President Bush Speaks to American Legion

Before addressing the American Legion, President Bush stopped to thank members of the Utah Air National Guard in Salt Lake.

President Bush Addresses American Legion National Convention White House transcript:

At this hour, a new generation of Americans in uniform is showing great courage in defending our freedom in the first war of the 21st century. I know that Legionnaires are following this war closely, especially those of you with family and friends who wear our uniform. The images that come back from the front lines are striking, and sometimes unsettling. When you see innocent civilians ripped apart by suicide bombs, or families buried inside their homes, the world can seem engulfed in purposeless violence. The truth is there is violence, but those who cause it have a clear purpose. When terrorists murder at the World Trade Center, or car bombers strike in Baghdad, or hijackers plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic, or terrorist militias shoot rockets at Israeli towns, they are all pursuing the same objective -- to turn back the advance of freedom, and impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world.

In the wake of criticism that we tagged our enemies as "Islamic fascists" the President provides one of the best definitions of the enemy we face:

The enemies of liberty come from different parts of the world, and they take inspiration from different sources. Some are radicalized followers of the Sunni tradition, who swear allegiance to terrorist organizations like al Qaeda. Others are radicalized followers of the Shia tradition, who join groups like Hezbollah and take guidance from state sponsors like Syria and Iran. Still others are "homegrown" terrorists -- fanatics who live quietly in free societies they dream to destroy. Despite their differences, these groups from -- form the outlines of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology. And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam.

The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.) On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation -- the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism -- the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They're successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be: This war will be difficult; this war will be long; and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists and totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty. (Applause.)
...
So America has committed its influence in the world to advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. We will take the side of democratic leaders and reformers across the Middle East. We will support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world. We stand with the mothers and fathers in every culture who want to see their children grow up in a caring and peaceful world. And by supporting the cause of freedom in a vital region, we'll make our children and our grandchildren more secure. (Applause.)

Every election,the Amercian people are offered a choice. This time around, the choice is as clear as ever:

We can decide to stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq and other parts of the world, but they will not decide to stop fighting us. General John Abizaid, our top commander in the Middle East region, recently put it this way: "If we leave, they will follow us." And he is right. The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved. (Applause.)
...
For all the debate, American policy in the Middle East comes down to a straightforward choice. We can allow the Middle East to continue on its course -- on the course it was headed before September the 11th, and a generation from now, our children will face a region dominated by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. Or we can stop that from happening, by rallying the world to confront the ideology of hate, and give the people of the Middle East a future of hope. And that is the choice America has made. (Applause.)

Have You Made Your Choice?

In little more than two months, we have the opportunity to provide direction to the course our nation follows for the final two years of the Bush presidency. Would you prefer to give the enemies of freedom the edge or do you stand with freedom and VICTORY???

If you stand for victory, time is running out. Register your friends and family members to vote. Remind our military friends to get their absentee ballots filled in correctly, postmarked and returned well before election day. Do all you can in your local community to assure that voting isn't tainted by fraud and that voters are not intimidated by lies or threats.

Where's Waldo? Hugo?

Venezuelan dictator Chavez gets all huggie-huggie with fellow America hater, Syrian dictator Assad on the lastest stop of the "Hate America Tour" As if the above photo wasn't warm and fuzzy enough, the two decided to pose for their Christmas card in this touching scene recorded by, who else?, Reuters.

Here's Hugo, visiting Fidel Castro in the hospital and offering a "gift" on the occasion of Castro's 80th birthday. Castro and his "mini-me" are obviously enjoying the phallic symbol

last month's trip to Teheran. He almost towers over the pipsqueak Iranian President Amadjihad.

It was only a month ago when I posted "Birds of a Feather" regarding Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's trip to Iran. Ten days earlier, he was in China promising to help the Chinese drill for oil in all those sensitive environmental areas that the lefties would forbid the U.S. from expoiting. The week before that, he was at the bedside of his master, Fidel Castro.

Next stop on his "Hate America Tour" is Syria. After meeting with Assad, he seeks the nearest microphone quicker than Jesse "Shakedown" Jackson to pass out the latest Marxist talking points and spew out vitriol against the United States: "We want to cooperate to build a new world where states' and people's self-determination are respected."

Notice the primary emphasis on the "state's" right to self determination is place above that of the people. There's quite a large political movement in Venezuela who are being sytematically denied their right to "people's self determination."

From Haaretz: Chavez said he and Syria shared a "decisive and firm" stance against "imperialism" and American attempts for "domination."

Chavez has built close ties with Iran, Syria and other Mideast countries while his relations have grown tense with the U.S. and Israel.

Earlier this month, he compared Israel Defense Forces attacks on Hezbollah militants in Lebanon to the Holocaust and withdrew Venezuela's ambassador to Israel. Israel responded by recalling its ambassador to Venezuela, criticizing what it called Chavez's "one-sided policy" and "wild slurs."

Anyone else get the idea that Hugo is out to play "big macho man" in the "Hate America" coalition? Where's he off to next? North Korea? He's spent so little time in Venezuela lately I'm surprised the massive oppressed democratic resistance hasn't launched a coup.

As we did in Bird's of a Feather, Chavez posing next to the worlds most evil despots reminds us of another famous power couple.

Secretary Rumsfeld Address to American Legion: Speaking Truth to Fascism

I would usually try and excerpt small portions of a long speech. But reading the whole thing through, I realized that every word needs to be said and read:

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Address at the 88th Annual American Legion National Convention,
Salt Lake City, Utah, Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Department of Defense

...The American Legion has achieved a great deal for our country since its founding in the months following World War I, when those folks came together in a hotel in Europe to find a way to help some of their fellow veterans who would be coming home soon.

Indeed, that year -- 1919 -- turned out to be one of those pivotal junctures in modern history -- with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of the League of Nations -- a treaty and an organization intended to make future wars unnecessary and obsolete.

Indeed, 1919 was the beginning of a period where, over time, a very different set of views would come to dominate discourse and thinking in the west.

Over the next decades, a sentiment took root that contended that if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be appeased, then the carnage and destruction of then-recent memory of World War I might be avoided. It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis -- the rise of fascism and Nazism -- were ridiculed and ignored.

Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated -- or that it was someone else’s problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace -- even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear.

It was, as Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

There was a strange innocence in views of the world. Someone recently recalled one U.S. Senator’s reaction in September 1939, upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II. He exclaimed:

"Lord, if only I could have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided.”

Think of that!

I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism.

Today, another enemy -- a different kind of enemy -- has also made clear its intentions -- in places like New York, Washington, D.C., Bali, London, Madrid, and Moscow. But it is apparent that many have still not learned history’s lessons.

We need to face the following questions:

• With the growing lethality and availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased?
• Can we really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?
• Can we truly afford the luxury of pretending that the threats today are simply “law enforcement” problems, rather than fundamentally different threats, requiring fundamentally different approaches?
• And can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America -- not the enemy -- is the real source of the world’s trouble?

These are central questions of our time. And we must face them.

We hear everyday of new plans, new efforts, to murder Americans and other free people. Indeed, the plot recently discovered that would have killed hundreds -- possibly thousands -- of innocent men, women, and children on planes coming from Britain to the United States should have demonstrated to all that the enemy is serious, lethal, and relentless.

But this is still -- in 2006 -- not well recognized or fully understood. It seems that in some quarters there is more of a focus on dividing our country, than acting with unity against the gathering threats.

We find ourselves in a strange time:

• When a database search of America’s leading newspapers turns up 10 times as many mentions of one of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib who was punished for misconduct, than mentions of Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in the Global War on Terror;
• When a senior editor at Newsweek disparagingly refers to the brave volunteers in our Armed Forces as a “mercenary army”;
• When the former head of CNN accuses the American military of deliberately targeting journalists and the former CNN Baghdad bureau chief admits he concealed reports of Saddam Hussein’s crimes when he was in power so CNN could stay in Iraq;
• It is a time when Amnesty International disgracefully refers to the military facility at Guantanamo Bay, which holds terrorists who have vowed to kill Americans and which is arguably the best run and most scrutinized detention facility in the history of warfare, as “the gulag of our times.”

Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths, and lies, and distortions being told about our troops and our country.

The struggle we are in is too important -- the consequences too severe -- to have the luxury of returning to the old mentality of “Blame America First.”

One of the most important things the Legion has done is not only to serve, and assist, and advocate as you’ve done so superbly for much of the past century -- but also to educate and speak the truth about our country and our military.

Not so long ago, an exhibit on the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian during the 1990s seemed to try to rewrite the history of World War II by portraying the United States as an aggressor. Fortunately, the American Legion was there to lead the effort to set the record straight.

This watchdog role is even more important today in a war that is to a great extent fought in the media on a global stage -- to not allow the lies and the myths be repeated without question or challenge -- so that at least the second and third draft of history will be more accurate than the quick first allegations.

You know from experience that in every war there have been mistakes and setbacks and casualties. War is, as Clemenceau said, a “series of catastrophes that results in victory.”

And in every army, there are occasionally bad actors -- the ones who dominate the headlines today -- who don’t live up to the standards of their oath and of our country.

But you also know that they are a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women in all theaters in this struggle who are serving with humanity and decency in the face of constant provocation.

And that is important in this “long war,” where any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.

Our enemy knows this well. They frequently invoke the names of Beirut and Somalia -- places they see as examples of American retreat and weakness. And as we have seen most recently -- indeed, this month -- in Lebanon, they design attacks and manipulate the media to try to demoralize public opinion. They doctor photographs of casualties, use civilians as human shields and then provoke an outcry when civilians are accidentally killed in their midst.

The good news is that most of the American people, though understandably influenced by what they read and see in the media, have inner gyroscopes and good centers of gravity.

And I am confident that over time they will evaluate and reflect on what is happening in this struggle and come to wise conclusions.

In Iraq, a country that was brutalized and traumatized by a cruel and dangerous dictatorship is now undertaking the slow, difficult, and uncertain steps to secure a new future, under a representative government -- one that is at peace with its neighbors, rather than a threat to their own people, their neighbors, and to the world.

As the nature of the threat and the conflict in Iraq has changed over these past three years, so have the tactics and deployments. But while military tactics have changed and adapted to the realities on the ground, the strategy has not -- which is to empower the Iraqi people to defend, govern, and rebuild their own country.

The extremists themselves have called Iraq the “epicenter” in the War on Terror. They mean it. And our troops know how important completing the mission is.

A Soldier who recently volunteered for a second tour in Iraq, likely captured the feelings of many of his peers. In an e-mail to friends he wrote:

“I ask that you never take advantage of the liberties guaranteed by the shedding of free blood, never take for granted the freedoms granted by our Constitution. For those liberties would be merely ink on paper were it not for the sacrifice of generations of Americans who heard the call of duty and responded heart, mind and soul with ‘Yes, I will.’”

Someday that young man may be a member of the American Legion, attending a convention such as this. I hope he will be. And one day, a future speaker may reflect back on this time of historic choice -- remembering the questions raised as to our country’s courage, dedication, and willingness to continue this fight until we have prevailed.

I believe the question is not whether we can win. It is whether we have the will to persevere.

I believe that Americans do have that steel. And that we have learned the lessons of history, the folly of turning a blind eye to danger, and of ignoring our responsibilities. These are lessons you know well -- lessons that your heroism has taught to generations of Americans.

May God bless each of you. May God bless the men and women in uniform and their families. And may God continue to bless our wonderful country.

With clarity and vision like this is it any wonder that the lefties hate Rumsfeld almost as much as they do President Bush and Vice President Cheney?

Voices From Israel, Voices from Lebanon, Voices of Sanity

Two of Mike's America friends from Israel dropped by today with links to some interesting posts.

The American Israeli Patriot came across the web site: Lebanon's Voices, the stories of Lebanese who didn't have full time Hezboo propagandists working on their behalf in the lamestream media. Patriot highlights the story of a family in Tyre, who wanted to evacuate but were forced back into their home at gunpoint by the "freedom fighters" of Hezbollah.

Lebanon's Voices chronicles the personal testimonies of those who have been:

Living in fear yet infused with hope. Held hostage in their own nation against their will. A state within a state dictating its terms on a sovereign government unwilling and unable to protect its own citizens. They face extortion, kidnappings, threats at gunpoint and religious persecution. A campaign of intimidation aimed at crippling the Cedar Revolution so painfully gained last year after the assassination of a great leader. Sunni, Druze, Christian and even Shi’a; they are the four branches of a strong tree being cut at the base by those who seek its destruction. These are the people of Lebanon, living in the Land of the Cedars, diverse in their faiths yet united by love for their country.

Civilian at War, from the war zone, sends links to two excellent videos. First is Brigitte Gabriel interviewed on CNN. Brigitte is a Lebanese Christian forced as a young child to live for years in a bomb shelter due to rockets that the Hezbollah "freedom fighters" used to drive Christians from Southern Lebanon.

Now living in the United States, Ms. Gabriel has her own web site: American Congress for Truth.

The second link is to the video of Wafa Sultan, a Syrian who also emigrated to the land of the free. Her interview in Arabic is a rare voice of dissent on Al Jazeera. Listen to the tone of her voice as she slams the radical poison which grips the Middle East:

Mike's America first highlighted Ms. Sultan's interview in March. And you can read a partial transcript and more information about Ms. Sultan in our initial post on the subject.

Beware Hezboos Bearing Franklins

Since we're talking about the Hezboos, I thought I would toss in this excerpt from David Frum:

Counterfeit News
By David Frum
American Enterprise Institute

Perhaps you saw the images in your newspaper or on television:

"A Lebanese man counts U.S dollar bills received from Hizbollah members in a school in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, August 19, 2006. Hizbollah handed out bundles of cash on Friday to people whose homes were wrecked by Israeli bombing, consolidating the Iranian-backed group's support among Lebanon's Shiites and embarrassing the Beirut government. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard (LEBANON)"

This scene and dozens more like it flashed around the planet. Only one thing was missing--the thin wire security strip that runs from top to bottom of a genuine US$100 bill. The money Hezbollah was passing was counterfeit, as should have been evident to anybody who studied the photographs with due care.

Care was due because of Hezbollah's history of counterfeiting: In June, 2004, the U.S. Department of the Treasury publicly cited Hezbollah as one of the planet's leading forgers of U.S. currency.

Frum goes on to point out that journalists who failed to investigate the phony "news" that poured out of Lebanon during the war are doing no better now. One look at the Franklins being passed around in Lebanon would show they lack the security strip and holographic printing that protects U.S. currency.

I've got an idea... Let's offer to pay "journalists" with Hezboo funny money!

Phony News Nexus: Links between Hezbollah, Jon Benet's "Killer" , Wilson/Plame Rove Scandal and Hurricane Katrina Hysteria Connect.

Earlier this week, we looked at connections between media hype over Hurricane Katrina and Hezbollah allegations of "massacres" in Lebanon.

In the wake of the announcement that the "news" media was fooled by the phony confession in the Jon Benet Ramsey murder AND the fraud perpetrated against Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and others in the Wilson/Plame CIA leak case, we add more links to the nexus of phony news which seems to permeate the lamestream media.

Howard Kurtz, reporting in the Washington Post brings the latest two threads of this nexus of phony news together.

Sadly, in the case of the Ramsey murder, it means a family is still deprived of justice. In the case of the Wilson/Plame fraud, the democratic process itself is the victim. For years officials of our government, who have weighty responsibilities on a daily basis for what truly are life and death issues, have been further hamstrung by dealing with phony allegations of illegal activity.

I'm reminded of Ray Donovan, Secretary of Labor in the Bush Administration who was acquitted of charges of corruption. But the damage was done. Donovan famously asked "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

The damage from years of the Wilson/Plame media fraud has been done. The big lie has been effective in creating false impressions of how our government's top officials conduct themselves.
Ray Robison offers us the following analysis:

Polling Report has a page devoted to the Plame leak case. Let’s review:
ABC/Washington Post asked in September of 2003:

"The U.S. Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether someone in the White House broke the law by identifying a former diplomat's wife as an undercover CIA agent. The former diplomat claims this was done to punish him for criticizing U.S. policy on Iraq. Have you heard or read anything about this situation, or not?"

Yes 68%
No 32%

So over two-thirds of American’s had heard the allegation. Now compare that to the recent survey that indicated how few people could name two SCOTUS justices at only 24%. I bet Ford and Coca-Cola would love that kind of market exposure.

So how effective was the marketing of this lie? The same poll asked:

"Just your best guess, how likely or unlikely do you think it is that someone in the White House leaked this classified information: very likely, somewhat likely, somewhat unlikely or very unlikely?"

Very Likely 34%
Somewhat Likely 38%
Somewhat Unlikely 13 %
Very Unlikely 10 %
No Opinion 5%

That’s right, the reporting was so damning that 72% of American’s indicated they believed the White House did it. Close to three-quarters of the United States populace were duped by the media reporting that the Bush Administration had done it in retaliation.

Just as Secretary Donovan asked in 1987: Where do all those falsely accused in the Wilson/Plame fraud go to get their reputations back? And what about the American people? Where do we go to recover the damage done to our national security and political process by people out to undermine our democratically elected leaders?

In the wake of the Jon Benet Ramsey "confession" fraud, a reporter asked whether it would be appropriate for charges to be filed for lying to the media and creating this scandal. Many of us wonder instead if the "news" media and their allies in the Democrat lie machine who promoted falsehoods against the Administration should not be held accountable. Just look at this report from Jason Leopold, "Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators " from May 2006.

When will these people be held accountable in a court of law for seeking to undermine the democratic process and the Constitutionally elected government of the United States during a time of war?

When?

UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens Wraps Up the Loose Ends.

Christopher Hitchens has been all over this story from the beginning. His wrap up on the issue is worth reading in full. I doubt it will make much of a dent in those who cling to their hate-Bush prejudices which have been encouraged by left-wing manipulators the last five years. But for anyone not suffering from that intellectual disease, take a look:

Plame Out
The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.
By Christopher Hitchens
Slate.Com

I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

Hitchens notes that David Corn, who along with Michael Isikoff co-authored the book, which is "amusingly titled Hubris," was among those who falsely condemned the Bush Administration. "It was Corn in particular who asserted—in a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distraction—that:"

The Big Lie: The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.

How long will it be before Corn and the other propagators of the big lie apologize for hoodwinking the public and dragging the country through this mess for years?

Dear "Peanut President:" Shut the F. Up!

We hear Democrats all the time tell us of the need for allies to help us in the War on Terror.

Yet how many times have many of these same Democrats insulted and offended our closest ally Britain? Now, the Peanut President gets into the act in an interview with a British newspaper:

Compliant and subservient: Jimmy Carter's explosive critique of Tony Blair
By John Preston and Melissa Kite
The Sunday Telegraph

..."I have been surprised and extremely disappointed by Tony Blair's behaviour," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I think that more than any other person in the world the Prime Minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington - and he has not. I really thought that Tony Blair, who I know personally to some degree, would be a constraint on President Bush's policies towards Iraq."
...
"In many countries where I meet with leaders and private citizens there is an equating of American policy with Great Britain - with Great Britain obviously playing the lesser role.

"We now have a situation where America is so unpopular overseas that even in countries like Egypt and Jordan our approval ratings are less than five per cent. It's a shameful and pitiful state of affairs and I hold your British Prime Minister to be substantially responsible for being so compliant and subservient."
...
"My own personal opinion is that the Iraqi people are not better off as a result of the invasion and people in America and Great Britain are not safer."

Many years ago, when the United States was more united in our overseas endeavors, it used to be an unwritten rule that "politics stops at the water's edge." An ex-President, above everyone else was expected to uphold this rule and avoid criticism that would undermine the efforts of the current Administration on behalf of the American people.

It was also considered in bad taste to trash your predecessor in office. You never heard President Reagan, the first President Bush or the current President Bush trash the Peanut President's failures in this overt, offensive and public way. Disagreements over policy are one thing. Insulting allies is quite another.

Chalk it up to the latest new low for a political movement that seems to sink to new depths each day.

Scrapple Face SATIRE

Bush: B-2 Flights Over Tehran for ‘Peaceful Purposes’
by Scott Ott, ScrappleFace:
(2006-08-26) — Just hours after Iran opened a new plant capable of making plutonium “for peaceful purposes”, U.S. President George Bush assured his Iranian counterpart that any B-2 bombers that appear over Tehran in the near future would also serve peaceful purposes.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cut the ribbon on the new heavy-water nuclear plant Saturday as part of a month-long Iranian tribute to the effectiveness of the United Nations.
Mr. Bush hailed Iran’s “transparent diplomacy” and said, “I called President Ahmadinejad today to congratulate him, and I told him that if he happens to notice one of them Stealth bombers going over his town at about 600 miles per hour, he can be assured that the pilot has only the best intentions in his heart for world peace.”
“There’s nothing like the B-2 when it comes to giving peace a chance,” Mr. Bush added.

Too bad it's satire. Sounds like a good idea to me.

French SMACKDOWN!

Well it's about time someone said it! Michael Portillo, high-flyer in British conservative circles writes the following:

France about-turns into a bigger military mess
By Michael Portillo
The Sunday Times (London)

...There is a cultural difference between the French and the British obvious in their diplomatic styles. The French believe that what they say is at least as important as what they do. They spin grandiloquent phrases and strike postures. Rhetoric is away of life and if you point out it is divorced from all strategic reality that is thought to be nitpicking.

The British, on the other hand, get engrossed in tedious detail like: “Is this practical? Who is going to supply the troops? What will be their rules of engagement?” With Lebanon the French have discovered phrase-making is not enough. In recent days they have become very practical, bleating that there are no established rules of engagement (governing what the soldiers can do and when they can fire) almost as though they were British.

If any country could have settled such important details in advance it is France. It took the kudos for working up the UN resolution. It acted as spokesman for the Arab world within the permanent five members of the council. It insisted that the resolution should not be made under chapter 7 of the UN charter, which would have given the troops the right to impose their will by force.

The unclear rules of engagement derive directly from the ambiguity of the French-inspired resolution. But France has nonetheless used the uncertainty as an excuse for delay. At any time France could have eased the problem by offering to lead the UN forces and proposing rules for all participants. Then every nation would insist on its own variations. They always do. French forces are now arriving in Lebanon with the mission and the rules still unspecified. Chirac claimed he had received assurances from the UN that enabled him to increase French numbers.

In reality he buckled because the Italians had offered to lead the deployment and the Americans had mischievously welcomed that bizarre idea. France could not bear the mortification of operating under the command of its southern neighbour — least of all in Lebanon, a country so strongly tied to the French by history and culture. Chirac’s sheer ineptness has brought him avoidable humiliation. Already held in contempt by America and disdained by the British, he has now advertised his unreliability to a wider global audience.

At the heart of this mess is France’s reluctance to tackle Hezbollah. Back in 2004 the security council adopted resolution 1559 demanding that the terrorist organisation be disarmed. Like many resolutions it is a declaration without serious intent. In the two years since it was adopted nothing has been done, at least not until the recent Israeli military campaign, and that was denounced by most countries, including France. During recent days, as France has procrastinated, arms have been pouring in from Syria and Iran to re-equip the terror group. France’s failures of both diplomacy and nerve have made it less likely that the ceasefire will hold, and made the UN mission more dangerous.

There is now no suggestion that UN troops will attempt to disarm Hezbollah in accordance with UN policy. The question must be rather, to what extent will the French-led mission turn a blind eye to the group’s re-armament? If Hezbollah moves its Katyusha rockets back to the Israeli border, will the blue-helmeted Frenchmen stand in their way? It is extraordinary how little France has gained after 46 years of doggedly pitting itself against the United States. Perhaps President Charles de Gaulle was still reeling from the shame of the second world war (when France had had to be rescued from Nazism by America and Britain) when he expelled the American-dominated Nato from Paris in 1960. The North Atlantic alliance hurriedly relocated itself in a hospital building in Brussels that had just been finished but not yet occupied by the Belgian health service. It is housed there still, and visitors often remark on the wide corridors, not realising they were designed for trolleys.

Since 1960 successive presidents have chafed against American influence in Europe and the world. They begrudged Europe’s reliance on US forces stationed in Germany to defend us from the Soviet threat. But France (in common with other European countries) was unwilling to transfer money from social to military spending to reduce that dependency. The sense of being in America’s debt has powerfully increased French resentment of Washington.
...
Last week a former junior member of the Bush administration, Jeff Babbin, likened undertaking a military operation without the French to going on a deer shoot without an accordion — you just leave behind the noisy useless baggage. For France to have split so decisively with the globe’s most powerful nation without having established a successful alternative approach to the resolution of crises is a major policy failure for Chirac. Whatever criticisms he may have of George W Bush, the American does not fail to put his troops where his mouth is.

That is where Chirac has been caught out. In the case of Lebanon, grandstanding was not enough. He has now stepped forward to do his duty with all the relish of a man slipping into a quicksand. French forces may be ineffective, or suffer casualties, or both. Washington cannot wait to see what happens next.

Ernesto Alert: No Hysteria Allowed!

How long will it be before the 24/7 "news" channels start in with their "breaking news" every 15 minutes describing the probable path of Hurricane Ernesto?

Living a long "stone's throw" from the water's edge of the Atlantic, hurricanes are something that Mike's America and other coastal residents must take seriously. But the first rule is be prepared and be informed. Succumbing to the "news" media hysteria every time a hurricane forms in the Gulf of Mexico is stupid.

The foremost authority for hurricane information is the National Hurricane Center operated by the federal government. Their page of information for Ernesto is here.

You can practice being an amateur meterologist and follow the progress of the storm from that page. But even that information can raise undue alarm by indicating where a hurricane might, let's repeat the word might, pass. The damage from most hurricanes is caused in the band where winds are above hurricane force.

The map showing wind probabilities is a good tool for deciding whether you may be in danger and need to evacuate. A hurricane may strike two hundred miles to the north or south and cause little damage other than a few broken limbs or some brief power outages. You'll need to be prepared in any case with non-perishable food, water, a car with a full tank of gas, cash, any necessary prescriptions, etc.

But before anyone gets too worried, refresh the latest image of this chart:

No reason to run for cover if the bands are green. Start to worry, or get outta town, when the area you live in is shaded with orange, red or purple.

Meanwhile, make sure your munincipal authorities have moved their buses to higher ground.

Program Alert: National Geographic Presents Update to "Inside 9/11"

Last year, the National Geographic Channel presented the most excellent documentary about the September 11th atrocities called "Inside 9/11."

Tonight, Sunday August 27, they present an updated two hour program with limited interuption at 7PM EST. Check your local schedule for times. The program may also repeat if you miss tonight's presentation.

National Geographic will be showing a number of new documentaries on terrorism all this week.

See Catherine Seipp's conservative viewing guide for this program here.

UN Gave Hezbollah Military Intelligence In War

This shouldn't surprise anyone:

What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?
You broadcast Israeli troop movements.
by Lori Lowenthal Marcus
The Weekly Standard: DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of official information was available in real time. But the specific military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli troops,
provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day by the U.N.

Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government representatives and analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at least some of UNIFIL's postings, in the words of one retired senior military analyst, "could have exposed Israeli soldiers to grave danger." These analysts, including a current high ranking military official, noted that the same intelligence would not have been provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies.

Sure enough, a review of every single UNIFIL web posting during the war shows that, while UNIFIL was daily revealing the towns where Israeli soldiers were located, the positions from which they were firing, and when and how they had entered Lebanese territory, it never described Hezbollah movements or locations with any specificity whatsoever.

Compare the vague "various locations" language with this UNIFIL posting from July 25:

Yesterday and during last night, the IDF moved significant reinforcements, including a number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and infantry, to the area of Marun Al Ras inside Lebanese territory. The IDF advanced from that area north toward Bint Jubayl, and south towards Yarun.

Or with the posting on July 24, in which UNIFIL revealed that the IDF stationed between Marun Al Ras and Bint Jubayl were "significantly reinforced during the night and this morning with a number of tanks and armored personnel carriers."

As I said, it shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, when the Secretary General of the Useless Nations, Kofi Annan, makes nice with Nasrallah, head of the Islamic fascists who started this war, what would you expect?

Hurricane Katrina Hysteria and Hezbollah: What's the Connection?

"Chocolate Power" Nagin









Taking the Big Lie from the Big Easy to Lebanon. Courtesy of the "News" Media

One year ago Hurricane Katrina roared ashore along the Gulf Coast and devastated an area running from the Texas border to Alabama. In the aftermath of the disaster facts were few and far between as hysteria reigned.

New Orleans Mayor Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin spent more time giving press interviews complaining about the lack of help than he did to implement the cities own disaster plan. Almost comically, he demanded "500 buses" to get people of New Orleans while a few blocks away sat 500 buses underwater because he failed to use them to evacuate the poorest of the cities residents. Amtrak had also offered New Orleans the use of empty trains that were being moved in advance of the storm. Later, when asked why these resources were not used, "Chocolate City" Nagin told NBC's Stone Phillips: "I don't know. That is question for somebody else."

For days, hysterical "news" reports claimed that there were 10,000 dead in New Orleans. We were told that bodies were floating in the streets while survivors were forced to eat the corpses to survive. Hour after hour, reporters camped out at the Superdome asking why help had not arrived.

It was stated openly and repeated often that the reason this human nightmare was happening in New Orleans was because the residents who "Chocolate City" Nagin failed to evacuate were black.

• It was only later that we learned that white people died in greater proportion. The overall death toll from Katrina was a fraction of the initial claim.The howling hysterics who claimed black people were forced to eat corpses later retracted the claim but continue to insist that the entire tragedy was due to white racism.
• Both the Red Cross and Salvation Army had prepositioned supplies ready to assist survivors at the Superdome and Convention Center but were refused permission to take them to those site.
• Louisiana Governor Blanco, who joined "Chocolate City" Nagin in demanding immediate help, also rejected repeated attempts to federalize the state's National Guard disaster relief which would have speed up efforts considerably.
• Louisiana received even more federal money than California for Army Corps projects. But instead of strengthening the levees which eventually failed, spending was directed at pork barrel pet projects of Louisiana's Democrat political leadership. Improving the levees was not a state "priority."

The Big Lie: Once the Genie is Out of the Bottle

While every facet of the hysterics, lies and race-baiting regarding the Katrina disaster have been exposed, the big lie in the Big Easy worked. Few people swept up in the emotion of the mis-reporting that typified this sad episode bothered to reload the outrage rack once the truth got out.

The hysterics and scapegoating worked so well that Mayor "Chocolate City" Nagin continues to use racism, in this case his own racism, to escape accountability for the continuing failures of his government in the year since Katrina blew ashore:

From MSNBC AP Report: In remarks to the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, Nagin said the hurricane "exposed the soft underbelly of America as it relates to dealing with race and class."

"And I, to this day, believe that if that would have happened in Orange County, California, if that would have happened in South Beach, Miami, it would have been a different response," the mayor said.

Look Back at Katrina Hysteria

The Mike's America archive for September, 2005 is like a look back in time as we tacked against the winds of one-way fingerpointing, race-baiting and scapegoating. And speaking of race-baiters, it's important to remind readers that the leader of that franchise, the Rev. Jesse "Shakedown" Jackson was in Caracas, Venezuela as the storm raged. He rushed home in time to gin up the race-bait operation.

What's This Got to Do with Hezbollah

Racist scapegoating Democrats provided Hezbollah the best example of how to stage manage hysteria and manipulate the willfully misinformed. Nearly the entire war between Hezbollah and Israel was played like a propaganda fiddle using a "news" media that put aside the skepticism they reserve for questioning Republicans or Israelis.

It started with the report that Israelis were targeting ambulances as they evacuated the injured from Israeli bombings. Never mind that Islamic Fascists are known to use ambulances and vehicles with UN markings to ferry their fighters into or out of battle (see here and video here).

Zombietime digs deeper into this "news" story with some interesting questions about the attacks on those "ambulances."

Phony attacks on "ambulances" didn't capture the outrage that the manufacturers of this "news" intended so it was off to the next lie. And UN Secretary General provided the plot line for that bit of fakery by claiming that Israel "deliberately" targeted UN personnel in an attack which killed four "peacekeepers." Only later did we learn that the UN position was being used by Hezbollah to attack the Israelis. Never mind, the Genie was aleady out of the bottle.

But the Hezboos should be nominated for an Oscar of Outrage with their next stunt. They used a civilian residence in Qana, Lebanon to shield rockets fired at Israel. When it was attacked, all traces of fighters and weaponry were removed in the hours before reporters were brought to the scene. Just as with Katrina, the death toll at Qana was hyper-inflated. Few people bothered to lower their outrage meter when we learned the truth.

But not even race-baiting, scapegoating Democrats would sink (yet) to using the images of dead children for propaganda. The following video shot by German television shows the body of a dead child removed from the ambulance, laid again on the ground so that the photographer could get a better shot. The photographer was directed to reshoot the scene by the so-called "

In each of the cases above, whether in New Orleans or Lebanon, those who perpetrated these frauds against the conscience of mankind have escaped accountability. The "news" media refuses to even acknowledge the problem (ChickenHawk and EU Referendum are keeping us updated on that issue). One thing is sure: "news" media failure to acknowledge the extent to which they and the willfully misinformed are manipulated means we can expect MORE of these falsehoods, not fewer.

Where Are the Muslim Mothers for Peace?

The commentary below raises a good point: Where are the Muslims protesting against the war being waged by Islamic fascists? We're told Islam is a religion of peace. So where are the Muslim peaceniks? We've seen plenty of Muslims protesting and threatening death and destruction. But where are the peacelovers?

Where are the Muslim mothers for peace? Times Online: " I read all the sympathetic coverage in the liberal press about the poor, puzzled Muslims who feel that they are being picked on in airports and flights. If the parents of the young men who are attracted to this murderous martyrdom have lost control of
their sons, then they must shoulder part of the blame. If the Muslims who choose to live in our society, with all its so-called tempting freedoms, do not protest against those who wish to destroy it, then how can they expect our tolerance? Why are the moderates not, in their hundreds and thousands, standing outside those mosques that are known to preach hatred, shouting "Not in our name" down their
megaphones or "One, two, three, four, no more terror anymore"?
And where are the voices of the ordinary mothers and daughters and aunts from the Muslim community saying, "Enough. No more violence. No more deaths", as did all those courageous women who helped to bring peace to Ireland? And if they, our Muslim sisters, are mute slaves to or, worse, themselves in thrall to the siren call of the
death-wish culture, is there any hope for the rest of us?

This dovetails with the thoughts of British top-cop Lord John Stevens who wrote recently that the problem of terrorism won't be solved until Muslims themselves stop the spread of the culture of hate and death which is being inculcated into the minds of young jihadis.

Muslims themselves must choose peace or war.

New GOP Straw Poll

I forget where I first saw this nifty straw poll. If it's your blog, remind me. You can vote FOR (acceptable) or AGAINST (unacceptable) any number of candidates as well as picking your first choice:

Already cast your vote and just want to check on the results? Click here.

GOP Bloggers also has some other interesting tidbits. I had missed the latest from the always great Victor Davis Hanson . Here are a couple of highlights:

-Our enemies call Jews "pigs" and "apes" and employ racist caricatures of the U.S.'s African-American secretary of state. Meanwhile, we worry about incurring charges of "Islamophobia"...

-Under the jihadists' code of vigilante justice, local informants suspected of supplying tips to Westerners are almost instantly and publicly executed. We, on the other hand, flay ourselves over targeted wiretaps.

Read the full article here.

2006 Election: Who is Serious About Security?

Have you noticed the number of Democrats lately insisting that they would do a "better" job fighting the war on terror? That's a sure sign they must be getting worried about the 2006 elections.

Ann Coulter sums it up well:

What part of the war on terrorism do they support?
By Ann Coulter
WorldNet Daily

This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.

To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they're all for the war against terror – absolutely in favor of that war – they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians," even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.

As Howard Dean put it this week, "The occupation in Iraq is costing American lives and hampering our ability to fight the real global war on terror."

This would be like complaining that Roosevelt's war in Germany was hampering our ability to fight the real global war on fascism. Or anti-discrimination laws were hampering our ability to fight the real war on racism. Or dusting is hampering our ability to fight the real war on dust.

Maybe Dean is referring to a different globe, like Mars or Saturn, or one of those new planets they haven't named yet.

Assuming against all logic and reason that the Democrats have some serious objection to the war in Iraq, perhaps they could tell us which part of the war on terrorism they do support. That would be easier than rattling off the long list of counterterrorism measures they vehemently oppose.

They oppose the National Security Agency listening to people who are calling specific phone numbers found on al-Qaida cell phones and computers. Spying on al-Qaida terrorists is hampering our ability to fight the global war on terror!

Enraged that the Bush administration deferred to the safety of the American people rather than the obstructionist Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, one Clinton-appointed judge, James Robertson, resigned from the FISA court in protest over the NSA spying program.

Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold called for a formal Senate censure of President Bush when he found out the president was rude enough to be listening in on al-Qaida phone calls. (Wait until Feingold finds out the White House has been visiting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's MySpace page!)

Last week a federal judge appointed by Jimmy Carter ruled the NSA program to surveil phone calls to al-Qaida members in other counties unconstitutional.

Democrats oppose the detainment of Taliban and al-Qaida soldiers at our military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Democrats such as Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have called for Guantanamo to be shut down.

The Guantanamo detainees are not innocent insurance salesmen imprisoned in some horrible mix-up like something out of a Perry Mason movie. The detainees were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. You remember – the war liberals pretended to support right up until approximately one nanosecond after John Kerry conceded the 2004 election to President Bush.

But apparently, imprisoning al-Qaida warriors we catch on the battlefield is hampering our ability to fight the global war on terror.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin has compared Guantanamo to Nazi concentration camps and Soviet gulags, based on a report that some detainees were held in temperatures so cold that they shivered and others were forced to listen to loud rap music – more or less approximating the conditions in the green room at "The Tyra Banks Show." Also, one of the detainees was given a badminton racket that was warped.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert complained this week that detainees in Guantanamo have "no hope of being allowed to prove their innocence." (I guess that's excluding the hundreds who have been given administrative hearings or released already.)

Of course all the usual "human rights" groups are carping about how brutally our servicemen in Guantanamo are treating the little darlings who are throwing feces at them.

Democrats oppose the Patriot Act, the most important piece of legislation passed since 9/11, designed to make the United States less of a theme park for would-be terrorists.

The vast majority of Senate Democrats (43-2) voted against renewing the Patriot Act last December, whereupon their minority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, boasted: "We killed the Patriot Act" – a rather unusual sentiment for a party so testy about killing terrorists.

In 2004, Sen. John Kerry – the man they wanted to be president – called the Patriot Act "an assault on our basic rights." At least all "basic rights" other than the one about not dying a horrible death at the hand of Islamic fascists. Yes, it was as if Congress had deliberately flown two commercial airliners into the twin towers of our Constitution.

They oppose profiling Muslims at airports.

They oppose every bust of a terrorist cell, sneering that the cells in Lackawanna, New York City, Miami, Chicago and London weren't a real threat like, say, a nondenominational prayer before a high school football game. Now that's a threat.

Democrats Proud to Oppose Tools to Win War

In the final weeks of the 2006 Battle for Congress the airwaves will be flooded with campaign ads by Democrats who will once again try and fool voters into believing they take our security seriously.

To counter that big lie, it would require little more than to replay the few seconds from this clip of Democrats cheering as Senate Minority Leader announces "We killed the Patriot Act."

Time is running out:

Reality Check: Islam's Peace Offer

Chicken Hawk Express found the statement that the kidnappers of Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaff Wigg made in a video which also showed the two captives. The kidnappers, calling themselves The Holy Jihad Brigades demand release of all Muslim's held in
American prisons.

More chilling is the invitation to convert to Islam, or else:

"Embrace Islam and you will be saved, or else, enjoy yourselves until your turn comes to be slaughtered."

Readers may recall that the crazy President of Iran invited President Bush to convert to Islam in a letter last May.

If anyone doubts the reality of the threat we face, the above statement should be a wake up call. We can either defeat this evil, or it will defeat us. I choose to defeat it.

Don't Believe Polls that Say GOP Can't Win in 2006!

You need only recall the surprise on election night 2004 when the exit polls showing Kerry beating Bush were proved wrong to know that opinion polls don't quite tell the real story.

Here's more on that subject:

FALSE PROPHETS OF THE '06 VOTE
By John Podhoretz
New York Post

THERE'S a growing sense among political insiders that Republicans will get blown out of the water in November. GOP politicians have met waves of hostility from voters in their home districts.
...
The drumbeat is constant: We haven't seen numbers like this since 1994, when the GOP swept into power. Or even: We haven't seen numbers like this since the slaughter of Republicans in 1974, in the wake of Watergate.

After all, everybody is certain that, after Election Day, Democrats will hold a majority of governorships for the first time in six years. Surely the Republican reckoning in Washington is at hand. Surely . . . surely . . .

Don't be so sure.

The chief evidence Washington wise men are using to adduce an upcoming earthquake derives from some very unfavorable polling. President Bush's approval rating is only 37 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics average of all major polls. That's about the same number recorded for the GOP in the "generic ballot" question - where pollsters ask whether people intend to vote for a Republican or a Democrat, without offering a candidate's name.

Plus, the "right track-wrong track" numbers - based on whether people say the country is on the right or wrong track - are running nearly 70 percent against the current direction.

But there are real questions about the validity of this kind of polling, not only as window on coming events, but also as a political indicator altogether. First, there's the question of who is being polled. Midterm elections feature very low turnout - nationally, somewhere around 30 percent. Those are very committed voters, what pollsters call "likely voters."

It's very expensive and very difficult to try and poll only "likely voters" during a non-presidential election, and most polling firms don't even bother. Most polls this year don't even screen for people who describe themselves as "registered voters."

So these polls may reflect real public anger, but they're highly questionable as a gauge for what voters will do.

Also, polling firms seem unable to correct a persistent bias in favor of Democrats. "There has been a long-term tendency for Democrats to do better on this generic ballot question than they in fact do at the polls, so considerable care is required in thinking about this number," notes Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin. "If a Democratic lead in the generic ballot were sufficient for control of the House, the Democrats would have won the House in five of the last six congressional elections, including 1994."

Franklin says unhesitatingly that the atmosphere is now very favorable to Democrats - and even that, if today's situation were analogous to elections before 1992, Republicans would surely lose control of the House. The size of the Democratic advantage in the generic ballot, even accounting for the bias, would once have been enough to flip lots of seats nationally - since it indicates that Democrats should get something like 6 percent more votes nationally in November than Republicans.

"From 1946-1992, a one-percentage point gain in the Democratic share of the national vote produced a gain of 8.2 [House] seats (and vice versa for Republicans)," Franklin writes. But: "Since 1994, a one-point gain in votes has produced a gain of only 1.9 seats."

There are indications as well that, as the elections approach, Republican politicians in contested Senate races are beginning to close the gap against their Democratic rivals and are receiving high personal approval scores.

No doubt races this year will be tighter than many of us would like. But don't let phony bad news from polls keep you from doing everything you can in the time remaining to get the turnout for Republican candidates that will make the difference.

Only one thing can top the pleasure of seeing Democrats defeated in 2004. And that is watching their unrelenting five year campaign of hate, defeat and negativity fail to win their objective of retaking Congress.

Work hard folks!

Iran Rejects UN Nuke Demands and Requests "Serious" Negotiations

August 22, Iran rejected the demands of the international community and the Useless Nations (UN) Security Council that they cease uranium enrichment. Instead, Iran is requesting "serious negotiations." Is it now perfectly clear that the previous years of negotiations were not serious? After years of talks which went nowhere, is there any reason to believe that Iran is now "serious" about resolving the issue? And what damage does continued stalling do to the collective security mechanism so prized by our European partners?

Still, the Iranians know that the cadre of the willfully deceived, or as we say: useful idiots, in the West will grasp at this straw and demand we give Iran more time to prove that we haven't already allowed them too much time to develop nuclear weapons.

Nearly six months ago, we posted the news that Iran's chief nuclear negotiator admitted using the process simply as a ruse while they continue their developing nuclear weapons:

In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with the so-called EU3 until last year, revealed how Tehran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear program was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002.

He boasted that while talks were taking place in Tehran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake - a key stage in the nuclear fuel process - at its Isfahan plant while convincing European diplomats that nothing was afoot.

'From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything'. The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them',' he said."

Now that the matter will be returned to the Useless Nations for consideration of sanctions against Iran's failure to comply with the previous resolution, one question should be uppermost: Do the Russians and Chinese, not to mention the French and the Germans, really want to participate in the self-neutering of the collective security process?

And, can those who claim to advocate peace stand by and watch the primary mechanism for promoting that value be undermined in such an overt and obvious fashion?

Useful Idiots and the Hidden Enemy Within

Flopping Aces linked to the following piece by Michael Barone yesterday and it fits in so well with our continuing discussion on the useful idiots and enablers of those who would snuff out not only our freedom, but our lives as well:

Our covert enemies
By Michael Barone
Townhall.com

In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam. They are busy trying to wreak harm on us in any way they can. Against them we can fight back, as we did when British authorities arrested the men and women who were plotting to blow up a dozen airliners over the Atlantic.

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.

At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours -- who's to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. Rich white men have imposed their ideas because of their wealth and through the use of force. Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.

These are the ideas that have been transmitted over a long generation by the elites who run our universities and our schools, and who dominate our mainstream media. They teach an American history with the good parts left out and the bad parts emphasized. We are taught that some of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders -- and are left ignorant of their proclamations of universal liberties and human rights. We are taught that Japanese-Americans were interned in World War II -- and not that American military forces liberated millions from tyranny. To be sure, the great mass of Americans tend to resist these teachings. By the millions they buy and read serious biographies of the Founders and accounts of the Greatest Generation. But the teachings of our covert enemies have their effect.
...
Nevertheless, the default assumption of our covert enemies is that in any conflict between the West and the Rest, the West is wrong. That assumption can be rebutted by overwhelming fact: Few argued for the Taliban after Sept. 11. But in our continuing struggles, our covert enemies portray our work in Iraq through the lens of Abu Ghraib and consider Israel's self-defense against Hezbollah as the oppression of virtuous victims by evil men. In World War II, our elites understood that we were the forces of good and that victory was essential. Today, many of our elites subject our military and intelligence actions to fine-tooth-comb analysis and find that they are morally repugnant.

Useful Idiots Defend Iran

Need an example of just how dangerous these useful idiots are?

Today, Iran answered the UN demand that it cease it’s nuclear development by calling for yet more negotiations on top of the years that our European partners and the Useless Nations (UN) have invested.

You can count on the useful idiots to trot out all the shopworn shibboleths and demand we “give peace a chance” by more talking. Some hidden enemies even go so far to insist that it is only fair that Iran be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. Coming from the very same people who marched in the streets to demand unilateral Western nuclear disarmament, this current flip-flop would be laughable if it weren’t dangerous.

Something very similar to this posted at the Wide Awakes!

Send in the Useful Idiots, Send in the Clowns

We talk a lot about moonbats, those masters of delusion, denial and self deception that seem to populate the left. For an example, pick any of the lefty commenters on these pages. But there's another term for these folks that arose earlier in world history. And that story is here:

Useful Idiots: Islam’s Best Soldiers
By Amil Imani
FrontPageMagazine.com

Islam enjoys a large and influential ally among the non-Muslims: A new generation of “Useful Idiots,” that Lenin identified as those who lived in liberal democracies and furthered the work of communism. This new generation of Useful Idiots also lives in liberal democracies but serves the cause of Islamofascism—another virulent form of totalitarian ideology.

Useful Idiots are naïve, foolish, ignorant of facts, unrealistically idealistic, dreamers, willfully in denial or deceptive. They hail from the ranks of the chronically unhappy, the anarchists, the aspiring revolutionaries, the neurotics who are at war with life, the disaffected alienated from government, corporations, and just about any and all institutions of society. The Useful Idiot can be a billionaire, a movie star, an academe of renown, a politician, or from any other segment of the population.

Arguably, the most dangerous Useful Idiot is the “Politically Correct.” He is the master practitioner of euphemism, hedging, doubletalk, and outright deception.

The Useful Idiot derives satisfaction from being anti-establishment. He finds perverse gratification in aiding the forces that aim to dismantle an existing order, whatever it may be: an order he neither approves of nor he feels he belongs to.
...
The lesson is clear. Beware of the Useful Idiots who live in liberal democracies. Knowingly or unknowingly, they serve as the greatest volunteer and effective soldiers of Islam. They pave the way for the advancement of Islam and they will assuredly be among the very first victims of Islam as soon as it assumes power.

You'll want to read the entire article here. The author has some very frank and non-politically correct observations about the nature of Islam that many of today's useful idiots willfully overlook.

The more I think about today's useful idiots and the moonbats which populate the comment streams of the blog world, that old song, Send in the Clowns comes to mind:

Send In The Clowns

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.
...
Don't you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother, they're here.

Yes my friends the clowns are here. But it's no circus!

French Fonies Promise Peace Troops, Deliver Escargo

Quelle surprise! The French surrender in Lebanon even before they arrive. By now readers are aware that the U.S. and the French went to great lengths to hammer out a meaningful Useless Nations (UN) resolution for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. France promised to lead the way in providing troops to police the deal.

Didn't turn out that way did it?

"With doublespeaking France, honor gets lost in translation"

By Jules Crittenden, Boston Herald City Editor:

...In recent weeks, France stepped forward to act as a broker of peace in Lebanon. “Act” is the key verb in that last sentence, as it now would seem that the only other verifiable part of the sentence is “in recent weeks.”

To correctly parse that sentence, one must understand that when France suggested it wanted to broker peace in Lebanon, it did not necessarily mean “broker” or “peace” or “Lebanon” in the way we might understand those words. The same is true when France further suggested it wanted to “lead” a “strong” “multinational” “force” there.

I don’t speak French, so I have no idea what the actual French words are for those concepts or what possible nuances there may be. I’ve been relying on news reports in English, which now inform me that the French do not intend to send any significant number of troops to what is supposed to be a force of 15,000 in Lebanon, like everyone thought they said they would.

The heady moment of peace brokering having passed, uponsober reflection, the French now say they already have a general and some staff in south Lebanon ordering about UNIFIL, the U.N. monitoring entity there. That’s plenty of leadership, the French suggested: All France needs to contribute now is another 200 combat engineers.

In tactical terms, when it comes to securing a Middle East conflict zone, that can be referred to as “squat.”

The United Nations, which is trying to salvage what is left of its own self-respect after the utter failure of UNIFIL in Lebanon, is now publicly begging European nations to contribute troops.

To find the last plain-speaking French leader, it is necessary to go back to Napoleon Bonaparte. He said he was going to take over Europe, and proceeded to do so. No, scratch that. He said he was going to bring French liberty and equality to Europe, then crowned himself emperor. Subsequent French history offers us a sordid string of third world colonizations followed by bloody wars to hang on long after the time to relinquish colonies had passed, setting the stage for corrupt government and prolonged conflict in places like Vietnam.

More recently, we’ve seen the naked hypocrisy of Dominic de Villepin in the United Nations, braying about his humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people, while trying to ensure mass murderer Saddam Hussein remained in power to honor his French contracts.

The shamelessness of France knows no bounds. They have a domestic Arabic population and business interests in the Mideast to satisfy. They desperately want to be taken seriously as a major power. So they sat down with the United States and hammered out a peace plan. Then, before the ink was dry, they shrugged a Gallic shrug.

I wish I could be charitable here and find some good excuses for the French. Ernest Hemingway, who had a soft spot for them, used to like to say, “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk.” But Hemingway, unlike the French, had a sense of honor. [continue]

We're all well aware that the French aren't known for putting up much of a fight, but this latest episode of surrender before honor would even shame most Democrats (oh, well, maybe just some).

Useless Nation's Kofi Annan Blames Israel for Breaking Cease Fire

Both Security Watchtower and Vital Perspectives are reporting on the Israeli commando raid into the Bekka Valley of Lebanon where Hezbollah is smuggling in rearmaments from Syria and Iran. Not much detail from Israel on the raid; apparently the IDF is doing the usual poor job of public relations.

Meanwhile, Secretary General of the Useless Nations, Kofi Annan has condemned Israel for this action which he claims is a violation of the ceasefire.

If you visit the UN page which lists all of Kofi's mutterings regarding the Middle East and the current conflict, you'll find statement after statement condemning Israel and only one teensie-weensie little note about Hezbollah's aggression in starting the conflict.

Readers will also be hard pressed to find ANY statement by Kofi regarding the weapons that Iran and Syria have been supplying Hezbollah and which enabled them to begin their month long rocket and missile assault on Israel.

Surely Kofi must have seen this report on missiles being loaded aboard a plane in Iran bound for Damascus then on to Hezbollah? Fortunately, that shipment was blocked after U.S. surveillance spotted it on the runway.

Kofi's off to the region this week with visits planned for both Iran and Syria. Perhaps he will even manage to be in Iran on August 22 when the mad mullahs celebrate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq. A date that has some worried about an Iranian desire to unleash the apocalypse.

I wonder if Kofi will get around to asking the crazies who run Iran and Syria to behave themselves and not send such nasty weapons over to Hezbollah? I'm not holding my breath.

But at least Kofi's term expires in 133 more days. Now that should be a date to celebrate.

Why Iran Does Not Fear the U.S.

Weakness, vacillation and appeasement only invites more terrorism. Here's proof:

From: "American Can't Do a Thing"

...The Carter administration went out of its way to support the new regime in Tehran. A ban imposed on the sale of arms and materiel to Iran, imposed in 1978, was lifted, and a 1954 presidential "finding" by Dwight Eisenhower was dusted off to reaffirm Washington's commitment to defending Iran against Soviet or other threats.

Also to symbolize support for the mullahs, President Carter initially rejected a visa application for the exiled shah to travel to New York for medical treatment.

Just weeks after the mullahs' regime was formed, Brzezinski traveled to Morocco to meet Mehdi Bazargan, Ayatollah Khomeini's first prime minister. At the meeting, Brzezinski invited the new Iranian regime to enter into a strategic partnership with the United States. Bazargan, concerned that the Iranian left might bid for power against the still wobbly regime of the mullahs, was "ecstatic" about the American offer.

The embassy raid came just days after the Brzezinski-Bazargan meeting in Morocco and, by all accounts, took Khomeini by surprise. It is now clear that leftist groups opposed to rapprochement with the United States had inspired the raid.

Khomeini saw it as a leftist ploy to undermine his authority. He was also concerned about the possibility of the United States taking strong military and political action against his still fragile regime.

Deciding to hedge his bets, the ayatollah played a double game for several days, waiting to gauge the American reaction.

According to his late son Ahmad, who had been asked to coordinate with the embassy-raiders, the ayatollah feared "thunder and lightning" from Washington. But what came, instead, was a series of bland statements by Carter and his aides pleading for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds.

Carter's envoy to the United Nations, a certain Andrew Young, described Khomeini as "a 20th-century saint," and begged the ayatollah to show "magnanimity and compassion."

Carter went further by sending a letter to Khomeini.

Written in longhand, it was an appeal from "one believer to a man of God."

Carter's syrupy prose must have amused Khomeini, who preferred a minimalist style with such phrases as "we shall cut off America's hands."

As days passed, with the U.S. diplomats paraded in front of TV cameras blindfolded and threatened with execution, it became increasingly clear that there would be no "thunder and lightning" from Washington. By the end of the first week of the drama (which was to last for 444 days, ending as Ronald Reagan entered the White House), Khomeini's view of America had changed.

Ahmad Khomeini's memoirs echo the surprise that his father, the ayatollah, showed, as the Carter administration behaved "like a headless chicken."

What especially surprised Khomeini was that Cater and his aides, notably Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, rather than condemning the seizure and the treatment of the hostages as a barbarous act, appeared apologetic for unspecified mistakes supposedly committed by the United States and asked for forgiveness and magnanimity.

Once he had concluded that America would not take any meaningful action against his regime, Khomeini took over control of the hostage enterprise and used it to prop up his "anti-imperialist" credentials while outflanking the left.

The surprising show of weakness from Washington also encouraged the mullahs and the hostage-holders to come up with a fresh demand each day. Started as a revolutionary gesture, the episode soon led to a demand for the United States to capture and hand over the shah for trial. When signals came that Washington might actually consider doing so, other demands were advanced. The United States was asked to apologize to Muslim peoples everywhere and, in effect, change its foreign policy to please the ayatollah.

Matters worsened when a military mission to rescue the hostages ended in tragedy in the Iranian desert. The force dispatched by Carter fled under the cover of night, leaving behind the charred bodies of eight of their comrades.

In his memoirs, Ahmad nicely captures the mood of his father, who had expected the Americans to do "something serious," such as threatening to block Iran's oil exports or even firing a few missiles at the ayatollah's neighborhood.

But not only did none of that happen, the Carter administration was plunged into internal feuds as Vance resigned in protest of the rescue attempt.

It was then that Khomeini coined his notorious phrase, "America cannot do a damn thing."

He also ordered that the slogan "Death to America" be inscribed in all official buildings and vehicles. The U.S. flag was to be painted at the entrance of airports, railway stations, ministries, factories, schools, hotels and bazaars so that the faithful could trample it under their feet every day.

The slogan "America cannot do a damn thing" became the basis of all strategies worked out by Islamist militant groups, including those opposed to Khomeini.

That slogan was tested and proved right for almost a quarter of a century. Between Nov. 4, 1979, and 9/11, a total of 671 Americans were held hostage for varying lengths of time in several Muslim countries. Nearly 1,000 Americans were killed, including 241 Marines blown up while sleeping in Beirut in 1983.

For 22 years the United States, under presidents from both parties, behaved in exactly the way that Khomeini predicted. It took countless successive blows, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, without decisive retaliation. That attitude invited, indeed encouraged, more attacks.

The 9/11 tragedy was the denouement of the Nov. 4 attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran.