First we had the “Main Stream Media (MSM),” then I proposed the “Has Been Media (HSM)” in the “junior blog,” and Tony Snow used that term a few weeks later….but now, it’s time for a change.

Just came to me today. Maybe we should just call our friends in the press: “Media’b’Allah”

Sounds good to me: The media of God (meaning Allah). After all….that’s how the reporting seems to slant (more like lean hard over towards, like an iron object in the vicinity of a very strong magnet).

Just thinking….I hope I’m not ripping off the Hiz’b’Allah® moniker too badly….

From Little Green Footballs, a report from someone who attended a reception for former Iranina President Khatamis, hosted by CAIR in DC.

This quote is absolutely striking:

But one thing above all stood out when Khatami was speaking (I don’t know if it was Arabic or Persian). Apparently his language has no equivalent for the English word because he always said the word in English.

Democracy.

Interesting…the question now for me was the spoken language Fasri or Arabic? The cultures that spawned those languages have multi-millenia of history, and at least one doesn’t have the word “democracy” in its lexicon. Both cultures were in contact with the Greeks, who, from my knowledge of history, formulated the concept of democracy, or were at least the first ones to claim practical experience in it. The fact thse two cultures didn’t absorb a word like that would most likely have a reason for not doing it, as it certainly has become a concept hard to ignore.

Read the entire report for some real insights to the complex issues of Iran, but meditate on the quote above and consdier the implications…

Open note to Senator Ted Kennedy, (D-MA):

Sir;

You are no John F. Kennedy. Maybe your current audience is too young to recall President Kennedy in Berlin, but I am.

You do have something in common: When speaking a foreign language, your accents leave something to be desired.

What you don’t have in common is John Kennedy (related) was speaking of freeing millions upon millions from the farce (and a deadly one at that) of Communism, while you are speaking of attracting those who would consciously become felons to be in this country.

As a point of reference, those people (the immigrants) are not living in the type of political oppression where their neighbors could drop a dime and get sent off to a Siberian camp to make left handed gloves before the hard work, harsh conditions and poor food killed them off. Conditions where they live might be bad, but not that bad by a long shot.

Please stop pretending to be John. He was a much finer man than you can ever hope to be.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen

From Powerline Blog, a compiled list of terrorists acts during the Clinton years (Jan 1993-Jan 2001). The point is to discuss the Democratic opposition to the upcomng “The Path to 9/11:”

Did the Dems Threaten ABC?

The Democrats have gone nuts over the ABC miniseries, The Path to 9/11. But it’s a little hard to see why. Maybe it’s because Disney and ABC have been reliably pro-Democrat in the past, so the Dems feel betrayed.

Looking at the big picture, though, it’s a little hard to see what the Dems are complaining about. I haven’t seen the miniseries, but I take it that it doesn’t portray the Clinton administration as having taken very effective action against the growing threat from Islamic terrorists. What I don’t understand is how the Democrats think they can rewrite history to challenge that characterization.

There is no doubt about the fact that the terrorist menace grew and became increasingly obvious during the Clinton administration. To note just a few highlights:

* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.

* February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists try to bring down the World Trade Center with car bombs. They failed to destroy the buildings, but killed 6 and injured over 1000 people.

* March 12, 1993: Car bombings in Mumbai, India leave 257 dead and 1,400 others injured.

* July 18, 1994: Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 86 and wounds 300. The bombing is generally attributed to Hezbollah acting on behalf of Iran.

* July 19, 1994: Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 is bombed, killing 21. Generally attributed to Hezbollah.

* July 26, 1994: The Israeli Embassy is attacked in London, and a Jewish charity is also car-bombed, wounding 20. The attacks are attributed to Hezbollah.

* December 11, 1994: A bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. It develops that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for the larger terrorist attack he is planning.

* December 24, 1994: In a preview of September 11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Paris.

* January 6, 1995: Operation Bojinka, an Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, is discovered on a laptop computer in a Manila, Philippines apartment by authorities after a fire occurred in the apartment. Noted terrorists including Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are involved in the plot.

* June 14—June 19, 1995: The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, in which 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed following an attack by Chechan Islamists.

* July—October, 1995: Bombings in France by Islamic terrorists led by Khaled Kelkal kill eight and injure more than 100.

* November 13, 1995: Bombing of OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 7

* November 19, 1995: Bombing of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 19.

* January 1996: In Kizlyar, 350 Chechen Islamists took 3,000 hostages in a hospital. The attempt to free them killed 65 civilians and soldiers.

* February 25 – March 4, 1996: A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.

* June 11, 1996: A bomb explodes on a train traveling on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line of the Moscow Metro, killing four and unjuring at least 12.

* June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 wounded.

* February 24, 1997: An armed man opens fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, United States, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from several countries. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the “enemies of Palestine”.

* November 17, 1997: Massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in which Islamist gunmen attack tourists, killing 62 people.

* January 1998: Wandhama Massacre – 24 Kashmiri Pandits are massacred by Pakistan-backed Islamists in the city of Wandhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

* February 14, 1998: Bombings by Islamic Jihadi groups at an election rally in the Indian city of Coimbatore kill about 60 people.

* August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.

* August 31 – September 22, 1998: Russian apartment bombings kill about 300 people, leading Russia into Second Chechen War.

* December 1998: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan, and arrest 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.

* December 14, 1998: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States–Canada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.

* December 24, 1998: Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists. One passenger is killed and some hostages are released. After negotiations between the Taliban and the Indian government, the last of the remaining hostages on board Flight 814 are released in exchange for release of 4 terrorists.

* January 2000: The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.

* August 8, 2000: A bomb exploded at an underpass in Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 people and wounding more than 90.

* August 17, 2000: Two bombs exploded in a shopping center in Riga, Latvia, injuring 35 people.

* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of Aden, Yemen.

Between 1993 and 2000, everyone who was paying any attention knew that the threat from Islamic terrorism was grave and getting worse. The catastrophic losses that occurred on Septimeber 11, 2001, could just as easily have happened in 1993, when the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center was carried off successfully, but the terrorists had miscalculated the effect of their explosives, or in 1995, when the plot to destroy eleven American airplanes in flight was thwarted by counter-intelligence work in the Philippines. What did the Clinton administration do in response to this grave threat? Essentially nothing. Worse, Clinton tried to sweep the problem under the rug, lest it disrupt the surface calm and prosperity for which he was eager to claim credit.

However Path to 9/11 portrays the Clinton administration, it can be no worse than the reality.

Now top Democrats have written a letter to ABC that can reasonably be read as a threat to pull the network’s broadcast license if it shows Path to 9/11:

Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events. ***

We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program.

Blue Crab Boulevard calls this letter an “enormous miscalculation.” Blog of the Week Riehl World View agrees that the Democrats will pay a political price for their heavy-handedness:

[T]he ramifications of the current move by Dems to pressure ABC are going to have consequences far beyond a docu-drama. Americans don’t like people, especially politicians, messing with their TV. And the other big issue facing Republicans in the run up to the coming elections besides Iraq was firing up their base. I say was because the Dems have just saved the Republicans from having to go to the trouble.

The Democrats’ shameless maneuvering now going on on behalf of Clinton brings back, not only the animus Republicans have always felt for Clinton, while drawing attention to their general weakness in foreign affairs, it also reminds everyone of the scandal ridden side show that was Democrat Clinton’s presidency.

Well, one can always hope. But it’s hard to think of an instance of bully-boy tactics by the Democrats causing them any serious problems.

UPDATE: ABC says that it is still making changes in the program, evidently in response to the Democrats’ attacks, so we won’t know how effective the Democrats’ tactics have been until the program airs.

Plenty more to say, just this is an important list of facts, not what people feel.

Cross posted at:
Samantha Burns, The Amboy Times, Blue Star Chronicles, Stuck on Stupid, Linkfest Haven, TMH’s Bacon Bits and Point Five.

Welcome LGF Lizards!

Had some time to think this morning, even before the President spoke. I was considering how so many in the country demand we treat our enemy according to the standards we apply to our own citizens….You know, the rights of the 4th Amendment, and the 5th, and of, course, freedom of speech.

Ok…let’s just say I’ll concede that to you, that you’re right and we should handle them as we would any US citizen accused of a crime. It sets a very new precendent, but that’s not the point (just yet).

How about we play a little quid pro quo? You get what you want, now it’s my turn:

I demand that our enemy (those we capture, and their governments (meaning the officials who comprise that organization) then also adhere to the non-right of the Constitution, but one you same people want the rest of us to live with: Separation of church and state.

Fair? Or too tough for you to swallow? C’mon, how can you hammer the US government, and every governmental agency below for that matter, for even a single of the presence of any (Christian) religious leaning, symbols, or words in a commencement setting?

I see it this way: If you want our rights for them, then they have to get all the conditions of one of us, and the ones you have fought so hard, aided by the ACLU, to remove. Why would it be “ok” to let them be partial citizens? That would very much smack of granting privledge of one group over another and would then violate any number of local, state and federal statutes regarding equality and civil rights.

I’d love to see how the Islamofascists would pull this off…

Think about it. Do we grant them all the “benefits” of citizenship, or just a few?

Oh, and if we do this, maybe foreign govenrments will be happen to oblige you when you travel to their countries and they accuse you of something illegal. You can hope they will make you a partial citizen, just as you asked for foreigners here, so you can stand trial under their justice system…

just sayin’….

“Something in the air” is a recent post at Neptunus Lex.

Subject matter: As the political debate in the execution of the GWoT continues, how is this affecting those who serve?

The main post is a well thought out, well stated point of view of a prefessional warrior, an aviator, and a man who has held command in a combat role. He is no stranger to the intricacies of conflict, and a well studied man, or men and events, as well.

The discussion is a sane, polite discourse, wtih those on both sides of the issue, complete with some links to supportive information for consideration.

If you need to see such temperate, yet controversial, discussions can still be held, it’s up to you to click and go read…and join if you will, in the sharing of ideas.

Click on over here and add your reason why we’re doomed.

Update 9/01/2006:

Rosemary’s comment got me thinking. Today I scanned the site a bit and read the reasoning behind the genesis of this site:

Welcome to the 10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed website. This site was started by six friends who, sitting around the dinner table one Saturday night, came to the conclusion that civilization was doomed. We felt this way not because of the inevitable dimming of our sun, or an errant asteroid, but rather because of the idiocy of our times. Frankly, we are tired of the fake optimism, superficiality, non-talented celebrities, doped-up athletes, dishonest and illiterate politicians, corporate thieves, wife-beaters and evangelical terrorists rampant in the world today and we decided that one way of making ourselves feel better would be to list them for all the world to see and to add upon.

This is a list that is started by the people, aggregated by the people and an offering to all people everywhere that want to take solace in a list that proves that we are not being fooled. Rather, we are on to all the bullshit out there and want to make it clear to anyone that adds to this list that you, too, can take comfort in like-minded individuals that have come together to express the 10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed. Perhaps if we are heard, some of the doom can be deterred.

Thank you for contributing to this list.
— The Vezzanello 6

What I read between the lines is hopelessness at one level, and wishing things were different. Neither moves things ahead. Better is when you see a problem, know the right thing to do, roll up your sleeves, realize the expending of your resources, be they time, talent, or cash, are more appropriately used to make mankind better, than to hold on to them like they were just there for you and you alone. I told my story before, when the retired generals were complaining.

Rosemary (one of my very first ever readers when I began blogging, BTW): Thanks for jump starting my brain.

So…now I think I’ll spend some time figuring out how to list 10,000 things that show the best of mankind, and the hope for the future, you know, the things we all know happen, but the MSM won’t report, because it’s “good news.”

History. The military taking the lead in the changing of the society on the issue of racial integration.

In 1943, on this day: Commissioning of USS Harmon (DE 678), first Navy ship named for an African-American Sailor.

This is the quick story of the man the ship is named for:

Poster featuring Mess Attendant Harmon and USS Harmon (DE-678), which was named in his honor. He was killed in action on board USS San Francisco (CA-38) during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 13 November 1942. For his heroism in that action, Mess Attendant Harmon was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. The poster also features the text of his award citation and a representation of the Navy Cross medal.

A fitting namesake for the ships that are at the tip of the spear, even today.

Interesting article discussing the motivation behind those would would kill themselves and others for gain…

I have always believed that the sick view of sexuality promoted by strict Islam is one of suicide bombing’s prime motivators. Young males, living in Islamic societies where pre-marital sex with women is sometimes punishable by death, and raised by mothers who are treated like chattel, can’t possibly have healthy outlooks on sexuality. So it is unsurprising that there’s no shortage of young Muslim males drawn to the notion that unlimited carnal delights can be had at the push of a button. In an ultimate perversion, the suicide bomber–and those who fund and recruit them and prepare their missions–draw from an act of creation to create death.

Sex…yep, it’s a pretty powerful motivator in the history of all sorts of species, not just man, but animals seem to be a bit more realistic about it.

H/T: Distant Thunder commenter at Little Green Footballs

Note on the end before you begin reading. The further I got into reading the subject article, the more I can’t help but think this is one of the most significant bits of intelligence the world has seen to date on the current state of world-wide affairs. It cuts across the lines of history, culture, religion, military affairs, global politics and empire building, but it tells us who is behind it all. Mark my words, it is a definitve article for every serious person to read, and more importantly, one that is worthy of many changing their beliefs on how we got here, and use the information to figure out how to clean up the mess in the aisle known as the World.

Do your own thinking, but this General has provided the “glue” to bind together a multitude of seemingly random events over the last 30+ years.

Scanning about this morning brought me to an article on how the Soviet Union masterminded the use of client states and Muslim discontent to attack us:

“Russian Footprints: What does Moscow have to do with the recent war in Lebanon?” By Ion Mihai Pacepa

The introduction:

The Kremlin may be the main winner in the Lebanon war. Israel has been attacked with Soviet Kalashnikovs and Katyushas, Russian Fajr-1 and Fajr-3 rockets, Russian AT-5 Spandrel antitank missiles and Kornet antitank rockets. Russia’s outmoded weapons are now all the rage with terrorists everywhere in the world, and the bad guys know exactly where to get them. The weapons cases abandoned by Hezbollah were marked: “Customer: Ministry of Defense of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia.”

If my recollection of history is correct, the Soviets have been none too kind to their Jewish population:

In the mid-1970s we also started showering the Islamic world with an Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a tsarist Russian forgery that had been used by Hitler as the foundation for his anti-Semitic philosophy. We also disseminated a KGB-fabricated “documentary” paper in Arabic alleging that Israel and its main supporter, the United States, were Zionist countries dedicated to converting the Islamic world into a Jewish colony.

Note: This movie has made it’s way into this country and is now on the shelves at BlockBuster for rent. Thankfully, at least Amazon knows it a faked story. Click on the link above on the title and see what they say.

As Ion points out, that people group, specifically the ones gathered in Israel, became the pawn in the great game of the superpowers in a bi-polar geo-political world, and is now, a classic case study of “unintended consequences.”

At the core, was the embarassment of the Soviets, when their client states, armed with “conventional” weaponry, supplied by the Soviet Unions central economy, had their butts handed to them in the 1967 war. As with the mentaility of most losing teams, while there are still games in the series to be played, you get back in the locker room and look at what happened on film and from personal reports, then you brainstorm a plan to not have it happen again. (Note to all those teachers who think competition among youth in classrooms and on the playing fields is a bad thing: Read this and rethink your position right now) Speaking of personal reports, check this out:

Today’s international terrorism was conceived at the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East. I witnessed its birth in my other life, as a Communist general.

I’d say you can’t get much more credible than a personal story of one who was at the table, in the room, and as part of the very first discussion on what we are experiencing today. However, I doubt the left wing, President Bush planned 9/11 conspiracy crowd will be able to honestly accept that it all was conceived, birthed and nurtured by the great Communist “Empire,” and not Bechtel or Halliburton and Dick Cheney. It would, if accepted as the truth that it is, necessarily require them to divest themselves of two major issue at the apex of their discontent:

1) George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Scotter Libby, and, yes, Dick Cheney, and big oil, the capitalist military industrial complex and “the rich” (except the ultra rich liberals from Hollywood and the Heinz families) are not to blame for the world wide terrorist movement, the domain of those who adhere to the teachings of the Koran.

and

2) Communism is, in fact, a force for evil, and while they have been removed from governing most nation-states, their heritage of tyranny, oppression, and creation of human misery carry on.

Side note: Doing this would cause the rest of their actions/rheotric to become also menaingless by association with two top level assumptions that are now shown to be incorrect. Interestingly enough, the rapid environmentalists have painted themselves into a very similar corner, it seems….Advice to anyone with an extreme argument: Know that the actual facts, read: The Trurh, or any one thing is not always apparent at the outset of your intial investigation. Lave room for the truth to come along and help your see the issue more clearly/credibily. See my book report on a well written, yet readable story of science and mankind, or discredited assumptions and theories, that did lead to greater, more precise truths.

The outcome of this desire to get back at the US, via fomenting hatred of Israel and Jewish people is affecting the world wide economy, and, in the cultural landscape of today, are resonsible for us (the world community of humanity) driving wedges between various groups of people. The bottom line for all those who didn’t figure out that Karl Mark prepetrated the most extensive “practical joke” on all of mankind, is that that the end result of socialism and Communism, is not the great utopia they all crave. For the record of those who are not away, the devastating irony of Karl Marx’s political and cultural theory is he was a retired industrialist when he published his idea. He had alrady extracted the sweat equity from the “proletariat,” and was living in luxury as a result. He suckered V.I. Lenin and company into taking it out for a 70 year spin, reusulting in miliions upon millions of deaths from the collective farms of Russia, to the killing fields of Cambodia, and more recently, as we find out, the Marine Barracks in Beruit, the World Trade Centers, various embassies of several nations, in the skies over Lockerbee, Scotland, at Munich, in Mogadishu, Dufar in Sudan, and daily in the streets of Baghdad, but those are merely a few instances.

My analysis: Communism is the most destructive social cancer we face today, which, strangley enough, is worshipped by the leftists, who also want us to embrace each and every human as worthy and equal (and I don’t disagree with that at all, as a goal). “Useful Idiots” defines these leftists properly, and Oh, BTW, that’s a term invented by Lenin, for those who he could use to further his own goals of Communism.

Before you read further, H/T: LT Smash, the first MilBlogger, for leading me to this jewel of an article.

Eagle1 at Eagle Speak discusses how the Germans in WWI used similar tactics, while using Iran.

Thanks to Little Green footballs for running an outstanding blog!

Trackbacked at:
Samantha Burns
Don Surber: Why they Hate Us

Church and State
Point Five

Read the rest of this entry »