« September 2005 | Main | November 2005 »

Book Review: The Last Sentry

The Last Sentry: by Gregory D. Young, Nate Braden

Stories abound in our popular culture with tales of well meaning "rebels" attempting to overthrow the system. Its a common theme in American culture, to the point that historical stories like the "mutiny on the bounty" have become twisted from a story of a seasoned and experienced sea captain and a mutinous criminal crew to one of a bloated incompetent crony being rightfully put in his place by the virtuous rebellious crew. The truth of course lies somewhere in between. My take on the bounty disaster? Bligh was the world’s greatest second officer and a truly great seaman and a damn good navigator, but he was also someone who should never have been given his own command because he suffered from what can only be called a serious personality disorder. It’s the “peter principle” in action; he simply rose to his own level of in competency.

But the question remains, "what could motivate a man to want to mutiny, knowing full well that the odds of success are next to zero and the cost of trying is quite likely to be, shall we say – terminal?"

The Last Sentry is a textbook study of a mutiny, not in a western country, but a mutiny within the Soviet Union. While the book does a good job of explaining the conditions of conscription within the Soviet military, it does a better job of showing the world from the perspective of the sailors and their families. What is most interesting in this particular story is that the mutineer is not a rough and tumble rebel straight out of Hollywood trying to make his form of justice out of the oppression of the people in power but rather, this story is that of a “true believer” who believes that those in power haven’t gone far enough!

There’s a great deal to take in with this book and a good deal to learn from it as well. There are those in the west who still believe that the harshness of the non-democratic states will produce a stronger military that those produced in democracies, but this book shows that its possible even in the harshest governments that things like a major mutiny is not only possible, but very probable. If your governments “true believers” start to turn against you…

Posted @ October 30, 2005 06:04 PM | Book Reviews | Comments (0)

The Story you heard and the story you didnt hear

Outside of the Miers debacle and the Libby case, there still is real news going on in the world. Of course, where there’s real news, there’s real news spin going on.

So what’s the consistent “spin” on the news events of the day?

More evidence that the Bush administration is straining its relationships with previously solid allies.

The proof offered:

CNN: Half of U.S. Marines to leave Okinawa Withdrawal follows years of complaints from local residents
The Independent: US military retreats over Japanese base after protests by islanders

See! Our warmongering ways is getting us kicked out of Japan now. When will our foolish President ever learn?

Look a little deeper and we see something else, a far more significant story that hasn’t been reported with the same verve.

NY Times: U.S. and Japan Agree to Strengthen Military Ties

Key Points:

1) Japan announced it had agreed to base a Nimitz-class American aircraft carrier in Yokosuka, 30 miles south of Tokyo, in 2008, the first time a nuclear-powered carrier has been allowed to use Japan as its home port.

2) The construction of a new generation of radar equipment in Japan as part of a missile defense system.

3) A joint agreement was released calling on Japan to accept more responsibility for its own defense, and requiring the United States and Japan to further integrate planning in case of conflict. The two sides agreed to greater sharing of intelligence and to expand joint military training and exercises.

Japan agreeing to host an American Nuclear Carrier in its ports is big news and it’s a big help in the region. Japan has long held that Nuclear powered and ships that carry nuclear weapons will not be allowed in its ports, but now that has changed. Because of the Bush Administration, not in spite of it, they have changed their minds and allowed that to occur. For us, this means the end of the last conventionally powered and forward deployed Carrier in the fleet, the USS Kitty Hawk. Moving a Nuclear Carrier, and its attendant tasks forces forward is a big step in the right direction. It means that the costs and risks of a conventional carrier go away and the additional capacity and capability of the larger Carrier extends our capability in the region.

In addition, Thanks to the North Koreans firing a missile over Japan is a poor attempt to say “look at me”; the Japanese now see the necessity of supporting a missile defense system and have agreed to support the first line of defense, a radar detection system for missile launches.

What we end up with here is a solid ally doing what it can to become more solid and helpful, in direct contrast to what the cowards that are running several of the countries in Europe are doing. This is in direct contrast to the story you’ve heard reported about how we are being kicked out of Okinawa because of local population protests.

I don’t mind the press having its own agenda so much as I mind that the agenda is that the United States “must lose or be seen to be losing…” for them to be happy.

Posted @ October 29, 2005 05:17 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Memo to Lewis Libby

Dear Sir,

I didnt go to law school, I didnt go to Harvard/Yale/Darmouth. So, to help you in your time of need I would like to give you the benefit of my education as yours seems to have served you so poorly in the days preceding this dark hour.

1. Never mess with an Irish guy from Chicago. Irish guys from Chicago don't grow up to become prosecutors because they want to avoid conflict. In fact, unlike you and I, those guys actually like confrontation, they thrive in a fist fight of combatitive argument. You make think you are getting the best of him in each little exchange, but all you are doing is providing hours of free entertainment for him.

2. If I was you, I'd lose the whole "Scooter" thing before you go into the "Hotel Stoney Lonesome". It tends to draw attention, you need to learn how to "blend".

3. I know this is hard, but when you are in front of a Grand Jury, dont answer the questions put before you with typical legal-ish lawyers language. Answer what they ask you to answer, when they ask it and be forthright in your answer. And for gods sake, dont under any circumstances - lie!

4. Reporters are not your friends. You might go drinking with them, you might have them over for an afternoon round of golf, but given a chance, there isnt one of them that wouldnt drive a dull rusty screwdriver through your ribcage just so they could be the first with the scoop that you might have "health problems".

5. The CIA hires people who are experts at being weasels. Never assume anything about how far they are willing to go, and what they are willing to do to get their point across. And never,ever assume you know who is and is not an agent. That much should be clear by now I would hope.

6. Again, dont act like a lawyer and try to get this thing delayed. In fact, your mission now should be to ensure that whatever happens, happens before January 19th 2009.

7. I know the temptation is pretty heavy to start talking, but my advice is to just "shut up". Nobody likes a cry baby, and everyone hates a weasel. I know you're covering for other people and you know you are covering for other people, but no one respects a person who is willing to sell out his comrades. Do your best to dfend yourself, but for gods sake avoid the temptation to "take everyone down with you".

I, of course, am very much interested in hearing your side of the story. Please make sure that it is your lawyer who does the talking, and not yourself. Do not personalize this thing, its not all about you, youjust got caught in the tank treads of justice. I am sure that when we hear you side, and we will, it will provide some interesting insight on the true nature of this investigation.

If theres anything I can do to help in this matter, please feel free to contact me at any time.

Yours,
Varifrank

Posted @ October 28, 2005 01:09 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof

Seantor Trent Lott:"Bloggers claim I was their first pelt, and I believe that. I'll never read a blog"

Wow! Trent Lott can read? who would've guessed!

Posted @ October 27, 2005 08:08 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)

Context

The single dumbest statement I have ever heard in regards to the "war in Iraq" was made to me today, and here it is:

“The Bush administration has destabilized the middle east and stopped the "peace process"...”.

Oh yes, the "Middle East". A temperate zone of quiet book clubs, care free games of whist at the old folks home with cold glasses of homemade lemonade on the porch on summer afternoons and free learning annex classes in how to achieve peaceful contemplation for the soul. A place where a man can get a high colonic for the price of a cup of coffee, and a back massage from anyone you see on the street.

Well at least it was, until the evil Bush regime and his stupidity caused all those Islamic pacifists to convert into blood thirsty killers.

Let's see what history has to say about the “Stable Middle East”. Let’s limit it to just the post World War II period, just to be fair. Come back at the end and see if you can still refer to the “middle east” as having been once stable, and see if you can now understand what a magnificent thing it was that we liberated Iraq.

1948: Arab-Israeli War
Casualties: Israel: 6,373 (4,000 troops and about 2,400 civilians)
Arab: unknown (between 5,000 and 15,000)

“Zionism” becomes a capital crime in Iraq. At this time, 150,000 Jews are estimated to live in Iraq. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were evacuated from Iraq. In Syria the 1948 Jewish population is estimated at 30,000

1952: Iraq Jewish Pogrom
Iraq's government barred Jews from emigrating and publicly hanged two Jews after falsely charging them with hurling a bomb at the Baghdad office of the U.S. Information Agency.

1956: Suez Crisis
In reaction to the war, the Egyptian government expelled almost 25,000 Egyptian Jews and confiscated their property, and sent approximately 1,000 more Jews to prisons and detention camps

1962-1970: Yemen Civil War

1967: Six-Day War
Casualties: Israel: 780 killed and 3,000 wounded
Arab: 21,000 killed; up to 45,000 wounded

1968 to 1970: Egypt and Israel War of Attrition

1969: Iraqi Jewish Pogrom
Baghdad Radio called upon Iraqis to "come and enjoy the feast." Some 500,000 men, women and children paraded and danced past the scaffolds where the bodies of 11 hanged Jews swung; the mob rhythmically chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to all traitors."

1970: Jordan Palestinian Conflict(Black September)
Open warfare with PLO with support from Syria results in the PLO being removed from Jordan.

1973: The Yom Kippur War
Casualties: Israeli ,656 killed 7,250 wounded
Arab: 15,000 killed 35,000 wounded

1975-1990: The Lebanese Civil War
Estimated that more than 100,000 people were killed, and another 100,000 handicapped by injuries. Up to one-fifth of the pre-war population, or about 900,000 people, were displaced from their homes, and perhaps a quarter of a million emigrated permanently.
In the 15 years of strife, there were at least 3,641 car bombs, which left 4,386 people dead and thousands more injured

1980-1988: The Iran-Iraq War
Casualties: Unknown, estimated that from 1,000,000-2,000,000 killed. This includes 100,000 Iraqi Kurds killed on the orders of Saddam Hussein In addition, chemical-warfare attacks by Iraq were reported by Iran, at Hoor-ul-Huzwaizeh on 13 March 1984. These have since been conclusively verified by an international team of specialists dispatched to Iran by the United Nations Secretary General. Iraq's air force began strategic bombing against Iranian cities, chiefly Tehran, starting in 1985. In response to these, Iran began launching SS-1 "Scud" missiles against Baghdad, and Iraq responded by launching the same against Tehran. For the first time since the Korean War, human wave attacks are used with Infrantry.

1982: Lebanon War
Casualties: Israeli 675 killed
Arab 17,825 killed both civilian and military

1982: Hama Massacre
20,000 Syrians killed by the Syrian Baath party in the town of Hama. Syrian special forces entered the town and began to slaughter its inhabitants, with many others fleeing. According to Amnesty International, the Syrian military pumped poison gas into buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding.

1987

March: Halabja Massacre
Saddam Hussein launched chemical attacks against 40 Kurdish villages and thousands of innocent civilians in 1987-88, using them as testing grounds. The worst of these attacks devastated the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988. After the attack, Iraqi soldiers in protective gear returned to Halabja to study the effectiveness of their weapons. They divided the city into grids, determining the number and location of the dead and extent of injury. Halabja helped Saddam Hussein gauge the ability of his chemical agents to kill, maim, and terrorize population centers.

April: Operations Preying Mantis. Largest Surface Naval action since WWII. US Navy sinks sank two Iranian warships (frigates) and as many as six armed Iranian speedboats.

May: Iraq attacks USS Stark.

July: USS Vincennes Shots down Iranian Airliner, killing 290 civilians. 400 Iranian pilgrims die in clashes with Saudi Arabian security forces in Mecca

October: First Palestinian Intifada Begins.

1990-1991: Iraq Invasion of Kuwait and Gulf War.
Casualties: Coalition military deaths have been reported to be around 378, but the DoD reports that US forces suffered 147 battle-related and 325 non-battle-related deaths. There are an estimated 22,000 Iraqi combat deaths. The Iraqi government has claimed that 2,300 civilians died during the war.

** Note: as of 1991, only 100 Jews and one synagogue are still in Iraq. At one time, Baghdad was one-fifth Jewish. In Syria, less than 100 Jews are known to exist from a post war population of 30,000.

1991: Iraqi Shiite uprising.
Several cities raised in response by Saddam Hussien, thousands of civilians killed. Marshlands in southern Iraq are drained in an attempt to displace the marsh arabs.

1996:

Feburary: Operation Desert Strike
Iraqi weapons program leader and son-in-law to Saddam Hussein, Hussein Kamel, returns to Iraq. Within days of his return, he is murdered along with his brother, father, sister and her children. Kamel had forced Iraq to reveal portions of its illegal nuclear and chemical weapons programs.

May: UNSCOM supervises the destruction of Al-Hakam, Iraq's main production facility of biological warfare agents.

November: UNSCOM inspectors uncover buried prohibited missile parts. Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM teams to remove remnants of missile engines for analysis outside of the country.

1997

June: Iraqi military escorts on board an UNSCOM helicopter try to physically prevent the UNSCOM pilot from flying the helicopter in the direction of its planned destination, threatening the safety of the aircraft and their crews

September: An Iraqi military officer attacks an UNSCOM weapons inspector on board an UNSCOM helicopter while the inspector was attempting to take photographs of unauthorized movement of Iraqi vehicles inside a site designated for inspection. Later that month, while waiting for access to a site, UNSCOM inspectors witness and videotape Iraqi guards moving files, burning documents, and dumping waste cans into a nearby river. UNSCOM inspector Dr. Diane Seaman catches several Iraqi men sneaking out the back door of an inspection site with log books for the creation of prohibited bacteria and chemicals.

October:Iraq says it will begin shooting down U-2 surveillance planes being used by UNSCOM inspectors

1998

Feburary: The United States Senate passes resolution 71, which urged President Bill Clinton to "take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

John Kerry votes in favor of the resolution...

April: UNSCOM reports to the UN Security Council that Iraq's declaration on its biological weapons program is incomplete and inadequate.

May: UNSCOM learns that an Iraqi delegation has travelled to Bucharest to meet with scientists who can provide the country with missile guidance systems.

August: Iraq officially suspends all cooperation with UNSCOM teams. Scott Ritter resigns from UNSCOM, sharply criticized the Clinton administration and the U.N. Security Council for not being vigorous enough about insisting that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction be destroyed. Ritter told reporters that "Iraq is not disarming," "Iraq retains the capability to launch a chemical strike."

Scott Ritter now works for Al-Jazzeera, but then again, so does David Frost ( go figure...)

September: The U.S. Congress passes the "Iraq Liberation Act", which states that the United States wants to remove Saddam Hussein from power and replace the government with a democratic institution.

John Kerry votes in favor of the Act...

October: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors

November: Operation Desert Fox
U.S. President Clinton orders airstrikes on Iraq. Clinton then calls it off at the last minute when Iraq promises once again to "unconditionally" cooperate with UNSCOM. UNSCOM inspectors return to Iraq.

December: Iraq announces that U.N. weapons inspections will no longer take place on Friday, the Muslim day of rest. Iraq also refuses to provide test data from the production of missiles and engines

President Clinton orders American and British airstrikes on Iraq. UNSCOM withdraws all weapons inspectors from Iraq. Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan announces that Iraq will no longer cooperate and declares that UNSCOM's "mission is over."

UN Security Council members France, Germany and Russia call for sanctions to end against Iraq. The three Security Council members also call for UNSCOM to either be disbanded or for its role to be recast. The U.S. says it will veto any such proposal . Iraq then announced its intention to fire upon US and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern "no-fly zones".

1999

December: The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) is created to replace UNSCOM. The U.N. Security council once again orders Iraq to allow inspections teams immediate and unconditional access to any weapons sites and facilities. Iraq rejects the resolution.

2000

Iraq rejects new U.N. Security Council weapons inspections proposals

Second Palestinian Intifada Begins.

2001
Baghdad suburb bombed by US and UK war planes, 3 people killed.

Yeah, "Middle East Stability..."

And then there is the question that makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.

Two thousand Americans have died in Iraq, doesn’t that make you think the war is wrong?

In the context of the history of the region, its my belief that the only thing wrong with the war in Iraq was that we didn’t do it sooner.

If the argument is that we should have stayed home, history provides us a roadmap for how that strategy has gone so far, and until 2003, that strategy led directly to the deaths, not of 2,000, but of millions.

The Middle East was never “stable”, unless you consider a concentration camp or charnel house to be the model of stability on which you refer. .

For the last 60 years, the Middle East has been a meat grinder into which tyrants and dictators have fed their own people with little or no concern for being held accountable so long as they remained the clients of the western world.

The direct result of the Bush Doctrine is a clear message to the worlds governments and not just those in the Middle East is that “Things have changed” and for people throughout the Middle East, they have changed for the better, not because of peace rallies or the actions of a few politicians, but the actions of Americans, who in the process of defending the United States have gone to another country and provided the stability and leadership to a people who have long been ignored by our government and the western world.

Unfortunately while providing that leadership, some of our people were killed. One soldier lost is a high price, but soldiers die, that’s what they are called upon to do. This is what makes them different than postmen or social workers. They take an oath to defend the country from enemies foreign and domestic, sometimes that defense involves shooting and perhaps being shot at and perhaps even killed.

Sometimes that enemy is a uniformed soldier from another country but sometimes that enemy is a sickness, a philosophy that teaches that life has no meaning and that only in death can one achieve true happiness. This is the sickness that has infected the Middle East, and to that sickness there is only one known cure, the removal by force of the cancer of tyranny and the application of the salve of human dignity in the form of Democracy.

All humans crave the dignity that comes with self-determination, no matter their religion or culture.

Iraq now stands before the world as an Arab Secular Democracy and because of it and not in spite of it, the people of Lebanon who have been long oppressed by their own occupation at the hands of the Syrians have bravely thrown out the Baathists and elected a government of their own in open defiance of the regime in Damascus. Because of the security that has come with the elimination of the Saddam Regime, Israel has taken the risk of giving up the Gaza Settlements, exposing the Palestinian and Iranian lead terror groups for the fraud that they truly are. Because of the stability provided after the removal of the Saddam Regime by the United States, most countries in the Persia Gulf are seeing the rapid expansion of voting rights and even women’s rights in places where just a few years before it would have been impossible.

Should we have stayed home and continued to ignore the plight of the Kurds? Should we have stayed out of Kuwait? Should Syria’s crimes continue to go unpunished? Should Saddam have remained in power? To some, the Middle East will always remain “none of our business”, but the truth of it is, the “Middle East” made it our business. Our security and theirs became intertwined on September 11th , when we started to be killed on our streets by people raised in the sickness of middle eastern terrorism, a disease that we, through our inaction allowed to fester to the point that it began to kill us in our homes.

2000 men and women have died in Iraq. That is a sad metric, but in the context of the Middle Eastern history of the past 60 years, it is a mere drop into the bucket of blood that has been shed in that terrible place over the years. The difference is, that these 2000 have died bringing hope to the people of the region and a future to us all. 25 million people in the Middle East now use democracy to settle their differences rather than guns. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are unique in the history of mankind as places where, even during open warfare, civilian refugees were found going into the war zone, not streaming out. Over 3 million Afghanis are estimated to have left Pakistan refugee camps as soon as it was clear the United States was coming to Afghanistan. The same phenomenon occurred in Iraq. A war without refugees is simply not what we expected, but it is what we got.

Once upon a time, we fought the Germans with regularity. While we still have differences with Germany but now we do tend to return the calls of each others countries leaders when a crisis between us arises, rather than raise an army in response to a threat from “the German menace”. We should never forget that it took thousands of deaths of soldiers, sailors and airmen to create the conditions in which that miracle could occur; it wasn’t natural that it happen; we made it happen - by force.

The result of that action is that we live in peace with a former adversary. Yet, we will never find ourselves looking back at the deaths of World War II and saying “ Was it worth it?” because we have the eyes of the people of Treblinka and Auschwitz looking back saying not why did you come, but rather ‘Why didn’t you come sooner?”.

The same will one day be true of our action in Iraq. One day, the debate on the Iraq war will not be “Why did we go?” but rather “why didn’t we come sooner?”. It will come as soon as we learn to look at the people of Hilabja as every bit as deserving of our respect as the people of Auschwitz.

Posted @ October 26, 2005 09:43 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)

Kerry Alert: Hes giving Speeches again

Like Abraham Van Helsing to Dracula, I feel it is my mission to save civilization from the menace that is John Kerry.

So, Im sharpening my wooden stakes and stopping by to get a little holy water, because my nemesis is once again, speech-ifying to the masses.

Here is his recent speech at Georgetown.

oh, gott im himmel, what have we done to deserve this curse?

Ok, I dont have time right this minute for a full on fisk of this pile of dreck. So heres just one small observation.

Kerry describes the sound of the inside of C-130 as "silent except for the "din" of the engines.

Din? Is he kidding me?

Allow me to describe what the inside of C-130 sounds, feels and smells like.

Take a 55 gallon metal drum. Fill it 25% of the way to the top with one inch industrial ball bearings. Take a set of old gym socks, leave them unwashed for a minimum of one month, then coat them in black coffee and creosote tree sealer. After the socks have been treated with the "Military Aircraft Simulator Scent**" climb inside the drum, then seal the lid. Have one of your friends then take you to the top of Lombard street in San Francsico (thats right, the "crookedest street in the world"). Line the street itself with wind chimes and gongs in such a way that the gongs and windchimes will strike the drum as it travels down the hill.

Have your friend locate every gang in the bay area, it shoudnt be hard, there are alot of them and they have scads of free time. Supply each gang member with a baseball bat then have the gang members stand along both sides of Lombard street.

At this point your friend should push the drum, with you, the ball bearings and the coffee, sweat and creosote soaked socks down the hill.

When you reach the bottom, you can then say that you have experienced the same effect as flying in a C-130.

The C-130 is a magnificent aircraft. It is also freaking loud inside the cargo area and not a whole lot better on the flight deck. It is so loud that you can shout as loud as you want at the person sitting next to you and they cant hear you. You have to wear ear protection just to be a passenger, and frankly it doesnt really help.

The last time I rode in a C-130 ( circa 1977 - 14 hours from Castle AFB to Mcchord AFB and return ) I had a ringing in my ears that lasted for two weeks. I would not use the word "din" to describe any part of the C-130 experience,but hey, thats just me...

**- My experience is that all military aircraft interiors smell like a combination of coffee, sweat and creosote, no matter how new they are. It is a unique sensory experience that once you come across it will always send you back to the first time you sat in the ready room of some AFB on a rainy Saturday morning in a poorly lit tarpaper, green industrial laminate and naugahyde covered room hoping to catch a flight from nowhere to somewhere else.

Posted @ October 26, 2005 11:24 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)

Watching The Detectives

I’m sitting here watching the anti-war pro-dictatorship proletariat and their press party organs going into an absolute lather over the Fitzgerald Grand Jury. Every move by any player is given as absolute evidence that

“Rove is about to be indicted/convicted/executed”.

and of course, its all just crap, because no one outside of the Grand Jury knows anything, and anyone who does know anything aint talking. But dont let that get in the way of announcing every 15 minutes that Rove is guilty, you just know it...

It may also turn out that because of all of this that Judith Miller will lose her job, not because she did something wrong, but because, and I’m not kidding here, some people actually blame her for the President taking the country to war, that it was her erroneous reporting on the WMD issues that drew Bush to make the conclusions he did about Iraq! No, Really, Im not making that up!

I have a couple of quick observations.

1)Is it at all possible that 95% of what we think we know about the Grand Jury and its conclusions are totally and completely baseless?

2) Is it at all possible that rather than just being wrong, that many of the suppositions put forth are possibly, to put it mildly, just “wishful thinking” on the part of many people who have a serious opposing agenda at stake in the game?

If Rove/Libby/Cheney/Bush are NOT indicted, will there be large scale riots at Universities across America in protest of “the lack of justice in this country”, ala “Rodney King”? Since everyone “knows” that Rove is guilty, and that the indictment is just a formality in the minds of some people, if he is cleared of charges, will there be looting at the UCLA/UW/Harvard campuses?

I mean, we have to understand the anger and disenfranchisement of the left, don’t we? I mean if you cant get a conviction against the corrupt Bush administration, there just cant be any justice in this country, can there?

I don’t have a clue how things are going to turn out with this Grand Jury. I will be very surprised if there is not one indictment of some sort. I am willing to bet that things will not look at all like what we expect to happen, and while I am willing to live with that, I think there are some people who have become seriously deranged in the past 5 years, who might just react – ahem – negatively if things fail to meet their expectations for revenge, which is very, very likely given that people are now trying to speculate a way that Vice President Cheney himself will be indicted.

If they get anything short of that, what exactly might be the reaction of the pro-dictatorship left to the real news when it finally arrives? The short answer? Anything but accept it for what it is...

( I honestly don’t know what will happen, I’m trying to get this posted to the blog before it becomes out of date…)

Posted @ October 26, 2005 10:23 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

ALERT: IMPERIALIST WARMONGERS CAUGHT ON FILM

Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

From our newest Blogrolled "master of their domain".

Oh, and by the way, an Arab country once owned and operated a slave labor camp by a dictator is now run by a secular constitution voted on by referendum by the citizens of the country. ho hum, no news here.

Media Reaction? Oh you guessed it. Silence, followed by a chorus of tut-tutting. Remember, there is no good news as long as the evil Bush-Halliburton-mchiter regime is in power. The sun shining is just a harbinger of skin cancer, water is a vector for disease, The air is so dirty you could use it for diesel fuel, you cant win, you wont win, you must surrender...

Iraq Charter Appears to Have Failed: Sunni Leader
Dude, Call your Office!

Was the Vote on the Iraqi Constitution Fixed?
Why of course it was fixed!, how could Saddam get 100% just two years ago, and not even show up this time, why I tell you its like Tammany Hall over there! Get Jessie Jackson, Ramsay Clark and Jimmy Carter on the case. Why, theres no real choice in this election, just look at the ballot, theres no Sandinista party, no Green party, no progressive party. Who do these people think they are?

BBC Online Readers: Its a fake! and it will just make the possiblity of civil war more likely! Oh Uncle Saddam, where are you when we need you in these trying times!

Posted @ October 25, 2005 08:07 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Welcome

Lisett Padron-Regis, left, Ernesto Cendoya-Sotomayor and Jessica Bravo-Martinez are all smiles after a group of Cuban singers defected in Toronto in the midst of a concert tour with the Cuban National Chorus. (Alex Urosevic, Sun)

More than 20 members of Cuba's world-famous national chorus are singing songs of freedom today after defecting in Toronto.

Members of the National Chorus of Cuba dodged security officers and jumped into waiting cars, some on Sunday and others yesterday, said Cuban exiles who planned the defections.

"These people are scared for their lives," said Ismail Sambra, president of the Cuban Canadian Foundation. "They are worried about their families back home". (Why should they be worried? Uncle Fidel and revolutionary party are merciful, are they not?)

"It took a lot of planning to get this far."

The highly acclaimed 40-member group, which travels the world promoting the Communist regime, arrived in Canada last week and performed in the Toronto and Port Hope areas. (Note: 20 out of 40 defected, nice odds!)

The singers appeared at a downtown church last Sunday, were to perform this Saturday in B.C. with the Vancouver Chamber Choir and were scheduled to leave Canada next week.

The booking agent in Canada for the group, Robert Missen, said he was only aware of 11 defectors and that the rest of the group would perform in B.C. ( Wait? 11? So now they are down to 9 singers for Fidel? shall we give it a second and see if it goes to 12?)

The singers, who are hiding out at the homes of Cuban exiles in the city, are expected to apply for refugee status today in Toronto.

Gaining their freedom is worth any danger they may face, the singers said.

(Note: Chomsky just spit his cheerios across the room upon reading this..)

Ernesto Cendoya-Sotomayor, 27, a baritone, said he left his wife and young daughter behind. (For any of you who are still of the opinion that taking part in a college protest against the President is somehow a "sacrifice", this should change your mind.)

"Cuban police will probably tell my family I am a traitor to the revolution," he said. "They will put pressure on my family." (Note: "pressure", for those of you following along at home, involves taking away any rations and taking their state owned apartments away along with any jobs, not just for the imemdiate family but for any relative. )

...From the Toronto Sun.

Posted @ October 25, 2005 07:28 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Waiting

Is there any sense in blogging right now? In two days we will have the indictments from Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald and our entire political world will be turned inside out.

Talk all you want about Harriet Miers now because in two weeks most of you wont even remember her name.

Posted @ October 24, 2005 09:49 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Why Would I Vote For Miers?

...Just for the sheer fun of watching this man break down in tears.

For a further explanation - Read Big Lizards

I like George Will, I really do. But I find his final epistle to the conservative faithful regarding Harriet Miers to be the last piece of evidence I need to be sure that the President has made the right choice for the right reasons. Any decision that makes this many people in the chattering class froth at the mouth has got to be a good one.

Oh, and I just want to say that I found Mr. Wills statement that "The President has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. " to be an insult on par with any slander handed by Moveon.org or from the desk of Howard Dean.

Mr. Bush may not have the background and the forethought or the critical thinking skills that would make Mr. Will swoon, but he has managed to do two things in his “Flowers for Algernon” life that Mr. Will has not:

1) He managed to stop wearing bow ties when he started wearing pants that went all the way to the floor which was roughly the same time his mother Barbara stopped asking him to "put it on" for the annual family Easter photograph.

2) He became President by the largest number of votes cast for a candidate in history.

It is not up to east coast twaddle merchants like Mr. Will to determine “what is and is not a conservative” and god help us all if we start looking that far to the east for guidance in that matter. Electoral leadership provided by these “cool, cool conservative men” lead the Republican Party from disaster to disaster in election after election for almost three decades. It is also not up to Mr. Will to determine who is and who is not good enough to sit on the Supreme Court. That job dear sir is the Presidents, who then passes it on to the Senate for their approval, and thus by proxy the people of the United States. Mr. Will fits into neither of those roles, his vote and voice is no more or less than mine, and to that I can only say, “thank god”.

The time to decide if Bush was up to the job of picking a Supreme Court Justice was last November, not this October. Shockingly, Mr. Will, Goldberg, Krystol and Bork all decided not to publish their collective “ Bush is a poor conservative and cant pick judges because he’s a big dumb hick evangelical from Texas and we all know what they are like don’t we?” posts back then where they could be assured that people would have listened and that President Bush would not return to a position where he could put his choices before the Senate for consideration.

The alternate universe points us to a world where instead of being forced to accept a choice from that inbred Texan, President Chimpy McHitler Jr; Messers. Will, Goldberg, Krystol and Bork would be writing Oped articles in support of President Kerry and his fabulously intelligent and oh so conservative choices for Supreme Court.

Oh, of course not. They would be screaming about how it is the end of America as we know it, and what’s worse, they would probably be blaming it all on the failed Bush campaign that doomed the Republican party and the country into a new Liberal dark age. There is just no pleasing some people.

Gentleman - and all the rest of you who are so up in arms about the end of the world; which has been brought on by the oh so horrid nomination of Harriet Miers, I have to remind you of something simple and basic on our daily lives. This world is not a perfect world, It’s not Heaven that has fallen, its not Hell that has risen, its simply life. Some of it is good, and some of it is bad, if you live long enough you learn to roll with the punches and not be surprised when things don’t necessarily go your way. Despite what you may think and wish, It’s not all about you.

You will not get everything you want in this life, but you’ll find sometimes, you get what you need.

No “Conservative” pundit has explained to me where the votes are going to come from to get the kind of candidates they say are “so much better” than Harriet Miers. Mr. Bush has always had to deal with a Senate that is far from Conservative and barely Republican. That’s a fact, and knowing that fact, it changes your approach as President when it comes to dealing with the nomination process. Try to remember that there is not an infinite amount of time in which to engage in these esoteric conversations about “who should and should not be on the court” at any point in the term of office. Every man hour spent on this task is a man hour from something, dare I say, more important, like keeping Iran from flipping the oil markets into the Euro to the devastation the American economy.

Given the Presidents record on judicial choices, at all levels, I see a regular and repeated record of solid choices, they have been and continue to be, dare I say it, good conservative choices. I also voted for him in November. So what would I be saying about who I am if I suddenly jumped off my sofa, stood in the window and shouted; “ I want to end it all, my President betrayed me!!” and then threatened to jump because I didn’t get my way on this nomination? Would Mr. Will say I was a real conservative for feeling his outrage?

Well I guess if I wore a bowtie, I guess you could say I had my Costume for Halloween( see picture above).

For all the good it will do me or my country, I can wish all I want for another candidate, and yeah I do wish I had seen other people up for the job, Frankly, I would LOVE to see a candidate go before the Senate and pull an Oliver North and stuff it right back in their bloated Senatorial faces, something like this:

Candidate: Yeah, I joined the Federalist Society; You wanna make something of it “Senator Spectre?”

Sen. Specter: Now wait just a darn min..

Candidate: (coughing into hand - Bite me. Cough cough… bite me, ahem, cough) sorry sir, I have a little cold.

Sen. Specter: What? did you just tell me to..,oh nevermind. What’s your opinion on Roe V. Wade? I suppose your going to cower behind the microphone and not answer that one are you smart guy?

Candidate: Oh I’ll answer it, I’m happy to. Its bad law plain and simple. You know its bad law, every lawyer in this room knows its bad law. It exists because everyone in this room knows that if its overturned, that a good percentage of states will vote to outlaw the practice of abortion and an almost equal percentage will vote to keep it. Unfortunate as the chaos that cause may seem, that’s the system we have, unless of course, and it pains me to say this, we should want to create a Constitutional amendment that does what Blackmun invented, and that is create a right to privacy. That Process of amendment Senator, is something I can get behind, even if it does support abortion as a result because the Constitution allows for it and the people are engaged in the process. In my opinion, there is a serious hole in the Constitution when it comes to the right of privacy, but the way to cure that hole isn’t to repair it with ruling after ruling in piecemeal fashion, its through the legislature and through the people themselves. People like to talk about how important one Justice on the Supreme Court is to the law, but that’s because they don’t want to deal with the messy and difficult process of Democracy. Unfortunately for you and yours Senator, that process is in the Constitution and if you ever bothered to read it you could see it for yourself. We aren’t supposed to fix things that are messy just because it makes our jobs easier, our job, the job of the judicial branch, is to simply determine if the law in question works in accordance to the constitution. Our job is not to usurp the process of the Legislature or the Executive branch, anymore than yours is to do the same with the Executive of the Judicial...

But I’m not going to get that candidate. I live in a different world from the one I want. I live here and I live now and I accept it for what it is,; not pine for what it should be. It’s not perfect, but it is very nice and considering the alternatives, it’s not so bad.

I don’t think President Kerry would have nominated Harriet Miers. But I also don’t think he would have nominated John Roberts. But try to imagine what he would have nominated, and then try to imagine the number of “Republican” Senators, who believe that for Democrats at least, the President, whomever he is, should get his choice approved and thus, we have a Judge Ginsburg just for that reason.

We are not done with Judicial choices for this administration, but unless the Wills, the Goldbergs the Krystols, the Borks et al decide once and for all what side they really are on, they could end up with a Senate back in the hands of the Democrats, possibly even the House. I’m sure if that were to happen the President would have loads of time in which to have afternoon tea and discuss the perfect candidate upon learning of the death of Judges Stevens or Ginsberg.

Decide Gentleman, “Perfect” you cant get or "good enough" that you can. And guess which one you are going to get first and thank your lucky stars you will never be in a position to choose one over the other. The President has that choice, and I’m grateful it’s him that’s making it and not you or me.

Posted @ October 23, 2005 08:20 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (5)

Syria: Whos got your back?

From this piece in the Financial Times, we see that Lebanon has decided to keep the pressure on Syria by arresting a Syrian official.

But from Syria, we see the following reaction:

"In Damascus, George Jabbour, a Syrian member of parliament who is close to the government, told the Financial Times that Russia and China had given assurances that they would block punitive measures at the Security Council."

So as long as Russia and China support state sponsored terror, what tyrant has anything to worry about, eh? Apparently Russia and China have decided that they are on the opposite side of the US, no matter who the other side is.

Keep watching, this is going to be fun.

and remember, Syria is a former client state of France. France is speaking with the same voice as the US in this matter. France it should also be noted makes no bones about using its military in former states when its interests are at risk, The Ivory Coast being the most recent example.

Here's the stakes. If the governing thugs in Syria are actually held accountable for their crimes and they are removed from power by political pressure, then the cement of the "Bush Doctrine" will finally be seen to be hardening, and a new structure of the Middle East will begin to take shape.

UPDATE: Well its no surprise but it needs to be said anyway, Iran is on the Sryrian side.

Posted @ October 23, 2005 12:29 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Banco Delta Asia: The Terrorists ATM

Part of the war on Terror is the hunting down and killing of those who kill and maim for the purposes of creating fear.

But the part we forget about, is the process of cutting off their supply lines. Not the supply of weapons, but the supply of money.

Here is a rather brilliant article from Frontpage Magazine.

So when you start getting orange 10 Dollar bills, now you'll know why.

Those of you who have known me the longest know that I've always suspected that the real, yet unspoken reason for our invasion of Iraq was the role that Iraq played as the main bank for terrorist operations around the world. its no accident that with the end of the saddam regime, the terror operations that beseiged Israel and Lebanon came to an end.

There is a tremendous value in being an oil state in that you have the ability to open trade operations in nearly every country in the world. Iraq could effectively launder money at a very high rate for all sorts of failed states around the world, while the world could do very little about it when they did.

The North Korea/Banco Delta Asia system gives us a model of how it works. North Korea needs foriegn cash, but has nothing with which to trade. North Korea then provides the transport and manpower to allow drugs and large scale arm sales to take place, but since no one would ever allow themselves to be put in the position of giving the money directly to North Korea, a second party has to be used for the transfer.

North Korea becomes rich, and Banco Delta Asia gets rich as well. but the end result is that people die.

UPDATE: A few more pieces of information on this issue. First, the IRA makes an appearance in our little web of intrigue:

"Sean Garland, 71, a veteran of the Irish Republican Army, was arrested in Belfast in September. He awaits extradition to the United States on a federal warrant that alleges that he and others bought, moved and either passed or resold high-quality counterfeit $100 notes."

And then theres this quote that ties Iran to North Korea:

Quote:
"The North Korean counterfeiting story begins almost simultaneously with the late Shah of Iran's purchase in 1975 and 1976 of two intaglio-color-8 presses, the type then used by the U.S. Treasury to print genuine dollars, from De La Rue Giori, in Lausanne, Switzerland. These survived the Shah's overthrow by Islamic revolutionaries in 1979 and provided an industrial base for the flood of expertly crafted superdollars. Specimens first appeared in Singapore in 1983, then, a decade later, inundated Europe and the Middle and Far East..."

Reenforcement Quote:
"In California and several other states, arrests were made of people linked to a major Asian crime ring. Prosecutors named the Asian Delta Bank in Macao, the former Portuguese colony in China, as a "primary money-laundering concern," for helping North Koreans distribute forged currency and other criminal activities..."

Note: Time to hit the research pages. I dont remember this happening.

Money Quote:
"After criminal complaints against North Korean diplomats who have been caught distributing supernotes since 1994, Phil Williams, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, observed: "We've rarely seen a state use organized crime in this way. This is a criminal state, not because it's been captured by criminals but because the state has taken over crime."

That is an important distinction. States that operate as criminal enterprises should not afforded the same level of respect as those who live within the law.

It seems to me that there was another bank scandal (called BCCI) in the 1990s that cost Democratic Operative Clark Clifford his job and brought legitimcy to John Kerry. Looks like I'll be spending more time in front of google...

UPDATE II: "matters for further investigation from the BCCI Investigation" Just read it already....

Posted @ October 22, 2005 08:11 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Book Review: Curse of the Narrows

Curse Of The Narrows: Laura M. Macdonald

In one of earliest forays onto the blogosphere, I had an email exchange with Stephen Den Beste on the subject of Al Quedas actual capabilities to do damage to the United States. My argument was essentially that Al Queda didn’t need exotic weapons and delivery systems to do significant damage. it just needed the desire to do it and that Mohammad Attas operation was proof of that. One scenario I had proposed was the use of a container ship in harbor filled with explosives and radioactive waste**, which could be gathered from common variety smoke detectors and other off the shelf sources. The model I used was the Mount Blanc Explosion in Halifax Harbour Nova Scotia in 1917. For those of you not familiar with the Mount Blanc, it was a cargo ship that was filled with ammunition and explosives that violently exploded after a collision with another ship in Halifax harbor. The effect of the explosion was staggering. Manhattan project scientists, to estimate the possible effects of the Atomic bomb used the explosion of the Mount Blanc as a model for the damage that might be caused by an atomic bomb. This explosion devastated the towns of Halifax and Dartmouth and was so strong that it generated a Tsunami wave that engulfed areas of the town that had just been leveled by the explosion.

And it was all accomplished with nothing more sophisticated than common turn of the century explosives and a simple maritime accident.

This book is very well written and provides a great deal of insight into the people and conditions prevalent in Nova Scotia at the turn of the century. It is sad that due to wartime censorship that this story is not better know to most people except to history buffs like myself. Remember, that a weapon of mass destruction doesn’t have to be exotic for it to cause “mass destruction”, in the case of the Mount Blanc it was an accident, but the destruction would have been the same had it been done on purpose.

For those of you who are curious how the world survived disasters before the existence of FEMA, this book provides insight as to how the world responded to the needs of the people of Halifax and Dartmouth without the federal governments help.

note: ** - If the damage of ship full of explosives is so damaging, why pack it with small amounts of low level radioactive waste? the purpose of terrorism is fear. The explosion of a large containership filled to the brim with explosives is large enough to render large areas of a harbor like Long Beach or Seattle unusable, but the fear that would be caused by the immediate detection of low level radioactive material would hold off rescue reconstruction staff for the critical 72 hours after the attack. Yeah, I have thought about it, and it does worry me. So does the fact that the US Navy Seal Beach Munitions base is so close to the harbor that sits at the bottom of a valley that contains 33 milllion people.

Posted @ October 22, 2005 11:08 AM | Book Reviews | Comments (1)

Happy Feet

Last Friday I had a project cancelled that I had been working on for 18 months. We were just 4 months short of completing the whole shebang. I always hate it when something like that happens, but this project I really, really liked. It was a great project, a real knock your socks of cool daddy-o thing. As an engineer you get a chance to work on a project like this once or twice in your career, a real showpiece, something new and exciting that is way ahead of the curve.

All that promise, all those hopes, only to have it cancelled because of some evil concoction of politics and budget priority changes.

So this week has been pretty tough. In addition to trying to salvage parts of the project to see if they could continue without the aforementioned cancelled project I had to seriously wonder what future I had in all of this. If my projects could be killed, despite all that depended on them, then how long might I have?

So, the week was meeting after meeting and impassioned pleas with managers to try to see what we could keep out of the rubble I had to do it wondering if time might be short for me as well. It does sort of ruin your attitude.

It was an ugly week, and it was just getting uglier as it went on. I was in a real dark mood. In addition to this, we had our beyond the usual technical nightmare that kept me up for a couple of days and nights without any sleep.

So, I go into Friday morning with a big dark cloud over my head. Within an hour of starting the day, I receive the most surprising news.

The project is no longer cancelled but has in fact been expedited from the highest levels!

This sort of thing almost never happens. Once a project is dead, it stays dead. I’ve been doing this sort of thing since 1985 and don’t think I’ve ever had a project come back from the dead.

So yeah, Im in a good mood, why do you ask?

Posted @ October 21, 2005 08:36 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

September Redux

What we can't be is without leadership at the United Nations. ... I'm spending an awful lot of time these days preparing for the high-level meetings that are going to take place in September
Dr. Condoleeza Rice - July 28, 2005 - Prior to John Boltons recess appointment to the UN.

I remember when she said it and at the time I thought it was a pretty odd thing to say. So this headline comes out and we now know what the hubbub was all about:

France, U.S. readying new U.N. resolutions critical of Syria

Well, if it’s bad enough for France to cooperate with US, well then it has to be pretty bad, doesnt it? Well it is bad and its pretty detailed on how Syrian government and military leadership ( all Baath party all the time ) set out to assassinate a foreign head of state - the prime minister of Lebanon - Hariri. This is something thats way up there in the "bad ideas" category in the eyes of the UN. Now at first your reaction might be “ Who cares if we take something to the UN Security Council, Russia will just reject it anyway?”.

Well let’s look a little bit closer:

“Rice shuttled among Paris, Moscow and London last week for discussions that included the Syria-Lebanon question six months after Syria withdrew forces from its much-smaller neighbor”.

So the good doctor has apparently closed off the Russian option. It’s also important to remember that this is Syria, not Iraq. Syria has no oil with which to bribe other countries for their complacency. There’s one other thing to consider. The UN gives a blind eye to all sorts of crime; Genocide, slavery, the theft of patent materials, you name it, but they take dim view of assassination. If there’s one thing that all governments agree on, it’s that the idea of assassinating other leaders is something that should not be tolerated.

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls, Children of all ages - The Baathist government of Syria is about to fall flat on its face.

It must be remembered that a small clan and a religious minority rule Syria, as well as those 'masters of disaster', the Baath party. Gosh, now where have we seen that show before, oh that’s right – next door in Iraq.

Only this time, the UN, France and the US are all on the same page. UN Sanctions aren’t the scariest thing in the world for a dictatorship to withstand, but for a landlocked country with no close friends and nothing to trade, it’s going to be hell. Add to that the natural push for Democracy that will certainly come from their neighbors and, well shall we say, a little covert shove here and there.

Let’s keep an eye out for how the people in the Syrian City of Hama react to this news. I wonder if Dr. Assad can get his ophthalmologist license renewed?

UPDATE: Landlocked? What was I thinking! Thanks Connard...

I should have remembered this from my "Indiana Jones Illustrated Maps of the world" series when he visted the Republic of Hatay.

Posted @ October 21, 2005 08:18 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)

Late to the dance

Richard Clarke: "Hands up if youre the CIA leak! AH gotcha!, I didnt say "simon says". BUSTED!

So tonight I’m listening to Hugh Hewitt when a caller references a book that the now famous New York Times Reporter Judy Miller wrote in 2002. What’s it called? It’s called

Germs: Biological Weapons and Americas Secret War.

“Well, that’s interesting” I said to myself. I did not know that she wrote a book on Weapons of Mass Destruction. So I picked it up and read it this evening.

Here are some tidbits:

Author Judy Miller: She was one of the people who received one of the “anthrax letters”. If I knew it, I forgot it.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby: Worked in the White House and worked in biological warfare issues with various officials in the preparation for the Kuwait war.

Richard Clarke: Yeah, that Richard Clarke. A major referenced source for this book. This makes my antenna twitch...A Reporter with an Ex-CIA guy who was a source on another book and a reporter who just happens to be looking into a guy who just happens to have a CIA agent as a wife. Mighty cozy those quaint little georgetown neighborhoods are, arent they? Maybe this is what Libby was talking about in the famous "aspens" letter. An illusion to the idea that everyone knows everyone else? maybe...

Saddam Hussein: Oh yeah, tons of stuff. You get a much clearer impression of all of the major players of the last 5 years in how and why they were reacting to Saddam the way they did after 9/11.

General Anthony “I Hate Bush” Zinni: In 1998, sees an eminent biological threat from Iraq that could not wait to be dealt with any longer, and had all his troops take the anthrax shots( remember that controversy? I do!). Well, how times have changed, haven’t they, General Zinni?

Project BACUS: A project to determine if using off the shelf and commonly found materials it was possible to create a biological weapons lab on short notice that could also produce weaponized biological materials that would be effective if they were deployed. Guess what? It worked. That should keep you up at night.

The left wants to keep the attention on the famous Nigerian “yellowcake” statements and tie all Weapons of Mass Destruction to just nuclear weapons, but this book makes a clear and cogent case for exactly why the Clinton and Bush administrations were rightfully worried about Saddam Hussein in the days after 9/11. We all forget about the “Anthrax attacks” and we discount them as a poor prank by a disgruntled lab worker, but the book is written in the timeframe when it was less than clear if it was just a one off problem or the beginning of a wide scale attack.

But you knew that anyway, didn’t you?

But here’s what I really want to say about this. If you read this book, which is excellently sourced with very good footnotes and cross-referenced to other materials, you know that Ms. Miller indeed knows a great many people who work in around intelligence, weapons of mass destruction and in the civil service that stays around no matter the administration. So, if she doesn’t know the person directly, then she knows the people they work closely with. Close enough I would gather to get a question answered in a few minutes.

That being the case, how is it possible that with all the people she knew in Washington, in the White House, in the CIA in the military, that she didn’t know that Ambassador Wilson’s wife was in the CIA as well? It would not take very long to play a game of “six degrees of separation” with the people she has outlined in the book to come up with a direct link to Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson.

Could Richard Clarke be the source she is really protecting and the whole Libby/Rove connection simply a smokescreen to cover another trail that would lead to a far more damaging connection? That is, a rogue CIA organization that wishes to protect its power and cover up its large scale mistakes in regards to Iraq and the middle east?

Remember, this organization is made up of the same set of guys who failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union, and now here they were in 2002 with the country in the midst of the worst attack since Pearl Harbor without any clear answers as to "why". Oh, and it was Richard Clarke who was the one who supposedly lead the anti-terror teams during the 1990's. Now, don't go and give yourself a sprained arm giving yourself a pat on the back for that job, Mr. Clarke...

In addition, Joseph Wilson it must be remembered, was making the case that people like Miller were inventing facts or even over representing the dangers that were posed by Saddam. Its clear when you read this book that Judy Miller must’ve taken that idea as a direct attack on her reputation as a reporter.

So I ask you, based on this and other areas that Judy Miller reported and worked in for over 10 years, the extensive research into Weapons of Mass Destruction in the G.H.W. Bush, Clinton and the G.W. Bush administrations, how is it possible or even feasible for her to have not known who Valerie Plame was, given that her husband walked quiet literally through her crosshairs on the Niger case?

Remember, the question that got this whole thing going was “ who was the dumbass that sent that hack Joe Wilson to Niger to do any sort of research”. Joseph Wilson said it was Cheney who sent him. Cheney said he had no idea who it was who sent him, and the race was on to find out who would send Joe Wilson. How could Judy Miller have missed the detail of Wilson’s wife and her job and still called herself a reporter?

Ok, get to it. Go buy her book and see for yourself.

UPDATE: Oh sure, its easy to say Varifrank is nuts in regards to the CIA and the Bush administration, but is it so easy to say it when Victoria Tensing says it too? H/T Radioblogger.

Posted @ October 19, 2005 10:11 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Is it just me...

...or is Cuba getting hammered again? Its one thing to live on the edge of survival in a 1950s prison eating rat as a primary protein supplement**, its another thing to live in a 1950's prison eating rat as a primary protein supplement thats been hit 4 times this year by Hurricanes.

(** - I'm talking about the inhumane socialist prison system run by Warden Fidel Castro that extends over the entire island of Cuba, not the very well run humanitarian incarceration center which is based within the United States Military installation at Guantanamo Bay.)

I love this headline: Cuba Evacuating Massively in Preparation for Wilma

Yeah baby!, all the way to Florida!

Posted @ October 19, 2005 12:33 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

BQ Leader Gilles Duceppe: " There'll be an army"

OTTAWA (CP) - An independent Quebec would have its own military forces and spy service, says Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe, taking a firm stand on a traditionally wrenching issue for separatists.

"There'll be an army, of course," Duceppe said Tuesday in an interview with The Canadian Press. "We have to have those organizations, I would say." The leader of the sovereignist Bloc indicated the notion of creating a distinct security apparatus in a newly independent Quebec was no longer as controversial as it has been in the past.

"I went around Quebec saying the same thing I just said to you, and I see no opposition at all," Duceppe said.

(Tapping the "Threat-o-meter" gauge with finger )
tap-tap-tap. hmmmmmm. Nope. no movement at all...

He may have received "no opposition", but I'm willing to bet that lots of people who were buckled over in laughter at the idea of the fierce Quebec army serving in any role as a forward force of Western civilization. For a province with the worst health, economic and otherwise of the entire Candian Confederation to suddenly run out and spend 2 billion plus dollars on fancy aeroplanes, it does seem a bit far fetched even for the Quebec'ers, now doesnt it?

Posted @ October 19, 2005 12:19 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

You learn something new every day

According to this presentation, North America was populated BEFORE Western Europe.

Well, thas going to take some time to sink all the way in. I had always assumed that North American human populations to be recent arrivals and Western Europeans to be the real "old timers". Turns out, its the other way around or at least on somewhat equal time frames.

What an interesting archaeological tool that Mitochondrial DNA turns out to be!

Its iteresting to note that all of human civilization has happened in just the last 7,000 years. I also read in relation to the "Kennewick man" Case that all of the racial differences that we talk about as being so important to us today, didnt start to transpire until fairly recently. Go back 10,000 years and people pretty much all look the same, because, well, they are the same!

Now, if we can start DNA testing Native American gravesites, whe might find the answer to "What happened to the sailors and soldiers that Sir Francis Drake left behind in North America?" Which is a mystery that I have wondered about for a long time. Maybe now we will really find out where the anasazi went to? Although it will take longer to find out why they left in the first place...

Posted @ October 18, 2005 10:47 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Where are your "Minutemen" now, Mr. Moore?

Iraqi troops cast their votes in the referendum
on the new constitution
in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Saturday.
(AP/Mohammed Uraibi)

I wake up today to hear news of the Iraqi election. I started watching it last night before I went to bed, I decided it was going to go pretty well so I went to bed. I was still interested in what the coverage would be on the following day so I turned on the ‘TeeVee’, and what did I get instead of that story? Next to zip on the Iraqi vote, but “Fascists in Ohio rioting” and a “racist religious leader leading a protest in Washington DC”. The news, if there is such a thing is only where things are going bad, not where things are going well, so the news is no longer in Iraq. Ignorance on the part of the press is sometimes a complement. That’s a breakthrough I think.

Wait just a minute!; Iraqis who have been under siege for years by fascists and Islamic racists, still manage to vote in large numbers in public places and manage to accomplish the cornerstone of Democracy with virtually no violence – Not News.

But here in the United States we have Nazis in the streets of Ohio and an Islamic racist leading protests in the nations capital – News.

I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but the fact that it’s raining in the north-east is, yes that’s right – News.

You understand that many Islamic countries can rarely expect to complete a religious holiday season without an outbreak of large scale public violence, yet Iraq and Afghanistan have just managed to show the world that they can handle western style democracy, with respect, with dignity and with honor and on a repeated basis. Iraqis didn’t just vote this weekend, Iraqis have stood in the front lines of the war on terror as targets to killers and they have answered them by saying;
“we believe in freedom”
“we believe in the rule of law”
“we are citizens of the nation not subjects of the Caliphate”

They didn’t sit at home and say “things were better under the Baath party, oh Saddam why did you have to go, oh when will Osama save us from these evil western temptresses"?

They voted. Women, religious minorities, ethnic minorities, political minorities, even Communists for Gods sake voted!; they all voted. Side by side, and with one goal in mind, they voted to speak their minds without fear in an equal way. They didn’t just cast a ballot for a constitution, the voted for the future. You understand just how racist and bigoted it was for the leftists to say that it could never happen, don’t you?

But the bigger question is, if the Islamic fascists can’t win in Iraq, and they can’t win in Afghanistan, just exactly where can they win? If Islamic fascism cant survive in the 'wild west' of failed nation states, then where can it survive and under what conditions? The second question is if middle-eastern tyrannies don’t receive support from western countries, how long can they stand against their own populace? How long would Iran stand if Europe and Russia said “ Sorry, your time is up, we can’t do business with you if you are going to be a base for Terrorism”. The third question should be, how long can Europe stand and survive if it continues to support Terrorism? Russia, who this week survived another outright war in within its own borders, continues to support Iran, while knowing full well that the Chechens have the support the Iranian government. Revenue into state coffers is a good thing,, but the war in Chechnya and the support of terrorist state are at direct odds with each other.

Germany, despite long odds against it happening, has a new centrist government and the Anti-American bigot who one ran the country during the last few years is out of a job. His party clings to power by its fingernails, despite turning in the worst economy since the Reich was destroyed. The EU Constitution is at a standstill and the franco-german axis is no longer the force that is rotating Europe. Poland, The UK and Ireland are providing market based economic growth that goes beyond their borders, while those countries where more central control of the marketplace is still being used are failing to support even their people. How many times do you have to fail before you start to say “hey maybe we’ve got it all wrong here”? The left cant run a government, cant run an economy that provides for peoples basic needs, it cannot even run a city the size of New Orleans, it can't even run a philosophy that grows and improves the lot of people who follow it. Gee guys, it might be time to go back and make a new set of ideas to believe in.

I did see this headline, which made me laugh and think for a second:

Thousands Attend ‘Millions More Movement’

Hmmm. Not “Millions Attend Millions” but “Thousands Attend Millions”. I guess next year we can look forward to “Hundreds attend Millions More March” and the year after, “Crowds gather to attend Millions More march”, and the year after “Individuals offer quiet reflection for Millions More March”.

This story is offered by the press as evidence of a growing movement against the evil Bush, even though the title of the piece shows the idiocy of that idea.

My point is this. If you felt that the ‘War in Iraq’ was a bad thing, does the fact that the Iraqis are no longer chattel to a dictator but citizens of a democracy; does that change your perspective at all? Or despite all the evidence that the people who were formally ruled by the dictators you still support, really didn’t like it that much no matter what you may have thought, will your support of dictatorships over democracies years from now still be as strong as it is today? If so, WHY?

You see, people often protest the ‘War in Iraq’ protest with the idea that “leaving” would make things better and that Democracy cannot be imposed. They still argue that isolationism on the part of the United States makes for a better world, even though the evidence of the last 60 years has shown just the opposite to be true. If we had remained isolationist in the 1940s, had Hitler not declared war United States, had Japan chosen Russia as an enemy rather than us, does anyone imagine that the fate of the Europeans and Asians would be better today than it actually is with our “intervention”?

The leftist argument for pacifist isolationism does nothing to free anyone or even pretend to make life for other people better. In fact in case after case we see that pacifist isolationism on the part of free nations gives tyrannies all they need to exist and to subjugate human populations into horrible conditions. In fact most leftists even believe it’s foolish to talk of “freedom” at all. Life, they argue was truly better under Saddam, and its truly worse under Bush. Life was better under Stalin than Gorbachev , Life was better under Honnecker than Merkel, and so on. To leftists, the chaos that can come from democracy is far worse than the certainty imposed in a dictatorship. Leftists often find themselves at odd with the populace, and often find themselves saying that “people in this country are just too stupid and incapable of ruling themselves, let us the "enlightened ones" do it for them...”

But hasn’t what has just occurred in Iraq show what a fraud the ideology of the left really is? Or will the left now simply ignore the freedom of Iraq and Afghanistan and argue that the violence in Ohio shows that:

1) Bush is not doing enough to aid the inner cities.
2) Bush sent Ohio National Guard troops to Iraq, and were not available to 'stop the violence'.
3) It’s all Bush’s fault that the long standing racism of the inner cities exists.

The story this morning has quickly turned from “ Arabs don’t want democracy” to “Democracy has failed to improve the lives of African Americans here in the United States”.

I’m not surprised that the story has changed, but I am surprised at the speed that good news is quickly converted into bad news.

It seems to me that “the left “ needs fear, doubt and tyranny to survive the way a buzzard needs carrion. The “buzzard left” has now found that the middle east is no longer providing the carrion it needs to feed on, so they have returned to the “shame of Americas inner cities” for more fear on which to feed.

It also occurs to me that Arabs in Iraq and Afghanistan now live with more freedom and rights than the people who have been condemned to live in Socialist Cuba, Zimbabwe and North Korea. Shall we all take bets on which counties shall be in better shape in 10 years time? Cuba or Iraq? Who will be providing a better life for their people? The citizens of Afghanistan, or the tyranny of North Korea?

The day will come when the walls around North Korea will fall, and when it becomes know to the world what has occurred there with the complicity of the worlds socialists and leftists, who in the press will hold them accountable for their complicity in the crime? When Fidel dies and the Cuban horror becomes known, who will hold the left in Hollywood complicit in the crime? Will Oliver Stone hang his head in shame? Or will he continue to “Blame Bush” for all of Fidel’s crimes?

Will the “buzzard left” ever circle over Pyongyang? Or will they simply cry again at the loss of another socialist paradise in which they can experiment on humanity with the cruelty that Dr. Mengele experimented on twins in Auschwitz?

I’ll take the uncertainty of democracy over the certainty of tyranny anyday, and today I think that 10 million people in Iraq agree with me and not with Michael Moore.

Where are your "Minutemen" now, Mr. Moore? How sad you must be to have lost again in the battlefield of ideas...

Posted @ October 15, 2005 01:06 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)

Book Review: Red Star Rogue

What were you doing on March 7th 1968? Was it a nice day? Did you sleep soundly? According to author Kenneth Sewell, on that day, the Soviet Ballistic Missile Submarine K-129 was in the process of launching a nuclear missile at Pearl Harbor from the North Pacific when an accident occurred that caused the loss of the sub. How different history might have been had they succeeded in their mission. How might that date ring in our minds today if they had been successful?

Red Star Rogue is another book that gives details behind the Soviet Subs mission and the CIA mission to retrieve the Submarine after it failed. Although I have read several other books on the subject such as The Jennifer Project , Blind Mans Bluff and The Silent War, this is the first book that says that the Soviet Sub was actually in the process of launching a nuclear missile at the time of the accident. This is something that gets your attention very quickly.

The actual history of the Cold War is only now coming into general knowledge. I have always been fascinated by the mission of the spy ship ‘Glomar Explorer’, which until recently was only spoken of in whispers. Until recently, I watched the ship sit at anchor in Suisun Bay as I came and went to work in the Bay Area. I always wondered how many people driving by on the freeway knew the role that the nondescript, grey industrial ship sitting just below the bridge had in their lives and how one day in the 1970’s it retrieved from the floor of the Pacific Ocean one of the biggest secrets in the Cold War, a Soviet Submarine.

I’ve really enjoyed reading this book and I find it a good fit with the others in the K-129/ Glomar Explorer saga. I find the details behind the lives and the mission of the Soviet crew to be interesting and informative. Of all the books on this subject, this is the only one to go into that area of knowledge. The rest of the books I have read so far tend to concentrate on John Craven or the USS Halibut.

Did a Soviet Sub actually attempt to destroy Pearl Harbor in 1968? Read it; then decide for yourself. No matter what you may decide after reading it, we haven’t heard the last of this story, so stay tuned.

( What was I doing on March 7th 1968? I was 7 years old, lived on Orange Ave. in Paramount California in an apartment building behind a drive-in dairy. I remember falling asleep in school while watching a filmstrip and getting into big trouble over it and I have a vague memory of Robert Kennedy being killed in Los Angeles, and I remember burning the hell out of myself with the cigarette lighter in my parents Renault Dauphine, but very little else about that time sticks in my head.)

Posted @ October 14, 2005 11:01 PM | Book Reviews | Comments (0)

Fakeout

Now that everyone’s had a chance to read what was originally described as a “Chilling” email from Zawahiri and realized its actually a pretty damning status report from within the organization, there is a need to spin it into "what does it all mean"? So predictably, Al-queda now releases a statement saying “ it’s a fake” and everyone in the press immediately gives the statement credence.

Just what the hell did you expect them to say? Something like this?

“Yeah, that’s our guy Zawahiri talking to our other guy Zarkawi, and yeah, he says were screwed, and yeah, I guess we are. Listen, do you guys know where we can get a job?”

At the same time, we have the press clamoring to declare that the President committed a fraud with his most recent press conference. But haven’t we seen this show before? What about “The plastic turkey incident”? The “what was Bush wearing under his shirt in the debates” controversy. And the list goes on and on.

Both Al-queda and the worlds press are stuck in the same trap. The world doesn’t want to accept that Al-queda is NOT a heroic group of freedom fighters (or “minutemen” as Michael Moore called them) that cant loose

and

that George W. Bush was actually right about Iraq and the Arab world!

It’s impossible for Al queda to accept the reality that it’s losing, that its not accepted by Islam as the righteous holy men their self image says they are and its impossible for the press to accept that ‘Bush is President’. What’s worse, that he is actually smarter than they are for being able to see how to change the world!

But facts are hard, persistent things and no matter how much we wish to waterpaint the world in an image that is more pleasing to us, reality is still there to wash away the brush strokes.

The Zawahiri letter is very bad news for al-queda. I’m not quite done with it yet, but by comparison to all of the earlier communications from Zawahiri, this note is decidedly not the bloodthirsty man of action we see in earlier communication. In addition, Zawahiri only mentions Israel and the word “Jewish” once.

Now, everyone has commented on the revelation of the “plan”, but this not the first time the “plan” has been discussed between Zarkawi and others. In January of 2004, Zarkawi wrote a similar note that describes a similar outline of action. However, in his version Zarkawi is much more action oriented – Do this – make this happen – this must occur! Zawahiri is much more reflective in his letter. He draws a plan of general principles, but doesn’t address how the plan, which has been underway for some time, has utterly failed to bring these items into reality. In fact, after laying out the plan, Zawahiri spends some time critiquing how Zarkawis actions haven’t just failed, but in many cases have made the situation worse.

It’s fair to say that this email could be summarized in western language like this:

Dear Zark,

During your last quarterly performance evaluation, we agreed that these would be the goals on which your performance would be measured.

1. Drive out the Americans.
2. k\Kill the jews.
3. Establish the new caliphate
4. Move to the next country to the right
5. Rinse, wash, repeat
6. Kill the jews again.

These goals seemed easy at the time we made them. Unfortunately, you have failed to realize any of them to any great level. What’s worse, you may have also made it more difficult for us to continue. For example, let’s talk about your plan of killing of the Shia to start a civil war. Did you notice that the country we are hiding in, Iran- is mostly Shia? Well they take it rather personal when you blow up their mosques and their people, so knock it off, ok? It’s costing us a fortune to pay these guys off and the price goes up every time you blow up a mosque. Frankly, its ‘thin soup’ here lately, so we don’t want to make the situation worse than it already is.

Oh and while we are on the subject, lets talk about the beheadings, shall we? They don’t help with our little “image problem”. So lose the cameras and slogans, lose the machetes and stick with the IED’s. If you have to kill a hostage, use a bullet, ok?

“Go with what you know “as they say.

I’m not saying were a lost cause here, I mean anything could happen. I mean you know more than I do, you are actually there, but from here, things don’t look too good. Look at it this way; in Vietnam the Americans lost a war with a vastly inferior enemy, thanks to the use of the press to set the tone of the battle to the people paying the bills it always looked like a hopeless cause.

There’s a lesson there my friend, its not so easy to beat Marines, so stop trying, because the easy mark and the one that really furthers our cause is the manipulation of the Western Press. Frankly, they will believe anything we tell them, I know its hard to believe, but they want us to win. So stop killing our brother Muslims and find better targets.

Look, I have my issues with the Americans, they killed my wife and kids, remember? So its not like I don’t know what you are going through, I’m just saying that sometimes you have to change your tactics if you want to win, ok? We thought the Americans wouldn’t dare come into Afghanistan after what we did to the Russians, but frankly we blew that one and now they control the whole country and the Taliban who once gave us some great cover instead of hiding us are now out in hiding with us. So my advice to you is to not let that happen in Iraq. Make sure the Sunnis vote, in big numbers and make sure the Sunni opposition is well fed and knows us to be their friends. Everyone loves a winner, you know what I mean?

Listen if you need some good background info, check out the books I wrote when I was in jail in Egypt. They should help you in this trying time.

Oh, did I tell you? I have a new daughter. Oh, and your pals, the Algerians send their love too. Listen, I’m going to try to get out and see you soon, just as soon as the heat is off of us and we can dig up a little spending money. Keep your chin up, and keep the flags of discontent flying brother.

Yours truly,
Dr. Zawahiri.

That’s essentially what the email sounds like. I have some questions about it, and I will continue to do more research on it, but that’s it in a nutshell. This is not a victory tome; this is not a “more of the same buddy” email. It’s a “gut check“ email; it’s a critique, one that’s not particularly positive. He complains about losing key staff, the need for money and how Zarkawis actions are costing the movement support of the populace. This is not something that Zawahiri seems to have even considered as possible before.

Up till this email, Zawahiri has been a fire breathing dragon of hate, on video and in written material. This time, its much more introspective and critical. There is a very deep realization that the ideas of democracy have stolen the fire from the Jihadists and they aren’t really clear what to do about it. Sure, democracy is evil and a tool of "the Jews", but for gods sake, don’t sit the election out, remember what happened last time we did that!

This is precisely what President Bush intended, and this letter shows that’s exactly what it’s done.

Here’s something else I noticed. Zawahiri doesn’t say:

1. Thank God they came to Iraq, because we are just swamped with
new applicants for suicide bombers and rolling in cash since
they went there.

2. Boy, we sure got those Jews on the run now that they left Gaza

3. They sure fell into our trap in Lebanon, didn’t they?

4. Thank God we still control the countryside in Afghanistan

5. Hey Zark buddy, can you kick a few of your guys loose, id
like to go knock off Kuwait real quick so we can get a
nice seaport thing going for all our ships that we have at
sea.
6. Hey, I’m going to send some friends down to say hi and check
out your operations, so treat them well, ok? I think we can
use them later to expand our operations overseas.

There’s nothing like this at all in this email. It’s all dialogue that goes decidedly the other direction. This is the ‘Coulda-shouldda-wouldda’ email, not the “you da man” email.

In the illusory world that the worlds press lives in, this email was “chilling” because he talks about the plan to take over the world. But its like listening to David Duke talk about how the white man is going to rule the world, its sick, its sad, but its just pickle headed nonsense. David Duke is a dork. He is not “Chilling”; and frankly neither is Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Dr. Zawahiri is no longer changing the world; the world is changing Dr. Zawahiri.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri and the man he once called “the contractor”, Osama Bin Laden set out to change the world into an “Islamic Paradise” by driving out the western influence wherever it was. First in the holy Islamic lands, and later by converting the western world, by any means necessary. Instead, Bush has changed their world. His armies control one of the three key cities in Islam, Baghdad. He brought Democracy and stability to a country that has never known it. Bush’s revolution has liberated and freed 35 million people from the depths of hate and horror that formed the core of Islamic fundamentalism. Lebanon, Afghanistan and even to an extent Kuwait are free countries. The job is not done by any means, but the trend is much more towards what Bush has wanted to see and far less towards what Zawahiri set out to do.

Yet to many of the worlds left, Bush is the fool and Al-queda is the hero.

Now, that’s a fake if I ever saw one.

Posted @ October 13, 2005 11:20 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Question for the Audience

Audience and loyal readers of Varifrank:
I Need Your Help with the following problem.

I'm reading and reviewing Zawahiris most recent letter ( see previous post ) and it occured to me to check this letter against previous letters to see how they compare. A thought then occurs to see if we can apply a little software magic to this problem.

The problem is this. I have two pieces of text, supposedly written by the same author. I want to prove that both peices of text are written by the same person by applying some form of statistical analysis to the two pieces of text. Writing style, commonly misspelled or misused words. Phrases and general wrting style should all be detectable by software.

This falls in the realm of 'Plagiarism detection', this is something I have had some experience with in regards to software but not raw text. It is my understanding that this is an area of recent practice at Universities in regards to term papers.

If you know of any such software, please drop me a note with the information. It will come in very handy in my task of taking apart this beast of a letter and it will answer a couple of theories I have about the text.

Posted @ October 13, 2005 06:55 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)

Speaking of Lost...

NOTE: This is a free format post, not an essay. This post is my notes as I take them during my attempts to make sense of the Zawahiri Letter thats just been published by the DNI. Have pateince with this free form style of writing...

I'm busy trying to make sense of the latest Zawahiri letter. I cant make up my mind what it is that I'm reading, either its a surrender letter or its a very clever fake. Theres more here than meets the eye, Im going over the earlier letters and video transcripts as well forget harriet miers, this is the big news....

Oh, and the Bedford Incident with Richard Widmark is on TCM.

No, Im not watching LOST, and I'm probably the only one left in the world. ( ok, I admit it, its on TIVO...)

Be Back Later...

UPDATE: While lecturing Zark on attacking the Shia, Zawahiri seems to notice that the Iraninans are primarily Shia, and that they have a big bargaining chip in which to stop Al-queda attacks on their people. Apparently, he’s alluding to Al-queda leadership that are in captivity in Iran!

"...And do the brothers forget that we have more than one hundred prisoners – many of whom are from the leadership who are wanted in their countries – in the custody of Iranians. And even if we attack the Shia out of necessity, why do you announce it and make it public which compels the Iranians to take counter measures? And do the brothers forget that we and the Iranians need to refrain from harming each other at this time in which the Americans are harming us? ...

Iranian/Al-Queda Internecine warfare? Gosh, perish the thought!

man, I gotta make some popcorn, this is getting good!

UPDATE II: Ok, on with the post.

Page 10

Lecturing Zark on the use of scenes of slaughter(beheadings) I Caught this:

...Aren’t cluster bombs and the seven ton bombs and the depleted uranium bombs crueler than slaughtering? Isn’t killing by torture crueler than slaughtering and isn’t violating the honor of men and women more painful and destructive than slaughtering?...

Now, this seems to be right out of the Cindy Sheehan handbook on America bashing. Cluster bombs are certainly effective, but he doesn’t mention the targeting which ensures that they are only dropped on, oh how do I say this gently, targets of value – like Mr. Zawahiri for example. And “Depleted Uranium Bombs”, well first off, they aren’t bombs - they are shells, and they are fired from the business end of an A-10 Warthog. If you are a tank, this is your natural enemy. If you are a civilian walking down the road, the rule is, don’t stand next to anything with armor while the A-10 is about. As far as the scary word “Uranium” the key word is “depleted”, that means its about as radioactive as lead. Its just that Depleted Uranium is much more dense and much more effective at penetrating armor than normal everyday lead is. That’s why we use it, not because it once had the mystical power of “radioactivity”. I don’t know what Dr. Zawahiri got his degree in, but it wasn’t nuclear physics, of that we can all be grateful.

Then there is this:

..And I say to you with sure feeling and I say: that the author of these lines has tasted the bitterness of American Brutality, and that my favorite wifes chest was crushed by a concrete ceiling and she went on calling for aid to life the stone block off her chest until she breathed her last, may God have mercy on her and accept her among the martyrs. As for my young daughter she was afflicted by a cerebral hemorrhage, and she continued for a whole day suffering in pain until she expired. And to this day I do not know the location of the graves of my wife, my son, my daughter, and the rest of the three other families who were martyred in the incident and who were pulverized by the concrete ceiling, may God have mercy on them and the Muslim martyrs. Were they brought out of the rubble or are they still buried beneath it to this day...

So, apparently wherever he is, he is not with his family, or at the least he was not with his family when it was killed. Interestingly, he mentions the death of his wife and daughter and provides no details about the death of his son. For someone in a deep paternal culture like Islam, I find this an odd detail to leave out or to not express some form of grief about the death of his son.

Now this I find very interesting:

He is asking a question of Zark, and the question is pretty weird:

I would like you to explain for us another issue regarding Iraq. And I think without a doubt you are the most knowledgeable about it. Can the assumption of leadership for the mujahadeen or a group of mujahadden by non-iraqis stir up sensitivity for some people? And if there is sensitivity, what is the effect? And how can it be eliminated while preserving the commitment to Jihadist work without exposing it to any shocks? Please inform us in detail in this matter.

More on this later.

Apparently, he’s had another daughter with another wife. Congratulations.

Now, this is odd:

By God, if you are going to Falluja, send greetings to Abu Musab Al-Zarkawi.

If he is saying “Send greetings to Zarkawi”, then who is this letter to? According to the DNI, it’s from Zawahiri to Zarkawi, but how can that be?

Now this brings the note I made earlier into sharp relief. When I read the previous note where Zawahiri asks Zarkawi about mujahadeen in Iraq being lead by non-iraqis and what impact that has. Now, who do we know that is not a non-Iraqi leading mujahedeen in Iraq? This is where I was confused, because if he was asking Zarkawi himself this information, its like asking someone to name their replacement. If however, Zawahiri is asking someone else "Say listen pal-o-mine, do you think our Syrian friend Zarkawi is being a drag on our good company name"?

I have to go check this out. Be right back....

UPDATE III: Ok, I need someone to help me understand why one arabic speaking man would have to tell another arabic speaking man what a name means. In the passage where Zawahiri is talking about his new daughter, he mentions her name - Nawwar, He says it means timid gazelle and that it was his third mothers name. He then goes on to explain the meaning of the name. Is this necessary? I mean is this something I would do if I was explaining my daughters name to someone? Is "Nawwar" specific to a dialect and thus would not be generally known? Also, he doesnt mention the name of his deceased daughter, only the newly born one.

Also there is a section where he refers cryptically to Algerian brothers at "their end". On Thugburg, I found a reference to Tunisians that were captured around the date that this email was written. I wonder if this related, or is it possibly the algerian diplomats that were captured around that time.

Also - Zawahiri mentions that he wants to travel to visit Zarkawi. I wonder if its just polite banter.

DCI says the letter is dated July 9, 2005. Double toothpicks analyzes the meta data and finds the source to a 'year older..." WTF?

Ok, back in a bit, Im going back to the last known authenticated Zawahiri letter to see if theres anything in that to link the two.

Spot assessment: At this point, Zawahiri is on the run, blind and out of money, and unable to effect events at a distance and begging for money. thats what I read out of this. Some of it looks like code, some of it looks like lecture, some of it looks like status report questions. Im most puzzled by the fact that its supposed to be to Zarkawi but it asks directly "Hey man, if you are going to falluja, say hi to Zarkawi for me" Falluja? This year? Is this letter to Zarkawi or to another proxy for Zarkawi? What does it read like? well it reads like several emails stuck together at random, which may have been done by the author or by the DNI. I get the distinct impression that I'm reading 80% boilerplate and 10% valuable information and 10% nonsensical garbage.

How does Zawahiri, who throughout the email complains of being blind to the true situation know for certain that Zarkawi is in Falluja given the press on Falluja is that its been taken over by the US Marines? If you know that your email is being intercepted, as you clearly have to believe that Zawahiri suspects, why blurt out "HEY MAN!, I'll See you the corner of 5th and lexington at noon". If hes in falluja, why say so and risk being discovered, if hes not, why say anything at all?

Timelines. Gotta got over the timelines, I need to put this puppy in context of the time it was supposedly written.

UPDATE IV: Now, Im really interested. Remember "Nawwar" the frightened gazelle? Lets try this on for size:

Also Nuar, Nuri, and Nawwar. Arabic word meaning "blacksmith" or "fire-worshipper." A group bearing this name existed before the 10th century but there is no evidence to connect them with the group known by this name today. The modern group calls themselves Dom and their language Domari.

The Nawar of today are found in Egypt, Gaza, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and elsewhere (DRC). Nuri bear-trainers were reported in Europe and America in the 19th century, and in 1976 a group came to France and Germany having crossed from North Africa. From the Dom (gypsy) Name List.

Zawahiri - is an Egyptian.

Ok, how about this:

An Arabic dictionary of 981 AD gives the verb 'nawwara' meaning "to act like a Nuri (pl. Nawwar), to practise juggling, deceit".

Im still looking for an Arabic dictionary to look up "frightened gazelle". I think were being put on here...

fire-worshippers? (Zoroastrians?) Another clue from Zawahiri pointing towards Iran?

UPDATE V: Apparently in the Egyptian Arabic dialect, it means "illuminated". So far, no tracking of "frightened gazelle". In the Arabic Female Names directory, it means "May".

BINGO - this thing is crap. check this out:

"Both Al Hayyat and the London-based Al Quds Al Arabi said that they had received a letter bearing an al-Qaida letterhead, in which the attack was claimed as a response to "Israeli crimes" against Palestinians. Al-Hayyat reported that the letter had been faxed to the paper's office in Islamabad, Pakistan. According to the letter, the attack was carried out by "the Tunisian Nizar Ben Mohammed Nawwar Said el Islam".

Last month, the Tunisian government announced that the driver of the truck that exploded outside the Ghriba synagogue was 25-year-old Tunisian Nizar Nawwar. In the interview with A-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Muhajir confirmed that Nawwar, aka Nizar Seif Eddin al-Tunisi, was a member of al-Qaida."

A New Zawahiri daughter named "Nawwar" my ass. This is coded information in regards to "the tunisians" he refers to in the document.

More to follow....

UPDATE VI: Day 2, and Im still crawling over this thing. Heres a good link of other Zawahiri emails.

Zawahiri it seems is good at whining about other people should do in their Jihad, but cant seem to run one of his own. His new Varifrank Intelligence Bureau code name is "Loose Cannon".

I think "Nuwwar" may be a bad translation from the DNI. Heres a referrence I found today to something close that ties up other loose ends:

"His only son, killed by US air strikes on Afghanistan in 1998 with his mother, Izzah Nuwair, was called Mohammed".

Izzat Nuwair ( nuwwar?) was married to Zawahiri in 1979. She was an educated woman but dedicated to the cause and thus, "a dedicated wife". So, its possible that the event that Zawahiri is talking about when referring to "American Brutality" is not something thats occured recently since the last correspondence, but in the past. "Nuwwar" may just be a poorly translated bit of text. I will of course provide a service to the reader by looking up "nuwair" to see if it lines up with the Zawahiri translated value of "frightened gazelle".

( Funny, You dont hear anyone talking about Clinton/Gore killing women and children in Afghanistan in 1998, do you? )

Now Im going to look up air strikes in Afghanistan in 1998 and see if we can get a location for this event. I remember cruise missile hits, but little else. It occurs to me that 1998 was a million years ago. I hate nostalgia.

Posted @ October 12, 2005 07:14 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Smurfville Delenda Est

Once again we see that the European leftist mindset has made a serious miscalculation. Were all supposed to "care" about the Smurfs. Apparently we aren’t supposed to care about Kosovo, Darfur and the 800,000 people who died under UN observation in Africa during the 1990’s, but Smurfs, little cartoon characters, well kids - get out your hankies. Who better to lecture us about the evils of imperialism than the Belgians? All Hail King Leopold!

Here’s the problem - I hate the Smurfs. Everyone I know hates the Smurfs. We’ve always hated the Smurfs. The only people who like the Smurfs are dope smoking ex-hippy parents who think that their kids love the Smurfs and are too inattentive of the kids to notice that they turned the channel two seconds after they left the room. So how can I have sympathy for the Smurfs now that they’ve been attacked by president Chimpy McBushhitler? I hate them, HATE them! It’s about time we wiped these parasites off the map! Oh, we all love the peace loving Smurfs don’t we… Like hell we do, I want violent cartoons for my kids, I want Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck to show my kids how NOT to use a shotgun. I WANT bugs bunny to show my kids the proper way to show disrespect for all authority, I WANT Foghorn leghorn, and of course WANT the most politically incorrect of all - Speedy Gonzalez. I don’t want a bunch of hippy dippy inbred peace loving blue freak elves, what kind of role modeling is that for kids? Of course life is easy when everyone has blue skin and the girls don’t wear bras, but that’s hardly a realistic model of the world, now is it?

Shotgun wielding cats, Giant southern dialect speaking Roosters who paddle the ass of sleeping dogs with boards with nails in them, megalomaniacal Martians and the lisping semi-insane duck whose bill spins around his face when he gets shot in the face - that’s what I want in Cartoons. This is preciely why they didn’t blow up the Warner Brothers Cartoons, because the Warner Brothers Cartoons would have kicked their asses; that’s why.

Oh, and Warner Brothers Cartoons were patriotic American Cartoons. None of that wimpsissy “one world” crap from Warner Brothers, you can only get that degenerate lefty crap from Smurfville.

Smurfville Delenda Est!

But lets face it, we’ve just been looking for just the right opportunity to take the oil under the Smurf village and give it to our cronies in the Keebler Elf Corporation and the law firm of Snap, Crackle, and Pop, both of which are wholly owned subsidiaries of Halliburton. You knew it all along didn’t you. DIDN’T YOU…

Of course you did, you fascists…

Posted @ October 11, 2005 10:37 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (6)

Miers Moratorium

Done, Finito, Complete, Finished, Outtahere, Zip, Friday Baby.

I will no longer discuss the Miers Nomination.

I will now turn my attention to saying buh-bye to Gerhard Schroeder, Wondering what the hell Kim Il Jong is up to, guessing whats in Sandy Bergers pants this week, Chinese incursions into the spratly islands, Richard Branson and Burt Rutan building private spacecraft, whether or not ABC's LOST is just a poorly written rip off of the 1960s classic TV show " The Prisoner", the hellish experince of being in seat 40k of an Airbus 320 and why a