Oh, and when is that attack on Iran I've read was going to be the hallmark of the Bush Administration going to launch?
Elephant Bar
Desert Rat
Thu Feb 14, 09:12:00 PM EST
Mr Bush, who, it was promised by many, would not leave it to the "next" Administration, is running out of time. The drums are not even beating, now. Who supposes that they will pick up the tempo, in the coming months, with the Election cycle already in full swing?
Are those Chinese built Panamax tankers underway, are those refineries under construction in China ready for Hugos' crude?
Bet that if not, they almost are.
While the US dithers about with windmills and tide surges. With out the distillery capacity under construction to replace Hugo's crude. So we'll be sending more dollars to Arabia. The Wahabbists will come out a head, again.
The hallmark of Team-43, the ascendancy of the Wahabbists in Arabia. Thankfully the lessons of 9-11-01 were fully learned, and the secular Arabs were defeated, leaving the Wahabbists free rein in the region.
After almost six years of Coalition Occupation, Sharia Rules in Basra! That emblem of Coalition success. While the 1920 Brigades, renamed as Concerned Local Citizens, rule in Anbar.
And the streets of Anbar are safe, as they could have been on 28 Jun 2003 if the US had allowed local elections to go forward, instead of establishing a military occupation.
An occupation that has failed to achieve the desired Goals, the restructuring of Iraqi society, the removal of the Tribes as local power players.
Five years wasted and a trillion USD, with little to show for it but a military that is worn out and now ill equipped. Along with $90 dollar oil and Wahabbists rolling in dough.
Why not unify with Mexico, expand the empire at home, it's a lot less costly. If done above board and not covertly. An ongoing operation that makes Charlie Wilson's War look like childs' play.
It was the Wahabbists that were supposed to be the threat, they were in the light, while American unification was the real play.
Now the Wahabbists have won in the MidEast and American unification is moving forward, with the GOP leading the way.
Success brothers, Team43 completed its' mission. The border is still open, the migrants are flowing north. Wal-Marts' consumer banks in Mexico are gaining clients, daily.
Should US air strikes be used to stop Iran's nuclear programme?
ReplyDeleteNO
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US national security adviser
There are compelling reasons against a preventive air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
First, in the absence of an imminent threat (and the Iranians are at least several years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral act of war. If undertaken without a formal congressional declaration of war, an attack would be unconstitutional and merit the impeachment of the president.
YES
Louis Rene Beres, professor of political science in the US
Further diplomacy has no chance of stopping Iran's nuclear programme. Neither will UN sanctions have any effect.
Unless there is a timely defensive first strike at pertinent elements of Iran's expanding nuclear infrastructures, it will acquire nuclear weapons. The consequences would be intolerable and unprecedented.
Nuclear Program
"It was the Wahabbists that were supposed to be the threat"
ReplyDelete(Salafists, actually. In any event...) Which is why Iraq was delivered to the Shiias.
Better tell Ronald 'bout Granada, Herbert 'bout Panama, Willie 'bout Serbia, or Zbigniew 'bout grey matter missing in his head.
ReplyDeleteLooks like if anyone has the good sense to stop a nuclear Iran it will be McCain, because Obama won't do it, if he's the guy. Hillary doubtful, and George seemingly has his hands tied. It's a big mistake, I think. I see the great Zbig is using 'arsenal' rather than bomb. It'll be ok, if they just have a few itty bitty bombs, they are a long ways away from an 'arsenal' so we have plenty of time.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have any friends in the area. It's a little like settlers trying to distinguish between the tribes of the plains Indians, though that is a truly awful comparison.
Olmert? Nah.
Netanyehu, maybe. But it's too late.
Nuclear armed Iran, the coming thing.
Obama will be able to reason with them, though.
Louis Rene Beres for President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense.
ReplyDeleteZbig dealt so well with Iran before.
ReplyDeleteAw hell, the West is finished. In debt to our eyeballs, industry exported, culture a sewer, overrun by Marxists, Mestizos, Muslims and mutts and led by trust-fund nancy boys. This civilization has run out of road.
ReplyDeleteLet's welcome the barbarians streaming over the Danube and embrace the fissile urban renewal that's a-coming.
And that's lookin' on the bright side, leaving out the end of humanity as we know it from global warming.
ReplyDeleteObama's priority? Increase aid to the third world.
Third World R Us
ReplyDeleteObama bill: $845 billion
ReplyDeletemore for global poverty
Democrat sponsors act OK'd by Senate panel
that would cost 0.7% of gross national product
Sen. Barack Obama, perhaps giving America a preview of priorities he would pursue if elected president, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations.
The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, "We can – and must – make … a priority," said Obama, a co-sponsor.
It would demand that the president develop "and implement" a policy to "cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief" and other programs.
When word about what appears to be a massive new spending program started getting out, the reaction was immediate.
"It's not our job to cut global poverty," said one commenter on a Yahoo news forum. "These people need to learn how to fish themselves. If we keep throwing them fish, the fish will rot."
Many Americans were alerted to the legislation by a report from Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media. He published a critique asserting that while the Global Poverty Act sounds nice, the adoption could "result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States" and would make levels "of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations."
He said the legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years he said would amount to $845 billion "over and above what the U.S. already spends."
The plan passed the House in 2007 "because most members didn't realize what was in it," Kincaid reported. "Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require."
A statement from Obama's office this week noted the support offered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces," Obama said. "It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America's standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in the developing world.
"Our commitment to the global economy must extend beyond trade agreements that are more about increasing profits than about helping workers and small farmers everywhere," he continued.
The bill institutes the United Nations Millennium Summit goals as the benchmarks for U.S. spending.
"It is time the United States makes it a priority of our foreign policy to meet this goal and help those who are struggling day to day," a statement issued by supporters, including Obama, said.
Specifically, it would "declare" that the official U.S. policy is to eliminate global poverty, that the president is "required" to "develop and implement" a strategy to reach that goal and requires that the U.S. efforts be "specific and measurable."
Kincaid said that after cutting through all of the honorable-sounding goals in the plan, the bottom line is that the legislation would mandate the 0.7 percent of the U.S. GNP as "official development assistance."
"In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that (U.N.) declaration commits nations to banning 'small arms and light weapons' and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child," he said.
Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims.
Kincaid also reported Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the "Millennium Project," confirms a U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP would add about $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already donates overseas.
And the only way to raise that funding, Sachs confirms, "is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels," Kincaid writes.
On the forum run by Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, one writer reported estimates of taxes from 35 cents to $1 dollar a gallon on gasoline would be needed.
"This is disgusting, sickening and angers me to the depths of my soul," the forum author wrote. "Obama wants us to support the world. I wonder how they intend to eliminate poverty. Most of the money always winds up in some dictator hands and in the U.N. coffers."
WND calls to Obama's office, as well as the offices of others who supported the plan, were not successful in obtaining a comment.
Another forum participant said, "Yes, and we should also eliminate sickness of any kind and get rid of poverty as well. Then, too, we should make certain that everyone in the world has equal assets, equal money, a college education, etc… After that, or maybe while we are solving all of the world's little problems, we can take care of the polar bears, eliminate the internal combustion engine, and, and, and… Oh dear, if only we would just go ahead and do all the things the dreamers want us to do. Let's stop using oil and burning coal while we're at it. Then we can make it illegal to be overweight and then we can. ..."
One forum contributor said since the legislation doesn't specifically demand "taxes," but instead leaves the mandatory "implementation" up to the president, "maybe the tooth fairy will leave [this new money] under the president's pillow."
Kincaid reported several more budget-minded senators have put a hold on the legislation "in order to prevent it from being rushed to the floor for a full Senate vote."
The legislation requires the president to do whatever is required to fulfill a strategy that would result in "the elimination of extreme global poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide … who live on less than $1 per day."
It further requires the president not only to accomplish that goal but, "not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this act," to submit a report on "the contributions provided by the United States" toward poverty reduction.
I don't mind wasting my tax dollars in the USA, I'm used to that. But this?
ReplyDeletegrrnite
No doubt the Global Poverty Act will work as well as LBJ's War on Poverty. The parasites will have more children that beget more children that live like savages BUT they will have a cell phone, a big fat American ass and $300 Air Jordans.
ReplyDeleteAh the American dream...to export our dysfunctional culture globally.
I can see my great-grandchildren now. Sitting inside their hut on their Jabba-asses, wearing their 1x10e6 dinar Air Mohammeds and chatting on their cell phone. Makes me weep.
Obama is such a small thinker. He COULD have expanded the tax rebate bill to include the entire world! Imagine the love of the world's unwashed masses when they opened the mail and found a US Treasury rebate check for a few grand! Why even Al Qaeda would be laying down their bomb belts and running to the nearest embassy to kiss an American.
ReplyDeleteThe Europeans too are enthralled by Obama. This .7% fits right in with a recent movement to get developed nations to pledge a minimum tithe for foreign aid.
ReplyDeleteMy question is: Will poverty ever be "wiped out?"
Candidate Obama must be questioned on issues such as this:
ReplyDelete"The funeral hall in the Roueiss neighborhood of south Beirut was packed with mourners in front of Mughniyeh's coffin, draped in a Hezbollah flag. Two giant posters of the bearded militant leader in a cap and military fatigues were hung behind the coffin, with a banner reading, "The Great Commander Martyr — Hajj Imad Mughniyeh." Some mourners cried as a band played Lebanon's national anthem and the guerrilla group's anthem. Outside in the rain, tens of thousands massed.
Nasrallah warned Israel that its alleged killing of Mughniyeh was a "very big folly" which will be avenged.
"Mughniyeh's blood will lead to the elimination of Israel. These words are not an emotional reaction," he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who attended the funeral, offered condolences to the family and Mughniyeh's associates. Underlining Iran's close ties to Hezbollah, he sat between Mughniyeh's father and Hezbollah's deputy leader.
"He's not the first martyr, nor will he be the last on this path," Mottaki said, reading a statement from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "There will be hundreds and millions more" like him.
The coffin was then carried through the crowds of mourners, who marched with it to a nearby cemetery, praying aloud, as some chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America.""
****************************
Does he think these men are evil or not?
George Bush has the thinnest little reptilian tongue I've ever seen on a human being.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot drag us into the reptilian alien conspiracy theories, bob. That one is beyond the pale, even for me.
ReplyDeleteSalfarists, Wahabbists, call them what you will.
The 1920 Brigade were Awakened, now they are Concerned Local Citizens.
A rose by any other name, smells as sweet.
28Jun2003, the Shia would have won in their localities, without US occupation. The crux of the position is that the occupation failed, Iraq is now where it was on 28Jun03. Local rule now is in the vanguard, where it could have been from the beginning.
The "Surge" would never have been required, the Iraqi would have run their own lives, as we are now allowing them to do, after US failures are publicly evident.
The Wahabbists have won, beaten GWBush. Their coffers are overflowing, while the US has spent its' treasure on a wasted war in secular Iraq. A country we could have rolled into, then right out of, instead of becoming entangled in the Wahabbist flypaper.
Obama and The Nation of Islam
ReplyDeleteAl-Bob,
ReplyDeleteQuick, tho, to catch them Waco Crawlers, thwiiip!
SuperFuel for THE SuperGlobalist to conquer the antiquarian "border" concept that has so constricted and restricted this great land.
86 the outdated "USA"
---
Thin tongued Oath of Office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Media Concubine Update:
ReplyDeleteHot Sex w/the House of Saud
Man Who "Dated" (Euphemism) NBC's Campbell Brown is New Saudi Ambassador
(reply to)
ReplyDelete"bobal said...
George Bush has the thinnest little reptilian tongue I've ever seen on a human being."
Great posts, Lugh!
ReplyDeleteKrauthammer
ReplyDeleteThe cult of Obama
Obama gets the coveted Daniel Ortega endorsement
ABC’s Jake Tapper notes the
ReplyDelete“Helter-Skelter cultish qualities” of
“Obama worshipers,”
what Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times calls
“the Cult of Obama.”
Obama’s Super Tuesday victory speech was a classic of the genre. Its effect was electric, eliciting a rhythmic fervor in the audience — to such rhetorical nonsense as
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek.”
That was too much for Time’s Joe Klein.
“There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism ... ,” he wrote.
“The message is becoming dangerously self-referential.
The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.”
You might dismiss the New York Times’ Paul Krugman’s complaint that “the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality” as hyperbole.
Until you hear Chris Matthews, who no longer has the excuse of youth, react to Obama’s Potomac primary victory speech with “My, I felt this thrill going up my leg.” When his MSNBC cohosts tried to bail him out, he refused to recant. Not surprising for an acolyte who said that Obama “comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament.”
I’ve seen only one similar national swoon.
As a teenager growing up in Canada, I witnessed a charismatic law professor go from obscurity to justice minister to prime minister, carried on a wave of what was called Trudeaumania.
I yam,
ReplyDeletetherefore
I yam.
PBUH!
MANAGUA, Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon in the United States.
ReplyDelete"It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university.
Krauthammer:
ReplyDelete"But even there the object of his countrymen’s unrestrained affections was no blank slate. Pierre Trudeau was already a serious intellectual who had written and thought and lectured long about the nature and future of his country.
Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He’s going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can’t possibly redeem.
Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran’s Ahmadinejad.
Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs and that have eluded solution for a generation. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war — with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.
Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day.
After which will come the awakening.
It will be rude."
Expand the USA, unite ever more States, doug, in the dream of inalienable rights, bestowed by the Creator.
ReplyDeleteAs Hawaii was included in the Union, though no where near America.
Why not include Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahulla in the Union?
We took California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas into the Union, all those have been a benefit to The United States.
There is no limit to our exceptionalism, no decree that 50 is the limit to the American States United.
U.S. will down failed satellite
ReplyDeleteBy Bill Gertz
February 15, 2008
The Pentagon's plan to shoot down a failed satellite with a missile defense interceptor in the coming days is aimed at preventing toxic fuel from reaching earth. But U.S. officials and experts said yesterday it would also signal that U.S. missile defenses can be used to counter China's strategic anti-satellite weapons.
.
.
The Greyhound bus-sized intelligence satellite failed shortly after launch in 2006. Intended to conduct both electronic eavesdropping and photographic intelligence-gathering, the satellite contains a large tank of unused toxic fuel called hydrazine.
.
.
"Oh, and when is that attack on Iran.."
ReplyDeleteTiz a technical problem. :)
Rat, for God's sake, tell me you're being facetious.
ReplyDeleteRush Limbaugh gets some Valentine's Day loving from Apple Corporate:
ReplyDeletehttp://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/16388
(Crickets.)
ReplyDeleteAlrighty, then. Moving on...
It's necessary to underline and emphasize Obama's beauty pageant finalist feed-and-heal-the-world airy ambitions, but at some point this becomes an exercise in preaching to the already converted. Republicans are going to have to do some major league wooing just to stave off a serious shellacking come November. Obama-fear, -envy and -loathing are not going to move people to the polls in sufficient number. Anybody But Bush didn't work for the (demoralized and in disarray) Democrats in 04 and Anybody But Obama won't work for the Republicans now.
Consider this: For the first time in a long while, many millions of Democrats will have, regardless of nominee, the good fortune and distinct political advantage of voting for, rather than merely against, a candidate.
ReplyDeleteThat's what the GOP is battling, for the next 10 months.
Anybody but Obama seems to work for me ok. Though Kucinich gives him a good run for the money.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, Republicans could just buy into the Glenn Beck Plan: Let a Democratic President inherit the certain disaster that's coming. Then let Americans beg for a Republican restoration.
ReplyDeleteCan't beat it for a kind of lazy senility.
I don't know Trish. There's got to be a mass of middle class democrats out there that will take a close look at this guy. The blacks and hispanics are coming out in record numbers for O and H respectively, pushing up the primary numbers.
ReplyDeletessssh! Rufus will hear you.
bob, it'll work for almost anyone here at the bar.
ReplyDeleteThe bar, however, is not the American electorate or even the GOP writ small.
Trish-
ReplyDeleteSo true. If the GOP is running "against" and that's it, they are toast. They ran "against" Pelosi in 2006 because they were "for" free pills for old people, illegal immigrants, earmarks, corruption, gay-marriage amendments, and "stay the course".
Not a whole lot of positive "fors" in that list.
Kind of like "Yeah, we're fucked up, but she's REALLY fucked up, so vote for us."
Another great one from The Architect.
They WERE the party of better ideas. Now they are the party of stale.
They need to quit rolling Reagan's corpse out and saying "we're just like him!" cuz he's dead and so is his revolution.
Obama and his screwballs will make juicy targets in the election, but the GOP has to have something for people to grab onto that gets them out of the grumpy mood they are in.
Abolishing the IRS and Free Candy Day every Wednesday will bring together the fiscal hawks and welfare moms under the rubric of Compassionate Conservatism.
Big Ideas, With Free Candy Every Wednesday.
Now that's a campaign message.
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE and TAX REFORM.
ReplyDeleteMcJaws needs to articulate that he's dead serious this.
We gotta out promise the democrats. There is a 'promise gap' growing that is getting out of hand.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama promises an American check to everybody in the third world, we got to promise we'd at least include real Americans in the plan.
..dead serious ^about this.
ReplyDeleteAnd Rat Thinks The Aliens Have Reptilian Hearts
ReplyDeleteEvery time I listen to Obama I get a tingling feeling in my leg.(Chris Matthews)
ReplyDeleteIt's called sciatica.(Laura Ingraham)
:)
I think we've probably gotten as far with tax reform as we're going to get for the near term and every emphasis ought to be given instead to fiscal discipline. If it wouldn't kill the presumptive nominee credit can be openly given the Clinton admin along with earlier Congressional conservatives for together restoring some measure of sanity on this front - and doing so pays respect to bipartisanship in the best sense, which McCain is going to have to do.
ReplyDeleteBowing to an earlier post: Iraq (and the case can be made - the WoT generally) has been a grotesquely costly boondoggle, but where a hard-working America has been truly, remorselessly bled white is at home. Obama or Clinton would be a radical continuation of rather than a departure from that sad state of affairs.
"There is no limit to our exceptionalism, no decree that 50 is the limit to the American States United."
ReplyDelete---
The Welfare State, and the Rule of the Majority Parasites, insures that this will remain pure fantasy and poppycock.
There is nothing to stop our descent from exceptionalism to mediocrity, save one last charge of the shrinking patriotic nationalist conservatives.
"But you can't blame them for taking what they can."
ReplyDelete---
Exactly, that's why I didn't blame Bernie Ward for molesting my kids.
So enlighened, I am.
Above Judgement.
Approved by the PC Patrol.
Brave New Whirreled.
("You can't blame that drunk illegal for taking out that family of five, can you?" )
Bend over, we DESERVE it!
Get with the program!
ReplyDeleteProstitute our Legacy.
Compassion and Fantasy Rule!
26 states, now to include Texas (I have my doubts about the Texicans) are looking into Oklahoma's new laws, in hopes of saving themselves from the fast approaching McCain/Obama Unification.
ReplyDelete...but better to surrender to the inevitable, right?
ReplyDeleteIt's the (new) AMERICAN WAY!
...very post-PC.
"Consider this: For the first time in a long while, many millions of Democrats will have, regardless of nominee, the good fortune and distinct political advantage of voting for, rather than merely against, a candidate."
ReplyDelete---
Dick Morris:
"Obama has brought about de-facto campaign finance reform on his own."
...with his mega-successful online donation model.
But can any others duplicate it?
Enthusiasm the key.
"..better to surrender to the inevitable.."
ReplyDeleteIt's the line that Trish and her crowd of toads are pushing.
"Rat, for God's sake, tell me you're being facetious."
ReplyDelete---
His ass is covered,
regardless of the outcome.
I was thinking of the rodent!
ReplyDeletesave one last charge of the shrinking patriotic nationalist conservatives.
ReplyDeleteFri Feb 15, 03:33:00 PM EST
Osama bin Laden had to painstakingly teach the Afghan Arabs why it's best not to simply run in front of the machine gun fire.
Instructing us to scurry about in the
ReplyDeleteNew Turd World.
And LIKE IT!
Before 9-11 came the
ReplyDeleteAttack of the Supersonic Pteranodon.
Bernie's really 'up shit crick', as we say here, Doug.
ReplyDeleteGot ratted out by 'SexFairy'.
They got his passport. They got him in electronic ankle braclets, confined to home, except to drive his kids to school. They shouldn't even let him do that.
He's the guy railed on and on about Larry Craig and people like Craig that, as he said, always play the 'purtitan' to cover up their own failings. Proving his own rule. Speculation has been whether he quit the priesthood or was thrown out.
At KGO, it's like he never existed. It's like one of those pictures of the commissars in Stalin's day, when the photo is changed, so Comrade X simply isn't in the picture anymore.
Bar Keep, pour me a tall, cold Becks and let me raise a toast to Splodey Dopes with Short Fuses.
ReplyDeleteA powerful blast went off in the house of a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist in the Gaza Strip Friday, killing him and five others, medics and an Islamic Jihad spokesman said.
Witnesses said the three-story home of Ayman Atallah Fayed was flattened by the blast, and that six nearby homes were badly damaged. At least 40 people were hurt, including nine who were in critical condition.
The blast happened Friday evening in Fayed's house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
Islamic Jihad claimed Israeli warplanes hit the house in an air strike, and added that the group would carry out reprisal attacks against Israel. But Hamas said the cause of the blast was not clear, and the IDF, which regularly takes responsibility for attacks on Gaza terrorists, denied any involvement.
Witnesses reported seeing fragments of what looked like locally-produced rockets at the scene, suggesting the house may have been used to store arms.
A bad week for big wig Jihadists has put me in a good mood.
Bar Keep, another Becks please.
ReplyDeleteDid the Frogs Off the Big Wig Terrorist?
On January 30, French security services raided a Paris apartment and arrested six Arab men. Three of the men - two Lebanese and one Syrian - were travelling on diplomatic passports. According to the Italian Libero newspaper, the six were members of a Hizbullah cell. Documents seized included tourist maps of Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin and Rome marked up with red highlighter to indicate routes, addresses, parking lots and "truck stopping points." The maps pointed to several routes to Vatican back entrances.
Libero's report explained that the "truck stopping points" aligned with information the French had received the week before from Beirut. There, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah had convened a conference of his senior terror leaders where he ordered them to activate Hizbullah cells throughout Europe to kidnap senior European leaders.
Always keep the dynamite in the freezer!
ReplyDeleteAlong with the Becks.
ReplyDeleteBernie the Great
ReplyDeleteHas Fallen,
Fallen....
I love the sounds of that.
Along with the Becks
ReplyDeleteYou can cool yours outside in a snow bank.
In Iraq, Shi'ite and Sunni terrorists alike bemoaned his [Mughniyeh's] death and called for revenge. Shi'ite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose forces were trained and organized by Mughniyeh and Iran, condemned Mughniyeh's killing. Sadr's supposed arch-foe, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who leads al-Qaida in Iraq and whose operational commanders are in Iran, responded to his death by calling for attacks against Israel.
And of course, Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria all condemned Mughniyeh's death in the strongest terms and vowed to avenge his killing.
These condemnations were not nostalgic pinings for a has-been. These uniform reactions from across the terror spectrum were the cries of Mughniyeh's soldiers for their commander. Through Iran, Mughniyeh was in effect the commander or godfather or both of all of these forces. His life's work embodied the growth, development and modus operandi of the forces of global terror and jihad. And understanding his life's work is a key to understanding the nature of the jihadist forces arrayed against the Western world and Israel.
"Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria all condemned Mughniyeh's death in the strongest terms and...vowed to avenge his killing."
ReplyDeleteHezbollah, Iran, Syria, (and Hamas)
Surrounded. Alone.
Thanks for the links Stoutfeller.
ReplyDeleteMost of the reports of his death treated Mughniyeh as a has-been. Coverage was devoted to his attacks against American, Israeli and Jewish targets in the 1980s and early 1990s. Yet at the time of his death, Mughniyeh remained one of the most dangerous and prolific terror operatives in the world.
********************
Exactly, according to the news reports I pictured an old terrorist living in semi-retirement. Turns out that he was the number two man in Hesbollah and the number 1 military commander.
That cast a whole new light on the situation.
Carpe Diem!
If only the big mouths like Chavez and the IslamoNazis would make good on their threats.
ReplyDeleteGo ahead, make my day!
The New York Times and Hesbollahs threats:
ReplyDeleteSuch attacks are not seen as likely. Hezbollah’s patrons, Syria and Iran, “are pursuing strategies of their own, and Hezbollah is not really free to depart from those,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment Middle East Center in Beirut.
Iran’s close ties with Hezbollah — and with Mr. Mugniyah — were underscored Thursday when Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, spoke at the funeral, reading a letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“These are operations that will shorten their corrupt and filthy life,” Mr. Mottaki said, quoting the letter, which was referring to the Israelis and the killing of Mr. Mugniyah. “Their smiles will not last long. The free people and the Lebanese people have lost one hero, but there are a million more Hajj Rudwans ready to join the ranks of the resistance.” Mr. Mugniyah also went by the name Hajj Rudwan.
Syria and Iran, “are pursuing strategies of their own, and Hezbollah is not really free to depart from those,” said...
ReplyDeleteWho?
Yeah, okay. I'm done laughing.
If I lived in Beirut, I may say similar things myself.
ReplyDeleteWhit, it's rather depressing how ostensible conservatives do not understand or take cognizance of local matters and local politics abroad.
ReplyDeleteTake Pakistan, for instance...
ReplyDeleteFunny, isn't it, that Israel ended up with much the same shit sandwich as Pakistan.
ReplyDeleteTake Pakistan...
ReplyDeleteWhere?
Serious ...
Who's to say?
As a registered Republican I am standing with the Party and its' defacto policies.
Those of the presumptive nominee.
Those of the current President and leader of the GOP.
Those of the immediate past GOP President, the father of the current President and Party leader.
It's a comin', despite what I want or think is best. Ride the wave, or drown.
Learned that lesson long ago. A unified America.
Listen to the rhetoric, the Obama speaches, it is clear.
It is all about AMERICA
Very little about the United States
Is Alaska in America?
If it is, so is Canada, as is Mexico.
If America reaches to Hawaii, it can reach to Costa Rica. John McCain was born in the Panama, a part of America. Or no?
Not a State, nor even a territory. But Johm McCain is considered a natural born citizen. While in reality, he is an immigrant.
Article. II. - The Executive Branch
Section 1 - The President
...
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
Panama, a natural part of America.
Um. My son was born in Germany. He's an American citizen.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you're getting at, Rat. Nor that I care to go there.
Then America, trish, is where ever the US Military occupies.
ReplyDeleteGermany, Panama, Iraq.
All part of America
Not bound by borders, but defined by either military force and/or ideas.
The American way of empire.
It's a two way street.
The borders have no meaning, to America. We are the world and the world is US.
ReplyDeleteThat is the reality of where we are, today.
Trish said:
ReplyDelete"...ostensible conservatives do not understand or take cognizance of local matters and local politics abroad."
Yes, continue, I'm listening...
Speaking of Pakistan, I heard something interesting: An Indian General speaking about the turmoil in Pakistan said that until Pakistan gets rid of Musharraf and democratic elections occur there will be no real action against the extremists.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Karachi is a city of 15 million people, 75% of which earn less than $150 per month. There is essentially no middle class there.
Food inflation is at 18.5% per month. Wheat and edible oils are in extremely short supply but this is blamed on Pakistani export policy rather than the worldwide situation.
Now the Pakistan Peoples Party says that they will work to remove Musharraf from office.
Whit, who do you think Hezbollah is more beholden to, Syria and Iran, or Lebanese?
ReplyDeleteNo question that Syria fostered the growth and development of Hesbollah. Iran with its $300 million per day oil money funds them.
ReplyDeleteWho are they more beholden to?
"Me against my brother. Me and my brother against our cousin."
One estimate is that in Iran only about 400,000 people out of 75 million are financially "making it" while the others have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
ReplyDeleteThere are shortages of gasoline and natural gas even though the government's oil revenue is $300 million per day. Inflation is a rampant 20%.
Elections are coming up soon.
There Will Be Blood
ReplyDeleteWent to see this movie. The curse of oil wealth. Protagonist is a driven, humanity hating, manipulative, and towards the end, a double killer. One of the rare movies totally without any love interest. Good scenery, good acting, takes you right back to the early oil days. Guy that plays the protagonist is related somehow to C.S.Lewis, my wife says. Based on the book "Oil" by Upton Sinclair.
Gets bob's worth seeing rating.
Hard to call them elections when the acceptable list is made up by the mullahs.
ReplyDeleteElections and islam don't mix, anyway. Benevolent monarch is the best they can hope for, IMHO.
Take Colombia, whit.
ReplyDeleteThere is no political successor to Uribe. He will soon reach the end of his second term. According to the constitution there can be no third. A movement may be afoot to amend the constitution. Admittedly, this is something of a sticky issue among Colombians themselves. But even if, at a current approval rating of 80 percent, Colombians overwhelmingly demonstrated in favor it, our ambassador will take him aside.
Now the next most popular guy is Chavez-lite.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
In Pakistan, the army and the government badly need a reprieve from the whole high profile US puppet gig. They are not likely to get it, and it may be disastrous.
The same could be said for Israel, which like any country has interests intimately of its own that we cannot pretend to have utmost in mind at any time.
And how much of a responsibility is it for the current President to maintain continuity of governence?
ReplyDeleteIn Colombia, Pakistan, Israel or the United States.
In the US the President has abdicated on that responsibility, as in Colombia.
If the succession fails, if the continuity of Policy fails, then so does the currently serving President.
If Bush or Uribe, Putin or Blair do not influence their successsion and the policies going forward, they failed their primary mission.
Putin has been successful, as was Mr Blair. If Uribe leaves a vacume, the legacy of his tenure will suffer. Same for Mr Bush if Obama were to be elected and he reverses current policies. Tax, fiscal or foreign.
Pakistan a continually failed State. The succession of leadership never being successful.
Off-topic, but fitting:
ReplyDelete"In April 2006, then British Defense Secretary said that he hoped that his country’s forces could deploy [to Southern Afghanistan] 'without firing a shot.'”
How'd the paper come out, cutler?
ReplyDeleteHillary and Obama are both nuts---
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.
"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."
While political activists on the other side of the spectrum have made similar observations, Rossiter boasts professional credentials and a life virtually free of activism and links to "the vast right-wing conspiracy."
For more than 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.
Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by the two major candidates for the Democratic Party presidential nomination can only be understood as a psychological disorder.
"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."
Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:
creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.
"The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind," he says. "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."
The thing is, bob, that conservatives have a love-hate relationship with individual sovereignty. And there's really not much to be done about that.
ReplyDeleteAs long as they're conservatives.
ReplyDeleteSo-so. I'm cobbling together a Research Design now. It's the equivalent of a small completing thesis, 40-60 pages or so, so it'll be going for a while.
ReplyDeleteI just want to graduate (and hold onto my honors), but the professor's speaking as if she expects a magnum opus. She's also a hardcore 'political scientist,' something I really don't even believe in. She's also a heavy leftist, so I basically have to watch myself in class more than I've had to do in a long time, since college.
Altogether a miserable experience.
I often post stuff I don't personally fully believe. My ol' unca jerry was a liberal, and he wasn't nuts. He could tell a good story, and liked a martini, too.
ReplyDeleteMy other classes are a freaking breeze...i.e., armor and AT doctrine...psst, easy.
ReplyDeleteWhat doesn't kill you, cutler...
ReplyDeleteWe joke about it. But it's true.
ReplyDeleteKarl Marx was a political scientist, to put the term in perspective.
ReplyDeleteThose that benefited from kingship had 'political scientists' in their day that came up with the theory of the 'divine right of kings'. Well worked out too, given one or two presumptions.
(makes you stronger)
ReplyDeleteWhat doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
ReplyDeleteI wish you'd tell that to my back, which aches all the time from when I popped it in my last years farming. It feels like it's killing me sometimes:(
grrnite
"Those that benefited from kingship had 'political scientists' in their day that came up with the theory of the 'divine right of kings'. Well worked out too, given one or two presumptions."
ReplyDeleteHehe...I'm going to tip my hand now, but I've always compared it to the million monkeys on a typewriter rule. If you stick a bunch of academics in a room they could come up with an academic "case" using "objective" "evidence" to "prove" just about anything, given enough fancy words and prior crap to lean on. Bullshit piled upon bullshit piled upon bullshit. Kinda like the Iraqi WMD dossier....
Before you know it you have an entire "field" built upon nothing but academic literature proving how the world should work, according to a bunch of often likeminded intellectuals. And they've got footnotes to prove it.
Basic assumptions and premises are pounded into your head. Everyone works from them, either because they've never really thought otherwise or because it is simply the easiest place to begin making your case. Accepting the premise is intellectually easier than going against decades of bullshit piled upon bullshit.
It gets tiring. I can understand the appeal of studying something straightforward like economics or mathematics.
Cutler, you'd a made a great farmer. The land don't talk back.
ReplyDeleteniteagin
Good thread.
ReplyDelete