by Larwyn (edited for length)

I found the following at: ShrinkWrapped: Reasons for Optimisms: Part I . It is written by “Owens” a reader of Shrinkwrapped and an intelligence analyst, it is a long piece in two parts, but I have not seen a better explanation for GW’s keeping to his plan for Iraq and for the mid east and why the patience of the enemy is their most dangerous weapon as the Dems have given it strength with their timetables and cut and run shrieks.

( again, it’s a little long but a good read….)

Reasons for Optimisms: Part I
My ideas and opinions here are my own; they are not endorsed by anyone in any organization and I have consulted no one in the community on any of this. But neither are these just my personal notions of how things should be done. I am not a general of the armchair or any other variety. I am an observer and an analyst, not a strategist. What I write here is based on what I know of our overall strategy as it was formulated in the year after 9/11 (I retired in late 2002) and what I have observed since, interpreted according to my experience. So the following is my assessment of what we are doing and, for the record, what I think we should be doing. Any instances of factual error, faulty logic, and wishful thinking are therefore solely mine.

On Terminology

Naming our enemy has been a problem, and not just reason of PC sensibility. I don’t like the term “Islamofascist” because I doubt its accuracy and have a hard time spelling it. “Islamic terrorist” I think is too narrow; our foe has adopted terror as his main weapon, but I think to use that term may imply I’m talking just about the people who fly planes into buildings and not the larger infrastructure that supports them and the social elements that inspire and guide them. The situation is also complicated by there being two different, and in principle opposed, Islamist groups opposing us: Sunni, principally Wahhabi, extremists and radical Shi`ites. These two groups are based on different traditions but have adopted similar methods to broadly similar aims.

There are also Palestinian terrorist organizations whose motivations are substantially different than the Wahhabis or the Shi`ites, and while both of these latter have attempted to get some leverage out the Palestinian conflict, this is a tactical accommodation to benefit from what is essentially side issue. As such, my discussion is not going to consider the either Palestinian terrorists or the Palestinian question.

So I’m going to settle on “Jihadis,” which I take to mean those who engage in or actively support war with us in the name of Islam. I will also sometimes call them simply: “the enemy;” and when I do, that is who I mean.

When talking about the people on our side of the war, I am simply going to say “us” as opposed to the US, America, the West, Western liberal civilization, etc. By “us” I mean anyone who stands with us in opposing the Jihadis, and even some people who don’t but that, because of civic duty, we are obligated to protect. I will use terms like the West or Western liberal civilization or culture when discussing historical factors or events as they relate to our past or current interactions with Islam. I trust this will not create confusion.

On Strategy

Fundamentally, we need to achieve three things in this (or pretty much any) war. We need to defend against enemy attacks, we need to destroy the enemy’s capacity to fight, and we need to ensure that in future new enemies do not arise to revive this threat. Our strategy must encompass each of these goals and must employ all possible means: law enforcement and traditional counter-terrorism, military force, and diplomacy, nation building, and promoting democracy.

In fact, although it is simplistic, it is not inaccurate to say that the first goal is primarily a counter-terrorism issue; the second, a military issue, while the third relies on it own triad: diplomacy, nation building, and democracy. That conception might lead some clarity to the ongoing debate over approaches: they are all necessary and they all ultimately reinforce each other.

There is a fourth element in our strategy that is not really separate from the other elements, but is part of each, while at the same time it operates outside of each and supports each independently: the information war (IW) component. It is the major IW component that gives this war much of its unprecedented character. Although I doubt IW is seen as a separate and distinct discipline in this war, because of its nature I will discuss it separately, hoping that will not introduce fatal confusion.

Counter-terrorism strategy

I think counter-terrorism is the most straightforward and easily grasped part of our overall strategy. It is the part we hear a lot about and that touches us most directly. It is also largely tactical in nature and the furthest from my particular expertise. So I will summarize it by saying that the objective of this part of the strategy is to detect and destroy terrorist cells and their leaders, and to thwart their attacks. Intelligence is key — rapid, timely, precise tactical intelligence — which employs all the methods we read about in the NYT and then some.

An equally important objective of the Counter-terrorism strategy is dealing with the infrastructure that supports the Jihadis. This includes mainly the people and organizations that finance and supply them; in effect the logistical tail of the Jihadi movement. (Jihadis seem to provide much of their own tactical intelligence, though they also get intelligence from their sponsor states.) Counter-terrorism methods may or may not be able to isolate or attack these elements, but they are important to at least finding them, and the golden rule of doing so is: “Follow the money.” (Hence, the critical importance of the SWIFT operation that the NYT revealed.)

Counter-terrorism strategy is of the most immediate concern, especially to the general public, but in essence it mainly holds the line against the Jihadis. It can make it very difficult for them to operate and it can, with help, starve them of funds and supplies. But it cannot keep the enemy from reconstituting himself; one good counter to the counter-terrorism strategy is simply patience.

Military strategy

The objective of the military strategy is primarily to deal with hostile governments that support the Jihadis. It also operates against hostile insurgencies and organizations like the Taliban and Hezbollah that have significant combat power. Destroying the ability of hostile governments to support the Jihadis is important because the Jihadis are a transnational state-supported threat, not a non-state threat. Although the Jihadis also derive considerable support from social elements within countries that are nominally opposed to them, state support is more important.

Only states can give the Jihadis the type of sanctuary that allows them organize and train large numbers of fighters, or to maintain the type of organization necessary to plan, coordinate, and execute major attacks. Deprived of sanctuary, they must move frequently and focus on maintaining tight security, which means smaller groups, less communication, less coordination. Logistic support becomes both harder and more risky. Constantly operating in a hostile environment increases stress, erodes trust, and encourages mistakes. All these factors enhance our counter-terrorism capabilities and make that strategy more effective.

States also are obviously important sources of funds, weapons, weapons development, recruits, and intelligence. In recent years, some fascinating scholarship has evolved that shows what happens to the size and operational capability of groups that are not state supported. (Note: I’m afraid no link. I believe it was discussed over at the Belmont Club, quite sometime ago.)

Another critical point is that WMD, especially nuclear weapons, are state assets. It would very difficult for a terrorist group to get their hands on a nuke without state support any time in the foreseeable future. Chemical and biological weapons have a lower threshold, but they have their own characteristics that make obtaining and using them difficult without state support. Lack of state support therefore dramatically reduces the chances of the Jihadis obtaining WMD.

So eliminating state support is key. But operations just to topple a hostile government, such as Saddam’s previously or potentially Iran and Syria now, is not always sufficient. To make sure the deposed government does not reassert itself and resume support for the Jihadis, we may have to remain in-country and that probably means dealing with an insurgency.

Any deposed hostile government with a significant power base can try to organize an insurgency. It helps if the former power holders are ethnically distinct or have a religious or class identity that gives them a degree of natural unity, but most will have enough followers to make an uncomfortable degree of trouble.

Iraq of course had all the prerequisites for an insurgency, and I believe organizing one and fighting the invasion that way was Saddam’s plan, possibly from the beginning. I take nothing away from our military accomplishments in Iraq by saying this, as the insurgency plan may have been a fall-back and it is clear from the panic and disorganization among the Iraqis during the final days on the invasion that Saddam expected his military’s resistance to give him more time than it did and we no doubt disrupted his plans to no small degree. (I very much doubt that sneaking about and living in septic tanks was part of Saddam’s pre-invasion plan.)

I bring this up because it gives the lie to the theory that if we had done this or that — more troops, harsher crackdown, not disband the Iraqi army, or whatever — the insurgency could have been avoided. It could not. So our military strategy must consider the likelihood of an insurgency in future cases. (I’m not sure this was appreciated as much as it should have been in 2003, but live and learn.)

As important as it is, our military strategy cannot by itself prevent the Jihadis from recovering from even a quite severe military defeat. As with counter-terrorism, an effective counter to our military strategy can be patience. Military operations are expensive, taxing, and carry significant political risk. Waiting them out is easy, cheap, and under the right circumstances, foolproof. If they can, Jihadis will adopt this plan when the tide is strongly against them.

It should be noted however that our military capability does give us credibility; especially when it has been experienced up close. Demonstrated military strength, I think, gives us foothold in the Islamic imagination which allows us to begin to set the foundation for controlling the militant strain of Islam from which the Jihadis arise. This has been demonstrated in both Iraq and Afghanistan and should not be discounted.

Diplomacy

In conventional wisdom, diplomacy is seen as an alternative to military action: a means by which conflicts can be resolved through a political solution, or hostile governments can be contained or even brought down by economic sanctions, international pressure, or internal pressure through encouragement of dissident groups. Such measures are almost entirely useless against religiously motivated enemies who are uninterested in political solutions, largely immune to international opinion, and generally unimpressed by, or not subject to, economic sanctions. Under such circumstances, diplomacy acts mainly to enable our counter-terrorism, military, and nation building efforts, rather than as a means of direct action.

Our diplomatic strategy, as I see it, is therefore comprised primarily of these things:

Maintaining the coalition of our allies.
Enhancing cooperation with our “semi-allies”, especially in intelligence activities.
Pressuring non-hostile governments to curtail support for the Jihadis from elements within their borders and to cooperate with us in identifying and disabling local terrorist groups.
Buying time in the international arena for our military and nation building activities.
Laying the diplomatic groundwork for future action.
Note that I don’t mention combating anti-American feeling abroad as part of our diplomatic strategy. Frankly, I don’t think it is. Contrary to popular belief, there is little evidence that anti-American feeling abroad has been seriously increased by Iraq or our other efforts against the Jihadis. The apparent upswing is due mainly to an increase in noise level by governments and social elements who have been persistently anti-American for decades, and subsequent exaggeration by anti-war elements in the media. Largely ignored and therefore under-appreciated are the governments with which our ties have been strengthened since this war began. On the balance, I think our international position may actually be somewhat improved compared to the last years of the Clinton administration.

Regardless of these factors, the crucial point is that our overriding concern is defeating the Jihadis and most of the anti-Americans overseas are themselves targets of the Jihadis. Because of this, anti-American feeling does not preclude important cooperation. It just means that cooperation may be given as unobtrusively as possible.

Nation Building and Democracy

I have lumped nation building and democracy together here not because they are the same thing or have the same goals, but because they support each other and often operate side by side.

Nation building is not a term I much like, but it has common currency so I will not try to coin another. By nation building, I mean establishing a degree of security, repairing infrastructure, and helping to set up or revive the social institutions necessary for stability, economic growth, and a return to public life. Such achievements make promoting democracy possible; without them “promoting democracy” is reduced to holding meaningless elections.

Neither nation building nor democracy are necessarily aimed at what many think of as “winning hearts & minds” in that the goals do not include getting the population to love us or even like us very much. The goal is to get them to take ownership of their society and economy, and to make sure that they have something to take ownership of. If that happens, people will naturally gravitate towards a government that does not promote war or terrorism, in order to hold on to what they have achieved. Often they will see representative government as the best means of doing this. That is why our strategy is to promote democracy by creating the conditions that encourage it, not by imposing it, as some have said.

Many people have legitimate doubts about that premise, or that representative government is a panacea. Those doubts must be taken seriously because, as the previous paragraph makes clear, nation building and democracy are the means by which we intend to achieve final victory. But even if the doubts are well founded, nation building and promoting democracy play an important role even if their ultimate success is in doubt.

Recall that one of the more effective counter-strategies for the Jihadis is simply patience: if our strategy is limited to counter-terrorist and military means, time is on their side. Nation building and democracy counters that by threatening the Jihadis with a transformation of their society that would destroy them. It presents them with a serious dilemma: either lay low and wait to see if the transformation is being successful or not, by which time it may be too late, or fight both us and the transformation of their society.

Therefore, nation building and efforts to promote democracy seek to accomplish three things, all of them important:

Engage the population’s self-interest to resist the Jihadis and deny them support.

Present an ideological challenge to radical Islamist ideology.

Put time pressure on the Jihadis, enhancing our military and counter-terrorism operations.

It short, these efforts, although difficult and time-consuming, form the foundation of our overall strategy and make it what it is. If that premise is wrong, our strategy is built on sand. That of course is the central question I will take up in the final section. read the second part of the article here….

check out both sections in full soon…..

Here’s a great piece by Melanie Phillips on the wider lessons of the Fauxtography scandal: The media war against Israel.

In short, much of the most incendiary media coverage of this war seems to have been either staged or fabricated. The big question is why the western media would perpetrate such institutionalised mendacity. Many ancillary reasons come to mind. There is the reliance upon corrupted news and picture agencies which employ Arab propagandists as stringers and cameramen. There is the herd mentality of the media which decides collectively what the story is. There is the journalists’ fear for their personal safety if they report the truth about terrorist outfits. There is the difficulty of discovering the truth from undemocratic regimes and terrorist organisations. There is the language barrier; there is professional laziness; there is the naïve inability to acknowledge the depths of human evil and depravity; there is the moral inversion of the left which believes that western truth-tellers automatically tell lies, while third world liars automatically tell the truth.

But the big answer is that the western media transmit the lies of Hezbollah because they want to believe them. And that’s because the Big Lie these media tell — and have themselves been told — about Israel and its place in history and in the world today has achieved the status of unchallengeable truth. The plain fact is that western journalists were sent to cover the war being waged against Israel from Lebanon as a war being waged by Israel against Lebanon. And that’s because that’s how editors think of the Middle East: that the whole ghastly mess is driven by Israel’s actions, and that therefore it is only Israel’s aggression which is the story to be covered. Thus history is inverted, half a century of Jewish victimisation is erased from public consciousness, victims are turned into aggressors and genocidal mass murderers turned into victims, and ignorance and prejudice stalk England’s once staunch and stalwart land.

That’s why the fact that hundreds of thousands of refugees from the north of Israel fled to the shelter of strangers in the south; that within one third of Israel, those too poor or old or handicapped or disadvantaged to seek refuge elsewhere were forced to live in shelters for a month in great hardship; that the entire economy of northern Israel was effectively shut down for a month; that thousands of rockets were fired at northern Israel, hundreds every day, many times more than were daily fired at Britain during the Blitz — that’s why none of this was reported in Britain (where as a result such facts, when now related, are received with open-mouthed astonishment) because journalists were told to ignore it all since that wasn’t the story their editors wanted. Israel’s victimisation simply was not, could not, be the story. The only story was Israel’s aggression. But that story is a Big Lie. So a host of lies were transmitted to support it.
from LGF

….of course what goes underreported is the media also is destroying the credibility of their own profession with each passing scandal.

….and the final absurdity is the media is siding with groups of people that wil destroy the freedom media as surely as they would destroy Israel if given the chance.

….this gives an educated idiot a whole new depth……

SUBMITTED BY BRUJO BLANCO

The Terrorist Next Door

By Paul Sperry
FrontPageMagazine.com

The recent terror case of a “gentle” third-grade teacher from the D.C. suburbs shows the danger is at once closer and harder to ID than you think. The enemy is hiding not in the shadows, but in plain sight, and may even wear a smile.

Hundreds of Muslims last week flocked to a federal courtroom to show their support for the affable and soft-spoken Ali Asad Chandia of Maryland as he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting terrorists. Friends say anti-Muslim prosecutors railroaded a “law-abiding” and “peaceful” brother.

“He is a dedicated teacher,” said one. “A great family man,” said another.

Another told the judge Chandia’s so gentle he wouldn’t hurt a tree branch in his yard. “I said to Ali that I may need to cut the branch (but) he asked that I not hurt the tree,” the friend, a landscaper, said in a letter. “I was touched by Ali’s insistence that the tree not be harmed in any way.”

But prosecutors tell a different story.

They showed evidence that Chandia, 29, trained at a jihad camp in Lahore, Pakistan, run by the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, an al-Qaida subcontractor that also trained some of the London bombers. He helped Lashkar ship 50,000 paintball pellets, unmanned aerial vehicles, night-vision gear and wireless video cameras from the U.S. to Pakistan for paramilitary training. He even chauffeured a Lashkar lieutenant around Washington on trips the officer made here after 9-11.

Within months of the attacks, Chandia joined the so-called Virginia jihad network dedicated to preparing for holy war against U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan. The gang’s ringleader was the civil-rights coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a Washington-based nonprofit leading the charge against airport and subway terror profiling.

Chandia, who graduated from the University of Maryland and once worked at Costco, also worked as a former personal assistant to the jihad gang’s spiritual leader — imam Ali al-Timimi, a native Washingtonian convicted last year for soliciting the Muslim men to levy war against the U.S. Al-Timimi praised the hijackers who carried out the 9-11 attacks and even cheered the crash of the space shuttle Columbia. Chandia helped al-Timimi schedule his sermons.

In Chandia’s car, not surprisingly, federal investigators found a CD-ROM containing videos that glorified Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers.

All this took place in the shadow of the U.S. capital. And yet members of the large Muslim community there, many of whom work for the government, were unfazed by the evidence aligned against Chandia. After his conviction, some 350 Muslims including Islamic scholars, activists and other leaders, as well as government employees and contractors, donated generously to his defense fund.

“We ask Allah to reward everyone who supported this cause,” gushed the head of the Ali Asad Support Committee. “We ask Allah to raise their ranks and to grant them goodness in this world and in the hereafter.”

The local Muslim luminaries also wrote letters to the judge complaining of a U.S. witch hunt against “Brother Ali” and other “principled” Muslims who support “mujahideen” groups. And they mobbed the federal courtroom in Alexandria, Va., hoping for a lenient punishment.

But the judge wasn’t buying it, and he imposed a fairly stiff sentence. Chandia, for his part, was unrepentant to the end. Upon his sentencing, Chandia lashed out at prosecutors, warning “their judgment is on the way.”

U.S. marshals then led away a terrorist — not a mild-mannered teacher or loving father — but a terrorist.

BRUJO’S COMMENT: I recall people from the left commenting that we must have done something really wrong to make them so mad at us. My question is who are “them”? My answer is the Islamofacist criminals. The terrorists are among us. If we do away with the intelligence collection programs as being demanded by the left we will not connect the dots because there will be no dots. Note how the Muslim commumity came out in support of a terrorist. This should have been very big news.

by Curt at Flopping Aces

The left never ceases to amaze me. Many of the more fringe on the left believe that 9/11 was a planned Government operation. Ok, we can usually dismiss these guys because they are…well, just plain nuts. But then something like this comes along:

Digital channel More4 will court controversy once again this autumn with a fictional piece, shot as a documentary, about the assassination of the US president, George Bush.

Death of a President seems certain to cause a furore on the other side of the Atlantic when it is premiered at the Toronto film festival next month.

In the UK the 90-minute film will be broadcast first on Channel 4′s digital service in October.

The drama takes the form of a fictional documentary looking back at the assassination of Mr Bush in October 2007, after he has delivered a speech to business leaders in Chicago.

When Mr Bush arrives in the city he is confronted by a massive demonstration against the Iraq war and is gunned down by a sniper as he leaves the venue. The hunt for Mr Bush’s killer focuses on a Syrian-born man, Jamal Abu Zikri.

Death of a President will use a combination of archive footage, CGI special effects and scripted scenes.

Actors play the fictional secret service agents and other aides who are with Mr Bush when he is shot and recall the incident in interviews recorded for the retrospective documentary.

Death of a President also looks at the differing viewpoints of the pro- and anti-Iraq war lobbies and the impact of Mr Bush’s war on terror on the US.

“I’m sure there will be people who are upset by it. But when you watch it, you realise what a sophisticated piece of work it is,” said Peter Dale, the head of More4.

“It’s not sensational or simplistic, it’s thought provoking.”

Death of a President has been made by Borough Films, the independent producer responsible for two similar BBC2 fictional pieces in the style of retrospective documentaries.

It has been produced by Gabriel Range, Simon Finch and Ed Guiney.

Mr Range and Mr Finch previously worked on two similar projects for BBC2, The Day Britain Stopped and The Man Who Broke the Bank, before settting up Borough Films.

And I can no longer dismiss them. In all my life, I have never seen such vile hate that is now spewing from liberals. What the hell is going on in the brains of these loons? They long for the death of another human being because they feel he is a bad President. Not once was a film like this made during the loooooong 8 years of Clinton’s presidency. But the left cannot think about anything else other then killing our President.

Amazing.

Be that it may I am not one that would want this liberals wetdream banned from our shores. I say bring it on, let the rest of the people in this country see you people for what you really are….hate filled socialists with no message other then kill the President.

Here are some thought provoking thoughts from the Dummies at DummiesU

Sentinel Chicken Aug-31-06 08:46 AM
Response to Original message
4. So who’s the villain?
:shrug:

Greeby Thu Aug-31-06 08:19 AM
Response to Original message
4. Makes sense that the Mock-up photo shows Shrub clutching his gut

If it went through his head, he wouldn’t notice :evilgrin:

warning: This Marine uses graphic language.
by Brujo Blanco

Subject: R. Lee Ermey’s Press Conference

In Marine Corp Green USMC PRESS CONFERENCE For the few of you who missed him, R. Lee Ermey is the host of The History Channel’s “Mail C al l” and played the Drill Instructor in the movie, “Full Met al Jacket.” He is a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant and a very plain speaker, as you will soon read. So, for your entertainment, here is Retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey at his first press conference. The main topic of discussion is the Marine in Iraq who shot the Iraq insurgent to death. We pick up as the reporter asks about how this potenti al war crime will affect our image in the world:

Ermey: “WHAT KIND OF A PANSY-ASSED QUESTION IS THAT?”

Reporter 1: “Well I think….”

Ermey: “THINK, FANCY BOY?! GET THIS THROUGH THAT SEPTIC TANK ON TOP OF YOUR SHOULDERS, MORON : I DON’T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOU THINK, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME??? THAT MARINE SHOT AN ENEMY COMBATANT, SHITHEAD; SO GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND DEAL WITH IT BEFORE I MAKE YOU MY OWN PERSONAL PIN CUSHION!!! NEXT QUESTION: YOU IN THE BLUE SUIT.

“Reporter 2: Don ‘t you think that the world’s opinion of our operations is important?

Ermey: “OH SURE! YOU DON’T KNOW THE TIMES I HAVE CRIED MYSELF TO SLEEP WORRYING ABOUT WHAT SOME GODDAMNED FRENCH PANSY THINKS! OH THE DAYS I HAVE HAD TO WEEP BECAUSE SOME SHIT EATING TERRORIST FUCKER MIGHT BE MAD AT US, BECAUSE WE WENT INTO WHATEVER GOD FORSAKEN HOLE IN THE SHIT THAT HE LIVES IN AND KILLED HIM. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF DUMBASS QUESTION IS THAT YOU PETER-PUFFING JACKASS?? WE ARE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , AND WHEN YOU ATTACK US, WE ARE GOING TO COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND BLOW YOUR STINKING CAMEL-LICKING CARCASS INTO PIECES SO SMALL WE WILL BE ABLE TO BURY YOUR SORRY ASS IN A THIMBLE!! YEAH, I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING. YOU ARE PROBABLY AFRAID, THINKING THAT I HAVE SUCH AN “EXTREME” ATTITUDE AND THAT I NEED TO BE MORE “SENSITIVE” TO OTHER PEOPLE’S FEELINGS. WELL LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING YOU POLE-SMOKING PANSY! I DON’T GIVE TWO SHITS WHAT YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE THINKS! THIS IS A DAMN WAR, AND IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE THAT, THEN YOU SHOULD GO HOME AND SUCK ON MAMMA’S TIT!! DO YOU HEAR ME YOU RUNT?? NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF MY PRESS ROOM BEFORE I GO CRAZY AND BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU!!! NEXT QUESTION: YOU WITH THE UGLY-ASSED TIE. LOOK AT THAT THING! IT IS HIDEOUS.”

Reporter 3: “Aren’t you going against the freedom of the press by …”

Ermey: “FREEDOM?? WHAT IN BLUE HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT FREEDOM? I HAVE SWEATED MY ASS OFF IN JUNGLES, WHILE BEING SHOT AT FOR THIS NATION!! WHAT IN THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE YOU LITTLE SHIT-SUCKING WEASEL? WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PUT YOUR ASS ON THE LINE FOR ANYTHING? AND YET YOU HAVE THE UNMITIGATED TEMERITY TO SHOW UP HERE AND MONDAY-MORNING QUARTERBACK THE ACTIONS OF A BRAVE MARINE, WHO WAS DEFENDING HIMSELF AND HIS UNIT FROM AN ATTACK BY SOME MURDEROUS AL-QUEDA SYMPATHIZER!!! YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT I AM CONCERNED ABOUT, NUMBNUTS? I AM CONCERNED ABOUT A BUNCH OF GRABASSTIC, ORGANIZED MORONS WITH CAMERAS AND MICROPHONES DOING THEIR BEST TO PORTRAY OUR BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN, ALL BRANCHES, AS WAR CRIMINALS! I AM CONCERNED ABOUT CHICKEN-SHIT PANSIES THAT WANT US TO NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS AND WHINE ABOUT THEIR PISS-ANT “FREEDOMS”!!”

Reporter 3: “I ”

Ermey: “DID YOU HAVE A BIG BOWL OF STUPID FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING, NUMBNUTS? I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER WORD OUT OF THAT COMMIE CRY-HOLE IN THAT SHIT-PILE YOU CALL A HEAD! AND THAT GOES TRIPLE FOR THE REST OF YOU PANSY-ASSED MORONS! NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF MY PRESS ROOM BEFORE I SHOVE MY BOOT SO FAR UP YOUR ASS THAT YOU CHOKE TO DEATH ON MY SHOELACES!!!!”

Marine have a language all their own, God bless’m all and all of our service men and women.

by Curt at Flopping Aces

So the end has finally come to the whole Plame affair. 3+ years later and as Walter Pincus said, it’s all come back to bite the Democrats in the ass (ok, maybe that was an ad-lib by myself, but you know it’s true):

Pincus believes that the Bush administration acted obnoxiously when it leaked Valerie Plame’s identity, but he has never been convinced by the argument that the leaks violated the law. “I don’t think it was a crime,” he says. “I think it got turned into a crime by the press, by Joe” — Wilson — “by the Democrats. The New York Times kept running editorials saying that it’s got to be investigated — never thinking that it was going to turn around and bite them.”

Of course now we all know that Walter was wrong when he cites the Bush administration as the main culprit. Oh sure, Armitage was part of the Administration but everyone and their mother knows he was part of the anti-war crew inside the State Department along with his boss. He is not the one the left wanted to be the culprit, believe me.

Christopher Hitchens once again summerizes perfectly the end game:

I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title (”Case Closed”) of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

[…]But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has—like Robert Novak’s—long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists—Michael Isikoff and David Corn—who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.

As most of us have long suspected, the man who told Novak about Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s deputy at the State Department and, with his boss, an assiduous underminer of the president’s war policy.

[…]What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the “neoconservatives” who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak’s source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could—and should—have ended right there. But now read this and rub your eyes: William Howard Taft, the State Department’s lawyer who had been told about Armitage (and who had passed on the name to the Justice Department)

also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak’s source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush’s Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn’t mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president’s lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more.

“[P]laying the case by the book” is, to phrase it mildly, not the way in which Isikoff and Corn customarily describe the conduct of the White House.

Quite a few people are noticing, how can you not, that the two writers Isikoff and Corn were the ones who continually kept this conspiracy story rolling. They now sound a bit more mellow…I wonder why? Here is Corn on his blog just yesterday:

On the National Review site, Byron York writes

Whatever Armitage’s motives, the fact that he was the Novak leaker undermines–destroys, actually–the conspiracy theory of the CIA-leak case.

He notes that the Newsweek story based on HUBRIS says that Armitage had “no apparent intention of harming anyone” and comments:

It’s an extraordinary admission coming from Isikoff’s co-author Corn, one of the leading conspiracy theorists of the CIA-leak case. “The Plame leak in Novak’s column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence,” Corn and Isikoff write. “The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework.” [Note: Actually, I wrote those lines on my blog; they were not part of the Newsweek story.]

Conspiracy theorist–moi? Where have I proposed a conspiracy theory? I have noted from the first that the leak might be evidence of a White House crime.

Ahhhh, but Mr. Corn ought to realize the power of the internet. Things never die on the web. Here he is in 2003:

The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation’s counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.

This really doesnt read like he is saying there MIGHT be a White House crime does it?

Typical leftist mentality. Actually, it’s typical behavior from someone who is caught red handed. Deny deny deny. Kinda like “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”?

Anyways, this is typical behavior from the lefties and nothing to be too worked up over. What we all should be worked up over is the fact that Fitz KNEW who the source of the leak was shortly after Novak’s second column but continued on with his sham of investigation. In fact AJStrata see’s trouble ahead for Fitz based on a few of his filings:

Here is Fitzgerald’s submission to the US Supreme Court regarding his need to enforce subpoena’s on Judith Miller and Mark Cooper, even though he knew at the time Richard Armitage was the source of the leak to Bob Novak and that Libby and Rove were nothing more than weak confirmations(the CIA was a strong confirming source for Novak).

In the oped piece, Wilson asserted that he had taken a trip to Niger in 2002 at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to investigate a report that Iraq had sought or obtained uranium from Niger, and that he had reported to the CIA upon his return his conclusion that it was “highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.” Id. at 183a-184a. Wilson asserted that “some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”

All emphasis mine. Actually, Fitzgerald and we all know Wilson claimed he was sent by the Administration, Cheney. For a man who wants accuracy and details, Fitz starts off very sloppily.

Eight days later, on July 14, 2003, syndicated columnist Robert Novak published a column in the Chicago Sun-Times in which he asserted that “two senior administration officials” told him that Wilson had been selected for the Niger trip at the suggestion of Wilson’s wife, whom Novak described as a CIA “operative on weapons of mass destruction.” Miller Pet. App. 188a189a.

After Novak’s column was published, it was reported that other reporters had been told by government officials that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA monitoring weapons of mass destruction, and that she was involved in her husband’s being sent to Africa.

[…]Up until this point Fitzgerald is insinuating he is investigating who lleaked to Novak and ‘other reporters’. But he knew already who leaked and he had testimony in hand that showed Libby and Rove as weak confirmation sources who responded to questions by reporters, not who initiated the topic. But does he relay that to the Supreme Court Justices? No – he hides it.

[…]Fitzgerald goes on to great lengths to discuss the fact reporters have no right to hide potential criminal acts, but at this stage Fitz knew he had NO POTENTIAL CRIMINAL ACTS. All the argument about being forced to testify fall apart if there is no crime being investigated, just hunting expidition. Prosecutors can’t fish for evidence either. And Fitzgerald knows this and points it out in his arguments:

It is the gov-ernment’s position, as stated in the court of appeals (Gov’t C.A. Br. 33-41), that no federal common law re-porter’s privilege should be recognized in the context of a good faith grand jury investigation.

But this was NOT a good faith grand jury investigation. Fitzgerald never once admitted that the person who leaked was known, why he leaked, his motives and his legal standing (no crime) was all known by now. Is that good faith?

Yes, the hysterics by the left about the non-leak of a CIA desk jockey’s name after she had sent her husband to report on “that crazy report” of Iraq attempting to buy uranium has come full circle.

And now it’s time for Fitzgerald to be investigated I think.

Is it Fitzmas yet?

Chavez vows solidarity with Syria against U.S., Israel

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pledged solidarity on Wednesday with Syria in its struggle against Israel and the United States and predicted the demise of U.S. “imperialism.”

Chavez, a harsh critic of U.S. foreign policy, also said he would seek a front-row seat if President George W. Bush accepted an invitation from Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a televised debate, adding he would be cheering on the Iranian president.

“Syria and Venezuela share the same firm positions and a resistance to imperialism and imperialist aggression,” Chavez told a news conference after talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, speaking in Spanish through an Arab interpreter.

“This age will witness the end of American imperialism,” he said, pointing a laser pen at a map of the world showing countries where Washington has intervened militarily or whose governments it has helped to topple over the last 50 years.

Chavez denounced what he called Israel’s “Nazi crimes” in Lebanon during the recent war and said the Jewish state should pull its remaining troops out of that country and also out of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967.

“Nothing equals the Nazi crimes Israel has committed in Lebanon and against the Palestinians,” said Chavez, who arrived in Syria on Tuesday evening from Malaysia.

Chavez’s popularity shot up across the Arab world after he ordered Venezuela’s envoy to Israel home earlier this month to protest Israel’s military offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Many civilians died in the fighting.

He has threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Israel.

Commenting on Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s challenge to Bush on Tuesday to discuss the world’s problems in a televised debate, Chavez said: “I wish I could be sitting at the front row and watch Ahmadinejad deal Bush a knock-out blow.”
the link is here….

……so this ass is siding with a man who is ADVOCATING GENOCIDE!

It is official Chavez is an enemy of this country, of the jews, and of Democracy. And that makes Cindy Sheehan (if you really needed proof) a supporter of enemies of this country and is NO BETTER then those who supported HITLER during WWII.

Think I am too strong? Ahmadinejad has said the SAME THING Hitler said in MEIN KEMPF. They are both genocidal fascists. And now Carter wants to meet this new Hitler. At least Chamberlin has the brains to realize he was wrong and work with Churchill against Hitler. These asses are doing the equivalent of working with Hitler in Britian against Churchill.

How much more proof do you need that radical leftistism= treason?

by Larwyn,

Carter Agrees to Hold Talks With Khatami
Ex-President of Iran to Visit U.S. Amid Tensions Over Tehran’s Nuclear Program

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week.

Carter’s term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office. Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise, the former president’s aide.

Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise, the former president’s aide.

“President Carter, in his role since leaving the White House, has made his office and services and center available to basically anybody who wants to talk. He believes that it is much better to be talking to people who you have problems with than not to, and that’s the approach he takes now,” Wise said. “I can confirm that President Carter is open to a meeting if the former president of Iran would like to have one.”
the link is here….

So, Jimmay is willing to meet with a former Iranian President. And the Iranians reached out to him? Might that be because the last time they dealt with Carter they took an embassy, several hostages and eventually Iran itself – along with any Carter hope for a second term?In case it slips any minds, eight American servicemen died in a failed operation some attribute in part to Carter’s mishandling of, not only the military, including Special Forces, but also the CIA. His continued feckless meddling with Iran is the ultimate betrayal of their memory.

No intelligence was coming out of Iran because Carter had dismantled the CIA’s network of spies due to the agency’s role in overthrowing governments in Vietnam and Latin America.

But, as always, Carter is willing to talk. Unfortunately, that’s the one thing he hasn’t stopped doing since this country threw him away. And here he had everyone convinced he was a farmer at the time. Oh well, how are you going to keep them down on the farm, once they’ve governed like they’re from Pari’.

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week.Carter’s term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office.Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise, the former president’s aide.

again by Larwyn,

We think there may need to be something like “A Declaration of the principles of Freedom of Religion” in the United States that clerics ought to subscribe to in order to have themselves protected under the rubric of freedom of religion.

Not everything is religion just because some so-called preacher says it is religion. We wouldn’t let clerics get away with preaching human sacrifice, ritual baby slaying or child pornography as sacraments (or would we, these days?). So there are some things that might well be protected under freedom of speech that should not be tolerated under freedom of religion. This is, in our view, a significant distinction.

“A Declaration of the principles of Freedom of Religion” should include things that should be non-controversial to the mainstreams of the major religions as practiced in America and the West, or at least we would hope so. Our list would include the following principles:

(a) a “golden rule” of tolerance — no religion should expect tolerance to the extent that it seeks to deny the free practice of other religions anywhere in the world;
(b) the “brotherhood of man” — though all religions make claims about the truth of their beliefs, no religion should expect tolerance to the extent that it preaches the inherent inferiority of non-believers, or endorses subjecting non-believers to financial or legal restrictions or penalties;
(c) Open Door policy — no religion should expect tolerance if it practices or endorses civil, criminal or other penalties on those who renounce that religion;
(d) equality of men and women — no religion should expect tolerance if it practices or endorses legal or social restictions on women that do not apply to men.

Freedom of speech is one thing. Freedom of religion is quite another. In our view, it is inappropriate to give tax breaks, and more importantly, the soothing veneer that “religion” implies to groups doing and preaching nasty things. Therefore, clerics of any religion who preach violation of the items above, or who endorse entities that practice such things, should be excluded from the perquisites that accompany freedom of religion.
from Dinocrat

Thank Dinocrat for stating it clearly and outlining requirements. He implies but not state that NO VISAS should be granted to those who do not meet the requirements. I also imagine that under our current tax laws the very same Mosques who are preaching IslamicFacsism are not paying property or any other taxes. And there is also the small matter of Boston Mass and the unlawful sale of property at less than the value. The ACLU would be suing and screaming if Boston did same for a new Christian catherdral or even a Jewish community center.

We do need to pass this along and to begin to pressure our politicians to legislate. Hope more will join the dialog and think about best ways to present and support some legislation.

“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Researchers breed permanently “happy” mice

Aug. 24, 2006

World Science staff

A new breed of permanently “cheerful” mouse is providing new hope for treatment of clinical depression, researchers say.

The sci­en­tists stud­ied a gene called TREK-1, which can af­fect the flow of a brain chem­i­cal called ser­o­to­nin. This in turn in­flu­ences mood, sleep and sex­u­al­i­ty.

By breed­ing mice with­out TREK-1, the re­searchers sa­id they cre­at­ed a de­pres­sion-resistant strain.

The find­ings ap­pear in the re­search jour­nal Na­ture Neu­ro­science this week.

“De­pres­sion is a dev­as­tat­ing ill­ness, which af­fects a­round 10 per­cent of peo­ple at some point in their life,” sa­id Guy Debon­nel of McGill U­ni­ver­si­ty in Mont­re­al, Can­a­da, prin­ci­pal au­thor of the pa­per. Cur­rent treat­ments fail for a third of pa­tients, he added.

Sci­en­tists al­so be­lieve mice can suf­fer moods a­kin to hu­man de­pres­sion, ev­i­denced by with­drawn and pas­sive be­hav­ior in the ro­dents. Some of the same brain chem­i­cals have been linked to both hu­man and ro­dent “de­pres­sion.”

Debon­nel’s team tested the new­ly bred mice us­ing “be­hav­ioral, e­lec­tro­phys­io­log­i­cal and bio­chem­i­cal meas­ures known to gauge ‘de­pres­sion’ in an­i­mal­s,” he sa­id. “The re­sults re­al­ly sur­prised us. [They] acted as if they had been treated with an­tide­pres­sants for at least three week­s.”

The re­search rep­re­sents the first time de­pres­sion has been e­lim­i­nat­ed by ge­net­i­cal­ly mod­i­fy­ing an or­gan­ism, he added. “The dis­cov­er­y of a link be­tween TREK-1 and de­pres­sion could ul­ti­mate­ly lead to the de­vel­op­ment of a new gen­er­a­tion of an­ti­de­pres­sant drugs.”
the link is here….

or just have a few Smirnoff’s instead……

Analysts see ‘disaster’ in U.S. position

“If war comes it will be total and the objective will be Israel’s destruction……And what is Israel? Israel today is the United States.”

Abdel Nasser

The authors of a hotly debated study on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington said yesterday that the Bush administration’s unquestioning support for Israel’s military action in Lebanon confirms their thesis that the power of the lobby hurts both U.S. and Israeli national interests.
“Backing Israel to the hilt in the recent war in Lebanon was a disaster for the Lebanese people, served none of our real strategic goals in the region and ended up hurting Israel as well,” said John Mearsheimer, political scientist and co-director of the University of Chicago’s international security program.
Mr. Mearsheimer and co-author Stephen M. Walt, an international affairs scholar and academic dean at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, showed no signs of backing away from their analysis of the U.S.-Israel lobby at a National Press Club briefing.
The event was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights group.
from the Wshington Times

First of all, the event was sposored by CAIR. Any Red Flags anyone?????

Before we follow these modern day Quislings, let me remind you these eggheads are faulting the US for siding with the group that is fighting the terrorist organization that killed HUNDREDS of Americans. Israel’s mistake is they did not do a better job killing terrorists.

Well, this next article says it better then me….

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq and counterterrorism policies of trying to appease “a new type of fascism.”
In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration’s critics as suffering from “moral or intellectual confusion” about what threatens the nation’s security and accused them of lacking the courage to fight back.
In remarks to several thousand veterans at the American Legion’s national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s.
“I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism,” he said.
Rumsfeld spoke to the American Legion as part of a coordinated White House strategy, in advance of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, to take the offensive against administration critics at a time of doubt about the future of Iraq and growing calls to withdraw U.S. troops.
Rumsfeld recalled a string of recent terrorist attacks, from 9/11 to bombings in Bali, London and Madrid, and said it should be obvious to anyone that terrorists must be confronted, not appeased.
“But some seem not to have learned history’s lessons,” he said, adding that part of the problem is that the American news media have tended to emphasize the negative rather than the positive.
He said, for example, that more media attention was given to U.S. soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib than to the fact that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith received the Medal of Honor.
“Can we truly afford to believe somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?” he asked.
“Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and lies and distortions being told about our troops and about our country,” he added.
the link is here….

do we remember nothing?????

“Millions of Arabs are …preparing to blow up all of America’s interests, all of America’s instillations, and your entire existence, America!”

(Cairo radio during the 67 war.)

“We are not fighting so you offer us something, we are fighting to eliminate you.”

( a past leader of Hezbolah)

so who has killed hundreds and now thousands of Americans….NOT ISRAEL!

who captures and decapatates their hostages on TV….NOT ISRAEL!

who danced on 9-11 for joy at the deaths of Americans…..NOT ISRAEL!

who is hostile to our religion, democracy, and our way of life……NOT ISRAEL!

who will I support……??

ISRAEL!

Curt at Flopping Aces

A few days after criminal immigrants put a Mexican flag up a flagpole on Government property the state of California approved legislation that will give taxpayer money to illegals so that they can go to school:

Students who came to the country illegally could apply for state financial aid when they attend California colleges and universities under legislation approved Tuesday by the Assembly in a party-line vote.

Supporters said immigrant children who have graduated and completed at least three years of high school in California should not be penalized for their parents’ decision to bring them to the U.S. illegally.

“It is one small measure to help these kids that are working their butts off to live the American dream,” said Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate.

The bill would build upon existing state law that allows the same group of students to qualify for in-state tuition at California public schools and community colleges based on high school attendance, rather than U.S. citizenship or state residency.

Critics said offering financial aid to illegal immigrants would short-change needy American students already competing for a small pot of money.

“We’re talking about limited resources here,” said Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine. “There’s only so much that can go around. It’s a slap in the face to people who have followed the rules.”

Lawmakers approved SB160 by a 43-27 vote, with no Republicans supporting it, and sent it to the Senate for final approval. Aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had taken no position on the bill

So not only do these immigrants break our laws by being here illegally but they now can apply for financial aid for school. Tell me exactly what kind of policies do we have in effect that deter people from coming here illegally?

That’s right. There is none. We give them free medical care, welfare, free schooling, and now financial help for college.

Wacky!

And sad.

by Haider Ajina

The following is my translation of a headline and article from the Iraqi news agency dated August 28th

‘Iraq and Britain in talks about Iraq taking over southern provinces,’

British defense secretary Desmond Browne said today that security in southern Iraq has improved. The Iraqi defense minister said that he expects responsibility to be turned over to Iraqis for the southern provinces soon. Mr. Browne added in a press conference he shared with Iraqi defense minister Abdulkasim Jasim , ‘I admit there are continual difficulties and some violence escalation at the end of last week. This means that more still has to be done’. Iraqi and British officials said that they expected Thiqar province, in which Italian military operate under British command, will be handed over to the Iraqis next month, Just as its neighboring Muthena province. The Iraqi defense minister then added that Naseriah province would soon follow.

It is expected that Browne will discuss with Iraqi Prime Minster Alamliki the role of British forces in the conflict between Shiite factions in Basrah. Some factions have strong ties to Iran and others have ties to Almaliki’s party. British troops have left the city of Omarah to patrol the Iraqi Iranian boarder to control the ingress of armed groups and the smuggling of weapons.

My comments,

The progress in southern Iraqi provincial forces and provincial governors taking over responsibility for their provinces is progressing. The green provinces as they are known, southern peaceful provinces, have been preparing for this. The British and the U.S. are training Iraqis to take over and rely on us for support if needed. The big issue now is Iran’s negative influence on Iraqi democracy and provincial power. Iraqi Shiite parties supported by Iran are not in line with general Iraqi Shiite sentiment. The fundamental difference is this. Traditional Iraqi Shiite References (religious leaders) subscribe to the school of thought that governing the country is best left to politicians and that politics defiles religion and thus they should only provide a role of Reference or Consultant to the politicians. The Iranian Shiite School is exactly the flip side of this. They believe that religion should dictate politics and govern it. Further, some Iranian Shiites believe in some fantastical super human feats of Imam Ali (son in law of the profit Mohamed), to which many Iraqi Shiites do not subscribe. Imam Ali fathered the Shiite movement and opened up the mystical side of Islam. Many consider him the originator of the Sufi Muslim school of thought etc….. While all Shiites agree that Ali was a person of special understanding of Islam and its role, the split happens when some Shiite (mostly in Iran) start attributing super human activity to him (and the profit Mohamed and some of the twelve Imams to follow Ali). This is strongly rejected by the traditionalist Iraqi Shiites. Islam is a logical religion with no super human attribute to the profit or any of his followers. Stories about the profit Mohamed ascending or riding a flying horse etc… are not substantiated in the Koran. The Koran is the only miracle of Islam. This is of course in sharp contrast to Jesus and Moses. Islam acknowledges and believes in their miracles but attributes no such miracles to the profit Mohamed.

Posted by Curt at Flopping Aces

I’ve been meaning to post on this disgusting display for the past few days. Take a look at what the pro-criminal Mexicans did in Maywood, CA:

Yup, thats a Mexican flag they hoisted above the local Post Office.

Flopping Aces has video of the flag raising and the crowd here.

After the demonstration the anti-illegal immigrant demonstrators from Save Our State found many of their cars damaged:

At the end, the Police escorted us to our vehicles amongst the angry mobs of goons. I am sorry to say that a few of us parked of Flora Street had our cars damaged. Four or five of us had our tires slashed. In addition, Sandinator and we had our cars spray painted. In addition, our car also had the rear window completely smashed in and the passenger side keyed.

Not only that but during the Demonstration some of them were assaulted, including the police when they took down that flag:

Maywood blocked the streets that lead to our disignated parking area. This forced many Americans to walk through the crowd of goons & thugs to reach our assigned rally location. The city of Maywood knew exactly what they were doing. One of our female patriots ventured through and was assaulted by several cowards with mexican rags(flags). An ambulance was called. She is sore but ok. An ABC reorter was present when Kele told of her assault, they were told but were not interested in interviewing her. Yes they got the hell out of there as soon as they could. Its obvious they are told what story to get before they even show up to make their reports. BASTARDS at ABC7 in Los Angeles!

We were threatened by lowlifes which was highly entertaining most of the time. of course no CBS, ABC cameras on them.

When officers lowered the mex flag from the post office they were pelted with water bottles and rocks. Yes these illegal alien morons that live in Maywood have ZERO respect for law enforcement even in RIOT GEAR!

While the local MSM outfits pretty much ignored the story a few at SoS took some pictures to record the whole thing: (click to see larger)

This one shows the intelligence of the youngsters in attendance:

And now some pics of those few brave ones who don’t just say they want illegal immigration stopped, they act on it:

Meanwhile we have the LA Times doing a story about those poor immigrant souls who are not allowed to stay, I mean one of them was only convicted of spousal abuse…no reason to kick her out right?

And then this story about the Border Patrol trying to rescue a illegal immigrant from drowning. Great story right? Well except for the fact that some men on the other side of the fence began throwing rocks at the agents. One rock hit one of them on the head which prompted them to open fire when they were about to throw another rock. They killed the scumbag. But to hear the Mexican authorities you would think they just opened fire for no reason:

Miguel Escobar, Mexican consul in Yuma, said the Mexican Consulate would monitor the situation as it develops.

“We are concerned about acts of violence affecting Mexican nationals, and we will keep close watch in regard to the development of this particular case,” Escobar said.

Big hat tip to Cop the Truth for those two stories.

These kind of stories are not rare, such as this one from Oregon:

In a large raid preceding the harvest season, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department has seized 2,500 marijuana plants with a street value estimated at up to $12.5 million.

Two men found at the scattered gardens near Hyatt Lake on Monday remain in Jackson County Jail on immigration holds and the investigation is continuing, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said.

Officials had watched the growing operation, believed to be linked to a Mexican drug cartel, and swept in Monday to destroy it just before harvest time, sheriff’s Lt. Pat Rowland said.

Or the Los Angeles based school that teaches their students to hate America:

Academia Semillos del Pueblo (ASDP), a charter school partially funded by the Los Angeles Unified School District, claims it only wants to help disadvantaged Latinos to earn a quality education. The school’s true agenda, however, is far more radical and far more dangerous. Judicial Watch recently launched an investigation of the ASDP by filing a California Public Records Act request. Here is a small sampling of what we’ve uncovered so far:

• The school’s principal, Marcos Aguilar is a Mexican revolutionary radical who allegedly led a group of Latino students to seize a faculty lounge at UCLA in 1993 and set it on fire, causing $50,000-$100,000 in damages. In 2003, he told an interviewer with UCLA, “Ultimately, the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction.”
• The ASDP’s 8th Grade U.S. History class is called, “A People’s history of Expansion and Conflict,” which includes, “A thematic survey of American politics, society, culture and political economy; Emphasis throughout on the nations the U.S. usurped, invaded and dominated; Connections between historical rise of capitalism and imperialism with modern political economy and global social relations.”
• The school received a founding grant from the radical organization, National Council of La Raza (The Council of The Race). The NCLR, along with other members of the “reconquista” movement, reportedly intends to reclaim much of the Western United States, which they call, “Aztlan,” a fictional ancestral homeland occupied by the Aztecs before Europeans arrived in North America.

The apathy towards these incidents is the thing that upsets me the most. It’s almost become ho-hum to us.

Sad.

TODAY’S COLUMNIST
By Robert Goldberg
from the Wshington Times

Last week, Sen. George Allen personally apologized to a staff member of his Democrat opponent, James Webb, for calling him a “macaca.” This was the latest in a string of public apologies for what has been described as a racial slur aimed at individual who is of Indian descent.
The moral outrage pouring from the media and Democrats was heartwarming. It was reassuring to see that such expressions of bigotry by any party, politician or political organization (or movie actor) will not be tolerated.
So no doubt the media and the Left will soon turn their attention to the vicious anti-Semitism the followers and members of a political organization that donates millions to Democratic candidates and uses the Web to whip up support for its policies.
I am referring to Moveon.org; an entity that claims it is merely the vehicle of “real Americans — from carpenters to stay-at-home moms to business leaders — we work together to realize the progressive vision of our country’s founders.” To the extent that Moveon.org is a reflection of its membership, it is also a reflection of the opinions and sentiments it shares about its fellow Americans and citizens of the world. And boy do the Moveon folks hate Jews.
Perhaps hate is too weak a word. William F. Buckley Jr. wrote an article in 1991 exploring the question of whether Pat Buchanan was an anti-Semite (The answer: yes.) Mr. Buchanan called Jewish supporters of Israel its “amen corner” and a fourth (or was it fifth?) column undermining American global interests. But he never called them “Media owning Jewish pigs” or “sneaky Jewish sympathizers!” Both can be found repeatedly on the Moveon.org Action Forum.
Moveon is not the only leftist Web site filled with anti-Semitism. But compared to the Dailykos and the slanderous Huffington Post nothing compares to Moveon in terms of quantity or viciousness.
After Sen. Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut, one Moveon member stated: “Jew Lieberman first step. Corporate Clinton will be next. Impeachment of BushCo will be third.” This one came in with 95 percent of Moveon members responding approving the “Jew Lieberman” post. (Moveon helpfully records the percent of people agreeing with each post.)
Many postings creatively connect the need to eliminate Jewish influence with the goal of impeaching President Bush: Here’s a typical one, which also received a high approval rating:
“I was reading some where someone posting about how Israel has lost world respect because of their murderous rampage throughout Lebanon?
Talk about loss of respect? What do you think the rest of the world thinks of ZioUSA now after seeing the BushCo spectacle, with Rice & Bolton flailing in the wind for the Zionazis against all world opinion?
Loss of respect is putting it mildly.
Impeachment of Bush is the only remedy.”
Wonder how impeaching Mr. Bush will reduce Jewish influence in the Middle East and the media? This next post explains it all:
“There is an Army of Zionist Cyber Trolls sent onto the Internet who are part of an organized effort to hush, distract, and obfuscate the Zionist massacre and destruction of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and it’s peoples.
All of this is part and parcel of a deliberate strategy orchestrated from the BushCo ZioNeoCon Cabal in cahoots with the Zionazi Israelis to attempt to provoke the Syrians and Iranians to draw them into the conflict in Lebanon so as to be able to have an excuse for BushCo to ‘strike back in response’ with U.S. military might in ‘the defense of Israel’.
You see, Bush is at the heart of a government run by Jews and Christian Zionists:
“Christian Zionists are ultimately responsible for whatever Israel does, whether they realize it or not! Of course they’re going to play dumb and say they’re powerless over Israel! We’re supposed to fall for that. The US Gov. could stomp Israel like a bug, if we had to! That’s where the Christian Zionist “beliefs” mix with US laws and Foreign Policy. They are favoring Israel because of their Zionist belief system.” Ninety agreed with this post.
Why the Jews? Or as one post quipped, “Why are the Jews so Jew-y?” According to the mind of Moveon, “(I)t’s those GREEDY PIGS who own our mainstream media who are placing RELIGION/POLITICS (ISRAEL) and CORPORATE GREED above the best interests of the American people (peace, democracy, clean air, healthcare, etc.). As we’ve already agreed, most of these GREEDY PIGS are Jewish.” Fifty percent approved of this post.
There are hundreds of similar statements.So in the warped world of the Moveon’s “concerned citizens” it’s easy to assume most people think like you: “Mel Gibson’s [anti-Semitic] erroneous, raging, and drunken words are closer to the true sentiments of most American democrats and other voters than it’s governments, politicians, Jewish, and media’s sterile support for Israel.” Eighty-seven percent of MoveOn members approved of this post.
Meanwhile, postings (mostly by Jews) pleading for moderation are rejected.
“The amount of anti-Semitic trash on this forum is abhorrent to most Americans. These rants, castigating Israel and Jews in general, are taking MoveOn so far from its roots and avowed purpose.” Well said. But only 21 percent of Moveon members agree.
But I am sure that any minute, the stalwart opponents of bigotry who have taken George Allen to task will rise up in anger against the malicious Jew-baiting of the Moveon crowd. They will demand that politicians disassociate from the group until it cleans house. To remain silent would be hypocritical, self-serving and a tacit endorsement of anti-Semitism.

Robert Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.

By Robert

Gay-bias ban in schools OK’d
TEXTBOOK BILL FACES POSSIBLE GOVERNOR’S VETO

SACRAMENTO – The state Assembly approved legislation Monday designed to bar discrimination in public schools against gay, bisexual and transgender people, retreating from an earlier proposal that would have required schools to teach students about the contributions of prominent gay people.

Current law prohibits instruction, school activities and textbooks that reflect poorly on people on the basis of their race, sex, national origin and other characteristics. The bill, which passed on a partisan 46-31 vote, would add sexual orientation to that list.

But even the scaled-back bill faces a possible veto by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is working to appease conservatives as he campaigns for re-election. The governor’s press secretary said he opposes any legislation that would “micromanage” the selection of public school textbooks.

“Our understanding,” said Margita Thompson, “is that there are still parts of the legislation that would impact what goes into textbooks.”

Some Republican lawmakers called the legislation an effort to promote homosexuality in schools.
Public schools “are turning into institutions of social experimentation and it is dangerous for our young people,” said Dennis Mountjoy, R-Monrovia. “We’ll no longer have prom kings and queens. Jack and Jill can no longer walk up the hill.”
the link is here.

So why is censorship only bad when conservatives do it???? Does no one see this as a threat to free speech with long term consequences down the road????

Sorry, but I feel the radical gay rights movements and other liberal groups are not only a threat to free speech, but I also feel the gay rights movement and other liberal groups are hostile to Christian values. ……for if the law was interpreted strictly, one could theoretically ban the Bible……

And these forces are winning here in MD.

Georgetown kicks out outside ministries

I know the Georgetown story has nothing to do with gay rights, but I feel it is another example of a growing hostility to religion I believe spread by groups like the above.

And imagine if they banned a gay group, it would be all over the MSM, not just the conservative papers……

This is not the only example, don’t forget the JOHNS HOPKINS story….

a further reminder of liberal dedication to free speech

so it appears someone has noticed the Johs Hopkins censorship……..

Student Newspaper Suffers Viewpoint Discrimination at Johns Hopkins University

BALTIMORE, June 12, 2006—Johns Hopkins University (JHU) ended this school year by engaging in shameful viewpoint discrimination and denying its students freedom of the press. First, JHU turned a blind eye to the theft of a conservative student newspaper, The Carrollton Record (TCR), then stifled its right to distribute in dorms while allowing other papers to continue distributing there. TCR staff members contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) soon after these administrative abuses began.

“Freedom of the press and the freedom to distribute literature are vital liberties that should not be denied to JHU students,” said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. “Theft and confiscation of a newspaper threaten the very marketplace of ideas upon which a university depends and should be condemned, not accepted.”

TCR’s May issue contained an article objecting to a recent campus appearance by pornographic film director Chi Chi LaRue. The cover photo pictured LaRue along with members of JHU’s Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA) student group, which hosted the event. The pictured DSAGA members were apparently displeased to see their pictures on the newspaper’s front page, and some have filed harassment charges against TCR staffers.

On May 14, approximately 600 copies of TCR that had been distributed to the library the previous day went missing. TCR editor Jered Ede attempted to report the theft, but told FIRE that a security officer and the Dean of Student Life both said that the missing papers did not constitute theft. Ede then learned that TCR would no longer be allowed to distribute in dorms and that administrators had confiscated 300 copies. Previously, TCR and numerous other publications—including the liberal Hopkins Donkey­—had regularly been distributed in JHU dorms, some of which even have distribution racks expressly for this purpose.

TCR staffers contacted FIRE, which wrote in protest to JHU president William Brody on May 19. JHU counsel Frederick Savage defended JHU’s actions by saying that student publications are subject to the posting policy, which demands that posters and fliers be approved by the Office of Residential Life before being posted in dorms. Savage wrote to FIRE, “Although it is not explicitly stated in the policy, by long standing practice the Office of Residential Life has applied the [posting] policy to student publications.”

“This is a shocking and disturbing admission, if true,” commented Lukianoff. “Not only would such a policy subject student newspapers to prior official review, but it appears to have been selectively enforced to silence unpopular opinions. By granting its officials the unfettered power to ‘approve’ newspapers, JHU is giving them the power to arbitrarily censor.”

Savage’s letter to FIRE also stated that since TCR “is free of charge and there is no limitation on the number of copies one can take, any charge of theft would be difficult to sustain.” Newspaper theft, however, is a prevalent form of mob censorship, which should be anathema at any institution that values free speech. Furthermore, after a 1994 rash of newspaper thefts at colleges across Maryland —including JHU—the state passed a law making newspaper theft illegal.

Newspaper theft is not the only threat to college and university student press freedom, which has increasingly come under attack by administrators. FIRE reported last year that Stetson University in Florida banned the distribution of the conservative student publication Common Sense because it contained a joke from the Tonight Show that administrators claimed “targeted” minority students. Stetson administrators even tried to jeopardize the paper’s financial stability by scaring off its advertisers. FIRE’s involvement, however, pressured Stetson to abandon its ban on Common Sense, securing the paper’s right to publish without administrative interference.

“FIRE will continue to fight until student press freedom is safe from administrators who encourage or permit censorship to take place. JHU’s indifference to freedom of the press is disgraceful. JHU students deserve better,” concluded Lukianoff

from Fire

This is not the only paper to be banned. And just to remind you of the attacks on Coulter’s book and the anti-Bible hate speech legislation in Canada. And who gave us political correctness, the modern version of newspeak?

So who is the threat to free speech now?

I just want to say again, I don’t hate gays and actually think they should have the same rights as us save changing the definition of Marriage. But I also believe too many of them are hostile to my values and wish to fundamentally change the structure of our society, even at the cost of some of our rights.

Liberals are tolerant of only liberal opinions guys, don’t let them turn traditional values into a hate crime….

by Robert

this is a good example why few people read the Sun…….

Early intervention

The Maryland Court of Appeals’ order striking down early voting is unfortunate on any number of levels but it’s hardly a death knell for democracy. As we’ve noted many times before, about two-thirds of states have adopted early voting and it’s been proven to help raise voter turnout, albeit modestly. But thanks to numerous acts of partisanship including Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s vetoes, his delaying actions on the Board of Public Works and the various court challenges, the public was left thoroughly confused and local election boards exhausted by the on-again, off-again gyrations.
At least the court has simplified matters for the upcoming election: Voters will head to the polls on Sept. 12 for the primary and Nov. 7 for the general election – unless, of course, they vote in advance by absentee ballot. Why is the early voting method of “no excuse” absentee balloting permitted while early voting by the more secure in-person method is not? We don’t yet have the benefit of a court opinion to explain the distinction.

But chances are, the court’s decision hinged on a narrow reading of the state constitution and had nothing at all to do with the merits of early voting.

Make no mistake, the maneuvering over early voting has always had little to do with the law’s merits and a lot to do with partisan advantage. Democrats saw opportunity in a state where they hold a sizeable advantage in registration. Mr. Ehrlich and the Republicans sought to diminish that. Claims of widespread fraud if early voting was approved or conversely, voter suppression if it wasn’t, were so much election year hyperbole.

Certainly, one must take with a smidgen of salt Mr. Ehrlich’s claim that early voting is a “laudable concept” and that he will work with legislators to implement it in the future. Democratic lawmakers may have steamrolled their Republican colleagues on specifics like polling sites, but the day Republicans in Annapolis sign onto an early voting bill (at least one that doesn’t require voter ID or some other discriminatory tactic) will be a cold day indeed in the legislative forge.
read the link to this waste of a tree here.

…..so confirming ID is discriminatory? How hard is it to get ID? Well it takes a few hours if one is not lazy.

The Democrats and their allies in the Sun plan to use this UNCONSTITUTIONAL law to COMMIT VOTER FRAUD, and they know it! Why would you not want to confirm the person voting is the actual person?

Oh yeah, so you can commit fraud!

I hate the SUN! I really do!

At best they dishonor the profession of journalism

It is worse then bad journalism hidden behind bias.

By failing to inform the public of the truth, they weaken the education of the populace needed to ensure a strong Democracy and help allow fraud like this to continue.

I would not read that piece of trash if they paid me.

At best they are liars!

Posted by Curt at Flopping Aces

According to Newsweek then-deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source for Novak’s column that started the whole Plame non-scandal:

In the early morning of Oct. 1, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell received an urgent phone call from his No. 2 at the State Department. Richard Armitage was clearly agitated. As recounted in a new book, “Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,” Armitage had been at home reading the newspaper and had come across a column by journalist Robert Novak. Months earlier, Novak had caused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer. Ever since, Washington had been trying to find out who leaked the information to Novak. The columnist himself had kept quiet. But now, in a second column, Novak provided a tantalizing clue: his primary source, he wrote, was a “senior administration official” who was “not a partisan gunslinger.” Armitage was shaken. After reading the column, he knew immediately who the leaker was. On the phone with Powell that morning, Armitage was “in deep distress,” says a source directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. “I’m sure he’s talking about me.”

Armitage’s admission led to a flurry of anxious phone calls and meetings that day at the State Department. (Days earlier, the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into the Plame leak after the CIA informed officials there that she was an undercover officer.) Within hours, William Howard Taft IV, the State Department’s legal adviser, notified a senior Justice official that Armitage had information relevant to the case. The next day, a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson’s wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA. (The memo made no reference to her undercover status.) Armitage had met with Novak in his State Department office on July 8, 2003—just days before Novak published his first piece identifying Plame. Powell, Armitage and Taft, the only three officials at the State Department who knew the story, never breathed a word of it publicly and Armitage’s role remained secret.

Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn’t thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame’s identity. “I’m afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing,” he later told Carl Ford Jr., State’s intelligence chief. Ford says Armitage admitted to him that he had “slipped up” and told Novak more than he should have. “He was basically beside himself that he was the guy that f—ed up. My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat,” Ford recalls in “Hubris,” to be published next week by Crown and co-written by the author of this article and David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation magazine.

As it turned out, Novak wasn’t the only person Armitage talked to about Plame. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has also said he was told of Plame’s identity in June 2003. Woodward did not respond to requests for comment for this article, but, as late as last week, he referred reporters to his comments in November 2005 that he learned of her identity in a “casual and offhand” conversation with an administration official he declined to identify. According to three government officials, a lawyer familiar with the case and an Armitage confidant, all of whom would not be named discussing these details, Armitage told Woodward about Plame three weeks before talking to Novak. Armitage has consistently refused to discuss the case; through an assistant last week he declined to comment for this story. Novak would say only: “I don’t discuss my sources until they reveal themselves.”

According to Tom Maguire the timeline doesn’t make sense:

First, let’s note that the outline of Armitage’s story (he had no idea he was Novak’s source until he read an Oct 1 Novak column, after which he huddled with Colin Powell and the State Department counsel and then called the FBI to apprise them of his role) merits a bit of skepticism.

Keep in mind – Armitage “forgot” to tell Special Counsel Fitzgerald about his leak to Bob Woodward until after the Libby indictment in Oct 2005, even though Woodward asked him for permission to move with a story during 2004.

Can anyone think of a motive for that? Well, by waiting until after the indictment, Armitage got a pretty good idea of what other evidence Fitzgerald had gathered, and what other reporters had told Fitzgerald. And why might he care? *MAYBE* there were other reporters also protecting Armitage.

So what we may have here is a coward. A coward hiding to save his own ass. If he had come out with the news that he was the source then the Fitz witch hunt would never had happened. Judith Miller would never had been jailed. Libby would never had been called to testify at a grand jury. Millions of dollars and countless hours of work would not have been wasted.

Instead we have Colin Powell’s lackey saving his own ass, which gave us the embarrassing Fitz’ vaudeville act.

Plame was not a covert agent. Wilson was spreading lies and disinformation. Armitage and Powell would have come out of this just fine if only he had shown some balls.

Ed Morrissey is as pissed as I am:

The more I think about this, the angrier I get — and not just at Patrick Fitzgerald. Richard Armitage confessed to the DoJ in October 2003, and then sat on his ass for the next three years as the media and the Left play this into a paranoid fantasy of conspiracies and revenge. I know Armitage dislikes Rove, Libby, Cheney, and Bush, but what kind of man sits around while the world accuses people of a “crime” that he himself committed? Armitage did nothing while the nation spent years and millions of dollars chasing a series of red herrings, never speaking out to remove the mystery and end the witch hunt. Even three years later, Armitage hasn’t mustered the testicular fortitude to publicly admit that he leaked Plame’s identity and status; he has Isikoff and Corn do it for him.

What a sack of dog crap this guy is.

Ed also notes that if the book is accurate Fitz knew who the source was but instead went on his witch hunt:

Fitzgerald took the case on September 26. If this book is accurate about its dates, the DoJ and Fitzgerald would have known about Armitage’s role as the source of the leak five days later. Instead of either charging Armitage or closing down the investigation, Fitzgerald went on a witch hunt. He didn’t even talk to Scooter Libby until two weeks after Armitage’s confession. A year later, Fitzgerald had reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper imprisoned for contempt of court for refusing to divulge a source about a leaker from whom Fitzgerald had already received a confession.

And look who now has Mr. Armitage on his side, John McCain:

But as he has tried to claim the mantle of Mr. Bush’s natural successor, Mr. McCain has expanded his orbit to encompass supporters who have been part of Mr. Bush’s circle, and others who have not previously backed the senator.

His still-informal network includes Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state; John A. Thain, chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange; and Sig Rogich, who directed the advertising for the 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns of Mr. Bush’s father.

by Laryn

Convert to Islam or die: the NYT’s strange definition of “unharmed”
NYT on the release of Fox Correspondent Steve Centanni, 60, of Washington, D.C., and cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand, a subject we have previously discussed:

Two journalists kidnapped in Gaza were released unharmed on Sunday after being forced at gunpoint to say on a videotape that they had converted to Islam.

How are you “unharmed” if you are forced to give up your own religion and adopt another one — especially if the penalty for leaving that new religion is death? If the publisher of the NYT or managing editor, or other executives, editors or reporters found themselves in similar straits, would they consider themselves “unharmed”? Is being under a lifelong death sentence for apostasy a definition of “unharmed”?

the link is here.

Is it proper to call a thing a “religion” if there is no belief involved, but simply submission to some blah-blah to avoid having your throat cut?

Considering how anti-American the NYT is, nothing they do suprises me…..