Judicious Asininity

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Wed May 30, 2007

How to solve the immigration crisis

Remove the incentives

My sentiments exactly. A commenter at Sweetness and Light writes:

I’m sick of people saying, “We can’t police 12 million illegals back to Mexico”.

That is to say, I’m also sick of Bush.

We can’t stop the illegal immigration? That is a load of Bull…

We can create a decent worker program that gives Mexico the work/income it needs to remain stable and have the program still be acceptable to the “needs” of US employers. However, this illegal crap needs to be addressed–and harshly.

But before you can do that, you MUST stop the market demand for illegals by heavily fining companies employing illegals–and any individual that are doing so.

Fine them $7,000 per illegal hired, per year they were hired–which includes the projected loss of taxes and impact on social programs, and throw in a manditory 1-year jail sentence to the company CEO and any Board Members/Human Resources officers who oversaw the employment practice of hiring of illegals. Then you offer a reward of $10,000 to anyone providing information about anyone hiring illegals…and you’d see the problem dry up fast after the first 20 companies were raided. Without jobs, their prospects here are slim at best…and the fines pay for the rewards. If the papers were falsified, you half the fine and remove the jail time–IF THE COMPANY CAN PROVE they had adequate safeguards in place to discourage hiring those with illegal papers…SS#’s are often a dead giveaway.

As for the “Sanctuary Cities”….They want to harbor illegals? Fine. They also lose ALL federal aid and earmarks….money for roads, medical, education–they lose every bit of it when they are found to be circumventing immigration law or they stop enforcing it. Even the most fiscally efficient cities would last about two months before they went bankrupt.

As for the lawsuits being filed about illegals–you pass a law in Congress limiting the US courts from hearing cases involving those illegally in the United States. You want to work in the shadows…then you are going to live there, too. But take heart–those hiring you will be paying the price too.

The fix is easier than anyone wants to admit–but no one has the guts to carry it out.

What no one really wants to talk about is the fact that once you make these people legal, they no longer truly benefit their employers due to pay increases and taxes–don’t forget about minimum wage and federal guidelines for competitive wage earnings. So, many of these newly legals will get laid off–remember what happened after Reagan’s little amnesty bill? So, we create a new welfare class that has put nothing into the system but takes billions out. And companies go on hiring newly arriving illegals to fill the jobs they still don’t want to pay taxes on. Just look at what happened to the meatpacking jobs in Chicago…That’s why you punish the companies–and make it HURT. Fiscal pain is the only way to deal with this problem. After all, it’s the fiscal prostitution that has caused it in the first place…

It’s less about locking down the border, and more about enforcing the laws and creating stiffer penalties that are so horrific no one will dare hire an illegal. As for the false papers issue, each time you catch someone using false papers they get 2 years hard labor and no money to send home, 20 years if they are distributing them. If they want to work, they can do it from prison, making products for the governments and nonprofits to use. The amount we pay to imprison them would still be less than they would cost us on the outside due in large part to the drain on our social programs.

Yes, there is a solution (oversimplified though this may be)–but no one really wants to try and solve the problem. Remember, Mexico imprisons anyone they find illegally entered their country–and they don’t go easy on illegals, either. So why do we have to go easy on their people?

There, I feel a little better….

I'd also attack the illegals' access to Emergency Room health care for free. Provide the care and then deport them. And the remittances sent back to Mexico? Tax them in lieu of unpaid income taxes.

Ditto for social welfare. Illegal? Need welfare? Go home. We'll even give you bus fare to the border.

I'll believe Bush and the Democrats are serious on border security when there is a mile-wide mine-field across the whole length of the border. Just hoping.

Tue May 29, 2007

Annie Jacobsen is on the ball

Where is the missing Saudi student who turned up mid-term in suspicious circumstances?

Annie Jacobsen's reporting on the suspicious behavior of Syrian musicians on a US flight has been vindicated. Michelle Malkin has more. After that terrifying incident, Annie Jacobsen has been using her formidable journalistic skills to track down failings in the security systems that are supposed to protect the US commercial aviation system.

She has another case that has been lost in the bureaucracy:

What We Know

Apparently Anwar Al—— applied for a US visa with doctored paperwork from the University of Arkansas. Despite the required face-to-face interview with US Embassy officials (a fact confirmed with me by the State Department) no one caught this. Instead, an embassy worker issued Al—— a visa to come to a University in the middle of a University semester, a highly irregular time. Al—— got on a plane and flew into the United States, despite his name being on a terrorist watch list. Al—— passed, undetected, through Customs and Immigration despite the fact that he presented what must have been fraudulent travel documents and despite the fact that his name was on terrorist watch list. Three days after his illegal entry, he was involved in a suspicious incident at an airport that involved six US Federal Agencies. Not one of them detained him for further questioning; ICE agents never examined his travel documents; an Arabic speaker never questioned him in his native tongue; and bomb-sniffing dogs never examined his bags. FBI couldn't "verify" that this particular young man was the terrorist on the watch list, so Al—— was let go. Al—— never showed up for class. Four months after he arrived, in February 2007, University officials reported him missing. ICE agents never contacted the University for a follojw-up to his absence, nor did agents from FBI. Anwar Al—— had successfully
slipped past every, single federal control system put in place to catch someone like him in a post-9/11 world. He remains at large.

What We Don't Know

What we don't know is why Anwar Al—— decided to commit fraud, break multiple US federal laws and toss a coveted United States education to the wind. The University confirmed with me that Anwar Al——'s prospective tuition would have been paid for by the government of Saudi Arabia had he shown up. (He was on a full scholarship) This begs the question, what possibly could have been worth more to Anwar Al—— than a free ticket to an American University? One wonders if a ticket to Paradise promised Anwar Al—— a greater reward.

Before 9/11, ordinary citizens might have dismissed Jacobsen's interest as paranoia. Post 9/11, it is disconcerting to know how easily the bureaucracy has fallen back into a pre 9/11 mindset.

Abe Lincoln should come back to Earth

With Murtha, Reid and Pelosi in charge we need a President like Lincoln

He said:

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale, and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.

HT: Braden Files.

Mon May 28, 2007

Memorial Day

A time to honor those who served

In our family, that is my father, who served in Montgomery's 8th Army in North Africa (think Tobruk and Monte Cassino), my father-in-law, who skippered a landing craft into Utah beach on D-Day, and my mother-in-law who served in the Red Cross at the front lines in Europe.

Thanks to them, and millions like them, civilization was saved from the nightmare of Nazism and Japanese Imperialism.

God Bless them all.

Sun May 27, 2007

Mutha is sickening

I just saw Murtha front row at the National Memorial Day concert on PBS

There he was, a man who now ranks with Lee Harvey Oswald, as someone who should never again be referred to as a Marine. He is the man who spewed terrorist propaganda to slander marines fighting for their lives in terrorist infested Haditha. He is the man who said the US should retreat to Okinawa. He wants the US to hand victory to Al Qaeda tomorrow.

Him honoring our military? The Marines are dishonored by his presence.

Fitzgerald wants a 30+ month prison term for Libby

That would be justice miscarried to the point where none could believe justice exists in D.C.

Sweetness & Light reacts appropriately:

If Mr. Libby deserves three years in prison Mr. Fitzgerald deserves life.

And the Plames should face a firing squad.

The other villains the piece are Armitage, for not owning up to the original leak in public, Comey for letting Fitzgerald investigate process crimes after Amitage confessed to DOJ, Gonzales for utterly inadequate supervision at the DOJ, Bush for letting himself get bulldozed into appointing a special prosecutor before he knew what was going on, and the MSM for lying about every aspect of the "case".

The Plames are getting the OJ treatment. They got away with destroying the administration's credibility and their MSM confederates are rewarding them royally.

Thu May 24, 2007

What goes up generally comes down

This applies to prices and temperatures

Gas prices have hit record highs so media morons and congress critters are once again claiming the gas companies are ripping us off. Did they say the gas companies were giving us a well deserved discount when gas prices dropped below $2 earlier this year?

I usually buy my gas at an intersection with gas stations on three of the four corners. On Monday the el cheapo station had prices 20c lower than BP and Sunoco. The lines there were so bad I drove off to another gas station and paid the 20c extra.

Interestingly, when gas prices hit $2, diesel prices were 40c higher. Now, diesel prices are 40c lower than gas prices. If the oil companies were ripping us off, wouldn't they have kept diesel prices higher than gas prices? They couldn't because of the laws of supply and demand. Diesel demand is mainly based on commercial activity. It varies season by season, but not by much. Gas demand is based on commercial and recreational demand. In summer, people drive much more. So demand goes up.

Of course, in a regulated market, the laws of supply and demand are distorted. The EPA requires oil companies to change their blends season by season, and region by region. Not surprisingly, the regions with the cheapest blend to produce get the cheapest gas.

The other big factors affecting gas prices are feed-stock prices, set by world-wide demand for oil, and refining cost. The US has not been able to build new refineries in decades, because Greenies are Nimbys. However, existing refineries have been extensively modernized and upgraded. I wouldn't peg the lack of refineries as a constraint so much as the need to meet EPA mandates. The bigger cost is having to produce so many regional/seasonal/ethanol blends to meet EPA and local rules. How do we know this? Because, after Katrina, the government relaxed the EPA rules. Despite a huge loss in refining capacity, gas prices stayed reasonable after Katrina.

The US could impact gas prices if it expanded its own production of oil. However, the impact on prices would not be dramatic. The reason is that oil is a fungible commodity. Any extra US production would enter a world market. That's not to say the US should not relax the rules and regulations that forbid oil companies from exploiting domestic resources. Every new non-OPEC producer will help break a dangerous cartel.

Gas prices are high today. They will fall. With better governance they could fall even further.

Al Gore's movie has a dramatic graph showing how global temperatures rise as CO₂ concentrations rise. Unfortunately, for Al, his graphs also show how global temperatures fall as CO₂ concentrations fall. Which caused what? If rising CO₂ concentrations cause global temperatures to rise, why did global temperatures reach a peak and then decline? If rising global temperatures cause CO₂ concentrations to rise, why did global CO₂ concentrations reach a peak and then decline? Obviously, Al Gore has confused correlation with causation.

Another factor is at play, and the shrinking of Mar's polar cap suggests a possible solution; variations in the Sun's energy output. Temperatures have risen, but not for the reasons claimed by Global Warming demagogues. They will decline, but the Global Warming demagogues will have magically transformed themselves, yet again, into Global Cooling demagogues.

Wed May 23, 2007

Mickey Mouse ripped off by all our enemies

Disney needs to act

We all saw the reports at sites like LGF about how Hamas used Mickey Mouse to promote Jew killing.

Our Chinese friends, who think American intellectual property, including nuclear weapon designs, is theirs for the taking, also use Mickey Mouse. This post, by an ex-pat living in China, shows that Mickey is fair game:

With it’s slogan “Disneyland is too far,” Beijing’s Shijingshan Amusement Park features a replica of Cinderella’s Castle, with staff dressed like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and other Disney characters. None of this is authorized by Disney - but that has not stopped the state-owned park from creating its own counterfeit version of the Magic Kingdom in a brazen example of the sort of open and widespread copyright piracy that has Washington fuming.

But 31-year-old housewife Zhang Li betrays a typical Chinese attitude on the issue while chasing her young son around the park: “I don’t understand why that is such a big problem. Shouldn’t others be able to use those characters besides [Disney]?” she asks.

Her view is common in a country where lax societal and law-enforcement attitudes toward copyright protection has seen the counterfeit goods industry become a key part of the national economy.

China owes America big bucks for all its blatant ripping off of American intellectual property.

Why I would never support John McCain

Unless he runs against a Democrat other than Joe Lieberman

His position of torture is silly. He says we should not torture the enemy because then they'll treat US prisoners badly. But none of our enemies ever treated American prisoners humanely. Take the three American captured soldiers murdered by Al Qaeda and dumped in a river. They were in uniform. Their rules of engagement are designed to minimize the risks of civilians dying. They were following the Geneva conventions to the letter. What good did it do them?

And that's the way it has been for a century. The Nazis probably treated American POWs the best. They only massacred them when they tried to escape, or were Jews, or Black. The North Koreans and North Vietnamese gave the Geneva conventions short shrift when it came to American POWs. Our current enemies are far worse. An American captured by a Muslim savage, be he a soldier or civilian, can only expect torture and a miserable death. Danny Pearl and Nick Berg] are prime examples of what happens if you are captured by our enemies.

John McCain wasn't tortured because the US was torturing Viet Cong prisoners. He was tortured to serve the war policies of the North Vietnamese. If he could be made to do what Jane Fonda was doing for free, then he would help advance the cause of North Vietnam. To his great credit, McCain was steadfast.

Torture is not a black and white situation. There are a range of techniques ranging from the mild to the extreme. Back Talk writes:

The issue of how you classify interrogation techniques is important. Instead of using just two categories (torture vs. not torture), let's use three:

1. basic interrogation techniques (used on typical, low-level detainees), such as those listed in the Army Field manual

2. harsh interrogation techniques (used only on high-level al Qaeda detainees), which cause no real physical harm, and any longer term psychological harm that may occur is purely theoretical, such as water boarding, sleep deprivation and standing for 8 hours in a chilly room.

3. torture (used, if at all, only in the "ticking time bomb" scenario in which an al Qaeda operative has information about a nuclear bomb set to go off in a major city), which involves the infliction of pain using all kinds of terrible procedures.

The techniques that I'd place into the "harsh" category are those that we are willing to use on our own soldiers during training (which has been true of water boarding) and that would actually bring a sense of relief if we knew that worse techniques would not be used on our captured soldiers in Iraq. Once interrogation techniques are sensibly classified like this, I'd declare myself to be against torture, except perhaps in the ticking time bomb scenario. In fact, that is my actual position on this issue. I'm anti-torture except in that one extreme case.

To be fair to McCain, a parsing of his response on torture suggests that he believed the President could allow laws against torture to be broken in ticking bomb scenarios. The reality is that water-boarding works pretty well, cause no physical harm, and gets terrorists to spill their secrets. Is McCain against water-boarding any terrorists suspected of killing those three American soldiers?

McCain is for the immigration bill. No matter how you cut the cake, that bill is amnesty first, America second. That scores him a huge zero.

Finally, we have McCain-Feingold. It gave George Soros complete freedom to buy the Democratic party while severely limiting the GOP; that's a simplification but that's how it worked out.

The simple solution to the immigration crisis

Enforce the existing laws

But that is too hard for our elected representatives. They want to give legal status to every illegal on 24 hours notice. Forget about citizenship. The big prize is legal status. With legal status you can enjoy almost all the privileges of a US citizen. Heck, in Democratic states with motor-voter laws, you can even vote.

My question is why not enforce the existing laws? Michelle Malkin answers my question:

That's right. A key feature of this "immigration reform" bill includes repealing old laws meant to discourage illegal immigration--and then absolving all the states and the beneficiaries that thumbed their nose at the federal law.

Thomas Sowell is one of the wisest columnists on the subject of immigration:

The argument that illegal agricultural workers are "making a contribution to the economy" is likewise misleading.

For well over half a century, this country has had chronic agricultural surpluses which have cost the taxpayers billions of dollars a year to buy, store, and try to get rid of on the world market at money-losing prices.

If there were fewer agricultural workers and smaller agricultural surpluses, the taxpayers would save money.

What about illegal immigrants working outside of agriculture? They are a great bargain for their employers, because they are usually hard-working people who accept low pay and don't cause any trouble on the job.

But they are no bargain for the taxpayers who cover their medical bills, the education of their children and the costs of imprisoning those who commit a disproportionate share of crime.

Understanding economics, as Sowell does, would bring sanity to the immigration debate. Unfortunately, congress critters are almost always economics morons.

Tue May 22, 2007

The MSM shows its spots

Black on white crime is off limits

I blogged on the Hugh Christopher Newsom and Channon Gail Christian case a week ago. It's getting a good blog response but the MSM is staying away from the story. I watched Michelle Malkin on Fox tonight discussing the case with some leftist media moron whose name I missed. He dismissed the case as "just another murder".

Follow my links read about one of the most horrific rape/torture/murders ever committed. Then ask yourself if that was "just another murder". Would that smug leftist media moron feel the same way if his child had been the victim? Or himself?

Mon May 21, 2007

Why conservatives distrust the imigration bill

No one believes the enforcement provisions will be enforced

The bill may have some good points but few conservative care much about that. The fact remains that 10 million illegal immigrants broke the law to enter the US. Too many of them murder and kill Americans at rates that our enemies would envy. If they make it back to Mexico, they are often beyond the reach of US law enforcement. Many illegals bring in drugs and join violent criminal gangs. Many of the rest take jobs from the poorest American citizens. Illegals don't pay anything like their fair share of taxes while they over tax the welfare system and hospital emergency rooms. Terrorists can and do use the same criminal activities that support illegal immigrants in the US.

Businesses, that exploit cheap labor, love illegals. Democrats love illegals. Anti-US forces love illegals. RINOs love illegals. W loves illegals. Seems like everyone loves illegals.

But that isn't the case, as politicians will find to their cost. Businesses that use illegals are resented by businesses that operate within the law. If you need cheap labor, move to Mexico!

Democrat politicians may find that Democrat voters don't see eye-to-eye with their masters in Washington. Union bosses might find that union members, already annoyed about jobs going to Mexico, may well resent their jobs going to out-of-state companies employing illegals. There are a lot of Reagan Democrats out there.

Anti-US forces rightly recognize that illegal immigration undermines America. Enough said.

RINOs love illegals because they are not interested in tackling the problem. Hint: if you enforce the laws already on the books the illegals will, over time, be forced to return home.

It is hard to figure out why W loves illegals. He is a compassionate man and maybe he sees illegals as hard-working people of faith trying to do better for themselves and their families. Maybe some are, but they still broke US laws to come here, and stay here. Maybe W should try consoling the family of someone killed by a drunken illegal alien, or the family of a cop killed by an illegal, to bring attention to the problems of illegal immigration.

The problem is that enforcement of immigration law is largely non-existent. Sanctuary cities let illegals flourish in defiance of the law, to the disadvantage of law-abiding citizens. The border is a joke. Immigration agents are persecuted for trying to stem the tide. The Mexican government pays no penalty for exporting its poverty to the US. Until these things change, the majority of voters will not buy immigration reform.

Update:

If you think this bill makes no economic sense, check out Ace of Spades:

Every low-income citizen added to the population collects, on average, $30,000 per year from the government in services -- schooling, hospitals, Social Security (including supplemental SS for low income people who haven't paid much into the system), Medicaid, etc.

Each low-income citizen pays about $10,000 per year in taxes, total.

Net: Each new low-income citizen added to the population costs the nation around $18,000 per year, to be borne by other taxpayers.

At retirement, it gets worse.

Total cost: $2.5 trillion (with a t) flowing out of Social Security and Medicaid at just about the time the system's already going bankrupt due to the end of the huge wave of Boomer retiring and collecting from the smaller post-Boomer age cohorts.

And it gets worse, of course. As Rector notes near the end of the interview -- and as I have noted myself before -- the list of nations that are less socialist than the US is a short one. Meaning that all of these immigrants, now lawfully voting citizens, will vote according to their conception of what government is supposed to provide to them (which also happens to be in their perceived economic self interest). I.e., they'll vote the nation in a more socialist direction, voting themselves more benefits and more money.

More out of your pocket, in other words. The $20,000 per year per amnestied illegal immigrant is the starting point for what this will cost.

Sat May 19, 2007

Honda rips the Canadian government

Government interference in the market is never good

Autoblog highlights a silly rebate scheme that has annoyed Honda:

We reported last month that the automaker was irritated its Fit just missed qualifying for a federal ecoAUTO rebate of $1,000 CDN that was established to promote the purchase of fuel efficient cars. The rebate applies to new cars that use less than 6.5 liters of gas for every 100 kilometers driven. The Honda Fit uses 6.6 liters/100km, which means shoppers who purchase a Fit aren't eligible for the $1,000 rebate. Honda claims it designed the Fit to be both safe and environmentally responsible, and refuses to sacrifice one attribute for the other.

One of the Fit's direct competitors, the Toyota Yaris, consumes 6.4 liters/100km, and is thus eligible for the rebate. As such, according to this report, Toyota is practically the only automaker in Canada not upset about the federal rebate program that officially began on March 19th.

Honda will have the last word, however:

The company has bought ad space in newspapers across Canada and is publishing an open letter that criticizes the Canadian government's rebate program. If any Canadian reader finds the ad, we'd love to know everything that's said, but one quote from Honda president Hiroshi Kobayashi will be, "At Honda, we offer pride of ownership because we do not sacrifice safety for the environment." Honda is also offering its own $1,000 rebate on the Fit to match the government's offer, even making it retroactive for those who purchased a Fit all the way back to March 19th.

You hear that? It's Honda's Kobayashi saying, "Eat it, Flaherty!"

Honda has a substantial investment in its Honda Canada Alliston plants. The Canadian government must have been very short-sighted to slight such a major in-sourcer.

But governments pursuing the green vote often make stupid decisions. Kimberley Strassel explains all the unintended and uniformly bad economic, social and environmental consequences of the ethanol boondoggle:

Corn ethanol seemed unstoppable, but a remarkable thing happened on the road from Des Moines. Just as the smart people warned, the government's decision to play energy market God and forcibly divert huge amounts of corn stocks into ethanol has played havoc with key sectors of the economy. Corn prices have nearly doubled, which means livestock owners can't afford to feed their animals, and food and drink manufacturers are struggling to buy corn and corn syrup. Environmentalists are sour over new stresses on farmland; international aid groups are moaning that the U.S. is cutting back its charitable food giving, and many of these folks are taking out their anger on Congress.

Similar reactions will be seen when the current slight warming trend becomes a cooling trend.

Fri May 18, 2007

A bold prediction

Iraq will be won before November 2008

The situation on the ground is improving rapidly, despite the MSM headlines and Democrat/Rino treachery. Is Iraq another Vietnam? Check this graph at Michael Totten. By comparison with Vietnam, US losses in Iraq have been minor. By comparison with the losses inflicted on US citizens by illegal immigrants (40,000+ dead since 9/11), US losses in Iraq have been minor.

Two things have happened since the surge began:

1. Al Sadr fled and his death squads have been neutralized.
2. The Sunni tribes have, at long last, recognized that the enemy is Al Qaeda, not the US.

Add in aggressive US military leadership and a realization that time is short to avert disaster, and we have a recipe for victory.

The Democrat's victory in 2006 and their determination to hand victory to Al Qaeda has told everyone that Iraq needs to be won now or lost later.

The Stratasphere sees progress in Diyala, now that Anbar has started to turn around.

Al Qaeda is now the main enemy in Iraq. It is fighting a last-ditch battle and losing everywhere but in the MSM. Soon, they will lose even there.

Thu May 17, 2007

Another Patrick Fitzgerald fiasco

The Conrad Black trial isn't going too well

Patrick Fitzgerald seems to like going after big names with leaky cases. His office went after Conrad Black, the Canadian answer to Rupert Murdoch, on financial fraud grounds. Mark Steyn has been covering the trial. In typical Steyn fashion, his blog entry is entitled "The Plot Thinnens". It sure does:

Non-compete fees to individuals aren't illegal but, in fact, entirely routine. So the only "crime" would be if the Black cabal conspired to hide these non-competes from the scrutiny of the Hollinger Audit Committee.

Given that the Audit Committee's signatures are on multiple documents disclosing the non-compete fees to the SEC, that's already a hard case to make. But, even if you did, it's arguably not material, given that the Audit Committee would almost certainly have approved the payments unanimously and without any discussion, as they did for the hundreds of millions in "management fees" they approved over the years.

The prosecution's star witness is David Radler. He isn't doing too well. Steyn, again:

For a man who spent his lifetime in publishing, David Radler has a surprisingly limited vocabulary, and one getting more limited every week. Pull up a previous statement of his, and he professes to have no knowledge of words and phrases he used a year or even a couple of days ago. Already in this trial, he has argued with defence counsel over the meanings of “right-hand man” and the word “review”. This morning, he claimed to have no knowledge of what was meant by the term “savvy buyer”, though he evidently seemed very comfortable with it in his first session with Federal prosecutors two and a half years ago.

The judge is growing weary of the witness’s obfuscation, all the more obvious and arrogant now that he’s facing the affable Gus Newman rather than the ferocious Eddie Greenspan.

“Mr. Radler, I’ve told you multiple times over several days,” she rebuked him, “please restrain yourself and answer the question.” It is a fascinatingly awful performance. Radler has treated this jury with contempt. They should do likewise with his “evidence”.

Luckily for Conrad Black, the trial is not in Washington D.C., the judge is competent, and the MSM has not been polluting the minds of the jurors with misinformation and outright lies.

Wed May 16, 2007

Abortion is not a presidential issue

Giuliani needs to explain who should decide if and when abortion is legal

Abortion is an emotive issue. Views vary across the country and across the political divide. A majority of Americans support a woman's "right" to abortion in cases of rape and incest or dire threat to her health. A smaller proportion support the "right" to abortion in the case of failed contraception. An even smaller proportion support the "right" to abortion because the woman does not want to continue the pregnancy. A tiny proportion support the "right" to abortion anytime before the baby is born. In other words, there is not a clear division between pro-abortion and anti-abortion positions. There is a spectrum of views from the Catholic Church's position of "no abortion under any circumstances" to the NARAL position of "abortion under any circumstances".

It is also obvious that there is no constitutional right to abortion, except as construed by judges who regard the constitution as a document of convenience. The issue properly belongs with elected legislators. If the State in the United States of America means anything, then the issue belongs with the states' elected legislators. The result may be that New York and California have more liberal abortion laws than Arkansas and Texas, but the people will have decided.

Giuliani needs to push the issue back to state legislators; to say that the issue belongs there, that the people decide by who they elect, and that it is not an issue for the Supreme court. Strict constructionists would never have decided Roe vs Wade as as conferring a constitutional right to abortion, and he agrees with that position.

That's how I think he sees the issue. I don't much care. Any strong Republican beats any Democrat when it comes to CIC in the war against resurgent Islam.

Now we know why the Democrats won't go on Fox

They couldn't stand the heat

The Republican Presidential hopefuls got a good work-out in the "debate" last night. Each of them had to answer tough questions aimed at their weak spots. Some did better than others and the viewers got a sense of what each stood for and how they would handle tough decisions.

The Democrat Presidential hopefuls headed for the hills at the prospect of such a debate on Fox. It tells you a lot about their ability to handle pressure.

If the plot against Wolfowitz succeeds

Then the President should send in Bolton as his replacement with a mandate to root out corruption

The plotting against Wolfowitz has been well documented on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and on blogs like The American Thinker. (Six great links if you didn't notice).

The plotting against Wolfowitz recalls the plotting against Bolton, Gonzales, Libby, Cheney and the President himself. The administration's response to these plots has ranged from amateurish to utterly inept. It is past time to turn the tables on the leftist elites behind these plots -- executed through leaks to the MSM, MSM witch hunts, and "investigations" by Democrats in congress -- and putting up Bolton to replace Wolfowitz would be a good start, especially if the President said that his mandate was to root out all the corruption that Wolfowitz found inside the bank.

Tue May 15, 2007

The Left has a Republican candidate to support

Ron Paul is their man

Fox News hasn't figured out that the hard left has pushed Ron Paul to the top of their post Republican debate poll. Fox should have learned after American Idol that phone polls can be manipulated.

LGF has a saner poll. At least you know the respondents are fairly right of center.

The Haditha prosecution case is collapsing

Will Murtha apologize for spewing terrorist propaganda?

Flopping Aces has a great post about the Haditha case. The cartoon that heads up the post pairs two of the most traitorous people ever to be elected to public office.

Those of us who followed the case knew it was a terrorist propaganda operation, aided and abetted by Time Magazine, by elements inside the military overreacting to Abu Ghraib, and by Congressman Murtha.

Two facts will kill the case against the Marines:

1. Of the 24 of the people killed after the Marines were attacked, 8 were terrorists.

2. A 12-year old child survivor testified that she knew the IED was going to explode.

Let's look at the second item. NewsMax reports:

In a CNN interview broadcast Wednesday, Safa Younis - who says eight members of her family were killed by U.S. troops - recalled that she was getting ready for school as the Marine Humvee approached.

"I was planning to go to school. I was about to go out of bed. I knew the bomb would explode so I covered my ears," the youngster said, according to a CNN translator.

"The bomb [then] exploded," she explained. "The bomb struck an armored vehicle. I don't know if it was a Humvee or an armored vehicle. When the bomb exploded, they came straight to my house."

If she knew that the bomb was there, so did everyone in her home. She was also planning to go to school, which indicates that she was not being held hostage by the terrorists. That makes her family complicit in the attack on the marines.

Let's do some accounting:

24 Iraqis were killed.
4 out of 5 in a car at the scene were terrorists
4 out of 19 people killed in clearing operations
8 of the 19 people were related to a kid who knew the bomb was going to explode.

Some of the kid's relatives may have been the 4 terrorists. Be that as it may, half of the people killed were either terrorists or complicit in the attack.

Then we need to look at how the case came about. Flopping Aces again:

Meanwhile a Marine Intelligence Officer, Captain Dinsmore, testified that he rejected the Haditha city council's assertions that it was cold blooded murder because the whole town was full of terrorists:
A military intelligence officer testified Friday that he dismissed complaints from the mayor of Haditha and its city council about the slaying of 24 of its townspeople in 2005 because he believed insurgents heavily influenced the local government.

Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore said he also questioned the veracity of complaints in a pamphlet published by the council a week after the slayings, which took place at the hands of Marines from Camp Pendleton’s 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment Kilo Company.

The flier asserted that the Nov. 19 killings were a massacre by troops enraged by a roadside bombing that killed one of their own. The pamphlet called for an official investigation.

“My assessment was the city council was being used as a tool of insurgent propaganda,” Dinsmore said. “They would take grains of truth and add details that were false and it would end up looking like a wild allegation.”
Which makes complete sense since the only ones accusing the Marines prior to the TIME story were the terrorists:
Insurgent groups have actually made more of the massacre. Within days of TIME’s story (which was picked up by the Arab media), pamphlets appeared in Haditha, congratulating ‘those who participated in exposing the dirty deeds of the Americans’. The pamphlets were released by a group using the name ‘Islamic Resistance’ - a cover for the terrorist group Ansar al-Sunnah. TIME’s story was cited in websites and Internet bulletin boards known to be used by insurgent groups.

Murtha joined the terrorists' plot when he rushed to judgement. Here's a CBS report from May. 28, 2006:

Murtha said high-level reports he received indicated that no one fired upon the Marines or that there was any military action against the U.S. forces after the initial explosion. Yet the deaths were not seriously investigated until March because an early probe was stifled within days of the incident, he said.

"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened," Murtha said. "This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterward and it should have been made public and people should have been held responsible for it."
...
Murtha, a former Marine and a prominent critic of Bush administration policies in Iraq, repeated his view that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily and needs political solutions, which he said were damaged by such incidents involving the U.S.

"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people," he said. "And we're set back every time something like this happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib."

Former Marine? Time for the Marines to publicly disown Murtha.

Mon May 14, 2007

MSM ignores yet another horrific crime

Could it be because of race?

I had not heard of the brutal murder of University of Tennessee students Hugh Christopher Newsom and Channon Gail Christian until I read this account at Flopping Aces. Warning: what happened to these two young people is beyond horrific. It makes extremely disturbing reading.

The MSM gave us death of a bimbo 24x7 for weeks, but simply ignores stories like this one, just as they ignored the Wichita massacre. Flopping Aces gets to the heart of the issue:

I’ve always believed the motto “No one is above the law, nor is anyone below it.” I’ve held a belief that the law was and is for everyone, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background and when it comes to crime and justice everyone should be treated equally. I don’t care if a person accused of a crime is considered privileged because of wealth and fame or they’re from a row home in the city, the law should apply equally.

I feel the same about media coverage of crimes. If you’re going to beat the drums loudly, point fingers and cry racism or hate, do it without bias. Bang your drums and point your fingers, but make sure you cover all races with equal fervor. When the media tries to play the game of “politically correct” by concealing facts regarding the race of suspects in a case, they are guilty of inciting racial prejudice. We can find enough of that in our society without the media further fanning the flames of bigotry.

Maybe Doctor Martin Luther King said it best. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Amen.

Sun May 13, 2007

Breaking the SUV/CUV spell

Cars really are better

The Ford Explorer ruled the SUV roost for most of a generation. Lately, it has faced fierce competition from car based versions, referred to as Cross-Over Utilities because they are based on car platforms, rather than truck platforms. Honda redesigned their CUV, the cute CRV, for 2007, and took the market by storm. Sales are up 42%. Autoblog reports that the success of the CRV has strained Honda's production capacity, while sales of Ford's truck-based Explorer have sunk 23%. The news is not all bad for Ford:

On the flip side, sales of the redesigned Honda CR-V are up forty-two percent so far this year and it has jumped to the number one spot on the chart followed by the Toyota RAV-4 and Ford Escape, with the new Ford Edge coming on strong as well.

Because we have moved even more downtown (yes, Cleveland still has a downtown), we decided to down-size from two cars to one. So we went out to our local Honda dealer to test drive the CR-V. Very practical; lots of space; but not very agile compared to our two stick-shift Accords. My wife nixed the chick-friendly CR-V. Too big and too high. So I tried out the Honda Civic SI. What a blast. A genuine boy-racer. It was real fun to snick it into 3rd and stomp the go-pedal. But the engine was turning over at 3000 rpm at freeway cruising speed and you could hear it. Fun for play but not the daily commute or the interstate trip. My wife noticed that you couldn't even see the hood in the Civic. That made it a no-park, no-go car.

So we asked about stick-shift Accords. They had none. Nobody has any. That was salesman for "we don't have any in stock but we don't want you to leave the lot". So I stuck my stake in the ground: "If it has to be automatic, it can't be a 4-cylinder".

So we ended up with yet another Honda Accord. But this one has a V6, a 5-speed auto, airbags everywhere, stability control, ABS and a cuter butt than the 2003 model. It wafts along. At 70mph, the engine is turning over at a tick over 2000rpm. Dab the accelerator and the local radar trap will nab you at 80mph. Stomp it, and you're good for 100mph and a complete loss of driving privileges. Strangely, it is easier to drive slowly than the stick-shift four cylinder. It just wafts along, and you know that whatever sensible speed you want is just a dab away.

I was reminded of a BMW 535 that I drove back in the early 90s. Today's Accord is more powerful, safer, and a whole lot cheaper than that BMW. Of course, the current BMW 5-series is a step-up from the Accord; a $15,000 step-up.

What does the CRV have that the Accord doesn't? More space for cargo. You could likely get six live sheep in the back of a CRV and only two dead ones in the trunk of an Accord. What I really wanted was an Accord station wagon, the equivalent of the BMW 5-Series Sports Wagon. Hint to Honda: the Odyssey owns the minivan market; bring back an Accord Sports Wagon. You can do it now.

Our household honors Nicolas Sarkozy, the new French president

We have suspended our boycott of French wine

Frankly, I never really learned much about French wine. New world wine offered better price/performance than French wine so I focussed on Australian, American, and New Zealand wines with the odd detour to South America. When I shopped for dinner, after my run this morning, I picked out an inexpensive French wine to go with a couple of dry aged strip streaks. I chose a 2004 Pennautier Cabardès, almost at random. It is very pleasant with good tannin.

Our boycott of Spanish and Italian wines continues.

Of course, if the new French President does not follow through on his promises then the boycott will resume. Monsieur President, you are on notice.

Thu May 10, 2007

Jihad 3.0

The new global cancer

The MSM is dismissing the Fort Dix Terrorist plot because they appear to be influenced by, as opposed to controlled by, Al Qaeda. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Flopping Aces quotes Laura Mansfield. In a posting entitled "The Terrorist Roadmap for the Future:Part 1: Individual and Small Group Terrorism" she writes:

News media reports describe this morning's terrorist suspects, who planned an attack on Ft. Dix, NJ, as homegrown with no ties to al Qaeda or any other international terrorist organization.

This isn't surprising in the least.

It is very likely that this cell, like numerous others that have been uncovered in the past year, falls into the category of "Individual or Small Group Terrorism", as espoused by the Al Qaeda ideologue Abu Mus'ab al Suri in his book "Call to Global Islamic Resistance".

The doctrine of "Individual or Small Group Terrorism" is a major concept in al Suri's 1604-page manifesto, published on the internet in December 2004.

Al Suri, who is believed to be currently in US custody, describes three primary phases of Jihad in the book:
# Organizations
# Open Fronts
# Individual/Small Groups

He explains in depth each of these phases, and makes a strong case that the wave of the future is individual and small group terrorists.

He believes that the days of the larger groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, are close to ending, citing the increased effectiveness of security forces in breaking up the groups, as well as the security risks posed in top-down, chain of command structures. A primary concern of Al Suri was that an arrest of anyone in the chain could compromise all those involved.

Likewise, he believes that the days of the "Open Front" for jihad are over, citing overwhelming force of the US as a factor limiting the viability of "open fronts". One key element found in "Open Fronts", such as Afghanistan and Chechnya is the opportunity for organized group trainings (the training camps of Afghanistan, for example).

Instead, he believes the future of jihad is for individuals and small groups, with no chains connecting them to Al Qaeda leadership. He points out the geographical and financial limitations, claiming that individual and small group jihad in one's own country is the only realistic opportunity most have to participate in jihad. He believes that few will actually make the trip to an open front to participate.

The concept of individual and small group terror cells is one that Al Suri finds particularly intriguing, and he seems to find in this doctrine solutions for the problems and risks posed by the other two stages of jihad.

Training, which was formerly conducted in remote terror training camps, could be provided both in book form, and even more importantly, on the internet. He describes a sort of "training template" that can be followed those aspiring to embark on jihad, ensuring a level of training for all who follow the template closely.

There's certainly no shortage of training materials for would-be jihadists on the internet - from instructional videos detailing the brewing of explosives, the construction of a suicide bomb vest, and multiple kinds of improvised explosives devices, to detailed recipes for creating chemical and biological weapons. Detailed training manuals provide the trainee with a roadmap to physical fitness. Online publications, the most famous being Moaskar al Battar, detail how to maintain and use firearms from pistols to automatic weapons, as well as operational plans such as how to plan an ambush, a kidnapping, and an assassination

Security is easier, he believes, because the individuals and groups don?t have to take marching orders from the Al Qaeda leadership. Instead, they can act on their own, inspired by events in their own countries. The glue bonding them to the organization is a shared ideology and theology, and a commitment to jihad.

Al Suri covers the recruitment angle as well. Individuals and small cells are to be set up by a "cell organizer", a regional manager of sorts, who goes from place to place providing seed money, and helping the groups get established and become self-sustaining. The key requirement for the regional manager is that he must leave the area before operations commerce (or else he must participate in a martyrdom mission) because he is the only element that ties these small groups to a larger terror group.

The individual cells then plan their own missions, drawing inspiration from the wide range of jihadist propaganda on the web. It is likely that providing this inspiration is a key reason for the continued proliferation of videos showing attacks. In fact, the video speeches from Al Qaeda leadership in effect become the only means of communicating with these small groups, and that communication is one way; the small groups and individuals have no way to respond except by carrying out an attack.

Financing is something else that Al Suri touches upon. Once the seed money has been provided to set up the cells, the cells are required to become self-sustaining. We've seen alleged terror cells use many different sources of funding. In fact, almost anything that doesn't leave much of a paper trail is ideal for funding a terror cells, including criminal activity such as drug sales, drug and cigarette smuggling, food stamp fraud, and credit card fraud Some enterprising cells set up more formal businesses, such a restaurants, grocery stores, ice cream stands and trucks, flower sales, and so on.

The key is that there is no money trail to follow back to a central organization. In future terror attacks, there won't be a Mohamed Atta wiring unused funds back to his handlers. Instead, for all intents and purposes, the cells will appear to be free-standing, inspired by internet propaganda, but with no discernible ties to an organized terror group.

"No discernible ties to an organized terror group." I suspect we'll be hearing that phrase quite a bit in the coming days.

We are fighting a virulent ideology that metastasizes as we destroy each tumor. The latest incarnation, a decentralized, cell-based organization that uses the web to recruit and educate a new generation of terrorists, is dangerous.

A cancer spreads because a few cells spread to other parts of the body to start new tumors. Those few cells make cancer deadly. With thousands of Jihadist cells spread across the world, the odds are high that a few will develop extremely dangerous skills.

Unfortunately, curing cancer kills far more cells than just the malignant cells. Once non-Muslims recognize that Muslim communities, and only Muslim communities, harbor Jihadist terrorist cells, they might approach the problem like an oncologist fighting a potentially fatal cancer.

The sooner we realize that, and moderate Muslims wanting to join the modern world realize that we realize that, the better.

Tue May 08, 2007

Jim Miller scores John Edwards on the Vilsack Rating

The guy is running on vanity alone; but if you want a slick lawyer, he's slick

Jim Miller is one of my favorite bloggers. He has invented the Vilsack Rating to measure what each candidate has accomplished in public life. Here's part of Miller's explanation of Vilsack rating:

I will use the achievements of Iowa governor Tom Vilsack as my measuring stick. A candidate who has achievements equal to those of Vilsack will get a 1. A candidate who has accomplished half as much as Vilsack will get a .5. A candidate who has achieved twice as much as Vilsack will get a 2. And so on.

The achievements can be good or bad.
...
The Vilsack meter is mostly a joke. But not entirely. Someone should point out that some of these candidates have not accomplished much in their public lives. Since no one else is doing that, I'll fill in, and the Vilsack meter seems like a good way to identify the candidates who just haven't accomplished much.

John Edwards scores poorly with a meagre 0.1. Here's part of how Miller assessed his score:

He has acquired a little executive experience, running something called the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina. The Center appears to have no significant accomplishments.

Let's put this all together. Edwards did have some impact on the public during his legal career, probably making births more expensive and more dangerous. He did little during his six years in the Senate. He has no significant achievements since then.

Adding these achievments together, I would give Edwards a 0.1 score on the Vilsack meter. In other words, I believe that John Edwards has achieved one tenth as much, publicly, as Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. (But if I had a dubious case, I think I would like to have Edwards as my attorney.)

The NYT did a hit-piece on Edwards, while he was competing with Kerry for the 2004 nomination, that confirms his sleazy record as a trial lawyer exploiting cerebral palsy cases with junk science and channeling the victims.

I'm going to predict Obama and Hillary will also score poorly.

Kansas National Guard is not undermanned

For Democrats, politics and lying are synonymous

You've all heard the AP Report on Kansas' response to the tornado disaster:

Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having immediate access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort.

But the people who should know, the National Guard itself, says:

WASHINGTON (5/8/2007) – National Guard troops responding to a tornado that devastated Greensburg, Kan., have the manpower and resources they need and can tap into additional support if they need it, defense officials said today.

"If the National Guard has it, Kansas will receive it," said Army Lt. Gen. H Stephen Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

Some 566 members of the Kansas National Guard -- 366 Army Guard, 200 Air Guard -- are on duty, conducting search-and-rescue missions, clearing debris, helping generate power, supporting law enforcement officials, and providing other support, National Guard Bureau officials reported.

The Kansas National Guard has 88 percent of its forces available and is working quickly and aggressively to save lives and reduce suffering, Guard Bureau officials reported. More than 6,800 additional Kansas Guard troops can be tapped, if needed, as well as more than 80,000 Guardsmen from surrounding states, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters today.

Kansas Guardsmen responding to the disaster have 60 percent of their Army Guard dual-use equipment and more than 85 percent of their Air Guard equipment on hand, officials said.

Whitman reported a full range of Guard equipment on hand to support the mission. The Kansas Guard has 352 Humvees, 94 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, 24 medium and light tactical vehicles, 152 2.5-ton cargo trucks, 76 series 5-ton trucks, 13 M916 tractors, 870 trailers, 52 Heavy Equipment Transport Systems, and 30 Palletized Load System Trucks.

In terms of engineering assets, the Kansas Guard has all -- and in some cases more than, -- its authorized vehicles. This includes five road graders, 15 bulldozers, eight scoop loaders and 72 dump trucks, he said.

It seems Governor Kathleen Sebelius is either a liar or incompetent or both. Given her party affiliation I'd choose both. Reminds me of Governor Blanco.

The same lies were propagated by the Democrats and MSM (but I repeat myself) after Katrina hit. James Robbins at NRO had the facts:

So is the war in Iraq causing troop shortfalls for hurricane relief in New Orleans?

In a word, no.

A look at the numbers should dispel that notion. Take the Army for example. There are 1,012,000 soldiers on active duty, in the Reserves, or in the National Guard. Of them, 261,000 are deployed overseas in 120 countries. Iraq accounts for 103,000 soldiers, or 10.2 percent of the Army.

That’s all? Yes, 10.2 percent. That datum is significant in itself, a good one to keep handy the next time someone talks about how our forces are stretched too thin, our troops are at the breaking point, and so forth. If you add in Afghanistan (15,000) and the support troops in Kuwait (10,000) you still only have 12.6 percent.

So where are the rest? 751,000 (74.2 percent) are in the U.S. About half are active duty, and half Guard and Reserve. The Guard is the real issue of course — the Left wants you to believe that the country has been denuded of its citizen soldiers, and that Louisiana has suffered inordinately because Guardsmen and women who would have been available to be mobilized by the state to stop looting and aid in reconstruction are instead risking their lives in Iraq.

Not hardly. According to Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, 75 percent of the Army and Air National Guard are available nationwide. In addition, the federal government has agreed since the conflict in Iraq started not to mobilize more than 50 percent of Guard assets in any given state, in order to leave sufficient resources for governors to respond to emergencies.

In Louisiana only about a third of Guard personnel are deployed, and they will be returning in about a week as part of their normal rotation. The Mississippi Guard has 40 percent overseas. But Louisiana and Mississippi are not alone in this effort — under terms of Emergency Management Assistance Compacts (EMACs) between the states, Guard personnel are heading to the area from West Virginia, D.C., New Mexico, Utah, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama, Washington, Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky, and Michigan. Thousands have already arrived, and more will over the next day or so.

It must be BDS that makes Democrats lie when the facts are so easily determined. Or maybe they just know that the MSM will propagate their lies and ignore the facts. The NYT proves my point:

CHICAGO, May 8 — For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards are ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado a flash flood or a terrorist’s threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, last Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks of the small farming town destroyed, Ms. Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.

“As you travel around Greensburg, you’ll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed,” Ms. Sebelius, a Democrat, said Monday. “The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don’t have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower.”

The Democrats and the NYT lie shamelessly. The problem is how to expose the lies in today's MSM sound-bite culture. That's why the blogosphere is so important.

Mon May 07, 2007

With friends like former President Bill Clinton...

Israel can be confident that it will survive

Ed Lasky at American Thinker quotes a report of a speech by Clinton to Kennedy School affair in Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Mr. Clinton also spoke of the danger of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, saying he was more worried about a terrorist group obtaining an Iranian bomb than the Islamic Republic using it itself. "Maybe some Iranian leader would think, maybe I can nuke Israel ... but we can handle that with a phone call," he said. "If a nuclear bomb ever exploded in the Middle East, even if it wiped out Israel, the main victims eventually would be all the Muslims around it who would be killed in the nuclear fallout."

So, Clinton thinks that he could stop Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from carrying out his dream of destroying Israel with a phone call. Clinton doesn't seem to have noticed that the Mad Mullahs have been killing Jews and Americans since 1979 and nothing the US has done has deterred them. Worse, Clinton seems to think that the worst consequence of nuking Israel would be the fall-out killing neighboring Muslims. Never mind the nuclear blast that would have wiped out Tel Aviv (3,000,000 Jews) or Jerusalem (400,000 Jews).

God help Israel if the Clintonistas get back in the White House.

Fri May 04, 2007

Annie Jacobsen was right about the Syrian musicians on Northwest Flight 327

Yet another terrorist dry-run

She has some important updates in her latest report:

What I saw on Northwest Flight 327 was a group of Syrian men act as though they were going to hijack the plane. The men blocked the aircraft aisles, knocked over a passenger and spent so much time in the aircraft bathrooms that one Syrian emerged covered in toilet chemicals. As the flight was about to land, seven of the men stood in the aisle and used the toilets while the leader read from a small red book. One of the men then made a slashing motion across his throat and mouthed the word, 'no.'
...
Federal counterterrorism agents have told me that the Syrians on the flight I was on were practicing
how to build a bomb in the aircraft toilet -- that the flight I was on was something known in counterterrorism circles as a "dry run." Other federal agents have told me it was more likely "the real deal called off."
...
The reason the review is being withheld from the public eye is because its contents embarrasses the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The report contains information that ties at least two of the Syrians from the dry run on Flight 327 to an earlier dry run on different airlines -- Frontier Airlines Flight 577. That the TSA missed connecting these dots and instead allowed the Syrians to go free without answering some serious questions reveals a great flaw in the aviation security net.

(my bold) The White House eventually asked for a report on Flight 327. It would be great exhibit for us John Does in the Flying Imams lawsuit. Unfortunately, the report is classified.

Hagel and Biden are hypocrites on Iraq

They need to remember what they said before the Iraq War

The Futurist catches them out:

A Biden/Hagel Washington Post Op-Ed, Dec. 2002

Here is an Op-Ed piece written by Senators Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel in December 2002, before the US invasion of Iraq. Sen. Biden is a Democrat, and Sen. Hagel is a Republican.

It is a well-written piece with impressive foresight and details into how it would take a decade to turn Iraq into a stable democracy, after the fall of Saddam Hussein. I agree with every single thing stated in the article, including:
"Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking. President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment. "
Also, this piece is notable for the absence of any mention of Saddam's WMD programs. Even though the article is about post-Saddam reconstruction, this omission is notable given the sentence about how there is no doubt that coalition forces would prevail against those of Saddam Hussein. This would suggest that this was not the Senate's primary reason for authorizing regime change in Iraq (even though Bill Clinton, in December 1998, did authorize a military campaign for the specific purpose of thwarting Saddam Hussein's WMD program).

What is sad is that both Biden and Hagel are now voting to defund the troops and deliberately induce a defeat, 4 years into the undertaking that they themselves said would take a decade to complete.

We can fault the President for failing to communicate effectively on what the war was about. He has to get his message out through the MSM smokescreen, but that's no excuse. But his failings are nothing compared to the hypocrisy of Hagel and Biden. They predicted how hard the post Saddam reconstruction of Iraq would be, yet they supported the war. Now that the US is halfway through the decade that the senatorial duo predicted, they want to give up the fight.

Click "Read More" for more of the op-ed: Read more »

OP-ED: Iraq: The Decade After

This op-ed originally appeared in THE WASHINGTON POST on December 20, 2002.

IRAQ: THE DECADE AFTER

By Joseph R. Biden and Chuck Hagel

The United States will face enormous challenges in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, as well as broad regional questions that must be addressed. These are both matters that members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have been focusing on for some time. During a week-long trip to the region, we came away with a better understanding of the possibilities and perils that lie ahead.

In northern Iraq we saw the extraordinary potential of Iraqis once they are out from under Saddam Hussein's murderous hand. New hospitals, schools, roads and lively media are testimony to the determination of Iraqi Kurds and to the bravery of coalition air crews patrolling the no-fly zone. Just a few hours' drive from the oppressive rule in Baghdad, a freely elected regional government and legislature (which we were honored to address) are embarked on a path of clear-eyed realism. While neighboring countries fear an independent Kurdistan, Kurdish leaders appear committed to working together for a united Iraq. They realize they could lose everything they have built in the past decade by pursuing independence.

Although no one doubts our forces will prevail over Saddam Hussein's, key regional leaders confirm what the Foreign Relations Committee emphasized in its Iraq hearings last summer: The most challenging phase will likely be the day after -- or, more accurately, the decade after -- Saddam Hussein.

Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill. Various experts have testified that as many as 75,000 troops may be necessary, at a cost of up to $ 20 billion a year. That does not include the cost of the war itself, or the effort to rebuild Iraq.

Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking. President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment.

The northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk is an example of the perils American forces may encounter. It sits atop valuable oil fields and is home to a mixed population of Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds. In recent years, Saddam Hussein has expelled Turkmen and Kurds as part of an "Arabization," or ethnic cleansing, campaign. We toured a refugee camp housing 120,000 displaced people and heard countless stories of brutality and the loss of loved ones. Kirkuk could become the Iraqi version of Mitrovica, the volatile city in Kosovo where the U.N.-led administration has faced the dilemma of forcibly resettling people from various ethnic communities who have been evicted from their homes.

This is one reason why we will need our allies to help rebuild Iraq. Cementing a broad coalition today will keep the pressure on Hussein to disarm, build legitimacy for the use of force if he refuses, reduce the risks to our troops and spread the burden of securing and reconstructing Iraq. Going it alone and imposing a U.S.-led military government instead of a multinational civilian administration could turn us from liberators into occupiers, fueling resentment throughout the Arab world.

Iraq cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Disarming and stabilizing that country will be all the more difficult because of the unsettled regional environment, in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While it is essential that the United States aggressively pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace on its own merits, doing so has ancillary benefits for the disarmament of Iraq. Simply put, we will make it easier for Arab governments to participate in, or at least support, our actions in Iraq if they can show their people we are engaged in the peace process...

« Collapse

You can't end a war by retreating

Of course the MSM will not ask the Democrats about the consequences of premature withdrawal

The Democratic presidential candidates are falling over themselves to be the first to surrender to Al Qaeda. Hillary Clinton has reversed herself, yet again, by proposing that Congress deauthorize the war by October 2007:

WASHINGTON: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has proposed that Congress repeal the authority it gave President George W. Bush in 2002 to invade Iraq, injecting presidential politics into the congressional debate over war funding.

Clinton's proposal on Thursday in effect brings her full circle on Iraq and sharpens her own political positioning at a time when the Democratic Party is increasingly willing to confront the White House on the war.

"It is time to reverse the failed policies of President Bush and to end this war as soon as possible," Clinton said as she joined anot

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