NEW ORLEANS Aug 31, 2005 — The mayor said Wednesday that Hurricane Katrina probably killed thousands of people in New Orleans.

“We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water,” and others dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: “Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands.”

The frightening prediction came as Army engineers struggled to plug New Orleans’ breached levees with giant sandbags and concrete barriers, while authorities drew up plans to move some 25,000 storm refugees out of the city to Houston in a huge bus convoy and all but abandon flooded-out New Orleans.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the situation was desperate and there was no choice but to clear out. “The logistical problems are impossible and we have to evacuate people in shelters,” the governor said. “It’s becoming untenable. There’s no power. It’s getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials.”

The Pentagon, meanwhile, began mounting one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, sending four Navy ships to the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, along with the hospital ship USNS Comfort, search helicopters and elite SEAL water-rescue teams. American Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region in the agency’s biggest-ever relief operation.

A full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina’s full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months.

“We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in,” Nagin said on ABC’s “Good Morning America, “and the other issue that’s concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue.”
from ABC News.

FLOOD AID UPDATE: Here are some places you can donate to hurricane Katrina relief
Hurricane Katrina: Catholic Charities Respond.

The Salvation Army National Headquarters.

The Red Cross had alot of overhead, and a good portion of your donation goes to management. I do not recommend them. However, here is the link if you want it.

The Red Cross.

Newly uncovered files examined by U.S. military investigators in Baghdad show what is being described as “a direct link” between Saddam Hussein’s elite Fedayeen military unit and the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who attended a January 2000 al-Qaida summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the 9/11 attacks were planned, is listed among the officers on three Fedayeen rosters reviewed by U.S. probers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

“Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel,” the paper said.

Though the Journal doesn’t mention it, Saddam’s Fedayeen has been identified in previous reports as the group that conducted 9/11-style hijack training drills on a parked Boeing 707 airliner at the south Baghdad terrorist camp Salman Pak.

In a post obtained through Saddam’s Mukhabarat intelligence service, Shakir was stationed at the Iraqi Embassy in Kuala Lumpur at the time of the 9/11 planning session.

Also in attendance were 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi, who were piloting American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon.

Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, were also at the meeting, the Journal said.

When Shakir was arrested in Qatar on Sept. 17, 2001, he was carrying phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers’ safe houses and contacts, as well as information relating to Operation Bojinka, a plot devised by trade center bomber Ramzi Yousef that became the blueprint for the 9/11 attacks.

The Qataris released Shakir after a brief detention and he fled to Jordan, where he was re-arrested. Inexplicably, however, the CIA signed off on his release after Amnesty International complained.

“He was last seen heading home to Baghdad,” the Journal says.

Here is one more link…..though it is an old one….but goes to show you how long the MSM has tried to discredit this link.

The Connection: The collaboration of Iraq and al Qaeda
by Stephen F. Hayes: The Weekly Standard .

“THE PRESIDENT CONVINCED the country with a mixture of documents that turned out to be forged and blatantly false assertions that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda,” claimed former Vice President Al Gore last Wednesday.

“There’s absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever,” declared Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism official under George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in an interview on March 21, 2004.

The editor of the Los Angeles Times labeled as “myth” the claim that links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been proved. A recent dispatch from Reuters simply asserted, “There is no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.” 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl was equally certain: “There was no connection.”

And on it goes. This conventional wisdom–that our two most determined enemies were not in league, now or ever–is comforting. It is also wrong.

In late February 2004, Christopher Carney made an astonishing discovery. Carney, a political science professor from Pennsylvania on leave to work at the Pentagon, was poring over a list of officers in Saddam Hussein’s much-feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. One name stood out: Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. The name was not spelled exactly as Carney had seen it before, but such discrepancies are common. Having studied the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda for 18 months, he immediately recognized the potential significance of his find. According to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal, Shakir appears on three different lists of Fedayeen officers.

An Iraqi of that name, Carney knew, had been present at an al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. U.S. intelligence officials believe this was a chief planning meeting for the September 11 attacks. Shakir had been nominally employed as a “greeter” by Malaysian Airlines, a job he told associates he had gotten through a contact at the Iraqi embassy. More curious, Shakir’s Iraqi embassy contact controlled his schedule, telling him when to show up for work and when to take a day off.

A greeter typically meets VIPs upon arrival and accompanies them through the sometimes onerous procedures of foreign travel. Shakir was instructed to work on January 5, 2000, and on that day, he escorted one Khalid al Mihdhar from his plane to a waiting car. Rather than bid his guest farewell at that point, as a greeter typically would have, Shakir climbed into the car with al Mihdhar and accompanied him to the Kuala Lumpur condominium of Yazid Sufaat, the American-born al Qaeda terrorist who hosted the planning meeting.

The meeting lasted for three days. Khalid al Mihdhar departed Kuala Lumpur for Bangkok and eventually Los Angeles. Twenty months later, he was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when it plunged into the Pentagon at 9:38 A.M. on September 11. So were Nawaf al Hazmi and his younger brother, Salem, both of whom were also present at the Kuala Lumpur meeting.

Six days after September 11, Shakir was captured in Doha, Qatar. He had in his possession contact information for several senior al Qaeda terrorists: Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi who helped mix the chemicals for the first World Trade Center attack and was given safe haven upon his return to Baghdad; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, otherwise known as Abu Hajer al Iraqi, described by one top al Qaeda detainee as Osama bin Laden’s “best friend.”

Despite all of this, Shakir was released. On October 21, 2001, he boarded a plane for Baghdad, via Amman, Jordan. He never made the connection. Shakir was detained by Jordanian intelligence. Immediately following his capture, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence on Shakir, the Iraqi government began exerting pressure on the Jordanians to release him. Some U.S. intelligence officials–primarily at the CIA–believed that Iraq’s demand for Shakir’s release was pro forma, no different from the requests governments regularly make on behalf of citizens detained by foreign nationals. But others, pointing to the flurry of phone calls and personal appeals from the Iraqi government to the Jordanians, disagreed. This panicked reaction, they say, reflected an interest in Shakir at the highest levels of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

CIA officials who interviewed Shakir in Jordan reported that he was generally uncooperative. But even in refusing to talk, he provided some important information: The interrogators concluded that his evasive answers reflected counterinterrogation techniques so sophisticated that he had probably learned them from a government intelligence service. Shakir’s nationality, his contacts with the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, the keen interest of Baghdad in his case, and now the appearance of his name on the rolls of Fedayeen officers–all this makes the Iraqi intelligence service the most likely source of his training.

The Jordanians, convinced that Shakir worked for Iraqi intelligence, went to the CIA with a bold proposal: Let’s flip him. That is, the Jordanians would allow Shakir to return to Iraq on the condition that he agree to report back on the activities of Iraqi intelligence. And, in one of the most egregious mistakes by the U.S. intelligence community after September 11, the CIA agreed to Shakir’s release. He posted a modest bail and returned to Iraq.

He hasn’t been heard from since.

The Shakir story is perhaps the government’s strongest indication that Saddam and al Qaeda may have worked together on September 11. But it is far from conclusive; conceivably there were two Ahmed Hikmat Shakirs. And in itself, the evidence does not show that Saddam Hussein personally had foreknowledge of the attacks. Still–like the long, on-again-off-again relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda–it cannot be dismissed.

THERE WAS A TIME not long ago when the conventional wisdom skewed heavily toward a Saddam-al Qaeda collaboration. In 1998 and early 1999, the Iraq-al Qaeda connection was widely reported in the American and international media. Former intelligence officers and government officials speculated about the relationship and its dangerous implications for the world. The information in the news reports came from foreign and domestic intelligence services. It was featured in mainstream media outlets including international wire services, prominent newsweeklies, network radio and television broadcasts.

Newsweek magazine ran an article in its January 11, 1999, issue headed “Saddam + Bin Laden?” “Here’s what is known so far,” it read:

Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas–assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer.

Four days later, on January 15, 1999, ABC News reported that three intelligence agencies believed that Saddam had offered asylum to bin Laden.

Intelligence sources say bin Laden’s long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan’s fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. . . . ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief named Faruq Hijazi, now Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad.

NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, and offered this report.

Iraq’s contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source, Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan. According to Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. . . . Some experts believe bin Laden might be tempted to live in Iraq because of his reported desire to obtain chemical or biological weapons. CIA Director George Tenet referred to that in recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee when he said bin Laden was planning additional attacks on American targets.

By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way: “The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers.”

Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from high-ranking Clinton administration officials.

In the spring of 1998–well before the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa–the Clinton administration indicted Osama bin Laden. The indictment, unsealed a few months later, prominently cited al Qaeda’s agreement to collaborate with Iraq on weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton Justice Department had been concerned about negative public reaction to its potentially capturing bin Laden without “a vehicle for extradition,” official paperwork charging him with a crime. It was “not an afterthought” to include the al Qaeda-Iraq connection in the indictment, says an official familiar with the deliberations. “It couldn’t have gotten into the indictment unless someone was willing to testify to it under oath.” The Clinton administration’s indictment read unequivocally:

Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

On August 7, 1998, al Qaeda terrorists struck almost simultaneously at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The blasts killed 257 people–including 12 Americans–and wounded nearly 5,000. The Clinton administration determined within five days that al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks and moved swiftly to retaliate. One of the targets would be in Afghanistan. But the Clinton national security team wanted to strike hard simultaneously, much as the terrorists had. “The decision to go to [Sudan] was an add-on,” says a senior intelligence officer involved in the targeting. “They wanted a dual strike.”

A small group of Clinton administration officials, led by CIA director George Tenet and national security adviser Sandy Berger, reviewed a number of al Qaeda-linked targets in Sudan. Although bin Laden had left the African nation two years earlier, U.S. officials believed that he was still deeply involved in the Sudanese government-run Military Industrial Corporation (MIC).

The United States retaliated on August 20, 1998, striking al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant outside Khartoum. “Let me be very clear about this,” said President Bill Clinton, addressing the nation after the strikes. “There is no question in my mind that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that are used–and can be used–in VX gas. This was a plant that was producing chemical warfare-related weapons and we have physical evidence of that.”

The physical evidence was a soil sample containing EMPTA, a precursor for VX nerve gas. Almost immediately, the decision to strike at al Shifa aroused controversy. U.S. officials had expressed skepticism that the plant produced pharmaceuticals at all, but reporters on the ground in Sudan found aspirin bottles and a variety of other indications that the plant had, in fact, manufactured drugs. For journalists and many at the CIA, the case was hardly clear cut. For one thing, the soil sample was collected from outside the plant’s front gate, not within the grounds, and an internal CIA memo issued a month before the attacks had recommended gathering additional soil samples from the site before reaching any conclusions. “It caused a lot of heartburn at the agency,” recalls a former top intelligence official.

The Clinton administration sought to dispel doubts about the targeting and, on August 24, 1998, made available a “senior intelligence official” to brief reporters on background. The briefer cited “strong ties between the plant and Iraq” as one of the justifications for attacking it. The next day, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering briefed reporters at the National Press Club. Pickering explained that the intelligence community had been monitoring the plant for “at least two years,” and that the evidence was “quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq.” In all, at least six top Clinton administration officials have defended on the record the strikes in Sudan by citing a link to Iraq.

The Iraqis, of course, denied any involvement. “The Clinton government has fabricated yet another lie to the effect that Iraq had helped Sudan produce this chemical weapon,” declared the political editor of Radio Iraq. Still, even as Iraq denied helping Sudan and al Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction, the regime lauded Osama bin Laden. On August 27, 1998, twenty days after al Qaeda attacked the U.S. embassies in Africa, Babel, the government newspaper run by Saddam’s son Uday Hussein, published a startling editorial proclaiming bin Laden “an Arab and Islamic hero.”

Five months later, the same Richard Clarke who would one day claim that there was “absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever,” told the Washington Post that the U.S. government was “sure” that Iraq was behind the production of the chemical weapons precursor at the al Shifa plant. “Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what happened to it,” wrote Post reporter Vernon Loeb, in an article published January 23, 1999. “But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa’s current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.”

Later in 1999, the Congressional Research Service published a report on the psychology of terrorism. That report created a stir in May 2002 when critics of President Bush cited it to suggest that his administration should have given more thought to suicide hijackings. On page 7 of the 178-page report was a passage about a possible al Qaeda attack on Washington, D.C., that “could take several forms.” In one scenario, the report suggested “suicide bombers belonging to al Qaeda’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, or the White House.”

A network anchor wondered if it was possible that the White House had somehow missed the report. A senator cited it in calling for an investigation into the 9/11 attacks. A journalist read excerpts to the secretary of defense and raised a familiar question: “What did you know and when did you know it?”

But another passage of the same report has gone strangely unnoticed. Two paragraphs before, also on page 7, is this: “If Iraq’s Saddam Hussein decide[s] to use terrorists to attack the continental United States [he] would likely turn to bin Laden’s al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is among the Islamic groups recruiting increasingly skilled professionals,” including “Iraqi chemical weapons experts and others capable of helping to develop WMD. Al Qaeda poses the most serious terrorist threat to U.S. security interests, for al Qaeda’s well-trained terrorists are engaged in a terrorist jihad against U.S. interests worldwide.”

CIA director George Tenet echoed these sentiments in a letter to Congress on October 7, 2002.

– Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

–We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

–Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.

–Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

–We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

–Iraq’s increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad’s links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

Tenet has never backed away from these assessments. Senator Mark Dayton, a Democrat from Minnesota, challenged him on the Iraq-al Qaeda connection in an exchange before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 9, 2004. Tenet reiterated his judgment that there had been numerous “contacts” between Iraq and al Qaeda, and that in the days before the war the Iraqi regime had provided “training and safe haven” to al Qaeda associates, including Abu Musab al Zarqawi. What the U.S. intelligence community could not claim was that the Iraqi regime had “command and control” over al Qaeda terrorists. Still, said Tenet, “it was inconceivable to me that Zarqawi and two dozen [Egyptian Islamic Jihad] operatives could be operating in Baghdad without Iraq knowing.”

We have seen important elements of the pre-September 11 intelligence available to the Bush administration; it’s time for the American public to see more of the intelligence on Iraq and al Qaeda from the 1990s, especially the reporting about the August 1998 attacks in Kenya and Tanzania and the U.S. counterstrikes two weeks later.

Until this material is declassified, there will be gaps in our knowledge. Indeed, even after the full record is made public, some uncertainties will no doubt remain. The connection between Saddam and al Qaeda isn’t one of them. Link is here.

As I have said earlier on my site, if today’s liberals and press was in power in 1941, we would have lost the war and National Socialism would rule Europe. Diplomats, sincerely wanting peace, did not understand that every compromise only emboldened Hitler and encourages further attacks. Had they stuck when Hitler violated Versailles and reoccupied the Rhine, his generals were planning to depose him. Thus, if Europe had some backbone, for the cost of thousands, millions would have been saved.

So what does this have to do with today?

In a 1998 interview, Osama bin Laden told ABC News reporter John Miller: “We have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier who is ready to wage Cold Wars and unprepared to fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions. It also proves they can run in less than 24 hours, and this was also repeated in Somalia. We are ready for all occasions. We rely on Allah.”

(By the way: Among the terrorist entities that supported the al-Qaeda terrorists were Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.)

In 1998 Osama bin Laden explained his war aims to ABC News: “Allah ordered us in this religion to purify Muslim land of all non-believers.” As The New Republic’s Peter Beinart commented, bin Laden is not a crusader for social justice but “an ethnic cleanser on a scale far greater than the Hutus and the Serbs, a scale that has only one true Twentieth Century parallel.” from FrontPagemag..

Read the whole article. It shows how with every withdraw and failure to strike back under Clinton only encouraged terrorism. Cindy Sheehan, pacifists, and liberals like her only encourage our enemies and weakens our country. They enable terrorists. It is that simple.

If you believed what you read in newspapers and hear on television, you would think that the Bush administration has been one long period of economic decline. In particular, every time the Census Bureau releases a report, a spate of negative news stories follows. This happened today, when the Census Bureau delivered “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance in the United States: 2004,” available here. The New York Times headlined the story: “U.S. Poverty Rate Was Up Last Year”. The lead was pessimistic:

Even as the economy grew, incomes stagnated last year and the poverty rate rose, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. It was the first time on record that household incomes failed to increase for five straight years. There was little or no optimism to leaven the Times’ commentary:

“In addition, the poverty rate rose last year for working-age people, those ages 18 to 64. The portion of people age 65 and older in poverty fell, while child poverty was essentially flat.”

Did the Census Bureau’s report really merit such an unalloyed thumbs-down? The first question should be, how reliable are the data in the report? The Census Bureau gathers data for the Current Population Survey, the report at issue here, by asking thousands of people across the country to fill out forms stating how much income they received from various sources. Some important sources of income, like fringe benefits paid for by employers and in-kind welfare benefits, are excluded. Beyond that, the accuracy of the data is entirely dependent on the reliability of the people who fill out the forms. And studies have shown that many people, especially those classified as poor, spend considerably larger amounts of money than they say they received as income. In some surveys, the discrepancies have been more than 30%. So measuring changes in income by the one-tenth of one percent would seem to be an example of fictitious precision–the math is correct, but the raw data are dubious.

I think it’s fair to assume that the Bureau’s data are approximate at best. Within that context, what do they actually show? The Times headlined the fact that, according to the Bureau’s numbers, the poverty rate increased in 2004. . By historic standards, the current poverty rate is low. In fact, as this Census Bureau chart shows, since 1980 there have been only five years in which the poverty rate has been lower than 2004. The most accurate way to report these data would be to say that the low rate of poverty that has prevailed in the last few years continued in 2004.

The Times also wrung its hands over the Bureau’s median income data. In fact, in real terms, median household income is higher today than it has ever been, but for a couple of years in the late 1990s when we experienced a “boom” that we now know was fueled largely by a stock bubble and widespread corporate fraud. The truth is that our economy, aided by sound administration policies, has weathered the storms of the last several years extraordinarily well. But you would never understand this if you relied on the New York Times for information.

And then there’s this–the Times’ summary of recent economic history as it relates to poverty:

Poverty levels have changed only modestly in the last three decades, rising in the 1980′s [Ed: Reagan!] and falling in the 1990′s [Ed.: Clinton!], after having dropped sharply in the 1960′s.

This an absurd characterization of recent history. The poverty rate rose sharply between 1978 and 1982. This was the famous “stagflation” that those of us who are over 40 remember so well. The poverty rate then fell dramatically, in the wake of the Reagan tax cuts, until 1990. As a result of the brief recession in 1990, the rate rose again until 1993, when it started to decline again. In both the 1980s and the 1990s, the pattern was an increase in the poverty rate during and after a recession, followed by a reduction in the poverty rate as the economy resumed growing. What we are seeing now is very consistent with what we saw around 1980 and 1990, only, as the graph shows, milder.

The New York Times is trying to appeal to a more sophisticated audience, as evidenced by the fact that it is advertising on this site. But it will have to do a better job of objectively reporting the news if it wants to be respected by knowledgeable news consumers. from Powerline.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Army engineers raced to staunch rising floodwaters submerging historic New Orleans as helicopters plucked frantic survivors from rooftops and hundreds were feared dead on Tuesday after Hurricane Katrina tore across the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Authorities made plans to remove thousands of storm refugees from the Superdome stadium and other shelters in New Orleans and forged a bold scheme to airdrop giant sandbags to plug breaches in the city’s protective levee system as water from Lake Pontchartrain poured into the city.

Looters struck, adding to the city’s misery. They waded through flood water to ransack electronics stores, drugstores and supermarkets. They rolled carts full of merchandise and carried bundles and boxes of beer from downtown stores.

The economic cost of the hurricane could be the highest in U.S. history, as much as $26 billion, according to risk analysts’ estimates.

“It looks like we’ve been nuked,” said Hayes Bolton, 65, as he guarded the rubble of his pawn shop in Biloxi, Mississippi, near where the homes of his grandmother, mother and aunt were destroyed by the storm.
from yahoo news.

Haider Ajina send Powerline these poll results, which he has translated from today’s edition of the Iraqi newspaper Alhayat:

A poll taken by “The Iraqi center for national development & dialog”, which is headed by former Planning minister Mahdi Alhafith. Reveals 88% of Iraqis polled said they will participate in the next vote (for the constitution) on the 15th of October. 5% said they will not vote 6% had not decided yet.
“Mr. Alhafith said to Alhayat newspaper: The poll included 3667 Iraqis, 53% men, the polls showed that 88% of those support holding the constitutional vote under current condition, while 10% were against for various reason. Some of the reasons were that Iraq is not a free country of its own sovereignty, the constitution will not meet their ambitions or that Iraq does not need democracy now and that the security situation will not allow the proper implementation of the constitution.

“As to how many polled support federalism, Alhafith said that 25% of those polled said they support federalism and consider it the preferred way to run the country. He added that 91% of those in favor of federalism were Kurds. While 58% prefer a central government with provincial administration. 17% refused to answer. Further, 45% want a central government, 23% prefer a union type government, 16% prefer a non central government and 13% refused to answer.

“As to the question of Islam being a main source of legislation. 42% support having Islam being the main source of legislation. 24% support having Islam be the only source of legislation. 13% support not having any law which conflicts with Islam. 14% support having Islam being only one of many sources of legislation, not the only one.

“As for women’s rights and women’s representation in the legislature. 84% support giving women full rights and benefits as men.”

The most salient point, I think, is that the vast majority of Iraqis agree that the negotiating and drafting process has played itself out, and it is time to vote.
from Powerline.

Again, let me point out what John McCain has this to say about the risks if we fail. “when we left Vietnam, there wasn’t a fear that the Vietnamese would come after us. If we fail in Iraq, it will be cataclysmic. You’ll see factionalization and eventual Muslim extremism and terrorist breeding grounds that would, I believe, pose a direct threat to the security of the United States. And I’m very glad that the American people — understandably dissatisfied, understandably frustrated — still, the majority of them don’t think we ought to cut and run.”

Some of the Dems blame Katrina on the GOP

As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2.

In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman’s strong statement affirming Bush’s CO2 promise former RNC Chief Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House.

Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign strategist, was now representing the president’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry who had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that would
be friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the new administration’s attention.

The document, titled “Bush-Cheney Energy Policy & CO2,” was addressed to Vice President Cheney, whose energy task force was then gearing up, and to several high-ranking officials with strong connections to energy and automotive concerns keenly interested in the carbon dioxide issue, including Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, White House chief of staff Andy Card and legislative liaison Nick Calio. Barbour pointedly omitted the names of Whitman and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, both of whom were on record supporting CO2 caps. Barbour’s memo chided these administration insiders for trying to address global warming which Barbour dismissed as a radical fringe issue.
from huffington Post.

Just stupid. First, the biggest problem with Kyoto is it ignores the third world. the Bush administration decided to withdraw from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, for which the US received widespread condemnation. In explaining the reasons for US withdrawal, President Bush said, “I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the US economy.” ( I would support Kyoto if it was fair, but I guess Blame America first is a more important philosophy then then to write a truely inclusive and fair protocol. Sadly, I do care about the environment, but most of the environmental groups are so radical that I find myself opposing them.)

Also, generally, global climate change is very poorly understood and works on the scale of thousands of years, not decades. On the records we have, there has been to major increases in hurricane frequency.
Here is a list of the deadliest hurricanes in the United States from 1900-1998.

RANK HURRICANE YEAR CATEGORY DEATHS
1 Unnamed – Galveston, TX 1900 4 8000+
2 Unnamed – Lake Okeechobee, FL 1928 4 1836
3 Unnamed – Fl Keys/S TX 1919 4 600&
4 “New England” 1938 3 600
5 “Labor Day” – FL Keys 1935 5 408

Shall we blame the GOP for Galveston too? By the way, The largest number of hurricanes was 21 in 1933.

oh. here is LGF’s analysis of the Kyoto treaty.

There is a lot of hysterical posturing from the “reality-based community,” claiming that if the US had signed Kyoto, Hurricane Katrina would not have happened.

But in the real real world, here’s what would have happened if the Kyoto Protocol had gone into effect this year (6 months ago):

1. The increase in CO2 without Kyoto would be about 1 ppm.

2. The US contribution would have been 0.25 ppm.

3. If the US had reduced its emissions immediately on Feb 17 to 7% below 1990 levels, or about 20% below present levels, the CO2 contribution would be reduced by 0.05 ppm.

4. Using an IPCC sensitivity of 3 C for a CO2 doubling, the reduction in temperature would have been 0.00057 C, a ridiculously small number.

5. No measurable effect on weather or hurricances would have occurred.

6. Following the Kyoto advocates’ wishes, the above course of action would have reduced US GDP by 2 to 4% and would cost about $100B to $200B dollars, compared to Katrinas cost of about $25B.

On a cost/benefit basis, their arguments make no sense.

P.S. You can say these numbers come from a climatologist who was active in the field for more than 30 years.

Palestinian Authority’s US assets are frozen. (Hat tip: mks.)

WASHINGTON — A Rhode Island lawyer trying to collect a $116 million terrorism judgment against the Palestinian Authority has obtained a court-ordered freeze on all its US-based assets, severely limiting most Palestinian economic and diplomatic activities in the United States at a critical moment for the fledgling government.

The frozen assets include US holdings in a $1.3 billion Palestinian investment fund meant to finance economic development as well as bank accounts used to pay Palestinian representatives in Washington, according to lawyers and court documents filed in Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., and New York. Also frozen are about $30 million in assets from the Palestinian Monetary Authority, the Palestinian equivalent of the US Federal Reserve.

Providence attorney David Strachman, who is representing the orphaned children of a couple killed in Israel by Palestinian militants, has also initiated a court action to seize and sell the Palestinian-owned building in New York that serves as the Palestine Liberation Organization observer mission to the United Nations.

The aggressive collection effort comes as the Palestinian Authority is struggling to create economic opportunity and set up a viable government. Now, Palestinian officials say, the unpaid claim in the Rhode Island court, resulting from a 2004 ruling, threatens to complicate their efforts to become a credible emerging state.
from LGF.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Hurricane Katrina ripped into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, stranding people on rooftops as it pummeled the historic jazz city New Orleans with 100 mph (160 kph) winds and swamped Mississippi resort towns and lowlands with a crushing surge of seawater.

Five people were confirmed dead, officials said.

New Orleans, a bowl-shaped city that sits below sea level and has long feared catastrophic damage from a massive hurricane, took a powerful blow from Katrina. But it may have been spared the worst when the storm turned at the last moment, sending its powerful wall of water toward Mississippi.

“The state has suffered a grievous blow on the coast,” said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

An oil drilling platform broke free of its mooring in Mobile Bay, Alabama, and slammed into a bridge. At least two oil rigs were adrift in the Gulf of Mexico, where Katrina raged through key offshore oil and gas fields as one of the strongest hurricanes on record.

Katrina, which hit the coast as a Category 4 storm on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, could become the most expensive storm in U.S. history, costing insurers up to $26 billion, risk analysts said.
from Yahoo News.

(from Reuters) – Hurricane Katrina may sting U.S. economic growth by choking energy supplies even as the damages caused by the storm spur massive rebuilding and emergency government spending.

Economists, while emphasizing that few concrete damage assessments have yet been made, said the major hurricane that struck the country’s key Louisiana energy gateway would help sustain high oil, gasoline and natural gas prices.

A seasonal downturn in demand expected after next weekend and a higher-than-usual build-up in inventories ahead of the North American winter had led to forecasts energy prices might ease in coming months.

Some economists said U.S. gross domestic growth had been already showing signs of easing and may now slow more rapidly if fallout from Katrina boosts oil to $100 a barrel for a month, or U.S. gasoline prices to $3.50 a gallon, for a few months.

“The impact on the consumer spending in such a scenario would be very dramatic, cutting the growth rate by as much as 3 percent and push real GDP growth in the fourth quarter closer to zero,” Global Insight said in a preliminary analysis

Stop the ACLU. here is one of their articles.

CAIR And ACLU, A Deadly Combo
August 29th, 2005 – Posted By Jay
America needs to wake up from the politically correct dreamworld if it hopes to remain the free society it is. While we rightly fight across the ocean to spread democracy, ours is being eaten away from the inside. The trojan horses are marching disguised in patriotic camo, and their danger is real. The question is, why isn’t something being done about it? The answer is, yet another dangerous enemy; one that has America in the grips of its talons; political correctness.

Two of the most dangerous organizations in America can be found allied together often, the ACLU and CAIR.

For those who are still not familiar with the group CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, I will provide some background information.

Founded in 1994, CAIR is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has thirty-one chapters and regional offices in the United States and Canada. CAIR was founded by Nihad Awad, Omar Ahwad, Rafiq Jaber, and other former members of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP). Jaber is also the current spokesman for the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation in Illinois; a mosque tied to the IAP and to the Quranic Literacy Institute named in the 2004 drive-by murder of David Boim.*

The IAP and Quranic Literacy Institute were ordered by the court to pay Boim’s family $156M in restitution; money that had previously been raised in the U.S. as “charity” donations by these Islamic organizations. U.S. donations were used to finance terrorist activities, and subsequently for the results of said terrorist activities – most interesting.

The IAP has often been referred to as the American wing of Hamas, a terrorist group that has vowed to destroy Israel. Of interest, Hamas senior leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, in a recent interview with Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, said: “We do not and will not recognize a state called Israel. This land is the property of all Muslims in all parts of the world. Let Israel die!” Suffice to say, this is not an organization that has any desire or any plans for peace. Source

Why are they still an active organization? Political Correctness.

Islamic education in the U.S. (are these Wahabee schools?) also appears to be in the process of attempting to take over U.S. private school organizations, at least in Texas. In 2004, the Islamic Education Institute of Texas sought inclusion into TAPPS (Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools). As reported by the Houston Chronicle, Edd Burleson (Director of TAPPS) had the ‘extreme audacity’ to ask questions of the Islamic educational organization.

Quoting the Islamic Quran, which calls upon Muslims to be violent against Christians and Jews, Burleson asked in a letter containing ten questions to the group: “Why do you wish to join an organization whose membership is basically in total disagreement with your religious beliefs?”

As if asking these questions wasn’t cheeky enough, Burleson went on to ask about the Islamic organization’s position on “the spread of Islam in America” and the objectives of the school “in this regard”. A week later, Burleson sent another letter that included the question “Do you teach your students to ‘Make war on them (Christians and Jews) until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion reigns supreme’ (Koran 8:37)?”

These questions were enough to bring the ACLU flying to Islam’s defense. The ACLU and CAIR demanded an apology from Burleson! It appears that questions directed to Islamic organizations are no longer to be allowed in the USA.
However, as we already know, reverse situations are allowed. Christians may be asked any and all questions, and are allowed to be browbeaten unmercifully by both Islam and the ACLU.

So the ACLU is not alone in its hatred for Christians. It has found a valueable ally in its war.

The ACLU is working with CAIR and Amnesty International (a decidedly in-my-opinion Marxist group) to defend Ghassan Elashi and his brothers, who were convicted of terrorism.

. In 2001, the ACLU joined CAIR and other Islamic support groups to challenge the detention of potential terrorists.

. In 2003, the ACLU joined CAIR and other Muslim advocacy groups to challenge portions of the Patriot Act.

. Also in 2003, the Ohio chapter of the ACLU awarded its yearly “Liberty Flame Award” to the Ohio chapter of CAIR “for contributions to
the advancement and protection of civil liberties.”

. In 2004, the ACLU joined CAIR in demanding the FBI make its files public as to [its] surveillance of Chicago Muslim groups and ‘expressed special concern today over the FBI’s targeting of Muslims and Arabs in the Chicago community’. Note: Remember it was two Illinois groups (the
IAP and Quranic Literacy Institute) that were convicted of terrorist murder.

. In North Carolina 2005, the ACLU joined forces with CAIR toward including swearing on the Koran (as opposed to the Bible) for Muslims.
Note: The push for Shari’a law in Canada has already become a strong force. Will the U.S. be next?

I guess this explains why the ACLU refused funds from so many organizations because of anti-terrorism stipulations. In October of 2004, the ACLU turned down $1.15 million in funding from two of it’s most generous and loyal contributors, the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, saying new anti-terrorism restrictions demanded by the institutions make it unable to accept their funds.
“The Ford Foundation now bars recipients of its funds from engaging in any activity that “promotes violence, terrorism, bigotry, or the destruction of any state.”

The Rockefeller Foundation’s provisions state that recipients of its funds may not “directly or indirectly engage in, promote, or support other organizations or individuals who engage in or promote terrorist activity.”Source
And recently they have refused funds from the United Way because they wanted assurance the money would not be involved with anyone on the Federal terrorism watch list.

It is obvious the ACLU why the ACLU refused this money. They are openly working with an organization that has known terrorists ties. I know that many ACLU supporters follow blindly, but with facts like this, even if I were a card carrying ACLU member, I would think twice about where my money might be going.

When will America wake up from this politically correct nightmare? Let’s hope, before it is too late.

Thank you Indepundit, Outside The Beltway and Mudville Gazette.

I view the ACLU as one of the most dangerous organizations in America.

Powerline Reader Curt Loftis spent two days in Crawford, Texas, carrying out a first-hand reconnaissance of the anti-American forces assembled there. He writes:

I arrived at the original Camp Casey at 2:30 in the afternoon. It was hot and dry and the assembled demonstrators were in a melancholy state. I quickly made friends, stressing “cocktail” conversation, not political discussion. My goal was not confrontation, but a desire to understand what was actually happening here in Crawford…and being incognito was the only way this would happen.
After bonding with several nice ladies from the central coast of California, I drove with these new buddies to the larger, tented camp where Ms. Sheehan and Company was to be found. There I found a well funded, well orchestrated public relations campaign, run by media professionals complete with the highest quality electronic equipment available. From Satellite trucks and cell phone to wireless computer access, every modern convenience to enhance the “message” was there…and being used by left wing, socialist and Marxist (self-described) media representatives and Bloggers.

Most of the Sheehan protesters were either professional (paid staff of Fenton Communications or the radical organization Code Pink or the like), or were long time protesters, some admitting to beginning vigils against the government as early as 1965. I had conversations with approximately 50 of these people over 48 hours, and all seemed like interesting and engaging people. We talked sports, and cars and how wonderful California is, and just about everything that could be discussed without my divulging that I am a conservative. But when “scratched” just a little with some mild political talk, they all responded the same way…”it is America’s fault”. No matter what the issue, each and every one of them had the same default…”bad things are America’s fault”.

Toward the end of my time there, I decided to innocently toss into the conversation different issues just to elicit a response. One issue I politely deposited into our talks was of the peasant unrest in rural China, and the brutality shown to the peasants by the government and their hired thugs. There response to this problem was…”well, look how we treated the blacks in America”, or, “gays are being beaten every day in America”.

So the cliché of the “hate America” crowd is indeed true. It is as if the protesters were intellectually bulimic, and having ingested all of the hate America bile, they looked forward to regurgitating it as a show of their steadfastness to their cause of peace and love.

Cindy Sheehan spent most of her time huddled with VIPS in and air-conditioned trailer. When she ventured out it was for a scripted and often televised moment. She was always trailed by her media people, and they were quick to keep her on point. During one conversation I had with her I tried to ask her a pointed question about how much time she would actually be on the bus tour to Washington (I had discovered she would only be on the tour for two days, and would be away giving speeches during the rest of the trip…and I wondered if she were being paid for these speeches) Her media person grabbed her arm and led her back to the trailer, and away from me. The message was protected. I was left standing there…alone, and feeling a little less secure about my status at Camp Casey.

But just a few minutes later, she emerged from the trailer, smiling, and performing for the cameras. Like the chicken at the local carnival that plays tic tac toe, she eagerly performs for any microphone. She is relentless, and professional, well financed and on message.

And the message is “All things bad are America’s fault.”
from Powerline.

America, though she has made her share of mistakes, has saved the world three (and maybe four) times. One and two, saving Europe in both World Wars. (And I am sure today’s lying media does not bother to represent the real brutality of the Central Powers and the Axis Powers) Helped bring about the defeat of the Soviet Union, and now is working to defeat the evils of Muslim Fundamentalism. No other country has done more for the world in so short a time.

just to remind you of what we are fighting against, because the MSM won’t…..
link is here.

by the way, here is another reason to be against them, some Saudi Clerics Declare Football
Un-Islamic .

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – The fringes of potentially catastrophic Hurricane Katrina began whipping Louisiana on Sunday and about 1 million people fled from the low-lying New Orleans area.

The brunt of Katrina, which had 160-mph (266-kph) winds on Sunday evening, was expected to crash ashore around sunrise on Monday. Its winds, tides and heavy squalls had already started arriving before nightfall.

The storm had weakened slightly from the morning, when it boasted 175-mph (282-kph) winds, but it remained a savage Category 5 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

Mayor Ray Nagin warned the hurricane’s storm surge of up to 28 feet could topple the levees protecting the city, which sits in a bowl-shaped area, and flood its historic French Quarter.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared,” Nagin told a news conference after reading out a mandatory evacuation order. “This is a threat that we’ve never faced before.”
from Yahoo News.

This could be the worst disaster since Galveston. And for more negative news, Katrina will have a very negative impact on oil prices.

- U.S. oil prices surged to a record above $70 a barrel on Monday as one of the country’s biggest storms tore through the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, forcing oil producers and refiners to shut down operations.

U.S. crude oil futures soared nearly $5 a barrel in opening trade to touch a fresh peak of $70.80 a barrel, surpassing last week’s $68 high to the highest price since the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) began trading contracts in 1983.

Lets all pray for those living under the threat of Katrina.

Blacks in both major political parties have felt “marginalized” for decades, but Republicans hope a new strategy will help them reach out to black voters and politicians.
Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican Party, formed the “Give Us a Chance and We’ll Give You a Choice” strategy after the 2004 election showed gains for President Bush among black voters.
More than a dozen black politicians are running on the Republican ticket in 2006 for Senate and House seats, governorships and other statewide races.
It could turn out to be the most diverse Republican slate since the mid-1990s, said J.C. Watts Jr., chairman of GOPAC, a Republican political action committee. Mr. Watts won a House seat in Oklahoma in 1994, becoming the first black Republican to reach Congress since Sen. Edward W. Brooke III, Massachusetts Republican, who served from 1967 to 1979. from the Washington Times.

And Md. has one of the highest elected black officials in the US, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, (the man many dems. called an oreo and the Sun defined “as a man that has no value but the color of his skin.”)

let me again repost an earlier article and tell you why blacks might be surprised when they compare Republican history with the Dems.

“To stop the Democrats’ pro-slavery agenda, anti-slavery activists founded the Republican party, starting with a few dozen men and women in Ripon, Wisconsin on March 20, 1854,” the calendar notes. “Democratic opposition to Republican efforts to protect the civil rights of all Americans lasted not only throughout Reconstruction, but well into the 20th century. In the south, those Democrats who most bitterly opposed equality for blacks founded the Ku Klux Klan, which operated as the party’s terrorist wing.White supremacists worked club in hand with Democrats for decades”

October 7, 1868: Republicans criticized Democrats’ national slogan: “This is a white man’s country: Let white men rule.”

February 2005: The Democrats’ Klan-coddling today is embodied by KKK alumnus Robert Byrd, West Virginia’s logorrheic U.S. senator and, having served since January 3, 1959, that body’s dean. Thirteen years earlier, Byrd wrote this to the KKK’s Imperial Wizard: “The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.” Byrd led Senate Democrats as late as December 1988. On March 4, 2001, Byrd told Fox News’s Tony Snow: “There are white niggers. I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I’m going to use that word.” National Democrats never have arranged a primary challenge against or otherwise pressed this one-time cross-burner to get lost.

In 1865, Congressional Republicans unanimously backed the 13th Amendment, which made slavery unconstitutional. Among Democrats, 63 percent of senators and 78 percent of House members voted: “No.”

September 24, 1957: Eisenhower deployed the 82nd Airborne Division to desegregate Little Rock’s government schools over the strenuous resistance of Governor Orval Faubus (D., Ark.).

May 6, 1960: Eisenhower signs the GOP’s 1960 Civil Rights Act after it survived a five-day, five-hour filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats.

Until 1935, every black federal legislator was Republican. America’s first black U.S. Representative, South Carolina’s Joseph Rainey, and our first black senator, Mississippi’s Hiram Revels, both reached Capitol Hill in 1870. On December 9, 1872, Louisiana Republican Pinckney Benton Stewart “P.B.S.” Pinchback became America’s first black governor.

November 2, 1983: President Reagan established Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a national holiday, the first such honor for a black American.

President Reagan named Colin Powell America’s first black national-security adviser while GOP President George W. Bush appointed him our first black secretary of state.

President G.W. Bush named Condoleezza Rice America’s first black female NSC chief, then our second (consecutive) black secretary of State. Just last month, one-time Klansman Robert Byrd and other Senate Democrats stalled Rice’s confirmation for a week. Amid unanimous GOP support, 12 Democrats and Vermont Independent James Jeffords opposed Rice — the most “No” votes for a State designee since 14 senators frowned on Henry Clay in 1825.

Christopher Hitchens delivers a brilliant essay in the Daily Standard called “A War to Be Proud Of.” His positive accounting of our accomplishments in the Bush administration’s proactive war on terrorism includes:

1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi’s Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction–a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush.

(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

(4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite.

(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)

(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat.

(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region–the Kurds–and the spread of this example to other states.

(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy.

(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.

(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.

Moreover, while it’s not clear whether or to what extent the American public shares Hitchens’ pride in what we’ve accomplished, Hitchens is undoubtedly correct that the public itself has displayed a fortitude of which it should be proud:

Faced with a constant drizzle of bad news and purposely demoralizing commentary, millions of people stick out their jaws and hang tight. I am no fan of populism, but I surmise that these citizens are clear on the main point: It is out of the question–plainly and absolutely out of the question–that we should surrender the keystone state of the Middle East to a rotten, murderous alliance between Baathists and bin Ladenists. When they hear the fatuous insinuation that this alliance has only been created by the resistance to it, voters know in their intestines that those who say so are soft on crime and soft on fascism.
from Powerline.

And for those tired of the MSM spin, here is what they don’t report on your local news. Good News from Iraq! (I know no one will read the whole thing, but I want to print most of it just to point out just how much information the MSM is ignoring.)

Coalition forces turned over Camp Zulu in As Suwayrah, Iraq, to the Iraqi Army on Aug. 21. The division’s 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade will be permanently housed there. This is the twenty-fourth base to be turned over to the Iraqis, returning the land to the government elected by the people.

· Approximately 25,000 Iraqis in the Dahuk, Babylon and Wassit Provinces will get treated potable water, thanks to three million dollars released for local projects. The projects will upgrade 15 systems, each including water wells, compact potable water treatment plants and pumps. Completion dates for the 15 projects vary, but are all scheduled to be finished by January of 2006.

· Construction has restarted on Sadr City’s $902,000 Al Sadr Fire Station project, after a recent construction collapse while concrete was being placed. The project is scheduled for completion in March of 2006. This three-story structure is almost 10,000 square feet and features five bays; three for ladder trucks and two for SUVs. It includes a dormitory area for 20 firefighters, dining room for 30, commercial-grade kitchenette to feed 40 people, a training room for 20, a locker room, a control room and a chief’s office.

· Phase III of the $10 million Najaf Teaching Hospital project began this week with a symbolic “ground-breaking” ceremony on the second floor of the hospital. This phase of the project includes civil, mechanical, electrical and plumbing rehabilitation throughout the facility. The contract also includes a physicians’ residence building, sewer treatment plant, a morgue, storage and garages, and remodeling of the main entrance to the hospital.

· International Flight Lands in Basra – The first international flight to land in Basra, Iraq in 15 years arrived Monday, receiving a warm welcome from local officials.

Think that was i…..Nope, here is a only SOME of what the MSM did not talk about last week….

(BAGHDAD, Iraq – Some of the Iraqi citizens benefiting from reconstruction this week were school children. Several projects were completed across the country, including school buildings. Children in Dobak Tappak village of Al Tamim Province received much-needed school supplies, clothing and toys from the Nahrain Foundation, a non-governmental organization that focuses on providing proper nutrition, decent clothing and medical supplies to Iraqi women and children. More than 600 children will return to renovated or rebuilt schools in Maysan Province when school starts this fall. More reconstruction projects in Sadr City started this week, including the $13 million electrical distribution project for sectors one through eight. Construction started on the $3.8 million Al Rayash Electricity Substation project in Al Daur District of Salah Ad Din Province, located between Tikrit and Bayji. Approximately two million people will benefit from the Baghdad trunk sewer line, which was completed this week. Workers cleaned and repaired the Baghdad trunk sewer line and its associated manholes and pumping stations. In Basrah, construction is complete on phase one of the $865,000 Basrah courthouse project. Iraqi security forces benefited from reconstruction projects this week as well. A patrol station in the Karkh district of Baghdad Province was completed, as was a $390,300 border-post project on the Saudi Arabian border. A division headquarters building for the Iraqi Army in Salah Ad Din Province was also completed this week. In another move that highlights the increasing turnover of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, generals from Iraqi and Coalition forces joined local tribal leaders at a ceremony where Forward Operating Base Dagger in Tikrit, one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces, was officially handed over to the 4th Iraqi Army Division this week. Iraqi Security Forces continued training this week. In Taji, Iraqi soldiers completed a Strategic Infrastructure Battalion Train-the-Trainer course. The 90 graduates will go on to serve as instructors at an Iraqi Army training base.
This week, the 1st Iraqi Army Brigade succeeded at implementing the first Non-commissioned Officer Academy in the country. Iraqi soldiers from the most recent class were the last group to be instructed by the U.S. Soldiers who had developed the training. Baghdad police continued to demonstrate their capabilities this week. Iraqi Police confiscated 30 AK-47 rifles, two hand guns, and one machine gun during the raids. They also arrested 30 suspected insurgents, three of whom were targeted in the raids. In addition, police at the Al Khanssa Police Station in Baghdad captured a kidnapper involved in the abduction of a local physician.Based on two separate tips from Iraqis, Coalition forces discovered weapons caches that contained rocket-propelled grenades and two launchers, 16 mortar rounds and a launcher, and five boxes of anti-aircraft ammunition hidden in northwest Baghdad. Another tip led Coalition forces to a large cache of artillery shells in the early hours of Aug. 16. Iraqi Army soldiers and Coalition forces conducted a joint cordon and search operation in northwest Fallujah and detained two suspects. Iraqi Security Forces killed terrorist Abu Zubair, also known as Mohammed Salah Sultan, in an ambush in the northern city of Mosul this week. Zubair, who was wearing a suicide vest when he was killed, was a known member of Al Qaeda in Iraq and a lieutenant in Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi’s terrorist operations in Mosul. )

This is a shortened list I got from from Flopping Aces and the US central Command. Why is the MSM instead focusing on Sheehan? Because they are against the war and want us to loose. Here is a comment on Iraq- The Model- by Michael Yon, in response to another defeatest journalist, Lewis Simmons.

Lewis Simons says to some Vietnamese guide after examining underground tunnels:
“I told my guide that finally I understood why his side had won.”

Not only does he not understand Iraq, he still doesnt even understand Vietnam.

The insurgency that built those tunnels was set back severely in the Tet offensive in 1968 and was effectively defeated by 1971.

After the US secured a peace agreement in 1973, similar to the kinds of armistice that has secured South Korea for over 50 years, the anti-war Left, riding on Nixon’s downfall, took over Congress in 1974. The failure of the US to support the South Vietnamese led directly to a direct invasion by the Communist north. This was not done by guerillas or vietcong, but by a soviet-supplied regular army, which could have been obliterated by our B-52s, but wasnt, because we had the anti-war Left wanting to abandon our friends to Communist armies rather than stand and fight. The anti-war Left threw away a victory that cost over 50,000 lives.

The Vietnamese didnt “win” that war – they lost it, too. Over 1 million boat people, hundreds of thousands sent to ‘camps’ for Communist indoctrination, thousands murdered; no winners there … and then the Cambodian genocide, more wars, more death. there were no Vietnamese “winners” when America abandoned Vietnam, unless you count the small number of Communist thugs pursuing their power grab of the south.

He now misunderstands two wars.

He fails to see that “insurgents” and terrorists winning in Iraq means Iraqis will be the biggest losers.

“What would “winning” in Iraq mean, anyway? A democratic society that’s free to elect an anti-American, pro-Iranian, fundamentalist Islamic government?”

See the strawman here? He can’t admit that maybe democracy could be good for Iraq and could be possible for Iraq. “Democracy = theocracy”?
Is that the only choice? A dictator
or fundamentalist Government?
Maybe he wants Saddam back after all.

Here’s “winning” in Iraq: Iraq is a free, democratic Republic with security and peace internally and with its neighbors and with us. It’s our ally against terrorism and a member of the international community, no longer a rogue regime like saddam’s was.

The goal will become true over time, unless we cut and run and the democratic ‘center’ in Iraq craters under the pressure. It wont happen,
because Bush is not listening to the defeatists.

“Since, in my judgment, we were wrong to go in, I’m afraid there’s no good way to get out.”

What this moron is saying is that since he was against the war, it must be objectively true that it is impossible to win it.
Like many in the MSM, he wants us to fail because he wants the US administration to fail, and he will bitch and moan to make his defeatism a self-fullfilling prophecy.
What a self-centered boob.

…couldn’t say it better myself…..

Update : Consider Senator McCain’s statement to CBS News about the analogy between Vietnam and Iraq that Senator Hagel has posited:

Vietnam never had a legitimate government in Saigon that the people believed in and trusted. There was superpower engagement in a huge way. [In Iraq] we [have] a problem with the Syrians — but nothing like what the Chinese and Russians were doing for the North Vietnamese. You had basic sanctuary in North Vietnam. The whole situation, I think, was very, very different.
And I’d like to point out one additional aspect. When we left Vietnam, there wasn’t a fear that the Vietnamese would come after us. If we fail in Iraq, it will be cataclysmic. You’ll see factionalization and eventual Muslim extremism and terrorist breeding grounds that would, I believe, pose a direct threat to the security of the United States. And I’m very glad that the American people — understandably dissatisfied, understandably frustrated — still, the majority of them don’t think we ought to cut and run.

A search of Google News shows more than 20,000 results for “Cindy Sheehan”—and less than a hundred (mostly press releases and military sources) for this story of a gutsy hero: Colonel awarded Distinguished Service Cross for rallying Iraqi troops during Mosul fighting. (Hat tip: Politics and Religion.)

A colonel was presented the second-highest award for valor Aug. 24 for his actions during a furious firefight last year in Iraq when he rallied Iraqi commandos to defend their position against an insurgent assault.

Col. James H. Coffman Jr., who was wounded during the Nov. 14 gun battle at Mosul, received the Distinguished Service Cross in a ceremony in Baghdad.

Last November, insurgents attacked several police stations in Mosul. According to the military’s account of his actions, Coffman was with a group of Iraqi commandos moving to reinforce one police station that was under attack when insurgents ambushed them.

All but one of the commando team’s officers were killed or seriously wounded early in the fight, leaving the Iraqi officer and Coffman, an adviser to the commandos, to direct the battle.

“Coffman exhibited truly inspirational leadership, rallying the commandos and organizing a hasty defense while attempting to radio higher headquarters for reinforcements,” his award citation reads.

During the fight, Coffman was shot in his shooting hand, a shot that wrecked his weapon. But he picked up AK47s from the wounded Iraqis and kept shooting.

The battle lasted four hours, ending only after U.S. armored vehicles and air support arrived. Coffman consented to be evacuated for medical treatment only after all of the Iraqi wounded were evacuated.
from LGF.

A beautiful/horrible example of the damage being done by our relentlessly defeatist media and their partners in the “anti-war” movement: AP Poll: Military Kin Likelier to Back War.

People with friends or relatives serving in Iraq are more likely than others to have a positive view of a generally unpopular war, an AP- Ipsos poll found.

Some of those surveyed said their relationships with troops helped them learn more about what’s going on in Iraq beyond the violence. Others said their opinions of the war were shaped by a sense of loyalty to those in harm’s way.

A solid majority of those who did not know anyone in Iraq said they thought the war was a mistake, 61 percent, compared to 36 percent who thought it was the right decision. Those who had a relative or friend there were almost evenly split, 49 percent right decision, 47 percent mistake.

After Ted Chittum of Bourbon, Ind., had a chance to talk at length with his cousin who served in Iraq, he said he got a different picture of what was going on in the country.

“He talked about all the good things that are going on,” said Chittum, a school superintendent and a political independent who supports the war effort. “Schools are opening up. The people are friendly, wanting our help. You get a whole different spin from what you get on television.”

Those who know someone serving in Iraq were more likely to approve of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war _ 44 percent, compared to 37 percent overall.

“From most of the information I get, the people over there fighting basically are proud to be there and feel they’re doing something good,” said Sally Dowling, a bank employee from Mesa, Ariz., who said her boss’s son is serving in Iraq. “That brings it home more than if I didn’t know anybody.”
from LGF.

And what does it say that the people over in Iraq (who know alot more about what is really going on) support the war more then those who are here in the US. It says that the media does not accurately cover the whole story in Iraq and only covers the negative news because they are biased politically even if it costs us the war.

And what if we listened to those pacifists and morons who think that if we just withdrew from Iraq, all will be okay? (Completely forgetting the HUNDREDS of attacks by muslim terrorists before Iraq.) What does treating terrorists like reasonable human beings get you? Well this…..

– A shadowy Hamas bombmaker who tops Israel’s most-wanted list on Saturday had this to say on Israel’s withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Mohammed Deif praised Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance, rejected calls for his group to disarm, and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state is erased from the map.

…..it encourages them. It is as simple as that.

The MSM refuses to talk about Clinton’s refusal to attack Bin-Laden (except for a couple of minor air strikes)even though he repeatedly attacked our country under his watch. So why does Bill not get any blame for failing to stop 9-11, despite his almost criminal performance as Commander-in-Chief? Why does the MSM not also point out how Bin-laden has not hit us again since we struck back hard? And I have pointed our repeatedly on my site why it was justified to go after Saddam and his links to Bin-Laden. The point is this, pulling out of Iraq will encourage the terrorists, and to do nothing or follow the example of Clinton and the Democrats and not hit the terrorists with overwhelming force only encourages more attacks.

Don’t believe me? Who had more attacks under his watch? (the 9-11 terrorists were already in the country before Bush ever took office, so once again, I blame Bill as much as Bush for 9-11.)

So don’t believe the lies of the MSM. Don’t believe the liberal Democrats. Listening to Sheehan and the pacifists will get you killed!!!!!!!!!

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Friday appealed the 22-year prison term for “millennium bomber” Ahmed Ressam, saying that the Algerian convicted of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport deserved a longer sentence because he “plotted to kill hundreds of innocent Americans.”

Ressam was sentenced last month by U.S. Western District Judge John Coughenour for conspiracy to commit an international terrorist act, explosives smuggling and other criminal counts. Prosecutors had sought a 35-year term.

The 38-year-old Algerian was caught on the U.S.-Canada border in December 1999 with nitroglycerin in the trunk of his rented car, and he told authorities he planned to blow up the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the new millennium.

“We believe his actions warrant a sentence above 22 years, and that the district judge erred in imposing the sentence,” U.S. Attorney John McKay said in a statement.

The appeal was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which will set a date for a hearing and oral arguments.

Ressam had struck a deal with federal prosecutors to provide information against other terror suspects in exchange for a shorter sentence. But at his sentencing on July 27, prosecutors asked for the longer term on the grounds that he had failed to work with them and jeopardized cases they were building against other terror suspects.

In a surprise move, Coughenour sentenced Ressam to 22 years, saying that he believed the sentence reflected “the fairness and transparency of the U.S. justice system.”
from Yahoo News.

This is another thing wrong with our country. He tried to kill hundreds. Why should he see the light of day??!! And the moron Coughenou thinks this is fair? Pathetic!!!!!!

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi leaders have reached a deal in principle on a draft constitution, parliament’s speaker said on Saturday, but no accord was clinched yet and a final decision would be clear only on Sunday.

One Shi’ite faction in the government called it a historic day, but delegates from Iraq’s Sunni minority could not be reached for comment and had been making deeply pessimistic statements hours before on the chances of an accord.

Speaker Hajim al-Hassani said negotiators from the Shi’ite majority had proposed amendments to an existing draft to meet the demands of Sunni Arabs, who dominated under Saddam Hussein.

Sunni leaders had yet to give a definite response, said Hassani, himself a Sunni, but the amendments did deal with those issues troubling the minority.

“There is a deal in principle,” Hassani said. “Today we had a response from the Shi’ites. Tomorrow the Sunnis are going to meet and we expect a response on Sunday.”
from Yahoo News.

If the agreement is reached, which would be an historic event, still expect the MSM to give Bush little credit for it, even though Bush telephoned a key Shi’ite Islamist leader in the ruling coalition to ask him to reach out to Sunnis to help shape a constitution that could bring about broad national support.

As the regional economy chugs forward, the state of Maryland finished the past budget year with a $1.2 billion surplus, according to figures released by Comptroller William Donald Schaefer yesterday.

The final accounting for the 2005 fiscal year, which ended June 30, provides the governor and state lawmakers with the best news they’ve had since taking office in January 2003. At the time, a financial downturn prompted a state hiring freeze and some program cuts.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s office reaffirmed yesterday that he hoped to return some money to Marylanders through a tax reduction. The most likely offering: a reduction in the state portion of property taxes, which was raised an average of about $120 yearly for a single-family home during the governor’s first year in office.

“The answer will always be ‘yes’ to that question” of whether the governor supports a tax cut, said Shareese N. DeLeaver, an Ehrlich spokeswoman. The governor’s budget proposal for next year has not been finalized, she said.

Ehrlich, a Republican, was elected in 2002 on a pledge to bring fiscal responsibility to Annapolis and to hold the line against sales- and income-tax increases. Although the governor is expected to say he has accomplished his goal, critics note that the governor has consistently submitted budgets that exceed the legislature’s affordability guidelines and say he has balanced the budget by one-time transfers and increases in a variety of fees.

from the Baltimore Sun.

It really does not matter what Ehrlich does, the Baltimore Sun hates Republicans, and Ehrlich will not get any good press from that waste of a tree that calls itself a newspaper. It is as simple as that. The economy is doing well in Md, our taxes have not been raised, and we have a surplus. What would Maryland Dems prefer? It seems they would prefer this…

Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch plans to ask Democrats in the House of Delegates today to endorse increases in the sales tax and income tax on wealthy residents. (From the Sun on March 22, 2004. )

This is your choice. Stick with the biased and partisan Sun, and big government and higher taxes, or go with Ehlich and lower taxes and accountable government.