't work for Weimar Germany.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 08/07/2009 14:59 Comments || Top||

#8  IIRC, the federal debt run up to finance the Civil War was paid off by the USA over the next 10-20 years, which were years of financial pain & difficulty for many Americans on the winning side. On the other side, the debt run up by the CSA to finance the War between the States was simply dishonored, disowned, dumped, not paid, etc.
The process alluded to in the article has been given the euphemism "Quantitative Easing," or QE. QE will work, until it doesn't. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. We are in a hell of a fix.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 08/07/2009 15:53 Comments || Top||

#9  Chile's a nice place. They have almost not government debt and presently have a massive surplus from the commodities run of the past few years.

Posted by: AzCat || 08/07/2009 18:34 Comments || Top||

#10  We didn't fight WW2 with printed money, btw, although other allied countries did, like China.

That was what all the War Bond drives were about. To put off the cost of the war to a later date. The money printed to run the war was in turn absorbed back through the Bonds. That meant that a large sums of money was not sitting around when the economy switch from war time to consumer production and many dollars chasing few goods. Over the course of the war 85 million Americans purchased bonds totaling approximately $185.7 billion.

That's the problem with the Fed buying back bonds with dollars. Instead of deferring the flood of cash to a future date via bonds, it's injecting that cash right now into the system.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/07/2009 23:53 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
VDH: Prairie Fire Anger
Posted by: 3dc || 08/07/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
World's most famous community organizer whines about community organizing
Jonah Goldberg, National Review
Making the same basic point as Rich Lowry and Peggy Noonan, but with 50% better snark:
It's difficult for mere mortals like us to fully grasp the enormousness of the Democrats' hypocrisy. Put aside all that talk of dissent being the highest form of patriotism. Overlook that Democrats would have upended jerry cans of gasoline and immolated themselves in protest if the Bush administration had asked people to inform on their neighbors. You can even forget that the DNC's claims are untrue. But how can we ignore the fact that the world's most famous community organizer is whining about community organizing?
(Emphasis added.)
Posted by: Mike || 08/07/2009 11:28 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what it can do to you. Over the years,we have let liberal progressives take over most of our institutions. Not only do they control much or most of our government, schools and media, they have the unions. SEIU is just the first of many unions that will come out to attack us as they did in St. Louis. I see that the head of the Teamsters has come out in support of the thugs against us. The Teamsters can be counted on to strut their stuff and crack a few heads, if only for show.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 08/07/2009 14:42 Comments || Top||


Obama wants you in the "silent majority"
Rich Lowry, National Review

Like Richard Nixon, Barack Obama wants to govern on the strength of a silent majority, although with a twist. Obama wants the majority that opposes or questions his policies to stay silent.

Obama's White House and its allies have unleashed a barrage of criticism and condescension at people daring to show up at town-hall meetings and ask their elected representatives pointed questions. "Fired up and ready to go!" apparently works only one way. If engaged citizens shower Obama with adoration at stage-managed rallies, they are the very stuff of American democracy. If they boo their congressman, they are a scandalous eruption of fake or hateful sentiment....
Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike || 08/07/2009 11:23 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Watch Obama and the dhimocrats to get more tyrannical in their actions.

More than any other government in our history, I feel this one has the most potential to lead us to a civil war. Especially as divided the ideologies are within the US population. A full liberal can't even talk to a full conservative without both sides screaming at each other.
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/07/2009 11:29 Comments || Top||

#2  The liberal will never listen, the liberal demonizes his opponent, the liberal wants to silence his opposition. The liberal wears the goose stepping boots.
Posted by: Lagom || 08/07/2009 13:14 Comments || Top||

#3  More likely that not we're the side with the guns. They best be sure they want that fight.
Posted by: Hellfish || 08/07/2009 14:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Re: #2: I was just having this conversation with someone earlier today. I was pointing out that when one side of the political sphere demonizes the other side, one must question their motives if they wish to remain intellectually honest. I made the observation that while both sides certainly engage in demonizing political opponents, from my perspective liberals demonize conservatives far more than conservatives demonize liberals. In my experience, conservatives are more likely to question the practicality of liberal policy whereas liberals are more likely to question the morality of conservative policy. In addition, and assuming my observation carries some truth, the demonization of conservatives by liberals has more or less been woven into the daily narrative put forward by the MSM, given that said MSM is overwhelmingly staffed by self-admitted liberals (Pew Research has proven this without a doubt). This, in turn, leaves those who get their news and information from the MSM more likely to absorb the demonization of conservatives as legitimate political speech. In essence, rather than question the practicality of conservative policy, they typically opt to question the morality of said policy instead. (If you don't adhere to liberal position on MMGW, then you hate the planet... If you don't support Obama's healthcare plan, then you hate the 50 million people without health insurance... If you support the GWOT, then you hate muslims... etc.).

All that being said, it would be interesting to show a liberal something empirical, objective, or quantitative that gives weight to the notion that liberals far outnumber conservatives when it comes to demonizing the opposition. It would also be interesting to show liberals that conservatives are more apt to question the practical merit of liberal policy while liberals are more apt to question the moral merit of conservative policy. Which approach serves the American people best is up to the observer to decide.
Posted by: eltoroverde || 08/07/2009 14:35 Comments || Top||

#5  Nothing as loud as the click of a weapon going off safe in the silence....
Posted by: 49 Pan || 08/07/2009 17:25 Comments || Top||

#6  One caution: I wouldn't rely on the assumption that the right/center have the majority of the guns.

There are a lot of weapons that can be funneled to people, and a lot of shooters if it comes to that.
Posted by: lotp || 08/07/2009 23:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Actually, you don't really need guns. One of the worst mass murders in NY history was committed with a gallon of gas and a couple blocked fire exits. Over 70 people died in a nightclub fire. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie || 08/07/2009 23:18 Comments || Top||

#8  Nope all you need is a tall building, a ledge and a hypnotist suggesting "you can fly"
Posted by: GirlThursday || 08/07/2009 23:22 Comments || Top||

#9  There are a lot of weapons that can be funneled to people, and a lot of shooters if it comes to that.

Numbers are useless unless those numbers know how to use them and not just as individuals but as cohesive units. Otherwise its whose ammo last the longest. Gun sex [spray fire] isn't as effective as trained fire.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/07/2009 23:39 Comments || Top||


Voters send a message to Washington, and get an ugly response
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal

...hey had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs.

The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he's a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that's all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, "You are terrifying us."

What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen's surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren't authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can't get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss--loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don't.

People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.
The congresscritters know that, even if the cheering squad tries loudly to claim otherwise. The congresscritters will respond appropriately if they want to be reelected... which of course they do.
What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack....

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn't be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you're president, can't call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you're too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan "extremists" and "right wing," or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They're citizens. They're concerned. They deserve respect....
Posted by: Mike || 08/07/2009 06:19 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I still do not care what Peggy Noonan is currently pretending to care about.
Posted by: Excalibur || 08/07/2009 7:25 Comments || Top||

#2  I wouldn't read Peggy Noonan if she were writing pr0n.
Posted by: badanov || 08/07/2009 7:26 Comments || Top||

#3  The Pegmeister is frustrating at times, no doubt, and I don't think I'd want to sit next to her at a dinner.

However, in reading this op ed piece, she's absolutely correct. The Dems, from Bambi to Rahm to Nancy, etc., are gearing up for a real class war. They think they got a mandate, and they're not about to tolerate a group of Americans who stand in their way.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/07/2009 8:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Retirees and veterans, two of the prominent groups at the town hall meetings, do not appreciate being called "Nazis" for speaking their minds.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/07/2009 10:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Reitrees and veterans speaking their mind, These are the two groups that have paid their entire lives for this country. Their voices deserve to be heard and concidered in all conversations... Shame on the Democratic party.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 08/07/2009 10:47 Comments || Top||

#6  The Democrats have no shame!!!!
Posted by: WolfDog || 08/07/2009 13:10 Comments || Top||

#7  Most importantly, retirees and veterans vote in much higher proportions than the youngsters and the Blacks who turned out for Obama last November. The congresscritters know this, which is why they listen to them.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/07/2009 13:19 Comments || Top||

#8  You know it's really easy to Photoshop any politician's pic to make him/her look like the Joker.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 08/07/2009 15:46 Comments || Top||

#9  Obama is hoping for open civil war. If and when it happens he'll try and amend the constitution so that he can stay president for as long as he wants and be able to pick his replacement.
Posted by: Bob || 08/07/2009 19:27 Comments || Top||

#10  Bob, as much as I despise Obama, I can't seriously believe that he would be that stupid.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 08/07/2009 20:10 Comments || Top||


Cash for Clunkers was intended as diversion from Healthcare debate
One Rantburger's opinion.
Look at the evidence that Cash for Clunkers was really a diversion for the Healthcare debate (I could have been more thorough, but I, as most of you, work for a living):

War funding bill
On the Congressional record of the bill, piggy-backed on the war-funding bill. Passed the House June 18th after heated negotiations with Democrats opposed to the war funds (lots of feely-good funding tacked on as well).

Cash for clunkers
Passed by Senate June 18th, signed into law on June 25th. I think this may be among the top 5 for speed of passage after a hand-off from Congress.

Quick presidential signing
Bama signs the War Funding bill into law June 26 (did he read it?). So much for 5-days-public-viewing.

Timing slipped
The program was supposed to be enacted almost a month earlier than the July 22 launch.

It appears to me that, while the Chicagoan politicians in DC try to exert control over everything that comes out of the White House, this time they were unable to control the time line and their little diversion came out too late. I believe they intended to divert the public with media attention on a very lucrative program and INTENDED it to be underfunded. Come on -- how could anyone not estimate that there might be 200,000 willing to take advantage of what amounted to (in a lot of cases) a greater-than 100% gain on the value of their trade-in? Funding it with anything less than $1 billion would have been too obvious. The conflicting media accounts of an unfunded debacle to the Democrats trumpeting success make this a classic obfuscation. But obfuscation to what? Move this past week over the week of the most intense health care debate and it all makes sense. Postulate the adjusted time line -- adjust all the hype coming from both the media and the Dems to the week during which the most heated debates were occurring about health care.

Back to reality: The delay deflated their balloon. A week after launching CARS, all hype about the program is lost and all the attention in the previous weeks went unwanted on health care.

They intended to have a vote on both versions of the health care reform prior to the August recess, which was scheduled for August 3rd (?), meaning the vote most certainly would have occurred the Friday previous (given their history of that practice), or at the latest July 31st. The cash-for-clunkers program was intended to go into full-swing by July 1st, not July 22nd (as it transpired). Ostensibly, the NHTSA is the party responsible for the delay.

Complex Washington politics, too many players, too little time. Bama's Chicago thugs learned a valuable lesson about DC bureaucracy and got a lot of unwanted attention on the health care debate, leading to MUCH public attention and outrage and, consequently, a delay in the vote. And, as I've asserted, the Republicans missed a huge opportunity to trash the economic policies of this administration by using the success of nearly putting $$ back into the pockets of working Americans. Imagine had actual tax cuts been afforded to all of us. This could have been a huge publicity coup for conservative opposition. But in the end bureaucracy reigned and gave the health care debate some much-needed attention.

I, for one, never thought I would ever thank god for government bureaucracy.

My .02.
Posted by: logi_cal || 08/07/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wouldn't put it past them but it seems probable to me that it was primarily intended as a payoff to the unions and a bit of good economic news that they could manufacture then trumpet.
Posted by: AzCat || 08/07/2009 3:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Right what AZ said.

What ever a democrat wants to fix, they do the exact opposite as they are All incompotent as hell and too stupid to learn.

Products of their own education or corruption.

One day, I will write a book about what I wrote in rantburg, but until then I shall remind any reader about the 5 great thing they have accomplished:
"stimulous bill" - basket weaving, whine, cheese, and yoga
Omnibus spending - Pop another trillion onto the budget to pay off unions in GM and other idiot democrat programs
"Cap and Tax" - The total failure of common sense for the Goldman Sachs and GE subsiders of this piece of shit government and the fleecing of America under the social democratic cause of "global climate change" and other spoofs of reality.
"Cash for clunkers" It was supposed to help GM, but instead ruined all the spare parts the poor need and sent money to foreign car makers.
Healthcare deform - well, as you know, if you vote the wrong way, government has a deapth care plan for you.
Still sorting through supreme court decisions in the 1850's surrounding government interference in insurance. No luck yet. please tell me if you find something.

What a failure this past 3 years have been in total. It is more than a 22 trillion boondogle and someone needs to kill it right away.
Posted by: newc || 08/07/2009 4:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Of course it was intended in part to be a payoff for their supporters. By forcing the closure of what has basically been proven to be 100's of dealerships that supported Republicans, they narrowed the field to their own supporters and, in turn (by only allowing the rebate on 'new' cars), benefit the unions by artificially stimulating demand for new cars coming off of depressed manufacturing lines.

Personally, given the ratcheting-up of constituent outrage at DC politicians over this healthcare issue, I still believe they intended this as their little diversion to the debate, but got hosed by their own bureaucracy.

The only evidence available is to compare their previous handling of their 'manufactured crises' and control of media & information in the past 4-5 months...this was a public relations disaster. To assume that they wanted to allow this unwanted attention on healthcare ignores the fact that they were concious of avoiding it and, by consequence, their complete disarray in handling of the outrage that is following (as being reported nationally).

Be well, my fellow fishy friends...
Posted by: logi_cal || 08/07/2009 11:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Somebody did the research, and actually the distribution of party registration was about equal, logi_cal. Regardless of any actual intent ("Of course they're all Republicans, the blood-sucking plutocrats!") closing the excess dealerships, about which Detroit has been complaining for several years, did not excessively punish Republicans.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/07/2009 13:26 Comments || Top||

#5  I think C4C was a decent effort toward stimulating the economy by essentially putting $ directly into the hands of consumers. Whether or not it will ultimately prove valuable is for the future to decide. As a stimulus, it is far & away better than funneling billions into AIG to be then funneled into Sacks of Gold. As of 0930 EDT today, auto dealers have submitted over $1 Billion in total 'clunker' requests, thus over-subscribing the original C4C plan, and cutting a bit into the extended plan signed by O today.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 08/07/2009 16:18 Comments || Top||

#6  IMHO, sure towards the end it was when everything was flailing. As a gateway drug for people who don't think government can help them, little trial balloon. But it was, around here, the car dealerships who brought this to attention not politicians. And people seem to think maybe the dealerships made some good money, but I've heard that they got caught holding the bill for all that advertising and longer staff hours when the gov well dried up. It was then they decided to further fund it. Tax&Slave was dropped, FemaCare had spun out, needed a feather in the cap even if a turkey feather.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 08/07/2009 17:48 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Saudi-funded madness in Washington’s backyard
On Monday, Virginia officials granted permission to the Islamic Saudi Academy of Fairfax — the only Saudi-funded school in the United States — to double the size of its facility in northern Virginia just across the Potomac River from the nation’s Capitol. That means the school will be able to increase the number of students it indoctrinates in an extreme version of Islam. The same indoctrination is found in the most radical madrassas across the Middle East. These institutions graduate students who are steeped in hatred for America and Western cultures, and who are often committed to a deadly kind of jihad. This is a foolhardy decision by local officials that should be overruled by federal authorities.

That’s not likely, however, because the U.S. Supreme Court declined June 29 to hear a civil lawsuit filed by the 9/11 families alleging a financial link between members of the Saudi royal family and terrorist front groups, based on what The New York Times described as “thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents,” including a “line-by-line description of tens of millions of dollars in bank transfers, with dates and dollar amounts.” Without considering this new evidence, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals threw the case out on grounds of sovereign immunity. The Justice Department also sided with the Saudis, ordering attorneys to destroy any copies of leaked classified documents in their possession.

Academy officials deny that their facility teaches violent jihad to its students, but the available evidence says otherwise. The school’s textbooks have been condemned by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for numerous anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-American passages that justified the killing of non-Muslims. Some even included illustrations on how to cut off the extremities of those who violate Sharia law. Ahmed Omar Abu-Ali, the school’s 1999 valedictorian who was voted “most likely to be martyred,” was recently sentenced to life in prison for participating in an al-Qaida plot to assassinate President George W. Bush, kill members of Congress and bomb public gatherings. A 2003 graduate, Raed Al-Saif, was arrested in June when airport security officials in Tampa, Fla., allegedly found a 7-inch knife hidden in his bag.

A terrible irony here is that the same Virginia officials who approved the academy’s expansion twice denied a similar request from a Christian school that occupied the same property in the 1980s. During Abu-Ali’s sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee cited the former valedictorian’s “unwillingness to renounce the beliefs that led to his terrorist activities” as a threat to the safety of all Americans — beliefs that were instilled and nurtured at the Islamic Saudi Academy.
Posted by: ryuge || 08/07/2009 07:25 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Time to stem the rot
With Pakistan facing an existential threat it is time to look for the rot in our own ranks. The protégés we groomed for others have returned as mentors of our youth and as killing machines striking terror in the country's towns and cities. Indoctrinated to 'trap the bear' in Afghanistan, they have, in fact, trapped Pakistan in a deadly bear hug.

Since the end of the Afghan war in 1989 when the Soviet forces left Afghanistan, Pakistan had been looking for strategic depth in the war-torn country. First a government of so-called Mujahideen was cobbled together in Peshawar. Although it held the reins of power in Kabul, it turned out to be more of a disaster than a unifying force for Afghanistan's different ethnic groups. Divided on ethnic grounds, it was no wonder that Afghanistan once again became a turf for proxy wars. Iran, wary of the growing Wahabi influence in its neighbourhood, rallied behind the non-Pakhtuns since the Saudi lobby had more influence with the dominant Pakhtuns comprising more than 40 per cent of the Afghan population.

India had been enjoying cordial relations with Afghanistan since 1947, but lost touch with Kabul when the PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan) government was toppled to be replaced by a motley set of warlords. The daily barrage of rockets by the Hekmatyar group reduced Kabul to rubble and caused ethnic divisions to be entrenched in Afghanistan which hitherto had been immune to such fissures. This strife caused more damage than the intrusion of the Soviets. Every neighbouring country bet on a separate faction to get a foothold in Afghanistan in order to compensate themselves for their 'sacrifices' since 1979. Pakistan was a major contender because it had hosted -- and still hosts -- the largest number of Afghan refugees. Pakistan was not only the staging post for the Afghan 'jihad'; it was also the biggest centre of guerilla training.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 08/07/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Home Front: Culture Wars
Is Obama Really Like the Joker?
The Joker was very careful in his planning, while the chaos from the Obama administration is explainable by pure incompetence.
Posted by: tipper || 08/07/2009 06:53 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...Fox points out that the outraged people seemed to be outrage-free when several similar pics of Dubya-as-the-Joker showed up.

Oh, wait a sec...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 08/07/2009 12:40 Comments || Top||

#2  It's not about principle. It's about power.
They more the Donks* 'push back' the more the 'guilt trip' tactic continues to dissipate. What are they going to do when their guilt and counter-revolutionary rhetoric no longer bites? Push harder?

*the 's' word is blocked, but they are.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/07/2009 14:40 Comments || Top||

#3  For the many who haven't seen Heath Ledger's Joker in the movie, the caricature of Obama as that Joker makes O look like an evil, but laughable, clown.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 08/07/2009 15:43 Comments || Top||


Some Kind of Republican
Was John Hughes really in favor of teen rebellion?
Posted by: tipper || 08/07/2009 04:33 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Is Social Media More Trustworthy than Voice of America?
Posted by: 3dc || 08/07/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How about, like, an excerpt or something, so I don't click on a totally unknown URL? Just a thought.
Posted by: gromky || 08/07/2009 2:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Noah Shachtman’s post in Wired about the Defense Department’s review of social media use, see Pentagon Wrestles with Possible Twitter, Facebook Ban. Noah cites an active duty officer who inadvertently raises a Smith-Mundt related issue:

The American people deserve to know what their wonderful sons and daughters are doing overseas, in harms way. It is our job to tell that to you as military professionals.

Yes, the American public does deserve to know what is going on overseas. If, however, such information came from a professional working in the State Department’s public diplomacy department or one of America’s international broadcasting properties, it would be considered nefarious propaganda. Accordingly, we may logically conclude that information provided by individuals through social media is more complete and trustworthy than if it came from the professional journalists, editors, and public diplomacy officers with whom we place our trust to tell the truth about what is going on overseas and here in America to audiences beyond our borders.


Hope that helps, gromky.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/07/2009 13:03 Comments || Top||

#3  By Matt Armstrong on August 2, 2009 6:30 AM 7 Vote 2 Votes Noah Shachtman’s post in Wired about the Defense Department’s review of social media use, see Pentagon Wrestles with Possible Twitter, Facebook Ban. Noah cites an active duty officer who inadvertently raises a Smith-Mundt related issue:

The American people deserve to know what their wonderful sons and daughters are doing overseas, in harms way. It is our job to tell that to you as military professionals.

Yes, the American public does deserve to know what is going on overseas. If, however, such information came from a professional working in the State Department’s public diplomacy department or one of America’s international broadcasting properties, it would be considered nefarious propaganda. Accordingly, we may logically conclude that information provided by individuals through social media is more complete and trustworthy than if it came from the professional journalists, editors, and public diplomacy officers with whom we place our trust to tell the truth about what is going on overseas and here in America to audiences beyond our borders.
Ask and ye shall receive... unless you play for the Niners....
Posted by: Oscar Cremp2691 || 08/07/2009 13:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Gromky - I don't want the RIAA/MPAA/AP type lawyers after Fred or I.
Some nations are now saying 9 similar words is a copyright violation. If charges are brought in those countries you are cooked.
Posted by: 3dc || 08/07/2009 15:21 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2009-08-07
  Fat Lady sings for Baitullah
Thu 2009-08-06
  Bill Clinton springs journalists from NKor
Wed 2009-08-05
  Ansar al-Islam Number 2 nabbed in Mosul
Tue 2009-08-04
  Failed Coup Attempt In Qatar
Mon 2009-08-03
  Prince Bandar under house arrest: report
Sun 2009-08-02
  Iran puts 100 rioters on trial after post-election unrest
Sat 2009-08-01
  Al-Shabaab gets $8m for French hostage
Fri 2009-07-31
  Nigeria's Boko Haram chief deader than Tut
Thu 2009-07-30
  Nigeria to hunt down Islamic radicals: President
Wed 2009-07-29
  Nigeria fighting rages as death toll passes 300
Tue 2009-07-28
  Eight security guards killed in $7 million Baghdad bank robbery
Mon 2009-07-27
  Sufi Muhammad, sons, apprehended in Peshawar
Sun 2009-07-26
  Turkish frigate captures 5 Somali pirates
Sat 2009-07-25
  Seven soldiers killed in north Yemen attacks
Fri 2009-07-24
  B.O.: 'Victory' Not Necessarily Goal in Afghanistan


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