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Friday, September 29, 2006
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| A Good Week for Hillary '08 |
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A big rap against Hillary Clinton getting the Democratic presidential nod has been that her position on the Iraq War has put her at odds with the party’s anti-war base. Lefty bloggers and prominent liberal journals like The Nation have pounded away at her for not doing a John Kerry-like flip-flop on the war. But if the past few weeks prove anything, it shows the power of the Clinton political machine. A couple weeks back, Bill Clinton arranged a meeting with liberal bloggers in his New York City office. The bloggers “came away with stars in their eyes,” in the words of Paul West of the Baltimore Sun. Last weekend, the former president went after Fox News and conservatives, to the applause of the Democratic base. Democratic politicians and Clinton operatives also joined in the Fox bashing. Hillary Clinton then jumped in by hitting President Bush for not doing enough prior to September 11. She followed that by blasting the president over the terrorist detainee bill – a bill that gives “the Bush-Cheney Administration a blank check – a blank check to torture, to create secret courts using secret evidence, to detain people…” – again to the wild applause of the Democratic base. So in the blink of an eye, the Clintons fired up the base, took it to the Republicans and dominated the headlines. Come primary time, the Clinton machine will much more formidable than people realize should the New York senator make a run. Of course, the general election is another matter. Stay tuned. ![]()
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| FDR the Tyrant? |
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I assume many modern-day Democrats would view FDR as an extra-constitutional tyrant running a “thinly veiled military dictatorship.” From today’s Washington Post: The [terrorist detainee] bill contains some protections unavailable to the eight Nazi saboteurs who came ashore in the United States in 1942 and were captured two weeks later. Six were executed that year after a closed military trial on the fifth floor of Justice Department headquarters. That proceeding was upheld by the Supreme Court in a decision it explained two months after the electrocutions. Also, the Democratic Leadership Council’s Marshall Wittmann offers some tough words: It is safe to say that America is providing non-state combatant detainees more rights and better treatment than any other nation would do under similar circumstances. These military tribunals compare favorably with any others in our own history from Washington to Lincoln to FDR. The hysteria about "tyranny" in America is truly inappropriate.
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| (Update) Chavez to the Security Council? |
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(Today's Christian Science Monitor has more on his bid for a Security Council seat: “One country that supports Venezuela's campaign is China, which is perhaps not enthralled with the Chávez rhetoric but is lured by the idea of more countries holding its worldview on the Council. China has not been shy about its preference to see greater respect in Security Council deliberations for nation-states' rights, and less attention to individuals' universal rights - ideas implicit in Chávez's discourse.”) Posted on August 9, 2006: This fall the UN will vote to replace the current non-permanent members of the Security Council with new nations. Though little reported in the media, for many weeks Hugo Chavez has been traveling the globe trolling for enough votes from regimes opposed to the U.S. to get on the Council. He’s been offering cut-rate oil deals and has signed agreements to buy weapons. His latest campaign swing brought him to Tehran, where he lavished praise on the regime for standing up to the Americans. Now, he’s taken up the cause of Hezbollah and has accused Israel of perpetrating a “new Holocaust” in Lebanon. On Monday, Israel withdrew its ambassador to Venezuela. Earlier, Chavez recalled Venezuela’s charge d’affaires to Israel. In a recent televised speech, the BBC reports, Chavez said that he had no interest in maintaining diplomatic relations, or offices, or businesses, or anything with a state like Israel…. At least one very senior Republican I know of believes the Bush administration must make denying Chavez a seat on the Council a top priority. Specifically, all U.S. ambassadors should let their host country know that the U.S. government would view a vote for Chavez as an unfriendly act. The administration should also encourage a friendlier nation in Latin America to seek a Security Council seat. One thing is for sure: If Chavez succeeds, it would be very bad news for the U.S.
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Thursday, September 28, 2006
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| McCain v. Clinton |
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The Senate passed the terrorist detainee bill tonight, 65 to 34. The minority leader opposed final passage, as did all the prospective Democratic presidential candidates – Bayh, Biden, Kerry, Feingold, and Hillary Clinton. Here’s Sen. Clinton’s statement opposing the bill: The Senate, under the authority of the Republican Majority and with the blessing and encouragement of the Bush-Cheney Administration, is doing a great disservice to our history, our principles, our citizens, and our soldiers. The deliberative process is being broken under the pressure of partisanship and the policy that results is a travesty…. And here is McCain’s urging its passage: This legislation will allow the CIA to continue interrogating prisoners within the boundaries established in the bill. Let me state this flatly: it was never our purpose to prevent the CIA from detaining and interrogating terrorists. On the contrary, it is important to the war on terror that the CIA have the ability to do so. At the same time, the CIA’s interrogation program has to abide by the rules, including the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act….
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| (Update) Democratic Center, R.I.P. |
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(The House also passed legislation yesterday authorizing a robust terrorist wiretapping program. 177 Democrats voted against final passage, including Hoyer and Tauscher.) To understand just how much the Democratic center has collapsed look no further than Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer. Last September, Roll Call reported that Hoyer had cobbled together a dozen or so of his colleagues "to shape the Democratic strategy on national security issues and battle perceptions that the party is weak on defense." Hoyer also said that Democrats had lost the “national election because of national security” and because of a “lack of confidence of the American public.” A few months later, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA), a member of Hoyer's group and also onetime vice chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, co-sponsored legislation with Rep. John Conyers (MI) calling for the termination of the NSA's terrorist surveillance program -- a program Gen. Hayden said "has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States." Tauscher dubbed the Bush administration's actions "despicable.” Fast forward to yesterday’s House vote on the terrorist detainee legislation. Hoyer (along with Tauscher) was one of 160 Democrats who opposed the bill. Why? The bill "is really more about who we are as a people than it is about those who seek to harm us,” said Hoyer. “Defending America requires us to marshal the full range of our power: diplomatic and military, economic and moral. And when our moral standing is eroded, our international credibility is diminished as well." Actually, the bill, as Sen. McCain explained, keeps a critical wartime intelligence program going so we can disrupt al Qaeda operations to attack us. Look, [the] ACLU and the New York Times don't like the agreement, but we think this will recognize, people will recognize that it defends both our values and our security. Some want the CIA not to be able to carry out this program. That was never our intent. And--but it was--it's very important that we have this tool to collect intelligence. Democrats have now backed themselves into a corner with the ACLU and the New York Times. Republicans may want to note it. ![]()
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| The NIE and al Qaeda in Iraq |
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A reader emails on this ("Al-Qaida in Iraq: 4,000 Insurgents Dead") AP piece: Yikes. You mean they have an actual number? Do the guys who wrote the NIE think the Iraq war created more than 4000 active, fighting terrorists?
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| Some Questions for Hillary Clinton on the NIE |
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Senator Clinton made the following statement on the NIE on September 25: Its findings as described in the press are deeply distressing because they confirm what a lot of us feared that the policies pursued by this administration have not worked and therefore we are breeding terrorists who will not only take aim at us but at our friends and allies including innocent Iraqis who try to get up and go on with their lives. I have been a strong critic of the administration's policies from the very beginning - the way they have conducted themselves, the decisions they have made the strategic blunder after blunder that they are responsible for. I would hope that they would listen to other people and obviously they haven't been willing to do that which is why this election in November is so important. Does the senator now believe that it was a “strategic blunder” to take Saddam out in March 2003? Does she agree that Iraq was a “cause celebre” for al Qaeda prior to the invasion? Does she believe it would be a “strategic blunder” for President Bush to follow the advice of the Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and the other Ned Lamont Democrats and withdraw from Iraq? Would such a policy “breed” more “terrorists who will not only take aim at us but at our friends and allies including innocent Iraqis”?
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| Good News From Connecticut |
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Ned Lamont is still getting trounced in the polls, reports the Hartford Courant: Lieberman maintains a 10-point advantage among likely voters in the poll, leading Lamont 49 percent to 39 percent in a three-way race. Republican Alan Schlesinger trails with 5 percent…. Meanwhile, Marshall Wittmann over at the DLC writes: It appears that the vaunted grassroots campaign is running dry for cash. The Hartford Courant,
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Wednesday, September 27, 2006
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| Some Spine in Germany |
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Reuters reports: Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk. Merkel joins Australia’s John Howard in not knuckling under to threats and intimidation.
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| About That Millennium After-Action Report |
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Given Sen. Hillary Clinton's remark yesterday, I'm certain that if my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States' he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team," has the Richard Clarke-authored Millennium after-action report on the Clinton administration’s anti-terror efforts ever been made public? From the 9/11 report, Staff Statement Number 8: In a January 2000 note to Berger, Clarke reported that the CSG drew two main conclusions from the Millennium crisis. First, it had concluded that U.S.-led disruption efforts “have not put too much of a dent” into Bin Ladin’s network abroad. Second, it feared that “sleeper cells” or other links to foreign terrorist groups had taken root in the United States. Berger then led a formal Millennium after-action review....
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| Iraq & the "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" |
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In 1998, bin Laden officially declared war on all Americans. It was the “individual duty for every Muslim,” bin Laden declared, “to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military.” His declaration was apparently an effective recruitment tool. By 2001, al Qaeda had trained in Afghanistan “perhaps over 10,000 terrorists,” according to Richard Clarke, before they dispersed to "probably between 5o-60 counties." The 1998 war declaration/recruitment propaganda listed the “crimes and sins committed by the Americans” against Muslims. At the top of list was Iraq: First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. Charles Krauthammer put all this into perspective in light of the NIE last night on Fox News: On the one hand it is a "cause celebre," it attracts jihads. But in fact, Iraq before 9/11 was a "cause celebre." If you look at the declaration of war that Osama issued in 1998 against the United States, Iraq, with reasons No. 1 and No. 2. Andrew McCarthy has more here on Iraq and al Qaeda recruitment.
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| Amending Japan's Constitution |
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From AFP: Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has put rewriting the US-imposed pacifist constitution at the top of his agenda, a move that could lead to a more active military role overseas but alarm neighboring countries.
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006
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| The NIE & Dem Troop Withdrawal Plans |
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Here's the "Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States dated April 2006." Among other things, the NIE, which Democrats have embraced, indicates that a jihadist failure in Iraq would hurt their cause. It will be interesting to listen to Democrats explain how their troop withdrawal plans for Iraq would hasten that failure. As I noted earlier today, Democrats can’t even convince sympathetic generals to buy into what they’re selling on the cut-and-run front. Sen. McConnell has it right: Whoever leaked this report forgot to mention a key finding of the intelligence community: If we defeat the terrorists in Iraq, there will be fewer terrorists inspired to carry on the fight. In other words, defeating terrorists in Iraq not only secures that new democracy, but prevents future attacks here at home. This is a dramatically different message than the selective leaks to the media. Also, Robert Kagan makes some excellent points on the NIE in today’s Washington Post.
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| It's Called Democracy |
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The Supreme Court ruled against aspects of the president’s policy on the handling of those captured in the war we are engaged in. The elected president then goes to Congress seeking legislation that is consistent with the Court’s Hamdan decision. He comes to an agreement with Senators McCain, Graham and Warner on bill language. Elected officials will soon debate and vote on that language on the Senate floor. Amendments to that language will also be debated and voted on. What ever passes the Senate must then be reconciled with the House bill before both houses vote again on the final measure. Once passed, the bill will hit the president’s desk for his signature. And even after that, the Supreme Court can still weigh-in. Some disagreed with Sen. McCain’s role in all this and now, because they disagree with the compromise bill, are lecturing him on torture and implying that his actions in brokering a bill that keeps a critical intelligence program operating have aided the creation of a “thinly veiled military dictatorship.” I'd venture to guess that Sen. McCain has much more insight into the nature of military dictatorships than most of his critics.
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| To Govern is to Choose |
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The folks at Britain's Henry Jackson Society have an interesting response (click on "latest editorial") to David Cameron’s recent foreign policy speech that I discussed two weeks ago. They write: The cherry picking between the Hurd-Rifkind school of realism and the liberal interventionism of William Gladstone and Tony Blair is unsustainable. Mr. Cameron must realise now that the severe security and strategic challenges facing Britain and the international community calls for a coherent foreign policy which does not attempt to be all things to all people. Hesitation, indecision and muddled thinking are not what the present dangerous circumstances call for. Mr. Cameron’s speech exposes two competing world-views and two competing conceptions of Britain’s role in the world. Sooner or later he will have to choose which one it is that he truly believes is best for Britain’s security and prosperity.
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| Clinton v. Scheuer |
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From CBS News: SMITH: I want to go back now to Michael Scheuer once again. Let's talk about what President Clinton had to say on Fox yesterday. He basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify or verify that Osama bin Laden was responsible for a number of different attacks. Does that ring true to you?
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| Democrats Can't Convince Their Own Generals on Iraq |
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Yesterday, the Democrats got together with some retired generals who’ve been highly critical of Sec. Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq War. The generals spoke before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, but, as the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank notes, they also delivered a message the Democrats didn’t want to hear. But Democrats, while celebrating Batiste's criticism of the administration, exercised some selective listening at the hearing when Batiste and his colleagues offered their solution: more troops, more money and more time in Iraq. Is any of this cited on the Democratic Policy Committee website or in the press releases put out following the "hearing"? Not a chance. On troop levels the generals have a point, as the National Review's Rich Lowry and the Standard's William Kristol explain here.
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Monday, September 25, 2006
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| Confirm Bolton |
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One way to send a message to Hugo Chavez, as Sen. McCain argues, is for Senate Democrats to stop obstructing the confirmation of John Bolton as UN Ambassador. From the AP: Bolton Derides Venezuela Airport Protest
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| "Too Obsessed" |
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President Clinton also claimed on Fox News yesterday that “all the right-wingers” believed he was “too obsessed” with bin Laden, that he “did too much” in going after the al Qaeda head. The reality is a bit different. Many conservatives applauded Clinton’s decision to strike in Sudan and Afghanistan following the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. In November 1998, for example, Andrew McCarthy wrote a lengthy piece in the Weekly Standard in support of the strikes, but he also explained why the Clinton administration’s overall approach to combating the terror threat was woefully inadequate. Similar to what Reuel Marc Gerecht would argue in the wake of the USS Cole bombing, McCarthy pushed the administration to treat international terrorism as “a military problem, not a criminal-justice issue.” He wrote: Does the administration actually grasp the nature of the threat we face? Following the August 20 retaliatory strikes, secretary of state Madeleine Albright and national security adviser Samuel Berger rejected the predictable "wag the dog" accusations with solemn admonitions that, in terrorism, the United States has suddenly been confronted with a "new war" -- one we would now have to be prepared to fight, alone if necessary. This was exceedingly curious. There is nothing at all "new" about radical Islam's terrorist war against the United States. It has been going on since the late 1980s. It has been openly declared since the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, which killed six, injured over a thousand, and caused nearly $ 1 billion in damage. Its leaders, moreover, have been promising for more than five years that in pursuing this war, they would kill American civilians and bomb American military installations and embassies overseas….
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| "Hit Job" |
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"So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. What I want to know is…." President Clinton's remark aired on the very day two of the nation’s most prominent papers, the Washington Post and the New York Times, ran above-the-fold stories on a classified National Intelligence Estimate, selectively leaked by a Bush detractor no doubt, that purportedly concluded last April that the Iraq War has bolstered terrorist recruitment. Six weeks before the November election that NIE appears in the press, and the Democrats are busy putting out press releases crowing about it. “Hit job,” anyone?
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Sunday, September 24, 2006
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| Clinton, OBL & "All the Right-Wingers" |
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In his Fox News interview, President Clinton stated: All of President Bush’s neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much — same people. Not quite. In fact, this magazine published two cover pieces by contributing editor Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident fellow at the “right-wing/neocon” American Enterprise Institute, which criticized both the Clinton and Bush administrations for NOT forcefully responding "enough" to bin Laden following the USS Cole bombing. From “G-Men, East of Suez: A serious anti-terrorism policy would unleash the military, not deploy the Justice Department,” October 30, 2000: More important, the FBI's methods reveal, again, the strategic vacuum at the heart of the Clinton administration's counterterrorist policies. Trying to arrest and prosecute terrorists--treating terrorism as crime--actually endangers American power overseas. Traditional realpolitik and gunboat diplomacy--the only meaningful responses to terrorists who kill Americans--gets cast aside in favor of far-off prosecutions that may well do more damage to America than terrorism…. From “A Cowering Superpower: It's time to fight back against terrorism,” July 30, 2001: Usama bin Laden and his terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, scored an impressive victory by nearly sinking the Cole, yet Washington still has not responded. Our fear is pure oxygen to Islamic militants. Every alert, particularly when it panics U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, sends an adrenaline rush into the central nervous system of men truly convinced that with God’s help and the right explosives they can crack the will of the infidels who are, in their eyes, destroying the one true faith.
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| McCain: Win in Iraq; Expand Army/Marine Corps; Ignore ACLU/NY Times; Confirm Bolton |
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Senator McCain made some important points today on CBS’ Face the Nation. He pointed out that al Qaeda has recruited successfully over the years by highlighting its “successes” against the U.S., which is why “we need to prevail in Iraq.” Indeed, in the 1990s bin Laden would claim that Mogadishu and other events showed that America was "a paper tiger" and "a weak horse." He and his followers would use such imagery as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda, "the strong horse" in bin Laden's words, throughout the decade. In fact, though little reported in the media, al Qaeda had recruited and trained thousands before September 11, 2001. Richard Clarke told PBS' Frontline that by the end of 2000 al Qaeda had a presence "in probably between 50-60 countries [and] that they had trained thousands, perhaps over 10,000 terrorists at the camps in Afghanistan." ” McCain also called for a larger Army and Marine Corps, criticized the position of the ACLU and the New York Times on the recent terrorist interrogation deal, and said that Democrats should stop obstructing the confirmation of John Bolton as UN Ambassador – particularly after the “two-bit dictators” traveled to the UN in New York to trash the U.S. president. McCain… On Jihadist Recruitment and Winning in Iraq: I think that it's obvious that the difficulties we've experienced in Iraq have certainly emboldened [them]. Lack of success always does that. But I would also argue that these people didn't need any motivation to attack us on September 11th. According to their history--and there's some validity to it--this begins with bombing of the--and killing the Marines in Beirut, and then Somalia, and now other, quote, "successes" of theirs. But I would--I think it would argue that we need to prevail in Iraq, and that if we fail, then our problems would be much more complicated. But if it wasn't Iraq, it'd be Afghanistan; if it wasn't Afghanistan, it would be others that they would use as a method of continuing their recruitment…. On the Need for a Bigger Army and Marine Corps (also see the current Weekly Standard editorial here): We've got to expand, and should have five years ago, six years ago, expand the Army and the Marine Corps…. We live in a very dangerous world, and we not only need to have the equipment--which by the way, the Guard is having a problem with getting their equipment replaced--but we also need the personnel as well…. On the ACLU, NY Times: Look, [the] ACLU and the New York Times don't like the agreement, but we think this will recognize, people will recognize that it defends both our values and our security. Some want the CIA not to be able to carry out this program. That was never our intent. And--but it was--it's very important that we have this tool to collect intelligence. On the Democrats and John Bolton: But I would--I would say that this is an argument to get John Bolton confirmed as our UN ambassador. He's smart, he's tough, he would respond to these guys. And he could talk back to these two-bit dictators who have the air fare to New York. And I hope my Democrat friends will stop holding up the nomination of John Bolton.
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Saturday, September 23, 2006
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| Clinton's Errors of Omission |
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Here are some things Bill Clinton didn't mention in his Fox News Sunday interview that will air tomorrow morning. ABC's "The Path to 9/11," the USS Cole and John O'Neill What Newly Released al Qaeda Letters on Somalia/U.S. Withdrawal Tell Us Does Secretary Madeleine Albright Regret Calling for Regime Change in Iraq?
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| The Global War |
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Howard Dean may believe "THE fight on terror" is in Afghanistan. But the reality is the fight is global, as Tony Blair recently noted. Here's another example of what Blair's talking about from Reuters: MANILA, Sept 22 - Islamic militants from Indonesia have been training radicals in the southern Philippines in bomb-making, local officials said on Friday after the seizure of explosive devices at a guerrilla base in a remote island.
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| Clinton on Offense |
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Here's the transcript from President Clinton's anger-filled interview with Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace. The interview will air tomorrow. Clinton does make a few valid points, but he also neglects to mention many others. I’ll write more on this later.
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Friday, September 22, 2006
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| (Update) Keeping an Eye on Kosovo |
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(From AP: Bombings inflame tensions in Kosovo -- Over the past week, there have been four bombings…. But parliament speaker Kole Berisha insists the violence is a deliberate attempt to destabilize Kosovo at a delicate stage in its drive for statehood…. But the chances of more violence like the March 2004 riots that killed 19 people and displaced thousands "are unfortunately rather high," warned Alex Anderson, Kosovo project director for the International Crisis Group….) Posted on September 15, 2006: There will likely be more violent acts like this one as the current final status talks draw to a close -- and possibly for some time after. From AP: Kosovo interior minister's car bombed
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| (Update) The Rock Down Under |
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(If you get a chance, read Charles Krauthammer's excellent piece in today’s Washington Post. He writes: “And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday's craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam -- this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour. In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders.” John Howard isn’t one of those followers.) Posted on September 21, 2006: As I have noted many times, Australian Prime Minister John Howard is a rock-solid U.S. ally and a strong world leader in the War on Terror. He hasn’t taken the David Cameron path of backpedaling on the decision to remove Saddam from power or that of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who ran away from Iraq. And Howard hasn’t shied away from speaking out on the Pope’s recent comments and the ensuing intimation campaign, which, as the Wall Street Journal put it, is “trying to proscribe how free societies discuss one of the world's major religions.” An avid Standard reader from Australia sends along this interesting interview Howard gave on Australian TV on Tuesday. Some highlights: TONY JONES: Now, PM, let's move on to other issues: As you'd be well aware, the Pope has provoked anger in the Muslim world after quoting a 14th century emperor who accused the Prophet Mohammed of inspiring evil and inhuman human ideas and spreading his word by the sword. Now Australia's leading Catholic has called, again, for an examination of whether the Koran, and what the Koran, in fact, has written about violence. How refreshing.
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| Secret Negotiations? |
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AFP reports: Israel and Saudi Arabia have been conducting secret negotiations, the top-selling Hebrew daily reported on its front page.
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| A Twofer for McCain |
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Why? The ACLU and the editors at the New York Times don’t like the terrorist interrogation deal. The Times is urging Senate Democrats to filibuster the bill and the ACLU is calling it a “charade of a compromise.” It doesn’t get any better than that if you’re a Republican considering a run at the White House. Republicans can only hope that Senate liberals take the bait the New York Times has dangled in the front of them. And while the ACLU is dismayed with the deal, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas offered his support on Fox News: What the American people can be assured of is they're as aggressive as necessary, but short of the prohibitions against torture, cruel, and inhumane treatment.
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Thursday, September 21, 2006
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| Chavez & John Bolton |
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Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel were quick to condemn the remarks of Hugo Chavez. Good for them. But there’s something else afoot here. I suspect Democratic election strategists are a bit nervous over all this. Americans view Democrats as far more willing to work through the UN to deal with international problems than Republicans. Fair or unfair, the extensive news coverage of the UN circus (let alone the oil deals a few Democrats have cut with Chavez) isn’t helpful to the Democrats, and I bet Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid know it. So what should the Republicans do? Here’s a suggestion: bring John Bolton’s nomination to the Senate floor as soon as possible and ask Sen. McCain to lead the fight for his confirmation on the floor and in the media. McCain’s a very strong backer of Bolton, and Democrats would be hard pressed to maintain a filibuster preventing an up or down vote on Bolton. Moreover, the Republican message should be straightforward if a cloture vote is necessary: a vote to end the Bolton filibuster is a vote against Hugo Chavez. That will get the attention of voters.
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| The Rock Down Under |
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As I have noted many times, Australian Prime Minister John Howard is a rock-solid U.S. ally and a strong world leader in the War on Terror. He hasn’t taken the David Cameron path of backpedaling on the decision to remove Saddam from power or that of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who ran away from Iraq. And Howard hasn’t shied away from speaking out on the Pope’s recent comments and the ensuing intimation campaign, which, as the Wall Street Journal put it, is “trying to proscribe how free societies discuss one of the world's major religions.” An avid Standard reader from Australia sends along this interesting interview Howard gave on Australian TV on Tuesday. Some highlights: TONY JONES: Now, PM, let's move on to other issues: As you'd be well aware, the Pope has provoked anger in the Muslim world after quoting a 14th century emperor who accused the Prophet Mohammed of inspiring evil and inhuman human ideas and spreading his word by the sword. Now Australia's leading Catholic has called, again, for an examination of whether the Koran, and what the Koran, in fact, has written about violence. How refreshing.
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| Tale of Two Papers |
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Two newspapers with two very different opening paragraphs today on the state of the GOP -- From the Los Angeles Times: President Bush's approval rating has reached its highest level since January, helping to boost the Republican Party's image across a range of domestic and national security issues just seven weeks before this year's midterm election, a new Times/Bloomberg poll has found. From the New York Times: With barely seven weeks until the midterm elections, Americans have an overwhelmingly negative view of the Republican-controlled Congress, with substantial majorities saying that they disapprove of the job it is doing and that its members do not deserve re-election, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
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| Anti-American Left at Work |
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From AP: [Chavez] later spoke to hundreds of New Yorkers who filled a college hall Wednesday night, saying he hopes Americans choose an "intelligent president" in the future….
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
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| Georgia On Our Mind |
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Since the Georgian democratic revolution in 2003, U.S.-Georgia relations have warmed considerably. The U.S. military recently signed another military assistance accord with the former Soviet republic, and Radio Free Europe reports that NATO will announce tomorrow that formal talks will begin with Tbilisi that could eventually lead to full NATO membership. As you can see, Georgia sits in a strategically significant region of the world and, so far, has been a success story for American diplomacy.
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| Gov. Romney and Iraq |
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In an interview last night with Fox's Bill O’Reilly, Gov. Mitt Romney made some good points. He spoke on the global nature of the war we are engaged in and warned that too many in the world don’t fully understand the threat posed by the "extreme, violent jihadists.” The governor criticized those who advocate rapid withdrawal from Iraq, but he also took a shot at the Bush administration: “I don't think we had as effective a plan in place as we need to have or enough boots on the ground to secure the country but that's over now.” But the issue of whether we have “enough boots on the ground” today isn’t "over." Iraq is a major front in the war against the “extreme, violent jihadists,” which is why the National Review’s Rich Lowry and the Standard’s William Kristol continue to press for a surge in American forces –- see here and here –- to ensure that we prevail in a security environment that has steadily deteriorated. Gov. Romney should join them.
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| The McCain Argument |
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The Arizona senator has come under an avalanche of criticism from conservatives (though Reagan Secretary of State George Schulz supports his position) for his opposition to making changes to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Agree or disagree with him, McCain makes his case in today’s Union Leader: MY FRIEND Joe McQuaid has raised an important question. Can America prevail over a barbaric enemy who holds our values in contempt and uses them against us without compromising those values and altering long-standing treaty obligations that reflect them? I believe we can. He worries that we cannot.
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| Moral Clarity on the War Front |
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Tony Blankley explains in today's Washington Times.
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
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| (Update) Press the Advantage |
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(According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, "the Bush administration's strategy of emphasizing the continuing threat of terrorism may be having an effect. President Bush's job approval rating has risen to 44%. Americans have become more positive about the war on terror. Voters are more likely to support a candidate who backs Bush on terrorism rather than one who opposes him. By a slight margin, Americans tend to think the country will be safer if the GOP retains control of the House.”) Posted on August 22, 2006: Today's USA Today/Gallup poll shows an up tick in the president’s approval rating. It’s now 42 percent, “suggesting that more positive evaluations of Bush could be tied to his handling of terrorism.” Other polls also show a GOP advantage on security-related issues. An AP poll conducted well before the news of the latest terror bomb plot found: One bright spot for the GOP is that Republicans hold an advantage over Democrats on issues such as foreign policy and fighting terrorism _ 43 percent to 33 percent _ and a smaller edge on handling Iraq _ 36 percent to 32 percent. As I noted in July, if Democrats were hitting Republicans from the right on national security, the GOP would be in far deeper trouble. But naturally they’re not, which gives Republicans an opening to schedule as many security-related votes (with lots of debate) as possible before November 7. Also, Ned Lamont will likely say a lot of things before election day that will help make the GOP's case against the Democrats. Republicans should nationalize his comments as much as possible and note all the major Democrats who are actively campaigning for Lamont against the hawkish Lieberman. Americans aren't going to buy the Frank Rich line (see Sunday's New York Times) that the Lamont Democrats really are tough as nails on the terror front.
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| The Intimidation Machine Rolls On |
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Here are two pieces worth reading. The editors at the Wall Street Journal write: It's a familiar spectacle: furious demands for an apology, threats, riots, violence. Anything can trigger so-called Muslim fury: a novel by a British-Indian writer, newspaper cartoons in a small Nordic country or, this past week, a talk on theology by the head of the Roman Catholic Church…. And the AFP reports on the comments of Australian Archbishop Cardinal George Pell: "The violent reactions in many parts of the Islamic world justified one of Pope Benedicts main fears," Pell said in a statement late Monday.
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| (Update) The GSPC and the Terror War in Europe |
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(I noted in an earlier post that I’d checked to see if any of the material below is discussed and evaluated in the latest Senate Intelligence Committee report. It isn’t. In fact, there’s not a single mention of either group in the report. ) Posted on September 14, 2006: The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.” How did the GSPC come about? In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden: The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent.... The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote: The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.
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| An Unserious UN |
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This time things would be different. If Iran didn’t stop uranium enrichment by a date certain, Tehran’s defiance would be met by a tough, united international response. Think again. From The Independent: President Jacques Chirac has broken ranks with the US and Britain by calling for the suspension of UN Security Council action against Iran during negotiations over its nuclear programme.
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| The First Suicide Bombing in Somalia? |
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The AP reports: The president of Somalia's interim government narrowly escaped a suicide bomber yesterday — a new tactic in a troubled land where an Islamic militia is vying for power. The leader's brother and 10 others died in the blast and a subsequent gun battle.
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Sunday, September 17, 2006
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| The Footprint |
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As in Anbar, the areas in Baghdad with the most violence have the fewest troops. From today’s New York Times: On Thursday, the senior American military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said scores of mutilated bodies found in the middle of the week appeared to be ''from murder execution-style type activity.'' He said the rise in killings was occurring in parts of Baghdad where American forces had not swept through as part of the new security push.
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| Killing a Nun |
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From Reuters: Gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children's hospital in Mogadishu on Sunday in an attack that drew immediate speculation of links to Muslim anger over the Pope's recent remarks on Islam. Nuns aren’t the only targets. Today, as in other regions of the world, weapons have been increasingly aimed at moderate Muslims. From the BBC: The fighting pits a new group, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, against the Islamic Courts' militia....
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Saturday, September 16, 2006
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| (Update) To Govern is to Choose |
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(David Cameron's Clinton-like triangulation continues.) Posted on September 12, 2006: Britain's Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, made a few good points in a foreign policy speech delivered yesterday. But it was also a bit confusing on substance at times. The prospective British PM said, for example, that he supported the ouster of Saddam but then went on to quote a line from Democratic Senator Joe Biden about the perils of invading Iraq “virtually alone.” In March 2003, Prime Minister Blair made the tough decision to go into Iraq because the UN Security Council refused to enforce its own resolutions. Does Cameron now believe we should have left Saddam in power and pursued a policy of containment? Should Bush and Blair have waited until the French were onboard? He didn’t say. Cameron also noted: "Foreign policy decisions are not black and white, something which the public well understands.” The process of arriving at a decision may not be “black and white” in most cases, but making it surely is. To govern is to choose. Prime Minister Thatcher (who visited the White House yesterday) faced a choice: order the fleet to the Falklands or keep it away. She then faced another decision: to attack or not attack Argentine forces. John Major’s government had a choice: confront Serbian aggression early on in the Balkans or sit back. I suspect a Prime Minster Cameron may also have to make tough “black and white” decisions on Iran’s nuclear program, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and other issues off today’s radar screen. Should that time arrive, he may even gain a greater appreciation for the steadfastness of Tony Blair, a good friend of America who, in the face of withering criticism at home and abroad, didn’t "go wobbly" on us in Iraq .
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Friday, September 15, 2006
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| Post-Christian Europe? |
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Perhaps not. Pope John Paul II often spoke on the decline of European Christianity and the continent’s empty churches. But Pope Benedict XVI's recent trip to Germany may foreshadow a Christian resurgence, reports the Christian Science Monitor. [S]ome may be surprised at the receptivity in Germany this week to visiting Pope Benedict XVI's message: Europe needs to rethink the thesis that secularism and economic progress go hand in hand….
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| Keeping an Eye on Kosovo |
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There will likely be more violent acts like this one as the current final status talks draw to a close -- and possibly for some time after. From AP: Kosovo interior minister's car bombed
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| Why Lawrence Korb is Wrong on Iraq |
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The National Review's Rich Lowry writes: Lawrence Korb and Peter Ogden of the Center for American Progress had an op-ed in the Washington Post Thursday responding to the piece I wrote with Bill Kristol the other day. They argue we simply don’t have any additional troops to send to Iraq. The headline is, “Why We Can’t Send More Troops.” Note the “can’t.” Not “shouldn’t,” “can’t.” This is nonsense.
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Thursday, September 14, 2006
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| The GSPC and the Terror War in Europe |
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The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.” How did the GSPC come about? In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden: The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent.... The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote: The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.
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| Another Reason to Vote Lieberman |
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Jimmy Carter on CNN: "I've lost my confidence in Joe Lieberman and don't wish to see him re-elected." Meanwhile, taking a page out of Jimmy Carter's playbook, Bill Clinton is overseas dumping the U.S., reports The Times (London): "You've got a great economy, better growth than America has and less inequality than America."
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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| (Update) Fighting Corruption as an Anti-Poverty Program |
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(A reader from our good friend Australia writes: I saw your post 'Fighting Corruption as an Anti-Poverty Program' and how "too little attention is given to one of the biggest barriers to lifting nations out of chronic poverty -- rampant government and business corruption."
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| (Update) ABC's "The Path to 9/11," the USS Cole and John O'Neill |
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Regarding my September 8 post, a professor at one of the nation's war colleges emails: This line from Bodine's CYA op-ed says it all:
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Tuesday, September 12, 2006
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| To Govern is to Choose |
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Britain's Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, made a few good points in a foreign policy speech delivered yesterday. But it was also a bit confusing on substance at times. The prospective British PM said, for example, that he supported the ouster of Saddam but then went on to quote a line from Democratic Senator Joe Biden about the perils of invading Iraq “virtually alone.” In March 2003, Prime Minister Blair made the tough decision to go into Iraq because the UN Security Council refused to enforce its own resolutions. Does Cameron now believe we should have left Saddam in power and pursued a policy of containment? Should Bush and Blair have waited until the French were onboard? He didn’t say. Cameron also noted: "Foreign policy decisions are not black and white, something which the public well understands.” The process of arriving at a decision may not be “black and white” in most cases, but making it surely is. To govern is to choose. Prime Minister Thatcher (who visited the White House yesterday) faced a choice: order the fleet to the Falklands or keep it away. She then faced another decision: to attack or not attack Argentine forces. John Major’s government had a choice: confront Serbian aggression early on in the Balkans or sit back. I suspect a Prime Minster Cameron may also have to make tough “black and white” decisions on Iran’s nuclear program, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and other issues off today’s radar screen. Should that time arrive, he may even gain a greater appreciation for the steadfastness of Tony Blair, a good friend of America who, in the face of withering criticism at home and abroad, didn’t "go wobbly" on us in Iraq .
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| Oil's Decline Should Worry Tehran |
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Radio Free Europe reports that the Iranian oil minister is worried enough about falling crude prices to float consideration of OPEC production cuts. “’The high level of crude oil production has led global oil reserves to rise above the usual level,’ he said [in Vienna], provoking ‘instability and the decline in prices in the past month.’" Lower oil revenue is a big deal to a regime that uses the cash to avert domestic instability. As the Washington Post reported last May, Iran uses a good chunk of that [oil] money to raise public-sector wages and to subsidize its own gasoline prices, one way to keep domestic discontent in check when unemployment is running at more than 12 percent and inflation at 13 percent. All this is why squeezing Iran’s oil revenue should be a top priority of the U.S. government, as former Bush administration official Mark Sumerlin argues here.
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| Suing the Terror Fighters |
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From today's Wall Street Journal editorial: What would Jack Bauer do? If he worked at the CIA in real life today, the anti-terror hero of Fox's "24" would apparently be buying insurance in case the ACLU or John Kerry decided to sue or subpoena him for protecting America with too much vigor.
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Monday, September 11, 2006
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| (Update) "Scrambling" to Fill the Troop Gap, Again |
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(National Review's Rich Lowry and the Standard's Bill Kristol weigh in on the troop issue in today’s Washington Post.) In Iraq, the lack of troops has been a major problem for years, and little has been done about it. A review: From the May 3, 2004 Weekly Standard: But can the coalition get the insurgency under control with the forces it now has available? Only if it is very, very lucky. A wise strategy would be to immediately dispatch at least six more combat brigades (about 40,000 troops with their necessary support groups), sending one each to Falluja, Karbala, Najaf, and Mosul, one to strengthen the patrols along the Iranian border (we might even need one more along the Syrian border, given the recent violence there), and one for a reserve. We can already see sufficient dangers in these areas to warrant preventive reinforcements. If we increase our presence now, we might be able to deter new problems, with increased patrolling, and to solve some old ones--including the standoff with Moktada al-Sadr that has been allowed to drag on very dangerously. From the New York Times, June 16, 2005: After the battle here in September [2004] the military left behind fewer than 500 troops to patrol a region twice the size of Connecticut. With so few troops and the local police force in shambles, insurgents came back and turned Tal Afar, a dusty, agrarian city of about 200,000 people, into a way station for the trafficking of arms and insurgent fighters from nearby Syria -- and a ghost town of terrorized residents afraid to open their stores, walk the streets or send their children to school. From the April 26, 2006 Stars and Strips: U.S. troops entered Mukhisa and the adjacent town of Abu Kharma on Sunday after hearing that the region is home to foreign fighters, members of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s group and financiers behind roadside bomb and mortar attacks, said Lt. Col. Thomas Fisher, battalion commander.... From a May 30, 2006 Washington Post piece: ...Marine officers on the ground have been open for more than a year now about needing more troops in Anbar, whose Sunni population, remoteness and comparative lawlessness have made it a stronghold for the insurgency. Anbar borders Syria, a conduit for some of the weapons, money and fighters. From AP, June 19, 2006: Hundreds of American and Iraqi troops backed by a U.S. gunship pushed into an insurgent-infested section of eastern Ramadi, expanding their campaign to bolster their presence in one of Iraq’s most violent cities…. And now this piece, “Situation Called Dire in West Iraq,”, from today’s Washington Post: [Chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq Col Pete] Devlin offers a series of reasons for the situation, including a lack of U.S. and Iraqi troops, a problem that has dogged commanders since the fall of Baghdad more than three years ago, said people who have read it. These people said he reported that not only are military operations facing a stalemate, unable to extend and sustain security beyond the perimeters of their bases, but also local governments in the province have collapsed and the weak central government has almost no presence. The stakes couldn’t be higher in Iraq, but our commanders are still, years after the invasion, “scrambling” to fill the troop gap. The buck stops where?
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| Is "No Kite Flying" Next? |
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The BBC reports: A Somali radio station has resumed broadcasting after it was closed down by Islamist leaders for playing local love songs.
A Sudanese newspaper editor who was kidnapped by armed men has been found beheaded. Securitywatchertower.com has more here.
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| What Giuliani's Op-Ed Reveals |
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If you get a chance, I highly recommend reading Mayor Giuliani’s piece in USA Today. What it shows is that if Giuliani jumps into the presidential race he’ll offer a tough, clear-minded view into the nature of the enemy, and he will be unabashed in taking on the liberals on national security issues. The mayor may want to consider following up with some speeches defending our strategic policy since September 11 and note some of this regarding America's global image. Some highlights from the Giuliani piece: The attacks did not begin on Sept. 11, 2001. They actually began sometime in the late 1960s, when Islamic radicals started hijacking planes and directing terror at civilians. The first attack that drew significant international attention was the slaughter of the Israeli wrestling team at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Numerous attacks followed, leading up to Sept. 11 and the deadliest ever attack on American soil.
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| "Where the Fight on Terror Is" |
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Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday, Howard Dean stated: You know, Afghanistan is turning against us, and that is where the fight on terror is. That's where Osama bin Laden is. Osama bin Laden has not been captured five years later. That's a big problem. The “fight on terror is” in Afghanistan, but it’s also in Iraq and in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. The fight is “global,” as Tony Blair explained a few weeks back: "No-one who ever half bothers to look at the spread and range of activity related to this terrorism can fail to see its presence in virtually every major nation in the world." Afghanistan became a terror state in the 1990s, when the Taliban took control and offered bin Laden and his terror cohorts safe harbor from which they trained “perhaps over 10,000 terrorists,” according to Richard Clarke, before they dispersed to "probably between 5o-60 counties." Today, Afghanistan and Iraq are major fronts in the "fight on terror." Zawahiri explained Iraq's importance in his letter to Zarqawi: “The first stage," he wrote, is to “expel the Americans from Iraq.” He also counseled Zarqawi to be prepared: [T]hings may develop faster than we imagine. The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam-and how they ran and left their agents-is noteworthy. Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them. We must take the initiative and impose a fait accompli upon our enemies, instead of the enemy imposing one on us, wherein our lot would be to merely resist their schemes. Dean may believe that the only "fight on terror" is in Afghanistan, but the enemy who hit us on September 11 surely doesn’t.
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Sunday, September 10, 2006
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| (Update) Squeezing Iran |
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(Marc Sumerlin, formerly deputy director of the National Economic Council, outlines a sanctions strategy in the current Weekly Standard. He notes: "The most important policy would be to announce without delay a coordinated release of strategic petroleum stocks…. Global government-controlled petroleum of IEA member countries could offset about 20 months of Iranian oil exports--a figure that should not only make Tehran nervous, but could also allow for an over-release, providing more oil to markets than was taken off-line. A coordinated oil release would shift supply from religious fanatics to known allies and demonstrate that oil vulnerability can be a two-way street. During the Persian Gulf war, a release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was announced on the same day that the war began.") Posted September 5, 2006: David Lynch has a very interesting piece in today’s USA Today. It suggests that that the conventional wisdom on Iran – that it holds all the economic cards in the nuclear showdown – is largely wrong. The regime may be much more vulnerable to comprehensive sanctions than many realize. Lynch notes that foreign direct investment in Iran is one-tenth that of Turkey, unemployment hovers in the double digits, and, since Ahmadinejad took office, Iran’s stock market has plummeted 32 percent. He writes: As Iran hurtles toward a confrontation with the United States over its nuclear program, the nation's economy remains a dysfunctional wreck…. Other reports have also touched on Iran's shaky economy. In May, the Washington Post pointed out: "Experts on Iran point to a number of reasons it might be reluctant to cut oil exports. Oil accounts for 85 percent of Iran's exports, according to an International Monetary Fund report issued last month. Revenue from those exports makes up 65 percent of government income. And Iran uses a good chunk of that money to raise public-sector wages and to subsidize its own gasoline prices, one way to keep domestic discontent in check when unemployment is running at more than 12 percent and inflation at 13 percent." And in April, Radio Free Europe reported that Iran's president had been traveling around the country reassuring people on the economy: President Ahmadinejad has discussed the issue of unemployment -- estimated to be at least 11 percent and closer to 20 percent -- in several recent speeches, hinting at his recognition that he must satisfy voters' most immediate concerns. He announced in the northeastern town of Quchan on April 11 that 180 trillion rials (approximately $200 million) will be distributed in the provinces for job creation, IRNA reported. In a speech in Mashhad on April 10, he said, "Employment is one of the most important issues to be tackled by the nation and the government," state television reported. "There are so many young people who have a specialization. They have learned and studied but there is no employment opportunity for them." All this suggests that the regime’s stability would be highly vulnerable to UN Security Council-imposed sanctions. But passing Chapter 7 sanctions would require Russia and China to act responsibly, which is why John Bolton is making alternative plans on the sanctions front.
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Friday, September 08, 2006
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| (Update II) Crackpot U |
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(KSL.com reports: "A controversy over words at BYU this morning. A professor is on paid leave for suggesting the government is responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center. The man on paid leave is Dr. Steven Jones. He's a physics professor involved in the so-called ‘9-11 Truth Movement.’” Last week, Reuters reported on another professor from the “9/11 Truth” group who teaches at the University of New Hampshire.)
The U.S government murdered thousands of its own citizens on September 11, 2001. That theory has been circulating among an assortment of America haters, Jew haters, paranoids … and a few professors at U.S. universities. An upcoming cover story in The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at a group called “Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which includes about 50 professors – more in the humanities than in the sciences – from institutions like Clemson University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin.” The co-chair of the group, Steven E. Jones, is from, of all places, Brigham Young University and has been roundly denounced by his colleagues at the Utah campus. Jones and the others believe preplanted explosives took down the World Trade Centers. Why? In order to “manipulate Americans” into supporting policies, as the conspiracy thinking goes, that seek world domination through the barrel of a gun and to fatten the profits of the oil companies and weapons manufactures. Another “scholar,” David Ray Griffin, wrote the book, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, “exposing to the American people and the world the truth about 9/11.” A blurb on the book’s jacket reads: The most persuasive argument I have seen for further investigation on the Bush administration’s relationship to that historic and troubling event. The blurb’s author isn’t some obscure academic. It’s Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, best-selling author and frequent speaker at American universities across the country. The good news is that unlike Zinn most other academics in the U.S. believe “Scholars for 9/11 Truth” are just a bunch of crackpots.
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| Gingrich Corrects the Record on Iran |
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Letter to the Editor of the Washington Times, September 6, 2006: Friday's Page One article "Gingrich opposed to U.S. strike on Iran" suggests that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich would oppose a possible military action against Iran to prevent the regime from becoming a nuclear power. This is not true. Good points.
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| ABC's "The Path to 9/11," the USS Cole and John O'Neill |
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Weighing in on the ABC mini-series "The Path to 9/11," the former ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, writes ("9/11 Miniseries is Bunk") in today’s Los Angeles Times: One of the myths perpetuated by ABC played out in the steamy port city of Aden, Yemen, in October 2000, using an FBI agent out of New York, John O'Neill, and the U.S. ambassador to that country. According to the mythmakers, a battle ensued between a cop obsessed with tracking down Osama bin Laden and a bureaucrat more concerned with the feelings of the host government than the fate of Americans and the realities of terrorism. I know this is false. I was there. I was the ambassador. John O’Neill was no ordinary FBI agent tasked to Yemen to investigate the Cole bombing. Long before September 11, O’Neill had warned about the threat al Qaeda posed to the U.S. In late August 2001 he took a job as head of security at the World Trade Center. He was killed there on September 11. PBS’ Frontline aired an excellent program on O’Neill called “The Man Who Knew” in October 2003. The program focused on O’Neill’s uphill battle against the U.S. government bureaucracy and also on what happened in Yemen following the USS Cole bombing. O’Neill can’t defend his actions today, so here’s the Yemen-related section from the Frontline transcript: NARRATOR: To protect the hundreds of investigators on the ground, O'Neill and American military commanders wanted to show the Yemenis a forceful presence -- guns ready, perimeters established. But much to O'Neill's surprise, that approach quickly angered the American ambassador, Barbara Bodine, who felt his actions were harming U.S.-Yemeni government relations. Frontline also speculated on the “what if” O’Neill was allowed to continue his investigation in Yemen: Following Sept. 11, Fahad al-Quso was interrogated again in Yemen on Sept. 12, 13 and 14 by FBI and Navy investigators, who had only just returned to Yemen a few days earlier. One of O'Neill's last acts at the FBI in late August 2001 was to sign the authorization for that return. One last thing. Contrary to Bodine’s claim of the “cooperative relationship” between the US and Yemeni governments, Richard Clarke told Frontline just the opposite: The first thing was the government of Yemen didn't want us to know all the details; in part, because that would reveal that some low-level people in the Yemeni government may have been part of the conspiracy; in part, because it would have shown that the Yemeni government didn't really have control over a large section of Yemen; in part because it would have shown that Yemen was filled with terrorists from a whole variety of different organizations. So Yemen didn't want to cooperate fully, didn't want us to see everything that was there.
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Thursday, September 07, 2006
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| Good Grief |
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It's definitely campaign season. This proposal -- the idea that you would cede decisions of such magnitude from the elected commander-in-chief to ground commanders -- is beyond silly. The President, whether Republican or Democrat or Independent, decides when the military objective has been met and the mission complete.
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| The "International Community" at Work |
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AFP reports that "China has said it remains opposed to sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear drive, one day after top US envoy Christopher Hill nudged Beijing to take more action over the issue.” Guess this is one way China is thanking us for going to bat for them at the I.M.F.
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| Say It Ain't So, Joe |
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In a speech today, Senator and potential Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden "blasts" the president’s national security policies: It is time for America to recapture the totality of our strength -- our military, economic, and diplomatic might…. That is what won the Cold War. That is what has gotten lost these past five years. That’s interesting. At least during the Reagan years, the vast bulk of Democrats fought the very policies that accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union. And many of them are the same ones who are today advocating an Iraq troop pullout policy that would, in the view of many, bolster the terrorists. In the past, Biden has kept his distance from the Dean/Moveon.org wing of his party. But his presidential ambitions may be changing that -- especially as the primary campaign heats up.
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| (Update) Romney v. Khatami/Harvard |
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(The news gets better for Romney with the editors of the Boston Globe attacking him for being “under the influence of those deliberate simplifiers” in the “far right.” Of course, one major thing the liberal sophisticates at the Globe don’t mention is that under Khatami, as Middle East scholar Reuel Marc Gerecht has noted, “the Islamic Republic probably made its most profound clandestine nuclear strides during the presidency of the ‘clerical leftist reformer.’")
Call it a twofer. In conservative circles, bashing Khatami and Harvard is never bad politics. Thus, the Romney folks just put out this press release: ROMNEY DENOUNCES KHATAMI VISIT TO HARVARD
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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
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| Kaplan, McCain and Iraq |
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The Atlantic Monthly's Robert Kaplan has a piece (sub req’d), “Hostage to Fortune,” worth reading in today’s Wall Street Journal. He makes one point that Republicans hardly ever talk about nowadays: [I]magine how Saddam might have dominated the Arab masses – with rising oil prices, the $50-billion ongoing Oil for Food coverup, a leading-nowhere regimen of no-fly zones, and European and Chinese intrigues to restore his legitimacy in return for energy concessions. Saddam as the new Nasser is a plausible alternative history in Iraq. Kaplan also notes that inadequate troop levels in Iraq have damaged our effort to stabilize the country. Others have made the same point going back to post-invasion 2003. For example, in a speech on November 5, 2003, Sen. McCain, who strongly opposes current Democratic cut and run plans, stated: The United States will fail in Iraq if our adversaries believe they can outlast us. If our troop deployment schedules are more important than our staying power, we embolden our enemies and make it harder for our friends to take risks on our behalf. When the United States announces a schedule for training and deploying Iraqi security officers, then announces the acceleration of that schedule, then accelerates it again, it sends a signal of desperation, not certitude…. When we do this as our forces are coming under increasing attack, we suggest to friends and allies alike that our ultimate goal in Iraq is leaving as soon as possible - not meeting our strategic objective of building a free and democratic country in the heart of the Arab world.
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| Time's Klein on Iraq/al Qaeda |
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Tom Jocelyn has some interesting stuff on his blog regarding a Q & A exchange Time columnist Joe Klein had yesterday on the magazine’s web site. PS-- Klein also writes: "I think Murtha's plan is to withdraw to neighboring countries, so we can move in and out of Iraq in case of emergencies—and operations like the Zarqawi kill. I'm against that because I believe that if you're a citizen of Baghdad, every day is an emergency—and we have a moral requirement to provide all the security those folks need (which we have failed in doing, miserably)." I entirely agree.
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| (Update) "Containing" Iran |
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(The Times in Britain reports that the war with Hezbollah has led to a “strategic rethink in Israel” that focuses on “the two biggest state sponsors of terrorism in the region, who pose a far greater danger to Israel’s existence.”) Posted on July 18, 2006: If the world flinches and the Iranian regime is allowed to move forward with its nuclear weapons plans, does anyone honestly believe the Israelis won’t act at some point to stop or degrade Tehran’s ability to produce a bomb – even if it takes weeks to do it? I doubt they want to go down this road and would prefer a Security Council-imposed solution. But I also doubt the Israeli government will be convinced by op-ed writers making the case for a policy of containment of a nuclear-armed Iran. After experiencing the result of the Iranian-supplied Hezbollah arms buildup and dodging a bullet with the capture of the ship the Karine A (in 2002 the Iranians sought to consolidate another beachhead against Israel by smuggling 50 tons of weapons, including Katyusha rockets, into Gaza), it’s unlikely they’ll sit idly by as Iran goes nuclear while most of the world shrugs its shoulders. All of this is why a failure of the UN Security Council to act forcefully in the face of Tehran’s continued defiance will likely set the stage for a far larger conflict down the road. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime is banking on the continued protection of Russia and China from UN-imposed sanctions – sanctions that would likely wreck havoc with Iran’s economy and put pressure on the government to forgo its nuclear weapons plans. That said, today's Wall Street Journal editorial explains all this much better than I can: The war between Hezbollah and Israel is a tragedy for its victims, but it could also be a clarifying moment if the world draws the proper lessons. To wit, this is a preview of what the Middle East will look like if Iran succeeds in going nuclear.
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| Financing Terror |
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The Globe and Mail in Canada has more on the plot to destroy a British landmark using 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate. She started out looking for a husband. Instead, the young Carleton University student became a key conduit for thousands of dollars that, police say, was financing terrorism.
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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
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| Conversion at Gunpoint |
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Paul Marshall's piece, "A Conversion You Can't Refuse," in the current Weekly Standard provides some useful context to an Associated Press report, “Palestinian group to target non-Muslims,” that ran on Saturday. From AP: Palestinian militants who held two Fox News journalists hostage for nearly two weeks threatened in a statement posted online Saturday to abduct non-Muslims visiting the Palestinian territories and kill them unless their demands were met….
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| Romney v. Khatami/Harvard |
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Call it a twofer. In conservative circles, bashing Khatami and Harvard is never bad politics. Thus, the Romney folks just put out this press release: ROMNEY DENOUNCES KHATAMI VISIT TO HARVARD
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| Squeezing Iran |
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David Lynch has a very interesting piece in today’s USA Today. It suggests that that the conventional wisdom on Iran – that it holds all the economic cards in the nuclear showdown – is largely wrong. The regime may be much more vulnerable to comprehensive sanctions than many realize. Lynch notes that foreign direct investment in Iran is one-tenth that of Turkey, unemployment hovers in the double digits, and, since Ahmadinejad took office, Iran’s stock market has plummeted 32 percent. He writes: As Iran hurtles toward a confrontation with the United States over its nuclear program, the nation's economy remains a dysfunctional wreck…. Other reports have also touched on Iran's shaky economy. In May, the Washington Post pointed out: "Experts on Iran point to a number of reasons it might be reluctant to cut oil exports. Oil accounts for 85 percent of Iran's exports, according to an International Monetary Fund report issued last month. Revenue from those exports makes up 65 percent of government income. And Iran uses a good chunk of that money to raise public-sector wages and to subsidize its own gasoline prices, one way to keep domestic discontent in check when unemployment is running at more than 12 percent and inflation at 13 percent." And in April, Radio Free Europe reported that Iran's president had been traveling around the country reassuring people on the economy: President Ahmadinejad has discussed the issue of unemployment -- estimated to be at least 11 percent and closer to 20 percent -- in several recent speeches, hinting at his recognition that he must satisfy voters' most immediate concerns. He announced in the northeastern town of Quchan on April 11 that 180 trillion rials (approximately $200 million) will be distributed in the provinces for job creation, IRNA reported. In a speech in Mashhad on April 10, he said, "Employment is one of the most important issues to be tackled by the nation and the government," state television reported. "There are so many young people who have a specialization. They have learned and studied but there is no employment opportunity for them." All this suggests that the regime’s stability would be highly vulnerable to UN Security Council-imposed sanctions. But passing Chapter 7 sanctions would require Russia and China to act responsibly, which is why John Bolton is making alternative plans on the sanctions front.
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| No Holiday |
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Christopher Hitchens isn't a fan of making September 11 a national holiday: I don't care that I am no longer able - because of the supposed "sensitivities" of people who were only involved at random - to watch the graphic pictures of what really happened. I have those pictures in my head, and can see them at any time. I think about the images of New York, and of my hometown of Washington, and most especially of United Airlines Flight 93 and of Shanksville, Pa., every day. I denounce the depraved ideology that organized the murders and that organizes similar murders in Iraq and Spain and Turkey and Egypt, and I carry a knife in my heart for the degenerated fanatics who carry out such deeds.
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Monday, September 04, 2006
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| From Agence France Presse |
The Georgian interior ministry revealed Monday that an attempt had been made on August 28 to down the helicopter carrying US ally [Georgian president] Saakashvili and a team of US senators led by influential Republican lawmaker John McCain.
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Sunday, September 03, 2006
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| (Update) Vets for Lieberman |
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(Vets for Freedom has released a new television ad, reports the New York Times, featuring Connecticut veterans: “When we were over there, it was important to know that someone had our back,’’ one veteran says. “Like Senator Lieberman,” adds a second. The ad continues with four phrases, with each veteran saying one: “No matter how complicated it got,’ “He was there for us.’’ “Now that we’re home, we’re here for him.” “He stood with troops and their mission.”) Posted on August 11, 2006: Two Iraq War veterans, Wade Zirkle and Connecticut native Josh Clark, make the case for Joe Lieberman in today’s Wall Street Journal. They write: Joseph Lieberman's primary loss might be a satisfying victory for the partisan extremes, but it is a sharp blow to bipartisan efforts to prevail in a global war that may span generations. Click here for more information.
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| (Update) Blowing Apart Trains over Cartoons |
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(Bloomberg news reports: "Danish authorities arrested nine people suspected of involvement in planning a terrorist attack, the country's police intelligence service said…. The arrests were made after police uncovered evidence that a number of the suspects had 'materials that can be used for the construction of explosives in connection with preparation for an act of terror,' [intelligence] service head Lars Findsen said in the statement." From AP: The prime suspects in the failed attempt to blow up two German trains were partly motivated by anger over the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons, a leading investigator said in an interview released Saturday. (Bloomberg news reports: Danish authorities arrested nine people suspected of involvement in planning a terrorist attack, the country's police intelligence service said…. The arrests were made after police uncovered evidence that a number of the suspects had ``materials that can be used for the construction of explosives in connection with preparation for an act of terror,'' [intelligence] service head Lars Findsen said in the statement.
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| What Next? |
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It's always interesting to read Sen. John Warner's take on what is going on in Iraq today. But missing from the piece is exactly what George Will would do (not just what he wouldn't do) now in Iraq. After all, before the war he advanced straightforward arguments making the case for removing Saddam from power. Some examples: [O]pposition to the war against Iraq rests on and sometimes does not rise above a truism, the fact that war costs lives. Opponents say if we leave Saddam in power but continue today's policy of containment, lives will be saved. But that is not true…. Under the UN sanctions, Saddam is allowed to sell enough oil to purchase food and medicine to meet the basic needs of the Iraqi people, but Saddam uses the money to fuel his war machine and lets the babies die. So another ten years of containment would involve the slaughter of at least another 360,000 Iraqis, 240,000 of them children under five. Walter Russell Mead says those are the low estimates. If the UN's numbers are right, another decade of containment would kill one million Iraqi civilians, including 600,000 children. So as Americans debate the morality of the war against Iraq, remember these numbers and remember this picture of an Iraqi child suffering the effects of the current policy of containment. And: [T]he demonstrators must know that if they turn President Bush into "the noble Duke of York" (who "had ten-thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again"), Saddam will bestride the Middle East, and emulators -- and weapons of mass destruction -- will proliferate....
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Saturday, September 02, 2006
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| (Update) Crackpot U |
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(New Hampshire tax dollars at work. From Reuters: A University of New Hampshire professor has come under fire from state politicians for teaching his unconventional view that a U.S. government conspiracy allowed the September 11, 2001 attacks to occur…. "What we learn in the mainstream is not the full story," [William] Woodward said in an interview. "To label this as extreme is really a frame that the mainstream media has promulgated to the exclusion of scientific views.") Posted on June 21, 2006: The U.S government murdered thousands of its own citizens on September 11, 2001. That theory has been circulating among an assortment of America haters, Jew haters, paranoids … and a few professors at U.S. universities. An upcoming cover story in The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at a group called “Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which includes about 50 professors – more in the humanities than in the sciences – from institutions like Clemson University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin.” The co-chair of the group, Steven E. Jones, is from, of all places, Brigham Young University and has been roundly denounced by his colleagues at the Utah campus. Jones and the others believe preplanted explosives took down the World Trade Centers. Why? In order to “manipulate Americans” into supporting policies, as the conspiracy thinking goes, that seek world domination through the barrel of a gun and to fatten the profits of the oil companies and weapons manufactures. Another “scholar,” David Ray Griffin, wrote the book, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, “exposing to the American people and the world the truth about 9/11.” A blurb on the book’s jacket reads: The most persuasive argument I have seen for further investigation on the Bush administration’s relationship to that historic and troubling event. The blurb’s author isn’t some obscure academic. It’s Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, best-selling author and frequent speaker at American universities across the country. The good news is that unlike Zinn most other academics in the U.S. believe “Scholars for 9/11 Truth” are just a bunch of crackpots.
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Friday, September 01, 2006
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| Bull's Eye |
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Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, held a press conference late this afternoon on the I believe that the course that we've taken overall has been the right one, which is -- remember, we had no defense against these weapons. We had no defense in the United States against a long-range missile that was launched at the United States, we had no defense for many, many years. And so this is the first time that we've been able to demonstrate a capability that we do have, in fact, using the operational configurations of the interceptors, the operational radars, the operational fire control system. The entire transcript may be found here.
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| Gingrich's Iran Straddle |
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Containment advocates oppose military action against Iran's nuclear facilities, arguing that a strike won’t work, that the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran is exaggerated, and that Iran can be contained. Others argue that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, that all options should remain on the table, and that a Soviet-like containment policy is full of holes. Then there’s Newt Gingrich. Today’s Washington Times reports: In an impromptu speech during a Mediterranean cruise that hosted scores of conservative donors and activists, the Georgia Republican expressed unexpected skepticism about prospects of military intervention to halt Iran's nuclear program…. Gingrich is pushing what is essentially a containment plus strategy. Reagan came into office in 1981; the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Does anyone believe that Iran won’t acquire a nuclear weapon in the next, say, 3-8 years? He’s right that regime change would be desirable, but we have no idea whether the implementation of such a policy would bear fruit before the Ahmadinejad regime acquired a weapon. And even if one harbors doubts about the efficacy of military strikes against Tehran’s nuclear facilities, it’s hard to imagine how foreclosing the option so publicly strengthens the diplomatic hand of those trying to compel Iran’s compliance with UN Security Council resolutions. President Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Schulz, makes precisely this point in the latest Policy Review: Iran seems convinced that its actions, as in restarting its enrichment facilities, will have no adverse consequences. It sees no strength behind the diplomacy. We must be ready to summon the will — and persuade others to join us — to use economic and political strength — and ultimately force — to deal with this situation if multilateral diplomacy and collective security are to be credible… I half suspect that one reason behind Gingrich’s latest remarks is that he has concluded that the kind of military campaign that would be needed to cripple Iran’s nuclear program (should it come to that) won’t be pursued. Stay tuned….
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