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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 

Entry #518

"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
Entry #517

"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

"They Are Fascists

I hope more begin to speak out.


"They Are Fascists
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

14/08/2006


Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
the general manager of Al -Arabiya television. Mr. Al Rashed is also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in the daily newspapers of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is a US post-graduate degree in mass communications. He has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs. He is currently based in Dubai. 

"Many of us are only concerned with reputation and image, our image in the media, and the reputation of the Muslims in the world, but they do not care about reforming the original source, their children.

When US President George W. Bush described those who plotted to kill thousands of passengers in ten airliners as Muslim fascists, protests from a number of Islamic societies in the west and the east were voiced against this description.

What is wrong with using a bad adjective to describe a terrorist as long as he is willing to personally call himself an Islamist; declares his stance, schemes, and aims; while his supporters publicly call for killing of those whom they consider infidels, or disagree with them religiously or politically.

The strange thing is that the protesting groups, which held a press conference, would better have held it to denounce the deeds of those affiliated to Islam, who harmed all Muslims and Islam.

Bush did not say that the Muslims were fascists; he said that the Muslim fascists were the problem, i.e. he distinguished between an extremist group and the general innocent peaceful Muslims. Yes, fascism is a word that has bad connotations, and is used here to approximate the meaning to the listeners. The westerners know that fascism is an extremist nationalist movement, which emerged from the European society, and was responsible for destructive wars caused by its premises, which are based on discrimination, racism and hatred. This approximation is correct when you apply it to the literature of the Islamic extremists. The same as the Europeans fought fascism and the fascists by word and by gunpowder, the world will fight the extremist Islamists. This is what the good Muslims, who are at the forefront of those hunting down Al-Qaeda, do; the same as the Muslim who exposed the latest conspiracy to hijack the airliners, when he hastened to inform the security authorities when he suspected what was happening in the neighborhood.

This is why I do not understand what those people - who want to protect reputation and image from the westerners - want to call the Muslim extremists who resort to violence? Do they want to call them Khawarij (The earliest Islamic sect, which traces its beginning to a religious-political controversy over the Caliphate)? The problem is that no one (in the west) understands its historical meaning. Do they call them by their names only, such as Osama, Ayman, Muhammad, and Zamani? Do they call them according to the sarcastic Egyptian way: "people who should remain nameless?"

Describing them as fascists in the west is better than all the bad adjectives that rightly or wrongly have been attributed to them. This is because as far as the westerners are concerned, fascism means a specifically defined group that still lives within their societies, is from their ethnic groups and religion, and hence distinguishes between them and the others.

What is more important than preoccupation with preserving the image is to rectify the situation, and to confront the extremists among us. The majority of the westerners did not know anything about Islam and Muslims until Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, Muhammad Ata, and the culprits of the London explosions called themselves Islamists, and started to use the Koran and the Islamic historical nomenclatures. You cannot call the Red Brigades Movement anything g other than what they call themselves, and there is no escape from calling them Italian communists; the same applies to the National Front in Britain, which is described as a Nazi and fascist movement.

At the end, describing rotten apples as rotten does not make the people hate eating good apples. The same applies to the Muslims; there are one billion Muslims in the world, and the world has no option other than dealing with them, and hunting down the evil minority among them. We have wasted a long time since the seventies in being preoccupied with protesting against nomenclatures and images. This is despite the fact that these people hijack civilian airliners, kill people in restaurants, and justify their actions by using pan-Arab or Islamic descriptions. To describe a Muslim as terrorist is natural if he is a terrorist, the same as you do with a Colombian drug smuggler, an Italian Mafioso, a Russian butcher, a British Nazi, or a US right-wing extremist.

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=5994

2 Comments
Entry #515

"Uncertain Trumpets

"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

"Muslims urge Blair to end the violence

How much more "veiled" could this be????????? 

"Muslims urge Blair to end the violence

(Filed: 12/08/2006)

 

"Tony Blair has been urged to change UK foreign policy and do more to end the violence in the Middle East.

A letter to the Prime Minister from some of Britain's most influential Muslims, which appears as a full-page advert in some national newspapers, says current government policy gives "ammunition to extremists" and may put British citizens at risk of attack, both in the UK and abroad.

The 38 Muslim groups which signed the letter include the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain, the British Muslim Forum, the British Muslim Forum and the Muslim Solidarity Committee.

Other signatories include three of the four Muslim MPs - Sadiq Khan, Shahid Malik and Mohammed Sarwar - as well as three of the four Muslim members of the House of Lords - Lord Patel of Blackburn, Lord Ahmed of Rotherham and Baroness Uddin.

It says attacks on civilians are never justified and calls on Mr Blair to "show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion".

Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, said the Government's current Middle East policy was seen by many people as being "unfair and unjust".

He said: "This government has had some major foreign policy successes that have helped make the world a better place. But current policy on the Middle East is seen by almost everyone I speak to as unfair and unjust.

Dr Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain and one of the signatories, said: "As Muslims we condemn attacks on civilians wherever they happen.

"We hope the government will do more to ensure its policy doesn't allow people to believe that the lives of some civilians are worth more to it than others."

The letter to the Prime Minister

(Filed: 12/08/2006)

 

Prime Minister,

As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens.

It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.

To combat terror the government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy.

The debacle of Iraq and now the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.

Attacking civilians is never justified. This message is a global one. We urge the Prime Minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism and change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion.

Such a move would make us all safer. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BMZ3AWO3ASRU1QFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/08/12/umuslims2.xml

Comments
Entry #513

"When Donkeys Turn into One-Trick Ponies

Haven't seen it better stated than this.

 

"When Donkeys Turn into One-Trick Ponies
By Frank Salvato
CNSNews.com Commentary
August 11, 2006

" While the circumstances surrounding the August 9 primary elections in Georgia and Connecticut were quite notable in and of themselves, the more publicized of the two -- the race between Ned Lamont and Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut -- exposed a cancerous vulnerability within the Democratic Party.

More a hostile takeover than an ideological revolution, the anti-war left, backed by big money progressive operatives, has made its move to take control of the party. Should rank-and-file Democrats allow this to happen, it could be disastrous for them and for the country.

No doubt, many in the Democratic Party aren't weeping over the defeat of progressive-leftist Cynthia McKinney. It's likelier that countless numbers of them, especially those elected to office, are relieved by the fact McKinney has to pack her boxing gloves for her trip back to Georgia, closing the book -- again -- on an embarrassing chapter in Democratic politics.

It is safe to assume, however, that McKinney will be just fine in the private sector. We shouldn't be surprised if she turns up on MoveOn.org's version of "The View" along side Cindy Sheehan, Susan Sarandon and Cher, tossing vitriol at anyone who doesn't "testify" in agreement with their socialist leanings.

No, the primary results that should send shivers down the spines of every rational thinking American, Republican and Democrat, Independent and Libertarian, are the ones that saw the Democratic Party of Connecticut abandon Joe Lieberman, the National Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate in 2000, for an unknown, one-trick pony, anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont.

In a recent interview with Greg Allen on The Right Balance radio program, former New York Mayor Ed Koch stated his fear that the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party was "seeking to take over the party again." He further lamented that this move would cost Democrats their chance of capturing the House and/or the Senate in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Mayor Koch went on to say that he has reached out to Sen. Lieberman's campaign offering to do "as much as [he] can to get Joe Lieberman elected as an independent Democrat in the General Election."

While the chances are very good that Joe Lieberman will win as a third-party Independent candidate, there is most certainly a stench in the political wind, and that stench emanates from the rotting of the Democratic Party.

Once considered by many to be the party of the working man, the Democratic Party has turned into a conglomeration of special interest groups that makes K Street in Washington DC look like fraternity row at Faber College in the National Lampoon movie, Animal House.

From NOW to ANSWER, ACORN to ELF, and NAMBLA to GLSEN; where yesterday saw Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and yes, Joseph Lieberman, as the standard-bearers of the Democratic Party, today they stand on the brink of heaping legitimacy on Michael Moore, Ward Churchill and Ted Rall; all of them anti-American, pro-Socialist and pathetically self-absorbed.

Perhaps the most pitiable aspect of this situation is the fact that the anti-war left can't recognize they are being used as pawns by those who count themselves among the "progressive" elitist class.

Where those of the anti-war left are singularly engaged against the necessary actions being undertaken in the global war against radical Islamist terrorism, quasi-socialists the likes of Peter Lewis and George Soros, progressive elitists whose only goal is the consolidation of power, lurk clandestinely behind the scenes funneling money to progressive candidates who share their vision of a one world order, a globalist doctrine and a lesser role for the United States in the world.

By donning the clothing of the "sheeple," these deceptive "wolves," by parroting the rhetoric of the anti-war movement, incite the na/'efve to cast their ballots for "change," doing so by pandering to their championed cause.

It has never been intelligent to vote for a one-issue "change" candidate. The elections of one-trick ponies in 1976 and 1992 saw our country diminished as a result. The inaction of Jimmy Carter in 1979 to quell the birth of the radical Islamist revolution in Iran has led us to the doorstep of Armageddon while the cowardice of Bill Clinton in Somalia empowered those who would pull the nuclear trigger.

In the end, the transformation of the donkey to one-trick pony, the hostile take-over of the Democratic Party by progressive elitists, stands as testimony to our own apathy and indifference. Where newly born democracies witness voter turnouts in the 90% range, we here in the United States are overjoyed with a voter turnout that breaks 50%. The cherished right of self-governance, born of the blood of patriots, cast aside by almost half of the American people because they simply can't be bothered.

If more of the American public took time to live up to the Constitutional obligation of civic responsibility, to explore for themselves the facts of the issues instead of abdicating that responsibility to an agenda-driven media and to investigate just who is soliciting our votes, perhaps we wouldn't be facing the possible downfall of a political party.

Then again, there is a game on tonight, isn't there. "

(Note: Since the writing of this article, British Authorities disrupted a terrorist plot to bomb multiple airliners causing a loss of life on parallel with the events of September 11th , 2001. This stands as a perfect example why one-trick pony, anti-war candidates stand as a direct threat to the safety of our nation and the world.) "

(Frank Salvato is managing editor of The New Media Journal.us.) "
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200608/COM20060811b.html
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Entry #512

E.coli in prepackaged salad greens (not a joke)

For years have always made it a point to carefully re-wash any purchased salad greens even if they're labeled as washed.

"Unseen danger in bagged salads

E.coli in your veggies? At least 26 people in 3 states reportedly got sick

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12536902/

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/salad.asp.

1 Comment
Entry #511

"Reutersgate strikes other news outlets

Sloppy, biased, agenda driven, sensationalist journalism is now roosting on thier heads .......

  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!

 

Falsified photos video.

http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

 


"Reutersgate strikes other news outlets
By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL
Source Jerusalem Post

"At first everyone thought they were just blowing smoke, but the debunking of a Reuters photograph by a group of Web sites has launched a fiery online war in which bloggers have taken on the mainstream media.

Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web site www.LittleGreenFootballs.com is credited with first revealing the scandal, which has been dubbed Reutersgate, but the affair has spread far wider than the Reuters News Agency and into several of the most esteemed media outlets.

More than a dozen accusations of staged or doctored photographs have made their way through various Web sites in the past several weeks. None has been treated by the news outlets as seriously as the original Reuters incident, which saw the photographer Adnin Hajj fired and over 900 of his photos removed from the Reuters wire list. But numerous other outlets - including the BBC, The New York Times and AP - have been forced to recall photos or change captions following inaccuracies pointed out in online forums.

The fact that the online community rather than fellow mainstream media has become a watchdog of accuracy has surprised many who originally derided blogs as being "devoid of accuracy."

"In a blog you don't have to be accurate to anyone but yourself and your readers," said Laya Millman from the Jewlicious.com blog. "There is a great deal of accountability because, if you get anything wrong, the readers will quickly, very quickly, point it out."

As was demonstrated in the case with the Reuters photograph, blogs come with their own teams of investigators: the thousands of readers who stream through the site. Within hours of Charles Johnson's posting on Little Green Footballs, readers of the Web site had gone to work uncovering an array of damning evidence against Hajj, the most serious of which - a second doctored photograph, an Israeli plane altered to make it look as though it was dropping a series of bombs - may have pushed Reuters to fire Hajj after initially announcing that the freelance photographer would be suspended. That photograph, which was discovered by blogger Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report, included an illustrated account of how the photos had been doctored.

Photographs whose veracity has been questioned by blogs in the past few weeks since Reutersgate began include:


Two pictures used by The Associated Press and Reuters, in which the same woman appeared to be crying over the destruction of her Beirut home. Distinguished by a red-checkered scarf and scar on her right cheek, the woman was pictured crying in front of two different locations two weeks apart.

Several photographs of a bombed bridge in Beirut which appear on Reuters and AFP with the different captions stating that the bridge had been bombed on July 18, July 24 and August 5. Bloggers claim that the striking image was photographed to look like several different bombings in order to make destruction in Beirut appear more severe.

In The New York Times photo essay "Attack on Tyre," a photograph of a man who appears dead is accompanied with the caption reading "bodies were still buried under the rubble." However, in a later photograph in the same series, the same man appears to be walking in the foreground of a photo. The Times issued a correction for the first photograph, stating that the man was injured.
Some claim that the online controversy over the photos has gotten out of hand, with many blogs now launching investigations and hurling accusations at a variety of news sources.

"These accusations can be very damning, and need to be handled with care and not thrown out by any angry blogger," said one anonymous poster on Little Green Footballs.

In the meantime, however, Little Green Footballs - along with many other online forums - has been flooded with investigations into mainstream media, with the entire army of its hundreds of thousands of readers eagerly at hand."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1154525850241&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull 

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Entry #510

"Payback Time for the Lebanese Shia

Found this link on another site.  Interesting perspective from the inside looking out.

"Payback Time for the Lebanese Shia
Source Strategy Page
August 10, 2006:

"Hizbollah has no incentive to broadcast the extent of its injuries in the current war. The losses have been substantial. For example, Syrians have noted an enormous exodus of Lebanese Shia into Syria. Some 10-15 percent of Lebanon's Shia appear to have fled the areas of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, for refuge in Syria. They are not just getting away from Israeli bombs, but the rising possibility of another round of civil war with Lebanese Sunnis, Druze and Christians. Hizbollah is a terrorist organization, and for nearly two decades, other Lebanese have been on the receiving end of that terror. There are payback issues in play. Before Hizbollah attacked Israel, these issues were being worked out, but the deal involved Hizbollah disarming and giving up control of southern Lebanon. The Hizbollah militants didn't go for this, partly because they feared retaliation from Lebanese families they had terrorized (via murder, kidnappings or worse) over the last two decades. Better that all of Lebanon should suffer, than a few hundred Hizbollah thugs should pay for their crimes. The Lebanese know this, the Israelis know this, the international media ignores it. But it's these grudges that will destroy Hizbollah in the end. The Shia fleeing to Syria fear their fellow Lebanese more than they fear the Israelis.

Hizbollah doesn't have a large "army." Only a few thousand trained and trustworthy gunmen. About 20 percent of these have been killed or wounded so far. About half of the 70,000 man army is Shia, a consequence of depending on Syria to help form and train the army. That's one reason why most Lebanese don't trust their own army, and why the Israelis don't accept the Lebanese offer to send 15,000 of their soldiers into southern Lebanon to take over from Hizbollah. While the Shia Lebanese soldiers aren't all Hizbollah members, those that are Shia know that Hizbollah can reach their family members. Hizbollah is a terrorist organization, and good at that sort of thing.

While no Lebanese want another round of civil war, if it did happen, it would be everyone against the Hizbollah led Shia. The result would be up to half the Shia population exiled in Syria, and Shia power in Lebanon broken for a long, long time. The Shia sect (Alawites) that runs Syria wouldn't mind a few hundred thousand Shia refugees in their midst, as Shia are only about ten percent of Syria's population. The Sunni Arabs who are the majority of Syrians might mind. Iran would come through with lots of money to make it all better, and keep the Shia in charge of Syria.

Israeli troops advancing into southern Lebanon are finding a lot of late model Russian weapons. Especially abundant are recently manufactured Russian anti-tank missiles. Three post-Cold War Russian missile systems have been found in large numbers. These include the 9M111 Fagot, which has a 25 pound missile fired from a 24 pound launch unit for up to 2,000 meters. Then there is the 9M133 Kornet, a replacement for the 9M111. This is laser guided missile with a range of 5,000 meters. The launcher has a thermal sight for use at night or in fog. The missile's warhead can penetrate 1200 mm of armor, which means that the front and side armor of the Israeli Merkava tank are vulnerable. The missile weighs 18 pounds and the launcher 42 pounds. Then there is the 9M131 Metis 2, which is a 30 pound missile, with a 1,500 meter range. It is fired from a 35 pound control unit, that has a thermal sight. Missiles and launch units have been found in bombed out buildings. The 9M131 can be fired from inside buildings. The missiles are used to take long range shots at Israeli infantry, as Hizbollah knows that, up close, their gunmen tend to lose quickly, and with heavy casualties, to the better trained Israelis. Russia has been selling these new missile systems to Syria and Iran, and this is the first real combat test of these systems. A few Israeli tanks have been hit, but most of the missiles have been fired at Israeli infantry, causing over a hundred casualties. Israel won't release details of these operations until after the war is over, but has admitted that most of their casualties in southern Lebanon have come from these Russian missiles.

Israel is moving sufficient troops, to the Lebanese border, to clear an area about 20 kilometers north of the border. This would severely limit the ability of Hizbollah to fire 122mm rockets into Israel. The Israelis would systematically clear civilians and Hizbollah fighters out of the area. Hizbollah has already lost hundreds of millions of dollars in assets (buildings, vehicles and equipment). The Israelis are holding off on the "20 Kilometer Zone" operation to see if the UN can work out a ceasefire deal. That would have to include a force of "trustworthy" (Western) peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon. There would have to be peacekeepers who could, like the Israelis, fight Hizbollah, and not be intimidated, or bribed by Hizbollah, as has been the case with the current UN peacekeeper force. Hizbollah refuses to accept this more robust force, and Israel will accept nothing less.

Although Israel has lost about fifty soldiers killed so far, this is a much lower loss rate than in previous wars. Better technology, weapons and medical care have all combined to reduce the casualty rate."

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20060810.aspx

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Entry #509

Aug 22 "Iran's Day of Terror?

"Iran's Day of Terror?
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 27, 2006

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?

 

Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

 

The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam’s claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets. The only thing the Qur’an has to say about it is this: “Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things)” (17:1). There is no identification of the “farthest Mosque” with any mosque in Jerusalem in this, but the Hadith is very clear on the identification of its location with Jerusalem.

 

The traditions say that Muhammad and the Buraq, along with the angel Gabriel, went to the Temple Mount, and from there to heaven itself, where Muhammad encountered various prophets. In the sixth heaven was Moses, occasioning a dig at the Jews. “When I left him,” Muhammad says, “he wept. Someone asked him, ‘What makes you weep?’ Moses said, ‘I weep because after me there has been sent (Muhammad as a Prophet) a young man, whose followers will enter Paradise in greater numbers than my followers.’”

 

Evidently, however, Muhammad’s stories of his journey were not altogether convincing: even some of the Muslims abandoned their faith and challenged Muhammad’s most faithful follower, Abu Bakr, to do the same. Abu Bakr was contemptuous: “If he says so then it is true. And what is so surprising in that? He tells me that communications from God from heaven to earth come to him in an hour of a day or night and I believe him, and that is more extraordinary than that at which you boggle!” The world has continued to witness such unshakeable devotion from Muslims to this day.

 

Did Muhammad really go anywhere? According to his favorite wife, Aisha, he did not: “The apostle’s body remained where it was but God removed his spirit by night.” Nevertheless, the Night Journey has become firmly embedded in the Islamic consciousness, such that Muslims today celebrate it as one of the central events of Muhammad’s life. And now, according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.”

 

Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.

 

“Arrogant powers,” Ahmadinejad said, “have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region. But today, the occupier regime” – that is, Israel – “whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion, has reached its finishing line.”

 

Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem? Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late? "

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=23533
2 Comments
Entry #508

Photos of missing Egyptian students.

Photos of missing Egyptian students.  3 captured.
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=492
4 Comments
Entry #507

"Most Billionaires in China are Children of CCP Officials

"Most Billionaires in China are Children of CCP Officials
Zheng Ming Magazine Aug 09, 2006

<excerpt>


"Combined efforts from official Chinese research institutes revealed in an investigation report that primary posts in the fields of finance, foreign trade, land speculation, major projects and negotiable securities are occupied by the children of high-ranking officials. Among China's billionaires, 85 to 90 percent are children of high-ranking officials.".....

........."Source of Billionaire's Wealth Is Family Power
The source of assets for these billionaires is mainly the power of their family background. They make their money through both legal and illegal means. Methods used by these billionaires include, but are not limited to, importing foreign capital to get return commission, exporting national resources and merchandise for profit, land speculation, obtaining large project contracts by force and even smuggling and tax evasion. "......

......."Editor's Note: China's Special Class of Billionaires
The investigative report results released by the CCP's official research departments perfectly illustrates Deng Xiaoping's policy of "allowing a handful of people to get rich first." It appears that the party "without selfish motives" let its own family get rich first.

Every country has billionaires. However, billionaires in democratic countries depend on their ability, wisdom and painstaking efforts to keep their enterprises going. The billionaires in China, however, depend on their parents' ascendance, so it is not surprising that 90 percent of the current billionaires in China are children of high-ranking officials!

(Reprinted from Zheng Ming Magazine) "

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-8-9/44778.html

2 Comments
Entry #506

(Eleven) Egyptian Students Vanish In NY

"EGYPTIAN STUDENTS VANISH IN BIG APPLE
Source New York Post 
"August 8, 2006 -- Eleven Egyptian students who were supposed to travel to a Montana university after flying to JFK airport late last month disappeared in New York, spurring federal authorities to issue a nationwide alert, officials said yesterday.
The students - who were traveling with six classmates from Mansoura University in Egypt - had their student visas revoked for failing to show up at Montana State University in Bozeman, the officials said.
The other six students made it to the college.
"The FBI and ICE [Immigration and Custom Enforcement] would like to locate these 11 students in order to speak with them," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko after the "be-on-the-lookout" alert was issued to all police in the United States.
Kolko said there is no reason to believe the missing students, all men around 20 years old, represent a threat.
"At this point, all they have done is not show up for a scheduled academic program, and their visas have been revoked," Kolko said.
"We do not know of any association with any terrorist or criminal groups. There is no threat associated with these men. We have simply asked law enforcement's assistance in locating them so that the FBI and ICE may interview them."
Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the situation "has to be taken very seriously."
"Having a number of students from an Arab country arriving on student visas and disappearing is cause for concern," he said.
Montana State University Provost David Dooley said 17 Mansoura University students signed up for a 32-day cultural-exchange program to intensively study English, learn about Montana history and go on several field trips.
They arrived at JFK on a flight from Egypt on July 29, but only one managed to clear immigration in time to make a connecting flight, Dooley said.
By July 31, five others had arrived in Bozeman, but the rest were unaccounted for.
Dooley said the ones who showed up "were not certain about the status of their fellow students and why they haven't made it."
MSU alerted federal Homeland Security and Mansoura officials and notified the students via e-mail they had 24 hours to show up in Bozeman. None of them did, Dooley said.
He added, "We're very disappointed by this. It would be regrettable if the misadventures or irresponsibility of a number of students damaged these kinds of programs."

Officials at the Egyptian Consulate in New York and the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said they were unfamiliar with the situation. "
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/egyptian_students_vanish_in_big_apple_regionalnews_dan_mangan.htm
4 Comments
Entry #505

More SuperSlab news

Hutchison Whampoa is closely linked with, or an arm of the People's Liberation Army ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Liberation_Army ) which is the communist party in China. 

After Jimmayh Carter gave Panama the Canal back to Panama, they sold it to Hutchison Whampoa.  Yes it was under treaty to return to Panama but the US built it and had the right to remove all they had put in place there before leaving.  IF Carter had any guts he should have told them so and bet the US would still be in charge of the Panama Canal instead of China. 

Just another flaketard decision by a failed SOCIALIST president who never met a thug-dictator-terrorist he wasn't in love with, nor never missed an opportunity to denigrate the US in every way he could.

BTW, I don't care how many union jobs this treaty abolishes .... it's US sovereignty, US immigration laws and the invasion by illegals is at the heart of my postings about it. 

This treaty needs to be put before congress to decide whether it's legal or not, and they need to iron out the kinks in it to protect us.

"Shipping-corridor deal cuts heart out of heartland
By Phyllis Schlafly
Source Townhall.com

"Grass-roots Americans of all parties and economic classes rose up out of their political apathy a few months ago and forced President George W. Bush to reverse his administration's decision to allow a Middle East government to own America's major ports. But the push for foreign ownership continues: the next port scheduled to be taken over is Kansas City, Mo.

Even though public schools stopped teaching geography a couple of decades ago, most Americans (especially residents of the Show Me State) are surprised to learn that Kansas City (where the only waves are "amber waves of grain") is a port. We are also surprised, and shocked, to discover that Mexico will be running its own inspection facility there.

The plan, shrouded in secrecy, has been in the works for at least three years, but it is now coming to light because of the diligent use of Missouri's Sunshine law by concerned citizens. Joyce Mucci and Francis Semler forced the release of the e-mails from Kansas City to Mexico, including one admitting that "The space (in Kansas City) would need to be designated as Mexican sovereign territory."

SmartPort representatives are now running away from this written admission, blaming "the problems and pressure the media attention has created." However, the stubborn sovereignty issue won't go away; the plan does involve setting up Mexican customs officials in downtown Kansas City.

The mechanism for this deal is a "nonprofit" business economic development corporation called Kansas City SmartPort Inc., whose president is Chris J.F. Gutierrez. The deal calls for Kansas City to lease the valuable property at 1447 Liberty St.

As laid out on SmartPort's Web site, the plan is to enable products made in China to travel in sealed "containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico," through "a ships-to-rail terminal at the port of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico," then up "the evolving trade corridor" to Kansas City, Mo., where they would have their first inspection.

A Kansas City SmartPort brochure explains further: "Kansas City offers the opportunity for sealed cargo containers to travel to Mexican port cities with virtually no border delays."

A key purpose of the project is to take jobs away from U.S. longshoremen in Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., who earn $140,000 a year, and replace them with Mexican laborers at $10,000 a year. U.S. truck drivers and railroad workers will likewise be replaced by Mexicans.

The port of Lazaro Cardenas, on the west coast of southern Mexico, is controlled by Hutchison Whampoa, the same giant Hong Kong shipping firm that owns the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal. Chinese-made goods will be carried by Kansas City Southern Railway de Mexico directly to Kansas City, where freight will be distributed east and west and on to Canada.

Kansas City Southern was originally a belt railway around Kansas City but, after buying various Mexican rail companies and tracks, KCS controls a 2,600-mile artery from Lazaro Cardenas to Kansas City. KCS President Michael Haverty was one of five U.S. businessmen who met with President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at their March summit in Cancun, Mexico.

Mexico was at first expected to pay for the big, expensive machines to conduct high-tech gamma-ray screening for drive-through inspections of containers, but Mexico declined the honor. SmartPort has applied for a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (i.e., to get the U.S. taxpayers to pay for the machines).

The Kansas City City Council has already earmarked $2.5 million in loans and $600,000 in direct aid to SmartPort, which would build and own the facility and then sublet it to the Mexican government. The cost could go as high as $6 million because Kansas City has an existing lease that runs through 2045 on the same property with the 107-year-old American Royal, which uses that land for its annual livestock/rodeo/barbecue event.

The last piece in finalizing this project is getting the U.S. State Department to approve the Mexican operation on U.S. soil by signing off on what is called the C-175 document. It has already been approved by U.S. Customs.

Meanwhile, NASCO (North America's SuperCorridor Coalition Inc.), another nonprofit business organization, has taken on the mission of building an "international, integrated and secure, multimodal transportation system" from Lazaro Cardenas through Kansas City and up to Winnipeg, Canada. This will allow Mexican trucks to haul goods along a 12-lane superhighway through the heartland of the United States." 

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2006/08/08/shipping-corridor_deal_cuts_heart_out_of_heartland
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Entry #504
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