During his debate with Salman Rushdie at the recent Edinburgh TV Festival, someone asked George Galloway if television should broadcast an adaptation of Rushdie's novel, "Satanic Verses." According to Rushdie, Galloway replied, "If you don't respect religion, you have to suffer the consequences."
Holy Jesus! This was, unmistakably, an endorsement of the death-sentence fatwa issued against Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini.
Add this endorsement of killing for God to Galloway's notorious opposition in Parliament to a woman's right to choose abortion, and you get yourself a British Pat Robertson. What next? Will he be "saluting the courage, strength and indefatigability" of abortion clinic bombers, as he saluted Saddam?
It's nice to see the kind of bombers little Greggy worrys about, isn't it?
The Honorable Member of Britain's House of Commons has become the new love-child of American progressives for his in-your-face accusations about our own government's mendacity in sending our troops to war in Iraq. I myself quoted Galloway with admiration.
Gee, maybe you should think about...NAH! Thinking is for evil, humanistic anti-fascists, not Greg Palast!
But the man who saluted the "courage" of Saddam Hussein in 1994, who today can't and won't account for nearly a million dollars in income and expenditures for a charity he founded to buy medicine for Iraqi children is not, friends, the best choice as our anti-war spokesman...
No compost, Solar Pons
Next Saturday, September 24, Cindy Sheehan and I will be speaking at the Operation Ceasefire gathering in Washington DC, sponsored by the DC Anti-War Network and United for Peace and Justice. Please join us.
Hopefully, our voices won't be drowned out by George Galloway's antics.
After St. Cindy's recent meltdowns, Galloway is the least of your troubles, Bunky Beaver
Posted by: Ernest Brown ||
09/19/2005 07:52 ||
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Uh, Greg, the bummer for you is that he really is a good spokesman for "your cause"...which, as far as any of the rest of us can tell, is in-your-face accusations about our own government's mendacity in sending our troops to war in Iraq.
From redstate.org. A lot of burgers are in DC. Here's word about protest rallies being formed to appropriately greet Mother Sheehan when she comes to DC.
Cindy Sheehan is joining the radical leftist group A.N.S.W.E.R. in Washington, DC to stand up for everything that is wrong with America. Join us on Sunday, September 25 to celebrate all that is right with this great country - the men and women in uniform that guard our liberty.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/19/2005 09:07 ||
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Commies meet the mommy. Sounds like a B-Movie and not some political gathering. I am sure there will be much grunting, America bashing, and empty resolutions. I hope that at least one of the Democratic yahoos slither over and lap at the heels of the LLL storm troopers. After which they spend many days disagreeing with the message but agree with the right to rant it because they love America. Thank God they will be over in Washington, the air in California will be that much sweater on the 25th.
#2
Normally, when someone goes down the radical path their credibility is diminished and they become a caricature of heretical, red-faced, hysteria. But for some reason the democrats of today get whipped up in a frenzy by people who do and say outlandish,
over-the-top things. Why does this woman think anyone is listening to her? The only people who want her to be heard have very selfish and borderline communist objectives. Now she is dragging around with A.N.S.W.E.R. ??? Those guys are the most incredulous bunch in washington. Anti-American doesn't even do them justice as a label.
I am deeply troubled from what I am about to say.
There are a few people among us, who would like to rule about what we say and what we think about, and about what we buy. But they forgot the rule on how we should feel.
We are and can be, very feeling Americans. We feel for our army in Iraq and in Afghanistan and other countries who are doing a dirty job over there, to support the ideals of freedom and country. We felt very deeply, into our pockets after September 9/11 and after the devastating Tsunami, and the recent Hurricane Katrina, to help support the families who lost loved oneâs in these disasters. And whom did these people turn to in their time of need? They turned to their god for help. Does he exist? Yes for some and no for others, but let us take a look at this simple statement.
For those who believe in Him, no explanation is necessary, for those who do not believe in Him, no explanation is possible. For those people who would turn your backs on your own founding fathers, who came here with their simple ways and beliefs, to remove the Lord from a simple pledge of allegiance from our classrooms, our Post Offices, our homes, you do so with my utter contempt!Ladies and Gentlemen, stand and recite those words that should be branded in our minds and in our hearts, Please stand, Senators and Democrats and Republicans, Policemen, Firemen, Soldiers, my fellow Americans.
I pledge of allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
In 1954, Congress, after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer!!. So, to those folks in the Texas Post Offices, your prayers have been answered.
So it is not illegal to say it in public or to show this anywhere, for it was passed by Congress, and only by an act of Congress may it be removed. Ladies and Gentlemen, of Congress and Senators, remember the very oath that you yourself have sworn to and to yourself and your Country to do your duty.
The last change in the Pledge of Allegiance occurred on June 14 (Flag Day), 1954 When President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved adding the words "under God".
As he authorized this change he said:
"In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war."
#1
The fundamental problem is that what was set up as a judiciary has degenerated into a modern aristocracy. It has delegated onto itself powers incomprehensible by the founding fathers. Congress has surrendered time after time its responsibility to curtail this vast assumption of power. The judiciary operates completely outside the Jeffersonian admonition that âGovernments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers form the Consent of the Governedâ. The very definition of a republic, a democracy is a form of government which represents the vast numbers of its population. While respecting the rights of individuals and small groups, it can not strip the population as a whole of its basic rights of belief, culture, and daily life and still be a republic or a democracy. The Constitution was written by men in the common language of the period. It is not written in some arcane and ancient language only decipherable by a small and select group of acolytes. It is long past the time that Jeffersonâs warning must be enacted up, to wit - âthat whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish itâ. As Senators where once not subject to the direct consent of the governed and the XVII Amendment altered that fact, so too now the judiciary must be brought likewise to be accountable to the people. The arguments advance to maintain the status quo will interestingly enough reflect the very same arguments advanced by royalist for why we should have never separated from the crown over two hundred years ago. It is time for a full republic.
From Jewish World Review on line
Less than a week after the IDF's final retreat from Gaza, Israel's senior military brass found itself warding off attacks on two fronts.
In Gaza, now empty of all Jewish presence, the Palestinians lost no time in taking charge of events in their own special way. First came the firebombing of the synagogues. We were asked indignantly by such paragons of virtue as PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, "Well, what did you expect to happen?" As if it should go without saying that the Palestinians will exploit any opportunity to show us their contempt for all things Jewish. Destruction and mahem is what the Paleos do best.
After the firebombing came the looting of the destroyed Jewish communities. Then came the looting of the hothouses which had been bought for the Palestinians by wealthy Jews in the US who decided to buy them so that the Palestinians could reap what their expelled Israeli brethren had sown. And since it was purchased by the Jooooos, even though it was for the betterment of the Paleos, they felt that it was their moral obligation to turn it to scrap. And we are giving these clowns money????????
Sometime between destroying the abandoned synagogues, looting the destroyed Jewish villages, tearing apart the hothouses, throwing grenades at IDF patrols guarding Moshav Netiv Ha'asara and shooting mortars at Sderot, the Palestinians discovered Egypt. At the direction of Hamas, and with the help of PA militias and Egyptian soldiers, thousands of Palestinians crossed the wall separating Palestinian Rafah from Egyptian Rafah. Among the merrymakers, unknown numbers of terrorists crossed back and forth shuttling arms and reinforcements into Gaza in unknown quantities. IDF commanders looked on, and impotently stated that there is a high probability that al-Qaida operatives are among the newcomers. Oh well. There is nobody to stop the terrorists, so Al Q can set up shop here. Kinda becoming like Somalia North.
For his part, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz fecklessly railed against the Palestinians and Egyptians for doing nothing to seal the border. The beautiful agreement he negotiated with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman fell apart in 30 seconds and suddenly Mofaz was faced with the meaning of retreat: When you retreat, others take over and you have no ability to stop them because you are not there. Oh well. All the IDF has is counterbattery and air strikes. That would be OK if the IDF is given the clearance to do it fast and heavy. We will see....
The Palestinians minced no words about their goals for the future. Hamas wants to liquidate all of Israel. Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said on Tuesday, "We know our nation is expecting us to continue the liberation journey until the flag of Islam is raised over Jerusalem. This land should not have any Zionists on it." That is, Zahar called for genocide. Oh well. It was a given that the Paleos would look upon the vacating of Gaza as a retreat due to weakness on the part of Israel. The big issue is whether the IDF will fire for effect, as part of the plan for strategic withdrawl.
As the IDF was attempting to make sense of the new security insanity forced upon it by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Sharon himself was ignoring the reality he created back home as he basked in the glory bestowed upon him in New York by US President George W. Bush for his "courageous" surrender to Palestinian terrorism. That statement is a bit much. As far as we Rantburgers can see in the murk of the ME, this was a strategic withdrawl.
Yet, before our generals had a chance to catch their breath, they received a gut punch from an unforeseen direction. On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog tried to go to London. But once his El Al plane landed he was alerted by the Israeli embassy that if he alighted at Heathrow he would likely be arrested. An anti-Zionist British-Israeli "human rights" lawyer by the name of Daniel Machover, in cooperation with the Israeli group Yesh Gvul, filed a lawsuit against Almog charging him with war crimes in a British court. So alerted, Almog stayed on the plane and went home. This was discussed in RB last week.
Triumphant, Yesh Gvul's spokesmen in Israel announced that in addition to Almog, they were in the midst of filing complaints for war crimes with British courts against eight other senior IDF commanders. Among them are former chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon and current Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz. Hearing this, Ya'alon cancelled his plan to fly to London next week. Israel has its own suicidal fifth column to deal with.
According to Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli defense establishment is in a state of hysteria over the attacks on its senior officers. Left-wing commentators and Ha'aretz's editorial board are ecstatic. Like Yesh Gvul, these extreme leftist media gurus have been arguing â without legal merit â since the late 1980s that Israel has no right to defend itself in Judea, Samaria or Gaza. Adopting the baseless Palestinian claims, these legalistic deviants say that somehow the fact that the Fourth Geneva Convention states that Israel must protect the rights of non-combatants in these areas means that Israel cannot take military action to secure its nationals and its national interests beyond the 1949 armistice lines. The fact that a simple reading of the texts shows this to be untrue makes no difference to these political radicals masked as bleeding- heart liberals. The war against the existance of Israel continues on all fronts. Let that be a lesson to all of us.
In recent years, these anti-Zionist Israelis have received aid and comfort from such organizations as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN in their quest to demonize their country and criminalize its right to self-defense. Fabricating the laws of war from whole cloth to advance their political agendas, these organizations have given the weight of law to legally meaningless UN General Assembly resolutions and human rights reports. Assigning legal power to these political groups, the extreme Left in Israel has created a fiction which many American jurists refer to today as "lawfare" or the exploitation of the rhetoric of international law to prosecute a political war against a state to politically deny it of its legal right to defend itself. Israel is the Canary in the Coalmineâ¢.
Yesh Gvul is arguably a criminal organization. For years it has been running public campaigns to convince soldiers to refuse to serve in the IDF. This is a criminal offense. And yet, the State Prosecutor's Office has refused to open any investigation against its members. Same problem we have here in the US.
This is not surprising because for years now, the state prosecution has been led by men and women â many of whom are now Supreme Court justices â who sympathize with the views of those waging "lawfare" against Israel. Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz's latest statements, where he criticized the government for deciding Sunday not to destroy the synagogues in Gaza are a case in point. Where is the legal question here? There is none. But in a legal world where law is just a means to advance a political agenda, no one questions his right to weigh in on such issues. Jeeze Louise. The parallels are frightening.
Then there is the Supreme Court's latest outrage. Thursday, in an opinion written by President Aharon Barak, the court determined that the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion last summer on the legality of the security fence should be given legal weight. The fact that there is no basis whatsoever in Israeli law for giving legal weight to an advisory opinion from that politicized court of anti-Israel justices is completely unimportant. The fact that the opinion itself claimed that Israel has no right to self-defense is also irrelevant. Barak claimed that the problem was just that the ICJ hadn't received the evidential basis for Israel's security needs and as a result judged as it did last July. Sounds like a Ginzberg deal.
Within this poisonous legalistic morass, Israel's generals now find themselves under fire. What can be done? The first thing that must be firmly understood is that the battle being launched against them in the British courts has nothing to do with law. It is simply part of the political campaign against Israel that these anti-Zionists wage as adjunct and a complement to the Palestinian terrorists on the ground. As the Palestinians use bomb belts and rockets, these extremists use politicized courtrooms to launch their campaign against Israel. To achieve the same goals---the destruction of Israel. Just different departments.
The immediate political response to this offensive was made by Dr. Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. This week he submitted a bill to criminalize filing legal claims in foreign courts against members of Israel's security forces for missions they undertook in defense of the country. Good luck.
This is a welcome initiative, but it misses the larger point. For the past 12 years, Israel has abandoned the offense in the political war being waged against it. Steinitz's bill is reflective of this trend in two ways. First, without a serious reform of the State Prosecutor's Office and the manner in which justices are chosen, (today they largely select themselves), there is little chance that laws on the books will be enforced against anti-Zionist political activists who seek to destroy Israel's reputation and weaken Israel's social cohesion.
Aside from this, the initiative is defensive in nature. Perhaps these people will be prosecuted, but so what? They will still be setting the political agenda with their wild legal fantasies. Against their onslaught, the time is long past for Israel to go on the offensive. And the laws of war, as they stand are a good place to start.
Zahar's statement, and hundreds like it made by Hamas commanders over that past dozen years, proves unequivocally that the terror group is engaged in a campaign of genocide. According to the International Convention on Genocide, every state signatory must arrest and try any member of Hamas or anyone providing direct or indirect assistance to Hamas that is present on its territory. The PA, for instance, in refusing to take action against Hamas and in paying salaries to Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails, is guilty of assisting Hamas in its genocidal campaign against Israel. As a result, any PA functionary found on the territory of any state signatory to the Genocide Convention should be arrested. Nobody on the Paleo side lives up to their promises. The world has accepted that fact as an OK behavior. On the other hand, Israel is condemned for defending itself.
If instead of simply collecting photo-opportunities for his campaign for Likud leadership, Sharon had argued this point at the UN, his presence in New York â as Gaza is transformed into Taliban Afghanistan â would have made sense. But the fact that Sharon continues to doggedly refuse to do anything that would actually advance Israel's national interest doesn't mean that others shouldn't take on the task with as much enthusiasm as Yesh Gvul and its British bedfellows work to undermine Israel's right to exist. It isn't that in the current anti-Israel international climate such arguments â regardless of their legal merit â will make an immediate difference. But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be made â loudly, at very opportunity.
Israel's military options for dealing with Gaza's rapid transformation into a base for international terrorism are limited in the wake of its self-inflicted defeat. What Yesh Gvul did this week was to point out the path for widening Israel's room for military maneuvering. That path is the path of political warfare.
As the shadow of Gaza grows and expands to Judea and Samaria and the rest of the country, Israel is faced with an increasingly dangerous situation. Without a concerted international and domestic campaign to defend its rights, Israel will find itself without the means to justify its right to survive. The concerted effort to turn Israel into an international paraiah is continuing full steam.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/19/2005 16:17 ||
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Revoke their Israeli citizenship and expel Yesh Gvul's membership into Gaza. Send those practicing "lawfare" right behind them. Tell the ICJ to go straight to hell and tell the British that the first person who lays a hand on an Israeli military man in London will trigger the incarceration of two hundred Britons in Israel, the expulsion of the British Ambassador and the immediate nationalization of all British assets in the country. Last, but surely not least, every Israeli needs to visit Yad Vashem again. There are too many of you who seem to have forgotten that those who say they want to exterminate you mean exactly what they say. If Yad Vashem doesn't bring that realization home to the vast majority of you, you're lost both as a nation and a people.
Posted by: mac ||
09/19/2005 23:50 Comments ||
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Now that Dubya has written a blank check for the Second Reconstruction of the South, we have to determine who will manage the most expensive federal program in history. In the interest of efficiency, why not turn the project over to a Manhattan grand jury and cut out the middle men? There are middle men (and women) aplenty lining up to make this project not only the most expensive, but the most corrupt in U.S. history. Not, surely, throughout the South. But certainly in the state that could qualify as a banana republic if only it grew some bananas. Louisiana's state and city governments are preparing to let the good times roll again.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin -- he who sent people to the Superdome and Convention Center without provisioning them with food, water and security -- is at it again. Nagin is inviting French Quarter businesses to reopen, and residents of the chic Garden District and the less-than-chic Algiers neighborhood (about 180,000 people all told) to return. The city to which they may return is without a water supply that's fit for anything other than putting out fires or flushing toilets. It is without levees that can withstand another storm, even one much weaker than Katrina. It is without emergency telephone service and an evacuation plan that could work if the levees fail again. Nagin is having a panic attack. He's looking at a city from which his voting base has decamped to higher ground. He has to get those voters back, even if it means some will die from floods, cholera, or amoebic dysentery.
Coast Guard VAdm. Thad Allen, who took over as senior FEMA man on site when hapless Michael Brown was sent packing, is not happy with Nagin. Allen -- scheduled to meet with Nagin today -- said that he planned to bring his concerns to the mayor's attention, which is all he can do. Louisiana continues to suffer from the constitutional right of self-determination, by which it has chosen to be governed by a collection of clowns unequalled outside the U.N. General Assembly. We mustn't tinker with the Constitution. But that doesn't mean we should leave the Louisiana banana republicans in charge of spending all that dough.
At the time proceedings were delayed by Katrina, several senior officials of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness were awaiting trial on federal indictments regarding missing funds and improper expenditures. FEMA had demanded the return of $30 million given LOHSEP whilst federal bean counters continue to search for another $60 million which no one at LOHSEP can seem to find. (One FEMA report said the LOHSEP couldn't account for more than 90% of $15 million in FEMA funds it had awarded to Louisiana contractors.) Are we crazy enough to trust this crew with billions of federal construction dollars?
THE PRESIDENT ASSURED US THAT the enormous federal expenditures will be overseen by a collection of tough inspectors general. That's a good idea, but it's not nearly enough. Those such as Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Sen. Mary Landrieu are already lining up to demand that all the Louisiana reconstruction work be given to Louisiana companies. Blanco -- a real life female version of Mel Brooks's Gov. LePetomaine -- is anxious that no one outside her circle of cronies be allowed to partake in the coming flood of federal funding. Letting them make the decisions on how these billions of dollars will be spent is tantamount to turning the whole thing over to Benon Sevan and the UN diplomutts. We can do better.
First, the president has to create a system of offsets to begin restoring some sanity to the federal budget. For every dollar or two we spend on the South, another dollar should be cut elsewhere. The wonderful people of Bozeman, Montana, asked their congressman to give back the couple of millions they were to receive but didn't need under the recently passed highway bill porkfest. Every American should do the same. That won't pay for the reconstruction, but it will get us off on the right foot. When House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said there was no more fat to cut from the federal budget, he proved that Republicans are as drunk on federal budget booze as the Dems ever were. (Dear Mr. DeLay: You gotta be kidding me, fella. Haven't you heard of NPR, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the United Nations? Call me, and I'll give you a long list of federal and globaloney pestilences that could be cut to save many billions.)
Second, if we're going to pay for this, let's make sure we don't have to pay for it again in 20 or 50 years when the next Category 4 or 5 storm blows in. After the 1900 hurricane that destroyed the island city of Galveston, practical Texans decided to raise the level of ground above sea level before rebuilding. They piped in millions of tons of dredge spoil -- the stuff you drag up from the bottom of the river -- to raise the city above sea level. If Texas could do that a century ago, is it too much to expect from New Orleans today? Bulldoze the destroyed areas of the "soup bowl" in which New Orleans sits, pile a few billion cubic yards of dredge spoil on top, and then rebuild. It's one of those twofers that the laws of physics grant. If the dredging is done in the right places, it'll help strengthen the levee system by reducing the pressure on it.
Third, put someone in charge we can trust. That's obviously not LOHSEP, at least as it stands. Part of the price of federal aid should be a requirement that LOHSEP be re-staffed at the top two or three levels with people who haven't spent their careers in Louisiana government and who have proven expertise in administering huge construction contracts. If Gov. Blanco resists, FEMA should simply cut LOHSEP out of the loop and do the contracting itself. And no, we can't yet have that much confidence in FEMA. The FEMA side should be put in the hands of someone with expertise and experience in huge construction projects, and that person should be supported by some of the hundreds of certified procurement contract managers in industry and government who could be drafted to work for FEMA and run this right.
Last, and not at all least, the feds should impose time and performance limits on every contractor. Gov. Pete Wilson got a lot of California earthquake-damaged highways rebuilt years before anyone thought they could be. He did it by imposing a system of financial big rewards and harsh penalties that made sure contractors got things done in the minimum amount of time without sacrificing the quality of the work. There are a lot of contractors based in other states (such as -- brace yourself -- Halliburton) that can do massive jobs such as this very well. Let 'em all bid against each other and drive the costs down.
The object of the reconstruction is not to rebuild what was destroyed on a new foundation of old defects. The object must be to help our fellow Americans rebuild their lives in a way that makes them less vulnerable to a repeat of the catastrophe they've suffered. We're going to have to do this more than once. The next natural disaster or terrorist attack may take out another American city that will have to be rebuilt. In rebuilding New Orleans we can learn how not to build one disaster on the ruins of another. Let's get it right the first time.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/19/2005 09:28 ||
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All of this one top of Hurricane Rita barreling in to the Gulf now.
#2
Just a suggestion, but you know, we have a good number of people just back from Iraq with a lot of experience in 'building' a democratic society and rebuilding an infrastructure. Generally, a group of people who are mission and not politically oriented and without a whole lot of tolerence for people humping their leg for favors or hierarchial positioning. These people are not likely to be interested in Caesar or Cromwell anymore than main stream Christians are interested in human sacrifice. Just not in their blood. Let's base reconstrution based upon merit and skill and not fears.
#3
I like you idea about CA type incentives on the work Steve. Louisiana is not the state to go to for major construction projects like this. I have worked in louisiana and its contractor base, its large contractor base, is geared for offshore work. Haliburton, MK Lane, Flour Daniels, or better yet Bechtel are much better suited to mega projects than old Willie Bo-bo's const. co. If the feds don't set this up just right and run it like Nazis, they are going to have another "oil for food" on their hands. And wouldn't the dims dems love to see that happen.
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.
Now that Dubya has written a blank check for the Second Reconstruction of the South, we have to determine who will manage the most expensive federal program in history. In the interest of efficiency, why not turn the project over to a Manhattan grand jury and cut out the middle men? There are middle men (and women) aplenty lining up to make this project not only the most expensive, but the most corrupt in U.S. history. Not, surely, throughout the South. But certainly in the state that could qualify as a banana republic if only it grew some bananas. Louisiana's state and city governments are preparing to let the good times roll again.
THE PRESIDENT ASSURED US THAT the enormous federal expenditures will be overseen by a collection of tough inspectors general. That's a good idea, but it's not nearly enough. Those such as Gov. 
