While South Korea was basically leveled during the Korean War, Mexico has been without a major destruction to its infrastructure for the same period of time. Mexico has vast natural resources, to include large petroleum reserves, and ariable lands when compared to South Korea. South Korea has less than half the population of Mexico. Yet when GDP is compared they are relatively close. [circa 2001: Mexico #11, S.Korea #13] The availability of a physical border to dump its large number of unemployed and disenfranchised poor means the Mexican government will never have to reform to permit its economy grow to support is own population. Those in power have no incentive to change things as the usual factors which cause social unrest and revolution are simply made their neighbor's problem. This is why immigration 'reform' will alter nothing that are the underlying causes of the state sponsored violation of America's sovereign borders.
#1
build the fence - quit the whining and excuses.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2005 13:42 Comments ||
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Those in power have no incentive to change things as the usual factors which cause social unrest and revolution are simply made their neighbor's problem.
Build a barrier and they'll have to. It won't be our problem anymore.
From August 7 through August 14, I will feature stories about the men and women defending America in the War on Terror. Some will be new. Some are already found on my web site American Heroes.
Long, needs to be p. 49-ed.
What happened to Lebanon (demographic imbalance, subversion, followed by all-out civil war) is a blueprint of what might happen to some unsuspecting euro-countries, starting by France and Belgium... or did it already start with Kosovo?
By Jamie Glazov
Frontpage Interview guest today is Brigitte Gabriel, a survivor of Islam's Jihad against Lebanese Christians. She is now an expert on the Middle East conflict who lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She's the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television and the founder of AmericanCongressforTruth.com.
FP: Brigitte Gabriel, thank you for joining us today.
Gabriel: Thank you for inviting me. I'm delighted to join you.
FP: First things first, tell us a bit about your background.
Gabriel: I was raised in the only Christian country in the Middle East, Lebanon. A lot of people think the Middle East has always been made up of Moslem countries. That is not true. There once were two non-Muslim countries in the Middle East. One is a Jewish state called Israel which is under attack for its existence today and the other was a Christian country called Lebanon now under a Moslem majority controlling influence.
The Berlin Airlift happened not long after the US was bombing Berlin. Close enough in time that some of the same pilots -- maybe some of the same planes -- were involved in both.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/12/2005 11:43 Comments ||
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Brigitte Gabriel
The Christians in Lebanon always had problems with the Moslems
Well kids you beat the hell out of me pretty good for being so mean about a pinko commie. One thing tho, I will pee on this guys grave!!
It's sad when anyone dies of cancer, but we cant' let the human side of the Peter Jennings story obscure his real "achievements."
While the rest of the world is blindly singing Jennings' praises, here's a reality check: Peter Jennings did more for the cause of Islamic terrorism than any media figure today. And that's nothing to celebrate, honor, or even memorialize.
It is no coincidence that al-Jazeera's chief Washington correspondent praised ABC -- and Jennings, in particular -- for their "objectivity." Before there was al-Jazeera, there was Peter Jennings.
From the beginning of Jennings' career until his death, his biased coverage went beyond the pale, bending over backward in "understanding" the terrorists who hate us -- from seeing "their side" when he covered the seige and then murder of innocent Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics to honoring an al-Qaeda operative with a prized "commentator" spot during Jennings coverage of the 9/11 attacks.
Throughout Jennings' coverage of the attacks, he frequently featured a man named Tariq Hamdi (whose commentary urged understanding for the radical Muslim world), identifying Hamdi only as "journalist" on the chyron.
But, in fact, Jennings' friend Hamdi was no journalist at all. As I've written, Hamdi was an accused Bin Laden associate and employed by Sami al-Arian, the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States.
According to prosecutors and documents in the 1998 trial of the Osama bin Laden bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa (the 7th anniversary of which was yesterday), Hamdi provided Bin Laden a satellite battery instrumental in those bombings. He's also an unindicted co-conspirator with Islamic Jihad financial head Sami al-Arian, who employed him at his Islamic "charity" fronts at the University of South Florida. Hamdi was also an employee of a Saudi-funded charity raided by Customs agents for allegedly laundering billions to al-Qaeda through the Isle of Man.
Jennings mentioned absolutely nothing about Hamdi's disturbing activities, but did note that Hamdi was his friend and repeatedly featured Hamdi in post-9/11 ABC News broadcasts. This is the type of "journalist" and "commentator" Jennings frequently employed in his so-called newscast of which he was an all-controlling editor.
Now the Washington Post repeats what I've said about Hamdi, but adds more. Days ago, Hamdi was indicted for immigration and mortgage-loan fraud. While failing to mention Jennings, the Post also adds, "ABC did not respond to a request for more information about its relationship with Hamdi." The recently unsealed indictment also mentions that Hamdi was the U.S. representative for the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights in Saudi Arabia, "a London-based organization that has embraced many of bin Laden's views," according to the Post.
That's a "journalist" in what was "The World According to Peter Jennings."
(Hamdi has now fled the U.S. Don't count on him coming back to face justice. Question for ICE press flack, Dean Boyd: Why was Tariq Hamdi allowed to leave the U.S.?)
I always say, pillow talk is the most effective form of political speech. And it apparently had its effect on Jennings early on. When developing and heading up ABC's Beirut headquarters, Jennings "dated" Palestinian Hanan Ashrawi. And it colored his insidious, anti-American, anti-Israel coverage ever since.
Then there were the sneers, the sneers of a Canadian high school drop-out for anything conservative, anything mainstream, anything pro-Western, pro-America, pro-Israel, etc. Jennings' sneers and snide comments were always evident for those who did not meet his very left-of-center point of view. A great example was his sneering during the 2000 vote recount, and after, when Bush was declared President. Another was his sneering just after the 9/11 attacks when Bush delivered his speech to a joint session of Congress. Then there was his sneering reaction and say-it-ain't-so comments when conservative revolutionaries led Republicans to capture the House of Representatives in 1994. And who can forget Jennings' sneering ABC News Special in which he decried America's bombing of Heroshima and Nagasaki, which saved American lives.
Jennings' elitist sneers will NOT be missed.
During ABC's Gulf War coverage, when ABC military expert Tony Cordesman attributed much of the success of our military forces to Israeli improvements to our weapons systems and as command and control advised by the Israelis, Jennings became enraged and argued with him.
While Jenning's death is a human tragedy, it is sad that his despicable brand of advocacy journalism -- parading as "news" -- wasn't laid to rest along with him.
Unfortunately, that will not happen. His version has spawned a thousand clones. Sadly, the female, more personable, non-toupeed version of Jennings -- Elizabeth Vargas -- is set to step into Jennings' shoes. She got off to a great Jennings-esque start in her first hosting duties at ABC's "20/20," last fall. She delivered a very sympathetic profile and interview of Hamas operative and fundraiser Cat Stevens. Expect more of this to come.
It's sad when anyone dies of cancer. I won't dance on Jennings' grave, even though he managed to justify the early graves of young, innocent athletes slaughtered at the Munich Olympics -- the way he blasphemed their murders with his shallow, understand-the-Islamic-terrorists coverage. Unlike the murdered Munich athletes he dishonored, Jennings died in peace and without pain. He got to say good-bye to his loved ones. They did not.
I will remember Peter Jennings for the less than honorable person he was -- not the emperor with no clothing that is now being memorialized.
Jennings used to end his newscasts with, "And that's a look at our world." No, it wasn't a look at our world, at all. It was Peter Jennings' slanted world, and every day he acted as if he was doing us a favor giving us his warped look at it.
Jennings' legacy is helping advance the cause of Islamic terrorists on broadcast television, parading it as news. He wrote his own epitaph with it. Unfortunately, it came with a lot more tombstones and epitaphs than just Jennings' -- and most of those buried beneath are a whole lot more innocent.
They are the victims of Islamic terrorism -- the brand Peter Jennings helped build into a network news product. That cancer, unfortunately, is still here. And it has metasticized.
Posted by: Long Hair Republican ||
08/12/2005 18:40 ||
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#1
Just as I thought...Time passed and you still don't get it. Pick your targets!!
The war against the insurgency in Iraq is continuing. Violence, intimidation, killing of innocents and coalition soldiers goes on with ups and downs, but the civil war that Al Zarqawi so much desires does not seem to be on the cards. What must be worrying the al Queda leaders at the moment is the constitutional process reaching its result (however imperfect) in August and the following December elections; this will not stop the violence (in fact it might increase it), but each event will be another nail in the coffin of terrorism in general. Strangely enough, it has been the terrorists and their senseless massacres to show the whole world (more than Bush speeches) the importance of a democratic Iraq and its importance for the entire Middle East. Terrorists will now have to go for broke (a recent rumor gives Bin Laden on the march toward Iraq) and hope, at best, for a continued âresistanceâ, with the undesired side effect of keeping the coalition forces in Iraq indefinitely.
Even if the terrorists enjoy some support from disgruntled Sunnis and Saddamites, they have completely alienated the population and must realize that this is no way to lead a successful insurgency. Furthermore, they live under the constant threat that the foreign support they receive could cease abruptly; Syria and/or Iran might abandon them to their destiny if, because of increased pressure from the US or a perceived advantage, it would fit their agendas.
Another big mistake was letting the attacks in the London tube to be carried out; if the terroristsâ leaders thought they could bend the UK like Spain, they grossly miscalculated. In fact, the reaction of Mr. Blair was almost of relief; it was high time â and now I can do it, he seemed to be thinking â to pass legislation that would effectively protect the country and do away with misconceived multiculturalist approaches to integration. In addition, Europe seems to have been waiting for exactly this move by Blair, and France, Italy and Germany are speedily catching up.
Undoubtedly more blood will be shed and more innocent people will suffer because of these maniacs and their perverse ideology but, contrary to current opinion that equals terrorists to âevil geniusesâ, it would appear that they have an uncanny tendency to shoot themselves in the foot.
âYou will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations.â
When and where did that venom come from?
This last May â and out of the hateful mouth of a prominent Palestinian cleric, Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris. He was broadcast on a Palestinian Authority station. The televised Sheik finished with an even more frightening thought: âThe day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews â even the stones and trees which were harmed by themâŠThe stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.â
Nothing could be clearer than that promise of another holocaust â and promised explicitly on state-run Palestinian television, a public megaphone of the Palestinian Authority, itself the beneficiary of past and apparently promised future American financial aid. Still, donât hold your breath that the passive/aggressive sheik is about to lead a pan-Islamic army a few miles across the border to âfinish off every Jew,â since he might then end up like Sheik Ahmed Yassin, whose threats of death earned him instead an early paradise.
Throughout this war we have an understandable, if ethnocentric, habit of ignoring what our enemies actually say. Instead we chatter on, donât listen, and in self-absorbed fashion impart our own motives for their hatred. We live on the principles of the Enlightenment and so worship our god Reason, thus assuming that even our adversaries accept such rational protocols as their own. So they talk on and on of beheading, suicide bombing, another holocaust, and blowing thousands of us up, while we snooze, now and again waking in the midst of a war to regurgitate Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, flushed Korans, the abusive Patriot Act, and the latest quip of Donald Rumsfeld.
But again keep quiet, and listen to radical Islam. Take the August 4 declaration of al Qaedaâs second in command, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. He promises even âmore destructionâ for London, and tells us precisely why. Many in the West assume that those mass murders were payback for the United Kingdomâs presence in Iraq, even though its troops are mostly confined to non-Wahhabi areas in the south. But no, the Dr. instead lists a number of grievances beyond Iraq that justify his terrorist cadres murdering innocents. One complaint, for example, is âStopping the robbing of our oil and resources.â
Examine that gripe carefully. Oil is now at record highs. I just filled up with regular gas at $2.89 on a California interstate. It costs the Middle East about $3-4 a barrel to pump petroleum that was discovered, developed, and marketed for the Gulf autocracies through hated Western expertise â and is now selling at over $60. Despite Zawahiriâs rants, billions of poor the world over are being price gauged to enrich a Muslim world flush with petrodollars. And some of those obscene profits have ended up in coffers of Zawahiri himself. Indeed, his al Qaeda blackmailers depend on recycled petrodollars from Gulf State sheikdoms. Nothing either he or bin Laden has ever done themselves warrants the type of cash that flowed into al Qaedaâs banks â a con operation that extorted oil dollars from autocratic price gougers who in turn got their revenues largely from inventive and productive Indians, Chinese, and Westerners.
Zawahiri next went on to cite, âStopping your support for the corrupt and corrupting leaders.â Did the terrorist Dr. read the text of Condoleezza Riceâs June 20 address in Cairo? There she rightly repudiated past American realpolitik that blinked at Arab dictatorships, and then prodded Arab governments to democratize? Or maybe it was precisely that fresh support for democracy that grieves Zawahiri?
For clarification of al Qaedaâs ideas about democracy, we can turn to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the spiritual leader of the terrorists in Iraq. He recently warned that, âWe have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology.â That pathological hatred of democracy was also amplified in the latest al Qaeda video of August 10: âDemocracy, human rights, and freedom are all but hollow illusions, with which they tranquilize inhabitants.â Western critics of Americaâs attempt to introduce democratic reconstruction in Iraq should ask why al Qaeda is so furious at the effort. The answer is clear: Radical Islam can no longer blame the United States for propping up dictators, but instead is terrified that there is a third choice â the peopleâs freedom â between creepy strongmen and even creepier pre-modern theocrats...
Yet there is one and only one legitimate objection of the crackpot radical Islamists that rings true: We in the West donât listen to them when they promise us our deaths. We should. They are yelling as loud as they can to tell us something that we donât really want to hear.
â Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2005 10:45 ||
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SOME REMAIN skeptical of President Bush's concern for Africa, and there's no doubt that the United States could and should do more. But the latest report on Sudan from the United Nations offers a snapshot of an issue on which Mr. Bush has been a leader. So far this year the United States has given $468 million in foreign assistance to Sudan, mostly for humanitarian relief in the western region of Darfur. The U.S. contribution comes to 53 percent of all outside donations -- a proportion about twice the size of the nation's weight in the global economy.
A few other countries have been even more generous relative to the size of their economies, notably Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Britain. But the contribution from many others has been embarrassing. How can France, which prides itself on its leadership in Africa, give only $2 million to this year's U.N. appeal for Sudan -- an amount that, when rounded, comes to zero percent of total contributions to the country? Even if one generously ascribed, say, a fifth of the European Union's donation of $90 million to French taxpayers, France's share of the total contribution to Sudan comes to a paltry 2 percent. IIRC, which I don't cos I'm dumb, France has some nice interests in Sudan, including oil and arabic gum, so this meager contribution is even more shameful.
There are plenty of other culprits. Japan accounts for just 2 percent of total contributions despite the size of its economy; China has made no contribution to the U.N. effort, even though it has extensive investments in Sudan's oil sector. But perhaps the most striking absentees are the oil-rich Arab countries, which have more money than ideas on how to spend it, thanks to oil prices above $60 a barrel. Saudi Arabia has contributed a grand total of $3 million, according to the U.N. data; the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have given less than $1 million between them. No other Arab country even makes the list.
This Arab indifference is shameful. The victims of Sudan's worst crisis, in Darfur, are Muslim, and aid to non-Muslim southern Sudan is essential to shoring up the fragile north-south peace deal that would help Muslims as well. Sudan borders Libya and Egypt; only the narrow Red Sea separates it from Saudi Arabia. Arabs have every reason to care about Sudan, and yet they have done far less than remote non-Muslim countries such as Norway, which has an economy roughly the same size as Saudi Arabia's.
Writing on the opposite page last month, Joseph Britt noted, "We've heard a lot since Sept. 11, 2001, about how Arabs feel humiliated, ashamed, resentful at being regarded by the West as inferior in some way." Mr. Britt continued: "Perhaps it is time to say plainly that the way to earn respect is through deeds worthy of respect."
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.
