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

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Links to keep you busy; Best of the Web as I see it

    First, from Don Carl out in California who emailed me this YouTube link. Apparently, our soldiers have more than al Qaeda to worry about in Iraq.

    Skye at MidnightBlue (who looks fabulous in her new silk dress, by the way) sends along a link to to her reportage (complete with photos) on the Cindy Sheehan demostration in Philly on Tuesday. Skye and the patriots who live in our nation’s first capitol apparently ran the old bag out of town like our brothers and sisters in Charlotte. Eagles up!

    For those of you who are still operating under the misapprehension that the Left still supports our troops, check out this post by Chap at Chapomatic. If the links he posts don’t make you angry, you’re a stronger person than I am. Mred at Invicible Armor berates the Democrats for recreating the fall of Saigon in Baghdad. If that’s not enough to get your blood boiling, read COBDanny’s post about the Demo candidates and the yearly Kos.

    By way of Curt at Flopping Aces, I read that  Ace at Ace of Spades thinks he knows who “Scott Thomas” is. More background on “Scott Thomas” from Chickenhawk Express, Gateway Pundit and Laughing Wolf at Blackfive. While you’re at Blackfive, see Uncle Jimbo’s post on Okinawa Jack Murtha’s latest chickenshit plan to surrender to anyone that will accept his portly being. 

    And Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports that the Pentagon claims that al Qaeda is looking for unconventional weapons. Wonder where they’d get ’em from?

    GI Jane at The Foxhole has the last word on Ward Churchill.

    Mike at Lamplighter has staggering statistics on modern human trafficking.

    Scott Thomas Update: Since GI Jane commented, I’ve done some looking around and see I’m faaaaaar behind the proverbial Eight-Ball on this. Powerline  and Michele Malkin are out front.

    Wouldn’t you just know it that I was in A Co. 1/18th (Scott Thomas Beauchamps company) when they were part of the 3rd Brigade of the 24th Division (for the old troops that was after they were redesignated from the old Dollar-Ninety-Seven Brigade at Benning). I hope his first sergeant lights his young ass up.

  • Hugo Chavez; uber-moonbat

    Picture from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra

    The noose around the collective neck of Venezuelans seems to be tightening. An Associated Press story quotes Chavez in a personal ad hominem attack on a Honduran cardinal;

    President Hugo Chavez called a cardinal from Honduras an “imperialist clown” after the Roman Catholic prelate warned of increasing authoritarianism under the Venezuelan leader.

    “Another parrot of imperialism appeared, this time dressed as a cardinal. That’s to say, another imperialist clown,” Chavez was quoted as saying in a bulletin posted Tuesday on the state-run news agency’s Web site.

    Chavez — a close ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro — was responding to criticism from Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, who said in a recent interview cited by Venezuela’s Bolivarian News Agency that Chavez “thinks he’s God and can trample upon other people.”

    Chavez made the comments during a government event late Monday. He has repeatedly clashed with Catholic Church leaders in Venezuela, calling them “liars” and “perverts,” but he rarely targets high-ranking priests abroad.

    Clowns, liars and perverts. That’s real grown up. Kind of like when he made the “smell of sulfur” comment at the UN about our President. But, the mask is off Hugo now – since he’s been granted “continuous reelection”, the Orwellian term he uses to describe his seizure of the office of Venezuela’s president for the remainder of his life, it seems he can’t be stopped.

    Tank at Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra does an excellent piece on the new Culture of Personality growing up in Venezuela around Hugo in true Maoist/Stalinist style, including action figures of the stumpy little dictator. 

    Daniel at Venezuela News and Views found an article from Foreign Policy that reports that Venezuela’s bolivar is one of the five worst currencies in the world in which to invest – as a result of Chavez’ communistic social and monetary policies;

    With massive public spending fueling inflation and President Hugo Chávez’s nationalization campaign triggering a massive outflow of capital, it’s been a bad year for the bolívar. Thanks mainly to the high price of oil, many of Venezuela’s economic fundamentals look sound. But Venezuela’s currency has lost 21 percent of its value since January 2007….  

    The Devil’s Excrement records a conversation betweeen a community leader and Chavez when the community leader tries to tell Hugo that his advisors are lying to him about conditions in Venezuela. Tinpot Hugo doesn’t want to hear it, of course.

    Julia at The End of Venezuela as I Know It reports that the only way to organize protests these days is by text messaging since the Venezuelan media has fallen under the jackboot of Chavez and his minions.

    At Novosti, Hugo is quoted sounding a bit like the wistful Democrats before the 2000 election when they wished Bill Clinton could run again;

    Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has said he will soon submit to parliament a bill allowing the president to be re-elected an unlimited number of times.

    “If people don’t vote for me, I will leave. I’m not trying to hold onto this place, as I have always said. I won’t cry if I am rejected,” Chavez told the Hello President TV show Sunday.

    “If the Venezuelan people say go, I will go,” he said.

    Venezuela’s leader is elected by a simple majority by a direct national vote and is the head of state and government for six years, and can be re-elected once.

    Chavez first pledged to change the number of allowable presidential terms after he won the presidential election in December 2006.

    “I think the country’s Constitution should be changed. This first of all concerns presidential terms. We have no right to deprive people of the possibility of electing a leader they like for a fourth, fifth or sixth term,” he said.

    Yet, John Edwards and Barack Obama announced the other day during their debate that they’d meet with Chavez (and Castro) according to the Miami Herald (commentary from Babalu Blog). Since Hugo counts Edwards supporter Danny Glover among his pals, there’s absolutely no doubt that they would.

    Despite Chavez guarentees to Venezuelans that their private property rights would be protected by his revolution, he left enough wiggle room in his remarks to steal opponents private property (like he did with RCTV) in the style of Robert Mugabe;

    President Hugo Chavez assured private property owners their rights will be guaranteed in Venezuela under a pending constitutional reform, as long as proprietors and investors respect the law.
     
    “Our socialism accepts private property,” Chavez said in comments published Sunday on the Web site of Union Radio. “It’s only that this private property must be within the framework of the constitution.”

    He did not elaborate, saying only that he would present his proposal to lawmakers in the coming weeks. Few details have emerged from a committee Chavez has appointed to draft the proposed overhaul.

    Critics accuse Chavez of steering this oil-rich South American nation toward Cuba-style communism, and many wealthy Venezuelans fear second homes, yachts or other assets could be seized.

    Chavez denies copying Havana’s economic model, and counters that Venezuela’s socialist reforms will merely broaden the concept of ownership.

    Just like he did with petroleum and power companies – as long as they did what Hugo wanted them to do, they could continue to do business. Constitutional guarentees mean nothing in Venezuela these days since Chavez can now rule by decree – the Venezuelan Constitution is what Hugo says it is.

  • Taliban Guantanamo Grad takes the easy way out

    Abdullah Mehsud, Guantanamo Class of ’04, decided it was better to blow himself to smithereens than to end up in a Pakistani prison according to the Globe and Mail;

    Abdullah Mehsud, 31, spent over 2 years in Guantanamo.

    Shortly after his release in March 2004, Mr. Mehsud shot to prominence by kidnapping two Chinese engineers working in South Waziristan, a region known as a hotbed of support for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

    “He was killed in a house in Zhob,” Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said, referring to a district of southwest Baluchistan province neighbouring Waziristan.

    A counter-terrorism squad acting on a tip-off raided the house belonging to a senior official from the pro-Taliban Islamist party of Fazal-ur-Rehman, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly.

    “We asked them to surrender but they opened fire,” Mira Jan, the chief administrator for Zhob, told Reuters.

    But how could this be? Abdullah signed a pledge that he’d avoid violence before he was released from Guantanamo. Surely, there’s some mistake. There’s no way those poor innocents held captive in Guantanamo could harm anyone.

    From a three-year-old Reuters story;

    Despite gaining their freedom by signing pledges to renounce violence, at least seven former prisoners of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism, at times with deadly consequences.

    […]

    The former prisoners include Abdullah Mehsud, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee linked to Al Qaeda who oversaw the recent kidnapping in Pakistan of two Chinese engineers, one of whom was killed.

    On Friday, Pakistani soldiers began a massive search for Mehsud, 28, who returned to Pakistan in March after about two years’ detention at Guantanamo. Pakistan officials say he has forged ties with Al Qaeda since then.

    Oh, so there’s been a massive search for Abby since 2004. From a BBC profile of Abby;

    In a telephone interview with the BBC in 2004, Mehsud told our correspondent that he led his fighters by example by taking risks and surviving in tough conditions.

    Criticising US policies toward Muslims, he said the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan was a provocation for the followers of Islam and must be avenged.

    So what do we do now? Now that we’ve suddenly, just today, learned that terrorists don’t keep their word? What’s the alternative to Guantanamo since we can’t imprison thugs and apparently we can’t release them on their own recognizance. What do the brilliant human rights advocates on the Left suggest we do?

    Seems we have a tiger by the tail.

  • Hugo Chavez barking at the moon again

    I see Hugo is now concerned that non-Venzuelans might criticise him while visiting Venezuela according to AP (by way of Fox News);

    President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreigners who publicly criticize him or his government while visiting Venezuela will be expelled from the country.

    Chavez ordered officials to closely monitor statements made by international figures during their visits to Venezuela — and deport any outspoken critics.

    “How long are we going to allow a person — from any country in the world — to come to our own house to say there’s a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?” Chavez asked during his weekly television and radio program.

    The Venezuelan leader’s statements came after Manuel Espino, the president of Mexico’s conservative ruling party, criticized Chavez during a recent pro-democracy forum in Caracas.

    That’s odd since Chavez came to the United States last year and said this about our government, according to CNN;

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tore into his U.S. counterpart and his U.N. hosts Wednesday, likening President Bush to the devil and telling the General Assembly that its system is “worthless.”

    “The devil came here yesterday,” Chavez said, referring to Bush, who addressed the world body during its annual meeting Tuesday. “And it smells of sulfur still today.”

    Chavez accused Bush of having spoken “as if he owned the world” and said a psychiatrist could be called to analyze the statement.

    “As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: ‘The Devil’s Recipe.’ ”

    Chavez held up a book by Noam Chomsky on imperialism and said it encapsulated his arguments: “The American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its hegemonistic system of domination, and we cannot allow him to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.”

    Notice he said “the American empire” not “the Bush empire”…so there is an equivalance. Did President Bush react by expelling Chavez? Did he pass free speech “reforms” like Chavez has done?

    So who’s the dictator here? 

    Michael Moynihan recalls Daniel Ortega’s similar behavior more than twenty years ago. 

  • Senate Democrats: Victory is not an option

    Yesterday, the Senate Democrats surrendered to the will of the American people, temporarily – pledging to be a yammering pack of goofballs in the Fall, after they’ve rested up from accomplishing nothing this year. From the Wall Street Journal’s David Rogers;

    Senate Democrats abruptly postponed further debate on the Iraq war, betting that time and grass-roots pressure over the August recess will bring them the Republican votes they now lack to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

    I guess hatin’ is hard work for the players. Since they ca’t do the business of the American people, the Democrats are going to let idiots like MoveOn and Code Pink do their job for them according to the Washington Post;

    But Reid’s decision pleased antiwar groups, which have pressed Democrats to bring the war to a close. “I think Senator Reid took an important step toward confronting Republican obstructionism and ending the war,” said Tom Matzzie, a strategist for MoveOn.org.

    Matzzie said his group’s efforts are concentrated on “forcing the entire Republican Party to look over the side of the cliff” at the political consequences of continuing to stand by Bush. Antiwar groups are focused in particular on Senate Republicans up for reelection next year.

    “Ultimately, we end the war by creating a toxic political environment for war supporters like the Republicans in the Senate,” Matzzie said.

    I wonder if Matzzie and the mindless minions of the Left have given a thought to the fact that Congressional Democrats are nearing single-digits in approval rating polls because most Americans don’t like the surrender chatter coming from the Democrats? 

    The Senate [sleepover in-] action took place as a Zogby poll released yesterday showed that 14 percent of likely voters rated Congress’ performance as excellent or good — 20 points below Mr. Bush’s 34 percent and the lowest ever recorded by the pollster.

    Of course not. It’s the Democrats who aren’t listening to the American people inside their echo-chamber. From the Washington Times’ Sean Lengell and Christopher Dolan;

    But Democrats, responding to their anti-war base, vowed to keep applying pressure.

    “We believe that with time, when we come back to this bill as soon as we possibly can, that we’re going to pick up even more support when the American people see who has voted to change course and who did not,” said Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat who authored the measure.

    Added Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat: “We’re not going to stop until we get to 60.”

    See? “Responding to their base” – not “responding to the American people” or “responding to the terrorist threat” – responding to their base. There’s nothing in this that bolsters our national security or makes our soldiers safer – it’s all pure politics. Politics of the anti-American Left.

    And they can stop calling MoveOn.dorks an anti-war group, by the way. they’re an anti-Bush group that grew out of a Clinton defense group. They’re anti-Republican – it’s just that shallow and pointless.

    So all of that bluster the other night got the Senate Democrats one more surrender vote;

    “At the end of this debate, we’re all a little bit weary, but we’re one vote closer to ending this war,” said Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat. “Many senators who’ve gone home and said they’re opposed to the war voted to continue the war today. They’ll have to answer to the voters.”
     

    Three other Republicans — Sens. Gordon H. Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, critics of the war, and Susan Collins of Maine — voted with 47 Democrats. Miss Collins said she supported providing an up-or-down vote on the measure but did not support the legislation.

    One vote. All of that taxpayer money for 1 stupid vote. From a RINO, no less. If the Democrats are in such a hurry to surrender, they should surrender to common sense for a change.

  • NIE: SSDD

    The latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) seems to have all of the anti-war deepthinkers in knotted knickers. The Washington Post acts like this is truly news;

    The White House faced fresh political peril yesterday in the form of a new intelligence assessment that raised sharp questions about the success of its counterterrorism strategy and judgment in making Iraq the focus of that effort.

    Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has been able to deflect criticism of his counterterrorism policy by repeatedly noting the absence of any new domestic attacks and by citing the continuing threat that terrorists in Iraq pose to U.S. interests.

    But this line of defense seemed to unravel a bit yesterday with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate that concludes that al-Qaeda “has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability” by reestablishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership. The report also notes that al-Qaeda has been able “to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks,” by associating itself with an Iraqi subsidiary.

    Anyone shocked? Nope, me neither. Terrorists will continue to regenerate as long as there’s a chance they can get their enemies to let them have the run of the world. The Left and the anti-war-at-any-cost crowd give them hope for that chance. But anyone who is surprised that terrorists are still trying to terrorize need to go back and read the dictionary definition of terrorist.

    From Washington Times’ Bill Gertz;

    “Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here,” the report stated.

    Retired Vice Adm. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence whose office produced the NIE, said the United States will face a “persistent and evolving terrorist threat” in the next three years.

    What a waste of Bill Gertz’ talents – that “bug duh” moment. As long as  it’s possible that the US Left divides the country for purely policitical reasons, the terrorist threat will always evolve to take advantage of their naivete`.

    Contrast these two views from the Gertz story;

    “It is deeply troubling that more that nearly six years after 9/11, al Qaeda maintains a safe haven, an intact leadership and the capability to plan further attacks,” said Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat and 2008 presidential candidate. “It is time to act to correct those mistakes, and the first step is to get out of Iraq, because you can’t win a war when you’re on the wrong battlefield.”

    House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said the NIE shows that the United States must keep up the fight against terrorists.

    “Retreat is not a ‘new way forward’ when the safety and security of future generations of Americans are at stake,” Mr. Boehner said.

    Instead of deciding that fighting harder and more united is the answer young Barack decides that getting out is the answer. That’s just cowardly…and partisan. AT least we have John Boehner to call them wimps to their faces.

    Meanwhile, my new buddy Robin at Chickenhawk Express delivers deadly blows to that [d]ick Clarke’s “analysis” of the NIE.

  • Political theater; employing the unemployable

    Last night, while no one watched or cared, I guess the Senate tried to pull an all-night exercise in insanity – voting on the same measure again-and-again each time, amazingly, having the same result. Of course the Washington Post thought it was really good and important stuff;

    Earlier in the day, Reid had ordered cots to be set up in a ceremonial room off the Senate floor, and reporters were alerted when the beds, along with pillows, were delivered in the afternoon.

    The office of Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) dispatched interns to buy toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant for delivery to GOP leadership offices, with a note offering the “supplies for your sleepless night.” It added: “Help us bring an end to this war.”

    “Will the all-night session change any votes? I hope so,” said Reid. “Because it will focus attention on the obstructionism of the Republicans.”

    Not “it will end terrorism in our time” or even “we’re going to show those terrorists we mean business”, but rather “it will focus attention on the obstructionism of Republicans” – because, as we know, those Republicans are a dangerous bunch. They’re capable of killing millions of Americans while they sleep if it weren’t for the brave souls of the Democrat Party frantically waving their white flags in front of TV cameras.

    Sean Lengell from the Washington Times reports that;

    Some Democrats left the session temporarily to attend a candlelight antiwar rally across from the Capitol.

    Majority Leader Harry Reid said the unusual session was necessary because Republicans refused to agree to a simple majority to pass the bill and were intent on filibustering an amendment that called for pulling most troops out of Iraq by April 30.

    “If Republicans insist on blocking change of course in Iraq, we have no alternative but to keep them in session to have them explain their obstruction,” the Nevada Democrat said. “Republicans will need to choose whether they want to protect the president or protect our troops.”

    Yeah, if the Republicans insist on making Congress keep its word to wait until September, the Democrats will make them stay up all night. If Harry Reid cared a whit for the troops, he’d shut his chickenshit mouth for a minute and let them do their jobs.

    And all the while the grotesque hags of Tickled Pink and the assorted malcontents of the Left stood outside and chanted like the screeching harpies they are. From the Post, again;

    The group VoteVets.org called in Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans to spend the night in the Senate gallery. MoveOn.org organized “counter-filibusters” in which protesters outside Senate offices and in other public places read firsthand accounts from Iraq war veterans and military families. “We’ll send a clear message to senators and the media that this isn’t about partisan games — it’s about people’s lives,” the group said.

    Yeah, it’s not about partisan games is it MoveOn.dorks – wasn’t it Move On that led the charge against Lieberman because he disagreed with their BDS-driven agenda?

    No mention, however, of the group Vets for Freedom who made the rounds of Congress all day yesterday urging Congress to wait until September like they promised. I wonder why? Probably because they wore boring tan polo shirts instead of garish pink boas and they didn’t chant mindless drivel or wave idiot signs.

    This was pure political theater – it was so Democrats could prove to their tiny minority of “anti-war at any price” crowd that Democrats are listening to their squeakiest wheels.

    Anyone for a minute think that Joe Six-pack gives a tiny rat’s ass that a hundred pampered people and their pampered staffs stayed awake one night? Nope the only people who care are the breathless hundreds who blogged all night about this non-event.

  • CAIR: US causes terrorism (UPDATED)

    Audrey Hudson and Sara Carter of the Washington Times report that CAIR spokeman Parvez Ahmed told an audience at the National Press Club that its Bush’s fault that Americans are mistrustful of Islam;

     A Muslim civil rights group yesterday blamed the Bush administration for promoting “Islamophobia” and said the “war on terror” won’t stop terrorists.

    “The new perception is that the United States has entered a war with Islam itself,” said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the national board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

    “Terrorism is a tactic. You cannot eradicate it by declaring a war against it. The war on terror is causing us infinitely more harm than the terrorists could have ever imagined.”

    Yeah, that’s the ticket. Let’s ignore the dozen or so attacks on Americans and our interests throughout the world over the past decade-and-a-half. It wasn’t until we declared war on terrorists that people became aware of the plots against us – aware of the war Osama bin Laden declared against us a decade ago. Maybe there’s a perception that we’re fighting Islam because organizations like CAIR refuse to condemn terrorist attacks against the US. Think?

    “It is important to bear in mind that terrorists cannot destroy America,” he said[….]  The U.S., he said, is too powerful and too resourceful for terrorists to defeat.

    So we should just sit back and let the terrorists have at us…like we did from 1993 to 2001. Yeah, no problem with that, I guess. Well, except for the people who get killed in the interim.

    I guess the fact that CAIR thinks we should stop fighting the war against terrorists is enough reason to continue fighting the war against terrorists.

    UPDATE: I’m listening to the Chris Core Show on WMAL (about 10 AM), and apparently Audrey Hudson, one of the writers on this Washington Times story was escorted from the press conference – she claims she was warned in advance that she wasn’t welcome. Probably because of the bang-up job she’s been doing on the Flying Imams story.

    Isn’t it odd that a journalist is barred from a news event at the National Press Club – probably a news event held in the prestigious First Amendment Room on the top floor, too. 

    Hudson anounced that CAIR doesn’t tell her what her “news beat” is and she’ll continue to cover CAIR whenever the Times assigns her. Sara Carter, Hudson’s co-author of this story, just made her bones on this, her first story. Let’s see how long before CAIR bars her from their propaganda sessions.

    Of course, CAIR disagrees with Hudson’s story (she says she missed only a few minutes of the end of the conference) but they refused to come on Core’s show and explain what was inaccurate about the Times story. Wonder why?Â