Sunday, March 19, 2006

I'd 'Rather'-not-gate

(Cited as Symbol of Abu Ghraib, Man Admits He Is Not in Photo By KATE ZERNIKE
Ali Shalal Qaissi had claimed to be the man in the photograph that has become the international icon of the abuse scandal.)
- from the NYT
--- ---
No matter how hard they wish this shit were true, just saying it, over and over, just doesn’t make it so. Didn’t they learn anything from Dan Rather (not)? Of course not, that isn’t their point, is it? Like Joseph Göbbels (Goebbels) always said, “If you tell a lie often enough, no matter how outrageous, people will accept it as fact.” Or, as Wikipedia states it, “His (Joseph Göbbels) primary rules were:
1. never allow the public to cool off;
2. never admit a fault or wrong;
3. never concede that there may be some good in your enemy;
4. never leave room for alternatives;
5. never accept blame;
6. concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong;
7. people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one;
8. and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. - OSS report page 51 [2]”
- from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie

Sounds like reading the NYT or, actually, any MSM outlet these days, doesn’t it?

Read more about these insidious tactics at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels - after all, the liberal left does; and it is very important to know how the enemies of America are operating.

More information on one of the ‘big lies’ on WMDs, as another example of that strategy, can be found here: http://patriotpost.us/alexander/print.asp?id=340 – Be sure to read the end to get the point, that this IS their strategy!

Item 4, above, is clearly demonstrated in a lack of alternative plans by the liberal left. They know that the current administration’s plans to win the GWT is valid; but it is their plan! That the resolution to go to war with Iraq was nearly unanimous is clear proof that they knew the reality of the situation; but the reality that they saw was an opportunity to recreate the Vietnam debacle all over again. They have no interest in the security of the nation; they are only interested in opportunities to regain power at any cost. Money, reputations and even the lives of our troops and allies are only tools in their insane quest for power.

Take this latest ‘big lie’ about domestic spying: of course it is essential to know what the enemy is doing during wartime (or at any high-risk time), they know that; but by twisting it and making people believe that the government is spying on them, they continue playing on item 1 of Göbbels’ strategy. The Dubai Ports’ deal was another way to keep the heat on; only now, with a mid-term election coming up, they’re getting help from the right as well.

Keep in mind that there are bad people on both sides of the political isle, it is insanely optimistic to assume that people seek high office for purely altruistic reasons; but the liberal left has an embedded hatred of our republic. They desire, at any cost, to impose a centrally controlled regime of socialism. That socialism, as a political philosophy, has proven to be a failed economic structure throughout the world (The USSR, China, etc.) doesn’t deter them in the least; it’s the centralization of power that they crave. There is no desire to make people’s lives better with their power-lust, they only crave to control every aspect of those lives. That was the same impetus that made the USSR so hard to displace; and for China to be so slow in changing from their equally failed system: the people in charge are so completely addicted to their absolute power, they’d rather see the people in their counties reduced to abject poverty than give up their power over them.

In assessing our (what used to be our) system of free enterprise, one thing is clear: under it, people are encouraged to reach for whatever level of fulfillment they can attain. Under socialism, people are reduced to the lowest common denominator to achieve ‘equality’. In the Declaration of Independence, it is stated that all men are created equal. What that means is that we all have equal rights to grow and be all we can be. It doesn’t mean that everybody is entitled to whatever anybody else has; insofar as material good are concerned.

Inalienable Rights are rights that we have that doesn’t infringe upon other’s rights. My freedom of speech doesn’t cost anybody anything; they can listen or not and they can even exercise theirs to rebut what I say. That isn’t the case where things such as healthcare are concerned though, is it? In order to provide a ‘right’ to healthcare (or housing, or education, etc.) money has to be taken (stolen) from people in order to provide for others. Whereas that may be a desirable goal, it is not to be confused for a RIGHT – it is a redistribution of wealth.

It is also something that the congress is not empowered to do, insofar as the Constitution defines their enumerated powers (Article I, section 8). If, or when, congress imposes this model of healthcare on the people, it will do so by usurping the power of the States and/or of the people. [Note, if this is something you really think the Federal Government should be involved in, ask your congressmen to initiate a Constitutional Amendment to give them the authority to do it. Personally, I don’t like the idea of a federal government with more authority that is granted them now, in the Constitution.]

Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time; you can fool all of the people some of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” – But then, Abe Lincoln never met Joseph Göbbels.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

I weep for the future. (with a collumn by Michelle Malkin)

Take a moment to read Michelle Malkin’s column, below.

(FWIW, Michelle Malkin on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Malkin)

These things used to make me angry; now they just make me very, very sad. We, as a society, are indeed reaping what we’ve sown. Diversity leads to isolation and segregation and hatred; tolerance is a cover-up for festering hatred, hidden by a smile and a handshake.

Anyone who opposes diversity and tolerance is labeled a bigot with circular solipsistic logic. (Like anyone who denies being an alcoholic is considered to be one, in denial.)

Real integration is loving your fellow man; and allowing growth based on merit, irregardless of race, religion, origin, or creed; a person’s behavior, qualifications, and demeanor should be the only things they are judged on. Actions speak louder that words; words speak louder than feelings. People isolated into groups, for good or ill, inspires contempt for all others.

Take Michelle Malkin as an example. She simply claims to be an American, born and bred; but her detractors on the left seem to think that her Asian heritage is more important than where she was born. Isn’t it the left who are constantly hopping on racial profiling? How about Tiger Woods, who has ¼ African American heritage; but is always referred to as a black golfer? The Oscars, a few years ago, was touted as a tribute to black actors and Halle Berry won Best Actress that year; but her mother is Caucasian. What I see here is that, although the left lays claim to being ‘color blind’; they adhere to the old adage of ‘even a single drop of black blood makes you black’. What a shameful way to think.

The hypocrisy within the philosophy of ‘diversion and tolerance’ is staggering. If a person of non-Caucasian heritage has a conservative leaning, they are vilified and ridiculed; they don’t fit into the liberal mould. On the other hand, if a non-white is a liberal, then any outrageous behavior or speech is perfectly acceptable; at least they know their place, right?

It’s the same for woman, too. No matter how egregious her behavior or speech, if she is a liberal, it is OK; let her speak out against feminism or abortion, however, and she becomes a target of all the hatred the left can muster. Tolerance and diversity is only for them that think alike, no others need apply.

Non-white, conservative women have the toughest row to hoe. How much contempt is too much from the liberals for Condolesa Rice? There is never enough, that’s how much.

I like people, or not, by what they do, first, and by what they say, second; what they look like has little place in human relationships outside of hunting for a mate; but what do I know? I like Michelle Malkin (and Condi Rice, and Ann Coulter, even when she goes a tad overboard. At least she isn’t hypocritical about what she says.)

Really, this all makes me very sad.

I weep for the future.

;->
Best regards,Ichabod Crane
http://neoconservative.blogspot.com/also: http://aimew.spymac.net/blog/
There is a virtuous fear which is the effect of faith, and a vicious fear which is the product of doubt and distrust. The former leads to hope as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe.Persons of the one character fear to lose God; those of the other character fear to find him.--Pascal
Veritas vos Liberabit!
God Bless America!
>>>>


redstatesusa: I Pledge Allegience To My Black People
http://www.redstatesusa.com/archives/2006/03/i_pledge_allegi.html

By: Michelle Malkin

One of the nation’s fastest-rising poetry prodigies is a 7-year-old New York girl whose poisonous demagogic advocacy of black separatism makes Al Sharpton look like Mister Rogers.

Autum Ashante’ of Mount Vernon, N.Y., has performed at HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, The Cotton Club in L.A., The Apollo Theater in Harlem, the African Street Festival, Caroline’s on Broadway, the Russell Simmons Phat Farm Fashion Show, Steve Harvey’s “Big Time,” a prestigious Grammy Foundation event, and at universities and other venues across the country. She recites her verses not only in English, but also in fluent Swahili and Arabic (she attended the Islamic Darul Arkam School in Mount Vernon).

Autum has appeared at a tribute to black nationalist Marcus Garvey, America-bashing 9/11 conspiracy-monger Amiri Baraka’s annual family cookout and the extremist New Black Panther Party’s Million Youth March. The city of New York honored her with a proclamation for inspiring “her peers, as well as adults, while also demonstrating the power of a father’s love, the importance of education and the limitless boundaries of the human mind.” New York City councilwoman Yvette Clark called her “one of the most precious young talents that this world has ever known.”

Most recently, as New York Post education reporter David Andreatta reported this weekend, she was invited to perform at public middle and high schools in Peekskill, N.Y., for Black History Month.

Here, in full, is what precious little Autum -- groomed by her single father, Batin Ashante, a Nation of Islam poet/activist -- spewed:

White Nationalism Put U In Bondage

White nationalism is what put you in bondage
Pirate and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin
Drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with
Steel, tricks and deceit.
Nothing has changed take a look in our streets
The mis-education of she and Hegro -- leaves you on your knee2grow
Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse
They took the gold, the wisdom and all of the storytellers
They took the black women, with the black man weak
Made to watch as they changed the paradigm
Of our village
They killed the blind, they killed the lazy, they went
So far as to kill the unborn baby
Yeah White nationalism is what put you in bondage
Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin
They drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with
Steel laden feet, throw in the tricks alcohol and deceit.
Nothing has changed take a look at our streets.

Autum’s performance also included commanding white students to remain seated as she led black students in a recitation of the “Black Child’s Pledge,” by Black Panther Shirley Williams, which reads in part:

I pledge allegiance to my Black People.
I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible.
I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation.
. . . I will discipline myself to direct my energies thoughtfully and constructively rather than wasting them in idle hatred.
I will train myself never to hurt or allow others to harm my Black brothers and sisters . . .
These principles I pledge to practice daily and to teach them to others in order to unite my People.

Complaints from shocked students and parents led to a tape-recorded apology sent to all parents apologizing for the performance. Autum’s father condemned white district officials as “racist crackers.” Autum defended her poem by explaining to the Westchester Journal News that white people are “devils and they should be gone. We should be away from them and still be in Africa.”

And make note of this: The official who invited Autum to speak, Melvin Bolden, is a public school music teacher, Peekskill councilman and producer of her first spoken word album.

Who is surprised? If you set aside a separate holiday for Black History Month in the public schools, if you set aside separate graduation ceremonies, college dorms, academic departments, recruiting programs, and government contracts and subcontracts by race, you send a message that hard-core racial separatism is not only acceptable -- but desired.

Autum Ashante’ is the natural offspring of militant multiculturalism and government-sanctioned identity politics. We reap what we sow.

Posted by redguy on March 15, 2006 07:27 AM to redstatesusa

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Muslim Brotherhood, Nazis and Al-Qaeda . By John Loftus

Some Stories are painful to read; the truth can hurt; but the truth needs to be told in order that mistakes of the past are not repeated. It is written, “As you sow, so shall ye reap; and now we are reaping the whirlwind.

The mistakes talked about in this story were made for over half a century and only now begun to be righted. These mistakes cross political boundaries and should not be politicized now. They should be corrected and policies set to never allow them to happen again.

I looked at the links and I did a Google search for “Banna Nazi” and saw that this is indeed an old story and has cost the lives of countless people. Some of them were made under the philosophy that the enemy of my enemy is my friend - sometimes they are simply enemies waiting their turn. We should be more discrete in whom we choose to ally ourselves with, lest the beast come at us when the ‘common enemy’ is defeated. Beside the example in this story we can also look at our pack with the devil called Saddam Hussein, when he was warring with our enemy, Iran.

I was looking at several articles, always on the lookout for understanding of how these terrorists that are warring on us now have broken with the normally peaceful tenants of Islam when I came across this story. It would seem to explain a lot.

Mr. Loftus is a former US prosecutor, and his name is a live link in the article, as is Sleeping with the Devil which is an interview with an ex-CIA agent (Robert Baer) about a need for major house-cleaning within the CIA. I believe this is happening but as with any bloated bureaucracy, it is a long, uphill battle.

The other two live links are: 555 Grove St., Herndon, Virginia and charities that reveal a network of charities that were in this country for decades before finally being shut down, largely (it would seem) on the pressure created by Mr. Loftus.

All of these links refer to other pages in Frontpagemag.com but a Google search on the topics will quickly bring you to corroborating accounts.

Rants will be useless; what we need is stronger accountability in Washington and especially from the bloated bureaucracies that have been created over the years. Accountability, however, starts with Congress and they are only accountable to us, the people. That is the first place that needs a major house-cleaning (and Senate cleaning, if you want to acknowledge the pun.) The best way to do that is to vote out all of the incumbents in every election for the next twenty years. The rot is too deep and the arrogance too strong to leave any of them there any longer. Just read the stories, below and at the links, to see what a mess that they’ve made and why they need to be replaced – every single man and woman in Congress, especially those in the Senate!

Some of these guys have made a life’s work at these making debacles and have built political machines in their home states to insure that they will stay there forever; but all we have to do is say “ENOUGH” and simply vote for whoever runs against them. After all, how much worse can a stranger be, look at the mess the incumbents have made.

I don’t want to rant any further on this, I’m just asking to make these guys accountable for what they’ve done instead of continuously rewarding them for the messes they’ve made. The following story (or stories, if you prefer) exemplify the mess. There are more, many more, and they need to be stopped. In the name of world peace and working with our fellow man, they need to be stopped! As the story below states:

NEVER AGAIN!

-- Ichabod Crane

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The Muslim Brotherhood, Nazis and Al-Qaeda - By John Loftus

Jewish Community News

October 4, 2004

It always seems a little strange to have an Irish-Catholic talking about Yom Ha Shoah.

I had an unusual education in the Holocaust. When I was working for the Attorney General, I was assigned to do the classified research about the Holocaust, so I went underground to a little town called Suitland, Maryland, right outside Washington, D.C., and that's where the U.S. government buries its secrets -- literally.

There are twenty vaults underground and each vault is one acre in size. Anyone see the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? The last scene of that movie is what the underground vaults are really like, only not as organized as they are in the movie. And in those underground vaults I discovered something horrible.

I learned that many of the Nazis that I had been assigned to prosecute were on the CIA payroll, but the CIA didn't know they were Nazis because the British Intelligence Service had lied to them. What the British Intelligence Service didn't know was that their liar was Kim Philby, the Soviet communist double agent -- a little scandal of the Cold War. But our State Department swept it all under the rug and allowed the Nazis to stay in America until I was stupid enough to go public with it.

What do you do when you want to go public with a story like this one? You call up “60 Minutes.” We had a great time. Mike Wallace gave me 30 minutes on his show. For a long time, it was the longest segment that "60 Minutes" ever did. When the episode about Nazis in America went on the air back in 1982, it caused a minor national uproar. Congress demanded hearings, Mike Wallace got the Emmy award, and my family got the death threats. It was a great trip.

Then a funny thing happened. Over the last 25 years, every retired spy in the U.S. and Canada and England all wanted me to be their lawyer, for free of course. So I had 500 clients, they paid me $1 apiece. So I am the worst paid lawyer in America, but among the better employed.

Let me give you an example. This year a friend of mine from the CIA, named Bob Baer wrote a very good book about Saudi Arabia and terrorism, it's called Sleeping with the Devil. I read the book and I got about a third of the way through and I stopped. Bob was writing how when he worked for the CIA how bad the files were.

He said, for example, the files for the Muslim Brotherhood were almost nothing. There were just a few newspaper clippings. I called Bob up and said, “Bob, that's wrong. The CIA has enormous files on the Muslim Brotherhood, volumes of them. I know because I read them a quarter of a century ago.” He said, “What do you mean?”

Here's how you can find all of the missing secrets about the Muslim Brotherhood -- and you can do this, too. I said, “Bob, go to your computer and type in two words into the search part. Type the word “Banna,” B-a-n-n-a. He said, “Yeah.” Type in “Nazi.” Bob typed the two words in, and out came 30 to 40 articles from around the world. He read them and called me back and said, “Oh my gosh, what have we done?”

What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al-Qaeda.

Here's how the story began. In the 1920's there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930's, al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi intelligence.

The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt.

When war broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood promised in writing that they would rise up and help General Rommell and make sure that no English or American soldier was left alive in Cairo or Alexandria.

The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man -- The grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis. The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the “Handjar” Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler's new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arab peninsula from then on to Africa -- grand dreams.

At the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood was wanted for war crimes. Their German intelligence handlers were captured in Cairo. The whole net was rolled up by the British Secret Service. Then a horrible thing happened.

Instead of prosecuting the Nazis -- the Muslim Brotherhood -- the British government hired them. They brought all the fugitive Nazi war criminals of Arab and Muslim descent into Egypt, and for three years they were trained on a special mission. The British Secret Service wanted to use the fascists of the Muslim Brotherhood to strike down the infant state of Israel in 1948. Only a few people in the Mossad know this, but many of the members of the Arab Armies and terrorist groups that tried to strangle the infant State of Israel were the Arab Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Britain was not alone. The French intelligence service cooperated by releasing the Grand Mufti and smuggling him to Egypt, so all of the Arab Nazis came together. So, from 1945 to 1948, the British Secret Service protected every Arab Nazi they could, but they failed to quash the State of Israel.

What the British did then, they sold the Arab Nazis to the predecessor of what became the CIA. It may sound stupid; it may sound evil, but it did happen. The idea was that we were going to use the Arab Nazis in the Middle East as a counterweight to the Arab communists. Just as the Soviet Union was funding Arab communists, we would fund the Arab Nazis to fight against. And lots of secret classes took place. We kept the Muslim Brotherhood on our payroll.

But the Egyptians became nervous. Nasser ordered all of the Muslim Brotherhood out of Egypt or be imprisoned, and we would execute them all. During the 1950's, the CIA evacuated the Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood to Saudi Arabia. Now when they arrived in Saudi Arabia, some of the leading lights of the Muslim Brotherhood like Azzam, became the teachers in the Madrasas, the religious schools. And there they combined the doctrines of Nazism with this weird Islamic cult, Wahhabiism.

Everyone thinks that Islam is this fanatical religion, but it is not. They think that Islam -- the Saudi version of Islam -- is typical, but it's not. The Wahhabi cult was condemned as a heresy more than 60 times by the Muslim nations. But when the Saudis got wealthy, they bought a lot of silence. This is a very harsh cult. The Wahhabiism was only practiced by two nations, the Taliban and Saudi Arabia. That's how extreme it is. It really has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a very peaceful and tolerant religion. It has always had good relationships with the Jews for the first thousand years of its existence.

For the Saudis, there was a ruler in charge of Saudi Arabia, and they were the new home of the Muslim Brotherhood, and fascism and extremism were mingled in these schools. And there was a young student who paid attention - - and Azzam's student was named Osama Bin Ladin. Osama Bin Ladin was taught by the Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood who had emigrated to Saudi Arabia.

In 1979 the CIA decided to take the Arab Nazis out of cold storage. The Russians had invaded Afghanistan, so we told the Saudis that we would fund them if they would bring all of the Arab Nazis together and ship them off to Afghanistan to fight the Russians. We had to rename them. We couldn't call them the Muslim Brotherhood because that was too sensitive a name. Its Nazi cast was too known. So we called them the Maktab al Khidimat il Mujahideen, the MAK.

And the CIA lied to Congress and said they didn't know who was on the payroll in Afghanistan, except the Saudis. But it was not true. A small section CIA knew perfectly well that we had once again hired the Arab Nazis and that we were using them to fight our secret wars.

Azzam and his assistant, Osama Bin Ladin, rose to some prominence from 1979 to '89, and they won the war. They drove the Russians out of Afghanistan. Our CIA said, “We won, let's go home!” and we left this army of Arab fascists in the field of Afghanistan.

Saudis didn't want to come back. Saudis started paying bribes to Osama Bin Ladin and his followers to stay out of Saudi Arabia. Now the MAK split in half. Azzam was mysteriously assassinated apparently by Osama Bin Ladin himself. The radical group -- the most radical of the merge of the Arab fascists and religious extremists -- Osama called that al Qaeda. But to this day there are branches of the Muslim Brotherhood all through al Qaeda.

Osama Bin Ladin's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, came from the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the results of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

There are many flavors and branches, but they are all Muslim Brotherhoods. There is one in Israel. The organization you know as “Hammas” is actually a secret chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. When Israel assassinated Sheik Yassin a month ago, the Muslim Brotherhood published his obituary in a Cairo newspaper in Arabic and revealed that he was actually the secret leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza.

So the Muslim Brotherhood became this poison that spread throughout the Middle East and on 9/11, it began to spread around the world.

I know this sounds like some sort of a sick fantasy, but go to your computer and type in the words “Banna,” B-a-n-n-a and the word “Nazi,” N-a-z-i, and you will see all of the articles come up. Those are all the pieces of information that the CIA was trying to hide from its employees. It did not want them to know the awful past. So, in 1984, when I was exposing European Nazis on the CIA payroll, at the same time they were trying to hide from Congress the fact that they had Arab Nazis back on the payroll to fight the Russians -- a stupid and corrupt program.

So, when Bob Baer studied his files, he was just stunned. A whole generation: the current CIA people know nothing about this. And believe me, the current generation CIA are good and decent Americans and I like them a lot. They're trying to do a good job, but part of their problem is their files have been shredded. All of these secrets have to come out.

So, of course, my clients in the intelligence community said, “Well, what are you doing?” They gave me an example. They said, “Here's how the Saudis finance these groups. The Saudis have established a group of charities on a street in Virginia. It's 555 Grove St., Herndon, Virginia.” So I said, “OK the Saudis are terrorists, so what?” These charities fund Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda. The Saudis are getting tax deductions for terrorism. They have set up front groups so all the terrorists groups in the U.S. and the front groups get the Saudi money as a charitable donation.

I said, “You're kidding me.” Nope. And they told me that right near where I lived in Tampa, Florida was one of the leading terrorists in the world. There were these two professors at the University of South Florida. One had just left -- and he was now in Syria -- and he was the world head of Islamic Jihad. His number two, the head of Islamic Jihad in the Western Hemisphere, was Dr. Sami al-Arian, who is still employed as a professor at the University of South Florida. You've got to be kidding. This can't be true.

Yes, these guys are raising money all across America and shipping it to Syria to go down to Palestine, the Palestinian areas, and hire suicide bombers to kill Jews. They sent me the videotapes. There was Professor al-Arian on stage and one of his friends gets up and says, “Now, who will give me $500 to kill a Jew? There are people standing by in Jerusalem who will go out in the street and stab a Jew with a knife, but we need $500.” And he said, “All of this money will go to the Islamic committee for Palestine.” And that is the front group in the United States for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

So I had all my friends in the FBI and CIA send in these files. I said, “Why haven't you prosecuted this guy? You've known about him since 1989.” “We'd love to. We've tried to prosecute him but we were told we couldn't touch him because he gets all of his money from the Saudis, and we are all under orders not to do anything to embarrass the Saudi government.”

I said, “I don't mind embarrassing them.” You know what I did? I donated money to the charity that was the terrorist fund, because under Florida law, that gave me the right to sue the charity to find out where my money was going. It was hilarious.

In early March, 2002, I drafted a long lawsuit exposing Professor Sami al-Arian, naming all the crimes he'd committed, all the bombings in Israel, the fundraising in America with terrorism. I mentioned how his money got to him from the Saudis and how the Saudis had convinced our government not to prosecute him for political reasons. Because of my high-level security clearances, everything I write is sort of classified material and has to be sent back to the government before publication, for censorship. So I sent my long lawsuit complaint to the CIA, and they loved it. They said, “Oh, great. We don't like the Saudis either. Go sue them.”

Three days later two FBI Agents showed up at my door, saying, “You know, there are only 21 people in the U.S. government that knew some of this information, and now you're 22. How did you find out?” I said, “I'm sorry, I can't tell you, attorney-client privilege.” That's why my clients pay me $1.00 each.

The day before I went to file the lawsuit, I got a frantic phone call from the United States Department of Justice. They said, “John, please don't file the lawsuit tomorrow. We really are going to raid these Saudi charities. We're going to close them down. Just give us more time.” “Oh yeah, you're going to raid them. That's what you told me in January - - and again in February, and now it's March. You want more time? I'll give you until 4:00 o'clock tomorrow. I'm filing my complaint at 10:00 a.m., so that at 4:00 p.m., I'm going to release the address of the Saudi charities. Back tomorrow. I filed my lawsuit at 10:00 o'clock, and told the press I was going to hold something back for a little bit.

At 10:15, the U.S. government launched Operation Greenquest, a massive raid on all the Saudi charities in homes and businesses, and in one hour we shut down the entire Saudi money-laundering network in America.

From March 20, 2002 to the present, the government has found more and more evidence seized in those archives on that single raid that day. The evidence was so compelling that Professor al-Arian is no longer giving his speeches. He is now in federal prison awaiting trial. His accomplice, Hammoudeh, has also been indicted. Some 32 different people have been indicted in the United States as a direct result of these efforts.

But not the Saudis -- not the Saudis.

A month after I filed my lawsuit against al-Arian, I did it: I caused some trouble. I invited some 40 of the top trial lawyers in America to come down to St. Petersburg, Florida. Boy, did I have a deal for them. I wanted them to put up millions of dollars of their own money -- I'm poor, I had no money to give them -- but I wanted to do something for America.

These are lawyers like Ron Motley that had won billions of dollars in their lawsuits against the tobacco industry and the asbestos industry. I said, “What I want you to do is look at the evidence I've collected. It's the same Saudi banks and charities that funded Sami al-Arian that also funded al Qaeda.” I said, “I want you to bring a class action in Federal Court in Washington on behalf of everyone who died on Sept. 11th. I'm going to work for free and collect all the evidence, introduce you to the experts, provide all the exhibits and documents . . . and we have to do this for America.”

The lawyers studied all the documents I collected, and on August 15, 2002, they filed the largest class-action lawsuit in American history in the Federal District Court in Washington D.C., asking for one trillion dollars damages against the Saudis. The lawsuit said essentially that all these Saudi banks had one thing in common. They were bribing Osama bin Ladin 300 million dollars a year to stay out of Saudi Arabia and go blow up someone else.

Well, on 9/11, we found out we were someone else, and the Saudis had to pay for their negligence. So that lawsuit is coming along very well.

And more and more people in the CIA and FBI are sort of using me as a back channel to get our information. So, believe it or not, they've actually given me my own TV show now on Sunday mornings on FOX TV nationwide. I'm on at 11:20 eastern standard time. And ABC Radio has given me a national radio program, but I'm on at 10:30 at night and it's past your bedtime.

What I've become in my old age is a teacher. Twenty-five years ago I was a lot younger, a lot thinner, but now every day I get 500 to 1,000 e-mails from honest men and women around the world from the intelligence community.

And we have to end the evil in this world. We have to recognize that al Qaeda simply didn't spring up on its own. The evil route was Nazism. The al Qaeda Doctrine is the same as the Arab Nazis held. They hated Jews, they hate democracy, and they hate Westerners for Western culture. Al Qaeda is nothing more than the religious expression of Arab Fascism. We allowed this branch of the Nazi trunk to survive, to flourish, and it has come back to haunt us.

We must do a better job. Look at these children. They are our legacy. If we are to keep our children safe, we must teach them the lessons of the past. Every generation should know what these candles mean. Not only that one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the world really happened, but the evil that caused it -- Nazism -- survived because we didn't fight hard enough. We didn't finish the job.

But we must tell our children that in every generation the men and women of America have stood side by side with our Jewish, Christian, and Moslem brothers. We have risen up together against hatred. America is united now.

We will win the war on terror, and we will finish the job that these soldiers and survivors started more than a half-century ago. We must set the standard that to teach a child to hate is the worst form of child abuse. We must work together to end racism in our children's lifetime. We must teach our children to remember the Holocaust and be proud, so proud of those who survived and inspired us with their courage. In their name, in their honor, let us go forward and fight together.

NEVER AGAIN.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Saber Rattling for Iran

I was reading an op-ed from the Washington Post (http://tinyurl.com/b4w48) and feelings of déjà vu and dread came over me. I couldn’t help recall all the rhetoric from the left when the President was beating the drums of war against Iraq. They were all for it. The loudest voices against it now were the loudest voices for it then. Most of these hot-air bags had already given long-winded speeches back in 1998 stating that Saddam had to go, that his use and possession of WMDs was an intolerable situation, yadda, yadda, yadda. Now they are all calling Bush a liar for saying the Saddam had WMDs. F**cking hypocrites, all; and now they are all saying the same things about Iran. “the idea of a nuclear armed Iran is intolerable, yadda, yadda, yadda. (I wonder if they have their ‘Bush is a liar’ speeches ready to go for after (if) we go and take out Iran’s nuclear facilities?

What say you liberals out there? Care to go on record now, before the ‘fun’ begins, as to what the President should or shouldn’t do? According to the op-ed, “Republican John McCain and Democrat Joe Lieberman, have this month faced the Iranian Choice -- and both endorsed military action.” Of course, ever the one to avoid taking a real stand, John Kerry said we should take the problem to the UN if diplomacy fails. Right, like that has ever done any good. The UN was rattling their empty saber sheath for over ten years before we went into Iraq; can we wait ten years for the Iranians to stop doing what they’re doing and ‘play nice’ with their neighbors?

John Kerry, the war hero, figures if we dump it on the UN and Iran blows up Tel Aviv, well the UN can be blamed and we’re in the clear. Never mind the actual people killed in Israel, just as long as he can ‘blame’ somebody else, that’s good enough for him. The amount of courage it must have taken for him to state that publicly is amazing, isn’t it? Just make it somebody else’s problem. He would make a President that Jimmy Carter could look up to.

Is there anyone out there foolish enough to think it’ll be more than three or four years before Iran is ‘testing’ their new toys in Tel Aviv? They are building a bomb and that is exactly what they said they’d do with it.

So the Democrats are putting the President into a lose-lose scenario and demanding he act. He’ll be blamed for all the deaths resulting from an Iranian bomb, if he doesn’t do anything about it; and he’ll be called a nuclear madman, if he does what needs doing.

What exactly can he do? Invade Iran? That’ll be costly in lives and money way beyond what we’ve incurred to date with Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Who would help us? Sanctions won’t work because China will supply Iran with whatever they need, in order to get their oil, as may Russia.

What about my favorite solution: nuke their nuclear facilities with cruise missiles before an invasion? The biggest problem with that, of course, is the response from China and Russia. Are we prepared for another cold-war? How could we even be sure that we got all of them without invading afterwards? They have been digging deeper and deeper, burying their facilities in order to hide their activity.

So, think about it. I’m pretty sure I know what the conservatives on this list would want: follow the cruise missiles with the Marines, Air Force, Army, and Navy (they have a lot of coastline). What do my liberal friends think we should do? That’s what I’d like to know and have on record for after its begun.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Technorati'>http://technorati.com/claim/qm8m7udk">Technorati

The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling!

Global Warming

January 29, 2006

There was a long article today in the Washington Post about global warming entitled, “Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change” [http://tinyurl.com/dkyts], screaming that the sky is falling, once again. They use the term “most scientist agree” as though that means anything at all, which it doesn’t. There are actually a small minority of so-called scientists that agree with the position stated in this article. First of all, is global warming happening; and if so, what is causing it?

It does seem as though some of the worlds largest and oldest glaciers are receding. Weather patterns also seem to be changing, insofar as we can tell what a normal weather pattern is. So, perhaps there is some reason to think that the Earth is going through some change. OK, so what? The Earth has been going through changes for eons and probably will continue to do so for eons to come. It’s done that before people walked the Earth and has done it several times since. In fact, change seems to be the norm for the climate if the Earth. Why would people start thinking that we have anything to do with it now; and why do they think we can do anything about it at all? Greenhouse emissions are down considerably (at least in this and other Western industrial countries) since the sixties, yet whatever is changing continues unabated.

The first thing we need to understand about all these changes is that it is the sun that drives them. Our sun, Sol, goes through all sorts of changes, sometimes involving cycles that last tens, even hundreds of thousands of years. We cannot possibly do anything to affect the cycles of the sun. Only the severest megalomaniac would think otherwise. That this (possible) current climatic change is originating from the sun is evidenced by the fact that even Mars is experiencing the same phenomenon. NASA has reported that, since measurements started some decades ago, the Martian ice-caps have been receding by 10-20 meters per Martian year (about two Earth years). Are the ‘Chicken Littles’ of the Washington Times intimating that the greenhouse gasses produced here also affecting the Martian climate? That is blatantly preposterous!

While it is true that a continued warming trend here on Earth would be catastrophic, especially for the coastal regions of the world; it is simply silly to say that we, or any group of countries, are to blame. Were we to discontinue the burning of any fuels and huddle in caves, the sun would continue to cycle through its current phase and the world will, or will not, continue to get warmer depending on the length of the solar cycle. The glaciers would continue to melt and the coasts will be flooded if the sun continues to warm. What would be gained but ceasing to be warm and mobil?

What we need to do is get realistic about what is happening, and especially why it’s happening, and make plans to salvage what can be salvaged from the threatened areas. Plans for evacuating the coastal cities of the world should be made now, before it’s too late. The task will be monumental and costly beyond anything ever undertaken by mankind since Noah built his ark. So monumental, in fact, that people are refusing to see the obvious and will continue to blame the industrial Nations of the world until it’s too late and millions of people are displaced, drowned, and/or world-wide panic ensues.

Going around saying that the sky is falling will be as effective as it was for Chicken Little.

That's what I think; and I'm Ichabod Crane!

Friday, October 28, 2005

If you are Stuck on Stupid, get help and get off it.

[Excerpts from President Bush’s address to Congress (in 2003) requesting authorization for invading Iraq, and some comments by yours truly at the end. Highlights are mine.]

Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement.1 He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons -- not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. [See Note 1]

Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm2. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct -- were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq’s regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He’s not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them -- despite Iraq’s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming3. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.

Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations4. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. Intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda5. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause.)

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option6. (Applause.)

The dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages -- leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained -- by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning7. (Applause.) [See Note 2]

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. (Applause.)

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi’s legal -- Iraq’s illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups.

We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. (Applause.)

Tonight I have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in or near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lay ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you. (Applause.)

Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make. The technologies of war have changed; the risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means -- sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military -- and we will prevail. (Applause.)

And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies -- and freedom. (Applause.) [See Note 3]

---End of Excerpt---

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Note 1 - [In fact, the Oil for Food kickbacks were supporting his efforts.]
Note 2 - [Put that in perspective of the abuses at Abu Ghraib and ‘Gitmo.’]
Note 3 - [Mission accomplished and continuing!]
-----------------------

I counted 7 independently sufficient reasons for invading Iraq in this speach, and all the left can say is, “We didn’t find WMDs.” I’ll say two things about this:
First, we still need to find many of them. He had them and not all of them have been accounted for.

(From the Federalist 05-43 Digest:
As for those still “Stuck on Stupid”, insisting that there were no WMD found in Iraq, here’s a partial list of what didn’t make it out of Iraq before the invasion: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium, 1,700 gallons of chemical-weapon agents, chemical warheads containing the nerve agent cyclosarin, thousands of radioactive materials in powdered form designed for dispersal over population centers, artillery projectiles loaded with binary chemical agents, etc.

As The Patriot noted in October, 2002, our well-placed sources in the region and intelligence sources with the NSA and NRO estimated that the UN Security Council’s foot-dragging provided an ample window for Saddam to export some or all of his deadliest WMD materials and components. At that time, we reported that Allied Forces would be unlikely to discover Iraq’s WMD stores, noting, “Our sources estimate that Iraq has shipped some or all of its biological stockpiles and nuclear WMD components through Syria to southern Lebanon’s heavily fortified Bekaa Valley.”

In December of 2002, our senior-level intelligence sources re-confirmed estimates that some of Iraq’s biological and nuclear WMD material and components had, in fact, been moved into Syria and Iran. That movement continued until President Bush finally pulled the plug on the UN’s ruse.

---end of Federalist comments---

Just how many WMDs and their components did we need to find before the pro-Islamist faction here in America realize that we found them?

Second, there are still six valid reasons for going there, so get over it and start supporting the troops by rooting for America, instead of for the terrorists, to win.

If we’d all been doing that from the beginning, especially the Main Stream Media, there wouldn’t be 2000 KIA’s there now. Instead of being emboldened to ‘stay the course to victory’ the terrorists would be cowering in their caves, being systematically routed out one-by-one. Now they think that they’ll win once the Main Stream Media and the liberal-left force us to surrender in defeat (like they did in Vietnam), so the fight goes on, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Don’t let those 2000 heros’ lives be lost for nothing, their sacrifice needs to stand for something; it needs to be for winning the War on Terror! America needs to win this one, the stakes are too high; the stakes are for the existence of the civilized world to prevail over this insane Jihad!

Wanting us to lose just because you hate Bush is totally and simply insane, and proves that you are indeed, Stuck on Stupid! Get help, get off of Stupid! Bush will be gone in three years, but the terrorists and Jihadists will still be here! -IC

Sunday, September 25, 2005

The Katrina Debacle - by Ichobod Crane & edited by Steve Saltsman

The Katrina Debacle

And those who figured prominently in it.

The players:

Local Authorities:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

Although he had twenty-four hour advance notice of the region being declared a disaster area, he failed to dispatch any buses to evacuate the people who had no transportation, nor did he give notice of his lack of intent to provide any assistance in their evacuation. His reckless indifference left the city buses for public transportation and the city school buses to be destroyed or damaged in their parking lots, rather than having them used to evacuate the citizens of New Orleans. He sat on his hands and complained of not having any Federal support, when it was his duty to have acted in the first place. The man is clearly incompetent to hold any public office.

His further response to Rita showed him to be criminally incompetent and badly in need of being replaced.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco

She failed to oversee the evacuation of the populated regions in the path of the storm. After the President declared the region a disaster area, she should have dispatched the National Guard under her control to assist in the evacuations. At the very least they could have driven the buses and urged people to leave. She showed a level of incompetence on a par with Mayor Ray Nagin and should suffer the same fate with him.

She also, again, failed to control the situation in New Orleans and left the incompetent Ray Nagin to flounder and further endanger the citizens in that city. She is clearly as incompetent, negligent and criminally liable as the Mayor.

Federal Agencies in the loop:

Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton

Along with:

Department of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

And through the:

Secretary of the Army Dr. Harvey

Control the:

US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District

Executive Office:

Col. Richard P. Wagenaar, District Engineer

Maj. Murray Starkel, Deputy District Engineer

Gregory Breerwood, Deputy District Engineer for Project Management

This agency had been prohibited from building stronger flood defenses for New Orleans by the Courts that favored several environmental groups who had sued the Corps to cease and desist from further encroachment into the wetland in order to protect several wild, indigenous species of plants and animals. Their response subsequent to the breaches of the levees was exemplary. Their plan to reinforce the levees and other flood protection designs should be allowed to proceed unhindered and forthwith.

The LA Senators have consistently diverted funds from levee work for other ‘pet’ projects as well. What can be done about these Senators?

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

He has a case of arrogance of the first order. His most poignant statements were “I’ve got this down,” …and… “There’ll be plenty of time,” Chertoff told Tim Russert, “to do the after-action analysis.” …and… “After- action analysis should not interfere with current recovery operations.” … and repetitions ad infinitum. His complete inattention to his undersecretary’s lack of performance is astounding. He is guilty, at the very least, of lack of leadership and total disregard of the entire situation. This man should resign immediately, or be fired by the President if he fails to do so. Otherwise he should be impeached by the Congress.

Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response Michael D. Brown (Head of FEMA)

His lack of experience was painfully obvious in his lack of leadership and preparedness in the wake of the disaster. He utterly failed to provide even the minimum response from FEMA. Subsequently, he also showed great arrogance in disavowing any responsibilities. This man should also resign immediately, or be fired by the President if he fails to do so. Otherwise he too, should be impeached by the Congress.

Thank God he resigned; but criminal charges should be considered against him notwithstanding.

The Senate of the United States of America

This body was totally and completely negligent in its duties of ‘advice and consent’ in allowing either Michael Chertoff or Michael Brown to be approved to their current positions. These men’s absolute lack of qualifications demanded that they not be elevated into these critical roles. Undoubtedly they will pass this off onto the President, although it was their duty to stop this appointment.

Of course many liberals in the Senate made a fuss about them; however, with the current political climate, where every move the President makes raises a fuss, they were discounted as yet again crying wolf. Here is a prime reason that this heretofore August Body badly needs to regain some semblance of dignity and stop all the caterwauling from both sides. All of them share blame in this political crisis.

The current leaders of both parties who have been engaging in such juvenile antics should be reprimanded and removed from their current leadership roles; they have shown no leadership whatsoever. The time for such behavior, if there is any such time, is prior to elections and other important votes, not after the fact. This only serves to obfuscate current and more important business; like engaging in level-headed debate on candidates’ qualifications for important positions, not on what their political affiliations are. We know their affiliations simply by them being appointed by a President, be he a Democrat or Republican.

President of the United States George W. Bush

In appointing Michael Brown to be promoted as the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response (Head of FEMA), and Michael Chertoff, the President made the most grievous errors of his Presidency; however, it was still the responsibility of the Senate to disqualify the appointments. That is their role; they are the ones who do the investigations. Nevertheless, the President will suffer politically for having nominated this unqualified man, and his clueless boss, in the first place. These positions should be promoted from within the ranks of FEMA, the Coast Guard, or even from the Pentagon, where people have the needed experience and skills with handling emergency management. These two appointments will cast serious doubts on all subsequent Presidential appointments, particularly now, with the Supreme Court vacancies, as well as other lower court appointments. Hopefully, the Senate will look very hard indeed on all Presidential appointments.

I can’t see how the President can be impeached for these appointments, however, unless all the Senators who approved of them resign first. When that happens, then perhaps the other should as well. After all, a President might appoint an unqualified person who feels he is owed an appointment by helping the President get elected; but then, when the Senate rejects them the President has been cleared of any further obligation to that person. Politics are messy, and these things happen in the course of things, hence the Senate’s role in the process. From that perspective, the Senate was even more remiss in their duty to the country than the President, who has political obligations that need paying. That is the purpose behind the Founder’s reasoning for the Senate’s “advice and consent” clause. Such has always been the way of politics.

The President’s initial response was timely in declaring the parts of the Gulf region (that were threatened by Katrina), a disaster area over a day prior to its making landfall. This should have been time enough to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people had the local government simply followed their existing plans that had been in place for just such an emergency.

It isn’t understood what more he, personally, could have done subsequent to the storm. The entire chain of government had broken down under him, particularly at the local level. Federal agencies that should have acted after the Executive Order of the declaration of the disaster area, acted as though stunned by the magnitude of the event, especially with the local governments doing nothing to help themselves.

The President’s perceived lack of action after the disaster manifested was no doubt, not due to the scope of the devastation, but to the massive incompetence at the state and local levels. Indeed what could he do in the face of that disaster? The federal government can only do its job when the local governments do theirs; ours is a bottom up governmental organization on the home front. This breakdown should be addressed by a conference of the Governors from all of the States to formulate local contingency plans for the Federal Government’s involvement when the local structure breaks down. Should Martial Law have been declared? That is a most extreme response, but perhaps necessary for the situation in New Orleans, particularly in the face of the anarchy that broke out there. Again, that was due to the utter failure of the local government.

In previous disasters, like the four hurricanes that hit in Florida last year, the local governments did their jobs, making the tasks of the Federal agencies easily integrated into the relief efforts. When the local governments drop their responsibilities by having no local operation for the Federal assistance to integrate into, the Fed’s must develop a plan before they can act on it. In all cases, with the exception of an unqualified head of FEMA, the breakdown of the local government is what inhibited the smooth response of the Federal agencies.

Clearly, the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin and the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, should be removed from office and prosecuted criminally for the deaths that resulted due to their incompetence and indifference. Under Secretary Michael D. Brown [who has resigned while this was being written] should also be prosecuted criminally, although on what charge(s) is questionable. His first act of incompetence was in accepting an appointment for which he was severely under-qualified. The Senators who voted for his appointment should receive an official censure at the very least.

The courts that prohibited the Army Corps of Engineers should be investigated and their judgments reviewed for judicial malfeasance. Any judge found guilty of said malfeasance should be removed and prosecuted as required.

Hurricane Rita found a country more ready because of Katrina, but the Texas government, at all levels, were prepared and professional in the execution of their plans and should be commended. Ray Nagin was still trying to get the population of New Orleans back into the city – he learned nothing at all.

The biggest difference between the two states might be seen by their ‘entitlement mentality’ – LA seems to thrive of it; TX seems well off without it. This has been a great study in “less is more” for all to learn from.

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Some great thoughts to ponder from The Federalist. (www.federalist.com)

SELECT READER COMMENTS:

(Our servers automatically delete "Reply" messages to this e-mail. Submit comments for publication or to view reader comments: http://FederalistPatriot.US/comments.asp Join the debate at the Patriot Blog: http://PatriotPostBlog.US/ )

"So Junior Sen. Hillary Clinton and House Mini Leader Nancy Pelosi say they want a commission to investigate what went wrong in New Orleans—in other words, an open and extended forum to blame Republicans. Last week, Republicans proposed a review board for this purpose and Democrats balked. Pelosi now says Democrats should boycott this review, and claims it will lead to a whitewash of the facts. I guess that, as more facts are now becoming available, Pelosi and Clinton are less anxious for a review."—Albany, New York

Editor's Reply: Democrats don't really want anyone looking that closely at the Demo machinations in the Big Easy. As Patriot No. 05-36 noted Friday, "Indeed, Democrats may get their 'inquisition commission,' hoping for colorful headlines trumpeting 'Republican failures' in the upcoming election year, but they had best take care what they ask for, lest they get it. Inquiring too deeply into factual communication, material distribution and evacuation failures after Katrina will likely yield answers that sink Louisiana Democrats—from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to Governor Kathleen Blanco. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who diverted Corps of Engineer funding from NOLA levees to her pet projects, just might need to pack her bags." Republicans called Pelosi's bluff, but you have to hand it to her, the "boycott protest" tactic is a clever dodge. Fact is, Republicans should go on the offensive now, and insist on a review. Let the Demos wiggle out of this one.

"'Natural Disaster'? Natural: for all but New Orleans. N.O. was a man-made disaster. For generations, state and local governments continued to develop the area around New Orleans—below sea level development—against the advice of the Corp of Enginieers. They ignored the possibilities and embraced the long odds of a Cat 4+ hurricane. They gambled and lost—and while the politicians are trying to tie losses to the Bush administration (how ludicrous), the real losers are those folks who trusted Louisiana government to protect them from catastrophic disaster—the result of catastrophic ignorance."—Biloxi, Mississippi

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Opinions:

"A republican form of government presupposes self-government—the capacity of citizens to govern themselves according to reason—and does not, if it intends to survive, champion them as 'victims' when they don't." —George Neumayr ++ "Ours is a federal system. The President is sworn to uphold and support the Constitution. He is not a dictator. And not to be blamed for failing to act like one. The problem was not the Constitution or the President, but Louisiana's officials." —Michael Gaynor

"The worst thing the federal government could do is to increase the size, reach and cost of government. If government failed in its response to the hurricane, the answer is not more inefficient government." —Cal Thomas

"No fall of a sparrow on this planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2) the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn sinner-in-chief George W. Bush." —Charles Krauthammer

"What we are witnessing is a well-honed black political public-relations operation geared to obfuscation, stoking hatred and fear, and nurturing helplessness and dependence among black citizens. Such efforts keep black politicians powerful, diversity businesses prosperous and blacks poor." —Star Parker

"[A]rtificial [gas] price caps will work no better now than they did in the 1970s. They won't get petroleum refined faster. They won't reduce motorists' demand for gasoline. All they will create is shortages—the one thing price controls always bring in their wake." —Jeff Jacoby

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Dana Summers by Dana Summers

Monday, August 22, 2005

FDR Proposed Private Accounts - By Rod D. Martin

It is amazing how many people are listening to our underhanded politicians (from both parties) about this issue. All these rich bastards want is the money that would go into your account, where they would no longer be able to get their hands on it to spend on pork projects that get them reelected if this plan goes into effect.

This is the only way to go, this way empowers the people and disempowers the politicians. Who should own your money, you or Congress? Who worked for it?

-- Ichabod Crane
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FDR Proposed Private Accounts
By Rod D. Martin
August 22, 2005

To hear today's Democrats talk, Franklin Roosevelt would be spinning in his grave if he heard today's debate about Social Security private accounts.

They're only half right. He'd be spinning if he heard today's Democrats.

Roosevelt was many things, but he was no fool, not on this point. The man who gave us the New Deal understood perfectly the limitations of Social Security. In honest moments, politicians correctly note that "Social Security was never meant to pay for 100% of your retirement." And to pay for the part a government pension scheme couldn't, FDR had a very modern-sounding idea.

Announcing his plan on January 17, 1935, Social Security's founder said: "in the important field of security for old people, it seems necessary to adopt ... voluntary contribution annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age."

In other words, private accounts.

Seventy years later, Roosevelt's words ring truer than ever. Social Security taxes -- just 1% back then -- now consume between 12 and 15% of most Americans' income. They effectively eliminate any possibility of separate retirement savings without serious sacrifice.

And for what? Social Security checks remain a pittance, certainly nothing anyone should have to depend on as a monthly income; and with a $255 death benefit, they don't even pay enough to bury you.

Worst of all, you don't own your own money. You can't pass it on to your wife, you can't pass it on to your kids. And since government spends every dollar as soon as it comes in -- the trust fund is a myth -- there's not even any guarantee you'll get to keep your money yourself.

But as President Roosevelt taught us, there really is a better way.

Under President Bush's plan, Social Security could finally fulfill its promise. Private account-holders could look forward to between three and five times the monthly check available under the current system. Most Americans would retire on a higher monthly income than they had when they were working.

And they wouldn't have to invest in anything risky to achieve this, or give up the safety net of government Social Security, or even obtain any specialized knowledge of investing. The tens of millions in (incredibly successful) private accounts around the world -- from Chile to Britain to Australia to the public employees in Galveston, Texas -- have already shown us the way.

Some pundits have pronounced the President's plan dead; but the rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated. Social Security reform can still happen, and happen this fall once Congress returns.

The best bill before Congress -- by a wide margin -- is Ryan-Sununu. It proposes placing half of your Social Security tax money in an account which you alone control: you will own it just like your IRA or 401(k). This would not only give every American a much higher retirement income than any other bill before Congress, it would also solve the problem of Social Security's impending bankruptcy: as more Americans use their private accounts instead of burdening the current system, the Ryan-Sununu plan would create an ongoing multi-trillion dollar surplus roughly twenty years out.

This would completely eliminate the solvency crisis. More than that, it would give the current generation of retirees a huge benefit increase, and everyone else an enormous tax cut.

President Roosevelt understood: Americans need the right to contribute their hard-earned money to their own voluntary personal retirement accounts. These PRAs will let every American -- even our very poorest -- accumulate real assets, real nest eggs for retirement, and real inheritances for their children.

No one will benefit from this more than the lower and middle income working-class, who can never quite get out of poverty because the current system taxes away too much for them to save. No one, that is, except black Americans, whose lower life expectancy means they frequently die before ever receiving Social Security at all, and aren't allowed to pass anything on.

IRAs and 401(k)s have sparked an enormous capitalist revolution, transforming millions of regular Americans from ordinary workers into investors. It's time to complete that revolution. Let's help every American participate in this very American dream. It's time the poorest among us had the same benefits from our free market system that most of us take for granted.

It's the least we can do, for their sake, and for President Roosevelt's vision.

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Rod D. Martin is Founder and Chairman of Vanguard PAC. A former policy director to Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Special Counsel to PayPal.com Founder Peter Thiel, he is a member of the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy, a Vice President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), and editor and co-author of Thank You President Bush, the definitive handbook to the second term.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

The Long War or the Short Surrender - from The Federalist

This, IMHO, is the finest publication on the web or anywhere. I'm posting this here, now, to remind those who have lapsed in their memories of what we're fighting for and why. The cause never changes, just the enemy and the place. this is a fundamental battle for the right to exist.
The following is an excerpt from the 29 July 2005 Federalist Patriot No. 05-30 Friday Digest
-- Ichabod Crane
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THE FOUNDATION

"[I]t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." --Benjamin Franklin

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THE PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE

Top of the fold -- U.S. National Security: The Long War or the Short Surrender (Part III of a three-part series)

In the 1990's, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was a new sense of security in the West, particularly in the U.S. But the Free World had unwittingly traded the Cold War for the Long War -- "unwittingly" because after eight years of Clinton administration antics, and eight months of the newly-installed Bush administration's effort to reorder national priorities, most Americans were unaware that another deadly enemy had coalesced in our midst.

That false sense of security terminated abruptly on 11 September 2001, when one of this enemy's brigades attacked the World Trade Center -- for the second time. The first WTC attack on 26 February 1993 was treated by the Clinton administration as a "criminal act." Subsequent attacks by this enemy against Khobar Towers, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole were also investigated as criminal acts. The same would have been true after 9/11, except that President George Bush had the resolve to call this attack what it was -- an "act of war" -- terrorism carried out by an asymmetric enemy calling itself "al-Qa'ida" (The Base), which was part of an international unified Islamic terrorist network supported, in part, by nation states like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

This was a new kind of war, but it was war nonetheless.

Unlike symmetric threats emanating from clearly defined nation states like Russia and China -- nation states with unambiguous political, economic and geographical interests -- this asymmetric enemy defies nation-state status, thus presenting new and daunting national-security challenges for the executive branch and U.S. military planners.

Perhaps the most difficult of these challenges is the task of keeping Americans focused on why this asymmetric threat must be engaged (short of periodic catastrophic wake-up calls). Unfortunately, in deference to sensitivity and diversity, the Bush administration has yet to use the words "Muslim" or "Islamic" when attempting to define or, dare we say, "profile" this enemy. But the Bush administration, and the administrations of our Allies, depend on public support to prosecute the Long War ahead with Islamists.

Targeting al-Qa'ida and its Saudi protagonist Osama bin Laden may have initially precluded diminishing public support for the so-called "War on Terror," but protests against operations in Iraq and elsewhere are taxing morale both at home and on the warfront. Only two things can curtail this retreat. Either the Bush administration can do a better job of defining this enemy and its lethality, or the enemy can hit us again -- and as noted in parts I and II of this series, this enemy has the potential to hit much harder than it did on 9/11.

The latter is assured if the former fails.

President Bush must rightly define this enemy as Islamist zealots of Jihadistan, a borderless nation of Islamic extremists constituted by al-Qa'ida and other Muslim terrorist groups, calling for jihad, or "holy war," against "all the enemies of Allah." (If you're reading this, you are likely a non adherent -- and an enemy of Allah.) These Jihadis seek to disable the U.S. economy using any means at their disposal, and thus, undermine our political, military and cultural influence around the world. Ultimately, they want to contain or kill those who do not subscribe to their Islamofascist cult of hate.

The President must also convince our countrymen of the certainty that against Jihadistan, there is no neat Cold War doctrine like Mutually Assured Destruction to stay offensive measures. In this war, the only doctrine that can keep the enemy at bay is that of preemption -- and it must be maintained as long as there are Islamists capable of doing the West harm.

President Bush told the nation, "This is a long war, and we have a comprehensive strategy to win it. We're taking the fight to the terrorists abroad, so we don't have to face them here at home. We're denying our enemies sanctuary, by making it clear that America will not tolerate regimes that harbor or support terrorists."

Indeed, it will be a long war, and his Doctrine of Pre-emption is the best directive for strategy. But short of clear public comprehension of what constitutes "the enemy," which is a prerequisite to sustained public support, this essential war will be short-circuited, and Jihadis will, once again, move the warfront to our homeland.

There are plenty of domestic enemies who would undermine public support for the war against Jihadistan for purely political reasons. After all, there are midterm elections in 2006 and a presidential election in 2008. Rep. Nancy Pelosi claims, "The president's frequent references to the terrorist attacks of September 11 show the weakness of his arguments. He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of September 11, knowing that there is no connection between September 11 and the war in Iraq."

Sen. Harry Reid (who voted for Operation Iraqi Freedom) says, "The president's numerous references to September 11 did not provide a way forward in Iraq. ... 'Staying the course,' as the president advocates, is neither sustainable nor likely to lead to the success we all seek."

John Kerry alleges that President Bush has fabricated a "third rationale" for the war: "The first, of course, was weapons of mass destruction. The second was democracy. And now...it's to combat the hotbed of terrorism."

The President, in the national interest, must take the offensive against these opportunistic detractors in order to restore public support and confidence in the Long War. For we can be certain that this war will last beyond his presidency. Just how long might it last? That depends, in part, on how one defines its origin.

If the war began in 627 AD, five years after Islam's founding, when Mohammed committed his first genocide against a Jewish tribe, then the war is an epic struggle between Islam and other religions, especially against Jews and Christians, which is to say its conclusion is not foreseeable. If the war is an extension of the middle-age invasions of the West by rapacious Islam, whether the start date is the victory of Charles Martel at Tours (732 AD), the back and forth of Crusades (1095-1669) or defeats like Constantinople (1453 AD), the siege of Vienna (1529 AD), the fleet at Lepanto (1571 AD), or the gates Venice (1683 AD), then the war is a clash of civilizations which likely has centuries of conflict yet ahead.

But if the war against Jihadistan began, as suggested here, on 11 September 2001, taking into account that Jihadi attacks on Western targets date back to the 1960s, then it will likely continue for decades. After all, it took 70 years to topple the Evil Empire.

"Our generational commitment to the advancement of freedom, especially in the Middle East, is now being tested and honored in Iraq," says President Bush. As we approach the fourth observance of 9/11, we can be sure that Pelosi, Reid, Kerry, Kennedy and their Leftist cadre will run a masterful campaign of disinformation. Such a campaign will surely test the resolve of the American people, and the Bush administration would be well advised to begin vigorously cultivating public support by forthrightly defining this mortal enemy.

The Long War may yet end on a day when the West and its beacon of liberty, these United States, surrender. Of course, the consequences of surrender will be much worse than the consequences of the war itself, but a free nation must be free to do as its collective will chooses -- even it that means choosing to lose.

For the duration, pray that our capability to defend the U.S. on more than one theater warfronts while prosecuting the long war against Jihadistan is not tested.

Quote of the week...

"September 11 for me was a wake up call. Do you know what I think the problem is? That a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again." --British Prime Minister Tony Blair

On cross-examination...

"Thousands of innocent civilians such as [Theo] van Gogh have been murdered by Islamic extremists -- in Darfur, Gaza, India, Israel, Lebanon, London, Madrid, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States. The carnage gives credence to the adage that while the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the vast majority of global terrorists most certainly are Muslims. The killers always allege particular gripes -- Australian troops in Iraq, Christian proselytizing, Hindu intolerance, occupation of the West Bank, theft of Arab petroleum, the Jews, attacks on the Taliban, the 15th-century reconquest of Spain, and, of course, the Crusades. But in most cases -- from Mohamed Atta, who crashed into the World Trade Center, to Ahmed Sheik, the former London School of Economics student who planned the beheading of Daniel Pearl, to Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar, the suspected American-educated bomb-maker in London -- the common bond is not poverty, a lack of education or legitimate grievance. Instead it is blind hatred instilled by militant Islam." --Victor Davis Hanson

Open query...

"British citizens, who happen to be Muslim, murdered over 50 people, including themselves. Or, was it Islamists, who happen to be British, killed innocent people? It makes a difference. Brits today, Americans tomorrow, must know who their domestic enemies are and what kind of war they are fighting to win. Assuming Brits or Americans have the will to win. This World War is between a totalitarian ideology, born of a relatively barbaric culture, against all humankind." --James Atticus Bowden, military futurist (Does anyone think these bloody attacks will cease because we wish it were so?)