"Islam is a Peaceful Religion: Just How Nuts Does It Have to Get?" by J. B.�Williams
Islam is a Peaceful Religion: Just How Nuts Does It Have to Get?
Written by J. B. Williams
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Just when I thought I had seen everything, I stumble across what might be the most grotesque example of intellectual insanity in the history of the universe. It figures I would find such a shining example of imbecilic lunacy in the halls of our own Congress.
This special kind of idiocy takes the form of House Resolution 288, conceived and sponsored by none other than Mr. “can’t we all just get along without religion” John Conyers, Jr. [(D) of course…] our esteemed representative from Michigan.
The pending bill is Mr. Conyers' answer to the bogus Newsweek report which wrongly accused American soldiers of desecrating the Koran at Gitmo, causing the death (by riot) of some 15 in Afghanistan and furthering the world-wide distrust and hatred of our military personnel.
Instead of introducing a bill that would hold such news agencies accountable for such fatally disastrous, intentionally inflammatory mishaps, Mr. Conyers introduced a bill calling for “religious tolerance” towards, specifically, those who have spent the last 20 odd years attempting to kill us infidels.
Just for the record, members of this peaceful religion have on occasion, been somewhat, shall we say, unmerciful. In fact it would be a fair statement to say they are not known for their tolerance of other ideals, particularly American ideals.
Actually, I’m still searching for any evidence that Islam is a peaceful religion. So far, I have not found a single shred of evidence to support the claim. But let me tell you what I have found.
Members of this so-called peaceful religion have been performing terrorist attacks on innocent people all over the world for some time now. Remember Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988? (Libyan Muslims) How about the first WTC bombing in 1993? (Muslims) Try the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995? (Though the U.S. government has buried this file, Muslim extremists are suspected in this one, too.)
What about the Khobar Towers in 1996? (Muslims) TWA Flight 800 in New York, 1996? (Muslims again suspected) The Atlanta Olympics 1998? (Though an innocent American was arrested, eventually, all arrows pointed towards, you guessed it, Muslims.) How about the embassy bombings in Africa 1998? (Muslims again) The U.S.S. Cole, Yemen 2000? (Muslims)
Of course, my personal favorite, September 11, 2001, the downing of the WTC killing thousands of innocent men, women, and children in New York, hundreds more at the Pentagon, and even hundreds more in that Pennsylvania field where a plane headed for the White House was downed by a few brave captive passengers. (Yep…Muslims)
Then, how about the literally hundreds of fatal attacks on innocent civilian targets in Israel? (Muslims) Countless car bombings, blown up pizza parlors, shopping malls, police stations and government offices around the world? (Muslims) I could go on and on with great specifics, event after event around the world, like the successful train bombing in Spain only 24 hours before their election. But do I really need to? Have you not gotten the picture yet?
The point is this: Can anyone show me any evidence at all, that Islam is a peaceful religion deserving of tolerance? Even if it were, the motivation behind Conyers bill, the Newsweek story, was entirely bogus and retracted by Newsweek soon after its release.
Does anyone doubt that Muslim terrorists will strike American citizens again given the chance? Does anyone doubt that there are Muslims in mosques in America right this minute, who are awaiting marching orders from extremists like Osama Bin Laden as we speak?
Have you any reason to doubt that Muslim jihadists will use chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons on the streets of the United States if they can?
Do you know that Islam attracts most of its estimated 20 million American followers in U.S. prisons? Exactly which part of this religion sounds peaceful to you?
Yet even as our young men and women are dying on foreign soil in an effort to keep this war off of our own doorsteps, Mr. Conyers feels compelled to spend his valuable time in the U.S. Congress working a bill through the system that would guarantee Islam more respect in the U.S. than the Ten Commandments, or the Christian Bible, or the words “under God” in our pledge?
Exactly how nuts does it have to become before the American people rise up against their own perverted ignorant self-aggrandizing morons in Washington, some of whom seem hell-bent upon complete destruction of everything America has ever been?
This is the most absurd demonstration of blind ignorance I have ever witnessed in my life and it could have deadly consequences.
As Conyers focuses his congressional energy on advancing the agenda of those who wish America dead, he has spent his free time, undermining the work of our soldiers in combat. If this isn’t treason, nothing is… no matter what the meaning of “is” is…
How nuts must it get? How many more 9-11s will it take?
Okay, so you hate Jews too. Maybe you don’t even like Christians. Maybe you hate all who practice any religion. Maybe you believe in the “separation of church and state” not mentioned anywhere in our founding documents, for all of these reasons. Are you stupid, too?
Or are you like John Conyers, so self-involved in your desire to make politically divisive policies that you are blind to the destructive nature of your own nonsense? Are you just like Newsweek, and CBS, who are so concerned with promoting the anti-Bush dogma that you never even once stopped to consider the facts or the consequences of your behavior?
Even George W. Bush and members of his administration have gone out of their way to be politically correct on this issue. How many more Americans will have to die before people throw out this delusional practice called political correctness and begin to call evil by its rightful name?
People this insane deserve to lose their country, their home, and their lives. I just don’t want to be living in your neighborhood when your ignorance comes home to roost!
ENOUGH! When the Ten Commandments are once again welcome on any street corner and every schoolhouse in America, then you can talk to me about why I should tolerate a religion that wants me dead.
Until then, don’t talk to me at all!
About the Writer: J. B. Williams notes that he is a business man, husband, father, and a writer. His website is at http://www.jb-williams.com. J. B. receives e-mail at JBW@JB-Williams.com.
Selasa, 31 Mei 2005
Senin, 30 Mei 2005
The Bad Hair Blog
The Bad Hair Blog: "Monday, May 30, 2005
BREAKING NEWS: Is this a rumor?Is Hugo Chavez dead?
People are gathering in big numbers at Miraflores Palace in Caracas amid rumors Hugo Chavez had a heart attack or something like it. The goons have just shut down Avenida Urdaneta in front of the palace to stop inquiring questions from the adoring masses. Venezuelan government spokesman Andres Izarra says that Chavez cancelled his street rally appearance yesterday and his Alo Presidente weekly Sunday TV show 'to spend more time with his family.' And all's 'normal,' he says. Kim Il Sung's spokesman could not have said it better."
BREAKING NEWS: Is this a rumor?Is Hugo Chavez dead?
People are gathering in big numbers at Miraflores Palace in Caracas amid rumors Hugo Chavez had a heart attack or something like it. The goons have just shut down Avenida Urdaneta in front of the palace to stop inquiring questions from the adoring masses. Venezuelan government spokesman Andres Izarra says that Chavez cancelled his street rally appearance yesterday and his Alo Presidente weekly Sunday TV show 'to spend more time with his family.' And all's 'normal,' he says. Kim Il Sung's spokesman could not have said it better."
Everything I Know Is Wrong: For Your Scorn.
Everything I Know Is Wrong: For Your Scorn.: "For Your Scorn.
The Gang of Seven
Lincoln Chafee, Republican, Rhode Island
Susan Collins, Republican, Maine
Mark DeWine, Republican, Ohio
Lindsey Graham, Republican, South Carolina
John McCain, Republican, Arizona
Olympia Snowe, Republican, Maine
John Warner, Republican, Virginia
Bill Frist, Republican, Tennessee, should be an honorary member of the gang. He is, after all, the architect of the environment that made their formation possible."
The Gang of Seven
Lincoln Chafee, Republican, Rhode Island
Susan Collins, Republican, Maine
Mark DeWine, Republican, Ohio
Lindsey Graham, Republican, South Carolina
John McCain, Republican, Arizona
Olympia Snowe, Republican, Maine
John Warner, Republican, Virginia
Bill Frist, Republican, Tennessee, should be an honorary member of the gang. He is, after all, the architect of the environment that made their formation possible."
Rabu, 25 Mei 2005
ChronWatch Writers' Blog: Lying About Middle Eastern Land
ChronWatch Writers' Blog: Lying About Middle Eastern Land: "One of the few things unchallengeable about the Middle East conflict is that it has virtually nothing to do with land. Arab countries already control 6,145,389 square miles of land. That is almost twice the land area of the United States, which is 3,537,438 square miles, and about the same as the land area of Russia. Israel, even when including all of the 'occupied territories' retained from the 1967 SIx Day War, controls less than 10,000 square miles.
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip comprise about 2300 square miles (a bit less when deducting Jerusalem and its suburbs from the account), which is about half the size of the Everglades. The Moonbats-against-Israel lobby wants us to believe that with 6,145,389 square miles, the Arabs want war and genocide, but with 6,145,389 plus 2300 more, then they will want peace. If Israel only trades “land for peace” with the land-deprived Arabs, and never mind that its abandonment of the West Bank would leave an Israel ten miles wide and waiting for the Arab armies to annihilate, then all will be well.
The 'anti-Zionists' want the world to believe that the entire Middle East war is due to the fact that those evil selfish Jews are unwilling to share their 10,000 square miles with the poor land-starved Arabs. But in reality, the obvious true cause of the Middle East war is the fact that the Arab world is unwilling to allow the Jews to control even a sixth of one percent of the territory of the Middle East. The Arabs, controlling more land than any other ethnic group on the planet besides the Russians, are simply unwilling to share even the tiniest sliver of the Middle East with the Jews.
If the 'anti-Zionists', for their part, get what they want, then there will be no Jews left alive in Israel."
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip comprise about 2300 square miles (a bit less when deducting Jerusalem and its suburbs from the account), which is about half the size of the Everglades. The Moonbats-against-Israel lobby wants us to believe that with 6,145,389 square miles, the Arabs want war and genocide, but with 6,145,389 plus 2300 more, then they will want peace. If Israel only trades “land for peace” with the land-deprived Arabs, and never mind that its abandonment of the West Bank would leave an Israel ten miles wide and waiting for the Arab armies to annihilate, then all will be well.
The 'anti-Zionists' want the world to believe that the entire Middle East war is due to the fact that those evil selfish Jews are unwilling to share their 10,000 square miles with the poor land-starved Arabs. But in reality, the obvious true cause of the Middle East war is the fact that the Arab world is unwilling to allow the Jews to control even a sixth of one percent of the territory of the Middle East. The Arabs, controlling more land than any other ethnic group on the planet besides the Russians, are simply unwilling to share even the tiniest sliver of the Middle East with the Jews.
If the 'anti-Zionists', for their part, get what they want, then there will be no Jews left alive in Israel."
Selasa, 24 Mei 2005
Great narative/comment on the changes that hath been wroght!
To venture into the Arab world, as I did recently over four weeks in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, is to travel into Bush Country. I was to encounter people from practically all Arab lands, to listen in on a great debate about the possibility of freedom and liberty. I met Lebanese giddy with the Cedar Revolution that liberated their country from the Syrian prison that had seemed an unalterable curse. They were under no illusions about the change that had come their way. They knew that this new history was the gift of an American president who had put the Syrian rulers on notice. The speed with which Syria quit Lebanon was astonishing, a race to the border to forestall an American strike that the regime could not discount. I met Syrians in the know who admitted that the fear of American power, and the example of American forces flushing Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole, now drive Syrian policy. They hang on George Bush's words in Damascus, I was told: the rulers wondering if Iraq was a crystal ball in which they could glimpse their future.
The weight of American power, historically on the side of the dominant order, now drives this new quest among the Arabs. For decades, the intellectual classes in the Arab world bemoaned the indifference of American power to the cause of their liberty. Now a conservative American president had come bearing the gift of Wilsonian redemption. For a quarter century the Pax Americana had sustained the autocracy of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: He had posed as America's man on the Nile, a bulwark against the Islamists. He was sly and cunning, running afoul of our purposes in Iraq and over Israeli-Palestinian matters. He had nurtured a culture of antimodernism and anti-Americanism, and had gotten away with it. Now the wind from Washington brought tidings: America had wearied of Mr. Mubarak, and was willing to bet on an open political process, with all its attendant risks and possibilities. The brave oppositional movement in Cairo that stepped forth under the banner of Kifaya ("Enough!") wanted the end of his reign: It had had enough of his mediocrity, enough of the despotism of an aging officer who had risen out of the military bureaucracy to entertain dynastic dreams of succession for his son. Egyptians challenging the quiescence of an old land may have had no kind words to say about America in the past. But they were sure that the play between them and the regime was unfolding under Mr. Bush's eyes.
Indeed, this is a spectacular meeting in time. The fact is that people everywhere want some same basic things, summed up by the Virginian Renaissance Man, Thomas Jeffeferson, thus: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As the world has modernized, the list of demands has grown, but the same basic rights underlie all. Thus, given an opportunity, the people will act.
Unfortunately, American power hasn't always been on the right side. For this, America is understanbly excoriated and suspected. But it is curious (though not to true liberals) that anti-Americanism is strongest in relatively peaceful societies that are yet repressed by nominal allies of the United Sates (e.g., Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia), and yet not quite as strong among the people abandoned by America when they sought to answer her bright call (the Shiites of Iraq).
This time, though, America might just be on the right side, and, at the very least, her intentions seem true and sincere. A glaring exception thus far, however, is in Uzbekistan. But that will not stop Lebanese activists from pursuing their own opportunity to try the democratic experiment, especially as America keeps an eye on, and continues to pressure, Syria.
Mr. Ajami even draws the obvious correlation with Europe at the end of the Cold War:
As I made my way on this Arab journey, I picked up a meditation that Massimo d'Azeglio, a Piedmontese aristocrat who embraced that "springtime" in Europe, offered about his time, which speaks so directly to this Arab time: "The gift of liberty is like that of a horse, handsome, strong, and high-spirited. In some it arouses a wish to ride; in many others, on the contrary, it increases the desire to walk." It would be fair to say that there are many Arabs today keen to walk--frightened as they are by the prospect of the Islamists coming to power and curtailing personal liberties, snuffing out freedoms gained at such great effort and pain. But more Arabs, I hazard to guess, now have the wish to ride. It is a powerful temptation that George W. Bush has brought to their doorstep.
Read the whole thing, and thank goodness for writers like Mr. Ajami!ef="http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2005/05/bush-doctrine-creates-more-bush.html">A Western Heart
Senin, 23 Mei 2005
Contracts - "without prejudice"
Contracts - "without prejudice": "'Without Prejudice'
Contracts
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) recognizes that it is possible for anyone of us to be commercially coerced into signing a contract that we would not sign had we true free agency. The UCC provides that if we sign a contract under such adverse conditions, and if we do so “without prejudice” or “under protest,” then we preserve all our rights.
UCC, Section 1-207, states:
Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights
A party who with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Such words as 'without prejudice', 'under protest' or the like are sufficient.
If it is necessary to assert your rights in court, when the point is raised, here is a suggested testimony to offer when explaining what you meant when you claimed “without prejudice”:
“It indicates I have exercised the remedy provided for me in the Uniform Commercial Code by which I might reserve the Common Law Right not to be compelled to perform under any contract that I have not entered knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally. And furthermore, that notifies all administrative agencies of government that I do not accept the liability associated with the compelled benefits of any unrevealed commercial agreement.”
The Uniform Commercial Code is Admiralty Law, which has come on shore. The “without prejudice” clause is the window which enables one to assert their 7th Amendment guarantee of access to the Common Law.
Some people are putting the words, “without prejudice” on everything they sign, above their signature. E.g. they are putting it on applications for driver's license, tax returns, voter registration, bank checks, gun purchases, marriage licenses, etc.
Anderson's UCC annotated part: can only reserve those rights which you have. Explicit about your domicile/citizenship (capitalize Citizenship), a Citizen of the republic not a citizen of the government (see Fourteenth Amendment). It also states that the UCC is in harmony with the Common Law. This then is the only way in which you can assert ('reserve') your Rights as you are being coerced into these contracts with the various levels of government."
Contracts
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) recognizes that it is possible for anyone of us to be commercially coerced into signing a contract that we would not sign had we true free agency. The UCC provides that if we sign a contract under such adverse conditions, and if we do so “without prejudice” or “under protest,” then we preserve all our rights.
UCC, Section 1-207, states:
Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights
A party who with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Such words as 'without prejudice', 'under protest' or the like are sufficient.
If it is necessary to assert your rights in court, when the point is raised, here is a suggested testimony to offer when explaining what you meant when you claimed “without prejudice”:
“It indicates I have exercised the remedy provided for me in the Uniform Commercial Code by which I might reserve the Common Law Right not to be compelled to perform under any contract that I have not entered knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally. And furthermore, that notifies all administrative agencies of government that I do not accept the liability associated with the compelled benefits of any unrevealed commercial agreement.”
The Uniform Commercial Code is Admiralty Law, which has come on shore. The “without prejudice” clause is the window which enables one to assert their 7th Amendment guarantee of access to the Common Law.
Some people are putting the words, “without prejudice” on everything they sign, above their signature. E.g. they are putting it on applications for driver's license, tax returns, voter registration, bank checks, gun purchases, marriage licenses, etc.
Anderson's UCC annotated part: can only reserve those rights which you have. Explicit about your domicile/citizenship (capitalize Citizenship), a Citizen of the republic not a citizen of the government (see Fourteenth Amendment). It also states that the UCC is in harmony with the Common Law. This then is the only way in which you can assert ('reserve') your Rights as you are being coerced into these contracts with the various levels of government."
"Have Conservatives Thrown in the Towel?" by Alan�Caruba
"Have Conservatives Thrown in the Towel?" by Alan�Caruba: "As a movement, a unifying force, the conservatism that mobilized people to vote in sufficient numbers to give control of Congress to Republicans in 1994 and, with the exception of eight years with Bill Clinton in office, has put Republicans in the White House, has lost its momentum.
Since then, the Democrat Party has drifted so far to the left that it needs to change its name to something like, oh, the Socialist Party. Worse yet, what passes for the Republican Party today has drifted to the left with them. Not as far, but enough to become the party of Big Government and Big Spending.
And here’s where it gets fuzzy when one defines “conservatives.” Much of Buchanan’s lament was devoted to the erosion of moral standards. “American culture has become toxic and poisonous,” he said, referencing the garbage coming out of Hollywood and seen on television, although he also noted the reduction of the power of the States as enumerated in the Constitution. Today, the States are in the grip of the federal government thanks to sweeping judicial decisions that deny them the right to decide their own policies.
Today, when people think of “conservatives,” the popular perception is that of religious fundamentalists concerned with moral issues. While they are among the most vocal, there are many more conservatives for whom religion is merely a component of their lives. For them, the traditional conservative issues such as Second Amendment and property rights, privacy, fiscal prudence, and national sovereignty arouse their ire because they have very little traction in Washington, DC these days."
Since then, the Democrat Party has drifted so far to the left that it needs to change its name to something like, oh, the Socialist Party. Worse yet, what passes for the Republican Party today has drifted to the left with them. Not as far, but enough to become the party of Big Government and Big Spending.
And here’s where it gets fuzzy when one defines “conservatives.” Much of Buchanan’s lament was devoted to the erosion of moral standards. “American culture has become toxic and poisonous,” he said, referencing the garbage coming out of Hollywood and seen on television, although he also noted the reduction of the power of the States as enumerated in the Constitution. Today, the States are in the grip of the federal government thanks to sweeping judicial decisions that deny them the right to decide their own policies.
Today, when people think of “conservatives,” the popular perception is that of religious fundamentalists concerned with moral issues. While they are among the most vocal, there are many more conservatives for whom religion is merely a component of their lives. For them, the traditional conservative issues such as Second Amendment and property rights, privacy, fiscal prudence, and national sovereignty arouse their ire because they have very little traction in Washington, DC these days."
Minggu, 22 Mei 2005
Jeff Jacoby: Why Islam is disrespected
Jeff Jacoby: Why Islam is disrespected: "Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers — ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols' — was any reader surprised?
The Muslim riots should have been met by outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek. "
The Muslim riots should have been met by outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek. "
Leaving the left / I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity
Leaving the left / I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity:
= = = = = =
"I smile when friends tell me I've 'moved right.' I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.
In the name of 'diversity,' the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on 'individual style.' The University of Connecticut has banned 'inappropriately directed laughter.' Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment 'may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment.' (Yes, we're talking 'subconscious harassment' here. We're watching your thoughts ...).
Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like 'Why you ain't' and 'Where you is,' Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to 'level the playing field.' Why not? Because 'drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that.'
When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe 'I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening,' Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who 'would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided.'
I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?"
Raed it all. It will make you think!
= = = = = =
"I smile when friends tell me I've 'moved right.' I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.
In the name of 'diversity,' the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on 'individual style.' The University of Connecticut has banned 'inappropriately directed laughter.' Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment 'may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment.' (Yes, we're talking 'subconscious harassment' here. We're watching your thoughts ...).
Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like 'Why you ain't' and 'Where you is,' Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to 'level the playing field.' Why not? Because 'drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that.'
When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe 'I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening,' Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who 'would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided.'
I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?"
Raed it all. It will make you think!
Sabtu, 21 Mei 2005
Michelle Malkin: SAGGY SADDAM IN BRIEFS
Michelle Malkin: SAGGY SADDAM IN BRIEFS: "The terribly abused tyrant gets hair dye, example, 'to keep his mane youthful-looking.'
He gets three squares a day, a fluffy pillow, and full-air conditioning. Plus, 'He can exercise in a 4,300-square-foot back yard while razor wire keeps out would-be attackers. He tends a small garden in a nearby courtyard.'
Reports the Post's Gersh Kuntzman:
'It may look pretty basic from these [photos], but Saddam is pretty comfortable in there,' a soldier who has seen the photos told the newspaper. 'Hell, the man's got much more living space than most the GIs out here. You should see the tent I have to share with 30 other guys.'"
He gets three squares a day, a fluffy pillow, and full-air conditioning. Plus, 'He can exercise in a 4,300-square-foot back yard while razor wire keeps out would-be attackers. He tends a small garden in a nearby courtyard.'
Reports the Post's Gersh Kuntzman:
'It may look pretty basic from these [photos], but Saddam is pretty comfortable in there,' a soldier who has seen the photos told the newspaper. 'Hell, the man's got much more living space than most the GIs out here. You should see the tent I have to share with 30 other guys.'"
A Western HeartWell, he's probably not, but he might as well be. Readers of this blog would've already seen how the UN are overspending by at least US$700 billion on their rebuilding. Now that buys roughly 6 million kilograms of cocaine. Only after ingesting that much would I come up with such a stupid statement as this:
Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Republicans on the House International Relations Committee on Thursday circulated preliminary proposals for a measure that would cut funding for at least 17 programs, demand reductions in staff for others and seek new U.N. positions, such as a chief operating officer and an "ethics office."
If some of the proposals, like reform of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, are not enacted, 50 percent of U.S. dues would be withheld.
In the real world, money is earnt, not handed on a plate. Unfortunately, the UN wants to continue to be a waste of finances, without being accountable or responsible. While we've come to expect this, generally speaking when money is on the line, people will actually attempt to keep to their word and/or do what it takes to get the money they want/need.
However the United Nations is a special case - and since they really don't answer to anyone, they can get away with virtually anything. As a result, the Human Rights Commission is able to do as it pleases, passing criticisms of countries that go nowhere, and withholding attacks on the worst human rights offenders because its an organisation littered by countries who don't uphold the very charter the UNHRC is based on.
Is there any doubt that given a tenth of its current budget, it would achieve the same amount? It's more likely to achieve more than less, simply because currently the UNHRC does absolutely nothing of any value. They criticise Cuba virtually every year, and still Cuba won't even let UNHRC inspectors into the country. Cuba laughs this off, as does every nation "censured" by the Human Rights Commission. And with good reason. When an unaccountable, corrupt organisation passes biased resolutions for purely political reasons that have no standing, and aren't taken seriously by the countries that are meant to change as a result of the resolution, you don't achieve anything.
The UN has had years to pass reforms on billions and billions of dollars worth of income. They've done virtually nothing other than ask for money. If reform will not start from within, then it must be done externally. The Republicans on the House International Relations Committee who are looking at kick-starting these reforms have already done as much as the UN in an effort to reform this twisted group of dictator-appeasing socialists, and thus the UN criticises them for it. They don't want their easy flow of free money threatened. It's as simple as that.
Same old UN, different day.
(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)
Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Republicans on the House International Relations Committee on Thursday circulated preliminary proposals for a measure that would cut funding for at least 17 programs, demand reductions in staff for others and seek new U.N. positions, such as a chief operating officer and an "ethics office."
If some of the proposals, like reform of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, are not enacted, 50 percent of U.S. dues would be withheld.
In the real world, money is earnt, not handed on a plate. Unfortunately, the UN wants to continue to be a waste of finances, without being accountable or responsible. While we've come to expect this, generally speaking when money is on the line, people will actually attempt to keep to their word and/or do what it takes to get the money they want/need.
However the United Nations is a special case - and since they really don't answer to anyone, they can get away with virtually anything. As a result, the Human Rights Commission is able to do as it pleases, passing criticisms of countries that go nowhere, and withholding attacks on the worst human rights offenders because its an organisation littered by countries who don't uphold the very charter the UNHRC is based on.
Is there any doubt that given a tenth of its current budget, it would achieve the same amount? It's more likely to achieve more than less, simply because currently the UNHRC does absolutely nothing of any value. They criticise Cuba virtually every year, and still Cuba won't even let UNHRC inspectors into the country. Cuba laughs this off, as does every nation "censured" by the Human Rights Commission. And with good reason. When an unaccountable, corrupt organisation passes biased resolutions for purely political reasons that have no standing, and aren't taken seriously by the countries that are meant to change as a result of the resolution, you don't achieve anything.
The UN has had years to pass reforms on billions and billions of dollars worth of income. They've done virtually nothing other than ask for money. If reform will not start from within, then it must be done externally. The Republicans on the House International Relations Committee who are looking at kick-starting these reforms have already done as much as the UN in an effort to reform this twisted group of dictator-appeasing socialists, and thus the UN criticises them for it. They don't want their easy flow of free money threatened. It's as simple as that.
Same old UN, different day.
(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)
IF YOU WANTED TO DESTROY AMERICA... HERE'S HOW, IN EIGHT EASY STEPS
IF YOU WANTED TO DESTROY AMERICA... HERE'S HOW, IN EIGHT EASY STEPS: "The magic formula for doing away with this great nation isn't magic at all. In fact, this eight-step process is as easy as apple pie.
Take it from the former Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, who revealed the 'steps' at an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington D.C., attended by some of America's deepest thinkers.
Before Lamm, however, the first speaker, a brilliant professor named Victor Hansen Davis, gave his talk. He discussed his new book 'Mexifornia' which told how immigrants, both legal and illegal, were destroying the entire state of California. He said this wave of immigrants would eventually march across the country until it destroyed all aspects of The American Dream.
Then it was Gov. Lamm's turn. He stood up, walked quietly to the lectern and began to speak. What he said stunned the audience. They sat absolutely spellbound as the ex-governor casually said, 'If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy it. It is not hard to do. If you know how to go about it.'
Then, Lamm went on to reveal the procedure that he said was certain to do the trick. He spelled out the eight simple steps.
'First,' Lamm said, 'I would turn America into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.
'Second, I would encourage immigrants to maintain their culture and make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal, and that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority.
'Third, I would celebrate diversity rather than unity. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language. It is important that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America, reinforcing their differences, rather than emphasizing their similarities.
'Fourth, I would make the fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass. They would be unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our general population.
'Fifth, I would get big foundations and businesses to give these efforts lots of money. I would establish a cult of 'Victimology' by starting a grievance industry blaming all minority failures on the majority population.
'Sixth, to bring down America, I would produce dual citizenships and promote divided loyalties. Celebrate diversity over unity. Stress differences rather than likenesses. Greece had a common language and literature and all worshipped the same God, but Greece fell to the Persians. E. Pluribus Unum - from many, one. If I put emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'unum' I can balkanize America as surely as I'm standing here.
'Seventh, I would place all subject matter off limits---make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of diversity. I would make it impossible to enforce immigration laws. I would have a mantra, It would be this: because immigration has been good for America in the past, it must therefore always be good.
'Last, I would censor Professor Victor Davis's book, 'Mexifornia,' It exposes the dangerous plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book.'
When Gov. Lamm finished speaking he walked quietly back to his seat. There was no applause. There was no whispering or murmuring. The room was still, stunned, shocked. But it was evident that everybody in that room recognized that what Lamm had just said was quietly, darkly and progressively happening across the United States today.
More than 100 languages are tearing apart our education system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures practice strange pagan rituals. American jobs are vanishing. Corporations are creating a Third World America. We have ten million illegal aliens and growing. George Orwell's book '1984' is coming fast to this nation.
Lamm contends that if we don't get this immigration monster stopped soon it will surely destroy The American Dream.
* * * * * *
NOTE: Sincere thanks to Jim Nazzaro for sending me this speech by Gov. Dick Lamm. The full text is too long to use verbatim, but the highlights of his speech are here.
'Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.'"
Take it from the former Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, who revealed the 'steps' at an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington D.C., attended by some of America's deepest thinkers.
Before Lamm, however, the first speaker, a brilliant professor named Victor Hansen Davis, gave his talk. He discussed his new book 'Mexifornia' which told how immigrants, both legal and illegal, were destroying the entire state of California. He said this wave of immigrants would eventually march across the country until it destroyed all aspects of The American Dream.
Then it was Gov. Lamm's turn. He stood up, walked quietly to the lectern and began to speak. What he said stunned the audience. They sat absolutely spellbound as the ex-governor casually said, 'If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy it. It is not hard to do. If you know how to go about it.'
Then, Lamm went on to reveal the procedure that he said was certain to do the trick. He spelled out the eight simple steps.
'First,' Lamm said, 'I would turn America into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.
'Second, I would encourage immigrants to maintain their culture and make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal, and that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority.
'Third, I would celebrate diversity rather than unity. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language. It is important that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America, reinforcing their differences, rather than emphasizing their similarities.
'Fourth, I would make the fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass. They would be unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our general population.
'Fifth, I would get big foundations and businesses to give these efforts lots of money. I would establish a cult of 'Victimology' by starting a grievance industry blaming all minority failures on the majority population.
'Sixth, to bring down America, I would produce dual citizenships and promote divided loyalties. Celebrate diversity over unity. Stress differences rather than likenesses. Greece had a common language and literature and all worshipped the same God, but Greece fell to the Persians. E. Pluribus Unum - from many, one. If I put emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'unum' I can balkanize America as surely as I'm standing here.
'Seventh, I would place all subject matter off limits---make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of diversity. I would make it impossible to enforce immigration laws. I would have a mantra, It would be this: because immigration has been good for America in the past, it must therefore always be good.
'Last, I would censor Professor Victor Davis's book, 'Mexifornia,' It exposes the dangerous plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book.'
When Gov. Lamm finished speaking he walked quietly back to his seat. There was no applause. There was no whispering or murmuring. The room was still, stunned, shocked. But it was evident that everybody in that room recognized that what Lamm had just said was quietly, darkly and progressively happening across the United States today.
More than 100 languages are tearing apart our education system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures practice strange pagan rituals. American jobs are vanishing. Corporations are creating a Third World America. We have ten million illegal aliens and growing. George Orwell's book '1984' is coming fast to this nation.
Lamm contends that if we don't get this immigration monster stopped soon it will surely destroy The American Dream.
* * * * * *
NOTE: Sincere thanks to Jim Nazzaro for sending me this speech by Gov. Dick Lamm. The full text is too long to use verbatim, but the highlights of his speech are here.
'Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.'"
Saddam's Business Partners
Saddam's Business Partners
WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic.
"I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort.
The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal.
Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today.
Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body.
AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions.
Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute.
"Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78."
Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering.
None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise.
In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein.
Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq."
When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled.
Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community."
Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned.
The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck.
"This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion.
Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well."
Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic.
Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant.
Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime."
Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients.
The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme.
On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself.
Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003.
It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years.
AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective.
Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin.
One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement.
A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program."
Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq."
Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels.
The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation.
In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda."
THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors.
And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food.
The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence."
Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant."
I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?"
Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again.
"That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!"
In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering.
Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein?
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic.
"I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort.
The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal.
Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today.
Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body.
AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions.
Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute.
"Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78."
Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering.
None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise.
In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein.
Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq."
When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled.
Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community."
Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned.
The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck.
"This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion.
Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well."
Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic.
Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant.
Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime."
Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients.
The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme.
On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself.
Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003.
It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years.
AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective.
Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin.
One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement.
A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program."
Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq."
Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels.
The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation.
In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda."
THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors.
And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food.
The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence."
Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant."
I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?"
Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again.
"That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!"
In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering.
Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein?
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
Saddam in his Underwear??
In order to balance the picture of Saddam in his underwerar, the following is presented:
FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Videotape Shows Saddam's Men Torturing Iraqis
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101689,00.html
Complete story here:
Another grisley narative on this Demonic Scum:
How short MSNBC and NewsWEAK's memories are.
FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Videotape Shows Saddam's Men Torturing Iraqis
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101689,00.html
Complete story here:
Another grisley narative on this Demonic Scum:
How short MSNBC and NewsWEAK's memories are.
Jumat, 20 Mei 2005
Power Line: Cry Me A River
Power Line: Cry Me A River Saddam's chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team would sue The Sun because the photos represent "an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people."
"It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."
He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
So Saddam will sue the Sun and the Post? Can I volunteer to be on the jury?
Al Jazeera's reaction was puzzling, to say the least:
Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for the Al-Jazeera network, said his network did not show the pictures because it had ethical and professional concerns.
"The photo is demeaning to Iraqis," he said, adding that "from the professional side, it is not news."
It's nice to know that Al Jazeera has "ethical and professional concerns." I hadn't noticed that before, especially when they were showing videos of Westerners having their heads cut off, or photos of captured and dead American soldiers.
"It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."
He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
So Saddam will sue the Sun and the Post? Can I volunteer to be on the jury?
Al Jazeera's reaction was puzzling, to say the least:
Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for the Al-Jazeera network, said his network did not show the pictures because it had ethical and professional concerns.
"The photo is demeaning to Iraqis," he said, adding that "from the professional side, it is not news."
It's nice to know that Al Jazeera has "ethical and professional concerns." I hadn't noticed that before, especially when they were showing videos of Westerners having their heads cut off, or photos of captured and dead American soldiers.
Chrenkoff: "'If this is how liberals support the troops, then could they please f*cking STOP already?'
An American serviceman serving overseas emails CHRENKOFF in the aftermath of the Korangate (or is it Toiletgate?) and the latest scoop by 'The New York Times' about the abuse at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan:
No wonder the rest of the world thinks we�'re the evil ones. We're the ones telling them we are, over and over again. How about a story where the Army Major carries a dying Iraqi kid in his arms, visibly distraught at the carnage those bastards lay on little kids every day? How about a power plant coming on line, or kids going to a new school, or a market with free people shopping, or the 30 attacks that DIDN�'T go off because of the other 99% of interrogations that went according to plan? Nope, it's just those evil, war-mongering, blood-for-oil soldiers, doing what 'everybody knows' they do when no one's looking. With the 'news' coming out of Iraq 100% bad, there's no reason to expect anyone who relies on the media for information to have any positive thoughts on the effort there, no matter what their political standing. Even my family back home is starting to think it's a Vietnam-style 'quagmire'. Al-Qaeda couldn't get better PR service if they paid for it, and the media are providing gladly and free-of-charge!
If this is how liberals support the troops, then could they please f*cking STOP already? Don't tell those of us in the military you 'support the troops', and then spend 110% of your time and print space breaking your necks to paint us all as bloodthirsty criminals because of the acts of a few � all as a thinly-disguised way to grind a political axe with a President with which 90% of the media has a deeply personal beef. It isn't fooling anybody � especially 'the troops'. We're perfectly aware that, to the media, we are expendable pawns in a political chess game, and we resent the hell out the very real damage they do to us every single day. And they wonder why the military votes overwhelmingly Republican as a block? Give me a break!"
Read the whole thing!!!
An American serviceman serving overseas emails CHRENKOFF in the aftermath of the Korangate (or is it Toiletgate?) and the latest scoop by 'The New York Times' about the abuse at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan:
No wonder the rest of the world thinks we�'re the evil ones. We're the ones telling them we are, over and over again. How about a story where the Army Major carries a dying Iraqi kid in his arms, visibly distraught at the carnage those bastards lay on little kids every day? How about a power plant coming on line, or kids going to a new school, or a market with free people shopping, or the 30 attacks that DIDN�'T go off because of the other 99% of interrogations that went according to plan? Nope, it's just those evil, war-mongering, blood-for-oil soldiers, doing what 'everybody knows' they do when no one's looking. With the 'news' coming out of Iraq 100% bad, there's no reason to expect anyone who relies on the media for information to have any positive thoughts on the effort there, no matter what their political standing. Even my family back home is starting to think it's a Vietnam-style 'quagmire'. Al-Qaeda couldn't get better PR service if they paid for it, and the media are providing gladly and free-of-charge!
If this is how liberals support the troops, then could they please f*cking STOP already? Don't tell those of us in the military you 'support the troops', and then spend 110% of your time and print space breaking your necks to paint us all as bloodthirsty criminals because of the acts of a few � all as a thinly-disguised way to grind a political axe with a President with which 90% of the media has a deeply personal beef. It isn't fooling anybody � especially 'the troops'. We're perfectly aware that, to the media, we are expendable pawns in a political chess game, and we resent the hell out the very real damage they do to us every single day. And they wonder why the military votes overwhelmingly Republican as a block? Give me a break!"
Read the whole thing!!!
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle: * * *
"The Islamists insist, 'We kill you for being soft.' Westerners in response feel, 'We are killed because we are not being soft enough.'
And so they riot and kill in Afghanistan over a stupid rumor, and we seek to apologize that it somehow spread.
How truly sad. * * *
Victor Davis Hanson is an amazingly adept writer. He is worthy of serious reading and contemplation.
"The Islamists insist, 'We kill you for being soft.' Westerners in response feel, 'We are killed because we are not being soft enough.'
And so they riot and kill in Afghanistan over a stupid rumor, and we seek to apologize that it somehow spread.
How truly sad. * * *
Victor Davis Hanson is an amazingly adept writer. He is worthy of serious reading and contemplation.
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle: "o we do not dare remind the world that we have nothing to apologize for, given that we have expended lives and treasure in Afghanistan to improve a country that once helped to butcher us. Most of those rioting and killing idolize bin Laden. The problem is not that they are confused, but that they express exactly what they feel — and that is a deep hatred for Western liberalism, manifested on their now sacred day of September 11. We don't say such rude things, not only because it would be stupid politics, but because we don't quite believe them ourselves anymore.
In that sense, we can be as warped as the Afghan rioter. Westerners have their own delusions. We seem to think that our neat gadgets also equate with an ability to refashion human nature or that a fascist abroad needs to know how much we care about his hurt.
There is a sort of arrogance in the liberal West — the handmaiden to our own guilt and self-loathing — that strangely believes we are both to blame for the ills abroad and alone can solve them through handing out money. Almost all of the pathetic rhetoric of al Qaeda — 'colonial exploitation,' 'American hegemony,' or 'blood for oil' — was as imported from the West as were the terrorists' bombs and communications."
In that sense, we can be as warped as the Afghan rioter. Westerners have their own delusions. We seem to think that our neat gadgets also equate with an ability to refashion human nature or that a fascist abroad needs to know how much we care about his hurt.
There is a sort of arrogance in the liberal West — the handmaiden to our own guilt and self-loathing — that strangely believes we are both to blame for the ills abroad and alone can solve them through handing out money. Almost all of the pathetic rhetoric of al Qaeda — 'colonial exploitation,' 'American hegemony,' or 'blood for oil' — was as imported from the West as were the terrorists' bombs and communications."
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle: "Note also after the riots how few Americans announced their immediate scorn for silly rumors about our own POW center in a time of war — especially when it is housing Afghan terrorists who helped kill 3,000 of our own innocents. Can one imagine fundamentalists in the Bible Belt rioting and shooting should they hear an unfounded rumor that an American prisoner in Riyadh, charged with complicity in killing thousands of Arabs, found his Old Testament trashed by a Saudi guard — or a Saudi official promising to apologize to the Western world should a miscreant guard be culpable?"
Kamis, 19 Mei 2005
Power Line: As I sit here drinking a Diet-Pepsi
Power Line: As I sit here drinking a Diet-Pepsi: "As I sit here drinking a Diet-Pepsi
I'm wondering, why should I drink something that tastes this bad after PepsiCo president Indra Nooyi's speech at Columbia. Americans are dying every day bringing freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan, and killing terrorists who target much of the world to which Nooyi thinks we are giving 'the finger.'
Does Diet Coke really taste that much worse than Diet Pepsi? If Donald Sensing, who actually likes the drink, is considering a boycott, so should I."
I'm wondering, why should I drink something that tastes this bad after PepsiCo president Indra Nooyi's speech at Columbia. Americans are dying every day bringing freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan, and killing terrorists who target much of the world to which Nooyi thinks we are giving 'the finger.'
Does Diet Coke really taste that much worse than Diet Pepsi? If Donald Sensing, who actually likes the drink, is considering a boycott, so should I."
Ann Coulter: Newsweek dissembled, Muslims dismembered!
Ann Coulter: Newsweek dissembled, Muslims dismembered!: "No matter how I look at it, I can't grasp the editorial judgment that kills Isikoff's stories about a sitting president molesting the help and obstructing justice, while running Isikoff's not particularly newsworthy (or well-sourced) story about Americans desecrating a Quran at Guantanamo.
Even if it were true, why not sit on it? There are a lot of reasons the media withhold even true facts from readers. These include:
* A drama queen nitwit exclaimed she'd kill herself. (Evan Thomas' reason for holding the Lewinsky story.)
* The need for 'more independent reporting.' (Newsweek President Richard Smith explaining why Newsweek sat on the Lewinsky story even though the magazine had Lewinsky on tape describing the affair.)
* 'We were in Havana.' (ABC president David Westin explaining why 'Nightline' held the Lewinsky story.)
* Unavailable for comment. (Michael Oreskes, New York Times Washington bureau chief, in response to why, the day The Washington Post ran the Lewinsky story, the Times ran a staged photo of Clinton meeting with the Israeli president on its front page.)
* Protecting the privacy of an alleged rape victim even when the accusation turns out to be false.
* Protecting an accused rapist even when the accusation turns out to be true if the perp is a Democratic president most journalists voted for.
* Protecting a reporter's source.
How about the media adding to the list of reasons not to run a news item: 'Protecting the national interest'? If journalists don't like the ring of that, how about this one: 'Protecting ourselves before the American people rise up and lynch us for our relentless anti-American stories.'"
Even if it were true, why not sit on it? There are a lot of reasons the media withhold even true facts from readers. These include:
* A drama queen nitwit exclaimed she'd kill herself. (Evan Thomas' reason for holding the Lewinsky story.)
* The need for 'more independent reporting.' (Newsweek President Richard Smith explaining why Newsweek sat on the Lewinsky story even though the magazine had Lewinsky on tape describing the affair.)
* 'We were in Havana.' (ABC president David Westin explaining why 'Nightline' held the Lewinsky story.)
* Unavailable for comment. (Michael Oreskes, New York Times Washington bureau chief, in response to why, the day The Washington Post ran the Lewinsky story, the Times ran a staged photo of Clinton meeting with the Israeli president on its front page.)
* Protecting the privacy of an alleged rape victim even when the accusation turns out to be false.
* Protecting an accused rapist even when the accusation turns out to be true if the perp is a Democratic president most journalists voted for.
* Protecting a reporter's source.
How about the media adding to the list of reasons not to run a news item: 'Protecting the national interest'? If journalists don't like the ring of that, how about this one: 'Protecting ourselves before the American people rise up and lynch us for our relentless anti-American stories.'"
Emmett Tyrrell: Galloway's comic relief
Emmett Tyrrell: Galloway's comic relief: " The reason Galloway is not credible is that Levin's committee has documents, mounds of documents, linking European officials to profits from the oil-for-food scam that now appears to be the largest case of political graft in history. Saddam used it to arm himself, buy political allies around the world and fund terrorists. Galloway admits that he met repeatedly with Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and even with Saddam, twice -- as frequently as did Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Galloway admits puckishly and pointlessly. Galloway does not deny the import of documents showing him working with a Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat, in various deals in Baghdad. He simply denies that he received money from the 20 million barrels of oil documents say he and Zureikat got.
Galloway's buffoonery aside, the evidence now being displayed by our government explains why so many European politicians were so patient with Saddam's numerous breaches of UN resolutions. There was money in it for them personally. Up until the revelations of the oil-for-food scam, I had thought that the Europeans' refusal to attack Saddam was simply another example of European cowardice. There was in the months before the invasion of Iraq no great debate over weapons of mass destruction. There was only the Europeans' feigned claim that we had not exhausted every diplomatic approach to Saddam. He ignored UN resolutions. He rejected international inspections. He acted willfully and with impunity. Yet at the UN, officials refused to take action. Now we know why: There and in many foreign capitals officials were on the take."
Galloway's buffoonery aside, the evidence now being displayed by our government explains why so many European politicians were so patient with Saddam's numerous breaches of UN resolutions. There was money in it for them personally. Up until the revelations of the oil-for-food scam, I had thought that the Europeans' refusal to attack Saddam was simply another example of European cowardice. There was in the months before the invasion of Iraq no great debate over weapons of mass destruction. There was only the Europeans' feigned claim that we had not exhausted every diplomatic approach to Saddam. He ignored UN resolutions. He rejected international inspections. He acted willfully and with impunity. Yet at the UN, officials refused to take action. Now we know why: There and in many foreign capitals officials were on the take."
The New Republic Online: What God Owes Jefferson (1 of 2)
The New Republic Online: What God Owes Jefferson
What God Owes Jefferson
by Alan Wolfe
Excerpts from the book
* * * * * * *
The First Amendment's other clause--the one separating church and state--is another liberal idea without which conservative religion could not exist. Written just two decades after the publication of The Wealth of Nations, the First Amendment essentially created a free market in the salvation of souls. Left without the financial guarantees offered by state monopolies--especially, in the early American Protestant imagination, the decadent and reactionary Catholic Church--congregations would live or die by their own efforts in recruiting members, tithing their purses, and kindling their enthusiasm.
By the time Tocqueville arrived in the 1830s, the pattern had been set. The itinerant preacher, the bewildering variety of new denominations, the determination to evangelize: all took advantage of America's remarkable experiment in church-state separationism to organize on behalf of God. European religion--not only in its Catholic form, but also in its various Calvinist and Episcopal manifestations, burdened by the privileges secured by established churches--withered and, in the opinion of many, died. But American religion, banned from the state, infused the culture. The more it was kept out of politics, the deeper would be its reach into every other area of life.
///////////////////////////////////
eligions that draw too close to politics lose their capacity to innovate. If they receive government money, they become bureaucracies, which is one reason that at least some deeply conservative believers are skeptical of President Bush's talk about faith-based initiatives. If their objective is to get out the vote, they will want an obedient flock, not disputatious otherworldly saints. Their clergy will become more comfortable in the country club than on the street corner; worried about their standing, the status of their capital campaign, and their ties to local business, they will lose their ability to speak to the economically marginalized, from whom conservative religion has always drawn the bulk of its new recruits. (Whatever its commitment to real Darwinism, the Bush administration's unblinking support for social Darwinism ensures that untold numbers of potential conservative Christians will never live to adulthood.) Their churches may grow, to be sure; indeed, they will develop management objectives, best practices, and consumer surveys to ensure their growth. But the resources of the spirit are limited, and the more that goes into committee work, the less there is for God. Evangelicals did well in America not least because they had little or no political power.
What God Owes Jefferson
by Alan Wolfe
Excerpts from the book
* * * * * * *
The First Amendment's other clause--the one separating church and state--is another liberal idea without which conservative religion could not exist. Written just two decades after the publication of The Wealth of Nations, the First Amendment essentially created a free market in the salvation of souls. Left without the financial guarantees offered by state monopolies--especially, in the early American Protestant imagination, the decadent and reactionary Catholic Church--congregations would live or die by their own efforts in recruiting members, tithing their purses, and kindling their enthusiasm.
By the time Tocqueville arrived in the 1830s, the pattern had been set. The itinerant preacher, the bewildering variety of new denominations, the determination to evangelize: all took advantage of America's remarkable experiment in church-state separationism to organize on behalf of God. European religion--not only in its Catholic form, but also in its various Calvinist and Episcopal manifestations, burdened by the privileges secured by established churches--withered and, in the opinion of many, died. But American religion, banned from the state, infused the culture. The more it was kept out of politics, the deeper would be its reach into every other area of life.
///////////////////////////////////
eligions that draw too close to politics lose their capacity to innovate. If they receive government money, they become bureaucracies, which is one reason that at least some deeply conservative believers are skeptical of President Bush's talk about faith-based initiatives. If their objective is to get out the vote, they will want an obedient flock, not disputatious otherworldly saints. Their clergy will become more comfortable in the country club than on the street corner; worried about their standing, the status of their capital campaign, and their ties to local business, they will lose their ability to speak to the economically marginalized, from whom conservative religion has always drawn the bulk of its new recruits. (Whatever its commitment to real Darwinism, the Bush administration's unblinking support for social Darwinism ensures that untold numbers of potential conservative Christians will never live to adulthood.) Their churches may grow, to be sure; indeed, they will develop management objectives, best practices, and consumer surveys to ensure their growth. But the resources of the spirit are limited, and the more that goes into committee work, the less there is for God. Evangelicals did well in America not least because they had little or no political power.
Rabu, 18 Mei 2005
iowahawk: Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
iowahawk: Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
Decorah, IA - The debris-strewn streets of this remote Midwestern hamlet remain under a tense 24-hour curfew tonight, following weekend demonstrations by rock- and figurine-throwing Lutheran farm wives that left over 200 people injured and leveled the Whippy Dip dairy freeze. The rioting appeared to be prompted, in part, by a report in Newsweek magazine claiming military guards at Spirit Lake’s notorious Okoboji internment center had flushed lutefisk down prison toilets. Newsweek’s late announcement of a retraction seems to have done little to quell the inflamed passions of Lutheran insurgents in the region, as outbreaks of violent mailbox bashings and cow tippings have been reported from Bowbells, North Dakota to Pekin, Illinois.
Whether the violence was triggered by Newsweek’s report of lutefisk desecration or frustration over chronic shortages of Beanie Babies and Old Style, one thing seems certain – occupying U.S. troops face a steep road to reestablish trust in this tinderbox of ancient hatreds and delicious dairy products. Some analysts say the latest outbreak represents the most vexing challenge to US strategy since its invasion the region three years ago.
“It could be months before we get the area back under control,” said Brigadier Gen. Glen Hastings of the US Army’s Southern Minnesota Command. “We’re hoping the tractor pull and swap meet seasons will help calm down some of the violent elements.”
‘Campground of Evil’
Military efforts to stabilize the violent ethnic Protestantism of the region have had a mixed record of success. U.S. paratroopers first landed along the Iowa/Minnesota border in early 2002 to root out extremist Uff Da militants, followers of the charismatic Lutheran cleric Pastor Duane Gunderson. Despite fears of being bogged down in the harsh Mankato winter, troops encountered little resistance, save sporadic eggings from ill-equipped insurgents atop the grain elevators of local cornlords. U.S. forces achieved swift success, taking as many as 1,500 Lutheran rebels into custody and bringing a momentary measure of stability to what has long been considered a dangerous Scandinavian backwater.
The initial battlefield victories, however, have since proven to be only the beginning of the American struggle here. The subsequent occupation created a number of difficult challenges critics claim were overlooked by the White House’s top Midwest war planners. The tipping point seems to have been a 2004 incident at the now notorious Okoboji.
First constructed as a boredom punishment camp for Midwest dissident youth, the US Military Command converted the sprawling Arnold’s Park / Lake Okoboji area into an internment facility to house insurgent detainees. Almost immediately stories began to surface of prisoner mistreatment, including vivisections, anal probes by extraterrestrial strippers, and blackouts of Viking games.
American military spokesmen initially dismissed the stories, but several news organizations – led by Newsweek – obtained a series of shocking photos of a Texas Army Reservist, Tyffanie Cruddup, laughing as she humiliates a naked inmate by putting a Dallas Cowboys stocking hat on his head.
The photos sent the Lutheran street into riots as far as Rheinlander, Wisconsin, and sent shockwaves throughout the media world. The incident received heavy play on network and cable news, the New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, the Guardian, Packers Illustrated, and was the subject of over a dozen off-Broadway dramas during the 2004 season. For its part, Newsweek ran a record eight consecutive covers on Okoboji, along with a special commemorative November 3 collector’s issue with pull-out humiliation poster.
Luting and Looting
In the wake of the incident, American military spokespeople have taken pains to defend handling of prisoners at Okoboji. A series of new guidelines instruct guards to “respect the rituals and traditions of our valued Lutheran prison guests,” including “dietary needs, Wednesday Nite Bingo, and twice daily viewing of Wheel of Fortune.”
“It is important that we remember that Lutheranism is a religion of peace,” said Army spokesman Maj. Richard Lehrman. “And we need to remember to avoid insensitive behavior and remarks that will cause these peaceful Lutherans to go on another bloody killing rampage.”
Despite officials’ claims of intensified sensitivity, rumors have persisted of continued prisoner abuse at Okoboji, including lutefisk desecration – an especially heinous crime under Lutheran doctrine. Some analysts have viewed the rumors skeptically, pointing to the Uff Da insurgent training manual “How To Lie About Lutefisk Desecration By Infidels.” Still, dozens of news organizations continue to investigate the charges.
In its May 6 “Midwest Quagmire Wire” section, Newsweek appeared to have confirmed the lutefisk rumors. Bylined by Senior Correspondent Michael Isikoff, the magazine cited an unidentified source claiming that Okoboji guards had deliberately flushed an entire batch of the pungent cod-and-lye concoction that prisoners had been aging in a specially prepared commode. “The guard smelled it and thought it was prison burrito night,” the source was quoted as saying.
News of the desecration spread quickly from Iowa to the Dakotas to Minnesota and Wisconsin, fanned by radio soybean reports and Lutheran clerics in fiery pancake breakfast sermons. Soon, enraged farm wives, clad in their traditional sweater vests and Disney jackets, had taken to the streets and begun a wild spree of destruction, overturning hundreds of rusty Blazers and Pontiac Grand Ams and hurling flaming Lladro porcelain figurines. Decorah was particularly hard-hit, as a frenzied throng of ululating Iowa women were seen looting needlepoint geese and rabbit tchotchkes from a Victorian craft shop. In a chilling moment caught on Army night vision cameras, their plus-size leader urges the mob to attack the near-by Pamida.
“Ya, you betcha!” came the chant of her enraged coreligionist.
After battling back the women with volleys of teargas and Land’s End catalogs, a detachment of California reservists finally quelled the riot early Sunday morning, and attended to the injured.
Fake But Not Completely Implausible
As soldiers patrolled the streets of Decorah, Faribault and La Crosse Sunday, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker issued a surprising, terse clarification of the original story, saying that the magazine could “no longer vouch for every detail of the story, including the brand of lye used, the number of soldiers and prisoners present, or possibly whether any of it actually happened.”
Whitaker, however, declined to retract the story, saying that the magazine was “standing behind its essential plausibility.”
“Obviously, if it causes thousands of native gals go on a berserk looting rampage, there’s got to be something believable in there somewhere,” said Whitaker. “Obviously, it’s now up to the Administration and the DoD to disprove these charges, once they finish cleaning up the carnage.”
In a later and terser clarification, Whitaker said that the magazine’s anonymous source could no longer remember whether he had ever been to Iowa, was in the military, or knew how to pronounce ‘lutefisk.’ In a still-later, and yet-terser clarification, Whitaker finally retracted the story after revealing that its anonymous source was Kippy, Michael Isikoff’s imaginary childhood friend.
“This is a really unfortunate accident for everybody,” said Whitaker. “But let’s not forget the real victims here – Newsweek, Mike Isikoff, and especially Kippy.”
While retracting the Okoboji accusations, Whitaker said Newsweek stood by the original article’s final two sentences, “Boo-yah! In your FACE, Chimpy!”
Despite the Newsweek’s humiliating public retraction of the controversial lutefisk abuse charges, tensions remain high across the upper Midwest. Many here discount the retraction as being coerced by White House “crusaders,” and believe that other abuses are being covered up at Okoboji.
“Oh yahh, I tell ya what, dere’s a lotta bad stuff goin’ on in dat outfit over dere,” said a young Decorah cleric who identified himself only as ‘Pastor Doug.’ “I heard dem infidels are switchin’ da prisoner’s Leinies with Schlitz.”
Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
Decorah, IA - The debris-strewn streets of this remote Midwestern hamlet remain under a tense 24-hour curfew tonight, following weekend demonstrations by rock- and figurine-throwing Lutheran farm wives that left over 200 people injured and leveled the Whippy Dip dairy freeze. The rioting appeared to be prompted, in part, by a report in Newsweek magazine claiming military guards at Spirit Lake’s notorious Okoboji internment center had flushed lutefisk down prison toilets. Newsweek’s late announcement of a retraction seems to have done little to quell the inflamed passions of Lutheran insurgents in the region, as outbreaks of violent mailbox bashings and cow tippings have been reported from Bowbells, North Dakota to Pekin, Illinois.
Whether the violence was triggered by Newsweek’s report of lutefisk desecration or frustration over chronic shortages of Beanie Babies and Old Style, one thing seems certain – occupying U.S. troops face a steep road to reestablish trust in this tinderbox of ancient hatreds and delicious dairy products. Some analysts say the latest outbreak represents the most vexing challenge to US strategy since its invasion the region three years ago.
“It could be months before we get the area back under control,” said Brigadier Gen. Glen Hastings of the US Army’s Southern Minnesota Command. “We’re hoping the tractor pull and swap meet seasons will help calm down some of the violent elements.”
‘Campground of Evil’
Military efforts to stabilize the violent ethnic Protestantism of the region have had a mixed record of success. U.S. paratroopers first landed along the Iowa/Minnesota border in early 2002 to root out extremist Uff Da militants, followers of the charismatic Lutheran cleric Pastor Duane Gunderson. Despite fears of being bogged down in the harsh Mankato winter, troops encountered little resistance, save sporadic eggings from ill-equipped insurgents atop the grain elevators of local cornlords. U.S. forces achieved swift success, taking as many as 1,500 Lutheran rebels into custody and bringing a momentary measure of stability to what has long been considered a dangerous Scandinavian backwater.
The initial battlefield victories, however, have since proven to be only the beginning of the American struggle here. The subsequent occupation created a number of difficult challenges critics claim were overlooked by the White House’s top Midwest war planners. The tipping point seems to have been a 2004 incident at the now notorious Okoboji.
First constructed as a boredom punishment camp for Midwest dissident youth, the US Military Command converted the sprawling Arnold’s Park / Lake Okoboji area into an internment facility to house insurgent detainees. Almost immediately stories began to surface of prisoner mistreatment, including vivisections, anal probes by extraterrestrial strippers, and blackouts of Viking games.
American military spokesmen initially dismissed the stories, but several news organizations – led by Newsweek – obtained a series of shocking photos of a Texas Army Reservist, Tyffanie Cruddup, laughing as she humiliates a naked inmate by putting a Dallas Cowboys stocking hat on his head.
The photos sent the Lutheran street into riots as far as Rheinlander, Wisconsin, and sent shockwaves throughout the media world. The incident received heavy play on network and cable news, the New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, the Guardian, Packers Illustrated, and was the subject of over a dozen off-Broadway dramas during the 2004 season. For its part, Newsweek ran a record eight consecutive covers on Okoboji, along with a special commemorative November 3 collector’s issue with pull-out humiliation poster.
Luting and Looting
In the wake of the incident, American military spokespeople have taken pains to defend handling of prisoners at Okoboji. A series of new guidelines instruct guards to “respect the rituals and traditions of our valued Lutheran prison guests,” including “dietary needs, Wednesday Nite Bingo, and twice daily viewing of Wheel of Fortune.”
“It is important that we remember that Lutheranism is a religion of peace,” said Army spokesman Maj. Richard Lehrman. “And we need to remember to avoid insensitive behavior and remarks that will cause these peaceful Lutherans to go on another bloody killing rampage.”
Despite officials’ claims of intensified sensitivity, rumors have persisted of continued prisoner abuse at Okoboji, including lutefisk desecration – an especially heinous crime under Lutheran doctrine. Some analysts have viewed the rumors skeptically, pointing to the Uff Da insurgent training manual “How To Lie About Lutefisk Desecration By Infidels.” Still, dozens of news organizations continue to investigate the charges.
In its May 6 “Midwest Quagmire Wire” section, Newsweek appeared to have confirmed the lutefisk rumors. Bylined by Senior Correspondent Michael Isikoff, the magazine cited an unidentified source claiming that Okoboji guards had deliberately flushed an entire batch of the pungent cod-and-lye concoction that prisoners had been aging in a specially prepared commode. “The guard smelled it and thought it was prison burrito night,” the source was quoted as saying.
News of the desecration spread quickly from Iowa to the Dakotas to Minnesota and Wisconsin, fanned by radio soybean reports and Lutheran clerics in fiery pancake breakfast sermons. Soon, enraged farm wives, clad in their traditional sweater vests and Disney jackets, had taken to the streets and begun a wild spree of destruction, overturning hundreds of rusty Blazers and Pontiac Grand Ams and hurling flaming Lladro porcelain figurines. Decorah was particularly hard-hit, as a frenzied throng of ululating Iowa women were seen looting needlepoint geese and rabbit tchotchkes from a Victorian craft shop. In a chilling moment caught on Army night vision cameras, their plus-size leader urges the mob to attack the near-by Pamida.
“Ya, you betcha!” came the chant of her enraged coreligionist.
After battling back the women with volleys of teargas and Land’s End catalogs, a detachment of California reservists finally quelled the riot early Sunday morning, and attended to the injured.
Fake But Not Completely Implausible
As soldiers patrolled the streets of Decorah, Faribault and La Crosse Sunday, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker issued a surprising, terse clarification of the original story, saying that the magazine could “no longer vouch for every detail of the story, including the brand of lye used, the number of soldiers and prisoners present, or possibly whether any of it actually happened.”
Whitaker, however, declined to retract the story, saying that the magazine was “standing behind its essential plausibility.”
“Obviously, if it causes thousands of native gals go on a berserk looting rampage, there’s got to be something believable in there somewhere,” said Whitaker. “Obviously, it’s now up to the Administration and the DoD to disprove these charges, once they finish cleaning up the carnage.”
In a later and terser clarification, Whitaker said that the magazine’s anonymous source could no longer remember whether he had ever been to Iowa, was in the military, or knew how to pronounce ‘lutefisk.’ In a still-later, and yet-terser clarification, Whitaker finally retracted the story after revealing that its anonymous source was Kippy, Michael Isikoff’s imaginary childhood friend.
“This is a really unfortunate accident for everybody,” said Whitaker. “But let’s not forget the real victims here – Newsweek, Mike Isikoff, and especially Kippy.”
While retracting the Okoboji accusations, Whitaker said Newsweek stood by the original article’s final two sentences, “Boo-yah! In your FACE, Chimpy!”
Despite the Newsweek’s humiliating public retraction of the controversial lutefisk abuse charges, tensions remain high across the upper Midwest. Many here discount the retraction as being coerced by White House “crusaders,” and believe that other abuses are being covered up at Okoboji.
“Oh yahh, I tell ya what, dere’s a lotta bad stuff goin’ on in dat outfit over dere,” said a young Decorah cleric who identified himself only as ‘Pastor Doug.’ “I heard dem infidels are switchin’ da prisoner’s Leinies with Schlitz.”
ChronWatch Writers' Blog: "Tom Delay: You May Be Surprised!
'Ever since he was a young man, he and his wife have taken in foster kids. Not just little kids — older kids — sometimes what others call 'dangerous kids.' He gives them a good home and good opportunities and, for many, they go on to form a good life.
He did the same for harassed Jewish families during the height of the Soviet Union. Some he helped secret out.
He forced a Republican president to talk about them, save them and ultimately free them.
At one point, this born-again Christian even helped arrange a Passover Seder for a Jewish family that had never had the privilege.
He's helped minority-owned businesses cut through red tape and have a fighting chance and helped others get the government off their back so they could get on their feet.
He gives a lot to charity, but tells those charities not to say a word about who's the one giving.
He comes from a party that many say is all about the rich, but most of the time he devotes himself to helping the poorest of the poor.
He's given unwed mothers a chance and those from broken homes a hope. You might know him.
His name is Tom DeLay.'
(From the Common Sense segment of Your World With Neil Cavuto, May 16, 2005)"
'Ever since he was a young man, he and his wife have taken in foster kids. Not just little kids — older kids — sometimes what others call 'dangerous kids.' He gives them a good home and good opportunities and, for many, they go on to form a good life.
He did the same for harassed Jewish families during the height of the Soviet Union. Some he helped secret out.
He forced a Republican president to talk about them, save them and ultimately free them.
At one point, this born-again Christian even helped arrange a Passover Seder for a Jewish family that had never had the privilege.
He's helped minority-owned businesses cut through red tape and have a fighting chance and helped others get the government off their back so they could get on their feet.
He gives a lot to charity, but tells those charities not to say a word about who's the one giving.
He comes from a party that many say is all about the rich, but most of the time he devotes himself to helping the poorest of the poor.
He's given unwed mothers a chance and those from broken homes a hope. You might know him.
His name is Tom DeLay.'
(From the Common Sense segment of Your World With Neil Cavuto, May 16, 2005)"
Andrew C. McCarthy on Newsweek & Koran on National Review Online
Andrew C. McCarthy on Newsweek & Koran on National Review Online: "Someone alleges a Koran flushing and what do we do? We expect, accept, and silently tolerate militant Muslim savagery — lots of it. We become the hangin' judge for the imbeciles whose negligence 'triggered' the violence, but offer no judgment about the societal dysfunction that allows this grade of offense to trigger so cataclysmic a reaction. We hop on our high horses having culled from the Left's playbook the most politically correct palaver about the inviolable sanctity of Holy Islamic scripture (and never you mind those verses about annihilating the infidels — the ones being chanted by the killers). "
Michelle Malkin: IT'S NOT JUST NEWSWEEK
Michelle Malkin: IT'S NOT JUST NEWSWEEK: "IT'S NOT JUST NEWSWEEK"
Instapundit.com -: "SIGNS OF PROGRESS IN SYRIA?
Beset by U.S. attempts to isolate his country and facing popular expectations of change, Syrian President Bashar Assad will move to begin legalizing political parties, purge the ruling Baath Party, sponsor free municipal elections in 2007 and formally endorse a market economy, according to officials, diplomats and analysts. . . .
Emboldened opposition leaders, many of whom openly support pressure by the United States even if they mistrust its intentions, said the measures were the last gasp of a government staggering after its hasty and embarrassing troop withdrawal last month from neighboring Lebanon.
The debate over the changes comes during a remarkable surge in what constitutes dissent in this country of 18 million. For the first time in years, opposition figures and even government allies are openly speculating on the fate of a party that, in some fashion, has ruled Syria since 1963 in the name of Arab nationalism, and today faces perhaps its greatest crisis."
Beset by U.S. attempts to isolate his country and facing popular expectations of change, Syrian President Bashar Assad will move to begin legalizing political parties, purge the ruling Baath Party, sponsor free municipal elections in 2007 and formally endorse a market economy, according to officials, diplomats and analysts. . . .
Emboldened opposition leaders, many of whom openly support pressure by the United States even if they mistrust its intentions, said the measures were the last gasp of a government staggering after its hasty and embarrassing troop withdrawal last month from neighboring Lebanon.
The debate over the changes comes during a remarkable surge in what constitutes dissent in this country of 18 million. For the first time in years, opposition figures and even government allies are openly speculating on the fate of a party that, in some fashion, has ruled Syria since 1963 in the name of Arab nationalism, and today faces perhaps its greatest crisis."
Selasa, 17 Mei 2005
Fire and Ice, a poem
Fire and Ice” by: Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
"Greenbacks and 'Wetbacks': Mexico's Northern Strategy" by Robert Klein�Engler
"Greenbacks and 'Wetbacks': Mexico's Northern Strategy" by Robert Klein�Engler: "By carrying out its Northern Strategy unopposed, the Mexican government commits an act of slow and dispersed terrorism against the U. S. Besides the personal cost of this terrorism to our citizens, Columbia University economists David Weinstein and Donald Davis estimate the net economic losses to the nation from illegal immigration is $68 billion a year. If the immediate short term cost of the September 11th attacks on the WTC are estimated to be $27.2 billion, then the losses from illegal immigration are more that twice that much.
George Washington never promised the United States would last forever. If we have 11 million illegal immigrants in our midst, and more than half of them are unwitting Mexican agents with no desire to assimilate, then we do not have to wait for a sudden 9/11 terror attack to happen again. Coatlicue awakens. The cultural divide widens. Another catastrophe is already upon us."
George Washington never promised the United States would last forever. If we have 11 million illegal immigrants in our midst, and more than half of them are unwitting Mexican agents with no desire to assimilate, then we do not have to wait for a sudden 9/11 terror attack to happen again. Coatlicue awakens. The cultural divide widens. Another catastrophe is already upon us."
blood-for-oil-
A Western Heart: "Saddam Hussein rewarded Russia with oil for protecting Iraq from key British and American initiatives in the UN Security Council, US Senate investigators believe.
The Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations found evidence that the Russian presidential administration and the political party that backs President Vladimir Putin were among those paid off with oil allocations in what Iraqi officials knew as the 'Saddam bribery system'.
At one point, Saddam gave Russia additional oil and food contracts under the UN's oil-for-food scheme, specifically to 'show gratitude' to Moscow for vetoing a plan by the US to crack down on cross-border smuggling by Iraq, the report says.
Russia was also rewarded for derailing a British and American plan to restrict Iraqi oil sales to an approved list of recognised oil traders."
The Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations found evidence that the Russian presidential administration and the political party that backs President Vladimir Putin were among those paid off with oil allocations in what Iraqi officials knew as the 'Saddam bribery system'.
At one point, Saddam gave Russia additional oil and food contracts under the UN's oil-for-food scheme, specifically to 'show gratitude' to Moscow for vetoing a plan by the US to crack down on cross-border smuggling by Iraq, the report says.
Russia was also rewarded for derailing a British and American plan to restrict Iraqi oil sales to an approved list of recognised oil traders."
Torture advocate
Torture advocate on refugee tribunal | BN Victoria | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (17-05-2005): "Torture advocate on refugee tribunal
May 17, 2005
From: AAP
A MELBOURNE professor who advocates torturing terrorism suspects revealed today he is also a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal and a lecturer in human rights law.
Professor Mirko Bagaric today defended his controversial paper, entitled Not enough (official) torture in the world?.
The former Victorian policeman argues that torture is justifiable 'when it is the only means possible in order to avert a moral catastrophe'.
'I would only condone it in the rarest of circumstances and certainly not as your garden variety interrogation or punitive technique,' he said on ABC radio today.
Professor Bagaric said he was not an authority on torture methods, but also said the preferred form of torture should be sticking needles under people's fingernails to cause excruciating pain.
He insisted his views did not conflict with his role on the tribunal.
But The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture director Paris Aristotle said it was 'terrifying' that a person in Professor Bagaric's position held such views.
'Our clients, survivors of torture and trauma – women, men, young children – have all been tortured by regimes that use a similar theoretical base to justify their actions,' Mr Aristotle said.
'What happened in Iraq under Saddam, Hussein, what happened in Central America what's happened in countries throughout Africa, all of those regimes have used the natural extension of the arguments in Professor Mirko Bagaric's paper,' he told ABC radio.
'We would have great concerns if he were allowed to continue to hear any of the cases that our clients were presenting with.
'It would be very difficult for someone who had been tortured to feel safe and secure that their experiences were going to be treated in the manner that they would hope that they would be treated, if the person they were in front of had in fact mounted a very strong case for torture.'
Mr Aristotle said the academic's arguments were 'superficial and shallow' and relied on hypotheticals.
'The problem with that is that there's a great disparity between that as a theory and what happens in the real world where none of those elements are in fact secure and the guarantees simply do not exist.'
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said although he had not read the whole paper, on face value he did not think it was acceptable.
'On face value it seems like a provocative stance to take, doesn't it?' he said."
May 17, 2005
From: AAP
A MELBOURNE professor who advocates torturing terrorism suspects revealed today he is also a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal and a lecturer in human rights law.
Professor Mirko Bagaric today defended his controversial paper, entitled Not enough (official) torture in the world?.
The former Victorian policeman argues that torture is justifiable 'when it is the only means possible in order to avert a moral catastrophe'.
'I would only condone it in the rarest of circumstances and certainly not as your garden variety interrogation or punitive technique,' he said on ABC radio today.
Professor Bagaric said he was not an authority on torture methods, but also said the preferred form of torture should be sticking needles under people's fingernails to cause excruciating pain.
He insisted his views did not conflict with his role on the tribunal.
But The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture director Paris Aristotle said it was 'terrifying' that a person in Professor Bagaric's position held such views.
'Our clients, survivors of torture and trauma – women, men, young children – have all been tortured by regimes that use a similar theoretical base to justify their actions,' Mr Aristotle said.
'What happened in Iraq under Saddam, Hussein, what happened in Central America what's happened in countries throughout Africa, all of those regimes have used the natural extension of the arguments in Professor Mirko Bagaric's paper,' he told ABC radio.
'We would have great concerns if he were allowed to continue to hear any of the cases that our clients were presenting with.
'It would be very difficult for someone who had been tortured to feel safe and secure that their experiences were going to be treated in the manner that they would hope that they would be treated, if the person they were in front of had in fact mounted a very strong case for torture.'
Mr Aristotle said the academic's arguments were 'superficial and shallow' and relied on hypotheticals.
'The problem with that is that there's a great disparity between that as a theory and what happens in the real world where none of those elements are in fact secure and the guarantees simply do not exist.'
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said although he had not read the whole paper, on face value he did not think it was acceptable.
'On face value it seems like a provocative stance to take, doesn't it?' he said."
Senin, 16 Mei 2005
Power Line: Trouble At Turtle Bay
Power Line: Trouble At Turtle Bay: "My column for the Weekly Standard has been posted: 'Trouble At Turtle Bay'. As much as the U.N. has been in the news lately, it is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the organization's proposed $1.2 billion headquarters renovation project, to be financed by American taxpayers. The funny thing--well, not so funny in view of the U.N.'s history--is that no one can figure out why the project should cost even half that much money. Donald Trump says there are only two possible explanations for the U.N.'s budget: fraud and incompetence. Read all about it, the U.N. scandal that hasn't yet hit the radar screen, but should, and soon."
Minggu, 15 Mei 2005
Rich/ Poor a perspective
The New Vintage: "The Affluent and Their Bubble
Thomas Sowell has a very interesting piece up about why those that are born with a silver spoon in their mouth are more likely to complain about income distribution and less likely to be grateful about their fortunes.
Here's the dead on quote:
Once you have ever had to go hungry, it is hard to get worked up over the fact that some people can only afford pizza while others can afford caviar. Once you have ever had to walk to work from Harlem to a factory south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the difference between driving a Honda and driving a Lexus seems kind of petty as well.
Would a poverty-stricken peasant in Bangladesh find the difference between the average American's standard of living and that of a millionaire to be something to get excited about? If he had a choice between a certainty of getting the first and one chance in two of getting the second, would he take the risk to go for a million bucks? I doubt it.
When you grow up rich (I imagine), you see other 'less priveleged' people driving a Toyota and feel bad for them. But the person driving the Toyota is most likely saying to themselves, 'Thank goodness I can drive a Toyota and not have to walk five miles to the train station'. Those with less money are perhaps more aware of how life could be much worse, and therefore don't take things for granted.
Sowell goes on to talk about how those that are more affluent tend to take a greater interest in the environment. Another money quote:
Environmentalism is another of the playgrounds of the affluent and the wealthy. 'Nature' is wonderful when you can look out on it from your luxury cabin in the woods or from your upscale digs at the shore.
Roughing it in the wild is great when you know that, if something goes wrong, a helicopter can come in and lift you to safety or to a hospital, as the case may be. This is what might be called artificial nature or the illusion of nature.
Again, it's that basic survival instinct. It's easy to worry about the environment and then reprimand other people for not caring enough, when you have your basic needs, plus, let's say, two hundred dollar opera tickets. But, when you need that money for gas and your kids' education, you're just not going to sweat about having enough trees in our forests.
Read the whole thing. Trust moi.
"
Thomas Sowell has a very interesting piece up about why those that are born with a silver spoon in their mouth are more likely to complain about income distribution and less likely to be grateful about their fortunes.
Here's the dead on quote:
Once you have ever had to go hungry, it is hard to get worked up over the fact that some people can only afford pizza while others can afford caviar. Once you have ever had to walk to work from Harlem to a factory south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the difference between driving a Honda and driving a Lexus seems kind of petty as well.
Would a poverty-stricken peasant in Bangladesh find the difference between the average American's standard of living and that of a millionaire to be something to get excited about? If he had a choice between a certainty of getting the first and one chance in two of getting the second, would he take the risk to go for a million bucks? I doubt it.
When you grow up rich (I imagine), you see other 'less priveleged' people driving a Toyota and feel bad for them. But the person driving the Toyota is most likely saying to themselves, 'Thank goodness I can drive a Toyota and not have to walk five miles to the train station'. Those with less money are perhaps more aware of how life could be much worse, and therefore don't take things for granted.
Sowell goes on to talk about how those that are more affluent tend to take a greater interest in the environment. Another money quote:
Environmentalism is another of the playgrounds of the affluent and the wealthy. 'Nature' is wonderful when you can look out on it from your luxury cabin in the woods or from your upscale digs at the shore.
Roughing it in the wild is great when you know that, if something goes wrong, a helicopter can come in and lift you to safety or to a hospital, as the case may be. This is what might be called artificial nature or the illusion of nature.
Again, it's that basic survival instinct. It's easy to worry about the environment and then reprimand other people for not caring enough, when you have your basic needs, plus, let's say, two hundred dollar opera tickets. But, when you need that money for gas and your kids' education, you're just not going to sweat about having enough trees in our forests.
Read the whole thing. Trust moi.
"
"Stop Apologizing to Islam" by Barbara J.�Stock
"Stop Apologizing to Islam" by Barbara J.�Stock
Stop Apologizing to Islam
Written by Barbara J. Stock
Sunday, May 15, 2005
We Americans need to get our priorities straight. We are at war with Islam. I want President Bush, Secretary Rice, the media, and the bleeding-heart liberals to stop apologizing to Islam and I want it to stop right now. Islamists are slaughtering people all over the world. Islam has threatened to make our streets “run red with American blood.” A Saudi Islamic cleric gave bin Laden permission to detonate a nuke in a major American city. Enough already!
What has set off the latest round of breast-beating and begging for Islamic forgiveness? Allegedly, the Quran was urinated on, or placed on a toilet or something. Newsweek couldn’t wait to report this non-story knowing it would trigger anti-American riots and give the Islamic propaganda machine fodder for weeks to come. In fact, if Islam has any pattern, people will die because of these still unproven allegations. Once again, the sins of Islamists will be on the back page as we Americans scramble to be forgiven by Islam.
Look for more kidnappings that will be followed by the obligatory beheadings of innocent people so that “Islamic honor” can be restored. As we have all learned, only the death of someone not even remotely involved in whatever it is Islamists are enraged about, restores Islam’s “honor.” These beheadings will be video taped and gleefully shown on Al Jazeera every five minutes. In fact, four Afghani men have already died because of that report. Good job, Newsweek.
What has happened to this country? Four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle and his raiders launched an attack on mainland Japan. That raid had one purpose and one purpose only: To humiliate the Japanese and let them clearly know they had picked a fight with the wrong dog. Did Franklin Delano Roosevelt “apologize” for the attack? Of course not! He approved the raid.
On December 7, 1941, 2,403 men died at Pearl Harbor. On September 11, 2001, 2,948 people died with 48 still missing and presumed dead for a total of 2,996 on American soil. Pearl Harbor was at least a military target. The World Trade Center was not.
Now we are at war again. This time with an enemy that has no borders, no country, no government, and no recognizable army. Islam is an enemy that does not hesitate to kill innocent civilians. In fact, Islam prefers civilians because it fears our military. It’s much cheaper and easier to kill a child than a Marine.
Islam was not outraged as Saddam Hussain slaughtered his people. Islam was not outraged as the Taliban executed women for any number of imagined sins. Islam is silent as Iran stones 13-year-old girls to death. Islam is not outraged as thousands of young women die at the hands of their own families in brutal honor killings. Islam says nothing as its terrorist heroes butcher Iraqi Muslims on a daily basis.
What does it take to make a Muslim angry? Say something bad about Islam and you can lose your head. Drop the Quran in the dirt and you will be hanged. In Sudan, a hapless man named Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed, dared speculate that Mohammed was not the son of Abdullah and is now on trial for blasphemy and he will probably be hanged. Mobs of foaming-at-the-mouth Muslims gather outside the courthouse demanding he be torn to bits for even thinking such a thing.
Put women’s underwear on a Muslim prisoner’s head and Islamists lose total control and riot in the streets outraged at the barbaric treatment of their “soldiers.” Islamic terrorists do not uphold a single word of the Geneva Convention. They beat, torture, and behead our prisoners, many of whom are not even soldiers. They desecrate bodies by burning them and hanging them from bridges, but touch that Quran and Islam loses its collective mind.
We are apologizing to these people?
Perhaps Americans need some reminders of some of the crimes that Islam has committed against America. It is in the name of Islam these attacks have been carried out and I hold Islam responsible because it is Islam that has raised these terrorists to hero status.
On the orders of Yassar Arafat the American embassy was attacked in March of 1973 and two diplomats were killed and others were held hostage. Arafat demanded the freedom of fellow Muslim Sirhan Sirhan, in prison for killing Robert Kennedy.
A few months later, in Athens, three Americans were killed and 55 injured as Islamic terrorists threw grenades and machine-gunned civilians waiting for a flight to New York.
In 1983, 17 Americans died when Islamists blew up a car in front of the embassy in Lebanon. Four more Americans died when the American embassy in Kuwait was attacked that same year.
Returning to the American embassy in Lebanon in 1984, 24 more Americans died when yet another car bomb went off outside the embassy.
The year 1985 brought death to five Americans in Rome with 74 wounded in an Islamic attack at the airport. Also in 1985, Americans got their first glimpse into the soul of the enemy when Islamic terrorists took over the cruise ship Achilles Lauro and shot a crippled American Jew in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, and then pushed him overboard.
In May, 1987, the U.S.S. Stark was attacked by an Iraqi fighter plane and 37 American sailors died.
Libya blew up a Pan Am flight over Scotland killing 189 Americans on their way home for Christmas.
Eighteen American soldiers died in Somalia in 1993 and six Americans died in the first World Trade Center bombing with over a thousand injured.
At 9:03 on the morning of April 19, 1995, a Ryder truck blew up in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On that spring day 168 people died—many of them small children. This classic Islamic attack was quickly blamed on two “home-grown” terrorists. This case is in the process of being re-examined due to overwhelming evidence that al Qaeda and possibly Saddam Hussain were involved.
In 1996, 19 Americans died when Islamists blew up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Also in 1996 there was the mysterious downing of TWA Flight 800. There were 169 Americans on board.
August 7, 1997 was the last day on earth for 23 Americans who were at the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
The year 2000 brought the attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 American sailors.
This, of course, brings us to the attack on September 11, 2001. There have been many more attacks leading up to that horrible day and not once has Islam apologized.
I hear, “We don’t want to sink to the Islamists’ level.” I don’t want to hear that any more either. There is absolutely no comparison to be made. Islamic prisoners are fed, clothed, and allowed to practice the very religion that has sworn to kill us all. I don’t hear any Islamic outrage over the hostage beheadings or Iraqi children being targeted by Islamic butchers. I didn’t hear a peep of anger when a British imam said children were legitimate targets for Islam.
Islam seems to have no limit to the evil it will inflict on others. Because of this, Islam has lost all rights to protest an imagined injustice inflicted on it.
About the Writer: Barbara J. Stock is a registered nurse who enjoys writing about politics and current events. She has a website at http://www.republicanandproud.com/. Barbara J. receives e-mail at dickens502003@yahoo.com.
Stop Apologizing to Islam
Written by Barbara J. Stock
Sunday, May 15, 2005
We Americans need to get our priorities straight. We are at war with Islam. I want President Bush, Secretary Rice, the media, and the bleeding-heart liberals to stop apologizing to Islam and I want it to stop right now. Islamists are slaughtering people all over the world. Islam has threatened to make our streets “run red with American blood.” A Saudi Islamic cleric gave bin Laden permission to detonate a nuke in a major American city. Enough already!
What has set off the latest round of breast-beating and begging for Islamic forgiveness? Allegedly, the Quran was urinated on, or placed on a toilet or something. Newsweek couldn’t wait to report this non-story knowing it would trigger anti-American riots and give the Islamic propaganda machine fodder for weeks to come. In fact, if Islam has any pattern, people will die because of these still unproven allegations. Once again, the sins of Islamists will be on the back page as we Americans scramble to be forgiven by Islam.
Look for more kidnappings that will be followed by the obligatory beheadings of innocent people so that “Islamic honor” can be restored. As we have all learned, only the death of someone not even remotely involved in whatever it is Islamists are enraged about, restores Islam’s “honor.” These beheadings will be video taped and gleefully shown on Al Jazeera every five minutes. In fact, four Afghani men have already died because of that report. Good job, Newsweek.
What has happened to this country? Four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle and his raiders launched an attack on mainland Japan. That raid had one purpose and one purpose only: To humiliate the Japanese and let them clearly know they had picked a fight with the wrong dog. Did Franklin Delano Roosevelt “apologize” for the attack? Of course not! He approved the raid.
On December 7, 1941, 2,403 men died at Pearl Harbor. On September 11, 2001, 2,948 people died with 48 still missing and presumed dead for a total of 2,996 on American soil. Pearl Harbor was at least a military target. The World Trade Center was not.
Now we are at war again. This time with an enemy that has no borders, no country, no government, and no recognizable army. Islam is an enemy that does not hesitate to kill innocent civilians. In fact, Islam prefers civilians because it fears our military. It’s much cheaper and easier to kill a child than a Marine.
Islam was not outraged as Saddam Hussain slaughtered his people. Islam was not outraged as the Taliban executed women for any number of imagined sins. Islam is silent as Iran stones 13-year-old girls to death. Islam is not outraged as thousands of young women die at the hands of their own families in brutal honor killings. Islam says nothing as its terrorist heroes butcher Iraqi Muslims on a daily basis.
What does it take to make a Muslim angry? Say something bad about Islam and you can lose your head. Drop the Quran in the dirt and you will be hanged. In Sudan, a hapless man named Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed, dared speculate that Mohammed was not the son of Abdullah and is now on trial for blasphemy and he will probably be hanged. Mobs of foaming-at-the-mouth Muslims gather outside the courthouse demanding he be torn to bits for even thinking such a thing.
Put women’s underwear on a Muslim prisoner’s head and Islamists lose total control and riot in the streets outraged at the barbaric treatment of their “soldiers.” Islamic terrorists do not uphold a single word of the Geneva Convention. They beat, torture, and behead our prisoners, many of whom are not even soldiers. They desecrate bodies by burning them and hanging them from bridges, but touch that Quran and Islam loses its collective mind.
We are apologizing to these people?
Perhaps Americans need some reminders of some of the crimes that Islam has committed against America. It is in the name of Islam these attacks have been carried out and I hold Islam responsible because it is Islam that has raised these terrorists to hero status.
On the orders of Yassar Arafat the American embassy was attacked in March of 1973 and two diplomats were killed and others were held hostage. Arafat demanded the freedom of fellow Muslim Sirhan Sirhan, in prison for killing Robert Kennedy.
A few months later, in Athens, three Americans were killed and 55 injured as Islamic terrorists threw grenades and machine-gunned civilians waiting for a flight to New York.
In 1983, 17 Americans died when Islamists blew up a car in front of the embassy in Lebanon. Four more Americans died when the American embassy in Kuwait was attacked that same year.
Returning to the American embassy in Lebanon in 1984, 24 more Americans died when yet another car bomb went off outside the embassy.
The year 1985 brought death to five Americans in Rome with 74 wounded in an Islamic attack at the airport. Also in 1985, Americans got their first glimpse into the soul of the enemy when Islamic terrorists took over the cruise ship Achilles Lauro and shot a crippled American Jew in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, and then pushed him overboard.
In May, 1987, the U.S.S. Stark was attacked by an Iraqi fighter plane and 37 American sailors died.
Libya blew up a Pan Am flight over Scotland killing 189 Americans on their way home for Christmas.
Eighteen American soldiers died in Somalia in 1993 and six Americans died in the first World Trade Center bombing with over a thousand injured.
At 9:03 on the morning of April 19, 1995, a Ryder truck blew up in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On that spring day 168 people died—many of them small children. This classic Islamic attack was quickly blamed on two “home-grown” terrorists. This case is in the process of being re-examined due to overwhelming evidence that al Qaeda and possibly Saddam Hussain were involved.
In 1996, 19 Americans died when Islamists blew up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Also in 1996 there was the mysterious downing of TWA Flight 800. There were 169 Americans on board.
August 7, 1997 was the last day on earth for 23 Americans who were at the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
The year 2000 brought the attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 American sailors.
This, of course, brings us to the attack on September 11, 2001. There have been many more attacks leading up to that horrible day and not once has Islam apologized.
I hear, “We don’t want to sink to the Islamists’ level.” I don’t want to hear that any more either. There is absolutely no comparison to be made. Islamic prisoners are fed, clothed, and allowed to practice the very religion that has sworn to kill us all. I don’t hear any Islamic outrage over the hostage beheadings or Iraqi children being targeted by Islamic butchers. I didn’t hear a peep of anger when a British imam said children were legitimate targets for Islam.
Islam seems to have no limit to the evil it will inflict on others. Because of this, Islam has lost all rights to protest an imagined injustice inflicted on it.
About the Writer: Barbara J. Stock is a registered nurse who enjoys writing about politics and current events. She has a website at http://www.republicanandproud.com/. Barbara J. receives e-mail at dickens502003@yahoo.com.
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