Right Truth

Sunday Afternoon Pot Luck

An Awakening in Afghanistan?

Obama’s General Says: Syria Allied with Al-Qaida, Attacking U.S.;   White House Says: Is that a Problem?

Burqua Barbie in the West?

 

...  the Burqa Barbie is being auctioned off for the Save the Children charity. Save the Children? Surely, you must be jesting. I would like to save the children from this... [snip]

 A woman, a girl, in a chador, chadari, burqa, cannot see that well. You cannot hear what she is saying. She cannot hear you. A woman in a burqa can’t run, or even walk that well. She stumbles. Inside, she has to balance a baby, a shopping bag, maybe a pair of glasses perched on her nose, slipping. If it’s hot, she is sweltering. If it’s sunny, she is still deprived of sunlight and Vitamin D. The burqa violates a woman’s human rights. It poses a danger to a woman’s health, both mental and medical. [snip]

Mattel: take Burqa Barbie off the market.

Parents: Boycott it.

Calling all Charities: Save the children from it.  --Dr. Phyllis Chesler

Obama's Terrorism Against Jews: He Uses His Website to Incite Violence Against the Jews.

Andy McCarthy: "If you kill thousands of civilians, we will give you better rights than if you attack military assets. That is dangerously irresponsible"

 

Like sands through the hour glass, so goes the Middle East

I am told that the Afghanistan Taliban have sent word to Barack Obama, "Make a deal with us and we will separate ourselves from al-Qaeda."  So the ball is in Obama's court.  His administration has been floating this trial balloon for several weeks now.  Making deals is nothing new.  In Iraq we made deals with Sadr, with the sheiks, resulting in the "awakening" and thus leading to the present situation.  Will or could this work with the Taliban.  I do NOT think so.  The Taliban wants strict sharia law, the Iraqis did not.  It seems Jesus knew what he was talking about when he warned of building your house on the sand rather than on a firm foundation.

Turkey, long thought to be the model Islamic state: pro-Western, democratic, relatively modern and secular -- according to Powerline --But since Islamists won control of Turkey's government in 2002, that country has steadily been slipping out of the Western orbit. A decisive moment came in 2003, when Turkey refused to allow American forces access to invade Iraq from the north.  

Once the apotheosis of a pro-Western, dependable Muslim democracy, this week Turkey officially left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis… On Monday, 11 Turkish government ministers descended on Syria to sign a pile of cooperation agreements with Iran’s Arab lackey. The Foreign Ministry didn’t even have a chance to write apologetic talking points explaining that brazen move before Syria announced it was entering a military alliance with Turkey and would be holding a joint military exercise with the Turkish military. Speechless in the wake of Turkey’s move to hold military maneuvers with its enemy just two days after it canceled joint training with Israel, Jerusalem could think of no mitigating explanation for the move.  (Caroline Glick, How Turkey Was Lost to the West,   Via Instapundit, Murdock Online)

Today a suicide bomber near the Pakistan border killed five senior commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, wounding dozens, and authorities are still counting the dead in what the Washington Post is calling "the most high-profile strike against security forces in an outlaw region of armed tribal groups, drug smugglers and Sunni rebels known as Jundallah, or Soldiers of God."  Sunni vs Shia.

Reuters is reporting a total at this time of 31 dead, among those the deputy head of the Guards' ground forces, General Nourali Shoushtari, and its commander in Sistan-Baluchestan province, General Rajabali Mohammadzadeh.   Iran's chickens coming home to roost?  Update:  The Telegraph reports now 49 dead.  Iran is blaming the United States and Britain:

Iran has repeatedly blamed both the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for supporting Jundullah. It has also claimed it has links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

There have also been claims that Jundullah has American backing through cash allocated by the Bush administration two years ago to Iranian opposition. The CIA has been accused of supplying money and weapons to the group.

Britain's alleged involvement has never been detailed.  (continue)

The diplomats are feverishly at work behind the scenes:  "IRG and GEN Shoushtari being among the 11 critical points, essential to decapitating the Iranian State, from the top down. The objective: paralysis, under cover of which who ever is so inclined can move forward. One down, 10 to go."  What those other 10 are remains to be seen.

Pakistan has launched another offensive against the Taliban killing 60 militants on the first day of operations.  (NPR)  The Taliban is fighting back offering heavy resistance and vowing to defeat the Pakistan military:  Militants fired on helicopter gunships and attacked Pakistani troops advancing into their main sanctuary near the Afghan border.   President Obama on Wednesday signed legislation that triples economic aid to Pakistan, boosting US aid to Pakistan to $7.5 billion over the next five years.  

The Taliban and al-Qaeda are not all we need to worry about.  Aaron Mannes at The Counterterrorism Blog discusses the Lashkar-e-Taiba - Pakistan's Hezbollah:  

One group absent from the concoction of Punjabi groups joining the Pashtun Taliban rebellion is Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Although it recruits from the same general area, the other groups are Deobandi (Pakistan’s homegrown Islamic extremists) whereas LeT is Dar Ahl Hadith, which is basically the Pakistani-offshoot of the Saudi Wahabis. The theological divisions are not enormous and there are links. But LeT appears to be more careful and disciplined in its strategic thinking. It has not been involved in significant violence within Pakistan and has not taken on the Pakistani government. It also appears to have independent funding sources (initial stake money was apparently from Saudi Arabia, but it has since developed its own fund-raising networks.)  (continue reading)

On October 6, members of the Taliban religion of peace sent threatening letters in Sargodha, Pakistan warning Christian leaders to convert to Islam or face dire consequences - pay Jizya tax (an Islamic tax imposed on religious minorities) or leave the country.  "If Christians refuse to accept the choices given to them, the letter explains that they "would be killed, their property and homes would be burnt to ashes and their women would be treated as sex slaves." 

In Baghdad Iraq, Mustafa Kamal Shibeeb, the Sunni Muslim paramilitary leader's campaign slogan is "Hold on, we are coming" (not to be confused with the old Sam and Dave song "Hold on, I'm coming").  It seems Shibeeb is a fugitive with murder charges hanging over his head from events at the height of the U.S. troop buildup two years ago.   

Also in Baghdad, hundreds of thousands of Sadrists, supporters the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, voted Friday to choose candidates to run in national elections in January, to restore Sadr's party's popularity, which was shaken in elections early this year.  

In what appears to be good news for Iraq and the US,  the U.S. Defense Department says that it's canceling the deployment of a 3,500-member Army brigade to Iraq in January, amid "improving security." 

It seems there will be a recount of votes in Afghanistan and President Hamid Karzai says he may not accept the results, while his supporters began mass demonstrations against "foreign interference".  What does this mean for Afghanistan and the US?  It seems that John Kerry , the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  told CBS News that President Obama's highly-anticipated decision on U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan hinges on the result of that country's presidential election.   

US President Barack Obama continues to fail to make a decision on the future of Afghanistan.  His advisers keep floating trial balloons and the one they seem to favor is being pushed by VP Joe Biden.  Biden wants to pull troops out of Afghanistan and be satisfied with lobbing a few missiles from offshore.  Toby Harnden  in the Telegraph argues that Joe Biden is the "worrying rise of Barack Obama’s Mr Wrong".  Newsweek and other government media quickly jumped on the bandwagon with articles like  "Why Joe is No Joke".

Vice-President Joe Biden has been on the wrong side of history on all the big questions   Want to know how to deal with a momentous issue of war or grand strategy? You could do a lot worse than check out what Vice-President Joe Biden thinks – and plump for the opposite.  

The Obama administration seems to have time to  open up a third front last week with Fox News, and to target Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.   Obama's brain, Rahm Emmanuel has taken on Fox news saying they are not a news organization because they have "perspective" (video here).  Seems Obama has room on his plate to take on the most accurate, most watched news show on the air and the most listened to radio broadcasters, but he can't make a decision on Afghanistan.  It also seems Obama has time, along with Maureen Dowd, to express contempt for the Constitution of these great United States.

As I wrote last week, the women and children continue to suffer at the hands of the Taliban.  BlackFive shares a personal account "An added perspective on our debate, from an Afghan woman named Wazhma Frogh."  If Obama would listen to the Generals and to this Afghan woman rather than Joe Biden, perhaps he would reach the appropriate conclusion.  After all, he is the COMMANDER in chief... how about a little decisiveness Obama?

As an Afghan woman who for many years lived a life deprived of the most basic human rights, I find unbearable the thought of what will happen to the women of my country if it once again falls under the control of the insurgents and militants who now threaten it.

In 2001, when the war in Afghanistan began, the liberation of Afghan women was one of the most important justifications for military intervention. Has the world now changed its mind about Afghan women? Is it ready to let them once again be killed and tortured by militants? Does the world no longer believe in the principles it supported in 2001?

Handing over Afghanistan to those who intend to keep the country centuries behind most of the world -- to men who do not view women as human beings -- would not only call into doubt the global commitment to human rights, it would also raise questions about the commitment of Western democracies to such rights and to democratic values. (continue reading Washington Post)

The sands are shifting in the Middle East as well as here at home.  Time is running out for some serious decisions on the future of America as well as the future of Afghanistan,... and Pakistan, Iran, Israel. 

Let me not forget Israel.  The following is an excerpt from a speech delivered at the UN Human Rights Council, 12th Special Session Debate on Goldstone Report, Geneva, 16 October 2009  by Col. Richard Kemp.

 

During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.  (continue reading or watch video here, hat tip Israpundit)

Israel is not alone in this media deception, the US has been and continues to be a media target with whom the truth seems to be an illusive mist.

Our future is linked with the Middle East and we need a leader to make the right decisions.  Unfortunately I do not believe Obama is up to the task.  He seems to continue in campaign mode ... as the sand runs out.

Food for thought:

Here in the US members of the religion of peace are putting needles in pork and sausage, which they won't eat and the infidels will.

Secret Syrian-Iranian-N-Korean missile-test fails, kills 20 Syrians

DEBKAfile Special Report

August 15, 2009, 1:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

Japanese intelligence has learned that in late May, Iran, Syria and North Korea secretly test-launched in southern Syria a new short-range ballistic missile developed jointly by Pyongyang, Tehran and Damascus as a substitute for the outdated Scuds still in use in their armed forces, DEBKAfile's military sources report. In May, several new missiles were flown from North Korea and Iran to the Damascus military airfield and thence to Syria's southeastern missile-testing site at Jebel Druze near the small town of Salakhand.

After two weeks' preparation, two of the new projectiles had their first trial-launch - and failed with disastrous results.

DEBKAfile's sources report that they targeted an uninhabited desert area in the North, 500 kilometers away, just south of Ayn Diwar and east of Al Qamishli not far from the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border intersection.

(It was here that Syria and Iraq, with Russian help, interred Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in 2001.)

However, one of the missiles strayed 350-400 km west of its projected course, indicating a problem with its guidance system. It exploded in the center of the small town of Manbij north of Aleppo near the Turkish border, killing at least 20 people, injuring 60 and badly damaging the market town.

The second missile exploded in mid-course in the South, over the north of the town of Abu Kamal and 200 kilometers from its launching site. Syrian military authorities closed the area around the stricken town of Manbij for more than a month, attributing the disaster to a gas explosion.

Japanese intelligence sources, who are anxiously tracking the growing missile collaboration between North Korea, Iran and Syria, do not name the failed new missile, but DEBKAfile's military sources suggest it was a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) propelled by solid fuel with a range of 800-1,000 kilometers and fitted with a warhead containing between 800 kilos and one ton of explosives. This would be an improvement on most of the three nations' short-range missiles which are powered with liquid fuel.

Also from DEBKA, hat tip David:

Armed clashes between Hamas and al Qaeda in Rafah leave 23 dead, 120 injured

DEBKAfile Special Report

August 15, 2009, 11:39 AM (GMT+02:00)

Abdullah al Latif Mussa - would-be al Qaeda Emir of Gaza

Six Hamas combatants including a senior commander and two al Qaeda cell leaders were among the 23 killed in gun battles between Hamas forces and hundreds of members of the al Qaeda offshoot Jund Ansar Allah in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah Friday Aug. 14. Another 120 were injured. DEBKAfile's military sources report that Hamas special units fired mortars and heavy machine guns into the Ibn Thaymas mosque after the Jund leader, Abdullah al Latif Mussa proclaimed the Gaza Strip an al Qaeda emirate. He urged all its inhabitants to defy Hamas rule and take an oath of allegiance to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. After storming the mosque, Hamas forces blew up the Jund leader's four-storey home with all its occupants. Mussa and a second al Qaeda cell leader known as "the Syrian" were reported killed.

Our counter-terror sources report that in recent months terrorist groups identified with al Qaeda are spreading out through the southern Gaza Strip, drawing recruits with plentiful cash, weapons and explosives. They accuse Hamas of failing to fully establish Islamic law in the enclave.

Jund Ansar Allah was held responsible for the failed attack on horseback on a border crossing between Gaza and Israel.

Other reading:

Serial Blow Dart Attacker Sought in Delaware, National Terror Alert

The Counterinsurgency in Pakistan, STRATFOR

Assad slams the door on Obama and on talks with Israel, DEBKA

Check out the winning articles at the Watcher of Weasels.

French minister urges burka ban , BBC

Obama missed his chance

Every United States President has 'his time', his chance to step up and claim his mark in history.  Unfortunately Barack Obama was busy rushing through new programs here at home and missed his moment in history.  Here in the US:  "The more radical and far-reaching the plan, the less time the public gets to debate it.  Is this due to ambition or fear of push-back?"   Why the Rush?  Obviously Obama wants to pull the wool over on as many Americans as many times as he can before they wake up from their collective trance and see him for what he is.  And across the globe brave Iranians await a word of support from the word-master himself, but he is silent.

This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.

The latter is improbable but, for the first time in 30 years, not impossible. Imagine the repercussions. It would mark a decisive blow to Islamist radicalism, of which Iran today is not just standard-bearer and model, but financier and arms supplier. It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism — leave it forever spent and discredited.

In the region, it would launch a second Arab spring. The first in 2005 — the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon, first elections in Iraq and early liberalization in the Gulf states and Egypt — was aborted by a fierce counterattack from the forces of repression and reaction, led and funded by Iran.

Now, with Hezbollah having lost elections in Lebanon and with Iraq establishing the institutions of a young democracy, the fall of the Islamist dictatorship in Iran would have an electric and contagious effect. The exception — Iraq and Lebanon — becomes the rule. Democracy becomes the wave. Syria becomes isolated; Hezbollah and Hamas, patronless. The entire trajectory of the region is reversed.

All hangs in the balance. The Khamenei regime is deciding whether to do a Tiananmen. And what side is the Obama administration taking? None.  [snip]

And where is our president? Afraid of "meddling." Afraid to take sides between the head-breaking, women-shackling exporters of terror — and the people in the street yearning to breathe free. This from a president who fancies himself the restorer of America's moral standing in the world.  (--Charles Krauthammer, Obama Can't Spare Some Change For Iran?)

What happens in the next couple days will be key moments in Iranian history. 

Terrorism, Religion, Obama, and America

Barack Obama, when elected President of the United States of America, wants to use foreign troops in the American military, specifically Ugandans. Aurora reports, "In all fairness, the recruitment process has already been taking some unconventional turns lately as the Dearborn military recruitment center turns to recruiting non-citizen Muslims (June, 2008)"

Ugandans, who want a career in the United States military, can sign up at the annual convention of the Uganda North American Association (UNAA), scheduled to run between August 29 and August 31. [...]

Barack Obama has been accused of being Muslim, having Muslim sympathies, while he claims to be a Christian. We have discussed here many times the 'confusion' of Obama. His entire life has been one long journey of searching for an identity. Now I read that All-India Congress Committee member Brij Mohan Bhama, was told by friends that Obama carries a miniature Hanuman idol in his pocket for luck.

“After hearing that, I decided to gift Mr. Obama a larger, gold-plated version along with the wishes of thousands of his supporters in this country,” said the leader struggling to lift the 15 kg, 21-inch brass idol. (Mr. Bhama, The Hindu)

Hanuman: Simian Symbol of Strength! (The Monkey God), is a Hindu god

Embodiment of Strength & Tenacity Hanuman, the mighty ape that aided Lord Rama in his expedition against evil forces, is one of the most popular idols in the Hindu pantheon. Believed to be an avatar of Lord Shiva, Hanuman is worshipped as a symbol of physical strength, perseverance and devotion.

Zee writes:

... this idea of having Ugandans serve with American men and women most emphatically defiles the United States military, not to even consider how it undermines our security. This reeks to high heaven of some pureed-brain, pentagon putz’s wet dreams of turning the US Military into some UN circus adjunct.

Here at Right Truth we believe in individual responsibility, personal responsibility, for the security of ourselves, our families, our communities, and our country. With thanks to Mr. R. J. Godlewski and the Independent Counterterrorist Training program offered FREE to everyone, it seems this concept is catching on around the U.S.

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for “suspicious activity” — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases. (National Terror Alert and Denver Post)

This is good news, since Joe Lieberman and others believe the United States may be attacked in 2009.

“Our enemies will test the new president early,” Lieberman, I-Conn., told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer. “Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration.” (CBSNews)

The head of the U.N. nuclear agency Mohamed ElBaradei, said Iran could create a nuclear weapon in six months. Yet, Barack Obama thinks he can 'talk' to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and everything will be just peachy.

In a purely symbolic gesture to the world (and Obama), Iran is to dig 320,000 graves in border districts to allow for the burial of enemy soldiers in the event of any attack on its territory. Also, there was a mysterious explosion today in Iran, near Tehran. Obama is going to help us evolve and a people. (*gag*) Does that include Ahmadinejad?

... National interest, not self-enlightenment, ought to be our moral compass; "change" that makes our country stronger and more prosperous is the standard. Whether it makes one a more aware voter or cognitive citizen is merely a beneficial byproduct. (Family Security Matters)

Rumors of clandestine operations against Iran by American Special Forces continue. The U.S. apparently drafted a secret plan to make it easer for the Pentagon’s Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda. (NYT)

We better do what we can to take down the terrorists before a Barack Obama can be elected. He may want to use that money for other things, like income distribution.

Al-Qaeda still like airplanes, and rumor has it Al Qaeda has acquired the means, and the technical know-how, to build a crude, simple, but brutally effective nuclear bomb ... and now they intended to deliver it ... in a surprise attack using private jet planes, according to the UK.

We have regular reports of 'questionable' attacks on individuals and groups here in the U.S., like this chemical attack in Kansas City. Trial runs? Accidents? Individual criminal attacks?

UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has rejected recent warnings by foreign governments about the threat of terrorist attacks in the United Arab Emirates.

A Mossad 'spy' was sentenced to death in Iran and a top US commander briefed on IDF’s four-front strategy in potential Iran war context, while  Iranian sources report Iranian official circles have become obsessed with suspicions of Israeli and American undercover agents infiltrating to prepare impending attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities while US and Israeli military chiefs talk in Jerusalem.

It appears the US and Israel are not waiting until Obama can be elected. They know that he will do nothing to save either nation and security depends on action BEFORE he could take office.

So whether Barack Obama is Christian, Muslim, Hindu, anything or nothing ... we KNOW that he is as far LEFT as a candidate can get. We know that he is anti-war (or should I say anti-military, anti-security). We know that he is a man searching for an identity, hoping that the puppet-masters behind him will launch him into the most powerful position in the world -- President of the United States of America. Even then he will STILL not know who he is, he will still be wishy-washy, flip-flopping, shifting with the sands and tides. No firm foundation.

How can a man, who does not know his race, who does not know his religion, who does not know his own thoughts --- lead this nation forward? He cannot.

Barack Obama CANNOT be good for America.

Other reading:

NY TIMES HIGH TREASON: LEAKING CLASSIFIED INFO AGAIN, at Atlas Shrugs

Anti-Obama blogs being treated as spam by Google, and Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform, by Stop the ACLU

This article is posted at Real Clear Politics, your votes are appreciated.

Trackposted to Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, third world county, The Random Yak, DragonLady's World, The World According to Carl, Rosemary's News and Ideas, The Pink Flamingo, Beagle Scout - Support the No More Excuses Energy Act, CORSARI D'ITALIA, Democrat=Socialist, Stageleft, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Iran preparing for US attack as Hezbollah moves on Israel?

Hizballah received 35 new Iranian speedboats shortly before current crisis (a DEBKAfile exclusive) (hat tips to Michael)

The Iran-backed Hizballah offensive closes in on the Israeli border

Fighting rages in Mt. Lebanon, Damour south of Beirut and northern town of Tripoli.

Syria hardens positions, retracts peace feelers to Israel

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that in the last 48 hours, Damascus has broadcast new, intransigent policy positions through diverse channels under the influence of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s legal plight and the swift victories its ally, Hizballah, has achieved in Lebanon:

1. Leaders in Olmert’s position are only capable of making war – not peace, according to leaks from Damascus to Arab media. For this reason, Syrian officials claim after the fact that they exposed the secret meeting scheduled to take place between Israeli and Syrian officials in Turkey for sabotage, knowing it would go nowhere.

2. The Israeli prime minister’s offer to give up the whole of Golan for peace was likewise leaked by Damascus to discredit the prime minister at home.

3. Another message informed Jerusalem that any accommodation with Damascus was contingent on a peace deal with Beirut – or rather the real masters of Lebanon, Iran-backed Hizballah.

4. Israel must rescind the disputed Shebaa Farms enclave on Mount Hermon.

5. Syria’s relations with Iran are none of Israel’s business. This is a reference to the demands for the Assad regime to cool its ties with Tehran as a prerequisite for a peace deal.

6. As for the American-Israeli demand that Syria stop hosting terrorist headquarters, Damascus advises Israel to make do with the Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal’s last statement. He said that Hamas is prepared to accept - though not recognize - Israel within the pre-1967 war boundaries and offer a long-term informal truce. Syria finds nothing further to discuss with Israel on the subject of Hamas.

Gaza missile kills a 70-year old Israeli woman in Moshav Yesha (DEBKA)

Iran preparing for U.S. attack

Al Qods Braces for US Punishment (hat tip Michael)

Iran's supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the order in person: The Revolutionary Guards (IRCG) must urgently complete all their arrangements for withstanding US reprisals for Tehran's interference in Iraq in whatever form they come: missile, air or commando attacks.

While keeping their heads down, they must be ready to strike back. [snip]

Qods Force's units - inside Iran and outside in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan - were prompted by his conviction that military action against the Islamic republic is the next realistic option.

He took his last cue Monday, May 5, from the accusations leveled by a US military spokesman that Iraqi Shiite extremists were being trained in IRGC-QB camps near Tehran.

Air Force Col. Donald Bacon said: "We have multiple detainees who state Lebanese Hizballah are providing training to Iraqis." The main Al Quds camp is located near Jalil Azad not far from Tehran.

In Lebanon, Tehran's terrorist arm, Hizballah, and in Gaza, the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami were told to get set to attack Israel as part of an Iranian rejoinder to an American attack.

One of the precautionary steps the supreme ruler ordered, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources, was to move out of harm's way the main Al Qods command and training facilities in Iran. They were transferred to regular military bases across the country and among temporary installations in remote villages and locations in the east and north.

In all, 25-30,000 fighting men, the estimated size of the al Qods Brigade, have been scattered in concealed quarters. By the beginning of this week, only sentries were left at the deserted al Qods' primary training center in the north and its main headquarters at Imam Ali University which is housed in the Sa'dabad Palace. The seminaries and dormitories of the religious city of Qom were cleared of foreign guerilla recruits undergoing retraining and indoctrination.

So too were the Manzariyah training center east of Qom, and the facility outside Isfahan, where terrorists from Iraq, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are instructed in the use of explosives and the arts of sabotaging such strategic targets as roads, bridges and army bases.

Here, al Qods instructors ran courses in the expert application of the powerful roadside bombs which have killed so many American soldiers in Iraq.

Dismantled too was the Al Qods base near the northern town of Mashhad, where trainees were taught how to sneak into military and civilian airfields and blow them up and methods of hijacking airliners and destroying them. The facility near Shiraz was vacated, as was the Revolutionary Guards main training and instruction center for marine warfare at Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf. Some of the trainees there specialized in underwater combat and mine-laying.

While their home sites were dismantled, Qods officers and men were told to go to ground in Iraq - especially in the south; in Lebanon – at four Hizballah training facilities in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley on the Syrian border; and in Sudan - at three training facilities near Khartoum and at Port Sudan.

Gaza, Beirut, Iran

From Israpundit:  The significance of the Hezbollah coup, by Ted Belman

Analysis: Between Gaza and Beirut
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, JPOST

[..] No doubt , if true, the US wants to destroy Hamas to weaken Iran. This is the best response to the Hezbollah coup, the US could mount to.

The lesson to be drawn from what happened in the Gaza Strip and Beirut is that whenever the US openly backs an Arab, he or she is immediately discredited on the Arab street. Abbas and Saniora are the victims of their public affiliation with the US.  [snip]

Israel will eventually have to act, as Lebanon turns into Iranian colony
Alex Fishman, YNET NEWS

[snip] 

The closer Iran gets to acquiring nukes, time will be running out for Israel, as an Iranian base in Lebanon is a base for eliminating the State of Israel. Under such circumstances, Lebanon will be the Iranian platform of retaliation and deterrence against us. We should keep in mind that Israel’s ability to take care of this base while Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons is completely different from the abilities we shall have once Iran does possess nukes. Therefore, the question is not whether we should be taking care of this problem, but rather, when.

And from CTV.ca:  Violence in Lebanon spreads to hills near Beirut  (hat tip Michael)

Hezbollah militants continued to fight government supporters in the mountains overlooking Lebanon's capital on Sunday, having pulled out of central Beirut after earning a number of concessions from the U.S.-backed government.

For four days, Sunni-Shiite clashes in Beirut resulted in Hezbollah seizing a large section of Muslim West Beirut in a demonstration of its military might.  (continue reading)

So we have Gaza, Beirut, Iran, throw Syria into the mix, then include Russia who is helping to  build Iran's nuclear facilities, add a dash of China ... And what you've got is FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE.  Or maybe all this falls into the category of SEE no evil, HEAR no evil, and SPEAK no evil on the part of limp politicians???

 

Hezbollah & Iran: A Convergence of Interests

Hezbollah & Iran:  A Convergence of Interests, thanks to Insights Into Today's Middle East

Iran backed Hezbollah in EuropeIran backed Hezbollah in South America
A civil war guided by Iranian interests
Iran backed Hezbollah in Europe
Iran backed Hezbollah in South America
Facts about Hezbollah

Iran backed Hezbollah gunmen seized nearly all Muslim sectors of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Friday in the country's worst clashes since the 15-year civil war. At least 11 people have been killed and more than 20 wounded in three days of street battles. [1]

A civil war guided by Iranian interests

· “For the past months, the Head of the Iranian revolution, the Iranian president and the Iranian vice-president have been saying that Lebanon is a land where imperialism and Zionism need to be defeated,” said Antoine Basbous, political analyst in an interview on Friday. “This country has been designated as the scene of operations, a land of Jihad.” [2]

· “The Iranians through their Syrian portals have invested 30 billion dollars to turn Hezbollah into Iran’s military branch in the Mediterranean. […] The Shia movement has 40,000 to 50,000 missiles, good military training, social and sanitary structures and an Iranian-modeled society. Among the Shia civilians, more are dressing like Iranians and repeating the same slogans.” [3]

· After the 2006 war with Israel Hezbollah has been rearming itself and has increased its capacities using the Syrian passage. “Hezbollah has become a key player in the region. It is taking power today by turning Lebanon into a second Gaza, a center of regional confrontation at Damascus’ and Tehran’s disposal,” Basbous said. [4]

· The Lebanese Sunni Grand Mufti, Muhammad Rashid Qabbani, said that with these recent attacks Iran was threatening the union of the Muslims in Lebanon. He called Hezbollah "an armed gang of unlawful" which have carried out "ugly attacks" against the citizens of Lebanon. Shiite clerics however defended Tehran and accused the Lebanese government for the escalation. [5]

Iran backed Hezbollah in Europe

· Hezbollah is also active in Europe and poised to launch bloody reprisals in Britain for any Western attack on Iran, Richard Kemp, a former British intelligence chief, warned in November 2007. Kemp said the Iranian-backed group had established sleeper cells in London to carry out revenge attacks. He said: “The big question is how capable Hezbollah groups are in Europe. What I can say is that Hezbollah is probably the world’s most effective terrorist organisation, and that includes Al Qaeda.” [6]

· Hezbollah arrived in the European Union in the 1980s, along with refugees from the civil war in Lebanon. In the 80s and 90s, Hezbollah kidnapped more than 80 Westerners and killed hundreds of people in Lebanon, Israel, Europe and South America in terrorist attacks. Despite its deadly track record and a 2005 European Parliament resolution recommending the banning of the Iranian-funded group, it is still legal on the Continent. In Germany alone there are 900 Hezbollah supporters known to security authorities. [7]

France, Spain, Belgium and Sweden are preventing the EU from jointly designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. [8]

Iran backed Hezbollah in South America

• Hezbollah has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials, and police agencies across the continent. From its Western base in the Tri-border Area, or Triple Frontier, a remote region that borders Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims among about 25,000 Arab residents whose families immigrated largely from Lebanon. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Tri-border has become a top-level, particularly as tension mounts with Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor. [9]

• On July 18, 1994 Argentina faced it’s deadliest terrorist attack when the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires (AMIA, Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina) was targetted. The blast reduced the community centre to rubble, killing 85 and wounding more than 200. Argentinian prosecutors allege Iranian officials orchestrated the bombing and entrusted the Lebanon-based Hezbollah to carry it out. Among the wanted by Argentina are former Iranian intelligence chief Ali Fallahian, former leader of the elite Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaei, and Hezbollah militant Imad Moughnieh, one of the world’s most sought terror suspects. [10] In late 2006, an Argentinean special prosecutor released a detailed report on the AMIA bombing, issuing arrest warrants for high-level Iranian officials and Hezbollah members involved in the attack. The Argentinean investigation concluded that Tehran transferred at least $152,812 to accounts controlled by Mohsen Rabbani, a Shiite cleric who at the time held diplomatic immunity as a cultural attache at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires. [11]

• Operating out of the Tri-border Area, Hezbollah is accused of killing more than 100 people in attacks in nearby Buenos Aires during the early 1990s in operations personally masterminded by Moughnieh. [12]

• The Iranian president asked his interlocutor to send his regards to Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and the organization's membership. [13]

Facts about Hezbollah

· Hezbollah—or “Party of God”—emerged in Lebanon in 1982 and became the region’s leading radical Islamic movement, determined to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon. Hezbollah now serves as an inspiration to Palestinian factions fighting to liberate occupied territory.

· Hezbollah was established by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. In its early days, Hezbollah had a contingent of some 2,000 men sent to Lebanon in 1982 to aid the resistance against Israel. [14] Inspired by the success of the Iranian Revolution, party leaders also dreamt of transforming Lebanon’s multi-confessional state into an Iranian-style Islamic state.

· Hezbollah receives substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid from Iran and Syria. Published reports that say Iran provides hundreds million dollars of aid annually are probably exaggerated. Iran probably provides financial assistance and military assistance worth about $25-50 million. Hezbollah is closely allied with, and often directed by, Iran, but has the capability and willingness to act independently. [15]

• Underscoring the heightened sense of Iran as a dangerous player, on July 18, 2006, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused Iran of supporting Hezbollah with weapons, “very similar if not identical to those used against British troops in Basra” in Iraq. Blair also accused Syria of supporting Iran “in many different ways” and both countries of providing financial support. Israel, the United States, the Europeans, and many Arab states have long claimed that Hezbollah receives its weaponry from Iran, a claim that many Iranian officials admit in private is true. [16]

• Senior Hezbollah official Kassam Allaik said Iran had its own groups in Lebanon, rebuilding bridges, roads, and mosques. Lebanon’s Finance Minister Jihad Azour also acknowledged that Iranian money is going directly to Hezbollah. Allaik, head of Hezbollah’s construction arm, Jihad Construction, has admitted that Iran is providing funds directly to Hezbollah to help the reconstruction effort. [17]

• Senior terror leaders in Gaza, including militants from Palestinian Authority President Abbas's Fatah party, admitted they are working to copy Hezbollah warfare tactics: “We are turning Gaza into south Lebanon,” Abu Ahmed, northern Gaza leader for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group, said. He also said: “We are importing rockets and the knowledge to launch them and we are also making many plans for battle." [18]

• Ahmed added: “We have warm relations with Hezbollah, which helps with some of the training programs…We don’t have anything to be ashamed of—that we are dealing with Hezbollah and that we are receiving training and information from them.” [19]

_______________________________________________________________________

References:

[1] « Hezbollah gunmen seize control of Beirut neighborhoods," by Bassem Mroue, Associated Press, 9 May 2008.

[2 ] «Une guerre civile atroce et cruelle se dessine» au Liban, Libération, 9 May 2008,

[3]Ibid.

[4]Ibid.

[5] « Eskalation im Libanon. Die Hizbullah kämpft für ihr Telefonnetz » by Rainer Hermann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 May 2008, No. 108, S. 6

[6] Groves, Jason : « Hezbollah will avenge Iran strike », Daily Express, 25 novembre 2007

[7] "Die etwas andere Partei," by Alexander Ritzmann, Financial Times Deutschland, 4 May 2007

[8] Ibd.

[9] Gato, Pablo; Windrem, Robert: « Hezbollah builds a Western base,” Telemundo/Msnbc.com, May 9, 2007

 

[10]Gato, Pablo, Windrem, Robert : « Hezbollah builds a Western base », Telemundo/Msnbc.com, 9 mai 2007

[11] Keaten, Jamey : « Iran role in Argentina bombing examined », Associated Press, 5 novembre 2007

[12] Levitt, Matthew ; Lipton, Jake : « Dangerous Partners: Targeting the Iran-Hizballah Alliance », Policy Watch, No. 1267, 31 juillet 2007.

[13] Ibid

[14] Westcott, Kathryn : « Who are Hamas », BBC News, 19 octobre 2000

[15]GlobalSecurity.org

[16]Sciolino, Elaine : « Iran backs Hezbollah in Lebanon », International Herald Tribune, 19 juillet 2006

 

[17]Whittington, James : « Iran "sending funds to Hezbollah" », BBC News, 2 novembre 2006

[18]Klein, Aaron : « Hamas training in Iran, Lebanon », WorldNetDaily, 2 janvier 2007

[19] Ibid

Iran's agent Hezbollah ... and Lebanon

Hezbollah, agent of Iran, renews fight in one front against Israel -- Lebanon. Courtney at Great Satan's Girlfriend puts her unique reporting to work in "Powers and Coups":

Street fighting in Beirut? What's up? Is Little Satan's rowdy BDay Bash kickoff kicking something else off? Is Great Satan on another regime changing rampage?

Nope. Maybe.

Recent events could easily be interpreted that there is a 3 way battle going for Lebanon's very soul. And it's at the airport.

Lebanon's gov (what hasn't been blown up by Syria) is making a stand against a Resistance movement that seems more adept at resisting their own legit gov than any foreign chicanery.

Lebanon's Cabinet took action against Hiz'B'Allah - sacking the security chief at Rafik Hatriri Internat'l Aerodrome. General Wafiq Shucair lost his gig when the gov freaked about HBA real time super spy tech deployed at the airport.

Hey - that's fair - either he knew about such hanky panky - which would suggest some type of ties or even worse - he was totally obliviously conned. Either sucks on a resume'. (continue reading, you know you want to)

Also see "Appropriate Lesson" by Courtney at Great Satan's Girlfriend.

Findalis asks, "Has Hezbollah Bitten Off More Than It Can Chew?" Excellent analysis:

Hezbollah wants one thing. Total control of Lebanon. To create an Islamic Republic of Lebanon. This state would give Hezbollah total control of the Lebanese military. Its tanks, artillery, and planes. It would give Iran a puppet state on Israel's northern border, to match the puppet state now on Israel's southern border in Gaza.

With 2 puppet states so close to Israel, there would be nothing to stop Iran from attacking Israel either directly, through their proxies or both. A nightmare scenario of an nuclear attack from Iran compounded with attacks from both Lebanon and Gaza. (continue reading at Monkey in the Middle)

Background at BBC:

The more immediate causes of Lebanon's current - and apparently unending - political crisis go back to the war between Israel and the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.

After standing up to the powerful Israeli military for a full month, Hezbollah declared it had achieved a "divine victory".

Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was the new hero of the Arab street. (BBC)

Check out Bob's Blog for updates on Lebanon. Bob's Blog reports today: (hat tip Michael)

Beirut has fallen…

Beirut has fallen under the yoke of Nassrallah militiamen. A victory some are calling it. Hordes of militiamen running in the streets shooting at civilians and residential areas. TVs, newspapers and magazines are being closed down. Checkpoints are being built. Welcome to the new age, the age of Hezbollah iron grip!

Dream on! Hundreds or even thousands of militiamen cannot occupy a city. Pitiful street thugs will never close down free press and Tvs. Dream on, for today is the start of the end of what was once called a resistance, but now is only a milita, specialized in terror and blackmail, holding a whole city, and economy of the whole country hostages for some political gains. (continue reading)

Blogging Beirut reports today:

Updated 17:58 Lebanon Time

- Reporting from Corniche Beirut: The second you cross the green line - just as I made my way past the St. Georges Hotel - you're greeted with heavily armed men with automatic weapons and vests in groups, some on scooters. One large group was gathered near the entrance of La Plage in front of the Intercontinental Vendome. They don't bother you - they don't even stop to ask questions - you can ask them for directions if you'd like - they're polite i think ;) . After a brief stop at McDonald's, I made my way to a shop to buy some chips. M&Ms, Maltesers, Lay's Salted Chips, and a Sohat = 3250 LL (2 USD). As I was paying, a scooter zooms up to the store carrying two armed men. I am not sure if I am meant to feel fear / discomfort. They came in to buy some mouneh. I paid, put my stuff in a bag, and walked out nonchalantly. Got into my car and drove off into the smoke billowing from burning tires under the Marina Tower.
(continue reading)

Also see ISREAL AT 60 WHIPPING BOY OF THE UN

Iran: It's now or never ...

Iran will go nuclear by the end of this year, 2008, according to several folks in the know. If they are correct, what should the United Stated do, what should Israel do, and when should they do it? The answer to all those questions seems to ride on this: How would a U.S.-Iran confrontation play out in the presidential campaign here in the United States? Sad but true my friends. It doesn't seem that the safety of Americans in Iraq, or the safety of Israel, or the safety of American interests within Iran's reach, are determining factors in whether to take out Iran's nuclear facilities -- it's politics.

John Bolton, America’s ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in Iraq.

Mr Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian response harming American’s overseas interests existed, he said the damage inflicted by Tehran would be “far higher” if Washington took no action.

A US military spokesman revealed last week that the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had drafted in personnel from Lebanon’s Hizbollah to train fighters from Iraq’s Shia militias.
(The Telegraph and National Terror Alert)

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: "Iran is not going away. We need to be strong and really in the deterrent mode, to not be very predictable."

The administration is signaling the Iranians that they need to stop supplying and training Shiite militias in Iraq -- or run the risk of U.S. retaliation. The Maliki government in Baghdad, worried about the danger of escalation, is passing this message to Tehran, but so far the only consequence has been that the Iranians have broken off talks in Baghdad that were aimed at stabilizing the situation. (Washington Post)

But in a spooky turn of events, "The risk of a U.S.-Iranian confrontation is growing in part because Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the Middle East are so eager for it."

"Behind closed doors, we are praying that the Iranians will make a mistake so that you will have a reason to attack," one Saudi told me this week. Another prominent Arab official said he hopes the United States will strike Iranian training camps just over the border from Iraq. (Washington Post)

Benjamin Netanyahu, the former and possibly future prime minister of Israel, said the “civilized community of nations” must not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, even though he said:

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”

Thousands of dead Americans and millions more slaughtered Iraqis, along with a war torn and divided country is beneficial to Israel, according to Mr Netanyahu.

The newspaper also reported he later added that the events “swung American public opinion in our favor.” (Haaretz)

Haaretz also says, "Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent trip through the Middle East came in preparation for the U.S. attack, the source said."

David Ignatius in his article "Where The Wild Cards Are", discussed the political debate on Iran:

Usually, we assume that the nation rallies around the party of war, but that's less certain in this case. America is war-weary, and it mistrusts President Bush. So a military skirmish with Iran might backfire, adding to public dissent -- much as happened with the Nixon administration's attack on Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia in 1970.

Adding to the combustible mix is Hillary Clinton's hawkish position on Iran, which has support from the center-right of the party even if she drops out. Her rhetorical threat to "totally obliterate" Iran if it launched a nuclear attack against Israel was sharper than anything that has come out of the Bush White House. The anti-Iran stance from centrist Democrats blunts John McCain's appeal as the tough-guy candidate. But it complicates the Democrats' argument for withdrawing U.S. troops rapidly from Iraq, since the main beneficiary of such a move would be Tehran.

The Yankee Sailor, "Building a case for war in Iran, Part 1 and Part 2"

News continues to roll in that the United States may be nearing a decision to strike Iran. In my previous installment, I discussed the storm of tough talk currently unleashed from Washington. In this installment I’ll lay out some of the other events in the region in recent weeks.

First, an intriguing report was published alleging that Washington authorized the execution and funding of a covert offensive against Iran in recent weeks.

Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or “army of god,” the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border — whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law’s throat. (continue reading at Yankee Sailer)

So, I ask you ..... is it NOW OR NEVER???

It's now or never, come hold me tight

Kiss me my darling, be mine tonight

Tomorrow will be too late, it's now or never

My love won't wait. -- Elvis Presley

Other reading:

Stupid Liberal Idiot Destroys Pro-Life Display, Stop the ACLU

Politics Sucks

Today we are told there is "video evidence of North Koreans working at a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor just before it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last September." The Syrian facility is code-named Al Kibar. “The belief is that the reactor was nearing completion,” said one official familiar with the content of the briefings. “It would have been able to produce plutonium.” ... "Syria was building a nuclear reactor complex much like the North Korean nuclear reactor complex at Yongbyon."

Sources familiar with the video told the Times and the Post that the Syrian reactor’s core design was identical to a North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including its configuration and number of fuel rod holes. (National Terror Alert)

You can be sure this will become a political talking point, with both sides trying to use it for their benefit in some strange Twilight Zone way.

The timing of the administration’s decision to declassify information about the Syrian project has raised widespread suspicions, especially in the State Department, that Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration hawks were hoping that releasing the information might undermine a potential deal with North Korea that would take it off an American list of state sponsors of terrorism. (more)

My response: SO? If releasing this information and video will shine light on North Korea's refusal to comply to agreements previously made about revealing ALL of their nuclear facilities, and keep them on a list of state sponsors of terrorism -- GOOD.

The big question for American voters should be ... what would Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain do if presented with a similar situation during their presidency? Would they be willing to take out a facility similar to this one? Would they support Israel's right to take it out? These questions are very important, because we DO have a situation with Iran that will need to be addressed by one of these people.

Bob McCarty Writes on Baracknophobia -- the common-sense and persistent fear of a Barack Obama presidency. I hope the phobia spreads...

Bob McCarty Writes also has the following news on Jeremiah Wright:

The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., senior pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, will discuss the role of faith in the public square in a presentation entitled, The African American Religious Experience; Theology & Practice, at a National Press Club breakfast Monday. (continue reading)

Some Americans think we should RESPECT THE RANTS OF REV. WRIGHT, ... I beg to differ. We need to shine the light on Wright and his influence on Barack Obama:

The [North Carolina Republican Party] political ad is straightforward and does not say anything racial at all. It simply brings to light Obama's 20-year relationship with Wright, who is an America-bashing racist. McCain called the ad "offensive," but he misses the mark by opposing efforts to get Obama's past out in front of the American people. (The Loft)

In other terror news: Six Suspects Will Be Tried a Third Time in Sears Tower Terror Plot

Check out a new site ScotKnight Publications: "The purpose of ScotKnight Publications is to provide seminars concerning the objectives of Islam in the modern world." Check it out.
___________________________________________________________________
Trackposted to A Newt One- help us catch a monster, Woman Honor Thyself, Shadowscope, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, , and Pursuing Holiness, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Syria Masses Three Army Divisions on Lebanese Border and Zawahiri Calls for Terror Attacks on Israel and United States

Ehud Barak says Israel’s army and intelligence poised for instant response to Hezbollah attack, after military reports that Syria is massing three army divisions on the Lebanese border.

The Israeli Air Force, according to our sources, has prepared two command and control airplanes which are capable of carrying command centers and special forces from place to place and reacting to terrorist attacks in places far from Israel. (Debka)

Military sources report that the Syrian deployment is backed by the concentration of pro-Syrian Palestinian factions in the Beqaa valley of Lebanon, amid rising war tensions between Hezbollah and Israel.

Hassan Nasrallah declared Hezbollah would wage “open war” with Israel at the end of the 40-day mourning period the group observed for Imad Mughniyeh who was killed in Damascus February 12. His deputy has maintained that Hezbollah had “100 percent solid evidence” that Israel had killed Mughniyeh, which Israel has consistently denied.

Monday, March 24, Nasrallah will address a big memorial rally in South Beirut. The Israeli army is on high alert for a possible Hezbollah attack from Lebanon. The Magen David Adom ambulance service is on emergency standby across the country. (Debka, via National Terror Alert)

Zawahiri makes a command performance via audio tape:

Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri is calling on Muslims to strike Israeli and American interests to avenge Israel’s recent offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to a new audiotape.

In the 4-minute tape, posted on a Web site Monday, al-Zawahri accuses Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of helping Israel in its offensive by sealing off the border between Egypt and Gaza.

He calls on Muslims to “strike the interests of the Jews, the Americans, and all of those who participated in the attack on the Muslims,” and says attacks should not be limited to areas in Israel or the Palestinian territories. (AP)

Negative U.S. media linked to increased insurgent attacks, By Shawn Waterman, United Press International

Researchers at Harvard say that publicly voiced doubts about the U.S. occupation of Iraq have a measurable “emboldenment effect” on insurgents there.

Periods of intense news media coverage in the United States of criticism about the war, or of polling about public opinion on the conflict, are followed by a small but quantifiable increases in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a study by Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university’s Kennedy School of Government.

The increase in attacks is more pronounced in areas of Iraq that have better access to international news media, the authors conclude in a report titled “Is There an ‘Emboldenment’ Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq.”

The researchers studied data about insurgent attacks and U.S. media coverage up to November, tracking what they called “anti-resolve statements” by U.S. politicians and reports about American public opinion on the war.

“We find that in periods immediately after a spike in anti-resolve statements, the level of insurgent attacks increases,” says the study, published earlier this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a leading U.S. nonprofit economic research organization. (Washington Times, via Peace and Freedom II)

Aso see "On The Ground: the Grunts and the Press - Some thoughts on the disconnect, and how it could be different" at Columbia Journalism Review

[snip] While there are still plenty of reporters risking their lives doing great work in Iraq, much of the political, social, and economic complexity of today’s war seems to be getting lost in the election-year crush, even as the war continues to be a major issue in the campaign.

The countries Americans love - not!

The countries Americans love and hate most, by Caitlin Wall, at Financial Policy on this Gallup poll, and here.

Not far behind are Great Britain, Germany, and Japan, all enjoying a rating of "very" or "mostly" favorable by more than 4 in 5 U.S. citizens. Least-favorite nations include the usual suspects: Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, North Korea, and Iran all drew favorable ratings from fewer than a fifth of respondents.

The survey reveals some noteworthy differences within groups of Americans. Self-described Republicans tend to see Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel more favorably, while Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, China, and France are more likely to be viewed positively by Democrats. On the whole, young Americans are more likely to view Russia and China favorably, with 60 percent of those aged 18 to 34 responding favorably, while only a third of Americans 55 or older have positive feelings about those countries.

Interestingly, two countries -- Russia and Kenya -- received a roughly equal amount of favorable and unfavorable grades. Perhaps the survey serves as a snapshot of Americans' views about recent news. Both nations are in a state of flux right now, with Russia entering an uncertain post-Putin era and Kenya's image as one of Africa's most-stable countries taking a beating due to post-election violence. Depending on how the respective situations pan out, we could see a lot of movement in the numbers next time around. It's just not clear in which direction things will go. (more)

Other reading:

Declining Nation: Denver Schools Re-Define "Gifted" in Response to PC Forces, Illegal Aliens

Qatar seen bankrolling Hamas, Peace and Freedom II

Strippers Are People Too, from Peace and Freedom II

Russia and Syria, dangerous liasion

Last year we heard reports that Russia planed to build permanent bases on Syrian soil as part of a large arms deal between the two countries. Defense establishment officials fear Russian ships may try to spy on Israel's weapon systems.   Today we have this:  Heavy storm exposes Russian Syria-based spy ship off Israel shore.  With the reports that Iran continues on a nuclear path, this is very bad news for the United States and Israel.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that the Russian Amur 1 Class PM 138 naval boat, caught up in the heavy storm raging across the Middle East and Mediterranean last week, flashed a distress signal Tuesday Feb. 19. The vessel was on its way from a Syrian port to Sevastopol on the Black Sea when it was thrown off course by the high seas. A Greek Navy frigate responded to the call and escorted the PM 138 to the island of Chios.

The Russian Navy spokesmen said the ship’s crew numbered 99. It was unarmed and was heading for home port after a long stay at one of the Syrian Navy’s Mediterranean bases.

Certain facts were accidentally disclosed as a result of the storm, DEBKAfile’s military sources point out:

1. Russian naval vessels are spending long periods running into months at the Syrian military bases of Latakia and Tartous.

2. Witnesses in Greece say the vessel, described officially as an auxiliary repair craft, boasted an unusual number of antennas for gathering intelligence. Its mission was clearly to gather information on Israeli military and naval movements while cruising opposite the Israeli coast.

Our sources add that, in recent months, the Russian Admiral Kutznetsov carrier with 47 Su-33 fighter-bombers and 10 helicopters on its decks visited one of the Syrian naval bases, along with the huge Moskva missile cruiser.

Israel officials prefer to ignore this mounting Russian naval presence to the north so as not to mar relations with the Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Rescued Russian spy ship in Greek port.

Russia has hitched her star to Iran, her agents Syria, and by this relationship to Hamas, Hezbollah and terrorism.  Russia is headed down a serious path, turning away from any relationship it could have had with the United States and the West.  Russia's Vlad Putin is ticked off at the US for several petty reasons.  We need to WATCH HIM and Russia very closely. 

The following is background and experts who will be writing in the coming week on the IAEA's latest findings and what the West can do to stop them (thanks to Insights Into Today's Middle East)

On Friday, 22 February, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)  issued a report concerning Iran’s nuclear program. Contrary to Iranian public insistence that its nuclear program is non-military in nature,  the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council has unanimously adopted binding resolutions that calls on Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities, as such activities have virtually no civilian use. [1].

For further information about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme: Background & Experts List

Background Information:

Timeline: Iran's Nuclear Programme, 31 Jan 2008

The IAEA-Iran Agreement (Work Plan), 15 Nov 2007

Iran's Chief Nuclear Negotiator: Saeed Jalili, Oct 2007

Experts List:

Dr. Sami Al Faraj

President of the Kuwait Centre For Strategic Studies, the oldest private think tank in the Gulf region dedicated to the study of and research in strategic issues pertaining to Gulf security from actual policy-making perspective, he is a consultant on national security and strategic planning to different governmental, parliamentary and private agencies, an international lawyer, and a frequent writer and TV and radio guest on Gulf Security, strategy, the strategic history of the Muslims, and international law issues.

Simon Henderson

Baker fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Institute's Gulf and Energy Policy Programme, specialising in energy matters and the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf. He served as a foreign correspondent with the Financial Times and BBC in Pakistan in 1977-78, and reported from Iran during the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Claude Moniquet

Claude Moniquet is an expert on counter-terrorism and extremism and a specialist on Near and Middle East issues. He is the director of the European Strategic and Intelligence Center. Moniquet focuses on terror networks and their European connections. He has published several books and studies including: "The Faceless War" (2002); "Jihad. Secret History and European Networks" (2004); and "Jihad and Islamism in Belgium" (2005).

Frédéric Encel

Frederic Encel is a Middle East expert and author. Encel earned a Ph.D. in Geo-policy at the University of Paris VII and teaches International Relations at the International Institute of Public Administration and at the Institute of Political Studies in Rennes. He is a prolific author and has published several books including: "The Art of War: Strategies and Battles" (2000); "Geopolitics of Israel" (2004) "Understanding the Middle-East: A Necessity for the Republic" (2006). He also works in the field of risk-analysis.


Dr. Matthias Küntzel

Matthias Küntzel, Ph.D., is an author and a political scientist from Hamburg, Germany. Küntzel has been researching, writing and publishing on the threat of Islamic Fundamentalism and Iran. In 2006, his work on Ahmadinejad, the Bassiji movement, and Germany's policy towards Iran was published in Internationale Politik, and in The New Republic. Küntzel is also a member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Dr. Victor Mizin

Dr. Victor Mizin, Vice-President of the Moscow based Center for Strategic Assessments, member of the Center for Political and Military Prognosis of the Russian Academy of Science IMEMO Institute, and the board of the Russian NGO Committee on Critical Technologies and Nonproliferation. Dr. Mizin formally served as a member of Russia 's Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he concentrated on arms control, non-proliferation and global security.

_________________________                           

Reference

[1] "IAEA declines comment on Iran nuclear weapons claims," Middle East Times , 20 February 2008

Failure to Lead?

Leadership for the United States is needed now more than ever in my opinion. What better time that 2008, with presidential elections ahead of us, to review the leadership we have had and the leadership that we want.

The early years of the George W. Bush administration were marked by a strong sense of purpose, dedication to the "Bush Doctrine" for democratic change in the Middle East, and the soaring rhetoric of a president who understood that American leadership anchored global stability. In the wake of 9/11, Islamist jihadis, friends, allies, and adversaries alike were all put on notice: the United States was not ready for dhimmitude, not by a long shot.

"No Surrender" was more than a book title. The most dangerous regimes on earth would not be permitted to acquire the world's most dangerous weapons -- not on President Bush's watch. The State of Israel's identity as a Jewish state and outpost of democracy in the Middle East had a powerful defender. Freedom was on the march for oppressed Iranians, restless Egyptians, brutalized Iraqis, and all the peoples of the Arab and Muslim world.

Recently, however, the ability and willingness of the U.S. to lead the struggle for liberal democracy, rule of law, and values of Western civilization seem to be slipping badly. The resulting sense of uncertainty is leading to a dangerous instability in world affairs that invites challenge from opportunistic rogues, confusion from friends and allies, and appeasement and retreat from the weak.

Only a reassertion of firm American leadership can end this dangerous interlude; the alternative is a continued slide into chaos that will only further erode the U.S.'s ability to defend, let alone pursue, national and international security objectives.

Without a doubt, the most serious challenge facing the U.S. today is Iran's geostrategic and ideological expansionism. (Clare Lopez, Gerard Group)

Ms. Lopez points out that Major-General Ali Jafari, the head of Iran's IRGC, was welcomed into Baghdad's "Green Zone" in late December for talks with U.S. and three times in recent weeks, IRGC naval forces brazenly sent fast attack patrol boats against U.S. naval ships in the Persian Gulf while "misplaced efforts by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to demonstrate U.S. sympathy for Palestinian terrorists by comparing them to the segregated southern blacks of her youth ensured that any incipient impulse toward settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict evaporated rapidly after the showcase Annapolis conference of late November."

Ms. Lopes concludes:

In the absence of credible deterrence, their aggression only becomes bolder, making the ultimate showdown inevitably more violent. It is time for this president to demonstrate once again the resolve that characterized his post-9/11 management of American foreign policy. The security of the nation and world depend on it.

I would say that what President George W. Bush does not take care of before the 2008 presidential elections, may not get done by the next president. There are many problems in the world and I realize they can't all be solved overnight. But Iran seems to be top priority. Will responsibility fall into Israel's lap? One thing is also for sure, the consequences of an independent Kosovo have already started, and it isn't good.

Minority Serbs took to the streets for a second day protesting Kosovo independence, burning border posts. (Washington Times)

In Belgrade, Serb rioters broke into the U.S. Embassy Thursday and set fire to an office after a massive protest against Kosovo’s independence that drew an estimated 150,000 people. (AP) The U.S. Embassy is now secure, but other embassies in the city are also being attacked.

Lebanese political circles wait for the arrival of the assistant Arab league secretary general Hisahm Yusef tomorrow to Beirut to study the stands of the Lebanese sides towards the Arab peace initiative after Washington’s frank rejection of it. This was followed by internal stands including the declaration of Saad al-Hariri’s office that he does not agree on the formula of the tens. (Voltaire)

Kuwait advised its citizens on Thursday against travelling to Lebanon, citing political problems in the country locked in a constitutional crisis. (Reuters)

Syria has vowed to soon release the results of its inquiry into the assassination of Hizbullah official Imad Mughniyeh. However, there is increasing likelihood that the findings, rather than explain what happened, will become a weapon in the regional struggle between Syria, Iran and their Lebanese allies on the one hand, and Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan to a lesser extent, and the March 14 coalition on the other. (Michael Young)

The United States and Israel are not the only countries who wanted Mughnieyeh dead. France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia are also among countries that had “unsettled accounts” with him. (Yourish) It is also not uncommon for Israel to work with countries like Syria behind the scenes when there is some mutual benefit. (The Volunteer, by Michael Ross)

Former Israeli secret service chief Efraim Halevy has shocked the Israeli political establishment by arguing that Israel should enter talks with Hamas. Not because he likes the movement but because he thinks it is in Israel's strategic interest to recognize the 'reality on the ground'. (Radio Netherlands)

Hizb ut-Tahrir is exploiting the latest Danish Cartoon riots. Danish Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) led an official protest against the cartoons on Friday February 15 in Copenhagen's Noerrebro district, attended by 1,500 people. Leading the demonstration was Danish HT leader Fadi Abdullatif. (Western Resistance)

Clinton and Obama reps talk to dictator

A prominent fundraiser for the campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has been accused of serving as an agent of the Islamic government of Iran, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is likely to become Secretary of State in the administration of Barack Hussein Obama, were in Syria last week to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as part of a Rand Corporation delegation. (Israel Matzav)

This little visit took place one day after arch-terrorist Imad Mugniyeh was assassinated in Damascus. The candidates apparently want these high level meetings with the fascist, terrorist enabling Assad regime to be kept quiet, out of the media, and now they both refuse to talk in public about the visits.

So here we have an interesting question. The two top Democrats both have top level campaign advisers meeting with the dictator of a regime that actively sponsors terrorism against the US and a US ally, Israel at the same time. Why?

Are they conducting some kind of secret negotiations on their own with the regime? Remember Nancy Pelosi's little jaunt to Syria and her statement " We (Democrats) have our own foreign policy"?

Or are they bidding? Do they have some kind of competing offers on the table? (Joshua Pundit)

This is important news for many reasons. Both candidates have said they would 'talk' with our enemies, I guess this is proof they mean what they say. But who are these two 'advisers' and is this good news for America? My answer is a big, fat NO, this is not good. Gateway Pundit says, "Well, at least the Clinton and Obama camps can agree on one thing-- to meet with dictators."

Damascus has also been the transit point for thousands of jihadis going to Iraq to commit suicide-murders against Americans and Iraqis. If you want to talk to Al Qaida and the gang, Damascus is your place. Syria's President Assad is also Iran's best buddy in the Arab world. (Iran is the State Department's biggest terror-sponsoring state.) So Assad is the go-to guy for all the terror sponsors. (Infidel Blogger's Alliance)

Hassan Nemazee (info here and here)

Tom Bowler at Libertarian Leanings asks, "What does this say about either candidate's support for democracy in Lebanon?" Good question and I would love to hear the answer. Jim Rose says, "This can only mean that democracy in Lebanon is in peril. With either Hillary or Obama in the White House, appeasement will be job one and Lebanon could pay the price."

From the Contentious Centrist "OBAMA WATCH":

Mr. Brzezinski's visit to Syria ... is in many ways in keeping with a theme of the Obama campaign.

... the former Carter administration official addressed Democratic lawmakers last month at a retreat at Williamsburg, Va., on America's policy toward Iran. "I remember thinking, 'Why are we listening to him?' He was the national security adviser for Jimmy Carter 30 years ago. He proceeded to talk to us about Iran, and I said, 'Let me see, didn't the ayatollahs come to power, didn't we have this problem when you were in the White House?'"

For more on 'advisers' chosen by Obama and Clinton, see "Behind Obama and Clinton: Who's whispering in their ears says a lot", by Prof. Stephen Zunes at Global Research.

Obama now faces the terror test, so does Clinton and McCain:

No test in politics is sterner than the 9/11 test, which Obama now faces as frontrunner in the Democratic race. If he has a coherent plan to better manage the terror file, he may want to roll it out soon. [snip]

All that said, Obama's good luck is that Hillary Clinton and John McCain haven't yet put strikingly better ideas in the window.

Going forward, Obama will want to reassure skeptics that his presidency will not only electrify Washington, but also apply better policy to an ugly problem. On the terror file, it will take more than a prayer and a hope...

Reformed Chicks Babbling reports, "Obama to run as an Independent if Clinton steals the nomination?" Wow, didn't see that one coming.

Bill Clinton Loses Temper, Lashes Out at Pro-Lifers, YouTube. His wife is just like him is this what voters want?

See Layla's article at The HILL Chronicles "Selling Us Dirt: “Damage From U.S. Extremists a Concern” - The Fallout From McCain/Sorros Article I Wrote"

Another question I have about Obama and Clinton: How will they respond to terrorists who want to kill people and destroy Embassies because they draw a cartoon.

And then there's McCain, image via hubby:

See The Clinton Rules of Journalism, at Orcinus

See A Pair Of Wax Figures (Obama and Clinton) at GM's Corner.

Other reading:
Modern Times, at Gates of Vienna (go see the image)
Angry White Men, Pirate's Cove
Moments of Truth in Iraq: Order your Special Signed Edition of Michael Yon’s New Book Moment of Truth in Iraq And help rush vital support to Michael’s mission
For bloggers, "How do I improve my blog and get more traffic?" at Sprittibee
All I Ask Is This, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Also

Clock is ticking on Israel's demise

Hezbollah and Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah promise WAR against Israel saying, "The clock on Israel's demise is ticking." Not that anyone doubts Hezbollah is nothing but a terrorist organization determined to kill Israelis and destroy the nation of Israel, they show their true colors today. Imad Moughniyah was killed with a car bomb in Damascus on Tuesday. Iran, Hezbollah, the Shi'ite Lebanese militia, and others accused Israel. Hezbullah stopped its regular programming, and a teary-eyed newscaster read the news, which was immediately followed by Koran verses – a format that is reserved for times of emergency and war with Israel.

Israel put its embassies and other interests abroad on high alert and reinforced troops on the Lebanese border on Thursday Israel admitted today that they may have had a hand in the death of Imad Mugniyah, something everyone suspected bur didn't know for sure. That was all that Hezbollah needed to declare imminent war on Israel. "If Israel wants open war, so be it." said Nasrallah.

Lebanon’s Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, who is considered the best political litmus test in the country, lashed out at Nasrallah and his organization this week. “If you think that we shall stand still with our hands tied – you’re delusional,” Jumblatt said. “You want anarchy? We welcome it. You want war? We welcome it,” he added as his supporters cheered on. “There is no problem with weapons,” he added. [snip]

“There is no doubt that the Mugniyah assassination is very painful for the organization in terms of morale, yet it is doubtful whether it changes anything in operational terms,” a Lebanese source told Ynet. (more)

High Alert is the word of the day.

Also look out, the terrorists are rampaging again. Here's my contribution:

President Bush's Great Adventure

What happened prior to President George W. Bush's Middle East trip is as interesting as what goes on during the trip.   I could never be a diplomat, sitting down with people that you know want to slit your throat and destroy your country.  No way.  But that's part of the job for an American President.  I wonder what this trip will accomplish, if anything?    Ruth S. King writes about President George W. Bush's Middle East tour:

Remember the joke about a boy who gets a huge box of horse manure as a nasty prank and spends a whole day sifting through it looking for a pony? Well I’m reminded of that by the dozens of friends and supporters of Israel who are looking for the pony in President Bush’s foolhardy Middle East peace mission.  (Family Security Matters)

Funny image and I'm sure many feel it's appropriate.  Poor Israel, putting on a smiling face as people plot to divide her up and make decisions for her.

Bush in Saudi Arabia, where 'a recent poll found only 12 percent here view Bush positively — lower than Iran's president or even al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden — and more think warmly toward Iran than America.'

Caroline Glick points out that "For the past several weeks, the leaders of the global jihad and their state sponsors in Syria and Iran have escalated their rhetorical and military attacks against Israel and the US."

Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and his American lackey Adam Gadahn all issued video and audio appeals on the eve of Bush's trip.  [snip]

Fatah al-Islam is considered a creation of Syrian intelligence ...  led by Shaker al-Absi, a Palestinian and a former member of the Syrian military ...  announcing his allegiance to Osama bin Laden ...  combining forces with al-Qaida in Iraq.  [snip]

Hamas too spent the period leading up to Bush's visit escalating both its missile offensive against southern Israel and its anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric.  [snip]

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a televised speech excoriating Bush for his support and recognition of Israel.  [snip]

Nasrallah's Iraqi counterpart Muqtada el-Sadr made a call on Wednesday for Arab leaders to boycott Bush.   [snip]

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative Ali Larijani was rounding off a week-long official visit to Syria. There he met with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad  [snip]

Iranian forces directly challenged US naval forces in the Straits of Hormuz.  [snip]

...  in their decision not to open fire on the Iranian boats, they signaled clearly that the US is unwilling to actually fight Iran.  (continue reading at Jerusalem Post)

See "Appropiate Actions" by my friend at GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD, for more on conflicts at sea.

In the United Arab Emirates "Bush accused Iran of funding terrorist extremists, undermining stability in Lebanon, sending arms to the Taliban and intimidating its neighbors with alarming rhetoric."  The Iranians responded, "His remarks were an indication of the frustration over his failure in attracting Muslim and Arab countries to support to the Zionist occupier regime, Israel."

The UAE is different from other stops on Bush's trip.  Judith Miller's article in the City Journal, "Abu Dhabi: East Leans West" -- While radical Islamists fight to restore the Dark Ages, a modernizing sheikhdom invests in Western culture -- gives an interesting view of the region:

Most people wear Western clothes; you see relatively few dishdashas, the flowing white robes usually worn by Arab men in the Persian Gulf. There are no bearded mullahs on the streets or on the far more crowded highways. There are lots of women drivers, though, some with headscarves, some without.

The emirate is determined to modernize its young, traditionally conservative, underskilled population—to mold future citizens secure in their Islamic heritage but able to flourish in an increasingly globalized and diverse world. Radical Islamists want to drag Muslims back to the Dark Ages; Muslim Abu Dhabi is racing into the future. True, Abu Dhabi, like the UAE as a whole, has a system of government that is tribal and undemocratic, blending family, business, and administrative interests in inseparable and impenetrable ways. But the emirate’s commitment to the education and cultural advancement of its people makes it a relatively bright spot in the Arab Middle East, where oil wealth has too often brought conflict and misery.  (continue reading)

The article paints a beautiful picture of the region, completely opposite of surrounding countries.  Yet, ... yet ... what does this mean?  Does it mean there is hope for the Muslims and the Middle East?  Does it mean that places like Syria, Iran, Gaza could some day look similar?  While we ponder this question, President Bush shuttles on. 

What's going on behind the scenes?  What deals are being discussed?  The photo-ops don't tell the story my friends.  Olmert praises Bush in the press conference to the point it was embarrassing to everybody.  I thought Olmert was going to drop to one knee and kiss Bush's ring, as the compliments continued to flow. 

One continuing truth:  Israel  WILL NOT accept nukes in Iran.  God bless them.

Meanwhile:

I suppose having 'tea' or 'orange juice' with a terrorist doesn't equal negotiations.  US envoy, Ambassador William Wood, meets former Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Salaam and urged him to tell his people to leave behind “the practice of producing poison,” and said poppy production, the key element in the opium and heroin trade, was against the law and Islam.  (AP)

Others:  Instapundit
Gateway Pundit
Blogger News Network

This is Submission

... we have failed to do a doctrine-based threat assessment of the enemy. During the Cold War, constant study of Soviet military doctrine was a continuous duty of all professional soldiers. Knowing vehicle types and numbers in a doctrinal Advance Guard of a Motorized Rifle Regiment was critically important for American Armor officers. The enemy’s military doctrine is the basis for his strategy, operational art, and tactics and must be understood by those who would defeat him.

Our leaders have deprived our defenders of this understanding of the IslamoFascist/hirabist/jihadi, prolonging the war at the cost of American lives.

Choosing to ignore the information that lies beneath the surface of such claims is to submit the information that drives decision-making and analysis to the disclosure requirements of Islamic law. This is submission. (more)

Islamic law forms the doctrinal basis for the jihadi threat, from Stephen Collins Coughlin, National Defense Intelligence College, Free Republic, thanks to Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group

From the earliest Islamic legal authorities to modern American 7th grade school texts on Islam, it turns out that all agree that Islam is a complete way of life governed by Islamic law. There was nothing to indicate that there are recognized forms of Islam that are not governed by Islamic law. The national constitutions of most Muslim countries, and all Arab countries surveyed, formally reflect this subordination. All the Islamic authorities identified jihad as a duty incumbent on all Muslims at the communal and individual levels. When the authorities spoke to Islamic law of jihad, its meaning was limited to that of warfare against non-Muslims to establish the religion. Because this finding is in line with Quranic verses from surahs from the later periods of revelation, it reflects abrogation’s doctrinal influence on Islamic law. Because jihad’s legal status reflects scholarly consensus, it means that the rules of jihad as stated in Islamic law are absolute and hence cannot be contravened or annulled.

File this under the WAKE UP AMERICA banner.

"The Bush administration will notify Congress on Monday of its intent to sell $20 billion in weapons, including precision-guided bombs, to Saudi Arabia, moving up the announcement to coincide with the president's arrival in Riyadh. " (more) But there's no reason to worry, because the Israelis are getting SMARTER bombs. Oh yes, the Saudis beheaded an Indonesian maid following the strict interpretation of Islam.

We are in a war against Islamic terror–a profoundly anti-modernist movement. The basis of this anti-modernism? Tribal culture. My sub-group versus your sub-group, my warlord versus your warlord, my self-contained universe determined to eliminate yours. Cooperation? The enemy of my enemy is my friend–until it’s just the two of us left to fight it out for the ultimate victory. (more)

In Iran criminals have their hands and feet cut off, while two others were flogged and thrown off a cliff, under Sharia Law.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards execute a dry run on American naval ships in international waters, and somehow the American Left tries to make it America's fault.

In London, a teenage Muslim girl who feared a forced marriage was being arranged by her parents was murdered, under Sharia Law. Her parents are prime suspects.

Hundreds of British non-Muslims have been recruited by al-Qaeda to wage war against the West,

As many as 1,500 white Britons are believed to have converted to Islam for the purpose of funding, planning and carrying out surprise terror attacks inside the UK, according to one MI5 source. (more)

In response to the above, reader Michael says the following. I don't have statistics to back it up:

The United States has far more Muslims than does the UK, both "converts" and those smuggled into the country by the current Administration using "Asylum" and "Refugee" statutes borrowed from the United Nations. As a few of you know, I am one of only a very few individuals to have actually visited and roamed around in, Jihadi camps within the USA. (Yeah, it hurts, but most of those claiming to have done so are pure bullshit artists....fat guys sitting naked in front of their computers...and fantasizing.) If the UK is at risk, then we are at risk ten times over.

Arabs think they have a 'right' to return to land that was never theirs to begin with, while they attack innocent children in schools.

All of the above AND there's the FBI's covert investigations have been halted because they failed to pay their phone bill. Oh. My. Goodness. Some people want the United States to apologize to the world for ... I don't know, being STRONG, for fighting for our freedoms? Next is the sacking of Stephen Coughlin, the “Pentagon specialist on Islamic Law and Islamist extremism,” which prompted the following article:

The Mold on the Wall (of the Pentagon)

I think that I could more deal with the "in your face" attacks of 9/11, rather than with the insidious fungus/mold that is spreading throughout all levels of our society. Ask the folks who experience mold in their homes. It silently and amorphously spreads, inch by inch, until the homeowner flees.

By the time the mold of “Islamist extremism,” finishes the process, we will not be able to flee the US. The other countries will have already been “molded.”

No, I am not bashing folks of the Muslim faith. I would definitely like to bash, and not just figuratively, those folks who, with their and their “aiders” and abettors, want us to convert or die, and are determined to take us back to the 7th century or earlier. They are using, as their very effective weapons, our system of government, our laws, our freedoms, our marketing systems, our First Amendment Rights, our currency (well, maybe now the Euro), our everything...and we are letting them. Mon Dieu! [snip]

I do not want to be part of a means of population control, at the hands of “Islamists extremists,” unwittingly aided and abetted by fellow citizens of mine, ensconced in their well-appointed offices with a view of the city, the same city that could be wiped out because they refused to see the signs that say "mold."

That is Submission.

It is not just a class of civilizations, it is a class of CULTURES.

Also see Top 10 Overseas Security Trends for the U.S. Private Sector in 2007, at Stormwarning's Counterterrorism Blog

Linked with Woman Honor Thyeself and 123Beta

Oh what a tangled web they weave, when Hezbollah practices to deceive

Hezbollah: Signs of a Sophisticated Intelligence Apparatus, By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, Stars and Stripes

[snip] The evidence, allegations and related cases suggest that Hezbollah has established a sophisticated intelligence apparatus that reaches into the United States. Moreover, it is possible — though certainly not proven — that Spinelli and Prouty used their positions in government agencies to provide Hezbollah with sensitive information. If these women were indeed Hezbollah plants, the magnitude of the information they provided to Hezbollah and Iran could be similar in importance to the information Robert Hanssen provided to the Soviets and Russians — and the damage could prove to be just as great.

The Web

Although the network of interpersonal relations and sham marriages muddle the story, the evidence appears as follows:

One of the three former roommates, El Aouar, is married to fugitive Talal Chahine, an alleged Hezbollah financial operative who is believed to be hiding in Lebanon. Chahine was charged in 2006 in the Eastern District of Michigan with tax evasion in connection with a scheme to conceal more than $20 million in cash received by a chain of restaurants he owns and routing those funds to “persons in Lebanon.” In October 2007, Chahine, along with a senior Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official in Detroit and several other people, was charged in a bribery and extortion conspiracy in which federal immigration benefits allegedly were awarded to illegal aliens in exchange for money that also apparently ended up in Hezbollah’s coffers. [snip]

... After gaining her U.S. citizenship in 1994, she [Prouty] moved to Pennsylvania to pursue an MBA at Bloomsburg University. While at Bloomsburg, she met and married Andrew Alley, who had served as a Marine during Operation Desert Storm. In 1997, the FBI hired Prouty as an agent and assigned her to the FBI’s Washington field office, where she worked on an extraterritorial squad investigating crimes against U.S. persons overseas — terrorism cases. As part of her duties, she investigated the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 2002 assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley, in Amman, Jordan. In 2000, Prouty divorced Alley and later married Foreign Service officer Gordon Prouty, who had served at U.S. embassies in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Cairo, Egypt.

Knowing Nada Prouty from her work as an FBI agent working terrorism cases, the CIA hired her in 2003, and she became an agency case officer. She reportedly was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and participated in a number of interrogations of high-value suspects, including captured al Qaeda members. When the CIA learned of Prouty’s immigration fraud in December 2005, the agency reportedly moved her to a less sensitive language-training post. [snip]

The Potential Blowback

Although there is no evidence at this point that Prouty and Spinelli worked on behalf of Hezbollah, we cannot ignore the fact that the U.S. government has produced evidence that Prouty’s sister and Chahine attended an August 2002 Hezbollah fundraiser in Lebanon — during which Chahine was seated in a position of honor at the right hand of Hezbollah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah.

Additionally, Prouty did admit in her guilty plea that in September 2000 she used the FBI’s computerized Automated Case System (ACS) without authorization to look up her own name, her sister’s name and that of Chahine. Prouty also admitted that in June 2003 she accessed the ACS to obtain information relating to an FBI national security investigation into Hezbollah — though she had not been officially assigned to work any Hezbollah cases. [snip]

The timing of Prouty’s transfer to the CIA is also interesting in that it came on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A case officer who spoke native Arabic would have been indispensable in an environment such as Iraq, especially at a time when there were many high-value suspects to interrogate and sources to interview. Such an employee undoubtedly would be given insight into almost everything happening in the CIA’s station and would have ready access to a great deal of information.

This is the kind of information that would be of utmost importance to Iran. Tehran, considering the invasion as a potential threat to its own interests — believed the U.S. operations in Iraq required close monitoring. Following the invasion, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad became one of the most significant in the world — especially from the Iranian perspective. While the Iranians undoubtedly planted their loyalists in the local guard force and the embassy’s local support staff, those people would not have had nearly the same access as a cleared American officer. (continue reading at Peace and Freedom II

Other reading:

sheer unadulterated insanity-on your dime, The government is financing the PLO. Caos Blog
Japan Navy Kills Ballistic Missile Target
British Suspect In Trans-Atlantic Jet Terror Plot Escapes On The Run In Pakistan
Good Money After Bad, by Baron Bodissey, Sweden has decided to reward the good behavior of the Palestinians by lavishing another $209 million on the Palestinian Authority.
Dhimmitude Alert : ''Mosque' uncovered on college campus', Hyscience
Fake Passports + Phony IDs + Lots of Cash + Ties to Muslim Groups = Nothing to See Folks, Move Along
12 passports from Pakistan, Jamaica and the U.S., under various names, 11 phony Illinois identification cards, 36 Social Security cards, hundreds of credit cards, gold coins and bars and more than $60,000 in cash., The Jawa Report

Disinformation, Deception, Denial, Dirty Deals

It's hard to know what's really going on with all the dirty deals, disinformation, deception, denial and questionable actions going on today.

"A variety of signals have been coming out of the international community proving that the nearly three-year embargo on Syria has finally started to crumble and come to an end," according to Asia Times. In fact, it seems most U.S. efforts in the past to derail Syria have gone by the wayside.

"During Israel's war with Hezbullah in 2006, Russian military advisors in Syria provided real-time intelligence to both Syria and Hezbullah." (Jerusalem Post) Russia has and continues to supply advanced arms to both Syria and Iran.

Diplomatically, Russia has acted as Syria's and Iran's shield in the UN Security Council and other international forums. It has placed obstacles on the UN investigation of the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. It has prevented the Security Council from taking any consequential actions against Iran's nuclear weapons program. And it has continued its sponsorship of Iran's nuclear program by maintaining its involvement at the Bushehr nuclear reactor which it built. Just this week, the pro-Iranian IAEA approved Russia's plan to ship nuclear fuel to Bushehr. (continue reading)

American intelligence agencies based this week's surprise assessment that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 on notes obtained from Iranian military officials; however, the "CIA was so concerned that the notes might be part of an elaborate disinformation effort by Tehran that it organized a “red team” to check their veracity." Times Online.

The intelligence finding has unnerved Arab nations in the Middle East because they believe that the receding prospect of a US military strike will embolden Iran. Although countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt oppose a military strike, they welcomed the threat of one as it served to preoccupy Tehran and curb its ambitions in the region.

The Sunni Arab nations view Shia Iran as the greatest strategic threat in the Middle East. With further UN sanctions also unlikely, they do not disagree with President Ahmadinejad's declaration that the US intelligence assessment was a “victory” for Iran. (more)

Tom Rants asks:

# Is it possible that Iran stopped this program, only to start a new one further underground in the fallout from the US invasion of Iraq? # Is it possible that Iran actually did shut down its programs altogether because of the US invasion of Iraq? # Is it possible that the NIE, put out by friends of Valerie Plame, was cooked? Is it possible that an anti-Bush agenda, including a bit of vengeance for an anti-Bush former comrade, trumped national security? (continue reading)

From Asia Times: " ...the morning after the Annapolis shindig, we learned that Syria and the US had a common choice in General Michel Suleiman (who also happens to be close to Hezbollah) for the unfilled Lebanese presidency."

And then we saw on Sunday Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz entering the conference hall of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Doha flanked by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The GCC, flag-carrier of US regional strategy for three decades, had never before invited Iran to its meetings.

By Monday morning, the Bush administration had released declassified extracts of the sensational National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear problem, [snip] And now we learn that Bush will be packing his bags for his first-ever visit in his presidency to the Holy Land and Palestine. (continue reading)

The news agency Mehr reported that a senior Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, who is staunchly allied to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has stepped down from the influential post of Deputy Interior Minister. (Iran Focus) Why? Why would this man resign???

Zolqadr, who was once the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is currently Iran's Deputy Interior Minister with overall responsibility for internal security.

The United Nations Security Council has added his name to a list of senior IRGC commanders who are banned from traveled abroad because of their role in the country’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

Syria Key to Middle East Peace Process: (Syria Comment)

... I think many people were surprised that Syria showed up, albeit with a deputy foreign minister instead of a foreign minister. How did this happen? ...

Syria was wooed. There was intense diplomacy prior to Syria’s accepting. [snip]

WHY? [snip] And there were two agendas going on here: One agenda was to push the peace process forward and try to get the Bush administration committed to it in a serious way. The other factor on the agenda was to create some sort of Arab community in order to isolate Iran and raise the pressure on Iran, because I think it’s widely understood that the only way you’re going to isolate Iran in the future is to repair the deep schisms and divisions between Arab states—and this schism is primarily between Syria and Saudi Arabia, because Iran’s reach into the Arab world, and its influence, is largely through Syria. (continue reading)

Shimon Peres "warned that it was impossible for any intelligence agency to know the exact nature and scope of the technological knowledge purchased from North Korea and Russia at high prices", saying "We are likely to wake up one morning and discover that comprehensive nuclear technology was passed on without interruption and is close to implementation." (YNet)

So much for peace in the Middle East:

Bethlehem – Ma'an A spokesperson of Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, on Monday threatened to carry out bombing operations deep inside Israel and to launch homemade projectiles that can reach as far as the far north of Ashkelon city if Israel invades the Gaza Strip.

From the Jerusalem Post:

The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in Palestinian-run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli scholar said Monday.

"The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs," said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer in an address at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he serves as a scholar in residence.

Perhaps we need advice from The Perfect Counselor, Creator of this world and all it's inhabitants. The only perfect person to walk in the Middle East. Only He know what needs to be done if peace is possible, despite what some people think. Read about Him at Sharper Iron.

Other reading:

I can't believe that NBC Refuses to Thank Troops. The Strong Conservative has the story here. Go read it and watch the video/ad.

Remember that NBC gave Al Gore FREE air time to preach his propaganda on global warming. Now, NBC is refusing to run the ad put out by the conservative group Freedom Watch.

Al-Qaeda urged to attack Knights of Malta in Cairo, AKI

A message posted on Islamist websites close to al-Qaeda is urging jihadists to carry out a terrorist attack on the embassy of the Roman Catholic Order of Malta in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. (continue reading)

Stop the ACLU OTA
Pearl Harbor: 66 years MM

Elderly Woman Ministers to Her Mugger, Brings Tears to His Eyes, Stop the ACLU

LITTLE HOPE FOR PEACE IN ANNAPOLIS

LITTLE HOPE FOR PEACE IN ANNAPOLIS, by Fern Sidman

As the world focused its attention on yet another round of Middle East peace negotiations, this time orchestrated by the Bush administration and held at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, it was clear that hope does not spring eternal for any kind of meaningful and long lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the imminent future.

Despite proclamations from President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas asserting a commitment to forge ahead with the US sponsored "roadmap to peace" in the region, there remains a multitude of stumbling blocks and endemic policy disagreements between the sides.

Just moments before President Bush delivered his speech to the Mideast peace conference on Tuesday, it appeared any hopes of getting a written agreement signed by Israeli and Palestinian leaders had slipped away. An Israeli official had then announced that a "joint understanding" between Israel and the Palestinians had been reached, which essentially translated into an agreement to agree -- not an actual peace deal. Said US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice of the peace talks: "This work will be hard, it involves risks and sacrifices for all concerned. To be sure, the issues to be resolved by both parties are very challenging, but difficult to resolve does not mean impossible to resolve."

Over 40 countries were represented at the peace summit including most of the Arab world with the notable exceptions of Iran and Hamas, the latter being listed by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh denounced the summit in a televised address Tuesday. "The Palestinian people will not be bound by anything the Palestinian Authority agrees to in Annapolis," he said.

Desperate for recognition by the Arab states, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert called on the Arab nations in attendance to also make concessions, namely to end their boycott of Israel. "The time has come to end the boycott and alienation and the obliviousness toward the state of Israel," he said. An Israeli official, however said, "The Saudis won't shake our hands; the Syrians won't say nice things about us, but they're here."

President Bush called for an "end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; and to confront terrorism and incitement." He hailed the peace summit as an "historic opportunity to encourage the expansion of freedom and peace in the Holy Land and called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, living side by side with Israel. He said his hopes for a negotiated settlement, "will establish Palestine as a Palestinian homeland just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people."

The recognition of Israel as a Jewish state appears to be one of the testier sticking points for the Palestinians. Arabs and Palestinians have opposed calling Israel a Jewish state because, they say, it would preclude many refugees from returning to Israel, and the label fails to account for thousands of Arabs residing there. The potential influx of Palestinian refugees from Jordan represents a demographic time bomb for Israel because as a democracy, this could mean that Palestinians, clearly in the majority can quietly and democratically vote Israel out of existence.

The issue of the status of Jerusalem also poses problems. After Bush's announcement, Abbas said that he will not back down on his demand that East Jerusalem be named the capital of any future Palestinian state, nor will he relent on his calls for Israel to dismantle its outposts in the West Bank.

"I must defend the right of our people to see a new dawn," Abbas said, calling also for the release of Palestinian prisoners, the lifting of roadblocks and the removal of what he called the "separation wall" that surrounds the West Bank.

Olmert said that Israel was "prepared to make a painful compromise, rife with risks, in order to realize these aspirations" of peace. He also said he had "hesitations and doubts" about attending Tuesday's summit, but Israel nonetheless "will be part of an international mechanism" to establish the guidelines and boundaries for a future Palestinian state.

The issue of dividing Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, has drawn harsh criticism from Olmert opponents in Israel as well as an array of Jewish organizations in the United States. According to a report from Israel National News, tens of thousands of people staged a mass demonstration Monday night in Jerusalem's Paris Square, across from the Prime Minister's residence, denouncing Olmert's oblique references to the division of Jerusalem and the relinquishing of Judea and Samaria. Participants in the demonstration sponsored by the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea and Samaria (Yesha), included members of the governing coalition from the Kadima, Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu parties.

Also on Monday night in Washington, Olmert took issue with leaders of US Jewish organizations who voiced their staunch opposition to the dismantling of Jerusalem. Olmert declared at a news conference Monday following his meeting with leaders of U.S. Jewish communities that "the government of Israel has a sovereign right to negotiate anything on behalf of Israel," making it clear that Jews outside of Israel had no right to participate in decisions about the future of Jerusalem. The prime minister told reporters that the issue had "been determined long ago." His remarks were seen as a slap to American Jewish leaders who oppose tentative plans by the Olmert administration to put Jerusalem on the negotiating table.

Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Vice President of the National Council of Young Israel, told hundreds of Jews in Chicago Monday night that "Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) is not up for discussion, Yerushalayim is not for sale, Yerushalayim must remain undivided forever." The Orthodox Union (OU) immediately responded to the prime minister's remarks with a statement saying it did not intend to dictate policy to Israel, but expressed its "resolute stand" that all Jews in the world have a share in "the holy city of Jerusalem."

Agudath Israel of America adopted a resolution Sunday at its 85th national convention in Connecticut bluntly stating "Israel should not relinquish parts of Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty, and the American government should not pressure the Israeli government into doing so." Both statements echoed an assertion published on the website of the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem which states unequivocally that "World Jewry opposes Israeli negotiations which would include any discussion of ceding sovereignty over part or all of Jerusalem." The group soberly notes in its statement that this is "the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel that a significant group of American Jewish organizations have created a broad united front to pursue a policy directly involving Israel that is based on an explicit principle that supercedes deference to the sitting Israeli government."

Meanwhile in the cities of Ramallah and Hebron, thousands of angry Palestinian protestors clashed with police in what they called a sell-out by a weak and compromised Palestinian leadership. Police shot and killed one protester in Hebron, CNN's Ben Wedeman reported

The Bush administration expressed its hopes that the peace summit would, "trigger final status talks between Israelis, Palestinians, encourage Israel and the Palestinians to honor "road map" agreements, help to strengthen Palestinian government infrastructure and help to establish a broader Arab-Israeli peace." President Bush vowed to, "do everything in our power to support their quest for peace." The skepticism of a real peace coming to fruition was justified as Israeli and Palestinian leaders acknowledged they did not address any of the divisive issues that have killed so many previous attempts to construct peace deals.

Bush announced that Israeli and Palestinian steering committees were scheduled to meet on December 12th to work out the fine points of a final peace agreement and both Olmert and Abbas vowed to seal a deal by the end of 2008, meeting every two weeks to push the talks forward.

During the peace talks in Annapolis, several Jewish organizations protested the event including Americans For a Safe Israel who called Israel's attempt to make more territorial concessions to the Palestinians "suicidal". Said one protestor who chose to remain anonymous, "Look what happened after Israel forcibly evacuated 10,000 Jewish residents from Gush Katif in Gaza in 2005 in an attempt to appease the Arabs and make peace. Not only did this gesture not make peace, but they (the Palestinians) now use Gaza as a launching pad for daily Kassam rocket attacks on Israeli cities like Sderot, causing death and many causalities. Every time Israel relinquishes land to the Palestinians, the last thing that Israel gets in return is peace. When will we ever learn that the Palestinians don't want peace, but rather, their agenda calls for the total eradication of Israel and the murder of as many Jews that they can".

In Washington, another group of Jewish protestors gathered and referred to the summit in Annapolis as "Munich II". 22 year old Yisroel Rubin said, "Our leaders in the Israeli government are morally and spiritually bankrupt, vapid and empty leaders who are devoid of a sense of Jewish destiny. For them, the Zionist dream has come to a screeching halt. They have removed G-d and Torah from their lives, immersed themselves in corruption and are now leading us down the path to another Auschwitz."

When asked what Israel's alternative was at this juncture to insure the Jewish character of the state of Israel, Rubin responded by saying, "After 1967, Israel should have annexed the liberated territories of Judea and Samaria and arranged for a population transfer of the Arabs who clearly represented a fifth column, a people engaged in seditious activities against Israel. Why would the Arab want to live in a Jewish state? Let him go live as a first class citizen in an Arab state." "Our greatness and most tragic mistake," he said, was not "paying heed to the prescient message of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane who predicted everything that is happening now back in 1979. He saw everything so clearly and warned us that if we do not take action, the very existence of Israel could be in jeopardy and that's exactly what's happening now. All I can say is that our future, like our past is in the hands of G-d. We must continue to pray for the State of Israel, for the Jewish nation."

Scratching our head over this one

"Have America and Israel suddenly gone soft on Iran's nefarious nuclear-weapons program?" That's how Michael Freund begins his article titled, "Five reasons to bomb Iran now." (hat tip Michael) Mr. Freund seems to think Israel and the United States have gone soft on Iran. I've got to admit, I'm scratching my head over this one.

Yet even as Iran continues to progress down the dangerous road to an atomic arsenal, the tough talk emanating from Washington and Jerusalem in recent months has suddenly and inexplicably melted away.

And this should have us all very, very worried. [snip]

something appears to have changed. Various reports in recent days seem to indicate that US policy may have taken a sharp and terribly treacherous U-turn in the direction of acquiescence.

According to the Britain's Sunday Telegraph, the US Defense Department has begun updating its deterrence policy based on the assumption that Iran will obtain nuclear weapons. [snip]

WHAT IS going on here? Are we really prepared to allow the tyrant of Teheran to threaten our very existence? It is possible, of course, that these reports are merely part of the overall game-plan, and that they are aimed at lulling the Iranians into a false sense of security prior to a surprise attack on their nuclear installations.

Alternatively, it might reflect the shifting political realities in the US, where public opinion, goaded on by the mainstream liberal media, has turned against the war in neighboring Iraq. (continue reading at Jerusalem Post)

It seems all logic is gone when it comes to some things. Scratching our head over this one, too:

The 1,800-year Israeli drought by Douglas Farah:

If reports of what is to transpire at the Annapolis Mideast summit are correct, not only is Israel prepared to give up the Temple Mount, divide Jerusalem and hand over Judea and Samaria to terrorists, the Jewish state is also ready to concede the so-called "right of return" to untold numbers of Arabs – many of whom have no actual connection with the land.

I could tell you such a notion is a strategic error. I could tell you it is a result of twisted history. I could tell you it threatens the national security of the Jewish state.

But I've said all that before. (continue reading)

Other head-scratchers at Israpundit:

Annapolis - Munich Rising

Podhoretz, like Bush, is staying the course.

Also, don't miss Stormwarning's article, "The Iran-Syria Connection - Plan “B”"

So what’s really happening? Guaranteed that you won’t read this everywhere. Olivier Giutta’s post on the Counterterrorism Blog (one of the limited number of true expert websites on counterterrorism), Iran’s secret Syrian plan leads to unsettling conclusions (especially for people who have already committed to other speculations). From his article in the Middle East Times of the same title… (continue reading at Stormwarning's Counterterrorism Blog)

Other reading:
More CAIR Dirty Tricks against Me, Daniel Pipes
Rude Golfer Faces Deportation, Digger's Realm

From the Independent Institute

Crackpot Realism Is Riding High November 21, 2007 Robert Higgs

In 1958, the New Left sociologist C. Wright Mills made a seminal contribution to political science in his book The Causes of World War Three, by introducing the concept of “crackpot realism.” He applied the notion specifically to the intellectual outlook of top government officials, especially the ones known as the “serious people,” who have proven their capacity for dealing with important practical affairs by, say, managing a giant corporation, such as Halliburton or G. D. Searle, or a huge educational institution, such as Texas A&M University or the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. (continue reading)

Take Some Time to Laugh, Chickenhawk Express
Al Qaeda terrorist who took part in Lake District training camp sentenced to six years in prison, Christians Under Attack
Presidential Race Ratings, Cold Hearted Truth
Sentence in Chicago Hamas Trial, Counterterrorism Blog
Missing: Latasha Norman, Crime Scene Blog

U.S., not Israel, took out Syria's nuclear site???

If this is true, what a story. The Jerusalem Post is reporting that it was NOT Israel that took out Syria's nuclear site, ... but the United States Air Force. Wow.

The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a suspected nuclear site under construction.

A US Air Force F-22 Raptor, an F-117 Nighthawk, an F-4 Phantom and an F-15 Eagle fly over Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., Photo: US Air Force

The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.

The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.

At the beginning of October, Israel's military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.

On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria last month.

In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Olmert said: "In my conversation with the Turkish prime minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any case, to - in any way - violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we respect."

The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who had seen the relevant intelligence reports.

According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.

On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."

A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.

However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.

Other reading:
Hiroshima bomb pilot dies aged 92 BBC

Pipe Bomb Incident At Palo Verde Nuclear Power Station - Worker Identified, National Terror Alert. Also:

CHP Closes I-5 In San Diego - Pipe Bomb Found In Backpack Detonated

Postal Worker Arrested On Firearms and Bomb Making Charges

Man Who Dodged Security Check At JFK Caught With Razor - Arrested

JIHAD INSIDE THE U.S., The Midnight Sun, on suspected training camps inside the U.S., ... video here, ... like Islamberg New York

Islam Is Peace, 123Beta, "Bwhaaahahahaha.... A for-real website from the UK. "

Iraq Back in the News, The Tide Has Turned, Wake Up America

Law Of The Sea Treaty: Will Destroy America, Right Wing Rebel

Condi Gets A Subpoena, Stop the ACLU

Now is DeWinter of Our Discontent, Babbazee at The Outraged Spleen of Zion

The Hawks and The Doves

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran is still "at least a few years away'' from being able to build a nuclear bomb, and "there is still time for sanctions to work." Senator John McCain of Arizona "singled out Europe for criticism, saying "Major European financial institutions are giving lines of credit to the Iranians.'' The Hawks and Doves can't agree on what needs to be done to stop Iran, so Iran continues on their path. America and Israel are left to act independently.

And fearless are the idiots -- Among the hawks and doves

American sanctions are having an impact on Iran financially, but is it enough? The Bush administration seems to be firm that Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, that we will act to prevent that from happening. Israel has proven that they will also step up when a nuclear threat faces them -- example, Syria.

The debate has come to "will we STOP Iran, or will we debate what to do AFTER Iran goes nuclear and actually ACTS on their promised intentions."

Here in Washington D.C., debate about Iran is dominant. Unlike the debate that preceded the invasion of Iraq, this one features a much greater emphasis on what happens after striking as many as 20 Iranian nuclear sites. Ergo, lessons have been learned.

The hawkish argument is pretty simple: If you delay Iran's production of an indigenous weapon for decades, you will not only protect Israel from a future horror, but you will also send a categorical message to other proliferators that there will be consequences for defying the United States. It is an argument about the future.

The dovish argument is about the day after. It is an argument over what happens immediately, and how catastrophic the consequences will be in the months after a unilateral aerial assault. With the Iranian street aflame, will Iran send its conventional forces across the Iraq border to engage the U.S. forces in formal warfare, even as they are fully engaged in fighting the insurgency? Will Iraq succeed in disrupting tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz, pushing world oil prices to $150 a barrel? Will Iran endeavor to engage Israel directly rather than through its surrogate Hezbollah? (NorthStarWriters)

The dovish argument is unacceptable to me. How much is that nuclear bomb in the window?, Survive A Nuke Attack -- Thinking About the Unthinkable: How to Survive a Nuclear Bomb:

I scratch my head over the mainstream press when they debate whether Iran will get the bomb in two years or five years or 10 years. They’ve missed the big story: Nuclear bombs are available on the black market today!

The former Russian Security Council secretary, Alexander Lebed, said in an interview on 60 Minutes on September 9, 1997, that more than 100 suitcase nukes are missing from the breakup of the Soviet Union. [snip]

“The danger posed by unsecured nuclear material is not just a Russian problem. Enough civilian plutonium for many nuclear weapons exists in Germany, Belgium, Japan, and Switzerland, and some 20 tons of civilian highly enriched uranium exists at 345 operational and shut down civilian research facilities in 58 countries, sometimes in quantities large enough to make a bomb.” (more)

Looking at what is going on around the world is not enough, we must look at what is happening in our own country. Decisions we make daily can, and are, making us less safe, less secure, in my humble opinion. "Islam In The Heartland", Ari Kaufman, via Pat Dollard

It then may come as little surprise then, that the city of Plainfield, just west of Indianapolis, is home to the Islamic Center of North America, which, according to their mission, “has served the Muslims of this continent for well over forty years.”

The entire continent. And it’s based in “The Heartland.” As is Dearborn.

What’s next? Accommodating Islam—-and Islam only—-at the local airport? [snip]

The ICLU is nowhere to be found on the religious aspect of the airport sinks matter. Last seen, they and their legal director, Ken Falk, were assisting The American Atheists in removing any semblance of religion from small towns in Indiana and suing the state over the “In God We Trust” license plates issued by the Indiana BMV earlier this year. These innocuous matters apparently make the litigation agenda, not sectarian sinks in a major airport.

Preventive action is a must. Being prepared for the unthinkable is equally important. However, if we PREVENT the action from happening, we won't have to worry about the UNTHINKABLE.

Other reading:
An Open Letter To Young Would Be Martyrs..., 123Beta
Mos–ques have Terrorists?..Who Knew!, Woman Honor Thyself
Vets for Freedom reaching out to spread good news, Rosemary's Thoughts
_______________________________________________________________________
Trackposted to Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, , The Populist, DragonLady's World, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Big Dog's Weblog, Adeline and Hazel, Nuke's, third world county, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Israel does good work

Syria air strike target 'removed'

Newly-released satellite images of the presumed site of an Israeli air raid on Syria last month suggest that a large building has been completely removed.

US research group, the Institute for Science and International Security, obtained and analysed the images. (more at BBC)

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the new Commander-in-Chief Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the new Commander-in-Chief Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari, from Insight Into Today's Middle East

On October 25, 2007, the Bush administration imposes new sanctions against Iran aimed at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Quds Force. The sanctions will empower the United States to financially isolate a large part of Iran's military and anyone inside or outside Iran who does business with it. Such steps could impact any number of foreign companies by pressuring them to stop doing business with the Revolutionary Guards or risk U.S. sanctions. [1]

The IRGC is accused of proliferating weapons of mass destruction, the IRGC´s elite Quds Force and the IRGC´s foreign operations branch and is now designated as a supporter of terrorism. It is the harshest programme of sanctions on Iran since the Islamic Republic´s revolution of 1979.

Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, announced that 22 Iranian Government agencies and three state-owned banks are being blacklisted, in an attempt to punish Iran for refusing to stop enriching uranium. [2] The banks targeted Thursday were Bank Melli and Bank Mellat, accused of providing banking services for Iran's nuclear agencies, and Bank Saderat, which allegedly funnels funds to Islamist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. [3]

The Quds Force runs Tehran's covert activities throughout the Middle East, though its existence has never been officially acknowledged.

The Revolutionary Guards force was set up shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution to defend the country's Islamic system, and to provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces. It has since become the dominant military force in Iran, with past members including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a number of his cabinet ministers. [4] The IRGC, the most powerful wing of Iran's military, controls construction companies, pharmaceutical plants, and segments of the oil industry. [5]

On September 1st, 2007, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kahmenei, Iran´s highest authority, replaced the commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Mohammad Ali Jafari, who has been a commander in the Guards, is the new successor of Guards commander-in-chief Yahya Rahim Safavi.
Mohammad Ali Jafari said on September 29, 2007, that the "main responsibility" of the corps now is to counter "internal threats." He added that the IRGC will confront any threat that might undermine the achievements of the Islamic republic. He also said that the all-volunteer Basij militia will fall under the IRGC's command. The Basij has reportedly been involved in a number of attacks on students and intellectuals. Jafari said those forces will adapt to meet current threats. Jafari said the threats against Iran have become increasingly complex, adding that, "We don't have the right to remain silent." [6]
 

The Basij ("volunteers"), a "people's militia" organized in 1980, came under IRGC control in the 1980s to monitor citizens' activities and to arrest and harass women who did not adhere to the strict Islamic dress code laid down by the regime.

The mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979 and militarized after the war started in order to supplement his beleaguered army. The Basij Mostazafan - or "mobilization of the oppressed" - was essentially a volunteer militia, most of whose members were not yet 18. Since Ahmadinejad became president, the influence of the Basij has grown. At the end of July 2005, the Basij movement announced plans to increase its membership from ten million to 15 million by 2010. [7]

Mohammad Ali Jafari joined the Basiji volunteer militia during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq and, in 1981, became a member of the IRGC. [8]

He was born in 1957 in the Iranian city of Yazd, where he finished his secondary school education. He entered Tehran University in 1977, studying architecture and becoming active in student politics. On November 4, 1979, he was among the students who stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, triggering a hostage crisis that lasted 444 days. [9]

In 1990 he became commander of all IRGC ground forces. [10] In the summer of 2005 Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chose Jafari to establish and direct a strategic research centre for the IRGC. In this capacity, Jafari established the "Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison," which recruited volunteers to participate in suicide operations against Western targets. "The lovers of Martyrdom Garrison has been activated and we will form a martyrdom-seeking division for each province in the country, organised in brigades, battalions and companies to defend Islam," Jafari said in a July 2005 interview with the Iranian weekly, Parto-Sokhan.  "One of our garrison's aims is to spot martyrdom-seeking individuals in society and then recruit and organise them, so that, God willing, at the right moment when the Commander in Chief of the country's armed forces (Ayatollah Khamenei) gives the order, they would be able to enter the scene and carry out their missions."

Jafari concluded, "Let America and Israel know, each of our suicide volunteers equals a nuclear bomb. The United States should know that we have nuclear weapons, but they are in the hearts of suicide bombers."  [11]

In September 2005 Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Jafari as director of the Supreme National Security Council's directorate for internal security. [12] Khamenei, later put him in charge of Iran's operations against U.S. forces in Iraq.

In early 2007 U.S. forces almost captured Jafari in Iraqi territory when they grabbed five members of his company who they believed were carrying out clandestine activities for the Iranian regime.

Jafari said, "The Guard Corps stand by the side of the people and it is at their service for reconstruction of the country and establishment of national unity and Islamic solidarity." [13]

When he came to power in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei identified leading military personnel loyal to the Shah and had them arrested, tried and executed. Khomeini did not eliminate Iran's regular armed forces but instead created the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), or Pasdaran e-Inqilib, as the guardians of the revolution. The new Islamic Republic's constitution entrusted the defence of the nation to the military, and the preservation of the Islamic Revolution, specifically assisting the ruling clerics in their enforcement of the government's new Islamic codes and morality, to the IRGC. [14]
   

The United States is set to officially blacklist the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps by listing it as a terrorist organisation, US officials said on August 15, 2007. So far, only an "in principle" decision to name elements of the IRGC a "specially designated global terrorist" group has been made. [15]

Khomeini's establishment of the Revolutionary Guard by decree on May 5, 1979, served notice both to the population and the armed forces that Khomeini's regime had its own protectorate and intended to bring a new order to the country. In the 1980s the IRGC had it own army and evolved to become one of the most powerful bodies within Iran's government. It developed its own intelligence organisation operating both in Iran and abroad and began to exert  a strong influence over government policy. By 1986 the IRGC comprised 350,000 personnel organised into battalion-size units that operated either independently or with units of regular forces and including elements within the navy and air force.

The IRGC's Qods force is responsible for overseas operations, including training Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Qods is also responsible for gathering intelligence information for planning terrorist attacks. Qods personnel are also assigned to Iranian diplomatic missions.

IRGC operatives have supported Hezbollah's overseas branches in Iraq, Kurdistan, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories. They have also been known to support operatives in Egypt, Turkey and Chechnya. [16]

IRGC special units provided laser-guided missiles and deployment training to Hezbollah, which then used these missiles to sink an Israeli warship during last year's hostilities in Lebanon. It was an IRGC naval unit that kidnapped Britain's 15 Royal Marines and sailors off Iraqi coastal waters.

The IRGC has also equipped Iraqi insurgent groups with roadside bombs and rockets that are used against British and coalition troops in Iraq.

The IRGC has also created a secret intelligence infrastructure and created ghost offshore companies that have given the regime the opportunity to enrich uranium to enable Iran to become a nuclear power.

In 2006, the Guards won a contract worth 2.09 billion dollars to develop phases 15 and 16 of Iran's biggest gas field, South Pars, and a 1.3 billion dollar deal to build a pipeline towards Pakistan. [17]

The IRGC controls vast numbers of businesses and financial conglomerates, establishing hundreds of front companies in Europe, the Middle East and southeast Asia that have allowed the regime to dodge the U.S. government's arms embargo and export controls on Iran. IRGC-owned companies have muscled into $10 billion in contracts to develop Iran's aging oil and gas fields. IRGC operatives also run Iran's multi billion dollar gasoline and cigarette smuggling trade. [18]

According to a report in the UK's Daily Telegraph, the Iranian government runs a network of covert nuclear research laboratories at a secret military base outside Tehran. The purpose of the project, code named Zirzamin 27, is to allow the Iranians to undertake uranium enrichment to a military standard. The operation is widely believed to be run by the IRGC under the leadership of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran's Modern Defensive Readiness and Technology Centre, a top-secret military research site. [19]

The nature of the Islamic Republic is changing from a system governed by the Shiite clergy and guarded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps into a regime dominated by the military. As current and former IRGC members infiltrate most centers of power, and as the IRGC itself develops into a business conglomerate independent of state regulation, the Islamic Republic increasingly resembles other military regimes: a military-industrial complex hiding behind a civilian façade. [20]

The IRGC supports a global terrorism network, supplying arms, training and financing to Islamic terrorist organisations, and also works domestically within the regime through the using brute force and terror against the Iranian people to ensure they comply with Islamic laws and the Ayatollahs' decrees.

 

[1]  "US imposes new sanctions on Iran," Reuters, October 25, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/inPlayBriefing/idUSIN20071025090613OPENX20071025
[2] Byers, David: "US imposes toughest sanctions on Iran since 1979," Times Online, October 25, 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2739711.ece
[3]  "US ups nuclear tensions with new Iran sanctions," Agence France Presse, October 25, 2007, http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/071025153513.993b9asg.html
[4]  "US imposes new sanctions on Iran," BBC Online, October 25, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7061991.stm
[5]  "US ups nuclear tensions with new Iran sanctions," Agence France Presse, October 25, 2007, http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/071025153513.993b9asg.html
[6]  Esfandiari, Golnaz: "Warnings hint at a greater IRGC role in Muzzling critics," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 8, 2007, Volume 10, Number 37, http://www.rferl.org/reports/FullReport.aspx?report=571&id=2007/10/571-10-37
[7]  Küntzel, Matthias: "Ahmadinejad´s Demons," The New Republic, April 24, 2006
[8]  Vahid Sepehri, "Iran New Commander Takes over Revolutionary Guards," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 4, 2007.
[9]   Maziar Radmanesh, "Calm or Storm Under Commander Jafari,?" Rooz, September 5, 2007, http://www.roozonline.com/english/archives/2007/09/calm_or_storm_under_commander.html      
[10]    Ibid.
[11]  "Islamist Clerical Regime Opens Garrison to Recruit Suicide Bombers Against West," Iran Focus, July 22, 2005, http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2944
[12]  "Photos of the New Commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards," Iran Focus, September 1, 2007, .http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=12277
[13]  Dareini, Ali Akbar: "Iran Labels CIA 'Terrorist Organization,'" Associated Press, September 29, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6958736,00.html
[14]  "Iran Special and Irregular Armed Forces," Library of Congress Country Studies, December 1987, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ir0167
[15]  Orr, James: "US set to declare Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group," The Guardian Online, August 15, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2149187,00.html
[16]  "Qods (Jerusalem) Force Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/iran/qods.htm
[17]  "Iran´s Revolutionary Guards: more than an army," Agence France Presse, October 25, 2007, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=middleeast&xfile=data/middleeast/2007/october/middleeast_october360.xml
[18]  Khalid, Matein: "War, Diplomacy and Iran's Revolutionary Guards," Khaleej Times, October 3, 2007, http://www.trueblueliberal.com/2007/10/03/war-diplomacy-and-iran's-revolutionary-guards/
[19]  Con Coughlin: "Iran accused of hiding secret nuclear weapons site," Daily Telegraph, June 13, 2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/12/wiran12.xml
[20]  Alfoneh, Ali: "How Interwined Are the Revolutionary Guards in Iran´s Economy?," American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, October 22, 2007, http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26991,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

Other reading:
AN OPINION OF ISLAM FROM FALCONS LAIR, Anti-Mullah

President Bush and members of Congress are too squeamish to say it; neither will our news media; so I’ll just say it: Broken Arrow!, the military call sign for help when you are being overrun by the enemy.

Ahmadinejad: 'So-called Crematoria,' Holocaust 'similar to a plane crash', Solomonia, and Islamic Center of Boston, Wayland Hosts 'Known Hamas Activist' who wished the state of Israel 'would disappear'
Don’t Let the Pro-Jihad Crowd Go Unanswered-Counter Rally in San Fran,CA Oct 27th, Center For Vigilant Freedom
How close were we to a third world war? G C Report
Narcissism and "Theory of the Mind", ShrinkWrapped
Recruiting Children for the Boston Smash Israel Conference, Solmonia
Larry Cirignano Triumphs Over ACLU Bullying and Phony Charges, Stop the ACLU, and Disgusting Group Turns Marine Funeral Into a “Circus”

The Future of Iraq

Yesterday I reported on some good news from Iraq, but we need to realize that there is still much to be done to accomplish peace in that country. "U.S. officials in Baghdad fear that violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites in some areas will erupt into "ethnic cleansing" with the departure of U.S. forces." With each new report coming out of Iraq there is a mixed bag of good and bad news. That's the way it is with war, it's not pretty.

The facts on the ground, direct from sources in Iraq, on the progress on the Baghdad Security Plan::

... is limited to the military track, with the little military progress, which has been made, unsustainable, over time. No progress, whatsoever, on the political rack. Not now, nor in the near future. None of the key objectives having been met, or about to be met. ... “redeployment without replacement,” is the plan. ...

To be blunt: the Iraq Civil War is inevitable. The lists of who gets shot by whom, when and where, are being drawn up. ...

JAM and al-Sadr are playing ball, fully cooperating with U.S.A. in restoring law and order to the streets of Iraq’s Capital City. (JAM Political-Military Affairs and Special Operations Command and its Senior Commander, Sheik Ali Al-Muthaba)

The above description of the situation on the ground is not the same as others are sharing, but I suppose it depends on which part of Iraq one is reporting from. "The U.S. military has increased airstrikes in Iraq fivefold this year, reflecting a steep escalation in combat operations aimed at al-Qaeda and other militants."

Yesterday a "bomb exploded under the pulpit of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni preacher during Friday prayers, wounding the imam and six worshippers." Each brave soul that stands up against the terrorists puts his or her life on the line.

The looming conflict between Kurds and Turks has neighboring countries taking sides. "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has backed neighboring Turkey's tough stance over Kurdish rebels operating out of northern Iraq." Asia Times asks why Turkey hates America, I didn't know they did.

With Turkish troops poised to invade the Kurdish sector of Iraq over Washington's protests, it seems helpful to understand why Turks hate America more than any other people in the world.

In June 2007, the Pew Research Center polled citizens of 47 countries on their attitude toward the US. Turkey turned up at rock bottom, with 83% of respondents holding an unfavorable view. [snip]

... The culprit, he argued convincingly, is Washington's misguided promotion of Turkey as a model of "moderate Islam". The abominable stupidity of American policy towards the region - I would use stronger words if I could find them - is in large measure responsible for the looming catastrophe.

"Turkey said on Monday eight of its soldiers were missing a day after clashes with Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border, in which at least 12 soldiers were killed." More Turkish troops are headed to the border.

Dozens of military vehicles headed toward the Iraqi border and protesters demanded tough action against Kurdish rebels on Monday after 12 soldiers were killed in an ambush that has pushed Turkey closer to a possible attack on guerrilla bases in Iraq. (more)

Just now, Iraq's President announced that the Kurds and Turks would lay down their weapons at midnight tonight. We'll see.

Be sure to read Defeating Tyranny, Defending Democracy at Alphabet City

If you want a clear, concise, no-nonsense summary of where the Bush administration stands on the Middle East, then go and read the entire transcript of VP Dick Cheney's remarks to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy yesterday. It's sure to have the antiwar crowd seething and the hawks smiling. In addition to Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, the Vice President also covers the monitoring of our enemies communications (the FISA debate), interrogations of high-value detainees in the CIA detainee program (the "torture" debate), and Iran (And, though having nothing to do with ME Policy, there's even discussion of Darth Vader. Yes. Darth Vader).

The Blue Voice has a different view of Cheney's comments.

A MUST READ is Michael Yon's "Resistance is futile: You will be (mis)informed." (hat tip Snooper)

In other Middle East news, a "senior Pentagon official said Thursday the US military would like to see a "strategic partnership" with Lebanon's army to strengthen the country's forces so that Hezbollah would have no excuse to bear arms."

ISLAM IN ACTION - GRAPHICALLY SHOWN - Indonesian Style, Anti-Mullah

Islam: 'Conflict with democracy' centres on non-Muslims' status, The Berean Call

The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam ---- Video (Warning: Graphic), at Not Ready For My Burqua

The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam, Front Page Magazine

See more on Islamic terror around the world at The Lone Voice

The Dumbing Down of Justice, The Muqata

It's so easy to ... get nuclear materials

When I look at events of the last week, it makes me very concerned. It would be so easy for terrorists to not only get into our country, but easy for them to get nuclear materials. See what you think:

In Islam vs Islamists at Little Green Footballs, reader Pat points out United States President George W. Bush and his complete lack of understanding when it comes to Saudi Arabia and terrorism:

Which side is the Bush administration on? Americans, Christians and Jews might be surprised. As usual he is oblivious.

"I hereby certify that Saudi Arabia is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the proposed assistance will help facilitate that effort," the president said.

His memorandum came a little more than a month after the US Treasury undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey, charged that Saudi Arabia has failed to prosecute the bankrollers of terrorist groups.

Contrast the above with Israel who not only took out a nuclear facility in Syria, but had a mole inside that Syrian nuclear facility. I say it again, Israel ROCKS sometimes.

... an unnamed senior U.S. official saying Israel noticed the Syrian nuclear facility this summer, leading the Mossad “to either co-opt one of the facility's workers or to insert a spy posing as an employee.

TSA Laptops With Hazmat Driver Info Stolen

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is in hot water again for losing sensitive data, and this time around it has national security implications: Two laptops were reportedly stolen from a TSA contractor that contained personal information about commercial drivers who transport hazardous materials across the U.S.

Stolen Metal Analyzer Contains Radioactive Material

A $31,000 metal analyzer reported stolen Tuesday morning from a town of Barton metal processing firm contains radioactive materials, according to Washington County Sheriff’s Department officials, although they hasten to add there should not be any danger to the public.

Fuel Tanker Stolen At Gunpoint From Gas Station In Baltimore

Officials say that the truck operator was refilling the gas tubes at a gas station on 3100 block of Vera Street, when a black male, wearing a blue jump suit, got into the driver seat and took off.

Missing Radioactive Gauge Shuts Down Houston Highway

Man With Highly Contagious Tuberculosis (TB) Crosses Border 76 times We're lucky it was just TB and not chemical, biological or nuclear materials.

Terror Group Busted In Plot To Rob New York ATMs. Terrorists need money for their plots, why not use yours.

How did a man with a fake passport and ties to terrorist organizations not only get a security job at Newark Liberty International Airport but also pass several background checks, including one performed by the FBI? That’s what authorities are now trying to determine.

Three Suspicious Backpacks Blown Up By Police After School Bomb Threat

Interesting story out of Union Hills, Indiana. Despite a bomb threat at Union City Community School the same day suspicious backpacks were found blocks away, police say the incidents are likely not related. Read the story and your conclusions might be different. We’d like to hear your comments.

In other terror news around the world:

In Paraguay, Piracy Bleeds U.S. Profits, Aids Terrorists

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - This grimy city is a black hole at the border of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina — the Tri-Border region — where billions of dollars in pirated goods are smuggled and sold each year. The economic crimes are a major problem for U.S. companies. But even more troubling is what is being done with the profits.

Philippines Airports On Heightened Terror Alert

I-35 Closed After Suspicious Bags Found At Accident Scene

Police shut down Interstate 35 Thursday afternoon after a car collided with an 18-wheeler and officers found “suspicious” bags in the driver’s car, according to a police report.

Your latest update on the ACLU here at Stop the ACLU

The safe future of the Unites States of America depends on the quality of our leaders, our enforcement of legal immigration, on the responsibility of individual citizens to report any suspicious activity they see to authorities. With all that in mind, watch these two videos. The first is Hillary Clinton Uncensored-- Banned by the Media. The second is MSNBC report on Border incursion Oct 18 2007, about Mexican military on American soil (thanks to JS, of A Pox on Both Your Houses)

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Trackposted to Stop the ACLU, Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Is It Just Me?, , AZAMATTEROFACT, A Blog For All, The Populist, The Amboy Times, Big Dog's Weblog, Conservative Thoughts, Adeline and Hazel, Stageleft, Nuke's, Allie Is Wired, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Hillary Clinton's thesis available online -UPDATE

UPDATE: pdf version of thesis found here

Hillary Clinton's Wellesley Thesis:

Hillary Clinton's thesis is now available online. To see what she really believes go read it here. Thanks to GOPulius.

Other reading of interest today:

Vladimir's convenient relationship, American Interests Blog

Talabani chides Syria over Kurds, BBC

Christmas Trees out, Snowy Birches in; Christmas Carols Out, Wind Chimes in…, Stop the ACLU

'Iran capable of firing 11,000 rockets into bases if attacked', Jerusalem Post, hat tip Michael Travis

Exclusion of Alan Keyes, Stop the ACLU

Pakistan Is At A Crossroad ..., The Blogway Boys

At the Crossroads - Malaysia VIDEO, YouTube

Brussels: COUNTER JIHAD RESISTANCE, Atlas Shrugs -- Must Read Article

New blog to check out: Warning Signs a/k/a Fact Not Fantasy, by Alan Caruba. That name may be familiar to bloggers, go check it out