May 22, 2004

Bush twins graduate, join re-election campaign
Here's a big shout out to Jenna and Barbara, the President and Mrs. Bush's lovely daughters, who graduate from college this weekend!
Notice how George and Laura have the consideration to miss the ceremonies so that they won't put people through the awful security checks that would be necessary.
They're so considerate.
And I'm thrilled to hear that "the girls" will be on the campaign trail for their dad!
That will fire up a lot of the young crowd.
Let me take this opportunity to congratulate all of my readers who are graduating from high school or college, too, or their family and send you all my very best wishes for success and happiness in life!
(Take it from someone who just celebrated their 30th high school reunion [Wink!], most of my learning has taken place after I left school, but I still have kept the friends I made there.)

May 21, 2004

World Oil Prices Fall from 21-Year Highs

World oil prices fell from 21-year highs on Friday as Saudi Arabia proposed hiking crude output by over two million barrels per day and said it had already substantially boosted supplies in a bid to cool markets.

These people are going to have to be dealt with sooner or later--they are not our friends.
But we need to deal with our dependence on OPEC oil before then by passing the bill to drill on ANWR and allowing more offshore rigs to pump in the Gulf.
No matter what the partisan Media says, this is not "about Bush."
(Although I wouldn't put it past the House of Saud to do this manoeuvre so that it looks like they're doing it "for Bush."
They will try to use the oil weapon, which is about the only "weapon" in their arsenal other than Paki nukes, to get Bush defeated and if it means tainting him with being their friend, they'll use that. They know we Americans hate them.)
This is about the greed, perfidy and Waahab jihadism of the Saudis.

May 19, 2004

Giuliani Lauds 9/11 'Heroes' Amid Angry Hecklers
HEROES RAGE AT WTC PROBE

The 9/11 commission hearing yesterday in Manhattan turned into a series of angry finger-pointing exchanges — and one panel member ripped the city's response to the World Trade Center attack as "not worthy of the Boy Scouts."

The over-the-top charge from commissioner John Lehman drew a furious response from former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, who branded it "outrageous" and "despicable."

Von Essen and ex-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik fiercely defended the city's response to the terror attack — and the heroism of the cops and firefighters who gave their lives that day to save others.
[...]
The unusually harsh attack by Lehman, as well as biting comments from other commission members, touched a raw nerve with firefighters, many of whom lost friends and colleagues on Sept. 11, 2001.

"These people are Monday-morning quarterbacking," Lt. Dennis Stanford of Engine Co. 44 on the Upper East Side told The Post at the firehouse.
[...]

The fire union also came to the defense of Von Essen.

"I think he was offended they were questioning our ability to work together when we effected the greatest rescue in history," said Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy.

Commissioner Slade Gorton directed his fire at the city's 911 system when he grilled both Von Essen and Kerik.
[...]
In another testy exchange during the hearing, commissioner Bob Kerrey asked former WTC director Alan Reiss if he was angry about not being told enough before Sept. 11 by the FBI about the al Qaeda terrorist network.

"Things might have been different had they trusted you enough" with information about the terror group, Kerrey suggested.

Reiss shot back that he was angry at "19 people in an airplane" — the hijackers — not the FBI.

But Kerrey, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic vice-presidential candidate, won the biggest round of applause from victims' relatives at the hearing when he said, "19 people . . . defeated the INS, they defeated the Customs [Department], they defeated the FBI, they defeated the CIA."

Sadly, this is exactly what happened which is why Al Queda planned it this way and why it succeeded.
Even President Bush said as much and not with any happiness either.
We won't be fooled again, though.
This whole 9/11 Commission has been a disaster and almost as agonizing for all of us as 9/11 itself.
It's like the dad of poor Nick Berg blaming President Bush for his son's beheading when it was the Al Queda killers, led by al-Zaqarwi, who did it.
One's grief when a loved one dies, especially when they're murdered, is hard to live with.
These family members of 9/11 victims are picking on the Bush Administration, the FDNY, the NYPD and even beloved Rudy Guiliani because they're handy and they're here, whereas the real perps, the 19 highjackers and Bin Laden, are not.
It's time for this "commission" to fold up their tents and go home.
We know who did the 9/11 attacks and as President Bush promised "they're now hearing from all of us."
The NYPD and the FDNY, under Rudy's able direction along with Von Essen and Kerik, saved thousands of people on 9/11.
The only thing that I can tell that needs some work is for the police and fire departments to improve their communications systems--that seemed the worst thing that failed on that black day.
Truth to tell, there was not much hope to save the poor people that were trapped in the fires above where the planes hit, even though there were firemen who died trying to get there.
The new Freedom Tower, whose groundbreaking will be this July 4, is designed with better emergency stairwells and fireproofing (which was a problem also.)
The Department of Homeland Security, together with the Patriot Act, is working to see that undocumented immigrants whom we have reason to believe are Islamist terrorists don't come here from troubled Islamic regimes to attack us again, coodinating the FBI, CIA, Customs (including the Coast Guard) and INS, which due to Commission member Jamie Gorelick wasn't possible before 9/11 due to her "wall."
For the commission, some of whose members are seeking partisan political gain, and certain crazed-with-grief relatives like inconsolable Sally Regenhard to blame Rudy or the firemen or the cops is "despicable and outrageous" when it's clear that all of them put their lives on the line--and 343 gave their lives--trying to save as many people as possible and that all of them would have given just about anything to have saved every single person.
We still grieve with you, Mrs. Regenhard, but blame the terrorists, not your fellow Americans.
And enough of the 9/11 Commission!

U.S. Disputes Strike Report on Iraqi Wedding Party

U.S. military officials disputed suggestions that an American helicopter struck a wedding party in western Iraq on Wednesday and said coalition forces staged an attack against suspected foreign fighters.

Arab television and The Associated Press aired video showing the bodies of small children in a truck full of bodies and people digging graves as they quoted witnesses and Iraqi officials who discussed the attack.

But senior military officials in Washington said U.S. and coalition forces conducted a strike on "anti-coalition vehicles" along the Iraqi-Syrian border.

According to the military, at 3 a.m. local time Wednesday, coalition forces conducted an operation against a suspected foreign fighter safe house in the open desert. The house was 25 kilometers from the Syrian border, 85 kilometers southwest of Husaybah, military officials said.

Coalition forces came under hostile fire and called for support from the air. After the strike, coalition forces recovered numerous weapons, foreign passports, a SATCOM radio and two million Iraqi and Syrian dinars, military officials said.

The attack killed about 40 people, officials said.

A Coalition Press Information Center official said that since it was carried out during a raid on a suspected safe house, the air strike would therefore be "within the rules of engagement."

That official reiterated that the objective was a suspected hideout, and had no information about a wedding party.
[...]
In July 2002, Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province. An investigative report released by the U.S. Central Command said the airstrike was justified because American planes had come under fire.

Yep, this incident is exactly like the one in Afghanistan...almost word for word, except for changing the names and the places.
Why would war-torn Iraqis have a bridal party, complete with guns fired in the air, in the open desert with children and women up at 3:00 AM?
(I don't believe we found that our forces had fired on a wedding party in Afghanistan either.)
And the Syrian border is a hot spot--a lot of bad stuff and bad guys have been making their way into Iraq from their Baathist neighbor.
Of course, the "story" that our soldiers had fired on a wedding party killing women and children was featured by al-Reuters. Who else?
They're the Islamist terrorists chief enablers in the media.
Is it any wonder that our troops might NOT have wanted to give them the "red carpet treatment?"
There's got to be some kind of price for reporting lies as fact, particularly in wartime and particularly when you bend the truth in favor of the Enemy!
These IslamoFacists are Masters of not only terror, but of working the Media to their strategic advantage.
If it's not stories of "prison abuse" and "torture" by our guys, it's laments that we're firing on "wedding parties" or "ambulances," all of which are cleverly designed to tie the hands of our soldiers on the battlefield.

May 18, 2004

'Source' Notes Syrian Technicians Killed in Yongch'on Train Explosion Incident

A military source familiar with Korean Peninsula
affairs revealed on 6 May that Syrian technicians were killed in a train explosion incident that occurred on 22 April in Yongch'on in the northwestern part of the DPRK and that the damage was especially serious in
that section of the train where the Syrians were aboard, along with large equipment. The same source noted that although the contents of the equipment are unknown, DPRK military-related personnel wearing protective suits arrived on the scene immediately after the explosion and removed debris only from that
section of the train where the Syrian group had been aboard. Consequently, there is a strong likelihood that the accident occurred when military materials were being secretly transported between the DPRK and Syria.

The mystery of this horrible blast continues.
It sounds more and more as if it might have been a small nuke or at least something that had the punch of 800 tons of TNT and that it was 8 times more powerful than the NorKs said it was.
There are 2 schools of thought on the Syrians' presence: some think that Kim Jung-Il was merely shipping weapons to his favorite terrorist pals in Syria who are fighting the U.S. occupation of Iraq and that due to the poor state of North Korea's rail system, an accident occurred setting off whatever munitions were in the train(s).
The relationship between North Korea and Syria, of course, should it prove to be this proactive, keeps his place in the Axis of Evil secure.
The other theory, which I rather like, is that China carried out a hit on Kim with the Syrians' help, because Kim had just gotten to be too much of a problem (although this is an "unhelpful" alliance I'd rather not have the U.S. to deal with).
To the best of my knowledge, "Dear Leader" still hasn't been seen or heard from in public, at least not by the Western media.
Keep your fingers crossed!

[Hat tip to Charles Johnson over at the incomparable Little Green Footballs.]

May 17, 2004

Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq

A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent recently exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday.

Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas was also recently discovered.

Two people were treated for "minor exposure" after the sarin incident but no serious injuries were reported. Soldiers transporting the shell for inspection suffered symptoms consistent with low-level chemical exposure, which is what led to the discovery, a U.S. official told Fox News.
[...]
They believe the mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles for which former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein failed to account when he made his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year. Iraq also failed to then account for 450 aerial bombs with mustard gas. That, combined with the shells, totaled about 80 tons of unaccounted for mustard gas.

You see, my fellow Americans, this is the problem. It's not that "Bush lied" about the WMDs to get us to go to war, because he didn't.
We went to war because Saddam wouldn't account to the U.N. as to what he'd done with the WMDs they knew that he had.
President Bush was worried that he'd hand them off to terrorists, which is apparently what his former minions and fellow Islamists are doing now and probably rolling them in from Syria back to Iraq and one of Saddam's scientists echoes my fear below.

[...]
[Brig. Gen. Mark] Kimmitt said the shell belonged to a class of ordnance that Saddam's government said was destroyed before the 1991 Gulf war. Experts believe both the sarin and mustard gas weapons date back to that time.
[...]
"Everybody knew Saddam had chemical weapons, the question was, where did they go. Unfortunately, everybody jumped on the offramp and said 'well, because we didn't find them, he didn't have them,'" said Fox News military analyst Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney.
[...]
Gazi George, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist under Saddam's regime, told Fox News he believes many similar weapons stockpiled by the former regime were either buried underground or transported to Syria. He noted that the airport where the device was detonated is on the way to Baghdad from the Syrian border.

George saidthe finding likely will be the first in a series of discoveries of such weapons.

"Saddam is the type who will not store those materials in a military warehouse. He's gonna store them either underground, or, as I said, lots of them have gone west to Syria and are being brought back with the insurgencies," George told Fox News. "It is difficult to look in areas that are not obvious to the military's eyes.

"I'm sure they're going to find more once time passes," he continued, saying one year is not enough for the survey group or the military to find the weapons.

"I think what we found today, the sarin in some ways, although it's a nerve gas, it's a lucky situation sarin detonated in the way it did ... it's not as dangerous as the cocktails Saddam used to make, mixing blister" agents with other gases and substances, George said.
[...]
U.S. officials told Fox News that the shell discovery is a "significant" event.

Artillery shells of the 155-mm size are as big as it gets when it comes to the ordnance lobbed by infantry-based artillery units. The 155 howitzer can launch high capacity shells over several miles; current models used by the United States can fire shells as far as 14 miles. One official told Fox News that a conventional 155-mm shell could hold as much as "two to five" liters of sarin, which is capable of killing thousands of people under the right conditions in highly populated areas.

We've found this now and what concerns me is finding the rest before they can be used on our Coalition soldiers again and the beleaguered Iraqi people or worse yet, toted over here to be set loose on us.
Those WMDs are somewhere and I wanna know where!
But thank you, President Bush and the U.S. military, for making sure that they are no longer under the control of SoDamn Insane!

Bomb kills head of Iraq Governing Council

The head of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed today in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in central Baghdad, dealing a blow to U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq ahead of a handover of sovereignty on June 30.
[I've gotta say, the AP--which borders on becoming as Leftist as al-Reuters these days--is veering into America-bashing gloom and doom here. This attack dealt more of a pyschological blow to Iraqis who want to see democracy and security in their country even more than the USA.--Jen]
[...]
Abdel-Zahraa Othman, also known as Izzadine Saleem, was the second and highest-ranking member of the U.S.-appointed council to be assassinated. He was among nine Iraqis, including the bomber, who were killed, Iraqi officials said.
[...]

A previously unknown group, the Arab Resistance Movement, claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying in a Web site posting that two of its fighters carried out the operation against "the traitor and mercenary" Saleem.
[...]
Saleem, the name he went by most frequently, was a Shiite who led the Islamic Dawa Movement in the southern city of Basra. He was a writer, philosopher and political activist, and edited several newspapers and magazines.
    
One Governing Council member, Salama al-Khafaji, said the bombing appeared to be an effort to foment sectarian divisions in Iraq and disrupt the transfer of political power.
[Yep. That's exactly what al-Zaqarwi wanted.--J.T.]
    
Another member, Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi, blamed the bombing on the same groups that have conducted other attacks, including the August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
    
The council selected Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim civil engineer from the northern city of Mosul, to replace Saleem. Al-Yawer will lead the council until June 30.
    
Al-Yawer said the council would continue "the march toward building a democratic, federal, plural and unified Iraq."
[Notice he uses the word "federal," which means he's not pushing for the division of Iraq into Shi'a, Kurd and Sunni parts. Good!--Jen]

"God willing, the criminal forces will be defeated despite all the pain they are causing to our people and their heroic leaders," he said.

We're praying for that over here in the U.S., too, Mr. al-Yawer.
And we wish your the best as the new head of the IGC.
What's left to say, except to send my condolences to the loved ones of Mr. Saleem and the others who were murdered today (but I'm not sorry to see that suicide bomber go).
The IslamoFacist terrorists are still doing all they can to torpedo the handover of power on June 30, but their efforts look increasingly desperate to me.
They've tried to take us on military and that's worked out very poorly for them (There are piles of their dead all over Iraq who met the wrong end of our M-16s.), so they've reverted to the suicide bombing of high-profile Iraqis.
The next 6 weeks until the handover will continue to be tough for all of us, but endure it we must and that goes for both Freedom-loving Iraqis and Coalition troops, as risky and scary as it might be.
The end result--a free Iraq where people can live without fear and with their human rights and dignity protecteed--will be so worth it.

Kuwait may give women the vote

Kuwait's cabinet approved a draft law yesterday giving women the right to vote and run for parliament in a step towards more widespread emancipation in the Arab world.

Kuwait's women have been striving for the vote for 50 years and have had to watch in frustration as the parliament was elected without their participation in July.

The government, led by the emir's brother, insists that is committed to pushing through economic and political reforms but Islamist and conservative MPs continue to wield immense influence.

Arguments against granting women the vote in Arab states include the theory that menstruation could cloud their political judgment. Qatar, Bahrain and Oman allow women to vote among Gulf states and women in Egypt have had the vote since the 1950s.

Saudi Arabia, often considered the most conservative of Arab states, may enfranchise women in its October municipal elections.

Unreal!
Do these male chauvinist pigs actually discuss womens' menstruation seriously and openly in whatever resembles their for-appearances-sake-only parliaments?
(I wonder how many Western men thought this, but never said anything, when we got the vote in Britain and America?)
PMS is the worst, but I don't remember it affecting my vote!
(OK, maybe I threw a houseshoe at the TV when Jimmy Carter won in 1976!)
What some women do do, sadly, is vote for the candidate that's the "best looking," but when those sheiks all wear those burnooses, have goatees and the same color eyes and hair, who can tell?
Anyway, gender stereotypes aside, it's more than obvious that the Bush Doctrine, of changing the Middle East by turning Iraq into a democracy, is working and that Iraq's neighbors, here Kuwait and even the medieval Saudi Arabia, are trying to join the 21st Century and getting rid of their antiquated ideas and culture.

Bayonet Brits kill 35 rebels

OUTNUMBERED British soldiers killed 35 Iraqi attackers in the Army’s first bayonet charge since the Falklands War 22 years ago.

The fearless Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders stormed rebel positions after being ambushed and pinned down.

Despite being outnumbered five to one, they suffered only three minor wounds in the hand-to-hand fighting near the city of Amara.

The battle erupted after Land Rovers carrying 20 Argylls came under attack on a highway.

After radioing for back-up, they fixed bayonets and charged at 100 rebels using tactics learned in drills.

When the fighting ended bodies lay all over the highway — and more were floating in a nearby river. Nine rebels were captured.

An Army spokesman said: “This was an intense engagement.”

The last bayonet charge was by the Scots Guards and the Paras against Argentinian positions.

Well done, you brave lads!
If we had any worries that the British forces had the "right stuff," we need worry no more.
Nice to have you chaps fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with us.
Somebody buy these guys a round at the nearest pub!

May 16, 2004

FOXNews.com - Politics - Pentagon Denies Rumsfeld OK'd Abuse
I hated this non-story from Day 1!
I hate it more even now!
I trust the Pentagon to handle their own problems--and this abuse of Iraqi detainees was already being investigated long before the Media "broke" the "story!"
If there was abuse of enemy detainees in Iraq, the abusers were already going to be punished without help from the Leftist press.
I want my government to do everything to protect me and to save the lives of our soldiers, too.
I realize that War isn't "pretty" or "nice."
I consider our soldiers to be decent and humane people much like myself who normally aren't cruel or abusive to their fellow human beings.
I was semi-aware that detainees were being "pressured" in various ways to tell our guys what they know and I also believe that many attacks have been prevented from what we've learned from the detainees at Gitmo and in Iraq at Abu Ghraib and you know what?
I expect nothing less.
After 9/11, I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for anyone who gives their allegiance to IslamoFacism and who makes war on the "Great Satan" to wage jihad.
Because I'm convinced that there's a definite link between OBL, Al Queda and Saddam's Iraq, I believe in my gut that the enemy we're facing in Iraq is virtually the same as AQ.
Until we kill all of these jihadis or the rest surrender, we are at war with Islamist terrorists and all of our lives could potentially be at stake.
So, you'll pardon me if I don't care if every nuance and nicety of the Geneva Convention is observed when American lives are on the line.
Sexual humiliation may keep the NYTimes staff up at night (and it probably does, only they have to pay for it and go down dark alleys in NYC to find it), but if it's a valid technique to subdue those male chauvinist IslamoNazis, by all means, use it--the ladies' underwear on the head included!

Before this crappy story broke, I already held the media responsible in large part, after Al Gore, for the 36-day hell of the Florida recount in 2000.
Now, they've done this non-story (And why? Because they had pictures.)--and they've done this purposefully, not out of compassion for the poor, "tortured" Iraqis, but to weaken the strength and resolve of this country and to hearten that of the Enemy during wartime when our soldiers are in harm's way every day and our citizens could be attacked here at home.
I will never forgive them. Not ever. Not now.
The Partisan Press has gotten 2 weeks' worth of hysteria from the American people out of this "scandal."
When is enough enough?
Don't talk about "torture" in Abu Ghraib when we've got this torture right here at home?
The Media already has the blood of Nick Berg on its hands, at the very least.
Why wasn't that enough?
Shut up, Media, and prepare to die an ugly death, because I don't think I'm alone on being fed up with being manipulated-- to the detriment of my own personal safety and that of millions of other Americans--by the Leftist "4th Estate/" Fifth Column!
(And that goes double for Drudge, who keeps giving it legs on the Web.)
There's still a war on and I'd like to get back to it with my beloved President as Commander-in-Chief and with SecDef Rumsfeld so expertly running the war, thank you.