ConservaPundit

Loadin' up the truck and movin....

10.12.04 (7:23 am)   [edit]
For awhile I tried to get to like the Tblog setup, but I've found that while input from other bloggers is better at Tblog (which is good and bad), Blogger seems more versatile. It gets more web hits, it is probably read by more people, and it is easier to blog on the fly.

I like Tblog a lot, and the pro version is probably first-rate. But for now I have to go with Blogger.

I hesitate to give this out because of the usual suspects, but I do have friends at Tblog that read my blog, so here's my new permanent blogsite addy: http://conservapundit.blogspo...

Thanks for everything. And for Noguru- keep up the good work.

James/Reducto

The censored Steyn column on decapitated hostage Kenneth Bigley

10.12.04 (5:21 am)   [edit]
[b]THE QUALITY OF MERSEY[/b]

[i]Today, for the first time in all my years with the Telegraph Group, I had a column pulled. The editor expressed concerns about certain passages and we were unable to reach agreement, so on this Tuesday something else will be in my space.

I’d written about Kenneth Bigley, seized with two American colleagues but unlike them not beheaded immediately. Instead, sensing that they could exploit potential differences within “the coalition of the willing”, for three weeks the Islamists played a cat-and-mouse game with Mr Bigley’s life, in which Fleet Street, the British public, governments in London and Dublin and Islamic lobby groups in the United Kingdom were far too willing to participate. As I always say, in this war the point is not whether you’re sad about the dead people, but what you’re prepared to do about it. What “Britain” – from Ken Bigley’s brother to the Foreign Secretary – did was make it more likely that other infidels will meet his fate.

I suppose the Telegraph felt the column was a little heartless. Well, this is a war, and misplaced mawkishness will only lead to more deaths. In The Face Of The Tiger, I wrote as follows about the first anniversary of 9/11, when coverage was threatening to go the way of Princess Di and mounds of teddy bears[/i]:

"3,000 people died on September 11th, leaving a gaping hole in the lives of their children, parents, siblings and friends. Those of us who don't fall into those categories are not bereaved and, by pretending to be, we diminish the real pain of those who really feel it. That's not to say that, like many, I wasn't struck by this or that name that drifted up out of the great roll-call of the dead. Newsweek's Anna Quindlen "fastened on", as she put it, one family on the flight manifest:

Peter Hanson, Massachusetts
Susan Hanson, Massachusetts
Christine Hanson, 2, Massachusetts

"As Miss Quindlen described them, "the father, the mother, the two-year old girl off on an adventure, sitting safe between them, taking flight." Christine Hanson will never be three, and I feel sad about that. But I did not know her, love her, cherish her; I do not feel her loss, her absence in my life. I have no reason to hold hands in a "healing circle" for her. All I can do for Christine Hanson is insist that the terrorist movement which killed her is hunted down and prevented from targeting any more two-year olds. We honour Christine Hanson's memory by righting the great wrong done to her, not by ersatz grief-mongering."

[i]That’s the way I feel about Kenneth Bigley. Here’s the column the Telegraph declined to publish[/i]:

Whether or not it is, in the technical sense, a “joke”, I find myself, with the benefit of hindsight, in agreement with Billy Connolly’s now famous observation on Kenneth Bigley – “Aren’t you the same as me, don’t you wish they would just get on with it?”

Had his killers “just got on with it”, they would have decapitated Mr Bigley as swiftly as they did his two American confreres. But, sensing that there was political advantage to be gained in distinguishing the British subject from his fellow hostages, they didn’t get on with it, and the intervening weeks reflected poorly on both Britain and Mr Bigley.

None of us can know for certain how we would behave in his circumstances, and very few of us will ever face them. But, if I had to choose in advance the very last words I’d utter in this life, “Tony Blair has not done enough for me” would not be high up on the list. First, because it’s the all but official slogan of modern Britain, the dull rote whine of the churlish citizen invited to opine on waiting lists or public transport, and thus unworthy of the uniquely grisly situation in which Mr Bigley found himself. And, secondly, because those words are so at odds with the spirit of a life spent, for the most part, far from these islands. Ken Bigley seems to have found contemporary Britain a dreary, insufficient place and I doubt he cared about who was Prime Minister from one decade to the next. Had things gone differently and had his fate befallen some other expatriate, and had he chanced upon a month-old London newspaper in his favourite karaoke bar up near the Thai-Cambodian border and read of the entire city of Liverpool going into a week of Dianysian emotional masturbation over some deceased prodigal son with no inclination to return whom none of the massed ranks of weeping Scousers from the Lord Mayor down had ever known, Mr Bigley would surely have thanked his lucky stars that he and his Thai bride were about as far from his native sod as it’s possible to get.

While Ken Bigley passed much of his life as a happy expat, his brother Paul appears to have gone a stage further and all but seceded. Night and day, he was on TV explaining to the world how the Bigley family’s Middle East policy is wholly different from Her Majesty’s Government – a Unilateral Declaration of Independence accepted de facto by Mr Blair’s ministry when it dispatched Jack Straw to Merseyside to present formally his condolences to the Bigleys, surely the most extraordinary flying visit ever undertaken by a British Foreign Secretary. For their pains, the government was informed by Paul Bigley that the Prime Minister had “blood on his hands”. This seems an especially stupid and contemptible formulation when anyone with an Internet connection can see Ken Bigley’s blood and the hand it’s literally on holding up his head.

It reminded me of Robert Novak of The Chicago Sun-Times back in May, quoting “one senior official of a coalition partner” calling for the firing of Donald Rumsfeld on the grounds that “there must be a neck cut, and there is only one neck of choice.”

At pretty much that exact moment in Iraq, Nick Berg’s captors were cutting his head off - or, rather, feverishly hacking it off while raving “God is great!” The difference between the participants in this war is that on one side robust formulations about “blood on his hands” and “calls for the Defence Secretary’s head” are clichéd metaphors, and on the other they mean it.

Paul Bigley can be forgiven his clumsiness: he’s a freelancer winging it. But the feelers put out by the Foreign Office to Ken Bigley’s captors are more disturbing: by definition, they confer respectability on the head-hackers and increase the likelihood that Britons and other infidels will be seized and decapitated in the future. The United Kingdom, like the government of the Philippines when it allegedly paid a ransom for the release of its Iraqi hostages, is thus assisting in the mainstreaming of jihad.

By contrast with the Fleet Street-Scouser-Whitehall fiasco of the last three weeks, consider Fabrizio Quattrocchi, murdered in Iraq on April 14th. In the moment before his death, he yanked off his hood and cried defiantly, “I will show you how an Italian dies!” He ruined the movie for his killers. As a snuff video and recruitment tool, it was all but useless, so much so that the Arabic TV stations declined to show it.

If the FCO wants to issue advice in this area, that’s the way to go: If you’re kidnapped, accept you’re unlikely to survive, say “I’ll show you how an Englishman dies”, and wreck the video. If they want you to confess you’re a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq – so say yes, you’re an MI6 agent, and so are those Muslims from Tipton and Luton who recently joined the al-Qaeda cells in Samarra and Ramadi. As Churchill recommended in a less timorous Britain: You can always take one with you. If Mr Blair and other government officials were to make that plain, it would be, to use Mr Bigley’s word, “enough”. A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it.

And, if you don’t want to wind up in that situation, you need to pack heat and be prepared to resist at the point of abduction. I didn’t give much thought to decapitation when I was mooching round the Sunni Triangle last year, but my one rule was that I was determined not to get into a car with any of the locals and I was willing to shoot anyone who tried to force me. If you’re not, you shouldn’t be there.

None of the above would have guaranteed Mr Bigley’s life, but it would have given him, as it did Signor Quattrocchi, a less pitiful death, and it would have spared the world a glimpse of the feeble and unserious Britain of the last few weeks. The jihadists have become rather adept at devising tests customized for each group of infidels: Madrid got bombed, and the Spaniards failed their test three days later; the Australian Embassy in Jakarta got bombed, but the Aussies held firm and re-elected John Howard’s government anyway. With Britain, the Islamists will have drawn many useful lessons from the decadence and defeatism on display.
STEYN ONLINE, October 11th 2004

Sixteen obvious points the president should make during the debate

10.12.04 (5:09 am)   [edit]
[b]Putting Words in the President's Mouth
Sixteen obvious points that George W. Bush should make during the Wednesday night debate.[/b]
by P.J. O'Rourke
10/12/2004 12:00:00 AM

(1) My opponent, Massachusetts senator John Kerry--or, as I like to think of him, Teddy Kennedy with a designated driver . . .

(2) There are two organizations pushing for change in November--al Qaeda and the Democratic party. And they both have the same message: "We're going to fix you, America." On the whole, the terrorists have a more straightforward plan for fixing things. They're going to blow themselves up. Although, come to think of it, Howard Dean did that.

(3) Senator Kerry, what do you mean my administration "lost" 1.6 million jobs? Did Dick Cheney accidentally leave 1.6 million jobs in the Senate men's room or something? Did you find them? Have you got 1.6 million jobs that you're hiding, Senator Kerry? And if you're elected, are you going to give them back?

(4) Speaking of jobs, Senator, how come every illegal immigrant who wades the Rio is able to find one in about 10 minutes? Meanwhile, your Democratic core constituency has been unemployed for years. Are your supporters lazy, Senator Kerry? Or are they stupid? Back when Clinton was president, did your supporters think they got their jobs at Burger King because Bill was sleeping with the cow?

(5) You say health care costs are soaring? Well, I'm not the one with a personal injury lawyer on my ticket. I loved the billboards that John Edwards used to have all over North Carolina: "Y'ALL MIGHT HAVE GOT HURT AT WORK AND NOT EVEN KNOWN IT" and "FEELIN' POORLY? LEMME SUE YER DOCTOR!"

(6) Yeah, we're running a deficit. Like Democrats never did that. But at least we're borrowing the money when interest rates are low. It's the same as refinancing your home loan. Not that you'd know, Senator Kerry, since your rich wife paid off your mortgage.

(7) You say that we won the war, but we're losing the peace because Iraq is so unstable. When Iraq was stable, it attacked Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars. It attacked Iran. It attacked Kuwait. It gassed the Kurds. It butchered the Shiites. It fostered terrorism in the Middle East. Who wants a stable Iraq?

8 No, it turns out Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction. And how crazy does that make Saddam? All he had to do was tell Hans Blix, "Look anywhere you want. Look under the bed. Look beneath the couch. Look behind the toilet tank in the third presidential palace on the left, but keep your mitts off my copies of Maxim." And Saddam could have gone on dictatoring away until Donald Rumsfeld gets elected head of the World Council of Churches. But no . . .

(9) You say I didn't have the answers in Iraq? Well, what were the questions? Was there this bad man? Was he running a bad country? That did bad things? Did it have a lot of oil money to do bad things with? Was it going to do more bad things? If those were the questions, was the answer "more time to let international sanctions and U.N. weapons inspections do their job"? No, the answer was blow the place to bits.

(10) You say I didn't have a plan for the post-war problem of Iraq? I say we blew the place to bits--what's the problem?

(11) Yes, blowing a place to bits leaves a mess behind. But it's a mess without a military to fight aggressive wars. A mess without the facilities to develop dangerous weapons. A mess that can't systematically kill, torture, and oppress millions of its own citizens. It's a mess with a message--don't mess with us!

(12) Saddam Hussein was reduced to the Unabomber--Ted Kaczynski--a nutcase hiding in the sticks. Sure, the terrorism by his supporters is frightening. Hence, its name, "terrorism." Killing innocent people by surprise is not called "a thousand points of light." But, as frightening as terrorism is, it's the weapon of losers. The minute somebody sets off a suicide bomb, you can be sure that person doesn't have "career prospects." And no matter how horrendous a terrorist attack is, it's still conducted by losers. Winners don't need to hijack airplanes. Winners have an Air Force.

(13) You say you're going to get our friends and allies to take a bigger role in Iraq. Senator Kerry, what friends and allies? You're a sophisticated fellow. You're well-traveled and speak French. Are there some countries out there that you know about and the rest of us have never heard of?

(14) Let me tell you something, Senator Kerry. I don't blame the U.N. for not supporting me in Iraq. The world is full of loathsome governments run by criminals, thugs, and beasts. When I mentioned "regime-change," hairy little ears pricked up all over the earth. Beads of sweat broke out on low, sloping brows. Blood-stained, grasping hands began to tremble. I had to put poor Colin Powell on the phone to various hyenas in high office and have him explain that America itself needed regime-change from 1992 to 2000. And we didn't bomb the fellow responsible, and we only impeached him a little. Secretary Powell had to tell Kim Jung Il, Robert Mugabe, and Jacques Chirac to quit worrying and look at Bill Clinton and realize the fate that awaits them is a lucrative lecture tour, a best-selling book, and many willing, plump young women.

(15) Senator Kerry, you say you were in favor of threatening to use force on Saddam Hussein, but that actually using force was wrong. The technical term for this in political science is "bullshit."

(16) What are you going to do, Senator, give Saddam Hussein a mulligan and let him take his tee shot over?

P.J. O'Rourke is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of, most recently, Peace Kills.

© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserve

Fmr Mayor Giuliani blasts Kerry for his terror remarks

10.12.04 (4:46 am)   [edit]
Transcript from George W. Bush.com--

Monday, October 11, 2004
[b]Remarks by Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Conference Call Today[/b]

ARLINGTON, VA - Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered the following remarks in a Bush-Cheney '04 conference call today:

"For some time, and including when I spoke at the Republican Convention, I’ve wondered exactly what John Kerry’s approach would be to terrorism and I’ve wondered whether he had the conviction, the determination, and the focus, and the correct worldview to conduct a successful war against terrorism. And his quotations in the New York Times yesterday make it clear that he lacks that kind of committed view of the world. In fact, his comments are kind of extraordinary, particularly since he thinks we used to before September 11 live in a relatively safe world. He says we have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.

"I’m wondering exactly when Senator Kerry thought they were just a nuisance. Maybe when they attacked the USS Cole? Or when they attacked the World Trade Center in 1993? Or when they slaughtered the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972? Or killed Leon Klinghoffer by throwing him overboard? Or the innumerable number of terrorist acts that they committed in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, leading up to September 11?

"This is so different from the President’s view and my own, which is in those days, when we were fooling ourselves about the danger of terrorism, we were actually in the greatest danger. When you don’t confront correctly and view realistically the danger that you face, that’s when you’re at the greatest risk. When you at least realize the danger and you begin to confront it, then you begin to become safer. And for him to say that in the good old days – I’m assuming he means the 90s and the 80s and the 70s -- they were just a nuisance, this really begins to explain a lot of his inconsistent positions on how to deal with it because he’s not defining it correctly.

"As a former law enforcement person, he says ‘I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it.’ This is not illegal gambling; this isn’t prostitution. Having been a former law enforcement person for a lot longer than John Kerry ever was, I don’t understand his confusion. Even when he says ‘organized crime to a level where it isn’t not on the rise,’ it was not the goal of the Justice Department to just reduce organized crime. It was the goal of the Justice Department to eliminate organized crime. Was there some acceptable level of organized crime: two families, instead of five, or they can control one union but not the other?

The idea that you can have an acceptable level of terrorism is frightening. How do you explain that to the people who are beheaded or the innocent people that are killed, that we’re going to tolerate a certain acceptable [level] of terrorism, and that acceptable level will exist and then we’ll stop thinking about it? This is an extraordinary statement. I think it is not a statement that in any way is ancillary. I think this is the core of John Kerry’s thinking. This does create some consistency in his thinking.

"It is consistent with his views on Vietnam: that we should have left and abandoned Vietnam. It is consistent with his view of Nicaragua and the Sandinistas. It is consistent with his view of opposing Ronald Reagan at every step of the way in the arms buildup that was necessary to destroy communism. It is consistent with his view of not supporting the Persian Gulf War, which was another extraordinary step. Whatever John Kerry’s global test is, the Persian Gulf War certainly would pass anyone’s global test. If it were up to John Kerry, Saddam Hussein would not only still be in power, but he’d still be controlling Kuwait.

"Finally, what he did after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, where I guess at that point terrorism was still just a nuisance. He must have thought that because that’s why he proposed seriously reducing our intelligence budget, when you would think someone who was really sensitive to the problem of terrorism would have done just the opposite. I think that rather than being some aberrational comment, it is the core of the John Kerry philosophy: that terrorism is no different than domestic law enforcement problems, and that the best we’re ever going to be able to do is reduce it, so why not follow the more European approach of compromising with it the way Europeans did in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s?

"This is so totally different than what I think was the major advance that President Bush made – significant advance that he made in the Bush Doctrine on September 20, 2001, when he said we’re going to face up to terrorism and we’re going to do everything we can to defeat it, completely. There’s no reason why we have to tolerate global terrorism, just like there’s no reason to tolerate organized crime.

"So I think this is a seminal issue, this is one that explains or ties together a lot of things that we’ve talked about. Even this notion that the Kerry campaign was so upset that the Vice President and others were saying that he doesn’t understand the threat of terrorism; that he thinks it’s just a law enforcement action. It turns out the Vice President was right. He does and maybe this is a difference, maybe this is an honest difference that we really should debate straight out. He thinks that the threat is not as great as at least the President does, and I do, and the Vice President does."

Injured, angry, determined, Swiftvets unite to fight Kerry

10.12.04 (4:44 am)   [edit]
[b]Injured, angry, determined, Swiftees unite to fight Kerry[/b]
By Stephanie Mansfield
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Midnight in South Vietnam, and the river is black. Past the rice paddies and shacks, small fires are burning by the shoreline as Lt. John H. Davis' 50-foot aluminum swift boat — PCF 19 — makes its routine patrol through the reeds.

In a split second, rocket fire shatters the silence, and through a plume of oily smoke, the boat sinks to the river's bottom.

"My whole crew lost their lives that night. I was the only one who survived," Lt. Davis says.

Lt. Davis, now 62, lost his left eye. The bones in both legs were shattered. But the scars of war are nothing compared to the demons that wake him from his sleep, leaving him drenched in sweat and trembling with fear.

"My latest nightmare was that I was pulling my crew out of the water. When it came to the last body, it was me."

Lt. Davis has come to Washington at his own expense, along with 89 other Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, to tape the eighth 60-second TV spot questioning Sen. John Kerry's fitness to be commander in chief.

They come from Oshkosh, Wis., and Orlando, Fla., San Francisco and Virginia Beach. One is on crutches. Others, former prisoners of war, walk stiffly, a result of being bound and tortured. Some wear their medals. Two are in cowboy boots.

Snow-haired Bud Day, a 79-year-old former POW, stands at attention. He is wearing a brown leather flight jacket befitting an Air Force major, complemented by the Medal of Honor around his neck. Others have donned "Swift Boat" baseball caps.

The silver-haired men — in natty ties, navy blazers and spit-shined shoes, their faces bronzed with Ben Nye matte foundation ("tan suede") — line up under the hot lights in the cavernous soundstage at Atlantic Video on Massachusetts Avenue.

One by one, they share their stories with the cameras and defend their honor.

[b]These Swiftees, at times jocular (breaking into "Row, row, row your boat") and at other times on the verge of tears, are angry and frustrated. Not only because they say Mr. Kerry has lied about his service and refuses to sign the form that releases his military records to the public, but because 30 years ago, the candidate threw away his medals and called his fellow servicemen murderers, rapists, baby killers and cowards.[/b]

The weekend began with a dinner at the Key Bridge Marriott on Friday night, attended by a wealthy backer from Texas, T. Boone Pickens.

So far, they have raised more than $13 million — more than $4 million of which was contributed through their Internet site — and plan to step up their assault on the Democratic presidential candidate in the final weeks of the campaign. They raised an additional $2.5 million over the weekend and plan to spend $5 million more by Election Day.

The weekend shoot produced enough footage for two or three more ads, which the Swiftees plan to run starting Thursday in Pennsylvania and Ohio and in a few heavily military areas of Florida. Campaign analysts say the Swiftees have been highly effective in planting doubts about Mr. Kerry's fitness for office.

Vernon Smith, a 74-year-old Swiftee from Virginia Beach, didn't see any reason to come forward before, but [b]when he read "Tour of Duty," Mr. Kerry's account of his Vietnam service as written by historian Douglas Brinkley, he got angry.

"I don't like the fabrications. Why does a man have to lie like that? He is totally unfit for command," he said.[/b]

Their beef with Mr. Kerry has driven them to action, the Swiftees say, as they search their collective memories for the truth. Many say they felt shame before, but now they are a band of brothers. "Unfit for Command," which was co-authored by a leader of the group, is a best seller. And on Saturday, they received a wire for $500,000.

"In more than one firefight, Kerry actually pulled our boat out of it and ran out of the canal. I don't think John Kerry was a coward," says 57-year-old Steve Gardner, from Clover, S.C., who spent more than two months with Mr. Kerry on PCF 44 as a gunner's mate 3rd class.

[b]"I think John Kerry was an opportunist. And he was very ineffectual. He did everything in his own best interest. He was always carrying a little notebook with him. I assume it was his diaries. He was very aloof and disdainful of people under him," he said.[/b]

Sgt. Chris LaCivita stands behind the monitor, as the men rehearse their lines. He is producing the spot, with help from Republican media consultant Rick Reed.

Sgt. LaCivita, a tall energetic former Marine who received a Purple Heart after he was shot in the face in the first Persian Gulf war, defends the TV spots against critics who say what happened 30 years ago shouldn't matter.

"Character has always been and will always be a major focus on every candidate running," he said. "So many of the men who were there have legitimate questions about whether he deserved his citations. These men have earned the right to be heard."

But the group has become a lightning rod in recent weeks. In late August, Benjamin Ginsberg resigned his post as legal counsel for the Bush campaign when it became known that he was advising the Swiftees as well. Under scrutiny, several statements made by former "crewmates" of Mr. Kerry have been recanted.

One serious misstatement on Mr. Kerry's part, they say, was his claim that he was ordered to go to Cambodia in December 1968, an illegal act. Not true, says Mr. Gardner, who was on the boat with Mr. Kerry at the time.

"We were never in Cambodia," he says. "Not even close."

Some question Mr. Kerry's discharge from the Navy, information about which is still under wraps.

[b]"If he's a war hero, why not release the missing information?" their thinking goes.[/b]

"Good question," Navy Lt. Paul Galanti says. "Everybody in this group wants to find out the truth about his service record. I think there's a lot more there."

Shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, Maj. Day suffered numerous injuries, managed to escape from his prison, walked for two weeks through the jungle eating live frogs before he was recaptured.

He then spent the next six years as a prison cellmate of John McCain, who would become a Republican senator, at the prison the Americans called, with bitter irony, the "Hanoi Hilton." Maj. Day's presence in the room is palpable. Even in a group of decorated war veterans, he stands out as a living legend.

The others sheepishly introduce themselves and are honored just to shake his still-firm hand.

[b]"Kerry betrayed us by telling the people we were committing atrocities," Maj. Day says. "A man who does that is not fit to lead. It's impossible to let this man masquerade as a war hero and someone who has leadership. To imagine this guy who betrayed us becoming president and him being the leader of our armed forces is just unthinkable."[/b]

Standing next to the major, 57-year-old Jim Hoffman from Oshkosh, Wis., said Mr. Kerry was never a leader.

"He was an arrogant snob," said Mr. Hoffman, an engineman 2nd class on the swift boats, adding that he felt afraid and alone for many years, but now feels buoyed by his Swiftee peers and their mission.

Mr. Gardner says Mr. Kerry used to boast to his fellow servicemen that he would be the next JFK.

Says Sgt. LaCivita: "JFK must be rolling in his grave."

More left-wing election violence against Repubs

10.12.04 (4:42 am)   [edit]
From the Seattle Times-- http://seattletimes.nwsource....

Never have Americans elected someone with such a poor national security record as Kerry

10.11.04 (1:30 pm)   [edit]
[b]Never[/b]
[i]From the October 18, 2004 issue: Never have the American people elected as president a candidate with a record on national security issues resembling that of John Kerry.[/i]
by William Kristol
10/18/2004, Volume 010, Issue 06

NEVER HAVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE elected as president a candidate with a record on national security issues resembling that of John Kerry. Consider some of the distinctive national security choices Kerry has made over the years.

***

April 22, 1971: The American people have never elected president someone who, while serving in the military, chose to testify (in uniform) against a war his country was then waging. Lt. Kerry asserted before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his country and his fellow service members were guilty in Vietnam of "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." Indeed, Kerry asserted that the American military was "more guilty than any other body of violations of [the] Geneva Conventions." Kerry forthrightly rejected the bipartisan doctrine that had guided American foreign policy for a generation, deriding "the mystical war against communism." Kerry today remains proud of his testimony.

Fall 1984: The American people have never elected president someone who, in his first successful bid for federal office, chose to make support for a unilateral nuclear freeze and for major cutbacks in America's defense programs the centerpiece of his campaign. The freeze and the cutbacks would have weakened U.S.-European ties, emboldened the Soviet Union, and strengthened the hand of hardliners in the Kremlin. Kerry has never said that the position he took at this turning point in the Cold War was mistaken.

January 12, 1991: The American people have never elected president a senator who voted against an authorization for the use of military force, in this case in pursuance of a United Nations-approved policy to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Senator Kerry complained in 1991 that we were engaged in "a rush to war." It turned out that Saddam had been only months away from acquiring nuclear capability. Kerry now cites the first Gulf War as a success for the purpose of contrasting it with the recent one--but he has never acknowledged that his judgment in opposing that war might have been in error.

October 17, 2003: The American people have never elected president someone who voted against an appropriation to support troops fighting in a war he had approved. Contrary to misleading press accounts, such as this one from the October 8 USA Today, this was not a "typical Senate situation in which party members vote yes on their own version of a bill and then vote no on the other party's version." Fellow Democrat Joe Biden had cosponsored with Kerry an alternative supplemental appropriation that would have paid for the war by repealing part of the Bush tax cut. But when the alternative was defeated, Biden and 38 other Democratic senators, unlike Kerry, voted for the final bill. Indeed, Biden made the case for the president's proposal on the Senate floor. In fact, in the vote on final passage of the $87 billion, Kerry was joined by only 11 other senators, less than a quarter of his fellow Democrats. And of the 77 senators who had voted to authorize the war, only four--Kerry, John Edwards, Tom Harkin, and Ernest Hollings--now voted to deny the troops the support they needed. Kerry had himself said just a month before, "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of cutting and running. That's irresponsible." His vote against the $87 billion was irresponsible. Today he says he is proud of that vote.

September 23, 2004: The American people have never elected president someone who gratuitously attacked a visiting leader, in this case Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, after a speech to a joint session of Congress, when that leader's government was fighting terrorists on a day-to-day basis alongside American troops.

***

Will the American people choose as president someone with John Kerry's national security record? They never have before.

--William Kristol

© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

Kerry admits he doesn't see terrorism as national security threat

10.11.04 (1:08 pm)   [edit]
[b]Kerry Compares War on Terror to Prostitution, Illegal Gambling[/b]
Susan Jones
Morning Editor

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John F. Kerry -- in an interview with Sunday's New York Times Magazine -- said the Sept. 11 attacks "didn't change me much at all"; and said he hopes the country will return to the days when terrorism was "just a nuisance," the same way that prostitution and illegal gambling are a nuisance.

In the interview published on Sunday, Kerry told New York Times reporter Matt Bai, "As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise -- it isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.'"


Said reporter Matt Bai, "When I asked Kerry how Sept. 11 had changed him, either personally or politically, he seemed to freeze for a moment. 'It accelerated - ' Kerry paused. 'I mean, it didn't change me much at all.'"

The Bush campaign blasted Kerry's remarks in a new TV ad: "Terrorism, a nuisance?" the Bush ad asks. "How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat?"

The Kerry campaign fired back with an ad telling voters that President Bush recently said he doubted that the war on terrorism could ever be won. A few days after his comment to NBC Today show anchor Matt Lauer, President Bush said he meant that the terrorists would never surrender:

"In this different kind of war, we may never sit down at a peace table," Bush said. "But make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win."

The Bush campaign is trying to make the point that Sen. Kerry does not have a workable plan to win the war on terror.

Kerry continues to emphasize diplomacy, saying he would bring other countries into the war effort -- and blasting President Bush for going it alone in Iraq -- an insult to the 30 nations that are helping the U.S., the Bush campaign says.

Bush says Kerry -- by calling the war in Iraq "the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place" -- isn't likely to rally allies such as France and Germany to his side.

ABC news said there was a Hussein-Bin Laden link....were they wrong?

10.11.04 (9:55 am)   [edit]

ABC's About Face on the Saddam-Osama Connection

By Michael Reagan
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 11, 2004

If you believe what John Kerry and his stooges in the media say, there was never any connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and his terrorist al-Qaeda organization.

During the debate between Vice President Cheney and John Edwards the other night, Edwards attacked Cheney for maintaining that there was a real connection between the two, and the media rushed to claim that there is no evidence of any such connection.

Among them was ABC News, which either has a very short memory or is willing to cover up what they know about the connection. And they know plenty – they just won’t talk about it. The fact is, ABC interviewed bin Laden and had disclosed the ties that existed between Baghdad and the master terrorist as far back as 1999 when Bill Clinton was president.

Here’s what ABC News reported on January 14, 1999: Citing an alleged key military adviser and a man believed to be "privy to bin Laden’s most secret projects" who had been apprehended, ABC News said: "The U.S. government alleges he was under secret orders to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. These are allegations bin Laden does not now deny. ‘It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons,' bin Laden told ABC. 'But how we could use these weapons if we possessed them is up to us.’"

Commented ABC: "With an American price on his head there weren’t many places bin Laden could go unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction. ‘Osama believed in the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with. That’s certainly the current case with Iraq,' " an ABC reporter involved with the bin Laden interview said.

And the ABC narrator added, "Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists, Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abas – the most notorious terrorists of their era all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad.

"Intelligence sources say bin Laden’s long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan’s fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Three weeks after (Clinton’s bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory) on August 31st, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq’s Vice President arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack.

"ABC News has learned that during these meetings senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden asked if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum. Iraq was indeed interested. ABC News has learned that in December an Iraqi intelligence chief … (who in 1999 was Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey) made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden." During the meeting, ABC says their sources reported that "bin Laden was told be would be welcome in Baghdad."

ABC News was not alone in revealing this trip. In 1999, The Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat (Iraq's intelligence service), had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al-Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," The Guardian reported.

ABC News continued: "Intelligence sources say they can only speculate on the purpose of an (Iraqi-bin Laden) alliance. What could bin Laden offer Saddam? Only days after he meets Iraqi officials, bin Laden tells ABC that his network is wide and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name that he does not even control."

Here’s what bin Laden told ABC News: "It is our job to incite and to instigate. By the grace of God we did that."

Do you hear ABC telling that story today?

---

Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network.

DragonBait shows up. Lucky me.

10.11.04 (3:55 am)   [edit]
I do not write for a living. I never claimed to be a writer, never lauded my writing, never did anything of the sort. I told an outside commentator that I wasn't a writer (he believed I was) and blogger DragonBait22, who I haven't heard from in quite a while, takes a few seconds out of her life to write this:


[i]"I'm not a writer"

Ahh, finally something I can agree with you on.[/i]

Now, I have no idea why she wrote this to me except for the sheer satisfaction of being a bitch. I do know that I've made her arguments look foolish many times through my sorry writing, and I know that technically I write as well as she does.

So while that's a sharp little jab at me, it means nothing in the larger sense. It actually reveals that she's resentful and has way too much time on her hands.

And here's a bonus: I don't support the wholesale murder of babies (to the tune, so far, of about 45 million in the US). DragonBait does. So I could write this blog in pig latin and it would still reflect the thoughts of a far saner, more civil person.

And I'd rather be that than a writer of any merit.

The Big Why of Anti-Americanism

10.11.04 (3:44 am)   [edit]
Commentary in the Washington Times-- http://www.washingtontimes.co...

Kerry and darling Nikki from the debates

10.09.04 (4:40 pm)   [edit]

I had overlooked this...from PowerLine Blog--

There were really four players in last night's president debate -- George Bush, John Kerry, Charles Gibson, and Nikki. Nikki is the "undecided voter" who informed President Bush that her mother and sister had traveled abroad this summer, and that they had been distressed by the anti-Americanism they encountered. This set up Bush's best answer of the evening, one in which he reminded voters how unpopular Ronald Reagan had been in Europe when he made the decisions that led to the downfall of the Soviet Union. For good measure, Bush was able to remind Jewish voters and friends of Israel that some of our unpopularity in Europe is down to his unwillingness to deal with Arafat.

After this Bush home run, you might have thought that John Kerry would banish Nikki and her question from his thoughts, and return to his regular Bush-bashing script. You would have been wrong. Kerry, in fact, became obsessed with Nikki and her question, referring back to her several times during the debate. In one instance, he did it at the expense of another female questioner, who looked a bit non-plussed as she tried to figure whether Kerry had gotten her name wrong or was answering someone else's question.

John Kerry is unhappy with President Bush about many things. But last night's debate reinforced my belief that, in his mind, the single worst thing Bush has done is to lower our popularity in Europe, the Kerry family's European travel less pleasant.

Delta Force, British SAS may be closing in on Zarqawi

10.09.04 (4:36 pm)   [edit]

From The Sun-- http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0" title="http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0" target="_blank"http://www.thesun.co.uk/artic...,,2-2004470401,00.html

Excerpt:

"AN SAS hit team was last night hunting down the barbaric killers of Ken Bigley.

"The troops and America’s crack Delta Force were ordered: “Nail the bastards” after Ken, 62, was beheaded in Iraq.

"They were closing in on the town of Latifiya, 22 miles south west of Baghdad, where Liverpool engineer Ken is thought to have been killed.

"Intelligence officers at Britain’s GCHQ believe they have identified the area where butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is holed up."

ABC News political director tells his employees to favor Kerry

10.09.04 (8:20 am)   [edit]
From the Drudge Report-- http://www.drudgereport.com/mh.htm" title="http://www.drudgereport.com/mh.htm" target="_blank"http://www.drudgereport.com/m...

Angie Kruger, coward

10.09.04 (8:18 am)   [edit]

Tblogger and dunce Angie Kruger writes to me:

i know im right. you honestly think its a coincidence that every time bushs numbers start to slip all of the sudden there is evidence of terrorists planning to attack yet they never quite say what that evidence is (exceot in this case ill give u that one) and studies have shown that when they make those announcments his numbers rise by at least 2%??? and yes we are in a vietnam-style quagmire. you arent actually naive enough to think were winning are you??? you ignorant bald little man??? you branch georgians need to wake up and realize that bush is not the messiah.

1)Bush's numbers aren't slipping.  At best, it's a draw between he and Kerry.  Secondly, you need to offer proof that every time Bush's numbers slip "all of a sudden" there is evidence of terrorists planning to attack, and you need to quote your "studies" that show this.  You've been wrong on everything else you've posted on Tblog; why should this be any different?

2)"And yes we are in a Vietnam-style quagmire.  You aren't actually naive enough to think we're winning are you?"  I'm not naive enough to swallow everything from the Democratic party.  I know that most of Iraq is safe; I know we've killed 10 times the "insurgents" than they've killed of us; I know that politically we're winning in Iraq (though John Kerry and your left-wing thugs are trying to stop a democratic Iraq); I know that there is a whole lot of good that is not acknowledged appreciated by a major American  party  simply for the reason that they fear it might make Bush look good; I know that if Afghanistan were Vietnam, a Democratic president would have started it, another Democrat would have accelerated the draft, both would have put a man with no military experience whatsoever as Defense Secretary, and they would sit over the deaths of 50,000, not 1,000, US soldiers.

3)I am bald, so what?  If you talk to fugly drinker and all-star loser Matthew Martin, you'll also learn that I'm fat.  If you talk to Whoisjohngalt, I'm compared to cartoon characters.  Hey, what can I tell you.  But I'd rather be bald and fat than achingly, helplessly, relentlessly, unfailingly stupid.

4)I don't think Bush is the Messiah.  I've criticized Bush many times.  By the same token, I also don't think he's Satan-- which just happens to be the platform of your party.

Keep the hits coming.

Nobel Prize for Lit goes to Anti-American Communist Hack

10.08.04 (5:20 pm)   [edit]

The Weekly Standard--

THE INFAMOUS SNOBS of the Swedish Academy, brooding in the land of military cowardice, interminable winter, and one of the highest suicide rates in the world, have returned to their habit of awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to an unknown, undistinguished, leftist fanatic: The 2004 prize has gone to Elfriede Jelinek, of Austria. This time they got a two-fer shot at destroying literary standards, since Jelinek's writings mainly verge on gross pornography. Ms. Jelinek's main recent work is a play, Bambiland, described as "a strident attack" on the U.S. intervention in Iraq. Published in Austria in 2003, it has been translated into English and will doubtless soon appear on the Anglo-American stage. Swedish Academy representative Horace Engdahl, laboring under the belief that the whole world can be fooled forever, disingenuously announced that the award should not be considered a political one. "When that play came out, this decision was--if not already made--then well under way," he said. But Engdahl went on to describe Bambiland as showing "how patriotic enthusiasm turns into insanity," adding, "she's completely right about that." The Swedes are big experts on patriotism--they sold iron ore to the Nazis while claiming to be neutral in World War II. But you already knew that. The New York Times--the Racing Form of the Nobel Prize competition--noted that Jelinek was a member of the Austrian Communist party from 1974 to 1991. One must know something of the history of European Communism to realize how despicable such a political option would appear to Austrians. The Austrian Communist party was the only one in the continent never to attract a noticeable following, and never to play a significant role in any historic event. After Soviet troops were withdrawn from the occupation zone of Austria in 1955, the Austrian Communist party was little more than a KGB network. How interesting that Jelinek quit the party just when Moscow turned off the financial spigots to such efforts. The organization made her prize a banner headline on its website--finally, they're on the map. But the Nobel Prize is bestowed for writing, and one must therefore address Jelinek's publications. In 2002, her novel The Piano Teacher was produced as an Austrian/French film starring Isabelle Huppert. Peter Rainer wrote of it, in New York magazine "Isabelle Huppert plays Erika, a stiff-backed piano instructor at a prestigious Viennese conservatory whose lust for her adoring student Walter (Benoit Magimel) exposes her deeply guarded sadomasochism. 'Do I disgust you?' she asks him after he reads a long letter from her outlining her most depraved fantasies." The novel also features voyeurism and self-mutilation with a razor. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, according to Reuters, "publisher Alexander Fest said [Jelinek's] writing showed 'great courage and huge savagery.' " Sexual titillation makes a comparison between Elfriede Jelinek and, say, Britney Spears, fair--though any normal person would doubtless prefer the latter's company. In bestowing the Nobel laurels on this Viennese virago, the Swedish Academy has confirmed that it must always compensate for its correct judgments with an atrocity. Last year the Nobel for Literature went to J.M. Coetzee, a serious and talented author; the year before to Imre Kertesz, a survivor of the Holocaust who, if little known outside his native Hungary, is nonetheless a writer of great eloquence and moral force; in 2001, it went to the controversial but respected V.S. Naipaul. In 2000, the prize was given to a Chinese, Gao Xingjian, although many of his compatriots, and experts in that country's literature, believed it should have gone to Ba Jin, a long-lived classic and dissident--however, Gao had the advantage of having been translated into Swedish. But prior to then, Stockholm produced an outstanding run of scandalous Nobels in literature: scolding lefty turned Nazi-nostalgic Gunter Grass, in 1999; Jose Saramago, a vulgar enemy of religion and former Communist censor in revolutionary Portugal, in 1998; and the repellent Dario Fo, an Italian playwright specializing in denunciations of capitalism, in 1997. The prize for Jelinek is obviously a replay of the Fo foolishness; if America will hate it, then it rates with the Swedes. Other Nobel stars have included Claude Simon (1985), a Stalinist who defamed George Orwell; Castro-lover Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1982); Pablo Neruda, Stalinist secret police agent (1971); and Soviet plagiarist and propagandist Mikhail Sholokhov (1965). One would be tempted to say the Nobel recognition to an Austrian ogress proves that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only decent thing to come out of that Alpine land in the last two decades. But one should also add that the Nobel Prize for Literature, which includes a check for $1.3 million, each year increasingly diminishes in moral, if not in financial worth. Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard

© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

Kerry says we let OBL go in Tora Bora-- well, not exactly

10.08.04 (5:17 pm)   [edit]

For Whoisjohngalt: here are the ends, and here are the means

10.08.04 (8:51 am)   [edit]

The ends in Iraq, 1991-1998:

*Have Hussein declare and dismantle his WMD per his cease-fire agreement.  Verify disarmament.

The means in Iraq, 1991-1998:

*Threaten, bomb, and, when Hussein still doesn't live up to his cease-fire (and Whoisjohngalt, what happens when a cease-fire is broken?), slap on some economic sanctions while hunting, finding, and dismantling WMD yourself.  Kill and malnourish millions of Iraqi children.  When the sanctions fail, institute corrupt oil-for-food program which enlists France, Russia, China, and Germany.  Hussein still violates UN cease-fire, makes a mockery of the world, still has WMD (accdg to our own UN weapons inspectors), continues to thrive.

*After UN inspectors get kicked out of country by Hussein, have the US declare "regime change" the only way to ensure that Iraq is free of WMD.  Do nothing.

The ends, 1998-2001:

*Replace Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.  Hold him accountable to his cease-fire violations.  Know the truth about his WMD (remember that every single major intelligence community believed Hussein had them).

The means, 1998-2001:

*Do nothing.

The ends, 2001-present:

*Protect the United States from the kind of terror that built up during the 1990s and sprung to life on 9/11. 

The means, 2001-present:

*Take outstanding threats seriously, including Iraq, whose status as a proliferator was unknown, a country believed to have WMD.  Hold Hussein accountable to the world.  Ask the UN to do something about Hussein's violations.  When the UN predictably fails, along with Hussein, to honor the UN cease-fire, honor the Iraqi Liberation Act, the Congressional authority given President Bush after 9/11 and, for the trifecta, ask the American people, one more time, to authorize war against Iraq.

After 9/11, the US was especially threatened by the question of whether Iraq still had WMD.  Terrorists could easily get their hands on them.  Take action. 

**I'll say this one more time, for the willingly stupid: what we know now, the "definitive" status of Saddam's WMD has come only because we went to war-- it did not come with dialogue, inspections, or sanctions.  The mere fact that we finally know the status of Saddam's WMD, AFTER DELIBERATION, AFTER 12 YEARS OF 'DIALOGUE' AFTER EVERY ATTEMPT TO AVOID VIOLENCE, is [i]the[/i] justification of our means.

To say that "the ends justify the means" for Bush and Iraq is to not take history, facts, and context seriously.  If Bush truly didn't care about the ends to justify the means, we would have invaded without going to the UN and trying endlessly to get them to uphold their end of the bargain.  We wouldn't have given Hussein multiple more chances to come clean.

Only 2 entities broke the law: the Hussein Regime and the UN.  The only means possible to the desire end (Saddam free of WMD, Saddam coming clean and held accountable) was to go to war.  War was the last resort, not the first option (any means). This is the truth no matter how much you want to bitch, whine, and cry about it.

Iraq insurgent found with US school floorplans-- schools put on alert

10.08.04 (8:32 am)   [edit]

This is a tad alarming.  Now: why would "the people" of Iraq, who are just exercizing their own right to bear arms and defend themselves, as Therealspartacus has pointed out, who just want an end to this illegal occupation, take up arms against innocent children in America? 

Maybe there is something more to this "insurgency" than opposition to a US presence in Iraq.  Maybe it has something to do with Islamic terrorism, with Islamic fundamentalism.  Maybe it has something to do with hating and killing infidels.

From ABC news--

School Warning School Plans, Security Information Gathered by Suspected Iraq Insurgent Focus Concern on Schools in Six States By Brian Ross ABCNEWS.com Oct. 7, 2004— Schools in six states in particular are being watched closely based on information uncovered by the U.S. military in Baghdad this summer, law enforcement and education officials told ABC News.

A man described as an Iraqi insurgent involved in anti-coalition activities had downloaded school floor plans and safety and security information about elementary and high schools in the six states, according to officials. School officials in Fort Myers, Fla.; Salem, Ore.; Gray, Ga.; Birch Run, Mich.; two towns in New Jersey; and two towns in California have been told to increase security in light of the discovery. Officials in the New Jersey towns, Franklinville and Rumson, were notified by counterterrorism officials last month that their schools had been possibly singled out. "Once we were notified, we immediately put a plan into effect," said Dwight Pfennig, deputy commissioner of education for the state of New Jersey. And William Matthews, superintendent of schools in Jones County, Ga., sent a letter to parents, faculty and staff last week notifying them that security was being increased during the election season. "In an effort to be proactive and ensure the safety of all, we are reviewing our school safety plans," Matthews wrote in the letter. "You may notice an increase in law enforcement visibility as well as other measures designed to provide a safe and pleasant environment." Matthews said in the letter that the information was not considered a threat. School officials in Salem, Ore., told ABC News affiliate KATU that local law enforcement has no knowledge of a specific threat to any schools there. "The safety of students and staff is a priority to us, and we will continue to make every attempt to keep them secure," Salem Superintendent Kay Baker told KATU. On Wednesday, the federal government warned schools nationwide to look out for suspicious activity that might signal terrorist activity, and told school officials to be on the lookout for anyone spying on their buildings or buses, expressing interest in obtaining site plans, and other types of suspicious activity. It followed an analysis by the FBI and the Homeland Security Department of the school siege in Beslan, Russia, last month, in which nearly 340 people, many of them children, were killed. Law enforcement officials said they had no easy explanation why an insurgent in Baghdad would be gathering such specific information about American schools, some of them in small towns. And though the information was recovered in July, it was not given urgency until the attack in Beslan. Ultimately, officials say they are hoping to increase security in schools and heighten awareness without causing parents nationwide to panic. ABC News' Richard Esposito contributed to this report.

 

The AP spins the ISG report

10.08.04 (8:24 am)   [edit]

Scott Lindlaw is an Associated Press reporter who has told fellow members of the White House press corps that his "mission is to see that George Bush is not re-elected." He is the reporter who wrote falsely that a Republican crowd at a Bush rally in West Allis, Wisconsin, booed the news of President Clinton's hospitalization, and "Bush did nothing to stop them." The story was a complete fabrication, later retracted by the AP, but the AP has never responded to our many emails on the subject, and to our knowledge Scott Lindlaw has never been disciplined in any way for filing a false story.

Now, Lindlaw is at it again, spinning the Iraq Survey Group's report for the benefit of the Kerry campaign. Lindlaw writes, in a story titled "Bush, Cheney Concede Saddam Had No WMDs":

President Bush and his vice president conceded Thursday in the clearest terms yet that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue--whether the invasion was justified because Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-for-food program.

Ridiculing the Bush administration's evolving rationale for war, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry shot back: "You don't make up or find reasons to go to war after the fact."

Lindlaw obviously agrees with Kerry's "ridicule." But here is the text of what President Bush said; Lindlaw actually quotes the relevant paragraphs:

The Duelfer report also raises important new information about Saddam Hussein's defiance of the world, and his intent and capability to develop weapons.

The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the U.N. oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions. He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away.

So Lindlaw grossly mischaracterizes President Bush's statement. Bush did not invent a "new" rationale for toppling Saddam, or suggest that we went to war simply because Saddam was abusing the oil for food program. The point of Bush's reference to the oil for food program was that Saddam was abusing it for the specific purpose of regaining his WMD capabilities. This is exactly what the ISG report says. Bush correctly characterized the report; Scott Lindlaw incorrectly characterized Bush's point. Lindlaw continues:

Duelfer found no formal plan by Saddam to resume WMD production, but the inspector surmised that Saddam intended to do so if U.N. sanctions were lifted. Bush seized upon that inference, using the word "intent" three times in reference to Saddam's plans to resume making weapons.

This is simply outrageous. Duelfer and the ISG wrote a 1,000 page report, a principal theme of which is Saddam's continuing intent to reconstitute his WMD programs. There was no "formal plan" because Saddam wasn't stupid enough to put his WMD intentions in writing--in any event, not in any document that has yet been identified and translated. But to say that Duelfer "surmised" Saddam's intent is ridiculous; the report lays out hundreds of pages of evidence of Saddam's intent.

This week marks the first time that the Bush administration has listed abuses in the oil-for-fuel program as an Iraq war rationale. But the strategy holds risks because some of the countries that could be implicated include U.S. allies, such as Poland, Jordan and Egypt. In addition, the United States itself played a significant role in both the creation of the program and how it was operated and overseen.

Here, Lindlaw is just making it up. The Bush administration, as noted above, didn't cite the "oil for fuel" -- that would be "oil for food," Scott -- program as a "first time" rationale; rather, the point was that abuses of the program gave Saddam the opportunity to reconstitute his illegal weapons programs. And the "risks" claimed by Lindlaw are risible. The countries that are actually named in the ISG report as recipients of Iraqi bribery are France, Russia, and China, countries that had Security Council veto power. And the suggestion that "the United States itself played a significant role" in the operation of the U.N.'s oil for food program is ridiculous. The only reference to bribery of Americans that I've seen in the report is to an American weapons inspector, presumably Bush critic Scott Ritter. And whoever may have played a "significant role" in creating the U.N. program, it certainly wasn't anyone in the Bush administration.

Lindlaw continues:

"Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," Bush said. His words placed the blame on U.S. intelligence agencies.

Huh? Is Lindlaw denying that our intelligence agencies, and those of every other interested country, said that Saddam had banned WMDs? Apparently he hasn't read the National Intelligence Estimate. Lindlaw is either unpardonably ill-informed, or he is taking a misleading cheap shot at the President.

And finally:

In recent weeks, Cheney has glossed over the primary justification for the war, most often by simply not mentioning it.

Saddam's WMDs were indeed one of the reasons for going to war. But the claim that they were the only reason, or the main reason, is one that is simply asserted by Lindlaw and like-minded reporters and is generally taken to be true by dint of repetition. In fact, however, President Bush has always emphasized multiple reasons for liberating Iraq, including the moral imperative to relieve the oppression of the Iraqi people and, even more important, the long-term benefit of beginning the process of reforming the Arab world.

The Democrats have no long-term solution to the problem of terrorism. The only proposal on the table is the President's: eliminate the cause of terrorism by liberating the Arab world, leading a transformation of the failed, oppressive, corrupt Arab states into modern democracies with economies that offer opportunities for their citizens. President Bush has articulated this rationale for the Iraq war--by any measure, the most important one--many times. Here is how President Bush expressed this rationale in just one of many speeches:

Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo.

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace.

The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the Speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle. We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And we believe that freedom -- the freedom we prize -- is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind.

The President's soaring vision puts to shame hacks like Scott Lindlaw who pretend to report the news, but in reality seek to advance a narrow, short-sighted partisan agenda

It's election day in Afghanistan....thank you, President Bush

10.08.04 (8:22 am)   [edit]

Who are the leftists rooting for-- the Afghans or the Taliban?

From ABC news--

Security High for Afghan Elections: Security Forces on High Alert Across Afghanistan Ahead of Landmark Election

Leftist election violence towards Repubs-- and here I thought Tblog lefties were extreme

10.07.04 (4:40 pm)   [edit]
Turns out they were just part of the mainstream.....

From NRO--

October 07, 2004, 8:52 a.m.
[b]Climate of Fear
Some Bush supporters say they fear for their property.[/b]
--Stanley Kurtz

Blogger Robert Musil suggests that a climate of fear has descended upon Republicans in at least some parts of the country. Based in Los Angeles, Musil says most Republicans he's spoken with are afraid to put Bush-Cheney bumper stickers on their cars, or signs on their lawns, for fear of physical retaliation from angry liberals. The problem is not symmetrical, says Musil. Stickers and signs for Kerry are widespread in Republican neighborhoods. Yet even in their own communities, Republicans are holding back. Intrigued by Musil's claim, I put up a post on NRO's blog, The Corner, asking for reader comment. I was quickly flooded with nearly 300 e-mails, almost all of them backing Musil. Here is the story they told.

There is a climate of fear. Again and again, Corner readers say they've been scared off of posting bumper stickers by visions of having their cars keyed or their windows smashed. A typical comment: "Putting a Bush-Cheney sticker on my car would be like adding a bulls-eye that says, 'Please vandalize my truck.'" A reader from Arlington, Va., who lives just a few blocks from national Bush-Cheney headquarters, says he was not afraid to use bumper stickers in 1996 or 2000, but wouldn't do so this year. Bush lawn signs are feared, not only as an invitation to vandalism, but because they might permanently alienate neighbors. A man whose wife was handicapped and dependent on neighbors in case of emergency was wary of starting a neighborhood "war" with a sign. This was a common worry among Bush supporters, even in less dire circumstances. (For more on the Bush-Cheney sign fears, go here, here, and here.)

Are the fears justified? They seem to be. On Tuesday there was a report that several shots had been fired into Bush-Cheney headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn., shattering glass. And late Tuesday evening came a report that protesters had ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters in Orlando, Florida. But these are only the most dramatic examples of a broader trend. Plenty of folks told me that their cars had been keyed, dented, or had windows smashed in for carrying a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker. Nasty notes left on the windshield are common. And some drivers get cut off in traffic and flipped off by cars sporting Kerry bumper stickers. One fellow said a couple of young guys pulled up next to his 64-year-old mother's car and signaled her to roll the window down. When she did, they screamed, "Bush is a F**king MORON!"

Apparently, Bush-Cheney cars are routinely keyed in places like liberal Seattle. And liberal Bethesda, Md., has reportedly seen a rash of spray-paintings of Bush yard signs (with Kerry signs left in tact). One pro-Bush family in liberal West L.A. had its yard sign stolen six times. Theft, spray paint, or just tearing to shreds are the weapons of choice against yard signs, but one Bush-Cheney sign was actually set on fire. Even in conservative Idaho, Bush-Cheney cars get keyed. And in conservative Houston, parking while visiting a friend in the liberal midtown section can mean a keyed car. Apparently, these attacks are so common that you can now buy a T-Shirt with a picture of a slashed-out Bush-Cheney logo and the legend, "A person of tolerance and diversity keyed my car."

The fear of violence leads many couples into serious debate. A stolen Bush-Cheney yard sign in liberal Cherry Hill, N.J., prompted one couple to think long and hard before replacing it. Would a rock through the window be next? "You can't hide where you live once you make a mark of yourself," said the husband. (But they did replace the sign.) One woman hints that although her husband called her "paranoid" for deciding against a bumper sticker, he may secretly be relieved at her choice.

Several readers noted that Kerry bumper stickers seem to show up mostly on Mercedes, BMWs, and other "high-end Euro-steel," while Bush-Cheney cars are more modest American models. But at least part of the reason for this could be that Bush supporters are afraid to put stickers on new or expensive cars. Some families with two cars restrict the Bush-Cheney sticker to the beat-up old family van, keeping it off the better car.

Bush-sign protection is an art. Lots of folks report putting signs inside home and car windows, facing out. Magnetized car signs can be removed for safety when parking, and Bush yard signs can be stored in the garage at night. One fellow makes sure to park with his bumper facing a wall. Some Bush supporters have responded to thefts by covering signs in chicken wire or putting them behind fences. But these tactics don't always work.

The most effective strategy seems to be hanging the signs high on trees, or high on a house. But this can be countered by malicious graffiti on the door, which one family has to clean off daily. The best tactic may have been this note, taped to the back of a yard sign: "Thanks! Your theft of this sign will result in a replacement sign and an additional donation of $10 to the RNC. Your contribution is appreciated."

So are those too afraid to use stickers and signs just a bunch of political girly-men? A couple of tough guys said as much to their more timid compatriots: "What kind of wussy are you? I say Bring It On!" But most of the people who wrote in argued that it isn't cowardice to worry about damage to a car that can't be protected when parked. Several people said they'd started sporting Bush T-shirts and caps instead of bumper stickers, because Kerry supporters won't try anything to their face. Readers who do decide to use stickers or signs despite the risks feel courageous. Some folks feel a sense of relief each and every time they return to an undamaged car.

Many Bush supporters avoid the whole problem by adopting a flag strategy. American flags, yellow ribbons, and signs saying "Support our troops" function in many places as proxies for Bush-Cheney signs. One reader noted that none of the homes with Kerry signs on his street display American flags. Other readers say they intentionally use the flag as a proxy. Usually this is safe. But apparently in Seattle, even an American flag can provoke arguments and rude looks. One Seattle neighborhood seems to display U.N. flags and stickers more often than Old Glory. (I guess that meets the "global test.")

Is the violence really unequal? Corner readers sure think so, but it's tough to know for certain when your sample consists of Bush partisans. Still, Corner readers point to repeatedly defaced Bush-Cheney signs in areas where Kerry signs go untouched. Clearly, there is at least some violence against Kerry signs. One reader said that in Columbus, Ohio, the virtual epicenter of this year's campaign, sign violence seems to be about equal. The most frightened Corner readers by far are those who live in or pass through university towns. Yet one reader from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee reports that at least some liberal professors there feel sheepish about displaying their support for Kerry. Still, the repeated message of Corner readers is that property damage is inflicted on Bush supporters at far higher levels than on Kerry supporters. The asymmetry is attributed partly to the general willingness of those on the left to protest, but mostly to the depths of liberal Bush hatred.

Several readers complained about local news stories that hyped minor attacks on Kerry signs while ignoring the more pervasive violence against Bush supporters. Then there's the question of which side's attacks are meaner. The only direct assault on a Kerry supporter described to me was a fellow who's Kedwards sign earned him a couple of frozen waffles on his front porch. Now, I wouldn't hurl waffles myself, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think the waffle stunt was a great prank. Even when the Bushies strike, they seem to do it more in humor than in anger.

Pervasive liberal vitriol against the president has convinced some Bush supporters that they are in danger. Anti-Bush signs and graffiti seem to be at least as common as pro-Kerry signs. The slogans range from "Bushit," to "Bush is a Stupid A** Moron," to bumper stickers that substitute Bush/Hitler or Bush/Satan for Bush/Cheney.

This brings us to what I call "the mechanism of intimidation." It seems that either past violence or present incivility has the power to intimidate. Several Washington state readers pointed to memories of the violence at the Seattle World Trade Organization protests some years ago as a reason why they would not display a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker. A couple of California readers pointed to violence against conservatives on the Berkeley campus as a reason to hold back.

But overwhelmingly, those who were reluctant to put up Bush-Cheney stickers or signs said that the "rabid" nature of this year's Bush-hatred had convinced them that showing their support for the president was no longer safe. Apparently, in addition to all the keyed cars and bumper stickers, many city stop signs have been painted to read "Stop Bush." More than one reader said that people who deface city property can't be trusted to refrain from violence against private cars. One correspondent had an eloquent take on the mechanism of intimidation:

...a number of neighborhood Kerry supporters have taken to putting hand written signs on their lawns. They do not threaten violence but manage to cross that invisible line of good taste and neighborliness.... That is, they insult the president personally and by association those who support him.

In the past, an unwritten rule seemed to apply to yard signs. Any neighbor was free to express his support for the candidate of his choice in a tasteful yard sign without having it affect personal friendships. But tactics seeming to violate the unwritten rule are now widely practiced: using insulting handmade signs, planting multiple signs at a single household and placing signs on property lines to make it appear as if neighbors also support Kerry-Edwards. In my mind's eye, this behavior suggests that the Kerry-Edwards supporters are so invested emotionally in the contest that they are willing — no eager — to alienate their neighbors.

This is what has created the climate of fear.

Why do Kerry supporters feel free to vandalize Bush signs and damage the property of the president's supporters? Corner readers agree that it's the liberal feeling of moral superiority that "puts them above the law and gives them leave to abridge the rights of others." Another typical comment was: "There's nothing more intolerant than a tolerant liberal." One reader called for an amendment to Voltaire's classic statement of liberal tolerance: "I may disagree with what you say, but I'll sneak onto your yard in the middle of the night to steal your sign, you fascist bastard."

With all the problems, the tide may be turning. A number of readers report that Bush signs are now proliferating. According to one, they "sprouted like dandelions" after the Republican convention. That may mean even more vandalism and violence as we head toward election day. But this is unlikely to help Kerry.

First, there's the cocoon effect. A number of readers said that the mainstream-media message that it's politically incorrect to favor the president means polls may actually undercount Bush support. Liberals are shocked when the president garners majority support, because they don't know anyone who agrees with him. Yet the truth is that liberal vitriol has simply made the many Bush supporters in their midst go underground.

Anti-Bush violence is a weak and ultimately counterproductive tactic. It is the opposite of Tocqueville's famous "tyranny of the majority." The tyranny of the majority works chiefly through mental intimidation. It frightens and silences by its pervasiveness, and its implicit threat of ostracism. As Tocqueville said, the tyranny of the majority leaves the body and goes for the soul. There is a touch of this in the reluctance of Bush supporters to alienate the neighbors upon whom they depend. But for the most part, the anti-Bush violence leaves the soul and goes for the body (even if it's the body of a car). That is not the tyranny of the majority. It is the rage of a minority, and it can only stir resentment and provoke a reaction at the voting booth. As one Corner reader said: "We may fear retaliation for putting stickers on our cars, but our voice will be heard loud and clear on November 2."

Iraq report reveals foolishness of Kerry's foreign policy

10.07.04 (2:12 pm)   [edit]
From Glenn Reynolds at http://www.glennreynolds.com

[b]KERRY'S CASE COLLAPSES[/b]

Although everybody's talking about weapons of mass destruction, the story that's not being reported --you'd almost think the press "wants Kerry to win"-- is the complete collapse of John Kerry's foreign policy case, and the reason for that collapse.

The weapons of mass destruction case is a bit more, um, nuanced than a lot of the press treatment makes it sound, of course. No weapons have been found, but the Iraq Survey Group's report makes clear that Saddam wanted to outwait sanctions and then start making the weapons again:

"The ISG, who confirmed last autumn that they had found no WMD, last night presented detailed findings from interviews with Iraqi officials and documents laying out his plans to bribe foreign businessmen and politicians.

"Although they found no evidence that Saddam had made any WMD since 1992, they found documents which showed the "guiding theme" of his regime was to be able to start making them again with as short a lead time as possible.""

But hey, Kerry voted for the war, so his arguments on that topic boil down to either (1) Bush lied, and I'm gullible: or (2) Bush and I both got fooled, but I'll do better next time. Neither is very compelling.

The real centerpiece of Kerry's foreign policy stance, though, has been that he would be better than Bush at getting allies together, and at passing the "Global Test" before taking military action. And that case is in total collapse this week.

Forget missteps like his dissing of our allies in Iraq, Australia, and Poland -- which drew a stinging response from the Polish President ("It's sad that a Senator with twenty years of experience does not appreciate Polish sacrifice.") Now even Kerry is admitting that he's not going to be able to deliver on his promises:

"Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry conceded yesterday that he probably will not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if he is elected president.

"The Massachusetts senator has made broadening the coalition trying to stabilize Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign, but at a town hall meeting yesterday, he said he knows other countries won't trade their soldiers' lives for those of U.S. troops.

""Does that mean allies are going to trade their young for our young in body bags? I know they are not. I know that," he said."

Body bags. This sounds like the John Kerry of 1971. I can't help but think that, for Kerry, every war is Vietnam. And if he's President, I'm afraid that might turn out to be the case.

The "Global Test" bit looks kind of bad, in this light. [b]But it looks even worse when you consider the other revelations of the Iraq Survey Group -- namely, that most of the opposition to the war came from people who were being bribed by Saddam:[/b]

"Saddam Hussein believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.

"Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.
...
"To keep America at bay, he focusing [sic] on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council m bers with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers.

"Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights.

"Iraqi intelligence officials then "targeted a number of French individuals that Iraq thought had a close relationship to French President Chirac," it said, including two of his "counsellors" [sic] and spokesman for his re-election campaign."

It's hard to pass the "Global Test" when the people grading it are being bribed to administer a failing grade. Perhaps Kerry should change his stance, and promise that a Kerry Administration would "outbid the bad guys." That approach is more likely to succeed than the one he's been touting, which even he has admitted is doomed.

We 'now' know that sanctions, inspections worked? Why do we 'now' know anything? UPDATED

10.07.04 (1:28 pm)   [edit]
Therealspartacus still can't stand to face the logic of the Iraq war, so he posts 2 cartoons and a NY Times editorial that declares, rather falsely, that we now know that sanctions on Iraq worked, and that the weapons inspections worked.

Never mind that a)inspecting for weapons was not part of the cease-fire and actually showed a FAILURE of the UN/Hussein cease-fire agreement and b)sanctions malnourised and killed millions of Iraqi children. Yes, things worked great!
(When the failure of the sanctions was noted by the world, the world responded with the corrupt oil-for-food regime, another roaring success that continues to bear fruit to this day...)

Let's, once again, review the history:

a)US thumps Hussein with UN approval (not John Kerry's approval!) in 1991.
b)Hussein signs contract with the world to account for, and dismantle, his WMD.
c)Inspectors sent to verify the Hussein dismantling.
d)Hussein does not dismantle and verify it to the world, breaks cease-fire agreement. Because of this the world thinks he has WMD and is still a threat. Inspectors start hunting for the WMD and destroying it themselves. This only possible through "illegal" US troop and air presence.
e)Inspections HAVE FAILED, so UN slaps on punitive economic sanctions on Iraq. Sanctions FAIL to force Hussein to comply, but ruin the lives of everyday Iraqis, so...
f)UN comes up with oil-for-food program to help the people of Iraq, but it only helps Hussein. And France, Russia, Germany, and China.
g)Hussein kicks those wonderful inspectors out (a job well done!).
h)Because of these multiple failures, Clinton and Congress come up with Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998, making regime change official policy of US govt.
i)9/11 happens, making the uncertainty of Hussein and his WMD a more immediate danger.
j)After replacing the Taliban in Afghanistan, [b][i]and after another failed attempt to get Hussein to live up to his agreement [faulty weapons declaration] and another failed attempt with the UN inspectors[/b][/i], US attacks the weakest link in the Axis of Evil, Iraq, with the approval of the American people (Congress) in bid to show that international will will not be broken, the US will defend itself, to end Hussein's WMD violations, and to force pressure on Iraq, now sandwiched inbetween a pro-US Iraq and Afghanistan. All we had to go on was 12 years of Hussein's cease-fire violations, the testimony of the UN weapons inspectors, and the intelligence of most major democratic countries.

Other than history's testimony, it is clear that inspections and sanctions clearly worked....

The times diatribe also recycles the canard that Bush said Iraq was an "imminent" threat. This is brought up to make the ISG's report look like another contradiction to Bush. Of course, Bush and no one else said Iraq was an imminent threat.

In fact, and my repetition proves that Sparto is indeed a product of Clinton's education system, Bush said that because Hussein violated the cease-fire, because sanctions did not work, because Hussein would not cooperate by verifying and dismantling, which resulted in our not knowing what Hussein did/did not have, because the UN failed, we had to go to war.

These facts still stand, no matter how many editorials Therealspartacus wants to cut and paste.

And not only do we 'now' know what we know from the ISG, the only way we know it is because of the war. The whole idea that we didn't know, the uncertainty, the fact that Hussein exploited sanctions and made dupes out of our weapons inspectors, constituting a grave and gathering threat after 9/11, made the war justified.

Why doesn't Therealspartacus acknowledge these glaring facts? Because he, and the rest of the left refuse to let reality cloud their partisanship and hatred.

Nice try, Spartacus, but you cannot use facts discovered only, ultimately, through the act of war, to buttress anti-war arguments made before the war. What we knew before the war that insepctions were getting nowhere, (inspectors themselves said so) sanctions were killing children, and that all of that was because of Hussein's cease-fire violations. [b]The issue here was that we didn't know-- Hussein made sure that he made a mockery of the UN system and US national security could not depend on that.[/b]

But in Sparto's world, we'd still have UN weapons inspectors completing their 13 year hunting in the desert. Hussein would still be breaking the cease-fire. We'd still have those wonderful, crippling, punitive sanctions on the people of Iraq. We'd still have the framework in place to allow Hussein to exploit international will, stay in power, brutalize his people and, yes, accelerate his WMD programs (so he could give them to terrorists).

That's a hell of an argument, Spartacus. Got any more?

Ps. I suppose things in Iran are going well, too. Ditto Sudan. Is Libya still the head of the UN Human Right Commission, or have they passed the torch to Syria? Or Zimbabwe?

BY THE WAY, according to the same ISG report that the left is ignorantly brandishing, Saddam Hussein was waiting until he tired out the inspectors before accelerating his programs further. They were kicked out in 1998 and, until Bush forced them, inspectors were not coming back. Yet the sanctions would have remained in place as well as the corrupt oil-for-food program because it would have benefitted UNSC members France, China, and Russia. If the sanctions and inspections were fine as they were, as Therealspartacus attests, then Hussein would have gotten his WMD accelerated because inspections [i]were not[/i] going on, yet the inspectors said he still had WMD (thereby justifying UN sanctions).

Bottom line? This whole Iraq drama is a UN-tailored mess. The US ended it. That's fine and dandy with me.

Major excerpts of Bush excellent Kerry speech

10.06.04 (4:51 pm)   [edit]

From  GeorgeW.Bush.com--

Taken from Bush's Wednesday speech at the Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

"When I took -- when I took office in 2001, the bubble of the '90s had burst.  Our economy was headed into a recession.  And because of the attacks of September the 11th, nearly a million jobs were lost in three months.  It was a dangerous time for our economy.  People were warning of potential deflation and depression.  But I acted.  To stimulate the economy, I called on Congress to pass historic tax relief, which it did, without my opponent's "yes" vote.  (Applause.)  The tax relief was the fuel that got our economy growing again."

"In the past year, the United States of America has added about 1.7 million new jobs.  (Applause.)  More than Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Canada and France combined.  (Applause.)  Real tax -- real after-tax income -- that's the money in your pocket to spend on groceries or house payments and rent-- is up more than 10 percent since I took office.  (Applause.)  Home ownership is at an all-time high in America.  (Applause.)  Farm income is up.  Small businesses are flourishing.  The entrepreneurial spirit is strong in the United States of America.  (Applause.)"

"...To make sure America is the best place in the world to start a business, our taxes must be low; Congress must make the tax relief we passed permanent.  (Applause.)  To keep jobs here, there need to be less regulations on our small businesses.  (Applause.)  To keep jobs here, we must pass an energy plan that makes us less dependent on foreign sources of energy.  (Applause.)  To make sure jobs exist here in America, we got to do something about these junk and frivolous lawsuits.
(Applause.)  Trial lawyers shouldn't be getting rich at the expense of our entrepreneurs and our doctors.  (Applause.)"

"My opponent was against all of our middle class tax relief.  He voted instead to squeeze another $2,000 per year from the average middle class family.  Now the Senator is proposing higher taxes on more than 900,000 small business owners.  My opponent is one of the few candidates in history to campaign on a pledge to raise taxes.  (Laughter.) And that's the kind of promise a politician from Massachusetts usually keeps.  (Laughter and applause.)

He says the tax increase is only for the rich.  You've heard that kind of rhetoric before.  The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason -- to stick you with the tab.  The Senator is not going to tax you because we're going to win in November.  (Applause.)"

"Under his health plan, 8 million Americans would lose the private insurance they get at work, and most would end up on a government program.  Under his plan, 8 out of 10 people who get new insurance will get it from the federal government.  My opponent's proposal would be the largest expansion of government-run health care ever. And when government pays the bills, government makes the rules.  His plan would put bureaucrats in charge of dictating coverage, which could ration care and limit your choice of doctor.  Senator Kerry's proposal would put us on the path to "Clinton-care.""

"My opponent agrees with all this -- except when he doesn't.
(Laughter.)  Last week in our debate, he once again came down firmly on every side of the Iraq war.  (Laughter.)  He stated that Saddam Hussein was a threat and that America had no business removing that threat.  Senator Kerry said our soldiers and Marines are not fighting for a mistake -- but also called the liberation of Iraq a "colossal error."  He said we need to do more to train Iraqis, but he also said we shouldn't be spending so much money over there.  He said he wants to hold a summit meeting, so he can invite other countries to join what he calls  "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."  (Laughter and applause.)

He said terrorists are pouring across the Iraqi border, but also said that fighting those terrorists is a diversion from the war on terror.
(Laughter.)  You hear all that and you can understand why somebody would make a face.  (Laughter and applause.)

My opponent's endless back-and-forth on Iraq is part of a larger misunderstanding.  In the war on terror, Senator Kerry is proposing policies and doctrines that would weaken America and make the world more dangerous.  His -- Senator Kerry approaches the world with a September the 10th mind-set.  He declared in his convention speech that "any attack will be met with a swift and certain response."  That was the mind-set of the 1990s, while al Qaeda was planning the attacks on America.  After September the 11th, our object in the war on terror is not to wait for the next attack and respond, but to prevent attacks by taking the fight to the enemy.  (Applause.)

In our debate, Senator Kerry said that removing Saddam Hussein was a mistake because the threat was not imminent.  The problem with this approach is obvious:  if America waits until a threat is at our doorstep, it might be too late to save lives.  (Applause.)  Tyrants and terrorists will not give us polite notice before they launch an attack on our country.
(Applause.)  I refuse to stand by while dangers gather.  In the world after September the 11th, the path to safety is the path of action.  And I will continue to defend the people of the United States of America.  (Applause.) Thank you all.  Thank you all."

"...But it is a window into his thinking.  Over the years, Senator Kerry has looked for every excuse to constrain America's action in the world.  These days he praises America's broad coalition in the Persian Gulf War.  But in 1991, he criticized those coalition members as "shadow battlefield allies who barely carry a burden."  Sounds familiar.  At that time, he voted against the war.  If that coalition didn't pass his global test, clearly, nothing will.  (Laughter and applause.)  This mind-set would paralyze America in a dangerous world.  I'll never hand over America's security decisions to foreign leaders and international bodies that do not have America's interests at heart.  (Applause.)

"My opponent's doctrine has other consequences, especially for our men and women in uniform.  My opponent supports the International Criminal Court, which would allow unaccountable foreign prosecutors and judges to put American soldiers on trial.

"That would be a legal nightmare for our troops.  My fellow citizens, as long as I'm your President, Americans in uniform will answer to the officers and laws of the United States -- not to the International Criminal Court in The Hague."

"The Senator speaks often about his plan to strengthen America's alliances, but he's got an odd way of doing it.  In the middle of the war, he's chosen to insult America's fighting allies by calling them, "window dressing," and the "coalition of the coerced and the bribed."  The Italians who died in Nasiriyah were not window dressing.  They were heroes in the war on terror.  (Applause.)  The British and the Poles at the head of the multinational divisions in Iraq were not coerced or bribed.  They have fought, and some have died, in the cause of freedom.  These good allies and dozens of others deserve the respect of all Americans, not the scorn of a politician.  (Applause.)

Instead, the Senator would have America bend over backwards to satisfy a handful of governments with agendas different from our own.  This is my opponent's alliance-building strategy:  brush off your best friends, fawn over your critics.  And that is no way to gain the respect of the world.  (Applause.)"

"Senator Kerry suggests we train Iraqi troops, which we've been doing for months.  Just this week, Iraqi forces backed by coalition troops fought bravely to take the city of Samarra from the terrorists and Baathists and insurgents.  (Applause.)  Senator Kerry -- Senator Kerry is proposing that we have -- that Iraq have elections.  (Laughter.)  Those elections are already scheduled for January.  (Laughter and applause.)  He wants the U.N. to be involved in those elections.  Well, the U.N. is already there."

"My opponent offers an agenda that is stuck in the thinking and the policies of the past.  On national security, he offers the defensive mind-set of September the 10th, a global test to replace American leadership, a strategy of retreat in Iraq, and a 20-year history of weakness in the United States Senate.  Here at home, he offers a record and an agenda of more taxes and more spending, and more litigation, and more government control over your life."

The race for President is a contest for the future, and you know where I stand.  I'm running for President to keep this nation on the offensive against terrorists, with the goal of total victory.  I'm running
-- (applause) -- I'm running for President to keep this economy moving so every worker has a good job and quality health care and a secure retirement.  (Applause.)  I'm running for President to make our nation a more compassionate society, where no one is left out, where every life matters.

I have a hopeful vision.  I believe this young century will be liberty's century.  We'll promote liberty abroad, protect our country and build a better world beyond the war on terror.  We'll encourage liberty at home to spread the prosperity and opportunity of America to every corner of our country.  I will carry this message to my fellow citizens in the closing days of this campaign, and with your help, we will win a great victory on November the 2nd.  God bless.  God bless our great country.
(Applause.)

Photos, analysis show Iraq trailer was mobile weapons lab

10.06.04 (4:34 pm)   [edit]

From WorldNet Daily--

OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
Is this one of Saddam's
mobile bio-weapons labs?
WND obtains photos of unit
capable of producing WMDs

---

Posted: October 6, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2004 WorldNe tDaily.com

A trailer found by the U.S. in Northern Iraq last year likely was used by Saddam Hussein's regime as a mobile biological weapons laboratory, and not to fill hydrogen balloons as some in Britain and the U.S. have charged, a view supported by exclusive photos obtained by WorldNetDaily that for the first time offer inside views of the trailer components.

Brewing canister

Kurdish forces seized the trailer in April 2003 at a checkpoint near Mosul in northern Iraq. At the time, the unit was hailed as the closest U.S. forces may have come to finding a "smoking gun" in their search for weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq.

A general photo of the outside of the trailer was released to the media.

But initial swab tests of the mobile unit, which seemed to have been washed thoroughly with a strong decontaminating substance, yielded no traces of biological or chemical agents, leading many critics to conclude the trailer could have been used for legitimate medical purposes.

Very large industrial heating-cooling pump, added after previous bio-weapons accident

Some in British and American intelligence groups charged the trailers were used for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery and weather balloons.

However, photos obtained by WorldNetDaily from a U.S. Army source in Iraq offer a rare glimpse inside the trailer, which indicates the most likely use for the mobile unit was the production of biological agents and not hydrogen.

The internal components provide the kind of mobile biological weapons laboratory described to the United Nations' Security Council by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell before the conflict began, and match in design and configuration the mobile weapons labs U.S. intelligence learned about several years ago from an Iraqi scientist.

Side view of trailer

The photos, more than 30 of which were of the inside trailer components, were verified by several military sources and were independently reviewed by intelligence sources familiar with pre-Gulf War Iraqi weapons programs.

The images show a large fermenter, several cylinders to supply clean air for production, canisters to "feed" biological agents, industrial heating machines and a system to capture and compress exhaust gas to eliminate traces of residue – a function not normally used for legitimate biological processes and certainly not for hydrogen production, analysts told WorldNetDaily.

A large stainless steel brewing canister can be seen toward the front of the laboratory, and would be used in the initial stages of agent production, analysts said.

Canister used to "feed" and grow agent and apply fluid and temperature regulation

Large pistons are connected to a compressor atop a storage tank that would hold the growing product and maintain a certain pressure on the system required to grow the bio agent at an advanced rate.

The agent would then be pumped into a large canister connected to several tanks that provide "food" from which the agent would "feed," and which apply large amounts of fluid and temperature regulation for the contents of the holding canister. This feature is rarely set up in such a manner in ordinary labs, analysts told WorldNetDaily.

The photos also reveal an industrial heating pump the width of almost the entire trailer. The size of the heating and cooling system was of particular interest to analysts, who said such systems would be used to superheat or supercool strong agents in a pressurized system.

Pump and generator to apply pressure to agent

Iraqi defectors have reportedly told the U.S. that an accident on a similar trailer killed 12 during a production run in 1998. The incident, a report says, shows "Iraq was producing [biological-weapons] agent at that time." The Iraqis later altered the design, installing the heating and cooling system visible in the photos to prevent overheating, an analyst said.

Close-ups of the exterior portions of the trailer show several areas in which the steel plating of the unit, which is almost an inch thick, is dented, most likely during laboratory use and trailer transportation.

Analysts said the back of the trailer could be attached to a secondary mobile unit that would collect the finished product for transportation. There are indications another trailer was dragged into this lab unit at the receiving end, which houses coils through which tubing would likely be placed for the agent to be pumped into a receiving canister. Several of the laboratory components have serial numbers that were traced to German companies, where some of the parts were manufactured. One device, a generator coming from one of the pumps, was made by General Electric.

View of trailer from behind

Dates on some parts show several components were made in 2001.

The trailer itself has a metal plaque that says it was manufactured in 2001 by Iraq's Al-Naser Al-Adheem – a munitions company controlled by Saddam Hussein – and inspected in 2002.

A large collection and compression pipe is visible at the anterior section, which is not commonly used in regular laboratories and would find little use in the production of hydrogen. The system is designed to capture and compress exhaust gas to eliminate any telltale signature of which kinds of agents were produced, analysts told WorldNetDaily.

Manufacturer's plaque from 2001 by a Hussein-controlled munitions company

When the trailer was found last April it was immediately swabbed for traces of biological weapons agents. Military analysts were particularly hopeful about a large holding canister connected to piping that drains the agent and which was at a height that may have left residual agent at the bottom of the canister.

But they found the entire mobile unit had been thoroughly cleansed and decontaminated with a strong caustic agent that rid the trailer of traces of whatever material had been produced.

Official spokesmen for the Department of Defense in the U.S. and Iraq could not comment before press time.

Vice Admiral Jake Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has said an informant had told the U.S. military similar mobile facilities had previously been used to make three illicit agents, believed to be anthrax, botulism and staphylococcus.

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone said, "What we have here is what ... the Secretary of State talked about, along with other things, in his presentation to the United Nations."

A U.S. Army Intel officer in Iraq said he was convinced the trailer was used to make biological weapons: "There are too many indications this was used for biological weapons. The tubing, the heating system, the exhaust system are specific to the kind of military-grade production we saw before the first Gulf War. Also, when you're conducting legitimate laboratory work, you want to do it in the most stable environment possible. Why would scientists work from a trailer?"

---

Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily's special Middle East correspondent, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Shlomo Ben Ami and leaders of the Taliban.

War was still justified: US report finds no WMD in Iraq since 1991

10.06.04 (3:26 pm)   [edit]
It was Saddam Hussein's promise to verify, that is verify, folks, that he didn't have any more WMD. If he did not have any after 1991, why did he not verify it? Why were UN inspectors forced to go on Easter-egg hunts to find and destroy them (and not all of them according to their own reports, including would-be pedophile Scott Ritter, who changed his tune when Hussein put him on his payroll).

Again, and this is key, the fact that Hussein would not own up to his own cease-fire agreements, the fact that the inspectors said Hussein had these weapons, the fact that we simply did not know the status of Hussein's WMD, made war more than justifiable, [i]especially[/i]after 9/11. To state, after the fact, that this war was unjustified because we didn't find WMD is 180 degrees from the truth. [b]THE FACT THAT WE KNOW MORE TODAY ABOUT HUSSEIN'S WMD NOW THAN WE DID AT ANY TIME OVER THE LAST 12 YEARS PROVES THE WAR WAS RIGHT.[/b]

The only way you could not believe this is if you believe that Hussein never deserved international condemnation in the first place. The only way you could believe this is if you believe he, a mass murderer, is worse than Bush. The only way you could believe this is if you believe the world should not be serious about proliferation, terrorism, and the rule of law in regards to these issues.

Recently we found a desert full of next-generation Russian MiG fighters in Iraq. The book is not closed on Hussein's WMD, and won't be for awhile.

Regardless, though, and you may call me "silly" for believing in the existence of WMD in Iraq, it doesn't matter. The war was more than justified, and our learning the truth in Iraq-- finally, after 12 years-- proves it.

Before the war, the hard intelligence and UN reports said Hussein had WMD. The anti-Bush folks, those that agreed with the corrupt France, Germany, Russia, and China (who engaged in the corrupt oil-for-food program and vioalted UN sanctions by trading arms with Iraq), stated, merely on faith, that there were no WMD in Iraq. They also said that Bush said Iraq presented an imminent threat. They were wrong on both.

Ironically, the only way these lefties would know anything definitive about Iraq's WMD is through the very war they opposed.

So, case closed. Iraq was justified.

Article-- http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/...

France, Russia, China, our "allies" according to Kerry, thwarted US attempts to end UN Iraq scandal

10.06.04 (3:12 pm)   [edit]
So it is OK to ask these countries for permission to defend US sovereignty? It is OK to pass their 'test'? Just today Kerry said that he doesn't expect troops from Germany and France http://www.washingtontimes.co... . So if that is true, how is he going to get any more than Bush got? France has a veto on the UNSC.

Anyone want to offer any proof that Kerry will wage the war better than Bush? This article below is yet more proof that Kerry is simply naive about the world, is full of it regarding the 'global test', and, if elected, will most likely sell our country further down the river (he will finish what Carter and Clinton began).

[b]Allies 'resisted' stopping oil ploy[/b]
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The governments of France, Russia, China and Syria blocked U.S. efforts within the United Nations to stop Saddam Hussein from misusing the oil-for-food program, a State Department official told Congress yesterday.

Patrick F. Kennedy, a State official who is a representative to the United Nations for management and reform, told a House hearing that other U.N. member states "resisted" U.S. efforts to end bribery and contracting corruption under the program aimed at providing humanitarian relief from anti-Saddam sanctions.

"We began pushing for a system to bring this under control," Mr. Kennedy said. "It was resisted by other nations. We were challenged."

Mr. Kennedy told the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations that the opponents asked the United States for hard evidence of corruption.

France, Russia, China and Syria were among the members of a special committee overseeing the oil-for-food program that opposed U.S. efforts to stop corruption that led to more than $10 billion being stolen by Saddam and his regime, Mr. Kennedy said.

Rep. Christopher Shays, Connecticut Republican and subcommittee chairman, said the oil-for-food program, which lasted from 1996 to 2003, was "mugged" by Saddam, who diverted some of the revenue to purchase arms.

"Through cynical yet subtle manipulation, he and an undeclared coalition of the venal on the Security Council exploited structural flaws in the program and institutional naivete at the U.N. to transform a massive humanitarian aid effort into a multibillion-dollar, sanctions-busting scam," Mr. Shays said at the hearing.

Mr. Shays said in an interview later he thinks that Saddam was able to use money he obtained illicitly from the program "any way he wanted" and that he probably bought weapons and military technology with some of the $10 billion.

Representatives of three companies involved in the oversight of the oil-for-food program also testified at the hearing that they had little control over how funds were used.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the subcommittee sought to widen the panel's probe to include the United States. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, said an investigation is needed into the Bush administration's refusal to release audits of a $1.5 billion contract in Iraq granted to the oil company Halliburton to repair oil-production facilities after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Vice President Dick Cheney was chief executive officer of Halliburton from 1995 until 2000, and Democrats repeatedly have tried to link the administration to claims of government favoritism toward the firm.

Mr. Shays said the committee will ask the Defense Department to release the Halliburton audits, but yesterday's hearing remained focused on charges of corruption in the United Nations' $64 billion program designed to allow Saddam's government to buy food and supplies for Iraqi civilians with revenues obtained from limited oil sales.

"Acceding to shameless assertions of Iraqi sovereignty, sovereignty already betrayed by Saddam's brutal willingness to starve the Iraqi people, the U.N. gave the Hussein regime control over critical aspects of the program," Mr. Shays said.

"Chinese, French and Russian delegates to the Security Council sanctions committee deftly tabled persistent reports of abuses," the House panel chairman said, and as a result, "the contractors hired to finance and monitor the program had only limited authority to enforce safeguards."

"The U.N. sanctions regime against Iraq was all but eviscerated, turned inside out by political manipulation and financial greed," Mr. Shays said. "Saddam's regime was not collapsing from within. It was thriving. He was not safely contained, as some contend, but was daily gaining the means to threaten regional and global stability again, once sanctions were removed."

Mr. Kennedy defended the oil-for-food program.

"Despite what might in the end be identified as inherent flaws, the oil-for-food program did enjoy measurable success in meeting the day-to-day needs of Iraq's civilians," he said.

Other U.S. officials disagreed.

Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's senior policy official, said the oil-for-food scandal had undermined the United Nations' integrity.

"It's clear that the program was badly abused," Mr. Feith said in an interview.

The investigation is important because "there are a lot of people, ourselves included, who want there to be options short of war when there's a problem," Mr. Feith said.

"And you know, one of the options short of war was a kind of sanctions regime that the oil-for-food program was supposed to provide," he said. "If it's a completely corrupt program and it doesn't work and it's ineffective ... then you have fewer options short of war."

David Smith, a U.S. representative of the French bank BNP Paribas, which was the exclusive bank of the oil-for-food program, said the bank had no role in the contracting.

If I inhale asbestos, Edwards is my guy-- but he's no VP

10.06.04 (2:20 pm)   [edit]
From Jonah Goldberg at NRO--

October 06, 2004, 9:29 a.m.
[b]Cheney the Veep Man
If I inhale some asbestos, Edwards is my guy.[/b]

My favorite part of the debate last night was when Edwards mentioned how he "agreed with John Kerry on Thursday night." You gotta love it that even John Edwards has to nail down the exact time and place that John Kerry said something he agreed with. You can't just say "I agree with John Kerry." That's like saying the globule in the lava lamp is oval. Wait a minute and that will seem ridiculous. So you've got to nail it down.

In fact, Edwards kept saying "the American people saw John Kerry Thursday night" over and over again. I'm sure his strategy was to feed off the hype of Kerry's modest victory that has been spun by the media into a debate between Cicero and Barney the Dinosaur. But for me, all I could think was that Edwards was just so relieved that the roulette wheel that is John Kerry's conviction-o-meter had stopped, albeit briefly, on a spot the American people didn't loathe.

No seriously — imagine that you struck up a conversation with a relatively informed person who said, "I agree with John Kerry about the war on terror." What, exactly do you think that person would mean?

Would he be trying to communicate that we should stay the course? That we blundered going to war in the first place? That we were right to go to war but handled it wrong since we were there? That it was a good cause? A grand diversion? We should bug out? Finish the job? Or simply that he doesn't know anything about the war except that George Bush is always wrong?

This it seems to me is the crux of the problem with John Kerry. There's a very old tradition in the Democratic party, going back at least to FDR, of presidents telling various constituents and factions what they want to hear. Roosevelt was a master of it. One group would come in pleading for X. Another group would come in begging for not X. And each would come out of the room with the impression that the president agreed with him. But this was all done behind closed doors.

John Kerry, meanwhile, has been saying mutually contradictory things in public since he's been running for president. Here's a tip for Kerry: If you're going to be a vacillating, sausage-spined, chameleon, don't do it with the cameras on. This gets to the core of the most important issue last night, Kerry's flip flops. The Kerry camp responds that Bush has changed his position on several issues over the last few years. They're right. But changing your position is very, very different than changing it from A to B and then back to A. Indeed, Kerry says Bush is ideologically rigid and unwilling to change his mind — except when he is changing his mind. Meanwhile Kerry's meanderings don't reflect judgment and reflection; they show that he's willing to take any seemingly beneficial position, without reflection. Everyone changes his mind. The question is "Why?" For Kerry/Edwards the reason was that Howard Dean was ruining their chances to live in the White House. Cheney scored that point and Edwards didn't un-score it.

Remember the old saw that if someone says "it's not about the money" it's about the money? Well, when John Edwards consistently whines "John Kerry has been completely consistent" you know that even Edwards understands that John Kerry hasn't been. If someone keeps insisting "I don't think I'm going bald!" you can be sure there's some Rogaine in his medicine cabinet.

Too many people have already "fisked" or dissected the debate in one place or another — including most of NRO's stable in The Corner last night. But let me just say why Cheney won in broad brushstrokes. On substance Cheney was an incontrovertible winner on foreign policy. In the first half, Edwards was preening that he could remember the name of the pizza joint that got blown up in Israel. Anybody who's read foreign-policy theorists from Grotius to Kissinger fully knows that this is the stuff of statesmanship. Meanwhile, Cheney not only scored stronger and better points about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, he managed to do it while simultaneously underscoring the Breck Guy's weakness and Kerry's inconstancy.

Cheney attacked Edwards for not showing up for his job, for not having a serious record, and for being a political weathervane. Edwards responded by attacking Cheney's record, which included voting against the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and — shudder — meals-on-wheels. That's all fine. But Edwards's attack reinforced the image that Cheney is a man of conviction willing to buck politics for principle (He voted against meals on wheels!). Edwards meanwhile had no defense on the charge that he's a show pony, not a workhorse.

On domestic policy, which came in the second half, Edwards won marginally, but at that point it was clear that we were watching Serious Guy and his amusing sidekick.

Some seem to think Edwards's energy and toothy grin won the show. Nonsense. First of all, people have been voting for presidents with nasty or grumpy VPs for centuries. The job of the vice president isn't to be popular, it's to make the opposing ticket unpopular. No one went into this debate expecting Dick Cheney to be anything other than Dick Cheney. But Edwards came in more undefined. And the definition he offered wasn't that helpful. He reminded people that Kerry and Edwards are fairly desperate politicians and he particularly underscored that he's a good trial lawyer. Cheney underscored that he's a good chief of staff in the war to obliterate our enemies. That's an impression the Bush ticket needed a lot more than anything Edwards had on offer. If I inhale some asbestos, Edwards is my guy. If I want someone to "stand up" democratic regimes in the Middle East and obliterate jihadist terrorist groups, I'll go with Cheney.

Iran's continued violations make EU foreign policy look foolish and arrogant

10.06.04 (8:23 am)   [edit]
[b]Iran goes nuclear[/b]
Paul Greenberg
October 6, 2004

Here's how the deal works, or rather how it doesn't:

Iran continues to play games with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which continues to pass resolutions demanding that Iran end its nuclear program - resolutions that Iran continues to ignore.

In the latest round of play, the mullahs have announced that they won't honor an earlier promise to suspend their nuclear programs. Is anybody really surprised?

Well, the editors of Britain's Guardian might be, though they'd be the last to admit it. It hasn't been too long ago (Oct. 22, 2003) that the Guardian devoted column after column to celebrating the announcement in Tehran the day before of the peaceful conclusion of any disagreement over Iran's nuclear program.

Not one, not two, but three European foreign ministers - Britain's Jack Straw, Germany's Joschka Fischer and my own personal favorite, the sniffy Dominique de Villepin of France - had made a pilgrimage to the Land of the Ayatollahs. Now they were returning waving the usual scrap of paper. For they had a solemn promise that Iran would "suspend (its) uranium-enrichment and reprocessing activities . . . ."

[i] O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay! You'd have thought it was the Versailles peace treaty being proclaimed, and indeed the agreement with the ayatollahs would shortly prove about as sound.[/i]

But at the time, there was general elation in European capitals at this latest Peace in Our Time. As an Extra Added Bonus, to quote the cereal boxes, here was also a chance to sneer at that cowboy in the White House. To quote the Guardian's Ian Black on the happy news:

"The agreement marks a significant victory for the European Union's policy of 'conditional engagement' and the use of carrots and sticks, in contrast to threats from the United States against the Islamic republic, part of George Bush's 'axis of evil.'"

This would show the Americans! See what European finesse can accomplish compared to Washington's all-sticks, no-carrots tactics!

Oh, all mimsy were the borogroves, and the mome raths outgrabe! Or as another writer in the Guardian put it more prosaically:

[i]Iran's agreement to allow unlimited inspections of its nuclear facilities and to suspend its uranium enrichment program marks a tremendous success for European diplomacy. . . . To date (America's) polarizing, aggressive pressure tactics have mostly made a difficult problem worse. Europe demonstrated yesterday that there is a different, more effective way. And it is not the American way.[/i]

Yes, Calloo! Callay! Ni-i-i-ce axis of evil - so reasonable, so trustworthy, so easily tamed if you have any sort of talent at all for diplomacy, old chap. All the voices of Old Europe sounded ecstatic. And superior as ever.

Strange. Nobody in Europe is celebrating today. Instead there are worried looks and tough-sounding resolutions from the U.N.'s sleepy watchdog of an atomic energy agency. And, of course, as the ayatollahs well know, the U.N.'s resolutions only sound tough.

How long before Iran joins North Korea as a full-fledged member of the Lunatic League of Nuclear Powers?

Iran's ayatollahs have often mused about nuking Israel. The Israelis might be able to retaliate in kind, but what are millions of casualties compared to wiping out the whole Jewish state with a single strike?

How deal with a regime bent on getting the Bomb and maybe using it? Carefully. And without illusions. Much as one would talk to the Mad Hatter at Alice's tea party.

Washington really isn't in much of a position to exert diplomatic pressure on Tehran. With no official relations and only the barest of indirect contacts, Iran and the United States are at a standoff that's continued for more than a quarter-century.

The chances are all too good - and all too scary - that Iran will develop nuclear weaponry and then proceed to share it with some terrorist outfit. Let's hope somebody in Washington is drawing up plans for a response to this danger more effective than U.N. resolutions. The alternative to confronting Tehran is to awaken one morning to a radioactive Middle East. Or maybe a nuclear blast a lot closer to home.

It's unlikely the U.N. and the Europeans will have much success negotiating with Tehran, but they need to keep the pressure on, like a good cop. Meanwhile, Washington can play bad cop, and try to get its message across in less subtle fashion.

For example, is it only a coincidence that the United States has just agreed to sell the Israelis 500 bunker-buster bombs - the kind that could be used to destroy underground nuclear facilities like Iran's uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz?

That the sale was made public indicates that not just a diplomatic message is being sent.

©2004 Tribune Media Services

Bremer's selective history-- no one remembers him asking for 'more troops', he seeks to pass blame

10.06.04 (8:17 am)   [edit]
From OpinionJournal.com--

[b]The Viceroy's Apologia
L. Paul Bremer's selective Iraq history.[/b]
Wednesday, October 6, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Former viceroy L. Paul Bremer did 14 months of hard service in Iraq, so it is a special shame to see that he is now squandering that legacy by blaming others for what's gone wrong there. All the more so when he doesn't even have the history right.

That's our reaction to yesterday's political tempest over quotes from Mr. Bremer faulting the Pentagon and Bush Administration for having too few troops in Iraq. To hear Mr. Bremer's version of it, he arrived in Baghdad on May 6, 2003, to find "horrid" looting and instability, and an "atmosphere of lawlessness" that was allowed to grow because "we never had enough troops on the ground" to stop it.

Mr. Bremer revised his remarks slightly late Monday, saying in a statement that "I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq." But in a speech at DePauw University in September, Mr. Bremer said he had frequently raised the troop issue and "should have been more insistent about it," according to the local paper, adding that "the single most important change . . . would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout."

You get the idea: Mr. Bremer isn't to blame because he was tossed into a bad situation that only got worse while his pleas for more troops were ignored. And this indeed would be a damning indictment if it were true. Trouble is, we haven't found a single other senior official involved in the war or its aftermath--in or out of uniform--who attests to Mr. Bremer's version of events.

"I never heard him ask for more troops and he had many opportunities before the President to do so," one senior Administration official tells us. Or to be more precise, Mr. Bremer did finally ask for two more divisions in a June 2004 memo--that is, two weeks prior to his departure and more than a year after he arrived.

We heard about his request at the time, but didn't think much about it after we learned that theater commander General John Abizaid was consulted and argued that it was better policy to train Iraqi forces to fill any void. Judging by our ultimate goal of Iraqi independence, and the success that mixed Iraqi and U.S. battalions had retaking Samarra over the weekend, General Abizaid was right.

For that matter, if lack of troops was a problem, why didn't Mr. Bremer make better and more consistent use of the ones he already had? He was among those officials involved in the mistaken decision to have Marines stop short in Fallujah last April, and he has since defended that publicly.

As for Mr. Bremer's claim that "horrid" conditions prevailed when he arrived in Baghdad, our own Robert Pollock and other reporters who were there attest otherwise. By early May 2003 the major looting was over, and the country was experiencing a postwar honeymoon of sorts. We understand Mr. Bremer's desire to explain why security has since deteriorated, but we aren't going to learn the lessons we need to win this war if we accept the argument that somehow that "looting" was the match that lit the insurgency.

The truth is that the insurgency was already under way. We now know that the Baath Party responded to Iraq's rapid defeat in the conventional war by going underground. And it used that honeymoon period to build its strength--as the "Party of Return"--for the guerrilla campaign that really kicked off in the late summer of 2003. Although plenty of Iraqis warned of this threat, Mr. Bremer clearly underestimated it and failed to take the military and political steps that might have countered it.

On the military side, Mr. Bremer pursued a two-year plan to build an army oriented toward external defense, not internal threats. And once General Abizaid convinced him of the need for an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, Mr. Bremer envisioned it as a garrison force and resisted its use in counter-insurgency operations. He also rebuffed attempts by the Iraqi National Congress and the two major Kurdish parties to supply the Corps with loyal anti-Baathist fighters. When the April violence flared in Fallujah and Najaf, the 36th Battalion of the ICDC--the only one the parties had been allowed to create--was the only one to prove its worth in battle. (The 36th has been fighting with us in recent days in Samarra.)

On the political side, Mr. Bremer underestimated the extent to which putting an early end to the occupation was important. He initially resisted the creation of the Governing Council altogether, and when he allowed it to happen gave it too little power. He also delayed implementing the democracy we had said we came to bring to Iraq, and he ultimately had to be told by Washington to agree to Shiite demands for elections at an earlier date. We're not saying an Iraqi face would have changed everything. But something like the current Allawi interim government could have been created much earlier, with the potential to reveal the insurgency as the Baathist revanchism it is.

As we say, Mr. Bremer was given a tough job in Iraq, and he's taken a lot of unfair criticism for some of the things he did right, such as officially dissolving the Baath Party and other structures of the old regime. But he is hardly helping the cause of victory now by criticizing his former colleagues, especially in a way that obscures the hard lessons we've learned in Iraq in the past 18 months.

Well, hot damn....CBS postpones fraud memo probe until after the election....

10.06.04 (8:12 am)   [edit]
The hilarious thing is that the head of CBS, an organization that perpetrated a crime in order to slander the president of the United States, thereby already influencing the election (for Kerry), says that it would be inappropriate to finish the investigation before the election because it might influence the outcome.

Yes, we wouldn't want the Democrats to look like the liars and cheats they are, would we?

Article-- http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm...

Cheney thumps Edwards, shows that the pretty boy is out of his league

10.06.04 (8:06 am)   [edit]
In addition to the commentary below (from PowerLine), I think a nice little blow to Edwards was when Cheney replied to Edwards' assertion that Bush isn't doing enough for the middle class and that Kerry will cut middle class taxes even further. Cheney pointed out that neither Kerry or Edwards showed up to vote for the recent m.c. tax cut extension.

In short, that cutting taxes for the middle class rhetoric from Kedwards is simply b.s.

From PowerLine-- http://powerlineblog.com/arch...

"...First, the context of the debate was critical. This was not about who was going to be Vice-President. In that respect, John Edwards was in a sense superfluous. The context was last week's first Presidential debate, which most people say was won by John Kerry.

"But if you go deeper into the poll data, you find that [b]most people say that Kerry won the debate on style, but Bush won it on substance.[/b] For example, in the Gallup poll that appeared the next day, respondents who had watched the debate said they agreed with Bush's stance on Iraq over Kerry's by a whopping eleven points.

"So Cheney's assignment tonight was to puncture the media-driven Kerry boomlet by bringing the conversation back to the issues, the facts and the arguments, especially on foreign policy.

"Cheney did that, and more. I scored the first Presidential debate like a boxing match with a ten-point must system. There were no knockdowns in that match. Tonight there were two. The first was when Edwards kept insisting on the fraudulence of the Iraq coalition by claiming that the U.S. is bearing 90% of the expense and suffering 90% of the casualties. Cheney responded, in part, by pointing out the absurdity of Kerry's claim that he will build a broader alliance while at the same time assailing the war as the wrong war at the wrong time, etc.--but please send troops. He also criticized Kerry and Edwards for skipping Prime Minister Allawi's appearance before Congress and then attacking Allawi afterward.

"But [b]the most devastating blow was struck when Edwards still wouldn't give up, and came back with the 90% casualty figure. That was when Cheney, addressing Edwards as an adult admonishing a foolish child, pointed out that our most important ally in Iraq is the Iraqis, and that by refusing to include the Iraqis' many casualties in his numbers--so as to be able to claim that almost all the casualties are American--Edwards denigrates the sacrifice of our Iraqi friends.[/b]

"Edwards knew that Cheney was right, and it took him a while to regain his composure.

"The second knockdown was when [b]Cheney criticized Edwards' lackluster record as a Senator, noting that he had missed 70% of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee, of which he was a member, and that his home-town paper had labeled him "Senator Gone." That was good. But the devastating conclusion was Cheney's observation that despite the fact that as Vice-President he regularly presides over the Senate, [i]he had never met Edwards until he walked onto the stage tonight.[/i] This fact blew me away; I wouldn't have thought it possible. It blew Edwards away, too.[/b]

"Those were the highlights. Beyond that, I was surprised at [b]how easily and repeatedly Edwards became flustered.[/b] It happened over and over--when Cheney's attacks hit home, when there were minor issues over timing or who was supposed to go next, and on the question where he wasn't supposed to mention John Kerry, but couldn't help it, and finally giggled like a schoolgirl.

"I don't dislike John Edwards at all. He has a puppy-like eagerness to please, and it is kind of touching how easy it is to see when he doesn't believe what he is saying (an odd quality in an alleged trial lawyer, by the way). But in running for Vice-President, he is completely out of his league.

"More important, though, was the fact that the Cheney inexorably brought the discussion back to the basic issues and the basic facts and arguments that favor the Republican ticket."

Did you know that the only draft proposal in Congress is a Democrat's?

10.05.04 (3:37 pm)   [edit]
It's true. Charles Rangel, D-NY, introduced the The Universal National Service Act almost two years ago. The bill would require everyone ages 18-26 to perform 2 years of national service.

Rangels' motive for reinstating the draft was to advance the myth that the poor and the minorities are over-represented in the military. They are not. But you know you're living in one hell of a biased country when the msm and the liberals routinely portray the draft as a Republican idea, likely to become law if Bush is reelected.

Let's reiterate: the only draft legislation, the only draft talk, that has ever come down the pike during the Bush administration, has come from the Democrats.

Bush and the Republicans have consistently argued against the draft. There is no infrastructure for a draft and our military works better as an all-volunteer, professional force.

And enlistments are up from before 9/11.

So if you're graduating high school soon and fear a draft, vote for Bush. And don't believe the spin from the left-- they're full of shit, as usual.

[b]Congress Republicans seek vote to end military draft speculation[/b]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republicans in the House of Representatives sought a vote in a bid to end speculation that the government plans a new compulsory military service as the United States struggles in Iraq (news - web sites).

The House was to vote on "The Universal National Service Act", also known as "The Reinstate the Draft Bill" which would require Americans aged 18-26 to perform two years of national service.

This would be either as a member of an active or reserve component of the armed services, or in a civilian capacity that promotes national defense.

Republican lawmakers said there is very little congressional support for reinstating the draft, and said the bill -- authored by liberal Democrat Charles Rangel -- faces certain defeat.

"This legislation will be considered and defeated," the House Armed Services Committee leadership said in a press release.

Americans still have to register for the draft but there have been no compulsory call-ups since 1973.

Members of Congress have been inundated by letters and phone calls from citizens over rumors that the draft is to be reinstated.

Those fears -- fanned by Internet websites and blogs -- have escalated as fighting intensifies in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites), and the Pentagon (news - web sites) struggles to keep troop deployments at current strength by extending tours in combat zones and recalling retired soldiers to active duty.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) said Sunday he had no plan to revive the military draft if he were elected president. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) likewise has rejected compulsive military service.

Rangel, a Korean War veteran, said he proposed the measure to ensure a greater sharing of the burden of military service, which he said now falls disproportionately on the urban working class.

Other Democrats have played on public fears of a return of the draft: In a column that appeared on websites and in newspapers recently, former Vermont governor Howard Dean (news - web sites) warned of "the real likelihood of a military draft being reinstated if President Bush (news - web sites) is re-elected."

A poll last month of 18-29-year-olds by CBS and MTV found that 78 percent of respondents opposed reinstating the draft to provide soldiers for Iraq, while just 18 percent favored it.

A separate survey of registered voters by Fox News last April found that 41 percent approved of restoring the draft if it became clear more soldiers were needed in the war on terrorism. Fifty-one percent disapproved.

Who was the very first person to try and stop 9/11?

10.05.04 (1:49 pm)   [edit]
Most likely an Israeli.

The first hijacked plane on 9/11 was American Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles. It was hijacked at around 8:14 am and slammed into the north WTC tower.

Mohammed Atta was on this flight, the ringleader. According to the 9/11 report, the very first person who tried to stop him gain access to flight 11's cockpit was an Israeli:

"We do not know ow the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight. Ong [a flight attendant communicating with the ground] speculated that they had "jammed their way" in. Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit. Or the flight attendants may just have been in their way.

"At the same time or shortly thereafter, Atta-- the only terrorist on board trained to fly a jet-- would have moved to the cockpit from his business-class seat, possibly accompanies by Omari. As this was happening, [b] passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated in the row just behind Atta and Omari, was stabbed by one of the hijackers-- probably Satam al Suqami, who was seated directly behind Lewin. Lewin had served four years as an officer in the Israeli military. He may have made an attempt to stop the hijackers in front of him, not realizing that another was sitting behind him."[/b]

The idea that the first person to do something about this mass murder was an Israeli is telling. They understand terrorism, they understand Islamofascism, and they are a brave, morally righteous people.

There are no compelling arguments for Islamic terrorism. It is not, as some say, a resistance to "occupation". It is not our just desserts, as the Libertarians claim. It is not the effect to our cause. It is an ideology steeped in hatred of all things non-Muslim --it needs no excuse. It is resentful, violent, and anti-God.

Jews and Christians know this. What must it take for Muslims to realize this disease in their midst?

Remember 9/11-- http://www.fdnylodd.com/Blood...

ADL censors Christian message

10.05.04 (1:29 pm)   [edit]
From the Catholic League-- October 1, 2004

[b]ADL CENSORS CHRISTIAN MESSAGE[/b]

The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Pacific Southwest regional office has succeeded in getting officials of Riverside County, California, to censor a quote by Theodore Roosevelt that reads, “The true Christian is the true citizen.” Those words, which are engraved in gold letters on a mahogany wall in the local courthouse, will be covered while the court is in session; they will be uncovered during historical tours. The ADL says the quote should be covered because it could be seen as “a specific endorsement of the Christian faith.”

Catholic League president William Donohue today offered the following alternative resolution to the controversy:

“There are several issues at work here. One is whether it can reasonably be maintained that the government is establishing a religion simply by posting a religious message offered by a president of the United States. If this is the test, then we will have to censor the figure of Moses with the two tablets that sits in the U.S. Supreme Court building. Indeed, we will also have to censor the engraved quote of Thomas Jefferson, ‘The God who gave us life gave us liberty,’ that can be found in the very same Riverside County courthouse that features the Roosevelt remark.

“The other issue is freedom of speech. How ironic it is that in the 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was freedom of speech for a man standing in line in a California courthouse to wear a jacket with the words ‘F--- the draft’ on it. But what California courthouses in the 21st century cannot tolerate, apparently, is Teddy Roosevelt’s comment on Christianity and citizenship. Profanity is okay, but Christianity is taboo.

“The ADL’s Pacific Southwest regional office says it does not object to the entire statement by Roosevelt (some 80 words); its problem is that the remark in the courthouse is taken out of context. Fine. I am writing to the ADL, courthouse officials and the judge who heard the case proposing an alternative resolution: the Catholic League will pay for a new engraving, one which includes Roosevelt’s entire comment. It’s time someone called the hand of those who harbor an animus against Christianity.”

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination

Kerry ad falsely accuses Cheney on Halliburton- FactCheck.Org

10.05.04 (1:16 pm)   [edit]
From Annenberg Fact CHeck-- http://www.factcheck.org/arti...


[b]Kerry Ad Falsely Accuses Cheney on Halliburton[/b]
Contrary to this ad's message, Cheney doesn't gain financially from the contracts given to the company he once headed.

September 30, 2004

Modified:September 30, 2004
Summary

A Kerry ad implies Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton and is profiting from the company's contracts in Iraq. The fact is, Cheney doesn't gain a penny from Halliburton's contracts, and almost certainly won't lose even if Halliburton goes bankrupt.

The ad claims Cheney got $2 million from Halliburton "as vice president," which is false. Actually, nearly $1.6 million of that was paid before Cheney took office. More importantly, all of it was earned before he was a candidate, when he was the company's chief executive.

Analysis

A Kerry ad released Sept 17 once again attacks Cheney's ties to Halliburton, implying that Cheney is profiting from the company's contracts in Iraq. That's false.

The ad isn't subtle. It says, "As vice president, Dick Cheney received $2 million from Halliburton. Halliburton got billions in no bid contracts in Iraq. Dick Cheney got $2 million. What did we get?" And it implies that Cheney lied to the public when he said in a TV interview that "I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind."

But as we document here, Cheney has insulated himself financially from whatever might happen to Halliburton. The Kerry ad misstates the facts.

$2 Million

To start, the $2 million figure is wrong. It is true that Cheney has received just under $2 million from Halliburton since his election, but nearly $1.6 million of that total was paid before Cheney actually took office on Jan. 20, 2001. Saying Cheney got that much "as vice president" is simply false.

We asked Cheney's personal attorney to document that, and he did, supplying several documents never released publicly before:

*
A Halliburton pay statement dated Jan 2, 2001 shows just under $147,579 was paid that day as "elect defrl payou," meaning payout of salary from the company's Elective Deferral Plan. That was salary Cheney had earned in 1999, but which he had chosen previously to receive in five installments spread over five years.

*
Another pay statement dated Jan. 18 shows $1,451,398 was paid that day under the company's "Incentive Plan C" for senior executives. That was Cheney's incentive compensation -- bonus money -- paid on the basis of the company's performance in 2000. Cheney had formally resigned from the company the previous September to campaign full time, but the amount of his bonus couldn't be calculated until the full year's financial results were known.

Cheney's personal financial disclosure forms, together with the pay statements just mentioned, show that Cheney has received $398,548 in deferred salary from Halliburton "as vice president." And of course, all of that is money he earned when he was the company's chief executive officer. Cheney was due to receive another payment in 2004, and a final payment in 2005.

The Kerry ad isn't the only place the false $2 million figure appears. The Democratic National Committee also gets it wrong on their website. The dates of the Halliburton payments don't appear on Cheney's personal financial disclosure form from 2001, and the DNC assumed -- incorrectly as we have shown -- that all the 2001 payment were made after he took office.

Deferred Salary

The $398,548 Halliburton has paid to Cheney while in office is all deferred compensation, a common practice that high-salaried executives use to reduce their tax bills by spreading income over several years. In Cheney's case, he signed a Halliburton form in December of 1998 choosing to have 50% of his salary for the next year, and 90% of any bonus money for that year, spread out over five years. (As it turned out, there was no bonus for 1999.) We asked Cheney's personal attorney to document the deferral agreement as well, and he supplied us with a copy of the form , posted here publicly for the first time.

Legally, Halliburton can't increase or reduce the amount of the deferred compensation no matter what Cheney does as vice president. So Cheney's deferred payments from Halliburton wouldn't increase no matter how much money the company makes, or how many government contracts it receives.

On the other hand, there is a possibility that if the company went bankrupt it would be unable to pay. That raises the theoretical possibility of a conflict of interest -- if the public interest somehow demanded that Cheney take action that would hurt Halliburton it could conceivably end up costing him money personally. So to insulate himself from that possible conflict, Cheney purchased an insurance policy (which cost him$14,903) that promises to pay him all the deferred compensation that Halliburton owes him even if the company goes bust and refuses to pay. The policy does contain escape clauses allowing the insurance company to refuse payment in the unlikely events that Cheney files a claim resulting "directly or indirectly" from a change in law or regulation, or from a "prepackaged" bankruptcy in which creditors agree on terms prior to filing. But otherwise it ensures Cheney will get what Halliburton owes him should it go under.

Cheney aides supplied a copy of that policy to us -- blacking out only some personal information about Cheney -- which we have posted here publicly for the first time.

Stock Options

That still would leave the possibility that Cheney could profit from his Halliburton stock options if the company's stock rises in value. However, Cheney and his wife Lynne have assigned any future profits from their stock options in Halliburton and several other companies to charity. And we're not just taking the Cheney's word for this -- we asked for a copy of the legal agreement they signed, which we post here publicly for the first time.

The "Gift Trust Agreement" the Cheney's signed two days before he took office turns over power of attorney to a trust administrator to sell the options at some future time and to give the after-tax profits to three charities. The agreement specifies that 40% will go to the University of Wyoming (Cheney's home state), 40% will go to George Washington University's medical faculty to be used for tax-exempt charitable purposes, and 20% will go to Capital Partners for Education , a charity that provides financial aid for low-income students in Washington, DC to attend private and religious schools.

The agreement states that it is "irrevocable and may not be terminated, waived or amended," so the Cheney's can't take back their options later.

The options owned by the Cheney's have been valued at nearly $8 million, his attorney says. Such valuations are rough estimates only -- the actual value will depend on what happens to stock prices in the future, which of course can't be known beforehand. But it is clear that giving up rights to the future profits constitutes a significant financial sacrifice, and a sizeable donation to the chosen charities.

"Financial Interest"

Democrats have taken issue with Cheney's statement to Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press Sept. 14, 2003, when he said he had no "financial interest" in Halliburton:

Cheney (Sept. 14, 2003): I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years. And as vice president, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government.

Shortly after that, Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg released a legal analysis he'd requested from the Congressional Research Service. Without naming Cheney, the memo concluded a federal official in his position -- with deferred compensation covered by insurance, and stock options whose after-tax profits had been assigned to charity -- would still retain an "interest" that must be reported on an official's annual disclosure forms. And in fact, Cheney does report his options and deferred salary each year.

But the memo reached no firm conclusion as to whether such options or salary constitute an "interest" that would pose a legal conflict. It said "it is not clear" whether assigning option profits to charity would theoretically remove a potential conflict, adding, "no specific published rulings were found on the subject." And it said that insuring deferred compensation "might" remove it as a problem under conflict of interest laws.

Actually, the plain language of the Office of Government Ethics regulations on this matter seems clear enough. The regulations state: "The term financial interest means the potential for gain or loss to the employee . . . as a result of governmental action on the particular matter." So by removing the "potential for gain or loss" Cheney has solid grounds to argue that he has removed any "financial interest" that would pose a conflict under federal regulations.

Conflict of Interest

It is important to note here that Cheney could legally have held onto his Halliburton stock options, and no law required him to buy insurance against the possibility that Halliburton wouldn't pay the deferred compensation it owes him. Both the President and Vice President are specifically exempted from federal conflict-of-interest laws, for one thing, as are members of Congress and federal judges.

And even federal officials who are covered by the law may legally own a financial interest in a company, provided they formally recuse themselves -- stand aside -- from making decisions that would have a "direct and predictable effect on that interest." And Cheney says he's done just that.

Cheney says he takes no part in matters relating to Halliburton, and so far we've seen no credible allegation to the contrary. Time magazine reported in its June 7 edition that an e-mail from an unnamed Army Corps of Engineers official stated that a contract to be given to Halliburton in March 2003 "has been coordinated w VP's [Vice President's] office." But it wasn't clear who wrote that e-mail, whether the author had direct knowledge or was just repeating hearsay, or even what was meant by the word "coordinated," which could mean no more than that somebody in Cheney's office was being kept informed of contract talks.

Indeed, a few days later it was revealed that Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby was informed in advance that Halliburton was going to receive an earlier contract in the fall of 2002 -- to secretly plan post-war repair of Iraq's oil facilities. But being informed of a decision after it is made is a far cry from taking part in making it. And according to the White House, Libby didn't even pass on the information to Cheney anyway.

So to sum up, this Kerry ad's implication that Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton is unfounded and the $2 million figure is flat wrong.

Sources

"Vice President Dick Cheney discusses the war with Iraq, the economy and other topics," NBC News "Meet the Press" 14 Sep 2003.

Jack Maskell, "Official's Stock Options In and Deferred Compensation From a Corporation as a "Financial Interest" of an Executive Branch Official in Such a Corporation," Memorandum , American Law Division, Congressional Research Service, 22 Sep 2003.

US Code of Federal Regulations,TITLE 5, CHAPTER XVI--OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS, PART 2640--INTERPRETATION, EXEMPTIONS AND WAIVER GUIDANCE CONCERNING 18 U.S.C. 208 (ACTS AFFECTING A PERSONAL FINANCIAL INTEREST) 5CFR2640.103(b)

Timothy J. Burger and Adam Zagorin, "The Paper Trail: Did Cheney Okay a Deal?", Time magazine, 7 June 2004: 42.

Larry Margasak, "Cheney never heard plan to give work to Halliburton for rebuilding of Iraq," The Associated Press 16 June 2004.

How Mexico treats uninsured foreign ER patients

10.05.04 (1:03 pm)   [edit]
From Michelle Malkin's blog--

[b]HOW MEXICO TREATS UNINSURED FOREIGN EMERGENCY ROOM PATIENTS[/b]
By Michelle Malkin · October 05, 2004 12:44 PM

They let 'em die.-- http://www.kake.com/news/head...

Meanwhile, Los Angeles-area trauma units and hospitals are folding in droves because of costs related to the care of uninsured illegal aliens.-- http://vdare.com/blog/092904_...

Kerry's hilarious explanation of the global test

10.05.04 (11:40 am)   [edit]
From PowerLineBlog--

[b]The Arlen/Harburg doctrine[/b]

Yesterday Rocket Man noted Senator Kerry's explanation of the "global test" doctrine that he articulated in the debate with President Bush. As Senator Kerry brands the Bush campaign's condemnation of the "global test" doctrine a "pathetic" distortion, we should perhaps further consider his explanation for the record.

In response to a friendly question at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire yesterday, Senator Kerry said:

"The test I was talking about is a test of legitimacy — not just in the globe, but [b]elsewhere[/b]. If you do things that are illegitimate in the eyes of other people, it's very hard to get them to share the burden and risk with you. I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country. No one gets a veto over our security. No one."

So there. [b]The "test" includes "global" approval but also approval "elsewhere" -- somewhere over the rainbow. And such approval is not a precondition for action, it is -- what? -- only highly desirable. Criticism of the "test" as setting forth a "test" per se is therefore "pathetic." I get it![/b]

Why does Kerry want to accelerate Iran's nuke program?

10.05.04 (11:34 am)   [edit]
October 05, 2004, 9:24 a.m.
[b]Kamikaze Kerry
Should we really be accelerating Iran’s nuclear project?[/b]
By Henry Sokolski

In last Friday's presidential debate, John Kerry complained that the U.S. should have offered Iran's mullahs lightly enriched uranium to "test" whether they "were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes." Although his suggestion seemed odd — Iran, after all, is suspected of trying to enrich uranium to make bombs — it has so far received scant attention. But closer look at the idea should set off alarm bells.

Under almost any scenario, implementing Kerry's proposal would not only bring Iran closer to having a bomb, it would also help Iran get a large arsenal — two things the U.S. and its allies are rightly eager to prevent.

Many people, of course, would like to believe that the security risks presented by Iran's nearly completed light-water power reactor at Bushehr are manageable. The key challenge, they argue, is to get Tehran to forgo commercially producing the weapons-usable reactor fuels — enriched uranium and separated plutonium — that Iranian officials insist they have the right to make in order to fuel Bushehr.

One would do well to challenge this assertion, which Iran's mullahs base on a cynical manipulation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's (NPT) endorsement of peaceful nuclear energy. The NPT is designed to prevent nations from acquiring nuclear weapons. Nowhere does it mention either enrichment or reprocessing, and rightly so: These nuclear activities are grossly uneconomical for nations like Iran and can bring states within days of having a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Rather than confront Iran on these points, Kerry's campaign has already ceded them. His website actually maintains that the NPT allows such activities and that, as such, new deals such as the one he proposes for Iran are necessary and desirable not just for Tehran, but for North Korea and other would-be bomb makers as well. Such looseness with the NPT is worrisome. What's worse is that Kerry's proposed fix — offering states such as Iran fresh reactor fuel in exchange for assurances that they will hand over their plutonium-laden spent fuel and forgo enrichment and reprocessing — is spring-loaded to compound our proliferation worries.

First, as a string of nuclear-intelligence surprises have demonstrated with Libya, North and South Korea, Algeria, Iraq, and Iran, assuming you can verify a nation's NPT pledges is a sure-fire prescription for embarrassment. Despite intensified U.S. and allied intelligence efforts and the much-improved inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), states' covert efforts to produce weapons-usable plutonium and uranium have proceeded for years without being discovered. With recent revelations that the father of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program developed and sold key nuclear-weapons technology and hardware for years through entities from over 30 countries, the threat that additional states might succeed at covert nuclear activities has only increased.

Second and directly related to this point, it is a mistake to assume, as Kerry does, that light-water reactors are sufficiently "proliferation resistant" to be entrusted to virtually anyone (including Iran and North Korea) so long as there are no accompanying commercial enrichment or reprocessing activities.

Last week, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, which I direct, released a two-year study, "A Fresh Examination of the Proliferation Dangers of Light Water Reactors," authored by three national authorities on power reactors, atomic-weapons design, and nuclear chemistry. A key conclusion of this report is that a country can reduce the level of effort needed to produce a bomb five-fold simply by using fresh light-water-reactor fuel rather than natural uranium to feed its uranium-enrichment plants.

In Iran's case, this is significant. Earlier this year, Tehran was reported to be assembling the parts necessary to build 1,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges. We don't know whether it has completed these machines or where they all might be. Assuming for argument's sake that the work was done and that the machines were hidden away, even a five-fold reduction in its production effort would mean Iran could have its first bomb not sometime in early 2006 but this year in time for Christmas.

Could Iran divert fresh fuel for this purpose? The short answer is yes. About enough fresh fuel to make 30 crude bombs' worth of weapons uranium is normally must be kept at the ready at a reactor site for safety reasons. IAEA inspectors, meanwhile, account for this fuel only once every twelve months. One could surely keep better tabs on the fuel than this, but even if one did and detected a diversion, the question would remain: What would one do?

As for Kerry's other idea of taking back spent fuel from the power reactor to keep Iran from extracting the weapons-usable plutonium it contains, this too ignores several stubborn facts. For starters, spent fuel is so radioactive when it first leaves the reactor that it's dangerous to move it over long distances until after it has had some months to cool off in wet storage ponds. During this cooling period, however, a country could divert the material to strip out the plutonium locally without undue hazard if it did so quickly. Because the IAEA only examines its spent-fuel-inspection camera footage every three months, there's a good chance Iran could pinch the fuel without being found out.
What's worse, even if the diversion was detected, it would almost certainly come too late. As the aforementioned study makes clear, a nation could secretly build a small reprocessing plant and have it ready to make the first bomb's worth of plutonium only a few days after receiving its first delivery of spent fuel. According to published nuclear-industry and national-laboratory design studies, relatively high-output reprocessing plants could be built in a space as small as 65 square feet. As for the quality of the plutonium these plants could extract, it would be nearly weapons-grade and could be relied on to build bombs as destructive as that dropped on Hiroshima. Finally, and perhaps most chilling, after the first 15 months of operation, Iran would have enough spent fuel from Bushehr to produce nearly 60 of these weapons.

What does all this suggest? Letting Iran keep its light-water reactor and giving it fresh reactor fuel might well smoke out Tehran's nuclear intentions but only at the risk of accelerating its bomb project. Certainly, if giving Iran a leg up in covertly making bomb material is the kind of "sound judgment" Kerry believes our next president should exercise, we are all in for a rough ride. Bush, in contrast, believes we should get the U.N. Security Council to censure Iran so Bushehr is not completed. This idea seems far less flashy, but unlike Kerry's proposal it gets to the real problem, which is not any uncertainty regarding Iran's peaceful intentions but rather its clear bent for bombs. This is where any sound policy must start.

— Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C., and editor of Checking Iran's Nuclear Ambitions with Patrick Clawson.

Meet the unsavory types who will be grading us on Kerry's 'global test'

10.05.04 (11:25 am)   [edit]
From National Review--

October 04, 2004, 8:53 p.m.
[b]Meet the Graders
The world of John Kerry’s global test.[/b]
By Anne Bayefsky

President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry referred to the United Nations 17 times during their debate last Thursday on American foreign policy. Kerry's references outnumbered the president's more than 2 to 1. The senator's attitude? The U.N. is the centerpiece of any definition of America's strategic interests.

Kerry put U.N. centrality this way: "You don't help yourself with other nations...when you refuse to deal at length with the United Nations." Speaking of Iraq, "at length" meant "We needed to go to the U.N. The president needed the authority to use force...." Any use by a president of the option of a "preemptive strike" must be done "in a way...that passes the global test where...you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

So what world is Kerry talking about? The presidential debate took place just as the General Assembly wound up its two-week opening session on September 30. At the session, dozens of world leaders told the U.N. what would pass a global test in their minds. Let's listen in.

On terrorism:

President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika: "[T]errorism...excludes the legitimate struggle of peoples against foreign occupation."

Deputy Prime Minister of Lebanon, Issam Fares: " National liberation is legitimate, terrorism is reprehensible."

Ditto numerous other Arab ministers.

On nuclear non-proliferation:

Prime Minister of Malaysia, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Chairman of the 100+ members of the Non-Aligned Movement): "We also note with great concern the increasing tendencies to link the fight against terrorism with the campaign against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Developing countries suffer as a result of restrictions imposed on access to peaceful uses of technology...."

Foreign Minister of Iran, Kamal Kharrazi: "[P]revent[ing][/i] the proliferation of nuclear weapons...must be done...in a comprehensive and non-discriminatory manner.... We insist on our right to technology for peaceful purposes...."

Ambassador of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Choe Su Hon: "[O]ur army and people...are...pushing ahead with their struggle to build a...powerful state with...devotion to the socialist cause....The nuclear deterrent of the DPRK constitutes a legitimate self-defensive measure...."

On the genocide in Sudan:

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria, Farouk Al-Shara: "We view with satisfaction the positions and measures adopted by the government of the Sudan to address the humanitarian crisis in Darfur."

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yemen, Abubakr Al-Qirbi: "[T]here was no hard evidence of massacres [in Sudan].... [A]ll external parties must...refrain from interference in the domestic affairs of the Sudan."

On advancing human rights protection and democracy:

Foreign Minister of China, Li Zhaoxing: "[I]t is imperative to...promote greater democracy in international relations...China will...safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity, brook no interference in its internal affairs...."[/i]

Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe: "Zimbabwe will...welcome to [its sixth parliamentary] elections those observers whose sole and undivided purpose will be to observe the process and not to meddle in the politics of the country.... [T]he West should spare us their lessons on human rights."

Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, Nizar Obaid Madani: "[W]e believe that the process of helping developing nations to initiate political and economic reforms should not be imposed or dictated from without.... Of course there is much that the advanced countries can provide in this process, especially in the areas of investments...."

On identifying the villains:'

Foreign Minister of Cuba, Felipe Pérez Roque: "We, as non-aligned countries, will have to entrench ourselves in defending the United Nations Charter.... The powerful collude to divide us."

Foreign Minister of Iran, Kamal Kharrazi: " Israel...[is] the single greatest threat to regional and global peace and security."

On the role of the U.N.:

Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe: "[T]he UN Charter remains the only most sacred document and proponent of the relations of our Nations....

Foreign Minister of France, Michel Barnier: "[T]he U.N. remains the one irreplaceable, legitimate framework for harnessing...mobilization and translating it into collective action.... The Organization...has a natural vocation to be at the center of counter-terrorism measures.... The U.N., through its legitimacy and ever-increasing effectiveness, must be the instrument of the universal conscience of which it remains the crucible."

Let's sum up the rules of the U.N. game as set out by its most ardent fans from France to Cuba over September's festivities:

(1) Democracy is the governing principle between countries (read outvoting the United States), regardless of the rights of actual inhabitants.

(2) International measures to insist on democracy within states constitute unacceptable interference in a state's internal affairs.

(3) Nuclear non-proliferation is O.K. in theory provided it won't be put into practice until Israel and the United States are weapons-free, and any pressure in the meantime is oppression of developing countries.

(4) The only acceptable contributions of developed countries to the affairs of developing countries are cash donations.

(5) Terrorism is defined as harming one's friends, so Israelis are fair game.

(6) Israel is the greatest threat to world peace.

(7) Sudan should be commended for its role in reducing the spontaneous humanitarian crisis within its borders and anything but minute numbers of friendly neighboring forces would be an illegitimate interference in Sudanese sovereignty.

(8) The U.N. is the centerpiece of all legitimate international action concerning peace, security, self-defense, and the war against terrorism.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan works well at the top of this heap. He opened this year's Assembly by drawing moral parallels between the ongoing acts of unrepentant terrorists in the name of religion and the isolated acts of American soldiers condemned and punished by their countrymen. Annan said: "[W]e see civilians massacred in cold blood and...non-combatants...taken hostage and put to death in the most barbarous fashion. At the same time, we have seen Iraqi prisoners disgracefully abused." In his address, Annan named only one country in the world as violating international law through the "excessive use of force." You guessed it: Israel.

Into this toxic mix came President Bush with a message as honest as it was different. While the secretary general never once mentioned "democracy," "free speech," "political parties," "free press," "trade unions," "independent courts," every one of these was central to the president's address to the General Assembly. Announced the president in a statement which should have warmed tender hearts from Turtle Bay to Massachusetts: "For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations."

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, in his speech to the Assembly a few days later, asked: "Today, 60 years after this organization came into being, we must ask ourselves: What are we united for and what are we united against?"

The answer is: not terrorism, not the immediate threat of nuclear proliferation from Iran or North Korea, not the recognition of genocide or the action necessary to stop it, not the limits of sovereignty, not the requisites of democracy, not what constitutes a human-rights violation, and not the identity of the violators.

Senator Kerry would take American foreign policy on a new road. In his words: "...with other nations...you have to earn [their] respect. And I think we have a lot of earning back to do."

American voters could not have a clearer choice: groveling for the respect of nations whose values we do not share or helping reformers build a community of peaceful, democratic nations, with or without the "United" Nations.

— Anne Bayefsky is an international lawyer and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Reminder: Clinton's NSA Berger still under investigation for theft of classified docs

10.05.04 (3:22 am)   [edit]
From WorldNet Daily--

[b]SECURITY BREECHES
Feds say Berger
still under probe[/b]
Former security adviser
took classified documents
Posted: October 4, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

The criminal investigation of former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger – accused of pocketing highly classified terrorism documents prior to the Sept. 11 Commission hearings – has disappeared from media coverage but not from the federal government's agenda.


Sandy Berger

A spokesman from the Department of Justice told WND that a criminal investigation was ongoing, but he would not provide details about the nature or timing of the probe.

Berger, who had served as national security adviser to John Kerry's campaign, was reported in July to be under investigation for removing the documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room at the National Archives.

Berger was there at the request of former President Clinton, who asked him to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the commission.

FBI agents searched his home and office after he voluntarily returned some documents. But some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration were found to be missing.

Berger and his lawyer admit he knowingly removed handwritten notes he made while reading classified anti-terror documents by sticking them in his jacket, pants and socks. They said he also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement.

Although Berger says he has resigned from his informal post as adviser to Kerry, he stated in a speech last week that if the Massachusetts senator wins the election, it is possible the decision to reduce U.S. troops in Korea would be reconsidered, The Chosun Ilbo newspaper of South Korea reported.

In a keynote address for an international symposium hosted by Johns Hopkins University and the Maeil Business Newspaper, Berger said pulling 12,000 troops out of Korea at a time when Koreans were openly raising doubts about the Korea-U.S. relationship was sending a bad signal to Koreans, the Korean newspaper said.

Berger believes direct talks between the U.S. and North Korea are needed to solve the North Korean nuclear issue.

The revenge of Bat Boy

10.05.04 (2:53 am)   [edit]
Whoisjohngalt, who once made fun of my appearance, bears a striking resemblance to BatBoy of the infamous tabloids. He is one freaky looking individual.

Galt posted something about right-wing bullshit regarding Kerry and the global test. This is genius BatBoy's argument:

"Kerry meant that a President must be able to demonstrate to the world that the preemptive war is being waged for legitimate reasons, not that foreign governments must provide "permission."'

Who decides if a war is legitimate? Last time I checked, it was the US Congress. Secondly, even by UN rules, the UN failed to adhere to its own law (which the US enforced)and US force was more than justified. So what is BatBoy's fucking problem?

He wants Kerry to win, that is his problem. He sez later: 'In his very first answer of the night, the Democratic candidate said, "I'll never give a veto to any country over our security."'

But we know that is not true, for Kerry aches to bring back Germany and France into the coaltion. He thinks his mere gaunt presence will inspire the UN back on board. What is the reality is that Kerry is major fan of the UN who will not hesitate to let the UN determine what is lawful and unlawful, even though its charter does not prevent sovereign nations for defending themselves.

Galt finished off his diatribe with "Now watch--the right's response will be to ignore this, and continue to push what they know are lies. Even more hilariously, they'll do with while screaming that facts don't matter to liberals and that liberals are, by definition, liars. Or something utterly absurd like that..."

Liberals are, by definition, liars. If you take liberalism to its extreme, and I think we're at critical mass there, then lies to them are merely broad, very broad, interpretations. THings start being based on how we all feel, not on truth.

The UN 'felt' that they weren't threatened by Hussein. And you know what? They weren't. But the US, in any context, certainly was.

This is my comment I left on BatBoy's blog--

"Uh, BatBoy, even if that is the context the Kerry camp wants, [b]it is still a false attack on Bush.

Bush explained, multiple times, to the WORLD, you freak, the rationale for going to war. Just as he did to the American people.

So in the worst case scenario, Kerry said that the US should accede to the UN for matters of war (something he explicitly said in the early 1970s), or falsely accused the president of not explaining himself.[/b]

Call it the 'radical right' all you want-- but your party and your ideology lies for sport.

No matter your stand on foreign policy and Iraq, John Kerry holds your position

10.05.04 (1:10 am)   [edit]
[b]How Kerry won[/b]
Dennis Prager
October 5, 2004

This column, which could be titled, "Whatever your position on Iraq, John Kerry is your man," is dedicated to Sean, a listener who called my radio show the day after the presidential debate. He enabled me to understand why most people believe John Kerry won the debate.

Sean explained that he was an opponent of the war in Iraq and only now could he finally vote for John Kerry. I asked him what Kerry said that confirmed that the Democratic candidate was his man.

Sean: "I believe he has a plan." (Kerry said he has a plan some 12 times.)

Prager: "A plan to do what?"

Sean: "A plan to withdraw our troops."

And then I understood. No matter what position you hold about American foreign policy and the war in Iraq, John Kerry holds your position.

Sen. Kerry accomplished this so subtly that recognition of it had eluded me.

Voters who want America to leave Iraq and voters who want to stay there and win -- both heard Kerry say exactly what they wanted to hear.

Voters who want America to act alone in the world when the world disagrees with us and voters who want America to proceed only when we have the international backing and an alliance with others -- both heard Kerry say exactly what they wanted to hear.

Voters who believe the war was a colossal mistake and voters who believe that our soldiers in Iraq are fighting for a noble cause -- both heard John Kerry say exactly what they wanted to hear.

Voters who want to believe that John Kerry has almost magic-like plans -- to get more allies, to leave the war, to win the war, to end the North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats -- heard John Kerry say exactly what they wanted to hear.

Even voters who share Michael Moore's conspiratorial theories about the war and the Bush presidency heard what they wanted (in Kerry's reference to Haliburton).

Regarding the war and foreign policy, there is no segment of America that John Kerry did not appeal to.

Here are direct quotes from John Kerry in the debate.

On staying in Iraq:

"I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning."

"Yes, we have to be steadfast and resolved, and I am. And I will succeed for those troops, now that we're there. We have to succeed. We can't leave a failed Iraq."

On leaving Iraq:

"And our goal in my administration would be to get all of the troops out of there ..."

"I believe that when you know something's going wrong, you make it right. That's what I learned in Vietnam."

What was it that John Kerry "learned in Vietnam?" To leave a war he regarded as a mistake.

On America acting alone:

"I'll never give a veto to any country over our security."

On America acting only with world support or within an alliance:

"But if and when you do it (act alone), Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test ..."

And what if acting alone does not pass "the global test"? Then presumably we won't act alone. Kerry made references to the need to be in Iraq in alliance with other nations eight times.

On the war being a mistake:

"This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment."

"The president made a mistake in invading Iraq."

"The war is a mistake."

On the war being important enough to have to win:

"I believe that we have to win this. The president and I have always agreed on that."

After hearing Kerry call the war a mistake, the moderator Jim Lehrer asked the logical question: "Are Americans now dying in Iraq for a mistake?

John Kerry's answer: "No, and they don't have to, providing we have the leadership that I'm offering."

Now what does that response, arguably the most important thing the senator said in the debate, mean? Does it mean that American soldiers won't die for what John Kerry continually labels a mistake because he will prosecute the war more effectively? Or does it mean that Americans won't die for this mistaken war because he will leave Iraq and then there will be no mistake to die for?

The answer, again, is that it can mean either.

I believe that this debate can lead to only one conclusion: Either John Kerry is a man of few principles who will say almost anything on the most vital issues of life and death in order to get elected; or he is personally so confused on this issue that he will repeatedly make self-contradictory statements.

There is no other explanation for this unassailable fact: John Kerry won the debate because he sounded better; and he sounded better in large measure because he got away with saying whatever any voter wanted to hear.

That is one reason President Bush looked so annoyed at times. It is very hard for the principled to listen to the unprincipled.

©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Kerry attacks Halliburton because he is typically anti-business

10.05.04 (1:06 am)   [edit]
Money quote, which the Dems refuse to concede:

[i]KBR's other major contract in Iraq was Restore Iraqi Oil, a program to get the country's petroleum flowing quickly to finance reconstruction. That contract was awarded without bidding, and with good reason. The company was simply the only one capable of handling all of the possible challenges, including oil-well fires and pipeline breakdowns. And the Pentagon's confidence has been rewarded: KBR restored production to pre-war levels three months ahead of schedule.[/i]

From OpinionJournal.com--

[b]Hullabaloo Over Halliburton
The Kerry campaign's Old Democrat tendencies.[/b]

Tuesday, October 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Tonight's Vice Presidential debate is expected to be a bare-knuckled affair--traditionally it's the understudies who go negative while their bosses strike a higher tone. As well as making for good entertainment, this can give the voters some valuable information about the two tickets.

For instance, we expect that John Edwards will use the word "Halliburton" at least once as a shorthand way of accusing the Bush Administration of helping its friends in big business to ill-gotten gains. Last Saturday, John Kerry said, "In fact, the only people George Bush's policies are working for are the people he chooses to help. They're working for drug companies. They're working for oil companies . . . and they're certainly working for Halliburton."

By sheer force of repetition the vague accusations hurled at Halliburton have unfairly dragged the company's good name down to the level of Enron. It's an article of faith among Democrats that Vice President Dick Cheney, who was Halliburton's CEO from 1995-2000, is somehow funneling contracts its way and is being compensated by the company for these services. The company is supposedly gouging the U.S. taxpayer in Iraq and employing "Enron-style accounting," in the words of the Kerry campaign. For good measure, Mr. Kerry recently accused the company of opening "some 20 offshore entities" on Mr. Cheney's watch.

All that's needed to refute this smear campaign are the facts: Mr. Cheney's deferred compensation is a standard practice for retiring executives and an entirely legal way of spreading tax liability for previously agreed compensation, so it does not imply any continuing relationship with Halliburton. In order to re-enter public service, Mr. Cheney had to forfeit millions of dollars worth of stock options to avoid any conflict of interest. And he has zero control or even input regarding Halliburton's Defense contracts.

But the attacks have gone on for so long despite no evidence of impropriety that there must be something else going on here. That's what we mean by saying that voters can learn from a campaign's negative attacks: They sometimes betray the accuser's own biases. In this case, it is a prejudice against large corporations and preference for big government.

Consider that Halliburton is a poster child for the efficient contracting out of government functions to the private sector. It owes most of its involvement in Iraq to the third Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program, or Logcap III, awarded to its KBR subsidiary in 2001 through competitive bidding against four other contractors. Congress has supported this practice because, by using private sector employees for non-military functions, the armed forces put fewer soldiers at risk in a war zone. And the private sector can cook meals and wash uniforms more cheaply than the Pentagon. The Clinton Administration and other New Democrats understood the logic of this "outsourcing."

Initially, Logcap III called for KBR to support 25,000 troops in a theater of war. As military men say, no war plan survives contact with the enemy, and today the company is supporting 211,000 soldiers and personnel in Iraq and Kuwait. In the course of ramping up such an enormous effort, there are bound to be difficulties. But KBR has done a tremendous job of responding quickly to changing circumstances. Some of the biggest snafus have occurred in accounting at both KBR and the Pentagon, and even then the company has blown the whistle on itself.

KBR's other major contract in Iraq was Restore Iraqi Oil, a program to get the country's petroleum flowing quickly to finance reconstruction. That contract was awarded without bidding, and with good reason. The company was simply the only one capable of handling all of the possible challenges, including oil-well fires and pipeline breakdowns. And the Pentagon's confidence has been rewarded: KBR restored production to pre-war levels three months ahead of schedule.

Given the risky work and the firestorm of criticism from Democrats, one would think that Halliburton was making profit hand over fist in Iraq. Sadly for the company's shareholders, that is not the case. Profit from Logcap would come mostly from an "award fee," granted by the military on the basis of how well the company contains costs, and which may not exceed 2% of costs. Likewise, the profit potential on the oil contract is strictly limited and will probably end up between 1% and 3%, compared to the usual margin of 15% for private oil industry services. Halliburton is so underwhelmed by the returns on this government contracting that it is trying to spin off its KBR subsidiary.

Not surprisingly, there's a lack of consistency here from the Kerry campaign. On the one hand, it criticizes the Bush Administration for not spending money Congress allocated to rebuild Iraq faster. Meanwhile, it criticizes the KBR oil contract needed to get oil flowing quickly. In an interview with this paper in May, Senator Kerry tried to back away from his primary-season labelling of companies that send jobs abroad as "Benedict Arnolds." Now he's back attacking Halliburton for doing business overseas.

All of this marks a striking return to the Old Democrat distrust of all private enterprise, which held that if it moves, tax it, if it keeps moving, regulate it, and when it stops moving, subsidize it. The idea of anyone making a dime of profit by taking over a government function and doing it better is anathema on the Kerry ticket, and the idea of that person then going into public service even worse. That's the subtext of the Halliburton attacks on Dick Cheney.

Teacher fired for not including Kerry in class photo display of all presidents.......

10.04.04 (11:59 pm)   [edit]
Yup, it's true.  From WABC-- http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/print_WABC_ 100304_middleschoolteache r.html" title="http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/print_WABC_ 100304_middleschoolteache r.html" target="_blank"http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/n...

Winston Smith and yet more idiocy on 'global tests'

10.04.04 (11:46 pm)   [edit]

Democrats consistently find someone famous to link to their justifications through a quote and then hold that up to be proof that their positions are right.

John Kerry said "global test", and picked those words instead of "global explanation" to explain US foreign policy.  Quoting Thomas Jefferson is wonderful, but Jefferson's words actually have much more to do with Bush's decision to go to war, which was explained first to the American people and [i]then[/i] to the rest of the world, than they do with passing a global test.

A global test, by its very existence, indicates a higher standard than national sovereignty.  It indicates a foreign element in determining this nation's business, something that would have been totally foreign and anathema to our founding fathers.

Thomas Jefferson believed, by Winston's own quoting of him, not of a global test, but of self-explanation.  Bush explained to the world time and again why he has waged the war on terror the way he has and, more importantly, tried to pursuade the world why it was in their best interest to be on board (especially since it was the world's 'law' the US was trying to enforce).

Thomas Jefferson was not an isolationist, which is, ironically, 180 degrees from the worldview most Democrats are offering today.  According to our wonderful left-wing buddies, the US is the singular evil in the world and should pass 'global tests' before it does anything.

John Kerry did not echo Thomas Jefferson-- he went beyond him.  Jefferson was a patriot who had helped win America's independence.  He did not believe in this newly won sovereignty being beholden to an international standard, a test.  He merely believed in a leader explaining his actions.  How that is any different than what Bush did re: the war on terror is beyond me.

Bush's responsibility is to Americans first, and the world community second.  He has, time and again, and to the attacks of the critics, explained his actions. 

And, despite Winston's cut and paste rhetoric, not all UN inspectors were on the same page, and Saddam Hussein had not, repeat, had not honored his promise in the last UN resolution, WHICH WAS A FULL AND CLEAR DECLARATION OF HIS BANNED WEAPONS.  The test that Congress gave Bush to pass was passed by Bush. 

Moreover, it was already US policy to overthrow Saddam Hussein based on his continual cease-fire violations, which threatened US security, via the Clinton-ear Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998.

A global test would render all of this, the will of the people,  irrelevant.  And as we saw in the chambers of the UNSC, nations bought off and bribed by the Hussein regime do not care about US security, they have no incentive to care about our interests, even when they are interests that should be shared by the rest of the world. 

If there was someone stalking you and threatening you at your home, would you seek your neighbor's permission before you did something about it?  Likely not.  Yet that is precisely what John Kerry wants us to do.

 

 

Poll: Troops Support Bush over Kerry by 4 to 1 margin

10.04.04 (2:49 pm)   [edit]
From USA Today--

[b]Troops in survey back Bush 4-to-1 over Kerry[/b]
By Dave Moniz, USA TODAY
10-04-04

An unscientific survey of U.S. military personnel shows they support President Bush for re-election by a 4-to-1 ratio. Two-thirds of those responding said John Kerry's anti-war activities after he returned from Vietnam make them less likely to vote for him.

In the survey of more than 4,000 full-time and part-time troops, 73% said they would vote for Bush if the election were held today; 18% said they would vote for Kerry. Of the respondents, 59% identified themselves as Republicans, 20% as independents and 13% as Democrats.

The survey was conducted Sept. 15-28 by the Army Times Publishing Co., which distributes the weekly newspapers Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times. (Army Times Publishing is owned by Gannett, which also publishes USA TODAY.)

Army Times Publishing sent e-mails to more than 31,000 subscribers and received 4,165 responses on a secure Web site. The publisher cautioned that the results are not a scientific poll. Its readers are older, higher in rank and more career-oriented than the military as a whole.

Even so, experts who examined the survey results said they do not bode well for the Kerry campaign's efforts to woo the military, a traditionally Republican and conservative voting bloc. The Kerry campaign has highlighted his war record in an effort to burnish his credentials as a prospective commander in chief.

"You can't dismiss" the results, said Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who for years has studied the political leanings of the U.S. military. Feaver said it's unlikely that Bush will receive 70% of votes cast by military personnel. But the results suggest it will be difficult for Kerry to make substantial gains among a group that has strongly supported Republican presidential candidates in the post-Vietnam era.

Feaver said he suspects Kerry is losing support among those in uniform because he seems less committed than Bush to prosecuting the war in Iraq.

Richard Kohn, a University of North Carolina history professor who has studied the political culture of the military, said the Bush campaign has been effective in creating the impression that, if elected, Kerry might "cut and run" in Iraq. "None of us who has studied Kerry's character believes that, but the Bush campaign has established in the public's mind a connection to Vietnam," Kohn said.

Kerry campaign spokesman David Wade called the Army Times Publishing effort "an inaccurate e-mail survey" and said that Kerry has "the vision and values to keep faith with military families and America's veterans."

Of survey respondents, 65% of active-duty and 67% of Guard and reserve troops said that Kerry's activities after Vietnam made them less likely to vote for him. Kerry served in Vietnam as a naval officer and was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. He protested the war after returning home.

Only 12% of active-duty troops and 16% of Guard and reserve troops said Bush's actions in the National Guard made them less likely to vote for him. Bush received a coveted pilot's slot in the Texas Air National Guard during the height of the Vietnam War and missed a number of mandatory drills after he stopped flying fighter jets in April 1972.

Active-duty, Guard and reserve troops number about 2.4 million, a small slice of the electorate. But in closely contested states such as Florida, their votes could be crucial. The survey found little difference in presidential support among the four military branches.

While there is a lot of information available on how military veterans have voted, data on the voting patterns of active-duty personnel are scarce. Feaver said experts believe military personnel favored Bush over Al Gore 2-1 in the 2000 presidential race.

A number of military analysts, including Feaver, had been predicting as recently as this summer that Bush would suffer a slight erosion this year based on a number of factors, including misgivings about the conduct of the war in Iraq and dislike of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in some military circles. Of those responding to the survey, about three-fifths said they approve of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq; one-quarter said they disapprove.

Military personnel who responded to the survey said they were generally happy with their jobs: 73% said they would re-enlist.

Another blonde moment for Angie Kruger

10.04.04 (2:29 pm)   [edit]
Angie Kruger is a new face on tblog, a new, disturbingly ignorant, liberal face. In a blog post titled "If this is peace, I'd hate to see war", she posts an article in the ongoing war against the insurgents in Iraq, insurgents funded by terror regimes like Syrian and Iran:

"funny how we never hear any peaceful stories coming out of iraq. there might have been one last week during the ceremony in which american soldiers were handing out candy to children, but then a suicide bomber ruined that and killed 35 innocent children."

We never hear of any peaceful stories coming out of Iraq for 2 reasons. One, stories of peace and harmony don't sell newspapers. News organizations love human misery-- it sells. Secondly, the mainstream media where Angiekins gets her information from is demonstrably, admittedly liberal. Hence, biased.

The only reason why the msm mentioned that soldiers were handing out candy is because of the poet juxtaposition of that image next to the fact that terrorists-- who Kerry and Kruger are apparently arguing for-- blew up the ceremony, killing 35 children.

Once again, misery sells. And it helps fuel left-wing criticism of Bush.

There are plenty of good stories coming out of Iraq. But the western media doesn't want to report them for the above reasons, and outlets like Al Jazeerah (which are sourced with a straight face from left-wingers on Tblog) are rooting for the insurgency, and for terror in general.

It is funny how Angie Kruger and every other leftist that assumes intellectual superiority over us dimwitted conservatives can be so intentionally stupid.

If you'd like good news coming out of Iraq, go to the Wall Street Journal's website, which has a column documenting two weeks worth of good news in Iraq-- stuff the msm didn't touch.

Ps. Consider this, too: Iraq's currency, during Saddamm Hussein's era, was worth so little that it took 82,000 of them to equal a dollar. Now it takes 40 dinars to equal a dollar. The economy is surging in Iraq. That's just a single example of how things are improving in Iraq.

And, once again, we'd like to know from Angie K. how John Kerry has the credentials to be president or even a coherent, plausible plan for Iraq.

EXCLUSIVE: SADDAM POSSESSED WMD, HAD EXTENSIVE TERROR TIES

10.04.04 (12:56 pm)   [edit]
Read it here and elsewhere on the 'net. For the MSM (mainstream media) will certainly not touch it.

[b]Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties[/b]
By Scott Wheeler
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
October 04, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders.

One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al Qaeda.

Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States.

Among the organizations mentioned are those affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, two of the world's most wanted terrorists. Zarqawi is believed responsible for the kidnapping and beheading of several American civilians in Iraq and claimed responsibility for a series of deadly bombings in Iraq Sept. 30. Al-Zawahiri is the top lieutenant of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, allegedly helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the U.S., and is believed to be the voice on an audio tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television Oct. 1, calling for attacks on U.S. and British interests everywhere.

The source of the documents

A senior government official who is not a political appointee provided CNSNews.com with copies of the 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service documents. The originals, some of which were hand-written and others typed, are in Arabic. CNSNews.com had the papers translated into English by two individuals separately and independent of each other.

There are no hand-writing samples to which the documents can be compared for forensic analysis and authentication. However, three other experts - a former weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), a retired CIA counter-terrorism official with vast experience dealing with Iraq, and a former advisor to then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton on Iraq - were asked to analyze the documents. All said they comport with the format, style and content of other Iraqi documents from that era known to be genuine.

Laurie Mylroie, who authored the book, "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America," and advised Clinton on Iraq during the 1992 presidential campaign, told CNSNews.com that the papers represent "the most complete set of documents relating Iraq to terrorism, including Islamic terrorism" against the U.S.

Mylroie has long maintained that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism against the United States. The documents obtained by CNSNews.com , she said, include "correspondence back and forth between Saddam's office and Iraqi Mukhabarat (intelligence agency). They make sense. This is what one would think Saddam was doing at the time."

Bruce Tefft, a retired CIA official who specialized in counter-terrorism and had extensive experience dealing with Iraq, said that "based on available, unclassified and open source information, the details in these documents are accurate ..."

The former UNSCOM inspector zeroed in on the signatures on the documents and "the names of some of the people who sign off on these things.

"This is fairly typical of that time era. [The Iraqis] were meticulous record keepers," added the former U.N. official, who spoke with CNSNews.com on the condition of anonymity.

The senior government official, who furnished the documents to CNSNews.com, said the papers answer "whether or not Iraq was a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism against the United States. It also answers whether or not Iraq had an ongoing biological warfare project continuing through the period when the UNSCOM inspections ended."

Presidential campaign focused on Iraq

The presidential campaign is currently dominated by debate over whether Saddam procured weapons of mass destruction and/or whether his government sponsored terrorism aimed at Americans before the U.S. invaded Iraq last year. Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry has repeatedly rejected that possibility and criticized President Bush for needlessly invading Iraq.

"[Bush's] two main rationales - weapons of mass destruction and the al Qaeda/September 11 (2001) connection - have been proved false ... by the president's own weapons inspectors ... and by the 9/11 Commission," Kerry told an audience at New York University on Sept. 20.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's probe of the 9/11 intelligence failures also could not produce any definitive links between Saddam's government and 9/11. And United Nations as well as U.S. weapons inspectors in Iraq have been unable to find the biological and chemical weapons Saddam was suspected of possessing.

But the documents obtained by CNSNews.com shed new light on the controversy.

They detail the Iraqi regime's purchase of five kilograms of mustard gas on Aug. 21, 2000 and three vials of malignant pustule, another term for anthrax, on Sept. 6, 2000. The purchase order for the mustard gas includes gas masks, filters and rubber gloves. The order for the anthrax includes sterilization and decontamination equipment. (See Saddam's Possession of Mustard Gas)

The documents show that Iraqi intelligence received the mustard gas and anthrax from "Saddam's company," which Tefft said was probably a reference to Saddam General Establishment, "a complex of factories involved with, amongst other things, precision optics, missile, and artillery fabrication."

"Sa'ad's general company" is listed on the Iraqi documents as the supplier of the sterilization and decontamination equipment that accompanied the anthrax vials. Tefft believes this is a reference to the Salah Al-Din State Establishment, also involved in missile construction. (See Saddam's Possession of Anthrax)

The Jaber Ibn Hayan General Company is listed as the supplier of the safety equipment that accompanied the mustard gas order. Tefft described the company as "a 'turn-key' project built by Romania, designed to produce protective CW (conventional warfare) and BW (biological warfare) equipment (gas masks and protective clothing)."

"Iraq had an ongoing biological warfare project continuing through the period when the UNSCOM inspections ended," the senior government official and source of the documents said. "This should cause us to redouble our efforts to find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs."

'Hunt the Americans'

The first of the 42 pages of Iraqi documents is dated Jan. 18, 1993, approximately two years after American troops defeated Saddam's army in the first Persian Gulf War. The memo includes Saddam's directive that "the party should move to hunt the Americans who are on Arabian land, especially in Somalia, by using Arabian elements ..."

On Oct. 3, 1993, less than nine months after that Iraqi memo was written, American soldiers were ambushed in Mogadishu, Somalia by forces loyal to Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden. Eighteen Americans were killed and 84 wounded during a 17-hour firefight that followed the ambush in which Aidid's followers used civilians as decoys. (See Saddam's Connections to al Qaeda)

An 11-page Iraqi memo, dated Jan. 25, 1993, lists Palestinian, Sudanese and Asian terrorist organizations and the relationships Iraq had with each of them. Of particular importance, Tefft said, are the relationships Iraq had already developed or was in the process of developing with groups and individuals affiliated with al Qaeda, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The U.S. currently is offering rewards of up to $25 million for each man's capture.

The documents describe Al-Jehad wa'l Tajdeed as "a secret Palestinian organization" founded after the first Persian Gulf War that "believes in armed struggle against U.S. and western interests." The leaders of the group, according to the Iraqi memo, were stationed in Jordan in 1993, and when one of those leaders visited Iraq in November 1992, he "showed the readiness of his organization to execute operations against U.S. interests at any time." (See More Saddam Connections to al Qaeda)

Tefft believes the Tajdeed group likely included al-Zarqawi, whom Teft described as "our current terrorist nemesis" in Iraq, "a Palestinian on a Jordanian passport who was with al Qaeda and bin Laden in Afghanistan prior to this period (1993)."

Tajdeed, which means Islamic Renewal, currently "has a website that posts Zarqawi's speeches, messages, claims of assassinations and beheading videos," Tefft told CNSNews.com. "The apparent linkages are too close to be accidental" and might "be one of the first operational contacts between an al Qaeda group and Iraq," he added.

Tefft said the documents, all of which the Iraqi Intelligence Service labeled "Top secret, personal and urgent" show several links between Saddam's government and terror groups dedicated not only to targeting America but also U.S. allies like Egypt and Israel.

The same 11-page memo refers to the "re-opening of the relationship" with Al-Jehad al-Islamy, which is described as "the most violent in Egypt," responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The documents go on to describe a Dec. 14, 1990 meeting between Iraqi intelligence officials and a representative of Al-Jehad al-Islamy, that ended in an agreement "to move against [the] Egyptian regime by doing martyr operations on conditions that we should secure the finance, training and equipments." (See More Saddam Connections to al Qaeda)

Al-Zawahiri was one of the leaders of Jehad al-Islamy, which is also known as the Egyptian Islamic Group, and participated in the assassination of Sadat, Tefft said. "Iraq's contact with the Egyptian Islamic Group is another operational contact between Iraq and al Qaeda," he added.

One of the Asian groups listed on the Iraqi intelligence memo is J.U.I., also known as the Islamic Clerks Society. The group is currently led by Mawlana Fadhel al-Rahman, whom Tefft said is "an al Qaeda member and co-signed Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa (religious ruling) to kill Americans." The Iraqi memo from 1993 states that J.U.I.'s secretary general "has a good relationship with our system since 1981 and he is ready for any mission." Tefft said the memo shows "another direct Iraq link to an al Qaeda group."

Iraq had also maintained a relationship with the Afghani Islamist party since 1989, according to the memo. The "relationship was improved and became directly between the leader, Hekmatyar and Iraq," it states, referring to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghani warlord who fought against the Soviet Union and current al Qaeda ally, according to Tefft.

Last year, American authorities in Afghanistan ranked Hekmatyar third on their most wanted list, behind only bin Laden and former Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Hekmatyar represents "another Iraqi link to an al Qaeda group," Tefft said. (See More Saddam Connections to al Qaeda)

The Iraqi intelligence documents also refer to terrorist groups previously believed to have had links with Saddam Hussein. They include the Palestine Liberation Front, a group dedicated to attacking Israel, and according to the Iraqi memo, one with "an office in Baghdad."

The Abu Nidal group, suspected by the CIA of having acted as surrogates for Iraqi terrorist attacks, is also mentioned.

"The movement believes in political violence and assassinations," the 1993 Iraqi memo states in reference to the Abu Nidal organization. "We have relationships with them since 1973. Currently, they have a representative in the country. Monthly helps are given to them -- 20 thousand dinars - in addition to other supports," the memo explains. (See Saddam's Connections to Palestinian Terror Groups)

Iraq not only built and maintained relationships with terrorist groups, the documents show it appears to have trained terrorists as well. Ninety-two individuals from various Middle Eastern countries are listed on the papers.

Many are described as having "finished the course at M14," a reference to an Iraqi intelligence agency, and to having "participated in Umm El-Ma'arek," the Iraqi response to the U.S. invasion in 1991. The author of the list notes that approximately half of the individuals "all got trained inside the 'martyr act camp' that belonged to our directorate."

The former UNSCOM weapons inspector who was asked to analyze the documents believes it's clear that the Iraqis "were training people there in assassination and suicide bombing techniques ... including non-Iraqis."

Bush administration likely unaware of documents' existence

The senior government official and source of the Iraqi intelligence memos, explained that the reason the documents have not been made public before now is that the government has "thousands and thousands of documents waiting to be translated.

"It is unlikely they even know this exists," the source added.

The government official also explained that the motivation for leaking the documents, "is strictly national security and helping with the war on terrorism by focusing this country's attention on facts and away from political posturing.

"This is too important to let it get caught up in the political process," the source told CNSNews.com.

To protect against the Iraqi intelligence documents being altered or misrepresented elsewhere on the Internet, CNSNews.com has decided to publish only the first of the 42 pages in Arabic, along with the English translation. Portions of some of the other memos in translated form are also being published to accompany this report. Credentialed journalists and counter-terrorism experts seeking to view the 42 pages of Arabic documents or to challenge their authenticity may make arrangements to do so at CNSNews.com headquarters in Alexandria, Va.

Forget style: Kerry's statements deserve serious scrutiny

10.04.04 (12:12 pm)   [edit]
From NRO--

October 04, 2004, 9:39 a.m.
[b]Slighting Substance
Kerry’s statements deserve greater scrutiny.[/b]
Mark Levin

I hate to swim against the current, but shouldn't we pay more attention to what John Kerry actually said during Thursday night's debate? Apparently the mainstream media doesn't think so.

Iran: Kerry made this remarkable statement about how he would have confronted Iran's frenzied efforts to secure nuclear weapons: "I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together."

President Bush made the point that sanctions are already in place. But why hasn't Kerry's proposal received any attention, let alone the condemnation it deserves? (At the moment, only the Iranians themselves have given it the time of day, saying it would be "irrational" for them to jeopardize their country's nuclear program by relying on foreign supplies.) In a rare declarative statement, Kerry proposed providing the most active terrorist regime — which harbors al Qaeda terrorists, is sending them into Iraq to attack our forces, and threatens to attack Israel with nuclear weapons — with material that can be used to speed up their nuclear-weapons program. He's offering to do for Iran what Bill Clinton did for North Korea: arm it. This is stunning.

North Korea: Some have pointed out that while Kerry argues a coalition of over 30 nations in Iraq is not a coalition, he calls for bilateral negotiations with North Korea. Another obvious question is what exactly Kerry would tell Kim Jong-Il that, say, Bill Clinton didn't already discuss with him? Moreover, what does Kerry want to offer this tyrant that is so compelling he can only discuss it in a one-on-one negotiation? Does anyone know?

"Mistake": Kerry said, "the president made a mistake in invading Iraq." But later, Jim Lehrer asked him, "Are Americans now dying in Iraq for mistake?" Kerry answered, "No, and they don't have to, providing we have the leadership that we put — that I'm offering." So, the war in Iraq is a mistake, but soldiers who die fighting the war aren't dying for a mistake? What kind of perverse thinking is this?

Global Test: While numerous conservatives have noted Kerry's astounding comment about a president having to pass "the global test" to "prove to the world that [he took military action] for legitimate reasons," the mainstream media seem to have missed it. Where's the discussion on the editorial and op-ed pages? Where's the "news analysis?"

The post-debate discussion has been about style and impressions and the president's missed opportunities. Okay. But to the near exclusion of substance? These are affirmatively stated positions that require further inquiry, despite the fact that the next debate is about domestic issues.

Then there were two incredible gaffes that would have splashed across the front pages of every major newspaper had they been uttered by the president.

Treblinka: Kerry said, "Well, let me just say quickly that I've had an extraordinary experience of watching up close and personal that transition in Russia, because I was there right after the transformation. And I was probably one of the first senators...to go down into the KGB underneath Treblinka Square and see reams of files with names in them. It sort of brought home the transition to democracy that Russia was trying to make."

As everyone but Kerry knows, Treblinka was a Nazi death camp. He meant Lubianka. This is on a par with Gerald Ford's mistake in his debate with Jimmy Carter when he said that Poland was not controlled by the Soviet Union. Some believe that cost Ford the presidency. But nary a word about Kerry's error has appeared in the mainstream media.

Armistice: Kerry said, "... I want bilateral talks which put all of the issues [with North Korea], from the Armistice of 1952, the economic issues, the human rights issues, the artillery disposal issues, the DMZ issues and the nuclear issues on the table."

A small thing, but the armistice ending the Korean War was signed on July 27, 1953, not 1952. Dwight Eisenhower was president at the time. Again, this has been completely ignored. Would it have been ignored if Bush had made the mistake?

Interestingly, as I reviewed the debate transcript, I found no such factual errors or gaffes from the president.

I've observed many presidential debates over the years, and I understand that more than substance is considered by commentators, analysts, and voters. But I've never witnessed a post-debate situation in which substance has been so minimized. (The fact that the president did not confront Kerry on these statements during the debate is no explanation.) This isn't the swimsuit portion of the Miss America contest. We're deciding on the next commander-in-chief in the midst of a war. You'd think substance would be more important than ever.

— Mark R. Levin is president of Landmark Legal Foundation and talk-radio host on WABC 770 AM in New York.

'Fairness' on troop numbers in Iraq

10.04.04 (12:01 pm)   [edit]
From Non PC in Latte Land blog-- http://nonpcinlatteland.blogs...

[b]Fairness In Iraq[/b]

On 9/11 a firefighter wearing badge 672 barely escaped the collapse of the first World Trade Center. After pausing for a minute, he headed into the second tower. An incredulous reporter, noting his recent escape and his obvious need for medical attention, asked him why he would do that.

He responded, “Because it’s my job. Because they need me.”

He went in. He did not return.

I learned of this story only today, in church. I found a reference to it in a 2003 article by Lou Louis.

I think about this in the context of a complaint that Kerry made in his debate with President Bush: “But you can't tell me that (we have a genuine coalition) when the most troops … “ and he details that Great Britain has 8,300 ground troops and only five other non-Iraqi countries have more than 1,000 (South Korea, Italy, Poland, Ukraine total 10,876).

Some people look at this list and say, “this isn’t fair”. Perhaps. But fireman #672 didn’t go into that building because it was fair; he went because it was his job.

In 1999 the US flew 62% of the missions in Kosovo, a number that greatly underestimates how much the US contributed to the mission there. This was in the heart of Europe dealing with a European problem that did not impact the security interests of the United States. That wasn’t fair, either.

So why should we be surprised if today we are 83% of the forces not counting the Iraqis in Iraq? If you count Iraqi soldiers, border guards, facility protection and police we are close to 50%.

Yes, American soldiers outnumber Polish soldiers 40 to 1. But America spends $114 on our military for every $1 that the Poles do. How many did you expect?

Tonga has 45 soldiers there. But that is a higher percentage of their population than the percentage of our population serving in Iraq. Should American politicians be sneering at them?

The US is contributing the lion’s share of forces in Iraq because we have the lion’s share of forces in the world capable of fighting outside our own homeland.

We are there protecting ourselves and the rest of the civilized world because we can and, to put it bluntly, most of the rest of the world can’t.
Moaning about the ingrates in France and Germany doesn’t help. They know we have no choice but to save them while saving ourselves so they have no incentive to be responsible.

It isn’t fair. But it is our job.

May God bless every coalition soldier in Iraq for doing the job.

Afghan elections unstoppable, says US ambassador

10.04.04 (11:58 am)   [edit]
[b]Afghan Poll Unstoppable, Says U.S. Ambassador[/b]
By Raju Gopalakrishnan

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s historic presidential election is now unstoppable, the United States said on Monday, but other officials warned of more attacks by Taliban guerrillas and their al Qaeda allies before Saturday's vote.

In the latest violence, Afghan troops killed at least seven Taliban gunmen on Monday in the southern province of Uruzgan, a provincial spokesman said.

President Hamid Karzai, favorite to win despite being unable to campaign because of security concerns, returned from Germany after collecting an international award that recognized his contribution toward Afghanistan's progress since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But while his international standing is not in doubt -- he is a key ally of President Bush (news - web sites) -- Karzai's domestic popularity will be tested on Saturday when he faces 17 other candidates in the country's first presidential election.

The Taliban has called the election a sham orchestrated by Washington and Karzai and has vowed to disrupt it.

"There have been efforts ... to prevent this election from taking place. Those efforts have failed," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters.

"Now there is an effort by the enemies of Afghanistan, those who don't want Afghanistan to succeed, to disrupt the process. Those efforts will also fail."

Bush, who faces re-election next month, has cited Afghanistan as a foreign policy success and the upcoming vote as a major achievement of his administration, ahead of a planned January election in violence-torn Iraq (news - web sites).

The guerrillas distributed leaflets in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan saying anyone who killed a poll worker would earn a divine reward and those who registered to vote would face punishment.

But at least 650,000 Afghans in the camps had registered by Monday, in addition to 10.5 million registered in Afghanistan itself. Another 600,000 refugees in Iran are also eligible to participate.

Officials hope that threats by the Taliban and al Qaeda to disrupt the poll will be thwarted by a security effort involving a national army of over 17,000, about 25,000 police, 18,000 U.S.-led coalition troops and over 8,000 NATO (news - web sites)-led International Security Assistance Force.

Kabul and major cities have been quiet for some weeks, but there has been considerable violence in the volatile south, the Taliban stronghold.

SUPER BOWL

"I am very satisfied with the security arrangements," Lt. Gen. David Barno, who heads the coalition troops in Afghanistan, said while visiting a marine detachment in the southern province of Khost.

"Saturday is a big day. This is the Super Bowl as far we are concerned," he added. "So far the enemy has been relatively quiet but I think he is saving up a few of his punches to throw probably on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We have to be ready to deal with it."

A senior election official also foresaw more attacks, but said they would be scattered.

"While the enemy's attempts to disrupt the election are increasing, they are simply coinciding rather than being centrally co-ordinated," said John McComber, head of security for the U.N.-Afghan Joint Election Management Board.



With so many candidates standing, the vote could be diluted along ethnic and regional lines and deny Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun, the 51 percent needed to prevent a second round.

But his rivals still hope to present a more unified challenge and his main opponent, Education Minister Yunus Qanuni, said on Monday the field could be trimmed down.

Qanuni told a 1,000-strong rally in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif that 14 of the candidates had met and decided to unite, but as in the past, he remained vague on the specifics.

"We decided to have one single candidate or reduce the number of candidates," Qanuni said.

There was no immediate word from any other candidate that that was happening.

Karzai said in Berlin he hoped the vote would be decided in the first round.

"I hope for good reasons that the elections will not go to a second round, because it will be very expensive for us to have a second round and will be easier to have the results at the first round," he told reporters.

If there was any consolidation among the candidates, Qanuni, an ethnic Tajik, could draw support from other minority candidates such as ethnic Uzbek leaders Abdul Rashid Dostum and Abdul Satar Serat and Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, a Hazara.

Afghanistan's estimated population of 28 million is more than 40 percent Pashtun, 27 percent Tajik, nine percent Hazara and nine percent Uzbek. The rest are Turkmen, Baluch and Aimak.

(Additional reporting by David Fox and Simon Cameron-Moore in Kabul, Mark Chisholm in Khost, and David Brunnstrom in Islamabad)

Bush makes "seismic" gains in two polls of Catholic voters

10.04.04 (11:56 am)   [edit]
[b]Bush makes significant gains in two polls of Catholic voters[/b]
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
10-04-04

President Bush is rapidly tying up the Catholic vote, according to two polls that show him gaining support among this traditionally Democratic group.

The first poll, released last Monday by the Barna Group, an evangelical Christian polling firm, showed Mr. Bush, a Methodist, edging out his Catholic Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, 53 percent to 39 percent.

Pollster George Barna termed the switch "seismic," considering that a similar survey taken by his firm in May showed the president trailing the Massachusetts senator by 43 percent to 48 percent.

"Many of the Catholics now behind Mr. Bush have traditionally voted Democratic, but have chosen a different course this time around," he said.

His poll represents a 19-point shift in preference in just four months among Roman Catholics, who make up 23 percent of the nation's electorate. Conducted Sept. 11 to 24 among 898 registered voters, it had a margin of error of 3 percent.

A second poll, released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, was not as dramatic, but it does show the president building an edge of 49 percent to 39 percent against Mr. Kerry among white Catholics. This poll, conducted Sept. 22 to 26 among 948 registered voters, had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

Analysts say once-undecided Catholics are leaning toward the president on character issues. Raymond Flynn, former Democratic mayor of Boston and ambassador to the Vatican during the Clinton administration, said that during a recent trip to Ohio, he noticed a tilt toward Bush among Catholics there.

"They've been moving and closer to George Bush all the time," he said. "I think people don't make decisions on political or social issues; they make decisions on the character of the person. That's where George Bush's strength is: his character and its qualities. He's a good man, and people like him."

Mr. Flynn, who said he gets invited into Democratic strongholds, "because I'm Irish Catholic," concedes that issues such as homosexual "marriage" have hurt the Democratic Party.

"After I talk about Catholic values, there's no other conclusion for people other than to vote for George Bush," he said. "I think a lot of Catholics in the last month have concluded that with George Bush, even though we disagree with him on some issues, he is best for this country."

Three months ago, Catholics were evenly divided on the two candidates, according to a Catholics for Free Choice poll conducted June 2 to 11 among 2,239 Catholics, which found Catholic voters tied at 40 percent for Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, with 2 percent favoring independent Ralph Nader and 18 percent undecided. This poll had a 2.1 percent margin of error.

John Green, who teaches political science at the University of Akron and directs the Bliss Institute, said the consistent anti-Kerry message preached by conservative Catholics, who disagree with the senator on his abortion stance, might have scored some hits.

"Everyone in this country is taking cues from what the Catholics say about Kerry," he said. "In the early 1990s, Republican strategists were saying it would be great to get conservative Catholics on board. Well, now finally they are."

Such groups might be almost too effective, judging from a petition by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) asking the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax-exempt status of two such groups, Catholic Answers Inc. and the Culture of Life Foundation, for endorsing or opposing a particular political candidate.

At issue is an ad that Catholic Answers ran in regional editions of USA Today containing text from a 10-page "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics" that informs Catholic voters they should not vote for candidates who support abortion, euthanasia, fetal stem-cell research, human cloning and homosexual "marriage."

CFFC filed that complaint on Sept. 20.

On Tuesday, they filed a similar complaint against the Culture of Life Foundation, saying the District-based group "has consistently engaged in partisan attacks against presidential candidate John Kerry, going so far as to call him a 'bad Catholic' and publishing materials on its Web site suggesting that Catholics may not vote for 'pro-abortion politicians.' "

Catholic Answers President Karl Keating said his organization does not violate tax rules, and Culture of Life President Austin Ruse shrugged off the threat.

Kerry's strategy-- a summit for everyone!

10.03.04 (8:53 pm)   [edit]
From the London Telegraph-- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/op...

[b]Kerry's got a strategy: it's summit for everyone[/b]
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 03/10/2004)

Those of us who've been sweet on George W Bush for a long time have got used to these moments. In Thursday night's televised debate with John Kerry, he wasn't wrong on the substance, he just didn't have enough of it.

He was in the same state he was in in early 2003, just before launching the Iraq war, when he was tired and punchy and stumbling round the country not making a case against Saddam but just droning the same phrases over and over: "He's a dictator." Smirk. "He gassed his own people." Smirk.

On Thursday, his own people seemed to have gassed him. Bush droned, repeatedly, that Kerry was sending "mixed messages", but his own message could have done with being a little less robotically unmixed. He said: "It's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard - and it's hard work. It is hard work," again and again, round in circles.

And it is, no doubt. It's tough and it's hard work and it's incredibly hard doing the title number of Singin' in the Rain, but Gene Kelly made it seem blithe and effortless and graceful.

And the President of the United States owes his people a performance - in wartime especially. Churchill didn't just communicate the weight of the burden that he carried but also that he had the strength to bear it.

But who needs Churchill? It's not just that Tony Blair or John Howard of Australia could have done the job much more convincingly. Almost any of us armchair warriors could have put down John Kerry's feeble generalisations better than Bush did.

And yes, it's true, if you hadn't been following the election campaign closely till Thursday night, Senator Kerry wasn't as pompous or as boring or even as orange as some of us had led you to believe (his sudden tan had been much remarked on in the days beforehand) - though his lipstick was a slightly distracting shade and he would have been better advised to ease up on what was either his simultaneous signing for the deaf or an amusing impression of the stewardess pointing out the track lighting to the emergency doors. Perhaps the hand movements were just to show off the manicure he'd had during the day, while Bush was out putting his arms round Florida's hurricane victims.

But none of that matters. If John Kerry is so polished and eloquent and forceful and mellifluous, how come nobody has a clue what his policy on Iraq is? As he made clear on Thursday, Saddam was a growing threat so he had to be disarmed so Kerry voted for war in order to authorise Bush to go to the UN but Bush failed to pass "the global test" so we shouldn't have disarmed Saddam because he wasn't a threat so the war was a mistake so Kerry will bring the troops home by persuading France and Germany to send their troops instead because he's so much better at building alliances so he'll have no trouble talking France and Germany into sending their boys to be the last men to die for Bush's mistake.

Have I got that right?

Oh, and he'll call a summit. "I have a plan to have a summit. I'm going to hold that summit. We can be successful in Iraq with a summit. The kind of statesman-like summits that pull people together." Summit old, summit new, summit borrowed, summit blue, he's got summit for everyone. Summit-chanted evening, you may see a stranger, you may see a stranger across a crowded room. But, in John Kerry's world, there are no strangers, just EU Deputy Defence Ministers who haven't yet contributed 10,000 troops because they haven't been invited to a summit. And once John Kerry holds that summit all our troubles are over.

Having met him, I'm sceptical of Kerry's extraordinarily high valuation of his personal charm. But the notion that he'll be able to bring the French on board would seem to be at odds with Jean-Pierre Rafarin, the French prime minister's aside to a representative of Le Figaro the other day that "the Iraqi insurgents are our best allies". In a summit showdown between Chirac and Rafarin on the one hand and Kerry on the other, I bet on the Gallic weasels.

In his pre-baked soundbite of the night, Kerry said: "Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the President made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?"

Interesting question. The play-by-play pundits thought it brilliant, but I beg to differ. It would have been a better line if he'd said: "But the President's made a mistake in how he's fighting this war. Which is worse?" There may be a majority that thinks post-Saddam Iraq has been screwed up; there's not a clear, exploitable majority that thinks toppling Saddam was a disaster, and Kerry can't build one in the next month.

But it would still have been a lousy line for this reason: "Talking about" stuff is all Kerry's got. He has no executive experience, he has never run a state, never founded a company, built a business, made payroll. Post-Vietnam, all he's done is talk and vote. For 20 years in the US Senate: talk, vote, talk, vote. So, if his talking and voting are wrong, what else is there?

Speaking as a third-rate hack, I'd say that as a general rule articulacy is greatly over-rated. But, if articulacy is the measure, how come Kerry can't articulate an Iraq policy any of us can understand? By contrast, for an inarticulate man, Bush seems to communicate pretty clearly.

He communicates the reality of the September 12th world, a world where you can't afford to err on the side of multilateral consensus and Hague-approved legalisms and transatlantic chit-chatting and tentativeness and faintheartedness about the projection of American power in America's interest. Mr Kerry thinks he can rebuild the polite fictions of September 10.

A majority of the American people - albeit not as big a majority as it ought to be - gets this. John Kerry still does not. Which means he lost the debate. He got a technical win on points from the pundits, but this election won't be won on points. It's primal. The pundits keep missing this.

They thought Kerry was good in the debate, just as he was good in his convention speech, because on both occasions he was tactically artful. But that's not going to cut it. We're post-Clinton: you can't triangulate your way to victory.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.

Kerry may have violated debate rules, used 'cheat sheet'

10.03.04 (5:12 pm)   [edit]
From PowerlineBlog-- http://powerlineblog.com/arch...

Rice defends comments on Iraq nuke threat

10.03.04 (5:10 pm)   [edit]
[b]Rice Defends Comments on Iraq Nuke Threat[/b]
By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) on Sunday defended her characterization of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s nuclear capabilities in the months before the Iraq (news - web sites) invasion, even as a published report said government experts had cast doubt at the time.

In the run-up to the March 2003 war, Rice said in a television interview in 2002 that the Iraqi president was trying to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes to rebuild his nuclear weapons program. The tubes, she said, were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs."

On Sunday, Rice acknowledged she was aware of a debate within the U.S. intelligence community about whether the tubes were intended for nuclear weapons. "I knew that there was a dispute. I actually didn't really know the nature of the dispute," Rice told ABC's "This Week."

"The intelligence community assessment as a whole was that these (tubes) were likely and certainly suitable for, and likely for, his nuclear weapons program," Rice said. She said the director of the CIA (news - web sites) at the time, George Tenet, believed that the tubes were for centrifuge parts.

"When you are faced with an assessment that Saddam Hussein is reconstituting his nuclear weapons program, that he has by the end of the decade the probability of having a nuclear weapon ... the tendency is always not to want to underestimate these programs," Rice said.

But two years later, Rice insisted she has no regrets about how the administration portrayed what it believed was a dangerous threat posed by Saddam.

"I stand by to this day the correctness of the decision to take seriously an intelligence assessment that Saddam Hussein would likely have a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade" if action wasn't taken.

"We were all unhappy that the intelligence was not as good as we had thought that it was. But the essential judgment was absolutely right. Saddam Hussein was a threat," she said.

Later, in an interview on CNN's "Late Edition," Rice said, "If you underestimate the nuclear threat of a tyrant, you make a really big mistake."

A New York Times story Sunday quoted four CIA officials and a senior administration official as saying that Rice's staff had been told in 2001 that Energy Department experts believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets — and not nuclear weapons.

Rice said she learned of objections by the Energy Department only after making her 2002 comments.

During the CNN interview in 2002, Rice said the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." In bolstering the administration's argument of the threat the nation faced, she said, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) seized on the latest debate over flawed prewar intelligence as more evidence that the Bush administration misled the country into invading Iraq.

"These are questions the president must face, these are the questions that a president has to answer fully to the American people and to the troops," Kerry told a town hall meeting in Ohio on Sunday.

Kerry foreign policy adviser and former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke told "This Week," "What the Times article is saying is that the top nuclear experts in the country said those aluminum tubes were not for nuclear weapons, and that this was suppressed by the administration, particularly Vice President Cheney."

Polish president disses Democrat President wannabe

10.03.04 (3:36 pm)   [edit]

From Chrenkoff blog -- http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2004/10/polish-presid ent-disses-democrat.html" title="http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2004/10/polish-presid ent-disses-democrat.html" target="_blank"http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com...

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Polish President disses Democrat President wannabe 

Iraqi govt report: Saddam bought UN allies (including France, Russia) with oil, received political i

10.03.04 (3:29 pm)   [edit]

Note to Mr. Kerry and his supporters: Apparently it is the UN, and not the Coalition of the Willing, that is the coalition of the 'coerced and bribed'. From the London Times-- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0" title="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0" target="_blank"http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...,,2089-1291280_1,00.html October 03, 2004 Saddam ‘bought UN allies’ with oil Robert Winnett

A LEAKED report has exposed the extent of alleged corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food scheme in Iraq, identifying up to 200 individuals and companies that made profits running into hundreds of millions of pounds from it. The report largely implicates France and Russia, whom Saddam Hussein targeted as he sought support on the UN Security Council before the Iraq war. Both countries were influential voices against UN-backed action. A senior UN official responsible for the scheme is identified as a major beneficiary. The report, marked "highly confidential", also finds that the private office of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, profited from the cheap oil. Saddam’s regime awarded this oil during the run-up to the war when military action was being discussed at the UN. The report was drawn up on behalf of the interim Iraqi government in preparation for a possible legal action against those who may have illicitly profited under Saddam. The Iraqis hired the London-based accountants KPMG and lawyers Freshfields to advise on future action. It details a catalogue of alleged bribery and corruption perpetrated by Saddam under the UN programme, revealing how the regime lined its pockets and those of influential politicians, journalists and UN officials. The UN oil-for-food scheme was set up in 1995 to allow Iraq to sell controlled amounts of oil to raise money for humanitarian supplies. However, the leaked report reveals Saddam systematically abused the scheme, using it to buy "political influence" throughout the world. The former Iraqi regime was in effect free to "allocate" oil to whom it wished. Dozens of private individuals were given oil at knockdown prices. They were able to nominate recognised traders to buy the cheap oil from the Iraqi state oil firm and sell it for a personal profit. The report says oil was given to key countries: "The regime gave priority to Russia, China and France. This was because they were permanent members of, and hence had the ability to influence decisions made by, the UN Security Council. The regime . . . allocated ‘private oil’ to individuals or political parties that sympathised in some way with the regime." The report also details how the regime benefited by arranging illegal "kickbacks" from oil sales. From September 2000, it is said Saddam made $228m (£127m) from kickbacks deposited in accounts across the Middle East. The analysis details only the export of oil — not the import of humanitarian supplies, also alleged to have been riddled with corruption. The report is an interim analysis and therefore studies only a sample of oil contracts. The other main allegations included in the report are that: Benon Sevan, director of the UN oil-for-food programme, received 9.3m barrels of oil from the regime which he is estimated to have sold for a profit of £670,000. Sevan has always denied any improper conduct. A former senior aide to Putin allegedly organised the sale of almost 4m barrels of oil at a profit of more than £330,000. At the time the oil was sold, Russia was blocking the UN from supporting America’s demands to attack Iraq. According to the report, the aide, who worked in the presidential office, received 3.9m barrels of oil between May and December 2002. In the two months during the run-up to the war, the Iraqi regime illegally sold about £30m of oil to a Jordanian-based company with the money deposited in a Jordanian bank account established by the regime. This is suspected to have been an attempt to secure safe passage for Saddam’s family in the event of war. A French oil company teamed up with the regime to bribe a UN-appointed inspector monitoring exports of Iraqi oil. The inspector, a Portuguese national working for Saybolt, a Dutch firm, was paid a total of £58,000 in cash to forge export documents. The French firm is linked to a close associate of Jacques Chirac, the country’s president. A spokesman for Saybolt said it would be investigating the allegations. Saddam imposed a surcharge of between 10 cents and 50 cents (5p to 27p) for every barrel of oil allocated by his regime between September 2000 and the end of 2002. The money raised from this illegal surcharge was deposited in bank accounts in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. Iraqi embassies, including those in Moscow, Athens, Cairo, Rome, Vienna and Geneva, collected the money. In total, 175 firms and individuals allegedly paid bribes to secure oil from the regime. According to the report: "The only way of enforcing the surcharge was through verbal personal guarantees and promises due to the sensitivity of the surcharge and the secrecy surrounding its imposition. However, after extensive efforts in collecting these amounts, a total of $228m (£127m) out of $263m (£146m) was eventually collected (87% of the total imposed). "Some companies were afraid to pay the amounts through the banking system, in order not to be exposed or face possible legal sanctions overseas, and therefore preferred to pay in cash." The report claims that Russians had a prominent role. They received "unprecedented priority" and were allocated a third of all Iraqi oil — most of which was resold to other nations. Besides Putin’s private office, those named as having received oil include political parties, Russian oil firms and the foreign ministry. A section of the report on Russian involvement says Saddam and his henchmen furthered "their political and propagandist cause through companies, individuals and political parties that have no relation to the oil industry. Through their activities, they have gained the indebtedness of the Russian Federation and with that, its weight and leadership on the world stage as well as its permanent membership of the UN Security Council". Last week Claude Hankes-Drielsma, an Iraqi government adviser who worked on the investigation, confirmed the report as genuine. "The records demonstrate that the UN oil-for-food programme provided Saddam with a vehicle to buy support internationally by bribing political parties, companies, journalists and other individuals," he said. "This shows the need for a complete review of the UN."

 

Kerry's economic plan a false presentation of who he is

10.03.04 (3:17 pm)   [edit]

The most recent nauseating Kerry spot features the great one outlining his "new" three-point plan to save America.  First, he says, he wants to help lower the cost of doing small business and lower health care.  Second, he wants to give the middle class a tax cut.  Third, he wants the US to be energy independent so we won't depend on "the Saudi Royal family".

What is amazing about Kerry's plan is that it is Bush's plan.  But Kerry does what Clinton did, which is no surprise since he's got Clintonistas working for him: he accuses conservative s of not doing something they're doing, and then adopts a conservative platform.

Why do liberals do this time after time?  Because if the public knew the liberal agenda for America, they'd never vote for them.

Let's take a look at the Kerry plan:

[b]Lower costs for small businesses[/b].  Kerry hopes that this rhetoric is enough to hoodwink Americans, because to lower costs for small businesses, you'd have to slash their taxes and deregulate.  Guess what?  Kerry is the major critic of Bush's tax cuts for "the rich", where "the rich" represent most small business owners (those making $ 200K a year or more).  Secondly, Kerry has long towed the party line on regulating businesses, and has criticized Bush's efforts to deregulate.

[b]Lower health care costs[/b].  By any measure, Kerry's plan is a bloated monster of federal spending-- 10 times what Bush's plan is.  Since "the rich" aren't a large enough base to gather all the revenue needed to fuel Kerry's old world socialist plan, you can expect a higher tax rate for every single American.

Which leads us to Kerry's [b]middle class tax cuts[/b].  This is pure baloney.  The last liberal president to cut taxes was JFK.  The only reason why Kerry has signed on to this is because he wants to get enough dupes in the electorate to believe he is committed to lower taxes. If Kerry is elected you will not hear another word of the tax cuts and since Kerry will be trying to sink money into his new health care plan (and not fixing Social Security or Medicare), the likelihood is that middle-class taxes will rise.

[b]Becoming energy independent[/b].  This is probably the most transparent of all.  Kerry voted for higher gasoline taxes, first of all.  Many times.  Secondly, and much more importantly, we'd all like to know how Kerry is going to make the US energy independent when he criticized president Bush's very efforts to do so.

Let's be clear.  One of president Bush's first initiatives was to make the US energy independent.  He, not Kerry, wanted to relieve or dependence on the Saudis (and everyone else).  His plan was to drill our own oil until we could depend on alternative, more advanced fuel sources.  But Bush was thwarted by the fringe left and their propaganda about ANWAR, etc.

If Kerry became president, not only would he fail to make us energy independent, but would make it irrelevant anyway.  The reason why the US will not succeed as independent from other countries on energy is because the industries are too regulated, and Kerry [i]loves[/i] to regulate.  

As with Germany and France, who will shower Kerry with rose petals when he is president and be in union with the US again, Kerry apparently thinks, without any proof whatsoever, that far-left environuts will see the wisdom of Kerry's "plan" and allow the kind of massive oil projects it would take to sustain America.

Actually, I doubt Kerry thinks that.  What Kerry actually thinks is that he can get away with duping voters away from his record and his philosophy.  In short, he is presenting himself as someone other than who he really is.

President Bush made the simple but often ignored point in the debate last week that being president is hard.  It is.  Kerry, just like Clinton did, makes sweeping and simple promises, promises that seem as easy as turning on a light switch.  He does it because of his contempt for the American voter and his towering arrogance.

Again, I ask any of you out there to prove to me that Kerry can do any of these things.  I ask any of you out there to prove to me that he is the man for the job.  Because his record shows that he has done [i]nothing[/i] as a Senator.  Why, after all, do you think he made his traitorous Vietnam service the focus of his campaign?

Ps.  Want proof of how hard it is to become energy independent?  Ask yourself: during the gloomy 1970s, when energy prices were higher tha n they are today counting inflation, why didn't president Jimmy Carter, another arrogant elitist liberal, move to make our nation energy independent?

We depended on foreign oil then, we do now, and if Kerry becomes president, you can be certain we will in the near future. 

The truth about those Veteran health care "cuts" Kerry keeps complaining about

10.03.04 (9:01 am)   [edit]

Editorial from the Wall Street Journal--

A Veteran Ploy
The truth about those health-care "cuts" Kerry complains about.

Sunday, October 3, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

From the outset of his campaign, John Kerry has been aiming for the veteran vote. With 25 million military veterans in the country, it would be a nice trick for him to pull off. But for all the ink spilled over the candidate's three Purple Hearts, there has been remarkably little reporting on what the Kerry campaign has been telling vets: that under President Bush, the Department of Veterans Affairs is cutting health services.

No Kerry surrogate has been more outspoken on this than former Senator and Vietnam vet Max Cleland: "I think it is crazy that Bush's VA is cutting veterans out of the system and closing hospitals during a shooting war." During the GOP Convention, Mr. Kerry told the American Legion: "When I am President, you will have a fellow veteran in the White House who understands that those who fought for our country abroad should never have to fight for what they were promised back here at home."

The problem is that these attacks have little basis in fact. When Mr. Bush took office the VA was operating like the Canadian health care system. Swamped with more patients than it could handle, the VA let vets languish on long waiting lists. Of the 3.8 million veterans then relying on Uncle Sam for health care, 300,000 waited six months or more for an initial doctor's visit or a referral to a specialist. Now there are more than five million vets being cared for each year and the waiting list is down to 3,000--a 99% improvement. The VA budget will top $70 billion next year, up from $48 billion four years ago. VA medical spending alone will reach $26.9 billion this year, up from $20.2 billion in 2001.

But these numbers tell only half the story. To find out why the VA is closing some hospitals, the Kerry campaign might put in a call to Bill Clinton. In the mid-1990s it became clear that the VA's model of large hospitals focusing on inpatient care was outmoded, wasteful and did not meet the needs of an increasingly dispersed veteran population. One estimate found that the VA was wasting $1 million a day keeping open psychiatric, tuberculosis and other empty wards. So like the rest of the health care community, the VA began offering more outpatient care by opening hundreds of clinics around the country. In 1996 the VA operated 200 clinics. Today it runs 700 and is planning additional ones in Cleveland, Las Vegas, Tampa and 150 other places.

However, even government doctors cannot offer free services and then reasonably expect to treat everyone who might walk in the door. In 1996 Congress created a new system that gives greater priority to veterans who are poor or who suffer from military-related disabilities. VA Secretary Anthony Principi told us that he used these rules to determine that it is not possible right now to provide care for vets not yet in the system and who have only a few years of service, incomes above $35,000 or so and no service-related disabilities.

This is where Mr. Kerry comes in with a promise to "lead the fight" for "mandatory funding" for health care for all veterans. That sounds nice on the stump, but in practice it would make veteran benefits look a lot more like Medicare and a lot less responsive to changing veteran needs. It could also cost as much as $165 billion through 2008, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. More federal money is almost always the answer in Washington, but it's rarely the cure.

Rasmussen poll has Bush lead, Newsweek poll has Kerry lead...who to believe?

10.03.04 (8:48 am)   [edit]

Newsweek has a poll that says John Kerry has erased Bush's lead with his debate "victory" last week, leading 49% to 46%.  You can read about it here-- http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&" title="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&" target="_blank"http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm...;u=/nm/20041003/us_nm/cam paign_newsweek_poll_dc_10  .

Rasmussen tracking has Bush ahead 49 to 46 percent.  You can read that here-- http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking _Poll.htm" title="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking _Poll.htm" target="_blank"http://www.rasmussenreports.c...

Rasmussen used likely voters, Newsweek used registered voters.  Newsweek also used far less people in the poll.

Oh, and Evan Thomas of Newsweek has been quoted as saying that the mainstream media will do whatever it can to ensure a Kerry win. 

The following is a bit of interesting commentary about Newsweek's poll.  From PowerlineBlog--

UPDATE: Reader Meg Kreikemeier points out that according to RealClearPolitics, Newsweek's most recent poll included 345 Republicans, 364 Democrats and 278 independents. This compares to Newsweek's published data for their most recent prior poll, which showed President Bush with a comfortable lead: 391 Republicans,
300 Democrats and 270 independents. Yes, if you drop 46 Republicans and add 64 Democrats, you will get considerably better results for the Democratic nominee. This is a good reminder of why poll data always need to be taken with a grain of salt, especially until you see the underlying data.

My point about the Newsweek poll, however, was not that it was right, but that it and others like it will be the basis for a media effort to give the Kerry campaign momentum going down the stretch.

HINDROCKET adds: Dafydd ab Hugh weighs in:

Bush was doing 9 points better than Kerry among their respective parties in the last poll, and he's doing 9 points better than Kerry among their respective parties in this poll; and in addition, Kerry was up by 6 among independents last time but is only up by five this time. In absolute terms, Kerry lost support slightly in the new survey... but realistically, there was no statistical change whatsoever between the two.

But wait -- then how did Bush drop from being up by 6 last time (49-93) to being down by 2 this time (45-47)? Very simply:

Newsweek's sample had almost 41% Republicans last time but only 35% this time, and only 31% Democrats last time vs. 37% Democrats this time.

Thus are great nonsense-surges created...!

This tells me that because of polling method, the Newsweek poll is completely worthless and should henceforth be ignored. Yeesh.

Kerry is wrong: Iraq is central to defeating Al Qaeda

10.02.04 (9:00 am)   [edit]

...and all you have to do is actually read the 9/11 report.....

From OpinionJournal.com--

Right War, Right Place, Right Time
Kerry is wrong: Iraq is central to defeating al Qaeda.

BY DEBRA BURLINGAME
Saturday, October 2, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Last month five 9/11 widows held an emotional press conference and--one by one--stood before a microphone to talk about fear. They invoked the tragic loss of their loved ones three years ago and declared that concern for their children's future has moved them to endorse the candidacy of John F. Kerry. These are the very same women who just six months ago angrily denounced the use of fleeting images of Ground Zero in a Bush campaign ad, saying it was a form of exploitation that was "unconscionable" and "disgusting." They asserted that neither candidate should use 9/11 for personal political gain, calling the use of 9/11 "a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people."

Though these same widows participated in an anti-Bush demonstration sponsored by MoveOn.org demanding that the president pull his television ads off the air, they maintained then, as they do now, that they are nonpartisan, that they are moved solely by their conscience and by a sense of civic duty. At the close of their press conference, Kerry handlers distributed press releases declaring that "9/11 Families Endorse John Kerry for President" and announced that the widows might be used in television ads in swing states.

Sen. Kerry begins many stump speeches these days by introducing these 9/11 widows to kind applause. As we enter the final leg of the presidential race, the Kerry campaign appears to have calculated that the war in Vietnam is not the war the American people want to talk about. And so, trading on their status as 9/11 family members associated with the 9/11 Commission, the Kerry campaign is deploying these September 11 widows on a nationwide tour to tell the American people that there is no connection between Iraq and the war on terrorism. This declaration will come as a surprise to the folks who actually wrote the 9/11 Commission report. These widows may be speaking from the heart, but the Kerry campaign is not telling you the truth.

Anyone who has actually read the report would know that the 9/11 Commission had plenty to say about the connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, but because much of its findings were beyond the scope of its charter, important details went unstated in public hearings or were buried in the minutiae of the published narrative. Virtually every reporter I have spoken to has failed to answer this basic question satisfactorily: "Have you actually read the report?" The answer is almost always a sheepish "No." Those who have only given it a cursory scan may have missed the fine-print chapter notes where explosive information about names, dates, places, and conversations concerning the Iraq-al Qaeda connection are outlined in chilling detail.

To cite but one of many examples, it states that Saddam Hussein--wanting to curry favor with other Arab governments wary of Osama bin Laden--was not responsive to a 1996 request by bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq when the Sudanese government was poised to give him the boot. After bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in 1998, two al Qaeda operatives went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. Later, a delegation of Iraqi officials traveled to Afghanistan and offered to set bin Laden up. Taliban leaders, concerned with the increasing possibility of retaliatory strikes by the U.S., urged bin Laden to go. During heated discussions with other Clinton administration policy makers about the effect of launching missile strikes on bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, then-NSC Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke worried that bin Laden would "boogie to Baghdad" where he would put his network at Saddam's service and be all the harder to root out, given Saddam's formidable security apparatus.

The commission further reported that terrorist training camps, now eliminated by the coalition forces of Operation Iraqi Freedom, were set up in Northern Iraq with bin Laden's help. Al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was given safe haven by Saddam Hussein after he fled Afghanistan. It is Zarqawi, a chemical weapons expert, who is believed to be the leading force behind Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist organization bin Laden assisted in founding several years ago and which is carrying out beheadings and suicide bombings in Iraq today.

As one of 150 9/11 family members who have signed an open letter strongly supporting the president's decision to prosecute the war on terror in Iraq, I would remind Americans who think the presence of weapons of mass destruction are the sine qua non for any pre-emptive war that the 19 terrorists who slaughtered 3,000 innocent men, women and children in a matter of minutes were sponsored by the Taliban, a backward regime that had neither WMD nor the technology to produce them. Saddam may not have had a hand in the plot that killed our loved ones, but American troops found ample evidence that he wishes he had, including the murals he commissioned for public display depicting airplanes exploding into the World Trade Center towers, but with this added conceit: One shows the planes painted in the colors of Iraqi airlines while Saddam's grinning portrait looms in the foreground in yet another.

For many 9/11 family members, the most compelling reason for putting an end to Saddam's dangerous regime can be found in the 9/11 Commission's pointed analysis on the subject of "imminent threats." As we forced ourselves to read through the voluminous material which explains in excruciating detail the disparate threads of the 9/11 plot, we were constantly mindful of the seemingly innocuous events which would ultimately prove critical to the cruel and brutal deaths of our loved ones. We understand the commission's dire warning and wish that our fellow Americans would listen closely: "Once the danger has fully materialized, evident to all, mobilizing action is easier--but it then may be too late."

Rather than waiting until it was too late to prevent a fully materialized threat, President Bush acted. We believe history will support his courageous decision. We believe the president has demonstrated strength, consistency and a laser-like focus, sending a clear message to America's friends and foes that he will not waver in his resolve as the winds of political fortune change.

Last month, on the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I had the privilege of visiting with some of our brave and dedicated military men and women who are recuperating from their wounds at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. These young Americans and their families remain staunchly committed to the mission of protecting us and our children and bringing freedom to Iraq. They do not understand why the media refuse to tell the American people about the good work they have accomplished and the progress they are making. These valiant soldiers believe, as one Iraqi blogger put it, that "their river of blood is our river of hope," and that the pessimism of the media is a betrayal that our troops and the Iraqi people do not deserve.

It was these young people whom I thought of when Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi stood before a joint session of Congress last week and paid tribute to the sacrifices of his countrymen and the coalition forces fighting for us all. For political partisans to call the hope of so many a cynical calculation or a foolish dream risks, with a few cheap words, energizing our enemies who measure their success by the blood and tears of these brave hearts. Optimism in the face of obstacles is not living in "fantasyland." It's courage.

The 9/11 widows traveling with John Kerry talk about their fear of a war with no end, but there are many of us 9/11 families who fear that John Kerry would turn this crucial historic opportunity into a losing war with no hope. We think George W. Bush got it right. We believe this is the right war, in the right place, at the right time. We think the good guys are winning.

Ms. Burlingame, a lifelong Democrat, is co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America (www.911familiesforamerica.org). Her brother, Chic Burlingame, was the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Gallup poll: Kerry wins debate, Bush still trusted more on Iraq, more likable and believable

10.02.04 (8:50 am)   [edit]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=13237" title="http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=13237" target="_blank"http://www.gallup.com/poll/co...

 

A couple of more points on the debate

10.01.04 (2:54 pm)   [edit]
Many critics of the president's performance last night unfairly, I think, say he was ill-prepared for the debate. I don't think that's the case. I just don't think he was as prepared as Kerry, whose campaign team rightly saw this as make-or-break opportunity. Kerry was polished and looked presidential, even if he said the same old stuff.

And how can we blame the president for not being as prepared as Kerry? John Kerry is, for all intents and purposes, not a Senator anymore. He doesn't show up for work, he misses votes, he has spent every single minute of his life recently focused on the presidency. Kerry has nothing to do but focus on this major event in his life. He has the time to practice clever comebacks and spin lies.

Bush, on the other hand, is a working president. More so than any president of recent memory. Consider what Bush is juggling while trying to win reelection. THere's the war on terror, a war ushered in by the tragedy of 9/11, a global effort trying to enlist as many countries as possible to kill or capture Al Qaeda. Afghanistan and Iraq, each a presidential definer, both going on at the same time, with Bush trying to juggle free elections in both countries (stop, everyone, and think about how major this is-- two countries gearing up for free elections for the first time, all without the help of the UN and entirely by the will of president Bush) and quell an Iranian-funded "insurgency" in Iraq that is currently escalating. There's the North Korea and Iran's nuclear proliferation, leftovers from the Clinton administration that have sharp, immediate impact post 9/11. There is the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

There is a new kind of war and the difficulties in defining this war (like what exactly enemy combatants are, how it will be prosecuted, and the Bush doctrine on preemption).

Consider what Bush is dealing with domestically. A runaway judiciary usurping the will of the people. A media that absolutely loathes him, like no president before (even Nixon). Hurricanes in Floria. Wildfires out west. Gigantic oil prices, thanks to Venezuela, Nigeria, OPEC, and China. An US economy that struggles with the reality that economic liberalization and freedom across the globe means outsourcing (no matter how you want to explain it away). A populace taught to hate America by left-wing teachers groups that set curriculums and an anti-western press.

John Kerry has all the time in the world to get his hundred-dollar haircuts, get a new tan, get botoxed, and get his nails done. He has all the time in the world to say how things should be.

I think the shocking, sad thing, is that with all of this time on his hands in a campaign he started in 2002, it was only yesterday, 30-some odd days before the election, that he managed to partly get a consistent message, a message that still seeks UN approval to act in the world, a message that still believes in massive, oppressive taxes to not only the rich but everyone, a message that believes in the failed policies of universal, big-government health care and social programs. It's even sadder (for Kerry) that Bush held his own for a good portion of the debate, and never lost on substance and consistency.

I think we can excuse Dubya for not being as polished as Kerry in the debates. I do believe that if Kerry wins the election his presidency will be like Clinton's. He will say things are all right while ignoring major foreign and domestic problems. And he'll kick the can down the road until a Republican assumes the presidency.

Bush is busting his ass as president, Kerry is sitting on his ass as a challenger.

Speaking of NoKor-- US deploys destroyers, progress on missile defense system

10.01.04 (1:55 pm)   [edit]
From AFP--

[b]US deploys destroyers off North Korea as part of missile defense system[/b]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US destroyers equipped with Aegis missile tracking systems have been deployed in the Sea of Japan near North Korea (news - web sites) as part of a missile defense system that Washington intends to declare operational this year, the Navy's civilian chief said.

"We do have our Aegis destroyers deployed and indeed they do have tracking capability as we committed to do before the end of the year," Navy Secretary Gordon England told reporters.

"So we do have our ships deployed."

England confirmed reports that the destroyers were deployed in the Sea of Japan near North Korea.

But he would not say whether it meant the missile defense system that the United States is erecting at bases in Alaska and California is now operational.

Pentagon (news - web sites) officials have said the United States is on track to declare the system's "initial operational capability" this year, providing a limited defense against long range missile attack by a "rogue" state.

Critics of the system, however, say there is little confidence the system will work because it has not been sufficiently tested.

The Aegis destroyers powerful radars would be used to track long-range missiles, and help launch interceptor missiles into their path.

A Global Test? Look past the style, and Kerry still full of contradictions

10.01.04 (1:43 pm)   [edit]
Kerry at times during his debate said that he would minimize troops in Iraq and get the allies to share the burden (as if we're not doing that now). So Kerry is a multilateralist, right?

No!

Because on Afghanistan, Kerry is a unilateralist. According to Kerry:

"But we didn't use American forces, the best trained in the world, to go kill him. The president relied on Afghan warlords and he outsourced that job too. That's wrong."

Kerry said Iraq was a mistake, and then, when asked if Americans were dying for a mistake, said "No, and they don't have to, providing we have the leadership that we put — that I'm offering."

Remember that this is a guy that laments BUsh for not being clear. Anyone know what that means? What it means is that Kerry said that troops were dying for a mistake and that if he's elected they won't. Huh?

So we're still on message that we shouldn't have troops in Iraq, when Kerry sez:

"And we got weapons of mass destruction crossing the border every single day, and they're blowing people up. And we don't have enough troops there."

So are we going to have 200,000 plus troops there, as Kerry sometimes wants, or none? Are we multilateralists or unilateralists? Is this a mistake or not a mistake?

On preemption, Kerry says he's all for it, provided it pass a "global test". This means permission from the United Nations. Hmmm. Bush thought invading Iraq was a good idea because of Iraq's UNSC violations, violations that, after 9/11 threatened the US. It didn't pass the "global test", that means approval from the UNSC.

Now I ask you: what if we know that N Korea is preparing nukes and selling them to terrorists, but they haven't directly attacked the US. Suppose the UN is full of countries that are pro-N Korea. Must we still pass the "global test"?

Kerry said that he would hold bilateral talks with N Korea instead of the Bush multilateral talks. Of course, N Korea won't meet with the US for bilateral talks, and frankly, talks with So Korea, China and Japan are more practical since it is those countries that have the most to lose with a nuclear N Korea. How are 'bilateral talks' a better idea?

Bush's performance had more to do with Kerry's win than Kerry did. For with Kerry's words, it was the same old flip-flops and scary rhetoric that seems so Carter-esque that it does not bode well for the US if, somehow, Kerry wins the president.

Kerry wins on style, fails to offer a clear alternative vision

10.01.04 (9:12 am)   [edit]

The Bush-Kerry Face-Off

By Joel Mowbray
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 1, 2004

With Kerry’s camp relentlessly dampening expectations for the Democrat’s debating skills, the senator from Massachusetts cleared the low bar he needed to in order to improve his standing in the public’s mind.

But what Kerry failed to do was accomplish his most important goal:  ;offer a clear, alternative vision.

To his credit, Kerry was well coifed, poised, and surprisingly succinct.  He managed to make his wildly divergent positions seem slightly more consistent, and he even scored on a few rhetorical digs.

 

Missing from the 90-minute event, however, was any coherent Kerry plan for what to do in Iraq if Americans do choose to change horses midstream.  The Democrat hammered home that he would secure former Soviet nukes in 4 years instead of 13—this is the issue gripping Americans, after all—but how exactly does he propose building this grand, sweeping international coalition to handle Iraq and the rest of the war on terror?

 

While Kerry reiterated that he thought Saddam was a bad guy—who aside from Michael Moore can argue otherwise?—he didn’t specify what he would have done to take out Saddam.  Unfortunately, Bush did not use this opportunity to remind his challenger that this summer, the Democrat said the war in Iraq was justified—regardless of whether or not WMDs are ever found.

 

Where Bush had his best moments were tearing into Kerry’s own words -- a smorgasbord from which the President could feast. 

 

Kerry, lest we forget, voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it.  And after labeling Saddam a grave threat, his latest line is that the war in Iraq was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

 

The obvious question that Bush didn’t even have to pose is: if Kerry keeps dwelling on how it was the “wrong” war, how can he be the guy to lead us to eventual victory?

 

Though it was not a grade-A night for Kerry, the Democrat clearly gained ground on the evening.  How much is not likely to be known for a few days, but the early—stress early—“flash polls” indicate that people who watched the debate gave Kerry the nod by a roughly 10-point margin.

 

Before anyone reads too much into the ultra-early poll results, though, some history: Walter Mondale was declared the winner over Ronald Reagan in their first debate.

 

What Reagan did in the follow-up debate that had a much greater impact, however, was perhaps the most classic one-liner in recent memory: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”  Reaction shots showed a Walter Mondale beside himself, laughing harder than he probably had in months.

 

If there is one principal demerit for Bush last night, it would be that he never found his normally reliable sense of humor.  His passion was at times palpable, and at some moments, he showed a Clinton-esque softer side.  That was not enough.  To really put away the challenger, President Bush will need to turn on the charm in the next two debates in a way it just wasn’t on last night.

 

Luckily for Bush, the American people already know him.  Kerry had a tougher task, given that nearly half of respondents in most polls say they still don’t know enough about him. 

 

After this debate, the general feeling most will probably have is that Kerry is critical of Bush—quelle surprise!—but they still will not have any idea what John Kerry would do as president.  And if he can’t accomplish that in the next two debates, he probably won’t be given the chance to show them.

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Joel Mowbray is author of Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens America’s Security.

For a series of press conferences, the debate got hot-- and Kerry won it.

10.01.04 (8:48 am)   [edit]

For those who lamented the staleness of the presidential debate format for 2004, last night's debates looked like "Crossfire" compared to 2000.  That surprised me.  What didn't really surprise me was that John Kerry won the debate.

Kerry spoke well and looked good.  After all, he was a debater at Yale, and spent 20 years in the Senate debating on the floor.  Plus, he makes no distinction between a lie and a truth, so he basically doesn't really  have to think about what he is saying.  I have to admit that Kerry won the debate.

This obviously does not mean that people like Kerry or will vote for him, or that he will get a bounce, and it certainly doesn't mean Kerry is right, but Kerry was good.  He deftly managed to avoid the fact that he has no principles and flip flops on a minute-by-minute basis.

Now, how did he do it?  My theory is simple.  Kerry won the right to speak first.  He was asked the first question, and he set the tone.  Bush was naturally on the defensive then, when he didn't have to be.  All of the arguments Bush has actually won, but Kerry and the moderator, Jim Lehrer, were able to focus the debate on a Bush defense of Iraq.

Kerry offered a litany of lies-- like Bush responsible for N Korea, or Bush not funding the troops, or Bush squandering international goodwill (Kerry can certainly say a lot of crap in 2 minutes)-- and Bush had trouble responding to them.  He is not a debater and, since appearances count, Bush looked at times like he was fidgeting and having trouble coming up with a response.  I don't think it was that as much as he has trouble articulating.

It could backfire.  When Bush was attacked by a rabid press corps in the spring asking him the unprecedented question of "admitting" a mistake (something that would be akin to asking FDR at the height of WWII to admit mistakes-- a totally demoralizing, undermining, question), he came across as sympathetic.  The American people do not like smart asses, bullies, and know-it-alls.

But chalk last night's debate up to Kerry, and let the chips fall where they may.

BUSH DID have some good points-- like how Kerry can move faster on the ground in Iraq when he has questioned the credibility of Iraq's PM, or how Kerry can get more allies on board when he already called the coalition of the willing a coalition of the "coerced and bribed".  And though he probably didn't have to, Bush brought up the stunning fact that Kerry voted on the same intel Bush did, voted for the war, and then refused to fund it.  Bush also noted that Kerry demoralizes the troops when he calls the war "the wrong war".  Bush tried to question the leadership qualities of Kerry, and he did an admirable job, but the focus was on defense from Kerry's machine-gun accusations.

The Vatican's anti-western bias

10.01.04 (8:37 am)   [edit]

An older article, but vital--

From the National Catholic Reporter

April 25, 2003