Bleeding Heart Conservative

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | David Aaronovitch: The conference speech Tony should make:
"Last year I told you that we were at our best when we were boldest. I could have added that we are at our worst when whingeing. But whingeing is all most of you have done since then. It has been a year of complaint.
"A lot of that has been about Iraq. OK, some of you are pacifists, like Mahatma Gandhi, and you don't like war on principle. Fair enough, I suppose, until they turn up to cart you off to the dusty field. But many of you others don't seem to care how many Iraqis old Saddam was killing, just so long as we didn't kill any.
"It doesn't appear to bother you at all that - according to all polls - most Iraqis still think the invasion was a good thing. You know better than they do. You are so certain that it would have been preferable to have left Uday and Qusay in their palaces, and the political prisoners in their torture chambers, yet you call yourselves internationalists! "

Give it a chance to get off the ground...

Michael Novak on Liberalism : "The rich should be the indispensable heroes of liberals, because the rich are the linchpin of the liberal agenda, the one true hope for liberal success. Liberals need the rich. Take away high taxes from the rich, and the liberal program flounders, Chait suggests. Why, then, do liberals hate the rich? It's easier to understand why sheep hate to be shorn, than why liberals hate those they shear."

Sheer petulance.

Quote of the Day:
"It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag."

Palestinian Official Laments 'Intefadeh':
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Palestinians were better off before they launched their uprising against Israel, the ousted Palestinian security chief said Monday, as thousands marched to mark the three-year anniversary of the revolt.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mohammed Dahlan also said the Palestinians misread the dramatic changes brought by the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, and that hurt their aspirations of statehood.
It is rare for Palestinians to openly criticize the 'intefadeh' despite growing misgivings among some, especially those whose lives have been severely disrupted by Israeli travel bans and military raids aimed keeping suicide bombers and gunmen out of Israel.

Front Line Voices: A Poem From Josh:
'Wish You Were Here'
For all the free people that still protest.
You're welcome. We protect you,
you are protected by the best.
Your voice is strong and loud,
but who will fight for you?
No one standing in your crowd.
We are your fathers, brothers, and sons,
wearing the boots and carrying guns.
We are the ones that leave all we own,
to make sure your future is carved in stone.
We are the ones who fight and die,
We might not be able to save the world, Well, at least we try.
We walked the paths to where we are at
and we want no choice other than that.
so when you rally your group to complain,
take a look in the back of your brain.
In order for that flag you love to fly
wars must be fought and young men must die.
We came here to fight for the ones we hold dear.
If that's not respected, we would rather stay here.
So please stop yelling, put down your signs,
and pray for those behind enemy lines.
When the conflict is over and all is well,
be thankful that we chose to go through hell.


Corporal Joshua Miles and all the boys from 3rd Batallion 2nd Marines

Rantingprofs writes:

1st Lt. Eric Knapp describes the successes in Najaf and (a story missed by the press) the way things were worked out in the wake of the murder of that moderate cleric. And his point is clear -- what I saw on the ground and what I saw on TV just are not the same. Knapp was with the 1st Marine Division. The Commanding General of that Division, Jim Mattis, was on The Newshour last night (I will post a link to the transcript if one goes up) and was asked about the kinds of tactics that have led to the disparity between the situation in the areas under his control and, say, Baghdad. (No Marine KIAs under his command since April 20.) Aside from the fact that it was nice for a media outlet to notice there were differerences in the country, his answer was fascinating. He sent tanks home.
He sent Marines home to REDUCE the appearance of an occupation. He introduced 'wave' tactics (everybody wave!) and had his people make eye contact all the time (no sun glasses.) Patrol on foot. etc etc. (NOTE in the midst of the debate over whether what is needed in Iraq is an infusion of additional troops, no one seems to have noticed that one of the most successful commanders WAS SENDING PEOPLE HOME INTENTIONALLY.) And (this strikes me as pure genius) when there were protests and rallies, they went out and distributed cold water to the protesters. The General said (this is a paraphrase) 'It's hard to throw a rock at a man who's just given you a cold drink.'

"Do good to them that spitefully use you."--Jesus Christ
Now, imagine you're an Iraqi, and are afraid of big brother Saddam's secret police all your life. Then things become really chaotic in your homeland after a group of westerners, who you've been taught all your life to hate, invade.
So you protest, after being shown how to by Iranian rabblerousers.
And then your "enemy" gives you water to drink.
Don't you think you might begin to feel a new life, a new hope, emerging within your heart?
Hey, International ANSWER... do you want to take that hope away? After all, if you had your way, it would never have come in the first place.

New Technology for the Third World, September 2003

Production Mini-plants in mobile containers. Worldwide Partners program
SN World Foundation will supply to countries and developing regions the technology and necessary support for production in series of Mini-plants in mobile containers (40-foot). The Mini-plant system is designed in such a way that all the production machinery is fixed on the platform of the container, with all wiring, piping, and installation parts; that is, they are fully equipped... and the mini-plant is ready for production."

More than 700 portable production systems: Bakeries, Water purification, Dehydrated food, Steel Nails, Fruit juice preparation, Tire Retreading, Reinforcement Bar Bending for Construction Framework, Sheeting for Roofing, Ceilings and Façades, Plated Drums, Aluminum Buckets, Injected Polypropylene Housewares, Pressed Melamine Items (Glasses, Cups, Plates, Mugs, etc.), Mufflers, Construction Electrically Welded Mesh, Plastic Bags and Packaging, Mobile units of medical assistance, Sanitary Material, Hypodermic Syringes, Hemostatic Clamps, etc.

SN World Foundation has started a Co-investment program for the installation of small Assembly plants to manufacture in series the Mini-plants of portable production on site, region or country where required. One of the most relevant features is the fact that these plants will be connected to the International Trade System, with access to more than 50 million raw materials, products and services and automatic transactions for world trade.

Due to financial reasons, involving cost and social impact, the best solution is setting up assembly plants on the same countries and regions, using local resources (labor, some equipment, etc.) SN World Foundation participates at 50% (fifty percent) for investment of each Assembly plant.

By Sarah Mathews, Manager Program

Structural collapse on Temple Mount:
"An interior wall has collapsed at a hotly contested Jerusalem holy site, setting off fears of religious violence between Muslims and Jews. "

So a holy wall fell down, let's kill somebody? Wait there's more:

"Despite the fact the Temple Mount is the only real estate in the world revered by Jews, Israel has turned over day-to-day administration of the area to the Waqf, an Islamic trust with close ties to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority."

Then no matter how you slice it, it will be their responsibility.

"Should it collapse, some archeologists fear a doomsday effect – dead worshippers, perhaps in the thousands, riots throughout the Middle East and charges that Israel is responsible."

No blood for rocks.

The Iraq-Al Qaeda Connections:

"A wealth of evidence on the public record -- from government reports and congressional testimony to news accounts from major newspapers -- attests to longstanding ties between bin Laden and Saddam going back to 1994.
Those who try to whitewash Saddam's record don't dispute this evidence; they just ignore it. So let's review the evidence, all of it on the public record for months or years:
* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.
* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.
* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.
* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.
* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.

* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

Mullahs on the U.S. payroll:

New details about the lengths the United States went to in its post-9-11 war on terror reveal the CIA hired Islamic mullahs to stem the rising tide of anti-American sentiment in the Arab world. And where they couldn't sway clerics, they created fake religious leaders to preach a moderate message.
The revelation is made in an upcoming book by investigative reporter Ronald Kessler titled 'The CIA at War.' 'In Islam, as in many other religions, anyone can call himself a religious leader,' Kessler writes, according to the Reuters News Agency. 'So, besides paying mullahs, the CIA created fake mullahs– recruited agents who would proclaim themselves clerics and take a more moderate position about non-believers.' According to Reuters, a CIA source is quoted in the book as saying: 'We are taking over radio stations and supporting clerics. It's back to propaganda. We are creating moderate Muslims.'

Creating moderates? Perish the thought.
It won't be long before this is written up in every Arab newspaper.

Mr. Kessler: by revealing this, even if true, exactly what have you done for the world? Well let's think about it...

Now, every time a moderate, balanced Muslim speaks against violence or terrorism, or in favor of any form of liberalism, tolerance or pluralism, he will be accused of treachery, working for the CIA, probably heresy and apostasy, too. Any moderate voice will be marginalized, repudiated and chastened if not killed outright.

We are likely to see far fewer calls for peace and tolerance, if the proponents of such ideas are regularly reputed to be American puppets. Does this hurt America? Yes. Does this hurt minorities in Arab and Muslim states? Yes. Does this hurt Muslims, eager for reformation, especially women? Yes.

So thanks, thanks a lot. May a camel spit on your laptop keyboard. May your vaunted journalist's call to expose classified operations be exposed for what it is: a thoughtless selfishness which hurts everyone.

Christian who married ex-Muslim detained
"Egypt bars Christian men from marrying Muslim women. The government, refusing to recognize Badawi's conversion, still recognizes her as a Muslim. "

" "It is interesting that the Egyptian government has no problem with Muslim men marrying Christian women," said VOM spokesman Todd Nettleton in a statement. "But they won't recognize the right of Christian men to marry Muslim women." "

Straight Talk on Homeland Security

"The backlash against the Bush administration’s War on Terror began on 9/11 and has not let up since. Left- and right-wing advocacy groups have likened the Bush administration to fascists, murderers, apartheid ideologues, and usurpers of basic liberties. Over 120 cities and towns have declared themselves “civil liberties safe zones”; and the press has amplified at top volume a recent report by the Justice Department’s inspector general denouncing the government’s handling of suspects after 9/11. Even the nation’s librarians are shredding documents to safeguard their patrons’ privacy and foil government investigations.

The advocates’ rhetoric is both false and dangerous. Lost in the blizzard of propaganda is any consciousness that 9/11 was an act of war against the U.S. by foreign enemies concealed within the nation’s borders. If the media and political elites keep telling the public that the campaign against those terrorist enemies is just a racist power grab, the most essential weapon against terror cells—intelligence from ordinary civilians—will be jeopardized. A drumbeat of ACLU propaganda could discourage a tip that might be vital in exposing an al-Qaida plot.

It is crucial, therefore, to demolish the extravagant lies about the anti-terror initiatives. Close scrutiny of the charges and the reality that they misrepresent shows that civil liberties are fully intact. The majority of legal changes after September 11 simply brought the law into the twenty-first century. In those cases where the government has expanded its powers—as is inevitable during a war—important judicial and statutory safeguards protect the rights of law-abiding citizens. And in the one hard case where a citizen’s rights appear to have been curtailed—the detention of a suspected American al-Qaida operative without access to an attorney—that detention is fully justified under the laws of war.

The anti–War on Terror worldview found full expression only hours after the World Trade Center fell, in a remarkable e-mail that spread like wildfire over the Internet that very day. Sent out by Harvard Law School research fellow John Perry Barlow, founder of the cyber-libertarian Electronic Freedom Foundation, the message read: “Control freaks will dine on this day for the rest of our lives. Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts to end what remains of freedom in America. . . . I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can . . . to prevent the spasm of control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for over the last two hundred twenty-five years than died this morning. Don’t let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win. Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don’t give them the satisfaction. . . . And, please, let us try to forgive those who have committed these appalling crimes. If we hate them, we will become them.”

Socialism kills again:
"A Son says he is disgusted that his late mother was forced to wait eight 'traumatic' hours for an ambulance. Stephen Brown even managed to fly back from a Spanish holiday and get to the hospital before his eighty-six-year-old mum, Clarice Burgin.

It was on August 11 that mum-of-nine Mrs Burgin became ill at her house in Western Spot Close, Ripley. Her family called her GP, who suspected pneumonia and immediately called an ambulance to take her to hospital within two hours. To meet Government targets, this should have arrived within 15 minutes of that two-hour spell.

That was at 2.20pm. The ambulance eventually arrived after 10pm. During the eight-hour wait, family members called the service several times, only to be told they were busy and it would be there soon.

Their mum eventually arrived at Derby City General Hospital at 10.45pm. Mr Brown (41), of Borrowfield Road, Spondon, was already there. The next day, Mrs Burgin suffered a stroke and was later transferred to Ripley Hospital, where she died on September 6."

This is proof that socialized medicine is not going to "save" the US health system.

When the dems brought out sob stories of people who couldn't get proper care as some form of testimony to why we need a nationalized health care plan, they forget that many more examples of horrid lapses in state-funded care exist abroad. I can't say how much better our system is, but I can guarantee it isn't any worse.

CHARITY OF THE DAY:
From Chief Wiggles:
Toys for Iraqi Children
"Okay! We are finally ready for this to start! First, some ground rules. These toys are for Iraqi children, so let's keep that in mind when shopping.
Some "no-no" toys: Any guns, of any kind
No violent action heroes, No violent toys
No barbie dolls or dolls skantily dressed
No toys that shoot something, no projectiles, No water guns
Lets just keep it simple, simple toys, just the basics. These kids have nothing."

Here are my suggestions:
whistles, mini-flutes, tambourines
Tops, frisbees, boomerangs
soccer balls, rubber balls
kaleidoscopes, prisms
flashlights, glowsticks
silly putty, yoyos, beanbags
toy cars, trains.

Socialism stinks:

An ill 90-year-old WWII fighter pilot was left lying helpless on the floor of his home because paramedics refused to pick him up without special lifting equipment, citing 'regulations'.
Air Marshal Sir Patrick Dunn, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1941 and later served as an aide-de-camp to the Queen, was left begging the two ambulancemen for help.
However, the paramedics decided to wait for the lifting equipment.
Sir Patrick's wife, Diana, 92, had telephoned 999 after her husband, who has had two strokes and needs a wheelchair and walking frame to move around, fell at their home in Cookham Dean, Berkshire. She was not strong enough to lift him on her own.
Lady Dunn claimed that, when the paramedics arrived, they said that 'regulations' meant that they were not allowed to pick up Sir Patrick, even though he weighs less than 10 stone.
'They said they are not allowed to lift anybody from the floor,' Lady Dunn said last week.'I did not know what to do. He had been about an hour on the floor. He was lying on the floor saying "please help me" and holding up his hands, but they would not.'

------
His treatment sparked outrage last night and calls for a review of the rules on lifting patients. It comes just 10 days after Lorraine Wolstenholme, 51, told the High Court that she had been forced to sleep in her wheelchair every night for 15 months because health managers refused to let nurses lift her into bed.

If you can think of similar stories in the USA, be sure to acknowledge that it is always govt. regulations creating the stupidity, often the result of a suit brought by a litigious bloodsucker. Tort reform is opposed by the same people who want socialized medicine.

Falsely bleak reports reduce our chances of success in Iraq:
"News media reports about our progress in Iraq have been bleak since shortly after the president's premature declaration of victory. These reports contrast sharply with reports of hope and progress presented to Congress by Department of Defense representatives -- a real disconnect, Vietnam déja vu. So I went to Iraq with six other members of Congress to see for myself.
The Iraq war has predictably evolved into a guerrilla conflict similar to Vietnam. Our currently stated objectives are to establish reasonable security and foster the creation of a secular, representative government with a stable market economy that provides broad opportunity throughout Iraqi society. Attaining these objectives in Iraq would inevitably transform the Arab world and immeasurably increase our future national security.
These are goals worthy of a fight, of sacrifice, of more lives lost now to save thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands in the future. In Mosul last Monday, a colonel in the 101st Airborne put it to me quite simply: 'Sir, this is worth doing.' No one I spoke with said anything different. And I spoke with all ranks.
But there will be more Blumbergs killed in action, many more. So it is worth doing only if we have a reasonable chance of success. And we do, but I'm afraid the news media are hurting our chances. They are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded, the Blumbergs. Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with 'the rest of the story,' the progress made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy."

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today:
Akila al-Hashemi, of the Iraqi Governing Council, was critically wounded in an assassination attempt. She had this to say to Chirac:

She said in the interview that she had admonished the French not to try to drive a wedge between the United States and the new Iraqi government by offering tempting plans for quick sovereignty.
'Don't think the Iraqis will ever forget what the Americans did in liberating them,' she said she told French officials, adding, 'we will not allow the Americans to fail.'

President Bush's own words: No question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties.

“We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th. Now, what the Vice President said was is that he has been involved with al-Qaeda and al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda operative was in Baghdad. He's the guy that ordered the killing of a U.S. diplomat. He's a man who's still running loose involved with the poisons network, involved with Ansar al-Islam. There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties.”

Heard dems and media say "the threat was not imminent, as the president insisted..."?
" 'Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.' - president George Bush, State of the Union, 2003, clearly conceding that the threat from Saddam was not imminent."

Iraq and al Qaeda
There's more evidence of a link than the critics admit.

The Bush Administration was cautious, arguably too cautious, when making its case for the liberation of Iraq. Exhibit A is what it said about the links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Investigators, interrogators and even journalists are turning up evidence of a stronger relationship than the limited ties originally sketched by President Bush and Colin Powell.
That wasn't the big story last week of course. The big news was that Mr. Bush said he has 'no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved' in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Predictably, this is being spun as a concession from the Administration, which has been accused of exaggerating the al Qaeda link.
In truth, Mr. Bush has never gone further than what he reiterated last week: 'There's no question Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.' U.S. intelligence officials, meanwhile, have confirmed that fact once again. Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was being harbored in Iraq; documents recently found in Tikrit indicate that Saddam provided Yasin with monthly payments and a home. According to federal authorities, the Ramzi Yousef-led terror cell that carried out the 1993 bombing received funding from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 2001 attack."

Jim Miller links to the story of Marine Lance Corporal Aaron Job, home from Iraq:

"All you hear on CNN is that all the Iraqis hate Americans and want us out," said Job, 20, who returned to his home base in California on Saturday after five months in Iraq.
Job, of Issaquah, doesn't doubt that anti-American sentiment is strong in Baghdad, but in towns south and west of the capital, where he spent most of his time after Saddam Hussein's fall, Iraqis were welcoming, warm and generous.
"They'll invite you into their homes and they'll give you anything. ... They would give us stuff off their trees, dates, limes ... and they love to make you tea."
Some residents would offer works of art or furnishings. Job said polite enlisted men, such as himself, declined by tugging on their collars, where officers carry their insignia. "They knew that meant it was something the officers didn't want us to do."

Compare the Iraqi gratitude with the ingrates on staff at indymedia or ANSWER... who would as soon spit on a soldier as welcome him into their home.

The following excerpt from the Iraq Foundation's website was written years before Operation Iraqi Freedom. As you read it, consider how much of what they sought is now within their grasp. Emphases added:

Philosophy
With its educated population and oil reserves, Iraq commands considerable human and natural resources, and enjoys a tradition of intellectual and economic prominence in the Middle East. A peaceful Iraq can serve as a stabilizing force and as a catalyst for security and economic prosperity in the region. However, Iraq will only live in peace within its borders and with its neighbors once democracy and accountable government are established. The Iraqi people will only flourish when their civil and human rights are respected.

Objectives
To expand the constituency for democracy among Iraqis. The Foundation works extensively with expatriate Iraqis, who today constitute over 10% of the Iraqi population, and whenever possible, the Foundation maintains direct or indirect contacts within Iraq as well.
To highlight human rights abuses in Iraq. Human rights abuses by the Iraqi state, dismal for the past thirty years, have escalated and multiplied. In a 1995 report, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights called Iraq's human rights situation the worst of any country since World War II. Without sufficient recognition and exposure of the problem it will be impossible to embark on a healthy future for Iraq.
To educate non-Iraqis about Iraq and strengthen support for a democratic new beginning. The Foundation endeavors to give a clear understanding of the consequences of totalitarianism in Iraq, and the cost in personal suffering, economic collapse and social disintegration.
To educate non-Iraqis about the potential for Iraq to become a major contributor to democratic reform and socio-economic development in the region in a climate of democracy and an open society.

Let us pause to consider the enormity of such a statement: the worst since WWII. I believe it. It's hard to dispute. Pause again to consider the enormity of the hypocrisy of the opposition to the war.
I heard a human shield interviewed on CNN say that he didn't think Saddam was "quite the demon Bush made him out to be."
And we've all heard "Bush lied, people died." Once and for all: Saddam lied, people died, for years. And it's over now, no thanks to the "human shields"!!

As Long As It Takes
U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell

I have just returned from Iraq. What I saw there convinced me, more than ever, that our liberation of Iraq was in the best interests of the Iraqi people, the American people and the world.

The Iraq I saw was a society on the move, a vibrant land with a hardy people experiencing the first heady taste of freedom. Iraq has come a long way since the dawn of this year, when Saddam Hussein was holding his people in poverty, ignorance and fear while filling mass graves with his opponents. The Iraqi regime was still squandering Iraq's treasure on deadly weapons programs, in defiance of 12 years of United Nations Security Council resolutions. While children died, Saddam was lavishing money on palaces and perks, for himself and his cronies.

Thanks to the courage of our brave men and women in uniform, and those of our coalition partners, all that has changed. Saddam is gone. Thanks to the hard work of Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq is being transformed. The evidence was everywhere to be seen. Streets are lined with shops selling newspapers and books with opinions of every stripe. Schools and universities are open, teaching young Iraqis the skills to live in freedom and compete in our globalizing world. Parents are forming PTAs to support these schools, and to make sure that they have a voice in their children's future. The hospitals are operating, and 95% of the health clinics are open to provide critical medical services to Iraqis of all ages.

Most important of all, Iraqis are on the road to democratic self-government. All the major cities and over 85% of the towns have councils. In Baghdad, I attended a city council meeting that was remarkable for its normalcy. I saw its members spend their time talking about what most city councils are concerned with -- jobs, education and the environment. At the national level I met with an Iraqi Governing Council that has appointed ministers and is taking responsibility for national policy. In fact, while I was there, the new minister of justice announced the legal framework for a truly independent judiciary.

The Governing Council has appointed a central bank governor who will be in charge of introducing Iraq's new, unified currency next month. It also recently endorsed new tariffs and is now discussing world-class reforms to open the country to productive foreign investment. Now, the Governing Council is turning its attention to the process for drawing up a democratic constitution for a democratic Iraq.

I was truly moved when I met with my counterpart, Hoshyar Zebari, free Iraq's first foreign minister. He will soon be off to New York as part of the Iraqi delegation to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

Iraq has come very far, but serious problems remain, starting with security. American commanders and troops told me of the many threats they face -- from leftover loyalists who want to return Iraq to the dark days of Saddam, from criminals who were set loose on Iraqi society when Saddam emptied the jails and, increasingly, from outside terrorists who have come to Iraq to open a new front in their campaign against the civilized world. But our commanders also briefed me on their plan for meeting these security threats, and it is a good one.

We also need to complete the renewal of Iraq's electrical grid, its water treatment facilities and its other infrastructure, which were run down and destroyed during the years of Saddam's misrule. Here, too, we are making progress. Electric generation now averages 75% of prewar levels, and that figure is rising. Telephone service is being restored to hundreds of thousands of customers. Dilapidated water and sewage treatment facilities are being modernized. But it will take time and money to finish the job.

Indeed, that's Iraq in a nutshell. With our support, the Iraqis have made great progress. But it will take time and money to finish the job. President Bush has asked Congress for $20 billion to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. Next month, the international community will meet in Madrid to pledge additional assistance for Iraqi reconstruction. With these funds, and our continued help, I know the Iraqis will take great strides in rebuilding their battered country.

How long will we stay in Iraq? We will stay as long as it takes to turn full responsibility for governing Iraq over to a capable and democratically elected Iraqi administration. Only a government elected under a democratic constitution can take full responsibility and enjoy full legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people and the world.

Anyone who doubts the wisdom of President Bush's course in Iraq should stand, as I did, by the side of the mass grave in Halabja, in Iraq's north. That terrible site holds the remains of 5,000 innocent men, women and children who were gassed to death by Saddam Hussein's criminal regime.

The Iraqi people must be empowered to prevent such mass murder from happening ever again. They must be given the tools and the support to build a peaceful and prosperous democracy. They deserve no less. The American people deserve no less.

For some reason, as I was reading stories of soldiers in Iraq, this song kept going through my mind:

If I Stand from the "Songs" album
Rich Mullins

There's more that rises in the morning than the sun
And more that shines in the night than just the moon
It's more than just this fire here that keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger than this room

And there's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs that I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

There's more that dances on the prairies than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean than the tide
There's a love that is fiercer than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother's when her baby's at her side

And there's a loyalty that's deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegence
I owe only to the Giver
Of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home.


To the soldiers: you're our best. I wish I could be there. I wish I could help. America is what she is because of you.

Caucasian Club? Why?: " Lisa McClelland says she isn't a racist.
She says her campaign for a Caucasian Club at Freedom High School in the eastern Contra Costa County town of Oakley is a move toward diversity, not bigotry."

Well, if those other ethnically exclusive clubs serve no purpose, why start your own?

But reading this I had a wild idea. Suppose you were a very poor white kid like I was growing up, but due to geographic chance went to school with Jesse Jackson's or Al Sharpton's grandsons, or Oprah Winfrey's kids, or any group of children of wealthy African Americans; you were a minority. And suppose they had their own country club or exclusive social establishment, no whites allowed. And then, in frustration you started your own caucasian association. Would the NAAdvancementCP have a legitimate case against it-- how could they "advance" any more, being at the top, the dominant group?

Which raises questions about diversity issues in general. Many African-Americans are quite well-off, and their kids are quite well-off. Do they deserve breaks or special legal advantages? I'd prefer to see affirmative action disallowed for wealthy African-Americans; the law needs to take into account economic realities. I have a feeling that many black folks might agree with me.

Commanding Heights: Hernando de Soto:
"INTERVIEWER: Why does capitalism fail everywhere else and triumph in the West? [ed.--and Japan and Singapore or wherever it is practiced]
HERNANDO DE SOTO: Because the West has a property rights system, and property rights systems seem to be about ownership. What we're discovering more and more is that it's really the system that undergirds the system of values called capitalism. In other words, you have property rights in the West. In developing nations we do, too, but they're not legal. Once you legalize them and you have recordkeeping systems and you have tracking systems and you've got contracts and you're able to get all the information about somebody's ownership over an asset, all of a sudden you obtain enormous amounts of data that you do not have in developing nations.
In the West, that is captured in the property system. If you are somebody that is honorable and pays their debts, which is what somebody would be interested in, that's going to be captured in your records, and your records are linked to your property records. All of these are property rights, [but we don't have them] organized in a central system ... in Third World countries.
INTERVIEWER: Is this a possible change in the Third World?
HERNANDO DE SOTO: Yes, of course. ... You [The United States] were also a Third World country 150 years ago, and you transformed yourselves into a First World country. The same occurred for most countries throughout the world."

You mean to tell me it isn't America's fault that much of the world isn't like us?
The average leftist will find a way to explain how America oppresses the world, when in fact we fight like mad to get them to copy our system, so we could all be safer and happier.

Hernando de Soto: Targeted by Peruvian Terrorists: "Peru, in fact, 'had become two nations: one where the legal system bestowed privileges on a select few, and another where the majority of the Peruvian people lived and worked outside the law, according to their own local arrangements.'
In an effort to understand the size of this 'extralegal' or informal economy, De Soto and a group of colleagues combed the streets and shantytowns of Peru during late afternoons and weekends, talking to people about their work, and counting their businesses and enterprises.
De Soto and his team were able to quantify their findings about Peru's 'unseen' economic life.
In the early 1980s, De Soto discovered that 90 percent of all small industrial enterprises, 85 percent of urban transport, 60 percent of Peru's fishing fleet (one of the largest in the world), and 60 percent of its food stores operated outside of the law.
Contrary to the views of the government and Peruvian elites who thought of the poor as lazy, many of Lima's poor were in fact carrying the economy on their backs.
The more people the ILD researchers talked to in the shantytowns and rural byways of Peru, the more they realized that it was not so much that the poor were breaking the law as that the law was breaking them. "

Read this: you'll thank yourself later.

An Interview With Milton Friedman - John Hawkins:

Milton Friedman: Roosevelt's policies were very destructive. Roosevelt's policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been. What pulled us out of the depression was the natural resilience of the economy & WWII.
You know, it's a mystery as to why people think Roosevelt's policies pulled us out of the Depression. The problem was that you had unemployed machines and unemployed people. How do you get them together by forming industrial cartels and keeping prices and wages up? That's what Roosevelt's policies in the New Deal amounted to. Essentially, increasing the role of government, enhancing the monopolistic position of labor, and creating as I said before the equivalent of price fixing cartels made things worse. So most of his policies were counterproductive.
John Hawkins: Fast forward to today and there are a lot of Democrats & people on the left out there who say, 'Why don't we just have exorbitant taxes on the rich and minimal taxes on everyone else'? What would that do to the economy?
Milton Friedman: That would eliminate the rich.
John Hawkins: Right. Would it have a negative effect on economy overall?
Milton Friedman: Well, who would provide the funds, the capital, and the entrepreneurship for the new industries? In a world in which there were no rich people, how would you have ever gotten the capital to produce steel mills or automobile plants? You can do it through the state, but the world tried that with the Soviet Union.
It's an interesting thing. If you ask yourself, 'what tax system would be best for the low income group,' it's the opposite of what they're saying there. It would be a system with a maximum amount of taxation rather than a minimum. If you look at the taxation system in China for example, which is now doing very, very, well, that's exactly what it is. In Russia you now have a 20% flat tax which is having the effect of increasing revenues rapidly and also stimulating production. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

This is EXACTLY what I'm trying to say with this weblog. I am a conservative, and a Republican, because I believe this is the better path for the poor, for the many. "Life isn't fair:" and when liberal Democrats try to force society to conform to their vision of fairness, they end up being fundamentally unfair, hindering individual liberties, thereby hurting everyone, especially the "disadvantaged" people they were trying to protect.

A million examples, but here's one: the luxury tax on yachts discouraged buyers, and caused unemployent in the boatbuilding industry. We can see the results of similar policies in the colossal unemployment in Germany and France.
I know that many conservatives don't look at it this way, that for the most part, we just want to be left alone and free to succeed and grow our lives and families the way we choose, as long as we're not encroaching on our neighbor's rights. And they're not greedy: most conservatives are extremely generous and charitable.

Liberal democrats should be understood to be a well-meaning, if somewhat condescending, sympathetic group, which ends up doing more harm than good. They worry about the poor and kill them with short-sighted "kindness."

Conversely, one could say that even if conservatives truly were trying to favor the rich at the expense of the poor (an untrue liberal canard), the policies stemming from that cynical goal still "inadvertently" help the poor! Even if a rich man LOATHED all poor people, in order to get rich, he would improve the economy, and become the poor's best friend despite himself.

An Engineered Tragedy:

The proportion of females among Israeli fatalities was relatively low in the early months of the conflict, and gradually rose to a level of around 30 percent; since June 2001, this proportion has remained fairly stable. Palestinian fatalities, in contrast, have been consistently and overwhelmingly (over 95 percent) male (see Graph 1.5).

FINALLY GOT RESULTS (although no credit, oh well)

Media Research Center responded to the comparison between Amanpour's unfounded claims agianst the administration and Brown's legitimate complaints against the despots. The Tuesday CyberAlert says:

Amanpour has quite a lot of chutzpah to accuse the Bush team or anyone of disinformation when her boss, Eason Jordan, admitted in a New York Times op-ed in April that CNN for years withheld knowledge they had of Saddam Hussein's brutality, including later fulfilled death threats against two of Hussein's sons in law, a murder plot against CNN staffers in Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq, fingernails and teeth pulled out of Iraqis and the threats of imprisonment or death for journalists and Iraqis working for them, such as translators, if they reported something the regime wanted kept quiet.
While Amanpour was wishing for tougher coverage of the Bush administration, New York Times reporter John Burns was critical of the media’s weak coverage of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities.

This is consistent with the harangues from Maureen Dowd, indymedia.org, Pilger, Rall, and others: willing to ignore and enable horrors by Saddam and other fascist tyrants, while distorting anything the Bush administration does. Eager to believe the best of our enemies, eager to believe the worst of our president.

Amanpour: CNN practiced self-censorship?:

Said Amanpour: 'I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did.'
Brown then asked Amanpour if there was any story during the war that she couldn't report.
'It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a question of tone,' Amanpour said. 'It's a question of being rigorous. It's really a question of really asking the questions. All of the entire body politic in my view, whether it's the administration, the intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels.'
[Former Pentagon spokewoman Tori] Clarke called the disinformation charge 'categorically untrue' and added, 'In my experience, a little over two years at the Pentagon, I never saw them (the media) holding back. I saw them reporting the good, the bad and the in between.'
Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said of Amanpour's comments: 'Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda.'
CNN had no comment.

Hypocrisy will do that.

CNN's Eason Jordan made it clear he was intimidated by Saddam a few months ago, so they neglected to report torture and abuse by the Ba'athists, in order to retain access in Baghdad. Now we hear from John Burns of the NYT :

"There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the ministry of information, and particularly the director of the ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, plying him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family, and giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the information ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror.
We now know that this place was a lot more terrible than even people like me had thought. There is such a thing as absolute evil. I think people just simply didn't recognize it. "

Contrast Amanpour's comments about CNN with John Burns' general comments about the media in Iraq. She criticizes the administration, claiming to be intimidated by Pres. Bush and Fox News, to the degree that the network decided, of its own free will, to change their TONE!!
At the same time, the press corps capitulated to and eagerly participated in (CNN included) Saddam's conspiracy of silence. No rigorous questioning, no seeking to expose disinformation.
So if Fox News were footsoldiers for Bush, what does that make CNN? Fedayeen with a camera crew?
And finally, Amanpour's main whine seems to be that the media should have questioned the war more forcefully... to what end? Stopping it, I presume, thus allowing this regime, one that was truly muzzling, truly censoring the media about its horrors, to remain.
The differences between these two reporters tells you everything you need to know about the national divide on Operation Iraqi Freedom. One whines about, well, nothing really, the other is furious that the media served at the pleasure of a murderous tyrant.

Arab Rulers Getting Nervous: "In the five months since U.S. forces rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's rule, the country's ethnically and religiously diverse people have, in one giant leap, overturned decades of social and political injustice, replaced a brutal one-party system with a multitude of groups advocating a rich range of ideologies and created a free press."

But you keep hearing that we're in a quagmire, that our triumph has descended into "dust and ashes" (Paul Krugman).

Comparisons to Vietnam are odious, ludicrous, untenable. We were stuck in a conflict without advance, a standstill, and when we left Vietnam the enemy swept in and established a brutal communist nightmare.

We are in charge in Iraq. The old regime is gone, never to return. How can that be a quagmire by any conceivable definition? Yes, foreign terrorists (called insurgents by reporters) are shooting at our soldiers. To my way of thinking, that does not mean we aren't in charge, any more than a cop shooting in Seattle means the municipal government isn't in charge.

I honestly think these voices decrying the state of Iraq had a standard of utoian perfection: considering how long they were brutalized and underserved by the Ba'ath, I think things are going amazingly well.

For our fallen troops, God rest your souls. May God bless your families. I vow to fight the political liars who seek to dishonor your memories by saying you died for nothing.

Hubris, thy name is Albright:
"Q:Has the war made the problem of terrorism better or worse?
A:The Administration immediately tied Sept. 11 to Saddam. They said, basically, that Saddam and Iraq were a hotbed of terrorism. While I had many criticisms of Saddam, that's not the way I saw it. But now Iraq is in fact a breeding ground for terrorists."

1. Where, oh, where is any documented evidence that the Administration immediately tied Sept. 11 to Saddam?

2. In Iraq: Ansar al Islam, Salman Pak, Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal.

3. Good to know you "had many criticisms of Saddam," at least, but since direct terror support to Palestinian suicide bombers, meeting with Osama operatives, communication with al Zarqawi, etc. all are something you didn't see ("not the way [I] saw it") it's too bad your criticism didn't go further towards protecting the US.

4. The madrassahs were the breeding ground for terrorists, and Iraq is now their graveyard.


"Q:What should the U.S. do next?
A:Frankly, if there was a President Gore, we wouldn't be in this particular mess. But we are, and we cannot fail. I very much hope there will be a U.N. resolution that makes clear the U.S. has military command but that would set up a U.N. high representative to coordinate the political and humanitarian things the U.N. does very well."

1. Right. We'd have a bigger mess down the road.
2. How well did they do with the oil-for-food program? The billions of dollars of food left in warehouses, the piles of cash found in the homes of Ba'ath leadership?

"Q:Bush's foreign policy started as 'Anything But Clinton' in almost every area—the Middle East, North Korea, China. Now events have pushed it back much closer to your approach. Do you ever succumb to schadenfreude?
A:No, I'm much too kind and generous a person. "

Tempted to say: "No comment. That's self-fisking." But let's take a look at North Korea. The inspectors that were lied to for years are now kicked out: surprise! They were taking steps to rebuild their nuclear program while inspectors were there!

How successful was Clinton's Middle East policy? I would put it somewhere between: "total" and "absolute" failure.

Are you tired of hearing about the PATRIOT Act?

I'm sure some libertarian concerns are valid, but one worry that seems baseless is this idea that the DOJ wants to start "monitoring" our bookstore and library usage. That's not a true representation of the law as written or its intent.
It's useful to law enforcement to have the ability to subpoena library records: it helped them catch the Unabomer, after all.

Considering that anybody in the library can see what you're carrying out, and that the entire library staff in any system, county or citywide, has easy and open access to the records, I can't see what the big deal is, if a court summons is necessary. Their aim is to compare suspect notes and messages against linguistic or textual clues from books that a terror suspect may have checked out. So what?

I wrote the following letter to the Seattle P-I after they published an editorial praising local librarians for shredding records to "protect the privacy of patrons from John Ashcroft."

Dear Mr. Shapley,

Your editorial got me worried about our constitutional protections Sunday... the slippery slope, etc.
I looked into it and was SHOCKED to discover that, even before the Patriot Act, law enforcement agencies could not just subpoena my library internet usage, not just seek a warrant to investigate my book checkout record, but with the same kind of probable cause, can actually come to my home, put handcuffs on me, and put me in a jail cell until I get a hearing! Can you believe that?! I mean, loss of privacy (with probable cause and a subpoena) about my internet usage on a publicly owned computer and publicly owned books is bad enough, but with the same court permission, they can actually deprive me of my liberty!!

I also heard a rumor that they could come into my home and seize my personal home computer, books, and financial records! I heard about some guy named Richard Jewell in Georgia, how they sent dogs to sniff all over his home after an Olympics bombing, and took everything he owned to search for explosive residue.

But that may be only an an urban legend. I mean, if the citizenry that reads your paper is so incensed about public library materials being subpoenaed (I think that's what you meant by "unbridled government surveillance"), surely they will be implacably enraged by the idea of being dragged out of one's home or having one's personal effects confiscated?

Don't you think? With a slippery slope like this, what's next, summary executions?
My paranoia-meter is really off the scale about this!

Cordially,
Brian

His reply? One word: "Cute."

From National Review's Corner. A reader emails Jonah Goldberg:

As an Army reservist, I have been trained at some length about the Middle East -- What I've heard from numerous experts essentially agrees with your column about how superstition and ignorance are rampant in the Arab world.
One particular comment stays with me, this from an American woman who is fluent in Arabic and has spent much of her life in different Arab countries. She told us... that the germ theory of disease... is widely disbelieved among Arabs. 'If [Allah] wants me to get sick, I will get sick' is their idea."

OK, it's pretty well-known: kismet or fate, is a cultural tenet in the Islamic world.
Clearly, however, this cosmology doesn't prevent them from seeking medical attention? I raise the question because it is clear that although they may believe that fate and Allah's will is bringing the disease, they do not act as though they must therefore resolve to accept it-- else hospitals would be "haram." Were they at peace with their environment, accepting events as pre-determined and within providence, they would not react with such bitterness and anger when they experience suffering. They would place no blame, have no proclivity to create conspiracy theories.
Since this is not the case, what are we to make of the constant strife? Is kismet only relevant when human will is not involved?
May seem like a theology question; my goal is to learn the best way to challenge the culture with its own precepts. It must be hard for a society that believes it is uniquely obedient to Allah to know that the Dar al-Harb has the greater wealth, influence, freedom, security, and might. Why would Allah allow the USA and Israel to have nuclear weapons? Do they perceive it as a punishment for not being fundamentalist? Is that why Osama is in such high esteem to so many Muslims?

Exit Arafat?: "There are of course many, far too many, individuals and groups who bear responsibility for the violence that has afflicted the Holy Land. But in the long Middle Eastern roster of ignominy one name stands out: Yasser Arafat. The virtual embodiment of modern terrorism, the main instigator of its resurgence against Israeli civilians in the last three years, the indirect cause therefore of the deaths of innocent Palestinian bystanders as Israel struck back, Arafat certainly deserves exile--or worse. And the people of Israel, and the Palestinians, deserve better, far better, than to be bedeviled by his presence.
Whether it is prudent to remove him is of course another issue. We are inclined to believe it is. But that is admittedly a complicated question, involving on-the-ground calculations of the risks of harm to Arafat, and how damaging that harm would, or would not, turn out to be. But this is clear: Arafat, in Ramallah, has succeeded in torpedoing one peace process after another. He scorned Secretary of State Colin Powell's rather pathetic August 21 plea to work with Prime Minister Abbas and 'make available' to Abbas the security forces Arafat controlled. We believe Arafat's ability to deny peace a chance would decrease if he were far away, especially if he were deprived of control of the Palestinian Authority's treasury, its money-making monopolies, and the security services. "

Even Al Qaeda hates Arafat? MEMRI

"The breasts of the Jews – Allah's curses upon them – are filled with an arrogance that is not present in others, and therefore they have not settled for the kind of covert colonialism that satisfies the Crusader countries. Likewise, their occupation of Muslim Palestine stems from the belief that they cannot give it up, or else they would be apostates from their Judaism, exactly like the Arab rulers were apostates from Islam to which they belonged…

"The issue of Palestine is [actually] the issue of the Islamic world… but the Zionist media and the collaborating media neutralized the non-Arab Muslims by calling it 'the Arab issue.' Repeating [this term] has a powerful effect on the distortion of consciousness and eradication of the facts, and thus every non-Arab Muslim has been excluded of those interested in the Palestine issue…

"The establishment of the Palestinian state wrested the issue even from [the hands of] the countries of confrontation, and made it an issue of the Palestinian state and its treacherous government, headed by the vilest of agents ever in history – Yasser Arafat, who will get what he deserves from Allah…"

Odd. What does this portend?

UPDATE: Arafat's losing it.

Jim Miller notes this article from the Guardian:

"Patients who have major surgery in Britain are four times more likely to die than those in America, according to a major new study."

"The comparison of care, which reveals a sevenfold difference in mortality rates in one set of patients, concludes that hospital waiting lists, a shortage of specialists and competition for intensive care beds are to blame. "

"A team from University College London (UCL) and a team from Columbia University in New York jointly studied the medical fortunes of more than 1,000 patients at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and compared them with nearly 1,100 patients who had undergone the same sort of major surgery at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth."

"The results, which surprised even the researchers, showed that 2.5 per cent of the American patients died in hospital after major surgery, compared with just under 10 per cent of British patients. They found that there was a sevenfold difference in mortality rates when a subgroup of patients - the most seriously ill - were compared."

Socialism kills the poor.

SMILING FROM THE WOMB:

Pioneering scanning techniques have produced astonishing images from inside the womb which show the foetuses yawn, blink, suck their fingers and seem to cry and smile.

Up to now, doctors did not think infants made such expressions until after birth and believed they learned to smile by copying their mother.
The procedure has been pioneered by London obstetrician Professor Stuart Campbell at the Create Health Centre for Reproduction and Advanced Technology.

His pictures reveal foetuses moving their limbs at just eight weeks.

Keep your laws off their bodies.

Q&A with Laurie Mylroie at National Review Online:

Lopez: Why hasn't the administration been able to do a better job of tying Saddam Hussein to 9/11? It's a laughable contention to many.

Mylroie: Yes, for many it is laughable. Indeed, over the weekend the Washington Post ran a story that nearly 70 percent of the American public believes Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, but there is 'no evidence' to prove that. NBC's Tom Brokaw reported on that story, with the exact same tone, a few days later.
But, of course, there is evidence. There is lots of evidence, which I, and others, [ed--such as Mansoor Ijaz] have put into the public record. Still, this is how the bureaucracies, or elements within them, carry out their side of the argument. They refuse to recognize what is before their eyes and the media just repeats the cry, "no evidence."

That happened when I was testifying before the 9/11 Commission. Another person on the panel — from the CIA — kept saying there is "no evidence," even as I was presenting evidence.
It's a word game. Evidence, according to Webster's, is "something that indicates." For example, your smile is evidence of your feelings toward me. Proof is conclusive demonstration.
After the 9/11 Commission panel, former Navy Secretary John Lehman, one of the commissioners, told the press that he thought Iraq was involved in the attacks, citing the terrorist training camp at Salman Pak. That's evidence.

I don't really know why the administration doesn't make this case. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, explained that the administration had two reasons for war: Iraq's weapons and its terrorism. There was so much dispute about the latter (read bureaucratic opposition), however, that they focused their public case on the weapons alone.

It's a litany to the anti-liberation crowd: "Saddam was not involved in 9-11! Bush lied!!!" And here is Mylroie, who strongly believes it, but says the President should make this case but hasn't.

I spoke to a splenetic leftist spazz named William Pitt (Truthout.org), a much sought-after prevaricator at anti-war luncheons who told me that he believed the Salman Pak training camp was a legitimate hijacking training facility. After all, Iraqi jets could get hijacked, too. (Though they never were.)

Eager to believe the best of Saddam, eager to believe the worst of President Bush. The modern "progressives."

How Secure Are U.S. Borders?: "The... project involved a shipment... of just under 15 pounds of depleted uranium, a harmless substance that is legal to import into the United States. The uranium, in a steel pipe with a lead lining, was placed in a suitcase....
If they can't detect that, then they can't detect the real thing,' explained Tom Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural Resources Defense Council...
Cochran said the highly enriched uranium used for nuclear weapons would, with slightly thicker shielding, give off a signature similar to depleted uranium in the screening devices currently being used by homeland security officials at American ports."

How are we to protect ourselves from a suitcase nuke?

Can we check every bag flown in? Maybe, though I kind of doubt terrorists would take the risk of bringing such a rare commodity aboard a bag which has the potential to be checked. Unless their goal was to detonate upon landing...

But we do know that not every container can be checked. Not every small boat from Mexico can be checked as it comes ashore in Texas or California. Like it or not, we will never be impervious to a smuggled WMD. Never.

So how are we to protect ourselves from a suitcase nuke?

Go to the source of the risk, and take away the motivation to create one.

Can you imagine such a bomb coming from a terrorist network of French or Russian citizens? No two capitalist democracies have ever gone to war with each other, despite cultural enmity and societal dislike.

From what societies are we likely to see such an attempt? We all know the answer, one would hope.

A democratic and free Iraq has potential to stimulate reforms in other parts of the Middle East. Iraq will be the first Arab democracy. It is going to win hearts and minds, as it already has:

A similar view is expressed by Hussein Khomeini, a mid-ranking mullah and a grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic in Iran.
"I decided to leave Iran and settle in Iraq where the Americans have created a space of freedom," Hussein Khomeini says. "The coming of freedom to Iraq will transform the Muslim world."

And with that transformation comes the hope of true victory in the war on terror: when Arab states are capitalist democracies, we will be in far less danger than we are now from a suitcase nuke. We can't kill them all, nor would we want to. We can't isolate them all, arrest them all, or even track them all.

But when they are a free people, perhaps we won't need to.

AMIR TAHERI:
"Iraq is the only Arab country today where all political parties, from communist to conservative, operate freely. Visitors will be impressed by the openness of the political debate there, something not found anywhere else in the Arab world. Also, for the first time, Iraq has no political prisoners.
Almost 150 newspapers and magazine are now published there, offering a diversity not found in any other Arab country. One theme of these new publications is the need for democratization in the Arab world. This may be putting the cart before the horse. What Arabs, and Muslims in general, most urgently need is basic freedom, without which democracy cannot be built. The impact of Iraq's liberation is already felt throughout the region."

But hey, it's quicksand, if you believe the cartoonists.

Taliban recruits new tier of terror :

Hundreds and possibly thousands of Taliban recruits known as the 'Sarbaz' — those who care nothing for their own lives — are involved in an increasing number of hit-and-run attacks against government and American troops.
Among them are young men like Siddiqullah, 24, who despite his recent engagement has put his life on hold to wage a holy war on 'infidel' forces occupying his country.

1. Now with all the names like mujahedeen, jihadis, Fatah, etc., did they really need another term for "brainless, self-righteous killer punk of innocents and country's future"?

2. Why do papers assent to call it a "holy" war? If scare quotes were appropriate around "infidel"...

His enthusiasm is shared by hundreds of students from religious seminaries in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan who have crossed into Afghanistan to fight.

Ok. "Enthusiasm"? "Religious seminaries"?
We've got to find some new words, or at least use proper ones.

While all the other blogs battle about the President's speech, I thought I'd escape the political sphere for brief fantasy interlude.

Tolkienoclasm.

The lost page from the Coronation of Aragorn, The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien

Frodo and Samwise walk before the thronging people of Gondor, flowers at their feet.
"Gandalf? Thank you for sending Gwaihir to save us, but can I ask you something?"
"As you just did, you certainly may."
Somewhat darkly Frodo strained a false laugh. "Ah, heh... heh. The eagles certainly got to us in the nick of time, saving us from the fires of the cracks of Doom."
Gandalf lifted his staff in salute to the crowd, as they ascended the stairs leading to the throne and said, "The Lord of the winds is faster than any creature in Middle Earth. You were saved on the edge of hope. But a moment later..." His voice trailed off.
"Yes, well, about that, see. I am somewhat troubled. Do you realize how long Samwise and I were in Mordor before we reached Orodruin?"
"At least three weeks by the Shire reckoning."
"Right. And Gwaihir flew with you and the other eagles in how much time?"
"I think I see where you are going. Well, it's complicated, take the winged Nazgul for example..."
"Yeah, tell me about it: Sauron didn't give them fell winged steeds until we were almost to Rauros. So there we are all of three feet tall, walking barefoot in a swamp then sharp rocks, eating frogs and rabbits and then nothing but lembas day and night, with no water. Close to madness from the Ring. Almost eaten by a giant spider. Manhandled and beaten by orcs. Tangling with Gollum and getting my finger bitten off... was it THAT complicated, Gandalf?"
"I'm not sure you should speak to a wizard that way, Ring-bearer..."
"Oh-hoooh. Well, while your winged friend was carrying you down from Zirakzigil Sam and I starved and slogged our way across the living nightmare of Mordor and Cirith Ungol, and the whole time we could have FLOWN from Rivendell to the Mount, and back, in TWO BLOODY DAYS."
This had simply never occurred to poor Sam. His head looked ready to burst with the sudden revelation that the miseries they'd endured could have need avoided. His breathing became very laboured, as though choking a scream.
Gandalf cleared his throat. They were standing before the king, facing the people of Gondor. The Wizard forced a smile, said a mystic spell of forgetfulness and waved his hand over the two glaring hobbits. "Whenever this story is told or read, the hearers and readers will not think of this...." The halflings blinked and startled, then looked puzzled.

The crowds, hearing none of this, began to shout, after Aragorn: "Praise them with great praise!! Hail the ring-bearers!!" Sam and Frodo began to weep and were unsure why images of strangling Gandalf were fleeting from their minds.

Neocon / neoconservative=Uses USA superpower status as world reform tool.
paleocon / paleo-conservative=Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond (RIP).
Rubicon=river in Rome.
Icon=well known and admired conservative.
bleedocon=A conservative who would rather persuade a liberal to see another perspective than shout him down. A conservative who assumes the best of liberals, assuming they do want the best for our country, and makes distinctions between far-left and liberal thinking.

From Little Green Footballs:

Apartheid Mecca

The sign on the highway to Mecca (Makkah), complete with separate (but equal?) roads for the faithful on hajj and the heathen swine. What's the Arabic for "Jim Crow"?



You can be put to death for giving a Bible to a Muslim in Saudi Arabia, as in Afghanistan before we removed the Taliban. Never forget that.

The PUNCH Bowl introduces us to Robert P. George, constitutional law and moral philosophy professor, Princeton. George takes on calumnious ethics-perverting freakazoid Peter Singer, PhD, with a similar 'bleedocon' take on the abortion issue.

'Some politicians say that they're "personally opposed," yet "pro-choice," says the 48-year-old professor. 'But we must ask: Is this a position that can survive a test of logical coherence? After all, if abortion is wrong, surely it is wrong because it is the unjust taking of the life of a developing human being.' He pauses to let that sink in and then launches another question: 'And if one believes that, then what could possibly justify a regime of law that licenses so grave an injustice? If abortion is not a form of homicide, if the developing embryo or fetus has the moral status of an unwanted growth -- such as a tumor -- there would be no grounds on which to "personally oppose" abortion. So the question is this: Is the developing embryo or fetus a human being or a mere unwanted growth? Notice that this is not a religious or even an ethical question. It is a question of human embryology and developmental biology.'

The formula that those politicians will use to justify their position: a moral distinction based upon personal beliefs regarding the humanity-status of the fetus, but no wish to interfere with a woman's right to choose. That is what they will say-- which of course ignores what George has proposed: either it's murder and universally wrong, or it isn't.
You can't have it both ways, wrong enough for you, but not wrong enough for society.

As I said in June, and at every debate on this issue, if it wrong at 8 months and 29-days, why is it "right" at 5 months 29 days? Is this legal boundary scientifically derived, or emotional and arbitrary?

And, has any scientist proven that a fetus feels no pain at 2 months as it is destroyed, since it has developed nerve endings? That never seems to enter into the equation: is a living thing dying in pain as it is aborted or not?

A consequence so easily avoidable too. But that's "moralistic and theocratic," as they say.

Blogger Jeff Jarvis:

The more I think about this, the more I fear that we are still in the age of victimization, when being a victim is the highest political form, for a victim can’t be criticized, a victim gets to set the agenda, a victim gets to say what is offensive (and this is also the age of offense), a victim gets to act entitled (for this is also the age of entitlement). But we forget that being a victim also means that you’re weak, you lose. Victim is a past-tense word. This war is still present tense and future tense. We are still fighting. We still have a war to win here. We cannot afford to be victims.
So do not speak in hushed tones about September 11th. Speak still with loud anger and proud memory.
We are not victims.

Paul Wolfowitz:

"Not long ago, a woman named Christy Ferer traveled to Iraq along with the USO. She'd lost her husband Neil Levin at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, and she wanted to say thank you to the troops in Baghdad. She wrote a wonderful piece about her trip, and in it, she wondered why our soldiers would want to see her, when they could see the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, movie stars and a model. When the soldiers heard that a trio of Sept. 11 family members were there, she found out why. "
"Young men and women from across America rushed to the trio, eager to touch them and talk to them. One soldier, a mother of two, told Christy she'd enlisted because of Sept. 11. Another soldier displayed the metal bracelet he wore, engraved with the name of a victim of 9/11. Others came forward with memorabilia from the World Trade Center they carried with them into Baghdad. And when it was Christy's turn to present Gen. Tommy Franks with a piece of steel recovered from the Trade Towers, she saw this great soldier's eyes well up with tears. Then, she watched as they streamed down his face on center stage before 4,000 troops."
"To those who think the battle in Iraq is a distraction from the global war against terrorism . . . tell that to our troops. "

Well, they would, Paul, but to that type of willfully ignorant person, the military isn't worthy of them.

Yabba Dabba Doo time in Iraq

"We defeated the Flintstones in this war ... I mean, this was not some modern army by any stretch of the imagination." -- Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist THOMAS FRIEDMAN discussing the war in Iraq on CNN's "Reliable Sources."


SCUDs launched at Israel. Thousands of Kurds gassed. Nuclear centrifuge and MiGs found buried. That prehistoric rascal! (Saddam, Uday and Qusay's behavior could certainly be classified as Neanderthal.)

Yet somehow the entire Middle East was afraid of a supposedly stone-age military.

What does their paleolithic army indicate about the chief arms suppliers, Russia, China and France?

And what does it say about Friedman himself, that he's willing to denigrate the achievement of our troops, who are still dying over there?

Thanks, Tom. May your camel spit on your laptop.

Mark Steyn knocks it out of the ballpark.:

The intellectual left has been scrambling for decades to come up with explanations as to why, if everything's so bad, everything's so good: Noam Chomsky's theory of media manipulation -- 'manufactured consent' -- can stand for an entire school of philosophers who believe a subtler breed of capitalist overlords than Fritz Lang ever foresaw are maintaining the workers in some sort of fools' illusion of content.
----------------
To the irritation of their self-appointed spokespersons, the oppressed masses refuse to stay oppressed. If they were still down in the basement chained to the great turbines, all would be well. But, instead, they insist on moving out of their tenements, getting homes with non-communal bathrooms, giving up the trolley car, putting a deposit down on a Honda Civic and driving to the mall. When it was just medieval dukes swanking about with that kind of high-end consumerist lifestyle, things were fine: That was "sustainable" prosperity. But now, everyone wants in. And, once you do that, there goes the global neighbourhood.

My sentiments exactly.

The Left will reply that things aren't really so good, though. People still have to pay for health care, homes, and college educations.

If the USA ever does decide to foot the bill for all those things, it won't be long until groceries are socialized.