DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
JPOST EXCLUSIVE. RTWT.
Interviewer: "How can the Iraqi public, which is anti-American, and which believes the U.S. is the Great Satan, support people who talk the way you do?"God bless this man. Watch the video of the interview.
Iyad Jamal Al-Din: "Whoever believes America is the Great Satan should not shake its hand. I do not consider the U.S. to be the Great Satan. I view it as the sponsor and founder of the project of democracy, and the defender of democracy in Iraq.
You can be sure that if America were to withdraw today, there would be Shiite massacres of Shiites, Sunni massacres of Sunnis, and Kurdish massacres of Kurds. The strong would again devour the weak, until somebody would be back the next day - there's no doubt about it. We are still far from democracy."
BAGHDAD, Jan. 21 — The United States military said that two marines died Sunday in western Iraq and that an additional seven service members died Saturday. The deaths brought the weekend toll to 27 and made Saturday the third-deadliest day for United States forces since the war here began.
"The Australian flag has been banned from this year's Big Day Out in Sydney after organisers branded it a "gang colour" and symbol of hate.How the elite hate the patriotism of ordinary people! They claim that the ban is because "racists" use the flag but is not their reaction to the deeds and attitudes of a tiny minority an example of that evil, overgeneralized "stereotyping" that they condemn in others? By the same logic, all blacks are to blame for the actions of the criminal minority of blacks.
The Daily Telegraph has learned organisers of the Aussie rock festival at Homebush will confiscate any flag or bandana bearing the national symbol at the gate.
Source
And here's some more information about this ridiculous situation: European nations agreed to the "Kyoto" process, and have set carbon emissions limits for themselves. In order to exceed those limits, they are going to buy "credits" from Russia. These "credits" are a fictional device. The Europeans are buying permission to pollute -- from Russia, the most polluted country in Europe. Russia delivers nothing. Reuters:The mystery deepens. Turning the newspaper page, we find that, under demented Kyoto arrangements, Germany’s Dresdner Bank is now brokering an arrangement by which European companies will pay 15 billion euros to the corrupt and autocratic Russian state monopoly, Gazprom, in return for “carbon credits” to continue selling oil and gas to European customers on the open market.
This money in turn will help Russia’s dark, authoritarian regime to invest further in its ability to hold Europeans who depend on Russian heating oil through the winter to ransom when it has political demands.
They start by opposing capital punishment. They end by insisting on hanging themselves. [UMPH ADDED.]
Gazprombank and Dresdner Kleinwort plan to invest in projects generating carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, in a Russian and east European market worth up to 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion) through to 2012.Furthermore:
But Gazprombank, owned by the world's largest gas company Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile , Research), admitted that no projects could actually be implemented until Russia passed laws to govern emissions trading -- something it has repeatedly promised but failed to deliver.
Outside JI schemes, which allow investors to book foreign emission savings as their own, experts say Russia may have as many as 3 billion tonnes of spare quotas to sell under Kyoto's terms if it passes the required laws.Thus Western Europe itself funds the tyrannical regime that is still seeking to subvert it. As Lenin said, "When the last of the bourgeoisie is hanged, it will be a capitalist who sells us the rope."
Remember, Hizballah are the terrorists who killed 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers in Beirut in 1983. As the Wikipedia entry reminds us:Question: "You were formerly Hizbullah secretary-general. Is the [situation in Lebanon] within the strategic framework of Hizbullah? Does Hizbullah have an outlined and prepared plan that is being implemented today? Why do you think Hizbullah has become a source of anxiety for the Lebanese? "
Al-Tufeili: "It wasn't like this in the beginning. Hizbullah's activity was limited to resistance [operations]... But, unfortunately, the problem has developed today to the point where they have succeeded in changing Hizbullah from a resistance force into a tool to be used in [whatever] direction they want."
Question: "Does this mean that Hizbullah does not make its own decisions, and that its orders come from outside [Lebanon]?"
Al-Tufeili: "Yes, Hizbullah is a tool, and it is an integral part of the Iranian intelligence apparatus. Unfortunately, all the elements in the [Lebanese] arena have become tools, and take orders from outside [Lebanon]..."
This was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima (2,500 in one day) of World War II and the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the 243 killed on 31st January 1968 — the first day of the Tet offensive in the Vietnam war. The attack remains the deadliest post-World War II attack on Americans overseas.Moreover, as the Wikipedia continues:
In May 2003, in a case brought by the families of the 241 servicemen who were killed, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth declared that the Islamic Republic of Iran was responsible for the 1983 attack. Lamberth concluded that Hezbollah was formed under the auspices of the Iranian government, was completely reliant on Iran in 1983, and assisted Iranian Ministry of Information and Security agents in carrying out the operation.[7] Among the intelligence information initially uncovered by Thomas Fortune Fay, an attorney for the families of the victims, was a National Security Agency (NSA) intercept of a message sent from Iranian intelligence headquarters in Tehran to Hojjat ol-eslam Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, the Iranian ambassador in Damascus. As it was paraphrased by presiding U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, "The message directed the Iranian ambassador to contact Hussein Musawi, the leader of the terrorist group Islamic Amal, and to instruct him ... 'to take a spectacular action against the United States Marines.'"[3]The Democrats in the Senate want to make sure that the President is denied his Constitutional authority to respond with force to an act of war from Iran.
Got that? The Iranian founded, backed, and directed terrorist group that blew up the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the Marine barracks in Beirut, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia (all many years before President Bush was even elected Governor of Texas) is actively operating in Michigan, California, and the Carolinas.One of those operations is the subject of “Smokescreen: Hezbollah Inside America,” an exhaustive FOX News report about a Hezbollah cell that was operating for several years in Charlotte, North Carolina. FOX followed the many tentacles of this cell, which extended far beyond Charlotte — to Michigan, to the West Coast, to Canada and to Beirut, Lebanon, where most of the members were from. FOX News spent months tracking this story to all these places and more.
At least one member of the Hezbollah cell first came to the U.S. on forged visa picked up in Venezuela. Others overstayed their tourist or student visas. Once here, they began making millions through a combination of tobacco smuggling, credit card schemes, and arranging phony “green-card” marriages. They even succeeded at obtaining a $1.7 million loan from the Small Business Administration.
Dr. Weiss believes that man-made greenhouse gases have recently had a role in warming the earth, although the extent of that role, he says, cannot yet be known. What is known, however, is that throughout earth's history climate change has been driven by factors other than man: "Variable behaviour of the sun is an obvious explanation," says Dr. Weiss, "and there is increasing evidence that Earth's climate responds to changing patterns of solar magnetic activity."
The sun's most obvious magnetic features are sunspots, formed as magnetic fields rip through the sun's surface. A magnetically active sun boosts the number of sunspots, indicating that vast amounts of energy are being released from deep within.
Typically, sunspots flare up and settle down in cycles of about 11 years. In the last 50 years, we haven't been living in typical times: "If you look back into the sun's past, you find that we live in a period of abnormally high solar activity," Dr. Weiss states.
These hyperactive periods do not last long, "perhaps 50 to 100 years, then you get a crash," says Dr. Weiss. 'It's a boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon."
In addition to the 11-year cycle, sunspots almost entirely "crash," or die out, every 200 years or so as solar activity diminishes. When the crash occurs, the Earth can cool dramatically. Dr. Weiss knows because these phenomenon, known as "Grand minima," have recurred over the past 10,000 years, if not longer.
"The deeper the crash, the longer it will last," Dr. Weiss explains. In the 17th century, sunspots almost completely disappeared for 70 years. That was the coldest interval of the Little Ice Age, when New York Harbour froze, allowing walkers to journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, and when Viking colonies abandoned Greenland, a once verdant land that became tundra. Also in the Little Ice Age, Finland lost one-third of its population, Iceland half.
He notes that the world's oceans are not actually warming:"Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth in its intensity," Abdusamatov told RIA Novosti in an interview.
"It is no secret that when they go up, temperatures in the world's oceans trigger the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So the common view that man's industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations."
Abdusamatov claimed that the upper layers of the world's oceans are - much to climatologists' surprise - becoming cooler, which is a clear indication that the Earth has hit its temperature ceiling already, and that solar radiation levels are falling and will eventually lead to a worldwide cold spell.
"Instead of professed global warming, the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015. The gradually falling amounts of solar energy, expected to reach their bottom level by 2040, will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-2060," he said, adding that this period of global freeze will last some 50 years, after which the temperatures will go up again.
"There is no need for the Kyoto Protocol now, and it does not have to come into force until at least a hundred years from now - a global freeze will come about regardless of whether or not industrialized countries put a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions," Abdusamatov said.
The cynical use Vladmir Putin's corrupt and anti-democratic regime is making of the Kyoto Protocols deserves its own post.
But the Fairness Doctrine isn't going to kill Rush or Hannity. With tens of millions of listeners and a dozen years head start, are they really in jeopardy? This is about something much bigger. The Fairness Doctrine would bring new competition to the radio airwaves at all levels all across this country. It wouldn't keep a show on that wasn't any good either. But even wingnuts like Rush and Sean would actually have to offer facts amidst their snide, condescending decent into propaganda, while having guests on to offer the opposite side. That's just too much work, especially for Rush, who hasn't broken a sweat, except when he was in trouble for allegedly doctor shopping pills, or when he got caught with somebody else's penis pills after his single man's holiday to an underage capital of the world.Wow. Okay, first off let's get one fact straight: The Fairness Doctrine would work and would be a good idea if all media was controlled by the state. If this were the Soviet Union in the early 1980s and they installed a Fairness Doctrine to allow non-communist views to be heard on Pravda, we in the West would have applauded.
The RELENTLESSLY one-sided and deliberately negative reportage of the MSM has made these fair-weather hawks more negative than ever - and turned them into doves, for the time being. This is EXACTLY how the MSM skewed the American public to feel negatively about the Vietnam War (after the Tet Offensive, which we WON). We were also WINNING the Vietnam War and Vietnamization was working, and we were also fighting for completely noble and extremely important geopolitical reasons. When the doves of the Democrat Party voted to cut off funding of the South Vietnamese government in 1975 - two full years after the last US combat troop has left Vietnam - it led to the treaty-violating invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam, 2 million Boat People, Pol Pot's genocide of 3.5 million Cambodians, and the collapse of Laos. Had we just kept advisory and support troops in South Vietnam and kept up our financial aid these horrible things WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. Our RETREAT from Southeast Asia encouraged the USSR to invade Afghanistan, and the jihadist to overthrow the Shah. So you see, our dovish Left-wing anti-Vietnam War policies had horrible long-term ramifications - for the entire Free World.
From the position the doves of the Left now advocate for Iraq - "no surge, and withdrawal on an arbitrary timetable" - it is reasonable to feel that these doves do not care about Iraq or the region or the Free World. Advocating these polices for Iraq is like preferring it if we had abandoned South Korea and had let it fall under Stalinist tyranny for the last 50 years. That's just what they're saying now: they wouldn't mind it if Iraq descended into a Taliban-like or Iran-like jihadist tyranny. They'd rather just leave - and stick their heads in the sand.
Barzan, the late half-brother of Saddam Hussein, was also his intelligence chief. Think for five seconds what that might mean. Among Barzan’s own victims were those he fed feet-first into wood-choppers. And he was able to do such things repeatedly, without the slightest complaint from officials in Italy, France, Turtle Bay, or elsewhere. Now finally he is brought to justice, and the world’s glitziest whited sepulchres suddenly recover their capacity for moral outrage. And all it took was the miscalculation of a ratio between neck diameter and body weight. (Perhaps a metrication error, confusing pounds and kilos.)
Extreme sentimentality, on behalf of infamous monsters, is what we have come to expect from the post-rational species of liberal, whom I term a “gliberal” to distinguish him from the real thing. For them, only the side of justice can err. They are indifferent to the victims of injustice. By subtle degrees, they even come to identify with the perpetrators of horrible crimes, though they wouldn’t dare commit such crimes themselves. One cannot understand them without meditating deeply on the nature of the demonic.He also ties together Europe's sentimentality and its blindness to its own interests:
The mystery deepens. Turning the newspaper page, we find that, under demented Kyoto arrangements, Germany’s Dresdner Bank is now brokering an arrangement by which European companies will pay 15 billion euros to the corrupt and autocratic Russian state monopoly, Gazprom, in return for “carbon credits” to continue selling oil and gas to European customers on the open market. This money in turn will help Russia’s dark, authoritarian regime to invest further in its ability to hold Europeans who depend on Russian heating oil through the winter to ransom when it has political demands.
They start by opposing capital punishment. They end by insisting on hanging themselves.
Read.The.Whole.Thing. And bookmark his site for future reference.
Police on Saturday detained a teenager suspected of slaying an ethnic Armenian journalist, acting on a tip from the boy’s father after his picture was broadcast on Turkish television, senior officials said. Ogun Samast, who is either 16 or 17, was caught on a bus in the Black Sea city of Samsun, said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He was traveling, apparently from Istanbul back to his hometown of Trabzon, said Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler.Ahem. It WAS genocide, more on which is noted below. The teen has now confessed to the crime:
Samast was wanted in connection with the killing of Hrant Dink, a 52-year-old editor of the Turkish Armenian newspaper Agos. Dink was gunned down Friday outside his newspaper’s office in Istanbul.
Most Turks assume Dink was targeted for his columns saying the killing of ethnic Armenians by Turks in the early 20th century was genocide. Nationalists consider such statements an insult to Turkey’s honor and a threat to its unity, and Dink had been showered with insults and threats.
The teenage boy suspected of fatally shooting an ethnic Armenian journalist confessed during initial questioning that he killed the man, a local prosecutor told a state-run news agency on Sunday. Ahmet Cokcinar - a prosecutor in the city of Samsun, where the boy was caught - told the Anatolia news agency that the teenager confessed to killing Hrant Dink.It just shows how Turkey is still comprised of largely a bad lot, if they won't be honest about the facts regarding the Armenian genocide.
Ogun Samast, who is either 16 or 17 years old, was caught Saturday after police acted on a tip from the boy's father after his picture was broadcast on Turkish television, senior officials said. Samast was caught on a bus as he was apparently traveling from Istanbul, where the shooting took place, back to his hometown of Trabzon, Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said. [...]
Turkey's relationship with its Armenian minority has long been haunted by a bloody past. Much of its once-influential Armenian population was killed or driven out beginning around 1915 in what an increasing number of nations are calling the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died but vehemently denies it was genocide, saying the overall figure is inflated and the deaths occurred in the civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Maybe the Assassination in Turkey Was Done for Religious Motives? [Michael Ledeen] -- From Little Green Footballs:
The assassination of Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink is being universally portrayed as ethnic strife, a political act by Turkish nationalists against an Armenian critic. Call me Mr. Suspicious, but when I see the entire media monolith pushing an idea like that with so much enthusiasm, I start looking for the real explanation. And the real explanation, as with so many of these media smokescreens, is jihad. Turkish-Armenian editor shot dead in Istanbul. (Hat tip: Paul.)The MSM is systematically downplays jihadism in all attacks globally; WHY?! Because it just doesn't fit in with their warped post modern Leftist worldview: which is that Judeo-Christian/Western Civilization is the main thing wrong with the world, (the cause of most genocide, Third World poverty, and global warming). Anything which distracts from this - their "party line" - is censored.NTV television said Dink had been shot three times in the head and neck.This little piece of essential information is now being excised from all wire service and media reports.
Muharrem Gozutok, a restaurant owner near the newspaper, said the assailant looked about 20, wore jeans and a cap and shouted “I shot the non-Muslim” as he left the scene.
It seems that Ethiopia doesn't mess around when it comes to Islamic Terrorists. Islamic Militants took over parts of Somalia last June and ever since then Ethiopia has been helping the weak, transitional government combat them. Things came to a head in December when "Ethiopian Warplanes Attacked Somalia".
The War on Terror isn't just about Iraq and Afghanistan. As President Bush has said we go after the terrorists wherever we find them. Except this time I'm willing to bet we won't leave Somalia until the job is done....In his book, he suggests that Hillary Rodham Clinton first got a twinkle in her eye about running for Senate in New York in 1998, when she came up four times to campaign for him during his contest against Al D'Amato. That puts the beginnings of her interest in a Senate run earlier than many people thought....Not a surprise, really. Plans for the road to the White House are often carefully laid.
The war in Iraq brings to Joe Lieberman's mind an old Mark Twain story.Iraq is very winnable, and we will win if the Democrats don't force us to abandon them the way they forced us to abandon the South Vietnamese people and the Contras; (many of the doves then are the very same doves now: Kennedy; Kerry; Levin, et al: WRONG THEN AND WRONG NOW!). Which is to say that Joe is flat out WRONG about "Vietnam not working out", (or under a misconception as to why):
"When a cat jumps on a hot stove, the cat never jumps on the stove again because the cat always assumes the stove is hot," says the senator from Connecticut.
"But we are smarter than that. OK, so Vietnam didn't work out. But there are times when you've got to use force, to protect your security and to protect your principles."
Try telling that to the nuisance of congressional felines now prowling around the Iraq debate, eyeing it like a cooker on high boil.
Next week will witness a Senate vote on a resolution condemning President Bush's new plan to quell growing sectarian violence and terrorism in Iraq by increasing the number of troops. While that vote may be largely symbolic, it comes amid far more ominous congressional calls to cut off war funding, to leave the Iraqis to settle their differences, to bring the troops home. If ever the Iraq political debate was at a crossroads, it's now.
At the center of this fray is Sen. Lieberman, a sort of Horatio at the congressional bridge--spiritedly trying to hold back a bipartisan stampede out of Iraq that he believes will result in devastating consequences for that country, the region and, most importantly, U.S. national security.
Bottom-line: If we want to transform Iraq into a democracy and an ally in the GWOT, then we mustn't abandon them - CERTAINLY NOT NOW.
- FACT: the last US combat troop left Vietnam on March 31, 1973.
- FACT: South Vietnam didn't fall until TWO YEARS LATER.
- FACT: the North Vietnamese didn't violate the terms of the Paris Peace treaty and invade the South, and South Vietnam didn't fall until the Democrat inn Congress pulled the plug on financing them and abandoned them to the socialists of North Vietnam.
- FACT: millions fled Vietnam AFTER the socialist takeover; millions did not get in boat to enter Vietnam.
- FACT: socialist Pol Pot promptly took over Cambodia and murdered MILLIONS, and Laos promptly fell too - THE DOMINO THEORY WAS CORRECT. 100 million people in the region suffered under socialism for decades ever since - 65 million in Vietnam alone!
- A similar regional bloodbath and descent into jihadist tyranny in the Middle East would follow the collapse of the nascent democracy in Iraq. That's why we mustn't act like pussies and abandon the Iraqis or the region.
Mexico has extradited a purported drug cartel boss and three other alleged major traffickers to the United States, a move that Washington on Saturday called "unprecedented" in the cross-border fight against organized crime.There's still a lot more that Calderon needs to do to prove that he's bettering his predecessor. But for now, this is certainly a good step.
Osiel Cardenas, the alleged Gulf cartel leader who was believed to still be running his gang from jail in Mexico, was sent north Friday along with 13 others wanted by U.S. authorities after their appeals against extradition ran out, the office of Mexico's attorney general said.
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales praised Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Saturday for the extradition, saying the U.S. had never before received from Mexico such a large number of drug suspects and others wanted for prosecution in the United States.
"The actions overnight by the Mexican government are unprecedented in their scope and importance," Gonzales said in a statement released Saturday.
... they continue to intellectually approach the complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the leftist base they pander to, [so] we will have the continuing pleasure of watching these moral pygmies, currently even more intoxicated with power because they have a majority in Congress, as they actively undermine (all with the help of their media propaganda wing) any and all American interests around the world; impede and vilify US military actions (while saying they "support" the troops), and generally behave as prototypical leftists are wont to do--all, of course, in the name of "peace".She quotes extensively from VDH and the Democrats themselves. RTWT.
BBC:Hezbollah head Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has welcomed the resignation of Israeli army chief Lt-Gen Dan Halutz in the wake of the two sides' summer conflict. Sheikh Nasrallah told his movement's al-Manar TV in Lebanon: "Any of them that don't resign will be forced out."
Gen Halutz said he was taking responsibility for the failures of the Israeli military campaign. Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in July, and killing of eight others, sparked 34 days of fighting. A UN-brokered truce ended the conflict, in which more than 1,200 people died. ...n a three-hour interview broadcast live, Sheikh Nasrallah told al-Manar he had been "happy" when he heard of Gen Halutz' resignation.
In a separate development, Nasrallah promised Friday evening that his opposition alliance would intensify its campaign to bring down the government, pledging to mount an "effective" action in the coming days. Nasrallah told al-Manar that Hizbullah's consultations with its allies were drawing to a close and they would release a statement shortly that spelled out the steps to be taken. "I believe this action will be effective, very important and very big," he said. He would not divulge the plan but urged all Lebanese to support it.I also believe WE should take an effective and very important and very big action: we should assassinate Nasrallah.
