This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • The NIE and Iran; a lesson in common sense

    An awful lot of people in Washington think Americans are generally stupid – the same goes for an awful lot of people in other countries. So when the now-famous National Intelligence Estimate was released that claims Iran halted it’s nuclear weapons program four years ago, the wonks in Washington were sure Americans were going to swallow it hook-line-and-sinker. After all, it was released by those super-brainiacs at the State Department, right? Those guys with three first names who all graduated from Ivy-league schools.

    Well, according to a Rasmusen poll (h/t Flopping Aces) they only suckered in 18%;

    Just 18% of American voters believe that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 66% disagree and say Iran has not stopped its nuclear weapons program. Twenty-one percent (21%) of men believe Iran has stopped the weapons development along with 16% of women.

    I’m very happy that women are more skeptical than men - it means women are still thinking deeply about our national security instead of just going along with the herd of men who are trying to get in their pants.

    In the meantime, the Islamic Republic is shocked (shocked, I tell you) the the US is spying on them. Gateway Pundit quotes a FARS news report in which a general does his best impression of Nancy Pelosi;

    “The hypocritical and bullying face of Bush and the US neoconservative reactionaries was brought into light by this report,” Major General Hassan Firooz Abadi said in the wake of the latest report by 16 US intelligence agencies stressing that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

    Meantime, he called on Iran to maintain vigilance, reminding that the hawks are still in power in the US.

    “We should be vigilant as the hawks are still in power in the US and the aggressive forces of the world arrogance are still occupying Afghanistan and Iraq and their oppression and cruelty against the Palestinian and Lebanese nations have not ended,” the commander said.

    Meaning, I suppose, that the Islamic Republic’s military supports a Democrat candidate for President next Fall.

    Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Gates took an opportunity to warn about Iran’s continued malfeasance in the Middle East (Washington Times’ Lolita C. Baldor);

    Members of the audience challenged his rebukes of Tehran, evidence of the divide among Arab nations over the Bush administration’s tough stance. Asked if the U.S. would be willing to talk with Iran, Mr. Gates said the behavior of Iran’s current leadership “has not given one confidence that a dialogue would be productive.”

    “Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents — Christians, Jews and Muslims alike,” Mr. Gates said in his address at the event organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

    So, apparently, this administration’s policy reflects American public opinion more closely than the media and the three-first-named State Department wonks would care to admit.

  • Eyes off the prize

    The Democrats have lost the political initiative – they’ve been proven wrong on Iraq. Even their own ranks have conceded that the US troops have begun an effective pacification program and the Iraqis are taking control of their own security. So with an election on the horizon, they needed more ammunition.

    Democrats got their boost this week from the anti-Bush and China-loving elements at the State Department and the CIA. The weinies a the State Department decided to abruptly release a National Intelligence Estimate that doesn’t jibe with common sense (Jon Ward, Washington Times);

    Several current and former high-level government officials familiar with the authors of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran described the report as a politically motivated document written by anti-Bush former State Department officials, who opposed sanctioning foreign governments and businesses.

    A Republican senator plans to introduce a bill next week that would create a commission of policy experts to examine whether the new report on Iran is accurate, a spokesman said today.

    John Bolton finds the major flaws of the NIE report (h/t Atlas Shrugs)

    First, the headline finding — that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 — is written in a way that guarantees the totality of the conclusions will be misread. In fact, there is little substantive difference between the conclusions of the 2005 NIE on Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the 2007 NIE. Moreover, the distinction between “military” and “civilian” programs is highly artificial, since the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Indeed, it has always been Iran’s “civilian” program that posed the main risk of a nuclear “breakout.”

    Obviously, a weak attempt to dissuade Americans that Iran is a threat to world peace. Now, this morning, we read that the CIA destroyed video tapes of interrogations in 2002 – instantly sending Democrats off on a false tangent of outrage (Wall Street Journal, Siobhan Gorman)

    The CIA’s acknowledgment that it destroyed videotapes of interrogations of detainees made in 2002 set off a fierce debate on Capitol Hill today, as it re-opened a contentious issue that the CIA director has worked for a year and a half to put to rest.
     
    It also raised new questions about the government’s handling of evidence in the trial of al Qaeda suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now serving a life sentence after his conviction last year.

    But, Michele Malkin says Democrats in Congress were informed of the tapes’ impending destruction more than four years ago;

    Rep. Jane Harman of California, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was one of only four members of Congress in 2003 informed of the tapes’ existence and the CIA’s intention to ultimately destroy them.

    “I told the CIA that destroying videotapes of interrogations was a bad idea and urged them in writing not to do it,” Harman said. While key lawmakers were briefed on the CIA’s intention to destroy the tapes, they were not notified two years later when the spy agency actually carried out the plan. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the committee only learned of the tapes’ destruction in November 2006.

    Yet the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party (otherwise known as the Washington Post) calls it a “startling disclosure”;

    The startling disclosures came on the same day that House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement on legislation that would prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics by the CIA and bring intelligence agencies in line with rules followed by the U.S. military.

    Hardly startling when even Rockefeller admits he knew about it a year ago. Yet, WaPo perpetuates the myth of “startling”;

    Hayden said he decided to discuss the tapes publicly because of news media interest and the possibility that “we may see misinterpretations of the facts in the days ahead.” The New York Times said on its Web site that it had informed the CIA on Wednesday night that it was preparing a story about the destroyed tapes.

    So how did the New York Times find out? Either leaky-ass Congress or the anti-Bush wing of the CIA – my money’s on both.

    WSJ writes on “our troops are SS concentration camp guards” Little Dick Durbin’s drama play;

    Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois fired off a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking for a Justice Department investigation of “whether CIA officials who destroyed these videotapes and withheld information about their existence from official proceedings violated the law.” On the Senate floor, Mr. Durbin rejected the CIA’s explanation that it was trying to protect the identity of its agents.

    Of course, the Washington Post thinks that the ACLU has a dog in the fight for our National Security;

    Civil liberties advocates denounced the CIA’s decision to destroy the tapes, saying the agency should have known by 2005 that the actions depicted on them were potentially the subject of litigation and congressional investigations.

    Jameel Jaffer, a national security lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the tapes were destroyed at a time when a federal court had ordered the CIA to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU seeking records related to interrogations.

    “The CIA appears to have deliberately destroyed evidence that would have allowed its agents to be held accountable for the torture of prisoners,” Jaffer said. “They are tapes that should have been released to the courts and Congress, but the CIA apparently believes that its agents are above the law.”

    The Leftists in this country can’t get it through their fat heads that this isn’t an exercise in law enforcement, it’s dealing with people who would kill us all if they had the chance – which is why we need to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions whether they’re advanced or not.

    But they’d rather play silly political games and russian roulette with our security.

  • The Real Thing

    Â

    Congratulations to Muhtar Kent for being named as the new CEO of Coca Cola when Neville Isdell retires this summer. I have some advice for the new CEO. Now, I don’t pretend to know a whole bunch about the soft drink industry, but I know what I like. And I like sugar in my Coke – not that corn syrup crap they use now.

    Whenever I go to Central America, the first thing I buy is an ice cold bottle (not a plastic bottle, either – a glass bottle) of Coke. The label clearly says “azucar” – not “maize”. It’s refreshing and tasty – like the Coke I used to buy on my paper route at Newcombe’s Garage on those scorching August afternoons before “high fructose corn syrup” was listed in the ingredients.

    I’d gladly pay double for an original Coke in a glass bottle with sugar. Not Pepsi – whoever heard of drinking Jack and Pepsi. Just a little advice, Mr. Kent. I’ll be watching in stores.

    While I’m blathering on about refreshments, my favorite beer, Saranac, has a new ad out on YouTube. For all you old Upstate New York ex-pats who may not know Saranac, it’s a Matt Brewery label – they make Utica Club. They’ve expanded Saranac distribution down here to Maryland and Virginia and I’m so pleased. It’s the best beer I’ve had outside of Germany.

                                                                           

  • Finally some clarity on the NIE Iran report

    I pretty much quit blogging after the release of the NIE report the other day, because it seemed like a muddled mess of polical posturing and I’ve read eveything I could get my hands on about this particular subject. But nothing blog-worthy.

    Until now. Today, John Bolton has turned on the lights in the Washington Post;

    Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the “intelligence community” on issues such as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.

    All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than “intelligence” analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.

    Please read it all.

  • Government Intervention for Dummies

    There’s risk in everything we do. The cost of that risk is priced into everything we buy. The less risk we assume for ourselves, the more we pay for things – because we’re paying someone else to assume our risk. The more risk we’re willing to withstand the less we pay for stuff.

    A good example is a mutual fund company – some mutual fund companies have high sales charges because their funds are only sold through advisers who help us manage our risk. Other mutual funds have small or no sales charges – but those funds are not sold along with an advisor to help you manage your risk. If you chose the no-fee mutual funds, you’re willing to accept the risk that you might choose a fund that’s wrong for you. If you choose a fund with an advisor, you’re admitting that you want someone to help you invest your money.

    Well, now the President wants to manage our risk for us (Wall Street Journal). Two years ago, people bought houses at historically low interest rates. Since the interest rates were historically low, a rational person with even a cursory knowledge of how interest rates function would have to figure that interest rates are bound to go up. And now that rates have gone up – unsurprisingly – homeowners are all standing around with their mouths wide open and asking “how could this happen?”

    The President wants to freeze interest rates for five years – taking the risk out of variable rate loan. The thing is, those mortagage companies gave those loans out, assuming the risk that rates would rise, accepting lower profits and anticipating increased revenue in the future. I didn’t hear anyone calling to bail out mortgage companies, nor was there a call to freeze interest rates before they sank even lower.

    So now the President is going to freeze rates. And freeze means rates won’t go up or down.  I included “or down” for a reason – when interest rates fall (and they will fall at sometime in the next five years), who wants to bet that Democrats will be screaming that whoever is President at the time should unfreeze interest rates so homeowners can take advantage of that lowered rate?

    Well, Hillary Clinton said President Bush was “asleep at the switch” during this next new “crisis” the Democrats need for an issue and John Edwards said we should freeze rates for seven years. High interest rates won’t last for five years, let alone seven years – the prettiest women in the campaign are just trying to squeeze out more publicity before the President drains it today when he announces his plan.

    But, to my main point; if government is going to take risk out variable rate mortgages, someone is going to pay for that risk. It won’t be the mortgage companies because they’ll pass their costs on the consumers, it probably won’t be the people who benefit most, the idiots who get their investment and homebuying advice from CNBC. More than likely it’ll be the taxpayers – and the responsible people who buy homes knowing full well what a variable rate mortgage does. There’ll be higher fees for mortgages and of course government guarentees to entice mortgage companies to go along with the President’s plan which will only end up costing taxpayers.

    The President’s solution is a short term fix to a bigger problem; the perception that government can solve all of our problems and that government should always be ready to bail out the morons.

  • Los Tres Chiflados of Socialism

    Hugo Chavez suffered a humiliating defeat Sunday in Venezuela when he lost his bid to rewrite the Constitution in his favor – but it ain’t over, yet. Chavez has promised to return time and again and he got moral support from his Tio Fidel;

    “Don’t feel sad,” he told his supporters, pointing out the razor-thin margin by which they were defeated.

    He said he recognized his plans to enshrine his vision of a socialist economy in Venezuela’s charter had been thwarted “for now” — but stressed he would not give up.

    The opposition had won a “Pyrrhic victory,” he claimed, adding that he would not “change one comma” of his plan.

    The result was disappointing for ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his regime, which views Chavez as a close ally and relies heavily on Venezuelan oil shipments.

    But Castro praised Chavez for how he faced up to defeat.

    “Dear Hugo: I send you revolutionary congratulations for your speech today, which was a ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ of dignity and ethics,” Castro said in a message relayed by state television, referring to the Latin phrase uttered by a victorious Julius Ceasar — “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

    Bloomberg reports that privately Chavez blames the Legislature for the failure of his proposals;

    Chavez, who met government advisors and military commanders outside Caracas to wait for the results, said congress hindered the plan’s passage by splitting it into two blocks, the Caracas- based daily reported, citing the unidentified witnesses. Chavez also said his Venezuelan Unified Socialist Party lacked leadership, Nacional reported.  

    Wall Street Journal’s John Lyons and Jose de Cordoba write that Chavez’ defeat will have far-reaching consequences;

    Mr. Chávez’s defeat will ripple across Latin America, hurting allies in countries like Bolivia and Ecuador and boosting moderates in Brazil and Chile. For the U.S. and Europe, a weaker Mr. Chávez is welcome news. The former military officer has been increasingly hostile to Western interests in the past few years, nationalizing key areas of the economy like the oil industry, telecommunications and utilities.

    Bolivia’s Evo Morales has mandated that the Assembly write a new constitution for Bolivia (New America Media);

    Evo Morales, the first Indian president of the country, is forcing a showdown with the oligarchy and the right wing political parties that have stymied efforts to draft a new constitution to transform the nation. He declares, “Dead or alive I will have a new constitution for the country by December 14,” the mandated date for the specially elected Constituent Assembly to present a constitution for the country to vote on by popular referendum.

    Morales’ opposition in Boliva hopes that Chavez’ defeat portends the defeat of socialist Morales’ own plans;

    The opposition to the left-wing populist government in Bolivia on Monday celebrated the rejection of a referendum on constitutional reform in Venezuela. Several leaders, including Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, appear to be following some of the steps that Chavez took since gaining power. Efforts to draft new constitutions are in place in both Bolivia and Ecuador.

    “The defeat of Hugo Chavez is a sign in the sense that authoritarianism will not prevail in Venezuela, and neither will it prevail in Bolivia,” said opposition Senator Fernando Rodriguez.

    Spanish Pundit writes that some Bolivians are staging a hunger strike against Morales’ constitutional proposals;

    Prefects and political leaders of Civic Commitees who are against President Evo Morales, began yesterday their announced hunger strike to reject the law which was passed by the oficialist supporters, cutting off their revenues and against the Constitution project, irregularly passed by the Constituent Assembly.

    In an atmosphere of growing tension, the prefects (gobernators) and civic leaders of the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija and Pando ratified their measure of civil resistence announced the past week against the Government. 

    The third stooge, Rafael Correa, in Equador, has turned over control of the state-run oil company to his Navy (Bloomberg);

    Ecuador appointed Navy officers to lead the state-owned oil company’s three biggest divisions, deepening the armed forces’ control of PetroEcuador.

    Patricio Goyes will run the production unit, Carlos Albuja will head refining, and Marco Salinas will oversee sales of oil and other fuels, the company said today in an e-mailed statement.

    The personnel moves come after President Rafael Correa last week named a Navy admiral to run the company, which produces about half of the Andean country’s roughly 500,000 barrels in daily output. He handed control to the military after a week of protests in the Amazon region shut some output.

    Pretty smart – it makes the military more loyal to Correa and makes Correa less dependant on popular will.

    Chavez’ defeat Sunday may be the beginning of the end of the socialist movement in South America – but its a long row to hoe. 

  • Obama’s credit card bill of rights

    You’re an idiot and Obama knows it – he’s going to save you from yourself (AP);

    Democrat Barack Obama called for new restrictions on “predatory” credit card companies he says deceive consumers into piling up massive debt they have little hope of repaying.

    “The truth is, our middle-class families are not going to be secure so long as they can’t get out of debt,” Obama said Monday, sharpening the populist rhetoric of his presidential campaign. “If we’re serious about stopping Americans from falling deeper in debt, we’ve got to crack down on predatory credit card companies that are pushing them over the edge.”

    Obama pointed to studies showing that consumers have an average personal debt of more than $8,000, a load driven higher by credit cards. He said soaring credit card debt could turn into a crisis as big as the one in the subprime mortgage industry.

    “The larger risk is that what’s happening in the housing market could lead to a slowdown in the entire economy,” he said.

    The Illinois senator made his comments in a statement and in a discussion with debt counselors and consumers who have struggled with credit card debt.

    Obama’s “credit card bill of rights” would force credit card companies to give consumers the option of dropping out of an agreement if the companies raise interest rates.

    There’s already a an option for “dropping out of an agreement” – it’s called not borrowing more than you can afford to repay. When my credit fell into disrepair several years ago, the so-called predatory credit card companies were the only ones who’d give me credit so I could rebuild my credit – but I didn’t abuse it. I used it to my advantage and my credit is spotless today.

    If the government puts restrictions on those credit card companies and enact a “bill of rights” (what a stupid over use of a phrase), the so-called predatory credit card companies won’t lend to poor risks. Just like government restrictions have forced banks to be careful about who has an account in their banks has created a class with no bank accounts, government restrictions will create a class with no credit.

    This is more populist drivel from the Democrats – they make it sound like they’re going to bail people out, but in the long run, they’ll only make things worse for everyone. People bought houses they couldn’t afford and their losing those homes because they listened to CNBC and the other TV personalities pretending to be experts. Now they’ve got debt they can’t afford because they thought the Capitol One barbarians were funny.

    But Obama’s gonnna save them. And you.

  • Senile Reid denies his face has a nose

    According to Politico (h/t Crotchety Old Bastard) Harry Reid thinks it’s still 2006;

    But Reid, in a Monday press conference, ceded no ground.

    “The surge hasn’t accomplished its goals,” Reid said. “… We’re involved, still, in an intractable civil war.”

    A civil war, Harry? Really? Aside from the glaring statistics (like these from Gateway Pundit) you should catch the news from last week at Kuwait News Agency (h/t Dreams Into Lightening)?

    Leading Shiite cleric in Iraq Ali Sistani Tuesday banned the killing of Iraqis, particularly the Sunnis, and urged the Shiites to protect their brother Sunnis.

    Sistani bans the Iraqi blood in general the blood of Sunnis in particular. His announcement came during a meeting with a delegation from Sunni clerics from southern and northern Iraq.

    The clerics are visiting Najaf to participate in the first national conference for Ulemaa of Shiites and Sunnis.

    Sistani called on the Shiites to protect their Sunni brothers, according to Sheikh Khaled Al-Mulla, head of the authority of Ulemaa of Southern Iraq, noting that the Fatwa of Sistani would have positive impacts nationwide.
    “I am a servant of all Iraqis, there is no difference between a Sunni, a Shitte or a Kurd or a Christian,” Al-Mulla quoted Sistani as saying during the meeting.

    Sistani warned the Sunni clerics from the plans of the enemies to plant seeds of discord among the Iraqis.

    The visiting delegation voiced relief for the meeting and said they backed Sistani’s stance.

    Threats Watch explains the significance of Sistani’s fatwa;

    Western observers should note the significance of Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Among the world’s Shi’a, he is seen as a direct (and rational) competitor to Iran’s radical Ayatollah Khameini for the true leadership of the Shi’a ummah (community). Many in fact have already seen him as the true leader of the Shi’a. Unlike Khameini, Sistani sees room for democratic governance and a separation between the mosque and government.

    So, Sistani (al Sadr’s mentor, if anyone is keeping track) has forbidden Iraqis to kill each other – that kind of puts to rest the whole civil war thing, doesn’t it? I mean Murtha had to concede last week, for cripes sake. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, Harry.

    UPDATE: Brian Faughnan at The Weekly Standard Blog writes that Reid is prepared to cave on funding the war but Rollcall says the Democrats plan on using the short session to blackmail the Republicans into caving by holding their Christmas break hostage.