Jim Wallis slips, tells the truth

This is Political Correctness defined: Dissenters are to "stop talking".
In other words: "Shut up," he explained.

Freedom of Religion and the Social Contract

The events of the last week have brought to our attention the freedoms enunciated in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and how other jurisdictions don't extend the same protections. The Left is now calling upon suppressing freedom of speech that is "offensive" to Muslims. The irony is that they have it exactly backwards. If anyone's freedom of speech/religion deserves to be abridged, it's the Muslims themselves.
The First Amendment says two things about religion:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

I see these two as a package deal: The Episcopalians agreed not to try to be the official state religion in exchange for the Catholics not having Inquisitions to punish heretics, etc. To participate in religious liberty, your religion has to allow that same liberty to others. If you believe you have the right to use violence against those who disagree with you, then we have the right to use violence to stop you.

Firewall 15: Turncoat!

Bin Laden has become an ex-terrorist.

Monckton: The Not-So-Hidden Agenda of GoreBull Warning

Viscount Monckton explains the GoreBull Warning endgame:

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

I'm not that much good at drawing, so mine's in the form of a rebus:

And yes, it's midnight GMT, so we're joining the party.

Poor Muslims aren't allowed to have any Ham. You know, I pity them.

Condell: What do you know about Islam?

Smitty found this one via Jihad Watch:

VP Cheney @ the American Enterprise Institute...

(Full-Text via the Weekly Standard - skipping the first intro-bit)

Reasoned, Honest and in full factual acknowledgement of History.

... which means it's sure to leave a mark.
=============================================

I first came to AEI after serving at the Pentagon, and departed only after a very interesting job offer came along. I had no expectation of returning to public life, but my career worked out a little differently. Those eight years as vice president were quite a journey, and during a time of big events and great decisions, I don’t think I missed much.

Being the first vice president who had also served as secretary of defense, naturally my duties tended toward national security. I focused on those challenges day to day, mostly free from the usual political distractions. I had the advantage of being a vice president content with the responsibilities I had, and going about my work with no higher ambition. Today, I’m an even freer man. Your kind invitation brings me here as a private citizen – a career in politics behind me, no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek.


The responsibilities we carried belong to others now. And though I’m not here to speak for George W. Bush, I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do. We understand the complexities of national security decisions. We understand the pressures that confront a president and his advisers. Above all, we know what is at stake. And though administrations and policies have changed, the stakes for America have not changed.

Right now there is considerable debate in this city about the measures our administration took to defend the American people. Today I want to set forth the strategic thinking behind our policies. I do so as one who was there every day of the Bush Administration –who supported the policies when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances.

When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer. The point is not to look backward. Now and for years to come, a lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.

Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after September 11th, 2001 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America … and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.

That attack itself was, of course, the most devastating strike in a series of terrorist plots carried out against Americans at home and abroad. In 1993, they bombed the World Trade Center, hoping to bring down the towers with a blast from below. The attacks continued in 1995, with the bombing of U.S. facilities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; the killing of servicemen at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in East Africa in 1998; the murder of American sailors on the USS Cole in 2000; and then the hijackings of 9/11, and all the grief and loss we suffered on that day.

Nine-eleven caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while, and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated. Throughout the 90s, America had responded to these attacks, if at all, on an ad hoc basis. The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact – crime scene, arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed.

That’s how it seemed from a law enforcement perspective, at least – but for the terrorists the case was not closed. For them, it was another offensive strike in their ongoing war against the United States. And it turned their minds to even harder strikes with higher casualties. Nine-eleven made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat – what the Congress called “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” From that moment forward, instead of merely preparing to round up the suspects and count up the victims after the next attack, we were determined to prevent attacks in the first place.

We could count on almost universal support back then, because everyone understood the environment we were in. We’d just been hit by a foreign enemy – leaving 3,000 Americans dead, more than we lost at Pearl Harbor. In Manhattan, we were staring at 16 acres of ashes. The Pentagon took a direct hit, and the Capitol or the White House were spared only by the Americans on Flight 93, who died bravely and defiantly.

Everyone expected a follow-on attack, and our job was to stop it. We didn’t know what was coming next, but everything we did know in that autumn of 2001 looked bad. This was the world in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology, and A. Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.

These are just a few of the problems we had on our hands. And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass – a 9/11 with nuclear weapons.

For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.

There in the bunker came the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day – word of the crash in Pennsylvania, the final phone calls from hijacked planes, the final horror for those who jumped to their death to escape burning alive. In the years since, I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that. But I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.

To make certain our nation country never again faced such a day of horror, we developed a comprehensive strategy, beginning with far greater homeland security to make the United States a harder target. But since wars cannot be won on the defensive, we moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks. We decided, as well, to confront the regimes that sponsored terrorists, and to go after those who provide sanctuary, funding, and weapons to enemies of the United States. We turned special attention to regimes that had the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction, and might transfer such weapons to terrorists.

We did all of these things, and with bipartisan support put all these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations … the take-down of the A.Q. Khan network … and the dismantling of Libya’s nuclear program. It’s required the commitment of many thousands of troops in two theaters of war, with high points and some low points in both Iraq and Afghanistan – and at every turn, the people of our military carried the heaviest burden. Well over seven years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive – and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.

So we’re left to draw one of two conclusions – and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event – coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come.

The key to any strategy is accurate intelligence, and skilled professionals to get that information in time to use it. In seeking to guard this nation against the threat of catastrophic violence, our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn’t invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the American people.

Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.

In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. And in a few cases, that information could be gained only through tough interrogations.

In top secret meetings about enhanced interrogations, I made my own beliefs clear. I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.

Our successors in office have their own views on all of these matters.

By presidential decision, last month we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know. We’re informed, as well, that there was much agonizing over this decision.

Yet somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.

Over on the left wing of the president’s party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they’re after would be heard before a so-called “Truth Commission.” Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense, and political opponents as criminals. It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.

Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security, and what it requires. I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the course ahead. All the zeal that has been directed at interrogations is utterly misplaced. And staying on that path will only lead our government further away from its duty to protect the American people.

One person who by all accounts objected to the release of the interrogation memos was the Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta. He was joined in that view by at least four of his predecessors. I assume they felt this way because they understand the importance of protecting intelligence sources, methods, and personnel. But now that this once top-secret information is out for all to see – including the enemy – let me draw your attention to some points that are routinely overlooked.

It is a fact that only detainees of the highest intelligence value were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation. You’ve heard endlessly about waterboarding. It happened to three terrorists. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Muhammed – the mastermind of 9/11, who has also boasted about beheading Daniel Pearl.

We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country. We didn’t know about al-Qaeda’s plans, but Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.

Maybe you’ve heard that when we captured KSM, he said he would talk as soon as he got to New York City and saw his lawyer. But like many critics of interrogations, he clearly misunderstood the business at hand. American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people.

In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America’s cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.

Those personnel were carefully chosen from within the CIA, and were specially prepared to apply techniques within the boundaries of their training and the limits of the law. Torture was never permitted, and the methods were given careful legal review before they were approved. Interrogators had authoritative guidance on the line between toughness and torture, and they knew to stay on the right side of it.

Even before the interrogation program began, and throughout its operation, it was closely reviewed to ensure that every method used was in full compliance with the Constitution, statutes, and treaty obligations. On numerous occasions, leading members of Congress, including the current speaker of the House, were briefed on the program and on the methods.

Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative. In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.

I might add that people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about “values.” Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance. Intelligence officers were not trying to get terrorists to confess to past killings; they were trying to prevent future killings. From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought, and we in fact obtained, specific information on terrorist plans.

Those are the basic facts on enhanced interrogations. And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.

The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. They may take comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum. If liberals are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the path of sensible compromise. But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy. When just a single clue that goes unlearned … one lead that goes unpursued … can bring on catastrophe – it’s no time for splitting differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.

Behind the overwrought reaction to enhanced interrogations is a broader misconception about the threats that still face our country. You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and the terrorist enemy. Apparently using the term “war” where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated. So henceforth we’re advised by the administration to think of the fight against terrorists as, quote, “Overseas contingency operations.” In the event of another terrorist attack on America, the Homeland Security Department assures us it will be ready for this, quote, “man-made disaster” – never mind that the whole Department was created for the purpose of protecting Americans from terrorist attack.

And when you hear that there are no more, quote, “enemy combatants,” as there were back in the days of that scary war on terror, at first that sounds like progress. The only problem is that the phrase is gone, but the same assortment of killers and would-be mass murderers are still there. And finding some less judgmental or more pleasant-sounding name for terrorists doesn’t change what they are – or what they would do if we let them loose.

On his second day in office, President Obama announced that he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation and no plan. Their idea now, as stated by Attorney General Holder and others, is apparently to bring some of these hardened terrorists into the United States. On this one, I find myself in complete agreement with many in the President’s own party. Unsure how to explain to their constituents why terrorists might soon be relocating into their states, these Democrats chose instead to strip funding for such a move out of the most recent war supplemental.

The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security. Keep in mind that these are hardened terrorists picked up overseas since 9/11. The ones that were considered low-risk were released a long time ago. And among these, it turns out that many were treated too leniently, because they cut a straight path back to their prior line of work and have conducted murderous attacks in the Middle East. I think the President will find, upon reflection, that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.

In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we’ve captured as, quote, “abducted.” Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.

It’s one thing to adopt the euphemisms that suggest we’re no longer engaged in a war. These are just words, and in the end it’s the policies that matter most. You don’t want to call them enemy combatants? Fine. Call them what you want – just don’t bring them into the United States. Tired of calling it a war? Use any term you prefer. Just remember it is a serious step to begin unraveling some of the very policies that have kept our people safe since 9/11.

Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a “recruitment tool” for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, “We brought it on ourselves.”

It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America’s moral standards, one way or the other.

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

As a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion … our belief in equal rights for women … our support for Israel … our cultural and political influence in the world – these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics. These recruitment tools were in vigorous use throughout the 1990s, and they were sufficient to motivate the 19 recruits who boarded those planes on September 11th, 2001.

The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today. List all the things that make us a force for good in the world – for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences – and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America. If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

What is equally certain is this: The broad-based strategy set in motion by President Bush obviously had nothing to do with causing the events of 9/11. But the serious way we dealt with terrorists from then on, and all the intelligence we gathered in that time, had everything to do with preventing another 9/11 on our watch. The enhanced interrogations of high-value detainees and the terrorist surveillance program have without question made our country safer. Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place.

This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.

Releasing the interrogation memos was flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States. The harm done only begins with top secret information now in the hands of the terrorists, who have just received a lengthy insert for their training manual. Across the world, governments that have helped us capture terrorists will fear that sensitive joint operations will be compromised. And at the CIA, operatives are left to wonder if they can depend on the White House or Congress to back them up when the going gets tough. Why should any agency employee take on a difficult assignment when, even though they act lawfully and in good faith, years down the road the press and Congress will treat everything they do with suspicion, outright hostility, and second-guessing? Some members of Congress are notorious for demanding they be briefed into the most sensitive intelligence programs. They support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy.

As far as the interrogations are concerned, all that remains an official secret is the information we gained as a result. Some of his defenders say the unseen memos are inconclusive, which only raises the question why they won’t let the American people decide that for themselves. I saw that information as vice president, and I reviewed some of it again at the National Archives last month. I’ve formally asked that it be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained, the things we learned, and the consequences for national security. And as you may have heard, last week that request was formally rejected. It’s worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the President himself. President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen, thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.

I believe this information will confirm the value of interrogations – and I am not alone. President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration – the missing 26 words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn’t change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.” End of quote.

If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it’ll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11. It may help us to stay focused on dangers that have not gone away. Instead of idly debating which political opponents to prosecute and punish, our attention will return to where it belongs – on the continuing threat of terrorist violence, and on stopping the men who are planning it.

For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history – not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them. And when I think about all that was to come during our administration and afterward – the recriminations, the second-guessing, the charges of “hubris” – my mind always goes back to that moment.

To put things in perspective, suppose that on the evening of 9/11, President Bush and I had promised that for as long as we held office – which was to be another 2,689 days – there would never be another terrorist attack inside this country. Talk about hubris – it would have seemed a rash and irresponsible thing to say. People would have doubted that we even understood the enormity of what had just happened. Everyone had a very bad feeling about all of this, and felt certain that the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville were only the beginning of the violence.

Of course, we made no such promise. Instead, we promised an all-out effort to protect this country. We said we would marshal all elements of our nation’s power to fight this war and to win it. We said we would never forget what had happened on 9/11, even if the day came when many others did forget. We spoke of a war that would “include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.” We followed through on all of this, and we stayed true to our word.

To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.

Along the way there were some hard calls. No decision of national security was ever made lightly, and certainly never made in haste. As in all warfare, there have been costs – none higher than the sacrifices of those killed and wounded in our country’s service. And even the most decisive victories can never take away the sorrow of losing so many of our own – all those innocent victims of 9/11, and the heroic souls who died trying to save them.

For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings. And when the moral reckoning turns to the men known as high-value terrorists, I can assure you they were neither innocent nor victims. As for those who asked them questions and got answers: they did the right thing, they made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.

Like so many others who serve America, they are not the kind to insist on a thank-you. But I will always be grateful to each one of them, and proud to have served with them for a time in the same cause. They, and so many others, have given honorable service to our country through all the difficulties and all the dangers. I will always admire them and wish them well. And I am confident that this nation will never take their work, their dedication, or their achievements, for granted.

Thank you very much.
=================================

No - Thank You, Mister Vice President.

- MuscleDaddy
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

Bill Lays the Smackdown on Jon Stewart

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart issued an apology for calling Harry Truman a war criminal. I don't know if he'd seen an advance copy of Bill's Afterburner segment at PJTV: Jon Stewart, War Criminals & The True Story of the Atomic Bombs

Watch it. This is how it's done, boys and girls.

A Letter to Attorney General Holder

Malkin provided the link, but I'm reposting this in its entirety, (w/small "format-de-globbing" & emphasis changes) because the National Review Institute's page is completely hosed-up - MD
======================================================

Andrew C. McCarthy

May 1, 2009

By email (to the Counterterrorism Division) and by regular mail:

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.


The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.”

I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith.

Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States).

Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues.

I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct.

Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities.

This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case.

Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.”

Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay…. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]” (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.

For what it may be worth, I will say this much.

For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated.

Essentially, there have been two camps. One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s. The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission.

Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism—a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people.

There are differences in these various proposals.But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing:

Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted.

We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.

The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year.

The President did this even though he and you

(a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility,

(b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and

(c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules.

Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried.

Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance.

I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees.

According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training.

Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States.

The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness.

But I can decline to participate in the charade.

Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties.

It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States.

I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno—as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the “blind sheikh” would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment.

In any event, I’ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology.

Thus, my conservative political views aside, I’ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who’ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial.

It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.

Very truly yours,

/S/

Andrew C. McCarthy

cc: Sylvia T. Kaser and John DePue
National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

4 Dead in apparent attempt on Dutch Monarch

(This one is still developing, so by the time you read this the numbers may already be off - MD)

Royal Motorcade: Four Dead As Car Hits Crowd

At least four people are reported to have been killed and around 13 hurt in The Netherlands after a car careered into spectators watching a royal motorcade.

People were flung through the air after the car swerved across police railings

A photographer said the small car appeared to be deliberately driving at high speed toward an open-top bus carrying Queen Beatrix and her family in the western Dutch town of Apeldoorn.

As I said above, this is still developing (anyone out there who's ever been a first-responder knows that 5-hours can pass in a flash and is not enough time to sort things out) and the casualty-count jumped by 2 while I was reading - there is nothing more known in any specific way other than that this has happened.

That said...

Within-the-fold, you'll find some stills and a link to a video shot as-it-happened (they're disturbing - one of the victims is apparently a little girl - , so don't click-in unless you're sure).








Link to the Video

[Click HERE to see the visuals.]

A couple of points:

1) As is plain by the pics and video - that car was moving fast (enough so that the front was already smashed-in when it ran through the last spectators and into the statue on the corner)

2) Holiday/Government-Event-Motorcades operate pretty much the same way everywhere - slowly, and with a great effect on travel-speed of the surrounding roads.

Based on these two data-points, I'm going to have to agree with the above-quoted photographer and say that this had to have been deliberate - there simply would have been no opportunity for that kind of speed otherwise.

So what you've got is a lone male, approximately in his mid-to-late 20s, who made a 'kamikaze run' at the Dutch Queen's motorcade bus, through a crowd.

That may not be quite enough to assign blame to the Netherlands' recent Geert-Wilders-and-Spreading-Islamic-Violence problem...*definitively*.

But, if I were a betting man...

- MuscleDaddy

Waterboarding, Torture and ‘Not Letting a Good Crisis Go to Waste’.

Okay – this isn’t going to be a long one (by my standards), mostly because I don’t feel it needs to be.

By now, you’ve been hearing the hue & cry over the latest developments in ‘Waterboarding-Gate’.

Last Thursday, President Barack Obama de-classified and released CIA memos detailing the techniques of ‘enhanced interrogation’ used on three captured terrorists, referring to it as “a dark and painful chapter in our history”

On Monday, Rahm Emmanuel said that the people responsible for using ‘enhanced techniques’ to extract information from terrorists (all 3 of them, btw) would not be prosecuted by the Obama Administration.

Asked Sunday on ABC's "This Week" about the fate of those officials, Emanuel said the president believes they "should not be prosecuted either and that's not the place that we go."

On Tuesday, Barack Obama said that he was leaving the possibility of prosecution open – and would be abdicating the actual decision-making to AG Eric “Nation of Cowards” Holder.

"With respect to those who formulate those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that. ... There are a host of very complicated issues involved there."

I’ve already made it pretty clear where I stand on the ‘Selective Transparency’ that Obama is playing at with his last “Look, Pretty-Shiny!” distraction.

In my last post, I stated :

“If the release of this information is so vitally important, then so is the release of an accounting of the terrorist operations that were successfully disrupted as a result of said interrogation.”

Looks like former Vice-President Cheney agrees with me:

DICK CHENEY: “One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”

“I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

Today, we learn from Obama’s own National Intelligence Director (despite much initial Whitehouse memo-redaction) that those much-debated ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were actually very effective, yielding “High Value Information” – information that actually led to authorities thwarting a 9-11-esque attack on Los Angeles ... which is the sort of thing you’ve already heard before.


Now, I’m not even going to get into what an insanely-bad precedent it would set to have a current administration start prosecuting members of a previous administration for things they didn’t agree with – that would be pointless, since punishing the people responsible for protecting us from another terrorist attack would be the perfect capping-off to Obama’s ‘2009 America-Sucks World Tour’ – and nothing I say is going to change his decision regarding that.


I just want to briefly point out that all of the whining, hand-wringing, slippery-slope arguments...
...are Crap.


All over talk radio this morning, the ‘America Sucks’ crowd is suddenly doing an about-face, claiming that we are too ‘morally-advanced’ a nation to resort to “the end justifies the means”.

Of course “The End Justifies The Means” – are these people stupid? "The End Justifies the Means" is exactly how any of us gets through anything we find unpleasant or objectionable.

It’s commonly referred to as “Adult-Judgement-Making” – realizing that something simply must be done; that there can be things and circumstances that are bigger and more important than your pride in your sense of your own inherent ‘goodness’. The only hard part is being sure that the "End" is worth it.

Are you opposed to killing someone?

Are you opposed to committing violence against another person?

Can you imagine a scenario in which a deadly threat to either you or someone you care about could make you set those reservations aside and do it anyway – despite the strong moral conviction you might feel against it?

Now multiply it by thousands of people, in dozens of places across the country – people with parents and wives and husbands and children – people who would die suddenly and horribly while just going about their daily routine… and remember, this isn’t a theoretical or academic argument anymore – we know it’s real.

Could you set aside your moral oppositions to save them, if that were all that was left to you in the time allowed?

I could.

I could do it for any one of you reading this right now – I could knowingly undertake to carry that mark on my soul for the whole-damned-rest of eternity and be content to know that I had done the right thing.

Could you?

Would the "End" result of saving those lives be 'worth it'?

Welcome to “The End Justifies The Means”.


- MuscleDaddy

p.s. – in fairness, I’d be adding that mark to a collection...

White House Seeks Muslim Adherents for Government Posts

(I swear, this wasn't intended as a continuation of the last post - MD)


This one has been floating around for a while now - strangely, no one is picking it up.

Obama gets list of top Muslim Americans

"In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation's most qualified — Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted — has been submitted to the White House."

"The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names."

Okay - covering some of the basic points:


- Yes, that's the same "Rep. Keith Ellison, (D-Minn)" who made his pilgrimage to Mecca with the sponsorship of the "Muslim American Society".

- Yes, that would be the same "Muslim American Society" that is the US arm of the "Muslim Brotherhood"

- Yes, that is the same "Muslim Brotherhood" who funds and supports terrorist actions across the world and whose mission in the U.S. (as handed down by its council) includes:

"The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Proecess" with all the word means.

The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

There - now that we're clear on that set of connections (and I'm not even taking the obvious shot at referring to Democrats in the same paragraph with the phrase "carefully vetted")

- let's move on to the more obvious and Ameri-centric questions.... Oh, like:


Why is the United States Government seeking applicants for White House posts based on their religion?


"Ivy-League-Fortune-500-blah-blah-blah" - while ladling-on the modifications, they're still being quite up-front about seeking out these people for their adherence to Islam, and considering any other qualifications second.


Umm.., I'm sorry for potentially summoning them but where, may I ask, are the usual "Separation Clause" suspects?

You know, the ones who regularly shovel money into the court system over such 'oppressive' displays of "Christianism" as "In God We Trust" or, that dream-killing "One Nation, Under God"?

Well - Let's take a look:



Wow.

Color me Shocked.

Okay, though - let's try a test-search..just to be sure:



Notice that last part there? "Objecting to Government Promotion of"

What do you think...

- would "Seeking out Muslims for White House positions" rate as "Government Promotion"?

Because I'm thinking it does.

"Hue & Cry", anyone?


- MuscleDaddy

Obama Embraces Islam

The Capitulation Heard 'Round the World:

President Barack Obama sought Monday to make American amends with the Islamic world after eight years of tension, declaring in a speech to the Turkish parliament that he is determined to have a “partnership with the Muslim world.”

“Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not – and will never be — at war with Islam,” Obama said in remarks delivered in Ankara.

Well, I'm sure that a lot of people will be very relieved to hear that...

...particularly the perps from The List.


Now, be certain - I hear the Old Rejoinders often enough to predict them here:

"It's only a small percentage"

"It's only the Fundamentalist Radicals"

"It's not all of the Muslims in the World"

etc., etc., etc.....


But Consider This:

If we were talking about a country (let's call it Muslonesia) committing these sorts of attacks against another country (with only a 'small percentage' of their military, of course), killing, burning, beheading...

...and the only response from either the leaders or the citizens of 'Muslonesia' was to quietly nod their heads and go about their business with no outcry, no condemnation, and no demands on their leaders to recall the soldiers committing those murders... (indeed, with some dancing-in-the-streets at any news of Western deaths)

...would you have to decide that 'Muslonesia' was 'at war' with you?

Naturally, You Would.


Would you meekly accept the assertions that 'Moderate Muslonesia' wishes your country no ill, even though they obviously don't bear you enough 'good' to speak out - and even though the various Muslonesian-leaders continue to insist, over and over again that there is no 'Moderate Muslonesia'?

Of course not.

Hell, you're probably a High-School graduate who (apparently) knows how to work a computer - you're not stupid enough to miss the nose-on-your-face.

...even if a significant number of your fellow-citizens are.
(55 percent of those polled said they are without a basic understanding of the teachings and beliefs of Islam, ... but 58 percent said it is a peaceful religion. )


So why does our 'President' seem to have fallen off of the reality-train?

At what point did Barack Obama come to the conclusion that if you smile at an opposing force and say "I don't want to fight you, I want to be your friend" that they would fail to see the inherent weakness in that reaction and pour on the violence?

And what about "Giving them What They Want So They'll Leave You Alone" ?

Haven't we already seen that movie?


Apparently, France still remembers how it turned out.

Leave Turkey’s bid to join EU to us, Nicolas Sarkozy warns Barack Obama



And here's an extra bit of 'sticky' for your 'wicket':


Apparently, that part of the Turkish population lacking a world-domination-bent (read: 'want to just be left alone') don't even want to be a part of NATO



(the signs say "Obama Get Out!" ... hmmm... whaddaya think, CafePress?)

So we find ourselves with a 'President' whose stated intentions

- Will break our country's financial back,

- Capitulate to those who seek our destruction, and

- Surrender our sovereignty to some nebulous 'World Body' of questionable integrity and intent.


And who utterly rejects the notion that America is in any way greater than it's role of "cog in the collectivist machine" within his vision of a New World Order.


Remind me - how much more of this are we supposed to take?

- MuscleDaddy

Guns on a plane, oh my!

The Chosen One has decided to endanger the flying public in the name of an anti-gun ideology. This Editorial details how this last week the Chosen One's administration secretly diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program and plans to hire more "supervisory staff, who will engage in more field inspections of pilots". The editoral goes on to say that "This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000 Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement agency."

Remember that until the early '60s, pilots on any flight that carried US mail were required to carry handguns. So the idea of armed pilots is nothing new.

Money quote: "Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby at the expense of public safety?"

Edit: Day-um! I think we beat Insti on this one.

Looks like "NeoCons"...

.. aren't the only ones who think that to "meet without preconditions" with terrorist regimes - is a bad idea.

(okay, I know it's late and this is more posting than a normal day, but seriously, this guy is comedy-gold!)

Taliban say Obama's call on moderates "illogical"

"Afghanistan's Taliban on Tuesday turned down as illogical U.S. President Barack Obama's bid to reach out to moderate elements of the insurgents, saying the exit of foreign troops was the only solution for ending the war."

"This does not require any response or reaction for this is illogical," Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a purported spokesman for the insurgent group, told Reuters..."

"The Taliban are united, have one leader, one aim, one policy...I do not know why they are talking about moderate Taliban and what it means?"

"If it means those who are not fighting and are sitting in their homes, then talking to them is meaningless. This really is surprising the Taliban."

When Obama first announced that he would "reach out to moderate elements in the Taliban" - It was (for me) one of those moments to wonder if he had been cognizant of anything concerning the international politics that have made major impacts at any point during his life.

I'm about the same age as The One, and I vividly remember that the very reason we backed/trained/supplied/funded the Taliban against the Soviets (doubtlessly the greater of two evils at the time) - was because there were no moderates among them, and they could be absolutely counted on to fight to the last man.

What - did he think that the ensuing years of soft living and soy-lattes would have changed that?

- MuscleDaddy

So now that we've 'Marked Biden's Words'...

Look at that - it's like the man's a genius or something!

So, this basically acts as a continuation of Friday's "What IS he trying to do?" - post.

Now that the world has seen the complete & utter incomprehensible incompetence of The One in relation to the domestic American economy, any ability to relate to the will of the American People, and now have a good sampling of his clumsy, club-footed and largely spineless forays into what should have been fairly straight-forward foreign policy matters....

Some of the larger and more immediately-scary players on the world stage have decided to take Joe Biden's advice and test our "overwhelmed" Commander-in-Chief.

First it was the Chinese deciding that this would be a good time to start playing 'chicken' with US Naval ships.

"...one of the Chinese ships came within 25 feet (7.5 meters) of the USNS Impeccable, a surveillance vessel designed to support anti-submarine warfare, and that the Chinese crew tried to snag the cables that tow the ship's underwater sonars."

Naturally when the inevitable protests came, the Chinese fell back on that old chestnut that has worked so well all over the world - "It's America's Fault"

"Ma said U.S. naval ships must ask China's permission anytime they sailed within its exclusive economic zone, a 200-nautical-mile zone off its shores. The claim amounted to an assertive attempt to bar U.S. Navy vessels from approaching China's shores, even affecting transit of the sensitive Taiwan Strait."

...and why not?  

After all, given Obama's grovelling apology to terrorist-supplying Muslim countries during the first post-inauguration-days, Ma has to figure that his approach runs at least even-odds of being successful - maybe even to the extent of getting The One to throw Taiwan under the bus in a Carter/Panama-Canal-esque reflex action.

But, in the sense of "If Some is Good, then More is Better"...

Smelling buffoonery in the water - the North Koreans have now queued-up for their helping of whatever -else-will-be-given-away...

"North Korea on Monday cut its military hotline to Seoul and put its million-man army at battle stations, ratcheting up tensions as South Korean and US troops began war games that Pyongyang warned could spark open conflict.

North Korea’s official KCNA news agency quoted an army spokesman as saying: “It is nonsensical to maintain the normal channels of communication when the South Korean puppets are in a frenzy about these military exercises, levelling their guns at fellow countrymen in league with foreign forces.”

Now, the whole point-of and motivation-for all of this should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer.

China and N.Korea, having watched (along with the rest of us) Obama begin systemic capitulation to Iran AND initiate the alienation of our closest allies AND take the necessary steps to ensure that the US economy will soon render us unable to continue defending our neighbors and allies - have decided to belly-up to the bar to see what sort of fire-sale bargains they can rattle or threaten out of us.

Makes sense, really - it's not like he's given them any reason to believe it won't work.


... and I might be wrong, but I don't think "I Won" is going cut it.


- MuscleDaddy

P.S. - Note to the BDS-afflicted: This same sort of business that has Obama 'overwrought' and trying to find his own ...ahem... with a flashlight?

Same stuff that George W. dealt with - every day...

Just sayin' is all.

An Update...

You may remember this post about 2-year-old Moshe Goldberg.

Here's a note on how he's doing, and on the Nanny who saved his life and still refuses to be parted from him:

Nanny becomes new mother for boy saved from Mumbai massacre

Godspeed, LittleMan - we're all pulling for you.

- MuscleDaddy

(h/t - In Jennifer's Head)

And now for a quick game of...

"Where is Your Tax Money Going?"

Now, of course, this is sort of a trick question - since the Great Generational Theft Act of 2009 assures that we will never really know the entire answer to that question.

But for the purposes of this post, the answer is: "Gaza"

U.S. plans "substantial" pledge at Gaza meeting

"The United States plans to offer more than $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after Israel's invasion and to strengthen the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, U.S. officials said on Monday."

"Rebuild Gaza after Israel's invasion"

You know, I'm having a bit of trouble with that part of the statement, but I can't seem to put my finger on exactly why.... maybe if they'd used a more "nuanced" phrasing - like:
"Israel's retaliatory strike in response to un-ending rocket attacks from Gaza"

... yeah, that might have worked...

Oh, and don't worry that nearly a Billion dollars of your money will go to buy more rockets, bullets and Semtex for cafe-bombers to slaughter Israeli children & grannies - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already thought of that:

"The money, which needs U.S. congressional approval, will be distributed through U.N. and other bodies and not via the militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, said one official."

There, see? The U.N. will be distributing the $900MM of your tax-money!

Of course, I guess that means that Madame Clinton has somehow forgotten about how many of the Paletinian rocket attacks seem to have come from U.N. facilities...

And, I suppose it also means that she's managed to overlook the ... issues ... that the U.N. has had with hanging onto aid 'Not Intended For Hamas' in the recent past...

And I'm sure that the U.N.'s history of supporting a "Middle East Without Israel" narrative wouldn't make their administation of $900MM in US tax-dollars in any way ... suspect... of course - right?

So there we are - nothing to see here, folks!

I'm sure that this re-stocking of the Palestinians isn't really just the Obama administration giving Israel something more 'immediate' to worry about than their (ahem) larger concerns.

(apparently, the IAEA - they're UN too, no? - "missed" an additional 209kg of enriched uranium in Iran which means that, along with Pakistani-acquired tech, they can now make their own nuclear device to perch atop one of those new, farther-reaching missles they have)

- particularly given that Israel recently acquired a PM with... well... a spine?


Something to think about, next time you look at that ol' pay-stub and note the difference between the "Gross" and "After Tax" numbers.

- MuscleDaddy

Britain Wakes Up ...

...Hand-wringing apologists in 3...2...1.

Anti-terror code 'would alienate most Muslims'

So basically, it goes like this:

In Britain, the level of scrutiny you receive from the government is largely dependent on both the history of your personal actions and with whom you are known to associate.

To me, this sounds reasonable enough - very
"Trust-People-To-Do-What-You've-Seen-Them-Do".

The problem with that approach comes when you factor in Political Correctness and what aspects of their behavior you "mustn't see" because any such acknowledgement is inherently 'insensitive', 'judgemental' or 'discriminatory'.

It seems that someone at the Home Office had an epiphany - realizing that responsible adults (and particularly those responsible for the safety of others) are actually supposed to:

- make judgements,

- discriminate between good/bad/safe/harmful,

- and should do so based on the evidence put before them, regardless of the feelings or sensitivities of themselves or others.

Apparently, once the light died down and the host of angels ran out of breath, the decision was made to start paying attention to people's words and actions, and actually apply them as behavioral red flags to the existing Terror Code - and specifically when determining who should be subject to greater scrutiny as an "Extremist".

The measure (called 'Contest 2') would define extremists as those who "hold views that clash with what the government defines as shared British values."

(meaning essentially that the minority doesn't get to decide what's normal/acceptable for, or in opposition to, the rest of the country)

The meat of this is defined as:

According to a draft of the strategy, Contest 2 as it is known in Whitehall, people would be considered as extremists if:

• They advocate a caliphate, a pan-Islamic state encompassing many countries.

• They promote Sharia law.

• They believe in jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world. This would include armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military.

• They argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah.

• They fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

So, if you're living in Britain and you advocate the overthrow of the government, armed religious war against non-muslims, following a law other-than & to-the-exclusion-of the law of the Land, killing gays (because that's the only acceptable treatment for those who sin against Allah) , and/or cheer-on the killing of British soldiers abroad - you will be identified as an Extremist.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me - in fact, I'm a little surprised something so common-sense could come from government at any level.

Now, I can already see the 'thought-police' arguments coming 'round the bend - but let's bear in mind that what we're dealing with here is not some nebulous, double-plus-ungood preference against unhappiness.

This is a matter where it's the simplest thing in the world to draw a broad, straight line between words and actions, usually culminating in the fiery deaths of civilian commuters - and not the least because such actions are almost universally preceded and followed by these very words and sentiments.

Just like "Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all suicide bombers are Muslims" - it also follows that "Not all people holding extreme views/beliefs commit mass murder, but all mass murderers hold extreme views/beliefs".

If the bombing/mass-murder parts are the actions, and we know about these only after-the-fact - then what becomes the common-theme predictor to preventing/opposing the actions?

"Those who advocate the wider definition say hardline Islamist interpretation of the Qur'an leads to views that are the root cause of the terrorism threat Britain faces."

Again - take what you've seen people do - when you take any random sampling of religious murders/executions across the world, are we talking about Lutheran, Norwegian grandmothers?

"Ed Husain, of the Quilliam Foundation thinktank, said the root causes of terrorism were extremist views, even if those advocating the views did not call for violence.

Husain, once an extremist himself, said: "Violent extremism is produced by Islamist extremism and it's only right to get into the root causes."

"Root Causes".

Now, here in the US we're more accustomed to those on the Left shrieking about 'root causes' in terms of 'American Imperialism', 'Heartless Capitalism' and 'Evil Conservative Policies' as being the "root causes" of terrorism - but that only works when you disconnect 'A' from 'C'.

I am willing to stipulate right here that those can be "root causes" of indignation, anger and even outrage.

But at the same time one would have to also stipulate that billions of people all over the world feel these very same things over a myriad of conditions every day - and yet do not feel a moral imperative to slaughter innocent bystanders by the hundreds.

So what is the "root cause " of the decision to transform 'ourage' into 'murder'?

If this could remotely be considered a one-off situation the answer might be 'mental illness' generally, or 'psychosis' or 'sociopathy' more specifically.

But this cannot be - even remotely - considered a one-off situation.

And even even opponents to 'Contest 2' have to step carefully to avoid admitting it.

"Inayat Bunglawala, a former spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said such plans would affect many British Muslims."

"That would alienate the majority of the British Muslim public. It would be counterproductive and class most Muslims as extremists."

It's obvious that she's trying very, very hard not to say this - but is trapped by the imperative of having to create a sense of wide-spread victimization.

Roll back up to that list - according to one of the more vocal opponents to the common-sense 'Contest 2', that list would class most Muslims as extremists.

Now that's a very 'Horse's Mouth' moment there.

Most. Muslims.

And the proof, as they say...

"The Contest strategy (of which this proposal is "2" - MD) was put in place in 2003 as the UK beefed up its response to the threat of al-Qaida inspired terrorism. But the security service's assessment shows no drop in those they consider dangerous and the UK's terror threat level remains at severe general."

And with the PC-taboo on the identifying features of Islamic-Extremism hampering efforts, who would have thoght such a thing?

"In a speech in December, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said the government's counterterrorism strategy had to include challenging nonviolent extremist groups that "skirt the fringes of the law ... to promote hate-filled ideologies".

Good Morning, Home Office.

Let me put some coffee on for you.

- MuscleDaddy