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August 17, 2006
1:30 pm

Mad Cow Disease in the Senate

The House Panel: Senate Bill Would 'Cede Control' of Border
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 17, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Key provisions of the border security bill passed by the U.S. Senate are "meaningless" according to the House Judiciary Committee, which is holding a field hearing on the bill in El Paso, Texas, Thursday. Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) warns that the Senate is trying to "cede control" of the country's southern border security to the Mexican government.

The Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437) has already passed the House of Representatives but has not been reconciled with the competing Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

The House bill directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to "construct double-layered and reinforced fencing and additional barriers, roads, lighting, camera and sensors along designated stretches of the southern border which are the major points of current illegal border crossing."

The proposal includes 72 miles of fence in California, 342 miles in Arizona, 70 miles in New Mexico, including the border area just west of El Paso, Texas, and 370 miles of fencing in Texas.

Conversely, the Senate bill authorizes only 370 total miles of fencing and makes construction of any fences conditional upon consultation with the Mexican government.

A statement issued by Sensenbrenner's office indicates that the committee is particularly displeased with that part of the Senate's proposal.

"Mexico is unlikely to provide its approval for new fences because its political leaders have made it a top priority to stop any more fence construction," the committee statement said. "Consequently, the Senate's fence provisions become meaningless, and an important precedent [would be] established to cede control of security on the Southwest border to Mexico."

The House committee is also concerned that the Senate bill would inhibit local sheriffs and police departments that want to help enforce immigration laws. Local law enforcement officials operating along the Mexican border strongly object to the proposed restrictions and have told other members of congress that such provisions would undermine security.

Rep. Edward Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, recalled that it was local law enforcement officials who stopped four of the 19 hijackers for speeding prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"All four terrorists could have been arrested if the officers ... realized that they were here illegally," Royce told Cybercast News Service in an email.

Royce also warned that the Senate bill could discourage local police from detaining aliens who have remained in the country illegally after their visas have expired.

"Afraid of being blamed for making a wrongful arrest and getting sued, many law enforcement agencies may stop helping the federal government enforce immigration laws altogether," Royce added. "Instead of tying the hands of local law enforcement, we should be encouraging them to cooperate with immigration officials to help enforce our immigration laws."

Sheriff Leo Samaniego of El Paso County, Texas, will testify at Thursday's hearing. He told Cybercast News Service that the border can be protected if enough personnel and resources are deployed.

"Can we secure the border?" Samaniego asked, rhetorically. "You betcha!"

"Operation Linebacker" is a prime example, Samaniego said, of how local law enforcement agencies can work together to support the federal government border enforcement efforts. The program allows sheriffs to hire additional personnel to target illegal aliens who get past the U.S. Border Patrol.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry secured grant funding for Operation Linebacker which resulted in more resources for sheriffs operating along the border. Although it has only been active for a few months, the operation has resulted in a dramatic reduction in criminal activity in participating counties.

Samaniego estimates that the $100 million-a-year for border county law enforcement agencies in the House bill would be sufficient to fund initiatives like Operation Linebacker all along the southern U.S. border. The Senate bill is problematic, he says, because it would only provide about $50 million.

Moreover, the Senate's funding would be available to any community within 100 miles of the Mexican or Canadian borders. That feature would "dilute" the impact of bill, Samaniego said, because the funding would be allocated to so many agencies."

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=/SpecialReports/archive/200608/SPE20060817a.html

Comments

Entry #525

August 17, 2006
10:38 am

"Why We MUST Profile

Seems it's time to get very serious about profiling, and we can begin with a history lesson of who's committed acts of terrorism over the past 30 years, radical Islamics.

No amount of PC sanitizing can erase FACTS.

Congress needs to quickly grow some spine on a number of issues, profiling as the most pressing, sealing borders and enforcing current immigration without amnesty as a close second.

Contact your Senator and Representative letting them know your feelings about profiling. I am.

"Why We MUST Profile
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 17, 2006

To profile or not to profile? Some recent suspicious incidents involving mass purchase of cell phones by Middle Eastern men have given this debate a new urgency.

On Tuesday, terrorism charges were dropped against two Muslims from Dearborn, Michigan, who had been arrested in Ohio. Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan had been stopped for a traffic violation a week before; in their car, sheriff’s deputies found $11,000 in cash, airline passenger lists, material about airport security procedures, and twelve cell phones. It turned out that they had bought 600 cell phones recently.

Cell phones can be used as detonators. They’re also a ready means of non-traceable communication, as well as an easy source of ready cash, as they can be resold to people who don’t want their calls traceable. There have been several other strange incidents involving mass purchase of such phones recently: three Palestinians were recently arrested in Texas with 1,000 cell phones in their van, and there was another incident involving “Middle Eastern men” buying cell phones in large quantities in Tucson, Arizona.

These incidents, especially all coming around the same time, are extremely suspicious, but even before prosecutors dropped the terror charges against Houssaiky and Abulhassan, charges of racial profiling began surfacing in the mainstream media. A public defender handling Abulhassan’s case, Ray Smith, said of his client at a hearing: “If his name was Joe Smith, we wouldn’t be here. His origin and appearance and name condition us to (think), ‘Oh my gosh, he’s a terrorist.’” The dropping of the charges will only reinforce this impression, despite the fact that many questions remain about the case and Washington County, Ohio Prosecutor James Schneider said that he still might press terrorism-related charges against the pair. According to AP, “Relatives of the men said they were just trying to make money by reselling the phones and were targeted because of their Arab backgrounds.”

It is unclear, however, what those who are charging that racial profiling was a factor in the arrest of Houssaiky and Abulhassan would have preferred to have happened. The facts of the case remain that they had lists of airline passengers, information on airport security, a large amount of cash, and instruments capable of being used as detonators. I hope that in such circumstances – given the fact that jihad terrorists have abundantly established their taste for targeting airplanes -- investigators would have looked into the possibility of terrorism even if Houssaiky and Abulhassan had been two Norwegian grandmothers.

But the fact that they are two young Muslim men makes this not an option, but a necessity. For however unpleasant or politically inconvenient a fact it may be, young Muslim males are responsible for the overwhelming majority of terrorist violence around the world today. Since 9/11 Islamic jihadists have perpetrated well over five thousand terror attacks; no other group even comes close. Sane and courageous law enforcement officials will therefore subject young Muslim males to greater scrutiny, within the bounds of the law – and political correctness can take the hindmost.

Profiling, of course, is an imperfect tool, however useful it may be. Islam is not a race, and neither is the jihad. Adherents of the jihad ideology can be found among all races: as John Walker Lindh, Jose Padilla, Richard Reid, Ismail Royer, and Hasan Akbar can attest. All those men have in common is that they are converts to Islam – a phenomenon that doesn’t necessarily have any outward signs. In fact, a recently discovered Al-Qaeda manual directs jihadists to adopt a Western secular appearance, and to eschew any outward manifestation of Islamic faith, precisely in order to divert suspicion: “Have a general appearance that does not indicate Islamic orientation (beard, toothpick, book, [long] shirt, small Koran)....Be careful not to mention the brothers’ common expressions or show their behaviors (special praying appearance, ‘may Allah reward you’, ‘peace be on you’ while arriving and departing, etc.)...Avoid visiting famous Islamic places (mosques, libraries, Islamic fairs, etc.).” Likewise, the recent terror arrests in Britain, which included a pregnant woman, demonstrate that not all jihad terrorists are men, either.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that young Middle Eastern males have committed a disproportionate amount of violent terror attacks in recent years. Although Islamic jihad supremacism is an ideology, not a race, more Middle Eastern males hold to it than do members of other groups. Accordingly, it is simply a waste of resources to subject all airline passengers, from grandmothers to toddlers, to equal scrutiny, while refusing to spend more time investigating passengers who come from the group from which most terrorists spring nowadays.

This is not a question of civil liberties. No one is arguing for the rounding-up of people who are just going about their business. If, however, the police see anything suspicious, as they did in the car of Houssaiky and Abulhassan, they have a right and a duty to check it out, and should be able to do so freely, without worrying about hurting feelings or incurring internal affairs investigations for politically incorrect practices. And it is still true that in a free society, people who are not breaking the law will have nothing to worry about.

After the uncovering of the recent jihadist airplane plot in Britain, British officials have begun moving toward this. However, politically this is an explosive issue: a British source said that the British Department for Transport “is ultra-sensitive about this and won’t say anything publicly because of political concerns about being accused of racial stereotyping.” And predictably, once a report was printed about this in the Times of London, Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Ali Desai declared: “What you are suggesting is that we should have a new offence in this country called ‘traveling whilst Asian.’ What we don’t want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists.” And of course, we don’t want to do that. But those communities themselves have to take responsibility for the fact that jihadists have lived and recruited and plotted in their midst, generally with no fear that their coreligionists would turn them in. While Muslim tipsters helped expose the latest airplane hijacking plot, and that is highly commendable, all too often the wrath of the Muslim communities in America and Britain has been focused on anti-terror efforts and the foreign policy of their governments – when what is needed instead is an understanding of and tolerance for the need for profiling. But Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain doesn’t think profiling is worth doing anyway: “If the profiling is done on the basis of race and religion, it will be wrong, it is not going to work.”

Why not? All the September 11 hijackers were Muslims. So were the July 7 London bombers. And the Madrid train bombers of March 2004. And on and on. All the plotters in the recent international airplane hijacking attempt are Muslims. All were working on the basis of Islamic theology. Why must officials continue not to notice this? To ignore this is to give up voluntarily the one thing that may make it possible to spot the perpetrators of a terror attack before it happens, and head it off. In other words, it is suicidal."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23910

2 Comments

Entry #524

August 17, 2006
10:02 am

"Saying No to 'Climate Porn'?

"If it bleeds, it leads" isn't working for a discredited media like it used to. However, they're still trying and if they can't do it legitimately they'll do it any way they can.

Seems we just might approach climate control with world population control on the leading edge beginning with organized religion which promotes no birth control measures.

Next tree planting to replace old growth much of which reached its apex and needed to be replaced anyway. Also just how many trees have been clear cut for development, for housing? Beginning now it could make a lot of difference in coming years, despite drought and temp changes.

About the heat wave we've been through this summer .... heard from a pilot that the jet stream remained quite a bit north of where it usually flows, impeding a flow of cool air south.

There are usually reasonable explanations for what's happening .... but they're never revealed by an agenda driven re-education machine known as the media. BTW the re-education machine only works well for "useful-idiots."

embedded live links

"Saying No to 'Climate Porn'?

By Maurizio Morabito

Source Tech Central Station Daily

"In the movie Goodbye Lenin, a son works hard to protect his ailing mother from the fact that Communist East Germany disappeared after 1989.

In an analogy with sinister undertones, global-warming pessimists advocating "climate-friendly behaviour" (CFB) are now being encouraged to make-believe their own reality, building for all of us an almost certainly gloomy future. Armed with propaganda rather than rational persuasion, they are advocating an orthodoxy reminiscent of some past Communist States.

The report "Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?" has just been published by the self-styled "UK's leading progressive think-tank", the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), "as part of its project on how to stimulate" CFB in the UK.

The report tries to answer the question "How could the way climate change is communicated be improved?" The authors Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit looked at "popular [UK] media coverage of climate change" in late 2005-early 2006 (some 600 press articles, plus another 100 items from TV, radio, and web sites) to conclude that "many of the existing approaches to climate change communications clearly seem unproductive".

As experts in the commercial application of linguistic and discourse analysis they recognize that "the climate change discourse in the UK today looks confusing, contradictory and chaotic"; that "the overarching message for the lay public is that in fact, nobody really knows"; and that ultimately the "battle" (to stimulate CFB) is "not won".

Particularly scathing words are reserved for "the alarmist repertoire - as awesome, terrible, immense and beyond human control [...] secretly thrilling - effectively a form of 'climate porn'." This obvious problem has been raised before in environmentalist circles. New York Times columnist Nicholas D Kristof wrote in 2005 about the possible suicide by catastrophic, almost millenarian environmentalism. At the same time, UK sustainable development consultancy Futerra published its report "The Rules of the Game: Principles of Climate Change Communications" asking for a more positive message to be linked to messages on CFB.

Still, alarmism remains the most common form of climate change reporting: stories focus on disappearing species, uncontrollable pests, rising seas, floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, violent storms, scarce food/jobs/resources, and forecasts of millions of human deaths.

Articles and books by renowned scientists are routinely menacing with titles like The End of Nature (Bill McKibben, Bloomsbury 2003) and The Threat to the Planet (Jim Hansen, New York Review of Books, July 13, 2006). Supposedly serious British media outlets don't think twice about reporting the absurd, like the Amazon rainforest incapable of sustaining a couple of years of drought (The Independent, July 23, 2006) or coral reefs needing water temperatures not to vary more than 2 degrees Celsius (BBC News, Feb 21, 2004).

It is not clear why climate porn should be the norm. Are newspapers attracted by the "titillation" consciously or otherwise, to increase sales? Are some scientists attempting clumsy forays into policy making? Perhaps, or perhaps it's also about getting one's "pet issue" recognized in a world full of other scares.

Anyway, even the IPPR is now forced to recognize that climate porn is not the way forward. Ereaut and Segnit go as far as to implicitly recognize that possibly climate change catastrophism is "another apocalyptic construction [...] perhaps a figment of our cultural imaginations". And obviously there is simply no mass movement favoring wholesale curb of CO2 emissions: despite all predictions of doom unless they repent, abandon sinful technology and change their ways away from carbon dioxide, people still use cars, air conditioners and gas for cooking and heating:.

What are fashion-friendly governments such as the UK's to do then to entice CFB in the masses? After their promising start Ereaut and Segnit stick unfortunately to the realm of sheer propaganda, recommending "to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement".

They suggest we: "treat the argument as having been won, at least for popular communications"; convince people that "climate-friendly behaviors" are "normal, natural, right and 'ours'...the kinds of things that people like us do"; and treat "positive climate behaviours" as marketeers treat "buying and consuming".

In other words, those advocating CFB are encouraged to fabricate their own reality, to pretend having won a debate they haven't; and to fool the masses into buying more soap, ahem, into getting rid of their cars, stopping using energy and doing whatever else a "positive climate behaviour" might entail, with enthusiasm and as a matter of course.

Is this really an effective way forward? It is, only in the minds of those assuming (in yet another reminiscence of Communist ideology) that people are not clever enough to understand that an enticing propaganda is still propaganda.

Soap-like political propaganda makes for no good policy either. Do the authors of "Warm Words" realize that those recommendations seal the fate of climate change activism to the area of belief, rather than rational care of the world we live in? What kind of planet will CFB propaganda provide us? As reported by Robert L Bradley Jr. in "Al Gore's telling whoppers again", "isn't it suspicious that the problem is always individual behavior, and the solution is always government action?" And in fact, the current UK government is busy showing the way never having truly renounced its big-government ideology.

British Environment Minister David Miliband is seriously considering curbing freedom and increasing bureaucracy by distributing trendy, unworkable CO2 emission cards. At the same time, the Department for Trade and Industry is ominously working to indoctrinate "children and 'maybe' even their parents in The Right Way to Behave" (James Woudhuysen, Windmills of the mind, July 31, 2006) by building solar power systems on classroom roofs. This being the UK, expect low-quality moral tales on CO2 on TV soon.

Is the terrain being prepared for zealot eco-revolutionaries soon to remove most freedoms and a wide range of technological achievements, imposing us a future "eco-friendly" life of pain, illness, manual labour and struggle, with the belief that human ingenuity is an evil that will destroy the planet instead than improve our lives?

Is this Catastrophism too? Perhaps. But who would have thought 100 years ago of the upcoming Golden Age of Nazism and Communism, doctrines getting ready to kill millions of people: having scientifically proclaimed themselves to be "for the good of humanity"?

The author is a journalist, IT consultant and radio talk show host. His blog can be read at http://omnologos.wordpress.com (in English) and http://mauriziomorabito.wordpress.com (in Italian).

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081606E

Comments

Entry #523

August 16, 2006
10:26 pm

'Hybrid Mutant' Found Dead in Maine

Link via http://www.drudgereport.com/ with a photo on that page. If it drops off it's sometimes available in their archives.

'Hybrid Mutant' Found Dead in Maine http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/16/D8JHRSVO5.html

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Entry #522

August 16, 2006
8:07 pm

Suspicious Container in Seattle Port, Terminal Evacuated

From Michelle Malkin's blog

"Suspicious Container in Seattle Port, Terminal Evacuated

http://michellemalkin.com/mt/oct05-tb.cgi?__mode=view&entry_id=5764

Comments

Entry #521

August 16, 2006
1:47 pm

"Chinese Regime Eyes Texas Port Facilities

"Chinese Regime Eyes Texas Port Facilities

August 6, 2006
American Free press

"The Chinese are eyeing facilities in Texas to further their economic invasion of the United States.

Negotiations are under way for communist Beijing to utilize as a “logistics hub” the former Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, which was closed in 1995 during the Clinton administration’s base reduction program.

If the deal is consummated the Chinese will also gain access to two major Texas ports at Corpus Christi and Houston on the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico, an 11,000-foot-long airstrip, which is part of the Kelly base facilities, rail links with railcar switching facilities and links with five interstate highways. The Chinese are keenly interested in the deal because the San Antonio base will help facilitate its trade with Mexico.

San Antonio will give China access to a highway corridor along I-35, linking San Antonio to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which is just across the border from Laredo in west Texas.

Nuevo Laredo is a major staging ground for Mexican drug cartels, which have fostered an atmosphere of lawlessness in the city. Almost daily people, including police, are shot in the streets. In addition, frequent clashes occur between drug smugglers and U.S. Border Patrol and state and local police on the U.S. side of the border in Laredo.

There have also been reports that Chinese military units have been operating with Mexican army troops, who assist the drug smugglers and have made incursions into the United States.

“San Antonio is a strategic site for commerce between China and the United States and for the exportation of Chinese products to Mexico and Latin America,” Zhou Ming, general director of the Chinese State Agency of Promotions and Chinese Investments, said after a Chinese delegation visited San Antonio last year, according to a report in the Spanish-language newspaper Rumbo, which reports on activities in Mexico and U.S. border states.

Like most Chinese industrial, investment and commerce kingpins, Ming has ties to the People’s Liberation Army, which controls most industry in China with much of the profits going to build up the Chinese military.

Considerable slave labor is used, making it impossible for U.S. workers to compete.

A year ago, San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger and other municipal officials traveled to China to promote the former air base facilities, now renamed the San Antonio Port Authority.

The mayor’s office is working with the Port Authority, the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio and the San Antonio based Omega Group International, which maintains offices in Austin, Texas, San Francisco, Mexico City and Beijing and Qingdao, China.

According to Rumbo, Omega International sponsored visits by Chinese officials last year to San Antonio. J.J. Saulino, press secretary to Hardberger, told AFP that the mayor is interested in the project and traveled to Guangdong province in China to promote it.

Jorge Canavati, vice president of the San Antonio Port Authority, claimed the Rumbo article was “not accurate” and abrasively brushed off questions about the effort to get the Chinese into the former U.S. air base facilities.

The former air base, often referred to as a “dry port” or an “inland port,” because it is not a coastal facility or located on a navigable waterway, “has no limits for the products, from toys to heavy equipment [from China],” Vivian Lee, president of the Omega Group, was quoted by Rumbo as saying.

AFP was told by Rogello Garcia, a spokesman for the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, that a Chinese delegation was in San Antonio last spring to further work out details of the project.

Kelly Air Force Base was opened in 1916 as a training facility. Nearby Lackland Air Force Base was a spin-off from Kelly. The Texas Air National Guard 149th Fighter Wing still utilizes the facility, along with the Air Force Reserve 433rd Airlift Wing.

A spokesperson with the Port Authority told AFP that the base has been used to repair and maintain C-5A Galaxy transport planes, which are the largest aircraft in the Air Force. The base has an 11,000-foot runway to accommodate the C-5A, which the military shares with the Port Authority.

In addition to the airstrip, the Port Authority has a 1,200-acre yard operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. The Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad is also linked to the inland port.

A retired Air Force intelligence officer told AFP that taking over the San Antonio base would likely streamline Chinese exports to the United States and would give them access to ports in Houston and Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast.

The Chinese already control the Panama Canal, through the Hutchison-Whampoa Company, and maintain a major airfield and port facility at Freeport, Bahamas, where Hutchison-Whampoa has a contract through the
Bush administration to provide security for container ships bound for U.S. ports on the East Coast.

Chinese state-owned shipping company Cosco has taken over port facilities and warehousing space at the California ports of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Long Beach. This is one of the reasons cited for China’s interest in the San Antonio inland port, as it has extensive space available for constructing warehouse buildings. According to Port Authority sources, a 108,800-square-foot warehouse facility has already been built at the former base at a cost of $5 million and a slightly smaller 102,400-squarefoot building has also been built.

Best known for his ground-breaking work exposing the U.S. government’s abandonment of American POWs and MIAs in Korea and Vietnam, Mike Blair specializes in military affairs and gunowners’ rights, Blair was cited by Project Censored for having uncovered the top “most censored” story of 1990—a scheme to scuttle the Bill of Rights in the name of “fighting crime.”

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/chinese_regime_eyes_texas_port.html

http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/06_Global/060816.CH.TX.port.html

1 Comment

Entry #520

August 16, 2006
1:33 pm

video "Green Helmet acting as cynical movie director in qana

Found on LittleGreenFootballs via Powerline.

Green Helmet Admits Staging Photos, AP Spins Furiously

Salam Daher, the Green Helmet Guy, admits pimping dead bodies for staged photos.

The AP’s bureau chief in Iran, Kathy Gannon, tries her best to spin the story. (Hat tip: Allahpundit.)

http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php

"Green Helmet acting as cynical movie director in qana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vPAkc5CLgc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elittlegreenfootballs%2Ecom%2Fweblog%2Fweblog%2Ephp

Comments

Entry #519

August 16, 2006
12:27 pm

Israel may not shoot back without permission

Needless to say the UN needs to be cleaned out with a Roto-Rooter and restructured from the ground up. Then perhaps it and its astute proclamations may make sense in a world not in the "Twilight Zone."

"Annan to Israel: Ask me first
Israel may not shoot back without permission

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Stan Goodenough
August 15, 2006

If Hizb'allah breaks the ceasefire - as they already have - and shoots at Israeli citizens or population centers, territory or forces, the IDF may in most cases not respond before informing the United Nations Secretary General of the violation, and obtaining his permission to shoot back.

This is the expectation of Kofi Annan, as spelled out in a letter from him to the sovereign government of the State of Israel earlier this week.

Annan said Israel and Lebanon must immediately inform him if either side has been fired upon, giving as much detail as possible, but "refraining from responding except where clearly required in immediate self-defense."

Under the terms of the ceasefire, when Israel is firing on Hizb'allah Israel is firing on Lebanon.

Annan is an openly pro-Arab world leader who has on more than one occasion accused Israel of deliberately killing civilians and UN peacekeepers, but has never been heard to unequivocally and passionately denounce acts of Arab terrorism against Jews.

While the Hizb'allah's invasion of sovereign Israeli territory on July 12 - when it killed eight IDF soldiers and kidnapped two - and its raining down of nearly 4,000 missiles deliberately on Israeli civilians in their homes constitute war crimes, Annan's United Nations at no time during the 33-day long conflict discussed indicting Hizb'allah or condemning the Lebanese government for permitting these war crimes to take place.

Annan's letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert contains an additional list of "requirements" from this man, who seeks to establish himself as the impartial ceasefire supervisor, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

Thus he also demands of Israel that its forces no longer occupy, or seek to occupy, any additional territory on the Lebanese side. Should Israel observe Hizb'allah forces restocking their rocket supplies north of the Litani River, for example, IDF forces may not cross that boundary to deal with the threat.

According to a report in Ha'aretz Tuesday, a compromise agreement is currently "being hammered out between Hizb'allah and the Lebanese government [that] would allow the Shi'ite guerillas to keep hidden weapons in south Lebanon."

Israel must furthermore give Annan a detailed description of precisely where all its armor and soldiers were deployed at the moment the ceasefire came into effect. Israel may not change the number or location of its troops without informing the UN chief.

In this way Annan believes he will be able to closely police Israel to ensure its compliance.

He plans to watch Israel like a hawk.

Precisely what he plans to do about infractions on the other side is not clear.

Should any firing occur, Annan said in his letter, "the UN undertakes to bring, in an impartial manner, such incidents to the attention of the Security Council as quickly as possible."

Since the ceasefire went into effect early Monday, at least two Hizb'allah terrorists have been killed after firing on IDF forces in southern Lebanon.

Overnight Monday Hizb'allah fired 10 Katyusha rockets and at least four mortars at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

This is in line with Hizb'allah leader Hassan Nasrallah's vow to keep attacking Israeli forces as long as a single IDF soldier remains in Lebanese territory.

And it has been and will continue to be made possible by the refusal of Lebanese Prime Minister Hannah Siniora, as spelled out by him Monday, to in any way try to disarm the Hizb'allah.

Annan has thus far not indicated whether or when he will bring this matter to the attention of the Security Council. "

http://www.jnewswire.com/article/1026

Comments

Entry #518

August 16, 2006
12:10 pm

"Give Us Shari'a, UK Muslim Leaders Tell Gov't

Seems the mafia uses a similar tactic "paying for protection" but this one is saying the violence will stop if moderates can be in control of everything.

Smacks of racketeering, extortion IMHO.

Anyone believing that BS "offer" might want to apply for this job opening ........

"Give Us Shari'a, UK Muslim Leaders Tell Gov't
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
August 16, 2006

"(CNSNews.com) - British Muslim leaders meeting with government representatives to discuss ways of combating extremism are calling for the establishment of Islamic law (shari'a) to govern Muslims' family life.

"We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince [Muslim] young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens," said Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organizations of the U.K. and Ireland.

Pasha was among some 30 Muslim leaders, described as moderates, who met with Ruth Kelly, the minister responsible for communities, amid raging debate in the country over what to do about the terror threat.

The government is appealing to Muslim figures to work harder to prevent extremist views from taking root in their communities, particularly among young people.

The campaign was accelerated after the July 2005 London bombings, and given new urgency in recent days after police discovered what they said was a conspiracy to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft, killing thousands of air passengers and crew.

As of Tuesday, police were holding 24 suspects, all reported to be Muslims.

Pasha stressed that he was calling for the introduction of shari'a codes covering marriage and family life, and not for criminal offenses.

Shari'a is controversial because it provides for punishments including limb amputation for theft and death for apostasy. The legal code is applied in varying degrees in countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Shari'a in family affairs deals with issues such as dowry, inheritance and sharing of assets. In some traditions it also allows men to beat wives who refuse to obey them and won't submit to non-physical admonition, and to end a marriage by declaring "I divorce you" three times.

Pasha said Muslim leaders were ready to cooperate with the government, but wanted a partnership."They should understand our problems then we will understand their problems."

Other Muslim leaders, however, disagreed. Khalid Mahmood, one of four Muslim lawmakers in the House of Commons, said shari'a could not apply in Britain because it was not an Islamic state.

An ICM poll of British Muslims earlier this year found 40 percent of respondents supported the introduction of shari'a in predominantly Muslim areas of Britain, while 41 percent were opposed to the idea.

About 2.7 percent of Britain's 60 million people are Muslims. In another opinion survey of Muslims this year, by polling company NOP, 22 percent of respondents agreed that the London bombings, which killed 52 people, were justified because of Britain's foreign policies. Among Muslims aged under 45, the figure rose to 31 percent.

Exposure of the airline bomb plot led to the introduction of unprecedented security measures at British airports, causing major disruption.

Media reports say the government is considering introducing a system of "profiling," to ensure security staff focus attention on those considered more likely to be suspect -- because of behavior or ethnic/religious background -- and so ease congestion at airports over the longer term. The government has not confirmed the reports.

Muslim Council of Britain General Secretary Muhammad Abdul Bari said the proposal could have the effect of discouraging Muslims from cooperating with police. If profiling was based on race or religion, it would be wrong, he told Sky News.

In another meeting this week, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott met with Muslim lawmakers who earlier had put their names to an open letter saying the government's foreign policies were providing "ammunition to extremists."

The letter, whose signatories included representatives of all major mainstream Muslim organizations, sparked a strong backlash from ministers, who said foreign policy could not be dictated by terrorists.

Heritage Foundation scholar Nile Gardiner called the letter a wake-up call to the government.

"It shatters any illusions that the government's policy of engagement with leading 'moderate' Muslim groups since the 2005 London bombings has reaped any benefits," he said in a memo.

Gardiner urged the British government to "reject the message of appeasement" and for inquiries to be made into links between leading Muslim groups and radical organizations and individuals.

"Britain needs a new generation of Muslim leaders who are untainted by association with, or sympathy for, Islamic extremism and who are proud of their British identity," he said.

"They must be willing to condemn terrorism unequivocally and help root out extremists from Muslim communities."
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200608/INT20060816a.html

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Entry #517

August 14, 2006
10:51 am

"Humanist Myopia: Blaming Bush

"Humanist Myopia: Blaming Bush
August 13th, 2006

By William J. Becker, Jr

Source The American Thinker

"In an opening scene of David Lynch’s 1986 perverse but relevant film Blue Velvet, a man is watering his front lawn on what appears to be a halcyon suburban day in the American town of Lumberton. It’s a carefree scene that follows a montage of similarly placid images. A white picket fence guards a bed of red roses framed by blue sky. A crossing guard raising a stop sign waives schoolchildren safely through a neighborhood intersection. A fireman smiles and waves from the sideboard of his old fashioned fire truck. These scenes imagine an America lost, a tranquilized America where picket fences, crossing guards and firemen guarantee all the protection one requires to meet life’s perils.

But the ersatz tranquility conceals a hidden horror. The garden hose catches in a bramble just as the man is seized with a stroke. Falling to the ground, the camera joins him, then burrows into the grass endoscopically probing the lawn’s dark jungle. It settles on a nest of ravenous insects, their ghastly clamor amplified for effect. Later in the film, the peaceful town is shown to be harboring a treacherous criminal element.

The message? We aren’t always aware of the evil that surrounds us. But for the liberal left in America, for useful idiots like Mike Wallace and Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont, and for mainstream media, the snarling thicket of Islamofascism in our midst is too far below the surface to worry much about. The reason America faces danger is all Bush’s fault, because, unlike Bill Clinton, Bush wouldn’t ignore it.

The left has been extraordinarily successful at pinning blame on President George W. Bush for engineering the current state of global chaos, and, in a way, they have a point. Like a cosmic exterminator, Bush has lifted the floorboards concealing the plague under America’s house. He alone is responsible for reversing the world’s anesthetic complacency and focusing its attention on the subterranean threat. And for that, the liberal left says “Blame Bush.” But that’s all they seem to say.

As tempting as it might be to single Bush out for inventing war, shredding the Bill of Rights, forging a conspiratorial alliance with big business and people of faith, and consolidating power in the hands of a rogue cabal of nefarious intimates (Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld), the Blame Bush crowd can never seem to get enough of blaming Bush. He is responsible for big oil so he seeks out conflict and when he finds it, he can’t wait to invade your privacy. This unforgiving desire to demonize one man inspires sometimes—more often than not—hilariously nutty attacks.

On the website secularhumanist.com, for example, a video, derived from a 2003 article appearing in the secular humanist Free Inquiry Magazine, claims that Bush is a fascist by objective definitional standards. The premise for this far-fetched indictment in which Bush is unsubtly compared with Hitler and selectively matched Third Reich footage with a still shot of him in a Nazi salute (he was merely raising his arm when the photo was taken), is based on a 14-point theory that charges him with:

• Stoking a “powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism” by, among other things, endorsing prominent displays of flags and flag lapel pins and showing pride in our military;
• Showing “disdain for the importance of human rights” by somehow nurturing the conditions necessary for abuses at Abu Ghraib, Camp Gitmo and elsewhere;
• “Scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems” by labeling opponents of his “regime” terrorists;
• Using the military to “assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite”;
• Promoting “rampant sexism” through anti-abortion and homophobic policies;
• Controlling the mass media (I’m not kidding!);
• Obsessing over national security (Again, you can’t make this stuff up!);
• Aligning with the predominant religion of the nation (Just keeps getting weirder!);
• Promoting big business, especially the oil industry;
• Marginalizing labor unions;
• Disdaining intellectuals and the arts;
• Obsessing over crime and punishment;
• Fostering “rampant cronyism and corruption”; and
• Holding fraudulent elections (Here, a shot of Kathryn Harris appears, implying that she rigged the election and stole it for Bush).

Less a definition of fascism, this argument, shorn of any critical reasoning, is a liberal hate manifesto. Liberals hate the idea of a military because it presumes conflict may occur, and, contrary to everything history has shown, they believe America can isolate itself from international threats. They deride accountability for crimes because it encroaches on their personal freedom to behave irresponsibly in ways that might offend or injure others. They scorn religious faith for the same reason. Military bad, intellectuals good seems to sum it up.

Missing from this indictment and the protean examples littering the liberal blogosphere is any mention of the threat of actual fascism in the form of Islamofascism, the tragedy of 9/11, the cut-and-run failures of Mogadishu, the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut by Hezbollah, etc., the alliance of America-hating megalomaniacs leading Iran, North Korea and Venezuela into nuclear ascendancy, the anti-Semitic and anti-democratic forces aligned against western civilization, Wahhabism, the arms underground, al-Qaeda, the history of war, the politics of war or any other relevant idea.

Liberals never understood, much less are apt to remember or appreciate, how in 1998, President Bill Clinton launched a cruise missile attack against a chemical plant in Khartoum, Sudan to distract attention from Monica Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony relating to Clinton’s perjury. As part of the same operation, the U.S. killed civilians targeting terrorist training camps in Afghanistan with cruise missiles. Instead, the left was busy defending Clinton for compromising his office and the nation’s Oval Office, a compromise they simplistically dismiss as benign. “Blame Clinton” was an absent motif in the Nineties because, as the world since has discovered, he were merely watering the lawn. The threat of a future holocaust in our time now seems imaginable due to his absent leadership.

Liberals were MIA then as they are today when the anti-Semitic UN refuses to enforce resolutions against Iraq and Lebanon, forcing the U.S. and Israel into war. The bumper sticker mindset of liberal orthodoxy is manacled by a narrow vision of history, geopolitical naiveté, intellectual dishonesty and an indifference to America’s responsibility around the world. They swoon over “rights” and “freedom” but don’t believe these ideals need to be earned or protected.

For Bush, this means that every Dan Rather or Pinch Sulzberger with an agenda will blame him for the sky falling. And the reason for this is obvious. It is easier to target an individual than it is to target an idea or a policy, which liberals fail miserably at. When they attempt it, trite commentary on fascism is the asinine result. One can only imagine what kind of world we might have if those who blame Bush for the state of the planet fixed the blame where it belongs.

Around the corner in my neighborhood is a sign on someone’s front lawn promoting impeachbush.org., a movement currently without traction that could grab the turf in the 2006 elections. But liberals are no match for the bogeyman they’ve invented. President Ronald Reagan was described as the “Teflon” president because the slings and arrows never seemed to wound him. Bush is an equal to Reagan, not in terms of popularity, but in respect to the power of prayer and faith in God to deflect the endless attacks against him. This, of course, infuriates liberals, who yearn for the satisfaction of hearing Bush respond to just one of them.

But he doesn’t, because he is leading, and history, not shortsightedness, will judge that leadership. Bush, unlike, say Cynthia McKinney, has known this truism all along. So as the Blame Bush movement slogs forward, it will have no one to blame but itself when its power diminishes in November or when the next big terror attack succeeds."

William J. Becker, Jr., is an attorney in Los Angeles, and a past contributor to The American Thinker. "

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5759

Comments

Entry #516

August 12, 2006
11:14 am

"Uncertain Trumpets

Source INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 8/11/2006

"Leadership: If the foiled airline bomb plot sounded familiar, it should. In 1995, al-Qaida planned the same thing as the Clinton administration slept. Democrats hope to press the snooze button again in November.

The 1995 plot was uncovered when Ramzi Yousef, subsequently convicted for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, hastily fled a burning Manila apartment, leaving behind bomb materials and a laptop with disks containing plans for something called Project Bojinka — the Arabic word for "loud explosion."

The plot was to blow up 11 American jetliners over the Pacific Ocean, then crash a plane into CIA headquarters — a mission to be carried out by a Pakistani pilot who had trained at flight schools in North Carolina, Texas and New York. Sound familiar?

One would have thought that after al-Qaida had tried to blow up the WTC in 1993 and was discovered to be plotting to blow up airliners and fly them into buildings, the Clinton administration would have connected the dots and taken action. But it didn't.

A disgusted Philippine Gen. Avelino Razon was so shocked at 9-11 that he called a hasty press conference in Manila. "We told the Americans about the plans to turn planes into flying bombs as far back as 1995," he complained. "Why didn't they pay attention?"

We saw the fruits of Democratic foreign policy on Oct. 3-4, 1993, when the armed forces of the world's only superpower engaged in battle with the forces of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Adid in the streets of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.

After a 15-hour battle, 18 Americans were killed and 80 wounded. One dead U.S. soldier was dragged through the streets in an act designed to humiliate the U.S. in the jihadist world. There was no military response to the humiliation. Osama bin Laden was watching.

On June 25, 1996, terrorists struck Khobar Towers, a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 soldiers.

In 1998, the year of Monica Lewinsky, al-Qaida operatives blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 245 and injuring 5,000.

On Oct. 12, 2000, the warship USS Cole was bombed while refueling in Yemen, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39. All were acts of war, yet the response to each was to do nothing.

This is the party of Sen. Harry Reid, who once boasted after a filibuster: "We killed the Patriot Act." It is the party of Sen. Russ Feingold, who said on the Senate floor: "Let me make one final point about sneak-and-peek warrants. Don't be fooled for a minute into believing that this power is needed. It's not."

It is a party that has appeased terrorists and dictators for decades, which has opposed every terror-fighting tool, including the tracking of terrorist money through foreign banks, and whose entire strategy in the war on terror is: "Bush is bad."

It is the party of DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who said after the New York Times revealed a wartime secret to the enemy, the NSA surveillance program: "We don't need a big brother." But ironically, such surveillance played a key role in foiling the latest plot.

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports: "U.S. officials publicly congratulated Britain for the arrest, but privately two officials suggested that electronic surveillance of terror suspects in Pakistan and Britain provided the initial clues to the plot."

And Time magazine reported: "MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications."

Democrats who whined after 9-11 about what President Bush knew and when he knew it forget about the 1995 plot. They also forget it was Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department, who erected the famous "wall" between intelligence and law enforcement, making "connecting the dots" before 9-11 a virtual impossibility.

She wrote the 1995 memo that helped establish what former Attorney General John Ashcroft testified was the "single greatest structural cause" of Sept. 11 — "the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents," Ashcroft said. "Government erected this wall. Government buttressed this wall. And before Sept. 11, government was blinded by this wall."

Bush tore down that wall just as Ronald Reagan provided the impetus that led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the "evil empire" that built it. It was Reagan who insisted we deploy Pershing missiles in Europe to counter the Soviet SS-20 threat while the likes of John Kerry were pushing for a nuclear freeze.

The two nuclear threats we now face — from Iran and North Korea — both have Jimmy Carter's fingerprints all over them. It was Carter who withdrew U.S. support from our staunch ally, the Shah of Iran, paving the way for the Ayatollah Khomeini and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wants to nuke Israel.

In 1994, Carter jetted off to North Korea to broker a deal Clinton embraced whereby the last Stalinist nation would give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a basket of goodies that included food, oil and modern nuclear reactors. It was Clinton's administration, with Carter's assistance, that was responsible for the nuclear threat Pyongyang now poses.

It was no coincidence that 9-11 occurred after decades of Democratic incompetence and appeasement. It's no accident there has not been another such attack on American soil under Bush.

If the airline bomb plot had been uncovered a week earlier, Joe Lieberman might have won his primary. He knew Iraq wasn't a "distraction" from the war on terror, but a central front in it. He could connect the dots and see the bombings in Baghdad and Bombay and Bali were related.

He could see that whether the bombings were at hotels in Amman, Jordan, or in the subways of London, or in the train stations of Madrid, they were all connected, all part of the same war declared by the enemies of freedom and civilization. Whether it be Hamas, or Hezbollah or al-Qaida, they want to slay the infidels, and that includes all of us.

Like Reagan, Lieberman has not left the Democratic Party. It has left him — for the likes of John Murtha, George Soros and George McGovern. Lieberman is not welcome in the Democratic Party. And such a party does not deserve being given the reins of power in the middle of a war its policies helped create."

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=240185954744914

2 Comments

Entry #514

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