September 07, 2002

Act Now:
The danger is immediate. Saddam Hussein must be removed.

I'm posting this a day late, but in case you're still one of the irrational few who are *against* an Iraq attack, George Schultz's exhortium to War might change your mind. With his first sentence,

"Are we to be the Hamlet of nations, debating endlessly over when and how to act?"

the former Secretary of State for President Reagan had me enthralled (even though I've been on his side and that of the Bush Administration from day 1!)
The Hamlet analogy (particularly to describe the position of the Donks and those on the Left) struck me as perfect.

Radical Muslim Clerics to Meet on Sept. 11 to Celebrate Anniversary of Attacks

LONDON (AP) - Extremist Muslim clerics will meet in London on Sept. 11 to celebrate the anniversary of the attacks on the United States and to launch an organization for Islamic militants, an organizer of the conference said Saturday.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed of Al-Muhajiroun, a radical group that supports making Britain an Islamic state, said the conference will argue that the terror attacks were justified because Muslims must defend themselves against armed aggression.
Mohammed said the council will aim to implement Sharia law in Britain and will not exclude al-Qaida sympathizers from membership.
The conference will discuss the "positive outcomes" of Sept. 11, which delegates perceived as a battle against an "evil superpower," he said.
God, this makes me FURIOUS!!!
"Armed aggression?" What in the hell are they talking about?!?
These "people" have to be stopped--killed, if that's what it comes to-- because if they can "justify" the 9/11 murders with bullsh*t like this, they won't blink an eye when they kill "infidels" like you and me!
Where is the British outrage to shut this mosque and its organizations and leaders down???
IslamoFacism Delenda Est.

Loose Talk Unraveled German 9/11 Anniversary Plot

An indiscreet remark helped police seize a suspected Osama bin Laden follower and his American fiancee who worked at a U.S. base as they plotted a September 11 anniversary attack, officials said on Saturday.
[...]"We have evidence that an attack was planned for September 11," Thomas Schaeuble, interior minister for the southwest German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, said on Friday night. "He seems to be a follower of Osama bin Laden who is deeply religious and harbors a hatred for Americans and Jews."

"According to our information she hated Jews as well."
[...]
Officials said Eyzaguirre warned a friend working there to stay away from the store, which is on the closed military base, in the coming days. The friend told law enforcement officials who were then able to unravel the plot.

"One of her co-workers made the decision to go to the authorities," said Mitchell Edgar, a spokesman for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES). "We applaud her for that."

We applaud her indeed for being unlike those murderous "Palestinian" Arab women who followed the bus that was going to blow up in Israel (knowing there was a bomb aboard), but who told and warned no-one.

Lauren Bush Falls Ill at Arab-Look Fashion Show

A stomach bug rather than diplomatic jitters kept President Bush niece Lauren from modeling an Arabic-inspired collection at a fashion show in Barcelona, fashion house Toypes said on Friday.
[...]
Local press reported on Friday that the model's mother had refused to let her 17-year-old daughter model the collection when she saw the silk tunics and turbans.
[...]
Toypes called a news conference to deny local press reports that Lauren had refused to model the collection because of the impending anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Caption: Lauren P. Bush, niece of U.S. President George Bush, displays an outfit created by Jorge Galinanes during the Spring/Summer 2003 Pasarela Gaudi Fashion show in Barcelona, September 5, 2002.

Isn't she lovely?

Guardian Unlimited: LONE TERRORISTS 'COULD STRIKE ON SEPTEMBER 11'

Lone bombers and gunmen unconnected to al-Qaida could strike in Britain on September 11, anti-terror chiefs have warned.
Detectives believe individual terrorists may see the first anniversary of the New York and Washington attacks as offering a world stage for their own cause.
Mobile armed road blocks will be in place around London as a first point of defence on the anniversary. Anti-terror police warned the public to be on a state of "alert but not alarm".

Now is the time when not just British security forces, but French, Dutch, German, etc., etc. police begin wishing they'd followed up on those anti-Semitic attacks in their countries in the winter and spring and found those "evildoers." Chances are that if they aren't the same guys, they definitely go to the same mosque...but it's too late for that now, I guess.

'Uptick on threat level noise meter' as 9/11 nears

A senior U.S. official confirms that, as the September 11 anniversary nears, there is "an uptick on the threat level noise meter," that "planning is going on" and there is "an ongoing effort by bad guys" to pull something off.

This isn't surprising and was bound to be the case for the 9/11 Anniversary, so what else is new?
(Now, they'll try to blame it on the Bush Administration's Iraq Attack "policy." WHATEVER.
They just want us dead--the reason's superfluous.)
I'm sure you're like me and have been watchful since 9/11, but just keep your eyes open for anything that looks or feels "wrong."
Let your good judgement and "Yankee" common sense be your guide.

Pair arrested for 9/11 attack plan

STUTTGART, Germany (CNN) -- German officials arrested a Turkish man and his American fiancee who they say planned an attack on a U.S. military base in Germany close to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

David Warren wrote his article "Diversions" (see post below this one) before anyone knew about this pair, but looks like our appeasement-loving German friends caught a couple of very bad Islamists just in time!
But we haven't lived past 9/11 yet, so be alert and watchful wherever you are because I don't think the Jihadis are through!

September 06, 2002

David Warren weighs in with his delineation of an Al Queda/IslamoFacist global network of terror, murder, and chaos, with the "axis of evil" at its center in his latest piece called "Diversions":

[...]...the "axis of evil" is no mere rhetorical device, but a good working description of what has been formed across the arc from Afghanistan to Lebanon, and whose influence is rapidly spreading through the rest of the Middle East.
There are separate command structures, but the Palestinian terrorists, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the regime of Syria's Bashir Assad, that of Saddam Hussein, Iran's ayatollahs, Al Qaeda, and other Islamist terror organizations also operate co-operatively. They have foreign, even non-Islamic weapons suppliers and trainers, ranging from the rogue regime of North Korea, to international crime syndicates, to the Irish Republican Army -- in for the money and mischief, not for the Islamist cause. Their motives are equally various. But they have declared common enemies in the United States and Israel, and for the purpose of conducting a multi-front war, they know as surely as Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo once did, that they must stand or fall together.

Not to leave anyone out of this nasty picture, but David forgot to mention by name the Basque Separatists, the Chechen "rebels" and the Kashmiri separatists,also (and perhaps even the Colombian drug cartel).
But the point is well made: these terrorists are all in it together, even though the news reports make them sound "separate" and disconnected. Sharp Americans have "connected the dots" themselves (like myself!) through research and reading, while many Americans may "feel" the connection almost instinctively without being conscious of the revelation.
It's as if all hell broke loose everywhere after 9/11...

In Afghanistan, this "axis" has been reorganizing since the overthrow of the Taliban regime. The general idea has been to create a vast killing zone for U.S. soldiers, thus drawing the Americans into the kind of quagmire theSoviets found themselves in, in the 1980s. Indeed, the 9/11 strikes themselves could be interpreted as a "come and get me"; though the speed with which the Americans crushed the Taliban regime must have come as a surprise.
[...]American forces and their local alllies are now getting ambushed all over the country, and have meanwhile been discovering weapons cache almost everywhere they search.

But the car-bombing in Kabul market yesterday was a signature piece -- an old taxi, stuffed with explosives, was detonated by the market building in which electronic equipment was sold -- things like CD players, TV sets, and
satellite dishes, forbidden by fanatical Islam. A much smaller explosion preceded it, designed to attract gawkers and assure the maximum number of casualties in the subsequent, main blast.
[...]While there have been several previous assassination attempts on Mr. Karzai, this one was the most intelligent and least likely to fail. The car bombing in Kabul was world-class: a sophisticated and disciplined team operation.

At the same time, a car-and-truck-bomb explosion was supposed to happen in Israel , at the other end of the arc, one which in the estimation of Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, "would have cost such loss of life that it would have changed almost the entire political situation in one moment". (The truck was rigged to create a huge fuel-bomb effect, supplemented by whole barrels of shrapnel, probably meant for the middle of Tel Aviv.) This mission was prevented by the pure chance [ or the Grace of God?--Jen] of witnesses being in the right place at the right time, and being able to find police soon enough.

There were several other attacks on Israeli military in Gaza, one of which succeeded in destroying a tank (no easy job). Bombs planted by a house belonging to former prime minister Ehud Barak were also discovered and
defused. None of these incidents were "mere" suicide hits: they were attempts to create havoc on a very large scale.
To those who have begun to understand the enemy mind, the reason for these attacks -- ambitious in themselves, and simultaneously at either end of the "Islamist arc" -- are obvious. Had they fully succeeded, we would be reading this morning of both Afghanistan and Israel in complete turmoil.
The enemy is attempting big diversions, to stall U.S. plans for advance into Iraq. They are doing Saddam's work for him, and it would be wilfully naive to assume that Saddam is in no way involved.

David seems to know very well whereof he speaks--his analysis is fact-based and authentic--and when he strings these events together, they have the eerie, solid ring of "truth."
How I wish they did not!
But it looks like "Allah" wasn't smiling on his Wahhabi children this week.
Thanks be to God! Keep praying, people!
And good job on the part of our U.S. Special Forces that foiled that assassination attempt on Karzai!

Britain will pay blood price of our alliance, Blair tells US

Tony Blair has indicated that he is ready to risk seeing British service personnel injured or killed in a war with Iraq.

In a statement that will dismay his domestic critics, but raise his standing in the US before his weekend visit for talks with President Bush, the Prime Minister promised that Britain would be alongside the Americans "when the shooting starts".

Mr Blair also agreed that Britain's willingness to "pay the blood price" was part of the special relationship with America.

At least Blair is being blunt and up-front about what the consequences of his decision would be, but he's getting the same kind of "aggro" (that's English slang for "crap") from his Members of Parliament that Bush is getting from Congress.
"We wanna vote on it! You forgot about us! What about what we think?"
England and America--2 countries united by a common, elected and divisive body.

U.P.I.: Iran test fires new missile

TEHRAN, Iran, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Iran has successfully tested a solid-fuel surface-to-surface missile dubbed Faateh A-110 (Conqueror A-110), the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Friday.
[...]
"The Islamic republic of Iran, as the biggest victim of missiles over the past three decades, is only after establishing a deterrent force against future threats and crises," Vahid was quoted as saying, in an apparent reference to extensive Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran, during the 1980-1988 war between the neighbors.

If Saddam weren't still the most looming future threat (as our Arab "friends" and EUrowhing Allies keep saying he is not), Iran wouldn't find this so pressing.
Further, given how paranoid the Ayatollah's regime is and has increasingly become of late, they may feel the need to prepare against the day we invade Iraq and they feel they must defend Iran's border.
And, in their IslamoFascist minds, it never hurts to keep a few pointed at Israel, either, I'm sure.
(Betcha these missiles say "Made in China",too.)

That's Happy New Year to we Gentiles!
(For a Christian Zionist, my Yiddish ain't bad! And I'm working on it!)

No 10 urges Russia to back ultimatum

Britain is mounting a concerted political effort to urge Russia to support, tacitly at least, a United Nations Security Council "ultimatum" for Iraq to re-admit weapons inspectors.

The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary are planning to travel separately to Moscow in the coming weeks to try to secure Russian support for a get-tough policy.

Hope Jack Straw doesn't get an ulcer doing his part to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" with the USA...
And Tony, Cheers, mate!
All help is appreciated to get our Allies on board!
Baghad delenda est!

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

"The Dutch cabinet has backed a possible United States attack on Iraq, even without a mandate from the UN Security Council," Radio Netherlands reports. Holland is the first nation to come forth with such a formal endorsement."

I told you the Clue Train stopped in Holland!
(But my skeptical readers wouldn't believe it!)
To the land of Rembrandt, chocolate and tulips, a BIG Thank You!

Jobless rate falls 5.7%

+39.000 to payrolls

Dow Jones closes up 125.68.

No matter what you hear to the contrary, the economy isn't "in trouble".
In fact, it's in pretty robust shape.
So, tell those whining DimocRATs to shut up about it and stop spreading lies!

100 jets join attack on Iraq

About 100 American and British aircraft took part in an attack on Iraq's major western air defence installation yesterday in the biggest single operation over the country for four years.
The raid appeared to be a prelude to the type of special forces operations that would have to begin weeks before a possible American-led war. It was launched two days before a war summit between President George W Bush and Tony Blair in America.
The Prime Minister promised that Britain would be alongside the Americans "when the shooting starts".
The raid seemed designed to destroy air defences to allow easy access for special forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few months.
[...]The attack on what the American central command described as an "air defence command and control facility" was the first time that a target in western Iraq had been attacked during the patrols of the southern no-fly zone.
Until yesterday, all strikes had been against air defence sites in the south, around Basra, Amara, Nassairya and Baghdad.
[...]
As well as blinding Iraqi radar to any special forces helicopters, the loss of the H3 installation would allow allied aircraft mounting major raids on Iraq a trouble-free route into the country.
In a further sign that America was preparing for war, a Pentagon official confirmed that heavy armour, ammunition and other equipment had been moved to Kuwait from huge stores in Qatar.
Thomas White, the army secretary, said: "We have done a lot with pre-positioned stocks in the Gulf, making sure that they are in the right spot to support whatever the president wants to do."

Note the Army Sec said "the President" and not Congress and not the UN!

Here are the high points from Mark Steyn's latest masterpiece:"The triumph of American values:
After 11 September America knows who the enemy is, says Mark Steyn.

There can be no more polite fictions.
Moral clarity and the Bush doctrine of pre-emption now govern world affairs"

[...]The day-everything-changed myth was a convenience. It enabled the media, for example, to explain why the guy they’d dismissed as an idiot for the last year seemed to be handling things okay. If this was the day that changed America, then it must have changed him, too: he’d been ‘transformed’; he’s ‘grown in office’. (This narrative has now been discarded: the Bush dummy jokes are back, the cartoonists have re-shrunk him in office, drawing him once more as a small preppy schoolboy way too teeny for the Oval Office chair.) Bush, of course, was unchanged. He reacted to 11 September just as anyone who’d paid him any heed since 1999 would have expected him to. His view of the world was reinforced by 9/11, not shattered.

I'd like to believe that it is now only the Liberal Media, and far fewer of the American people, who hold this "Bush is a dumb cowboy" opinion.

[...] If the multilateral world is irrelevant, it’s because its organs — the UN, EU, Nato — are diseased and sclerotic, and it has shown no willingness in the last year to address the fact.
Does that mean Bush is a unilateralist? Not at all. Bilateralism is booming. Since 11 September, US-Russian, US-Chinese, US-Indian and US-Turkish relations have all improved, all of which are arguably more important than whether Washington sees eye to eye with Chris Patten. Only a very blinkered, self-absorbed Eurocentric would assume that because Mr Bush (as quoted in The Spectator last week) doesn’t ‘give a shit about the Europeans’, he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else: within a year, for example, the US has built productive relations with the Central Asian republics.
As for Europe, for the next couple of decades it will be too preoccupied saving itself to do much on the world stage: the EU faces a declining birth-rate, rising social costs, a swelling unassimilated immigrant population — all the indicators heading in the wrong direction. Islam For All reported approvingly the other day that, at present demographic rates, in 20 years’ time the majority of Holland’s children (those under 18) will be Muslim. It will be the first Islamic country in western Europe since the loss of Spain. Europe is the colony now.
[...]

The Flight 93 hijackers might have got lucky. They might have found themselves on a plane with John Lahr (‘You guys are working for Bush, right?’) or an Ivy League professor immersed in a long Harper’s article about the iniquities of US foreign policy. They might have found themselves travelling with Robert Daubenspeck of White River Junction, Vermont, who the day after 11 September wrote to my local newspaper advising against retaliation: ‘Someone, someday, must have the courage not to hit back but to look them in the eye and say, “I love you.’’ ’ But, granted these exceptions, chances are any flight full of reasonably typical Americans would have found a group of people to do the right thing, to act as those on Flight 93 did. When you face these terrorists, when you ‘look them in the eye’, you see there’s nothing to negotiate. Flight 93’s passengers were the first to confront that — to understand that what they were up against was not ‘courage’ (as I erroneously identified it a year ago) but a psychotic death-cultism in which before committing mass murder one carefully depilates and cleans one’s genitalia because paradise is a brothel. They are dangerous only insofar as they’re used by wily dictators, cheered on by their fellow Muslims and regarded ambivalently by much of the rest of the world.
But, on Flight 93, Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett, Mark Bingham and others did not have the luxury of amused Guardianesque detachment. So they effectively inaugurated the new Bush Doctrine: when you know your enemies have got something big up their sleeves, you take ’em out before they can do it.

Everything that mattered after 11 September — Bush’s moral clarity, the decision to hit back hard, the spirit of innovation, and the crystal-clear understanding that this is an enemy beyond negotiation —was present in the final moments of Flight 93....
Bush will need them in the years ahead because he has chosen to embark on the most ambitious change of all, a reversal of half a century of US policy in the Middle East. After the War of 1812, the British eventually concluded that neither they nor anyone else could ever win against the Americans. Size and distance made it uniquely secure. That changed on 11 September, and George W. Bush has never been in any doubt about the ‘root cause’: the lack of liberty in the Middle East. The polite fictions — Prince Abdullah is ‘moderate’, Yasser Arafat is our ‘partner in peace’, the Syrian Foreign Minister is as respectable as Norway’s — will no longer do. They led to slaughter.
So the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption is potentially the most profound change in international relations in generations. Europe, for one, hasn’t caught up to it: when it comes to Saddam, the Continentals are like the passengers on those first three planes; they’re thinking he’s a rational guy, just play it cool and he won’t pull anything crazy.
But America learned the hard way: it’s the world of 10 September that’s really crazy.

Certifiable, Mark.
Now, let's roll!
Islamofacism delenda est!

Arabic network claims taped 9/11 confessions

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- The Arabic television news network Al-Jazeera said Thursday it has taped confessions of two al Qaeda members claiming responsibility for the September 11 attacks on behalf of Osama bin Laden's terror group.

Al-Jazeera said the men, both of whom are wanted by the U.S. government, spell out how they planned and executed the attacks. It said it would play their statements next week as part of a documentary it is airing.

One of the al Qaeda members on the tape was said to be Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni national who belonged to the al Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, that played a major role in planning the attacks. Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta was a member of that same cell.
U.S. authorities have said they believe Binalshibh was to be on one of the hijacked planes but could not obtain a U.S. visa to enter the country. Authorities say he eventually made his way to Pakistan and from there entered Afghanistan.

The other terrorist on the Al-Jazeera tape was identified as Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, a Kuwaiti who is on the United States "most wanted" terrorist list. Mohammad is believed to have been one of the primary planners behind the September 11 attacks, authorities have said.

Mohammad is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who is now serving time in a U.S. prison.
Mohammad was indicted in 1996 for plotting to bomb U.S. airliners flying from southeast Asia to the United States.

Well, now the IslamoFacists can't make that crazy double claim of theirs that OBL and Al Queda didn't do it and that they're proud of them for pulling it off. Sheesh.
Of course, we knew the Truth all along.

September 05, 2002

At 5:00 AM, September 5th, 1972, a seminal event in the development of modern terrorism took place.
Eight Palestinian terrorists invaded the site of the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. They killed and took hostage eleven Israeli athletes competing in the Games, demanding the release of over 200 imprisoned Arabs and 2 German terrorists. Over the next few tension-filled days, all the hostages and some of the terrorists were killed, and the remaining terrorists escaped, mostly due to incompetence and perfidy of the German government. The Olympic Committee made a controversial decision to continue the Games, and has never participated in any memorial for the slain athletes. Eventually almost all of the remaining terrorists were hunted down and killed by Israeli agents, directed by then Prime Minister Golda Meir.

The massacre was the "birth" of modern and--I must qualify it further by adding the words "radical Islamic"-- terrorism. While September 5 is almost over, I don't want it to pass without marking the 30th Anniversary of that "Black September" massacre at the Munich Olympics and certainly neither does Judith Kesher, who wrote the passage above, and a group of her blogging friends who have done a Blogburst on the event ("a simultaneous and cross-linked posting of many blogs on the same theme") and with whom I now join in solidarity by linking. While I have some memories of the event--I was just beginning my junior year in high school at the time--I was a typical self-absorbed teenager, although I remembered the nightmarish horror of it unfolding on TV instead of Olympic coverage. I watched the movie One Day in September, which is a powerful documentary film about that day made in 2000, on DVD early this summer and all the events of the last year (9/11 as well as the numerous attacks on Israelis and Jews throughout Europe and the world) came surging back and into my soul--nothing had changed. Even the IslamoFacist terrorists looked and acted the same. And Jews were targeted and murdered just the same. What was particularly shocking in the film to me was that the German police pretty much "allowed" the massacre to happen and never stood up to the terrorists once in the whole long ordeal. In fact, they seemed to shrug and say "What can we do?" instead of taking decisive action against kidnappers and murderers...Perhaps I shouldn't have been shocked, but here were these people who less than 30 years before had made war on most of Europe and part of Asia and Africa, now afraid to confront a few guys and none of the Germans wanted to give an order or take charge where only a few short years before they were ready to set up and run the "Reich." Or had everything but their Anti-Semitism faded? Apparently so. Just appalling to watch, but see it you must! The story of the Munich Israeli athletes is now our story. Go to Kesher Talk for the Index of the Munich Olympic Massacre Blogburst and to read more.
*One Day in September will be shown on HBO on 9/11 or you can rent it at Netflix as I did.

U.S.Navy hoists the First Navy Jack for the War

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today
Here's James Tarranto's Best of the Web post on it:

We erred yesterday in saying U.S. Navy vessels would be flying the Gadsden Flag, which depicts a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow background with the motto DONT [sic] TREAD ON ME. In fact, the ships will fly the First Navy Jack, on which the rattlesnake is slithering across a field of 13 red and white stripes. FoundingFathers.info has a copy of the Navy declaration: "The temporary substitution of this Jack represents an historic reminder of the nation's and Navy's origin and will to persevere and triumph."

Anchors Aweigh, Navy! We love ya!

September 04, 2002

Note: This is dated Sept. 4, 2002 at MEMRI:

On the Importance of Jihad as a Means of Destroying the 'Infidel Countries'

The Annihilation of the Infidels is a Divine Decree

"Regardless of the norms of 'humanist' belief, which sees destroying the infidel countries as a tragedy requiring us to show some conscientious empathy and... an atmosphere of sadness for the loss that is to be caused to human civilization - an approach that does not distinguish between believer and infidel... - I would like to stress that annihilating the infidels is an inarguable fact, as this is the [divine] decree of fate..."
Muslims Must Not Wait Passively for the Divine Decree to Just Happen

"Yes, perhaps it is predetermined that the infidel country will be annihilated. But [if the believers do not act] this kind of annihilation will never be in favor of the Islamic state. The infidel country will be annihilated in favor of an infidel country like it or even worse than it..."
"By Means of Jihad - Allah Tortures [the Infidels] with Killing"

"By means of Jihad, Allah tortures them with killing; by means of Jihad, Allah tortures them with injury; by means of Jihad, Allah tortures them with loss of property; by means of Jihad, Allah tortures them with loss of ruling. Allah tortures them by means of Jihad - that is, with heated war that draws its fire from the military front..."
"The Tortures Will Bring the Infidels to the Path of Righteousness"

"Many of the infidels will be shocked; their emotional entity will be shaken; and perhaps some of them will repent and learn their lesson. In addition, Jihad is a means of defeating them, and perhaps by means of this victory... the tortures will bring them back to the path of righteousness..."

Are there still significant numbers of Jihadi Muslims ready to convert us to Islam or kill us?
You bet. You can take it to the bank. And don't let your mind dwell too long on that conversion business, either, because they won't.
I don't recall hearing that any of the 9/11 victims were asked to convert to Islam before they were murdered.

From David Warren's latest column for the Ottowa Citizen which will be published online soon:

[...]
The real diplomatic fissure that is now opening is between the "moderate"
Arab governments, and the "progressive" European democrats who have
previously given them cover. And yet, the Arab leaders are panicking for
very good reasons. Each feels himself to be on top of a rumbling volcano,
and with the U.S. losing its patience for the traditional duplicity of Arab
diplomacy, they are left with nowhere to run for safety.

All lines are converging towards the one end. I would not be surprised,
after reading recent remarks by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and
gleaning other hints from elsewhere in the Bush administration, if the U.S.
is also planning to place a fresh resolution before the United Nations. This
would probably take the form of a demand that Iraq grant unlimited access to
weapons inspectors by a specific date -- what the Saddam dictatorship agreed
after its defeat in Kuwait (to stop the Americans from marching into
Baghdad), but then unilaterally rescinded in 1998. It would be a resolution
with no negotiable provisions; one which would leave Saddam no wiggle room
whatever.
It was a similar, "wiggle-proof" U.N. resolution demanding an Iraqi
withdrawal from Kuwait, that preceded the U.S. attack in the Gulf War of
1991. It will be recalled that under Bush père, the U.S. went in the
very night the deadline expired. (Alas, Saddam will also recall this.)

Such a resolution could easily be couched as a renewal of previous U.N.
resolutions which were never properly enforced. It will thus leave intended
fence-sitters with a choice between vindicating the integrity of the U.N.,
and openly abandoning it. From the U.S. and allied point-of-view, the
thinking will be, if this new resolution passes, fine; if it fails, the U.N.
may be shown to have lost its remaining credibility, and will become
perforce the first major casualty of the impending war.

I have no doubt the Bush administration is willing to put it on the line
like this.

Whew! That's a lot to deal with... Saddam confronted, the Middle East a bubbling cauldron with the lid off at last, and the UN in a figurative smoking heap like the Twin Towers, deservedly hoisted on their own petard.
But all these changes gotta come--you can feel it.
For what it's worth, I *hate* living in these post 9/11 times, but as Churchill said when he faced the Gathering Storm of WWII, one Keeps Buggering On, so I do.
K.B.O., President Bush and America!

www.politicsandprotest.org: America Attacked 9 1 1

"This is what our Nation is responding to.
Please remember that in the difficult times ahead."
[Warning: Have Kleenex and/or something breakable handy! You will weep and rage.]

Bush Vows to Seek Congress' Iraq OK

..........

"Saddam Hussein is a serious threat. He is a significant problem and something the country must deal with," Bush said after meeting with congressional leaders at the White House. "Doing nothing about that serious threat is not an option for the United States."

The president is strongly considering a U.N. Security Council resolution that would set a deadline for Iraq to open its weapons sites to unfettered inspection and to imply punitive action if he refuses, three administration officials told The Associated Press.

To get the resolution through the council, and past a threatened veto by China or Russia, the resolution would not spell out the threat, but it would be obvious to Saddam, said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some two dozen ideas are circulating within the administration, and among them is the notion of "coercive inspections" — forcing Iraq to open its suspect sites to inspectors by deploying thousands of American or multinational troops in or near Iraq who would launch an attack if inspectors were denied, a senior U.S. official said.

"I am in the process of deciding how to proceed," Bush wrote in a letter given to members of Congress in their Cabinet Room talks. The president also wrote that he is committed to an internationalist approach and, in addition to meeting with Blair, will "reach out" to presidents Jacques Chirac of France, Jiang Zemin of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia — all three currently opposed to military action against Iraq.

As for an eventual congressional resolution, Bush suggested in his letter that he could ask for essentially a blank check. "At an appropriate time ... I will seek congressional support for U.S. action to do whatever is necessary to deal with" Saddam, Bush wrote.

[...] Rep. Nancy Pelosi, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said she told Bush he had to be honest about what war with Iraq could bring. "We have to level with the American people that, in addition to everything else, we are talking about a long occupation of Iraq," she said.

Are we, Nancy? Says who?
I don't think we can say for sure until we've taken Baghdad and gotten the "lay of the land."
I don't remember reading about any qualms Americans had, Senators or otherwise, about our "occupying" post-WWII Japan or Germany in 1941 when we made the decision to fight them, do you?

"This issue is not inspectors. The issue is disarmament," Bush said.

"This is a man who said he would not arm up. He told the world he would not harbor weapons of mass destruction," Bush said, adding that the primary issue is Saddam's access to weapons of mass destruction.

"I'll be discussing ways to make sure that is not the case," he said.

"For 11 long years, Saddam Hussein has sidestepped, crawfished, wheedled out of any agreements he had made not to develop weapons of mass destruction," the president said. "So I'm going to call upon the world to recognize that he is stiffing the world. And I will lay out and I will talk about ways to make sure he follows up on his agreements."

Sounds like President Bush is a prudent, thoughtful and determined man on a mission.
Now, for the tenth gazillionth time, "Let's Roll."
Baghdad delenda est!

Bush to brief U.N. on policy toward Iraq

U.S. President George W. Bush has met Congressional leaders in Washington and said that he will outline his policy toward Iraq in an address to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday next week. Bush said he would also meet Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the USA's closest ally, this Saturday at Camp David, and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrietien next Monday in Detroit. Referring to recent threats by his top officials of military action against Iraq, Bush added that "doing nothing was not an option for the United States". He described Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a "serious threat" and promised to consult Congress before acting.

Bush cancels Friday visit to Minnesota

Looks like the President has something more pressing on his calendar for that day and it's not washing his hair!
President Bush isn't really a "canceller" so it's clear he has a bigger charge to keep.
Hold on to your hats!

With the fatherly linking help of Daily Pundit's Bill Quick, I have found the new(ish), but superb blog Wilde - Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty.
Today Wilde makes the clear, cogent case that the Iraq Attack is imminent (Good thing, too! Our warblogger war watch is killing me! I'm exhausted from saying "Let's roll!" all summer.)
The whole front page is worth reading, but pay especial attention to his posts on "Wobbly Watch is over."

September 03, 2002

Outrage over new Srebrenica report

Families of thousands of victims killed near the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War have expressed outrage at a new report which concludes that the massacre never happened. More than 7,000 Muslims were killed by Serb forces in Srebrenica in July 1995, in what is seen as Europe's single worst atrocity since World War II.

However, the report by the Bosnian Serb Government says that between 2,000 to 2,500 Muslims died - and it says most of those were soldiers killed in action.

The report also suggests Muslims may have "imagined or fabricated" the massacre.
..........
But the new account suggests Muslim soldiers fleeing in exhaustion may have mistaken military clashes for a massacre which never happened.

Victims' groups were outraged, saying they had not imagined the killing of sons and husbands.
Paddy Ashdown, the British politician in charge of the international presence in Bosnia, described the report as "an insult" and added it was "preposterous".

But the head of the Bosnian Serb government's bureau which produced the report insisted it was prepared "in the interests of truth and reconciliation".

Funny how the BBC doesn't put the verbiage about this alleged Muslim "massacre" in quotes the way they do their ubiquitous references to radical IslamoFacists as "rebels," "militants," and "terrorists" every time they kill innocent civilians.
Along with being the Religion of Peace™, Islam should also be called the Religion of Truth, too.

September 02, 2002

Dutch police arrest 'radical Islamists'

Officials in the Netherlands say eight men have been arrested on suspicion of belonging to a radical Islamic group which recruited fighters and organised logistical and financial support for al-Qaeda.
Only one of the men is Dutch national - the others are foreigners resident in the Netherlands for a long time. They were picked up in raids across the country. Prosecutors say these arrests have no link to the case of four other men who appeared in court in Rotterdam on Monday.

'European cell'

The four - two Algerians, a Frenchman and a Dutch citizen of Ethiopian descent - are accused of planning attacks on the US Embassy in Paris and a US airbase in Belgium.

Prosecutors claimed they were part of a European terrorist cell with links to al-Qaeda suspects in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom.

Three of the men were arrested in the Netherlands on 13 September, two days after the attacks on New York and Washington.

Is it too much to hope that this is a sign that those EUroweenies are getting a clue and getting some spine to truly fight the War on IslamoFacism?

Must Read: You simply have to see this email that my D/FW blogging gal pal Rachel Lucas received from a source that wishes to remain anonymous; this may be the REAL 4-1-1 on our War with Saddam's Iraq!

"There's someone out there that I have to thank.
I don't know who, and I can't even be sure he exists, but I think he saved a lot of lives.

I'm a manager at a large American manufacturing company. We make a lot of the hardware that goes overseas to break things and kill people, and in recent years we've gotten pretty good at it. I'm not an Executive Vice President, half of Olympus and the Pantheon is still above me, but I love what I do and they think I do it well enough to pay me every week. If you read Dilbert, I'm at the level of the pointy haired boss.
You may not have known it, but a couple of months ago America went to war with Iraq.
It didn't make the news because we weren't breaking things and killing people yet. But we were getting ready to. I don't mean there were people on the pundit shows saying Saddam was a threat that we needed to address. I mean we went there. Around the middle of June a frigging huge amount of hardware started shipping overseas on very short notice. So short that they didn't really care how much it cost to get there, and they didn't care if all the maintenance hadn't been done, they wanted it there and they wanted it NOW. A bunch of it is stuff my company makes so I try to keep track of where it is.

At about the same time the rhetoric started getting heavier. We started getting statements that things would happen sooner rather than later. That Saddam was within (fill in the blank) months of having an operational atomic bomb.
Suddenly, last week, it all changed. The rhetoric calmed down. There was more from within the administration about how we should have one last try at weapons inspection, and that GWB would be making the case to Congress and the American People before a war started. And some of the equipment started coming back. Not much, maybe 10%, mostly the stuff that could be used at home, that needed more maintenance, that shouldn't have been sent over in the first place. There's still a huge amount of equipment over there, 10 times more than the average newspaper reading member of the public would assume, and it still has a lot of personnel to support it, but it's not nearly as urgent as it was a month ago.
Now I see two possibilities. The first is that the administration, in the person of GWB, just changed his mind.That he woke up one day in June and thought "Hey! Let's blow Saddam off the face of the earth! That'll be good!" But then when everything was just about ready, he was out clearing some brush and thought,"Damn it's hot. We should attack Iraq when it's cooler..."
If you think George W. is a complete idiot that scenario probably makes sense. But I think GWB is the living rope-a-dope. You don't fly an F-102 and graduate from Harvard Business School if you're a complete idiot. In fact, usually people who do that are pretty damned bright. Bright enough that they like people to underestimate them. I think GWB cultivates the "Simple country boy that don't talk right" image on purpose.
So... I think there was a threat. It was serious and immediate enough for us to rush into battle. I think the estimates of Saddam getting a bomb within 2 years were right. Maybe it was within a couple of months. And, maybe, now it's not.
There's been a lot of stuff going on in Iraq over the last month, too. The major media has picked up some of it. We keep bombing stuff. We say it's anti aircraft facilities. They say it's factories. And there's probably a lot of things happening with very skilled people on the ground that we don't even get the slightest hint about. So the point of all this is to express my gratitude. To someone that may not even exist, that put their life on the line and removed the urgency from our going to war. We'll still do it, when we're ready, but we don't have to do it right now. So on behalf of the people that will sleep in warm beds tonight. And on behalf of their sons and daughters who'll be working here and getting Dominos delivered while they turn that bolt, and not at an airfield in the middle of the desert half a world away... Thank you.(signed)The curly haired but balding boss."

I think this "balding boss" guy has come up with a very credible scenario and this "matches" the Middle East buzz from places like DebkaFile.
Rachel, what a great post! Kudos, girlfriend.

What revolution are You?
Made by altern_active
Link thanks to Sgt. Stryker .

AP Poll: Americans Back Saddam's Removal

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES- A majority of Americans support military action to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, although most want the United States to gain approval from other countries first, according to a Los Angeles Times poll.
..........
A survey of 1,372 adults nationwide taken last month found that 59 percent of Americans believe the United States should take military action to remove Hussein. Just 29 percent were opposed and 12 percent were unsure.

Here's the money paragraph:

- 79 percent said they believe Hussein supports the al-Qaida terrorist group that launched the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

I have lots of company with my fellow Americans:
one of my first thoughts when I was watching the attacks on 9/11, after focusing the blame on Osama Bin Laden, was to put it on Saddam Hussein.
Note that almost 80% of us had the same thought, even without President Bush making a formal case and presenting "proof" against him!
(I have a feeling that when Bush does, it will be both blood-chilling and irrevocably damning.)
Here's the great News: you can't fool the American people!

news.telegraph.co.uk - Kuwait breaks ranks on Saddam

Kuwait became the first Arab state yesterday to signal support for a US-led military coalition against Iraq, in marked contrast to the caution shown by other countries in the region.

The Kuwaiti foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed Sabah Salem al-Sabah, told The Telegraph: "While Saddam Hussein continues to keep Kuwaiti prisoners of war, and continues to televise threats against Kuwait, we consider the war against Iraq to have never ended."

That "dam" of international opposition to our Iraq attack is being to break...!
Thank you, Lord! He *does* move in mysterious ways...!
(And what better place to launch our attacks from than right next door?)

Gang rape victim welcomes verdict

A Pakistani woman raped on the orders of a self-appointed village council has said she is satisfied with the death sentences handed down to six men involved in the assault.
A special security court in the south of Punjab Province sentenced the men to death by hanging on Saturday.
Four were found guilty of rape. Two others, who sat on the tribal council, were judged to have abetted the crime.
The council had ordered Mukhtar Mai to be raped as a punishment for her family, after her brother was accused of having an affair with a woman from a more powerful tribe.
Human rights activists in Pakistan have also expressed satisfaction with the convictions.
But they say the government must now act on the issues brought up by this case, which provoked national outrage.
.........
Ms Mai told Reuters news agency by telephone: "God has provided justice to me.

"If courts start giving decisions like this, I am sure rapes will be reduced, if not stopped totally.

"I am satisfied with the decision."
.........
In many of Pakistan's remote areas, tribal councils, made up of community elders, still work like a lawful body, judging cases ranging from animal theft or tribal rivalry to murder.
Mukhtar Mai's brother, Abdul Shakoor, said the story of his affair was concocted to cover up the fact that he had been sodomised by three men earlier in the day and threatened to report the incident.
When Ms Mai appeared before the gathering from the rival tribe to ask for a pardon for her brother, council members decided she should be gang raped to punish her family.
After the attack she was forced to walk home, semi-naked.
..........
The Human Rights Commission said the government had allowed this kind of informal justice system to flourish throughout Pakistan and it had to be controlled.

It's unclear to me whether this type of "justice system" is tribal in nature and is endemic to the villages of Pakistan or is the result of applying shar'ia, the Islamic concept of "justice," or both.
And it remains to be seen whether the executions of these 6 men will impact this culture where such practices as this woman's "court"-ordered rape to remedy a criminalized moral wrong, which are widespread and accepted, will be supplanted by the rule of Civilized (Western) Law and Justice, as President Musharaf is trying to accomplish.
Let's hope for the best.
The present instance of the use of the death penalty to not only punish, but to DISCOURAGE OTHERS from committing similar crimes is precisely what it was supposed to do.
Hence the reason for our Government to ask for the death penalty in the Massoui case: pour décourager les autres.
And no one understands "an eye for an eye" and the death penalty more than the radical Muslims, which is why you see the common sight of beheadings in the town square in Mecca.

September 01, 2002

CNN.com - Berlin withholds Moussaoui evidence

Germany says it will not release evidence against terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui without U.S. assurances that it won't be used to obtain a death sentence.

I suppose execution for crimes just isn't *in* the German mentality, huh?
The 12 MILLION folks, including 6 million Jews, who were given the death penalty just for existing during the Nazi régime don't really matter in the Grand Scheme of things...
Oh, and has Germany jumped on countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, or their pals the "Palestinians" lately for summary executions after the most farcical of "trials?" Nein!
Danke Schon fur Nichts, Deutschland!
And I can't wait for Gerhardt Schroeder to be defeated in the upcoming German elections.

I also love the way the Marines guarding Marine One keep their sober, dutiful bearing while the Presidential pooches are scrambling around them!
If you'll allow me all you Marines and Marine vets, Semper Fi-do!


Caption:U.S. President George W. Bush waves from the Marine One Helicopter after arriving with his pet dogs Spot and Barney (R) at the White House, September 1, 2002. Bush is returning back to Washington from a month-long stay at his Texas ranch.

I don't think President Bush got much of a vacation....he not only topped the $110 MILLION mark for GOP fundraising in his travels (leaving Klintoon's record in the dust!), but met with Prince Bandar (ahem!), had Rummy in Crawford for a military briefing, met with the Press Corps almost daily to "discuss" our impending Iraq Attack and fended off a threatened visit from Hitlery!
Not much downtime to face all the work that lies ahead.