Stix Blog

Which Obama should we believe???

Which one of the Obama's should we trust if he gets in the White House

H/T to Stop the ACLU

Ricin and botulinum found in Iraq

Ricin and botulinum were found in the hidden camp for Ansar al-Islam. Ansar al-ISlam are affiliated with Al Queda.   Ricin andbotulinum are both made with everyday common items.   I think this might be the place where they tested the poisons on dogs on video that wasreleased a few years ago.   Ansar al-Islam is not affiliated with Saddam but with Al Queda, but there were many meetings between representatives of Iraq and Al Queda.  Is this a smoking gun, not exactly.  But it does show that the terrorists have the ability to make WMD with common items.  Both sarin and botulinum are easilydispsersed to give more bang fo the buck than a dirty bomb.  So in a way,this should be looked at carefully by the intelligence agencies.

H/T to Flopping Aces

U.S. intelligence says the Sargat camp, shown here in a satellite photo taken before its destruction, was a "terrorist poison and explosives factory."

Positive test for terror toxins in Iraq

Evidence of ricin, botulinum at Islamic militants’ camp

By EXCLUSIVE By Preston Mendenhall

MSNBC

SARGAT, Iraq, April 4 - Preliminary tests conducted by MSNBC.com indicate that the deadly toxins ricin and botulinum were present on two items found at a camp in a remote mountain region of northern Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training center by Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The field tests used by MSNBC.com are only a first step in the evidentiary process and are typically followed by more precise laboratory testing that MSNBC.com has not conducted. U.S. intelligence agents were conducting their own tests in the same area and had not yet released their results, according to officials in northern Iraq.---PMSNBC

FISA compromise

Well, it looks like our congresscritters have come up with a compromise  that will give immunity to telecom companies that helped the government spy on our enemies. I still do not know why we even need abill for this, the spying was on foreign assets and wasnot going afteranyone inthe US unless theyhad ties to terrorists abroad.  This iswahtwedo in a time of war, we try to intercept our enemies communications.   We stole the Enigma machine to decript the Germans communications, we had the English also trying to break the Germans codes and we broke the Japanese codes to intercept them at Midway. 

Without this kind of spying on our enemies,we probably would have had another attack in the US after 9/11, but we intercepted the communications of known terrorists that had associates in the US.

Lawmakers Reach Deal To Expand Surveillance

WASHINGTON -- After more than a year of partisan acrimony over government surveillance powers, Democratic and Republican leaders have agreed to a bipartisan deal that would be the most sweeping rewrite of spy powers in three decades. The House is likely to vote on the measure Friday, House aides said.---WSJ (membership required for the whole article)

Club GITMO and the Supreme Court

John Yoo has a great article in the WSJ today about how the Supreme Court overstepped it's constitutional bounds.  The Supreme Court should have nothing to do with the judicial review of enemies caughtona battlefield, but inexplicably the Supreme Court gave US Constitutional Rights to prety much anybody inthe world.  They still believe that this is not a war and is a criminal matter, even though the legislature gave the executivethe authority to wage war against the terrorists.  The Supreme Court has brought us back to a 9/10 footing, and that does not bode well for the Waron Terror.   Are the soldiers going to have to read Miranda Rights to captured terrorists now, on hopes that theyarenot let go on a technicality???? Are they going to haveto get the courts approval to go after terrorists now???   

I like Rush's and many others idea, do not take prisoners.  Under the Geneva Convention unlawful combantants can be exucuted, and the terrorists are calssified as unlawful combatants in the Geneva Convention.

The Supreme Court Goes to War

By JOHN YOO
June 17, 2008; Page A23

Last week's Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush has been painted as a stinging rebuke of the administration's antiterrorism policies. From the celebrations on most U.S. editorial pages, one might think that the court had stopped a dictator from trampling civil liberties. Boumediene did anything but. The 5-4 ruling is judicial imperialism of the highest order.

Boumediene should finally put to rest the popular myth that right-wing conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. Academics used to complain about the Rehnquist Court's "activism" for striking down minor federal laws on issues such as whether states are immune from damage lawsuits, or if Congress could ban handguns in school. Justice Anthony Kennedy -- joined by the liberal bloc of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- saves his claims of judicial supremacy for the truly momentous: striking down a wartime statute, agreed upon by the president and large majorities of Congress, while hostilities are ongoing, no less.

....

The Boumediene five also ignored the Constitution's structure, which grants all war decisions to the president and Congress. In 2004 and 2006, the Court tried to extend its reach to al Qaeda terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay. It was overruled twice by Congress, which has the power to define the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Congress established its own procedures for the appeal of detentions.

....

So our fighting men and women now must add C.S.I. duties to that of capturing or killing the enemy. Nor will this be the end of it. Under Boumediene's claim of judicial supremacy, it is only a hop, skip and a jump from judges second-guessing whether someone is an enemy to second-guessing whether a soldier should have aimed and fired at him.

....WSJ

Also Posted at Grizzly Groundswell

A win for the enemy

Yesterday the Supreme inexplicably ruled that terrorrists have the backing of the United States Constitution. Yes, you heard that right.    The Terrorists that are being held at Club GITMO have habeas corpus rights under the United States Constitution.  Who would have ever thought that enemy combantants are actually American Citizens????  So are we going to have to read the Miranda rights to terrorists on the battle field now???   What ever happened to following the Geneva Convention, you know where enemy combantants can be tried under Military Tribunal and if found guilty could be executed???

President Kennedy
June 13, 2008; Page A14

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy isn't known for his judicial modesty. But for sheer willfulness, yesterday's 5-4 majority opinion in Boumediene v. Bush may earn him a historic place among the likes of Harry Blackmun. In a stroke, he and four other unelected Justices have declared their war-making supremacy over both Congress and the White House.

Boumediene concerns habeas corpus – the right of Americans to challenge detention by the government. Justice Kennedy has now extended that right to non-American enemy combatants captured abroad trying to kill Americans in the war on terror. We can say with confident horror that more Americans are likely to die as a result.

An Algerian native, Lakhdar Boumediene was detained by U.S. troops in Bosnia in January 2002 and is currently held at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. military heard the case for Boumediene's detention in 2004, and in the years since he has never appealed the finding that he is an enemy combatant, although he could under federal law. Instead, his lawyers asserted his "right" – as an alien held outside the United States – to a habeas hearing before a U.S. federal judge.

Justice Kennedy's opinion is remarkable in its sweeping disregard for the decisions of both political branches. In a pair of 2006 laws – the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act – Congress and the President had worked out painstaking and good-faith rules for handling enemy combatants during wartime. These rules came in response to previous Supreme Court decisions demanding such procedural care, and they are the most extensive ever granted to prisoners of war.

Yet as Justice Antonin Scalia notes in dissent, "Turns out" the same Justices "were just kidding." Mr. Kennedy now deems those efforts inadequate, based on only the most cursory analysis. As Chief Justice John Roberts makes clear in his dissent, the majority seems to dislike these procedures merely because a judge did not sanctify them. In their place, Justice Kennedy decrees that district court judges should derive their own ad hoc standards for judging habeas petitions. Make it up as you go!---WSJ

What a joke. We mightactually beat Eurabia in beng Dhimmified.

Did we get Sawahiri?

It seems to me that the US forces were going after Taliban or high value targets on the Border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  There are many different reports on what exactly what went on but I think that this is the most logical report out there:

H/T to The Strata-Sphere

Coalition forces repel militant attack in Afghanistan, ends in Pakistan
Written by PAONCOIC
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (June 11, 2008) – Coalition forces were engaged by anti-Afghan forces in Konar province on Tuesday during an operation that had been previously coordinated with Pakistan. Coalition forces began receiving small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire from an unknown number of anti-Afghan forces approximately 200 meters inside Konar province. Coalition forces returned fire in self-defense. Shortly after the attack began, Coalition forces informed the Pakistan Army that they were being engaged by anti-Afghan forces in a wooded area near the Gorparai checkpoint. At that same time, an unmanned aerial system also identified anti-Afghan forces firing at Coalition forces. In self-defense, Coalition forces fired artillery rounds at the militants. An unmanned aerial system identified additional anti-Afghan forces joining the attack against the Coalition forces. While maintaining positive identification of the enemy, close-air support was then used by Coalition forces to gain fire superiority until the threat was eliminated. At no time did Coalition ground forces cross into Pakistan. The investigation of this incident is ongoing. -30-

Jihad on the Web

Just a little somtthing to think about.   70% of the jihadi sites originate in the USA.  The Jawa Report is trying to go after these sights along with some other online warriors.   But it is very tought to actually prosecute the people because they could be anywhere in the world and just use servers anywhere in the world.  But  the more 9/11 fades into an afterthought here, the more people will think that we are safe and the Jihadis are not going to attack again.   We have stopped many and probably more than the government is willing to say, but with the World Wide Web and WEB 2.0 sites all over the world, we will be under attack by those that wish us harm and our allies harm.  And people actually want someone like Obama i the White House who will through away all the gains we have made in the War on Terror to talk to our enemies and dismantle our military.

Oops!!! Bush never lied

Wow here is a shocker, Bush did nnot lie so people could die.   But if you listen to the Nutroots, they will still say he lied.  See,  the intelligence agencies all confirmed what Bush said, just now we know that they were faulty.   But at the time we had to use the intelligence that we had at the time.   See, intelligence is never 100% correct and even Bill Clinton, Madeliene Albright, and even Al Gore believed the same thing before Bush won the White House.   But you never hear the Nutroots or DUmmies/Koskids talk about how they lied and people died do you????

'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple.

By Fred Hiatt
Monday, June 9, 2008; A17

Search the Internet for "Bush Lied" products, and you will find sites that offer more than a thousand designs. The basic "Bush Lied, People Died" bumper sticker is only the beginning.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.

"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," he said.

There's no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.

But dive into Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

In the report's final section, the committee takes issue with Bush's statements about Saddam Hussein's intentions and what the future might have held. But was that really a question of misrepresenting intelligence, or was it a question of judgment that politicians are expected to make?

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: "There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can."

Rockefeller was reminded of that statement by the committee's vice chairman, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who with three other Republican senators filed a minority dissent that includes many other such statements from Democratic senators who had access to the intelligence reports that Bush read. The dissenters assert that they were cut out of the report's preparation, allowing for a great deal of skewing and partisanship, but that even so, "the reports essentially validate what we have been saying all along: that policymakers' statements were substantiated by the intelligence."

Why does it matter, at this late date? The Rockefeller report will not cause a spike in "Bush Lied" mug sales, and the Bond dissent will not lead anyone to scrape the "Bush Lied" bumper sticker off his or her car.

But the phony "Bush lied" story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.

For the next president, it may be Iran's nuclear program, or al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, or, more likely, some potential horror that today no one even imagines. When that time comes, there will be plenty of warnings to heed from the Iraq experience, without the need to fictionalize more.

WAPO

Another day another tapef rom Al Queda

I do not know if something is really going to go down or not, but after having 2 bin Laden tapes and then this supposedly "WMD tape" coming out, are we in for another attack?  No one really knows for sure, but some think that this is a hoax that is coming out. but who knows, be extra careful and be on the lokout for anything unusual.

Officials say they expect a new tape from al Qaeda supporters to call for the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians. Al Qaeda has released messages with increasing frequency this year.

(AP Photo)

Al Qaeda Supporters' Tape to Call for Use of WMDs

Authorities: New Tape to Urge Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction on Civilians

By PIERRE THOMAS and THERESA COOK
May 27, 2008

Intelligence and law enforcement sources tell ABC News they are expecting al Qaeda supporters will post a new video on the Internet in the next 24 hours, calling for what one source said is "jihadists to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West."

There have been several reports that al Qaeda will release a new message calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against civilians," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told ABC News in an e-mail.

"Although there have been similar messages in the past, the FBI and [Department of Homeland Security] have no intelligence of any specific plot or indication of a threat to the U.S.," the e-mail said. "The FBI and U.S. intelligence community will review the message for any intelligence value."

While there is no evidence of any direct threat, the FBI sent a bulletin to 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, out of an abundance of caution. ---ABC

Some news fro the War onTerror

2 Good posts over at Strata-Sphere about the ongoing Waron Terror.

First, the CIA is going   to tell CONgress that the bombing in Syria by the Israeli Air Force.   I did suspect that this was the case after the Iraelis attacked Syria and Syria did not show the carnage that the bobmbs inflicted on the civilian population. 

CIA to describe North Korea-Syria nuclear ties

Officials will tell Congress members this week that North Korea was helping Syria build a reactor last year when it was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, a U.S. official says.

By Paul Richter and Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
April 23, 2008

WASHINGTON -- CIA officials will tell Congress on Thursday that North Korea had been helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, a U.S. official said, a disclosure that could touch off new resistance to the administration's plan to ease sanctions on Pyongyang.

The CIA officials will tell lawmakers that they believe the reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons but was destroyed before it could do so, the U.S. official said, apparently referring to a suspicious installation in Syria that was bombed last year by Israeli warplanes.---LATimes

Next we have Iran arming the Mahdi Armyin Iraq.  And not just with small arms such as AK-47s, but with rockets. 

BAGHDAD — Coalition forces have reported Iran may be supplying medium-range rockets to Shi'ite militias in Iraq.

On April 19, Iraqi troops, as part of Operation Charge of the Knights, discovered a cache of munitions that included a 240 mm high-explosive warhead in Basra.

"The success in finding these large caches was also due in part by numerous tips from concerned local Iraqis," Lt. Col. Neil Harper, a spokesman for Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said.

The warhead, which contained Iranian markings, was said to be the most advanced weapon found in the possession of the Mahdi Army.

Officials said the warhead appeared to be part of the Fajr-5 medium-range rocket produced by Iran and transferred to Hizbullah in 2006. So far, they said, Shi'ite militias were not believed to have fired a 240 mm rocket in Iraq.

Other weapons found in the Shi'ite militia cache in Basra included 160 mortars, 25 artillery shells and a large quantity of explosives. Officials said the weapons contained Iranian markings and appeared less than a year old.----World Tribune

Iraqis find Iran warhead for medium-range missile

As these 2 stories show, we are not just fighting Al Queda in the War on Terror.  And Iraq willnotbe the last battle field.  Suria nder Iran's guidance are a threat to Israel and to our Allies.  As is Iran with arming the Madhi Army in Iraqa.

We can not just pick upand run from the battle.  Iraq is only 1 battle field in the War on Terror. we are in the Phillipines, Iraq, Africa, Europe and even in our country. Thisis not a quick war and will not be done for a long time.  It took us 50 years to finally win the Cold War, and I do not think that this one will take as long, unless we run from the battle field. 

Why we are fighting

via email

Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell

Why doesn't someone like this run for president?

This is one of the most profound articles that I have ever read about this Presidency, this era, and this so-called war. No matter your politics, you owe it to yourself to read this.

An assessment of where the US stands in relation to the Middle East problems, this one is from the guy who had his finger on the nuclear trigger for three years as head of our defense and response complex buried under Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs. He was the only person who could initiate a nuclear attack after advising the sitting president of a missile launch by our enemies and our need to respond. No political or civilian type in the US had more knowledge about day to day military actions around the world.

 

 

Everyone should find quiet time to read this. As far as I am concerned, it is exactly the direction we should go and the consequences of not doing so are well thought out.

 

 

-John R. ( Jack ) Farrington, Major General, USAF (Retired)

Middle East Imperative
by: James Cash, Brigadier General, USAF, Retired

 

 

 

 

 

I wrote recently about the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical Islam, eliciting a number of responses. Let me try and put this conflict in proper perspective.

 

 

Understand; the current battle we are engaged in is much bigger than just Iraq. What happens in the next year will affect this country and how our kids and grand kids live throughout their lifetime, and beyond. Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the seventh century. They have been defeated in the past and decimated to the point of taking hundreds of years to recover. But they can never be totally defeated. Their birth rates are so far beyond civilized world rates, that in time they recover and attempt to dominate again.

 

 

There are eight terror-sponsoring countries that make up the grand threat to the West. Two, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, just need firm pressure from the West to make major reforms. They need to decide who they are really going to support and commit to that support. That answer is simple. They both will support who they think will hang in there until the end, and win.

 

 

We are not sending very good signals in that direction right now, thanks to the Democrats.

 

 

The other six, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya will require regime change or a major policy shift. Now, let's look more closely.

 

 

Afghanistan and Iraq have both had regime changes, but are being fueled by outsiders from Syria and Iran . We have scared Gaddafi's pants off, and he has given up his quest for nuclear weapons, so I don't think Libya is now a threat. North Korea (the non-Islamic threat) can be handled diplomatically by buying them off. They are starving. That leaves Syria and Iran. Syria is like a frightened puppy. Without the support of Iran they will join the stronger side.

 

 

 

 

 

So where does that leave us? Sooner, or later, we are going to be forced to confront Iran, and it better be before they gain nuclear capability.

 

 

In 1989 I served as a Command Director inside the Cheyenne Mountain complex located in Colorado Springs, Colorado for almost three years. My job there was to observe (through classified means) every missile shot anywhere in the world and assess if it was a threat to the US or Canada. If any shot was threatening to either nation I had only minutes to advise the President, as he had only minutes to respond.

 

 

I watched Iran and Iraq shoot missiles at each other every day, and all day long, for months. They killed hundreds of thousands of their people. Know why? They were fighting for control of the Middle East and that enormous oil supply. At that time, they were preoccupied with their internal problems and could care less about toppling the west. Oil prices were fairly stable and we could not see an immediate threat.

 

 

Well, the worst part of what we have done as a nation in Iraq is to do away with the military capability of one of those nations. Now, Iran has a clear field to dominate the Middle East, since Iraq is no longer a threat to them. They have turned their attention to the only other threat to their dominance, they are convinced they will win, because the US is so divided, and the Democrats (who now control Congress and, unfortunately, may control the Presidency in 2008) have openly said we are pulling out.

 

 

Do you have any idea what will happen if the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran, which they will obviously do if we pull out? It is not the price of oil we will have to worry about. Oil WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to this country at any price. I personally would vote for any presidential candidate who did what JFK did with the space program---declare a goal to bring this country to total energy independence in a decade.

 

 

Yes, it is about oil. The economy in this country will totally die if that Middle East supply is cut off right now. It will not be a recession. It will be a depression that will make1929 look like the "good-old-days".

 

 

 

 

 

The bottom line here is simple. If Iran is forced to fall in line, the fighting in Iraq will end over night, and the nightmare will be over. One way or another, Iran must be forced to join modern times and the global community. It may mean a real war---if so, now is the time, before we face a nuclear Iran with the capacity to destroy Israel and begin a new ice age.

 

 

I urge you to read the book "END GAME" by two of our best Middle East experts, true American patriots and retired military generals, Paul Vallely and Tom McInerney. They are our finest, and totally honest in their assessment of why victory in the Middle East is so important, and how it can be won. Proceeds for the book go directly to memorial fund for our fallen soldiers who served the country during the war on terror. You can find that book by going to the Internet through Stand-up America at http://www.ospreyradio.us/,  http://www.ospreyradio.us/ or http://www.rightalk.com/, http://www.rightalk.com/.

 

 

On the other hand, we have several very angry retired generals today, who evidently have not achieved their lofty goals, and insist on ranting and raving about the war. They are wrong, and doing the country great harm by giving a certain political party reason to use them as experts to back their anti-war claims.

 

 

You may be one of those who believe nothing could ever be terrible enough to support our going to war. If that is the case I should stop here, as that level of thinking approaches mental disability in this day and age. It is right up there with alien abductions and high altitude seeding through government aircraft contrails. I helped produced those contrails for almost 30 years, and I can assure you we were not seeding the atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

 

The human race is a war-like population, and if a country is not willing to protect itself, it deserves the consequences. 'Enough - said!'

 

 

Now, my last comments will get to the nerve. They will be on politics. I am not a Republican. And, George Bush has made enough

 

 

mistakes as President to insure my feelings about that for the rest of my life. However, the Democratic Party has moved so far left, they have made me support those farther to the right.

 

 

I am a conservative who totally supports the Constitution of this country. The only difference between the United States and the South American, third world, dictator infested and ever-changing South American governments, is our U.S. Constitution.

 

 

This Republic (note I did not say Democracy) is the longest standing the world has ever known, but it is vulnerable. It would take so little to change it through economic upheaval. There was a time when politicians could disagree, but still work together. We are past that time, and that is the initial step toward the downfall of our form of government.

 

 

I think that many view Bush-hating as payback time. The Republicans hated the Clinton's and now the Democrats hate Bush. So, both parties are putting their hate toward willingness to do anything for political dominance to include lying and always taking the opposite stand just for the sake of being opposed. JUST HOW GOOD IS THAT FOR OUR COUNTRY?

 

 

In my lifetime, after serving in uniform for President's Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush, I have a pretty good feel for which party supported our military, and what military life was like under each of their terms. And, let me assure you that times were best under the Republicans.

 

 

 

 

 

Service under Jimmy Carter was devastating for all branches of the military. And, Ronald Regan was truly a salvation.

 

 

You can choose to listen to enriched newscasters, and foolish people like John Murtha (he is no war hero!), Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, and on-and-on to include the true fools in Hollywood if you like. If you do, your conclusions will be totally wrong!

 

 

The reason that I write, appear on radio talk shows, and do everything I can to denounce those people is simple. THEY ARE PUTTING THEIR THIRST FOR POLITICAL POWER AND QUEST FOR VICTORY IN 2008 ABOVE WHAT IS BEST FOR THIS COUNTRY! I cannot abide by that.

 

 

Pelosi clearly defied the Logan Act by going to Syria, which should have lead to imprisonment of three years and a heavy fine. Jane Fonda did more to prolong the Vietnam War than any other human being (as acknowledged by Ho Chi Minh in his writing before he died). She truly should have been indicted for treason, along with her radical husband, Tom Hayden, and forced to pay the consequences.

 

 

This country has started to soften by not enforcing its laws, which is another indication of a Republic about to fall.

 

 

All Democrats, along with the Hollywood elite, are sending us headlong into a total defeat in the Middle East, which will finally give Iran total dominance in the region. A lack of oil in the near future will be the final straw that dooms this Republic.

 

 

However, if we refuse to let this happen and really get serious about an energy self-sufficiency program, this can be avoided. I am afraid, however, that we are going in the opposite direction.

 

 

If we elect Hillary Clinton and a Democrat controlled congress, and they carry through with allowing Iran to take control of the Middle East, continue to refuse development of nuclear energy, refuse to allow drilling for new oil, and continue to do nothing but oppose everything Bush, it will be over in terms of what we view as the good life in the USA.

 

 

Now, do I think that all who do not support the war are un-American? Of course not. They just do not understand the importance of total victory in that region.

 

 

Another failure of George Bush is his inability to explain to the American people why we are there, and why we MUST win. By the way, it is not a war. The war was won five years ago. It is martial law that is under attack by Iranian and Syrian outside influences, and there is a difference.

 

 

So, what do I believe? What is the bottom line? I will simply say that the Democratic Party has fielded the foulest, power hungry, anti-country, self absorbed group of individuals that I have observed in my lifetime. Our educational system is partially to blame for allowing the mass of America to be taken in by this group. George Bush has done the best he can with the disabilities that he possesses.

 

 

A President must communicate with the people. And, I would tell you that Desert Storm spoiled the people. Bush Senior's 100-hour war convinced the people that technology has progressed to the point that wars could be fought with no casualties and won in very short periods of time. I remember feeling at the time, that this was a tragedy for the US military. To win wars, you must put boots on the ground. When you put boots on the ground, soldiers are going to die. A President must make the war decision wisely, and insure that the cause is right before using his last political option.

 

 

HOWEVER, CONTROLLING IRAN AND DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE ONLY CHOICE IF WE ARE HELL BENT ON DEPENDING ON THEM FOR OUR FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS.

 

 

-Jimmy L. Cash, Brigadier General, USAF, Retired

See no progress, Hear no Progress, Speak no Progress

Joe Lieberman saidot best yesterday,"hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, and most of all, speak of no progress in Iraq."  The Defeatocrats in the Senate are using the hearings with General Petreuas and Ambassador Ryan Crocker as a poitical show.  They do not listen or do not want to hear of the successes the Iraqi government has made.  They are playing petty political games with our military to the Left Wing base in their party. They should be ashamed of themselves.

'See No Progress'
April 9, 2008

A useful measure of General David Petraeus's achievement is the turn in the political mood, even in the U.S. Congress. In September, Senators felt entitled to lecture, even berate, the Iraq commander. This time he was accorded more respect, no doubt because the surge is showing results even Democrats can no longer deny. Instead, they ignored them.

At yesterday's Senate double-header, General Petraeus was sober and candid in characterizing the security progress made since last spring, calling it "significant but uneven" and ultimately "fragile and reversible." He noted important advances: Both high-profile terror attacks and civilian deaths, including those due to ethno-sectarian violence, are in decline. Half of Iraq's 18 provinces are under Iraqi control, and Anbar and Qadisiyah are expected to transition over the coming months. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been greatly diminished because of "relentless pressure" and better counterinsurgency intelligence.--WSJ

Petition for General Patreaus

I got this from a RedState email.

Dear RedState Reader,

All the best,

I'm sorry to have filled your inbox this week, but there are so many pressing matters this week.

First up, please consider signing Congressman Mike Conaway's petition in support of General Petraeus, who keeps getting attacked by the Democrats to undermine his credibility.

Second, The Democrats and the media are at it again.  This week is very instructive for how the media and Democrats coordinate their activities together.  It also shows just how ignorant Democrats and the media are about the military, both equating a military presence with actually being at war.  Do we want a President who shows such a profound misunderstanding?

Barack Obama has said repeatedly in the past several weeks, things like this:  "[McCain] wants to continue this war in Iraq maybe for another 100 years."

Then Obama's campaign strategist would say, as he did Monday morning on MSNBC, "Senator Obama hasn't said that Senator McCain said we would be at war for 100 years."

The media would then report on the Presidential campaign using quotes from Barack Obama like this one in the Chicago Tribune:  “Meanwhile, Sen. McCain has been saying I don’t understand national security, but he’s the one who wants to keep tens of thousands of United States Troops in Iraq for as long as 100 years,’ Obama said.”

No where would they point out that major nonpartisan fact checking organizations have called that statement a "gross distortion."

Just so you have the facts, here is what John McCain said in response to a question about leaving troops in Iraq for 50 or 100 years:

"We've been in Japan for 60 years, we've been in South Korea for 50 years, that'd be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.  That's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training and recruiting and equipping people."

Clearly McCain was talking about a peace time standing presence.  The "not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" line kind of gave that away.

Notwithstanding that, the DNC is now out with an email blast begging for money, saying again that John McCain wants to fight another 100 years.  No doubt the media will keep repeating it, never pointing out the gross distortion of what McCain said.  It is important, however, that we all have the facts to point out the Democrats and media are working together to push this lie.

Of course, it could just be that the Democrats are clueless about the military.  Someone should ask the Democrats if they think we're still at war with the confederacy, the Germans, and the Japanese given all the standing American armies in the South, Germany, and Japan.

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

Liberal Values does not agree

   

WMD in Syria????

There is a report to come out that says Saddam transfered weapons to Syria. Who would have thought of that???

An upcoming joint US-Israel report on the September 6 IAF strike on a Syrian facility will claim that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein transferred weapons of mass destruction to the country, Channel 2 stated Monday.

Furthermore, according to a report leaked to the TV channel, Syria has arrested 10 intelligence officials following the assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh.

JPost

Also posting:

Liberty Cafe

Flopping Aces

Aldo Moro Remembered at 30 yr Anniversary

A reminder of the momentous events happening in Italy 30 years ago.  Back then it wasn't radical Islamic terrorists, it was radical student Communists that were causing havoc in Europe and elsewhere.   The world is truly a different place and and an entire generation probably knows nothing or next to nothing of the problems these student radicals were causing. 

Published on National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe (http://ncrcafe.org)

Aldo Moro affair a watershed for the West and for the Church

By John L Allen Jr Daily

Created Mar 17 2008 - 04:32

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of a watershed event, both for contemporary Western politics and for the Catholic church: the kidnapping of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by the left-wing terrorist group the Red Brigades, followed by Moro’s execution on May 9, 1978, after 55 days of captivity.

The morning Moro was kidnapped, he was on his way to Parliament to savor what was to be his defining achievement: the compromesso storico, a plan to bring Italy’s Communist Party into a governing alliance with the Christian Democrats in order to promote national stability. It was a controversial move, opposed bitterly in Washington and elsewhere as a violation of the cardinal rule of post-war Italian politics: to keep the Communists out of power.

Moro was a close personal friend of Pope Paul VI from their days together in FUCI, the Federation of Catholic University Students. Moro’s policy of a cautious opening to the Communists tracked with Pope Paul’s own policy of Ostpolitik, or dialogue with the Soviet bloc.

In the short run, Moro’s murder sapped whatever strength Paul VI had left, and arguably hastened his own death three months later. More generally, Moro’s execution strengthened anti-Communist and anti-leftist sentiment in Italy and across the West. In the Catholic world, it served to halt the momentum of Ostpolitik, helping to set the stage for a far more robust challenge to Communism under Pope John Paul II.

Paul VI’s anguish over Moro’s fate was clear from his public statements both before and after his friend’s death.

In a rare departure from what was then still the customary royal plural of the papacy, Paul VI addressed a first-person appeal to the terrorists to free Moro on April 23. In a note in the pope’s own handwriting published by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Paulo VI wrote: “I am writing to you, men of the Red Brigades ... you, unknown and implacable adversaries of this deserving and innocent man, I pray to you on my knees, liberate Aldo Moro simply and without any conditions.”

This marked the first time the pope had ever acknowledged the Red Brigades by name, and that alone was taken as a significant public relations victory.

According to Italian journalist Giovanni Bianconi of Corriere della Sera, the country’s premier daily newspaper, Vatican officials privately utilized prison chaplains in Italy to make contact with the leadership of the Red Brigades, offering to collect money to pay a ransom. Former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who was in power at the time of Moro’s abduction, later confirmed that Paul VI had offered to pay a large ransom to set Moro free. According to one report, the amount floated at the time was U.S. $10 million.

Other reports suggest that Paul VI even offered to take Moro’s place as a hostage in order to secure his release.

On the other hand, the pope’s use of the phrase “without any conditions” on April 23 was taken as implicit backing for the position of Andreotti, also a staunch Catholic layman, rejecting political negotiations with the terrorists. Bianconi reports that Moro himself expressed disappointment with Pope Paul’s letter in a note to his wife written while in captivity.

In the end, the kidnappers insisted upon the release of dozens of jailed Red Brigades militants, a demand the government refused to meet. After being declared guilty in a rump trial of crimes against the people, Moro was placed in the trunk of a car and riddled with ten bullets on May 9. Symbolically, the car was left on a Roman street exactly midway between the headquarters of the Christian Democrats and the Communists.

[snip]

As is virtually inevitable in Italian affairs, Moro’s kidnapping and death are surrounded by conspiracy theories. The Italian right generally believes the Soviets were involved, while it’s long been a staple of the Italian left that either the CIA, or the Masons, or both, engineered the outcome in order to discredit the compromesso storico. Others believe that Andreotti wasn’t really interested in securing Moro’s release, seeing the kidnapping as an opportunity to eliminate a political rival.

Earlier this month, a new Italian book titled Abbiamo Ucciso Aldo Moro (“We Killed Aldo Moro”) hit the shelves, the heart of which is an interview with Steve Pieczenik, a former hostage negotiator for the U.S. State Department who claims he was sent to Italy by then-President Jimmy Carter to assist a crisis team led by Francesco Cossiga, then Italy’s interior minister and later the country’s president.

According to Pieczenik, it became the conscious policy of the crisis team to drive the Red Brigades into killing Moro, in part out of concern that he might reveal state secrets, in part in order to discredit the Italian Communists and to prevent their charismatic leader, Enrico Berlinguer, from coming to power.

“We sacrificed Moro for the stability of Italy,” Pieczenik asserts in the book.

As Cossiga has confirmed, at one point the crisis team leaked a false statement attributed to the Red Brigades asserting that Moro was already dead. Pieczenik says in the new book that the point was to communicate to the Red Brigades that the government considered Moro already dead, and would not negotiate for his release.

Exactly how seriously one should take Pieczenik’s reconstruction is not entirely clear. Readers of popular American fiction probably know him best as coauthor of a slew of Tom Clancy spy novels, and the principals on the Italian side haven’t yet offered any reaction to his claims.

What seems beyond doubt, however, is that the murder of Moro is to Italians what the JFK assassination is to Americans – one of those sudden historical turning points whose details will probably forever be the object of fascination and debate.

[snip]

Though largely forgotten today outside Italy, the kidnapping and death of Aldo Moro thus mark an important turning point in contemporary Catholic history, one whose consequences are still being felt.

---

Source URL:
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1677

John Lennon's song "Revolution" was about this kind of radical students: 

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that its evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Dont you know that you can count me out?

By the way, a romantic desire to have fun sticking it to "the man" like these idiotic radicals is behind the popularity in those days of Tshirts with Che Guavara.  It looked like fun to be Patty Hearst or join up with the Weather Underground.  Next best thing - wear a Che T shirt.  People who wear them today haven't a clue what kind of statement the T shirt implied back before the Wall came down.

Julia   

There is not urgency

H/ to Flopping Aces

Another Day, Another Threat from Iran

It seems like everyday a leader from Iran calls for the destruction of Israel. we have Iamanutjob and General Muhammad Ali Jafari of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps this week in calling for the destruction of Israel.  Iamanutjob called Israel a filthy bacteria, but we all know that Iranian leaders are the scum of the Earth and are lower than teh scum on the bottom of your shoes.

Ahmadinejad: Israel filthy bacteria

By JPOST STAFF AND MICHAL LANDO

In yet another verbal attack against Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a "filthy bacteria" whose sole purpose was to oppress the other nations of the region.

"The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast," the Iranian president told supporters at a rally in southern Iran.

"[Israel] won support [from the other nations] which created it as a scarecrow, so as to keep the people of this area under control," Ahmadinejad said.

Referring to the assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, the Iranian leader said that Israel "uses terror as a threat every day, and afterwards is happy and joyful." ---Jpost

And just think of Obamarama talking with these scum, because we can all sing Kumbaya together and live in peace.  I guess Israel is not considered partofthe world to Obamarama, Billary and the restof the Defeatocrats.