HT FrontPage

Muslims Against the Cartoon Jihad
By Kamal Nawash
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 3, 2006

[...]

The response by Muslims to the cartoons is absolutely pathetic and depressing but revealing. The reason Muslims are responding with anger and threats of violence is because most Muslims live in countries where democracy and freedom of speech are alien concepts.

Moreover, the Muslim world suffers from a lack of visionary leadership. In this particular case, when Muslim leaders, including American Muslim leaders, realized that Muslims are furious they joined the chorus of fury rather than explain to their people that they must be reasonable and that freedom of speech is healthy even if it is insulting. What is even more disgusting is that most American Muslim organizations, who should know better, have joined the chorus of instigators rather than taking this opportunity to teach their members about the importance of freedom of speech and tolerance.

[...]

When will Muslims wake up and realize that their intolerance of opposing opinions is keeping them in the dark ages? When will Muslims realize that respect must be earned and not forced through violence and coercion? When will Muslims realize that individual liberty and freedom of expression are fundamental human rights? When will American Muslim organization provide solutions to Muslims rather than instigate problems? The Free Muslims Coalition hopes that the answer to all these questions is soon.

For more information visit: www.FreeMuslims.org

Kamal Nawash, 202-776-7190, 301-905-6438, president@freemuslims.org.

Read More

Update:

Michelle Malkin has a similar post this morning re:

WHAT DOES THE AMERICAN LEFT HAVE TO SAY?

HT Dr. Zin - Regime Change Iran

Iran launched 'secret' rocket test
The Weekend Australian
From correspondents in Berlin
February 04, 2006

IRAN secretly tested a new surface-to-surface missile (SSM) on January 17, seeking to establish the measurements needed for long-range missiles, the German daily Die Welt reported in its issue to appear today.

The test, conducted by members of the Revolutionary Guard led by Yahya Rahim Safavi, was successful, according to Western diplomats cited by the newspaper, which did not indicate the location where the test took place.

On January 28, Safavi said that Iran would use its ballistic missiles if it was attacked.

"Iran has a ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometres," he said on Iranian public television.

"We do not intend to attack any country, but if we are attacked, we are capable of effectively responding. Our position is defensive."

Mr Safavi was referring to the Shahab-3 missiles that Iran possesses which can reach Israel and US bases in the Middle East.

Link

HT Mark in Mexico

Interesting piece that Mark just posted. Rocketsbrain has long suspected a much bigger game is afoot - Dr. Watson. This is a MAD Magazine Spy vs. Spy cartoon panel at its best.

See these prior posts:

UPDATE - SADDAM'S WMDs IN SYRIA

While there has been open turf war between the CIA (CYA'g) and the Office of the President, it's disingenuous that our intel community has remained silent on this. Either they are considerably dumber then the general consensus or there is a bigger political/psy-ops game afoot. The former would mean we are in deep "do do" (ala Michael Jackson).

I would suggest a middle of the road position while we have made many mistakes along the way as Victor Davis Hanson has written many times will occur in war. The key however to winning the war is to learn from them, adapt, take risks but most importantly keep engaging the enemy.

Assuming an US/Israeli raid on Iran is on deck in the immediate future, this may be a trump card that is being held close to the vest. The LL and MSM have been allowed to run with a long rope with the meme, "Bush lied people died." They have been so focused on this like a pack of dogs on a kill; they have not seen what may be in plain sight. Of course OBL, Al-Zawahri and other are consumers of the MSM as they craft their PR responses accordingly and use this as a wedge issue to divide the American people. This administration has done little to dispel this notion that the intel was wrong going into the Iraqi invasion and we continue to bumble through.

Rocketsbrain suggests this "trump card" will be played if it becomes necessary to launch a preemptive strike against the Mad Mullahs of Iran and President MAD. The LL and the MSM will be left dangling in the wind. Praise be to Allah for President MAD in clarifying the aims of Islamofascism ideology much to the chagrin of the mullahs. No wonder planes are "crashing" in Iraq and there have been assassination attempts on President MAD, he's been too literal in his statements to the free world. DAMN!

Yes, this is highly speculative, but this is my current read of the tea leaves that gives some meaning to the puzzle pieces.

[...]

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Austin Bay - The Iranian Military Option
HT Austin Bay

UPDATED

The Blogos is ringing lately regarding a possible Israeli/US preemptive strike to take out the Mullahs' nuclear weapons building capacity.

As I said in other posts today, don't mess with Texas and don't mess with Texans!

If there is a military strike it will be lightning fast and extremely deadly for this is war. We have the ability to drive a stake into the very heart of the enemy and its ideology of hate and evil, Islamofascism. The only question is, do we have the political will and nerve? Or will we dither and only have to do it in the future at much greater cost?

[...]

Read More

*****

Iran between steel jaws of a trap?

I found this very interesting, albeit disturbing article in Asia Times Online through Lucianne. The article is titled Iran and the jaws of a trap. It was written by a Paul Levian who is identified as a former German intelligence officer. Interestingly, a Google search for Paul Levian turns up exactly zip, zilch, nada. A search of Google News turns up the same article, but this time on a UK news site called mathaba.net, subscription 2.95 pounds Sterling per month. Hmmm.

Mr. Levian, whomever he might be, is of the opinion that the United States has not only handled its Iran dossier much more skillfully than Iraq, but also managed to set up Iran for a war it can neither win nor fight to a draw.

He says that the Iranians are in for a shock.

If the Iranian leaders think they can deter an attack because the US is bogged down in Iraq they are already between the jaws of a well-set trap. Though a Western war against Iran will be a big geopolitical defeat for Russia and China, they cannot but resign themselves to this outcome if they are unable to convince the Iranians to accept the Russian proposal - ie uranium enrichment in Russia.

Levian believes that China and Russia have been forced by the US, UK and France to bail out on their support for Iran. If Iran refuses to allow the enrichment of uranium in Russia, then Levian says we're on.

Levian claims that Iran is basing its intransigence and belligerence on four fallacies.

1. Iran is much stronger militarily than was Iraq, a much larger state, much tougher terrain and much more difficult to attack, defeat, occupy and pacify.

2. Iran is counting on the threat of world-wide condemnation of any attack to forestall just such an attack.

3. The interruption of the flow of Iranian oil would be devastating to the world's economy.

4. The US and UK forces are too busy in Iraq to constitute a threat to the Mullahs.

Levian then sets about to debunk all 4 of the Iranian misconceptions.

1. The US has no intention of occupying and pacifying Iran as it is trying to do in Iraq (more on that later).

2. With all of the big 5 (US, UK, France, Russia, China) on board, who cares about world-wide condemnation?

3. The attacking coalition would go right for the oil fields. Any interruption is assumed to be minimal.

4. The US and UK forces can be quickly re-deployed, especially under the cover of the first few days of an allied air assault. Levian doesn't say so, but he seems to hint that this has been planned for a long time. Also, Levian claims that the US has more than adequate forces already in position along the Iran/Iraq border to contain the expected initial surge of Iranian forces. Levian adds, almost as an afterthought, that any widespread uprising against US and UK forces in Iraq would be viewed as a nuisance and would simply be met with overwhelming firepower.

[...]

Read it All

HT Dr. Sanity

A must read by all re the current outburst of violence by the followers of the Religion of Peace (RoP).

Yes, these cartoons may be offensive to some but there is much more at stake here. There comes a time when PCism must take a backseat to reality and free speech.

As I alluded to in my first post political satire is the strongest weapon against intolerance of oppresive governments and ideologies - the ability to question authority.

An ideology that can't take political criticism/satire, that resorts to violence, is intolerant and oppressive. What does the Religion of Peace have to hide?

Nazism, Fascisim, and Maoism all have things in common with the RoP. These are all failed ideologies that have been relagated to history's dustbin. They were incapable of meeting the needs and wants of their people. These ideologies did not recognize the universal truth of the FREE WILL OF MEN AND WOMEN!

*****

Democracy In A Cartoon
To paraphrase William Blake:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Apocolype in a crescent moon,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Democracy in a cartoon.

[...]

This, I submit, is the direct result of the West's descent into the abyss of political correctness and cultural relativity. This descent has been fueled by the ascent of postmodern political rhetoric which, among other things, rejects reason and rationality in political discourse and behavior.

The dual insanity and subversivenss of these two hallmarks of leftist thought are brought together in the following common, but wholly contradictory, threads of politically correct postmodern rhetoric: On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.

These two mutually contradictory postitions are both firmly held beliefs--one might even say they are considered holy writ by the acolytes of the liberal left.

For years now, these two mantras have been trickling down into the consciousness and belief system of the West. They have quietly been integrated into our K-12 curriculum; they have taken over our Universities (where Free Speech is no longer tolerated if it happens to "hurt" someone's feelings); they regularly appear both directly and symbolically in popular movies and on the news tickers for the mainstream media.

Is it any surprise that this Postmodern PC has now been duly enshrined into the national platform for at least one of our major political parties; and that it even has begun to eat away at the heart of values like freedom of speech in the other.

Let me be blunt. At this point, I don't care who is offended by the Danish cartoons or even how personally the adherents of Islam take the insult. What I care about is the violent and irrational behavior exhibited by muslims, as they scream and burn and generally around throw a hissy fit and act like the thugees in their worship of Kali. The controversy is no longer about the cartoons or how offensive they may or may not be.

It is about freedom. It is about choice. It is about standing up for the values of Western Civilization.

I may hate Tom Tole's and Ted Rall's cartoons (and often, I do), but by god, I will fight for their right to be as offensive and obnoxious as they want as they pave their own way to hell. I will not support them in any other way except for that.

For what is their sin? They have only drawn cartoons that reflect their souls, after all. Any god--even Allah, should be able to sort that out at the appropriate time.

The unacceptable and violent behavior that is now sweeping around the world; and which is being done in the name of the so-called "religion of peace" in response to some cartoons about their founder Muhammed; truly demonstrates the fanatical, oppressive, and totalitarian soul of their religion and culture. AND THEIR BEHAVIOR AND DEMANDS MUST NOT BE TOLERATED BY FREE MEN AND WOMEN ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

Bob Dylan once said, “Toleration of the unacceptable leads to the last round-up.”

Unless we think this is the last round-up for Liberty and Democracy, then I suggest we stop tolerating the violent and mindless behavior of Islam and do whatever is necessary to stop it.

[...]

[Bolding - my emphasis]

A Must Read

Bogger appears to be working again for all those who have been missing there favorite blogs hosted there.

Could it be all the traffic loaded with graphics files of THOSE cartoons crashed the blogger servers?

A thought anyway.

Toledoblade.com

Article published February 4, 2006

Saddam's WMD
[By Jack Kelly]

LAST week a man who had been deputy chief of Saddam Hussein's air force claimed Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war began.

Special Republican Guard brigades loaded yellow barrels with the skull and crossbones sign on each barrel onto two airliners from which the seats had been removed, Georges Sada said. There were 56 flights in all.

"Saddam realized this time the Americans are coming," Mr. Sada told the New York Sun, one of a handful of news organizations that took note of what he had to say.

There are grounds for skepticism. Mr. Sada was deputy chief of the Iraqi air force during the first Gulf War, not the more recent one, and his account of the movement of WMD to Syria is secondhand. Mr. Sada said he was told of the WMD transfer by the pilots of the two airliners, who approached him after Saddam was captured.

But Mr. Sada's is only the most recent of a series of accounts by people in a position to speak with authority who say (some of) Saddam's chemical and biological weapons wound up in Syria.

w●Last month Moshe Yaalon, who was Israel's top general at the time, said Iraq transported WMD to Syria six weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

w●Last March, John A. Shaw, a former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said Russian Spetsnaz units moved WMD to Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

"While in Iraq I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took, and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives," Mr. Shaw told NewsMax reporter Charles Smith.

w●Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong was deputy commander of Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In September, 2004, he told WABC radio that "I do know for a fact that some of those weapons went into Syria, Lebanon, and Iran."

w●In January, 2004, David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group, which conducted the search for Saddam's WMD, told a British newspaper there was evidence unspecified materials had been moved to Syria from Iraq shortly before the war.

"We know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Mr. Kay told the Sunday Telegraph.

w●Also that month, Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who defected to an undisclosed European country, told a Dutch newspaper he knew of three sites where Iraq's WMD were being kept. They were the town of al Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria, the Syrian air force base near the village of Tal Snan, and the city of Sjinsar on the border with Lebanon.

w●In an addendum to his final report last April, Charles Duelfer, who succeeded David Kay as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said he couldn't rule out a transfer of WMD from Iraq to Syria.

"There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation," Mr. Duelfer said.

w●In a briefing for reporters in October, 2003, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, Jr., who was head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency when the Iraq war began, said satellite imagery showed a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion.

"I think the people below Saddam Hussein and his sons' level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," General Clapper said.

You haven't heard much about these reports, because they contradict the theory that Saddam either had no WMD, or destroyed them well before the Iraq war began. The captured files of the Iraqi intelligence service, still mostly untranslated, could shed light on what did happen to Saddam's WMD.

John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor, said a civilian contractor who has been among those examining the Mukhabarat files has found audiotapes of meetings in Saddam's office where WMD were discussed. The contractor, a former military intelligence analyst, will make the tapes public Feb. 17 at a conference sponsored by Intelligence Summit, a private group that Mr. Loftus heads.

Mr. Loftus wouldn't disclose the identity of the contractor in advance of the conference, but said his tapes have been verified by the National Security Agency. "This isn't a smoking gun. It's a smoking cannon," he said.

Those who have bet their political futures that Saddam had no WMD may be starting to sweat.

Link

I've decided to use Yahoogroups to distribute content digests of Rocket's Brain Trust. These digests will be sent on a semi-daily basis. I will include the title and a short excerpt of the piece. If there is a significant breaking story I may send a special email.

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HT The American Thinker

This is one of the better pieces I've seen in the Blogos today

*****

The Pigskin Parable
February 3rd, 2006

The Islamic Caliphate is coming. Their version of the One World (Umma), gilded with Islamic symbols, is ready for prime time. It’s going to get very weird. Just remember, Jesus got here first, courtesy of Abraham and Moses, and that’s our side.

Our side is your side, even if you think it’s not. Our side is freedom: religious, civil, and economic. We celebrate Creator-based freedom on the Fourth of July, civil freedom on Veteran’s Day, and economic-based freedom on Super Bowl Sunday, our market-created national party day.

In fact, on Super Bowl Sunday, we invite the entire world to join our side, to celebrate American Pigskin.

Jihadanomics: Global Jihad, Phase Two

The next Caliphate has begun buying into the great learning institutions of the world. After Jihadis struck our national symbols on 9/11, the Caliphs declared themselves allies in the War on Terror, investing in Harvard University and Georgetown University to the tune of 20 million dollars each. They just added Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced Strategic Studies (SAIS) to the list, and in the name of cross-cultural “understanding” and “inter-faith” tolerance, are subsidizing our leading educational institutions to promote “modernity” in Islam.

Sounds promising?

On December 28, 2005, a terrorist gunman opened-fire on five prestigious scientists at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, the new Silicon Valley. Dr. M.C. Puri, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, was brutally assassinated and four others injured, including Vijay Chandru, the founder of the Indian-developed palm-computer, the Simputer. Moreover, Bangalore boasts some 1,500 tech companies, 200,000 employees, accounting for 40% of India’s IT revenues. It is a major center for high-tech research and development for corporate giants such as Microsoft, Intel, GE, GM, Motorola, Cisco, and Google.

Welcome to Jihadanomics—the question is not just who killed Dr. Puri, the question is why?

Is Pigskin Next?

There was an ancient war over the pig. Jews and Christians worked it out, allowing each group their own pig views. After settling the pig matter, Judeo-Christianity reconciled the separation of Church and State, giving birth to the Grand Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the founding of America, where religious freedom gave rise to civil liberties and economic freedom.

Islam rejects religious freedom, and still prohibits pigs, even more than 300 years after their (second) truce at the gates of Vienna on September 11, 1683. In fact, there is a permanent Jihad (“Holy War”) against all that is non-Muslim, in order to establish Islamic law of Shari’a throughout the world. This Islamic government, dating back to the 7th Century, rejects your right to religious freedom, your right to exist as a non-Muslim if push comes to shove, any and all civil freedoms, and, of course, Israel’s right to exist.

We generally call this sort of system totalitarianism.

According to Islamic tradition, all non-Muslims are pigs, though Jews are pigs and dogs. When “The Three Little Pigs” was banned from storytime in England last year, pig alerts went hog wild across cyberspace: Hide your piggy banks! Is Porky next? Babe needs Witness Protection! What about Miss Piggy’s dream of a normal marriage, affirming “piglet” has a right to exist, like Israel?

More importantly, if pigs are on the chopping block, what is gonna happen to football when they hear about Pigskin?!

[...]

Read it All

Update:

Michelle Malkin also has some suggestions re munchies for Super Bowl Sunday

Update:

The American Thinker just posted this email from a Danish reader re the Pigskin piece.

*****

An email from Denmark

The signer’s name is withheld, as per request:

In these times of war and oppression, it is very heartening to read the news that a “Buy Danish”-campaign is rising in USA. I don’t know if you, living in an enormous country like USA, can imagine how it is to live in a small country like Denmark these days. It is easy to feel left alone with all of the muslim world against us. Furthermore, the half-hearted support from the European commision leaves us with the feeling that our dearly beloved freedom of speech and freedom of press is being butchered by islamic fanatics in the Middle East.

It all started with a debate in Denmark about these twelve cartoon drawings of Muhammed. There were much rumble about whether JyllandsPosten crossed the line by publishing them. One the other hand, the newspaper did it to raise a debate on self-censorship among Danish cartoonists. Many of those very afraid of assaults by muslims living here. The result was that no one dared make drawings for a children’s book on Muhammed’s life – a book by Kaare Bluitgen which was published recently with drawings made by an anonymous cartoonist. By how come Danish cartoonists were afraid of reprisals from Danish muslims? Was the danger of doing so only imaginary? Quite on the contrary. About half a year ago, a professor at the University of Copenhagen was beaten up by two or three young muslim men. The muslim men were furious that the professor had cited verses from the Koran in one of his lectures. The thing is that the professor had Islam and the Middle East as his field of study and were of course using the Koran as a pathway to understand the muslim culture.

So how is it living in Denmark today? Well, the daily is hardly changed except that the media is overflowing with news on burning flags and images, and new threats on the Danes working in the Middle East. Recently, two men working for the Danish milk company, ARLA, was attacked in the U.A.E., and as recent as today the editorial offices of the JyllandsPosten in both Copenhagen and Aarhus were evacuated due to bomb threats. It’s tough to see a more and more fanatic group of muslims challenge basic freedom rights of our country.

For several years now, Denmark and USA have been close friends and allies in the war on terror. Therefore, it warms the heart of the vast majority of Danes to see that we’re not forgotten and left alone.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

God bless America! God bless Denmark and the strong bonds between our nations..

Link

HT Right Wing Nut House

I've tried to post representative views from reasonable thinkers in the Blogos. I tend to favor this one at the Right Wind Nut House and Michelle Malkin perhaps not so bluntly. On the otherhand AJ at The Strata-Sphere has a different perspective.

As I alluded to in my first post political satire is the strongest weapon against intolerance of oppresive governments and ideologies - the ability to question authority.

*****

AT WAR WITH MODERNITY

It may be that someday, historians will look back on the “Holy War Against Cartoons” as something of a turning point in the larger conflict between Muslims and the west. This is because at bottom, the controversy has now moved far beyond the original complaints of Muslims against the portrayal of their religious icons in what they consider to be a disrespectful manner and has entered the realm of what shooting wars are usually about – facilitating or preventing change.

The hysteria being whipped up by Muslim religious leaders against the west (and shamelessly exploited by Islamic political leaders) is a glimpse into the soul of Islam itself and how it is a cultural imperative for the guardians of that faith to prevent at all costs this supposed slur from going unanswered. To do so would allow a tiny crack in the wall that separates Islam from the modern world. And like the unbending dogmatic faiths that have ended up in history’s dustbin before, it has always been a tiny crack which proved to be the impetus for cataclysmic change, sweeping away the old order and bring on the new.

Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the wall of a church was much more than the act of a tortured conscience rebelling against the corruptive influence of absolute power by the Roman church over the individual. It was a harbinger of the modern world itself, a clarion call for the needs of an independent mind to triumph over the slavery imposed by history, by dogma, and by a tradition that made some men masters over others thanks to their selection by the Almighty as conduits through which ordinary people might achieve paradise. Luther’s complete rejection of this cultural bête noire started a revolution he neither sought nor, in the end, supported. But his simple act cracked open a door to a brave new world that led directly to a political revolution that created more secular nation-states in Europe that were independent of Rome.

Similarly, near the end of the 20th century, the leaders of Soviet Communism were desperately trying to maintain their total control of a restive populace by trying to limit contact with western values and ideas. Enter Mikail Gorbechev who mistakenly thought he could reform communism by importing a few western concepts about freedom. To Mr. Gorbechev’s amazement, his reform measures rather than tamping down dissent actually let loose a flood of discontents that eventually led to the destruction of the Soviet state as well as his own personal downfall. Gorbechev made the mistake of thinking that he could control the forces of change that, once unshackled, swept the dogmatic Soviet system away.

All it takes is a crack.

This idea has not been lost on the mullahs, the imams, and the holy men who have whipped their flocks into paroxysms of hate at European governments that dare to allow independent newspapers published in their countries to run the offending caricatures. Because for anyone to challenge the authentic word of Allah as it is revealed in the Koran is to invite questions. As history has shown, asking questions is the first step in the destruction of dogmatic faith. And since the enemy of dogma is independent thinking, once the human mind is free to inquire into one aspect of one’s faith, there is nothing to stop it from further enlightenment. For the religious tyrants who seek to control the thinking of their charges, there can be nothing worse.

[...]

Read it All

HT Omar at Iraq the Model

Omar detects a shift in how Iraqi Sunni leaders view the American presence in Iraq. Seems they see Iran and those who ally with them as a greater enemy.

Is it a real position swap?

A rainy weekend in Baghdad didn't stop political meetings from taking place or political statements from coming up.

Leaders of the five major blocs met again in Jafari's HQ this morning after they met at Talabani's and al-Hakeem's in the past two days.

In fact, there's little to say about these meetings which don't seem productive at the moment and I think when al-Mutlaq said these meetings are to "melt the ice" he described them in a good way.

Anyway...

[...]

Read More

HT Winds of Change

Amplification on previous post.

Yes, these cartoons may be offensive to some but there is much more at stake here. There comes a time when PCism must take a backseat to reality and free speech.

If someone is offended they have the right to criticize just as the US Joint Chief of Staffs' did with the recent cartoon depicting a wounded serviceman.

****

First they came for the funny ones
Kathleen Parker
COMMENTARY

February 1, 2006

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of political cartoonists.

Not this time for the ones losing newspaper jobs, but for those whose lives are literally on the line thanks to outraged Islamists offering a bounty for their heads.

The cartoonists in question are a dozen Danish artists who drew Muhammad-themed cartoons last September for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten during an exercise to test the limits of free speech. The cartoon-a-thon was conceived in response to complaints from a Danish author who couldn't find anyone to illustrate her Muhammad children's book.

Although the book itself was not controversial, the Muslim faith considers it blasphemy to depict the Prophet in any way. Thus, in December, the youth branch of Pakistan's largest religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, offered a bounty for murdered cartoonists.

One could make a quick argument against publishing some of the cartoons for being mediocre, but free speech makes no demand for quality. More to the point, the Danish cartoon controversy proves the larger truth that those groups most vocal in demanding tolerance from others are usually themselves the least tolerant.

Denmark is a cautionary tale for those who doubt the insidious and serious nature of our enemies and illustrates the deep schism between believers in democratic ideals and many of those we hope to convert. In the relaxed parlance of our uniquely Western attitude toward irreverence, they don't get it.

Until Muslim nations and peoples do get the idea that free expression means freedom to offend as well as the necessary correlative -- to be offended -- we have a problem. And people like former President Bill Clinton, who essentially sided with jihadists with his recent comments on the cartoon controversy, have done much to exacerbate it.

Is it possible that Clinton doesn't get it either?

In a confusion of moral equivalency, Clinton compared the cartoons to anti-Semitism and condemned them as "appalling."

"So now what are we going to do? . . . Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?" he said Monday at an economic conference in the Qatari capital of Doha.

No, what is appalling is that a Western leader who still wields enormous power would sacrifice an opportunity to explain big ideas and big principles to a part of the world that clearly doesn't understand them. Instead, he finessed the moment and caved to the kind of virtue that feels good in the present but that gets people killed in the future.

It's too bad Clinton didn't consult with veteran American political cartoonist Doug Marlette (who coined the term "Faux Bubba" just for Clinton), as Danish journalists did last November after the controversy began.

Few have more experience with religious outrage than Marlette or are more articulate about the democratic principles cartoons serve. Marlette, too, has been on the receiving end of Islamist death threats -- for a Muhammad-related cartoon he drew in 2002 (doug marlette.com) -- and won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for his commentary on Jim and Tammy Bakker's Praise the Lord Club.

In an interview with Jyllands-Posten, Marlette rejected the idea that Westerners ought to make special concessions to sensitive Muslims.

"The genius of Western democracy is that there should be no 'special' rights or privileges for any group or class of people. All are created equal and are treated equally under the law. Law is insensitive that way. And so is intellectual inquiry. And so is good satire."

None of us likes it when our icons are busted, or our revered symbols ridiculed. But we tolerate offense in the spirit of larger freedoms under rules that have sustained us for centuries.

What we have learned over time is that free expression is society's relief valve, without which aggression and hostility go underground. What eventually bubbles back up to the surface is the sort of spirit that drives today's jihadists. Better to air and view our disagreements by the light of day -- in the public forum -- rather than wait for them to find expression by darker means.

As Marlette puts it: "Our ability to engage in vigorous debate and to tolerate robust intellectual discourse and all the attendant controversies is a measure of the health of society."

Too bad Clinton didn't say that. But then, Clinton has always been best at saying what he perceives people want to hear, rather than what is true.

Kathleen Parker can be reached at kparker@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5202.

Copyright © 2006, Orlando Sentinel

Link

HT Michelle Malkin

Here's the cartoons that are creating all the ruckus in the Islamic world. They are tame compared to the usual political/satire cartoons.

An ideology that can't take political criticism/satire, that resorts to violence, is intolerant and oppressive. What does the Religion of Peace have to hide?

The cartoons:

HT The Strata-Sphere

Iran's Two Front Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons

The focus of discussions and dialogue on Iran's nuclear activities have centered the enrichment of uranium (graphic), a process necessary for producing nuclear fuel for peaceful energy use or for creating a nuclear weapon. The enrichment process is at the heart of the conflict, where Tehran insists on maintaining enrichment rights inside of Iran while the international community seeks to remove the threat by allowing enrichment to be carried out in Russia and the low-grade nuclear fuel delivered to Iran.

There has long been speculation about a potential parallel Plutonium program that Iran was clandestinely operating. In today's edition of the Washington Times is an article that again raises the issue.

Iran is building nuclear weapons through both plutonium and enriched uranium as part of a secret development effort, a senior State Department official said yesterday. "The regime in Tehran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons capability," Robert G. Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control, said in a speech. Mr. Joseph said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that Iran is pursuing "numerous routes to provide it with the ability to produce fissile material for weapons."

The comments were a rare public disclosure by the Bush administration about Iran's secret nuclear arms program. "We judge Iran is going down the plutonium route through construction of a heavy-water research reactor and a heavy-water plant," he said, noting that Tehran has carried out experimental plutonium separation and purification work. "Iran has even more aggressively pursued the enrichment route, demonstrating its commitment and determination to expend tremendous resources in defiance of the international community by building facilities to convert and enrich uranium.

[...]

Read it All

State-of-the Art Hospital Planned for Military Troops

By:Jeremy Borden

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The Capitol Hill news conference was packed Thursday with influential government leaders and high-profile armed forces personnel. But all thoughts were on just a few soldiers - who, speakers said, had made a powerful sacrifice by giving a piece of themselves on the battlefield.

Army Staff Sgt. Justin Shellhammer, Army Capt. Lonnie Moore and Vietnam veteran Cpl. Bill Johnston, a Marine, were among the troops in attendance who had been injured in combat and lost a limb. They listened as Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and John Warner, R-Va., praised the announced construction of a new, state-of-the-art rehabilitation center for veterans.

Construction on the facility, called the Center for the Intrepid, will begin in October in San Antonio, Texas, and is expected to be completed by January 2007.

Project organizers said the $30 million, 60,000-square-foot hospital will be the first of its kind, offering in one place therapy for any emotional or physical needs an injured troop might require and using state-of-the-art technology and techniques. It will be open to U.S. veterans who are rehabilitating from injuries sustained in previous battles or training. Some of the technology in the facility is currently unavailable elsewhere, said William Kline, an architect working on the project. The center is being paid for by individual donors.

[...]

Advances in battlefield medical training and technology have meant many more soldiers survive than in previous conflicts, speakers at the Thursday news conference said. Fisher said that 6 percent of those injured return as amputees, as opposed to an average of 3 percent in previous conflicts - underscoring the need for the center, speakers said.The center will have the "best equipment and medical care available in the world," said Fisher, a Korean War veteran. Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, among other armed forces personnel, spoke about the importance and timeliness of the Center of the Intrepid.

[...]
Read it All

HT Strategy Page

Rumors of War, And Other Useful Stuff

February 2, 2006: There appears to be a serious rift in the cabinet of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some of his supporters are urging a hard-line against the US and adventurism abroad, while others believes that war with the US is not inevitable and that Iran can benefit from maintaining a low profile. Ahmadinejad has apparently let all the international media attention go to his head. Ahmadinejad always was a news hound, and enjoyed getting recognized for accomplishing things while mayor of Tehran. But now many Iranians are getting nervous, because Ahmadinejad is talking war and not getting anything done for the poor and oppressed (by the corrupt clergy who control the government and much of the mismanaged economy). Iranian Internet chatter is full of such misgivings. But Ahmadinejad's playing of the nationalism card makes open demonstrations of opposition dangerous.

[...]

Read More

HT FrontPage via Jihad Watch

Cartoon Rage vs. Freedom of Speech
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 2, 2006

Muslim rage over cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad published in early October in a Danish newspaper continues to grow worldwide.

[...]

These cartoons are much less offensive than what is routinely printed in every American newspaper about presidents, presidential candidates, and other pols. Yet strange as it may seem to Western non-Muslims, the rage over them seems to grow with each passing day — until the global scale of the response to it has now involved ambassadors from many countries, the United Nations, international boycotts, and the threatening of utterly innocent businesspeople and embassy personnel.

[...]

Ultimately, then, the cartoon controversy is a question of freedom of speech. As I wrote in mid-December: “As it grows into an international cause célèbre, the cartoon controversy indicates the gulf between the Islamic world and the post-Christian West in matters of freedom of speech and expression. And it may yet turn out that as the West continues to pay homage to its idols of tolerance, multiculturalism, and pluralism, it will give up those hard-won freedoms voluntarily.” Freedom of speech encompasses precisely the freedom to annoy, to ridicule, to offend. If it doesn’t, it is hollow. The instant that any person or ideology is considered off-limits for critical examination and even ridicule, freedom of speech has been replaced by an ideological straitjacket. Westerners seem to grasp this easily when it comes to affronts to Christianity, even when they are as sharp-edged and offensive as Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ or Chris Ofili’s dung- and pornography-encrusted Holy Virgin Mary. But the same clarity of thought doesn’t seem to carry over to an Islamic context.

[...]

The free world should be standing resolutely with Denmark, ready to defend freedom of speech. Insofar as it is not defended, it will surely be lost. On Wednesday publications all over Europe — in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Holland — published the cartoons to demonstrate their support for this principle. But in a grim reminder of the dhimmitude and multiculturalist fog that still grips us, the editor of France Soir was fired for doing so. The defense of free speech and free thought will not be easy, and is not the matter of just a day.

Read it All [Has the cartoons in question]

HT The Strata-Sphere

A Cartoon Will Show Us The Way

Updates at the end - keep scrolling

It is truly amazing how history works. Apparently it will be cartoons that provide the EU its much needed wake up call on radical Islamists.

[...]

The insecurity of the radical Islamists is well documented, from their treatment of women to their anger at every possible slight. The image of brave Moorish warriors from the historic heights of Islam is being replaced with modern images of suicide bombers killing little boys and girls - when not hiding in caves. I am not surprised at how this is panning out. Something was going to bring things to a boil in the EU between the West and radical Islam.

[...]

We need to protect the cartoonists rights to free speech – no question. The paper needs to be backed for doing nothing more than asking and printing the voices of the people. But can’t we also explain to moderate Muslims that free speech means people say dumb and hurtful things and we do not need to lash out at them? How do we explain to a region that is not use to free speech that people are free to make fools of themselves, and the rest are free to peacefully echo back the view these people are fools?

[...]

Read More

HT Dr. Zin - Regime Change Iran

The Mullahs nuclear weapons game unraveling.

*****

Elaine Sciolino and William J. Broad, The New York Times:

The International Atomic Energy Agency says it has evidence that suggests links between Iran's ostensibly peaceful nuclear program and its military work on high explosives and missiles, according to a confidential agency report provided to member countries today.

The four-page report, which officials say was based at least in part on intelligence provided by the United States, refers to a secretive Iranian entity called the "Green Salt Project," which worked on uranium processing, high explosives and a missile warhead design. The combination suggests a "military-nuclear dimension," the report said, that if true would undercut Iran's claims that its nuclear program was solely aimed at producing electrical power.

[...]

The report suggests that the fuel project, the "high explosives" tests and the design of a "missile re-entry vehicle" would "appear to have administrative interconnections." It would seem to be the first time that the agency has publicly suggested that the fuel production — which Iran has said it purely for civilian purposes — was linked to its military programs.

The tests of high explosives are of particular concern: one of the key challenges in making a nuclear weapon is designing the ring of conventional explosives that can be used to compress the nuclear material, setting off a nuclear chain reaction.

[...]

"The obvious technical connection is that these are all central elements of a program to develop nuclear weapons and delivery capability," said Per F. Peterson, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

The alleged bureaucratic linkage of the various efforts would make them highly suspicious, Dr. Peterson added, as each one separately could be viewed as potentially unrelated to nuclear arms.

While the Bush administration has long argued that Iran uses its civilian program to hide ambitions to build a nuclear weapon, the agency has always steered clear of that accusation. With today's report, it has for the first time provided evidence directly suggesting that at least some of Iran's activities point to a military project.

[...]

Read More

Thought I would post this here since I ran across it again. Source is a "senior" Syrian jounralist and was reported by DEBKAfile (you decide its credibility)

*****

A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq’s WMD located in three Syrian sites.

Special report by DEBKAfile

January 8, 2004, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)

Nizar Najoef, a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf,” that he knows the three sites where Iraq’s WMD are kept. The storage places are:

1. Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.

2. The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian airforce camp. Vital parts of Iraq’s WMD are stored there.

3. The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of the city Homs.

Najoef writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Hussein’s Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assad’s cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.

[...]

Read More

HT Dr. Zin - Regime Change Iran

Mansoor Ijaz, FOXNEWS contributing expert, concludes:

Regime change is the only solution that will insure the world's safety against clerics who believe their right to have nuclear weapons is an apocalyptic defense for a final confrontation with the West that would guarantee their survival.

****

Mansoor Ijaz, National Review Online:

On February 1, an emergency session of the International Atomic Energy Agency is being convened to discuss potential solutions for how the world should deal with Iran's nuclear mischief. Referring Iran to the United Nations for possible economic and other sanctions now appears certain to be the punitive measure of choice.

But neither an IAEA referral, nor U.N. economic, military, or political sanctions, nor Russia's joint uranium-enrichment offer, nor threats of Israeli air raids against Iran's nuclear installations will change the mindset and determination of a regime intent on holding the world hostage to its nuclear blackmail through delay, obfuscation and lies that buy its scientists the time they need to perfect nuclear fuel cycles and to duplicate key elements of bomb designs.

The time for talk and negotiations is over.

Regime change is the only solution that will insure the world's safety against clerics who believe their right to have nuclear weapons is an apocalyptic defense for a final confrontation with the West that would guarantee their survival. Until then, and until they have a critical mass of nuclear weapons to carry forth their maniacal plans, they will bide time with a menacingly effective outsourcing strategy to hold their enemies in check — fingerprint-less state-sponsored terror.

Read it All!

HT Mudville Gazette via Instapundit

More from the Army lawyers. They simply, DON'T GET IT! Perhaps they should be given guns and pull some combat patrol duty!

*****
Yon to Sue Army?
Greyhawk

Last year the photo was all over the web, credited to AP/US Army: Major Dave Bieger cradling Farah, the young girl killed by terrorists. But the photographer was Mike Yon, and he didn't authorize the release. Now, according to the Chicago-area Daily Southtown

[...]

In an Oct. 13 letter to Yon denying his request for compensation for the alleged infringement, Army intellectual property lawyer Alan Klein wrote that Yon had given up his right for compensation when he signed the standard liability form all embedded journalists must sign.

The form states that Yon agreed to "release the (military) of any liability from and hold them harmless for any injuries I may suffer or any equipment that may be damaged as a result of my covering combat."

In his letter, Klein argues that an injury to Yon's copyright is the same as an injury to his leg or his camera.

The release frees the Army "from any liability for any injury he may suffer," Klein wrote. "The claimant asserts he was injured by the distribution of his copyrighted works to the news media. This release absolves the Army of any liability for that injury."

This is just one reason why the Army will probably lose the information war on Iraq.

[...]
Read More

HT - FrontPage

The Nuclear Dots
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 2, 2006

As the International Atomic Energy Agency board meets today in emergency session in Vienna, they finally will begin to connect the dots of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program, after years of ignoring or dismissing the evidence.

[...]

The walk-in’s laptop. Sometime in mid to late 2004, an Iranian missile technician walked into a U.S. embassy to defect. For once, the CIA responded in the way the spy movies would have us believe is the norm: they actually listened to him, instead of rejecting his “stories” as “fabrications” that were “unverifiable.”

The reason for the CIA’s sudden shift in attitude was simple. This man came carrying a laptop crammed with technical documents from the Shahab-3 missile program, the missile the Revolutionary Guards regularly parade about Tehran with huge banners announcing it will “wipe Israel off the map.” Today these same missiles are being moved around every night in southwestern Iran, well within striking range of Israel.

[...]

The defector’s information was considered credible because it was limited in scope and highly detailed, other officials soon revealed in background briefings. The documents on the laptop showed that the Iranians were redesigning the re-entry vehicle of the Shahab-3 to carry and detonate a nuclear payload.

[...]

The Khan documents. The Iranians first revealed the existence of the second smoking gun in conversations with the head of the IAEA’s safeguards division, Ollie Heinonen, last fall. When questioned about documents they had obtained from the A.Q. Khan Nuclear Stop ‘N Shop, they casually revealed that among them were technical drawings describing the process of "casting and machining" uranium into "hemispherical forms."
Why would the Iranians want to master this process? According to Paul Leventhal, the founding president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a group that seeks tighter controls on nuclear materials and technologies, “The only known application for such technology is for producing the pit, or spherical core, of a nuclear weapon.” And Iran first showed interest in learning about that process fully nineteen years ago? Hello!

[...]

The IAEA secretary general may be the last man alive in a position of responsibility who still fails to connect the nuclear dots in Iran. Pity. His own safeguards director, Ollie Heinenon, told IAEA board members on Tuesday that the IAEA now believes that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps was carrying out work on high explosives and missiles that were directly linked to the country’s ostensibly “peaceful” nuclear energy programs.

If anyone needs more explicit proof than that of a secret nuclear weapons program, they may as well wait until the mushroom clouds go off.

[Kenneth R. Timmerman
President, Middle East Data Project, Inc.
Author: Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran]

Read it All!

Update:

Atlas Shrugs is on the warpath on this:

HOW DO YOU SPELL WAR? I-R-A-N

HT Town Hall

More info now coming out on Iraqi General Sada's book and claim that Saddam sent his WMD to Syria.

Bush lied. People Died?

Well maybe not true as the MSM, the LL, and Moonbats have whined. Perhaps some good objective investigative reporting by the Blogos is in order to run this to ground.

Rocketsbrain has commented on this twice before see links below. I did locate the links I mentioned in my previous post but lost them in a draft that died. I will get them again shortly.

*****

Saddam Sent WMD to Syria, Former General Alleges

By Sherrie Gossett

Feb 2, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - A former Iraqi general alleges that in June 2002 Saddam Hussein transported weapons of mass destruction out of the country to Syria aboard several refitted commercial jets, under the pretense of conducting a humanitarian mission for flood victims.

That's one of several dramatic claims made in the book by former Iraqi General Georges Sada: "Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein." Since the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Sada has served as the spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and continues to serve as national security advisor. He is the former vice marshal of the Iraqi Air Force. Sada was interviewed at the headquarters of Cybercast News Service on Jan. 30.

Sada contends that Saddam took advantage of a June 4, 2002, irrigation dam collapse in Zeyzoun, Syria, to ship the weapons under cover of an aid project to the flooded region.

"[Saddam] said 'Okay, Iraq is going to do an air bridge to help Syria," Sada recounted. Two commercial jets, a 747 and 727, were converted to cargo jets, in order to carry raw materials and equipment related to WMD projects, Sada said. The passenger seats, galleys, toilets and storage compartments were removed and new flooring was installed, he claimed. Hundreds of tons of chemicals were reportedly included in the cargo shipments. [See Video]

[...]

There is "no doubt" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, according to Eberly. He adds that Sada's book is "evidence" of that. Eberly's F-15E jet was shot down on Jan. 19, 1991, the third day of the first Persian Gulf War. He credits Sada with saving his life after the Iraqi general refused an order from one of Saddam's sons to execute Eberly and 23 other pilots who had been taken as prisoners of war.

[...]

In a now-famous speech just three months after Hamza's testimony, President Bush asserted that "if the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted the weekend of Jan 20 indicates that 53 per cent of Americans say Bush and his administration misled the public about Iraq's WMD program as a justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Read it All

Update:

Sgt. Stryker has been saying this for the last 2 1/2 years

HT Michelle Malkin

Michelle has jumped on this issue with both feet. The political correctness regarding references to Islam is becoming absurd. The Blogos is now ringing with a counter compaign to the Islamic World's boycott of Danish products.

See the banner I'm running in the header.

*****
FIRST, THEY CAME FOR THE CARTOONISTS

Fight the bullies of Islam
By Michelle Malkin

Something very important is happening in Denmark — a showdown over freedom, tolerance, and their wolfish menaces in religious clothing. So, please, turn off "American Idol," put down the Game Boy for a moment, and pay attention. This does affect you.

Last October, a Danish newspaper called the Jyllands-Posten published a dozen cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. The illustrations included various depictions of the prophet Muhammad, some innocuous (Muhammad walking in a pasture) and a few with provocative references to radical Islamic terrorism. One showed Muhammad with a bomb in his turban; another had Muhammad wielding a sword in front of two, wide-eyed Muslim women covered in black abayas; another featured a cartoonist hunched over his desk, sweating in fear, as he drew Muhammad in suicide bomb-like apparel.

[...]

On the Internet, supporters of free speech have launched a "Buy Danish" campaign in solidarity with the nation under siege. But this isn't just about Denmark. American-based Muslim activists are on an angry campaign to stifle the speech of talk show hosts (most recently, KFI morning host Bill Handel in Los Angeles) who offend their sensibilities. And on Tuesday afternoon in advance of the State of the Union address, the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued an ultimatum warning President Bush to "avoid the use of hot-button terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' 'militant jihadism,' 'Islamic radicalism' or 'totalitarian Islamic empire'" in his speech — in other words, advising Bush not to identify our enemies for the sake of tolerance and diversity.

[...]

First, they came for the cartoonists. Then, they came for the filmmakers and talk show hosts and namers of evil. Next, who knows?

Read it All

Also see Michelle's Blog for further information.

Update:

Michelle has an updated roundup of the building head of steam on the support Denmark campaign

HT Instapundit

Facts vs. Fiction: A Report from the Front
By Karl Zinsmeister

Your editor has just returned from another month in Iraq—my fourth extended tour in the last two and a half years. During November and December I joined numerous American combat operations, including the largest air assault since the beginning of the war, walked miles of streets and roads, entered scores of homes, listened to hundreds of Iraqis, observed voting at a dozen different polling sites, and endured my third roadside ambush. With this latest firsthand experience, here are answers to some common queries about how the war is faring.

[...]

Read it All

HT Dr. Zin - Regime Change Iran

Great op-ed piece.

*****

Jonathan Gurwitz, San Antonio Express-News:

Occasionally, madmen make good on their threats. Every now and again, the world's lunatics deliver a violent reminder that ignoring a seemingly insane peril is more perilous than confronting it. READ MORE

Adolf Hitler said he would build a Reich based on racial purity and enslave or destroy inferior nations. By the time isolationists and idealists caught on to Hitler's earnestness, it was very nearly too late. And never mind the pact he made with fellow maniacal mass murderer Josef Stalin, an alliance between fascists and communists — sworn enemies — that experts said could never be forged and gave Hitler two years to bring the power of the Wehrmacht to bear on the Western front.

Saddam Hussein, whose psychopathic Baathist regime borrowed more than just ideology from Nazism, said Kuwait was an inalienable part of Iraq. Most people regarded that claim, like his threat to "burn half of Israel," as some inconsequential mumbling. Until Iraqi troops rolled into Kuwait and declared it Iraq's 19th province.

"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, civilians and military," Osama bin Laden said, "is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

Just the musings of a wealthy Saudi screwball. And a Sunni religious extremist like bin Laden would never find common cause with a secular extremist like Saddam or Shiite extremists in Iran. They are — as the experts say — sworn enemies.

Now it is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's turn to be dismissed as a nuclear nut case.

[...]

Read it All

Excerpt from the link below

*****

BUSH: Democracies in the Middle East will not look like our own, because they will reflect the traditions of their own citizens. Yet liberty is the future of every nation in the Middle East, because liberty is the right and hope of all humanity.

(APPLAUSE)

The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people. The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon, and that must come to an end.

(APPLAUSE)

The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons.

(APPLAUSE)

BUSH: America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats.

And, tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.

(APPLAUSE)

HT In From the Cold

Spook86 noted as I did, Zawahiri seems to have relatively good access to media outlets. He also notes the use of a "chromo-key" background. Perhaps Zawahiri is getting a little nervous about circling predators.

*****

For a brief moment yesterday, there was a flurry of debate and analysis over the latest videotaped message from Al Qaida's #2 man, Ayman al Zawahiri.

Dr. Walid Phares has an expansive analysis at The Counterterrorism Blog. He believes the tape reflects an increased sophistication within Al Qaida's propaganda efforts, as Zawahiri tries to rally the jihadists, while sowing doubt among western audiences that are uneasy over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will agree with Dr. Pharres on one point: by appearing on tape only days after a U.S. attempt on his life, Zawahiri scores minor propaganda points by proving that he is alive and well. But Phares ignores a larger issue: this was a message that Zawahiri had to tape and disseminate quickly, to remove any doubts about his fate. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the message is that Al Qaida was able to get it out so quickly. Some have speculated that Zawahiri has better access to communications than bin Laden; suggesting that his location is not as remote as the Al Qaida leader. If that assessment is correct, it may be easier for Zawahiri to interact with operatives and direct Al Qaida operations. That would be an ominous development, indeed.

[...]

But that choice of backdrop is also revealing--and may reflect concerns over Zawahiri's safety (more on that in a moment). Looking at the tape, it looks like Al Qaida (or perhaps Al Jazerra, which aired the tape) used a process call chroma-key, to electronically insert Zawahiri in front of the black background. It's the same technique used by local TV stations for weather segments, allowing the meterologist to appear in front of satellite or radar graphics. In reality, the presenter is standing in front of a blank wall (usually light green in color); the desired graphic or background is inserted in place of that particular color. In the past, chroma-key typically required a TV studio; however, the technique can now be accomplished with a high-end video camera, a backdrop painted the appropriate color, and the right editing software.

[...]

Read it All

HT ThreatsWatch

Dan Darling examines in detail the latest tape by OBL. Darling pinpoints this tape was made during Nov and Dec 2005.

This does not rule out Michael Ledeen's assertion that OBL died in Iran from kidney failure during the later part of December or January.

*****

Full Text and Analysis of bin Laden's Audiotape
A detailed examination of bin Laden's latest message to the West and his supporters
By Dan Darling

My message to you is about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way to end it.

I had not intended to speak to you about this issue, because, for us, this issue is already decided on: diamonds cut diamonds.
Praise be to God, our conditions are always improving and becoming better, while your conditions are to the contrary of this.

This message, like bin Laden’s October 2004 video, is addressed to the American public, though its true audience is not the people of the United States but rather his supporters and fellow travelers within the Middle East and Islamic world. While some observers have suggested that this audio is somehow different from its predecessors due to a lack of Qur’anic invocations, the opening benediction is actually quite in keeping with bin Laden’s style. Moreover, the absence of references to either the Qur’an or classical Arab or Islamic texts should be understood as keeping with the form of the message, namely that its intended recipients are the American rather than the Islamic world.

However, what prompted me to speak are the repeated fallacies of your President Bush in his comment on the outcome of the US opinion polls, which indicated that the overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of the forces from Iraq, but he objected to this desire and said that the withdrawal of troops would send a wrong message to the enemy.

Read it All

CQ Transcripts Wire
Tuesday, January 31, 2006; 10:11 PM

Following is President Bush's State of the Union Address, as delivered to Congress:

SPEAKER: GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

[*]

BUSH: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, members of the Supreme Court and diplomatic corps, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens, today our nation lost a beloved, graceful, courageous woman who called America to its founding ideals and carried on a noble dream.

[...]

Read More

HT Jihad Watch

U.N. Says Iran Holds Illicit Nuke Document

So much for all that talk about how they just wanted nuclear power for peaceful purposes. If anyone believed it at all in the first place. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

VIENNA, Austria - A document obtained by Iran on the nuclear black market serves no other purpose than to make an atomic bomb, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday.

The finding was made in a report prepared for presentation to the 35-nation IAEA board when it meets, starting Thursday, on whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.

Link

HT Strategy Page

Reach Back to Clone Captured Hard Drives

January 31, 2006: Captured PCs, cell phones and PDAs have provided military intelligence officers with some unique challenges. These new technologies bring new sources of information, often in huge quantities. Early on, captured hard drives provided too much information. Getting something useful was like finding a needle in a haystack. In some cases there are problems with passwords and encryption. With all this, there is the central problem of getting useful stuff quickly. Often, the previous owner of the captured laptop got away, and is hustling to make as much of the data on the hard drive worthless, as quickly as possible. The previous owner will want to alert people named on the hard drive, and get plans changed. There is a need for speed in getting the data off the computer and into the hands of people who can act.

In response, intel organizations have developed new tools. Some are variations on stuff already developed for police use. For example, hardware and software to quickly copy ("clone") a hard drive, or to break passwords. The United States government, however, has more resources when it comes to code breaking (passwords and encryption). Another special resource the military has is huge resources (for translation and analysis). Letting the troops out in the combat zone use this is called “reach back” (to people in the U.S., via satellite link), and some powerful tools have been developed to exploit this for cleaning out hard drives. These tools, for obvious reasons, are kept secret.

[...]

Read More

HT Dr. Zin - Regime Change Iran

Iran and the NORKS are running circles around the IAEA whose traditional means of controlling nuclear proliferation are in shambles after the discovery of AG Kahn's underground black market and nuclear material intercepted headed for Libya.

This kind of reminds me of a similar situation with prohibiting convicted felons from possessing firearms.

*****

Michael Sheridan, The Times:

The drab compound that houses the Iranian embassy in Pyongyang is the focus of intense scrutiny by diplomats and intelligence services who believe that North Korea is negotiating to sell the Iranians plutonium from its newly enlarged stockpile — a sale that would hand Tehran a rapid route to the atomic bomb.
It would confound the international campaign to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions by restricting its ability to make bombs through the alternative method of enriching uranium. READ MORE

The risk is viewed with such gravity in Washington that the United States has launched a concerted diplomatic and covert effort to prevent it, according to diplomats based in Pyongyang and Beijing.

[...]

Read More

The following excerpts are from an interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm by Oprah Winfry from her TV program of January 24, 2006.

*****

Dr. Michael Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. For more than 30 years, Dr. Michael Osterholm has been a leader in the fight against every major health threat on our planet from smallpox to AIDS and Ebola. He has consulted with governments, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and the US Department of Defense. He’s watching for the next pandemic, and believes it could be bird flu.

*****

Bird Flu Information from Experts

Dr. Osterholm: As a worldwide community, we have to be very
concerned...Pandemics of influenza are like hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, they occur. ..It’s when a virus changes, mutates from the bird virus to the human virus. That’s when we see a pandemic, or worldwide epidemic, and that’s what we worry about.

But what makes for a pandemic is when it mutates even more, and now it human-to-human transmits. The birds become incidental...

You’re actually becoming infectious with the influenza virus up to a day before you get sick. So right now, if I have influenza infection and I’m going to be sick tonight at midnight when I wake up in the middle of the night with muscle aches, fever and chills, I’ve already exposed you
right now.

So what we’re worried about today is if a pandemic were to begin, if this bird virus now mutates to the point where we as humans transmit it, we will not be with vaccine of any meaningful manner in that first year to do anything about it. ..We’re back to 1918-like situations.

Let me just make it real clear, this is not a probability issue, it’s going
to happen, it’s going to happen. What we don’t know is which strain
it’s going to be or when it’s going to happen...And today, we’re talking
about, by the way, a disease that, if it was like a 1918 experience,
would kill 180 million to 360 million people...of all the things I’ve ever
worked on combined: terrorism, infectious diseases, all these issues,
this one is by and far above all by itself.

And so one of the problems we know we’re going to be confronted with
is, during a pandemic, when we will obviously shut borders...We will
basically see, I believe, a collapse of the global economy as we know
it, which means we’re going to run out of those things, things like
medical supplies, drugs, masks, whatever.

How prepared should we be? We live in a world of risk today. It is
earthquakes? Is it tsunamis? Is it terrorism? Is it infectious agents?
It’s hard to sort all that out. ...Remember, the whole world is going to
be vulnerable here. A pandemic is not going to just effect one country
at one time.

______________
Clip from Secretary of Health and Human Services Mr. Michael Leavitt:
...If we had a pandemic that was similar to the one that happened in
the United States in 1918, roughly 90 million people would be ill.
About 45 million people would require some kind of medical attention.
And roughly two million people would perish. We have to prepare for a
situation where you could literally have thousand of communities
battling this in their own unique way in waves over the time period
that could go nine to 18 months. We need to be prepared.
________________

Oprah: You were saying that the issue with the mask is there just
won’t be enough.

Dr. Osterholm: There’re two things. There won’t be enough and you
need to have the right kind. ...So in many cases where you’ve seen
pictures of people with surgical masks on, it really is potentially as
much cosmetic as it is real in terms of protection.

And what happens is these microparticles, like perfume-like particles
that you don’t see...they basically end up drying quickly. And this is
why winter is very important for influenza, because the lower humidity
makes these dry and which actually makes the virus survive in there.
It falls down on the surface. Surfaces become contaminated...the point
is you have to be careful with your hands. And so mask is only part of
the entire response. It’s not everything.

What we need to do is understand how we’re going to care for our
people. How are we going to get food? ...The milk that comes from the
farms today that you drink in the morning...actually came from the
farm 24 hours before. And so if we interrupt things on a global basis
with transportation, we basically have that fear and panic....we have to
help citizens understand, “What should I stockpile?”

Everyone should have enough food today so that they could basically
be in their homes for four or five weeks if the needed to be. The area
that I worry about most is, frankly, our pharmaceutical supplies.
Today, 80 percent of all the drugs that we take in the United States,
the raw ingredients come from offshore. Basically, we’ve outsourced
almost all our drug-making capacity in the world. So I’m going to tell
you to go stockpile drugs—well, one, most people could never afford to
do it. Number two, your help plan wouldn’t let you do it. And number
three, right now, as we sit here, there are over 40 drugs in this
country that are in short supply or not available because just one chink
in the supply chain interrupted that. How are we going to allow people
to have more drugs so the don’t worry like a Katrina event, ‘I’m
separated from my drugs.’

Just-in-time delivery...we have a whole world that’s set up around this
kind of environment. Who’s going to run the utility plants? Who’s going
to haul your garbage?

In the months of September and October of 1918, 7 percent of the
residents of Boston between 20 and 40 years of age died. That’s what
we’re talking about. And today, in this country, you think you’re going
to get intensive care medicine....Nobody will have intensive care
medicine during a flue pandemic. So we have to think now.

New Orleans has so many lessons for us, even though it was a natural
disaster of a very different kind, very limited. The thing that was
different in New Orleans, Oprah, 47 states and the federal
government, whatever part of it, could respond and basically could
help. During a pandemic, all of these communities around the world
are going to be in it at the same time. There isn’t going to be anybody
there. That’s why Secretary Michael Leavitt, the secretary of Health
and Human Services in this country, has said ‘Understand, you will be
largely on your own.’
______________
Clip:
Ms. Laurie Garrett (Council on Foreign Relations): The only thing I can
think of that could take a larger human death toll would be
thermonuclear war.
_________

Oprah: And if it mutates, how fast would that then spread?

Dr. Osterholm: In Turkey, just in the last two weeks, we have now
seen another mutation that has come forward....in 1969, again, the
last pandemic, China had 12 million chickens...today it have 15 billion.
..Today, we have the perfect setup for this virus to continue to mutate.

You have Secretary Michael Leavitt and even the President saying that
this is really something that’s a very important issue, yet in the debate
in December in our...Congress, the President’s request for $7 billion to
jump-start the vaccine program was met with a resounding thud, and
Congress finally put in $3 billion. When I think of all the risks to the
world’s security today, you know that’s not even one aircraft carrier.

We have the technology today to make a vaccine that we could make
ahead of time, that could be very effective and we could make for the
world, we’re just not committed to it.

The private sector has to understand the economic implications are
huge. I’m very serious when I talk about how many of these
businesses will be threatened when an 18 month pandemic sweeps
here. And people have to understand this, this is not science fiction,
these are going to happen. Even if the bird flu is the one that doesn’t
do it, but another one’s going to, it’s going to happen. And today—
remember what 22 cases of anthrax and five deaths did to our
Congress, shut it down for the first time since the Civil War.

________________
Clip:
Dr. Bill Frist (Senate Majority Leader): Think of a fast-moving, highly
contagious disease that wipes out 50 million people, a half a million
here in the United States. The killer pandemic claikms more victims in
24 weeks that HIV-AIDs can claim in 24 years. In the United States,
the most developed nation in the world, bodies pile up in the streets.
There aren’t enough morticians to bury the dead, nor are there enough
doctors or nurses to tend to the sick.
____________

Oprah: Who is most at risk for contracting this flu?
Dr. Osterholm: If it’s the 1918-like experience, the highest death
rates were actually in those between the ages of 20 to 40. It runs on
your immune system, and the people who have the healthiest immune
systems are the ones that succumb to the virus, because the immune
system goes into overdrive. In 1918, 55 percent of all pregnant
women dies from having this flu virus.

Modern medicine is not going to save us. Our emergency rooms are
overfilled now. We don’t have the hospital beds. We’ll quickly run out
of the drugs. I worry will people get their cancer drugs? Will they get
their drugs for their diabetes?

On a worldwide basis, we’re not taking this seriously enough...therest a
model: Katrina. We’re going to have pandemics. I don’t know if the
bird flu virus is going to be the one to do it.

Oprah: What are the symptoms?

Dr. Osterholm: Influenza virus, first of all, causes muscle aches,
fever, kind of cough, and just feeling terrible all over. The bird flue
virus, actually causes a differently type of disease where it not only
infects your lungs and, in some cases, it affects your other body
organs, that’s what we’re seeing now, but then this immune response
causes a thing we call a ‘cytokine storm.’ This is where your immune
system goes into overdrive. The kids that we’ve seen dying today are
dying because their own immune systems are killing them, they’re in
overdrive.

__________
Clip:
Mr.Kofi Annan (Secretary-General, United Nations): Once human-to-
human transmission has been established, we would have only a
matter of weeks to lock down the spread before it spins out of control.
We’d know what happens when millions of people die and millions
more are infected. When health systems are overburdened and
overwhelmed, when families, communities, and whole societies are
devastated, when transport and trade, education and other services
are disrupted, or cease to function, when the economic and social
progress of nations risks being reversed.
_______________

Dr. Osterholm: What’s happening now is the bird flu virus, like we
saw in 1918, causes this overwhelming growth of the virus, not just in
your respiratory tree, not just in your...upper respiratory, into your
lungs, but throughout your lungs, your kidneys, your liver, even your
brain, your gastrointestinal tract, and is just overwhelming the body.

Now imagine with 105,000 mechanical ventilators in this country as
many of them in use and 20 people waiting to get them, do we keep
the 72 year old end of life patient on that ventilator because they’re
vent dependent, or we’ve got now a 24 year old who we might be able
to save if we can get them on a ventilator? We’ve never prepared
ourselves for that. So, much of our health care system is going to
undergo major change.

That’s how razor thin it is. When I talk about moving the food supply,
if you suddenly start to slow down surface transportation, you don’t
even have to think about unloading freighters or whether airplanes are
going to make it in. Now you’ve got that issue. We’ve done nothing to
address that issue.

We’re not going to have a vaccine and we may not have any drug and
we’re going to run out of masks. What health care worker are you
going to ask to come to work every day when they have little kids at
home and ask them to walk into the face of the fire if you don’t have
something to offer them?

We now know ...that the 1918 virus jumped directly from birds to
people...pandemic influenza is going to happen again. It’s like saying
we already had our big hurricanes last year, we’re all done. This will be
a planning exercise, This will be an effort we will never waste.

Oprah: This was an unexpected hour for me, and I’m sure for our
viewers. I –originally when we were talking about this, I was hoping
you were going to come on and say ‘You know what? It’s all been
blown out of proportion. Everybody’s overreacting.’ And that’s not
what you said. It’s just really the opposite, is that we need to prepare
ourselves. And I...thank you, because I do believe information is
power.

Deconstructing Bin Laden
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services

We don't know whether the latest and much-discussed Osama bin Laden tape was recorded recently. But the harangue is still a valuable reflection of the current al Qaeda hierarchy that broadcast it to the world.

First, things must be going very badly for the terrorists to propose a ceasefire: "We don't mind offering you a long-term truce."

In truth, the winning side does not ask for a reprieve. Losing autocrats — whether the officers of the German army in the summer of 1918 or Hitler's cadre in the spring of 1945 — always "don't mind" sending out peace feelers in the 11th hour to salvage their power before they lose it for good.

That is not to say there won't be more sacrifices to come. The battles of the Bulge and Okinawa were the most costly for Americans of World War II, and ended just months before the Nazi and Japanese capitulations.

But examine al Qaeda's plight. Bin Laden's home base in Afghanistan is lost for good. Elites of his terrorist organization are targeted from the air even in the supposedly safe Pakistani borderlands. Plenty of al Qaeda terrorists have been killed in Iraq. Europe is suddenly galvanizing against Islamic fascism. (France even mentions the unmentionable of targeting terrorist patrons with nuclear weapons.) India has no tolerance for Islamic extremism. The terrorist sponsors of Iran and Syria are finally becoming international pariahs. And thousands of Muslims have demonstrated in Lebanon and Jordan against terrorist bombers.

[...]

Second, al Qaeda's talking points seem to derive from American anti-war rhetoric, as bin Laden and Co. desperately cling to the notion that our resolve may yet crumble. Whether domestic critiques of the Bush administration's anti-terror policies are heartfelt or gratuitous, accurate or fabricated, an encouraged bin Laden doesn't care: He simply regurgitates these arguments as his own to throw back against us. Either bin Laden can't come up with any more grievances himself, or he figures that Americans are better at making his case for him.

[...]

Third, bin Laden conveniently distorts history to achieve victim status. Again, he relies on many Americans' penchant for blaming themselves first.

Thus, according to bin Laden's logic, al Qaeda's unprovoked mass murder of Sept. 11 was righteous "vengeance."

Although the Taliban wrecked Afghanistan — which is now being rebuilt through Western aid — in bin Laden's self-pitying universe his own plan during a truce would be to "build Iraq and Afghanistan."

Desert oil is extracted at $5 a barrel and sold by Middle East regimes at near $70. Even so, to bin Laden, Americans have "stolen our money."

Bin Laden ends his maudlin nonsense by telling us Americans that "there is a lesson for you."

In fact, there are three lessons. Al Qaeda terrorists are losing. Their only hope is to mimic critics in the United States for ideas about derailing American military and diplomatic efforts that are destroying them. And as they go down, they play the victim in desperate search of pity and thus reprieve.

For most Americans — nice try, but still no cigar.

[...]

Read it All

HT Dr. Zin - Regime Change Iran

Dr. Zin is looking for support from the Blogos:

It is critical that the US pass Iran Freedom and Support Act. The US Senate has yet to hold hearings on the bill. The blogosphhere needs to demand hearings and quick passage of the bill now! Spread the word.

*****

Force Against Iran Seen as Perilous Last Resort

Mark Trevelyan, Reuters:

The United States should reserve the option of bombing Iran's nuclear program into oblivion, but it would be a massive military venture that would invite heavy retribution from Tehran. That seemed to be the prevailing view from four days of debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Iran was absent from the line-up of leaders and ministers but figured high on the agenda.

Its nuclear program, which Tehran says is for generating electricity but the United States sees as a front for building an atomic bomb, ranked with the shock outcome of the Palestinian election as the main topic of international concern.

"We have to keep the military option as the last option but not take it off the table," said U.S. Senator John McCain, a leading Republican presidential contender for the 2008 election.

Other leaders attending the forum, including British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, stressed the need for caution and diplomacy.

Kenneth Pollack, an expert on Iran at the Brookings Institution, a U.S. think-tank, said the military option was "sub-optimal", but not impossible.

Although Israel has reserved the option of military force, Pollack said the United States would be the only country with the air power to carry out the "hundreds of sorties a day" required, possibly for weeks, to knock out Iran's air defenses and destroy anywhere between several dozen and several hundred facilities linked to its nuclear program.

"It would mean going to war with Iran and I think it's fair to figure that the Iranians would not sit by idly," he said.

"We've had some Iranian leaders say very explicitly that they would strike back...at a time and place of their own choosing, and that time and place would likely be soonish in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"If you think it's bad now (in Iraq), imagine 6,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards and intelligence agents joining in the insurgency."

MISSILE Defense

The commander in chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Yahya Rahim Safavi, said on Saturday: "If we come under a military attack, we will respond with our very effective missile defense."

Military experts say Iran's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of about 2,000 km (1,250 miles), meaning Israel, U.S. bases in Iraq and foreign troops in Iraq lie within striking distance.

Even if successful, U.S. 'preventive strikes' might set back Iran's nuclear program only by two to four years, Pollack said, given the know-how it had already acquired.

A panel on Iran at the Davos forum identified three other options: diplomacy, Iraq-style "regime change", and doing nothing and hoping for the best.

Straw dismissed the latter as irresponsible and stressed the diplomatic option, "to secure a bargain which would not involve humiliation of either side". READ MORE

U.S. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said it was possible to imagine the U.S. choosing force, but only at the head of a broad international coalition and after diplomacy was exhausted.

"There...would have to be a large consensus, I think, before any military action would be forthcoming," said Chambliss, a member of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees.

"We're not at the point today that I could feel the least bit comfortable thinking that America would be willing to do that without a large coalition of partners, hopefully inside the Arab world as well as outside."

The debate took place against a background of pressure from the United States and the European Union to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council.

The Council could ultimately impose sanctions, but only if Russia and China -- both with significant economic ties to Tehran and both wary of U.S. motives -- refrain from exercising their vetoes.

"Whether we want in fact to impose sanctions on Iran or not, if they think the world community is willing to do it, it would have a huge impact" on Tehran's willingness to compromise, former U.S. President Bill Clinton said.

"But as long as they think that countries that want their oil would not vote for that...then they have more room to be belligerent."

(Additional reporting by Evelyn Leopold)

[Dr Zin commenting]

It appears the world is finally considering a regime change Iran option, but need not be an Iraq style regime change. With the growing fissures in the regime and increased international pressure the opportunity for an internal regime change has never been greater.

It is critical that the US pass Iran Freedom and Support Act. The US Senate has yet to hold hearings on the bill. The blogosphhere needs to demand hearings and quick passage of the bill now! Spread the word.

[...]

Read More

HT LGF

Iranian Spies in the IAEA?

The Telegraph has a report that Iran is secretly infiltrating the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran has formed a top secret team of nuclear specialists to infiltrate the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, the UN-sponsored body that monitors its nuclear programme, The Daily Telegraph has been told.

Its target is the IAEA’s safeguards division and its aim is to obtain information on the work of IAEA inspectors so that Iran can conceal the more sensitive areas of its nuclear research, according to information recently received by western intelligence. ...

The operation to target the IAEA is being run by Hosein Afarideh, the former head of the Iranian parliament’s energy committee. Mr Afarideh, reported to have close links with Iran’s ministry of intelligence, is in regular contact with a team of Iranian nuclear engineers seconded to work at the IAEA’s Vienna headquarters.

[...]

Read More

HT The Counterterrorism Blog

Zawahiri's message: "your -US- assessment is wrong, we're winning"

Walid Phares

The new Zawahiri videotape released by al Jazeera today shows a sophistication in the propaganda war waged by the Jihadists worldwide against the US and its allies. Designed to "crumble" the morale of the American public and "boost" the commitments of the Jihadi forces, the tape is another attempt to score points in the War of ideas and media. The results were immediate in the West. The Associated Press immediate leads were stunning: 1) Zawahiri proves he wasn't killed by the US strike, therefore he scored one point against the US. 2) He labeled his enemy, the US President, as "butcher of Washington," hence attempting to rally the widest anti-American axis as possible AP lead. But the tape is not just that, another message from the number two in al Qaida. It is a very well orchestrated political offensive aimed at the nervous centers of the "enemy's public. A shot that may preceed action or asking for it. Here are the ingredients:

The tape shows al Zawahiri addressing the Arab Muslim world and the West at the same time. "Exclusive" to al Jazeera, which controls the timing of the airing of the tape and the selection of the the commentators it gathers to share with the public their "analysis" of the message, the speech is structured thoroughly al Jazeera lead

[...]

Read More

HT The American Thinker

I vote for demented philosophy of the head

*****

On the Cause of Suicide Bombing: A Stoic's Point of View
January 28th, 2006

“The reason why we didn’t have any such [bombing] operation in the United States is not because of security difficulties; the operation will take place and you will see such operations by the grace of God and by the will of God,” so threatens Osama bin Laden in his latest audiotape.

Accordingly, we should expect that a man somewhere on or near our shores is now preparing to strap a bomb to himself and tear apart the lives of numerous civilians. And, since we’ve witnessed this kind of killing before, we can also likely anticipate what will be said after the event. Some will claim that poverty or occupation or lack of democracy in the Middle East is the root cause of this murdering and maiming.

Others, particularly in Europe, will predictably say its source rests in American foreign policy, such as toppling Saddam Hussein or supporting the existence of Israel.

Still others will lecture that it has to do with abstract injustice, as when Bashir Ahmed, uncle of one of the London suicide bombers, asserted:

“These suicide bombers are desperate people. They are not getting their rights. They can see that their brothers are not getting their rights, so they take extreme action.”

Or, as some in Hollywood now claim, they will say the terrorist violence is a “response to a response,” a cycle of violence whose cure is “understanding.”

But all of these explanations share one philosophical assumption in common: namely, something in the external world drives men to suicide bombing. In this view, which is found more often on the political left than on the right, such terrorism must have a material and objective basis; the crimes of humanity, so it seems, are never spiritual and subjective in origin. Always and in all cases the external world – the economic or governmental or cultural context – is what causes one man to slay others. Neither an inner sickness of the heart nor a demented philosophy of the head, nor human nature itself, is responsible. It is always something outside: a lack of money, an insult, an injustice, a loss of honor.

[...]

Read it All

HT Winds of Change - Winds of War Briefing

Blogging Saudi Arabia
Undermining the Wahhabis, one post at a time.
by Stephen Schwartz
01/30/2006, Volume 011, Issue 19


ON OCTOBER 21, A new message came out of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the land of Wahhabi Islam, with its commitment to financing jihad, its public beheadings, and its total subordination of women. But rather than the usual extremist preaching, promoting the bloody terrorist acts of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq or inciting hate against non-Wahhabi Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others around the world, the message was a call, in imperfect English, for "the first Saudi bloggers meet up." And with it, Saudi Arabia passed a milestone.

The announcement on the website "Saudi Blogs" [saudiblogs.blogspot.com] came from "Ahmed" and was not without its contradictions. It noted obtusely that "according to the Saudi style, [the meeting] will be for males only."

Within four hours, the first reply to Ahmed declared, "Both sex[es] must b[e] involved in this"--that is, the improvement of Saudi blogging. Confusingly, however, the author of that comment, "Super MO," conceded that coeducational blogging might best be limited to the net. Within a few more hours, however, a female blogger said she would love to attend the proposed meeting.

Men and women blogging together, of course, represents a total flouting of Saudi rules mandating sex segregation. And there can be no turning back. Saudi authorities cannot confiscate all the computers, Blackberrys, and cell phones in the kingdom. Nor can they forbid the use of the English language.

Saudi Blogs inventories more than 80 active sites, 67 of them in English or English and Arabic. Saudi women produce some of the most interesting sites. They are so daring in their freedom of expression that one congressional staffer who reads them regularly expressed complete bewilderment, asking, "How can this happen?" The globalization of American culture obviously has a lot to do with it, since many blog entries are written in the hip-hop, text-message idiom of Western teenagers.

[....]

Read it All!

HT Super Girl - Atlas Shrugs

Atlas links to this historical comparison with the current EU's and the world response to the rise of Islamofascism and the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich. This piece in the Canadian Free Press notes striking similarities.

Rocketsbrain has previously commented on this comparing the rise of Islamofascism with the rise of darkness and evil in JRR Tolkien's world of the, Trilogy of the Rings. Although Tolkien denied it, some say his Trilogy was a metaphorical reference to the rising evil in the world of Nazism.

*****

The new Nazis by Klaus Rohrich

Yesterday I wrote about the impotence that the world is showing through the UN in the face of Iran developing an Islamic nuclear weapon. There is a powerful historical parallel between the 1930s and today.

Adolf Hitler’s ideology combined a mystical destiny, an overwhelming sense of superiority, religion and an interminable hatred of Jews to form the fundamental tenets of National Socialism.

Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, presents a similar mix of beliefs that positions him and his country as the savior of Islam and the destroyer of all things Western. Ahmadinejad, Like Hitler, holds the belief that Jews are inherently evil and need to be eradicated in order to purify the world. And like Hitler, Ahmadinejad is arming Iran in preparation for a momentous confrontation with the hated Jews and their American supporters.

As Nazism flourished in most of Europe during the 1930s, so Islamism is now flourishing throughout the Middle and Far East. The avowed goal of Islamists, like that of the Nazis, is world domination and the extermination of the Jewish people. As such, the bellicose statements emanating from the likes of Ahmadinejad, Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and others are reminiscent of the bellicosity that Hitler and his minions displayed prior to WWII.

The West, with the exception of Israel and the U.S. are behaving in much the same manner that their grandparents displayed during the 1930s. That is to say they do not believe war will come if only the Islamists get what they want. Much effort has been made to offer Iran material wealth and favorable trading terms in an attempt to purchase their abandoning the attainment of nuclear weapons. Yet, like Hitler, who took everything that was offered to him and gave nothing in return, Ahmadinejad is bound and determined that Iran will have nuclear weapons, his assertion that the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes notwithstanding

[...]

Read More

HT Dr. Zin - Regime Change Iran

Dr. Zin has yet to post his digest for Saturday, Jan 28, 2006. It has some excellent analysis pieces on the developing situation in Iran. Signs of civil and ethnic urnest are rising.

If you don't read anything, do read this excerpt by Kagan in the Washington Post, It's the Regime, Stupid :

Communicate directly to Iran's very westernized population, through radio, the Internet and other media; organize international support for unions and human rights and other civic groups, as well as religious groups that oppose the regime; provide covert support to those willing to use it; and impose sanctions, not so much to stop the nuclear program -- since they probably won't -- but to squeeze the business elite that supports the regime

Fire in Tehran Metro Station

SMCCDI (Information Service):

Fire forced the closure of the Navab Metro Station in the Iranian Capital. The incident which is believed to be an act of arson took place today and on the same day that many of Tehran's Collective Bus drivers observed a protest action.

Official sources have attributed the fire to a short circuit but curiously the same motif was used in order to justify the burning of a collective bus, happened the day before, in southern Tehran.

[...]

It's the Regime, Stupid

Robert Kagan, The Washington Post:

If an air and missile strike could destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program, it might seem the best of many bad options. But the likely costs outweigh the benefits.

Is the intelligence on Iran so much better than it was on Iraq? The Clinton administration launched Operation Desert Fox against Iraq in 1998 to degrade its weapons programs, and even today we don't know what it achieved. As President Clinton later put it, "We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't know."

Would Desert Fox II in Iran, even on a larger scale, produce a very different result? The Pentagon can hit facilities it can see with relative confidence. But much of Iran's program is underground, and some of it we don't know about. Even if a strike set back Iran's plans, we would not know by how much. For all the price we would pay, we wouldn't even know what we'd achieved.

[...]

Then there is the prospect of Iranian retaliation: terrorist attacks, military activity in Iraq, attempts to close off the Persian Gulf shipping lanes and disrupt oil supplies. Unless we were prepared to escalate, ultimately to the point of taking down the regime, we could end up in worse shape than when we began.

[...]

We need to reorient our strategy. Our justifiable fixation on preventing Iran from getting the bomb has somehow kept us from pursuing a more fundamental and more essential goal: political change in Iran. We need to start supporting liberal and democratic change for an Iranian population that we know seeks both.

No one wants to see Iran get a bomb, but it does matter who is in power. We don't worry that France or Great Britain has nuclear weapons. We tolerate India's and Israel's arsenals largely because we have some faith that their democratic governments will not use them. Were Iran ruled by even an imperfect democratic government, we would be much less concerned about its weaponry.

[...]

The Bush administration, despite its doctrine of democratization, has not yet tried to apply it in the one place where ideals and strategic interest most clearly intersect. It has done little to push for political change or to exploit the evident weaknesses in the mullahs' regime.

The steps are obvious: Communicate directly to Iran's very westernized population, through radio, the Internet and other media; organize international support for unions and human rights and other civic groups, as well as religious groups that oppose the regime; provide covert support to those willing to use it; and impose sanctions, not so much to stop the nuclear program -- since they probably won't -- but to squeeze the business elite that supports the regime

[...]

Moscow's Mad Gamble

Mortimer B. Zuckerman, US News & World Report:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview several years ago, criticized America's decision to go to war against Iraq and told me, "The real threat is Iran." He was right. But Russia has become part of the problem, not the solution.

[...]

Radical Islam - with Sovereignty

Jonathan Spyer, Ha'aretz:

Iran is radical Islam with sovereignty, and it seeks to become radical Islam with a nuclear capability. In its dealings with Israel, on the basis of ideology alone, it sponsors organizations whose main purpose is the murder of civilians. The West will need to decide if it feels happy about such a body possessing nuclear weapons.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last week hurried to dispel any sense of imminent crisis in the nuclear stand-off with Iran. "I don't think we should rush our fences here," Straw told an audience in London, before going on to suggest that Iran's concern to avoid seeing the issue of its nuclear program brought before the UN Security Council indicated the "strength of the authority of that body." Iranian defiance of international will on the question of its uranium enrichment program, and President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's open advocacy of the destruction of Israel and embrace of Holocaust denial, have caused widespread alarm and expressions of concern. Straw, however, confirms that basic European assumptions on Iran remain unchanged. Israel's experience with the Islamic Republic of Iran offers some clues as to the likely effectiveness of the European approach.

Iran's support for Palestinian organizations engaged in violence against Israel is of long standing. Palestinian Islamic Jihad has since its inception claimed inspiration from the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. Ramadan Shallah, the movement's leader, described his organization in May 2002 as "one of the many fruits on our leader Khomeini's tree." Israeli assessments consider the Iranians to be Islamic Jihad's near sole source of funding. The mullahs, as may be seen from last week's bombing in Tel Aviv, get a fair return for their outlay. In Islamic Jihad, Iran purchases for itself a fully deniable instrument of policy. The organization may be activated at will in order to keep the conflict on the boil, help scupper the calm that must precede a return to negotiation, and so on.

Iran's relations with Hamas are more complex. There ought to be a natural rivalry and indeed hostility between the Shiite mullahs and the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The evidence suggests that in the first years of Hamas' existence, mutual anathema did indeed pertain. In the 1990s, however, a close relationship developed. The basis of this, of course, was a shared strategic commitment to the destruction of Israel. In the shorter term, a common desire to stymie all attempts at a diplomatic resolution of the conflict brought the Shiite Islamists of Tehran and the Sunni radicals of Gaza together. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin led a Hamas delegation to Iran in April, 1998. The delegation met with officials from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office, then minister of intelligence and security Ghorban Ali Dorrie Najafabadi and leaders of the Qods force - the special operations unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

According to Arabic media sources, the result was the creation of a "strategic alliance," which saw the commencement of large financial transfers from Iran to Hamas. The funds were to come from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and other subsidiary bodies. Precise figures regarding the level of support are hard to come by. One respected United States researcher estimated that Iranian funding of Hamas probably reaches between $20 million and $50 million annually.

What relevance should all this have on the Western understanding of Iran? For the world according to Jack Straw to work, Iran must be understood to be a country governed by rational, practical men who, faced with firm criticism from the UN Security Council, will adjust their plans accordingly. The evidence outlined above, however, suggests that Islamist Iran is not like that. The support given to Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued untroubled during the presidency of the "moderate" Mohammed Khatami, before the arrival of Ahmedinejad, and the rise of the Revolutionary Guards. With no conceivable geo-strategic gain for itself, the non-Arab Iran, situated geographically far from Israel's borders and surrounded by unfriendly countries, chose to pour money into organizations committed to the destruction of Israel. They did so because of an idea.

The Israeli experience thus suggests three things. The mullahs take their ideas seriously. They back them up with money and action. And the revolutionary ideas in question transcend their Shia origins, enabling Iran to sponsor a variety of radical Islamist groups, and to present itself as the key, sovereign force in radical Islam.

[...]

Iran: Threat of Ethnic Dissent

Amir Taheri, Arab News:

Anxious to cultivate his populist image, Iran’s new President Ahmadinejad has promised to hold the monthly sessions of his Cabinet in provincial capitals rather than Tehran.

Now, however, it seems as if, for reasons of security, he may not be able to take his road show to all of Iran’s 30 provinces.

A session scheduled to take place in the province of Kurdistan last month had to be rescheduled at the last minute, supposedly because the relevant documents were not ready in time. And last week the president was forced to cancel another session, due to take place in Ahvaz, capital of the Khuzistan province, ostensibly for bad weather.

In both cases, however, factors other than bureaucratic delay and bad weather may have been at work.

[...]

Ahmadinejad would be wrong to dismiss or minimize the threat of ethnic dissent in the Islamic Republic. Iran’s ethnic minorities, including the Kurds, the Arabs, the Turkmen and the Baluch, account for at least 12 percent of the population.

Located along the country’s long and porous borders these communities could be open to manipulation by anyone who wishes to weaken Iran or pay back in the same currency the Islamic Republic for its machinations in neighboring countries.

Political expediency, not to mention justice and human rights, demands that urgent attention be paid to the legitimate grievances of Iran’s ethnic minorities. It took Turkey some 30 years of war to understand that it cannot force its Kurdish minority to abandon their identity and become ersatz Turks. It has taken Iraq almost 80 years of tragic experiments to recognize the Kurds as a distinct people deserving full cultural and national rights. In the long run Iran’s unity could only be preserved in the context of pluralist diversity.

[...]

Soft Power

James Harkin, The Guardian:

Speak softly, and carry a big carrot. For decades, even Europe's friends chuckled at this parody of its timid approach to foreign policy adventures. In its negotiations with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, however, Europe has been promoting the embrace of "soft power" as an exciting new tool for diplomacy.

Soft power is to the American military machine what the idea of the new man is to traditional masculinity. It is, according to the new European catechism, a more civilised way of doing things - one based on rational argument, proper procedure and bureaucratic haggling. In an only partly light-hearted article for the journal Foreign Policy in 2004, one analyst identified Europe as the world's first "soft" or "metrosexual" superpower

[...]

Iran or Bust

Jeffrey Bell, The Weekly Standard:

The defining test of Bush's war presidency.

Events are covering the nuclear crisis with Iran into the central crisis of the Bush presidency. War presidents are graded not by circumstances they inherit, including those that lead to war. They are judged by how they react to those circumstances.

Franklin Roosevelt as a war president is defined not by the attack on Pearl Harbor, but by the radical war aim he laid out against Japan and Germany in the wake of Pearl Harbor--unconditional surrender--and by his relentless and successful pursuit of that war aim until the day he died.

[...]

Read them All
[Hit this link and then scroll the thread for Jan 28, 2006]

HT Instapundit

YEP!

*****

IMMIGRATION REMAINS THE "SLEEPER ISSUE" in U.S. politics, but I just got a press release from Time suggesting that it may not sleep much longer:

Almost two-thirds of Americans (63%) consider illegal immigration a “very serious” or “extremely serious” problem in the United States, according to a TIME Poll. The majority (74%) believes the U.S. is not doing enough to secure its borders. . . .

TIME’s Poll shows that half (50%) of Americans favor deporting all illegal immigrants back to their home countries (45% oppose). Three-in-four (76%) favor allowing illegal immigrants in the U.S. to earn citizenship if they learn English, have a job and pay taxes. . . . Meanwhile 700,000 undocumented immigrants from around the world continue to enter the U.S. each year, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

I favor making legal immigration easier — essentially under the guidelines above — but I also favor much stricter enforcement against illegal immigration. Which, I think, puts me pretty much on the opposite side of the issue from the Bush Administration.

The issue is, I think, heating up beneath the surface and it's only been kept from breaking out politically by the extraordinarily low unemployment rates of recent years. Once unemployment, inevitably, moves back up toward historical averages, people will become much more vocal about this issue in a hurry. It would be nice if we could come up with a sensible policy before that happens, as the discussion is likely to be a lot nastier if we wait.

Read More

HT Instapundit

DITTO! Michael Yon has been filing reports that the MSM can't or won't from the midst of the fire fights with the enemy. Yon's dispatches quickly show unlike the biased reporting by the MSM, this war is no Vietnam.

Rocketsbrain

*****
[Instapundit]

HERE'S AN AP story on Michael Yon:

The 41-year-old former Army Green Beret, self-published author and world traveler didn't know exactly what he was going to do when he got to the war zone last year, nor did he have any particular plans to report what he saw to the world at-large.

But that's what he did.

After getting himself embedded as a freelance journalist with troops last year, he used his Internet blog to report on the car bombs, firefights and dead soldiers. But he also wrote descriptively about acts of compassion and heroism, small triumphs in the country's crawl toward democracy and the gritty inner workings of the military machine.

Yon's dispatches have been extolled by loyal readers as gutsy and honest reporting by a guy who's not afraid to get his hands dirty. He has been interviewed and his blog quoted by major newspapers and TV news networks, and he has drawn comparisons to Ernie Pyle, the renowned World War II correspondent who shared the trenches with fighting soldiers.

Nice story. Read the whole thing.