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

Category: Terror War

  • JFK terror plot was Bush’s fault, of course

     

    As soon as I heard about the busted terror plot this last weekend, I shot over to Yahoo and searched for news stories. The only national network that had anything on the internet was CBS (shiver), but I went over to read the details. At the end of the story were readers’ comments. Every comment was about how this was a story planted by “BushCo” to scare the American people into submission. I should have screen-shot the article, but I figured “Well, it’s just a fringe”. People remember 9-11 sort of, these writers were just lunatics. I mean, someone must take these stories seriously besides Republicans, right?

    But, SisterToldja reports that the LA Times says that the plot wasn’t a big deal anyway. So the terrorists that BushCo didn’t really catch in the act, weren’t going to be successful anyway. Bloodthirsty Liberal takes the NY Times to task for similar treatment of the story.

    See, here’s the way I see it. Yeah, these four dimwits and the Dix Six were pretty incompetent and borderline retarded in their planning, but the fact remains that they were committed to killing scores, if not thousands of Americans on our own soil. Left to their own devices, sooner or later they would have been successful. Maybe not as successful as they’d have liked, but somewhat successful. Even one life lost would have been one too many.

    So why are these acts being marginalized in the media? Lord help me, the media still brags about Clinton’s awesome success at stopping the Millenium LAX bombing – which was just as half-assed as any of these. And Eric Rudolph’s Atlanta, Georgia bombing at the Olympics still killed 2 and injured 111 people – again a half-assed attempt by an incompetent moron. 

    Even the Murrah Building bombing was accomplished by a gaggle of want-wits who didn’t have a plan more complicated than the old infantryman’s demolition math (P=Plenty, for the uninitiated) and parking a truck in front of the target and skee-daddling. McVeigh couldn’t even do that right – driving down the interstate with no license plate on his car.

    All criminals are stupid – that’s why they’re criminals.

    And yesterday I heard rumors about John Murtha blaming Bush for these terrorists, but I wanted to see it for myself (I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste my Sunday morning staring at that idiot George Stephanopolis and his ridiculous 12-year-old schoolboy haircut).

    So this morning, sure as it rains, I find the video at Newsbusters and Flopping Aces. Murtha claims that if President Bush hadn’t attacked Iraq, those terrorist plotters wouldn’t have been tempted to bomb JFK airport (not that it would have been successful or that the terrorists really existed in the first place).

    One of them had been in this country, working and retired for 30-fricken-years. He just decided in 2003 that we needed to be attacked? And how about the attack in 1993? Was that because we attacked the Iraqi Army in 1991 while they barbequeing in Kuwait? How about the embassy bombings in Africa, the Khobar Towers bombing, the attack on the USS Cole – did those attacks happen because of something we had done?

    Murtha is cranky old fool and the Democrats had better put a lid on him before he becomes the face of their party. Or before someone takes a swing at his wrinkled old mug.

    Makes me agree with Brit Hume when he said a few months ago;

    Even the “Washington Post” noted [Murtha] didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cachet among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.

    And that sound bite is naivete at large, and the man is an absolute fountain of such talk, and the fact that he has ascended to the position he has in the eyes of the Democrats in the House and perhaps Democrats around the country tells you a lot about how much they know or care about what’s really going on over there.

    Maybe if we put Murtha’s office in Okinawa he’ll have a better idea of what’s happening in the world.

    But, put him in the group of idiots like one of my own crackpots who emails me (because I won’t let him post here) this morning that since 17 of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis we should have attacked Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq. That’s just simplistic and naive – can you imagine what the Democrats would be saying if we’d attacked Saudi Arabia?

    It also demonstrates the childishness of these morons. They’re convinced that our foreign policy should be based on pure, simple revenge – an emotion – instead of reasoned insight about who are our enemies and who wishes us ill because of who we are. The Saudis are fighting the same groups that we’re fighting – for the same reasons we’re fighting them. How does it make sense that we’d turn on the Saudis?

    But no one has ever accused the Left of being reasonable people. 

  • Not much news out of Venezuela, huh?

    Funny how there was a flurry of news reports the other day from Venezuela after Hugo Chavez ordered opposition TV station RCTV closed and Venezuelans took to the streets, but now there’s barely a peep.

    Chavez decision apparently is effecting the financial markets there, according to Bloomberg;

    Venezuela’s bonds fell to an 11-month low after the government’s shutdown of Radio Caracas Television sparked clashes between police and protesters.

    * * * * *

    “Venezuela is underperforming, reflecting the latest move against the television station,” said Alberto Ramos, a senior Latin America economist with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York. “Every single iteration reminds us of the moves against institutions that erode checks and balances in Venezuela.”

    That prompted Venezuela’s announcement that they’ll be selling joint bonds with Bolivia this year, as reported by Dow Jones;  

    Venezuela’s government plans to sell $500 million in bonds through a joint issue with the Bolivian government, as the country extends its debt issuance program, Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said Wednesday.

    The bond with Bolivia could be sold in the first half of this year, Cabezas told reporters after a finance commission meeting.

    President Hugo Chavez’s administration is also looking to sell another joint bond with Argentina, dubbed the Bond of the South III, for between $500 million and $1 billion, Cabezas said.

    What bubblehead would risk their capital in South American debt given the current climate?  Evo Morales, President of Bolivia and Chavez’ poodle, throwing his country’s treasury in with Chavez’ is guaranteeing a massive meltdown when those interest payments come due.

    Bonds are only as good as the debtor’s ability to pay, and the investors’ willingness to buy debt – and things ain’t looking so good down there. Seizing oil fields and gas fields isn’t going to make foreigners want to buy – especially buy debt. Of course, it’ll somehow be the US’ fault.

    And Chavez isn’t done destroying the infrastructure in Venezuela yet, either, according to Reuters today;

    As tens of thousands of people marched here Tuesday in protest of President Hugo Chavez’s closure of opposition television station RCTV, the leftist leader called the news channel Globovision an enemy of the state.

    The protests were in their fourth consecutive day, but state television showed hundreds of government supporters marching in downtown Caracas to celebrate Chavez’s move.

    “Enemies of the homeland, particularly those behind the scenes, I will give you a name: Globovision. Greetings gentlemen of Globovision, you should watch where you are going,” Chavez said in a broadcast that all channels were required to show.

    “I recommend you take a tranquilizer and get into gear, because if not, I am going to do what is necessary,” he added.

    Chavez accused Globovision of trying to incite his assassination and of misreporting protests over the closure of Radio Caracas Television in a manner that could whip up a situation similar to a coup attempt against him in 2002.

    But that hasn’t stopped Globovision from reporting favorably on the anti-Chavez protests today;

    A las 11:00 de la mañana se concentraron en la Plaza Brión de Chacaito jóvenes estudiantes de las universidades Católica, Central, Santa María, José María Vargas, UNEFA, Metropolitana, con la intención de marchar a la Defensoría del Pueblo, donde exigirían al organismo defender sus derechos fundamentales.

    (A rough translation: At 11 am this morning a concentration in [some town square] young students of [some universities] assembled with the intention to march on People’s Defense Office organized to defend the  fundamental rights of citizens.)

    From Venezuela’s English-language newspaper, The Daily Journal;

    Information Minister Willian Lara on Monday accused Globovisión of encouraging an attempt on Chávez’ life by broadcasting the chorus of a salsa tune – “Have faith, this doesn’t end here” – along with footage of the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square.
    “They incite the assassination of Venezuela’s president,” he said.
    Globovisión director Alberto Federico Ravell denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations “ridiculous.”

    Today’s La Voz (The Voice) headline reads; “Estudiantes no abandonan las calles” (The students won’t give up the streets) 

    Chavez needs enemies, either real ones or pretend ones to circumvent the laws – that’s why he needed Bush as his chief boogieman and he fired up the crowds with Bush’s evil intentions to assasinate him. Of course, his strut around the UN last year was just playing to the cameras for folks back home – just like Chavez’ pledge of support for Iran was playing to the US cameras for the anti-Bush Left.

    All ya’all Venezuelans better not be around when Chavez runs out of enemies.

    According to AP;

    The State Department on Tuesday called on the Chavez government “to reverse policies that limit freedom of expression.”

    However, I haven’t heard any of the so-called “liberals” condemning the loss of freedom for Venezuelans to hear an opinion that might be opposed to the government’s. Where are they? In fact, the usual suspects are strangely quiet given the extent of the news coverage last weekend and the holiday.

    Great background on RCTV’s closure by Fausta Wertz at Pajamas Media.

    Fox News’ Adam Housley still has a live blog from the protests up over there. Strangely, he hasn’t been blogging today although the Venezuelan press reports that protests are in their fourth day.

  • That’s what we get

    On this morning’s front page of the Washington Post, reporter Jon Ward Anderson announces that “US, Iran Open Dialogue“;

    The United States and Iran held their first official high-level, face-to-face talks in almost 30 years Monday to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, and officials emerged generally upbeat about the renewed dialogue, suggesting additional meetings were likely.

    Yay! We did what the Iraq Study Group said was crucial for ending the war in Iraq.

    This morning, Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs calls it the “Worst Idea of the Year” and the Iranians waste no time proving Johnson right. According to AP, by way of Fox News Channel;

    U.S. academic Haleh Esfandiari and two other Iranian-Americans have been “formally charged” with endangering national security and espionage, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.

    “Esfandiari has been formally charged with endangering national security through propaganda against the system and espionage for foreigners,” Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters. “She has been informed of the charges against her. The complainant is the Intelligence Ministry.”

    So that’s what we get. To us Westerners, negotiating is just the civilized thing to do – discussing our differences is reasonable. But to 7th century throwbacks like the Iranians, it’s a sign of weakness. This just an attempt to see if they can push us even further than they’ve already pushed us.

    In fact, on the main issue, that of Iranians supplying anti-government forces in Iraq, the Iranians were evasive and downright mocking in their tone;

    The American envoy called the meeting “businesslike” and said at “the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position as articulated by the Iranian ambassador was very close to our own.”

    However, he said: “What we would obviously like to see, and the Iraqis would clearly like to see, is an action by Iran on the ground to bring what it’s actually doing in line with its stated policy.”

    Speaking later at a news conference in the Iranian Embassy, Kazemi said: “We don’t take the American accusations seriously.”

    They don’t take our accusations seriously is probably the understatement of the year. Mainly because no one in the West has the cajones to stand up to the goat ropers of Iran because we’re hamstrung by the anti-Bush/anti-US Democrats and the “Peace at any cost” Euro-weenies. And the Iranians are fully aware of it – these talks are just attempts at running out the clock on their nuclear program. In addition, any fingers they can stick in our eye are just frosting on the cake. 

    More here from a relative expert.

  • Memorial Day rememberances

    These are the daughters of Timothy (Griz) Lynn Martin taken nearly four years ago on the 10th anniversary of his death in Mogadishu. If you saw the movie or read the book Black Hawk Down, you know Tim’s story and what happened to him there.

    I’d known Tim nearly 19 years when he was killed (we met at the Reception Station, went through Basic, AIT, Basic Airborne School and Camp Mackall together) and I’d never met his family – but thanks to the internet, I found his wife who sent me most of the pictures that are posted at the link above.

    This is from the year before, when I’d finally found him.

    He was probably snickering his ass off seeing me slogging through the mud in the pourin’-ass rain looking for him. But I know he’d have done it for me.

    Rosie O’Donnell calls our troops terrorists, Dick Durbin calls them SS Nazi camp guards, John Murtha calls them murderers, John Kerry says they’re too stupid to know better than to go to war, John Edwards wants to stand on their corpses so he can see above the crowd.

    But there are folks who know the troops only as Dad or Mom, Honey, my Brother or my Sister and my Son or my Daughter. And, perhaps unfairly, those folks pay a higher cost for our personal freedom and peace than most people are willing to think about.

    That’s why, on this Memorial Day, I want to add those who “also serve” as the families of servicemembers to my list of “thankees”.

    There are more Memorial Day tributes at:

    Crotchety Old Bastard

    Flopping Aces

    American Thinker

    Blackfive

    Hang Right Politics by COgirl and Big Mo

    The Opinion Journal

    The Right Wing Nut House

    Sister Toldja (with more links)

    Soldiers’ Angels New York

    The Anchoress (with more links)

    Oh, Hell, most of the links in my Blogroll have stuff – check them all out!

  • It ain’t just a river in Egypt, Edwards

    John Edwards, the prettiest girl in the Democrat field of Presidential candidates, denies that there’s a terrorist threat to this country, according to USAToday;

    Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a “global war on terror,” calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.

    In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a “bumper sticker” slogan President George W. Bush has used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad to the invasion of Iraq.

    “We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes,” Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. “By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set — that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam.”

    I’m sure that the Jersey Girls will be outraged that Edwards called their slaughtered husbands “bumper sticker slogans” for a “discredited ideology”. Funny, but we can replay the scenes of the World Trade Center attack over-and-over and some people still don’t believe it happened, I guess.

    I wonder what Edwards considers a 21st century threat – maybe split ends epidemics or caked mascara in the corner of his eye? Does he think that space aliens are going to fly their craft into the White House? What the hell could a 21st century threat be if not this global war against terror?

    Edwards outlined several steps he said he would pursue as president to strengthen the military, including using force only to pursue essential national security missions, improve civilian-military relations, and root out mismanagement at the Pentagon.

    Ah, that’s the real enemy – the Pentagon. Now we can see clearly – thank you, poodle-boy.

    I’ve catalogued on this blog that terrorists are cooperating across ideological borders to prepare for the next attack. If they can find IRA terrorists in Columbia and Basque separatists in Bolivia, what more proof do we need that there is a GLOBAL war against GLOBAL terrorists?

    Not only is Edwards wrong about terrorism, he’s wrong on the economy, too, according to the Wall Street Journal;

    It’s been a rough week for John Edwards, and now comes more bad news for his “two Americas” campaign theme. A new study by the Congressional Budget Office says the poor have been getting less poor. On average, CBO found that low-wage households with children had incomes after inflation that were more than one-third higher in 2005 than in 1991.

    The CBO results don’t fit the prevailing media stereotype of the U.S. economy as a richer take all affair — which may explain why you haven’t read about them. Among all families with children, the poorest fifth had the fastest overall earnings growth over the 15 years measured. (See the nearby chart.) The poorest even had higher earnings growth than the richest 20%. The earnings of these poor households are about 80% higher today than in the early 1990s.

    What happened? CBO says the main causes of this low-income earnings surge have been a combination of welfare reform, expansion of the earned income tax credit and wage gains from a tight labor market, especially in the late stages of the 1990s expansion. Though cash welfare fell as a share of overall income (which includes government benefits), earnings from work climbed sharply as the 1996 welfare reform pushed at least one family breadwinner into the job market.

    If Edwards can’t get simple economics right, how can we trust him to handle the big stuff – like our lives.

  • What would we do without Hillary

    I guess Hillary Clinton (D-NY Carpetbagger) figures she’s the only one on the planet to think the Pentagon needs to have contingency plans. In a letter to Defense Secretary Gates, she prodded the seasoned professional to produce a withdrawal plan from Iraq. From AP:

    The Democratic presidential candidate, whose recent statements have made her own position murky on when the bulk of U.S. troops should leave Iraq, urged top military brass in a private meeting and a public letter to detail how they would bring forces home.

    The New York senator met privately with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace late Tuesday, and sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging military leaders to begin such planning if they haven’t already.

    The move by Clinton follows word from Baghdad that Iraqi military officials are drawing up plans for the possibility of a withdrawal of U.S. forces, and a failure by congressional Democrats to muster enough votes for legislation forcing a timed withdrawal.

    Clinton now wants the Pentagon to brief lawmakers on their withdrawal contingency plans.

    What else can we expect from her – she doesn’t think parents are smart enough to raise their own children until the age of four, why would she think that the Pentagon doesn’t already have a plan to extricate it’s troops from Iraq without her telling them to present her with a plan?

    And anyone dumb enough to brief that leaky Democrat caucus on a withdrawl plan doesn’t deserve their job.

    This purely a political move to make voters think Clinton is all caught up to the political game. Someone tell that goofball from Chicago, by way of Little Rock, that the Pentagon planners don’t sit around on their butts until some halfwit from across the river tells them to plan something. They’ve probably got an OpPlan laying around to invade her Georgetown mansion if they needed to. My Aspen Hill mansion, too.

    But, the Left already thinks she’s some sort of rocket surgeon;

    Now here’s an anti-war candidate who’s thinking.

    If Democrats muster the political will to cut off war funding, how bad would it be for them if the military then had to flee Irag in chaos and confusion, with no plan, because the money spigot suddenly was cut off? You could be pretty sure the GOP would be back in charge in 2008.

    Yeah, well, after another year of the performance I’ve seen from Democrats this year, I think they’ll have a tough time convincing Americans they can be leaders. If this is the best they have, we should coast till November – if we can come up with a candidate, that is.

  • Democrats surrender to President

    As I’ve been saying, the Democrats woke up to reality and discovered that pandering to the vocal, but tiny rush-to-surrender minority of the far Left isn’t getting them anywhere among voters the Washington Post reports today;

    Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package yesterday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months.

    Bush, who has already vetoed one spending bill with a troop timeline, had threatened to do the same with the next version if it came with such a condition. Democratic leaders had moved ahead anyway, under heavy pressure from liberals who believe that the party won control of Congress in November on the strength of antiwar sentiment. But in the end, Democrats said they did not have enough votes to override a presidential veto and could not delay troop funding.

    So all of that blather about “the will of the American people”, falls by the wayside as reality strikes a bitter blow. But, all of the Democrats are still in Leftist dreamland, according to S.A. Miller of the Washington Times;

    “It’s the president’s legislation, not the Democrats’,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, California Democrat and co-founder of the Out of Iraq Caucus. “It’s going to take Republicans to pass it.”
        Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat and one of the chamber’s loudest antiwar voices, called the benchmarks “toothless.”
        “There has been a lot of tough talk from members of Congress about wanting to end this war, but it looks like the desire for political comfort won out over real action,” he said.

    Political comfort, Russ? How about political reality.

    So I figure the jihadists next move to try and defeat our political will, you can bet, will be a strike here in this country. Shouldn’t be hard to volunteers, according to AP via Fox News;

    One in four younger U.S. Muslims said in a poll that homicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances, though most Muslim Americans overwhelmingly reject the tactic and are critical of Islamic extremism and Al Qaeda.

    So I guess a quarter of the guys I eyeball on the subway here in DC are willing to accept terror. It’s probably inevitable that it’ll happen, but I think the jihadists are, once again, miscalculating the reponse they’ll get from Americans.

    For a comparison of how the media is spinning this poll to suit their particular agendas, see Bloodthirsty Liberal’s research results here and here.

  • Gore discovers 20/20 hindsight (Updated)

    Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the TV, Al Gore is back and on book tour for his latest act of public mental masturbation “Assault on Reason” – a more apt title I can not imagine. From ABC News;

    On the one hand, Gore has written an un-nostalgic look back at the previous six years that lays out his case as to how the world might look today had the chads fallen another way — a world where U.S. troops would not be fighting in Iraq, Abu Ghraib would just be a town’s name and the nation would have been better prepared for Hurricane Katrina, global warming, and, yes, perhaps even Sept. 11.

    Funny but I saw an episode of Family Guy last night that touched on the same subject. Without going into detail, Al Gore becomes the President in 2000 and the cast comments on how he hunted down and captured bin Laden himself (bin Laden was hiding out amongst the cast of MadTV) and cars all ran on vegetable oil. I wonder if the show’s writers had a sneak peak at Gore’s book.

    According to Dan Fromkin in the Washington Post Gore claims;

    “‘History will surely judge America’s decision to invade and occupy (Iraq) as a decision that was not only tragic but absurd.’

    “He does not flatly state that Sept. 11 would not have occurred during a Gore administration. But, he writes, ‘Whenever power is unchecked and unaccountable, it almost inevitably leads to mistakes and abuses. In the absence of rigorous accountability, incompetence flourishes.’”

    Look, Al, you and your country-ass hick master had eight years to do something about al Qaida and Hussein, you did nothing – only because you needed something to distract the American people from your constant failures and they made nice, easy targets at which to fire off cruise missiles. And finally, when they did strike, we had no choice – thanks to you, dimbulb. And what did the Clinton Administration do to protect New Orleans from Katrina. Have you forgotten that you were Vice President for eight years?

    As for the title, I’m sure that everyone will agree that you assault reason just by writing your crybaby crap – thinking that any rational person would have the slightest interest in what you would have done if only we’d had your hindsight as foresight.

    I had a girlfriend like Al Gore once – she never let me go. To this day, she still emails me after 35 years and tells me how wonderful our life would have been if I’d married her instead of my wife of 30 years. And then she complains that I don’t answer her email.

    Al Gore, you’re America’s pathetic ex-girlfriend.

    UPDATE: Ben Smith at Politico has a “User’s Guide to Gore Fever”.

    A fawning EJ Dionne professes his non-sexual man-crush on Al Gore in his Washington Post column “Free to be Al Gore“;

    Gore, to his credit, won’t talk about Florida, but I will. Whatever flaws he has, Gore suffered through an extreme injustice with great dignity. His revenge is to have been right about a lot of things: right about the power of the Internet, right about global warming and right about Iraq.

    I guess it’s easy to be declared right when it’s impossible to prove whether it’s true or not. Apparently, even some on the Left aren’t buying Dionne’s deranged hug-fest.