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

Category: Terror War

  • Who’s watching the gatekeepers?

    Sara Carter of the Washington Times reports that USCIS agents are aiding islamic terrorists;

    A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

    The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated “due to lack of resources” in the agency’s internal affairs department.

    “Two District Adjudications Officers are allegedly involved with known (redacted) Islam terrorist members,” said the internal document obtained by The Washington Times.

    The group “was responsible for numerous robberies and used the heist money to fund terrorist activities. The District Adjudications Officers made numerous DHS database queries to track (Alien)-File movement and check on the applicants’ status for (redacted) members and associates.”

    Of course, the government blames the problem on a lack of funds and manpower – the real problem is that they’re hiring potential criminals. It seems to me that there would be some indication that a person will cooperate with terrorists before he or she is hired. I have no idea what that might be, but I’ve got some ideas (that I’ll just keep to myself).

    It also seems to me that no one person can sidestep the law alone – it takes an accomplice (knowing the redundancy in the US government like I do). No, it’s not money or manpower, it’s the laziness, both physically and intellectually, of management that there’s no way to monitor these rogue agents of the American people.

  • Finally, some reality for Iran

    According to Robin Wright at the Washington Post, the US government is planning on designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a “terrorist organization”;

    The United States has decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a “specially designated global terrorist,” according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group’s business operations and finances.

    The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran’s nuclear program, officials said.

    Well, it’s about-damn-time. The Post goes on to explain some of the US’ options on dealing with Iran;

    The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that “provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists.”

    […]

    “Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. “It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people.”

    For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

    It’ll also give the US the option of using force to shut down the Iran/Iraq border.

    I can’t remember where I read it now, but PPK terrorists in Turkish Kurdistan derailed a train last week that was delivering rockets and arms to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon from Iran. This wasn’t discovered until Turkish investigators searched the freight on the overturned train. How strangely silent the media has been on that little discovery.

    But really strange is discovering that Reuters has writers that can actually spell the word “terrorist“.

    I expect the Democrats, and especially Nancy Pelosi, our new diplomat to the Near East terrorist organizations,  to condemn this as being counter to the Iraq Study Group’s proposal that we talk with Iran until we’re blue in the face.

  • Eugene Robinson; hyperpartisan bitter hack

    I’ve never hidden my disdain for Eugene Robinson, probably the worst columnist ever hired by any media outlet in the history of western civilization, and today will not be any different. His unmitigated drivel appears every week in the Washington Post  – it’s poorly researched and poorly written. And entirely partisan – right down to the punctuation.

    Today he tried to formulate a case against Karl Rove. Besides beginning the piece with childish bitterness and what he probably thought was a down-home witticism about the door hitting Rove in his behind (which came off like playground taunt more than witty), Robinson couldn’t help but play to the ignorant Democrat stereotypes of Republicans;

    Rove’s reputation as the great political thinker of his era took a severe beating in November, when, despite his confident predictions of a Republican victory, Democrats took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

    But let’s give the man his due. Karl Rove managed to get George Walker Bush elected president of the United States, not once but twice. Okay, you’re right, the first time he needed big assists from Katherine Harris (speaking of lipstick) and the U.S. Supreme Court, but still. Honesty requires the acknowledgment that Rove was very good at what he did.

    Yeah, that pesky Supreme Court always ruling with the law instead of with the Democrats, and so what if Katherine Harris followed procedures – she should have just done what Robinson wanted her to do. How dare that woman wear lipstick!

    For crying out loud. Did hack Robinson have to troll through Democratic Underground archives to rekindle his misbegotten anger at the rule of law?

    The problem, of course, is that what Rove did and how he did it were awful for the nation.

    Rove announced he was quitting as White House deputy chief of staff in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying that while he knew some people would claim he was just trying to elude congressional investigators, “I’m not going to stay or leave based on whether it pleases the mob.” That’s the man, right there in that quote: Benighted fools who don’t blindly trust his honesty or fully appreciate his genius are nothing more than “the mob.”

    Hey, Eugene, notice how awkward that first sentence sounds? Was your editor taking the day off?

    And if you ever took the time to look at the Left from a nonpartisan perspective (that’ll be the day, huh, Genie) you’d see they look like a mob. They want to investigate legal activity by the Republicans, they want to impeach a President for doing his job within the confines of the law, they want to subpeona law abiding citizens to appear in front of their kangaroo committee hearings for no other reason than to please goofballs in pink boas – and goofball columnists at the Post. They waiting in drooling anticipation for Scooter Libby to go to jail and whine like two-year-olds when he doesn’t.

    When the same Constitution that has served us so well for more than 200 years gets in their way, they declare that we should rewrite it to suit them. When the Supreme Court rules against their nefarious sidestepping of the rule of law, we have to change the Court. Have you seen the weirdos and goofballs that show up at these leftist “rallies”? They’re a fricken’ mob, Genie.

    Rove didn’t invent “wedge” politics, but he was an adept practitioner of that sordid art. When Bush was campaigning in 2000, he proclaimed himself “a uniter, not a divider.” But the Bush-Rove theory of politics and governance has been divide, divide, divide — either you’re “with us” or “against us,” either you’re right or you’re wrong, either you should be embraced or attacked without quarter.

    No he didn’t invent wedge politics – that was your boys that did that. When Republicans won the 1994 midterms, it was the Left that was screaming that children were going to starve to death in their school seats, that Black churches were going to be burned in the South, that old people were going to be cast out into the street and forced to live on cat food.

    And I remember a time when George Bush tried to be a uniter – I remember him and Teddy Kennedy smiling while he signed the “No Child Left Behind Act” – and within days Kennedy was condemning the very same act he’d written himself. I remember nearly every Democrat in Congress voted for the PATRIOT Act, and then condemned it. I remember when every Democrat thought Hussein had weapons of mass destruction – but how many admit it now?

    Don’t hand me that crap, Genie. If Rove did anything, he made it politically costly for Democrats to propagate their lies. Grow the hell up, Junior.

    Yesterday, in remarks on the White House lawn, Rove praised Bush for putting the nation “on a war footing” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But that’s precisely what Bush failed to do. Rather than try to foster a spirit of national solidarity and shared sacrifice, he persisted with tax cuts designed to please his wealthiest supporters. Rather than engage critics of the war in any meaningful dialogue, Bush accused them of wanting to “cut and run.” Rather than actually practicing the bipartisanship he disingenuously preached, Bush governed with a hyperpartisan political agenda.

    A hyperpartisan agenda? I guess the word partisan has lost it’s currency with overuse so we have resort to fabricated superlatives now. Since when is letting working Americans keep their own money dividing America. And how is Democrats wanting to protect Iraqis from Diego Garcia not cutting and running? How is “Bring the troops home now” not cutting and running? What is there to discuss about that? Other than just caving into partisan hacks like yourself. 

    Let me tell you, you half-witted buffoon, if its at all possible for anything to be “hyperpartisan”, it’s policizing the war, it’s placing our national security, our standing in the world in jeopardy for a few votes, and a few kudos from the pink boa-wearing hags. It’s refusing to believe that there is a danger in the world that’s greater than the opposing political party.

    Hyperpartisanship could probably be personified by three Democrat Congressmen standing on the roof of Saddam Hussein’s palace and declaring that Saddam Hussein is a more honest broker than the President of the United States. Hyperpartisan, indeed.

    Rove’s new job will be to put lipstick on Bush’s hideous legacy — and, in the process, freshen up his own.

    History will do that, without Rove’s help. However, you and your ignorant, ranting shit-for-brains friends might want to ask Bill Clinton if he knows anyone at Revlon that can get you a deal on lipstick in bulk.

  • Democrats target 12 GOP seats

    Democrats are planning for failure in Iraq, but if their misinformation campaign that they’re waging against our natonal security doesn’t work after they get the report from the Pentagon next month, they’ve targeted 12 Republicans in vulnerable districts with another misinformation campaign. Washington Times’ Sean Lengell writes;

    “This August we’re going district by district to urge Republicans to stop obstructing progress and work with us to end the war in Iraq,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat and DCCC chairman. “Republicans who continue to vote in lock step with the President Bush’s failed Iraq policy will be held accountable.”

    Well, Chris Van Hollen, my Congressman, I’m holding you accountable for every American death in Iraq for voting and making statements that are in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Mookie al Sadr, Iran’s Mikey Dinnerjacket, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and the rest of the anti-US crowd of clowns.

    In fact, I’m seriously considering a run at your seat – in a heavily Hispanic district, I have a shot at beating you and your lily-white country club, Prius-driving crowd, too. If the Army decides they don’t want me back. So you might worry about your own seat.

    The ads are running in the districts of Reps. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois, Joe Knollenberg of Michigan, Jon Porter of Nevada, Mike Ferguson of New Jersey, Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, James T. Walsh of New York, Deborah Pryce of Ohio, Phil English, Jim Gerlach and Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, and Dave Reichert of Washington.

    They’re underestimating Jim Walsh, my former Congressman. He has alot of support in conservative Syracuse.

    The koolaid-drinking doesn’t end with Bethesda hippie/yuppie Van Hollen;

    “The American people want a new direction in Iraq yet President Bush and his Republican allies are stubbornly supporting a policy that is making America less safe,” DNC Chairman Howard Dean said.

    Americans want to win in Iraq, Howie. Your problem is that you get all of your information from the internet, not from the American people. Just because those fat cows dressed in Pink are the most vocal, doesn’t mean they represent anyone except themselves.

    The Democrats are going to pay a huge price for listening to the hairy-armpitted women and the pony-tailed bald guys – just like Howard Dean paid a huge price for thinking the internet Left represented the Democrat Party before Iowa in 2004.

  • TNR back from vacation with their Scott Thomas excuses

    I guess the editors of The New Republic are back from their vacation and trying to explain their journalistic shortcomings by blaming it on the Army in their newest A Scott Beauchamps Update;

    Although the Army says it has investigated Beauchamp’s article and has found it to be false, it has refused our–and others’–requests to share any information or evidence from its investigation. What’s more, the Army has rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants “to protect his privacy.”

    At the same time the military has stonewalled our efforts to get to the truth, it has leaked damaging information about Beauchamp to conservative bloggers.

    Well, I guess that’d be their perogative wouldn’t it? After all, you stonewalled when the dustup first began. Oh, and Beauchamps is now government property – he signed the papers fully knowing that would be the result.

    Earlier this week, The Weekly Standard‘s Michael Goldfarb published a report, based on a single anonymous “military source close to the investigation,” entitled “Beauchamp Recants,” claiming that Beauchamp “signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods–fabrications containing only ‘a smidgen of truth,’ in the words of our source.”

    Here’s what we know: On July 26, Beauchamp told us that he signed several statements under what he described as pressure from the Army. He told us that these statements did not contradict his articles. Moreover, on the same day he signed these statements for the Army, he gave us a statement standing behind his articles, which we published at tnr.com. Goldfarb has written, “It’s pretty clear the New Republic is standing by a story that even the author does not stand by.”

    Well, your boy Beauchamps lied to you about the melted-face contractor, at least on one “small” point about the geography and the chronology, why do do you still cling to him as a source? If the New Republic had a shed of journalistic integrity, they should at least say that their support for this fabulist is on hold – that they don’t stand behind him until new proof comes to light.

    In fact, it is our understanding that Beauchamp continues to stand by his stories and insists that he has not recanted them. The Army, meanwhile, has refused our requests to see copies of the statements it obtained from Beauchamp–or even to publicly acknowledge that they exist.

    Scott Beauchamp is currently a 24-year-old soldier in Iraq who, for the past 15 days, has been prevented by the military from communicating with the outside world, aside from three brief and closely monitored phone calls to family members.

    Again, the Army has that right – TNR has not been a rational actor in all of this. Their rush to print fables and fairie tales has not given the Army any confidence in their ability to report the truth, so why should the Army cooperate.

    We once again invite the Army to make public Beauchamp’s statements and the details of its investigation–and we ask the Army to let us (or any other media outlet, for that matter) speak to Beauchamp. Unless and until these things happen, we cannot fairly assess any of these reports about Beauchamp–and therefore have no reason to change our own assessment of Beauchamp’s work. If the truth ends up reflecting poorly on our judgment, we will accept responsibility for that. But we also refuse to rush to judgment on our writer or ourselves.

    Good. That’s the captain’s job – go down with the ship, then.

    The best line from this whole story comes, unsurprisingly, from Charles Krauthammer;

    We already knew from all of America’s armed conflicts — including Iraq — what war can make men do. The only thing we learn from Scott Thomas Beauchamp is what literary ambition can make men say.

    Personally, I’m tired of the whole story. But that’s what the editors of TNR want – like al Qaeda – they want to run out the clock and hope everyone forgets about the story or just gets weary of the whole thing. But I’m here until the bitter end. But, even AP is piling on TNR.

  • Guess life in Iran isn’t quite so rosy

    From reading the international press I got the impression that life in Iran was like living in a paradise (OK, I kid). Reading stuff that comes out of Chavez’ forays into the Ahmadinejad’s Islamic wonderland (or vice versa) like this from Truthout;

      “Venezuela and Iran have demonstrated that together, out of the reach of hegemony and American imperialism, they can work and improve,” Ahmadinejad said at the oil well in southeastern Venezuela.

        “For all the people who want to live free and independent, the message is that we can achieve this kind of victory. We are at the beginning of the path and we must know each other,” he said.

        During Ahmadinejad’s visit, Venezuela’s leftist president renewed his support for Iran’s disputed uranium enrichment program, which the United States and other Western countries fear would be used for the development of a nuclear bomb.

        The United States is pushing for sanctions to force Tehran to stop producing enriched uranium, which can be used both for nuclear power and atomic weapons. Iran insists that it seeks peaceful nuclear power to meet its energy needs.

        “We are with you president, we will defend the rights of the Iranian people,” Chavez, who has visited Iran several times, told Ahmadinejad.

    Do you mean rights like this from Kamangir:

    A new pro-polygamy bill has just been sent to the parliament by the cabinet. The bill eliminates the necessity of the wife’s permission for the husband getting married again. Labyrinth mocks the aspect of the bill which replaces the wife’s permission with only economic power [Persian].

    Or this one from Molten Thought:

    Taheri reports that, according to the head of the Contractual Workers’ Union, more than 25,000 members have been fired in the last four months, and more than 1,000 workers are being purged every single day. This is part of the mullahs’ vicious campaign against every possible source of open dissent against the regime. As you would expect in such circumstances, more and more workers are dying in “accidents,” some of which are not at all accidental, but cover-ups of assassinations.

    Or this little tale (from Saudi Arabia not Iran – but, well you know) from Confessions of a Closet Republican:

    Speaking to Arab News on phone from his cell in the Malaz prison, Mohammed said that after the woman received treatment and after he returned to Riyadh after three days in the Western Region, he was arrested after checking up on the woman’s health. In the woman’s apartment were three other women related to her.“I was glad to note that the lady was making steady progress,” he said. “While we were chatting, there was a knock on the door. When this lady opened the door, four or five Saudis, whom I had seen outside the building before, barged in. They accused me of being alone with the woman unrelated to me and suspected my intention behind this visit to her apartment.”

    Or perhaps this one from Zaneirani.

    Maybe Chavez would like to follow Iran’s example and order state-registration for bloggers?

    So exactly what rights are left for Iranians that Chavez can help defend from evil-assed America? The only “rights” that Chavez wants to defend is the right to oppose George Bush and the right to blame America for all your ills.

  • DEA report: Arabs immitating Mexicans

    According to Sara Carter of the Washington Times (upon whom I’m developing a crush, though we’ve never met, based purely on her journalistic production in the national security area in recent weeks), the DEA has released a report that Mexican drug smugglers are assisting Arabs to infiltrate the US;

    Islamic extremists embedded in the United States — posing as Hispanic nationals — are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report.

    “Since drug traffickers and terrorists operate in a clandestine environment, both groups utilize similar methodologies to function … all lend themselves to facilitation and are among the essential elements that may contribute to the successful conclusion of a catastrophic event by terrorists,” said the confidential report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

    But the main reason that the Homeland Security Department was formed is still an ongoing problem;

    Lack of information sharing between U.S. intelligence agencies is creating a blind spot in the war on terror and has left the U.S. vulnerable to another attack, the report states.

    So what, exactly, is Homeland Security doing? This is discouraging, to say the least.

    According to a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report obtained by The Times, nearly every part of the Border Patrol’s national strategy is failing.

    “Al Qaeda has been trying to smuggle terrorists and terrorist weapons illegally into the United States,” the 2006 document states. “This organization has also tried to enter the U.S. by taking advantage of its most vulnerable border areas. The seek to smuggle OTMs [other than Mexicans] from Middle Eastern countries into the U.S.”

    So where’s our wall?

  • Iranians working in concert with Democrats

    In this Fox News story, US forces officials are admitting that many of the roadside devices that are killing our troops are manufactured in Iran;

    High-tech bombs allegedly supplied by Iran were used in 99 roadside bomb attacks in Iraq last month, American officials say.

    The powerful weapons, known as explosively formed penetrators or EFPs, accounted for a third of combat deaths suffered by coalition forces, the New York Times reported.

    Well, that’s not news, is it? We’ve all known it for a while (except for some commenters here who think that Pakistan should be bombed instead of Iran), so what exactly are we waiting for? The news report does bring up one interesting point, though;

    Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, told the Times he believes Shiite extremists have stepped up attacks in anticipation of Gen. Petreus’ upcoming progress report to Congress on the war.

    In other words, the Iranians know they can force a US withdrawal by making Iraq appear hopeless in a relatively short period of time by playing to the Democrats’ surrender dreams. We had Harry Reid calling the surge a failure before it’s even begun – how far will Iranians have to push him before he falls over? Not far, I’m guessing.

    And with the slow withdrawal of British troops around Basra, sectarian violence is increasing behind them;

    As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

    Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets.

    Which is pretty much what will happen if we withdraw too soon – unless we clamp down on Iran…now! The Iranians know that Democrats are their best chance for turning the Middle East into a charred ember, for forcing their perverted form of extremely cruel brand of religious zealotry on the people that have been kept in the Dark Ages for a millenium by the backwards “religion of Peace” adherents.